Cave of the Fire Gem (2)
Qassot took a deep breath and tried to wake her mind back up.
"Well, here we go. Guardian time," Cyil said.
Riselus walked up to the doors and pushed against them. With a grunt and the sound of stone scraping against stone and ancient hinges creaking in protest, the stone gates opened, revealing another, massive room, twice the size of the puzzle rooms. At its center was a single stone pedestal, covered in orange-red symbols and lines, atop which a bright glowing red sphere floated, radiating heat like the midday sun bearing down on the desert above them.
The sight was quickly blocked, though. With a rumble and the scrape of scales against stone, a dragon rose up from where it was sleeping behind the gem, stepping forwards with thunderous steps. The dragon towered easily over Riselus, standing with such height and musculature that it made Qassot look puny. His verdant green scales contrasted greatly against the reddish-brown rock and his brilliant golden horns and claws. His eyes glowed gold with intelligence and vigor, belying the majesty of a royal whose kingdom had long since fallen, standing guard over the last remains of his lineage in hopes that a successor would one day appear.
The dragon's voice boomed through the cavern.
"Welcome, challengers."
"Hi," Cyil said.
Aavern whispered something to Dracoa before turning back to the Guardian.
"You come here seeking the fire gem."
Aavern tilted his head. "The other guardians couldn't talk. I'm not sure how I feel about attacking a creature who can talk."
Cyil looked at Aavern in confusion.
"Ethics and whatnot," Aavern explained. "The Council made all us informants go through an ethics class."
"That is a good thing to have," the dragon said. "But you don't have to worry. You just need to prove yourselves worthy, and I will give you the gem."
"Really? That easily?" Cyil asked.
"Seems kind of like the earth gem, now that I think of it," Aavern said.
"Yes, but those guys didn't talk."
"Good point."
The dragon looked at the pair of fuzzballs in confusion. "How old even are you two? Is this like some sort of field trip to you?"
"Just chatting," Cyil said, rolling over. "We're a bit drained from all those puzzle thingies."
"You guys didn't even do anything past the third room," Qassot grumbled in annoyance. "It was all me."
"Still. Waiting around can be tiring," Cyil said with a yawn, which made Qassot want to whack him like Qassot did.
The dragon chuckled slightly, then cleared his throat and regained his composure.
"Now then, prove your worth. Show me that you are worthy of wielding the-"
Cyil rolled into Aavern, which made Aavern kick Cyil away. Cyil righted himself and jumped at Aavern, which made him jump back at him. In an instant, the two began tussling, rolling around in the sand at the dragon's feet in a random pattern. The dragon stopped, struck speechless by the small creatures.
"They do that a lot," Qassot said. "Sorry about that."
"They seem… amusing," the dragon said.
"They're noisy."
The pair kept bumping against the dragon's legs and rolling around between him and Riselus.
"Are you two their parents or something?" The dragon squinted at Qassot. "You don't look it. Adopted?"
Qassot shook her head quickly. "No, nothing like that. We're just friends."
The dragon nodded and continued looking at the pair. The group fell into silence, all formality and menacing atmosphere ruined by the small creatures who did not know how to take a hint.
The sound of something shattering suddenly broke through the sound. Aavern and Cyil immediately stopped tussling. The dragon snapped around. Behind them, among the shattered remains of the orb surrounding the fire gem, was Dracoa, standing a few paces away from the pedestal, holding the fire gem and backing up with a nervous look on her face.
"You sneaky little-" the dragon started. Dracoa immediately blasted the dragon in the face with a gust of wind and darted around the room. The dragon quickly recovered and opened its mouth. A brilliant beam of white energy erupted from his jaws, blasting through the air, only to be blocked by a jutting wall of stone that sprung out of the ground. Riselus slammed the ground, creating a shockwave and a ripple of rock that pushed the dragon backwards. Dracoa quickly made it to Cyil and threw the gem at him. Cyil grabbed it and took a golden ring on a chain from Aavern, then put the gem on. In that brief instant, Riselus sent another set of rock walls jutting out of the ground, only to be rapidly destroyed by the dragon's huge claws, which were now coated in the same white energy he breathed out of his mouth. The energy carried with it a heat that melted the rock it came in contact with, cleaving straight through the walls Riselus put up. Riselus panted slightly, the effort required to wield the earth gem clearly more than he expected.
Qassot opened her eyes wide and reached out a claw, hoping to pull water from somewhere, anywhere, to help in the fight. The desert, however, was dry, and unless she had enough control to drag the water out of her friends' bodies, there was no way she would be able to help in this fight.
Despite the fatigue, Riselus kept throwing up walls as Dracoa darted around, throwing blades of air and gusts of wind to throw the dragon off-balance. However, the blades only glanced off the dragon's scales, and the gusts of wind only served to briefly distract him. Cyil quickly joined the fray, now with his new fire gem. Fire suddenly erupted from his body, exploding with extreme force and knocking the dragon backwards. A beam of burning white suddenly cut through the smoke from the explosion. Cyil narrowly dodged as another rock wall sprung up to obscure the dragon's view.
A sudden screeching and scraping reached Qassot's ears, she snapped around to see the massive stone gates gradually being pried open by a pouring tidal wave of black creatures, merged together in an ugly mass.
"LOOK OUT!" she shouted as the creatures burst through the narrow entrance and streamed in, attacking everything and throwing the room into chaos.
"DID THEY FOLLOW US OR SOMETHING?" Dracoa yelled, blasting several creatures off of her with a gust of wind, before dodging a massive chunk of rock that the dragon ripped out of the ground and threw. The rock slammed into the wall behind Dracoa, denting it and sending a shower of rubble cascading down that side of the room.
