Rue looked towards the large human and growled. They had taken her nearly completely by surprise, the three figures crashing down and rushing into combat with her. She had reacted instinctively sending flames and quick strikes at them, but her low mana and flame reserves prevented her from being more aggressive. The barrier that protected the human was making her attacks ineffective. He had scored her with a bruising slice but thankfully didn’t penetrate the flesh, it still hurt, but she could power through some pain. Her last attack had dealt damage though, she had managed to clamp her jaws onto his leg and crushed some of his protective shell. She hissed in his direction and he let out some grunting.

The two fighters stepped back and looked at each other, Rue hissed at the huge human as the cold pressed in around her. The constant expenditure of mana to keep the temperature up was worrying. She could not sustain it for very long, maybe a few minutes more. She looked around trying to find some advantage, she could not turn to her greatest weapon, the cold and the barrier prevented her flames from devouring her enemy.

The human dashed forward at blistering speeds and though she could not quite match this boosted speed she could at least see his movements, already twisting her body to gain distance from the blade. It was close, the sharp tool whistling past her and spraying a small cloud of dirt and ash when it hit the ground. In a moment of inspiration, Rue reached out with a paw and batted the middle of the blade. She used as much force and speed causing the tool to bend before ripping free of the human's grasp and flying off into the ash a dozen meters away.

The human froze as if in surprise, she could not let this opportunity pass. Rue sprang forward and mounted the human, gripping its body with her front claws and grappling it to the ground. Limbs bashed into her stomach but she weathered the blows and clamped her jaws down on the humans shoulder. Her hind legs raked at the hard armour coating it, leaving deep scratches and eliciting screeches from the metal. Unlike other humans that she had attacked this one did not make loud noises but low grunts as it pumped its fists into her body.

She felt a few especially hard blows that made her loosen her grip and before she could tighten it again she had been thrown clear. She didn’t go far, now weighing far more and being thrown from a prone position. She rolled once and sprung back to her feet only to take a lump of glowing magic to the face. It had honed in or her even when she tried to move her head. The blast had struck her and seemed to ignore most of the protection from her scales. The crackling and glowing magic splashed on her and snapped her head to the side with a large bang. Much of the magic was expended to create this force but still more passed through her scales and wreaked havoc on her flesh.

Rue recoiled and stood stunned for a few seconds, narrowly raising a wing to block another shot made at her head. The force of the projectile pushed against her wing membrane but failed to tear it. The magical force seemed less effective on the wing tissue. The lower density of flesh and nerves meaning not much could be damaged. The area was left red and numb but didn’t suffer from the extreme pain her head was feeling.

Rue looked up to find the one that was casting such painful magic. She saw another crackling glowing bolt of energy forming in a human's hand, one of the smaller humans that came with the big one. He was grunting and gesturing with one hand while the magic grew over his other. The two were about 15 meters away and she bolted at them. The large human was still struggling to get up and perhaps if she could end the source of magic in this fight, then her fire could do some real work.

As she reached the humans she encountered a barrier of invisible force and she hammered away at it with claws and teeth, taking less than two seconds to break through. The human had kept building the spell in his hand and it was now far larger than those she had received before. It would hurt far more she suspected if he managed to release it. He wasn’t quick enough however as the moment the barrier failed she used a wave of dragon fire that engulfed the human. The powerful spell he had been gathering was launched, but not at her. The humans flailing arms had sent the spell straight at the human next to him. The spell hit the human in the face and detonated. Gore and lacerated bone flew from the human as his head exploded.

Turning away from the two dead humans Rue looked over at the large one. He was rapidly limping towards her with one arm hanging by his side. This was her chance to finally be rid of him, she growled in anticipation, reaching inside herself she collected the fear and hatred she felt towards him and condensed her magic and flames. Preparing for a final attack to end her enemy. The cold was receding now, being pushed back by her heat aura, the unnatural influence fading from the freezing air. The temperature was warming rapidly and it made Rue feel far better.

Just before she was able to release the flames from her glowing maw a high pitched shout echoed above her for a split second before an icy hell descended around her. Rue flared her aura and spewed her prepared flames around herself to try and ward off the cold but it came like a tsunami. An unstoppable wave of cold and ice that rolled over her and pressed down with icy, irresistible force. Her heat and flames surrounded her bottled up by the sheer quantity of ice and now water. Rue would have screeched but couldn’t find the air to do so as the wave of ice and cold swept her away. She tumbled away, held in stasis as the icy fluid swirled around her.

After a few seconds, she sent a pulse of mana, neatly 10% of her reserved into a blast of heat from her aura. The water encasing her turned to steam almost instantly and she could feel the scalding steam radiate and explode outward with the pressure. The small amount she inhaled burned at her lungs. It took a few seconds to reorient herself but she got up. Now residing a few dozen meters away from where she had been it appeared that the effect was rather localised. A trail of water and ash-free soil lead from the area near the large human. She was unharmed but she had been battered quite far away using up most of her remaining mana.

