Cassia placed yet another arrow into the bullseye of the crude target she’d set up. The wood cracked as the crude arrowhead that she’d fashioned from a sharpened stone embedded itself into the target. She gave a deep sigh of annoyance.

  “I’m getting tired of making targets to shoot at,” she muttered to herself. “At least they don’t explode like that pheasant.”

  It had been a month since Sanguine retreated to his Den and went into hibernation. She could still feel his emotions stirring on occasion through their connection, but that didn’t change how she missed him. It had been pure luck that she’d succeeded in reaching him in a dream the first time. She’d laid down to take a nap beside him shortly after he went to sleep and followed the golden connection in her dreams.

  After that, he was too deep in his dreams to reach. Wherever dragons went when they dreamed, it was far beyond a mortal’s ability to access.

  Now that summer was crawling over the horizon, the Red Hills had become an oven. The red clay and stone that dominated most of the landscape absorbed heat during the day from the sun and released it all night. She needed to stay in the shade to avoid getting heat stroke. Likewise, most of the local animals had either retreated up into the mountains or deep into the forest to avoid the heat.

  At least she was having an easier time of it than Visk. The dark elf had basically become a hermit inside of the cave system surrounding Sanguine’s den. They could be persuaded to come out at night to socialize, but they’d taken one look at the sweltering summer sun and avoided it like the plague.

  Cassia walked over to the target and started pulling arrows out of the pulverized wood. Each was embedded deeply and needed to be pried out. Sure, she had more than enough strength to just yank them free, but she’d break them in the process. If anything, she had too much strength now.

  She’d taken Sanguine’s advice and started to intentionally exercise her body. After a few days of watching her flounder around without a plan, the goblin Croaker had approached her to offer his assistance. The ornery old greenskin had been reclusive since Edith left on her journey, but watching an inexperienced hunter flail around seemed to irritate him enough to lend her a hand.

  Croaker had taught Cassia how the goblins trained their new hunters. She had plenty of practical experience from a lifetime hunting for small game, but she’d never been trained to properly fight. Maybe if Sir Raban had been around, he might have helped, but the man had left before Sanguine and company had returned from their mission. Edith hadn’t known where the knight was heading and he didn’t leave much clue as to his intentions.

  One side effect of being trained by Croaker was that Cassia had to interact with Bashes-with-Rocks and Sings-with-Sparrows more regularly. The former was something like Croaker’s apprentice and was being trained to one day lead the tribe’s fighters. The latter had been appointed as the Tribe’s liaison to Sanguine, but with the Dragon asleep she mostly hung around and talked to Cassia.

  Croaker was currently barking orders at Rocks to lift a large stone over his head and do a series of squats. Cassia had been pretty confused when she first saw Goblin ‘weight training’. After some awkward pantomiming and garbled explanation, she’d understood the purpose.

  To summarize it briefly: Goblins were small and weak, and needed to train like mad to make their bodies strong enough to not be killed immediately.

  When the same techniques that Croaker used to train Rocks were applied to Cassia, there was a markedly different result. In a couple of weeks, she’d gone from being able to lift the heavy stone Rocks held onto, to picking up boulders off of the ground without issue. Whenever she tried to draw on Sanguine’s magic, she had to be extremely careful to not cause collateral damage.

  It only took one stray boulder flying across the village for the goblins to become just as wary of her as they were of Visk. The elf had started to develop a nasty habit of popping out of thin air whenever they wanted something, rather than just walking up normally. Apparently being invisible somehow made the sun more bearable, but Cassia hadn’t really understood the explanation Visk gave her.

  Once she’d managed to free the last arrow from the target, Cassia had about half of the ones she’d loosed still intact enough to be used again. She did still have a small number of her old iron-headed arrows tucked away for safekeeping, but those were too precious to be used on target practice.

  Croaker had said that making her own arrows and bows would help her focus on controlling her strength. She’d directly suffer the consequences of losing control in the form of more work she needed to do. Given that she’d already had three hand carved bows and a few dozen arrows ‘explode’ from her lack of caution, she was pretty sure she understood his point.

  “Finished with practice, Croaker,” she called over to the older goblin. He turned his red mud stained face over to look at her to give a short nod before he resumed yelling at Rocks.

  Sparrows stopped what she had been doing, carving new arrow shafts out of thin sections of wood. It was a painstaking and delicate craft, which had caused Cassia much grief lately. The female goblin had started to assist her in making new arrows, since she didn’t have much else to do at the moment.

  “Visit with Great Red?” Sparrows asked as she approached Cassia, freshly made arrow shafts in hand. The goblins had taken to calling Sanguine ‘Great Red’, since his actual name was apparently hard for them to pronounce. Cassia vaguely understood that there was some connection to the ‘Red Hills’ in the title, but she didn’t understand enough Goblin-speak to fully grasp it.

