Lycan Subscribe: Dragontooth Caverns
A lot of great ideas come from internet prompts – like this one: a werewolf influencer who’s handle is “Lycan Subscribe.”
Having no experience with being an influencer, that didn’t connect with me. However, being a failed youtuber? That I know very, very well.
I hope you enjoy Lycan Subscribe: Dragontooth Caverns.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Felix said, turning the camera to face him, “What’s up, everyone! It’s your favorite wolfy boi, hanging in the wrong side of the night!”
He looked past the camera to the three other teens gathered around the entrance to Dragontooth Caverns. “Think that’s good enough for the take?”
“Yeah, we can cut from that to the intro,” Mike said, holding out his hand for the camera. He was the only one of them who any actual training in videography – if a two-week summer film camp could be counted as training.
“Wolfy boi?” Eloise asked, cocking an eyebrow. Besides being the solo female talent in the group, she was a musical guru, somehow making their videos sound incredible without costing them a cent. Beyond that, she had a reputation for being the most critical.
“That’s what I am,” Felix said, throwing up two peace signs.
“Please tell me someone caught that on camera,” Eloise said, “Because that’s quite frankly the dumbest thing I think you’ve ever done. And that’s saying something, my wolfy boi.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Why did we let your sister come, Jasper?”
The final member, a quiet boy with a reddish hair, shrugged. “She invited me, not the other way around.”
That was true. During their first video shoot, about a year ago, Jasper wasn’t allowed to be alone, so Eloise had brought him. All it took was getting him in front camera to bring out something inside him that had never been seen before. Felix might do dumb stunts, but Jasper was a ham.
It had been almost a year of their channel, Lycan Subscribe. He, Mike and Eloise had done it as a joke, having seen some meme or other. They had started with “Werewolf Myths,” breaking down misconceptions about werewolves by acting them out. They thought it was going to be one-off, something they could rewatch every so often and laugh at.
But then their friends starting asking when the next video was going to drop. They started sending ideas for myths to debunk. By the end, they had done three Werewolf Myths videos, and so they starting doing others: Satyr Myths, Werebear Myths, Dragon Myths – the list continued, and could have been infinite, if they hadn’t, as a one-off, done an exploration video.
Their school had taken them to Eshuel’s Canyon in upper Arrunson. Like Dragontooth Caverns, where they stood now, it was connected to the Evernight, which meant that as they entered, they changed to their lycanthrope forms.
Fortunately, like most schools in remote towns in Arrunson, there had been no hiding their identity. Larger cities, closer to the American population, had to be more careful, but no one cared about Derrinsburg High. For them, it was a typical Tuesday night when the seven were-creatures changed into their alternate forms.
The three of them (Jasper, two years younger, hadn’t come on the trip) had ranged deeper into the canyon during lunch, filming as they did. They imitated their tour guide, giving random facts, some real and some made up, in the most deadpan voices they could. When they got back, they collaged some of the footage into a video, and it went viral in the school, then into the entire magical community.
Now, not only were classmates giving them places to check out, teachers were offering extra credit for educational videos in the same style, with the stipulation that all the information had to be true. Felix still pushed the boundary on that one, but he usually added fact checks in the description, just for clarity – and his grade.
This was their third ‘Exploration’ video. The second had been a trip to the Miracle Mile, a diner that only existed in the night. That, too, had been a random encounter – stumbling on it during an overnight drive. This trip, though, had been planned to the finest detail.
“Okay, Felix, you’re up first,” Eloise said, looking at her notebook. “Walk backwards into the cave and give Speech One. We’ll film it.”
Felix gave a nod, then remembered that he was supposed to verbalize that he was ready. “Okay, go,” he said, starting to move backwards. “Dragontooth Caverns was discovered in the late 1500s by European explorers. However, it had been a dwelling place for the locals since who knows when.” They would mix this footage with colonialist and indigenous pictures gleaned from the local historical society. “The settlers called it Dragontooth Caverns because of the stalagmites and stalactites that created an image of a dragon’s mouth.” He traced his hand over one of the stalagmites, smiling down at it. “You can almost see it, can’t you? Of course, we know that no dragon has ever grown to this size.”
