Feeding the Dragons, Chapter ??

DISCLAIMER: Vampire Penguin Pete is a product of late night writing during NaNoWriMo and is not be taken too seriously. The dragons are real though and will eat you.

Pete and Ryder arrived at the secret location a little past noon, their bags full of the Phantom Thief’s stolen treasures they’d collected from the town stash.

Burdened with the gold and other priceless things they climbed out of the van and walked down the rocky shore that surrounded a small inset seasonal lake.

The silver and lime chalk pebbles crunched under their feet as they hiked over the stretch of land still wet from the tide, off to a place where a landslide had brought many large boulders down the surrounding shale and grey stone hills. The lake looked desolate, like some alien planet.

Under the steps of their feet the lake bed released the heavy stench of fish in the shimmering sun of midday.

Pete was confident that no one knew about this place, it was only open to easy access during parts of the year, and there was no reason at all to come all the way out here. It was difficult to reach and frankly unpleasant to spend vacation time at even if you did put in the effort to come out here.

Where they were going was even harder to reach, being covered up in the dark, murky water of most of the year. The tides and dry season had to line up proper like. A dark, gapping pit in the mud and pebbles in the muck of the lake bottom.

Pete adjusted his backpack and crawled down into the pit. His foot splotched into a puddle, the sound bouncing around in a loud dramatic echo that bounced all through the caverns. Once his footing was secure on the slick rocks, Pete looked up at the glowing entrance where Prof. Ryder was waiting with a large bag.

“Come on down,” He called up to her. P rof called down a simple reply and dropped the bag for Pete to catch. Pete caught it and slung it over his other shoulder before turning his attention back to Prof.

She dropped down and nearly slipped on the puddle despite his warnings. Luckily he was there to catch her.

Ryder turned on her high-powered flashlight and looked around. “It looks the same as always,” she muttered, ducking into the cave. Pete grinned as he followed.

“We’d better hurry into the main cavern, these tunnels tend to fill up quickly during the fall,” he said, glancing around the dark place.

Pale moss and other water plants that dwell in underground pathways clung to the rock walls in a slimy, like something gross and slimy. Some dangled down from the ceiling and occasionally he’d forget to dodge some and it’d brush across his face in a gross wet slimy way.

Pete trained his light ahead, down the long tunnel.

They had about a 15 minute walk before it would slant upwards and lead into a very large cavern. The water level limit was there, so if they didn’t want to get stuck in a narrow tunnel with the ever rising tide they’d better hurry.

The only blessing was how still the water was once it was inside. In the times he couldn’t quite beat the tide, he’d only been tossed around a little bit. Most of it was just water rising and filling the tunnel completely.

The rest of the walk was fairly uneventful, by the time he and Ryder had finally climbed up out of the tunnel, the tide only came up to their ankles.

The tunnels would fill slowly over the next four hours and unless he and Ryder wanted to scuba their way out, which they happened to be prepared for, they’d be stuck for the next twelve.

They sat down and took a breather. But something felt off again. Much like that time B.W had broke into the store. Pete wasn’t sure what it was.

“Do you notice anything strange?” he asked, looked around for the source of his discomfort.

“Not really… The tide could have washed anything out of the tunnels though. If there’s any thing to see it’d be after this point.” Ryder pointed out, using her flashlight to check for strange footprints. The ground was a mixture of large clumps of wet damp soil and large stretches of flat stone. If someone wanted to avoid leaving footprints it was easy enough. “Of course, we might find whatever it was in the dragon’s cave. They might have had a snack for Grunt and Whisper.”

Pete gave a harsh laugh. Yeah, that was a good mental image. He could just imagine B.W stepping into the dragon’s cave and the dragons eating him. Maybe that was the reason their contact had fallen flat lately. It’d help him sleep better at the very least.

Feeling anxious to Pete let out a high, sharp whistle following with two others of wavering pitch. Out of the mouth of one of the many tunnels came a twittering soft whistle followed by a deep rumbling hoot.

“They’re expecting us now.” Pete said, mostly for the sake of talking.

He took a roll of sturdy string from his bag and tied one end of it to a stake they’d left behind forever ago.

