The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company

by L. G. Estrella

  “Not really. After what we’ve done, the alloy won’t be much good. Melting it wouldn’t be enough. We’d need to separate it back into its components, which would not be cheap.” Timmy’s eyes narrowed as the last golem fell. Malevolent energy filled the corridor, and an elaborate collection of symbols appeared on the floor. The symbols hurt to look at, and they gave off an eerie black light. “You might want to pull your zombies back.”

  “Why?” Even as she asked the question, she pulled her zombies back. Her two zombie trolls and her zombie bear took the lead and placed themselves in front of her as she used her necromancy to repair the damage her other zombies had taken. Even after being turned into zombies, trolls retained their incredible regeneration, and she’d even made them matching bright pink bracers. Her master hadn’t been pleased about those. Apparently, pink was not an appropriate colour for zombies. She disagreed. As for her zombie bear, he not only had great size, strength, and durability but his fur had also been soaked in potions designed to reduce the effectiveness of physical attacks and magic. It was just a pity that her master had forbidden her from dyeing his fur pink. A pink-furred zombie bear would have been awesome to behold.

  Her master didn’t answer her question. He didn’t have to. There was a brilliant flash of light before a tremendous wave of oppressive heat rolled outward. Smoke filled the corridor, along with the acrid smell of sulphur. A massive form draped in shadows and flame stood before them, and its bat-like wings spread as far as the corridor would allow. In each of its clawed hands, it held a sword made of black fire that hurt to look at. One of her zombie moved forward, and it was gone an instant later, obliterated by a blast of searing flame. Their zombie salamander fought to keep the flames back, and its efforts reduced the temperature from instantly fatal to highly unpleasant.

  “That’s a demon!” Katie shrieked. “A strong one!” She coughed and rubbed her eyes as the smoke grew thicker. “What do we do?”

  “I know what to do, but you need to slow it down for me.” Timmy’s eyes narrowed. “Or we could run.”

  Running would definitely be the safer option, but they’d already come this far. “What are you going to do?”

  Timmy gave her an infuriatingly cheerful smile. “It’ll be a surprise.”

  “A surprise? I don’t think you should be joking about this, master.” Katie bit her lip. “Whatever you’re going to do, are you sure it will work?”

  “Oh, it’ll work. All I need is enough time to pull it off.”

  “Fine. I’ll do my best.”

  “Good. I’ll give you control of my zombies as well.”

  The demon bellowed and stomped forward. Heat poured off its body, and she immediately pulled their zombie warriors back. Against a demon of this calibre, she’d simply be throwing them away. Instead, she ordered the two zombie mages to combine their attacks. A high-pressure jet of water lanced into the demon. Most of the water turned into steam the instant it hit the demon, but the sheer quantity of water began to overwhelm the demon’s heat and drive it back. As the demon staggered and fought to regain its balance, she sent the zombie warriors back in. Their weapons couldn’t do any real damage. Demons were enormously durable, and the immense heat of the demon’s body was bound to damage any weapons that hit it, but she needed to keep the demon away from her master as long as possible. The demon roared, and a broad sweep of its sword cut down four of the zombie warriors before it simply crushed another underfoot and unleashed a blast of fire. Their zombie salamander was barely able to turn the blow aside, and the trio of zombie warriors caught in the blast were reduced to little more than ash. Katie’s jaw clenched. This wasn’t going well at all. It was time to send in her zombie trolls. In the meantime, she ordered their zombie salamander to stay behind her and her zombie bear. If their zombie salamander were destroyed, it wouldn’t be long before the demon simply burned them alive.

  Her zombie trolls were some of her finest work, and she’d used several months of her allowance to purchase their weapons. Their spears had been crafted out of excellent materials and enchanted to leave wounds that worsened over time while preventing healing and regeneration. Added to their innate ability to regenerate, their spears made her zombie trolls perfectly suited to battles of attrition where they could gradually wear down their opponents. Unfortunately, this wasn’t going to be a battle of attrition.

