SBFTTS > The Fire Dancer > Golden Dragon > Magma's Well > The End
100%

The End

B’litk jumps from the pendant onto a nearby island. As its body lands on it, the small blackened polyhedron rocks, sending tiny droplets of lava splashing onto its skin. The lava burns through B’litk’s resilient skin as if it was made of soft leather.

“Ouch, that hurt! You better be right, because I am not sure how I can get back to the pendant.”

As if on cue, the magma lake stirs. The small islands that were circling around the pendant align themselves to move in a single direction, forming a river of lava drifting farther and farther from the pendant, making it impossible to go back.

B’litk can only go forward now. It inspects the trinkets on the island where it landed, but there is nothing useful, just some scattered gold and silver coins. B’litk moves back to the edge of its current slab and, with a quick run to gain momentum, it jumps to another island nearby.

This one has a beautiful oriental sword in an ornate scabbard made of jade. A few other very expensive-looking daggers rest beside it. A flare of hope sparks inside B’litk. It jumps again onto another floating rock.

The next one has several energy pistols and rifles, as well as uniforms and badges from some kind of spacefaring military organization. Yes, it is starting to make sense now. He jumps again.

It lands on a larger island, filled with human clothes of all sizes and shapes, and sporting a multitude of drawings, fabrics, and colors. B’litk no longer has any doubt. It knows where it is.

The dragon has sent him into one of the famous wasted-ideas furnaces. An underground dimension where discarded concepts, unfulfilled dreams, and unused brainstorming end up recycled into fresh ideations. B’litk may not find a time-anchor here, but it can certainly find the raw materials to conjure one into existence. And so it does.

It takes lots of jumps and a good amount of scavenging, but eventually B’litk extracts enough energy from dreams that were never realized, ideas that died before execution, and plans that bore no fruit, to build a rough but functional time-anchor.

“I wish you could see the vastness of this dump site of unrealized dreams.” B’litk’s words once more appear at the screen directed to you. “It is so sad to contemplate the quantity of dreams, from all the creatures in the universe, that end up here.”

B’litk activates the time-anchor and a swirling portal, like a long-lost galaxy, comes into existence just above its head. The gravity of the portal pulls B’litk inexorably into it.

“This is it. This portal will bring me back to my youngling.” B’litk is now floating almost at the mouth of the spinning dimension door. As it passes to the other side, it leaves behind one last set of words.

"Thanks for your help. I am going home now. Remember, just never quit dreaming, and all will be well."

THE END