Chapter 31: Chapter 31

The soft rhythmic bubble of the magma surrounding me fills my placid dreams with visions of gentle rain and thunderous clouds. My grandacious red dragon form soaring through the dusk air propelled by my mighty wings like a noble hawk flying through the trade-winds of the world, propelled from one jet-stream to the next as I visit places I could never imagine with a waking mind. Places green and luscious, filled with people, humans, who don’t hate me. Animals who don’t fear me. With comrades and friends flying at my side following the wake of the grand beast we pursue. Not in furor or rage, but simply for the purpose of doing so. To fly for the sake of flying, to live for the sake of living.

  I feel the touch of the dewy air on my skin as the gale grows more turbulent around me and the storm grows wilder and the night descends unto this imagined vision of a perfect world. As I fly through that final dark thundercloud on the horizon, chasing after the shadow of a man I can never hope to reach, everything shifts. Where is everyone? I look around but see no figures beside me anymore. No people, no animals, no friends. Papa? Where are you? There is no one else here anymore. I fly alone through this dark place, the echoes of the coming storm I have submerged myself in ringing out aloud all around me in a twilight barrage heralding the end of that day forevermore.

  Lightning snaps all around my dashing form as I dodge and weave, flying wildly, madly like a rabid bat escaping the burning maw of hell itself. Flinging myself in all possible directions in my frantic search for a way out. A way out of this place as the world around me explodes in a cacophony of supernatural light and booming noise. Where is it? Where is it? I don’t want to be here anymore. Papa. Hero. Adventurers. Anyone. Where is it? I don’t want to be here anymore. The world shakes as my body spasms with a violent jolt as the bolt of lightning strikes me as if sent by the dark-lord himself and I plummet.

  My wings are gone, burnt to ash by the divine punishment and I fall. I fall. I hear nothing but wind as I sink deeper, faster down towards the earth, towards the great flat plane beneath me. Yet despite my falling, the cloud, I never escape the cloud. It sticks around me like a dark aura, as if it was part of me, as if I was part of it. Together we fall, fall down at a speed I can’t describe. At a speed only possible in this place. I can barely see through the winds cutting into my eyes, ripping into my scales and into my meat. My body spasms as I try to flap my dessicated wings but there is no response to my desires.

  Like the plunging of a great spear through the heart of a demon-lord, down deep into the earth I strike. Like the bolt of lightning that struck me, I fly down penetrating the surface of the world, falling deeper, further down into that dark waiting for me below. Rock and stone explode around me as my body is smashed into earth, into dirt as I carve my way down; hewing a path into the darkness deep down below the living world. Only then, once I reach the very bottom of everything. The darkest place any creature can be. The final reach of the mortal coil, do I open my eyes again and I see nothing. I hear nothing. I float.

  Screeching a loud drake squeal I wake up in a panic, my legs kicking out beneath me in a scuffle, my little wings flapping in confusion at the uncertainty of my predicament. I barely manage to catch myself before I end up falling over again. Where am I? Where am I? I look around. Everything is as I left it. I am still here, I am still a drake. I am exactly where I left off. I blink, bringing some wet to my eyes. It was a dream. It was just a dream. My little heart is racing, I can feel the pulse shooting through each of my tiny clawed fingers, my small chest heaving. It was just a dream I tell myself again. I look over to papa, he is looking at me but sees that I just had a bad dream and goes back to sleep himself.

  I guess I really was asleep, like really asleep. Not dead asleep but actual sleep-sleep. When was the last time I had a nap? A real rest? Ah. I stretch my body upward, rising up to the tips of my feet and counter balance by flapping my small wings as I do so. I don’t know if I like sleeping anymore. It’s nice to not ‘be there’ for a little, but… are dreams always so wild? If that’s what sleeping is always like I don’t know if I want to do it anymore. I feel sad now. Lonely. Why?

  Looking around I wonder how long I was out for. I wonder if I had made a mistake by giving in to the drake’s urges to nap. I’m still alive so that means I wasn’t murdered in my sleep which is nice, it also means papa is still alive which is also nice. But I might have just wasted the time I needed, or? I mean. I guess if I die it’s no real loss either way but… hmm. Taking another second to stretch once again I walk onward down the magma tunnels.

  As I look at the magma surrounding me I wonder, can it hurt me? I don’t remember if drakes are resistant to magma. I think we are? Uh. I’m a little wary to test it out though for obvious reasons. I mean the heat is really cozy in here, it almost makes me tired. Maybe I should take a n-

 

No. No naps. Naps are forbidden from now on. Keep it together.

