"A demon popped out of nowhere, hit me in the nose, and then disappeared?" Cidre asked, looking at Erich in disbelief. Erich nodded and held out his hand to help Cidre up off the ground.
"Yup, that is what happened, and I will stick to it. But enough about that, the real question here is why you now have wings and a tail?" Erich said as he warily glanced at the snake that was staring at him. Patting himself off, Cidre pulled a pendant out from his shirt and showed it to the group. The pendant was of a raven that was carrying a python in its claws.
"I found this up on the third floor of the house, and when I put it on I felt a sense of power flow through me, but at the same time it immobilized me. That's when the transformation into this began, and at the same time I heard a loud explosion from outside. Unable to move until the transformation was done, I got worried that you guy's were in a giant battle and needed my help. That's why when I jumped out of the window, I was covered in poison mist that I was trying to coat my sword with," Cidre said as he held up his sword that had a light purple sheen to it.
"Oh? Well at least that is all that happened. We were worried you had ran into trouble yourself, but it seems you were just standing around," Robert jested, before "What happens if you take the pendant off, will you transform back into a human?" Robert asked as Cidre took the pendant off from around his neck, and transforming back into a human.
"I guess so, and I was able to move around as I transformed back, which is a good thing," Cidre said as he put the pendant into his backpack, before looking at the house in the middle of the semi-circle. "I think it would be best if we search the next couple of floors of the middle house together, that way if we run into anymore problems we can take them on together,"
"That makes sense, if we run into more gargoyles it would be easier to fight them as a group," Robert said as he rubbed his neck, where the gargoyle had grabbed him earlier.
"Are gargoyles the things you guys were fighting out here?" Cidre asked, as he looked across the lawn and saw the shattered remains of a gargoyle laying next to the house.
"Yeah, they were a pain because they will regenerate unless you crush a red crystal that acts as their heart. Erich managed to defeat two of them, and Robert was able to shatter the one that threw him through a wall to the outside. I haven't fought with any of them yet, but the way it looked while they were fighting, the gargoyles seem to be at King rank, and around the medium level," Sydra said as he thought back to the battle he had witnessed.
"Ah, I see why the two of you think it would be wise to work together if that is the case," Cidre said as he and the others began to walk over to the middle house. "Were you guy's able to find anything interesting in the house other than the gargoyles?"
"We didn't find much, but in one of the rooms on the second floor was a large crystal sphere that was floating over a pedestal. When we touched it, an image of the area surrounding the castle appeared, and when we rotated the crystal the image moved with it. We're not sure if the image that the ball shows can only show the area around the castle, or if it can go farther and show the area outside as well," Erich said as he walked up the stairs to the second floor and pushed open a door to the room where the crystal ball was.
"Let me try," Sydra said as he walked up to the crystal ball and placed his hand on it, brining up the image of the castle. Rotating the ball around, Sydra had the image move over to the water and look inside. The others watched as a nose emerged from the water, with a dragons head following behind it.
"Is that Siel, the guy you were talking about earlier?" Robert asked as he watched the dragon peer at the image, almost as if he could see them. A moment later the dragon went back under the water and Sydra had the image head to the front of the castle, before stopping at the gate that the group had entered.
"Yup, that was Siel, but this was the first time I saw him in his dragon form. Anyway, I had the image stop in front of the gate, so that when we leave we can figure out what it is," Sydra said as he sent the crystal ball and pedestal into his Arbor Sanctum. Seeing that there was nothing left in the room, the group left and closed the door behind them.
"Was there anything else on this floor that you guys found?" Cidre asked as he walked over to another door and opened it up. Behind the door was another crystal bathroom, except this one had two toilets that were facing each other inside it. "Oh my, I've heard of these types of bathrooms before, there meant to help couples get to know each other better," Cidre said as he closed the door.
"We thought that was interesting as well, but other than those two things we didn't find much of other stuff. Just some paintings and decorations that we can pick up on the way back down," Erich said as he headed over to the staircase that went up to the third floor. Walking up the stairs, Cidre and Robert let out a small gasp at the sight of most of the walls having gaping holes in them.
"Dang, you really went all out up here? I don't think there is a wall left that doesn't have a giant gaping hole in it," Robert said as he walked over to one of the holes and stepped through it. "This is the room where we met the gargoyles," he said as he looked around the room for the thing he had seen earlier. When he and Erich had been exploring this room earlier, Robert had seen a small pile of red crystal stones that gave off a similar aura to the red crystals he had found in the observatory.
"Are you looking for these?" Sydra asked as he picked up a red crystal from a pile in the room and tossed it over to Robert.
"Yeah, I forgot where I saw them earlier, because as soon as I touched them the gargoyles woke up and attacked us," Robert said as he studied the red crystal in his hand. But when he tried to absorb the power within nothing happened, causing Robert to become disappointed. "Dang, I thought I could gain more fire aura from these, but it seems they are useless"
"Why not have a blacksmith create a new war hammer out of them, for you? It would be able to conduct your fire aura easier than the one you have now," Cidre said as he took the crystal from Robert and studied it closely. "These are crystalized volcanic embers after all, and weapons made from them have a close connection to people who wield the fire aura,"
"Really? I didn't know that," Robert said as his head shot back up and he grabbed the crystal from Cidre, looking back at it like it was a precious treasure. "Um, Sydra, do you mind sending these into your Arbor Sanctum, and holding onto them until we find a blacksmith that can do something with them?" Robert asked as he slowly turned and looked at Sydra pleadingly.
"Sure, that shouldn't be a problem," Sydra said as he sent all the red crystals into his Arbor Sanctum before looking around the room. Seeing nothing, Sydra turned around and began to look through the holes and into the others rooms. "Was there anything else on this floor that we should take, or can we move up to the next floor?"
"I didn't see anything while I was fighting up here, so I would assume it is safe to move onto the next floor," Erich said as he led the group to the next flight of stairs, only to find it destroyed up to the halfway mark. "Opps, I guess my battle broke some of the stairs,"
"Hmm, I can fix that," Sydra said as he created several spiders that created a web ramp that went from the floor they were on to the part of the stairs that weren't destroyed yet. Once the ramp was completed, Sydra raised the temperature of the sticky webs and hardened them until they became stable. "There we go," Sydra said as he began to walk up the ramp with the others staring blankly at his back.
"He can do anything, can't he?" Erich mumbled as he began to follow Sydra up the ramp with the others. While the others were silently nodding, Sydra had reached the first door on the fourth floor and opened it cautiously, in case there were any gargoyles hiding behind it.