The dragons were like fickle [insert word: person/thing that moves homes around a lot], always scurrying their treasures into new hiding spots. As they had a habit of making all together new tunnels and collapsing old ones in a impossible to memorize labyrinth, the best course of action was leaving behind a trail.

Ryder took her pack back from him and they tied the safety line between each other. Getting lost was not fun in this place.

Then together they entered the tunnel that the noise had come from, a low opening that almost dipped down into a crawl space. They crawled nearly on their bellies for maybe half an hour, inclining up.

Pete hated every moment and wished the dragons would make spacier tunnels the next time when they remodeled.

When the tunnel ahead of him suddenly narrowed to a very tight squeeze, Pete stopped, his muscles freezing up. “I can’t do this.” He gasped, the claustrophobia gaining hold of him.

Pete turned, glad that the tunnel, while low ceilinged, was wide enough to comfortably turn around in. Ryder exchanged a meaning yet understanding look with him. She reached into her smaller backpack and passed him the slippers.

“Just for a few minutes, Pete. You know the dragons hate it when other strong magical forces are in the room and your penguin form gives off way too much now that it’s got vampire blood mixed in.”

Pete slipped his feet out of the durable boots and put the sleek black feathered slippers on in their place. He leaned his head back against the wall and released a tense breath. He had to calm down and focus to make the shift happen. Ever since that vampire had poisoned his bloodstream the human side of him always shied away from the bond, making the shift harder.

Slowly the change crept over him. His feet started to squeeze together and apart as toes stretched and scaled webbing covered them, some of the matter disappeared, temporally removed so he shrunk in mass. Thus was the magic of the penguin skin.

Soon he was nothing but a penguin in a loose pile of clothes. Ryder scooted closer, collecting up his clothes. “Alright, lets tie you back up,” she said, reaching to reapply the safety rope.

Pete was a feral beast with the vampire’s blood coursing through his veins.

He squawked very loudly and flailed his flipper like wings, charging towards her with a thirst for blood.

Ryder acted quickly and caught him in his own shirt, wrapping him up securely in one of the biggest acts of ‘Nope’ in the town’s history.

“Fine, we’ll do it this way, you big baby.” She muttered, tying the shirt up around Pete’s struggling body.

Penguin secured, she squeezed through the very, very narrow tunnel. Pete wiggled and squirmed, but Ryder pulled him through behind her.

“Okay, Pete, time to change back.” Ryder said, pushing Pete over to a corner. The thin passage way and opened up into a very large, bubble like cave. It was pockmarked with numerous caves and tunnels. Ryder reached back to grab the bags and pull them through.

She needed Pete to get back to normal before they continued.

“Fine. Fine. You know what? I think I’ll leave you here while I run your little errands. You can just wait here and think about what you’ve done.”

So Ryder just left him tied up in his shirt, left his clothes next to him and continued to the dragons. She looked around at the tons of tunnel and whistled. The dragons called back in return and she started alone to the rest of the journey.

About 15 minutes after climbing a looping, winding tunnel she found herself face to face with a shiny dragon. “Grunt, sweetie.” She cooed, patting the dragon’s round snout.

Grunt pulled back away from the tunnel and let Ryder step through.

The hoard room was immaculate as ever, things stacked neatly in overflowing piles.

Gold coins, the dragon’s personal favorites, were scattered about two inches deep around the floor.

Whistle was curled around, a mass of grossest bubbling flesh made of warts and salamander looking skin. It was dry to the touch much like a snake, so smooth that it looked dripping with sickly ooze.

Ryder stretched out her hand to pat the large beast. Whistle cooed and chirped in the soft beautiful voice more suiting for one of Grunt’s appearance.

“I’ve brought you new treasures, my pretties.” She said, unlatching the flap on the largest bag she carried. Inside was the heavy golden frame of a famous painting.

“Here you go, Whistle. Just what you ordered.” She chuckled as she held it out to the large ugly dragon. The dragon gave the most delighted series of whistles and notes that sounded like violins singing in harmony. It stood up on it’s thick hind legs and snuffled the painting ever so gently, getting a sense of the new treasure. Whistle wrapped it’s long gangly skeleton fingers around the frame and lifted it gently from Ryder’s hands.

