I don't own Di-Gata Defenders or the Di-Gata Defender characters.
Chapter Five: The Drevac Stronghold
"Well, here we are" declared Seth, "the um… er… secret place we're suppose to be. Does anyone remember what it was called?"
"I believe Tzur said that it was called the Drevac Stronghold" said Rion as he jumped off Kara's Stormer. "He said that we would find it here."
"Looks cozy" said Adam as he took off his helmet. He scanned the black castle with its dark spires and its twisting and decaying stairs. There were some holes along the walls and dead vines were everywhere. He noticed that some of the spires had toppled over and that the path leading to the castle had cracks with weird weeds growing out of them and had jagged rocks at the edges. Whatever was still standing and not covered in dead vines was covered in a bright green moss that appeared to be glowing. Lightning flashed in the sky and thunder echoed in the barren plain.
"Looks like a nasty storm is coming" said Mel, "we should take shelter in the castle."
"Take shelter in the castle? Are you kidding? It looks like its ready to fall down any moment."
"Don't be such a chicken big brother. I think staying in the castle will be fun."
"Fun? You have got to be kidding me. There's no way I'm going…"
"We have to go in there anyway, Erik" said Seth. "So we may as well go in there now. We'll probably have to spend the night here too, so no complaining. Come on, let's go inside."
Rain started falling from the sky, hard, so the defenders quickly ran into the castle through one of the holes in the walls. Despite how rough the castle looked from the outside, the inside was in pretty good shape. Apart from dust and a fallen chandelier, everything was in perfect condition.
"How can the inside be such good condition when the outside is in such disarray?" asked Erik. "It doesn't make any sense."
"My guess is that damage on the outside was probably mostly caused by the elements."
"Could be possible but there's no time to think about that" said Seth. "We have to find that machine that Tzur said would reconfigure the Key so that it will point to the locations of the pieces of the Celestial Abyss instead of Pure Stones. Can anyone remember where Tzur said it would be?"
"He didn't know" said Rion as he stepped towards a faded painting of a pretty young lady. "No one knows. The Drevac Clan were very secretive and only told the Wizards Of Yan that they would keep the machine in their castle. They didn't even want to give the location of their castle to them. I don't understand why they have the machine when they didn't have anything to do with the Ethos."
"They must have played some part, otherwise, why give them the machine?"
"Who knows if they played a part or not" said Seth as he dropped his bag. "We'll leave our stuff here and split into groups of two. We'll be able to cover more ground that way. Kara, you're going with Erik; Mel you're going with…"
"Me" said Adam as he slipped beside her.
"Sorry Adam but Mel is going with Rion."
"With Rion? Then that means that I'm going with…. you."
"Yeah, well I know how much you're looking forward to spending more time with me. Plus, I'm certain that nothing will get done if you go with Mel, so you're with me."
"Sigh, very well then. I'm ready to follow you, oh fearless leader."
"Glad to hear it, now let's move out." Everyone nodded and the three groups went their separate ways.
Adam and Seth were walking down a long corridor that had several faded paintings hanging on the wall as well as the occasional patches of yellow moss.
"Adam we need to talk."
"We never really need to talk, it just something that we occasionally want to do."
"No, really Adam, we need to talk."
"We're talking now, aren't we? Or has the definition of talk changed since I last used it?"
"I'm serious about this Adam. I've been noticing you lately…"
"Well, I'm hardly invisible."
Seth clenched his teeth and growled "I've noticed that you've been unnerved the last few days and have been distracted lately. I've also noticed that you haven't eaten at all in the last two days. Granted, I'm happy you drank some water this morning but you didn't seem to drink too much."
"I think" said an annoyed Adam "that you are mistaken. I had some of the stew last…"
"You didn't. I saw you."
"You must have been imaging things. I most definitely ate some. Or maybe you just missed it."
"I missed nothing. I watched you very carefully; you ate nothing."
"What are you now? A stalker? Don't you have better things than do than watch me eat? I don't need a babysitter. Or maybe, you just still don't trust me."
"It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I'm concerned about y… Mel! I'm concern about Mel because she's concern about you which makes me concern about you but only because I'm concerned about Mel. Do you understand?"
"Ummm… I guess. Just so that you… and Mel know, there's nothing to be concerned about. Everything's fine."
"What about the dream? Are you fine with that?"
"What? How? When? Why? Did Rion tell you about it?"
"Oh, no, no, no. I listened in on your conversation with him and…."
"You were eavesdropping! I thought you were asleep!"
"I was only pretending to be asleep. I must have done a pretty good job to fool you and Rion."
"Now that I think about, there were a few things that wasn't right about you last night. One, you weren't snoring as loud as you usually do and two, you were lying perfectly still. I should have realized you weren't asleep. How stupid of me to ignore the facts."
"Yeah, it was stupid of you but let's talk about this dream. I want to know everything."
"Ain't going to happen, Seth, so could you just drop it? As I told Rion, this is for me to handle and for me alone."
"I don't think…"
"Finally, you admit to it! And don't deny it Seth, you admitted to it."
"Okay, okay, I stepped right into that one. But just you wait. You're going to walk into another one and I'll be ready for you."
"You better be, Seth, you better be."
