Chapter Twelve

Slowly Draco opened his eyes. He was staring at the moon, it was full, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight, only stars. He tried to get up fast, but fell back down and realized he was extremely dizzy. Trying again but much slowly he managed to stand on his feet though everything was spinning.

Looking around he saw several small islands off across the waters around him, he recognized the area from his map; he was at Tenma isles. But how was that possible, one minute he was on Aeon Toris in the corrupted chasm, the next he was all the way on Saeyune.

“You are here because we brought you,” A female voice whispered in Draco’s head.

He looked around again; there was no one in sight, “Who said that, how are you speaking to me inside my head?”

“Telepathy, a trick an old friend taught us.”

“Us?”

In answer two Dragons swiftly descended from the sky, landing by Draco with a loud thud. The first Dragon was massive and hulking, with crystal looking skin that shimmered in the moonlight and was shades of greens and blues mixed evenly. The second dragon was more slender with a sapphire skin and a glow of the same color, much more beautiful to look at it.

Draco took a couple steps back and tripped on himself falling to his butt. He was scarred, as he should be, two of the most legendary elementals in the world were now starring down at him. He could not fight them both, he would be lucky if he could even run.

“You need not fear us Draco, we will not harm you.”

Slowly Draco got back to his feet never leaving his eyes from the pair dragons, “How do you know my name?”

“We need your help.”

“My help? With what?”

“Destroying Ragnarock. They are planning to bring back a powerful monster to this world that would kill not only every human, but every elemental. And we cannot assault them head on; doing so may end up unleashing this monster, we need information.”

Draco got back to his feet, his fear subsiding, “And what do you need me for exactly?”

“Infiltration, we need to get inside their headquarters and find out a way to destroy them without sealing our doom as well. Will you help us?”

Draco thought about his answer for a long while, the dragons just remained unmoving like statues, waiting patiently. He had no reason to say no, this was everything he wanted; to destroy Ragnarock, and now two legendary elementals were offering him help in doing that. So why has he not taken their offer right away, perhaps he didn’t fully trust them, he did just meet them.

They did not seem like they were lying about Ragnarock trying to do something evil. “Is this what my parents were investigating and why they were killed?” Draco thought to himself. “Did they stumble upon some grand plan for Ragnarock to destroy the world? But why would they do that they essentially already ruled it.” The more he thought the less he understood. Nothing made sense to him, but it seems like something else was pulling the strings of his life, putting everything together the way it was supposed to.

“What was it she said earlier, something about Destiny?”

Draco looked up at the lunar dragon and asked, “Earlier you said something about destiny, what did you mean?”

Her voice whispered inside his head, “We saw you in our dreams, saw this meeting and saw you helping us to stop Ragnarock from killing us all. Destiny has brought us together here, it calls us. And if we ignore it everything will be destroyed.”

After a long moment of silence Draco said, “Alright, I don’t know why but I think you’re telling the truth. So yes we shall work together to bring down Ragnarock.”

“That is good to hear, my name is Lienna, and this is Galrin.” The Aether dragon roared in response of his name. “He is shy but tremendously powerful. Please pull out two of those blank dimension seals from your belt so we may hide in them until the time is right to come out.”

“Dimension seals?” Draco asked confused.

“Those rectangular thin items you call cards. They are actually dimensional seals in a more compact fashion. Complex as anything you humans have ever created, and one of your worst creations yet by far.”

Draco pulled out two blank white cards and starred at them. “These are created and distributed by Ragnarock, I believe only they know the secrets to their creation as well. It seems whatever the hell they are up to that they have been planning and orchestrating things around the world for a long time.

I don’t know what the hell is going on, but it won’t last for much longer. I think we will need more elementals though, Ragnarock is filled with powerful magicians and elemental tamers and I’m not sure we alone can take them with a small force.”

The dragons looked at each other than in two separate blinding lights of mixed colors they disappeared into the cards. Moments later Draco head Lienna’s voice again, “If you think that is necessary than we have no objections. I will keep a telepathic linkup between us three at all times. Galrin may not speak much, but he can hear yours and mine thoughts so you don’t have to worry about speaking.”

