The heroes land on the Withered Isle and meet a girl with special abilities and dwarf with a mysterious past. Nea finally has a reason to use her special gift after getting a lesson from Jo back on the mainland.
The heroes land on the Withered Isle and meet a girl with special abilities and dwarf with a mysterious past. Nea finally has a reason to use her special gift after getting a lesson from Jo back on the mainland.
The Withered Isle
Once upon a time in the land of Atheria, there was a princess Nea and a princess Lulu and they went on the most amazing adventures. They found themselves on an amazing pearl boat with a blue fairy named Zag on their way to the Withered Isle to find a missing giant.
As they sailed off to the east in Lady Jewel’s beautiful boat, the Valesence, they ran into some really rough waters. So rough, they didn’t know if they were going to make it to the island safely. In fact, they didn’t even know how far away the island was and the winds were so rough, lightning began to strike all around them.
“Don’t worry princesses, this ship has seen much, much worse! Aquilis knows what to do.” She looked over and gave the skipper a nod, “Baton down the hatches!”
“Aye, aye, my lady.” He said, signaling to the crew then giving them all various orders.
“Now let’s get out of this rain and into the cabin.”
They all moved into the cabin and sailed on, for what seemed like forever. Just when they thought they may were close, they sailed some more.
“Are we ever going to get there?” Zag asked.
“Yes, we’re going to get there. Swimming above the water may be slower, but it still works!” Jewel was referring to the fact that she was an undersea mermaid which meant she had magic a Torturian scale that could turn her legs into fins.
“Look!” Lulu announced, pointing to a small black speck in the distance. They all looked over the port and saw it there, the Withered Isle.
How in Atheria could a red crystal have gotten this far? Nea wondered as they pulled up to the island. And what a brave girl this giant must be to travel all this way.
When they got to the island, Jewel stayed aboard with the skipper to keep the ship safe while the princesses began following a pathway from the dock through a very warm tropical forest. As they walked the fresh sea breeze blew across their faces and danced with their hair. The pathway took them up a plateau, then down the other side and around to a side beach to a small cove on the back side.
There in the sand, was a girl giant holding a club. Next to her sat a dwarf with a funny hat and a big scar on her cheek. Nea and Lulu walked over to them, but not before Zag buzzed past them and started circling the giant.
“Smagga blarga flagga dwanga!” he yelled, clearly very frustrated.
“Jogga bagga targa.” Said the giant in defense brushing off the fairy.
The dwarf, who was sitting next to the giant, took a deep breath and excused herself from the argument, walking over to her new guests on the beach.
“Hello fellow travelers,” she introduced herself, “I’m Bekah of Darmeda.”
“Hello, I am Princess Nea and this is Princess Lulu of Sparland.”
“So they sent you all to come get us?” she asked. Behind her Zag buzzed around the giant angrily while the giant just sat on the beach holding her club.
“Well, sort of.” Lulu responded, looking over at the beach. “Do you think they’re going to be okay?”
“Carmine and Zag will be fine. They’re old friends.”
“Wait, you’ve been traveling with a giant this whole. Do you speak giant?” Lulu asked.
“I don’t, but Carmine has a gift. She’s one of the few giant’s who can speak without a fairy. She knows the common tongue of elves, dwarfs, ogres and humans. Some say she can even talk to animals.”
“Well that would’ve been nice on our travels.” Lulu replied.
“We know you’re trying to find the red crystal and so are we. How about we find it together and head back to land.” Nea offered.
“Are you the ones Tuck and Ryla have been sending across Atheria? The two princesses?” Bekah said, getting excited.
The both nodded.
“Word travels fast! This is great, we could really use some help!”
“So you haven’t found the crystal yet?” Nea asked, a little disappointed.
“Not yet, we’ve been following this sketch that Prince Clef of New Halowisp made.”
“So we have a deal then?” Lulu offered, extending her hand.
“You won’t get any complaints from me, but Carmine has it in her head to make herself a weapon.”
“Does she know she doesn’t have to go this one all alone?” Nea asked, “There are quite a few of us working to restore and protect Atheria?”