  The demon gave another bellow and stomped the floor. Cracks spread across the stone, and tongues of flame burst upward. Her zombie trolls dodged the worst of the attack, and the demon waded forward, intent on crushing them both with a single blow. However, her trolls were ready. They swayed away from the demon’s attack as another jet of water drove the infernal creature back again.

  “Use your shadows,” Timmy said. “I need more time.”

  Katie couldn’t see what he was doing since she couldn’t risk taking her eyes off the battle for even a second, but she didn’t hesitate to follow his instructions. Her master had fought plenty of demons over the years. If he said to use her shadows, then she would use her shadows. One of the only good things about this demon was that all of the fire and smoke meant there were plenty of shadows to work with. Tendrils of shadow shot toward the demon from the walls, floor, and ceiling. Despite their seemingly flimsy nature, her shadows were surprisingly durable. They wouldn’t be strong enough to actually kill the demon, but she didn’t need to kill it. All she had to do was hold it back until her master was finished with whatever he was doing.

  The demon howled as tendrils of shadow wrapped around its limbs and tore at its wings. Another jet of water slammed into it, and her zombie trolls darted forward with their spears at the ready. They struck over and over again, but the demon scarcely seemed to feel the blows as it fought to tear itself free of her shadows. As Katie issued her next set of orders, she realised something unsettling. A demon this powerful should have had an aura that induced fear, terror, panic, and despair. She was definitely scared, but it was well within the normal range, considering she was facing a large demon with swords made of black fire. How was she still able to think clearly?

  She must have spoken aloud because her master answered her question. “Different forms of magic can have different effects on the mind.” She still hadn’t turned around to look at him, but it sounded like he was carving something into the floor. “People with shadow magic tend not to be afraid of the dark or the things that dwell in it. Your magic, well, it comes from a place even worse than this demon, but don’t think too much about it. You can’t choose where your magic comes from or who had it before you, but you can choose what to do with it. Besides, you’ve spent plenty of time around Sam and the others of his kind. You’re already used to fear-inducing auras.” He chuckled. “Okay, we’re ready to go now. Aren’t we lucky that the same summoning trap that brought this demon here also weakened the barriers between this world and others? Otherwise, I’d never have been able to pull this off. Oh, you might want to get behind me too. This could get messy.”

  Katie scrambled behind her master as another brilliant flash of light filled the corridor. It was so bright that even though she’d closed her eyes, it took several seconds for her eyes to recover. What had he summoned? Slowly, the world came into focus again…

  Sam had appeared.

  Although Katie got along well with Sam – she considered the protoplasmic horror a friend – she still wasn’t sure exactly what he was. Sometimes, she wondered if even her master truly comprehended his real nature. Most of the time, her master’s favourite description was accurate: Sam was a trans-dimensional, protoplasmic horror who happened to love cake. He also liked stories, and Katie had swiftly gotten used to him floating through the walls of her bedroom each night, so he could read a story with her. She was still learning the nuances of his language. It involved sounds, as well as changes in shape and colour, but her master had warned her about relying on Sam’s form of telepathy. It would certainly help her communicate more easily with Sam, but it could also m
ake her brain explode. Katie quite liked having her brain in one piece, so she’d wisely chosen to invest more time in learning his language. It wasn’t easy, but it was also not likely to end in her death.

  She’d seen how powerful Sam was when he’d annihilated an abomination one of her master’s rivals had sent to the castle. His main weakness, if it could be called that, was his inability to venture too far from the castle – unless he was summoned to a place where the boundaries between worlds were weaker, which allowed him and his kind to remain for a short time before returning to the castle, provided the right rituals were used. Her master, of course, knew all the necessary rituals. And a demon like this was not going to bother someone like Sam.

