With just a few minutes before the Duty would be canceled due to signups not completely filling, Laurence Anderson appeared in a flash of light, inside the Gathering Hall. Shortly afterward, two more materialized next to him: a young woman that introduced herself as Belle, dressed in white robes and holding a staff adorned with a brilliant diamond, and Ace, a burly musclehead that stood almost seven feet tall, dressed in primitive, tribal-looking garments that left a lot of his upper body exposed. He appeared to be holding what would be a traditionally two-handed sword with just one hand. Once all four of them were on the list, a message popped up in the center of Josh's virt display:

LIGHT PARTY filled. Duty will commence in 5 minutes.

"Oh, Head Ranger!" Josh waved, recognizing the spellcaster's face. He would recognize it anywhere. "Didn't think you'd be into--WHOA." He noticed the ice mage's title that mirrored the one Lars had in the real world. "Wow, you've been playing longer than I have! I had no idea!" Blitz let out a cry that boomed like a nearby lightning strike. "It makes my skin tingle every time I hear it," the mounted knight remarked as he gave his friend a good view of his "legendary" mount. "Even if it may not be real, this is a space I can't stop coming back to, if anything, just to live my dream. See? I'm riding Raikou!" The reskinned Luxray couldn't help but let out a purr of amusement.

As the timer counted down, Josh reviewed the raid with the rest of the party; as he was the one to initiate the instance, he would be thrust into the Party Leader position. "The raid will have us going through a large temple erected in the name of the Goddess of the Sand. There will be equal emphasis on combat, exploration, and puzzle solving, from my understanding. With my build skewed toward Electric skills, I'll be pretty helpless against the myriad of Earth-based foes inside. Gonna need a lot of coverage, okay?" Josh drew the yellow, lightning bolt-shaped sword at his side and got ready to be whisked to the instance.

DUTY COMMENCED.

The four were whisked to a large temple introduced as the Temple of the Sand Spirit, its arid, rocky floor covered in a thin layer of sand. Two giant statues of cobra heads, at least fifteen feet tall, loomed on the left and right sides of the entry hall. If the two were to approach them, they would be greeted with the following inscription on the left:

"TO PURSUE THE PAST, YOU NEED BUT EMBRACE THE HEART AND SOUL OF YOUR INNER CHILD."

And on the right:

"TO PURSUE THE FUTURE, RETURN WITH THE POWER OF SILVER FROM THE PAST."

A gorgeous, ornate rug that would have looked stunning if not marred by the passage of time, a think layer of sand also covering it in places. The path split in two, a pair of torches on each side lighting the back half of the room. On their left was a double door with the image of an hourglass engraved on it, the hourglass' sand falling from its top half. On their right was a giant block of a black and silver metallic alloy, snugly covering the entire passageway in that direction. "They've really improved the graphics on this since the before times, haven't they?" Josh admired as he held the electric tiger's reins, ready to find a place to let loose.

In addition to the vastly improved graphics engine, the game's soundtrack was masterful. Mysterious and exotic, yet deeply melancholic at the same time. "It's so immersive," Josh remarked, Blitz letting out a purr, then a thunder-like cry as part of a long idle animation. Josh listened to Lars' remarks as the other three read the cryptic hints. "Sounds like a winner, boss! Alright, Raikou! Let's go!" He squeezed the electric-type's sides and firmly held the reins, the "legendary" rocketing toward the far end of the entrance hall with speed that caught even Josh off guard. He turned the feline to one side, the two sliding along the north wall and into the corner. If they tried that evasive maneuver in the real world, a nasty crash would have been their fate... but not here!

"Whoa, you're fast, Raikou!" Josh remarked, the Luxray sounding a deep and loud purr, proud of the power he had within the virtual world. "Really fast! Lars, after this instance, can we go to the Colossal Desert outside? I want to have him just...you know, floor it!" After all, the electric cat was the fastest land mount in the entire game. Several flying ones, including Lars', were faster, but the land speed was simply unparalleled. Ace and Belle shook their heads at the distracted knight that seemed more interested in goofing off than finishing the raid.

