I stood at the gate to Sky Heights, and howled, hoping that would open it. Though it felt like I was trying to say 'open sesame', I had a feeling that a dog howl would get in better than a wolf howl.
The gates opened, and I ran down and endless cavern that never seemed to end until I turned to a lake of purple liquid with many broken bridges going across. A small mansion was at the end of it all, and I had no way to get there.
I looked at the bridges, wondering about how I could get across. I wasn't as if I could fly across as Ivlet could in his little magic bubble that he used to get away.
I was shocked to see a bubble appear in front of me, but luckily not with Ivlet in it. Instead I saw a French Bulldog with a red witch's hat, a red cape, and glasses.
"Huh!" I said in surprise when he appeared there. I knew I'd find the magic professor around some sort of magic, but I didn't think that he would decide on a bubble.
"You're Arvin's kid, aren't you?" he asked, as if I wasn't surprised at his sudden appearance before me.
"Well, yes!" I said in shock.
"No need to be frightened. This is just an illusion. I'm not actually here. I've got my paws full right now, so could you come and visit me at my mansion? There might be a few. . . obstacles to overcome along the way, but I'm sure you can handle them. Hope to see you soon!" he said, and then he disappeared.
I looked at where he was and felt an air of determination around me as I was about to strode all the way over there. The purple liquid looked fine, but I couldn't be sure of what it really was. I hoped it wasn't dangerous.
"Take care, Kaci!" Beat said.
"Why, what obstacles was he talking about?" I asked, a little worried of what I might've gotten myself in to.
"This is a poisonous bog! If you fall in, you'll be poisoned for sure. Proceed with caution, okay?" Beat asked, and its words seemed to hold me there as I took in what it said.
"Okay, okay, I got it!" I said, feeling nervous, and Beat noticed.
"Don't worry, don't worry. There must be a path through the bog that other animals use. Just follow that path and you should be fine."
And it oh so easy! I shout to myself in my head. You're going to be fine, Kaci, you're going to be fine! As long as you don't touch the poisonous spots in the bog!
"If you do happen to get poisoned, use an antidote to heal yourself." Beat said.
I knew it was a good thing to bring to bring antidote along.
I walked over to the bog and felt very nervous as I started sniffing, and found the smell of a dog that walked through it. I put my paw where I smelled one of the paw prints and was thrilled to find I didn't feel poisoned, but the bog was so cool and felt weird as my paws walked through it. I sniffed my way through the bog with such anticipation that I was afraid to step out of the boundaries of where I was so carefully stepping. But I found my way through, until the end. I got out too quickly and put my paw somewhere that I wasn't supposed to place it and suddenly felt woozy. I felt over and quickly searched through my pack.
Beat came out, holding the antidote, and I put some of it in my mouth as quickly as possible. The wooziness stopped, and I was thankfully safe.
"You okay?" Beat asked.
"I'm fine, thank you." I said, then getting up and going across the bridges that weren't broken. I got to Theophilus' house safely, a little bit anyways.
At the end of the long line of bridges was his mansion, the sun was going down and I found him out on the front porch waiting for me. It didn't look like his hands had been full at all, but I still walked over to him.
"Hi!" I said to him, sounding and feeling a little out of breath.
"My name is Theophilus." he said, almost sounding foreboding in a sense, but not enough to scare me. "You have done well to make it this far all alone, Kaci. I would expect no less from the offspring of Arvin and Ione!"
"You know my parents!" I said, incredulous.
"Of course I know them!" he said, falling away from sounding foreboding but just annoyed, "Who did you think introduced them in the first place? I am also the one who taught Arvin how to use the Magic Hat. Well, my brother did lend a paw, but still. I also know why you are here!" Theophilus changed the subject completely to one I hadn't exactly talked about for a while. "If the Magic Hat is used for evil. . . . . . evil energy will gradually build up inside the user's heart. The user may simply feel that he is becoming stronger and stronger. . . In fact, the user is slipping into the control of this evil energy. Eventually he will totally lose control of himself. Ultimately he'll become nothing but pure evil."
"What will happen once he's at the stage of pure evil?" I asked, feeling nervous about trying to get the Magic Hat back comparing to how close he was to pure evil.
"When that happens, the user will most likely destroy everything aside from himself. Not just the village, but also the mountains and even the sea. Larger things than even those, too, I fear. Stars and planets, the sun. Everything!" he said, making gestures as if to prove how large when I could picture it all just fine.
"Fearsome!" I muttered.
"Fearsome stuff, indeed. You can tell how close the user is to becoming evil by the color of the Magic Hat. When the Magic Hat turns totally black. . . . . . the one wearing it will become pure evil! I fear we don' have much time left until that happens."
Suddenly I had a vision of Ivlet in his own little evil lair, and the Magic Hat was grey! I looked at it with my own eyes, and I feared the hat getting darker than it already was. He didn't notice my appearance there as he turned to the Magic Hat and barked, purple magic sparkled its way out of the Magic Hat. To me it didn't look as if it was going anywhere.
I came back to Theophilus. "If Ivlet turns evil, the world will surely come to an end. The Magic Hat must be retrieved before that happens!" he told me, helping me know that it was him who gave me the vision.
"I'll do it!" I said confidently, as I had already promised Beat that I would try my best to get the Magic Hat back.
"You will accept this quest?" he asked, as if already knowing the answer will be what he wants.
"Yes, I take it!" I said.
"I thought you would say that." he said proudly. "Entrusting your family line with the Magic Hat was the right choice. Indeed. . ."
"Okay, so tell me the plan!" I said, wondering if that was really true since I was the one who gave it to Ivlet.
"But we will need a good plan if you are to take on Ivlet and win. In order to suppress the power of the Magic Hat. . . . . . we need to make an item called the Magic Shield. For that, we need three component items. . . The Water Crystal, the Earth Crystal, and the Ice Crystal. It will be hard to get all of them. The Water Crystal is on Monolith Isle. The Earth Crystal is at Inferno Cave. And the Ice Crystal is in the Polar Fields. Looking for the Water Crystal should be a good place to start. This is what it smells like." He gave me the smell of it, and I was surprised at the fact it smelled a bit like water, with small crystal bits in it. "The Water Crystal is on Monolith Isle. You can cross to Monolith Isle using a boat from the harbor at Dolphin Coast. Come back and see me again once you have the Water Crystal." Before I turned to leave, he added, "One more thing. . . about Sky Heights. . . I've made a clear route through the poison bog by fixing the destroyed bridge." Theophilus meant the large bridge at the very beginning that crossed the bog I'd had to sniff through. "Now you can pass through without having a hard time. That should make things a little more convenient, eh?"
Suddenly, I found myself in South Pawville. Did he just transport me here? I asked myself a little stupidly. I was happy I didn't have to run through Sky Heights and Tail Heights just to get home, all I had to do was ask Theophilus if I he never did that again. I guessed he only did it because I had gotten the effect of the bog and wouldn't want to go home the long way.
I wondered if it was all real, the Water Crystal, the Earth Crystal, and the Ice Crystal. I couldn't know until I found them, so I went home and fell asleep. Luckily an early bedtime would be early waking.