The transition from the inferno of the thirty-fifth floor was as jarring as a plunge into an icy sea.
One moment, Draco and Tsubaki were battling a heat that could roast a normal person alive; the next, a chilly, desert cold seeped through their travel-worn clothes, raising goosebumps all over Tsubaki's skin.
Above, the ceiling crystal was not the angry red of the floors above, but a cool, serene blue, casting a dim, monochromatic light that turned the endless dunes into a silver-and-shadow wasteland.
It was a beautiful, eerie stillness, a place where the eyes could not be trusted after the phantoms and false horizons of the previous trials.
Far in the distance, a shimmering pool of reflected blue light beckoned….an oasis.
It was a sight so cliché it felt like a trap, yet its promise of water and respite was undeniable.
"So where to next?" Draco asked, his voice a low rumble that was swallowed by the vast silence.
He already knew the answer, but the question was a formality, a touchstone of their partnership.
"To the oasis," Tsubaki replied, her tone pragmatic as she vigorously brushed a small avalanche of fine sand from her cloak.
The grit had invaded every seam and fold.
"Oh, so that isn't an illusion," Draco muttered, more to himself than to her.
He filed the visual information away, a mental note for the floor maps he would later compile for the Bahamut Familia.
This reconnaissance was a valuable secondary objective to assisting Tsubaki's weapon tests.
They proceeded with a veteran's caution, their senses stretched taut, but the journey to the water's edge was uneventful.
The oasis was real…..a small, spring-fed pool fringed with strange, silver-barked trees and patches of coarse, pale grass.
The cold was more pronounced here, a damp chill that gnawed at the bones.
Wordlessly, they set up a minimal camp, and Draco coaxed a small, crackling fire to life with a flick of his wrist.
As the flames began to push back the cold, Tsubaki's irritation became palpable.
She shifted uncomfortably, a slight grimace on her face.
The sand, as it always did, had found its way into every conceivable….and inconceivable….crevice.
"Mind keeping watch while I take a quick wash?" she asked, her expression morphed with acute discomfort.
The thirty-sixth floor was not a safe zone.
Monsters were very much active and could spawn everywhere, even in the Oasis.
"Sure," Draco replied, his voice carefully neutral.
"Just don't take too long."
He turned his back squarely to the water, presenting a broad, dependable silhouette against the firelight.
Closing his eyes, he extended his magic, a sonar pulse of intent that swept the immediate area.
Nothing.
No lurking threats, no churning under the sand.
Confident, for the moment, he took a seat on a cushion of grass, letting his tail rest heavily at his side.
He tried to focus on the alien flora, the texture of the bark, the scent of the water….anything but the sounds behind him.
But his hearing, preternaturally acute, picked it all up: the soft rustle of fabric as her cloak and clothing were discarded, the gentle sigh of relief, and then the series of soft splashes as she slipped into the water.
Each one was a tiny explosion in the silence, painting an all-too-vivid picture in his mind.
'Don't look, Draco,' he chastised himself, his hand digging slight furrows into the sand.
'It might just be the end of your friendship. And possibly your life.'
His eyes darted frantically across the landscape, searching for a distraction, any distraction.
Tsubaki, perhaps sensing his strained will…..or simply because it was in her nature….decided to stoke the fire.
A slow, sinister grin spread across her face unseen in the darkness.
"The water's perfect, kid," she called out, her voice a lilting tease.
"A little cold at first, but you get used to it. Really washes all the… grit… away."
Draco's tail gave an involuntary twitch.
He remained statuesque.
"I think I found where all that sand from the last floor went," she continued, her tone light and inviting.
"It's a good thing you're not in here. It'd be a shame if you got your scale all wet."
He grunted, a non-committal sound he hoped conveyed indifference.
"You know," she sang, the water sloshing gently.
"For a dragon-boy, your sense of chivalry is remarkably… rigid. I promise, my back is turned. You could just sneak a little peek. I'd never know."
"I would know," Draco ground out, his voice tighter than he intended.
