It was a bright sunny morning and I was playing chess with my friend, Jonah. Oh, sorry if you don’t know me. I’m Silas. I should mention my other friends. There’s Jack, who is my best friend. Then there is Zeagan who is funny and cool. And finally, there is the craziest person in the world: dun, dun, dun! LEVI. He ate a donut. That’s not crazy, but the donut was moldy. Literally. Now back to the chess game. 
“Check,” said Jonah. 

I moved my rook. “Checkmate,” I said. 
“That’s impossible!!!” He said. 

“Not really.” I said. 
Then I started telling him all the reasons why I won. 

“Okay, okay, you win.” He said. 
“Guys! Guys! We’re filthy rich!” Shouted Zeagan, waving his magazine in the air. 

“What????” Said Jack, running out of the bathroom. 
“Dude, you forgot your pants.” Said Zeagan. 

“I did?” Said Jack, looking down. “Oh, yeah…but, I’m myself so deal with it.”

 Jack is weird sometimes. 
Levi wasn’t here because he was helping himself to a 15th helping of meat loaf. Sorry, no, 17th.

Wait, on his 18th.  My, sorry. 19th.  Let’s get to the story.

 “All we have to do is to go to Crypto Pyramid and get this jewel!” 
He showed us the magazine. A huge jewel was on the page. 

“I don’t want to go on another quest!” I complained. 
“But,” said Zeagan. “We could get famous this time!” 

That sounded good. On our last quest I felt stupid the bad guy was at the village the whole time. But this sounded easy. And fun! I should have mentioned that I have another friend that was on the last quest but he traveled to Peru. Zeagan was about to tell us more about the diamond, when Jack pointed out a piece of paper on the wall. Zeagan read it out loud. 

“Retrieve the diamond, find the snakes. Do it all, for your sakes. 

With the staff of Orshafiege, you shall rule the siege. 

Do not wake the crystal snake, and your troubles will be over. 

Don’t think of this as easy as plucking a clover. 

Through the web of the greemors and out from the side to do this you must hide. 

Death awaits around the corner so take your chances, but one of you will be in trances. 

Find the froodaguy, but this will be goodbye. Move west. ” 

“That’s weird.” Said Jonah.

 And yes, as you thought, we are on Quest the 2nd. I protested all right, but most of our group wanted to go. 

First, we went to a valley, nothing there, but we finally reached the Drooden Dunes. It was a part of deep and steep dunes of the Destertan Desert. But finally, we found something. Sorry, someone. He was a traveler traveling around the world to find famous people. He said that he found Thomas Edison, and he said he invented the hot dog. But, I thought the traveler was getting his facts mixed up. Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb.Not the hot dog. The travelers name was Chason. He was pretty nice, just a little crazy. I noticed that Jack was still having trouble putting his pants on and that Levi was still eating meat loaf. 

“What helping are you on?” I asked him. 

“Mbulf.” He answered. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Mmmmmbbbbuuullllllfffff!!!!” He said to me through a mouth of meat loaf. 

“WHAT?!?!?!” I yelled. “MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” He replied. 

“Don’t worry!” Chason said. “I speak meat loaf!” 

“Say that again?” He said to Levi. 

“972,847,134,582,601,746.” Levi said perfectly. I was stunned, and Levi wasn’t even getting fat!!!! 

It took long but we finally found a small hut somebody set up. We entered, and found nobody there. We found some beds for us to sleep in. 

“I hope the owner does not come back and find we have filled their beds with lice and dust and dirt and sand and hair and skin and blood and sweat and cells and crumbs and snot and boogers and germs and thread and paper and cotton and water and chocolate and veins and diarrhea and all those other things.” Said Jonah. 

It was hard to sleep  with Jonah talking and talking and talking and talking and talking, but I survived. 

The next morning the owner must have found that we had filled his beds with lice and dust and dirt and sand and hair and all the things Jonah said. When I woke up I saw a tall human like person glaring at me from above. 

“Huh?” I said. She/he swooped a bag over me and all I could see is black. 

We were bumping along when I heard Chason’s voice. 

“You’re nice people, right?” He said. “If you are, you would buy me an extra large coke and a jumbo hotdog.” 

“What is with you and hot dogs?” Jack asked.

I found a little hole in my bag to see through and I noticed there we only 4 bags, not 6. 

“Levi and Zeagan must have changed into wolf form,” I thought. 

Sorry if you don’t know. Levi and Zeagan are both shapers. That means that they can shape into a wolf or something that matches their surroundings.

They finally set us down in cells. Then I noticed that the gaurd had pointy ears. Elves had captured us.

