Aclysia hovered above the mountainside and analysed the digging lizards and their positions. The night made this slightly more difficult for her, but the glow of dug-open lava rivers helped locate the prey. Several specimens were open for her to initiate the trio’s agreed strategy on. ‘Which one to choose?’ she asked herself, looking at all the factors available. ‘The smallest Volk Dragon will have the least amount of physical prowess. However, that one over there would be easiest to antagonize on its own. That one is closest to the chosen battleground…’ she continued to run the intersecting benefits and drawbacks through her head in an effort to find the optimal route.

For several minutes, she just hung up there, hit by decision paralysis. Whenever she got closer to finding a satisfying answer, one of the faux-dragons moved, recalibrating her entire pattern recognition. Everything but the perfect choice in this situation would have left her dissatisfied with her path of action. Yet, she was forced to make an imperfect call eventually.

‘Thirty seconds and then I proceed with the choice that appeals to me the most,’ she told herself. Thirty-six seconds later, she had finally convinced herself to start moving towards one of the Volk Dragons. It was an individual somewhat on the malnourished side, which Aclysia hoped would make it easier prey. Hovering down, she raised her staff with both hands and pulled the magic out of the nearby air. There was a lot of it. Beginner friendly Leaves tended to be more gracious with the mana they provided to mages.

Raw mana congealed in the crystal tip and became shaped by Aclysia’s will, emanating a golden glow. Like pulling a bowstring within her mind, the pressure grew on her as the Sunlight Bolt’s power expanded until she could hold it no longer and unleashed it on her target. Gold exploded on the red-scaled monster, followed by it rearing its head towards Aclysia. With a deep growl, it turned away from the digging operation.

They stared at each other, beast and angel, and waited. Aclysia kept her staff raised on high and fired a second bolt. It shot out the tip at the wanted angle, another slight advantage using a medium had over casting with her hands. Like the first spell, it scattered on the heat resistant scales without much impact. All that happened was that the creature closed its eyelids to protect the vulnerable oculars and got annoyed. Quite annoyed indeed.

A wave of fire was the answer Aclysia received for her meddling. The metal fairy flew effortlessly to the side, utilizing her aerial agility to dodge. Manoeuvrability and a resistance against fire were why she was the one to lead the encounter. As high as her heat tolerance was, the same could not be said about her clothes. Not wanting to end up naked, she flung more of her bothering attacks at the Volk Dragon.

As inconsequential as the spells may have been, they did cause the territorial creature to fully commit to fighting Aclysia. The metal fairy hovered just in reach of its jaws and flew backwards when they snapped at her. Annoyed, the Volk Dragon roared and set after her, allowing her to kite it down the slope. When the monster threatened to lose interest in chasing her, Aclysia showered it in magical attacks again until it kept following her. It was a tense game of preserving magical power and calculated interactions. If Aclysia flew too far away, the monster would have retreated immediately, if she got too close, a single bite would have incapacitated her.

Past the last lava lake, the Volk Dragon chased. ‘Almost at the target location,’ Aclysia thought. The mountainside offered nothing but disadvantages to the trio. The gatherings of lava were, at best, minor inconveniences for the monster and, at worst, death traps for the group. Better to fight on even ground.

The further they distanced themselves from the volcano, the darker it got as well. Aclysia heard Reysha whistle, the pre-agreed signal, and then backed away from the massive lizard. Furious, the Volk Dragon roared, and got on its hindlegs to swipe uselessly at the far-away metal fairy with its digging claws. It seemed ready to attack just about anything right now. Which was exactly what Apexus hoped when he stepped out from behind a nearby boulder.

“Come here!” he shouted, just to get the creature’s attention. Wings folded in front of him, the slime poured magical energy into the nails of one clenched fist, a little bit of heat being produced as the byproduct of the energy flow. The Volk Dragon answered the challenge and charged at Apexus. Both eyes focused on the robe-wearing chimera, the Volk Dragon opened its maw slightly, ready to bite him in half the moment he was close enough. Then the slime opened its wings and revealed the magically charged hand. Extreme levels of light flashed in the darkest point of the night, blinding the monster.

