BECMI Chapter 69 – Preserved by Amber

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Sir Horn got the kill on the dragon, his Sword plunging into its eye as it tried to bite at him, ripping away his Shield and crunching it between its teeth just before he drove his brand new master’s-work Sword into a burning red eye and found the brain.

Cheers went up all around as the dragon went down, Duum waiting atop the Inn to pounce over and finding no need to do so.

“Cirru?” I inquired mildly over my shoulder.

“Yes, Mistress?” the dragon replied quickly, lowering her head down to me.

“We butcher this brute, and then we go raid its lair. Are you going to claim the lair there?” I asked her calmly, nodding to Hanvol. The mage took the cue and started calling out orders for cutting implements to render the dragon down, while I started up containers to salvage its blood… and calmly caught the nigh-invisible Dragonheart that slipped free of the body before it could dissipate, joining my collection of two other Red ones and going into a diamond which promptly turned honey-orange as it caught and contained the essence of the dragon.

“No, Mistress,” Cirru answered after a moment of thought. “It is a noble lair, with great prestige and position, and will quickly attract challengers for it I will be unable to defeat. I must abandon it and wait until I am older and strong enough to reclaim it!”

“Or build a greater one of your own,” I added to that, to which she simply inclined her head silently. “We will be to the lair when this butchering is done. Is there anything there to worry about in the interim?”

She hesitated. “Dawnburner had several servants in his lair, including a chimera. Doubtless they were to obey him. Now that he is dead…”

“We are going NOW. Picture the lair!” I reached up, put my hand on her head, while Duum swooped down next to me and her, completely ignoring the somewhat-larger dragon’s threat level to place his claw upon . “We’re going for the hoard!” I told the others, who basically just waved and kept at their jobs eagerly.

An ancient dragon of this size represented tens of thousands of gold in value… if they could salvage it fast enough!

Space flowed past with an eerily familiar feeling to the blue dragon, and she realized that she was moving sideways through Time across Space! She could feel it as clearly as the Portal below the Inn!

The essence of Teleportation used Time to cross Space! What, then, did one use to cross Time?

It did not matter, as suddenly they were on the ground below a great cave, large enough to fit two dragons comfortably. A glance around assured us that we were on one of the taller mounts in the Bleaklands, well above the frost line, with a commanding view of the terrain around… the perfect location for a dragon’s lair!

The chimera with the heads of an amber dragon, a brazen bull, and a golden lion halted in place when it saw them, a great sack in its jaws as the three materialized out of nowhere.

He barely had a chance to drop the pilfered coins when Duum was on top of him.

Crimson lights crackled and shifted like shadows of blood, and the three-headed monstrosity with outsized claws screamed in pain as the giant bat, easily as big as it was, somehow was over and onto its back, latching on with all four murderous claws and ripping at the brown scales that alternated with the golden fur on the creature, tearing open its flesh with devastating speed and promptly sinking massive jaws into the neck of the dragon’s head, the only one that could twist around to reach him.

The chimera kicked and hopped, and I watched it buck past me, knowing the fight was going to be over in seconds as Duum lifted his dewclaws and drove them into the necks of the bull and the lion, killing them instantly, before ripping and tearing out the scaled throat of the dragon’s head.

The sack of loot was already on a Disk and I was trotting into the cave, with the rather shocked Cirru hurrying after me, giving wary glances to my Bat.

-Dig out the heart for me,- I told my Familiar, as a small barrel condensed out of the ground, and a jet of crimson blood from an open wound arced through the air and rapidly began to drain the magical beast dry.

-Yes, Mistress!- Duum /replied happily. I hadn’t told him to save any of the other meat, so he was definitely going to enjoy himself. Reinforced scales, meat, and bone gave way under the shadowy crimson blades of his claws and teeth.

“Is that really your Familiar, mistress?” Cirru had to ask, shocked at Duum’s performance.

“Yes. Don’t worry about his slow performance, he’ll grow up someday.”

