I didn’t bring it up with Celestia because I didn’t wanna give them a reason to change their decision. But, if these dragons have gained magic there’s a decent chance quite a few of them have truesight. I’ll keep the invisibility on for now, but I’m also going to shrink down to the smallest size possible for some inherent stealth.

Double check and make sure my Divine Aura is fully suppressed…good. Alright first things first let’s wait around for half an hour or so and see if any Elders come through. Wherever they go is most likely a place of interest. Flying up I pick a cloud to lay on and peek over the side to watch the area. It’s a bit surprising how this area is set up, it’s several volcanoes with a larger one kinda in the middle, but not really. Can they even accumulate enough pressure to erupt if there’s this many outlets so close together?

Eh, that's out of my field of expertise. Anyways after 20-ish minutes I don’t spot an Ancient or Elder, but I spot a very familiar blue dragoness. Would it even be safe for me to follow her like this though? I might be six inches tall and invisible, but she seemed extremely attuned to the wind element. She might be able to detect the tiny shifts in the air I create when I fly.

Suddenly she looks straight up and I swear we make eye contact, but after a few seconds she just keeps walking and heads into the side of the larger volcano. I made a rookie move by staring directly at her. She definitely felt like she was being watched. Luckily it doesn’t seem like she detected me, so she probably just shrugged it off. I can’t afford to make that mistake again.

My curiosity is getting the best of me, I’m fairly certain that larger volcano is the main “base” as it were. Especially since she mentioned that her father is the Dragon Lord. If she’s in there he can’t be too far away. So, after thinking about it for another few seconds I very slowly glide down and land at the side entrance to the volcano.

What I see nearly stuns me. The magma is floating in the air to cover the opening on top, but there’s just small streams of the viscous liquid streaming down into a large hole in the center that likely was the natural channel at one point. They’ve completely hollowed out the inside though. How are they getting the magma to float like that? Not important.

Glancing around to try and see where the blue dragoness went I’m unable to spot her. It’s strange though, there’s no passageways so where could she have gone? Unless…

Peering over the edge I look down into the massive hole in the center and bubbling magma resting several feet down. Would that not have killed her? If that magma is similar to the pool being levitated above me it’s possible she just opened a hole with her wind and flew through. That doesn’t really help me though. I could try using telekinesis to do the same thing, it’ll be a very small hole.

If my memory serves me correctly though that shit will kill me even if I don’t make direct contact with it. Basically vaporizes your lungs if you breathe in if you’re too close. I could use Relentless Faith to become invulnerable for six seconds, but that’ll make me glow pretty brightly.

Suddenly I feel the air shift and snap my gaze towards the entrance I passed through earlier. A massive black dragon zips right over me and dives down into the magma. Guess that answers that. That’s either the secret entrance or Chrysalis is mind controlling dragons en masse to kill themselves, and I really doubt it’s the latter.

Joking aside I can tell it’s an entrance, that massive dragon left a brief gap in the magma that let me see inside for a few seconds. It really is just a thin pool of magma, thin enough for Misty Step to solve this. Quickly looking around to double check for any witnesses and finding nothing, I throw myself over the edge and start to fall down the massive hole. Once I’m a few feet away from the magma and I can feel the heat, I cast Misty Step and just aim for 60ft straight down. This is going to break my invisibility, but only briefly and it won’t make me glow like Relentless Faith would’ve.

As soon as I appear on the other side I use Mystic Arcanum to silently cast Invisibility again. I hate using such a powerful ability on a simple spell, but it’s the safest option right now. Once I’m invisible again I start to look around and I’m at a loss for words. It’s a massive and I mean truly massive chasm. It’s at least 15, maybe 20 times bigger than the colosseum and that was able to hold all the leaders plus their small armies plus three Elder dragons.

There’s channels all along the walls going from top to bottom with flowing magma in them that are serving as the lighting for the entire place. Towards the center the light is pretty dim, but that’s still surprising given how large this place is. The magma doesn’t seem bright enough to light up as much as it is, but it is.

Against the wall of what I’m pretty sure is the southern side of the chasm there’s a mountain of gold and gems with a monstrous dragon resting on it. He’s a sort of grayish blue? With two massive horns pointed down behind his head and curved back up towards his chin. Is that even practical? The red pointy thing on his head is reminiscent of a crown, so I’m gonna bet half my salary that it's the new Dragon Lord. He really is a big son of a bitch though. Bigger than any other I’ve seen so far. By a fair bit.

If his daughter is shorter than me and he’s that big….how young is she? Also where is her mom? That lady must have been a fucking trooper, really took one for the team. Unless she’s equally as large, but I doubt it. Speaking of his daughter… she just landed in front of him.

