[Story] Tales of the Risen (11/25/10) -- Chapter 12, one-shot: Of The Heart

[Stygian]

Yip! Very good as usual, Ash! I'll enjoy seeing what troubles the travel brings...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Impressive.

And promises to be fun. :-)

[Aisha deCabre]

((Thar we go, new part    The travel doesn't start until the end though.  I had the idea of a little interlude.  Enjoy.))

Part 8

   The party took their time to become prepared for the journey, in which they would be led by Icharus.  The dragon had described his home to them before, though he had kept saying that mere words could do the sight no justice.

   "It is a canyon, a beauty of a fissure that no other wound in the earth could match.  Clouds and mist gather in the middle, glorious clouds, ripe for our kind to make storms lance and lightning dance..." Icharus said, his voice made almost sing-song toward the last part, though it sounded a little rough as he was reciting in his full dragon form.  Jake rolled his eyes and comfortably adjusted his armor, which only consisted of a light metal cuirass with a special open back designed for his wings and plates worn on his knees, a tunic and light breeches worn underneath.  In lieu of the spear he usually carried while on guard for the monastery, he had a longer and more elaborately-designed halberd.

   Chey came out next, just a little more curious while listening to the dragon.  In her brown and green outfit she looked more like a rogue of some sort, as much clad for stealth as Aisha was.  On her back was strapped a sword with a sheath that was carved straight out of very strong stone, no doubt the blade inside was even more durable.  The succubus never did like armor...she was very much free to shape-shift if the need arose while clad in something very light.  But the sword was something of a good-luck charm to her.

   The dragon's silver eyes swept over the adventurers with appreciation.  "Like knights worthy of the Stormclaw lineage, all are here.  Are we prepared, then?"

   "No," Rynkura said as she came up to them, a solemn look on her face as the point of her staff dug into the earth.  "Aisha is not present.  You must give her a few moments."

   The gryphon's head nodded with understanding, his eyes closing briefly.  Icharus's head tilted, and one of his talons impatiently scratched at the very tip of the soil.  "And where is the girl, then, might I ask?  I remember she used to be very punctual."

   The others gave the dragon an almost unreadable look.  Only Chey's was an all-out glare.  "You should be patient.  On the rare days she returns to the Shadowed Depths, there is always one more thing that she does...and I just let her borrow Tio for it."

   Rynkura nodded slowly, the tigress having an almost sad and reminiscent look in her emerald eyes.  "This hunt like any other could be the last, as any adventurer accepts.  Before she goes off to help restore your family's memory, you would do well to respect that she does the same thing with hers.  So we will wait."  The statement was finished with a final tone that nobody dared argue.

*   *   *

   Aisha heard the Warp-Aci as he hovered around her head, although her gaze was pointed straight at the sight ahead of her.  "You sure you wanna do this now, instead of waiting until we return?"

   "I'm sure," she answered, her voice set like that of someone who was too preoccupied to talk to anyone.  "Wait here for me, por favor.  I won't be long, I promise."

   "'Kay," the little creature simply replied and did another flip in the air, weaving down and looking like he dove straight into the solid surface of a large rock.  In a way, Aisha sensed that Tio didn't really want to linger there for much longer.  Can't blame him, she thought.  Hidden beneath the dark fold of her cloak, one of her hands clenched.

   She was standing on a hill of golden-green grass, in a wide field overlooking a shallow dip in the earth.  It was clear and virtually treeless for quite a few miles behind her, but in front she saw foothills which led into more of the stone mountains and crevices that made one extreme of the valley.  There was a patch of woods extending across the hills above the dip, a blanket of deep green over grass in different shades, depending on how close to the edge it was.

   But in the dip it was very much a different story.

   For a large, circular distance, the grass there was black and grey, charred straight to the soil...in many places there just laid large patches of flat dirt, virtually undisturbed for the time they have been there in the isolated valley.  A few plants had tried to grow in the ashes, but they were still obscured by destruction all around, and it was as if some force was trying to hamper any changes nature would make to it for the better.

   In the circle were the ruins of a small to medium-sized village.  The remains of the gates still stood at the front, ruined beyond all belief though they still kept to the duty of marking the entrance after so many years.  What was once an energetic place, lively and full of voices, was now empty and desolate, marred and erased by the singular event that had taken place there, which Aisha still held so vividly in her memories.  Some charred houses still kept, and some were half-destroyed, their tattered foundations keeping a still mark on the soil.  Some houses were gone altogether, leaving only an imprint of bare ground where once they stood.

   Gone was the little market in the center.  Gone was the welcoming and yet cautious presence.  Gone was the weapon-smith shop that her father had opened.  The training grounds were empty, only a faint whisper of the place where her brother Ayan had proven his own skills many a time, and where she often watched.

   She stood staring at what used to be her home village of Soldeluna for what seemed like a while, before taking a deep breath and stepping down towards it.  The panther wandered silently through the burned gate, and the emptiness opened in front of her with such a force that she often wanted to just close her eyes and get to where she was going.  But she had to pass through the destruction just to do so.

   The quiet was haunting.  In a ghost town, often one would feel the presence of at least a few spirits.  But the wind didn't blow there.  There were no voices, no chills; just emptiness and air to breathe.  Nothing but memories.  Aisha's paws dusted through the clear path that she had walked so many times during her childhood, passing many familiar buildings, now destroyed.  She would halfway expect to see someone familiar waving hello.  Instead, out of one window she saw a blackened projection of bone.  Out of another, some tattered clothing stained with blood.

   The panther controlled the powerful urge to shudder and kept her gaze to the path ahead, which turned out of the village and into a little garden gate that marked the entrance into the woods, near to where the house of the chief once stood.  Without looking back, the smell of ashes still stinging her nostrils, Aisha pushed the ruined gate open and stepped through onto more fertile soil.  It was just as quiet a walk through the woods, though a little further ahead, she caught the sound of a few birds and rustling leaves.  A tiny breeze parted the free strands of her hair.  And then she stepped into the clearing, and the feel of the environment changed completely.

   She was looking at a large portion of the forest cleared completely of any undergrowth.  It was walled off a little with bushes; in fact if one looked closely, it was seen that they were ornate hedges that needed to be trimmed, unknowingly neglected by time.  The only plants that grew there, other than a few flowers on the ground near their roots, were trees.  The boughs intertwined above her head, making the plot a shelter, with few points of light shining through and mottling the ground in dark and light.  The wind picked up here, rustling the leaves above her head and bringing with it sensations of familiarity...presences and maybe even a voice or two if the spirit was strong enough...it wasn't malevolent, but comforting.  She believed it one of the more beautiful places she had ever visited.

   Aisha wandered through and glanced at each of the trees.  Carved in the bark were intricate designs like a picture frame, encasing many different names.  Some families had a tree to themselves, and others shared for one reason or another.  But each of the memorials was just a little different from one another, making it a sort of makeshift graveyard without corpses.  The panthress bypassed them, and her crimson gaze fell on the one she was looking for.  It stood off-center and looked much like the others, though a few of the branches were lower down on the trunk and made for the effect of cloaking one away from the world.

   She approached it and knelt down among the roots, ducking her head from the leaves, and placed her hand on the trunk.  The panther traced the design of the little shrine etched in the bark, and read the few names of the deceased that were on it.

   "Luc Cabre."  Father.

   "Mara Cabre."  Mother.

   "Ayan Cabre."  Brother.

   She could still remember clearly when her village was destroyed.  She had escaped.  Her father didn't.  Mara had died long before...and Ayan had disappeared.  The name was carved among the deceased, though there was the possibility he was alive somewhere.  This was the reason Aisha always came here when she visited the Shadowed Depths...to remember why she was doing all of this adventuring in the first place.  Her eyes narrowed dangerously, a repeated vow of vengeance against the forces that had done the destruction that lay outside of this sanctuary, her palm pressed firmly against the bark as if to emphasize it to the names of those that no longer lived.  Someday...someday.

   It was then that the wind seemed to pick up, the gust rushing across the tree and weaving beneath the branches where she sat.  It caressed her hair, it embraced, and it brought both chills and warmth...and above all, reassurance.  Though all that could really be heard was the wind—all that could be seen was emptiness—it was as if the presence there was just putting words into her head, using her own thoughts.  Aisha couldn't be sure whether it was them, or herself.

   Don't be harsh...te amo...take care...daughter...don't give up...no hay nada temer... (I love you...there is nothing to fear.)

   Here, where the only presence was the deceased spirits of friends and family, in the large forest where they seemed to have made a decision to rest, Aisha found it safe to lower her head and let the tears flow freely, having held them back since she laid eyes on the village.

*   *   *

   Back in front of the monastery, Chey's ears perked, and she stopped idly leaning on Icharus's gargantuan flank.  "Tio contacted me.  They're coming."

   On cue, three other sets of eyes followed her gaze to where the air shimmered.  Aisha stepped out of it like it was a painted wall of liquid, with the Warp Aci bringing the outline of her form back into focus, his tail glowing like a little blue lightning bolt.  The panthress looked up at the others, smirking as she shook her head.  "I'm never going to get used to that.  How do you teleport without feeling a bit weird, Cheyenne?"

   "'Cubi thing, I guess.  That or you Beings are too soft," she smirked back, crossing her arms.  Jake and Rynkura both smiled briefly, though it was hard to tell from the dragon's expression whether or not he was staring with greeting or was just annoyed and still impatient, ready to get on with the trip.  He started to idly pace a little, testing his wings by spreading them to their full length.

   The gryphon laid a hand on Aisha's shoulder.  "Anyway.  We figure you and Chey can ride Icharus there, Isha.  He said that he wouldn't mind."

   The succubus quirked an eyebrow.  "Come on, I have wings."

   He quirked one back.  "And you don't think that might cause suspicion among the enemy 'Cubi?  You're best to stay in hiding."

   Chey rolled her eyes and dismissed Tio for the time being, who was chuckling at her.  "You sound just like one of my teachers."

   Aisha ignored the banter, a little excited at the prospect of riding on the back of a dragon.  She had never flown like that before, and so was also just a little intimidated.  However, the panther was gently jarred from her thoughts from feeling Rynkura's hand on her shoulder.  "Have you made your blessings then, chica?"

