Exhausted—both physically and mentally—Sable set down in front of her newly-earned team member.

Was that too innocent a way to put it? ‘Team member’? She had just dominated another living being’s mind, adding them to her thrall. And while she didn’t intend to use that ability to override their free will, it still was a capability of hers. Tip toeing around the fact felt grosser than admitting the reality.

What she’d done wasn’t the most ethical thing, from an objective viewpoint, regardless of whether her targets were ‘monsters’. Maybe a real dragon wouldn’t care about that, but Sable wasn’t trying to use her new life to devolve into some heartless monster. She had a scale hide and teeth as big as her hand, now, but she didn’t want to discard her morals in the pursuit of power. To become a metaphorical monster rather than the literal one she’d found herself as. Dragons had been hunted to extinction for that exact reason.

Granitemaul’s capture was necessary. And while it didn’t absolve her entirely, the golem not being an intelligent being did matter. While slightly unsettling, dominating an animated piece of rock wasn’t nearly as bad as doing so to a sapient.

Like she had Aylin.

But, like with Granitemaul, that had also been necessary. A way to link her telepathically. How else would she communicate?

When it came to Granitemaul, she needed the ‘moderate boon to intelligence when interfacing with skill-user’ the skill had promised. With that, she ought to be able to give it commands and receive responses of half-way intelligence. The hulking golem of rock wouldn’t be much use to her otherwise.

[Hello?] Sable prompted.

The golem—scorched black in places, and while not in horrible condition, not in great, either—twitched at being addressed, at having words inserted into his mind.

‘His’. Was that right? He had a masculine build, but gender might not apply to an animated chunk of rock. Then again, she doubted he’d complain.

“Hello,” the creature replied. The words tumbled out of his mouth, gravelly and low-pitched, many times more than even the deepest-voiced human. He had an odd cadence, too, slow and grinding. Sable could have told this creature wasn’t human just by listening to him, unlike Aylin—who had a higher-pitched voice than normal, and an unfamiliar way of speaking, but not to any alien degree.

[Granitemaul,] she said, repeating the name she’d learned from her earlier Inspect. [You’re part of my thrall, now.]

“Yes.” His response came slowly, wonderingly, as if tasting the words, acquainting himself to his newfound intelligence. There was a … vacancy in how he spoke, though. He might be smarter from his ambling self before, but had he become smart? No. Clear as day. Not ‘human’ in the slightest. Which, she realized, was a now-irrelevant meaning of the word, considering how people like Aylin—other intelligent races—existed. Maybe ‘sapient’ or ‘intelligent’ were the words she should default to, now.

[I’m looking for something valuable. Something to add to my hoard.] Unlike with Aylin, she didn’t try to segue into the conversation. She could tell in an instant—if the system prompts hadn’t already—that this creature wasn’t a person. He still deserved respect, in the way all living creatures did, but she didn’t didn’t need to ease into things. Didn’t need to build up her image for the sake of future interactions. She got straight to asking him what she needed. [How well do you know these ruins?]

He turned in a circle, looking around. He wore an expression of almost childlike fascination. The golem had more distinct features than she’d first appraised, now that the frenzy of a fight had ended and she could study him in greater detail. They were faded and rough, but there. Thick eyebrows, a blocky nose, small in-set eyes. And they shifted in the same way of a human; he wore familiar expressions. That was unsettling. It was easier to think of him as a wholly unintelligent being, something a few steps removed from an animal. The human features made the moral dilemma of subjugating his will less pleasant to deal with.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Know … these ruins …” he repeated. “Yes. Know them well. Forever. For years and years.”

That response, too, collided with Sable’s preconceptions. Stupid, but not as animal-like as she had assumed. The words indicated a deeper level of intelligence lurking behind his slow and simple words. Though, only when speaking and serving her? That was what [Dominate] said. He’d be as dumb as ever when acting on his own will.

“Something valuable,” he said, finally answering Sable’s question. He’d been chewing over the request. He grumbled, a noise she recognized, oddly, as contemplative. “Inward. Yes. Center. There is … The Heart of Annihilation. Valuable.” He paused, as if reconsidering. “But you will die.”

Uh.

