44- Inside the Cave

Skye pulled down the earth wall as Kaius created three fireballs that hovered in between the boys and lit their way. The trio slowly entered the cave and realized that it sloped down, the boys walked for a minute and found themselves in a massive cavern.

The massive cavern was dimly lit and had a stream on one side that ran through it. There were a few other dark corridors that lead further into the cave. In the massive cavern the boys found rocks strewn all over. The boys examined the area using the light from Kaius's fireballs. "Over here, check this out guys" Zane yelled. Kaius and Skye ran over and were shocked at what they found.

Next to the river lay a mans body. The body was missing an arm and a leg, Kaius turned the body over and was shocked to see an Elementalist badge with a red flame on the mans shirt. The man wasn't wearing a military uniform but the clothes he had on were tattered and had claw marks all over them. On the mans remaining hand Kaius spotted a ring, as he leaned in to take a closer look he saw that there was a gem with something engraved inside of the ring but due to the dim light he couldn't make it out.

"He was clearly an Elementalist we should take his body back" Skye said. Kaius nodded and Skye used his Luggage Bangle to store the remains of the mans body. The space inside the Bangles were huge and since Kaius already had the bear carcasses inside of his, they felt bad throwing the human remains in with the bears so they designated Skye's Bangle for that.

"I wonder who he was, the bears must have killed him and slowly ate his body" Zane said. Using the water from the river the boys filled up the special water canteens they had been given before deciding what to do next.

"This caves huge, and judging by how far down we went after entering we're definitely underground" Zane said. Skye nodded his head "we need to take it slow, although we won the battle with the bears we don't want to get cornered by something down here" he said. Kaius nodded in agreement let's choose a path and explore it if we come across something we can run back this way and fight in a more open area, we still have six more days before we can take the portal back to school. Zane are you able to make a map of the areas we've seen and been so far."

"Way ahead of you bro" Zane said as he tapped his datapad. Moving closer to Zane, Kaius and Skye could see a very detailed map of where they had been and where they were now. "I created this program to keep track of the areas we've been to" Zane said. The map had a lot of black shadowy areas indicating that they hadn't been that way yet, but the boys could clearly see the safe area and the clearing they had entered marked on the map.

"The maps not one hundred percent accurate as there's no satellite connection here, but we can still use it as a reference. The program is able to determine where we are on the map as I fill in the blanks, in actuality it's really just keeping track of our current location" Zane said.

"I don't care how it works as long as it can help us get back to the portal" Kaius said. The cave had three other dark corridors and Skye pointed to the one closest to where the group entered the cavern. "Let's take this entrance," he said "that way if we end up back here we will know we took the one closest to the entrance we came in."

The boys agreed and donned their hoods as they slowly headed down the corridor. As the boys walked down the corridor the temperature began to drop, and they could hear howling wind up ahead. As the boys progressed further down the cave the wind picked up and started to push them back a bit, Kaius's fireballs which they used for light started to dim drastically.

Kaius pulled out his Aura Blade and infused fire into it which held up better against the strong wind. As the boys progressed further down the tunnel they came upon another open cavern that was extremely bright. Walking into the center of the cavern the boys found that there were two more cavern entrances and another river flowing through. They didn't know if this river connected to the one in the first cavern or not. The cavern was very tall and high above there was a huge hole in the ceiling where daylight shone through.

"Let's make some earth stairs and climb up to see where we are" Skye said. Kaius and Zane began inspecting the area as Skye got to work building a spiral earth path to travel up and out the hole in the ceiling.

In the cavern Kaius and Zane found some bones that looked like they belonged to a creature. "I think this was some type of flying creature" Zane said as he pointed to some thin bones that resembled the remnants of a wing. "Maybe the creature was injured and fell down the hole" Kaius said. "It's done guys" Skye yelled.

Kaius and Zane went back to the center of the cave where Skye had completed his earth staircase. The staircase was spiral and pretty sturdy. "Depending on what we find I figured if I made it strong we could always use it later on" Skye said. The boys nodded as they climbed the staircase. Skye did really well creating such a sturdy and tall staircase, as the boys got closer to the top they could hear the howling wind even louder.

The boys reached the top hole and looked around them in shock. "Holy Sh--" Zane started to yell, but Skye grabbed him and covered his mouth. It looked kike the boys had entered the North pole as all around them the ground was covered in ice, there were also mounds of snow all over the place. That ice and snow wasn't what shocked the boys though, all around them they could see winged creatures. Looking closer the boys recognized that the creatures were gryphons, and there were at least twenty of them. Some of the gryphons were brown in color but most of them were snow white. On a mound of snow further away the trio could see a gryphon bigger than the rest that was bright yellow.

The trio looked at each other in silence and slowly turned around to head back down the stairs. They did not want to wake the birds. The trio were walking as fast and as quiet as they could, Kaius looked back up once they reached the halfway mark and his eyes went wide. Staring down at him from the edge of the hole was a snow white Gryphon. "Stop" he whispered to Zane and Skye hoping the Gryphon would go back to sleep if they remained still. He wasn't sure if the Gryphon could see them through their cloaks like the mama bear could.

The trio and the Gryphon just stared at each other for the longest minute of the trios lives. After a minute the Gryphons head slowly retreated away. The boys heaved a sigh of relief "That was a close one" Zane whispered. The trio turned around and headed down the stairs once again, as soon as the trio reached the bottom theirs hearts sunk as they heard a loud screech from up above.

Looking up towards the hole they could see Gryphons looking down at them, and not one but all 20 Gryphons were looking down; and behind them in the sky they could see the bright yellow one.

SQUAAAAWK

The bright yellow gryphon screeched as the other twenty began diving in the hole.