Chương 14: The Burden in the Beads

The Common III sword warned him before it broke. Meno felt it at Chain 184, tucked behind the dragon's rear talon with heat crawling over his shoulders and his breath caught between taps. The blade bit into the claw groove, rang wrong, and sent a dull shiver through the hilt. That vibration crawled up his wrist in a thin, mean line. He checked durability with his eyes instead of opening the menu. Red.

"Of course." sword red stop switch breaks chain common III did its best The dragon exhaled across the cavern. Meno flattened against the talon's inner curve, and heat stripped most of his HP before the breath thinned. He forced one more short cut into the groove, more touch than swing, and the chain survived by a margin small enough to make his teeth hurt. The sword made the same wrong sound again. Viewers: 11, 882 That decided it.

He could gamble the main weapon because his worst instincts loved dramatic failures, or he could lose the chain on purpose and stop pretending cheap iron belonged in a dragon's claw. The target was asleep. Speed helped less than bite. The only thing the claw respected so far was repetition, pressure, and enough metal to keep arguing. Meno stepped back and let the rhythm die. [Chain Broken: Stop] The next breath caught him before he made the shrine path.

[Death | Ashen Crown Dragon — Sleeping Breath] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Chipped Clay Saint x1] He sat up on the shrine stone and opened his inventory. The Common III two-handed orc axe looked crude even in its tooltip. The edge had been hammered into shape with more faith than skill, and the haft wrap was dark from some orc's old grip. It was slower than the sword by a mile. It also had weight, and weight mattered when the job was carving proof out of a sleeping catastrophe. Meno equipped it.

"Speed doesn't matter if the target is asleep," he said, then looked across the cavern at the dragon.

"Mostly asleep." axe arc big bonk research this wakes it The route to the rear claw had become a bad commute. The axe changed the rhythm immediately. [Compound Swing | Chain: 1 | Damage: +10%] The first few hits wanted to become full swings. Meno crushed that instinct down and used ugly half-chops, short enough to stay near the talon shadow and heavy enough to land with a thicker sound than the sword had managed. Each contact jolted his arms. Each recovery threatened to overpull him out into the breath line.

He adjusted by inches. By Chain 100, Hundredfold Cleave lit up and stayed useless. [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] The claw gave no dramatic response. The dragon slept through the abuse with the massive indifference of something that had never needed to respect starter weapons. Meno kept chopping into the old groove, slow and careful, letting the axe head fall only as far as the chain required. At Chain 180, ash dust drifted from the chipped edge.

At Chain 240, the groove brightened beneath the black shell, a narrow red seam showing heat under the surface. At Chain 300, the axe bit deep enough to crack something loose. [Major Loot Acquired: Ashen Crown Claw Chip x1] The chip bounced near his boot, glowing red along the broken side. Meno snatched it and tucked back behind the talon as the next breath rolled past. For once, the timing paid out before killing him.

SECOND DRAGON TOENAIL axe value he lived farm goblin brain active Viewers: 18, 407 He kept the axe moving, afraid that if he looked too closely at the viewer count, it might vanish. The dragon's leg twitched at Chain 327. The claw shifted half an inch, and half an inch ruined the groove. Meno's next chop scraped the talon's side instead of the seam, caught on the outer shell, and counted. He exhaled through his nose, too tight to laugh properly. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road.

Support the author by reading it there. At Chain 380, the ember veins around the rear leg brightened. The tail dragged across the stone slower than before, heavier than before, throwing sparks from the floor. Sleep had begun to resent him. He ducked under the talon arch and chopped upward with the smallest motion his shoulders could manage. [Compound Swing | Chain: 400 | Damage: +4000%] The hit split the groove deeper. A larger fragment snapped from the claw edge and dropped with a heavy click.

It was curved, dense, and black on the outside, with a red inner line pulsing like banked coal under glass. [Major Loot Acquired: Ashen Crown Claw Fragment x1] The dragon opened one eye. Meno froze with the fragment in his hand. The eye was molten gold, slit-pupiled and enormous. It focused on him with tired disgust, the kind of look a king might give a rat found chewing through his dinner plate. For one second, chat forgot how to be funny. oh awake move apologize The dragon spoke.

"Pest." The word rolled through the cavern and pushed heat through Meno's ribs. He lived, which meant the dragon had decided death was less useful than attention. Meno raised both hands, axe in one and claw fragment in the other. That was a terrible arrangement for diplomacy, but the moment had already gone bad.

"Thief." Viewers: 24, 931 Meno's stream was exploding. He'd never seen the viewer count climb this high. The dragon lifted its head by the smallest fraction, and stone split beneath its jaw. Lava-light crawled over the old scars between its scales, then snagged on the groove Meno had carved into its claw.

"Tribute." Meno's brain heard the word and grabbed the worst possible solution.

