The rising sun reached into the cave, the heat causing a smile to form on the dragon’s face. He loved nothing more than to bask, and with how the sun was hitting his scales, this felt like the perfect spot. Unfortunately, while his location was perfect, there were some issues interrupting his peaceful moment.

  The Aves Tribe had arrived not long after him, bringing with them a pile of gold large enough for Burdenus to rest his head on. It wasn’t much, being far closer to a cotton ball than a pillow, but it was a good start. Yet, after delivering his gold, the tribe of goblins had stuck around.

  There were seven in total, including the goblin chief Cygnus, who were now loitering around his lair. It wasn’t a massive issue during the night, as the tribe silently rested in the furthest corner of the cave. But as the sun rose, so did the goblins. And they were noisy.

  Despite his desire to rest, Burdenus forced an eye open to see what the greenskins were occupied with. Through the thin gap of sight, he saw the entire tribe standing upon his landing. Cygnus was shouting out orders to the other, punctuating them with a smack to the head from his wooden staff.

  Burdenus nearly felt motivated enough to listen in, until he realized that this wasn’t something he cared about. They were his goblins, but this was clearly their goblin business. So, he shut his eyes once again and slowly filtered out the sound of Cygnus’s shouting.

  He enjoyed the gentle warmth of the sun massaging his scales, every muscle in his body given a chance to do nothing but rest. The gold placed underneath his jaw was more comforting than any touch, a full body massage centralized in one spot.

  When he lived at home, he always enjoyed sleeping on his parent’s gold. But, for the first time, it was his own gold contributing to the pile, and it made the gold feel all that much better. Even if the pile was small, he could spend the rest of his life basking in this one spot.

  That was when the heavy sounds of hammering wood began to drill into his skull. At first, Burdenus assumed it was just the noise of nature, until the sound grew from a dull thudding into a rhythmic beating. After nearly an hour of attempting to ignore it, his patience had finally worn thin.

  “What is that racket?” Burdenus growled, opening his eyes once more.

  Before him were five goblins, all in the midst of working. Two of them carried heavy stone axes and were splitting apart wooden logs. There was a small pile of logs to the side of them, each one so thin that they may as well be twigs. Another two wielded axes of their own, squaring down the cut logs into crude planks.

  Cygnus stood off to the side, his staff in hand as he looked over a crude structure erected upon Burdenus’s landing. It was made of wooden planks haphazardly placed together to form three walls. The furthest wall extended to the side of the cave’s entrance, while the other two walls faced the outside directions of approach.

  “Apologies, biggun of fire,” Cygnus shouted back, scurrying over the Burdenus. “We did not mean to anger-bother you, we were just doing work.”

  “Work?” Burdenus asked. “What exactly are you doing?”

  “Oh, we are making a new outpost! It will let us look outside with safety, and we can store our item-things there. Good practice to put one at entrance of burrow, with guards to fight any who attack.”

  Burdenus looked over at the already ramshackle building, which would struggle to keep out a gust of wind, let alone any intruders. He’d rather them stop wasting their time on this and instead get him some breakfast, but he also realized that even this shoddy building could be important. If someone were to bother him, then the goblins could keep them away, and if they couldn’t, then there would be less goblins to bother him. It always worked out in the end.

  “I will allow you to make your outpost,” Burdenus relented, displaying his overwhelming benevolence. “But you must do it as silently as possible, so as to not disturb my slumber. Also, have it ready by the end of the day, that thing is an eyesore.”

  “Yes, we understand, and we will do as you say,” Cygnus responded with a bow. “It will be difficult, but we goblins are resilient.”

  “Also, I’m hungry. Send three of your goblins to get me breakfast, something fresh. Maybe a goat, or a cow if there are any. Do it quickly, too, or I’ll… set you all on fire.”

  There was a twinge of annoyance in Cygnus’s voice, but Burdenus wasn’t paying enough attention to notice it. “Yes, lord biggun of fire, it will be done. Very difficult, but we goblins are work-harders.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Burdenus closed his eyes with a grin, as he heard Cygnus shout at the goblins to fetch some wild animals. “I love having minions,” Burdenus thought to himself. When the work picked back up, it was silent enough for Burdenus to take another undeserved nap.

  Burdenus felt himself be prodded by something, a small object poking at the scales which lined his jaw. Whatever it was proved small enough to be a nuisance yet not large enough that he could tell what it was. All he knew was that it had woken him up.

  His first thought was to blindly breathe fire in every direction, making certain to kill whatever disturbed him. But as he was poked once again, agitating him further, he found his heart and stomach telling him to simply eat whoever was annoying him. It would be easier, and it would solve his hunger.

