The group fell into a comfortable rhythm the following weeks, travelling through the day and relaxing at night. Twice a week, Zoe got to spend her nights carving away at the dirt home she made, building rooms and hallways with statues hanging from the walls. It was enjoyable, peaceful. Creating something for herself, enjoying the process of making it and then leaving it behind while they travelled to wherever they would stop for the next night.

She’d begun weaving in other elements to her homes as well. Spiraling wood that wound through the walls and provided a pleasant texture as she ran her hands along them. Grass that sprouted from the ground, dampening the dull thuds their footsteps otherwise made. Beds of flowers — clovers for the most part, that covered the makeshift beds and provided a softer surface for the others to sleep on.

On the colder nights, she got to take advantage of her Cinders and Fire skills, weaving burning embers through the floors and beds to keep them warm. Bits of frost over towards Spark’s bed, gripping to the surface of the flower stems since they seemed to like the cooler temperature while they slept.

It had almost become a passion, enjoying the process of creating things from her elements. Weaving them together and creating something that was far more than the sum of their parts. Was that what she missed, for her Cosmos skill? The ability to weave them together in perfect harmony, each working on its own but together to form the web of reality?

She wasn’t sure, and she’d long since given up on trying to get the Cosmos skill through combining her Space and Time skills. One day, she’d replace one of her Cosmic Mystic skills with Cosmos Manipulation and try to work through that mess of mana again. She wouldn’t need to get her Space and Time skills again, wouldn’t need to level them again. There was no reason to combine them, not when Emma didn’t need help with it anymore. Or even, Zoe supposed.

Zoe shrugged. Study on Brick’s skill had been going well, and Zoe’s many notebooks were covered in scribbles as she tried to decipher the maze of mana that made it up. She was getting close, she felt. But there were still a few points that she wasn’t quite understanding. How the mana flowed through Brick’s body was a big one. She could tell for herself, but once the mana rushed back into Brick’s body she wasn’t sure what was happening exactly.

And Brick didn’t have any dedicated ability to perceive mana, so they were little help in the matter. Not that only being able to study it two or maybe three times in a week if she was lucky was helping either. If she ever needed to rely on somebody else’s skill, maybe she’d go find Emma’s dad and ask about how his mana battery build was working. If she could just provide the mana for Brick to use, then she’d be able to study it for hours on end rather than just a brief few seconds every few days when they had to reset their skill on somebody.

But in time, she’d get it. And time was something she had an abundance of.

The group was coming up to the last known sighting of the dragon towards the end of the day. A destroyed village with little more than ash and rubble left behind in the dragon’s destructive wake, according to rumours.

“I’d be surprised if we can find anything there,” Blue said as they ran through the fields of purple flowers. The dense forest had been left behind a few days ago, leaving them in vast fields of coloured flowers. The previous day was blue flowers, today was purple.

“Bah,” Brick waved their hand. “We might, we might not. Don’t be such a downer.”

“I’m excited to see the destruction, personally.” Spark said. “Imagine seeing it, in person? The power of the dragon, just baring the full extent of its wrath down on this poor village.”

“I wonder what they did,” Blue said. “You think somebody robbed it? Hurt it, maybe?"

“The dragon?” Brick asked. “Maybe. Or maybe it was just hungry.”

“It would just destroy a village for food?" Zoe asked.

“You’ve destroyed villages before, haven’t you? Animals you’ve hunted, insects you’ve squashed. How many homes have we crushed under foot on our run here?” Blue said.

“To a dragon, that might be all this was. Some insignificant creature that stood in its way as it hunted for food. A home it didn’t even notice as it flew over. Maybe it was out for revenge, trying to claim back what was rightfully its own. But we can’t assume that.” Brick said.

Zoe nodded, and a few minutes later they found the outskirts of the dragon’s carnage. The field of flowers turned barren. Black, scorched earth as far as they could see. No life, no plants poking out of crevices. Just black death.

