Oceania

~*~The fire was spreading quickly, and one of the beasts had run over the escape hatch, leaving the party trapped. While the elementals could have used their abilities to put out the flames, they needed to conserve energy in case more monsters appeared. Kemen ran for the doors and began pounding on them, but they would not budge.“Get that door open!” Naur roared.“I Can’t!” The dark armoured warrior gasped between blows “I may be at one with the earth, but I can’t speak with the stones!”~*~Hearing the attempts of his brother to break down the door, the stone guardian ran for the temple and planted a devastating kick to a spot immediately adjacent to the doors. A section of wall roughly six feet in diameter crumbled around where the kick had been delivered.Coughing and with flames licking at their heels, the elementals filed out of the temple. All except the water warrior, who was half carried by her icy comrade.“Is everyone alright?” Naur asked once everyone was safely out on the grassy field in front of the burning temple.Before anyone could answer, a whirring sound filled the area and quickly increased in volume. “Get ready for another wave!” Enelya yelled over the now high pitched din, she could feel the gathering energy. If she was right, the evil woman-deamon was cut off from her usually bountiful supply of energy so she was collecting whatever remnants of Diemagon were left in the reality to try and squish her. Though this would make the daemon more unpredictable, it gave the girl hope that they might be able to once and for all kill this creature.In a startling display of power and daring, the deamon woman suddenly appeared in the midst of the group. “You may have gotten lucky child.” The woman purred with malice in every syllable. “But you won’t harm me again. I will consume everything in this land once you are gone, and I will return it to the Dark Lord.”“No you will not!” The fire elemental raged as he leapt at the woman with swords blazing. Enelya could feel one of the woman’s spidery tendrils of energy whip out and catch the warrior. With a laugh, she threw him twenty feet back and into a mass of large shiny black dog-like monsters that had manifested while the woman distracted them.As if a set of carefully placed dominos had been set off, a chain of events unfolded, and Enelya couldn’t help but wonder why she felt like she had seen it all before. A pair of shiny black heads snapped canine teeth at the fire guardian, while the beasts immediately adjacent lunged forward to attack at the closest targets. The elementals sprang into action, slashing and dodging as if it had all been coria graphed. Enelya stood glaring at the woman, waiting for her to make a move. But the woman only tilted her head back and laughed. A prickling at the girl’s neck told her she was about to be attacked from behind so she dodged and rolled to the left. Enelya looked up just in time to see a pair of large shadow dogs barrel into the evil woman, knocking her down. She slashed at the beasts with her nails and energy, only to gasp in pain as she realised that they were her own beasts. Picking them up with her greasy aura, the daemon threw one of her now limp dogs at her nemesis. Enelya dodged but wasn’t fast enough. Her left foot was trapped under the beast’s dead weight. A velvety chuckle sounded from the evil woman’s throat “All these years of running and I finally pin you down!” she got up and stalked slowly towards the trapped girl. Before she could take more than three steps, there was a loud death-scream from one of the dog beasts somewhere behind the woman. She whipped around, snarling in pain and frustration.Enelya gripped her sword and used it to lever the beast off her foot. As she did this, she also tried to deflect the daemon from going after one of the warriors. “So you are tied to your beasts now?” The girl gave a short but strained laugh to which the evil woman hissed and whirled around to glare at Enelya. “You’re obviously running out of steam.”With the daemon’s attention diverted, her beasts faltered in their individual fights. The Fire warrior dispatched the two he had been fighting and leapt at the evil woman. This time his attack connected with its target, but he only managed to make a glancing slash down the woman’s hip before she caught him with her energies. Again she slammed him back, but this time she used all the force she could muster without draining strength from her beasts. In the instant that the woman focused her attention on the fire elemental, Enelya jumped forward, readying a strike in both body and mind.Landing the strike near the woman’s chest, Enelya missed her mark and instead of piercing the heart, lodged her sword under the woman’s collar bone. With a scream of agony, the evil woman slammed a paranormally strong arm into Enelya, breaking her hold on the sword and making the girl tumble backwards.Pain and lighting exploded in the girl’s brain as her head it the ground, all she wanted to do was break down crying but the lack of battle sounds made Enelya look around. No more dog-beasts menaced her friends. Standing over her, the evil woman gulped in a few staggering breaths before she ripped the sword from her body. Looking down at her foe, the daemon gave a wicked, if pained grin and turned the point of the sword to the ground, preparing to plunge it into the girl.Now without an opponent, the stone elemental bunched all the strength in his legs and ran at the evil woman, hoping to catch her off guard but she flicked a hand at him. Out of nowhere a cloud of white silvery strands appeared and wrapped themselves around him, tripping him. As the warrior tried to pull the thin webbing off, the filaments began to tighten, constricting and making it more difficult to move.Picking up where his comrade left off, the earth warrior picked up fistfuls of dirt and rock. He flung them at the daemon, but again she flicked a hand, flinging the warrior and his projectiles as far as she could with her now amplified strength. The water and ice elementals also tried to attack but were similarly picked up and smashed into the ground by an unseen force.“Stop!” Enelya struggled to her feet. “Leave them alone! You can have me.”The daemon turned to the girl and sneered. “I don’t want you, I want that beast of yours.” The woman used the back of her hand to wipe some blood from just below her nose.Enelya realised that the daemon was stretching her strengths too far, using her abilities without having the limitless source that she normally had was forcing her to put more and more of what she had left into the physical body she had manifested. She needed to do this to keep her consciousness from losing its hold in this reality. If the deamon lost its hold on this world, it would not be able to return to Diemagon due to the fresh barrier. If Enelya could figure out a way to kill the evil woman here and now, she might never have to face her again. Seeing that the woman was already suffering injuries, it should not be impossible. “You might want my Roger,” Enelya bit at her lower lip to look worried “But your master wants me, and I am sure he has plans for you if you fail.”“Oh, but my master Loves me,” The woman really drew out the word love in her cheesy vampire accent. Enelya was ready to throw up for her hatred of the daemon’s voice. “I’m sure he will be happy should I choose to enjoy myself torturing you.”Stalking a slow circle around Enelya, the girl held still, she knew the evil woman was taking her time to draw strength from all the carcasses and bloodshed around the battlefield. Enelya let the woman continue, for as the deamon was readying something, so too was she.Enelya reached deep down into the core of her aura, to the centre of her soul, where she was attached by some unknown means to her dragon friend. There was strength here, and a conduit to a higher power that the girl did not like calling upon unless it was absolutely necessary. From this place Enelya drew energy into herself, holding it inside her own energies like a pressure cooker until she might use it to its greatest effect.The daemon continued to stalk around her prey and for fun she inflicted a few small wounds. A slip of the blade across the back, a tiny jab to the shoulder, Enelya flinched at each touch of steel but remained still. When the evil woman came back around, she stood staring at the girl. Enelya kept her gaze averted from the woman’s eyes “Your crippled spirit will make a good vice with which to break that beast’s heart and soul.” The deamon purred before lifting the sword once again to place it against the girl’s floating ribs. Enelya had long held the notion that the soul or spirit was located in a small ball of energy somewhere near the physical heart. In her own body, she visualized it as being a little lower than her heart. If the deamon stabbed with both mind and sword, Enelya feared it might damage more than her physical body.“You might kill me today, but you will Not win this war.” The girl made a grab for the woman’s arm but the daemon pulled back to prepare to stab at Enelya. Before the creature could make another move, half of her body froze. With a roar of frustration the daemon whipped her head around to glare at the warrior of ice laying on the ground.“finish it!” he urged with what breath he was able to draw as the evil woman squeezed him with what power she had left.Enelya grabbed the collar of the woman’s dress and forced her to turn and meet her gaze. As the energy held in Enelya’s body erupted, the girl could almost hear a pressure cooker ‘ding’. The dragon’s fire contained in the girl’s body poured out through her eyes and flooded into the daemon’s black soul. As Enelya felt the daemon melting from the inside out, she was vaguely reminded of a comic book hero that used a similar ability to sear human souls that had been corrupted. When the girl’s hands began to burn from the fire cleansing the monster from within, she let go but did not remove her gaze from the evil woman’s eyes. Within moments the evil woman was consumed in a blaze of golden light, brighter than any man-made flame. Enelya looked away only to save her retinas from permanent damage. When the light had died away she looked back to see the charred spot on the ground where her nemesis had been and sighed in relief. Taking a deep breath, the girl nearly fell over. With the energy she had borrowed gone, she suddenly felt very small and fragile. But she couldn’t waste time worrying about herself.~*~After a final look at the charred, smoking spot, Enelya turned to her habitual duty of healer. The closest warrior was Khelek, and he appeared to be breathing, if a little unsteadily. A glance to the right brought the woman’s gaze upon the unmoving form of Vilya Ohtar. He did not appear as badly scraped up as his icy brother. Looking back to the white armored warrior, the woman started towards him but was stopped.“go.” Khelek said hoarsely while pointing to the air elemental. Enelya nodded and went to assess the extent of the damage to the other warrior.Vilya, as it turned out was only stunned and unconscious. Though he had been scraped up and banged around a fair bit he had defended himself well for the most part. Enelya looked around for her next priority. Lying near the middle of the blood stained ground was the body of the fire warrior. Moving to his side, the healer checked for a pulse, but found none. The man was not breathing either. Forgetting the customs of the people of the island, Enelya pulled the man’s mask off to reveal a rather alien looking, grey metal plated face. She got down to listen for any faint breathing but could not hear any movement from the warrior. “Okay,” Enelya thought out loud. “How do I do CPR on these guys…?” The metal breastplate covering the man’s chest would keep her from compressing his rib cage. With deft fingers, Enelya felt for any kind of fastening devices along the warrior’s ribs and shoulders. Tiny clips, almost invisible were what she found. Examining one, Enelya determined that the operation of the clips was simple, but her battle numbed fingers had trouble maneuvering the small buckles. After undoing a clip on each rib and shoulder, the girl pulled at the armor piece as though she expected it to weigh several pounds but found that it came off easily as it was made of an aluminum-like substance. Beneath the armor was a mass of shining red interlocking plates. Again the biologist in Enelya was amazed at the similarity to insect exoskeletons. Doing her best to guess at organ positions, the healer quickly began compressions with what she hoped were sufficient artificial breaths interspersed appropriately. Enelya hoped the warrior would revive quickly as she knew she could not keep up the CPR for long.~*~Khelek Ohtar watched as the human checked on one of his brothers before looking around worriedly for his sister warrior. He found her not far, which he thanked the gods for as he dragged himself over to her. The woman was lying flat on her back with limbs fallen randomly about her like a rag doll. There was movement in her chest, Khelek had to offer up more thanks to the gods, the beast could have killed her easily. “Alu….” The ice guardian gently touched his comrade’s shoulder. “….are you…?”A shudder ran through the woman’s body as she fought to not cry out at a wave of pain. “I have been better.” She answered while pulling her arms in to lie beside her. The water elemental looked up at her comrade. “Did I have you worried?” A playful smile dazzled the woman’s blood splattered face.The ice warrior had to bow his head to hide the tears that threatened to fall for joy at having not lost one of his closest comrades.“Don’t you Dare Die on me!” Enelya cried while pumping away furiously to keep the fire warrior’s heart going.Khelek looked over his shoulder and shook his head. He squeezed his sister warrior’s hand. “I will return.” The guardian began pulling himself toward the frustrated healer.“Naur! You Can’t die till I Tell You that you Can!” The human healer was not willing to give up. The battle had not lasted more than a few minutes and the fire warrior had not been taken down till the last altercation with the daemon. Enelya was sure that the warrior’s brain had not been deprived of oxygen long enough to cause damage. As long as she kept up the CPR, the fire guardian should eventually be resuscitated.“Enelya, stop.” Someone said behind the girl’s shoulder. When the healer glared over her shoulder at the ice guardian but did not stop, he tried again. “Please stop.” No answer came from the overtaxed water elemental. “He deserves to rest now, please stop.”“I Stop--” Enelya panted from the prolonged effort. “And he dies.”The ice warrior knew there was no arguing. As much as he disliked the leader of the warriors, he disliked having one of his fallen comrades bodies disturbed even more. And though the ice warrior would have liked to physically stop the girl himself, he could not bring himself to dash what hope she seemed to be holding onto. A moment later the ice guardian felt a presence behind him.Having had to fish himself out of a tangle of contractile filaments, the warrior of stone was in bad shape from dented armor plates. Looking onto the scene, he looked down at his icy brother curiously. “What is happening? I though our fire brother… fell…”“He did.” Was all Khelek Ohtar could answer.The two looked on in sadness as the human healer tried fruitlessly to save one of their own. This would be a dark day in the history of their world. Even more to shame was that the fire warrior would have to be buried away from his homeland. None of the others were in any shape to carry his body back.Not badly injured, the earth warrior joined the two onlookers after he had checked on the other fallen comrades. He squatted down, his legs tired from running back after being thrown far from the fight. “Is Naur…?”The stone warrior patted his friend’s shoulder sympathetically. “I believe he is --”A loud gasp followed by a retching sound stopped the stone guardian mid-sentence. When the girl tried to roll the fire warrior onto his side but failed, Kemen Ohtar jumped forward to help. “Good job sister!” He easily rolled his leader onto his side to vomit with a hand to spare with which he patted the girl on the shoulder.“Okay.” Enelya looked around dizzily as adrenalin began to flee from her system “I think….” she wavered sitting on her haunches. “I’m going to faint now…” Barely finishing the thought, the girl fell backwards, into the stone warrior’s waiting arms.~*~Kemen Ohtar glanced into a room, there were three beds available. “In here!” He called quietly and motioned with his head for his taller friend to follow him. The stone guardian came quickly, he was tired but knew he had to see that the others were safe and comfortable before he could rest himself. Burdened by the limp form of the human girl, the man had to shuffle into the room sideways. Once in the room, the earthy warrior directed him as he had unloaded the air guardian into a bed already. Unburdened, the earth warrior turned to go in search of blankets and bandages while his friend returned to the surface to retrieve another comrade.Back up on the surface, the warrior of stone found his sister leaning over the fallen leader, and the coldest of his brothers laying on his back not far away, seemingly asleep. Thinking that it would be a bad idea to leave the leader of the guardians alone without a healer, the stone warrior went to collect his icy comrade. When he had come within three steps of the ice warrior, the stone guardian stopped as his brother looked up. “I’m moving everyone below, you’re next.” He smiled reassuringly.Khelek glanced to the other two warriors. “Take Naur, he is in more need of rest.”“But he should--…” The stone warrior stopped when the ice guardian glared at him. “Alright…”Alu smiled up at the strong warrior when he came to collect the head guardian. “Brother, would you help me up first?” He nodded and complied. Hanging on her friend’s arm for a moment, the woman cautioned her comrade. “Be careful with our dear leader, his heart needs rest to regain its strength.” Trusting the stone elemental, Alu wandered to her other comrade and knelt down. Only opening his unlensed eye, the warrior glanced wearily up at the woman. The water elemental took the man’s hand and closed her eyes in concentration.“Save your strength.” The ice guardian tried to weakly pull his hand away.“Hold still and none will be wasted.” There was a tone of finality in the woman’s voice that prevented her patient from squirming.~*~When the two earthy warriors returned for the last two of their friends, they found the ice elemental sleeping peacefully and Alu sitting with her chin resting on her chest. When Kemen tried to collect his sister, the woman woke with a start. “Our brother sleeps soundly.” The short warrior commented as he helped the water elemental to her feet.“He would never allow himself to be carried, and he has too many wounds for me to heal without rest.” Kemen nodded at the woman’s explanation.~*~Enelya’s stomach woke her, at least she thought it was; either that or her pains but it was hard for her to tell. Reaching out with her mind she felt for the familiar presence of her scaly friend out of habit but instead found two smaller presences. Identifying the elementals of air and fire, the girl got up with a low groan.Checking on the healing process of the two, she decided that neither was in particularly bad shape so she continued out into the hall to check on the others. Leaning into one room she found the ice and water guardians sharing a room, both were sleeping peacefully. In another room the heavier warriors snored away in blissful slumber.Moving to the kitchen, the girl foraged up some left-overs from the day before. With a quick meal in her stomach, Enelya went to the equipment room and dialed down the barrier device enough that she would be able to get an outgoing signal. With this done she headed to the main cavern and found a wide open space to sit down to meditate.~*~There was a soft sigh from somewhere just above Khelek’s head, nearly making him jump. As it was, his heart leapt into his throat but he was able to keep the rest of his body from moving. If there was some beast close by he did not want to startle it. He vaguely remembered barely winning a seemingly hopeless battle, but he had blanked out shortly after its conclusion. Aches and pains from all over his body reminded him just how close he had come to death. The warrior was unsure where he was at present, he knew that he was resting rather comfortably against something warm but beyond this he had no idea of his surroundings. His eyes complained as he tried to open them.A familiar light filtered into the small room he quickly recognized as the one he had inhabited for the last week or so. There was nothing in his immediate vicinity that he could see that might have caused the noise that had awakened him. Activating the lens system in his mask, the warrior could see no one inhabiting the hallway outside the room. Changing lens functions, Khelek Ohtar focused on the surface pillowing his head and nearly leapt off the bed when he realized what it was.“Did I wake you brother?” Alu Ohtar asked in a whisper. The ice warrior could feel the woman’s body tense up, restricting his movement. “Are you in pain?” Concern colored the healer’s voice. Her tones were soft, but Khelek realized that her cheek must be resting against the top of his head for her to sound so close. “You must breathe brother, pains I can quiet but I cannot fill your lungs for you.”The ice guardian suddenly realized he had been holding his breath and slowly let it out. In doing this he also released some of the tension that had taken hold of him, which allowed for a more thorough assessment of his position. His head was resting on the right side of the water guardian’s chest. His left shoulder was lying against her side, with the rest of his body stretched out comfortably beside hers. One of the woman’s arms ran behind his head and up over his right shoulder to let her hand rest lightly on his shredded breast plate. The man’s other hand had been resting lightly across the woman’s stomach, but he had pulled it close to his side in his moment of tense indecision. Alu grabbed his still hovering hand and replaced it on her stomach. “Rest my friend; you have taken many wounds that will require time to heal.”“I should check on the others.” Khelek said after a quiet moment. He didn’t exactly want to leave this warm place, but he also didn’t want the others to find them like this.“Enelya has completed a round and everyone else is resting.” The healer seemed relieved that she didn’t have to check on the others, she seemed to be happy where she was.To each, the warmth and presence of the other was comforting. The two silently decided to stay and were both asleep again in moments.~*~Enelya’s mind kept wanting to wander back to sleep as she carefully grounded her energies and prepared to go looking for her soulmate. When she felt ready, the girl reached for the part of her soul that was connected with her dragon friend. Years before the young woman had learned to see the connections between souls as thin silver strands. Between close family and friends the strands were larger or a brighter silver. Between Roger and Enelya was a cord made of several strands of woven goldthreads. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure what that meant since she had only seen a few golden threads between lovers and very tight friends, but she wasn’t about to worry about that now. By finding this cord and following it, the girl carefully passed through the barriers that protected the reality by synchronizing with them. Once past these barriers, the girl followed the cord till she felt it thinning, as if someone had frayed it with their teeth. Treading carefully through the dark void, Enelya eventually felt a large, weak presence at the other end. There was a familiarity at the other end of the cord, but it was mostly masked by a sense of staleness, rotting and a lack of life.“Roger” Enelya thought the name with all the fear and love she could spare without falling apart. The large presence recoiled from the girl, but she wasn’t about to let her friend get away without fighting for him. Grabbing hold of the soul, she pulled gently at first, but there was a resistance in him that she quickly overcame as he gave up. Steadily drawing the dragon close to herself, Enelya carried his spirit to a part of the astral plane where she could help him recover. Though the plane of existence was just above that of the physical, it was still invisible to anyone who either didn’t have the talent or the practice to see it. For Enelya, the astral world was almost as real to her mind’s eye as the floor beneath her physical body. She needed to integrate the dragon’s soul with the energies of the physical world to heal his body, but she needed to wake his heart and mind on the astral plane first.Visualizing the peaceful happy place, Enelya could smell sweet flowers on the wind, and hear the chirp of distant birds. The sun shone eternally down on the quiet meadow. Placing the dragon’s soul down on the grass and visualizing him in his usual form, the girl could now clearly see what had been done to him.The usually silver and sapphire scales were covered in grime and soot. Wing membranes had been torn and tattered. There was little energy in Roger, or she would have been able to feel warmth and strength flowing from him. He just lay there, sprawled in almost the worse shape she had ever seen him. But that was not all the damage that had been inflicted, when the girl went to rub her friend’s face, he flinched away from her touch as if it pained him.Enelya got up and moved to the lake nestled at the base of the meadow. A crystal bowl sat atop a stone pillar, she took it down and filled it with cool clear water. Warming the fluid with her energy on the way back, the girl sat down beside the beast’s head and ripped a strip of cloth from her skirt. With it she washed the dragon’s face. When Roger tried to shy away, she held him, when he whimpered she whispered soothing words. Through the whole process he didn’t open an eye for fear that he would still be locked in the prison of nothingness.The girl moved on and washed what she could of his neck, shoulders and paws. She stopped when she reached his wing shoulders. To wash those she would need to climb up to his back and she wasn’t sure it would be a good idea if he flinched while she was atop him. Instead she headed for fresh water and paused by her friend’s face when she noticed that his eyes were open and he watched her with a guarded expression that was hard to read. Putting the bowl down she approached the dragon only for him to close his eyes in a grimace and tilt his head away from her. A lump closed off the girl’s throat as tears unshed before were suddenly loosed all at once. Enelya settled beside the beast’s face and wrapped her arms around his snout. She cried herself out on his scaled cheek and fell asleep there.~*~The Earth elemental got up slowly. He wasn’t sure what had woken him, but he got up and checked on all his friends. Everyone was where they were supposed to be besides the human girl. Wandering out into the main cavern, the warrior became acutely aware of a loud deep rhythmic whooshing out in the darkness of the cavern as if something very large was breathing. Swords in hand, the man stalked out into the darkness towards the sound, afraid that the war for his home was not over.At first the elemental was aware of a large shadow looming out of the gloom. From what his sensitive eyes could discern, the beast had a long serpentine body with two pairs of legs and a powerful looking set of wings. It very much reminded the warrior of a monstrous dragon form that his old shape shifting foe was said to often take, all except for the head which had an odd growth off one side of it. As the warrior approached the dragon he realized that the odd growth was the sleeping form of the human girl.Kemen thought it would be unlikely for the girl to nestle herself so close to something she thought was dangerous. He wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to wake either one of the pair, so he settled himself down a few dozen feet away with a sword laying beside his crossed legs. Listening to the hum of the earth all around, the warrior soon nodded off into a light sleep.~*~The first thing Enelya noticed was the familiar musky smell of scales and leather. As her mind woke itself up slowly, she tried to stretch but found that her muscles were complaining too much, so she stayed curled up and settled for opening her eyes to look around. There were a few low lights on high up in the cavern that let the girl see her winged friend watching her. Mustering some strength, she reached a hand up to gently stroke the cheek scales pillowing her head. “You shouldn’t look at something so close to your face or you’ll go cross-eyed dear.” She whispered. The eye watching the girl closed, though she couldn’t tell if it was due to pain or some other reason.As the girl continued to stroke the smooth scales, a quiet, broken voice filled her head. “You can’t be real,” Roger opened his eye again. “You must be another trick.”Enelya stretched and resettled so she could pull the large head into her lap. “No, honey, it’s really me.” She began to rub the dinosaur like face, occasionally rubbing her cheek against the top of his head and planting a kiss as she might have done to a cat. After a few minutes of this the girl’s spine gave a shiver from the cold of the cave. Reflexively the beast stretched a wingtip out to cover the woman’s back. “No, don’t do that,” she waved the wing away. “It’s cold in here, you must be frozen. There’s more of you touching the ground than there is of me.” The girl got up after carefully putting the dragon’s head back down. “I’ll get us some blankets.”When Enelya turned to leave, she noticed the earth elemental watching her. “How long have you been there?”“About an hour.”~*~Together the human girl and the earth warrior reset the barriers protecting the reality and collected a pile of blankets so large they had to drag them. Between the two of them they settled enough of them on the floor to make a decent if thin mattress or nest for the dragon. With a bit of help and a lot of encouragement, Roger stood on shaky legs. At his droopy height, the tops of his shoulders were just above the young woman’s head. When the dragon stood at full attention, the girl hardly came to mid bicep. For now the beast settled for padding unsteadily to the litter. Once he was settled, Enelya checked him over more carefully while the earthy warrior set up a small fire pit. The girl couldn’t help shedding a few tears as her friend shied away whenever she touched him, even though she could discern no wounds other than bruises and minor scratches. When she was sure there was nothing medical for her to do, Enelya took the heaviest and largest sheet she had found and carefully settled it over the beast. Though the blanket did not cover wing tip or wrist, she thought that it would at least help her friend rest a little easier.With a bit of effort Enelya got a fire going. By the time she had a decent blaze crackling, her scaly friend had slipped into a fitful sleep. The earth elemental and human girl sat and talked for a while before the dragon asleep behind them let out a whimper. Unable to help herself, the girl went and touched the beast’s neck. At first she was gentle, but as he tried to twist away in groggy fear, Enelya applied more reassuring force and funneled as much warm and loving energy as she could through her arm and fingertips. Repeating some nonsensical calming sounds, the girl stroked the enormous neck until the dragon calmed. When he had stopped twitching, she grabbed a leftover blanket and nestled herself in the crook between neck and shoulder. By reflex, Roger curled a clawed paw protectively around the girl and drifted off into peaceful slumber.~*~When the girl woke next, she found all the warriors settled around the campfire. Taking stock of them from what she could see, they all looked miserable or in some sort of pain. Some kind soul had neatly bandaged the ugliest of wounds and slathered some sort of ointment on the spots that were difficult to bandage. There was little conversation happening except for a few bits of chatter from the air elemental. Everyone else seemed tense, the girl guessed it had something to do with the 30ft dragon curled around her.Stretching slowly and quietly as she could Enelya patted Roger’s paw so he would know she was getting up. The beast didn’t move, but she knew he had felt the contact. After she stood up, the girl followed the dragon’s neck to his head. She rubbed the ridges above his eyes and scratch behind his big leathery ears. “I won’t be far dear, call if you need me.” A twitch of the ear told the girl he had heard her so she retreated to the campfire.“It’s good to see you all functioning and awake.” Enelya smiled cheerfully as she approached the solemn group.Vilya jumped at her approach and ran to hug the girl. “How good to seespot you! Who is your bigtall scaley friend? It looks like a dragon, I thought those are only part of legendtales!”Enelya smiled as he continued to ask questions, when he finally ran out, she answered the key ones for everyone. “This is Roger, I need his help to cross the void to get back home. That daemon lady has had him trapped for as long as I have been on this island, so he needs some time to recover.” The girl looked to Naur. “I hate to infringe on your world any longer, but I need a few days to get him on his feet.”The elemental frowned in thought. He didn’t want the girl, much less her large friend here any longer than need be, there was always a chance she might attract more attention from her enemies. But she had nearly lost her life defending his home so he at least owed her a fair chance to return to her own. “Alright,” He agreed. “You can stay as long as you need to secure safe passage home. But you will be under guard in the event that you attract more monsters.” Enelya nodded, accepting the terms. The leader of the guardians looked around his quiet group of warriors. “I need reports from the villages,” he looked significantly at the air and stone elementals. “I will remain as guard; the rest of you can leave if you wish.”Glancing around, Kemen spoke for the group. “I think we would all like to see this through.”~*~Completing a round of three villages with good news, the air guardian eagerly returned to the labyrinth. He had a million questions about the creature that the human girl had named Roger. As the guardian swooped into the charred temple, the stone warrior sprinted to a halt just on the steps. The two greeted each other and exchanged news of the different places they had been. When they entered the large open cavern, they found the main lights up and running since it was midday now. The main attraction of the enormous cavern was missing, much to the dismay of the two guardians. Having been sent on their errands, they had been deprived of the chance to ask questions. But the time taken to tour the villages and outposts allowed them to come up with more of them.When the warriors found the beast, he was drinking thirstily from the waters of an underground river in a back section of the cave. Kemen watched from the opening to the smaller cave. The human girl stood beside the dragon’s forelegs, with a hand reassuringly touching his arm. Vilya bounded into the room, but the earthy guardian caught him by the wrist. “They need time alone.” He explained quietly when the air spirit looked back pleadingly.~*~Enelya rubbed her friend’s arm as he drank. Very similar to a cat, roger lapped bits of water into his mouth and swallowed until he was sated. The girl watched every move of the head and twitch of the throat until the beast stopped and snaked his neck to look at the girl. Then she smiled, closed her eyes and leaned against the thick leg. A warm, wet muzzle pressed against the girl’s stomach. “I thought you didn’t want hugs?” She looked down at the large eyes and began to caress the dragon’s cheeks.“She made every touch hurt.” Roger answered quietly in the girl’s head.Enelya made a low groan of sympathy. “I’m sorry, I wish I could have gotten to you sooner. But…” She wracked her mind for an explanation but no excuse would ever be good enough. “I-I’m so sorry.” She hugged the dragon’s wedge shaped snout with all the strength in her arms. Both understood and felt some of the other’s pain. It would take time for their wounds to heal, but the indefinable bond between them would keep them together.After a moment the beast went to lift his head. “Hold on.” He said before Enelya loosened her arms. Roger lifted the girl to his shoulders and waited till she had settled a leg on either side of his neck.Concerned for the dragon’s recovery, Enelya questioned him. “Are you sure you’re strong enough for this already?”Roger shrugged with his wing shoulders. “Can’t hurt to try.”~*~Vilya bounced up and down when Roger paused beside the group of warriors. “Can I have a ride!?” Behind him, the heavier warriors traded glances, neither of them enjoyed being off the ground but it would seem un-manly of them to refuse a ride if offered.“It would be a bad idea to overload Roger too early.” Enelya smiled sympathetically at the crestfallen elemental. “Maybe in a few days.”Walking back to the blanket nest, the guardians left the dragon a wide berth. The girl would have told them there was no danger but as she felt the tremors from her friend’s leg muscles, she thought it was smart to leave him room in case he stumbled. When her friend was again settled and comfortable, Enelya swung a leg over his neck and slid down a shoulder. Hunkering down by the dragon’s face, she scratched his ears and the ridges above his eyes. “Do you want a blanket?”“No.” He answered simply. The girl accepted the answer at face value, and gave Roger’s head a final caress. When she turned to let the beast rest, he lifted his head. “Don’t leave me.” Fear filled the dragon’s tone.Enelya looked back at her friend. “I would never leave you, silly.” She patted his snout. “But I need some pj’s.”~*~Entering the hallway to the sleeping quarters, Enelya found the ice spirit leaning against the wall next to a covered doorway. Taking a quick tour of his injuries from a distance, she couldn’t help but feel that all of his pains were her fault. “Khelek,” The girl approached the warrior. “I’m so sorry about all of this.” She gestured to several of the dents and holes cut or clawed into this armor. “Is there anything I can do to help?”“Check on Naur.” He answered coldly while hooking a thumb to the room behind him. “You know more of our biology than we do.”The girl nodded and pushed aside the curtain. Inside, the water elemental was checking the guardian leader’s pulse in his wrist. “It’s normal if it is a little slow.” Enelya explained as the other water spirit turned to her with a frown. “His heart needs time to heal. And I’m sure I must have broken or bruised a few of whatever type of ribs you guys have.”Alu turned and pushed her patient back down as he tried to rise. “You will rest.” She said firmly.“Tell Khelek—“ The fire elemental began.“Khelek also needs rest. The others and I are more than capable of taking turns on watch duty.” Alu waved the girl out ahead of her. “And you,” The armoured healer pinned the ice spirit with a finger and a look fierce enough to crumble mountains. “Will hold still while I rebind your wounds.” Enelya grinned when the shorter water elemental took her taller comrade by the arm and led him to the room they had shared before without so much as a grumble. The human girl decided the ice guardian must be in more pain than she had previously thought. Alu turned back to the young woman as she pushed the ice warrior ahead of her. “Take care of that beast of yours, I can feel such weeping in him.”Enelya felt a lump form in her throat. All she could do to answer was nod. After changing into less bloodied and softer clothing, the girl returned to her scaly friend. Snuggling again into the nook created by Roger’s shoulder and neck, she slept. Meanwhile the elementals of air and stone amused themselves with a sport similar to soccer. Kemen settled down to keep the small campfire going.~*~A gurgling rumble sounded through Roger’s body. Enelya jumped out of a dead sleep at the noise. The dragon made a high apologetic squeak.“It’s okay silly, but it’s time for some foodening.” The girl could see a bit of a twinkle in her friend’s eye as he recognized the reference to an old show she had exposed him to.“I hear someone is hungry!” As if on cue, the stone elemental approached the circle of warm light surrounding the small campfire. Two smaller people followed the broad warrior carrying large burdens on their backs. Kemen jumped up from a place Enelya couldn’t see from beyond the firepit and offered to take the packs but the little workers refused to give them up.While the pair unpacked, the girl got up and stretched. The two warriors introduced the two little fellows as Leode and Graden from the earth village. They explained that the elders had heard the battle and were sending supplies. This shipment consisted of a few medical supplies and enough food to feed a set of six warriors for two or three days. Upon getting the scoop on the large beast curled up by the fire, Leode promised to bring more the next day. Turning down the offer to stay the night, the two workers prepared to leave.Before the pair turned to go, Enelya knelt by Graden. “I know this may be a lot to ask, but I think I remember you. Do you have any small smithing tools with you by any chance?” The man nodded. “Would you mind if I borrowed them?” A skeptical look overtook his features, he didn’t know the woman and wasn’t about to trust her with a set of his valuable tools without a good reason. “It’s my fault your heroes were hurt, I only want to fix their armor.” Enelya gestured to the many dents and gouges worn in the two elementals’ armor.