The wyvern looked back one last time before entering the tunnel upwards, motioning dismissively at the multitude of snakes staring at him. He figured going upwards would be more scenic than simply going through that dark room. After all, that room was so barren he had trouble picking out what exit led to his own room, but he’d never admit that. Much like the tunnel between the dark floor and the dim floor, there was quite a distance between the dim floor and wherever it was leading to.

Of course, this distance was cleared quite quickly and the wyvern rocketed out of the large opening into a floor he was familiar with. As he halted himself, he looked at the wide open space and plenty of life which greeted him; he’d been here a few times before, and hopefully he could figure out the way downwards from there with little issue.

Before that, though, he had something he wanted to do now that he was here again. With a flap of his wings, he bolted towards the center of the room, where a large ball of fish shimmered and roiled in the waters. In just a flash of red and green a line had been cut through the ball which pointed directly to a pleased wyvern on the other side. He took a few more passes before he’d felt content with his haul, responding to the angered glares of the floor’s inhabitants by simply turning and leaving leisurely.

Without leaving enough time any of the denizens could muster up their courage to do something about the scaled fiend which took their food, he was already gone, back into the frozen arena beneath them. Yet again, he eyed the humanoid of the floor, a bit of respect and caution could be seen in both of their eyes while the wyvern went through the floor. The strange serpentine that the humanoid kept with him wasn’t as wound up with his intrusion this time; they’d interacted a few times in the past and never had any skirmishes come about as a result.

That said, their interactions consisted of little more than a curt nod towards the other before the wyvern passed by at a brisk pace, eager to leave the cold room even though it meant entering one which was equally outside of his comfort zone. He emerged into the pool of water on the floor, one of the few which he knew was deep enough to be comfortable for his rather large body. He dragged his serpentine body out of the water with his wings, his long tail dragging behind him as he propped himself up and did his closest approximation of a walk, something awkward and fumbling thanks to his lack of any limbs beyond wings specialized for swimming.

Eventually he managed to find his stride, using his tail to force him along as he dragged himself further. He continued steadily as he slipped in and out of the waters along the way. Once more, he found it striking how active the floor was and how aggressively they changed the layout in their activities. It was a marked difference from his own floor, everything was various shades of yellow and brown, and the creatures always in motion. There were few exceptions to this, the kobolds housing them all seemed to have changed, and two of them were even similar in feel to the humanoid above. The tribe still didn’t get the wyvern’s approval though, and he merely pulled himself past with his chin held high as the surrounding reptiles watched him warily.

There was another creature milling about in the tribe that the wyvern hadn’t seen before, but the thing was repulsive; everything about it was simply wrong to bear witness to and when it cast its gaze onto the wyvern he couldn’t help raising his hackles in response. The thing made a face at the wyvern when it saw him do so, and even though it shouldn’t have even been able to contort the muscles in its jaws in such a manner the wyvern was certain that it was mocking him. It took everything in the wyvern’s power to not try and wipe the disgusting creature from his sight. If he ever found it in the water, he may not even need worry about holding back.

After a lengthy growl at the creature which ended in one of the kobolds dragging it away, he continued on through the twisting maze. Towards the end, after more detours than strictly necessary for a creature of the dungeon, he found that the waters finally started getting deeper again. This was enlivening for a number of reasons, not least of which being that he could finally swim again.

He splashed into the large puddle of water which was barely enough to completely submerge himself and yet so refreshing in spite of that and continued on his way, swimming around and jumping over the shorter stretches of sand, and begrudgingly crawling across the longer dry spots. Eventually the hole downwards was discovered, and after pushing himself into the flooded descent with vigor, he rejoiced that he was once more free of that irritating maze.

Unfortunately, he remembered that the next one wasn’t too dissimilar, and was already not looking forward to the amount of sand he’d have to clean from the gaps in his scales and the folds in his wings. If he had his way, he’d be able to skip the floor entirely, but he was much too large to use any of the Maker’s shortcuts.

