"What is it?" Emeryl dangled his finger in the water.
      In front of the large cave they ran into a huge mass of water completely blocking the entrance. Small streams of water poured down the rocks from the mountainside into the pond.
      "Reminds me of a moat in front of a castle. Except, a pond in front of a cave. I suppose it would be the place to find a blue dragon." Prism shrugged lightly, "Do we have anything to use for a bridge?"
      "Not that I can see. Try calling her." Bentora suggested.
      With a deep breath Prism held his hands around his mouth, "Afina? Hello!"
      Inside the cave a deep rumbling was heard. Two eyes sparkled like sapphires inside, glittering like the water in the night.
      "I am Afina of the Puddle. Who goes there?" the voice rumbled.
      "Friends of Sela. She said you could help us!" Prism cried.
      "Sela, eh?" the dark blue face stretched out of the cave, her eyes sparkling.
      She was about two or three times Sela's size from what they could tell, with her wings under her shoulders instead of lower on her back. Two horns slanted against her head in very small curves.
      "You don't look so bad. What do you want?" she stepped into the pond.
      Prism paused as he caught Blake glaring at him. Almost through telekinesis he caught Blake's thought and retrieved a book from his cloak. Flipping through it he nodded at Blake.
      His aqua green eyes met up with the dragon's, "Puddle is the title given to one of the Nature's Treasures."
      "Oh, you know about those?" I'm impressed." She slid the rest of her body into the pond. She resembled the lochness monster.
      "We're on a search for them. Sela told us you'd know where one was." He answered.
      "Is that so? What do you want it for?" she queried.
      "Eric's brother died unnaturally for a noble cause, we'd like to resurrect him. He was poisoned by a lich queen, you see." Prism explained.
      "I see... I do have one of them... But I can tell you have a lot to learn..." her tail wagged from one side of the pond to the other, "Sit down, I'll explain."
      The group sat down on nearby rocks and logs.
      "About six hundred years ago there was a civil war between elves and drow elves. The drows were driven underground, mainly due to their lack in numbers." She began, eyeing Blake curiously out of the group, "Other dragons were informed by the white ones that the lack of light caused drows to stop studying, until hundreds of years let their eyes adjust. Recently we've heard some started studying sorcery again, becoming outcasts."
      "Well, that's very interesting, but what does it have to do with this?" Emeryl politely interrupted.
      "You're impatient for an elf..." she answered, "This is what it has to do with it. After the drows were driven away the elves were left with all the destruction. They replanted, harvested, treated the wounded... and decided what to do with all the drow magic left behind."
      "I understand. They tried to hide it in normal items because the magic was used for destruction!" Prism announced.
      "Yes, it was all split up. Some of them simply disappeared, probably stolen and dropped or tossed away by unsuspecting humans." She nodded.
      "Do you know which ones disappeared..?" Prism inquisitively asked.
      "If my memory serves me right... Corruption, Flames and Fury, and more recently Rock." She responded.
      "Blake, you must have had Corruption. Sela probably had Rock. Then the one in the sword... could be either... Afina, do you know all their colors?" Prism slid off his rock. Eric drew the sword with the ruby on it for Afina to see.
      "Sorry, Puddle was blue. That's the only one I'm certain of." She shook her head.
      "Then this could be either..." Prism pondered.
      Behind his ear Blake heard the faint growl of the kitten.
      "From what I've put together from all you've said, this drow found Corruption, you somehow stumbled on one of the Fire's, and then visited Sela to ask her for hers." Afina checked for approval.
      "Yes, but she didn't have it. And we lost Corruption when we met Blake. That's why we came here." He nodded.
      Approving with a nod, she closed her eyes in thought. The half elf obviously implied that he wanted hers, but she was reluctant to give up such a priceless artifact without being sure of their worthiness.
      "Prism, why does it matter which one Alan has?" Eric put the sword away.
      "Because, we've seen that he can react to certain situations... If we knew what type he can react to, he'd be able to help us a lot more." Prism explained.
      "Why not test it in a fire and see?" Eric asked.
      "How would we get it out of the fire? We might break it, we're not smithies, and if we broke Alan..."
      "No!" Eric hugged the sheathed sword protectively.
      "We're not doing it stupid!" Bentora snapped.
      "Listen." Afina interjected, "I'll give you my talisman if you can get Aidan's gem." She announced.
      "Aidan?" Blake skeptically repeated.
      "He lives west, a little to the north. At the waterfalls near Trask." She told them.
      "I take it he's not friendly..." Blake grumbled.
      "Blake, not everyone is cruel and abusive." Prism scolded him.
      "He's right." Afina shook her head, "Aidan is a red dragon. He's very territorial."
      "Then why do you want us to go get his gem?" Eric asked.
      "One, I don't want to give mine to someone who can't handle it. Two, one of these being in his type of claws makes me nervous." She clarified for him.
      "I see, nailing two birds with one stone." Prism nodded.
      "Wasn't it obvious the second she said 'If you can get'?" Blake brushed the tip of his nose, ignoring the hissing kitten on his shoulder.
      "Stop grumping. We'll head back to Ephesus, pick up Leiko, then go to Doko, a bit up from there, and turn to Trask." Prism declared.
      "I can see who is the leader here... I've never seen such a responsible half elf... Good luck." She waded around in the water, clamping her claws back on the edge of the cave and crawling out of sight.
      "Well, time to go." Emeryl slid of his log.