Reaching the mountain wasn’t as hard as we had imagined. Beatriz and Johansson had little trouble getting rid of any Skeletons who got in their way.
“The Soul Sand Valley is always quite the journey,” Johansson said.
“Look at those footprints” I pointed to the ground.
We found some human footprints along the way, which confirmed our suspicion: David Park had been there.
“It has to be from David. This place is so far away from everything and everyone. He’s the only person who could have come this far,” Beatriz said.
“Look, the machine is over there.” Peter pointed at a broken machine lying on the ground.
Johansson picked it up. The machine wasn’t so heavy, but it was quite big.
“Strange… the machine is still turned on,” Johansson said.
“On? But it’s not doing anything.” I said.
“No, it is. Come closer.”
I approached Johansson and heard a faint sound coming from within.
“Weird. What is the machine doing?” Peter asked.
“I have no idea. But it’s emitting some sort of resonance, probably on a low level that is detectable by the human ear. Whatever David Park was trying to do, we won’t know until we find him,” Johansson said.
“Just as I thought that’s the machine I saw in the blueprints,” Beatriz said. “It is making a sound, but I don’t know what it’s for.”
“Any sign of David Park in this area?” Johansson asked.
“No. The machine was just there. There’s nothing else,” Peter said.
“Okay, we have to keep looking for him. Maybe David is in danger. Maybe that’s why he left the machine behind and fled the area,” I said.
“Search for footprints; they are our best clue,” Johansson said.
“I think I found more,” Beatriz said.
The other footprints were heading down the mountain on the other side, leading to the base.
“These footprints are far apart. That leads us to believe that David Park was running down the mountain,” Beatriz said.
“Indeed. It looks like he was running away from something or someone,” Peter said.
“There aren’t any footprints besides his. What could possibly be chasing him?” I wondered.
“It has to be a flying creature. Since there aren’t any other footprints in this area, perhaps David was running away from a Ghast or something. Remember, Ghasts are fairly common in this area,” Johansson said.
“Yes, but we haven’t seen a single Ghast since we arrived,” I said.
“Which is extremely odd,” Peter added. “We should’ve run into at least five Ghasts by now, considering how much they hate human beings.”
“We must follow the footprints and see where they take us,” I said.
We walked for a few hours, trying to find any other clues about David Park. Eventually, we stopped for a rest after not finding anything new. What happened to David?