Garth answers, “To begin with, there was no apparent way to create a light source. With the pressure of the moment, we had to come up with one of our own instead. I had briefly studied the lenses on my way out when you four had started the puzzle. Knowing what might be needed, I let the rest continue work on getting the shields in the correct places while I cannibalized a couple of spy glasses to make a contraption to focus the light.”

Asvord adds, “Using Spiker’s magnesium fire, I had him light a fire and shine it through Garth’s contraption which projected the light similar to the Dragon Eye. But the beam continued and bounced off all of the shields and went through the lenses. The rest is history.”

“This time channeling our inner Jarl-ness actually worked,” said Valkarik. “I guess some of it is actually useful.”

I shake my head as we mount our dragons and exit the cavern.

Upon exiting the cavern, I notice heavy cloud cover with some sun and blue sky. What catches my attention is the look of the cumulus clouds.

Annabeth sees I am eyeing the clouds and asks, “What’s the matter?”

“Plenty,” I announce. “See the clouds?”

Ali quips, “No.”

“Very funny,” I shake my head. “They are cumulus clouds, but they are very fuzzy with a grayish bottom to dark gray. The clouds look blurry while still a bright white. This can only mean one thing… Snow. We will have snow in a day or up to three. Maybe just a day with the way these clouds our moving.”

Ali adds, “Perfect timing for the battle. What else could be added to the cauldron to make this even more interesting?”

Cazi comments, “I’m sure we will find something or it will find us, it always happens.”

Asvord questions, “It isn’t much windy down here. Is it just because of the clouds being so high that the wind is different?”

“Yes,” I respond. “There are multiple sections of air in layers in the atmosphere. With each layer it has its own wind and temperature. These layers can decide what type of precipitation we will get depending on the temperature of each layer. Different combinations of warm and cold will make rain, snow, sleet, or hail. The wind of each level will factor in to which precipitation we will get, how much we will get it, and where we will get it. The how will be if we get regular rain or snow, medium to light wind, or blizzard or pouring conditions with medium to heavy wind. The more wind in a cloud, the more apt it will tower. The more it towers, the stronger the wind. The stronger the wind, the more dangerous the cloud becomes. It will go from a normal cumulus cloud with normal everything, to a cumulonimbus cloud with the potential of lightning, hail, and tornadoes.”

“These clouds as they stand do not have enough wind to stir up the snow that is already in them,” I conclude. “If they are able to stay together and form up with each other, feed off the wind and salt and dust particles to form the snowflakes, then the snowflakes will get heavy enough to fall out of the sky. If everything keeps going the way of getting bigger and darker gray, we will have snow sooner than later.”

Samantha states, “So, you’re a mystery master, pun master, and a weather master.”

“I prefer the term, Conqueror,” I say.

“You only did that because of me,” Cazi mentions.

Nodding in agreement, I then randomly comment, “I just realized something,” I state. “If the world is supposed to be flat, why do we call the air above ground the atmosphere? A sphere is a circle with volume, meaning a ball. Could the world be round?”

“If the world is round,” Valkarik utters. “Then take me to Valhalla right now.”

“You won’t have to go far,” I declare. “Well for me at least. Valhalla is here on earth for me. I am married.”

Valkarik comments, “No pun? Wow!”

With it being around lunch, we initially thought of going back to the village, but before we could head over there, mother comes to us.

“Thought you kids might like some lunch,” mother welcomes.

Garth leads us to the north side of Iyer where we set down on the beach and have our lunch. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn. For the first ten minutes, none of us talk as we eat the wonderful food.

Valkarik compliments mother on the meal, “Great food, I wish we could have this kind of service on every mystery.”

Ali counters, “But then everyone would want to join the crew and mess up all… This,” she gestures to everyone.

“Guess you’re right,” Valkarik then smiles. “Wouldn’t want others to contract the pun-demic that is Jarl every time he opens his mouth. Anything we say, can and will be used in a pun against us at some point.”

I mention, “For someone who doesn’t like puns, you say quite a few of them.”

Valkarik raises her hands, “Eh, they are my puns. Your puns, on the other hand, are dad puns, which are the worst.”

“That’s right,” I realize. “Pretty soon I am going to be a dad.”

“Don’t talk like that,” mother ruffles my hair. “You’re going to make me feel even older than I am.”

I reach to Annabeth on my right side, and hold her hand, “With my puns and your care, our kids will grow up just fine.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes, but she also blushes. I have not seen her do that many times. The next big step in our relationship is parenthood. Now I feel old.