A burst of fire incinerated several more creatures, and was shortly followed by a beam of fire sent at the dragon, who easily blocked it before sending a massive beam of white energy cascading through the ranks of the black creatures, burning them to ash in an instant, but for every creature that fell, another two poured through the doorway, which was rapidly widening thanks to the efforts of the black army.
A strange light entered Dracoa's eyes as she fought. A storm of air blades burst through the room, slicing through dozens of creatures as the guardian began to rip the rock walls Riselus put up out of the ground and throw them around the room. One of the boulders smashed into the wall and crashed through it, breaking into what seemed to be an upwards-curving passage - an exit from the chaos that was the black mass.
"EVERYONE THROUGH THE DOOR!" Aavern yelled. Cyil quickly created another explosion of fire with renewed zeal before rushing across the room, dodging air blades, various black creatures, and flying rubble, quickly following Aavern through the passage.
Qassot frantically ran through the cacophony, dodging as best she could. She grabbed Dracoa and hit her on the head, knocking the strange light out of her eyes. Dracoa snapped up and looked at Qassot, only to see the exit and dash into it, sending a massive gust of wind through the room as she escaped. The room rumbled as the dragon tore through the ranks of black creatures easily, sweeping them away with swaths of white energy that erupted from his mouth.
Qassot caught sight of Riselus in the corner, panting with exhaustion and struggling to stand to his feet.
"COME ON!" she yelled, reaching out a claw to Riselus.
He glared at her, as if to say "come and help me instead of yelling at me", as he slowly made his way over to the exit, throwing up another rock wall to block a particularly large black creature from smashing into him.
Qassot stood, rooted in place, reaching out to Riselus, lamenting how she wasn't able to do much in a fight. As she reached her claw out, her gem suddenly flashed, responding to her desire to help, glowing with a strange green light that she had never seen before. A stream of faint green light flowed out of her claw towards the exhausted Riselus, rushing into him.
Qassot didn't have time to react before Riselus suddenly got up with renewed vigor, a last store of energy that he pulled out of the deepest part of his being, and rushed for the exit. Qassot stood in surprise as Riselus rushed forwards, looking back and forth between the stream of green light and Riselus rushing at her.
She only snapped back to reality when Riselus bowled her over and carried her with him as he rushed up the passageway, jutting rock out of the ground to close it behind him before any black creature could give chase.
-
Riselus dumped the still-stunned Qassot onto the sand. Dracoa had blown the stone trapdoor hidden deep under the desert sand open with her gem, and they were now waiting there, panting with exhaustion when the two arrived. The cool night air contrasted greatly with the heat of the final room of the fire gem gauntlet, but the gentle tinge of orange on the horizon indicated that sunrise was coming.
"It worked!" Aavern said, out of breath.
"What worked?" Cyil asked.
"The last minute plan I told Dracoa about."
"What even was that?" Riselus asked.
"The plan? Oh, we just distracted the guardian while Dracoa snuck around and-"
"I'm talking to Qassot," Riselus growled.
"What happened?" Aavern asked.
Qassot looked at her claws, then at her gem, which had returned to its normal blue glow.
"I'm… not sure. I just reached out and this green light went over to Riselus. Then he suddenly wasn't exhausted anymore."
"I don't remember the water gem having that sort of power," Dracoa commented.
"How many more cool things can you even do?" Aavern asked in bewilderment. "First the supernatural sense, then the fourth dimension, and now this?"
"It's not me," Qassot said, shaking her head frantically. "My gem was glowing green while that was happening."
"It could be a secret power," Cyil said thoughtfully.
"A what?"
"A secret power," Cyil repeated. "Azor's scrolls said that the gems had powers that weren't limited to just their element. They were called secret powers."
Qassot looked down at her gem, then at Cyil. She stretched out her claw and focused. Her gem glowed green, and a stream of green light appeared, connecting her to Cyil.
"Whoa," Cyil said. "I don't feel tired anymore. That's really cool!"
"Secret power, huh?" Dracoa murmured, looking at her own gem.
"That's pretty cool," Aavern said. "Do me next!"
As the sun peeked over the horizon, Qassot kept sending streams of energy the others, restoring their fatigue continuously as they spammed their gem's powers everywhere, trying to figure out their secret powers, but to no avail. All that resulted was an annoyed Qassot, who had to keep restoring them as they collapsed from exhaustion.
As the sun climbed into the sky, the five decided they should go back to Azor. They were tired from constant travel, and were also very hungry. As far as they knew, there was no food in the desert, and Azor's castle was pretty close. If anything, they wanted a rest before going to look for the light gem. They knew that they could find the light gem by following any sign of those strange runic symbols around the other gems, but they didn't know where to start. Visiting Azor's place seemed to be the best course of action.
Everyone started moving quickly across the plain to Azor's castle. They journeyed straight through the night and through the day, fueled on by Qassot's energy streams. They plowed right across the mountain range and eased down to as close as a trot. Azor's fortress was a new sight to them; Azor had been doing renovations. It was larger and had orbs on each of the four new huge towers in addition to the center tower. There were a few other towers branching out from the main castle. Azor came out to greet us, followed by a cloud of eager Dringochs pulling a table with food after them.
"Welcome back. You five look very tired and hungry. There's food in the-" Azor turned to gesture at the castle, and noticed the Dringochs dragging the table around the field. "Nevermind. You can eat now and tell me what happened later."