I woke up, refreshed and ready for another day of exploration. I left before Lein even woke up and sneaked past the few early birds I met in the hallways. I didn't really need to but the extra stealth proficiency is always welcome.

You have been detected!

What?

Did someone see me? I don't see anyone around.

As my tiny heart started to pump blood to react to the stress induced by a situation with a potential threat I looked around me. And I saw her, Veria looked at me, grinning from behind a flower vase.

I felt a bit upset by her victorious smile and jumped from the ground to a window, then a ridge then the roof and continued where she couldn't follow me. Except she did.

I might have been wrong when I said, or thought, that she was fine staying here. She seems bored and it's making her anoying. She kept smiling like an idiot while chasing me, which is making this even more of a pain.

I dashed toward the entrance in the staff of the statue with Veria following me closely. While we were moving I noticed that she is doing way more unnecessary movements than usual, probably to stretch or maybe train.

She won't be able to follow me on top of the statue anyways. I climbed just like last time and glared at my pursuer from the safety of my high ground. Veria smiled back and pulled something metallic from her belt.

The grappling hook turned around the statue's head before catching it's own rope and tightening around the statue's forehead. Veria then proceeded to climb the statue. She sliped on the ice three times but never fell. Then she climbed on the statue's shoulder and smiled at me again.

I never saw her behave so childishly, I need to find a way to get rid of her.

Actually, do I? She probably won't tell Lein and could be of help in the cave. Plus it'll spare me the time waste of losing her and coming back here. I just hope she won't be as annoying as she is right now. I liked the solo adventure though.

I took me a few more minutes to decide. I choose to go with her, mostly because I couldn't escape her quickly enough to still have enough time to go adventuring. I jumped on top of the staff and went inside. There were no sounds at first but Veria managed to get inside and I could hear her footsteps if I focused on sound.

When I reached the cave, I hid behind a rock and waited. She came not long after me and looked around the cave, she looked completely lost at the sight. I took the chance for a little revenge and sneaked up on her then hissed. She was startled and even pulled out a dagger from her belt, looked at my triumphant face and put the dagger back.

"I guess you win this time. This place is gigantic, I did think there would be some interesting places around but didn't expect a giant cave filled with monsters right under us."

No one would expect it. Expecially the machine to make bricks.

I started heading toward the shack near the drake's den, with Veria as back up it shouldn't be too dangerous to go there.

On the way we crossed the path of several monsters but managed to stay out of view from most of them. The only exception being a ice bat that veria skewered with a throwing knife the moment it came out of a cave in our backs.

Once we reached the stone hill on top of wich the shack is, we started being more on the lookout. Several drakes flew near us but none noticed us.

Or they just didn't care.

I reeached the shack first, though it didn't look like one. Calling this a chaotic amalgam of rotten wood would be an understatement. There are at least ten holes I could easily slip through to get inside. Also the door is gone, only the hinges are left.

I stepped inside, only to find an empty room. The only thing worth noticing here is a wooden sheeperd staff. Just touching it made it crumble into pieces. Veria looked as puzzled as me when she came in. We were ready to leave when I used curse perception out of curiosity, revealing a strange shape on the stone floor.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The pattern drawn on the ground with ethereal power looked like a map of some sort. I could see the towers, the lake and the greenhouse, the stairs and even this shack. Two other intriguing places were marked on the map, one hidden in the rocks behind the greenhouse and one close to the shack, up north, or maybe south, there is no way to know down here. Veria was looking over my shoulder, incapable of seeing anything. Me suddenly staring at the ground with a focused expression must have surprised her.

"What are you looking at?"

I obviously didn't answer and just headed toward the strange place north. She followed me hesitantly as I was going inside the drake's territory. We both made sure we were as stealthy as possible.

I'm glad I am so small, Veria had to walk in the open several time because she couldn't fit between rocks. She still managed to go undetected but I'm glad I avoided the extra danger.

We saw drakes fly right above us, not minding what happens on the ground in the slightest. At one point one was so close that Veria could have touched his belly.

