~Soulcleaver~

Part III: "The Caverns of Time."

The entrance seemed to be a yellow-brown rock on the outside, but as the pair flew into it the illusion gave way. The entire tunnel was an empty space, filled with stars, as if they were completely surrounded by the night. There were flowing veins of purple and azure magic, wavering lazily along the emptiness.

"What… Is this, dragon?" The orc was completely baffled by the phenomenon, his mouth open widely in disbelieve. Suddenly, images started to pass them in square frames. They flew at them quickly, turning as they passed. Three in particular seemed to slow down for them.

In the first image, Nuk'hara caught a glance of a child that looked much liked him when he was younger. "Mother…!" He stood over the body of a green woman, who was littered with arrows. In the distance, there were shouts. The image fled, and Nuk'hara looked to the second.

In the second frame, it was him again but much older. He was talking to another orc, covered in black armor and with a brilliant silver broadsword. "… But I can fight! I can!" The younger image yelled at the much older one. Before anything else could be heard, it flew by like the others.

In the third frame, however… there was a muscular orc, slightly larger and seemingly older than Nuk'hara but looked very identical. A human was standing several strides away him, one covered in purple and brown robes, with azure sigils covering the linings. His hood was curled upwards in the back and ended in a point, with a face-mask with fangs covering his face.

"This is the end for you, Warlock!" The older orc yelled his battle cry and charged at the human, bringing the axe up, jumping and swinging down…

The image suddenly shattered, the dragon the current Nuk'hara was riding on having tapped it with her claw. The orc growled and gave a hard punch to the dragon's head. A crunching followed as the scale began to crack where he hit, and possibly from the breaking of one or two fingers in Nuk'hara's hand.

"Ack! You weren't brought here to sightsee!" The dragon cried out in pain. Despite the fact that the scale was there to protect it, the pain was still felt from the tender flesh underneath.

"Then why – the FUCK – am I here?" He was obviously enraged, as he wanted to watch what was going to happen. As much as he was a fighter, he was a vivid spectator to other fights – like those in the arenas.

"I'll tell you when we get there! Calm down!" The dragon was starting to get annoyed from the stinging sensation, and the fact that this journey seemed to be taking longer than it usually would… It was definitely strange.

More and more images flew by the pair, some of the dragon's own history, some of a face-less human (probably the one Nuk killed a few days before) and a few others that they didn't get a good look at. Suddenly, there came a bright shining light at the end of the terrestrial tunnel. It slowly started to grow and grow until they were upon it, flying directly into it. Nuk'hara had to reach up and cover his face to shield himself from the brightness.

"We're here," the dragon said. Nuk'hara slowly uncovered his eyes to be greeted by a large dome-shaped cavern which could possibly have reached up a mile, deep underground - and possibly even under the sea. He looked back at the direction from which they had come, and it seemed to have turned into just a normal tunnel going down and winding around a corner.

In the very center of the room, there was a raised platform. Inside, there was another dragon with its wings folded back, head down and tail curled to the side. It must've been sleeping. Above that dragon, in the dead-center of the circle, were two hourglasses stacked on top of one another. The sand on the top one flowed down from the top, and the one on the bottom flowed up. Several golden handle-like designs arced out from it and showed that the two were spinning in opposite directions. The sheer size of the thing was barely able to fit in the cave!

From the platform, there were four different paths. He was not able to see much as high up as he was, but there must've been something quite important in each. Something was on his mind, though, that he couldn't quite shake… Where were Lita and Bargar? Where had they disappeared to, and why?

"We're going down. Hold on." The dragon slowly began to descend with its rider, the orc holding onto the scales as the dragon closed the distance from the ground to the ceiling within a matter of several seconds. As they neared, the drake reared back up, flapped down hard to stabilize itself, and then gently lowered until it was completely on the ground with all fours. The head lowered again so Nuk'hara could get off, and the dragon began to change.

It started to shrink many times its own size; the wings melding back into its back, claws turning into nails, scales turning into soft tan flesh. What would have been a nude dragon was now a robed elf. Her robes seemed to have been woven from gold, her staff being the same color as her dress, with the design of a sort of metal feather or upwards flare-like fire. She was different from other elves; she had no violet hue like the Night Elves, and no fel-magic addiction signs like those of the Blood Elves. No, she had the shape of a High Elf, slender and petite, lengthy ears that pointed directly up, blonde-brown hair that went down to her neck and curled at the ends, and eyes as blue as a sapphire.

"We haven't had the pleasure, Nuk'hara. My name is Soridormi." Her voice had gone from that previous roughness to a soft and gentle tone, like that of a mother's. Her free hand reached out and was quickly clasped with his.

"Mhm… Now, I have one, simple question, Soridormi…"

"Yes, Nuk'hara? What is it?"

Nuk'hara took in a deep, deep breath, closed his eyes and held it for several seconds before opening them back up to look at the elf.

"WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS?" He shouted out at the top of his lungs, and before he knew it, he was surrounded. Several giant humanoid-like dragons were standing above them, their large halberds pointing down to impale the orc if he made any wrong moves. Their scales were as bronze as Soridormi's were when she was a dragon, and they were quite large and muscular. They lacked wings but made up for it with their menacing looks; such as their emerald eyes, large claws, weapons and jagged teeth.

The elf laughed softly, reaching up to cover his mouth as she did. She waved her staff, and the drakoids backed off, walking away and eventually disappearing from sight. After a few more seconds of her laughing, she gradually stopped.

"They're fine, Nuk'hara; worry not. When we brought you all here, they wandered off. The Guardians will look over them; they'll be fine."

A sigh of relief escaped Nuk'hara then, his right hand reaching up to run over his face. The elf waved to get his quickly-caught attention and started to walk off.

"We have much work to be done, Nuk'hara. No time for dilly-dallying! Time is precious indeed!" It barely took any time at all for him to catch up, and he was right beside her before she knew it.

To be continued…