At the royal command-- while the cavern walls echoed with the tinny shriek-alarm and the Älvenkryp's corpse seeped fragrant water that pooled viscous at their ankles --Rook dropped the shard into the water at his feet with a bright *[i]plunk[/i]* and hiked deeper into the cavern. He hoped the damn thing had fallen into the crevice of a broken mana cluster or shattered on the stone, anything to make the royal hunter's life just a tiny bit less pleasant. He was fairly certain that the powers of that shard were horrible and useless. Perhaps he would get to see her accidentally trigger it on herself. His face twisted between amusement and disgust.

The Älvenkryp deflated like a punctured water balloon. The arms were shriveling, the fingers cramped and stiff, while smooth salty water gurgled over the mummifying shoulders and elbows. The water swirled and sloshed against the mana crystals. Blue sparkles spun and shimmered on the surface, casting a pale shifting glow upon the collapsed remains of the monster.

The shrieking noise was coming from beyond a crevice of smoothed rock, like a thousand hands had worn it away with constant passage, where the mana crystals shone closer and brighter. Rook could feel the push of energy tingling on his face, so he sheathed his sword and pushed the helmet back onto his head. Inside, clear air circulated with the alertness of pure oxygen and a wide view of his surroundings fed directly into his senses. He could see the royal hunter, the pooling beast with its dried brittle limbs, and the shrieking thing among the crystals.

Rook slipped inside the narrow smoothed crevice and clambered between the mana crystals, warm and shimmering under his hands, until he laid a boot on one of the bright crystals and looked down to see an ugly pink [i]thing[/i] with reflective blue scales sparkling on its face and tail. It had its mouth open like a baby bird while its long body wormed in distress.

His hand went immediately to the hilt of his sword, but he paused short of unsheathing it. This thing didn't look anything like the Älvenkryp, and it was almost too small to hide a mana shard. But if it wasn't a new Old One, then what was it? The elders on the mountain had never mentioned another [i]thing[/i] in their stories. Maybe this was something that the Älvenkryp had stolen, something that belonged somewhere else. Or perhaps it was the dangerous creation of the Old One, or a source of its power. With the hilt of a hunting knife he poked the loud little monster to see if it would spit fire or slither away. If he didn't know better, he might think it looked a little like a-- but no, the current state of the planet was inhospitable to dragons: mana had long ago been absorbed into the ground and no longer floated freely in the wind. Even if dragons weren't extinct, they wouldn't be able to breathe in the magic-stagnant air. The mana crystal hummed under his palm.

Meanwhile, the watery ripples on the cavern floor were quickly rolling into waves. A hiss of current foamed in through the entry passage through which they had come and was rising rapidly. Mana shone and shimmered, making the rising water glow pale blue. The walls shifted. Fissures in the rock shone brightly like veins of starlight. The deflated remains of the Älvenkryp floated on the frothing surface.

Water sloshed at Rook's knees while he dug his knife into one of the mana crystals, carefully prying it out of the stone without entirely shattering it. He shoved the crystal inside his jacket then, holding his breath, cradled the little monster into his hands to do the same.

By the time he'd managed to secure the shrieky thing and the crystal together against his chest, the blue glowing water in the crevice had risen to his elbows and was gushing in from the main cavern. Surely the royal hunter, he thought as he pushed and swam against the tide, had escaped long ago.