We start to clean up and prepare to head back out.

Dawn steps in, “As basically a blood relative, I forbid you from speaking to my future nieces until they are able to fend for themselves.”

Cazi comes over and gets in on the action, “Nah, why not we wait until they are able to leave the house. That way, the fewest number of puns will ever be heard from their ears.”

“Do you want our children to be uncivilized?” Annabeth defends with a grin. “To have no culture of puns in their live? Do I even know you?”

“Oh no,” Cazi declares as she mounts Sparklebolt. “The puns have gotten to her too. We’re doomed.”

Dawn says, “There has to be an antidote. I won’t have my future nieces and nephews suffer from the likes of him.”

“There is an antidote,” I state.

“Really?” Dawn is a bit shocked.

“Yeah,” I reply. “We’ll just cut off their left hands, that way they will be alright then.”

Annabeth expression with from horror to closing her eyes and groaning.

Sighing she looks up and pleads, “Please help me.”

I walk over to her and give her a hug.

A moment later I say, “The others must have an irony deficiency.”

Annabeth kind of slumps in my arms, “It never stops with you. I don’t mind. I like it. But it never stops.”

“Our next stop for the mystery is a cavern underneath Iyer,” Garth informs. “Underneath as in we will have to fly underneath Iyer by going through the ocean. It shouldn’t be too long of a swim, but it looks like the cavern is large. Maybe not as large as the one on Mjolnir, but still big.”

I question, “Do you know anything more about this place than what we had on Mjolnir?”

“Still nothing about the puzzle,” Garth answers. “But, for the cavern itself, it is in the records of being there. It used to be a hub where all the Tidal Class dragons would go as their own kind of stables.”

I then address the group, “Now, we don’t all have to go.”

“What, are you kidding me?” Ali jumps on her dragon. “I don’t have to see to hold my breath.”

“Alright, let’s go,” I answer.

After thanking my mother for the meal and then bidding her so long we all mount our dragons and continue to follow Garth.

“Hey Garth?” Annabeth calls out. “Does Izar have any plateaus?”

“A couple,” Garth answers. “Why?”

“Oh nothing,” Annabeth shrugs. “Just wanted to know where I could tell Jarl I love him dearly. Afterall, saying that there would be the highest form of flattery.”

The rest of the group groans. I grin.

“Alright,” Garth starts. “Follow me. To make sure we have enough air, we will fly up and dive down into the ocean. But put these on.” Garth tosses Deathsong amber masks to each of us. “This way you won’t have to worry about keeping your eyes close, except for Ali.”

Ali comments, “It is kind of nice only having to worry about breathing, not my eyes.” She still puts one on though.

We form up with the Tidal Class dragons in the front: Riptide, Fredrick, Undyne, and Kaimana. Garth flies up a few hundred feet before diving back down, aiming for the edge of Iyer, near the ocean edge. Following him in, we take a deep breath moments before striking the water.

The feel of a crisp, cold salt water strikes our skin. It is not freezing cold water, but cold nonetheless.

The speed we carried from above allows all the other dragons to easily start swimming. With the Tidal Class dragons in the front, they are able to punch a hole in the water creating better conditions for the other dragons to swim in. They are catching our draft.

Iyer from underneath is pretty amazing in it of itself. There looks to be many tunnels and catacombs of caves spanning the entirety of the island. Going through one of the larger tunnels, we trek through the underwater world.

About thirty seconds later, we break the surface of the water and burst into a glowing scene of blue Algae everywhere. The cavern, as Garth described is large, but not as big as the huge cavern in the forge. There is a small beach of rocks where we can land as the water does not cover the entire bottom part of the cavern. This beach is south, so towards the center of the island.

Everyone is alright after catching their breath. Looking around the area, we see a cave tunnel to the south, so we continue on our way. Getting out the glowsticks, we light them up as the algae is only in the cavern behind us. The tunnel we are in is about ten yards across and ten high, though in an arch as a natural cave usually is. The walls and the ceiling are shinny and wet. It is either really wet for obvious reasons, but maybe the water could go through this tunnel if the tide changes.

Cazi almost in a whisper asks, “Can I get a vote for saying this is a spooky tunnel?”

Asvord, Aiyana, Samantha, and Valkarik raises their hands.

The tunnel starts to incline up as we press on.

Suddenly, Ali calls out, “Stop.”

Halting, I turn and ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Shh,” she whispers.

No one talks, yet I do not hear anything.

Ali remarks, “We are not alone. Footsteps ahead.”

