Creatures Of Sonaria: Sands Of Time

Part 6: Gher

       Gher was flying back to Tio's massive cave through the snowy mountains of the Uncharted Icelands with a hemokai in his sharp talons. A very noisy, squirmy, and killable hemokai that wouldn't stop screaming! The hemokai was all sorts of yellowish green. It was hideous. 

       "Let me go!" she screamed, writhing around in his talons, only sinking them deeper. "It's cold and I'm hungry and you're a stupid vin'rou!" 

       "You're lucky I need you alive for something or else I'd rip off your tail and shove it down that annoying throat of yours!" Gher snapped, beating his wings through the cold gusts of wings. The hemokai stayed quiet the rest of the flight, which seemed like too good of a miracle to be true.

       Gher could finally see the glowing figure of Tio standing outside the cave entrance, his tertiary patterns glowing like pero lights. I will kill Aire, no matter the cause, he angrily thought. Only a few more wingbeats and he made it to the cave's gaping mouth, where Tio was waiting impatiently for him behind his bored face. 

       "Well you sure took your time finding one hemokai," Tio said, leading Gher into the cave. Gher made sure the hemokai didn't run off by nipping at his tail. The hemokai jumped away from his teeth and got closer to Tio. 

       "It's your fault you decided to live in the coldest and windiest part of Sonaria!" Gher snapped at him. "Besides, why'd you make me find a hemokai? They're completely weak!"

       "Y-Yeah, I-I'm no use to you guys," she muttered, shivering from the cold of the cave. Her tail swayed side to side on the way in. 

       Tio made his glimmer pattern shine brighter deeper into the cave, and Gher nearly tripped over a stalagmite if he didn't. "I'll explain when we get to the fire, so shut up and come on," he said. All three of them padded down the massive cave. Stalagmites hung from the ceiling and grew from the floor of the cave like teeth that grew in a giant creature's throat. It was only warmer as the got deeper, but it was still cold enough to make Gher shiver. 

       He also felt a bit nervous, thinking one of the rocks above him would finally crack and fall right down onto his head. Or maybe a stalagmite  would grow at an alarming rate and impale him right through the heart and he'd never fulfill his mission.

       Gher looked at the hemokai. Was she even willing to do what Tio asked, or how Gher would force her? Maybe. She did seem like a pushover. Maybe with the right persuasion (biting her tail off or gouging her eyes out seemed like good ways), Gher would get her to do what she needed to do.

       It had felt like 12 seasons had passed until Gher could smell the scent of burning vegetables and fruits. Around the turn, he saw the glow of the dancing fire. Tio padded over to the fire, sitting on the opposite side. The hemokai next to him, staying as close to him as possible, and as far from Gher as she could.

       Tio reached behind him and dug into a massive pile of leaves and colorful herbs. He pulled out a cerulean blue herb and held it out for the hemokai. "Gourd?" Tio asked. Gher wanted to claw at Tio and shout at him about being too soft and forgetting about the whole point he sent him to grab a worthless lizard.

       The hemokai shook her head. "I'm a carnivore," she said. "I-I'm not hungry anyways." Tio nodded and held the gourd out to Gher.

       "None for me either," Gher said, giving a disgusted look at the blue vegetable. "You should have killed something while you waited for me to grab that thing." He wavered a wing at the hemokai, who nestled closer to Tio's fur. 

       "I don't kill other creatures for food, let alone out of spite and for the joy of power." Tio said.

       Gher barked a laugh. "You're gonna kill once we get Sar'Hingaro unleashed, and then Aire and her little gang of forget-me's will be long gone." Tio made a face at Gher that he couldn't rea. Regret? Worry? It didn't matter. As long as he knew why Gher brought the lizard.

       "Wait, unleash... Sar'Hingaro?" The hemokai said, looking worried. "Th-That can't be possible. The Anies sealed him in that horrible place forever. It can't be opened."

       "Actually," Tio said, standing up to walk to the wall of the cave. He pulled a large stone out of the wall and reached his glowing claws into the hole. He pulled out a flat stone slab that seemed to have writing on it. He walked back over to the fire, around it to sit next to Gher. "I've been studying Daimona for the past 16 years, looking for answers, lore, and ways to reopen the portal." He pointed to some drawings that seemed to be creatures. "These are poison creatures here that are from Daimona, and only three species live in Sonaria." 

       Gher looked over his shoulder. One was defiantly a hemokai with that slender body and narrow head. Another was a kehmador. The rocky armor plates branching out like pillars and the hunched over posture and smudged out leave coloring that represented the poisoned smoke.

       The other one, though, was one Gher had never seen before. It looked a lot like a lizard, but stood up straighter that a hemokai. It also looked galactic. Three rings circled and orbited around it's tail, and a crystal seemed to go through it's neck, before he realized there was a gap in between them and the neck. They were two seperate crystals.

       "What's that one?" Gher asked, almost sounding demanding, pointing at the strange creature's image.

       "I believe it's called a hikorshi." Tio answered. "A tier 3 terrestrial creature that lives in packs. They're really hard to kill because of the packs. You'll have to get one, but I'm sure it won't be that hard." 

       Gher huffed. "Why do you need these creatures anyways?" He said

       Tio finished his gourd and added it to the fire. He watched it turn black and shrivel smaller and smaller. "Their poison abilities will open the portal," he replied. "I plan on opening the portal in a wide open space like the Hot Springs. And luckily for you, that's only a days flight away from the oasis. And there's another entrance from the cave that leads there too, takes a while to get down though if you're a land dweller."

       The hemokai picked up the stone tablet and looked at it with visible worry and fear in her eyes. She looked up at Tio and shuddered. "Why do you want to release Sar'Hingaro?" She asked, looking back down at the large three headed wyvern image with shaking claws. "Do you want vengeance too?"

       Gher didn't even think to question why Tio wanted to do this. He never wanted to rule territories, or create chaos. So why was he actually willing to help Gher unleash a power hungery, anger filled tier 5. 

       "Because I want to know more," Tio answered with a sigh. He took the stone slab and went to put it back in the hole in the cave wall. "16 years of studying this dimension does nothing if I don't get to experience it myself. I want samples of the place, some rocks, maybe a few plants if there are any, dirt. I want to document these discoveries and be able to understand everything." Tio turned to Gher with stern eyes. "I'm not doing this because we were friends in the past. I'm doing this because I want answers and discoveries.

       "Alright, fine. Keep your pero-brained ideas, I have my own!" Gher said, standing up and thrashing his tail, thwacking a rock into the fire and sending scolding ashes flying like water droplets of pain. Tio and the hemokai had to step back from the ashes. "As long as you're gonna help me, then I don't care."

       The hemokai looked sick to it's stomach. She gave the two of them fearful glances. "What If... I don't want to help?" She asked. 

       "That isn't an option," Tio and Gher said in unison. Gher glanced at Tio and he could have sworn that he saw a little bit of his pacifism drain away from his eyes. Maybe he was imagining things. Tio looked at the hemokai and gave a demanding growl. "You're staying here, or you're dying, either by... us or the weather outside."

       Tio turned his head to Gher. "Go get a kehmador or a hikorshi," he said, waving a glowing wing at down the tunnel. Gher nodded and began walking out, leaving Tio and the hemokai while he went back to grab the next step to his total antihalation plan.