Ruby walked between Leo and Caspar through the village. Malbar, the armadillo greeter that had met them on the edge of the ‘magical’ place, led them through it toward the mine. Leo was almost skipping along with his eagerness to see someplace new, Caspar marched forward with his hands folded behind his back and a small smile on her face, and Ruby…

Well, Ruby was keeping to a slower pace, just keeping up with the other two while her mind raced. Everything about Caraton felt like it had been built up to rub her the wrong way, from the raw sensuality of everyone that she had run into to the way that it was – well, ‘cursed’ felt like the right word, cursed to make everyone horny. She still remembered how close she’d come to orgasm in the shower –

And to Em of all things…

She rubbed her arm as she tried not to think about it, but just trying not to think about it made it all the harder to ignore. She shook her head, dismissing the weird naked mental image of her brother and patting her cheeks to bring herself back to the real world.

“Is everything alright, Miss Ruby?” Caspar asked.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.”

She wasn’t, but she told that lie so often that it was second nature now. Besides, Malbar was still going on about Caraton’s history, and she needed a distraction.

“The mine was the first thing that drew people here, of course, but there’s so much more to the history of Caraton, young ones,” the elder armadillo said. “Why, this place was the home of dozens of druidic circles through history, and let’s not forget the many summons of demons to this land. It was a veritable fountain of magic, springing up and shrinking away with every new circle and cult that came through.”

“Oh? Is the cult still here?” Leo asked. “That’d be interesting. I’ve never met a cult before. Oh. Caspar?”

“Yes, Mage Leo?”

“Are cults bad?”

“Some of them, perhaps –”

“All of them,” Ruby interrupted, shaking her head. “It’s bad, and less bad, but they’re all bad.”

Caspar opened his mouth, the question writ clear on his face, but then shut it again. One more thing she appreciated about the frog. Unlike some, he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

“Aye, she’s not wrong,” Malbar said as they left the last of the town’s houses behind. “See, cults are a fickle thing. They get one big idea into their heads and then that’s all that matters. Even the ones that have a real thing behind them – big magic, big demons, or something like that – stop thinking about ‘why’ they’re doing something before long. Soon enough, it’s all about ‘power’ this and ‘take over the world’ that. And the mine here in Caraton meant that they never had to worry about money; the whole place was stuffed full of gems, fit to bursting, so all of ‘em could focus on the cult thing and not have to think about the real world.”

“So, they were all bad people?” Leo asked.

“Heh, that’s the hard part, sonny. See, cults are bad things, but not all of ‘em have bad people in ‘em. That’s where you gotta think, you know? Someone could be in a cult for all the wrong reasons, but still be a good person.”

“Or they might be scum,” Ruby muttered.

“That they might, little lady, but can’t be sure until they start being scummy. That’s how cults work, you know?”

She should have kept her mouth shut; Caspar had probably been curious enough to start, but now Leo was looking at her with that familiar curious head-tilt and wobbly eye-lights. They were both wondering what she had against cults now and what had happened to her.

Well, for now, they’d have to keep wondering. They had more important things to do. The dragoness wanted to solve this mystery, fix it, and get the hell out before things got any weirder.

“Well, here we are.”

She looked up, blinking at the sight of the old-fashioned, timber-supported hole in the ground. It was like a hut attached to a small hill, and as she leaned around the armadillo to look inside, she could just barely make out a small elevator. Clearly it was designed to go underground in a hurry.

“How deep does it go?” Ruby asked, resting her hand on the timber sidings.

“There’s four stops on the way down, but the bottom two are pretty caved in right now,” Malbar said, shaking his head. “Something or other shook it up pretty bad a few decades back, and nobody’s been down there to clear it out. Not much need for it all the way out here, to be honest.”

“It could be that there is something down there now,” Caspar said. “Mage Leo, do you think that you could tell if there is something harmful if you were close enough to it?”

“Maybe? Oh, but the compass –”

“Start at the top and work our way down,” Ruby said.

“Huh?” Leo cocked his head to the side, hood flopping with it. “Why?”

Because you never leave something bad behind you, she thought, the hand on the timbers squeezing. When there’s a monster inside, you make sure that it can never, ever sneak up behind you.

Because that was how people got hurt, how they worked, how –

Ruby shook her head. No. That was a long time ago. That wasn’t where they were now. She had fixed that. She…she was okay. She and Emerald were fine.

“Miss Ruby?” Caspar asked.

Looking over her shoulder at the frog, she managed to put the bad-thoughts out of her head and get her grumpy expression back.

“I thought knights were used to exploring underground dungeons?”

