They rolled down the street, slowed down to closer to fifteen mile an hour as foor traffic split around them, slowly making their way to the tower that grew out of the ground, and the buildings dotting it.

As they approached the massive double gate in front of the tower, Sam changed his color and looks with an illusion, using a more olive skin tone than his second visit. Jennei raised a brow at that, but didn’t bother to say anything as they pulled into the receiving area of the massive tower. The warehouse was enormous, but it was dwarfed by the tower above it. Hell, Billy could probably walk right in the front door if he wanted to.

Sam and the others were directed to park on one side of the warehouse, with slightly less horse manure than the other, and a bit of fresh air coming in from the windows high above them. Sam opened the door and stretched with a sigh, his mind experiencing the fatigue of operating the clutch, rather than his leg.

“It’s been a long time since the last crew came through,” the same bookish, thinning man said, his pen hovering over a clipboard. “What’s the word, captain Harmon?”

“Same old, some idiot screwed up and we have to pay for it. The rest should be coming along, once they straighten themselves out.” Jennei said, her voice a near match for the woman they’d left in the plains with her sixty-odd friends. They’d probably be okay.

“I see.” He said sourly. “Not looking forward to dealing with that much paperwork just before bed, but Tyranus has provided me the energy to do it.”

“Speaking of our Lord,” Jennei said, casting Sam the look. “All ten trucks contain relics He has requested be moved to his private chamber.”

“Our lord’s sanctum?” the book keeper said, puzzled.

A convincing pile of gold, gems, runed weapons and armorlay in the truck bed as she threw open the flap leading to the back of the truck. Sam saw the fake gold glitter enticingly as the man stared at it, his jaw hanging open.

“The campaign to cleanse the elflands Is going pretty good, I’d say,” Jennai said with a devilish grin. “It’s remarkable how much these rats can squirrel away in their filthy holes.”

“Is it...”

“I’m sure our lord has cast his eye on these treasures,” Jennei said, closing the flap. “If even one is missing, he’ll know, and he has ways of finding out who took them.”

“I see.”

“Now,” Jennei said, leaning against the truck as the reamining elves came out of their jeeps and formed a half circle around the book keeper. “Show us where to haul all this stuff.”

“I-em...You’re not supposed to...I’m not allowed to take other people down there.”

“You wanna be still moving our lord’s property the time he gets back? Life isn’t a series of ticks next to a list, man. You’ve got to understand which rules are more important. For example: do you want to be responsible for holding up our brigade and displeasing Lord Tyranus, or do you want to get your job done? I need an answer, and these men are thirsty.”

The elvish scumbags chuckled and elbowed each other convincingly.

“I suppose I can have you stage it outside the tunnel and take it down later.”

“Good enough for me,” Jennei said, shrugging. “I’ve gotta get refueled before I can sleep anyway. Show us where to put the stuff.”

The thin man walked over to a disused corner of the warehouse and motioned. Sam climbed in the truck and backed it up until he was in front of the book keeper.

“Alright, I’ll go get some crates,” he said, heading to the other side of the warehouse. “Once I come back with them, we’ll stack them against this wall.”

“We’ll hold here, but not for long,” Jennei said as he retreated.

“The tunnel’s around here, eh?” Sam said, closing his eyes and making the floating eye. He passed it through the suspiciously discolored spot in the wall, and got nothing, it was solid stone for at least four feet, before becoming some kind of bedchamber on the other side.

“That’s not right,” Sam said before opening his eyes. He experienced a moment of nausea before the floating eye faded away, disconnected from his Neutta.

“Keep your eyes open for his tunnel.” Sam said, casting his gaze around the corner of the warehouse they’d found themselves in. The clerk had let slip mention of a ‘tunnel’ and the wereabouts of it’s general location.

Sam was already happy with his spy. He’d have to get his own, not a loaner from Ella. Faera didn’t really seem the type, though. Where the hell was Faera anyway? Sam recalled her voice coming from behind the throne. Did that mean she’d been captured? He didn’t know of any way they could have gotten what she looked like if they hadn’t caught her.

