Red warning lights were activated all over the cabin, a siren howled. Latludious came running from the tail of the plane. The others soon joined in. They came closer to the windows and watched the oncoming monster of gigantic size with horror.

"Latludious," said Ona, "can't you protect us with your magic?"

"I'll try. You all take the parachutes and go to the machine guns. We’ll shoot back. Maybe you can scare the bird away."

Ronnie ran to the pilot's cabin, climbed the stairs, and found himself in front of a 12.7mm Browning M2 heavy machine gun in the fuselage of the aircraft. He inserted the tape, pulled the shutter, and watched as the dragon came closer and closer to them. Latludious ran into the machine gun cabin located on the right-wing and used the "weight of the rock" on himself so that he would not be blown away by the wind and went up. The first shots rang out from the side of the suspended container of the left wing. Ronnie looked through the scope and waited, the magician and Sitting Bull (which was located in the tail section) did the same. When the dragon was a couple of miles away from them, they were able to make out its pitch-black scales, wings the size of their Boeing, a long snake neck, and two sparkling red eyes.

The dragon hovered in the air and began to watch the plane. Latludious bent his knee, laced his fingers, and muttered a spell, his eyes shone with white fire. The rays of the departing sun reached out to the magician and a fiery sphere appeared in his hands, flaming and pulsating. Ronnie fired a hail of large-caliber bullets, aiming at the monster's chest, and saw a lava ray fly over his head. The dragon put its head under the spell, opened its mouth, and swallowed it. Its neck turned red as if he was about to release the beam back. Then white smoke came out of its mouth and nothing happened.

Ona screamed at what she saw:

"Damn it, it swallowed the annihilation ray. Fuck my life!"

"Real girls don't swear," Faolandan said over the radio.

"Real men don't get a dog named Tina."

Latludious crouched. The spell took 40% of his total mana. He slowed down and applied "Cutting Lightning". A high-voltage electric discharge shot from below the sky at supersonic speed but did not cause visible damage to the dragon. Four large-caliber machine guns in a couple of minutes of continuous fire heated up to the limit and the shots stopped. Ronnie froze in fear and watched what will happen next. Ona reloaded the tape and just got ready to shower the enemy with lead rain again when the dragon released a fireball from its mouth. Latludious cursed and pulled out a dark bottle from his pocket and used a counter-spell of the water element, but the mana used was not enough. The enemy incantation, like a ball, bounced off, changing its trajectory, and hit the left wing, blowing up the first engine. Faolandan and Ona miraculously remained intact. The plane rocked, and the magician almost flew down but managed to hold on.

The dragon soared into the stratosphere and folded its wings and flew headfirst down. The mage used one attacking spell after another but to no avail. The monster ate all the magic and to say that it used at least minimal effort for this is to lie to one’s self. Ronnie noticed Latludious's spells becoming weaker with every attack. The poor guy was already at his limit. Faolandan took his dog, dropped the machine gun, and headed to the emergency exit, there he attached the wolfhound to his chest and prepared to jump. Sitting Bull stopped shooting and watched what was happening with delight in his eyes. The dragon swept past them. The plane rocked from all the turbulence it made. Then the monster began to circle the plane, rushing a couple of meters to the right, then to the left at an insane speed. The flying fortress was tossed from side to side like a ship during a storm. When the dragon got bored of it, it caught up with the Boeing and began to examine this technological miracle, which it had never seen before, up close. Ronnie dropped his machine gun and headed for the emergency exit. Latludious met the dragon's gaze and he felt as if some ancient language sounded in his head. Ona aimed and started shooting at the enemy's head, shouting: "Take this! You fucking lizard!"

The dragon howled rose above the plane, and Latludious saw that it was three or even four times the size of their bomber. The monster's sharp claws dug into the Boeing's hull and squeezed it, as an eagle would squeeze a newly caught vole, and dragged the prey to the east. Ronnie and Faolandan opened the door and jumped down. Behind them, the Sitting Bull also evacuated. Latludious took off the effect of the "weight of the rock", applied the spell "gravity reduction" and flew headfirst down. Ona managed to get out of the machine gun nest and crashing into the walls of the inner corridor, barely made it to the exit, and jumped down at the last moment.