“I must confess that most of my explorations were of the surface variety,” the frog said, shrugging. “I wish I could have had the experience underground, however; I have heard that the more dangerous beings in our world tend to take up space under the surface.”

“You’re not wrong.”

She let go of the timber. The bad-thoughts were fading away, replaced with everything that had gotten better. Ruby shook her head, narrowing her eyes at the elevator.

“If something’s in there, we don’t want it sneaking up behind us. If we start at the bottom, maybe we’ll find it, but if it’s hiding on the upper levels, then all we did was give it an opening. If we start from the top –”

“Say no more. I understand, Miss Ruby.”

Caspar stood beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Although I am embarrassed that you had to teach me something like that. Thank you.”

“…You’re welcome.”

“Yay, learning!” Leo cheered as he joined them. “Oooh, elevator!”

Despite her memories, there was something eminently charming about the short little magician rushing past them to the wood-and-robe elevator. She smiled, shaking her head, and followed Caspar into the dark tunnel.

“Have fun exploring the mine! And if you see something nice, make sure you tell me about it when you come back up,” Malbar called after them.

They stepped into the elevator and, not surprisingly, it was just big enough for all three of them. It was probably meant to pull up minecarts, and that wouldn’t have been much bigger than the three of them jammed together. Caspar pulled the lever on the right side of the elevator and, without further ado, they began their descent. The light faded away as they dropped out of the upper level, leaving them surrounded by stone and darkness.

“Mage Leo, might you have a light spell?” Caspar asked.

“Oh! Good idea! I think I do!”

Ruby let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as a little yellow light took shape over Leo’s head. It was just at the corner of her eye and a little too bright to be completely comfortable, but it was better than having no light at all in the cramped elevator shaft. But most beautifully, it made the walls bounce the light back.

The dragoness’s jaw dropped as she saw flickering stone and glassy gems all around them as the elevator went down. They glowed as if they held the magic light inside of them, and there were so many that it felt like they were surrounded by stars. Even Caspar gasped at it.

It was a silent trip down, the beauty all around them making it feel wrong to talk. For the moments that they descended, none of them spoke a word. It was…peaceful.

Caspar pulled the lever when they reached the first sub-level. The elevator clicked to a halt, rocking them forward and bumping against the railing around the platform. Ruby shook her head and stepped out, taking a few steps toward the corridor leading out from the shaft.

As soon as she did, she felt something pointy against the bottom of her foot. She stepped back, looked down…and stared.

It was a gem, a sapphire as blue as she was, and even in its raw state, it was huge. She gasped as she knelt down, running a finger along the side of it as she imagined what it would be worth. Wes could tell her if she brought it up, but something this big, this beautiful, would be enough to restore the old house. She – she could pay for Emerald and her to have it back, to have a life again, to – to go back to the way that things used to be and…and…

Her vision blurred, and she realized she was crying. She turned her head away from the gem, rubbing her eyes.

“Ruby? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Leo. I’m – I’m fine.” She shook her head, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I guess – heh. I guess I can understand Wes a little bit better.”

It was beyond tempting to take the gem and go. Nobody would know, and both Leo and Caspar would have understood if she did, and it would make things so much easier, so much better for all of them if they didn’t have to rely on Wes for money anymore.

But it wasn’t hers. And she…she wasn’t that kind of dragon.

Still she had to ask for help from Caspar to get back on her feet and walk away from it. Once they were a few feet away, she shook her head, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

“Okay. Let’s find what’s wrong down here.”

“Oh. Is this why you said we needed a dragon?” Leo asked. “I wanted to ask, but you sounded so sure.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Dragons might be winged creatures, but they came from mountains. The stories of old dragons living on treasure piles hadn’t been true for a long, long time, but old instincts died hard. Ruby didn’t like being underground, but –

As she rested her hand on the wall, she felt it. It wasn’t a map in her head, nor was it like any kind of magic that she’d ever heard of, but she could feel the mine around her. The gems in it, the way the walls turned and swept around to make different tunnels, where the rocks were loose and where the ceiling could crack and where it was safe. She couldn’t have said how she knew, just that she knew.

Most importantly of all, she could feel the air coming from the elevator shaft and could follow it back if she had to. Sky and stone.

“Miss Ruby?” Caspar said, his voice quiet.

“…This way.”

She waved for them to follow, and they did. They didn’t ask questions, either, and that was good.

#

They cleared the first and second sub-level quickly. There wasn’t much to find on any of them other than the gems, though Caspar did find a hole in the wall that Ruby didn’t recognize. The moment the frog identified it as an abandoned goblin hole, though, they moved on. None of them wanted to think about Inalao and the fuckery that happened back then.

