Thanks to the Thunder Prince returning Concurrent Skies to the white and calm version that it was supposed to be, instead of the darkened version that the group had seen during their exploration of the island, and the Windlord making sure the winds were calm as well, Spyro, Spike, Ember, and the others were able to fly out to the area that the airship was waiting in, as they didn't dare get closer in case another storm suddenly appeared around them. Cynder flew alongside them as Sol and Ignitus followed them, while Bianca teleported herself, Elora, and Hunter through the air, since none of them had wings like the others, though all of them were thinking about what they had discovered and what Spike might know about what they had learned when they freed the last of the Elemental Scions from what the Apes were doing to them. It was nice to see the island in a state where it was calm and peaceful, which was no doubt something that Volteer and the other dragons who tapped into the Lightning Element experienced whenever they came to train and meditate on the element they were using, according to what Cynder had told them during their trek through this island. Fortunately they found that the airship wasn't too far from where the final tower was located, as it appeared that they had either moved it as the group moved through the island or they assumed that was where the group would be waiting, meaning that they could meet up with Nestor and the others before heading back to Warfang so Spike could tell them what the Apes were trying to do.
As such it didn't take them long to reach the area that the airship was resting in and landed on the deck that Nestor, the other Leaders, and the rest of their friends, including Fury, happened to be standing on, to which they shook their wings for a moment as Bianca landed near them, dropping off Elora and Hunter as well, though after all eight of them and Ignitus landed on the deck Spyro turned towards Fury for a moment.
"Fury, set our course for Warfang," Spyro said, because he knew what Spike had told them earlier and knew that they needed to tell the other Guardians about what they had discovered so far, before his brother figured out what the Apes were doing and told them about it, before the Breezebuilder nodded his head and headed back to the area that all of the controls rested in, so he could move the airship back to the city in question.
"Spike, is there anything you can tell us about your theory? Anything at all?" Ignitus asked, because while he trusted the group that he had paired Cynder with, which was a great decision from what he had seen during the fight with the Thunder Prince, he was hoping that Spike would be able to share something with them before they reached Warfang, to give them a sense of what they should be expecting, while at the same time the rest of the group followed the dragon in question back to the inside of the airship so they could rest for a bit.
"Like I said, I'd rather do some research on the matter before I say anything, because if I'm right... well, I won't say anything that might worry you guys." Spike replied, though while he knew Ignitus was hoping for some answers, all so he could figure out what the Apes were doing, he really needed to figure out if his thoughts were right or if he was blowing things out of proportion, hence the reason why he wasn't telling anyone anything, even though he could see that Spyro and Ember nodded their heads in understanding, since they knew him the most out of everyone.
"Did something happen when you guys found the Thunder Prince?" Sheila asked, though the reason she was even asking that was mostly due to the fact that this was different from what happened when they returned from assisting the other Elemental Scions, especially when she considered what happened during their visit to the Isle of Bozibig, which had been in the process of being destroyed by what the Apes were doing, so she was already worried by the fact that Spike seemed to be lost in thought and wouldn't tell them what was going on.
"We saved the Thunder Prince, with Ignitus and the Windlord assisting us, but it seems that the Apes took something called an Elementium Key from the Elemental Scion we came to free." Cynder stated, as that was basically everything that had happened during their trek through the island that they were now leaving, though even as she said that she could see that Sheila and the others were thinking about what she just said, to which she shrugged for a moment, to show that she had no idea what was going on, "Spike has an idea as to what the Apes are doing, but instead of potentially worrying us he is withholding the theory he came up with, at least until we return to Warfang and check out the library for any tomes or scrolls that might aid him in understanding what's going on."
"I agree with his desire to prevent mass panic, even if it would be contained to our vessel," Bentley said, showing that he understood what Spike was doing and that he was just fine with what the young dragon was doing, as he was a smart individual and he knew that the moment he understood what the Apes were doing he would tell them and let them know what sort of sins the Apes were committing, especially when he considered everything that happened in Avilion, before he and his siblings liberated the land from the Sorceress, "Still, we must be patient and trust in our friend, all so we can find out what the Apes are plotting, though I am certain none of us will like what we learn."
