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Despite the late night and the abundance of wine, Zara awoke just after 6am as the sun was rising. It was too early to get up, but she desperately wanted a coffee. There was no sign of room service being available so she made her way quietly to the kitchen, hoping that someone would be up.

The strange child called Prune was sitting at the kitchen table eating rice crispies.

“Your friends are here,” she said, “But they went to bed before you came back. Late, weren’t you?  Bert was cussing about you, you know, not letting him know.”

“Oh, terribly sorry,” Zara thought the child a tad impertinent.  And was it really Bert’s place to be cussing about her, she was a guest after all.  “Any chance of a cup of coffee?  I’ll make it myself if you tell me where the things are.”

“Aunt Idle wasn’t bothered though,” Prune said, wiping some milk that had dribbled down her chin with the back of her hand.   “But Bert said he didn’t want you to find it.”

“Find what?”  The parrot had said the same thing.

“OBVIOUSLY I can’t tell you, can I? It’s a secret,” and with that Prune scraped her chair back, leaving her breakfast things on the table, and sauntered out of the kitchen in what could only be described as a cocky manner.  Zara found what she needed to make coffee and made two cups and took them both back to her room.  She had a couple of hours to play the game before breakfast and the reunion with her friends.

To Youssef’s standards, a plane was never big and Flight AL357 was even smaller. When he found his seat, he had to ask a sweaty Chinese man and a snorting woman in a suit with a bowl cut and pink almond shaped glasses to move out so he could squeeze himself in the small space allotted to economy class passengers. On his right, an old lady looked at the size of his arms and almost lost her teeth. She snapped her mouth shut just in time and returned quickly to her magazine. Her hands were trembling and Youssef couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or something else.

The pilote announced they were ready to leave and Youssef sighed with relief. Which was short lived when he got the first bump on the back of his seat. He looked back, apologising to the woman with the bowl cut on his left. Behind him was a kid wearing a false moustache and chewing like a cow. He was swinging his tiny legs, hitting the back of Youssef’s seat with the regularity of a metronome. The kid blew his gum until the bubble exploded. The mother looked ready to open fire if Youssef started to complain. He turned back again and tried to imagine he was getting a massage in one of those Japanese shiatsu chairs you find in some airports.

The woman in front of him had thrown her very blond hair atop her seat and it was all over his screen. The old lady looked at him and offered him a gum. He wondered how she could chew gums with her false teeth, and kindly declined. The woman with the bowl cut and pink glasses started to talk to her sweaty neighbour in Chinese. The man looked at Youssef as if he had been caught by a tiger and was going to get eaten alive. His eyes were begging for help.

As the plane started to move, the old woman started to talk.

« Hi, I’m Gladys. I am afraid of flying, she said. Can I hold your hand during take off ? »

After another bump on his back, Youssef sighed. It was going to be a long flight for everyone.

As soon as they had gained altitude, Youssef let go of the old woman’s hand. She hadn’t stopped talking about her daughter and how she was going to be happy to see her again. The flight attendant passed by with a trolley and offered them a drink and a bag of peanuts. The old woman took a glass of red wine. Youssef was tempted to take a coke and dip the hair of the woman in front of him in it. He had seen a video on LooTube recently with a girl in a similar situation. She had stuck gum and lollypops in the hair of her nemesis, dipped a few strands in her soda and clipped strands randomly with her nail cutter. He could ask the old woman one of her gums, but thought that if a girl could do it, it would certainly not go well for him if he tried.

Instead he asked the flight attendant if there was wifi on board. Sadly there was none. He had hoped at least the could play the game and catch up with his friends during that long flight to Sydney.

When the doors opened, Youssef thought he was free of them all. He was tired, his back hurt, and he couldn’t sleep because the kid behind him kept crying and kicking, the food looked like it had been regurgitated twice by a yak, and the old chatty woman had drained his batteries. She said she wouldn’t sleep on a plane because she had to put her dentures in a glass for hygiene reasons and feared someone would steal them while she had her eyes closed.