“I’ll make sure she doesn’t break them, my friend.” Kemen laughed. The leftover skepticism evaporated from the villager’s face when the guardian of his hometown endorsed the girl. Graden quickly slung his pack to the ground and pulled out a case of tools about the length and width of the girl’s forearm. Though the box wasn’t more than a few inches deep, the girl almost couldn’t hold it for the weight of the tools within.~*~When the two village people had left, Enelya helped cook a good breakfast. Forfeiting most of her share, the girl heaped a bowl with food and forced Roger to eat it all even though he complained it was too much. When the dragon was again settled comfortably, Enelya brandished the borrowed set of tools and commandeered armor pieced from the two warriors present.Dents were pounded out against a sandbag borrowed from the work rooms. Gouges were filled with smelted metal scraps and rasped down to blend with the old material. Shining the metal up was a different matter; Enelya knew it was going to take her hours to smooth down the surface of even the smallest piece of armor. With a sigh, she picked up the finest grain of file and began to work the surface over. Before she could sand down even the span of her hand, Roger snagged the piece out of her hands with his scaly lips. Enelya made a high squeak of protest, but the beast didn’t give the piece back. Instead he put it on the stone floor next to his blanket nest and sneezed out a lick of flame over the armor. The instant of intense heat partially melted the surface but didn’t let it get to the point of forming waves in the armor’s structure. The metal cooled rapidly in the chilly air of the cavern. When the dragon returned the piece of metal to the girl, it was still warm but smooth as glass. In gratitude she rubbed the scaly head with her cheek and scratched all the favored spots around the large leathery ears.After returning finished armor to the respective owners, Enelya curled up for a nap with Roger. In no time at all both were asleep and sharing their dreams.~*~The thunder of a thousand leathery wings filled the dusty air. Thick brown and yellow clouds filtered muggy light over massive granite mountains. Enelya stood on a precipice overlooking a once green meadow. Smoke and ash rode the winds up from the blackened grasses like millions of tiny larks. Above, dragons flew on wings large and small, fleeing their homes.At the centre of the meadow stood a figure dressed in a flowing dress of blue with a hint of sickly grey. As the girl looked on, the woman lashed at a part of the ground beside her with a tendril of crackling blue lightning. Even from a thousand feet up, Enelya could hear the squeal of agony from the victim. It was then that the girl realised that the ground around the figure was littered with a dozen or more bodies. Some of the massive scaled chests were obviously crushed, others were missing limbs. Some were larger than a house; others were no bigger than Enelya herself.A fire burned in the girl’s stomach, so hot she thought she might simply go up in smoke. Enelya wanted to hurt whoever that figure was, wanted to make them feel all the pain they had wrought on innocent lives. Wrestling with the burning energy inside herself, Enelya fashioned a pair of blazing wings. Without testing them, she leapt from her perch and flew down to the scene of the crime. Steam and bits of debris sizzled and hissed off the borrowed wings but Enelya paid no mind. She was focused on her target and readying a ball of fire to strike. In the instant before impact, the girl twirled the blazing ball in her hands into a lance of lightning flame. Just as she struck the girl’s target turned around.Enelya fell to the ground, the wind and fire taken out of her sails. Staring down at her was a bony version of herself. “Why?” She demanded. The doppelganger didn’t answer.“Because she wanted me to hate you.” Roger’s sad voice filled the girl’s head. Enelya twisted her body to find the dragon standing a few feet away.Glancing back to the figure with a gaping hole in her chest, Enelya couldn’t believe the evil that Diemagon fostered. “Roger, I-you know I couldn’t….”The dragon padded carefully to stand behind the girl. “I never believed her.” Enelya got to her feet and hugged her friend’s arm. Roger curled his neck so his muzzle pressed comfortingly against the girl’s back.By the time Enelya had cried herself empty of tears, the scene had dissolved into darkness. A pool of light surrounded the pair. This was the space between dreams, the blank part of the mind where troubles could be contemplated without being crowded by the rest of life’s mysteries. Together the two imagined into existence a warm meadow with a burbling stream and playful clouds. It was after all, a dream. And as they had lucid control over the scene around them, they made sure the serene wilderness around them held no dangers. The pair of weary souls took the time available to enjoy some quiet activities before they returned to the harsh reality of waking thought.~*~Enelya woke to the feeling of being watched. A glance around the area around the small firepit showed that the icy guardian had traded places with the two earthy elementals. The warm scales behind the girl shuddered. Roger stretched his arms and stood. To Enelya, he conveyed that nature called and he would return. The girl watched the beast walk out of the firelight. She felt relieved as she could see that his strides were no longer shaky.Turning back to the ice warrior. “Okay, your turn.” Enelya grinned as the man scowled back.“For what?” He asked flatly.The girl pointed to his shredded breastplate. Bits of sharp metal poked through the carefully placed bandaging. “I already fixed the other guys stuff, it’s your turn.”Khelek glanced down at the broken armor. He had seen the newly finished pieces on the warriors he had relieved earlier in the morning. It would look bad for him to let his own armor continue to be left in such rough shape. With a sigh the warrior began to carefully peel off bandages. Enelya got up and helped unclip the breastplate, the guardian’s fingers were still numb from battle. The girl caught the back half of the breastplate while Khelek pulled the front piece off.As Enelya settled down to work, she noticed the confused and concerned look on the warrior’s face. “What?” She asked.“I feel…” The girl could see him searching for the right word. “Odd.”“It’s called cold silly.” The girl chuckled. She took off her ripped and stained sweater so she could work and threw to him.Khelek looked at the soft piece of clothing for a minute. “I know what cold is.” He grumbled before putting on the sweater.In no time at all Enelya was pounding out the dents and smoothing jagged edges. She hardly noticed when her scaly friend returned and settled down to watch her work. Filling the holes and gouges on this piece was harder since there were full-on holes in it. She guessed that the daemon dog things had pegged him as more of a threat and had focused more effort on killing him. Enelya thought it was a wonder that he wasn’t dead judging by the size of some of the holes. The girl soldered small plates of scavenged metal into the back of the breastplate and pounded them out to mimic the outside curve. She then proceeded to fill them as she had on the other deep scratches. Roger heat treated the first piece as Enelya moved onto the next armor plate. By the time the whole process was done there were sounds of groggy steps moving around the sleeping quarters.~*~Alu glided into the circle of orange light. She nodded to her fellow warrior and went to greet Roger. Offering a hand palm up to smell, the water elemental didn’t get too close or fear of invading the beast’s space. Great eyes regarded the woman with understanding. Roger didn’t take the liberty of inspecting the offered hand, but instead he lifted his head and butted his snout against Alu’s stomach. When the woman had petted the scaly head enough, Roger settled back down. Enelya reached behind her to slap his arm affectionately. “I thought those were only for me.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. The dragon answered with a snort. “Love you too dear.”~*~Hours passed with quiet talk among the group. The rest of the elementals eventually showed up and settled themselves around the fire. Enelya traded a glance with Roger. She thought a silent question. Would you be okay if we left…? The dragon nodded. Are you sure? Roger snorted and tilted his head in a wordless ‘don’t make me repeat myself’.With a deep breath Enelya got up to face the group of warriors. “Since you’re all here I guess there isn’t any reason to put this off.” She began. “I’m sorry about all that has happened to your world because of me.”“We know,” The fire elemental growled. “Get on with it.”Enelya nodded. “Sorry, what I’m trying to say is that I think it would be safe for me to go home now. I can stay if there’s anything you want me to fix or explain but I don’t really want to push my luck.”Naur looked around at his collection of guardians. They each nodded in turn. “You can go.” He said finally. “Is there anything we can do to help?”“Kemen already knows how to reset the barriers on this reality.” She mimed spinning some knobs and punching buttons. “All I have to do is call home to get a heading and Roger can fly me there.” Well, I could actually do it all by myself…Enelya thought to herself. But—In his silent way Roger finished the thought. “You might get lost with such little wings.” The girl turned at the comment to rub the beast’s head affectionately.Naur stood. “Then let us get this over with.”~*~Enelya didn’t want to leave a mess so she helped sort, fold and store the blankets she and Roger had used. She made sure to leave behind the best clothing she had found. It would be useful if she ever accidentally got stuck back in this world again. The girl rolled up a few things in a blanket and strung them to her back with some rope. Before leaving she turned down the power on the barrier device to allow her to leave the reality.Using an old winding tunnel of an entrance to the labyrinth was the only way to get the large dragon out of the cavern. Enelya took the time to explain the functions of the small communication device. If she left and something happened that was linked to Diemagon, she wanted the heroes to be able to contact her.The group emerged into a small rock bottomed valley. There was a rough wind that howled down the sheer rock walls and whistled over boulders. It was a warm draft that channeled up from the tropical south end of the island. Enelya smiled at the good fortune, her friend would be able to hitch a ride on the warm updraft at one end of the valley. She however, did not like the roiling grey clouds overhead. There was a chance they might blow over, but there was also the possibility that they might shed some rain before they left.The last step of preparation was to rig up a set of straps to help the girl to keep from falling from the dragon’s smooth-scaled back. The less bruised and battered warriors assisted Enelya in constructing the harness out of shredded blankets and rope. With a final tug of the straps, the girl decided the makeshift saddle was adequate. She reached above her head and slapped Roger’s shoulder. “Go warm up dear, let me know if it rubs too much anywhere.” With a vigour that encouraged the girl, the dragon trotted off to stretch and warm up. Enelya thanked her helpers and stepped back to also do a few stretches and get herself set for the short flight.Vilya bounced up and down with excitement and joined the girl. “Are you sure your dragonfriend has windwings big enough to carry you both?” As if he had heard the question, Roger unfurled the massive wings that he sported. Sunlight broken free of the stifling clouds and glinted off silver and blue watery patterns covering the topside of the bat like wings. There was an almost audible sigh from the gathered warriors. Enelya rolled her eyes, she had seen it all before. Roger ignored the group and began stretching tendons and muscles in the grand wings. The girl would only admit to herself that she also enjoyed watching the beast when he prepared for flight. Normally the dragon kept his wings curled tight to his back or side. Part of the reason was that he didn’t want to have them damaged. He had already lived through a few broken wing fingers and sprained-if-not-broken wrist. If the beast lost the ability to fly, half his soul would be lost. The other half of the reason was that he didn’t like to be ogled at. Roger was willing to accept his wing-girl watching him considering all the love, affection and admiration that she watched him with. But, he hated having everyone staring with wanting eyes. One of the beast’s fears was that someone would someday envy his hide enough to skin him alive and wear his wings. This group wasn’t very large so the dragon didn’t make a fuss about making them look away.~*~Hugs and handshakes were traded and Enelya climbed the simple harness. She tied herself to the flight straps and pulled out the communication device. Punching in a few buttons, she used it to produce a dial tone frequency that she could use to home in on the world where her friends were. The dragon shook a small quiver down his spine as he copied the energy frequency. Enelya did the same and tossed the unit to Naur. With a salute and a “See ya!” of farewell, the girl slapped a scaly shoulder to signal she was ready to go.Roger bounded down the field and took to the air. Catching the warm updraft, he rode effortlessly into the sky. Enelya knew they didn’t need to be in the air to make the transfer between worlds, but it was less of a shock to her body to do it this way. The empty space between realities made the girl feel like she was floating, but when she got to the other end of the journey it was like being slammed into the ground. Roger had a much easier time moving into the void when he was in the air because his body was already floating and when he emerged into the other world he had airspace to maneuver.Once the beast decided they had achieved enough altitude, he gave a brief brassy bugle and ducked into the void between realities.~*~ The End ~*~I hope you all liked that story, and I would love to hear any comments or suggestions in the review thread, there's a link to it at the top of the page.

~*~Bluish-green arrows led the way through a high walled tunnel into a sub cavern with a large oval pool in the middle and a smaller oval pool in an alcove off to the side. Both were fed by natural underground streams. The smaller pool was fed by a natural hot water spring. Enelya smiled in spite of herself, she missed hot baths.On the side of the room opposite the warm bath was a set of doors. These were hastily constructed change rooms. A simple stone-brick wall had been set across a small alcove with a dividing wall to make for male and female change rooms. Enelya proceeded to these to look for essential bathing supplies.The warriors were waiting patiently outside the room when Enelya returned decked out in a pair of worn black shorts and a make-shift black bikini-top. She carried a grey towel bundled up over her shoulder, which she dropped at the edge of the large pool.“You’re not really going to wet-swim are you!?” The green armoured warrior anxiously danced from foot to foot. Enelya smiled back at him before taking a deep breath and stepping off the edge of the pool so that she fell straight down into the water.The cool waters wrapped around the woman soothingly. There was a moment of very natural fear as she opened her eyes, but she could see perfectly well. Small pockets of air had formed around the girl’s eyes. As a water elemental, she could call the waters to task as she needed, but that did not mean she was a fish. Physiologically, the girl’s eyes were not designed for seeing underwater, neither were her lungs built for breathing the liquid. It had taken years to perfect a method of pulling oxygen and nitrogen from the waters into her nose so that she could keep from needing to breath. It was still a nerve wracking process not being able to take a deep breath, but it was a system that worked.Water sprayed in the direction of Vilya as Enelya broke the surface. She had gotten very good at directing small jets of water. The girl laughed satisfactorily when the guardian yelped and began prancing around trying to get the stuff off. Enelya balanced on the side of the pool with one elbow and reached for the towel bundle. Out of the bundle she pulled a small set of carved wooden flippers. It was a little strange to think that wood was a good substitute for the polymer plastics of true scuba flippers, but the girl didn’t really care what they were made of so long as they worked. These particular flippers had been designed like cold water diving flippers, with a simple hollowed out pocket for the foot and an adjustable strap across the heel. Also from the bundle, the girl pulled a short carved stick, a black plastic snorkel, a padded and patched glove and a small grey disk the size and shape of a hockey puck.The girl pulled all of the pieces of equipment over to the pool edge. She quickly strapped on the flippers and snorkel, then fully submerged and pushed off from the pool wall. Enelya swam the length of the pool without rising to the surface for a breath. When she finally surfaced and cleared her snorkel, she completed three more lengths of the pool before stopping beside the pile of equipment. After pulling on the padded glove, the girl brandished the carved stick and used it to slap the puck off the edge and into the water.With a deep breath Enelya followed the puck to the bottom of the pool and surveyed the topography. The area that the girl had jumped into was the equivalent of a regular community pool deep end which was eleven to twelve feet deep. A short ramp led up to another plane that was about eight feet deep. Further on, another ramp led to an area that was around four feet deep. A set of holes in the walls at either end of the pool allowed for water to cycle through so that there was always clean water. Enelya pushed the puck with her stick, a fine layer of sand had accumulated on the bottom. It wasn’t enough to seriously impede her gameplay but she was a little annoyed with the small puffs that were kicked up when she pushed the puck. The woman pushed the puck up the ramp so that she was in the medium-depth water. She didn’t like playing at a depth that she needed to clear her ears more than once to be comfortable on the bottom. Turning to look at the side of the pool, Enelya smiled, a set of bricks had been placed carefully to represent a hockey net. She pushed the puck over and slapped at it which made it bounce up and hit the wall only to fall down directly between the goal markers.Statisfied, Enelya surfaced. She glanced around to locate the warriors but she could only find the air guardian. “Hey, where’s…” Vilya pointed to a spot in the shallowest region of the pool. The ice warrior stood in the pool with his upper half dripping. “Wanna play?” Enelya asked. When the guardian shook his head the girl shrugged. “okay.” And ducked under the water.Moving in a basic routine of practice, Enelya dashed a short distance pushing the puck, curled her body around it as if defending it from an opposing team member and slapped it as far as she could as if sending it to a team member. She would then rise to the surface for a breath or two then repeat the procedure.After a while of basic practice, the girl could feel a subtle change in the waters around her. Whispers seemed to echo all around the woman with no visible source. The pool felt crowded with presences that to the untrained observer would not have been noticed.When she decided that she had practiced enough, Enelya grabbed the puck, carefully placed it in the centre of the pool and surfaced. The girl waited a moment before the water a few feet in front of her began to swirl and distort. A form quickly resolved from the water, and what appeared to be a head similar in size and shape to a human’s made entirely of water raised above the surface. “Are you prepared for a re-match?” A spectral, gurgling voice came from the water head form.“I guess so, just play nice, I’ve been out of practise for a few weeks.” Enelya answered the water sprite. “Do you have enough for teams of six?”A collection of other sprites chose to rise from the waters just then. They formed a loose ring around the girl. Enelya held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, you have me surrounded, you get to pick teams.”In short order, a set of teams were arranged at either side of the pool prepared to play. A collection of sticks from the girl’s bag served to mark the teams white or black, and to allow the human to see the sprites more clearly. As always, Enelya had asked for a side defensive position. She preferred one of the two spots because of the relatively strict guidelines for how play the position. Forward players had a lot less rules, but it was more difficult to know where and when you were supposed to be.The water sprites started the game at a slow pace, not wanting to overpower their human friend, but they quickly paced the game to her level. Before a half hour had passed with no clear winner and Enelya panting, the game was called to a halt. The girl hauled herself out onto the deck and flopped back onto the ground to breathe for a moment before going to retrieve the puck from the bottom of the pool. One of the sprites came up beside her and rested his humanoid elbows on the edge of the deck. “You played well today.” He said in the gurgling voice of the water spirits. “Perhaps a re-match if you ever return here again.”Enalya sat up, “I doubt very much that I’ll be back again, but you’re on.” She shook hands with the sprite. Then he ducked below the surface and was gone. The girl started unstrapping her fins and glove when Khelek suddenly appeared in the pool next to where she was seated. He placed the puck on the deck beside Enelya. “Oh! Thank you, I almost forgot about that.”The warrior nodded. “That is an interesting game.” He hauled himself out of the water and stood up. “I believe Alu Ohtar would enjoy the sport.”After putting all the equipment back in its bag, Enelya wandered to the smaller pool. The water was wonderfully warm, almost as warm as a hottub. A five minute soak in the bath rejuvenated the girl, at which point she began to quickly scrub herself down with a bar of soap she had found in the change rooms. Enelya washed every surface that was not covered by her makeshift bathing suit and brushed out her hair with her fingers. When she was done, the girl hopped out of the bath and took all the gaming equipment back to the change room.Now clean and sufficiently drained of steam, the girl returned to the workrooms to begin anew on the programming of the contraption that would help her achieve her goals.~*~“Alright.” Said Alex through the little communicator sitting on the table. “Restart the thing and we will see if we got it this time.” Enelya sighed, afraid of another failure. This was the third time attempting the program after sitting down from her break. She had been sitting for about two hours clicking buttons and wasn’t sure how much farther her patience would run.“Okay, moment of truth…” Emelya crossed the first and second fingers of her left hand and touched the button that operated the power switch of the contraption sitting in front of her. There was a sudden silence as the little fan built into the device shut off and the high pitched whine of wires inefficiently connected stopped receiving electrons. Then the girl sighed in anticipation of failure and touched the button again. This time, instead of silence from the machine, there was a loud sputter of static and then a tune from an old child’s television show began to play through the primitive speaker Alex had asked to be installed.When the girl heard the tune, she was torn between slapping her own face in embarrassment and crying out for joy. She settled for just sliding lower in the chair and scrubbing at her face with her hands as if to wipe off a layer of grime. “Did you have to pick That song?” Enelya asked outloud after the moment of stunned awe at being finished had passed.There was a cackle over the speaker of the communicator device. “What else would you expect?”“Maybe a simple windows startup sound? How much of those ones and zeroes were part of that song?”Alex giggled in satisfaction. “About a quarter of them. You have to admit, it was nice to have a positive indicator that you got it right.”Enelya couldn’t admit it with being as tired as she was, but she grunted in assent and began cleaning up the work table and shoving the components of the contraption into a metal box about as long as her arm. When she had the place as clean as it was going to get and the tools she needed to finish the assembly were laid orderly on the table, Enelya said goodnight and turned off the communicator. The girl left the room to find the two warriors leaning against the left wall where she had left them.Vilya was keeping up a steady stream of chatter, telling a story about one of his scouting missions while Khelek purposefully ignored him. “The thinggamajig is done.” Enelya announced.“And none too soon.” The voice of the fire elemental coming from behind her startled the girl.“When did you get here?” Enelya demanded, she hated to be caught off guard.The elemental sighed “We have been here for a short time, Khelek didn’t want you to be disturbed.”With a shrug the girl nodded. “Yea, programming things in binary is pretty frustrating. Did you get the stuff?”The lead warrior waved Kemen forward. “We have the things you need, do you require help assembling the device?” The earth warrior held a large sachet out to the girl who took it and nearly tore the muscles in her shoulder in trying to keep the heavy bag from slamming into the ground.“Yea, I’ll need someone to do the heavy lifting…”~*~Safely nested in half a mile of copper wiring inside the box of the contraption, the iron core of the electromagnet hummed to life as the girl soldered the last connection and flicked a power switch at the side of the box that had been installed to allow the magnet to be shut down independently of the contraption itself. The last thing to do was install the fist-sized crystal in a special chamber that the girl had to reconstruct. Initially the girl had anticipated a very small crystal, perhaps no bigger in diameter of the nail on her smallest finger. But as the girl had found out, the people here were capable of digging much deeper into the crust of the planet than the people of Earth. This allowed them access to minerals in much larger deposits than what was available in other realities.Kemen supervised the girl’s soldering work with a great amount of interest. Occasionally he would comment, either giving her a helpful tip or praising her for tight connections. The girl could not help but laugh like an evil overlord when she placed the gem into its final resting place in the new chamber. “I’ve always wanted to do that.” She laughed when the warriors all stared at her as if she had grown a second head.A few hours later the girl stood up with a great number of crackles from her back as vertebrae realigned themselves. The warriors in the room, absorbed in various conversations or sitting in tense silence looked up to see the finished product.The external casing had been made larger as a result of the amount of raw material that the guardians had brought back from their errand. All together, the device took up about the space of an average kitchen table meant for two. The front of the device was designated by a row of buttons and switches protruding from one side. Each had been labelled in both english and native characters with some extra wire and tiny dabs of soldering metal. There was an on/off switch for each main component of the assembly in the event that a particular part needed replacement and a few other buttons served as controls for the size, frequency and power of the protective field that it was designed to create around this particular intersection of time and space.“Okay,” Enelya began. “This should strengthen the barriers and keep those ###### shadowen from getting back home. I just want to make a last call home before I turn it on for good.”“You would leave our world at risk to speak to your friends once more?” Naur demanded angrily.The girl unconsciously took a step back, stumbling into Kemen. “I, well…”“ ‘Well’ What?”“Well, what if I fail? I’ll need them to come finish what I started.” The girl stood her ground now.Kemen stepped in between the two. “A moment wouldn’t hurt, I think with what Enelya may be sacrificing for us she deserves at least that much.” The fire elemental growled, but could not disagree.“You have five minutes.”~*~Enelya wasn’t much for tearful goodbyes so she made the call short. Max came on the line and took the girl’s message to relay it to the rest of the team. The woman explained that she would do her best to finish up and return to them, but if she did not appear or call back within two weeks they should assume her dead. In the event that this happened, she wanted to be sure that someone would return and complete her mission. Before hanging up, the girl asked that her comrade give a hug to everyone.A sad ‘beep’ issued from the communicator as Enelya turned it off for perhaps the last time. Wasting no time, she reached across the table and flicked a switch on the device she had built. A steady hum filled the room. Touching a button labeled ‘amplitude up’ the girl adjusted the frequency of the magnetic field. The low hum increased to an almost ear splitting whine. “Oops, didn’t realise the original barrier was so low…” she jabbed the opposite button several times and the sound died down to an almost inaudible vibration. Then the girl swiveled a knob labeled ‘power’ and the sound disappeared completely.“What did you just do? Why is the device quiet?” Naur demanded to have complete understanding magically downloaded into his brain.“I synchronized the signal with the original barrier that is housed in a similar box in that cabinet,” The girl pointed to a closet sized cabinet at the back of the room as she explained. “Then I boosted the signal to make it larger than the original, so now you have two barriers.”“I don’t understand, how does it function as a barrier?”The girl chuckled. “You didn’t expect it to make a giant shield in the air did you? It makes a magnetic field which is boosted by some computer parts that I’m not even going to try to explain. The field is almost like a bubble, an invisible wall. Originally, the barrier wasn’t made very strong, but it has extra properties to help make it impossible for Diemagon to fully return here. This thing,” she indicated the new contraption. “Is really only to make a stronger bubble, and since I made it bigger than the original field, it will keep anything out by force alone. If something manages to push past it, they will get a dose of amnesia on their way to the centre of this reality. Similarly, if something were to try and leave, it would hit the stupefying field and hopefully get lost before smashing into the outer field and coming right back here on the rebound.”When the girl had finished her explanation, she looked around at a host of uncomprehending faces. “C’mon, I’m not that much of a nerd, am I?”After the device had run for an hour the party had concluded that there was a very low chance that it would spontaneously stop working. In response to exhaustion, Enelya had fallen asleep at the desk during the hour of waiting. When the fire warrior called for sleep the earth guardian went to carry the girl back to her quarters. The young woman jumped when the man touched her shoulder and mumbled something about her bed calling. She got up and wearily shuffled with everyone back to the sleeping rooms.~*~As much as sleeping in might have felt good, Enelya knew she needed to start training if she was to help win the fight against the remnants of Diemagon so she forced herself up as soon as her mind was even remotely awake.Shoving herself out from the tangled blankets, Enelya cringed at the light filtering from under the curtain of the room. She looked over to where the air elemental should have been snoring to find his bed empty. “Kids…” she grumbled as she got up and left for the bathroom to freshen up.Enelya didn’t get very far down the hall before she got distracted by the smell of bacon and eggs coming from out in the main cavern. Drifting on the wonderful scent of real food, the girl found her way to the kitchen cavern. Plates had been set out on one of the large tables in the dining area and the girl could hear someone puttering around in the kitchen while humming a bright tune. Enelya announced her presence by mumbling a ‘Good morning’ as she lethargically pawed open the door to the kitchen.Kemen Ohtar stood at the stove prodding occasionally at something frying in a large pan. “Good to see you up and moving!” a bright smile lit his green eyes as he turned to greet the girl. “Hungry?” He asked. Enelya pulled her hands to her chin as a kitten might if it were begging for a treat and nodded emphatically. “There’s some eggs in the pot over there and I’m just finishing with some meat.” The girl made a happy squeak of a sound and scuttled over to the pot the warrior had indicated and spooned out some scrambled eggs onto a plate she found on the counter. Almost inhaling the food, Enelya made a low groan of pleasure as her grumbling stomach readily accepted the nourishment. “I was sure you would run out of food by the time we got back so I had the villagers put together a pack and I asked them to send some more tomorrow.” Kemen explained away the girl’s unspoken questions while she continued to fill her stomach.When the breakfast meat was cooked, the guardian put it into another large pot and went to settle at the large table he had set. Enelya joined him. The two enjoyed their meal with a light conversation of small talk about the weather and the current endeavours of the earth bound city.Not long after the girl had finished eating, the two most strongly opposing elementals entered from the main cavern. They were quietly discussing battle strategy. With a simple nod, they sat and began eating while continuing the conversation. Enelya wasn’t about to break the peace by telling them that the monsters they would be fighting were nastier than what they had fought before. Instead she gathered up Kemen’s plate and her own to go wash them, the earth elemental followed her to the kitchen to help clean up. When they were done the girl asked if he would join her for some morning excercises. Kemen agreed and followed the young woman to what she called the stadium.~*~A relatively small section of the cave system formed what the girl remembered as the training grounds. In human terms, the enormous room was about the size of a college football stadium. The space was dominated by an empty clay covered field. It wasn’t exactly the nice polymer grass that was often found in real football training grounds but it functioned well enough to dampen the impact of training matches with friends. Off to one side was a large pool, this served as a place to cool off and a training device for those of the team that could sling spells or water. Opposite the pool was a number of equipment lockers. In these Enelya found a number of wooden dummies and a few dulled practice swords. She pulled a set of these out and dropped them in a heap at the middle of the field. Then she proceeded to start warm up stretches and a jogging lap of the field.Slightly winded after running, Enelya grumbled at her need to lose a few pounds and dropped into a set of push ups. The girl had always been a little on the heavier side, even through all the fighting and training she had endured over the years. She knew it was bad for her to be mentally berating herself considering that she had both survived all the challenges she had come across and been bed ridden for a few weeks before starting her adventure. But she would get back into shape, at least she would regain her reflexes and strength before turning herself into bait for a host of nasty creatures that fully intended to kill her.The girl let herself breath for a moment after finishing a set of exercises designed to make her core muscles stronger. Then she got up and picked up the practice sword. It was much heavier than the slim set of knives she preferred in battle but it would give her arms a good workout as she moved through a set of slowed martial arts moves. The set of moves the girl had chosen to help strengthen herself long ago more closely resembled ballet movements, but with a sword in hand. She had once tried more traditional martial arts but had discovered that she did not like the broad heavy muscle that had begun to develop as a result. Thus she settled for a form of dance which was just as deadly in combat but kept her muscles from becoming bulky, this way she was still capable of squeezing through tight spaces and swimming with a great degree of efficiency.Once the girl had settled into the movements, she closed her eyes to allow herself to focus and meditate. As the repetitiveness of the slow dance lulled the girl’s mind, she thought of the fight, of how to teach the warriors about the many foes that were common among the shadows of Diemagon. She also considered trying to force the elementals to remember all they had forgotten, she was sure that at least Khelk had recalled a good portion of it already. The girl’s thoughts wandered towards home at that point. She wondered how her friends were, if they would be able to contact the various water sprites that had become like family to her. In particular the girl wondered what had happened to the great dragon that had befriended her so long ago. She dearly missed his warm protective presence even though she had always strove to prove to him that she could take care of herself. If there was one thing about the approaching fight that terrified the woman, it was that she would not have the sheltering wings and claws to rely on if things got bad. Not to mention that she was worried that she might never feel the touch of his soul again if her fears about his disappearance were proven correct.~*~When Enelya’s arms began to ache more than she was able to easily ignore, she lowered the sword and opened her eyes slowly. Sanding a few body lengths in front of her was the other water elemental, mirroring the dance she had just abandoned. Curious to see if anyone else had joined her, the girl looked around to find the two most strongly opposing elementals standing by the entrance to the stadium. Naur watched with a heat in his eyes that scared the young woman. The icy guardian on the other hand, was leaning against the wall seemingly lost in thought. On the opposite side of the entrance were the earthy elementals, studying the many carvings in the wall.Vilya made his entrance then; with a cry of challenge he flew into the stadium and fell into a skidding landing, spraying dirt all over the women. “Looks like funpractice time! Can I partydance with you two?” He smiled gleefully and pulled a sword from its holder on his back.Enelya laughed. “You’re late, my arms hurt too much now. Where have you been anyway?”The young man seemed to lose a few inches of height as he slumped in mock sadness. “But-but I will be sad! Naur asked me to search-hunt the caves for any signs of the monsterthings” He whined.The girl was about to answer when the leader of the warriors bellowed. “Enough, we cannot properly prepare for an enemy that we do not know. Enelya, you will explain for us the foes we will face.”With a nod, the woman replied. “I was going to, is the work room okay with you for a conference room?” The guardian nodded and turned to go.“We will convene in ten minutes.”~*~Several small chunks of chalk and the dark stone wall served to allow Enelya to illustrate the various creatures that worked for the monster Diemagon. She also gave a size comparison in relation to her own height by drawing a little stick figure of a person next to the various pictures. With the warriors watching, it was difficult to draw the creatures as accurately as she was capable of portraying them. The girl was accustomed to pencil drawings so she usually drew very lightly. Because of this she emphasized certain features by making them brighter. This way she wouldn’t forget to mention the most important things about the creatures. When she had finished drawing, the girl began with the smaller creatures.“Alright, these are the smaller things that follow the bigger guys.” Enelya circled a collection of smaller bug or rat like critters with her hand. “These are small, about knee height, hard to kill, but easy to scare. The best way to deal with them is to kill their leader,” She pointed to a little rat faced beast about twice the size of the smaller creatures. “And burn the little suckers when they come to eat his remains. Only the leader will openly challenge something bigger than them, but the little ones can’t control their hunger for the flesh of wounded kin so it isn’t too hard to find and eliminate them.” Enelya stopped when she noticed a rather green expression on most of the warrior’s faces.“Why would they eat their friends…?” The earth warrior asked in a hushed tone as if he was afraid of the answer.