Cynder said nothing to that, where she could see that Sheila and the others were a little worried about what Spike might know and wasn't telling them at the moment, but they were friends with him and his siblings so she knew that they trusted the main part of the group that she was hanging out with, to which she turned around and headed back to the area that everyone was gathering in. She discovered that Spike was clearly thinking about what they had seen back at the top of the tower that the Thunder Prince ruled from and what they had learned, as he was meditating at the moment and she knew he would come out of it when they returned to Warfang, so she didn't try anything and sat down near Spyro, as there wasn't much they could do except sit down and think about what they had learned. One thing she knew was that the Apes had committed a grave sin by attacking and attempting to control the Elemental Scions, the ancient allies of Warfang and the dragons that called the city home, so she had the feeling that once all four of them had recovered from this they would be seeking a war with the Apes, one that many of the residents of Warfang would likely join once they told them the news. She also hoped that her father, the High Guardian, had returned while they were helping the Ice King, Magma Golem, and the Thunder Prince, so they could tell him what they had discovered and see what he might want them to do next, in retaliation to what the Apes were doing, but for now all she could do was think about what her father might say the next time she saw him as the airship moved towards Warfang.
It took them an hour and a half to travel back to Doxantha and head towards the area that Warfang rested in, though as the group waited Titan spent his time making sure Ember and the other warriors continued to practice their skills for the future, Cosmos did his best to assist Bianca in learning whatever spell she felt like learning, even though she picked one that he found to be rather easy, and the others did whatever they wanted while they waited for the airship to land in the dock that was outside the city. Spike, of course, continued his meditation as he considered everything they had seen when they freed three of the four Elemental Scions from the collars that the Apes had planned around their necks, though he had no idea if the Stone Sentinel was like the other three, since he hadn't seen what he had spotted on the other three islands and would need to either confirm or deny his thoughts. The wind was calm and it didn't look like anything would stop them from reaching their destination, though for the most part everything stayed inside the airship as they waited for Fury to inform them that they had arrived so Spike could figure out what the Apes were doing and what they could do to stop whatever they were planning. All in all everything seemed rather peaceful, just like whenever the airship moved from one island to another, though that didn't stop everyone from being at the ready, because the moment they arrived at the city they were going to head to the library and give Spike the time he needed to figure out what the Apes were doing, as even Ignitus agreed with the plan that the group had come up with.
While all of them were thinking about what the Apes might be doing, in addition to pissing off the Elemential Scions and the forces that they ruled over, Fury walked into the area that they were in and the look on his face told them that he must have seen something while they were heading towards Warfang, something that caused the group to get ready and draw Spike out of his meditation.
"All of you need to see this," Fury stated, his tone informing them that he must have noticed something odd while he was moving the airship and that he wanted them to know exactly what he had seen, which was followed by him heading back towards the deck of the ship not even a few seconds later, causing the group, joined by Spike, to follow after him so they could see what he might have found, since he had told them nothing about what he might have seen and that only made them more interested in what he might have found.
As such all of them, meaning the main group, the rest of their friends, and everyone else that was in the room when Fury arrived, rushed up to the deck of the airship and came to a stop when they reached the front of the ship, where they stared out at the area that Fury was looking in for a few seconds, only to pause when they noticed that the dormant volcano, which was a good distance away from Warfang, had suddenly become active, as it was spewing lava that filled the sunken area around it, before they noticed the massive ring of fire that happened to surround the volcano, something that stunned Ignitus when he saw it.
"I... I don't understand. How could the dormant volcano suddenly become active, especially to this degree in such a short period of time?" Cynder commented, showing that this wasn't something she was used to seeing, and everyone else felt the same way since this wasn't what they were expecting to see when they returned to Warfang, though none of them had any answers as to why this had happened, even though all of them were thinking about the Apes and that this had to be connected to what they were doing.
