Chapter I: The Beginning
"Wispe! Hey Wispe! Wake up!"
"What?" I mumbled, annoyed to be woken up from my dream, especially in the middle of the night. I wearily opened one eye to see Skye looking down at me, a worried look in her eyes.
"It's Hawke, he's going to check on the watch, and you should have been on watch duty over an hour ago."
"Oh crap!" I exclaimed, suddenly awake. "Where is he now?"
"Over by the whelping den." Skye said as I raced out of the den we shared toward the entrance of the circle.
"Wispe!" I heard a gruff voice yell over the noise of the circle.
I froze, knowing that I was caught. "Yes, sir?" I said turning around with my tail between my legs. Gaule was standing behind me.
"Sir?" he asked.
"Oh, good," I said, relieved, "it's just you. I thought you were Hawke."
"Well, that's an interesting thought" Gaule chuckled.
"Speaking of Hawke, have you seen him lately?" I asked.
"Oh yea, he's over by your den talking to Skye."
"You wanna come with me and pretend to be on watch?"
"Sure, why?" Gaule asked. We started walking into the trees.
"I was supposed to over an hour ago and Hawke doesn't know" I explained.
"I do see how that could be a problem." Gaule said, jumping over a fallen tree.
"Yep."
"Want to race?" he asked.
"To where?"
"The clearing."
"The round one?" I asked.
"That's it."
"Sure."
"Ok, just promise not to cry when I beat you."
"Yea right, as if that could happen," I said jokingly as I started running.
"Hey! No fair, you got a head start!"
Silently I ran through the forest, the moon giving the trees a silver glow, with Gaule close behind me, his paws matching my steps. I was running as fast as I could my legs looking like streaks of lightning. Suddenly I see the clearing up ahead, swiftly approaching. I leap and land in the middle of the clearing, beating Gaule by half a step.
"Beat ya!"Gaule panted.
"No, you didn't," I said, equally tired, "I won."
"Ok," he huffed, "you won. But, shouldn't we get going? We are supposed to be on watch, remember?"
"Fine," I sighed.
As we trotted along through the half-light of the early morning we came across a huge tree, at least five feet wide and so tall that the top could barely be seen.
"OK, that is a really big tree" said Gaule.
"Yea, it sure is" I agreed.
"It doesn't really smell right, though."
"What do ya mean?" I asked
"Just smell it. I can't quite get it, but it definitely doesn't smell like a normal tree."
I smelled it. "Hey, you're right. It smells like...well I don't really know what it is."
Gaule was walking around the base of the tree when he said, "Hey Wispe, you gotta come see this."
"What?" I said as I came around the tree. Gaule was nowhere in sight.
"Gaule!?" I said.
"In here," came a voice from within the tree "there's a hole on the side of the tree, its hollow."
"Hollow?" I said as I went in the small hole I found. Inside it was as dark as a moonless night.
"I wonder how it's hollowed out and still alive." I thought out loud.
Just then I heard a yelp as the ground beneath Gaule crumbled away.
Chapter II: The Tunnel
I heard a thud as Gaule hit what I assumed was the bottom of a hole.
"You alright?" I hollered into the hole that had opened up in the center of the ground. I could barely see my nose, it was so dark, but I could smell Gaule, the dank earth, and something else I couldn't quite place. I shook the thought of the unknown smell out of my head and concentrated on Gaule.
"Yea, I'm fine but getting out is going to be, well, by the looks of it, impossible."
"OK, try standing on your hind legs. Let's see if you can reach the edge."
Gaule jumped up onto his long hind legs, despite the length of his body and legs, his front paws barely scraped the ragged edge of the hole.
"I think there's some sort of tunnel down here," said Gaule, "and it's glowing."
"Glowing?" I questioned.
"Yea, it's faint, but its glowing green."
"Cool."I said. "I'll come check it out."
"Just be careful where you—"
I jumped, and landed right on top of Gaule with an 'oof.'
"Land." Finished Gaule
"Oops! Sorry!" I apologized as I quickly scrambled off of my best friend.
"It's fine," he retorted sarcastically, "I'll just realign my back as usual."
"Sorry again."
"Well , we better get going."
"Huh? Oh yea! The tunnel." I said laughing nervously.
Gaule rolled his eyes as we started down the tunnel. As we went further into the green tunnel, the light got brighter, little by little. It was now bright enough that we could see that, although the ground was rocky dirt, the walls and ceiling were made of some sort of stone. The stone had smaller pieces of stones set in it, which were dimly reflected the green light.
I was concentrating so hard on walking that I ran into a large root running across the tunnel.
"Ow." I said halfheartedly.
Gaule chuckled and easily jumped over the root then turned around and smirked at me.
"Show off." I mumbled as I jumped over the root.
We kept walking for what seemed like an eternity. Gaule stopped suddenly.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The tunnel," he said, "it ends."
"What?" I looked up, sure enough, we were in a large circular room with shadowed edges.
"I guess this is a good time to turn around." Gaule sighed
"Yep." I agreed.
Just as we were starting to turn around a high pitched voice from the shadows said "You are late."
Chapter III: The Kyrfe
I whipped around as fast as I could. Stepping out of the shadows was the smallest and whitest greyhound I had ever seen, and I had seen a lot of greyhounds, considering my whole pack are one kind or another.
"Ummm, hi?" I said making it a question. "Who are you?"
"I am called Regina Treble of the Kyrfe, but you may call me Regina." Answered the squeaky voice, "And you are Wispe Helter and Gaule Treke of the Circle."
"And you know this how?" Gaule asked.
"I foretold your coming." Regina answered simply, as she turned around and disappeared into the shadows.
"Hey!" I said, "Who are the Kyrfe?"
"Follow, and you shall know." Regina said mysteriously.
Gaule and I looked at each other.
"Should we follow her?" he asked.
"Do we have any other choice?"
"Then follow her we will."
We stepped into the shadows where Regina had vanished into. She was sitting by a wall. A sack made of a strange scaly material appeared out of nowhere. She plunged her paw into it and brought out a small, white, rounded stone. On the stone was a strange symbol. Regina placed this stone carefully in front of the wall, then brought out three more stones, also with odd symbols on them, from the mysterious sack. After carefully laying these by the wall, next to the first stone, she mumbled something that sounded like a different language and a portion of the wall vanished with a hiss.
I stood there with my mouth hanging open, looked at Gaule, who was also standing with an astonished look on his face, and said "Did that just happen?"
"I think so."
We were so busy being surprised that we hardly noticed Regina walking through the hole that was now in the wall.
"Hurry," She said, "it will close back up again soon."
We sprinted through the hole just as it was starting to slowly ease shut. On the other side of the wall, we found ourselves in yet another tunnel, but this one looked different than the last one, it appeared to be carved out of a red, sandy stone, and was lit with an eerie purple light.
Regina started walking down the red colored tunnel, speaking as she went. "The place you are now in is called Crimson Hall. Crimson Hall leads to the Web of Caverns, which is where we are going."
"Why are we here?" I asked hesitantly.
"Atari will explain." She answered.
"Atari?"
"She is your mentor, for the time being."
"What is she teaching us?" Asked Gaule.
"Runes."