Alma was cheerfully swaying from side to side to the rhythm of the celebratory music. While her father went upstairs to the chief's office, she used the time to scout the several top floors of the hive for the best food available. Being one of the "great heroes" who managed to bring down the serpent surely had its advantages. Most places were now willing to give her a little appetizer or two as an example of their cooking skills. Because of that, she had spent almost the whole afternoon stuffing herself with so many different little nibbles that Glavas' notebook wouldn't have enough pages to describe them all. As she headed back to the room they were given, she was humming along to the melody of the celebration song and thinking about what will Surdi say about the mountain of little snacks she was bringing him. She hoped that his headache had already improved and that they will be able to at least enjoy a little bit of the festival together.

"Heya dear brother!" she called out to him as she opened the door to their room and stepped inside. The moment she did, it was as if the entire festival went quiet. The box with food fell out of her hands. She saw her brother standing in the corner. His eyes were lifelessly staring at the wall opposite him. A scarred dwarven woman was holding a knife in each hand, both placed against the young dragon's throat with visible force. One movement and they would undoubtedly cut even though his scales. Alma did not even notice the disguised passerby accomplice of the dwarf, who gently tapped the door and closed them behind the girl.

"Don't make a sound," another voice calmly commanded, coming from another dwarf leaning against the wall of the room. This man looked a bit older than his ally and smelled of tobacco. "You do only what we tell you to. If not, your friend will die. Do you understand?"

Alma almost couldn't hear him over the sound of her own heart. Both fear and fury were mixing up inside her, bubbling in a horrific concoction. However, no matter how much she tried to think about the situation, she couldn't find a way out of it. At least not now. There were countless questions she wanted to ask, but doing so might've prompted the crazy knife lady to get to work.

"Yes," Alma replied quietly.

"Good. Let's get started then. You know why we're here, right?" the dwarf asked.

"For me?"

"Yeah. Master Ruun wants ya. Your father wouldn't cooperate, so it has to be this way. But if you do as we say, you will still have a family to return to, alright?"

Alma nodded, tears gathering in her eyes.

"Awww... Sweetie," the woman said. Her words sounded caring, but the wide grin on her face indicated otherwise. "Don't worry, you will barely remember this."

"Miora!" her comrade scolded her. "Shut up! I'm the talker, you're the stabber."

"Fine! Tell her yourself," she rolled her eyes and gave her friend some room to talk.

"You're probably wondering what happened to your friend, right?"

Alma nodded again, tears sliding down her face when the idea of Surdi with a stolen soul slipped into her mind.

"Don't worry too much about him. He's fine. See that ring on his finger?" Miora raised the boy's limp hand for Alma to see a small silver ring with a beautiful yellow gem, the insides of which seemed to be swirling like a storm of glitter.

"That ring makes him listen only to what we have to say. Watch. Surdi, wave at your sister!" Without a sign of a single emotion, the dragon did as the dwarf commanded. "See?"

"Why?" Alma asked, keeping her questions short and simple, afraid of what longer sentences might cause.

"To show you what awaits you."

Suddenly, the girl understood. There were weaknesses even to her power. Supposedly, that ring was one of them.

"Simply said, we know that getting you to cooperate is impossible and you cannot be restrained in any normal way, so we went to quite great lengths to obtain this artefact." He approached Surdi and first tied a thick rope around his mouth, making sure no breath magic could come out. Then, once everything seemed secure, he pulled the ring off of Surdi's finger.

The dragon blinked a few times. His last memory was of going to sleep off his headache, so the entire situation quickly caused him to panic.

"Squirm and she will gut you!" the dwarf explained, which served to effectively reduce his struggles. The panic, however, still remained and only seemed to grow.

"As I was saying," the dwarf addressed Surdi, "this is pretty much a brainwashing ring. Expensive as fuck. We had to kill a lot of people to get this. It's quite ineffective against people with lots of mana, like powerful wizards, but for you and your sister? Well, it should be sufficient." He walked over to Alma and put forth his arm. "Give me your hand."

Alma stood there, unable to bring herself to move at all.

"Give. Me. Your. Hand!" Marion insisted. "Look, your brother didn't even know anything happened to him. Slip this on and nobody has to get hurt. You will do as we want and then you can get your life back. For you, it will literally feel like a second. So?"

"HMMMMM!" Surdi let out a muffled scream.

A long sigh escaped Alma's mouth. "Nobody will get hurt."

"Nobody. Master Ruun promised that. Your life will be yours once this is all over. You and your family will be free to do whatever you wish."

"So I'll just... follow you everywhere? Staring into nowhere, doing what you say?"

"Yeah."

Finally, she raised her hand and put it onto the dwarf's palm. Her teary face then turned to her brother. "I'm so sorry." The boy's blood boiled as he saw the ring slip onto her finger and her expression turned blank. The young dragon wanted to do something, anything at all, when a sudden blow to the head turned off all the lights.

"What did you do that for?!" Marion shouted at his comrade. "What if he's gonna have some brain damage?"

