Octavia and I scanned the path, looking for the ground cavity that seemed the most inviting. After settling on one, we followed the same game plan that we'd used when approaching the first hole: she covered the hole, and I spewed noxious breath to eliminate any former occupants, which turned out to be mostly armored ants, with one centipede that almost managed to bite its way through Octavia's web before she stopped its struggling with several carefully-placed stabs. By the time we were done, I was down to [SP: 1/18], but managed to make it 36% of the way toward my next class progression. Along the way, I snacked on the insects we found. That, combined with the hyenas that I'd snacked on earlier in the evening, ensured that food wouldn't be a problem for at least another day or two.

Fortunately, one of the cavities turned out to lead to a mostly-horizontal passageway. It lead to a dead end, but it was among the more spacious of the cavities, and the fact that it offered us a proper ceiling ensured that we couldn't be crushed if any would-be visitors got the bright idea to start dropping rocks on us.

"I think we've found our niche," Octavia said.

"That sounds like a good term for this new place," I said. "Our niche."

"Why not call it 'our home?'" she asked.

"Because I'm holding out hope that your old tunnel might still be partially intact, and I'd prefer to think of that as home," I said. "We still don't know how much damage the dragon did. Unless we confirm that it's uninhabitable or an otherwise lost cause, I'm choosing to think of this little niche as temporary accommodation."

"It's a pleasant thought," she said. "When do you think would be a safe time to check?"

"As soon as possible," I said. "Maybe tomorrow. At the moment, I'm tapped, and I'd prefer to approach your old tunnels with full stamina."

"Alright," she said. "You should get to sleep."

I nodded, and crawled into the deepest corner of the niche, which was mercifully free of glowstone; there was some reflected glow from the pathway above, but fortunately my eyelids served to block enough of the light that it didn't keep me awake. Given how adrenaline-filled the day had been, sleep was far from the first thing on my mind, but as I shut my eyes, I suddenly realized how tired I was — somehow, it had been a full day of hunting ants, fleeing hyenas, exacting revenge on those same hyenas, weathering an intense storm, and fleeing what I could only presume was a very angry elder dragon. Or maybe it wasn't angry at all: maybe its attack had been coldly and ruthlessly calculated. Or maybe it was so immensely powerful that it simply wreaked casual destruction without even being fully aware of the havoc it had caused us.

I wondered: had that dragon once been a baby dragon just like me, cowering in an underground tunnel, living on a diet that mostly consisted of insects while relying on a larger parental figure for protection? Would I one day grow to that level of power? What would life even be like if I reached that point? I had a vague notion that dragons lived for hundreds of years — something not exactly confirmed by this world just yet, but something that seemed common to most fantasy worlds of this type that Athena would have used as a template when constructing this one. The idea of a multi-centennial lifespan seemed almost beyond my own comprehension — I didn't even know what it was like to live three decades. With any luck, my years lived as a dragon would dwarf my years lived as a human back on earth.

As I slept, I dreamed.

In my dream, I soared above the mountain bluffs that surrounded the barren desert valley, leaving behind the hard cracked rock for greener pastures filled with dense brush and thick forests. I flew until I spotted a group of people, dozens of them, looking up at the sky and waving toward me. I flew toward the group and landed. I tried to speak, but as I opened my mouth, a green gas spilled forth, smelling of something toxic. The people fled, several of them dropping down and grasping as the green cloud enveloped them.

As I watched their bodies fall to the ground, I reeled back and felt my head hit something.

Suddenly, the field vanished and I awoke to the reality of being enveloped in darkness.

From sleeping while sheltered, your health has been fully restored From sleeping while sheltered, your stamina has been fully restored

"Are you okay?" said Octavia. "Looks like you bumped your head. We've got a lower ceiling than you're used to."

I shook my head, not in disagreement, but simply to get my bearings as I turned around. "How long was I out?"

Octavia teetered back and forth, a gesture equivalent to a shrug. "About the usual amount of time. Why? Did your stamina not fully regenerate?"

"I'm at a hundred percent," I said. "Funny how even this meager little niche counts as shelter. But no, I was asking because I had a dream last night."

"Is that unusual?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. "I don't usually have dreams. Or at least, I don't usually remember having them. My dragon dream was...unsettling."

"Hmm," said Octavia. "I don't recall having any spider dreams."

"I guess we sleep differently," I said. "But in my dream, I was a dragon."

"Is that unexpected? I mean, you are a dragon."

