Fantasia
Arc3: The Heir of Ardneria
Chapter3: The underwater cavern
After a tiring day for Juan -Mostly because of the unexplained insult from Klaive- he ended up with Tsuki and Zolu by the shores, the ragon seemed to discover something interesting he described as "cool" and insisted on Juan to check it.
Since the shepherd had nothing to do that night he accepted this offer and mounted along with the imp into the water sphere, shortly before it sunk down under the small breach that Zolu emerged from few minutes ago.
They submerged into the dark waters, they weren't able to see anything, thus they were only counting only on Zolu's guidance.
Few minutes later the bubble float out of the sea and popped out, Zolu and Tsuki swum but the shepherd blundered in a silly way trying to save himself from drowning, but Zolu punched him on the head:
"Dude…the water is shallow!"
"Uh…what? Eh he…sorry!" Juan apologized after standing still.
"So what's this place?" Tsuki asked examined the place.
They were in some sort of underwater cavern, it had the structure of a one-way tunnel with the light color of the walls and the large numbers of stalactites and stalagmite tell that it's a limestone cave illuminated by small clusters of shiny green crystals spread everywhere.
As expected of her doubting nature Tsuki used her mage eye to examine the rest of the tunnel, but she didn't find any threat to be aware of.
With this the three adventurers walked safely on the wet road, despite the funny fact that Juan was careful with every step fearing drowning, the cave was so calm that no sound can be heard but the echo left by their feet splashing the water and the drops from the ceiling, but Juan had something else in mind:
"Hmm don't you guys hear anything?" the shepherd asked.
"Not me, I can't hear a thing" the imp answered.
"WHAAAAAAA!" Zolu shouted creeping Juan out that he jumped steps away.
"Grieves! Don't you ever do it again! I almost…" the shepherd yelled with his hand over his heart.
"You'll piss in your pants?" the ragon completed slyly with a loud laughter but he received a slap on the back of the head from Tsuki.
"Hey! Why did you do that?!" Zolu asked.
"Because you are an idiot!" the imp answered after mounting on Juan's back.
"Humph! What a freak!" the ragon commented while walking ahead of his friends.
"It's okay guys don't fight" was Juan's response to this situation.
"By the way Juan haven't you tried to use that wand that Vergil gave you?" the ragon asked.
"What? This? I don't know, it seems that it contains no magic at all, I waved it, I used incantations, but no result…"
"Maybe he meant to give you a magicless rod" Tsuki mentioned.
"Pfff…that's silly! Why would a powerful mage who declared his admiration for Juan give him a magic tool that contains no magic?" Zolu commented.
"I didn't mean that you idiot! I meant that blue gem is an aged sterile magite, despite it doesn't produce any magic power but people tend to forge jewelries out of them for the sake of good luck" the imp explained.
-Magite: Called also fairy tears, they are rare ores used to generate magic power for many purposes, the amount of energy produced depends on the degree of purity (the dark color) and size, and as Tsuki mentioned with time the magite loses its power and becomes sterile, then its only purpose would be a lucky amulet-
"So is this what you've wanted us to see Idiot? A cavern? What's so great about it?" the imp asked disgracing the ragon.
"First of all I didn't invite you I invited Juan! Secondly don't call me an idiot! Third of all we still haven't reached the place yet!" Zolu shouted exchanging glares of disrespect with the imp.
"Guys! Please calm down!" the shepherd said trying to calm his friends down when he suddenly noticed that the water started to ebb and more importantly the water got thicker.
"Not yet Juan the surprise isn't here" Zolu mentioned after noticing his friend looking down, suddenly a geyser erupted beneath his feet tossing him up in the air but luckily Juan and Tsuki used their extensible arms and grabbed the ragon to their side.
From that geyser a beast emerged; it was a fat amphibian toad-like creature four times bigger than a bull, with green slimy skin full of red warts, two small yellow eyes on each side of its wide face, large bulged yellow bag for a lower jaw, but noticeably it had four large orange cavities spread over its stocky back.
"That's a s…" Juan was about to say, but he noticed that the monster took a deep breath so he voluntarily grabbed the imps head and shoved her in the water.
Tsukiname didn't understand what the purpose of this act was, so she pushed herself out to see that the two men were obstructing their ears with their palms, but she was too late to get the point because a sharp noise resembling to a human scream pierced her ears making no way for her but to sink her head back again.
That beast releases devastating sonic waves in order to immobilize its preys and…eat them! That beast is after them! Juan pushed her down in order to save her from hearing its voice, She have to do something to save them, so she shredded rags from her sleeves and used them as sound proof earplugs hoping that this will reduce the damage on her ears.
And with a thrust from her thighs she emerged to stab the monster with her claws under his jaw, but the fat layer under the beast's skin repelled her to collide with Juan who quickly lowered his headband over his ears for protection freeing his hand to grab her.
On the other side Zolu wanted to dive under water but the slimy liquid under his feet prevented him from moving properly.
"Juan! Any ideas!?" the ragon asked but his friend didn't pay attention to him, the noise was too loud to let him hear anything.
