"Let us discuss other options," Hadofi proposed as he motioned back toward the table to sit. "I shall explain. I'm not here by choice. I was forced here. I'll provide more snacks, a few drinks, and you should provide a bag of gold, and I'll tell you a story for the ages."
As the draconian turned his back to walk toward the table, his defenses seemed to drop a little. There seemed no way to defeat this half-elf demon. Before his forcefield dropped, Hadofi summoned his last golem, but the dragon suspected treachery and was ready. Hadofi threw himself before the golem to protect it from the crushing blast of wind. In turn, the golem produced the stone lance that attacked from above this time, but the dragon was ready.
Hadofi's shield vanished as he had predicted exactly where and when the dragon would land. He turned the chamber floor to mud in the same instant. Fear flashed in the draconian's eyes as he sank waist-deep into the cold, sucking slurry. He quickly tried to fly with magic straight up, desperate to escape the trap as fast as possible. But a second stone lance from the golem surged downward from the ceiling, and he flew straight into it. The jagged point pierced him through the shoulder as he twisted to evade, slamming him back down into the mud head-first with a wet crunch.
"Breathe rock," Hadofi cursed under his breath as he activated the wand again. The mud hardened instantly into unyielding stone, locking the dragon's upper body in place. In desperation, the dragon shifted back to its original colossal form. Its massive head broke free with a roar, but the bedroom chamber was far too small for its true size. Stone cracked and groaned under the strain of expanding muscle and scale. Furniture splintered, the steel bed frame twisted like tin, and the air filled with the metallic tang of blood and crushed rock.
Hadofi, heart pounding, used the wand to phase through the nearest stone wall back into the main cavern chamber. The golem, as instructed, had already grabbed the dragon's egg and merged with the rock, circling back around to rejoin him. Behind the wall, the dragon's roars turned to agonized bellows as bones cracked and wings tore against the unyielding stone of the mountain. Tables, chests, and furniture were smashed to kindling. A jagged piece of the four-poster bed impaled one forelimb. The once-beautiful silver statue of the dragoness drove straight through an eye with a sickening pop. One of the heavy blue banners, embroidered with ancient runes, got caught in its teeth and parts of it became trapped in its throat.
Hadofi could see the wall buckling under the pressure from within. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, dust bursting out. He focused his mana and spell sculpting, waiting for the moment the wall broke. As soon as it did, his stone lance shot forth, one foot in diameter at its base and fifteen feet long. It erupted from the cavern floor and angled sharply toward the exposed parts he could glimpse through the fractured stone. The first strike clanged off steel plates with the high pitch of impact, but that was when he noticed the flaw. In the perpetual cold of the mountain lair, the slightly corroded plates of such an ancient beast had shrunk just enough to create gaps where rust and neglect had taken their toll.
He launched another attack while mentally commanding his golem to slip back inside and target an eye or other weak point. The second lance struck true, embedding itself between two rusted plates and penetrating deep into flesh. The mindless golem was crushed to death by flailing limbs as it tried to find another angle of attack. Hadofi, undeterred, came up with an even better plan. Instead of summoning a fresh lance, he reshaped the existing one into a grotesque stone tree. Branches sprouted outward, each tipped with thorns four or five feet long. Blood poured heavy down the shaft, the pressure inside the chamber forcing it out in a gushing river that mixed with the piles of coins scattered across the cavern floor, turning gold and silver slick and crimson.
The creature, barely alive, managed a couple more death throes. Its convulsive shudders cracked more stone, before a notification finally popped up: Level up x4. Hadofi breathed a sigh of relief and tried to come to terms with the fact that he was all alone here in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. "That bitch tried to kill me!" he screamed. The cavern suddenly felt vast and empty, its dim glow from scattered luminescent mana crystals casting long shadows over the blood-slick hoard.
He had twenty minutes to explore, shielded from whatever dangers lay ahead, so he spent his new skill points and started walking down the long cavern tunnel while reviewing his new spells. "Now we're getting somewhere," he muttered, admiring Fireball, Haste, and a handful of others that promised real utility. The forcefield wrapped him in warmth, warding off the deepening chill as ice began to crust the walls in glittering sheets. Dripping water echoed in the distance, and the air grew thinner, sharper.
Suddenly a rock he stepped on clicked. A huge boulder dropped from the ceiling, slamming onto his head and cracking in half, each piece rolling off to the side with a thunderous crash. The divine shield absorbed the impact without a bruise, but it reminded him how careless invulnerability could make him. He searched his new spells for something that might help when he was not protected, perhaps a Detect Traps or a levitation variant, and kept moving. He would have to find time to start memorizing all the spell descriptions. His memory recall was basically photographic now.
He had been walking a while, boots crunching over frost-rimed stones, until only ten minutes remained on his timer. He reached the exit: a wide cliff mouth framed by frozen moss and grass, rimed in thick ice and snow. The opening plunged straight down a couple thousand feet to the valley far below. Hadofi leaned forward carefully, peering over the edge. The drop was sheer, wind howling up the face like a wailing ghost. He wondered if the forcefield would protect him should he fall from this height. He decided it was best not to test it.
