ETTING   OME   O   LFANDRA

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Shady's Tail, Er, Tale chapter 3 - The Departure

The next morning when he awoke he felt much better, and was able to leave the house and wander the town for a little while.  He went into the general store and realized all his money was sitting in a pile back in his lair. Knowing that they probably wouldn't take credit he started making his way south.  Once he got a safe distance away from the town he began to change back to his dragon form, but stopped when he heard someone calling him.  He turned around and saw the man that had helped him earlier.  "Don't tell me that you're going off just like that? You need supplies, and you'll definately need a weapon."

"For weapons I can take care of myself and for supplies I need money which I have none."

"Well it just so happens that I was preparing to go home to Andor myself. Mind if I accompany you?"  Shady became a little annoyed *with him here I can't change, but if I tell him go on alone he could get killed crossing the Divide*

"Sure, why not, always nice to have a travel partner." He lied, he'd rather have made this trip alone but couldn't let this guy try to hold his own if the Divide is as bad as he made it out to be.

"Great lets go!  Oh here take this, it's not much but it's all I could afford."  He handed Shady a sword, it seemed of low quality but could probably hold up if asked politely.  Taking a few practice swings to get the feel of the new weapon the man speaks suddenly.  "Oh, haha, I never even got around to telling you my name." Shady looks up and laughs at himself, last night when he had asked they had gotten off onto another subject.  "I'm Lave, pleased to meecha."  The two walk toward the river when Lave stops Shady.  "Hey where you going?  We have to take this cavern to the other side."

"Seems you know where we're going so you better lead on."

"Alright, follow me!"  The pair lit a couple torches went down into the depths of the cave anyone who came through here would quickly lose any idea of how deep they have really gone.  There were multiple forks in the road and Lave seemed to always know which way was the right way.  Until they came into a large open area, with 5 other passages.  "Ok, so which way now?" Lave asked looking back at Shady as if expecting an answer.

"You're asking me?  I thought you knew the way through here."

"Um well, not really.  I've been guessing so far."  The man admitted

Shady suddenly felt very afraid.  "I swear if you've gotten us lost I'll eat you!"  Lave let out a laugh obviously not taking Shady seriously.

"Way to lighten the mood, but still which way should we go?"  Shady looked at the different paths.  He felt something drawing him to the third opening. He approached it and remembered something.

"Why exactly is this place so dangerous, aside from the endless passageways that only lead to more passages?"

"Well, I've heard there was some kind of monster down here.  Of course the ones that don't make it out are a little unable to tell us what happened we can't be sure."  Shady nods at the man stating the obvious.  As he procedes down the passage that he felt pulled to, he saw something glittering in the distance.  Ignoring the danger he ran toward the shiny object.  "Gary, where you going!?  Slow down wait up!"  He finds the path was a dead end but there against the wall was a small stone, about 2 inches in diameter.  Perfectly rounded and glowing brown Shady reached down to pick it up, but Lave pushed him aside.  "Hey do you have any idea what this is!?"  As Lave touched it it's light quickly winked out.  "Oh, never mind, must've been how the torch light hit it."  He tossed it back down.  The momment Lave let go it lit up again.  This time Shady picked it up and looked at it.  Looking deep into the stone it felt as the stone was looking deep into him.  "Gary, it's just a rock, put it down and lets go."  Shady put it in his pocket and they headed back out.  "Well one path down 4 to go, try another one."

Absentmindedly holding onto the rock inside his pocket *which way should we go?* the stone began to grow warm.  Shady pulled it out and looked at it, it was glowing brighter than before.  So he tried again.  "Which way should we go?"  This time outloud.  The stone flared up brightly and shot a white light into the far right passage, there the light floated in place.  Lave looked at him with a look of astonishment.

"Ok, so maybe it is what I think it is."  he said with a laugh.  "I think we should go right!"

Not being one to argue with glowing rocks Shady followed his friend and as they neared the light it went further down through the cavern.  Each time it reached a fork it would wait for the other two to catch up before proceding. They looked at the end of the next tunnel and saw daylight.  "At last, I was starting to wonder if we'd ever get out of here."  As the two got closer to the exit something dropped down in front of them.  It hit the floor with a audible THUD and knocked them both down.  Lave jumped back up first and yelled out "Heads up Gary, it's here!" Drawing his sword he charged the monster ready to fight to the death.  Shady picked himself up and looked at it.  It looked like a large ant, with a metalic hide.  Something clicked in his mind.

"Lave get back from it!"  Shady cried back as he felt some kind of power building up within him.  Instinct took over and he held his hands straight up into the air.  The energy was begining to take a visible shape as electricity began flowing around his hands.  The room became lit with the vibrant violet light eminating from Shady's upstretched hands.  When the light almost became blinding he yelled out "THUNDER!" and the power gathered together from around his hands and shot into the air, through the ceiling of the cave doing no visible damage to the cave itself.  A second later a loud clap of thunder was heard and the Gi-Ant was pulverized with a massive bolt of lightning twice it's size.  The flash from the bolt was too bright and both Shady and Lave had to look away.  When darkness returned all that
remained of the monster was a charred spot on the cavern floor.  The two stood in silence for a long time staring at where the creature had stood. After the shock of the momment settled down, Lave turned his attention toward his partner who was still staring at the smudge on the ground and glancing at his hands every few seconds.

"That was the spell Thunder, I dont know much about magic but I know there are not many people able to use that.  Why didn't you say you were a caster?"  Shady barely heard him, he was more preoccupied with what had just happened.  For a brief momment he could remember everything, but now it was all as a dream again.  Giving up on recieving any response from his companion Lave changed the subject.  "Come on, Andor is just a stones throw away!"

Shady looked up at him and nodded.  "Lets get going." As they passed through the opening into daylight they realized the sun was setting and agreed to set up camp until tommorow.  Shady stayed up, looking at the strange brown stone he had found.  "I know this isn't responsible for that, but what is it?  I asked to be shown the way out and it showed me.  When Lave touched it, it stopped glowing.  Also, magic, I've never used magic in my life so how'd I create such a huge bolt?"  The stars glittered against the velvet of the night, watching.