"Hmm, well, since I am dressed for it, why not try out the desert?" You suggest while holding up your boobs. Brenda stops you from doing that, but agrees with your idea as it is not that big of a deal for her where she goes next. Ned also is fine with it, so the three of you begin heading west.
It took about a day to get to where you were seeing more rocky plateaus than trees. As grass became sand, your party continued along the path into the bright yellow desert. This was a mistake. As all deserts are, it is hot. Way too hot for you all. It was only a few hours into the second day when Ned fell down, and the rest of you had to stop to carry him. You were sure the three of you would be dead from the heat in only a matter of time. But seemingly at the last second, two halves of a metallic dome sprung up from the surrounding sand and captured the three of you underneath it, slamming shut above you. You could hear many noises, and the air cooled down a bit too. But in the darkness, you could only wait for what would happen.
Oddly, you felt the object you were inside of begin to sink. And with Ned unconscious, and Brenda busy holding onto him, you are the only one who can freely move about. But what would you do? What could you do? You can't see anything in the darkness anymore since you no longer have that slime's buffs.
After about 20 minutes of being inside the dome, a light shines across the top, and the two halves separate. You find that you somehow are inside a building, and what is even odder, is that it looks like a medical ward of a hospital or something. Bright lights and white walls, various lab equipment and everything. Machines and advanced technologies everywhere. Then a bodiless voice speaks to you.
"Are you three looking to die? Whose bright idea was it to walk into a desert with no preparation or proper equipment? If I hadn't... hold on a second." The voice cuts off and after about 30 seconds, a door slides open, and a woman enters the room, well half of one anyways. Her upper half is a normalish looking woman. Normalish being the key word because she has 2 pairs of arms, one pair being her normal arms, and the other looking like a mechanical prosthetic that had been fused into her body. But the lower half of her body is actually a very long snake tail. She the continues, "Um, would any of you like to explain to me what is happening here? Why is there 3 different races in your group who normally are not so inclined to be together, and is that elf ok?"
"We are friends, and he is just unconscious from the heat." Answers Brenda. The snake woman nods and then snaps her fingers and 2 robot drones come into the room and "collect" Ned, before carrying him out of the room. "We will treat his illness. Seeing as how you to are not as bad, I can handle the rest myself. You can call me Judy, and I know it is not a normal name for an Echidna, but that's just how it is. This is my lab, well, sorta. Let's just say that I happened upon it only a few days ago. And the floor is heated, which is why the A/C is able to be on, if you were wondering how I am able to move freely in a cool room like this. Now can you two tell me a bit about yourselves, and about that Elf?"
"Of course! But I have a question first." You say excitedly. "Uh, sure, I guess?" responds Judy. "You wouldn't happen to have come from a different place than this world would you?"
Judy narrows her eyes, "be careful girl, there are some things you should not ask about." Brenda speaks up however, "Judy, its us. I am Brenda, that elf you just took was Ned, and believe it or not, well just trust me when I say that this bikini clad girl here is Lucas."
Judy slithers up real close to you, then picks you up and squeezes you a bit too hard as she lifts you up completely off of the ground and about 10 feet into the air in a death hug. "Oh my god you are adorable Lucas! You are like a little sister now!" Judy sets you down when Brenda intervenes and tells Judy to not kill you with her hug.
"How am I like a little sister?" you ask in confusion. Well, you sorta can guess the little part as you now look up at the two women towering over you. Even though you are a normal height for a human girl, Brenda is an 8 foot tall Amazonian, and Judy is a 32 foot long Echidna, who normally is "standing" at around 7 feet off the ground, but as you have just experienced, can easily double that if she wants to. Judy's answer basically is the same reasoning, and the sister part is because you are a cute girl, and that she has always wanted a little sister. The fact that you are actually about 7 months older than her irl seems to have been thrown completely out the window.
You all talk for a while. Judy explains how she woke up on the edge of the forest and immediately received a timed quest to claim an abandoned facility somewhere lost in the Viperia Desert before the sands bury it forever. She had only 48 hours to do so, and the quest marker was a solid 30 hour trip away from her starting location. So she practically had abandoned the forest entirely right from the beginning and had come here. She then received her augmentations from the facility as the quest reward. Her arms were fused to her and her eyes were replaced with new and improved cybernetic ones. She also received an implant that let her completely control the facility 100% with just her thoughts.
According to Judy, this facility is apparently an ancient Echidna's R&D building for creating new monster variants with advanced technology. This place is quite suitable for a tech master like Judy, and she quickly became familiar with the functions of this place. The best part however is that it is movable. The facility is actually a large, subterranean machine that can bore through the ground and move wherever it pleases. But only if piloted by a tech master. The issue is that doing so more or less renders Judy unconscious for about a day afterwards due to the incredibly heavy burden on her mana pool. So while she can move around, she is limited by how far she can go, and can only move the place every 2 days. The three of you were lucky she was still watching the monitors when she found you, as she was able to use the capturing device to bring you to her. Had you been just a bit slower, she would have already left to go back to the forest to look for you guys.
The question now is, where is Damon? He had to have started in the forest somewhere, but it has been quite a few days by now, so he may not even be inside it at this point. He could be anywhere by now even. And you do not even know what race he is. And with your case as living proof, he could even be a woman at this point.
So, now that the four of you are together, does the hunt for your last remaining friend begin?