Callie carefully led their party through the mountain
tunnels rumored to be the home of many wyrms. They could’ve taken the pass or
bought passage on a ship around the mountain range that stood in between them
and Talama, but to pass up the chance on stumbling across mounds of treasure
was unthinkable. Even those these wyrms, flightless dragons, were less of a
threat to the surrounding areas than their winged brethren, but a dragonkind is
a dragonkind, and they always hoard massive amounts of treasure. The heat in
the tunnels was slowly increasing the farther they walked down them. It was too
steady and constant of a heat to be coming from the wyrms, leaving a lava flow
to be the only logical answer.
“Shade?” Callie asked quietly, “I’m burning up in my armor,
got any magic for that?”
Shade shook his head at her, “No ma’am.”
“Dammit!” She cursed.
“But I do have a normal potion for that.” Shade chuckled,
“Or the ingredients for it at least. Give me a few.”
Callie rolled her eyes at Shade, “Alright, we’ve been walking on for a few hours already, could use a good break.” She stopped and rested up against the black walls. Rede, who was behind her carrying a torch sat down on the floor.
“Can’t imagine how toasty it is for you, Callie.” He said,
“I’m just wearing light robes and I’m sweating like an orc.”
Callie looked down at him, “Let’s just say I want to go
skinny dipping in an ice lake right now.” She took off her helmet revealing
streams of sweat pouring down her face.
Rede whistled, “It’s times like this I’m glad I stuck with
robes.”
“Gorgos hot. Gorgos not like.” She grumbled as she leaned on
the wall next to Shade while he pulled a small alchemy kit from his trench
coat.
“Sorry, Gorgos.” Shade said, “The potion I can make is only
good for those who wear tons of armor. It’d freeze you on the spot.” Gorgos
groaned at Shade and he shrugged, “Not that’d it help much but considering you
just wear some rags…you wouldn’t be losing any protection if you took it all
off.” As Gorgos went to rip her rags off Shade continued, “As long as our
companions won’t care.”
Callie shook her head at Gorgos, “Go for it dear,” She said,
“If the boys can’t handle it then that’s their problem.”
Gorgos immediately tore them off and sighed happily, “Helps
little.” She handed her rags to Shade who put them in his pocket.
Walker shook his head and Rede rolled his eyes at Callie,
“We’ll be fine.” Rede said, “Hell if my stuff wasn’t enchanted I might join.
Right Walker?”
Walker chuckled, “These leathers of mine only come off when
I’m either washing them or myself now-a-days. I couldn’t care how hot or cold
it might be, I trained to withstand it all.”
“So did I,” Callie said, “but this-“
Walker cut her off, “But you’re in massively thick armor.
Even with training that’s gonna hit you hard in the heat, especially this heat.”
Shade finished brewing the potion together and held it out
for all to see. It was a bright blue with white speckles floating around within
it like snowflakes on a winter wind. Shade smiled and walked over to Callie,
“Move your hair out of the way.” She told her. Callie looked at Shade weirdly
so he spoke up again, “I need to pour it under your armor to get it as close to
the skin as possible.”
She slowly pulled her hair up, “I’m wearing normal clothes
under this. Will it still work?”
“Oh yes,” Shade assured her, “Not to its full potential, but
it will still alleviate much of your problems.” As Shade was about to pour it
down her neck she paused, “It’ll feel pretty cold at first.”
“That’ll be fantastic.” She smiled at him. Shade shrugged
and quickly started to pour it all around her neck letting it drip and soak
down under her thick armor. Callie let out a gasp as the freezing cold liquid
soaked into her clothes wetting her skin, but it quickly turned into a sigh of
relief. “Oh my gods…” She whispered through staggered breaths.
Shade laughed as he finished pouring it down her and took a
few steps back, “Feeling better?” She asked her.
Callie was entranced for a few more seconds by the waves of
cold washing over her before she came back to her senses, “Miles better.”
