"Sorry for scaring you, but it was painful. I absorbed the rock." Drake informed them. He felt bad that his friends worried about him. He couldn't control what was happening once it started. It had felt like hot knives were going through his veins as he absorbed the runed rock. He didn't even know that he had been screaming in agony for a long time. Fifteen minutes was a really long time to lose track of.

Mike studies his friend for a moment, "You're okay, though, right?" Drake's face was still pale, looking somewhat strained. He wasn't convinced that his friend was doing okay. He may be acting fine, but he didn't look like he was doing okay. Chad had used the sword on him, but it didn't do anything. It was as if Drake's body had ignored the healing power or rejected it. It didn't make sense.

Chad stood beside them quietly, just watching. He didn't know what to say. Besides, Mike was already asking everything that he wanted to know. For now, anyway. He didn't believe Drake's protests that he was fine either. After watching him roll on the ground screaming for the last fifteen minutes, there was no way in hell that he was fine.

"I'm okay. I'm just a little sore, that's all. I'll be completely back to normal in a bit. I just need to recover." Drake looked between his friends. "I'm okay, really…Don't worry about me, I'm fine." He tried to convince them that he was fine, but it didn't seem to be working. He was fine; he was just exhausted from absorbing the rock. It seemed to have taken a lot out of him.

Mike sighed, not knowing what else to do. He could tell there was something different about Drake. He couldn't place what it was. His gut told him that Drake was different. Whatever it was, it worried him. He only had two friends, and both of them were standing next to him. The thought made him look at Renn… 'okay…three friends.'

Seeing that Mike wasn't going to ask, Chad had his arms folded and stared at Drake. His gaze pierced him like daggers. He was two seconds away from tapping his foot on the ground like a child out of impatience. "What did the rock do or do to you, after you absorbed it?" he asked. "You don't look fine, and you seem to be intentionally keeping whatever it did a secret. So…what did it do?"

Drake sighed, knowing that his friends weren't going to let the subject go until they knew what had happened. "I'll tell you when I try it out and see if it works. I want to recover a bit before we head up the mountain. I'm hoping it will do what I think it will, but I want to be sure. As soon as I know the details…I'll let you know. I don't want to get your hopes up for it to be something entirely different than what I thought it was." Drake explained.

He didn't want to tell his friends and cohort what he had received. He didn't understand if it told him what the quests were, where to find them, or if it led them to the spot at the end of the quest where he would find whatever artifact was waiting for him.

In the current quest, it was the Master Staff. The other quests were locked, so he had no idea what they were. The map could also show where the hidden quests began and in what order to follow them. In reality, he hoped that it would guide him to the end of the quest so he could find the Master Staff and take his friend's home.

"Then let's rest, and when you're done recovering, you can try it out…whatever it is," Mike grumbled, annoyed at his friend. His friend normally didn't keep secrets; this was the first time he could ever think of him hiding something. Normally, he was an open book and told them pretty much everything. He wanted to know, and if he was told what it was, they could try to figure it out together.

Drake sat on the grass and pulled out the map, and studied it. The first thing he noticed was that the mark showing the rock was no longer present. "This map seems to be enchanted," Drake observed aloud. "More than what we already know about it. I know it shows us where the beasts are located and what level they are, but this is different." Drake wondered what else the map did that they hadn't discovered before. Drake wondered if the map changed the landscape as the dimension changed.

"What do you mean?" Mike asked, leaning over to see what Drake was looking at. He didn't really see a difference from the last time they looked at it. As he scanned the map, he saw nothing different from before.

"The mark showing where the rock was located is gone. The map erased it after I absorbed the rock," Drake explained, still looking at the map. Shaking his head, he handed Mike the map. He couldn't wait to recover fully; he wanted to know what the ascension quest map did.

He didn't even have to ask the question. The moment he thought about looking at his current quest, a green thread appeared for him to follow. He could easily follow the thread, but he wanted to see the whole map.

The moment he thought about it, a map appeared in his mind. The green thread remained, not fading. He could see both the map and the thread that led him toward the side of the mountain that he needed to go. He smiled as he studied the map.

The Map showed a green line weaving through the mountain and entering a cave. He didn't see inside the cave…figuring the map would change and show the rest of where they needed to go once they entered it.

Mentally closing it, he kept the thread active. "Ok, I know what it does. Are you ready to go? I know how to get to the Master Staff," he told them, grinning widely. "Second, do either of you see a green thread leading toward the mountain?" Drake wanted to test whether his friends could see it, too. He hoped that they could. It might make things easier.

Both boys allowed their eyes to glow brightly, one white, one electric blue, as they scanned the area.

"There," Chad pointed. "We go that way. It looks like a green thread, and it's leading us that way."

Mike nodded. "That's what that is? It leads us to the quest's artifact?" He stood there, looking at the glowing green thread in disbelief, unsure what else to say.

Drake started following the thread with Renn close behind. Mike and Chad had no choice but to follow them, or they would be left behind.

The thread they were following led to the right side of the mountain, all the way to the road.

"So, is that all it does?" Mike asked; he wanted to know more about the green thread.

"No, I can bring up a map to see the entire path to the Master Staff. So far, I can tell I can either follow the thread or follow the map, which shows a lot more than what we can see in front of us. I don't know if it will do anything else yet. When I first got it, the system told me that one of seven has been unlocked. That means we have a total of seven ascension quests. I don't know yet if we can go home in between or not. I guess we'll find out when we get to the Master Staff and retrieve it."

"We have seven ascension quests?" Mike asked. "What happens if we don't complete them?" He was worried that they would have to return the dimension or not let them return home until all seven were completed. Either option sucked. Then he looked at Renn. "I wonder if we can take Renn with us back home."

"We won't know what we can do until we finish this first quest. My gut tells me that either way, we need to complete all seven quests, regardless of whether we go home in between or not. Either way, I will complete the quests. I feel like we have to…that bad things will happen if we don't," Drake explained.

Chad looked between his two friends. "I hope we can go home in between. We can prepare for the next one instead of going in blind like we did with this one. Besides, I'm not convinced that what you found out during that big storm isn't true. What if our dads decide to kill us?" He had been pondering it the entire time. At first, he didn't believe it, but the more he learned in the dimension, the more he wondered if what happened at the clearing during the storm was a warning.

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