Chapter One: A New Hope
Bobby flew through the flume. For the first time in his life, he traveled with Saint Dane. He tried to throw a punch at the demon, but it went right through him.
"You can't fight in the flumes. They are safe. The one place of safety in the Nether."
"What is the Nether?" Bobby asked wearily. He was tired of being eternally behind.
"The Nether is the name for everything: Halla, Gielinor, and, well, you haven't earned knowledge of that secret."
"So wait, this... Gielinor is not part of Halla?" Bobby inquired? But the demon was gone. Bobby flew alone through the flume. Doing what he did best, Bobby made the most of things: He kicked back and waited for the ride to end.
strangely, this journey through the flume took longer than any trip Bobby had ever taken. The point was reached when Bobby knew not if minutes or years had passed. Slowly, ever so slowly, Bobby felt the pull of gravity once more. His mind quickly went to the challenge at hand. The immediate challenge, as he knew, would be handling the yellow-eyed monsters of Saint Dane: The quigs. Upon touching down, registered three things: A terrified man in brown armor, a confident man in shining white armor, and the dragon, specifically its yellow eyes, that he was fighting.
Bobby hardly blinked when fire spewed from the dragon's maw, cooking the cowering man in his armor. The man in white unleashed an agonized cry and began to fight the dragon with a frenzied fervor. "What can I do to help?" Bobby asked, terrified himself, but determined to avenge the dead man. It was all too likely that these people were ignorant of the danger of the flume, and he felt personally responsible as a result.
The man in white jumped a foot in the air at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. "Whoever you are, I need your help. I have a plan to defeat this dragon, but I cannot do it alone. You will need to be my squire for a time."
As he spoke, a ugly, short, green thing crawled into the cave from a nearby hole. He began looking through a backpack on the side of the room. "Ooh, shiny!" the creature said in a rough, guttural voice.
The knight, preoccupied with the greater danger, the dragon, said without turning around, "I can't leave this fight. Take my squire's armor and kill that pesky goblin."
Bobby was nervous, uncertain of the rules of this territory. But fighting was a ruled that applied everywhere, and he knew he could do it. He picked up the simple bronze armor and donned it, and although he was unused to fighting with a sword, he made quick work of the goblin.
The knight called back over to Bobby. "Search my backpack and take out the meat. It's drugged, and I intend to feed it to the dragon."
Bobby did as he was told, but he still asked, "How do you intend to feed the dragon the meat without feeding it your head as well?"
"Climb through the hall in that wall; I'll distract the dragon. Place the food in the bowl further in the cave."
Bobby climbed through, not taking his eyes off of the dragon for a moment. He quickly found the bowl and placed the food. Upon his return, the knight forced the dragon away, and it went off to eat the meat. Not long after, the drugged meat took its effect, and the dragon fell asleep. Taking out more equipment from his backpack, the knight led Bobby to the sleeping dragon. With Bobby keeping at a safe distance from the beast, the knight dipped some cloth in oil and wrapped it around two wooden pillars along with a long fuse. He turned around. "We're going to crush the dragon under the roof of the cave. It won't cause the whole cavern to collapse, just this one section. But I need you to light one pillar at the same time as me."
"I ain't going one step closer to that beast!" Bobby whispered back, too scared of waking the dragon.
"Don't worry," the knight said disappointedly, "The drug won't wear off for hours, and the beast doesn't have that much time."
Bobby crept closer to the pillar, and lit it at the same time that the knight lit the other one. As the pair of the high-tailed it back toward the entrance to the cave and the gate of the flume, there was a loud explosion. When the pair finally dared to return, the dragon was dead. Unfortunately, they soon discovered that most of the cave collapsed. The knight however, having expected this, pulled out two simple pickaxes, and worked with Bobby to clear out the rubble and find a path to the surface.
Finally on the surface, the knight turned to Bobby and said, "I don't suppose you're Pendragon?" He said it with a kind of breathless hope, as if he didn't dare believe that he might receive a "yes" as a reply. Upon hearing Bobby's confirmation, his face was at first a landscape of joy, but he was soon back to being all business. "I guess we have a lot to talk about, Bobby. Fact is, you shouldn't be here. And if you are, then we are all in danger."
Far away, near the town once called Paddewwa and now called Edgeville, a large raven flew into a dark temple. Several men garbed in blood-red robes guarded the temple as had been their sacred duty for thousands of years. When the raven flew in, they could hardly dare hope as to what it might mean. The raven landed next to the altar and transformed into a man, a terrifying man in opulent red robes and carrying a tall staff with a two-pronged symbol at the top. "Somebody has been drinking my wine," he said to the crowd. As one, the monks fell to their knees before him.
A/N: So ends Chapter 1. I may crank out Ch. 2 for you guys soon, whomever "you" may be, and that'll be all for a time. Reviews are welcome, but I won't hold updates hostage waiting for them.