by Ryan Johnson
“A handful of this and someone can become the king of the islands of Shimabellia and Isla Maeli,” said Vaeludar.
“I could imagine,” said Wonomi.
“But whatever you do: don’t touch any gold,” warned Vaeludar, in a stern voice. “I have a feeling this gold happens to belong to something.”
“Something? How could there possibly something or someone else down here? There’s a ton of gold here. If there is someone, then they would be in bones.”
“I meant it when I said ‘something’, Wonomi,” said Vaeludar. “What else had a heart of greed than a human?”
“A Dragon,” answered Galvin, grimly.
“I can easily gauss one of the five Dragons that guards this place. Questions is: where is it and which Dragon? I’ve already meant the Ice Dragon, so it has to be any of the four Dragons.
“But touch anything that is not yours, you will wake whatever Dragon lurks in this room of gold. Right now, we have stealth and the element of surprise. If someone touches this gold, you will wake the Dragon.”
“Wake the Dragon?” asked Marina.
“My hybrid years can hear it heavily snoring somewhere within this cave,” said Vaeludar. His ears were flinching like the turning head of deer hearing danger. “Let’s get going before it ends up sniffing one of us.”
“Great then,” complained Galvin. “Couldn’t have this thing be hidden in someplace else like a ruined fortress?”
“That could have been a possibility, but I guess when it comes to ancient powerful artifacts, the graver wanted it to buried it in a dangerous place,” answered Vaeludar. “Since this is believed to be a powerful weapon, the person who hid it here mustn’t want the finder to find it or go out with it alive.”
“And it is with a Dragon sleeping somewhere in this underground place,” said Marina.
“And it seems those ancient legends of Valverno and the White Knights are starting to come true,” said Flavius.
“I’ve heard they flew to the stars, only leaving some feathers behind,” said Wonomi.
“Stop doing guessing games and start looking for the armor artifact,” interrupted Vaeludar.
“Where would we find it?” asked Wonomi, promptly.
“Somewhere where there should no gold or precious jewels. Somewhere there is little light and a lot of darkness. But this can go miles around. It may take days to find that armor artifact down here. Not to mention that Dragon’s sleeping down here. If we could only find a pathway that would lead us there, that would be a great help.”
“I found a footprint,” said Galvin.
“I spoke too soon.” Vaeludar walked over to Galvin who was pointing a dragon footprint. It looked like Vaeludar’s dragon feet and placed one in it. Vaeludar went to see a path of dragon footprints making a pathway towards a larger, a more complex archway that went in complete darkness.
“Well, if these are the Dragon’s footprints, they could lead to the armor artifact. Since we don’t have any pathways, we must follow where these go. We are going to walk this way towards that archway. We are sure to find the armor artifact in that place. Let’s go.”
Vaeludar followed the path of the dragon footprints as the others followed behind him. Vaeludar smelt the scent of the glitter all around him, but he couldn’t pick up any scent of the Dragon. From his ears, he briefly could hear the sounds of soft breathing.
He couldn’t tell where the sounds of the breathing were coming from; it was echoing through the underground cave of what his hybrid ears.
Walking through the archway, the light started to decline into darkness. There was a small light very much like the moon’s light. Limestones appeared from the darkness. The cave of gold was becoming a natural cave instead of it looking like a manmade cave like a mine. The light of the gold reflected about a hundred feet the group walked in. The cave was quiet, other than sounds of water droplets.
The group wondered deep into the cave and the cave seemed endless. Tunnels went in different directions with many entrances and exits. Columns of limestone stretched in horizontals, diagonals, and verticals of an ongoing view stretching everywhere. The golden light behind reflected on some stones.
The dragon footprints started to disappear into the darkness. It was hard for Vaeludar to track where the tracks were going. He was following the fading footprints from one entrance to another. The sounds of a snoring dragon he could hear in his ears were drawing closer. He couldn’t tell what they were going to find first: the sleeping dragon or the armor hand piece. There was no telling what could show up next.