He walked with long strides in the corridors up to the custom counters and picked a line, eager to put as much distance between him and the other passengers. Xavier had sent him a message saying he was arriving in Sydney in a few hours. Youssef thought it would be nice to change his flight so that they could go together to Alice Spring. He could do some time with a friend for a change.

His bushy hair stood on end when he heard the voice of the old woman just behind him. He wondered how she had managed to catch up so fast. He saw a small cart driving away.

« I wanted to tell, Gladys said, it was such a nice flight in your company. How long have you before your flight to Alice? We can have a coffee together. »

Youssef mentally said sorry to his friend. He couldn’t wait for the next flight.

Although not one to remember dreams very often, Zara awoke the next morning with vivid and colourful dream recall.  She wondered if it was something to do with the dreamtime mural on the wall of her room.  If this turned out to be the case, she considered painting some murals on her bedroom wall back at the Bungwalley Valley animal rescue centre when she got home.

Zara and Idle had hit it off immediately, chatting and laughing on the verandah after supper.   Idle told her a bit about the local area and the mines.  Despite Bert’s warnings, she wanted to see them. They were only an hour away from the inn.

When she retired to her room for the night, she looked on the internet for more information. The more she read online about the mines, the more intrigued she became.

“Interestingly there are no actual houses left from the original township. The common explanation is that a rumour spread that there was gold hidden in the walls of the houses and consequently they were knocked down by people believing there was ‘gold in them there walls”. Of course it was only a rumour. No gold was found.”

“Miners attracted to the area originally by the garnets, found alluvial and reef gold at Arltunga…”

Garnets!  Zara recalled the story her friend had told her about finding a cursed garnet near a fort in St Augustine in Florida.  Apparently there were a number of mines that one could visit:

“the MacDonnell Range Reef Mine, the Christmas Reef Mine, the Golden Chance Mine, the Joker Mine and the Great Western Mine all of which are worth a visit.”

Zara imagined Xavier making a crack about the Joker Mine, and wondered why it had been named that.

“The whole area is preserved as though the inhabitants simply walked away from it only yesterday. The curious visitor who walks just a little way off the paths will see signs of previous habitation. Old pieces of meat safes, pieces of rusted wire, rusted cans, and pieces of broken glass litter the ground. There is nothing of great importance but each little shard is reminder of the people who once lived and worked here.”

I wonder if Bert will take me there, Zara wondered. If not, maybe one of the others can pick up a hire car when they arrive at Alice.   Might even be best not to tell anyone at the inn where they were going.  Funny coincidence the nearest town was called Alice ~ it was already beginning to seem like some kind of rabbit hole she was falling into.

Undecided whether to play some more of the game which had ended abruptly upon encountering the blue robed vendor, Zara decided not to and picked up the book on Dreamtime that was on the bedside table.

“Some of the ancestors or spirit beings inhabiting the Dreamtime become one with parts of the landscape, such as rocks or trees…”  Flicking through the book, she read random excerpts.   “A mythic map of Australia would show thousands of characters, varying in their importance, but all in some way connected with the land. Some emerged at their specific sites and stayed spiritually in that vicinity. Others came from somewhere else and went somewhere else. Many were shape changing, transformed from or into human beings or natural species, or into natural features such as rocks but all left something of their spiritual essence at the places noted in their stories….”

Thousands of characters. Zara smiled sleepily, recalling the many stories she and her friends had written together over the years.

“People come and go but the Land, and stories about the Land, stay. This is a wisdom that takes lifetimes of listening, observing and experiencing … There is a deep understanding of human nature and the environment… sites hold ‘feelings’ which cannot be described in physical terms… subtle feelings that resonate through the bodies of these people… It is only when talking and being with these people that these ‘feelings’ can truly be appreciated. This is… the intangible reality of these people…..”

With such strong ancestral connections to the land, Zara couldn’t help but wonder what the aboriginal people felt about all the mines.   If one of their ancestors had shape changed into rocks, and then some foreignors came along and hacked and blasted their way through, what would they think of that?

