A Dungeon’s Survival

Adraugon

Angrily, I paced back and forth in front of my hoard.

Stupid lifespring stone. Stupid snakes. Stupid everything!

After that meeting the night before, I wasn't even able to enjoy my nap properly. I hadn't even initially planned on attending it, but if I hadn't, I might as well have been the only one not there, and something about that bothered me. Now, that I had gone, however, I couldn't stop that scene from replaying in my mind.

The lifespring stone had offered me the perfect opportunity to flaunt my greatness to the others, yet I had nothing to show, no accomplishments to wave in their faces. She'd offered me resources to prepare with, none of which I had a way to meaningfully utilize. It was infuriating.

“Grah!” I shouted in frustration.

Just when had things started moving so fast? Where had the days where all we needed to do was wait for prey to come to us gone? I grew by slaughtering my enemies, yet the last death I played a role in was that angry woman who preceded the bear, and I wasn't even the one to kill her. I was stagnating. While everyone else around me continued to grow, I was being left behind, and it was all the lifespring stone's fault.

I gnashed my teeth at that thought. If it wasn't for her restricting my ability to freely hunt invaders as I pleased, I would've had the power I rightfully deserved. Except, that wasn't true, and I reluctantly had to admit it. If it were, the others would've been just as incapable of growth as I was, yet they'd all continued improving while I was getting left behind.

More than anything else, that was what infuriated me. Somehow, without leveling up, they'd continued to grow. Those snakes were widening the gap between us, and more of the others than not were steadily growing stronger in ways that didn't require levels. How did they do it?

I'd already written off the snakes' old methods. Convoluted strategies and endless training, as undeniable as the results may have been, weren't for me. Clearly, things had changed, though. They'd pick up new methods in addition to their old ones, and they were even more impressive.

The annoying one was in the process of turning our home itself into a weapon of all things. Meanwhile, her sister was laying the groundwork to improve her magical prowess in ways I could only dream of. It was clear both approaches held immense potential, but annoyingly, their methods remained the same at their core.

While I understood using the environment to my advantage instinctually, shaping it into a weapon required a way of thinking that was foreign to me. As for learning spell casting as her sister was doing, studying barely appealed to me more than training did. While the lack of necessary physically exertion was an improvement as far as I was concerned, there was no way I was going to waste that kind of time and energy for the sake of learning a single new spell. In that respect, their ingenuity wasn't something I could compete with, but I shouldn't have had to. I was a dragon!

The injustice of finding myself unable to compete with those I deemed worthy of being my rivals bubbled up from within me until it reached a breaking point. My claws twitched as the need to vent my frustrations overtook me, and I gave in to my anger. Before I knew it, I was bellowing out the fiercest roar I could manage and raking my claws through a coin from my hoard. The image of a crown engraved into it was split in two by the newly carved grooves that went as deep as my claws could pierce, but I didn't stop there.

Again and again, I ripped through the copper until the engraved image was completely unrecognizable. Then, I swung my tail at it. I activated Velocity Transference, and it was sent clattering against a mound of treasure. Identical coins scattered as it impacted, and one in particular bounced away from the rest and rolled around in a circle before tipping over and landing directly in front of me. That somehow managed to irritate me further, but instead of tearing the coin to shreds like I had the first, I instead just stared at it as I seethed.

It took a while, but my thoughts eventually cleared. Then, I realized something. I couldn't help the cackle that followed.

Yes, I thought, My treasure.

It was so obvious, yet I'd somehow missed it. Aside from my rivals, the lifespring stone's other servants had been growing too, and one of them in particular had been doing so in a way I could appreciate. The mushroom's strength was in his creations.

My hoard glimmered in my eyes as I stepped back and took in its majesty. From my wealth of coins I'd accrued to the weapons and other trinkets I'd taken as trophies for my kills, my collection was as beautiful as it was practical. He wasn't the only one that could derive power from items.

Between my Hoard of Dragons and Dragon's Greed abilities, my treasures were just as much a part of me as any other power I could draw on, except their effect wasn't limited by my level. Better yet, unlike the mushroom's complicated alchemy, I didn't need to spend every waking moment perfecting a craft to get the most from my hoard. I just needed more shinies.

I growled in annoyance a moment later. Yes, that was a way to get stronger without experience, but without invaders to claim trophies from and without poker nights to win more funds, I had no way to expand my hoard aside from my daily copper coin. Growing it was just as out of reach to me as the army that mushroom suddenly had the power to control or the underlings of that shambling corpse. As appealing as the idea of having servants to wait on me was, I had little way to acquire any, and the same held true for expanding my collection. Unless the lifespring stone created some for me, both minions and treasures were out of my reach.