Her jaws snapped shut. She was entirely uncertain if she was powerful enough to fight the Bat… at least, not without Mistress’s magic helping her!

“What’s your nose telling you?” I was scanning for magic, automatically smoothing out the rough floor even as I trotted a few inches above it.

“No children, many monstrous creatures as prey.” I held up my hand, stopping her, and swirled a up, shattering a triggering trap designed to release lightning bolts through the area.

“The main path seems obvious. Any notes?” Despite there being no lights, we both had very good darksight, and she naturally knew the place intimately.

“Piercers on the ceiling to disable intruders, but they will not bother a dragon, or they become snacks.” She fixed her gaze on several of the stalactites above, which blinked back at her and stayed very still otherwise. “There are a number of small rooms off to the side where Mother and Father used to store their human attire and furniture, with some belongings. The side caverns there and there were for the rest of the family. My old cave was at the end of this branch,” she pointed out quickly.

“We will explore them all, although I doubt anything valuable remains in them, given the ego of an amber.” She nodded her head in agreement. “Is there a separate exit?”

She sniffed suddenly, raising her head. “An elevated one… I smell… wyvern? With draconic blood?” She sounded horribly affronted at the idea, like humans mating with chimps, or something.

“You did see that chimera had amber blood, and so the fellow was probably its father, right?”

“He…” She managed to wrinkle her nose somehow, despite the scales. “That is considered very… hedonistic, Mistress,” she managed.

“Were there pits before? I’ve had to close and seal two of them.”

She blinked, not having seen them. “None when I lived here...”

“Probably dug out with magic, then.” There was light ahead, reflected off stone, and the sound of wings flapping and urgent cries. “I feel heat. Subterranean flue connecting to a magma vent below?”

“So Mother said.” We came out into the main hoard chamber.

There were three wyverns of varying size in there, including one close to Cirru’s size. All of them had dark amber scales instead of black or gray-green, the normal hues, indicating these were probably also children of the amber dragon.

Cirru instantly lit them up with her lightning breath, a crackling, howling blast of tremendous power, certainly stronger than they had expected a blue dragon of her age to vent forth. Of course, they hadn’t had someone introduce them to the Breath Weapon Feats for dragons, and Breath Weapons had some major distance to them!

I flicked a flight of up dripping misting liquid air, and they converged on the two smaller wyverns as they reeled back from us, sparking and snapping with voltage. The two barely had a chance to scream before they were impaled and their heads frozen solid, while Cirru lunged at the other one.

It managed to get a flaming spray of burning death off at her, which she avoided with a contemptuous flick of her wings, closing the distance far faster than the half-dragon wyvern expected. Then she had somehow slipped past it, landed on its back, latched on with all four claws while her serpentine tail lashed around its neck, and her jaws clamped shut on its poisonous tail and took it out of the fight.

It was a wyvern, a drake without forelimbs only its wings. She, on the other hand, had four claws as well as wings to unleash on it as the two tumbled, her with its tail firmly in its jaws. Their wings battered at one another as they tumbled and writhed and smashed into the wall, scattered coins from the hoard around, and basically made a mess of the place.

But she had the advantage, tearing its back open with savage strength and draconic power, a lot of blood pouring out the gashes she was ripping open in it.

Her jaws finally closed, tearing off its tail and eliminating the threat of the poison there once and for all. The wyvern wanted to scream, but now her tail had also wrapped around its jaws, and it was helpless.

The crack of its spine going was the death knell as she dragged its head backwards further than it could bend, and it went limp beneath her. She promptly stood up and roared her success to the whole chamber, shaking it with the sound, wings spread and exulting in her victory.

“Forgot to up, did you?” I asked her, already erecting a square and Funf’s starting to stream all the coinage and other valuables scattered about the place into it for shrinking down.

She looked at me, looked at her claws, and then looked away in embarrassment. “You have to stop relying on me for those things, you know,” I chided her calmly, bundles of silks and a collection of fine candles, along with what looked like packages of spices, joining the flow. Truly there were a lot of things scattered about the place, some placed aesthetically, some gaudily, some just scattered around… including quite a few armor and weapons, but no remains, unlike the last lair I’d bearded.

