The location of IceShard Cave was marked on the map, but the cave proper will have to be explored fully only after the development of some serious Ice Resistance gear. The development of it and further exploration were left in the hands of humans. Since the extraction of Ice Spirit Stones wasn’t a priority, the Spider King decided to finally return home. That, and the message from Johny had reached him.

“Your pet whirling requests your audience. PS: I’m BURSTING!” - Was the message Johny relayed telepathically.

As tempted as he was to help Johny with her ailment it wasn’t yet time to go back home. Anyway, the Spider King bid farewell to Gareth and SoulShade, then promptly exchanged the frigid scenery for the familiar sight of undermountain tunnels.

The tunnel he was darting through was a megaproject which was finished just recently. Oberon Mega Tunnel was an artificial tunnel cut through Oberon Mountain to get easy access to the Scorpion Desert. And right at the end of the tunnel, there was a Trade Outpost. Well, whether it was there or not still remained to be seen, because the Spider King entrusted its construction and management to the wyrmling, and he was yet to see it with his own two eyes.

He broke out of the Shadow Walk, indeed, the wyrmling was doing well. The Trade Outpost was as good as finished. He emerged in a walled-off encampment, he was surrounded by blocky buildings, presumably warehouses. And nested right in between them was a bustling market. Spider merchants were peddling their goods to the denizens of the Scorpion Desert. He recognised Scorpionmen and Fennec, but there were others he hadn’t met before such as Antmen, Armourbeatles and Scarabs. He was told before that Fennec are somewhat rare in otherwise scorpion-dominated desert, but here they made no less than half of the clientele.

“I wonder what’s the reason…” He looked at the cute and fluffy Fennec running in between the stalls. “But I also wonder…” He looked at an obvious structure sticking like a sore thumb.

Not too far from Merchant Square stood an imposing fortress. It was more like a palace than a defensive structure. And for some reason it was bigger than his own palace at the MegaFarm. Spurred by curiosity he began walking straight to the structure.

“The design is rather curious.”

Despite having the mountain at the side, the palace and its walls were made out of cream-coloured blocks. The Oberon Mountain rock was dark in colour so the blocks used in the palace construction must have come from somewhere else. Actually, most of the buildings here were made out of sandy looking blocks. Lugging bricks from outside then there was an entire mountain at the side was somewhat impractical, yes, but that made the structures blend better in the muted colours of the desert.

“Is this SandStone?” He warranted a guess, but he didn’t need to leave himself guessing like a fool. “[Inspect].”

The sandy cream blocks were actually called WyrmBlocks. It was obvious who created these. The blocks were made out of sand using Earth magic, wyrmling’s speciality, which would make them somewhat brittle but all of them were enchanted with Reinforced.

“Ah, I see.” He understood now.

It was probably faster to use sand to make blocks than to carve them out in the mountain quarry. In other words, the wyrmling had surprised him here.

He walked down the paved path towards the palace gate. It was guarded by two formidable spider warriors. He had left a bunch of those here to protect the future of the Trade Outpost. After all, the desert here was full of formidable monsters.

The spiders recognising their King gave him a chirpy greeting permitting him to pass through the open gate. The gate was decorated with two statues, one on the left and one on the right. Each depicted a ferocious wyrmling coiling up and around the gate entrance. Soon he emerged into the courtyard, the path towards the palace fortress was further lined with the statues of the wyrmling. The important note to make was that those were wymlings and not wyrms!

“He made statues of himself!” He finally realised why they looked so familiar. “And he scattered them all around.” He squinted at the paved path he was taking, the bricks here were etched decoratively. “No, not just an etch, it’s an image!” The bricks were etched with the images of the wyrmling repeated again and again to form a pattern.

The closer he got to the palace the odder it got. Everything was wyrmling-themed to the point of obnoxious excess.

A tiny furry figure emerged from the palace entrance.

“Welcome to The Great Wyrm Palace!” It shouted a greeting.

The little critter wore a blue tunic with Monster Kingdom insignia, and it clearly was one of the Fennec. He didn’t remember recruiting any of them into his service. Odd…

Just as soon as they finished their greeting the fennec asked. “Are you here to see the God Emperor?”

“The God Emperor?” He had to repeat.

“Yes, the God Emperor, the Ruler of The Desert, the Maker of WyrmCity, and the Greatest Wyrm to ever live.”

