They knew soon enough.

The air changed. Cold wind blew out of nowhere, and the sky started darkening rapidly. The sun glowed as if trying to reclaim the sky, but it was soon lost.

Then a great storm of ice and snow came out of nowhere, and everyone ran. The monsters picked them up and ran for the safety of their lair.

A moment later, snow had covered everywhere, and the wind was blowing bitterly as if it had been snowing for a long time. The sky darkened.

Azaroth understood then. He understood why the scale monsters wanted to take the furs. And now he knew why the sun melted the snow so quickly.

It was designed that way. Extreme cold and extreme heat in the blink of an eye. That was something he had never heard before, and Azaroth wondered at its implications for them.

The monster’s lair was cold and dark. It stunk of rot and scales, and the ground was littered with bones picked clean of flesh.

"Okay... I think this is enough playtime. We should finish this quickly by killing them," Stallus whispered.

Azaroth paused. That was the most logical point, but does that mean that the death and punishment in this doorway were fake and nothing more than something to scare them?

Now Azaroth was a little hesitant about what to do. Should he or should he not? Their weapons were still far from them, but he reckoned that they could take a lot of the monsters down to get to them.

Azaroth narrowed his eyes. What could their objective in coming to these doorways be? It must be survival. And the best way to survive right now is to learn.

They should learn and then do anything to survive later. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"No. The monsters know how to survive in this kind of place. We try to learn how they do it. We attack after we learn all that. For now, stick with the plan," Azaroth ordered.

Not much to do then. The monsters left them alone with their hands free, and then the four obviously strong monsters dressed themselves in their fur cloaks and put the hoods around their heads.

They looked like the white fur monsters.

Their leader and the four went out into the cold and snow. All other scale monsters came to the edge of the holes to look at their leader and the four.

The leader went out as if this was the first time he would be trying snow.

"I get it now," Alex said. "They are using the fur for protection against the cold. The cold must be very dangerous to them since they are monsters without fur of their own."

Stallus nodded. "And that’s what they are probably keeping us alive for. To help them get more fur."

"I can’t imagine the other monsters, the fur ones, like the change in weather either. It’s like night and day," Alex nodded at his own reasoning.

After the monsters tested themselves in the cold and saw that they were not feeling it, they let loose with a loud hissing, and then surprisingly, they began to burrow into the snow. It didn’t take them long to be gone from sight.

Camouflaged by the snow.

Then the monsters became silent as if they knew what was to happen next and they didn’t like it.

Azaroth had his suspicions, and he was proven right when the snow-furred monsters came. They came in a large pack of twenty-seven, and their growling was deep and shook the bones.

The monsters ascended and then they descended on the scale monsters like a snowstorm. It was as if they were empowered by the snow and the scale monsters made weaker by it.

They clashed, and it soon became apparent that the snow monsters had the upper hand. Their claws were like thin ice, and they opened the scales of the monsters easily.

The scale monsters, on the other hand, were having problems cutting them with all the fur in the way. It seems the explosive strength they showed earlier was gone with the sun.

Azaroth and the others found themselves in one corner to protect themselves. And the scale monsters were wise enough to protect the people that could make their fur for them.

Azaroth thought the scale monsters would all die here, but the battle changed suddenly. Five fur monsters, different from the rest, smashed their way in and killed their fellows with black claws and just good old bashing of heads.

He frowned. So putting on the fur and protecting themselves from the cold gave them this much power?

The fur monsters realized almost too late, but they still had time to retreat and make a run for it. And they managed to take some of their dead with them.

All in all, the fur monsters were the ones with the successful attack because they killed far more of the scale monsters than was killed of their pack.

The scale monsters hissed over their corpses and praised their leader with short whistles. Then they began. They brought the fur monsters to Azaroth and the others.

And left a dead scale monster with them.

Stallus pointed at the fur monsters. "That, I understand. But what should we do with that?" Then she pointed at the scale monster.

Catena mused, "Maybe we are meant to eat it?" They didn’t know how long they were unconscious, but there was one thing happening to them. They were hungry.

They looked at Azaroth and Alex asked, "Can you make fire in here? We don’t think we can eat it raw... can we?"

Azaroth didn’t know if they could make fire either. They were in a cave with snow surrounding them. And who knows how the monsters will react to that? "If we have dried wood, then why not? We should be able to make some fire."

They shared looks. Because the question now was, how do they get wood? Should they ask the monster? That seems almost impossible.