Welcome to Gaia! ::

Instead of answering, Earendil turned to Aurin for the reply.

"Oh, certainly," the captain nodded. "After all, if a destructive dragon could live here and not harm it, then what could a person do? By all means, you may touch them."

"Used?" Aurin repeated. "Not to my knowledge. Very few come up here, and I don't even know that anyone would have the tools to work with it ... unless perhaps the jeweler ..."

Now there was an idea.

Earendil tapped one finger against the wall. "How would they ... how do you say, extract the crystal from the wall?"

"Have patience," Aurin laughed.

Aurin chuckled. That wasn't what he had meant, but she would see - they would all see - what he was talking about. If they had patience ...

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think the crystals would look beautiful in jewelry," he smiled.

Aurin grinned and continued leading them forward. "There is much on this island that we have not had a chance to experiment with. As our people settle into their lives and gain the courage to leave the walls of the city, more and more of the island will become ours, truly."

Earendil smiled wistfully. "That sounds like a good thought."

"Even before we were allowed, I could only be proud of our people," Aurin replied warmly. "While our men were pressed into servitude, our women were industrious and creative. It really is thanks to them that our nation had anything left that was worth calling a society after three thousand years of tyranny."

With all the respect he had for the women of Amon Darthir, it was amazing he had chosen a woman from a different nation as his wife.

It was nearly another half hour walk through the cave, with the walls growing steadily wider and higher, until at last they came to an immense cavern easily the size of the city itself. It wasn't a big, empty cavity, but rather a maze of walking spaces cut off from each other with sparkling walls of crystal. The ceiling was crystal as well: large growths up to twenty feet long and half that in width, sprouting in every direction from the ceiling, walls, and floor. In the firelight, they sparkled brightly, casting shimmering reflections on every surface.

Earendil couldn't speak, only look around in sheer amazement at the beauty hidden so far beneath the mountain.

"The crystal cavern," Aurin murmured softly, sending his fire to the outermost reaches of the cavern to give the crystals the most visibility.

"Who knew that such natural beauty could exist under the earth?" Earendil murmured softly, his eyes filled with wonder. He reached out and put his hand on one of the giant crystals. It was oddly smooth to touch, but rippled, like ripples on a pond frozen in time. Almost clear to look through, but seemingly covered with a thin white layer - of what? Dust? Ashes? Something soft.

Aurin kept looking around. "The beginnings of the crystal," he murmured. "It becomes part of the larger crystal. I don't know where it comes from or how it grows ... it just does."

His knowledge was very limited, but it was more than the others. Earendil had never seen anything like this before.