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It was his understanding that this was winter, and he certainly hoped the dragon had not been lying, because if this was summer, he needed to find a new planet. He jested to himself, like he had the power to move. He couldn't even move continents; he didn't even know where the equator was. He took in what information he could with the skills he had. The valley sprawled beneath him, a frozen white basin ringed by jagged, snow-capped peaks that stretched in every direction as far as he could see. No roads, no smoke from distant fires, no sign of civilization. Giant eagles wheeled on thermal updrafts far below, their cries faint but piercing. Grizzly beasts roared their dominance somewhere in the shadowed forests, the echoes rolling back up the cliffs like thunder. The wind carried scents of pine and wet stone. He could smell the faint bite of snow and the distant musk of large predators marking their territory. The silence between roars was profound, broken only by the low moan of wind through fissures and the occasional crack of ice shifting on the cliffs. The mountains rose like silent sentinels, their flanks scarred with avalanches and frozen waterfalls that glittered like frozen lightning in the pale light. Hadofi felt very small against that immensity. The sun would soon set, and with it the temperature.
On one hand, he was safe from almost any creature finding its way in here, the entrance smelled of dragon and the sheer drop deterred almost anything. On the other, he was literally in the middle of nowhere with no one else to help him. He thought of Mars, the warmth of the cabin, the laughter. But his mind drifted to Badb and her mischievous smile, the way her feathers brushed his skin. The quiet moments with her were special, after everything else had burned away. He missed the girls more than he expected: Hebe's gentle teasing, Elea's quiet strength, Oshun's strange calm. But Badb most of all. Her laugh that cut through any darkness, the way she curled against him like she belonged there. The memory stung sharper in this frozen quiet.
With no other immediate threats, he tested a few new buffs that layered speed, agility, and mobility enhancements, feeling his body respond with unnatural lightness. He considered how to make a fire here in the stone cavern. He might be able to melt stone, but it wouldn't stay warm long. He needed a source of fuel. He could burn the wardrobe closet, and perhaps some clothes if they were inside, but how to deal with the giant dead dragon blocking it all in. What else might be trapped inside? Surely it had more treasure than just coins. The only treasure he truly cared about was magic items that would actually help him survive. Something to make fire, or create a warm safe place. He needed to start with this as his base for now. From here he could work his way out and explore his surroundings. Coins up here seemed rather pointless at the moment, although he was sure they'd come in handy at some point.
He stood at the edge a moment longer, the vastness of the mountains pressing in from all sides, and felt the weight of solitude settle deeper. Eight more minutes of safety. Then the shield would fade, and the real world would begin. "I'm not dead yet!" He screamed from up high, announcing to the world his arrival, as it echoed through the valley. He wasn't afraid anymore.
He started his way back, testing his buffs and searching for things in the cavern walls that he might have missed. On his way back, while multitasking, he found his saving grace. One of the newest spells he'd just acquired would create an unmoving fifteen-foot-diameter opaque sphere that would maintain an internal temperature of 60-70 degrees F for ten hours straight. When it ended, it could just be recast, and it lasted long enough to get a good night's sleep. He made sure to get back to the blood-soaked chamber before his shield ran out. He sat inside his new orange sphere, delighted that it was transparent from the inside and could provide the warm glow of light if needed.
He reached into his magic box and pulled out one of Elea's carefully wrapped meals: thick bear steaks seared with herbs, still warm somehow in the box's magic, paired with crisp apples, tart berries, roasted root vegetables glazed in honey, and a stoppered flask of spiced apple cider that steamed faintly when opened. The scents filled the sphere; smoky meat, sweet fruit, cinnamon and clove. Only now did he appreciate Elea. He ate slowly, savoring each bite, letting the warmth spread through him. The cabin flashed in his mind: Badb playfully stealing bites, Hebe laughing almost always covered in blood (she'd love some dragon meat to eat, he joked), Elea quietly refilling mugs while flirting with Badb. The memory ached. He missed them. He missed the noise, the warmth, the feeling of not being alone. Badb most of all. Her teasing voice, the way she'd nuzzle close when no one was looking, the promise of more nights like the ones they'd stolen. He swallowed hard. Badb had been taken from him like Mars. He pledged revenge against the bitch queen. As he set the empty plate aside, he leaned back against a stone bed he had shaped for himself.
The battle and the relentless magic use had drained him more than he realized. His muscles ached, his mana channels felt raw, like overused muscles after a marathon. He was not yet accustomed to the energy toll of casting. He summoned three more golems. Since his new level allowed the increased capacity. Quickly he set them to work. Their first goal was to exploited a natural nook and fissure in the cavern wall near the cave mouth and used their stone manipulation to help cut blocks of stone out of the cavern wall. Here they created a cold storage room where the temperatures could freeze flesh and hide. Once they'd used up their magic, they turned their attention to the corpse of the dragon. Slowly they pried off and stacked steel scales. Hadofi let one of them use his battle axe that was stored in his box; the others used stone crowbars and other stone tools that Hadofi sculpted with magic. When they broke them, he made new ones. Little by little they dragged slabs of dragon meat to the cold storage over two thousand feet away. The golems never tiring, never taking a break. They might have been his best choice.
Hadofi watched for a few minutes, then lay down on the stone bed. The warm light dimmed to a soft glow as he willed it. His eyes grew heavy. The rhythmic thump of golems working blurred into white noise. He let sleep take him, the sphere's warmth cradling him like a forgotten promise of safety. Tomorrow he would plan more and explore. Tonight, he simply rested.
