Once again, we were on the Plains. Keia had told me that she wanted to go back to the ruins of the old Draconian capitol. She had a strong feeling that we would find something very important there. At the time that her suggestion was made, however, it was almost nightfall, so I took it into consideration and decided to wait until morning. We built a fire somewhat closer to our first campsite in the Plains and took a rest.
"So far, this journey has actually been kinda fun, and even rewarding," I said. Ryth, Vegance, Keia, and Ceae all turned to face me. "I have to thank my parents… At first, I complained because they were sending me on this mission on my birthday… Well, that was then and this is now. I'm happy they sent me away… I've learned so much, and actually got a chance to meet new friends… It's too bad Rona's not here…"
"Don't worry so much," Vegance told me. "I still have a whiff of Rona's magic signature… Something tells me we'll run into him again."
"Rona's kind of a part of me, "Ryth started up. "I can't lose track of him… It's Destiny that keeps us running into each other. Rysta intertwined me and Rona's Destinies together somehow… We will see him again… If not soon, eventually."
"Thanks Ryth, Vegance," I said. I turned to look at Keia. She was silently staring at the ground. "Keia? Is something wrong?"
Keia jerked and looked up at me. "It's nothing… I'm just a little worried about Rona too… That, among other things…"
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No… Not here…"
"You know, we're near that stack of rocks we were near last time we were out here… You and I could go talk about it." I stood up and moved closer to Keia. "C'mon…" Keia looked up at me. I stuck out my hand and took hers. She pulled herself to her feet and we walked off towards the pile of rocks from before.
"So, what's on your mind?" I asked.
"I have this really bad feeling… As though we've been betrayed," Keia told me.
"Betrayed? By Rona?"
"I don't know… I don't think it's Rona… It feels a lot closer to home than Rona."
"You're worried about betrayal?"
"Cryos, what if we're after the wrong person? Like this whole 'mission' is only a cover-up for something more dangerous?"
"Are you doubting my parents?" I asked angrily.
"Well… I've been thinking a lot about what Dave said…"
"What, that no matter what, his brother will be killed?"
"No… You described it the night you met with him… About how you'll realize the truth… What if he's right?" That means we're after the wrong person…"
"Keia… We can't worry about this now… How about we just finish the job we started, and if things go wrong, we'll figure out what to do from there."
"Let's just hope we're doing the right thing…"
"To change the subject a bit," I said, "how about we discuss our future instead?"
"I don't know Cryos… If we end up doing the wrong thing, there may be no future for us… Let's just find those Orb Keys…"
I sighed. "Okay… How about we take a rest?"
"That's a good idea… Some of us need it." Keia abandoned me for the campsite. I looked up at the stars in the night sky.
"Rysta forbid we ever do the wrong thing… Let Destiny guide us as things should be." I followed after Keia to the campsite. Everyone else was already fast asleep. Keia had taken a spot and had lied down. I picked a spot away from the others and lied down myself. I was fairly tired, since it had been awhile since I last slept. Before I fell asleep, I thought I heard Ryth mumble "Yeah, shake that bush…" A smile came across my face as I drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, we retraced our steps back to the Travelers' Town. This "town" now had a few extra buildings under construction, so I imagined the townsfolk finally procured enough supplies to expand their hopelessly small living quarters. We did not stay long because we had one goal in mind: revisit the ruins of the old Draconian capitol. As soon as we had taken care of business (and Vegance had chatted with the innkeeper for what seemed like forever), we put the town behind us and started searching for the ruins once more.
The ruins were right as we left them. This time, however, Vegance and Ryth were a part of the group to set foot upon the rubble. From a distance, I had thought I saw a dark figure leap from the top of one of the towers.
"Did you see that?" I asked aloud while pointing at the tower.
"See what?" Keia asked.
"A black figure jumped from the top of that tower!"
"Maybe it was a bird," Ryth suggested.
"If that was a bird, for one, it was huge… And it definitely couldn't fly," I argued.
"We'll just have to see when we get there," Vegance said.
"What if it's dangerous?" I asked.
"It can't be dangerous… Rona's magic still dwells there. It has kept all evil beings from that place," Vegance replied.
