At The Foot of Mt. Nod

"This. Is. It?" Blake questioned left all too confused by what he was looking at.

"Agreed?" As were the others there with him, hell even Nash and Os had faces that said they weren't sure about this.

"Yep." Came from the housing office lady on horseback. She had taken the party to the base of Mt. Nod, out in the west side of Gorz with nothing but thick trees and tall grass around them, in the distance, there was a suburb a good 30 minutes away, but that was the good part the bad was...

A huge but badly taken care of...mansion...by the look of it. It was a stone building about three stories high with a tower that went up another 4 or so stories on the left end of it. The whole thing was partly built into or out of the mountain it was next to, and no one could tell what color it was since any paint on it had faded away.

Many of its windows were either boarded up or smashed in, leaving only about five of them that had glass to them. Bits and pieces of the roof were falling off just from the light breeze that went by, and a pair of thick wooden doors were the primary way into it, but they were nailed shut with a web of chains and locks thrown over them. Finally, weeds and vines had taken over most of the building, with one room looking as if it was a mini rain forest.

"What is this thing?" Blake asked the real estate agent while pointing at this freak show of a house.

"It's an old Guild House that was left to itself for about 20 years, in fact, the name of the owner or the guild that used to use it aren't even in our books. I don't think anyone's coming back for this thing anytime soon...so it's yours if you want it," She answered while going over a book of ownerless buildings which Blake and co had spent most of the day looking through. "You are a picky one."

"Ugh..." Blake groaned under his breath mostly because this was the last option he had, all the other places that were shown to him were somehow worse than this one. Hell, one of them was just a lot of dirt on the outside of the walls, and this thing was likely way out of his budget. "Humer me here...how much?"

"Let's see here...?" The agent looked at her book closely and blinked a few times after checking the price. "Huh? It looks like you lucked out; it's only a 1000 gold."

"Huh!?" Blake grasped at the price even if it was a dump that was way too cheap for anything this big.

"Well, consider this is on the western side of Gorz, a good bit away from the main city where most people want to live and even if it's at the bottom of one of the four mountains around Gorz. Mt. Nod doesn't have anyone important owning it like the other three, then, of course, the amount of work that would be needed to get this place up to living stands..." The agent explained while going through the rest of the catalog. "...I hope you're taking this one because you can't just camp out in that thing for long without a permit which is renewed monthly at 500 gold." She added, pointing at the party's cart.

"500 gold a month...? Fine, I'll take this lovely home off your books..." Blake agreed to go through with it, after some paperwork and a failed attempt at lowing the price a bit, he was now the proud owner of a broken down Guild House on the side of an unimportant mountain. "...Hey? Where're the keys to this place?" He asked the agent as she was heading back to the main city.

"There weren't any to be found, so you figure it out." She shrugged her shoulders with an indifferent look on her face.

"Is that breaking and entering?" Blake asked half-heartedly not expecting a real answer for the agent but did regret what she had to say next.

"Well, a band of thieves should know a thing or two about getting into place, right?" The agent asked as a joke and watched Blake's face twist and turn.

"Oh...you heard about that, huh?" Blake asked with a hand on the back his neck. "Of course, she did! That thief got the City Watch chasing after us yesterday!"

"Indeed, some guards came to the office asking about you and your group. I told them that you all were new to Gorz, and didn't have anything to do with that robbery, and were just caught up in the thief's business. Which unsurprisingly isn't the first he's done that, so for now, you're off the City Watch's eyes." The agent told Blake bringing a thoughtful look to his face. "Anything else you want to know before I get going?"

"Oh? Yeah! What about those city passes things? Are all of us getting one of those since we live here?" Blake asked with a thumb pointed at the Guild House.

"City passes can only be issued to individuals after they have owned and stayed at a place of permanent residency within the city walls for one year. Until then every time you leave and return to the city, you're going to pay a fee." The agent explained and waited for anything else Blake wanted to know.

"Hmm? One year? That should be fine...thanks for the place..." Blake muttered to himself mostly then had to let out a groaned when he turned back to his 'new home' if he could call it that. "I'm starting to think we should have gotten caught and thrown in jail..."