"I suppose that, at least at first, I thought of myself as a human who had been turned into a dragon. But now, I guess I'm thinking of myself as a dragon who was once a human."

"I'm not sure I understand the difference," she said. "Those two sound the same to me."

"It's a philosophical difference, not a practical difference," I said. "But according to the unconscious part of my mind that shapes my dreams, I'm a dragon."

"Are you about to go on a rant about philosophy?" said Octavia, her tone cautious.

"No, no," I said. "We've got practical matters to attend to. Did anything happen while I was asleep?"

"Plenty, I'm sure," she said. "But nobody bothered us."

"Did you hear anything that might indicate dragon activity above us?"

"I didn't hear or feel anything that felt like an earthquake, if that's what you're asking," she said.

"Maybe now would be a good time for us to investigate your old tunnels," I said. "We can see if any of your old home is still intact."

"Aren't you supposed to be playing dead?" said Octavia.

"Huh?"

"When we fled the dragon yesterday, you said that you got out of the dragon's range, right? And if it stopped detecting your presence, maybe it would think you were dead."

"That was pure conjecture on my part," I said. "I was assuming that the dragon's 'kin sensitive' detection radius was the same as mine — a big assumption for me to make about an elder dragon when I'm just a little hatchling. And I'm also assuming that a dead dragon would report — or not report — just the same as a dragon that had escaped. Maybe 'kin sensitive' would alert me to the presence of dead dragons as well."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Do either of those strike you as likely?"

"To varying degrees," I said.

"Okay, how about this," she said. "You can go up with me partway, but I'll explore the tunnel entrance myself, okay? If that dragon is still nearby, you should probably be laying low."

"Okay," I said.

Octavia and I walked back up the Shimmergrove path, spiraling our way slowly upwards. When we got to the portion of the path with the steam vents, Octavia turned to me. "I was thinking about other ways for you to get around this," she said.

"Did you come up with any?"

"Climbing," she said. "If you climbed up the wall, you could shimmy across. But you'd have to go pretty high. The steam jets can reach pretty high. Thirty feet, maybe more. I think that much climbing would leave you more vulnerable than running across."

"Vulnerable to what?" I asked.

"Assassin bugs," she said. "Or anything else with wings and an appetite."

My mind went back to my last encounter with an assassin bug. "In that case, I'll risk the steam vents."

Octavia deftly danced her way across, while I sprinted across, managing to avoid getting scalded in the process.

When we got near the portion of the Shimmergrove path that I surmised to be the edge of the elder dragon's effective detection radius — based on the assumption that its detection radius was identical to mine — I stopped.

"I think this as far as I can go," I said. "Depending on what we want our margin of safety to be, I mean."

"Don't die while I'm gone," she said.

"Same goes for you," I said. "I'll be watching."

I watched as she climbed up the trail by herself. Separating from her felt dangerous, though I wasn't exactly sure why: she was clearly in her element, having walked this path many times before.

I myself wasn't enthusiastic about the prospect of encountering an assassin bug, or some other critter, but if worse came to worst, I had tools at my disposal for personal defense. My roar had served to repel the most recent assassin bug, but I wasn't sure if that was the sort of trick that would work more than once.

I watched as Octavia neared the entrance to what had once been her tunnel network. She was far enough away that it was hard for me to see clearly, but I thought I saw something move at the tunnel entrance. Then, she suddenly stopped and reared back, suddenly pivoting in place and running back down the way she'd come, moving as fast as she could. As she approached, I saw what had emerged from the tunnel above her: even in the dim glow of the Shimmergrove, I could recognize the silhouette of a fire ant. Then, I cast my gaze back up the path, and saw that there were already several other fire ants outside the tunnel, some of them on the walls of the path outside the Shimmergrove, while others seemed to be following behind Octavia. Now that I knew what shape to look for in the shadows that danced across the wall, I could see at least a dozen of them. It wasn't clear to me whether they'd noticed her, but it looked like too many for them to have just emerged from the tunnel.

I took a step up the path toward Octavia, then paused. If the dragon was nearby, it might detect me. But I just waited here for Octavia…

I knew from experience that I could outrun the ants, but Octavia couldn't. I debated whether to rush to her aid, but decided against it, as the ants had yet to catch up to her. She had tools at her disposal for defense — as she'd already shown me once in an encounter with a fire ant horde of even greater size — and I wouldn't step in unless things got truly desperate.

