{Use teleportation token now?}
"Will it take me and my entire cohort?" Drake asked the system.
{The quest teleportation token will transport all members of the cohort who are within six feet of the dimension master heir.}
Drake smiled, then turned to his friends. "We just received something equivalent to a cheat code. I want to use it now, before anything else happens, to try to stop our quest. Come as close to me as you can. Keep your weapons ready, just in case."
Chad and Mike looked at Drake questioningly. But received no answer to their silent question.
Renn was the first one to come to Drake, trusting her master fully. She didn’t need to know why; she just knew he wouldn’t harm her. She sat beside him, her emerald green eyes gleaming in the darkness.
Chad and Mike followed Renn’s lead, standing next to Drake. "Now what?" Mike asked. He wasn’t sure what else he needed to do. Mike and Chad exchanged a glance before turning their attention back to Drake. They were still wondering what was going on.
"Use teleportation token," Drake told the system the moment all his friends, including Renn, were in position. His friends were still looking at him, waiting for him to tell them what to do next.
{You have chosen to use item: teleportation token}
Drake still didn’t answer his friends as he stood with them, waiting for the token to take effect. A green light flashed brightly, surrounding Drake and his cohort, bathing them in a soft green glow. They all flinched, not expecting the bright green light. When the flash subsided, they were no longer standing in the courtyard of the castle in Storm Town. They found themselves, instead, standing at the crossroads at the base of Dragon Head Mountain. The teleportation token had sent them a considerable distance, far ahead of schedule.
Using their newly found magical vision, with their eyes glowing brightly, they observed their surroundings, trying to figure out where they were. They found they were standing in a large clearing, with the packed dirt road clearly visible. It was a massive clearing with no trees hiding the road. It wasn’t a four-way crossroad; it was only three. The three roads led off in different directions, with equal distance between them. In front of them was the mountain they had been trying to get to. Now they were there staring up at its massive cliffs. It did indeed look like the head of a dragon.
Mike grinned widely, "Talk about an awesome cheat. This cut a day or more out of our journey." He said excitedly. "Maybe we’re about finished, and we can get back home."
Drake just nodded, then quickly placed the cabin. He was exhausted and knew the others were too. "We have been fighting all night; we need to rest. We can start up the mountain first thing in the morning." Then he looked over at Renn, who had doubled in size from her evolutions. "I don’t think you can fit through the door anymore."
Renn, acting like there was no problem whatsoever, walked up to the porch, then found a large open space, lay down, and closed her eyes.
Drake walked past her and went inside. Having an idea, he closed the door before his two friends could enter. "Try to open the door," he called out to his friends. "Your eyes glow, so I want to see if you can enter the cabin without me now."
Moments later, the door opened and Chad stepped in. There was a large smile on his handsome face. "I can open it now," he declared, then closed the door for Mike to try.
Once the door was closed, Mike opened it again and stepped inside the cabin. "I can open it too. This will make things a lot easier."
Nearly thirty minutes later, Drake and his friends sat around the table, eating a hearty stew. They hadn’t had a chance to eat all day, making them extremely hungry. Renn wasn’t; she had taken bites out of her kills during their battle.
Drake had the map open and spread across the table. "We’re here," he pointed at the crossroads. "It’s going to take about an hour to get to the mountain trail. Mayor Ivan said that the trail only goes a few feet up and there isn’t any further trail. That means we have to go hiking up the mountain."
Mike and Chad groaned in unison before Mike spoke. "So, we have to wander around the mountain, trying to find a cave," Mike groaned. His words were sarcastic. "Great...just lovely."
Drake sighed, then pointed to a small symbol on that map. "That’s a cave entrance...." He pointed to another. "This is also a cave entrance. There are only three entrances on the map. All we need to do is find which one has the cave of valor inside it and go there."
"So how do we do that?" Mike grumbled. "I feel like we’re so close, yet so far." Dıscover more novels at novel✦fire.net
Chad sat back in his seat. There was a wide grin on his face. "I think I know how we’re going to find it."
Drake smirked. "I already figured it out."
Mike raised one brow, folding his arms across his chest, eyeing his two friends, who remained silent. "Well?" he asked, exasperated, wanting them to tell him.
"The staff should have some kind of energy signature. If I’ve learned anything since we’ve been here, it should be green. All we have to do is look for that, then head in that direction," Drake stated.
Chad nodded; it was what he had come up with as well.
"I hate to burst your guys’ bubbles, what if all the caves are connected and it just looks like it’s in one of those caves, but there’s a wall separating one cave from another," Mike stated, looking at his friends smugly. "And...what if we can’t see through the mountain with our magical vision. I keep trying to see energy signatures inside the mountain, but it’s completely dark."
Drake and Chad sighed, their smug smiles falling, then turned into a frown. "Damit," Drake cursed under his breath. "I guess we just search each of them, one by one, until we find it, then.... unless either of you has a better idea?" he asked, looking between his friends.
Chad shrugged. "Maybe we can see it when we get on the mountain. We may be at its base, but it’s going to take an hour or so just to get to the trail. Maybe once we’re there, we can see more," Chad offered.
Back in Drake’s room in the ordinary world, the dimension master and his friends, Mike’s and Chad’s fathers, watched the computer screen. All three men were in awe that Mike and Chad could now use the magical vision like Drake could. It was something that had never happened before.
They listened to how the boys discussed the caves and how they would attempt to find the Master Staff.
"You have to admit that the boys are doing rather well, considering everything that has been standing in their way. We took months just to figure out the enchanted clearings. Even the bridge took us weeks to figure out how to cross it." Chad’s father pointed out.
"They didn’t really figure out the bridge. They crossed it differently," Mike added. "They are completing the quest unconventionally."
Drake’s father stared at the screen. His expression was calm, yet worry shone in his emerald green eyes. "I think we have several problems. This is just a theory, but I think that someone is trying to either stop them, kill them, or use them as bait to get to us. My first thought is that it’s the gargoyle king, but I don’t know. There is also someone helping them. There has to be. I know there is a way to hack into the system. The Dimension wouldn’t send them forward like that. I don’t know who or what, but there is no way the dimension is the one that sent them to the crossroads."
Mike’s father paused in thought and looked at his friend. "What do you mean? But helping them is against the rules. Couldn’t that force them to fail the quest because of outside involvement?"
"Yes, it is. The question is, who is, and why are they doing it? Are they trying to disqualify them by giving them outside help, or are they getting the boys to where they need to be so whoever it is can swoop in and steal the staff from them?" the dimension master pondered aloud.
"I thought the quest was given to them by the dimension...didn’t we discuss it, and that’s what we figured?" Chad’s father asked.
The dimension master sighed heavily. "That was my first thought, but after they were transported so far ahead in their journey, I’m not so sure. There has to be something that we’re missing...something crucial."