"I would imagine that anything would avoid that place if they feel Rona's presence there," Ryth said.
"Just keep moving! I want to see this place for myself," Vegance demanded.
'Just a bit bossy,' I thought to myself and continued toward the ruins.
When we were at the base of the ruins, Vegance put one hand against the side of one of the stone towers. "This is definitely the place… When Rona and I worked for the darkness, this was our hideout… This was where he and I drew out our plans of attack… That's why it's almost like a town at a distance… I made the illusion. Unsuspecting men searching for a paradise only found death when they arrived… Many a man died on these grounds. Now, it seems the magic force that surrounds this place is weakening rapidly… I don't understand why."
"Maybe it happened when we took Rona's mask?" Ceae asked.
"Perhaps… But there's definitely a strong source keeping the magic alive," Vegance said.
"There must be an Orb Key nearby then," I said. "We should search for it."
"I'll take the tower with Ceae," Keia said.
"You do that… I'll explore underneath some of the ruins," I said.
"I'll head to search some of the decayed towers on the other side of the ruins," Vegance said.
"And I'll just dig randomly through the rubble, just in case," Ryth said. We all split up and searched our designated areas. I went beneath the castle remains to search the underside of the ruins. In my opinion, a powerful source of energy should be at the core of the structure. For nearly an hour, I looked high and low and moved many piles of stone, but never found anything important-looking. Vegance came to join me, empty-handed as well, followed by Ryth who also had nothing.
"So, we're all unsuccessful?" I asked. Ryth hung his head and Vegance silently nodded. "Have either of you seen Ceae or Keia?"
"I've been nowhere near, so I haven't seen either," Ryth said.
"I haven't seen either of them since they left for the tower," Vegance said.
"Real quick… Have you felt the power source yet, Vegance?" I asked.
"Actually, I have… It's on the move, though."
"Maybe Ceae and Keia have found something!" I ran off alone towards the tower Keia had suggested she and Ceae would search. While running up the stairs on the side of the tower, I almost knocked Keia off as I ran into her. My first reaction caused me to throw my arms around her, and we somehow ended up against the wall.
"Well, uh, hi Cryos," Keia said. "A little rough, don'tcha think?"
I pulled away from Keia. "I'm sorry… That just happened to be my first reaction," I said. "Did you find anything?"
"Actually, yeah… But it's not an Orb Key. It's a clue that might tell us who has though."
"What is it?"
"Well," Ceae started, "we were searching the tower… Amazingly, we found a table that wasn't ruined! Entirely, at least… There was a nail sticking out of the side… And on that nail was a clump of black fur."
"It's too fresh to be nearly twenty years old… It's recent," Keia said.
"Vegance told me that she has a lock on the power source around here… The Orb Key… And it's moving. I thought maybe you found something…"
"It's not us… It's got to be Rona. He must've somehow gotten ahead of us," Keia said.
"I think we should report our findings to Ryth and Vegance then," I suggested. "If Rona's here, we have to find him."
"Right." I brought Keia and Ceae to Ryth and Vegance. I could tell immediately that Vegance was disappointed in us.
"Vegance, guess what Keia and Ceae found!" I exclaimed as we approached.
"It's not the Orb Key," Vegance said in frustration.
"No, but it'll definitely lead us to your travelling energy source," Keia said. She held out a ball of black fur that gleamed in the sunlight. "We found this snagged on a loose nail… It's fresh, so I know it has to be Rona's… Rona might've found the Orb Key before us."
"I shouldn't even ask how he could have done such a thing… If he has it, I don't need to know how he got it," Vegance said.
Ryth took a closer look at the ball of fur. "It's definitely Rona's! We should find him…"
"In these ruins?" Vegance asked while turning to face Ryth. "That could take awhile… But I guess we have no choice. I have no idea why he's moving around these ruins. Maybe he's searching for something else…"
"Or maybe he knew we'd be here, so he's searching for us?" I suggested
"After finding the Orb Key, yes," a voice said behind us. We all whipped around to see Rona approaching while holding a small grey sphere.
"Rona!" Vegance shouted and ran over to hug Rona. "I was a bit worried about you… Only a bit. I thought you were staying behind in the FoxWoods?"
