After one more flight of staircases they were finally standing in front of the last dragon head statue. Erevan shook his head in fond exasperation as he looked at Nalion resting on the floor, sprawled on his back. Ilias had had a bit more stamina, which had surprised the ranger, but the kid appeared tired as well after he had huffed and puffed his way up. To be fair, even Erevan could feel all the climbing as his muscles complained about the strain. But it wasn’t that bad.

Mages.

As the others rested and caught their breath, Erevan turned to inspect the statue closer. This one was similar to the others, but adorned with gleaming silver eyes. Before them was only a smooth marble wall, as they had finally reached the end of the spiral staircase. Erevan inserted the key, marveling how smoothly they all slotted in, and twisted it as he’d done before.

Instead of a hole leading out of the tower, the wall at the end of the staircase slid to the side. Thus revealing a new, much smaller staircase leading further to the east. He began to automatically move with stealth, spotting open double doors at the end of the small stairs.

The paranoid part of him wanted to keep double-checking that he still had the book and the second ring Walter had given him. They were two more things of the Order he had to keep secret and safe. He tapped at his chest gently, the feeling of the rings against his skin dissuading the worst of his paranoia. It was better they were with him than Walter in case he and Nalion managed to undo whatever had happened in the towers. That way no one who might wander in, by accident or not, could get their hands on them.

Thanks to the book, he now fully understood what exactly the Order had been protecting. Or who. After all this was done he intended to track down what had happened to the people whose names he’d seen within, to see if they perhaps had some living relatives left. But that was a job for another day. Erevan had given his word to try to help the town in exchange for the priest helping Hama, and he always kept his word. He wasn’t a smarmy, dishonorable liar like the bard.

He wasn’t really sure if he’d count as a “good person” per se, but he was definitely better than the bard. And that was enough for Erevan.

Carefully, they continued forward - the others had joined in as they had seen him moving on. Erevan's slightly pointed ears twitched. He could hear some heavy breathing coming from where they were headed. Didn’t Ilias mention something about a large, intelligent creature the wererats had tried to do something to? Perhaps it was the creature he could hear now, for it was obviously far too large to be the human everyone in the tower was raving on and on about.

What was his name again? Zoink? Zillion? It had been something ridiculous like that.

Erevan reached the top of the stairs, and slowly peeked through the large and heavily decorated double doors. His eyebrows involuntarily climbed their way almost to his hairline. What he saw was not what he had expected. Though he felt as if he maybe should have, based on the decoration style in the tower. It must have been deliberate.

Zillion was a dragon.

The dragon’s gigantic silvery head gleamed as a small amount of light from a hole in the roof fell on top of it. Luckily the hole was covered by glass, otherwise the placement would have been quite unfortunate when it rained.

The rest of the dragon's body, however, appeared to be in some sort of magical limbo or whatever. Nalion would probably know all the technical terms. Though even Erevan could gather that the dragon was not really in this world, yet not really in another one either. The scales on the dragon's skin shimmered in silver wherever light hit it, regardless of how muted the light outside was due to the cloudy weather and the lateness of the day.

Otherwise the scales were shaded by a dark purple mist. On both sides of the dragon there were two glowing, dark purple crystals and behind it there was a pedestal. On top of it a silvery staff with white flowers growing upon it was placed. Erevan made a face. He would bet a beer on that that was the staff they were looking for.

“Is that Zion?” Ilias breathed out, disbelief and wonder evident in his voice.

Oh, right. It was Zion. Still a ridiculous name.

Bony nodded. Well, shit.

Even an idiot could see it was most likely the crystals that somehow kept Zion in place, but that wasn’t the problem. Who knew what this purple stuff was made of, or what it would do to them if they came in contact with it? There was no way of sneaking past it either, as it encompassed the whole room.