In any case, he was always going to check the damsel for a tail before cutting her loose from now on. Right now though, he needed to find that secre entrance, and it didn’t seem to be in the walls. Sam looked around and saw stacks of crates, a junk pile, a hay pile for the animals, half an inch of manure everywhere, and no sign of a damn tunnel.

Maybe the pile of crates had a lever or something. Sam shifted the crates, trying to find one that was fixed to the floor. No luck.

A minute of fruitless searching later, and the thin man came back with a wagon full of wooden crates. He effortlessly pulled one out and set it in front of the jeep.

“Alright, let’s get started.” He said. Sam sighed inwardly. Next thing that would happen as the old man would find out the back of the jeep didn’t actually have treasure in it, just an old woman that was very good at illusions. Then he would shout, and they would have to knock him out to keep him from getting reinforcements.

“Go to sleep.” Sam reinforced the echoes of thought as the old man slumped down into the manure. Sam would rather skip the part where he had to beat him unconscious.

“Alright, look for the tunnel.” Sam said to the assembled elves. “If we can’t find it in five minutes, We’ll get some info out of him, but I’d rather not.”

“Ella, can you take three people and break into the vault?” Sam asked, giving the old woman a hand out of the back of the jeep.

“It’s the third left, all the way at the end of the hall,” Sam pointed at the door. “It’s got some nice stuff in it.” Sam wanted some insurance. He need some kind of haul even if the raid on Billy’s stash fell through.

“I can make that happen.”

“Take a crate.” Sam said, kicking a handwagon toward the elves following her. “Gotta bring the right tools if you’re gonna loot a place. Sam watched them go, her injured leg barely slowed her down as they sped across the warehouse.

“And try not to kill anybody!” Sam shouted after her. She gave him a thumbs-up. Once she was out of sight, his gaze returned to the situation at hand, where six elves were aimlessly searching the warehouse for a secret entrance that may or may not exist. Sam supposed he should be too.

Sam kicked over the junk pile, but it had no hidden depths. The walls weren’t hollow. His frustration was beginning to rise when one of the elves called out.

“Let’s just pry it out of the old guy. It’s gotta be faster than sitting here with our thumbs up our asses.”

As far as Sam could tell, that particular elf was the only one sitting around with his thumb up his ass. Well, Sam hadn’t asked for the hardest workers.

“If we do that, it’s going to be tough as nails pulling the info out of him. The harder you push a zealot, the more zealous they get.” Sam said, shuffling through the hay with his peg leg, checking the floor. There was nothing but normal hay in it with manure beneath.

“Well, if you get tired of screwing around, let me know.” The smartass said, hopping towards the hay and tucking his arms behind his head, intending to take a break.

As soon as the young man contacted the hay, he shot to his feet with a howl, catching the attention of everyone there. All eyes were on him as he arched his back, clawing at a spot just off the center of his shoulder blades.

His friends rushed forward to make sure he was okay, not stung by a giant insect or something, but he waved them off after a few seconds. After a moment, he drew a shuddering breath and straightened,

“There’s something under there.”

“No shit,” Sam said, swinging his peg leg through the palce the kid had been until he felt a wooden clack. With an application of Nuetta, the straw blew away in every direction, leaving a single, well-worn wooden pole bent at a fourty-five degree angle. A lever.

“Alright, stand back,” Sam said, bending down and putting his hands on the wood. “I don’t know where this thing will open. Once they’d reached a safe distance, Sam pulled on the handle. With a resounding, metallic click, the floor to his right popped up, surprising a handful of the men standing on it.

“Nice.” Jennei said.

The eight of them grabbed under the lip of the raised floor and lifted until the former floor was standing straight up, revealing a wide staircase leading into darkness. That was what they were looking for.

“Alright,” Jennei, close the door after us and bullshit anyone who comes along. Run if you have to. Send Ella after me as soon as she makes it back. I’m gonna need someone to tell me what does what. The rest of you grab some crates, We’re going to buglarize a dragon.”

Sam put his peg leg on the first step as the elves chuckled, grabbing the crates.

A blade hissed out of a hidden pocket in the floor and impacted against his pegleg, burrowing its way into the hard wood a few inches. A thick oil dripped from the blade and the formerly hidden compartment it had launched from.