Still no hearing anything, I still take her word for it. Curious though, I stoop down to look at the floor beneath us. Though none of us heard the footsteps, Ali has repeatedly shown she has a heightened sense of hearing and smell since she went blind. It was very helpful before and I have every reason to trust when she said she heard something.

“You’re right,” I declare. “Someone has tracked mud in here before us. If no one has been in here in ages, this has got to be fresh. So fresh there could be someone or a group vikings in front of us. Everyone, stay sharp. Dawn, stay here with the dragons.”

Shifting my glowstick to my left hand, I put it through my belt. I reach back over my right shoulder and take off my bow as well as an arrow, and load it. The tunnel starts to level out again and we see a room about fifteen yards across and twenty yards in length.

At the other end of the room… There is a figure!

Ali must have heard the footsteps echoing off the tunnel walls.

In front of us looks to be a puzzle of some sort, though already solved. There are several one-foot squares in a four by seven grid in front of us. Seven of the squares, one per row are pressed into the floor by an inch or two. There are images on them, though know time to look at them as we may get spotted if the figure turns around. I hand signal to the crew to follow my lead.

Where I step, the crew will step there too on their turn. The squares lower than the rest are as follow, from right to left, one through four: One, two, three, four, three, two, one.

Next are an arrangement of seven pedestals which look placed in a random position, though I can most definitely tell they are not.

Now within ten yards of the figure, I raise my bow, aim, and announce myself, “Hello there.”

The figure is startled and reaches for a sword, leaning on one of the pedestals. Flicking my bow to react to his movement, I fire my arrow, knocking his sword away. Before he could react, I have already reached for, loaded, and is aiming another arrow at the figure.

“You didn’t do the proper greeting,” I chastise.

Explod observes, “Of all the one-liner greetings you can come up with to greet an unsuspecting foe, that is the best you can do? That will never catch on.”

As soon as the figure turns around, I see a lime green handkerchief, I declare, “Skygge.”

“Well, well, well,” he replies, folding his arms. I step forward, using my arrow to point to him to not fold his arms; he complies. “Look who finally figured out where to go. It probably took you ages to figure out how to get this far.” He says with a chuckle.

Valkarik cracks, “What, do you know something we don’t?”

“I know plenty you don’t know,” Skygge answers. “You have no idea what is coming your way.”

Valkarik comes back, “Would you care to enlighten us?”

Stepping in to take control, I request Skygge to relinquish any weapons he may have.

“What if I say no, you going to shoot me?”

“Would you like to find out if I would?”

Moment of pause, Skygge reaches behind his back and reveals two daggers. He sets them on the ground and slides them across the floor. Annabeth reaches down to pick them up. Dawn is informed it is alright to come up, though should make sure the dragons stay back as to not trigger any of the squares in case of a fail safe of some kind.

“Now,” I order Skygge. “Over to the wall,” I point with my bow to my left.

Once out of the way, Annabeth steps in to take the sword.

Not taking my eye off of Skygge, I ask Valkarik, “Would you mind doing the honors?”

“It would be my pleasure,” she replies as she goes back to my saddlebags for some rope, returns, and ties Skygge’s wrists behind his back. He grimaces.

Valkarik notices, “Aw, too tight?”

“You might say so,” Skygge responds.

“Good,” Valkarik walks away.

I lower my bow and put back both it as well as my arrow.

Skygge informs, “I have not finished the second puzzle. So, you guys will have to figure that out. Why don’t you have someone watch me. How about Ali?”

The comment triggers Valkarik, but reach my left hand to grab her left arm as she starts towards Skygge. She lets me stop her before going too much further. Valkarik looks at me, wanting to just let her go, but I hold on to her.

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Skygge remembers. “It is so easy to forget things sometimes… Just as it was easy to make someone lose their sight.”

Valkarik starts for him again, I pull her back, yet she tries to pull out of my grasp.

“Valkarik, don’t,” I start but she yells out. “Let me at him! I’ll teach him a thing or two about what’s easy and what’s not.”

“Val, Val!” Ali exclaims. “It’s alright, I’ll watch him.”

Skygge gawfs, “You must be joking?”

“Most of the time, yes,” I state. “But not right now. If you feel as though you want only one person that is completely infuriated at you. Why not have two? Valkarik. Go over and watch him too. If he as much sneezes, show his nose what for.”

Valkarik cracks her knuckles, “Gladly.”

With those two watching our “friend,” the rest of us bring our attention to the puzzle at hand.