The smell was almost as awe inspiring as the sight. It wasn’t powerful, it didn’t overwhelm her. But the only thing she could smell was ash, a burnt and somewhat smoky scent that just reached her nostrils. It wasn’t strong, but as they walked into the barren wasteland it was all Zoe could smell aside from her companions. There was no hint of flesh, no sweat or burnt fur. Everything had been utterly destroyed, reduced to smoke that had already blown away or carbon that seeped into the ground.

“Incredible,” Spark said. “We’re not even at the village yet, probably. And this is already amazing.”

“It is.” Blue said, a sombre feeling hitting Zoe’s empathy.

“We can’t fight this.” Brick said. “We never could have. That was just folly.”

“We weren’t going to. Not really. I mean, I might have. Before.” Spark replied.

“It was always about the chase, Brick. We want to find it, we want to see things. Discover things. Have some reason to keep going.” Blue said.

They ran through the wasteland for a while, the distant flowers vanishing under the horizon and still not a building in sight. No rubble, no remnants of farms or hideaways.

“Where’s the village at?” Spark asked.

“It’s somewhere here, probably. We might be able to find it if we could get a lift up?" Brick asked.

Zoe nodded and wrapped them all in suits of earth and lifted them off the ground. They rose higher and higher as the field of purple flowers appeared in the distance again, and then higher still as the wasteland continued to expand.

The wasteland was several kilometers wide and five times as long, like an oblong rectangle with rough edges that cut through the wilderness. Near the center of the destruction was the remnants of something that stood out, and Zoe flew them all down towards it.

As they got closer, Zoe still couldn’t tell what she was looking at. The ruins of a village, given the context she had. But she couldn’t tell how it was structured, how they dealt with the darkness of night. Many stones were strewn throughout the rubble, though none large enough to be very useful in construction. And there were nowhere near enough to create more than maybe one or two buildings if she was being generous.

Was it another forest, set in the roots? Or did they just make their homes out of flammable objects that had been destroyed in the attack?

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The others rushed out when Zoe dropped them off on the ground, poking through the rubble and shoving aside clumps of black coal and ash.

“See anything?” Blue called out, their clothes covered in black soot.

Brick shook their head. “Nothing yet. How bout you, Spark?"

“Nothing,” Spark answered.

Zoe floated into the sky and looked around, but saw nothing herself. No tracks, besides the ones her companions were leaving. Her Vampyric Senses didn’t scream at her, telling her where a dragon had gone. It didn’t even notice any of the local wildlife from nearby. Life, for as far as Zoe could tell, had just ceased to exist here.

“I see nothing.” Zoe said when she floated back down.

“Ah, well. It was worth a try.” Brick said and fell back on their butt to sit on the ground. Their clothes and face were stained black from the wispy ash that coated the ground.

“So, do we go to a nearby town and see if anybody’s heard anything?" Blue asked, coming to sit next to Brick.

“I guess. It’s getting late though, so we should set up for today and then find somewhere nearby to go ask around?” Spark suggested.

Brick nodded. “Zoe, if you would?"

“Sure,” Zoe said as she held out her arms for the others to grab on. When they did, she teleported them up into the air several dozen kilometers, but before she could set up her platform, she noticed something odd.

The mana was behaving strange. The wisps of light seemed agitated as they bounced around in errant patterns that didn’t make sense to her. It didn’t look like a skill being used, but just seemed annoyed. Angered, somehow.

“Somethings wrong.” Zoe said.

“What?" Brick asked. ”Are we safe?“

“I don’t know.” Zoe said.

Their panic was interrupted by a loud crash far in the distance. And then a second. And then a third.

“Something’s coming.” Zoe said.

“The dragon?" Spark asked.

“Probably.” Brick answered.

“Flee?” Blue suggested.

Brick shook their head. “I vote no.”

“I vote no.” Spark said.

“I vote yes.” Blue said. “We can’t handle this.”

“I vote no.” Zoe said. If it was a dragon, she wanted to see it. Meet it. See what it was, how powerful it was. The magic it could use, the skills it might have. Why the mana felt so strange here, how the dragon made it do that. Was it an alarm, of some sort? Or was it an early warning sign of the dragon coming?