"Suit yourself. Your loss. It's a lovely view from here, too. The moon-crystal reflecting off the water… it's almost romantic. If one were into that sort of thing with a stubborn dragon-boy, of course."
The teasing continued, each remark more brazen than the last, expertly designed to needle him.
Draco felt his control fraying, a low heat building in his chest that had nothing to do with the campfire.
He was moments away from snapping a vulgar retort, from turning just to shut her up, damn the consequences.
But the decision was made for him.
The sand a few feet to his right erupted.
Not with a roar, but with a skittering, horrifyingly silent efficiency.
Several bone like creatures, each the size of a large hound, scuttled forth, their oddly shaped bones the colour of bleach in the blue light.
They moved with a nightmarish speed, straight toward the pool.
Instinct overrode everything else.
Draco's head snapped around, his red eyes flashing with fury.
As he spun, his hands twisted, bones cracking and reforming, scales rippling over skin as they elongated into wickedly sharp black claws.
"Tsubaki, an attack!" he yelled, already moving.
He met the first creature in a blur of motion, his clawed hand slicing horizontally, shearing through its bony appendages.
Dust, blueish in the dim light, sprayed onto the silver grass.
Tsubaki didn't panic.
At Draco's warning, her teasing demeanour vanished, replaced in an instant by the battle-hardened smith.
She surged from the water in a single, powerful motion, water sluicing from her naked form.
There was no time for modesty, only action.
She lunged for her pack, her movement swift, and her hand closed around the first weapon she could grab.
As Draco killed the second, third and fourth monsters with swift yet brutal rakes of his claws, Tsubaki was already there, a nude vengeance gleaming in the moonlight.
She brought the great-hammer down on the remaining monsters with deafening cracks, their bodies shattering into a thousand pieces under the immense force.
Breathing lightly, with some steam rising from their bodies into the cold air, they stood back-to-back, scanning the sands for more threats.
The silence returned, now charged with caution.
After a long moment, sure the attack was over, Draco kept his eyes rigidly forward on the dunes, his claws slowly receding back into hands.
"You're, uh… you're decent, I assume?"
Behind him, Tsubaki let out a short, breathless laugh, a genuine sound devoid of her earlier teasing.
"Still a gentleman, I see" Tsubaki said, her expression thoughtful.
"Thanks for the save, Draco."
"Anytime," Draco replied, returning to his earlier seat.
Within a few minutes Tsubaki was all washed up again, and they begun their ascent back to the surface.
...
The night air of Orario was a welcome change from the damp, earthy breath of the Dungeon.
It was cool, carrying the distant sounds of the city's nightlife and the faint scent of food from various vendors.
Their ascent had been a blur of motion, with Draco taking them through some rather unconventional shortcuts; like flying against the updraft of the waterfall between the 27th and 25th floors, Tsubaki's surprised shout lost to the thunder of plunging water.
Now, on the noisy, cobbled street, the adrenaline of the dive was fading.
Tsubaki stretched, her bones creaking.
"Right. That's enough of that for one day. You're buying me a drink, Scales."
Draco sighed, the sound a low rumble.
He cast a glance toward the southeastern road.
Somewhere in that direction, in the living room of the Bahamut Familia home, a certain goddess with eyes like polished rubies was likely waiting for his return, perhaps with a book in her lap and a patient, though expectant, smile.
"Tsubaki, it's late. You know how you get. It's never just one."
"And you know I don't ask often," she countered, her single eye fixed on him.
Her tone, usually boisterous and teasing, held a rare, flat sincerity.
That was what gave him pause.
Tsubaki, was a creature of focused passion.
Her world was her forge, her anvil, the few pieces of metal and the even fewer people she deemed worthy of her attention.
An invitation to anything else was a noteworthy event.
He had declined several in the past, citing duty, fatigue, or simply a desire for quiet.
But tonight, seeing the uncharacteristic seriousness in her gaze, he found his resistance crumbling.
"Fine," he relented, the word tasting like impending trouble.
"One or two. And then I am going home."
Tsubaki's grin was swift and triumphant.
"That's the spirit!"
She led him not to some famed establishment, but to a dimly lit, hole-in-the-wall bar tucked between a small shop and a closed cobbler's.
