Heading north while flying over Stulton Forest Timothy, Exci and Ji'irik all kept an eye out for the Cave of the Fire King that Tobia's told them about.
"I hope I can finally meet Flare...i really want to see what he looks like." said Timothy
"Why" asked Exci
"They say Flare is the largest dragon in all of Athas. Giovanni was a large dragon, but how much bigger can a Dova get?" wondered Timothy
"Most Dova will continue to grow during their life so the size can differ dramatically." replied Ji'irik
"Yea, but Flare is a red dragon...statistically most red dragons live to become 1,900 to 2,000 years old, but Flare had been living far longer then this." noted Timothy
"Do you think that he's using some other means to prolong his life?" asked Exci
"Maybe, but who can say for sure." shrugged Timothy
"I guess we'll find out soon enough. Look." noted Exci
They all looked and several yards away they saw a more rocky area in the forest with a large rock formation. She sped toward the rock formation and landed in front of it, before Timothy and Ji'irik jumped off of her back. They looked at the rock formation and noticed an opening in the side of the rock formation as they walked up toward them.
"I guess this is Fire Kings Cave." said Ji'irik
"Yea, but do you feel that...There's a powerful presence coming from this cave." noted Timothy
As they looked into the cave they sensed a powerful presences coming from within the cave. A sudden powerful hot gust of wind suddenly blew from the cave entrance and smelled it carried a sulfuric smell to it. With that he guess that the cave must've lead to an underground magma chamber or something.
"Alright let's get going." urged Timothy
They all walked into the cave and though it was lighter in the from part of the cave it soon began to get darker. Darkness soon engulf them, but Timothy being Dovakin while Exci and Ji'irik were Dova they all had no problem navigating the tunnel. As they walked the Timothy noticed that it was bone dry unlike most caves which had some kind of moisture in them, but he didn't feel any. The air was bone dry like the air that you would find in a desert though is smelled of sulfur.
"Hay Timothy how do you plan on getting Flare to answer our question?" asked Exci
"I'm not sure..i guess we'll just have to see." shrugged Timothy
"We'll if he's a stubborn as Tobias said then we might have our work cut out for us." sighed Ji'irik
"Why do you say that Ji'irik...I promised to help you find out about your family and i''m going to do that. Flare is our best chance so let's just see what we're dealing with." replied Timothy
"Ok." nodded Timothy
As they continued on through the tunnel Timothy felt as though they were getting deeper into the earth and farther from the cave entrance. He reached out with his mind of the entrance of the cave, but he was unable to reach it confirming his suspension. He then stopped causing both Ji'irik and Exci to look at him and wonder why he had stopped.
"What's up?" asked Exci
"I wanna see just how big this place is." noted Timothy
"How are you going to that?" asked Ji'irik
"Seismic Sensing." replied Timothy
Timothy closed his eye's before stomping his foot sending out a wave of energy through out the ground. Ji'irik looked at him as he stood their and though she understood she didn't quite understand the meaning of it.
"Hay Exci what's he mean by Seismic Sensing?" asked Ji'irik
"Well think of it as sending seismic vibration's throughout the are. These vibration's send back a layout of the are to Timothy and he's able to form a mental map of the place." explained Exci
"Wow...that sounds cool." noted Ji'irik
"It's very useful when you need to learn the layout of a unfamiliar." nodded Exci
"Cool." said Ji'irik as she looked back over at Timothy.
After a a few minutes Timothy opened his eye and turned around after finally completing a mental map of the cavern.
"This that is huge." noted Timothy
"What the place like?" asked Exci
"It tunnel were in goes on for a bit longer, but it then leads out to an enormous magma chamber. It then has several other tunnels leading from there to who knows where." said Timothy as they started back to walking.
"Do you think that they were naturally made?" asked Exci
"Nope...i think Flare dug them out." replied Timothy
"They might lead to other places around Athas." noted Ji'irik
"That's the most likely reason that he would've dug them out." agreed Exci
They continued onward and they noticed the cave suddenly get hotter which they concluded was because they were getting close to the magma chamber. After walking for few more minutes they began to see a red light which appeared at the edge of the tunnel meaning they had reach the edge. As they stepped through the opening they were hit by a rush of extremely hot air thought it didn't bother him in the least. One of his favorite hobbies was blacksmithing and his favorite spot was actually near a magma chamber that ran deep under his home.
