Sebastian & the Transformers: The Crystal of the Deep

Sebastian & the Transformers, part 2. A free five-minute bedtime story from CloudSheep.

Back in the village, the Village Wizard met the team with twinkling eyes. "To settle the Shadow Beast into a peaceful sleep for good," he said, "you must gather three treasures: the Flame Stone, the Crystal of the Deep, and the Starlight Shard." He gave them a map and a wink. The very next morning they set off for the deep, calm sea.

At the water's edge a whirlpool spun round and round — and before anyone could plan a way past it, an enormous whale surged up, opened wide, and gloop — swallowed the whole team. This was no rescue. The whale wanted a snack. It was warm and echoey and extremely inconvenient in there. "Right," said Boulder. "New plan."

So they tickled him. All five of them, along the inside of his belly, until the whale shook and rumbled and coughed the entire team straight out into the waves, laughing all the way. But they weren't at the cavern — not even close. It was still far off, past a distant island.

Then ropes came whipping down out of the rigging: pirates, swinging in from a ship none of them had heard coming. The team was outnumbered from the first moment, driven back step by step toward open water — until the sea heaved and the whale surfaced again. This time he scooped up the team, tucking them safe inside, away from the pirates. He'd changed his mind about them. "Hop aboard," he burbled, when they were clear. "I know the way to the underwater cavern."

Inside the great cavern the water turned strange. There was another dark crystal here, set deep in the rock — and the pirates had come back for revenge, and they had not come alone. Ghost dragons curled through the water, pale and coiling, and where they blew and swirled the sea it spun itself into whirlpools. The whale turned back to help. The whirlpools took him, and he was pulled under and away.

Sebastian didn't wait. He went back for the whale alone, and the team came after him, and he got the whale free — and then the water closed around Sebastian and he was the one stuck fast. What saved him was the pirates' own ship: the pirates had fled and left it, so the team took it, sailed it in, and hauled Sebastian out. Then they kept it. The pirates, watching from the rocks, had never been angrier in their lives.

A wise old rainbow fish guarded the winding water-maze and spoke only in riddles. One by one the team puzzled them out, until the fish clapped its fins. "Well done, clever friends," it bubbled, and swished aside. There, on a bed of soft coral, glowed the Crystal of the Deep — and every enemy they had came at once. Pirates and ghost dragons together, working as one. Only the Shadow Beast stayed away. In the crush of it the enemies struck the cavern wall and cracked it, and the sea came roaring in on all of them. That was when the Water Spirit finally rose: a soft blue glow that flattened the water, swept the pirates and dragons away — not forever, but away — and held the flood back long enough.

The team grabbed the crystal, and the whale ran them all the way up onto dry land. On the shore, the Water Spirit stepped out of the surf and became a girl. "I'm Taylor," she said. "I'm a transformer too — not from your village. I can turn into a shark, any time I like." And she joined the crew. Two treasures down, one to go. Sleep tight, brave team.