GALE THE HEDGEHOG: ADVENTURES OF THE DEAD SEA
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Chapter Five: Black Magic
The scene shifts towards Gale's ship. Well actually, this was a different ship. Vanilla managed to smuggle a new ship because they did not want to confuse anyone with the original ship being it from South Island. Since her help, Gale and his crew were already sailing across the ocean. Their destination was the direction in where the Black Mist Crew was located at.
We move closer towards the ship to see Gale holding a strange compass in his hand. It was a small black compass with white rectangular designs all over. The compass radiator's was white with a red and blue arrows pointing in the opposite directions from each other.
Not too far away from him was Vanilla, as she walked over towards Gale after finishing her own duties. And from the look on her face, she still didn't look very happy. "Gale, do you know where we are going?"
Gale looked at her strangely. "What are you talking about, Vanilla?"
"We've been at sea for nearly three weeks." Vanilla huffed. "And there still isn't an island in sight. Are you sure we're heading in the right direction?"
"I believe so." Gale replied, as he checked his compass again. "The compass is pointing East, so it looks like we are heading the right way."
Vanilla slapped her head in annoyance. "Idiot! Do you know where we're going? We haven't seen in island for weeks!"
Gale pointed up a finger for a moment to reply back...until he realized what she just said. "Oh, come now. We've only been at sea for three weeks. Voyages like these take a while, you know?"
"I can understand that. But unless someone gets us lost, then that means there is a problem, right?" Vanilla questioned.
"Well...now that you put it that way..." Gale said sheepishly.
Vanilla
"What's going on?" Zed asked, as he and Riolu joined up on deck after finishing up on their duties.
"We heard a little bit of shouting, and we figured you two would be bickering like an old couple." Riolu said with his arms crossed. "May we ask why?"
"If you would believe it, Gale has lead us in the middle of nowhere." Vanilla argued.
"What?" Zed growled angrily.
"You lead us away from where we were suppose to go?" Riolu questioned, also irritated by this.
"How was I suppose to know that? It's not like we were hunting the Lochness Monster or something." Gale shrugged.
"Not that lame excuse again." Vanilla groaned to herself.
"I mean, I tried using my compass." Gale explained. "I was certain we were going the right direction, but I guess I was wrong."
Zed took a look at the compass in Gale's hand. "That is a strange looking compass. It's not familiar to any compasses I've seen before."
"Oh, this?" Gale showed the compass in his hand. "It's a special compass that I...crafted with my own hands." He smirked, almost devilishly.
"Then that must explain on how you got us lost." Vanilla said with her arms crossed.
"Hey now, we haven't run into trouble now, have we?" Gale asked her with a sheepish grin.
"Whatever." Vanilla rolled her eyes.
"Now that we're lost, we'll have to stop on a nearby island somewhere and reform our direction." Zed said.
"But where?" Vanilla asked. "There isn't an island for miles!" She turned to Riolu, whom wasn't paying attention to the conversation. "Riolu, are you listening?"
"I am." Riolu nodded. He was looking in the direction in where the ship was going. "And to answer your other question, there's an island up ahead."
The group headed towards the front of the ship to get a better look at the island for themselves. The island itself was consisted of wooden cabins and lodges where it looked like very few people lived here from the range of the island itself. In the background, we could see a large black mountain made of stone, which was also rounded. Although judging by it's structure, it didn't look like mountain at all.
The ship slowly made it's way towards a nearby dock before finally stopping next to it. Once it stopped, our heroes used a plank to walk towards the dock way and looked around at the island they had arrived at. Half of the people turned to see the our heroes slowly walking while looking around at their surroundings.
"It looks like the people here seem afraid of us." Zed whispered quietly.
'"Nah, I don't think so." Gale shook his head. "They're probably just inspecting us."
"And is that suppose to be a good thing to you?" Zed questioned him, still whispering.
"It depends on what kind of a look you give them." Gale replied. "Just don't give them the angry look."
"What do you mean by that?" Zed asked.
"Trust me. Just keep a straight face." Gale told him. "The angry look is never a good sign."
Zed did not understand what Gale meant when he mentioned the 'angry look'. Did he mean by not getting angry for any reason? Or was it something else that Gale was talking about? Whatever the reason, Zed shook his head and decided to let it go for now.
As our heroes continued to look around, we see two female foxes wearing purple veils over their mouths. The fox on the left was red and the fox on the right was green. They wore black bands on their wrists, light pink leather pants, brown shoes, and each had a white tank top to finish the attire. They approached Gale, as the blue hedgehog looked on, curious as to what was going to happen.