"I have no idea how this could have happened." Ignitus replied, and that was the truth, he had no idea how what they were seeing could have come to pass since the volcano had been dormant for a thousand years, something that made all of the Guardians assume it was never active in the first place and never would be, so this shattered part of what he and the others believed, before he turned towards Spike, who was staring at the ring of fire and what laid beyond it, while the rest of the group focused on the volcano, "Spike, could this be connected to that theory you mentioned earlier? Or is this something else we need to worry about?"
"It might be connected to my theory... but, to be honest, I can't be a hundred percent sure, not until I check the library for clues." Spike said, as he needed to see if there was anything about the Elementium Key and the Elemental Scions in Warfang's library, and if there were no clues in this city than he would have to check what was inside the Arcanaeum, which was the only other place where he might be able to figure out what was going on and what the Apes were up to, because he was positive that the Apes were behind the sudden awakening of the volcano.
Ignitus said nothing as he nodded to Fury, who continued to make sure they were taken to the dock that was where they would be touching down soon enough, though as they flew over Warfang it was easy to tell that everyone, regardless of their species, were worried about the awakening of the seemingly dormant volcano, so much so that Ignitus jumped off the deck and headed down to meet up with the other Guardians, to which the rest of the group did the same, and Spike had Nora join them, since they would need her powers at some point.
"I was wondering when you would return, Ignitus, and it is good to see that everyone is safe," Terrador said, as he and the other two Guardians were waiting near the middle of the city, no doubt to calm those who were scared while waiting for the group to return to the city after they freed the last of the Elemental Scions from the mind control collars the Apes tried to use on them, "though, as you no doubt saw, we're in a bit of a pickle, as none of us were expecting the dormant volcano to suddenly wake up and start acting like a normal volcano, save for that strange ring of fire that is surrounding the entire area. Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"No, I do not... but Spike has a theory, he just needs to check our library for some information first," Ignitus replied, as there was no use holding anything back from his fellow Guardians, where Terrador, Cyril, and Volteer faced Spike for a few seconds, clearly surprised that he might have an idea as to what's going on and all he needed to do was check the library for something, before he told anyone what might be happening anyway, "I, for one, am for allowing him to do this, since we'll gain far more information on what the Apes are planning if we give him some time to search through all of the tomes and scrolls that are inside the library."
The other Guardians, having seen the group in action and could only speculate as to what Spike would tell them once they reached the library, nodded their heads and everyone moved not a few seconds later, leaving calming the citizens of the city to the rest of the guards that had been in the area with them, though they took off and flew to the area that the building in question resided in, causing the flyers to fly after the Guardians as Bianca teleported the rest, and once all of them were outside the library Terrador opened the doors and revealed a library that reminded Spike of the Dark Hollow archives, only ten to fifteen times bigger.
"Oh wow, I figured you guys had a lot of tomes, scrolls, and ancient texts, but this is more than I expected... its easily a third of what's inside the Arcanaeum, and makes me wish we weren't racing against time," Spike stated, because he would have loved to sit down and just go through the entirety of this library so he could see what happened after Malefor settled here and built Warfang, before he shook his head so he could focus on the task they needed to complete, as there would be time for this later, hence the reason he turned towards Nora and the Guardians, "Nora, can you open a temporary portal back to the area that the Stone Sentinel is resting in? Someone needs to head back there and see if they find a slot that a decent sized key would fit into, as the Thunder Prince said its Elementium Key was missing and we never checked to see if the one from Tall Plains had been taken as well."