“….many Aboriginal groups widely distributed across the Australian continent all appeared to share variations of a single (common) myth telling of an unusually powerful, often creative, often dangerous snake or serpent of sometimes enormous size closely associated with the rainbows, rain, rivers, and deep waterholes…..”

She drifted off to sleep thinking of water holes in red rocky gorges, the book laying open in her hand.

When she awoke the next morning with the slatted morning sun shining through the venetian blinds,  the dream image of the water hole was bright and clear in her minds eye.  But what was that strange character from the game doing in her dream?

She closed her eyes, remembering more of the strange dream.  Deeply orange red boulders and rocky outcrops, shivering gum trees, and green pools ~ it was coming back to her now, that creature in the blue robes had appeared more than once.  In one scene he appeared with a blue diamond lantern with what looked like a compass inside.

I’ll ask about the hiking trails today, Zara decided, and go for a walk in that gorge I read about yesterday. Bert said there were good hiking trails.   You came here early so you could play the game, she reminded herself.

“It’s all a game,” she heard the parrot outside her window.

“I’d forgotten about the bloody parrot!” Zara said under her breath. “Pretty Girl!” she said, opening the blinds. “We’re going out for a walk today.”

It was a pleasant 25 degrees as Zara stepped off the plane. The flat red land stretched as far as the eye could see, and although she prefered a more undulating terrain there was something awe inspiring about this vast landscape. It was quite a contrast from the past few hours spent inside mine tunnels.

Bert, a weatherbeaten man of indeterminate advanced age, was there to meet her as arranged and led her to the car, a battered old four wheel drive.  Although clearly getting on in years, he was tall and spry and dressed in practical working clothes.

“Welcome to Alice,” he said, taking her bag and putting in on the back seat.  “I expect you’ll be wanting to know a bit about the place.”

“How long have you lived here?” Zara asked, as Bert settled into the creaky drivers seat and started the car.

Bert gave her a funny look and replied “Longer than a ducks ass.”  Zara had never heard that expression before; she assumed it meant a long time but didn’t like to pursue the question.

“All this land belongs to the Arrernte,” he said, pronouncing it Arrunda.  “The local aboriginals.  1862 when we got here. Well,” Bert turned to give Zara a lopsided smile, “Not me personally, I aint quite that old.”

Zara chuckled politely as Bert continued, “It got kinda busy around these parts round 1887 with the gold.”

“Oh, are there mines near here?”  Zara asked with some excitement.

Bert gave her a sharp look. “Oh there’s mines alright. Abandoned now though, and dangerous. Dangerous places, old mines.  You’ll be more interested in the hiking trails than those old mines, some real nice hiking and rock gorges, and it’s a nice temperature this time of year.”

Bert lapsed into silence for a few minutes, frowning.

“If you’da been arriving back then, you’da been on a camel train, that’s how they did it back then. Camel trains.   They do camel tours for tourists nowadays.”

“Do you get many tourists?”

“Too dang many tourists if you ask me, Alice is full of them, and Ayers Rock’s crawling with ’em these days. We don’t get many out our way though.” Bert snorted, reminding Zara of Yasmin. “Our visitors like an off the beaten track kind of holiday, know what I mean?” Bert gave Zara another sideways lopsided smile.  “I reckon you’ll like it at The Flying Fish Inn.  Down to earth, know what I mean? Down to earth and off the wall.”  He laughed heartily at that and Zara wasn’t quite sure what to say, so she laughed too.

“Sounds great.”

“Family run, see, makes a difference.  No fancy airs and graces, no traffic ~ well, not much of anything really, just beautiful scenery and peace and quiet.  Aunt Idle thinks she’s in charge but me and old Mater do most of it, well Finly does most of it to be honest, and you dropped lucky coming now, the twins have just decorated the bedrooms. Real nice they look now, they fancied doing some dreamtime murials on the walls.  The twins are Idle’s neices, Clove and Corrie, turned out nice girls, despite everything.”

“Despite ….?”

“What? Oh, living in the outback. Youngsters usually leave and head for the cities.  Prune’s the youngest gal, she’s a real imp, that one, a real character.  And Devan calls by regular to see Mater, he works at the gas station.”

