Torrent was awoken by a yell that split his ears.
"GET UP! IF YOU SLEEP ANY LONGER, YOU'LL ALL TURN INTO RAINWINGS!" Glen shouted with a shriek.
Griffin moaned as he turned his feathered head to stare at Torrent with a look of exasperation.
"We're up," Loam grumbled, slowly raising her head. "Quiet, or you'll alert the whole town to our location."
Adrenaline was pumping through the dragons' veins as soon as they remembered what task they were planning to set out on, and they were soon awake and ready to leave. After a last minute review of battle plans, Griffin, Torrent, Glen, Grizzly, Loam, and Beaver were out of the small house. Torrent was glad to be out, it was tight and cramped in the hidden cellar, and he was glad to have the open sky above him. It might not have been the vast expanse of the ocean, but it was something.
The sun had not yet broken free of the horizon, and the air was warm and humid, with all the wondrous smells of the swamp mixed in. The town was beneath them, and no dragons were awake yet as far as Torrent could see. The six flew a small way towards the tower before Loam and Beaver broke off, going to make sure the other four weren't interfered with by outside dragons. The other four flew up to the top of the stone temple in the center of the city. Glen had told them there was an entrance from the roof, so that Adobe could walk out and gaze over his domain.
They landed on the roof, as quietly as possible, so not to alert Adobe to their presence. As soon as Torrent's paws touched the stone, it crumbled beneath him. He yipped in surprise and lifted back off it, glad he hadn't fully closed his wings. The stone suddenly reformed itself, pieces of it rising up from the hole Torrent had made. Grizzly stared at it in surprise.
"It's his dagger," Griffin pointed out. "You said the whole temple was made using magic, right? It must be preventing the magic from working, causing the temple to turn back into the stone it was enchanted from."
Torrent nodded, and pulled out his dagger. "How come it didn't do anything when I was in your house?" he asked Glen.
"The house was made by us, not Adobe," Glen replied. "Hence the secret cellar. Torrent, get onto Grizzly's back. He'll carry you down."
Torrent complied, and landed on Grizzly, making sure his claws didn't touch the ground beneath. Grizzly grunted as the SeaWing shifted from side to side, trying not to push down on Grizzly's fragile wing membranes. After they were settled, Grizzly crawled to a small door on the roof, leading down into the temple. Glen opened it ahead of him.
Torrent squeezed in his wings and limbs, trying to make himself as small as possible, so not to brush against the walls of the stairwell. The four slowly moved down a flight of stairs, Griffin checking ahead of the group for Adobe, or any other dragons. Finally, Griffin waved his talons, indicating that something was there.
"Is that Adobe?" he whispered to Glen.
Glen growled at what she saw through the doorway. A large reddish-brown MudWing lay sprawled across a plush bed, sleeping soundly. She walked through the doorway, when suddenly a high-pitched screech sounded with everywhere around them, the voice of something not quite dragon. Glen covered her ears with the tips of her wings, and the other three did the same. Torrent almost slid of Grizzly when the MudWing did so, but managed to hold on.
After a few moments, the screech stopped. The sleeping MudWing moved himself off the bed, hissing in irritation. "Who dare disturbs me?"
Glen stepped forward, Griffin cautiously entering the room behind her, and Grizzly following while carrying Torrent.
"Glen," Glen stated, bloodlust in her speech. "You killed my brother, Quake."
The red MudWing, who Torrent assumed was Adobe, snorted in indignation. "Did I?" he asked. "Or did he kill himself? He knew the consequences for his actions, and faced them. Just like you and your other brother will."
Glen roared furiously, her blood steaming like a SkyWing with too much fire, but Adobe tsked. "You should know better, Glen," he continued, "you know why Quake died. I need everyone to obey me for this town to function, and he threatened that."
"He did not!" Glen protested, fuming.
"He did," Adobe calmly replied. "Just as you do." Adobe took a slow look around the room, as if he was appraising his own architectural handiwork.
"GLEN, HERE!" Torrent shouted, realizing what Adobe was about to do. Glen took a step back, and Torrent draped one of his wings over her.
Adobe chuckled at this futile gesture. "Walls, turn into spikes and kill all the dragons in this room other than myself."
Suddenly, the grey stone started swirling and morphing, and within seconds, sharp spikes reached out with furiosity, aiming for Torrent, Grizzly, and Glen. Torrent squeezed his eyes shut, hoping Orca's dagger worked as intended. When he opened them again, sharp spikes were spread out in a sphere centered on Torrent, almost reaching Grizzly and Glen. Had the two MudWings had been just a little further from Torrent, they could have been impaled, and the floor would be covered in a sea of blood.