Everyone stood stock still, their eyes on the poisoned blade.

“And watch out for traps.” Sam summoned the floating eye and sending it ahead of him while poking the stairs with telekinesis. Another hiss-Clang sounded as a second scythe blade struck empty stone.

“And don’t step anywhere I haven’t.”

Sam must have poked and prodded every inch of the tunnel by the time they made it to the dragon’s lair. He had set off at least a dozen traps, and the entire time, he had wondered to himself if there was some kind of device to disable them and make the hall safe to walk through. It would have saved them a lot of time. The old man probably knew.

Aside from luring him down there with the wails of the injured, Sam didn’t see any way of having the old man voluntarily go down there rather than take off and get help. After half an hour crawling through the tunnel at a snail’s pace, they finally arrived at the tremendous archway.

Golden light spilled from the massive pile of precious metals in the center of the room. The top of the pile was pushe din, looking like an animal’s nest. Bits of melted gold that had flowed together gave the dragon’s bed some rigidity. The gold glittered from the light in burning sconces decorating the walls. The entire chamber looked like it’d been carved out of marble.

“Bastard literally sleeps on a bed of gold,” Sam muttered. He didn’t forget to keep his head down and really look around before he entered, dodging around a pressure plate at the entrance, and pointed it out for the rest of them.

One of the elves knelt down and marked the plate with a piece of chalk they’d looted from the sleeping old man.

“Alright,” Sam said, his hands on his hips. “Set the crates down and let’s get to work.”

They set the lead crate down, which Sam had used to soak up some darts and hidden blades. The elves began hauling crate after crate down the stairs, while the rest began loading them.

“Forget about the gold,” Sam said loudly as he spotted one elf picking up a handful of the stuff. “remember we’ve gotta carry this stuff back up the stairs. Look for anything with magic in it. If it projects a forcefield, changes the color of your skin or turns you into a bird of prey, I want it in the crate. Once it gets heavy, carry it back upstairs with a buddy. We don’t have all night.”

Sam wandered the hall, amidst the bustling elves loading up the crates, examining the glass cases against the wall containing various trophies of the dragon’s conquests. In a decorated little box, Sam spotted a ring that seemed to waver in place, making his eyes hurt. Sam put it in his pocket. There was a guilded sword above a skeleton chained to the wall. It was almost five feet long from tip to pommel, and it seemed to be watching Sam.

Interesting.

Sam continued on his way. He was walking past a mannequin when a glint of silver caught his eye. The mannequin was wearing gilded leather armor and a blue silk cloak. Almost tucked behind the cloak, the mannequin’s forearm sported a stylized silver scorpion holding on with its six legs.

Sam watched it cautiously a moment, wondering it if was going to move on him, but the thing remained still. It was definitely inanimate. Sam shrugged, and grabbed the thing. He nearly dropped it when its legs detached from the mannequin, but that was all the movement it gave.

“Neat.” Sam said, turning the scorpion around to look at its stomach. A short elven poem decorated the bottom. Sam furrowed his brows as he spent a moment translating.

When he’s hungry, feed him

When he’s angry, release him.

When the tide has turned, Kill him

Huh. Probably command words. This probably won’t get me killed, Sam thought as he held the scorpion over his forearm. As soon as his skin contacted the cold silvery metal, the legs of the scorpion clamped down on Sam’s arm, securing the artifact in place.

Sam waited with his hackles raised for the metal insect to do something awful, like try to amputate his hand or lay eggs in him or something, but the scorpion simply waited passively. Sam slowly relaxed. Now he needed to find out what the hell it was supposed to do.

“Ettai.” Sam said the elven word for feed, watching the scorpion expectantly. Nothing happened. Sam frowned and closed his eyes, entering his Yuenan. He spotted the massive silver scorpion resting in the white hot fire of his Yuenan, absourbing energy through it’s legs.

“Obviously magical.” Sam said, opening his eyes to look at it. “fairly obvious code words. What am i doing wrong?”

“Try touching something when you say Ettai.” Ella said, catching Sam’s attention. She’d finally gotten back from looting the vault, and she didn’t look any worse for wear. In fact, she was wearing a fair amount of new things she hadn’t been wearing before, a necklace, three rings, a new robe, staff and shoes.

