In the darken void another one of the high elders' minions stood before him to give a report.
"Well? How goes our plans?"
"High Elder, Kilanashradora is going to meet with them right as we speak."
"Good hopefully your minion will do better then mine have done." The high elder looked over to his new ally with a twisted smile.
The dark haired man said nothing. I wonder if you are aware that Xellos is with them? That would be quite an oversight on your part. Man himself thought with a mental grin.
Lina and the rest of them waited at the location where they were told to meet this Kilana person whom hadn't shown up yet. Well actually she had, she was watching them from an alleyway not to far away.
"Where they hell is she? She should be here by now!" Lina grumbled and paced around the meeting place.
"How do you even know that she's late Lina? She didn't even put an exact time on the message. So for all we know she could have meant to meet up some time in the evening." Zelgadis said in a logical manner only to have some foreign object being thrown at his head. "Ouch, Lina did you have to throw a... a what the hell is this thing?" Zelgadis picked what appeared to be a small fuzzy thing with a tail and a weird smiling face.
"I dunno but they are selling them over there." Lina pointed over to a small stand that had many of those things. The sign above the stand said 'furbies' on it. Suddenly Zelgadis had this weird impulse to throw the thing as far away from his as possible. The furby yelled out "Beeewboo!" As Zelgadis chucked over to the other side of Sailune. A tall woman dawning a white lab coat and glass picked up the furby. A twisted smiled played on her lips and there was an evil glint in her amber eyes. The women flipped her long bluish purple hair in a ponytail and sped off laughing like a madman.
(Relm: Was there any real point to that? No, I just don't like the thought of a furby being thrown away with no one to take care of it. All right I'll shut up now.)
Xellos sat there pondering on why the name Kilana sounded so familiar to him.
'Kilana' on the other hand decided it was time to make her entrance. She walked over to them with her hood pulled closely over her face. "Hello are you Miss Lina Inverse?"
Everyone turned their attention to the hooded woman.
"Yes and you are?"
"I am Kilana. I have summoned you here because you are searching for the keys of Elendar. You are searching for the keys are you not?" The hooded woman stared in Lina's general direction, but Lina couldn't see the woman's eyes. Kinda made Lina wonder how the woman was able to see where she was going.
"Yeah which is one of the things I wanted to ask you. Exactly how did you know that we were searching for the keys anyway? We didn't exactly tell anyone you know..." Lina was expecting some sort of slip in the strangers cool, but the stranger didn't even flinch.
"Yes but you were searching in the libraries of Sailune for the keys. I was searching in libraries myself looking for some information on a vanishing spell. I saw a few of you and over heard what you where looking for the keys and I figured since I had some information on the whereabouts of one of the keys that it might be useful to you..."
"For a cost of course."
"Naturally."
"Alright and exactly what is that you want?"
The hooded woman didn't say anything for a moment. Xellos on the other hand was staring at her with interest. He knew that he had met her somewhere before, but it wasn't like him to forgot a face so easily.
"You know I hadn't thought that far ahead... now what would I want that you could provide me with? Hmmm...." The hooded thought hard. She was actually supposed to do something else besides striking up a deal with them. But with Xellos there she had to improvise with plan b. Damnit why is he here anyway? Damn you Xellos you are going to ruin all my plans if you expose me! But what can I do? I wasn't expecting him to be here. "Alright I've made my decision! For the information on where to find one of the keys I want a dragon's tear crystal."
Everyone facefaulted.
"A Dragon's Tear CRYSTAL?! Do you know how damned hard those are to find?! You have to go into a wild lower's dragon's lair and kill the damn thing to even get close to finding it and even then you only have a one in three's chance of there even being one in there!"
"Yes and your point is...?"
Again they all facefaulted. "There's no way we are going to do that just for information!" Lina and company started to walk off.
"So you mean to tell me that you don't want the information on where to find one of the keys?" The hooded woman said with a smug voice. Lina and company froze. You could just see the vein in Lina's head popping out.
"Alright fine, we'll do it then." Lina grumbled.
"Alright you have two days."
"Two days?! We don't even know if there's a dragon's lair anywhere near here!"
"I've heard that there is one over near the south mountains."
"She's right Miss Lina. There was is a dragon's lair near there." Amelia said with confidence.
"If there's a dragon's lair near here then where is the dragon that lives there and why isn't it attacking Sailune?"
