Com call: "Eva, wait, give me a chance... I'm coming to join you at the celestial temple. My disk indicates the place as well. That's probably where they kidnapped our Mother, the High Priestess."

Me: "And why should I trust you? "

"I know the locals, and you're our only chance against this lunatic."

His name is Pedro Dominguez, and he is involved in a rare artifact sale. He's a grave robber and ex-cartel boss, but he must have an army on his hands. He doesn't know you, but he already hates you. He's probably the one who sabotaged or had your shuttle sabotaged."

"All right, then grab the stuff I'm gonna send you by comm. I'll need a lot of rope and a really good knife, a bow and arrow!" What-what...

Yes, I'll take the bow. If my powers were canceled, I'd be helpless. I have to act like a human being here. My dragon powers as a last resort...

I finally made it through the jungle to a village at the foot of a temple.

My clothes were in tatters and I saw a house bigger than the others. I was dirty and sticky and there were lots of children playing in the river.

Adults were also swimming in it and I did the same. People didn't pay attention to a beggar with a stick.

It was as if everything was frozen in time here and I felt like I was back on Arcadia. But this was the land and traces of this and the comm and holo tv tracks reminded me of the harsh reality.

Some women, seeing my distress, came and lent me soap and henna to take care of my hair and remove the dirty mud that stuck to it. I let myself do the same for them, combed their hair and did their braids. Out of kindness, one of them gave me an Indian top with geometrically shaped edges. It had a light brown stone color but it was pretty. I looked like a local now.

Time passed quickly and I was offered goat's cheese and sheep's milk with honey.

An old lady approached and put a leather and flower necklace on me and made a greasy ash line on my forehead and two red lines under each eye.

She brandished a stick and the other women bowed down before me.

Then a shuttle arrived and landed and Ricardo ran towards me with two bags in his hand and threw one of the bags towards me, which I grabbed without any problem:

"Come on, let's have a drink in the village café, I know lots of people here."

"You've met the wise woman of the village! She'll bless you because you'll need the necklace for the guard to let you pass."

Then another shuttle arrived, followed by screams and people running around.

A swarthy, bearded man with traces of time on him dressed in a khaki shirt and a brotherhood scarf came out of the shuttle.

"Catch them," he shouted in his comm.

we didn't ask for the rest, we plunged into the rapids with our buoy bags and arrived at the foot of a gigantic waterfall.

I grabbed the rock, and Ricardo did the same.

We were isolated on a rock and the mercenaries began to open fire on us.

There! A bridge!

"But it's at the edge of the abyss!"

"Trust me! Trust me!"

I took a rope and rolled it up to Ricardo and I took the other end and we let ourselves go in the current until we came to the last rock that was holding the carcass of an American bomber from World War II. It was all rotten and had nothing but rust and roots tangled in it.

I grabbed the rope and ran over the wing to cross the torrent. My featherweight was going and I managed to cross.

Now it's Ricardo's turn!

He took his momentum, and when he reached mid-wing, the wing folded under his stoutness and I pulled on the rope so hard that he was ejected on the hull.

A sizzling sound reminded us that the paratroopers were on our tail.

"But how strong you are," Ricardo complained! It's as if a tank had dragged me with a fishing rod!

So we went down the waterfall by the side and swam to the foot of the temple. They must have been looking for us by the dry way, they didn't see us swimming again.

This brought us to the fence of the site which was protected.

The mercenaries and the order had occupied the place for some time already and I admire the prowess and the organization.

When they shot at us, they wanted me dead. They sure did!

So, no mercy!

"Ricardo, is this the entrance? "

"Yes, but we'll never get through. Did you see how armed they are? Besides, with the humidity, only mechanical weapons work. So they're using old weapons from a century ago! It's raining guns in here."

"Let's go somewhere else!" I said.

"No, they're everywhere and they know the secret entrances, they're part of or work for the order. You, you are the chosen one and they consider that if you kill them, you are the chosen one and if you die, you were a usurper."

"Well, I'll do it my way then."

I go behind the back of one of the hunters and stab him in the lung with my dagger so he can't scream and call for help.

He collapses without a sound, just the gurgling of a mouth full of blood.

I pull his body out of the way and drag him out of sight of possible trackers.

The way seems clear and we both get out of this muddy pond and climb old stairs that no one is supposed to have used for centuries.

A deadly silence and an atmosphere of another time, another world offered itself to us.

But what struck me most was a moan, even a cry in a language that is not unfamiliar to me. The draconian! The old draconian!

I could hear a child dragon crying.....moaning, it was very very weak, choked by thousands of tons of rocks.

It can't be!!!!!! My blood only made one turn!

"Ricardo, there are children crying here!"

"No, Eva, it's the spirits and the guardian's voice! He knows we've just entered and he's warning us, that we're going to die!"

"I don't understand him like that! It's a cry of distress, a cry for help!"