They pressed deeper in the deep moist, dark cave. The air was getting wetting and less fresh. Every step was like taking a walk in the sea. The feeling of the air was getting drifter.
Vaeludar could feel his dragon scales on his legs beginning to loosen their tightness and began to become fragile to fall from his legs.
Then, the footprints began to disappear entirely from Vaeludar’s view. Within a few walking yards, the footprints were no more. Vaeludar was on his own to find the armor artifact in the cave.
In a few seconds, it was a break from everybody. Marina sat down, Galvin dropped to the ground, Flavius leaned against a column of a limestone going up high, and Wonomi sat near Galvin.
Vaeludar was at a loss of where he was going now. How could he find a small armor artifact in the biggest cave there ever was? It felt like it was going to take years just to find one piece of armor. He went to climb a high pillar of glowing crystals. He could see light and the golds’ light briefly behind him. The cave was just out of his dragon eyes to view of where to go. He dropped back down to rejoin his group members.
“Just look at this limestone,” said Flavius.
Vaeludar walked towards Flavius to see the black limestone and touched it. It felt a bit rough-like and ashy. Vaeludar rubbed his fingers together; they were black just like the stone.
Vaeludar ignited his hand on fire, to see what it was.
Burnt marks. The black burnt marks were in the shape of a dragon’s leg. The claws of the burnt, dragon leg-shape were pointing in a one-way direction.
“I have found the way. Follow me,” said Vaeludar, hastily.
Flavius, who was followed by a tiring Galvin, Marina, and Wonomi, followed the hybrid.
Vaeludar followed burning marks. Some of them were scraped onto the wall. Other showed signs of a battle. There were columns of limestone collapsed and piles of various cave minerals. Rocks plummeted from the cave’s ceiling long ago.
Vaeludar was seeing the burnt marks as ancient hieroglyphics. Each one was nicely painted into the rock. Each one was the same, pointing in one direction to another. From one direction to another in the dark cave, Vaeludar could see claw marks and other rock-piled cave junk.
Deeper they walked, the darker the cave became. The gold light behind them disappeared behind the surrounding columns of limestone. There was a faint of light appearing ahead of them. Ahead of them, a rounded hole appeared.
Vaeludar entered first.
His eyes were adjusted to the light from the darkness behind him. What he saw before was a cavern stretching back of dozens or a hundred miles. In the cavern, a sparkling lake laid around a line of stones that made a pathway. In the center was a large upside-down-coned hill. A straight beam of blue light shined at the very top peek.
Flavius, Marina, Galvin, and Wonomi followed behind him. Their eyes were blinded before adapting to the light.
“It must be up there,” said Vaeludar, pointing at the high point.
Everyone behind was staring at the endpoint where the armor artifact was being held.
“The sooner I can get that, the sooner we can get out of here,” said Vaeludar. He spread out his wings and began to fly.
FLOP!
Vaeludar fell to the ground and his wings couldn’t unleash the power of his dragon flight. He jumped again, flapping his wings harder and again he once again fell. He tried three more times before
just flapping his wings while standing. He wasn’t moving from the ground.
“I… I can’t fly!” nagged Vaeludar. He even tried to breath out fire; he ended up coughing on some smoke.
“What’s wrong?” asked Marina.
“My wings aren’t taking flight, Marina,” answered Vaeludar. “I can’t fly. I can’t breathe fire. I don’t know what is wrong with my draconic abilities. I can’t even whip my tail strongly.” Vaeludar’s tail was weakly slivering.
“I must have wasted too much of my body energy when I rescued the White Knight and finding this place. No matter. I’ll just leap across this bridge of stones, walk up there, get the armor artifact, and we can be out of here. All of you stay here. I’m going alone from here. I shouldn’t be too long. Across, up the hill, down the hill, and back; it should be easy like counting to three.”
Vaeludar jumped down to the first stone lying in the water. He jumped over a few stones, using his wings to pole vault over a few stones about three stones after another three stones. In no time, he managed to get to the long hill on a flat rounded step.