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  What am I looking for? Stairs. Stairs. Can the hero swim in lava? I guess not. Hmm. No, focus. Stairs. Stairs. Looking around the room I stare at a large geyser bursting out a wave of steam that shoots to the ceiling, creating a cloud like the ones from my dream. The secret stairs always seem to be in a place that’s hidden, obviously being secret and all, but more-so they’re hidden in a way that specifically the adventurers can’t find them easily. So where would that be here?

  The obvious answer is beneath the magma. Or is it lava? Hmm. I think it's the same but magma is beneath the surface and lava is above it buuut. What about here in the dungeon? I mean, we’re underground but it’s above the surface down here so…? Hmm. Well, magma. I like the word more so we’ll use that. That’s one possible place, the problem is that there is a lot of magma here so a lot of ground to cover. The other possibility is by the sub-boss, the red dragon, but I doubt it. There’s no real hiding spot there and it seems too obvious. I’d ask him where it is, maybe he knows like the great old-one did. But, well, there isn’t really a dracanoid language you know? It’s all screeches and squeaks and purrs but it doesn’t really mean anything in specific words.

  Oh well. I don’t need his help anyways. I roar, puffing my chest out as far as it will go, a minuscule puff of smoke emitting from my maw. Continuing my journey along the stream of magma intersecting the winding passages of the cavernous floor I eventually find myself on the very furthest side of the floor, right by the real stairs to the floor above. Right next to a great pool of lava. Looking at it I think about my fairy friend from the grand-treasury. I wonder if she’s alive on this run? Hmm. Looking around I pick up one of the useless gold coins in my teeth and with a sharp twist of my head send it flying out into the lake, right next to a tall rock jutting out of the center. I watch as a puff of black smoke rises out as it sinks away into the molten liquid. For a brief silly second I hope to see a slender fairy body rise out of it, out of the liquid fire, to ask me if I lost something, but that doesn’t happen obviously.

  Turning around just a little disappointed and waddling over to the real stairs, I decide to test an old theory I haven’t been able to until just yet. It is difficult, but I manage to climb up the first step by swinging my body up around it and then I move to take a step to the second. My small drake body freezes mid-motion as if somebody had trapped me with a time spell in that instant. No matter how badly I tell my body to move, to take that next step it doesn’t heed to my wishes. Okay. Real stairs I haven’t progressed passed are still off limits. Theory confirmed. As I stand there frozen in an awkward mid-stepping climb I regret my decision instantly. But at least now I kn-

Voices.

  I hear a group of voices coming down the stairs. Oh boy. Twitching with all of the strength I can muster I try to get my body to move, to leave, to run. I just got to start being a drake, I don’t want to die already. Come on, come on! The voices come closer as I hear the steps echoing down from the darkness above with an ominous cadence, like the banging of drums signaling a fresh war to come. Ah! I twitch myself free and fall over, plummeting down the single one step I managed to climb up. In mid-fall my tiny, useless wings flap and my weight shifts around and I land on my front. On my already sore face, on my tiny useless arms. Oh no.

  I shriek a terrified drake squeal. Papa! I shriek and fidget and twist and shift, but it’s no use. A baby drake is a lot like a turtle in the sense that if it falls in a certain way it won’t be able to get up again. I think that’s true? Dunno. Only when I get older and my arms are longer can I help myself up alone, but that getting older part is going to be tricky! Papa! I scream and squeal like a newborn being slaughtered. Which, I suppose, is an apt metaphor. Papa can’t hear me though, I am too far away.

  The voices grew silent as my pleading with the universe began. The steps however did not. Louder, closer I hear them coming. I hear the metal boots, the leather boots and even the silent tip-tap of the thief-girls cloth shoes. My panicked mind is taking in every little sound and detail. They are right behind me. Oh gods, this is it! Dark-lord have mercy! I squeal and squirm like the wyrm that I am.
They are talking. Their tones are different and vary wildly. My mind envisions all the way they’re thinking of to kill me. One of them is yelling at another.

  I feel a hand grab my neck from behind and I prepare to hear a snap and for my tiny body to go limp beneath me, for my soul to leave this vessel and to respawn again. Sorry I was a bad kid papa. As I rise into the air I kick and claw at nothing with my stubby useless limbs. Damn this body! I am being turned around. In that instant as I prepare to snap my jaws shut at anything I can reach, to spit a little puff of fire at anything I can see. I see the wizard-girl holding me upright with both hands. A look of curious wonder on her face as she stares into my yellow eyes, into my black-slit pupils like a child with a new-found treasure. Her gaze practically sparkling.

Huh?

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