I stiffened on the spot as that thought crossed my mind. Were there really no other ways to acquire shinies? There had to be.

Ha ha ha.

Soon, a few ideas began to take shape, and as things started to click together, I couldn't help the return of my previous cackle. It intensified until I found myself laughing maniacally. This was going to be good.

* * *

Connie

Adraugon, I sighed, what are you doing?

“Humph!” the miniature dragon grunted before averting his gaze.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

All the while, sounds of hammering continued to echo out, filling what otherwise would've been complete silence. I didn't even know what to make of this situation. For as aggressive as he could act at times, Adraugon had never actually caused me that many problems before. Unfortunately, it seemed he was cashing in on all of that unspent mischief at once, and now was not the time for it.

I cast my gaze back and forth between him and the pile of crude daggers that were stacking up beside him. I certainly didn't order my Lizard Man blacksmith to craft daggers, yet even as I watched, he dunked a red hot blade in his cauldron full of water to quench it before dropping it on top of the rest. Somehow, this was the least problematic issue the Horned Draco had managed to stir up today, at least that I knew of anyway.

Adraugon, I tried again, I really don't have time for this right now. If you have a legitimate reason for this, tell me what it is. Otherwise, you are actively worsening our odds of survival here.

I waited a long moment, but he neither spoke up nor met eyes with my disembodied perspective. That felt uncharacteristic of him, but I didn't have time to worry about that right now, so I took his silence as a no and issued an order to the blacksmith.

Melt these down and get back to what I had you working on before.

That finally triggered a reaction from the lizard. At my words, he pounced on top of the pile of weapons and started hissing unintelligibly. I sighed at the sight.

Adraugon, I stated firmly, we have a matter of days to outfit a small force of Trentis in full armor and only one smith. If you have a problem, stop wasting time and use your words.

“Hoard!” he barked out.

I said words, not word, but yeah, it's pretty clear you wanted these for your hoard. You already robbed Archie at some point this morning. What I'm asking you is why.

The entire reason I went looking and found Adraugon here in the first place was because he wasn't sleeping atop his pile of coins like he usually was. I knew that because that was where I found the ingredients Archie had reported having gone missing along with a significant amount of potions he hadn't even realized had disappeared from his lab. I just couldn't understand Adraugon's motives for this.

“Preparing,” the miniature dragon grumbled quietly.

Seriously?

Annoyance flared in me at his response. We were all preparing with, up until this moment, the sole exception of him. The difference was, he was the only one who had gotten in the way of anyone else's work

Adraugon, I expressly asked you if you needed anything. You said no. If you were that desperate for daggers, I could've summoned you some. I can't summon what I have the smith making until he produces enough of them. We're behind schedule as it is. Not to mention, anything that puts Archie behind has the potential to get us all killed.

He bared his teeth, and for a moment, I thought we were about to have a problem. Then, wordlessly, the little dragon dismounted from his perch atop the weapons he'd commandeered the blacksmith to make for him and began stomping back off toward his room. That was an uncharacteristic reaction from him that left me feeling torn.

On one hand, I was frustrated at him for causing problems at such a crucial moment. On the other, I knew he would be indispensable in the upcoming fight. While I could absolutely fault him for his methods, I couldn't exactly fault him for trying to get stronger in the time we had left, even if it took him a while to decide to do so. I wished he had gone about this in a less problematic manner, but it was Adraugon, after all.

Wait, I called out to him after a long moment, I'm taking those plants and potions back, but you can keep the daggers. Blacksmith, carry them to his hoard before getting back to work.

I doubted the daggers were the best way to go about powering the lizard up before the oncoming fight, but they were already made, and if they could buy him some extra stats, I could think of worse ways to spend the resources. Adraugon, for some reason, seemed to disagree after all of this, though.

“Don't want pity,” he spat.

It's not pity, I clarified, they're already made, and you're important. Smelting them back down now would be a waste. Just don't do this again, at least not until after all of this blows over. Now, rather than stealing everything in sight like a kleptomaniac, is there anything you need?

He paused for a long moment, his reaction unreadable. Then, slowly, he turned back to face me. When he opened his mouth, I wasn't sure whether to expect an unreasonable request or an insult. Both seemed equally likely, but as he barked out, “Servants!” it became clear that it was the former. For better or for worse, that was the unreasonable dragon I knew.

“Blurb!” Prism gleefully called out as they suddenly bounced into the room moments later and spat out a rusty axe in front of the lizard.

You have got to be kidding me.