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The Legend of the Desert
by MagnusMagneto
“Alright Fortuna, my lovely assistant, are you ready to make history today?” Richard asked, jumping out of the desert-roving vehicle. The dark haired man of average height and build puffed out his chest and gazed into the beating sun. He was wearing a comically stereotypical adventurer’s outfit that was chosen to be as close to Indiana Jones’s as he possible. Beads of sweat had already appeared on his forehead from the heat of the desert. Despite his fairly extensive planning, Richard had somehow completely failed to realize just how hot that outfit would be in the beating sun.
“Sure thing boss.” Fortuna responded, trying in earnest to sound enthusiastic before leaping out of the vehicle in a flashy manner, landing deftly on her feet. She was excited about getting paid a surprising amount of money to soak up a lot of sun and get some good exercise in; though she was less than thrilled to be spending what could be up to a few weeks in a literal desert. Unlike her employer, Fortuna had dressed much more appropriately: she opted to put nothing more on her upper half than a sports bra and sleeveless adventurer’s vest, while her lower body was adorned by outrageously skimpy khaki shorts, hiking boots, and green socks reaching halfway up her well-toned calves.
Richard was a little concerned about his twenty-three year old assistant being exposed to the elements of the desert, but, as a hot blooded male, he didn’t feel like objecting to her choice of dress. Fortuna’s body was extremely lithe and quite tall, as she stood 5’9”, just a mere inch under the professor. She was already quite tanned and had developed some fantastic muscle definition, primarily from running in next to nothing on a daily basis for the past 6 months of summer and spring. She had also engaged in light weight lifting twice a week, but couldn’t find the motivation to take it very seriously. She had a deep, natural beauty to her face, her sandy blonde hair falling effortlessly around her bare shoulders.
Fortuna wasn’t entirely sure why her she was hired in the first place, though she had a suspicion that it related to her blatant sex appeal – an aspect of herself she loved inflating. Sure, she had a degree relevant to the field, and sure, she was a decent student, but she had only recently graduated a few months prior, with had next to no job experience in the field. In fact, the only job she could secure, even with her bachelor’s, was making drinks at CoffeeBucks part-time. With that in mind, it was pretty easy to deduce her looks were the primary reason for employment. After all, she was well aware he had the hots for her. Most men tended to. Not that she minded; despite being over a decade older than her, Richard was a handsome man – a ‘fox’ in her, and many of his students’ eyes.
The young woman would have strongly considered joining the expedition just to have Richard’s lustful eyes beam attention right into her ego. But to throw in four hundred bucks a day, plus all of her expenses fully covered, just to follow around former archeology professor on some mysterious adventure… That was far too enticing an offer to pass up.
Fortuna possessed an innocent narcissism, and was well aware that her body had transformed from ‘hot’ to ‘drop dead sexy’ in the eyes of the average man in the past 6 months. She was eager to see how Richard would react considering she had him pretty enraptured during the winter semester before her evolution.
“So Mr. Dick.” None of his students had ever called Richard by that common nickname. Now that he was no longer her professor, Fortuna seized the chance to finally use it.
“That’s Dr. Dick to you, miss Fortuna.” he corrected, playing along with the transformation of his name.
“Riiight. Well, doctor, care to finally tell me what’s going on here? I mean, you refused to tell me what exactly we are doing here over email and phone, and, well, now we’re in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. Honestly, you should be surprised I worked up the nerve to come out here at all. You’re not going to try anything funny are you?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow, fully aware that the professor had been mentally undressing her ever since they first met in his class a couple years prior.
“No! Nothing like that, although, do be assured that you ARE quite delectable in that outfit.”
Fortuna rolled her eyes. She placed her hands on her hips, but it was obvious her distaste was just a facade, as this new pose served only to separate her unbuttoned vest and cause her faint outline of a six-pack to be visible.
Richard looked around, taking extra precaution to make sure there was in fact nobody around. He opened the satchel he carried around his waist, and took out an ancient looking map with plastic lamentation on it, along with a compass before examining both for a few moments. “Let’s start moving, Fortuna.” he directed her over before walking in a seemingly random direction.