Seeing Blake like that Baba floated up to him and latched on to his arm. "~Oh~ it's not that bad Hubby, I used to live up in a big tree, all this place needs is some elbow grease and lots of love, and I know where I can get both?" She said, making a point at 1st but quickly just went to rubbing herself up on Blake.

That is until Saffire came up a tore them apart, holding Blake in her hands since Baba just turned into air at her touch. "As annoying as she can be, the Air-Head has a point, this place looks good to me! I've been sleeping in caves most of my life anyhow; in fact, I might just dig one out of that mountain there." She pointed out then dropped Blake to his feet to walked around the place a little.

"I'm going just mark around it for now." Gram sniffed the air for anything near them. "Doesn't smell like anything too dangerous is around here and that horse, and I could get a good run out of here."

"!" To that Nash dug some dirt around him looking at Gram.

"You think so, huh? You're on!" Gram growled at the horse, seemingly agreeing on something with Nash.

"Indeed, Sir Blake, despite this location's current state...it is by far the closest to what you wanted out of your smithy and home correct?" Risabeel came up next even though she looked a little fazed by it all. "Hmm!" She shook it off, then held a hand to her chest. "But I am sure we can make do!"

"Not if it's you, Clumsy, you'd make it fall over with one move..." Mari muttered, shooting Risabeel down into despair then walked up to Blake. "...if you're okay with this dump then I am too, and so is Os!" She held Os to Blake's face with it looking at him in a deep shade red.

"Fine...we're staying..." Blake couldn't say anything against the views of his party and walked up to the chained up doors. "Good thing you guys are around; I might've just gave this place to the first person that asked for it." He joked, looking at the rusted yet thick chains then turned to Saffire. "Think you can rip those off?"

"Heh! Easy!" Saffire clapped her now scale covered and clawed hands together before pulling apart chains like they were ropes tied in a simple knot with some fire thrown in to melt some of the harder parts. "There!" She cheered when everything was gone.

"Nice!" Blake walked up to doors and found that they didn't even have doorknobs. "Welp, gonna need to fix that later...along with everything else in this place." He muttered as he put both of his hands on the doors and pushed.

And with a slow and dreadful creek, the two doors slid open, letting a thick cloud of dust come over the group covering all of them in a layer of dust collected over the years except for Baba who just let it pass through her.

"Well, well, that's no way to greet your new owners, dear," Baba told the house then with a flick of a finger she blew the dust off of everyone except for Saffire that is. "Oops?"

"Really, Air-head?" Saffire asked, holding back her rage as she looked at Baba who just floated over to the door like she didn't hear a thing. "...Ignoring me too!" She growled with a fireball in hand.

"Hey, that's a good idea, Saffire, thanks for the light!" Blake grabbed Saffire by her other hand and brought her over to shine some light in the almost pitch blackness of the old Guild House. "Well, that's not surprising."

The group was greeted by a large lobby area looking room with a high ceiling and some tables and chairs arranged around it, all of which had a thick layer of dust on top of them. Vines, grass, and moss grew around the floor, and beams of light were coming through the holes in the ceiling. Further in there was a large countertop with a posting board up on a wall behind it. Finally, two doors were on either side of that.

"This must be the front desk where quests were put up for the guild members..." Blake said as they walked up to the countertop and thanks to Saffire's light, they found some stairs on either side of it that came to together as they went to the 2nd floor. "Now, do we go left, right, up or forward?" He asked, looking in said directions.

"Well? Since I'm being used as a lamp, we're going that way!" Saffire declared as she pointed to the left side.

"Sure whatever you say," Blake was up for it then looked out the door to see Gram sniffing around. "Hey, you coming or what?"

"Nah, I'm just gonna go mark a few places around here..." Gram answered and took a look inside until he sneezed from the dust. "Grrr! And this place isn't safe for my nose."

"Well, just make sure Nash doesn't get lost!" Blake yelled out more to the unseen horse than Gram and got loud snort in return. "Oh good! He's still there!"