"Welcome to Sand Hill Island." The red fox greeted with a smile inside her veil.
"This is the first time in a while since we have had visitors." The green fox added with a small nod.
"That's very nice of you, girls." Gale smiled politely.
The two foxes giggled slightly in returned, much to the dismay of Vanilla, whom was not liking what she was seeing from these fox ladies.
"My name is Ginger." The red fox introduced.
"And my name is Seles." The green fox nodded.
"And we're both sisters." The foxes said together. "And who might you be?"
"My name is Gale the Hedgehog! The greatest pirate to ever sail the seas." Gale responded with a smirk. "And the guys behind me are my crew mates."
"I'm Riolu." The blue dog-like creature greeted with a nod.
"The name is Zed." The chameleon greeted. "I'm a Royal Guard to Princess Aleena of South Island."
For a moment, Vanilla did not respond. But Gale looked at her with a grin, telling her to introduce herself. She gave in with a sigh. "And I'm Vanilla. Gale's CLOSE friend."
Gale raised a small eyebrow by Vanilla's greeting towards the girls. Was something bugging her?
"Is there anything we can help you with?" Seles asked.
"Actually, I think we got kinda off tracked while we were sailing, so we thought about staying for a while until he can get back on course to where we need to go." Gale explained.
"In that case, take a rest here if you like." Ginger suggested. "Or if you like, you can explore the island to get a better look for yourselves."
Before Gale could reply, Vanilla butted in front of him. "We would actually love to explore this island. It gives us much more to do than sticking around doing nothing."
The two foxes looked at each other for a moment, almost like they had something on their minds.
"In that case, we prefer if you took a look at the cave that's right around the back of this island." Ginger suggested.
"Cave?" Zed raised an eyebrow. "There's a cave on this island?"
Seles nodded as she pointed her finger at the black mountain-like structure. "Right there. All you have to do is go through the forest and you'll come across the entrance that leads into the cave."
"If you want to get to the forest, head right from our village. Once there, go through the forest to get to the cave." Ginger explained briefly.
"Is there anything we should be aware of when we get there?" Riolu asked.
"Oh no!" Ginger shook her head. "The forest is clean, we can be sure of that. However, we're not sure about the cave."
"What do you mean? You haven't checked it out?" Zed questioned.
"No, it's not that." Seles shook her head. "You see, when we tried to investigate the cave when we were younger. It just closed on us before we could get any further. We tried to get it open, but to no avail. And since then, that cave has never been opened ever again."
"Have you figured out why the cave had closed itself?" Vanilla asked them.
"Our best guess is because it doesn't want anyone to enter the cave so it could protect itself from intruders." Ginger shrugged. "But in all honesty, we don't know why."
For a moment, our heroes stayed in silence, trying to take in all this information that the two fox girls have told them. This cave had closed itself from anyone that tried to get in, and because of that, the cave had never opened up ever since.
"I'm sorry we couldn't tell you more." Ginger apologized. "If we had more information, we could've told you all about it."
"Don't worry about it." Gale reassured her with a smile. "We'll go investigate ourselves."
"Yeah." Riolu smiled as well. "And thank you for telling us what you do know. It helps a lot."
"You're very welcome." Seles bowed.
After saying a quick good-bye to the two girls, Gale and the rest of the crew went off towards the forest to search for the mysterious cave.
The scene shifts towards our heroes making their way through the forest. Much like what the girls said earlier, the forest itself was green. However, their was a small trail of mist surrounding the area, although it was barely noticeable. There was a nearby stream that came from a small waterfall that flowed itself towards the village, which also explained on how the people in the village were able to get water in the first place.
Gale looked at his compass once again to make sure that they were going the right way. The others were close to him so that they wouldn't separate from each other.
"You know, I've been thinking about what those girls said earlier." Gale said out loud.
"About the cave?" Zed wondered.
"That's right." Gale replied. "It seems as though my mistake of getting us lost seemed to have led us in the right direction after all."
"You mean, we're on the island of where the Black Mist Crew is hiding?" Riolu asked. "How is it possible?"
Gale seemed to have the answer to what those girls from earlier were talking about. "It seems as though we had gotten a very important clue for this little cave problem. If the cave those girls were trying to get in to seemed to have closed itself. I think I know the reason as to why the cave would not open."
"You do? How?" Zed questioned.
Gale looked at him with a grin. "It's magic."
"Don't be ridiculous." Zed scoffed, believing that Gale wasn't telling the truth. "How the hell could the cave be inherited with magic? If the cave was like that, would it be simple as to say 'open sesame'?"
