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It turned out that he didn’t have far to go. He realized that as soon as he saw many of the wagons parked next to each other near the top. A few minutes later, he noticed the giant cave entrance, which led into the creature’s lair, and right after that, he saw the dead dragon lying there.

It was an awful sight, made even worse by the awesome nature of the beast he’d seen the night before. Even lying on its side, dead to the world, the giant corpse would have covered a football field. From nose to tail, it might even be longer. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see too well from here.

What he could see was that it was impossible to see how the dragon had died now because they’d already carved away too much of the corpse. At first, he didn’t really understand what they were doing and why they were using tools more appropriate to felling a tree than butchering a corpse, but then he saw the way they were carefully slicing away the scaled skin and pulling out the teeth and horns. Then, it all made sense. That stuff was probably worth as much as the glittering hoard he could see in the distance.

Beyond that, though, everything was blood. Blood flowed out of the giant open wounds that these men were carving into it. It was splattered on the walls, sprayed across the treasure, and pooled on the floors so high that the men in boots waded in it up to their ankles. It had been a giant among mortals, but now it was just a giant mess, and lines of men were gathering it up and buckets and then walking out to the edge of a cliff where they were dumping it out.

As he passed the line of wagons and approached the entrance, one of the men with an air of authority yelled at him. “We aren’t paying you to stand around, old man. If you want a piece of this, get to work. That blood won’t get itself out of there!”

For a moment, the urge to kill the man was strong, just because of the bloody nature of the scene. He resisted, though. If these guys thought he was just another hand, well, there wasn’t a better disguise to get close to things that he could think of, so he went with it.

Simon spent the next few hours doing exactly what everyone else was doing: dumping the blood of the dragon into the valley below. As the day wore on, a giant flock of carrion feeders gathered above them, making the whole scene even stranger.

Simon was determined not to be distracted by any of that, though. Instead, he kept his ears open and learned everything he could about what had happened here. People talked freely about it, of course. They talked about how much they were going to get paid and how cool it was that the job was already done. They even talked about how the dragon wasn’t nearly as tough as they thought it would be, and when Simon let them know that the village was no more, his fellow workers shrugged it off. “Just the price of doing business,” someone said. “Better them than me,” another added.

He was disgusted by those responses, of course, but he tried not to let it show. Instead, he kept his head down and learned, especially about their leader. There was no mystery why Sir Anias was called the Red Knight now. The man had practically bathed in blood. According to some people, he’d slain dozens of dragons, and according to others, it was only his second or third one.

Simon wasn’t even aware that there were dozens of dragons in the whole world. He’d heard a few stories of them before, and he’d heard a few bards sing about them. Even after he’d read some detailed accounts while searching for information about the Blackheart, he’d consigned them to myth more than a real threat he might have to face one day. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was supposed to face something so huge, though, or for that matter, how the Red Knight had done it.

Sir Anias didn’t answer that question directly, even though several people asked him in earshot of Simon over the course of the day. He\'d even caught the man\'s eye once; he\'d given Simon a weird look but said nothing to him. Every time, all he would do was simply stand there, strike a pose, and say something like, “Everything has a weakness; you just need to know where to look for it,” which was less than useless.

While Simon did all this, gallon by gallon and bucket by bucket, the floor was returned to something close to dry. After it was merely sticky and slimy with the occasional puddle, some of the men switched to something even worse: hauling off slabs of flesh that that were in the way of gathering the valuable scales and treasure.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Some of these were set on skewers for the feast that had been planned tonight, but the rest were dumped off the cliffside one at a time. That part was much harder work than the blood and the way that the thing\'s dead, milky eye looked at his as he did so made Simon feel like a grave robber more than anything.

That night, they ate well, and the Dragonslayer promised every man they’d receive more than their contracted share. “This bitch had more coin than I ever thought possible. It might take two trips just to get it all down the mountain!”

