sandride

It was late afternoon, and the Sun was reaching the horizon when the gang dashed from Nouakchott into the wide open. Endless dunes of sand, as far as the eye could see.

Ags seemed to enjoy being behinf the wheel - he stepped on it real hard, and shout out loud in joy. Like someone who had its first ride on a rollercoaster. Phillie sat beside him, having both compass, paper map and a GPS at hand. But when he wasn't checking the route, he checked on the hippie. He smiled in satisfaction, as he saw Ags being his old self again, screaming in excitement.

The other two were in the back of the jeep, on a plateau, with the backpacks and the supply, sharing in the joy of the sand navigation. Cez turned to Renato:
-Wanna meditate some? Reno looked back in curiousity:
-Why should I?
-Because you didn't sleep much - Casey explained - and we both have a lot of way up ahead. The other two already has it under control, so don't have much to do. Renato nodded:
-You're right. He slowly laid down, made himself comfortable - as much as this is possible on the back of a bumping jeep - and put his head into Casey's crouch. She started to massage his head, and started humming. It was the same humming with the bat-like chirping, but the vehicle's sounds mostly enveloped its noise. Still, the massage, and the vibration didn't lose a bit... and it was all that mattered...

Renato found himself among a bunch of random scenes. In the first one, he was doing some administrations - at least, it seemed like it considering the summs, equations and totals. It was somekind of budget calculation. And he wasn't alone: two other men were with him. The only difference was, that he was in his bestial albatross form, and a very detailed and ornated suit with jewels, while the otehr two seemed perfectly human, black-skinned, and with much simpler clothes than his. Probably they were his subordinated...
In the next scene, he was performing some ritual, before an altar. The altar itself was enormous: both wide and tall - made of gold and some blue gemstones - sapphire maybe? - and on the top of it, the statues of Poseidon stood proodly, raising his mighty trident. As he realized the others around him, wearing the same clothes as the two in the previous scene, renato relaized, that they were priests. This meant... he was the high priest here...
Another scene followed: he, flighing in the sky. Big, fat, dark clouthes started to gather around him slowly. He wasn1t simply flighing around them... it was another ritual. He was doing specific maneuvres in the sky, gathering all those clouds, stuffed with precious rain. The peasants from the acricultural zone begged him for help. There was no rain for weeks, however, the salty water of the sea couldn't help much nurturing their crops. Zoolooks always had connection with nature, and had the ability to decypher and manipulate nature - something that mankind considered magic. Still, it wasn't always a small or insignificant task - especially in big deals, like this ritual. Gathering so many clouds could easily cause imbalance. He had to calculate his moves for the rituale, what to gather, and where to gather from - if he "stole" rain from otehr countries in need, that may cause climating disasters. The safest way was to get the rainclouds from above the Atlantic Ocean - still caused a certain level of imbalance, but it was less worse than making another country suffer due to the lack of rain. Now... he saved the people. The rain fell on the glorious city and on all its 3 rings...

Renato stood up in spook, breaking in sweat. It was almost dark. The last rays of the setting Sun tinted the horizon. The jeep was standing in one place. He looked around:
-What happened? Casey was laying back to the edge of the jeep's back, chilling:
-You saw? Renato kept nodding:
-I saw.. a lot. I was the high priest of Atlantis. Casey smiled mildly:
-How pelicular... Renato didn't pay much attention to her. More on the fact that the otehr two didn't responde. Looked around again:
-Why aren't we moving? What's with Phillie and Ags? Cez waved down with one hand:
-They passed out. About 10-15 minutes after you fell in trans. As she saw Renato's expression stunning in fear, she added:
-At least, our hippie noticed that something was fishy going on, and he slowed and stopped the jeep. But them, both fellas' eyes were glowing. I guess, more of us conencted to this story, than we thought. Renato sighed:
-Boy... and it seems, Deen knew who to pick. At this point, no onw would guess if Phillie is in, as well..