As they arrived on the third sub-level, however –

“Something’s here,” Ruby muttered as the elevator clicked into place.

“Oh? Oh!” Leo blinked. “I think I feel it too. Let me get the compass.”

“Does it feel dangerous?” Caspar asked.

“Well, um, not to me, but I’m not – Ruby?”

“It feels…old.”

That was the only way she could describe it. The more that she tried to feel her way through the mines, the more stuff she felt.

This is where stuff happens.

Waving off the memory of Sofia’s stupid saying, she tried to focus on the feeling, instead. The mine itself was old, no doubt about it; that was just logic, considering all the stories about it and the history of cults that Malbar had mentioned and that Leo had read about. Stuff going back that far had to be old if it was going to line up with those stories.

But this…this felt older still, like it had been there before the mine. It sent a shiver down her spine to think of something that ancient still lingering.

Before she could say a word, Caspar squeezed her shoulder. The frog stepped up beside her, taking her hand afterward.

“You tell me where to go,” he said, patting the sword at his side. “I’ll make sure that I am between you and it. After all. I promised your brother that I would keep you safe, did I not?”

“…You did.”

“Of course, I would do that anyway, but I should not disappoint Emerald.”

“Heh…no, no you shouldn’t.”

“Got it!”

Leo held the compass overhead. Ruby leaned over it, watching as the needle pointed right in the direction of the old thing she could feel. It was shaking, too, shaking as if overwhelmed. Considering it was made to point at powerful magic, that was saying a lot.

“Miss Ruby?” Caspar asked.

“That way, then left, then keep to the wall to avoid a sinkhole,” she said. “After that – well, just keep your ears perked up.”

“My earholes are open.”

They made their way through the dark tunnels, sidling along. Leo’s light helped, but there were places where the stone was warped, or where the cave-ins that Malbar mentioned had shifted enough to allow them to walk through but blocked the light, or any number of other problems that would have stopped the average group in their tracks. Between her stone-sense and the light, however, they managed to get through.

She almost lost track of the number of turns they took, but eventually, they reached a drop-off. She grabbed Caspar by the belt, keeping him from walking off it by accident.

“Thank you,” he muttered as she stepped forward and looked over the edge.

“What…I don’t…”

“What is it? What is it?” Leo asked as he scurried up and leaned over the edge with her. “Oh wow…it’s a pool!”

“It’s a spring, Mage Leo,” Caspar corrected. “But I do not understand. Is this what you sensed, Miss Ruby?”

“I…don’t know…”

The dragoness shook her head, still trying to make what she saw make sense. Below them – a twenty foot drop from the rocky ‘balcony’ that they’d stumbled onto – was a spring, alright. It was massive, more than a hundred feet across, and the watery surface glowed with a light that had to be magical this deep beneath the surface. The spring was active, too, occasionally squirting a jet of water upward, sometimes just a few feet, but clearly capable of more with the huge hole in the ceiling.

That must be where they get all their water from, she thought. But what kind of magic would be in the water that –

“Oh, the compass is going crazy,” Leo said, shaking his head and polishing the glass top. “Ruby, I think you found it.”

“Okay…but what do we do with it?” she asked, nodding down at the water. “I mean, what makes water magical?”

“I don’t know!” He grinned. “Guess we gotta go down there and find out.”

“Go down – Leo, we don’t even know what the hell that thing does! What if one of us falls in?”

“…Huh. I didn’t think of that – but I’m sure we’ll be fine. And besides, we gotta fix it, right?”

“Mage Leo, if I may? When we left, we told our friends that we would find out what was wrong, and then we would come back. Perhaps it would be best to return to the surface and relay what we’ve discovered.”

“Now that makes sense,” Ruby said, nodding. “Before we just jump in and…”

She blinked.

Enchanted water.

The shower.

The drinks at dinner.

“Oh, no…”

“What? What’s the matter?” Leo asked. “That’s the ‘everything is bad’ face.”

“Leo, we need to –”

Without warning, the ground shook. She grabbed the ledge, her claws scraping over the rock, and she used her tail to pin Leo to the ground so the lightweight mage didn’t go flying. She heard Caspar grabbing hold of something behind her and trusted him to take care of himself.

The ground kept shaking, rolling and vibrating beneath them. Further down, the spring rippled and bubbled, and Ruby grimaced.

That’s not good. That’s really not –

The spring erupted, water leaping toward the surface in shimmering splatters. The first blast shot straight through the hole in the ceiling, then the second one went up…and then came back down.

