This certainly turned out to be a series of unexpected events. He did love the rundown of other dragons here. The Shadow Dragon's earlier annoyance was that accursed shark trying to gnaw on one of his horns. Pocketshark didn't care which guise he took; he was going to chomp on something attached to Therony's hide. They held reserve magic he collected over time and did not wish to lose them needlessly. Although just as impossible it was the shark to get full, it was unfeasible to break them off without magical means. Ultimately a level of principle this matter was.

But now that he stood there with Tesh and Drake back in his half form, Therony's attention turned to the missing fourth. "I can hear Shadow now..." Now smaller, he absently ran his claw around his neck. Drake's tale hit a little bit close to his heart. Tesh knew it too; her sniffling ceased for a bit. She was at his side during that loss. "But that's not important." His gaze turned to the four corners of the ruins. No aura outside of theirs, plus no damage to the surroundings meant one thing. "There is no maybe to it. Pocketshark is in there. I think we should hurry before he does historical damage." His head slowly shook about. When a creature can eat anything is let loose the havoc amount can get up there.

Tesh hurried inside.

I know you want to rush after the disposal unit but Drake would be a better candidate here. He knows it a bit better than either of us I figure. We'll just have to guide him with our aura vision.

Those mental words brought her to a stop, allowing them to catch up.
A grinning Therony placed a hand on both their shoulders once they gathered anew, his head stuck in between their shoulders. "Ancient ruins probably mean treasure so lets go exploring." Tesh's hand slapped Therony just as much as he mocked their actual task. He'll never vocally admit it and bitterly forced to do so with empathy. He did care for that pet.

"Meh no treasure then?" He deviated half his attention to earlier moments. "A dragon made out of time... hmm." Trying to picture it, sanely so proved to be quite difficult. He bent it during certain trips with his dimensional magic, but he had no such an immaterial object in him; just a flesh, blood and scale body tempered by magic. Therony didn't know why his mind drifted back to the riddle posed by Drake and that dying dragoness. It just did. He came up with a solution rather quickly and wished he didn't. More correctly wished it did not come to pass here.
"My good man." He tapped Drake. "You'll have to take point. Don't think three visitors roaming about heedlessly would do any good." They peered ahead, a flight of stairs heading down and into increasingly darkening conditions... The Guardian drifted back to the rear just in case something tries to go bump in the night behind them.

Drake smiled and said, "Let's go." He summoned three balls of fire that floated in the air around them. Drake dashed forward and leaped over a fallen pillar. One of the balls of fire followed Drake, and the other two chose which dragon to follow.

Drake bounded down the stairs, dodging portions of the steps that were missing, and ended in the throne room. He looked around and heard a scraping noise. He laughed and said, "Come on out." Waiting a second for an answer, he heard a chirping noise. Looking to the right, he saw Pocketshark coming around a corner.

He looked at the shark and said, "We are looking for you." The shark headed straight for Drake and skidded for a stop in front of him. Drake put his right hand on the shark's snout and started to pet him. Hearing the tapping of claws against stone, he looked to the stairs and saw Therony and Acortesha entering the throne room.

Acortesha gazed around the throne room, amazed by all of the lively colors and the fact that most of the throne room stayed intact. He noticed Therony's surprised look on his face and said, "I'm guessing Pocketshark likes me." Pocketshark went back to Acortesha and started to chirp happily.

Therony instantly started to explore the room, and Drake walked over to a pillar. Leaning against the stone pillar, he watched the two dragons explore. Drake sighed and whispered, "Hey, Sylvanas, what do you think about our new friends?" A white and silver scaled draconian stepped out of the sun beam next to the pillar and stood next to Drake.

He flexed his four angelic wings and said, "I think you should have told them the truth about people reading your mind. Making up that lie about their thoughts being bombarded by draconian thoughts was really mean. By looking at them, I think that they could be trusted." "Maybe you're right Sylvanas. I should open my mind to them. Besides, if they really wanted to enter my mind, they would have done it even without the warning I made up," Drake said with a sigh.

Drake closed his eyes and concentrated. He lifted the elemental barrier he put around his mind and could feel a connection to Therony and Acortesha. Opening his eyes, he saw Therony and Acortesha looking at him and Sylvanas. "Sylvanas is one of my several draconians I can change into. He is a light dragon, hence the fact he can appear out of light and he has angel wings," Drake said, tilting his head towards the draconian.

"Angel wings." Tesh mused. "Cliché, but I like it." As she thought she shifted her own wings to that of the feathered variety. She flapped once before willing the wings back to normal.

Therony studied the light dragon before shifting his gaze to watch Tesh amuse herself with the feathered wings. He was the first of the two alien dragons to extend his hand to the new dragon.

"Therony." He grinned.
Tesh followed his example and took the light dragon's hand after her Guardian had. "Well met. I'm Tesh."

Sylvanas looked between the two new dragons. Tesh spoke with an accent that he couldn't place and the white was a whole other thing to ponder over.  

