Ramon swallowed and stared at the dark corridor. He wasn’t afraid of the dark; in fact, he loved nighttime the best. However, every fiber of his being was telling him to not take another step forward. Unfortunately, the dragons behind him disagreed. Ramon turned his head. “Why do I have to go first?” he asked. “Why can’t Gloria go first?”

“I’ll go first,” Vur said and took a step forward.

Gren raised a paw and stopped Vur from advancing. “No,” she said. “Ramon was the only one that saw Kozabokget’s eyes. If anyone is going to be in danger during this venture into the evil-sealing tower, it’s going to be him. As such, he has to be in a location where all of us can keep our eyes on him.”

Ramon gulped and turned his head back towards the corridor. Something touched his rump, and he nearly jumped out of his scales. Grimmy raised an eyebrow and nudged Ramon again. “Hurry up,” Grimmy said. “We’re all waiting for you.”

“Don’t rush him,” Kondra said and smacked at Grimmy’s paw. “Can’t you tell he’s scared?” Kondra nodded at Ramon. “Don’t worry. Grandma Kondra will clear the way for you.” White light leaked out of the corners of her mouth, and her chest ballooned outwards. Her head jerked towards the corridor, and—

“Stop!” Gren shouted and hugged Kondra’s face, clamping the holy dragon’s jaws shut. “Are you trying to break every seal inside the tower!?”

A loud rumbling sound came out of Kondra as her body deflated. Hints of silver light leaked out from her nostrils, ears, eyes, and underneath her tail. When the light disappeared, Gren released the holy dragon. Without wasting a single moment, Kondra roared and bit at Gren. “Don’t you ever interrupt my purifying light like that again!”

“I’ll throw you out of this tower if you don’t stop!” Gren shouted while holding Kondra’s face back with her paws. “You shouldn’t even be here in the first place! If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll seal you in here too!”

Kondra pulled her head back and glared at Gren. She sat on her haunches and snorted before turning away.

“Does that mean you’re not going to clear the way for me?” Ramon asked in a small voice.

Gren rolled her eyes upon seeing Kondra’s expression. “Just go,” she said and patted Ramon’s back. “As long as you don’t touch anything you’re not supposed to, you’ll be fine.”

Ramon tilted his head. “How do I know what I’m not supposed to touch?”

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Grimmy chuckled. “Dragons are extremely strong,” he said. “Even still, we’re extremely sensitive to danger. If you’re about to touch something and feel like you’re going to die, then that’s something you shouldn’t touch.”

Ramon scratched his head. “What if my danger sense is broken?”

Grimmy glanced at Gren. “Do you want to check?”

“Sure,” Gren said. She lowered her head to the ground to make eye contact with Ramon. A shadow flickered in Gren’s eyes, and Ramon yelped while scrambling backwards as if he had been burned.

“Hey!” Kondra said. “What did you do to my grandson!?”

“Ramon’s very sensitive to danger,” Gren said as she lifted her head off the ground. Her eyes shifted to look at Kondra. “Do you remember what I said? Behave yourself.”

Ramon shuddered and took in a deep breath. When he looked into his grandmother’s eyes, it felt like his soul was about to be sucked out of him. His soul had never been sucked out before, but he was pretty sure that was what was going to happen if he hadn’t jumped away! Instead of letting his family perform more tests on him, he’d rather advance into the dark corridor! He took a step forward, and a giggling sound made his blood run cold. He retreated and looked back at his parents. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Leila asked.

“Someone giggled,” Ramon said. He scrutinized the faces around him, but from what he could tell, none of them had heard the sound—either that, or they were all conspiring to trick him into believing he was hearing things. “I don’t want to do this anymore. Can we go back?”

“No,” Gren said. “In life, there are things you have to do even if you don’t like them. Every cursed dragon has to experience the evil-sealing tower.”

“But I’m a holy dragon,” Ramon said, his voice becoming smaller and smaller as the sentence went on.

Before anyone could say anything, Vur got off his earthen construct and walked over to Ramon. He placed his hand on the baby dragon’s snout. Wisps of smoke leaked out of Vur’s arm and circled around Ramon, taking the shape of a few different animals, before entering his body through his scales. Vur took his hand away, and Ramon blinked before glancing down at himself. “What did you do to me?”

“I made you braver.”

Ramon tilted his head. He glanced at the corridor, and the feeling of unease and dread he had been experiencing earlier vanished. In fact, he wanted to explore and find out what was hiding behind the darkness. He walked down the corridor and looked around. There were all kinds of runes and symbols etched on the walls. With what he had learned before, he could only recognize a tenth of the symbols.

Gren frowned at Vur. “What did you do to him?”

“Made him braver,” Vur said and hopped back on the earthen construct.

“But how?” Gren asked and bared her teeth while dragging her question out.

“I’ll explain,” Stella said, popping her head out of Vur’s chest. “We went to this other world and picked up these spirit animals. These spirit animals are capable of blessing people by making them stronger, faster, stealthier, wiser, and—evidently—braver.” She shifted her gaze onto the other dragons. “Did that make sense?”

“How many things do you have living inside of you, Vur?” Leila asked.

Vur shrugged and lowered his head to look at Stella. “How many?”

“You don’t know how many things are living inside of yourself?” Tafel asked, her expression darkening.

“I’m not sure about the exact amount.” Stella tilted her head. “I’ll go count, but it might take a while.”