"I was… But I hurried to catch up with you. I saw you all gathered at the fire last night… So I went on ahead to get a head start. Unfortunately, I lost a little part of me in the process…" Rona pointed to his side, in which he was missing a bit of his fur. "It'll grow back, but I have the Wind Key."
"How did you know to search here?" Keia asked Rona.
"I used to seek refuge here, when I worked for the darkness… The Wind Key had no use back then other than to cast an illusion over these ruins… I remembered it while sitting in the FoxWoods."
"What were you thinking about while we were leaving?" I asked.
"I prefer not to talk about it… I just have this feeling that this 'mission' is all for nothing," Rona replied.
"That's funny, because I had the same feeling," Keia pointed out.
"We can't confirm those 'feelings' until we've finished the 'mission,'" I said. "We won't know for sure until the job is done."
"If that's the case," Ryth said, "then we should head to the IcePeak Mountains. We can search for the Ice Key and then ask Rysta for the Light Key."
"And if we find neither?" Rona asked.
"Rysta will deliver us back to the Plains… She should know our mission by now."
"We should get moving then!" I said. "Talking about it won't get us anywhere."
"Agreed," Vegance said. Ryth nodded and started to walk off. Everyone followed without complaint, since Ryth was the only one who knew where the passage to the Heaven-Realm was. As we left the ruins, however, the ground began to shake. I dropped to my knees under the sudden movement and twisted around to see what was going on. The ruins were pulling themselves out of the ground and assembling into something!
"This can't be good," I pointed out to Keia.
"Moving buildings is never good, Cryos," Keia replied. The towers of the ruins gathered as four legs to a body made of adjoined stones. The head appeared to be one of the turrets mixed in with rubble. Atop the turret sat a large, purplish, spherical object that was embedded into the rocky floor. In my opinion, the golem resembled a dragon.
"It would seem that, with the last of the magic energy remaining, the ruins have pulled themselves together to form this beast!" Vegance shouted.
"I forgot to mention… Removal of the main power source, or more specifically the Orb Key, would result in a final defense mechanism designed to retrieve the Key," Rona said. "That way, our hideout could never be brought down."
The golem began moving towards us quickly. For a creature made of stone, it sure moved fast! My group split apart to dive away from the stampeding golem. Rona drew his sword, and together with Ryth, climbed onto the golem's back. Ceae distanced himself from the area. Keia, Vegance, and I all drew our weapons, though we had no idea what to do with them. Rona leapt onto the stone beast's head and plunged his sword into the glowing purple sphere. The golem shook itself around frantically as Rona held on to his sword. Finally, Rona was flung from the golem's head and dropped to the ground at our feet. The golem began to thrash around with no particular pattern and ran around as though it were blind.
"That sphere on its head is its weak point!" Rona shouted. "If hit there, it is blinded with pain and will be uncontrollable!" Rona's sword flew from the sphere and landed on the ground next to Rona. "It may be a little difficult for the sword-wielders to get up there…"
"Rona!" Keia said. "You and Ryth can attack more personally… I'll shoot arrows, and Vegance and Cryos can use magic!"
"Good plan," Rona replied and pulled his sword out of the ground. "You do that." Rona ran back towards the golem. Along the way, I saw him motion towards Ryth. Ryth nodded, and again the two of them climbed onto the golem's back. Vegance and I began to charge our energy while Keia fired a multitude of arrows into the golem's core. Each arrow bounced off, but a chip of the sphere came with it. Ryth, Rona, and Keia all slowly whittled down the golem's core while Vegance and I charged our magic. When the golem turned its gaze to Vegance and I, we unleashed a flurry of ice and lightning upon its core. The magic overloaded the sphere, and the sphere shattered. With its last bit of energy, the golem thrust itself forward before it disassembled. A hailstorm of stones fell upon us all before there was silence. Ceae ran to rejoin us.
"I hope we never need to do that again," I said while panting heavily.
"Why should it matter?" Rona asked. "We have half of the Orb Keys already… The other half remain. This battle is just another to put behind us…"
"We should go to the IcePeak Mountains now, unless something else wants to attack us," Ryth said.
"No objections… Meeting with Rysta's power should help us greatly," Vegance said. Without another word, Ryth began to lead us.