“Are they all Idle’s neices and nephews? Where are their parents?”  Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked, Zara thought when she saw Bert’s face.

“Long gone, mate, long since gone from round here.  We’ve taken good care of ’em.”  Bert turned off the road onto a dirt road.  “Only another five minutes now.  We’re outside the town a bit, but there aint much in town anyway. Population 79, our town. About right for a decent sized town if you ask me.”

Bert rounded a bend in a eucalyptus grove and announced, “Here we are, then, the Flying Fish Inn.”  He parked the car and retrieved Zara’s bag from the back seat.  “Take a seat on the verandah and I’ll find Idle to show you to your room and get you a drink.  Oh, and don’t be put off by Idle’s appearance, she’s a sweetheart really.”

Aunt Idle was nowhere to be found though, having decided to go for a walk on impulse, quite forgetting the arrival of the first guest.    She saw Bert’s car approaching the hotel from her vantage point on a low hill, which reminded her she should be getting back.  It was a lovely evening and she didn’t rush.

Bert found Mater in the dining room gazing out of the window.  “Where the bloody hell is Idle? The guest’s outside on the verandah.”

“She’s taken herself off for a walk, can you believe it?” sighed Mater.

“Yep” Bert replied, “I can.  Which room’s she in? Can you show her to her room?”

“Yes of course, Bert. Perhaps you’d see to getting a drink for her.”

Will be at Flying Fish this evening, Hope to see you all soon!     Congrats, Xavier! 

Zara sent a message to Yasmin, Youssef and Xavier just before boarding the plane. Thankfully the plane wasn’t full and the seats next to her were unoccupied.  She had a couple of hours to play the game before landing at Alice Springs.

Zara had found the tile in the entry level and had further instructions for the next stage of the game:

Zara had come across a strange and ancient looking mine. It was clear that it had been abandoned for many years, but there were still signs of activity. The entrance was blocked by a large pile of rocks, but she could see a faint light coming from within. She knew that she had to find a way in.

“Looks like I have to find another tile with a sort of map on it, Pretty Girl,” Zara spoke out loud, forgetting for a moment that the parrot wasn’t with her. She glanced up, hoping none of the other passengers had heard her.  Really she would have to change that birds name!

If you encounter Osnas anywhere in the game, he may have what you seek in his vendors cart, or one of his many masks might be a clue. 

A man with a mask and a vendors cart in an old mine, alrighty then, let’s have a look at this mine. Shame we’re not still in that old town.  Zara remembered not to say that out loud.

Zara approached the abandoned mine cautiously.  There were rocks strewn about the entrance, and a faint light inside.

This looks a bit ominous, thought Zara, and not half as inviting as that old city.  She’d had a lifelong curiosity about underground tunnels and caves, and yet felt uneasily claustrophobic inside one.  She reminded herself that it was just a game, that she could break the rules, and that she could simply turn it off at any time.  She carried on.

Zara stopped to look at the large green tile lying at her feet in the tunnel entrance. It was too big to carry with her so she took a photo of it for future reference.  At first glance it looked more like a maze or a labyrinth than a map.  The tunnel ahead was dark and she walked slowly, close to the wall.  

Oh no don’t walk next to the wall! Zara recalled going down some abandoned mines with a group of friends when she was a teenager. There was water in the middle of the tunnel so she had been walking at the edge to keep her feet dry, as she followed her friend in front who had the torch.  Luckily he glanced over his shoulder, and advised her to walk in the middle. “Look” he said after a few more steps, shining his torch to the left.  A bottomless dark cavern fell away from the tunnel, which she would surely have fallen into.

Zara moved into the middle of the tunnel and walked steadily into the darkness. Before long a side tunnel appeared with a faintly glowing ghostly light. 

It looked eerie, but Zara felt obliged to follow it, as it was pitch black in every other direction. She wasn’t even sure if she could find her way out again, and she’d barely started.

The ghostly light was coming from yet another side tunnel.  There were strange markings on the floor that resembled the tile at the mine entrance.  Zara saw two figures up ahead, heading towards the light. 