  When Burdenus opened his eyes, he saw a goblin staring back at him. The small thing had its eyes wide open in fear, as it struggled to hold onto a wooden pole made from dozens of branches glued together. Even at a distance, Burdenus could smell the stench of fear emanating from it.

  Burdenus picked himself up, prepared to make an example out of the wretch, before a far more enticing scent hit his nose. His eyes flicked to his left, where two goblins were holding onto the leads of four sheep, each of them attempting to break free.

  “We have your breakfast, lord biggun of fire” said the prodding goblin, who was pale in the face.

  “I see,” Burdenus said, taking a step towards the two goblins holding sheep. With a burst of speed, his jaw snapped down, picking up the flock of sheep in an instant.

  It was more than he could comfortably eat at once, but he’d learned from his previous experiences of eating sheep. If you grabbed one, then the others would panic and run in every direction. The goblins, despite their best efforts, were still weak creatures in the end. Burdenus had no faith that they could stop the sheep from running off.

  He chewed slowly, the thick layers of unkempt wool slowing down his progress. It wasn’t exactly what he craved, but lamb was always a nice meal. While he ate, he looked over the progress of the goblin’s outpost. It had gone from ruins to a half-functional building.

  They’d stopped any further attempts at expansion, instead focusing on reinforcing what was already built. The gaps between wooden planks were supplemented by additional wooden planks placed on top, usually diagonally for some reason. While the walls had been given shape, there was still much work to be done on the front entrance, alongside the roof and anywhere for potential guards to stand.

  The sun showed that it was past noon at this point, making his breakfast more of a lunch. Still, they had gotten him a fair number of sheep, so Burdenus decided to not kill and eat the goblins for now. He laid back down and watched them build, viewing the goblins as his own personal form of entertainment.

  It seemed that even Cygnus was a part of their building progress. While the other goblins were split into three teams, focused on collecting, chopping, and processing the wood, he alone was in charge of construction. Whenever a new set of planks were prepared, he would do something Burdenus had rarely ever seen in person. Magic.

  Cygnus would lift up his wooden staff and chant, pointing the end at a single wooden plank. It would then lazily lift into the air until he slammed it against one of the wooden walls. Once it was in place, he would cast another spell.

  He tapped his staff twice against the ground before pressing it down for the third time. Then, while continuing to chant, a honey-colored aura would form at the end of the staff. When he raised it up and pointed, he would say one final word, causing a glob of yellow sap to launch forward.

  The sap would stick to the wooden plank and wall, hardening only a few moments later. The process would be repeated for every plank until he slowly and sloppily put together the new goblin outpost. Burdenus watched with entrancement, until Cygnus suddenly broke his pattern of work.

  “Is there something you desire, biggun of fire?” Cygnus asked, turning to Burdenus once he could no longer ignore the dragon’s staring.

  “How do you do that?” Burdenus asked, his eyes locked onto the staff.

  “Do what, lord biggun? Cast my curse-magicks?”

  “Yes, I demand to know how.”

  Cygnus found himself surprised as he put down his staff. “I just say the curse-words of magicks, which makes my mage-stick fill with power. Then I point it and cast my curse-magick.”

  “What spells do you know? And can you teach them to me?”

  “I know Sticky Sap and Wood Dance, but I don’t know any more curse-magicks,” Cygnus answered the first question, but he found himself stuck on the second. “Do you… not know any biggun-magic?”

  Burdenus felt himself blush, though not literally as dragons can’t blush, at the question. He’d known of magic, and he knew that there was dragon magic. But despite his own pleading, his parents had refused to teach him any. They demanded that he go off to the hunt, to find treasure, so that he can prove that he deserved magic.

  The price to pay for learning magic had proven too costly, as Burdenus failed to find the motivation needed to actually go outside. So, he’d never learnt the arcane secrets of his draconic lineage, leaving him the only one of his siblings who hadn’t learned magic.

  “Not every dragon knows magic,” Burdenus growled, the baring of his teeth sending a clear message to Cygnus.

  “Sorry, lord biggun of fire, Cygnus did not mean to offend,” replied the goblin chief, who quickly found himself bowing. “But, no, Cygnus cannot teach you the curse-magicks. Only goblinfolk can speak it… And you are not a goblin.”

  Burdenus let out a sigh. “Well, it’s not like your magic was that cool anyways. Not like you could summon lunch or anything.”

  “Actually,” Cygnus corrected. “I do know of some gobs with a Goat Getter curse-magick. If I had that, then you could eat goat lunch every day, lord biggun.”

  Burdenus shot up, the top of his head bumping against the ceiling of the cave. “Tell me exactly how we can get that spell.”