There was a brief moment of silence until Sephora looked over to Kalkahnor and then burst out laughing. She wiped a tear from her right eye with her finger and shook her head. "My feet are starting to ache, I would like to be a little more comfortable for this..." Sephora then smirks and instantly transforms into a mountain lioness. With great strides made her way easier up the mountain and spotting Red in the corner of her eye and then continuing forward.
Lan'De lands beside the bushes Red was hiding in. Curiously, she turned her head upside-down and puffed her feathers. The eagle then let out a high pitched shriek and lifts her right wing looking confused and swiveling her head about. <I win?> and scratched at the ground with her left talon.

In the hour that Jetharius had spent inspecting the magical wall and eating, the wind had picked up. The powerful gales rolled off the mountain in powerful gusts, buffeting the dragon's flight. The sun hung directly overhead casting an enlarged silhouette of the dragon on the ground below. Jetharius fought against the powerful winds with his large wings, making little headway. The rolling nature of the wind made it even more difficult to overcome, tearing at the dragon's aerial balance.

After a half an hour of arduous flight, Jetharius escaped the maddening tempests and met the direct headwind responsible for the oscillations. Angling his body downward and using the headwind to provide lift, Jetharius hovered in the mountain air. Catching his breath while hovering, he took a moment to collect his stamina. He searched idly for a several long minutes before catching the humanoid silhouette of what Jetharius guessed to be Kalkahnor climbing over a large rocky incline. Failing to see the other two cohorts with the mage, Jeth angled toward the figure and made fast progress.

Landing in the more rocky than grassy incline with a loud thud of claws on rock. Kalkahnor watched the dragon land and approached him.
"I lost sight of you for near an hour. Did you find something Jetharius?" the mage asked.
"Indeed, where is the 'xerwescthko' and druid?" Jetharius responded. (xerwescthko literally translating as problem-maker in draconic)
"Off playing games..." Kalkahnor answered, "not far." Jetharius sighed and reached into his leather belt-pack. He pulled out his adamantium chisel and searched for a flat stone to scribe on. The hybrid found one and scratched out the runes he had memorized earlier. The drawn runes mimiced the orientation found on the carved rock face. He presented the work to Kalkahnor and explained what he found and how he found it.
"The valley is almost impossible to access from the ground, it is surrounded by moist sandstone and unscalable rock faces. Flight or magic are the only means I can surmise gaining access. Can you translate what i have memorized?" Jetharius said while Kalkahnor studied the slate.
"Only through 'light' and through 'dark' will 'access' become clear. The literal translation of light meaning our metallic dragons, and dark being the chromatic dragons. Access is accented, so that can mean either doorway or window." Kalkahnor answered.
"Cryptic" Jetharius answered. "So two boundaries to overcome, gaining access to the wall and deciphering this riddle. What is your plan Kalkahnor Svellius?" Jetharius finished folding his wings tightly and lying back into grassy scree near the mage, waiting for an answer.

Only through light and dark will access become clear. Kalkahnor folded his arms. Something about the puzzle didn't make sense. Kalkahnor's mind flashed with thoughts, ideas, and previous riddles that he had mastered in his adventures. Then a memory came to him. "the last time I dealt with a puzzle remotely similar, I had activated a rune. A beast was summoned and I had to slay the beast and put it carcass on the altar." Kalkahnor stole a quick look at Jetharius' unamused face. "but I don't think we'll have to slay any dragons." Kalkahnor added quickly. I hope.

Kalkahnor regathered the group and made forward to press on to the shrine. Jetharius lead the way. Kalkahnor and the rest of the group working to keep up with his long strides. A dragon carcass would be difficult. But two? Kalkahnor's mind continued to ponder on the riddle. Sephorra seemed to enjoy the walk prancing from one rock to another with unmatchable grace in her lioness form. Red would squeal with joy whenever he would find a large rock to jump and tumble off of. Occasionally, he would run off ahead and make futile attempts at surprising Jetharius from hiding, with which the dragon would roll his eyes and press on.