“They taste good?” The girl laughed heartily when the guardian held one of his large hands over his face to avoid vomiting. “I figure it is a biologically derived genetic mechanism based on an ecological scarcity of food within the animal’s ancestral environment. In the past those that ate the recently fallen gained a nutritional advantage over those that refused to. If the gene that made individuals unlikely to eat kin conferred such poor fitness, then their genetic profile would have been quickly suppressed in the population. And to link this to Diemagon, the more they associated with him, the more food they gain during fights. That’s why they joined his cause.” A glance around the room told Enelya that she had over explained “Gods ###### it, I did the textbook thing again.”~*~Hours later, the girl had run down the list of baddies she could easily give a name and attack plan for. There were a few monsters which she had mentioned in passing that would be impossible to deal with on a physical level. These she told everyone how to identify and to stay clear of them. She would have to deal with them personally. When the fire elemental called a halt to the day’s learning, the party dispersed. Before resting for the night, Enelya allowed herself to enjoy a rough game of water hockey and a hot bath to loosen stiff muscles.The next few days were more of the same training, teaching and sparring with the sword wielding members of the group. On several occasions the fire warrior ordered the air or stone guardian to go and take a tour of the villages to gather information. The militant village always had the most to report, but it was mainly talk of shadowy things moving, searching. Enelya did not need to hear where the strange shadows all eventually headed, she knew they were looking for her. She could feel the searching aura of some of the larger ones sliding greasily over the protective mental barriers she had carefully cultivated. It was only a matter of hours now before one of them found a way into the compound.~*~It was the middle of the night when Enelya suddenly woke. Deep in the girl’s bones, she knew there was something very wrong. Fighting the urge to jump up and run away from whatever it was she was afraid of, the girl forced herself to listen. There was no sound but the usual dripping of water far off in the cave system and the low snoring of the air warrior in the next bed. With that thought dashed, she slowly got up and felt around for one of the guardian’s swords near his bed.Weapon in hand, the girl stalked silently out into the corridor. Pausing at each room, the girl felt out with her aura to check that the occupants were the warriors she knew should be there. When she had checked the last room and no one was out of place Enelya continued out into the main cavern.The girl stepped from the archway with her muscles coiled, ready to pounce on anything that might try to attack her. With relief the girl realised there was nothing waiting to eat her but the shadows of the cavern itself. She waited, anticipating perhaps a delayed attack but nothing came for her. Nothing so much as blurred the faint light of the floor markers.The crunch of fine gravel underfoot startled the girl. She whipped around, sword aimed to cleave whatever was after her in half. A half heartbeat later Enelya wished she hadn’t aimed to kill as she recognised the shape of the air warrior but there was no way she could stop the swing of the sword. Luckily, the warrior was light on his feet. He managed to jump back with a fraction of an inch to spare.“Don’t do that again!” The girl groaned as she lowered the weapon.The guardian shook his head. “That’s a lessonlearn I won’t soon forget. Why are you up?”“Something’s wrong.” Enelya was back to listening to everything around her, she was still convinced something was amiss.From the hall Kemen called out. “What’s with the noise?” Though the tone of the earth warrior was by no means loud, it started a chain reaction. The others were up in an instant and filing out into the hallway.When the girl heard someone from the dimly lit hallway mutter something about it being ‘too earlybright’ to be awake, the alarm bells in her head began to scream. Without thinking, Enelya grabbed the warrior in front of her. The man had turned to greet the new arrivals, which added to the woman’s advantage. Reaching to the top of his head, the girl latched onto one of the openings in the warrior’s face shield and wrenched his head back. She pressed her borrowed blade against the exposed throat of what she hoped was an enemy masquerading as her friend.In the split second that Enelya had before the warriors emerged from the sleeping quarters to see her holding one of their own hostage, she searched for an explanation to the situation. Where had this shape shifter come from? How had he snuck up on her? Then it clicked. The woman had checked all the sleeping rooms, but not the work room. Another thought surfaced just then. Enelya had also forgotten to check if the warrior sleeping in the same room as her had been who it should have been.Before Enelya had time to consider how to explain the situation, someone had turned on the floodlights above the entrance to the sleeping quarters. There was a collective gasp followed by the sounds of a short scuffle in the entrance way. Any warrior not directly involved in the struggle jumped back from the entrance, allowing the girl to see what was happening. Sitting atop a stunned air elemental was Khelek. The icy guardian had a sword of his own pressed to the other’s neck. “I have him.” Enelya thought this was an understatement. “You called this foe a shape shifter; how do we tell which is the real Vilya?”“Ask something only Vilya would know.” The girl replied. “Or at least that’s the usual way to tell. But sometimes they can prepare for that.”“Are there any other ways?” Naur demanded angrily as he quickly caught up with the turn of events.“We could look at the evidence; hold them captive; or we could guess.”The hostage that Enelya held chose to speak up then. “You know we can hearlisten what you are saying. You can’t just kill a brother!”Enelya pressed the blade harder against the warrior’s exposed neck. “Quiet, you have no say in this Diemagon scum.” The blatant insult forced the warrior to action. Grabbing for the blade at his throat, he spun and aimed a deadly swipe of his fist at the girl’s ribs. But Enelya had been anticipating this. Springing back as he turned to attack her, she pulled the sword loose of the grasping hand and let the tip slash diagonally across the warrior’s throat and collarbone.There was a stunned moment of silence as the wounded warrior stood still, trying to assess the severity of the damage. Enelya worried for a half second that she had just harmed her friend. When too-dark gobs of blood began flowing from the open wound, the girl knew she had guessed right.Abandoning the form it had taken, the shape shifting beast reverted to its much larger canine form. Green armour plates seemed to melt into shiny black folds that erupted from inside the borrowed form. Layers of muscle formed underneath the gelatinous skin. The beast was also growing, within seconds its arms were nearly the same length as the height of the earth warrior. The cut across the creature’s throat that had been nearly enough to kill the smaller shape became a scratch in comparison to the size of the creature. Using the knowledge that the creature was more of a thinker than a fighter, Enelya leapt into action.Before the beast could recover its complete form, the young woman jumped up on its shoulders and quickly and effectively slipped the borrowed knife across the still-forming throat of the monster. The beast tied to run, to scream in terror but its life’s blood was already draining away. Trying to take down’s it’s foes as it died, the shape shifter swiped deadly claws at the warriors surrounding it. Each time it tried to take down one of her friends, the girl would jab at the shoulder of the offending limb. When the beast whipped its head around to snap at the girl, she dealt it a blow to the nostril. In a matter of moments the beast slumped to the ground in defeat.The girl had barely jumped down from the body of the shape shifter when a number of small goblin like creatures came skittering in from somewhere out in the darkness. Though the guardians were prepared to stand their ground, the little beasts offered them no direct malice. Instead, the things went right for the fresh meat. Immediately the fire warrior readied his energies to set the carcass ablaze.“Wait for it…” She cautioned him. Naur nodded and waited till the last creature had begun to dig into the corpse before letting loose his fury. Kerosene could not have burned more brightly than the creatures of darkness did as the fire elemental gave them to the cleansing element of flame.~*~“That can’t have been all of them.” Naur growled when the party had swept the caverns for signs of other creatures but found none.“No, that wasn’t.” Enelya breezed into the little workroom from the washrooms. She had spent an hour scrubbing off of the awful blood. “That might just have been the first group of them to figure out how to get in the back door.”“Won’t more follow?” The earth elemental asked. Small spit stains still covered his face. After witnessing the small goblin creatures taking the shape shifter apart he had been unable to stop himself from vomiting.“Yea, but it could take them a while. Most of them are not that smart so I figure the best bet to get them all is to set a trap.”“And how do you propose we do that?” Naur demanded gruffly.~*~After explaining the plan, Enelya demanded to return to sleep for a few hours but found she could not rest. Instead she began putting together the required equipment to complete the trap.With all the materials for the trap gathered and ready, the girl delegated tasks to the warriors and went to get herself prepared for a fight. In the women’s washrooms, the girl stared at her reflection in the mirror. Enelya had dressed in the tightest fitting clothing she could find. A pair of ripped black shorts and a tight red t-shirt formed the majority of her clothing. To make a holster for one of the now sharp practice swords, the girl had ripped up a pair of pants and made a sling with a wide band to tie around her waist. Enelya considered a small canister with a bit of discarded black face paint in it. It had served as makeup for the women in her party the first time she had come through this dimension. But the girl hated makeup, and wasn’t about to use it for cosmetic purposes. She was contemplating using it to make a few war markings on her face and limbs.Heaving a sigh, the girl gave up using the paint as a distraction from the final phase of her preparation. Taking up the pair of crude kitchen scissors, the girl went to work on her hair.~*~Enelya scuttled up the ladder into the large temple she had visited a few weeks ago. The last piece of equipment needed to complete the trap was strapped securely to her back. Not a complicated device by any means, the bulky contraption was simply a sound maker with a motion detector mounted on it. The bulkiness of the object came from the crude speaker set into the top of it and a mess of wires inside that needed to be protected.Above Enelya the warrior of stone hopped off the ladder and offered her a hand up. When she nodded to accept the offer, the man grabbed her arm and pulled her up the rest of the way as if she had weighed no more than a rag doll. “Sorry! Ondo chuckled and set the girl down “I keep forgetting you are less heavy that we are.” The girl could only smile, he had tried to help her a number of other times that morning. His strength had proven to be more than enough in each case, but he seemed to have forgotten again that she wasn’t made of the metal that he was.Setting the motion detector beside the entrance shaft to the labyrinth, the girl looked around. The room hadn’t changed much since they began building the trap. Only a number of thin ropes were visible along the walls. One small string ran from behind a statue to the open hatch. Enelya took this and attached it to a small lever inside the case of the contraption she had brought with her. Checking that it was taut, she closed the case and left it alone. This was a trigger for a large set of nets and a small candle set high up in the temple rafters. The rope rigging had been set to trigger upon the closing of the main doors or the closing of the hatch into the labyrinth.Taking an involuntary step back, the warrior shook his head. “It is scary that such a small box can trigger a trap so complicated.”“You know the trap down below has a smaller set of triggers right?” The girl chuckled.The man nodded but his face contorted in concern as he looked to the girl’s face. “I still cannot believe you removed a piece of yourself for this trap.” He held up a small cloth pouch.Enelya touched the tight braid at the back of her head. She had left her hair slightly longer than shoulder length, but she had braided it to keep it out of the way. It was a little unnerving to her not to have the comfortable weight of the nearly two feet of hair she had removed. But this was all part of the trap, the girl reasoned with the part of her heart that was still in tears over the loss. “It’s the only way to fool the creatures into coming this way instead of trying all the entrances.” She explained as calmly as she could. “The whole thing fails if the trap doesn’t spring the way we want it to.” The warrior nodded in understanding. He settled the pouch on a belt around his waist.Leaning down to the shaft Enelya yelled. “You guys ready down there?” An affirmative shout answered the question and the girl got up “Alright, let’s get this party started.”~*~Enelya wandered out of the temple and down the steps in front of it. Stopping at the bottom of the steps, she felt out with her mind for any dark energy that accompanied most parts of Diemagon. When the girl did not encounter anything sizeable, she put her arms behind her back as if stretching them and made a quick signal.A second later there was a vague bluring of her sight at the corner of her vision and an odd breeze that came from within the temple. In her mind Enelya wished the guardian luck on his mission.~*~Running with all the speed he could muster, the Ondo hurried to complete his mission. He did not like leaving the human girl unprotected even though it was part of the plan. But he knew how important this part of the trap was, so he strove to complete it with all the strength he had.The warrior ran for miles, leaving tiny bundles of the woman’s hair in key locations radiating out from the sacred temple. Some were simply a few strands of hair designed to be scent markers while others had labels attached that dared the finder to challenge the woman at the temple she had chosen as a battleground.~*~“You think the way you were taught.” Someone announced from behind Enelya. The girl had been meditating on the temple steps, but the unfarmiliar voice had her up and in a fighting stance. “Some might call you an able warrior, child.” The voice was behind the woman again. She did not turn, as it was probably a ploy to get her to turn her back. However, the voice had been slightly different. Enelya mentally prepared herself for the worst. “I can only call you foolish for it.” This time the sound came from somewhere atop the temple.“Of all the baddies that Diemagon could have sent, why did it have to be you?” Enelya turned to face her foe. This monster would not make the effort to avoid her gaze if it was the beast she thought it to be.What appeared to be a tall, gorgeously beautiful woman in the softest flowing dark dress stood atop the temple. High cheek bones and smooth perfectly creamy skin and flowing red hair masked a black soul. If not for her extra perceptions, the girl might have thought the woman to look no more evil than a wicked stepmother. But under the flashing dark eyes was a net of spidery tendrils of greasy energy that flowed around the woman. Enelya had to fight not to cringe as the slimy bits of energy drifted outwards, sapping strength from lichens and small creatures that made their home on the temple top. “It had to be me, dear child. You have harmed the dark lord by coming here, and now he wants sweet revenge. And you know how I so love to exact pain on hapless children like yourself.” The vaguely Transylvanian accent rolled off the woman’s tongue in what most men would call an intriguing manner. For Enelya it only made her want to rip the woman’s face off all the more.“Thought I wasn’t worth the effort, so far I’ve only seen a shifter and a shadow.” Enelya tried to sound tough even though she was quaking inside. The girl had only seen this monster a few times, and each time she had been nothing but a mere annoyance to it. From the first meeting it had been apparent that the creature was more than a match for the entire might of her friends combined. Only by cunning and daring had they been able to throw the beast back into the void whenever they had met with it. And now it was after her alone.“Oh, Contrair, my dear girl. The dogs that were sent ahead of me assured the dark lord they could take care of you. But as you have demonstrated, you are no longer as….” The woman paused and touched a ruby painted fingernail to her lip. “Weak as we thought. That is why the dark lord sent me to finish you.”“How did you get in?”“My dear girl, you don’t really think you are the only one to know all the back doors do you?” The woman took on a mock tone of surprise. “Ànd... ” Her voice held a note of deep pleasure at some piece of knowledge that she had been waiting to divulge. She paused, allowing the young girl to squirm in her head, searching for any hint of what the daemon may be talking about. “That wonderfully colored beast of yours was of significant help.”Enelya`s mind reeled as she realised why she hadn`t been able to find her large scaly friend when she had contacted her companions by radio. She should have been able to feel his presence no matter where he was in time and space. But he had evidently not followed her to the island or she would have known it by now, or had he…?“Ahhh,” The evil woman purred. “Your friend put up a good fight, but in the end I broke his resolve.” She savoured the fear and terror held in her opponent’s face. “His spirit, on the other hand, I will need your assistance to break.” The deamon smiled with too white and too pointy teeth. “I do believe that the shards of that one’s broken soul shall make a nice trophy. And his body would make a wonderful new dog to add to my pack!”“You can’t, you won’t! I won’t let you!”Striding forward, the evil woman slowly descended from the temple roof. “Oh, you think you can stop me?” Enelya backed up to keep as much distance between herself and the creature.“Where? Where have you taken him!” She demanded angrily.As the woman approached the edge of the temple roof she kept on walking, instead of falling, she floated slowly down to stand in front of Enelya. “Where do you think child?” An evil grin contorted the beautifully chiseled face of the woman. “In the void, the Dementia Dark and Eternal.” The daemon laughed a deep throaty laugh at the cruel irony and at the lines of pain, worry and horror scrawled across her foe’s face.Enelya’s mind reeled, if the daemon had trapped her friend in the void between realities, he would be deprived of feeling, of sensation. Other than the physical and mental pains that the evil woman could deliver to him at will, he would not have any way to contact anyone. This was the ultimate irony to Enelya, she and her friends intended to do the same with Diemagon, without all the torture of course.“You know,” Again the evil woman’s accent infuriated the girl. “I still do not understand how you managed to attach such a magnificent puppet.”Liquid fire flooded Enelya’s blood at the comment. “He is not a Puppet!” She screamed with all the fury of a hurricane. Dark clouds gathered overhead in response to the girl’s anger as she charged at the daemon. As Enelya struck at her opponent, icy wet pellets also rained from the heavens to strike in the same place as the girl. A split second before the evil woman was hit, she simply disappeared. Enelya had seen this maneuver before and carried the momentum of her swing all the way around to attack where she knew the evil woman would appear behind her. Though Enelya could hardly see for the dark clouds overhead, she felt her sword connect with something solid and heard a startled gasp. A puff of smoke appeared where she had just struck.A loud, disembodied version of the evil woman’s voice filled the air. “You will regret that child!”~*~All the warriors besides the elemental of stone stood just below the entrance shaft to the labyrinth. They could all tell that something was happening above, but only Kemen could hear all that was happening. He had no need to repeat the loud threat from the daemon, for all heard it and knew it was time to jump into action. In less than a moment, they had all scrambled up the ladder and were running for the main temple doors. Before the team could reach the exit, the heavy stone doors slammed shut as if on their own.~*~Enelya looked around, she could feel that the daemon had retreated for the moment to nurse her wound, not that it would take her long to recover. The problem now was that the evil woman’s minions had probably not gone with her. Feeling out with her aura, and using the now light drizzle of rain to enhance her senses, the girl could tell there were several car sized nasties headed her way from behind the temple.There was a loud thud as the front doors of the temple slammed closed. Enelya wondered why the guardians had closed them early until she heard the startled cries from within. Before she could move to help her friends, Enelya noticed the spidery black forms crawling over the top of the temple. Several moved down the sides and crawled silently through the windows, while others made their way down towards the girl. “Guys! You have Company!” Enelya jumped back so she would have some room to move when the creatures got down to her. “Check the windows!” Before the monsters got to her, Enelya called to the rain. Forcing a few droplets into thin flat sheets, she flung them at the lead spider creature. Slicing through the beast as if it weren’t there, the sharpened droplets severed arteries and cut vital muscle fibres. The beast dropped off the temple in a flailing mass. Before she could redirect her tiny projectiles, another monster had jumped at the girl hoping to use its height to an advantage. Enelya reversed the situation by stepping back and slashing at the beast’s exposed underside before it reached the ground. The girl fervently hoped that her friends would have enough time to retreat before the carefully set up trap could cause them harm.~*~“Fire!” Vilya wailed, the trap trigger had worked exactly as it had been engineered to do and had set a number of greased ropes in the rafters ablaze. But this was the least of the warriors’ problems.“The windows!” Khelek barked before sending a blast of his energies to freeze one of the monsters in place. As other spider creatures swarmed over the frosty carcass, it was dislodged from the ceiling and fell to shatter into a million green and black shards. The other warriors took positions so they could each pick off as many creatures as possible coming through the six windows, with the fire guardian taking two windows.Though each warrior did their best, there were a few beasts that got through. “Don’t let them close that hatch!” Naur roared over the din of battle.~*~Wearily finishing his mission, the stone warrior crested the mountain ridge surrounding the temple only to renew his efforts. He could see the human girl dispatching large black many legged creatures. But it was clear she would soon be overwhelmed.Enelya slashed or dodged a hit with every turn and twist of her body. These spider daemons were nasty enough on their own but in a pack like this, were more than a handful of trouble. It was a godsend when the heaviest warrior barreled through the beasts trying to get a shot at her exposed back. The half second that the other monsters stood in stunned disbelief allowed the girl to coordinate a surgical strike with the water covering the grass. Forming spikes with the water, she drove them up and into the beasts, killing them almost instantly.“Where are the others?” The warrior asked between breaths.“Inside the temple, I don’t know if the trap sprang.” As the girl took a few deep breaths, she was suddenly aware of the smell of smoke hanging in the air.~*~

~*~Enelya woke with a start from a dream that she could not recall as her mind returned to conscious thought. Sitting up, the girl realised that the green warrior had slumped away from her in his sleep. She guessed that she had woken due to the unnatural position she had been in lying against his side. Nature’s call was also another reason she had woken. Enelya looked around and noticed the rather bright moonlight filtering into the cave. It would be bright outside with the light reflecting off the snow. The woman got up with a low groan and wandered outside.Returning to the cave mouth, Enelya found the warrior of ice guarding the doorway. “You are injured.” He said with a nod towards the girl’s ankles.“It’s nothing, really.” The woman tried to move past the man into the cave but he stopped her.“Sit.” He pointed to a small boulder beside the cave entrance. When the woman just gave him a look of tired frustration he added. “Please.”Enelya sighed heavily. “Alright.” She sat and offered him a foot to examine. The warrior knelt down, took her foot in his hands and removed her boot. After moving her foot around a bit, he peeled off the girl’s sock gently. Enelya cringed at the cold of the guardian’s hands but held still. The man pulled a strip of cloth from his belt and began binding her foot with a light pressure. When he was done, Khelek returned the sock and boot to her foot and moved on to repeat the procedure with Enelya’s other ankle. Once done, the warrior stood and helped the girl up. “Thank you.” She said wearily.Back inside the cave, Enelya could not bring herself to wake the air elemental so she pulled out a blanket from her bag and laid it out as a bedroll against the wall. When she had settled, the girl noticed the ice elemental waking one of the heavier guardians. It was hard to tell which of the two in the refracted moonlight. Relieved of his duty for the night, Khelek took up a blanket from a corner and laid it out on the only patch of floor large enough, which happened to be right beside Enelya. The girl couldn’t help a shiver that ran through her when the warrior was stretching himself out comfortably; he seemed to carry a cold atmosphere with him. As Enelya pulled her blankets tighter around herself the air around her perceptibly increased in temperature. “Thank you.” she gave the warrior a smile to which he nodded and rolled over so he faced away from her. Though the girl would not admit it, she felt a lot safer now that she was travelling in a group again.~*~Breakfast consisted of dried rations elder Nadan had provided them all with and melted snow. At the command to leave, the ice guardian led the way from camp. It wasn’t an hour into the hike that Enelya noticed a subtle change in the snow underfoot. There was more ice than snow, and as she looked ahead, she could just see a faint line where the ground changed further, probably for the worse.When the group came to the change in substrate, the guide walked on smoothly. Enelya, curious to test her hypothesis, stepped out onto the ice sheet carefully and changed the manner in which she moved her legs, thus allowing her to move without slipping. But Naur, who came after her slipped rather alarmingly. Jumping forward, the stone warrior was able to prevent the fire elemental from falling, but inadvertently caused himself to slip and bang a knee heavily on the ground. The young woman smiled as she heard the startled shout of pain. She turned back and went to help the big man up. “You alright?” She asked.“I will be.” He smiled and shakily got to his feet.When Enelya glanced around the group, she found that all had paused, with Khelek and Naur glaring at each other. Finally, the fire warrior spoke up. “Shuffle your feet everyone, let’s keep moving!”Khelek turned and continued leading the party, with everyone shuffling behind. Enelya found that she didn’t need to shuffle her feet as she had learned long ago how to handle moving around on icy surfaces. The girl had decided to hang back with the quieter elementals of water, stone and earth, subconsciously she was more comfortable around them than the others. After a while, and several almost twisted ankles, the stone warrior spoke up. “How in the world do you keep from slipping on this ###### ice, Enelya? You seem to move as naturally as a scorpion across the desert sands.”The girl smiled in amusement at his choice of comparison, “Um, it’s sort of weird to explain…” She thought for a moment. “Use the muscles on the front of your thighs to pull your leg forward, and don’t use any muscles in your lower leg to push off from the ground behind your centre of gravity.” The man looked at her quizzically, not completely comprehending what she meant so she tried to clarify. “Use this part of your leg to move your foot forward.” She slapped a thigh as she moved it forward. “And don’t use this part at all.” The girl slapped a calf by way of explanation.With a frown of concentration, the warrior tried to coordinate his legs as indicated, and was surprised to find how well it worked. “That really works! Thank you!”The other two elementals in the small group also tried the technique and began moving faster as a result. As a whole the party moved much faster and was off the ice sheet in less than an hour. With another hour behind them, the group skirted a rock cliff and came to a wide open maw in the side of the mountain.The tunnel entrance was partly iced over with massive icicles, and very dark inside. Khelek stopped short of the entrance and stepped to the side. While he could probably lead everyone to the general area of their destination, this was outside of his lands and were therefore someone else’s responsibility to lead in. Naur Ohtar came to the entrance and turned to his warriors. “Kemen…” He began but the dark armoured guardian shook his head.“I know the general area of the rock formation, but I know of no entrance into it.” He looked significantly at the human girl. “I believe Enelya may know these tunnels better than me.” The fire warrior turned to the girl.“I don’t know them that great, but I can get us to the right place.” She shrugged.“Lead on then.”The girl moved just inside the tunnel and went to one wall. She turned back. “Khelek, may I?” The girl placed her hand on a small rock protruding from the wall not unlike its brethren. The guardian nodded. Enelya turned back to the wall and pushed the little rock and a small section of the stone wall popped out to reveal a pocket behind it. The girl pulled a brightly glowing rock about the size of her fist out of the space. She replaced the cover stone and strode purposefully into the dark tunnels. “Okay kids, if you look to the right, you may notice striations in the rock, this is an example of metamorphic rock…”~*~By the time the party reached the bottom of the caverns, Enelya had been forced to clear her ears of pressure five or six times, she judged this to be a few hundred feet worth of barometric difference. The tunnels they had traveled were rather lonely ones. They had only heard faint mining activities when they bypassed the subterranean city of Kemen’s home through a back tunnel.After following a last steep set of stairs, the group came upon a long corridor with multiple small corridors leading off from the right side. These, Kemen informed the group, were exploratory shafts that had been dug every few lengths to determine how large the un-minable rock formation was. When the miners had been unable to find an end to the strange material, they had given up and abandoned the area for more profitable ground.Enelya remembered cutting the door for this entrance, but she did not recall which shaft it had been built in. If she could not figure out which one it was, there was little to no chance of them getting in. Trying not to hesitate too much, the girl started forward slowly. She took in as many details about each door as possible. There were usually clues left to help friendlies find their way home, if they knew what to look for.Each tunnel entrance was marked with a letter from the native alphabet above the opening. It was far down the corridor when Enelya paused at one with the lettering equivalent to an ’m’. Parts of the letter had eroded so that it very closely resembled the mathematical symbol for pi. This would be the door, Enelya decided as she turned to properly inspect the tunnel.The tunnel was shorter than the one it branched from, only a little over five feet high and about half as wide. Enelya had to crouch a little before she entered. The passage wasn’t very long either, in three and a half steps, the girl came to the end. A few pieces of silvery material showed through a layer of dense rock. Evidently the miners had punched through only in a few places, decided that the strange unbreakable material covered the entire back wall of the tunnel, and given up to start another exploratory shaft.Again, memory failed Enelya, she knew that there was a trick to opening this door, but she had only had to use the door a few times and couldn’t remember the exact way it worked. The girl touched the rough rock, she knew the locks her friends installed in these situations tended to be on the right hand side of the doors when trying to get inside. There was a latch in the rock, it felt like an imperfection in the structure of the stone but Enelya knew better. The girl pulled at the latch, which pulled a small plate of the rock with it. There was a combination lock similar to a padlock behind the stone cover plate. The young woman groaned.“What’s wrong?” Naur had quietly come up behind the woman, trying to see what she was doing.“It’s a combo lock, it’s related to pi, but I’m not sure what the breakdown of it is.”“What does food have to do with locks?” He growled in confusion.“No, pi spelled P I. You know; three point one four one five…?” She stopped when there was no light of recognition in his eyes. “Just, give me a minute to figure this code out.”Let me blast it.” The warrior suggested, reaching for one of his swords.Enelya raised her hands in terror “No! It might blow the place if there’s a failsafe, and I’m pretty sure there is.”“How do we get in then?”“Just hold on…I think we have three tries before something goes horribly wrong.” The girl started thinking out loud while she glared at the lock. “The lock can only go up to fifty, and it can only have three numbers inputted. The important part of pi is three point one four one five nine. That gives me three numbers to input, but the last one isn’t valid because its over fifty. That means it will have to be…” The girl bent so she was at eye level with the lock, she didn’t want to mess up any numbers. Holding the glowing rock so that it gave her a good look at the dial, she slowly turned it to 3, 14 and finally15. After a moment of tense silence, the girl decided she hadn’t inadvertently tripped any traps. She straightened up and gave the rock wall a shove with a shoulder. There was a click as the lock mechanism disengaged and allowed the door to swing open. There was a smell of very stale air that rushed out from behind the door. Enelya coughed before she gave another heave at the spring loaded door. When she had pushed the door to its full open position there was another loud click that signalled that it was stuck until someone pressed a pressure plate beside it that would cause it to close. “Welcome to the labyrinth guys.” Enelya announced with another cough.~*~Long unused, the corridor was dusty, which caused all in the party to cough a few times as they shuffled down the tunnel. Naur led the team, he had pulled a sword out and fed energy into it to give a glow to see by. After five minutes of walking the smooth tunnel walls gave way to a cavern. Increasing the energy in his swords to produce more light, the fire elemental could not find the ceiling or walls of the cavern. There was an almost tangible tenseness that Enalya could feel between the warriors. Vilya Ohtar voiced all of their fears “Is this…where…” He seemed to shudder at the thought of the being whose name he didn’t want to mention.“Yes.” Enelya saved him from having to mention the dark spirit. “It was the best place for us to hide from Diemagon after he…suppressed your old foe.”The air guardian glanced worriedly at the girl. “Is he still here…?”“No, this is only a subset of the caverns he use to frequent. This one is blocked off from him now.” Enelya tried to put as much certainty as she could into her voice. She didn’t want the poor kid to be scared. This was probably the safest place to be right now. “I wonder if the lights still work…?” The girl looked back to the wall behind her, there was a row of switches conveniently placed just beside the entrance they had just come from. She flicked one of them and a pattern of little lights appeared along the floor of the cavern. There was a startled gasp from the group.“What are those for!?” The stone warrior exclaimed in wonderment.“To find your way at night when there’s not enough energy from the solar panels to run all the bright lights.” Enelya explained. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I could use some rest before I try to sort through the equipment that’s here and figure out what to do about the whole situation.”The fire warrior nodded. “Yes, rest would be good. Do you know a place we could sleep?”“Yup, follow the blue arrows.”~*~Vilya snored quietly in the bed adjacent to Enelya‘s, she couldn’t get back to sleep after she had awoken from a nightmare. After deciding there was no way she was going to get back to sleep, she got up, took her bag and silently left the room. If she couldn’t sleep, she may as well get to work. The girl carefully made sure to pull the curtain across the door as she left. There were small blue lights on the floor of the hall, and though they were not very brilliant, she didn’t want them to wake the warrior. Glancing up and down the hall of sleeping rooms, she did not see anyone else awake. There was a small work room at the end of the hall, but she did not want to wake anyone, she would have to go to the larger work area.Like a cat stalking a mouse in the night, Enelya left the sleeping area for the large cavern. She stopped to consider the lit paths before her. There were red, green, teal, blue, white and yellow arrows. A special set of arrows that were white with red crosses in between showed the way to the infirmary. Enelya followed the white arrow path to the work rooms. At the end of the white arrows was a white outlined door. A small square on the wall just inside the doorway marked the light switches for the room. The girl cringed pre-emptively when she flicked the lights on, but they came up slowly in intensity which allowed her eyes to adjust. The room was large, with several tables dominating the main space of the room. At the back were several shelving units and a doorway to other work rooms. The girl pulled a stool from under one of the work tables and settled herself.~*~Enelya rapped out a few commands on the small device she had borrowed from the ice village elder. There was a sad ‘bleep’ that caused the girl to frown, she thought for a moment while chewing on her lower lip. She tapped out a new command and an encouraging ‘gleep!’ issued from the unit. Good, she though, maybe I can get through… “Alright little guy…” She spoke to the device, in an attempt to calm her own nerves “Gimme a dial tone.” The girl placed a finger over the large silver ‘enter’ button then closed her eyes and began to concentrate.The young woman extended her senses, her awareness, to the edges of the aura that surrounded her physical body. She focused on the energy of her hand over the computing device. There was an aura surrounding the device, but it had a different feel than her own. Enelya forced her own energy to imitate the level of energy coming from the device by envisioning that the auras were colored. The energy of the device was a dull orange, while she herself was a bright blue. The girl envisioned her own aura changing color, losing brightness till she felt a connection to the device.Without opening her eyes, Enelya pushed the silver button her finger hovered over. The small computer began emanating an electronic signal. It was weak at first, but the girl lent her strength to unit and the signal quickly intensified. Enelya immersed herself in the call, piggybacking on the signal, past the barriers set to protect the reality from unwanted visitors and began searching. She felt lost, but she knew what she was searching for.What felt like hours passed, while the woman felt out with her mind, searching far and wide for her friends. Her mind was exhausted, and she gave one final surge of energy to reaching just a little farther with no luck. Then, just as she was about to pull her mind back to her body, there was a faint sound. A familiar sound, a low echo like a cell phone ring that could not be mistaken. Reaching out again, the girl used the ringing as a guide to bear down on its origin.