Far to the south, a team that had landed in what first appeared to be a simple desert learned quickly that the sand here was not passive.
At a glance, the region looked empty. Pale dunes stretched outward in gentle curves, their surfaces smooth and unbroken beneath a sky washed in the same strange twin tones that marked the rest of the ring.
The students who arrived there stepped forward with cautious optimism, relieved to see no immediate cliffs, forests, or obvious predators.
That relief lasted less than five minutes.
The sand shifted beneath their boots in slow, uneven waves, not enough to throw anyone off balance at first, but enough to feel wrong.
It moved the way water did when something large passed beneath the surface, subtle and delayed.
One student paused and pressed a boot down harder, testing the ground. The sand gave slightly, then firmed again.
They moved on.
