The Dragon's Hoard

Once upon a time, there was a man called the Phantom Thief who was notorious for stealing treasures hidden across the world. He owned an island for his hoard and summoned a mystical dragon to safeguard his treasures there. The dragon was happy to accept such a task as it loved shiny objects. Its golden scales, an extremely rare trait for a dragon, could absorb the radiation emitted from golden objects, especially coins that were made of red gold, and convert it to nutritious energy, granting it more power. It could go on without food as long as it lay near the piles of red golden coins, occasionally went tumbling around in them playfully. It breathed out an inferno energy blast which was a thousand times more destructive than fire breath an average dragon could produce. And its master had bestowed the dragon with all sorts of enchantments, making it the most powerful dragon in the world. 

From time to time, a group of heroes, adventurers and treasure hunters would come for the hoard. But every time, the moment they set foot onto the dragon's lair, the dragon would kill them right off the bat. It inadvertently added more to the Phantom Thief's collection as the victims always had shiny armor, the finest weapons as well as other treasures they brought along with them. There were times when a country or two sent their entire army to the island just to reclaim their stolen valuables. But the dragon just decimated them upon arrival with ease. While this left the nations in shambles, the Phantom thief was all too happy to build a bigger dungeon to house a much bigger hoard accumulated by his awesome dragon.

But the time had come when the dragon outlived its master and it became lonely ever since. Few years later, a great sorcerer came to the dragon's lair. He and the dragon did put up a great fight. The dragon was amazed that despite his size, the sorcerer did pose a challenge far greater than the army of warriors it had slain. He in fact could conjure a magic barrier that would completely deflect the dragon's inferno energy blast. But when the dragon saw the sorcerer had stepped inside a magic circle which was made to be barely visible to the human naked eye, it seized its chance and began its incantation. Suddenly, chains emerged from the ground and restrained the sorcerer's hands and feet.

Impossible, thought the bewildered sorcerer, how could a dragon master the arcane arts?

Indeed, the dragon knew human language as well and learnt magic from a collection of enchantment books it obtained from fallen wizards. Now that the sorcerer was defenseless, the dragon killed him with a flick of his claw.

The dragon inspected the sorcerer's belongings. Among them was a book entitled Necronomicon. The name of the book made the eyes of the dragon sparkle. The Necronomicon was mentioned by many enchantment books in the dragon's collection. Its master also mentioned about it as well. It was known to contain the most powerful spells that only a few could master. Some said that there was only one copy in the world and thus nobody had ever found it. Some even considered its existence to be merely a myth. Could this book be the legendary Necronocicon. There was no harm trying it out.

While flipping through the pages, the dragon came upon a spell that struck its attention. It was a spell that could reanimate inanimate objects. Since the dragon had been very lonely for so long, it was desperate to try it out. The dragon tried the spell on to statues. It did not work. Then, the dragon tried it on suits of armor. It did not work as well. Then, the dragon tried it on a bunch of red golden coins. This time, the coins began to shake on their own. Then, they were floating below the ground. Soon, the coins were dancing in mid air. If you look closely, the heads of the coins had faces that represent a nation's scholar, leader or hero and they could display minute movements like rolling and twinkling of the eyes, the puffing of cheeks and could even speak in a babyish voice. The dragon felt a fresh comforting presence from those sentient coins, just like having a bunch of adorable cupids around. Soon, the dragon fell into a deep sleep.

But in its dream, the dragon saw a large silhouette of a monstrous beast larger than himself approaching. The sight of it filled the dragon with dread. It had never been so terrified in his life before. When that monstrous silhouette lurched towards it with a killer instinct, the dragon woke up and was greeted by a cluster of red golden coins. The dragon was glad at first but then felt something was off. The dragon only enchanted a few coins. But now a big cluster? It was obvious that the numbers had multiplied. It turned out that the sentient coins also knew that spell from the Necronomicon and brought in more of their own kind. And there were even more of them the next day. A pleasant soothing voice that an individual coin made turned into a louder and more chaotic din as the numbers grew. The dragon panicked. Its master had a weird obsession with red golden coins and his coin collection took up one third the size of his entire hoard. If all of them were to be enchanted ...

No. This had to be stopped. The dragon flipped through the pages once more and was frustrated when he could not find a way to break the spell. At last, the dragon burnt the Necronomicon to the crisp with its inferno blast, hoping it would put an end to an impending mayhem. Unbeknownst to the dragon, all the coins in the hoard had already turned. They were just laying dormant in the piles. Soon enough, the coins all flew together in large swarms.

They became a serious nuisance, pestering the dragon ceaselessly and relentlessly. The red golden coin always made a big ruckus and even urged the dragon to join in the fun. When the dragon was about to sleep, the coins just would not let it, playfully entering through its nose, mouth, ears and even penetrated its other orifice.

And one day, the dragon's stomach began to growl for the very first time. It turned out that the enchanted red golden coins stopped giving out radiation necessary for the dragon's nutrition. Realizing this, the dragon lost its temper and began attacking them indiscriminately, blasting inferno flames at all directions. All the coins, as if resonated with the dragon's emotions, clustered together to form the shape of the dragon, looking exactly like the angry dragon itself. And so they battled. The real dragon was surprised to find that its enemy, despite being made out of coins, had a tough rigid exterior. It attacked its doppelganger with its fangs, only to get one of its fangs cracked. More dragon-shaped heads emerged from the doppelganger's body, attacking its opponent from all sides. It technically became a hydra now.

Screaming in pain, the real dragon backed away. It puffed and puffed with all its might and released its ultimate inferno energy blast. An explosion occurred and smoke engulfed the entire place. When the smoke finally dissipated, the dragon was shocked to see that its doppelganger managed to survive its blast. When it prepared to launch another blast, each heads of the doppelganger already discharged blast after blast of, not inferno energy, but weapons such as spears, daggers and swords and that dealt the dragon a significant amount of damage. It did not expect weapons from the hoard were used by the sentient coins when forming their dragon vessel. Not only that, the enemy's elongated tail at the same time drew more weapons from the hoard for its disposal. As the pain was becoming too much for the dragon, it escaped by crashing through the wall of the dungeon and flew out of the island.

While flying, something went terribly wrong. The dragon was flapping its wings frantically just to support its body weight. Sure, it had never flown in the sky before. But it took a few flights inside the dungeon as part of its daily exercise. The dragon took a quick look at its wings. It was shocked to see holes in them. Where did the holes come from? Then, something dawned upon it. Oh those goddamn spears! Facing an overwhelming fatigue, the dragon gave up and plunged thousand feet from the sky and eventually drowned itself in the depths of the ocean.

The other dragon, the one made out of sentient coins, became the new guardian of the hoard.