Roger also spotted, splashing about in a shallow lake, several of the huge, Diplodocuses and the spiny Spinosaurs; The Diplo’s unbelievably long, sinewy brown necks serenely swaying in slow motion, as they lifted their tiny heads up, peering into the pink-streaked skies above, sensing but not seeing the Spirit-Dragon passing over their heads.
Mavis flew in a wide, sweeping curve that soon brought the children toward a distant flock of dark and strangely shaped flying creatures, that Roger at first couldn’t quite make out.
“They look like like a flight of black, hand-made kites from this distance,” Roger thought. But as Mavis swooped ever closer towards them, he soon made out what they really were.
“Oh, by Nicks Copper Knickers!” Roger cried out. “I just never would have believed it!”
Suddenly, he was flying along amongst a squadron of bat-winged Pterodactyls, skimming above the rolling, lush plains and weaving in and out of all the towering volcanic cones there; all reveling in their recently evolved freedom of flight.
“This that you witness is a very early memory of mine,” Mavis murmured soothingly but sadly too, “it is here, that my very first experience of the dreaded Un-kind, the vile spawn of the Core Lords, occurred!”
“The wh-wh-what?” gulped Mary and Roger together.
“Hush now children,” said Mavis, in a firm but kindly manner, “Be brave and… well, just look, listen and learn.”
Mavis flew steadily onwards, and along with her they saw all about them many beautiful dragons flying about singly or in groups. And there were also other sorts of flying creatures; Prehistoric birds of various varieties and not just the flying lizards like the Pterodactyl flock they’d already seen. Everywhere that Roger looked there was some new spectacle or species, some new fantastic creature or strange new feature of this incredible Under Erf world, that he very badly wanted to explore and investigate.
Mavis swept downwards now, skimming over a stretch of hot and humid, tropical jungle. Roger saw there were several Archaeopteryx down there, adorned in bright plumage and flapping their brightly coloured wings and grand tail feathers. There were other birds too he just didn’t have any name for. And this jungle seemed to be full of giant, Parrot-like birds, but at least five times larger than the normal South Amerigan Parrots he knew of.
There were also many strange-looking monkeys, great troops of them swinging along in the trees; Some even looked like little hairy men; Half pygmy, half ape! “Maybe they’re tribes of early Humans!” Roger thought, his curiosity roused.
Now Mavis flew upwards once more, soon leaving the teeming jungles and the plains far below. She soared higher and higher, at last reaching the Dragon Cavern’s vast arching ceiling once again. She then hovered there, just under its bright shimmering mesh of sparkling, crystalline lights.
“You must now understand, my Skylings, more of what brings the light to this world of mine, this my very own home Cavern-World; and as with so many of the worlds within worlds of the Under-Erf, it also has its own unique ecosystem.”
Mavis took them up closer to the rocky ceiling, so they could see what gave light to these cavernous Under-Erf Worlds. There before her, and therefore ‘their,’ very own eyes, lay the ancient and intricate network of 'Light Rivers’ that flowed across the high-arching dome of the cavern’s vast ceiling. This wondrous network of luminescent crystal-threads glowed with a rosy-hued radiation; shimmering its life-giving light upon the flourishing flora and fauna, far below them.
“You see before you, this great mesh of interconnected veins, running like a million rivers of radioactive, molten-ore, covering our cavern’s ceiling?” Mavis told them. “This net of opalescent light has shone down upon the Dragon World for eons untold, strengthening and weakening its brilliance in a daily cycle much as your daytime and nighttime does above. And this is where the Enemy attacked. Now you will witness the dark-time that heralded so much destruction and despair!”
Then, without warning, the lights began to dim. Mavis took them to a time just a little later, but in the exact same place. Here they could see the huge and seemingly endless ceiling-skies of the Cavern-World were slowly darkening.
Roger looked up, at first still awestruck, at the sight of the brilliantly lit Cavern ceiling; But then gasped in sudden horror. The rivers of Crystal light that had brightly shone like a billion, flaming, translucent bright rubies, casting a shimmering glow over the land below, were darkening and dying. And not by any natural means. They seemed to be sickening!
Somehow, this intricate network of beautiful light was being turned off!
“Wha-wha-what’s going on, Mavis, why are all these lights going out?” Roger asked.
“This deed you now see was but the first sign of the invasion of the evil hordes of the Fire-Worm Minions; Sent by our direst Enemy, the Fire-Worm Lords of the Core themselves!” she gravely replied.
Roger now saw the lethal legions of Minion-worms that were swarming over the glowing, cavern’s ceiling; Each minion much like those that had attacked them earlier. Though these worms each exuded a horrid black slime. This mighty and murderous army comprised thousands upon thousands of these slithering dark-red Fire-worms.
They spread like a deadly infection all over the cavern ceiling, leaving their thick trails of oily, congealing, black goo wherever they went. They flowed across the Cavern’s ceiling in a relentless dark wave; Flowing like a tide of black death, the Cavern’s life-giving light, gradually dulling and dying away to a dismal gloom in their wake.
Mavis swept downwards once more, now flying towards the teeming plains, that were still for the moment adorned with the Dragon Cavern’s many wonderfully constructed and colorful Home-Cones. But Roger saw that the Fire-Worms were now invading everywhere and without warning. The Land of the Dragons was under attack from above and below!
The light of the Cavern-World was now reduced to a redly glowing gloom and through this hellish light, came the huge and mighty Fire-Worm Lords themselves, along with their marauding battalions of armored-centipedes and cockroaches, and many garish-colored and highly poisonous millipedes too. They came storming across the Cavern-World’s landscape, spouting venom and flame, poisoning, pillaging and destroying everything in their paths.
“Oh, Mavis, this is horrible, it’s just ghastly!” Mary cried out inside the Dragon Queen’s head, the Erf children and Mavis still being conjoined, as one mind. What one thought or felt, then the other thought or felt. Through Mavis’s dragon-mind-meld they were three-minds in one, observing the horror unfolding before them.
“The bulk of this army are but the Enemy’s Minions, child; they are merely the mindless slaves of the Fire-Worm Lords of the Core. These lesser, worm-like creatures, being much the same as the creatures that attacked us before; but all of them, large or small, have been mercilessly mind-warped into being nothing but soldier-slaves; All members of a mindless and disposable army, existing only to fight for whatever evil purpose their Core Masters so decree - which in this time and in ours too, a millennium on, is nothing less than the Erf’s conquest. For their master’s desire dominion over all the Under-Erf and not just the Core.” Mavis grimly told them, as they skimmed along above the embattled land below.
Mavis flew grimly onwards through the glowing, red gloom, as her Home Cavern-World increasingly became a chaotic and cataclysmic battleground. The True Dragons had been caught out and taken by complete surprise. There were now hundreds of skirmishes in the sky and on the land. Everywhere they looked the True Dragon’s Home Cavern World was under deadly lethal and continued attack.