Draco concentrated on his thoughts in a form of speech, “This will take some getting used to.”

“What is the plan Draco?”

Draco paced around in silence thinking for several minutes until he said, “Well if we are going to infiltrate them the best time would be in a few months during the annual tournament and festival. They will be too distracted with it all to notice some rogue slipping inside the headquarters, from there I don’t know.

“I have never been inside and am not entirely sure what I will be looking for. Right now though let me complete my deck; since we are at the isles I can hunt first for an archangel, do you know where one might be Lienna; a powerful one?”

After some thought Lienna said, “I believe archangels stay around the center of the isles mostly. I spend most of my time above the atmosphere closer to the moon so I am not entirely sure. But they are creatures of the daylight so we must wait until sunrise to seek them out.”

“That is good, it is a start. Since we have some time though I shall rest, please wake me when the sun starts to rise.” Then without much thought Draco laid his head down on the soft grass, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Lienne ended up having to wake him up because he was so tired. He wanted to go right on back to sleep, but finding an Archangel might take up the entire day so he didn’t have time to spare.

After breakfast he flew to the center of the isles, where the whole isles were teeming with elementals of both light and wind. As he was going he kept his eyes on the lookout for archangels but failed to notice a small flock of arrow Eagles. He flew right into a few of them colliding in the air and spiraling around trying quickly readjusting himself straight.

He prepared for them to attack him but they only cawed at him and moved on back to the flock. He kept his eyes on them until they were far enough away then he asked, “Why didn’t they attack me?”

“Why would they,” Lienna countered. “You only bumped into them after all?”

“Yes but most elementals are vicious and it’s common for them to attack on sight especially when provoked.”

“Is it?” Lienna asked sarcastically. “Some of us are easily agitated, but tell me how many wild elementals have you randomly been attacked by during your trip through the corrupted chasm?”

Draco was silent thinking about it then he said, “None, at least that I didn’t start, I thought they just didn’t see me as much of a threat because of my small size.”

“Hah,” Lienna barked. “And let me ask you this then how many towns or cities have been attacked by even a single wild elemental in the past decade?”

After a few minutes Draco sighed and said, “None that I know of.”

“I suppose you’re too young to know, but when I lived in other places with other elementals, humans would come by and attack us claiming to each other that we were attacking their town and have done untold damage to it.

“Of course we knew this was a lie since we avoid the your civilizations best we can, but I was curious and went to this supposed ransacked town, days after we were accused of attacking it, only to find it wasn’t damaged in the slightest. In my travels and after speaking with other elementals around I heard similar tales of your kind attacking us in the false claim of destroying your homes or shops.

“You see child you’re raised to believe we’re vicious monsters so that you will not feel guilty about enslaving us, or using us as tools for entertainment.”

Lienna had a good way of making Draco feel bad there, but he was never fully interested the pillar battles or much of the future either. His prime concern was and still is destroying Ragnarock.

“When Ragnarock has fallen perhaps I can repay you with helping the other Elementals some way if that’s what you desire, but for now let us stay focused on our prime objective.”

The center of the isles was filled with angelic elementals, Draco searched around among them looking for an Archangel for a while but finding none. Then before too long Lienna said, “Higher up, above the clouds.”

Draco looked up but couldn’t see much past the glaring sun or the gathering of clouds around, but he went up anyways trusting in Lienna’s word. Above the clouds his eyes gazed over the horizon until spotting the archangel Lienna promised.

He approached it slowly, the distance between them great. As he went he gathered energy until his belt shinnied a bright blue and green light and Galrin launched forth from nowhere and attacked the archangel. Within seconds the archangel was defeated and its unconscious form drifting towards Draco slowly, caught in a gravity bubble.

Draco was still trying to where off his sudden surprise when a deep and commanding male voice spoke to him in his head. “You have already proven yourself from defeating the behemoth; these lesser ones are of no real challenge for you. It is quicker for me to take them out, so capture the angel and let’s move on.”

“Galrin is right,” Lienna said, “you proved yourself and this way is faster.”

Draco pulled out a blank card and sealed the archangel away before they moved on. Galrin remained out with Draco and trailed behind him. He told Lienna that he needs a gold eagle next.