The young one led the two westward, the sound of spinning blade traps filling his ears. Two of them spun around the middle of the two-tiered room at high speed, the players needing to keep an eye on their position at all times to keep their legs from being sliced open and avoid suffering needless damage. That wasn't the only danger, though! There was a motionless Golurk, almost indistinguishable from a statue, in the center of the room, its gaze incessantly staring the players down.

As Josh and "Raikou" ascended the stairs to the upper tier, the noise of flapping wings came from all directions, founding himself surrounded by four Fletchinder whose entire bodies were on fire! He drew the Lightning Sword, its yellow blade crackling with electricity. Though he managed to smack one out of the air with a vertical cut, the blade's electricity further cutting into the bird's physical wound, the other three charged him and pecked at him.

Unlike in the real world, there was no true sensation of pain. No full-sim application could legally access the pain receptors of the brain, so developers had to get creative. Rather than sharp like a beak would be expected, the impact felt more like running into a blunt object. It was jarring, but ultimately harmless to the players. The characters they were representing, though, still bled like any human would be expected to in the real world.

Belle, acting quickly after Josh was attacked, came to the party's rescue with a spell that bolstered their defenses, reducing damage from follow-up attacks. There would be time for healing after the battle. Ace looked ready to charge the Golurk, though he verbally deferred to Lars for the command to do so.

Admittedly, Josh's party was not well-equipped to deal with flying creatures that could also set themselves on fire. He was also used to fighting in raid arenas that gave him plenty of room to run, not the confined spaces of the Temple of the Sand Spirit. On Lars' command, the two front-liners were off, ascending to the dais the spinning Golurk stood on. He drew the attention of the four blazing, aerial pests, his bolstered defenses and their weakened offenses from Lars' Tarunda making the blows to his upper body feel more like tickling than anything. If anything, the constant strikes felt like a massage. If he didn't have to conserve resources for the boss at the end, he would have let the birds hit him for several rounds as Ace hacked away at the ghostly statue with his now-ablaze zweihander. It appeared his battle strategy was fire, fire, and more fire.

Though he got in slashes with the Lightning Sword when he could, most of his kills on the Fletchinder came from retaliatory strikes. All those little scrapes did add up, Raikou's rider involuntarily slumping in the saddle. Belle, seeing their leader was in danger, chanted Diarama toward him, the healing light causing the virtual cuts and blood on his arms and face to disappear as through they had never happened. With the posse of pests out of the way, the iron bars covering the northwest and northeast doors receded.

Ace's burly strength let him open the large, sliding door easily, Josh giddy about using his swift steed to lead the group. Of course, the confines wouldn't let him get too far ahead. In the next room, an abnormally large Emolga floated side to side about a large pit with the rhythm of a pendulum, a Crystal Switch clearly visible on the opposite side of a vertically-oriented metallic grate behind it. Striking the switch with a traditional weapon would be difficult, what with it being directly behind the grate. There was enough room to strike it at a distance from the side, but that would risk hitting and angering the Electric-type.

Josh rubbed his hands together as his ride's thundercloud lit up underneath him, the two working together to loose Ziodyne toward the crystal switch. Though his timing seemed true, the thick lightning bolt arced out of his hands and directly toward the Emolga patrolling the bottomless pit. With an excited-sounding squeak, its arcing across the gap became faster, making an attack even more difficult to time. "This one's out of my element! All you, Lars!"

Josh flinched when he saw Lars' icy discharge; though he, too, had a Severe-level lightning spell he could cast, his far lower Magic rating meant it came with a lot less oomph. And did it ever show; the electric-type circling the switch backed off after seeing how badly it was outmatched. A torrent of ice crystals struck the switch, turning it from red to blue. With a loud thud, the vertical grate tumbled, falling into a perfectly-shaped indentation in the near side of the floor the adventurers stood on. The "puzzle solved" jingle that came afterward made Josh smile.

