by Ryan Johnson
“Creature other than you?” said Marina. “What ever happened to the Siren?”
“Sorry, Siren,” said Flarefur. “I always keep forgetting Sirens look more human than of the fish family.”
“Judging by outside appearances than by the inner personality? Judging by what I am instead of who I am? And I thought humans judged by everyone and everything by a creature’s or a person’s appearance. I maybe a Siren, but also have feelings, Griffin.”
Valverno heard the conversation Marina and Flarefur were having and it reminded of him. Valverno did spend his time upon humans, and they judged by his appearance: his human body with dragon legs, tail, and wings. They thought of him as an unusual specimen of human living upon human, and when he was a young kid, he thought he was a subspecies of human.
After he listened to the small conversation, Valverno followed the pictures to the other end of the cliff dwelling. His eyes dwelled on many of the strange animals depicted on the high walls he had never seen before with his eyes, animals that may have gone extinct long before the capital city was ever built.
Then Valverno caught the scent of an unfamiliar, foul scent coming from over the edges of the city’s cliff. He walked toward the ends of the mountain’s edges and gaze down to where the smell was coming from. His nose caught another sudden strange scent of a fresher, plantlike scent coming from around a corner of another passage. “I smell different scents,” said Valverno. “And if we don’t know where to go, follow the scent of your nose.”
Valverno followed the nice, freshly scent coming from a hidden passage built like a tunnel than the foul, smelly scent coming from the mountain’s cliff. He saw a giant hole going around inside the mountain’s side and followed it. The hole turned into a large tunnel and staying close enough to the edges.
Marina, Geraldus, and Flarefur followed after the hybrid who was now again walking off without them, but they did hear him departing the place in search of another place.
Valverno walked through the tunnel and saw light shimmering through small holes. The tunnel rose about fifty feet in the mountain’s rock. Valverno saw many thin corners and curves making it a very narrow passage to maneuver around. The ground was covered in lots of sand and his feet easily slipper into the sand.
Thanks to the light glittering from the small holes carved from the higher heights of the tunnel, the group could easily see where they were walking and not worry about their feet would slip off.
As they walked on, the tunnel started to grow larger and another giant hole big like the overview of the edging city behind them came upon them. Valverno made a sharp turn to fly to that point and see what they were coming across. He soared high enough to see where they were walking to and he saw a single, ancient building carved into the mountain.
A two hundred foot building with six pillars plastered on the bottom with stone human statues carrying spears standing next to the pillars.
On the central part of second story part of the ruin, a head of a bird with two curved horns stood above a dark entrance in the middle of the ruin. Two goat-like statues with human arms and griffin wings stood on different sides of the bird-head statue.
Valverno’s eyes flashed in awe; he could suddenly smell his own scent like the bottle he was carried in. “The entrance to the dark chamber and possibly to the next armor piece must be in there,” he said. Valverno flew back down and the ruin grew from two hundred feet to four hundred feet.
His other companions caught up with him, and they saw the four-to-six hundred foot ruin in great amazement. Another ruin, like the cliff dwelling city, was undamaged from the decay of time and manage to stand tall and mighty. They saw the dark entrance was a third of the ruin’s height.
Valverno walked to the entrance. He looked downward and saw stairs descending into a great abyss of darkness. Valverno puffed his chest, lit both his hands on fire, and descended down into the darkness.
“Do you really have to walk down there?” asked Marina.
Valverno stopped and looked back. “Yes,” he said, turning back and began walking down again. “Just like the time we went in that cave in the Northern Region.”
Marina shook her head and followed after the hybrid. She was hesitant of going underground; she had a very bad experience when she and other people walked in that cave with two snakelike Dragons and where they found the first armor artifact and where Valverno nearly lost his life.
Geraldus followed and the group went into the dark tunnel.
INTO THE UNDERGROUND CHAMBER
Valverno was the first to enter the small dark cave. Once again, he saw the stairs descending into a great darkness, sinking hundreds of feet into a dark abyss. The underground tunnel was dug to fit a small company of humans or Griffins, since Flarefur was with the small group. Valverno lit both his hands on fire and walked down the stairs to see where it leads.
Valverno was excited and terrified at the same time, if he was guessing this tunnel would lead them to the chamber he was found in. He was too eager to see if there was a picture behind an altar of which he was found on. He remembered the book mentioning where he was found and he wanted to see if he was the son of the Crystal Dragon.
Marina caught up with Valverno and walked to him. “Must we do this?” she asked. She was very afraid of going into a dark tunnel.
“If it must mean find parts of the armor just we explored the cave in the Northern Region, yes,” said Valverno.
“As I recall, the cave was a bad experience. You almost died in the cave with all those rocks and boulders piling upon you.”
“It was thanks to this I manage to live,” said Valverno, holding up his right hand. The armor gauntlet, which absorbed into his skin, had spread to give Valverno’s dragon scales over his arms. Then Valverno grabbed the Crystal Sword from his back and showed it to his companions. The blade had changed back to its original blue glow and the redness had faded. “And thanks to this thing, I also survived and slain the Five-Headed Dragon, although I wasn’t powerful without the help of the White Knight of Charity.”