"Because long ago some warriors fought the dragon and sealed in it's lair by causing a cave in!"
"So basically we are going to have to head over to a collapsed dragon lair with the possibility of that dragon attacking us if we manage to even get in."
Everyone looked at Zelgadis with annoyance.
"Well we'd better get a move on over to that collapsed dragon lair." Lina declared and walked off with everyone in her group following behind.
Kilanashradora took off her hood and smiled at the them with a wicked smile. Well maybe not exactly the result I was looking for, but this should work out fine enough. Kilanashradora teleported off to tell the others.
Prince Phil sat his in his castle dealing with the matters at hand with the castle. "It was so nice to have Amelia home. But it was still way too short of a time... Though Amelia is a big girl and she can take care of herself. I can't keep her locked up in the castle all the time and she needs to have her freedom. And besides she has Miss Lina with her so there shouldn't be anything to worried about!" Phil said with a roaring laugh and all of the other attendants in the room sweatdropped and decided not to comment.
"Alright Amelia, now where do we go from here?" Lina asked as they left the city borders of Sailune.
Amelia looked around the area for a few moments trying to get her bearings. "Um... I think it's this way." She pointed in a direction with an unsure face.
"You think it's this way?! What do you mean you think?! I thought you knew where it was!"
"Well the dragon was defeated when I was only a baby. I only really know roughly the area it could be. I don't know where the exact location is." Amelia said with a nervous laugh. Lina glared at her and was about ready to charge up a fireball.
"Miss Lina don't! It's not Amelia's fault that she doesn't know where the dragon lair is!" Sylphiel tried to calm down Lina.
"Yeah but still she could have said something earlier. Grr... now we have to go searching all around here."
"But at least we have two days to find it." Xellos said with a cheery voice. Lina hit him with another one of those furbies.
"Lina just exactly how many of these did you get?"
"A few why?"
The group sweatdropped while Lina picked up the furby and put it back in her cape pocket.
Many hours later they did manage to find the collapsed entrance to the dragon's lair.
"So how are we supposed to get in here anyway?" Gourry looked around what used to be an entrance to the lair.
"Maybe a fireball or dill brand might be good enough..." Lina mused.
"Yeah if you want to destroy the place. If you are going to do that then why don't you just cast a dragon slave Lina?" Zelgadis' voice dripped with sarcasm.
"Well Zelgadis what exactly did you have in mind?!"
"Gourry has a new sword of light doesn't he? Why not let him give us a demonstration of it?" Zelgadis said with a smug smile. Lina just glared at him. Why she's doing a lot of glaring today isn't she?
"Alright then Gourry get to it."
"I'll give it a try," Gourry unsheathed his sword with no blade, "Light come forth!" Gourry yelled, only nothing happened. "Huh? That should have worked..."
"I thought you said that he had another sword of light?! It just looks like a hilt with no blade."
"I don't know, I'm only going on what Gourry told me." Zelgadis spoke in his defence while Gourry examined his new sword of light.
Well I haven't used it yet or at least I'm not sure I have. So Uncle Rowdy could have just given me the sword and it really wasn't a sword of light... But I don't think that Uncle Rowdy would lie to me... Oh wait didn't Uncle Rowdy tell me something special about this sword...? Gourry thought long and hard trying to remember what his 'uncle' Rowdy told him. And then it dawned on him. "Oh now I remember! Light I summon thee!" A suddenly the sword without a blade becomes a sword with a blade of light. The sword was different then his old one. It was jagged along the blade edge and it's light was a slightly different color then his old one. "Uncle Rowdy told me that I needed to use a different command to make the light blade appear!"
"Well why didn't you do that in the first place?!" Lina bopped him on the head.
"I couldn't remember that I needed to do that." Lina was about to do more except Zelgadis pulled her arm.
"C'mon Lina let's knock this off and get into that dragon lair. Gourry?" Gourry stepped up to the place and with a flash Gourry did numerous strikes with his sword making a perfectly circular entrance for them to go in.
Inside the dragon lair they didn't find much but lots of fallen rocks. This much they were expecting. Most wild lesser dragon's hide their treasures deep within their lairs. What they were surprised not to find was any traces of the dragon itself. Even if the dragon was dead there should be some trace of the dragon's body.
"You know if we can't find any evidence of the dragon's body then that could mean that the dragon may not even be dead."
