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Secrets of Atlantia Part4

Morning came quickly as we heard some laughing as I got up and looked out of the tent that Firetail and I were in and saw the kids and hatchlings playing with some toy trains that they didn't have as I also saw Sorien sitting by the fireplace smiling. It seemed that he had brought a stash of toy train sets with him and had let the kids get into them to play with. I looked at Sorien as I asked "so where did the trains come from?"

"Oh I brought those along when I came here" he answered and I nodded as I suggested that we go get some breakfast. Articus said sure as the other nodded while I got up and left the old library. The others followed me as I headed to the dining hall and then I went in and sat down after I had picked out some food. While I ate, Sorien asked me about the ruins again and I said that I would take him there after we got done eating. I looked at Articus but before I could ask if he would come along also, he told us that he would be heading to the library to do some research for Drake so he would not be able to go to the ruins. I nodded and said "It's fine, I'll be able to show Sorien around myself."

We finished breakfast a little while later and I headed out of the castle with Sorien. I then took off from one of the courtyards and Sorien took off after me while I started flying in the direction of Fernarn's valley and the ruins as Sorien commented that he had passed over some of this. I chuckled some as the rail line that we had been flying over soon curved off to one side but I kept going straight as I asked Sorien if he had seen this and he shook while he said "as I had said before I followed those tracks to the castle, the only part of this flight that looked familiar was the part over them, I had been farther up that line than the curve though."

"Heh, I figured this would be new for you, this is near where Fernarn was going to take you before you got side tracked" I explained as the land on either side of where were flying now rose up into the foot hills of the mountain range that lay beyond and to the sides of the valley. Sorien looked around while he was following me and asked "seems we are in a large valley now, was this where Fernarn was going to take me?"

"Yeah and see that rocky hill to the one side, the entrance to his cave system is in it, the ruins though are bit father up the valley" I answered as we flew past the entrance to Fernarn's Clan's cave and Sorien nodded at that. We soon had the ruins in our sights as I saw Sorien quickly rush pass me to get to them first and I chuckled. We soon landed at the ruins and it was apparent to me that quite a bit of work had taken place since I had last checked on the progress as now about half of the missing wall had been rebuilt and many dragons were working on clearing away brush around areas where work had not yet started. Sorien looked around at all the dragons working on either building the wall, moving the debris, or mixing the mortar help hold the large stones in place on the wall as I chuckled and walked through the opening where the gates would go. Sorien followed me after looking at the dragons clearing out the brush by an unfinished part of the wall and ruins as he said "So this is the ruins huh?"

"Yeah it is Sorien but there is still a lot that needs done" I replied while Sorien heeded to the nearest area where work was being done as he said "Well looks like a lot has already happened here, shall I help out a bit?"

"Of course, I was planning on helping with some things here" I answered as we got to work on moving some new stone to a section of wall that was being rebuilt. After we finished moving it to where it would go, some of the other workers helped us lift it into place. When we got done with that and got rid of some of the nearby debris, I went into the castle, mostly to figure out how I would set up the glow stone generator, but Sorien started asking questions about the ruins before I even got close to where I had thought about locating the generator. So I started to show him around, as I headed to the throne room to see how much work had been done there after I had put up the chandelier. I was quite pleased to see that it had been furnished and that most of the rubble was now gone from the hallways, while Sorien was fascinated with the glow stones as he had picked one up off of a shelf. When I noticed that he was holding one I said "looking at the glow stones I see."

"So that'ssss what they are...Odd little things but they're pretty cool" Sorien replied as he set it back down while I chuckled a bit and said "You have no idea how cool Sorien."

"Lead the way to the rest of the cool stuff then" Sorien replied as I explained about the generator to him but was careful at first not to let on how it was based on glow stones as I told him that there was something I wanted to show him first and asked him to get me a few glow stones off the shelf. After he had taken 6 of them off the self I set them in a ring on a cut off board and breathed some lighting on one of them as he watched the energy start to jump between them. I grinned as I got a piece of magnite out and Sorien asked "what’s that for?"

"You'll see" I answered as I placed it in the middle of the ring of glow stones and the energy got brighter as it stabilized to look like a spinning disc. Sorien was watching it and said it was like a generator thingy, I chuckled as I told him that he got his guess about it being useful as generator right and explained how this was what would be inside of the generator I was going to build. Sorien nodded as he said "so basically a free energy device like has been searched for, for so long but here it is in another dimension."

"Yeah but they were used in Atlantias also how ever there is one problem with this set up" I answered as I pulled the magnite away, which made the energy dissipate and then let Sorien feel how the magnite had started to heat up Sorien titled his head as he asked "Atlantis? I thought that was all myth... well I suppose I am a dragon so..."

