Chapter 148: Scouting the Lair

Words : 1208 Updated : Oct 10th, 2025

The morning sky was colorless—pale gray from horizon to horizon, smothered beneath drifting ash that clung to every surface like a slow, suffocating snowfall. As the gates of Ironmark creaked open, Inigo adjusted the strap on his rifle and stepped forward, boots crunching on soot-laced gravel. Behind him, Lyra walked with her bow in hand, an alchemical arrow notched loosely to the string—not ready to fire, but close. A local scout, a wiry man named Daren with burns along his left arm, met them at the edge of the trailhead. His leathers were blackened at the seams, and he wore a thick scarf wrapped across his face. "Name’s Daren," he rasped, voice roughened by smoke. "I’ll take you as far as the Black Cradle. Beyond that, no man in Ironmark’s paid enough coin to keep walking." Inigo gave a curt nod. "Show us the path." Daren pointed with a charred walking stick toward a narrow trail that twisted between jagged obsidian ridges. "It’s a three-hour hike through cracked terrain. Watch your step. Some of the ash hides vent holes." "And if the dragon’s nearby?" Lyra asked. "You’ll know," he said simply. "Everything gets quiet. Too quiet." — The journey began in silence, broken only by the crunch of boots on scorched earth and the distant groan of shifting stone. The trail was barely more than a suggestion—a faint depression winding through a land that had been burnt and broken. Black spires of volcanic glass jutted from the earth like fossilized flames, their surfaces warped and blistered. At times, faint heat shimmered above the ground. At others, the terrain gave beneath their feet with a hiss, revealing glowing red fissures that pulsed like the veins of a sleeping beast. Inigo led the way, rifle slung across his chest and finger near the trigger. Every so often, he paused to scan with his binoculars—taking in collapsed trees, half-melted boulders, and the eerie lack of birds or insects. There was no life here. Only heat, stone, and the distant memory of something ancient and angry. "I thought the jungle back in Elandra was bad," he muttered. "This place makes that feel like a garden." Lyra moved beside him, gaze alert. "This entire valley feels wrong. Even the wind is afraid to blow." As they passed a petrified copse of trees—each blackened into jagged charcoal—Daren raised a hand. "Stop here." He crouched beside a set of deep furrows in the rock. They were long, clawed, and etched directly into the hardened surface of the earth. "Dragon," he whispered. "It landed here." Inigo knelt beside the marks. The grooves were at least half a foot deep. Not gouged in anger, but pressed down from sheer weight. The scale was hard to fathom—this creature could flatten carriages just by landing. Lyra examined the ash nearby. "There are bones under here." She brushed the soot away with her glove, revealing a blackened skull—goat-like, with the horns cracked and melted. "A shepherd’s flock," Daren said grimly. "That was the first sign. We found them like this. No fire, no screams. Just melted." Inigo stood. "We keep going." — As they climbed higher into the fractured hills, the terrain shifted from ash to obsidian flats. Each footstep echoed with a brittle crunch, and the wind carried a sulfuric bite. The group skirted the edge of a massive gorge, wide enough to swallow Ironmark whole. Deep within, magma pulsed with a dull orange glow—veins of fire beneath a black crust. "Watch your footing," Daren warned. "Some of the stone’s only a few inches thick. I lost a boot last week." Inigo knelt again and used his binoculars to scan the far side. There—just beyond the reach of the ravine—lay what remained of an ancient ruin. Towering stone arches, collapsed colonnades, and a shattered statue of what once might’ve been a knight. Half-buried in the ash, the place exuded silence. "I see something," he said. "Stone ruins. Looks old." Daren nodded. "That’s the Black Cradle. Locals say it was a fortress, centuries ago. Abandoned when the first dragons came." "Could be the dragon’s new roost," Lyra said. "It would give it elevation, cover, and a sense of dominion." "Let’s get closer," Inigo said. — Crossing the ravine took time. They followed a series of natural stone bridges—thin, narrow ridges carved by heat and pressure. Inigo’s boots skidded once, sending a spray of obsidian shards tumbling into the abyss. Lyra caught his arm and steadied him without a word. When they finally reached the far edge, the ruins loomed before them—towering columns of black stone, many half-cracked or buried under layers of ash and molten slag. A broken gate, twenty feet tall, leaned against a crumbled wall like the rib of a giant. "This place..." Lyra whispered. "It’s older than Ironmark." Inigo raised his rifle and moved forward, scanning each collapsed corridor and crumbled stairwell. His foot struck something hard. He looked down—armor. A full suit of plate, fused to the ground. Whatever warrior had worn it was long gone, reduced to ash inside a metal shell that had melted from the outside in. "We’re standing in a graveyard," he said. Daren didn’t enter. He remained at the edge, watching the clouds. "I’ll wait here," he said. "I mean no offense, but that place makes my bones itch." Lyra nodded. "We’ll be quick." — The ruins were silent. Too silent. No birds. No wind. Even their footsteps seemed muted. The shadows pooled unnaturally between the ruined archways, and here and there, they found more armor—twisted helms, cracked swords, even melted shields pressed into the ground like coins in wax. "Whoever lived here fought something," Lyra said. Inigo knelt beside a wall and brushed off a blackened mural. Beneath the soot, a painted relief emerged—men in crimson robes bowing before a towering red serpent. Behind them, flames consumed a city. "Worshippers," he muttered. He looked up at the scorched parapets. — They reached the center of the ruins. A circular platform stood half-sunken in the stone, with scorch marks radiating outward like a blackened sunburst. In the center: bones. Massive ones. Vertebrae the size of barrels. Wing bones long as trees. A skull lay tilted on its side, its snout cracked open, fangs intact. "An old dragon," Lyra said. "Long dead." Inigo approached. The bones were darkened by time and weather, but they carried a presence. He laid a hand on the cracked fang. "Could be the one from the last legend." "Or its parent," she whispered. Something caught his eye—deep gouges in the surrounding stone. Not old. Fresh. The grooves circled the bones—massive claw marks, pressed again and again into the floor like a beast digging, claiming, reshaping. "She’s using this place as a nest," he said quietly. "Burying her scent beneath the corpse of an older dragon." Lyra’s eyes widened. "She’s asserting dominance over the past." "And using it as camouflage," Inigo added. "From a distance, anyone watching from above might just think this ruin’s empty—a monument to death." They heard something then. Distant. A long, guttural exhale—like the wind dragging across a mountain’s throat. It wasn’t close. But it wasn’t far either. Lyra tensed, arrow already drawn. Inigo didn’t move. "Not yet. She doesn’t know we’re here."

Chapter 148: Scouting the Lair

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