A wave of cheers went up at that, and the admonishments that “Anyone caught thieving would be thrown off the cliff with the rest of the useless meat did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm.”

Simon had no enthusiasm, though. He had some of the charred meat just to taste dragon. It was pretty good, and the fact that he’d definitely worked up a hunger with all the hard work over the last couple of days made it even better. Mythological barbecue had never been on his bucket list, but some part of him enjoyed it.

The taste was largely spoiled for him because of the attitude of the people he was surrounded by. This way of treating such a majestic creature like an industrial strip mining operation left him picking listlessly at his meal. It just didn’t feel right.

That night, he slept like the dead, and in the morning, they repeated the previous day all over again. This time, they weren’t hauling blood and meat, though, so much as gold and silver. The dragon’s hoard contained many strange objects. This wasn’t limited to decaying chests or gems as large as his fist, either. There were weapons scattered around, along with other items that obviously had magical properties.

Simon dearly wanted to study those, but when he saw the men destroying the most obvious examples of such priceless artifacts, he knew he’d get treated the same way. I’ll just have to find a way to get at those next time, he thought to himself.

Of course, that thought led to others, and soon, he was wondering if he didn’t have to save the town or kill the dragon at all. Perhaps I just need one of these pieces of treasure for a future level, he thought to himself. Which one exactly, though, was a complete mystery.

It wasn’t even a mystery he could really solve, not until later levels. He had no firm evidence for this, of course, but he was pretty sure the slime was put there for the zombie level, and the death knight was in front of the volcano level for a reason. He wasn’t about to waste a question to Helades confirming it, but he was sure enough. If that was the case, then whatever was on the next level might well be solved by something in this room.

The vultures he was working with didn’t seem particularly interested in any of that, though. They just wanted to break anything they were afraid of and melt down the pieces for the gold they contained, and as far as Simon was concerned, that was like burning hundred-dollar bills to get a few pennies out of the deal.

He did his best to ignore that, though, and focused on the task at hand: carrying gold coins out, one bucket at a time. He might have done that all day if one of the men working nearby had not said, “What the hell?” making him stop what he was doing and look over.

The other man’s dark, scraggly beard almost entirely hid his look of shock, but Simon could see the whites of his eyes clearly enough to know that something in the chest he’d just opened up had spooked him. “What is it?” Simon asked, trying not to seem too interested. “More evil magic? Human remains?” Ř

“Nuh-uh,” the man said with a shake of his head as he stepped back and gestured at it. “It’s none of that shite. It’s a road or something… I think…”

This piqued Simon’s interest, and he looked and found it was indeed a muddy-looking road on a drizzly day, with a forest in the distance. He didn’t recognize the area specifically, but it was definitely somewhere in the north. There were a few crates scattered around in view, but otherwise, there was nothing visible to give any clues as to what might be going on there. One thing was for sure, though, Simon had found the gate to the next level.

The fact that it was in the Dragon’s Hoard seemed less than ideal. What if I need to use it again? He wondered. What if this big beasty is alive next time?

Still, he wasn’t about to hesitate now. He had a lot more questions about this level, but he was fairly certain that he could get the answer to some things on the next level and make his next trip here more productive. So Simon said, “Wow, that is crazy. You better go get the boss to take a look at this,” as he closed the lid. “I’ll stay here to make sure no one tries to mess with it.”

The bearded man squinted at him for a moment as he searched for some ulterior motive, but when he couldn’t find one, he just said, “That’s right. Don’t want you stealing my credit for finding this!”

The man waddled off, looking quite pleased with himself, and Simon waited until he was far enough away that he couldn’t intervene. Then he opened the chest back up, shoved a handful of gold in his pocket, and grabbed the closest sword before he dove through and slammed the lid shut behind him.

Yesterday, Simon had vanished down a well in full view of everyone, and today, it was an ancient treasure chest. I need to stop making this a habit, he thought with a smile.