The morning after, Lalna woke up feeling concerned about his dream last night. By breakfast, he had almost forgotten that it happened. The party had then left and said goodbye to Nano at the archway. Overnight, she had turned her sapphire into a necklace. She stood and waved goodbye until they were no longer in sight. The travellers encountered and struggled with their first problem of the day: the forest. The chocobos had trouble navigating through the trees and their riders kept getting whacked by branches as they walked by. Tired of twigs scratching their faces, they diverted off course until the forest ended. As they escaped they found their way around the woods.

After riding for a while they found themselves in a new biome. It was truly a sight to be seen. It was like a safari; there were elephants, ostriches, rhinos and more wandering through the golden grass. Some of them were resting by the river that wove through the land. Sjin was enthralled. He babbled enthusiastically whenever he got close to an animal. Lalna only rode along contently, whistling a merry tune as he did. Soon after, Sjin lost interest in the animals and asked Lalna for stories of exploring and excitement. He then shrugged and muttered vague tales of pirate ships, goblin castles, lots of dungeons and battle towers-

"Like that one?" asked Sjin. Lalna turned his head to see a tall crumbling tower in front of him.

"Yeah," the adventurer replied with a smirk. "And they're all exactly the same."

"Can I challenge it?" Lalna just laughed and told him to go ahead. Sjin dismounted his chocobo and peeked inside the tower, sword drawn. Lalna watched from afar, looking amused. Within seconds, Sjin ran out of the tower shrieking, followed by a torrent of arrows. As soon as Lalna recovered from laughing, he jumped off his chocobo and dived into the tower. The arrows bounced off his armour as he ran towards the skeletons and swung at them with the ender sword. The skeletons crumpled. When Sjin looked back inside, Lalna was already up the stairs.

"Out the way! Coming through!" he yelled impatiently as he mowed through the stairway full of mobs. He completely ignored the chest and monster spawner on the next floor and ran to the next set of stairs. Sjin tried to catch up. Instead, he was overrun as he confronted the floor of mobs Lalna left behind.

"Help!" he cried, swinging aimlessly at the zombies. From the floor above, Lalna rolled his eyes and jumped down a hole in the floor, striking a zombie as he landed. He broke the spawner while Sjin focused and attacked the monsters properly. From there the two took each floor at a time, although Lalna was tempted to run to the top and steal the treasure. Eventually, they reached the top. Sjin forgot about his environment and looked out at the view from the top of the tower. The other adventurer headed straight for the chest. He muttered as he threw away the useless rubbish inside. He found an enchanted diamond sword, inspected it, decided it wasn't as good as his own weapon and gave it to Sjin. The adventurer gave his new blade a few practice swings. Just then, the floor rumbled.

"...What was that?" he asked, looking concerned. Lalna chuckled knowingly and swung his sword onto his shoulder. The tower shook again. Then the floor burst upward with a loud rumble and a cloud of dust, a hail of stones raining down afterwards. The dust settled. A large rocky golem, held together with veins of magic, towered the two. It glowered at them with unsettling blue eyes and bellowed, dust escaping from its ancient mouth.

"What're we fighting now?!" Sjin exclaimed, gawking at the stone monster.

"Oh yeah, there's always a guardian protecting these towers. Did I not tell you that?" Lalna answered with a smirk. "Shouldn't be a problem, right?"

The golem bellowed again and stomped the ground, nearly toppling the two over. They rolled out of harm's way when the golem swung its arms. Sjin got himself close to the golem's leg. He swung his blade clumsily. A small chip flew off. Lalna blocked the guardian's slow but powerful attacks with his sword. One attack broke past his defence and struck him instead, stunning him. He recovered quickly, dodged an attack, span and sliced the arm. The sword caught between rocks and severed the magic binding them. The useless arm then fell to the ground.

All three participants stared at the arm. The golem turned its attention to Lalna and huffed, more dust appearing from its mouth. The adventurer cursed, raising his weapon just in time to block the golem's good arm. Sjin looked between the arm and the guardian. The guardian had a lot of gaps in its body, with magic keeping it together. When he put the pieces together, he jabbed at the veins and used all his strength to dislodge the rocks. Eventually, a large piece of the golem's back crumbled and fell to the floor. The golem stopped swinging as it realised a bit of it fell off. It then swung an arm back at its attacker. The man ducked. Lalna saw what Sjin did and took his chance to attack. He jabbed at the golem's body and dislodged a large number of rocks. The lower half of the guardian crumbled. It was now only a head and an arm. The adventurer then made the killing blow and struck the golem's neck. Its bright eyes flickered before they faded and the guardian was nothing more than a pile of rocks. The two looked at each other. Unable to hide his happiness, Sjin smiled triumphantly at the rubble at his feet. His smile vanished when the tower started shaking.

"Oh right! The guardian's magic kept the tower up..." Lalna explained.

"What?!"

"Forgot about that," he laughed with a shrug. The tower was trembling terribly now. Both adventurers almost lost their balance. Eager to avoid being crushed, Sjin rushed down the stairs while Lalna jumped down cracks in the floor. By the time the adventurer had reached the bottom and climbed back on Basil, Sjin had reached the bottom and escaped a few seconds before the tower fell to the ground. Sjin merely stared at the destruction before him, with barely a hold on his thoughts.