Shade cracked his fingers and smiled at her while putting
away the alchemy set, “Always glad to see my work…work.”
Calie took a deep breath and calmed herself down, “We ready
to head onwards?”
“Hit it.” Walker told her as soon as Shade was ready. Callie
put her helmet back on and led the party further and further into the
mountains, feeling much cooler than before.
As they continued on their path Rede spoke up, “So I’m just
gonna say the obvious and point out that it’s probably safe to assume any wyrms
we run into down here are going to be fire and lava type?”
“Probably.” Callie answered him, “I mean the top of the
mountain is full of ice and snow and probably holds frost wyrms, but they’d die
in this heat.”
“What about poison ones though…?” Rede suddenly questioned
himself.
“They’d explode.” Walker said flatly. As Rede turned to look
back at him confused Walker continued to explain, “The gasses they use to
create their poison is almost always flammable. One inhale of a spark and they
would literally explode.”
“How do you know that…?” Rede asked him.
“Was firing off the signal arrow on one of my heists from
the far side of a…doesn’t matter what it was actually,” He quickly said, “What
matters is that part of the area was full of a gaseous format of their poison
and my fire arrow happened to land there.” He smirked to himself, “Sure made
getting in quite a bit easier…”
“What crazy shit haven’t you done?” Callie asked him.
Walker laughed heartily, “If I haven’t done it, I don’t know
about it.”
“Ridden a dragon?” Shade teased sarcastically.
“Hey now,” Walker warned Shade, “That’s a way more
complicated story than you’d think it’d be.”
Everyone stopped and stared at him flabbergasted. Finally
Shade finally spoke back up, “I don’t see how that COULDN’T be a complicated a
story!”
“Trust me,” Walker assured Shade, “Take how complicated you
think it’d be…and toss it out the window because I can guarantee you it was a
lot more complicated than that.”
“I call bullshit.” Callie said shaking her head as she
started leading them again.
“On my word!” Walker called to her, “It’s true!”
“Sorry, Walker,” Rede said, “I’m with Callie on that one.”
“Shade…?” Walker asked.
Shade eyed him, “You’ll have to tell us that story, but
until then I’m not buying, nor calling b.s. on it.”
Walker shrugged to himself, “I’ll take-“
“Guys…” Callie cut him off as she froze. Her eyes were
filled with wonder as she gazed out into a large cavern.
“GOLD?!” Rede asked running up to her. He also froze as he
gazed out into the cavern.
“And wyrms…” Callie whispered. Suddenly she whipped her
shields out, “INCOMING!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, prompting
everyone to ready themselves for battle.
.
.
.
Gorgos yanked one of her giant axes out of the skull of one
of the dead wyrms, “Fight good.” She grunted at them.
Callie slowly got back to her feet as Rede used his magic to
heal her while Shade handed her a potion for the pain, “Yea…” She groaned,
“That was…one hell of a fight.”
“You alright there?” Rede asked her as soon as he finished
with her burn marks,
“I’ve been worse.” She sighed heavily and downed the potion,
“Assholes came at me like moths to a flame.”
“No idea why,” Walker spoke up, “But they acted like no one
else even existed.”
“Well, that is my job.” Callie forced a chuckle out.
“You did it phenomenally.” Rede smiled at her warmly.
“Yea you did.” Walker said looking past her now, “She gets
first dibs on loot I think.”
They all stopped and looked in the center of the room at the
mounds of gold, gems, and other glittering objects. Rede whistled,
“Guys…guys…we’re rich…” He slowly started to chuckle, “We’re filthy rich…WE’RE
FUCKING FILTHY RICH!” He shouted out jumping in excitement.
Shade slowly leaned over to Callie, “He does know we can’t
carry all of that out of here…right?”
Callie shook her head chuckling while Rede ran up to the
mounds of treasure and started to roll on them, “Just…just let him dream for
the moment.”
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