"Where are?" Jocasta asked, climbing reluctantly out of Beren's lap and checking her own limbs to make sure nothing was broken. She peered around a vast cavern, lit only by the body of the wyrm. There was a tunnel that lead upwards, though it was much too steep for man or dwarf to climb. They had rode the avalance of debris down the tunnel that the dragon had used to reach the surface, it was a miracle that none of them had been killed in the fall and there was no likelyhood they could climb back up. Jocasta stood and walked over to the crumpled form of Martinus Morelocke lay burned and broken upon the ground. His right arm was burned to a withered stump and a smile was on his lips. Jocasta quirked a smile to realise the old man had died a dragon slayer. She walked across to the dragon and rummaged in her satchel, tossing away pieces of debris that had accumulated from the fall.

"What are you doing?" Beren asked as Jocasta produced a short knife and plunged it into the dragons body.

"Stop that!" Varin hissed, but Jocasta ignored him.

"Waste not," she replied, tongue peaking from the corner of her mouth. "Want not," she concluded as she pulled free a dragon scale and stuffed it into her pouch. She took a phial from her pouch and felt along the palid flesh below, then made another quick stroke of her knife. Brackish blood began to flow and she began collecting it in the flask.

"This would be worth a fortune back at the university," she explained, plucking away several more scales in a similar fashion.

"Look here!" Radsvir shouted, lifting a dwarven cave lantern to one of the cavern walls. It was no wall at all, but masonry fashioned in the strange fashion of the dwarves. A vast door of some dull metal was sat into it, carved with runes that reflected the lantern light.

"It's a hold door," Otar breathed in amazment, "The beast was trapped between a dwarven door and a humans curse."

"What does it say?" Jocasta called over her shoulder, still engaged in her grizzly salvage. Otar moved to the door and peered up at the runes in reverence.

"Speak friend and enter," Otar reported.

"What does that mean?" Beren asked.

"It's a riddle," Buri declared. "We just say the dwarvish word for friend and the door will open."

"Yalshi," Otar called out in a commanding voice. Nothing happened.

"Well that was a stuipd idea," Jocasta observed tartly.