The first few miles of their journey started in silence. Typically, Fortuna was quite outgoing, seeking every opportunity to soak up some attention, but she wanted to observe the older man, to see how long it’d take for him to break the ice.
Richard was slightly befuddled, as a great deal of thoughts were flourishing through his mind. He had first read of the ‘Legend of the Desert’ as a preteen scouring books on ancient civilizations. It was a strange, bewildering tale, passed down primarily through oral tradition, with only a scant amount of paintings and scriptures mentioning it. The legend claimed that five hidden temples existed, each of them hidden by the power of the sun. Every few thousand years they would reset, and the first person to visit each would be granted vast powers by the sun itself.
He initially shook it off as some fairy tale, but it always persisted in the back of his mind. Over time, as his studies into archeology continued, Richard would occasionally find another reference to the legend. A few times something wouldn’t quite add up, such as a certain leader rising to power or accomplishing something that seemed impossible for a regular human… yet Richard found that if he reviewed the mystery through the lens of the legend, maybe, just maybe it would make more sense.
As the years passed on, Richard grew more and more obsessed with the legend. He scoured ancient texts and dig sites to find anything that could be related to it. Of course, he kept all of it a complete secret, as openly believing in such foolery would make him the laughing stock of his peers. Plus, there was something else preventing him from sharing his theories with anyone – What if the legend was real? What if there were hidden shrines that could increase one’s powers unfathomably? The last thing Richard wanted was for someone ELSE to obtain that… Especially if it were thanks to his research and hard work.
Richard’s vast research continued to accumulate – especially in the past few years. Ever since settling down as a high-ranking professor at a fairly prestigious state university, Richard was granted a surprising amount of freedom to pursue learning about the legend. Eventually he came to a conclusion of where the shrines must be. He marked their coordinates exactly, and after even took a vacation to visit them. While he found no shrines, he did find a peculiar image drawn on the ground at leach of the five locations – an ancient marking representing the sun.
“Tell me something, have you ever heard of the legend of the desert?” he asked, completely serious in his delivery.
The sandy-haired blonde blinked her brown eyes a few times. “Err, no.”
“Ok, well, we’re about to discover if it’s real. Now then, we’re actually pretty close to where I believe our destination is.”
“Doc, this is literally all… sand.” Fortuna said, following his lead.
“Things may not be as they appear dear.”
Richard hesitated to tell her what exactly they were out there for. He wanted to set his plan in motion far enough that she couldn’t interfere. After all, he was never more convinced of anything in his professional life than he was that the legendary shrines of power were not only real, but had finally reset themselves about 30 minutes ago – for the first time in 5,000 years.
To the extent of his knowledge, the truth was as follows: Five shrines were scattered across the vast desert, veiled with illusionary magic until one drew close enough to see the temples they hid. The shrines would grant whoever accessed them, by praying to the sun, power equal to what they possessed times seven. That is to say, the beneficiary would have their strength, fortitude and vitality multiplied by seven. This effect, would, theoretically, also exponentially empower itself if multiple shrines were claimed by one individual. Richard had never found any evidence of someone successfully claiming multiple shrines however. This made sense, as it was unlikely someone would wander around the desert long enough to accidentally run into more than one. Plus, if someone had taken three of the shrines, they would still be alive today!
His plan was quite simple. He would take all but one of the shrines for himself, becoming immensely and unstoppably powerful in the process. Fortuna on the other hand would receive just enough power that she could serve as his (nearly) undying, and incredibly sexy partner, but she wouldn’t be able to challenge him at all.