  “... Yeah, we can visit Sanguine,” Cassia replied before gesturing for Sparrows to follow her. She accepted the arrow shaft when they were offered and placed them into the quiver which hung at her waist for use later.

  As she and Sparrows walked towards the Goblin Village from where she’d been training, she took a moment to turn her face up towards the sky. It was a brilliant blue. She’d dreamed of flying through a sky like that as a little girl reading story books with her mother. It had been the surprise of her life, when she’d actually gotten the opportunity to soar up into those heavens on dragonback.

  Now the dragon of her dreams was so close, yet so far. It felt like she’d been given everything she’d ever wanted, only for the world to take it away from her. She knew it was silly and selfish to decry her condition when she was safe, well fed, and no longer truly alone… But it wasn’t Sanguine. So long as he slept, she was sure that she’d keep feeling this way.

  Visk encountered Cassia soon after she crossed into the first large cavern inside of Sanguine’s cave complex. They’d taken up residence in the small side cave formerly used by Avery. It brought up some complicated memories, but Visk was slowly moving past them. Having her deceased friends’ prized possession around them made them feel more comfortable.

  Staying in their own personal hole in the ground also kept Visk from being squished by Sanguine. They didn’t know if the Dragon was aware of what he was doing in his hibernation, but he’d started to roll around a lot. At times, it almost seemed like he was waking up. The best that Visk was able to describe it as, was that his body was unconsciously flexing and stretching as he was growing.

  That was another thing, Sanguine was getting bigger… a lot bigger.

  While not so extreme as to completely fill up the cave where he’d made his Den, Sanguine’s physical size had increased by around a quarter of his total mass in just over a month. He’d only been able to have one person ride on his back when they left to visit Osteriath. Now, he could probably have transported Visk, Cassia, and Magnus on his back without issue.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Visk wasn’t sure if the Boss was going to keep getting bigger at the same rate, but if he did, he might have trouble exiting the caver system before too long.

  When Cassia walked in, Visk was in the middle of harvesting a fruit from the pomegranate tree that grew in the first chamber. It was definitely not the correct season for the tree to produce fruit, but that didn’t stop it from drinking in the beam of sunlight from the opening in the cave’s ceiling for a few hours a day. At night, the tree had started to give off a low glow.

  One of Visk’s self adopted tasks while Sanguine was hibernating was looking after Magnus. With Edith gone, there weren’t many people around who could take care of the crippled child. Cassia struggled to not smash things half the time these days. Croaker had clearly picked up some minor alchemical lessons from Edith, but he had strange notions about how to get the kid to ‘tough it out’.

  That left Visk to look after the child, when the female goblins of the Village were busy. It was another reason Visk had moved their dwelling closer to the cave entrance.

  “You dropping in to see the Boss?” Visk asked Cassia as she and Sparrows stepped into the cavern. Visk used a wickedly sharp knife to carve up the pomegranate in their palm into small bite sized chunks. Magnus had difficulty eating anything too large, in case he suddenly had a spasm and choked or bit his own tongue.

  “Yeah… I want to see if I can visit his dreams again,” Cassia said carefully. Visk and her had reached something of an ‘understanding’ in Osteriath, but the exact terms of that dynamic weren’t straightforward, at least to the human woman.

  To Visk, it was entirely simple. They had chosen Sanguine as their Root, their source of life. Visk would serve their Root for the rest of their life, which would be a long time. Whatever form that service took, was up to Sanguine himself. In his absence, Visk had elected to do the jobs that no one else seemed interested in doing. Namely: guarding and exploring Sanguine’s lair, looking after Magnus, and adding to his hoard.

  Accomplishing that last goal was difficult while doing the first and second. However, Goblin tribe seemed to naturally understand that the Big Scary Dragon liked ‘shinies’, so whenever they found something shiny, they brought it to Visk. A lot of those ‘shinies’ were worthless junk, but a few items here and there had made their way into Sanguine’s hoard.

  The rest, Visk had stuck away in a corner until they could figure out what to do with them. They had no idea where the goblins had found a fully intact Conch shell, but maybe a trader would be interested in such knick-nacks.

  “Oh, if you’re visit the Boss, can you put this on his treasure pile?” Visk asked with a tilt of their head towards a small leather sack. When Cassia walked over and inspected its contents, her eyebrow raised up towards the ceiling. “Yeah, I know it’s not something ‘typical’, but he might still like it. Just stick it somewhere he won’t accidentally crush it if he rolls over in his sleep.”

  “Where did you even find this?” Cassia asked as she slung the sack over her shoulder.

  “Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. One of the goblins said they picked it up off of the ground in the woods… but I’m not sure how it would have gotten there. Maybe that Wizard dropped it at some point when he came through?”

  Cassia grimaced at the mention of Mortimer and shook her head. “We’d better hope not. If it’s something of his, it’s liable to be cursed.”

