The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  “All I know is that temple is nowhere around here.”

  “Maybe Kai and the others headed out to the other regions outside the one mile circle?”

  “They’d have to be idiots to do that,” he said.

  “Well, we’ve got nothing better to do,” she said “Might as well try to scout the area on foot.”

  He got up, “That’s not too bad a suggestion.”

  They walked through the thick vegetation, constantly cutting off thick creepers and fending of falling branches.

  Q noticed that Elizabeth’s wings had completely disappeared.

  “So where do they go exactly?” he asked, pointing to where her wings used to be.

  “They fold up into my body. I’d think they’d be bulky, but honestly, the only presence I feel is a small tingling sensation on my upper spine. And the best part is my suit is custom made for Seraphians so I can extend and retract my wings freely even if I’ve got the suit on.”

  “Seraphians are lucky.”

  “Well, every race has its perks and flaws.”

  Again with the darkness, he thought.

  He didn’t bother asking her what she meant. One, because it seemed too personal. Two, because he was sure the answer would be pretty dark. And third, because right now he’d found some sort of cave.

  “Look,” he pointed at a small hollow mound that rose out of the ground. It looked like a really low cave wall made of gray stone.

  “We’d better go in?” she asked.

  Q closed his eyes. A blur of green appeared in front of him, this time more intense than before.

  He smiled, “This is it.”

  “What?”

  “This path leads us to the temple,” he chuckled. “No one said the temple couldn’t be underground did they?”

  “Wow. Probably another reason no one found it.”

  He tried to fit himself through the gap, “You coming?”

  His legs and arms cramped up as he pushed himself into the cave. He dropped about ten feet onto the ground, which, luckily for him, was soft enough to absorb his fall.

  Elizabeth pushed her way through and glided to the ground, folding her wings back up as soon as she’d touched the surface.

  Q stretched his palm out. Imagination, he thought. He pictured sparks jumping off of his fingers and converging together over his palm.

  A flame of bright blue light hovered over his hand and lit the tunnel.

  Elizabeth froze suddenly.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. She put her finger to her lips and gestured him to move forward.

  And then he heard it. Faint screams coming from the other end. It couldn’t be, he thought.

  “Anyone there?” she called out.

  He could see familiar faces run towards him.

  “Q! Thank god!” Kai ran toward him.

  “Where were you?” Taylor shouted while panting for breath.

  “Oh you’re the boy from before,” a griffin appeared next to Taylor.

  “Whoa. Who’re you?” Elizabeth asked.

  “And you’re the girl from before. What a reunion.”

  “What is it going on about?” Q asked.

  “Behave,” Taylor glared at it. “And go introduce yourself.”

  “Fine,” it grumbled. “I’m a girl, my name is Ruby, and if you must know what I’m talking about-”

  “She’s just a little tired,” Taylor cut her off. “I found her in the bushes around the ship.”

  “Wait so why were you guys running away from the temple?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Chris said. “We were being chased by an Arachana, a giant scorpion,”

  “You are or you were?” Q asked.

  “We are,” she pointed to all of them.

  “So shouldn’t we, like, be running?”

  “Yes. That would be the logical answer.”

  The sound of quick, nimble footsteps echoed through the air, becoming louder and louder as the moments passed by. Something was coming closer to them.

  “Ruuunnnn,” Kai yelled and they all charged for the exit.

  Five people were all trying to get through a small crevice ten feet above the ground at the same time.

  Kai found a few footholds on either side of the tunnel walls and they used those to climb out of the space.

  Q sighed with relief, and that’s when he realized, the good news? The scorpion hadn’t followed them. Bad news? Elizabeth hadn’t followed them either.

  “Where’s Elizabeth?” he asked.

  “She must’ve gotten stuck inside the tunnel,” Kai said.

  Ugghh, he thought.

  “I’m going in,” he told everyone.

  “I’m coming,” Taylor said.

  He shook his head. “You guys go get the Orion ready. If we need a quick escape we have to have it in proper shape.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “The magnetic fields messed it up a bit,” Kai said.

  Taylor bit her lip, “If you’re not out in fifteen minutes I’m coming in,” and with that they ran back.

  Q jumped back into the crevice, the drop down the tunnel hurting less this time around.

  For some reason he wasn’t able to summon the flame above his palm like last time.

  He gave up after a few tries and walked into the darkness. For a while he couldn’t see anything else and that wasn’t very reassuring.

  He listened for those sounds of footsteps but those seemed to have disappeared completely.

  “Elizabeth,” he called out.

  No answer.

  After a few minutes of walking he saw a thin ray of light coming from deeper inside the tunnel. He put a skip in his step and ran towards the beam.

  And then he hit a wall.

  The light seemed to be coming through a teeny-tiny crack in the wall.

  He was running his fingers over the wall when he heard the sound of metal against stone, a kind of screeching that tortured his ears.

  He looked around him and saw nothing but darkness.

  And then something hit him in the chest, knocking him against the wall. He slumped to the floor, his breath completely knocked out of him.