Grunt came up behind her and bumped her with it’s round nose like an impatient puppy.

“I’ve got something for you too.” Ryder laughed, pulling the [insert shiny stolen thing] from the bottom of the bag and giving it to the impatient dragon. Grunt was very much different from the ever so delicate Whistle.

The dragon wiggled like a dog and eagerly took the shiny thing into it’s mouth, prancing around with the new treasure. Grunt scurried all over the hoard room, searching for the perfect place to put it’s new trinket.

There was a small corner that seemed to be in construction still, the walls weren’t quite polished as smoothly as the rest of the room. Grunt seemed to think this was the perfect place and plopped the shiny down against the wall in a less than ceremonial fashion.

Whistle bristled up at the sight and quickly bound over, making a symphony of intimidating noises. Grunt tucked tail and let out a squabble of grating hiss gargle fart noises as Whistle pushed it aside. Whistle was outraged that Grunt could put the treasure in such a messy place.

Ryder stepped back and let the dragons tussle it out without interfering, she knew while the large bodies and thrashing tails looked worrisome, not a single coin was disturbed and they’d both come out better than before.

“Well I’ll just leave the rest of these–” Her words were cut off when a sudden change came over both dragons.

They whipped their heads around to stare at the tunnel from which she’d just come, both dead silent. Over the sound of her heartbeat she could faintly hear something.

Something coming down the tunnel, racing towards them.

Something with a strange, irregular gait.

Something an awfully like a rabid vampire penguin out for a kill.

Ryder found herself very, very concerned now. Not only was a vampire penguin after her, but she stood between that vampire penguin and two very angry dragons who felt like their home had been invaded. One thing was clear to her, she needed to stop them from killing each other and herself in the process.

The vampire penguin shot in through the opening and slide on it’s belly on the gold coins, flailing and rushing towards Ryder. Behind her the two dragons surged forwards, all intent set on chasing after the bird.

They were doomed.

A narrow escape.

Pete was cornered, the dragon waving back and forth in a threatening manner. His mind trapped by the vampire penguin.

Whistle hissed and lunged to snatch Pete up in his giant gapping maw, full of driller’s teeth in the back.

Suddenly the sense of self preservation was stronger than the blood lust and Pete found control over his mind again. He shifted into a human. The dragons paused, startled at the sudden disappearance of the vampiric energies. Pete gave a huge sigh of relief. “Hello, Whistle my old buddy. You’re not going to eat me, are you?”

“Pete?” Ryder exclaimed in surprise. “You still alive over there?”

“Yeah, the vampire got scared of losing to a dragon and retreated.”

“Just wait right there, I’ll go get your clothes.” Ryder said, tying the end of the string to the empty back on the hoard room’s floor. Then she hurried down the tunnel from were they came.

Pete leaned back, Grunt coming over and coiling it’s big, shiny classical shimmer dragon body around him and rested it’s big round snout on his chest. “I’ve missed you too, Grunt buddy,” Pete said, scratching the shimmer’s chin.

Ryder came back about 20 minutes later, her arms full of Pete’s clothes. Out of habit and manners, she kept her eyes trained looking up and away to respect Pete’s privacy as she tossed him the bundle.

“Thanks.” Pete said, catching the clothes.

Ryder turned her back and Pete quickly got dressed.

“So, what happened?” Ryder asked.

“I just barely had enough time to get my mind back and shift in hopes it’d work,” Pete said as he shrugged the turtle-neck sweater on.

“I’m glad it worked, I wasn’t sure how you’d survive that.”

“Indeed.” Pete agreed. Nearly being eaten… he couldn’t say it’s never happened before, but this was scarier than other times.

He couldn’t control himself, the vampire inside of his penguin form had nearly risked life and limb for nothing but the savage blood lust, that hunger that clawed at every cell of his being. Pete couldn’t even begin to explain how grateful he was that the vampire seemed stuck in his penguin form. It would be a horrible experience, all that hunger, the disregard for friend or foe, just a simple, savage desire.