   The look that the panther gave in reply to the tigress was one held within as much pain as Rynkura had always seen in the girl when the topic came up, within determination and anger.  But it was quickly replaced when Aisha smirked.  "As always, señora.  You're not coming?"

   The tiger chuckled.  "I'm more prone to wanting to stay here where I may be needed.  You go risk your neck again."  Her face then turned serious.  "But watch your fights.  And please, girl.  Contrary to what you may believe, you have many more reasons to keep living than just to fill a hole in your heart."

   Struck silent, Aisha could only nod briefly, laying her hand on her mentor's shoulder in farewell before turning around towards the rest of the party.

   "Finally ready then, milady?" Icharus inquired before lowering himself to the ground, admitting Aisha up and Chey behind.  Jake took hold of his halberd with both hands, opening his own wings.

   Rynkura heard the slight yelp from Aisha as they took to the air quickly, the dragon making a quick ascent into the clouds where they disappeared from view.

   She clutched her staff tightly, the Healer's hardened expression conveying some deep concern for the girl she considered equal to a daughter.  There is little space on that tree for YOUR name.  Keep it that way.

[Gareeku]

Truely wonderful writing, Aisha. I envy your superior writing skills greatly. I can't wait to see more. ^^

[Tapewolf]

The Aisha-visiting-the-village sequence was beautifully written and very well executed - the sort of thing I'd foul up completely.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Very well done, indeed.

[Aisha deCabre]

(( *Gives everyone an epiphany cookie from the jar for being so nice.*    To the sky!  Er, story.  x3 ))

Part 9

   The monastery was soon left far behind, obscured by the rapidly-moving landscape beneath their feet, and the clouds piling high across the roofs and the tall spire which seemed to penetrate the sky from the ground...but as the adventurers flew, they knew the truth that it was only reaching for the heavens in vain and could never touch it.

   After they had gotten some altitude, Icharus made a turn of haste far from out of the Shadowed Depths, which looked as much like a wound in the earth as any other valley, and headed to the northwest.  His wings continually flapped until he caught a pillar of warm air and could glide higher and higher, with Jake following along behind at intervals of close and far.

   As soon as the gryphon could catch up enough with the storm dragon, he glided up along his left side and smirked at Chey and Aisha, who were hunkered on his back.  "You can open your eyes now," he laughed.

   The panthress did so first, and would have almost fallen off from the shock of the height if the 'Cubi hadn't been holding on to her midsection with her wing tentacles.
  In fact, she was shaking.  "I hate heights, I hate heights..." Chey whimpered.

   "Obviously you haven't climbed trees when you were a kid," Aisha muttered with a small shiver in her voice, clutching the dragon's feathery mane tightly as she allowed her gaze to fall across to the great amount of space between them and the ground, and still they were slowly gaining height.  At one point she had to hold a hand to her nose and blow on it, which kept her ears from popping.

   Soon they were level again, the air smooth and less turbulent, enough that Aisha could let go of the mass of feathers with a sigh, her eyes moving across the virtual plains of white.  The ground was obscured, but barely, a gentle mist of water vapor weaving about like a silk web over the impressive and multi-colored patches of earth, with the forces of nature as the only designers of the artwork.  She turned back to smile at Jake.

   "I'm envying those of you with wings now," she laughed.

   Cheyenne slowly opened her eyes, but kept them higher toward the azure sky.  She was squinting, the sun barely in her vision as it had passed the point of midday.  "Remind me again why we couldn't just walk?"

   This time it was Icharus who laughed, a booming sound that sent vibrations across his back.  "The only way one gets into the canyon is to fly.  My friends, you must feel honored, for no Being shall have seen the interior of our great kingdom without the utmost trust."

   "And gryphons?"  Jake quirked an eyebrow.

   The storm dragon only scoffed slightly, tossing his head as he made another turn toward a very thick gathering of clouds, with small static zaps passing across his horns.  "They taste good."

   This made Jake brake in the air, his dark black and white-blue feathers flying every which-way.  He hovered for a moment, drawing his halberd.  "You had better be kidding."

   "Oh I am," Icharus replied with a bit of snootiness as he kept going, turning his head to roll a large silver eye in his direction.  "For the sentient ones."

   "Need I remind you, dragon, that he can drive that thing in your belly?"  Chey retorted while a couple of her wing tentacles turned slightly sharp and looked as if to jab into his sides.  Jake brandished his weapon in the air right within his sight, as if about to test the idea.

   It was Aisha's loud snarl that stopped the banter.  "Niños, if you don't stop arguing we WILL turn around and go back."

   The others turned to look at her with perplexed looks, but Aisha only gave them a humorous smirk, briefly closing her eyes.  They flew in complete silence for just two seconds, before Cheyenne snickered, and everyone but Icharus burst out laughing.  The dragon scoffed again and tossed his head as they approached the gathering of clouds before them.  "Children, the lot of you."

   "Proud of it," the succubus retorted.

   The rest of the journey went on somewhat smoothly between the four of them, and took only an hour or so (Jake always kept pointing out that it would have been sooner, had they not accidentally flown a little too low and ran into the territory of a giant gryphon...Icharus had apologized to him for his earlier statements after he fended it off).  Possibly, it would have taken them days otherwise to have walked, and though Aisha often liked long trips, it was always a relief when the destination was reached.  For an adventurer, that always depended on what they would soon be facing.

   At one point, Jake grew tired of keeping himself in the air, the thermals disappearing at intervals, and with Icharus's permission he was allowed to rest behind Chey, Aisha at the forefront close to the dragon's neck and keeping her eyes still keen on the vast expanse of sky ahead.  They watched as the land itself dropped into flatter areas of dry plains and meandering streams like slim blue snakes.  They were crossing close to the edges of a rocky desert on one side and a lush forest on the other, separated by a growing crack in the ground, and the clouds were swiftly starting to diminish and dwindle altogether, giving the travelers another grand view of what was only a small part of Furrae.  Their shadow slowly grew on the ground as they started to descend just a little, only to get a closer look.  There were a few settlements and villages scattered along the ridges of the hills, but the countryside far outstretched between them, and most of these places even Aisha was sure that most travelers had never seen before.  Icharus was careful to keep high above the settlements.  The crack in the ground ended, for it was only a small canyon, and Icharus assured them once more that his home was much bigger.

   They were coming toward a line of trees now, an almost impenetrable forest from ground view, and it was at this point that Jake leapt from the dragon's back so that he didn't have to crane his neck to look.  Aisha lowered her head so that Chey could see ahead of them, and as Icharus was flapping his wings again, the panthress grabbed a hold of the neck fur.  Her eyes narrowed across the line of clouds and mist ahead of them that gathered over high mountains, and then seemed to drop straight into a bottomless oblivion

   Then, they passed over those mountains as the line of trees, a virtual wall of green, also dropped down at an almost ninety-degree incline which slowly smoothed out into unseen depths.  Icharus had an unseen smile on his massive jaws as he swiftly rose into the air so that his comrades could get a much closer look at the sight.

   The barrier of clouds and mist dropped straight into the edges of a fissure so large that if it couldn't be seen, it was unimaginable how long it could have been.  The two parts of land were split and kept split until the edge of the horizon and much farther, lush green the predominating color until they could catch glimpses of the inside.  Aisha's crimson eyes widened and her mouth was slightly agape at the grand sight within those glimpses, and both Cheyenne and Jake made audible impressed gasps.

   The canyon dropped into depths of shadow and darkness, almost bottomless were it not for bits of shimmering that looked almost like the stars of the night sky.  Upon closer inspection, they were underground streams passing through open-air caverns whose walls were encrusted with diamonds and who-knows-what-else that were hidden.  The imposing walls of the place had many different levels of colors like deep red to bright yellow and purple winding straight across them, evidence that the canyon was carved out over millions of years by the water that was now left at its feet.

   And inside many parts of those walls, dug out in great niches and built into plateaus whose rocks held the roots of many beautiful plants, were homes.  Not just caverns like dragons often resided in, but real homes, mansions of intricate and fantastic designs and colors that only dragons could come up with.  The others suspected that they were for the smaller kind, or those dragons who liked to use their furre disguises rather than their cumbersome true forms.  All of them looked so lavish; the adventurers couldn't tell which one belonged to Icharus.

   "Kingdom Stormclaw," he said with reverence and pride in his own voice, making a flourish with his wings.  "No more beautiful than if it were not abandoned," he added with a hint of sadness, and then started to rise higher and glide back.  "We cannot be this close."

   With the women on his back yelping slightly at the sudden rush of altitude, Aisha held the strands of hair on the sides of her face back in the wind.  "Why not?

   The dragon's gaze swept over the barrier of clouds that they had come from, which seemed to only get thicker towards the entrance.  "You will see why, Aisha.  Toss your boomerang down into the clouds."

   Tilting her head, but nonetheless curious, she unsheathed her weapon and drew back her arm, letting it fly as hard as she could with a grunt.  The blade arched downward through the clouds, far enough that it would touch them and started to turn back.

   Suddenly, there was a great flash as the clouds turned dark and their interior black almost instantly.  With a roar, two whips of lightning lanced at the metallic weapon from either side and surged through it, making the thing quiver.  As if the lightning itself was sentient, it arched parts out and intertwined to make a cage, electricity still surging, before the magic properties of the weapon caused it to cease.  The dragon swooped, and Aisha called her incantation to call the thing back to her, but the dragon caught it first and absorbed the electricity that it had gathered, before giving it back to her.

   "Had we gone much further, that would have been your flesh charred instantly with electricity, while your body would be held with an inescapable cage," he said with a strange shudder in his otherwise calm voice, "...Until death.  I told you that my home was captured; no doubt it is also fiercely guarded.  This is the magic of the accursed invaders.  The spell would even slice through my own power, it is that strong."

   Aisha's eyes wouldn't waver from the sight as the clouds lightened again, her teeth clenched as she thought of that scenario.  Jake and Cheyenne had that same look on their faces, of horror and repulsion, before the gryphon calmly broke the silence.  "Well, what do you expect us to do, then?  You said the only way in was to fly.

   The dragon craned his head.  "I failed to mention that there is one other way into the fissure.  But I'm afraid, friends, we will have to do so on the ground, and right under the enemy's nose."

   There was a bit of silence, before Cheyenne was the first to groan loudly.  "And I wanted to avoid shape-shifting practice."