“You know what this is?”

“Portable siege equipment, made by a sly wizard about eight thousand years ago. Try it on something.”

Sam touched a nearby pile of gold. “Ettai.” He felt a modest amount of Nuetta drain from him as a large swath of the gold was shrunken and sucked into the mouth of the scorpion.

Sam leveled the scorpion at a wall, mindful of load bearing structures and other squishy bodies that might be nearby.

“Pak’t.” The gold spurted out dissapointingly and clattered on the floor, barely clearing a handful of feet.

“Put some oomph in it.” Ella said.

“PAK’T!” Sam shouted, pouring in extra Yuenan. The wall exploded with debris and choking dust. When the particles settled, sam was witness to hundreds of old american gold coins partially embedded in the wall in little craters of their own making.

Sam glanced down at the scorpion on his wrist. It had to be the thing the VAMPR was based on. It wasn’t as flexible, and it didn’t have the range, but it was still supremely useful.

“I like it, I like it a lot.” Sam said before glancing at Ella’s new wardrobe. “Looks like your job went well.”

“They’re all minor things, better than nothing.” Ella said, looking down at herself. “The artifacts down here scream with latent magical energy.”

“Anything that could kill a dragon?” Sam asked.

“In the right hands, maybe.” she pointed to the large sword on the wall, the one that felt like it was watching them. “That one might be able to penetrate the dragon’s scales.” Sam reached out with his Nuetta and lifted the sword off the wall, to his waiting hand.

The moment his hand touched the hilt, some tingling feeling took over his hand, tightening his grip. Ella stared at him suspiciously. She was plotting something. She wasn’t the same Ella he knew, she’d been through five hundred years of suffering. The thing that Sam couldn’t believe was that she treated him just like she had before, a friend, despite having hundreds of years to grow bitter over his unintentional betrayal. She must be waiting for the perfect time to betray him.

He should minimize the risk to himself. Sam’s grip tightened more. A swift strike to the neck, and she’d be dead before she knew what had happened. Always best to kill a wizard by surprise, lest they get a last shot in on you.

Sam’s arm tensed. His eyes narrowed.

“The hell are you trying to make me think?” Sam asked the sword, forcibly unclenching his hand and dropping the sword to the floor with a clattering ring before glancing back up at Ella. “Pretty sure it’s got an attitude problem.”

“I see.”

“If i get close enough to hit him with a sword, I’m probably dead meat,” Sam said. “But...” Maybe if he didn’t have to touch it. He applied Nuetta, and the sword rose into the air and sailed toward the wall, point first. With a jangling clatter, the sword bounced off the wall and fell to the ground. Sam had maybe been able to reach thirty miles an hour with the sword. Not near fast enough to bury it in anything.

“Well, that’s a work in progress.”Sam shrugged, lifting the sword in the air again and moving on, practicing swinging and stabbing with nuetta as he walked.

“Did the rest of ‘em find anything cool?” Sam asked as he scanned the room. The glitter of gold nearly drowned out anything else.

“Tons. They’ve filled three trucks so far.” Ella said.

“Is it slowing down? We might want to cut out here since we...” Sam’s words died in his throat and the suspicious sword clanged onto the ground. The back of the room had come into view. Against the far wall was a shredded and restitched stuffed mannaquin of Sam, with a VAMPR and a shiny golden rectangle on the wall above it, like trophies.

The shiny rectangle was Sam’s implant. Sam put his hand in his pocket, running his thumb over the other implant he’d collected from his unfortunate successor in the cave. His nail caught on the lump in the golden alloy that hid the explosives.

Sam reached out and plucked the VAMPR off the wall, inspecting the heavy rifle, his gaze stopping on the gaping hole in the center of the gun

“Seems like Billy put a claw through it.” Sam said, turning the broken weapon this way and that. “rest in peace, vampire, you were too good for this world.”

“Why do you call him Billy?” Ella asked, watching Sam pore over the gun with a frown.

