The Molve ripped the air with a bellowing roar, bursting into bright orange flames with it's jagged canines bared and coated with thick saliva. It was a familiar sight to Káel, who was scared enough given the circumstances.

          His defensive posture faltered for a split second as the Molve's murderous gaze burned a hole through his mind. He couldn't tell if it was staring at him, since its pupiless eyes were simply a swirly hurricane of thrashing orange magic. But he also didn't feel like the thing was going to stop at simply taking his ribbon.

          "Run?" Phantom whispered, the surprise clear in his tone as he soaked in the mysterious bloodlust.

          Káel slowly nodded, then twisted around on his heels, fleeing for his life. The Molve didn't spare a second in commencing its chase, leaping into a sprint and landing a few feet behind him.

          Digging its claws into the ground to prevent it from sliding into the wall, it used its momentum to propel itself forwards yet again, landing inches from Phantom's flapping tailcoat. Puff cried in terror as a couple freshly scraped pebbles flew over his head, doubling the bouncing gallop of his stubby limbs until he was a scurrying white blur that left Káel and Phantom in the dust, vanishing into the black mouth of the hall they fled down.

          Cinder swooped down in front of Káel, chirping urgently at him over the loud panting of the Molve, but her singing voice was completely useless without words to go with them.

          "She says to follow her!" Phantom yelled, . "But you're not gonna get far without a distraction for Mr. Chomps."

          "Do I look like I can stop a massive living boulder?!" Káel panted, stubbing his toe on a rock jutting out of the ground, and almost tripping to his doom.

          "I'd tell you to try using your guardian, but a fat load of use Mudbrain is being."

          Following Cinder's lead, Káel whipped around another corner, straight into a bare and broken room. The light of day cracked through a webbing of thick tree roots sheltering a deep pool stretching across the entire ground, its calm surface dancing in the dead wind's shadow like a coat of mesmerizing scales. 

          "Time to swim," Káel announced, biting the grimy old hilt of his dagger with a bitter tang of regret as he sloppily dived into the pool.

          Phantom ran across the water and looked down at Káel as he passed him, clearly expecting the youth to drown under the elements. "What are you? A fish?" He stopped dead as Káel quickly reached the other side with a couple gasping breaths. "I thought earthlings couldn't swim."

          "Please shut up," Káel wheezed, dropping his forehead in the dirt while half his body stayed submerged. He could already feel his soggy combat suit weighing down his shoulders, and the water's icy fangs had sucked most of the air out of his lungs. 

          The Molve stopped at the water line, growling with seething rage at its escaped target. 

          Káel pulled himself up with the generous break, collapsing against a wall nearly as broken as his will to live in exhaustion. Cinder took roost upon his head, nesting in the damp tangles of black hair with a chirping sigh.

          "Get up Unicorn Boy, we need to make as big a lead as we can," Phantom ordered, pointing at the Molve as it slowly submerged itself into the shimmering depths.

          Káel cursed under his breath, willing his stiff joints to best the crushing weight of his combat suit and walk him somewhere safe. Every footstep leaked a distinct trail of the grimy water covering him in an exceptionally unwelcomed hug, giving the molve a generous tail of wet string to follow to its prey when it got out of the water. 

          Regardless of the clear fault, Phantom lead him into a dark room, pointing him down behind a pile of fallen rubble where they both crouched like frightened toddlers waiting for a pranked mother to enter the room. Cinder's optimism was almost as hot as her feathers as the phoenix offered what little help she could, crawling into Káel's combat suit to conceal her noticeable glow.

          "The rock, it's in your pocket right?" Phantom whispered.

          He flashed the brown rock to him. "You mean your rock?"

          Phantom nodded, the two of them stiffening at the sound of a heavy splash and scrabbling claws. "I want to test something... because that Molve's behaviour screams a little more than I want your ribbon."

   —————    

          The Molve prowled through the dark, its keen claws clicking eagerly against the ground with every step. Vera and Xavier huddled out of its sight, pressed into the back of a small stone covered hole they were fortunate enough to find while holding their breath in fearful anticipation.

          The clicks grew louder in tune to their waning chances of escape, the small play of moving shadows giving them a foggy view as it circled them. Then the glowing orange eyes came into view, faint as it lowered its head in front of them, thankfully peering in the wrong direction.