"Right. Tribute. Totally." He opened inventory and threw the first item his fingers found. A cracked prayer bead bounced across the floor and stopped between them. The dragon looked at the bead. Then it looked at Meno. The expression needed no eyebrows. The dragon had seen empires burn, mountains split, and now a red-named idiot had paid tribute with garbage.

he threw trash PRAYER BEAD OFFERING dragon insulted give claw back maybe no he's donating landfill PrayerBeadGod returns to source Meno threw another prayer bead. Then a bent spoon head. Then three dead buttons, a broken loom peg, two chipped clay saints, a strip of failed string, and a handful of useless festival tokens. Stopping would have required a better idea, and better ideas had abandoned him at the launch platform. A pile formed on the stone. It was ugly.

Prayer beads made up most of it, cracked and mismatched, with old paint clinging inside worn grooves. The rest looked like the contents of a junk drawer after a home invasion. Meno kept throwing because he had bought the junk in bulk and bulk was now his only diplomatic language.

"I have hundreds," he said. DO NOT FLEX TRASH hundreds??? dragon receiving municipal waste tribute economy dead inventory dump The dragon lowered its head. Meno braced for the end. Instead, the dragon inhaled over the pile. The junk shifted under that breath. Prayer beads clicked against spoon heads. Failed string lifted, twisted, and fell limp again. The dragon's nostrils flared, and the ember veins along its jaw pulsed once, slower than before.

"Old smoke," it said. Meno blinked.

"What?" The dragon breathed in again. This time the air did not burn. It sifted through the beads, stirring dust from the grooves and ash from the old paint.

"The old temple." Chat lurched from mockery into conspiracy. QUEST ITEM THE BEADS WERE REAL junk dealer lore OLD TEMPLE Meno stared at the pile.

"Hold on." The dragon's eye narrowed.

"Who sent you?"

"Nobody sent me." The cavern got hotter. Meno adjusted fast. Lying to people was easy. Lying to a dragon required pacing and fewer obvious exits.

"A mysterious figure," he said. The dragon went still. Meno pointed vaguely, as if Rillpost existed somewhere under the volcano.

"Old man. Lazy eye. Junk shop. Rillpost. Smelled like dust and old tomes. Had crates of prayer beads, clay saints, dead buttons, loom pegs, festival tokens, and string that used to have ambitions." The dragon's head lowered another inch.

"He sold me everything he had," Meno said, and tried to make that sound less like a bulk trash purchase. The dragon's voice dropped until the lavafall seemed quieter.

"You found the cursed priest and took on his burden?!" Meno looked at the pile of junk. Then at the dragon. Then back at the junk. A quest chain had been sitting in his inventory under garbage. His mouth flattened.

"I hate quests." [Quest Acquired: Burden of the Cursed Priest] Objective: Recover the Ashen Crown Hoard from the Morgras beneath the mountain. Objective: Return the hoard to the Ashen Crown Dragon. Reward: Location of the Old Temple. Failure: Unknown. Note: Quest state influenced by carried relic refuse.] Meno read the notice twice. Relic refuse. His death padding. His inventory trash. The cracked prayer beads he had bought because dying dropped junk before gear.

The whole stupid pile had been cursed religious garbage with a quest hook attached. RELIC REFUSE hidden quest chain cursed priest vendor confirmed he bought lore trash quest hater gets quested Morgra? wtf is the old temple The dragon lifted its head toward the lavafall.

"The Morgras took what was mine and fled below the Crown. Return my hoard, bearer of the priest's burden, and I will tell you where the old temple hides."

"I didn't agree to bear anything." The dragon ignored him. It opened its jaws and inhaled. The lava waterfall bent. Meno took a step back as molten fire peeled sideways into the dragon's mouth, stream by stream, until the curtain thinned and vanished from the wall. Behind it, black stone stairs descended into a tunnel lit by dull red crystals and old torch brackets. Cooler air drifted up from below, cooler by maybe one degree, which counted as mercy in this place. A passage.

Probably down into whatever a Morgra was. Meno's first reaction was relief. Suspicion landed right after. Then came the reflex that had carried him away from turnip baskets, flower errands, and every NPC with hands folded around a problem. He closed the quest panel with care.

"Great," he said.

"Very ancient. Very serious. I'll go prepare." He took one step toward the revealed stairs. The dragon did not move. It already filled the space between him and the passage. Its head lowered just enough for one molten eye to line up with his path. The carved claw, the steaming tribute pile, the open stairs, and the shrine all sat inside the dragon's silence. Meno stopped. The dragon said nothing because it did not need to. The passage lay open behind it, waiting, while the dragon remained exactly where it was.

"Okay," he said.

"So we're doing the quest hostage style." The dragon's eye stayed open.