“Let us continue on!” Salman said. He turned to Scrum, the guard, who stood as bewildered as all the others.

“Are we not gonna talk about what just happened?” Dylk asked. He looked quickly between Salman and Bauwls, who was just beginning to stand.

“No time for that, master three-quarterling!” Salman said. “We have a mission to complete!”

“And a dragon to kill,” Bauwls said. There was a symphony of groans.

“No, she’s right!” Ballin said, pulling a parchment from his pocket. Dylk’s eyes widened at the realization.

“What is that, Ballin?” he asked, voice shaking.

“Garrel’s diary or something,” Ballin said. “He says he needs to get rid of a dragon. Looks like he did.”

“And now we have to…”

“Kill it.”

Dylk looked around at his companions. Among them was a dwarf amnesiac, an oblivious magical buffoon, a healing lizard, a born-again cult leader, her traveling circus, and a swiftly retreating city guard.

“One down, seven to go,” said the smaller half of the circus.

“Don’t say it like that! What’s wrong with you?” Dylk was not in a state of mind befitting reminders of their imminent doom.

“Hey, we got this,” Ballin said, gesturing his hands in what was meant to be a reassuring fashion, or so Dylk thought. “With me and Vix, we’ll take it down in no time.” Dylk looked to Vix, who had taken up a position beside Bauwls, apologizing profusely and occasionally shedding a tear. All Bauwls said back was “it’s alright.”

“Welp, might as well get it over with,” Dylk said. He looked around and found what he was searching for. Across the street was a grand graveyard and in it, surrounded by the small stones scattered around the grounds, was their destination.

“Come on,” he said, crossing the empty street. When he reached the middle of it, he turned back to the others to see if they were following. The house glowed with embers and flame behind them, mixing the pale blue light of the moon with a warm orange to their backs. The sight of it gave Dylk the feeling of sitting around a campfire. It almost felt as if he had momentarily inhabited the body of a young Dun Willum, sitting with his friends before they were immortalized in story. Before they did what made them legends. Dylk’s friends eventually caught up with him, so they went on.

The tomb stood only as tall and as large as any one-story house, far too small to be a tomb by itself. Of course, Dylk knew where they were going, down into its stomach. Its outer white brick was faded in the same way as the council chamber’s outer walls. The entrance, solid stone, which they were all now standing in front of, was unopened.

“Any ideas?” Dylk asked.

“Look for a switch,” Salman said. “A switch of great importance, as this one is, will be hidden well. Prepare for-” Click. The entrance opened. Dylk saw Voolio leaning against a statue, a rectangular piece of its arm indented with the pressure of his elbow. The rest of the group stared at him.

“What?”

The tomb was pitch black, or would have been had Vix not illuminated it against everyone’s wishes. But it turned out fine, Vix produced only a bright light from his hand instead of another one of his signature moves.

In that light, Dylk could see the room around them. It seemed to be a kind of temple. On either side of them were rows and rows of pews, all facing the front of the room. There, elevated on a platform, was a lectern made of the same stone as the rest of the room, as if carved in one piece. Dylk went up the short flight of stairs leading up to the platform and looked at what laid on it.

Atop the lecturn’s sloped surface was a book, though Vix’s light was far enough away that he couldn’t read it. Dylk tried to call him over before realizing that the ever-present rumble was now too loud to talk over. Like a frog in a boiling pot, he hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Too late in this case being that they couldn’t communicate unless they huddled close together.

Dylk hopped off the stage and went to Salman, who was investigating an open doorway on the back wall.

“Find anything?” he asked, getting close to Salman.

“The rumbling grows stronger through here!” Salman yelled. “Gather everyone and we will go forward!”

He did just that, screaming at them one at a time to get to Salman. Some of them couldn’t hear him until he was able to physically notify them instead.

Last in the order was Bauwls, who had seen everyone go before her, though she didn’t yet infer the plan.

“Bauwls!” Dylk yelled.

“What’s going on?” Bauwls asked.

“Salman found a way through!”

“Oh! Hey, Dylk?”

“Yeah?”

“I have a question.”

“Mhm?”

“Are you ready for the dragon?” Truth be told, he hadn’t thought about it much. One step at a time, he’d told himself.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“What did you say?”

“I said I don’t know!” he yelled.

“No, you didn’t!”

“Yeah, I… well I actually said… it doesn’t matter! Are you coming or not?”

“Yes, Dylk, yes. But don’t go into a fight with a dragon expecting it to go well! You have to bring your a-game.”

“No, I get it. It’s a dragon.”