Cyril wasted no time in volunteering to undertake the assignment, something that caused the other three Guardians to pause for a moment, before they nodded and Nora moved off to the side so she could open the portal in question, so he could see if the key Spike was talking about was still there, though while all of that happened Spike moved into the rows of the library and started weaving his magic through the air, clearly looking for something specific. It would have gone by a lot faster if whoever the librarian was had been inside the building, since they would have been able to tell him the exact location of what he was looking for, though for now he was going to do everything in his power to locate the tome or scroll that would either confirm or deny his theory, even though he was hoping for the latter since it was more preferable to the terrible nature of the former. While he did that Spyro and the others spread out and looked for anything that might tell them about the Elementium Key the Thunder Prince had told them about earlier, mostly since it gave them something to do while Spike was looking in what was likely the correct area of the library, and this would make sure they were out of the way for the foreseeable future, since none of them wanted to be in Spike's way when he was like this, something Cynder was getting used to since she joined the group in their quest to stop the Apes. Bianca and the Guardians detected a bit of magic that was being channeled near the area that they were in, which was just Nora maintaining the portal that Cryil had used to travel to Tall Plains and would use to get back here with the information that Spike had asked for, but other than that it didn't appear that anything interesting was happening, so they continued to make sure they were out of Spike's way in case what he was looking for was located in another part of the library.
It took him a few minutes to go through every title that was in the section of the library that he started in, the one that held all the myths and legends that the citizens of Warfang knew about, some of which were likely forgotten by those who currently lived inside the city, before he smiled as he found a tome that had the word 'Elementium' in the title, and when he looked through it he found that it was exactly what he was looking for, to which he recalled his magic and dashed over to the tables that were near Nora, calling for the others to regroup.
"I knew I had seen the term 'Elementium Key' somewhere before, and it comes from a seemingly ancient tale about the first purple dragon and what he did to save the world," Spike stated, where he could tell that he had everyone's full attention, because mentioning Malefor, even by title, was a way to get the attention of every dragon that knew the name or the title, and it was clear that the Guardians and Cynder knew the name as well, which made sense since he was such an important figure to the residents of the city, before he turned his attention to the book, "and by that I mean for us, the dragons of the Dragon Realms, we know it as a myth, something we could never truly prove without heading out into the rest of the world and asking questions, and even then we'd never get a solid answer... at least, not until we found Warfang and looked in this library, where you guys have it written down as both a legend and an event that happened. Elementium is, well, a rather powerful and potent magically charged type of metal that is created from mixing the hardest metal in the entire world, Tungsten to be exact, with a small amount of power from each of the nine elements a dragon can learn how to wield: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Shadow, Poison, Fear, and the Aether. Now, I want it to be known that this isn't the same thing as when the runeblades were created, as that was infusing the raw Tungsten with fragment of a powerful elemental, like how Windshear was crafted from a piece of the Windlord itself, rather this process was different and was highly dangerous... oh how I wish I could go back in time and observe how Elementium was made by those that crafted the legendary metal, as its one of the greatest lost treasures of our world, as no one knows how to make it anymore, due to the art being lost with Mal..."
"Spike, can we focus on what's happening right now?" Spyro asked, as while he hated to interrupt his brother when he was talking about something that interested him, and he really hated to do it since talking about a topic like this usually let him discover a clue or a hidden meaning that no one else had thought about, they needed to know what was so special about the Elementium Key and why the Thunder Prince told them it had failed, "What's the big deal about the Elementium Key? And why would someone like an Elemental Scion, namely the Thunder Prince, tell us it failed?"
"Right, sorry, I went off on a tangent." Spike said, where he sighed and pinched the area between his eyes, as it was a habit he was starting to develop whenever he talked about something that interested him, hence why Spyro stopped him before they wasted too much time on something that wasn't important, even if that part of this topic would be at the back of his mind for later, when he had all the time in the world to think about it, before he lowered his claw and resumed the important part of the conversation, only for Cyril to appear on this side of Nora's portal, which was closed the moment he rejoined them in Warfang, causing a shift in the conversation, "Oh, Cyril, you're back. Did you find the hollowed slot near the area we found the Stone Sentinel in?"
"Yes, I did, but whatever was supposed to be resting inside it was missing." Cyril replied, his tone revealing that he had the feeling that discovering that whatever the Stone Sentinel was guarding was a bad thing for them, though at the same time that was all he said as he joined the other Guardians as Spike considered what they had just been told, since he was the only one that even understood what the significance of what he had discovered, before he refocused on the topic they were talking about and resumed telling the others what he knew.
