Chapter 6: Awakening
Slowly, the world returned as my mind groggily tried to piece together why I was sleeping on stone.
The memory of the last hour came back to me, and I jolted upright, Ember mirroring me.
“What? What the hell?” I asked. “Where are we?”
It didn’t take long to see we were back in the room with the strange altar.
“What the heck happened?” Ember asked. “Was that a dream?”
“No,” I said with utmost certainty. “I’m not sure how I know, but that was no dream. She called you the ‘Archon of Fire’.”
Ember’s eyes widened in shock at that. “How did you... it was real?”
I nodded my head. “At least I believe so. The only other explanation is that somehow I may have linked our minds psychically.”
Ember looked up at the altar, confusion on her face. “If that’s true, though, what the heck is this legacy she gave me?”
“I don’t know. Do you feel any different?” I asked.
“Honestly, yeah,” Ember admitted. “I feel like there’s... something inside me. Like... the feeling I get when I’m about to breathe fire, but it’s different. This feels... more.”
“More?”
“Yeah, I don’t really know how to explain it,” Ember admitted.
I sighed. I was worried about what that dragon might have done to us. A part of me feels she was up to no good. I mean, she didn’t even give us her name. “Well, we won’t find any answers just sitting around here. Let’s get going. There has to be an exit somewhere.”
“Yeah, let’s just get home,” Ember agreed. “We can figure out what happened there.”
And so, we got to our feet. It didn’t feel like we’d been laying there for too long, but we couldn’t be sure. After all, we still didn’t know if we were sleeping and just had a vision or if we had been transported.
Regardless, we found a door on the opposite side of the room from where we entered. Like the previous door, it opened at Ember’s touch.
We crossed through into another short passage, this one was short, with only two other doors, one in the middle of the hall and the other at the opposite end.
Like the previous doors the one in the center had to be opened by Ember. This one, though, guarded what we could only call a ritual chamber. It had six stones arranged around a circle carved into the floor, both stones and circle adorned with unknown writing, all still glowing with power.
And in the middle of the circle laid the bones of a dragon.
A dragon with very familiar horns.
“She couldn’t leave,” Ember said, so quietly I barely heard.
I looked solemnly at the remains. I couldn’t help but wonder why she died here. Was this the reason she was able to speak to us?
Regardless of the answers, I didn’t feel right leaving her there.
“How do dragons handle their dead?” I asked.
Ember looked at me in surprise. “Uh... Well, usually we just throw them into a volcano. You know, return them to the fire of the earth.”
“Is there anything we can do here and now?”
Ember looked down at the dragon’s remains and shook her head. “No. Not here.”
If I hadn’t lost my pack in the water, I could have bundled her up in one of my skins, but we had nothing to carry her in.
“We’re coming back for her,” it wasn’t a request or suggestion. I couldn’t leave her like that. “If we don’t find something in this place to carry her, I’ll get something after we leave and come back.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ember said.
“Thank you.”
We left the chamber, making sure it was sealed behind us.
The next door wasn’t locked like the others, and I was able to open it myself. Of course, by ‘open’, I mean try to open it only for the hinges to crumble into dust and the door to fall into the next room with a loud thud.
That was when I remembered something else the unnamed dragon told us. Some rather nasty things had moved in. And I pretty much just rang the dinner bell.
The first sign had been the sound of scuttling. The moment I heard it, I readied a psi-ball, ready to blast anything that even seems like it might be hostile.
“I think we should run,” Ember said.
“Not until we can figure out where it’s coming from,” I said. “If we run now, we risk running right into whatever’s coming.”
We stood near the door I knocked down, listening and watching. I had my spirit sense running as hard as it could, hoping to sense it before it can possibly see us.
There were three doors leading out of the room, and I felt creatures just past all of them.
“Shit, we’re surrounded,” I warned. “Get ready for a fight.”
“Darn it, we should have run!” Ember growled.
“If we ran, we would have definitely run into them,” I countered.
“Yeah, the ones through one of the doors, not all three!”