"Oh like dragons you mean?" I chuckled as Sorien nodded and commented that the magnite seemed warm now. I nodded as I explained that it would get far hotter with a load on the generator and he quickly saw how that would be problem do to a loss of the magnetic field if it got hot enough. I told him that he was right about that and went on about how it that would make the reaction fail as he said "so it would need radiators?"

"Or some other type of cooling" I replied as Articus walked into the room and said "I've been working on an idea for that actually thunder."

"Oh hi Articus, when did you get here?" I asked and he explained that he had taken a break from researching things about Drake and had arrived about half an hour ago but had helped with a few things before coming to where we were at. I nodded as I asked about his cooling idea and he facepawed as he said the he forgot that we'd need a way to keep the coolant itself cool in a closed loop system. I chuckled at this as I said "I was thinking we could pull some water off the lake and then dump the heated water out near where the lake drains into the river."

"It will be lot of piping though" Sorien said and I nodded as I explained that I figured that's how it was originally set up since I had seen some clay pipes in the lake before. Sorien suggested we go exploring the lake to see if we could find any more clay pipes to see if we could find a connection point there. I nodded and was about to head out side but then I remembered that there had been an area that had been rather wet inside the ruins when we first found them so I headed there instead. While I was going to that area Articus asked why I wasn't going out side and I explained about the damp part of the lower level to him. He nodded and followed as he realized that I was thinking the other end of the pipes might be in that area. Once the three of us got there I looked around and there were 2 side passages one of which appear to just go down into a flooded area and Sorien wandered into the other on while I spotted some broken off pipe fittings on the floor as I said "seems there was something piped up in here at one time Articus, might these have been hooked to the other ends of those pipes?"

"Probably would have been used as transition to the clay pipes" he replied while I heard Sorien shout that he found something and I went over to him as I saw that he had nearly fallen into an old well. I looked down into the well and grinned as there were more piles down in it and also a ladder down the wall of it, clearly it was more like a manhole than a well "this is good find and I think there is a tunnel down there."

"Yeah I see, and what are those red eyes?" Sorien asked as couple of bats flew out of the well and then he stated climbing down the ladder while I followed him. Once we were at the bottom we stood there for few minutes to get dark adjusted as I looked down the tunnel and noticed the pipes continued down it while I heard Articus say "Hey you guys down there?"

"Yeah we are Articus and I see the other end of the clay pipes down here" I said as Sorien dropped to all fours and started down the tunnel and I followed While Articus came down the ladder. After he got to the bottom, Sorien turned around and waved at him quick while I formed small sphere of ball lightning, to help light the tunnel better, and I told Articus what we doing as he nodded and stared heading down it with us. While we were heading down it, Sorien stepped into a large puddle and said "where did this cold water come from?"

"We're underground, this must be low spot" I said as I saw that some of the pipes turned off to the side into another tunnel but that one angled down and was flooded.

"Or it came in though that flooded tunnel" Articus added while I nodded and kept going down the main tunnel as we could now see some daylight ahead of us. We headed towards where the light was coming from as we saw a couple of bats hanging from the ceiling, along with a few vines coming through the tunnel walls and we soon reached the end of the tunnel. I looked around quick since it had come out onto the shore of the lake and the pipes were broken up some out here but it was still clear that they went into the lake, however it seemed like we were not quite at the part of the lake where I had seen broken pipes under the water and Articus said "looks like we found the end of the pipes."

"Yeah like I thought there are pipes here but it seems like its not the same spot" I replied while Sorien went over to the damaged part and said "well they go most of the way at least."

"Yeah now that we know about this I should get to work on that generator though" I said as Sorien talked to Articus about getting new pipes and I pointed out that they should be something like stainless steel this time. After they finished talking, Sorien jumped into the water as Articus and I chuckled while we got in the lake also and Sorien took a deep breath before going under water. I took one also and followed, knowing full well that we would not be able to stay under long and once we had to surface I said "Sorien you know we have a way to stay under water longer than that."

"Like scuba gear for dragons?" Sorien ask and I chuckled and nodded while I looked at Articus and said "well yeah but there is also something else right?"