Before that I need to double check the layout of this place. It’s pretty much just an empty circle, but there’s random objects and lava pools scattered about. There’s several huge tunnels that go somewhere scattered around the chasm at various points. And then of course, there’s the huge hoard with the Dragon Lord on it to the south. There’s at least 10 Elders down there though, not including the Dragon Lord.

Alright now let’s listen to this conversation between what I assume to be father and daughter.

“What do you mean it’s true?! I led those drakes to their deaths over some petty lies?!” The dragoness apparently did take my words to heart. Seems like she questioned her father over what I said and he spilled the beans.

“It’s merely an exaggeration of the truth. No matter how you frame it, they still killed two Elders and the Dragon Lord. Your words do have some merit though, Ember. They’ve paid for that slight against us in blood and I’ve offered them a chance to negotiate peace before this devolves any further. If Celestia is smart she’ll give us what we demand. This all could’ve been avoided if she just acquiesced back at the Summit.”

“And exactly what are we going to demand from them? Knowing you it’s going to be something outrageous.”

“Watch your tone. You might be my own flesh and blood but even I can only tolerate so much. We’re demanding the same thing we demanded at the Summit. For them to claw over the mass murderer that attempted to doom the world to darkness. I can’t believe the other kingdoms backed out just because that bladesinger killed a few changelings. One day they’re all in agreement that we can’t just let that bomb sit in Equestria until her fuse runs out. It’s only a matter of time before she does something again.”

“That’s going to be difficult, my Lord. Nightmare Moon was in Canterlot. As in she was her own alicorn in a completely separate body from Princess Luna. They are two different entities. Are you going to demand both of them? That might be difficult since the demon is the one you should allegedly be worried about. You can’t charge two of them with the crime committed by one.”

“We’ll demand both to start with, but I think we could walk away standing proud if we got just the demon. According to your report Luna didn’t seem too powerful anyways. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem to leave her be. If that goat succeeds with his latest experiment not even Celestia will pose a problem to us. In fact, Ember, I want you to go get an update on his progress. Make sure he’s not up to something, he’s mo-” The Dragon Lord pauses.

“Father?”

“It was only for the briefest moment, but I felt killing intent. Go carry out my order, I’m going to have Winter investigate that presence.” His eyes are still scanning over the entire chasm, and I’m mentally cursing myself for losing grip on my emotions for a moment.

“I think you’re just being paranoid. This is an empty cave with nothing in sight, and what could even be strong enough to target you like that? But, as you ordered I’ll go check on our guest. One last thing, though, father. Did you upgrade the status of that creature like I advised in my report?”

“I did. Now go.” Ember flies up and zips toward a tunnel on the western side of the cave and the Dragon Lord looks like he’s about to stand up, but he sighs and relaxes again. “She’s probably right. It doesn’t make any sense for a threat to be down here.” Looks like I got away with it thi-

“My Lord!” A red dragon a few sizes bigger than Ember flies down to the big guy in a panic. “We picked up a surge of mana at the base of the volcano, so we sent two of our most mana sensitive drakes to investigate. It appears that something has teleported here!”

Ah shit.

“I knew I detected something! WINTER!” One of the white Elder dragons raises its head before lazily rising and with a couple of flaps of its wings lands several feet away from the Dragon Lord.

“Yes, Lord Torch?” Oh another dragoness. Neat.

“We have an intruder. Task your drakes and find it.”

“Oh dear~ what foolish creature would willingly come into the belly of the beast?” Honestly her voice is like silk. She has a slower cadence with emphasis on the ending of every few words. That “oh dear” in particular sounded so sarcastically and playfully worried. In reality I can tell she’s quite bored and indifferent.

Now I’m in quite the conundrum. Do I risk getting discovered and stay here to investigate the Dragon Lord and his closest subordinates? Or, do I go down the tunnel Ember went through and see what the hell this “goat” is?

I don’t have time to think, I’m following Ember.

…

I’m flying just an inch or two above the ground as I zip through the tunnel I saw Ember leave through. My logic is that the tunnel is so large and most dragons are so tall there shouldn’t be any reason they’re looking down at their feet.

One thing I kinda forgot is that I’m immune to a few different types of damage now. I kinda completely forgot about it until I was strategizing how to take down that white dragon if I have to. From the couple of white dragons I’ve seen, the cold breath seems pretty uniform in this world as well, and I’m immune to electricity, cold, acid, and poison. Once I hit Divine Rank 6 I might just snag some fire immunity.

