Zalan took a bold step into the lost city, its crumbling exterior evidence of it having been eroded by winds for years before he and Rep took on the journey to lay eyes upon it. They surveyed the entrance and buildings at a safe distance, ensuring there were no miscreants that had made this place a home of their own that intended to ambush them at the first opportunity.

The city was much larger than Oriton, but the stones of its buildings were crumbling and the entry gate had fallen over. The entrance had been eaten by the desert’s all-encompassing sands. Stone paths were drowned in desert and old signs were faded or long broken away from buildings. The composition of this city was mostly earth and stone, much stronger than Oriton’s wooden buildings, but very little of it survived intact. Rep no longer felt the need to lead the way and Zalan took it upon himself to walk to the center of the empty city, stepping over large pieces of buildings that had broken and become part of the sandy floor. 

“Hello!” Zalan called loudly once he reached the center square. Rep waited tensely for a reply. None came, but that brought him little comfort.

“Well, here we are. The Lost City of Xagon, just as you asked,” Rep said, underwhelmed. 

“Where’s the Elemental?” Zalan asked both himself and Rep.

Rep scoffed.

“We both knew it was only a slight possibility that one would be here. Your theory was far-fetched at best, based on a single book.” 

“Okay, but let’s say there was an Elemental here. Where would it be?” Zalan asked, looking around at the rooftops to see if an Elemental was floating atop one, matching the descriptions of the books he read.

“I could not tell you,” Rep answered sincerely. “They appear when they please. If this is the Elemental’s domain, then be sure that it is watching you. It simply chooses not to appear. Or, more likely, it is not here.”

“I read that Elementals wanted people to have their power in the world. That it honored them to have people showing off their granted abilities. Why would they hide away?” Zalan asked, growing impatient. 

“Elementals only want worthy people to hold their powers. That is why they issue challenges,” Rep said. 

“You won’t even let me take on your challenge? I can be worthy!” Zalan yelled loudly.

“It may have left,” Rep said, trying to tone down his expectations. 

“But the devastation it caused coming in here was so severe! It doesn’t make sense. Why would it just go away without notice?” Zalan was spinning, trying to see any indication of a creature out of place.

“Without notice?” Rep would have been amused if he wasn’t already worn down by the hot day. “Who would it need to inform?”

“You basically said a natural disaster takes place whenever an Elemental migrates from one place to the next. Wouldn’t you have heard about it if it happened again?” Zalan asked. 

“Heard about it from whom? No one is vigilantly watching the city to monitor the Elemental’s wearabouts. The Elemental may have left overnight. Or, I am now thinking, it is an Elemental that never existed. Perhaps the story I read was an embellishment to make sense of a travesty,” Rep replied. Zalan shook his head, unconvinced.

Zalan continued to lead the way into where a town square once stood, now blanketed by sands and surrounded by rubble. Rep remained in the shade of a nearby building while Zalan squinted through the bright sun, trying to find something on any roof in any corner. He saw nothing but sand and abandoned buildings. 

Zalan groaned and squatted down, placing his hand to his head both to block out the sunlight and to try and spur thoughts. What did he know about Elementals? What could he use about the knowledge of this Elemental?

“In the book you read, did it mention that the Elemental issued a challenge before it started the storm?” Zalan asked without much hope. 

“No, nothing of the sort. If I recall correctly,  the only thing it was reported to have said is that it thirsted for blood. And then the storm began,” Rep replied. 

Zalan looked up around the massive empty city, a small piece of a building crumbling with the small gust of warm wind from the desert. Zalan slowly stood up as he began building the seed of a theory in his mind. 

“Okay, what if…” Zalan trailed as he pulled out his sword. 

Rep watched him with interest. Zalan held up the blade to his left pinky, then ran the blade across the finger enough to allow a drop of blood to come out. 

“What are you doing?” Rep asked immediately, slightly concerned. 

Zalan gasped, elated. 

“It’s working!” Zalan pointed to the earth beneath him. Rep looked down with eyebrows drawn close at the sand beneath Zalan’s feet. Rep stared at the clean sand then looked back up to Zalan, shaking his head in confusion. Zalan continued to smile at the sandy floor.

“What is working?” Rep finally asked. 

“Look,” Zalan squeezed his pinky until another drop of blood escaped and fell into the sand. Rep followed the drop, then noticed that the blood didn’t stain the ground. It disappeared immediately, hungrily consumed by the sand which retained its original light brown color in contrast to the blood falling upon it. 

“My God,” Rep whispered. “I can’t believe it… There may be an Elemental here.”

“I told you!” Zalan said triumphantly, then quickly began to doubt himself. “There isn’t some other monster that can suck blood out of the floor, right?”

“None that I know of. But I do not know all manner of monsters,” Rep answered. 

“Good enough for me,” Zalan said with renewed confidence. He continued to let the blood flow freely into the earth, each drop dissipating as soon as it touched the floor, not leaving so much as wet darkness in the sand. 