   While Jake just shook his feathered head, Aisha was inclined to agree with what they were feeling.  The journey had turned from smooth to rocky in exactly the span of the time it takes for lightning to strike.  And yet, having come this far, it was expected that she wasn't going to just give up.  "Well, if it's under their noses we need to go, then we will," she said with finality in her words.  Almost inaudibly, Chey groaned again.

[Tapewolf]

Nice.  It would be interesting if you could at some point elaborate on the light sources they use in the canyon.  Magic no doubt, but it would take some thought to keep plants growing.

[Gareeku]

As usual, I envy your writing skills. Awesome work once again, hon. ^^

[Aisha deCabre]

Thanks guys. ^^  Actually the light source might just be the sun.  The plants are only growing in the niches of the canyon, not in the deeper, cave-like portions.

Of course, I never said whether the plants were even still alive.   

Anyways, the new chapter is being worked on and will be here soon.  I seem to have misplaced the writing mojo...somewhere...  *looks in the epiphany jar*

[Tapewolf]

Of course, I never said whether the plants were even still alive.   

True, but living in a place packed with dead plants would just be warped   

[Aisha deCabre]

((Well, considering that nobody has lived in the canyon and has taken care of the plants since the dragons were wiped from it...    Anyway.  Next chapter.  Planned to add more, but I figure that can wait until next.))

Part 10

   It took effort to fly across the length of the giant canyon, searching the dense rug of greenery below them to find a good spot to land.  The adventurers meanwhile stole peeks between the holes in the cloudy, invisible storm barrier that had been crafted over the rim with impressive precision.  If this was the first look that they were getting of what the other side was capable of, they all agreed fervently that it was the best idea to go in with more of a plan.

   Even that proved to be a little more difficult to do than to say.  The more impatient ones of the group were already starting to tire before they could start over the perimeter.

   Beyond the furthest, highest cliffs of the canyon on the right side, much of the forest was cut down to make room for a settlement, the rest of the place mostly enclosed with a gate and surrounded by sheltering hills...with the sheer size of the slightly elliptical clearing from the air, it would have been mistaken for a small town instead, extending along the canyon's length for quite a long way.  They saw individuals of many species and few different classes roaming through it, but couldn't get a lock on just how many.  Because they couldn't afford to be spotted, Icharus kept himself hidden in the thickest clouds, and forced to move with them at angles to keep the sun from hitting his form and causing a shadow on the ground.  Such a sight would have most likely scared the innocents below, for it was understood that the dragons were all but decimated from the territory.

   And as expected, they all either appeared to be Beings or mythos.  Any others with wings showing were immediately presumed to be 'Cubi, much to Chey's chagrin.  During the inspecting run, she was hoping to not run into anyone relating to clans she knew from SAIA...or any of her own.  The thylacine succubus didn't even know much about her own clan yet, what they got involved in or how they worked.  All she knew was its name.

       The others were following separate parts of it for mostly their own agenda, or that of the dragon.  Aisha's eyes swept over the settlement, before glancing somewhere past it, where the hills seemed to drop into the horizon with a cleared path leading down into the entrance of a maze of dark caverns.  "What could be going on here I wonder," she muttered.

   "Mining," Icharus hissed back.  "Such greedy beasts have been trying for many a decade to descend into our home, into the depths of the underground caverns for the diamonds there.  We have only allowed the insectis races to make their homes under our soil.  Who knows now if there are any left to protect it?"  It was then that the storm dragon raised his massive head, pointing it towards the edge of the woods that ran between the hills and one side of the fence that bordered the settlement.  "And it is from there that we must enter."

   "Underground?" Both Jake and Aisha suddenly squeaked, though the gryphon's voice was surprisingly in a higher pitch as he carefully landed just behind Chey on the dragon's rump.  "In a maze that you haven't gone through yourself since you fled?" he continued.

   Icharus snorted.  "It is not a far hike, bird-cat.  There is no need to fear being buried alive.  Or the dark."

   Jake tossed his feathered head in a scoff and regained his composure.  "I fear nothing."

   That got a loud snickering noise from the panthress, which just earned her a glare back.  She just quirked an eyebrow and imitated the authoritative voice of Rynkura.  "Tell the truth next time, amigo.  Denial isn't healthy."

   "I don't!" he exploded before taking a deep breath.  "What about you, little Aisha?  Are you comfortable with descending underground?  Away from the fresh and open air?"  The feathers on his wings seemed to ruffle as he said this.

   The pantheress nodded with a smirk, to ease the tension from the words.  "Anything for the mission.  And for the gods' sakes, stop calling me 'little'.  I must have gotten out of that by now, being old enough to kill."

   Cheyenne had snapped out of her train of thought long enough to catch the conversation, and she laughed over at Jake.  "It's no big deal to get some dirt in your feathers."

   He only shook his head in reply as the dragon kept to the clouds, slowly but surely moving towards the edge of the woods.  Once they figured that they were out of anyone's line of sight, he made his move.  Nobody in the encampment suspected that a vengeful dragon and a small group of adventurers bound to his cause were taking the first step to infiltrating them.

*    *    *    *

   "Okay...we have disguises?" Icharus queried, having reverted back to his eagle-being disguise and placing the royal vest he wore in his pack, leaving nothing to signify a lineage of dragon nobility but a higher-than-thou air about him.

   "Check," Jake answered with a bit of gruff impatience in his tone.  He was insistent on wearing his armor for the charade, though it was hard to get everyone else off of his case with how it might arouse suspicion among the settlement.  Aisha had no more need for a disguise than to just pull the cowl back over her head, and was careful to keep her boomerang concealed.

   As for Cheyenne, she had hesitantly given her sword to Icharus for the time being.  Her sets of wings were formed fully.  She, as the others, looked anxiously from the edge of the forest over to the front gates of the settlement.  The surrounding wall looked higher than once thought from ground level, which made it discomforting to know that if they were to be caught, there was little hope of escape.  And yet they had to walk straight through...

   Icharus broke the silence again.  "Miss Cheyenne...how long is it going to take your little servant to root things out?"

   She opened her mouth to answer, but then Tio reappeared in midair with a flash of bright sapphire blue, doing a little twirl and landing on Chey's head.  "Not long at all, thank you very much," he primly replied to the dragon in a whimsical tone.  "And there are definitely other 'Cubi.  I heard there were more than five different clans, but I only found one from Cyra, and one of Ha'ram and Mraisae."

   The succubus made a brief shudder, but regained herself and sighed with recognition. "Cyra...not surprising that at least one of them would be involved.  Okay, we all need mind shields."  Her fingertips started to glow a little white.  "Who's first?"

   "I don't need one," Aisha stated with some confidence as she leaned against a tree, observing the conversation while the girl worked to quickly place them on the men.  "'Cubi have nothing to fear or gain from me."

   Cheyenne gave her a look that was not unlike an annoyed teacher to an ignorant student, but with a joking tone.  "And here I thought you had respect for my race," she snorted.  "You can't underestimate them."

   "Oh, I know," she replied, standing upright.  "Nor can you underestimate me.  Besides, I'm also careful enough.  A few stray thoughts and none of them will suspect that anyone has a mind shield.  And start to wonder where it might have come from."  Her eyebrow quirked.  "Am I wrong or right, Chey?"

   Before the girl could answer, Jake cut in.  "Whichever you are, a tactic is still a tactic.  Let's just get it over with."

   Cheyenne just made an uneasy laugh and a non-argumentative shrug.  "Don't get us killed, Aish."  With that, she started to focus on disguising herself.  The stripes on her back disappeared entirely, and both sets of wings morphed slowly into their respective places, turning white as they went until the color drenched her form completely, making her look like an albino canine of some sort, complete with eyes a shade of light pink.  "There we go.  For a touch of weakness, I'll even have an eye problem."  Tio couldn't help but giggle along with her before he was dismissed.

   "Your skills are getting flashier, Chey," Aisha rolled her eyes.  There were times she still couldn't get used to watching that kind of skill demonstrated.  But it gave her more knowledge on the subject each time, and more awareness.  Maybe I shouldn't seem so confident.

   "Let us press on then," Icharus finally said, gathering everyone in the group behind him as they started on the path.  Each had a silent look in their eyes as they gazed at the next obstacle before them, and behind those eyes there echoed simultaneous prayers of luck.

[Tapewolf]

Short, but kind of sweet.  I guess that's getting it in place for the actual ingress, in the next chapter, hmm?

[Aisha deCabre]

Yeah, I've most of it thought out, and still keep getting new ideas.  Anyway I've been a little lazy with writing.

There shall be no rush!  Rushing is evil!   

[Aisha deCabre]

((And now, forgive the double-post, but thar be a new part.    Also I've changed the thread title to just "Tales of the Risen"...it will apply to the stories I put here.  And thus I've given this one a name.  So, enjoy, and I hope it's good.  I wanted to rush this part and just get into the mine already.  Details...  XD ))

Part 11

   "Halt."

   As expected, the party was stopped at the gates immediately.  The guards, a couple of mythos by their reptilian looks with two glaring sets of eyes each, and the fact that one of them hissed slightly, turned their helmet-shadowed gaze to the group before them with their tone of authority.

   They stopped immediately, harboring innocent and downcast looks, feigning exhaustion; it was a look that they truly had at least once in their daily lives and so could master easily...the look of travelers that had been walking for a long time.  The pearlescent canine with them, staring blankly and near-blindly ahead with bright rose-colored eyes, even looked a little starved.  Only the armored gryphon seemed more resilient, and the cloaked figure behind him paid little notice but silence.  It was the bird who spoke up.

   "Good sirs, we are but tired and lonely travelers," he said with a polite bow that seemed to be more of a flourish with his silver wings.  "We seek a little shelter in your settlement.  Perhaps to buy a few more supplies as well.  And do not be concerned by our comrades.  The gryphon is our bodyguard."

   Aisha smirked under the shadow of her hood.  The disguised dragon was somewhat overdramatic, though still a good enough actor.

   The look on the faces of the guards were grimaces of suspicion, especially still towards the armored gryphon and the secretive girl, though she looked little of a threat.  And the blind one only looked as helpless, but curious.  Still, trained as they were, they weren't about to give into things so easily.  That, the panthress knew...she tried to keep her hand away from her belt; the boomerang was tucked further back so that from any angle nothing appeared that would give her away.