One might wonder why Richard didn’t simply take all of the shrines for himself, or take the lion’s share in advance, then bring Fortuna to the others later. There were two primary causes for Richard’s line of thought. The first being he calculated that increasing his strength by a factor of over a thousand times had diminishing returns for practicality. Four shrines would make him as virtually unstoppable as five would. He longed for a woman who would have the fortitude to keep him satisfied after he ‘ascended’. He also knew fully well that a shrine-empowered woman would feel somewhat isolated from the rest of society, seeking companionship with the only other person who could understand the immense power she possessed. The second line of thought was that every moment he left any of the shrines uncovered was a moment sheer happen-chance could have someone stumble upon one. Leaving even just one shrine open for a few hours was too great a risk in his eyes, let alone the potential of it taking days to bring Fortuna over from the US.
“Tell me something Fortuna. What would you do if you had immense power?”
She raised an eyebrow, clearly caught off-guard by the strange question. “You mean like, if I were the president or something?”
“No, that’s too small-scale. I mean… What if you were immortal. Invincible. Unyieldingly powerful? Able to lift a skyscraper with your bare hands.”
“Oooh, you could have just said ‘Fortuna my incredibly sexy friend, what would you do with superpowers.’”
“Well, essentially, yes. So, what would you do?”
She shrugged. “You know, believe it or not, I’ve thought about that a couple times. While it’d be admirable to try to save the world or something, I don’t think that one powerful person really can change everything. I guess I’d just live my life. Maybe help people out when I could, but I wouldn’t become a full-time crime fighter or something.”
“You COULD eventually change the big picture of things though.” Richard opined. “Especially if you were immortal. Even if it took you centuries of work, you’d have hindsight surpassing that of anyone else alive. You could learn every skill mankind has to offer. Slowly influence everything exactly as you saw fit.”
“I guess. After influencing things what would you do?”
“I would lead mankind. Give it the ruler it’s always longed for. Take the power from the inept, bumbling and greedy hands of the many. The arts would flourish again. People could pursue their passions. Redistribute resources evenly. Entice.. nay, lead, massive strides for science and technology. Guide the hands of the many towards bettering everything.”
“Sooo, become emperor of the world?”
“I’d be so wise and so powerful I could claim whatever title I wanted.”
“You’re really convinced that this legend thing you mentioned is going to give us super powers, huh?”
Richard was taken aback slightly by how quickly Fortuna had assessed the situation.
“Well, it is all just a legend, but, we may as well investigate.”
“I guess it would be pretty sweet to get an even more rockin’ bod without the monotony of weight lifting.”
“Oh? Have you been forging yourself with the power of steel?”
“Come on, you didn’t notice how jacked I am compared to the last time you saw me, half a year ago?” She asked before playfully raising her arms and flexing them. A pair of defined 12” arms popped up – they were still proportionately small on her tall frame, but appeared quite powerful for their size.
Richard had to stop himself from salivating at the thought of Fortuna with seven times her current strength. Of course, she’d still be comically powerless compared to his own 16,384 fold increase of power.
“Your efforts are certainly paying off.” Richard admitted.
“Believe me, I could be trying a lot harder in the weight lifting department. Running though?” Fortuna lead into picking up her pace, literally jogging in place while moving just enough forward to maintain pace with Richard. “I can go for miles now.”
Richard licked his lips. Lewd thoughts about how high her endurance for love making must be now, let alone when increased exponentially crept into his mind.
“I guess you’ll need super powers too, so you can finally keep up with me huh?” she teased, going so far as to jog backwards while facing him, maintaining a faster speed he could manage, slowly increasing the distance between them.
Richard tried to catch up, but she let out a playful giggle before increasing her speed. After a mere few moments of faster paced movement, Richard was out of breath. Fortuna started stretching out her lithe frame while he rested a short spell. She made certain to let him catch a full view of her delectable butt and hamstrings.
“Let’s get going old timer!” she yelled out before continuing her backwards jog.
Richard got back up and started chasing her again. After a few moments, the seemingly barren landscape in front of him shifted – a primitive stone temple appeared in front of him! To his surprise it was actually Aztec in design, a pyramid shaped building with a long staircase sloping up to a peak.
“Fortuna!” he yelled out, as she was blissfully unaware of what had appeared out of seemingly thin air.
