“Cute princess!”

  The moment I materialized, the world barely settled before Lisa raced into me at full speed, her arms log around my waist as she buried her fato my chest.

  My breath hitched—not from the impact, which should have knocked me ft on my ass, but from the sheer force of Lisa-ness radiating off her in waves. Reflexively, my hand found its way to her head, ruffling her soft locks as she practically purred in response.

  I was stunned, despite expeg it.

  Telep based on sshots was a shaky business, but thankfully, this wasn’t airely new location for me. I’d crossed through these rolling hills once before—back when Lucas and I had gone for our casual walk and ended up g aire fort.

  The surrounding se icture-perfect: gentle, sloping hills stretg endlessly into the distance, brushed by a light breeze that carried the st of wildflowers. The sky was casting everything in nice, warm tones. And amid it all, here I was—Lisa ging to me like an over-affeate cat, her arms ed tightly around my waist.

  Perfect, right?

  Almost.

  Because her entire guild was standing around us, watg. Prince couldn’t hold it anymore and started ughing.

  A silence hung in the air as I slowly, slowly turned my head, only to meet the collective stares of about a dozen unfamiliar faces, some amused, some baffled, and some just openly gawking.

  “Uhm… hi?” I raised a hand in a weak attempt at a casual greeting, my voiing out more awkwardly than I intended.

  A man in a flowing robe, clearly a priest by his clothes, me with a knowing smile. “Wele, Miss Charlie. I’m Peter. Pardon Lis, she’s… more focused most of the time.” His tone was far too diplomatic, like a parent making excuses for their overly enthusiastic child.

  “Damn right!” A booming ugh cut through the moment, and a warrior fidently strode toward me, his armor g with each step. “I’m Rob. The only warrior you o know.”

  His grin stretched across his face, pstered there with the unwavering fidence of someone who absolutely believed his own hype. He looked like the guy who thought strategy meant hitting things harder aiation was for people who couldn’t swing a sword.

  I immediately decided I would not be handing him any whiskey, at least until he’s old enough, this punk kid.

  “Hi,” came a barely audible murmur from somewhere behind me.

  I turned my head slightly and glimpsed a girl in a bck clothes—clearly a rogue—attempting te with the ndscape. Unfortunately for her, standing in tall grass during broad daylight was about as effective for stealth as a brit in an Irish pub.

  “N-o meet you,” she stammered, her voice so quiet I had to strain to catch it.

  I gave her a small, encing smile. “Hey, Natasha,” I said, keeping my tone light. “o meet you too. I’d shake your hand, but…”

  I gestured down at Lisa, who was still ed around me. Lisa, finally aowledging the attention, squeezed tighter. “Miiine,” she decred, her voice muffled against my chest.

  “Uhmmm,” I whispered, my brain momentarily buffering. “What?”

  Peter, the priest, executed the perfect facepalm—textbook, really. The kind of facepalm that carried the weight of years of dealing with this exact kind of situation.

  “Lis, you ’t just cim people,” he sighed, his toering on the fine edge between displeasure and resignation, like a man who had long since given up fighting the iable.

  Lisa, to her credit, finally untched herself from me. She straightened her robe with a calm, ral expression, as if she hadn’t just physically restrained me in front of aire audience. “I know, Pete,” she said smoothly. Then, almost too quiet, she added, “Just… let me be childish sometimes. I really…”

  Her voice trailed off, whatever she was about to say lost in the void of unfihoughts. But then, as if flipping a switch, her usual cheerful smile snapped bato pce. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Suspicious.

  Lisa definitely mattered.

  But I wasn’t about to pry right now, not with a dozen people staring at us like we were the pre-show eai for the Sword Quee. So I filed that little of information away for ter and focused oask at hand.

  “So, Charlie,” Lisa tinued, her usual energy ba full force. “I get that we’re ready?”

  I nodded, already pushing mana into the ring. The golden inscriptions fred, greedily pulling in my energy like a bottomless pit. “We go anytime. The soohe better—at least for me.”

  Lisa turuildmates, hands on her hips, and began expining—passiohat she was leaving with me to, and I quote, “Get better so she wipe Dmitry’s ass.” Lisa was talking about Dmitry like he was some kind of pgue that o be scrubbed from the earth.

