The Guardian

I duel a one-eyed sheriff and lose

I had one of two thoughts. One was that I would get destroyed by a lightning fast sand ninja before I could say anything. The second was that I was on the right track. My hand slowly went into my backpack and pulled out the stone tablet. Sure enough, the two swords matched perfectly.

I gathered all the courage I had and yelled for them, hoping they weren't thinking about targeting me next.
"Hey! Are you like... gonna kill me?"

They slowly turned to me, placing their sword in their holster. They walked up to me before looking me up and down and crossing their arms.
"No... probably."

That was good... probably. Avedar slowly walked up behind me, looking down at the hooded figure.
"You're a member of the Old Testament. Surely you'd imprison us by now, right?"

The figure scoffed and shook his head, which I was thankful for. I they didn't, then that would mean my future was planning for me to get imprisoned by an Old Testament ninja, which sounded cool in concept, but not in execution.

"A woman spoke to me in my dreams. I took it as a sign. Now, I've vowed my life to the rebel cause."

They had a distinct Egyptian accent that I could swear I've heard before. I couldn't place why, though. After all I've been through today, I wouldn't be surprised if I had already met them but just didn't remember. All I knew was that they were in the tablets prophecy, and considering the whole "woman talking to me in a dream," thing, it wouldn't be too farfetched to say that they were here to help.
"Well, if you're not here to kill us, can you help us? You see, I got this prophetic tablet thing here- it tells the future
-and it kinda has you in it."

They looked down at the tablet, then back up at me with a confused look.
"Is this some kind of joke?"

I thought their scimitar looked similar, but if it was that much of an insult to say that, I would not have shown them. But when I looked down at the tablet, I saw what they meant. The picture had changed, probably since we had found our clue and were ready for the next one for our little scavenger hunt.

The new picture looked a lot different. It showed a black snake with red eyes. I knew what type of snake it was, too. The Egyptian black rat snake. They were known to be massive and often terrorized sand villages in stories. But this couldn't have just been any black rat snake. They had to be the one from the stories. The one that was feared across the world. The biggest, most venomous, and dangerous black rat snake known to man. The one and only god of all snakes.

Bert. In some stories, he was the size of mountains. In others, he was the size of planets. He was told to be able to breathe fire, fly, and use telekinesis. He had a bite force hard enough to crush boulders of obsidian and muscles strong enough to lift volcanos on his back. It was told that when he first came here, hundreds of years ago, he held Rosslyn's volcano on his back as a gift of peace. But it was just a ruse to gain the people's trust so he could take over the world.

He commanded an army that prompted the people all over Roslantica to rise up and create the power of the three Guardians just to banish him. Over the centuries, he kept coming back, letting his army stay and grow to get even stronger as the years passed. If anyone would take over Roslantica, it would be him. But it wasn't. It could have been at least a dozen other infamous legends, but only someone like Zyloff would have the guts to pull it off at the risk of being annihilated by the talons of the Guardians.

I'm still blown away that he was able to take over not just one but three Guardians all in the span of a few hours. But that's what we were here for... we.
"Okay, first things first. We have to find my friends Mamble and Rosslyn. Their a cheesemaker and a rat. Trust me, their a lot cooler than you might expect."