Report: D 2.26.24 (The Desert Ice Dragon)

I wonder how sunlight once shimmered on the living oceans, before dust veiled the world. When the skies were clear blue and the sun a bright white light. Now the sun shines a dark golden brown light.

As I gazed upward, pondering the alien concept of a blue sky, my eyes caught signs of scattered rain clouds and dark specks on the horizon, racing towards us on high-altitude winds. “Rain’s coming,” I told the group, pointing to the sky. Together, we sought refuge, finding solace within the skeletal remains of a deep-sea coral, a ridge large enough to shelter all seven of us.

The wind howled, whipping up clouds of sand in a frenzied dance. And then, the rain began to fall -- not as water, but as droplets of black oily liquid, thankfully of the lighter crude variety. Light crude does not mingle with the airborne dust to form hard hail, a small mercy.

We huddled together, waiting out the rain for twenty minutes. A day’s journey still lay ahead, with several hours of trekking before we could reach the first known structure to provide shelter for the night.

During the brief respite, a few men discovered patches of sand grass in the coral’s deep crevasses, harvesting them for a meager lunch. If one listened close enough, one could hear rodents deep inside the coral scurrying about; that lifted my heart to know that life still hangs on even in this unforgiving environment.

Once the storm had passed, we resumed our journey, navigating through the labyrinth of coral. As evening approached and we emerged from the maze, a small building came into view, not too far in the distance.

This picked up the morale of the group, and with renewed purpose, we headed towards it.

It was a two-level skeleton-like structure, its outer walls half-buried in the sand, its surface blemished with gunfire from battles long past. The second level boasted catwalks encircled by walls with gun ports for defense. Despite the ravages of time, portions of the canvas that had once formed the structure’s walls still clung to their frames.

A fully enclosed rose from the structure with circular windows barred with steel atop the catwalk in the northern corner, like a silent guardian over the desolate landscape.

‘Be ready for a fight,’ our leader cautioned, the possibility of the structure being inhabited hanging over us like a shadow.

We entered from the south, where a long-forgotten battle had shattered and melted the wall, leaving the catwalk in ruins. Methodically, we swept through the area, each step echoing in the silence until we reached the clean room. Its doors shut behind us with a reassuring thud, sealing us inside. To our relief, the generator hummed to life, and the cleansing fans began their purifying whirl.

Beside the maintenance area, a small pile of spare parts and other items lay collected—a tribute from those who had passed through. In this harsh world, encounters could be fatal, but the sanctity of clean rooms united us all. These sanctuaries, more revered than the churches of old, represented the only universally held value among the fractured remnants of humanity.

Along one of the walls were bed rolls with a few other items beside them. One of them was a small stuffed animal. I picked it up and wondered how long this had been left here.

As the room's purging cycle hummed in the background, we allowed ourselves a moment of respite, removing our headgear. Words were scarce, the weight of our journey pressing down on us. Yet, in silent agreement, we decided to make camp, preparing to continue to the Seamount of Or-San at first light."

..

We were in the process of assigning watches for the night when we spotted another group coming forward to the building from the north. 

We scrambled to defensive positions and raised the buildings like in the colors of our group as a warning. The group paused, then furnishing weapons out and tugged forward to us.

As they got closer, we could see their clothes were of the sand roamers, far to often hostile to those that make our homes in the deep trenches of the world.

As firefights went, it was a relatively peaceful one with only a dozen or so shots exchanged between the groups, testing the will of each other before the sand roamers left as trying to assault a fortified position like this one was folly when each group had roughly even numbers.

If it had been another trench group, we might have had a more desperate battle on our hands, but the sand roamers are much more familiar with the harsh environment of the open lands and how to survive.

It was decided that none would have the luxury of the clean room but would sleep in the building where they could quickly join the watchers in battle if the sand roamers tried anything at night.

The night passed into the day, and there was no sign of them.

Thus, we pressed onward to our location.

We got to the foot of the mountains with the rocky walls and bowls filled with sand. Rounding the corner of one, we finally find our sight on the cave entrance. I had never seen a cave entrance so wide, being to my eye over 100 feet tall, but I had to remind myself that while this might have been an actual cave at one part, this was an entrance to a man-made underground city, a large one that was built during the height of the Lake age.

The rock formations around the mouth of the car were strange if you did not not they times of the past used to be large decorative columns carved away from the mountain, a grand sight in old times though not any less ground now though the erosion has taken its toll on these rock pillars. I wondered how many thousands of years old these pillars were craved when Earth had above-ground lakes.

We stood there for a while, each one lost in their thoughts.

Then lead signaled for us to continue. Without a word, we followed him in.

We saw more regular patterns carved into the ceiling and walls as we went inside the cave. There were mountings for unknown machines. As we got further into the cave, the sand that had been blown in started to decrease, and we could see we were walking on a level rock floor. 

Descending more profoundly into the cave, it became colder, and we started to see frost on the walls of the cave as the stories told of the ice dragon that lived in these caves. Not that it was an actual dragon; no one has laid eyes on it and survived to tell the tale, so it could be a significant number of things, but most likely one of the great machines of times past.

The cave tunnel we had been traveling split off into three directions. 

We looked to the lead, who nodded and looked to the technical lead. We split into groups and signaled that we would be splitting up and that the tunnels all lead to the same place, allowing us to attack it from multiple angles.

The demolition lead asked if splitting up would be a good idea and if the tunnels did lead to the same area. The lead was unpersuaded, and the group was split up.

I the engineer lead, were placed together and followed the tunnel. It was the longest one, and we hurried along so that we could enter the cave of the ice dragon with the others. Yet the cave kept going on and on. As time ticked by, we went for a jog and then for a run. We wondered whether we should turn back as this tunnel was far longer than planned.

Then it was time, and then it was past time. When it was past time, the barks of guns rang out. We could hear that we were close. We ran with all our might to the battle. 

But we were too late; we saw the heroic sacrifice of the demolition lead the last standing member as he flung himself on the dragon activating the rest of the explosives he had. A mighty explosion shook the cave, nearly knocking us to the ground. The attack stunned the ice dragon, stumbling back on its four large metallic legs. 

We got a good look at the ice dragon. It had four legs that came to a long beam of horizontal steel bar where a reactor was suspended underneath, and the rest of the robot came up like a scorpion tail to two arms with hoses and dispensers and an oblong head with a large camera in the center. 

Removing the guard across his mouth, the engineering lead said, “It is an ICO 350 NITO; aim for the reactor bulb underneath and shoot anything green.”

The ice dragon heard us and started to come down the rocky slope above where it had slain the others. The explosion had stripped parts of the armor plating across the robot's front. I could see the reactor orb beneath it and where the armor plating had pealed away, hanging on the robot the green of the orb. I leveled my sniper rifle, taking aim, and each five of my shots found their mark with green liquid bursting like blood, but the thing never slowed down as it charged us.

Then the last 5 yards, it stopped and prepared one of its arms to crush us or freeze us with the liquid. I don’t know; the engineer lead’s arc rifle rang out, hitting the area where I had shot, and then rippled tremours through the robot before it slumped falling to the ground before us.

We were alive.

We slayed the ice dragon.,

The others were not.

Our hearts were heavy. We inspected the cave for the treasure we hoped to find and find it we did. A complete functional deep tunneling well and pump. One that could reach down to the bottom of the Earth where the oceans now lay and draw them back to the surface. The lifeblood for new life and a new future.