"Well if it was alive all this time how could it have survived? I don't know about you but I don't exactly see many things here that could be considered food." Lina said as her stomached growled almost to prove her point. Even though she had been eating ice cream while she had been waiting for Kilana to show, (well she asked Lina and them to meet her near some ice cream stands, do you think that Lina wouldn't take up that opportunity?) she was still feeling stabs of hunger.
"That's true, but if the dragon is dead then where is it?" They all looked around the cave in confusion.
Further on in the dragon lair, Kilanashradora stood near the treasure trove of the dragon. The dragon itself had known that it was going to die when it had been sealed away in it's lair so went down to the deepest part of the cave to where it's treasure was to die. The remains weren't decomposing that well and the stench and the condition of the body was horrible. But Kilanashradora didn't care much for the sight or the smell. She only smiled at the dead creature. You could barely tell that it was once a dragon let alone what type of dragon it had been. But that didn't matter too much, the purpose she had for the dragon corpse didn't have much difference on what type of dragon it had once been.
"Well my pretty are you ready for your little mission?" She cackled and started to chant something in an ancient language. A dark aura appeared around the dragon corpse and flaming lights appeared where the eyes once had been. The corpse got up and roared while it came to life. Though the dragon moved and such it was still clearly dead, in some parts you could still it's skeleton.
"Go now my pretty and deal with your trespassers!" Kilanashradora cackled and she teleported out of the cave.
The dragon's eye's glowed a brighter darker red and it got up and headed towards Lina and the others.
"Oh yuck! What's that smell?!" Lina and the others exclaimed as a strong stench came into the air.
"I think we found the evidence of the dragon's body like we were looking for." Amelia covered her nose. They were going to continue until they heard a load roar.
"Is that the dragon?! But how can it be alive?!" Lina and the others got into battle ready stances as the dragon came into view. The dragon of course was a pile of rotting flesh and bones.
"Damn it's a zombie dragon!" Lina now saw why the dragon was still alive. Zombies were nothing more then the living dead. But how the hell are we supposed to deal with this thing?! I've never even seen a zombie dragon before.
"Miss Lina how do you normally deal with zombies?" Amelia yelled as she dodged an attack.
"You can freeze them solid or cut off their heads but that's human zombies. I don't know what effects that could have on dragon zombies."
"Well might as well give it a try! FREEZE ARROW!" Amelia screamed out and shot the spell at the creature only it was dispelled. "What happened?!"
"I guess zombie dragon's have a immunity to magic." Zelgadis mused as he struck the creature with his sword. "Gourry I think it's time you gave it a shot with your sword."
"Okay!" Gourry went straight for the zombie dragon's head only it didn't cut through it.
"Damnit it has resistance to the sword of light too! What the hell can we do to beat this thing?!"
Everyone tried their best but they weren't making any progress. In fact it hadn't been for Sylphiel and her protection barriers then they would have been in a serious amount of trouble. Lina on the other hand was trying to remember what she had been told about dragons from Devon and her grandmother.
"Wait a minute that's it!" Lina yelled as she remembered. "Cover me guys I'm going to try a burst flare!"
"But Lina it's immune to magic!"
"No it isn't, it's immune to freezing magic. Fire magic should kill it."
Everyone decided to trust Lina and did what she told them and helped her get set up for the strike.
Lina used a levitation spell to get her as high as she could and she casted the spell under her breath, "BURST FLARE!" Lina screamed out and there was a very large explosion.
Sometime later everyone came out of the ruined dragon lair very dirty.
"Lina did you have to use that much power in that spell?" Zelgadis grumbled at her.
"Well it worked did it? The zombie dragon was killed was it?"
"Yeah by also bringing the whole cave in on us. We're lucky none of us got killed!"
"Well we didn't and we got the dragon's tear crystal so what are you complaining about?" Lina said holding up the crystal mostly ignoring everyone else. She almost didn't want to part with the crystal. Oh well if it turns out that, that lead that Kilana is going to give us is false or a trap I'll just hunt her down and get back the from her. Lina grinned with greed in her eyes as she skipped her back to Sailune.
(Relm: Alright, alright you might have seen that I have borrowed a little aspect of a certain game that happens to be very popular. I'm sorry but I have been hooked on FF9 lately so I couldn't resist. To those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, in a few of the final fantasy games (if not all) zombies and other undead creatures are extremely weak to fire.)