After defeating the legendary sand dragon, its giant corpse lying in the sand next to them, Kayde turns to the others, “So, we’re going to loot the crap out of this thing right?” Alcaeus’s eyes light up at the notion. Kayde goes over to a claw and starts to cut through it with his knife.

“This is going to be way harder than I thought it would be. I’m barely able to cut through,” he informs the others as he begins to saw away.

After Drakthar has finished wiping all of the blood and viscera off his power armor, he silently starts to cut some of the sand dragon’s hide to fashion a new set of armor to replace the Dragon bone set he uses when not in power armor.

Xander goes up to one of the dragon’s large golden teeth. He eyes it, trying to measure the length he wants. Once he has it, he puts his sword up to that point and starts to saw at the tip of the human-sized tooth.

“Yeah, the teeth look good. It’s the most golden part of this thing; it will probably be worth the most,” Alcaeus agrees with Xander’s choice, going up to one of them and realizing he has nothing to harvest it with.

“Hey, does anyone have an extra knife or something I could borrow?” Alcaeus asks the others. They all shake their heads focusing on their own efforts.

“Fine, guess I’ll just try something else,” Alcaeus mutters to himself. He looks inside his bag of holding for something he can use. He decides he is going to try to tie a rope around a tooth and pull it out.

Alcaeus reaches over the tooth to its base trying to get the rope around it. At the bottom, his hands get some of the leftover stomach acid on them.

“Fuck! Dammit, that hurts,” he pulls his hands up in reaction to the pain. He ties the rope higher up on the tooth and backs off.

After pulling on the rope for a couple of seconds, he realizes it won’t budge with his strength alone.

“Hey, Drakthar, can I use your horse to pull this tooth out?” Alcaeus requests. Drakthar just finishes gathering hide and moves to start slicing a tooth himself with his axe.

“Why should I let you?” Drakthar asks Alcaeus, knowing he owes him nothing.

“Come on man, just help me out. I guess if it comes down to it I could give you some gold,” Alcaeus bargains, not able to think of anything else to give him.

“I have no need for your gold,” Drakthar rejects his offer, continuing to cut the tooth.

“Fine, what do you want from me?” Alcaeus doesn’t know what to offer.

“Don’t annoy me for a week,” Drakthar responds, not wanting a single thing from Alcaeus other than to cease his constant pestering.

“You mean like don’t talk to you or…” Alcaeus isn’t quite sure what about him annoys Drakthar.

“No, you can talk to me, just don’t annoy me,” Drakthar repeats like it’s apparent.

“Okay… sure, I guess I could do that,” Alcaeus agrees, just wanting to use Drakthar’s horse.

Alcaeus takes the other end of the rope and ties it around the horse’s left hind leg. He slaps the horse to get it to run and it does. The rope goes taught and they all hear a crack. Drakthar looks over to see his horse collapsed on the ground, it’s left leg bent back from the force of the pull on the rope.

“You idiot, you broke its leg,” he exclaims in anger.

“Look... I didn’t mean to,” Alcaeus starts to apologize not wanting to incur Drakthar’s wrath.

Drakthar notices how Alcaeus secured the rope to the horse.

“You imbecile, of course, his leg broke, you needed to wrap the rope around its waist not one of his legs,” Drakthar points out like it was obvious.

“You’re going to pull my cart until my horse’s leg heals,” Drakthar demands.

“I can’t pull that thing. I…”

“Are you annoying me right now?” Drakthar interrupts Alcaeus referring to their previous deal.

“No... No, I’m not, I’ll pull it,” Alcaeus recoils more afraid of what Drakthar could do to him than the physical labor he will have to endure.

Xander finishes cutting two tooth tips off the dragon.

“Here, you can use my sword, but in return let me have some of that rope,” he tells Alcaeus.

“Yeah, sure kid, take as much as you want,” Alcaeus gestures towards the rope. Xander cuts off about two feet of rope before handing Alcaeus his sword.

As Alcaeus, Kayde, and Drakthar all continue to harvest the dragon, Xander starts thinning the rope, creating two necklaces by threading the rope through a hole he created in each golden tooth tip. He puts one of them on and puts the other in his bag.

“What are the odds Jorge was just really drunk and all the things he said about this being a legendary dragon were just bullshit?” Alcaeus asks bored by the monotony of cutting out a tooth.

“Don’t know, he could have been, but he seemed pretty sure about it,” Kayde points out, about halfway through the dragon’s claw.

“It’s true lads,” Jorge sits up on cue.

“Ask anyone from the capital and they’d have heard tales of the beast,” he goes on.

“Hey, wait… Alcaeus aren’t you from the capital?” Kayde remembers him having been exiled from there.

“Yeah, I don’t know what Jorge is talking about,” Alcaeus defends himself, sure he would have known about it if it was really that legendary.

“Maybe you spend too much time in the brothels to hear about it, or maybe you’re just too young,” Jorge tries to find a reason Alcaeus hadn’t heard of the dragon.

“I’m not that young, I’m twenty-five,” Alcaeus declares.

