The adventurers spent two hours searching through the woods. They came to what appeared to be an abandoned entrance to a bunker sticking out of the ground like a storm cellar. Stairs leading downward were visible. It was not a normal bunker however as the opening was massive. It appeared to Gwen to have a three-meter headspace above the stairs. The main stairs themselves were also massive. The rusted metal doors were lying open on either side of the stairway. Moss and lichen covered the stairs and walls. The walls and stairs themselves appeared to be made of concrete. On closer inspection there were also human sized stairs running along one wall alongside the giant stairs.
"What is this place?" Tristan asked.
"It appears to be an underground bunker. Judging from its size it is likely Draconic in origin," Maximus stated.
Suddenly what could only be described as a mutated monster clambered up the human stairs and rushed at the companions. The creature was fleshy and had scaley growths covering its body. The creature ran on all fours despite its anatomy clearly indicating that it was meant to be bipedal. The monster also had claws where its fingers and toes were supposed to be.
Tristan, standing in front, was the first to take action. Sidestepping the creature, he swung his sword at the creature's neck as it lunged at him.
With a clang, Tristan's sword glanced off of the scaled growth on the creature's neck. Surprised, Tristan put more distance between himself and the mutated creature. At this point Gabriel had already lined up a shot with his crossbow. He fired his crossbow, and the bolt went through the creature's unprotected forehead. With a short scream the creature collapsed, dead.
"What was that thing?" Gwen asked, horrified at the bizarre creature.
"How did it block my strike?" Tristan asked, following Gwen's question.
Maximus walked over to the corpse and examined it. His curious expression immediately turning dour after taking a closer look at the cadaver.
"I have a suspicion, but we will need to go down and explore this place to learn anything for certain. I hope that my worries are unfounded," the magician told his companions. "Everyone needs to proceed with extreme caution."
Maximus put out his hand and said something in Draconic, the translator that Gwen was wearing translated it to Fire. Maximus created a fireball and shot it down into the opening of the bunker. The fireball did not extinguish until it hit the floor of the bunker.
Gwen's confused face led to Marigold giving an explanation, "He is checking if there is oxygen in the structure. If the fire went out, it would mean that the entire facility is filled with carbon dioxide."
Having confirmed that the facility had breathable air, Maximus pulled what appeared to be a flashlight out of his bag. He then unsheathed his sword and told his friends to do the same. Gwen was apprehensive about having to possibly fight, but she resolved that she would overcome this hurdle. Everyone prepared, Maximus led them down the stairs into the bunker.
As they descended the stairs, Gwen could see that the interior was like that of an old research facility. The interior was dark, so Gwen could only see as far as Maximus's flashlight allowed. The flashlight did produce a large cone of light, so the corners were left in shadow. There was a set of two large sliding doors that appeared to be an airlock in front of them. Both doors were wide open.
After passing through the ajar airlock, Gwen saw that they were walking along a long hallway. Maximus panned his flashlight along the walls and floor. The first area past the airlock appeared to be a living space, although not a space designed for humanoid species. The metal doors to the rooms that branched off the main hallway were massive. The rooms themselves were designed for massive creatures. While there were beds and tables in some of the rooms, their scale was far too large for any humanoid to use. The rooms were also ransacked, everything that could be destroyed was destroyed and their pieces were strewn across the floor. The furniture that had remained was covered in claw marks.
Everyone was on edge. They could be attacked from the shadows at any time. They were not completely blinded due to Maximus's flashlight and Marigold's superior low-light vision, but that did little to soothe their nerves.
As the companions progressed silently through the abandoned facility, another airlock lay before them, this one was also completely open. After passing through this set of doors, the hallway took a sharp right turn. All of the rooms following this second airlock appeared to have been administrative. There were the remains of large filing cabinets and computer terminals.
"Four from the left!" Marigold shouted. "Same as the previous one."
The companions got into battle stances.
Maximus sent a ball of fire upwards and suspended it in the air giving everyone light by which to fight.
"Mari, you assist Gwen," Maximus ordered. "The rest of us will each take one."
Gwen gritted her teeth. She was going to have to handle one of these. The creature came bounding at her. It swung its right hand at Gwen. She stepped backwards and blocked its claws with her dagger. Gwen batted the creature's left arm out of the way with her sword before continuing the strike forward towards the creature's body. Her strike hit the mutant in the shoulder. She had managed to draw blood from the creature, but nothing more, its scales blocked her strike from cutting deeper.
Her attack failed, Gwen jumped backwards, returning her sword to a right guard. Gwen was tense, her breathing rapid. Her mind raced recounting all of the tactics that she had learned over the past two weeks. Nothing could have prepared her for real combat. Real combat was a dance with death. Any slight mistake would lead to injury or death.
"Stay back, Gwen," Marigold shouted.