After close to an hour of wading through the rocky obstacles, the silence was broken. "The valley I spoke of is not far off Kalkahnor." Jetharius called back. Kalkahnor snapped out of his trance. He's going to expect an answer. He thought fearfully. but how can I tell him that only the blood of his own kind is going to reveal the entrance? Kalkahnor stopped and awed at his epiphany.

"Blood"

Red perked up when Kalkahnor spoke. "Blood?" he asked, "what about blood?"
Red hopped off of the rock wall he had been climbing and dropped the handfull of reeds he had been going to use as a disguise to sneak up of Jetharius and he jogged up to the pair, smiling widely at Jeth and Kalkahnor as he approached them.
"I've actually been thinking about the riddle thing Jetharius told you"
*No you havent! Yeah Huh!*
"and it think maybe you have to have a mean dragon and a nice dragon both do their breathy-thing on it at the same time or use one of the things that only a shiny dragon or only a colorful dragon could use and maybe the two of them working together would make the magic of the door be like 'woah, they must need what i've got in here' and open up." Red continued talking, mostly sounding like he was making it up as he went but somehow being slightly convincing at the same time, as he moved his eyes from the face of Jetharius to that of Kalkahnor, the former seeming to be pretending the lasher wasn't there and the latter appearing to be holding back laughter.
Red finally wandered his speech to a close "and that's what I think we should do, but you might be right too so we should try your thing first, wait what was your plan? Sorry I forgot, I'll be over here.."
Red turned around and skipped over to where he had seen Sephora walking along in her feline form, shouting to her a question about a piggy-back ride because it would be a cool story

(OOC: I don't know if you have ever seen a mountain Steve but they are not exactly hills... There is like a whole mess of rocks and climbing and rock climbing. The point is this shouldn't exactly be a steep incline. Theres like no paths or gravel or pavement, its pretty much straight mountaineering.)

"What of blood?" Jetharius asked Kalkahnor regarding his random word. "I smell nothing" Jetharius said stopping and glancing about for any clues to the mage's phrase. The lasher pipes in at this point and Jetharius proceeded to phase him out, ignoring him while returning to the trek. After the lasher finished rambling his ideas, Jetharius stopped again.

"Around the bend ahead is the first of two vertical cliffs. The wind shear here is treturous to the point where i fear flight, thus I would not recommend magic of levitation. There are few hand holds as well, the second lacks any altogether and even inverts near the end. If you are not capable of scaling, I would wait for a rope to be secured at the top." Jetharius says in a gravelly voice. He leaps over the bend and flexes his claws before scaling up the first wall expertly as he did earlier. Once Jetharius reached the top he looked over at the edge, his cohorts working toward the cliff face. The ledge got particularly narrow near the most-scalable area and fell off into a drop that made century old trees look no larger than a toothpick.

Leaving the mortals to their vices, the dragon hybrid proceeds further up the cliff face, over boulder and skree, around ledge and ridge and finally to the second smooth vertical wall. He glances up at it seeing his previous claw marks showing the easiest of routes over the inverted ledge above. Going around would yield a fissure in one direction and some unseen peril in the other as it wrapped around the mountain ledge and continued further up. He decided not to scale this one and to wait for the rest of the group the catch up. The sooner I have my answers the sooner I may return to my own goals Jetharius reminded himself mentally as he reclines on a cold smooth boulder.

Even in the feline form, the view of the land below was a bit intimidating for her. The arduous climb was wearing Sephora down mentally, since she hadn't spent much time in the mountains before. She remained steadfast and kept focus best she could. Nearby branches aided Sephora along the treacherous walls but still not enough to go up such a steep climb. Sephora changed back into her druid form and with a few Sylvan words, her staff changed forms and wrapped itself around her waist. The other end of her staff rooted itself to the cliff sides crevices and aided her by keeping her secure as she pulled herself up. Lan'de clutched to Sephora's backpack to avoid dangerous flight.
The long 20 minutes pass, and with a few final pulls, she reaches the ledge where Jetharius is. After pulling herself up, she took a moment to steady her breathing. Kalkahnor and Rednaxela were not too far behind.

