Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Silver by SupMario Chapter 7 I woke up in a small cold cell that smelled bad. I was wearing nothing but my trousers and boots, and some kind of strange collar was around my neck. It was some kind of leather and I couldn't remove it. Okay, first things first. The cell door was locked and I knew just how to fix that. My flame arrow spell should fix that offending door nicely. I stood back and cast the spell at the door but nothing happened. I tried again and each time I did, the leather collar vibrated slightly. It was keeping me from doing any magic, damn! Things could be worse, I suppose. I couldn't give any particular examples right then, but I was reasonably sure of it. As I sat there feeling particularly sorry for myself, the cell door slowly opened and a small goblin-like creature stepped its head in the cell, pointing a sharp-looking spear at me. "You come now, Mistress see you now." It grunted towards the corridor, and I stood up and walked in the direction it indicated. Time to have a little heart to heart with that witch lady and find out why she had taken me captive. I just wanted to resume my journey to find Raven. The little goblin led me through a maze of passages and I saw many other humans, elves, and dwarves being led in groups or pairs down other passages. Before I could really get a good look at any of them however, we arrived at what can only be described as a throne room for some really demented person. There were statues all over the place giving the place an eerie feeling. The creepy thing about the statues was that most of them had horribly frightened looks on their faces, as if they were warding off some terrible curse, or something. At the other end of the room was a raised dais which stood a tall black throne. Sitting there was Fyre, as she had called herself. She was still dressed head to toe in black leather, but now wore my silver cloak around her. She sat there flipping through my spellbook looking bored as I approached. As I neared her, the little goblin came up beside me and grunted something I didn't catch and she dismissed it with a flick of her wrist. It quickly vanished into the shadows and I was alone with her. "Looking good handsome, interesting reading material you've got here." She waved my spellbook at me, grinning sweetly. "Why am I being held against my will? I only wanted shelter from the rain. What you do in your own home is your business. I'm on a quest and want to get back to it." She gestured at me. "Do tell. I suppose your searching for your one true love, right?" "Well actually, to be honest, yes. That's exactly it. How did you know?" She rolled her eyes at me and frowned. "I was being sarcastic." "I wasn't," I said with a serious expression. Her eyes grew wide for a moment, then she paused in thought. "Your serious?" I nodded my head. "Well whatever," She pulled the homing ruby out of a pocket and held it up to the light to examine it. "But please explain what this little bauble is for, it radiates enchantment, but I've been unable to ascertain its function." "It's a homing gem. That's how I'm tracking Ra-um, my love. I was on my way to finding her when the rain started pouring and I simply sought shelter from the rain. Now will you please give me back my property and let me depart?" She looked me over and grinned lopsidedly at me. "I see the truth in your statements. However, no one enters my dungeon and leaves without paying a price. Would you be willing to give up the gem for your freedom?" "You know very well that I need that! I had with me a small pouch of gold on my belt. I'll give you that if you give me my freedom." "Never again return to my domain." She took a small bag out from somewhere and returned all my things to me, including my spellbook and homing gem. "What about this collar?" "It will disappear once you leave. It's just to make sure you stay sociable until you leave." She grinned and led me down the passages until we were at the entrance to her cave. Just as she promised, the collar evaporated as I stepped out into the sunny forest. I turned to say farewell but she was already gone. I looked at the gem and it pointed me in the right direction and I headed around the face of the hill and began traveling through the forest, glad to be underway once more. Really, I'd successfully found a warm place to sleep for the night and I wasn't any worse for ware. Sure I was penniless now, but at least I could cast spells again. I used the gem and followed its directions, and gradually, over the days that passed, as I got closer to Raven the gem glowed brighter and brighter. I had just entered a small clearing when the gem grew so bright that it momentarily blinded me in its intensity, and then an instant later, the gem crumbled to dust. Great, now what? Did that mean Raven was right here somewhere? I looked around and found myself in a small clearing. A small stone stairway led right into the ground and several stone statues huddled around the top of the stairs. They were really weird statues too. Not your typical artistic poses, but horribly frightened creatures seemingly attempting to flee from some horrible fate. They looked very similar to the statues I'd seen in Fyre's 'throne room.' Wonderful imagery, since I had to go down there anyway. I took one more look at the grotesque statues and headed down the stairs into the unknown darkness awaiting me. I walked down the steps for several minutes as the light grew dimmer and dimmer and soon found myself in near darkness. I quickly cast a light spell and it brightened the place considerably. I took a look around. I stood in a large stone chamber relatively cubic, and corridors led off to the left and right. All over the place, more of the