                                                                          2.  STREET FIGHTER                             

It was late in the night and I heard a sound that woke me up. It was the panting of a dog. Then I realized it was Levi and Zeagan coming to rescue us. The wolves shaped into Levi and Zeagan. As Zeagan was working at my lock, Levi was fumbling with Jack’s. Zeagan finally got my lock off and the lock hit the floor with a loud CLANG! The sleeping guard’s eyes fluttered open for a moment, then closed again. I let out a whoosh of breath that I didn’t know I was holding. Levi was more careful. He caught the lock before it made a sound. While Levi and Zeagan were working on the other locks, me and Jack opened our cells and tiptoed to the window. Levi and Zeagan had put a zip line on the window so we only had to slide down to safety. Then I noticed Jack’s right pocket had something BIG in it. 

“What do you have in there?” I whispered to him. 

“A ham sandwich I stole from a guard!” He said. 

I slapped my forehead. I held on to the zip line, but before I could zip to safety, Jack hit his foot on a vase and broke it. I heard footsteps and I knew that we were caught. I didn’t want to risk it so me and Jack zip lined out of there. I guess Jack’s hands were asleep and he fell in a pond. I hit the ground and waited for Jack to climb out of the pond but he did not. He didn’t sink; he just started swimming around and he got muddy. He climbed out and stood there staring at me with a weird grin on his face

till the others zipped down. 

“Honey bunches of oats!” Said Chason. 

He was holding a box of oats, and don’t ask me where he got that. 

Then I heard a voice. 

“Jack Shuler. We meet again.” 

To tell things better, lets go to Jack’s perspective: 

Billy Conner, an old enemy, was staring at me. 

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Jonah was telling me. 

I swung my fist. He ducked. It was kind of back and forth. 1-0, Billy. 2-1, me. 3-2, Billy. Finally, it was the final round. 5-5, tie. Then he swung. It hit me in the chin. I fell down. He would  finish me off. But then Chason handed me the box of honey bunches of oats. I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth, box and all. Then I stood up. I had been revived, 100%. I swung my fists nonstop. Billy was getting all the bruises and practically looked like a zombie. Except for being green. He forgot the green. 

“Ow. Ow! Ow!! Ow!!! OW! OW!! OW!!!!!!!” He said. 

“That all you got?” I yelled at him, as he ran off crying. 

Now back to Silas. 

We walked a few miles until I smelled a stench so foul, I almost barfed. It was the swamps of Slodangon. 

“Silas,” Jonah said. 

“Not now, Jonah.” I said. “I’m mapping the swamp!” 

“Silas,” Jonah said again. “Turn around.” 

I did. People were running at us. 

“Elves,” I said. 

They were back.

3.   THE CRYSTAL OF POWER

“Hurry!” I said. 

We hurried. We all got the armor Zeagan and Levi had stolen from the elves. This was not like the battle in book 1. The elves battled WAY harder. We were losing. Because we only had 6 people. Duh. But then we heard a battle cry from behind. Dwarves were fighting. On our side. The slices of swords and cries of pain were the only thing I could hear. Then I heard a cry different from the rest. A cry that I knew for years. I looked over and saw Jack, a sword thrusted through his stomach. All sound seemed to fade. 

Jack looked at me with a look that said, “This is over. I am over.” 

Then he fell. Everything was moving in slow motion. 

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” I yelled. 

I ran toward Jack. I pulled the sword out of his belly, but that just made it bleed harder. A thin slice was in his belly. The sword had gone through his back too. I was mad. So MAD. I battled as hard as I could, and after a few minuets, the elves were low in numbers. After a while, they were gone. Obliterated. Smoked. Dead meat. Lost. Buried. Defeated. Destroyed. Gone. We had won. 

After the war, we took Jack inside. And I tried to stitch him up because Jonah said I’m the “smart one.” I kind of am. I stitched him up, perfecto. But no matter how hard I tried, he didn’t wake up. 

“Let’s wait for tomorrow.” Levi said. 

Then Chason hopped out of the shower. “For McDonald’s?” He asked. 

I slapped my forehead. But then I got an idea! 

“We could find a crystal!” I said. “In the crystal caves!” 

“Huh?” Zeagan said. 

“The crystals in the crystal caves have very high power!” I explained to him. “If we could find one we could wake up Jack! But, sadly, they are very rare to find!”

So that was that! We all traveled to the caves. On the way, Chason kept asking dumb questions, like: “will there be a McDonald’s?” And “Do you have any gum?” And then he started joking around saying we were on his lawn or something. And then he started singing, “Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. McDonald’s, McDonald’s! Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut!” 

