Floress raised his sword and brought it down right on the stone. The large rock radiated with so much powerful energy, it raised Floress off the ground. The cave began to fill with blinding, excruciatingly bright yellow light, and started to rumble and shake.

But Floress scrunched his eyes up in concentration, fixated on the stone. With a loud, unearthly screeeeeeeech!  Like a cart stuttering to a halt on the polished marble roads of Caprilus, the Gryffin shaped rocked split with a loud, groaning crack and an unearthly wail. 
Floress closed his eyes but dared not cover his ears and kept his fingers firmly on his sword as the stone screeched again, the sound of a large bird of prey.

Like a gryffin.

Then, the cave stopped shaking, the brightness faded to pitch  black. Floress stepped forward boldly in awe,  towards the crumbled and cracked rock. He slowly bent forward and pulled apart the two halves and gleaming there, brighter than the brightest stones, was the lost talisman of Asjafathur.

Trembling, Floress reached a gloved hand towards it. Then, he hesitatingly pulled it back. He had explored countless caves, faced unmeasurable dangers for these precious artifacts. this was surely a trap. But the red gleam of the ruby reflected in his eyes, and his excitement out measured his wisdom and he reached out and grabbed it.
Floress held the large gold gryffins in his hand, in ecstasy for a moment, before the cave started shaking.

The voice in his head screamed at him, "RUN!!"

Floress scooped up his fallen bag and ran for the exit, rubber boots pounding across the cave floor as rubble fell around him. With one hand, he covered his head and face to block it from the rubble and the quivering cave and dove for the tiny opening. Suddenly, a fresh cascade of rocks slid in front of the opening. 
Floress jumped up and looked wildly about for any trace of the light of the surface. He saw a opening, the size of a small horse, perhaps. It was perfect, just in reach of him and the cave had not broken it in yet.

Just a problem. He could not reach it, so high up above him. Floress knew he had no chance of climbing the rock walls while the cave was shaking. 

The light shone on the talisman in his hand and blinded him momentarily. 

"That's it!" he cried aloud. "The Talisman!"
He closed his eyes and concentrated(being extremely hard, since the cave was crashing down atop of him).
He remembered the gryffin summoning ritual. Floress opened his sack and took out the Pegasus bones. He got the precious jems ready. 

"I Summon thee gryffins, King of the Skies!" 

"That was dramatic." said a bored voice, interrupting his very impressive ritual. Floress looked around, green eyes wild.

Who else could possibly be in a dangerous cave as this?

Floress saw a girl, probably exactly his age lying in a crevasse in the wall. He stared. She was ordinary, much like all the peasant girls in the city. She could definetely even be an older versoion of his sister Emmeline. 
Except- she was pure gold. Not like the color, but she seemed to be made of gold. He stared. 

"I get it," she assured in an irritated voice. "I was cursed, blah blah blah, you're not the first person who was in here goggling at me like that, blabh blah blah, you probably want to steal me and sell me too, blah blah, blah."

"er, I think you have nice eyes," he blurted awkwardly as the cave self-destructed around him.
The girl's eyebrows traveled up her golden forehead. And there was a tiny freckle on there too, like silver maybe? Floress couldn't stop staring at her.

"Really?" she said finally. "You're the first one to say something about me beside my gold. I deem you trustworthy,"
She giggled, using a pretend booming voice. As a rock crashed down and nearly knocked him out, Floress smiled. "I'm Floress. You need help getting out?"

"Yeah. I'm Simrah. And..I think you're gryffin's over there."

Floress jerked out of his trance and whipped around to see and very shabby gryffin arrive. It was nothing like the majestic, impressive drawings of the gryffins back home. It wasn't wearing precious jewels and chains of gold. It's feathers were a muted orange-brown.
In fact- it looked kind of depressed.

That was when Floress saw it's wings entangled and pressed together by an arrow piercing through them.

Ouch. Thought Floress. No wonder it looked so pitiful. Gryffins were meant to fly. 
Floress slowly and carefully approached the wild creature, whose neck hanged down sorrowfully. His eyes wouldn't meet Floress's. Floress held out the taming talisman and the pegasus bones and jewels. He carefly watched as the gryffin bowed it's head to Floress, tamed. Floress petted him.
Simrah watched fromt he wall.
"All right, buddy, well we're not going to be able to get out of here with those wings. I should help you out." 
He held out a roll of bandages and some alcohol and medicine and reached for the gryffin's wings. But the once tame gryffin suddenly reared and bucked in panic. 

His screech sounded just like the one the rock had emitted before. Floress saw the fear in the gryffin's eyes. Much like Floress's own everytime he went to the doctor.

He remembered his mother scolding him for being so reckless and getting hurt.
"This won't hurt a bit." the doctor had said, holding up an injector to put medicine in. But OH, it hurt.

"It may hurt." Floress whispered softly to the injured Gryffin, stroking his golden feathers. "But we have to get out of here because this whole cave is going to collapse. Understand?"
After much soothing talk, and maybe some calming magic fromt he talisman, Floress was able to clim onto the gryffin's back and pulled out the arrow and the gryffin shrieked but stayed still. 
Then Floress bandaged up the wing and put medicine on the gryffin, who nuzzled him gratefully. While the gryffin enjoyed his snack of sapphires, Floress ran to Simrah and pulled her out with great difficulty.

The mounted the gryffin and together soared out of the cave, which rumbled and fell in behind them. 
"You have a way with gryffins." whispered Simrah, as the gryffin(named Gryffin) shrieked joyfully doing loop-de-loops.

"I know."