He lifted his hand, and the camera panned away, taking in the top of the entrance. It was about fifteen or twenty feet up – Felix hoped no dragon was that large.
“Okay, while we’re here and thinking of it,” Mike said as he finished the pan, “Everyone go ahead and get some shots of the entrance, especially close-ups of the stalagmites and stalactites. And get shots of each other walking through them and looking at them, like a nature documentary. It’ll be great, trust me.”
Each took a camera or used their phones to start shooting in a loose circle. It fell quiet as they did, and the sound of the night animals filled the air.
Felix was taking an upward shot of Jasper when Eloise shouted, “Hey! Guys, check it out!”
She was just outside of the cave entrance, on a dirt access road that they hadn’t seen on their map. They had parked in the official lot, about a half-mile hike up toward the road. However, this dirt strip was clearly attached to the main road as, in front of her, was a brightly colored Volkswagen Minibus. It was decorated with wild shapes and designs, most noticeably including a bright ”Jeopardy” toward the back.
“What’s that?” Mike asked, stepping up behind her.
Eloise gave him a half-look and shrugged. “If I knew, I’d probably tell you.”
“It appears to be a hippy van,” Jasper said quietly.
His sister threw him a glare and said nothing.
Felix cleared his throat. “You think they’re still in there?” he asked, indicating Dragontooth Caverns.
“Probably,” Mike said. He and Felix exchanged looks. “Do you think we shouldn’t go in?” he asked.
“They’re probably just exploring like we are,” Felix said with a shrug. “I say let’s keep going. We’re here, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to drive all the way out here again.”
There was mumbled agreement, but as they turned away, Mike suddenly said, “Was anyone filming? That’s great footage to use.”
“I was,” Jasper said, lifting up his camera. “I didn’t get a great shot of Felix talking, but I did of everyone looking at it.”
“And I was filming when I found it, and when I called you over,” Eloise said. “So there should be something useable.”
“Great,” Mike said with a thumbs up. “Then the cave it is.”
They returned to the mouth, where Mike set up a camera on a tripod to get shots of the entire group walking in together. They took a few different angles, close-ups and distance shots, then continued deeper into Dragontooth Caverns.
“The original name for the cavern by the locals,” Felix told Jasper’s willing camera as they walked, “Is roughly translated, ‘cave that looks a whole heck of a lot like a dragon’s mouth.’ But that’s just a mouthful to say.” He laughed at the unintentional pun, then pushed the camera away. Jasper panned it over and up. Mike would do something with that, Felix was sure.
The light from the mouth of the cavern was struggling to reach them now, and all of them could feel the Evernight’s presence grow. It started, as it always did for Felix, as a tingling in his chest. In other situations, he would call it heartburn – under a full moon or in the freedom of the Evernight? Metamorphoses was about to occur.
“Who wants to be first?” Mike asked, pausing. All of them knew that within a few feet, they would be changed. The boundary was before them, and no matter how hard they fought, they wouldn’t be able to retain their human appearance.
“Maybe our favorite wolfy boi hanging on the wrong side of the night,” Eloise deadpanned, throwing a look at Felix.
Mike shrugged. He knew he didn’t want to be first, and Felix was the general frontman for the channel. Jasper and Eloise were close seconds, but Eloise didn’t like to admit that she liked the attention. Jasper, on the other hand, was still young to have the responsibility, at least in Felix’s eyes. So, pragmatically, he shrugged and accepted it.
“Just walk backwards,” Mike said, “Preferably through that dark patch there.” He pointed to where a larger stalactite cast a deep shadow. “That way, when you come out the other side, you’ll be were’d.”
“He’s always weird,” Eloise muttered, earning a laugh from Jasper, who had been filming.
“Great content for a blooper reel,” he said as Felix faced the camera, preparing to walk through the shadow.
When Mike had taken his film class, Felix and Eloise had taken a drama intensive. Felix drew on every second he had spent in camp as he recited Speech Two. “The Dragontooth Caverns one of the rare places where the veil to the Evernight draws thin. For people like me…” He stepped into the shadow, disappearing from the camera’s view. The change was quicker than normal – the Evernight was like that – and by the time he stepped back into the half-light, he was fully transformed. “…the effects,” he said, his voice deeper and more of a growl through the sharp canines in his mouth, “are quite noticeable.”
