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As I, Katrina, Loren, and Reed all venture into the mouth of the cave, a sudden feeling of uneasiness sweeps over me. I can't help but reach for my shortsword, my hand never leaving the sheathe of it for a minute, as my other hand carries a torch. Loren is shortly behind me with a quill and a piece of paper (where he was carrying ink, I couldn't tell you.) He looks as if he's drawing a map of the caves, so we don't get lost. As for Reed, he's carrying the other torch, and still hitting on Katrina, who still looks uninterested.

"C'mon, not even a quickie?" He asks pleadingly to her.

"Fat chance, asshole." Kat retorts, not even giving him a passing glance as we progressed.

"Really, are you still mad about what happened at the-"

"Yes, I am." Kat was rather quick to reply, following with a very audible mrowling.

Reed walks over to me, elbowing me in the arm with a smug grin. "Bah, women, am I right?"

I'm currently trying my hardest not to light his fur on fire. "I'm sure she'll warm up to you."

"Y'think so?"

"No." I reply.

The rest of the travel is met with awkward silence, and Reed's not-so-subtle staring at Kat's ass the whole time. That is, until Loren notices some symbols on the nearby rock face. "Guys, I see something!" The gryphon was quick to squawk at us. "It's some kind of encrypted message!"

I quickly walk over, torch in hand, to observe the markings. I immediately recognize them. "Guys, these appear to be draconic markings. My father studied and used them on his travels."

Loren quickly picks up after me, rubbing the surface of the rock. "Ah, I've heard about those. My eggmaiden always told me stories about them."

Reed looks thoroughly confused. "Uh, the fuck is an 'eggmaiden'?"

Loren looks quickly annoyed with Reed's ignorance. "An eggmaiden is the closest friend to the female. They help her to tend to and care for the egg clutch when it's first laid. As I was saying," he returns to observing the markings. "they used to tell me that, whilst the dragons did not have a written language, they did develop a form of code, symbols and markings that would provide warning to intruders and would-be thieves."

"Wait, so we're talking about...dragons?" Katrina starts to look visibly worried. "Like, the scourge race of the assembled lands? Weren't they wiped out by the Vanguard?"

"Merely rumor, my father told me once." I reply to her, still surveying the markings. "He studied one for quite some time, learned the meanings of their many marks."

Reed blurts out once more. "Why in king's name would he do something like that?"

"Trade, my friend." I say to him matter-of-factly. "Rare there being anyone in these lands that know the dragons' markings. As a nomad, this helped my dad to make trade in secret."

Little more was said on the subject, as I began to study and interpret the marks. It takes some time, but I start to remember what many of them mean. It's a taxing process, as dragon markings can mean one thing by themselves, and completely different things when coupled with others. Time passes, and my torch goes out. Reed, stumbling oaf that he is, tries to relight it with his own, but ends up nicking Loren's map with the flames. Loren throws the burning map to the ground, snuffing a small flame burning at his feathers.

"No, no, no!" Loren panic-strickenly exclaims as the paper slowly burns up into nothingness. "That was my only map! Now what do we do?"

"Bah, who needs it?" Reed says boastingly. "I can get us out of here no problem. My mind's like a steel trap."

"Well then," Katrina says whilst unsheathing her claws. "go ahead and tell us, where exactly did we come from, steel trap?"

Reed blinks, having just been put on the spot. He points to some distant part of the cave. "Oh, uh, we, uh...came from, er...that way-ish..."

Oh, Katrina was pissed at that point. "This was your damn idea to come here!"

Reed looks offended, and retorts, "Well, how was I supposed to know that bird-brained fuckwit would lose the map!?"

Loren spreads out his wings in a menacing fashion. "Excuse me?! It was you who burned it!"

The three bicker amongst one another as I study the markings. I'm quickly losing my patience, as the argument dips into a large assortment of cursing, racism, and sexist comments from Reed. Finally, I decipher the marks, and turn back to the squabbling trio.

"Leave it to a fucking mutt to get us lost!"

"Leave it to a fucking woman to sort blame!"

I throw my torch to the ground beneath them, and the light dies out, along with their bickering. We stand there in the flickering light of Reed's own torch, to which the embers of which are dying out. Looking ashamed and rather irritated by all three of them, I finally speak. "Now, if we are done arguing, I have deciphered the markings."

Loren is the first to speak of the three. "What do they say?"

"It's a warning. 'Death to those whom disturb this place. Remain at your own peril.'"

"What the fuck does that have to do with us?" Reed outbursts.

"It means we're i-"

I'm cut short by a rumbling noise that echoes throughout the tunnels. Reed's torch dies out, and we're surrounded by darkness. Then, all too suddenly, I can feel a hot, sulfurous stench run across my whole body. My voice is trembling, barely more than a whisper:

"It's awake."

An ear-shattering roar knocks us to the stony cave floor, as piercing, serpentine eyes, as golden as the morning sun, strikes fear into our very souls. For a minute, I can almost hear Reed whimpering. Light starts to appear in the form of the dragon spitting a gout of fire, alighting the stone floor around us in a ring of scorched, glowing earth. The beast towers above us, twentyfold our size, with scales as deep a red as blood, and observing us with fierce contempt. I grip my head as a sudden headache erupts, and a voice thunders through my mind. For one who knows our marks, you do little to heed them.

