Kraken Unleashed - Book 2 [Wings of Fire Fanfiction]

Chapter Eleven - Familiar Scales

Kraken descended down into the cold water. As she went deeper the tunnel got darker, and she noticed that it became wider. After what seemed like several minutes a faint green light started glowing in front of her, and she started swimming faster. In front of her the passage opened up into a huge underground cavern. Holy shit. That's enormous. Patches of tiny green lights dotted the cave's ceiling and walls, illuminating something flat and big, very big, built into the wall. As she got closer she realized that it was what she came for.

The Lost Vault!

Kraken had found it. The structure, in its essence, was just an incredibly wide (not tall, she noticed) double door that was made up of the same rock that surrounded it. It almost spanned the entire width of the trench.

How the hell did the Scavengers build this? Kraken wondered, then mentally slapped herself. Legend says that the Scavenger stone could bend the will of dragons. They probably used Seawings to build it. Still, it's pretty impressive.

As she moved closer, she saw a circular slot in the Vault similar to the one used to open the doors of the Obelisk at the Deep Palace. Taking out the Focusing Stone from a pouch wrapped tightly around her neck (that Tundra had made for her), she placed it into the slot. The entire structure started rumbling, and Kraken backed up quickly.

The left door slowly started to retract, then the right one. Stone grated against stone, and parts of the rock chipped off. Bubbles flew out. There must be air in there.

The gates suddenly stopped with a huge bang, and Kraken swam forward cautiously with her glow scales activated, wrenching the Focusing Stone out from the hole. The doors stayed open. Below her were cracked stairs that were as wide as the doors themselves, and covered with the same glowing lichen. Well. What's the point of that? She started swimming upwards. As she neared the top her head suddenly burst out of the water.

Huh?

Shaking some water off her head, Kraken paddled forward until her feet reached the solid stone floor. Still glowing, she heaved herself up, feeling the water drip off her scales and echo eerily around the enormous, dark room. She shivered involuntarily. Broken pillars and various destroyed items of worth were strewn over what seemed like a huge underground cave, the walls cracked with age. The entire structure seemed fragile, as if it would collapse with a single breath.

With eerily loud clawsteps, she stepped over the wreckage toward another enormous door, except it was made up of a singular block. It was covered in scratches and dents, as if someone were trying to get in. A circular slot was built into the door.

One of these again. Sure glad I have this.

Inserting the Focusing Stone, the monolithic door slid open with a hollow grating sound to reveal a chamber that looked like the circular, huge music cave back at Jade Mountain, except with an enormously high ceiling. Unlike the mess outside, the walls here were smooth and there was nothing on the floor. In the middle of the room were four stone pillars that were connected from the ceiling to floor, each with a small cavity near the bottom and a plaque with words carved into them. All were empty, except for one.

Kraken walked toward the occupied pillar, holding her arm up to see better. The relic inside resembled a spherical flask containing a sky-blue liquid. It was adorned with gold which covered most of its narrow neck and branched out into arches at its sides, almost like handles. Beneath it, the sign read:

"The Relic of Life"

"This relic can heal any wound but can only be used three times a century."