The next day, after a night"s stop at Three Pines, and another few hours" journey, they arrived at their destination."So… this is Dragon Lake?" Father Petrov mused.
"The dragon… where is the dragon? We have to see the dragon!" Professor Alexei was already bobbing up and down all around the airship in excitement. "Isn"t this Dragon Lake? Where are all the dragons?"
To be fair, Dragon Lake was huge. They couldn"t see the other side of it, and frankly speaking, the horizon of the lake that they could see basically covered just the near corner.
"There better be a dragon." One of the students muttered darkly. "Don"t tell me we"ve come all this way on a hoax just to be laughed at in the end…"
Then the lake exploded. Water fountained up hundreds of feet high as a ma.s.sive shape hurtled into the air with a thundering roar. Five students fell over; two almost fell overboard, and one fainted outright. Family members shrieked and ducked for cover; only one guy"s excited son cheered and jumped up and down rejoicing. The somewhat tubby little guy had both fists in the air bouncing on his toes upon the ship"s deck shouting, "YEAAAAAAAHH!!!!"
"DRAGGGOOOOONNN!!" The doubtful student half yelped, half exclaimed.
"Yes! There it is!" Alexei beamed. "Now we can get started."
"Uh…" Remian trailed off. "That"s not… Har"es-dras. That"s…"
[Intruders…!] the gray-scaled dragon glared at them, then drew in a deep breath, the suction force almost causing everyone and the airship to tilt forward.
[We"re friends!!] Remian gasped. [We"re just here to talk to Har"es-dras! Take it easy!]
[Friends of that puny misfit deserve no mercy!] The dragon roared, and belched fire.
"Light!" Remian threw up a hand and a barrier of light six feet thick and nine meters tall appeared to block off the flames.
"We"re under attack!" Alexei shouted. "All students, support me! We will cast the chains of ice…"
But there was no time. The dragon flipped up its tail.
"Light!" Remian threw down another light barrier, blocking the tail. There was a shaking in the air as the tail met the barrier, the shock of the impact not entirely dissipating across the wall of light.
Cracks appeared in the barrier.
Remian frowned at it. As if in apology, the cracks faded away meekly.
The dragon roared, and then spat fire, three separate bolts that streaked towards the front, middle and back of the airship respectively.
"Counter-cast…" Prof. Alexei gasped.
"No time! DUCK!" Father Pretrov yelled.
"Fire!" Remian raised a hand, sending up his own fireb.a.l.l.s, meeting them three for three.
Explosions rocked the air amidst screams and yells.
The dragon roared, but this time, n.o.body heard the roar; the sonic energy was being gathered around its maw…
"SIT!" Remian shouted at the dragon as if scolding a dog.
Abruptly, the dragon fell. It was like a huge fist had grabbed it by the tail and tugged it back into the water. "URGHK…?!"
The sonic energy of its collected roar went splaying about wildly, rippling high up through the air over the lake completely out of control. None of it hit the airship, or even the barriers of light guarding its front.
"Everyone, gather!" Alexei gasped hurriedly. "We will cast…"
ROAR! Two more dragons rose up out of the water, one red, one green, both looking at the airship menacingly.
"…the chains of ice…! I need two people on water supplemental…" Alexei spat out instructions.
"Chains of ICE!" Remian barked, pointing at both the two new dragons at the same time.
Water hardened. Rivulets streaming down the newly emerged dragons suddenly froze, and great splashes across the lake only added more arces of frost and rime suddenly wrapping around the serpentine forms. First entangling, then completely immersing the dragons, absolute ice leapt out of the lagoon and heaped on them until there was nothing left to see but two blinking, astounded dragons completely encased in solid icebergs.
The first dragon glanced left, glanced right, the roared at Remian again as if in protest.
"You too!" Remian pointed, and like a pair of white jaws, ice rose up out of the deep and closed in on the gray dragon from all sides. Down he went in another iceberg.
"Whoa… what the…?" Alexei stared. "How did you DO that?"
"It wasn"t me. It was the lake." Remian explained. "There"s plenty of water."
"I know. That"s why I wanted to use ice. But to do all that, all at once, with just a sentence…?" Alexei whistled.
"Wasn"t that how it was supposed to go?" Remian blinked.
"Haven"t you learned ANYTHING about that spell?" Alexei asked.
"Not really, no. I just heard its name." Remian confessed.
"You"re supposed to carefully set down a formation, using two elemental catalysts and a balancer, with equal balance between both catalysts, especially if you want the stronger version which means two people on each catalyst… aaah, forget it!" Alexei threw up his hands. "Just do it your way. What you just did is stronger than anything I was hoping for with five students anyhow."
"What did you do?" Father Petrov ask, in shock. "What did you just DO?!"
"I didn"t know you could do that." Mindy added, blinking.
"Actually, I didn"t either." Remian admitted. "I just thought I"d try it out for once. Goodness, if I"d known this was possible earlier, I"d have had everyone digging ponds in preparation for the Beast Waves."
"Well, at least someone responded quickly." Father Petrov breathed in relief.
"Yeah. We have five other student magi on board, and n.o.body even cast a single spell!" Mindy objected. "What"s the matter with everyone."
Alexei cleared his throat, "Students," he said, "We are in the Wildlands. The laws on magic usage do not apply here."
"The laws… what does that mean?" one student asked.
"It means, you can use magic freely." Alexei told him. "Just be responsible."
"Use magic… freely?" the student stared. "No conditions?"
"Before you go wild, just be warned; we will hold you responsible for anything you do." Remian said, up front.
"Is the government okay with that? Who governs the Wildlands, anyway?" the student asked, awkwardly.
"He does." Mindy pointed to Remian. "I told you, remember?"
"For real?"
"For real."
It seemed only now that it was really beginning to sink in. Suddenly, people were bowing left and right. "Your majesty!"
"Will you guys cut that out?!" Remian protested. "We"re fighting dragons here, and they"re still looking at us as if we"re dinner! There are more than three dragons in this lake."
"Yes, there are, and unless you want them all to jump on you, you better tell me what you"re doing here." A voice said from behind.
Turning around, they found Doom standing on absolutely nothing but empty air behind them, arms crossed and looking rather annoyed at the people on the airship.