Under The Trap Door

Inside the Bag

We appear in the library. The doctor and her helpers hurry out the door carrying the patent. Wizzal comes out of the lab and asks, "What was that about?" I pick up the bag as I say, "I had the doctor take on a human child for a patent. She's in bad shape but if she lives she maybe useful in dealing with humans."

I walk into my room and open the trapdoor looking in again a thoughtful look on my face. Wizzal comes up beside me and says, "What is so interesting about your stupid trapdoor today." I stand up and take a step back smiling down at Wizzal and push him into the trap door. I laugh and dive in after him shutting the door behind me.

P.O.V. Wizzal

I'm standing next to Lizeli trying to see in the trapdoor her body is blocking the site. She stands up and I think she is trying to let me see in so I step closer. Before I get a good look she pushes my shoulder and I'm falling in.

As the darkness rushes past me I hear her laugh followed by a thump of the trapdoor closing above us. I'm falling for a good 50feet and am waiting to hit the bottom of the world I created when suddenly the world opens up. Light is coming from all directions and I'm falling through the clouds. I can't believe what I see before me a forest stretches out as far as the eyes can see and the air is hot and humid.

The ground has to be at least 500 feet below me. I've never felt such heat and humidity before. This is what I'd imagine a tropical rain forest would feel like. The air is so warm and moist you can almost taste it. Suddenly I come to a stop dangling in the air. Pain goes through my upper arms as Lizeli grabs them stopping my downward spiral. I hear her wings beat then we start soaring through the air.

The land goes by underneath us and it's an incredible site. Like nothing I've ever seen. We get closer and I can see red landrin vines winding over the trees. Water sparking in the sun. The closer we get I can smell wood decomposing in the water that seems to stretch on for miles. That's when I realize it's a swamp. The huge swamp the goes on and on. She glides down through a hole in the furmon trees and lands on a small blue moss colored mound rising out of the water.

She sets me down softly and comes back around a huge smile on her face. Saying "Welcome to the under ground." I'm speechless for a minute then I start feeling angry and explode. I walk over and stand on my top toes trying to get up in her face and say, "That wasn't funny. I could have died. I'm to intelligent to be treated in such a manner. When did you? Who taught you? How the hell did you? Also did you steal my seeds? I was saving those" I stop look around and say, "It's amazing!"

Lizeli starts laughing a huge smile never leaving her face the whole time I'm yelling at her. She turns me around and says, "You taught me and you didn't even realize it. This was my first project." Looking out over the swamp I see a ray fish jump out of the water. You can tell because the fish has a bright blue streak across the side of its green body. I press my foot into the soil and the moss springs back up. There is a glint of a Nature crystal under the moss. I can hear buzzing in the trees and rustling high above my head. I look up and take a deep breath of the moist air. Then say, "how did you make it so hot. You can actually feel the moisture in the air and taste it. Also you said your first project what's the second?"

Lizeli puts her hands on my shoulders and says, "I couldn't make it rain like you yet so I took a different approach. The second one was easier it used your copy." She suddenly takes flight pulling me off my feet as we rise I see a flash of movement in a nearby tree and a orange blur I think it's a Tark but I'm not sure. Then we are heading high above the trees. She heads forward at a tremendous speed. I didn't know she could fly this fast. I can't even keep my eyes open. We fly for a good 30 minutes. Then slow down as she makes a huge circle in a black cloud.

I start coughing as a huge amount of heat hits me in the face and I'm about to ask her what is up when the smoke clears and all I can do is stare. What I see is one of the biggest shocks of my life. I'm staring at a mountain that rises high above the clouds. The trees cling to it's side as they climb towards the bare top. Smoke rises from a huge crater that has to be a good twenty miles across. Lava can be seen bubbling down below. How the hell did she do this? I've never seen anything like this, a real volcano.

P.O.V Lizeli

I'm falling through the trapdoor after Wizzal his body blocking what light there is. This hole is pretty wide you can't even touch the sides when you spread your arms out at their widest. I laugh at myself thinking of how much fun I'm about to have at Wizzal's expense.

For the last two years I've been cultivating the tropical seeds I found in Wizzal's workshop in my own hothouse. I've been collecting thousands of animals for this place and storing everything in the Void bag. The books told me the ones who would survive in a tropical environment. There were so many tests pulling them out and putting them back in of the Void bag. Making sure they would survive. Some didn't take the sudden change to the tropical weather while others flourished. This was once my biggest challenge, my baby.

Finally Wizzal falls out the other side into the air. I smile and I soon follow him I grow my wings and I stop to look around. In the distance I can see smoke from one of my volcanos. I can feel the temperature and humidity in the air. I may not have been able to make a floating rain mass in the sky like Wizzal but I know a little about science and was able to make a natural/magical sauna. After all I've only had a few years of playing around he's had a lifetime to experiment. He may look like a 60 year old man but Florensin people can live well into their 1,000s.

The size is ginormous so the heating unit has to be as well. That or tons of small ones but where is the fun in that. Remembering Wizzal I close my wings and dive. I can get up to over 90 miles per hour in one of my dives. I can see my jungle rainforest through the shifting clouds. The orange trunks of the trees, the dark blue leaves. The green water sparkling in the sun. I plunge through the clouds and my eyes dart around looking for movement.

