“Wait for us,” said Wonomi.
Within seconds, they all ran down the steep stairway, following close behind Wonomi in the lead.
Vaeludar continued to walk down the stairway. He felt the group was curious has to what happened with him while he was separate from them. As the group descended down the staircase, Vaeludar decided to tell them everything he had seen and experienced when he left them at a very fast paste.
FINDING ARMOR IN A CAVE
V
aeludar and his comrades walked down a long line of steps. The deeper he walked descended, the bigger the hole was becoming. The interior depth was that of a long cave. There was a tall block of a wall towering ahead of Vaeludar. At the bottom of the steps, there was an archway he could see the light coming from.
Everyone had their weapons ready.
“No weapons out, people and Siren,” said Vaeludar, walking towards the archway. “No one is here.”
Vaeludar was the first to enter the archway. Within a few steps, he couldn’t but notice:
GOLD!
There were long mountains and hills of golden objects flooding an entire section. Goblets, tall statues, chests, diamonds, crowns, swords, spears, pottery, bowls, silverware, and tree-like sculptures were plastered and heavily paved in gold. Everything was in solid gold with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, pearls, dark silver jets, and black corals painted on each object.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Vaeludar, awed at first site of the countless and endless views of the golden objects. “I’d never seen so much gold in my life.”
Everyone followed in and they too were awed by the mountain-stack piles of gold.
“A handful of this and someone can become the king of the islands of Shimabellia and Isla Maeli,” said Vaeludar.
“I could imagine,” said Wonomi.
“But whatever you do: don’t touch any gold,” warned Vaeludar, in a stern voice. “I have a feeling this gold happens to belong to something.”
“Something? How could there possibly something or someone else down here? There’s a ton of gold here. If there is someone, then they would be in bones.”
“I meant it when I said ‘something’, Wonomi,” said Vaeludar. “What else had a heart of greed than a human?”
“A Dragon,” answered Galvin, grimly.
“I can easily gauss one of the five Dragons that guards this place. Questions is: where is it and which Dragon? I’ve already meant the Ice Dragon, so it has to be any of the four Dragons.
“But touch anything that is not yours, you will wake whatever Dragon lurks in this room of gold. Right now, we have stealth and the element of surprise. If someone touches this gold, you will wake the Dragon.”
“Wake the Dragon?” asked Marina.
“My hybrid years can hear it heavily snoring somewhere within this cave,” said Vaeludar. His ears were flinching like the turning head of deer hearing danger. “Let’s get going before it ends up sniffing one of us.”
“Great then,” complained Galvin. “Couldn’t have this thing be hidden in someplace else like a ruined fortress?”
“That could have been a possibility, but I guess when it comes to ancient powerful artifacts, the graver wanted it to buried it in a dangerous place,” answered Vaeludar. “Since this is believed to be a powerful weapon, the person who hid it here mustn’t want the finder to find it or go out with it alive.”
“And it is with a Dragon sleeping somewhere in this underground place,” said Marina.
“And it seems those ancient legends of Valverno and the White Knights are starting to come true,” said Flavius.
“I’ve heard they flew to the stars, only leaving some feathers behind,” said Wonomi.
“Stop doing guessing games and start looking for the armor artifact,” interrupted Vaeludar.
“Where would we find it?” asked Wonomi, promptly.
“Somewhere where there should no gold or precious jewels. Somewhere there is little light and a lot of darkness. But this can go miles around. It may take days to find that armor artifact down here. Not to mention that Dragon’s sleeping down here. If we could only find a pathway that would lead us there, that would be a great help.”
“I found a footprint,” said Galvin.
“I spoke too soon.” Vaeludar walked over to Galvin who was pointing a dragon footprint. It looked like Vaeludar’s dragon feet and placed one in it. Vaeludar went to see a path of dragon footprints making a pathway towards a larger, a more complex archway that went in complete darkness.
“Well, if these are the Dragon’s footprints, they could lead to the armor artifact. Since we don’t have any pathways, we must follow where these go. We are going to walk this way towards that archway. We are sure to find the armor artifact in that place. Let’s go.”
Vaeludar followed the path of the dragon footprints as the others followed behind him. Vaeludar smelt the scent of the glitter all around him, but he couldn’t pick up any scent of the Dragon. From his ears, he briefly could hear the sounds of soft breathing.
He couldn’t tell where the sounds of the breathing were coming from; it was echoing through the underground cave of what his hybrid ears.
Walking through the archway, the light started to decline into darkness. There was a small light very much like the moon’s light. Limestones appeared from the darkness. The cave of gold was becoming a natural cave instead of it looking like a manmade cave like a mine. The light of the gold reflected about a hundred feet the group walked in. The cave was quiet, other than sounds of water droplets.
The group wondered deep into the cave and the cave seemed endless. Tunnels went in different directions with many entrances and exits. Columns of limestone stretched in horizontals, diagonals, and verticals of an ongoing view stretching
