Ergon Proudscale woke from his seasonal hibernation as he sensed intruders entering his domain. “Strange. They are emerging from the depths of the cave. How did they penetrate so far into my territory before I sensed them?” He rumbled. Groaning, Ergo stretched; snaking his long, serpentine head upwards. Shaking out his wings, Ergo stepped off the pile of gold he used for a bed. “Whatever they are, I suppose they shall make good food. Perhaps I should extend my hibernation this year.” Ergo muttered, ambling calmly through a labyrinthine series of tunnels that comprised his home.

As the number of entities entering his home passed one hundred, Ergo’s nostrils flared; causing a puff of fire to leak out. “Scratch that, perhaps I will have an extra hibernation entirely.” It took him half an hour to finally reach the intruders who had for the most part stayed in one place. Ergo’s head turned as if he was looking through a wall; tracking a party of scouts who had split from the main group.

Ergo smiled a predator’s grin; his gravelly voice causing reverberations in the tunnel. “I love it when the appetizers volunteer.” Turning toward the scouts, who were several tunnels over from where Ergo stood, he walked forward calmly. Just before his head would have impacted the wall, the dirt began dissolving; running around and past him to land in the tunnel Ergo had come from as he pressed forward nonchalantly. It was only three minutes later that his path finally intersected with the team of scouts.

His arrival began with a rumbling, which caused the scouts to stop, and turn towards the wall through which he was tunneling. Soon, he broke through, head cocking as he examined his prey. “Fascinating. What are you little morsels? I have never seen your kind before.”

“Dragon!” One of the scouts shouted, firing his bow ineffectually at Ergo. The arrow clattered to the ground, deflected by his scales as Ergo began to laugh. Small drops of flame leaked from Ergo’s jaws as he chortled before he slowly refocused his attention on the small pink creatures who were still firing arrows. “Amusing. You face your death, and choose to fight rather than flee. Perhaps you will help me get the kinks out of my wings, hm?” Ergo snapped his right wing outward as if he were flicking a bug; sending one of the bowmen crashing into the wall.

The bowman didn’t get up, and Ergo confirmed the man’s death a moment later as he faded from Ergo’s territory sense. There was a tingling sensation in Ergo’s front left leg, and he turned to find one of the scouts that had held back until now channeling lightning into him.

“A good effort. It has been far too long since my prey caused even that much damage. I shall honor the attempt by making your power mine.” Ergo snapped his head down onto the man with all the speed of a striking snake. With a single gulp, the mage disappeared down his gullet.

Ergo grimaced as the channeled lightning left his mouth slightly numb. “I suppose it is time I stop playing with my food.”

As Ergo opened his mouth in preparation for a fireball, one of the scouts shouted something Ergo didn’t understand at the others. They shouted an acknowledgement back, and he clutched at a necklace. As Ergo launched his fireball, the scout disappeared. The other two remaining scouts died, charred by the flames as Ergo felt the escapee reemerge within the larger group.

Quickly gulping down the bodies of his victims, Ergo sighed. “If only they had come during hunting season. Clearing vermin such as these is so much more satisfying when I am genuinely hungry.”

Ergo slumped to the ground tiredly, watching through his territory sense as the mass of vermin began to move like a disturbed ant hive. With a grunt, Ergon lifted himself back to his feet. “I suppose I should deal with them now, before I have to chase them down.” Ergo yawned. “Such inconvenient timing.” He mumbled tiredly, already feeling the meat from the invaders sending him into a food coma. Sighing, Ergo began ambling toward what he decided to dub the main hive for these mysterious creatures. “Come back in three months when I actually want to eat you!” Ergo roared at the blips on his territory sight. He watched in satisfaction as half the blips very suddenly stopped moving for just a second before returning to their rendition of disturbed ants.

“Good. Be afraid. You deserve it for disturbing my nap, even if you are giving me free food.” Ergon grumped, snorting a fireball into the stone walls to satisfy his irritation.

By the time Ergon arrived, the blips had largely stopped moving, which Ergo wasn’t certain how to interpret. Stopping to cock his head at a wall, Ergon gave a mental shrug. He immediately started to tunnel through the wall, emerging a moment later into a large cavern. The cavern was filled with the strange pink creatures, who seemed to have assembled a wall made of stone, with crates, spare shields, and a number of other seemingly random goods filling in the gaps.

Ergo snorted in amusement, accidentally releasing a small fireball from his nostril that exploded against an invisible magical shield. Ergon cocked his head in interest at this new phenomenon, and began spraying low-grade fire against it to map out the exact location of the barrier. A volley of arrows was mostly incinerated by the flames, the few that escaped destruction clattering harmlessly off his scales. Lumbering forward, Ergo used the soot-stained floor as an indicator to determine the exact location of the barrier. Lifting one of his right front paw, Ergon poked at the barrier with a talon. When it refused to yield, Ergo nodded in a sign of mild respect. Ignoring the continuing hail of arrows, Ergo drew back his arm, and thrust forward with all of his strength, digging his talons a foot into the magical shield.

