The silence of the dark caves was interrupted only by the sound of dripping water and the trio’s steps. John’s and Stirwin’s steps, rather. Velka somehow managed to keep her front claws from scratching over the ground, while her feline hindlegs were naturally built for silent movement. By comparison, even with his Agility, John was a big, clunky hunk of meat and Stirwin simply didn’t care to be stealthy. With his presence he illuminated the absolute darkness of the caves, so that would have been a wasted effort anyway.

A shrine, or something quite like a shrine, appeared before them. A boulder with a top made even not through the careful work of craftsmen but the brutal strength of supernatural claws. Covered in trenches, the top was about as smooth as a twenty-year-old cutting board. Empty and of little interest to the trio, they left it behind.

“Lead the way, Velka,” John told the black and white feathered chimera. Her red eyes rose to him for a moment, the pupils narrowing from merely looking in Stirwin’s direction. She tilted her head. “Show us the path to shiny,” the Gamer added and made a leading gesture. “Lead the way.”

The Magryph took two steps and then looked over her shoulder. John and Stirwin followed. Slowly, Velka faced the darkness in front of her again. The crocodile’s glow illuminated several metres ahead, but left even more of the dark undiscovered. Beyond the cavern they were currently in were several winding tunnels that extended for unknown distances into the darkness. Proven by the appearances of the fabled monster all over this Kingdom, this was just the start of a vast network of caves.

Velka advanced and, after checking one more time the other two were following her, led them towards the leftmost of the tunnels. Sometimes she stopped, sniffing and looking at her surroundings. The magical machinations of her treasure finding must have been related to her other senses in some way.

‘Interesting,’ John thought as he passed by under Jack. Through Possession, he could feel the relative position of his Extension. ‘I suspected the hoard to be directly underneath the court. Guess Velka was just feeling the general presence of a way towards riches?’ He looked at Velka, who pecked at the ground a couple of times, before moving on. ‘Or perhaps we’ll have to move in some sort of downwards spiral.’

The second theory proved to be correct. Through tunnels either natural and craggy or excavated by massive claws, they continued to descend. Cockroaches the size of cats scurried in the deep. They stayed away from the trio. A single one ventured into Velka’s direction and was impaled by an Arc Lance before its feelers could touch the Magryph. Other, similarly oversized, creepy crawling insects hushed around in the dark. They became more numerous as the group approached an underwater lake that had a foul smell beyond stale and rancid.

Bones, animal and human alike, lay scattered across the stone shore. Stirwin opened his mouth and spewed out a ball of plasma with a loud ‘thud’. It launched across the distance, revealed massive piles of bones melded into a dark mass. The insects rapidly retreated from the light and the piles, on which they had been gnawing. The plasma landed in the lake and rapidly faded.

“Poop,” Stirwin stated. John snorted. “What?” The crocodile turned to his summoner with the most puzzled expression a lizard could muster.

“Just funny to hear a several millennia old godlike infinity elemental say that word,” the Gamer said.

“It is good that you still have an inner child,” Stirwin’s warm, deep voice remarked. With a concerned hum, he turned to follow Velka. The Magryph had no interest in the piles, nor did she feel anything at seeing so many humanoid bones stacked up. “How did they end in the creature’s belly, you reckon?”

“Raids and sacrifices,” John named the two obvious causes. “Obviously it eats when it comes out of here, and when they want it to remain down here, they need to feed it.” The light spirit nodded and they continued on.

They came across another source of water, a moving river, which was as clear as any natural spring could be. Velka stopped there for a moment and took several sips. It had been a few hours, after all.

Deeper and deeper they went into the darkness. John kept drawing a map inside his mind. While the Magryph’s senses could guide them to their target, relying on her to get back was not necessarily wise. Even if his own intellect and Velka failed him, he could just teleport out. Depending on whether or not he entered again where he left, that wasn’t a viable strategy, however.

‘I wouldn’t want this to end like Minecraft cave explorations,’ the Gamer thought, not too worried at the moment. He hadn’t raised his Mental Stats as much as he did to forget the way back. ‘I guess I could dig my way out if all else fails. Just need to keep moving towards Jack.’

They were almost underneath the Extension again. Before them, the tunnel opened up, growing suddenly from a pathway into a massive, natural chamber. They stood on top of a ridge that led down into a basin which was filled with things that reflected Stirwin’s golden light with polished brilliance. Gemstones, gold, silver and pieces which were artistically valuable. A true hoard and something that Velka exclaimed her excitement towards by warbling and meowing repeatedly.

“Stay.” John used his authoritative tone to prevent her from jumping down immediately. Obeying, the Magryph tapped on the spot and rotated in an eager chase of her own tail. The proximity of this vast wealth had her act as if she had just eaten catnip. Even her pupils were dilated. Then the earth began to quiver and Velka froze.