Griffin stood off to the side, peeking his feathered head out of the doorway, thankful that "dragons in the room" hadn't included him. Fortunately, Adobe's enchantment was not expecting a gryphon to be in his midst.
Torrent reached out with his dagger, and placed it on a stone spike. He moved a claw to the emerald, which would remove the the enchantments on it, preventing the spikes from reforming. It worked as planned. The stone spikes crumbled into pebbles and dust, cracks starting from their tips, and moving along the spikes to their ends. Torrent proudly smiled, sporting a triumphant grin. He turned towards Adobe.
Adobe rested on his bed with a confused look. He glanced at his claws, as if wondering why his magic hadn't worked properly, then at Torrent. "What is the meaning of this?" he growled.
"Adobe of the MudWings," Torrent announced dramatically, "I have come to free these dragons from your claws and punish you for your wrongdoings."
"What wrongdoings?" Adobe protested, looking somewhat anxious. "I've done nothing but give these dragons a home!"
"You enslaved us, trapped us, forced us to worship you, and killed us!" Glen hissed. "You've done plenty wrong."
Torrent agreed. Adobe had used his animus magic to do evil. No dragon should have that power, he thought, even if they want to use it for good.
Adobe snarled, then turned his head slightly. "What have you done?" he yelled.
Torrent turned to where Adobe was looked, and gulped. Cracks were appearing on the wall, and light pieces of crumbling rock started to fall from the ceiling above. Torrent's dagger had not only removed the enchantments on the spikes, but on the entire temple. The whole tower was coming down around them.
"We need to get out of here!" Griffin yelled in worry.
"No!" Glen shouted. "We have to take care of him first." She pointed a claw at Adobe.
Adobe saw Glen, and attempted to run for the exit, trying to push past Grizzly and Torrent. Torrent leapt at the MudWing animus, dagger in claws, and landed on the MudWing, both of them falling to the ground below. Adobe howled in pain as the dagger embedded itself through a layer of Adobe's scales. Torrent's claws nudged against the pearl on his dagger, and the scales around where the dagger punctured Adobe started to turn the color of grey stone.
Adobe let out a shrill scream in terror before the stone quickly engulfed his entire body, turning it to stone and silencing him. As Torrent rode the stone MudWing's body to the ground, it eerily reminded him of one of Orca's statues, but he didn't have too much time to dwell on the thought before the two hit the floor beneath.
When the young SeaWing touched the stone below, it crumbled away beneath him, causing Adobe to fall through the hole and onto the floor below. The MudWing's stone body crashed onto the floor and shattered, pieces of stone remains flinging everywhere. When the dust settled, there was nothing left but his scattered remains: an eye there, a claw there, all turned all the way through to stone.
Torrent didn't have time to look at the scene beneath: he fell through the floor, and not encountering any resistance from the one below, through that one as well. He passed through one more floor as well before he finally had the sense to open his wings, and flew up, any piece of the temple he got too close to crumbling. It was a weird and unnerving sense, attempting to fly in such close corridors, but it didn't take him long to realize that he could just pretend the normally solid boundaries weren't there.
Torrent flew back up to his three companions, trapped within the slowly falling apart building. "Grab my claws!" he shouted at Grizzly and Glen. They did so, and followed him as he created a hole through the wall of the temple. Once they were free of the building, Torrent let go of their claws and they opened their wings, gliding down to the base of the crumbling tower.
The SeaWing flew back inside the building, where Griffin was. He held out a claw for his friends, but Griffin draw away in alarm. Right, Torrent remembered, I might disenchant him. "Jump through a hole right after I make one!" he yelled.
Torrent flew through the wall again, the stone crumbling as he went through. Griffin trailed close behind him, and immediately after, he flew through as the stones were reforming the wall. Rock cut against him as he jumped through, causing Griffin to seethe in pain, but he made it through with little more than a few scratches.
Griffin and Torrent flew to the ground, where Glen and Grizzly were waiting. Cracks were slowly spreading down the tower above them, and hunks of stone were dangerously falling from above. "You need to get out of here!" Torrent yelled at the two.
Glen shook her head. "I need to get Schist! He's still in the prisons below!"
She ran into the building, and Torrent quickly went after her, Griffin following. Hunks of rocks were falling from above, and they were scattered what looked like what might have been an beautiful hall at one point. Glen glanced at a hole in the floor created as Torrent stepped into the building and the floor crumbled beneath him. "Down there!" she said.
The three glided down into the basement beneath the entrance hall, Torrent's eyes adjusting to the dark. A faint rumbling from the crumbling stone could be heard. There was a small tunnel at the end of the room, presumably leading to the dungeons, but it was blocked by a series of rocks that fell from above. Torrent attempted to use his dagger in hopes of getting rid of them, but they didn't move.
