‘This world is such a tragedy, or rather we humans are a travesty of mother nature. We only try to fix things when it is too late, when something happens on a personal level.

What if a hundred million people become homeless as a cause of the rapidly growing ocean. Not gonna fix that, because it is easier to protect borders… ha!

Today we have a problem with ten to twenty million refugees all over the whole world. In the coming century the prognos is a hundred to six hundred million people on the move.

Or the fact that there are more plastics than fish in our oceans today? What is even up with that?

Ah and the problem with sourcing clean water for the general population will grow as a problem. All this and more shit is going on in my lifetime… Shit I might see how we humans end ourselves...’

Sam’s thoughts rumbled around inside his mind as he watched the news. Sam sighed as he kept watching the reporter asking a refugee why they were fleeing.

“We have no clean water...” The refugee started talking, but the news changed to talk about the weather for the next couple of days.

‘So weird...’ Was the only thought Sam had about the whole thing. To Sam it seemed that the news thought the weather report was more important than the refugees story.

“I need to sleep, big day tomorrow, gonna start my next job!” Sam said to himself as he shut down his laptop and turned to his side so the light from the window wouldn’t keep him awake. He fell asleep just moments later.

“Huh? This is not the usual dream I have.” Sam said to himself as he looked around, there was nothing really here, beside a low lying fog.

The fog went up just to his knees and was thick enough that he couldn’t see through it. The feeling he had was that this was no normal dream, but then a dream normally is surreal in of itself. The problem he had was that it felt real in nature, but that of itself was surreal as he was sure this was a dream. It was like something in him told him that this dream was the true reality and earth where he lived for thirty years or so was a dream he just woke from.

“Welcome, he who dreams the same dream as I” It was as if space itself was the vocal cord that made the air vibrate and made the voice seem to come from everywhere.

Sam looked around yet again, searching for who or what made the voice, but found nothing, just more fog.

‘What is going on, this the weirdest shit I dreamt for awhile now’ He thought as he wondered what approach he should take here. But before he could come up with anything the voice rumbled once again.

“I am Eskil and I summoned you or rather your spirit to this dream of mine” the voice boomed through space.

It wasn’t as the voice was loud, but instead loaded with energy that caused Sam to vibrate as if he too was air.

“I am Sam” Sam said as a response to the voice. ‘I wonder who or what makes that voice’ Sam couldn’t really guess that, only that it’s name was Eskil.

‘What does summoning my spirit mean, guess I have to ask?’ Sam could guess from works of fiction what it could mean, but facts are more important than guesses.

“I would like to know two things if that is okay with you, Eskil?” Sam asked Eskil and waited for a sign that he could ask his questions.

“Mmm, of course, thought you would have more than two though.” Sam could feel emotion through the voice, the feeling was of amusement.

“Well yeah, I have many more inquiries I would like to do, but two feel most important for the moment.” Sam said as he tried to understand how Eskils voice worked, but came up with nothing.

“Either way. First, who or what are you? I can only hear you so I have no idea what I am dealing with. Second, well it is more than one question though they are linked, what does it mean you summon my spirit? What implication does it have? Why me?” The feeling that this was a dream made Sam not to panic, though a vague feeling tried to tell him that it was real.

“I will answer the second inquiry first.” Eskil vibrated out. “The summoning I did would summon someone of the lesser species and someone that had a spirit kin to mine. This is because I need a companion of sorts. That would be, why you, part of your question.”

As Eskil was quiet for a second, Sam took in the new information. Sam understood from it that he was not important, that there were probably others that fitted the criteria for Eskil. He was probably the closest to the criteria set by Eskil. But the margins had to be really small.

Eskils voice started to vibrate once again. “I can only summon the spirit to this realm of dreams, no physical thing can exist in this plane. Think of it as being in a dream that is real and you probably understand the nature of this plane. As to that only your spirit can be here, in your world I guess you would call it the soul too. The implication is that your body after a while dies, how long you can take this is in correlation to your spirit's connection to the body… uh.”

Sam twitched to that last bit, ‘My spirit’s connection to the body? I am guessing it isn’t strong from the sound Eskil just did.’ Sam's thoughts spinned around a bit as he tried to get a hang on what was going on and sort through the information.

“What do you mean with uh? I feel as if something important is hiding behind that.” Sam said after a moment of silence passed.

“You see, normally the spirit's connection to the body is moderate at least. But you seem to have had a bad connection and your body is already dead.” Eskil's voice became small at the end as if he felt a bit responsible. “I couldn’t have known this, what skills, jobs and classes did you have?”

