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“Down one of the tunnels?” Oh dear… Aaliyah wasn’t quite sure what was down the other tunnels. But, she did know that the Dragon-Bound Knights were down one of them. Master Lierce was down there. What if he saw Astaldar and realized that Aaliyah hadn’t kept her promise to keep all the younglings in a safe place?!

She turned to look down the dark tunnels, half expecting to see the dark youngling in one. That was just plain stupid though. The problem with trying to find a dark-colored dragon in a dark tunnel with lots of dark shadows around is that you can’t do it, especially at a distance. The white youngling shifted on her feet, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do. On one hand, leaving someone in charge of the younglings and hatchlings was a good idea, even if Vastina was a hatchling herself. On the other… the humans had been trying to steal the eggs. What if they tried to steal Ascended hatchlings next?

“I’m going to try to find him. Maybe you should come along too. You ought to explore the tunnels too.” Aaliyah wouldn’t admit it, even to herself, that walking alone along these darkened hallways was a little daunting.

Thinking that they were more or less gone without anyone noticing that they were absent, the duo proceeded further down the tunnel where Aer had gone off. It was going to be tricky from here, as they didn't know if he had taken any other turns while traveling to where the Dragon-Bound may have been.

As they moved, they worked to keep their footsteps light. Not only was this so the noise of their own feet wouldn't drown out any small sounds that could be in the area, but also so they wouldn't be announcing where they were as much. And they eventually had to slow their pace, so that they could focus on their surroundings a little more.

"Picking up on anything?" whispered Blade.

Pausing for a moment, Astalder looked, listened, and sniffed around briefly to confirm things, then shook his head.

"Not yet. Let's keep going."

Astalder had managed to spot and faintly hear a human heading towards them before he heard him speak. Recognizing the voice, he glanced back at his human companion, who was able to figure out who the one before them was as well.

Frowning slightly, Blade backed up to stand in Aer's way for now. As he did so, the dark youngling moved along side him as well. The heavy breath of Tarketh's bound, as well as what he had said gave the two more reason to suspect his part in this whole situation.

"Hold on," he said while eyeing the bag the man held over his shoulder, "What exactly were you doing back there?"

Turning around to watch Aer as he brushed past, Blade frowned and narrowed his dark red eyes at the man. With his fingers twitching slightly, he stared at the satchel, feeling a very strong, certain temptation. Quickly shifting his gaze over to Astalder, he gave a small signal to the youngling.

With a terse nod, the dragon immediately darted forward in an attempt to tackle Aer's legs from behind to try and knock him down. A moment after he had gone ahead, his human friend made his move to try and snatch the satchel from the Dragon-Bound.

With his movements hindered by Aer's fall, Astalder couldn't do much to minimalize damage aside from curling up as the man's kick sent him a few feet away. Yelping as this happened, he shuddered as he slid across the ground before trying to climb back to his feet groggily.

Stumbling slightly as he had missed the bag, Blade whirled about before drawing out his short sword and pointing down towards the fallen man. He wished he had been training more with how to wield the weapon properly, but it would do for now hopefully.

After shooting a glance over at the youngling to see if he was ok, he glared down at Aer to try and be intimidating.

"Hand it over now."

Staring down at the man, he tilted his head slightly at Aer's blank expression and tone. It was almost chilling in a way, as if the guy wasn't quite human any more because of any past events he had with Tarketh or other dragons.

Crap!!

Feeling his weapon being knocked to the side, Blade quickly snapped from his thoughts and did everything he could to move out of the way. He saw the older man's weapon and arm move past him. At first, he had just thought that Aer only attempted to knock him down with that charge, but he could see just how serious the guy was.

He just tried to kill me!

During this, Astalder had been slowly moving about, partially because he was still hurt from that kick, and partially because he didn't want to bring attention to himself. Once he saw the opening, he lunged forward to try and clamp down hard onto his dagger-arm with his jaws.

Crying out once more, Astalder whimpered before huddling onto the ground in pain. He wanted to do more to help Blade, but his body was just too numb with pain at the moment.

Eyes widening as he watched Aer more or less toss aside the youngling as if he was a rag doll and turned on him once more, he caught the slight gleam of his dagger, but he already had plans to try and avoid it to really worry about the possibilty of some poison coating the weapon.

Is the bag even really worth the trouble? Sure seems pretty important to him though...

Jumping back a couple times to dodge the strike as well as to put some distance between himself and the man, he quickly slicing at the closest thing to him at the moment; the extended unwounded arm. He wasn't entirely sure if he was going to make it out of this alive, but it was too late for him to run now.

As Vastina moved towards the tunnel that the spirit had indicated she heard the sounds of fighting. Rue frowned and then looked at the adults standing furhter away talking. "Um... I'll try and talk to them. You go ahead if you want to..." He said looking at the little purple creature he had become so fond of. The ascented nodded and then moved more quickly towards and down the tunnel. She had a feeling that she needed to move quickly.

Rue only paused a moment before going up to one of the knight bounds that was still in the room. "Hey can't you hear the fighting from down that tunnel? It sounds serious. Maybe you should help." Now it was true that he was only about 6 years old so he wasn't sure the adult would even listen to him. He had to make sure he had a backup idea if he was ignored.

Around a corner and then a muttered thank you to another spirit that pointed her to the fighting area lead Vastina to the trio. The little black dragon that had first met her was laying on the floor and so was a larger adult with a deep wound in his shoulder. Another human was there too and was also cut. She flapped her little wings a moment or two before letting out a shrill cry. If that didn't speed someone to the spot not much would.