He supposed that they could test his new balls and drop one on the roof, if Nalion would first turn into an eagle or something, and then swoop in to get the staff. Then again the staff could get destroyed in the explosion. Erevan had no idea how big a potential explosion would be. He looked up. They could try to break the glass with more conventional means? Though that wouldn’t rid the room of the purple haze, which even seemed to be floating above the dragon. So they were stuck with the same problem again.

He glanced on his side and saw Nalion thinking so hard he was surprised there was no steam rising from the elf’s pointy ears.

“Should we destroy the crystals?” asked their resident idiot. Erevan slapped his forehead and turned to glare at Ilias.

Nalion shook his head solemnly, “No, we don’t know what the purple haze would do to us.”

Finally, someone sensible. Erevan nodded, pleased that Nalion was siding with him. It was the only logical option after all.

Ilias shrugged. “I could test it and see if it's safe.”

Did the idiot have some kind of deathwish? Sure, let’s go traipsing into a mysterious dark purple mist that seems to be enough to keep a dragon under its influence. What a great idea. Erevan snorted in derision.

Mages.

“And if it isn’t, what happens to you?” countered Nalion, a small furrow forming between his eyebrows.

Ilias waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll be fine, you can heal me.”

Erevan opened his mouth to point out that there might be no way for them to get him out without being affected by the purple haze themselves, but he was too late as Ilias was already on the move. Idiot, was all Erevan managed to think before he could feel how he was plunged from the top floor of the tower to… somewhere dry and warm?

Erevan looked around in anger and confusion. Of course he would get dragged in the mess even though he’d been clearly against the whole idea. Just like the bard, the human seemed to only care about himself and his own ideas.

The warmth was all encompassing, making his clothes feel stifling. The corridor he, Nalion and Spiro found themselves in was opulent, obviously belonging to someone fancy and rich. It did nothing to endear Erevan to whoever might live here. His lips curled in a snarl as he tried to spot an exit.

Suddenly, there were sounds. His body tensed as he roughly shoved Nalion and Spiro through an open door into an empty room in the corridor. He flattened the druid next to the wall so that they wouldn’t be seen. He held his breath. Someone was approaching them from behind, coming in fast. Erevan was baffled by the sounds of the footsteps. They sounded almost like the steps of a small child.

He carefully peeked out of the barely open door only to see Ilias running past them. The teen had a carefree grin on his face, different somehow from the ones Erevan had seen before. It was unnerving, how the sounds didn’t seem to be in proportion to his size.

Ilias ran past them and through another open door at the end of the corridor. Erevan followed him discreetly, waving for Nalion to follow him along.

In the last room Ilias came to a skidding halt in front of a young woman. The woman had dark brown hair and caramel-colored skin, the same shade as Ilias’. Maybe a touch lighter, but not by much. She was dressed in fine silks colored dark blue with silver lacings, and her hair was carefully braided with small sparkling jewels. Based on appearances, the woman was probably not Luccan. Erevan watched as she bent down to look at Ilias. Which was very weird considering they were around the same height.

“Hello sweetie,” came the lilting accent of her voice. Definitely not Luccan.

Erevan had trouble placing the accent, he didn’t think he’d heard it before. He frowned. He didn’t like this place. He watched passively as the woman lifted Ilias to her lap as if he weighed nothing, the way one would do to a child. Ilias sat there, swinging his legs in a contented way. Even though his legs were long enough to be touching the ground. It was giving Erevan a headache. One of the many reasons why he hated magic.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Hey mom, guess what!” Ilias exclaimed, clearly excited.

“What is it swee-,” the woman’s brown eyes widened in alarm. Her features quickly twisted into something ugly as she took in Erevan and Nalion standing in the doorway, with an attentive Spiro perched on Nalions head. She stood up swiftly and pushed Ilias behind her. “Run honey, get the guards!”

Ilias looked frightened, yelling after guards as Erevan advanced. It made Erevan’s heart twinge a little. Not that he’d admit it to anyone ever. Whatever this mumbo jumbo was, it was better to get it over with.

