Chapter Eleven: New Worlds

The other side was a lot darker than the Volcano they have just left. Arokh and Rynn found themselves in a large room. Its floor seemed to be made of an organic substance, which pulsated and changed shape randomly. There was also a strange odour in the air which neither of them could tell what it was.
"The Rift" Arokh whispered.
"The Rift should be something like a bottomless pit, no?" Rynn asked.
"This is the not the Rift itself. We are very close to it, but still not in it" Arokh replied. Suddenly energy balls flew at them, crashing into the wall thanks to the poor aiming of the enemies. Looking around Arokh spotted four green flying creatures, looking draconic in parts.

Not wanting to be a sitting duck, Arokh quickly strafed aside, and let out a magma shot at the group attacking him. His aiming wasn't the best he could do, but the four dragons were closer to each other than they should have been - so one of them couldn't manoeuvre. A loud blast shook the room, shortly followed by a death roar.
"Fried, that's how I like it" Arokh laughed, but he quickly stopped when an energy ball hit him in the leg. The three remaining creatures did not give up after the fall of their teammate, and even charged at Arokh. This surprised the red dragon, as he expected them to have more sense and instinct than this. He quickly dived, and let out a long stream of fire at the attackers. Two enemies almost instantly became nothing more than some burning bones and ashes. The forth one did not waste his time meanwhile - he tried to shoot out Arokh's eyes. The projectiles missed Arokh only with the length of a human finger, but still, they didn't hit him. Turning there, Arokh fired a lightning bold at the unlucky foe, who died instantly, falling down without any noise, the floor swallowing it up as if it was eating it.

"We don't have time for fighting" Rynn shouted. "Get me to Delon!"
"Easy to just command" Arokh growled, as he was seeking an area where he could land. He soon found one, and as they landed a door opened in the wall.
"Be careful Rynn... Navaros might be waiting there" Arokh told her as she dismounted him.
"No one is a match for me" Rynn said, then corrected herself "For us, sorry."
Ending her sentence, she ran through the door.

On the other side was a long bridge, with nothing below but swirling winds. 'This has to be the Rift' Rynn thought. Suddenly she spotted something very bright at the end of the bridge. Driven by the hope of finding her brother, she dashed towards the end. However, the sight froze her heart. Delon was indeed there - surrounded by almost a dozen death mages, who were whispering and conjuring something.

"DELON!" Rynn shouted, and ran closer as fast as she could - but she was too late. The death magi disappeared in deathly screams and Delon suddenly shouted, and jumped up, levitating in the air. He wasn't able to control his new powers totally, as all the mages surrounding him died instantly with the immense spell they had just cast.
"I am back" Delon laughed in Navaros's voice "Tremble mortals, and despair! Doom has come back to this world!"
Rynn realised she was far too late. Delon was only living physically now - but Navaros occupied his body. She decided to listen only to her rage now. Holding the Runeblade tight, she jumped at the something looking like her brother.

Navaros was expecting Rynn to attack, and he floated backwards in the air. However, this body was weaker than he expected - he was moving far more slowly he wanted to, and so the Runeblade caught his leg, making a large wound. Screaming with pain, Navaros began to strike back. He gathered his power, and Rynn could only see the shadow of her brother coming towards her - and exploding right in front of her, causing her several wounds and severe headache. She quickly drank a potion, jumped, and struck again with the Runeblade. Navaros laughed as he evaded the move, but Rynn was on her guard, and quickly kicked Navaros in the head. The opponent wasn't expecting this as he was only concentrating on the Runeblade, and he lost his stability for a moment, this forcing him to land on the ground. Rynn did not need more - and a swift and strong strike with the Runeblade, and it was done.
Yet, it only began.

Delon held his hands at his head, walking backwards. Rynn had to realise her brother wasn't dead at all - she just set him free. But to her greatest terror, Delon took too many steps backwards, and fell off the edge. She could only see him fading into the darkness of the Rift, and a muting scream. She was feeling crushed. Failing so close to victory! Such stupid mistake!
Just as if the Rift was sharing her emotions, the whole place began to quake.

"No time for tears Rynn!" she suddenly heard Arokh, who just landed behind her, somehow he managed to find another way in. "Navaros is coming back!"
"I just killed him" she replied on a emotionless voice.
"You only forced him to flee from your brother, but Navaros is coming back! Quickly, get on me... if we loose, the whole of Drakan is lost - forever!" Arokh spoke hastily. Rynn nodded, and slowly mounted him. She was feeling nothing. She wasn't interested in the fight in that moment, as she wasn't interested in anything.
Arokh quickly jumped back into the air, and dived downwards, where a giant four-headed dragon was arising from the Rift.
Navaros came back, but with his own body now.

"Tired of the game, aren't we" Arokh laughed when he saw the evil opponent coming back.
Navaros's heads roared, and launched various types of projectiles at Arokh. The red dragon expected this, and evaded those with ease, then returned fire with his fire breath.
One of Navaros's heads tried to evade the shots, but the body wasn't out of the Rift enough to do that - and the whole cloud of fireballs collided into the head, setting it on fire and literally blowing it into pieces.
Navaros's remaining heads did not give up. They kept on firing at Arokh.
Arokh evaded a mass amount of shots coming towards him, when suddenly something hit his wing. He nearly smacked one head, which suddenly began to move towards him - likely to bite or eat him. The red dragon flew backwards hastily, while firing melted magma shots at the closing head - which soon blew up, just as the previous one.