Rep and Zalan continued to stare into the point in the sand where the drops fell for a few minutes, then Rep looked up to Zalan who had to reopen his wound with a deep wince on his face.

“Should we stand in the shade, perhaps?” Rep suggested. 

“Let’s see if it still works,” Zalan said, taking slow steps to a place shaded by a home that was destroyed in the storm decades ago. The blood continued to be eaten away on contact and Zalan was glad to take respite from the sun. They waited for a few minutes longer. Rep was on his haunches and Zalan kept looking up at the sky, expecting an Elemental to descend upon them.

“How long do you suppose this will take?” Rep ventured. 

“There was nothing describing this kind of process in any of the books I read. But the Elemental has to know we’re here if it keeps taking the blood. It’ll be here any second now,” Zalan replied confidently. 

That confidence was short-lived. They waited until the shade of Xagon began drifting away from them and they had to walk to keep up with it, following the movement of the giant sundial to remain shielded from the harsh rays of the sun. This process of waiting, bleeding, and walking continued for over an hour, during which time Zalan had to reopen the wound five times to ensure a continuous supply of blood would be absorbed by the sand. Rep and Zalan winced as Zalan squeezed at his little finger, his teeth grit together tightly.

“How much blood does this require?” Rep finally asked, any of his earlier enthusiasm having waned drastically.

“How should I know?” Zalan asked, then considered something else. “Maybe it needs a lot more.”

“What do you—wait!” Rep threw his hands up as Zalan ran his sword across his palm, and opened it to allow the blood to run freely. The earth continued to swallow the increased blood flow. Rep stared with wide eyes as Zalan looked up to the city. What was taking so long? Had he misunderstood something about the blood-thirst?

“Elemental! I am here for you!” Zalan called, feeling silly. He was trying to make it clear that this blood was not spilled by accident. 

“We seek your magic!” Rep called, much louder. His voice was thrown back in an echo from the empty city, but the two were otherwise not met with any otherworldly response. 

The blood-letting continued into the sand until Zalan found himself blinking harder to keep himself focused and standing upright. The world began to feel cold, even though he struggled to keep up with the shade and was often in the warm sunlight. Zalan felt the slight pain in his forehead from his battle with the Roaches. Feeling the scab, he wished he had those extra drops of blood to give rather than having been wasted on putrid creatures. Rep looked at Zalan with deep concern. 

“That is a lot of lost blood,” Rep pointed out. “Perhaps you should stop to regain some strength.”

“I don’t want to lose any progress made. What if I have to restart? I’m sure we’re close,” Zalan insisted, his vision going blurry at the edges.

At last, after the whole of two hours, Zalan could no longer remain upright. He collapsed backward and breathed heavily, his lungs and hand stinging in pain.

“All right. I can’t stand,” Zalan accepted, his eyes closed as he tried to power through the pain. “I gotta stop for the day.”

Rep didn’t reply. Zalan opened his eyes and looked at him, witnessing that his face had gone totally pale as he stared upward. Zalan followed his gaze and gasped at the robed creature floating above the two of them, its face shrouded in a dark hood.

An Elemental.

It was suspended a few feet above them, human-esque, but was as large as a bear. Its robes floated nebulously around it and they looked as though they were made of dark storm clouds, with an occasional tiny bolt of lightning slithering its way up and down the clothing. Its face was hidden, but its eyes shone like bright yellow jewels watching them carefully. It looked humanoid in form, but there were no arms or legs coming out from the appropriate places in the cloudy robe. 

“Elemental,” Zalan addressed it, his voice pained. The creature shifted toward him, answering the call.

“We should not ask it for the challenge,” Rep said, quickly searching for bandages to cover Zalan’s open wound. “You will perish!”

“I can always just complete it some other time,” Zalan said, struggling to sit up as he addressed the Elemental. Rep looked concerned, but nodded slightly. 

“What is your challenge?” Zalan asked, feeling ready for anything despite the lack of energy. Rep held out the bandage in front of Zalan. 

Even without being able to see anything beyond the hood of the Elemental, Zalan felt it sneer. He shivered.

“If you do not accomplish my challenge at this moment, you will not be given a second chance. That is the way of the Elemental of Xagon. To win my magic, you must simply continue to supply me with this flow of blood for another ten minutes," it answered, its voice like an ice storm against a glass pane.

“You will die!” Rep protested as Zalan stared at the bandages that Rep was insisting he take. He blinked slowly and looked at the blood coming from his self-mutilated hand.

“There’s no second chance. Ten minutes isn’t that long,” Zalan said, his voice weak as he pushed away Rep’s bandage with his good hand. Zalan considered in his hazy, lightheaded state that the worst that would happen if he died in the dream world was to wake up in the real world. Rep’s mouth dropped in shock, but could see Zalan’s mind was made up and closed it in disappointment. 

The Elemental breathed joyously, not having had someone accept its challenge in decades.