"Okay, like I was saying, Elementium... which is Tungsten infused with a bit of power from the nine elements a dragon can learn about, Cyril... is a powerful and potent type of metal," Spike continued, giving Cyril the shortest recap of what he had told the others a few moments ago, just to make sure he was up to speed with everyone else, before he focused on his brother's question and why the Thunder Prince's statement was so important for all of them, "According to what I do know, from both the myth we have in the Dragon Realms and the tale you guys have in this library, the sum of all the Elementium that had been made a thousand years ago, thereabouts anyway, was used to create five special keys, what the dragons of Doxantha would come to call the 'Elementium Keys'. All of the Elementium was smelted down into a single pool and then was divided into five portions, where the first Guardians of the Prime Elements... Ishlandur for Fire, Dante for Ice, Zygoren for Lightning, and Thraklor for Earth... helped channel a greater portion of the elements they wielded into four of the five Keys, creating the Elementium Keys of Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Earth, which were eventually given to the Magma Golem, the Ice King, the Thunder Prince, and the Stone Sentinel for safekeeping. The fifth portion was the one that Malefor worked on and channeled the power of the Aether into it, creating a fifth Key, the Elementium Key of the Aether, a Key that all have considered to be lost to time itself, though I have a few theories as to where it might be and what could be done to recover it from where its resting..."
"Why didn't they create Keys out of the other four elements?" Bianca inquired, because from what she could tell the other four Elemental Lords, the Windlord and the other three they hadn't met or been told about yet, those that were in control of Shadow, Poison, and Fear, could have aided the first purple dragon and those that made the first couple of Keys all those years ago, resulting in the creation of four more Keys that would have pushed the number of them up to nine in total, not to mention them being given to the Elemental Lords who helped create them in the first place.
"Like I said, creating Elementium is, according to legend, incredibly hard and extremely dangerous," Spike said, though he didn't fault Bianca for asking the question in the first place, as it was a valid thing to ask and he was sure that, if those that had forged the five Keys had the time and resources they could have forged four more Keys, before he focused on the rest of his answer, "as such they only had enough Elementium to forge the five Keys I just mentioned, and, based on what I have been able to determine, there are no fragments of the powerful metal left in the world, save for the Keys the Apes stole from the Elemental Scions."
"Okay, but what's so special about the Elementium Keys anyway?" Cynder asked, interrupting Spike once again, as she felt that he was starting to drift off on another tangent and wanted to stop it from happening, while at the same time the rest of the group considered what Spike was saying and wondered if they could piece together what he was trying to tell them, the bigger picture anyway, even though it was possible that they would be learning what that something was in the next few minutes, especially when they considered how excited Spike was about sharing this information with them, despite his earlier worries that he might freak some of them out if he told them his theory.
"They were created to be the keys to a very special prison, one that Malefor specifically designed so it would never be opened and the individual would forever be sealed away," Spike replied, though even as he said that he opened the book to the page in question and revealed a rather crude illustration of an earth elemental that looked entirely different from the ones that the group were used to seeing, in fact it was entirely different from all of the types of elementals they had seen, and he had the feeling that if he saw the creature in question he would be able to provide the library with a greater image than what the book possessed, "and like I said earlier, four of them were were given to the Elemental Scions that helped him create them in the first place, to make sure they were kept safe and sound..."
"...which the Apes have stolen from their keepers." Ignitus said, though at the same time he stared at the drawing that the book had been opened to, which everyone was currently staring at while they considered what Spike was telling them, but all of them remained silent as they waited for Spike to continue speaking, as there had to be more to this than what he had revealed, given that he hadn't mentioned his theory to them yet, which was what everyone was waiting to hear about since he had said his words could worry them.