Red looked up at the imposing climb ahead and whistled appreciatively, then pulled out his whips with daggers attached to their ends. Red removed the daggers and rustled around in his pack and pulled out two adamantine grappling hooks which he attached to his whips. Stretching briefly to loosen up, Red quickly lashed out at the cliff face with one of his whips, the adamantine edge of the grappling hook digging into the stone, and pulled himself up a bit before lashing out with the other whip and securing it a bit higher up, working in this fashion Red moved up the cliff in a steady fashion. When he reached the ledge Red was sweating slightly but grinning like he was having the time of his life. Moving somewhat quickly, Red hastened over to where he assumed Jetharius was, after a short travel Red saw the dragonkin waiting and hurried over to him, deftly weaving through the boulders and over the scree until he was a few feet away from his companion who was staring around the lasher like he was invisible. "Wow that was awesome! I am so happy we're friends Jetharius! If I hadn't met you I probably never would have been able to climb this cliff, thanks!" Red said to the dragon who continued to pretend the lasher wasn't there.

Kalkahnor scaled the rocks, moving from one comfortable footing to the next trying to keep as much stress off of his arms as possible. Following after Red, he pulled himself over the next edge struggling and pushing for strength to pull himself over. Kalkahnor began to breath heavily. "I am not... a mountaineer... by any means." Kalkahnor recovered himself and scraped together what little pride he had left being that he was the only one who struggled to climb the cliff. He looked to Jetharius and his mind swirled with thoughts of how this puzzle could be solved easier.

Kalkahnor bit his lip. "In my explorations I have come upon numerous puzzles. This resembles a few but I-" Kalkahnor paused. Jeth would see through his facade. "The puzzle wants a sacrifice." Kalkahnor paused. Jeth seemed unamused. Sephorra perked up curiously. Red seemed to get an inglorious idea and began rummaging through his pack. "We need to find a metallic dragon that will give up some of its blood. I don't see that being an easy task. Dragon's know that humanoids commonly abuse the magical properties of draconic blood. And I doubt if a dragon knows anything about the shrine, they won't be giving it up so easily. Also, no offense Jetharius, but I don't see a metallic dragon helping with seeing you travelling with us. You're incessant war with the metallics by blood, whether you hold hate for them or not, runs poorly in their eyes if we travel with you."

Kalkahnor sighed and stood in silence.

The wind grew stronger, chlling Sephora to the bone, more so than before. Her breath could be seen in the air and her fingers clung to her cloak with an relentless grip.
"I hope we're close. I don't know how much more I can take of this..." Sephora impatiently complained.
Lan'de curious looked around as she remained clutched onto Sephora's backpack. Lan'de blinked her large golden eye while staring at Jetharius and pressed up against Sephora's back to keep warm.
"Please let's press on." Sephora took footing on the next jagged rock and suddenly slips falling onto her bottomside. "Errrgh!"
She sighs in frustration. Lan'de coos and tucks her head under her wing.
The half-nymph dusts her self off and tries again.

Red watched the struggles of his two companions for a moment before faking a rather loud cough "Ahem! Pardon my presumption, but I believe our ascent would be quite a bit easier if we took advantage of our individual unique skills, being that the cliff face we are about to go up is quite sheer and in fact has an overhang on part of it I think we should consider other options." Red turned to Kalkahnor, "From what I saw of our battle earlier I shall assume that you are incredibly skilled in the use of magic, once during my travels I saw a mage cast a spell that rendered herself completely weightless, if you could perform a similar feat it would help us quite a bit." Red then turned to Sephora, "Lady Sephora, on our journey up to this point I noticed you could change your form into several different beasts and I wonder if you are able to assume other forms, perhaps that of a snake or lizard or some such small animal, if you can we could have you do so and ride with one of the others, perhaps myself or sir Jetharius. If both sir Kalkahnor and lady Sephora are capable of what I suggested and sir Jetharius is willing he could climb to the top of this cliff with lady Sephora riding his shoulder or in a bag or some such thing with sir Kalkahnor holding himself weightless and tied to the belt of sir Jetharius, neither of them would be any hinderance to sir Jetharius and after he reaches the top a rope could be lowered for myself to climb to the summit. Would this be agreeable with everybody? and if sir Kalkahnor and lady Sephora are not capable of what I earlier mentioned then perhaps sir Jetharius could climb to the summit and lower a rope after which I would climb the rope and sir Jetharius working in tandem with myself could lift lady Sephora and sir Kalkahnor up behind us one at a time or together if space allows." Red finished speaking and leaned against a nearby boulder while he waited for a response from his companions.

