(Previously)
The low rumble of a rushing waterfall fills my ears before the palette of white fades to not water, but sand rushing over the rocks just as majestically as if it were. I run down the incredibly high ceilinged hallway and stop just as reach the exit as I stare at at canyon immensely larger than the valley I had just ventured from. In front of me stands the supports for what looks like used to be a grand walkway that bridge this expanse and a remarkable drop straight down; there was nothing left to but jump!
I float down fast as if it were the most natural thing in the world as the soft sand catches me as I roll. There seems to be medium-sized stone vent openings that are mostly buried in the sand all over the canyon floor and most of them have those long cloth pieces attached, of which are fluttering in the breeze as if calling for me to investigate.
I walk curiously over and wonder if my burst of light will affect these in the same way they affected the four on top of the octagonal building in the valley previous. Whoosh! The two 'flags' dissolve away and hundreds of tiny dancing pieces fly out of the vent below. I look up at the support above me and wonder if I could use the dancing pieces to fly on up there. Just as I turn around to do so I stand face to face with myself, or at least another robed individual who looks like me! Either of us moves for moment as it is as clear as day that this other robed figure is just as surprised and dismayed as I.
They chime. I chime back, albeit a different, yet random, note.
They jump. I jump as well, the pieces already returning the pattern to the cape of this interesting stranger before my two feet touch the ground. Of all the things that could happen, a companion on this very solitude Journey was the last thing I expected.
The stranger runs off to another one of the vent like stone structures and lets out that burst of light that I had to come to know as my own. But the time I had joined them they flag like fabric had dissolved and the small dancing pieces had begun rushing out. Although, to my surprise, in stead of forming a flock above their released position they bound together to form a single wide piece of cloth that joined a collapsed piece of the aforementioned walkway with one of upright supports above our heads.
I have a feeling that I saw one of those floating glyphs over to the right of the walkway pillars but the stranger that I have started to grown quite attached to does not want to follow! I chime at them but they just leave in the other direction; back to my solitude I go.
After finding the floating glyph that twinkled in my peripheral vision as I descended I freed some more dancing pieces of fabric and released more of those majestic cloth 'bridges' that span anywhere from thirty to forty metres across the pillar gaps so high above me.
The rubble of the collapsed support was easily scaled to the first swaying cloth archway. It appears I was not the only one to have such an inkling to ascend the glyph-patterned cloth as that robed stranger from before as appeared by my side. A chime back and forth and we take our first on the less-than-stable looking fabric. My gosh! Talk about unexpected exhilaration! We were flying half a metre above the lovely glyph tapestry at a rate of knots and jumping high into the air as the cloth recharged our capes. Just as I see glint from the corner of my eye of a floating glyph previously missed to the left of the supports and hidden under a sandfall; my new friend chime that they noticed it too as they fly along next to me. We shoot up into the air toward the sparkle that we had spied and both land without a sound to have our beautiful capes recharged and lengthened.
There must be something equally as good over on the other side with the many falls that reside there! I chime to my partner in exploration and they seem to wholehearted agree. I embark, closely following the rocky cliff-face so not to miss anything that may be hidden in the cracks and under the falls. The stranger follows close behind and it is not long that we find a decent sized cave under a few sand-falls. We did not find a floating glyph this time but another stone wall with four adjacent small, grave like pillars with circular hollowing in the top.
I light up the left two and my companion does the same to the two on the right. The stone wall comes to life and paints a city in the rolling dunes with a windy sky above.
What is this? Something strange happened that none of us noticed happening before: whenever we would stand close enough to touch each other a small glyph would appear on our chests and power would flow from my glyph to my companion's and vice versa. I jump into the air and land in front of them and the same thing happens, except this time this power transfer recharges the expended pattern on my cape. We must not let such an amazing discovery go to waste in our journey to the beacon in the sky!
We step out of the cave through the falls and my new friend chimes for me to follow. I do so but not soon after progressing twenty or so metres I notice a glyph floating above the falls of the cave we have just ventured from. Their chime will have to wait as I excitedly let out note after note in a desperate plea to convey my message. They stop and I jump into the air whilst notes fly from my chest as I make sure to return back to the sand in the direction of the glyph. My partner catches on and we not are left with the question of how we are going to reach such a spot.
Luckily for us there is an opened vent that has released a modest collection of dancing cloth pieces to aid our current challenge. A dual burst of light later and we are shooting through the air like superheroes and lands safely as the glyph's power flows through us.
Chimes later and I am off following my companion to a glyph between two rocks that I had missed before. It appears that we have collected all and seen all that need to be seen in this strange desert canyon so we continue to the collapsed support to zoom off across the fabric arches to the column of light shining from the chiselled stone.
The same dormant grave like pillars stand either side of the small light spewing monolith. I take the right side and my partner lights up the next, and quickly little symbols start materialising and forming the same light circle in front of the now lit rock. I take a seat on the right side of the circle and my companion takes a seat on the left.
The light, like my previous encounter, swallows me whole.
Tall and mysterious, the white robed figure of the last chapter's experience leans down to little old me, pauses, and then stand before sending out that same spherical beam of light that I have since called my own.
The Egyptian style stone wall painting continues from where it left off with large crumbling support shown with robed figures beneath. The painting continues to the right where the support are no longer crumbled but make up what looks like a grand aqueduct system. The strange thing is instead of water it appears to be filled from a cloud of dancing fabric pieces that form a single cloth piece that flows along the system. The aqueduct flows into a large couple of buildings and then explodes light from the top of the tallest of the three.
The scene fills with light once and again and I am left in front of the now dim chisslled rock, which, on closer inspection, almost looks like a tall robed figure kneeling. My partner and I stand and the massive sand-fall that lies in front of us parts and a passageway is revealed.
We run eagerly down the corridor towards the stairs at the end as the light engulfs us once more…