  Sam bobbed up and down in the air, a large, amorphous sphere of warped flesh that almost completely filled the corridor. He extruded several tentacles and patted both Timmy and Katie down to check for any injuries before dozens of his eyes turned to the demon. The demon gave a deep growl, undoubtedly recognising Sam for what he was. A mantle of black fire erupted around the demon, and Katie hastily called their zombies back as her shadows disintegrated. Not even their zombie salamander would be able to protect them from that kind of heat. The stone at the demon’s feet began to melt, and the sound that came from its mouth as it rumbled forward was the howl of an inferno burning down a mountainside.

  Several of their zombies were too slow to retreat, and they were turned to ash by the demon’s mantle of fire. Beads of sweat rolled down Katie’s face, and the other shadows she had on the walls, floor, and ceiling flickered and vanished. The demon’s blades took on a more solid form, the flames giving way to a jagged, obsidian-like substance.

  “Hmm…” Her master tilted his head to one side. “That demon is stronger than I thought. Whoever made that summoning trap was good. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. Get him, Sam.”

  The demon charged, and the living inferno within it exploded outward. Katie winced as their zombie salamander’s powers were completely overwhelmed. Black flames rushed toward them, but Sam merely waved his tentacles in a dismissive fashion and then expanded to fill the entire corridor in front of them. Katie’s eyes widened comically as Sam simply weathered the assault before he surged forward and enveloped the demon. An eerie silence fell over the corridor, one broken only by the occasion howl, scream, or roar as the demon struggled to fight its way out of Sam. Slowly, the sounds grew quieter and less frequent until they finally stopped entirely. Sam quivered several times, the great, roiling mass of flesh that was his body momentarily covered with countless teeth and claws. Several bursts of black fire poured out of his mouths, the last remnants of the demon’s struggles, and then Sam returned to his original size.

  “Nice work, Sam.” Timmy grinned. “So… how did the demon taste?”

  Sam changed colours in a dazzling display of blues, oranges, and yellows. He also extruded more tentacles and waved them in what Katie was fairly sure was an expression of curiosity and concern.

  “Not very tasty, huh?” Timmy reached over and patted one of Sam’s tentacles. “Well, don’t worry. We’re fine, and there’s plenty of cake back at the castle. And speaking of the castle… you should head back now. I’ll probably pass out if I try to keep you here any longer, and Katie isn’t old enough to be raiding a tomb on her own.” Sam’s body began to fade, but Timmy stopped him. “Wait!” He hurriedly wrote something down on a piece of parchment. “I almost forgot. Take this. It’s the name of a kind of cake you haven’t eaten before. The new cook knows how to make it. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

  Sam flashed through the colours, shape changes, and tentacle gestures for happiness and gratitude and then vanished. Her master chuckled, and Katie tensed as she finally noticed how hard he was breathing. He was still sweating heavily too although the heat that had filled the corridor had vanished along with the demon. He’d used a lot of his magic.

  “Master?” Katie murmured. “Are you…?”

  “I’m fine, but summoning Sam isn’t easy if I’m not near the castle. The longer I keep him here and the farther I am from the castle when I summon him, the more power it takes.” Timmy straightened and wiped the sweat off his brow. “But, hey, we needed to get rid of the demon without doing anything that might bring down the tomb, and you have to admit, watching Sam eat the demon was pretty funny.”

  Katie giggled. She could only imagine how the demon had felt after summoning all of its power and putting on such an impressive display only to be devoured in a matter of moments. “It was funny.”

  “Hopefully, that was the last summoning trap. I don’t think I can summon Sam again.” He gave her a stern look. “The reliquary should be right through those doors, but we can’t get careless now. The library had traps, so the reliquary will too. We need to deal with all of them before we start taking things.”

  The reliquary was full of weapons, artefacts, and other trinkets. It was also full of traps although none as dangerous as the summoning trap. They dealt with the traps first and then began to separate everything into different piles. Shiny things that could be sold for money went into one pile whereas useful things, like magical weapons or artefacts, went into another pile. Even with the sacks, which their zombies had returned to them after leaving the books with the zombies on the surface, they could only take so much. They had to prioritise the most valuable objects and the most useful ones. For example, Katie quite liked the silver and ivory chest in the corner, but it was large, heavy, and unwieldy. However, the magic mirror beside it had the potential to be far more useful. They’d come back for the chest later if they had the time, and they did have several zombie wyverns that they could load things onto. They could also make return trips to the island although Katie wasn’t sure how long they had before someone else came. Her master had paid for the information about the island to be given to them first, but it was only a matter of time before someone else found out. She liked the chest, but it wasn’t something worth fighting or dying for.