"That is true, and we can tell that they have already been used because, if I'm reading all of this right, the prison that they go to is buried deep inside the now active volcano," Spike stated, causing the Guardians to think about the volcano and the fact that all of them had questioned, in some form or another since their return to Warfang, why it had suddenly become active when it had been dormant for the last thousand or so years, since the founding of their city, before he took a moment and stepped away from the book he was reading from, "however, the last Elementium Key, the one Malefor made with the power of the Aether infused into it, no one knows where it was hidden, save for the tales and rumors that say it was transported to the Well of Souls, the only place where it would be safe, if you chose to believe those tales, even though none of them have any evidence to support them."
"Would this be a bad time to mention that the Apes took over the landmass that the Well of Souls is located on, and that we have reports that they are looking for something?" Cyril inquired, because after everything he had heard so far, even though he was late to the party since he used Nora's portal to head back to Tall Plains and check out the area that the Stone Sentinel resided in, he was convinced that the Guardians had underestimated the Apes and allowed them to run around without being stopped, "If the Elementium Key of the Aether is hidden inside the area that is known as the Well of Souls, like the tales claim it is, what could we do to prevent the Apes from claiming it and unlocking the prison that all five of them go to?"
"Interestingly enough, we don't have to do anything. According to the tale the part of the Well that holds the Key can only be accessed during the Night of Eternal Darkness," Spike replied, figuring that it was so easy to assure everyone now that he had all the pieces of the puzzle, because even if the Apes had secured four of the five Elementium Keys there was no way for them to acquire the fifth one and break the prison that Malefor had creature, making him wonder why he had been so worried earlier, before he noticed the couple of blank stares he was getting, "that's when the two moons of our world, the ghoulish green colored moon called Zella and the larger reddish colored moon called Adrano, form a very short eclipse that creates a nonstop darkness for a brief period of time. The reason we don't have to do anything is because the last Night of Eternal Darkness was a year ago, meaning that the Apes have to wait another hundred years before the next one happens and all their hard work has been for nothing, as we can just take our time dealing with the Apes and recover the Elementium Keys that they stole from the Elemental Scions."
"Spike, while I have to say that you have done an fantastic job telling us why the Elementium Keys are important and what they do, I am sad to be the one to tell you that part of your statement is incorrect," Volteer stated, which was one of the rare times where someone told Spike that he was wrong about something, as that usually didn't happen and instead of it annoying the dragon in question, as it did to anyone else that was told they were wrong, Spike was one of the few who remained silent and listened to see where his logic went wrong, "you were correct in thinking that the last Night of Eternal Darkness would have happened last year, however it never occurred and both the Chronicler and the High Guardian told us that it was late, meaning it was supposed to happen sometime this year."
"Wait... the last Night of Eternal Darkness is LATE?!" Spike nearly exclaimed, though now his earlier thoughts about what the Apes were up to returned in full force, because if he had been wrong about the event that would open the way to where the last Elementium Key was hidden, as Volteer was suggesting he was, than that meant it was only a matter of time until the Apes secured the key and delivered it to the prison, before he realized something important, "Of course none of us would have noticed it, we were busy fighting the Sorceress and liberating Avilion from her control... Ignitus, is there any structures that would allow us to stare into the sky and see where the moons are located?"
"Wait, you were serious about our world having two moons?" Sol asked, because that was news to him, not that he was saying Spike was wrong or anything, since he knew his friend was smart and wouldn't be wrong about something like this, rather his statement was due to the fact that he had believed that their world only had one moon, though since none of the Phoenixes had bothered to learn how to stargaze, something the dragons could have taught them, it seemed like he and the rest of his kind were missing out on some rather important information.
"Yes, like Spike said we have two moons, Zella and Adrano," Ignitus replied, as that was the easier question for him to answer, even though it was interesting to see that the young Phoenix had no idea there were even two moons in the first place, before he turned and focused on Spike again, despite the fact that his answer was likely going to annoy the young dragon when he opened his mouth, while the rest of the group waited to see what he had to say, "and no, we don't have anything that allows us to stare into the sky and see where the moons are located... we usually get that information from the Chronicler or the High Guardian, who are more versed in observing the moons than we are."
