Chris and Serena arrive back at the mountains and enter the cave at the foot of the closest mountain. Soon they are back in her old cave system.
The place is eerily quiet, now that there are no skeletons or other creatures.
Serena guides Chris deeper towards the dwarven hold. They walk for a few hours before they reach a massive stone bridge. There is a chasm below them that seems to go on forever. On the far side of the bridge, they can already see torches and movement.
They start to cross the bridge, but are stopped by ten heavily armored dwarves in the middle.
"Halt! Who dares approach the great gates?", the leader says.
"I am Chris, Lord of Amber Village. I have defeated a skeleton horde and its master. I would like audience with your Lord."
The dwarves surround Chris and Serena and escorts them across the bridge. As they come closer to the end, they see massive stone doors. A smaller gate starts to open on the side of the left door and they are brought inside.
They come into a massive hall with a large underground city. Great stone pillars shoot up far into the sky eventually reaching a ceiling. There is natural light illuminating the entire city, or as far as they can see. It seems to be coming from a massive crystal in the ceiling. There are lots of stone houses on each side of them and the hall goes on deeper into the mountain.
They are escorted to a stone keep with intricately chiseled details. It looked like depictions of the dwarves great history.
A gate opens and they are led inside. Once inside they are met with other guards with more lavish armor. The gate guards leave them in the care of the keep guards.
The keep guards escort Chris and Serena to a large hall with a throne. An old, but stout looking dwarf is sitting on the throne.
"I haven't had visitors from the outside world in a long time. I am King Stonebeard of the great Stonehold. Who may you be?"
"I am Chris, Lord of Amber Village. This is my companion Serena. We have defeated a skeleton horde and its master. Now I seek the cooperation of Stonehold.", Chris answers.
Stonebeard explains the dwarves' situation.
Deep in the mountains, the dwarves have stood against the Necromancer for years. However, that has not been their greatest threat. Something is stirring at the heart of the mountain. An ancient power is about to awaken.
"I thank you for defeating the Necromancer, but if you want an alliance with us, then I need to ask you to help us with another problem.", Stonebeard says.
"What do you want us to do?", Chris answers.
"I need you to go down into the depths of the mountain and find what is stirring there. We would greatly appreciate it if you could get rid of whatever is there.", Stonebeard says with a troubled look.
They go down into the depths of the dwarven mines together with a unit of dwarven soldiers. They tell Chris and Serena that they have had disappearances down here and that they don't know what monsters they may find. The worst possible threat would be to find an ancient dragon. The dwarves explain that dragons are their greatest enemy. Many holds have been laid to waste by a single dragon.
Soon, they hear something in the distance. It's a fierce roar.
They steel themselves and wait before going deeper. There is a bend in the tunnel ahead. A few moments later they see a large red scaly creature come out of there. It looks like a giant lizard or a dragon without wings.
"It's a red drake! Be careful, their claws are stronger and sharper than steel swords and their bite is worse. Most of them can't breathe fire, but it rarely stops them from getting their prey.", one of the dwarves says.
Red drakes are fledgling dragons that may eventually grow into powerful fire dragons.
"Do they have a weakness?", Chris asks and conjures a holy orb and sends it forth before waiting for an answer.
"Ice, they are vulnerable to ice.", the dwarf answers quickly.
The drake slashes the holy orb and it blows up without doing any damage.
Chris is not very skilled with ice and water magic yet. Instead, he tries to conjure chains to hinder its movement. He is successful and the drake is stuck, trying to pull off its chains.
Serena steps forth and conjures a barrage of ice spikes against the drake. Since it is still stuck, it has no way of dodging or defending itself. The spikes penetrate the scales of the dragon and it falls down, dead.
"Would a dead drake be worth anything? Maybe something for its scales?", Chris asks the dwarves.
"Uh, yeah. It is worth a lot. Since you are the ones who killed it, we can collect it and give you a reward later. However, we can't allow you to take it with you. This is after all part of our territory.", the dwarf captain answers.
"Okay, that works for me.", Chris answers.
Chris pulls Serena to the side as the dwarves are still examining the dead drake. "Could you show me how to conjure ice spikes?", he asks her.
"Yes of course.", she answers.
Chris tells the dwarves to rest for a while as he needs to practice a spell to counter red drakes. Chris and Serena practice for a few hours before Chris feels that he has gotten the hang of it. However, it is now late enough that they decide to camp for the night.
Chris summons walls to block off all the entrances to the small cavern they are staying in and they take turns keeping watch.
The next morning they are all feeling quite refreshed. They were many enough so that they could all sleep well. The watch shifts were short and the night was uneventful.
Chris takes down the walls again and they continue forward.
After an hour, they get to a large cavern with lots of precious metals in the walls. The dwarves are ecstatic and immediately start to investigate the ore veins. They even start taking samples of them with their pickaxes.
This causes a lot of noise and they soon hear massive roars coming from several tunnels leading deeper.
Soon they see red drakes coming out from multiple tunnels. Two drakes from the right, three from the middle, and one from the left.
This will be a tough fight. The dwarves are nervous and sweating. Talking about running away. Even their captain is considering a retreat.
The drakes are just standing there, watching them as a hunter watches its prey.
A few moments later they all pounce. Chris yells, "Run! We can't face them all at the same time. They won't be able to surround us if we make it back to the narrow tunnel. It is just a few meters back."
Serena tries to send off a few small ice spikes along the way, but drakes easily dodge them.
The dwarves are not as fast as Chris and Serena and they get caught before reaching the narrow tunnel. They form a circle with their shields high up.
The drakes pounce one by one and the dwarves are barely holding on. Their shields are quickly being torn apart and they won't last a minute longer.
One of the drakes has set its sights on Chris and run toward him.
"Can you hold off this drake?", Chris quickly says to Serena.
"Yes!", she yells back.
Chris sprints past the drake and easily dodges a swing as passes. He looks back and sees that Serena has just hit it with a small ice spike and draws its attention towards her.
Chris channels a lot of magic as fast as he can and sends forth a huge barrage of ice spikes on the two drakes that are on his side of the dwarves. They are pierced all over their bodies and shriek just before they die.
The dwarves quickly start running toward Chris and Serena. Serena also manages to slay the drake that was going after her.
Chris decides to try something new, so he gathers up a lot of mana in his right foot, and then when the last three drakes come at him, he smashes it into the ground while releasing the mana to create a lot of ice.
A shockwave of ice is created all around Chris and sharp ice walls are erected. The drakes are caught in the wall and are not just impaled, but sliced in half.
"Is everyone okay? I didn't expect it to be THAT powerful.", he yells out.
"Yeah, we are fine. Thanks to you. However, we won't be able to go on.", the dwarf captain shouts back.
"Why don't you go back and get some people to help bring back the red drake carcasses? We can carry on by ourselves and report back to you when we find something new.", Chris suggests.
"And don't forget about my rewards for slaying all these drakes. I will be keeping count.", he adds.
"Okay, that should be fine. We have seen that you can hold your own.", the dwarf captain replies.
Chris and Serena carry on deeper into the depths of the mountain. Now they are on their own. It is actually better this way. It would be difficult to keep the dwarves alive if they faced another group of drakes.