Legends of Cubarlos

Chapter Twenty-Four

The door swung open and Yuuna proceeded in, Daichi and the others following her closely. The walls were an emerald green and winged beast hieroglyphs were sketched onto the walls.

“This is fantastic!” Megumi breathed as they continued walking down the hallway. “These beasts must have lived here centuries ago along with the Sky People.”

“Sky people?” Daichi asked as he raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“For one, they don’t exist anymore,” Katsu explained as he gave Daichi a sly look. “And two, you always slept in class so of course you wouldn’t know.” Daichi clicked his tongue and avoided looking at Katsu as Megumi stared wide-eyed at the sketches.

“This is a more calming temple,” Yuuna said as she looked around.

“You better not have jinxed that,” Takuma said as he looked around warily. Yuuna smiled as she looked over her shoulder at them. She faced forward and saw that the hallway was starting to widen out. She came to a halt in a large room that had pillars with vines growing on them. Yuuna saw that the flooring had conspicuous colored blocks and she was immediately apprehensive of it. It’s quite obvious that it’s a trap of some sort, Yuuna thought. Yuuna looked above her and noticed statues of gargoyles circling the room.

“Well, we aren’t getting any farther standing here,” Takuma said as he started walking forward.

“Takuma wait!” Yuuna yelled as she tried to grab Takuma’s sleeve but missed as the floor gave way, sending Takuma plummeting down. Yuuna dove after him, unfolding her wings as she went. She grabbed him around his waist and extended her wings to bring their fall to a halt. Yuuna was breathing heavily and her heart beat was throbbing in her chest. She could feel Takuma’s own heart beat against her hands and his was throbbing more than hers. She looked down and noticed that they were still above the clouds. Sighing heavily, she flapped her wings and went back through the hole in the floor Takuma created. She set him down before landing beside him, folding her wings slightly.

“That was a close call,” Megumi said as she exhaled. Takuma was shaking and his eyes were wide.

“Idiot, running forward like that!” Yamato said as he hit Takuma over the head. “What were you thinking?!”

“Yamato it’s okay,” Yuuna said as she looked back over to the floors. She noticed the colored blocks were arranged in a diagonal trail. It’s the colored blocks that are safe, Yuuna thought with shock. The one who built the temple must’ve designed it to where the colored blocks looked dangerous. But to test my theory… Yuuna glided over to a colored block and put her full weight down on it. The block didn’t budge and Yuuna sighed with relief.

“The colored block is the path we take,” she called out. “Walk along that path.”

“Easier said than done,” Yamato said as he hauled Takuma up to his feet. Yuuna watched as they carefully started to walk across the blocks, careful not to touch the other ones. Yuuna flew ahead to the other ledge to make sure the rest of the path was clear. Yuuna flew towards the door and her heart stopped. A giant pig with an armored head was guarding the door, its breath stirring up the dust. An armored boar, Yuuna thought angrily. She looked over her shoulder and saw that they weren’t even halfway across yet. She looked at the path in front of the boar and noticed there were not as many colored tiles. I can do this, Yuuna thought as she took a deep breath and flew back towards her group.

“Listen,” she said quietly as she hovered above them and they looked up at her. “An armored boar is guarding the next door. When I give the word, you need to sprint on the colored blocks. The whole floor might give way.”