~*~It was late, nearly past 3 in the morning earth time. A woman sat bolt up in the dark tent that she had made her home for the last three weeks. “I found her!” She shrieked in triumph. Without a thought for her feet or appearance, the woman jumped out of the little cot and went running for the large communal tent at the centre of camp. The girl’s eyes burned when she burst into the bright work light lit main room of the tent. “I found her!” The woman repeated her revelation.Two weary looking people, a man and woman glanced up from a large contraption they had been collaboratively trying to fix. The man was tall and thin with long brown hair run amuck from its usual neat tie; his usually light skin was dark around his eyes from sleep deprivation. He wore black baggy jeans and a grey sweater, if it weren’t late and cold, he would have had his usual muscle shirt on. The girl had a light complexion and dark hair cropped short like a boy’s. She was wearing similar clothes except for the leather gloves that she wore to protect her hands from the soldering iron she was using.The two exchanged a glance, they knew their friend had barely gotten two hours of sleep in the last forty-eight. Her eyes were still bloodshot from all the searching she had done, her very long red hair was made into a halo around her head from its fizziness. Though everyone had made an effort to keep the girl fed, her skin had taken a pallor that frightened her friends. The two had finally managed to get the girl off to bed by promising they would leave a sub-space communicator beacon running. As far as the two were concerned, their emotionally sensitive friend had probably had a vivid dream. “Sam…”The woman stood to go to her friend, trying to soothe the befraught girl.“Alex! don’t give me that look!” Sam cried. “I found her, turn on the blasted radio!”“I don’t think--” The man began, but he was cut off as Sam waved for him to stop and brushed past the working table to a collapsible shelf at the back of the tent. She grabbed a small device nestled on the top shelf and turned it on. There was a ‘gleep’ from the unit, alerting Sam that it had found an incoming signal, she hit a button to open a channel then cranked up the volume.“Guys?” A low voice crackled through the speakers. “C’mon Sam! Get that thing up, I can’t keep this up long….” Static dominated the sound, but the message was clear enough to understand. “Oh!” The voice exclaimed. “There you guys are! Sam, switch to channel 26, you‘re too low for me to synchronize with.”“I-I don’t know how!” Sam cried in frustration“Dial it up! There’s a switch on the side.” Enelya’s voice was a little clearer now.Before Sam could find the button, Alex had pulled the device away and switched the channel. With a tear soaked voice she spoke into the microphone. “Kid! We thought we lost you for good. I’ve been lost here without your little hands to help me!”“Me too Alex, me too…” Enelya’s voice was now choked with her own tears instead of static.~*~After an hour of explaining the details of how she got lost and what the situation was, Enelya began to slump in her chair but she couldn’t sleep without asking a question that had been clawing around inside her heart and mind. “Sam, has anyone seen Roger?” When the question was met with silence, the girl knew what the answer was.A hesitant reply came through the device after Enelya sighed some tears away. “We-we thought he was with you.”“No,” The girl choked up as images of half a dozen bad ends to her great scaly friend came to mind. “Maybe, maybe he went back home or something. To check on his old rider.” Recalling the older dragon handler from years past lent her a bit of hope, but not much. Upon meeting the silver winged leviathan the girl had formed an uncanny bond with him. When she had gone to continue her journeys, the beast had refused to be left behind. Through ###### and dark waters the beast had either walked beside Enelya or carried her. And unless he had died, there would be no reason that he would not have follow her to this world.“Yea,” Alex tried but failed at a soothing tone. “He will come back, I’m sure he must be looking for you and he just got turned around, just give him some time.”Enelya fought back what might have been either a sob or a yawn but she couldn’t tell. “Alright guys, I gotta go get some sleep. I’ll tell the kids what’s up in the morning. If you see Roger, give him a hug for me.” There was a chorus of ‘goodnight’s’ from the device in front of her. “Night guys.” She said before turning off the device. With a shake of her head to try and clear her sleep-deprived thoughts, the girl stood up and nearly fell over. A hand steadied the girl’s shoulder. She glanced behind her; the ice guardian had evidently wandered in while she was deep in conversation with her friends. “Thanks, I’ll be okay.”The elemental shook his head. “You weren’t lying, were you?”“What good would lying do me?” Enelya shrugged. The warrior nodded and let her arm go. “I don’t know about you, but I need sleep.”~*~“No Sam! Five more minutes!” Enelya mumbled when she woke enough to realise that someone was shaking her shoulder. She had been having a good dream in which she had been visiting the campus she had long wished she had the privilege to study at. She wanted to return to that happy place, but she knew there were more important things to do. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t complain about being woken after only receiving three or four hours of sleep.“Enelya!” Vilya Ohtar whined. “Naur wants us all up…”“He’s not my commanding officer, bite me.” She groaned and sat up. The young warrior looked worried, almost frightened. “Alright alright, I’m coming. What’s wrong?”“Nothing, I’ll go tell the others you are awake.” Vilya still looked worried, but Enelya didn’t feel up to drawing the truth out of him.The girl got up, when the air guardian continued to stand there she felt her temper flare. “Out! I need to change.” The guardian jumped and scuttled out of the room. Enelya closed the curtain with a flick of her wrist, as much for the privacy as a retreat from the bright lights that had come on in the hall. There was an electronic system that switched the lights according to the cycle of the day. It was nice for times past when they had been unable to go above ground at all, but she just wanted more sleep. “I must be PMSing…” She grumbled. Opening a chest at the end of her bed, the girl pulled out some discarded clothing she had found there the night before. The clothes had the softness of material that had been worn down over many years of use. Numerous small rips covered the grey pyjama-like pants, the knees had been worn out and patched up several times but they would do. Among the worn out shirts had been a relatively new one with a band logo splattered across the front. It had been some sort of heavy metal band Enelya realised that this was probably one of Alex’s shirts. It was odd for her to have left such a good piece of clothing behind, but it must have been forgotten for some reason. Once clothed, Enelya wandered to the washrooms down the hall. She could hear some grumbling voices from the small workroom at the far end of the corridor, but she ignored them.The women’s washroom had been outfitted with prettily patterned curtains on stalls, a polished silver mirror, several sinks and large cupboards under the sinks for sanitary products. The girl wasn’t sure if there was anything left, but she hoped that at least something was there. She opened one of the cupboards to find a few boxes that contained exactly what she was going to need. “Well it might not be much, but it will do.” Taking her time, Enelya washed up her face and hands, then brushed her teeth with a small travel tooth brush she had found at the back of the cupboards. She combed her hair as best she could with her fingers and tied it back with a hair elastic. When she was satisfied, the girl headed to the small work room only to find the ice guardian leaning against the wall just outside the washroom. The warrior grunted to acknowledge the girl’s presence.“What? Couldn’t take the others squabbling?” Enelya grinnedThe man shrugged. “Something like that. Ladies first.” he gestured for her to precede him down the hall. Enelya nodded and headed to the work room. When she entered, there was an almost tangible tension.“Where have you been!?” Naur Ohtar demanded angrily.“Good morning to you too.” Enelya responded and went to pull a chair out from the work table.Slapping the girl’s hand away from the chair, the fire warrior insisted on questioning the woman. “Khelek informs me you were contacting someone in the night. Who were you talking with and why?”“Look, I’ll explain everything.” Weariness filled the girl’s voice. “Just, let’s sit please, I’m tired.”With a hard glare at the woman, the fire elemental found himself a seat. “Fine, but if you lie to me, so help the Great Spirits…”The others settled in the remaining chairs. The small work table seemed crowded. Now Enelya remembered why her team had made rooms specifically for conferences. Almost startling the girl, the ice guardian chose a chair next to Enelya, she decided this was a good development. She really didn’t like the lead guardian and wouldn’t want to be without someone to support her if he decided he really didn’t like her either.“Okay,” The girl had to fight the urge to call them all kids. It had become a habit to call any grouping of people kids, even if they all happened to be older than her. She had always been a bit of a biologist and braniac, thus her friends had dubbed her the ‘adult‘, or ‘mom‘ whenever she had helpful advice to give. “Last night I couldn’t sleep so I contacted my old comrades. It wasn’t easy to find them, but I got some help figuring out what to do in this wonderful situation we have here.” The girl looked around at the group, she wasn’t sure how they would handle her sarcasm. When they didn’t seem to react she continued. “So to put everything in perspective, we’ve got to strengthen the barriers that protect this reality, kill the piece of Diemagon that has found its way here, then I have to get off this world without breaking the barriers that protect it.”“How do you propose we do that?” The fire leader growled.“First order of business is to figure out what resources we have here, there’s a few things I need to make the barriers stronger, but I’m hoping there’s enough equipment here to get the job done. What I really need help with is defeating the little part of Diemagon, I’m by no means strong enough to do it by myself.” Enelya had to pause as her mind wandered back to the scaly claws and wings that had always been around to back her up. “I usually have friends to help me with fights, but they can’t come here or they will break barriers that can’t be fixed. It’s actually a miracle I made it here without damaging them.”“Alright, we will begin searching for the equipment you need immediately.” Naur stood, expecting the others to follow but they didn’t.“I’m not doing anything without breakfast, I haven’t eaten a decent meal in who knows how long.” Enelya said firmly. “If you want to go looking for any functional electronic equipment while I go eat, follow the white arrows.”The leader seemed about to argue but there was a conveniently timed gurgle from his stomach. “Alright, we will eat first also.”Enelya got up with the others “Okay, kitchen’s this way.”~*~Breakfast wasn’t exciting at all. The only thing Enelya could find in the store rooms was a few bags of grain that had gone rotten ages ago and some packages of army instant food. Cooking the instant food was an adventure in and of itself. The stove was an old wood burning stove. A few bunches of firewood had been left in a large bin in a store room. Enelya knew the army food didn’t need to be heated but by the Gods she was going to have a hot meal, so she got the stove up and running with the firewood scraps. Adding water to the dry army food and heating it in a pot made for a pleasantly filling, if a little bland soupy mix. The girl was very happy that the flavour had been turkey, she recalled that she really didn’t like the ham variation of the stuff. Enelya ate while keeping a steady dialogue of small talk with the water warrior.When breakfast was over Enelya insisted on cleaning the dishes as best as she could in the large kitchen sink. The girl was glad there was a natural running water system built into the underground complex. Once the dishes were as clean as they were likely to get, the girl lead the group to the work rooms and started everyone looking for any equipment of use.~*~As it turned out, there was little usable equipment. There was only discards of electronics about. From these Enelya could harvest the necessary resistors, but there wasn’t much in the way of wires to connect the important parts. There was, however, plenty of wiring throughout the base itself, some of it could be cannibalised. Luckily, there were a few sets of tools available. Among the tools was a good set of screwdrivers and a small soldering iron that would both come in handy.After Enelya had arranged everything that had been deemed useful, she came to the conclusion that a few things were missing. For one thing, she needed a large piece of iron to make a magnet. She knew this was obtainable at one of the villages, but it would take time to produce the large chunk she needed, time that she needed to spend here piecing together the rest of the device. A certain crystal was also going to be needed for an automated, accurate timing device. There were also a few other little things that would make the building easier.When the girl informed the leading guardian of the short comings of their findings, he was furious. It took the combined effort of both the earth and water warriors to calm him. “I didn’t say I had all the stuff I needed, I said we would have to see what was here first.” Enelya explained. “None of the stuff I need is difficult to get, you can get it all in Kemen’s village.”Naur rounded on the shorter warrior. “Is that true?” When the dark armoured guardian nodded Naur asked. “How quickly could we get there and collect the materials?”“A day or two would be needed to compile the iron and cut the proper crystal, so we would have to assume three days’ time to collect the materials and return.” The short man thought out loud.“That’s how long you have to complete the rest of the device.” The fire elemental told the human girl with acid in his tone. “Khelek, Vilya, stay with her.” He turned to the other three. “We leave immediately.”~*~Enelya forced herself to work long into the night. When her stomach rumbled, she ignored it. Small pieces of metal stuck her fingers, she paused only long enough to get the bleeding to stop. By the time the girl’s eyes started having trouble focusing she had only completed about half of the construction. The young woman had gutted all the small pieces of electronics she could pull apart, removed a mile of wiring from some of the redundant systems of the base and soldered all the basic resistors and chips together. The battery system of the bunker that let the girl work into the night was probably down to nothing. It was only after the guardian of ice took the soldering tool from the girl’s hand that she realised that she had been staring at the same resistor for over five minutes trying to get her eyes to focus. “What are you doing?” Enelya demanded angrily, she knew that having to sway back to get the guardian in focus did nothing to lend to her angry demand. “I need that to finish this thing.”“You may finish in the morning.” He pulled the plug of the soldering tool out of the electric socket on the table and safely stored it on a shelf.“This is the morning.” Enelya complained. The girl decided against any further argument when she got up to retrieve the tool, stumbled and was forced to catch herself on the nearest wall. There was no laughter from the warrior, which made the woman feel even more the fool. “Alright, you win this time gravity. I’ll lie down for a nap…”Khelek Ohtar did not argue when the woman refused help returning to the sleeping quarters. She moved well enough, though some of her movements were a little exaggerated. The warrior saw the girl safely to the room she shared with the air guardian. They could hear peaceful snoring behind the curtain of the bed room.Enelya frowned “I’ll be surprised if I can sleep with him snoring like that.” she looked significantly back at the ice warrior. “Mind if I crash with you?”The man shrugged. “As long as you are quiet.”“I’ll try not to snore.”~*~Something wasn’t right.Khelek Ohtar was awake suddenly, for no apparent reason. There was no sound but the occasional drip of water on stone far in the distance, but it was a rhythmic, soothing sound. No one was close by to have woken him. There were not even any small rodents to cause him any discomfort. No there was no reason for him to be awake, perhaps it had been some dream that had left his conscious mind when he had awakened from it. Sleep began to wash over him, he would sleep a few hours yet.No one around, the thought suddenly struck him a physical blow that brought him to his feet, something was definitely wrong.Scanning the room for heat did no good, looking around at the visible light gave a hint as to the whereabouts of the human woman. There was a very soft, diffuse light coming from the hallway. Pulling out his weapon, Khelek Ohtar braced himself for what he might find and peered out into the corridor.Nothing.Light filtered down the hall from a small equipment room at the far end of the long corridor. Approaching quietly he glanced almost fearfully into the room only to find the girl sitting comfortably in a chair behind the large work bench that dominated the middle of the small room. She was leaning back on the hind legs of the chair with her booted feet propped up on the desk. From what Khelek Ohtar could see she was working on something, she was holding some small gadget close to her macrolense-goggled face. With a small sigh of relief he stepped over the threshold of the room, he had to put a little bit of a push into entering, as though there were some kind of barrier but it did not stop him. Immediately the sound level in the room hammered on his ears, making his vision distort in pain. By releasing his sword and clutching at his head, the warrior was able to regain enough sense to stagger backwards out of the room.A split second later Enelya was by his side helping to ease him to the floor. A minute or two passed before he could hear her soothing words. “I’m sorry,” She was saying. “It won’t last long. There wasn’t anything special about that sound, it was just loud and your species is sensitive to sounds decibels lower than humans.” Unsure of his voice, the man did not try to answer her, instead he concentrated on slowing his breathing and trying to mentally clear his sight. Enelya patted his shoulder then quickly disappeared into the work room and came back with a blanket to cover him with. The warrior wasn‘t sure what good a blanket would do for him, but he realised that he was cold when she put it around his shoulders. Hesitantly he accepted the comforting warmth and pulled the sheet tightly around himself. The young woman sat beside him and leaned back against the wall with a sigh. “I didn’t know you would be up...” She said as though blaming herself for the warrior‘s actions. “I was just cleaning some equipment, sometimes it helps ease some stress…” A cold glance from the ice warrior didn’t so much as stem the flow of words from her as she purposely ignored him. He wasn’t going to argue, no one else had the guts to stand up to him aside from his fire brother, and this girl was speaking quietly enough that it did not hurt his ears further. “Alex use to stay up with me all the time and work on the equipment, I don’t really know if she liked me around but we got stuff done I’ll tell you.” She smiled at memories that Khelek Ohtar could not see. “I don’t know why this woke you up, you use to be able to sleep through a train wreck. At least when we were training you and the others….”A lack of sound caught Khelek Ohtar’s attention. Looking over, Enelya was clearly enjoying some fond memory as she stared off into the distance.“What was with that, that noise?” The warrior asked, not even sure what to call the sound.“Oh, music.” the woman smiled at him “It’s nothing like the music of this island, it’s called metal.” The raised eyebrow of the ice hero prompted more information “Okay, it’s not even really music to me, but Alex got me listening to it when we worked on stuff so it’s a bit of a habit now.” Feeling more himself, Khelek Ohtar stood and glanced toward the door of the equipment room. “It’s alright now,” the girl assured him “I turned the sound off.”The warrior removed the blanket from his shoulders. “What were you working on?” He strode into the room to pick up his sword and examine the tools and other objects scattered on the work bench.“One of the communicators.” The girl stood and followed her temporary guardian. “It’s not all that dirty, but a few years of disuse can cause some of the resistors to loose efficiency. It makes the signal a little wonky, and I need it to be working so I can call my friends. I‘m still a little unsure of the next part of the unit I have to build.”“Hm.” Was the response from the curious hero. He held a small tool close his face, evidently examining it carefully with his lensed eye. Khelek Ohtar turned when he heard silence for longer than he expected the girl to remain so. She was leaning against the door gazing with unseeing eyes at a distant floor. A line creased her brow as though from an aching pain.“They don’t always work.” she looked up at him slowly. The look of pain disappeared under the scrutinizing gaze of the warrior. The woman gave a weak smile that did nothing to hide the shadows that tainted her eyes. “They can’t really work when there’s certain barriers up. I learned that the hard way.”Something in the darkness of the girl’s eyes made Khelek Ohtar shrink a bit inside, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what those eyes had seen. A lone warrior he may be, but he could never be truly alone with his fellow guardians to back him up. Yes, he did prefer to handle things on his own, but even the peoples of his remote home could not survive without each other. Not fond of contact, but understanding the need for support, the ice warrior stepped toward the girl and placed a hand on her shoulder. He searched her face, there was more water on her eyes than usual, making them glassy. In fact there was far too much liquid for there was a tear rolling down each cheek.“I’m alright,” The girl said after a few tears had fallen from her face. “I just, I really miss my home, my friends…”Almost in a whisper she added “my Soulmate.” When the warrior didn’t say anything she brushed Khelek’s hand from her shoulder and settled again at the table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go and start crying on you.”“No,” He answered. “Don’t be sorry.”Enelya could tell he was trying to be kind even though he was frustrated and confused by her emotional display. The girl sniffled and whipped her face with a sleeve. “You know, you remind me a lot of a very dear friend.” She hiccuped in place of a quiet sob. “He always knew when I was sad or whatever. He was always there…” Enelya closed her eyes against more tears. “No what am I saying? He will be here it just might take him some time…”“I take it this friend is the one you mentioned the other night, Roger?” The ice warrior pronounced the unfamiliar name carefully.Unable to speak, the girl nodded and buried her face into her folded arms on the desk.~*~Vilya awoke when the light system in the hall switched to the bright lights of daylight hours. He untangled himself from bed sheets carefully and hopped lightly off the bed. He looked over to where Enelya should have been only to find her not in the bed she had claimed as her own. The warrior left the room in search of the girl only to find his icy brother propped against the wall outside the small workroom down the hall. Vilya approached quietly, his brother had his arms crossed over his chest. His chin rested on his chest with his eyes closed. The air warrior cursed under his breath when he stepped on some loose stones on the ground, producing a loud crunching noise.Khelek did not make any sound as he lifted his head and glared at the source of the sound. “Wher--” the air warrior began but stopped when the ice guardian held up a hand warningly. When the green armoured elemental stopped, his brother hooked a thumb back at the workroom to indicate that the girl was in there. Vilya crept forward slowly till he was standing in front of his brother. He peered into the room cautiously to see Enelya asleep at the work table. The warrior couldn’t help but smile. Beside him, the ice guardian waved him away. Vilya stepped back and tilted his head curiously, since when did the ice warrior care about others?Khelek motioned for the other warrior to follow him out to the main cavern. The air guardian followed without question. Once outside, the ice warrior spoke quietly. “Stay here in case Enelya wakes up. I will return.” Vilya nodded and took up a post leaning against the wall beside the doorway. Khelek strode off purposefully.A half hour later the ice guardian returned carrying three lightly streaming mugs. He passed one to the air warrior and continued on into the workroom. The girl didn’t awake at his approach. Khelek set a mug in front of her on the desk and left quietly.~*~When Enelya woke to the smell of turkey soup, she groaned at aching joints and stiff muscles. She grasped the mug, its warmth made her sore fingers feel better. Thankfully, the liquid was not too hot and rather made the girl’s grumbling stomach quiet down. She shivered as the warmth from the food made her realize that she was cold now that the blanket that had been placed around her shoulders had fallen down behind her back. Enelya pulled the blanket around her shoulders again and got up to wander into the hall.A glance up and down the hall gave the girl a hint as to where the two warriors had gone. There was a glint of light off of a green metal surface from a corner of the doorway to the main cavern. The girl wandered slowly down the hall, her legs were still really stiff from sleeping in a chair. Enelya announced her presence with a quiet. “Hey guys.”Vilya smiled brightly. “Good morning-light! Did you sleep-rest well? Those chairs don’t look comfortable.”“Yea, they are a little uncomfortable…” Enelya groaned. “but I got sleep anyway. Hey, who made breakfast?” Vilya nodded in the direction of the other guradian. The girl turned to the ice warrior. “It’s really good. Thanks for making it.” Khelek nodded almost imperceptibly. The three sipped the hot soup in silence. When Enelya was done she turned to go to back into the sleeping quarters. “I’ll be back.”When the girl came back she turned to the now antsy air elemental. He was dancing on the spot, trying to keep himself amused. “Vilya, would you take my mug back to the kitchen? I need to get started on the device again.” She pressed the mug into his hand and gave the warrior a quick hug. “You know how to find the workrooms right?”“Yup, I’ll see you there!” The elemental bounced off in the direction of the kitchen.~*~“Vilya, can you toss me that…” Enelya indicated the oddly shaped unit by pointing to it. The device was originally a walkie-talkie, but it had windows broken into the grey plastic case for larger resistors and extra sensors. Most of the add-ons had been covered with duct tape, but a new window had been cut in the case and an electric socket had been set so that it pushed out through a new hole that the girl had made in its side. It was this socket that would allow the girl to attach the unit to the rest of the messy collection of wires and microchips. The elemental handed the device over carefully. “Alright,” Enelya looked from the mess of wires to the little device. “I hope this works…” She carefully plugged a wire into the socket on the long-ago-walkie-talkie. The girl flicked a switch connected in the nest of wires. A small green light on the front of the old walkie-talkie turned on. “Oh, thank the Gods…”Enelya sighed. “And now for the hard part.” She groaned.“What do you mean?” Vilya asked wide-eyed. “Doesn’t the little light mean it works?”“Hah! No, that just means I’ve connected everything right.” The girl said with a chuckle in her voice. “Now I have to program it, and I don’t even know the first thing about programming. There’s going to be a lot of button clicking for a while, but first I have to call Alex, she can get the whole thing working.”Quizzically, the air warrior asked. “Who is Al-ex?” His tongue tripped over the name.“Oh, one of my friends.” The girl picked up the communicating device she had used before and pressed in the commands to contact her friends. It would take less effort this time as she knew where they were. “Okay, now be quiet while I get the connection set…”Feeling outward while piggybacking on the signal from the device as before, Enelya tapped into the channel that her friends had promised to keep open. This time someone answered immediately.“Hey there squirt!” A male voice answered cheerfully. “Didn’t think we would ever hear from you again…” The voice wound down till it was a near whisper.“Max, good to hear from you too.” Enelya found it almost odd that it felt good to hear the young man. The tall, dark haired, tanned, hazel eyed boy had always treated her as an annoying kid sister. She didn’t particularly like being treated that way, but when she realised that he really had missed her, she could not help but feel sorry that she had him worried. The girl also realised that she had missed the annoying older-brother figure.“So what’s up kid?” Max had stopped his tears and was back to being gruff.“I need to talk to Alex, I need to program this thinggy… I don’t even know what to call it, she knows what it is.”Max sighed. “Sorry kiddo, Alex is asleep and I’ve been ordered to leave her alone.” Enelya groaned. “Buuut,” The boy continued. “She left me with a set of instructions for you. There’s a lot of ones and zeros.”Enelya sighed. “Okay, where do I start?”“I would imagine at the beginning of the page.” The boy chuckled.~*~“###### IT!” Enelya screamed in frustration. Ten times they had begun inputting the base code for the unit only to have a mistake occur somewhere in the long string of ones and zeros.“Look kid, maybe we better call it a day, you’re tired and I’m not sure I’m reading this off right.” The communicator device crackled as Max tried to sooth his adoptive kid sister.“But…but…oh Gods ###### it…I’ve only got till tomorrow night to get this thing ready for final assembly.” the girl fumed. There was no answer for a moment.“Kid,” Max used his most consoling tone. “Maybe you should go play for a while or something, recharge…Alex should be up in the morning, you can bug her then.”The girl ground her teeth in frustration. “Alright…I guess I could use a rest. I‘ll bug you guys at first light.”“Get some rest, night kiddo.”“G’night.” Enelya turned the power off on the two devices. She leaned back in her chair till her back bone crackled alarmingly loud. “Ohhhh, I need a bath…”“I still don’t get how clicking buttons will make the contraption-thing work…” The air elemental looked at the nest of wires with a frown.Enelya smiled, he had already tried to get her to explain how computer programs worked. “It would take more understanding than I have to explain it correctly.” The girl got up and headed towards the door. “Now sit and stare at that all you want, I’m going for a swim.”The air elemental jumped as if something had tried to bite him. “I don’t like water-wet!” Enelya chuckled to herself as she left for the main cavern. The girl smiled when she heard the muffled laugh of the ice warrior who had settled himself against the wall just outside the entrance.~*~

~*~Rounding another snow drift, Khelek nearly tripped over his air brother. The green armoured warrior’s body was covered in cuts and slashes, not to mention the dents of heavy impacts that marred his armour. And all the ice guardian could see was his brother’s back, he feared what the other side of him might look like. Khelek knelt down and felt Vilya’s neck for a pulse and found one. He was also still breathing in shuddering short gasps, one blow to his lower back was clearly impeding movement. Looking up with hatred in his eyes, the ice warrior got up and stalked over to the other body.The woman was splayed on the ground as though she had pitched forward while walking, taken a tumble and landed squarely on her back. She was hovering near death, there was barely any movement in her chest, but she would not live much longer one way or another. Studying the creature for a moment, Khelek saw that she was also covered in wounds and bruises. These were no doubt from his brother, though a child at heart, the air guardian was fierce in battle. Blood from several deep gashes had stained the snow around the woman, this further infuriated the warrior. This woman had brought her evil down upon this island and soiled his homeland with her unworthy blood. Kneeling beside the woman’s head, Khelek Ohtar drew a sword. The man didn’t like killing, especially outside the heat of battle, but this needed to be done and he did not know if the others would be strong enough were they in this position. The warrior put a hand under the wretched woman’s chin to tip her head back and pressed the blade’s sharply glowing edge against her exposed neck.Just as the metal contacted the woman’s skin, she gasped for a breath. Her eyes fluttered open and looked around wildly and unfocused. It pained Khelek to know she would feel her life draining away, evil as she must be no one deserved to die in pain. Enelya’s gaze lingered a moment and closed when they found Khelek’s grim face.The woman seemed to sigh. “Thank you,” She whispered. The warrior hesitated. “Please, jus-just leave m-my body--” The woman’s body convulsed in a shudder of pain or shivering, Khelek could not tell. A small pool of dark red formed where the warrior’s blade contacted the woman’s throat. She gasped for another breath. “Out, the-the things won’t have a re-reason to a-attack anymore.” Enelya’s body seemed to deflate as she let the remaining air in her lungs come rushing out only to take another shuddering gasp. “Please-please take care of-of Vilya.” She sighed, her mission complete. “Thank you.” She whispered. No more sound issued from the woman but the soft sound of her shallow breaths.Khelek removed his sword from the woman’s throat and dropped it in the snow beside him. He considered his shaking hands. What would he have done with himself had he ended this innocent life?Thinking back to the beginning of this chase, the warrior reviewed what he had seen and heard. He had heard Enelya say to herself that she was the target, she had realised then that she was placing the two warriors in danger. She had run to avoid having them hurt. The tracks he had found following hers had been that monster tracking her. The creature itself had ignored him and is brother because they were not a primary target. Vilya Ohtar must have stumbled upon the woman being tortured by the monster and had gone to her aid. This then, would explain why he was injured so badly. Khelek Ohtar realised now that those dents could not have been made by an unarmed woman. And the drag marks had not been of a predator hauling its kill, but a battle weary girl trying to save a friend by the only means she had. She would not have known exactly where Khelek’s village lay, but she had a good sense of direction. So she had been taking the air warrior in the general direction of the village in hopes of finding help for him. With a grim grin, Khelek stood up “You got him this far, I’ll get the both of you the rest of the way.” he promised. Focusing on a snow drift in the distance the ice warrior cupped his hands around his mouth to make his shout more effective. “Koran, Ivan!” He called the names of the two guards that should be on duty this time of night.A short shadowy figure appeared around the drift. He quickly caught sight of the warrior of ice and shouted a short command back behind the snow drift. The guard came running towards the hero, and gasped when he saw the two bodies lying at the warrior’s feet. Khelek Ohtar quickly dished out a few orders. “We need the healers, and someone is going to have to put together a stretcher. I can carry this one.” He indicated the woman. “Now go!” The short guard wasted no time and scrambled back around the snow drift he had been hiding behind.Gathering the woman up in his arms, Khelek heard the guards coming to keep an eye on the other warrior. Ignoring them, he moved quickly into the village. Around the corner of the sheltering snowdrift was a tunnel that was carved down through layers of snow and into the side of a glacier. Striding quickly down the tunnel, Khelek met a party of healers that demanded to see the creature he was carrying but he refused them and told them to attend to his brother. The tunnel ended by levelling out and turning sharply to the right. The door that usually insulated the village temple from the bitter cold outside had been moved aside and left open. An elderly man stood in the doorway framed by firelight. He beckoned the warrior into the temple. “Elder Nadan.” Khelek bowed his head slightly, which gained him the frustrated clicks and hand gestures of the elder’s language clearly telling him he was an cool dude to waste time with useless formalities. Though the ice warrior wasn’t about to admit it, the simple ritualistic act gave him a bit of comfort in the heat of the knowledge that he had very nearly lost a brother.Nadan turned before fully expressing his frustration. The man continued to click and whistle away as he led the ice guardian through the temple and into another wing of the building that housed the scholars and healers. The main room of the temple was large, the ceiling was farther up than the light of wall torches could reach. To the right of the entrance through which Khelek Ohtar entered was the main temple doors. These were large, ornate cathedral doors that were carved of some kind of crystal. To the left were halls upon halls of walls carved with riddles and secrets that were yet to be understood.Nadan walked with quick steps, he was similar in shape to elder Makau, though a little less stooped, in fact he stood rather tall for an elder of the island. Keeping to the color code of his homeland, the elder’s armour plates were white and grey. His robe was longer than that of Makau’s, white and of a heavier material. He led the ice warrior across the open expanse of the temple and through a doorway that led into another wing of the structure. Different hallways led off from a central semi-circular chamber, each contained numerous rooms for different purposes. The elder entered the hallway to the extreme left, this was an area filled with sleeping rooms, several of which had been furnished especially to accommodate the larger bodies of the island’s guardian spirits. Choosing one of these rooms, Nadan ducked through a doorway on the left and waved Khelek Ohtar towards the bed. The warrior laid the girl down carefully and checked her neck for a heartbeat, she did not look alive to him. Enelya had no color in her face save a few spatters of red. Her arms were covered in blood and some green fluid. She did not seem to be breathing, if Khelek Ohtar had not known she had a strong spirit he might have feared she was gone.Absorbed in watching the woman, the warrior had not seen the elder leave the room, there was a click at the door that startled him. Nadan was standing there with a flustered looking healer behind him. The elder pointed to the bed and clicked again, then gestured for the healer to get to work.“How can I help?” Khelek asked, for some reason he suddenly felt protective of this woman.“Well, I’m not sure just yet…” The healer had a light, childlike tone to his voice. He came to the bedside and surveyed the patient critically. “It isn’t quite the same as us, is it? It’s missing the tough shell we have…” Touching one of the girl’s hands the little healer jumped back “Oh goodness, we need hot water and lots of blankets!” The elder was a step ahead of the healer; several villagers came in just then, each bearing something that they would need. Khelek took a jug from one, a small towel from another and set to work cleaning the woman’s arms.~*~Several hours later, Khelek Ohtar helped spread a number of the warmest blankets available over Enelya. She had not moved during the entire ordeal. A good claw rake to her side and gnaw marks on one shoulder had needed to be stitched together, the memory of watching the healer work was enough to make the seasoned warrior a little nauseas. But the worst of this was over, at least he hoped. The other guardians were not going to be happy when they found one of their comrades injured. He had dispatched a runner to find the others and have them re-route to his village, but they would still be a day away. For now Khelek knew he could rest with the knowledge that his brother and the strange woman were going to be alright.Something nagging at his mind kept the warrior from leaving the room when he had finished settling blankets over the injured girl. Pulling up a chair beside the bed, he settled himself comfortably then thanked and waved the healer out. With a sword across his knees, shield strapped comfortably to his arm, the warrior crossed his arms as well as he could and let his head rest against the wall. Sleep came quickly to the exhausted ice guardian.~*~“I will slay this daemon!” Enelya woke at the growl of a voice to find a glowing sword come whistling in the direction of her neck. Before the woman could make her exhausted limbs move, the familiar shape of Khelek Ohtar’s blade whirled into view. There was a loud clang and hiss as the swing aimed to kill her was suspended.