Chương 15: The Wrong Kind of Stick

Whispers started hitting Meno before the dragon finished watching him. They stacked at the edge of his vision in a bright, twitching column. Half were nonsense. Half were worse than nonsense because they had guild tags. The stream overlay pulsed with chat moving too fast to read cleanly, and the viewer count kept climbing in ugly little jumps. Viewers: 25, 413. The dragon's molten eye stayed on him.

Meno kept his hands away from his weapons because the creature had already decided he was thief-adjacent, and he had no interest in upgrading that to snack. guilds found him don't sell claw dragon is waiting bro Meno opened the whisper panel and skimmed the top twenty. Scammers wanted to "extract him safely." Three crafters offered appraisal. Someone promised ten gold for "one toenail fragment, no questions." A player named PostLawyer said he could appeal the suspension and included a link Meno would never click.

Then a familiar guild tag hit his eyes. [Whisper: Orison_Crownfall] How did you convince the Zubras to rotate the Launch Array? Provide method. Meno read it aloud. Chat became fireworks. PROVIDE METHOD tell them tribute requires prayer beads say maximum power three times DO NOT HELP CROWNFALL Meno typed back. [To: Crownfall_Orison] Ask nicer. He sent it before good judgment could get involved. The next whisper had a logo attached to the name, all polished flame and cheap excitement.

[Whisper: HypeForge_Relay] HypeForge requests permission to restream your broadcast on our channel with attribution. Live commentary only, no edit rights. Yes/no? Meno stared at that one longer. HypeForge was an org, not a guild exactly. Reaction factories, highlight mills, launch-race roundtables, stream raids disguised as community spotlights. They were shameless, but they had reach, and reach turned humiliations into numbers. [To: HypeForge_Relay] Sure. Viewers: 27, 002.

"That's probably bad," he muttered. bro signed distribution while dragon holds him hostage exposure meta attribution matters he said sure like he knows contracts A third message came from a guild name he had seen in threads. [Whisper: Northwatch_Highbanner] Highbanner, northern kingdom. Do not tell Crownfall how you reached the Ashen Crown depth. Their expansion pressure is already messing with balance. Giving them that bypass breaks the game.

Meno read it silently, then aloud because chat had already seen the guild tag and was chewing through speculation. He typed back. [To: Highbanner_Northwatch] Sure. No problem. The lie cost him nothing because there was barely a secret to protect. He had streamed the whole disaster: Venk, the Zubras, maximum power, the wrong direction, the flaming arc, the volcano, the shrine, the dragon. If Crownfall could not reproduce it, the missing piece was probably not words. Negative karma, maybe. Disreputable status.

Red name. Venk's recommendation. The Zubras had treated him like a loophole with legs. Maybe lawful players asking got refused because the machine had rules until someone with -200 karma and a test-subject odor walked in. He kept that thought inside. Some truths lost value when chat touched them. [Whisper: Sereth_Silverwake] Silverwake, eastern kingdom. We will dispatch a buyer for your Ashen Crown materials. 100 gold per item. Offer valid while they remain unique. Meno's breath caught before he could stop it.

Three items. Three hundred gold. His rent brain tried to convert the number into real life even though the game did not work that cleanly. His crafting brain, which barely existed, whispered that selling Epic III dragon material before knowing recipes might be how idiots funded smarter people's legends. [To: Silverwake_Sereth] Maybe. We'll see. Chat had opinions before he closed the whisper. DON'T SELL SELL ONE scam? dragon mats are insane he has dragon money and no exit Another guild tag hit.

[Whisper: Vera_Stormhold] 50g per Ashen Crown item to withhold from Silverwake. You can keep the items, but please do not sell anything to them. We are in the southern kingdom. Meno read it twice. He knew Stormhold too. Big guild.

"They're offering money to sell nothing," he said. real market begins anti-sale bid take both that's fraud no that's politics Meno had no clean answer. If he said yes, he entered guild politics. If he said no, he annoyed a southern guild with enough money to buy absence. He typed carefully. [To: Stormhold_Vera] Not selling to anyone right now. We can talk later. He closed whispers. The dragon still watched him. The open passage behind the vanished lavafall waited below the curve of its body.