Like most werewolves, he had worn slightly baggy clothing to allow for the muscle growth. He filled his shirt now, his arms feeling like a professional wrestler’s when compared with his human sized body. His tail, broad and bushy, was the most awkward part of the transformation. Like most lycanthropes, he had a reverse fly, or as most people called it, a bum flap, in his pants, just for this purpose. Still, trying to force the tail through any type of clothing was a tremendous pain in the… well, in the same general area as the tail.
He lifted his camera, hiding it from the view of the other cameras as they bounded forward, changing as they came. Eloise and Jasper had a reddish tint to their fur, Jasper’s being more prominent. Mike was covered in dark brown fur, except for a white crease running from his forehead back and over the top of his scalp. Felix spun as they ran past – it would make for a cool transition later.
They continued into the caves, the roof coming down to meet them as they wound their way through the paths. Red and blue arrows, painted in glowing fluorescents, marked paths in and around the stalagmites. Even without the lights, they glowed dimly, allowing travelers to find their way back out to safety.
Every so often, one of them would stop to stare at one of the wondrous formations. “That one looks like a carrot,” Eloise said.
“They all look like carrots,” Felix scoffed.
“Yeah, but not all of them have a leafy top,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“That one looks like a top hat,” Jasper said, zooming in on one.
“Wait, guys,” Mike said, “We’re here.” He clicked his flashlight off, slipping it into one of his pockets.
The others followed suit, catching their breath as the stalagmites and stalactites lit up around them. “It’s like standing in the middle of the stars,” Jasper breathed quietly.
“Even better,” Eloise said, spinning in a slow circle.
They would have stayed there, stunned by the beauty of the glowing caverns, if there hadn’t been a shout of anger and desperation ahead, followed by a loud crash, ending in a long grinding noise.
“What the…” Mike said. He lifted a hand – even in the dim light, their lupine eyes could see him clearly. “No one turn your lights on. Come on.”
“What’s going on?” Jasper asked, stepping in next to Felix.
“I don’t know,” Felix said, peering into the caverns beyond. “Just be quiet and we’ll figure it out.”
A voice echoed from further in, but from how far, they couldn’t tell. “No! Don’t you dare!”
“Someone’s in trouble,” Mike said, running forward. Felix ran close behind with Eloise and Jasper. The shouts grew louder, as did an ominous rumbling noise.
“That’s not how this one ends! We’re going to get you back to your family!”
A muffled voice responded, but no one could make out the words.
“Should we let them know we’re here?” Felix asked Mike.
Mike grunted, focusing on running. “Probably.” He and Felix both raised their voices.
“Hey! We’re coming! Is everything okay?”
The rumbling had turned to a creaking and groaning. The voice shouted back, “Who is that? What are you doing here?”
“We’re explorers!” Felix shouted back. “We’re filming the caverns.” Maybe that was too much information? He narrowly avoided running into Mike, who had stopped mid-step. “What are you doing?” he hissed, more embarrassed than angry.
“The path splits,” Mike said, looking down. “So do the trails.” He raised his voice. “Where are you? Red or blue?”
“Red!” the voice shouted. “How many of there are you? There are three of us here, but one of us is stuck and the other is hurt.”
“Four of us,” Felix shouted back, taking the red path. “And we’re pretty brawny. Tell them to hang on, we’re coming!”
There was no response, but they could hear the voice talking to someone. They bounded around the last few corners, coming to what looked like a dead end.
A young man, probably in his twenties or early thirties, crouched besides a dark form sitting against the wall. Even in the low light, his pale skin shown up clearly. As he looked closer, Felix identified the lump as a young woman of the same age. Her dark skin melded with the dark brown of the earth behind her head.
The man looked up as he saw them come in. The groaning was louder now, and the man raised his voice to be heard. “Oh. Werewolves. Didn’t expect that, but that one is on me. It is the Dragontooth Caverns, and we are in the Evernight.”
“What’s going on?” Mike asked, assessing the situation. The dead end was, in fact, a partial collapsing of the tunnel. His eyes widened, snarling in shock.
