Chapter 20: Rock in the Water

When the morning came, I decided to check on Helen. She was awake and, when I asked her how she was doing, she smiled and said,

"Okay, though I'm feeling some back pain,"

"Take it easy today, then," I said. Helen chuckled as she agreed. Then we heard the door open as someone entered.

"Oh, sorry, Stephan," Hamilton said. "I just thought I'd see how Helen was doing." I nodded and left. "So... how are you doing?"

"Fine," she answered.

"You know, you didn't have to save me from the meteor. I could've easily cut the thing down as it came to me."

"Heh, sorry, I guess it was... an impulse or something,"

"You know, if we didn't have that Health Point factor, you would've died, Helen,"

"If that was the case, I would've died already,"

"Heh," Hamilton paused for a minute before speaking again. "So, who's Denise?"

"What?" Helen nearly freaked.

"Denise," Hamilton repeated. "You said her name as you were mumbling last night. Is she your sister or something?"

"No, she's..." Helen paused, thinking about what it is she's supposed to say. "She's my daughter. Our daughter, actually."

"Our daughter?" Hamilton wondered. "What are you talking about?"

"Back in Jora, I had a dream of some sort. It was you and me in a castle. Thing is, that was way before I even met you," Hamilton remained silent, waiting for the rest of the story. "Then Stephan had a dream in Mora, where it was him and Jennifer in a castle. Your name was mentioned, too, as was our daughter, Denise. Again, this was before we met you. You were talked about in both of our dreams and, when we finally found you, I didn't know how to react."

"Well, it certainly wasn't a bad dream," Hamilton said. "And that explains why you called me 'Honey' last night, too." Helen blushed as her eyes widened. "I certainly wouldn't mind having you as a wife, and I think Denise is a good name, but a castle? What's that about?" Helen shrugged. "Heh, I wish I could say you appeared in my dreams, too, but I can't. The only girls I've seen in my dreams are Alice or Lacey, back when she was more human." They both laughed a bit.

"I'm sorry, this is really awkward," Helen said.

"I didn't think it wouldn't be," Hamilton said. "Tell you what, when this adventure is done and the world is saved, let's see if we can't shoot for that castle dream, huh?" Helen blushed again and then nodded. "You and me as a king and queen. That's one direction I didn't think my life would go." Hamilton laughed. "Well, come on, Helen," he said helping her out of bed. "Let's go meet up with the others and get this story over with before we start another one." Helen nodded and she and Hamilton walked out of the room.

"Our next destination is Wora," Andrew said when we all gathered. "According to Bora, the water next to town has had some whirlpool problems. Let's go there and see what we can do." We nodded as Andrew pulled out the Rora Gem to get close. Walking into Wora, we could hear the water spinning and crashing against the surface. The water itself was fenced to prevent people from getting in the water. Wora had let us into his house and he explained that some creature was causing the problems, as usual. He said he had the Gem and he gave it to us to use if we needed to leave. We asked him if he had any Water Armors for Daniel, Madi, Hamilton, Alice, and Erica. He said we could buy some at the Shop, so we went there and stocked up before heading into the whirlpool. Walking up to the water, we could see several whirlpools happening at once. Putting on the Water Armors and standing on the fence, we all dived into the whirlpool. We were all screaming and getting incredibly dizzy as the whirlpool dragged us down. When we hit the bottom, we were so dizzy we couldn't stand up straight.

"Now you guys know who I feel when I'm on a high place," Hamilton said as he tried to support himself.

"Yeah, but now we're underwater," Madi said. "You must be feeling pretty calm by now."

"Fear of heights is not something you make fun off, Madi," Hamilton said. The underwater path was pretty straightforward. Walk in a straight line, make a turn here and there, and then we come to a dead end. Looking around, we saw that we were underneath another whirlpool. We tried to swim up, but the whirlpool kept dragging us down. Stan and Matt got the farthest up, but even they got sucked back down.

"Are we stuck down here, now?" Helen asked.

"Maybe jumping in wasn't the best idea," Sobie said. We looked around trying to find a way out and we found a hidden door behind some rocks. Moving them out of the way, we walked in and saw a large turtle. As soon as it saw us, it started rapidly spinning and bouncing off the walls. We had to constantly dodge to avoid getting rammed.

