Chapter 10
“Glint, this is Flix,” Levi said when he got back to his friend. From nose to tail, the dragonet was just over three feet long. She clung to his shoulder with her tail wrapped around his bicep and her claws were digging into his coat. Her breath was a hot wind that blew across his ear as she sniffed at his skin and flicked her tongue against his earlobe.
Glint looked up at the black-and-silver beast, then he lifted the silver goggles from his face to reveal his huge, luminous eyes. His pupils had expanded wide in the growing darkness and his ears spread. “She’s beautiful, Levi,” the imp whispered.
Flix stared down at the imp, and then spread her silver wings wide in mimicry of his ears, her head cocking to the side as she looked back at him. The dragonet blinked its amber eyes at him, and each time Glint’s ears twitched, her wings copied the action.
Levi reached up and ran his fingers along the top of her serpentine skull. The small horns that pointed back along her neck were sharp, but the ridge down the center of her spine was dull. He heard a faint trilling when his finger ran down her neck to scratch the center of her back, right between her wings. “We need to find a place to set up camp. It probably isn’t wise to try and sleep this close to the dragonets,” he said. He knew enough about wild animals to know that camping where a flock of animals nested wasn’t the best decision.
Glint nodded in agreement, and then the pair started moving back down the hills. The height of the trees made sleeping among the branches unlikely. Zuzan had climbed onto Levi’s head and while they walked, she chittered softly to Flix. Flix trilled a few times, but Levi didn’t get the sense that the two were actually talking, more like sizing each other up. He couldn’t understand Flix with the clarity he could Zuzan, yet a clear tether of energy flowed between them. None of the taming classes had said anything about energy flowing into him, yet it felt that way. He put that aside for the moment—a safe place to sleep was the priority.
“Any ideas where there is a better spot to camp? Among the rocks or between the trees?” he asked Glint. The imp looked at Levi, then lowered his goggles back down over his eyes and when he ran a fingertip around the outside, Levi saw the lenses shift color.
“Ambient mana pools show up around the base of the hill to our right, so the trees over there might be a good place to set up barrier spells,” Glint offered.
Levi nodded. He wasn’t the best at tapping into the mana around him; Nox was still working on teaching him that skill, but it was a sound plan. “Alright, let’s set up down there, then,” he said as they began walking once more.
Using Glint’s goggles as a guide, it took them about an hour to reach the best spot. Levi felt his hair flutter when they walked into the center of the energy pools. Zuzan let out an excited squeak and climbed onto his shoulder. He noticed her fur was fluffed, and he saw tiny points of light moving between the strands. Levi turned his head and saw that Flix had stretched out her neck and partially spread her wings like she was sunbathing. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who felt something in this area. A glance at Glint showed him the catalyst fluid in the imp’s staff had started to glow.
“Hey, Glint, is that going to be a problem?” he asked as he pointed at the top of the walking stick. Glint looked up at it and his ears folded down against the sides of his head. He made several adjustments to the knobs on his staff, which caused the glow to fade.
“Well, no, but I admit I didn’t plan for this,” he admitted. “When we find a spot to camp, I’ll remove the mana crystal. That should be fine.”
Levi nodded, and together they examined the bases of the trees. The towers of wood had rough, fibrous bark and the roots spread out in wide webs. Levi saw a dip in the ground, so he pointed it out to Glint. When the pair looked closer, they found a burrow had been dug between some of the larger roots, and they cautiously slipped in to check it out. The root fibers were so matted that they formed a wall to hold up the dirt. “What dug this?” Glint asked.
Zuzan squeaked several times and chittered as she patted Levi’s neck. He adjusted his glasses upwards and cocked his head to listen. “Zuzan says the place smells like a badger,” he translated. Flix hissed then jumped from his shoulder onto the wall. Her claws caught among the root fibers and she folded her wings tightly to her side as she began to run forward, deeper into the cave. Levi wasn’t sure what was happening until a flash of light pulsed, illuminating the tunnel ahead of them. A hiss-crack sounded and Levi hurried past Glint, worried for his new companion.
When Levi was able to see around the turn, he spotted a charred lump of meat the size of Glint smoking in the hollow. The smoke was filtering up into the root covering the ceiling and Levi hoped it wouldn’t be a problem. Flix clung to the wall and smoke trickled up out of her mouth as she preened. Levi was cautious, but he extended a hand and scratched the top of her head between her horns, eliciting a trill. He sensed pride from her, as well as hunger.
“Go ahead, you earned it,” he said as he motioned to the carcass. The dragonet spread her wings and glided down to land on the dead body. The sound of crunching as she dug her teeth into the burnt skin and tore off pieces was loud, yet Levi felt nothing but satisfaction. Zuzan squeaked in disgust and he looked at her, then he snorted. The tamer dug his pouch of nuts out and hung it on a root sticking out from the wall. Zuzan let out a high-pitched chitter as she leaped to the wall and stuffed her head into the bag to start eating.
Glint stuck his head in, and when he saw it was safe, he stepped into the chamber. He took in the badger and swallowed. “That thing is huge,” he muttered. He adjusted his staff and a spike popped out, then he jammed it into the wall of the cave. Once it stuck securely from the side of the cave like a flagpole, he began adjusting the dials until a faint golden glow spread around them; a few more twists darkened it a little. “This’ll run off the mana surrounding us, and should keep animals away,” he continued. Then he slipped his coat off and folded it up and rested it against the wall of the cave. Dropping down, the imp got comfortable as he shifted his goggles up off his eyes.