  He made one last try to summon a flame, and this time fire of a blue shade burned above his palm.

  The scorpion stood right in front of him.

  Its black skin blended in with the darkness and the stinger on its tail hovered above its head, screeching as it scratched the walls.

  Q knew he needed to get out of there, but how? His only path was blocked by the scorpion. And he still had to find Elizabeth. If he didn’t do that, this entire stint would be pointless.

  The scorpion jabbed its stinger towards him and he dodged, diving hard to the floor.

  He had to fight back, but first he needed to give himself some more light. His hands dropped to his sides and he concentrated hard, focusing a large portion of his life energy and imagining sparks.

  A blast of fire shot from both arms, lighting up the sides of the tunnel all the way through.

  And unfortunately for the Arachana, it didn’t like fire.

  Q was expecting a hard fought battle, but the scorpion just ran away and disappeared.

  “That was easy,” he laughed.

  And that was when his fire went out of control.

  The flames were a little too much. Stones don’t burn, but there seemed to be some dead vegetation on their surface, and that burned pretty well.

  In seconds there was enough smoke to cause a fire department to panic.

  He knew he needed to get out, but he had to find Elizabeth first.

  So intense was his panic that he didn’t realize the floor beneath started shaking and in an instant the entire rear section of the tunnel collapsed.

  As though to counter the fire on this side, the other side was a sheer drop onto billions of gallons of something that looked like water.

  He fell towards the surface, flailing as air rushed past him.

  Just as he was abo
ut to hit the surface, something caught hold of him and tugged him up.

  “Hey, Q,” said a voice.

  He looked up. “Elizabeth? You’re all right.”

  “Why? Did you think something was wrong?”

  “You disappeared.” he stared at her.

  “Oh, that. The scorpion cut me off from the opening. The tunnel is pretty weird, seems to be ancient automated technology. It opened up that sealed section of the wall and I jumped through. Lucky I have wings huh?”

  “Real lucky,” he smiled.

  A huge column of water rose into the air, hit them hard and the two of them dropped into the water.

  Bubbles surrounded Q as he desperately tried to search for Elizabeth.

  He finally spotted her swimming to the surface, her wings flapping wildly along with her limbs. He was about to swim up as well when something caught his eye.

  A small dull object lay about fifty yards down at the bottom of this body of water.

  A stone tablet.

  His instincts told him that whatever was down there was what they’d come here for.

  The map.

  He swam towards the map, his heart pumping faster and faster. His vision was becoming blurred, and his body started to ache terribly. His suit absorbed most of the deep underwater pressure, but a significant amount still affected him.

  He grabbed the tablet just as his oxygen supply seemed depleted. Carlos had told him that the suits automatically changed Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen, which meant he’d have an endless supply of air. But this process could only take place in certain conditions, and intense pressure wasn’t one of them.

  I’m not going to die, he thought.

  He saw Elizabeth head back down towards him. She grabbed him under his arms and lifted him up to the surface.

  They burst out the surface, and he felt a surge of air infuse into his suit.

  Elizabeth kept flying higher and higher till they’d gotten back into the tunnel, and now there wasn’t even a trace of a fire having even started there.

  “Doesn’t even seem like there was a wildfire in here,” Q said.

  “Well, the burnt sections probably shifted around or rotated about. Like I said, the tunnel is weird.”

  They climbed out of the tunnel, the second time seeming easier to Q than the first. As soon he got out he collapsed onto the ground, taking in big puffs of air. He was not cut out for physical work.

  “Look what I found,” he wheezed, and showed Elizabeth the tablet.

  “Is that?” her eyes widened. “Wow. I didn’t even notice that thing.”

  “With this we can finally leave this cursed place.

  After a few moments of rest they flew back to the Orion, where the others were anxiously waiting.

  Taylor ran towards them as soon as they landed, “What happened?” she asked. “You guys okay?”

  Q laid the tablet on the ground. “He got the map,” Elizabeth said. Their eyes all widened at the same time.

  “How much longer before the ship’s ready?” Q asked.

  “Surprisingly, the magnetic fields did do some big damage,” Kai said. “So I guess I’m going to have to take a little longer than expected. We’ll get moving within the hour.”

  “So we’ve got an hour to spare,” he said. “How do I spend one hour,” he mumbled.

  Taylor walked to him but Elizabeth interrupted.

  “Hey, what if I help you learn Earth Elementa?” she asked all excited.

  “That’d probably be pretty helpful,” he smiled and turned to Taylor “Were you saying something?”

  She shook her head, “I was talking to myself.” she said and walked back into the Orion.

  “Let’s get going then,” Elizabeth said.

  He followed her to a rocky pathway just a few hundred feet away from the landing site.

  “The hardest thing about using new Elementa is imagination. Each Elementa needs you to imagine it in different ways. You’ll have to find out what works best for you. Think clearly of what it is you want to do. Watch,” she said.

  She lifted her hand and a huge rock rose from the ground. Then she curled her hand into a fist and instantly the rock got crushed into powder.