Bertie dropped Zara off at the bus station in Camden early the next morning. She let him think she was catching a plane from Sydney, given her impulsive lie about having to meet her friends sooner, but she was going by train. The reviews she’d read online were tantalizing:

“The Ghan journey tells the story of the land. The train is the canvas, and the changing landscape paints the picture.”

A two day train ride would give her time to relax and play the game, and she assumed two days of desert scenery would not be too distracting.  Luckily before she paid for her ticket she had the presence of mind to ask if there was internet on the train. There was not.  Zara sighed, and booked a flight instead, but decided she would catch the train back home after the holiday at the Flying Fish Inn.  By then perhaps the novelty of the game would have worn off, and she would appreciate the time spent in quiet contemplation, and perhaps do some writing.

Zara hated flying, especially airports. The best that could be said of flying was that it was a quick way to get from A to B.

“You’ll have to go in a cage for the flight, Pretty Girl,” she told the parrot.

“I think not,” replied Pretty Girl.  “I’ll meet you there.  See you!” and off she flew into the low morning sun, momentarily blinding Zara as she watched her go.

Her flight left Sydney at 14:35. Three and a half hours later she would arrive at Alice Springs and from there it was a half hour road trip to the Flying Fish.  Zara sent an email to the inn asking if anyone could pick her up, otherwise she would get a bus or a taxi.  She received a reply saying that they’d send Bert to pick her up around seven o’clock.  Another Bert!

At the former Chinggis Khaan International Airport which was now called the New Ulaanbaatar International Airport, the young intern sat next to Youssef, making the seats tremble like a frail suspended bridge in the Andes. Youssef had been considering connecting to the game and start his quest to meet with his grumpy quirk, but the girl seemed pissed, almost on the brink of crying. So Youssef turned off his phone and asked her what had happened, without thinking about the consequences, and because he thought it was a nice opportunity to engage the conversation with her at last, and in doing so appear to be nice to care so that she might like him in return.

Natalie, because he had finally learned her name, started with all the bullying she had to endure from Miss Tartiflate during the trip, all the dismissal about her brilliant ideas, and how the Yeti only needed her to bring her coffee and pencils, and go fetch someone her boss needed to talk to, and how many time she would get no thanks, just a short: “you’re still here?”

After some time, Youssef even knew more about her parents and her sisters and their broken family dynamics than he would have cared to ask, even to be polite. At some point he was starting to feel grumpy and realised he hadn’t eaten since they arrived at the airport. But if he told Natalie he wanted to go get some food, she might follow him and get some too. His stomach growled like an angry bear. He stood more quickly than he wanted and his phone fell on the ground. The screen lit up and he could just catch a glimpse of a desert emoji in a notification before Natalie let out a squeal. Youssef looked around, people were glancing at him as if he might have been torturing her.

“Oh! Sorry, said Youssef. I just need to go to the bathroom before we board.”

“But the boarding is only in one hour!”

“Well I can’t wait one hour.”

“In that case I’m coming with you, I need to go there too anyway.”

“But someone needs to stay here for our bags,” said Youssef. He could have carried his own bag easily, but she had a small suitcase, a handbag and a backpack, and a few paper bags of products she bought at one of the two the duty free shops.

Natalie called Kyle and asked him to keep a close watch on her precious things. She might have been complaining about the boss, but she certainly had caught on a few traits of her.

Youssef was glad when the men’s bathroom door shut behind him and his ears could have some respite. A small Chinese business man was washing his hands at one of the sinks. He looked up at Youssef and seemed impressed by his height and muscles. The man asked for a selfie together so that he could show his friends how cool he was to have met such a big stranger in the airport bathroom. Youssef had learned it was easier to oblige them than having them follow him and insist.

When the man left, Youssef saw Natalie standing outside waiting for him. He thought it would have taken her longer. He only wanted to go get some food. Maybe if he took his time, she would go.

