Age of Dragons Online

Chapter 25: An End... Or A Beginning?

Chapter 25

An End... Or A Beginning?

Before long, they stepped out into the open, daylight streaming across them from the sun that was just peeking its head over the horizon. Looking around, they found that they were standing at the mountain's summit. Despite their extremely high altitude, the air only carried a tinge of cold. An amazing vista was spread out before them, and Nadran could see all of the locations they had passed through on their way here. Glinting in the distance, Nadran glimpsed what he thought was the city of Kolaria, now only a tiny speck on the landscape.

"Um, so..." Aledro began hesitantly. "This is a nice view and all, but, well, I thought we were going to leave the mountain. I mean, that's a pretty steep cliff, there, and we can't exactly fly down there," he said, indicating the cliffs that surrounded them on all sides. Since they were at the peak of the mountain, the only place to go was down, and the top of the mountain was a surprisingly flat area roughly in the shape of a circle with a diameter of about 60 feet, and sheer cliff faces marking the edges.

Salamar paused for a moment, as though thinking, then responded, "Yeah, you're right, you guys wouldn't be able to make it down the mountain by yourself, but I already thought of a solution to that problem before we came here. You didn't honestly think I would forget such an important detail, did you?"

Nobody dared to answer that.

After a short pause, the dragon continued speaking. "I was planning to let you climb onto my back and ride down to the bottom. That would be much faster than just walking down, don't you think?"

Ooh, riding on a dragon!  Nadran thought. That sounds like it would be SO MUCH FUN!

Nadran glanced over at the others to see Lunalia glaring at him, clearly able to tell what he was thinking. "This does not sound safe at all," she said to Nadran and the others. "All it would take would be that dragon rolling over in flight, and we'd all fall to our deaths."

It was Hadon who responded. "Well, if he wanted to, um, kill us, he could have done it so many times already. Why would he want to specifically kill us by falling as opposed to just crushing or roasting us?"

"Yeah," Korath agreed. "Besides, I bet riding a dragon would be super exciting!"

"Is the "excitement factor" all you ever think of?" Lunalia said in exasperation.

"Come on, stop being such a pessimist," Korath responded.

"I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist," she retorted. "This isn't a game. We can actually die here. Why can't you guys be more serious?"

"I think we all know this is not just some game," Nadran said. There are countless ways that we can end up dying. We should be cautious, and not do obviously dangerous acts just because we can. If we spend all our time worrying about this stuff, though, we will never actually be able to enjoy ourselves. While this is game is intended to be a deathtrap, that doesn't mean we should go out of our way to avoid having any fun. After all, we probably all joined this game to have fun, and, while there are some parts that we certainly DIDN'T want, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the parts we did come here for."

Lunalia, looking upset, looked around at the others. "Do you guys all agree with him?"

Hadon smiled sympathetically at her, and said in an apologetic tone "While I do understand your perspective, I have to agree with Nadran for this. Sorry," he said, breaking eye contact and staring at the ground as though unwilling to see her reaction.