“Move,” he rasped gruffly, scowling at the imaginary lady. The woman glared at him with a viciousness even Erevan would have trouble matching. Erevan bit his tongue, reminding himself that this was not a real person. So there was no reason to get nervous, even if it was the opposite gender. If only his body would get the message.

Erevan lifted his hands in order to physically remove the woman so that they could fix this and get back to where they’d been. However, as his fingers made contact with the woman she disappeared into swirling dust. Huh. How ‘bout that.

He then focused a stern gaze towards Ilias. The latter was crying out in despair as his mother abruptly vanished in front of him. And then Ilias’ bottom lip wobbled. His chin quivered.

Oh crap.

Tears began gathering in the human's eyes, falling down his lashes as he hiccuped. Erevan felt extremely uncomfortable. Ilias then accused them with a thick and faltering voice: “What did you do?”

The fear was still there in the younger mages eyes, but it was mostly overcome by sorrow. Erevan resisted the urge to do something about it. It’s not like it was real. So there was no reason for him to feel guilty or sad, right? Ugh, feelings again.

“Come on Ilias, let's get out of here,” Nalion said. The mage was speaking softly, as if trying to calm down a wild animal trapped in a corner.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MOTHER!?!” Ilias screeched amidst his tears, face impressively red. Snot was beginning to slowly roll down his nostrils as Ilias tried and failed to stifle his sobs.

Ew. Erevan wrinkled his nose. Kids were disgusting.

“Nothing,” Nalion claimed, concerned, “none of this is real.”

This was not working. Erevan sighed, despondent. It was up to him to fix this mess. He briskly walked over and then forcibly lifted Ilias up from his shoulders, prepared to carry the kid out if he was not coming willingly. Then they could figure out how to get the hell out of here.

The moment he lifted Ilias they were plunged back to the room with the great slumbering silver dragon. Erevan blinked, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the change in light. It was considerably darker within the tower than wherever they had just been. He then frowned down at Ilias, who had thankfully stopped sobbing. Instead the young mage was now staring at him with a tear streaked face.

There was a droplet still stuck on his eyelash, which rolled down as he blinked, expression dumbstruck. Then a look of pure, unadulterated horror flashed across his face as realization glinted in his eyes.

Erevan dropped the kid unceremoniously and walked away. He didn’t know what to say or do. What was one supposed to do in a situation like this? He scowled at the wall and rued his bad social skills. Who cared anyway, it’s not like he even liked Ilias. Right? He crossed his arms and deepened his manly man frown as he looked back to the others.

Ilias was quickly wiping his face to his sleeve, his pallor looking a bit off, as Nalion hovered on the side awkwardly. Wait. Something was different. Erevan directed his sharp gaze towards the dragon. The purple haze had lessened on one of the sides. The crystal on the right side where Ilias was, was no longer glowing or emitting any color. So it had worked. The dragon too appeared to have recovered some more of its silver, the color happily shimmering on that side of it.

“We did it, do you see that guys?” asked Nalion, previous grievances forgotten in his excitement as the elf followed Erevans gaze. “It worked! Now we just have to do the same thing to the other crystal!”

Nalion looked at him, hazel eyes bright with enthusiasm.

Oh no.

Erevan was glad he hadn’t uncrossed his arms as he glared at Nalion. “I’m not going there,” he said vehemently. This was a hill he was prepared to stubbornly die on.

“That’s okay, I’ll do it. You’ll just have to touch me,” said Nalion while scurrying away.

Erevan groaned as they were plunged from the room once more. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes, opening them to a lush green forest. It seemed to be in the middle of summer, as the breeze hitting his face was pleasantly warm and the birds were happily chirping. The heat was much more comfortable here than it had been in the other weird place.

Erevan reluctantly looked around, spotting an uncomfortable looking Ilias as well as a mildly agitated Spiro. Ilias noticed him staring and shot a small smile his way as he relaxed, whereas Spiro let out a low whine. Erevan scowled in Ilias’ general direction before lifting poor Spiro in his arms, gently petting the small dragon. It seemed to help.