Its charge continued, but went off course. Apexus jumped to the side and Reysha jumped down from the boulder. The flash beyond her closed eyes had been her signal to get into action. Landing on the monster’s neck, she quickly made her way towards its head. At first, confusion protected her, but by the time she was sitting on its neck, the six-legged faux-dragon had recovered enough to thrash around. Reysha kept holding on with her legs and one hand. Her left raised a dagger and plunged it down, turning the temporary blindness of one eye into a permanent affliction.

Before Reysha could draw her second weapon, the Volcano Tearer slammed the side of its head against the boulder in an effort to get rid of her. It was a wild, uncalculated movement, hurting both of them. While the lizard with its thick skull only dazed itself, the brutality of the impact seriously harmed Reysha. Her shoulder and head were smacked against the abrasive surface, hard enough to make her see stars. The true devastation was delivered to the leg stuck between rock and hard skull. Her thighbone cracked, the shock rippling through and making her lose control for just long enough that she fell from the monster’s neck and had a painful landing.

Apexus immediately intervened. Confused as the Volk Dragon was, it didn’t immediately set after Reysha, but it could have trampled her by sheer accident. Moving into the halved field of view with shining hands, the slime became the only thing the monster’s overexposed eye could properly see. With raw aggression, it spewed a wave of fire towards the chimera.

Having hoped for a more physical assault, the slime was slightly caught off guard and exposed to the fire for a couple of seconds before he got out of the danger zone. His robe and mask took the majority of the damage, forcing him to discard both, as they were set aflame.

The Volcano Tearer shook its head several times, trying to see and make sense of the situation. As quickly as she could, Reysha limped away, allowing Aclysia to land nearby and start healing her leg.

Apexus had to keep the faux-dragon occupied for as long as that took. More afraid of the fire than teeth and claws, the slime went into close range and kept to the properly blind side of the Volk Dragon. In order to keep him in its field of view, the monster had to keep bending its long neck, inhibiting its range. Apexus made himself as large as possible, spreading out his wings and illuminating his form. To an animal’s brain, such a display had an imposing effect. Despite being much larger and immensely more powerful, the hurt, red-scaled creature took several steps backwards.

Eventually, it had given enough ground and growled with renewed resolve. Blood dripped from the dagger still lodged inside its eye socket as it took a step forward. Apexus stood his ground. The Volk Dragon hesitated, then snapped its sharp teeth at the slime.

Apexus presented his arms willingly and rammed one down the throat of the monster. The bite separated his arm at the shoulder, too quickly for any acid-burns to harm the inside of the monster’s chest-sized head. The slime didn’t care for the loss of a limb. That the monster’s remaining eye was blinded was the true priority. Out of the darkness, beyond the slime’s light, flew a knife that true its target.

Now completely blind, the Volk Dragon thrashed around once more. A slam by its head catapulted Apexus away, but the slime was more thankful for that than anything. The thin lizard started spewing fire in random directions until it had no more magic to kindle and only tiny tongues of flame flickered past its teeth. Tearing at the ground, whipping its tail, it backed away until it hit another boulder. In ceaseless panic, it attacked the inanimate object. Its roars transformed into fearful, high-pitched screams as exhaustion settled in.

“Please end it as quickly as is reasonable,” Aclysia requested. A fight for life and death was never pretty and the drawn-out, final moments of a creature in pain were nothing she wanted to witness for longer than she had to. “I will gather darling’s clothes…” It was an easy excuse to get a little bit further away from the noises.

“We will,” Reysha promised, drawing her second knife. While her right side was still hurting, she could walk and stab. Apexus kept poking the dragon. Not to torture it, although it doubtlessly was torture, but to draw every last bit of energy from it and guarantee that Reysha was in no danger when she approached. The two had less qualms about the monster’s pain, knowing that this was just the ugly side of nature. Regardless, they had no interest in prolonging the pain themselves. It wouldn’t have been the effective way to hunt anyhow.

Hacking into the scales with her dagger, Reysha caused several defenceless squeals to echo through the night. When she was finally through the natural armour, it didn’t take long for her to hit a vein. Dark lifeblood splurged out of the wound, quickly becoming less as the final heartbeats faded in the monster’s chest. Reysha withdrew all of her knives and began cleaning them.