"They were already disenchanted," Griffin pointed out. Torrent pushed against the rocks, trying to move them away.
Glen nervously glanced up, clawing away at the rubble as fast as she could. "We need to go faster than this!"
Griffin saw a small entrance into the tunnel, too large for Glen or Torrent, but just barely large enough for a small gryphon to enter through. "I think I can get in," he suggested. "I can try and get your brother out while you two clear away the rubble."
Glen looked hopefully at Griffin, while Torrent showed an expression of worry. Griffin hesitated, wondering what to do.
"Go now," Torrent whispered, pulling away a few stones around the entrance. "Hurry."
Griffin nodded, and scrunched his wings together as close as he could. He poked his head into the gap, and crawled into Adobe's dungeons.
The dungeons were dark and empty, consisting of a wide tunnel with barred cells on one side. Griffin heard the rumbling of falling rocks above him, and shivered in apprehension. He quickly walked down the stone tunnels. If he didn't hurry, the entire place would come down on top of his head.
Dimly lit torches were held in place on the side of the damp walls. Griffin passed by a number of empty dungeon cells. It appeared that Adobe didn't keep many prisoners.
Griffin passed more cells. They were each as empty as the last, and most of them looked like they had never been used. Griffin doubted Schist had been given much company in this place. A simple jail cell for the entire village would have sufficed, but based on the crumbling temple above, Griffin guessed Adobe had a passion for the extravagant.
He peered over at one of the cells. He hadn't seen one before: there were cells in the Summer Palace, and a prison not too far from the Deep Palace, but Griffin had never visited. Torrent had described one once when Griffin had asked what Queen Coral did to dragons who stole or killed, but that was it.
Griffin finally arrived at the cell he was looking for. A young MudWing lay on the ground, his head down in a state of perpetual boredom. His scales were a greyish brown and he had a cream underbelly, just like Glen. "Schist?" Griffin asked.
The dragon's head raised up, and he looked over at Griffin. "Yes. What are you?" he asked, frowning. "Did Adobe make you to guard me or something?"
"Close!" Griffin said, surprised that Schist had guessed he was created through animus magic. "Wait, I mean, not close! Adobe didn't create me, and I didn't come here to guard you. I'm here to rescue you!"
Schist eyed Griffin, suspicious. "You are?" he asked.
Griffin nodded. "Yep! Your sister sent me."
"Glen?" Schist asked. "How? Did something happen to Adobe?"
"Adobe's gone for good," Griffin replied. "But no time to explain, the entire building is going to fall on us if we don't hurry." A loud crash sounded above them, as if proving Griffin's point. Griffin looked around the area, trying to find keys for the cells.
"They're over there," Schist explained, pointing a claw to a ring on the wall with a few keys hanging off it. "Not sure what the point of it was though. Adobe could've just used his magic to trap me."
Griffin grabbed the ring and quickly walked over to the cell holding Schist. He fumbled with the keys for a minute, trying to find the correct one for the lock. After what felt like an eternity, he unlatched it. The barred door swung open, and Schist stepped out, with a grateful look on his snout.
"C'mon," Griffin said, waving his talons at Schist. "We need to hurry." He took a quick glance at the ceiling before running back down the tunnel. Schist followed close behind.
After a rushed walk back, the two reached the end of the tunnel, the passage, now widened from Glen and Torrent's efforts. "I got him!" Griffin yelled out.
Glen poked her head through the hole Torrent and her were still digging out, and shouted in joy. "Schist!"
Schist waved a claw to her and grinned back. He walked up to the end of the tunnel, and looked through the hole. Torrent and Glen were furiously trying to move away rubble. "Torrent and I will pull you through," Glen suggested. Schist nodded.
He tucked his wings in as tight as possible, and held out his two foreclaws. Torrent and Glen each grabbed onto one, and pulled him through the small hole as hard as they could. After a lot of scrapes, he was able to get through, falling onto Torrent and Glen. Griffin crawled through after.
"We need to go," Torrent proclaimed. "The floor above us won't hold for much longer."
Glen nodded, and walked to a small stairwell in the corner. Suddenly, a hunk of rock came down, narrowly missing her. "Hurry!" she yelled to Schist.
Schist and Griffin followed her up the stairwell, avoiding the falling rubble. They ran across the entrance hall, avoiding falling rocks and holes. Torrent followed afterwards, flying upwards through the floor, causing it to dissolve and reform as he passed through. The four made it to the exit, where Grizzly, Loam, and a large amount of other MudWings were waiting safely outside of the temple's walls. They looked back and watched as the cracks slowly spread down the tower and it to crumbled to rubble.