Levi had never been in a natural cave before, and he couldn’t resist tapping the root walls with his tool. The knob of his cane produced a crunching sound as he pushed it against the plant fibers. He tilted his head, taking in the different colors and the garlic scent the wood produced, then his cane clinked against something hard. “What the hell?” he murmured. He tapped the cane to the same place, and the click of a solid object repeated. Levi raised his hand and carefully pried the roots away until he could see the dirt beneath. A few brushes of his fingers over the spot revealed a large, glassy mineral. Touching it caused him to jerk his fingers back with a hiss. “Damn, this is hot,” he said.
Glint looked up and his eyes went huge, and he bounced to his feet. The imp’s ears flapped like he was trying to fly, and in the next breath he hurriedly pulled his goggles down over his eyes. He tapped the engravings several times, his jaw dropping open in shock. “Levi! It’s a mana crystal, a raw one,” he almost yelled. The imp danced around, and then he stripped off his uniform jacket. Over his dress shirt were a pair of suspenders, and unlike Levi’s, Glint’s had small pouches sewn onto them. He opened one and drew out a brush, then began to sweep dirt away from the stone.
Levi backed out of Glint’s way with a laugh. “Is it valuable?” he asked. Zuzan chirped at him, and he looked over at her. “Really?” he said to the squirrel. She chittered and lifted her head to cheep around the nuts in her mouth. He turned back to look at Glint; the imp was using some kind of pick to clean the outside edges of the crystal. “Zuzan says the crystals grow because of the energy in the area?”
Glint nodded so vigorously his ears flailed, then paused in what he was doing. “Exactly! Ambient mana forms natural pools. Usually, the crystals are created underground, and mining them is really dangerous. The animals that live around them get bigger, meaner. To find one this close to the surface is rare—it has to be because of all the dragonets nearby,” he concluded.
Flix let out a series of chirps as she ripped a long strip of meat from the badger corpse. Then, she tossed her head up, and Levi watched the flesh slide down her throat with a bulge. She preened as he watched her and flicked her tail, her wings mantling and then relaxing. Levi squinted, trying to determine what she wanted to communicate. The dragonet chirped again, the same pattern as before, and Levi’s eyes widened.
“I think Flix wants you to stop, Glint,” he warned. The imp wasn’t listening—he was still clearing away the wall in front of the crystal and he’d exposed a three-foot diameter of glassy stone. Levi reached out and slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Glint! I think you should stop,” he repeated.
The imp turned in surprise, anger on his face. His ears folded back, and he was opening his mouth to argue when a sizzling flash of blue-white light streaked past him to hit the mana crystal. Glint leaped back with a shout of surprise and Levi had to cover his face as he stumbled away himself.
He blinked rapidly to clear his vision and heard Flix letting out a piercing hiss. He saw her shape moving to his right and raised his cane, preparing to cast a barrier spell to protect himself. That was when the mana crystal rolled forward to land between Glint and himself. Energy was arcing all over the crystal’s surface, so Levi stepped farther away as his vision started to return. The entire cavern shook and Glint let out a scream. His friend began to babble, though Levi couldn’t make out a word of it. Then he saw a black shadow in the divot the crystal left in the wall. What began to push out of that space defied Levi’s ability to explain.
Numerous tentacles wriggled outwards to curl against the root mass, trying to pry the creature’s bulk from the wall. Levi saw the rubbery skin part to reveal four eyes, each a different size and color. The orbs didn’t seem to focus on anything in particular, turning from side to side as they looked randomly about. Three mouths split open to reveal jagged, broken teeth, and the entire shape wobbled as it released a cackling laugh that caused dirt to cascade down off of the ceiling. The sound seemed to visibly distort the air, so Levi covered his ears to block out the noise, his cane still clutched in his left hand.
Zuzan scrambled up the wall and shoved herself into a pocket of dirt and roots, hiding from the monstrosity. Flix had flapped her wings hard to back up away from the thing, and Levi saw energy building up at the base of her throat once more. Glint got to his feet and grasped one of the knobs on his staff; the next moment, he twisted them hard, and a crystal shot down into the glowing catalyst. The green fluid began to bubble violently, and Levi saw the thin bronze tubes radiate a ruddy scarlet as power began to build.
Then one of the tentacles thickened and sprouted lamprey-like teeth. The rubbery limb shot toward the hole that Zuzan had hidden in—Levi felt immediately possessed with a burning rage. “Get away from her!” he snarled.
Red-and-black energy swelled around the head of his cane. The power began spinning and the dirt was sucked off the floor to scrape against the walls. Levi leveled his cane at the insane, dark-skinned thing, energy at the tip forming a bowling-ball-sized sphere. He noticed a red glow coming from somewhere, but didn’t have time to identify the source. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he let out a shout of rage and swung his cane forward toward the beast. The ball of energy launched forward and drove into the rubbery mass with a blast that shook the cave. Dirt and dust exploded around them, and Levi momentarily lost his ability to see. His ears rang and he couldn’t hear a thing. The debris in the air choked his lungs which made him double over, coughing. He held his cane up like a shield, wary the creature might attack.
Glint’s lantern was burning impurities from the air, causing the black flesh to burn and release a pale, pink smoke. Levi felt the imp’s hand wrap around his wrist and drag him farther into the light of the staff and the purified air near it. He saw Glint saying something, but his ears couldn’t process a sound. Glint’s large, bat-like ears drooped onto his shoulders, and Levi noted blood dripping onto his uniform shirt.
As Levi turned to look back toward the hole the thing had emerged from, Flix released several blasts of blue-white energy. Twisting spheres of plasma flew from her mouth, firing rapidly into the darkness. Levi shielded his eyes and squinted, trying to see what the dragonet was attacking.
That was when even more tentacles began to spring from the broken wall.
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