There was a lot of capitalisation and titles over there. “Oh, him… yes. Or do I need to make an appointment?”

“Of course not. The God Emperor is magnanimous enough to see everyone and all who comes here to pledge their undying loyalty. No need for appointments, please come.” The fennec urged him inside the palace.

“But I’m not here…”

“Master, meow!” The wyrmling jumped out of the palace entrance. “Don’t listen to this fool, meow, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Shoo!” The wyrmling growled at the now terrified fennec.

The fennec cried out, “I’m sorry!” and then ran back into the palace with another yelp of, “Eek!”.

“So… God Emperor? Slightly ambitious, no?” He asked amused.

There was a hint of embarrassment coming from the wyrmling’s face. “Meow, why are we still inside? Please come in.” He ignored the question tactfully. “I’d build this for you, meow.”

“Wow, an entire palace just for me! You know I don’t intend to live here.”

“Meow! I know. But my home is your home. I mean, meow, this palace is your vacational palace. Yes, a palace when you need a holiday.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

They walked further in, inside like outside everything was wyrmling-themed. He even caught a humongous painting just above the equally humongous throne. For some reason, a bunch of Fennec were furiously trying to take the painting off.

“Huh, and everything just had to be the wyrmling themed. An interesting choice of decorum for my vacational palace.”

“Meow! It’s just desert-themed, yes, I am a desert wyrm, remember? Oh, meow, and I know you love me so much!”

“Not that much to have your statue every ten paces.”

“Master!” He meowed fake offended.

“And that painting. A wyrmling gloating atop a pile of gold.“ He described what he saw just before it was off.” It’s rather dashing, and it captures your image perfectly. Why are they taking it off?”

“Meow? It’s just a sketch. You weren’t meant to see it yet, meow, It was meant as a gift for you. Yes-yes!” The wyrmling reaffirmed in a kobold-like fashion.

“Why would I want a massive painting of you?”

“Because you love me so much!” The wyrmling said without shame or hesitation.

“Hmm, really?”

“I am your bestest servant. Familiar number one, meow, most loyal of them all.”

He had only two familiars and the Darkness was perfectly loyal.

“And this must be the throne of my vocational palace.” He pointed at it.

The throne seat was surrounded by wyrmling statues coiling around each other. They were gilded in gold and the eyes were socketed gems. Above the throne, there was a plate with large gold gilded letters saying ‘God Emperor The Great Dessert Wyrm’.

The wyrmling chanted a spell hurriedly “[Earth Shatter].” The letters were blasted right off the plate. “There was a spelling mistake, meow, how embarrassing.”

“Oh really? I didn’t get a chance to see what it read.”

“Meow!” The wyrmling exhaled with relief. “It read: ‘Spider king, my beloved Master’.”

“And what was the spelling mistake.”

“The K was lowercase, meow, so embarrassing. I’ll find and punish the fennec who made it.”

“Eek!” Someone yelped from just around the corner.

“No need. So, shall I now sit on MY throne?”

“Of course, meow, it’s made for you!”

The Spider King sat down, it was surprisingly comfortable.

“Fennec, do your job!” The wyrmling commanded the nearby servants.

The fennec ran to fan the wyrmling with big leafy fans, another one attempted to feed him some pealed fruit.

“Not me, you fools! Meow!”

The panicked fennec switched to fanning the Spider King, there was an obvious confusion on their faces.

“I’m sorry they're all new here, meow, your new hires.”

“Oh, and I thought they were all like slaves or something.” That would not be beneath the wyrmling.

“What, meow!” The wyrmling exclaimed genuinely offended. “I pay them, of course!”

“Is that true?” He asked a nearby servant.

The fennec nodded. “The pay here is handsome. That’s why everyone came here to serve the God Emperor.”

“Meow! They mean to serve you, Monster King. It’s Monster King, not God Emperor. I keep telling them, meow!”

It appears the wyrmling will be sticking with this charade to the end. And not that he minded, whatever the wyrmling achieved here was all done by its own wyrm-like power and cunning. The WyrmCity was no doubt a prospering Trader Outpost netting the wyrmling a substantial amount of wealth. Whatever tax or tariff the wyrmling was making it was entirely his to keep; the Spider King only wanted for the goods to be traded freely, which they were. Albeit at a significant markup or something like that, but evidently, there were plenty of customers here.