  “All right,” Timmy said once they’d finished going through the reliquary. “We’ve got one more stop to make. Let’s go get the Crown.”

  * * *

  Timmy sighed as he stared at the Crown of Torment. He should have expected this. There hadn’t been nearly as many traps on the way to the Crown, which meant one of two things: either the builders of the tomb had gotten careless, or the Crown didn’t need traps to protect it. Unfortunately for him and Katie, it was definitely the latter.

  Some idiot, most likely the king, had connected the Crown to the currents of magic flowing through the area. Without anyone to control it, the Crown was simply broadcasting unimaginable amounts of pain into its immediate surroundings. The Crown’s area of effect only had a radius of ten yards, but the intensity of its magic was enough to disrupt the magic animating his zombies. He’d already sent one in, and it had gotten all of two steps before being overwhelmed by the Crown’s magic and collapsing to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. It was just a good thing that zombies couldn’t feel pain.

  “What should we do, master?” Katie asked as they used their zombies to mark out the boundaries of the Crown’s influence.

  He pursed his lips. The Crown was on a dais that connected it to the local currents of magic. If they could get it off the dais, it should deactivate. “Let’s see if we can get it off the dais.”

  “What if it breaks?”

  “Trust me. Anyone who took the time and effort to make something as horrific as the Crown would do their best to make sure it wasn’t fragile.”

  “What should we try first?” Katie asked.

  “I doubt it’ll work, but let’s try your shadows.”

  As Timmy expected, it didn’t work. The Crown’s magic was too intense for Katie’s shadows to hold their form. They managed to get about two yards in before they simply faded away.

  “That’s okay,” Timmy said. “If magic doesn’t work, try the mundane.” He got some rope and aimed it at the Crown. “If we’re lucky,
I’ll be able to just pull it off the dais.”

  They were not lucky. He did manage to get the rope around the Crown, but no matter how hard they pulled, it didn’t budge so much as an inch. They even had the zombie hydra-chameleon pull on the rope, and all they did was break the rope.

  “It has to be magic,” Katie said.

  “I’m sure it is, but we’re not out of options yet.”

  Alas, it wasn’t long before they were out of options. They tried shooting water at the Crown, as well as using wind to blow it off the dais. They even had the zombie hydra-chameleon throw one of the smaller zombies at the crown in a bid to dislodge it, but that didn’t work either. They also tried targeting the dais itself, but it was magically protected too. It shrugged off everything they threw at it. Not even the zombie hydra-chameleon’s acid was able to damage it.

  “What now, master? We’ve tried everything.” Katie glared at the Crown and the dais. “Should we just leave it here? We’ve already gotten a lot of stuff from this tomb.”

  “We could, but I’d rather not.” Timmy grimaced. “And we haven’t tried everything, not yet. If I’m right, then the only way to deactivate the flow of magic from the dais to the Crown is for someone with magic to get over there and deactivate it manually.” And given that Katie hadn’t endured a childhood full of pointlessly brutal training, that left only one person.

  Him.

  Wonderful.

  If only he could summon Sam again, but he wasn’t sure he had enough magic. There was also a chance that the Crown’s magic would do something very unpleasant to his friend. Sam and his kin didn’t feel pain the same way people did, but their bodies weren’t like people’s either. Sam wasn’t from this world, and it was magic that allowed him to stay in it. If the Crown’s magic disrupted Sam’s body, his friend might end up stuck in own dimension for days, maybe even weeks. No, Timmy couldn’t risk it. Oh well, at least he’d get a chance to put his master’s pain-tolerance training to the test because this was going to hurt – a lot.