Tsuki bit her finger and used her ink-like blood to write a spell on her palm that ignited her fist in flames -but it was weaker than what beastmen are capable of-
Juan saw his friend move but something was wrong, the beast wasn't moving it was just standing there releasing his stunning screams, this means that it's not trying to hunt them, but it's more like trying to protect something.
He knew that this animal was what sea people call "Siren toad" he remembered some details he read about this amphibian in bestiaries, then his eyes passed by Zolu back making an idea flash in his head.
He tapped on the imp's shoulder to stop her before he moved to the ragon, and groped his back gently which made Zolu panic with a blush but Juan ignored this reaction, and headed toward the beast caring less that his noise was getting sharper and his wet bandana wasn't able to muffle it any more.
The other two stood surprised questioning about his behavior, for the shepherd approached the beast and lifted his hands which were covered in a thick viscous substance tainted by black vesicles he scraped from Zolu's back.
The beast calmed down suddenly shutting up the loud growl relieving the group's ears allowing them to hear vividly:
"That's a girl! We are sorry! We were just passing by…okay?!" the shepherd said while feeding the slime to the monster.
"Um dude what's going on?" Zolu asked witnessing what was for a second ago a vicious beast fondling Juan's orange locks with its tongue.
"It seems that this beast is…" Tsuki said, "A mother yes!" Juan continued.
"Would someone explain to me?" the ragons asked in confusion.
Juan started to explain what he concluded; this siren toad is a mother, or more specifically she has to be a mother since siren toads are known to be hermaphrodites (Bi-gender), and after they lay their eggs (The black vesicles) they keep them in their mouths were they get necessary nutriments from their mother's saliva (The slime that covered the floor).
During their incubation these friendly amphibians turn into alerted beasts that get furious if they felt the smallest threat endangering their eggs releasing that stunning noise from the cavities on their back to chase the predators away.
"I must say dude you quite impressed me this time!" Zolu complimented "But makes me wonder why I didn't confront her before?" he added.
"She was probably asleep and you two woke her up with your arguing, and what made her angrier was that you scraped some of the eggs she dropped with your back" Juan answered embarrassing his friends…"Anyway I think we should move on" he suggested.
After saying bye to his new friend -As he considered her- Juan continued examining the cave until they were finally stepping on dry solid land, but it wasn't soil, it was more like tiled surface.
"Ta-Da!" was Zolu's word presenting his discovery.
Juan stood there with a smile witnessing this charming place; it was the entrance to some sort of temples, the floor was made of white rectangular tiles centered with red ones arranged together like a gem mounted by a flame drawing the Ardnerian symbol, the road led to large stairs with thick cylindrical pillars on each side, some of them were destroyed while the others were completely built.
"C'mon let's go inside" Zolu rushed while Tsuki warned him that this place might be full of traps, but Juan stood there looking at the top of the gate where strange symbols…more like letters were carved deeply in the stone.
"Um Guys, I think we should head back" the shepherd said.
"Why is that? I thought that you like these stuff" Zolu mentioned.
"Because of that I'm heading back; I need some books to decipher what's written there…this can be the greatest discovery in the history of Ardneria…I want to surprise everyone with it!" the hero boasted with the smile of a baby.
The other two didn't get how Juan really thinks but they've respected his ambitions and so they agreed and joined him back.
…
Meanwhile at lord Luffine's house, a sharp discussion occurred between the sage and his son:
"What is this all of a sudden?" the sage asked.
"Like you heard father, I want you to break the link between us and the capital!" Klaive answered.
"There's no way I'm letting you do this! I'm concerned about the safety of our village, and the capital is just waiting for the opportunity to open another war!"
"But father, we can guard against them anytime!"
"What happened to you my boy? I thought you are wiser than this foolishness! We have no chance against the capital and their seven Deities!"
"No we have a chance, all what we need is the mythical sealed spells, and we already have the strongest of them, we need to collect the other four region's starting from Ardneria's, I only need your permission to get it" The son explained.
"I understand from this that you want us to announce war against the other clans to take things that don't belong to us, this is impossible!" the father answered.
"But weren't we attacked by Sumerians lately? And they were seeking Yusseir's judgment from you! We can do the same to them but this time we'll succeed and take over their tribal spell!"
"This is not happening!" the sage shouted.
"You've became soft and senile old man, I barely know you, I remember the day when Burenian attacked us and killed Mona (Klaive's wife) you wiped out the half of their clan, but now you now are none but a weakened geezer…instead of avenging your clan you let a ragon live among us! " Klaive stated with disrespect.
"That's not the point! I don't want to see blood in the last days of my life"
"You could've at least tell me how to get our tribal spell, Sumerian are no longer a part of the council so even if I attacked them, I won't cause any political troubles to our tribe" the son suggested.
"This discussion is over…" the sage said ending the conversation going outside to smoke a pipe, making his son furious that he punched the table crushing it to pieces "I'll get the tyrant flame even if I have to kill for it!" Klaive swore to himself.
…
And so another day had passed, it was midday, Juan finished his work at the field and returned every goat to its barn, then he quickly went to his house to change his clothing, in a rush he went to the library to look for linguistic books to unlock the secret of the temple beneath his village, unaware that with this simple act he's blowing the wind that'll turn the mill of troubles forward.
To be continued