“She is not a threat to us.” Enelya looked over to her right to find the ice guardian standing beside the bed she had been placed in. His face bore no expression and his sword arm did not waver under what must have been a great amount of pressure. The woman followed the line of Khelek’s sword back to the original attacker. This man was dressed in red and silver armour, with a face mask that was formed well around his face with sweeping curves. At present his jaw was clenched in anger and his amber eyes betrayed no end of fury.“Because of her, brother Vilya nearly died!” Naur Ohtar renewed his attack, slashing the opposing sword away with a swipe of one blade and aiming another deadly strike at Enelya’s throat with its mirror.This time Khelek raised his shielded left arm to take the blow, and taking the strike squarely, threw his weight into shoving Naur back. Enelya knew the advantage could easily be reversed. She clutched the blankets covering to her chest to remain decent and pulled her legs up under herself with a wince at complaining muscles and wounds. “Because of Enelya, our brother is still alive.” Khelek corrected his superior in an icy tone.“You! You must be bewitched!” the warrior of fire had regained his balance and was standing in a defensive posture. “If I have to go through you to rid the island of this enchantress, so be it!” he leapt at the elementally opposing guardian with swords blazing.The ice warrior raised his sword to knock the attacking blades aside. Using his shield again, he shoved the enraged guardian back. “I don’t like repeating myself.” The ice warrior said coldly. “If we let Vilya and Enelya rest, I am sure the girl will willingly explain what is going on.”“No she won’t, she- she -- ” Naur was cut off from further sputtering by a calm voice from the doorway.“Brother.” A woman’s voice cut into the rage that was clouding the fire warrior’s judgement. “This woman is not our enemy, she has saved the life of our comrade, let us thank her by at least giving her the chance to explain herself.” The glow of Naur’s blades lost the intensity of rage, but he did not put them away. A slender figure seemed to glide into the room. Enelya identified the woman as Alu Ohtar by the ocean blue of her armor. By no means weaker than the others, the warrior of water exuded an air of reserved strength. The interlocking metal plating on the woman’s face made her features strong but feminine. Her armour was sleeker in design than the others. The woman’s slender frame and build suggested the graceful strength of an acrobat or dancer. She moved with the lithe grace of a cat to stand by the ice warrior’s side. “I can feel she means us no harm, and will speak truth.” Alu Ohtar turned and moved behind her icy comrade to the bedside. “Will you speak?” she asked.Enelya had remained silent through the argument. For one thing she was stunned that the guardian of ice was defending her. And for another she was frightened that she had been brought into what appeared to be a village. If the monsters returned they would easily overrun the place and might kill innocent bystanders. Enelya had been fully prepared to die when she had last been conscious. If she never saw her home and friends again, at least she would no longer pose a threat to this land.Pushing her fears aside for a moment, Enelya turned to answer Alu Ohtar. “Of course I’ll talk.” If she could get these people to help, she might be able to end the struggle more quickly and find a way home. She turned back to face the fire warrior “Just let me get clothed and I will be glad to answer all your questions.”“Fine.” The man fairly growled. “But if this woman speaks falsely, be it on your head.” He levelled a sword at Khelek’s head, then spun on his heel and left the room. “Council room, five minutes!” He roared on his way down the hall so that all would hear.“Will he never learn?” Alu sighed, watching the door as though she could follow the fire elemental’s retreat.“I don’t think he will.” Khelek also watched the doorway a moment before snapping out of an almost trance like state. “Are you well enough to walk?” He asked while clipping his sword and shield into their holders on his back.“I’ll be fine, I just need my clothes.” Enelya shifted so she could sit on the edge of the bed. Without looking she knew that her outer clothes had been removed. Knowing the honour of the healers,her under garments had probably been left alone but Enelya still held the blankets to herself.Khelek turned to a chest set at the foot of the bed, from it he drew the white dress Enelya had been wearing the past two days. The rips from her battle had been repaired skilfully, little outward cues hinted at the garment having been mended. All traces of blood had also been removed from the soft white material. He held the folded dress out to the injured woman, but Alu took the garment instead. The water warrior smiled at her comrade as he glanced at her curiously. With a flick of her fingers towards the door she tried to make the stoic guardian leave. When he didn’t budge she gave him a look that a mother might give an erring child “Scoot.” She flicked her fingers again. With a sigh, the ice warrior shook his head and left the room. Once the warrior was gone, the two women traded a knowing glance.~*~Alu Ohtar turned out to be rather glad to have another woman around, and both of them being of the water element, made quick friends in the short time allotted to them. The warrior was very gentle for someone known as a fierce combatant who carried a pair of ‘freaking awesome battle axes.’ Enelya remembered the description one of her team-mates had used last time around. Though Enelya was usually careful of her modesty, she found she was at ease with the other water elemental. Discovering many painful injuries, the human woman was glad for the help getting herself dressed.Getting to the council room was another matter unto itself. Enelya did not want to appear weak by any means, and so refused aid. It took a little longer to arrive at the council chamber, but the woman felt better that she had made it there on her own. The council room turned out to be down the hall to a central semi-circular antechamber with many doors and down the centre corridor. Large and furnished only with a huge rounded table and chairs, the room looked rather empty and unfeeling to Enelya. The two water elementals entered side by side, both knew that this sent a subconscious message to the rest of the warriors that they were on equal footing.There were two open spaces. One was directly opposite the fire warrior who sat with his back to the entrance, and one to his left. Enelya could feel a change in the way Alu Ohtar held herself, she was steeling herself to the rigours of being seated next to her commander. Taking note that the ice warrior would be seated to the woman’s left, Enelya felt sorry for Alu, she would be playing the part of a buffer between the two extremes. But the position was necessary and there was no way for her to take the job.Moving around the right side of the table, Enalya passed behind Kemen Ohtar. She paused just long enough to touch Vilya’s shoulder and whisper a quiet thanks. The woman nodded and greeted the stranger in the next seat with a friendly if shy hello.“Thank you,” answered the warrior of stone. “For saving our brother.” His voice was deep and melodic Enelya thought. “I’m Ondo by the, of the stones and rocks.”“I was only returning the favour.” she smiled weakly. He nodded his bullet shaped, masked head to her and stood to pull out her chair for her. Though the woman wasn’t usually one to judge a book by its cover, she couldn’t help but notice what appeared to be rippling muscles this man had, especially around his legs. She made a mental note to never make him angry enough to want to hurt her.Enelya took her seat daintily as she could, trying to appear as non-threatening as she knew how. She thanked the warrior after he had pushed her chair in and she waited till he had seated himself before looking anywhere but the table. Without glancing at any of the others, Enelya let her gaze move up to meet the blazing angry eyes of the lead warrior. This let him know that she was not going to lean on the others, and that he only had her to verbally attack. On top of this, the woman angled her body slightly away from him and kept her head tilted downward just enough that she appeared to be lower than the fire elemental.“Why have you come to this land?” The warrior demanded gruffly.“It was an accident.” Enelya answered quietly.Naur Ohtar’s eyes narrowed. “That nearly led to the demise of my brother. Now why are you truly here? Or to follow your lie, why haven’t you left yet?” The warrior angrily enunciated each word clearly, as if he thought the woman were dumb.“It was an accident and because of the craftsmanship of one of my team-mates, I have been left without memory for the past few weeks.”“I Don’t! Want to Hear Your Lie! Now--”“I don’t think she is lying.” The earth warrior cut the leader off. Naur glared at his comrade, then looked at the others in turn. The air warrior had his eyes closed as he concentrated on breathing with several of his armour plates impeding him. When the firey gaze was turned to the warrior beside him, the master of stone spoke his mind.“I am curious,” He said simply “I feel something familiar about this woman, I would like to hear her story.”The fire guardian did not seem happy with this suggestion. Peripherally, Enelya noticed Alu Ohtar seem to wilt on the verge of keeling over. Almost imperceptibly Khelek leaned towards his sister guardian. The water warrior straightened again quickly and stole a glance at her icy friend in thanks.Not happy at all, but unable to change the stone warrior’s mind with a glare, Naur moved on to the others who only nodded in agreement to listen. “Fine.” He scowled deeply at the human woman. “You will explain yourself.”“Alright, but this is gonna be a long night.” Enelya dreaded having to tell her story, especially if her worst fears turned out to be true.“Get on with it!”The woman sighed and began. “I am one of a few humans with special abilities, well more like knowledge… my story begins with a monstrous daemon creature we call Diemagon. It is trying to wreak havoc on different dimensions and realities, just anything it can get its claws into. When it got to my home, my dimension; it was already too late to save the majority of the human race. We, well, I fled into another dimension while the barrier between worlds was still weak from the daemon traveling past it. A few others got stuck with me and we are now a team, a family. We are fighting to pull the monster’s hold out of every dimension and reality we can reach. It is our hope that this will effectively cut the thing off from sensation, leaving it to drift and hopefully die in the void of non-reality.” The woman paused feeling like the whole story was a little lame without the details, but it was the truth and she could back it up with science, at least theoretical science.There was silence for a moment before the stone warrior spoke. “That creature sounds almost meaner than the Kshua.”“Trust me, he is bigger and way nastier.” Enelya fought not to shudder at the memories of a few close brushes with the monster.In disbelief, the fire warrior turned to both the water and earth elementals beside him. To the one question he asked they both nodded with certainty written on their faces. Looking at Enelya with wary respect, Naur Ohtar questioned her further. “Why are you here if you should be fighting this monster elsewhere?”“Well…the thing is I have been here before, me and my group of course. We got rid of the monster’s hold on this land once before.” She thought a moment of how to explain the situation. “Now, when we leave a world, we make sure no one can cross the dimensions again, at least not without losing their memory. Its suppose to stop Diemagon from coming back, whenever he touches a dimension that we have sealed, that part of him is cut off from his control. Now I’m still a little confused about this from having my brain partly scrambled but I think that Diemagon was trying to divide and conquer the team. Chances are I was the first, I’m not all that strong. Anyway he could have tried to attack me while I was transferring dimensions, in which case I had to have picked a random destination to escape him. Turns out I ended up here with my memories gone.”“Obviously the monster followed you, does he pose any threat to this island?”“Well…I killed one of his goons, which is essentially a little part of him, so the other parts of him know I am here, and they remember who and what they are. They only want me, so as long as they think I’m on the run they probably won’t attack a village, though I could be wrong. Last time I was conscious, I thought I was toast so I didn’t think it mattered. But, now that I think of it, the monster knows it is part of Diemagon, so it’s going to want to go back and take this reality with it.” Enelya was suddenly overcome with emotions as the fullness of the situation sunk in. She closed her eyes, lowered her head and bit at her lip in an attempt to not cry. The woman took a slow breath, she knew the guardians were waiting. “And now I’ve probably doomed you all.” Forcing her emotions down, Enelya let the problem solving part of her brain take over. “I can fix this, but I need your help.” She looked up to the fire leader hopefully.Accustomed to doing everything in his power to protect his island home, Naur left his anger behind. “What do you need from us?”“I need to go back to the labyrinth, the home base my team set up last time we were here. There will be tools there for me to block Diemagon’s remnant, then I can simply eliminate the creatures as they come looking for me.”The earth warrior spoke up when Enelya had finished “Is our home in any immediate danger?” He glanced significantly to the green warrior. “I think we could all use some rest before we travel more.”Enelya thought a moment. “No, I just killed a little part of the remnant; the other parts will lie low for a little while, try to figure out where I went and reset the pecking order.”“Then I suggest we all rest.” The leader adjourned the meeting, “Khelek, I want extra guards set on watch.” Without wasting time, Naur got up and left the council room. The others got up slowly, save for Vilya who stayed put. Kemen Ohtar went to help the injured warrior up, but Enelya forestalled him.“Hold on a sec, I might know how to help him.” She got up and went over to the ice guardian. “Khelek, um, is there any place to get a bunch of water around here, like enough to bath in?”The warrior turned to her. “Yes, Alu and I were just headed for the baths.”Enelya glanced at the water guardian with concern, to which the warrior displayed several burns on her right arm and side. “Naur has trouble controlling his energy when he is worried about the safety of our home.” Enelya nodded in understanding.Khelek moved to the door. “Are you coming?” He asked impatiently.“We need to help Vilya” Enelya said.“We can bring him, just lead the way.” The stone warrior said as he motioned to his earthy friend to help.Enelya smiled in appreciation. “Thanks guys.”~*~The baths turned out to be a large room located at the end of a corridor leading off from the semicircular room. There was an antechamber to the bathing room which looked similar to a locker room except for the smaller than normal shelving units. In the next room Enelya was surprised to find that it contained several polished stone wash tubs with running water taps. There was even one that was hero sized. The ice warrior explained the operation of the taps simply by turning one on and adjusting it. “Cold,” he turned the tap to the left, then he turned it to the right, “Hot. There are showers over there,” he indicated a doorway with a shower curtain across it. “Be aware, when there is water on the floor it tends to be…slippery.” the word seemed foreign to the ice warrior who spent his free time sliding down glaciers with precise accuracy.“Thank you.” Enelya said to the white guardian. “Okay, I need Vilya in here.” The woman pointed to the hero sized tub. “I know you don’t like water Vilya, but I’m trying to help here.”As the two strongest warriors helped their injured comrade into the bath, Enelya set the water on and adjusted it to a comfortable setting. With the tub filling, the woman turned her attention to the patient. His breathing was fast and shallow. There were dents and scratches all over the man’s front armour plates. This was going to be one ###### of a night. And while Enelya knew she was capable of calling the waters to herself, she wasn’t sure how well she could wield them as she had been out of practice for as long as she had.Wondering how to go about assessing the severity of the warriors injuries, Enelya remembered an old trick. “Vilya, I’m going to put a hand on your chest, don’t freak out, kay?” The warrior nodded between breaths. The woman put a hand above where the guardian’s heart should be and closed her eyes. She focused her energy by visualization as she had learned to do long ago. Energy flowed from her core down her arm and pooled in her hand. Shaping the energy with will, the woman could see a small sphere form in her mind’s eye. Enelya waited till the energy had built up then released it with a small pop of a sound. The energy rushed out like a wave expanding from an undersea earthquake. The woman could feel the energy bounce off the warrior’s main internal organs. When the rebounded waves of energy came back to Enelya’s hand she was able to tell more accurately where the injuries were. Inside her head was a mental map of the wounds, as well as the sympathy pain that she often developed when working with patients.With a sigh, Enelya turned the tap off. “Okay, it’s not as bad as I thought, but bear with me I haven’t done this in a while.”Enelya settled comfortably on the floor and slipped her hands into the water beside the warrior’s arm. She closed her eyes in concentration and began to feel the water with her consciousness instead of her hands. The water was not a mere pool of molecules anymore, but a living extension of the woman’s body. With the freedom to move into the tiny spaces between armour plates, the water was going to be a healing tool just as a scalpel and tweezers were the tools of a surgeon.The first order of business was to correct the dents in the plates of armour impeding the Vilya’s breathing. Feeling the plates, Enelya slipped between them and began to apply force on either side. The tricky thing about doing work with the abilities of a water elemental was that no force could be produced without the constant motion of the water molecules. Any reaction that could be produced by water required an equal and opposite active motion by the water itself. Thus, in order to bend the plates of armour, Enelya had to focus on creating two very small currents of water to push the plates in opposite directions from either end of the misshapen section. Though she could not feel it, the concentration must have brought sweat to her brow. The woman quickly got the hang of it and was soon done fixing the plates of metal covering the man’s back. Below the armour was damaged tissue, but it was not infected. Luckily it was only bruised.A few other major injuries included a large set of slashes down the warrior’s left arm and a few punctures through his front armour. Healers had tried to bandage the wounds, and though they would heal on their own given the strong poultice they had concocted, this way would be faster. Enelya had to be delicate as she worked around the wounds. These were the kind of injuries where she had to change her perspective a little and carefully push cells and small mechanical parts back together. Enelya now remembered why she was fascinated by these people as she worked. They were not merely robotic or biological organisms. They were a strange combination of both. In a way they resembled the same structural properties of insects whose exoskeletons were very mechanical in nature but within was soft muscle and epithelial cells.Enelya was glad to have a strong scientific background when she encountered damaged muscle tissue in one of the slash wounds. Requiring an even more delicate approach, the woman forced her consciousness to think on an atomic level. Left alone this damage would never have healed fully, ultimately reducing the warrior’s strength in his arm.What seemed like hours later, Enelya began to close off the damaged armour plates around the wounds she had healed. She would be unable to completely restore the integrity of the metal without working on it with soldering tools, but she could at least push the plates together and attempt to make the molecules try to hold together weakly.Finally letting go of the waters and focusing on feeling the floor beneath her legs, Enelya came back to herself slowly. Accidentally trying to move before completely in control, the woman fell back and nearly smashed her head on the tub behind her. Luckily the ice warrior was cool headed enough to notice her start to sag and was able to quickly manoeuvre her head away from the dangerous edge. He lowered her to the floor rather than strain himself trying to hold her up. Enelya didn’t try to fight the weakness in her body, it would do her more harm than good. When the pains of the woman’s body finally became sharp as they were meant to be, she opened her eyes slowly. “Thank you Khelek, I forgot how draining that was. How is Vilya?”“He is alright.” The ice guardian checked the girl’s pulse. “But you are not, stay there.” He turned to his sister who was attending to their comrade; more specifically holding him down as he tried to struggle out of the bath.“Enelya!! They won’t let me upgo, I don’t like wetbaths! Can I Goooo?” Vilya struggled some more then whined pitifully to Enelya’s amusement.“Yes silly, but be careful getting up. I made more blood flow to your ouchies to make them heal properly, you’ll be lightheaded for a while.” With a sigh Alu let her friend up. The green armored warrior jumped up, sloshing water all over the place. He hopped out of the bath only to take a step and nearly collapse. Prepared, the earth guardian caught a hold of one shoulder while the Ondo Ohtar took the other. “Told you!”The two heavy weights laughed heartily. “Thank you Enelya, we will see that this trickster gets to bed.” The earth warrior said with a smile and led the others out.Tired of the floor, Enelya tried to sit up but was forestalled by Khelek Ohtar who firmly put a hand on her chest. He checked her pulse again before withdrawing his hand and helping her to sit up. Knelt beside the human woman’s legs, Alu smiled “That was a good thing you did. My abilities could never compare.”“Yes they are, you just gotta try.” Enelya sighed, groaned at the complaining wounds down her side then she turned to the ice warrior “Can I get up now?” she asked like a whiny kid sister. The warrior shook his head in annoyance, stood up and offered a hand. Taking the offer, the woman got up. She groaned again in response to more pain. “Okay, I need a shower now.”Just as the ice guardian gestured for the woman to precede him into the shower room, a high pitched booty call whistle sounded from the locker room door. The elder stood there in the doorway with a playful smile on his face. Seeing that he had full attention on him, the elder began clicking and chattering like a bird. The two warriors in the room traded confused glances but Enelya grinned from ear to ear. Obviously the reaction he had wanted, the elderly man smiled brightly and turned to a shelf beside the door to collect a towel. He bowed slightly to the guardians and left.Enelya was left with the smile for a minute. The other two noticed quickly and Alu asked for both. “You know what he said?”“Not really, it’s more of an impression of what he was trying to say.” The girl couldn’t help smiling more at the baffled expression of the warriors, especially that of the ice guardian.“What…did he say?” The water elemental asked almost afraid to know.“Oh, just a joke I think.” In her head Enelya continued ‘cuz you wouldn’t understand why he was amused that the hero of this village was escorting two women to the communal shower’ suddenly tired, the girl turned towards the showers, “Alright, I’m gonna go have a shower, I’ll see you guys in the morning.”“May I join you?” Alu asked, following her.“Yea but no peaking.” Curiously, the ice guardian tried to follow but Enelya stopped him by pulling the curtain across the door. “No boys allowed!” somewhere beyond the curtain there was a set of giggles. The ice warrior was dumbfounded, for one thing he didn’t understand why the girl was barring him out or a room in his own home when he had defended her, and for another it was odd to hear the water elemental giggle at any comment, trivial or not. With a shake of his head the icy warrior went to stand guard outside the bathing room. He didn’t like the idea of leaving a comrade vulnerable even though it was within his home village.~*~The two women took their time washing and recharging themselves. It was a simple comfort knowing that the other was there and understood all the little complexities of life that took too many words to explain. They also shared pieces of knowledge about healing. Enelya took the chance to ask all she could about the biology of the inhabitants of the island. She always made it a priority to gather knowledge whenever she visited a new world.When the two were washed and dried, they left the baths only to find the ice guardian leaning against the wall outside the room. On light feet, the women approached and could see that he had his arms crossed and his chin on his chest with closed eyes. Trading a smile, the women moved to either side of the warrior and gently took up his elbows. Responding quickly, Khelek looked up sharply and glared at the two water elementals in turn. His fellow comrade was giving him a sympathetically affectionate smile, while the human girl was grinning like a cookie jar bandit.“Come rest Khelek,” Alu suggested quietly. “We have a long day tomorrow.”The ice warrior straightened up and rolled his shoulders trying to politely dislodge the hold the women had on his arms. When the two would not let go he sighed. “Alright, but please release me.” He scowled at the human girl who let go and hung her head in submission at his harsh tone.“Okay Okay! I’ll be good…but you gotta go to sleep before you get sick.” Enelya turned to follow the corridor back to her room.The other water elemental was not swayed. “I will not unhand you till I am sure you are tucked into bed and will truly sleep.” There was a sternness in her voice that would have made even the most stoic man break.“Fine.” Was Khelek’s cold reply. Enelya followed the two back to the main semi-circular room where she paused. “You kids get off to bed, I need to go see the elder.”Khelek stiffened. “I should go with you.”“No.” The water warrior tightened her grip on his arm. “Enelya can handle herself, come and rest. Or are you going to force me to drag you?”A frown dominated the warrior’s face, but he did not direct it at his fellow guardian. “Alright, the elder will be in the main temple---”“I know where to find him, now go to bed.”Suddenly tired looking, the ice warrior closed his eyes and let out a sigh of exhaustion. “Alright…good night Enelya.” Khelek put an arm wearily around his comrade’s shoulders.~*~With most of her memory returned, Enelya remembered that the elder of the village had his quarters towards the back of the temple. Quickly moving through the corridors lined with writing, the woman could not help but grin at a few rather new characters stamped on the walls. These were what little record existed of her previous journey through this land. Coming upon a partly opened door, Enelya could not help but overhear a rather subdued voice. It was the voice of a boy who had grown into his vocal chords before his stature would suggest such a resonate sound. In his quietly deep voice the speaker seemed to be questioning the wisdom of trusting a stranger. As much as it pained her, Enelya knew that it was exactly what she would be thinking were she in the position of one of the villagers.The questioner was berated verbally in the strange language of the village elder. Following the loud reprimand was a moment of silence. The woman was suddenly very tired, she did not want to face the mess she had made. If the consequences had only been focused on her, Enelya might have given up in that moment. But she was responsible for defending a whole reality full of people.~*~A quick tap on the door was answered by the village elder, who smiled upon seeing the woman standing there. He gestured for Eenlya to enter. There was a villager standing in the middle of the room. Judging by his physique, the woman guessed he was probably an athlete. But the simple robe he wore told of a scholarly background.“I’m sorry to interupt,” Enelya began. “But I must speak with the elder.”“I am the Elder’s interpreter.” The villager said. “If he wishes to speak with you I will translate.”The woman shook her head. “It’s alright, I can understand him.”“I would prefer you let me interpret.” The short man was not going to leave his elder alone with someone he did not trust.Now seated on his bed, Nadan clicked out a few words to which the interpreter resisted. “But sir! She is not from here, why would you trust her!?” This gained an angry snap from the elder. Backing down from the intense glare from the older man, the villager bowed his way out of the room. When the man had gone Enelya let out a sigh of relief.“I know I’m causing a bit of trouble for you, I’m sorry.” The inner child in Enelya was about ready to cry from the rejection she was facing from the people she was trying to save. The hardened warrior spirit that had been instilled in the woman gave her the strength to do what needed to be done. The elder motioned for Enelya to sit. Taking a seat crosslegged on the floor, the girl asked a question gingerly, afraid of the answer. “Do you still have the device we gave you when we left?”The man smiled gently and produced a small electronic device from under his pillow. He hopped off the bed and offered it to her.“You know that if I take this there’s no guarantee you will get it back?” The elder nodded but did not put the device away. Instead he clicked impatiently and held the object closer to the girl. “I guess you know there’s no other way?” A roll of the eyes from the elder made Enelya smile before taking the console. “Do you have the solar charger?” The elder rolled his eyes again and made a low whistle that sounded like ‘duhhh’ as he moved to a small shelf beside his bed and produced a small package rolled in a tan cloth. The woman remembered the soft solar cells and thought it was nice that her friend Alex had left this particular model which would be rather useful and durable. After giving the small solar cell to Enelya, the elder clicked and squeaked at her. The woman could not help but smile at the lecture she was being given on letting the elderly get their rest. Enelya got up. “Thank you, I’ll bring this back if I can.” The elder nodded and turned away from the girl. The woman left quietly and returned to the room she had been put in the night before.~*~Enelya awoke early the next day to the air guardian bouncing lightly onto the end of her bed. The girl sat up with a groan. “What time is it?” She looked around for a window but didn’t find one.“It’s late morning,” The childish warrior answered, swinging his feet off the edge of the bed. “The others wanted to wake you earlybright, but I thought that was badmean.”With a warm hug, Enelya thanked him. “I really needed the rest.” In truth she really had needed the extra sleep, the girl could feel a hint of a sniffle coming on. The two got up a minute later and went to join the others in the council room.A light breakfast had been set out on folding tables just inside the council room. Enelya immediately attacked the food voraciously. She heaped a plate with bread rolls, something that looked like scrambled eggs and a piece of fruit that smelled like an apple. Plunking herself down in a vacant chair, Enelya began digging in, then looked up when she didn’t hear any conversation. “What?” All the warriors were watching her.The guardian of stone laughed mirthfully and thumped the girl on the back. “You eat like any good sport player!”Beside the heavy stone warrior the earth elemental finished the thought. “We would not expect one as good natured as our sister to be mannered this way.”Enelya chose to burp just then. “Manners?” she laughed. “If it bothers you I can behave myself.”“I would rather you be comfortable.” the earth warrior smiled, thought Enelya knew he didn’t exactly like her manners.The woman glanced towards the leader of the party sitting across from her. There was approval in his eyes. Enelya tilted her head and lifted a brow to try and coax an answer out of him, but he would not explain. The girl was not about to point it out but she knew that he was from a military oriented village, the soldiers there were probably like any others she had known. Enelya turned to her food again, she would need every ounce of energy she could get.There was a small clatter to Enelya’s right as the warrior of air settled himself down with a light breakfast. The meal took place in relative silence. When both arrivals had finished and settled back, the leader began the strategy meeting.“It has come to my understanding that the creatures that hunt us are wise, and may know of our plan.” The fire elemental looked around. “I believe it would be safe to take a roundabout route to the temple. Brother,” He turned to Khelek. “I am counting on you to guide us safely.”Enelya put up her hand as though she were in school, it was almost comforting to fall back on old ritualistic habits. The guardian commander nodded to give her leave to speak. “If we take the underground highway I know a back way into the labyrinth, the back road is sealed off from the main entrance so we shouldn’t encounter any badguys.”Kemen Ohtar frowned. “I have been all through the tunnels of my home and there are none that lead to where you are suggesting they should be.”The woman smiled slyly. “Remember that rock wall you can’t tunnel through?”“Yes but it is nowhere near the temple we seek.” The elemental was still bewildered.“That’s to throw off anyone looking for it.”The warrior smiled as he compared the dimensions in his head and began to understand the implications of the odd rock formation that had stumped the mining crews of his home village for over a century. “Naur, I believe I understand where the entrance is. We would do well to try and access this labyrinth through the tunnels.”“Very well,” The fire elemental stood up. “Then we had best be off.”Enelya put up her hand again to get the others attention. “I hate to be a whiner, but I need some kind of winter clothes, even just a jacket would be nice….”Trading glances, the guardians weren’t sure what she was asking for since they had no need for clothes themselves. Just as the woman was ready to speak up and suggest that she just sew a few blankets together, there was a loud whistle and click from the door. Elder Nadan was standing there, he bowed when he had the undivided attention of the room and ushered in his interpreter. The villager was carrying a white bundle. He brought it over to Enelya, bowed slightly and offered it to her. The bundle turned out to be a long white coat with a fleece lining and a hood. Rolled inside the coat was a pair of matching white boots that were of a simple design that would function as well as any hundred dollar pair. With a smile, the girl put them on. “Thank you.” She nodded to the villager then turned to the elder and repeated the procedure.“Where did you get that?” The leader of the warriors gruffly demanded of the elder.A furrow appeared between the elder’s brows. He began clicking and squeaking away. Enelya translated in her head ‘If you think I have to tell you, you are a….!’ the girl lost track when he started swearing in rather colourful terms that she didn’t quite understand the references to.Not wanting to offend the warriors, the translator hastily explained in nicer terms. “The elder does not think it would be a good time to explain right now.”“Fine” Naur decided not to press the issue. “Let’s go, there’s no time to waste. Khelek, guide us, Vilya scout from the air.”~*~Sunlight bled brilliant white onto the snowy valleys and peaks that the warriors transversed. The sky was a great blue ocean that Enelya wished she could have fallen into to ease the growing pains in her knees and ankles. With many miles behind them, the girl wondered why the leader had not called a halt to the day’s march. Ignoring her aching joints, the woman pressed on, forcing herself to keep up with the main group.~*~The bright sunlight magnified by the reflective snow was nearly blinding the earth elemental. He was only able to keep up because his sure footed brother of stone nudged him in the right direction every now and then. Thus he was not surprised when the brown armoured warrior tapped his shoulder in a curious manner.“The girl is moving oddly” The taller elemental observed. “I think I will go help her.”Before the man could move off, Kemen Ohtar reached out blindly and caught an arm. “Wait, let me see first.” For a minute he focussed on watching the human girl between rapid blinks of his eyes.Enelya was moving with nearly jerky steps as she focused on each movement and shift of weight needed to achieve forward movement. The warrior could not see the woman’s face for he was walking behind her, but he was sure she must be closing her eyes frequently in concentration.The elemental finally settled into a more rhythmic step pattern and let go of his brother when he had seen enough. “I think I have a better idea.”Kemen Ohtar moved towards the front of the group. He had to strain his eyes to discern safe places to step, but he quickly came up beside Khelek who was leading the party through the icy capital. “Brother.” The cold warrior gave no sign that he had heard Kemen, but the earth elemental knew he was listening. “I think we should rest soon.”The camouflaged guardian pointed to a line of foothills and small outcropping peaks a few miles ahead of the group with the blade of his sword. In a dangerous land such as this the man rarely moved around unarmed. “There is shelter there.”To this news the earth elemental nodded, he knew his brother would not comment further.Kemen Ohtar slowed his pace and drifted back in the party till he came up beside the human woman. With his sensitive ears, the warrior could hear the woman taking controlled breaths. She was probably trying to keep from making much noise that might alert the others to her weakened state. “Enelya, we will rest soon but shelter is still a ways off, I could carry you if you wish.”“No, I- I’ll be okay.” Kemen could hear a note in her voice that spoke of agonizing pain. “Just as long as it’s not too far, I think my nose might fall off from the cold!”The guardian might have pressed farther but he understood that the woman was trying not to slow the group down.~*~After no more than another hour of walking, the group halted as Khelek Ohtar put up a hand. They had stopped just short of rounding the corner of a massive collection of large stones. The pile was well over everyone’s heads, and as they had passed several groups of stones like this, Enelya wondered what had caused the guide to call a halt.The ice warrior moved around the far side of the rock formation and came back a moment later. “There is shelter available here.” he explained. “Watch your heads.”Like a dutiful parent, the fire warrior motioned for the others to follow his elementally opposing comrade as he entered the small cavern formed below the rocks. While both the water and stone elementals easily clambered down into the cave, Enelya hung back. The girl’s ankles and knees were not at all happy with her. She was unsure if she could safely lower herself into the shelter. Kemen Ohtar saw her hesitate and patted her on the shoulder. “Let me help you, please.”Enelya sighed. “Okay.” The earth elemental scuttled down the short drop to the cave floor and turned back to lower the girl gently.“Are you alright Enelya?” The Ondo Ohtar asked with concern.Now on the ground, Enelya took a wavering step. “No, not really, but I will live. Thank you Kemen.”Camp setup was quick. There was a hidden stash of dry wood in a corner of the cave that allowed for a small fire. Enelya helped lay out a few bedrolls. One person would remain awake at all times to guard those sleeping. With everything settled, the girl planted her back against a wall and sank slowly to the floor. She pulled her jacket closer around herself as her body began to shiver in small waves. The girl would have fallen asleep then and there but Vilya came bounding in.“No monsterbaddies around that I could seespot.” He announced.Naur nodded. “Alright, everyone rest, I will take first watch.” As the fire warrior turned and left the cave, the air elemental smiled and bounced over to Enelya. He settled to the ground beside the girl. The warrior put an arm around her shoulders. Not about to argue over the offered body heat, the woman nestled herself against the elemental’s body and was asleep in the next instant. When Vilya tried to ask how the girl was, he was answered only by the soft breathing of slumber.~*~

Hey all,I was reminded that I need a review topic for epics, so here it is. Sorry I didnt post one till now, its been quite a while since I was active on these forums and I forgot that this is kind of a prerequiste for an epic and I have been having computer problems....Anyway, the story is herePlease feel free to comment or ask questions. I know there are probably a few spelling errors or gammatical errors in there so please don't worry about those, I'm still editing before I settle on a final script.