The light dragon then turned his attention back to Drake. "Perhaps now you should tell the truth." He spoke quietly.

Tesh tilted her head to the side. The truth? Too busy keeping an eye on her pet shark that she hadn't been paying attention to the dragon and Drake speak before.
Drake continued to follow the thoughts, and Tesh could almost hear the words in her head.

A quiet chirp sounded from in her pocket.
"Hush you." She looked down at her pocket. "I told you I'd feed you later."

Therony frowned. Great, it's hungry…
The silver dragoness grinned. "It's not my fault he's always hungry." But before she could shrug the shark had latched onto Therony's head, and started chewing.

Tesh laughed before trying in vain to yank the shark from his head. Despite the recent hardships they'd been through she just couldn't lose her playful mood yet. She knew that Drake was still down about the time dragoness as Therony was about his own mother, but as she realized that she knew she fell into the role of comic relief; that and the ever constant role of keeping the hungry Pocketshark from finally cracking the white's skull.

Sylvanas merely watched the scene unfold. Once the shark had landed, Therony's arms flailed in alarm and Tesh was giggling uncontrollably trying to pry the fish from the white's head.

Once she'd finally removed the shark she returned the light dragon's gaze. Her blue eyes reflected her old soul and had a haunted aspect to them, but they laughed nonetheless.

"If this keeps up, I won't have any horns on the top of my head." Therony complained holding his horns as if they hurt and frowning at the fish.
Rawr Rawr... Rawr!

Therony's dull silver eyes flashed crimson for a moment at the comment. He growled before Tesh shoved the shark away and spoke.

"Enough, children! We still have company." She sounded a lot like her surrogate mother. But fell silent waiting for Drake say what he had wanted to say to them.

Therony fiercely shook his fist at the aquatic devourer before straightening out in a heartbeat. His head took lampposts, boulders and other items that should destroy a life instantly without much as a blink. He wasn't sure if his head had an enchantment on it like the curse upon his soul but outside of a single point in the back of the skull, it took everything dished out to it. Pocketshark never managed to find that spot thankfully, usually settling chomping the bard's head whole or his horns

"Well Drake, something appears to be on your mind that is not this thing over here, so what's up?" He hitched a talon over at Pocketshark who only growled at him. Tesh and the fish knowingly or not made the male dragon and human forget about their sorrows.

Sylvanas appeared to nudge the human into speaking. "Oh. You see..." Drake started. Whatever it was surely made him uneasy. Therony's silver eye grew a bit wider but he internally shrugged it off. "...What I told you earlier wasn't true."

"Oh?" Tesh brushed her pet's smooth back to keep him docile for now.
"You see there is a protective barrier around my mind instead..."

Both dragons nodded almost in understanding. "A tale for the visitors huh?" Therony started. "Must be indeed a good barrier, fooled the ol' empathy."

"We would ran into that instead of all those draconian thoughts." The warrior followed with a sympathetic nod. Therony walked forward past her and then Drake as he settled down again near the throne. "We wouldn't intrude..."

"Ahem..." Therony faked a cough.

"I wouldn't intrude unless it was needed. I'm honorable when it comes to that." Tesh's chosen words didn't instill total confidence in the human. He turned to the colorful dragon behind him.

Ah, I'm the weaker of the two when it comes to the mind stuff. I only do it to speak when I can't vocally, been like that for all dragons of my world. She's the one with all the Jedi mind powers.

Drake's expression widened. Stop trying to scare him! He blinked when he heard Tesh's mental voice along Therony's own along a mutual wavelength. The bard threw up a hand as if to dismiss the idea and went back to examining the throne. It may not be as many as you claimed but we are linked at the mind until one of us croaks.

The light draconian took a couple of steps forward. Therony, the one who spoke to Drake last, who instantly swung around. "Methinks I got you solved…" Therony spun about a bit more before sitting in the archaic chair. "Ah... what did I do now?"

He didn't need the empathy blaring against the back of his heart, the stunned faces of Tesh, Drake, Sylvanas and even that infernal shark, who had one eye much larger than normal, gave it away.

"What!?" His head swung around slowly... he had a bad notion that his very finicky luck struck again.

Drake took a step forward and said, "This isn't good." He looked at Sylvanas and the light dragon nodded. "You know what to do Drake," Sylvanas said. "Unfortunately," Drake said with a heavy sigh. He looked towards the door that was slowly opening and said, "Here I go." Drake opened his eyes, his brown eyes were now red, and his pupil were slits.

Drake took a step forward and black scales appeared on his arm. His fingernails turned to metallic silver claws and a single spike grew out of his elbow. Drake flicked his wrist and a claymore made of fire appeared in his clawed hand. Drake dashed forwards and a black draconian tail appeared on Drake.