  “Concentrate on the rocks. Feel their presence. Then attack,” she instructed.

  He stared at a piece of rock on the surface of the road. His mind focused and he imagined a single wave connecting his hands and the piece of rock, like a sort of rope.

  He lifted his arms, imagining the wave pulling the rock up as well. Well, nothing happened.

  “Keep trying,” Elizabeth urged him.

  And so he did. For half an hour he imaged all sorts of ways to life the rock. None of them seemed to work.

  “You know what?” she finally said. “Let’s battle.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She pulled out her blades and went into an offensive stance.

  “Umm....I don’t have a weapon,” Q said.

  She just charged at him, her blades poised at her sides.

  “Or a shield either.”

  She didn’t slow down. “You’re a sorcerer. Fight like one.”

  “Fine,” he rolled his eyes.

  He put his hand up in front of him, and focused,

  She homed in on his position, her daggers at her side.

  C’mon, c’mon, he thought. Don’t fail me now.

  A surge of flames shot out of his palms and straight at Elizabeth.

  But she was fast. She dodged every streak of flame, and jumped into the air.

  Her blue and white suit glowed as she came down on him, her daggers poised to harm fatally.

  He brought his hands up to his face, trying to shield himself from what was coming. He felt a small prick on his skin.

  Elizabeth had poked him tenderly with one of her daggers.

  She put them back in her sheaths, “I’m not going to force you to get into the Earth Elementa,” she said. “You’ll learn it when it’s meant to happen.”

  And then she punched him straight in the gut.

  “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help train you in regular combat,” she jumped back and went into an offensive stance, a wide grin on her face.

  Oh boy.

  ***

  When Taylor finally went to fetch the two of them they were completely exhausted from fighting under the green sun.

  A few pillars of stone stood around them at bent angles, some rustic and muddy, others burnt to a deep black.

  “The Orion’s ready to go, guys,” she said.

  Elizabeth looked at Q, “Race you to the ship?”

  “You’re on,” he grinned.

  The Seraphian stretched her wings and took to the air, and Q rushed past Taylor with incredible speed.

  His powers are developing, she thought. His body and suit were becoming enhanced by the sheer amount of power he had within him. So he was slowly turning into some sort of super-soldier.

  Taylor found it cool, and kind of scary. If Q had this power, then maybe someone else could as well, and who knew what kind of desires they had within them.

  In the end she was the last one to reach the Orion. When she arrived she saw both Elizabeth and Q sitting on the ground outside, puffing in and out with exhaustion.

  “Tough run?”

  “Too close to call a winner,” he managed to say between breaths,

  “Figured,” she said and helped him back into the Orion. “You better get in fast, Elizabeth.” she called out before she headed in.

  Back at deck Chris seemed a little displeased.

  “What’s going on?” Taylor asked, as she made Q sit down on one of the upper deck seats.

  “That,” Chris pointed to Ruby sitting calmly on lower deck.

  “Yeah, a griffin.”

  “I’m totally against having that thing on the Orion.”

  Taylor seemed pretty confused, “What exactly is the problem?”

  “I think it’s highly dangerous to include a being that can read minds.”


  There wasn’t anything she could say to defend Ruby from that statement, and from personal experience she knew Ruby did invade people’s privacy without hesitation.

  “What about this,” Kai fished something out from the cabinets and held it between his fingers. It was metal headband like thing, with a red, crystal diamond in the middle.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Chris asked.

  “Yup,” he said. “It’s a wave canceller”

  “A what?” Taylor asked. She’d never seen that thing before.

  “Works much like noise cancelling. It’s actually used for medical healing. To create simulations I believe, but this one is modified for mind reading. This headband will absorb waves and make sure none of our brain waves will reach her. So she can’t read our minds.”

  “Wait, she communicates with us through her mind, so she won’t be able to communicate either?”

  “That’s what the crystal is for. Each person has a specific brain wave pattern. The crystal adapts according to user and allows only their brainwaves to be broadcast. And since she has a sense of hearing, we can just talk to her instead of having her read our minds.”

  “I guess that’s fine,” Chris seemed to give in a bit. “But how do we even know this thing works?”

  “This is an industry standard. Imagine how many telepathic nuisances there must be for someone to come up with something like this,” he laughed as he slipped the headband over Ruby’s head. “Anyway, so the thing works. Don’t worry. I guarantee it.”

  “I guess that’s okay then.”

  The screen flared up just as Elizabeth walked back in.

  “Incoming feed,” it read.

  “That’s the Commander,” Taylor said and worked on the controls on the upper levels.

  The live feed opened up, and Carlos smiled at everyone there.

  “Hey guys, what’s going on over there?”

  “We found the Temple of Time,” Q said excitedly. “The whole place is underground”

  “Great job!” Carlos beamed. “I trust we got we came for?”

  “We have the map,” Taylor smiled and held up the stone tablet.

  Carlos face fell.

  Wasn’t expecting that reaction, she thought.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That, my dear Taylor,” he looked at them sympathetically. “Isn’t the map.”