          Vera readied herself to let loose every explosion she knew on the creature, staring at it in fear as it slowly turned it's head, meticulously scanning the area. The Molve's breaths were cold and calm, it's mouth slightly ajar to display its rows of serrated fangs. Luckily, false life enchantments lacked a sense of smell, giving them the smallest chance at avoiding detection.

          But that chance was getting smaller and smaller, as the Molves head slowly turned, getting closer to finding its targets. 

          Until the barking roar that echoed through the building's fragile bones like a demonic saviour grabbed its attention.

          The Molve shot its head up attentively, ears spiked upwards as it barked in response, quickly blind to its prey as it hastily vacated the room.

          Xavier gasped for air, peeking his head out of the hole to get a look at the room. "Whew, it left," he chuckled, hoisting himself up, and getting to his feet to pat down his combat suit. "That was way too close."

          Vera climbed out, adjusting her small satchel of stones with an irritated bite to her tone. "I guess we made up in points for losing Brim, but not by much, and we only have a little over half an hour to go."

          "Poor Brim, he shall be missed. Doomed to walk back by himself," Xavier chimed carelessly, his playful eyes darting around. "But I wonder what that Molve hightailed out of here for, it must have been important."

          Vera shrugged. "Whatever it was, it's not our problem." She popped her head out of the doorway, looking left and right before exiting. "Cinder will be leading the rest of the group to us. Let's go explore some more while we wait."

          "Agreed."

          She muttered quietly, and a dim orb of light rose from her hands, giving the two a small visible area around them.

          "Isn't that what got us caught last time?" Xavier whispered cautiously.

          "Yeah, but how else are we supposed to find anything?" Vera retorted. "Besides, if another Molve tries to chase us down, I'll blast it with every explosion I know." She finished with a confident smirk, twisting her head to a distant splashing noise as he shoulders stiffened and a gasp got lodged in her throat.

          They both froze, listening for more oddities, but a powerful blanket of silence settled upon their fears. 

          "I wonder how the other half of our group is doing," Xavier whispered.

          "Hopefully they'r- wait," Vera seized up again, squinting intently down the dark path. "Did you hear something?"

          Xavier shook his head, and scouted their surroundings, stopping when a small and quiet warble met their ears.

          "That! Did you hear that?" Vera whispered, backing away from the fading echo.

          "Yeah, but it's not a Molve, it's something small," Xavier replied, pulled by curiousity as he overtook Vera.

          The warble came again, a clear call of distress lacing the cute noise with the quick pitter patter of fluffy paws drumming a calming beat. It was then that Vera recognized the odd noise, her face contorting to surprise. 

          "Puff?"

          A small, white, and exhausted fluffy dragon came into the light, it's muddied ribbon dragging along the ground from the tip of its tail like a sad snake. Xavier instinctively knelt down for the dragon's cute charms, scooping the tired creature into his arms despite Vera's warnings. The fluffy dragon nestled lazily into the stranger's arms for once, too tired to bite at the show of hospitality.

          "What's Puff doing here?" Vera whispered.

          Puff did the best imitation of a Molve he could, but when he realized his audience only took it as an act of hostility, he sighed and motioned down the path he'd come from with his head.

          "You want us to go that way?" Vera questioned, narrowing her eyes at the creature. "There isn't a Molve that way... is there?"

          Puff shook his head, successfully suppressing the mischief in his smile.

          "Maybe the rest of the group is that way," Xavier said, receiving an enthusiastic nod from Puff.

          "Fine, we'll go that way," Vera muttered, reaching into her sack of stones and pulling one out. "Hey Puff, you've got a good sense of smell, right?"

          The dragon gave a pompous nod, and she held the stone out to him for a couple sniffs.

          "We don't know where Brim's guardian went, so if you catch that scent anywhere, find it please."

          Puff agreed, only because the redhead had been smart enough to speak respectfully to him, for once. Also, so that they wouldn't be as mad at him when he lead them to the others, who were currently dealing with a Molve.

          Jumping out of Xavier's arms, he sniffed around for his objective, shoving his face right into a pile of rubble, and withdrawing a marked stone. Vera took it and thanked him with a scratch behind the ears, leaning closer to the samll drake for a chillingly warm whisper. "Maybe you are one of the good dragons." The smile growing on her face took a twang of pity, but Puff was too unnerved by her sudden friendliness to care. "but how did the dragon hunters manage to get you?"

