A/N: This story is very Christian-themed, just FYI.

This mostly just explores some of the different realms and it isn't exactly a traditional type of story. So just keep that in mind.

It was a warm day, just like any other. Light wind. Sheep frolicking. Avalar's peace flags hanging from the castle. Summer Forest hadn't had any disturbances in over two decades. The inhabitants carried on with their business day by day, and Moneybags wasn't there to harass anyone for their gems.

It seems like all is well with Avalar. Right? Happy ever after.

Not exactly.

While the peace was ever cherished by the inhabitants, Avalar's population had been decreasing for years. Some simply went their own way. Others disappeared without a word.

Still the peace flags hung.

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A light was emerging from the portal on other side of the castle. This attracted the attention of one of the few remaining residents of Summer Forest.

No one's used that portal in years. Could this be a new enemy?

The light faded and out of the portal emerged a tall male jackrabbit with a backpack, journal and camera. He was noticeably dizzy from all of the spinning from the teleportation.

"Um… hello? Sir?" she walked up to the stranger. "Where did you come from?"

"I, uh-" he was feeling mildly nauseous from the spinning. "I'm from the Forgotten Realms," he slowly stood up. "I'm Aragon. I'm a traveling journalist."

"The Forgotten Realms? They still call it that?" she seemed shocked. "What brings you here then?"

"Avalar has been a mystery among my people back home in Desert Ruins for some time. There's a legend of this dragon named Spyro who came to our world a little under 20 years ago and rescued us from a wicked sorceress and an outbreak of monstrous scorpions. Many of us have tried finding witnesses and studying other traces of all this, but we haven't found much. So I came here to see if I could find this legendary dragon."

"Oh, yes… Spyro was an old friend of mine and a great hero to us too. He rescued Avalar before the Forgotten Realms. But unfortunately you won't have much luck finding him here. I don't know where he disappeared to. No one does."

"Wait, you knew him?!" Aragon picked up his bag and moved closer. "Who are you then? Are… you some kind of g-"

"DO NOT say goat. I'm a faun! Well anyways, my name is Elora. I helped guide Spyro through Avalar while he was here. He defeated Ripto and his army, who invaded this world over 20 years ago. Then he went on to your world to defeat the Sorceress. I heard he went on to do other things in other places after that, but I haven't seen or heard from him in years. I always hoped he would visit Avalar again, but he never did."

"Elora… yeah, I think I remember mentions of you. You were the Professor's ally, right? And Hunter's?"

"I was. They were… interesting characters, but I loved 'em. Are they still over there in your world?"

"I don't think so. Just more legends. It's said that they all followed Spyro, wherever that might be. Our ancestors in Desert Ruins had met most of them, but unfortunately they aren't with us anymore. They either passed away from old age or pursued other places for treasure hunting once we ran dry. Most of my people are younger. These events all happened just a couple years before I was born."

"How did you get here then? No one's been able to teleport between the worlds without the dragons' power."

"I left my realm and found my way to Agent 9's Lab. He didn't know how to work the portal there since it was all the Professor's work. But we both tinkered with it for a while and somehow got it activated. But don't worry, he's guarding it until I get back."

"Well… that's very admirable of you, to come all this way for your research, but I'm afraid you won't find much more here than you would over there. And besides, I'm one of the only inhabitants of Avalar left who was here when Spyro was."

"But that's perfect! Can you guide me through the land, like you did with him, and tell me about this place? It's not just the dragon we're interested in. We want to study the other worlds outside of our own and learn their history."

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"The castle extends all throughout the forest," Elora said, as she walked with Aragon along the pond. "Do you see that underwater tunnel there?" she pointed. "Anyone who wants to get to the other side of the castle has to swim through that."

"Um… I think I'll pass on that for now. I grew up in the desert, so I'm not the best swimmer…"

"Fair enough," she laughed. "How would you like to visit one of the realms here? It'll probably be more interesting than just walking around the forest all day."

"Definitely! Where should we go?"

"I'll take you to one of my favorites. Follow me."

The two hopped over a thin, shallow river and stepped into a pink-orange portal.

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"Whoa," Aragon looked around the area, ignoring the portal dizziness. "Is this a jungle?"

"This is Idol Springs. There's some really interesting history with this place."

She led him through the first temple, which hadn't been locked or closed since Spyro's time.

"Twenty years ago," Elora began, "The former inhabitants here built and worshiped wooden idols. Many of them practiced witchcraft and dark magic, and the result of all that was the idols actually coming to life and attacking them. This is what really woke them up and made them realize that no idols are to be worshiped, and that their worship should be for God alone."

"That's insane…" he said, taking notes in his journal. "I mean, it's crazy to think about. But then again, lots of crazy stuff has happened in our world's history too. So… what were these inhabitants like? Other than their worshiping of false gods?"

"Some were architects. Some were scientists and engineers. They all seemed pretty harmless at surface level, but hardly any of us knew the kinds of evil they were practicing. They all had a crazy fetish for roasting marshmallows, and so lots of the idols would take their sticks with the fiery marshmallows and try to fight them with those. It's a little funny to think about, but for them it was terrifying. The attack just came out of nowhere and they didn't know how to fight them. That's when Spyro showed up."

"Where are they now?"

