The Pearl Of Vynes - Chapter 37 Wandering

“Nooo!” Miles shouted as he got up from the ground, his hands outstretched hoping in some vain he could grasp Alice. The dragon turned and stared at him with burning but cold eyes and raced towards him. Miles braced himself as the dragon came barrelling at the remaining two and Miles prepared for the fight. Suddenly the dragon stopped in midstride and began to shake its head, slowly the jaws of the massive beast were being pryed open and Miles could see it was Alice but something was different. A number of markings glowed a bright rainbow, but what scared Miles was he could see her eyes even from the distance he was from her. Glowing a bright white with glowing wisps at its edges, her muscles bulging from the effort of keeping the dragon’s mouth open. Suddenly Alice tore some of the teeth out of the jaw of the beast and it let loose a roar of pain as it backed away quite rapidly having had the first bit of pain in thousands of years. Alice landed on the ground with the two teeth in her hands and turned to face the beast. Recovering from the surprise of pain, the dragon turned and roared with rage spewing blue flames at Alice. Alice drove her hands into the fire and begun swirling the fire around her, she started to walk forward into the flames as they were consumed by a ever faster rotating sphere of fire. Jumping with a force that impacted back on the ground she became level with the dragon’s head, she pulled her fist back and punched the dragon with a mighty blow that caused a new wind to blow towards Tane and Miles as they look onwards in awe. The dragon recoiled roaring yet again and backing off from the blow, although it only seemed dazed as the scales covering its body was easily stronger than any armour of man. Alice formed the blue flames into a spear and prepared her throw. Swiftly she threw it as it become more of a flying arrow than a spear and piereced the side of the large beast, with a final roar of pain the dragon began to flee. Roaring as it took flight and escaped from its home the blood the spewed from its side was already starting to slow and heal as it fled. Alice stood still for a moment and collapsed onto the ground. Miles ran to her as he tried to reach her, the first of his problems was yet again she had lost her clothing but was more troubling was that the snow that had surrounded had turned into a temporary hot spring with the steam rising up off the surface of the water. Taking Alice out of the water, Miles wrapped her in a heavy blanket from his bag as Tane was just behind him.

“Well old friend, looks like you need a lot of explaining to do. A lot of explaining” Tane said as he examined the chaos that had occurred across snowy plains before them.

“Soon but we must make camp, the night is incredibly harsh here and we’ll need somewhere to hole up for the meantime” Miles said while carrying Alice over his shoulder.

“I saw a cave back there, it should give us some warmth and I’ll seal the entrance so we can reduce the snowstorm coming in” Tane said pointing over the beginnings of the mountain. Miles and Tane trudged their way to the cave to take shelter as the snowfall started. Just as they made inside the mouth of the cave the wind started to pick up and was starting blow the snow inside the cave. Tane sealed the entrance as they rested inside, Miles lit his lamp, giving off a soft green glow as the cave began to fill with light.

“We’ll have to wait until the snow drift passes” Miles lamented as he sat down on the ground, Tane laid out a sleeping mat and made a large bed with all of the mats and covers to keep them water as they watched Alice’s breathing.

“So what is she?” Tane asked.

“Well its complicated” Miles said.

“It always is when it involves you” Tane replied.

“For a while now we had been trying to return the Pearl to its original place, as we’d been directed by the gods themselves” Miles explained

for visiting.

“I would’ve gone the complete opposite direction and left the pearl alone” Tane said.

“Well we would but you see its now embedded in Alice herself” Miles said.

“Embedded?” Tane said in disbelief.

“Yup, and we’re both hoping that we’ll be able to pass it on so Alice can go back to normal”

“Well, that would certainly explain pretty much everything”

“Yeah, sorry to not tell you” Miles said sheepishly.

“You should beyou know I am totally in now” Tane laughed.

“I’ve always wanted to go down in history as a hero, but you know the world needing to be saved is just as good” Tane continued.

“It looks like we’ll be here for a while, best to get some sleep while we’re at it” Miles remarked.

“True, but still to think you had that up your sleeve for so long” Tane chuckled as the both of them warmed themselves on the mats. Alice woke, her muscles felt bruised and it was difficult for her to move, getting up the first thing she noticed was she was inside a cave. Looking over to her side she saw Miles and Tane were sleeping, their chests rising and falling as they rested covered in blankets to warm themselves. As Alice got on her two feet, whispers caught her attention. Squinting in the dark she noticed an opening that most would easily miss in the darkness of the cave. Grabbing the lantern on the ground she made her way towards the opening, it then revealed a carved stone staircase spiralling down in the darkness. Keeping the lantern in front of her she made her way down into the darkness. As she walked down, Alice kept her hand sliding along the wall, it was glinting a strange colour in the lantern, reflecting a multitude of colours as she walked along. A small draft blew back some of her hair as the staircase ended and entered into a huge cavern. In the centre stood 4 large chairs easily twice the size of a man with a table in between them. A fireplace was still roaring softly but barely changed the chill that she could still feel in the air. The furniture seemed like it had an age to them that she could barely comprehend, which she then noticed the floor and ceiling had a sparkle to them that was so similar to her. Her eyes stared at the swiriling pattern of colours that flickered and changed on a whim, turning her palm she noticed the spot on her palm was making the same patterns exhuding a deeper colour than what she had seen before. Slowly bending down Alice reached for the floor with her palm, but a hand grabbed her wrist suddenly.