Finally, a Good Turn of Events

Yuletharnia had finally lucked out, she had found a herd of dire elk, which were coincidentally being chased by a dire bear when she spotted them while out on the hunt. She quickly took down the bear with a single magic attack, the spear of magic right through its neck, she fired 4 more spears through the heads of the 5 slowest members of the herd (taking care to not target any calves). Now, to get the bodies to her food storage area, magic can do quite a bit but there are limits to what it can do.

Yuletharnia cast a quick ice spell to preserve the bodies, she was more capable in ice spells than other of her kind of dragon. Well, she would probably have to do that set of spells again, but was with her having to conserve energy there was a good chance she would be consuming some of her newest food acquisitions instead of stashing it all in her cold chamber, but that was a given in her current circumstances. Given how deep into the mountain she had made each of the actual chambers, especially the cold storage chamber for perishable items and ice-themed magic items in her collection, the amount of time, energy, and magic she would be using would be considerable.

For the most part, Yuletharnia was keeping her sexual urges suppressed, it was easy with where and how she was currently living, but there was no telling how long that would last. At the very least, a few dire beasts would actually keep her satiated until she could secure more rewarding prizes. At least now she would have the resources to move out in a range more typical for a dragon of her lineage and age. That all said, she did have a few items to help her out.

She brought her catch to the exterior of her lair from the outside and started using earth magic to open up a section of the mountain near her cold chamber but to her cold chamber. Thankfully, it only took about half an hour to open up the space and put her frozen catch inside, after shrinking said catch down to a quarter of its original size. After getting everything in the mountain, Yuletharnia closed off everything to the outside and sure it was all almost indistinguishable from the outside.

After downing one of the deer on the way to the cold chamber, as predicted, Yuletharnia placed her catch down in the cold chamber. Personally, she didn’t like staying in cold places for extended periods of time, she could extend that time by using the appropriate magics but didn’t like doing that in her lair since there were other magics floating around that didn’t always play nice with each other, especially when extra magics that are in places they usually aren’t placed. She placed her haul in one of the corners near the proper entrance as quickly made her way out of the chamber to her lair’s entrance proper.

Yuletharnia had good luck on her hunting, and she had made a discovery while out on the hunt. Now that she had some actual substance in her stomach, Yuletharnia was able to go and check out what seemed to be some kind of mine or dungeon when she had passed over it while on the hunt. Now that she wasn’t hungry, for the time being, Yuletharnia decided to head out to the site she spotted. Before heading out, Yuletharnia set up a temporary teleportation circle in the entryway, it would only last about five hours so she had to be quick.

After setting things up inside her lair, Yuletharnia altered her size to average human size and stepped outside the lair, raised a slab of stone about 9 inches from the entrance, manifested her wings, unfurled her wings, and took flight for the site she had found. About 5 minutes of flying later, Yuletharnia found what she was looking for and landed about 10 feet from the entrance. Thankfully, she was able to enter at her human size.

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Around 7 minutes of descending the steps through the darkness later, Yuletharnia finally was in the first room of what looked like an underground dungeon. Thankfully, she had the ability to see in even the deepest of darkness. She looked around the first chamber, there was only one obvious dor to the right side of the wall in front of her, the room itself was barren with just a few fragments of stone and wood piled up in different parts of the room. Dragons, especially Demonic Dragons, hardly ever went along the obvious paths. Using her superior magical abilities, Yuletharnia became aware of the locations of two passageways hidden behind the walls, she was a bit surprised because she had anticipated only half that many.

It had been ages since Yuletharnia had done anything akin to a dungeon delve, now she was doing one more out of necessity due to circumstances **** upon her as of late. One of the hidden passages was behind the wall on the right side upon entry, the other was behind the wall to the left upon entry. Yuletharnia didn’t want to be hasty, there was no telling what sort of problems and obstacles were waiting down secret passages and within the areas they led to. She had learned to be cautious in places and situations like this, more than most sorts of dragons, she had learned fairly early on that sort of arrogance could lead to far more trouble than anticipated. Doubly so when a Demonic Dragon of Pride was involved in any way, they always fed into and stroked the egos of others, sometimes even stoking them to greater heights, they almost never were out and about in the open, preferring their lairs near the heart of centers of arrogance and pride, they were ironically lacking in caution due to their own stubborn pride but it usually didn’t matter since almost no one thought to look for their lairs. People only stumbled upon their lairs while working on dealing with other potential issues, no one ever really thought one of the advisors or aids to royalty.

Yuletharnia knew she needed to air on the side of caution, discretion being a part of valor and all that.