[b][u][center]A Modern Dragon Harem
Chapter 15: The Enemy’s Move
Sponsored by GlynWolf
By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]








A day passed, and in that time, Drac and the rest of the harem managed to clear out a surprising amount of stone from inside of Mt. Rainier. The way that the physics were getting completely broken, he kept expecting there to be some sort of snapback from the world, something that would teach them a lesson for daring to defy how the universe was supposed to work, but it never happened. They just kept chopping, mining, crafting, and clearing in preparation for what would come next. 

It was a surprisingly uniform effort. 

Tobias was out there, crafting traps and putting them down on the mountain slopes and around any of the entrances to the mountain proper. 

Victoria and Veronica were out finding wolves – or at least, trying to – and seeing if they could be tamed the way that they could in Minecraft. 

Ailsa was experimenting with her magic in addition to making little demon holes down in the bottom of their living quarters. 

Engy was doing the artificer thing of seeing if he could adapt the system to be even more broken (god help them all if he ever found redstone).

Zavis was in the process of making sure that they all stayed good and healthy, setting up a ‘garden’ of the Minecraft sort in one of the side rooms with their extra torches. 

Janet, security guard as she was, kept an eye on the dickbag that was their prisoner, catching him several times when he tried and failed to escape. 

And Anya…

Drac sighed as he leaned against one of the stone walls that he had been digging out further down the mountain, knowing that if he looked over his shoulder, he’d see her moping and staring at him. The vixen had been trying to be better, and sometime in the last eight hours, she had come out of her bedroom and started mining and picking at the stone, but she wasn’t doing much beyond staring at him when he wasn’t looking at her. She kept trying to be tempting, too, walking around in the nude, trying to flash her body at him, trying to show him that she could be useful and good, but she kept leaning on that.

The fact that she never bothered to help the others, or spend time with them, meant that she was still trying to make him change his mind, keep them a couple. He wasn’t unattracted to her, but he knew that it was a trap. Not one that she was trying to lay for him, but one that his heart would if he let it. They weren’t fitting together, he would only get angrier, and he needed to leave that be. 

He laid the pickaxe down on the ground, the handle against the wall and the stone tip against the floor. As he wiped his forehead clear of sweat, Anya walked up behind him. 

“Drac?”

“What?”

“Do you, um, need something?”

“…Not right now.”

“Oh.”

“Gonna get some water, though.”

“I’ll come with you.”

And that would mean that the tunnel would take even longer to get done. He bit off the sigh that wanted to come loose, letting her come along. 

He’d started this one six hours ago, and had been using the stones that he dug out of the passage to create a series of weak stairs leading back up to the living area. It was interspersed with small bundles of TNT – good lord that was all too easy to make – and ladders that had more of that put together. It was meant as a way to break up any pursuit if someone did come down this space after them. Regular humans would have a hard time getting through cave-ins like that, while any member of the harem would be able to dig themselves out with ease. 

The big thing was, he hadn’t told anybody where it was going. Even Anya, who had come down determined to help dig to some extent, didn’t know where he was going. The dragon used a compass to keep himself on track, digging south, and then east, and then a little further east. However, lacking a map in his head, he kept the tunnel [i]deep.[/i] He didn’t know where the water was, and he didn’t know where any little problem pockets might be, so he kept the tunnel as far from something he might interrupt as he could. 

As they reached the first ladder, Anya darted ahead of him. 

“I’ll go first,” she said. 

He knew why. It was for the same reason that she hadn’t bothered to craft clothes the way that the others had, and the reason she kept standing with her ass pressed out, or sitting with her legs spread more than she needed. There was a part of the vixen that thought that she could lure him back in, or at least get some of the love that she used to through sex. 

The annoying thing was, she was still a temptation. He liked how she looked, loved her ass, loved her feet, loved her body. He could have fucked her, but that would have given her that hope back, that they might be better, and he didn’t need her thinking that they had a chance. They didn’t. Much as they once had, they didn’t. 