"Unfortunately for you, my non-believable friend, it isn't that simple." Gale told him. "The only way the magic can only be dispelled is we offer up a blood offering."
Zed did a double take? "A blood offering?"
"That's what he said." Vanilla told him. "I found it a little strange at first, but then I remembered what Gale had told me back when we had supposedly gotten lost. In order to get into Craven's hideout, we need to get in with a blood offering."
"And you believe this?" Zed asked her.
"It's not the first time she believes this stuff. Trust me." Riolu remarked, referring to the times Vanilla used to be a part of Capt. Swift's crew.
The group continued walking for about some minutes later until they came across the cave. Or at least it's what it looked like. The outside of the cave was covered with ground, the cave itself looked round, and the cave's entrance was shut down.
"This must be the cave." Vanilla thought.
"It looks more like a dead end if you ask me." Zed replied with his arms crossed.
Deciding to prove him wrong, Gale picked up a rock and tossed it towards the blocked entrance. Instead of making contact with the door, it instead bounced off, sending the stone flying backwards towards the ground. "Are you sure it's only a dead end?"
Zed decided to say nothing back. Even thought he was wrong, he just kept his a straight face and decided to ignore his own illogical theory.
"So what do we do about a blood offering?" Riolu wondered.
Before Vanilla could reply, Gale beat it to her by pulling out a small bottle of purple liquid. Everyone was confused by this as Gale approached a round stone cup that was attached to a pillar, so it's safe to say that it was in no danger of falling. Gale twisted the cork and opened the bottle as he poured the liquid into the cup. For a moment, nothing happened. That was, until the stone door opened itself by raising the door, so that it would clear an opening for our heroes. The magic itself dematerialized itself, taking care of the last barrier that was protecting the cave.
"Uh...what exactly did you pour in, Gale?" Vanilla questioned.
Gale turned his head at Vanilla. "Oh, that? It's octopus blood."
Vanilla almost choked at this response. "Octopus blood? Where the hell did you manage to get that?"
"I managed to take some back from the bar before we left Shipwreck Isle. Apparently, one of my former crew mates was holding it on him, so I took it from him so that we could gain entrance to Craven's hideout when that time came." Gale explained with a grin.
"If you don't mind me asking, why exactly was this former pirate of yours carrying octupus blood, anyway?" Zed asked.
"Oh...well, honestly, I don't know. But hey, pirates are pirates: We pillage for a living. What can you do about it?" Gale shrugged.
If this whole mess wasn't happening from the beginning, Zed knew exactly what he would do. But with what's been going on, Zed decided that being a pirate wasn't exactly a bad thing. At least, that's what he thought to himself. The real thing on his mind is how would Princess Aleena react when she saw her own royal guard joining a bunch of pirates?
"Let's get going. Otherwise, we could be just standing out here, doing nothing." Riolu suggested.
Zed was able to get the message, as he and the rest of the crew made their way inside the cave.
Our heroes ventured through the deepest parts of the cave. The cave was dark, obviously, and was filled with skeleton bones that would possibly scare the living daylights of a small child, or any other normal person for that matter.
"It seems that the Black Mist Crew likes to decorate." Riolu said slowly, looking at the signs of dead skulls and bones that hanged itself on the walls. There was also chains on here to torture the dead, as if that wasn't bad enough.
"I really don't care." Zed said. "If it's suppose to scare me away from protecting Princess Aleena, then this Black Mist Crew has another thing coming."
The group suddenly encountered a trail of four different pathways in front of them, each leading to a different part of the cave.
Gale seemed to caught of some sort of impression. "It seems as though Craven has increased a part of his security force."
"What do you mean?" Riolu asked.
"It's like he's trying to set up trials to test us to see if we can make it through this mess." Gale believed.
"So does this mean we're splitting up?" Vanilla wondered.
"That seems to be the plan." Gale replied. "The question is; who takes what pathway?"
"I'm going to take the path on the far right." Zed quickly decided.
"Then I'll go on the path second to where Zed is going." Vanilla said.
"I'll go to the second path to the left." Riolu pointed out. "Is that all right with you, Gale?"
"Whatever works for you." Gale shrugged. "Presonally, I don't really care which path I take. Getting through it is all that matters right now."
After a small debate, the group split themselves up, each taking their own path as they walked through the dark hallways awaiting the trials that were to come.
Sometimes you have to take the hard way through before things go easy on you. What do these trials hold in store for our heroes? Will Gale and his crew be able to make it through their trials? Or will it prove to be too much for them to overcome? Find out on the next Gale the Hedgehog: Adventures of the Dead Sea!
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