Before standing up, I picked up my pocket knife that I’ve dropped into the flowers and noticed that it is covered in crystal dust.

‘Hey, Senka, look!’ white powder on the knife became liquid and soaked into the blade, ‘That’s weird…’

Then I crushed some flowers into the same dust and tried to rub it in my bow, but nothing happened.

‘Try to use it on an iron arrowhead,’ suggested Senka and I did what he told me to do and it worked.

‘I reckon this dust only works with metals, too bad that we don’t know what it does to our blades, hope it isn’t making them weaker or something,’ was my thoughts, ‘Come here, I’ve gathered some sapphires from my tunnel, we could crumble them up and try to do the same thing as we did with this white powder.’

Senka sat down alongside me and I gave him half of my blue crystals. He tried to crush them with rocks that he found on the ground nearby, but it was no use. In desperation, I took my knife and started to press it onto the sapphire and all of a sudden, the blade began shining! Sapphire started to melt beneath the edge of a blade and it went through the crystal like it would be butter.

‘No way…’ we both exhaled at the same time.

‘Just imagine how many crystals with different properties are there…’ Senka whispered to me, while I was slicing sapphires into thin layers.

Then I quickly realized, ‘If we combine this white crystal powder with some crushing tool made from metal, we could make dust from any mineral we could find!’ We started gathering as much white crystal dust into our pockets as we could, ‘Just imagine how amazed people would be in our village if they could find out these caves and all these shining rocks!’

‘Hmm… Our families lived here for decades and somehow, we never heard stories about these caves and rivers inside of the mountain. They only told us stories about witches and other monsters, don’t you find that odd?’ all Senka’s hands were covered with crystal dust.

‘The hunters from the Valley never told us about these spellbinding things, even though some of them have been here…’, I continued Senkas theory, ‘I think they deliberately told us only scary things about the mountain and the rest of the world so we won’t run away and stay in the Village forever.’

‘That’s a wild guess, but you might be right, Tariq,’ Senka already filled his pockets to the top with crystal powder, ‘But…’

Clunk! Clunk!

A dull sound from left river tunnel stopped Senka in mid-sentence, ‘You hear that?’

‘Yeah… and it is getting louder!’

CLUNK! CLUNK!

‘There is nowhere to hide, Senka! Prepare your bow and when this thing from a tunnel shows up be ready to shoot!’

CLUNK!!! CLUNK!!!

A brown silhouette appeared from the tunnel and we aimed our bows at it. My arms started shaking and my string began trembling. If I hadn’t heard Senka’s voice, my arrow would definitely pierce the target right in the middle of it.

‘Tariq! Look, it’s just a man!’

I put down my bow and looked more closely at the brown silhouette that was now completely visible under sapphire crystal light and realized that Senka was right. It was an old man with a white beard in a beige leather cape rowing down the river. His back was turned to us so he couldn’t see us standing there on a river bank. He looked very calm and confident, approaching us with slow and steady pace.

‘What if he suddenly turns his back and attack us?’, I whispered furiously at Senka then raised my bow again and aimed directly to hit strangers head if needed.

‘Shh!’, Senka raised his palm at me and started moving towards the river bit by bit. The man in the boat heard how Senka stepped on a crystal flower and turned his head.

‘Oh, Hi, Boy!’, old man’s voice sounded too lively for his age, he stopped rowing and continued talking, ‘If you have a golden one I could take you on a boat and…’, then he saw me pointing my arrow straight to his head, ‘Oh… Your friend doesn’t look as friendly as you do, that’s for sure.’

‘Uhm… Sorry, Sir. He is just afraid of strangers.’

‘Hahaha, fair enough, then why you aren’t afraid, boy?’ the man seemed too joyful for this hostile environment.

‘We need to be afraid of witches in these mountains, but not people. People should help each other’, Senka smiled back at the man in the boat.

‘Damn… Why is he so naïve?! Everyone that he has met in his life treated him well, but that doesn’t mean that everyone will be like that forever… Hina had the same smile as this man does and she left us… It’s the Cold Peak, the last place where you need to be so reckless! I don’t recognize you, Senka! That little boy, who always was quieter than the grass now speaks for the two of us in situation like that! What happened to you?’ these thoughts where dashing through my mind while Senka greeted the old man.

‘From what I see… short hunting bows, iron knives, deer leather robes… you two looks like Stoyans who decided to run away from their home village! Hahah!’ concluded the old man.

‘What? What does Stoyan mean?’ Senka’s curiosity rose with each second.

‘Stoyans are people who decided to stay at their village being afraid of exploring new lands. They usually choose to live in quiet places where you can avoid brutes, giants, witches, gnomes, and other creatures known for their vicious nature! Stoyans are great farmers, cattle breeders and sometimes even hunters. The last ones are more likely to break off and start their own adventure around the world and then settle somewhere in a different quiet place when they begin to feel tiered of wandering. You two look like the sons of hunters, that is why I assumed that you are Stoyans that broke off from their homeland. Hahaha!’

‘Stoyans, eh? Sounds exactly like our village… but we are not hunters… we are adventurers!’ were my thoughts when I pulled down my bow and put it on the shoulder.

‘and who are you then?’ Senka asked.

‘Aah… I’m just the usual scavenger. I work for elves from Uyaranna, they send me to places like this to gather crystals, minerals and other precious rocks for their potions and balms. I have no intention in harming you, guys!’ He raised his hands, showing that they are empty and he is willing to help us.

‘Tariq, you see? He is just working here!’

‘Oh… not again…’ I whispered to myself.

‘I can take both of you to the western tunnels of Aeronwy, it will actually take a few hours to get there if the current stays the same…’

‘Aeronwy?’ Senka interrupted the man, as he wanted to know everything.

‘Yes, it is the name of this river. Ah! Completely forgot to introduce myself. My name is Wido, Widogast if you prefer full names. Hahaha!’

‘I’m Senka and this is Tariq, we are very lucky to bump into you!’

‘Okay then, hop in and we will sail on! You can forget about the golden one, today I will be your boatman at no cost, but next time we meet don’t count on luxuries like that! Hahaha!’

‘Why is he so happy? Why does he always laugh like that? Does he really find us so amusing or...?’ My nose started itching again, it was a bad hunch for sure, but we still got in his boat and started moving towards the right tunnel that was filled with obscure darkness.