Still, he couldn’t help but watch as the three-tailed vixen started climbing the ladder. She hustled up for the first few rungs, then slowed down, making sure that her feet were almost at eye-level for him, so that he could see the blue pads along the bottom, could see the way that her toes curled and clung to the rungs. Hell, she was slow enough that her toes kept nudging his nose, making him smell the slight musk that clung to them. 

And if he looked up? Well, things got that much worse. He could see her rounded rump, could see her pussy from time to time between her legs, see the way that she spread it when she pulled her legs up. He could see her ass shaking from side to side, swaying in the movement of climbing. 

[i]Goddamn it…[/i]

He shook his head, looking down rather than up, watching as his cock started to rise and bump against the rungs of the ladder. 

[i]Shut up.[/i]

He glared at his cock as he climbed up the ladder, making sure that it didn’t bump more than the first few rungs. The narrow ladder shaft was difficult to maneuver with his bulk, particularly with his wings, but as long as he kept them furled tightly, he was able to make it up. 

They reached the top and repeated the process two more times, eventually arriving via ladder at the main floor. When they did, Ailsa was waiting for them. 

“Busy?” the mostly-naked stingray asked. 

“Was. What’s the problem?”

“Janet’s gone quiet.”

Draconicon stiffened. Ailsa held up her hands. 

“We’re looking for her, but she’s not turned up yet. Do you feel her anywhere?”

“One second.”

He closed his eyes, shutting out the purple-skinned, white-haired stingray and the white-furred vixen, focusing his attention on the bonds that he had with the various members of the harem. She had been dragged into it, though left untransformed, so the human should be easy to find in the mountain. 

And she was. Unfortunately, she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. That, combined with the sense of frustration, anger, and even pain coming down the link, told him that something had gone very wrong. 

“Mountain slope, north side,” he said. 

“What’s she doing there?” Anya asked. 

“Prisoner got loose, I’ll bet. Ailsa?”

“I’ll get Tobias.”

The stingray was off at a jog, and he was in the middle of orienting himself. He pulled his compass from the loose robe that he’d made for himself, holding it in his palm as the needle wobbled this way and that. 

“Come on, come on…”

“Drac?”

“Busy now. Sorry. Need to focus on this.”

“Okay. Just…what should I do?”

“Hide, keep digging, or wait somewhere safe.”

That was all he could think to do. Now that there was a threat to the mountain at large, that had to be his full focus. No matter how much he worried about her and everyone else, the mountain and everyone inside had to take precedent. 

The needle finally focused, pointing to his left, and he ran. There was a ramp up and out in that direction, so he hoped that it was still intact. He passed Engy on the way, coming out of a makeshift lab, and he passed on what had happened. 

Engy nodded, heading down to the infirmary. He hoped they wouldn’t need it. 

#

They found her quickly, and thankfully, Janet wasn’t that injured. Comparatively speaking, at least. 

The dark-skinned woman was easy to find against the snow, and her main injury was her own pickaxe driven through her hand, pinning her to the stone ground. She had lost some blood, and she was unconscious, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. 

Tobias and Ailsa were soon running down the mountain, following the tracks through the snow that transferred to dirt further down the slope. He reached out a hand, snagging Veronica before the German Shepherd could join the hunt. 

“I need to know I do this right,” he said. 

“Get Engy, or one of the others.”

“They can hunt just fine. I want to make sure that Janet has the best chance of still being able to use her hand after this.”

“…”

“Did you get any training towards medical?”

“Enough. Sorry. You’re right.”

Veronica was still huffing with anger as she knelt down at the security guard’s other side, looking at the wound. Draconicon was busy filtering through the stuff that he was getting through the bond with her. 

She was alive, not particularly aware of her own injury. He imagined that she’d put something together to try and make it so she could get some fresh air as well as watch over the prisoner. Glancing at the stone blocks that were pressed against the mountain – and a little haphazardly at that – he imagined that the prisoner had managed to break through before she noticed. 

