The Butcher of Gadobhra

Chapter 416: Job Openings

Once again, Arthamax struggled against his icy prison. The Dragon was increasingly frustrated to be trapped here. True, the temperature was ideal and the flow of mana through his body quite invigorating, but his lack of mobility was a source of growing anxiety. He'd repeatedly commanded the Ice Mages to free him from his prison of ice and stone, but the lazy things had one excuse after another. "We're starting at the top." "The Fire Mages are attacking." "We ran out of shovels."

This was why he didn't like depending on minions, they were always so terribly unreliable unless you micromanaged them or had good foremen with large whips. It was apparent to Arthamax that he shouldn't rely on anyone but himself to break free. (Although he did allow himself a few fantasies about a certain cute little Fire Dragon showing up to melt his prison enough to snuggle in with him.) He was successfully expanding the flow of mana from the powerful source beneath him. Pressure was building up and he hoped to use it to command the ice to release him by sheer Draconic Force of Will. He wished he had studied the technique more in his youth, but it was horribly boring.

Now he was forced to call upon what he could remember of his lessons, breathing in as much raw, ambient mana as he could, holding it inside of himself until it changed to match his aspect, and then exhaling what he couldn't absorb. As he built a core of Icy Mana inside of him and imbued the ice around him with his mana, the ice would become an extension of his iron willpower and do as he commanded. He told himself he could feel his control increasing each day and imagined lifting the tons of ice and breaking free to the applause of a roaring crowd. But the ice stubbornly refused to budge, and the sections he imbued one day were clear of his control the next. Something was not working correctly.

To make matters worse, he was barely eating! He wondered if he could use dieting to escape. Surely he was losing weight and could wriggle free soon. Besides being inept at digging him out, his minions were also terrible at bringing him the food he demanded. He was tempted, almost, to eat one of them when they brought him food, but that would bring up embarrassing questions about his family tree. He wasn't that hungry...yet.

The problem was all the work of inhaling mana from below, then exhaling and trying to infuse his mana into the ice surrounding him was a lot of work, and made him hungry. (Doing anything made him hungry, but hard and boring work was the worst.) When one of his minions finally brought him something to eat, he was famished. And then disappointed by what was on the menu. A blue-robed minion was pushing two skinny Fire Mages before him, both with bound hands and gags in their mouths to prevent them from casting spells. The young humans were terrified, as they should be, in his regal presence. The minion pushed them off the ledge and they slid down the icy slope to where he could reach them with his tongue. They lay in a heap, fearful and exhausted. Arthamax ignored them, he didn't like spicy food, especially on an empty stomach. What were his minions thinking? It was time to lodge a complaint.

"You there! Minion! Where is the rest of my dinner? These will be fine as an after-dinner treat, but not for a main course."

The minion turned to leave, and the rudeness helped Arthamax overcome his embarrassment. Not that any of these creatures would tell about his deformity. A long tongue unrolled from his mouth like an oversized chameleon catching a bug, its range much further than any of his minions had suspected. The sticky end hit the blue-robed minion, wrapped around his waist, and drew him down to where his dinner sat cowering. Getting his spare tongue to roll back up properly was difficult, but he managed it this time without mishap. The unfortunate extra appendage had been inherited from his Paternal Grandfather. Old Vivenix had roamed far and not always been careful about what he ate in some places. He'd returned from the Fae Wilds with bright purple scales and an extra appendage in his mouth. The coloration didn't breed true, which was a shame, but Arthamax had inherited the unsightly mutation. He hated revealing it, but on the bright side, none of these minions would be revealing his secret once they were in his belly.

"Now, Minion, we can have an uninterrupted conversation. Explain to me why efforts to free me are so lacking and my dinners so unimaginative and scarce."

The lowly Ice Wizard pointed to his mouth and then began waving his hands about. "Your lips are sealed and you defy me with your dying breath?"

The minion's eyes went wide and it shook its head. Then pointed to its open mouth and then swept its hands around the room. Arthamax understood immediately. "OH! A game of charades to entertain me. One word, sounds like 'Ice'? Spice? Mice?

The minion stopped, pointed to the fire wizards, and then to its mouth. "You want to eat the spicy little wizards? Those are mine! Wait...spice. Do you want me to eat them? Don't worry, I'll get to that. Next puzzle, I'm good at this game. Continue, and I won't eat you. Stop for a moment and you become the appetizer."

That got the game going at a good pace. The little minion jumped around, miming out the most outlandish words and phrases to amuse the dragon. After the seventh puzzle, when he was sweating hard with exertion the minion choked for a moment and then spat out a large chunk of ice before swearing hard. Arthamax had grown bored with charades anyway and enjoyed the minion's antics. He seemed upset with his superiors.

Finally, the little human gathered himself together and spoke clearly, "They plot against you, mighty dragon. Your head minion froze my tongue in my mouth so I couldn't warn you of their schemes."

"Betrayal? Already? I was sure we had at least a few years together before we played that game. Oh well, I suppose we might as well get on with it then. I assume you want to trade information about their schemes in return for your life and a promotion?"

"um...yes. That's what I was going for."

"Well, the continued incompetence of my current minions leaves me with some openings. Tell me about this scheme, new head minion. And you need a name. Forget your old one, mine are better. You shall be...Chillhands."

Dragons were used to betrayal. Eventually, even the best minions became greedy or rebellious, no matter how much you abused or terrified them. It still made them angry though. How their minions could ignore the benefits and prestige of being associated with the rulers of the world was simply flabbergasting. At least this groveling worm seemed to understand, even if his awe at becoming head minion was freezing his tongue as effectively as the spell had.

"We can go back to charades if you like, but I'm growing impatient. What was this scheme going to accomplish?"

"Oh, sorry, your majesticness. They wanted to trap you here. No one has been trying to rescue you except for a few who were loyal, like me. The rest wanted you permanently entombed in ice to add your aspect to the mana coming from below. All of the Ice-aspected mana you were exhaling was being channeled into the remains of the arcane device that channeled mana to the warmland wizard's teleportation system."

"What? And to what end? Why would they give away my lovely mana?"

"Well, as I'm sure you know, over 99.9% of aspected mana is converted to pure mana, and the flavor is wiped away. But the broken array around the teleport stone used to send mana from the rift to the rest of the Empire functions poorly now. Some of your mana is being spread throughout the Empire, empowering our wizards and disrupting the warmlander wizards."

"Damn them. All my work to infuse the ice and bend it to my will is being wasted. WASTED!! But...Hmm...a teleportation system, you say? And what remains of it?"

Chillhands knew very little about the magi-tech used by the Empire but had overheard enough to plausibly lie. "The stone is still there. Quite large and impressive. It was mentioned that it was a Tier 6 before the rift destroyed part of the array."

Arthamax considered his options carefully, he was literally in a tight spot. Then his eyes fell upon the two cowering Fire Mages and his eyes gleamed. "Unbind their mouths, Chillhands. We need to talk."

The mages stayed silent as their gags were removed. Each expected a fight to the death between them to decide who would get eaten first. They were surprised by the Dragon's offer. "You two seem like intelligent if lesser, beings. I'm building a new cadre of elite minions and have room for two individuals who don't want to die and aren't picky about what they have to do to save their lives. Interested?"

They looked at each other and nodded their heads.

"Good. You work for Chillhands now. And we need names. You can be Sparky and you answer to Barky. I like rhymes. Chillhands is the head minion. As soon as he unties you, get to work warming the ice around my right claw. Chillhands, your job is to reinforce the ice holding up this chamber. We're breaking out of here, even if it costs everyone but me their life. "