“It’s still there.”
“Yes, it is. The ship must still be quite warm.”
“Are we really going to wait until it buggers off on its own?”
Phovos shrugged, lacking an answer to Elksi’s question. The gigantic, gilded serpent was still coiled around their only form of transport, having seemingly not moved at all since they’d arrived at the abandoned fuel stop.
“Surely we’re not just gonna wait?” Tenuk piped up. “Frankly, we could just kill it. It is a dumb monster after all.”
“You want to fight it?” Elksi had an uncertain look.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t normally want to fight!” Elksi seemed very confused. “Since when did you ever want to get into combat with, well, anything?”
“She’s got a point,” Phovos agreed. “You’re not the sort to risk life and limb on a non-sapient creature.”
Tenuk crossed his arms and grunted. “It’s a dumb animal. I can just circle the fucker and spray it with spells and arrows!”
“What if it’s immune to spells and arrows?” Phovos asked.
Tenuk waved his hand around, emitting a handful of blue sparkles and purple flames. “Well, we can find out right now, if you want!”
“Best not to…” Elksi interrupted. “It might break our ship.”
“Oh. Good point…” Tenuk frowned, realising that he was in the wrong. “So, uh, what do we do? And when is Retvik getting back? He said he wouldn’t be long.”
Suddenly, and with impeccable timing, Retvik appeared, pulling himself out from a nearby vent, covered in bits of melted candy.
“Did I miss anything?” Retvik asked, tugging on a piece of candy and ripping it from his armour.
“No, not really,” Tenuk sighed. “These two don’t want any conflict with the big monster currently wrapped around our ship.”
“I see. Well, I would prefer we not lose the expensive ship that Galyn gifted to us.” Retvik was not amused. “I have melted a tunnel out of this room. Has the creature moved?”
Phovos shook her head. “No, no movement at all.”
“Hm. Good news, I guess. The engines on our ship are much warmer than the melting points of sugar…” Retvik glanced outside, then turned his attention to the hole he had made. “This will take us to the warehouse outside. I detected no life while making the tunnel so we should be fine to move.”
“Really?” Elksi seemed very surprised. “What about the creature outside?”
“I doubt it will bother us.”
Tenuk grunted, then stuck his head in the tunnel that Retvik had made.
“So everything here is made of sugar?”
“Seems as much. Shall we get going?”
“Your tunnel seems to still be a bit warm…” Tenuk hesitated. “Do you not want to wait for it to cool down?”
Retvik shook his head. “It is fine. We had better get a move on. And we really need to scout the warehouse quite a bit. It is a large facility.”
Phovos and Elksi both nodded in agreement.
“We ought to be quick. We have no idea how long that creature will be sated for, and the last thing I want to run into either it or its siblings, if there are any.”
“Not to mention that there might be other salvagers!” Elksi added.
“Good point…” Tenuk muttered, as he climbed into the tunnel. “Might as well get this all over with…”