10 Fire!

CHAPTER 10 FIRE! Drake, Heru, and Rori looked around the fourth room. Vulcan's flames lit up the darkness. Drake could see lots of thick ropes hanging down from the high ceiling.

Then he spotted a door across the room. The door was made of a thin stone slab. A rope connected the door to a heavy stone cube that dangled above the floor. Another rope connected the cube to a metal loop sticking out of the wall. "All right, this must be Vulcan's challenge," Rori said. "He needs to burn the rope that connects the cube to that metal loop, right?" She pointed to the rope attached to the hanging cube.

"Good thinking!" Heru replied. "Then the cube will fall. And when it does, the door will lift up." "Just be careful, Rori," Drake said. "Make sure Vulcan burns through only that one rope — or all those ropes on the ceiling will go up in flames." Rori rolled her eyes. "You sound like Griffith," she said. "I am so good at controlling Vulcan now. I can ask him to make a big flame, or just a really tiny one."

Rori pointed. "Vulcan, burn that rope!" she cried. Her Dragon Stone glowed bright green at first, but then it flickered and went out. Vulcan roared. He reared back. iohlik. A fireball shot from his mouth!

The flames hit the ropes hanging above them. Within seconds, the ropes on the ceiling caught fire!