The sound of hundreds of pieces of gold moving filled the cavern with a cascade of pleasing rings. Red scales came into view. A four-legged long body with a long tail and neck but no wings. A flat, serpent-like head with two horns rose up to John. It was big enough to swallow him whole, but overall the dragon now before him was among the smaller he had encountered so far, if not the smallest. He would have to put a measuring tape to Dramar and this one to be sure which of the two was longer. Given that the black-scaled founder of the Abyss Auction also had wings, he was going to win in total size regardless.

John Observed the serpentine dragon and immediately smiled. ‘Level 107, regular dragon, nothing to fear,’ he thought. “Hello, Ssassathrax – I hope I pronounced that correctly.”

The dragon stopped in just mustering him to pull back. “I don’t remember ssharing my name with any misserable ssnack on thiss world,” Ssassathrax hissed, his toothless mouth lightly lisping every word. “Where do you come from?”

“Earth,” John responded.

Ssassathrax tilted his head. “That isss not a world I know,” he thought out loud. Then he leaned forwards again, until his snout almost touched John. “Which begsss the question how you know me, ssnack.” His tongue extended, a forked thing that would have slithered over the Gamer’s face, had he not smacked it aside.

“I’m not your snack,” the Gamer made clear, opening his inventory to equip his battle regalia. Level 107 wasn’t threatening, but it also wasn’t something he could beat with his hands tied behind his back. “I know your name because I have access to magic that tells me about those I Observe.”

The red, serpentine dragon hissed even more at both of his responses. “Then sstate your name and businesss, creature,” he demanded.

“I am John Newman and I will retrieve the silver fur on request of the king,” the Gamer responded. “See, I’m doing a bit of a… let’s call it societal advancement up there and he doesn’t want that, so he sent me down here. Presumably to have you kill me.”

“And you came knowing that?” Ssassathrax inspected John even more closely, while the Gamer kept close eye on every of the dragon’s movements. Although the majority of his lean body was still down there, a quick snap of his jaws could have ended Velka, and that was something John didn’t want to risk.

“I have my safety lines, should you have turned out to be stronger than me,” John responded. “Which you aren’t.”

Ssassathrax blinked slowly. Two lids covered and then revealed his green eyes again. Silence filled the cave.

The pink insides of the maw opened around John. Two massive fangs snapped out of the top half, dripping with venom. The bite was stopped by a purple flash. John barely felt the fangs and the lower jaw pressing against Particle Skin. Completely nullified by the expense of mana, the attack didn’t make him move. Slowly, the red dragon pulled back.

“Ssso it isss,” he admitted with an unwilling hiss. “Will you leave my hoard alone, if I give you the silver fur?”

“No and yes,” John said. Ssassathrax tilted his head in confusion and Stirwin gave his summoner’s leg a warning gnaw. Not wanting to be bitten in earnest by a party member that could ignore Particle Skin, John elaborated. “I have no real interest in the rest of your hoard. However, I’ve made it my task to improve conditions in this Kingdom. To that end, I give you an offer: come out of hiding and serve future rulers as an advisor. The wealth of this entire world will become your hoard, on the condition that you do not keep all of it around you at all times and that you stop eating humanoids.”

Ssassathrax made a sceptical sound and looked over his shoulder. Greedy and materialistic as they were, dragons were difficult to convince that wealth they didn’t sleep on was truly owned by them. If Dramar was anything to go by, it could be a success, however, if John made the case that a hoard in motion brought more shinies than a stagnant hoard. “You would have me give up all I currently have to advise my no-longer ssnackss?”

“You wouldn’t give up anything. Before I arrived, you were the strongest being in this world and after I leave you will be again,” John argued. “Manage the resources of the state and you will see that wealth keeps flowing back to you. Make the nation prosperous and more and more artists will take up the crafts and forge simple bars of gold into fantastic figures. You could commission paintings of yourself and have cooks prepare the finest meals for you, rather than having to raid what you can get from the border regions whenever you are hungry.” The Gamer stopped for a second, let all of the good points fall on pleased ears before he continued with the threats, “It certainly beats having to risk the anger of the people, doesn’t it? As powerful as you are, if ever the entire world wanted you gone, then they could kill you. You would take dozens with you, hundreds maybe, but eventually they would get you. I offer you a clean start and guaranteed security.”

“…And what if I refusse?” the red dragon wanted to know.

“Then I use your head and your hoard to earn me extra clout.” The Gamer’s blunt hostility caused Ssassathrax to snap back, as if he had just been slapped across the face. “I admit,” John continued in a more casual tone. “It’s not much of a choice, but you should be happy I give it to you in the first place. The list of your sins isn’t exactly short.”

If the dragon had been a human, John would have executed him on the spot. Hundreds were dead because of him. However, the dragon hadn’t eaten people for any malicious reason. For him, it had been a simple point of hunger. It would have been a waste to put a creature to death if it had talents that could be channelled otherwise. The dragon didn’t need to be reformed, just to be incentivized to work for the good of the world. Governmental systems worked best if they made awful people do the right thing for selfish reasons.