  “Uhm,” I started, unsure how to even approach this. “I feel like I just heard something I wasn’t meant to.”

  Peter sighed again, this time rubbing his temples. “Lisa… words. Use them correctly.”

  Lisa waved a dismissive hand, uerred. “You know what I mean! We all hate Dmitry, right?”

  A collective murmur of agreement rippled through the group. Even Natasha, hiding behind Rob, who had seemed too timid to exist a few moments ago, muttered, “I mean… yeah.”

  I squi Lisa. “Okay, fine, but wipe his ass? That’s how you’re phrasing it?”

  She crossed her arms. “Well, you know what I meant!”

  I decided to ignore all the ass-wiping talk before it got permaly burned into my brain. “Okay, I’m ready. Hold on tight, Lisa!”

  Lisa said her goodbyes, which, of course, naturally meant ung herself at me again in an all-ing embrace. Well, no pints from me. She smelled nice, and at this point, I might as well just accept my fate as her portable stuffed animal.

  But just as I was about to teleport us out—

  “Wait!”

  I turned my head slightly, only for Rob’s voice to boom across the entire meadow.

  “Wanna go on a date?” he shouted, as if I were already mid-teleport and he had to get his fession out before I faded into the ether.

  “Uhm… what?” My brain stuttered so hard I practically blue-sed. I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. Did he really just—

  Before I could even process a response, Natasha elbowed him from behind. Unfortunately for her, trying to elbow someone in full pte armor was about as effective as attag a goolem with a toothpick. But to my absolute delight, Rob still staggered forward, nearly tripping over his ow.

  Lisa, still ed around me, let go. Slowly. Deliberately.

  Without a single word, she walked toward Rob.

  Rob gulped.

  His cocky demeanor shattered iime, like a gss paing a sledgehammer. With a resigned sigh, he reached up and unfastened his helmet, revealing a face that was currently one bad decision away frretting his entire life.

  And then—

  SLAP!

  Lisa’s palm ected with his cheek with a loud smack that echoed across the meadow. It was beautiful. The kind of sp that belonged in an old-school drama where the heroine decres, I trusted you! Before st off.

  Rob barely flinched, but his head turned slightly from the impact. A siunned moment passed before he muttered, “Worth it.”

  Lisa, expressioral, turned on her heel and walked right bae.

  “Let’s go,” she said, as if she hadn’t just physically disciplined a fully armored warrior in front of her entire guild.

  “Okay…” I blinked, still processing what had just happened. But I shook it off—I had a job to do.

  I focused, picturing the cave clearly in my mind. I had been there often enough oest servers to recall it precisely. “See you… all… ter,” I muttered.

  And with a final surge of magic—

  We vanished.

  The moment we reappeared, the air smmed into us like a physical force—a wave of blisteri so intehat my lungs protested on impact. I instinctively squinted against the brightness, my pupils struggling to adjust to the hellscape before us.

  Lovely pce.

  The grouh our feet was cracked and scorched, veins of molten rock pulsiween broken obsidian formations like a glowing infernal work. The very earth seemed alive, shifting and sighing uhe relentless heat. A thick haze of shimmering air curled upward, dist the horizon like a mirage.

  And ahead of us, looming like a sn ripped straight from a nightmare, stood the volo.

  It wasn’t just any volo—it was the volo. An enormous mountain of bed rock, its gaping maw spewing plumes of ash into the sky. Rivers of va snaked down its slopes, splitting and ref in an endless dance of destru. The very air hummed with pressure, vibrating with the barely tained fury of the molte beh.

  If hell had a penthouse suite, this was it.

  I wiped the sweat from my brow—not that it helped—and exhaled through gritted teeth. “So, this is the pce,” I muttered, already moving toward the cave entrance carved into the volic wall.

  Lisa followed, her expression a mix of curiosity and happiness. “Please,” I added, gng over my shoulder at her, “you o do your best. I don’t know how… he’ll react to us.”

  Lisa’s sharp gaze locked onto mine, instantly serious. “Who’s he?”

  I hesitated for a fra of a sed before answering. “It’s… plicated.” That was an uatement. “But don’t say dragon. If you do, Ice-God have mer us.”

  Lisa blinked. “That bad?”

  “Worse,” I muttered as we stepped into the cavern.

