A Trollhunter and His Dragon

Into The Darklands

"...and it's done." Jim murmurs as he removes the eye of Gunmar from the whetstone to examine the small glowing blue stone that could now fit in his armor. He holds it up to Vendel, who nods in approvement before placing the tongs down on the table and grabs his amulet from his pocket. "So, what will this do?"

"There's only one way to find out." Vendel responds as Jim tucks the gem into his pocket. "With this final stone, you can finally go into the Darklands and rescue the stolen children, including Claire's brother. I do hope you and your friends are ready for the dangers ahead in the place, though I think you dragon will do fine in there."

"Why is that?" Jim asks, glancing over to Shadowflight, who was asleep in the corner of the room. He cringed at the sight of the bandages where his dragon got burned from Angor's magic, wishing he could have done more to protect him. Attempting to keep his mother and Strickler's promise to keep him safe was probably going to get him killed, which is definitely not what he wanted.

"Tobias mentioned he was descended from an extinct species, and earlier I actually found this that gave me some hope that he'd be able to protect you better in the Darklands." Vendel walks over to a bookshelf and pulls out a black leather covered book with odd writing on the cover and what looked like a carving of a dragon. "Turns out we actually had a book detailing information about dragons back to the Old World days before they disappeared. We actually had a few trolls in our tribe who were brave enough to get close to dragons and study them properly. Open to that brown bookmark there."

Jim takes the book and opens it to where Vendel told him to. On the pages was a detailed drawing of what looked like a Night Fury crouched in a pouncing position surround by scribbles in a mix of trollish and some other language he couldn't even understand.

"It says here that Night Furies once lived in the Darklands, before a human accidentally released them into the world, bringing chaos, destruction and even death upon trolls and humans." Jim read aloud. "This thing doesn't even look that much a Night Fury, it's tail is all weird and it has a lot more spikes on its body."

"Apparently over the centuries they grew a bit tamer and lost their wild appearance, evolving in a way. This is apparently what they looked like before going extinct." Vendel says as he turns the page to reveal a more familiar looking dragon. "Not much information on this one I'm afraid, or on the species of your friend."

"Night Light dragons were a new species of dragons, no one really knew about the other species of Fury that brought them to the world with the help of the last Night Fury." Jim explains and gestures to his dragon. "Shadowflight is descended from the first Night Light Furies, this old book I have at home actually mentions them but there's no detailed information on them anywhere."

"Well perhaps when you return from the Darklands, hopefully intact and not dead, you can perhaps fill in the blank pages in the back of the book on information you've learned from your dragon about his species."

Jim shuts the book and looks over to his sleeping dragon. It seemed like a nice idea, something he remembered Toby and Claire wanting to do a while back after they first met Shadowflight. Kind of like what Hiccup the III did in that old storybook of his. But he wasn't even sure how long it'd take for them to journey through the Darklands, and the last thing he wanted was to put any of his friends in danger. So many of his loved ones already got hurt ever since he picked up that amulet, and he wasn't about to let the ones he still had get hurt this time.

As he placed the book on the table, Jim walks over to Shadowflight and kneels down to gently stroke his head. The dragon gives a little snort and opens an eye to give him a soft warble before lifting his head up.

"You feeling a bit better?" Jim asks as he gently scratches his dragon under the chin, earning himself a happy warble. "Get some rest, you did enough tonight."

Shadowflight gave a yawn before dropping his head back onto the floor, knowing he needed his rest. Jim smiles before standing up and hurrying out of the room. Vendel had already left, probably going through the city to check on its inhabitants. His friends were busy somewhere else, probably getting ready for the journey to the Darklands,so right now he still had time to do what he was planning to do.

The vault holding the pieces of the bridge was unguarded at the moment, so he was easily able to slip inside with no problem. He is a few steps from the pile of broken stone when he draws out both the amulet and the eye stone. The back opens up to reveal the three other stones and the empty spaces waiting to hold the new stone, before he drops it into one of the spaces. The amulet begins to glow red as the hands and gears began spinning and a new set of words appeared on the rim and he began to recite it.

"For the doom of Gunmar, eclipse is mine to command!" He shouts, his voice echoing off the walls of the vault. Three glowing orbs emerged from the amulet and flew into his chest before he levitated off the floor, surrounded by red mist. His armor appears and fly onto him, now black with dark red patterns, probably to help him blend into the darkness of the Darklands. Pleased with his transformation, Jim removes his amulet from his chest and begins to walk towards the bridge when he hears someone calling for him. He immediately hurries to hit the closing switch of the vault before his friends could even enter, locking them out and locking him inside.

"Jim no! You promised we'd go together!" He hears Claire yell, followed by a panicked roar from Shadowflight.

"The amulet chose me, I can't lose anymore of you." He says before walking towards the bridge, trying to ignore the cries of his friends and dragon begging him to open the vault and not leave.

The teen immediately rushed back to the bridge and held his amulet out to it, now starting to glow a bright blue as it rose from his hand. The bridge began to assemble itself until it was fully formed, just as it was in the museum along with a bright glowing portal underneath it.

"Come on Jimbo we're a team! Don't do this!" Toby yells from the other side of the vault. "Please open up!"

"I'm sorry, I have to finish the fight!" He yells back. "Alone. The amulet chose me. I'm sorry."

Jim took a step forward into the portal and fell forward onto one knee before getting up. The portal was gone now, all he could hear were the muffled voices of his friends, mentor and dragon, all crying out for him to return. He walks forward, surveying his new surroundings. The Darklands were...well, dark and very vast. There was no going back now.