[i]Guess it’s a good thing that he used her pickaxe to disable her rather than taking it with him.[/i]

The last thing that he needed was their opponents getting the same sort of magic or tech. This was their big ace in the hole at the moment. He was just glad that he had kept the prisoner from seeing what the tools could do. He’d be able to take some of the layout of the inside of the mountain back to the bad guys, but he wouldn’t be able to just tell them how they did it. 

[i]Hmm…[/i]

And if they spent a ‘move’ to free the prisoner, then that meant that they would have spent a bit more of their actions pulling an informant out before time. They would then have to spend more of their time pulling normal troops in, which meant that an escape from the mountain would be all the easier to do. 

[i]As long as we can keep replacing our tools, we should be okay.[/i]

“She’s going to need a long time to heal, but she [i]should[/i] get most of the use of her hand back,” Veronica said. “We’re lucky. The pick broke through, but it’s the point rather than the whole pixel-block.”

“What would have happened if it was the whole block?”

“She’d have a square all the way through her palm and the back of her hand.”

“…Wait. I just…” Draconicon tapped his chin. “Pull it out.”

“What?” The Shepherd blinked. “Are you kidding? She’ll bleed out.”

“Just humor me. I’ll fix it if I have to, but I have an idea.”

“Okay, why me?”

“Because you’ll do it at the right speed and angle to not fuck it up if I’m wrong, that’s why.”

“…I can’t argue with that…”

As Veronica braced herself against the rock ground, the dragon hoped that he was right with this little theory. If he was, then this was going to be a breakthrough of great importance. If he was wrong…well, he’d have to come up with a good spell to keep Janet from bleeding a great deal in the snow. The Shepherd gripped the shaft of the pickaxe, wiggled her fingers for a good grip, and pulled. 

And just like that, the hole in Janet’s hand sealed up as if it had never been. 

Veronica stared, and so did the dragon, despite having a pretty good guess that was going to happen. He chuckled, rubbing his eyes. 

“Oh, thank fuck, I was right.”

“What the – oh. It’s Minecraft rules.”

“Minecraft tool, Minecraft rules. Unless something is completely broken, it pops back to normal as soon as the tool stops touching it.”

“…That’s got potential,” she said, looking at the tool. 

“Yeah, I’m sure. Let’s not test it out here, though. Let’s get her inside.”

#

There wasn’t much to do at the infirmary. Engy started working on a couple of potions – he’d gotten a Minecraft set put together for that – so that she’d sleep well and wake up refreshed. The rest of them met at the living quarters, with no sign of Anya. He guessed that she’d gone down to the tunnels to keep working. 

He just hoped she was doing that for the right reasons. 

Eventually, Tobias and Ailsa returned. There was nothing to be found, according to the pair of them. 

“The footprints vanished half a mile from the snow line,” the Doberman said. 

“Like the trail went cold or…”

“I do not pick my words idly,” Tobias said. “They vanished.”

“…Action taken, then,” Drac muttered, tapping his chin. “Then that means the ball is back in our court, nearly.”

He had pulled a lot of different spells, but this had put them in a better position. The other side had freed an agent that couldn’t get free on his own, and when pursued, had reached out to use their magic to get him to safety. That meant that the ledger was swinging back to his side. 

Definitely something to keep in mind. It meant that he could force their hand if he pushed them the right way, get some leverage back. 

[i]Hmmm…[/i]

“Guys? Not to be the downer here, but I don’t think we’re going to be safe for long,” Ailsa said. “We didn’t have much of a chance to start, did we?”

“Not much,” the dragon admitted. 

“And he saw everything we were doing, right?”

Drac nodded. The stingray groaned. 

“I’m gonna need more alcohol for this.”

“Me too,” Veronica muttered. 

“Me three,” Engy added. 

“No alcohol under this mountain, thank you very much,” said Draconicon. 

