Finding the general direction that the dragon might have gone after having killed almost the entire adventuring party was really a stroke of luck, but it wasn't close enough to find the dragon.
After having discovered the dragon's trail we spent six days to find a new clue to the dragon's whereabouts. During this period, we have covered a large area, splitting into three groups to cover more ground and because of this the wolves have been very annoying friends who come to visit us every day.
The north is really full of wolves, but as we are still in a slightly safer area, the leader of the wolf packs and only one white wolf, a magical beast of the ice element. This wolf's bite is quite dangerous, it not only pierces but injects the wolf's ice element into the victim's body.
As a warrior I can sweat my aura to get it out of my body, but if one of the mages on the team were bitten by the wolf it would be very difficult to treat him, the wolf's ice element is not a type of poison, but in a short period I fear the energy of the ice element that concentrates the wolf inside the mage's body and lowers the victim's body temperature until he loses consciousness.
The normal beasts in the north are pretty troublesome when you don't have the fire element like me, nor did I have to struggle for my arrow to kill the pack leader the fire element on the arrowhead fortified with my aura and enough to kill any enemy here below level three in that region.
The clue we found was a location the dragon must have hunted for one of its meals, the combat area was quite small but it used its breath to kill its prey before landing and picking up her charred body. From the size of the depression in the ground that showed that the dragon's target was quite different from the adventurers, I think it was a bear which is a bit rare in this area with few forests and rivers.
But far away there must be more of them, but as the dragon used its fire element it left the same kind of trail I found before, and with the new direction to go we found the dragon's nest in no time.
He made his makeshift nest in a cave under a hill, near some trees. This area is very deserted and a cave there made it well hidden and by the size of the hill it shouldn't be a very big cave even after he dug to enlarge it.
That was the main visual index, in front of the cave the churned earth that still hasn't been covered by grass showing that the dragon must have only made its nest there a short time ago, a few months and not years. If he had been here for several years, sleeping after hunting some food between the time he spends sleeping in front of the cave, it would be much more natural, grasses and herbs would have already dominated the surroundings of the cave.
Of course, I saw the dragon at a much greater distance from the cave, the mana and fire element of the dragon makes it a very easy spot to find in an area like this, guiding the team closer after leaving the mounts far away from the cave was not so hard not to wake the dragon and when the rest of the team saw the entrance to the cave no one had any doubts that we found the dragon's lair.
We retreat to talk, since the dragon's nest is so small, we'll have to change our combat strategy a little, not how to fight inside that cave so we have to find a way to get him out of there.
Obviously, this made it difficult for us to do a surprise attack on the dragon, it's a pretty suicidal action to sneak up on a small dragon in a small closed cave without the ability to retreat easily, the dragon will end up ripping the idiot apart easily and if he's fast enough to start running out of the cave he will end up burned by fire before he reaches the cave entrance.
"What are we going to do with the dragon? We have to come up with some plan before dark."
"Since the cave is so small, we have to get the dragon out of there, don't we?"
"Yes Alice, but we have to do this outside, since no one is suicidal to go poke the dragon inside the cave."
"We can unleash a barrage of long-range blows on the dragon, many mages here. I doubt this will keep him inside the cave for a long time, but if the attacks delay him a few seconds my curses will start to take effect on him before he leaves the cave, I will use curses that have a stacking effect on the dragon, only after that I will use it the curses of weakness in him."
"Do you have to make eye contact with the dragon to curse him?"
"Usually yes, but as he must be the only living being inside the cave and his body is quite big and contains a lot of mana I can hit him with some curses outside the cave, but these curses are not the best and the most Useful ones use up a lot of mana and elemental energy."
"But are they useful if they have time to work on him or make him more susceptible to attacks from others?"
"I have the curse of blindness, disorientation and hypersensitivity that can be useful is a classic combo and pretty nasty when it works, but they take a while to kick in and to strengthen their effect they have to start working before the dragon leaves the cave. When the target who is suffering these curses is found in a new location the curse becomes more effective because the target has no memory of the location, the more objects, colors and movement in the new environment the more confused the target becomes."
This is a very interesting combo, very useful for our fight.
"I think these curses are going to be very useful, with all of us moving around the dragon and attacking it along with shadow element spells to restrict its movement and possible rain on top of the dragon, the curses should have a big effect on it. Only now we have to find a way to keep the dragon inside the cave until the curses take effect, any ideas?"
I thought it would be difficult to get an answer, but Hilda surprised me by giving me an answer right away, and it was one I should have already had.
"Just blow up the cave and bury the dragon, a classic move of yours, the cave is not very deep so it shouldn't take a lot of firepower to do that, but as it is a very dense cave since the dragon must have expanded her, should be enough to hold him for a while."
"Ulric can manufacture his explosives until nightfall and when the dragon is getting hit by the curses he will be buried and have to dig his way out of the cave and that should buy us enough time for the curses to work to their full capacity."
Great idea that generated different reactions from team members.
"You're crazy, but I like that plan."
"Did he blow up a lot of things?"
"This is going to be a lot of fun, but will the dragon be hurt by the explosions or by the earth that will bury it?"
"I doubt it, the dragon's body is too tough to take damage like that, Alice."
"But can he suffocate if he stays buried too long, Skadi?"
"It would have to be a long time without air, Alice."
"Okay, everyone behaves. We're still close to where the dragon is and I doubt your hearing is bad, I'll start making the explosive runic arrangements, but remember to stay silent, don't cook anything and cover the horses with dust to hide their scent, we We're going to be standing here for a long time and their scent might reach the dragon."
I went to get the materials for crafting runes that I always keep with me and the explosives that are already ready, I won't have to craft many rune arrangements and because of that I have enough time to finish them before nightfall, I just hope that the dragon does not wake up alone or that they allocate the chord.
That would be too bad for us, normally it would be smart to put a watchman, but as the watchman would only be an even greater risk since he can't interfere with anything that was going to wake the dragon without waking it up with his movements is adding to the fact that if the dragon wakes up, we can easily discover its movements a watchman made something useless in this situation.
"What are we going to do until tonight?"
"Because you won't go to sleep, we still have many hours to go before we blast the dragon. The fight will be tough, so it would be nice to have everyone well rested."
"Good idea captain, Raziel keep watch while we rest."
"Why me?"
"Skadi is right, you should keep watch. The main mages and warriors should rest well, your role is not so big in combat, you will only serve as a support for the shadow element spells that will bind the dragon."
That was a cruel blow to Raziel's pride, poor thing. But I'd better focus on my task, in a few hours we'll finally be hunting the dragon.