"How much longer do we have to walk now, Miss Knight?" Jasmine groaned, kicking at the cloud dirt around them. It had taken them forever to get to where they were now. After many weeks and countless hours of being in Blaten, they finally made it to Cloud City. They had fought a long and hard battle against Jack the Giant and so now, they were at the final stretch. They just needed to make it to the Dragon's Den to retrieve the Dragon's sword.
"Not much longer now, Missy. I promise," Monet replied with a sigh, turning back to face Jasmine for a second before she looked down at the map she had in her hands. Mark looked over her shoulder at it, trying to figure out where they were going and what they needed to do. "Now, I think we're supposed to go that way." Monet pointed left, through a thicket filled with enough trees to make the Whisper Woods jealous.
"Are you sure?" Mark asked, glancing over to where she was pointing. This hadn't been the first time they had gone to the Dragon's Den but the first time they had gotten so hopelessly lost looking for it that it was almost guaranteed to happen again. Monet nodded her hair but it looked like her confidence in her statement had faded significantly. Mark nodded his head as if he could help her regain her confidence in her decision by agreeing with her. "Alright then. Let's go that way!"
"I can't wait to get the sword!" Jasmine cheered, clapping her hands together excitedly as they started off the path and towards the thicket. "And then we get to bring it back to the base!" Ever since they'd gotten that base, all the way back when they had been in the castle ruins, it was all Jasmine could talk about. She wanted to decorate it and bring all of their treasures there, just to make it feel like it was a real base and not just someplace that they had spent the night in for one night. Jasmine had been warned plenty of times that since their base was in the castle ruins, it was possible that it would collapse. In fact, they had warned Jasmine that there was a possibility that it could be caved in right now but Jasmine didn't listen. Mark and Monet barely needed to remind themselves that Jasmine didn't listen period.
"If it's standing, then sure, Missy. We'll bring the sword back to the base and it can live there," Monet smiled, folding up her map and placing it back into her side bag where it belonged. Then, she grabbed her bow and arrows, prepared to fight if she needed too.
"Now remember, when we get to the dragons, we have to be extra, extra quiet," Mark reminded them gently. Monet and Jasmine nodded their heads in agreement, though Monet knew that he was mostly just speaking to Jasmine. Jasmine did have trouble staying quiet and focusing on things and so they had to constantly remind her that she needed to be quiet when it came to these sorts of missions. "Dragons are strong and they like to keep their treasure to themselves so the more quiet we are, the easier it'll be. Maybe, if we're lucky, they're sleeping and we can sneak right past them."
"Dragons like to sleep during the day and it's getting closer to night so we need to hurry," Monet agreed. She looked between her to companions with a satisfied look. Her mission was about to be completed. It had taken them almost four weeks, the longest they had ever been on a quest for Blaten, and Monet was a little more than proud of herself.
"As long as we stay quiet, they should be asleep. Easy peasy, yeah, yeah, I got it. Let's go!" Jasmine said, jumping up and down in place. She could barely restrain herself at this point. They were so close to the end, Jasmine could feel it!
"Okay, let's go!" Mark agreed. The three of them took off running into the woods, keeping close to each other and trying their best to stay in a straight line so that they could get back if they couldn't find the Dragon's Den. There were no paths here but since they didn't have to worry about the ghosts as they did in the Whisper Woods, they weren't afraid of being off the path. So, since the map said that the Dragon's Den was straight ahead of them, they ran right off the path and straight into the danger.
The trees in Cloud City so different from the trees down on the ground in Blaten. These trees were blue and had a light blue glow to them, like the world needed to be much brighter than it already was. At night, the trees would shine a bright blue and almost everyone in Cloud City had one in their yard. They were like night lights. The only sad thing was that you couldn't plant these in the ground back down in Blaten. It would just shrivel up and die. They knew because they had tried it before. That's what made the trees in Cloud City so special.
"It'd be super cool to live here, wouldn't it?" Jasmine asked, ducking under a tree branch and pushing the glowing, blue leaves away from her face. Monet nodded her head in agreement and they slowed their run into a walk.
"Yeah. This would be a really cool place to live. Though this is the one place that is super, duper hard to make on Minecraft," Mark said with a sigh, shaking his head back and forth slightly. They were going to talk more but that was when they reached the dragon's lair and they all went silent.
The Dragon's Den didn't look like much at first. It was just a cave in the middle of the woods, surrounded by the blue trees of Cloud City and lit up by the small, glowing, light pink flowers on the ground. There were a few dragons asleep in front of the entrance to the cave on the ground but if their suspicions were correct, there would be a lot more on the inside of the cave as well. The inside was definitely the coolest part. While the cave looked small on the outside, once you stepped inside, it was like you have been transported to somewhere completely different. It still looked like a cave but numerous jewels and gems lit up the walls and it was so large that you would think that you were inside a bunker.
Of course, they only knew this because back when they were still at the old castle ruins for their base of operations, they had a quest where they had to come up to Cloud City and steal gems from the Dragon's Den. If this was anything like it was before, this was going to get really difficult really fast. Still, they weren't the same people they were back then. They had gotten so much better now. So much that the dragons didn't stand a chance.
"Okay," Mark whispered, dropping behind a light pink bush and motioning for them to do the same. Jasmine and Monet followed in suit, kneeling down to the ground quickly so that they wouldn't be spotted by the dragons. Jasmine covered her mouth to make sure that she didn't make any noise. She didn't want to jeopardize the mission when they were this close to completing it and she was sure that if she even so much as breathed the wrong way, she would do just that.