And down the left path, they went...most of the rooms looked like living rooms or dens with a dining hall to round it all up, opposite the dining hall was the kitchen, bare of anything used for cooking, right after the kitchen was its pantry of equal size, and unsurprisingly no food. At the end of the hallway were some restrooms that no one dared to approach, with nothing much else, they went back to the lobby area.

"Then, I guess we go that way now?" Blake asked while looking down the right path.

Without any complaints, they went down the right side, finding a training room with old but usable gear, like weights, wooden weapons, and target dummies. Next was a dry up pool with a changing room for both men and women. On the other side, were some more den areas and restrooms followed by an empty armory which put a smile on Blake's face, just thinking about filling it up

"Okay! The first floor doesn't look too bad so far." Blake thought out loud as they got back to the lobby.

"Indeed, it does not look as bad as one would think, now I believe we enter there." Risabeel agreed then walked up to the front desk and put her hands on her hips. "Now, how does one get over to those doors?" She asked, seeing that there wasn't a way of getting around it other than jumping over it.

"Hold on a sec!" Blake declared as he got over to the other side then ducked down. "There should be a latch or something down here..." He muttered as he looked around a little.

"Hmm?" While Blake was doing that Baba noticed an engraving on the wall next to the counter. "What's this?" She traced a finger over it as she tried to guess what it was.

At the same time, Blake got back up. "Huh? Weird, doesn't look li-GUAH!" And got clocked under his chin by a piece of the counter swinging upwards while another part slide into the wall to make an opening. "OW! What did that!?" He yelled, rubbing his chin and looked around only to find Baba humming to herself while the engraving she was playing with was glowing.

"Oh sorry, Hubby, did that hurt?" Baba stopped what she was doing and floated over to Blake looking somewhat worried.

"Nah, I'm fine..." Blake brushed it off, then held up a little service bell. "...and I found this thing down there too!" He dropped it on the counter top and gave it a light tap getting a nice ring out of it. "Whoa!" And out came a feathered pen in an ink cup, a small stack of paper, and other such items used for filing. "Huh? Magical paperwork? Hope it does itself." He joked then turned to the doors that had doorknobs.

So with a quick turn of one of them, the group found themselves in a small room that didn't have much to it but led to three other doors with signs above them, the first on the right had an armory, the on the left was a bathroom and the last one down the middle read smithy.

"Ooooh!" Blake instantly went to that door, which was a massive iron shutter with an iron wheel for a doorknob. "Even if you're magical I'm getting inside you..." He joked as he went up to turn the wheel, and with some effort, it started to spin around until the door opened.

Inside was an old smithy about three times bigger than the one Blake and Reiner used in Fairmaw. It was a story below the door Blake was looking through, with a small landing and ladder leading down into it. The smithy was partly carved into the mountain looking a bit like a cave, on one side there was a huge furnace that had piles of coal, wood, and barrels marked with oil ready to get tossed into it and set alight, running from the furnace was a system of pipes that went up to upper floors likely and outside.

On the other side of the smithy, there was a workplace with all the right tools for making some items and a pair of avails, along with some weapon and armor racks in case the armory ran out of space. Finally, going from either side of the room were some rail tracks with a mine cart on a spinning track in the middle of the smithy that went down into a cave that went deeper into the mountain.

"Oh! My dear! This is quite the find." Risabeel was amazed by the scale and handy work put into the smithy even though she wasn't sure how good any of it was.

"You can say that again..." Blake muttered as he got down the ladder to take a look at the smithy where all kind of items were forged for anyone willing to pay. "...And it's my turn now!" He got out his hammer and stroke one of the avails with it to hear that lovely sound of iron bashing against iron. "Why isn't there a bed in here!?" He begged while hugging the avail.

"You could sleep on the floor, Scaleless," Saffire told him while standing in front of the cave entrance. "...Hmm? Could use some work, but I think I found my room."

