Scars on the Past

Well, So Much For The Treasure

You know, thinking back on it, the amount of treasure I ended up getting wasn't really worth the trouble I had to go through to get it. I mean sure, eternal glory and unfathomable riches are great and all, but is it really worth being forced on impossible quest after impossible quest with an irritating companion –no, not you!- sorry, where was I? Right, impossible quests. Well, the first impossible quest started out as a simple hunt for buried treasure.

I treaded the once-beaten path, now covered in sand. This place had once been lush and green, an old man once told me. A very wealthy family had lived here and ruled over a massive chunk of land with –allegedly- millions of subjects. I turned my back to the wind for a moment, stopping in my tracks. I wiped the inside of my goggles clean; they protecting me from the sand wasn't really much use when they were covered in sweat-induced condensation.

I pulled an old sheet of parchment from my bag, careful not to wake the purple lump of a companion inside. "Annette and Richard Wight, one son named..." the ink was smudged; it looked something like Arthur, but who knows. I felt something tear its way out of my bag, and climb up onto my shoulder, letting out a satisfied puff of smoke. "Apparently the son was arrested and exiled for practising witchcraft. Says here that it was only basic alchemy though, or its suspected anyway." I told her. "No one's been to the Wright household for at least a couple hundred years." I turned to look at her, the sandstorm had already started dulling her scales, and she had both eyes closed to protect herself.

"Jeez Ruby, why did you even come out of the bag? I told you the sandstorm was going to be bad." She puffed smoke in either protest or complaint –it was hard to tell with dragons. "Look, there's no shame in crawling back in now, it's only going to get worse when I turn around." She climbed back into my bag, but not without giving off one last puff of smoke to display her displeasure. I shut the bag and pulled my goggles back over my eyes before turning around. "Yeah, yeah. Just remind me and we'll get you some goggles next time we're in town."

I trudged forwards, bracing myself against the wind as we went. I struggled to read the map I'd been given as it blew around in my hands. I pulled it closer to my face, trying to decipher the ancient script that the map had been written in as it was ripped from my hands. I turned to follow it, but the map had fluttered into the dense storm before I even had a chance to take one step towards it. "Great," I mumbled. "I guess we're just guessing now."

Despite losing the map, I was sure that we'd been somewhat close. I turned around and took a single step before the sandstorm around us completely disappeared. We were now in a lush green courtyard with cobblestone walkways and even a large stone fountain. Beyond that there was a massive castle made of grey blocks with red and gold banners dangling from the highest points.

Ruby climbed out of my bag and onto my shoulder as I started walking through the garden. It was incredible, the entire castle and courtyard was surrounded in a large bubble that seemed to keep the area frozen in time. I couldn't see the castle from the outside and I couldn't see the sandstorm from the inside. This was some serious magic that I wasn't necessarily capable of dealing with. But the castle was supposedly abandoned, which would make this an easy hunt; someone else could deal with the magic dome some other time.

Nearer to the castle's front gate, I could tell that something was wrong. There were two Adlerin guarding what was seemingly the only entrance into the compound. Which was odd for numerous reasons, the most important being that the Adlerin people had died out at least a century before now.

I had only ever seen their pristine white feathers that adorned their large wingspan, their golden hooked beaks, and their piercing green eyes in old historical books. But the drawings absolutely did not give them justice. The Adlerin were a species of humanoids with bird-like features, almost as if a human had had a child with an eagle... Which at this point wouldn't have surprised me, if I knew anything about humans, it's that they don't discriminate while choosing a mate.

I couldn't help but wonder how these two had survived the mass extinction, and I couldn't help but think that it had something to do with the magic bubble around us.

If it was magic, it wasn't anything I'd ever seen or even heard of before. Bringing a corpse back to life, or a plant? Sure, but having their bodies fully intact was something I had never thought possible. I mean, they didn't look like decaying half-rotted corpses from where I was standing anyway. 

Not to mention that their presence made sneaking in a whole lot harder than I had initially anticipated. Looking around, there weren't really that many options... other than Plan R. But that's exclusively for emergencies.

I could try to climb the outer wall, but there was no way to tell what could possibly be on the other side. I would probably have been caught before I reached the top anyway, it's not like there was much cover.

I swiped my hand passed my ear and wiped away a great deal of soot as I did. Ruby had breathed soot onto the entire right side of my face. "Ruby, what the?" She was torn off of my shoulder with a squeal from both of us. Behind me stood a third Adlerin, who I guess was just getting off of his break at this exact -and extremely inconvenient- moment. "Um, hello." I waved slightly before he grabbed me by the hood of my robes and dragged me towards the castle.

I guess that was one way of getting inside. So much for the element of surprise though.

I was dragged into a musty cellar-type room with barred of sections serving as cages, presumably for prisoners, although one held a black furry mass. I wasn't quite sure what it was and hadn't decided whether I would prefer it dead or alive. The Adlerin dropped me into one cage and Ruby into the same one as the fluff ball, which didn't seem to react.

As soon as the winged-creature shut and locked the large metal door behind him, Ruby and I started plotting our escape. Somehow, I still had the map of the house, which was pretty improbable by itself, but the cellar we were in also wasn't on the map.

"That's impossible. This is the last updated copy of this blueprint, how could it have changed?" Ruby sauntered over next to me (though there were cold metal bars between us) and double-checked. She snorted a little, smoke coming out of her nostrils. "Not likely, but I guess this place was supposedly abandoned centuries ago, and here we are, sitting in a cage being guarded by an extinct species." she huffed again. "Yes the Adlerin, where have you been the past hundred years?" She spit ash into my face. "In an egg, hilarious."

Ruby spun around suddenly and growled behind her. I couldn't see very well from where I was sitting, but she didn't appear to be growling at anything in particular. Unless you count the black furry sphere, in which case, she was growling at a glorified carpet. But she continued to growl at it nonetheless. "What is it, what's wrong?" they say that dragons can see spirits better than any other creatures, but I thought that I would have sensed one of those by now.

She blew smoke from her nostrils, as if the answer was so plain and clear. "What do you mean it moved? what is it?" Again she blew smoke, never taking her eyes off of the fur ball. "That doesn't look like a human to me, Ruby."

"I don't care what you smell, you need your nose checked."

"What? No! You poke it if you're so curious."

Instead of poking it, Ruby decided to breathe fire at it. I'm not necessarily sure what her plan was, but she got it to jump.

It was a slim black cat with pointed ears and seemingly glowing green eyes. It had a small gold bell tied around its neck with a red ribbon, the same colours as the banners outside. It looked surprised for a second to see that it was a small red dragon that had woken it up, but soon after looked quite bored and rolled back up into a ball, this time being sure to keep an eye on the both of us.

After a moment, I heard a new voice. "So, are we fleeing this prison or not?" I'd thought that the cat had spoken, which would be insane except for the sly look it was giving me. "The name's Ari, and if you want to escape this place, you're going to need my help."

AN: Hey, welcome to the first chapter of the new book I'm working on!

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xoxo Snoweevee