Sulpher

That's not exactly what the princess was expecting, but the unexpected was par for the course in these strange caverns. The creature was still too hot for her to come any closer; it's golden torso was thick and held a round head atop - its arms and legs were both longer than the average person.

"How do you know my name?" quiried the princess. Her voice seemed to resound within the enormous cavern. It echoed from above and all about.

The lava pool continued its burping while the lava man only stood motionless. The heat of the whole chamber was becoming unbearable, yet the princess resolved not to flinch from such a strange adversary.

For some brief moments, the only sound was the fading echo of the princess' voice and the bubbling of the lava pool. Her eyes turned to that pool: it was easily the grandest aperture within the earth that she had ever laid eyes upon. To the north (at least what her senses took to be the north) the lava overflowed and it moved on, slowly, down some endless subteranean path. The odor of sulpher was overwhelming and she coughed some.

"Greetings, Princess Astra," said the creature a second time. "Names I know and air I breath, but you are only human and easily break."

"Then tell me where the dragon is," demanded the princess, her voice cracking a little as it began to dry.

The creature tilted its head. "Dragon? Which dragon? The Menifee or the Malachi? The Munschen or the Mimi? or do you mean the babies?"

~~Babies!!!~ thought Astra. "How many dragons live down here?!?"

"Live?" answered the creature. "Live or visit I do not know. Numbers come and go, are never the same any one day. No matter...they like not me (nor I them)...no matter to you as you shall die soon."

"What?!!?" gasped the princess.

"You breath my air...I said go, but you stay...silly woman."

And with that the creature dissolved into the magma of which it was made and dribbled back into the pool while Princess Astra fell to the ground unconscious. Unbeknownst to her, however, one minute later the sound of screaming entered into the cavernous cavern as a wild-eyed Lord Fred fell from a cold lavatube somewhere in the ceiling and landed into a softer puddle of mud in a near corner of the cave.

He gathered himself, muttering something about strange librarians and began to look for an exit. What he found was the inert body of the princess. Coughing, he grabbed her and began to carry her up the only corridor he saw, up the rock-hewn path and away from the sulpherous chamber.

1. As he walked, Fred saw the corridor branch off. He took the left path but when he turned, he found himself looking face to face at....

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