Sharon and Charlotte: The Broken Lands- Destination Determined

Unending BE - episode 216094

Sharon hissed in a desperate attempt to relax. Ever since they had arrived in the Broken Lands, her condition had begun degenerating. She felt as though she would burst into flames at any moment.

“Sharon? You all right?”

She was too agitated to reply. She thought of the Council’s trial, and how she would have to endure a test…

“Sharon?”

“The volcano. Gorbash is there.”

Charlotte blinked. “How do you know?”

Sharon took a deep lungful of smog. “The Council wants to test me. Nobokai was a water dragon, therefore I’m half water dragon. That’s the worst place I could be. That has to be where he is.”

Charlotte shrugged. “I see the logic, but are you sure?”

Sharon began moving in the direction of the volcano. She motioned for Charlotte to follow.

The pair crossed the shattered ground as best they could. Three times, Charlotte had to fly across a jagged chasm in order to set down some type of bridge for the larger half-dragoness. Once, a sudden break in the crust threatened to hurl them into pools of magma. Only Sharon’s quick warning, and Charlotte’s adrenaline-fueled flight, kept them alive. All the while, Sharon began to feel the infernal heat in earnest.

It took nearly a day’s travel to reach the volcano. Charlotte was ready for rest, and practically had to hogtie Sharon to get her to stop moving. She wanted to complete their quest, longed to be reunited with her mate, and to be completed by his seed. Her expression betrayed her desire to save her mate; her own health was secondary.

Only the lack of visible shadows told them that night had fallen; the black haze made it impossible to tell otherwise. They had reached the volcano within another hour, though the heat had not lessened. Sharon found herself exerting all her will to keep herself irrigated. Charlotte felt some of the pain, though she was not in nearly as much agony.

Sharon could barely stand. “How…do we…get in?”

“Whoa, we?!” Charlotte did her best to hold the much larger half-dragoness upright. “You’re not going in there!”

Their draconic eyes met. “…Have…to…”

The winged woman shook her head. “Let me scout it out first. There may be some secret way in.”

Sharon nodded, accepting Charlotte’s help in lowering her to a squat. With a thumbs-up, the blond woman took wing, and began circling around the burning cone. Sharon did her best to focus through the twin hazes of pain and chaff, trying to locate another way in.

1. The only path is a descending spiral outcropping, starting inside the mouth of the volcano.
2. *A hidden door rests halfway up the far side of the volcano.
3. There is draconic writing camouflaged into the base of the volcano.
4. There is a secret entrance to an underground cavern, near where Sharon rests.
5. A voice comes to Sharon as she rests.
6. Something occurs that neith woman expected...

Mon Apr 22 19:39:51 2002