He ignored the choruses of ‘awww’ and the glares that he got from the former military members, putting his hand to his chin and trying to think this through. There were definite holes in their defense now, and the main idea of hiding out in the upper part of the mountain until the soldiers were trapped in the lower parts was shot to hell. Though the prisoner didn’t know where all the traps were, he would have heard them talking about traps at one point or another, and he’d also know what their numbers were, as well as the existence of the upper part. 

There was little that they could do to hold the mountain now. The best idea would be to set a trap and abandon it. 

“Engy?”

“Yeah?” the gold-scaled, metal-armed dragon said. 

“Did you ever find redstone?”

“…Maybe a little?”

All eyes turned to him, and he scuffed his toes against the mountain rock. 

“Well…I found a bit. Enough for a couple little devices…maybe four…”

The entire harem erupted in the same sort of frustration that all multiplayer groups inevitably find themselves in. There were those that had been looking for redstone for the whole day, how none of them had found any, that he had been hoarding, and all the other accusations. Draconicon sighed, rubbing his forehead. 

“Guys? Stop…”

The simple words were enough, and they sighed. Engy breathed a sigh of relief. 

“I need you to set up a couple of TNT traps,” he said. 

“What?!” Engy shouted. “But – but that’ll take all of it.”

“Yes, and it’ll mean that whoever comes after us doesn’t know what they’re triggering until it’s too late.”

“You mean – we’re just running?”

“Yep.”

The group started chiming in on that, too, and Drac held up his hand. This time, it took longer to get them to calm down. 

“Look. I know that we’re moving around a lot. I would have liked to stay here, too, particularly since it’s got plenty of resources around here. But – and it’s a big but – we can’t just stay here. Whoever is after us knows where we are, and they’re going to keep coming. Now that the prisoner’s gone, they can hit us hard, fast, and right where we are.

“I might be able to fight that as I get stronger, but right now, there’s a serious risk of someone getting hurt. I can feel where you all are, but I can’t guarantee that I can save you all. I want to make sure that we all get to see something better, to be something better. You know what I’ve always wanted to do.”

They didn’t answer him, but they all knew what he was talking about. A new world. Something better, something that wasn’t marked by all the failures of humans of the past. They were better than this, as individuals. With magic, they had the chance to be better as a species, too. 

But only if they lived long enough to make the change happen. 

“I want everyone packed up and ready to leave in three hours. First three people packed, meet me back here. I’ll want one trap down in the caverns we’ve dug out for the soldiers, and one that leads up to the living quarters. We don’t have much time, so let’s get moving.”

“And you?” 

That was Janet, waking up. He glanced at her, and forced a bit of a smile. 

“I’ll be down at the bottom of the mountain, digging our way out.”

“Was that what you were doing this whole time?”

“What did you think I was doing?”

“Fucking that fox.”

“She wishes I was.” He shook his head. “I wish there was a way to just enjoy that, but…well, this isn’t the time or place, is it?”

“…Stop improving my opinion of you, damnit…”

“Alright.” Draconicon clapped his hands. “You all have your assignments. Get started. Remember we have the Minecraft stuff now, so see if you can chunk anything big into something small. We leave as soon as possible.”

#

Thankfully, the trapping went better than he expected. Engy had plenty of redstone, allowing them to set the triggers at a good distance, and he was pretty sure that they’d be able to keep it from imploding the mountain, as well. All the better, considering how much of a landmark Mt. Rainier was. 

While the others were busy putting on the finishing touches, he gathered up the material for torches, crafting them as he walked down the various steps and climbed down the ladders that led to the underground tunnel. That was the last place Anya had been, and he hoped that she hadn’t been too bad without someone down there. 

He rounded the final corner of steps and found that the tunnel had been expanded…massively. Little floating blocks remained on the floor, and he realized that Anya must have been digging for so long that she didn’t have any more room in her inventory for the blocks. He shook his head, walking into the darkness and putting down little torches as he went to take away the darkness. 

