The teleport stone was in along a large dirt road that Lilith said connected each of the nearby towns. It had only taken around 5 minutes of running to get to the grey marble teleport stone. However we could run a ridiculous amount faster in the virtual world than in reality, meaning that it was probably a longer journey than it had felt.

As soon as we reached the stone Lilith shouted our destination, "Valley of Dragons Outpost 2". Almost the moment she stopped speaking the stone gave off a blue glow, which quickly blocked my vision with its brightness. Along with this blinding light was a rush of wind and the feeling that the ground below my feet moving slightly.

The teleportation only took 3 seconds in total. But it had seemed a much longer period of time due to how similar it was to the teleporters from Aincrad. In that 3 seconds memories were brought back and the image of the many different sights that I had experienced seemed to stick in my mind.

Once I properly realised that the blue light had faded and the teleportation was over, I opened my eyes to my new surroundings. The teleport stone we were standing in front of had changed from the marble of before to a worn yellow sandstone. The forest that had once stood behind the teleport stone was now replaced with a desert that seemed to span long past the horizon.

The sun was high in the sky and was blazing down on the sandy expanse around us. The drastic increase in heat was noticeable; however I got the impression that the temperature increase should have been much greater in reality.

I took a quick look around and the desert was indeed larger than I could see in every direction. The desert itself was a dead and empty region of sandy dunes. But not too far from us was the only dark blot on the landscape and from here it seemed to be a human built outpost, presumably the outpost that Lilith had mentioned in the destination previously.

"Ignore the outpost, its Salamander controlled. Only Sky will be able to get near without being blasted by fire magic." Lilith said this in a way that sounded as if she had experienced this fate at least once in her past. "We're going to be moving north from here." She pointed in the opposite direction to the outpost as translucent grey wings grew out of her back and spread out.

Without any comment from us three we all made our wings appeared and readied to take off. Sky however was still looking towards the outpost, "Someone check this. The outpost looks empty." I quickly checked her eyes, they had changed colour so that they were now yellow. This was down to her detection skill coming into effect.

"They never leave the outpost empty. Your detection skill mustn't be high enough." Lilith was very quick to dismiss what Sky had said, although I had expected this from her. On the other hand though both me and Aurora knew that Sky's detection skill was at one point one of the highest in Aincrad and by the time we were logged out she had nearly capped it out.

Lilith had turned away, but hadn't actually risen into the air yet, almost waiting for someone to challenge her. So, naturally, both me and Aurora turned our own detection vision no and looked towards the outpost.

With this changed vision everything became zoomed in and any living objects would be highlighted in a bright yellow, even through walls. At this zoomed in vision it was much harder to see any specific details, leaving only rough shapes of the area.

From this distance I could see a large wooden palisade wall surrounding a large area. On each corner of this wall was a tower that seemed to be a form of watch post. Past the walls I could see two more permanent buildings, discerned by the slate roofing, alongside a number of thick canvas tents.

Yet after multiple searches I couldn't spot any yellow light that would suggest any player or monster was present. However this didn't eliminate the possibility of people hiding through the use of advanced stealth skills that could bypass our search skill. Stealth magic was also a thing that may be playing a part, although I had no idea how it would interact or effect with my search skill.

"I can't see anyone there." Aurora confirmed what both me and Sky had seen. At this I heard Lilith sigh in irritation, something else that was now expected, and she turned to look over at the outpost for herself. Even though we all knew she had the lowest detection skill rating, simply down to play time, we gave her time to stare at the distant outpost.

After a couple of seconds of looking over at the outpost's walls her expression turned from irritation to confusion. "There's no one posted there at all? Each watch point and outpost is supposed to be manned by a rotation of at least 20 people…." Her speech trailed off and her hands moved down to her axes.

"So if it is empty, we should probably go take a look and see where they've all gone." Aurora voiced the idea that was beginning to form in each of us, as could be seen by the somewhat crazed expression of Sky and the stony expression of Lilith.

"It could easily be a trap." Lilith, as expected, didn't want to agree with an idea that had come from one of us three.

"Why would they want to trap us four. And anyway, we should be strong enough to beat any ambush they throw at us." Sky seemed set on raiding the outpost. As soon as she finished speaking, before anyone could say a word, she had already lifted off from the ground and started to fly towards it.

"How has that woman not gotten you lot killed before now?" Lilith asked the question however her normal tone of annoyance had disappeared and had been replaced with one of incredulity.

Sky had never been this reckless, but many times in the past she had dragged me, Aurora and Steven into mad and dangerous situations. The only difference back then was that Steven was there to protect Sky.

"She used to have Steven at her side, that's why none of us are dead." Aurora said this in a quiet voice, seemingly thinking the same as me. "And we never really had much choice but to follow those two into a fight." She added this remark before shooting off of the ground and into the air, with the intention of following Sky.

Lilith then turned on me with accusatory eyes, "You're not even going to try and stop them are you?"

I laughed a little at this, "Wouldn't be able to even if I had tried." I knew by now that once Sky was set on something she would go through with it, that much was clear, and Aurora wouldn't abandon a friend if she had the choice.

Looking into the sky I could see that Sky was almost halfway to the outpost already and that Aurora was already a reasonable distance away. Not wanting to lose sight of either of them, I visualised my translucent wings on my back and started to hover in the air. I pointed myself towards the outpost and pushed my newly materialised wings as fast as they would go.

"Idiots." Was the comment I heard as I sped past Lilith.