"~Oh~ Not only are you a Hot-head, but you like rocks and dirt too, eh?" Baba cooed as she floated lazily around the room. "For someone who can fly that's little confusing, or are you the confused one?"

"Want to see me turn you into smoke, Air-head!" Saffire growled with her fangs and scales starting to show but right as she was about to toss the fireball she was holding at Baba, a tiny and harmless spider span itself down into her face. "..." To which the Dragon froze in place and stared so hard at the little guy that her eyes almost went crossed.

"Hey, Tits Mcgee, what's up?" Mari asked and got shocked when Saffire didn't react to her nickname for the Dragon. "Blake, this is bad I think she broke! Fix her!" She nagged with puffy cheeks while Oz turned green. "It's not fun if she doesn't do anything!"

"Ugh, yeah, sure..." Blake wasn't sure what to do other than walk up Saffire and hold out a finger for the spider to crawl onto it then moved it left and right which Saffire's eyes followed. "...are you? Afraid of spiders?"

"What!?" Saffire snapped back to reality with Blake's question. "NO! ME!? Afraid of a little thing like that? HAH!" She laughed in Blake's face then held her head up high like the mighty Dragon she was. "Mmmm!" Until Blake brought the spider right up to her face for it to wave at her. "Mmmh! GET AWAY! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" She screamed, shooting streams of fire out of her mouth and hands along with her scales, wings, and tail coming out and ripped her clothes apart.

"Hmm?" Blake just nodded as he pulled the spider back and took a step away from the blazing inferno that was his Dragon. "So, uh, anyone got water on them?"

"I'll handle it, Hubby," Baba flew over to Saffire and whipped up a gust of wind that wrapped around Saffire and kept her flames from hitting anyone until she calmed down. "Is the baby lizard, ok? Don't worry that big bad spider is all the way over thereeee. It can't hurt one bit, ~ooooook~" The wind spirit went on to treat Saffire like a baby with a head pat added at the end.

"..." Saffire just remained silent with smoke slowly coming off of her while breathing in and out. "...Okay, maybe I'm a little bit afraid of those things." She said as calmly as possible and held up her hands to show how small her fear was.

"Good to know, are you going to be okay with the rest of the tour?" Blake asked and was thinking about asking Saffire 'why spiders?' but left it be for now and instead held up the spider which was now swinging off his finger. "Cause there might be more of these guys."

"Mmmh..." Saffire whimpered quietly then played with her fingers before shaking her head in answer.

"Fine, you can stay here and get your room ready or whatever, but we still might need some light...?" Blake looked around a little to find a hand lamp sitting in the mine cart. "Cool! Mind giving me a light?" He asked, holding it up, but Saffire's eight-legged embodiment of terror and pain was still on his hand. "Oh?"

"Mmmh..." Saffire whimpered again and kept looking at the spider expecting it jump at her, rip out her eyes then lay eggs in the hollow sockets for its swarm to eat out her brains. "Yeah, that's what you'll do, you little fuck!"

"Hey, little guy, you're kind of 'spidering' her out," Blake told the spider, and it seemed to understand him somehow as it jumped off his hand and crawled away somewhere. "Now, light up my world!" He held up the lamp all to Saffire all smiles.

"...You are too weird, sometimes." Saffire spat some fire into the lamp then turned to the cave. "If you feel or hear anything like an earthquake, that's me." She pointed out with her claws, ready to dig.

"Welp, have fun down here," Blake called out to her as he and the others got out of the smithy with Blake taking one last look at the place and nodded. "Yeah, this is nice." After getting back to the lobby, the only way to go now was up. "Alright, time to see what the second floor has for us, right ladies?" He asked, turning around to them, Mari looked bored, Risabeel was up for anything, and Baba was...oddly upset. "Huh? What's up with you, Baba?"

Baba gave Blake a wanting look before rolling her eyes. "~Oh~ it's nothing really?" She said in a soft tone as she turned partly away from Blake. "Mama's just feeling like you were treating that Hot-head a little too nicely in front of her is all...~Mmmmh~" Baba explained with a fake whimper very similar to the one Saffire was doing.

