Chapter 25
Natsu, Lucy, Mest, Gajeel, and Levy all split up to search the huge ruins of a castle. Mest took the outside, while the others looked within the walls. The dragon slayers used their noses to find any traps if there were any, while Levy and Lucy tried to decipher where the dragon onlooker could be. Above every door Natsu spotted letters.
"Hey Luce, do you know what those say?"
Lucy looked at the words then glanced from door to door.
"Nice find, I think you just solved the riddle."
"I did?"
"Yeah, Levy look. Each of the rooms has a name of an animal, flower, or magical creature."
The door Natsu pointed out says Lion's paw, and the next one says Rose room, and the next one after that says mermaid cliff."
"So we just need to find the one that says dragon and has something to do with overlooking a cradle."
They buzzed past a vast majority of the doors till they came to a corridor. At the end of the corridor was a circular room with five doors. Each door had the face of a dragon carved into it with a fierce expression.
"Ok, we'll need to think about this. All the doors have dragon written over them." Lucy said concerned.
"So, what do they say?" Gajeel asked impatiently.
"Door number one says Dragon's Breath, number two Dragon Hearth, number three Dragon Fortress, number four is Dragon's bed, and number five is Dragon's Stone."
"If you go by the riddle the first and last door are out. Cradle means to hold or protect, it can also mean a crib of a baby."
"Alright guys. You're up, which door do you think it is?"
"Shrimp say the last part of the riddle again first."
"Ok, the last is placed at the heart, a dragon stands over its cradle."
"I think it's saying the third one, fortress." Natsu said
"I agree with Salamander. In that riddle it said the dragon was standing over the cradle meaning it would be protecting something beneath it. A fort has guards a bed doesn't."
"Ok, so third door it is." Lucy said grabbing the knob and giving it a twist. Behind the door raveled an open sky, the room broken and exposed to the elements.
"Um, anyone see a dragon standing?"
"Your joking right? There's nothing here but rubble. And a pedestal."
Lucy moved closer to inspect the pedestal. She thought some rubble had fallen on top of it at first, but then noticed that the rubble was carved. Looking around she noticed other pieces were also carved.
"Hey guys grab a rock and come here." She said grabbing another piece.
The others followed suit and handed her their pieces as she assembled them together. Satisfied with her work she stepped back.
"Anyone recognize what I managed to put together?"
"It looks like….claws!" Levy exclaimed.
"Yep, here's our dragon, now we just need to look for the cradle."
The group walked around till Natsu happened to step on a stone and sink down. A series of stairs appeared from the stone floor. They all stood in front of the first step. Gajeel was the first to speak what was on everyone's mind.
"Is it just me or does this whole thing reeks of a cheesy trap."
"Aye." They all said in unison.
"Well, either we go in, or we look elsewhere." Natsu said irritated.
"No choice then, but to be safe lets go down in pairs."
"Salamander you first, we need you to light the way down.
"Right."
They went down the stairs steadily. Lucy counted the steps they took one by one.
"Just wait, I just know a trap is going to pop out any minute. Either the ceiling's going to come crashing down, or the floor is going to turn into a giant slIDE" Gajeel yelled as the group slid down the stairway now shifted flat."
"Natsuuu dooo somethinggg!" Lucy screamed clinging to the sick slayer.
"What did you touch Salimanderblrg." Gajeel equally sick coughed out.
Levy just screamed clinging to Gajeel as they plummeted down. Suddenly they left the stairway slide and flew in the air spinning about before landing inside a mining cart; the break lever clicked sending them rolling away.
"Not again…oooh" Natsu moaned.
Gajeel was hurling over the side as Levy clung to his back.
The cart raced through the tunnel going continually down. The cart turned left, right, left again, strait, a loop, then down even further straightening out at the bottom before turning a corner. A block in the track caused the group to go flying into a wall. The impact made the air in their lungs fly out as they landed in a heap. As each of them struggled to their feet they looked around cautiously. Gajeel wandered over to a pit and looked down. At the bottom were some water and a group of alligators.
"What is this the jungle?"
Levy moving next to him. "Ok, someone seriously has a poor sense of humor."
"Hey guys look at this."
On the wall to the right of where they crashed was a mural and some sort of switch. The mural depicted the Elven having what appeared to be some sort of party or festival around a big tree. Vines and flowers ran from the tree to the ground. A queen appeared to be offering a child to the tree for some sort of blessing. Levy quickly got out a giant piece of paper and made a sketch of the mural and used her miniature communication lacrima's app to take a photo.
"So do we turn the switch or not?" Natsu asked.
Levy read the words above the switch.
"Yep, we turn it. It also says cradle on it."
"Despite the traps, I'm somewhat glad the Elven are a very literal people." Lucy commented bluntly.