Marina stopped walking, remembering what happened with the White Knight. Having lost such an alley would mean one less powerful ally for Valverno.
Valverno stopped and looked at Marina. “You okay?” he asked, worryingly.
“You said something about the Charity’s power reincarnated into a girl,” said Marina. “What girl?”
“I don’t know,” said Valverno. “The old princess just said something about her power being given to another girl I knew from my past. I don’t know who she could have meant. You. One of the twin girls. I don’t know, and I haven’t seen anyone using the power yet.” Valverno turned forward and proceeded to walk again. “And that is what I’m worried about. The twin girls are too young to wield any magic.”
After waking on the stairway for about fifteen minutes, the stairs came to an archway and a floor was seen through Valverno’s two fires. Valverno was the first to walk through arch and a great darkness grew beyond the arch.
Valverno saw a great room that grew twenty feet into the air, and he saw the darkness of the room spreading everywhere with no complete view of what was inside in plain view, if the darkness wants to hide whatever secrets could be hidden there. Then he waved his hands in the air and he sent out several sparks of fire in the dark and make light to kill the darkness.
The few sparks Valverno had sent out grew a foot long and lit the dark room with a great, fiery light. The light was very dim to begin with, but it grew brighter by a slight. The dark room gradually grew lighter by Valverno’s sparks of fire.
From the small dims of light, there was a roundabout of stone statues of hooded figures circling a small stone table. It stood high with a small, narrow bottom attaching the top to the ground.
Valverno slowly walked to the table. He looked to the roof and just saw it plain as it was; rocks, dust, and earthly minerals stuck up there. Valverno crept to the stone table and placed his hands on the table and swiped
his hands across the tabletop and sniffed it. He smelled his own scent on the table and signed; he has found the altar.
He found the “dark, underground chamber” where he was trapped in a bottle as an embryo for thousands of years, according to the book Ralenskrit and Belverda had written their notes in.
“This is where I have been for thousands of years,” said Valverno. “I can smell my own scent right here, and I can tell I am that thing.” Valverno turned away from the altar and looked at a twenty foot painted figure on the wall.
A human body imprinted with blue wings and blue dragon wings. He gazed at a great amazement. The picture on the wall past the altar was truly magnificent and it truly looked like him: a human body with dragon wings and the legs. The legs had different coloring; the figure’s legs were depicted as blue while Valverno’s legs were a mixture of red scales. Other than having different coloring than what the picture displayed, Valverno was in no doubt, in his mind, the person painted on the wall.
“Nearly looks like you,” said Geraldus.
Marina, Flarefur, and Geraldus gazed upon the painting of the human dragon hybrid. They too saw in amazement it was a nearly splitting image of Valverno, even the face, which shown half a face looking gazing in a single direction, was the same as Valverno’s face.
Valverno then pointed to the left of the image was a white-blue dragon image about half the size of the human dragon hybrid picture. And Valverno pointed for the right where a human picture was painted that was also half the size than the ancient picture looking like Valverno. “The dragon picture must be the Crystal Dragon, and the other must be the mother,” said Valverno.
“Well, there is no denying it now,” said Flarefur, walking closer to the picture. “What Ralenskrit and Belverda had recorded in that book is true enough: Valverno is the son of the Crystal Dragon.” The Griffin strolled up to the hybrid. “I can’t deny, and the facts are given here on the wall. You are indeed the Chosen One, the living creature chosen by the gods to dim the darkness and bring a new era to living beings everywhere.”
Marina raised her eyes of Flarefur’s statement. She had married of a very important figure believed to be the son of a god.
Valverno walked to the picture resembling him and touched it with his right hand.
Then a small fog puffed from thin air and small images erupted. Valverno was shown in the fog. His wings were the same, but his face was different. His eyes were shown more to be humanlike of with bright emerald eyes and black pupils. His hair was straight and long and slightly curled. Basically his entire head had more human assets than dragon such as horns, and he looked 10 years older than what Valverno was looking in his current appearance.
Valverno studied his older form showing in the fog. His other self (in the fog vision) seems to be more handsome and attractive looking than Valverno in his current form. “Is that how I really looked like ten thousand years ago?”
Valverno looked closer to the foggy image of himself and saw, in the fog, standing on a cliff overlooking a dark horizon with four figures standing behind him. The four figures were wearing light blue armor and white capes. The four figures had to be the White Knights of Trust, Charity, Loyalty, and Strength.
After a short while, the fog faded over the altar. Valverno then turned back to the image of himself plastered on the wall. “So, I chose the White Knights to do battle with me while I was alive back then. But what did I really do ten thousand years ago? I have no memory of what happened during that time?”
Geraldus placed a hand on Valverno’s shoulder. “It’s alright. Sometime in the future, you may get the chance to find your memories… Valverno.”
Valverno placed his hand on the picture again to see what would happen. Nothing had happened. He signed that nothing had happened.
“Is-is that you, Valverno?” asked a girl’s voice coming behind them.
The group turned behind them with weapons drawn and eyes glaring at the entrance they heard the voice coming from.
