The Guardians

Chapter 2: The Spirits

Lilly woke up to find herself in a little cavern below the caves, it still had the same crystals and stuff, but different somehow, it was a bit darker and gloomier. There was a cauldron in the middle of the room glowing different color at different times and cobwebs hung here and there scattered about the room. A Shelf of books and glowing bottles was up against the wall. There was also a bed, but with nobody in it.

"Lilly, are you okay down there?" it was Avery's voice at the top of the tunnel and she sounded a bit panicked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm in some sort of cavern." Lilly yelled back up.

"Don't worry I'm coming down and so are Kole and Drake." There was a loud rumbling at the other end of the tunnel and pebbles started to skitter down the tunnel and down came Avery, Kole and Drake, but they were all unconscious.

"Strange. The same thing happened to me as I came down the tunnel." wonder Lilly picking up Avery's hand and letting go of it to see if it would stay up, but it didn't it just flopped back down like a rag doll.

"Oh that happens to all who comes down here, little girl." chuckled a wicked voice in the shadows.

Lilly turned to see an old lady with gray hair behind the cauldron stirring away at it. Lilly yelped in surprise and stumbled over a rock and fell as the old hag started to move from her stirring pot toward Lilly.

"Who are you? Stay away from me and don't come any closer." Lilly kept scooting backwards until she hit the rock wall. The old lady held a hand to help her up.

"Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Riven Feather the witch, expert in spells and potions, but you can just call me Riven." said the hag.

"A witch really! Aren't witches supposed to be evil and all that stuff? I mean wouldn't you like of ate me when I was out on the floor?" asked Lilly as she took the hand of Riven. Before Riven got to answer there was a stirring over where Lilly's friends were. They looked over and saw Kole up first.

"Where are we?" he asked as he looked around confused and Avery started to wake up beside him. She sat up, yawned and stretched.

"What a dream. I dreamed I fell down a hole and . . . .," she stopped short as she noticed Riven. "Who are you!" she exclaimed.

"I'm Riven Feather the witch." explained the hag with a warm smile. Though Avery didn't return the gesture, she just stared in horror. Lilly thought she might faint again. Drake was the last to wake up, "What did I miss?" he asked sleepily rubbing his eyes.

"Not much, I'm assuming?" wondered Kole as he got up.

"You assumed correctly and she isn't a bad witch from I've learned. Isn't that right Riven?" asked Lilly as she helped Avery to her feet.

"That's right dearie and I'm sorry that if I scared you, but I don't exactly know your names." said Riven, she scratched her head to emphasize her look of confusion.

"Oh where are my manners? I'm Lilly. This is Avery, Kole, and Drake." she said pointing to each of her friends in turn.

Before they could say anything else Riven went to her shelf and pulled a white glowing potion from the very back of the top shelf and started to walk toward them mumbling something as she went.

"Ah, this should do it." She said.

"Do what?" asked Avery nervously, backing away behind Lilly, but before Riven could answer she tripped over a rock that jutting out of the ground and the potion fell from her hands and shattered on the ground. In an instant the potion was alive, spirits flew from the bottle and Lilly didn't know whether to run or hide.

There were four spirits in total and they looked like animals. All of a sudden the biggest took a dive at Drake and disappeared into his body and Drake fell to the ground unconscious again. Then the smallest one did the same at Avery and she fell to the ground as well.

Now Lilly was worried and she kept a close eye on the spirits, but they were too fast for her and the third and fourth spirits took a dive at the same time, Kole went down first, and the last thing Lilly remembered was Riven saying "I'm so sorry." over and over and then the world went black.