I could tell Levi was getting annoyed. And no telling what he’ll do when he’s in that state. Levi got all shaky, and he looked really mad. REALLY MAD. Then in one quick motion, Levi  noogied him on his hair, gave him a mile long wedgie, and slapped him across his face a thousand miles per hour. 

Finally, we had gotten to the crystal caves. It was dark in there, and nobody wanted to go in. But luckily, Jonah had brought a flashlight. We all went in, but unfortunately, I guess all the miners mined all the crystals out because I saw none in sight. But then, we saw a light. Another traveler was walking around with his flashlight too! 

“What’s your name?” I asked him. 

“Kayden. Kayden Baker.

” He replied. Then I heard a noise and I was caught by surprise. I stumbled to the ground. 

“It’s just justus,” he said. He shined his light upward and I could see a little bat, flying above him. 

“He’s friendly.” Kayden said. 

“We are here to find a crystal to help our bud!” Jonah said. 

“Yeah,” said Chason. “And a McDonald’s.” 

Kayden looked at Chason like he was a clown or something. 

“I have some crystals,” he said. 

“HOOORRRAYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!” We all shouted with excitement. 

“But at least 2 of you have to compete in a contest called THE CRAZY GAMES!!!!!” 

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.” We all said. 

“The winner gets a $5,000 prize.” Said Kayden.

 “HOOORRRAYYYY!!!!!!!!!!” We all shouted. 

“And the loser donates his blood to my collection.” 

“Awwwwwwwwwwwww.” We all said. 

“Then you get the crystal.” 

“HOOORRRAYYYY!!!!!!!!!!” We all shouted. 

Levi wanted to compete. But not the rest of us. Then Chason volunteered. Now to Levi’s perspective: 

Let THE CRAZY GAMES begin, I thought. Let the money be mine! 

“ROUND 1!” Kayden said through a microphone. “DO YOUR SILLIEST FACE!”  

I pulled my lips apart, rolled my eyes back Into my head and stuck my tongue out. Chason was right next to me. He looked like he just woke up. His hair was all messed up and he had his hands in front of his face as if he was blocking the sun from his eyes. Kayden (the judge) was looking at us both very carefully. It looked like his eyes hurt. Then he spoke. 

“AND THE WINNER OF ROUND 1 IS……..” he stared at us both for a really long time then he announced the winner. “LEVI!!!!!” 

I was thrilled. Everyone was clapping. Except Chason. 

“That stupid lucky meatball did nothing!” He yelled, throwing a meatball covered in sauce on

the ground. And then he stepped on it. 

“That’s what you get!” He yelled at the sauce covered meatball. 

“ROUND 2!” Kayden said. “DO YOUR CRAZIEST BREAK DANCE MOVE!” 

While I was shaking my butt, Chason hopped around like a frog/cow. A real cow. And eating grass. Then, Chason hopped over to me and jumped at me. I was surprised and I didn’t know he was about to give me a Turbo-Wedgie. Justus seemed alarmed too, and he flew overhead making small noises. Kayden once again looked at both us really hard and I wanted to ask him if he needed sun glasses. But then he spoke. 

“THE WINNER OF ROUND 2 IS…….” He looked at us again. “CHASON!!!!!!!!!” 

Chason was happy. REALLY happy. But I was not. I should have won! 

Then Chason screamed at the top of his lungs, “MCDONALD’S FOREVER!!!!”

“ROUND 3!” Kayden announced. “EAT AT MUCH WORMS AS YOU CAN IN 30 SECONDS!” 

He handed us each a plate of worms. Chason looked disgusted. But I had trained for this. The thing is, I LOOOOVVVEE worms. 

“START!” Kayden said. 

I ate furiously out of the bowl of wiggly goodness. But Chason was just playing with his food. He picked up some, put them down, and even licked them. I had eaten them all before the clock even raced down to zero. After the clock counted down, Kayden inspected the bowls. 

“AND THE WINNER OF ROUND 3 IS……” 

“I’ll win!” I thought. 

“LEVI!!” 

“ROUND 4!” Kayden announced. “RACE JUSTUS!!!” 

But this is the good part. I’m faster than Chason. A bat? I don’t know. 

“3, 2, 1, START!”

I let Chason ahead. But then I raced like I never raced before. And then, I found my turbo speed was taking over. I raced pass justus, but then, my legs fell asleep. Great. I collapsed to the floor and I saw as Chason crossed the finish line. But no. This was not over. I still had round 5.

“FINAL ROUND!” Kayden announced. “DO THE CRAZIEST THING YOU HAVE EVER DONE IN YOUR LIFE!” 

Chason was eating worms, and I was running around in my underwear. It took awhile, but finally Kayden decided. 