It also eased his own anxiety as he was trying very hard not to think about what would happen if they didn’t find Nalion. Would he forever be trapped in this forest with Spiro and a lying human who smiled way too much? He sighed despondently. Time to locate their wayward elf.

As he looked forward, squinting slightly in the brightness of the midday sun, he almost immediately spotted Nalion. Who was currently having a leisurely walk with an elven woman. The woman was dressed in similar clothes as Nalion himself, her skin a slightly richer color of copper than Nalion's. Her light brown hair was gathered in a sensible low ponytail. It swung gently from side to side as she stopped to talk about some plant to a happy looking Nalion.

The woman looked their way and stopped, fear bleeding in her brown eyes.

“Oh no. Run honey!” The woman yelled while positioning herself in between Erevan and Nalion.

Erevan sighed deeply. Not again.

He decided to ignore the woman and sprinted after Nalion. The bookish elf had taken off instantly, clearly trusting the woman. The woman tried to block his way but vanished to dust the moment he charged right through her, just as the last illusion. Erevan continued his pursuit without sparing any further thought to the woman. Behind him he could hear the footsteps of Ilias following him.

Erevan was a little surprised how fast he was gaining on Nalion. Sure, he had longer legs, yet it seemed it was more than that. Somehow Nalion's running speed was slower than it should be, even though he could see how the elf was clearly running as fast as he could. Almost like he did not use the full length of his strides. Why would he struggle so much with his arms flailing above him, yet not take full steps? Thinking about it made Erevan’s brain hurt.

Just as he was getting close, Nalion slipped into a small hole in between the roots of a large willow. There was no way the druid could have squeezed in there, even as scrawny as he was. No, it had to be that he was in fact somehow smaller here even if he didn’t look like it. Now that Erevan thought about it, that was probably also why the stuff with Ilias had been so weird as well.

“Get out,” ordered Erevan gruffly.

“What did you do to my mother?” came a timid voice from inside the roots. “Is she okay?”

Erevan pinched at the bridge of his nose. He was far too sober to handle this.

Ilias finally caught up to them, breathing a bit heavier than usual. The blond took a deep breath and slowly sat down in front of the tree.

“Hey Nalion,” Ilias said gently. “I know you must be scared right now, but your mother is alright.”

For a moment there was silence.

“How do you know my name? And where is mother?”

“We are traveling together in the future. Or in the now. You are trapped in your memory right now, that’s why your mother isn’t here.”

“Oh.” Then silence again. “How do I know you’re not lying? Can you prove that we’re friends?”

Ilias hesitated for a moment before continuing with a kind voice. “Well, we know your name, right? I guess you’ll just have to trust me. We also have a little dragon here named Spiro who is missing you.”

At that Spiro let out another small, sad whine. It tugged at Erevans heartstrings. Mostly though he tried to resist the urge to slap his forehead. Because, really? What kind of an idiot would just choose to trust a stranger?

Then he remembered that this was Nalion they were talking about. The very same person who had, on more than several occasions, ran straight towards a possible danger just to maybe learn something new.

This was the reason why Erevan wasn’t the least bit surprised when he heard a small “okay, I trust you” coming from in between the roots. Because of course he did. No, he was mostly disappointed in Nalion's lack of common sense. Even if it was working in their favor just this once. Honestly, the sensible thing to do would have been having Spiro crawl in in the small hidey-hole and give Nalion a small doot. Not that it mattered anymore. Erevan rolled his eyes as the sounds of Nalion making his way out could be heard.

The elf's head peeked out. It appeared to be the same size as the hole itself, which Erevan now knew to be lies. Ilias smiled encouragingly as Nalion somehow twisted himself out - even though there should have been no room for that. Yet another reason he hated magic. Erevan sighed as Spiro wagged his tail, sprinting over to push his head towards Nalions legs. It was also an effective way of throwing them back to the other dragon's lair.