Black stairs descended into red crystal light. Meno looked at the passage, then the dragon, then the viewer count. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Viewers: 28, 611.

"There is a slight issue," Meno said. The dragon's eye narrowed. Meno lifted the Common III two-handed orc axe a little.

"This is garbage. My sword is red. My backup is worse. I'm supposed to get your hoard from underground with starter clothes and a hand-me-down orc axe. Let me leave, repair, come back with an actual weapon." The dragon did not blink.

"Put it down." Meno glanced at chat. dragon crafting? enchantment arc put it down put it down free upgrade maybe finally weapon reward He set the axe on the black stone and stepped back. The dragon lowered its head. Fire poured from its jaws in a narrow stream, bright enough to turn the cavern white around the edges. The axe glowed, then sagged. The edge softened. The haft caught, blackened, and folded. Iron ran in a useless puddle across the stone. The fire stopped. The axe was gone.

For a moment, even the dragon looked offended.

"What," it said, "is this trash?" Chat lost its mind. DRAGON ROASTED THE AXE item appraisal by annihilation WHAT IS THIS TRASH clip that orc axe deleted Dragon: vendor value zero Meno pointed at the melted lump.

"That was my weapon." The dragon's eye remained on the puddle.

"You handed me a tool that failed heat."

"You told me to put it down!"

"I intended to temper it."

"You cremated it!" The dragon's nostrils flared. Heat rolled across the cavern floor, and Meno stopped pointing because arguing with a creature that breathed volcanos was how you got stuck in a cave permanently.

"How," he said, voice climbing despite his best effort, "am I supposed to get your hoard back now?" The dragon looked disturbed by the question in a way that made Meno feel worse. Ancient contempt was one thing. Ancient uncertainty was a bad omen. Its head turned toward its tail. The tail shifted carefully this time. One smaller spine near the end scraped against stone, black and red-veined, shaped like a jagged short spear.

The dragon hooked it against a claw, snapped it loose with a crack, and flicked it across the cavern. The spike skidded to Meno's boots, smoking gently. He inspected it. [Ashen Crown Tail Spike] Quality: Epic III Type: Dragon Material Trait: Heat-Bound: Resistant to fire damage. Trait: Apex Edge: Cuts elemental bodies. Meno stared. Chat did the math faster than morality. ANOTHER EPIC III weapon? spear?

cuts elementals dragon gave him a toothpick this is better than your entire account try swing master Meno picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, warm even through his gloves, and balanced like a piece of something alive rather than a crafted weapon. He held it by the thicker end and gave it a test swing. [Class Technique Unavailable] Requirement: Recognized Weapon. Meno let the spike lower.

"Yeah. That sucks." The dragon gave him a look that said his disappointment lacked significance.

"Go," it said. Meno looked at the passage. Then at the melted axe. Then at the spike that counted as material, not weapon. He shook his head once, tucked the Ashen Crown Tail Spike under his arm like the world's most expensive mistake, and started down the stairs. The heat changed after twenty steps. The dragon's cavern had been furnace-hot and open. The passage below the lavafall pressed close, with black walls wet in places from mineral runoff and dull red crystals growing in seams.

Old torch brackets lined the stairs, some still burning, some empty. The air clicked faintly in the cracks, like cooling glass. The stairs opened into a huge underground hollow. Meno stopped at the ledge. The cavern was wide enough to swallow a city district and thin enough that every bridge looked one bad step from disaster. He stood on a narrow road carved into the mountain wall. It spiraled downward in long, exposed loops, hugging the stone face.

At intervals, side passages opened in every direction: tunnels, stairs, cracked archways, vents breathing red light, bridges stretching toward shadow. Far below sat a pyramid-like structure of black glass and old basalt, tiered and sharp, half-built into the floor of the cavern. Treasure surrounded it in obscene piles: gold, weapons, urns, red gems, cracked statues, dragon-scale-looking plates, and objects too far away to identify. It was not neat.

It looked hoarded by a civilization that understood wealth and still preferred heat. Morgras moved everywhere below. They were bipedal, tall and angular, their bodies made of black glass plates bound by ash-gray sinew. Molten cores burned through cracks in their chests and joints. Some had smooth masked faces with thin vents for mouths. Others had hollow ember sockets and no visible eyes. They communicated in clicks, heat pulses, and broken old speech that carried up the cavern wall in fragments.