It hit her, Leo, and Caspar hard enough to drive the air from her lungs. Flattened against the rocks from the impact, Ruby sucked down a breath that brought some of the water down her throat before she could stop herself. Her clothes were plastered against her back by the warm water and – and – and –

Almost immediately she was overcome with a desperate heat. She bit back a moan and turned it into a whimper as she grabbed the rock tighter. Her hips hunched forward as the water seeped through her clothes and into her scales. The gulp she’d sucked down by accident was already in her stomach, a warmth flowing out.

Her hips hunched like some sort of feral, grinding down against the bumpy outcropping. Another whimper escaped her as she felt it settle in deep, her face burning as she tried to ignore the rising –

Clench. Her pussy clenched tight, inner walls pulling together and trying to squeeze something that wasn’t there.

Clench. Another, her tail raising against her will and her body heating up. It was a blind, desperate need, no less intense than someone starving to death feeling their stomach twisting in knots, but this –

No, no, not…not…

Another hip-hunch, another whimper as she started to drip down there.

“Ruby? Ruby, what’s wrong?” Leo asked, his voice so far away.

“H-help…help…”

“Ruby? Ruby? What – what do you need – I don’t understand –”

The dragoness huffed, her face painfully hot from the blush burning across her cheeks. The mild rush of need in the shower was nothing compared to this. She – she needed to –

I don’t want them. I don’t want them. I don’t want them. I like them, I don’t want them to –

Rut.

Fuck.

Cum.

Breed.

Words that she had kept at bay were echoing through her skull like thunder, booming so loud that they drowned out all her other thoughts. Her body was heated beyond anything she’d ever felt before and her hips kept trying to hump her against the stone below. Her clothes were catching, nearly ripping in places.

“H-help…me…”

Help…she needed…help…needed…needed something to…take the heat…away…

#

The moment the water hit Caspar, he felt like he was losing control of his body. He slumped against the cave wall further back, one hand to his head as his cock started twitching almost immediately. He huffed and puffed, trying to think, trying to hold onto something other than the rising, rutting need that was even worse than when he’d spent the night with one of the locals.

“Ah…mmmph…”

Throb.

Twitch.

The frog’s shaft was already rising, getting stiffer with each breath he took. The water was soaking through his skin, almost like he was absorbing something from it and –

“Ah…”

Leo was leaning over Ruby, saying something, but the frog’s heartbeat was pounding in his ears. It deafened him, keeping it at a distance.

Something…something wrong…

Arousal. Such arousal. He looked down at his shaft as it strained against his pants, almost pushing through. He…he did not remember…ever being so hard –

Ah…

And sensitive. He was throbbing in his pants, unable to help himself as one hand slowly went down. Need. Abject need. Desperate need. Not for a person, not for anything but release, but so…so much more powerful…

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Caspar shook his head, closing his eyes as he tried to focus through it. He was a warrior, a soldier, someone that stood between others and the dangers of the world. He fought the monsters. He did not…

He should not…

Throb. Throb. Throb. His heartbeat thudded through his cock as much as his ears now, begging for him to take hold of himself and take care of his own needs. The heat…he was sweating now, sweating hard, droplets running down his forehead from the effort it took to restrain himself. He –

No, he wasn’t restraining himself. His hand was between his legs, groping, squeezing, pulling at his cock through his trousers. It felt so good – he couldn’t stop –

“H-help…me…”

His eyes flicked open again. Ruby – Ruby was on the ground, her legs spread, her hips hunching down against the rock then raising up with her tail high.

Something’s wrong.

Caspar tried to think –

Throb. Throb.

Heat. Hot. Sweaty.

She’s…not right…

Neither was he, but that didn’t matter; he was supposed to help no matter how hard life knocked him down. Supposed to be the one that helped others. Supposed to be the one to take care of them…make them better…make them smile…

Needs…help…

And she was so wet…

She moaned as she ground her hips against the ground again, ripping through her clothes just enough for her pussy to be visible as she arched her back again. The sight of it went right to his cock.

She…she isn’t…

She kissed.

She was fine with everyone naked.

And she needed help.

Caspar couldn’t stop himself; she needed him, and one way or another, he was going to help. His cock ached as he fumbled for his pants, slowly fishing it out as he laid over the dragoness. She didn’t push him away; if anything, her hips pushed back against him, trying to find his cock, trying to grind on it.

