Riches Sought

If you would like to edit a couple of details,or the chapter organization or whatever in the story, feel free to as long as you mention it in the comments, but try not to completely change the plot! Thanks!

-Heron the Mudwing

### Prologue

There was no doubt the Treasureseeker would let this opportunity go by. Especially not since it was rumored to be an

animus’ tomb. As soon
as he saw it on the map and heard the story, he was in,and if you were
in the room with him, you were doomed to coming with him. As it
was with all his other adventures. So, he grabbed a couple sacks,
packing a suit of armor (just in case), planned out every miniscule
detail, then set of with 6 dragons- Oceanic, a SeaWing he had met at
school, Mindseer, his brother,3 random messenger dragons who's names he
didn’t know, and his mate, who would not miss this for the world,
thinking of all the money. Tomorrow morning, they would set off and try
to make history.

### Chapter 1

The cliff side was steep, so it was obvious when a cave entrance
yawned in front of the nervous,excited, exhausted wing, and they
gratefully landed inside. The first thing they noticed was an eerie, haunting song drifting through the air of the cave. It was beautiful-
but it also sent an ominous rattling through the dragons' bones. Their
entrance had awoken the animus's creations.

### Chapter 2

They walked into the room where the singing was coming from and found
 3 stone dragons- a Jade dragon who had once been a SeaWing, a Carnelian
 dragon that used to be a SkyWing, and an Gold dragon that used to be a
SandWing. They all had their mouths open in what looked like lost
screams of terror, but instead a beautiful song rose from their stone
lips. It was like the hum of a guitar and the whistle of a flute. The
music was enchanting, not in the way that a song makes you want to hear
more, or really not just  that way, it was also physically enchanting
you to turn into stone. Treasureseeker suddenly found himself with a
stone talon and a wing drooping as Onyx stone crawled over it, claiming
more and more of his way out of the tomb.

### Chapter 3

He shrieked and warned the other members of his group, but he turned
and saw for one it was too late. The first to enter, Oceanic (the second
 in command and Treasureseeker's friend) was now just a Sapphire statue.
 He cried out in his grief but knew he still had to get out. As he
stumbled to the entrance and idea struck him. He could only imagine the riches a statue like Sapphire could bring in. He ordered his friends to
go on, leave, before they too were slain to stone. Each left, but
reluctantly, and as they passed Treasureseeker they did a kind of bow to
 tell him goodbye, thinking he wanted to pay his respects to Oceanic,
even though he knew surely it would cost his life.

### Chapter 4

But as Treasureseeker had imagined it, he would get so much treasure
from selling the statue, he could sell it to an animus who would surely
praise his great skill and when he asked how much it would be,
Treasureseeker would tell him if he fixed his leg and wing and whatever
else was stone by then, he could have it for just a couple of
gems.Either way, Treasureseeker would be rich. He grabbed Oceanic and
hobbled back to the entrance cave, his tail now almost completely stone.
 *But it will be worth it for all that wonderful money* he thought.

### Chapter 5

But alas, soon his great greed would betray him, and as it happened
his mate was waiting outside the tomb, hearing of

her husband's almost
certain demise but not wanting it for herself. She gasped with joy as he
 returned, and he smiled to her, but the smile turned to a wince as his
face was now mostly stone.

### Chapter 6

He looked at the statue and noticed how beat up it was by now. He had
 dropped it several times when various parts of him had turned to stone,
 and now he realized it would be of not much value. He  nodded to his
wife as much as he could. With a scrape of stone, he twisted and walked
slowly back into the tomb. She gasped, and Treasureseeker didn't need to
 say anything, for his wife was a telepath. He simply thought, *Not enough.*

### Chapter 7

So yet again he scraped into the tomb, went over, and grabbed one of
the statues, the Jade one he noted, as he turned his head so he could
see, for one of his eyes had turned to a glittering blue sapphire. He
carried it out and set it on the ledge, but by now only his wings were
free. He lifted off, his wife now gone selling the statue, he lifted
off, but as soon as he did, his wings were complete and he dropped down,
 down, down, into the deep pointed rocks below.

### Epilogue

Rich, rich, rich- even more so when they found the fragments of
Treasureseeker were made of onyx. They chiseled the stone and made it
more valuable, or just sold it straight- either way, none of
Treasureseeker’s crew would ever need any more gems. Yes, it certainly
seems as though Treasureseeker helped all of his friends without knowing
 it. Because how could he? He was being sold in tiny pieces to anyone
who would pay the price for him. And to this day, when flying past the
Mountain of the Tomb, all can hear his stone corpse slamming into the
jagged rocks and shattering into a  million pieces.

The moral of this story is do not be greedy. Or you might be turned into a statue and smashed into a million pieces. The End.