Vision of Ninjago

The Royal Blacksmiths

The hot desert sun bleeds into an endless sandy desert. A pyramid with ancient stone snakes decorating its entrance stands alone in the wasteland. 

Inside, Pythor leads the Serpentine through the dim tunnels. Skales slithers just behing and to the right of him, holding the map to the Fangblades. Holding out an arm, Pythor stops the group.

"Ugh. Why musssst we sssstop if the next Fangblade is just ahead of ussss?" Skales grumbles, frustratedly. 

Wordlessly, Pythor taps the ground with his golden staff. At the slightest touch, the stony ground in front of them crumbles into the darkness below. The next several feet of the hallway is now gone, the only sign that it was ever there the remaining stones that attach to the base of the walls.

"What good is unlocking the Great Devourer with the four Fangblades, if we're not around to see it?" Pythor glares at his second, his voice echoing as the venom drips from his words. Skales is silent, lowering his head slightly. Still frustrated, Pythor turns back to the giant chasm in the floor, voice booming, "Get the boy!"

"Bring the boy!" Skales relays to the small army that had stopped behind them. Two snakes lead Lloyd to the front of the group and to the generals. 

Thick iron chains wrap around his small frame, pinning his arms to his sides. His blonde hair messy, his face and clothes cacked in mud and sand. There are a few streaks on his face, probably from tears, but they're barely noticeable now.

Yanking the young boy to a halt, the two guards release his restraints. The heavy chains clump limply on the ground.

"Oh, you're letting me go?" Lloyd asks skeptically eying the purple snake, while also rubbing his arm where the restraints sat.

"Heh, only to fetch, my dear boy," Pythor answers in a condescending tone. Placing a hand on the boys back, he roughly leads him a few more steps forward. "Do step lightly," he taunts, shoving him towards the wall, and the small stone edge that' remains.

Lloyd hugs the wall for a moment, slowly looking between the deathtrap in front of him and the looking at the death trap behind him. Pythor's pink eyes practically glow in the dim light, with a look that tells Lloyd he has very little choice.

Gulping as he looks at the endless darkness below him, he fixes a braver look on his face. Hugging the wall, he carefully sets one of his feet on the ledge of what used to be a floor. Slowly but surely, he starts to inch he way across the hall.

All to soon he runs into a problem, a gap in the ledge. It's too big for him to step across but just close enough to the remaining solid ground.

Lloyd doesn't dare to look back, either for fear of the movement itself or for fear of the malicious glares he knows he'd receive. Instead, his eyes lock on the solid floor, reading himself.

Not waiting for a chance to back out, Lloyd pushes himself of the wall and over the gap. He soars over the gap and lands harshly on the solid ground. Or not so solid ground, before he can even take a breath, the ground starts to crumble under his weight.

With a scared yelp, he manages to grab onto the new edge of the floor. Shimming the rest of the way up, he carefully climbs back up to solid ground.

"Bring me the Fangblade, and I'll let you go," Pythor calls out from across the gap in his condescending voice.

Letting out a defeated sigh, Lloyd slowly rises to his feet, attempting to brush off some of the dirt off his black clothes. He's not two steps down the tunnel when the rest of the ground starts to collapse underneath him.