Eventually, he found her. She was slumped against the wall, her cheek against the stone, little snores coming from her. She hadn’t dropped her pickaxe, but she had given them quite a bit more space in a long tunnel going forward. As far as he could tell, she’d given them two more miles of space. 

[i]She’s been digging for hours…no wonder she conked out.[/i]

Shaking his head, he pulled her back. She groaned but didn’t stir, leaning against his arm and then against a different wall as he shifted her around. As the vixen settled down, he had to admit, it stirred his libido to look at her. She was beautiful, and after all the work she had done, he had to admit that he was debating whether she could improve, after all. 

He squashed that thought. No. If he felt hope, so would she, and that wasn’t what they needed right now. The most he could do was leave that door open rather than locked, and that was risky enough. 

Still…

The dragon shook his head, taking some of the food that Zavis had prepared with his garden. He put a loaf of bread and a couple cooked carrots on her lap, something for her to eat when she came to. Taking his pickaxe, he got to work, ignoring the boner he had from the slight sweaty smell that lingered in the cavern and the musk of a hard-working female. 

#

A few hours later, he heard them calling down the tunnel. It was time. He hung the pickaxe over his shoulder, between his wings, and started walking back the way he’d come. There was a torch every ten feet, giving them plenty of illumination for the moment, and though he doubted that there were any monsters that could spawn the way that they could in the game, he wasn’t giving them any darkness in which to do it. 

Anya must have woken up, because she wasn’t where he’d left her. There were plenty of crumbs, though, and he chuckled in amusement at how quick she had probably been to munch down all that stuff. 

The whole group was waiting at the entrance of the tunnel when he returned. Miles of walking done in a hurry, he realized. Miles upon miles of walking. He glanced back, and then forward. 

[i]…Okay, really hope I didn’t cast a spell by accident there…[/i]

That was something to worry about later, though. 

“Alright. Everyone packed?” he asked. 

They all held up various little packs, cases, chests, and more. They had obviously been working hard to get it all ready. Engy still looked a bit miffed at the loss of his redstone, but it had been a worthy sacrifice. 

“Alright. If we’re ready, then we can get out of here. You guys start, I’ll just get something taken care of.”

“The TNT?” Anya asked. 

“Yep. Anyone got a flint and steel?”

Veronica tossed one – of course – and he caught it. Nodding, he pocketed it. 

“Anyone see anything when you came down?”

“Intruders coming up the south slope and around the east entrance,” Tobias said. “They’ll have reached the openings by now.”

“Then they’ll trigger the explosions in, what, five minutes?”

“Four.”

“Then we better get moving. I’ll blow the lower ladder then, and that’ll set off some coal towards the upper trap.”

It was something that he’d checked just as a back-up plan, a way to blow all the different ladders from the lower levels. It meant that if they were ever trapped down here, they could lure someone down and then keep them from getting back out. 

Cruel, but effective. 

He waved his harem down the tunnels, but, of course, three of them didn’t bother going. Veronica, Tobias, and Victoria. All three of them crossed their arms at him, narrowing their eyes. He groaned. 

“Let me guess. ‘No putting yourself in danger’, right?”

“Gee, I dunno,” Victoria said, rolling her eyes back. “Do ya have any experience with blowing stuff up?”

“It’s a Minecraft feature. I’ve done that.”

“Yeah, but have ya done it while folks are shootin’ at ya?”

“…Not yet,” he admitted. 

“Thought so. Give it,” she said, holding out her hand. 

“And let you put yourselves at risk, instead?”

“We’re not the ones in charge, are we?”

“No, but you’re the ones that know what you’re doing in every other matter, aren’t you?”

The kangaroo narrowed her eyes at him, and he looked up and down the line. 

“None of us are expendable. None of us. I’ll treat you the same as you treat me, because that’s what you are: as needed and as required as I am.”

“Bullshit,” Veronica muttered. 

“Agreed,” Tobias said. 

“The little ones have it right, Drac. Ya got the magic, we don’t. If one of us goes down, yeah, it’ll make things worse, but it’ll be better than if you do. And besides, [i]you[/i] can bring us back if needed. I think.”