“Yeah, that’s not young at all lad,” Jorge sarcastically states, chuckling as he goes into this bag of holding for another drink.

“Okay maybe not, but I’m not young like the kid is,” Alcaeus points out.

Xander doesn’t let his comment slide, “I am only three years younger than you, that is not even that big of a gap”.

“Still you are the youngest though,” Alcaeus doesn’t let it go.

“No, I am younger than Xander. I’m only twenty-one,” Drakthar explains, being, in fact, a year younger than Xander.

“I guess I’ll just shut up then,” Alcaeus throws up his hands.

“Yes, that would be nice,” Drakthar agrees with him. Alcaeus mumbles something under his breath cursing out Drakthar.

After he finishes harvesting two teeth, Drakthar stands up and straightens out his back. He places both human-sized teeth and the hide into the bag of holding Kayde gave him, finally finding a good use for it.

“Xander, while the others continue here, did you want to check out the holes the sand dragon created instead of just sitting around?” Drakthar asks, seeing Xander sitting in the sand doing nothing.

“Sure, sounds more interesting than watching them,” Xander gets up and wipes the sand off his pants.

They walk over to one of the holes. It is too dark for either of them to see into it. Xander lights a torch and drops it down the hole.

“It’s not too deep,” Drakthar observers, the torchlight completely visible.

“Look over there, it looks kind of like a door,” Xander leans down to get a better view.

“Let me see… it is. We should go down there and see where it leads,” Drakthar requests, wanting to investigate.

“Grab on. I can get us there,” Xander holds out his arm. Drakthar grabs it and they show up at the bottom of the pit where the torch was.

Xander lights another torch, it illuminates the door in front of them. It is solid marble but has an odd indentation on it. Drakthar grabs the edge of the door and tries to pry it open, but it doesn’t budge.

“It won’t move,” Drakthar strains while trying again. Xander eyes the indentation, it seems oddly familiar.

“Does Jorge need to punch it again?” Drakthar questions when he notices the indentation.

“No… It’s not a fist this time. Wait… I know this shape,” Xander tries to figure out what it is. He finally puts it together.

“No way! Hold on one second,” Xander rummages through his bag, pulling out the miniature statue of Gwyn that Gwendolyn left behind.

Xander puts it into the indentation and it fits perfectly. The door slides into the wall, the statue going with it, unable to be grabbed before disappearing into the wall.

“Shit, fuck, how am I going to return it to her now?” He collapses to his knees.

“Calm down, why are you freaking out over a statue?” Drakthar looks down confused at his friend.

“Gwendolyn left it behind, if I ever saw her again I was going to return it to her, but I can’t do that if it’s stuck in some wall,” Xander explains how he came to have the statue.

“At least we can see what is inside now,” Drakthar grabs Xander’s shoulder and lifts him back to his feet.

They head inside and see a long hallway with statues on either side. Upon a closer look, they notice it is the same three statues repeated all the way down the hall. The first is Gwyn standing majestically, the second is a soldier kneeling, and the last one is Gwyn holding a lightning bolt.

“You think there are traps here?” Drakthar asks, noticing the peculiar pattern.

“Probably,” Xander takes a step forward in between the first set of statues. He takes another step putting him between two kneeling statues.

“What are you doing? You could get yourself killed if you’re not careful,” Drakthar asks, watching Xander move forward.

“Trying something. Don’t worry if something goes wrong I’ll rewind time,” Xander sets him at ease, going down on one knee as he lines up with the second set of statues. In front of him, two bolts of electricity hit each other. The Gwyn statues holding the lighting bolts crumble.

Xander stands back up and walks past where they were.

“How did you know what to do?” Drakthar asks, surprised Xander figured it out so easily.

“I don’t know… I just guessed,” Xander shrugs, not exactly sure that would work either. They go down the hall kneeling before every set of lighting statues. The pattern remains the same as before and the lighting destroys the statues each time.

At the end of the hall is a fork; one way leading to the left into a room full of rubble, to the right, is a single door. Xander pulls out one of his many bells from a pouch and tosses it into the room full of rubble. Once it hits the ground, the room fills with fire.

“Can’t go that way,” Drakthar starts to sweat a little from the intense heat.

“Yeah, unless…” Xander waits for the fire to stop before throwing a second bell into the room. It fills with fire again.

“Yeah definitely can’t go that way,” Xander agrees, seeing that the trap is still active.

They turn to the door and see the same fist indentation that Jorge punched open in the morning.

“Now we need to go get Jorge,” Drakthar recognizes the indentation.

“I have one last idea before we do that,” Xander wraps some cloth around his hand. He holds the torch up to the cloth lighting it on fire. He punches the indentation as hard as he can. Nothing happens except Xander slamming his hand into the door really hard. He winces removing the cloth as fast as he can.

“Nice thought, but let’s get Jorge,” Drakthar suggests, seeing Xander’s pathetic attempt to open the door.

They walk back down the first hallway and end up at the hole.

“Hey, can you guys hear us?” Drakthar calls out. Alcaeus goes over to the hole and peeks his head down.

