| At least until the moment the earthquake happened, collapsing the entrance to the cave. It started with just a small tremor and a little crack; then the tremors got bigger and the crack got wider until, in a hail of dust and earth, the former entrance became nothing more than a featureless wall. In the cave it was only Wilhelm, the last of the four children, and Grimm, who had been catching the kids but had fallen in during the quake. Several hours later, the three of them were still groping through the darkness. |
| "But there have been so many earthquakes lately… My grandpa told me a story once. He said the honored Earth Snake that lives in the mountain causes earthquakes. So…" "But we'll worry about that when we get out. Much as I hate superstitions like the Earth Snake." The kids had been, in their own way, thinking of the town. There was no point in being angry at them forever about it. But Wilhelm's positive, almost-optimistic mutter caused the boy's eyes to go wide. "Superstitions?" he asked. "But the Earth Snake is real." " " Wilhelm narrowed his eyes at the boy's startled pronouncement. Immediately thereafter, and from directly beside Wilhelm, Grimm gave a sharp ring of his metal plate, touching the nape of his own neck. The echoing sound of metal was the strongest warning he could give. Grimm had a finely honed sense of danger, and even Wilhelm typically deferred to his perception. Grimm's reaction heralded the onset of true danger. "Shit, is something—?" Wilhelm was about to say coming, but before he could ask, it was there. Sword drawn, he held up the light to see deeper into the cave. No sooner had he done so than a shadow passed in front of the bright fluorescence, a surge approaching them through the cavern with a frenzied rumbling. " !!!" It crashed and writhed, a creature that filled the entire tunnel ahead of them, many times the size of Wilhelm or his companions. For an instant, they doubted their own sense of reality. A second later, the great, twisting shadow launched itself at them. " ?!" The relentless wave of destruction caused a second collapse |
| Explosion. Yes, an explosion. Explosion was the only word he had for the supreme might of the destruction wrought. Such was the power of it that the dragon carriages lined alongside had been blown away and a good chunk of Earlham Village completely leveled. The homes bordering the village square had been engulfed by the spreading fires from the explosion, with flames licking at the familiar scenery. The blackened, charred objects scattered around the area were partly the dragon carriages and the corpses of their land dragons, but that none were intact made him unable to differentiate between organic and inorganic matter. It was surely a foregone conclusion that the dense scent of burning flesh invading his nostrils was from the land dragons that had perished in the blast. |