Blake rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Okay, what would it take to make you feel better? Woah! Other than getting in bed with you!" He offered a quickly had to add a condition since Baba was about ready to slip herself and Blake out of their clothes.

"Aww, Hubby! That's wonderful you know what I want ~most~" Baba held onto her cheeks as she floated around Blake but held back the need to do whatever she wanted to him then looked up at the ceiling. "Hmm? Fine, all you have to do is let me have that tower all to myself, okay?"

"Yeah, sure thing, you were probably the only person who was going to get there anyhow," Blake muttered as he led the group up the stairs to the second floor and were greeted to a pair of glass doors. "Huh? What's behind those?" Walking up to them, he could see what looked like a meeting room or ballroom with another set of doors going out to a balcony.

After checking that out, the group was back to picking which way to go between right or left. "We went left the first time then let's go right this time," Blake declared, and the first things they encountered were some grass and vines creeping out of a door that was covered with moss. "Wha?"

"This must have been that one room we saw from outside, Sir Blake," Risabeel pointed out as they neared the door.

"Yeah, that's not a hard one, I just didn't think it was this bad on the inside," Blake dryly muttered then held a hand to the doorknob which felt like a wet ball of fur thanks to the moss, making him feel a little worried about opening it. "Can't be that bad, right?" And the first thing to hit him and the others was a blast of thick humid air that the room exhaled.

"Oh my! I haven't felt air this musty in a while." Baba had to float away from the hot and damp air. "If you're going in there, I'll just be fine right here."

"What's wrong, Granny? Can't blow this one away too?" Mari tried to joke around, but she was too busy holding her nose to say anything good.

"I-It is quite the powerful odor." Risabeel did the same as Mari and even felt a little light headed as the damp air kept hitting them.

"Lu and Rena are going to have a field day with this room." Blake toughed it out better than the girls and took a quick peek inside. As he thought most of the room was covered by plants, half of which he didn't know while the rest he wasn't sure if they were even plants. "Wha?" Then when he was about close the door to stop the moldy air, some vines wrapped around the knob and a shut it for him. "Yep, this all Lu and Rena."

"..." All of them quickly moved away from the plant room while also keeping an eye on any more random vines along the way. The rest of the right side had some empty rooms, one of which looked like an old library that any bookworm would love to fix up and live like a shut-in, and at the end, there was a way up into the tower Baba wanted.

"~Oh~ Here we are! You don't have to come up yet, Hubby, Mama needs to make sure everything's ready for lovemaking first." The Ala winked at Blake before floating up to her new room.

"Good, cause I wasn't planning on walking up there in the first place," Blake watched Baba float on up and out of sight. "Okay! Now the left side!" He declared now only with Mari, Risabeel and good old Os.

And so they went looking around the left side which was more of the same, empty rooms waiting for someone to pick one of them to live in.

"How strange?" Risabeel stopped in front of an open door belonging to a room that was one of the few ones that had some furniture in it. Nothing much though just some chairs and a bed frame, what caught Risabeel's attention was a bird bath that was made into a window. Inside of it was a pool of swampy green water. "Hmm?" She stared at the pool, trying to find something in the thickness.

"Hey, Risabeel, what's up?" Blake asked while he was checking out the rest of the room.

"I am not sure...myself?" Risabeel answered with some confusion in her voice as nothing seemed to be wrong with the bird bath until a pair of small jet black horns poked out of the murky water followed by blood red eyes and smooth purple skin. "Oh? Hello, little one." Risabeel greeted a horned frog that was sticking its head out of the water; in return, it croaked at her. "Hehe, such a lovely tune!" She wiggled a finger to the frog's croaking.

"Blake! Clumsy is talking with a frog!" Mari called out to Blake as she and Os were watching Risabeel humming to the frog's croaking.

"Huh?" Blake pulled himself away for looking at the room and saw Risabeel with a frog. "Oh, cool, that's a Devil Frog."

Pond-side Monster, Devil Frog: Small and deadly hunters of forest side ponds that feed on anything from flies to small dogs, these mucus covered amphibians are known by their pair of black horns that shoot from the top of their heads and red eyes akin to the Demons of the Underworld.