   Finally, one of them gave a curt nod and ordered the gates to be open.  "Should we see any trouble, travelers, be warned that apprehension will be swift."

   The avian came out of his bow with a grin on his face.  "We shall keep that in mind as one of the many thanks we owe for our entrance.  Come then, comrades.  And keep your pet in tow, gryphon."

   There was a snort from Jake as he took Chey's hand and led her across the threshold to the settlement, with Aisha as the last to enter.  She made no eye contact with either guard, but she did feel a twinge in the back of her head, to which she only replied with a vision of black.

*    *    *

   A little bit past the gates, Chey cast a slight glare toward Icharus and spoke with a harsh whisper.  "'Keep your pet in tow'?"

   He only grinned.  "I could not resist.  T'was part of my act and part of my character, to which I could never keep a lying tongue.  And besides, you stay close enough to the gryphon to be considered that way easily."

   The disguised succubus was silenced with a blush, but this time Jake spoke up, lightly swishing the blade of his halberd through the air as he followed with them.  "You won't refer to her like that again.  Must your 'character' still be a snooty, spoiled nose-in-the-air?"

   "If you insist on following me so silently, like servants, then yes," Icharus answered with a bit of a hiss, his silvery glance turning serious again as he turned outward to the path, where towards the central market and the residential sectors they were approaching a small crowd.  "Now hold your tongues."

   "I'll have your tongue if you don't shut up either..." Aisha muttered while keeping up.

   The walk through the settlement was a little more encouraging for the group.  Once they mingled in with the crowd, only a few strange glances were cast their way.  As the cowl hid her gaze, Aisha's eyes were free to glance back, scanning for anything strange...yet other than sets of wings, extra sets of eyes or appendages, and some easily-seen clan markings, the people in the village were nothing short of normal.  In turn the party was seen as nothing more than a few strangers who weren't worth anything to fight about.

   So they did their best to keep to the path, ignoring the fact that the high wall overlooking the town was like a barricade against the outside world...strangely fit for keeping creatures with the size and strength of a dragon out of it, while keeping its inhabitants in a state where their only fear comes from the sky.  They moved further and further away from the entrance, and the gates had already closed behind them.  The point of no return had been made.

   The party did manage to keep their thoughts away from the disconcerting elements of the settlement as the path wound a little higher uphill.  In the central square there were plenty of little markets selling things that ranged from trinkets they heard were mined straight from the caverns, to food perfectly fit for any Creature or Being.  Aisha refilled her water skin, Jake browsed some of the weaponry, and Chey only followed along with either of them.  Rolling his eyes from a distance, Icharus kept them moving until eventually they overheard where the mining station was.

   The group didn't waste any time coming back together again.  They blended into what was left of the crowd, until more buildings densely loomed into view, where they could easily slip into the shadows behind them and keep their backs to the wall.  They followed the line of it until they saw a path leading upward into the hills, beyond the closely-guarded back gate.  They needn't have confronted those keeping watch, though.  It was only a matter of careful flying, leaping, and teleporting.  None of the citizens noticed that anyone had left.

   Finally, they were able to get on the trail, and breathe a short sigh of relief for the time being.  "Something tells me that was the easy part," Aisha said, pulling her hood back just a little.

   "Nothing's gonna be easy these days," Jake replied, shaking his head and scratching the back of his neck to relieve some kind of tension.  It was easy to tell he was not at all comfortable with the thought of the mines still.  "We must just keep our heads on."

   Despite the atmosphere, Cheyenne grinned.  "I think Aish and I can do that a little better than you guys can on that point.  Jake has his little fear, and Icharus...well..."

   Icharus paused and glanced back.  "Is that a challenge I hear?"  He turned around fully against them.  "Do you think that I cannot keep my focus because this is the very honor of my family we are dealing with?"

   Jake gave the dragon a light punch in the shoulder.  "It's not all about you."  He chuckled and glanced at the two women behind them.  "We'll see who keeps their sanity the longest."

   Aisha had little to add to the end of the conversation but an impatient shake of her head.  "I'd rather we stop this banter and get going. Vamos."

   We will never see within inches of the canyon at this rate.
   
   It wasn't much of a hike up into the denser parts on the edge of the wooded area, where there they could discreetly move through the shadows of trees.  The wall was left behind and below them long after reaching a certain point.  They hid carefully amidst boughs, branches, and boulders, silent and still before coming upon the great sight they caught from the air only a few hours ago.

   The path from the settlement where people were hiking, as they turned out to be workers coming from in and out of the mines, led straight into a deep bowl in the earth where towards the horizon they could see a part of the canyon's drop-off.  There were warning signs posted everywhere in the perimeter, and the heavy smell of wet earth permeated past them.  Aisha thought that she could even smell pure water from the general direction of the cavern nearest their position.

   She looked questioningly at the dragon-turned-eagle, but his laser-focused eyes were concentrated ahead with a look that the panthress was certain she knew...determination, uncertainty, and anger.  The others mirrored that look; yet like herself they were only but followers and aid to the dragon's will.  Only he knew what lay inside the cavernous and foreboding underground passageways.

   "How the heck are we gonna get past them?  The caves are guarded," Cheyenne finally said, breaking the silence.

   "Way to state the obvious, chica," Aisha muttered.  "Must be some way."  Then, her eyes widened.  "Could Tio...?"

   "Nuh-uh," the disguised succubus interrupted.  "Only if he saw the inside of the place first.  And we can't just send him there...there's other 'Cubi.  Maybe some magic-detection."

   "As sophisticated as you might get.  Even invisible force fields on the entrances," Icharus agreed, forlornly.  "Perhaps even the same style as disposal as the magic field over the canyon itself.  Shock and instant death...or shock and paralysis...intruders are shown no mercy."

   Jake gave him an incredulous look, following with the others.  "You know our opposition well.  So what do you suppose we do?"

   The dragon just smiled, and his eyes swept over them.  "I've had an idea.  But it's a drastic one."

*     *     *

   Within the mining settlement, it would have proven to be as normal a day as any.  There were the workers, selectively dispelling the magic barriers over the cavern's many entrances so that they could keep hauling soil and rocks back and forth from deep within.  Sometimes there was an accident or two...like a tired miner forgetting to turn off the barrier only to have fallen to the ground, paralyzed from head to toe and smelling of burned flesh and fur.  It seemed that the thought hadn't come up to hire many healers for such occasions, so the invalids were carried off to an often-occupied tent somewhere off.

   The overseer sighed with boredom and peered from the hill he was standing on, which offered a grand view of the town some distance below.  He was leaning on a wooden post, already tired himself, and really just wanting to eat something.  If nothing more exciting was going to happen...

   Then suddenly, a shrill cry pierced the air.  It was something between a screech and a roar, high in pitch and sounding like it was coming ever closer.  The scream was amplified almost three times over, as if there was more than one of them.  And the amplification came straight from the sky.

   "What the hell...?" he snarled and turned his eyes upward.  There was nothing in the sky as far as he could see.  And yet still the sounds grew louder, and more shrill, to the point of giving those sensitive of hearing a headache.  Some of the workers were already either retreating into the mines or down the hill, away from the noises, those that had recognized them as being a gryphon battle cry.  In the frenzy, a few more workers had forgotten to dispel the barriers before entering them.

   Before the overseer could retreat, though, he was stopped in his tracks.  One of said gryphons had landed in front of him, a sentient, and clad in silver-black feathers blending into a white stomach.  The wings were flared in a posture of defense almost akin to his feral brethren, though his hand tightly gripped a pole weapon with an intricate blade on the end.

   His look however, instead of threatening, held urgency.  "You must scatter.  Now!"   

   The panicked miner looked as if not to argue with the gryphon, but he was suspicious just the same.  "Why should we?"  He growled, his hand gripping the handle of a dagger strapped to his side.  "What's going on?"

   In haste, the gryphon's wings flapped, reacting to the sounds of closer screeching.  "Because the gryphons have declared to seek the blood of the dragons in vengeance for preying upon them, and scan the canyon for survivors they hear live.  My brethren are in force.  See how their shadows race the clouds!"

   Right on cue, the screeching was accompanied by the menacing silhouettes on the gathering dark clouds, a projection of gryphons coming in many sizes.

   "Dragons...?" the overseer murmured, his eyes suddenly wide.  "But, what dragons?"

   The avian in front of him only narrowed his own eyes, glaring with all of the seriousness he could muster from within.  "You want to stay to find out?  We will be landing here.  Pity is upon the Creatures and Beings who cannot escape the jaws of a hungry giant one.  We are only but passing through in scouting and will not stay for long."  He straightened up.  "So I suggest you clear the grounds.  It would be a lot less troublesome to do so."

   "He's right, sir!" one of the workers shouted while coming up, panting from the effort of rushing.  "Our tracers picked up movement in the clouds.  Lots of it."

   Despite the argumentative look, the overseer paused, and then let his hand fall from the dagger to give a curt nod.  "Out of here."  Nothing more said, he gathered himself and quickly took to the other side of the hill.  With the amplified war-like calls, and coaxing by the gryphon, it took no time at all for the bowl to become utterly deserted.

   It was kept up until one of his feathered ears perked to the sound of a "Psssst!" coming from inside one of the caverns that he made a subtle signal to the air.

   In the corner of vision kept by any curious onlookers who were left, there was a flash of blue.  The screeching gradually slowed, and then stopped entirely.  Cautiously, they poked their heads over the hill.

   The gryphon was gone...with no traces of evidence that any others had been there.

   By the time the illusion was fully dispelled, the members of the group had each gotten into the mines, with Jake as the last one to be brought in by Tio.  The Warp-Aci floated to the ground, exhausted.  Chey was back to herself and caught him.

   Aisha smirked and lightly applauded.  "Beautiful acting, Jake."

   The gryphon bowed.  "Many thanks, milady, but it couldn't have been done without Icharus and his marvelous illusion work."

   In reply, the dragon only rolled his eyes.  "Time-consuming, I say...we could have done without the noise.  Enough with the compliments.  Should we be here any longer we would be dead by the dawn."

[Tapewolf]

"Burnt fur" would also be a prominent smell, I would think.  Aside from that minor point, good work.

