True Enemy

The next sight they saw was completely unexpected. Azor's castle. Once tall and proud, now in ruins. Collapsed towers, shattered glass, and rotting wood. They moved slowly among the remains. Qassot stopped to pick up a wooden board with a grid on it. Cyil found small, smooth stones. Riselus observed the scene, noting that a large portion of the castle was made of stone far older than the rest, dating back to the time before the guardians. He then found a barely noticeable passageway to a room tucked away under shards of broken brick.

"Hey! Come over here!"

Qassot dropped the board and walked over. Cyil kept nosing through the wreckage. The room was relatively small, placed in the exact center of the ruins. Qassot felt the walls. She recognized it as being in the same place deep in Azor's castle where they found his mock gems.

Riselus opened the door. A crash suddenly sounded as a group of what seemed to be stone statues rushed out of the door and attacked. Qassot reacted immediately, slicing the statues into pieces. Their parts fell onto the floor and crumbled, the red glow in their eyes gradually disappearing.

"Hey," Cyil said quietly. "Don't those look like the stone creatures back in Ysk Mountain?"

Two statues in the shape of a Krie Clan dragon. One in the shape of a Dringoch. Another an Oacinhragn.

The statues quickly crumbled to dust.

A musty smell flowed out and settled on the floor. Dried moss covers the walls and a staircase leading downwards. Qassot walked down the staircase. At the bottom was a dark corridor. Lining it were iron bars guarding the entrance to cells with chains and bones and strange stains. A few of the cells had strange rows of pots filled with soil.

Qassot squinted into one of the cells with pots. Dimly through the darkness, she could see that the pots were filled with soil and had plants in them. Qassot struggled to look further, and managed to catch a glimpse of a tall, dark, straight-stemmed plant with withered leaves and a single fruit. It looked strangely familiar.

Cyil caught up to them. It was dark. The stones emitted a dim glow that allowed them to see. Qassot noticed a passageway leading off to the side. There was no light in that path, not even from the stones. Closer inspection revealed a staircase a little ways in, leading down into the depths of the earth. Qassot shivered.

"What is it?" Cyil asked.

"This is a creepy place," she said.

"What's that?" Cyil pointed a wing at the passageway. Before Qassot could respond, he began to walk down. A sudden bolt of panic flashed through her mind.

"No!" Qassot yelled. She made a lunge and yanked him backwards. He rolled across the stone floor until he hit the wall.

"Ow," Cyil said.

"What was that about?" Riselus grunted.

"There's… something down there." Qassot whispered.

"What?"

"Ow." Cyil began to get back up.

"It's just like that massive dragon in Ysk Mountain." Qassot says quietly. A chill passed through the hallway.

The three silently edged away from the passage and continued down. The cells stopped, and the hallway ended with a strong wooden door.

Qassot eased the creaking door open. Inside was a neatly furnished room. A desk holding many scrolls, ink, feather pens, and a small brewing area with various sealed potions. An open scroll lay on the desk. A tall cabinet stood in the corner. The floor was carpeted, the walls were smooth and light gray. A floating orb of light illuminated the circular stone frame standing upright in the center of the room. The frame was so wide that Riselus could fit through it if he had been able to get his wide shell through the doorway. He was stuck looking in from outside. Its five curved stone segments had deep, inscribed runes within them. Qassot looked carefully at them.

"These symbols… They're the same ones at each of the gems. The two at the bottom are air and water, then there's fire and earth…"

"But what is it for?" Riselus wondered.

The center of the frame had a shimmery, glasslike substance in it. It was cracked, shattered, but still in its place. The shards floated slightly askew of each other, showing tiny fragments of images that were too small to make out. Qassot poked one of them with her claw. As if there was no gravity or friction, it spun and flew away.

"It feels connected to the gems, somehow," she said.

"It's a portal," Cyil said, walking next to them, "and it was meant to watch over the gems and the orbs." He holds up the scroll on the table, opened to a part about linking a portal to a source.

"This scroll says that the portal's parts will shatter when the source is removed," he explained, nodding towards the broken shards.

Qassot frowned, "But that means that-"

"That the light orb was stolen. The Overseer was right," Cyil confirmed.

Qassot shook her head, "No, I mean that Aavern has the light gem, but- wait what?"

"Not important."

They watched the portal's shattered pieces float amongst themselves. 

"Hang on," Cyil said hesitantly, "Why does Azor have a portal to watch each of the magic gems? This place looks recently used, too."

Qassot walked over to the desk and glanced at the papers strewn across it.

There was a map, just like the one Ezarik showed them, with circles and numbers around different parts of the island. Each circle was even in the same location.

"Looks like Azor was researching the disasters as well," she said. A small detail on the map suddenly drew her attention.

Each and every circle was crossed out with a label.

Not here.

Earth gem is here.

Not here.

Kygoru sleeps here.

Not here.

Water gem is here.

Kymusi sleeps here.

Qassot looked closer, peering at each circle on the map.

They were locations, marked with small notes about the amount of magic power around them.

Massive collection of magic here.

Small amount of magic here.

Suspiciously large amount of magic here.

Qassot looked down and saw a different part of the map.

"What is this?"

There was a separate section with a map of the void, complete with circles and markings that showed the location of the light gem along with a few crossed-out locations.

Light gem is here.

Not here.

Not here.

Qassot looked back at the main map. There were circles around Azor's and Ezairk's castles.

Found Kynako's gem under my castle.

Does Ezarik have a gem in his?

Qassot picked the map up.

"It looks like… Azor was looking for something," Qassot muttered, "and found the gems while he was at it."

"Didn't he say that he didn't know where the gems were?" Cyil asked.