“No, Dylk, you don’t. Dragons are more powerful than anything else on Earth! Good thing this one won’t be fully grown!”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine!” he said, though he wasn’t sure of it himself.

“Dylk, this quest is worth the risk, I can feel it. The information the council is gonna give us is important.”

“How could you know that? I haven’t even shown you the pebble yet!”

“The pebble?”

“The pebble! It’s what we’re here for!”

“Well, the pebble is the key! Knowing what it is will change everything!”

“But how could you know?” Dylk stood waiting, feeling the others’ eyes drilling into the back of his head.

“It was revealed to me in a dream.” With that, she went to the rest of them. Super glad that we’re throwing our lives away and the only good reason I’ve gotten is from the cult leader, he thought. Super stoked.

They walked down the corridor, lit by Vix’s light. It was featureless but for the monotonous gray stone around them and the dread that oozed from the walls. They said little. Even if the rumbling didn’t overpower all their attempts, Dylk knew it would’ve been dead quiet in that place. Each step forward was another foot of complete darkness being uncovered, another foot toward their collective demise. Dylk felt himself hoping that the dragon would just get it over with and gobble them up in one fell swoop.

As the group inched closer, Dylk began to make out features of the rumble: a long scratching sound, a sort of deep, prolonged grunt. The movement of something ahead. Little by little, Dylk’s thoughts of reassurance to himself were overtaken by the feeling that he might be the first halfling to get eaten by a dragon. Kind of a cool way to go, I guess.

Then, just as the rumbling was reaching his bones, it stopped. The silence, he realized, was much, much worse. They stood completely still, trying not to make any noise at all. Dylk, head turned to the left at that moment, moved his eyes forward down the hall. In place of the pure black that had preceded it, there was now a purple shimmer which shone through the dark. And in the middle of the shimmer, a shadow blacker than black. It was tiny in his view, far off ahead. He heard Salman take a step. Soon the rest of them had continued forward, a clown circus death march into the maw of the beast.

Vix’s light revealed a widening in the corridor, the entrance to a chamber. The shadow had grown larger and the purple shimmer now danced around them, front and back. Still, the shadow remained dark and unseeable, though Dylk could infer its form - even if he didn’t want to. Dylk didn’t need to get any closer to identify it. He felt his knees turn to forest jelly but he caught himself. By some divine force, all his companions marched on without faltering, though their fear was evident. He couldn’t let them down by turning to cowardice, he knew all of them were thinking the same thing.

Suddenly, through the darkness, a voice like a boulder:

“You have made a grave error, mortals.” It shook Dylk as the rumble had. “All who have come before you have perished. I cannot allow you any different, for this is a tomb, I am told. And only the dead may rest in tombs.”

“Duck!” Ballin yelled. They did.

Pillars of smoke and flame shot from the shadow, showing the room around them for a split second. From the ground, Dylk could see the form of the creature they were hunting.

It was indeed a dragon, and its scales, now nearly blinding Dylk, were as blue as a river. The burst of fire came from its mouth, the skin on its face stretching unnaturally over the bone. It was horrific. It was beyond Dylk’s scope of knowledge. It was… it was…

About four feet tall.

To be fair, it was about twice that lengthwise, but still. Bauwls was right, it was just a baby. A baby physically, that is. Its voice was that of what Dylk assumed to be the dragon equivalent of an old halfling. This baby had the soul, if it had one at all, of a much older being.

“It’s still dangerous, split up!” he yelled, sprinting to the right of the room and drawing his rapiers. He took a second to see how the others were faring and saw Vix on the opposite side of the dragon.

“Super Duper, Vix!” he yelled. “Super Duper!” Vix smiled and put a thumb up before being swatted away by the dragon’s tail, sending him flying into a wooden table. The dragon laughed.

Dylk ran in shock. He saw Voolio and Gnom running straight for it, the only ones to face it head on.

“Voolio! Gnom!” He didn’t have the time to give his plan out. A scaled wing swiped at him and sent him flying into the wall, where he slumped over on the ground. He knew he was about to lose consciousness. Through closing eyes, he saw Voolio and Gnom get hit with the same swing he did. They were sent flying down the hall, screaming all the way. His neck was unable to hold the weight of his head. Knew this would happen, he thought, closing his eyes. At least I’ll be able to meet Dun. Then he fell to sleep…

before being awakened with a shake. He opened his eyes to Bauwls’ smiling face.

“Hey, halfling,” she said, holding up a massive, black egg. “Look what we found!” Dylk leaned and saw the body of the dragon behind her, laughed for a second, then fell back into a deep, dreamless sleep.