Their powerful and long tongues can stretch out to about five times their own body length and can hold anything under 20 pounds (For reference that's about most terrier breeds), but that is not the only weapon these frogs have, they can also let out poison from their skin and tongues that can put down even an Ogre.

Items made from this monster's Ore are poisonous darts, daggers, and tongue like whips.

"Devil Frog? How could one call such wondrously adorable thing by that name?" Risabeel asked, shocked and confused by the name of her new companion's race, getting a croak out of the frog. "...Hmm? Devilishly adorable? I see."

"...?" Blake and Mari took a second to look at eachother then back at Risabeel. "Uhmm? Yeah sure? Whatever so, you want to keep it?" Blake offered, seeing as the Devil Frog and Risabeel seem to fit together. "I mean, you both got black horns and purple looks like your color."

"Truly, Sir Blake!" Risabeel wheeled around so fast that Blake thought she was looking at him the hold time. "May I be able to have this creature as a pet?!"

"Uh, sure, Mari has a Slime, you can have a frog. Meh, it'll help with flies and other bugs, I guess." Blake shrugged his shoulders at the thought, then walked up to the frog. "So, what are you gonna call him?"

"It is a male?" Risabeel leaned down to look at the Devil Frog then at Blake to explain.

"Only dudes croak, right?" Blake answered and watched the frog dive into the water, splashing some water in his face. "Ugh, sorry, I sold out?"

"Hmm? For some reason, the name Vas comes to mind?" Risabeel said, thinking to herself a little, that name just came to her every time she looked at the frog. "Is that alright with you, Sir Blake?"

"Sure, he's yours, Risabeel, and so is this room since Vas lives here too." Blake gave the okay then went back to the looking around the room along with Mari.

"Then, Vas, it is!" Risabeel cheered, watching Vas go around his pool every now and again then he shoot his tongue out at a fly. "And yes, I would like this room, Sir Blake."

"Great that just leaves Mari and me since Gram and Nash are staying outside." Blake patted Mari's head as she came over to him.

"Yeah! So let's find a big one! So both of us can stay in it!" Mari cheered, jumping up and down with Os sloshing around in its jar.

"Come on, Mari, we've been sleeping next to each other for a month. Don't you want your own bed for a while?" Blake offered, but he knew his little sister wasn't going to have any of it.

"NO! I want to make sure that granny and Dragon don't try anything on you while you sleep!" Mari protested loudly and stomped on the floor, and with each stomp of her feet, the whole room creaked around them.

"I'm more worried about you doing that?" Blake whispered as he walked out of the room, followed by Mari and Risabeel after she told Vas to jump onto her shoulder, and it listened to her. "Hmm? That's weird?" While he was walking, Blake noticed some light coming from a door that he was pretty wasn't from a hole in the ceiling since it looked like the sun was setting soon. "Is someone in here?"

"How could that be possible, Sir Blake?" Risabeel asked as they slowly made their way to the door. "The main door was locked under so many chains."

"Might be some homeless person who crawled through one of the broken windows," Blake answered quietly as not to alert the one inside. "Alright, I'm gonna slam the door open, Risabeel, be ready to transform, and Mari sic' Os on them in case someone's not too ready to leave." After telling them that they nodded and he grabbed the doorknob and with a swift motion, he slammed the door open and held the lamp under his face trying to give off a menacing look. "Eh?"

But the effect was wasted as the unknown house guest was just some boy around Mari's age. He wore a pair of loose-fitting brown pants held up by a rope, a green vest that only had one strap to it and a brown passenger's hat that let some of his silver hair stick out. "Eh?" The boy's hazel eyes were in a panicked stare, and he froze in place with a drumstick in his hand.

"..." Blake and the girls weren't doing any better since they just stared at the kid. "Huh?" After Blake came out of it, he saw that this little guy had fixed up this room pretty well.