The crashes continued, growing faster and closer with each one. Like sonic booms, or incredibly powerful gusts of wind. Zoe began to struggle to even keep the group floating in the air without losing control as the pressure grew stronger.

And then she saw a tiny speck in the distance. A red dot that she would have brushed aside as a red wisp of mana, had it not grown in size as she looked at it.

“There,” Zoe pointed at the growing speck of red far in the distance.

The others squinted in the direction Zoe pointed, but couldn’t seem to see anything. Fear and anxiety rose within them all, with an undercurrent of excitement bubbling up from below. Soon the speck, barely visible to Zoe’s eyes grew larger and the others began to see it as well. It’s form became clearer.

The air twisted around it due to the immense heat. Each beat of its massive wings sending ripples through the sky and smashing into the ground far below it. Its mouth opened, then closed and a few seconds later, the group heard a terrifying roar that sent shivers down Zoe’s spine and goosebumps racing up her arms.

“I vote flee.” Blue said. “Now.”

“I vote stay.” Brick said.

“Stay.” Spark said.

“Stay.” Zoe said.

“Dammit.” Blue said. “Dammit, dammit.”

“We’ll be okay. Just hold on to Zoe.” Brick said.

“Zoe, you can get us out, right?" Blue asked.

Zoe laughed nervously. “Hopefully. Probably. If the laws of physics apply, yes. But who the hell knows at this point.”

The dragon drew closer, its bright red fangs beginning to be visible to Zoe’s enhanced eyes. Each one dripped with flames that exploded in bursts of fire as they hit the ground. Had the dragon even attacked the village? Or did it just fly above it while its fangs were dripping with devastation? Some path the dragon took every few months, a migration for winter perhaps.

Spark was the first to notice the intense heat as the dragon approached them. Their breaths turning ragged and desperate, each one a gasping, painful breath as they gripped their chest.

“Spark?" Brick asked, worry seeping through their emotions.

“I’m… okay..” Spark spat out between painful breaths.

“We need to leave.” Blue said, grimacing from the heat. “Now.”

“No,” Spark strained.

Zoe pushed her Restoration into Spark, topping up their health. But it didn’t help with their troubles breathing, the air itself was hostile.

Blue and Brick were the next to notice as sweat began to bead on their brows. Zoe began forming Frost around them to try and cool the air down, but it melted almost as fast as she could make it, even with all of her excess mana dumped into frost. Not that she had an awful lot as she struggled to push back against the intense pressure of the dragon’s gusts with her Earth skill.

The dragon got close enough for Zoe’s Identify to finally work, and she checked its level. Light green question marks. She cursed, and teleported the group further into the sky, over and over as her mana regenerated, multiple times per second.

Seconds later, the dragon flew by beneath them at an incredible speed, a red blur of heat and destruction that shot off into the distance again. Devastating gales blasted into Zoe’s group, shoving them aside and threatening to force control away from Zoe. The heat began to sear into them, even beginning to drain Zoe’s health as it burned away at her skin.

She teleported them up and away from the dragon’s path as she pumped mana into Restoration to keep everybody alive, until the heat finally let up. They floated, almost level with the distant mountain peaks, with the dragon no longer visible in the distance. Wherever it was going, Zoe didn’t want to be. Not yet, at least.

“That was amazing. Did any of you get to identify it?” Spark asked. “It was light green!”

“Really? I was too panicked to even think of doing that. What level would that be?" Blue asked.

“I don’t know. Way too high for us. To think we had the audacity to track that down. We would have died before we even knew we’d found it.” Brick laughed.

“But we did find it.” Spark said. “And lived.”

Blue laughed. “Yeah. What a magnificent beast. Thank you, Zoe. I’m glad we stayed.”

Zoe smiled. “It was my pleasure. I’ve never seen a dragon before either. That was incredible.”

“So… to the peaks?" Spark grinned.