“Oh, hey guys what’s up? You guys stuck down there?”

“Can you throw us down a rope?” Drakthar asks, seeing as how they have no way to climb out of the pit.

“Hmm… let’s see. How about I throw you down a rope and I don’t have to pull your cart,” Alcaeus propositions, seeing this as a chance to bargain.

“I’m going to wring your neck when I get up there,” Drakthar threatens him.

“I guess you’ll never make it up then. That’s fine I like Kayde and Jorge better than the two of you anyway,” Alcaeus starts to whistle.

“Okay, fine, how about you throw the rope down and I will help you pull the cart,” Drakthar tries to play by Alcaeus’s rules, knowing he was going to have to do that anyway because there is no way a man as weak as Alcaeus could pull it alone.

“Hmm… yeah fine. If you are helping me it shouldn’t be too bad,” he agrees, lowering them down a rope, tying it off to the cart. Drakthar and Xander climb their way out of the pit.

“So… find anything interesting down there? Any gold or fancy gems?” Alcaeus asks them once they are up.

“No, nothing like that. We came back up to get Jorge, we couldn’t move any further, there is a door with that same indentation that was near the fire on it,” Drakthar explains why they came back up. He clues in Kayde and Jorge as to what is going on and they agree to join them down in the pit.

All five of them climb down the rope, making sure it is secured to the cart so they have a way back up. They walk past the first room and come to the door with the fist indentation in it.

“Stand back lads,” Jorge repeats as he lights his fist and punches the door. It opens as the ground did before.

Behind the door is a hallway full of rubble. Xander throws a bell ahead of them, but unlike the last one, this hallway doesn’t fill with fire.

Xander sighs in relief, “Should be safe”. He picks the bell back up when he passes by it.

At the end of the hall is a room. Alcaeus gets excited as he sees a circular pile of gold in the middle of it, running over to it and starting to shove as much as he can into his bag.

“Does it seem odd to anyone else that the edges are all in neat stacks, but the inside is all spread around?” Kayde points out as they all watch Alcaeus grabbing gold.

After taking nearly an entire stack Alcaeus notices something odd at the bottom.

“Explosives, there are a bunch of them,” he puts some of the gold back so he doesn’t trigger it.

“Wow, I’m surprised you had the self-control to stop yourself,” Kayde comments, fully expecting Alcaeus to blow them all up for some gold.

“I’m greedy, not stupid,” Alcaeus grabs the topmost gold of each pile.

“Thought he was both,” Drakthar mutters so only Xander can hear.

“Hey, there is a trap door under them,” Alcaeus notices, seeing a handle between the rigged explosives.

“Can we get to it?” Kayde asks, wanting to venture down it.

“No, the explosives are on top of it,” Alcaeus informs them.

“I have an idea, but he isn’t going to like it,” Xander points at Alcaeus.

“Well I can’t think of anything, let’s hear it, lad,” Jorge wants to know the plan.

“Okay, so we all go back into the hallway, stand back as far as possible and Jorge throws a fireball at the gold triggering all the explosives. Then we get past the door,” Xander explains, verifying that this place is sturdy enough to not collapse before suggesting it.

“All right lad, I can do that, but I want some of that gold,” Jorge requests, not willing to do it for nothing. Alcaeus looks around and sees them all looking back at him.

“What? You guys want me to give him some of my gold? Okay... fine”, he pours some of the gold into Jorge’s hands.

They all go into the hall and Jorge swirls his hands around summoning a fireball. He throws it into the room causing explosives to go off. The others trigger the ones that didn’t already go off, creating a chain reaction that causes the entire tunnel system to shake. After a couple of seconds, the explosions end and things settle down. Xander rushes back into the room and sees the gold melting on top of the door. He scrapes at the door with his sword, making sure the gold doesn’t harden over it. He grabs the handle and pulls it open, some of the gold oozes down the edges of the hole leading downwards.

There is a ladder inside the hole.

“Perfect! Who wants to head down it first? Nobody? Okay, I’ll do it,” Kayde takes the torch from Xander and goes down the ladder first.

They all follow after him, going down step by step until they hear a voice ask, “Who is that?”

“Jorge, tell them you’re a former priest of Gwyn,” Kayde whispers up to Jorge.

“Aye, It’s me Jorge, a former priest of Gwyn,” Jorge replies exactly how Kayde told him to.

“How am I supposed to know who you are? Come down here,” the voice orders.

“Might as well just go down. They could be friendly,” Kayde suggests optimistically. All five of them reach the bottom, seeing about ten men in armor holding odd-looking swords. Drakthar recognizes them, it was the same kind of sword Sharn wields.

“And who the hell are you guys?” The man in front asks, not impressed by this ragtag looking group.

“We’re just some travelers, found our way down here after killing this sand dragon. What about you guys?” Kayde smiles at them, still hoping they are friendly. Someone from behind the men pushes their way forward.

Xander recognizes the long blonde hair and curves anywhere, not able to stop himself from saying her name, “Gwendolyn?”