The Highest Noon (Dungeon)

"It's... so.... hot..." Like no kidding. It was a freaking wasteland of sand. During the day. At a point in time where the sun was the highest in the sky and blazing down on all of the insignificant mortals that dared decide to step foot in the country of Desierto. How people managed to live there every single day of their lives was beyond the blonde's mental capacity to imagine. Especially now in current times with all the political chaos and war stuff going on. Ever since the disaster that was the Ishgar Symposium the continent had lost its freaking mind. Nearly every country had closed its borders to outsiders. Desierto was even one of them.

In a way Aliarey kind of understood. She was in the middle of all of that. Joya definitely had the right to kick out everyone and it had been the first to go into lockdown before the lineup of nations decided to hope aboard the war train. After all, Joya had lost the most that day. Millions had perished in an instant. Their biggest city was basically nothing at the end of the day. What caused that Aliarey had zero clue. It couldn't have been the bomb that the Chorda rebels had planted. She and her bestest friend ever, Diana Winchester, had taken care of that. Someone else apparently did not do their job and massively fucked up big time.

By the time Aliarey had gotten back home to her adoptive dad and brother the news about that catastrophe was everywhere. That had been when she finally heard about it. Turns out, her usual unlucky self was one of the luckiest people that existed on the planet. If she and Diana had stayed much longer they might have been turned into that floaty ash of death that nearly everyone else in Felidae City became. Then again, maybe those that died were the real lucky ones. They got to miss out on whatever mess of a war the leaders of each country were creating. Ishgar was about to get shaken up and Aliarey was not sure she really wanted to stick around. Heading on back to Mirai or taking an extended tour of Dravois was sounding better and better with each day she thought about it.

But she was not on either of those planets now, was she? No. She was in the middle of nearly passing out while exploring a hot desert. Was taking a vacation too much to ask for before things went to hell even more? Of course not. It was back to work. Just because borders closed didn't mean the bills suddenly got paid. Sending her off to do something in a completely legal area in Fiore was just too easy too. The old man and brother Trey just had to have something right from Desierto. It couldn't be found anywhere else.

In a weird way, being in a land full of vast deserts was a good thing when it came to trespassing. What she needed was far from the three main cities and even if she so happened to pass by a random out of nowhere village she'd be long gone before any real authoritative power came by. If they really even cared enough to enforce their own rules by hunting illegals down anyway. Dieserto wasn't exactly a nation that Aliarey considered one to care too much about that sort of thing. They'd probably just figure anyone that bothered crossing illegally would die in the desert. Anyone dumb enough to get close to water sources or cities could just be detained or eliminated then. Then again, Aliarey wasn't very political or cared too much about how countries operated. In the end, she was there and she sure as heck didn't take the legal way of crossing the border. She wouldn't be wandering a desert and complaining about it to absolutely no one but herself if she had. How did she manage such a feat in the first place? By using her pocket wormhole device. Easy Breezy. She oh so wished it was more difficult and impossible than that so she could be in an air-conditioned room lying on a comfy couch instead of dying under the midafternoon sun in the middle of nowhere.

(Word Count: 713)

"Stop being so dramatic." A voice pulled Aliarey's focus from her exaggerated suffering. Her eyes shifted towards the small lacbot that hovered beside her. Oh, right. That thing. It had been a major desire to ignore the damn thing. She had been so close to forgetting about it completely. Too bad it talked and the source of the voice was not some special voice box given to the bot. There was no personality programmed into it. In fact, the small simple lacbot was being controlled by her adoptive brother. He couldn't exactly join Aliarey on the little illegal trip to the desert so using the lacbot as a stand-in seemed like the perfect idea. He could see and hear everything as well as interact with the environment and Aliarey herself. If things went bad or the lacbot was destroyed nothing would be lost at all. He would still be safe and sound. There were so many benefits that made the cons look so insignificant. He purposely ignored that one such benefit was that he didn't feel the heat of the desert on his skin, unlike the requip mage that was there in person. The arms of the lacbot played around with the sand, scooping it up and throwing it into the air. Raining sand. Ha. He was easily amused if only to appear so to further annoy Alia. "It's not that hot."

Aliarey twitched an eyebrow. Was she finally in hell? As a test, she leaned forward to grab a rock that was partially buried in the sand. With no word or warning, she threw the small rock at the lacbot. Hard. The bot was smacked by the flying object and was forced twirling in the air until it crashed into the sand. Nope. Not hell quite yet if that happened. The hellish version probably would have had that spawn one thousand more irritating brothers. "Easy for you to say. I'm boiling out here."

The lacbot forced itself back up and its power source lifted its small metallic form back into the air. The sand was brushed off as if it was removing it from a set of clothes. Instead, the metal of the arms moving across the metal body produced an irritating screeching sound that was worse than any nail on a chalkboard. "That's what happens when you don't prepare for the weather. Just wait until the sunburn settles in."