Fortunately, Octavia managed to reach me ahead of the fire ants who, it was clear by now, were indeed pursuing her.

"What happened?" I said, running alongside her. "I thought you plugged the entrance."

"There was a fissure," she said. "A crack they managed to get through."

"The fire ants were in your tunnels?"

"Yes," she said. "They've never gotten this deep. I've never seen a fire ant in the Shimmergrove. And…the rock around my tunnel was charred."

"Charred?"

"The entire tunnel network was incinerated," she said.

"What in those tunnels would burn?"

"My webs," she said. "It burned my webs!"

"It?"

"That dragon, " she said.

My mind was filled with the image of Octavia's tunnels crumbling under the elder dragon's onslaught. Whatever had remained of her web defenses had, apparently, been incinerated. The fire ants, having entered her now-barren tunnels, had now found a way to reach the depths of the Shimmergrove.

"I guess it's a good thing we left those tunnels when we did," I said.

"My webs," she said, distressed. "It burned my webs. I spent weeks – months –"

"We'll talk about it later," I said. "Big problem right now: fire ants."

By now, the fire ants had nearly caught up to us. I could run fast enough to keep ahead of them, but Octavia…

"Keep moving," I said to Octavia. "I'm going to buy some time."

As Octavia continued ahead, I spun around and exhaled [noxious breath], bathing the path behind us with gas, with the cloud big enough that it even managed to disrupt several of the ants that were traveling along the wall. Some waited at the edge of the gas cloud, while some decided to climb over it. I rushed to catch back up with Octavia.

"What do we do now?" I said.

"I was going to head back to our niche, as you called it," she said. "Do you have a better plan?"

"I don't think so," I said in what I realized was a shaky voice.

When we got to the steam vents, I didn't pause before sprinting across, managing to escape without incurring much damage. Octavia took slightly longer to cross it, her approach taking more finesse. Just as she walked over it, a huge stream of steam erupted behind her, sending one unfortunate fire ant flying. I didn't bother to watch where it landed as we continued to rush ahead.

As we bounded down, I watched as a different set of shapes emerged in front of us: the black armored ants. I felt a wave of horror wash over me. My heart pounded, my pulse thundering inside my ears.

"Any plan?" said Octavia.

"Run through," I said. "Trample them."

Octavia and I continued rushing downward, directly into the wave of approaching black armored ants. As we reached them, my eyes widened in shock as the wave of armored ants parted, allowing us to pass.

Octavia responded with the same surprise I did. "Why did they…"

"I don't know," I said, glancing over my shoulder. "Keep running."

Now that we had passed, the black armored ants had resumed their climb upward. I watched as the descending wave of red fire ants collided with the ascending wave of black armored ants in the middle of the path.

The red ants seemed to ignore the black ants at first, treating them as nothing more than obstacles to climb over as they pursued us, but the black ants seemed to have something entirely different in mind, opening their jaws and biting down on the red ants, stopping them in place. I watched as two black armored ants gripped a fire ant from opposite ends, tearing its red body in half.

"They're fighting," I said.

"Fighting what?" she asked.

"Each other. The black ants are attacking the red ants."

More black armored ants marched toward us, then past us, apparently rushing to join the melee. I saw several of them carrying what looked like glowstone fragments in their teeth.

"Should we keep moving?" she asked.

"I think that whatever is going on up there, I don't want to be a part of it."

I continued spectating the brawl over my shoulder as we continued downward, the writhing mass of ants only growing in size as more descending fire ants and more ascending armored ants reached the battle.

"Who's winning?" she asked

"The black side," I said. "Seems like the fire ants can't do much against their armor. In fact, it's pretty one sided."

"Is that a good thing? 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' as they say."

"I'm not sure," I said. "But given that the black ants were willing to let us pass, and the red ants were chasing us and have a long-standing grudge against us, I'm going to say yes. A very tentative yes."

"It looks like our side is winning," she said.

"It does seem like their armor is doing its job," I said. "But it seems like the fire ants might have numbers on their side. Look further up the path, closer to the tunnel." A continuous stream of red fire ants was marching down the path, emerging from the fissure that Octavia had pointed out earlier. A hundred at least, maybe more.

Octavia looked to me with expectant eyes. "Do you think we should get involved?"

I shook my head. "I think we should wait and see what happens."

Class: Baby Dragon

Level: 10 (max level reached for current class)

Progress toward class ascension: 36%

HP: 30/30

SP: 17/18