"What if he goes all dragon rage on us?" she argued.

"Hmm... smart. I didn't consider that."

"See? You need to be more careful."

"Fine. Put him down into one of the nests. We have to wait for master Ruun."

"You sure we have to wait here? There's a fuckton of dragons just beyond that door! And I didn't pack enough knives."

"Have faith. Master Ruun will come for us. Let's not leave without him."

The safety vault of Skinscale began filling with people for the second time that day. Civilians began rushing to hide in it soon after a fight broke out in the middle of the bottom floor.

Since the start of the battle, which was only about five minutes ago, Ruun had already managed to obtain so many dents and cracks in his outer shell that he looked like a creature that had crawled through a warzone. Veloc now only had one chain blade left, so he opted for attacking at a distance. His weapon whistled as it cut through the air. With a zap of lightning send into the chain here and there, it would always twitch in a different direction, making it practically impossible to predict how exactly was the hunter going to attack. To keep Ruun from getting close to the yellow dragon, Darmok kept the demon busy with close-range attacks. Each of them was infused with so much fire magic that it would most likely immediately cauterize any received wound.

Ruun struggled, that much he knew. For the past few minutes, he hadn't been able to go on the offensive at all. Although he was fast, with durable carapace, and with newly heightened reflexes, he simply lacked the combat experience these two had. Not only that, but their cooperation was almost flawless. Dodging the burning sword or parrying the flying chain blade was still manageable. What got difficult were the dragons' combined attacks. From time to time, Darmok's sword would parry Veloc's chain on purpose, releasing a shockwave of flames and lightning, which their scales protected them from, leaving Ruun as the only person to receive the damage.

Eventually though, the demon began slowly noticing a few changes in the dragons' behaviour. Darmok's eyes looked different. Red, as if he had been staring into the sun for too long. His movements slowed and his breathing became a lot heavier. This gave the demon some time to counterattack at last. He raised his clawed hand and with a silent incantation of water, projectiles of pressurized liquid began shooting from his fingertip. This prompted Darmok to step back and defend himself, finally breaking his endless chain of attacks.

Veloc, however, didn't wait too long before helping out. He threw his weapon high into the air and then sent it flying down with tremendous force. As the blade's tip pierced the floor, several cracks began travelling outwards from it, each accompanied by a small dose of lightning magic. Although Ruun managed to jump away in time, some parts of the attack still managed to find their mark, leaving painful cracks on the shell-covered parts of his feet.

As Veloc tried to pull his blade back, an opportunity presented itself in front of the demon. He no longer cared about what happened in the past or how much this could hurt someone. He was fighting for his life. In such a situation, everything was permitted. He raised his arm, palm facing the dragon. The plates of the exoskeleton on his hand moved, revealing a tiny round orifice, which let out a deafening screech. A wave of translucent magic shot outward, heading right for Veloc.

The hunter loosened the grip on his weapon. It wouldn't help him here. Instead, he took a deep breath, and in an attempt to block the magic, he exhaled a massive amount of his innate element. A thick beam of yellow lightning shot out of his mouth, easily dispersing Ruun's attack. The demon quickly ran from the beam as Veloc turned his head, redirecting the attack. If Ruun hadn't hidden behind Glavas' unconscious body, Veloc would finish him off. The beam left a massive scorch mark around the wall of the hive, indicating that it would have no trouble burning Ruun to ashes.

Since the yellow dragon now needed a moment to catch his breath, Ruun decided to use the time to put more pressure on the gate guard. Darmok was growing tired. His magic had a healthy limit of daily uses and he had managed to cross it by almost eighty per cent already. Ruun's attacks were relentless. Each clawed hand was striking independently, making it almost impossible to parry all of them, not to mention the powerful kicks, and attempts at biting. It was like fighting a rabid animal rather than a person. Naturally, Ruun knew this was where his strength would truly lie. One dragon was a monster hunter, accustomed to wild and ferocious movements of the beasts, while the other was a gate guard, protecting the hive from threats of more intelligent and cunning intruders. Therefore, hitting both of them with the opposite archetype than they were used to was a key to success.

It didn't take long before Ruun finally managed to cut through the annoying scales, finally drawing more of Darmok's blood. The cuts weren't deep, but they still caused pain and served as distractions. The demon was determined to end the battle little by little, should it be necessary.

Soon after, however, a lightning-infused blade nearly took the Ruun's head off. If it wasn't for his reflexes, heightened by his fresh evolution, he would have been decapitated. Some of his eyes turned to the side, spotting Veloc practically glowing with lightning magic.

"You know, it doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together. Now I know why that boy was deaf. Even that residual sound was painful. Can't imagine was the full blast of that must've been like. You used that magic on him, didn't you?" As he said the last words, stray bolts of lightning flew out of the dragon's body. He was spinning his weapon around its chain, enchanting it with more and more magic. "You bastard. I'm gonna peel that shell right off yer body. It'll make me a fancy armour." He grinned, showing his razor-sharp teeth, before closing the distance between them in a few enchanted steps.