“You mean I am dead? Will I just disappear when you kick me out of this dream?” Sam felt like crying, he died without even knowing it and now it seemed he just had to wait for his doom. ‘Wait, I already died, but I am still here… And what about skills, jobs and classes, doesn’t sound like Eskil means what it means on earth.’

“Well to begin with I was going to kill you if you accepted the deal to become my companion either way. Kill your body, that is. Now I don’t have to and your choice is to become my companion or die. So what is going to be?” Eskils sounded as if the answer was clear already and it kind of was.

“So if I become your companion, I won’t die? Guess I have no choice but to accept that. What did you mean about skills, jobs and classes? I am guessing a job as a chef is not what you mean?” Sam said as a headache was building up in his mind.

He massages his spirit’s temples while thinking that this is starting to head in a direction where he sells his soul or is thrown to another world. He sighed to himself as he hoped this Eskil was a benevolent god and not a demon.

“Ah, that is why. Your old world didn’t have mana, and therefore no skills, jobs and classes. That is why your connection was so weak too...” Sam thought that it sounded as if Eskil just sounded out his own thoughts as he came upon a eureka moment and blurred out his conclusion.

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“I take it that you have accepted becoming my companion? Not that it matters as you die if you do not accept. I will introduce myself more than just a name. I am a Dragon, before you ask, no I am not the strongest neither am I the weakest of my sort. I am strong enough to be classified as a deity though.” Eskils voice boomed with what Sam thought could be a bit of pride in the last part.

“To simplify stuff, my companion would be like a priest for a god, though gods often look for masses and have a lot of priests. Dragons often have just one companion that acts on its behalf. The thing is that between dragons and their companion is that they are mostly alike.” A small pause as if Eskil thought it was enough of an explanation. He continued when Sam didn’t say anything, understanding that Sam didn’t get his point.

“So if you wonder if I am going to give you a lot of restrictions or make you my slave or the sort, ask yourself if you would do that and the answer is clear. Though with that said, some things I will ask you to do, I will probably not care how you do my tasks though.”

Sam didn’t know how to react to all of it. He sighed again to himself. ‘This is a dream… This is a dream, this should be a dream, but, but, but what if it isn’t, then I am dead, only way is forward and become this companion of his. If it still is a dream then no loss to see what it leads to.’ Sam's thoughts ended with the conclusion that whatever it is dream or real, only one path to take.

“Sure I accept to become your companion, Eskil. Just to point it out to be clear.” Sam said as he thought about it. “What do you have me do then, as your companion I mean? And I have no knowledge about skills, jobs and classes you're talking about, so that needs explaining I guess.”

“Good, so this is what's going to happen. I will cleanse your spirit, this is to make a clean slate to build upon. Then I am going to teach you some skills. Skills are anything really, if you do it enough, the spirit learns it and you will not forget it, though if you haven't done the thing in a while you will feel a bit rusty. Having knowledge is not the same as having a body that knows how to follow said knowledge.” To Sam it sounded as Eskil was eager to teach.

‘Either he has a lot of problems that need fixing or finding this whole thing exciting for a reason or another. Either way it sounds like he won’t send me away without some knowledge to survive.’ Sam thought to himself.

Eskil started to teach Sam about the realms, which seemed to be rudimentary knowledge at best. Sam thought that Eskils view was always on the climate and nature itself, never or very seldom on its population.

Sam learned from Eskil that dragons were born from nature and mana and that most dragons sought out balancing climates fit for each realm. That could mean anything from burning hell to frozen landscapes.

Eskil meant that dragons listen to nature and mana itself of each realm and helpt it with what it said it needed. Sam saw a problem with it and that was that the possible population could have their world changed on a whim of a dragon. This could be a good thing, there were worlds that had almost died but revived with help from dragons. There were also worlds that had a good nature for its residents and a dragon made it unlivable.

Both seemed extreme and did not often happen, if Eskil was a good source for this kind of information. Normally the world just got a helping hand. Sam started to think dragons were gardinners for whole worlds and Eskil said it wasn’t wrong to think so, but that it didn’t really fit either and not all dragons worked as hard or cared as much for the task at hand, though none would actively try to hurt a world.

Eskil taught about gods too. There were two kinds of gods it seemed, one was like dragons, caretakers, but often for a race instead of a world. Then there were gods of attributes or concepts, like gods of strength or gods of knowledge.

Eskil didn’t have much to say about gods besides that they came in the way of dragons work more often than not. In Sam’s eyes it seemed that Eskil had a hard time understanding that someone would rather protect a species than a world.

