Author's Note: And we return to the adventure! This story's been getting a lot of great feedback, so I'm more than delighted to keep the fun rolling! As of right now I've written as far ahead as Part Six with fifty chapters, so in case anyone's worried it'll someday be abandoned like so many other attempted novelizations unfortunately have, fear not! I'm sticking this through to the end.

But that's for later. On with the show!

Part Four: The Darker Side

Chapter 26: Dusty Dunes

The Mr. Saturns allowed Ness and his friends to stay in their local inn free of charge for the night, even letting them use a phone to call home with. Come the next morning, the creatures saw them off in person, bouncing and singing for them until they left the valley and returned to Threed in the underground tunnel. To their delight, they emerged into a clear, sunny town on the other side. The heavy clouds overhead had completely vanished, as had the zombies and ghosts. Traffic was finally able to travel between there and Twoson, and the town was steadily returning to its normal routine.

"We saved the day again!" Paula cried as they shared a three-way high five.

"As weird as this has all been," Jeff added, "it was pretty fun being a hero! We have to go on to Fourside next, right?"

Ness recalled what his coffee-induced vision (he still didn't know what exactly that had been) told him and nodded.

"Yeah, it's further east of here. There's a desert in the way, but with the buses running we'll have no problem at all."

Spirits high, they boarded the next bus out of Threed and were on their way in no time. Ness wondered how far his adventure would take him. Even after traveling miles and miles from home, he'd still only uncovered three of the eight Sanctuaries. Several questions remained, but most of all he pondered what his main enemy was doing at the moment. Where even was Giygas? Buzz Buzz had said he may not have arrived yet, after all. Was he still in space, or had he finally made it to Earth and set up a base somewhere?

He realized they had a more immediate problem to deal with: the bus wasn't moving anymore. It came to a stop right in the middle of the road through the desert, stuck behind what must have been the longest traffic jam in history. Dozens of vehicles, bumper to bumper in the scorching heat, blared their horns at one another.

"You kids want to get off here?" called the bus driver. "I still have a schedule to run back in Threed, and it doesn't look like this traffic's clearing up any time soon."

As much as Ness didn't want to, there weren't many other options. They disembarked onto the hot asphalt and stared at the long road ahead. So many vehicles were crowded together that they couldn't even stay on the side of the road. If they were to continue, they'd need to take a different route through the desert itself. Resigned to the heat, the group began the long march across the sand.

"This… this is fine. A little walk in the sun never hurt anyone," Ness said in a vain attempt to motivate them.

"Speak for yourself," Jeff panted from behind him. "I don't think the temperature back in Winters ever reached a quarter of this. It could even be bad enough to cause sunstroke."

Paula was stopping every few steps to brush sand off her clothes.

"Is that bad?" she asked.

"Really bad. If we don't get out of here soon or find a way to cool ourselves off, we'll basically have our insides fried."

Ness shivered- ironic, given the heat- at the idea. He cursed himself for not bringing more water bottles on his adventure in the first place, as they might have been useful in their predicament. The Dusty Dunes Desert stretched for several miles between Threed and Fourside, offering visitors nothing but the sight of endless yellow and orange sand, rock formations, and the occasional withered cactus. Very little was able to survive there, with only a few desert scorpions bothering to approach them at all. Even then, a halfhearted raise of Ness's bat was enough to scare them away.

"Guys, wait… I might have an idea…" Paula announced, short of breath.

She dug around in her own bag and pulled out three hand towels, casting PK Freeze on each of them until the melting ice had left them damp and cool. Each of the group's members took one, draping them over their foreheads.

"Good thinking," said Jeff. "This should at least protect us from heatstroke for a while."

Ness hugged his arms close to himself, trying to keep them out of the direct sunlight.

"I just hope we don't get burned."

"Well, well, we meet again!" came a man's voice from behind them.

Descending from the sky like he always did, the black-suited photographer touched down in the desert with the trio and whipped out his camera.

"United and determined, the chosen heroes continue their journey!" he crowed. "Will they be able to overcome this intense desert? I sure can't, so say fuzzy pickles so I can leave already!"

None of them could work up the energy to pose for the camera, but clearly the photographer didn't mind at the moment. He snapped a picture and soared back into the sky, leaving them alone again.

