Articia felt like she was going insane!! The bottom of the lake challenge wasn't at all difficult for her, being as she didn't have to breathe. But the monotony of the whole thing was awful. She had a sudden thought, How long have I been down here? And checked the small timepiece that Catalontians had given to her as a thank-you gift for saving their planet, right before they had targeted her with every weapon they had in their arsenal. Mom and I were in no real danger, she thought with a small smile, but it was obvious that we would find no peace there. Those Catalontians were crazy anyway. They were fighting themselves again before I had even gotten clear of the atmosphere. But the numbers that appeared on her watch wiped her smile off her face. 20 minutes had gone by since she had jumped into the water. For a moment she wondered if the tiny watch could somehow be broken. But then she remembered that the clock was always right and would never break. She couldn't take this anymore, she shot out of the water as if a cannon had blasted her straight up into the sky.
Articia stopped and settled into a stable orbit. She needed to work out her frustrations before she could take a challenge like that. She spotted a small group of asteroids drifting lazy circles around this star. Not for long, she thought bitterly to herself as she blasted them to space dust. Hey, that felt pretty good! After blasting away about 800 more space rocks. She felt good enough to try that challenge again.
Descending through the atmosphere for the second time in one day and landing back in the village she had just left, she called out "HELLO?" The old Namek she had spoken to before appeared.
"Welcome back Articia! I feared you had left us forever."
"No such luck, I'm afraid." She responded with a small smile. You have to work harder than that to get rid of me."
"I believe some of our number is planing just that, but don't worry, I'm sure you have nothing to fear from them. You're too powerful."
"I hope so, but anyway I was planing on retrying the challenge for the Dragonball."
"Certainly you can try again. Just hop into the lake whenever you're ready."
Articia was ready to go the distance this time. She dove into the lake and didn't emerge for the full solar day. She collected her prize and moved onto the next challenge, A riddle. The next few tests consisted of various things, a test of strength, another riddle, a board game of strategy called Chess fought against the eldest Namek in the village, and finally a test of character and morals comprised of a whole slew of hypothetical questions.
But no matter where she went, no seventh Ball appeared on the radar. She decided to return to the Eldest Namek she had seen when she had first arrived on this planet.
"Ah, Articia, welcome back!" He shouted when he saw her, but she was in no joking mood.
"Where's the seventh Dragonball?" She asked calmly, realizing that it would be better too at least pretend to be calm.
"It's here with me, in a cave under my house. I'll show you, all you have to do is go get it."
"What's the catch, what's in the cave?" she asked suspiciously.
"Just you, the rocks and the Dragonball, but you should still be careful. It's very dangerous, something about this cave causes hallucinations."
"Just show me the cave. If they're just illusions then they can't hurt me."
"I never said they can't hurt you, just that they weren't real. They are only in your head, but they seem so real that if they hurt you, you will rely get hurt."
"Just show me the cave, I'll get past anything in there, even if it's only in my head."
"If that is your wish then I will not try to stop you, follow me." He lead the way into his house and gestured to a trap door on the floor. But the door wouldn't open. Articia almost ripped the door of the hinges before she herd a soft "Ah-hem" from behind her and turned to see the Eldest Namek holding out a small key for her.
"Oh, oops…" She murmured and unlocked the door. Taking one last look at the room around her, she dropped into the darkness.
