Now, Sable didn’t know what lay outside of her (until-just-now) comfy spawning cave, but she was pretty sure the glaring whiteness at the end of the tunnel would be safer than the towering gray-skinned troll charging her.

The assumption turned out mostly right. Sable fled, moving awkwardly in her new body, and with the creature’s heavy footsteps growing closer with each passing second. Finally, she reached the end of the cave. She didn’t slow. She threw herself outside, trusting that out was better than in.

And, sure. It worked. Suddenly, she was safe from the troll. In fact, the troll wasn’t a problem at all, now. The bad news was why.

She’d flung herself off a cliff.

She flailed, weightless, eyes adjusting to the bright light of the outside world. Panicking, she caught glimpses of a snow-covered landscape, and the glare of white coating every inch of the mountainous region blinded her—but only for a second. A long, valuable second, considering how she’d hurled herself into open air. But eventually her eyes adjusted.

Again, Sable’s dragon-body took over where her panicking human-self failed. Her writhing form steadied itself, her wings stretching out wide to catch the wind buffeting as she fell. Her descent slowed, jerkily, as her enormous wings stabilized her. Or, sort of stabilized. Her wing muscles strained as she turned a fumbling nose-dive into a kind-of glide, trying desperately to trade so much vertical velocity into horizontal. The ground rushed up to meet her, but less rapidly, second by second.

Dragons were probably pretty hard to kill, but Sable had thrown herself off a cliff, and she was just a baby dragon. A fall from that height—the cave had been seriously far up—could do some damage if she didn’t right herself. She gave it her best effort. And even managed a half-way good result.

Not a perfect one, though. She wouldn’t give herself too much credit. Her entire body strained as she tried desperately to even out. Whatever she was doing, it wasn’t flying. She had some instincts, but not a full set. She was still awful at getting her body to do what she wanted. Plus, her launch hadn’t been conducive to a good first flight.

Her air buffer disappeared in seconds, and—barring any better options—Sable decided that a half-controlled crash into choice real estate was better than an eventual no-choice-in-the-matter crash. She guided herself into the softest-looking section of mountain, where the snow looked thickest.

She impacted at some obscene speed. Even the thick blanket of snow could only eat so much of the insane velocity she’d picked up. She hit hard. She buried into the fluff of the mountain, throwing up plumes, and compacting snow until it became ice, and her cushioned crash became very much not cushioned.

Sable was pretty sure she blacked out. An unknown amount of seconds, or minutes, later, she groaned and thrashed, coming back to life. She was buried. She couldn’t breathe, snow packing every inch of her body, into her nostrils. She scrambled desperately, clawing “upward”. Away from the hard-packed snow.

Her powerful limbs cleared the fluff without issue. What she’d been terrified of, though, was choosing the wrong direction—getting lost in the white like a drowning person did in water.

But she didn’t. She broke through, then crawled up and collapsed across the ground, body aching. Dizzy, she looked around, trying to see if the troll had pursued her, but she couldn’t even identify the cave opening where she’d come from. It hadn’t followed. Couldn’t have followed. She’d taken too creative a shortcut.

For several long minutes, she panted in the snow. Her neck, shoulder, and back—the dragon equivalents, at least—ached horribly. She could move fine, so she guessed she wasn’t paralyzed.

Eventually, she climbed to her feet. A nap sounded heavenly, and moving the opposite, but she needed to take stock of things. Sure, she’d escaped the mountain troll, but wasn’t safe, crash-landed into a random mountain side.

Who knew what was out here? Clearly, any number of fantasy monsters were possible, considering she was a dragon, and had been attacked by a troll. Maybe there were yetis roaming the mountainside. Why not?

She looked around, taking in her surroundings.

For a second, the aches and pains faded, the majesty of the jagged, snow-capped mountains taking her breath away. She was high. As in, Mount Everest high, not that Sable had ever been there—so, what she imagined it was like.

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The tiny trees sprawled far beneath her were an ocean of green. She hadn’t found herself in a tundra. The mountain peaks she perched on were simply high enough that frost was their natural, everlasting state. About two thirds down the sloping face, the snow turned to pine trees, loosing its monochrome, wintery grip.

Sable also realized, for the first time, how warm she was. Or … not warm. But not cold. For being in the frost-bitten mountain peaks, the piercing temperature wasn’t affecting her. Benefit to being a dragon, she guessed? Now that she was paying attention, she realized there was a radiating heat deep in her breast, keeping her warm.

Dragons could breathe fire, couldn’t they? Was that what that overpowering sensation in her core was? Could she summon it, if she tried?

Sable was interested, but she held off on experimentation. It was high on her list, but immediate safety mattered more.

What was her plan?

