Occassionally an orange red or yellow marked grasshopper springs away from the ground just infront of you, invisible in their camoflaged coats until they move.

Just ahead, towering high, is an immense desert oak. It's thick, rough trunk bearing witness to the years it has spent out here in the open.

A soft sleepy noise catches your ear and, curious, you cross the hot ground into the shade and to wards the sounds source.

Walking the perimeter of the huge tree you realise that the western most side of the native oak has a huge split in it, opening into the bowels of the trunk's centre. Crouching down to peer inside you see a silver and blue creature slumbers. As you near it twitches and wakes up, blinking bright green eyes to focus on you.

Shaking the tangles out of a scintillatingly bright red mane he yawns and grins at you before politely slipping past you to trot out into the desert without so much as a word.

A unusual tit-tat tit-tat-tat sound catches your ear and, rounding more of the trunk you see a strange bird tugging frantically at a small but shiny metal plate tacked to the thick bark.
As you approach the bird churrs angrily at you, the tree and it's own reflection before flying away.

Looking closer at the tree you realise the shiney brass plate has been engraved with something...
carved into the tree trunk beside it is a symbol that hums softly You could touch the rune, Continue out across the desert, into the heat hazy distance where the sand seems to be blue... not like water but like ice! Or you could return back towards the slightly more hospitable climes of the scrub lands.