“There is so much treasure here!” A male voice belonging to one of the treasure hunters who sought this cave called out with joy.

“We’ll be eating well tonight lads!” The booming voice of the so called expedition leader echoed. “Start gathering out spoils!”

With that, the group of 50 looters, theives, and madmen and woman went on their way into the glinting cave filled with gold, silver, gems, tools, armour, and anything else of value.

“And as for you little lady.” The leader turns to me as he is handed my chains. “You are a very lucky lady to be the one who held the key to reaching this place.” He adds rubbing his hand across the mark on my right cheek and then grabbing the etched leather chocker around my neck. “So few are blessed by those ugly reptiles these days. So as a reward for your, assistance, we wont kill ya!’ He cheered as if what they did to the people who they took with them was a great reward.

With those words he turned on his heel and ventured further into the cave of what is sadly, a long dead dragon, pulling my chains roughly making me stumble and lose my footing to which the man laughed. He continued pulling me into the centre of the old den before making me fall once more. He roughly removed the bindings that completely covered my hands and laughed when his follow up kick made me wince. He then just left me there, knowing full well that if I tried to escape, any of the pirates group could see and would deal with me. So I just sat up and hugged my knees to at least and try warm up in this cold cave.

If I was in different circumstances, the flames dancing off all the reflective materials would be a wonderous sight. If it wasn’t for this dumb strap, they could be my flames right now. But as a slave forced to help these people? It doesn’t mean anything. I just stared blankly at the pile of glimmering metal before my eyes rested on a small section in the large cave that I could see between the piles of metal. It was just a dark empty corner of the cave but something looked off about it. I slowly got up and started walking towards it before a loud echo shot out as the ping of a bullet struck beside me. I flinched and fell down as I looked toward one of the female crew looking at with a crazed look in her eye.

I curled up again to avoid their attention, but I just couldn’t stop looking at that section of wall before a thought made me panic.

That entrance we came through, was barely able to fit a man. So how did the dragon get in here.

As a pirate moved towards that section with a lantern, I realised that it wasn’t a section of wall. It was a large tunnel that suddenly was filled with orange light that engulfed the man. The flames ended swiftly. An ominous silence followed by an echoing footstep sounded through the cavern. Slowly, the brazen red scaled form of the largest dragon I’d heard off stood towering over us before it started burning everyone. I shot to my feet and hid behind a stalagmite as I hastily removed the chocker, allowing me to breath properly, feel the bruising from the strap, and causing me to feel warmer as sparks lit between my fingers.

I glance towards where the dragon appeared and saw it walked out from it. I channelled my fire magic and created propulsion, making me shoot out through the tunnel. The only light I had was my own flames, allowing me to navigate the large tunnel till it eventually aimed up where I could see light while roars and the crashing sound of the dragon echoed behind me. My surroundings lit up in orange, and I looked down the rising tunnel to see large, white teeth laced maw, making me scream in fear as I fled. As the exit approached, the snapping sound of jaws echoed out again and again before it suddenly stopped but I just fled.

I reached the opening before I chose a random direction and just kept going. Too afraid to turn around to find out what that beast was doing.