"Yeah, lets show him the heat producing glow stones, i think there are still some gems in the ruins we can use" Articus said as Sorien looked at us oddly while we got back out of the lake and headed inside as I told Sorien that Articus was referring to gems that let us breathe under water known as mer gems. He nodded as Articus and I led him to where we had found the mer gems and we picked 3 up before heading back out to the lake. Sorien had put his on right away and wondered why nothing happened and I laughed as I explained that you have to get in the water to for them to activate and we were soon back out by the lake. I grinned and jumped into the water as Sorien stuck a paw in it and then Articus nudged Sorien into the water as he splashed water everywhere. Articus and I laughed as he got into the water as well and we turned into water dragons. Sorien looked himself over as he said "now this is cool."

"Yeah" I said as I dived under the water with both of them following close behind me and Articus did a backflip to show off. Sorien was having and easier time swimming now and I did an underwater barrel roll as I didn't want Sorien to think that Articus was the only one who could pull of things like that underwater. Sorien then tried to copy that that but just ended up spinning out, as Articus and I both laughed and then Sorien asked "so what's this I heard about a cave somewhere down here?"

"Oh down at the bottom of the lake is sea cave" I explained as Artcius nodded while he started to swim down and I followed with Sorien. I grinned a bit as we reached the depth where we turned into merdragons and then chuckled after that transformation had taken place as I said "and this is why they are called mer gems."

"What the? Oh, that makes sense" Sorien said as it was obvious to us that tit had caught him off guard and Articus and I could not help but laugh at him again. He swam around some again as he got used to swimming like this as he said "so this is what its like to be merman err dragon."

"Yep, now for the cave" I replied while I swam into it with him and Articus and he saw the yellowish glowstones imbedded in the walls as swam over to one. When Sorien picked it up, he commented that it was warm as Articus told him to be careful as they can get hot and Sorien nodded as he put it back down. I looked around for our sea dragon friends as I asked Sorien if he liked those glow stones and he nodded as Articus said "That's good. I'm sure our friends that live in here wouldn't mind if you take a couple for souviniers."

"Someone lives down here?" Sorien asked and I nodded while I told him about them and when I got done, I said that I figured they were out swimming somewhere. Artcius nodded as he suggested that they were probably helping with the rebuild, and I nodded to him as Sorien asked "Hey Thunder, you think they'd be willing to help out with the piping at this end?"

"Yeah I'm sure they can help with that, lets go look for them" I answered as I swam out of the cave and back toward the ruins with them as Sorien asked "um where would they be?"

"Not sure, we don't come out here that often" Arctius said and Sorien nodded as he swam off to look for them while he said "I'll just browse around then, see if I bump into anyone."

After a bit of time had passed, I heard Sorien say that he found them and I swam over to them along with Articus. Once I was over to them, I explained about the pipes and was Pleased to hear that Mini would be able to help us with that, but then I gave her as she asked "you mean the under water tunnel right?"

"The what? I was talking about the various small pipes that came in from the shore" I asked as Sorien said "wait, what about that other flooded tunnel?"

"Yes what about it Sorien?" I asked as he rubbed his chin and said "If that comes out into the like it would let water dragons into the ruins with out having to get out of the water so is that what she meant?"

"Well that would work if we can find the other end" Articus said as he facepawed "that other tunnel should be under the ledge a bit to the right of where we came out where the old castle butted up right against the water without some shore in between, as that is where I had remembered seeing pipes before."

"Well then let’s go see" I said as I swam back to that area with Sorien and Articus and we turned back into water dragons as we reached the shallow water. Sorien shuddered some as he was not used to any of these changes as I searched for the tunnel that Mina had mentioned. It turned out that the reason we had missed it the first time was that the end of it had been covered by under water plants, after we had moved them out of the way, I stepped into the tunnel and started to make my way back toward the inside of the ruins. While going down through the tunnel we reached a branch that went upwards that had fair number up pipes in it, and quick chuck up that confirmed that it was the half flooded down sloping passage in the middle of the other tunnel and I said "well its looking like Sorien was on the right track and now we know what the half flooded passage in the other tunnel was for."

"Yeah, but lets keep going" Articus replied and I nodded as we kept going though the under water tunnel. We finally reached the end of it as it led into room with shallow pool that had 2 stair ways out of it, one of which was directly across form the entrance to the upper tunnel and Sorien commented "well now its pretty clear why this area had looked flooded, it was an entrace to this castle from the lake."

"Yep and that grate in middle of the pool between the 2 stairs seems to lead to an access that leads to directly under the room with the broken pipes" I added as Articus nodded as we got out of the water and I said "well I'm going to head back to Tridian Castle to get to work on the generator, Artcius think you can handle the pipes?"

"Yeah I can and looks like Sorien wants to stay in the water right now" Articus said as he got out of the water and we both took of or gems as we returned to normal. He shook his head as he asked me "so what happens when I get out of the water?"

