FRANK PAYNE AND THE MYSTERIOUS CAVE

-- Chapter 36 -- The Truth is Revealed

During dinner, they talked about everything that had happened on the mysterious voyage, from the encounter with the submarine in Rota, the pursuit at high depths in the Marianas Trench and the confrontations with the fantastic beings, besides, of course, the latest events since Frank had regained consciousness after having his soul nearly consumed by the Mind Flayer.

"Very interesting," Cadassi commented after each story told by Frank and Barbara, who couldn't hold back and got carried away with every sentence said. "About the legendary stone, you had shown me before you traveled that there was a message from your father for you, but as it was broken, without the top, it was incomplete.

"It is true!" Frank yelled, quickly pulling out the artifact that was stuck around his neck from under his shirt, to check if there was anything else written on it. He had forgotten the message and, after so many events, he hadn't even had time to take a better look. "There are a few more words written here, could you translate for us, please?" the boy asked, holding out his hand so the elder expert could read to them.

"With pleasure, young man," Cadassi said, admiring the stone he had not seen for some years. "Here it says:

Douglas, my love.

I keep thinking about you two.

Look in the Mariana Trench.

Never stop believing!

I miss you.

Love you!"

"Wait a minute," Frank asked in disbelief, looking up at his grandfather with tears in his eyes. "That message was never for me, it was for my father."

"It seems so, young man," replied Master Cadassi. "Of course, your father had the stone in his hands before he disappeared, and somehow the artifact broke, leaving a piece lost in the cave, while the other half sailed through the vastness of the ocean, being found by the only person that could save them, you. Once again, fate took it upon itself to redress the balance between good and evil."

"It means..."

"It means Beth is somehow alive!" shouted Walter, jumping up from his chair. "And Douglas came all the way here to save her."

"But how so? My mother, alive? And why did she come here? Where are they?" Questions welled up in his head.

"There's something I need to talk to you guys," interrupted Cadassi, running his gaze between Frank and Walter. "About eighteen or twenty years ago, when Walter was, if memory serves me right, in his late forties, a girl came to our village to talk to the elder of Gef Pa'go, who in this case was already me. She introduced herself as Elizabeth O'Sullivan..."

"My mother's maiden name!" Frank said aloud.

"Yes," agreed the master. "Your mother was looking for the guardian of the legendary water element stone."

"I do not understand. This was even before I was born. How could my mother at that time know that there was a guardian?"

"Well, the Elizabeth you met wasn't the same one who came looking for me that sunny day. I remember like it was today. She arrived on a boat along with two other people, a tall, stout man wearing a black suit that appeared to be his bodyguard and another in a white apron and a somewhat informal way of talking and carrying himself, thinking that he must be some kind of mad scientist, discovering later that he was the noble guardian of the air element.

"She, after much conversation, said that she belongs to a secret society for the protection of elemental stones that has existed for some years and that, due to rumors that a powerful and immortal Celtic magician would be trying in every way to finally his curse, they decided to act and protect the four legendary stones before the druid discovered the ancient prophecy and tried to bring them together to find the unimaginable fifth element, with enough force to end the entire universe we know, including his infinite life itself".