Jetharius silently takes the rope from Rednaxela and before either Sephora or Kalkahnor could comply, starts climbing the rock face. His powerful claws furrowing the frozen stone. Several minutes later he disappeared from sight over the lip of the inverted cliff. Moments after the rope fell over the edge and dangled in open air several feet away from the ledge. Kalkahnor utilized one of the most basic spells, pulled the rope toward him and handed it off to Sephora. She climbed the rope swiftly. Once she disappeared over the cliff face like Jetharius Rednaxela followed. He squirmed his way up the rope inhumanly fast. Kalkahnor climbed up last, tying the rope off to a large stone. Jetharius had run ahead and into the invisible valley and waited for all of his companions to climb over the cliff face. Rednaxela assisted Kalkahnor over the ledge and onto his feet.
"Where did Jetharius go?" Sephora asked looking around. Rednaxela and Kalkahnor looked about as well. They spent several moments scrambling over the loose scree before getting on solid ground again looking for their dragon companion.
Jetharius sat just inside the valley entrance hidden from view from all but a awkward angle. After several minutes he stepped into view. The trio spotted him immediately before he disappeared from sight again. Taking the three found the valley and followed the chasm to the stone wall Jetharius had spoke of. The dragon sat nearby on the ice. Kalkahnor approached the wall and ran his hands over it.
"It's very much magical" he spoke more to himself than the group.
"I see no runes!" Rednaxela stated. Sephora walked up near Jetharius and squatted next to him.
"They are hidden from view" Kalkahnor said as he started casting. Moments later his eyes took on a milky glaze and he took a few steps back and pulled out a hefty tome. He worked through the pages roughly, forward, backward, forward again. Nearly an hour later the mage looked disappointed. "This door requires both metallic and chromatic dragon blood to be opened... of which I have neither"
"Where are we going to find metallic dragon blood?" Sephora asked.
"Probly from a metallic dragon!" the lasher exclaimed.
"Your sure that the door asks for both bloods mage?" Jetharius asked.
"The age of this language precedes the earliest records of humankind but I am quite certain, yes." He answered before asking, "how did you manage to see the lettering?"
"Like this" Jetharius says as he lifts himself onto his feet and touches the wall. The runes explode into light as they had before. Reluctantly, Jeth bites the edge of his thumb, near the edge of his nail. Blood wells up readily. Jetharius squeezes his clawtip producing a large steaming droplet at the end of his nail.
"Stop Jeth!" Kalkahnor exclaimed, "we don't know what will happen with only one source of blood!"
"Trust me" Jetharius sighed before setting his bleeding thumbclaw on the wall. The runes flared from red to white and Kalkahnor stepped backward expecting a trap or backlash. Instead, a fine white line rose from the icy floor on both sides of Jetharius. Once they were roughly 30 feet up they converged and the stone in between faded from existence. Slightly surprised at the method of entry, Jetharius looked back and shrugged and took a few steps inside the dungeon hands at the ready.

Rednaxels squealed with joy and ran in after Jetharius, stopping next to him with a barrage of questions "That was awesome! How did you do that? is it because you're a chromatic dragon but you're also nice? Can you teach me to do that? Hey are you ignoring me?" The draconic man ignored Red completely, focusing on the dungeon ahead of them and Red decided he was just really focused on the dungeon and wasn't actually trying to ignore him. Turning to his two companions still outside the doorway Red shouted "Hey! Come on there's probably a lot of cool stuff inside lets go check it out!" Before becoming unnaturally still, well unnaturally still compared to his usual ammount of movement, and sliding silently down the hallway with his eyes scanning the floor walls and ceiling carefully in search of traps that might harm his companions, his body appeared to become a shadow barely visible if you knew where he was and his bootsteps made not a whisper of noise as he walked down the hallway. After moving down the hallway thirty feet Red paused, looking at something on the floor before rushing back to the group just as silently and motioning for Kalkahnor to move forward, "There is a strange sigil on the floor ahead, it does not appear to be a trap but it is magical and I would be more comfortable if you would examine it with your mage-sight before we continue forward in case it is some sort of magical trap I have not encountered before." Red, face unusually serious, ghosted back to the sigil he had found and waited for Kalkahnor to come up and examine it himself.