Reed, in a stroke of stupidity born out of fear, starts grabbing rocks from the stone floor and throwing them at the dragon. "Kill the damn thing! Kill it!" The only thing Reed succeeds at is making the dragon even angrier than before. I quickly reach for my shortsword, but a lash of its tail sends us flying, knocking me clear into the wall, and the others into a small pile-up. The beast smiles toothily at me as it progresses further towards my friends. In a desperate effort to protect them, I dash for my blade, but I'm stopped short in my tracks by the dragon's tail yet again, this time pinning me into the rock face. You can watch as I roast them alive. They'd make a fine snack, I'm sure.

I couldn't watch it unfold. Katrina is screaming, tears of pure terror running down her face. Loren has given up, knowing his next few minutes may be his last. Reed's staring the dragon down, ready to accept his fate. I had to do something. As the dragon brings its neck back, and an orange glow starts to emanate from its maw, I summon what little strength I had left, and I scream at the top of my lungs. " STOOOOOOP!"

The dragon pauses for a brief moment, the glowing of its mouth flickering out. It turns to me, staring me down with it piercing gaze. I look to the beast, pleadingly. "Please...just let them go. I'm the reason we're here, spare them for me."

The dragon almost looks ponderous, amused. The voice echoes through my head again. Hmm...so you'd be willing to give yourself to me, correct?

I nod. "Y-yes. I offer myself in exchange for their lives."

Katrina, Loren, and Reed all stare at the scene in awe and confusion. Kat mutter under her breath. "What the hell is he doing..."

The dragon moves their tail from me, allowing my small form to take breath. The dragon then turns around, facing me rear-first. With a raising of its tail, I'm presented with a...cloaca? No. I thought to myself. It..._she _couldn't possibly be asking me to...

My thoughts are interrupted by the dragoness once more. Get busy. Now.

A deal's a deal. I slowly approach the creature's opening, and an overpowering aroma wafts over me. Gods, this one is ripe! The dragoness' orifice is huge, almost impossibly so. How was I meant to pleasure this creature? I shake the thought from my head, and start moving my hands through the slit, the dragoness responding to my stimulation with an audible purring. When my hands finally roam across her clitoris, she roars out. Seems I found just the right spot. I dive in, moving my hands across the joy button to the fevered cries of the large reptile, collapsing over and panting in hardly-contained lust. Her voice dances through my mind, almost feeling like my head's about to split in half. Yes! YES! Keep going!

A while passes, still rubbing at the creature's bud, whilst my companions watch in total disbelief to what they were seeing. Finally, after a long, arduous time of stimulating the dragoness, I'm drowned in a thick gush of fluids, sticky and slightly tingly. The impact sends me sliding out of the creature's cloaca, drenched and humiliated. She turns to me with a bemused look. I'm impressed, human. you know how to treat a lady.

Given the circumstances, I can't necessarily know if her saying that was a good or bad thing. Tempted to say bad. "R-right...so, uh..."

The dragoness nods, gesturing towards my companions. Go, take your friends and leave. I am one of my word.

"I will, thank you." I give the creature a bow before returning to my friends, their looks of disbelief don't exit their faces.

That is, until Reed bursts into laughter. "Did Jarrod really just help masturbate a dragon!? Ahahaah-"

His laughing stops abruptly when the dragoness stares daggers at the Canis. I may still eat that one.

"I wouldn't necessarily blame you." My friends observe my conversation with the dragoness as if I was talking to myself. Then, Katrina speaks.

"That was...wow. What you did, Jarrod, was fucking insane." She runs over to hug my sticky person, purring in joy. "Thank you."

"Hey, my friends come first. Even the annoying ones." I say as I glance over to Reed.

The dragoness shows us a shortcut through the caves, allowing us to leave into daybreak once again. Loren happily takes wing, now being out in the summer air, landing back with us as we discuss what exactly just happened.

"So, we're in agreement then? We never talk about what happened in there. To anyone." The others hesitate, but then unanimously nod.

"I didn't see a thing." Katrina replies.

"If you think it best, Jarrod," Loren says with a smile.

"Hell, you earned that much, bi-er, Jarrod." Reed blushes, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, you won that fair and square, not to mention saved my ass as well." Extending his pawed hand, "See you around, human?"

Now I'm the one to hesitate. As annoying, sexist, crude, and stupid as Reed is, he seems like the reliable sort. Katrina's shaking her head, and Loren's indifferent towards the matter. After some reluctance, I shake his hand, this time meeting his firm grip. "Yeah, see you around, Reed."

As we all return to Sol, something itches at the back of my head. I figure it to be nothing, but then the dragon's voice echoes through my mind one more time. A brave human, that one. Perhaps...perhaps..._ _Did she know I could still hear her? Maybe she wanted me to hear. Regardless, I shake the thought from my head, and her voice dies out. I'm eager to return home with my friends after such a strange venture.