Inside the water, I felt too weak. My legs felt heavy and I did not have any control for a moment.
I was drenched a second time and did not appreciate it. When my head reached out, I looked for some air. Amanda and Oliver were right beside me and they weren't in the best state either.
The flow took us with it, not letting us swim back. In the pitch dark hour, I couldn't find a soul. There were no tourists around as it was midnight. We finally reached the end of the flow and got out. It was right beside the old man, Kifler's hut. We sat there for some time. "The Zantai helped us guys." I said. The others smiled, still not believing that we were still alive.
We got up and slowly started walking. I looked at Kifler's hut and found nobody inside. What had happened to that guy? Was he really dead? We looked around for some time but there was no sign of the guy.
Then we made our way to Trouflet town. "Colloseus said we need to go to Hydra Caves. Where is that place?" Oliver enquired. Amanda replied, "It is near Sterlin town. Somewhere outside, there is a huge dungeon. That is the Hydra Caves, the place filled with lava and the domain of Drakolleus."
Oliver and I remembered Sterlin town. It was Xavier's hometown, the town with two different types of people. "But how are we gonna reach there? We don't have our hermits. Colloseus is busy and walking isn't an option." I said. Oliver smiled, "Of course. We need our good old flying taxi."
After the amount of trips I had done using a flying taxi, I thought I would never be on one again in my life. But Oliver was excited to prove me wrong. There were a lot of flying taxis around and we took two. Oliver took one and Amanda sat with me on another.
I wanted to curse Oliver because almost immediately after the taxi moved, I felt nauseous. Flying taxis are more like vomit machines.
The trip to Sterlin took about two hours and I couldn't believe that I hadn't vomited. We paid the drivers and let them fly away. Turning behind, I saw Sterlin town. We did not need to enter it though.
We took the path around the town. There wasn't a road but we walked through the bushes with small trees surrounding us. After a while, the temperature started rising, as if we were nearing a hotter place. It was a good sign that Hydra Caves was somewhere around. We climbed hills and kept going for some time till the huge stone carving was found. The rocks in the mountain in front of us were carved in such an excellent way that it showed a dragon breathing fire.
I was at a height and had to look down at the bottom of the mountain. There laid the entrance of the dungeon. We made our way down the steep mountain, almost sliding most of the way. Once we reached below, in front of us was a huge entrance of the cave which was dark inside. There was no sign saying that it was the cave we were looking for but we knew that this was the one. We entered the cave and the heat increased tremendously. Not doing any work, I still felt sweat dripping down my body as we wandered deeper into the dungeon.
The pitch darkness did not help. The only thing that was keeping us going was the Zantai power. Amanda and I took turns in concentrating and looking through walls for some time till we were exhausted.
There were loud noises of cries coming from ahead and it almost looked like a horror movie except that the ghost was supposed to be a fire-breathing dragon. "Yup, we are toast." Oliver joked, hearing the noises from ahead.
We took left and right every time Amanda or I sensed something wrong. We even met with lava at some point. The molten magma was right below us and we didn't dare to go close to it and kept going. Meeting hot stuff kept increasing as the journey ahead continued. Sometimes I would get tired and keep my hand on the wall only to feel the rock be boiling hot. Then finally we reached the end to find our friends lying on the ground, unconscious.