Chapter 4: Investigating

Finding the draken's lair was easier than one might have thought. Everyone knew where it was – up in the nearest mountain, halfway up, deep in one of the largest caves available.

With the location came stories, though, stories that put Prowl on edge.

The first five mechs who had tried themselves against the monster had simply disappeared.

The sixth had been found – well, partially. Only his head, sitting on the docks after a payment had been picked up.

The seventh's arm had been dropped in the main square two orns after he had set out.

The eighth had been dropped, screaming, into the Rust Sea, miles from the city; within viewing distance, but far enough away that no one would ever be able to get to him before he sank and the deadly rust ate him away.

The ninth, tenth, and eleventh had journeyed out within orns of each other, and had been strung up between the few crystal trees at the base of the draken's mountain.

The twelfth had simply disappeared, as had the thirteenth. The fourteenth, however, had been sent stumbling back to the town, his own sword through his side; he died within joors of making it back home.

The fifteenth had been welded to the city walls in the dead of the night, still alive, and welcomed the dawn with screams.

And the bloody stories continued.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, more.

The stories of how many had tried, exactly, varied. Some said hundreds, some said thousands, some, and these were those Prowl was most inclined to believe, said something between forty and fifty.

Still, the Praxian wanted a good home for his brother, and, so far, this seemed like the best bet.

And how low Cybertron has sunk, he thought to himself as he started up the face of the mountain, if killing a draken is the best option out there.

Though he wasn't actually planning on killing it yet. He had no intention of becoming the fifty-first example to the city of why not to mess with monsters. If the risks were too great, he would leave it be.

It took joors to reach the cave, and even more to sneak through it without alerting the draken to his presence. Tedious would have been the best description. And nerve-wracking. The monster was sleeping in the deepest part of the massive network of caverns and tunnels, curled up on the pile of riches he had accumulated.

Needless to say, Prowl avoided that room.

But everything else seemed mostly abandoned. Dark, empty caves, full of nothing but dust, mildew, and stagnant air.

The draken, he determined, stayed with his hoard, only leaving to eat and collect the tax.

And that room left no room for an ambush.

It was easy to see how the other hopefuls had been defeated. If one did not look, think, and simply went charging in...

There were enough loose pieces of gold, silver, and gems to alert the monster if a mech ran through them. Even if sneaking, creeping, there was not an inch of empty floor space. Something would move, something would make noise. And the draken's armor, from the little Prowl had seen, would stand up to a fusion cannon blast.

Those mechs never stood a chance.

And Prowl wouldn't, either.

Reluctantly, the Praxian left the cave and went back down the mountain, resigning himself to living with Jazz for a while longer, until he worked up the courage to move on to the next city.