They spent the entire day flying around the isles hunting one down. Draco didn’t think that he would find another legendary so quickly and easily, but Lienna seemed to have some sort of unique tracking ability or something that Draco didn’t understand.

Since Galrin had done almost all the work Draco had plenty of energy to spare, but decided to sleep for the night anyways. Before the sun fully set he used the last light of day to speed to the nearest coast line by the isles and rest there after building himself a small fort as he always did. Galrin disappeared back into the card and waited; a little impatient for the next day.

The next day they went north to DarkSied Mountain. It was easy to spot the mountain in the distance so Draco sped to it full speed and reached it within two days. The mountain itself was dark stones that looked like the landscape folded upward layering onto itself again and again, then molding crudely together until it had a large dark mountain with the top jutting into the sky.

Even with the sun beaming on it full force, the mountain looked like there was an ever looming shadow cast over it and around the area for a few miles to go; hence it’s name DarkSied Mountain. The place was supposed to be crawling with dark elementals and some Stone ones as well. Like the corrupted chasm was the place to go to find the strongest gravity elementals, DarkSied was the place for the strongest dark elementals.

There was still some sun left in that day so Draco searched around for the entrance to the mountains inside since outside there was nothing. He knew from his studies DarkSied had numerous caverns and tunnels all throughout it, but what he did not learn was its lack of entry points. Before finding the entrance night fell and it was too dark for Draco to search for an entrance even with his illuminating spells.

He had to camp for the night. But before he set up, Galrin and Lienna went forth and decided they would search for the entrance that night until they found it. Draco didn’t complain, only ate his final meal then sometime later went to sleep. He woke up just before dawn and Lienna told him they found an entrance.

After breakfast Draco followed her to the entrance; if you didn’t know where to look, it would be impossible to see. She and Galrin had to return to their cards since the tunnels were too small for them to go through. Draco went ahead casting a dim light spell that gave him fair visual inside the tunnels, but wouldn’t scare off the dark elementals.

As he progressed on, following different paths at random Lienne asked, “What Elementals are we searching for today?”

“I’m hoping to find a wraith, a chimera, and a manticore within these mountain tunnels.”

After a few minutes of silence Lienne said, “There are about six wraiths closest to you at this time, which should we pursue?”

Draco stopped and said, “Which ever is the strongest you think.”

A moment passed and then Lienna began guiding Draco down the tunnels taking many turns at her direction, but he never fully knew where he was going and simply had to put his trust in Lienna again. If there were other elementals around on his hunt Draco didn’t spot them, but he was primarily focused on the wraith. Still as a precaution he kept a fair glow of light around him to deter any potential hostile elementals.

Soon enough Lienne told Draco to put out all the lights he used to see and told him to walk forward and turn right. He couldn’t see anything in front of him and put his hand on the wall nearest his side and used that to guide him to the next turn. He walked slowly so he wouldn’t trip on a large rock or stumble over himself. He isn’t the clumsy sort of person, but in the pitch black like that even the most graceful person can make a blunder easily if they were going fast.

After he turned the corner he asked, “Alright do I keep going forward where is it?”

“Directly in front of you about twelve feet away. Be careful not to scare it off wraiths may be strong but they are shy.”

Draco concentrated slowly as he gathered energy from around. He imagined the wraith not too far from him and then the tunnel just ahead. He still hadn’t summoned any light spell so this would be tricky. When he felt he had things pictured in his head enough he used his gathered energy to shoot a thick slab of stone up from the ground behind the wraith to block its path away from him.

It hissed a little in reaction and he made his next move right away. With two quick jabs of his hands he shot out spears of light that hit the wraith on its shoulder and waist. It shrieked in agony and Draco lit up the area with bright luminescence. The wraith was a shadowy cloaked elemental that looked like pure darkness in some aspects. Then again it was a shadow ethereal and ethereals, though rare, all had that same unique look of raw energy about them.

Draco knew it was weakened by the lights all around it, but also knew that ethereals were notoriously intelligent. It lay down on the ground appearing defeated, but he knew better than to approach it or try to seal it away, he’d leave himself open for attack. So instead of doing what it wanted he shot out another light beam aimed for the center of its back now that he could see.

