Winter's Cold (KingdomCraft Story: Book 2)

Chapter Seven- The First Dragon Trial

----------- Desert Kingdom ~ The Field Tower ------------

Shelby arrives back at the tower after going to the castle to get a change of clothes. She didn't want to go on this journey in her dress, especially since she's putting on her new armour over it. She pulls on a simple light grey sweater and black leggings. Pulling on her new armour, she looked at herself in the mirror, just to make sure she didn't miss anything important.

Once she was satisfied, she took a deep breath and goes down the ladder to where the chest is waiting for her. She opens it up and takes another deep breath, taking the book in her armoured hands. She sits down on the couch and opens it slowly, reading it out loud while Bluebell lands on her shoulder.

"Dear new dragon inquirer, I see you have obtained yourself a dragon. These creatures are as old as history itself. The dragon masters of old must test you to deem whether you are worthy to hold one in your possession" she reads.

"Huh...?" she mumbles, then keeps reading.

"If you fail, the dragons will seek retribution for the killing of their kind and the stealing of their eggs. Follow the clues and start your adventure of the Three Dragon Trials" she reads. She wasn't that nervous before, but now she was worried.

"Trial 1 – The Overworld" she flicks to the next page as she reads this, "Dragons in their days conquered these lands. However, man came in boats with harpoons and bows to shoot them out of the sky. Men who sought out their treasures in gold" she finishes.

She flicks to the next page, but there was nothing on it. She knew this had to be a clue of some sort, but now she had to figure out how to solve it.

"Men who sought their treasures in gold..." she repeats, going over to the chest and opening it to realise that there were also nine gold ingots in there too, "That's enough for a gold block" she realises, gathering all of them out. She didn't know how to fuse gold together, but somehow, as she placed all of them down on the crafting bench, they all fused and created one solid block of gold. "Huh..." she hums, "Maybe the dragon masters put a spell on them so that they would fuse automatically?" she questions with a shrug of her shoulders.

She puts it into her backpack and then thinks about the clue she was given, "Men seeking gold... to me, that sounds like pirates" she figures.

She then remembered that there is an old pirate ship sitting quite close to the field. It's been there for centuries and nobody has tried to move it, as people say it's haunted by the ghosts of the pirates who once sailed it out to the seas. "Maybe I should go check that pirate ship" she says, grabbing her bow and arrow and then heading down the tower, all the way to the ground.

(Time skip)

After following the River Chaya for what seemed like 6 hours, she finally found the rusty old pirate ship. Of course, most of it was submerged under the water, so she had to be careful. She could see that the chest was inside of it.

She still didn't know how to swim, and she knew that the armour would weigh her down, so she would have to think of a different way over. That's when she spots a small raft sitting in the water, right on the riverbank. She carefully steps onto it and begins rowing herself over to the boat.

Once she reaches it, she carefully and cautiously stands up before climbing onto the side of the three quarters submerged pirate ship. She climbed in a hole and sees the chest.

"There it is!" she smiles, going over to the chest and opening it. She sees another book inside, along with a bunch more gold. She takes the book first, while holding onto the railing that was in the wall, so she wouldn't slip and fall, since the boat is sitting on a slope. She opens the book and reads it outloud again.