The dragon Dalfribble collapsed in the archway between two grottos, gasping for breath. Mocking, high-pitched laughter echoed through the caverns. Dalfribble lowered his eye ridges and bared his teeth. Pushing himself from the cavern floor he grimly set forth after his elusive prey.
Ahead, in the dim glow moss light along the walls, Dalfribble saw the wizard's manikin scramble into the open on long, spindly legs. The golem grinned and raising one three fingered hand stuck up the center finger, then turned with a maniacal laugh and ran into the intersecting corridor.
Dalfribble roared with fury and ran after the diminutive thief. He stretched his long leathery neck to its farthest as his broad, ridge-scaled tail thrashed. Dalfribble's stomach flamed with acid as his mind threw up all the horrible possibilities of what the Wizard of the Black Tower could do with access to every dimensional reality. Whatever the cost, he thought grimly, The Jewel of Everywhere must not reach his evil grasp.
Dalfribble screamed in frustration as he saw the golem near a small tunnel it had dug into the Glowing Caverns. His roar reverberated off the walls, the echoes causing stones to fall from the ceiling.
The golem yelped, and dodged falling rocks to run from the shower of dirt and debris raining over the small escape tunnel. Dalfribble skidded to a stop, and turned hastily from the collapsing passageway. He raised his tail higher as he bent low for maximum escape speed, missing his chance to catch the golem who ran under his three-toed feet.
Escaping the doomed passageway the golem fled back toward Dalfribble's treasure room, and the stream bed to the main entrance. Dalfribble cut the golem off, forcing it to dodge into the nearest down shaft.
Down corridors, across caverns, up and down the maze of passages the chase continued until Dalfribble found himself in an area he hadn't been since his early skither years. With a gloating grin he looked around. Yes, there it was - a lot lower than he remembered, but still there.
Dalfribble reared and crawled into the narrow space. Carefully climbing the steeply slanted chimney Dalfribble edged his way upward. After a few hundred feet the chimney reverted and sloped down at a 34 degree angle with a gentle half-turn near the bottom.
Silently, Dalfribble eased downward. Reaching the shoot bottom he peeked out. The golem stood with his back to the slide, looking around the edge into the next cavern. Dalfribble grinned. Slowly, carefully, he slide from the shoot, and stalked the unsuspecting manikin. With a triumphant roar, that caused the construct to jump, Dalfribble pounced on his prey.
Sitting up, Dalfribble held the kicking golem against his chest with one arm and a taloned hand. With the other hand he snatched the magical ring from around the golem's neck and slid it onto his smallest talon. With great satisfaction Dalfribble tore the construct to pieces, knowing that far away in the Black Tower the wizard would be screaming his own pain, an echo of the manikin's death screams.
Plodding back to his treasure room Dalfribble considered his options. If the wizard had sent a human or elf to steal the Jewel of Everywhere, they could have used its power to flee and he could not do anything about it. Dalfribble shook his head. "There's no other option," he muttered to himself. "I'll have to risk using the jewel myself to flee Elsewhere beyond the wizard's reach." The idea of trusting his life to the unknown made Dalfribble shudder. Flaming stomach acid scalded his craw in protest.
Hours later, Dalfribble stood outside his birth caverns. With his treasure safe within a magical Box of Holding strapped on his broad back, he looked through tear-misted eyes upon his native world. One last time he watched the sky light with morning's green glow. Dalfribble looked at the ring on his talon and concentrated on the glowing red drop in the midnight black stone. A far Otherwhere with a yellow star, and a single continent surrounded by a great ocean filled his inner sight. His brain felt nauseous as he sensed himself plunge, spinning, through vast extra-dimensional emptiness. Dalfribble vanished.