C12 THE ISLAND UNDER THE DESERT

Once we dropped ourselves into the boat, we rolled to the other side, and Cartelle retrieved the boat into his space locker, as we entered the opening, where we found another tunnel and walked for another day until we reached another molten lava-filled cavern, yet again.

However, this cavern was not the same as the previous one, and in the middle of it, there was a large man-made island.

“We need to get to the Island,” said Cartelle as he took out his boat again as we rolled toward the Island.

When we were halfway across the lake, a creature flapped its wings above us with great intensity.

As it flapped it created strong winds which rocked our boat and nearly threw us off balance.

The presence of the predator drove us to pedal faster to escape from the dangerous situation.

The creature circled the cavern above, as it observed and considered its next move and after a few laps in the air, it swooped down on us with a fiery breath which hit our boat and destroyed it with its flame.

Fortunately for us, we have just climbed onto the stone island and none of us were harmed except that the experience pushed our adrenalin to highly elevated levels.

The creature looked very familiar, and I have killed one before in Kamini’s village, it was a Dragon.

The Dragon noticed the armor on me made from the scales of its kind, which caused hatred in its eyes and brewed a desire for vengeance, so it came straight for me and opened its mouth to breathe fiery napalm.

However, the Dragon wasn’t the only one here who seek vengeance for their race, and before the flame in its mouth was formed and projected out, loud thunder was heard, and the creature was suddenly thrown back 20-meters into the air, as Kay shot it with his Thunderbolt.

Kay had intense hatred toward Dragons, as he and his friends, families, and villagers suffered enormously from this race of creatures, so he fired at the beast the moment it closed on us without hesitancy or mercy.

The shot did not hit the Dragon in its vital organs, probably due to Kay’s lack of training, or the barrel of my Thunderbolt was a smoothbore which reduced its accuracy.

However, the shot caused some injury to the Dragon and an immense amount of shock. Surprised by our strange and powerful weapon.

The beast retreated to the cavern above to reassess the threat from us below but before it knew what to do next, Kay shot and wounded the Dragon again, which scared it away momentarily as it escaped and bothered us no more.

While we dealt with the Dragon, Cartelle looked for an exit from the cavern and inspected the writings and inscriptions in the middle of the stone island, as he teleported out a bundle of documents and books and brought out a scroll.

He placed the scroll on the floor and put his hand on top of the scroll as he focused for about ten minutes before the stone on the Island began to shake and move, and the molten lava in the cavern was emptied away mysteriously or magically.

With the draining of the lavas, a stone path revealed itself beneath the stone island.

“Huh, Luckily I have the entrance spell, now quickly let’s go,” Cartelle said to us.

We quickly followed him down the stone path, which reached an entrance hidden deep under the cavern, where the molten lava pond used to be.

After traveling for a short time, we reached what seemed like an energy portal of some kind. Apparently, when Cartelle worked with the scroll on Stone Island, he cast a spell that opened an entrance to a portal in front of us.

“This is a magical portal which would bring us away from here”, Cartelle said to us as he moved into the portal and disappeared inside.

From my observations, Cartelle didn’t walk through the portal and if my guess was correct the portal wasn’t a corridor or door that we could walk through but a teleportation marker and once we touched or connected to the portal marker we were beamed to another place.

So, we followed Cartelle and vanished into the magical portal.

We were completely surprised when we exited the portal as we reached a place where there was a huge sky and a deep valley underneath us and we appeared to be on the peak or cliff of some mountain.

This place was definitely not under the desert where we came from, and I wanted to ask Cartelle where we were, but before I could, Cartelle anticipated my curiosity and answered, “We are no longer under the ground. We have reached another space through a magic portal.”