“A bit messier than it needed to be, but it worked out,” she said.

“Yes,” Apexus didn’t have anything else to say. The strategy had been to get a weaker member of the species and keep them blinded through all means possible. No matter how imposing a creature, they couldn’t do anything if they couldn’t sense their target. Once the most important sense was removed, death was only a question of time.

Aclysia suddenly landed next to them, “Adventurers,” she said in a panicked tone, “quickly put this o-“ she raised up the half-burned robe. Even if Apexus put it on, his missing arm and part of his abnormal body would be on open display. “Shit,” she cursed.

“Kick the stomach three times when they are gone,” Apexus had already found the single place where he could hide in the rocky landscape. Melding his arm into his torso and his legs together, he crawled inside the dead Volcano Tearer’s mouth. Usually, he would have eaten his target from the outside, but under the circumstances, this was the best he could do. The internal warmth of the corpse allowed him to slide down to neck fast enough that no conspicuous bulge remained visible. Reysha ripped Apexus’ clothes from the stunned Aclysia and stuffed them into her Adventurer’s Bag before their visitors arrived.

It was a group of three, all male, and all stomping around in heavy armour. There were differences, some subtle and some overt, between their plates that differentiated their Classes. One was a Paladin, one a Knight and one a Warrior, the choices of their weapon reflecting their preferred combat styles being a sword and shield, a two-hander and a massive axe respectively. All three were tall men with short hair, albeit two looked almost identical and the Paladin was blond and had a less broad frame by comparison. All of this was visible thanks to the Ilumni spell the Paladin had ignited in his palm. Aclysia, out of proper behaviour did the same.

“Oh wow,” the Knight, their leader, said when looking at the corpse. “I expected to find some humanoid corpses lying around, the way that fight sounded.”

“Don’t ya underestimate girl power,” Reysha shot right back. “Whoever you are. Who are you?”

“This is Roland,” he pointed at the Paladin, “This is my twin brother Tomas,” he pointed at the Warrior, “And I am Lomas – yes, our parents were creative. We are the Plated Trio.”

“Proving that he inherited all of the creativity,” Tomas chimed in.

“Will you ever not make that joke when I introduce us?”

“Will you ever decide to change the name?”

Lomas grumbled and looked back to the two women. He saw that Reysha kept a hand on her dagger and disarmingly raised his hand. “Don’t worry, we’re not here to steal your kill,” he assured. “We wouldn’t be caught fighting two adventurer’s that took down a Volcano Tearer on their own. We just thought we could help out and get parts of the spoils.”

“And go back to sleep,” Tomas yawned. “Whatever flash spell you used woke us up and the screams did the rest.”

“It woke you up,” Roland corrected. “I was on guard.”

“You can bicker later,” Lomas intercepted.

“Oh, by all means,” Reysha still kept a hand on her dagger, but she no longer had the handle gripped, “do bicker around. Ya ain’t getting anything though, since we already took it down.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Lomas stated. “For the sake of campers, you should think about getting a mercy weapon though. Those squeals were not nice to hear.”

“A mercy weapon?” Aclysia asked, intrigued by such a concept.

“A big hammer or a pickaxe,” Lomas explained. “You know, something that’s heavy and cracks the skull open. Makes death a lot swifter.”

“Huh, yeah, that’s a pretty good idea,” Reysha agreed. As much as she preferred daggers, having a different weapon for that task made enough sense to carry something like it around. “We’ll think about it.”

“Are you going to hunt more of these tonight, or can we go sleep?” Tomas wanted to know.

“We just wanted the one,” Reysha assured. “Ya boys can have your beauty sleep. Gods know ya need it more than me.”

The men laughed. “For sure. If we ever see each other in a tavern, come see me. I’m buying,” Lomas raised his hand and turned away.

“I have a boyfriend!” Reysha shouted after them.

“Good for him,” the Knight returned and continued walking away.

“People are so nice when they can’t make a profit killing you,” Reysha hummed, while Aclysia let out a long sigh. “You doing fine, bubble butt?”

“I despise sudden situations,” the metal fairy mumbled.