She just sighed, watching me sweep up a truly monstrous hoard into the cube that would fit all of it without any problem. “I will go investigate the other chambers. Might I grab a couple extra , just in case?”

I waved three of them up from a Valence II, and she tapped them in passing, jumping and winging her way swiftly out of the chamber.

I drifted over to the gaping thirty-foot hole in the most interior position, a warm and rather smelly breeze laden with alien scents blowing from it.

Leading down into the Underdark. Based on the position… that should be goblin territory, below? The vent wound about, so there was no direct view to what was actually down there, but if her mother had investigated, there was a convenient food source if needed right there.

I didn’t recall the vent in my , but I hadn’t focused my attention on this area much, either. I could fill it in at a later point, although it was outside my base range from the Inn at this point.

Despite the heaping mass of well over two hundred thousand coins, many of them copper, loading all of them, plus scattered chests, coffers, caskets, armor, weapons, a couple ornate saddles and bridle sets, an entire mostly intact ornate carriage I , scattered carved statues, and other bric-a-brac, was fairly simple. Everything was inside the cube and in place within only a few minutes.

I wandered into the side caves she had mentioned, which were done in human size.

They were actually still intact, and rather tastefully appointed, with fine furniture, closets of clothing for both genders, mirrors, and a very large silk poster bed one could almost go swimming in, among other things.

A reduced basically all the belongings to scrolls or smaller in size, such that could handle them flawlessly. All of it went zipping out the door, basically cleaning the chambers out entirely, and were stacked neatly inside the Tapestry.

Then I got to work butchering the wyverns, a set of adamantine knives and tools coming out and wielded with just for this purpose.

Cirru was back a bit later, the having some few heaped trophies, coins, and minor gemstones on them, probably handed out to the kids or mementos of their own victories. I cleaned them up with a Cantrip and dumped them in the before shrinking it down to a roll of cloth and tossing it over my shoulder.

“I cleaned out the human-size chambers. Is there anything you need to secure?” I asked her calmly, handing her a hunk of the tail of the wyvern she had killed. She snapped it up without hesitation and swallowed it down gleefully.

Wyvern tail was a delicacy, so I’d be cooking the others up for the lads, and adding it to the Inn’s stores.

Cirruluxul looked around once more, her very pale blue eyes unreadable as she considered the place she had grown up in. “One day I will be strong enough to claim this for my own again… even if I do not!” she swore fervently, then just shook her head. “Let us go, Mistress.”

“Take a bite on the way out.” We were already in motion, I’d popped my Wings, and we were zipping through the short cave system with inordinate agility and control.

“That would be satisfying. I do not think I’ve ever eaten chimera,” she answered expectantly.

“Duum’s carving off a nice big haunch for you, and saved you half the liver. He said that is the best part.”

“I am partial to the backs of the ribs,” she admitted, without batting an eye as the entrance came up.

“So noted for the future.”

Duum was rather bloody, but the chimera carcass was in chunks scattered about, giving Cirru her pick of what to eat first. My Familiar indicated the liver on a section of bloody fur, and she plucked it up delicately, snaffling it down.

“Oh, that is rather good,” she agreed. “Quite fatty, with multiple accents to it, probably from its triple nature. Very good indeed. Is the muscle similarly striated?” she asked, bending in for a closer look.

“The nature of the muscle varied with the fur and scales and skeletal structure,” Duum informed her in very erudite tones, enthusiastically pointing out the different colors and fibers of the meat. “The dragon portion was a bit spicy and not to my liking, although I’ve had red dragon before and it wasn’t so, mm, pungent?”

“Ambers are mutant, derivative golds, rarer than them, and even more insufferable than red dragons, if one can believe that,” Cirru sniffed, and began to sample the meats Duum had laid out like a bloody and savage chef. He could clean himself off with a flick of energy, but it was actually more sanitary and appropriate, and certainly didn’t turn off Cirru at all.