She moaned. He moaned. Leo –

Leo. Leo was saying something but it was too distant. It wasn’t helping. The magician couldn’t help with this, not the way that he could. He needed to do this. Needed to help Ruby, needed to take away the heat. If she felt like he did, then there was only one way to get rid of it, only one way to –

“Ah…nnngh…”

She was in need. He could feel how wet she was under him. He leaned down, his cheek against the back of her neck.

“Don’t worry. It’s going – ah – it’s going to be – Nnngh – okay…”

They were grinding and humping, his cock sliding against her slit, then up between her cheeks, then down again. They were so soaked that neither of them could line up properly, coming closer and closer to it but always sliding away in the last second. Caspar groaned, his own frustration almost getting the better of him, but no; this was for her, he needed to help her, and that need –

Thrust.

Thrust.

Thrust.

He was almost fucking her thighs now, his cock popping out the other side, and she moaned as she pressed her legs together and ground back against him. They were so close, so close to getting what they both needed –

Then everything went black.

#

“Oh no, no, no, no…”

Leo would have bitten his lips if he had any; as it was, he held his sleeves in front of his face, whimpering as he stared at the sleepy-faced duo. They were both still horny, but they’d stopped humping, just…floating. Apart. So far apart.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know – I couldn’t think – please be okay, please be okay,” Leo whispered as he ran with them down the tunnel. “Gotta get up top again, have to wash it all off – wait, no, bad idea, the water did it, need something else, uh, uh, uh – figure it out upstairs!”

It was hard to remember the right way to go. Twice he almost fell through a hole that Ruby had guided them around, and one time he bonked Caspar’s head against a low-hanging rock, and his shouts of ‘SORRY!’ got even louder in those moments.

But finally, they reached the elevator.

“Come on, up, up, up, faster, faster, faster…”

It didn’t matter that his friends were asleep and no longer doing the things they didn’t want to do. It didn’t matter that he’d stopped them from doing something they’d regret – or he thought they’d regret – agh, it was so hard to think of what was the right thing sometimes.

What if they actually wanted that? he wondered as the elevator lifted up, his friends floating in the air, unconscious, unaware of anything but still hard, dripping, wet and – no, no, faster faster faster!

Leo was freaking out. He knew he was freaking out. That wasn’t good enough to stop him from freaking out!

The elevator hit the top. He ran, waving his arms from side to side and conjuring bits of clothes – just blank bits of it, almost more like towels than actual clothes – and throwing them back at the exposed bits of his friends. Caspar didn’t mind (he was pretty sure) but Ruby was always asking for clothes and he didn’t want to embarrass her and –

GAAAAAAH!

As he ran through the village, more than a few people poked their heads out their doors and windows. Someone might have called out to him, he wasn’t sure, but –

“Going to the inn, nothing to see here, nothing wrong, promise!”

His friends must have seen him coming, because there was an orange blur at the door yanking it open as he got close. Leo stumbled on the last step and went flying through the doorframe, hitting the ground face-first on the other side. Caspar and Ruby flew through a second after, the spell holding them aloft fading as he lost concentration. Thankfully, Emerald caught his sister and…well, Sofia tried to catch Caspar; the frog slammed into her hard enough to knock her to the ground.

“What the hell happened down there?” the demon asked, shutting the inn door. “I don’t think you’ve ever run like that before.”

“Things went bad down there – Kinda? Kinda bad? Ugh.” Leo shook his head and pushed himself to his knees. “The water made them go all…weird and horny. They got splashed and then…”

“Then what?”

Emerald was staring right at him. Even Leo could see the fear in the other dragon’s eyes.

“What happened t-t-to Ruby?”

“She – it’ll be okay. Just gotta – gotta wash her off before she wakes up. Not with water!” Leo hurried to say. “Something else. Anyone…anyone got any ideas of how to clean someone else up without putting them in water?”

The room was quiet. Leo looked from one face to another, hoping that someone had an answer.

“Um…”

All eyes went to the demon. He covered his face with a grumble.

“Okay. There’s something I can do. Emerald, bring her over here.”

The green dragon carried his sister over. Half a second later, the demon reared his head back and –

FWOOSH!

Fire rushed out of his mouth, roaring around the two dragons. Everyone else screamed as the inferno grew brighter and brighter –

Then it stopped.

Emerald and Ruby stood in the middle of a charred spot in the middle of the room, but none of them were any the worse for wear. Naked, admittedly, but not harmed. Leo stared, blinking.

“How –”

“I’m not talking about that,” his friend said, shaking his head. “Let’s get her upstairs before she wakes up and wants to kill me for that. My fire should have burned off everything from the water, though.”

“Uh…what about Caspar?” Leo asked.

“We’ll figure that out in a second; let’s get this done first.”