Adventure of the first dragon 3

The distant scraping comes again, but it is no beast. It grows into a hard, rhythmic grind that shakes the breach tunnel wall by wall.

From the dark bend, the scouts rush back into the wardlight, faces pale and dust-streaked, their breaths sharp with alarm.

The words land heavier than the tremor. The pale eggs, once thought hidden by chance, seem to answer with a faint, uneasy shimmer under the mist.

The tunnel walls begin to pulse with each grinding bite from deeper underground, and every guardian turns toward the dark bend as if it has learned their names.

Erma lowers his head and draws the ward inward with a slow, exacting pull. The mist folds tight around the eggs, then the stone gives way to his command, swallowing the nest whole and carrying it deeper below the tunnel floor.

A low tremor runs through the breach as the hollow shifts into a new chamber. The pale eggs are no longer exposed at the wall, hidden now behind a fresh shell of stone and dark earth.

Dust rains from the ceiling in a bitter sheet. The cost of the spell hits at once, a sharp sting in Erma's throat and a crackling drain through his green-lit focus.

The ward flares, then settles around the new depth like a sealed breath. Bracken and the Broad Creature turn hard toward the dark bend, listening for the drills that still grind somewhere beyond.