Back in the real world it had gotten even darker, as few small raindrops were dropping on the roof one by one. There was no dark purple glow either to aid their vision. Not that Erevan really needed it.

Had they done it? Had they freed Zion?

Erevan turned around to ask Bony, only to see the latter looking at his bony hands. Which were rapidly dissolving into dust. The ranger didn’t even have the time to utter his name before the skeleton was gone, replaced by a pile of white dust on the floor. Loss striked at his heart as he heard a mighty rumble from behind him.

He gritted his teeth together, preparing for the worst as he turned back. He brazed against a huff of breath which made Nalion stumble back a step. Then he saw it. Its eyes were still shut. The large dragon lifted its silvery head as it opened its mouth and…

Yawned. Loudly. It then smacked its lips together a few times as it pried open a pair of warm amber eyes. It was disturbing to Erevan how not disturbed he was by the sight of yet another pair of yellow eyes.

“Oh,” it said, caught off guard. The rumble of the deep voice reverberated around the entire room. “What are thou doing here?”

The voice somehow sounded more curious than threatening.

“Oh, I am freaking thou out a bit aren’t I?” The dragon sounded faintly amused. “Allow me to slip into something more size-appropriate.”

The dragon stood up and began shrinking and shrinking, until it was down to the size of a human. He beamed at them brightly, hands clasped together behind his back. Erevan recognized him now as the person from the paintings in the entrance.

“You’re Zion!” accused Nalion enthusiastically as he pointed a finger at the human-shaped dragon.

“I know right!” Zion stage-whispered back, mirth twinkling in his amber eyes. Even as he whispered in a human body it resembled a slightly toned down, good natured bellow. “But seriously, what are thou doing up here? Where is Yoric? He can assist thou back to thy tower.”

The trio shared a look. It appeared Zion didn’t know what had happened.

“We’re here to help,” said Ilias, matching Zion's smile. “Yoric is right over…” Ilias’ voice faded as he turned to point behind them, only to see no one.

Nalion spun around as well. “Where did he go?”

Erevan glumly pointed at the pile on the floor as a tight lump of sadness formed in his throat. Ilias looked stricken whereas Nalions face was contorted in an understanding sadness. He probably had expected something like this to happen.

Nalion might be an idiot sometimes, but he was also the smartest idiot Erevan knew.

Zion stared at them blankly. “What do thou mean?”

And so they told him everything. The 300 year timeskip, the skeletons roaming the towers, of Ryan and his mistake as well as the town and their dilemma. The more they talked, the more the happy sparkle in the dragon's eyes dwindled. As they got to the end, Zion processed the information quietly. His gaze mournfully flitted towards the pile that used to be Bony.

“Alas, poor Yoric. I knew him well,” he said sadly. “What of my family? The rest of the dragons, have thou heard of them?” A hint of desperation clouded Zion's features.

The trio shared a glance while slowly shaking their heads.

“I see,” Zion said softly.

“But we have Spiro, he’s a dragon right?” Ilias tried to lift the mood.

“No,” countered Nalion and Zion simultaneously.

Zion gave a pained smile. “Thy friend Spiro is a pseudodragon, he is not of my kin. More like a… distant cousin.”

Spiro chirped sadly as he flew over and gave Zion a small lick on his cheek. Zion gave another pained smile as he gently petted Spiros scales.

“Nevertheless, it is nice to be reminded that I am not completely alone. I thank thou, for all thy help and for freeing those who were trapped here,” Zion said kindly. “Thou can take the staff, take it to the town and help the people there. I am rather afraid I am going to have to do some cleaning. I shall meet thou in town tomorrow.”

Erevan gave one more forlorn glance at the pile of dust by the opening as he gently but discreetly caressed the small silver bell in his pocket. Poor Bony.