Audible groans were heard from the other dragons around the room.

"No, Loam, you are not doing this!" Glen said, almost shouting. "I am not listening to another one of your long-winded stories talking about how good-hearted and brave Adobe used to be. We've had enough of that!" Mutterings of agreement could be heard from the other dragons around the cellar.

"You lost your chance," Loam hissed, twitching her tail, her scales scratching against the ground. "If you wanted to tell him what was going on, yous should've told him earlier."

"Yeah, no," Glen replied with a small snort. "There's no way you're telling him. Petrol is a better storyteller than you are."

The dragonet in the back raised his head, grinning widely. "I am!" he spoke up. "See, back before the wa—"

"No," Glen ordered, cutting the dragonet off. "Your stories are just as long as Loam's. I'm making this quick." She turned to Torrent and Griffin, who stared expectantly at her. "Right after the war began, and Queen Moorhen started drafting for the armies, a number of MudWings decided that they didn't want to join the war."
"So you're all draft-dodgers?" Griffin asked non-judgmentally, peering around at the other MudWings in the small cellar.

Glen shook her head. "No, out of our little group here, only Beaver and Loam were part of the original settlers. The rest of us either got trapped in the village in the years after, or were born in the village, like Petrol and I. Now, continuing the story," she said snarkily, "this group of maybe a hundred dragons or so soon realized that just running away wouldn't work too well; someone would find a hundred missing dragons eventually. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, one of the MudWings in their group was Adobe." Glen hissed the name out like it was grimy swampwater. "Do you know what animus dragons are?"

Torrent and Griffin nodded, they knew all too well.

"Apparently, he's an animus, so he has some weird magical powers," Glen continued. "His sibs had all died in a mysterious accident, which sounds pretty suspicious to me, and he just decided to help the group out with his magic."

One of the dragons in the back spoke up. "He had good intentions when he made the village. He just wanted to help a few MudWings avoid the horrors of war."

"Shut up, Beaver," Glen hissed angrily, her claws scratching into the floor. Beaver decided not to press further.

"Now," Glen resumed, "our 'friendly' animus decided that he'd use his magic to create a village for the dragons, and make it completely invisible to the outside."

This entire thing was made with animus magic? Torrent thought. He moved a clawpad to the amethyst on his dagger. He didn't even need to touch it to feel the warmth radiating off it. Most of the village around them was built with magic. If Albatross lost it after creating just the Summer Palace with magic, how much of his soul has Adobe lost?

Griffin exchanged a glance with Torrent. It was clear he also understood the implications of what Adobe had done.

Glen continued her story. "Now, for a couple of years after that, things were peaceful. Adobe used his powers only occasionally, mostly for small and frivolous things. It was only after he decided to make the temple did he finally show his true colors."

"The big stone thing in the middle of the village, is that the temple?" Torrent asked.

"Yes," Glen muttered. "That ugly thing. He used his magic to create it and the prisons beneath, and decided that the settlers here weren't grateful enough to him for creating their city. He started demanding that we worship him like some god, and would bestow 'blessings' on those who were the most devout. A few even bought into it. Most of the dragons tolerated this for a while, but thenAdobe decided to kill one of the dragons who refused to worship him after they got into an argument. A lot of the dragons started leaving after that, realizing that fighting in the war might be better than having a power-hungry animus in charge. I wish we had joined them when we could. After realizing that dragons were starting to leave, Adobe decided to make a new enchantment around the village: no one except for Adobe could exit it.

"Before that, when we had MudWing outsiders occasionally enter the village accidentally, we'd offer them a choice to either stay in the village, or Adobe would wipe the village from their memories and set them free, not ever knowing they had stumbled in here. After Adobe created the sphere, as we came to call it, they were no longer offered those options. They could no longer leave. Some of these dragons came with their sibs, but others, like Grizzly here, were separated with no means of telling them where he had gotten to. A few dragons asked Adobe to consider letting them leave, but he refused.

"Eventually, one of us decided we had had enough." Glen grimaced slightly. "My older brother and bigwings, Quake. He led a bunch of us into the temple, myself included of course, and in front of the entire village, told Adobe he wasn't divine and needed to release the dragons from the village. It was this whole inspiring speech and everything, talking about how if Adobe wanted to lead the city rightfully, he needed to listen to the concerns of those he was leading over.

"Adobe of course, didn't take being told in front of the entire city that he was some mere mortal very well." Glen breaths got heavy, and she bristled in anger. "He killed Quake in front of the entire city with his magic, and claimed that he'd do the same for any other dragon who questioned or disobeyed him. And here we are now."

There was a small pause as the other dragons uncomfortably held their tongues. Glen interrupted it, and glanced at Torrent and Griffin. "Now it's your turn."