“As far as I know,” the man said, “Radarack – my friend – is still alive.” He sighed, motioning to the pile of rock. A long pole was stuck into it, propped to stand at an angle. “I was able to jam that in, and I think I’ve stopped it coming any further, but I don’t dare push or pull on it.” He looked around. “Maybe with all of us, we could clear it?”
Mike examined the rock pile, Felix looking over his shoulder.
“What’s the groaning noise?” Jasper asked, looking around.
“I don’t know,” the man replied. “But I don’t want to find out.”
Eloise was crouching next to the woman, looking at her arm. “What happened to you?” she asked.
The woman grimaced. “I got hit in the first collapse. I think my arm’s just out of socket or sprained. Nothing’s broken, though.”
“You said his name was Radarack?” Mike asked, walking toward the pile. The man nodded as Mike called the name loudly.
“I’m here,” the other voice said. It was a deep voice, heavily accented. Felix didn’t recognize from where. “But the ceiling doesn’t look stable. I think I should head deeper. There might be another exit.”
The man raised his voice. “No, Radarack. We can’t bank on that. We can get you back out.”
“I’m sorry. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, Mr. Hendricks,” Radarack said. “The ceiling is not going to hold much longer. I need to move before I get trapped under a landslide.”
“Radarack,” Mr. Hendricks said, his voice clear and crisp, filled with an authority that surprised Felix, “We have to get you out. As far as we know, there’s no way out on that side. You’ll starve, or die of dehydration. You have to come back out this way.”
“Any digging you do will just make the tunnel collapse,” Radarack said. His voice was louder, fighting against the constant grating of the rock precariously balanced between the floor and ceiling.
“We need to get out of here,” Jasper said, looking up, where the pile of stones met the rock. “That can’t be stable for long.”
“We can help you find some way back there,” Mike said. “But that doesn’t look stable, and that noise is just getting worse.”
“At the very least,” Eloise said, “Let’s get your friend out of here.”
“Her name is Izza,” Mr. Hendricks said. He looked over at her. “What do you think?”
“Seems pretty dangerous,” she said. “But if we’re in jeopardy…” She trailed off as Mr. Hendricks chuckled. “If that ceiling collapses, we’re done for. But we gotta get Radarack back.”
The man opened his mouth to respond when the creaking noise pitched up again. Jasper, still studying the pile, saw the movement first. He shouted a warning, but it did nothing to stop the rocks from sliding away from the top, multiplying as they did so.
Felix reacted immediately, picking up Mr. Hendricks by the waist and bounding the way he came. Eloise did the same to Izza, pulling them away as the space they had just occupied was pelted by falling stones.
“Put me down!” Mr. Hendricks roared with that same authority as he had carried earlier. Once a safe distance, or at least what Felix assumed was a safe distance, he did so, turning back to look at the space. Mike and Jasper were right behind him, while Eloise was just a little ahead. The minor landslide had stopped, but the groaning noise had just barely quieted, warning of more danger to come.
“Radarack!” Mr. Hendricks shouted. It echoed into the dust-filled corridor and into silence. A beat passed. Then a second. Then, faintly, a shout in response.
“I am still alive! I’m going to go on, Mr. Hendricks!” The voice broke by coughing. “The dust is thick here. And I am worried about further landslides. I must move into the caverns for safety. I will see you again, Mr. Hendricks. I promise you that!”
“No! Radarack!” Mr. Hendricks shouted again, but the groaning drowned him out. Another release of rock and dirt rolled into the pathway.
“We need to go,” Mike said, looking at the other werewolves. He narrowed his eyes at Mr. Hendricks. “Don’t make us leave you here, please.”
“Izza,” Mr. Hendricks said, looking over at his companion, “Are we sure there are no other entrances?”
“We can’t know for sure,” Izza said. “The main one is the only one I know of.” She looked at the wolves standing around her. “Do you know of any other entrances or exits?”
“Not this far in,” Eloise said. The other echoed, looking at each other in silent query.
Mr. Hendricks cursed under his breath. “We can’t just let him die in there,” he said.
“We could call the police?” Jasper said, “Or firefighters, or whoever digs out cave-ins?”
“A dwarf would be handy right now, yeah,” Mr. Hendricks muttered. “You wouldn’t happen to know any, right?” He looked around at their confused expressions. “I figured. Most of them have desk jobs these days.” He let out an exasperated sigh, hitting the wall in frustration.
