It hadn't taken them long to find what they were looking for. The dragon computer systems were almost as easy to hack as the human ones that they so often had to infiltrate. There on the computer screen before them, lay a schematic of the facility and the access to the environmental controls they'd been looking for. They'd guessed right. A medical compound such as this one did indeed have the ability to rigorously change the temperature within, just in case a dangerous pathogen needed containing. Struggling to contain their laughter as they dialled the setting down to its coldest, the nagas looked forward to the short taste of winter they'd missed so much during the preceding weeks, knowing full well just what it would do to any dragons left alive inside the place.
"YOU NEED TO LET ME OUT!" she all but screamed at the doctor in charge and his cohorts, who stood between her and the exit.
"No can do, I'm afraid," he replied smugly. "I was put in charge here for a reason, nurse, and that reason is that my judgement and experience makes me the best dragon to run this facility, and look after all the dragons in it."
The last couple of words came out laboured, a cross between a pant and an asthmatic trying to catch their breath. Odd, everyone seemed to think. That is until they all started to feel it... in their chests and throats at first. An icy chill, much in the same way as drinking the coldest drink possible leaves a biting sensation when it's gone... refreshing on a hot day, not so much at any other time. One of the medics spoke up first.
"They've adjusted the temperature. What are we going to do?"
Everyone looked to the doctor for some guidance. He just stood there, clueless and gormless fighting to see which one would win.
"If we stay here, we'll all be too cold to do anything. I say we find Steel and fight."
The nurse who'd suggested he was already dead opened her mouth to speak, but 'Nurse Conscience' cut her short.
"You're right, he might already be dead. But I'll fight with my dying breath without him if I have to. Much better that way than hunched over, locked in a store cupboard, frozen to death, like the cowards they take us for. I'm done hiding from these cockwombles. I say it's time to take the fight to them."
A rousing cheer reverberated around the small room from everyone but the doctor and his followers. Reluctantly realising he had little choice, he removed the magic in the form of shields, mantras and supernatural locks from the door, and let the others slink out into the corridor. With the last one through, the four of them closed the door, once again applied the defences and wondered if they had indeed done the right thing.
It was only when he started to shiver, that he had any idea that something might be wrong. He'd felt terrible since the encounter with the naga. His head hadn't stopped spinning, and at first he'd thought that whatever was going on was a result of that. Plainly now he could see that it wasn't. The temperature was dropping fast, causing his muscles to burn, legs and arms to shake, and the mother of all headaches to form behind his face. It felt like the worst brain freeze in the world. Staggering on with much more urgency now, almost sprinting into unknown rooms, whereas only a matter of moments ago caution had been the watchword, he knew he needed to find wherever the temperature was being controlled from. And he needed to do it fast. On his way out of his room when this had all first started, he'd gotten a sense that a lot of dragons were holed up in the furthest reaches of the compound, barricaded in from what he could make out. He couldn't blame them. He was as afraid as they were. Only he was used to channelling his fear, something he'd already used to his advantage, and was doing so now to power himself on. If he didn't get that temperature back up, those dragons, the ones that had nursed him back to health, would all die in the most excruciating agony. Determined to prevent that at any cost, he raced around the next corner.
There were eight of them altogether, all being led by 'Nurse Conscience', all heading towards the control centre, where they knew the temperature was being regulated. It was a struggle. Dragons hate cold more than pretty much anything else. As well as the physical pain it causes to them, it can have some other rather disturbing effects. It stops them using their natural gases to produce a flame, or flames in some cases. While not life threatening, it does cause inflammation of the stomach lining and what can only be described as the world's worst case of indigestion, not something a dragon needs. Cold can also make a dragon far less bendable than normal. Most dragon scales when warm are supple, lithe and flexible. But once the temperature changes, they become susceptible to not only a build up of ice in the minuscule gaps between the scales, but the scales themselves can become brittle and easily broken. In the early stages this can slow a dragon down considerably, while in much colder conditions it can lead to an agonising death. A dragon's wings can also be affected by a drop in temperature. The receptors that sense air currents and the warmth of the air can become numb, make the appendages all but useless, flight impossible and cause difficulty in walking because they won't stay tucked in behind a dragon's back where they are supposed to be. The entire group of staff were all suffering from the early stages of this but, to their credit, they were all managing it really well, given just how dire things looked. Creeping towards the end of the corridor, which itself was just along from the control room, 'Nurse Conscience' carefully poked her head around the corner, before swiftly darting it back out of sight. She held up one finger to her lips for all the others to see. None of them moved a muscle. With their attuned dragon hearing, a kind of slip-sliding motion echoed from around the corner somewhere. At first it got louder, seemingly heading in their direction, before tailing off completely. Counting to thirty in her head, she turned to the others and began whispering.
"That naga came out of the control room. It looks like now's our chance. I don't know if there are any more in there. It might be empty, or there might be fifty of his friends all waiting for us. But the longer we wait, the colder we get, and the less chance we have of surviving. I say we go in, guns blazing for everything we're worth. What do you think?"
Each and every one of them nodded eagerly in response. That settled it. Magic at the ready, they moved with all the speed they could muster.
Unusually for dragons, they huddled together to keep warm. Currently though, it was doing little good. It hadn't occurred to them that the storeroom they'd hidden in was dedicated to strange medicines, and had any number of abnormal pathogens been in the building, this was one of the most likely places for them to be stored. With that in mind, the air temperature and recycling system had not one, not two, but three vents into this pokey little room, which as it stood, was one of the coldest parts of the entire building. Still though, they all refused to come out.
Catching his breath in a relatively small cubby hole beside a three metre high stack of drawers that contained all sorts of medical supplies and one off mantras, he rested the deadly, and now because of the cold, rather heavy sword against the wall. His courage had started to wane. He'd searched high and low for something that would lead him to the control room, without any luck. And without finding that, he knew there was little chance of surviving for more than a matter of minutes at most. The tiniest fraction of a fraction of a fraction within him screamed that he should find a way out, but that wasn't him. He wasn't leaving. Not without the others. If nothing else, he knew that. But things were now desperate. His head had gone from spinning to a kind of fuzzy, muzzy feeling. His limbs, wings and tail all tingled. Pins and needles if you like, with an added dash of pain. The only way he could possibly conceive of getting out of here was if the control room was right around the next corner. If it wasn't, they were pretty much all doomed.