Sable didn’t know what she’d expected, but that hadn’t been it.

[The what?]

“The Heart of Annihilation,” he repeated. “But you will die, if you go there. So you should not.”

[What is it?]

“The Heart of Annihilation.”

[No, I mean, what is it? Specifically.]

“Dangerous.”

Sable stared for a second, then shook her head, amused. Unintelligent, she reminded herself. Lucid and capable of organizing thoughts, but not smart.

And it didn’t matter what the ‘Heart of Annihilation’ was. She had already sussed out that heading deeper into the Ruins would be bad. Potentially catastrophic. Now she had an inkling more idea of why, but from a practical standpoint, it didn’t matter.

[Something valuable that I can reach and collect,] Sable clarified. [That’s not too dangerous. Is there anything like that, that you know of?]

He considered the new request. His blocky stone eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and he chewed over possibilities. Sable could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

“Yes,” he said. “Something valuable. Not too dangerous. Follow.”

Intrigued, she did so.

She trailed behind him across the crumbling ruins, across scattered pathways and through pockets of dense vegetation. Occasionally, he would raise a hand, then veer them off-course, with a simple, “Golem,” and an indicative point toward an innocent-looking pile of rubble. By the third time he did so, Sable had to ask:

[How do you know?]

“ … Obvious.”

Sable snorted. Fair enough.

The trek was slow, but not long. She wondered whether Aylin was getting worried. Probably not. Sable’s natural strength—a dragon, even a juvenile one—couldn’t be discounted. Even more than their reputation back home, dragons seemed to be legendary creatures, here. Death to a random stone golem? Not likely.

Which wasn’t to say she was perfectly safe. She shouldn’t go gallivanting around, assuming herself unkillable. But at a severe advantage? Definitely that. Then again, the threats she faced in the future were likely to be proportionally difficult. Dragons had been hunted to extinction. Real ones, not juveniles like her. These Ruins might not kill her, but plenty could. She needed to play her hand carefully.

Eventually, Granitemaul—maybe ‘Granite’ for short—led her into an open space. It was less cramped than the rest of the crumbled city. She peered around, curious. The area reminded her of something. A normal counterpart. What had this place been, hundreds of years ago?

[A cemetery,] she said suddenly.

“The Crypt of the Ancestors,” Granite rumbled. “Inside, valuables.”

He nodded to the building in the center of the open space. It had survived the test of time better than the tombstones, which laid in crumbled, squat piles. Pointed out, she could see the resemblance. A crypt. But decayed. Standing, but only barely.

It made sense valuables would be inside. It was common practice, across cultures, to store prized possessions with the dead. Graverobbing was a profession for a reason. And while slightly icky from a moral standpoint, she didn’t have any major hang-ups about the idea. She had a feeling she’d do worse before the month was over. Graverobbing didn’t appall her to the point of being an ‘uncrossable line’. Far from it.

More relevant to the here-and-now, nobody had ever pillaged this space? The ‘Crypt of the Ancestors’? Then again, how could they have? Guarded by these powerful stone automatons? Granite had been somewhat annoying to deal with, so regular goblins, even ones with combat classes? Not likely.

And the location’s remoteness. This world she’d found herself in—the portion she’d spawned at, more specifically—didn’t seem to be especially modern and thriving. Lost, unexplored cities could be the norm.

[Is there anything I should be worried about, in there?]

Granite considered this.

“No,” he eventually said. “It is not guarded by the Old Ones.”

[Old Ones?]

“Yes.”

[What are those?]

“They are the Old Ones.”

[And the Old ones are?]

“Old.”

Exasperated, Sable emphasized, [But what are they? Be specific.]

“They are dangerous.”

Okay. Whatever. It made sense this ‘boost to intelligence’ could only do so much. Maybe with further digging she could get real answers, but as with the ‘Heart of Annihilation’, it really didn’t matter. Penniless, level-one Sable couldn’t deal with them, and so what did she care?

It had the sounds of a mid- or late-game quest. Something to deal with later.

Granite shouldered through the enormous double-doors, sending centuries-old dust flying. Inside, a gaping stairway led into darkness.

Not dangerous, Granite had said. Sable hoped he was right about that.