"After the whole fiasco, most of them turned back to the one true God. Some of them fled. But truth be told… I'm not sure where the others went. They stuck around for a while, but this place, along with the rest of Avalar, sort of became deserted over the years. The rumors were that many moved to the Forgotten Realms, after Spyro's legacy of making that world not-so-forgotten anymore. But I'm not sure how accurate that was. Lots of them probably went to other places too. But regardless, Avalar's been awfully quiet the last few years."

"What happened? Why did everyone leave?"

"A big reason is that they felt threatened and endangered after Ripto's invasion. After he was defeated, everyone still worried that another enemy might find its way here, and if we didn't have Spyro here to help us, we'd be defenseless. That's why many speculated that they tried to follow him into the other worlds. But after a while, Hunter, Moneybags, Zoe and the Professor all left too, saying they needed to help Spryo with his missions. They said they'd be back, but I haven't seen them since."

"That's too bad. Seems like some extreme paranoia to just leave their home like that. But what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Why did you stay?"

"Avalar is my home and always will be. I have confidence that if we ever were attacked again, we'd be okay."

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Elora led Aragon through the realm's jungle and over to the other side. Aragon stopped to snap some photos of some colorful shapes that were on the ground.

"Those stones were used by the idols to torment this one guy who used to live here. He was a little more simple-minded, if you know what I mean. They tried to make him solve various puzzles, but Spyro ended up having to do it for him."

"Interesting," he kept snapping away. "They're beautiful stones though. I'd bet our former treasure hunters would kill to get their hands on these…"

"Heh, good luck ripping those out of the ground," she started walking up the steps to the net temple. "Come on, I'll introduce you to somebody."

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They went out the temple and out to a greener patch of land.

"These bridges were built by the workmen for the tourists, back when this place became a huge tourist attraction."

"This place? A tourist attraction? Really?"

"Oh yeah, tourism exploded once everyone heard about the idol exhibits. Of course, when they got here they found that the idols had been destroyed. But they stuck around to watch the hula girls."

"Hula girls? Did the workmen hire them to make up for the lack of entertainment for those tourists?"

"Nope. They were natives too. But their practice was evil too, as they used their dances as rituals and ended up bringing a stone idol to life, which took their leader captive. But after peace was restored, they stayed here for a while and just performed without all of the wickedness in their hearts. But they left after a while to pursue a higher career around the world. Only their leader stayed."

"Is that her down there?" they peered down a ledge.

"Sure is. Come on."

They made their way down the grassy staircase and approached the tiny green colosi.

"Hi Stella!" Elora called out.

"Elora! Good to see you! Who's your friend?"

"This is Aragon. He's visiting Avalar for his research on other worlds."

"Great to meet you sir," she held out her hand.

"Likewise, ma'am," he shook her hand, and proceeded to take a photo of the area.

"I thought maybe it would be helpful to him if you gave a little bit of Idol Springs' history with your hula girls and where they are now?" Elora walked over to the low platform and took a seat. "I already filled him in on the basics of the idols and Spyro's visit."

"Oh certainly. First you should know that Foreman Bob and I are the only ones still here, but Bob sort of comes and goes. I think he's out on an errand right now. My dream since childhood was always to be a famous hula dancer. About 25 years ago, I trained a team of hula girls and we practiced several routines. However, I had fallen into corruption, like the rest of the workmen at the time, and took what was supposed to be just innocent dancing and twisted it into evil. I learned several rituals and idol worship and taught it all to my girls, hoping it would bring me good fortune that I would achieve my dream of fame. I had one of the workmen build us an idol out of stone, and we worshiped it and offered sacrifices to it. But then one day it came to life along with the others, and it chained me to that boulder behind me and trapped the girls on pedestals all around this platform. The idol stood guard, and I was just so thankful it didn't try to harm us further before we were rescued by Spyro."

"It sounds like this place really went through some trauma when all this happened," Aragon said, furiously scribbling in his journal. "But why did you stay when the others left? It sounded like your shows were getting a lot of attention."

"We were very successful for a while when tourism was high. I continued leading the girls and teaching them different routines, but that incident with the idol changed me. I immediately repented from my evil ways of worshiping idols and selfish ambition. But even still, I felt convicted that I shouldn't be pursing this career anymore. So one day I decided I was going to give up hula dancing and live to serve God Himself and be a servant to this realm. But my girls didn't feel the same calling or conviction, so they left and continued their career. And even though most of the other residents left too once tourism died, Bob and I refused to desert this place. And we don't regret it. I'm very happy here in my home and I'm happy for my girls and the success they've had. We all have our own callings and I firmly believe this is mine."

"Wow. That's quite a testimony. So what exactly is it that you do here now?"

"I use this area down here for worshiping the Lord most of the time. Bob joins me now and then. We both work daily to keep this place up and running. We take care of the plants and greenery to keep the place beautiful, and work to keep the water in the river and pond purified. And we also grow our own fruit on the jungle's trees. For the longest time we were just living off of marshmallows and hot dogs, but decided to give that up for the best interest of our health."

Elora looked up and saw the sun beginning to set, even though their skies always had that color during the day.

"Well, thank you very much Stella for your time. I think we need to get going, but I'm sure this information will really help Aragon."

"Oh it will! This is great! Thank you."

"Come back any time. I always enjoy the company of visitors."

The two went back up the stairs and through the portal back to Summer Forest.