Latludious completely exhausted by the battle, was the first to crash into the ground and almost died. At the last moment, he put the last two percent of his mana into the spell and in so doing softened the landing. The straps on Ronnie's parachute got tangled with the branches of giant coniferous trees. He hung there for several minutes, wobbling like on a swing until he reached the tree’s trunk and leaned on a small protruding twig. He pressed the button and freed himself from the shackles, pulled out the belt and tightened it around the rough bark, and went down to the middle, where the trunk turned out to be too wide, he had to jump from branch to branch, and then settle for magic moss. Ona and Faolandan ended up just south of Ronnie and Latludious, but soon they all got together. Sitting Bull was nowhere to be found. The "Bishop" wrote to him in a PM and received the coordinates and a request for help. The Indian had a broken leg and several broken ribs. He was lying on the ground and couldn't move. A ten-minute countdown for disconnection has begun in his HUD. All hooting and groaning and swearing with a good obscenity in one word went to save their friend.

Darkness covered the dense thicket. Everything was black. They did not move away from each other. Latludious ran first, followed by Ona. The third was a panting Faolandan, next to him his faithful friend Tina was spraying drool on the grass and baring its teeth. Ronnie was closing the column. His stamina decreased by 0.3 every minute due to the heavy weight of the cartridges and the rifle. Running cross-country was not part of his plans. Latludious turned on the interface and noticed how stamina dropped to zero, the body stopped obeying. He tripped over a bump and collapsed.

"How did this happen?" Ronnie asked.

"Magic spends not only mana but also strength and stamina," Faolandan replied.

Ona took the elixir out of her backpack with a slight movement of her hand, gave the magician half to drink.

"Sitting Bull should be somewhere nearby," Latludious said. "We'll have to work the old-fashioned way and shout."

They did so. Two minutes later, Sitting Bull responded with a heart-rending scream and moan of a dying man. They fell silent and guided by the sound, went to the northeast, bypassing huge trees and shaggy bushes. Fallen branches of Hessataule (Information from AI: this is the nickname of tall black trees, which at first glance seem dead and dried up, but it is a trick of the eyes. According to local lumberjacks in the first months of the game, it is impossible to cut the trunk of Hessataule, since its bark is strengthened by magic) crunched underfoot like frozen snow. A minute later they saw the twisted body of a comrade lying between snags with his height and stones overgrown with rotten moss.

"Just finish me off. I can't stand it."

The pain became more and more excruciating for Sitting Bull. A thin stream of blood flowed from his mouth. The veins in his eyes burst, and his skin began to turn pale. He saw almost nothing, except white spiral circles appearing out of nowhere. A bone was sticking out through the red human meat on the right hand. An open fracture.

"What else?" Ona snapped and took out a restoring syringe and stuck it in the shoulder of the machine gunner. "This will save you and restore you for a while."

Latludious approached him next and touched his forehead with his index finger and mouthed the spell "analysis" and said:

"The spine is not damaged."

Sitting Bull was shaking from the throbbing pain. Ona took out a second syringe filled with white liquid and inserted it into his shoulder.

"It's a painkiller. Soon you won't feel anything."

"You're just prolonging my suffering."

"Look, he spoke like a normal person. Did you hit your head and your brains fell into the right place?" Ona said and set the bone back with a sharp movement, treating the wound and applying a pressure bandage.

"I'm sorry for you, my friend. She just bet that I would die first," Faolandan chuckled.

"How much time does the HUD show before full recovery?" Latludious asked.

Sitting Bull was silent for a few seconds, and then replied in a barely audible voice: "Two days."

"We can't wait that long. We'll have to drag him on ourselves. I'll write to Vvy that we'll be delayed."

Sitting Bull met Ronnie's cold gaze.

"We use tents," the magician continued, "it is dangerous to move at night."

"I agree. We'll continue with the first rays of dawn, in five hours."