A young girl stood by the entrance, which the group entered from. She was about twenty years of age with long, thin, graceful black hair with a few dyes of green and blue swirling down her hair, tanned skin, and eyes bright as silver. She was wearing leather clothes and an entire arm strapped in metal-plated armor, and the girl had what seemed two shortswords sheathed on her back. She was standing with thick high boots on her legs. Her face was sparking with great shock, amazement, and thrilling.
“Hey, she knew your name,” said Marina. “Do you know her?”
“Just how would I know her?” asked Valverno. “I just changed my name hours ago. I wouldn’t know her.”
The girl took a few steps forward. “I-I can’t believe it’s you,” she said. “I mean, it’s really you. After so long of a long search, I have finally found you.” The young girl came trotting up to Valverno. And up close she closely resembled Valverno but with more of a female look. “And I can’t believe it’s really you, eld—”
Valverno raised an eyebrow. The girl was standing inches in front of him. He was too speechless of what to say as to what exactly to say to the girl standing near him. But the words came out of his mouth were, “Sorry, who are you?”
Suddenly, the girl burst into a great happiness and wrapped her arms around Valverno’s neck and shouted, “My Elder Brother!”
At first the group was silent as the grave then gave a loud gasp of this girl calling Valverno a brother.
AN UNUSUAL REUNION
Everyone was standing silent. The girl, who called Valverno a brother, had her arms clutched around Valverno. She didn’t seem agitated or embarrassed to be that close to the hybrid and close enough to be touching a stranger she just met for seconds.
From Valverno’s perspective, this girl was a stranger they just saw met for several seconds, and she had called him “Elder Brother.” Talk about love at first sight, Valverno was practically trapped by the girl’s arms and Marina’s face sparked with jealousy.
Valverno used his arms to pull the girl’s arms from him. For a girl, she had a tight grip around him, tighter than Marina’s usual grip and her arms were harder to pull. With the dragon muscle in his arms and even with the muscle strength he had; it was a challenge for him to pull the girl free from his neck. Valverno had his wings to slip through the girl’s arms and push them both apart.
Then in a swift move, Valverno jumped backwards and pushed the girl with a small gush of a windy breath he exhaled in his mouth.
The girl was pushed away from the hybrid, but she flipped backward at a single touch of his wings. The girl showed a great host of speed and dodged Valverno’s wings and his windy breath, and she manage to move away from his unarming attacks if she did know what the exact moves Valverno was about to pull. Then she ran up to him again.
Quickly, Valverno folded his wings in front of his front body and whipped his tail at the girl, who stomped on his tail with in a great stomp just as he whipped it but suddenly casted it down without a small flinch. He pulled out the Crystal Sword with his right hand.
The girl pulled out a boomerang and swung it at Valverno’s hand, and it precisely hit the hilt of the sword and made it fly from his hand.
Geraldus pulled out his spear, Marina pulled out a bow and heaved an arrow to its string, and Flarefur grunted his claws into the ground.
The flying boomerang flew back to the girl’s hands and she swung it again with another boomerang. Then she pulled out kukri knives, knives that have inward curved blades, from her back and swung them her oncoming opponents. The two boomerangs and her twin knives spun endlessly in the air to the armed people, but those served only as distractions. The girl saw Geraldus using the spear to drop one boomerang and one twin knife, and she moved swiftly like a cheetah and jumped like a jumping spider catching its smaller prey.
In one swift of her elbow arrowing at Geraldus’s spear, he frozen suddenly and stood standing like a statue. She spun immediately and touched a feathered wing of the Griffin and th
e Griffin, too, froze, but not in ice; they both became paralyzed.
The girl then flipped backwards, jumping over Valverno and landed behind Marina, with the two kukri knives coming back into her hands. “You are not experienced in the advanced fighting style like I am, fish.”
Marina swung her arm, but the young girl grabbed Marina’s arm and disarmed her of the shortsword Marina was suddenly carrying instead of the bow, displacing the bow with the shortsword when Marina saw the second boomerang and the other twin knife coming at her. Marina was shocked to the young girl’s amusement.
Then the girl crunched the two knives to Marina’s throat. “You have a lot to learn when facing a highly experienced fighter, fish.”
Suddenly a blade came flying to the young girl’s neck. Valverno was holding the Crystal Sword to the girl’s neck, not hesitating to defend his wife. “And you don’t have any experience in dealing with me, girl, and don’t call your hostage a fish,” he said.
The girl smiled bigger. “On the contrary, demigod brother, I do have experience.” She then pushed Marina to the paralyzed man and Griffin and swiped the Crystal Sword away. This made her free and turned to face Valverno. “I have tons of experience from many battles throughout my years. My years I served under you and how my idol hero showed me how to fight.”
Valverno readied his sword in hand while the girl had the dual-wielding knives in her hands, but Valverno dropped the sword from his hands. The hybrid did have the intention of fighting, but this girl kept calling him a brother and he wanted to know how he was even related to her. And he saw her countering the attacks from him and his four companions, if she had predicted any future attacks and countered against them before an individual could attack.
“Just who are you?” asked Valverno. “I don’t know who you are or what you are even doing here. How did you know my name?”