Thoughts along these lines continued as he descended, but the brief moment of contemplation stalled as he swam out into the wide open arena. Right away, he felt something unusual on the floor, and when he popped his head out of the pool of water to inspect further, he found it quickly. A little more than two hundred meters away, a beast was rampaging around, halted mid stomp as it turned to lock eyes with the wyvern.

And then it turned and stomped towards him instead, its footsteps thundered throughout the floor as he bounded in the wyverns direction. As it approached, the wyvern was able to make out his appearance more clearly, though big and yellow was the gist of it all. Beyond that, the creature was very clearly kin to him, but he wondered why it was so goofy looking. Unlike him who was the very definition of sleek and streamlined, or even the sensibly compact sizes of the kobolds, this thing was simply big and bulky.

As it lopped closer, the wyvern dragged himself out onto the waters and held his head high towards the approaching critter, but very quickly had to dodge to the side when it leapt forwards at him. The creature’s eyes widened as its limbs tried to find ground, but its feet simply cut lines into the sandy floors before it entered the waters with a splash and then made contact with the wall with a crunch. The wyvern watched it as it peeled itself away from the walls, idly feeling the water lap at its wings while waiting for whatever it was the thing planned to do. Hopefully, whatever it was wouldn’t keep him on the floor for too long.

With some effort, it got those ridiculous spikes on its cheeks loose before bursting out of the water with entirely too much noise, and letting loose a roar at nothing in particular. The wyvern stood his ground as it lumbered over, staring into the eyes of the clumsy creature a meter away. After a tense moment, the large reptile before him let loose a rumbling growl, once more launching himself forward. For his part, the wyvern was once again untouched, using his flexible body to move out of the way and launch his tail at the beast as retribution. The sharpened blade hit its left and was met with a bit of resistance at its leathery skin before finding purchase and digging into its hip.

It wasted no time sliding into the pool of water after that, feeling its body start warming up in response to the aggression. His contender quickly recovered from his leap and ignored the nasty gash to his hip, turning to look down into the water at the wyvern with a rabid expression. It launched one of its bulky limbs into the water to try and grab hold of him, doing naught but disturbing the water and having another laceration added to his body.

The thing tried once more to see if its lack of success was merely a fluke, and losing some flesh as its answer, it tried something else. In one of the most monumentally outrageous decisions the wyvern had ever borne witness to, the thing jumped into the waters with a mighty splash. The creature was better suited to moving through the water than the wyvern initially expected, and the wyvern was rather significantly handicapped in such a small amount of liquid. Despite all this, the wyvern wasted little time to turn the fight into nothing more than a one-sided lashing of the bulky beast while it scrambled in vain to return any sort of damage.

After just a moment of this sort of treatment the creature shifted from being on the defensive, to scrambling to leave; its open wounds clouded the small pool and its hefty size sloshed around the water, combining to mean that what liquid was there was quickly becoming unsuitable for the wyvern, too. After slicing the tip of the creature’s tail off as it fled, it was forced to lay off the offensive.

And then, he was left with a problem. While it was entirely in his favor to fight in the water, he held no illusions that the opposite was true if he left. He peaked his head above the water for an unobstructed view and was forced to duck back in when the first thing he saw was the large claws of the thing sailing right towards him. Agitation flooded him as he started thinking of what he could do to correct this uppity creature’s behavior; there was no way he’d simply turn around at this point in a fight with another of the denizens of the halls.

He took a moment to confirm what he would do next, settling on the idea as the best plan he had at the moment, then readied himself. He used what little space he had to help him build up speed, and shot out of the water in the general direction of the creature. Steam was rolling off his body by this point, obscuring him enough to not take the claw head on, and after having one of his wings struck and left broken and torn, he impacted the creature. He frantically pulled himself up onto its back, using his teeth and tail to move himself out of way of the beasts own weaponry.

After slicing and biting himself into place at the base of its neck, he raised his tail to end the creature and triumph, only for the Maker to hastily send word just before he could do so. He was instructed not to slay the drake, the name of the angry beast, and he moved to comply. Changing the angle of his strike just enough, it speared into the rampaging animals shoulder. By this point, the roaring and thrashing of his unwitting mount had grown to a fever pitch. It tried desperately to remove the wyvern from its back, and when its claws and jaws found no purchase, and its thrashing no success, it finally did what the wyvern feared.