“AND THE WINNER OF THE $5,000 CASH PRIZE IS…..” it was so exciting I almost wet my pants. “LEVI!!!!!!” 

I jumped all around like I won a lottery, and I could literally hear the  Jeopardy! Music playing out of some speakers. 

While I was swimming in all my money, Chason was yelling, “ow! OW! You’re hurting me!”, while getting his finger pricked.

Now back to Silas:  

“ZAP!” Sounded the crystal, reviving my friend. 

Then, Jack’s eyes fluttered open. Everyone cheered. We got back to our quest, to the swamps.

4.  THE OTHER TEAM           

As I said before, I thought I was going to barf. The swamp was so stinky. Like dry poop mixed with 5 day old barf. Luckily, Zeagan had brought clothes pins to put on our noses. Not just for random stuff. Duh. 

Jack was still a little shaky after what he had gone through, so he was riding on Jonah’s back. I had finished mapping the swamp and it looked like we only needed a few more miles until we reached the shore. The swamp was thick with mud, and all the trees around it were dying. We didn’t bring boots so our shoes were full to the brim with mud. Each step felt like we were walking in cement. Each time I stepped in the swamp, it took like 2 minutes to get it unstuck. So we were wasting time. It was pretty silent because the clothes pins made our voices sound like a pig eating slop. We weren’t entertained until Chason fell in the mud and it took like 1 hour to pull him out. That was kind of funny since he did it on purpose. But not much. Since he landed face first, he had mud and moss all over his clothes and his face. 

After awhile, I heard a sound. “Do you ear dat?” I said through the clothes pin. 

“Ear hut?” Jonah asked with the clothes pin. 

“Dat!” I said to him. 

A quiet rumbling sound echoed all over the swamp. Then a hand.. a HAND grasped at the edge

of the swamp. It was covered in moss and mud. Then a second hand. A figure was pulling himself out of the swamp. He had deep sunken eyes and dirty hair. Then I realized there were many of them coming from the swamp. 

“Swamp zombies,” Jonah whispered.

The swamp zombies were closing in now. Then I heard a howl. It was Zeagan and Levi in wolf form howling. The swamp zombies were blown backward with so much force I could hear bones shattering. Then they fell back in the swamp. 

We finally reached the pyramid. It was tall and slanted and bone shattering scary. Then we heard a rev of a car.                                  

Not a car, but a giant go kart pulled up near us. And at the wheel of the car was Billy Conner. A couple other people I did not know were in the back. Jack apparently knew them, so he whispered in my ear, “the one in black is Joshua Soodonoor, the one with long hair and freckles and a freaky grin is Max, and the blond girl is named Natalie Crow.” 

“We found out about the diamond!” Billy said. 

“Did you find a McDonald’s?” Chason asked. 

Max looked at Chason like he was a dumb rodeo clown. 

“Is this the goofy guy you told us about? The one that had a box of fruity pebbles?” He asked Billy. 

“Honey bunches of oats!” Chason srceamed. 

I guess he was having a hard day. “THEY WERE HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS!!!!!!!” Chason screamed again. 

Then Chason started shaking like crazy and he got on to the other team’s go kart. And this is what I couldn’t believe. He started strangling Max!!! It took the next few minutes to get Chason off of Max. He kept struggling against our grip, and he wouldn’t get still. Even though the other team is not our favorite people, we can’t have one of them dying. 

After Chason tried to kill someone, the other team left. Levi wanted a go kart, and we were in luck. There was a go kart place really close to the pyramid, so we walked there. 

The go karts were 20 bucks rental, and 200 bucks a go kart. We didn’t have any money, but then I noticed Chason fishing around in his pocket for something. He pulled out a 200 buck gift card for a go kart. Don’t ask me how he got it, but Chason has his ways, Chason has his ways. 

We walked over to the go kart guy and Chason said, “Big oats box! Huge cheerios! Fruity pebble dinner!” 

The go kart guy just gave us a big smile walked over to a go kart and pointed at it. 

“Massive pebble dinner! Mouthy green beans!” 

So that’s how we got our go kart. I figured out how to work it immediately. The right pedal was the gas, the left was the brake. Jonah wanted to drive, so I showed him everything I knew.  Levi also found

a blender in the go kart. It was really cool. And we didn’t even have to use our feet on the quest any more! We didn’t have time to drive it because we were already at the pyramid. Let the true battle begin.