“Anyway, I was told you had to discuss something with me?”

“Yes, meow, you arrived way-way quicker than expected, but… [Shed].” He shook his entire snake-like body.

The yellow scales opened making the wyrmling look rather spiky, much like a hedgehog. From under the scales clear plates of crystal fell off and shattered on the ground.

“This is… [Inspect]. WyrmSalt!”

The scales returned to the normal smooth alignment leaving a pile of crystals. “Meow, I made these.” The wyrmling said proudly with its head high.

“Marvellous!” He couldn’t help but be impressed.

Salt here, and everywhere, was a very precious commodity. Unlike in a certain other world, here in this magical place, Salt was only found in the scorching deserts as a type of crystal born from the Earth Magic. It was a flavouring agent highly sought after by Humans, Lamia, and even Centauri alike. Centauri liked it so much that they could eat the crystals on their own.

“My WyrmSalt, meow, is much higher quality than the one we find in sand.”

Yes, to get the salt you had to comb the dessert with a large and unwieldy comb. And the wyrm here found a way just to magic it in existence.

“Marvellous!” He repeated. “So, you just make it in your body?”

“Not quite, meow.” The wyrmling began explaining.

The process to make WyrmSalt wasn’t either simple or straightforward. The wyrmling still had to go in the desert and filter the sand through his scales; he used Sand Storm for that. The moving sand had tiny microscopic crystals, something that later would grow forming Salt, the wyrmling trapped those crystals and then used its Earth magic further to grow them into WyrmSalt. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the wyrmling imbued the magic crystals with his magic, making this a type of enchanting.

The Spider King was mighty impressed by the ingenuity of the wyrmling, but there was still a question on his mind. “I see. Can you do this to normal Salt?”

“No, meow, I only can change something that is bound to become Salt. If it’s already salt, there is nothing I can do.”

So maybe they just needed to find a way to extract that something from the sand. But that was probably even harder than combing with a comb through the desert in search of normal salt.

“Hmm… maybe I can help you there.”

“Really? I do have a lot of Salt piled up. As it turns out, I have perfect skills for finding it!”

“No not Salt. The thing that makes the salt Salt.”

“Salty salt salt makes the salt Salt.” The wyrmling explained.

Obviously, he didn’t quite get it, however, “Yeah, that. But before that, why don’t you show me around the WyrmCity. Nice name by the way.”

“I named it in your honour, meow!”

“Really…” Somehow, he doubted that.

As they walked around the wyrmling proudly showed off the Spider King his city. The goods coming from the Spider Kingdom were extremely luxurious to the Scorpionmen, especially the woody goods. Needless to say, the wyrmling was making a killing from all the trade. Surprisingly, unlike some dragons, the wyrmling didn’t hoard all the wealth in some sort of a vault. The wyrmling reinvested it all back into either the WyrmCity or the local people. Wealth builds splendour, and splendour attracts people. The WyrmCity wasn’t quite a city yet, but its population was growing. The wages here were a few times bigger than in the Scorpion Cities, enticing talented people to come here. Looking at the population of the city half of it were Fennec, 20% Scorpionmen, 10% spiders, and the rest were Brown Kobolds, Antmen, Armourbeatles and Scarabs.

However, it was the wyrmling, the God Emperor, the self-proclaimed ruler of the desert who managed this city. Living here came with a catch: you had to become a minion of the wyrmling and swear your undying loyalty. Surprisingly, a lot of Scorpion Desert denizens didn’t mind that catch, especially the desert minorities like Fennec who either way had to make themselves subservient to one Scorpion Klan or the other. And somehow serving the Great Desert Wyrm was rather enticing to them. The wyrm was still a juvenile wyrmling, but a legendary desert monster nevertheless.

Also, the wyrmling might be a bit of a megalomaniac, but it was a talented megalomaniac! So long as the wyrmling didn’t waste too much of resources on its vices all should be well. After all, no one is perfect.

The two had stopped at a construction site which was riddled with stacks of WyrmBlocks. From the rough shape of the building, the Spider King soon realised that this was a huge statue in construction.

“Meow! Statue of you, my Master.”

“Oh, I must have a rather magnificent tail.”

“Meow! A mistake, how dare they!” The wyrmling slithered to scold the Kobolds who were building it.

“No.” He grabbed the wyrmling by the tail. “This has to stop!”

Enough was enough!