It rolled onto its back, pinning down the wyvern’s already mangled right wing. It was his turn to thrash in anger and pain, wailing in agony even as his tail flayed bits and pieces of the drake’s flesh. The wyvern’s scales had already turned a scarlet red now, steam and smoke were rising into the air as he boiled the waters and charred the drake with his body. Their agonizing roars had become a song of pain which echoed throughout the floor by now, and as both had already been informed that they were not to kill the other, they could only continue their feud until one conceded. This in and of itself was problematic for the prideful pair.

This continued for a painful few seconds, until the wyvern could manage to free himself enough to launch a bite at the drake’s jaw. Searing heat and crushing force assaulted it, and the wyvern shook and gnawed until he felt the drake try to roll back and escape. The wyvern’s grip was strong, though, and he remained clamped like a vice even after he was freed. Making sure his tail was wrapped around the drake before it finished standing, the wyvern was subjected to yet another round of riding the beast whilst holding on like his pride depended on it, which it most certainly did.

With his tail constricting around the drake’s neck, the wyvern could feel the beast slowly start to become more frantic and desperate in its attempts to remove its reptilian rider, only to fail in the end. The wyvern felt as the drake skidded to a halt after collapsing, finally loosening his tail and digging it free of the mountain of muscle, what little of it was left. The blade had been broken off sometime during the skirmish, and he’d had more than a few open wounds and broken bones. He took a moment to assess himself and his partner, along with the floor at large.

For his part, he was miserable, everything ached and he felt awful. His wing wouldn’t fold back into place properly, and the aforementioned tail ended almost a meter too soon. His scales were bright red now, almost pink from the heat they radiated, and only the crusted, cooked blood which clung to him provided any contrast. The drake too was covered in burns from his crude heat manipulation, and his sandy yellow scales had burnt black around his neck and chest. It was heaving for air, the downside of having only lungs, something the wyvern was glad not to deal with.

Thankfully, the Maker was merciful, and it wasn’t too long after their fight ended that both creatures found themselves encased in the light of healing, coming out with unharmed barring a few rather aggressively noticeable scars. The drake was quick to wake up after that, going through a long coughing fit before it stood up and looked around.

Seeing as it was only sheer luck that the wyvern was the winner, being incredibly fortunate to avoid meeting the drake’s claws head on when it left the water, he’d already begun edging backwards subtly, using his newly healed tail to search for a pool of water deep enough to slip into. However, it seemed that the drake was not looking for a second round, simply meeting the wyverns gaze with what might have been either a toothy grin or a threat, or perhaps both. After that, it gave a simple rumble and turned to storm off.

The wyvern started moving to leave, pushing himself backwards in the most awkward motions he’d ever been through to not take his eyes off the creature. Finally, he slipped into a pool of water in the right direction of the exit. A burst of steam welcomed him upon his entrance, reminding him that he was still screaming hot. As his scales started darkening and shifting hues, he made to leave, watching as the drake stomped through a patch of corals almost giddily in the distance.

It was an uneventful trip to the exit, as well as through the floor of hot and cold beneath, and the wyvern was very pleased with this. He was exhausted, not once had he ever been so worked up in a fight, not even with the wyrm, but a small part of him was left quite satisfied at it all. It was only right that he put that upstart in its place, after all, and he quite enjoyed doing so. It was much more fulfilling than simply bullying the critters on his own floor, he was certain of that much.

And so, he popped into his own floor with an aching body and a tired mind, settling down to coil once more around his resting coral. Only, before he could drift to sleep, something long and tingling brushed across his face, and when he snapped to look at it he saw a man-o-war nearly thrice the size as the others and ridiculously blue actively positioning itself above him. Even worse, he was barred from killing it in response, and so he let it harass him for a frustrating few minutes until he simply sheared off its stinging tendrils at the base in his huff, upset that he was forced into bullying the creature this time. Finally, with the invertebrate retreating in fear, he let sleep claim him.