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/996935022286209055/1051780378999926835/OOT_Secret_Sound.mp3[/player]

"Nice shot," Josh complimented the Head Ranger, his handiwork letting the party advance toward a wooden treasure chest on the opposite side of the room. Kicking it open, he pulled out a phial containing a purple substance that looked, and smelled like, liquid medicine. While it wasn't the greatest smelling (or whoever quaffed it would find out, tasting), it would certainly be a valuable resource.

You obtained a CHAKRA POT! The medicine within will restore 150 TP to one ally. Gone after one use.

"Would you look at this," he smiled, showing the phial to the rest of the party. "Lars, I think you should hold onto this, especially since we're not allowed to bring outside restoratives into the instance." It wouldn't be much, what with how fast a full caster would run through their reserves, but an extra few casts could make a big difference. After a quick round of high-fives with the rest of the party, the mounted knight led the way forward.

After the entire party had come through a short hallway, a pair of slabs would cover the hallway behind them, locking them into the room with two ghostly figures Josh could not identify due to their bodies being in the ethereal. One radiated a large amount of heat, and the other tremendous cold. There were two floor switches, one on the near side and one on the far side. As he moved around, so did the figure that radiated heat. As long as he stayed still, so did it. He was so focused on tracking the one that was moving with him that Josh didn't catch sight of the other one in the center of the room.

As Josh and his mount advanced toward said center, the two found themselves surrounded by an ICY WIND that felt more like a fall day with no jacket on. A yellow virt display warning his health was below half, with another one indicating a loss of one rank of Accuracy and Evasion. It visibly affected the racer's movement speed as well. Stepping on the switch in back, a similar cold wind swirled around the southeast exit, followed by the sound of a ticking clock.

Indeed, Lars' attempt to put the cold ghost on ice was unsuccessful. As it turned out, creatures of low temperature were not the most vulnerable to low temperature itself. Having studied the phantoms' movements that seemed to be tied to their own, Josh was able to cross back to the other side of the chasm, "Raikou" ducking to get his rider out of the way of the impending FROST BREATH headed his way. As the timer expired on the cold wind, Josh tested the near switch, which caused a pillar of flame to appear in front of the now-barred door opposite the one Lars was standing at. This, as well, was accompanied by the sound of a ticking clock.

"I got it figured out!" Josh cried, heading back across the narrow walkway, the fire ghost mimicking his moves. "Lars, get out of there and draw the other one into the fire before it disappears!" Provided the two correctly positioned themselves in time, the two phantoms would disappear, melting in the harshness of their respective opposite elements.

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/996935022286209055/1051780378999926835/OOT_Secret_Sound.mp3[/player]

With a familiar chime, the bars sealing the chamber's doors receded into the floor. The four adventurers crossed into a room with several unlit torches that Ace was quick to discharge some Fire magic. Once they were all lit, as if on cue, a bridge hidden in the near floor extended, letting the duo easily loop around to where they entered. Belle got to work patching up the party's wounds, including Lars' if he was hurt, before strolling to the room's corner and noticing a wooden chest that was made more visible by Ace's lighting. Inside was a silver key that appeared comically large when she held it up.

You got a SMALL KEY! This key will open any locked door. You can use it only in this dungeon.

Having looped around, there was only one way forward now. Leading the way through the middle door, Josh immediately noticed a crawlspace on the other side and grumbled. Perhaps this was what the cobra statue was referring to about an inner child. "Ugh, that looks like a tight fit. Sorry Raikou, gotta go on my own for a bit." With that, the young man begrudgingly dismissed his mount, got down on all fours, and began crawling through the narrow pass. His tall build meant there were times he had to lay on the ground and pull his body forward rather than crawl, lest he hit his head and his vision fade to a pixelated mess briefly.