I see one and zoom in to see the tree Tark jumping through the trees. It's kinda like a long armed rat that's orange. It is about four feet long and they eat anything they can get. They use their bald tail to swing from branch to branch like monkeys only ugly. I see a large fish jump out of the water when I get a better look I see hundreds. They are doing very well. I reach out and grab Wizzal by the arms opening my wings we come to a quick stop.

Wizzal jerks in my arms and I have to flap my wings to straighten us out so we can start gliding down to the forest floor below. I glide lower and lower on the slow moving wind currents provided by wind stones planted through out the sky by Wizzal's leftover mini sky floaters. I see a small path through the trees and angle in that direction.

I have to pull up a little to get the right position to glide in but Wizzal doesn't seem to realize. He seems preoccupied with everything he sees. I set him carefully down on a small island in the swamp and fly back around so I can join him I can't help but smile as I say, "Welcome to the underground." He stands there for a minute speechless then as he gets himself under control his face starts turning red as he starts getting angry.

He takes a step closer to me and stands on his top toe's trying to gets right in my face as I smile at him trying not to laugh. He starts yelling at me, "That wasn't funny. I could have died. I'm to intelligent to be treated in such a manner. When did you? Who taught you? How the hell did you? Also did you steal my seeds? I was saving those" He stops and looks around saying, "It's amazing!"

I can't hold it in any longer and start laughing a huge smile still on my face. I take him by the shoulders and turn him around saying, "You taught me and you didn't even realize it. This was my first project". He looks around us and a fish jumps out of the water nearby. There is buzzing in the trees and rustling of a Turk high above our heads. He looks up and takes a deep breath. Then says, "How did you make it so hot. You can actually feel the moisture in the air and taste it. Also you said your first project what's the second."

I put my hands on his shoulders and I say, "I couldn't make it rain like you yet so I took a different approach. The second one was easier it used your copy thing." I whisper, "I'll show you how this was possible" as we take off but he don't appear to be listening. I head high above the trees and plung forward my wings making large gusts of wind as we pick up speed. I have to use my clear eyelids. As we pickup speed the forest appears to be a blue blur as the miles pass below us.

It takes about 35 minutes to get to our destination. I start to slow down and follow the line of the volcano hidden in the black smoke. The heat feels good on my face and after a few minutes the smoke starts to clear. I look down at Wizzal in my hands and his mouth hangs open. I turn my eyes to my magestic creation and smile. If it hadn't been for Wizzal none of this would have been possible. Him and a lot of earth magic.

I look down at the side of the rocky volcano before the tree line and see plenty of green magic colors. Then I see what I'm looking for movement. These creatures I'm looking at had a hard time with the change but are coming back.

They are called Lurklugs they are a cross between a frog and a tortoise. They don't live near water and have a orange shell like a tortoise. Their head is like a frogs and the shell bunches up around it giving them tunnel vision But protecting their soft heads. They eat plants and bugs and have two back legs that stick out like a frogs with the smaller front legs. They hop along the ground and their skin looks like a reptiles.

Before I knew the name I had called them "shell hops." I fly around the volcano for a few minutes looking for other creatures. Then not seeing any I turn my wings slightly so I can use the up draft to turn around and head back the way we came. I'm flying for quite some time before Wizzal speaks.

"How did you do all this." I'm silent for a minute then I speak, "I learned from you. Once you taught me about the stones the rest was easy. I also seem to have knowledge of how some things function but I can't remember..." I stop to think for a minute then shake my head with a sigh before continuing. "The volcano was the main issue its over 40 feet wide and 80 feet deep. This is one of ten.

I lined each with ice crystals then added water and a layer of water crystals, once I'd added layer after later of ice crystals and water crystals and water. The next step was one last layer of ice crystals then a layer of fire crystals. After that I used my black fire. The fire crystals kept it going so I could add another layer of fire crystals. That means there is actually a thin layer of black fire between the two layers right now.

Then came the hard part. I went into the mountains into that old volcano that's been dead for thousands of years. Using earth magic I found a pool of lava and stored some in one of those amazing magic jars. I then added some of your magic sand. The result is once I poured on down the volcano it started to multiple until it had fills the whole crater.

That also means it's actually half sand and half lava. The water crystals create water the ice crystals freeze it. The fire crystals insulate it. When heat and cold hits each other steam is created basically I've made of huge evaporation machine. Without magic this wouldn't even be possible. The lava wasn't actually needed to make it work I just wanted to make a kick ass volcano. This is the main one. I've also made 1,000s of tall boiling water spires. Using water, fire and earth crystals I've been able to make boiling water pools that release steam into the air at a constant pace."

He continues to look around as I talk and he says, "This is fascinating, it's bigger then what I made. So why are you looking at this place today?" My reply is, "I found some Cawlway at the House of Yotal. They maybe useful and I'm thinking of putting them down here. According to the books they were originally swamp dwellers." I can feel we are getting close to the trap door so I land. "They are pretty messed up. Liege Yotal has made some kind of mind bands for them." I set Wizzal down and land next to him. I smile and say, "You should take a look at the bands." I'm about to reach into my bag when Wizzal says, "You are not getting out of the discussion about my seeds this easily." I laugh and I reach into the bag vanishing.