Indigo Elf

Ch. 32

Ch. 32

Arlen

Gabriel wasn't kidding when he said that the Land of Dragons was truly wild. When the ship docked, I was expecting a small port town, but we were met with nothing but tall trees and dense bushes, all of which were covered with snow. I floated off the ship on my cloud, slowly taking in my surroundings. I was immediately attacked by the cold air. I wrapped my arms around myself and rubbed my arms. It was terribly cold. Immediately, I scanned the area for any dangerous creatures or dragons. Since this place was mostly inhabited by wild animals, I wanted to keep a look out. The last thing I wanted was to be caught off guard.

I turned towards the ship, laughing softly when I saw Seth running towards me. I lowered myself to the ground, allowing Seth to scramble onto my chair.

"Warm me up!" he whimpered as he buried himself into my chest. I pulled out a few blankets out of my storage and handed them to my little snake friend.

"The colder it is, the warmer the blankets get," I said as I wrapped them around his shivering form. He sighed in relief.

"Thanks."

I turned towards the ship where the rest of the guild members were. Gabriel's face turned into one of extreme concern as he looked around the beach. The ocean was frozen and the sand that usually occupied beaches such as these was buried under snow that had to be at least two feet deep.

"It's not supposed to be like this," Gabriel whispered as he looked around. I frowned. Gabriel was not one to show his emotions, so to see him so disturbed had me feeling a bit uneasy.

I shivered as a gold gust of wind assaulted me. Shaking my head, I decided then and there to make a few modifications to my cloud. I quickly created a bubble around Seth and me, similar to Melvin's barrier. I poked at the bubble, surprised when it didn't pop. I smirked; I never thought that I'd be sitting inside of a bubble one day. Seth sat up, surprised by the lack of the freezing cold air.

"Wow!" he murmured as he poked at the wall with his tail, "This is amazing! You Casters sure are lucky."

I shrugged and floated over towards Gabriel who also poked at my new floating bubble cloud.

I looked towards Yami who was staring into the sky with a suspicious look on her face.

"I sense magic," she finally said, "This weather is the work of a Caster, a powerful caster."

I pursed my lips. That did not sound promising at all, if a caster alone was able to cast a spell of this magnitude, then what would we be able to do to him? A spell like this would take enormous amounts of magic points, meaning that said Caster would be well over level three hundred! I suddenly became nervous. I surely hope that I won't die on my first mission!

Seth shivered, "I get the feeling this mission is going to be extremely hard and very, very dangerous."

"We need to get going," Gabriel declared, "We don't have time to speculate what happened here."

He pointed towards me.

"Let me ride in that contraption of yours, I'll give you directions on how to get to Scale."

I nodded and allowed him on board, along with the rest of the guild members. I sent a furtive glance towards Yami, who was already looking at me. I was sure she was planning my funeral in her head. Her red eyes looked murderous and promised revenge. I was definitely going to have to watch my back when it came to her.

Gabriel pulled up his world map and marked out the path I was to follow in blue. I pursed my lips at just how far Scale was from our current location. I suddenly wished that the airship had taken us a bit further in, but seeing as this land was populated by fire-breathing dragons, I understood why the Captain didn't take the risk. I was a bit surprised that I didn't sense more dragons. I was only able to sense a handful, meaning that most had left. 

The ride was quiet. Everyone, including me, was too busy looking at the pure white landscape and the many corpses that littered the land. The cold had killed just about everything that once thrived here. It was a very saddening sight. I could feel someone's glare burning into my back. Surprisingly, it wasn't Yami, it was Prince Landon.

Since that night, Landon hadn't made any move to talk to me. He wouldn't even look me in the eyes anymore. For some reason, that didn't sit well with me. I'd wanted Landon to hurt as much as possible, to hurt just as he hurt me that day, but for whatever reason, I felt guilty. Why? Why did I have to feel guilty?! I should be celebrating that I'd successfully wounded him, but seeing that pained look on his face always made my heart clench in my chest. I hated it. Perhaps when we finish this mission and we go our separate ways, this annoying feeling would go away. I sure hoped it did.

Hours had passed since I'd been floating in this cloud, and as much as I hated walking, that's all I wanted to do. My legs were stiff and my stomach was letting me know how unhappy it was to not have received any food.

Riddick, who must have been reading my mind, sighed, "Can we please stop for a minute or two? Sitting in the same position for so long is killing me."

"Same here," Xana muttered.

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"Fine," he grumbled, "We'll find a place to stop for the night."

As soon as he said that, we broke through the tree line and entered a field of nothing but pure white snow. I had a sinking suspicion that we were actually traveling over what used to be a lake of some sorts.

"We can stop here," Gabriel said, "The ice over this lake is very thick, and with this weather, it won't be melting anytime soon. Melvin, start working on that barrier."

I slowed down and stepped off my cloud. Seth, who was afraid of entering the cool air didn't budge, so I allowed him to remain inside. To combat the cool air, I dressed in a couple of sweaters and a hoodie. I also wore some sweatpants over my jeans and some boots.

"I guess I can ignore your sloppy appearance this once," Link said as he watched me with narrowed eyes. Being vampires, Link and his brother were completely unaffected by the cold. I found myself totally jealous.

"Thank you," I huffed as I walked along the ice, kicking the snow. I soon found myself alone, exploring the lake. I was tempted to blow away the snow and see what kind of animals I could see lurking below, but the last thing I wanted was to be scared shitless. Some things are better left unknown, plus, my Enemy Detection spell was already alerting me of high-level creatures frozen below.

I paused as I noticed a faint detection of a dragon near our location. Immediately, my heart jumped into my throat, but I soon calmed down as I realized that this was a baby dragon that had yet to hatch. Its life force was fading fast. For whatever reason, I wanted to save it. I could feel how cold it was, how scared it was without the usual warmth it was used to.

Without any warning, I summoned my cloud and took off into the forest, ignoring the calls from behind me. What was this feeling? The more it called out for help, the more my heart ached. I soon arrived at what looked to be a large cave. I stopped and jumped off my cloud, running towards the opening, pausing at the darkness before me. I knew that there weren't any dangerous enemies inside, but anyone would be wary of entering a dark cave. I whimpered as I heard the small creature calling out once more. Unable to hold back I ran inside the cave, using a low-level spell to provide me with light. The cave was very deep, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to reach the small dragon before she succumbed to the cold, but thankfully, I did.

I gasped as I came upon the corpse of a silver she-dragon. Her body was huge, and although she was dead, she was still a very beautiful dragon. Although massive, she was extremely emaciated and probably died from starvation. I released a sigh and turned towards the four eggs her body was wrapped around. Just by looking at them, I could tell the other three baby dragons were gone. The eggs were black and had cracks forming along the shells. One of them was a light silver color, almost white, but had black lines running along the shell. It was a very large egg, about the size of a basketball. Without much thought, I picked the egg up and stuffed it under my hoodie. I squealed loudly as my body reacted to its cold temperature. I cradled the egg close to my chest and turned towards the she-dragon. Seeing such beautiful creatures in such a sad state made me wonder how someone could harm them. Why would someone want to annihilate the dragons?

I sighed sadly and rubbed my hand over the egg that I had stuffed under my hoodie and two sweaters. I didn't know what I would do with a dragon in my care, but I made a vow to take care of it, and to punish whoever did such a terrible thing.

_Gieo_