I'm so sorry for not adding the rest of this thing but the computer doesnt like me or something so ill have to post a little at a time, here's the next part....~*~ It was already midmorning when the alien woman was discovered missing. The nurse on duty had brought a hardy breakfast to an empty room. Vilya and Kemen Ohtar were found and alerted quickly along with the elder. A hasty check with tired guards revealed that the woman had not left by conventional means, this levelled the possibility that she had simply left for a walk. Nothing of value was found missing, which made the disappearance all the more mysterious. With little to go on, both warriors were dispatched in different directions. If the woman was found they would bring her in for questioning. And if not, they would at least alert the other warriors to be on their guard.~*~ There was a rumble in the distance, nothing that would have scared Enelya back at home. But this was the middle of an alien land. Cars and trucks did not exist here. Simple machinery was used and maintained by the villagers, but nothing that might have voiced such a deep sound. Nature was the only force strong enough to make the earth begin to shudder with a long, low vibration that made Enelya look up from the treacherous rocky path she was carefully traipsing along. Nothing in the woman’s immediate vicinity appeared to be moving, and she was standing in the middle of a valley with nothing but a small stand of dwarfed trees at the south end of it. This left only the mountainous peaks to the north as a possible visible source for the sound. Enelya’s keen eyes quickly picked up on a sheet of snow that was sliding down the stone face of one peak. For a split second she inwardly laughed at the idea of the mountain waking up and throwing off its snowy blanket. Terror quickly replaced amusement; the woman realized that she was directly in the path of the avalanche. A quick glance about revealed no hiding places and a few hurried mental calculations eliminated the urge to run wildly away. With a shrug the young woman returned to her previous engagement. If the avalanche reached her and swept her up, she would deal with it then. The roaring snow was still a good ways off in the distance, there was a chance that it might not be able to travel across the valley floor on its momentum. Enelya picked her footing carefully, she had travelled a good distance today and her feet were threatening to stop working should she take another bad step. Meanwhile the flowing snow and ice continued to race towards the woman by leaps and bounds. The woman tracked the movement of the snow easily as it moved towards her from the side on a perpendicular transect with respect to the direction she was travelling. Within a minute, the avalanche had reached the bottom of the slope it originated from and was barrelling across the small valley on pent up kinetic energy. Adrenaline pumped through the young woman’s blood as the innate fight-or-flight response prepared her body to react in an instant. Enelya sighed and halted, the avalanche was nearly upon her. It wasn’t every day she got to face a roaring wall of ice and death bearing down on her, making her aware of the frailty of a human body. Suppressing the very comfortable idea of running, the woman faced the on-comming wall of white. “Huh” She laughed. “And Larien thought I would die from my own stupidity.” Recalling her friend from highschool, Enelya was able to calm her racing heart. “Well Larien, you can’t laugh at my funeral cuz I didn’t start this one.” She grinned slightly at memories of her friend calling her crazy and promising to laugh at her funeral if she got herself killed going skydiving or skiing or doing any other risky sport. The wall of advancing snow was towering above the woman now. She could see large chunks of ice being thrown out the front of the avalanche only to be swallowed up again. Enelya assumed a posture of boredom with her arms crossed over her chest, upper body leaning back and her right leg bent with one hip lower than the other. The young woman decided what her last thought would be as the wall of whiteness closed the distance between them. A large chunk of ice jumped out of the avalanche, with a trajectory that would connect with her head. Huh, cool. The woman thought, prepared to accept this as her last moment alive. I wonder what this’ll feel like…? She frowned, realising that the time taken to form that thought was far more than what the ice chunk should have taken to connect with her face. The frozen projectile had stopped a few inches from her nose, the woman judged the distance by tilting her head for a different angle. There was a crunch of snow and ice as though under a booted foot from somewhere above Enelya. She glanced up to make direct glaring eye contact with the source of the seemingly innocent natural disaster. Standing on the handles of his ice blades to use them as skis, the guardian of ice looked down the line of his nose at the woman. All the white and shining silver armour enhanced the overall look of superiority he easily pulled off. Had she not just faced death a moment ago, Enelya might have been intimidated by the spectacle. Feeling a little defiant, the young woman glanced at the wall of snow extending to the left, then to the right and finally returned her gaze back to the warrior’s eyes. She tilted one eye brow, silently asking what in the world he was doing instigating chaos in the name of fun. Instead of answering the unspoken question, Khelek Ohtar posed one of his own. A glance that followed the crudely marked trail to the west and back to the woman with a raised eyebrow of his own asked what Enelya was doing wandering about without supervision. The woman did not back down under the piercing gaze of the warrior. She let her eyes wander down to the guardian’s feet and back up to lock eyes with him. A tilt of her head and a slight grin that tugged at one corner of her lips clearly said ‘I asked you first.’. The warrior scowled, he wasn’t one to be angered easily, but this woman was beginning to fray his patience by challenging his own silent nature. This woman must break under his gaze sooner or later, no one save his elementally opposing brother could stand his scowl. After a full minute of glaring from both parties, Khelek had to wonder how the girl was still standing. Normally after anything more than a second or two, people would begin to squirm as though he were dissecting them with his gaze. He had to admit, this Enelya was clearly not going to budge, but then neither was he. “Ho there brother, Enelya!.” Someone shouted from above, nearly breaking the silent quarrel. Peripherally, the two silent arguers could see a tall green armored figure alight on the leading edge of the icy wall. “I was worriedsad abo-” The snow beneath the warrior’s feet collapsed. “ACK!” A strong urge rose in Enelya, she wanted to go see if the air guardian was alright, but that would mean backing down from the fight at hand. “I’m alright, I’m alright!” Vilya called out, struggling to try and rise from the smothering snow. The woman sighed and turned her head, keeping her angry eyes on the ice warrior till the last instant. She hurried over to the place she had seen the air warrior vanish from. She fought her way up over icy boulders and through deep snow till she found the fallen man and dragged him to cold dry land. Once out of the stifling snow, Vilya Ohtar jumped up and began dancing around, trying to get off any excess snow and warm himself. “Hold still!” Enelya laughed. The guardian stopped his prancing and hugged himself to try and suppress his shivering and hopefully regain some of his dignity. With a smile, Enelya brushed a few non-existent flakes from the warrior’s shoulder and gave him a warm hug. He continued to shiver for a moment and sighed when the bitter cold had been sufficiently replaced by the warmth of the woman’s body. “Thank you, Enelya” “You might want these.” The cold voice of Khelek Ohtar broke the moment. The woman let go of the air warrior and they both turned to see the white armored guardian pulling a dangerously sharp looking katana from the snow. He tossed it in the general direction of the other two. Enelya jumped back, as fearless as she tried to make herself appear sometimes, she didn’t want to be caught by the wrong edge of that thing if it happened to careen in her direction. As well-grounded as her fear was, the woman hadn’t anticipated the quick actions of the air warrior. In a flash he had jumped and somersaulted in the air to catch the sword and its counterpart as the ice guardian tossed it after fishing it out of the snow. Vilya Ohtar twirled the blades expertly for a moment, testing to see if the snow or the fall had damaged their fragile balance. Satisfied, he placed them on his back, where they clicked into a holding mechanism. “So, like I was saying,” The warrior continued his original though. “I was worriedsad about you Enelya, you snuckran away.” “Yes, tell us what you are doing away from the village.” Khelek Ohtar rode down off the wall of snow and unclipped his swords from his feet. Feeling a little under attack, Enelya crossed her arms over her chest. “I suppose it doesn’t matter if you are going to stop me now.” “I didn’t say I was here to stop you.” The air guardian sounded hurt. “Maybe if I help on your search we could finish everquick and return to my treebright village to celebrate.” “I-I don’t know.” Enelya said quietly, more to herself than to the others. She turned to look up at the distant mountains. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I’m looking for…” “Don’t be so quick to conclusionjump.” Vilya Ohtar still sounded as though he were sad that she did not trust him. The other warrior looked sharply at his comrade, it was strange to hear the usually air headed guardian dishing out useful advice. Silence, thick and uncomfortable fell over the group. This was going nowhere fast, and Khelek Ohtar did not like the way this woman was daring to try and hide her intentions from two protectors of the island. “Try us.” the ice guardian challenged the woman. Enelya sighed and shook her head “A temple or a cave, I dunno why or how I know I have to find it, but it holds the key to everything. It’ll explain why I’m here, why I can’t remember anything. Where I belong.” She had been right the first time; the ice guardian didn’t believe her. But then, if she was looking for a way to destroy the island why would she come up with such a vague cover story? Or was that what she wanted him to think? “I had some kind of vision the other night,” the woman continued on, seemingly oblivious to the wheels turning behind Khelek Ohtar’s eyes. “I’m not familiar with this land, but I got a general idea of where to go from the position of the mountain and volcano, they are rather easy to triangulate a general position from.” She turned back to the two warriors and uncrossed her arms. “I don’t really care if you guys follow or whatever, but you’re not gonna stop me from at least taking a look around.” “Well what are we waiting for!” Vilya Ohtar was grinning from ear to ear. He bounced over to Eenlya and threw an arm around her shoulders. “Which way?” The woman laughed and pointed to the west. “Then let us be off! Brother, are you coming?” Khelek Ohtar glared at two adventurers. “You need to go tell Naur Ohtar where we are. I will keep an eye on Enelya.” “Oh, but coldbrother, it will be latedark by the time I find him, you know how he is nowadays and then I won’t be able to find you two. Windriding at night is scary…especially out here with no village lights to show the way…” The ice guardian scowled at the rambling from his fellow warrior. “You will go.” There was no emphasis on the words, but the temperature must have dropped by five degrees Celsius. Enelya could feel the air warrior tense up at the drop in temperature but when the ice and snow around them did not jump up and try to eat him he sighed and relaxed. Vilya unslung his arm from the woman’s shoulders and turned to her. “Don’t let my brotherwarrior of slush push you around too much little sister.” Enelya nodded and hugged him briefly. “I’ll be careful, you do the same, k?” “Alright, I’ll be back soon!” the air guardian bounded away and leapt into the air. He caught a current of air and was soaring high before long with his arms stretched wide. “Ohh, that looks like fun.” Enelya longed to be able to fly, she had always wanted to be a pilot she realised. When the air warrior was out of sight, she turned back to find Khelek Ohtar watching her. “When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,” She glanced up at the unending expanse of the clear sky “for there you have been,” the woman returned her gaze to the ice warrior and noticed how the blue of his one visible eye mirrored that of the sky, “and there you will always long to return.” She finished the Leonardo da Vinci quote and sighed heavily before turning back to the rocky path she had been following. “I guess you probably have an idea of where it is I’m heading.” “Perhaps,” The guardian crunched along after the woman. “I don’t suppose you could describe this place you seek?”~*~ It was dusk by the time the air guardian returned, his orders were foggy at best, at least to his innocent mind. The leader of their little band of guardians had told him to get back to Enelya and to help Khelek Ohtar watch over her. There had been a warning note in the leader’s voice, something that scared Vilya Ohtar to the core. He wasn’t particularly good at reading all the hidden messages in the words of the wise warrior. But something was unsettling about Naur Ohtar’s reaction to the good news that Enelya was well and was going on an adventure, no doubt a quest given to her by the Gods. He had acted out of fear, the air guardian realised, but there was nothing that this woman could do to harm their home…was there? A shiver ran through the warrior’s body, which caused him to momentarily lose control over the air current that was holding him aloft. As a result he fell a short distance and before he could regain control of his trajectory, noticed an unusual glow from a facet of the peaks and rocky valleys below him. Gliding down to investigate Vilya found that there was a small cave with its mouth nestled among a few large boulders that would hide its position from any who might seek it from a lower vantage point. There was an orange glow issuing forth from the crevasse, probably from a campfire.~*~ The tension in the cave was almost more than Enelya could bear but there was something in her that gave her the strength to stick it out. Khelek Ohtar had followed her for a good portion of the rest of the day without comment. He didn’t say anything aside from occasionally pointing out a slightly better path to take and ordering a halt to their march when she began to limp a little too much. They hadn’t made much headway as she didn’t know exactly where they were going. Enelya had been constantly checking her position relative to the two points of reference she had been able to ascertain from her dream. They had gotten close, but were not quite there, she figured the place she was looking for lay in the next mountain valley. Mentally Enelya berated herself for being as weak as she was, even though she had probably traveled more miles in one day than she could recall herself ever doing. Though her injuries were healed there was still the problem of muscle atrophy from disuse. Knowing this allowed the woman to rest easy in the face of what she was considering a defeat. On a different note, Enelya wondered why the ice warrior had made her stop to rest for the night. He didn’t seem to like her and she was certain he was here to keep an eye on her and determine what threat level she presented to his homeland. For someone on a mission to keep a possible threat under control he seemed a little too accommodating, if a little cold from lack of conversation. Khelek Ohtar could have left her to flounder for the entire day till she dropped of exhaustion, effectively eliminating the danger she could pose. Instead he had called a halt to the adventure by leading her up to a small cave where he had forced her to rest while he set a fire burning from a stash of dry wood hidden in a shadowed corner. The warrior had carefully placed himself just inside the cave mouth where he could easily keep an eye on Enelya and ambush any who might try to enter unbidden. It wasn’t until she heard someone calling for her from outside that Enelya realised why Khelek Ohtar had been kind to her. Had the air warrior returned to find her collapsed at his comrade’s feet, a wedge of distrust might have been driven between the brothers. “Enelyaaaa!, Khelek?” Vilya Ohtar called from without the cave, he was a little out of breath but cheerful. With no prompting the warrior stuck his head into the cave with a bright grin on his face. Enelya was nearly asleep from exhaustion, he could see that immediately. But the tension in the small cave was tough enough that he was sure he could cut it with a knife, it was probably keeping her awake. The ice warrior was sitting near the cave opening glaring at him, the Gods help the poor woman if that cold unreadable gaze had been watching her for long. With a smile and a giggle Vilya Ohtar pulled a sword from its holster and began making some wild action figure karate slashes in the air between the two occupants of the cave. Enelya burst out laughing at his displays, which made the space feel a whole lot more inviting. “I thought it might help to cut that tenstionstring.” “Oh, it’s so good to see you back before dark, I was worried.” The air warrior ignored the cold glare of his ice brother and bounced over to Enelya to hug her. She had been forced to endure the torturous silence of the ice guardian for almost the entire day, and he had been out enjoyably windriding all day. “I missded you lots.” The woman mumbled into the warrior’s shoulder armor. She hadn’t gotten up to receive the hug, mainly because she was unsure if she could get up under her own power.“You talk funny!” Vilya Ohtar giggled. He sat down beside the woman and pulled her more closely against himself. “By the spirits you are cold!”“And you’re warm.” She had pulled her arms to her chest and was leaning into him.“Didn’t you take a blanket with you little sister?”“Of course, but I needed it to insulate myself from the cold ground. I didn’t realise I was gonna need more than one and I didn’t want to take another...” The woman tugged at a thin sheet she had folded under herself so the warrior could see it. Across the small cave the ice warrior sighed and got up, he moved to a shadowed corner and pulled a large blanket from under some rocks and threw it at the two huddled together.Vilya Ohtar caught the soft sheet. “Thank you brother.” He wrapped the blanket around the woman and hugged her close again. “I bet our firey friend would be able to make that flame better.” he nodded towards the ineffectual little blaze.“It is to keep back the night’s shadows, not for heat brother.” The ice guardian settled back in his original position and retook up his armaments. He settled a sword on his back, the other across his knees and checked the straps holding his shield to his arm.Vilya Ohtar looked down at the now sleeping woman. What if he had not made it back before night had set in…would his brother have allowed Enelya to fall prey to the cold that he could not feel? Vilya sighed and settled in a more comfortable position. Sitting against the wall with his legs stretched out, he rested the woman’s head against his shoulder. Vilya closed his eyes and began to doze off, he was also tired.“You will not call her sister again.” Khelek said from across the cave. “She is not one of us, nor of this land.”The air warrior looked up and frowned irritably “She had a vision from the Great Ones, that makes her a sisterwarrior.”“You do not know that for certain, brother.” The eyes of the ice guardian seemed to be intent on boring a hole through Vilya Ohtar’s head.As frustrating as it was to admit it, the guardian of ice had a point but Vilya was not about to let him know that. “Fine, but don’t quarrelfight with me when the great spirits prove to you she is one of us.” With that both fell silent, Vilya dosed off and Khelek closed his eyes but remained alert.~*~Enelya awoke curled up on the ground. It was early morning guessing by the light filtering into the small cave. Beside her sitting with his back to the cave wall was the air warrior, he was blissfully snoring away. Slowly pushing herself up with sore muscles, the young woman looked across the cave to find the ice guardian watching her with no expression on his face. Ignoring him, she settled with her legs curled under herself and stretched out her arms and shoulders with a yawn. She got up slowly, using the wall to steady herself. Still using the wall for support, Enelya began stretching her calves. She moved on to the rest of her legs, being careful not to fall while standing on one leg.Nature could no longer be ignored and Enelya moved towards the cave mouth. Khelek Ohtar watched her every move. He did not visibly tense up, but the woman was sure he would spring like a mousetrap the instant she came too close. “I’ll be back.” She announced. The man didn’t answer. A little apprehensively, Enelya stepped out of the cave and looked around. There was a large boulder to the right that she quickly moved around. Here she was sheltered from view of the cave’s opening.Free of nature’s duties, the woman moved back to the cavern’s mouth and listened to the sounds of the mountains. There was a deep hum of flowing energy, something she had always been able to hear when she paid the least attention to the natural world around her. There were birds singing, something the woman had not expected to hear this high in the foothills of the mountain. For there to be birds here, she thought, there must be a water source. Listening harder, Enelya detected the faint gurgle of a stream. Wandering around to the left of the cave, the woman discovered a sheltered nook hidden from the elements by the shape of the craggy rocks of the mountain. A small brook welled up from a deep underground source here. It gave life to some mosses and lichens that covered the rocks close to the stream. A few small birds were clustered on a tiny shrub next to the stream; they took flight at her approach. Enelya came to the water’s edge. She washed her hands then drank the cool clear water. The water tasted very good, she drank her fill and started splashing her face and throat. So absorbed in the joy of having water enough to clean her face with, Enelya did not hear the crunch of gravel behind her. After a good cleaning, the woman dapped her face dry with a corner of her skirt. In her mind she could hear her mother reprimanding her as she always had as a child for drying her hands on her clothes. With a sigh of contentment, Enelya closed her eyes and turned her face to the morning sun to bask in its warmth.“You should eat.” The woman nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice of the ice warrior. He was standing by the scraggly shrub to her left, holding out a few small berries to her. Enelya suddenly remembered she was hungry and took the offered berries.“Thank you.” She smiled, even though she had never liked fruits or vegetables much. The woman popped a small berry in her mouth and bit down on it. It was a little bitter, but not bad. Enelya finished them and took a drink of water. Turning back to the warrior, she found him carefully scraping some moss off of a rock with a small knife. Though the man’s hands looked mechanical and clunky, he was very dexterous with them. Once finished with the knife, Khelek slotted it back into a holster on a cleverly coloured belt that blended with his armour. He ripped the scraped moss in half and handed one piece to her. Taking his lead Enelya ate it quickly. The plant was very watery in taste, but the fibre in it filled her stomach quickly.“We will leave soon.” The warrior was already up and walking away. Enelya sighed, she didn’t want to get up but she did not want to show weakness by complaining. With a heave, the woman got herself up and wandered slowly towards the cave.“But it’s too earlybright!” Enelya could hear Vilya Ohtar complain loudly. The ice warrior answered him with a sharp command. The woman entered the cave just in time to hear Vilya mumble something about missing breakfast, to which she smiled and offered some crackers from her makeshift bag.The trek was taken up again as soon as camp was struck. The adventure continued westward to the crest of a thin mountainous ridge that overlooked an exotic vista. Down below the silent trio was a large open valley carpeted by lush green grass and furnished with a tall temple. A shiver ran down Enelya’s spine. She recognised the ancient slate grey stone covered in patchy moss, the four elegant spires that rose at each corner of the dome shaped structure. The woman glanced out over the landscape to the mountain in the north and the volcano to the northwest. This was the place.“Is this the temple you seek?” The unusually quiet air elemental asked. Enelya nodded. “But this is the Luhta Templa, it is empty now…”The woman wasn’t sure what that meant, but it certainly wasn’t empty to her, there had to be answers there, there just had to be. “Go home if you want, I have to take a look.” She looked down at the unstable rocks below her and began picking out a path.“Do you want me to carry you down?” Vilya Ohtar asked.“No, I’ll be fine.” The woman answered as a razor sharp rock tore through a corner of one of her slippers. It would have been nice to accept help, but this was her quest and she would not lean on these warriors.“Oh, okay.” The warrior seemed almost relieved that she didn’t want his help. “I’ll see you at the bottom!” he grinned and took to the air with a whoop of joy.What a child, Enelya thought to herself, wish I could join him…It took the better part of an hour for the young woman to reach the valley floor. The ice guardian had slid down coolly on a thin sheet of frost he had made. Up above Vilya danced in the currents, enjoying himself in the mountain air. By the time Eenlya reached the bottom she knew her feet must be bleeding but she ignored them, her destination wasn’t far off.As soon as Enelya’s feet were on the grassy earth the ice warrior turned and began the hike, forcing the woman to follow. The valley wasn’t quite as big as it had appeared from above. Getting to the temple took less than a half hour of brisk walking. Up close, the temple appeared much more worn, suggesting several millennia had passed since it had been built. Suddenly wary, the woman paused to consider the architecture and surroundings. The ice guardian on the other hand walked up to the doors of the temple and pressed a palm to the solid stone, lost in memory. A reverent silence fell, but was soon shattered by a childish giggle from atop the tall temple.“Lookit me!” Vilya Ohtar exclaimed as he alit on at the very top of the temple. He raised a hand to the heavens like a space alien calling their mothership. “I’m king of the world!” Enelya grinned at his antics.“Get down.” Khelek Ohtar barked.“But! But!”“Get Down Now.”“Fine!” The air guardian pitched forward and began to run down the dome of the building and when he could no longer keep his feet from sliding he pushed off of the building with powerful legs. Vilya landed neatly and rolled into a summersault to put the excess momentum to good use. He came up laughing with a bounce and landed on his feet with an almost startling agility.Enelya aplauded. “Well done!” She approached the air warrior and patted his shoulder.The warrior smiled and bowed, then turned towards the temple. “So what do you need here? It’s a mighty specialbig place!”“Answers.” A sudden uneasiness spread in the woman’s gut. There was something watching, something that didn’t want her here. “What, what is this place?” She asked, wondering if some foul history might explain her fear.“Big warfight happened here.” Vilya was suddenly solemn. “We defeated the Kshua here.”“Or so we thought…” Khelek added quielty. “Come inside.” He pushed open the great stone doors and strode into the temple.Following slowly, Enelya could not shake off the feeling of being watched. The steps up to the temple were small and more ornate than practical, the woman took them two at a time. At the top of the steps Enelya paused to look around. A shadow around the side of the building caught the corner of her eye, but when she turned to look, it was gone. Again she had to shake off the feeling of being watched. The woman almost jumped when the air elemental came up beside her and clapped a hand on her shoulder.“What are you slowwaiting for?” He asked jovially “Enjoy the adventurequest! This is what you were looking for right?”“Yes, yes it is, but…” Enelya bit at her lower lip in frustration at not knowing why she was afraid of something she couldn’t identify.“But what? I’m here, I’ll protect you from the mightybig spiders inside.”The woman had to smile at this. “Alright alright!” She laughed and started forward, but stopped when a sudden wave of pain washed through her head and body. The stabbing agony in the girl’s body forced her to muscles to contort and knot in an attempt to control the pain. Vilya Ohtar could see the spasming pain in the girl’s face and rushed to help her. “No, don’t! I can…” Pushing through the pain that held her hunched over and nearly paralysed, Enelya reached out towards the stone frame of the temple doorway. Just as in her dream the pain was driven away by the cool smooth stone. The woman breathed a sigh of relief as the sharp pain dulled to a mere throb. “Handle it.” she finished.“What was that?” Vilya asked in concern. “Are you alright?”“Yea, it’s just a ward incase Diemagon sends some minions back here…” Enelya paused as the elemental’s face took on a confused look. “What?”“What’s a Die-ma-gone?” He asked.Suddenly not sure of what she had just said, Enelya thought about it herself and could no longer recall what she was talking about. “Wait-I--What…?” She looked around confused for a second and suddenly remembered her dream as she noticed the design on the temple doors. “######.” Enelya stomped inside with the air elemental following warily behind. “Come on, come on!” She muttered as she smacked her forehead lightly. The woman threw a glance back at the warrior following her. “Sorry if I’m scaring you, I’m trying to remember…..” To this he just nodded.The main room inside of the temple was circular, with six statues placed equidistant around the room. The guardian of ice stood near the middle of the temple looking down at a large round hole carved into the floor. Enelya joined him curiously.“This,” He said. “Is where we came to defeat a great evil…but this…was not here….” He pointed to a metallic hatch and keypad set into the stone three feet beneath the temple floor. “This…”“Explains everything.” Enelya smiled and hopped down into the pit. The door had a military appearance to it. It was a clever design with no edges above the stone of the floor, making it impossible to pry up. The door was well fit to its frame also as the woman could not figure from which side it locked or where the hinges might be. With a smile she muttered to herself. “Trust Alex to make something even creepy crawlies can’t get into.” The woman brushed her hand across the keypad, remembering her friend. To her amazement, the buttons flared to life with a cold blue light. “Wholey Fudge! There’s still a charge!”“Oo, What’s that?” Vilya Ohtar questioned from above. Though Enelya could not see it, she could sense the ice warrior motion for silence.Quickly pressing a few keys to assess the functionality of the unit, Enelya suddenly remembered an old trick her friend had built into devices like these. As she took her hand away from the console, a little red light began to flash at the top right corner. A split second of thought and she pressed a combination into the keypad. The light began to flash faster. “ack…wait what was her favorite science quote…? Two plus two equals…Ten!” She quickly punched 2210 into the console and a green light on the left of the unit flashed on. The keypad suddenly depressed and slid to the side, retracting into a space below the floor. A small shiny pad rested below where the keypad had been. Pressing a thumb to this for a second produced a hiss and pop from near the front of the hatch. Enelya jumped back just in time for the door to pop open, propelled by a powerful spring mechanism. Two thin metal half circles functioned as hinges and allowed the door to swing open to the point it could lay flat on the floor opposite the shaft it covered.“We’re back in business!” Enelya said with a smile of satisfaction. As she went to climb down the hatch, a heavy hand fell on her shoulder and held her back.“No, you will not go first.” The ice guardian comanded.“You don’t trust me?” Enelya asked in a mock tone of sadness.“You guessed correct.” He looked at the woman harshly then turned to his brother “Go first, quietly, and beware of any traps.“But Khelek shouldn’t you go first? You can see through the walls…” Argued the air elemental. This only gained him a deep scowl. “Alright alright!” The warrior pulled a sword from its clip on his back and hopped down through the opening, trusting in his abilities.Meanwhile Enelya was grinning, she knew the ice elemental could not see through the floor of the temple. A fine magnetic dust had been layered into the stone floor and cemented into place. The shaft they were about to descend into was also layered in the material. The woman wasn’t about to give up all her secrets, not that she knew all of them herself as she hadn’t fully realised all she had forgotten but she waited to catch the warrior’s eye before descending into the door of the awaiting labyrinth.~*~The dimly lit shaft led down into a small room with tiny holes covering the walls in a regular pattern. At the far end of the room was a door, spaced regularly around the ceiling were small light sources resembling LED lights. Enelya quickly slapped Vilya Ohtar’s hand away from one of the little holes. She glanced back at the ice guardian to see if he knew what they were. She may have remembered a few things, but she could not recall if this room was also covered in the magnetic dust. When she saw curiosity in both warrior’s faces she explained what she knew. “If we try to force our way in or mess with these too much they will spray a very potent neurotoxin into the room.” They didn’t seem to understand. “It’ll fry our brain if we inhale it….basically we don’t wanna try it.”Khelek looked at the woman with a cold gaze. “How do you know so much of this place?”Enelya though hard, but her brain began to hurt sharply again. “I-I …can’t explain it yet, we have to go farther before I’ll remember it all.”“I am warning you now, if this turns out to be a trap, you will not live to see the sun again.” There was no hint of jest in the man’s voice, only truth.“I know”There was silence for a moment before the restless air guardian asked. “Sooo, where do we go now? How do we get through the door without setting off these thingies?”Enelya smiled slightly at his childlike curiosity and need for stimulation. “We take the secret door.” She jumped and hit a small panel of rough, low ceiling which depressed. The woman then turned and slammed a shoulder into the section of wall the three had been examining and began pushing at it with all her might. The well hidden wall section slid back slowly. “It’s --Ung -- mounted --ack -- on a spring system --oof!” A loud click sounded when the secret door was pushed all the way back. From here it could be launched at a startling speed if it needed to be closed quickly. “It closes real fast if it has to.” She explained. “Come on in, it looks scary but just don’t touch those tubes.”The two warriors proceeded very cautiously. Wires and tubes ran every which way behind the walls. It was a complicated system, and probably very deadly.“Um, I think the main compound is this way…” The woman turned to her right and pointed down the badly lit hall.Following the hallway was slow. When there weren’t dangerous tubes of neurotoxin hanging in the way, there were indefinable liquids staining the floor. But finally they came to a long section of relatively clean corridor with flat stone walls. This continued for a few feet before a dark open doorway loomed to the right. Vilya Ohtar approached cautiously with swords drawn only to jump back in fear when light suddenly erupted from within the room beyond.The woman smiled. “Dude, motion detector lights, calm down.” She brushed past the startled warrior and into the bright light of a work/storage room. A large table dominated the room, it looked like it was made of stone. Strewn across it were several small electronic gadgets. Most of these were gutted with their entrails littering a space in front of a tall chair. The guardian of air tip toed into the room behind the woman, looking around as though the walls were out to get him. Enelya turned to watch him a moment before clapping a hand on his shoulder, causing him to jump. “There’s no ghosts! Just a small machine!” She chuckled and pointed to a tiny glass semi-sphere above the doorway. Khelek, entering behind his comrade looked up at the small contraption. There were a few clicks from the man’s mask as he investigated the device. The woman turned her attention back to the items on the table while the two warriors took an interest in the shelves lining the left wall.Curiosity overcame Enelya’s logic that said to leave the only whole looking device on the table alone. Picking the heavy electronic device up carefully, the young woman examined the scratched screen on the front, the tiny silver buttons with no labels and the little lights above the screen. She turned the device over to examine the battery case which was empty. On the table where the device had been was a small square battery with she picked up and slotted into its place. There was a quick spark that gave the woman a jolt as the battery contacted the terminal heads. An excruciating pain filled Enelya’s head, so intense that she could not cry out. But suddenly as the pain had come on, it was gone and in its place were a thousand memories like little silver bubbles. Laughter and anger and sorrow all tried to surface at once but the woman fought to clear her mind enough to make the sudden rush of memories become coherent. But there was one emotion that would not leave no matter how hard she tried to shake its hold; fear. A lesson she had learned long ago, at the beginning of her long years of journeying was to listen to her instincts.Enelya quickly booted up the device in her hands. It was a multi-purpose unit built from cell phone parts, camera bits and a few pieces of alien technology. She looked up nervously to find the two men engrossed in examining the books and other objects littering the shelves. Clicking a large silver button on the device’s face, the dark screen showed a classic radar display with three tiny red dots focused at the centre and one large red splotch a fair relative distance from the centre dots. Near panic, Enelya switched functions to a utility control setting where the device detected a set of doors. The woman couldn’t remember the labeling system, one was the front door and the other controlled the door to this room, so she guessed and began tip toeing slowly towards the hallway. Just as she got to the doorway there was a loud roar and scraping sound that rumbled through the stone walls and floor of the compound.Khelek turned to the door in time to lunge for the exit as Enelya jumped back and slammed the close command button. “I’m the target. Not you.” He heard the woman say as the door slid from a space between the walls and nearly took his fingers off in the process of closing.