Kalkahnor stood in awe at the sight. He looked to Jetharius with excitement. The thought mulled over in his head once again. Chromatic and metallic... He dismissed the thought. Jetharius has his own business. I won't pry... yet. He gave attention to the childish lasher. "Well then, we shall see about this sigil." Kalkahnor walked inside. The stone was very solid with almost a polished look. Dwarven masonry almost. Kalkahnor reached into his pack and pulled out a small pebble. "You may want to cover your eyes at first." he warned his companions. With a simple touch the stone flickered with a little light then suddenly burst into a shining sun. Kalkahnor rubbed his fingers over the pebble while shielding his eyes from the gleaming light. The intensity lowered and the room became magically lit up until the closed doorway. Kalkahnor chuckled, "I still have to fix that."

As Kalkahnor wandered down the hall he marveled at the craftsmanship. It was obviously ancient with no trace of magic to perserve it. Yet the stone seemed to have been finished only hours before. He looked up to the ceiling that would have normally been out of sight. It seemed that chandelier type rocks were hanging from the ceiling. Attached to them were crystal's that, from what Kalkahnor suspected, once lit the ancient hallway. He brought his attention back to eye level running his hand across the wall. A scratch stood out from the masonry. Kalkahnor examined it, and could barely make out a message, Should tides take you... Take air from tides. Kalkahnor smiled. A children's riddle. He walked further down the hallway where a carved sigil in the floor had lay that Red had mentioned. "UP" Kalkahnor read aloud. "It seems like it is very primitive magic to say the least. But no magical aura surrounds it." He looked up. "It may have been used as a charm for someone to reach the crystals above to replace them if they lost their energy, since most crystals that produce light require sunlight from time to time."

He made his way back down the hallway to Jetharius and Sephorra who had now stepped inside and were examining the place for themselves. "The sigil appears to be nothing to worry about." Kalkahnor couldn't restrain himself. "So which parent was metallic Jeth?"

Rednaxela considered the rune for a moment, shrugged because it wasn't apparently harmful, and continued down the hallway slowly checking for traps. When he reached the end of the hallway without finding any, Red was worried for a moment, usually in any sort of ruins he had broken into there were traps or some sort of non-living defense to prevent people like him from gaining entry. After considering it for a moment, the child in Red spoke up, telling him it didn't metter there was probably some really cool stuff behind that door and he should keep going, his friends would catch up later. With a single backwards glance at his companions still framed in the doorway, Red turned away from them and quickly unlocked the door, moving as silently as a dust mote, and slipped through leaving the door propped open with a simple wedge of wood. The room beyond the door was infinitely fascinating to Red, the walls were covered with glowing runes in a language he was unfamiliar with, it appeared to be the same language as the symbols on the door to the tunnels. Red crouched down and began sketching with a stick of charcoal, copying the symbols he saw, trying to see if there was a pattern. As he was writing, Red felt something tingle along the edges of his senses, it wasnt a sound or a vibration but some deeper sense, the instinct for survival and his nearly fanatical devotion to hunting down creatures that did not belong on this plane. Red looked up and allowed himself to fall into his mind, bringing up his true sight and looking around for the source of his, for lack of a better word, discomfort. Strait ahead of him, down the hallway that was nestled between two faded images of dragons, lurked a being that grated at his sense of reason, it shifted form from second to second growing and losing strange abberant appendages without any apparent pattern. This creature wasn't a demon, Red knew that for certain, but it was some sort of insane beast of chaos. Grim faced, Red reached for his main whips and prayed that his companions were only a short distance behind him. The chaos beast slithered forward on tentacles that turned to clawed feet that turned to wings hurtling it towards Red. Red let loose a deep bass bellow and charged towards it, the glowing daggers of his whips leading the way.