Daniel didn’t consider himself to be a stupid man.

Having been to the Kingdom run school and later practically living in a library, he felt he was pretty canny; an opinion reinforced after spending time in the guard barracks back in Barda.

But this.

At first, he had assumed the kobold’s use of the word, dragon, was a metaphor. Then, after the speech from Plud, he figured he would have to delve the dungeon to find the dragon.

At no point had he considered the dragon had been here all along.

He stared down into the fire at a tiny red dragon.

It was about the size of a frog, and other than having four legs, wings, and an apparent fondness for fire, its ability to communicate definitely set it apart from any other monster he had read about.

“Hello,” Daniel said after a moment of hesitation.

“Hi hi hi,” the dragon responded in its tiny voice.

Daniel paused in realization. The dragon wasn’t speaking aloud. He could clearly see that the mouth of the tiny creature hadn’t moved.

The voice had been in his mind.

Sitting down by the fire, he looked down at the tiny, winged reptile.

As small as the fire was, it was still bright, and he could only make out the overall shape of the tiny lizard.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

“Hi.”

“Not much of a conversationalist, are you?”

The tiny dragon stepped out from the fire and tilted its head up toward him.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Daniel replied.

Seemingly satisfied, the dragon turned and walked back into the fire.

Placing his head in his hands, Daniel considered his options.

He didn’t know anything about dragons. How was he supposed to protect a tiny creature that could be eaten by a cat?

It also went without saying that, not just a curiosity, the very existence of the dragon would have it desired by anyone that learned of its existence.

And his plan. What about his plan?

He couldn’t just leave the dragon somewhere while he adventured and culled dungeons. The dragon was now his responsibility. He’d have to live as a hermit…

Daniel forced himself to stop his spiraling thoughts. He didn’t have enough information yet to make any decisions.

He looked down at the dragon, but it seemed happy to just sit in the fire for the moment.

Standing, Daniel moved over to the two chests that sat where the massive shrine had once been.

Daniel smiled as he considered his situation. He was in a dungeon about to open a chest, and while the circumstances were a bit different from what he had imagined, it was a position he had always dreamed of being in.

He released the clasp on the front of the chest, and with both hands, carefully opened the lid.

Daniel wasn’t sure of what he’d been expecting, but he couldn’t see anything in the dim light of the cavern.

Closing the lid, he picked up the chest and walked it over to the fire and set it down, then did the same with the second chest.

“Hi,” came the tiny voice of the dragon.

“Hi,” Daniel replied.

Daniel stopped as the dragon once again marched its way out of the fire, but this time launched itself into the air, tiny wings beating as it landed clumsily on his head.

Quickly reaching up to make sure the tiny dragon didn’t fall, he carefully moved him to his shoulder.

“You should be able to see better from there,” he told it.

The dragon made a vibrating sound, almost like the purr of a kitten, as it settled itself on its new perch.

Opening the lid once again, Daniel was surprised that the inside top of the chest had been shined to a mirror finish and reflected the light of the fire like a torch.

“A clever design, isn’t it?” he said to his new companion.

Daniel reached in and took out the first item. It was shaped a bit like a sword, but instead of a blade, it seemed to be composed of two flat wedges of steel that tapered upward before forming a point at the top.

Stolen story; please report.

Holding the weapon, he instinctively understood what it was, thanks to his skill in blunt weapons.

It was a bar mace, and honestly quite heavy for a one-handed weapon.

He stood and gave the mace a few test swings.

The weight at the top of the mace gave it a nice sweet-spot to strike with, and the top of the four bars tapering to false edges that formed a point would make a devastating wound.

Useful, he thought. It wouldn’t stab like a sword, and would take a bit of muscle, but with his new strength being three times what it had been, he felt more than capable of using it if necessary.

The hand-and-a-half grip of the mace was wrapped in brown leather and wound with gold wire that formed an intricate diamond pattern from the ricasso of the mace to the round golden pommel that provided a counterbalance to the weighted bar.

“What do you think?” he asked the dragon.

“Hi!” the dragon replied.

“I think it’s pretty neat too,” he responded with a smile.

Daniel removed the weighted baton from the brass ring on his belt but realized that his new mace was too large to fit through the loop.

Reconsidering, he stored the mace in his ring. He debated dropping the baton in as well, but decided against it. Better for any onlooker to assume he was armed only with a simple baton.

Daniel regarded the realm ring for a moment. Its value was incomprehensible. Making a mental note to purchase gloves to conceal it, he turned his attention back to the chest.

The next item was a bit less obvious in its function.

At first, he thought it might be a pauldron.

Turning it over, he inspected it carefully and amended his previous thought.

Formed of a curved, unblemished, polished metal, the mask had a featureless, mirrorlike appearance.

