My Incredible Journey
Suddenly there was a tremendous crashing sound. It seemed the stone roof of the tunnel had finally decided to cave in. “Quick, get over here before you get crushed!” shouted Will. I dashed to my mentor’s side just as the roof fell where I had been standing a moment ago.
My name is Jason, Jay for short. My mother is a witch and my father is a wizard. Because of this I ended up being a wizard. Since I grew up among witches and wizards, having magical abilities was normal. When I was younger, it was a time of peace. But no more; the goblins of the Yarganash Mountains are mustering all of their strength. Now that I’m a pupil, I have to go on missions with my mentor. Now that you have some background info I’ll get back to the story.
We could hear the goblins screeching and snarling behind the broken slabs of stone. “Hang on a second” I muttered. “Where’s Lara!” “I’m right over here” she said in an annoyed tone of voice. “Oh, that’s where you were” Will sighed. “Duh, can’t you even keep track of your own sister for one blasted minute?” she scolded her brother. “I hardly think that I need to keep track of you” Will retaliated. “Why don’t you…” Lara began. “Shut up!” I said. “Hear that?” I asked.
Great drum beats shook the tunnel. Or were they footsteps? “Troll!!” Will bellowed. “Back down the tunnel, quick!” I didn’t have to be told twice. Sword and staff in hand, I raced down the tunnel not caring if I crash into a whole squad of goblins. “Try light the gems on your staffs” Lara advised. We all took the suggestion by pausing to light the gems worked into the tops of the staffs. Mine glowed a deep red while Lara’s glowed blue and Will’s glowed green. So on we went again, three little lights bobbing in the dark.
We then heard pounding on stone behind us. I wanted to turn around to see what the noise was but Will grabbed me by the shoulder and thrust me in front of him. “No, we don’t have time to spare” he said. “Keep going!” Again there was pounding then the sound of falling stone. This time I ignored it.
Just when I thought that I couldn’t go a step further, the tunnel ended. Now we were in a wide cavern lit with torches, carved into the living rock. At first glance it seemed the cavern was empty save for a deep gorge nearly full of water, flowing with a strong current to a hole at the back of the cave. When we ventured farther forward, it became apparent that we were in fact not alone.
As soon as we stepped into the torchlight goblins sprang from nooks and crannies in the walls. When we started to slowly take a step backward, our exit was cut off by the same squad of goblins we had left in tunnel. They must have pushed the slabs of rock aside I thought to myself. Just as I thought that matters couldn’t get worse, a gigantic figure lumbered into view in the mouth of the cave; a troll, just as Will had thought. Startled, we sidestepped away from the arched entryway toward the gorge. Now all our exits were cut off. Then it hit me; all of the exits were not cut off. I turned to my left where Lara was brandishing her staff and her sword at the goblins. Noticing that I was trying to get her attention, she looked back at me, despair etched into her face. I jerked my head toward the flowing water behind us then nodded at the hole in the wall where it ran out of the cave. She gazed at me confused, but almost immediately afterward, comprehension dawned on her. She nodded in understanding then snapped her head around to her left to pass on the information to Will.
Once my friends knew my plan, it was just a matter of creating a diversion. Quickly seeing that Will had taken the plan into hand, he shouted “Now!!!” In perfect synchronization, we created a burst of bright light, sending the goblins quailing in fear. With that we all dove into the water.
As soon as the icy spray enveloped me I was completely numbed. Struggling to stay above water without knocking my head on the roof of the water’s passageway, I was tossed and turned in almost every conceivable direction. On top of this, I couldn’t see a thing let alone my friends. After I started to wonder when this darkness would end, a light came into sight.
When I reached the light I noticed that there wasn’t any water past the light. That was when I started falling; it turned out the light was a waterfall. I had been falling for how long I didn’t know. All I knew was that after a while I felt numbed again, which meant I obviously wasn’t dead. Looking farther ahead I saw Will and Lara bobbing along the river. The main difference I found between the passage in the dark and the river was that I felt nearly drowned in the river because waves were crashing down over my head. Somehow I managed to grab a floating piece of wood that was drifting by me.
Once the current slowed down a little, I grabbed a piece of rock jutting out from the shore. Seeing my friends scrambling up the bank, I crawled after them. Eyeing the horizon, I observed that the sun was setting, which meant that we had been drifting down the river all day.
Attempting to stay calm, I assessed the situation. We had no food, no clean drinking water, no means to start a fire, and to top it all off, we-or I at least-had no clue whatsoever as to where we were. Painfully regarding myself, I noted how soaked, torn, bloody, and weather stained my garments were which included my cloak, jacket and tunic. Well, at least I still had my staff. Turning to my friends to make sure they were okay, I soon found that they appeared to be as miserable as I felt, and that was saying a lot.
Groaning, I found the softest spot of dirt I could find and lay myself down. What a hard life being a wizard is. Chuckling, I closed my eyes and let sleep take me.