Also there’s a decent chance I’m lost. There’s been so many different side paths and forks that it’s basically a zero percent chance I’m still on the same path as Ember. I took too long to make my decision. I could cast Locate Creature, but that’ll dispel the invisibility. Wait, I’m in dim light aren’t I? I have the Boon of the Night Spirit, I can become invisible in dim light or darkness. Well shit, alright let’s do it.

“Locate Creature, Ember the dragon princess.”

Immediately my invisibility drops, but within a fraction of a second I merge with the shadows and become invisible. Thankfully this boon is worded so horribly that I don’t have to stay in dim light or darkness to maintain the invisibility, I just have to be in it when I become invisible.

Ah shit, ok she’s somehow several hundred feet to the west and a bit lower than me. Time to start wandering in that general direction then, I suppose. How the hell do these dragons even navigate this shit? It’s just tunnels…they all look the same, and unlike the changeling hive there’s no rhyme or reason to their branches and turns. It’s like they just gave a giant mole 10 shots of tequila, blindfolded it, and cut it loose. Maybe these are naturally formed and they just drained the magma?

Anyways, after another 15 minutes she’s pretty close. Close enough that I can start to hear a couple of different voices speaking to each other.

“What exactly is this? I thought you were working on new types of magic for us, but this is…disturbing.” I can hear Ember and true enough to her phrasing she sounds thoroughly disturbed.

“Oh my dear, this is so much more important than petty magic. I assure you the subject feels no pain and won’t remember any of this.” That’s a dude for sure, and his voice sounds like gravel. My curiosity is getting the better of me here, I want to look.

Peeking into the smaller cave I see some strange blue goat with huge curved horns, or is that a ram? The horns make me think ram… anyways, he’s got red lines all over his horns that seem to spiral up, and he’s wearing a black collar with a bell on it. Behind him is a changeling pod, but this one isn’t as see through as some of the ones I’m familiar with. It’s an opaque and very dark green color. It’s also far larger than any other changeling pod I’ve seen before. Chrysalis, what did you agree to with these guys?

“That’s not even my main concern. This thing is an abomination. How is it even going to survive once it leaves the pod?”

“That’s the problem I’m trying to solve. My other project has had much more success and I believe your father deployed it for a test run just a few hours ago, but this one is probably going to take a while longer. I had hoped the experimental Singing Hydra I created would give me enough data to recreate one of the more base features of a standard Hydra.”

Wait what? A test run where?

“If you made that creature then why can’t you recreate one of its abilities in something else?” Ember is a real one. Asking all the questions I’d ask. Unintentionally, I hope.

“I didn’t create that creature from scratch, I simply manipulated the embryo of several eggs before they hatched until I found success.”

Luna, are the teleportation circles for the major cities already established?

“I just can’t believe my father let you use the previous Dragon Lord's corpse for this. That is Tamura right? It’s hard to make out any details.”

“Indeed it is. If this creature is a success he should return to life. Though, he’s decayed enough that his mind and intelligence might not be even remotely close to what they were before.”

They aren’t permanently linked yet, but they’re established. Why?

Apparently some experiment the dragons were working on was deployed a few hours ago. I think it’s going to be used against one of our cities. What’s the closest major city?

Baltimare. Are you sure this is a credible threat?

Of course she doubts me after what happened last time I tried to warn of an attack…I’m the boy who cried dragon at this point. No. They didn’t say where, just that it’s been deployed. Just to be safe we should still have all the guards on standby. Ready and waiting for the alarm. Baltimare should be alerted as well so they can expand their patrol ranges. The earlier they can communicate to us that there’s a threat the more lives we save.

Alright. I’m moving now. Good work, Ignis.

Moving closer I try to be as quiet as possible, but I really need a closer look at this pod…

“What are you calling this project? It’s easier if they have names so I can ask for updates on specific ones.” Ember asks as I creep ever closer.

Wait…no. No this can’t be right. What is this?! How did he create this? Where did he even get the idea from?

“Ah, I haven't decided yet. I was calling it Hydra Dragon for the initial stages, but it’s progressed enough that I think it deserves a real name. One of the names that I came up with just really resonates with me though. I think it’s the one I’m going to use for the final version.”

Luna I need authorization to go loud.

“So you’re just gonna stand there silently until I ask you which name you think resonates? Fine, which name is that?”

What? Why?!

Because if this thing escapes the Volcano we are fucked. It has to die. Right here, right now.

“Project: Tiamat.”

Author's Note

Finally some payoff for the False Hydra :)

Shit just got real :)

Thanks for reading! <3