"I'm worried about Adam, Rion. I don't know what it is, but something just doesn't feel right. There has to be something bothering him, I just know it. I just wish that he would tell me what was wrong."
Rion stared at Mel's back as they searched an old storage room that had empty barrels and cloth-covered furniture. "I'm certain everything's fine, Mel. But the whole point of Adam going with Seth was so that he wouldn't distract you. It doesn't seem to be helping. Apparently he can distract you from anywhere and anytime."
Mel blushed as she said "I'm not distracted, I'm just worried about him. What if something happens to him?"
"Seth is with him, I hardly doubt that anything will happen to him."
"I suppose you're right but I can't seem to shake the feeling that something is wrong with him."
"Everything's probably okay. I'm certain that if there was anything wrong, Adam would have told us." Or at least I wish that he would tell us. I don't like lying to Mel but I did promise I wasn't going to tell anyone about the dreams and I keep my promises. On the other hand though, Adam didn't keep his promise to me and I actually don't know much myself. Plus, she seems really worried about him and it's unfair to leave her in the dark. Should I tell her? Or should I not?
Mel turned to Rion and saw that there was a concerned and thoughtful look on his face. This filled her with anxiety and annoyance. What's going on? Does he know something I don't? Does it have something to do with Adam? Why didn't he say something to me? "Do you know something, Rion?"
"Me? Know what? What are you talking about Mel? I don't know anything." Yet.
Mel walked over to Rion with a smile that made Rion feel uneasy… "You don't know anything? Are you certain about that?"
"Why are there so many doors here?"
"Come on sis, each door holds a new possibility to it." Erik smiled as she opened another door in the long corridor that Kara and him were in. His smile turned to a frown as he and Kara looked into an empty room.
"Another room with nothing. Wow, this so much fun."
"Well, that's ten doors down and…" Erik squinted as he looked down the corridor, "and about, I don't know, a dozen more to go. Come on, the device has to be behind one of these doors."
"What does this thing look like anyway?"
"Well, it could be a big machine or a small one. It could have several wires coming out of it or none at all. It could be a complicated machine or it could be simple. It could…"
"In other words, we don't have a clue what it looks like. Greaat. Just how are we suppose to recognize this thing anyway."
"I'm certain that we'll recognize it when we see it. I mean, a device that can reconfigure the Key to find the pieces of the Celestial Abyss has got to stand out, right? Especially if you consider the fact that we haven't stumbled across a single piece of technology yet. It must be the only device in here." He opened another door to once again find nothing.
"Yeah, if it's still here" Kara said as she peeked down another corridor.
"Don't say that Kara. We have to think positive otherwise…"
"Hey Erik! Come and look at this!"
Erik turned to his sister to see that she was pointing down the corridor with a big smile on her face. He walked down to her and glanced down it as well.
"What do you think of that? Do you think the device might be in there?"
Erik's eyes opened wide at the sight before him. The corridor opened up to a big room with a beautiful fountain in the middle and crumbling statues along the wall. Standing behind the fountain was a big wooden door that stood up to 15 feet and had some great decorative designs. "I think it might."
They walked up to the door and saw that there was a figure in militaristic clothing on each door as well as some sort of green and white vines design along the edges of the doors. There were even some red flowers on the design and the two figures had swords drawn whose points met in the center of the door.
"If it's not here, I don't where it would be. Robonus, activate!" The tiny version of Robonus came out and stood at attention.
"V-Moth, take flight!" V-Moth appeared right beside Robonus, awaiting her orders.
"Robonus, go and find the others and lead them here. I think we found it."
"You too, V-Moth!"
The two guardians left as the two siblings once again turn to the doors.
"Well, let's see if we're right" said Erik as he grabbed a handle and pulled. Nothing. "The door's stuck, it won't open."
"I can't believe this!" screeched out an outraged Mel, "how could he not tell me?!"
"He didn't want you to worry about him. He said that you and the defenders had enough things to worry about and he didn't want to trouble you."
"He didn't want me to worry?! Well, it didn't work because I was still worried about him. I would have appreciated it if he had trust me enough to tell me. I mean, I knew there was something wrong and it would have been great if he had told me what it was. It was… was… inconsiderate and selfish of him not to tell us!"
"I know that Mel, but I'm certain that he probably had a good reason not to tell us. Besides, yelling out me won't help and I doubt yelling at him won't help either."
"Oh, Adam's going to get a piece of my mind. I'm going to let him know just how angry I am that he kept it a secret from me."
"Just don't tell Erik and Kara. I'm certain that Adam would appreciate it if we didn't tell him."
"What about Seth?"
"Oh, he already knows."
"He already knows? Adam told Seth but not me? I don't believe it!"
"Oh, no, no, no. Adam didn't tell Seth, I told Seth after he had listened in on a conversation between Adam and me."
"And Seth didn't tell me? Oh, he's getting a piece of my mind too."
"He probably didn't tell you for the same reasons that Adam did and…"
Suddenly Robonus appeared between them and started waving his arms around like crazy.
"Robonus? What are you doing here?"
"Maybe they found the machine." Robonus nodded his head at what Rion said and pointed in the direction that he came from.
"Then, what are we waiting for? Let's go! Show us the way Robonus."
Mel and Rion ran after Robonus, one filled with anticipation of what was to come and one filled with anger towards two of her colleagues.