From his eyes, the hill went up a hundred feet high. A very, very, very steep stairway was going up towards the beam of light. Vaeludar folded his wings and proceeded to walk up the stairs. Slowly and eminently, Vaeludar crunched his curved legs as far as he can curve them, which made it hard for him to move.
Vaeludar slumped his upper human body to the ground and crawled up the staircase. His crawling made him move like a lizard climbing up the wall. His arms and legs moved the opposite of each other; when the left arm moves, the right leg moves.
When the right arm moves, the left leg moves. He had been doing this for minutes until he got to the very top.
At the very top, he saw a rounded stone table attached to the bottom. With the light gleamed from above, a glowing object stood horizontal on the table’s top.
Vaeludar walked into the light and near the bright object.
The object was brightly shining the light’s reflection on it and it was hard to tell what it looked like. Vaeludar placed his hands on the shinning object and lifted as easily as lifting a feather. Moving it out of the light, it appeared short and nearly as long as the lower arm. It was a ten-white-armor-plated gauntlet with a ruby attached to the hand part of it. The figures were horned and spikey.
Finally, on his long journey, all the monsters that appeared in his way, moving from one unexpected place to another, he was now at the main goal: the armor artifact.
“At last,” shouted Vaeludar, excitedly. “I have finally found the armor artifact. Now, we can get back to the village and…” Vaeludar turned and saw Wonomi was walking toward a spear-axe weapon, with a great curiosity. “WONOMI, DON’T!” yelled Vaeludar.
But the hybrid’s voice wasn’t enough to stop Wonomi who grabbed the spear-axe with both hands.
“INTRUDERS!”
A voice in the sound of a Dragon, which Vaeludar thought to be one of the five Dragons, had echoed. The Dragon had awakened with the greatest anger, of the worst attitude when it comes to a Dragon’s love for treasure.
“Someone has invaded my territory! Any intruder who intrudes in my home shall DIE!”
Many rays of fire burst from the hill where Vaeludar stood on. The cavern crumpled and many rocks fell from above.
Vaeludar jumped down far down towards the lower steps and ran down when he landed. While he jumped downward, he looked at Wonomi dropping the weapon he grabbed and sank deep into the ground.
Marina, Flavius, and Galvin looked at Wonomi in anger but made no effort to end his life. But before they could see make their escape, the entrance they entered had rocks collapsing over it. Seeing no way out of the falling collapsing cavern, they were trapped.
Wonomi dashed toward the bridge of stones. Marina, Galvin, and Flavius were suddenly flopped into the air from the platform they stood on. They sailed in the air by the emerging rocks from their feet, making them fly to a high point and began to drop toward the boiling water.
Vaeludar felt nerves in his wings flinching as the staircase he was running on turned into a slope and he slid down while on his feet. He saw the slope’s end curving up like a slide. Widening out his wings, he jumped at the curvy end and started to fly. He caught a falling rock wide, big, and thin like a surfboard and attached his tail’s arrowhead (his tail’s pointy end) to it.
The arrowhead of his tail snapped off just as easy as ripping paper in half. Vaeludar flew with the surfing rock trailing behind him. He flew and got his falling companions on the rock.
After rescuing them, Vaeludar turned up and made a very sharp hundred-seventy degree angle. He now had to rescue Wonomi jumping on the stones
He stopped in horror that the stones he jumped on were sinking in the boiling water and the water level rising. He stopped at the last stone still floating above the waving water’s surface.
Vaeludar, who placed the gauntlet on the claws of his wings, dived down, hoping to grab the low-minded man who brought down a collapsing cave. He saw the water level rising closer to Wonomi. Vaeludar grabbed him just as the last stone sank quickly like a gofer diving in its hole. Vaeludar tossed Wonomi on the surfing rock with the other three and turned to see the water while flying in the air.
The water level began to rise higher than ever before. Then a body of a large, serpent-like Dragon emerged from the water’s surface. It was relatively the Ice Dragon, with blue scales instead of white scales; it must be a Water Dragon.
“You cannot escape me!” shouted the Water Dragon.
