A week passed.

The ‘arrangement’ they had with the trio of young men eventually led to them moving closer, for protection and so they had an easier time getting their cauldron back after Apexus and his women were done with it. There was an additional reason: the abundance of food the humanoid chimera provided.

Projecting force was the primary way to keep power in an environment like this, having food was the primary way to garner interest. Apexus, with his wings and unorthodox hunting strategies, managed to pull fish on land reliably every day. Everyone else was wondering how exactly he entered the water and came out, often an hour later, dragging a tuna or other large seafood behind him. Their wonder did not translate to questions. Apexus would not have answered them anyway.

It had been Aclysia’s suggestion for him to hunt where they could see him re-emerge. A stark departure from the paranoid stance they had towards displaying any kind of noteworthy behaviour. For one, they no longer feared being tracked, since they had already revealed themselves in the necessary capacity. Aclysia also reasoned, correctly, that displaying anything but Apexus’ true nature directly would not make it off this island. All they would see was another adventurer, displaying their strange abilities.

After food, what they primarily needed was something to keep the fires going. They discovered that the primary resource to that end was Kaladar’s excrement. When the red dragon left his cave, be that to scout the area or hunt, the bandits would go in and clean up. During that process, the considerable dung piles had to be carted out.

With how barren the landscape was, it was no wonder that the people would not let any resources go to waste. Ignoring its origins, the dragon shit was adequate kindling. It was dry, came in mostly equally sized chunks, and burned slowly. It was close to coal in everything besides the amount of heat it provided. Since it was eternal autumn, not winter, what there was satisfied the requirements. When people wanted the flames to get hotter, they threw whatever trash they had into the flames.

Apexus’ dislike of using the excrement as fuel was born less from its origin and more that it was digested humanoids he was burning, at least in part. Specifically, the Berserker had ended up in Kaladar’s belly two days ago, after succumbing to the internal injuries.

The cleaning job was typically fought over. Whoever did the cleaning had not only the chance to make a good impression on Kaladar, they also got to be the first to claim the fuel for themselves.

Besides the common reasons, the quartet had another good reason for getting to be the ones to do the cleaning: they wanted to see the cave from the inside. Consequently, they partook in the fight. It was a bare knuckle affair, more of a display of dominance than a proper fight. The various factions of the camp tried to intimidate each other out of it, like packs of wolves competing over a carcass.

Apexus only had to break a single jaw to break the will of the competition.

The inside of the cave was simultaneously dull and interesting. It was a single corridor, reaching about twenty metres into the mountain, before taking a sharp curve. Another ten metres later, the path turned to a slope that travelled down the east side of a large chamber. At the bottom, the stone floor had been made somewhat smooth by repeated application of dragon fire. The walls were covered in claw marks, remains of when a dragon had widened the tunnel so they could more easily fit through. Kaladar was not the first to claim this as his dwelling place and he would not be the last.

A pile of horns, scales, and claws of other dragons marked where Kaladar made his hoard. There were a few gold coins and valuable trinkets in the pile, pieces that appeased the red dragon’s general instincts, where everything else catered to his specific interests. Otherwise, the cave was largely featureless. It was an arena, practically.

Apexus acquired as much of the kindling as they needed, then they got to scrubbing. It was a horrible job. Getting water inside was difficult and getting it back out near impossible. There was nowhere for it to drain and leaving the filthy puddles to stagnate there was not an option. They scrubbed as best they could with the worn-down brooms provided and Aclysia dried the surfaces at the end.

They did this twice. The first time, Kaladar came in when they were just about to leave. His only reaction was an acknowledging sound that his lair was cleaner than usual. By no means did that mean it was actually clean.

The second time, they were still in the end stages of cleaning, when Kaladar returned. The scarred dragon stared down at them from above, standing on the slope. Aclysia and Korith were too nervous to keep working properly, while Apexus and Reysha finished up. When they were done, the two of them moved the other two aside. Kaladar then leapt down the slope, like a giant, terrifying cat, and exposed his back to the adventurers. He was giving them every opportunity to attack.

Apexus did not even consider it and headed out.

That had been the previous day. Like all other days, it had been crawlingly slow to the group. There was not much to do aside from violence and ensuring they survived another day. With the latter being settled through Apexus’ catches and the former being outside their interests, they had absolutely nothing to do but talk and do what had to be done to establish themselves at the top of the hierarchy.

A process that was bearing fruit in some ways. During breakfast, people from the outskirts of other factions sometimes joined them, offering something to be thrown into the fish soup they made for breakfast in exchange for some of it. They usually accepted, then probed the marauders for who they were, what they wanted to do, and where their loyalties lay.

The answer was always a variation of the same core themes. They were impoverished, able-bodied young people, overwhelmingly men, wanting to take from the weak to survive another day, and loyal to those that led them to repeated success. Although the quartet had established their position in the camp, having the loyalty of the band could not come about until they had proven their worth in the field.

“Do we even need that though?” Reysha asked, when the four of them were alone. “All we need is an opportunity to poison Kaladar. We don’t need their loyalty at all to that end.”