Sylvanas looked at Tesh, Therony and Pocketshark. Therony got off of the throne and walked back to Tesh, glancing down to see the draconian tail on Drake. Therony gave a double-take at Drake, but it was disrupted by Sylvanas quickly pulling Therony towards the steps. Drake put a shoulder against the door and started to try and push it closed.

Drake noticed Tesh's worried look and Drake said, with his mind, "Don't worry, I've dealt with far worse things than a chaos dragon." The door started to glow black and Drake roared. He planted the claymore in the ground and kept trying to close the door. Black flames rushed around the door and headed straight for Tesh. Drake gasped and rush towards Tesh.

His heart raced as he tried to outrun the black flames. "I'm not letting a friend perish to a chaos dragon again," Drake thought to himself. He swiftly shifted into a black draconian and easily outran the black flames. He stood in front of Tesh and summoned an elemental barrier in front of them. The black flames hit the barrier and Drake let out a cry of agony.

The black fire subsided and Drake fell to one knee. Drake raised one hand and threw a ball of light and shadow at the door. The elemental ball hit the door and an arcane seal appeared on it. As the door was finally sealed, Drake shifted out of his draconian form and fell to the ground. Sylvanas rushed over and carefully picked him up.

Purple mist swirled around the dragon and human as Sylvanas supported it. The mist trailed in almost a lazy pattern, but all her humor had faded at the moment of the attack.

The Guardian sensed his warrior tense at the attack and she had begun to shape-shift but Drake had taken it upon himself to destroy the chaos dragon. Instead of completing her change she hung in between. The mist changed to fire and Tesh reformed herself kneeling beside her downed comrade.

"What was that?" She studied Drake and realized he was hurt, but not terribly so. Her hands lit with healing purple fire and she placed it on the human's shoulder.
Drake felt the fire heal as it burned. "A Chaos Dragon."

Tesh ended the fire and stood again. She looked to Therony.  "Always happens, no?"

Therony looked to the seal upon the door. Demons, Bards, Dragons, Zombies and Warriors. It only made sense to add a Chaos Dragon to the long list to things that have tried to kill them.
Tesh shook her head as her gaze followed her Guardian's to the door. She stood with her hands on her hips and frowned.

"Just sealed away...?" Radiance, her enchanted bladed appeared at her hip as she frowned at the door, looking for all the world like her surrogate mother. "What would be the next step?"  Again her blue gaze dropped to Drake still on the floor.

Therony offered a hand to the human and helped Sylvanans pull him to his feet. "Is it still a threat?" Therony had his ideas about Chaos Dragons but he knew that Tesh had never seen one.

He looked again at his warrior and anger entered him. He was so sick of things trying to off her, and him to for that matter.

Rawr Rawr. The shark flopped out of his master's pocket and growled at the door. One bug eye locked on the seal with his steel-trap jaw quivering in his growling. He glanced back at Tesh begging for her to understand. Awrr... Rawr rawr!

Tesh shook her head at the shark. "We can't move against the dragon without Drake." She lifted the shark and held him like a child would a teddybear and looked back at the human. "Though your actions were noble." She spoke meaning when he'd taken the fire for her. "I've lived long enough to take care of myself. Next time get your backside out of the line of fire too. That way we don't have to wait for you to get your strength back." She chuckled, instantly her humor flooded back into her eyes as she shrank to her foot tall form and held the shark over her head. "When ever you guys are ready."

Therony shook his head and laughed while Drake grinned sheepishly.

"I hate my luck..." The Guardian took the humor in stride. Without it, the last shred of sanity he held would not exist anymore. He shrugged, hefting up Lil' Tesh and Pocketshark in turn, the bottomless pit nearly brushing the ceiling because of it. "If its all the same I think we should depart."

Rawr? Tesh's fishy pal was shocked that his chew toy would suggest fleeing than fighting, so surprised that those large eyes expanded.

"Yes, I said it." Therony mumbled more at the cartoon running in his mind portraying the shark's heart state than Pocketshark himself. He saw a badly shaped form of himself running from the barricaded dragon then in the next panel. That same deformed Guardian staring down the shark, that panel ending in a question mark.

Drake shrugged it off, he did not want his guests to be hurt or worse while showing them around. Glancing back to the sealed door, the human narrowed his eyes then jumped when Sylvanas did the same thing to get out of the way. Therony rushed toward the barrier carrying the smallest form of his warrior. The shark's hunger reached over a certain level and went after the closest snack. "Let's go! At least if I'm the Shadow Dragon I won't have to feel it much!"

The group headed back up, well the natives of Algriga did. Therony sprinted and flew up the damaged corridor with Pocketshark bull-rushing up the same distance.
"They are certainly a unique bunch." Sylvanas quipped.

By the time the light draconian and Drake reached the surface, Therony was back in his Shadow Dragon form, ignoring the chomping shark on one of his horns. While the one foot tall Lil' Tesh bounding to and from his elevated snout scales.

"Quite unique." Drake smiled, trying to put the trouble behind them.