The Crystal Code

Chapter 20

The staircase seemed never ending, the light brightened slowly at the bottom, but stayed far away. The top had closed once we had all stepped in and almost seemed like a trap. But as Ember had said, the Crystal Code was very precious and also was near a dungeon. I hoped Franky would be there, alive.

"Are we going to have to camp on this stair case?" Logan asked sarcastically. His eyes that were usually dark, were red-brown in the blinding light ahead.

"No, we are going to keep walking until we reach the light. Will you survive, princess?" Bethany said to Logan with a glare. Those two were too cute, I couldn't hold the smile back and apparently neither could them either. Bethany and Logan smiled, though they couldn't see eachother most of the time they had the same reactions. It was too cute.

My legs throbbed as we continued our decent and when my left arm bumped against the wall, it stung still after two days from the burning even though I had done some extensive healing. Ember and Emma in the lead as usual, they were a few steps in front of us. The stairs were on a deep incline and where my leg had been cut days earlier when I had first entered the maze, hurt like crazy. The constant stretch of my legs on the stairs made some of the stiches fall out and I saw Logan occasionally clutching his stomach where Ember had cut it yesterday with her silver dagger. It had bled through a little, and so had my leg. Bethany's wound had healed on her back quickly from days ago by the arrow, and so has Chris's leg wound from the spear. I helped heal them when I could, we were all getting better, thankfully.

The stairs just kept going and there was nothing else to do than to go down it.

"We need to do this faster." Emma said. She was the only one not hurt at all. "Any ideas?" I thought of ideas and I came up empty.

"We could try to create some sort of cart or boat to slide down on." Bethany said. "Not sure if plants will do it, but I'll try." Bethany placed her hands in front of her and we all haulted to a stop on the steps. Vines on the walls grew and some sprouted out of the ground. They started weaving together making a basket- thing. She stopped and looked down at her creation. She lifted her hands and made one more layer of weaving.
"There, who wants to ride in front?" Bethany asked looking around. Chris lit his hand on fire.

"First we should burn the bottom to make it stronger, Logan." Logan used his powers to flip the basket-thing over and Chris burned the bottom with his hand. I glanced in aww and the team work, though water wouldn't be too handy. Chris put the fire out of his hand, but a flame still continued to burn and spread. "Oops, the fire is still going." He trird to put it out. "Crap." I made a ball of water in between my hands and placed it over the flames, careful not to get the base soggy, I smiled when it went out. Logan fliped the basket around Bethany climbed in, followed by her dog, Logan. I climbed behind and then Emma and Ember, lastly Chris. Emma put her hands behind them and the wind pushed us forward. The basket slid down slowly, then picking up speed, went faster.

The bumps hurt my back and my bottom as we thumped. Emma made is go even faster that we started hovering over the ground. The thumps and bumps eventually stopped as we plummeted down the shaft into the blinding light. I pulled my right arm over my forehead to cover my eyes from the light from the end of the stairs. The makeshift cart slid to a hault in a large room. We scrambled out of the cart and the vines sagged on the ground, no longer looking like the basket at all.

"Rip, Weaver the cart. Rip." Ember laughed, but there was a quietness to her laugh, almost like respect.

"Did she just name the cart, Weaver?" Logan asked actually smiling. Ember looked at him with a frown.

"You know I would appreciate you actually saying my name for once and wipe that stupid look off your face all the time. You are just a big, tough, cinnamon roll." Ember said. "And yes, we did have those down here." I stiffled a laugh and so did everyone else.