[Gareeku]

Awesome writing as usual, Aisha. ^^ I look forward forward to seeing the next chapter

[Aisha deCabre]

((Thank you all.  I'm glad to be recieving such feedback. ^^  Now, on with the travels.))

Part 12

   At first the mine was confusing to navigate.  The pathway was illuminated by dim lanterns and the quiet atmosphere looked all the same down each corridor that the avian led them through.  It was like walking forever across a foreboding, silent and plain hallway that had no end in sight, with the entrance left long behind and blanketed in thin sheets of darkness.  The tool-chipped rock faces, the slightly low ceilings, the boulders, and the strings upon strings of orange flickering lights...it was too easy to move around in circles with the repetitiveness they saw.

   And yet Icharus never looked as if he was going wrong.  Intense and focused, the avian and the party moved effortlessly through the corridors he chose, not even glancing towards those that they passed.  The only changing sensation the adventurers felt was that of gravity pushing on their backs.  They were descending further underground.

   The gryphon was gathering tension from that fact.  He broke the silence after a few long and winding moments staring up at the solid rock and soil ceiling...which seemed to only be getting lower and lower.  "Stormclaw, how sure are you that we won't be followed?"

   A grin appeared on his avian features.  "I recharged their lightning barriers with something a little stronger as you distracted them.  It may take them a few moments to figure out how to dispel it.  By which time, we will no longer be in this mine."

   "And how is that?" Aisha piped up this time, walking with her arms crossed.  With as much aversion to being underground as anyone else had, it was easy to see she was restless.  Still, the felid kept discomfort at bay with curiosity.

   "I thought the only entrance to the mine was what we just came in..." Cheyenne added nervously.  She had morphed her large back wings into her striped spine, feeling that the cumbersome appendages only added to the feeling of the clustered atmosphere.  The young healer walked between Aisha and Jake, most comfortable between the two adventurers.

   Icharus kept walking with his wing-hands behind his back.  "This mine is extensive.  However, you will find that walking through it only leads you in rough circles before taking you back toward the entrance."  He continued to speak, but stopped in front of another narrow passage, which seemed to just really lead into the wall.  Icharus moved through, motioning for them to follow.  "But the dragons...watch your bulk through here, Sir Jake...the dragons have many secrets."

   Eager to see what he meant, the party wove in a straight line through the tunnel, still brightly lit until a turn brought them to a niche which led further down into what looked to be a darkened dead end.  The only other exit was a hole in the wide wall, an outcropping on the other side overlooking an unending pit of darkness the likes of which could turn anyone away from trying to jump.  They heard a gentle trickling on the other side, suggesting a cavern stream below as a source of a misty fresh water scent.

   Without a second thought, the avian leaped into the darkness, much to the surprise of the party.  They clustered around the edge, but heard a splash soon after he jumped.  His voice echoed from below.  "Someone light the passage.  And be prepared to get your legs wet."

   "Is he crazy?" Chey whispered with a grimace.  "I'm not jumping off that."

   "Coward..." Aisha snorted jokingly and stepped forward, the next one to leap off the edge and into the darkness.  Her legs were bunched in preparation for the landing, instantly feeling the cold sensation knee-deep water.  She looked back up at them, where the remaining light looked like a circular orb through which she could see her comrades' faces.  "If I'm alright, then you will be too," she called back.

   Icharus snickered from somewhere ahead of her.  "They trust you more than they do me?"

   The panthress heard splashing behind her that denoted the arrival of her friends.  In the dim glow of the magic firelight produced by Chey, her eyes shimmered dark crimson in a replied smirk.  "I'm not the one leading them through a godforsaken black tunnel."

   There was a pause, and then he bowed.  "Fair enough then, milady.  Follow me over here, everyone."

   Carefully they traversed the stream, led by Cheyenne's light and Tio's combined glowing as the little Warp-Aci formed in mid-air and glided past everyone's heads.  They were in a small alcove in the mine, darkened and moist with water softly trickling down the sides of the dome-like structure of rock.  This place too seemed like a dead end.  The only other defining feature was a point where a smooth portion of stone jutted out from the wall.

   It was there that Icharus stopped and turned to the group with the air of a proud master of ceremonies.  "No doubt the miners have found this place, even with the illusory darkness concealing it.  Yet still they have found nothing of value here and wandered deeper, never to return."  He grinned and put his left hand behind him on the rock.  "That is one secret.  Misleading appearances.  The other is related: well-placed magic."

   Suddenly, his hand erupted in a crackling white glow, casting the alcove and the trickling water in shining brilliance around the stunned adventurers.  On the rock before them, runes in a language that only dragons could have created flashed and disappeared in random patterns, a surge of electricity flowing over the wet stone and into the cracks.  It passed over the dome above them, but never seemed to touch the floor.

   "For Stormclaw..." he muttered in a voice that also seemed to crackle with static and pulled his palm away from the surface, causing the rock face to calm and the cavern to darken once more.  The crackling fell into silence and peacefully trickling water.

   They party glanced around them for a moment before turning back to the dragon questioningly.  "What'd you do?" Jake inquired.

   Icharus only held up his feathered arm for silence, looking down the corridor that went past the alcove.  Then, in a flash of brilliance, the ceiling of the hall illuminated in tiny pinpoints of light similar to stars in the night sky.  Minute crystals of several different colors embedded in the rock made a guiding path for the party into deeper darkness.

   He laughed and turned back to them.  "I simply rang the doorbell."

*     *     *     *

   As they traversed through the corridor, treading down the length of the stream and following the points of light, the ceiling seemed to become higher and the cavern more spacious.  No longer did they need the fire spell to guide them into the darkness, for even the crystals themselves provided enough for those with eyes sensitive to the shadows to see every detail of the labyrinthine passages.

   The rocks were becoming less like bare surfaces and were filling with their own life.  Sometimes the lights even seemed to move when glowworms passed over them.  Bits of moss, nourished by the magic held in the luminous crystals and the water, grew in small patches in some places.  Much of it had died however, no longer carrying on as they should have since the dragons were decimated and their caretakers gone.  It was only a guess as to how long this single portion of the tunnels lasted before Icharus brought light back with his electrical surge.  Looking across the sight, the dragon held a sad and faraway look.

   The others kept solemn in the surroundings.  It was all natural limestone within, descending deeper and deeper into the earth.  They passed teeth of solidified minerals and columns higher than they could discern.  Crystals were no longer on the roof, but guided the travelers by keeping upon the walls.  Even underground, gone was the feeling of claustrophobia setting into their heads, replaced with spacious halls so elaborately decorated both by nature and by the hands of its caretakers that they resembled those of a palace.  Their breaths were stilled, as if they were afraid to disturb the sanctity of the abandoned place.

   "This was the 'backyard' of the insectis who lived here, so to speak," the dragon started.  "I think it used to be that only they would move in and out of the canyon via this place, before we could."

   "Where are they now?" Aisha asked, her eyes having not moved once from the staggering size and features of the corridor.

   Icharus only shook his feathered head, hiding a look of complete thought.  "I haven't the faintest.  But they are a smart race, I am sure they would have escaped to somewhere befitting.  Ah, here," he said, stopping in front of a large wall that stopped their walk at yet another dead end.  The exception was a very long drop to their right into the unknown traversed by the stream, turning it into a gentle waterfall cascading below their feet.

   "The last door," he continued with a sigh, placing a palm to the circular niches in the rock.  "And then we will be right within the canyon.  But a fair hike up to the family catacombs and treasury."

    "Finally," Jake muttered, his wings fluttering just the slightest bit.  "No offense to the insectis.  But even if their cavern mimics open air, there is nothing underground that will duplicate it."

   Aisha and Cheyenne laughed softly in agreement, watching with stilled fascination as the dragon wet his hands in the stream and pressed them to the wall with a hard crackling noise into the niches.  The outline of the door glowed within the rocks, but it took a little bit of effort to budge it loose.

   The panthress however had diverted her attention to another point, quirking her ear upon hearing something strange and faint.  This sounded nothing like water, rock, or electricity.  This sounded more like scuffling.

   Cheyenne's ears perked just a moment after Aisha had turned her head behind her.  "You hear that too?" she whispered.

   "Sí," she answered softly and cleared her throat to gain attention, just as Icharus had finally opened the door.  "Jake?  I think the insectis are offended."

   Her point was only furthered when the scuffling became louder.

[Tapewolf]

Nice.  My only negative comment is that the dragons seem to have done a pretty amateurish job of concealing their secret hideout considering what they could do.  I'd go into more detail but it would be a spoiler for some of my stuff 

[Gareeku]

Sorry that we're not all masterminds of concealment.

Excellent writing once again, Aisha. I look forward to reading the next chapter. ^^

[Tapewolf]

Sorry that we're not all masterminds of concealment.

She may well already have thought of it.  After all, it's not like there aren't already other references to the kind of stuff I'm thinking of in the strip and the demonology.  I guess we won't know for sure until we find out what the tunnel connects to...

[Aisha deCabre]

Thank y'all for the comments, as usual, all are appreciated. ^^

It was more like the insectis secret hideout.  Considering the canyon--the dragon's true home--is not exactly a secret, they only needed to conceal the secret pathway.    Which I hope I did well.  Even those with similar abilities to the storm dragons can't unlock doors made from the runes of their magic.

And if you're thinking of hiding the canyon itself, mind you that might take a lot of power.     At least I think.  My aim here is to not make the dragons as powerful as people seem to think.

[Aisha deCabre]

((Finally, after a bit of writer's block, a new chapter.  Again I don't think it's going to be a very good one, but it moves the story along some.  ^^;  I have an idea as to how to progress with the plot next chapter as well.    ))

Part 13

   The dragon only paused in his work for a few heartbeats, his feathered limbs crackling with clear electrical pulses.  His hearing was not nearly as good in his disguise as it was in his true form, and therefore had to trust the adventurers standing nearby.  The runic letters that flashed beneath his fingertips froze in front of the massive rock formation as he paused in unlocking the seal and suddenly turned his head over his shoulder to regard Aisha.  "What was that about insectis?"

   The panther however had her boomerang out and was too focused on the other sounds, the kind that seemed to crawl up your back in an otherwise quiet and dark room.  Something scuffled and scurried in an out of hearing range...many somethings, in fact.  The shadows of the room also seemed to shift if one looked closely enough, giving a quick outline on the walls and in the crawlspaces before the scuffling sounds started again...on and off...in and out...