(Word Count: 401
Total So Far: 1114)

"Augh, I did forget the sunscreen, didn't I?" Fuck! Her skin was going to be on fire by the end of the day if not sooner. It was more than just forgetting to apply it to her pale skin. The SPF whatever number came after hadn't even been tossed into her storage dimension! She just kind of threw some water bottles in there and left. Overpacking didn't seem to make much sense at the time. Leaving the country entirely would only take seconds so long as her pocket wormhole device was working. But the sunscreen... she couldn't just leave to go get a bottle of sunscreen, could she? That'd be such a waste of time! And, knowing herself all too well, she'd probably not even bother going back to the unforgiving arid land of sand and disgustingly hot air.

"At least you have a hat," the voice of brother Trey said again from the hovering lacbot. The arms reached out and flipped her hat right off teasingly, causing it to fall into the sand. From the screens back home, Trey watched in amusement as Aliarey ran after it, the hat having been swept up by a strong breeze that made even the sand around them lift into the air for a few seconds. The bot followed her and all the while he still couldn't comprehend why she was wearing her usual outfit out there or why she thought it'd be a good idea. Short dresses and simple shoes did not exactly go well with hot sandy desert even in his mind and he wasn't someone that typically had fashion sense. The woman had other outfits, including ones better fit for fighting in case any bandits or something were run into but no, her usual outfit was what had been chosen. Besides a cowboy-styled hat. Clearly, she must have thought the trip would be a very short one. It was both stupidly funny and yet also a bit sad. Thank goodness they were not related by blood so he could rule out sharing such mental genetics. "Speaking of though you probably should have put just a little more thought into some kind of disguise... or something. You stand out as someone that is obviously not from here, and we're not entirely here on any official business for Fiore or Desierto. Just our own. I can already imagine the frowns if you're caught. I wonder if this is a jail time offense or just a fine."

"Oh, please," Aliarey scoffed, placing the hat back onto her head and then turning around, hands on hips, to face the floating lacbot device. She wasn't worried about some closed imaginary lines that political figures drew on maps. As long as she wasn't caught, and she wasn't really planning to be. They were in the middle of nowhere! Who was going to spot them and come on over to say hello and ask what she was doing in the zone of endless sandcastle material? "There's pretty much zero chance we have to worry about that out here. Maybe in a place where there is actual civilization but even then it's not like I'm some fancy popular mage that hits the covers of magazines everywhere. I'm a nobody in a world full of plenty of blonde hair and blue-eyed women. Being identified isn't going to really happen unless I'm in a building with a Rune Knight convention going on, and that's only because of that one time Grema and I stole a car and drove it without a license. They took that off my record after we cleared that whole haunted guild job and labeled it as community service. They have a little bit more to worry about these days anyway with that whole Joya thing. Besides, we're here because of you and the old man. I didn't want to come here and wouldn't have bothered even if the sultans were standing at the borders throwing jewels at people every time they crossed the sacred border to enter this hell."

"Desierto is a poor country so I can't imagine the sultans throwing jewels around, but point taken mostly. Still, I'd recommend an outfit change all the same. We won't be all alone out here for long."

"We won't?" Aliarey asked with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. Her outfit flashed as she said that, taking the suggestion and using her requip magic to make the instant wardrobe switch. Her usual outfit switched to one she wore much less, more so because it had ways of connecting with the lacnites and her magic that she disliked. Her eyes even shifted color, becoming orange as the outfit activated parts of her that usually remained idle even during most of her combative encounters. Blue highlights also covered her normally fully blonde locks. That should have been enough to cover the basics. The cowboy hat also remained on the top of her head because why not? "I thought we were just walking around out here until you found whatever it was we're looking for and then we go digging around and blowing some stuff up until we find it in the ground? Like always. Wait a minute. Am I seriously meeting up with someone all the way out here instead of some air-conditioned building?"

"Not necessarily. There's supposed to be a train around here.... somewhere." The item he and the professor wanted wasn't something that had been buried in the ground and left there for who knows how long. Well, technically it was at one point. Someone else dug up the rare lacrima material. It was now on the way to its buyer by train. After learning about it the plan had been to catch a ride on the train as it passed through the middle of nowhere and quietly "borrow" the valuable item. Those details he had yet to discuss with Alia though. Mostly because the chance of her being onboard with the idea of catching up to a moving train and jumping on it without making a mistake that could severely injure or kill her was about ten percent.

(Word Count: 1020
Total So Far: 2134)

"A train? Out here? Seriously?" The blonde looked around, seeing nothing but sand, sand, and more sand. There was just no way. True trains were a method of transportation and true again that they did often pass through the middle of nowhere, but there was one important factor that stood out and made Alia question the validity of a train passing through that part of Desierto. There were no train tracks whatsoever. Surely even a train that passed through the desert would have visible tracks that weren't completely buried by sand. Right? She wasn't an expert, but that seemed to make sense. Unless the train hovered. Or flew. But at that point why not just use aerial transportation instead? "Is it an underground train that comes to the surface from some magical hole in the ground? 'Cause by now we should be hearing or even seeing something in the distance. Unless we're extremely early." If they were early that was going to suck big time. Just being there another minute was categorized as suffering. Add hours into that and she was going to go insane. Or die from a mix of boredom, sunlight, and drowning in her own sweat.

(Word Count: 199
Total So Far: 2333)