  The heat didn’t lessen i shifted.

  Outside, it was the sun’s wrath, beating down mercilessly. I was trapped—a suffog pressure cooker of sm air and shifting rock.

  The walls were slick with heat-scorched minerals, their once-molten surfaow hardened into uneven formations of obsidian and basalt. Glowing cracks ran through the stone like the veins, pulsing with the dull thrum of something alive.

  The grouh us ched with every step—not gravel, but ash. Thick, a, and far too deep for fort.

  Thank you heels!

  Lisa was careful, but I had to help her get her footing now and then.

  The ground was remnants of a thousand infernos past, whispering of eruptions that had carved these tunnels long before even the oldest creatures in Rimelion had lived.

  Well… most.

  And the deeper we went, the more the world ged.

  The cave wasn’t just a tu was a byrinth, carved not by any humanoid, but by va itself. Natural els twisted and curved uably, their surfaces smooth and ed like melted wax. Some walls had the scars of something else, something with cws sharp enough to etch through volic rock as if it were soft cy.

  Lisa ran a hand along one such groove. “This… wasn’t just va.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, my voice low.

  We passed an open crevice where va still flowed—a slow-moving river of molteh, illuminating the cavern with its unnatural, golden-red glow. The heat was so intense I—

  A deep, distant rumble rolled through the cavern, vibrating through the very walls like the mountain itself was growling in distent. Lisa tensed beside me, her hand instinctively twitg toward her wand. “Was that—”

  “Yeah,” I whispered, already regretting every choice that had led me to this moment. “He knows we’re here.”

  The air thied, not just with heat, but with something older, something that watched. My instincts screamed at me to turn back, to flee, to not be here—but that ship had sailed the sed we set foot ihe cavern.

  Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t stall.

  “Okay,” I muttered, rubbing my palms together as if I wasn’t sweating like before paying the tab. “We’re gonna have to do this carefully.”

  We stepped into the cavern, and the sheer scale was amazing. The chamber stretched miles apart, a vast, yawning expahat could swallow entire fortresses whole.

  Basalt ns speared upward, some twisting unnaturally as if frozen mid-melt, remnants of va flows from ages past. The ceiling arched so high above us it blurred into shadows, its uneven surface veined with rivulets of molten rock that pulsed.

  The floor? A death trap.

  Lava pooled in chaotic patches, some bubbling furiously, others barely glowih a thin, bed crust. The sheer heat rippled in waves, dist the air until everything shimmered like a fever dream. The occasional burst of pressure sent spouts of molten rock skyward before they spshed back down, hissing as they cooled against the cavern floor.

  And amidst it all—an eerie sileno wind. No echoes. Just the low, ever-present hum of the earth, as if the volo itself was breathing.

  I swallowed hard.

  “It was niowing you,” the prince drawled, his voice disturbingly sincere. “You’re stupid, pretender.”

  And then—I saw the drag… him.

  He sat upon an enormous roear the entrance, his hulking form coiled in a dispy of effortless dominance. Shadows g to him like a sed skin, dist the edges of his massive body as if reality itself was unsure how to define him.

  At first gnce, he ure bck, a silhouette cut from obsidian. But as the molten light flickered across his scales, hints of something deeper shimmered beh—a shifting void, like the night sky was trapped within his flesh.

  Each scale wasn’t just dark; it was ing, drinking in the light and refusing to give it back.

  He was massive. Easily fifteeers, possibly more, his serpentine neck arg with an unnatural grace that told us about the raw power coiled beh. His eyes glowed, not with fire, but with something a, something predatory and patient.

  His wings, half-folded, were tattered at the edges—not with weakness, but with use. Worn like a bde that had seen too many battles.

  And his talons?

  Each cw could skewer me in an instant, the sheer weight of them capable of crushing stoo dust.

  Then he spoke. “A servant of that upstart god.” His voice wasn’t just sound—it was a force vibrating through the very rock beh us. His head tilted slightly, nostrils fring. “And with a touch of that cold bitch.”

  Lisa stiffened beside me. My stomach turo ice. Then—

  “Die.”

  A deep whoomph of dispced air. And then… fire.

  An enormous fireball barreled toward us, the sheer heat preg it like a shockwave.

  MarekSusicky