So, after taking a deep breath to steady myself, I shapeshift into the drake form. The elementals don't react at all to me changing forms or to me entering the lava lake. The drake form feels really good and I have to remind myself to move quickly.

Taking another deep breath, I close my eyes and dive into the lava, swimming down. Even in drake form I can't open my eyes under the lava, but I don't really need to. The fire mana is so dense that I am able to use it to see everything around me.

The mana gets denser the deeper I go and once it is dense enough I see a gate open. It is only open for a second but that is long enough for an elemental to come through. That explains where the elementals are coming from, but not the mana itself.

So, I keep going deeper, until I finally find where all the fire mana is coming from. To my surprise all that mana is coming from a gem, it looks similar to a ruby and is the size of a baseball. I simply can't imagine how something that small is giving off so much fire mana.

Of course, now that I have found it I can't just leave it alone, so I reach out to grab it. When I pick it up in my claws all the mana suddenly stops flowing out of it. Instead, all of that mana is now flowing into me and it is immensely painful.

It feels like my blood has been replaced with lava and my mana organ feels like it is going to explode. As I open my mouth to scream a veritable geyser of fire mana comes pouring out of my mouth. It almost feels like I am breathing out pure fire without any fire resistance.

Even the drake form can't stand this much damage and even casting healing spells I am barely able to survive. The biggest problem is that no matter how hard I try, I can't let go of the gem. It only gets worse as I feel my mana organ shatter under the pressure and my mana pool vanishes.

The increased pain almost makes me black out and I am only holding on by sheer will. If I wasn't currently a drake I think I would have already died horribly. Even as a drake I don't think I can hold on for much longer, my body is being torn apart from the inside.

I don't even realize that some of the fire mana is flowing into Blitz until it is too late. Blitz explodes on my back and I feel like my soul is being torn into pieces before darkness swallows me. When I start coming around I am fully expecting to open my eyes and see Krenocia frowning at me.

However, when I open my eyes I find myself wrapped in darkness, but I am too sore to be dead. I am currently curled up in the fetal position and every part of my body hurts. It feels like I broke every bone in my body, tore every muscle and tendon, and then fell down a mountain.

Or maybe had a mountain fall on me, I'm not sure which would hurt more. Needless to say, all I want to do is go back to sleep and wake up when I don't hurt so much. When I fail to go back to sleep I try to cast my healing spell on myself, but that doesn't work either.

Slowly the pain lessens, but when I try to move I find that I can't, I am trapped. Something is wrapped around me, keeping me curled up in the fetal position. Whatever has me trapped is solid, I can't feel any give to it at all no matter how I try to move.

As I struggle to move I also notice that my body feels strange, it isn't responding how it should. That and my head is currently tucked under my arm, something that shouldn't be possible. I don't know what that gem did to me, but I can tell a lot has changed, I just can't tell what.

Admittedly, I am close to panicking when I remember that I was in drake form when I blacked out. That would explain why my body feels so weird and why I have a long neck. However, when I try to cancel shapeshift nothing happens, nothing changes.

I can't tell if something is stopping me from ending shapeshift or if something else is wrong. Something like this has never happened to me before and I don't know what else to try. This whole time it has felt like I was floating, but now that ends as the motion comes to an end.

Once the motion ends a little bit of light appears, but what it allows me to see is scary. The light is red because it is coming through a red substance, the gem. I am inside of the gem, or at least that is what it looks like right now, and I admit to being a little scared.

Considering I was inside a volcano, if I am trapped until someone finds me, then I am done for. Unless the volcano erupts and spits me out it could be hundreds of years before someone finds it. That is bad enough, but then I think of Brightfire and Nala waiting for me.

Brightfire will only wait for so long before she tries to find me and Nala will go with her. I need to find a way out of the gem so that I can get back to them and keep them safe. However, I can't see through the gem to see what might be outside because of the color.

For all I know I might still be in the lava, but I can't just sit here and do nothing. So I start trying to use my strength to break the gem, but I don't have room to move. I have to contort myself and find room to apply pressure to the gem somehow.

The problem is that moving really, really hurts, especially when I try to move my back. At first I can't understand why, but then I remember the last thing that happened before I blacked out. Blitz exploded, meaning a piece of my soul was destroyed as well.

When I shapeshift all of my gear vanishes, but it is still with me somehow. So, I would have taken the full blast when Blitz exploded, it is amazing that I am still alive. I must have taken a massive amount of damage for my regen to have still not healed me.

It looks like this time my curiosity really did almost kill me, I just hope that's all it did. Depending on how big the explosion was there is a good chance it might have triggered an eruption. If so then Brightfire and Nala would have a hard time escaping with their lives.

That thought makes me ignore the pain and struggle even harder, I need to get out! However, the gem resists all my efforts, and eventually I pass out from exhaustion. When I wake up again I am a bit more clear headed and able to think things through.