Chapter 44 - 43: The Year Without a Summer
A few days later, David took a fancy to a natural geothermal area slightly lower than the Dragon Mother’s nest, located about a hundred kilometers from Katjana’s main crater. It was one of the potential nesting areas the Drow had selected.
Under Drow planning, the newly hatched White Hatchling Dragon, Mofei, and more than two hundred High Elf prisoners of war were coerced into free labor. They began to break ground and work in the piercing cold wind.
Some Elf Spellcasters directly used Mud-to-Stone to cast the solidified volcanic ash from a recent eruption into neat blocks of stone for construction.
The Elf Druids then used Animal Friendship or Animal Communication. They summoned some onlooking llamas, yaks, and woolly mammoths to serve as beasts of burden.
Unexpectedly, the most diligent and productive worker turned out to be Mofei, the White Hatchling Dragon, who had hatched only a few days prior.
A Drow of enchanting beauty, Hiatt, casually sat on the hatchling’s neck. When the dragon slacked off, she would wave a small whip in her hand, reminiscent of a succubus, and give it a few gentle lashes. After some hard work, she would feed it a dried fish from the ice sea and whisper softly beside its ear frills.
Under this combination of carrot and stick, Mofei transformed instantly, as if under the influence of some strange potion. The White Dragon, typically seen by the elves as the epitome of stupidity and laziness, became a diligent and honest little draft animal.
In comparison, the progress on the High Elves’ side started to look slow.
In fact, the morale of these High Elves was on the verge of collapse.
The weather in Katjana was already extremely cold, and the season was supposed to be transitioning into spring. But after the supervolcano’s eruption a few days earlier, time seemed to reverse, plunging them back into a sunless and bitterly cold winter.
At this rate, it wasn’t just likely that spring would never arrive; the entire year might become an extremely rare phenomenon: a Year Without Summer.