Rue searched the area looking for the perpetrator of her ice prison, now all evaporated away with the scalding heat she was emanating. There were two flying humans in the sky and they appeared to be preparing spells. They were dangerous, she watched as they flew between her and the large human. Rue let out a grumbling growl but as the magic manifested in the humans' hands she decided to flee. Her mana and fire were too low to fight with any gusto. Rue let out a threatening hiss towards her opponents and turned around. She bounded through the burned forest, quickly gaining speed and ignoring the bruises on her body. She would accept a draw, for now. Eventually, she would get them.

It had become apparent that the area was not safe, so she would head up to the mountains. They were still distant but far closer than they had been. Rue’s long stride ate up the distance as the trees and surrounding became gradually less burned. Eventually, after hours of running she came across some forest fires that were still burning. They seemed to be subdued however as they were not ferociously devouring the forest but smouldering and occasionally flaring up on new trees. Once Rue passed this flaming barrier she found the forest to be moist and damp, increasingly so as she went further. The rain a while back had quenched the forest. The forest fire would be completely eradicated with the next rain.

It was a few days still before Rue reached the foot of the mountains. She had no pursuers as far as she could tell but she rarely paused. Using the few hours a day not spent running to hunt for food and get some rest. Her body was complaining but she had remarkable stamina, her mana regeneration was suffering however as was her fire production but that was the price she had to pay. Driving every scrap of energy into moving as fast as possible.

It took her four days to reach the mountains proper, from the time she decided to retreat from the combat. She went to the largest mountain and spent some time searching. She followed her instincts that were telling her a cave was safe. She explored many smaller rocky outcrops and small openings. Her instinct and mind deemed them either too small, or not well protected. It was after near a day of searching that she felt drawn by a direction. She felt magic flowing within the rock and emanating from a jagged vertical fissure in the cliff face.

She felt her instinct and a basic sense of magic tell her this was the place. Dense in mana, hidden and secluded. She walked forward looking at the 5 foot wide crack in the rock. It was over 20 feet tall, the opening widest at ground level. The fissure evidently continuing underground, the earth had created a path sloping down into the crack. The inside was dark and her vision could only see the crack going into the mountain for a dozen meters.

Rue looked at the cave, it was not big enough for her to grow much and would be cramped. Why did she feel so drawn towards it?

Well, she would find out. Rue silently crept towards the opening and as she approached within a few meters it seemed to grow larger. The entrance now loomed nearly 50 meters over her and stretched dozens of meters wide. Rue paused, what was happening? She looked behind her, to where the sparse treeline waited a few dozen meters away from the cliff. The trees now loomed over her, their branches hanging menacingly. Even the grass was tall, looking like a sea of green blowing in the wind like waves on the ocean.

Rue walked further into the cave, it expanded a little more. She was now looking at a carved passageway at the back of the huge cavern. It was close to a meter wide and had ornate pillars and glyphs carved onto the walls, both in and around it. As she approached this tunnel it grew as well, the cavern behind her growing so large she might as well have been outside. She was now inside the carved tunnel and the runes that had once looked mere inched across now created groves that she could fit her head into. The passage being near 10 meters wide and tall.

Rue was darting her head around at the strange spectacle. It should have caused fear or anxiety in her to be made so small, yet the pull of some invisible force was driving her forward. All she could do was take in the spectacle. The ornate passage came to a left corner and she had no choice but to follow it, straight into another corner. This time right, then another left. Once she rounded this third corner she found a huge cavern supported by pillars carved from white stone. It was immense, far vaster than the cave she had just left. As she walked into the room it grew smaller, or perhaps she grew bigger. When she was a dozen meters in it stopped growing. The hall had settled at a still huge size, a hundred meters long and 20 meters wide.

Rue absorbed the spectacle, seeing wooden objects scattered around the sides of the hall. Opening into other rooms and weird structures in the room that held small flat rectangles of skin with wood in them. They smelled of old animal hide that had been treated with something acidic and stung her nose to smell them. Rue continued to explore the hall finding weird wooden structures and objects resting on flat pieces of wood.

After a while for exploration rue jumped and snarled as a noise echoed from behind her.

“***, ****’*** **** ***** *** **** ****, ** *** ******* ***** ****’** *****”

Rue bared her teeth and hissed at the small creature in the distance. It was about 30 meters away and speaking with guttural grunts and waving a limb at her. It was short, fat and yet looked surprisingly strong.

“I Said…”

Rue jumped as a voice echoed across the distance followed by a pulse of mana.

“Some’ing else found des deth trap, es ben forever since seom’en cmere”