The air inside was thick with the smell of roasted nuts, strong ale, and old wood.
A few other night owls murmured in booths, but they found a quiet table in the back.
It began, as these things often do, with casual drinks and light banter.
They toasted to a successful dive, to the quality of the weapons she'd tested.
One ale became two.
Two became a bottle of something clear and fierce that the bartender brought out with a wary glance at Tsubaki.
The banter turned to boasts, the boasts to a challenge, and before Draco could properly protest, a line of shot glasses separated them on the table.
It was, of course, a massacre.
Tsubaki, with her half-dwarven blood, had a strong constitution.
She drank the powerful liquor like it was water, her face growing flushed but her eye remaining sharp.
Draco, however, possessed a draconian metabolism that rendered most normal alcohol utterly useless.
For him, it was like drinking slightly flavored water.
He matched her shot for shot, his expression one of growing boredom rather than intoxication.
An hour later, a small forest of empty glasses covered their table.
Tsubaki slammed her final shot down, peered at Draco's unflinching face, and slumped forward with a grunt of defeat.
"Damn you and your… liver," she slurred, her words beginning to tango together.
"You insisted," Draco said calmly, signaling the bartender for a pitcher of water.
What followed was the true trial of the night.
An extremely drunk Tsubaki was a talkative Tsubaki, and her topics of conversation veered into the deeply personal and utterly absurd.
She pointed a wobbly finger at him.
"You. I'm… I'm sorry, okay? 'Bout the Dungeon. Teasing you like that."
Draco raised an eyebrow.
"There's no need. It's what you do."
"No, no, no," she insisted, shaking her head with enough force to almost topple off her stool. "This was different. Wasn't just for fun. Was a… a test. A mission!"
"A mission," Draco repeated flatly.
"For Lady Hephaestus!" Tsubaki declared, as if this explained everything.
She leaned in conspiratorially, her voice dropping to a loud whisper that echoed in the near-empty bar.
"I heard them. Her and your goddess, Bahamut. Talking. In the office."
A cold knot began to form in Draco's stomach.
"What were they talking about?"
"Lady Hephaestus," Tsubaki said, her eye becoming misty with drunken admiration.
"She was asking about you. The way she talked… she seemed interested, Scales. Really interested."
The knot tightened.
Tsubaki's expression then darkened, her features morphing into a scowl.
"And when I! When I heard you were going on a date with lady Bahamut"
She jabbed his chest with her finger.
"I thought… I thought, is this guy a scumbag? Is he playing my goddess? Stringing her along while dating another? I won't stand for it! Nobody hurts Lady Hephaestus's feelings!"
She paused to take a swig from the water pitcher Draco pushed toward her, spilling half of it down her front.
"So the plan!" she continued, wiping her mouth.
"The plan was to test you. Get you alone. Flirt a little. See if you'd take the bait. If you were the kind of guy who'd two-time a goddess, you'd definitely try something on her, charming, and incredibly attractive captain, right?"
She grinned, a proud, drunken smile.
"But you didn't! You were a gentleman. A grumpy, a bit perverted, but a gentleman! So… you're not a scumbag. Just… just lucky, I guess. To have two goddesses maybe interested. 'S not fair."
She finally ran out of steam, resting her head on the sticky table with a thud.
"My head is spinning. Your fault. I feel like ripping off your scales and craft something nice"
Draco sat in stunned silence, staring at the top of Tsubaki's head.
'Is this another test' he wondered.
The somewhat bizarre twists finally made a warped kind of sense.
It had all been a loyalty test concocted by a protective and slightly unhinged daughter.
He felt a strange mix of annoyance, amusement, and a grudging respect for her brutish sense of honor.
He sighed, the sound weary but fond.
"Come on, you drunken fool," he said, sliding an arm under her shoulders and heaving her to her feet.
"Let's get you home before you confess any more of your terrible schemes."
As he half-carried, half-dragged the mumbling smith into the night, his thoughts were no longer just on his waiting goddess, but on Tsubaki and Hephaestus.