Looking the mask over carefully, he couldn’t spot any attachment points to connect straps to it, much less a way to see out of it.

“Hi,” the dragon said in his mind.

“I think it’s unfinished,” Daniel said as he inspected the inside of the mask. Interestingly enough, the inner-facing of the mask clearly showed the rough impression of where it would fit over someone’s face, yet the outside was smooth.

“I guess it’s magic,” he told the dragon.

“Hi!”

“Okay, I’ll try it on,” Daniel responded.

He was enjoying the presence of the tiny dragon. He wasn’t much for conversation, but seemed excited to be involved with the unboxing.

Holding the mask to his face, everything changed.

Daniel could see like he was in the sunlight. In fact, he couldn’t even feel the mask against his face. He removed his hand, and the mask stayed in place.

He checked his new look in the chest’s lid.

The curved mirror distorted his reflection, but the mirror-like finish of the featureless mask gave him a noble. mysterious look.

“I know I’m new to the magic item thing, but don’t they need to be blood-bonded to a mana-gate?” he pondered aloud.

Opening his System screen, he checked his bound items.

Bound Items:

Realm Ring Tier 10

Mask of the Paladin

“Mask of the Paladin? Well, I guess that answers that question. It’s a divine artifact, not an enchantment,” he told the dragon as he dismissed his System screen.

Daniel froze and reopened the screen.

System Points: 7

He has already spent all his System points. How had he received seven more?

He checked his System messages and there they were.

System Message: First Dungeon! 1 System Point Awarded.

System Message: You Have Entered A Dungeon! 1 System Point Awarded.

System Message: Found Hidden Shrine!! 2 System Points Awarded.

System Message: Unbound Dragon!!! 3 System Points Awarded.

The first message was something he was familiar with, at least.

His very first fight as an adult had been against a fox. The clever animal had managed to get itself over the wire fencing of a chicken coop and he had jumped in to get the furry intruder out.

The fox had moved like quicksilver and after he had finally grabbed the little beast by the tail; it turned and gave him a bite to the hand fast enough that the surprise made him lose his grip.

As if laughing at him, the fox jumped over the fence and disappeared into the tall grass that separated the farmland from the forest.

Despite being bruised and dirty and having to spend five silvers on ointment and a poultice for his puncture wounds, he received his first System message.

System Message: First Fight! 1 System Point Awarded.

The System often provided a point for the first time you did something of which it approved. Any message with ‘First’ implied you would not be getting another point for it.

The next two messages were interesting. In that, it was the first time he had heard of getting more than a single point for something. Also, the two exclamation marks seem to think the System felt they were important, or maybe they just reflected the number of points given.

Seven points, he thought.

That was enough to pick up a couple of skills, or even raise his Strength stat again.

He would bank them for now.

“Hi!” the dragon said insistently in his mind.

From its perch on his shoulder, he couldn’t see the tiny dragon, but he was clearly getting bored.

“Sorry, let’s see what else we have in here,” he told his new ward.

At first glance, the final item seemed like a canvas tarp, but after holding it up and unfolding it, he belatedly realized it was a cloak.

The garment was well-crafted. Made from an oiled, waxy canvas, the cloak’s exterior appeared perfectly suited to resist the weather, while the soft inner lining felt comfortable to the touch.

About to put the cloak on, he looked down at the state of himself.

His leather armor bore cuts, dirt, and discoloration from the blood of the harpy he fought against a few days prior.

He had tried to wash it off with the water from a small spring he’d found, but it was ruined.

Not seeing a need for the cloak in his immediate future, he deposited it into his storage ring.

No need to get the nice cloak’s soft lining filthy from his disgusting armor.

That was the last item, so he deposited the chest in the ring as well. There was no telling when he would need a chest, and if nothing else, the mirrored lid could prove useful.

Turning his attention to the new chest, he addressed the dragon.

“Maybe this one will have more cool stuff. What do you think?”

“Cookie!” the dragon responded.

Surprised, Daniel paused.

“So, your vocabulary is bigger than a monosyllable greeting.”

“Cookie,” the dragon replied, seeming to agree with him.

“Who knows? Maybe this chest will be filled with magic cookies,” he answered.

The pair looked on with interest as he raised the lid.

The dragon squealed with delight and launched itself from his shoulder and into the pile of gold that nearly filled the entire chest.

Daniel quickly tried to estimate the wealth he had just received, but stopped as the dragon picked up a gold coin and bit a perfect tiny bite out of it.

Daniel watched the tiny red dragon as it quickly gobbled down the coin in two more bites.

“Cookie!” the dragon’s pleased voice shouted in his head.

“That can’t be good,” Daniel said with a wince.

The dragon lay on his back in the gold and held a second coin with all four of its feet and began to eat.

“This is really bad,” he muttered.