   Jake had his halberd raised just slightly, and his composure was as frozen as a statue.  Chey's wings began to materialize into tentacle blades from her back, though from the look on her face it just looked like a fear reflex.  As for Aisha, her head slowly swiveled back and caught Icharus's eye.  "How far are you with budging that stone?"

   The dragon grimaced and turned back to his work, fingers tracing over the invisible runic icons embedded in the barrier in a rapid typing motion.  "I'm almost there.  I seem to have hit a snag."

   A sudden noise...in the far corner of the cavern, a rock fell into the abyssal waterfall and made a very audible splash.  The lights in the cavern started to dim and flash off, lengthening the shadows.  It made Chey jump and Aisha swerve with an almost frustrated snarl...she didn't like not being able to sense whatever was happening.  "Hurry it up then!" she hissed with urgency.

   The dragon snorted at the action of being ordered around and pulled his hands away from the stone, instead crossing his arms.  "I'm not doing anything more until the lot of you tells me what's going on back there."

   Louder scrabbling...more rocks falling...more shadows moving...

   "No time, Ick!" Jake spat and stepped up beside Aisha in a defense stance.

   Angered, the dragon stood up.  "Do I need to shock all of you for—ACK!"  Suddenly he was dragged back to the ground again, with one pair of clawed appendages holding his shoulders still and an upper pair at his throat.

   With a loud symphonic hiss similar in pitch and length to cicada calls, the shadows surged and crawled forward, revealing the creatures that had been behind the dark veil of the cavern's corners.  The others backed against one another...as they did, the lights of the crystals embedded in the walls illuminated to reveal the insectis tribe, creatures with armor-plated skin of various brown and black shades to perfectly blend with the rock.  Their antennae swept over their heads like monstrous bullwhips, some long enough to reach past their feet.  Mandibles clacked together and emotionless, glowing compound eyes regarded the adventurers before them with what looked like instinctual hunger.  Their forms were something like overgrown crickets with slimmer proportions like ants.

   And finally, they outnumbered the adventurers seven to one.  The stunned individuals froze, wondering what to do, how to attack...or if the tribe was even hostile.  Aisha had never heard much of the insectis...only that they were dangerous if their territory was crossed.

   Suddenly, Icharus's voice cut through the melee of hissing.  "Don't attack them!"

   "To which side are you giving the order?" Aisha replied dryly as a couple of the insectis advanced on them.

   "Trust me!  Don't--!" he started again before a clawed hand was clamped across his beak.

   The creatures formed a tight circle around them, brandishing claws and spiked arms with amusement at the soft-fleshed adventurers that dared enter their territory.  They only laughed when Jake thrust his spear out and demanded, "What do you want?"

   "They comesss through our tunnelsss, and they assssk what we want...heeeheee!" a few of them spurted out in unison, causing a ripple of shrill laughter to pass through the crowd.

   The large one holding Icharus prisoner hoisted the struggling avian up as effortlessly as if he were a rag doll.  "Letsss pluck all of thisss one'sssss feathersss!"

   "Thisss one too," another one clicked as Jake swatted away efforts at grabbing his wing.

   Aisha soon had enough of waiting as if in fear.  "Chey, get as many of them as you can!"  She raised her boomerang to toss at the one holding the dragon.  "Let him g—ack!"  The panthress hadn't taken more than two steps before she was yanked to the ground by her cape, the weapon simultaneously pried from her grip.

   "A shiny on thisss one!" a few of the Insectis laughed and tried to reach for the panther's tail ring, though her tail swished defiantly out of the way and her elbow and foot respectively planted themselves forcefully into the creature's mandibles.  Behind her, Chey whipped out with her tentacles while trying to remember out loud which spells to cast in such situations.  Jake's wings were like a whirlwind of air, his pole blade sweeping in front of him in a deadly arc.  It kept the creatures at bay, but not by much.

   Their whining and hissing language grew louder when finally, Icharus released himself by sending a fierce shock through the body of his captor.  The ends of his feathers crackled as he held his hands against the group threateningly.  "Damn it, by the order of Stormclaw I demand you HALT!"

   "Stormclaw!" A voice from above hissed in recognition, its owner dropping to the ground among the adventurers.  Suddenly, the army's emotionless eyes turned to the individual and halted their advances.  The large insectis looked to the avian with incredulism shown in his voice, with a vocabulary more articulate than that of his peers.  He wore an ornate collar of jewels about his neck and flawless bracelets of diamond about his four wrists, obviously a creature of some status in his society.  "The dragons are dead," he answered Icharus back with a bit of a growl.

   His feathers bunched in response, a gesture of supreme annoyance.  His fierce glare made him look as if he eyed the insectis like prey.  "All but me, Chn'krn'truk," he countered, pronouncing his name with pinpoint accuracy (much to everyone's surprise).  "Your lights did not flash on by themselves, and if I were of another lowly race I would not have surpassed the passage's illusory field."

   "Lowly race this..." Aisha muttered, still lying on the floor.  Jake and Chey grunted in agreement; Icharus failed to notice the chagrin of his comrades and waited for the insectis to reply to his reasoning.

   Chn'krn'truk murred in thought while staring blankly at the disguised dragon, and idly caressed one of his antennae with a claw.  "True, the lights have not been activated for years...but still how do you expect us to take your word so easily?  Outsiders have your power.  And strangers such as these were never allowed through the tunnel!"  He gestured to the group of adventurers, all still held at bay by his minions.

   Icharus only stood frozen for a moment, flexing the fingers of his palms and ruffling the feathers on his arms as he did so.  One could swear that the room had started to fill with an electrical feeling, like static was creeping all over one's body and tingling the skin under their fur.  His silver eyes slowly started to glow an almost shining white.  "Outsiders wouldn't have known your name, you simplistic bug..." he growled.

   Suddenly, he threw himself upon his hands and knees, lightning crackling over his form.  The feathers on his arms grew and so too did his body and neck, turning his features from avian to reptilian at a rapid enough pace that soon everyone was forced to move out of his way in fear.  Claws erupted from his hind legs and dug into the earth as he hoisted himself up, a full dragon looking down upon a flabbergasted Chn'krn'truk.  Electricity even crackled from between his jaws as he spoke in a hiss more impressive than a horde of insectis twice the size of his army could make.  The others could do or say nothing to this scene but to hope that the dragon knew what he was doing.

   "And no 'outsider' has done this, now have they?"  His jaws snapped.  "Do you believe me now?  You speak to Icharus Stormclaw, and you stand in the path of my family's honor.  And as long as one of us still lives, your tribe is still indebted to our services!"  His eyes narrowed.

   At this point, the horde of insectis backed away with meager hisses and chirps, some of them running back into the shadows now that they were facing the gargantuan beast.  Only their leader didn't move an inch from his spot, nervously kneading his claws together.  "M-my apologies, milord..." he chirped.  "But...certainly you can't be letting this bunch into your domain...?"

   The dragon's head lifted to regard his friends, each of whom had a different expression.  Aisha had her arms crossed, a glare of annoyance crossing her face at the insectis's arrogance.  Jake's wings were drawn in with an indignant posture, and Cheyenne was peering from behind him, looking conflicted as to choose between emotions of fear and frustration to show.

   "You doubt my intentions?"  The dragon snarled, his voice no longer crackling as he turned back to face Chn'krn'truk.  "They are under my heed to accompany me.  Should any harm have come to them in this skirmish, I would have personally seen to their retribution."  His head reared back and fired a ball of lightning to the ceiling, illuminating the room and causing any remaining minions to flee further into their niches.  With a snarl, he leaned forward to stare the insectis into his eyes.  "And to avoid my executing that fate now, you will take my last order.  Succeed, and your clan shall henceforth be freed from our services."

   The far walls of the cavern seemed to come alive then with buzzes of excitement and interest.  Chn'krn'truk even did a little hop in surprise.  "F-freed...?"

   "I didn't stutter, bug.  Freed.  As proof of my claim, something that all of you have coveted in return for having guarded our underground treasures and pathway."  He raised one of his wings and pulled a feather out of it with his jaw, a shining white and silvery appendage about the same height as the insectis himself.  He dropped it at Chn'krn'truk's feet.

   Needless to say, he was speechless, staring at the thing with fervent interest and greed.  His claw even shook as he reached out to touch it, as if it was too sacred or priceless to do so.  "Y...your..."

   "A feather from the wing of a storm dragon," he finished, shrinking back into his avian form and regarding the insectis with a calm look after having done so.  "From the last of the clan, as well; a priceless treasure.  And there is more to come once you finish your final task."

   His compound eyes seemed to gleam in response.  "Yes, of course!  What do you want?"

   With a dumbfounded group looking on as the dragon explained his situation, finally he was allowed to finish decoding the spell holding the rock in place.

   The runes flashed once and then disappeared, causing the rock to vanish altogether with a great rumble and the barrier to fall, leading into what looked like a very dense, dark rainforest beyond.  Heavy scents of plants and flowers wafted into the cavern, adding to that of misty, clear water.

   With a farewell wave to the insectis leader, who didn't seem to notice anyway as he carried the feather back into the gloom, the group stepped into the encompassing barrier of leaves, essentially stepping out of a cleverly-hidden hole in the ground in which the cavern lay beyond.  Icharus lay an electric barrier over the entrance just for safety, then started forward.

   Aisha ran to catch up with him.  "Wait a minute, dirigente (leader)..." she quirked an eyebrow.  "A highly socialized and rallied group of intimidating creatures answer to the storm dragons...for feathers?"

   Icharus grinned, amused with himself.  "Simple minds, simple wishes, milady."

   "And that display of power didn't help at all?" Jake burst out chuckling.  "Don't tell me it didn't."

   The dragon turned back to them, feigning an insulted look.  "I'm hurt!  You honestly take my kind for the type to throw their power around at whim?"

   "Yes," Chey and Jake replied simultaneously, which made Aisha have to suppress a snicker.