~*~Once the door was closed, Enelya allowed herself to focus on her own safety. Flipping back to the radar display she found the large splotch closer to the centre of the display than it had previously been. Judging from basic directions, the creature was coming from the way she had stupidly left open for it. A memory surfaced just as she heard a loud scraping noise down the hallway. There was a back door, it could be opened quickly and shut behind her to at least give her a head start. With no time to think about minor details, the woman fled the scene as fast as her legs would take her away from the monster she knew was pursuing her.At the end of the very long corridor was a ladder which ended around twenty feet up at a sealed hatch. There was a large red button in the middle of the hatch which Enelya hit with a force driven by panic. The door burst open just as a frustrated howl sounded below her. Without looking the Woman scrambled out of the hole and slammed the door shut again but not without catching a glimpse of murderous eyes staring up at her from a distorted canine face. Enelya noticed a metal bar lying next to the hatch, which she picked up and jammed into a set of steel notches set on either side of the door.Knowing she was not safe yet, the woman ran from the cave. She suddenly realised that the air was cold when she came out into a landscape covered in snow. ######! She though. Now where am I gonna hide?~*~“ENELYA!!!” Vilya Ohtar banged on the door of the workroom. “LET US OUT!!!”“She won’t hear you!” The quieter warrior said when his comrade paused to listen. “She has left, no doubt with her monster friend.”“I don’t think she would do that without a good reason…” The air warrior was about to return to yelling when there was a scraping noise just outside the door. Khelek lunged and clapped a hand over the other guardian’s mouth before he could yell again.What sounded like a claw scraping a blackboard came from the other side of the door, this time it followed a horizontal line from doorframe to doorframe.There was a moment of deadly silence before the clicking of claws on stone echoed down the corridor and drew farther away.The ice warrior let go of his comrade and moved back from the door. “Stand aside.” he ordered the stunned air guardian. “Move!” He barked. The other warrior moved quickly to the side. Khelek pulled a sword from its sheath and pointed its tip at the door. A blue glow flowed along the blade from the wielder’s hand to the tip. The temperature of the room dropped as the frigid power of the ice warrior sucked all trace of warmth from the door. With a shift of his weight, Kehelk drove a powerful kick at the frozen slab of stone in his way. The liquid nitrogen cool door shattered. “Vilya, you are faster than me, follow Enelya and her friend. If you catch up to them, do not engage them in battle. I will follow quickly as I can.” Vilya Ohtar nodded without question and dashed from the room.~*~Enelya’s muscles were killing her after the first leg of the flight and the quick climb. Something she knew from experience was that in a lot of cases the body was capable of enduring far more than what would make it complain. Thus she ignored her aching muscles and fled north through the snowy valley before her.The monster wasn’t far behind, Enelya knew, and judging by what little she saw of it, the creature was something she had come to know as a shadowen. Not particularly large by monster standards, the shadowen stood around eye level with an average human. Which translated to a little taller than herself. This would put her at a disadvantage if she were to face it head on alone. The creature also had the ability to mimic the shape of other creatures, though not their size. It wasn’t exactly the smartest of all the creatures Enelya and her friends had to deal with. Some were able to access other dimensions to hide parts of themselves, thus making it possible for them to mimic size, shape and even voice.Not far behind, Enelya heard a bestial scream of triumph. A wild look around revealed that the woman had covered nearly half the snowy valley. She needed to reach the other side before the monster bore down on her. At least then she could let her life be taken knowing that the beast would probably complete its mission and leave the two trapped warriors alone. The beast would be perusing her across the muffling snow now, she knew she wouldn’t hear it until it was too late but she kept running.A massive paw slammed into the terrified woman’s side, knocking her to the ground a few feet in front of the monster. The shadowen, over five feet high appeared as a giant. Enelya was given a good view of its visage as it approached for the killing blow.The beast was canine in shape but aside from basic form, it was completely alien. The skin of the creature hung off it loosely in shiny black folds. Completely a defensive mechanism, these folds had little feeling in them which allowed the beast to take a lot of hits without showing weakness. Stronger in its torso and forepaws, the shadowen was not a speedy predator, but one who preferred the cover of darkness and a few well-placed swipes at its foe. Without hesitation this beast was going to kill Enelya, if only to gain a few pats on the head from its master. The woman stared into the demons murderously red eyes in defiance. As the beast raised a paw, Enelya triggered a small red panic button on the console she had held on to desperately. Pain contorted the shadowen’s face. Unable to control itself, the beast clapped its raised paw to its bleeding ear. Then the monster collapsed into a quivering mass on the ground as waves of agony rippled through its body. The girl had to fight the curiosity in her that wondered at the green color of the beast’s blood.Taking no chances, Enelya jumped up and began running again. Hopefully the beast would remain where it was for just long enough for her to find a hiding place. Up at the rise of the snow field’s edge, the woman faced a downward slope into a small stand of evergreen like trees. She glanced behind her and could not see the beast, which probably meant it was trying to find a way to surprise attack her. There was no time to loose, Enelya sat on her buttocks and slid down the slope, sending snow up her skirt and causing her to cry out. At the bottom she sprang up and fled into the forest, where she hoped to lose the beast.The trees were not thick, but they were large enough to play tricks on the monster. The woman hoped that the cold snow would help to mask her scent. By moving slowly, Enelya was able to make fake prints. She was also capable of making her tracks seem to disappear in a few places as she used a tree branch to swing to a farther or out of pattern spot. This would not be enough to hold the beast for long she knew, sooner or later it would catch up. At least twice Enelya thought she heard a disgruntled huff from massive lungs, but she did her best to not let this unnerve her.On the other side of the forest Enelya was faced with another fairly open field. The landscape was broken by a few dwarfed trees and some iced over boulders. Moving quickly, the woman used what cover she had to rest along the way across the valley. At the other end of the field was a craggy piece of mountain side which had a visible arch through it to the next valley. Getting to the arch would be risky, but if Enelya moved fast enough….The woman scrambled to the archway and flattened herself against the inside of it. There was no sound of alarm, no monstrous cry of triumph. Enelya breathed a sigh of relief and moved on to the next valley. There was only snow littering this section of the icy nation. This knowledge both worried and brightened Enelya’s bad day. The road would be less painful on her cold bleeding feet, but from here on in it would be more dangerous. With a sigh, the woman took up the vaguely marked path.A soft crunch of snow and a very low growl was all that gave Enelya warning to the sudden pain that ripped along her side, paralysing the hand carrying the small utility device. A hard snout pressed into her back, forcing the girl to tumble forward. She staggered, trying to hold onto her dignity and turned to face the monster. “You--You won’t g--get the others, th--they are stronger.” She said through chattering teeth.Down the line of its snout the beast stared at the woman with no feeling in its eyes “I was only sent to kill you, a pity really.” The spectral voice filled the woman’s head. “You are weaker than I was told you would be.” To this Enelya spit in the monster’s direction. “Fiesty I suppose…” The shadowen said in its strange way. “But you will not live to see another sunrise.” Enelya fell back from the advancing beast only to trip on a patch of ice. Again the young woman faced a paw raised to kill her without flinching.A green blur slammed into the raised talon, throwing the beast off balance. When the beast looked back again at its target, there was a green and silver armoured warrior facing it with a pair of four and a half foot swords. Without taking his gaze off the creature Vilya turned his head enough for Enelya to hear him. “Are you okay?”“Y-Yes.” She lied. The woman could not feel her right arm yet. She knew there must also be some nasty wounds down the side of her ribs. There was no time to think of herself as the monster suddenly launched itself at the courageous warrior. With almost twice the weight of the smaller guardian the shadowen easily knocked Vilya to the ground and began snapping at his throat. Before she knew what she was doing Enelya was up and had thrown the console she had somehow managed to fall beside. A roar of pain nearly broke the woman’s eardrums just prior to being slammed to the ground with an enormous clawed weight on her chest. The beast had lost an eye to the clever aim of his enemy. Only his left eye was still intact, forcing him to attack at the one shoulder on the woman he could see clearly.Crying out Enelya sought for the monster’s remaining eye with her good hand. When she found the eyeball a fraction of a second later she pressed as hard as she could, just as her scuba instructor had taught her to do with sharks.Blinded, the shadowen tore away from the woman’s shredded flesh. No sooner was the beast off its target than the green armoured warrior was on its back. When the monster swung its head around to sink its teeth into the guardian’s leg, its snout met with a hard metallic fist. The beast cried out, but wouldn’t give up. It quickly rolled onto its back, flattening the smaller body and crushing the air out of Vilya Ohtar’s lungs. Vilya came weaponlessly back to his feet in time for the creature to leap in in his direction hoping to come down on top of him. Slamming the warrior into the side of the mountain, the beast used the miscalculation to its advantage. The shadowen began raking its claws along the rock face and across the winded warrior when he was not fast enough to dodge. A paw to the head brought Vilya to his knees.Before the beast could land another blow a cold sharp blade pressed against its throat. The shadowen froze. “Touch him again and you die.” Enelya could feel the beast thinking, she wasn’t going to give it the chance to plan anything. “Walk away now and I will let you live this day!” She dug the blade deeper into the folds of black flesh till she could feel the beast’s heartbeat vibrating through the borrowed blade.“Alright! Alright! I will go…” The spectral voice in her head yelled in defeat. Enelya loosened the blade’s press on the creature’s throat.“Go.” She said, completely releasing the beast. The sightless monster slowly backed away. Enelya didn’t turn till the beast was through the stone archway. The woman knelt beside her friend.There was a crunch of snow behind Enelya. She turned, levelled the sword at the creature’s chest and thrust in a fluid movement. The shadowen choked and sputtered a moment before collapsing.The girl only allowed herself to close her eyes to the terrible sight when the beast had finished twitching. A chill ran down the young woman’s spine. Gaining control over her emotions, Enelya began to assess how extensive Vilya Ohtar’s injuries were.~*~Khelek Ohtar faced a grim climb up out of the labyrinth. Some large beast had crawled up the emergency exit shaft, pulling several ladder rungs out of the rock wall. The warrior moved slowly, careful to not cut himself on any pieces of metal the beast had torn up. In a few places he had to stretch and drag himself up with only his arm strength, which exhausted him before he was more than halfway up. At the top of the escape shaft was a section of bare rock wall which the monster had scraped clean of any useful handholds. Not wishing to waste his elemental energies on such a trivial problem, the warrior forced himself to take a daring leap off the highest rung.Once out, Khelek surveyed the cave he found himself in, and discovered it to be one near his home village. With little time to waste the ice warrior set out following the easily marked trail of the creature.~*~The air warrior turned out to be more badly hurt than the woman was, even though he was wearing heavy armour. Though, Enelya couldn’t tell if the lack of pain she feltwas due to shock or cold. There was little time to waste, the woman knew that shadowen usually travelled with a host of other small nasties following them. With this beast dead, the smaller creatures would not be far behind to take the carcass away. She did not want to be here to see the monster’s body dismembered. With little in the way of tools, Enelya rigged up a strap system to help her drag the warrior someplace safer. To keep herself warm, the girl pulled out the blanket she had borrowed and used it as a shawl, it wouldn’t keep her from freezing but it would stave off the cold till she could get somewhere safe. All she had to do was get Vilya to a village where there would be healers available to help him. She would have to strike out again on her own to avoid attracting other monsters to populated areas. With her plan in mind, Enelya guessed that the closest village was that of the ice people. Guided by the natural compass of the sun, the woman set out to save the life of her new friend.~*~Things were not looking good, Khelek had discovered an area of trampled snow with two sets of tracks leading away from the scene. Both sets of tracks were punctuated by spots of bright red blood. The warrior hoped this was not a bad sign, though it chilled him knowing that he had not heard back from his comrade.~*~It was beginning to get dark before Khelek happened upon the abandoned battlefield. There was blood and signs of a struggle. This was not a good sign, especially considering the familiar sword he found lying in the snow. Adding to his fear, the warrior discovered a patch of snow covered in a green fluid that could only have been blood. The snow was still steaming with the heat of a body’s warmth. The ice hearted warrior had nearly lost a brother a year ago. He was not eager to repeat the experience. With a little hope in his heart Kehelk Ohtar followed the drag marks in the snow, perhaps that wretched woman was taking his brother hostage rather than hauling her kill home. Steeling himself to what he might find, the warrior promised to get revenge if he met with the woman.~*~Enalya wasn’t sure if it was the upward climbing or the cold that would get to her first. She had to keep moving thought, her legs threatened to cramp up the moment she paused to catch her breath. The woman had kept a sword just in case another monster was lurking around. But the heavy object was weighing her down and impeding progress. The woman stopped to breathe and consider the darkening terrain. Night would soon be upon them, the girl hoped the moon would be out to light the way.Looking at the sword she carried, Enelya decided that that the life of the warrior was more important than a mere trinket. She stabbed the knife into the frozen ground. From here on in, she was on her own and defenceless.~*~

(If you don't want to read the preface pleace scroll down to the first '~*~'thinggy. Please Enyoy!) Review topic is here.Thanks in advance for any comments, suggestions or questions! Preface:So call me an old fan, but I loved Bionicle from the day it was first advertised. At the time I was something like 10 or 12 so that’s saying something for all the years I have followed and adored the story and characters. This piece of art is something I started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. (Okay, I’m still a nerd, so shoot me lol.) When I originally started this story, I made a promise to myself and a few people who I thank if they ever finally read it, that I would finish it and post here. I would like to say that I’m sorry to the people who were reading the old version, but University/College can get in the way of creative writing. I found the file for this story among some recovered documents from a crashed computer, and I decided to fix and finish it.I don’t want to post this without an explanation of where it comes from, especially since it is so long and I don’t want it to seem like every other piece of fanfiction out there. But I know it is annoying and whatnot to read every little prefacing to a story, you just want to get down to the fun part. So I encourage those who just want to get on with the recreational reading to go ahead and scroll down till you see the first ‘~*~’ thingy. If you want a little bit of background first, please feel free to read this next bit and please try not to judge; lest ye be judged by the Great Beings.This whole thing starts way before Bionicle was even a twinkle in the Lego Masterbuilders’ eyes. If any of you remember the Throwbots or the Roboriders, that’s where this all got started. Back then I was pre-highschool and I always wanted to be cool like my older brother.Among the hours and hours that me and my brother spent riding our bikes and chasing bugs in the summer before I got to highschool, he told me about this wonderful comic book he was starting with his friends. One of his the girls in his group was great at drawing cartoons, and a lot of his other friends enjoyed writing to one degree or another. So together they had hatched this story where they were a bunch of kids that got super powers. Of course I wanted to be in on the story, and I think he knew it. After he told me about the great comic book they were starting, he expressed a frustration that they weren’t able to find one among their group who wanted to be the classic ‘healer’ or water elemental type character. In retrospect, it was basically a female doctor Aqua-man that they wanted, which doesn’t inspire the best image. But at the time, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I asked if I could take the character, though of course I would always be the annoying kid sister to the group. My brother had already cleared it with his friends, and the stage was set. When we tried to put the thing together none of my brother’s friends could stick with a costume design, and school just basically got in the way, so the comic book got sort of left on a few pieces of paper in my memory box.Then I was inspired by some of the writings on this very website as Bionicle became more prominent in the Lego scene. Bored with school, I contrived to put the character I had made to good use. And this story was begun.Now, there is more to the old story than I have included in this novella, but I didn’t want to lose the story to details that I may someday explain in another tale. For this reason I encourage any readers to message me or post to ask if there are things I have left out.The main character isn’t what she used to be, but I tried to make the Toa Oldas (see I told you I am an oldschool fan!) as close to the original characters as I can without being an actual Masterbuilder. I’m sure that you will all notice that I changed names, mainly because I don’t want to infringe on Lego registered trademarks, and partly because it is cool :PSo, a final preface; you might notice that the beginning of this story is pretty boring with the classic putting oneself into the setting of Mata-Nui, but I hope some of you will read it through to get the bigger story. I Am also going to try and put this in one post, but since it takes up more than 200pg on Microsoft word, I don’t know if it will make it….I suppose this could also be considered a short story since I am trying for a single post, but I figure the length makes up for the lack of episodes. I’m sorry if this violates any rules or regulations, so I’m sorry in advance to the Admins if this is considered a transgression.Please Enjoy,I certainly got hours of enjoyment writing this story.~*~Time was non existent……blurred images bled in and out of view……heart beat to heart beat felt like eternity……distant pain clouded all possible thought …… Dreams … sometimes beautiful, but more often than not carried horrors more real than the outside world……the only consolation, the only silence in the thundering throb of mind and body was the blissful slumber of exhaustion…something that came for moments at a time … leaving the victim looking only to descend into peaceful oblivion, and be relieved of this torture……even crying to the heavens was no help, for it seemed that the powers that be had other plans… Close by, a door snapped softly shut. I wonder who that is… Thought Enelya groggily to herself as she decided whether or not to get up. “Good Gods, my body aches!” she mumbled incoherently to herself. What under the sun did I kick! she thought while she wracked her brain trying to assess if anything was broken before moving. After a few minutes of consideration, and trying to fight back the throbbing pain coming from almost every corner of her body, the young woman tried to move her left arm to get the time from her watch. ‘Ah!’ Enelya gasped as red-hot pain lanced up her arm and exploded in her brain like fireworks. Okay she winced even at thinking to herself bad idea… There was the sound of scuffling feet just outside the room Enelya was in, indicating that her gasp had alerted someone of her wakefulness. Not remembering what had happened lately, and not exactly compelled to, the young woman was curious to find out where she was. With some effort, Enelya pried open her tear-gummed eyes and quickly took stock of what little she could see without moving her head. The room itself was dark, lit only by the little sun coming in from the curtain drawn window situated on the wall behind her and to the right of the bed. As her eyes drifted toward the faint light, the young woman could see strange, beautiful flowers looming above her head, sitting in a wooden vase on the night stand. Above her was a ceiling made of woven branches that curved upwards and out of view as a wall that did not reach the roof made of woven fibers rose up beside her. Three walls were straight, the last, behind her head, was curved slightly, indicating that this building had an oblong shape to it, and the short walls suggested that this was one of several small rooms of what could be an infirmary, judging by the state she herself was in. A door opened at the opposite end of the room with a click and creak. Enelya snapped her attention toward the new comer, though she was not able to see them. “Hello?” She croaked. “Oh!” Exclaimed a boyish voice. “You are awake! I must tell the elder!” The door quickly snapped shut followed by the muffled sound of feet flapping down a corridor. “Well that was a great welcome.” A moment later the door opened again, this time Enelya could see a very tall figure silhouette against the daylight filtering into the room beyond. The man, presumably from the shape of his body, entered and closed the door behind him. “Are you the elder?” The young woman asked through parched lips as the man moved toward the window with measured, purposeful steps. “No” He answered in a deep, cold, slightly grumbling voice that felt seldom used to Enelya. Without expanding on that thought, the man reached for the curtains with strong-looking arms as Enelya followed their lean, curved form. “Close your eyes” He said quietly commanding, a warning that was just barely below an order. Slightly questioning this man’s motives for entering her room, Enelya reluctantly closed her eyes as the curtains were opened and sunlight was allowed to pour in with triumphant radiance at being allowed to finally enter. “Are you feeling better?” The man asked as the young woman continued to hold her eyes shut. “Better? Better than what?” She spared a glance between slitted eyelids at the man’s piercing blue eye. “No.” She answered after the cold stare he gave her. “I hurt!” Before Enelya could say anything further, her curiosity got the better of her and she inspected where the man’s right eye should have been. In its place was a large lens, partially covered by a sort of iris that blocked out too much light. The object was held in place by a thin silver piece that circled the lens and extended along his cheekbone and back along the side of his metal covered face. It looked like he was wearing a helmet or some face covering, perhaps to hide his identity. But, like a warrior’s face shield, the white coloured metal was covered in scratches and gouges. Another thing about the man that startled Enelya, was the white and silver metal that covered his body like armor skin. Some of this armor didn’t even look protective, but more like the sort of contraptions a crippled person might have to wear. The less armor like pieces had more functional shape than most corrective contraptions as though this was something that he never took off. Besides all the metal that covered the man, Enelya could see some rubbery substance between armor plates, but no clothing that she could identify. Now the woman was worried, what if she was in some military encampment? There was nothing she could do, she could obviously not run, and she had already been discovered. Something that really bothered her was that she had no recollection of having done something or being anywhere that would have prompted her capture. Sure, she had done things at school, but surely none of them had been that bad….? Enelya closed her eyes and took a deep breath, there was only one way to find out what was going on and if this was a dream or not. “Now that you are done staring, who are you and where are you from?” He asked, pulling up a small chair to the end of the bed, where he lifted the bed sheets from her lower legs and began poking gently and painfully at the bandaging while waiting for an answer.“Well who are you?! And quit poking at those please!” Cringed the young woman “That hurts!”“I am Khelek Ohtar.” He answered, with a hand still on Enelya’s lower right leg, as though he might heal the bruise and wound beneath the bandaging with mere thought. “Now who are you?”“I’m Enelya, and I’m from Canada, well actually I lived in Australia when I was little but I live in Canada now.” She answered, suddenly remembering why she had a very soft hint of an accent, and not exactly sure whether to assume she was still on earth or not.“Where is that?”“On Earth, the third planet, the white blue and green one.”He gave a sort of grunt, giving no other indication of whether he actually understood what Enelya meant. The thoughts and questions of the two strangers were cut off when the door slowly creaked open as a short, stooped person came in leaning lightly on a quarterstaff. The short man appeared very old, with boxy glasses and wrinkles of age, worry and smiling carved into his tanned face. He wore a thin, armless, simple robe of light green with symbols embroidered across the collar in tan thread. Like Khelek Ohtar, this man wore metal on his arms, legs and perhaps some beneath his robe. But different than the taller man, his metal armor was green, much more sparse and less heavy looking. As the man shuffled closer, the woman suddenly realised that the lines on his face were actually the intersection of very fine, thin metal plates. Perhaps this really is a military camp…. Thought Enelya with an inward shudder.Before the young woman could ask, the tall man stood and gave a short bow to the old man. “Elder Makau…”The new comer dipped his head, unable to bow. “Khelek Ohtar…” The elder shuffled into the bedroom. Soft-soled sandals on his large metal encased feet made quiet scuffle noises. The man’s feet were scarred from what could have been running around forests in his younger years. “And what would your name be?” He asked, bright green eyes dancing with mischief and curiosity.“Enelya sir” With tremendous effort, the young woman managed to lift her right hand a bit off the comfortable bed and offer a handshake. The elder leaned his staff against the wall and shuffled forward to take the woman’s hand with one of his own and pat it with his other. Though old, scarred and covered by some rubber and metal gloves, the elder’s hands were warm and gentle.“Wonderful to meet you Enelya, and don’t worry, we’ll have you fixed up in no time.” Elder Makau stared inquisitively into the young woman’s eyes, as though he would pry the answers to all his questions from her soul. After a moment, he smiled warmly and turned his attention to the heavy bandaging on Enelya’s arm. Still holding her hand, he reached for a thin piece of metal strapped to her arm. “I guess you don’t need something so heavy any longer, seeing as you can move this arm now.”“Wait, what is that?” Asked Enelya, not sure if that piece of metal was armor like that of the elder and Khelek Ohtar. Perhaps she was one of them, and the memory of this ‘Earth’ was just part of a dream….“That’s just a splint, you took a good slice on that arm, the splint kept your skin together.” The elder responded quickly, obviously a good healer. “You did take a great deal more damage to other limbs thought….it is a miracle of the Great Ones that you survived your ordeal…with luck, you may be able to sit up soon enough, though these bandages should be changed before that…” Makau turned to the tall man who stood silently by “Could you go call the others in for me?”Without a word Khelek Ohtar nodded and stepped out of the room. A moment later three other people entered the room, strangely, and to Enelya’s surprise, they were slightly shorter than the elder, and wore the same metallic green armor. It adorned their arms, legs, shoulders, parts of their chest and presumably their back. Their faces were also covered in very thin metal plates, each was unique and fitted well to the wearer’s face. The metal looked thin, and the suits themselves were slightly different for each person, probably to accommodate different body shape. Special needs were also among the reasons for these suits, Enelya realized as she could see that some of the limbs of the short healers were too large in places and much too thin in others, suggesting natural bodily deformities that the armor was compensating for. None of them wore clothing; the metal plating seemed to cover anything they might need to hide on their bodies.“These are Tassa, Trainger and Valora” The elder identified the three new people. “They are my best healers, and they have been taking care of you since you arrived two weeks ago.”Enelya gave a weak smile and greeting to the healers and returned her gaze to the elder who appeared to be headed for the door. “Are you leaving?”Elder Makau grinned. “I had other things to attend to, but seeing as you want me to stay, I’ll just go get a softer chair for my old bones.”“Thank you”~*~“Do you have anything like Tylenol?” Winced Enelya as the nurses pulled off yet another bandage “Savlon salve? Even something narcotic?” She focused on clenching her jaw and twisting the bed sheets with her mobile right arm to keep from crying out. The elder had administered some strange brown-green liquid that smelled horrible and tasted even fouler. The mix of different herbs had worked to take the razor sharp edge of the pain of the young woman’s injuries, but had not stopped it completely. This particular bandage, unlike the previous two or three, was concealing a deep puncture and gash wound on Enelya’s right leg, where part of a branch had jabbed into her thigh and had been torn out messily creating a long scar and neatly sending a tiny fracture down the femur. It was a wonder that the girl’s leg didn’t need to be in a traction cast.Though in great pain, the young woman did not wish to reveal any further childishness so she sighed as though this were an everyday occurrence, but with a hint of relief that the bandage was off. For some strange reason, it did feel like she had been through something similar before, though she couldn’t quite remember…Cool water splashed over the deep wound. Hmmmm…. Enelya purred as the water soothed away the pain like a mother’s touch calms her baby. “That feels good, did you add something to the water?” She asked softly, still enjoying a cool, tingly feeling from the water she assumed was still clinging to the wound.“My goodness child!” Exclaimed Makau. “The Great Ones certainly must be watching over you!”“Wha?” Enelya worked her bruised stomach muscles and propped herself up on an elbow elbow, just high enough to see the water on her thigh glowing a gentle blue. No sooner had she identified that the glow was unnatural and that she didn’t understand how this was possible, than the magical illumination had vanished and the sting of the wound had returned.~*~Though still a little stunned, Enelya was very happy that the phenomenon had taken place, for it appeared that the wound had healed significantly. In fact, it was almost gone, little more than a still very deep bruise and a nasty scar were left after the nurses had removed the crusted blood. Several more times, the young woman and her care takers tried to get the strange thing to happen again, but it appeared that the exact conditions would never be met. Luckily, the other wounds were mainly simple, and almost healed, probably requiring only another week of care to prevent infection. Once the re-bandaging was over, the elder dismissed the three nurses, and lunch was sent for.“Oh am I ever hungry!” Enelya suddenly realized why her stomach kept growling at her. “So, these warriors…” She went to continue the conversation she was having with the elder. “Or guardians…. as their purpose suggests… Are they friendly?”“Most are, I do believe you met one, Khelek Ohtar, before me.” The elder grinned as a look of recognition and mysterious curiosity came over the young woman’s face.“You mean the guy in all the white stuff? Why was he mean to me? He said hardly anything.”The grin on the elder’s face took on a more down cast look, as though he were unsure of the true answerer. “Well, he has many reasons, it could be because he is the protector of the ice lands, as his brethren are defenders of the other natural elements here on Luhta.”“Ah…. Ice, silence given form…” Sighed Enelya, as she recalled an old quote she had heard once, or was it something she had come up with…? The girl was just about to ask another question, when there was a shy knock on the door.“Enter,” Answered elder Matau.The door flew open as though blown by a gust of wind; a tall man strode in balancing three trays on a green-armored arm.“And this,” The elder announced. “Is Vilya Ohtar, our resident guardian.”Enelya stared up at the man. For the most part, his armor was the same as Kehek Ohtar’s, just green rather than white. This man was probably accustomed to running through the jungle and climbing through tall, ancient trees, as the sleek design of his armor suggested. The most prominent difference, was in his face, Vilya Ohtar didn’t have the strange eye piece, instead he had a helmet that curved around his face with a few raised sections that were probably designed to be very aerodynamic. A few vents around the man’s mask would allow him to feel changes in wind currents while moving. One such vent atop his head had managed to trap a leaf that had curled down to slightly obscure his vision as he entered the room. He attempted to bow the leaf away from his face, but failing miserably, just giggled. “I brought lunch up-tree, can I join you two slow-talkers?” He said with a whimsical tone and fast, almost slurred words, while pointing to the trays with his free right hand.Enelya was unable to contain a smile that crept across her face, watching the movement of the strange mask around his mouth and expressive green eyes was rather fascinating to her. The personality of this apparent guardian warrior made her feel completely at ease. “Of course you can, if elder Makau doesn’t mind….” She glanced in the elder’s direction.