"On three, we sneak in," Monet whispered if it could even be considered a whisper because of how quiet it was. She held up one figure, then two, and finally three before the trio made their way over to the entrance to the Dragon's Den. Every time they thought that they were making too much noise or stepped the wrong way, they froze, just making sure that they didn't wake up the dragons. When they didn't, they continued towards the entrance. But getting into the den proved to be the easy part. Once they were inside the den, they saw that there were no more dragons inside so that means that they didn't need to whisper anymore. Sound didn't carry very well in the cave so it wasn't a concern for them anymore. They walked through the cave's tunnels quickly, already knowing where they were going from the last time they were here anyway. Compared to how hard the rest of their quest had been, this was the easiest thing they had done.
"There it is!" Jasmine exclaimed, only two minutes after they made it into the treasure room. They had only just got there and they had done it. Monet twirled around since she was the one closest to where Jasmine had been pointing, and she laughed, for what had to be the first time that day.
"Good job, Missy!" Monet praised, picking up the sword from the pile of treasures that the dragons had left. She held the sword up high in the air, letting everyone see what they had accomplished together. Mark clapped his hands together once like he couldn't have been happier to see anything else in the world. Jasmine squealed and ran over to Monet's side as fast as she could. "We did it! We got the sword!"
"I can't believe it!" Jasmine replied before holding her hand out. "Here. Give it to me. I wanna hold it." Monet nodded her head and passed it over to Jasmine, letting her hold it. Jasmine took the sword gingerly, holding it out in front of her like she was scared she was going to break it if she held it any differently. Mark ran over to join them, looking over Jasmine's shoulder to see the sword. It wasn't like their other swords. This one was bright, shiny, and glossy, unlike their dull, iron swords that they had been carrying on forever. This handle on this sword looked like it was made from gold, with a brown leather wrap around it to make the grip a little more comfortable to hold, and, of course, it had a red ruby in the middle of the handle. They knew it had to have belonged to the old Blaten kingdom because of the crest printed right behind the ruby.
"I barely believe it myself!" Monet said, clasping her hands together quickly. She glanced around them, looking back at the rest of the treasure room. Mark and Jasmine followed her gaze as if they were just remembered where they were again for the first time since they got the sword. "We need to get out of Cloud City. The longer we're up here with the sword, in the Dragon's Den, the sooner the dragons will find out that we took their treasure."
"I agree. We need to get out of here for sure," Mark agreed, nodding his head. They started heading back, Monet taking the sword and putting it at her side. Earlier, she had lost her sword during a fight and couldn't manage to get it back so she was really the only one out of any of them who was capable of carrying the sword with them.
They made it outside of the den just in time. Just as they made it back to the bush, the dragons woke up again. They yawned and stretched like cats after a long nap in the sun. The trio froze, barely even breathing as they hid behind the pink bush again. They couldn't even turn around to see if the dragons were leaving. They listened quietly for minutes but they only dared to love when they heard the sound of wings flapping in the air, the dragons leaving them alone.
After that, they ran back onto the road, desperate to get out of Cloud City before night fell and they would have to set up camp in the danger of the dragons. In order to hide the sword, Mark gave Monet his long coat, one that covered the sword almost completely. Now, if anyone were to see them, they would think that Monet was just carrying a brand new sword. Good. They couldn't risk losing the prize they had just gotten. Jasmine and Mark were constantly checking over their shoulders, making sure that they weren't being followed by anyone but they were especially checking for those nasty Jekel robbers. Monet seemed to freak out whenever she was around them now so if she were trapped by them now, they wouldn't be leaving with the Dragon Sword ever.
Soon, they were out of the main town in Cloud City and back in their flying boat. The three of them scrambled to get it up in the air and moving again. They managed to get it up from the ground in record time and so there they went, flying back towards the town of Blaten once more. The whole time, they couldn't help but cheer and laugh, talking about how excited they were that they had made it this far and they were about to have another successful mission. It wasn't every day that they got a quest and even if they were on one, it wasn't every day that they completed it. That's why this was so special and exciting to them. They had done it.
"We made it!" Monet exclaimed, twirling around on the ground once they landed. They quickly ran over to their house, placing the sword in their safe for safekeeping for now until they could get it to their base, before heading back outside, ready to tell the people of Blaten their wonderful and exciting news. Except, they never did make it to town. Instead, Jasmine tripped and fell into a mud puddle. And when Mark laughed at her instead of helped her up, it didn't take her long to throw mud right at him.
And thus started the great mud war of fourth grade. They spent the remaining time that they had at the park fighting in that great battle, running around in the puddles with mud in their hands, and throwing it at each other whenever they felt like it. At once point, Mark and Monet ended up chasing each other around for ten minutes, tackling and wrestling each other down into the mud while Jasmine sat on the ground and laughed at them. And by the time they were caught and had to go home, they were covered from head to toe in mud but they didn't care anymore. They just laughed as they got into their cars and headed home for the evening.
Monet had come home with Mark and Rebecca, since Timothy and Anna were out of town for a week together, and as soon as Monet was in the shower, Mark turned to his mother with a very serious look on his ten-year-old face.
"You wanna know something, Mom? Imma marry here one day. Monet, I mean. Imma marry her and there's going to be a big wedding with flowers and cake and everything." Mark nodded his head, very serious like. Rebecca laughed it off, brushing it off as a childhood game but stopped when she saw his serious look, though her teasing smile never faded.
"Oh yeah? And when are you going to do that?" Rebecca asked. Mark smiled and shoved his hands into his dirty hoodie pockets.
"In nine years, Mom. Just you wait. It's going to be the best wedding in the world."