“I’m not sure she thinks like that.” Bekah said. “But as soon as the two of them calm down they can join us and we can find out.”
She then dug into her pocket and pulled out a sketch. They recognized it from their adventure to the sky kingdom of Skyrabia when they saw Clef’s work in the library. It was a map that marked the red crystal’s path from the cataclysmic shattering. By now, all the crystals, except for one were accounted for - the red one. If Nea and Lulu were going to heal the fourth ruins they were going to need to get both the red crystal and figure out how to get the orange one from the boy.
“It looks like the crystal should be on the north side of the island, by looks of this sketch.” Nea said.
“It probably is, but we keep getting lost. It’s really hard to know your way around this island. We can follow the path across the island, but whenever we leave the path, we get lost and have to start all over again.”
“If only we could get an idea of what the island looked like from above.” Nea thought. Then she had an idea.
“Nea, you should try your magic feather!” Lulu exclaimed.
Princess Nea found a magic feather from one of her previous adventures. When a friendly ogre named Wahl found a magic coin and made a wish to find his family at a magic fountain, Nea secretly wished that she had a Skyrabian Feather so she could fly. To her surprise, her wish came true. Only she hadn’t known how to use the feather until her friend Jo gave her a little coaching before their voyage.
“Ok, here goes!” Nea said, holding the feather to her chest and concentrating on her body. The most beautiful, amazing thing happened – she started to grow wings on her back. Slowly at first, and then quickly they began to grow. They sprung out from her and stretched on either side until they were fully grown.
“Wow!” Lulu said. “You look beautiful.”
The sound and the magnificence of the Nea’s wings caught the attention of the giant and the fairy, who had, up until now, still been arguing on the beach.
“Nice work.” Replied Bekah. “Just be careful, it’s pretty windy coming off this beach here. We don’t want you getting thrown into the trees.”
“Or out into sea.”
“Lulu, can you have your crystal ready, just in case the wind gets too strong try to counter it.” Nea said.
Lulu pulled her yellow Tornadian crystal out of her pocket and held it out, ready to let it’s power work if she needed to.
And with that, Nea began to flap her wings. Awkwardly at first, until she began to feel how the wind worked against her wings. It began to feel good to stretch out her wings broadly and push the air beneath her. Only, after she pushed the air beneath her, she needed to carefully fold her wings up and remember not to push against the air going the opposite direction.
After a few wobbles in the air, Nea was working with the sea wind and coasting up into the sky, wings stretched to each side and flapping gracefully. She flew to the top of a nearby tree, then soared around everyone in circles as they watched, smiling.
Zag noticed her flying and quickly buzzed after her.
“Would you look at that!” he said, catching up to her. “We have a flier!”
“Bekah and Carmine can’t find their way around the island. We thought maybe another look, from above would help. If we knew our way around, maybe we could find the red crystal.”
“But there are so many trees!” said Zag. “And how would you see a red crystal from here?”
And that’s when they both noticed it. On the north side of the island there stood a tower - an elven keep, just like one one they saw outside of Boxley Wild and above the sea town of Larakesh.
“Do you know what that looks like?” Nea looked over at Zag.
“There must be elves on this island.” He said.
“That would explain the confusing forest.” Nea observed. “And every other time we’ve encountered an elven keep there’s been someone inside with a crystal.”
“Well, that’s helpful. We can just go in and ask for it.”
“It’s not that easy, their something magical about those elven keeps. We think there might be some kind of curse. They’re all rumored to be abandoned but when someone with a crystal goes in, they get transformed into a horrible griffin monster.”
And the two of them flew down to the beach to share what they found. By now Carmine had joined the rest of the group after Bekah had explained the plan to work together.
“The good news is, we saw a pathway to the north. There’s tower over there where we think the red crystal might be. The bad news is it looks like another elven keep.”
The group decided that after such a long day at sea and so much traveling they would rest for the night and sleep on the beach under the stars. They would head out to the tower first thing in the morning.
What they hadn’t learned though, was why in Atheria was a dwarf was traveling so far away from a dwarf city and with a giant - what an odd pair. But our adventurers would find out more about Bekah soon enough.
The end.