"I wish he could've taken us with him," Ness grumbled. "Somehow I don't think he even has PSI, but for whatever reason he can fly around like a superhero…"

At another point they passed by something which, despite their initial assumptions, was not a mirage. It was a monkey sitting in the shade of the only tree they'd seen in over an hour, waving to them as they passed by.

"You told us you were with a monkey, right Jeff?" Paula asked. "Do you know what it wants?"

"Uh… no, I can't say I do. I couldn't understand the monkey I had too well."

"Oook! Hey, buddies! How's the heat treatin' you all?"

Okay, so maybe it could have been a mirage. Ness didn't even need to read its mind; it was talking in very clear human tongue. Then again, a talking monkey wouldn't have been the strangest thing they'd encountered thus far.

"We're… doing fine…" he hesitantly answered, wiping sweat out of his eyes.

"You don't look too fine, but it's none of my monkey business," it chortled in a squeaky voice. "Did Talah Rama send you out here too?"

Ness looked back at his two friends, both of whom shrugged.

"Uh, no. We've never heard of that person."

"Oh, he's very wise!" the monkey exclaimed. "He lives out here in a desert cave, offering guidance to passersby and all my friends who stay there as well. Unfortunately he's fasting and in deep meditation right now, so you can't see him. Once he finishes up, though, be sure to come back and visit!"

He was already planning to shove the memory of a talking monkey out of his mind after they escaped the grueling desert walk. Not wanting to seem rude, however, he gave a brief thumbs-up as they kept going.

"I think we're almost there," Ness reported, despite having absolutely no idea if they were.

"Look! Is that an excavator?"

Jeff was squinting at something large further ahead. Once they got closer, Ness could see that he was right. A yellow construction vehicle was parked beside a very wide pit in the sand and stone, not far from a small wooden shack. As they approached, a man covered in dirt from his miner's gear to his gray stubble and wearing a hard hat flagged them down.

"You kids okay? It's pretty hot out, you shouldn't be hiking along like you are. Why not stop for a bit in our shack?"

Defying every childhood lesson about not accepting invitations from complete strangers (not that he hadn't already done so during his adventure), Ness practically charged inside with his friends on his heels. The man could be heard chuckling as he followed them into the tiny building.

"I can't blame ya for wanting out of this desert. Where're you headed?"

"Fourside," Paula responded first. "We came from Threed, but the bus got stuck behind a traffic jam."

"Ah, that. I think I know why: earlier there was this huge herd of buffalo crossing the road. And I mean huge, it must've been a hundred."

Ness was so glad to be out of the sun that he didn't even bother to ask how animals covered in thick fur could possibly live in the desert.

"Anyway," the man continued, "I have some good news for you. Fourside is a little further ahead. This desert's the pits, so just tough it out a bit longer!"

"What are you doing here?" Jeff asked. "You seem to be trying to dig something up."

"Wah hah hah! Right you are, kid! My name's Gerardo Montague, and I'm digging for gold with my brother, George. He went back to the city to pick us up some lunch a little while ago. Actually… speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to have any food, would you? He's been gone a while, and I'm starved!"

Thinking it was only fair to pay him back for the trouble of letting them stay, Ness looked inside his bag to see what he had. There wasn't much aside from his spare clothes, as they hadn't packed anything from Saturn Valley. His eyes landed on the only scrap of food they had: the cookie Tracy gave him the night he left. Somehow, throughout their adventure, it remained fresh and wasn't even broken.

"Here, you can have this," he said. "It isn't much, but we don't have anything else."

Gerardo accepted it with a smile.

"Ah, thanks a lot. Tell you what, I'm in a generous mood. If George and I find any gold, we'll let you have some of it for yourselves. Make sure you come back and check soon!"

Spurred on by the notion that their destination was just ahead, they exited the shack and charged onwards through the last part of the desert. After a half hour or so of walking, the group finally made it back to the now-clear road, and the tunnel just before them.

"We… we did it, guys…" Ness panted.

They were exhausted, hungry, and covered head to toe in sand, but they had made it. He felt a sudden warmth in his pocket, one that felt different than the general heat of the desert. Ness pulled out the Sound Stone to find it was pulsing in reaction to a nearby Sanctuary spot.

"N-no way!" he gasped. "I can't believe we're already this close! Come on, let's get moving!"

None of them realized it yet, but their good fortune wouldn't last for long.