“Both options were risks, okay. Besides, now I can pick them off from a range.”
Which I showed her as I loosed a blast right at one of the doors just as I sensed one of them getting ready to peek through. I didn’t even see the thing before it was blown to pieces.
My cocky smile was wiped away as, like a kicked hornet’s nest, a hoard of giant cricket looking things with unfairly big mandibles exploded into the room.
I fired ball after ball, not even charging them very much just so I could fire quicker. I was certainly doing damage, but not every hit was a kill.
“I don’t think your magic ball things are going to be enough,” Ember said.
“Can you use your fire?”
Ember took a deep breath and exhaled hard. A few sparks flew, but no flame.
“Darn it!” Ember roared. “We’re going to die. None of this would have happened if I didn’t get hurt. Stupid wing! Stupid breath! Stupid freaking bug monsters need to just die!”
As Ember roared her frustration, I felt a sudden spike of energy with my spirit sense. I turned to see Ember slash at the air with her claws, only for a wave of ice shards to blast out through the air.
It was only my supernatural reflexes that saved me from being impaled. The bug monsters, though, had no such ability. Both of us could only gape at the destruction Ember had somehow caused as every bug in the room was shredded.
Ember finally found her voice, “Wh-what... What was-”
I interrupted, grabbing her hand and running through the door that looked like it had the least monsters still in there.
The sudden forced movement and the sound of scuttling behind us snapped Ember out of it quickly enough, and she ran under her own power.
We hauled ass as fast as we could, only slowing slightly so I could blast one of the monsters in our path.
“Any chance you can do that again?” I asked as we ran.
“I don’t even know what that was!” Ember shouted, on the brink of panic.
“I’m still not a hundred percent sure what it is that I do either, but I do it. Now, can you?”
“I don’t know,” Ember replied as we rounded a corner into another room. “I just... did it.”
“Try to figure it out, if you can.”
“Easier said than done!” Ember shouted.
We kept running, me blasting the big ass bugs and Ember putting her claws to good use against any that leapt at us from behind.
Luckily, it seemed that most of them were behind us, and we were a bit faster.
Suddenly, a trio of bugs leapt at us from a door to our right. I tried to form a psi-ball, but they were too close, so I just swung at them, forgetting the ball was still in my hand.
The psi-ball elongated, forming a glowing staff of qi that pulverized the little monsters like the insects they were.
“That’s new,” Ember commented.
I faltered for an instant before getting back to running. With my new weapon, I plowed through the bugs, seeing something ahead that nearly brought a tear to my eyes.
“Light!”
With only a couple bugs between us and freedom, we poured everything we had into speed, no longer worrying about the monsters.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we burst through some hanging vines and into the sun.
The few creatures that followed us, didn’t follow far before retreating to the safety of the underground. And when we felt we were far enough away, we collapsed, gasping for air.
We laid there for at least an hour and just relished in the sun.
“So...” Ember finally began. “You got some weird new power, too, huh?”
“Kinda, but not really,” I stated. “I’m pretty sure that was Bone Rush. It’s something I technically could already do, I just didn’t know how.”
“Oh... So then...” Ember sat up and looked at me in thought. “What the heck did I do?”
I sat up, too, before I answered. “Considering what we saw in that altar carving, I’m guessing that was the ‘legacy’ that gold dragon mentioned.”
“So... what, I can do magic, now?” she asked, almost sarcastically.
“Maybe.”
“But... Dragons don’t use magic like that,” Ember said. “All we have is our fire breath.”
“The way Goldie spoke, I think maybe dragons did have magic a long time ago.”
Ember was silent for a while, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I don’t know. If this was her legacy, then wouldn’t that make it a rare gift only a few dragons had?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, but I think we should get moving. Those bugs retreated back underground when they came outside, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stay there come night.”
“Yeah, we can figure out what the heck happened when we get to my place,” Ember agreed. “Can you jump up and see if you can see the volcano?”
I got to my feet and looked up. “Yeah, give me a second.”