"He probably made it after we found most of them," Riselus said.

"This map is far too old for that."

The map was crinkly with age and falling apart at the edges. The ink on the parchment had long since dried and was starting to fade.

An open scroll on the desk caught Qassot's eye. She put the map down and rolled it out.

It was a checklist.

Some items were crossed off, and some items were marked, and others were still left blank. Qassot's heart sank as she read it.

Gather all five orbs.

It was checked off with a note that said, "Plan B in motion."

Reestablish the link with the Beyond.

It was checked off.

Obtain helpers from the Beyond to stop the wizards in the north.

It was checked off with a note that said, "Great success - may use them in the future."

Find where the Elder Dragons are sleeping.

It was crossed out with the note, "Found two. Disrupted, need to replan."

A line from Qassot's memory resurfaced in her mind. Azor had looked at the shadow and said, "Your timing couldn't have been any worse. The plan will need to change because of you."

Ezarik's words resurfaced next. "Someone was clearly planning something with the disasters, and the dark armies just so happened to get in their way."

Qassot took a sharp breath in.

"Cyil?" she said.

"Yes?" Cyil looked up from playing around with the floating portal shards.

"Call Ezarik here."

"Why?"

Qassot didn't respond. The next line of the checklist caught her attention. They were written more hastily than the previous items.

The shadow seems to want to break the island apart by taking all the gems.

Plan B: gather creatures from the island, give them the elemental gems and make them fight the shadow. While they are busy, I should be able to find the Elder dragons easily with the shattered island.

Will search around while the island is shattered and wake up each Elder Dragon individually. For this, gem keepers will need to be strong enough to hold off the shadow, otherwise, the shadow will kill the Elder Dragons before they can wake up.

Will need to return the orbs.

Below it, there was an additional line.

Idea: use plants with hallucination effects to cause creatures to have certain dreams. Will have to experiment to find the best combination for a dream.

Qassot's mind was suddenly drawn to the plants she just saw in the cells. A sudden burst of realization struck her. Those plants were almost identical to the one that had given her the nightmare that started the whole journey.

And attached to it was another note. Will start disasters again and direct attention onto Ezarik, but cannot kill him since his strength may be needed to hold off the shadow. Will need to interfere if gem wielders defeat and try to kill him.

The note below it said something else. Gem wielders seem to believe that Ezarik is controlling the shadow.

"What the-" Cyil said. His voice came out in a sharp gasp, laced with anger.

Qassot looked over. Cyil had climbed up onto the desk next to her and had read the map and the checklist. His face was now twisted with fury. She turned back to the scroll.

The last item on the checklist was circled.

Take the orbs after the gem wielders get the gems.

The note that was attached seemed to have been written recently. 4 of 5 obtained, shadow appeared in the void, sealed it off. Cannot have shadow interfering until everything is ready.

"This whole thing was orchestrated?" he asked angrily.

Qassot gritted her teeth. She couldn't help but feel the same way.

"Me and my brother left our home and put ourselves in danger just because of some stupid plan!?" Cyil snarled. His fur started to catch fire. "And Dracoa's trapped in the void because Azor sealed it off?"

"Call Ezarik," Qassot repeated. Her voice was shaking. "We need to show him this."

"What plan are you talking about?" Riselus growled, understanding immediately and attempting to force his body through the small doorway.

Cyil pulled the crystal out of his fur and smashed it against the wall with all his might. A small golden ring appeared in the air, quickly expanding and stretching until a smooth black surface appeared.

Ezarik stepped through it. As soon as he took one look at their surroundings, he frowned.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked.

Cyil threw the scroll and map at his feet.

"I guess you were right," he said.

"What do you mean?" Ezarik asked slowly.

"Read it," Qassot said.

Ezarik slowly picked it up.

After a few moments of silence, he quietly folded up the papers and put them into his clothes.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Azor's castle," Riselus said. "In the basement."

Ezarik's face was strangely calm, but his eyes had started to glow as his magic responded to his anger.

"What's going on?" Riselus asked.

"Azor framed me," Ezarik said, "in order to get creatures to fight me with the gems. He wanted those who wielded the gems to fight the shadow while he woke up the Elder Dragons."

"The Elder Dragons?"

Ezarik's voice dropped to a dangerously low whisper. "Azor wasn't actually trying to protect this place after all."

"Why didn't he just wake up the Elder Dragons in the first place?" Riselus asked.

"He couldn't find them, so he was planning on using the shadow as an excuse to break apart the entire island."

Riselus fell silent. Qassot thought back to the devastated scene outside, where chunks of land floated indiscriminately and chaotically.

"That massive dragon we saw in Ysk Mountain," she said quietly. "The one with ice armor. Was it an Elder Dragon?"

Ezarik drew a sharp breath in through his teeth.

"That… sounds like one."

Qassot let out a snarl unconsciously. If the other Elder Dragons were buried that deep, that would explain why Azor wanted the island to be split apart.

"Can we beat them?" Qassot asked.

Ezarik looked around at the three creatures before delivering his verdict.

"We'll be crushed."

Qassot gritted her teeth. "We need to stop Azor."

"Azor has all the orbs already," Riselus said. "That's the only reason why the island would be like this."

"Not the light orb," Ezarik said quietly. "He hasn't gotten the light orb yet."

"How do you know?" Riselus asked.

"I saw it back on my tetrahedron," Ezarik said, "Azor will probably go there next."

Cyil abruptly pulled a tongue of flame out of his fur and slammed it into the desk. Almost immediately, a flaming ring appeared, setting nearby scrolls and furniture on fire. A portal into the dimensional link. Cyil jumped in without hesitating. The others followed.

They emerged in the middle of a fight between Azor and Aavern.