The two remaining heads were firing more rapidly now; Navaros must have realised he was about to loose. However, Arokh was now able to get behind them, where they couldn't shoot at him. The red dragon did so and then quickly strafed in front of one remaining head. The head just opened his enormous mouth to fire, when Arokh spat a powerful magma shot into the open mouth. The magma went down the throat of the being, devastating the head with a deafening blast.

The last head was a piece of cake. Navaros was now tired, and was most likely giving up. Arokh repeated the same process: got behind the head, and then fired into the mouth. The last head was gone. Arokh wanted to celebrate - they have defeated Navaros again. Drakan was in safety, finally. However, something prevented him from enjoying his well deserved triumph. He had a bad feeling...
"Rynn! The Rift! It is closing! We must get into it before it closes down!" the red dragon shouted, without explaining: if they wanted to find Delon alive, they had to go after him. Acting without delay, Arokh dived into the infinite darkness...

Arokh flew faster in the hope of catching Delon but it was all in vain; the walls of the vortex were beginning to come together.
"Rynn! We must get out of here now or we will be trapped in this dimension forever" Arokh yelled at the top of his voice over the thundering rift.
"But Delon!" Rynn cried.
"I'm sorry, Rynn. He's gone. Use the runeblade NOW!" he commanded.
Without thinking, Rynn rubbed her finger over the crystal and thought of exiting the rift. Almost instantaneously they were directed upwards and arrived back at the volcano, the rift closing behind them.

Arokh hovered for a moment to get his bearings and found a safe place to land ducking to let Rynn off his back. Below them, a vast river of lava flowed noisily bubbling and popping melting everything in its path.
"What did I do wrong?" Rynn muttered sadly, wiping a tear from her eye. She was stunned at what just happened and couldn't comprehend the fact that Delon was gone. Arokh sighed and answered her question. "Nothing. It was unfortunate. Bad luck, whatever you want to call it."
Rynn turned to face him and threw the runeblade angrily to the floor. "We were so close" she mumbled. “If we had arrived only a few minutes sooner.”

Arokh’s head turned to face her; he looked depressed somehow as if he shared her loss. "There is one more thing we need to do before we leave this place. That is to destroy the runeblade." Arokh said firmly kicking the blade back towards Rynn. "Throw it into the lava" he commanded, his eyes now showing signs of impatience.

"No!" Rynn snapped and quickly picked up the blade. "I need to rescue Delon!"
Arokh felt anger swell up within him but he tried his best to fight it back. They didn’t have the time for him to explain fully so he kept it short and blunt, straight to the point. "Delon is dead Rynn. The runeblade must not fall into the wrong hands. We must destroy it."
"No, I won't let you!" Rynn said angrily holding the sword tighter, clutching it to her chest. Arokh gave a sigh of exasperation and rolled his eyes. "Give me that god damn sword" he snarled snatching it from her. He strode up to the edge of the cliff on three legs and hurled it into the lava below, it disappearing with a yellow flash as it was instantly melted down.

"You bastard Arokh" Rynn cried and punched him hard in the chest simultaneously feeling the blow herself. She leant against him and started sobbing. "Oh I have had enough of this thing" she snapped hurling the Mournblade into the lava.
"The noise it made irritated me" she explained when she saw the questioning look on the dragon's face. She leant against a nearby rock and put her hands over her face and started crying again as her emotions came to a head when she realised that her task was done even though it ended in failure. She had come so far and gone through so much only for it to end in disaster.
Arokh tried to comfort her the best he could and after a good half-hour, Rynn was becoming to come to terms with her loss, thinking now more of herself and Arokh; they couldn’t stay where they were. She was bonded now, the only human member of the Order so she guessed that brought some kind of responsibilities but she was unsure exactly what.

"Where to now?" she asked the dragon. He turned his head towards her and shrugged. “I guess we now have the task of finding a civilisation that does not want to kill us and making new allies.”

Rynn frowned “Does that mean we have some kind of duty to carry out? I mean we are the sole members of the New Order.”

“Kind of, but we will have to see what the passage of time brings us” Arokh remarked thoughtfully. There was a long silence as both of them sat wondering of their future and what it will bring. Eventually, Arokh broke the silence first.
"Well I don't know about you but I'm tired. We should find somewhere to stay then we can go back to your village. If we sleep during the day and journey at night, we can make it by tomorrow morning." He replied exhausted by the recent events.
Rynn reluctantly agreed and climbed onto the dragon's back. "I know of a small cave. I saw it in the Archipelago, we should be safe" she noted.

Together, they left the scene where Rynn had lost so much and took the long journey across the vast inland lake towards the eastern Archipelago where they could rest in safety.

Arokh lay on the floor of the cave with Rynn huddled nearby. Neither of them spoke, only exchanging glances every so often.
"Have you lost someone you loved?" Rynn eventually asked.
Arokh gave a short scornful laugh. "You are joking aren't you? What a stupid question. Of course I have." He paused for a moment then began to explain in further detail. "Well, lets see. The Dark Union killed my family; some even joined them forcing the Order to kill them. I lost my bonded, Heron and all my friends; everything I knew was gone. After the final battle, there was nothing left to live for. Suicide crossed my mind. Now, I have had to kill one of the only female dragons in the world and my life long friend and you think I haven't lost anything? Hah!" he snorted.

"I'm sorry Arokh. I guess we have both lost so much." She apologised shivering slightly. "I'm cold" she mumbled.
Arokh sighed staring out of the cave entrance noticing a lone ship docking at one of the islands. "I’m sorry for being so offhand. Here, come sit with me" he beckoned.
Rynn gratefully accepted and lay down with her head on the dragon's chest. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep to the sound of his heartbeat and the day’s events were soon a memory. 

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