The Destined Protector (The Chronicles of Mistar - Book 1)

Twenty · · · Ophryn (.2)

Ryn was excited when he didn't dream about anything. Flashes of what seemed like red hair crossed through his dream, like the people who live on Gazar, but Ryn didn't let it bother him. He woke up to the sound of his name being called by a very familiar voice: Kast.

Rolling his eyes, Ryn jumped up from the unmade bed. He sluggishly walked up the stairs to find Kast at the helm, now wearing all his armor again, and Mell still on the bench just about to eat the last sunberry. Instead of making a big deal about it, Ryn watched in horror as she dropped the berry of yellow goodness into her mouth.

When Ryn came out of the shade, he quickly raised his arm over his eyes so he wasn't blinded by the sun. He didn't catch it in time though and ended up seeing spots when he stooped over to grab his set of armor on the bench. Squinting, Ryn removed his armor from the bench and slipped his breastplate over his head so it covered his stomach, chest, back, and lower back. Then he strapped on what looked like shin guards and plates of armor for his thighs and other pieces of armor that encircled his arms. It made him hot but when he looked into the distance, he saw land and smokestacks from Panchester Harbor. The smoke was always dense but then again, it was always like that in Panchester Harbor where the Pents were actually able to build things and melt constant metal without killing everyone in their underwater kingdom from a lung disease.

"We're almost there!" Kast called from the helm.

"I can see that!" Ryn called back, ascending the stairs towards the wheel. Standing next to Kast, Ryn said, "What do you think of Panchester Harbor?"

Kast shrugged his shoulders. "Smokey? Truthfully, I've only been there once before I was transported to the Harbor of Thonits. It didn't seem that impressive to me from what I heard as a kid."

"Did you know it was nicknamed Smoke City?"

Kast looked to the Harbor. "I didn't, but now I know why."

In the distance, Panchester Harbor sat on a long stretch of land that was only about half a zon littered in smoking factories. Ryn had been there many times on missions with his father, but he never thought it was as beautiful as Pent's other harbors. The factories were all stacked next to each other back-to-back taking up the entire width of the skinny island. To get to the docks, the people who had created the factories had cut out hallways on the outside of the factories so people who weren't working could get from ship to ship easily. Though, it wasn't necessarily easy since the harbor was always crowded and the hallways were small. One long constant metal road was cut out in the middle of the factory so people could go straight from one end of the island to the other. A huge metal bridge reached from the mainland to the island, tall enough for the largest sail possible on a zumo flyer. A gate sat in the middle of the bridge locking out Castans from getting into the harbor and Pents getting out.

Luckily, if everything went right, they wouldn't have to actually go inside Panchester Harbor and have a ruckus start when all the factory workers saw Mell's dark skin. If Ryn could remember right, the secret tunnel was under the bridge.

Ryn remembered when Fanny had first told him about when they were younger and still friends. She had told him many stories about how her family would take special trips, exploring the tunnels when they didn't want to be bombarded with ruling their underwater kingdom. Since they wanted to keep their secret vacation so remote, they never told anybody about their submarine except for their closest friends. They didn't have guards watching the sub and many measures to make sure no one could figure out about it. Fanny always talked about her favorite trip to Transport Harbor when her father actually cared for her. She had told Ryn the story so many times that he knew the route by heart. All they had to do was make it safely to the submarine where they could take another short trip to Transport Harbor and steal an O.R. flyer to finally get Mell off their stupid planet.