“That’s more Jaceb’s territory.”

“Then maybe ya better see about getting that poor dear out here, too. Regardless. Gimme.”

Much as he hated to admit it, she wasn’t wrong. He sighed, tossing the flint and steel back. The kangaroo caught it, and immediately had to hold it over her head to keep Veronica or Tobias from nabbing it from her. She started hopping back up the stairs, and was soon well and truly out of sight. 

He sighed. 

“She’s just doing this because she likes the explosions, isn’t she?”

“…More than us, yes,” Tobias admitted. 

“Figured. Well, the blast zone’s far enough up that we’re safe down here. Might as well wait.”

After all, if it did go back, they’d need to collapse the tunnel as they went, otherwise they might be found. He readied a few of the stone blocks to make sure that they could do that properly. 

It didn’t take long before he caught sight of the big hopper throwing herself down the stairs. 

“Run!”

A KABOOM that shook the entire area followed, though no dust fell from the pickaxe-carved cavern. The only thing that did fall was a huge chunk of stone at the top of the stairs, followed by a shockwave that rolled through the stone all around them, almost knocking him off his feet and nearly doing the same to the German Shepherd and the Doberman standing in front of him. 

Victoria, on the other hand, was frantically throwing down more and more blocks ahead of her, turning the stairs into something that was closer to a ski slope. As a roo, those long feet were apparently good for more than just hopping. Some loose stone blocks chased after her, bouncing around as they rolled down the stairs. 

She managed to outrun them, though, and came to a stop with a huff, a puff, and a whimper as she leaned back on her tail. 

“My poor paws…”

They were almost glowing with the friction from her retreat, and they all winced. Draconicon reached out, taking her by the shoulder and gently supporting her weight, helping her slide along with her tail and alternating steps. He could almost hear the cartoonish hiss of how hot her paws were. 

It didn’t take long to meet up with the rest of the harem, and Zavis joined him in supporting the roo. She apologized rather fulsomely for having to need help, but they both silenced her. Mostly by a finger to her lips. 

“A lovely lady like yourself should never feel troubled by the help of her friends. After all, you’ve merely given us the privilege of giving such a lovely lady the help she so seldom needs. Why, you’ve given us bragging rights for weeks.”

“…I always knew I liked you,” Victoria said, laughing. 

Eventually, she was able to walk on her own again, and off she hopped. Draconicon paused, looking back the way that they’d come. It’d be a bit late to seal the tunnel off now, but better to do it at some point. He took a little time to start cutting a different direction, setting a six-block stretch back towards the mountain to the left, and then joined the main tunnel again. That would do to set people off the track. He sealed off the tunnel, and then joined the others again. 

“So, where are we going now?” Engy asked, the gold dragon falling back to walk beside him. 

“I’m thinking that we just keep moving.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m coming up with another plan.”

“…It’s a big one, isn’t it?”

“…Probably,” he admitted. “If it comes together, it’ll be a very big one.”

“Is that, uh, Castle Darksun big?”

“…Maybe a step below that.”

“Oh boy.”

“Well, big powers, big plans.”

He would have liked to do this subtly, but he knew better than to think that was going to be possible. Hiding out and working from the bottom would have been the better idea if they were dealing with just mortal people, where the only problem was numbers that might overwhelm them. However, they were dealing with someone else, something bigger. And for that, they needed more of a support base than they currently had. 

If he didn’t do something soon, they could be made to disappear, and nobody would even know they’d ever existed. He needed to do something big to short-circuit that plan. 











[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: A series of problems emerge, from a still-amorous Anya to an escaped prisoner. Well, time to move again. 

Tags: F/solo, M/solo, Draconicon, modern dragon harem, harem, dragon, snake, Doberman, human, german shepherd, stingray, fox, vixen, barefoot, naked, flirting, relationship, series, magic, Minecraft, hotfoot,