-The Sandstorm

"LOOK! THE ARTEFACT, IT'S GLOWING!" An excited Tim shouted out loud, as he noticed a strange glow in Eric's bag from behind. Indeed, a green aura shone around the shape of the artefact that had been previously collected in Shimla. It was the second clue the party had come across, the first being the whereabouts of the next artefact, but they certainly needed this clue. It was mid-morning when only four out of the whole group decided to go to the camp-site in the desert. Everyone else who had joined them before had stayed at the hotel, whilst Ayesha, Eric, Lara and Tim had gone back to the Sahara to investigate. They had ventured out into the Sahara, hiring four camels to help them along into their journey of discovery.

"This is fantastic, we are one step closer to getting the next artefact. I assume this would get brighter as we get nearer to it's final sanctuary" Eric theorized. He proudly held the artefact in his hand, pointing it at different directions, until it glowed slightly brighter at one particular course.

"This way!" An eager Eric confidently said, as he directed his camel to follow suit.

As assumed, when they started to go in the direction of where Eric was pointing at, the artefact slowly but surely got even brighter. Each step of the way was bringing them closer to their goal. However something was happening up ahead. Some dust blew across the medium sized sand dunes, being caught in a small swirling gust of a whirlwind passing by.

"Oh great, a sandstorm is brewing. Just what we needed" Lara sarcastically remarked as she saw this, knowing all too well what it will mean very soon. Eric looked back at the group.

"We must be quick, otherwise the sandstorm would consume us and it would be very difficult to navigate through the desert." Eric warned, but then Tim spoke up amongst the group.

"But we still don't know how far or how long it is until we reach where the next artefact is. I think it's best if we turn back now to avoid the inevitable sand cloud" Tim argued, though straight away Eric shrugged it off.

"No! We must continue forward, otherwise it would be a wasted opportunity to come so far!" Eric dismissed the suggestion, with a hint of anger in his voice.

With haste, they followed on with the shining artefact in Eric's possession leading the way forward. The problem became more apparent as the artefact was bringing them very close to the sandstorm. 'Could this be a trap, or just pure coincidence that a sandstorm was starting to form as we got nearer?' Lara thought to herself, seeing that they were heading right into the eye of the storm. She glanced over to Ayesha, who seemed to be in a completely different world of her own, as if she was like in an expressionless daydream.

"Ayesha! Are you alright?" Lara worryingly called out to her friend, but all she got in return was a blank look that quickly turned into a nod.

"...Yeah" Ayesha answered, but Lara didn't believe her at all. 'What's going on with her? She'd hadn't been herself since they saw each other on that morning at breakfast in the hotel in Shimla', Lara was deeply concerned for her friend, and she definitely knew something was up. She planned later on to ask Ayesha what was up when they were alone from the rest of the group.

As they gained further ground, the wind started to pick up even more, and it was certainly more difficult continuing for the camels and themselves. Fortunately, they and the camels were all covered up, so any sand blowing around wasn't affecting them too harshly. However, the pace of wind was accelerating faster and faster through each kilometre they took in the sandy desert. It was all fine, until the party had now become engulfed right inside the core of the sandstorm. Before there came a point where visibility became so poor, they could only see the radiant light from the artefact, which at that moment seemed to be to taking them in the middle of nowhere.

They were now fully embroiled and surrounded by over a million particles of dust and sand, it was simply everywhere. There came sounds of not only the swishing sand passing by, but the weather above changed from a scorching hot bright peaceful day, into a thunderous storming dark sand-filled atmosphere. What had happened to the clear blue sky? What was this place? Are we to trust this artefact to where it has led us to?

It felt like hours till they had at last stumbled across something out of place on the ground, eagerly they dismounted their camels.

"We have found it..."