The fairy then shouted in Draconic. Needles of ice formed in the air and went flying at the creature's head. The icicles embedded themselves into the mutant's scalp. The creature screamed in pain, a scream almost too human.
The creature now turned its attention to the fairy. It reared onto its feet and jumped, swinging its claws down onto where Marigold had just been. The fairy easily dodged the creature's attack.
The mutant creature's back now turned, Gwen went on the offensive. She lunged forward and stabbed her sword into the creature's back. Her sword had hit flesh and penetrated the creature's body. The mutant's attempts to spin around only gouged a chunk of flesh from its back. Gwen drew back her sword and returned to a guarded stance.
The creature now bleeding profusely from the wound in its back turned around, snarling at Gwen. Maximus came up behind the creature and decapitated it, cutting easily through the scales that had blocked Tristan's strike earlier.
Looking around Gwen saw that the creatures that the boys had been fighting were all lying dead and bleeding on the ground.
Maximus said something in Draconic and the fireball overhead fizzled out.
Having run into more of the creatures, the companions decided to clear every room to avoid being attacked from behind.
All of the side rooms were in varying states of destruction. In one particular room, one filing cabinet was mostly intact. Maximus walked over to it and picked out a document. Maximus read the document, his face turning grim as he read it.
"This facility was conducting research to find a cure for the virus that caused the Great Plague. It does not state the methodology of this research here, but I believe that it is related to the creatures that we have been encountering," Maximus stated his face starting to show signs of anger, an emotion that Gwen had never seen the magician express before.
Maximus continued reading through the paperwork in the filing cabinet.
Anger erupted on the magician's face.
"They were modifying humanoid species with high amounts of Draconic DNA and grafted tissue and then infecting them with the virus. I cannot believe this! This goes against everything the dragons stood for! Everything that mother taught us! Other sentient species were to be treated as equals, not captured to be experimented on!" Maximus shouted furiously.
The magician's face boiled with rage, grief, and disgust. His usual calm and aloof demeaner disappeared like a dream upon waking.
"Max, breathe. Calm down. I am angry too, but we need to be calm to fight properly," Marigold tried to console the irate magician.
"I am going to go and end the suffering of these creatures as well as destroy the research of this facility. This kind of experiment has no right existing," Maximus said. "The rest of you can head back to the elven village. It is unlikely that there will be a DRAG Key here."
"Max, don't get angry, but how is this any different from you and Marigold?" Gwen asked tentatively. "Were you not also biologically modified by the dragons?"
"The difference is the intent," the magician explained. "Mari is a biosynthetic organism, like all fairies. They were created as companions and assistants to a dragon. The fairy is created and paired with their dragon at the dragon's hatching. Fairy biology allows them to control phenomena without the use of an amplifier, just like dragons and me. Fairies' original purpose was to compensate for the large body size of dragons. Fairies would help the dragons interact more easily with smaller races and perform tasks that would be difficult for a dragon to accomplish. A dragon could hardly walk into a building built by a smaller race such as humans, so fairies acted as intermediaries."
"Mari's purpose was a bit different. My mother knew that she and the last of the dragons were going to die soon, so when they biologically modified me, they created Mari to be my companion throughout my time," Maximus said, speaking of his mother seemed to sadden the magician.
"You said that you were biologically modified to have the lifespan of a dragon and their abilities, why would they do that and force you to live for so much longer than other humans?" Gwen asked curiously. "And who is your mother you keep referring to?"
"My adoptive mother, a dragon named Seraphina, told me that I was very sick when I appeared through a rogue Gate. In order to save me, she had to use significant biological augmentation. It ended up that the only way to save me was to make me essentially part dragon," Maximus stated.
"How long is your lifespan, Max?" Gwen asked the magician.
"If nothing happens, Mari and I could live up to around three thousand years," Maximus stated.
Gwen was shocked. Three thousand years was an incomprehensibly long time for a person to live. Gwen could not easily wrap her head around living for such a long time. Three thousand years was over half of the length of the entirety of recorded human history on her world. Gwen knew that Maximus was over two hundred years old, so he had already lived for at least two lifetimes already. Gwen realized just how lonely such an existence would be. Everyone around Marigold and Maximus would grow old and pass away while they would have barely aged a day. Maximus and Marigold were smiling and enjoying the company of Gwen, the brothers, and all of the children despite knowing that they would have to watch them die. This seemed like such a heavy burden. If she were in Maximus's place, would she be able to smile and enjoy the company of friends knowing full well that they would slowly age and die? Gwen was unsure if she would be able to do so.
"Max, we will accompany you," Gwen stated. "We won't leave our friend to face this alone."
"Gabriel and I agree," Tristan seconded. "We will help you in your endeavor."
A consensus reached, the adventurers continued deeper into the facility.