He remembered the game notification and turned on his phone. The icon was odd and kept shifting between four different landscapes, each barren and empty, with sand dunes stretching as far as the eye could see. One with a six legged camel was already intriguing, in the second one a strange arrowhead that seemed to be getting out of the desert sand reminded him of something that he couldn’t quite remember. The fourth one intrigued him the most, with that car in the middle of the desert and a boat coming out of a giant dune.

Still hungrumpy he nonetheless clicked on the shapeshifting icon and was taken to a new area in the game, where the ground was covered in sand and the sky was a deep orange, as if the sun was setting. He could see a mysterious figure in the distance, standing at the top of a sand dune.

The bell at the top right of the screen wobbled, signalling a message from the game. There were two. He opened the first one.

We’re excited to hear about your real-life parallel quest. It sounds like you’re getting close to uncovering the mystery of the grumpy shaman. Keep working on your blog website and keep an eye out for any clues that Xavier and the Snoot may send your way. We believe that you’re on the right path.

What on earth was that ? How did the game know about his life and the shaman at the oasis ? After the Thi Gang mess with THE BLOG he was becoming suspicious of those strange occurrences. He thought he could wonder for a long time or just enjoy the benefits. Apparently he had been granted a substantial reward in gold coins for successfully managing his first quest, along with a green potion.

He looked at his avatar who was roaming the desert with his pet bear (quite hungrumpy too). The avatar’s body was perfect, even the hands looked normal for once, but the outfit had those two silver disks that made him look like he was wearing an iron bra.

He opened the second message.

Clue unlocked It sounds like you’re in a remote location and disconnected from the game. But, your real-life experiences seem to be converging with your quest. The grumpy shaman you met at the food booth may hold the key to unlocking the next steps in the game. Remember, the desert represents your ability to adapt and navigate through difficult situations.

🏜️🧭🧙‍♂️ Explore the desert and see if the grumpy shaman’s clues lead you to the next steps in the game. Keep an open mind and pay attention to any symbols or clues that may help you in your quest. Remember, the desert represents your ability to adapt and navigate through difficult situations.

Youssef recalled that strange paper given by the lama shaman, was it another of the clues he needed to solve that game? He didn’t have time to think about it because a message bumped onto his screen.

“Need help? Contact me 👉”

Sands_of_time is trying to make contact : ➡️ACCEPT <> ➡️DENY ❓

Zara decided she may as well spend the hour wandering around the game before going back to the church to see the ghost of Isaac when she was sure her host Bertie was asleep.  It was a warm night but a gentle breeze wafted through the open window and Zara was comfortable and content. Not just one but three new adventures had her tingling with delicious anticipation, even if she was a little anxious about not getting confused with the game.  Talking to ghosts in old churches wasn’t unfamiliar, nor was a holiday in a strange hotel off the beaten track, but the game was still a bit of a mystery to her.  Yeah, I know it’s just a game, she whispered to the parrot who made a soft clicking noise by way of response.

Zara found her game character, also (somewhat confusingly) named Zara, standing in the woods.  Not entirely sure how it had happened, she was rather pleased to see that the cargo pants and tank top in red had changed to a more pleasing hippyish red skirt ensemble.   A bit less Tomb Looter, and a bit more fairy tale looking which was more to her taste.

The woods were strangely silent and still.  Zara made a 360 degree turn on the spot to see in all directions. The scene looked the same whichever way she turned, and Zara didn’t know which way to go. Then a faint path appeared to the left, and she set off in that direction.  Before long she came to a round green pool.

She stopped to look but carried on walking past it, not sure what it signified.  She came upon another glowing green pool before long, which looked like an entrance to a tunnel.

I bet those are portals or something, Zara realized. I wonder if I’m supposed to step into it?

“Go for it”, said Pretty Girl, “It’s only a game.”

“Ok, well here goes!” replied Zara, mentally bracing herself for a plunge into the unknown.

Zara stepped into the circle of glowing green.

“Like when Alice went down the rabbit hole!” Zara whispered to the parrot.  “I’m falling, falling…oh!”

Zara emerged from the green pool onto a wide walled path.  She was now in some kind of inhabited area, or at least not in the deep woods with no sign of human occupation. 

