As I walked back to the camp, Bella’s words rang in my head. What is hidden even deeper, is evil. Does she mean him? Of course, he answered. “No dummy, just let me out and I will give you the answer.” I just ignored him and continued walking to the camp. When I finally arrived, I saw Lory sitting near the campfire. “Hey darling, why are you awake?”

She smiled at me, “I woke up, and you were still not in bed. I thought I will keep you company, but you were gone. I expected you to be back any minute, and here you are. What were you doing?”

“Oh, I was hanging out with Bella, she needed help finding a propeller.”

Lory pointed at my wings, “It seems you got them out.”

I sighed, “Bella made me realize they are not evil, they just triggered something, but they cannot trigger it again.”

Lory nodded, “That is good advice, then why do you look so worried?”

“She told me, to not dig deeper than this because what is hiding deeper, is evil.”

Lory got up and walked over towards me. “It is alright, Steve, just keep it like this. How did she even get you to sprout them? I had to beg and plea.”

“Oh, you know, she threw me off over the edge of the island.”

“What? For real?”

“Yeah, it was instinct to sprout my wings. When I fell from the pirate ship, I wanted to sprout them, but I did not know if I could or if it would unleash something. Panic set in, and well, I can’t really sprout my wings while panicking. Haley has been waiting for ages for me to sprout my wings. She probably guessed they came from me.”

Lory nodded, “True. How is your passenger?”

“He keeps begging to be let out.” Lory looked down. I lifted her head, “What is wrong?”

“I apologize for killing Alice.”

“Where does that come from?”

Lory shook her head, “She had an extra passenger, they seemed to be two different people. But they worked together, and in synch. If she was around, she could have been helpful.”

I nodded, I looked at the tent where Abby, Haley, and Funk were sleeping. “We are just bringing them into more danger, aren’t we?”

Lory sighed, “I fear so. Maybe Haley is better off with helping with the airship. I know she is trained for combat, but this is real combat. It felt wrong of me to put her in harm’s way.”

I nodded, “This is indeed real, there is no safe word, no exit button, nothing. If things go wrong here, we lose her. She took my gun, though.”

Lory chuckled, “Maybe we can do this, just the two of us.”

I looked at her, “Are you thinking, what I am thinking?” Lory nodded and grabbed a pen and paper out of her inventory.

Lory left the note and a barrier over the campfire. I had packed up our tent, and picked up our gear. Then I walked over to Lory, “Are you ready?”

She nodded, then she took my hand, and we started walking south towards the nipple volcanos. The forest is very dark in the middle of the night. We saw some more of the magnolia trees with black leaves. It seemed these woods were mostly home to the weird bird creatures. As there are more corpses of them. We talked and walked along the road as we slowly saw the sun rise. I yawned, and looked at an opening in the trees. Lory pointed, “There, that seems to be where we need to go. Are you tired, Steve?”

“Yes, but I am doing fine, we can camp later to get some sleep.” Lory nodded and we walked out of the forest. In front of us is a rocky road that leads to two volcanos.

“Alright, the path splits up here, we need to take the left path to go to the left nipple volcano.”

Lory looked at them, “I can see why they call it the nipple volcanos.”

I grinned, “Yeah, do you think we made the right decision, leaving Haley behind?”

Lory nodded, “She is a badass, she will understand we just want to protect her. I am not, even, sure if I regret training her like that. She is ready, but what if something goes wrong? I mean, things go wrong with all the time.”

I fidgeted with my necklace, “The odds are usually against me.”

Lory grinned, “We should just finish this up, and then we can get back to her.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yes, that sounds like a good plan, let’s follow the path to the left nipple volcano.”

As we walked towards the left nipple volcano, the sun started to rise more, then I saw something soaring in the sky. It flew over us a few times, Lory looked up as well. Then we saw it land in front of us. I sighed, “I guess this ecosystem likes birds.” This creature has two smaller wings and four strong, clawed legs, with a wide, elegant tail, and a colossal beak. Its skin is, thick and strong. It’s covered in large, thin rocky feathers. The feather colors are mostly dark gray. It let out a screech.

I spawned my silver blade. Lory spawned a moon blade. I nodded, “It is time to pummel this bird into drumsticks.”

Lory looked at me, “It is as big as us.”

I chuckled, “That is true, but we can still pummel it!” The creature screeched again and charged at us.

I put my wings in front of me, as I had seen Haley do. As the bird tried to peck me with its colossal beak, it hit my wings. I got pushed backwards, and I saw Lory jump on the rock bird’s back. “Lory, hit that rock bird!” She started smashing the rock bird with her moon blade while I kept shielding myself. It did hurt, but I can handle it.

Lory sighed after hitting it a few times. “It keeps deflecting my blows, the rock is too hard.”

I chuckled, “At my count, shoot a beam through it.”

Lory nodded, “Alright, go!”

I lifted my hand and shot dark energy upwards, while Lory shot a moon beam downwards. The beams connected in the middle and the rock bird exploded, I got launched away and rolled over the ground as I felt a piece of rock embed in my shoulder. Slowly, I got up and walked over to Lory. She lay on her back, a piece of rock in her left leg. I chuckled, “It went boom.”

Lory laughed, “It indeed went boom.” I stretched my hand and helped her up.

More and more rock birds started to land. I looked at them, “Lory?”

“Yes?”

“That might be our cue to leave, what do you think?”

She grimaced, “We better start running!” We indeed went running towards the left nipple volcano, one of the birds landed in front of us, I slid underneath it while raising my energy blade. Lory jumped over it and lowered her blade, when I looked over my shoulder, the rock bird fell down as we had sliced it in two. We kept on running, as another one of the rock birds landed in front of us, we both took a side and ran past it while it tried to peck at us.

We continued making our way to the volcano when one of them swooped down and grabbed me with its claws. Lory looked at me, “Steve!?”

“Go, I will take care of this one.” The rock bird started flying higher and higher. Out of my back, I shot a dark energy beam, the rock bird screeched in pain and let me go. I am very high in the sky.

I spread my wings and aimed for Lory, she was heading for the entrance, one of the birds tried to swoop her up, I shot an energy beam and the rock bird went off course. Lory jumped aside to dodge the rock bird. She looked at me, “Thanks for the back-up!” I soared through the sky, not flying, but rather falling. As the rock birds came for me, I dodged aside while heading towards the entrance of the left nipple volcano.

Lory looked at me as she stood at the entrance, I landed with a roll into the entrance. Lory smiled at me, “It seems you can fly after all.”

“No my love, in the words of Woody, that was falling with style!” We looked back at the rock birds, they did not seem to dare to come closer. I panted, “Phew, that was intense, but we made it.”

Lory offered me a fist bump, I looked at her and bumped her fist. I laughed, “That is new.”

Lory shrugged, “I liked your style, bro.”

“Oh my god, that accent Lory, please stop it, or you might make me cry.”

We both looked into the volcano, heat came from it, but there was no lava. Lory sat down, she looked at her leg, it had been hurt in the fight. I kneeled beside her and sent energy into her wound. She smiled at me, “We make a good team.”

“Yes, we do, there might be other dangers in this volcano.” We both looked at the rock birds. I nodded, “They don’t seem too keen to get in here.”

Lory put her hand on my cheek, “Thanks for having my back.”

“Hey, you had my back as well.” She poked my wings, “These are a nice tool, you need to learn to fly.”

I smiled, “One thing at a time, dear. For now, we need to go into this volcano and find out what the rock birds are afraid of.”