          Puff grunted in confusion, tilting his head so his floppy ear slapped the top of his head. He didn't understand a single word that had come from the idiot's mouth. There wasn't a dragon on Lumi that the nasty men couldn't get to, let alone these mysterious 'good dragons'. Puff scrunched his snout as he delved deeper into the stupidity. What even was a good dragon? Weren't all dragons the same?

          Trying to decipher her words gave him a headache, he was too exhausted for critical thinking, and decided to shrug it off.

          A couple minutes passed, and he'd nearly united them when he felt a strange disturbance. Káel had been trying to use lumience for a while, which assured Puff that he was still running away from the murderous Molve, but now it was working. He could feel a smooth flow of lumience building up, for something undoubtedly dangerous, and something was controlling it for him. The guesses few in number as to who, or what, it could have been.

          Suddenly the ground trembled, and the entire building howled with the sound of a massive explosion.

   —————    

          "That was way too much!" Phantom yelled, still gripping his ears as he stood in a cringing squat. "What part of, you can stop now I don't need any more lumience did you not understand?!"

          Káel sat on the ground, panting and coughing from the amount of dust and smoke surrounding them. "I told you I didn't know how to stop it." He snapped, coughing up a bit of hazy smoke as his voice dried out. "At least it worked."

          "Are you hurt?" Phantom questioned, watching him get to his feet dizzily.

          Káel rubbed the burnt pebbles and dust out of his hair, looking around with a frown. "Don't think so, but I'm taking a nap after this."

          "No seriously..." Phantom said with a hint of concern.

          "Seriously, I'm fine. Do I look injured to you?" Káel insisted, displaying himself to Phantom.

          "No, but you should've been, I wouldn't have been surprised if you died. Sad, but not surprised."

          "That's comforting." Káel scooped the Molve's medallion off the ground. It was covered in black scorch marks, but still held a recognizable charm. He dropped the hard weight over his shoulders, allowing the thick plate of medal to bounce against his stomach as he shifted uncomfortably in the damp and itchy hug of his combat suit. "That's twenty points, and I'm not doing that again, or I'll faint."

          "Good, cause I don't feel like controlling that amount of lumience ever again," Phantom retorted, pulling off his hat and instinctively dusting it. "At least it worked. Maybe we can do a couple other things with you holding my rock if it lets me stabilize your lumience. But there's still something messing with it, and I don't know what it is."

          Cinder crawled out of Káel's suit, and chirped at him in a way that sounded like a relieved congratulations. He skimmed the warzone, mostly singed black, spare the small spot he'd been crouched in, with most of the walls crumbled and shattered into mounds of debris.

          Phantom was right, he should have been dead.

          An orange ball of energy rose from the Molves broken corpse and slowly approached him, then turned and stopped directly in front of Phantom's face. He backed up, and the orb followed, circling him and at some points passing through him, until it stopped and went up to the rock in Káel's hand. Hovering there for a couple seconds, it turned and whizzed away, with Káel and Phantom speechlessly watching it.

          There was a moment of tranquil silence, Káel's mouth hanging in speechless confusion until Phantom's response snapped it shut.

          "Oh yeah... False life enchantments," Phantom said with a nervous chuckle, catching Káel's death glare.

          "It was chasing you..." Káel said, trying to mask his irritation with a falsely cool tone. "It could hear you.... It could see you, and it was trying to kill you, not me! No wonder it had no problem following us! You sat there singing and prancing through the halls!"

          "Look on the bright sid-"

          "No! You will not sing, or prance around like some flamboyant peacock anymore! Or raise your voice above a whisper! From now on we're quiet and stealthy," Káel growled, his voice falling to a stinging whisper. "Or I swear I'll do everything in my power to break whatever stalking function that's been put on this damn rock, capiche?"

          "Capish...?" Phantom whispered, more confused than anything.

          Káel gave him a stern nod, zipping behind the closest wall to scout the rest of his surroundings. "Good, now where are the other Molves?"

   —————    

          "What the heck was that?" Janiel whispered, still clinging to the same wall well after the building stopped rumbling, strangely prepared for a another violent shake.

          Alestra looked around in bewilderment. "An explosion I'm guessing, and not one caused by a Molve."

          "Then... Do you think it could have been...?" Janiel said, staring at Alestra with worry as the two of them clicked in.