In the middle of the assembled vermin, a man in robes grunted in pain from the assault. Ergon turned his head to look at the offender. The upraised arms, and clear strain on his face identified him as the one responsible for the barrier. Ergo shook his head. “As if such a paltry thing could stop me. Points for effort though.”

Turning his head to look the mage in the eye, Ergo began digging his claws into the barrier. He watched in satisfaction as the mage strained against his assault, looking into Ergon’s eyes with a growing panic. The mage lasted only another ten seconds before there was a shattering sound that echoed through the cave. Ergo felt the barrier dissolve, and had to reposition himself awkwardly to avoid falling over from the sudden disappearance of the opposing force of the barrier. The mage collapsed, being dragged back through the large glowing portal in the middle of the room. Ergo noted this, then turned his attention to the formation of humans that still huddled behind their makeshift fort.

Chortling merrily, Ergo ambled through it as if it weren’t there. As he passed, Ergo swept his tail back and forth, leaving mayhem in his wake as soldiers were flung into both the walls of their fort, and the sides of the cavern. Despite his seeming disinterest, Ergo kept careful track of his territory sense; ensuring those he struck were truly killed. His rampage was disrupted when he felt a prick of pain on his back. Turning his head, he found a man in a black cloak on his back; already leaping away. Ergo saw a dagger red with blood in the man’s hands. Unfortunately for the rogue, he had jumped backward; allowing Ergo to slap his tail up into the man, launching him into the ceiling with a crunching sound that Ergo found extremely satisfying. In Ergo’s moment of distraction, a man in gilded armor surged forward, smashing a blue-glowing mace into his foreleg. The blow left behind a crater of smashed scales as he wound up for another blow.

“Ow, that actually hurt you egg-sucker.” Ergo roared, speaking around the fire which boiled the offending soldier in his own armor. Deciding to take the fight more seriously, Ergo unleashed his flame core. Across his body, scales lifted up slightly. Not enough to expose the more vulnerable skin underneath, but enough to allow a halo of fire to leak out of Ergo’s body; consuming his mana at a prodigious rate. Under his feet, the very stone slowly began to melt. With a roar, Ergo used his ability to control fire on the flames wreathing him; causing it to explode outward in a nova of fire.

Ergo moved gingerly out of the puddle of magma. Once he was clear, he slumped to the ground; exhausted. Confirming with his territorial sense that the invaders had all been killed, Ergo lazily snaked his tongue out without lifting his head. The tongue wrapped around the nearest body, pulling it into the dragon’s maw. Chewing on it with a crunching sound to soften the meat, Ergo sighed in pleasure as he felt his mana and stamina regeneration accelerate prodigiously.

After recuperating for several minutes, Ergo lifted himself to his feet with an annoyed grunt. Examining his leg, he confirmed that the injury was now mostly healed thanks to his food-induced regeneration. Next, Ergo policed the remains, creating a pile of bodies in the center of the chamber. Humming cheerfully to himself, he also rummaged through the soldier’s possessions. Ergo soon discovered, much to his delight, that many of the soldiers carried metal coins. By the time he had investigated the entire camp, Ergo had a veritable pile of gold, silver and copper coins. His body grew a foot longer as he extended his magic to claim the pile of coins. A moment later, he returned to his original size, but retained his new power.

Ergo sighed contentedly as he sat down to stare at the portal. As he thought about what to do with it, Ergo flicked his tail out; curling it around a charred body to drag the corpse from the pile into his mouth. Sucking the corpse in, Ergo’s tail flicked out again; repeating the process. Five corpses later, Ergo made his decision.

Opening his mouth, Ergo bathed the portal in his strongest flames, hoping to disrupt the structure of the mana. Once he had exhausted half of his own mana, Ergo stopped. Cocking his head, he found that the portal was completely undamaged; though the stone behind the portal showed severe melting with a clear demarcation where the fire had instead been absorbed into the portal.

Ergo groaned. “Well, if I can’t destroy this portal, I suppose I’ll have to ensure no one else uses it.” Looking back and forth between the portal, and the pile of bodies, Ergo shrugged, and began piling bodies down his throat as fast as he could. Ergo found himself grateful that draconic stomachs were designed with a special expandable pocket dimension as he feasted; doing his best to fight off the urge to hibernate brought on by the excess amount of food in his stomach. Once he was done, Ergo emitted an irritated huff of flame from his nostrils. “Well, lets get this over with.”