“Hmm?” she loudly mouthed before her feet crashed into the bottom of the stone stairs, causing her to land flat on her behind. “Ouch!” she yelled out before turning around and seeing what she had bumped into. “WHAT!?” she exclaimed before leaping gracefully onto her feet. “WHERE. HOW.”
“I told you my dear.” Richard said before closing the distance. “Things may not be as they appear.”
“But… this… AZTEC?! Shrine just appeared out of nowhere… in the desert?!”
“I have to admit that I’m also surprised at the architecture on display here… But, as you kids would probably say today, ‘shit’s magic’. Literally.” He formed air quotations around his attempt to sound modern.
Fortuna’s brown eyes quickly moved up and down as she scanned the imposing structure. “But… What. Okay doc. I believe you now.”
“I’m glad.”
“Hold on a moment… why didn’t we just DRIVE over here?” she asked, recalling the rather lengthy hike over.
“That would leave rather large tracks in the sand. Plus, the vehicle would be easier to spot from a distance. Now then dear, please wait down here. I’m going to investigate something real quick, and it could be very dangerous.”
Fortuna KNEW he was lying. There had to have been a damn good reason that Richard was so determined to make sure nobody followed them. “Oooh, you just want to keep all the treasure for yourself!” she exclaimed playfully before tentatively placing a long leg forward, stepping onto the first stone stair.
“No! It’s not that! If there’s treasure we can share it. Fifty-fifty. I just… don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Bullshit.” she confidently deduced, a huge grin meeting her face. “You’re cute when you try to lie.” she said before planting a kiss on his cheek.
Richard’s face turned a shade red. “N-no, you need to believe me. This place, it’s… well.. MAGIC!” he tried to reason.
“Cool! Let’s race.” she winked before starting off up the steps.
“Fortuna, wait!” he yelled, reaching up as he watched her impeccably toned legs carry her up the stairs at a rate he could only dream of.
He couldn’t believe it. How could he had been so careless? Why did he just automatically presume that Fortuna would simply obey his every command? Why didn’t he take into account that she might be more physically fit than he was? Not to mention half of a year had passed since he last saw her. He let out an exasperated sigh and buried his face into his hands as the physically fit girl raced towards godhood.
Suddenly, something went wrong. Fortuna was careless as she bounded up the ancient steps, and lost her footing on a loose stone. Almost immediately she stumbled, tripped, and began a sloppy descent down the stairs. Richard’s eyes lit up immediately, ‘YES!’ thought, his plan was salvaged! There was a brief moment where he could have gotten in the way of her fall, either catching her or preventing her from falling further, but he decided against it, a content look meeting his face.
“Fortuna!” he forced himself to yell out, pretending to be horrified.
The young woman continued tumbling down the myriad of steps, her frame smashing against the stones a few times before she crashed on the bottom step. “Help!” she cried out, agonized as a small pool of blood began to form from beneath her.
“Just a moment Fortuna! I’ll be with you in a minute!” Instead of turning around and tending to his assistant’s wounds, Richard continued his ascent up the stairs, leaving her to writhe in pain.
After half a minute of climbing, he finally reached the summit. He looked up towards the sun and held his hands up high, turning himself into a standing Y, expecting to be imbued with the beginnings of limitless power at any moment.
Suddenly, a loud crackling pierced the air, and a magnificent blue ball of lightning formed in the air – lingering for a moment. Richard grinned widely, fully ready to embrace it. At last, it was time to reap all he had sown!
To his absolute shock and horror, as the lightning descended from the heavens, it moved past him! Instead of striking him, it followed a jagged path downwards towards his assistant, striking her directly in the chest!
Fortuna let out a scream, first of shock, but it then turned into what sounded like ecstasy. Immediately, Richard started running down the stairs to investigate what had just happened. As fate would have it, his foot slipped in the same place hers did, causing him to begin a descent of his own. He closed his eyes, cursing his fate.
After tumbling once, Richard was shocked to find that he was suddenly caught by a pair of powerful arms mid-descent. “Gotcha!” an irresistible voice yelled out. The arms let go and he fell softly on the sand below. He opened his eyes to find himself directly staring at Fortuna!