“Indeed,” Aclysia agreed. “I suggest we concentrate on the task of administering that poison. We have, as per my estimation, three potential avenues of achieving this goal. One is that we continue as we have until Kaladar trusts us enough that we may present him food. Due to the considerable and inhumane effort this would take, this option is unpreferable. Two is that we may find someone in the camp that has Kaladar’s favour and convince them to administer the poison for us. This will be potentially faster to pull off, but bears the risk of trusting one of these… people.” The angel had a lot of other words at the tip of her tongue. “Three, we intercept a delivery of food and poison it covertly.”

“Three is the way to go but… well…” Korith tilted her head one way and then the other. “How do we do that? It’s not like there’s a kitchen Reysha can sneak into. The presentation of… food… always happens rather, you know, suddenly.”

The tiger girl cleaned her claws with one of her throwing knives. “I still think we could just shank a fucker.”

Apexus was warming up to the idea and he hated that. ‘These are all horrible monsters in humanoid form, but we shouldn’t kill just because it makes this easier,’ he thought. Out loud, he presented an argument Reysha was more amicable towards, “Killing the person ourselves would be too suspicious, as would be leaving a corpse around.”

“Right.” Reysha transitioned from cleaning her claws to throwing the knife up in the air and then catching it after it made a few spins. “Still though, option three is the only way we can get this done without spending months here.”

“We need to create a situation where we know for sure that Kaladar will receive a food offering and where we can intercept it ahead of time without being seen,” Apexus summarised and considered what was possible. So did the other three.

“How about we initiate a raid?” Reysha suggested. Apexus and Korith gave her a deadpan look, considering this the literal opposite of what they wanted to do.

Aclysia, who had been pondering the same possibility, voiced her agreement. “I think that may be the most viable path,” she stated and explained to the confounded rest of the group. “Waiting until Kaladar initiates a raid will not aid us in our goal. Reportedly, he eats while in battle, therefore, he would be sated before we have a chance to enact our schemes. We would also be forced to participate, in order to retain the appearances. Thus, this future is one we want to avoid, but one that inevitably will come to pass, if we were to remain. If we initiate the raid ourselves, we can organize it in such a way that Kaladar does not participate, but will have a food offering after the fact.”

“Yeah, okay, but that still involves killing people?” Korith put her concerns into a question.

Reysha answered before Aclysia could. “We tip our targets off. They’ll know that we’re coming, we put on a bit of a show, they run away and leave behind some cows or livestock they have, the livestock gets handed over to Kaladar. We get the poison in there in the meantime. Then we wait a few hours, sneak into the cave, and kill the fucker.”

Apexus considered the plan. “It could work,” he agreed. “First, we need the proper bait and to contact it.”

“We’re the only ones in this den of villainy that can fly, besides Kaladar, darling,” Aclysia reminded. “We need only spot a tribe with some livestock. We can start working on this from tomorrow onwards.”

“More importantly, we need someone to work with that will present the food to Kaladar instead of our suspicious, gorgeous asses,” Reysha said. “Someone that’s both a fucking moron and arrogant enough that they’d take all the credit for themselves. In other words, literally anybody in this camp.”

If there was a blessing to their situation, it was that the people around truly were subpar intellectually. Between unreliable nourishment, the lack of education, and the semi-regular head trauma, the average bandit had the intelligence of a civilized thirteen-year-old crossed with the cruelty of a bitter adult. They were good when it came to boasting about their accomplishments and terrible when trying to identify when someone was complimenting them.

There were a few smarter members in the camp. Two of them had been recently eaten by Kaladar following the arrival of the group. Finding a clique or two that was led by a glory-hound willing to take the credit for a raid Apexus initiated would not be difficult.

“What do we do if Kaladar questions the story of our puppet?” Aclysia presented a difficulty in their plan. “Particularly, what do we do if he refuses to devour our indirect offering?”

“I was actually thinking about that and we could just head back to Melios’ place?” Korith suggested. “Kaladar will inevitably fight with Melios again, right? Their hoards are close and Kaladar apparently collects horns. So, if we just wait at Melios’ place, we can eventually help one dragon kill the other in direct combat. He won’t like that that’s our plan, but I don’t think he’d say no to the help either.”

“He’d definitely keep calling us small-brained imbeciles with tiny skulls and sheepish eyes, along with a bunch of other ways to describe fucking idiots,” Reysha agreed and groaned. “Still an option though. I don’t like how long that could take. I prefer being proactive, ya know?”

Aclysia nodded. “Time is a factor. We need to return to Teacher’s Isle, the Deathhound will arrive there eventually and it is our duty to be there and aid in the defences.”

“I need to learn.” The humanoid slime looked at his open hand. While strong and capable, it lacked the magical tools of his partners. “We will go with this plan. It may fail. That is better than being caught up in an actual raid.” Apexus raised his gaze. “Aclysia and I will scout. Reysha, Korith, you find the best candidate to be our front.”

“Let’s just hope we find a target quick enough,” Reysha hummed.