Smile on the face as a child at his first ride on a horse, Riuluk went down the tunnel, almost falling at every rock to be careful at, looking at the beauty in his hands. He got his trust back in himself; maybe it was fate that brought him right to the wizard of nature. He started to believe he could make it till the end; there was hope now.

  He stopped looking at the mushroom only at the end of the tunnel, when a strong noise coming straight ahead awoke him. He was now at the border of what seemed an underground lake. In front of him, a boat made of wood and metal?

  It was quite weird: what before may have been a boat, now could not be called that. Baka and Burin, dressed in some black capes, were coming in and out of it while shouting to each other in their strange language and making childish faces when one or the other wasn't looking.

  Then one of the two saw Riuluk.

  “Uh! Woka maka chuciuuu..” said the one going to grab Riuluk and lead him into the boat.

  The wooden part of the boat was similar to a real boat, but with a hull twice as deep as a common one. Made, probably, to go deeper beneath the water since the upper part was covered with heavy metal.

  Baka and Burin made Riuluk sit on a bench at the end of the boat and seat him with a belt too tight, so that half of Riuluk's belly was coming out from the top and half from the bottom. They then started to fight in front of him over a pair of glasses...

  The fight had already been going on for a few minutes, and Riuluk couldn't stop himself from saying...

  “Can you stop fighting?? We need to go!”

  Nothing changed

  “Hellooo, can you hear me? We need to go, the world may be crushed tomorrow!”

  Nothing at all

  “The first one looking at me will have the glasses!” he then said trying to play their game

  They immediately looked at him, first one, a second later the other..

  “Ahah, waka chaka lakaaa!!” said the one who first looked at Riuluk, taking the glasses from the hand of the brother who was said to have lost the game.

  The winner, who put on the glasses, went to the opposite side of the boat from Riuluk and started randomly pulling levers and pressing buttons, with no sense at all...

  Suddenly, the boat started to move with a strange, constant sound. Riuluk was very curious and trying to understand how that thing actually worked, and mostly how it was possible with so much weight.

  The boat went on in what seemed to be, from the few windows at the borders of the boat, an underground river. They have been going on for half an hour. The loser of the game was going from window to window shouting a different word loudly in the deep darkness of the caves.

  “Wakaaa!” “Blakaaa!” “Su tututu!”

  Meanwhile, the driver was laughing at the shouts of the brother, maybe there were bad words..like kids.

  “Bam,” a strong sound at the top of the boat.

  Riuluk got shaken in his heart. A moment of silence, and then a white, deadly hand grabs from the left window.

  The shouting one made a silent scream, jumped on the brother, who didn't even notice, busy driving, that the boat was in a slanting position from the heaviness on the lower part.

  “Aaah, waka chuciu!” said the driver, smiling, happy to drive to the boat

  The brother started to hit him, but he didn't care. He then moved his head to watch the pale hand grabbing from the window.”

  “Hiiiii!!” shouted the driver and pushed a big blue button on the controls.

  Some seconds of nothing then..

  “Tuuuu..tutututututututuututu” something pumped from the back side, the boat was again all on the water, and “Bam!” a big shot from the boat. Such a big one that Riuluk felt his belly cut in twice from the recoil.

  “Waaaaaaaaa!” were shouting both brothers at the controls.

  The pale hand was still there...grabbing the window. There came a white arm, a pale and deadly arm. The arm started to pull Riuluk from his shirt while another white hand grabbed the window.

  “Oh god..oh god! Leave me alone, you sickness!” shouted Riuluk, eyes full of tears that won't come down yet.

  The arm became more persistent and hit Riuluk in the face.

  The driver couldn't help Riuluk; he was too busy to drive at such an impossible speed. While the other one, well...he was too busy to hug his brother in desperation of fear, and allowed him not to drive so well.

  There the boat goes right, then left, then right again, jump over jump, and finally on a curve...

  “Aaaaah!” a shout outside the boat, hands off the boat.

  Riuluk couldn't make himself feel good about it; he was still shocked by what happened, nose bleeding, and a tooth out as well. The boat went on but started to lose speed second by second...seems the power started to fade after its use.

  “Bam!” again on top of the boat

  “Oh hell no!” shouted Riuluk

  The driver seemed not to notice that crash, too busy to free himself from his brother while driving.

  “Waka lakaaa!” shouted at his brother

  The brother, even more, looked at the boat's ceiling, already damaged by those on it from the outside.

  “Waaaaa!” he shouted, punching a button on the controls.

  Silence,

  silence after what just happened; it seemed like time was going slower... the boat made a tremendous sound and jumped right in front like a bullet. The boat seemed to fly...till they clashed out of the cave from a waterfall into the Outhkaer river.

  Riuluk took off his belt and watched out of the window.

  There he was, on top of the waterfall. A dark figure with a black mantel and a cape on his head, a greedy smile, and golden eyes. A dark elf!