Even when we reached the end of the cave, a wall in front of us and drake nests all around, none of them noticed us. The pride of those lizards really make them blind. They may be the strongest beasts down here, but letting me and Veria come close to their nests where the young, weak ones are is stupid.

I tried to remember where the place we are looking for was on the map when I realised it isn't here. Or it isn't where I though it was. The entrance to that place isn't on the ground, it's in one of the drake's nest.

It's not that high up, but we still need to climb about thirty meters of rocky wall. I could climb by jumping from rock to rock and going through rifts and cracks. The same didn't apply to Veria, too many holes were too small for her to go through and, as nimble as she is, she couldn't do all the jumps. The worst part was a large jump that one had to make to reach the nest's ledge, I would probably need to gigantify.

Using Veria's grappling hook was a good idea but she couldn't throw it that far. So I took it in my mouth and began ascending. Every time I went through a hole I had to drop the hook, go through the hole and then use telekinesis to grab the hook and bring it up to where I could catch it.

You have unlocked a new perk: Teamplayer(Achievement).

That's a new one. I guess it's the first time I help my allies so much. It must come from an accumulation of all the time I fought alongside Lein and Veria. I reached the last jump. Gigantification made my muscles grow and I leaped perfectly and landed without a problem. I placed the hook between two rocks and, while Veria was climbing scanned the place.

Eggs, three of them, are sitting in a corner of the small crevice. I can see a hidden path behind one of them. The problem is that the mother is right on top of those eggs. I could try to wake her up and get inside, but there is now way I can fight her. I can't afford to be detected.

Veria gripped the ledge and climbed up. Her eyes instantly locked on the threat and she quckly grabbed her hook and hid behind a pile of rocks. We both circled the young mother to find a way in without waking her but couldn't reach the place without having to make an opening by waking her up.

Veria rumbled through her belt's pouches, probably to grab a smoke bomb or something like it when I felt it.

You have been detected!

It's not Lein this time. I can feel a heavy, moist breath from behind. Dad's home. It didn't notice Veria behind the rocks but saw me in the middle of the nest. I need a plan right now.

The male drake shrieked from the top of his lungs and nearly ruptured my eardrums. It woke the female that instatly covered her eggs, and the hidden passage, with her wings. I panicked and threw a frost bolt at the male.

Target absorbed the spell. No damage were dealt.

This is bad. I ran toward the mother to avoid the male's ice breath. She tried to bit me but Veria kicked her jaw before she could. My savior then threw a smoke bomb on the ground, grabed me and slid between the female drake and her eggs to get in the hidden path. We could hear the loud sounds of the two drake thrashing everything aside from their eggs.

Veria catched her breath while I used wound reduction on the bruises she received from rushing blindly between two angry drakes and some sharp rocks.

Once I was done, I looked around. The crevice seemed empty but magic sight sensed a hidden door. I had no idea how to open it though.

I used several spells and opening sigils but none worked. I couldn't find a way to open that door. Then I remembered that the map was drawn using curses. With curse perception I could see an incantation on the wall.

New curse learnt: Cold shivers.

Using said curse on the door obviously opened it. Now to see what's inside.

I waited for Veria to bandage her wounds and led her inside. We walked through a long, empty stone hall and reached another door. A normal one, with a handle.

Veria opened it and we entered a small living room with a few bookshelves, a table and chairs. There are three other doors I can see. One leads to a small room with only a bed in the middle, the other to some sort of magic powered kitchen with some stranges enchanted systems and the last one is a study.

Veria went in the study and I followed her. Most of the books here are about ice magic, but there is a few exceptions about curses, fire magic and even one about cooking meat.

We then searched through the kitchen. Several small mana powered stoves on top of a large oven and some strange ice powered food storage were the only noticeable objects, the other being simple food and cooking ustensils storage.

Then we enter the last room, filled with a simple wooden bed. And on the wall, in a place you could only see from inside the room we saw a huge glass tube filled with water. And there was someone inside it.