War for the Skies (completed) (Book 1 of the Heroes of the Realms series)

Chapter 36

It was a strange creature. It had bushes for feet and huge tree stems for legs. He was wearing... bush shorts?... and he was basically a giant tree monster. His mouth was about 5 feet wide, with crooked wooden teeth slipping out of the front.

He looked at us, and we looked at him, but none of us spoke, or moved. He didn't immediately take action and try to kill us, unlike pretty much everybody we met on this journey. We glanced at each other for what seemed to be an hour, until he spoke.

"What are you doing here?" his voice sounded like a wrestler's and not like you would imagine:  a deep voice like the Hulk's, with terrible grammar.

"Um... we got lost," I replied quickly, thinking if we hesitated he might decide to take action.

He snorted-- even though I still can't understand how a tree snorts-- "That's what they all say, then they leave because they get scared of the Guard."

"The Guard?" Skylar asked.

He pointed a sharp thumb to his chest.

"Oh," Skylar replied.

"Anyway, you can't get out I'm assuming. I can't see the Guide Book in your hands," he observed us somehow, with eagle eyes from all the way up there.

"Guide Book?" Theo asked.

"Yeah, don't you know? That's the thing that helps you get from one Realm to another, so you can navigate easily," he answered. "The last Hero that came in here had it, and I didn't sense the door back to the hall budge, so that girl probably died somewhere out in this Realm trying to find it, then kept the Guide Book to herself."

"So you know where the door is?" Cally asked quickly.

"I said I sensed the door not budge. I don't know where it is."

Cally sat down in frustration.

"Anyway, have fun now, and try not to get killed," the monster said.

"Wait, where exactly are we?" I asked.

He smiled. "You're in Dragone Island! The place where all monsters exist!" he threw his hands up in the air, laughing.

"Who's the Legend controlling it?" I asked.

"Cetus, the sea dragon," he replied, all of the excitement leaving his face.

"Where is he now?" I asked.

Then I wanted to slap myself, Bad question, bad question!

The lake exploded into a dazzling splash of water, as a beam of the liquid flew towards us, about human size, then started forming into something. A reptilian body started to be visible at the edge of the water.

The beam splashed in front of us, finally revealing a five foot tall blue dragon, in a tuxedo. He wasn't as buff as I imagined him. Or as big as I imagined him. He had goggles on top of his eyes, and his legs and feet were quite human-like. His whole body, except for his hands and face and tail, was human-like. He had narrow, yellow eyes with thin, but tall, black pupils.

"Hello my friends, and welcome to Dragone Island!" he gestured behind himself in a very formal manner. "Why are you here?"

"We were trying to get to the Cursed Lands," I replied, but then regretted it.

"The Cursed Lands? Why would you want to go there?" he asked.

"To defeat the Cursed and stop them from cursing all of the other Realms."

"They would never try such a thing."

"They are, right now, they have a bunch of gateways leading into so many different Realms," Theo chimed in.