D-118: Kronos' Hidden Base

Theme: Dark Hidden Forest

He was a wanderer, staying in one place for long periods of time was unappealing to Kronos. He had always told himself that there was no purpose in having a stationary place of residence. Now however, he realized a stationary base would be very beneficial, somewhere hidden, to drop off loot from raids and travels. He would need to have at least one dragon that would stay at this base and defend it but that wasn’t a current concern. He could steal an egg at a later date. What mattered now was finding a decent place to build a base, so that’s what he was currently doing. He rode upon Diablo as the massive dragon flew lazily through the sky, snorting out fire every once in a while. “There,” he pulled Diablo’s horn down and left, not aggressively but the dragon felt it and dipped to land.

Kronos stood from the saddle he had made for Diablo and tapped his pawed foot twice near the side of Diablo’s head and the dragon lowered it. The vernid slipped under the dragon's large horns and climbed down the smaller ones, as if they were a ladder of sorts. Kronos turned to face what he had been looking at when he told Diablo to land. It was a terribly dark forest, besides the first row of trees the rest was hidden from all light. Diablo gently pushed his head into his rider and let out a low rumble and the vernid reached a clawed hand up, to scratch the dragon's head.

He let out a rumble of his own as he turned to climb back up the dragon’s head and pulled an oil lamp from the saddle before carefully climbing back down. He held the lamb up and Diablo huffed up a little bit of fire and it lit up. “Fly up, I will call you when I find a spot.” Diablo puffed out smoke and with one powerful stroke of his wings he was in the air and then he was hovering above the forest. Despite his best efforts he could not see the dark vernid nor his light.

Kronos wandered the forest, walking around trees. He was in there for quite some time before he finally stopped. He had found a group of massive trees that stood out from the rest of the forest, there were still trees in between them but that didn’t matter. He whistled loudly to make sure he had Diablo’s attention focused on the trees, he then picked up a medium sized rock, found a slight opening in the trees and launched as hard as he could up. He hummed as it thankfully made it past the dense branches and leaves. He could hear the wind rustling the leaves above him and knew Diablo had seen or perhaps he had heard the rock breaking through the forest.

Kronos stood, staring up and trying to pinpoint where exactly Diablo was but unfortunately could not. “Land, gently.” That was all the confirmation the massive dragon needed before he carefully moved towards the ground, the branches he hit cracked and broke and a few of the smaller trees had started to creak to accommodate his large form. When he had his two feet on the ground he looked around before he spotted his rider. When Diablo was landed, Kronos stared at him and the area around the dragon. Diablo didn’t come close to touching the large trees surrounding them. Yes, this could work, using the larger trees as almost landmarks and getting rid of all the smaller trees in the middle.

He would need cover, something to replace the leafy cover that would be erased when the trees in between his landmarks were cut down and reused. He walked over to a small tree close to Diablo, “Whip here.” Diablo rumbled happily and with a loud CRACK his tail whipped at the tree and it fell over, groaning and cracking as it fell slowly to the ground. Kronos was silent before he decided that using Diablo’s tail would not be enough. He would need an axe, which he did not have but he could fix that. With one more glance around him, he beckoned for Diablo to lower his head and he climbed up his horns and settled onto his saddle. He tugged the horns down and Diablo looked up, it wasn’t a hard tug, it never was. It was simply a surprisingly gentle, silent command. Diablo carefully lifted from the ground, careful to not hit his rider on any branches. “We’re going to the closest town.”