Provided the four of them made it, there would be an imposing-looking double door sealed by a large lock. Large key opens large lock, right? "Alright, Belle, all yours." The defensive caster did as asked, the lock clicking and dropping to the floor and the chains holding it in place going limp. On its other side was a vertical passage with an abrasive surface that could be climbed. Lars, being able to fly, could make it up with little trouble. Belle could use her defensive magic to levitate herself to the top. The others, though? They would have to climb. In particular, there was nowhere close to enough room for Josh's electric steed to make such a tall leap.

Thankfully, climbing in the full-sim environment was far less stressful on his muscles than it would have been in the real world. Their opening foray into the Temple of the Sand Spirit's second floor revealed quite the busy-looking room, the two experiencing a tiny bit of lag from how many objects and actors had been loaded at once. There was a dormant Crystal Switch in an alcove on the west side of the room, similar to the one Lars had struck with ice before. There was a medium-sized boulder lodged in the wall, with traces of sand slipping through the bottom only; light filtered in through gaps between the boulder and the rock wall. There was a sun-shaped symbol in the floor, engraved with the text, "Show me the light!" And last but not least, there were two Salazzle standing up, ready to spit corrosive venom at the adventurers!

While Cold World was an incredibly powerful spell, it did have a long casting time. The casting, drawing the attention of the two Salazzle, prompted both of them to spot corrosive venom toward the ice mage. Josh dove in front of one of them to cover one, feeling a moderate burning sensation when he was drenched in the bubbling, purple acid. Had this been a real Salazzle, he would have been missing large sections of his face from the battery-acid-strength venom eating his skin away.

Josh, Ace, and Belle all gasped at the event-only spell being discharged; for all three, it was the first time seeing the terrifying power of the Frost King invoked. The entire room was covered in bitter cold, yet there was no friendly fire from the swirling, subzero wind that swirled around them all. A blue virt display reading "The instant kill activated!" popped up near the top of the players' individual vision as the poison-types shrieked, shattering to pieces within their icy prisons. The boulder even shattered from ice building up in its cracks, bright sunlight from outside the Temple shining directly onto the sun emblem.

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/996935022286209055/1051780378999926835/OOT_Secret_Sound.mp3[/player]

The bars covering the door to the east receded into the ground, and two treasure chests materialized in the corners of the room in a golden light show. Josh kicked the first open and saw that it was filled to the brim with gold and platinum coins. He chuckled at the amount that popped up at the top of his virt display.

You obtained 66,666 Macca.

"We'll split this evenly after the raid," Josh promised the four as he kicked open the second chest, which contained a small idol of the very sand goddess the temple was built in the name of.

You obtained a SACRIFICE! This accessory, while equipped, will be automatically consumed to nullify an otherwise successful Expel or Curse instant death attack on its bearer.

Noticing the valuable idol, Belle spoke up. "I should probably hold onto that," the party's healer suggested. "Just in case. I have Expel and Curse resistance, but you never know when RNG won't fall in your favor."

Josh nodded in agreement. "I don't disagree, but there is also an argument for Lars to wear it if he's got an accessory slot to spare. Losing him in a critical battle could mean a tempo loss we won't be able to recover from." He would ultimately let Lars chime in on the decision before heading into through the door leading to the temple's grand hall, and was it ever enormous.

The hall's biggest feature of what had to be a statue of the sand goddess: with a snakelike lower body and a likeness of a cobra covering her head, the statue stood over fifty feet tall. Her long, thin arms were stretched outward in a meditative stance, the hilts of twin swords visible on her back. Her hands were large enough to stand on if the players had a way to reach them, and there was more than enough room to maneuver a flying mount around this room, if a player desired. There were two doors, one on the south and one on the east sides, barred shut, with no nearby obvious way to open them.

The room was well-lit by torches all over, with exception of two unlit ones on a raised dais near the statue's snake-feet. There were even spiraling staircases that made it easy to get a Pidgeot's-eye-view from the chamber's upper level, at the same level as the feminine statue's plated chest cups. "The immersion in this place is amazing," Josh remarked. "This place looks so much different in full-sim than it did in 2D. So much nicer. So much more... real." He wondered what Shalin would have thought of such a place...