She’d been reborn as a dragon. Sure. That much had digested. She was also in a dangerous world with monsters more than willing to turn her into dragon fillet. Safety was goal one. After that, food and water?

Shelter first. Somewhere to cozy up, safe. A place to think, most importantly. There was a lot of stuff she had to puzzle over, not least being the three class choices she’d been so rudely interrupted from. After that, she needed a plan before she set out.

So what shelter was there? A new cave? Seeing how the last one had been inhabited by a mountain troll, maybe not. But where else?

The mountain tops were covered with jagged stones sticking up here and there, piercing the banks of white. Some were sandwiched in just a way that she could take cover. Since freezing to death didn’t seem to be a concern, she supposed she didn’t need to find a cave, somewhere safe from the elements—hiding underneath a rock or between two jagged spires would be more than enough for her temporary goals.

Then, once she’d figured out her class stuff, and also tried out her hopefully innate fire breathing abilities, then she could get a handle on flying. From there, the world was her oyster. A very big, very foreign, very terrifying oyster.

Body still aching from her collision, Sable limp-trotted through thick, fluffy snow, heading for the nearest shelter: an outcropping of jagged gray rocks.

Once she’d limped there, and with a solid slab of stone above her, shielding her from the open air, Sable’s first instinct was to check on her ‘status’.

[ HP: 18,402 / 25,000 ]

[ MP: 1,500 / 1,500 ]

Clearly, she was in a world that operated on RPG principles, insane as that should have been, and so her aching limbs, neck, and back prompted her to see if there was a statistical indicator of her healthiness. As it turned out, there was. And also, her mana-iness. Whatever ‘mana’ was used for.

Sable wasn’t an expert on RPGs, but ‘25,000’ felt like a big number for a level one. She would’ve expected something in the tens or hundreds to start off with. Was it because of her race? ‘Dragon’? Her inspection of [Notoriety] and [Hoard] had made it clear dragons were as fearsome and intimidating as traditional lore would suggest. So, even as a level one fledgling, she was a terror to a normal person.

Assuming ‘normal people’ existed. Were there humans? Orcs and elves, for that matter? She’d be finding out eventually. The sprawling forest beneath the mountain hadn’t had any cities in view, but the world was, presumably, a big place. And she hadn’t studied the landscape with too much scrutiny. She could’ve missed one.

All irrelevant in the moment. Her goal was survival, not finding sapient life. Which meant figuring out her class, her fire breathing if it existed, and finally, flying. Her crash into the mountainside had left her hurting, but not so much she couldn’t function. As 18 thousand of 25 thousand ‘HP’ would suggest. Put into percentages, she’d be at 72%. That felt about right, assuming 0% meant dead. She hurt, but wasn’t maimed, or anything close to that.

Sitting on her haunches, exhausted, Sable considered her previous class prompt.

***

PATH OF THE WHITE DRAGON

- Mountain Warlord

- Frostfire Sorceress

- Crystalline Knife

***

She wasn’t the most genre-savvy girl, but neither was she the least. The connection was obvious: warrior, mage, thief. Her question was, however, whether each of the ‘paths’ she could go down had ‘sub-paths’. Would the choices split further? Would mage turn into healer or elementalist? Would the thief choice become ranger or assassin? Or were these the ‘final choices’, so to say?

Either way, her pick was obvious. She’d been transported to a fantasy world, and apparently there was a ‘sorceress’ class.

So, uh. Yeah. That one, please.

Maybe this was a monumental decision that deserved being thought over in more depth—and possibly even held off on—but at the same time, fuck that. She was trapped in the snowy mountain peaks of a fantasy world, and a ‘sorceress class’ didn’t feel like it could ever be a straight up mistake. She was exhausted, scared, and had just died—and lost her family, friends, and previous life forever. Presumably. Sitting still and thinking too hard about anything, she felt, would mean sinking. Move forward. That was easier.

***

Class [Frostfire Sorceress] Accepted.

***

***

Skill gained: [Arcana Specialty: Frostfire]

***

Sable absorbed the information. Just one skill? No others joined the first, so it seemed her class had come with just the one. [Arcana Specialty: Frostfire]. That felt underwhelming. Then again, maybe it was an incredible skill. Just, only receiving a single had been less than she’d expected. She’d get more as she leveled up, right?

What did the skill do? How did she use it? For that matter, what other skills did she have?

***

Skills

[Inspect] - Identify characteristics of target.

[Dominate] - Dominate a lesser creature’s will and add them to your [Thrall].

[Breathe Fire] - Expend mana to conjure burning flame.

[Arcana Specialty: Frostfire] - Gain 100% potency on spells with a key-rune of frostfire.

***

Sable leaned back and considered.