          "If it was him, then I guess he wasn't lying about the flashlight. Let's just hope he's still in one piece." Alestra caught a questioning look from Talli who still had a death grip on her arm, providing a smile as a subpar attempt to soothe her confusion.

          "Should we check it out then?" Janiel raised her finger before Alestra could even twitch her mouth. "It might've attracted a couple Molves, but if he's that powerful we may stand a fighting chance in defeating one, or at least escaping without losing anymore teammates."

          Alestra bit her tongue, the painful squint she pressed Janiel with drowned in contemplation, weighing the pros and cons of her suggestion. She then nodded, hiding her worry with a confident smile. "Those Molves' are racking up on points as it is, we can't afford to lose another member."

          Alestra, Talli and Janiel broke into a light jog, now with a small orb to light their path. They got through a corridor and stopped to determine which path would take them to the origin of the explosion, when Janiel let off a surprised yelp as something brushed her leg.

          Puff backed away with an offended look, hopping off down a concealed corridor and returning with Vera and Xavier tailing him. Xavier greeted Alestra and Janiel with a little wave, but Vera immediately cut past the formalities and got to the point. "What happened to Káel?"

          "We met a Molve," Janiel replied plainly.

          Vera sighed and cursed under her breath, squeezing her fists to keep from stomping the ground in irritation. "That means we're down another five points!"

          Alestra shook her head. "Not necessarily. We don't know if he's been caught yet, that's why we're trying to find out where the explosion came from."

          "You think he did that?" Xavier scoffed disbelievingly. "Personally, I thought he was lying about the whole flashlight thing."

          "Well there's only one way to know," Janiel replied, already starting down a random hall. "And we're going to find out whether you guys agree to come or not."

          Xavier smiled with intrigue, following Janiel as Puff trotted ahead. "I'm in, if Unicorn Boy's been caught we're screwed anyways."

          "W-Wait, where are we going?" Talli whispered timidly.

          Vera's eyes widened at her voice, snapping her attention to the out of place friend. "Talli!? What are you doing here?"

          "M-Molve," she squeaked, receiving a comforting pat from Vera as she held back a laugh at her friend's terror.

          "If Káel hasn't been caught by now, then I'm in as well," Vera announced, catching up with Puff as the dragon stopped in the middle of the hall to sniff around. "Would you do the honours?"

          Puff warbled sassily, lightly trotting into a sizeable room partially lit by the light of day. The large pool of water still danced with the shattered light, faintly rocking from a past disturbance.

          "Well, I can't swim," Xavier announced. "Any other routes dragon?"

          Janiel pushed him aside and knelt down at the water's edge, holding her open hand over it and muttering a long phrase. As she finished the spell, the water beneath her hand froze over, spreading a thick sheet of ice across the pool ina matter of seconds. 

          When it had spread throughout the entire room with jagged icicles hugging the walls, she sighed with a wave of fatigue and turned to her teammates. "What? Hurry and get across before it melts. One at a time though."

          Everyone individually ran across the questionable path, and continued onwards to follow Puff to a large clearing littered by rubble and broken walls, the faint glowing of burning hot rocks could be seen twinkling in the dark. Puff sniffed around with confusion, the overwhelming stench of smoke filling his nose and cutting away the scent of Káel he was following.

          Vera murmured at her light orb, and it lightened up until it filled the entire room, showing the entirety of the blast to the group, who viewed the aftermath in dumbfounded confusion.

          Xavier walked up to the one piece of ground that wasn't covered with black scorch marks. It was big enough for a person, forcing a nervous chuvkle out of his throat. "Did he...?"

          "Relax, I don't smell burning flesh, he's probably alright," Alestra replied impassively, waving at the sooty stack of Molve bits. "If he did that..."

          Xavier gave off a childish grin as he booted a pebble. "How would you know what that smells like?"

          Alestra's face remained neutral as she looked around for exits. "That's not important, let's go find him."

          Puff turned his head to a small flickering flame of a light in the distance. It was the wrong direction to be any aftermath of the explosion, and it was larger, and flapping. Perking his ears up with excitement he sprinted towards the little red fire, until it grew into a flapping friend.

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Look who FINALLY updated!

[Since I'll be setting y'all up for disappointment if I keep popping update dates, I'll be providing relevant quips as a replacement henceforth~]