The wraith somehow sensing the attack shot forward at Draco going just under the light beam. Draco was faster though and threw the wraith into the side of the wall nearest him with an invisible force. The same force kept the wraith pinned against the wall and any attack it tried to make was pushed back with the same force before it could get even an inch closer to Draco.

Gravity magic was easily the most powerful of all the 9 magic elements, and also the rarest for magicians to have talent in. Even so Draco was fortunate enough to gotten a gravity element tutor at the academy, though she could only teach him how to defend with gravity magic because she didn’t know how to use it fully offensively like the elementals did. But Draco, among mastering the other 8 elements, resolved to master gravity as well and though he would never be as talented as most gravity elementals he was still skilled enough within his own rights.

With the wraith pinned to the wall it was easy enough for Draco to weaken it greatly so he could seal it away. After that Draco shattered the stone slab he raised to block the path then said, “Alright Lienna can you search out a chimera in here?”

“It will take some time but yes I can,” She said.

Draco had nothing to do but wait around, so he sat down and closed his eyes, going into a state of minor meditation. He did this a lot at school when he had excess free time and finished practicing magic or studying. It was a good exercise to help him clear his mind, but even that could do nothing for his endless thirst for revenge.

Finally Lienne said, “I found a strong one but it’s deeper down, I cannot seem to find a direct tunnel link so you will have to just go until you find one that slopes down.”

Draco got up and continued on down the tunnels this time with light once more since he already got his wraith. He wandered around for an unknown amount of time until he eventually got hungry and stopped to eat. His paths had curved and twisted and sometimes even sloped, but some went upwards so he avoided those ones. After eating he set out again until he started getting tired after wondering for seemingly more endless hours.

He was nearing the end of one path and decided to see where it would go before resting. But when he got to the end he saw something that baffled him, a massive set of stairs built out from the rocks and zigzagging down for some time. “Well this is a surprising development,” Draco said out loud to himself.

“What is it?” Lienna asked a little cautious.

“Stairs,” Draco answered.

“I don’t understand, what’s the big deal about them?” Lienne asked not trying to hide her confusion at all.

Draco started descending the stairs and said, “Because unless I am wrong Elementals have no need of stairs right?”

“Correct…” Lienna said wondering where Draco was leading her.

“Well then if elementals don’t need them, then why build them? Unless they didn’t, unless it was humans who built these stairs. And whoever built these obviously planned to have frequent use for them but I cannot fathom what exactly.”

The discovery of the stairs took away most of Draco’s tiredness and he pressed on down them eager to see where they led. Eventually they came down to large clearing where in the center stood numerous dark glowing pillars. Draco started to approach them when his belt shined a sapphire light and out came Lienna who approached the pillars.

Draco was curious about what she was up to but didn’t say anything, and only stayed back watching her closely as she continued studying the nearest pillar. It wasn’t long until she wrapped her claws around the pillar and ripped it right out of the ground tossing it aside like it was nothing and studying the hole left behind.

Draco was even more curious about this new development and went to see what she was looking at now when she suddenly opened her mouth and shot out a sapphire beam of light energy that swept over the other pillars and shattering them into tiny pieces.

Draco stopped his pace instantly and even backed away a little in fear. With the pillars destroyed Lienna returned to the card without a word. After a short wait Draco asked, “What was that about?”

“We had been wondering where they were gathering all that energy from,” Lienna said, “and now we know.”

“The pillars?” Draco asked. “But they look just like the ones from the official tournament battles. Why would they be here?”

“To summon the monster we believe Ragnarock is trying to summon they need an extreme amount of energy. Those pillars there were siphoning energy from what I presume is the core of DarkSied Mountain and they were connected all the way to Aeon Toris.”

Draco started setting up camp to sleep because he was still tired but focused on what Lienna was saying. “How could you tell that?” He asked.

“I could trace it all the way back there from the roots, anyways with the pillars destroyed there shouldn’t be any more energy being siphoned from here but this was just a small area, they must have built these pillars all around the world in places they wouldn’t easily be found or destroyed.”