“I guess that green pool is the portal back to the woods.”

“By George, she’s getting it,” replied Pretty Girl.

Zara walked along the path which led to an old deserted ancient looking village with alleyways and steps.

“This is heaps more interesting than those woods, look how pretty it all is! I love this place.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be looking for a hermit in the woods though,” said Pretty Girl.

“Or a lost traveler, and the lost traveler may be here, after falling in one of those green pools in the woods,”  replied Zara tartly, not wanting to leave the enchanting scene she found her avatar in.

Each group of people sharing the jeeps spent some time cleaning the jeeps from the sand, outside and inside. While cleaning the hood, Youssef noted that the storm had cleaned the eagles droppings. Soon, the young intern told them, avoiding their eyes, that the boss needed her to plan the shooting with the Lama. She said Kyle would take her place.

“Phew, the yak I shared the yurt with yesterday smelled better,” he said to the guys when he arrived.

Soon enough, Miss Tartiflate was going from jeep to jeep, her fiery hair half tied in a bun on top of her head, hurrying people to move faster as they needed to catch the shaman before he got away again. She carried her orange backpack at all time, as if she feared someone would steal its content. Rumour had it that it was THE NOTEBOOK where she wrote the blog entries in advance.

“No need to waste more time! We’ll have breakfast at the Oasis!” she shouted as she walked toward Youssef’s jeep. When she spotted him, she left her right index finger as if she just remembered something and turned the other way.

“Dunno what you did to her, but it seems Miss Yeti is avoiding you,” said Kyle with a wry smile.

Youssef grunted. Yeti was the nickname given to Miss Tartiflate by one of her former lover during a trip to Himalaya. First an affectionate nickname based on her first name, Henrietty, it soon started to spread among the production team when the love affair turned sour. It sticked and became widespread in the milieu. Everybody knew, but nobody ever dared say it to her face.

Youssef knew it wouldn’t last. He had heard that there was wifi at the oasis. He took a snack in his own backpack to quiet his stomach.

It took them two hours to arrive as sand dunes had moved on the trail during the storm. Kyle had talked most of the time, boring them to death with detailed accounts of his life back in Boston. He didn’t seem to notice that nobody cared about his love rejection stories or his tips to talk to women.

They parked outside the oasis among buses and vans. Kyle was following Youssef everywhere as if they were friends. Despite his unending flow of words, the guy managed to be funny.

Miss Tartiflate seemed unusually nervous, pulling on a strand of her orange hair and pushing back her glasses up her nose every two minutes. She was bossing everyone around to take the cameras and the lighting gear to the market where the shaman was apparently performing a rain dance. She didn’t want to miss it. When everybody was ready, she came right to Youssef. When she pushed back her glasses on her nose, he noticed her fingers were the colour of her hair. Her mouth was twitching nervously. She told him to find the wifi and restore THE BLOG or he could find another job.

“Phew! said Kyle. I don’t want to be near you when that happens.” He waved and left and joined the rest of the team.

Youssef smiled, happy to be alone at last, he took his backpack containing his laptop and his phone and followed everyone to the market in the luscious oasis.

At the center, near the lake, a crowd of tourists was gathered around a man wearing a colorful attire. Half his teeth and one eye were missing. The one that was left rolled furiously in his socket at the sound of a drum. He danced and jumped around like a monkey, and each of his movements were punctuated by the bells attached to the hem of his costume.

Youssef was glad he was not part of the shooting team, they looked miserable as they assembled the gears under a deluge of orders. As he walked toward the market, the scents of spicy food made his stomach growled. The vendors were looking at the crowd and exchanging comments and laughs. They were certainly waiting for the performance to end and the tourists to flood the place in search of trinkets and spices. Youssef spotted a food stall tucked away on the edge. It seemed too shabby to interest anyone, which was perfect for him.

The taciturn vendor, who looked caucasian, wore a yellow jacket and a bonnet oddly reminiscent of a llama’s scalp and ears. The dish he was preparing made Youssef drool.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“This is Lorgh Drülp, said the vendor. Ancient recipe from the silk road. Very rare. Very tasty.”

