Chris and Serena are alone in the depths of the mountain. The dwarves left them after a fierce battle with six red drakes in a large cavern with four tunnels going out of it. The one they came from and three more.
They decide to split up and check one tunnel each. Chris heads into the left one. Serena goes into the middle one.
Chris finds a path leading down. He goes deeper until he hears a loud shattering noise. He runs back up and into the tunnel, Serena had taken.
He sees Serena come running toward him. He can see fear in her eyes, but she seems to relax a bit when she sees him.
"There are dozens of drakes chasing me!", she yells.
Chris steps past her and sees all the drakes. He musters all his energy and fills the entire tunnel ahead with icy spikes. They sprout forth from the floor, walls, and ceiling for many meters ahead.
The drakes cry out in pain, but then it is just quiet.
Serena looks back and then at Chris, then back again. She can't process what had just happened. Her mind is blank except for the fact that a moment earlier there were dozens of large and powerful drakes chasing her. Now they are all dead. Their corpses are mangled up ahead.
She takes a long breath and tries to compose herself. "Your power... It seems endless. No wonder you easily cleared out years upon years of my skeletons.", she says.
"I thought, even with you, that this would be an incredibly difficult battle and that I might not survive. Then, you just cleared them all out with a single spell.", she adds.
Serena is feeling relieved, tired, useless, and terrified of the man in front of her. "What would happen if I angered him? I'd be dead, or worse, without any hope of escape...", she thinks to herself.
"I am quite powerful, so don't worry. I will make sure that we make it out of here.", Chris says with a reassuring smile. He has no idea that his power also scares Serena.
He does see that she doesn't seem fully recovered after the ordeal and suggests, "Why don't we rest for a while? Let's head back to the cavern."
They rest for a while and then head back through the middle tunnel. They climb past all the red drakes and carry on further into the tunnel.
"Did you get to the end of the tunnel before they started chasing you?", Chris asks.
"Yes, it leads out into a huge hall with pillars and a very high ceiling. I didn't get to see more than that before they started coming after me, but it was a bit surprising to find something like that so deep in the mountain. Maybe it is an old dwarven hall?", she answers.
"Hmm, sounds like it. We should investigate it further.", Chris answers.
They soon reach the grand hall Serena had already found but was chased out of.
"This definitely looks dwarven, and ancient.", Chris says and looks at Serena with a worried look.
"Where are the dwarves that built it? What happened here?", he continues.
They hear thunderous roars from further into the hall. Two red shadows fly out from behind the pillars on each side of the hall.
"Dragons!", Serena calls out in terror. She starts running back.
One of the dragons starts to exhale an enormous flame.
Chris summons a massive wall of energy to shield both him and Serena from the dragon's fire breath.
There is a loud explosion as the flame hits the energy, but then both the flame and the wall of energy dissipate.
Serena is startled by the sound and turns around to see what happened. She is worried that Chris has already fallen prey to the dragons.
To her great surprise, he is still standing there. He seems intent on facing off against the dragons. She doesn't know what to make of it. A dragon, even a small one, is a terrifying foe that very few creatures can hope to rival. Even worse, there are two of them and they are fire dragons. Fire dragons are among the deadliest.
Serena sees that the stone floor in front of Chris has melted. Stone doesn't melt very easily, and yet he seems perfectly fine.
Chris summons several large energy javelins and sends them at the nearest dragon. It easily dodges all of the javelins and breathes fire again.
Chris blocks the fire breath with a new energy shield.
Serena is stunned to see Chris easily defending against a red dragon's fire breath. "How strong is he?!", she says to herself.
The other dragon swoops down onto Chris and tries to bite him. Chris sees his opportunity. He waits until just before the dragon bites him and steps to the side. He manages to avoid the bite and then he grabs the dragon by its neck. The dragon tries to shake him off, but Chris manages to climb atop the dragon.
"I have you now!", Chris yells with a sinister smile. He then summons a massive ice spear and plunges it into the back of the dragon. The dragon screams out in pain and falls to the ground.
Serena is shocked again. Chris has actually slayed that fearsome and terrifying beast. Once again, she resolves to never anger him.
The other dragon lets out a thunderous roar and starts to send flame after flame against Chris.
Chris blocks flame after flame and the dragon grows more and more desperate.
Chris is also summoning javelins, ice spikes, and different types of magic orbs and sending them at the dragon, but the dragon is too fast and agile. Nothing manages to hit it.
Chris yells back to Serena, "Can you summon skeleton archers or mages? I could use some assistance."
Serena is pulled back to her senses as she hears Chris yelling. "I will try my best, but I can't summon more than a few without the dark orb.", she yells back.
Serena summons a dozen skeleton archers and commands them to attack the dragon.
The dragon incinerates half of them in the next few seconds, but it takes attention away from Chris.
Chris conjures a large number of ice bullets and shoots at the dragon. The dragon is too late to react to Chris' wide attack and a number of bullets penetrate its wings.
The dragon becomes significantly slower with its wings damaged.
Chris takes this opportunity to summon half a dozen ice javelins and sends them at the dragon. Two of them impale the dragon in its chest and it falls to the floor. There is a loud sound as it impacts the stone floor.
Chris breathes a sigh of relief. Serena is too shocked to even do that. She is staring at the two dead dragons lying on the stone floor.
Just as they think that it is all over, they hear an even louder and deeper roar coming from deeper into the mountain. Then it is quiet again.
***
The ancient fire dragon Magmiranda is awakened by the dying wails of her children. Her anger pulls her out of her deep slumber and she lets out an earth-shattering roar.
Then, she feels an overwhelmingly strong aura coming from the direction of her dying children. She understands that vengeance is not within her reach.
Magmiranda has been known as the flying volcano, but even she is humbled by such a powerful aura. She has to gather more strength in order to avenge her children.
She flies out of the volcano where she has rested for millennia. At first, she doesn't know where to go, but then she feels a strong pull coming from the fortress to the South-West.
***
Everything is quiet again. Chris and Serena continue to explore the cave system for several more hours until they find themselves in a volcano. Most of what they find there seems to be at home in a volcano, but there are some massive marks that don't seem natural. There are formations in the walls and floor that look almost like they were made by claws.
"This does look a bit strange, but nothing could be big enough to make marks like that, right?", Chris says to Serena and shrugs his shoulders.
"Unless it is an ancient dragon...", Serena says with a worried look.
They start their journey back to the dwarven hold. Roughly halfway there, they are stopped by a small group of dwarven warriors.
"The ancient dragon has left! We are free!", they shout gleefully.
...
"So you knew of the ancient dragon living in the volcano?", Chris asks King Stonebeard with a deep frown on his face.
"Well I couldn't ask you to chase away an ancient dragon, now could I?", Stonebeard answers with a guilty look on his face.
"In the end, it all worked out quite well. Don't you think so? You are still alive and we no longer have to worry about dragons in the mountain.", he adds with a sly smile.
"You owe me for this. Big time.", Chris answers with a stern look.
"Now now, don't be so serious. This is a joyous occasion. We shall reward you handsomely and join you as allies. Everyone wins!", Stonebeard replies and tries to shift the mood.
"I have a bad feeling about this, but at least I have the alliance I wanted.", Chris thinks to himself.
"I need you to supply metal resources to my shop in Harborton. I think that will be a suitable reward.", Chris answers, now with a smile on his face.
"Of course, anything for our champion and dragon slayer!", Stonebeard quickly answers with a wide grin on his face.