The Dagon’s voice wasn’t the same with the other voice; they had to be a second Dragon nearby. Vaeludar had no time to bother to wonder where a second Dragon was lurking. He still aimed at the one and only exit they entered from. He went flying at high speed away from the Dragon behind.
“Vaeludar,” yelled Marina, warningly.
“I know,” he yelled back, knowing what Marina and the others were seeing. Vaeludar drew closer to the blocked exit, but he turned and saw the Water Dragon flying after them with a large wave of the water rolling behind the Water Dragon.
Vaeludar turned back toward the collapsed exited and plowed through the rocks blocking the exit. The rock with his companions surfing behind him narrowly dodged the rocks he charged through.
Into the dark maze of tunnels, Vaeludar went flying as fast he could in any direction of the cave an instinct would spark in his mind. From left and right up and down, the hybrid did not slow down since water and a Water Dragon were right behind him.
Vaeludar was making many turns in many directions. He had no idea where to fly or move to, as long as there was no Dragon or water coming in front of him. He countered three falling rocks that hit the surfing rock and nearly banged his companions off it. He saw he was coming to a wide wall.
“That’s it we’re done for,” said Galvin.
“No, we’re not going up or right or left. We’re going DOWN!”
Vaeludar made a very, stern sharp downwards turn and soared down five hundred yards for ten seconds before curing down again into the archway where the mountains of gold were.
The water poured inches away from the surfing rock, which had Marina, Flavius, Galvin, and Wonomi barely hanging on to it. The Water Dragon broke through the archway, just trailing behind the group on the flying rock they were on and magically attached to Vaeludar’s tail.
And boulders fell from the ceiling above and the mountains of gold exploded in a fiery blaze that nearly burned Vaeludar and his companions sitting on the flying rock.
As he finally drew closer to the exit they all entered from, the Water Dragon barely snapped at the surfing rock that was magically attached to Vaeludar’s tail, with his companions screaming loudly. He drew out the Crystal Sword and flew back, passing the rock and the rock passing him flying toward the cave’s entrance.
Vaeludar scratched the Water Dragon’s left eye with the glowing blade, which made the Drago
n growl. Vaeludar quickly flew back but hordes of rocks fell from above him and his companions.
Darkness stirred. Water was pouring. Rocks were falling.
There was no time to spare for him. Vaeludar quickly flew to the flying rock and attached his tail with his tail’s arrowhead end and pushed the rock and his companions towards the feet away exit. Vaeludar was busy doing a few things at once, he couldn’t think of what to do next.
Then The Water Dragon retreated into the water drowning the cave. Then a second Dragon emerged to take the Water Dragon’s place. In quick pound on a rock and a bite taking to Vaeludar’s tail, the Dragon brought darkness to the entire cave and sealed the cave’s only entrance and exit with a sheer amount of rocks blocking.
The surfing rock fell with but Marina, Wonomi, Flavius, and Galvin heavily jumped just as an endless number of rocks blocked the cave’s entrance.
They had made it out, just as the falling rocks had collapsed the entrance behind them. They were alive and breathing, overjoyed to be alive.
Panting heavily, they laid on the ground.
“You made it back,” said Charity. The White Knight was happy to see them return safe without any flesh wounds or bite marks.
They remained silent for seconds from the horrifying experience they just encounter. They jumped for joy that they had made it out. They cheered and hugged and congratulated each other.
“Are we glad to have that hybrid for saving our lives and completing the mission we were sent on,” said Galvin. He looked around and took great notice something was amiss. “Where… where is that guy?”
All of a sudden, they stopped breathing and looked around; Vaeludar was nowhere in sight. They looked in deep terror and horrified that Vaeludar wasn’t there.
“What? No. No! NO!” cried Marina. Marina was the most horrified one there and felt a deep heart attack. She came with a thought that Vaeludar was inside the collapsed cave, which the entrance was piled with rocks.
She ran towards the rock-filed cave and removed some rocks out of the way. A few rocks fell and her eyes caught something shining buried in the rubble: a shining hilt. Marina pulled it out and she held the Crystal Sword, without the scabbard or its holder to be seen.