"That was fun. Where next?" asked Lalna. Without waiting for an answer, he continued on with the adventure. Sjin blinked in bewilderment but mounted Blackjack and followed from behind.

They carried on through the day with nothing else in particular happening. It just turned dark and Lalna suggested finding a safe place to sleep for the night. Sjin quickly agreed. The weather was misty and the full moon peeked past dark clouds that shrouded the sky. The quiet chattering of bugs didn't make things any more peaceful.

"-can't wait though. I'm starving!"

"Wh-What?" Sjin was barely listening.

"Just saying that it's been-!" The adventurer yelled out as Basil slipped and caught his foot on something. The chocobo whistled in distress. Soon, Basil was free and the men searched for the cause. They saw that there was a deep hole in the ground. It was hard to see because of the mist. Blackjack moved around and nearly tripped up on another hole. Lalna dismounted so he could get a better look of the field.

"They're everywhere," he muttered. The other man dismounted Blackjack to see. There was indeed many pits dotted around the place. The two would have to guide the chocobos to avoid injury. Grabbing the leads, they continued forward. Sjin tried to hurry along. This place was really unsettling. He heard a hiss. The two stopped and looked around, instincts on high alert. Another hiss. The two looked all around, feeling uneasy. Sjin caught his foot and nearly tripped over. He ended up looking down at the ground. Many eyes stared back at him. The man shrieked loudly and slashed the spider with his new blade. It made a scratch, which caused the spider to hiss angrily. Lalna strolled up to it and stabbed it with his giant sword, killing it instantly.

"It's only a spider, Sjin. Don't have to be such a big girl about it," he teased. Sjin frowned and his cheeks turned pink. The rustling of grass silenced them. As they slowly looked around, they witnessed endless hoards of large spiders crawling out of the pits, hissing viciously. A few leapt towards the party. This, along with Sjin yelling and flinching in fear, frightened the chocobos, causing them to run out of harm's way. Lalna looked ready to attack. However, he soon saw that they would be horribly overwhelmed so he looked for an escape route. It looked like Sjin already found one. He was running towards an abandoned wooden bungalow, located next to a small lake.

The spiders were soon approaching. Lalna pulled up his hood and ran in order to escape the monsters. He sprinted through the field, past the other man and burst through the door. Quickly grabbing a dusty key that he found on a desk, Lalna locked the door to prevent the spiders getting in. He then helped Sjin barricade the door with the desk. They peeked out the window. The army of spiders were advancing on the house. Soon, they had surrounded the house. Lalna looked worryingly at the swarm of spiders outside. There were so many. Sjin had backed up to a wall, frozen in place and watching the spiders with fearful eyes.

"Relax, they'll leave us alone when day comes," Lalna consoled coldly. The spiders began to throw themselves at the door and windows. The thudding of their bodies echoed through the house. Sjin whimpered and curled up into a ball.

"Okay, they're angry," Lalna admitted, worried by this behaviour. He heard a crack. He looked over to see cracks forming on the windows. It got larger as another spider launched itself at the house. Sjin was really beginning to panic.

"Alright, we need to get out of here!" Lalna yelled, searching for a way out. The roof? No. Spiders would have climbed above. The back? He could see nothing past the spiders. The floor? Lalna looked down at the wooden floor. They could dig out. Not such a terrible idea. The splintering of wood could be heard behind him. They were getting in. He quickly took out an iron axe from his belt. The handle was nearly broken but it would last until they were out. The floor cracked and splintered as it was hacked over and over again. Sjin was too busy watching the spiders brake in to help. The windows and door was getting weaker. Eventually, Lalna had made a hole in the floor large enough to fit through. Underneath the floor was the lake outside. It was fortunate as the axe broke and he didn't have a shovel.

"Sjin! We've got a way out!" Lalna yelled over the thudding. The traveller broke out of his daze and finally paid attention. A smash came from behind. They turned to see the spiders crawl towards them, eyes glowing menacingly. Lalna jumped into the lake without another word. Forcing his legs to move, Sjin jumped after him and away from the monsters.

They stayed under the surface to avoid getting ambushed. Lalna was ahead, occasionally looking back at the hoard. Sjin had difficulty swimming. The lake was freezing, he couldn't see through the water and, worst of all, he felt a searing hot pain radiating through his braced arm. The vibrant rubies could be seen through the murky water. Lalna finally surfaced for air. He then stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. The chocobos came running a few seconds later. It wasn't until he mounted his chocobo when he looked back. The spiders were struggling through the water and had barely progressed forward. Sjin eventually reached the shore, where he then scrambled onto his chocobo and the two rode off, leaving the army of spiders behind.

The adventurers were back to travelling, tired from their encounter. Sjin was tired, shaky and sodden from the lake. Lalna fared better; it probably wasn't the first time this happened, his leather armour dried quickly and he wasn't hurt at all. They continued until they were sure they escaped the spiders.

"Do you see that?" Lalna asked eventually.

"See what?" Sjin looked up to see something in the distance. It was a brightly lit city, illuminated by fireworks and filled with cheering citizens. A place with food, beds and people.

"Oh, thank Notch!" exclaimed Lalna. "I could use a bed."

"But Lalna, it looks like there's a party! You don't wanna miss that, do you?" persuaded Sjin. Lalna only grinned in response. With the promise of a good night's rest, the two headed towards the city.