“We can call Mr. Bentham,” Izza said. “Or Miss Blackstone. Both have resources we can use.”
“But Chesterfield is part of this whole mess,” Mr. Hendricks said, trying to whisper, as if it were confidential, but everyone heard him clearly. “And until we know why, or how, I don’t know if we can involve him or anyone from the Agency.”
“We have to,” Izza said. “There’s no other way. We have to get Radarack back, Stef. If we had an alternative, I’d take it, but we don’t have one. It’s Bentham or Blackstone.”
Mr. Hendricks seethed, but it seemed like Izza had won the argument. He looked around at the werewolves. “Can you lead us out of here?”
“Yeah,” Felix said. “We just need to follow the arrows out.” He nodded toward the floor.
“I can’t see the floor,” Mr. Hendricks said. “We left our flashlights back under that rock pile.”
“Oh, right,” Felix said. “Okay, well, follow us, I guess.”
They made their way back in silence. Every so often, Izza and Mr. Hendricks would say something to each other in hushed tones. While everyone heard the words, they made no sense to anyone else. The names “Chesterfield” and “Guilderbrand” were said a few times, along with the other two names – “Bentham” and “Blackstone” – all were usually combined with anger or confusion.
As they reached the front entrance, the Evernight faded, as did their lupine bodies. Felix ruffled his hair, which was even more of a mess than usual. It always happened during transformations.
Mr. Hendricks raised an eyebrow as he saw their human forms. “You’re just kids,” he said.
“Barely younger than when we started,” Izza said quietly. She gave them a pleasant expression. It wasn’t a smile exactly, but it was close.
“We’re old enough to get things done,” Felix said, with a quick jut of his chin.
Eloise snorted. Mike sighed. Jasper practiced the motion.
Mr. Hendricks shook his head slightly and turned away. He went to walk toward the dirt access road, but paused. “Listen. What happened here tonight…” He looked around at the loose group they had formed. “We’re going to take care of it. This is what we do.” He motioned to the Caverns with in his head. “Well, not usually like this exactly, but our job is crisis management. We’ll get Radarack out, no worries.” He paused, looking each in the eyes. “What I’m asking is that you don’t involve other normal authorities. You’re all magical creatures, and Radarack is, too. A normal police officer or firefighter isn’t going to understand the situation.”
The Lycan Subscribe team looked around at each other, unsure. It was Izza who convinced them. “You guys have every right to go to the police. But think about how a human would treat you if they saw you under the full moon. We need a specialized team for this, and we know how to find that team.” She grunted as she moved her free hand into her pocket. “Maybe this will help, maybe not. But here’s our card.” She handed a business card to the closest hand, which happened to be Jasper.
“The Jeopardy Team?” he read, looking up in confusion.
“As long as we’re in Jeopardy, we’re safe,” Mr. Hendricks said with a smile.
“That’s a dumb motto,” Eloise said.
“It would take too long to explain,” Izza said. She gave them another look. “I’m not going to ask if we can trust you. We don’t have any way of stopping you from going to the police. But please don’t. Just trust us that we’re going to do our job.”
“I…” Felix started, looking at the others, “I think I do.”
“I guess I do, too,” Mike said. He gave a tight expression. “Do you think you’ll get him back?”
“We’ll do it,” Izza said.
Mr. Hendricks nodded. “This is what we do. Trust me.”
They turned away, Izza leaning on Mr. Hendricks. The teens stood for a second, then finally Mike said, “We gotta get back to the car.”
“What was that?” Felix asked as they started the hike back to the car, throwing looks over their shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Eloise said. “I’ve heard of the Jeopardy Team, though. They say they’re involved with some kind of magical agency.”
“Magical agency?” Felix scoffed. “Doing what?”
“Taking care of magical problems,” Eloise said, “I don’t know. Any posts that come up get taken down almost as fast.”
Felix hummed a response. But inwardly, he was realizing that he hadn’t ever stopped recording. It might not be the best footage, but he had it.
The question was, though, what might the recording reveal? And if this Jeopardy Team was as mysterious as Eloise said, what might it be worth?