"This must be the creature causing the whirlpools!" Hamilton yelled. I would've tried to attack it, but the lightning from my sword would shock everyone. Kyra seemed to be staying on the sidelines, too. Every time the turtle came close to Erica, she would knock it back with her club. The attack would send the turtle crashing into the wall and stunning it. This is when we took our chance to attack. Erica did this several times before the turtle was defeated. We headed out and saw the whirlpool vanish. We swam up to the surface and saw that the other whirlpools, however, had not disappeared.

"That turtle must not've been the creature behind this," Chris said.

"Think the other whirlpools could lead to real threat?" Octavis asked.

"Let's find out," Andrew answered swimming to another whirlpool. The bottom of this one was split into two paths. Moving right, we found another hidden door next to a whirlpool. Using the same tactic as last time, we defeated the giant spinning turtle in the room. The turtle's corresponding whirlpool disappeared and we did the same with the other turtles. When there was one whirlpool remaining, we knew we were almost done. We dived into the whirlpool and were instantly closed into the room with no way back up. We were surrounded in complete darkness for thousandth time in this adventure. We heard a loud bang come from ahead of us and Stan pulled out his Fire Wand to see. What we saw was a giant boulder coming toward us. We dodged out of the way and looked back at it.

"Matt, doesn't that boulder look familiar?" Stan asked.

"Um, no," Matt said. "I don't memorize my rocks."

"It looks like the same boulder we moved out of the water in Rora,"

"And how do you know that?!" Matt yelled.

"It- it was a very distinctive boulder!" Stan yelled back and we saw the boulder try to ram us again.

"Think this is what's causing the problems?" Sobie asked.

"This is the only creature left, so it should be," Madi said. Erica tried the same tactic on the boulder, but the boulder was much stronger and rammed Erica into the wall! It was much faster than we were and began ramming most of us into the wall as well. Jennifer, Chris, Daniel, Sobie, Lacey, and even Matt were knocked unconscious from the boulder pummeling. Alice remained behind Hamilton the entire time and Madi stayed behind Kyra.

"You're not much of a fighter, are ya'?" Kyra asked.

"No, I'm not! Now do something so we don't get squashed!" Madi yelled. Kyra shot out an Ice Bolt, but it just bounced off of the boulder and continued coming for them. Kyra was pushed into Madi and they both got squashed into the wall! This boulder was completely impenetrable. One by one it knocked us into the wall. Even Stan couldn't hold his ground against the creature! Soon, it was just Andrew and Hamilton left and this boulder didn't even look like it had a scratch on it! The only dents we made were from the spikes on Hamilton's armor as the boulder rammed him into the wall.

"Piercings! Of course!" Andrew yelled out to no one in particular. Andrew ran to Madi and picked up her lance. Lances have a special property: they can pierce any armor if aimed right. Andrew ran at the boulder that was rolling at a high speed toward him. The spear connected and the boulder shattered! Chunks of rock flew everywhere! Andrew tried to catch his breath as best he could underwater and walked up to us. He pulled out a Life Vial for each of us and had us drink it. Then he waited...

I awoke lying face up in a field of grass. Sitting up, I looked around, but grass was all I could see. Then I heard whooshing noises coming from above. I gasped as several fully armored beings landed around me. They were all different colors: Red, Blue, Yellow, Pink, Black, White, Green, Orange, Grey, and Light Blue. They all just started talking to each other, but the Black one held out his hand. "Welcome back," he said. "We've been waiting." I was about to take his hand then everything went white. I found myself back in the cave where we fought the boulder. Andrew came up to me.

"Welcome back, Stephan," he said. "I was waiting for that potion to kick in." I looked around and I was in a room in the Inn. "I used the Wora Gem to warp us out of that cave. Then I carried you all into the inn."

"We won, right?" I asked.

"Yeah, we won," Andrew answered. "Everyone is recovering right now. You're the first one to wake up, actually."

"Andrew, do you know of any color-armored people who can fly?"

"...That might've been more of a dream than a vision," Andrew said.

"The Black one said to me "Welcome back" and "We've been waiting","

"I don't know of anyone like that," Andrew got up. "This journey's almost over, Stephan. Get as much rest as you can. The inn will heal you, but it won't make you sleep. Good night." Andrew left the room and I was left to my thoughts about the dream. It was a dream, right? Not a vision? I drifted back into sleep as I thought about the armored people and the other visions, as well as how I hope this journey will turn out.

<<Previous Chapter | TOC | Next Chapter>>