My muscles were already getting stiff, so I had to stretch them out a little before jumping up.
When I landed, I said with a smile, “Well, good news. Our little river ride didn’t take us too far off course. In fact, I’d guess, we’re only about three days walk from it.”
“Then let’s get going,” Ember said, standing up. “The sooner I’m home, the better.”
We set a pretty tough pace, and by the middle of the third day, we finally arrived at our destination.
“Welcome to my home,” Ember said, waving at a very plain, ordinary cave entrance with absolutely no adorments whatsoever.
I didn’t really know what to expect, but it sure wasn’t that.
When we went inside, however, my opinion of the place changed. It was like stepping into a cave claimed by a Viking princess. There were animal pelts and skull trophies adorning the walls. There was a massive fire pit in the center of the cave that Ember was in the process of lighting.
She got a blaze going pretty fast and filled the space with light, allowing me to see the back. Not only was there a massive bed, covered with furs and silks, but beside the bed was the biggest pile of treasure I had ever seen.
Gold, silver, jewels, ivory, and things I couldn’t readily identify, all piled as tall as me and three times as wide.
“Piece of advice,” Ember spoke up beside me, startling me. “Staring at a dragon’s hoard is fine, but touch it and you probably won’t live much longer. That includes mine, friend or not.”
I could only nod.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m beat, and I want to sleep in my actual bed for once,” Ember said, stretching as she made her way toward the back. “We’ll talk to my dad in the morning and see if we can get you a ride.”
“So, where am I sleeping?” I asked.
She stopped for a second, as if in thought. “I guess, you can sleep on the other side of the bed. B-but you better not get any ideas. Keep your paws to yourself if you want to keep them.”
“I shall be a perfect gentleman,” I said, giving an exaggerated bow.
She gave a little chuckle at that as she climbed into bed, right beside her treasure pile. “Whatever, as long as you behave.”
I climbed in on the opposite side from her. “Oh, god, this is heaven. It’s been far, far too long.”
Ember chortled. “Whatever, dweeb. Just go to sleep.”
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Alright ... this is getting interesting ...
altar
breathe
surprise
run
underground
9766683
Thanks again
Yush.
Liking this so far, I read it without seeing who the author was and no wonder I recognized the writing. Not like I don't only reread all of your stories once a week.
Well you have my attention now..look forward to more.
This looks like a beginning of an interesting story. You caught my attention.
I wonder how mutch this two will effect the mlp universe
...did you seriously just pull the "there was only one bed" trope?
...
I like it.
9815650
Yeah, but it's a huge bed. As in, bigger than my entire bedroom.
My friend your fic is amazing but you are only using one of the MULTIPLE attacks lucario has.
9856765
I know. Keep in mind, Luke knows next to nothing about Lucario.
A good bed rest is Improvement of health and life quality
Im used to sell high quality ones to know the difference. But at Lukes place anything is high quality if its not sleeping on the ground i guess 
This is a chapter that will effect everything in the future...
The Legacy , the bond between our characters. 
The lost equicment is really annoying but it cant be helped. How mutch time to replace it i wonder? 
Dragonland in the main mlp story is a pretty empty wasteland... Wonder if it isnt worth expanding later to the forest to build basic stuff, stock up medical supplys and building a outpost to store all of it?
Were is a bag of holding when you need a pair
The bed might be as big as a room but still... He shares a bed with her *wink-wink*
Luke x ember
Alondro sliiiiiiiiiides in wearing the biggest Trollface ever seen and sloooooooowwwwwwwly reaches out a finger toward Ember's hoard.
10091220
Here lies Alondro (what's left of him)
The dumbass touched a dragon's hoard.
10091236
He rolled a nat 1
10115490
He could have rolled a nat 20, he still would have died.
10115514
He rolled a NAT 20 in touching the horde... he rolled a negative roll to dodge
This was awesome. L,I hope he got some power from the gold dragon.
10137050
Alondo touches the dragon hoard. Immediately gets burned to ashes. The rest of the party ran away