*    *    *

   The cavern-floor forest was even more intensive than even Icharus had realized.  The group was slowly trekking uphill, and still the greenery pressed all around them, threatening to hinder their path.  Several times they had to pause and find each other again, for they had to navigate without the help of any sort of walkway.  Behind them, foliage piled into several levels and steps.  Only after a few minutes did they notice it was impossible to even see the entrance to the cavern within the forest itself...let alone from atop the canopy.

   "Can we not fly there?" Cheyenne asked after a moment.  She started to sound winded, as did the others.  Even Icharus felt like agreeing with her, though he replied otherwise.

   "We cannot.  The lightning barrier covering this place is too intensive...I do not even know how far down into the canyon it reaches.  We could fly into our deaths.  The safest course is to walk."

   Aisha cringed, remembering how swiftly the barrier's magic had reacted to an intruding force.  Adding to the discomfort, the electric tingling in the air only seemed to worsen considerably the higher up they went.

   But finally their trudging steps carried them into a clearing upon the vast canyon floor, a hill where no trees grew and there only lay a patch of rock overgrown with moss and grass.  Icharus stepped into the epicenter of the clearing first, testing the air currents, though it was a hard thing to do outright.  No wind blew across the trees, and save for a few small animals that had made their home in the lower levels, deathly quiet pervaded the group as they stepped upon the hill overlooking a sea of green.  Occasionally, thunder rolled across the dense black-grey clouds, through which only a few spots of sunlight penetrated in their movement.

   But however ominous the beauty of the surroundings seemed, the adventurers held it in reverent awe.  The greenery sprawled behind and before them, lined in the center by a quiet trickling stream.  Above, the mottled canyon walls stretched as if for miles above their heads, penetrating the clouds and giving the overall appearance that the group stood within a massive hall or a greenhouse, complete with the overly-humid feeling.  Embedded within those walls, high on another level, caverns and niches held the Stormclaw strongholds, mansions as they had seen from the sky.  Even from their level, they too looked abandoned and desolate.

   "Madre santa... (Holy mother...)" Aisha murmured quietly as her gaze wandered high across the outcrops.  While holding awe, her expression was also as solemn as that of Icharus.  The situation reminded her of the horrid state of her own home village.

   Icharus in fact echoed some of her thoughts.  "In a perfect world, you should be able to see many of us flying above you, conducting the storms.  The air is dead."  His feathered head hung just slightly.  "The mansions are inaccessible as well.  It seems the barrier extends to just below the line of the village."  He pointed ahead to the highest-set plateau, the homestead upon which was obscured by the clouds.  "That was my home.  The catacombs run directly beneath it."

   After a moment of awe from observing the surroundings, an irritated Jake slapped his forehead.  "Then how are we supposed to get in there?"

   The avian turned to face the group with his solemn gaze, which slowly turned into a smile.  "Once again, you underestimate our methods of concealment."

   "You're all dead, it's easy to do so," Cheyenne muttered as the group followed the dragon down into the forest again, each of them starting to wonder about Icharus's plan, as well as to just how safe they were within the barrier.

[Tapewolf]

Good work.  There's one thing I don't understand, this line:
"she didn't like to be able to sense whatever was happening."

If it were me, I wouldn't like NOT to know what's happening.  Is that a typo or have I misconstrued what you've written?

[Aisha deCabre]

Good work.  There's one thing I don't understand, this line:
"she didn't like to be able to sense whatever was happening."

If it were me, I wouldn't like NOT to know what's happening.  Is that a typo or have I misconstrued what you've written?

No, it's a typo.  Thanks for pointing that out, it's fixed now.  x3

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Either way, there are arguments for and against. :-/

If something -really- bad is happening, being able to feel it may stop you from running away...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Another nice chapter, Aisha.

[Stygian]

Keep it going, Aish! This is getting better, really. Not to mention that it gives me a few ideas.

[Aisha deCabre]

((Well, it took a while, but here it is, a nice and somewhat long chapter for the wait.  Just to show that I haven't at all forgotten about the story.  I've just had a bunch of problems pop up.  My apologies.  ^^; Also, I decided, what the heck, for convenience's sake, I'd use an idea that was offered to me.   ))

Part 14

   He called it the Scry-Stone.

   With the dense clouds overlooking their trek through the woods, it took them no longer than the length of their patience to uncover the monolith hidden in a patch of foliage.  Moss-ridden, vines choking the rock's weathered surface, it looked from any other angle like a featureless boulder stuck within the abandoned kingdom.  It rose taller than any of them, reaching the boughs of the trees whose roots wrapped either side of its base.

 Icharus revealed the camouflaged difference as he pried the vines and plants away from the surface...the vines were as taut as chains, and the moss provided a thick living shield, away from which many tiny insects crawled away with the disturbance.  Etched on the rock was an entire alphabet of runes, strange characters that none but the storm dragons wrote and understood.  It consisted of the same patterns and letters that made the barriers of their secret passage.

 "Nice piece of artwork, Ick," Aisha said as she crossed her arms, eyes wandering the otherwise-featureless stone for anything strange.  "But what does it mean, if anything?"

   "Hmh," the dragon only chuckled, glancing to the panthress briefly and regarding her as if she had made an ironic joke, then turned to the rest of the party and assumed his role as a somewhat zealous guide.  "All of you are looking at a secret of the nobles."  His feathered arm briefly brushed over the symbols etched as if ceremoniously in the rock, trailing their mysterious shapes and styles.  "Before it was overgrown, this rock lay within an open temple.  See the stones around you, arranged in a circular pattern.  They once made up the altar and protected the Scry.  It may look unimportant to you...but to the royal lineage of Stormclaw it was a door.  None of those who lived in the villages past the palace knew how to open it.  A secret way into the catacombs and many other places that only the rulers knew about, for generations."

   The party regarded Icharus with looks of partial interest and partial impatience; as if they knew their time in the canyon wasn't to be for long.  Jake was stepping around the stone, searching carefully for a trigger.  Aisha was looking at the seam between the ground and the base.  "Does it lead underground?" she inquired.

   "Yes, but the stone does not move," the avian said with a smile.  "Step back, both of you."

   "Ah, more tricks," Jake smirked, but obediently took his feet from the encircling altar to the soft ground again, as did Aisha.

   The disguised dragon seemed to have an indignant look to him at the gryphon's remark, but nonetheless he raised his right hand, and the familiar crackling of electric magic working through his fingertips was heard, breaking the quiet of the wilderness around them and filling the air with static.  The runes all flashed once, a different shade of color for each, and then he went along the alphabet and touched upon several letters in a typing pattern similar to the opening of the door in the cavern.

   "Each letter is a piece of a key," he explained.  "However you piece them together gives you an opening to another destination.  I have been taught of several different coded keys.  One leads right into the highest plateau.  One leads straight to the palace's front door.  And this one..."

   Before he could finish the sentence, the words almost quieted to a mutter as his hands passed over the last letter in the sequence.  The path of runes flashed, forming a shape like a crude semi-circle, before they all flashed a blaring red.

   "Ah!" Cheyenne suddenly yelped, feeling the ground rumble quickly beneath her feet.  It was only a passing moment, but there was a sudden discomfort like a short shock to their systems.  Jake flared his wings in a form of instinctive defense, and Aisha stood her ground with her teeth clenched against the pressure.  But when it passed, their eyes all fell upon the stone monolith.

   The runes had vanished.  In their place on the surface, the seemingly impassible wall of grey now looked malleable, like a vertical plane of slate liquid.

   Icharus looked the rest of the group over and grinned with some amusement at the looks they had on each of their faces, an equal amount of awe.  The look strengthened when the dragon looked to press his palm over the stone...and instead it passed through it.  "Well, have we come to gawk, or to fulfill a mission, adventurers?" He playfully mocked.  "Hurry.  The door only stays open a short time.  The shock you felt was the magic allowing you its access."

   It was Jake who stepped up first, cautiously placing a paw in the field, before stepping aside and allowing a nervous Cheyenne inside before him.  He waited for Aisha as well, but the panthress waved the gryphon in before herself and faced Icharus with a look of incredulity.  "Think I can ask you something, señor Spoiled-Feathers?"

   The avian bowed his head with a chuckle.  "I always have time for a lady.  The door doesn't, however."

   She smirked.  "Just one question."  Her head tilted.  "With all of the things you are showing us, the solemnity you show for this place...yet, the way you invite a bunch of 'mere' adventurers into your sacred steps and guide us through your secrets without worry...I just wonder how far you are truly trusting us.  You only know us from one adventure before.  So what keeps you from thinking that any of us could sell you out to the dragon-hating people outside, considering Cheyenne and Jake's mistrust in you from the start?"

   Icharus paused for a moment, but then smiled.  "You ask a bold question.  I have no doubt that you could, even if I knew of it.  But from what I hear...you should know more than anyone, Aisha, the troubles and doubts that come with being the last of a hunted--and in some circles hated--line.  Secrecy your only shelter, mistrust your only hope.  Suffice it to say, there is no one better to think of trusting."  His golden eyes seemed to fill with that same sadness that she had seen from the beginning.  "And when you've mistrusted for so long, you tend to want find hope in narrow places when you have little more to lose."

   The huntress pondered over his words, unable to respond for a moment.  Being and Creature, facing the same dilemma...but like it has always been, would always rest on opposite sides.  It was true...he was risking much to secure his memories.  The adventurers by now were, consequently, in realm of the dragon's mercy.

   With a shake of her head to bring her out of morbid thoughts, Aisha stuck her hand through the shimmering entrance laid in the rock.  Like it had done with her comrades before, the surface rippled outward from the touch like she had put her hands in a pool of water.  The only difference was that she felt nothing wet, but the air quality on the other side had changed.

   She turned back to Icharus.  "Well, I've given my word to help, and it still stands, as it does with the others.  It will show that your trust is not put to vain."  Her eyebrow then quirked.  "Just like I can trust that you aren't leading us into a death trap?"

   The avian smirked.  "If I wanted all of you dead, I would have simply let you fall into the storm barrier.  Or left you to the insectis.  Please, allow me more credit."

   "Right," Aisha snorted dismissively and stepped through the doorway, Icharus following closely behind.

*    *    *    *

   "...I swear he is!  I mean, would you look at this place?  It's a long-standing tradition that creepy dungeons have things like traps and..."

   "It's a long-standing cliché," Jake corrected with a laugh that echoed through the fairly large room they were in.  "And it isn't a dungeon.  Please try to be calm here for once, Cheyenne.  This isn't a book."