  “... Yeah that’s true. Well, if it’s evil, Sanguine can just eat it when he wakes up. Better to leave it close to him than out where someone could run afoul of it.”

  The human woman gave a simple nod to show she agreed before strolling off towards the tunnel entrance that led towards Sanguine’s Den. Visk returned their attention to carving up the pomegranate into bite sized pieces.

  They really hoped that Sanguine would show his appreciation for all the hard work they were doing when he woke up.

  Cassia walked out of the darkness into Sanguine’s Den. She wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but it felt like the journey had taken longer than it used to. While it was silly to think that solid stone and earth could move around or grow… Well, hadn’t she seen stranger things in Sanguine’s company?

  Sanguine himself was larger, that much was certain. Cassia wondered where he got all that body mass from as she approached the raised platform where he’d made his ‘nest’. It had once looked fairly empty even when he laid down upon it, but it wouldn’t be too long before he filled up all available space at this rate.

  The glimmer of shining coins and gemstones peaked out from beneath her Dragon. While most of the initial treasure had come from bandits, a sizable amount of the collection had been gathered by the Goblin tribe. Sparrows in particular seemed highly adept at ferreting out natural gemstones or other unrefined valuables. Or maybe she was just lucky.

  Cassia glanced around for a place to safely store the newest addition to Sanguine’s hoard. Visk was right to suggest that it go somewhere that Sanguine wouldn’t accidentally crush it. The object was a bit more delicate than metal coins or gemstones.

  Eventually her eyes landed on a shelf of stone that bordered the nesting area. Her quiet footsteps took her over to it. One hand reached inside the leather sack that Visk had given her and pulled out a strange item. It looked for all the world like a sphere made of glass that was flattened at the bottom.

  The inside of the glass was hollow and seemed to contain a clear liquid of some sort. Posed inside the hollow was the figure that reminded Cassia of a Wizard holding a staff, except it looked like it was made out of snow. She’d built a few snowmen when she was a child, but never one that looked so lifelike. Scattered in the liquid contained in the sphere were many artificial ‘snow flakes’ that would float around and slowly fall if you shook the orb.

  Cassia gave it a good shake, just for fun, before setting it on the stone shelf. She watched in silence as ‘snow’ slowly floated down, piling up on the Wizard’s tiny hat and around the base of his long flowing robes. Maybe it technically wasn’t a ‘treasure’, but she thought Sanguine would find it sufficiently interesting to not be offended by its inclusion.

  Sparrows was crouching by the edge of the platform when Cassia turned her attention away from the snowglobe.

  “Are you going to come up and say hello?” Cassia asked with a raised eyebrow. Sparrows looked at her with wide eyes like she’d just suggested that the goblin offer herself up as dinner. Cassia shook her head and sighed. “You know, for a ‘liaison’ you’re pretty scared of the guy you’re supposed to ‘liaise’ with.”

  “And you’re not?” Sparrows asked at nearly whisper. “Scared of… the Great Red?”

  “... Am I scared?” Cassia said with a blink. It wasn’t a question that she’d really been asked before. Sure, she’d admitted to Sanguine privately that the changes he’d been going through and his monstrous growth in power had scared her on more than one occasion, but it wasn’t something that she’d admitted out loud to others.

  Her eyes turned to gaze at her Dragon, lying atop his small pile of treasure. To her eyes, the intimidating spikes that grew along his head and his razor sharp claws were just a part of who he was, rather than the most important bit. His ruby scales were far more lustrous and eye-catching than any of the coins of gems that he laid on top of.

  Cassia shook her head before her mind started to stray too far.

  “I’m scared of the things he can do to people that want to hurt us,” Cassia said eventually, as a kind of compromise. “He’s remarkably patient once you get to know him, but he has no tolerance for things which want to steal from him or hurt those he cares about… Believe it or not, that includes you and the other goblins. You may not have gotten off to a… ‘good’ start, but I think if you asked him, he’d tell you that you are his People now.”

  Sparrows didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Cassia just sighed and sat down on one of the stone steps leading up to Sanguine’s nest. The steps were naturally formed out of the stone of the cave, but when she looked at them, they seemed suspiciously squared off and shaped. Had someone been here working?

  In fact, as Cassia looked around the Den, she noticed that many sections of the cavern showed signs of expansion and refinement. Most noticeably, several cracks had opened up in the wall aside from the one tunnel that had formerly led to this location. She wasn’t entirely sure, but it looked like other tunnels were slowly forming in the stone.

  That was… concerning, but not exactly an emergency. It didn’t look like there was going to be a cave in. The new tunnels weren’t large enough for anything to move through, so hopefully that meant no unpleasant surprises were going to come out of the dark.

  She would mention it to Visk, however. The elf would probably love the chance to grub around small tunnels deep in the earth, away from the Summer sun.