The professor climbed to his feet, and was taken aback by her appearance. She hadn’t changed drastically, but all of her limbs were thicker, packed with visibly powerful muscle. Her skin had turned from that of a tanned Caucasian to a shade bronze, and her hair had become more blonde than sandy. He noticed she now stood an inch taller than him, and her perfect posture made her appear even taller in relation. All of her wounds were fully healed too – not a single scrape, bruise or blemish marred her flawless skin.
“Guess the legend is true, huh?” her voice was fuller and richer now. She performed the same double bicep pose she had earlier. While her arms were only two inches larger in circumference, they were far harder than any human being’s could ever hope to achieve. Richard reached over and gave it a squeeze, the limb completely unyielding to his efforts – it was like feeling steel covered in velvet.
“Like those?” she asked before pumping her arms up a couple more times. “They’re nice, sure, but they’ve got nothing on these things!” she squatted down and stretched out her right leg. Her already skimpy shorts had hiked up even further, only just barely covering her absurdly round bottom. She lavishly stroked her long fingers across her thick stems. “I can tell these girls are just FULL of power now!” she exclaimed.
Richard swallowed, feeling himself growing fully aroused.
“I bet you just can’t wait to feel them sometime, huh?” she asked before standing back up to her newly-found full height of 5’11”. “It’s okay champ, I can’t wait for you to check them out either.” she added with a playful wink.
Before Richard could interject, she had already filled the verbal space. “Wow, I just realized something.” she said before bringing her feminine fingers to her eyes and taking out a pair of contacts. “Just like I thought. Don’t need these anymore.” she stated before casually tossing them aside. “In fact, I can see better than ever without them!”
Richard continued to stare, dumbfounded.
“Alright mister. Time for some explanations. Give me the full run-down on these temples and the legend.” she demanded, placing her hands on her hips. Her abs now formed an undeniably large and thick six-pack that her vest had an even more difficult time covering up. Richard was correct in predicting they were as powerfully built as the arms he had just felt.
Her voice was… so confident now. Richard knew he was in the presence of a superior being. “It… It’s not really one hundred percent certain…”
“Don’t try to weasel your way out of this one buddy.” she said before grabbing the man’s satchel from his waist. He tried to resist, but she easily tugged it from his grasp, smirking at his efforts. She opened it up, taking out the laminated map before looking it over.
“Come on Mr. Dick.” she started again. “I know you knew this would happen. So start talking.”
“Seven times.” he simply stated. “The lightning is supposed to improve you by seven times of what you are. A seven-fold power up if you will. It resets every 5,000 years… and, by my calculations, that time struck a few hours ago.”
Fortuna cocked an eyebrow. “Improved by seven-fold? I dunno…” she formed a fist, watching the sinews of solid muscle in her forearms bunch up. “Sure, I’m probably seven times stronger now…”
“And seven times more durable. Probably going to live seven times as long now too!” Richard added.
“My mind feels a bit clearer, sure, but I’m definitely not seven times smarter. I’m not seven times taller. And, I hate to admit it, but while I’m hotter than ever, I’m not SEVEN times hotter.”
“That’s true. The legends are hazy. This stuff’s thousands of years old! All I know for certain is the lightning increases the recipient’s strength and vitality by a factor of seven.”
“And there’s five shrines?”
“Maybe…” Richard tried to deflect accountability on the matter.
“Well you’ve got five circles on this map here. That means five shrines.”
“Well, those are possible shrine locations, there’s no guarantee…” Richard lied.
Fortuna put the map aside. She looked directly into his eyes, raising a finger and bringing up to his face tenderly. “Come on professor, no need to lie to a pretty little girl like me.”
“Ok, yes, those are, according to the legend, more shrines!”
“Let’s get going then!” she declared before finding their bearing with the compass and pointing in the direction of the next chance at god-hood.
You can buy this story here:
Buy Legend of the Desert!