A clicking sound could be heard as a passageway opened up. Passing down the passage they came to an open chamber with a pedestal and the remaining tablet piece on top. Levy moved over to it and copied the words onto the section where the remainder of the spell had been copied. She then noticed words written on the pedestal.
"To those that want the tablet, you can take it, and a passageway will open leading outside, however the entire chamber and passage leading out will be destroyed after ten minutes. It takes fifteen to get out. Good Luck."
"Whoever wrote that has a seriously bad scène of humor." Gajeel said.
"Hey Levy? Do you think you might be able to turn Natsu back now before we take the tablet off?"
"I should be Lulu. I might not have taken the other two tablets with me, but I have everything written right here. To be on the safe side you and Gajeel stand way over there. I don't want a repeat of last time."
Levy cleared her throat and read the spell. It took several tries for her to get it right.
(For viewer digression I will not go into the details as some of it was not pretty and left some members of the group slightly traumatized. They will not speak of what just happened again.)
"Alright that's done." Levy said satisfyingly turning to a shivering shocked Lucy and Gajeel.
"I wana be an eggplant." Natsu said lying naked on the floor.
Lucy threw some of his big cloths she had kept in her pack at him and yelled "Put some cloths on already."
Five minutes Later Natsu stood dressed and depressed moving over to Lucy and grabbing her hand like a lost child. Lucy used her other hand to pat his head comfortingly. Gajeel looked at Natsu with pity.
"Everyone ready to go?"
"Yeah, so we just grab the tablet and as the door outside opens we run like hell?"
"That should be the case. Alright on the count of three one, two, …."
Mest stood on top of the roof of the castle. So far he was having no luck seeing anything that could be a dragon or a cradle. To top off his misfortune the rest of the fairy tail members had disappeared. He looked around just as a cloud of dust burst from the broken section of the castle and a section deep in the city at the same time.
"Found them." He said to himself teleporting to the one in the city.
All of the members laid splat out over the ground and were starting to pick themselves up. He looked from member to member noting Natsu was back to normal. He opened his mouth to ask what happened, but Gajeel cut him off.
"Don't ask." He growled
Natsu had his arms around Lucy's waist crying as she sat there. After a hour of resting, pulling troubled minds together the group decided they would all take a brief bath in the lake before going to look at the dragon's cave, after looking they were going to head for home.
"So Lulu, are you and Natsu going out yet?" Levy drawled off casually as she washed her skin. Lucy turned around suddenly and glared at the word mage.
"No, He doesn't look at me that way, so can you just drop it?"
Levy noted that Lucy said he didn't look at her that way, not that she didn't look at him. She was so going to tell Gajeel when they were alone.
At the dragon's cave they found out what had happened to the city written in Elven. The letters looked like they were made with large claws. A bit more than four hundred years ago the city had been attacked by dragons and every one of its citizens killed. Only one small Halfling child was spared. I leave this message to those of the future who seek answers, I also leave a worrying of a future that may come further within. I now leave this cave with my child in tow and hope the young five will head my message. Next to the writing they saw a picture of a Elven woman smiling, a dragon with a big smile, and a small child that kind of looked like a cross between the two.
"That picture looks similar to a drawing I did of me and my parents when I was little." Levy commented.
"So this might be some Elven dragon slayer?" Mest asked.
"I don't know. Dragon slayers magic was invented a while after the Elven were wiped out, so maybe it's a little different." Levy speculated.
"How about we just call her a Elven dragon slayer till we know for sure. I do find it a little creepy that the dragon seemed to know that there would be five of us here though."
"You're right, he mentioned a warning further in the cave, I want to write that down and bring it to the guild master. If it applies to us and not some other five it might be some sort of prophesy."
They searched further inside the cave and shortly found the message the dragon spoke of. Levy translated it for the group to hear.
"Youngling five, I beg you to heed my words, though your enemy lives do not take his life. Should harm befall either him or my child the world shall fall to peril. Their fate has been set together though I do not know who your enemy is. All I can tell with my prophetic ability is he who destroys has suffered many losses, my child must not be one of them. They will meet soon in the time I live now. His pain will bring the destruction of my species. They did not heed my words and walk the path to extinction. I The Dragon of Dementions and Time Retoricobliqbeseech thee to not repeat their mistakes. "
"So this dragon's child he was raising has some connection to Acnologia? I can't think of any other enemy that's still alive." Lucy asked.
"I don't know, I mean that dragon's kid is probably dead of old age. It's not like it went through the Eclipse gate with us." Gajeel said.
"Yeah, but what if elves live longer than humans?" Natsu asked.
"You have a good point, add dragon slayer magic and it's possible the dragon's child could be just as young as Acnologia looked in human form."
"Maybe, I'm done writing down the words, so let's go home and see what the master thinks of this." Levy said.