First, I inspect what Skygge was doing when we intruded on him. On this side of the room is a raised shelf of rock spanning the width of the room, making sort of a natural desk. On top of it is a device of some kind and a bag…

A bag of diamonds!

Looking through the bag, they seem to be the same diamonds Skygge stole a while ago. The rest also realize it too.

Aiyana comments, “Why bring them here?”

Annabeth wonders, “If we found the diamond in the other island and Skygge brought these diamonds for this island, I see a pattern.”

“I see another pattern,” Garth says after looking at the pedestals. “Another light puzzle. There are holders for something on each of the pedestals. Cut diamonds such as these will be good to redirect light.”

Annabeth picks up the device and exclaims, “Hey! There is a Fireworm in here. He must be using the poor dragon as a light source.”

If Skygge did not have enough distain going for him, he just got more.

“Leave it in there,” I tell her. “While none of us approve of his method for treating the little guy, being surrounded by water and Fireworms being skittish enough as they are, we shouldn’t let it out. We have Garth’s light source and Spiker’s flame to work, just let him be and we will let him out once we are out of here.”

The holder on each pedestal is situated in a way that the top part of the diamond is facing out, so the diamond is technically on its side. Taking the bag of diamonds, we go to each pedestal and place a diamond. The diamond must be big enough, so we go through a few before finding one which fits. Garth also notes the holders can be rotated, though it is difficult as they look as if they have not been rotated since being installed.

Lining up each holder with the other, we then use Garth’s device. Asvord takes the device back over to Spiker, who then illuminates the device with his fire. Garth’s device acts similar to a Dragon Eye, with being able to project light through sending light through the lenses. Compared to the rest of our spy glasses he took apart, the lenses Garth uses are gem like, such as a Dragon Eye lens. Garth has so many gadgets sometimes I think he has one for every occasion.

Shinning the device at one of the diamonds, the beam shines through every diamond. Nothing happens. For the next ten minutes, we try several combinations of the holders, but to no avail.

Dawn mentions, “While I was coming up with the dragons a little bit ago, I noticed, on the squares back there, letters. I am not as familiar with Izarian as some of you, but I know our runes quite well. If I am not mistaken, there is an “A” and a “W” on each of the seven squares which are pressed into the floor. These pedestals are in the same places as the specific points of the two letters. Aiming the beam correctly through the diamond then, this should give us a clue as to what shape the light beam should be.”

Thinking for a moment, I remark, “Dawn. You’re brilliant.”

“You’re just now realizing that?” Dawn quips. “I’ve known that for a long time.”

Seeing the alignment of the holders, I begin to see our mistake. Instead of standing on the outside and shinning the beam through ever single one in a row, we need to start kind of in the middle.

Starting above the middle of the “A” and before the tip, I shine the beam from the left side of the holders, right in front of the middle one. My friends go to work and aim the other holders in the correct form. The one in front of where I am standing, they point in a diagonal back to the holder in the middle but not in line with the two pedestals on the right side. They turn the one in the middle to the top holder on the right. This one they shine back to the bottom one and then to the second middle one. This second middle holder they shine to the holder I am standing next to, which then shines to the last one on the left side. This beam points to something above the entrance of the room, from the incline of the tunnel.

Going over to the entrance, I ask Anora if I could sit on her saddle and she could raise me up. She does so and I see a rope. Now only noticing it, I see the rope is attached to something in the center of the room. Using my hidden blade in my bracer, I then cut the rope. The rope zips past me and let’s an object in the middle come crashing down. Whatever it was breaks on contact with the floor.

Dawn claps, “Good job, Jarl.”

Upon returning, Annabeth picks up the broken pieces only to reveal something it had been housing.

An emerald the same size and cut as the diamond we found in Mjolnir.

Garth grabs for the gem and preforms the same experiment as before, he reads, “Look to your origin.”

Dawn questions, “What does that mean?”

I instantly think of and pull out my notebook, which is a little wet now, “The prophecy. ‘At the proper time, all will come to pass, all will be made clear. The Heart of a storm will rise with the winds of the sky and the depths of the ocean will return to its origin. The power that waits to beheld, can punish, corrupt, or be the savior to a land that was once lost. A land which is home to healing, to wisdom, to strength, to immortality. Only the storm will survive. A storm is coming. A storm is here.’ The diamond mentions heart. This emerald mentions the word origin. These clues are leading us to the power that awaits the one who ‘Looks to their origin.’”

Dawn asks again, “Well, what does that mean?”

“That’s what we came here to find out,” I answer. “Now, let’s get our ‘friend’ out of here and report to Sif.”