"Our turn?" Torrent asked, frowning. "What do you mean?"

Glen rolled her eyes. "To tell us how you got in and out of the sphere. Three moons, you're traveling with a talking gryphon, you can't just expect to not explain that."

Torrent grimaced a little. He wanted to help these MudWings, but didn't really want to explain all that had happened. He turned to Griffin, hoping his friend could explain.
Griffin nodded, understanding what Torrent wanted. "For starters," he explained, "we also knew an animus. That's how I came about."

"Oh?" Glen asked. "So were you turned into a gryphon or something?"

"No, no, I'm actually a gryphon, in the flesh. Well, sort of. She enchanted me to life."

Glen looked surprised that doing something like that was possible. "Go on."

"So," he continued, "she was Torrent's, my SeaWing friend's, sister. I'm Griffin by the way. Not a gryphon, well, yes a gryphon, but my name is also Griffin because Torrent is somewhat uncreative. Now, Torrent's sister was really nice, but she used her magic a bit too much and he thinks she might have lost her soul. She was killed in battle."
"Alright. I guess . . . I'm sorry to hear about her death," Glen replied, her eyes avoiding Griffin and Torrent's.

"It's not important," Torrent grumbled solemnly, keeping his head down. "You don't need to apologize."

"So, how was Torrent able to leave the sphere?" Glen asked.

"Well," Griffin replied, "he has this dagger thing that his sister gave him which lets him remove animus enchantments and make them not affect him, so I think that was it."

The dark brown MudWing who was with Glen when she found the two suddenly spoke up. "It can remove enchantments?" he asked. "Does that mean it can get rid of the sphere?"

Torrent nodded. "I think it can," he murmured, "but I haven't tried doing it before. I don't know if it actually works or not."

"It probably does," Loam spoke up from the background. "I've seen Adobe use his magic before, it usually works almost exactly as he speaks the enchantment."

What would happen if two enchantments conflicted with each other? Torrent wondered. They can't both work, can they? It didn't really matter for this though, as far as Torrent knew, his dagger had already worked, and would probably continue to do so.

"We should use it then!" Grizzly said. The large MudWing's face lit up with a huge grin. "We can be free!"

Glen gave Grizzly a glare. "No, Adobe might come after us, and he might just recreate the sphere to keep the rest of the population inside. We have to settle this permanently."

Grizzly frowned a little, and his wings sunk.

Glen sighed. "Look, I know you want to see your siblings as soon as possible, but we have a dragon that's unaffected by Adobe's magic. We have to take this chance, and end him."

Loam snorted indignantly. "This isn't about taking out Adobe, is it? You just want to go rescue your brother first, right?"

"I thought he was dead?" Torrent asked, wondering what was going on. Dragons couldn't be brought back to life with animus magic, right?

Loam shook her head. "Her other sib, Schist. Adobe placed him in the dungeons beneath the temple a few weeks ago as punishment."

"If I'm going to go kill Adobe, we'll have to go to the temple anyways, right? We can just pick him up after," Torrent replied.

Grizzly still didn't seem to like the plan, but didn't speak up.

"Then it's settled," Glen said triumphantly. "We'll go to the temple, Torrent can kill Adobe, and then we'll free Schist."

Torrent wasn't too sure of whether he wanted to kill Adobe or not. Yet, it sounded like it could save a lot of dragons, and Adobe haddone a bunch of bad things. His mother would agree, she occasionally had to kill dragons too, as queen. Wasn't that what good dragons were supposed to do? Do the right thing, even if it meant killing a bad dragon or two?

"Alright," Grizzly replied, "but let's do this as soon as possible."
Glen nodded. "Right before dawn. Grizzly and I are the best fighters, so we'll go with Torrent to the temple." Loam scoffed a little at this. "Loam and Beaver will go out into the village and make sure none of Adobe's followers get in our way. Gravel will stay and look after Petrol and Sediment."

"Wait, what about Griffin?" Torrent asked.

Glen glanced over at the small gryphon. "What about it? It's small and would be useless in a fight. It'd just slow us down. " Griffin let out a small hiss.

"No!" Torrent ordered angrily. "He's coming with us, no exceptions, or I'm not going. If he wants to, of course." He glanced over at Griffin. Griffin shrugged his wings and nodded slightly, with a gentle attempt at a smile forming on his beak.

"Fine," Glen seethed, rolling her eyes upwards. "It can come with us. Just make sure it doesn't get in the way."

Torrent gave Glen a cold glare, but she didn't appear to care, or even notice.

"We've got a busy day tomorrow," Glen warned the others. "Get some sleep, if you can."