statues littered the place, some with frightened expressions on their faces, some with sad ones. One in particular that stood out from the rest was a huge statue of a dragon. It looked like it was ready to pounce on something, and I was sure glad it was just a statue! Which way to go? Left or right. Well, I didn't have a coin to flip, so I just headed down the right tunnel looking at the statues as I walked along. Whoever lived must like statues, or perhaps was a sculptor. That would make sense. As I walked further, I began to get a prickly feeling on the back of my neck, and I felt like I was being watched. I looked around quickly but saw nothing. I walked several more yards before coming to a small jewel-studded door that was imbedded in the north end of the corridor. Common sense told me it would probably be better if I didn't go in there, but my curiosity got the better of me and I reached out and turned the door knob, the door swinging inward slowly. Inside was a small study of some sort. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a wooden desk sat in one corner with a recliner stuffed in another. That wasn't what caught my attention. A computer, of all things, was sitting on top of the desk, looking extremely out of place. But that wasn't what caught my attention either. A hooded dark figure sat in front of the computer, grinning evilly at me. I couldn't see much under the hood except the feminine lips grinning at me. It was a witch or sorceress or something of the sort, and it looked like she meant mischief. And as intriguing as she was, that wasn't what grabbed my attention either. There stood Raven, huddling in the far corner, looking frightened out of her wits. But it was a stone statue. And suddenly a horrible realization hit me. Silver had died supposedly my a Medusa. Stone statues everywhere. Oh shit! I quickly backed out of the door and slammed the door shut behind me, fumbling with my spellbook, looking for that 'protection from gazes' spell. I found it and cast it just as the woman flung open the door and kicked me in the stomach, sending me flying back against the opposite wall, momentarily stunned as the air rushed out of me. She came up to me, leaned down in front of me and took off the hood, exposing her face to me. Even though I had cast the spell protecting me from that deadly gaze of hers, I was still apprehensive about looking into her eyes but when I did I was taken aback. She was beautiful. Oh sure, she was evil, her head of hair was really snakes and she most probably wanted me dead, but still she really was beautiful. She had bright green eyes that went with her green hair (the snakes) quite nicely. My studious examining of her facial features instead of me turning instantly to stone must have really pissed her off, because she frowned after a minute or two and cast some kind of spell of her own. Then, her spell completed, she spoke for the first time. "You've managed to protect yourself from my gaze, but you'll cast no other magic while your in my home. Now come with me, we need to talk. I see no reason we can't be civilized about this." She stood up and reached a gloved hand out to me, wanting me to walk with her. Oh sure, deadly enemy one minute, dinner date the next. Right. This was one messed up lady, I'll tell you that. Still, without my magic I was pretty helpless, so I might as well play along until I find a way out of this mess. I took her offered hand and stood up, bowing slightly. "Paul Silver at your service." -------- Arianna and I had shared a room that night at the inn and when we heard Paul screaming we ran into his room and found Paul in his bed covered in blood. Raven was curled up in one corner of the bed, a look of horror and disbelief on her face as she looked at the damage she'd done to Paul. She started crying and ran out of the room and we let her go, too worried about Paul to notice her leaving. Lucky for us, Arianna found a healer or something and he gave this world's equivalent of an ambulance ride to some temple thing which, by the way Arianna explained it, sounded like a hospital to me. While the two of them were doing their magic thing I went out of the room and found Raven in our room, on one of the beds, sobbing and shouting at herself. I went in and tried to calm her down, wanting to know what had happened. I managed to get the basic idea of what had happened. Apparently the part of her that's a tiger had been uninhibited by all the alcohol she'd drank. She said she didn't know it would affect her like that. But after I'd gotten that much our of her she ran out of the room and ran out of the inn. Before I could even think of following her, Arianna came and got me and we went to this temple place with the healer guy. We got there and Paul was rushed off somewhere and Arianna paid them some huge amount of some kind of money and they assured us he'd be fine. Well, I'd had it with this world and told Arianna that I wanted to go back to my world. She did something with her hands and suddenly I was standing in my bedroom. Wow, great aim. I went downstairs and told Aunt Sophie that I was back. I looked at my watch, it was almost suppertime. I walked in the kitchen and found her about to fix dinner. I told her Paul and Raven had decided to visit with Arianna for a while and that they wouldn't be back in time for supper. We talked as I helped her fix supper for the two of us and Dad and I told her about our trip to Raven and Arianna's world minus the part about Paul getting hurt. Arianna had assured me he'd be fine so I trusted her and decided Aunt Sophie didn't need to hear about it. After supper I went up to my room and checked my email on my computer and found an email waiting for from Jackie. Jackie lived several miles over and we