Time flowed weirdly in this dream realm they both stayed in and when Sam asked about it, the answer was that time was different in any realm. But he would feel it like it ticked normally anywhere he went. Only those on the side lines could see the difference.

Eskil didn’t of course only teach about realms and gods, he taught about mana and magic too. After a while the cleansing was done and Eskil started to teach Sam about skills, jobs and classes. Sam hadn’t felt much under the whole process of getting his soul cleansed. Eskil attributed this to the fact that Sam had no skills to begin with.

Skills were easy to understand, they could help with anything, anyone did. From combat to math as well as cooking and cleaning. The better the cooking skill and the higher the level of said skill, the easier it was to know when to turn an egg or how much salt to add to get the sought after saltiness. It wasn’t as if you couldn’t do things without the skill, but it became much easier with it.

Jobs were something you gained through skills. If you had high enough cooking skills you could gain the job of chef. This job would make it easier to learn other related skills of the said job and the spirit would be faster to earn experience in the skills too, but not by much.

According to Eskil there were no restrictions on the amount of skills you could learn and train up, only time was the restriction. When it comes to jobs you could have one job at a time, though you could change it for a small penalty to the job's experience. This loss was because the mana had to change in one’s soul to fit the new job. This meant you could train up your jobs too, the higher the jobs level the bigger the bonus to its skills.

A class is the same for jobs as jobs is for skills, but often more profound and few ever got one. What Eskil understood about classes was they often were personal, as if the mana and spirit tailor-made the class for the person.

Sam had asked about game element like attributes like health and if someone with no skills could even hurt those with strong skills. Turned out that a human was always human and a dagger to the throat would kill any human.

Difference was that with the right skills you could detect or set up alarms so that none could sneak up on you. Though if the guy sneaking had higher skills you would still probably die. For Sam this sounded like everyone in a magic world would run around with magic equaling grenade launchers, but then learned that few beings, human or not, could master such skills.

That didn’t mean there were no magicians and such, it was just hard to train any magic based skills for lesser beings like for example humans. The few Magicians were very needed in most civilizations though, as they could enchant and other things so the normal citizen could use magic tools. Few magicians had the strength to be equal to modern artillery, most could be seen equal to an archer in effectiveness.

About if killing would grant experience to skills as in games. The answer was that for a skill to become better, the challenge must be of its task, as Eskil put it. This meant that for cooking skill, mastering a hard recipe or better understanding of ingredients would be the only way to train it.

The same was for any skill, a swordsman skill would of course be trained in actual battle as that was what it was for, but you could train it with practise and trying to understand the sword you use. For skill experience, no gain would be had if not it was challenging and therefore mass murder the weak for skill levels was not possible.

Eskil Trained Sam in three dragon skills that a companion of a dragon had to have. Eskil didn’t train Sam in other skills as he thought Sam only needed these three to begin with and he could learn any skill he wanted by himself later. The dragon skills Sam only could learn here through Eskil’s guidance.

The skills was:

* Dragon’s Soul

* Dragon’s Body

* Dragon’s Mind

The skills strengthened the part and transmuted the user of the skill to be, as Eskil said, a dragon. Sam took it as it was more a figurative saying than that he would become a dragon after a while. The skills couldn’t be gained without a dragon's agreement, so they were quite rare.

“So Sam, you gained the skills and I have now a task for you.” Eskil began as Sam just woke from meditation. “I will place you in a realm that for some reason has been erratic and even unresponsive to us dragons about what it wants. I want to know why, and if a third part is making it act up. There is no direct deadline for the task at hand for now, but may change if something comes up. I will contact you if such is the case.”

“Eskil what environment and civilizations should I expect in this realm?” Sam asked as he got ready to start a new life.

Even if his new life turned out to be short, the Dragon’s Soul skill would take him back here if he died. He could not go back for a while to that realm as the realms mana would remember him dead.

This meant that he was more or less immortal in a way, but if he died without finishing the task from Eskil that would be bad. The other repercussions of dying was losing a lot of skill experience, though they could be trained up again. So the problem was solving the task before death if you took it to the specific.

“The environment will be a lot like earth this time, I thought it would be good so that you could ease into your role. You can thank me for that, hehe. So the civilization is maybe something like Rome to medieval times. It differs a bit from continent to continent.” Eskil said and after a thought he added. “Yea, and they are surprisingly adept at elemental magic, it seems, but nothing in high levels.”

“So a true fantasy world then? Okay, so when will you send me?” But before he could get an answer he was no longer in the dream realm...