The mountain rose and the gaping mouth of the monster was revealed in all its grandeur.

Slowly, the troop consisting of the Lord British's personal guard, 5 knights,

Rubix, Saphie, Valtrax, Exodus, me, Ragul, Esme, Shepard, as well as 5 female dragons and 2 fire dragons, acquaintances of Exodus. The dragons carried all the equipment and followed Exodus' orders.

I turned around, took one last look at the sunlight and then finished the walk with mom Esme on me and Saphie too.

I liked having them close to me. But I was surprised to see Ragul and Esme with me!

Father... Why didn't you stay with Iolo and the others? That is not your age anymore...

With his big Viking beard and his skin armor.

"Son... I've always been a warrior... Breaking old bones and not being part of this legendary expedition would have been the biggest regret of my life. I was born with an axe and I will die with an axe!. "

Me: "But Mom?

She caressed my neck. "I heard that the dungeon is huge and that you can get lost in it...

So if that should happen... Might as well be together...right?

"Looking at it that way...I can understand."

Esme: "And then I can't wait to see the in-laws. First impressions are always the best."

The corridors went deeper and deeper.

The wind finally died down and with a magic spell the eternal torches and candles lit up and gave all the atmosphere and depth to the caves.

It was like entering the entrails of a demonic beast.

Suddenly, shadows on the ceiling.

Green eyes.

Then one of the knights stopped Shepard, who was in the front line, with his arm.

A hole in the wall, then a dart crashed on the opposite wall.

Then further on, black plants, like agaves with lots of spikes

Shepard: "Be careful, they are poisonous, even to a dragon.

If you don't pay attention, it's a tragedy!

Then we went down the infernal stairs and found ourselves in a rather large room.

Lord British" Don't cross the light. It's a trap. We'll all drown."

We crawled and were careful that no spikes or wings crossed the beam.

This place gave me the creeps, but I was glad for a family expedition.

Then we came to a corridor with a well and on the other side, in an alcove, a living skeleton with a sword and a shield.

An abomination!

On the side it was written: "This is my prisoner! Don't kill him!"

But the way was dead end!

Exodus: shouted: "Beware, it's a vicious trap! You have to back up and ... you see this line cutting the stones, they're held back by metal edges. The whole room is a trap.

We walked out and Daddy nodded at me!

I breathed in and dropped a fireball from my throat and it exploded at the skeleton which was instantly vaporized.

CLICK!

The whole corridor tilted, the bottom revealing monstrous spikes and the ceiling contiguous as a hallway.

If we had stayed, the long hallway would have turned into a pit and we would have all been impaled in the bottom after a dizzying fall.

Exodus: "The traps are becoming more and more sophisticated. You have to be vigilant and look at the smallest details.

Then we arrived in a room filled with giant coffins and skeletal hands capable of taking out a 20 meter dragon!

They came silently from behind but the dragons were alert and with the tail sword the bones were smashed.

Mama breathed on the spectres dressed in black shrouds topped with a giant's skull. Perhaps ancient ogre kings or troll princes.

The purifying mana dispersed these horrors and our progress was lightning fast.

Seasoned adventurers would have taken weeks where we had taken hours.

Instead, it was a fun family run.

I imagined myself in a corner alone with my loves and my reduced size, well... not everywhere ;)

Mother : "TORIN! Concentrate! You obsessed. Your beard is still black!"

The dragonesses laughed but the humans kept their seriousness and concentration.

The danger was real and one second of inattention could change everything.

I burst into a rage! "I'M SICK OF THAT BEARD! IT BETRAYS MY FEELINGS IT'S NOT FAIR! IT'S NOT FAIR!!! I DIDN'T ASK TO BE... "then I calmed down, for fear of hurting their feelings...

"I'M SORRY... I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF... SORRY DAD, SORRY MOM... I LOVE YOU."

Mom was stunned by my outpouring. And she saw that I respected them and did not deny my "forced" nature. But also, I was very shy in fact and my "beard" did not help at all, on the contrary.

Then we progressed and arrived in a huge room.

Lord British held up his hand, "Be careful, this is a "Boss" or guardian room.

Shepard threw a stone and black vapors concentrated into a huge mass.

It was a combination of a six-legged dragon, a lion's head to scare Aslan, and a back covered with a carapace made of stone:

A Tarasque!

The monster was bigger than Exodus.