                                        5. INSIDE THE PYRAMID 

We had parked our car outside and walked inside. I expected it to be warm like it was out side, but man, I was wrong. A cool breeze was inside the crypto pyramid, and the smell of dead bodies wafted through the air. Every time we passed a coffin, I would shiver. Even Chason was scared enough that he couldn’t say something funny. (Or stupid). I could feel that this was going to be WAY more dangerous than our last quest. No one was talking at all. Even Jack, who was way more talkative than all of us, stayed quiet. Between every curve and twist, we all expected an evil thing to jump out and try to kill us. But it didn’t happen. 

Once we came across a pair of gargoyles, but nothing else. As we got deeper and deeper in the pyramid, it got darker and darker. We also came across a bat colony, but we passed them without harm. 

It was really quiet when we had got closer to the center, and I was scared. Really scared. We had just gotten closer to the crystal when I heard a voice. It was not the voice of Zeagan, Levi, Jack, Jonah, or Chason. Ahead of us, was the voice of Billy Conner. 

“Ugh,” Jack said. “Them again!” 

I was getting annoyed too. 

Billy turned around and said to us, “Fancy to see you here.”  

The rest of his group turned around with him and smirked at us.

“We’ll get the diamond before you!” Natalie crow said. 

“Oh yeah?” Jonah said. 

Then he ran full speed ahead of Billy’s group. Each of us followed suit. We ran until we entered a big room. I looked back, expecting that Billy and his friends would follow us, but they never came. 

But then I realized that I should have been looking at something better. The room we were in was really big, and it was lighter! I looked around the room some more and saw at one end of the room there was a big statue of a snake.  At the other end, I saw something unexpected. As I stared at its shiny front, I knew our quest was over. We had found the diamond. There it sat, gleaming in the sun. It was all over. 

                            6. THE CRYSTAL

We had found it. 

“Guys,” I called. “Look what I found,” 

The guys came running. Chason was last. I realized why. He was trying to stuff sand in his mouth. It was stuck up his nose, and all crammed up in his ears. Chason is weird. 

As I was looking at Chason, Jonah had gotten the diamond. Almost. As he touched the gem, he yelped. And then I looked at his hand. Where he had touched the diamond, a big burn seared on his hand. 

I pushed to the front of the crowd. I pulled on gloves and picked up the diamond. It was not like I expected. It was as if someone had thrown my hands into a fire. Then the pain spread through my whole body. Up my arms, down my legs, and even my hair felt like it was on fire. 

I heard a scream. I dropped the diamond. Then I realized I was the one who was screaming. The pain stopped. I looked at my gloved hands. Or not. The gloves had apparently burned away while I was holding the diamond. I noticed both the third degree burns on my hand. If there was a fifth degree burn, this would have been it. We had to get the diamond out of the pyramid before Billy’s crew found us.

I noticed a staff in a corner. I remembered the poem at the beginning of our adventure. 

“Find the staff of orshafiege, and you shall rule the siege.” 

This could be the staff of orshafiege!

“Hey guys!” I called. “Check this out!” 

The guys came running. Levi reached me first. (Because he’s fast, duh). 

“Whoa!” He said. “It’s the staff of orshafiege!” 

Zeagan came, then Jack, and then Chason. And then as we were looking at it I heard a click and us, the staff, and the diamond fell through a trapdoor into a musty room. 

“You okay?” I asked the guys.

”Maybe,” Jonah said. 

“I’m fine,” Jack’s voice said. 

“Okay,” Levi said. 

“Great,” Zeagan said. 

Then I heard crying. 

“What happened Chason?” I said. 

“My beef jerky broke!” He whined. “WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  

“No one cares about your beef jerky,” I said. 

Then I saw a huge flash through the darkness. Then I saw what it was. It was a huge snake.

7. The snake

The giant snake looked at me and hissed. It was made of sand and diamonds. I saw the diamond in the corner. I scrambled over to it. I had forgotten that it burns people, and I touched it. 

“Ouch!” I said in pain. 

“OH MY GOSH! IT’S A GIANT SNAKE!” Chason yelled. 

Levi and Zeagan turned into wolf form and howled. But the snake didn’t seem affected. Then it spoke. “YOU CANNOT KILL ME!” It rasped. “I AM THE POWER! I AM THE DARKNESS!” 

I saw the staff of orshafiege in the corner, and I scrambled over to it. Zeagan had now turned into a giant snake, who was fighting the evil one. They bashed at each other, and it seemed the evil one was winning. Finally, Zeagan, in snake form, fell over and turned into normal Zeagan. 

I finally connected the diamond and the staff together, making a diamond staff. 

“Cool!“ I thought. 

“Hey, Silas!” Jonah said. “Stop messing around and fight!” 

“Okay!” I said. 

I grabbed my weapon, science. I threw my blast bomb. When it made contact with the beast, it blew up. And it scattered smoke everywhere so the snake could not see.