“For this being a quiet-talk kind of place Vilya, you sure can be loud.” The elder shook his head. “But I guess if lady Enelya wants you to stay, you can.”The man smiled sheepishly. “Sometimes I forget I’m inside….if only I could stay out in the sunshine for ever…” His eyes took on a distant look as he began to daydream like a child. Quickly forgetting the thought, Vilya Ohtar nimbly pulled a small table from the other end of the small room over with his left foot and put the trays on it.Enelya struggled to try and sit up, her deeply bruised stomach muscles cramped up and her right arm, though mobile, was still hurting slightly from minor injuries. The tall, armored man took notice and quickly came to assist her.“You look like you could use some help.” Vilya Ohtar announced. Enelya nodded, unable to speak from the pain of having tried to move her injured limbs. “Looks like you will healmend from that nasty fall-glide.” He commented as he put a strong, warm arm behind the young woman’s back and pulled her into a sitting position, from there, he fluffed the pillows so that they would help support Enelya. “Better?”“Much, thank you.” She said with relief. As the warrior turned to drag up a chair, a question popped up in her mind. “So were you the one to find me?” “No, my brother, ground-walking he was when he found you…” Vilya Ohtar answered absently while distributing the food trays “he thought you might have been sister Alu,” He smiled. “In a dress!” The warrior giggled, almost spilling some water from a glass on the tray he was setting up for Enelya. After putting the tray carefully on stilts on the bed for her, he looked up at the young woman’s face. “Gosh! You do look sorta like sister Alu….” He sat back into the chair he had pulled up, still staring at Enelya’s face, searching her deep brownish-green eyes with a questioning look. Vilya Ohtar crossed his arms in thought, leaning back in his chair.Enelya, not sure what to make of this, she stared back until she could feel warmth creep across her face. She averted her eyes and turned toward the elder for answers.The elder reached a knobby hand over behind the warrior and slapped the back of his head with good force for an older man. “What are you thinking you Kshera maggot? Scaring a woman like that! If this had been your sister, you would have a nice red mark on your face!”Vilya Ohtar put a hand to the back of his aching head. “Oww…I was only thinking! She does look like sister Alu though… but she’s different!”“I don’t even know who that is.” Enelya spoke up. “but calm down, no harm done, I just want to eat, please!”~*~Hours later, the sun had fallen in from the sky. The room was lit by a small stone on the bedside table emitting a glow just strong enough for a nurse to administer medication by but low enough that a patient could sleep comfortably. Enelya rubbed her forehead with her right hand in frustration. She could not remember anything of the past few years. The last thing she could recall was writing her grade 11 final exams and going home to play videogames to get a jumpstart on summer holidays. But her body was different than she remembered. Her medium length, curly brown hair was long now, reaching near the small of her back. Aside from the weakness from being bed ridden for two weeks, she felt stronger than she ever had during highschool. Cramped leg muscles felt like they needed to run, but she had never been all that active, which suggested that her body was now accustomed to a sport or something. Almost embarrassed to admit it, Enelya looked down at her breasts, they were larger than they should have been for her age unless she had forgotten undergoing some kind of plastic surgery. And her face! Enelya could not see her face for lack of a mirror, but tracing the lines of her more pronounced cheek bones and strong jaw, she most definitely had grown into a woman, or was on the verge of doing so.Enelya sat up with a little difficulty, but managed. Yes, she was definitely older than her memory told her she was as she contemplated her small hands and long slender fingers. Clenching her teeth against frustration, the woman lightly smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand, “Why can’t I remember!” she groaned. Despair washed through her, Maybe I won’t ever get home, maybe this is home…That thought terrified her, if she was actually of this world, then what did that mean of her memories? Her friends and family, the laughter over inside jokes and wonderful adventures she had been on, all nothing but a dream?Had there been enough light to see clearly, the woman’s vision would have been distorted by the tears welling up in her eyes. Sore, cracked lips pressed tightly together, she suppressed the urge to sob uncontrollably. She did not want to be caught crying if one of the nurses happened to come check in on her. Enelya took in a deep, shuddering breath and released it slowly.A very quiet tap on the door caught the young woman’s attention. It was probably a nurse coming with some more of that horrible painkiller. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Enelya snuffled a little to try and remove that after-crying tone from her voice. “C’mon in.” She called just loud enough that someone on the other side of the door could hear. The door clicked quietly and opened just wide enough for the tall form of the ice guardian to slide in sideways and close the door behind himself. At first Enelya felt like her space was being invaded by the way he stood there staring at her with his cold blue eye but then she noticed that the lens covering his right eye was moving, changing from one setting to another. Watching his left eye, she guessed he was scanning the injuries all over her body, pausing on the serious ones. After a moment, his piercing gaze turned to her face.“What is bothering you?” He asked. Enelya opened her mouth to reply with a smart remark and the warrior frowned “Aside from the obvious reasons.”The woman sighed. “What should you care?” She answered in a quiet voice as her gaze fell to the floor. “I must look like some stupid, strange creature to you….”There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as the two considered the nature of the other. “Strange yes, stupid...” The icy man carefully chose his next words “I can’t say for sure yet.”“Huh” She mused. “May as well call me stupid with this empty head of mine,” she turned her gaze to face him. “I can’t remember a ###### thing about the last few years of my life.”The warrior’s icy stare defrosted by about two degrees. “I know what that’s like.” He came over to the bed and pulled up a chair. “The knowing will come, at least that is what the elders always say.”“Huh, I suppose they’ve never heard of brain damage before.” The woman grinned weakly. “I’ve been zonked for two weeks, from what Elder Makau says, so I don’t think this memory of mine will come back. At least not for a long while.”Khelek Ohtar leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other at the knee. “Hm” he grunted softly. “It’s not like mine ever did.” He muttered quietly, forcing Enelya to listen intently to hear him. A heavy silence fell in the wake of the warrior’s words. The young woman was the first to break it with a turn of the topic and a bit of insight that startled the ice hero.“So I bet you think I’m some threat, this Kshera character sounds pretty nasty.”“Am I so easy to read?” He frowned.Enelya smiled. “Oh I don’t really know, maybe you just find bothering a battered woman late at night romantic or something like that.” When the warrior glared at her with a chilling eye and did not answer, Enelya looked down at her hands. “I can tell you I pose no danger. I don’t even know where this room is in time and space, let alone how to take down an entire civilization.” The woman gave a weak laugh at her own words. “Guess it doesn’t really clear my name telling you this, but I wouldn’t lie to someone who helped save my life. Your friend told me that’s why you were here today, said you were checking to see I was healing alright.”“He is my brother.” Khelek Ohtar corrected icily.“I suppose ignorance is bliss.” She looked up, noting the correction in her mind, but refusing to comment on it.“Rest now.” Khelek Ohtar stood up, obviously ending the conversation. He returned the chair to its place in the corner. “I will return in a few days.” He bowed his head to Enelya and turned to leave.“Goodnight, travel safely.”The ice guardian opened the door only to find one of the nurses reaching for the handle. He opened the door wide to admit the short healer who entered carrying with her a bottle of medicine. Vala looked up and gave a slight bow of her head to the warrior before glaring up at him. “Khelek Ohtar, with all due respect, scoot! You shouldn’t be bothering the patients this late.” She fluttered a hand at him, trying to herd him out the door. An icy frown nearly broke the little nurse’s resolve. She stopped trying to make the guardian move, and instead she jutted her chin out at him and gave a mighty ‘Hmfh!’ before bustling over to the bedside.~*~On his way out of the village, the ice warrior stopped by a guard station. Over the past year the villagers here had picked up a few habits such as posting watchmen at night to deter any who might seek to endanger their home. “Beware,” Khelek Ohtar glanced significantly back towards the infirmary. “The prisoner woman is a clever one, do not let her fool you.”“But Sir, she is not a prisoner!” The short guard exclaimed, astonished that the ice warrior would think the worst of a life he had helped to preserve.The guardian did not discredit his warning by arguing with the villager. He gave the little warrior an icy sidelong glance as he turned to leave. The guard straightened at his post under the tall guardian’s gaze, but he did not remove his worried expression over the frightening warning he could hardly think of as truth.~*~ “Vilya Ohtar,” The elder called from his shaded perch high up in the branches above the village proper. The warrior had just landed very nearly below Makau after completing a sweep ride of the territory around the village. Vilya looked up upon hearing the elder’s voice, just in time to jump back as the elder hopped down from his branch. Falling from that height would not harm Makau, in fact it would have been rather rude to catch the older man in the middle of his acrobatic tumble. Vilya Ohtar just laughed and helped the poor elder up after he had landed on his feet only to rock back on his heels and fall on his buttocks. “You might want to go see our new friend.” Matau said, ignoring the laughter of the village guardian. “The poor thing is being kept inside on a day like this?” The air warrior glanced around at the sunlit treetops and blooming flowers from a dozen or more wild plants that took up residence in gardens around the village. “Of course!” The elder began shuffling towards the centre of the circular platform that made up the centre of the village. “She is not well enough to be up and about.” Makau nodded towards some villagers who were putting together a small stage for a concert that would be taking place soon. He had been helping them find the best location for it from his perch and was satisfied with the placement of it. “Well I will go see her, perhaps I can cheer her up with some storytales.”~*~ The day had begun badly, the foul painkiller the nurses were giving Enelya seemed to have lost its effectiveness since she had awoken that morning. As much as it pained her to admit it, the woman longed to return to the state she had been in earlier where she was half unconscious most of the time. At least the really bad one isn’t so bad now…Enelya thought to herself, recalling the odd phenomena that had reduced the severity of the wound on her leg. The majority of the pain that was bothering her now was dull aches and throbbing that while alone were nothing to complain about, together were enough to have her in tears. A distraction would have been nice, but the nurses were busy with other patients, some of them in pain greater than hers judging by the loud wails and muffled curses occasionally coming from other rooms. Almost as though he had read her thoughts, the air guardian appeared at the open door about mid-day. He was carrying some kind of simple acoustic guitar. Leaning against the doorframe, Vilya Ohtar plucked a few strings with his right hand and in a light tennor voice sang “Thought you’d be bored, want to hear a little storytale?” The woman smiled, she had played in the school band and rather enjoyed music. “Come in, Come in! I would love to hear a few songs!” Enelya’s voice was still a little rough, but it was functional enough that she might be able to participate in the music if the melodies were not too complex. This distraction would help to ease her pains, or at least put them to the back of her mind for a while. Vilya Ohtar skipped into the room and pounced onto the bed near Enelya’s legs. The woman cringed at the sudden movement of injured limbs. “I’m sorry I’m sorry!” The warrior started to get up but the woman grabbed his arm. “No, it’s alright. You are already there, it’ll hurt worse if you move around more.” “Oh, okay.” Vilya settled slowly and carefully with his back to the foot of the bed and his legs stretched out in front of him. “What storytale might you like to hear?” He settled the guitar in his lap. “I don’t playsing very well but I am learning everquick.” “You sounded good a moment ago, I’m sure you are better than you think.” “Maybe, Elder Makau said I should play at the festival…” The warrior trailed off in what seemed to be a blush, though Enelya could not see any change in color of his face. “You must be very good if he asked you to do that.” The woman smiled. “would you play me the song you’re going to sing?” “Oh, it’s not done yet, but I could tell you the tale of Konu the birdwrangler, It’s my favourite!” There was a childlike enthusiasm that lit up the elemental’s eyes. Enelya found it rather endearing, and with no idea what a birdwrangler was, she was curious to hear the story. “Alright, I’d love to hear it. Is there any part I could sing too?” “Of course there is!”~*~“And you just walked away!?” The fire warrior fumed. Had his icy brother not been able to cool the air around himself, he might have burst into flames from the heat emanating from the fire elemental’s body.“Naur Ohtar, she cannot harm us in her state.” He answered quietly, forcing the fire guardian to hold back more sputterings of rage that would prevent him from hearing the sensible words. Naur Ohtar was the same height as his icy counterpart, and covered in red and silver armor. His breastplate, shoulder pads and occasional accents were silver, while all other pieces of metal were red. He carried a pair of swords with an intricate flame pattern carved down the flat of the blades. At the moment the sharp edge of the weapons glowed an angry orange, further indication of the guardian leader’s fury.After checking in on his own homeland like a worried parent over a newborn baby, the ice warrior had reported to his brother warrior. He rather dreaded travelling to the home of the fire people, who lived in the shadow of an active volcano. But the shrewdness of the woman who had mysteriously appeared on the island rather unsettled him. What bothered him more was the fact that the leader of the warriors of the island was angry for his not being more cautious with the woman. Normally one of the more wary warriors, Kehelk Ohtar wondered if he was losing touch with his own nature. But then he recalled just how weak the strange woman had appeared and forced his nerves to calm.The fire warrior sighed and turned to meet the gaze of the icy guardian. “Do you think our sister might be able to sense more?”“She might.”“Alright, I will go in search of her, you return and keep an eye on the intruder. No matter how damaged she is, there is still a chance she might be a threat.”Khelek Ohtar nodded, his brother had grown over the years he had known him. Before he might have blundered in and tried to harm the girl for having set foot on the island. But now he understood the value of patience when dealing with certain foes. By asking him to ‘keep an eye’ on the girl meant more than just watching her. The fire warrior had learned to use the abilities of his comrades to accomplish things that alone might have been impossible. Khelek Ohtar would watch and listen and try to gain some hopeful clues to the woman’s motives for coming to their peaceful land. If she posed a threat, he would keep her from completing whatever mission the Kshera had set her on.~*~ With a great effort of will, Enelya pulled herself into a sitting position. It was very dark, the sun had left the sky many hours ago. Luckily the nurses had decided to leave the small light stone even though they didn’t need to administer medication as often as before. For this, the young woman was grateful. Gathering her willpower, she mustered the strength to move one battered leg and swing it over the edge of the bed. The other leg followed suit shortly after with a soft grunt escaping the girl’s lips. She sighed, that was the easy part. Gripping the small table with her left hand and the edge of the bed with her right, the woman clenched her jaw to prevent screaming in pain as she heaved herself up. Bruised muscles complained loudly but they did their job and without so much as a sound, Enelya had achieved freedom from the bed she had been banished to for the past week or so. Steadying herself with a hand on the wall, the woman shuffled her feet slowly towards the door, testing her legs. They were shaky, but functional. Turning back towards the bed she let out a grunt of amusement. The room was really not very large, she reached out and plucked the light stone from the table. ‘I suppose it’s a victory of sorts.’ She whispered to herself. She looked around, there were a few sheets and towels folded neatly on a stand at the end of the bed. She let go of the wall, shuffled over and picked up a towel. In her hands it felt smaller than a hand cloth, but it would have to do. Bending over, she felt along the shelf just below the sheets. Her hand came into contact with a metal pan. Self-consciously, she pulled her hand away from the cold metal. It was a bed pan that she had made use of in her stay here. Enelya shook her head to clear it, she inwardly vowed to never be so weak again as to be unable to get herself to a washroom, and thanked the gods that she had not ever wanted to be a nurse as a child. She continued to feel around on the shelf and found a bar of soap. Enelya straightened up and looked around a moment, a bit of apprehension dawning on her. What if she got out of here and was unable to make it back safely? What creatures might be roaming outside at night? Again she shook her head to clear it of useless thoughts before turning to the door. The door opened noiselessly to a dimly lit hallway. At one end was a desk illuminated by a lightstone. Sitting asleep at the desk was a nurse. Enelya wasn’t sure if she could move quietly enough to get out the door at the other end of the corridor, but it was worth a try. She closed the door behind her as silently as she could and began making her way to the yawning doorway that led out to the village. Pausing at the door to listen, the woman could hear no sounds that indicated she had been discovered. The young woman stepped lightly to the side and leaned against the wall with a sigh of relief. Looking around, Enelya identified the softly glowing embers of a large bonfire besides which there was no other source of light that she could see. Movement also seemed to be missing from what she could see. Good, she though, I’ll get out unnoticed. Just as Enelya set her sights on a railing that appeared to be a viewing platform from whence she might plan her route, there was a soft noise very nearly beside her. Suppressing the urge to run or turn her head at the sound, the woman listened hard and was able to detect another similar sound, this time closer. With a glance towards the sound, Enelya nearly shuddered with fear as she saw a tall shadow moving towards her. Reaching into the folds of her towel, the girl produced the small light stone and held it out towards the shadow, hoping to drive whatever it was back. The warrior of earth fell back from the sudden illumination; he covered his face with his huge hands and cried. ‘Put it out! Put it out!’ Startled, Enelya partially covered the stone. ‘Who, Wha-What are you doing here?’ She asked in disbelief. “Looking for you and brother Vilya.” The darkly armoured warrior said much more quietly, lowering his hands. “I always travel at night, it is easier on my eyes.” “Oh,” Enelya sighed with relief. She began to calm her racing heart and nearly lost her balance as she tried to relax the taught muscles in her arms and legs. The warrior reached over and griped her arm firmly. From what elder Makau had told her, this guardian was probably the strongest of them all and could have easily snapped her arm or neck without so much as straining a finger, but he did not put any undue pressure on her probably frail looking arm. The lighting was dim enough that Enelya could not distinguish many details of the man’s figure. She could tell that he was shorter than the other two warriors she had met, his hands were larger and his eyes were a slightly deeper green than those of the air guardian’s. Strong as the earth warrior was reported to be, Enelya felt no fear when his deep gravelly voice took on a serious tone. “What are you doing out of bed so late?” Kemen Ohtar questioned. “And why on Luhta are you alone?” “I need a bath,” She shrugged, figuring the truth was better than a lie at this point considering he might be able to help her. “Vilya Ohtar hates water and, well, I need privacy…” “Oh is that all!” The warrior chuckled. “You girls are all the same, so secretive but I suppose that’s why us silly men are curious about you. Well, you’d better let me help you down to the water. I’m not saying you aren’t capable of it, but I would feel better knowing you were safe.” Enelya smiled brightly at his comment on women. “I would feel safer that way too.”~*~ The way down to the water turned out to be a rather terrifyingly long climb down to the ground, Kemen Ohtar suggested the simple rope and basket elevator, which they took over the long way down. A dirt path wound its way around trees and rocks. Enelya walked with her right arm curled around Kemen’s upper left arm. She could feel the movements of his body which allowed her to avoid dangers invisible in the dark, and lean on him when she needed. There were several rivers that ran through the jungle, this was the largest and broadest the earth guardian had told her as they walked. The sound of his voice was calming in the near pitch black. It was not long till they could hear the water rushing through the trees, eager for the vastness of the ocean. Just as the roaring sound of the water was loud enough to vibrate in Enelya’s chest, the trees of the forest were suddenly left behind. The two found themselves standing in a rather large clearing. The moon had broken free of the clouds to illuminate the forest and allow Enelya to see rather clearly without having to unsheathe the lightstone she kept covered for the warrior’s benefit. Dominating the scene before them was a large waterfall that rumbled off of a sheer rock face. There was power here, Enelya realised, more than there should have been. She could feel a yearning so deeply engrained in her soul that she was almost unable to stop herself from running towards the pool of water at the base of the waterfall. Beside her the warrior had fallen silent, taking in the majesty of the waterfall. Enelya smiled, maybe he sensed the energy too. She gripped his arm gently, trying to remind him of their purpose here. Kemen glanced at her with a grin. “I always forget how powerful and beautiful the waters my sister commands are.” He mused before leading the young woman down to the water’s edge. He helped her kneel down before the pool. “I’ll just be over there around that bend in the rocks if you need me.” with that he stood and turned to go. “Thank you,” She said. “I won’t be too long.” Not waiting for her friend to be out of sight, Enelya tore off the thin night gown the nurses had given her along with her undergarments and slippers. The woman looked down at her still bruised and battered body and took in a sharp breath. I must really look horrible, she thought. She knew her long brown hair was greasy and caked with blood still, and her face could use a good scrub. Not wasting any more time thinking about it, Enelya dipped her hands in the cold water and took up the soap. The battle against grit and grime was a long one. After three latherings, the young woman finally decided her hair was sufficiently clean. Her body was another matter, after trying her darndest with soap and nails to get some of the caked blood off her arms, Enelya turned to rough gritty sand that she found at the edge of the pool. Finally satisfied, the woman stood up and began to wade into the water. The bottom of the pool consisted of rocks covered in a very thin layer of slime, making movement treacherous. The water was also very cold, causing the girl to shiver. But she managed to get into the water by crouching low and shuffling carefully across the stones till she came to a point where the bottom dropped off to depths unknown. Judging the depth of the water for a moment, Enelya sat herself down and let her feet fall off the edge . The water was comfortingly only up to her shoulders. For a few minutes she stayed there and let the relatively gentle current carry the suds of soap away. The water no longer felt cold, in fact it was warm and getting warmer. Strangely, it was not frightening in any way to Enelya. Without knowing why she leaned forward and let herself float into the middle of the flow of water. The water should be carrying me away but...The incomplete though bobbed in her mind as she was held in the embrace of the waters. She felt safe, and soothed, like when her mother use to sing to her, but she could not identify the source of the comforting feeling. Not wanting to deal with the angry throbbing of aches and pains just yet, the woman let herself be soothed for a few minutes. Sufficiently relaxed, Enelya began to wearily swim towards shore. She pulled herself out of the water and began toweling off. Enelya reached for her clothes only to discover that they were not where she had left them. She looked around and could not find them. “Oh for the love of..” she stopped mid-sentence as she stood and spied something white resting on top of a rock very clearly placed where she would see it. Carefully approaching the unfamiliar object, the young woman reached out and hesitantly touched it. It was a soft fabric, almost fleecy to her sensitive fingertips. With a frown, Enelya picked up the material, accidentally letting some of it slip her fingers to reveal a long skirt. It was a simple dress with no sleeves. The neckline was a shallow ‘v’. The waist was a little wide, but it had a ribbon that ran across the stomach and dangled at the sides, evidently designed to be pulled back to the correct size and tied. Someone had put some thought into this. Looking back at the rock, Enelya also found a set of undergarments and slippers, very similar to her own. She sighed, wondering how someone had duplicated hers so well. The air was chilly so she gave up thinking and quickly slipped into the new clothes. Under the new clothing she found her discarded garments but she decided the new ones were a better choice.Finding Kemen Ohtar was a simple matter, Enelya rounded the bend in the rock face he had indicated earlier and sitting cross legged in a large open area was the earth warrior. He was looking up at the stars, one hand on his chin in concentration, the other hand rested on the ground behind him next to a small backpack. Moving silently as she could, Enelya snuck up beside him and sat down. “Which star are you contemplating?” “That one.” He pointed in the general direction of a group of bright stars. “Hero stars?” She guessed by the number of bright points in the general area of the sky he had indicated. “Yes, sometimes I wonder who puts them up there…” Enelya let the warrior ponder for a moment more. “Ask one of the elders one day, I’m sure they would have an answer.” She felt it would be rather mean of her to shatter his illusion with the truth that stars were really just huge burning balls of gas billions of miles away in space. The earth hero turned to her. “You’re right, they might be able to answer that.” He smiled at her insight and seeing her in the dress he had set out for her. “Do you like the dress?” “Of course!” She hugged him tightly. “It fits perfectly, but how did you get everything else so exact?” “Well.” He seemed to be blushing though Enelya could not see it in the gloom. “You happen to be very similar in shape to my sister warrior…” Enelya released him from the hug and grinned. “well it’s all perfect, thank you. I think we should be getting back soon.” “Yes, yes, of course.” The warrior stood up and offered a hand to the woman. “You must be cold.” “A little.” She admitted, taking his hand and getting up. “The Great Beings! What happened to your arms!?” The usually quiet man exclaimed eyeing Enelya’s hands and arms. She looked down at her hands and suddenly realised that the bruises and welts that had covered them were gone. “I…What? I-I don’t know” The woman stammered, unable to explain the phenomenon.~*~ Getting back to the village was easier than leaving it with Enelya’s wounds healed. She still held the warrior’s hand to help judge where obstacles were and how to avoid them. The warrior walked on in near silence, only speaking to point out less obvious obstacles. When he did speak, Enelya could hear that he was tired which made her realise that the man was not actually nocturnal. Just as he had mentioned earlier, he found travelling after dark easier on his senses. Once in the village, Kemen Ohtar helped her to bed before going off to another building he told her always had room for an extra hero. Sleep came to Enelya quickly. She was tired from dealing with the pain of her miraculously healed injuries for the majority of the day. The woman was still bruised in a few places but most of the pain was gone, exhaustion had replaced the large part of her brain that had been occupied with pain. Enelya was also cold, the water had not felt particularly cold when she was in it, but walking back with wet hair had left her shivering. Now warm in bed, the young woman hoped for peaceful dreams, though something in the back of her mind told her otherwise.~*~ A flash and thunderous bang woke Enelya from a comatose state. She was lying on her back with droplets of water running down her face. The air was cold, damp and full of static energy from the passing thunderstorm. “Alex?” Enelya croaked “Sam?…” A deep sadness filled the woman, her friends must be dead. Sitting up and surveying the muddy ground around her, she could not see any traces of her comrades. A ray of childlike hope clung to the back of the woman’s mind. Maybe they survived…maybe they forgot me…she thought. Enelya stood up slowly, she wasn’t sure where she was anymore, she never really knew with all the travelling she did. There were no distinguishing characteristics about the immediate area to jog the woman’s memory. Not that she could see much of it in the darkness anyway. Perfect vision might not have helped in any case, as the woman’s mind became more awake she suddenly realised that the names she had called out earlier had no meaning to her, she felt like she should know them but could not put a face to those names. If she didn’t know her friends, then she probably wouldn’t know where she was even if she could see it clearly. A shiver ran through Enelya’s body, she was cold and would need to find shelter. That’s when she noticed a light in the distance, small and feeble looking, it had the appearance of a candle flame. It might be something dangerous she though, but glancing around and finding nothing but darkness, the woman decided moving away from the light source might be more dangerous than whatever had created the light. Movement was slow and frustrating in the near blackness. She kept stumbling on the uneven ground and every time the woman looked down to regain her footing she would return her gaze to the light only to find it farther away. It wasn’t long before Enelya began to suspect that she may be still alseep. Pausing for a moment to catch her breath, the woman closed her eyes briefly and tried to force herself to wake up. When Eenelya opened her eyes next, the scene around her was illuminated by sunlight. Before her stood a temple tall, ancient and silent. “Huh, now I know this is a dream.” There was a hum of power in the air. Curiously Enelya looked around and found that the land around her was a desolate rocky landscape with little features beyond a tall mountain to the north and a volcano to the northeast. “Wait, how did I know where north is…?” There was suddenly a great pain in the woman’s head as she tried to remember where that piece of information had come from. Clutching at her head, the young woman nearly fell over. Reaching out a hand to steady herself against the temple, the solid stone of the door seemed to drive the pain away. As if a fog had lifted, Enelya recalled how she knew north from south in this alien land. She had been here before. A little startled, the woman looked up the stone temple doors. If just touching the stone had allowed her to recall this, then what might she remember if she were to go inside? The stone felt warm under her fingers, she recalled how cold she had felt a moment ago and shivered. Eager to be warm Enelya applied a bit of pressure on the door and it began to slide back on silent hinges.~*~ Morning was not far off, birds had begun to sing softly outside Enelya’s window. The decision to investigate her dream had not been an easy one. Leaving would certainly raise alarm, but she didn’t know when that dratted ice warrior would return. He would surely stop her, and she knew that the others probably trusted his judgement. The woman also figured that childish as the resident guardian was, he would not take such a risk as to help her sneak out. Though Enelya didn’t want to leave, she knew she had to if she was going to get to wherever it was she was going soon enough. That bit of her dream where she had been wandering around cold and hurt seemed to indicate a time limit. She would have to leave shortly, but preparations had to be made. So far she had gathered a worn out sheet, a few bandages and some dried out crackers that the nurses often left plenty of. Clutching the bundle to herself, Enelya quickly and quietly left the infirmary. Luckily it was still fairly dark out, with just enough light to sneak around by. Making her way over to what appeared to be a storage shed from lack of windows, Enelya slipped in through the door. It was a small shed, but it housed exactly what she had been looking for, carefully climbing over storage racks and bins, the woman came across a few canvas sacks containing grains of some sort. She found one that was empty and stuffed her bundle into it. Looking around a bit more turned up a multitude of loose pieces of rope, string and leather-like straps. Choosing a few of each, the woman quickly rigged up her sack as a backpack. The only other thing she could think of as a necessity would be a knife, and a bit of searching turned up a few crude switchblades on a shelf. Taking the oldest looking one, Enelya left the shed and began sneaking towards one of the rope ladders that Kemen Ohtar had pointed out. Getting around the guards was a little difficult, but at least they were tired and looking forward to going to bed. By half climbing a tree that had let a few branches hang over the platform the village rested on, Enelya was able to lower herself over the edge of the village platform without being seen. From there she clambered onto one of the rope ladders and slowly descended. Once on the ground, the woman tip toed along the only visible path. After hiking a short distance the path met with a large well-travelled road through the jungle. Judging from the rising sun, Enelya guessed it to be roughly an east-west road. Taking the path west she skirted a large, picturesque lake. Once around the lake, the road took a northward direction that pleased Enelya. At least she was travelling in the right direction now. The way north out of the jungle started out relatively easy, Enelya only hesitated when she came to a fork in the path. A moment of indecision passed as she remembered the elder’s description of the island. The way to the fire village lay to the north east. Taking the left fork confidently, the woman began to doubt her decision as the trail began to look less and less distinct. It was not a well-traveled path by any means, grasses and all kinds of small forest plants had sprouted in what appeared to be wheel ruts. Large branches had been allowed to grow over the path, they were not much of a problem to the villagers with their lower height, she thought as she fought her way through the third tangle. And the guardian of the village didn’t need to take the ground path, in fact he probably avoided walking as much as possible. Hoping that the trail would get easier once out of the jungle, Enelya kept moving. With any luck they would not discover her gone till mid-morning.~*~