Arcane Tales

*Allina runs over to the cracks*

Allina: <Heeee yaaaah!>

*She starts hitting them with her staff. Within seconds, the cracks start spreading across the room and the ground collapses, the whole group crashing down the hole into another chamber. It is dimly lit by an orange glow coming from the end of yet another narrow tunnel. Crone seems to have disappeared. The air is no longer cold, and they feel somewhat warm despite being at the base of an icy mountain. Allina gets up coughing and dusts herself off*

=====

*After about 5 minutes walking down the tunnel they arrive at a huge room. It's as wide as 3 baseball fields and its ceiling is as tall as a six story house, its rocky walls colored orange, unlike in every other part of the cave. It's confortably warm, and a large red rock crowns the center of the area. They see a little sparkling light floating at the top of the rock*

Ari: <Is this the source of the energy?>

*Derek approaches the rock and draws his sword, his face becoming serious.*

Derek: <Someone check this thing out, please.>

"Lets move"

"Ow..."

*Kari stands up coughing up dust.*

=====================================================

*Kentaro stands by the entrance looking about, rocking back and forth on his heels.*

[I wonder how Kari's doing.]

*Down the tunnel they arrive at the same room the others are in. Upon examining the room, Allina steps forward and touches the rock, which is about half as tall as the ceiling. It's very warm*

Allina: <What is this? Let's climb it and check out that light!>

"YEAH!" Alto does what Allina says. Creed predictably facepalms.

Derek: <This thing's giving off some kind of weird energy.>

*He glares at the rock.*

*James stares suspiciously at the rock.*

Kentaro:<What you should do is calm down. Jeez, not once have I ever met a woman with a mouth quite like yours.>

"Kentaro, your ja-jacket...?"

Kentaro:<Don't worry about it. It suits you better anyways.>

Ari: <Hm.. Lady Allina, where is Master Crone?>

Allina: <Oh, he's right he--uh oh.>

Ari: <You-->

*The rock starts shaking violently and rising from the ground, revealing to be the back of a large red dragon. It's about twice as big as the rock, taking up nearly 1/2 of the chamber. It roars louder than anything they've ever heard, causing the whole cave to shake. It has thick red scales covering its entire body except for the back, which is the large red rock. It has thick sharp black claws half the size of a human being, large fully red eyes, sharp teeth and long fat tail, aswell as a pair of retracted red bat-like wings, somewhat unproportionally small. Ignoring Alto on its back, it spits a large fireball at the group*

*James' sword lights on fire and he runs to the front of the group and attempts to repel the fireball with his sword.*

*Kentaro grabs Kari hand runs so they're beside the dragon. Drawing their guns, the open fire on it.*

Creed dodge rolls when the party starts narrowly avoiding the fireball. Alto holds on for dear life as his sword is knocked away.

"I knew it was another monster!"

*Jade runs out from the shadows and joins the others, her sword drawn. She moves quickly to get under it, where its probable to have the only weak point.*

*Derek kept absolutely calm as he ran forward, the fireball narrowly missing him. The Haste magic still flowed through him. He sped up and felt the energy of the Kusanagi pulse as he plunged it into the beast's chest.*

Derek: <Die!>

*The fireball being as big as a freaking horse, James is hit and slammed back against the wall. The dragon turns around to face Kari and Kentaro and opens its mouth, hammering its head down to eat them. It swings its massive tail at the rest of the group. All attemps to pierce its body fail, ending up as simple slashes. Ari and the other soldier run to the dragon's right front leg and slash at it repeatedly*

Allina: <That is the biggest monster I've ever seen!>

"Man this isn't even remotely fun!" Alto continues to hang on. Creed continues to dodge.

*Kentaro grabs Kari and dives away from the dragon both landing roughly on the ground. Kentaro scraping his arms, Kari scraping her legs. Kentaro gets in a crouch position and lifts his arms firing, wincing. Kari stands, wincing her knees shaking as she fires at the dragon.*

Derek: <Soul, it's using fire magic. Do you have any ice magic you can use!?>

*He slides to the right and begins climbing up the dragon in an attempt to rescue Alto.*

*The dragon ignores Alto and Derek and turns to the soldiers, kicking them all the way back into a wall. Since Soul isn't supposed to use magic this powerful, she starts feeling tired, her magic energy running out. The spell barely scratches the dragon's hard scales. Note the little white light is still floating at the top of the rock. Allina raises her staff and a spherical red barrier envelops Kari and Kentaro, then proceeds to run to Ari and the other soldier to heal them. The dragon spits a large fireball at Soul and then turns its head and spits another one at Kari and Kentaro, which does not hit them, being intercepted by Allina's magic barrier*

"The white light, what is it!?" Creed calls out.