"But the Arcanaeum has that globe that brought us here... maybe it can show us the positions of the moons as well, given who made the ancient vault?" Bianca spoke up, because that sounded like the most logical thing they could do, since there were a few hours left in the day until night arrived and there was no telling if the Night of Eternal Darkness was going to happen tonight, tomorrow night, or sometime in the future, but she figured that she might as well ask the question now and see if the others agreed with her.
Spike thought about it for a moment and determined that it was worth a shot, since there was no telling what else the globe in question could do, to which Nora, already determining where the conversation was going to go despite the fact that no one said anything to what Bianca had just said, channeled her magic into a portal that they could use to head back to Avilion for a short period of time. As such the main group that had visited the islands headed through it first and found that they were in Midnight Mountain once more, which was understandable given the location of the Arcanaeum, before the four Guardians joined them and followed them as they headed for the vault, finding that there were no people to stop them, meaning the residents of the various realms were busy and shouldn't be disturbed. It didn't take the group all that long to make their way to the realm that Malefor had hidden the Arcanaeum inside, where Cynder and the Guardians had to pause when they laid eyes on the structure, due to the legends that revolved around the vault, before they hurried up and caught up with the group, only to pause again when they saw the heart of the structure, something that Spyro and the others were used to seeing at this point in time. Spike wasted no time in heading over to where the globe was located, as that was what they had come for and they didn't have time to waste on showing Cynder and the others everything that they had discovered so far, before he wove his magic into the air and tapped into the magic that created the globe, where Spyro and the others stood still as he went to work determining what they wanted to know. A few seconds ticked by and nothing seemed to be happening, though that was when the globe started to shift and rolled in the air so they could see the landmass of Doxantha, where the third Aether icon had been for a time, though that was when they spotted another island that rested near the one that Warfang rested on, which had to be half a day away from Doxantha, and there was an icon on the island that seemed to resemble an eclipse.
Of course that was when Spike shifted the view of the globe and they watched as the view shifted so they could see even more of the world that they called home, before spotting two small spheres moving off world, as in outer space as the Professor would call this, before they all noticed something that caused them to pause, the two moons, as those were what the spheres had to be, were close to lining up, meaning the Night of Eternal Darkness was going to happen in the very near future and the Apes were going to get their hands on the final Elementium Key.
"Well, that's not the news I was hoping to discover," Ignitus said, because while finding the Arcanaeum was one thing, and there was no telling what was lurking inside the various rooms that were around them, he was worried about the fact that the Apes could recover the final Elementium Key and break the prison that Malefor had constructed all those years ago, back before the founding of Warfang and the rest of Doxantha, before he and the other Guardians turned towards Spike, "So, you had a theory on what the Apes were doing... though I'm hoping that we're wrong and we're just blowing things out of proportion."
"No, we're not wrong... in fact, this is one of the few times I would wish I was wrong about something," Spike replied, as he shared Ignitus' thoughts on the matter, because while he had been thinking that the Apes were up to no good and were trying to upset the elementals into attacking Warfang, which seemed like a valid strategy, the missing Elementium Keys and what he had confirmed meant they were in for a real disaster that had very real consequences if they failed to stop the Apes, "Gaul and his Apes are plotting the end of the world... and they're going to do it by breaking the being that Malefor sealed away all those years ago!"
"Which means we have to travel to the Well of Souls, fight the Apes, and stop them from getting the final key," Spyro said, repeating what Spike had just said, though at the same time he and the others remained silent, because while they were used to saving the day, in all sorts of ways, this was the first time they were setting out to save the world and there was a lot of pressure on them to succeed in their quest.
Spike, however, let the information sink in as he stared at the globe, imagining the world being destroyed by a walking catastrophe, if they failed to stop the Apes from securing the last Elementium Key, while the Guardians realized that the fate of their world was now in jeopardy because of what Gaul and his army were doing, though he could only hope they managed to reach the Well of Souls and stop it before their enemies obtained the last piece of their terrifying puzzle.