   "'Course it's not..." the thylacine succubus muttered to herself and crossed her arms, before swiveling her ears to catch a familiar sound from behind.  The two of them turned to witness the seemingly solid and unrelenting stone wall ripple outward, allowing Aisha and finally Icharus into their path.  With a low and deep crunching sound, the ripples ceased and the wall returned to its original appearance of dark, black and brown stone.

   As the disguised dragon stepped forward, all eyes to him, he smiled and with a flourish of his wings regarded the chamber.  "What do you think?"

   True to their imagination, it was absolutely massive.  Built like a cavern and the interior of a castle all at once, it was easy to discern that they were underground, though the ceiling itself was lost beyond the range of the ornate torches lining the walls, set apart several feet in a rectangular hall-like chamber.  Dusty but smooth tiles lay beneath their feet, cracked in many places from years of misuse and wear.  Decorating the room in a semicircle were tables, some of them holding empty coffins while other, much larger ones were set near recesses in the wall (which sparked a curiosity about just what shape dragons took when they died...the others found it indignant to ask, however).  Separating the tables were various statues of dragons, carved in a shape similar to Icharus's wyvern-like true form.  They saw an exit ahead of them, the doorway's space bathed in pitch black and surrounded by an arch, dragon runes etched over its preserved surface.

   "Fancy," Aisha answered finally in a slightly awed whisper.  While exploring such places was something she's done a few times, nothing like that came even close to a royal dragon's catacombs.  Jake and Cheyenne muttered in quiet agreement, neither having the energy to put Icharus down much more.

   He nodded, satisfied with the answer.  "This passage from the Scry-Stone was used by the royal family for funerals.  This grand room is where the preparations and ceremony were held.  Then a select few of our servants carried the casket and whatever treasures he or she wanted with themselves deep into the catacombs to be stored."  He smiled.  "But we can't go forward just yet."

   "Oh I knew it!" Cheyenne snorted.  "Traps, right?"

   With a loud chuckle, Icharus led the party across the broadened funeral room to the arched doorway, the darkness stretching beyond.  Not even a sign of torchlight was to be seen through the cavernous space.  He looked around for a moment before bending to pick up a rock at his talon feet, and threw it forward into the space.

   Immediately, the hall erupted in orange light.  Threads of fire came to life and flowed across various parts of the stone passage, crisscrossing in places unseen, hitting the rock when it crossed their paths and only falling dark and silent again when the charred stone hit the floor.  The light stopped abruptly then, casting everyone's eyes in slight blindness for a moment or two.

   "Even storm dragons are masters with fire," Icharus laughed, before passing the others each a torch.  "Firelight reveals the thin threads, but even then they are difficult to spot.  You will all follow in a line behind me exactly.  They cannot be disturbed or they will incinerate you.  But there is one small path of weakness."

   Taking the torch and lighting it with his own fire magic, Jake quirked an eyebrow.  "It can't just be dispelled?"

   "No," the avian shook his head sadly.  "Only the priest here would be able to disable the threads for the procession, but since he is as dead as the others, we have to traverse the path as it lives.  Fear not, it is the only security we face before the catacombs.  The only other danger around here is these little things."

   He paused and picked a good-sized spider that was climbing the inside of the arch, with patches of red along its otherwise black legs and abdomen.  It struggled in Icharus's grasp, little pincers and fangs hissing in a creepy but almost harmonic way, forming crude words and rhymes.

   "Ew...Arachspearians," Cheyenne grimaced and muttered, "Hate spiders..."  A similar look crossed the rest of the party's faces before their guide sent a shock through the creature and rendered it silent, tossing it off into the hall where the threads flowed through it.  In a matter of seconds, a small screeching fireball lay on the floor.

   Unmoved, Icharus nodded to the others and turned himself around to the door.  "Right, form your line, watch your feet, and step carefully.  I cannot and will not stress that enough.  You will have to leave that polearm in here, Jake.  And your cape," he added, glancing at Aisha.  "You'll be able to retrieve them.  Those with wings, either get rid of them or keep them tucked tightly."

   "Bossy," Chey muttered.

   The panthress nudged her as she untied her cape and set it on the top of a nearby casket.  "He's a prince; what'd you expect?  Trust me, these missions always end swiftly."

   With Aisha and Cheyenne respectively stepping behind the dragon, and an annoyed weaponless gryphon bringing up the rear, they trudged carefully into the gloom before them...inching ever so slowly between mere instances of harboring a hundred burns.

   Footfalls were quick and skirted, but often slow as the small line maneuvered through an invisible maze.  The hall ahead of them was dark and imposing, showing no signs of ending with each fevered step.  Jake had the most difficult time traversing; the gryphon's bulkier frame made it almost impossible for him to follow, and at one point he almost fell too far behind to see the others ahead of him.  And the only thing keeping them from tripping even once wasn't skillful balance or concentration, but absolute nervousness.  Their voices were hushed and breaths shallow, no echoes to alert of their presence.

   But finally they made it, with Icharus up front making a final leap across an invisible line, standing finally in front of another torch-lit passage, but a short walk to the great wooden door barring them from the chamber of the dead.  Aisha came after, nimble and silent steps churning the dust as she followed suit and landed in the dim circle of light.

   "I don't wanna do that ever again," Cheyenne said, her voice shaken from all of the near-misses and the thought of what could have happened.  "Couldn't I have just sent Tio across and back?"

   "He couldn't have gotten in too far," the dragon pointed out.  "Even magical disturbances trigger the flames."  He glanced back down the hallway, and suddenly sighed.  "Oh, wonderful."

   Jake still hung behind, standing in one isolated spot amidst the dangerous threads while the others could be seen all the way ahead of him.  He hadn't seen the pattern they had taken the rest of the way and was frozen in place.

   The others saw this too.  "Jake!" Aisha called out.  "Come on!"

   "I can't move!" he called back.  "Just tell me what you did!"

   They took a few minutes, with some impatience from Icharus, to guide him slowly through the remaining threads.

   "I got it," he relayed as he made his way through the final steps.  "Just a step over..." his foot lifted from the ground and started to cross the threshold.

   "NO!" the others suddenly shouted.  "You have to jump...!"

   FLASH!  The dark hall illuminated brilliantly, the flaming threads leaping around Jake's form as he fell to the ground at his comrades' feet, screeching painfully.  His leg from the knee down was singed black, and the tips of his wings charred almost to the midpoint.

   "Jake!" Cheyenne screeched as the others crowded around him.  The succubus held them back with her hands.  "Give him some air, guys.  Hold still..."

   "I can't move..." the gryphon snarled, wincing as the young apprentice Healer's magic poured over his searing wound, while Aisha held his shoulder to keep him steady.

   Overlooking from the side, the avian held a hand to his forehead.  "Perhaps you should have stayed behind."

   "You shut up!" Jake growled and tried to get up from the floor, only to fall back again with a hiss through his beak.  "You are the one who insisted we go through that death trap...!"

   "Be quiet," Aisha interrupted with a hiss of her own.  "You're lucky you didn't die.  This party will get nowhere by fighting.  That means you too," she added with a red-tinged glare towards Icharus.  He simply assented by turning his gaze away while they worked to heal him.

*     *     *     *

  As soon as the gryphon could walk, with a slight limp on a bandaged leg, they gathered around the ornate door, its hinges rusted enough to make pushing an effort.  The four of them together turned the door, revealing the room beyond.  If it was even possible, the sight was even grander than the entrance to the funerary hall.  They were staring at a dragon's cache straight out of legends.  Walls lined straight upwards to the ceiling with sealed coffins in many places and nameless skulls in others, full-sized and belonging to dragons lost in the past.

   The floor was littered with ceramic jars as large as any of them.  Chests lined a giant shelf set in the front, a library of boundless treasures alongside regular tomes, dusted and aged beyond use.  The shelves just went on from there; it was a labyrinth of history and death, all before their awestruck eyes.  Even Icharus was frozen in place, expressionless.

   "The catacombs," he introduced finally, breaking the silence and leading them forward.  "The entire legacy of my race and family gathered here, destined to be lost to time."

   As they walked through the cavern, the eyes of the giant dragon skulls on the walls seemed to bear down on the intruders with darkness and indifference.  Spiders skittered between their feet, some of them large enough to make the skittish reel in disgust a few times.  The Arachspearians left them alone for the most part, reciting little bits of obscure poetry while climbing among some of the books as if the tiny predators had been reading them.

   "Here," Icharus said, finally stopping in front of one large shelf and indicating the bundles of chests and various other things, including weapons.  "The Stormclaw treasure-annals.  We may not actually be able to carry all of it out...damn; my calculations shouldn't have been off."

   "So we noticed," Aisha dryly replied as she looked over the massive structure, before looking back down again with a shrug.  "So how?"

   The dragon hummed, and then his eyes lit up.  He turned to Cheyenne.  "I think your Warp-Aci may just be what we need.  Now that he has seen our trail, the treasures can be teleported...and for safety, I think they should be stashed in the entrance to the insectis cavern.  Chn'krn'truk will be expecting something like that.  After the treasure, we follow."

   "Yes!" Jake exalted with a chuckle.  "Convenient travel at last."

   "And none too soon," Aisha added with a smirk and nodded to Cheyenne.  "Think he can help?"

   "Already on it," the whimsical creature's voice cut through the air before he did himself, a sphere of light dashing over and through the entirety of the shelf in seconds.  Items flashed and disappeared in midair.

   Cheyenne laughed as she watched.  "Ain't he cool?  Cuts through air like a sword through..." her face suddenly hardened.  "Through..."

   "Demon flesh?" Aisha offered with a smirk, but the succubus just shook her head.

   "No, no...something's wrong."

   The others glanced up at her questioningly, as she looked dazed, her eyes cast forward into space as if she were listening at something far away.  The others didn't dare disturb her, but they saw subtle changes in her expression, only distantly recognizable.  None of it was positive...and at one point, looked morbid.

   After a tense few minutes, when the shelf was cleaned out, Tio returned, floating in midair with urgency in his light blue orbs.  "Guys, we have company.  I just took a look at the valley.  It's swarming with hunters!"

[Tapewolf]

Cool.  I see you went for the Warp-Aci-can-only-go-where-its-already been theory