Father and I tried to force the monster to move but it must have been integrated into the dungeon and no more commands were coming to it. Worse, there was no way to communicate.

The humans looked at me and Father but we nodded.

We had just enough time to throw a shield over the humans and ourselves before it flooded us with an uninterrupted blast of fire.

Saphie took her bow, aimed at the mouth and the arrow went deep into its throat;

Then the beast became enraged and its paw attacks were devastating.

I was hit by a paw and, to my surprise, I was lacerated! and thrown against the opposite wall, stunned!

I was too sure of myself as a dragon!

Father said to me: "This will teach you to be vigilant. Don't forget that I was struck down by a human! HOLD IT BACK!"

He grabbed the beast with his paws but the tarascus was stronger than he was but his armor resisted.

The mane and the big short neck gave Dad little grip!

Mom bit the other leg, the two red dragons spat on her back.

The tarasque howled in pain but was not afraid of 5 dragons.

Rubix jumped up and with two axe strikes and a combined strength spell gave a critical blow to the head of the monster, which recoiled, its left eye and its arch bleeding.

It turned to attack the Dragon Knight but Exodus smashed its skull with his powerful tail, the most muscular part, taking advantage of its distraction.

The tarascale tried to stand up but Rubix slit his jugular and was sprayed with blood. A blood bath.

The tarasque fainted, knocked out and a few gold coins and an enchanted sword fell to the ground. The rest went up in smoke.

Then the wall rose up and we had access to the deepest part.

After hours of walking, everything was burning and we could hear the lava rumbling in the depths.

A red dot at the end of the abyss.

The heat was becoming unbearable and in the distance, a couple of dragons could be seen stuck on the other side.

They looked like Rubix with long back legs like her and with the typical bipedal posture...

The parents of Rubix!

But one detail did not escape Exodus: They had traces of bits and seals. This was abnormal.

Valtrax threw on some heat protection for everyone and we crossed.

Once on the other side of the bridge, Rubix dashed toward the two surprised dragons.

But first, they signaled no... to run!

They didn't move. They had chains on their legs and were attached to a large ring.

I turned my head to look behind but Shepard had his sacred sword drawn.

He was pushing the straggling dragons back across the bridge.

Saphie and Ragul were threatened by the tip of his sword.

Lord British and his knights were on the other side of the bridge.

"BACK OFF IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

And, with one blow, he thrust the sword into the bridge, which collapsed on the other side of the lava.

Out of reflex, Exodu charged forward, destroying stalactites and stalagmites in the process, but Shepard raised his sword and Lord British raised his scepter and spoke a word of power, and an invisible wall rose up and Exodu slammed into it.

We were sealed in.

Esme, on her knees implored the king who was looking at the ground.

"This is not personal. We follow the gods of destiny and although you are the last threat to Britannia, we pleaded to spare your life. Unknowingly, and most importantly unintentionally, you will lead Britannia to its destruction and to your own death as well.

We are sorry and we will see to it that your honor and dignity are respected and that you are heroes.

This mission is a betrayal. We know that and it is reluctantly..and it is despicable on our part. And despicable for innocent people.

Yes... you are innocent and you are victims.

But you are not alone. You have been rounded up as a family. We deported you. You can curse us, spit on us, hate us. We deserve it."

Me: "Please! Lord British... we fought for you... why? We're willing to seal our powers. We don't need them!...Please! Mercy!"

My words were like throws through their hearts and they began to falter.

Dragons and humans alike were on their knees, begging for mercy from the King.

Lord British fell to his knees.

GROAAAAARRR

Said Exodus!

"You are a race without honor!" we will go to the world below and come up and you will pay!

Lord British : "The dungeon is indestructible and is sealed forever on both sides"

Rubix : "You condemn us to starve! You are horrible!"

Lord Brisish : "A portal is behind you! It will lead you to a better world. You can live there happily and without the risk of instability like here. I'm sorry. I have no choice. At the foot of the portal, there is your personal belongings and a manacom to interrogate us or to come back here but on your side. This dungeon is also a world of its own but if you stay, there will be nothing but lava in the end... You must leave... Farewell!

The knights greeted us and followed Lord British who activated a moonstone. They disappeared and I could see the castle through it.

We scratched and kicked at the invisible wall, but we only stirred up the lava.

The area was unstable and we had to protect the humans who stayed with us.