At the top of the pyramid, a flaming eye hovered over an altar. A Morgra figure chanted before it, arms raised, molten light pulsing in time with each phrase. Meno swallowed.

"Okay. Civilization. Hostile-looking civilization." MORGRA CITY hoard at bottom pyramid raid zone flaming eye boss? you are lvl 15 in underwear stealth arc sell spike to yourself and log out He began descending the road with the tail spike in hand. The path was narrow enough that he kept one shoulder near the mountain wall. The other side dropped into red-lit air. Far below, Morgra patrols moved like glass shadows between treasure piles and fire channels. Halfway down the first long bend, clicks echoed from below.

Meno crouched. A patrol came up the road. Two Morgras walked side by side, black-glass limbs clicking against stone. Between them padded a flaming dog with a body like charcoal muscle and a ribcage full of coals. Its head was narrow, eyeless, and smoking. Meno inspected from the corner of the path. [Hostile: Morgra Glasswalker | Type: Elemental Humanoid | Threat:??? | Trait: Molten Reach] [Hostile: Cinder Hound | Type: Elemental Beast | Threat:??? | Trait: Scent-Flare] He did not need chat to tell him that was bad.

A side passage opened to his left, barely more than a crack widened into a tunnel. He slipped into it and pressed himself against the wall as the patrol passed. The hound paused at the entrance. Its coal ribs pulsed brighter. Heat washed over Meno's face. He held still. The Morgra clicked twice. The hound moved on. Meno waited until the sound faded, then kept going deeper into the side passage because returning to the road behind the patrol felt like asking for a correction. The tunnel sloped inward.

Crystals lit the walls in dull orange veins. The stone changed under his boots from rough basalt to something glassier, layered with old cooled flows. After thirty paces, the passage narrowed around a rock face where a bright metallic shape jutted from the wall. It looked like an ingot that had grown there instead of being placed. Fiery lines moved inside it. Chat saw it and became instantly unhelpful.

ORE mine it mine it mine it no pick no profession dragon spike pickaxe too high level use Apex Edge elemental ore maybe content rock Meno stepped closer.

"I don't have mining." hit it anyway worst case it explodes bad worst case do it Even with mining, this would probably be too high-level. He had no pick, no trainer, no profession, no recipe, and no business touching anything in this zone except the stairs back to the dragon. But the spike in his hand was not a weapon. It was fire resistant. It cut elemental bodies. The ingot was definitely elemental something. Meno looked back toward the road, then at the glowing metal, then at the viewer count climbing again.

"Science," he said, and hated that Venk had infected him. He struck the exposed ingot with the Ashen Crown Tail Spike. The impact rang through the side passage, deep and clean. Sparks sprayed from the metal face. Meno flinched, expecting the wall to wake up, the hound to come running, or the mountain to decide he had failed a mining check. A small chunk broke loose and clattered near his boot. He snatched it up. [Embervein Sliver] Quality: Rare III Type: Elemental Ore Trait: Fire-Tuned Chat went sharp and greedy.

RARE III NO PROFESSION do it again don't wake the wall this is a career this is how he gets banned again A prompt opened. [Profession Discovery: Elemental Extraction] Elemental Extraction allows harvesting of elemental bodies, elemental ore, and awakened mineral deposits. Profession Slot Required: 1/1 Warning: Progression only occurs through successful discoveries. Failed extraction may explode or awaken the source. Accept Profession? [Y/N] Meno stared at the prompt. He had spent the whole launch dodging crafting.

Crafting was a treadmill. Professions were time sinks. Trainers wanted tasks, materials, and patience. Guilds won because they fed crafters resources while solo players paid market tax. This was just as bad. Discovery progression, which was system language for "bleed on rocks until something works." It also used the one profession slot every player got. The dragon spike warmed in his grip. The Morgra city clicked and pulsed below. The hoard waited at the bottom.

His inventory held Epic III dragon material he could not safely sell from inside a mountain prison. Meno's thumb hovered over Y. Chat split into a thousand bad financial advisors. ACCEPT trap profession this is how you brick crafting one slot only elemental mats are insane MinerBeadGod Meno kept staring. The prompt waited. The mountain clicked around him like something listening.