There was a makeshift bed with a crude pillow made of what looked like a sack and some leaves. There wasn't any dust or that much-broken stuff around the room either, and some lamps were hang up for light. The kid even had two barrels marked with food and water there with him.

"Hmm?" After looking over the place, Blake finally came back to the boy still looking like a statue. "So...ugh? Kid, what are you, doin-OW!" The next thing that came to Blake was a half-eaten drumstick to his face that knocked him over to his back.

"I AM NOT GOING BACK WITH YOU!" The kid yelled before dashing for the door, taking both Mari and Risabeel by surprise as they looked down at Blake.

"Did I just get hit by a drumsti-ARHG!" Blake was trying to get up when a foot slammed into his face as the kid jumped over him. "I am beating the shit out of him!" He quickly got to his feet and looked down the hallway to find the boy making a run for it. "Get back here! You little shit!" He yelled before running after the boy.

"Sir Blake, please wait!?" Risabeel tried making Blake slow down, but he didn't hear her at all.

"Get 'em, Blake!" Mari cheered her brother on instead and was trying to catch up with him to see the show.

"Dammit! If I can get up to the tower, then I can climb down!" The boy told himself as he ran for his life.

But an indoor storm coming up to him from the other side of the second floor made him stop in his tracks. "Oh, hello, ~cutie~ you're a bit too young, but I'm sure you'll grow up nicely." Baba's voice came out it as the storm slowly took her form.

"G-G-G-GHOST!" The kid turned right around and ran back the way he came. "Uh, oh!?" But once he saw Blake, he went for the stairs. "Out the front doors!?!"

"Stop fucking running!?!" Blake grabbed a hold of the guardrail and dropped down right in front of the boy as he hit the last step, making him jump back. "Hehe! Got you now, freeloader!" He cracked his knuckles to scare the little guy more and slowly walked up to him.

"Back off!" The boy dug into his pockets then thrown what looked like a cookie at Blake.

"Heh, like that'll st-OWW! That thing's hard!" Blake yelled at first he wasn't worried about a cookie of all things hitting him, but for some reason, this one felt like a freaking rock.

"Hah! Sucker!" The boy laughed as he ran past Blake and made a dash for the front doors. "Hah! I knew it! They opened the doors! Now I've got an easy...get away?" He slowed down when laying just outside of the door was Gram.

"*Sniff* Huh? That's weird?" Gram turned his head around to see the boy shaking like a rattle. "Smells like bread?"

"T-T-TALKING GIANT WOLF!" The boy slammed the doors shut to which Gram just turned away and laid back down with Nash have question marks around his head. "Uh...?" Then he looked around for some other way out.

"Sir Blake, are you alright?" Risabeel asked worried as she and Baba came to Blake's side.

"Yea, I'm fine." Blake groaned, kind of dizzy then got back to what he was doing. "Now I'm gonna break a bone or six!" He yelled, glaring swords at this kid, if she let him, he would have skinned this kid with Risabeel.

"Uh, Crap!" The boy whipped his head around to Blake then spotted the door behind the front desk, and through that, he saw the entrance to the smithy. "Wait? If I can get in there and lock that big ass door? I can get some time on my hands!" He thought with a smile coming to his face and went for the front desk. "Huh? Why isn't he chasing me?" He wondered since Blake wasn't on a full sprint after him anymore. "Doesn't matter!" The boy cheered as he hopped over the counter and rolled into the smithy then slammed the door shut with all he had. "Come on! Come on! LOCK!" He yelled as he twisted the wheel as hard as he could. "*pant* I did *pant it! *pant* Got to find a way ou-!"

"You're not, Scaleless?" Saffire asked, but only her head in Dragon form was sticking out of the cave's entrance, and she glared at the boy who was gawking at her. "Got something on my face?!" She growled with embers in her mouth.

"DRAGON!" The boy screamed his head off. At this point, he was about ready to cry with all the monsters coming out of this place then came the sound of the iron wheel turning. "Ugh!" He flicked when Blake appeared from behind the door smiling at him.

"What's up, kid!" Blake greeted the now defeated and terrified child.

Chapter End