Rubix's parents were domesticated and submissive and had no personality of their daughter, except for the mother, but it would take her years to become self-aware again.

But that was not the problem.

We had been betrayed. All of Britannia and even the gods had betrayed us.

Valtrax: "We have to get out of this furnace, I saw a passage with cooler air."

We followed mom and with a defeated look on our faces, we said nothing more. We were all crying.

We were trash, outcasts, just left alive because we were not guilty of anything. Because we were nice dragons and they didn't want to get their hands dirty with our blood.

It was sickening.

I had a taste of electricity in my mouth, as if someone had put a battery on my tongue.

Suddenly I threw myself at mom's neck and collapsed in tears.

She too was crying in Dad's arms.

We stayed like that for a long time. The thirst pulled us little by little and guided us to a bright area, a level made of hills and big meadows with a false blue sky and a false sun. The clouds curved with the ceiling and joined the ground in a fog at the "horizon".

We followed the path, but the monsters and animals that populated the place had gone into the underworld, which was larger and as big as the continent above.

We stayed together, in a circle and near a circle of stones as on the surface.

Then Exodus straightened up.

"I think this is the end. I'm sorry. When I noticed the marks on Rubix's parents, I knew it was a trap. By the time I realized, it was too late."

Worried, I asked Dad, "Are we going to die here?"

He looked at Mom and lowered his head...

"It's a prison without bars, but will we survive hunger? Thirst? I haven't seen any prey or stream yet..."

Rubix had an idea and went to the stone circle. She scratched and found a red crystal.

"Mama Valtrax! Look!"

We all looked at each other but our eyes fell on Exodus, the most qualified among us.

Exodus: "This is our only chance!

We approached.

"As soon as the door opens, we all go in as a group! If it only opens for a few seconds, we must not be separated!

We stuck close to him, my human family on my back and we were all on the "starting blocks".

Exodus blew on the crystal on the ground and a red portico rose from the grass.

It was big enough to fit through and Father pushed me hard through and then everyone else followed.

Everything was swirling around us and we were enveloped in an aura and like matter entered us and merged and we all felt a lot of pain but it went away.

And then, all of a sudden, it was a fall.

We skidded on marble, breaking columns, walls and partitions and we all arrived squeezed between a floor and a ceiling just for our size.

Lamps and light tubes burst and we were sprayed with water from little bits stuck on metal pipes.

There was a shrill sound and lights were flashing.

We were frightened and panic set in.

Just as the people around us started to scream. Probably never having seen dragons in their lives.

"The light... there's the exit!"

We crashed through a glass barrier and found ourselves on a flat surface, and a lot of metal carts crashed into each other, making incredible noises and smoke coming out of their bellies. People were holding their heads, angry at being hit but screaming in panic when they saw us.

We could see the sky, but we were surrounded by towers of stone and glass that all went up to the sky!

We hugged each other.

We were in a different world.

The carts screeched and clacked...

Father, furious, began to roar with anger.

Valtrax stopped him.

"Stop. They don't know us! We must not make enemies of them. Look the magic is a thousand times more advanced! "

One of the humans was stuck in a cart and had a bloody head.

I opened the metal sheet to free him but he was broken.

I imposed my paws on him and his wounds closed.

"I say sorry" but my grunts were misunderstood

"Please! Don't eat me!"

I caressed the woman at the wheel and straightened the roof so that she could run away.

The others were holding some kind of stone or glass plate and small flashes of light were coming out of it.

"Quick... let's run!"

And our group took off.

We quickly reached the clouds and realized how big the city was. A hundred times Brittania City!

We followed the big river on which long boats were sailing and we could see temples with a cross. But no Ankh.

Father pointed to a large temple on the edge of the city.

There were roads everywhere, thousands of roads, thousands of carts.

It was crazy!

We crashed on the square of a cathedral and entered through the door of the nave.

In the background... a priest praying.

Valtrax cast a tongue-lashing spell and shouted behind the priest, who had just enough time to turn around and see why the door was being opened with a bang.

Usually, the faithful would enter through the small door into the large one but the big ones were stuck but here, they were banged up... for sure!

He saw the huge white dragon stooping towards him, its mouth full of fangs.

He stared at the creature that was mom who opened her big mouth and said:

"ASILE... we ask for ASILE in the name of the 8 virtues and she handed a golden Ankh to the confused priest... well, it was a bishop rather!"