Draco’s small fort was set up and he lay on his side thinking in silence for several minutes. Finally though he said, “So that’s the purpose of the game and the battle structures.”

“What game?” Lienna asked.

“It’s this yearly tournament battle I told you about earlier,” Draco said, “The one that people compete in year round to be eligible for their grand tournament. People fight in special arenas or coliseums dedicated to the sport where there is one pillar for each competitor.

“People use the pillars to help them draw in energy from around easier and they fight to destroy their opponent’s pillar, if they do that without theirs getting destroyed beforehand they win the match. They fight for glory and great prize money mostly, some for the fun of it all too though.”

After some thought Lienna said, “Some of the energy gathered by the magicians must be siphoned back to Aeon Toris just like these pillars. But if they get destroyed then what is the point of the battles?”

“Well the referees who are Ragnarock representatives repair the pillars it only takes them a few minutes to repair one. Still now the sport makes more sense, it’s a grand cover up for them to gather a huge store of energy without having to do much; they set up the pillars for the battles, and we gather the energy for them. And I’m guessing if people somehow stumble upon pillars outside the battle areas like here they will think little of it at all. I just wish I knew what they were up to.”

“Does it matter to you so much?”

Draco hesitated then said, “A little, I think this must have been the very thing my parents were killed for, I think this was what they somehow stumbled upon at Ragnarock. But it doesn’t change anything, I will still destroy them.”

With that Draco slept his dreams filled with chaos. He woke up an unknown time later, ate some food then moved on asking Lienna where the manticore was. She told him it hadn’t move much since he slept but in fact got a little closer to him.

His trip took him deeper down into the mountain until he finally found the Manticore. This creature was much more viscous and attacked him as soon as he came forth with his light spells that helped him see. Just like with the wraith he thought this elemental in a tunnel but this tunnel was far wider and taller giving it room to jump around, or even fly a little.

Draco finally got a chance to pin it down with his gravity magic and he held it there not giving it a chance to slip out and tear him up. It struggled valiantly against the force of gravity pushing on it, but Draco soon enough started hammering it with powerful beams of light. The fight was over quickly and Draco sealed it away in another blank card.

He knew he was lucky to have mastery of all nine elements otherwise going after so many different kinds of elementals would prove much more difficult. Among the elementals weakness for an opposing element, Dark elementals had a tremendous disadvantage to light magic more than any other elemental would to their opposition.

Dark elementals were powerful rivaling gravity ones with ease. If they hadn’t been so weak to light magic they would probably be overall stronger than gravity elementals, he was just lucky that they were so weak against it. Of course this would mean he would have to use them more strategically and give them a dark veil above to fight under, but that was no problem for Draco.

The rest of his time in the mountain was spent hunting a chimera, which he inevitably found after a couple more full rests, near an exit to the base of mountain. The Chimera was far stronger than the others; it was a unique elemental, sharing the properties of both stone and shadow in some aspects.

Its body was tough and very hard to damage just like stone elementals and it was very strong. Draco found this out when first it managed to swat a small boulder at Draco with a single paw. Then when he nailed it in its side with a light beam it shrugged it off easily, he knew then this was the one shadow elemental that could resist light magic.

The two went around exchanging blows in a sense, Draco kept hitting it with a new spell either thunder, or fire, but could never manage to pin it down with gravity like all the others, it was too smart, and too fast. While the chimera kept making attempts to get close to Draco and slash him after every one of its shadow bolts or even blasts were deflected, but he repelled the creature each time.

Before any longer Galrin burst forth, to both Draco’s and the chimera’s surprise, and grabbed the chimera with one hand and burst out of the moderate sized mountain entrance widening it substantially. Draco rush outside only to find the chimera sprawled on the ground below unconscious and bleeding out black ooze.

Draco sealed it away but was worried that it might not survive when Lienna summoned herself too, basking in the moon light above. Both of them seemed to hate being in those cards, then again Draco couldn’t blame them since he couldn’t even imagine what it was like for them in there.

He too enjoyed the fresh air outside, realizing it was much warmer than before; he set up camp without much a shelter and went to sleep under the stars. It was a little hard for him to sleep that night because he knew that with the lack of cold air in the middle of the night meant that spring had come, time was running out.