The Fox Knight

    The fox knight marched alone along the path to the cave. Many knights had journeyed here before him, and none yet had returned. His heavy suit of armor clanged loudly as he walked, his sword sheathed at his side bouncing left and right along with his armor-covered tail behind him. The nearby village knew a dragon lived here, of that they were tragically certain: every few days, the dragon would fly from the cave to the village, kidnap the first person he saw, then return to his cave. The people never returned, and the village begged the king to send knights to kill the dragon. On a daily basis, both knights of the king and want-to-be heroes from the village would go to the dragon's cave, but not a single one had returned. The good news was that since the knights had been storming the cave, the dragon had not been stealing villagers any more. The bad news, though, meant they were probably being used as food...

    Sir Sebastian took a bit of comfort in the fact his mission was not to kill the dragon but instead to find out exactly why nobody had been returning (not that he didn't already know) and return with information to allow a more efficient campaign against the dragon. He snapped back to reality as he found himself outside the cave. Before entering, he took his metal boots, gloves, helmet, and tail guard off, figuring the less weight he had on him, the better. He kept his sword for defensive purposes, though. With that, he slowly and quietly entered the cave.

    The path into the cave was quite twisty, and Sebastian had hardly gone in before the sunlight entering through the mouth of the cave lighting his way was almost gone. He was afraid he was going to have to walk through darkness, and he did not want to bring a torch in case he attracted the dragon's attention to himself. He was surprised, however, to find there were torches lighting the walls along the way. He continued, slowly and quietly, trying to keep against the walls, staying in the shadows as much as he could. He finally entered into a huge room, which he guessed was the dragon's sleeping quarters. The dragon was, thankfully, nowhere to be seen, so Sebastian stepped out into the center of the room, looking around. There was nothing in the room except a few large rocks here and there, and another quite dark passageway leading deeper into the cave, this one not lit by torches. Sebastian quietly moved towards the darkened hallway, intent on exploring it, when he suddenly thought he heard a noise behind him. Before he could spin around to check, however, he felt a sharp pain to the back of his head, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

    When Sebastian awoke, he was aware of cold stone ground underneath him. He quickly sat up, looking around, finding himself in another room of the cave. He was sitting naked on the floor, and found the huge black dragon sitting behind him. There was only one door into the room, and the dragon was in front of it. The dragon grinned.
    "Welcome to my humble abode," he said sarcastically. "Sending another knight, how thoughtful of your silly king. But really, I've more than I can handle. Even I can't eat that much, you know," he said with a wry chuckle. Sebastian shuddered in fear, curling up on the ground, feeling quite vulnerable in front of the huge dragon, easily three times as large as he was.
    "What are you planning on doing to me?" he asked. The dragon simply roared in laughter.
    "Silly fox, isn't it obvious? I'm going to eat you!"
    "But... but I thought you said you weren't hungry," Sebastian said. The dragon sighed.
    "If you think I'm going to let you go, you can just forget it. No, I'm not hungry. But that's right now. I'll most certainly be hungry later, and we can't have my food rotting now can we? Look behind you." Sebastian did as he was told, looking towards the rear of the room of the cave he was in. There was a huge chasm in the floor.
    "What is it?" Sebastian asked.
    "My pantry," the dragon replied, amused. "And it's time to put my newest snack away." Before Sebastian could react, the dragon flew towards him, picking him up with ease and flying down into the chasm. The ground was almost 50 feet down from the chasm, and torches lit the walls in there as well. In this roughly circular room, however, there was a circular ledge lining the walls about 10 feet up from the floor, and the dark black floor below it. The dragon set Sebastian down on his feet, and pointed towards the inside of the pit. "In," he commanded. Sebastian, not wanting to anger the dragon, slowly walked to the edge of the ledge, lowering himself carefully off the edge. As he dropped, he yelped in surprise to find the floor was actually covered in about a two inch layer of thick, black goo. The dragon laughed. "Ahh, they're always so surprised. It never gets old."
    "What is this?" Sebastian asked. "What is the meaning of this?" The dragon just grinned.
    "You'll see soon enough. I do believe I hear another visitor in my cave. I would give anything to watch you, it's always so fun, but if you'll excuse me..." With that, the dragon flew up towards the hole he entered through, and he was gone.

    Sebastian took this time to figure out what he should do. The black goo he was standing in was cold and felt somewhat sticky, and the ground underneath it felt quite uneven. He looked up, and suddenly had an idea. He could probably jump up and grab a hold of the ledge, then get up to the ledge, put out all the torches, and wait for the dragon to come back. When he came back, Sebastian could launch a surprise attack, sword or not, and hopefully do something to cripple the dragon to keep him from doing any more harm -- gouge out his eyes, break a wing, something. Sebastian jumped, but the substance wouldn't let go of his feet, and he tumbled backwards with a yelp. He tried to sit up, but had to put in all his strength to pull away from the substance, which now coated the entire backs of his head, arms, legs, his back, tail, and his hands and feet. He looked at it, finding it was quite sticky and wouldn't come off no matter how hard he shook to try to get rid of it. Sebastian instead got another idea; maybe if he coated the front of his body with it too, he could climb the wall using the sticky substance to grip it. He carefully laid down, making sure not to get his face in the sticky substance. He stood up, and except for his face, he was coated in the substance. He placed his body against the wall, and tried climbing. The wall was too smooth, however, and the substance wasn't sticky enough to give him a good grip. He sighed, and stood back crossing his arms against his chest, trying to think of another way out.

    As Sebastian thought, he was suddenly aware of something happening to the substance coating him. He tried to pull his arms away from his chest, but they were quite firmly stuck together. He pulled as hard as he could, but they didn't so much as budge. He shrieked in fear, and began to pull as hard as he could, which only served to throw him off balance and cause him to plunge face first into the goo, his entire body now coated in it. He quickly rolled over, sputtering and coughing to get it out from in front of his mouth so he could breathe. His eyes were coated, and his nostrils as well, his arms still stuck firmly to the front of his body. He could feel the goo covering his front, which was exposed to the air, hardening as he laid there, finding his legs were soon stuck together as well. He held his breath and rolled over, hoping that by getting it wet with fresh goo again he might be able to move. He rolled onto his back again, coughing and sputtering once more, but only found that he simply added another layer of the substance onto him. He suddenly heard a whooshing of wind, and a thump -- the dragon had flown back into the room, sitting on the ledge. He heard the dragon's roar of laughter echo through the room.
"Oh dear, he's already mostly finished without me! Pity, they're always so fun to watch." With that, the dragon flew down into the substance, landing next to Sebastian. The dragon's strong front paws picked him up, and folded his legs so that they were bent, pushing his arms on his chest forward against them. The dragon, still holding him like that, rolled him around in the goo, lifting him up and blowing on him. (Not with fire breath, but rather simple blowing.) Sebastian quickly found himself stuck like that, in a small ball. The dragon laughed, and took a handful of the goo, pouring it over his head and holding his muzzle shut. Sebastian tried to blow the substance out of his nostrils so that he could breathe, but it was already hardened quite firmly in place. Sebastian struggled as hard as he could, but the dragon held him still very easily. The last thing he was aware of as his consciousness slowly faded away was the dragon laughing...

    With that taken care of, the dragon tossed the lump that was Sebastian into the pool of goo, his form now just like the other uneven lumps in the pool...


Oct 07 2003
By Prometheus
Prometheus's Cave
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

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