"Easy you stay a water dragon till you take off the gem, and yeah you can be out of the water for long time with the gem on" I explained as he got out of the water as well but kept his gem on, as I chucked a bit while I headed outside. Sorien followed me outside as I opened my wings while I said "let’s head back to the castle."

"See ya' at the castle guys!" Sorien said to Articus as we took off and start flying to the castle and after we landed in it I headed for my workshop. Sorien started to follow but then started to go off another way as I looked at him and said "I was going to have you help me."

"Ah, well I'll lend a hand then" he replied as he turned around and followed me toward my workshop, but before I got there Scaleless came down the hall and said "hello Thunder."

"Hey Scaleless I was just about to have Sorien help me with making the glowstone generator for Atlantia Castle and one good thing we found out how the original one was cooled we can just use a simple heat exchanger as they had pipes right to the lake" I said as Sorien waved to him and he nodded as he told Sorien just to avoid getting shocked as the 3 of us went into my work shop. I unrolled some plans I had already drawn up of it as I explained the design to Sorien "There will be frame that holds the glows stones in place, in this case 5 layers of 8 glowstones, and pickup coils around the holders, and then at the center a holder for the magnite along with the main coolant pipes, also some smaller coolant lines for ht the coils, the over all shape is more or less a cylinder."

"Well, lets get to it then" Sorien said and I nodded as I started to work on it with Scaleless and Sorien both helping me. It took awhile be eventually we got it done and gave it a quick test run to make sure it powered up right. After that successful test start Scaleless picked it up and said "I'll take this to the ruins myself."

Sorien decided to help Scaleless out with the generator as they both left the work shop. I decided to go check up on Drake to see how he was doing with the research on his ancestry as I left the work shop as well. As I was heading for the library, I noticed that there were more night furies around than normal as I figured that they were ancestors to the night furies in the old clan that Drake's ancestor was in charge of. Before I could get to the library I saw the old crone walking towards me and she looked like she had steam coming off of her head like a tea pot getting ready to blow its top. I rolled my eyes as I knew she always was steamed up about something and I just went right past her toward the furies.

"Thunderclaw, stop right there. I need to talk to you about all these night furies being here," she quickly yelled out at me. I Turned and glared at her "What about them Aldkron?"

"I want them all out of here now. They don't belong in this kingdom at all. They should be chased out of here and made to live out in the wild like the night furies they are, and your friend Drake and his mate should go with them. He's the worse of them all by raiding the kitchen when he's hungry," she ranted and that insult of furies including my father and me was just too much after the stress of trying to coordinate so many things at once, I dropped to all fours and roared at her in draconic ::THIS IS NOT YOUR CASTLE AND HOW DARE YOU INSULT FURIES GET OUT NOW!::

"And THAT is what I am...." she started to say but I had turned into a zoid and tossed her out the window and then in just full feral rage took off out of the castle deep into the woods. I landed in the woods after a while and kept growling as I heard wings flapping and looked up. I saw Firetail looking for me as I was still feral and had a hard time thinking straight because of what happened. She was in a quad form and about the only thing I could tell for sure was she look very upset as she said ::ThunderClaw Shocktrix please don't leave me, feral or not I still love you.::

::I... I.... Just can’t take it all any more:: I said as she dived down and landed in front of me quickly as I looked down ::I'm sorry.::

::I've seen it coming dear:: she said as she went and hugged me and ssked ::can you at least turn to your normal quad form please?::

::Sorry :: I replied as I shifted to my normal quad form and hugged her back tightly as I asked ::wait what do you mean by saw it coming?::

"Remember right before the island vacation when that old crone tried to talk to us when we were about to leave, you looked like you could have killed her with how you looked at her" and over all you just haven't had many days to go run out and Have fun any more either, neither of us have" she said in rather long explanation and I nodded slowly as I said "I know I know right now I just want to go some where she would never dream of going to to get away."

"Well Conway wants to talk to you about her, he’s fed up with her also, but he also said that's for after we have time alone, the kids wanted to have time with your cousins so they are going to be at camp with them for a while hope, I'm not over doing it dear" she said as she blushed a bit and I nodded slowly again taking it in as I asked "what’s the point of all that?"

"Point is the old crone hates Earth so if you want to be far away form her as you can we should go on vacation there, also Scaleless thinks the other organoid is there perhaps we can find him while vacationing there" Firetail explained and I smiled a bit as I said "okay then lets go do that."

"Okay then you going to make a wormhole, or are we going to do this 'the old fashioned' way" and I chuckled a bit as I opened a wormhole into mountainous parts of the USA on Earth and went though it with her.