“That’s his name. Billy Sanchez, taken as an egg from a nesting dragon on the other side of the Sanchez rift in New Mexico by an away team of SEALs on an exhbidition to the other side. Studied, raised, taught, and named by a group of Harvard professors who didn’t know what the hell they were getting into.”

Sam watched Ella frown and open her mouth to say something, when motion caught his eye. An elf ran toward them gesturing wildly. “Come check this out!” he said, waving his hands as he ran, his eyes wide.

Sam took a last look at the defunct VAMPR, and tossed it aside with a sigh, picking up the sword with his Nuetta before turning to face the excited man.

“What’s up?”

“We found a printer!”

Sam’s brows rose.

In the corner of the dragon’s lair stood a glimmering black cube, ten feet on a side. A band of clear glass alowed them to see the fine checkered floor inside the cube, and a pair of massive black hinges covered edge, with a handle on the other side.

Beside the handle was a blinking touch-screen.

“Oh, my, god.” Sam said. He could feel his cheeks tightening into a manic grin, but who cared? He was standing in front of the protoype for the military grade Logistics Fabricator.

“Do you have any idea what this is?” Sam asked.

“Looks like a three dee printer?” the elf standing nest to him. Sam stared at him. “A really big one?”

“This is a Logistics Fabricator, built for supplying entire bases with nonstandard equipment and replacements on a case-by-case basis.” Sam said with a grin as he clomped up to the cube and brought up the screen. “And not just a copy, either, this one’s the protoype, without the restrictions added to stop dumb G.I.s from blowing themselves up.”

“So...” the elf said, working it through. “We can use it to make weapons?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. These things were supplied through a sludge of raw materials carried in massive tanker trucks. It could be too empty to make anything anymore. Tyranus probably used this thing to make the first jeep that you guys have been replicating for the past couple months.”

“Power source looks... magical.” Sam said, glancing past the corner of the cube, his gaze landing on the rubber power cable as thick as his waist that was abruptly cut and the individual wires spliced into a runed golden box studded with gemstones that burned with inner light.

“Supply levels...” Sam muttered as he brought up the system specs. “Crap.”

“Crap?” Ella asked.

“Well,” Sam said, pointing at the esoteric numbers filling the screen. “From what I can make of it, our boy Billy used up all the explosives and damn near all the iron and silica, he used up all the plastic makings too. Lemme check his usage history.”

Sam scanned through the list. More than a dozen backpack nukes, along with a complete jeep, and half a dozen baubles. The Fabricator was nearly empty, save for some of the rarer metals.

“huh,” Sam said, fishing the wavering ring out of his pocket. “Do you know what this does?” he asked, glancing toward Ella. She knew magic stuff.

“I’ve never seen it before.”

“Crap.”

“But it looks like it was made by a wizard from our homeland. Maybe a good luck charm?”

“Like it makes good luck?” Sam asked.

“What? No, it’s obviously not magical.” She said, glancing at the ring whose appearance seemed to flicker like fire in his hand. Sam glanced at her then back down to the ring flickering in his hand. Maybe she wasn’t seeing what he was seeing?

“Huh.” Sam grunted, putting the ring to his finger. The small band stretched itself wide to accommodate Sam’s sausage fingers, and settled comfortably behind his finger joint. Sam stood still for a moment, paying close attention to his thoughts.

Sam’s breath caught as he felt a tiny burning sensation in his chest as his breathing was guiding energy into a ring he’d been working on for a couple days. He closed his eyes and went to his Yuenan, where dozens of white poles stood straight up out of his Yuenan in five clumps, forming a pentacle.

The division of his Yuenan had rearranged, with his Isayatta opposite the amulet, and the pentacle of white poles dividing the two of them.

As he watched, the poles began to bend away from each other slowly, stringing a gossamer thread between them that flickered with motes of light. the motes were drawn into the stalks -Thats what they were, acting as some kind of natural looking conveyor system that drew in the motes of light and transported them into his Yuenan, Like a feather or a fern

Sam spotted the reason for the burning sensation in his chest. His Yuenan had grown, just a bit. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam spotted motion. He turned to look directly at his Iseyatta, and saw a tiny hairy man waving to him in from the bare-floored-empty-walled mind palace. That’s new.