The three teens got off the plane and immediately went to their hotel. It was a one hour cab ride the next day, to a small village... and it would be around three and a half more hours of hiking, since they didn't have any vehicles that could travel the terrain.
"What's this?" asked Karyn, pointing to an area on the map. "Subtropical desert?"
Jon explained. "Mild temperatures, not a lot of rain. From what it says in the guidebook, there could be worse places to find the dig. Can you imagine the three of us having to use machetes to chop our way through a rain forest? I don't think any of us has used a machete."
"Nope," said Karyn.
"Don't look at me," said Wendi. "If you're going to ask me if I've done something, the answer's going to be 'no', whether it's a machete or anything else."
The next day they set out for the final part of the trip. The cab ride was easy. The hike was just a walk; it was fortunate that the dig was located in a place that three teenagers with no special equipment and no special training whatsoever would be able to reach.
Jon was in front, and was the first to be surprised when he took a step and all of a sudden a group of buildings appeared off in the distance amidst the scrub and sand.
"What? Karyn? Wendi? Do you see that?"
"I don't see..." said Wendi, but when she took another step... suddenly she did. "It's there! It just appeared from nowhere. It looks like normal buildings... Modern ones. Maybe a company or some kind of campus."
"Wait," said Karyn. She took an experimental step forward, then another... and the buildings appeared to her, too. "Something's wrong. If we go too far from them they disappear. The only thing that could do that...."
"... is someone else's magic," said Jon. "It makes sense. Why would Grandpa send me something like Wendi when it really belongs to this country and could be used to do immense good? Unless... unless they didn't need it, because there was already something here every bit as useful."
"Hey, I am with you, you know," said Wendi.
"Sorry... I did try to use your name, but I get the idea."
Wendi smiled. "That's okay. Just so you know."
"I wonder," said Karyn. "The dig's that way. Miles past those buildings. Are people at the dig using magic? They didn't tell us anything in the email... but then, they probably wouldn't. Is it them or is it someone else? Or are whoever's using those buildings blocking our way to the dig? Is it... dangerous?"