He smiled when Youssef ordered a full plate with a side of tsampa. He told him to sit and wait on a stool beside an old and wobbly table.

Have you booked your flight yet?  Zara sent a message to Yasmin. I’m spending a few more days in Camden, probably be at the Flying Fish Inn by the end of the week.

     I told you already when my flight is, Air Fiji, remeber?  bloody Sister Finnlie on my case all the time, haven’t had a minute. Zara had to wait over an hour for Yamsin’s reply.

Took you long enough to reply. Zara replied promptly. Heard nothing from Youssef for ages either, have you heard from him? I’ll be arriving there on my own at this rate.

  Not a word, I expect Xavier’s booked his but he hasn’t said.  Probably doing his secret monkey thing.

Have you tried the free roaming thing on the game yet?

   I just told you Sister Finnlie hasn’t given me a minute to myself, she’s a right tart! Why, have you?

Yeah it’s amazing, been checking out the Flying Fish Inn. Looks a bit of a dump. Not much to do around there, well not from what I can see anyway.  But you know what?

  What?

You’ll lose your eyes in the back of your head one day and look like that AI avatart with the wall eye.  Get this though: we haven’t started the game yet, that quest for quirks thing, I was just having a roman around ha ha typo having a roam around see what’s there and stuff I don’t know anything about online games like you lot and I ended up here.  Zara sent a screenshot of the image she’d seen and added:   Did I already start the game or what, I don’t even know how we actually start the game, I was just wandering around….oh…and happened to chance upon this…

  How rude to start playing before us

I didn’t start playing the game before you, I just told you, I was wandering around playing about waiting for you lot!   Zara thought Yasmin sounded like she needed a holiday.

   Yeah well that was your quest, wasn’t it? To wander around or something?  What’s that silver chest on her back?

I dunno but looks intriguing eh maybe she’s hidden all her devices and techy gadgets in an antiquey looking box so she doesn’t blow her cover

Gotta go Sister Finnlie’s coming

Zara muttered how rude under her breath and put her phone down.  She’d retired to her bedroom early, telling Bertie that she needed an early night but really had wanted some time alone to explore the new game world.  She didn’t want to make mistakes and look daft to her friends when the game started.

“Too late for that”, Pretty Girl said.

“SSHHH!” Zara hissed at the parrot. “And stop reading my mind, it’s disconcerting, not to mention rude.”

She heard the sound of the lavatory flush and Berties bedroom door closing and looked at the time. 23:36.

Zara decided to give him an hour to make sure he was asleep and then sneak out and go back to that church.

The team had to stop when a sandstorm hit them in the middle of the desert. They only had an hour drive left to reach the oasis where Lama Yoneze had been seen last and Miss Tartiflate insisted, like she always did, against the guides advice that they kept on going. She feared the last shaman would be lost in the storm, maybe croak stuffed with that damn dust. But when they lost the satellite dish and a jeep almost rolled down a sand dune, she finally listened to the guides. They had them park the cars close to each other, then checked the straps and urged everyone to stay in their cars until the storm was over.

Youssef at first thought he was lucky. He managed to get into the same car as Tiff, the young intern he had discussed with the other day. But despite all their precautions, they couldn’t stop the dust to come in. It was everywhere and you had to kept your mouth and eyes shut if you didn’t want to grind your teeth with fine sand. So instead he enjoyed this unexpected respite from his trying to save THE BLOG from the evil Thi Gang, and from Miss Tartiflate’s continuous flow of criticism.

The storm blew off the dish just after Xavier had sent him AL’s answer to the strange glyphs he had received on his phone. When Youssef read the message, he sighed. He had forgotten hope was an illusion. AL was in its infancy and was not a dead language expert. He gave them something fitting Youssef’s current location and the questions about famous alien dishes they asked him last week. It was just an old pot luck recipe from when the Silk Road was passing through the Gobi desert. He just hoped Xavier would have some luck until Youssef found a way to restore the connexion.