were the best of friends. I called her and we talked for a while. She said her folks were going on a trip and she had some free time to come visit if I wanted her to. It sounded great so replied to her email and told her to head on over as soon as possible. It was settled, she'd be over tomorrow by mid-morning. I began wondering about the difference in time between our world and the fantasy one. Obviously time went by quicker in the fantasy world, because you can spend a week or two over there and only a few minutes will have gone by here. But the maddening thing about it was that the same should hold true for the other way around. A couple hours over here should logically correspond to a few months over there at the very least, but Paul and Arianna had already proved that to be wrong. I put all thoughts of the fantasy world out of my mind and got out my diary and wrote of today's events in it. I pulled out the ring Grevlok gave me in case I wanted to get back to visit Arianna and Paul. Maybe I'd tell Jackie about all this. I bet she'd love it over there. She'd finally be able to use all those muscles for something other than lifting weights. I could just see her stomping around in a leotard squashing monsters left and right. I giggled hysterically at the mental image I'd evoked. I *could* see her doing that, it made it that much funnier. I went to bed still chuckling at the thought and had an incredibly weird dream revolving around Jackie and Arianna and woke up with Jackie sitting on the edge of the bed, smiling at me. "Good morning, Di." She leaned forward and kissed me tenderly. "Wow, good morning! When did you get here?" I sat up in bed, the sheets falling away from my body exposing my small breasts to Jackie. "Just now, your Mom and Dad are out painting or something so we have the place all to ourselves." She dove down onto my chest and locked her lips over my left nipple, sucking gently as she carressed my upper body. I let out a contented sigh and lay my head back, completely surrendering to her loving attentions. Jackie and I had been lovers for years, although our parents knew none of it. We didn't think our parents knew, but neither of us dated boys since we were completely content with each other. We were planning on moving in with each other after high school and attending the same college together. Suddenly my thought process came to shuddering halt as my body exploded in orgasm. Jackie had moved her attentions to my nether regions and she was feasting on my sex like a starved woman. I writhed on the bed and moaned as she continued her assault on my senses. I was in heaven. Soon however, I couldn't take any more, and I pulled her up onto me and kissed her savagely, my tongue dwelving deeply into hers. She had been lifting weights since she was ten and had more muscles than I could count bulging everywhere. She was a goddess and I felt so lucky that she loved me as much as I loved her. She lay beside me and we cuddled and kissed some more while I came back to reality. "Diane, do you have some cousin visiting? There was some blonde girl on the porch with your Mom and Dad when I got here. Who is she?" Jackie mentioning my Mom made something inside me snap and before I could answer, I was sobbing in her arms. It was several minutes before she calmed me down enough to get anything out of me. Finally I managed to pull myself together and explained about Mom dying and Aunt Sophie coming to live with us along with Paul. I also explained, in detail, about Arianna's world and her. "Let's get dressed and go down and talk to her. I'll introduce you. She's an elf you know!" As we were getting dressed, Jackie looked at me questioningly. "Elf?" "Ya, you know, pointy ears and all that." We went downstairs and found the three of them on the front porch, Aunt Sophie painting Dad while Arianna sat and watched. Aunt Sophie greeted us without loking up from her painting and Dad looked over and smiled at us. Arianna motioned us over and we walked out onto the grass of the front lawn and sat down beside her. "Good morning Diane. Who's your friend here?" I introduced Arianna to Jackie and they greeted each other warmly, obviously pleased with each other. Arianna leaned me over a bit and whispered to me, "Does she know about you know what? I have some news..." I told her I'd told Jackie everything and that she could trust her. She smiled and sat back up. "Good, well Paul's gone to look for Raven and Grevlok helped him make a homing gem so Paul could find her. He's been gone now for over two months and we haven't had any news from him and we were worried when Grevlok and I couldn't get a good fix on him. Our tracking spell hasn't been able to get anything but static so far. That could mean trouble." Just then we heard a thud behind us and we looked around to see Aunt Sophie standing behind us. "What are you saying? Paul's in trouble? Why didn't you tell me!" She sat down beside us and said "continue." Arianna did. "We have a way to track Paul down, but it'll take someone directly related to him for it to work. Sophie I was going to ask Diane to help, but quite frankly we'd get the job done a lot quicker if you were the one to actually use the talisman, you being his mother and all. Its dangerous enough that Grevlok is going with us. Perhaps with you and Diane both there, it will work even faster. We can but try." Aunt Sophie looked at me and stood up. "Let me explain this to your father and then we'll go, all right? Wait just a minute." She walked up the steps and consulted Dad who had been watching us intently. After she was done, Dad stood up and walked over to us. "No way I'm missing out on this." He said with a crooked grin. We stood in a circle and held hands while Arianna spelled us over into her world.