Or it could turn around and notice her without her intervention, which it did, its head swiveling out of sync with the rest of its body, the plates where the ring was around its neck scraping together.
If it had been a living, breathing dragon Rhyss would be dead. It would not have bothered with so much fire. Instead, it would have used its massive claws to kill her or just eating her whole. Rhyss was just lucky that wasn't what it was designed to do anymore.
If she'd been a proper Guard, with all of the tools and training at her disposal, it would have been her job to try her best at destroying the beast. It was no longer contained by the barrier and the wall might not even stop it for very long. The creature was impossibly massive, impervious to pain and had no regards to its own self-preservation. It was driven only by whatever purpose the power core instilled in it.
It shuffled closer and the power core focused on her.
"Hey! Over here!" Bel's voice rang out behind the dragon. "No! I won't be there! I've told you a hundred times!"
The idiots had left the relative safety of the staircase. She had known that they would do it, but it still made her smile that they hadn't left her behind. Most particularly that Bel hadn't left her behind.
The dragon wavered, confused, and she ran for the exit with everything she had left.
She didn't see Bel and Heln themselves, but she did see Bel's crystal, glowing bright blue and yelling something about dinner. She felt the dragon moving behind her and the temperature around her rose steadily.
She ran up the stairs and through the doorway just as she heard the displacement of air behind her. She was ready to at least let out one final scream when Heln activated his pendant and a white barrier closed around her, Bel stopping her before she ran out the other side. Fire and steam poured through the doorway, and it was not comfortable, but it passed over the shield and left them all unscathed. Rhyss looked back. The dragon had stopped at the hole left by the pillar. One claw reached through, scouring lines in the rock, but it was too narrow for the dragon to fit through.
"Oh good. I figured you were fast, but honestly I think you broke some records there." Bel let go of her shoulders and patted them like she was making sure she wasn't smoldering despite the shield. The dragon screamed, long and loud. They all winced back from the doorway. "Well, since you're in one piece and not currently on fire, shall we?"
The stairs seemed to go on forever, but they ran up as many as they could. To everyone's surprise, including her own, Rhyss was the first one too winded to keep going. Trying to smash the door down had taken more out of her than she'd realized and with the adrenaline fading she was feeling more and more like a used dish rag. She leaned against her knees, gasping for air.
"Well, I haven't heard anything." Bel sounded about as out of breath as Rhyss was and winced when she sat down. When they weren't on stairs leading down into a dragon dungeon pit Rhyss would have to check her for injuries. "I think we're okay to rest now."
Rhyss hit her gently. Bel made a pathetic noise anyway and got a few steps above her, rubbing her arm.
"That was for voting dragon. This is probably not at all your fault but it made me feel better and that's what matters." Rhyss's legs decided they were done holding her up and she sat down. What was left of her braid had come completely undone and the singed ends would probably only reach her shoulder blades.
Her hair had never been that short and she wanted to cry.
"I'm sorry." Bel climbed back down the stairs and Rhyss almost flinched away when she touched her hair. "Here. Let me braid it. I'll trim off the ends, too."
They didn't have time to sit there and attempt to fix her hair. She knew that, Bel probably knew that, too, but she just sat there while Heln dug out his emergency sewing kit. The scissors were tiny and not meant for cutting hair, but Bel seemed to manage.
For a long time the only sound was the snipping and Bel humming under her breath. It was Heln who finally broke the silence. "So. Flesh construct. What is that, exactly?"
"Okay so you can use anything to create a one, right?" Bel said continuing to trim her hair as she spoke. Rhyss probably should have been more alarmed by that, or more invested in the conversation, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything. It was like any energy she'd had was just gone and even talking was too much effort. Besides that, Bel's hands felt wonderful in her hair. She hadn't expected to be so lulled into silence just from that sensation. "As long as there is a power core. Or not, as the case may be, but y'know typically—"
"Bel, get to the point," Heln snapped at her
"Touchy."
"I just got attacked by a dragon."
"An undead dragon, actually, and so did I but you don't see me getting all bitchy about it," Bel said. She swore and fiddled with the scissors a little too close to Rhyss's ear before the snipping resumed. "So. You know. Add that one to the towering pile of nightmares this trip turned into. Anyway, someone figured out that if you shoved a power core into a dead body you animate it basically like any other construct. Magic would hold it together and if there was enough of it even keep the body pretty well preserved. There was this cult like ten years back that made like a whole ton of flesh constructs. They were supposedly some group trying to resurrect their loved ones, but there
