Creatures Caves

This is a little something I wrote while I had nothing to do. Kinda stupid, but hey, isn't everything?

Enjoy!

**** Chapter One ****

It is high summer in the Capillata Norn Meso. Heat waves distort every image, and sweat trickles off the brows of even the invincible Magma Norns.

This, as you may well imagine, is not any sort of good news for the cold-loving type. Now, there was no such breed in Muco's egg bank that loved the cold. Nor was there one that hated the heat. Still, one individual applied to both of these catagories. How? Just a rare oddity, perhaps, because this individual just so happened to be - of all things - a Magma norn.

Yes, this one singular norn hated the heat, and yet was supposed to love it. This mismatch of opposite genomes was in his late teens, and his name, carefully chosen by his parents, was Errol.

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Perhaps there was a reason for this - a strange genetic quirk? Different fur, perhaps, than the others? One may never know. But everyone onboard the Capillata all knew on thing - Errol, the Magma who resented heat, was very different than them. And on that hot, hot summer day, Errol was not faring well at all.

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Chapter 2

Jennifer stood over her teenage son with despair. He was sweating only a minute ago, and now it seems he's so overheated that even this has stopped. "Errol?", she said to him. Now his eyes were starting to glaze over, and as he lay there, limp as the commedia two stories below her feet, she knew she must find the Medicine Maker, and quick.

The Medicine Maker was an elderly Yeren Grendel, with a wise and knowing look in his eye that seemed to comfort even the sickest of norns.

In his grasp was a tall staff made of unmelting ice, which spiraled upward in an intricate twist. At the top, a clawlike configuration held a blue crystal ball in place. This, he said, had been given to him by his father a very long time ago, in the mythical land of ice and snow, Ostrova - but that is another story.

As he was summoned to the suffering Errol, his eyes widened. "Hmmmmm.....", he murmered thoughtfully. Children wispered in the background, only to be shushed by Laura, the ship's Psycologist.

"Yes, it would seem so.....", and again more wispering and a sharp slap from Laura - one troublesome Hardman child was reaching for the staff. Finally, he spoke: "Yes, Jennifer, I believe I see the problem with your son. It seems that if he is not escorted to a cooler place within the next forty-eight hours, he may very well perish - there's only one thing we can do - we must take him to Ostrova."

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Chapter 3

"Ostrova?!" , Jennifer cried. "Ostrova is nothing but a myth, a tall tale that the hand tells the little norns at bedtime. How do you suppose that my son get there?" All eyes turened to the kindly Yeren.

"Ostrova is not a myth. In my young years, I lived in a small ice cave with my family there. This staff was given to me by my father. Once it was a teleporter, taking you directly into Ostrova, but now has aged as much as I. It now does nothing more than export you to the Hand's world, where surely you will be killed", he said. "Out there, are dangers beyond imagining."

It was now, in the midst of this conversation, that the foggy-headed Errol awoke. It was nearing dusk, and as the shadows fell so did the temperature. We all know that. Awake enough to listen but smart enough to keep laying still, he soon decided that he had had enough of this hot meso - he wanted to go to Ostrova. Surely , for him, that would be paradise!

So he formulated a plan, that as soon as darkness fell completely and the old Yeren went to sleep, he would steal his staff and travel through the Hand's world to get to Ostrova.