As I approached the border, I realised something was wrong, I ran towards the wall to see a large hole in it, people were rushing round. I approached Tiberus, the head guardsman "what happened?" I asked, shocked by the size of the breach. Tiberus answered in a confident way that inspired a feeling of safety, "Diablos, it's fine, we captured it". I peered through the gap and sure enough lay a large beast with two horns, its tongue lolling as it slept. "Can I come through? I need to get to camp" Tiberus laughed heartily "yes; you're hunting that hermitaur aren't you?" I nodded
"Yes, did the others come past here?" He laughed again, but this was much less hearty than before "they came just before the Diablos, it seems everything is going wild" his voice trailed off as he stared at the ground behind me. He looked up again, "there's something coming Zak, I don't know what, neither do the wyverns but we all know it's coming". I nodded sagely and carried on down the path; Tiberus rushed to the hut and ordered his colleagues to repair the wall. The camp was atop a rocky crevice that overlooked the desert plains. It was a bleak but somehow beautiful sight. The camp came into view as I climbed up the steep slope.
A hand reached out and hauled me up as I reached the top. I looked up to see a man about my age beaming at me. "You must be Zak, I'm Arran" I smiled at him and brushed the dust off my armour.
"Yes, I am, are the rest of the team here yet? We need to set off before noon" Arran nodded excitedly. "Yeah, they're all here, let me introduce you". He pointed at a girl again about the same age as me and said "that's Meg, she uses a devil slicer, and she's killed a Kushala Daora! And then there's Conan, he's our desert guide. He uses a sword and shield. Then finally Simeon, he uses a hammer, that's the team". I waved to them and they all nodded back. I went to the item box and fished out all that was left. I loaded my gun with thunder bullets and filled the pressure case with carbon dioxide. "Right, let's kill this thing".
We found its trail in area 5, he was headed to 8. We sprinted to the area and saw the giant crab. Its glistening wet body looked out of place in the desert's harshness, its shell; a cracked Monoblos skull seemed to stare knowingly at us. It turned round and saw us, I threw down a smoke bomb and headed for the ledge, I rushed through the thick fog and the blistering heat. I climbed onto the ledge and turned round, emptying five thunder bullets into the thing's face. Arran joined me on the ledge and started to play the notes on his bone horn+, Simeon charged his hammer and unleashed a flurry of blows alongside Meg who was hacking the legs. Conan had done his job and turned to leave. The hermitaur saw he had his weapon sheathed and went for him. I screamed to him but it was two late, the thing cut him in two as he howled in pain, trying to stuff his guts back in, his hands were covered in quickly drying blood as he cried. Eventually the crab finished with his lower half, grabbed the remaining half of Conan and threw him into his mouth. A deathly silence fell over the area. I reloaded and carried on firing, the team turned and looked at me, then realised we were still in battle. We carried on until it was dead. No one wanted to carve it; we knew what would fall out if we did. I dropped down and sliced open its stomach, sure enough, the body of Conan fell onto the floor, covered in acid. We cleared it off and I carried him to the canyon. "Conan Arelius was a good man. Let it be known that he died honourably" with that I threw him into the bottomless blackness of the canyon, it seemed cruel at first, but thinking about it know, I realise that the scavengers couldn't have got to him down there. We headed back in silence, through the plains. We drew our weapons as we headed into a pass. Genprey were known to lurk here. We walked cautiously, looking everywhere. A pile of sand was kicked up behind us as a Gendrome raced towards us, we all leapt, but the thing was too fast for Simeon, it bit him as he fell to the floor paralysed. I shot the raptor through the head as it crippled and fell. Simeon was jerking violently on the floor. I picked him up, swung him over my shoulders and we ran back to camp.