The fact that he was also part Dova may also have played a part of him being highly resisted to the heat. He kinda knew that Exci would be ok, because she had been protected by Fira who was a red magma dragon and her nest was in a volcano. With that said he figure that she could take the heat, but he wasn't sure about Ji'irik who was a gold dragon.
"Hay Exci is this heat going to be a problem for you?" asked Timothy
"No it's fine." replied Ji'irik
"Ok." nodded Timothy
They stepped through the opening and into a enormous rocky chamber that was glowing red from the ocean of magma. Timothy stepped toward the edge of the cliff and looked down at the magma as it splashed against the bottom of the cliff like a rushing ocean. The air was thick with the smell of sulfur, though being in a magma chamber its not unexpected. He looked around the chamber to see what else he could see, but he saw no other form of life in the chamber.
"Let's keep going...there was another chamber farther back that is a dead end. Maybe we can find a clue as to were he at in there." noted Timothy
Exci nodded before grabbing Ji'irik with her tail and sitting her on her back, before jumping off the cliff behind Timothy. Timothy looked down at the magma as large bubbles formed before popping like the bubbles in water though only much hotter. As they continued to the cavern suddenly started to rubble causing them to stop and look around. They wondered what was going on, before huge geysers of magma began to shot up around the chamber.
Exci quickly darted out of the way as a magma geyser shot up from under her which toward over her nearly reaching the top of the chamber. Timothy looked at the towering magma geyser when he suddenly heard rumbling from under him causing him to look down. A magma geyser suddenly erupted from under him, but he nimbly dodged the pillar of boiling magma.
"Come on let's move it" urged Timothy
Exci and Timothy began to fly over the magma as the chamber began to shake more violent as more geysers erupted around them. They quickly dodged pillars of magma that erupted from under them as they made there way across the chamber. When they finally made it across the chamber they enter into another large tunnel, but to where it went they didn't know. They examined the cavern walls around them and they could tell that the walls had been dug out by something very large.
This made Timothy even more curious as Flare would have to be enormous to have dug all of this out him by himself.
"Hay look dead ahead." urged Exci
They looked and saw that the cavern came to a cliff that was a dead end, but it what on the cliff that caught there attention. There was a lot of treasure sitting on the back of the cliff from gold, gems and jewelry. As they landed Timothy also noticed that there were pictures, statues and other stuff which he guess that was all part of Flare's hoard.
"I think that this is Flare's hoard." noted Timothy
"Wow...he's got so much stuff. He's must've been collecting stuff for years." said Exci as she looked at a statue of a human.
"Hay do you think that he's got anything around here telling about what happen to my parents?" asked
Ji'irik
"I don't know, but he might. Let's look around." said Timothy
They began to look around shifting through the hoard for anything with Ji'irik's family crest that might let them know what happened to her family. Timothy walked around through the hoard and his eye was suddenly caught by a gold sword hilt that was buried in a pile a treasure. He grabbed the hilt and pulled it out of the pile and he was stun to see that the sword was mad purely out of gold. It had several different gems running from the bottom of the hilt up the cross guard and all the way to the tip of the blade.
It was light and easy to move, but the blades itself was blunt which told him that it wasn't made for fighting and it was made just for show. He sat the sword back on the top of the treasure before something else caught his eye sitting on what looked like a desk. Timothy walked over to the scrolls wondering what they were about, before picking one up and reading them. One of the scrolls was a poem about the moon, while another was a story about a man and the third was something about a bad storm that hat hit Athas sometimes in the past.
Timothy quickly lost interest in the scrolls for the moment as he started back looking for Ji'irik's family crest.
"Hay anybody find anything?" asked Exci
"Nope nothing yet." replied Timothy
"Nothing here either." said Ji'irik
Just then the ground began to rumble and it was followed by a low toned growl that echoed throughout the cavern. Timothy hearing the growl walked back to the edge of the cliff and looked out at the cavern as another growl echoed through the cavern.
"What is that?" asked Exci as she and Ji'irik walked up behind him.
"I think it's Flare." said Timothy
"What...are you sure?" asked Ji'irik
"Yea I'm positive. Come on out Flare...i can sense that your here!" shouted Timothy
All of a sudden the ground began to shake and they looked down at the magma as it suddenly started to rise up. They watched in surprise at the magma suddenly rose into a towering wave before suddenly falling back down revealing and enormous dragon.
To Be Continued...
