[Initializing System…]
Stephine
Race: True Dragon Egg(+)
[Four Evolutions Available]
Age: 0
Mana: 0/400
Mana Generation: 300/hour
Affinities: Fire, Force, Gaia
Stats:
[Mana: 40]
[Mana Generation: 30]
[Mana Control: 25]
[Memory: 25]
[Perception: 22]
[Strength: 28]
[Dexterity: 22]
[Constitution: 40]
Titles: (6)
[Primary Title Unallocated] [Secondary Title Unallocated]
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Racial Abilities:
[Dragon Eggshell]
[Immovable]
[Nutritional Yolk]
[Fire Resistance]
[Dragonstorm]
[Weak Mana Sense]
[Danger Sense]
[Incubation Stasis]
General Skills:
[Message to Stephine from Galaxos]
[Magic Skill: Weak Mana Affinity]
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[Skill Activated: Message to Stephine from Galaxos!]
[Welcome to Laxia!]
[My apologies for any discomfort the soul transfer may have caused. Unfortunately, your body's parents were killed long ago in the Dragon Wars. The egg was about to die when I transferred your soul into it. However, I managed to embody Lawrence Thomas as a Kobold nearby. He should be there when you hatch. You’ll be able to hatch once you evolve. I would prefer if you did not become a Divine Dragon, I am not currently seeking additional followers.]
[Message to Stephine from Galaxos has expired! You no longer have the skill: Message to Stephine from Galaxos!]
If Stephine could stand shocked, she would have. Unfortunately, she couldn’t move, let alone stand with a shocked expression on her face. All she could do was see a faint red film over her eyes. She got impressions of “safety” from around her, somehow. She supposed there was nothing better to do than evolve and “hatch”. She tried focusing on evolving, and something seemed to ding! in the back of her mind.
[4 Evolutions Available!]
[Divine Dragon Youngling]
Saved from death as an egg, this Dragon has devoted their life to Galaxos, God of Space in thanks. Forsaking traditional magic generation, they [Channel Divinity] directly from background mana, allowing tremendous power when it aligns with their divine mandate. However, their mana generation is weak when operating outside their mandate.
Affinities: Fire, Space, Divine
[Brute Dragon Youngling]
Forsaking traditional magic abilities, these dragons focus on pure brute force. They still utilize magic, but primarily use it in order to [Boost Strength] and make a [Mana Shield]. While this can lead to truly ludicrous physical feats, they possess very little ability to do things that don’t require pure force, as their low mana control grants them little ability to do the utility magic most dragons use to operate in polite society.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Affinities: Force, Steel, Fire
[Fire Dragon Youngling]
Fire Dragons focus highly on their natural breath weapon, in order to wreak havoc on any obstacles in their way. Their [Greater Dragonfire] and [Air Control] allow them to burn almost anything, removing any obstacles in their path.
Affinities: Fire, Destruction, Air
[Ghost Dragon Youngling]
Rather than focusing on combat like many other dragons, Ghost Dragons focus on their innate magical abilities. They use their [Telekinesis] to manipulate their surroundings, allowing a more dextrous touch than most dragons can manage.
Affinities: Force, Space, Fire
Most of the options didn’t appeal to Stephine. Crushing her enemies to dust wasn’t one of her fantasies, and doing something a god specifically asked her not to do was a recipe for disaster. Which only left her [Ghost Dragon Youngling]. So she focused on that, and something seemed to click as her consciousness seemed to fade out.
[Evolution Complete!]
[You have evolved from a True Dragon Egg to a Ghost Dragon Youngling]
[Your Racial Skills have been updated!]
[Dragon Eggshell] has become [Young Dragon Scales]!
[Immovable] has become [Gliding]!
[Nutritional Yolk] has become [Water Breathing]!
[Fire Resistance] remained unchanged!
[Dragonstorm] remained unchanged!
[Weak Mana Sense] has become [Attuned Mana Sense]!
[Danger Sense] was replaced with [Dragonfire]!
[Incubation Stasis] has become [Telekinesis]!
When the evolution notification roused her from her slumber, Stephine had the sudden feeling that she needed to get out of this egg right now. She was able to move her limbs now, and she rolled around to get a claw -- ‘Claw? Thoughts for later. Get out of the egg now.’ -- her claw onto the eggshell. With a couple attempts, she managed to puncture the membrane, and she tore open the eggshell, tumbling out into the bright light.
The first thing she saw after clearing the light from her eyes was people. Many, many people surrounded her, all of whom were definitely not human. The first thing that gave them away was the scales. Every single one of them was covered from head to toe in multicolored scales. The most common was red, but there were blues, grays, purples, and even one or two blacks. The second thing was their snouts and tails. They had long snouts that stuck out of their faces, though one or two had particularly short snouts. Their tails were nearly the length of their entire bodies, and were constantly moving around their feet.
They were all muttering in a language Stephine wasn’t able to understand, pointing at her and talking to each other. One of them, wearing a fancy purple robe, said something in a loud voice and pointed away, towards what looked like a row of columns holding up a roof. Stephine realized she was in some sort of open-walled temple. Looking up, she saw a big gap in the roof as well. As she was looking around the ornately painted temple, the onlookers slowly filed out of the building, leaving only two behind. The purple-robed one, who had light gray scales, bordering on silver, and a smaller one, who had black scales, a tight gray robe, more akin to a shirt, and his snout was topped with what looked like a small pair of glasses.
The tall one said something to the short one, who nodded, and began to speak. “Sheff, Shteff, Shteffine?” His snout clearly wasn’t built for the words, and he struggled to pronounce them. She nodded when she realized he was trying to say her name. “Itsh me, Lawwensh!” She looked closer, and the diminutive kobold’s shirt had her university’s symbol sewn onto it.
She tried to say “Doc, is that you?” but what came out was a series of hisses and gurgles, as her new mouth was not very similar to her old one. Lawrence butchered his way through a sentence about how kobold and dragon mouths weren’t very well-suited to English. She made an acknowledging grunt and tried to walk over to him, but she immediately tripped over her four legs. She managed to grunt out a, “dohtah lawwa, a re’e’er oo,” which was the closest her newly draconic mouth could get to English.
She decided that rather than make another stumble, she should take the opportunity to inspect her new body. Her neck was surprisingly flexible, and she could look almost directly behind her. Her body was covered in light gray scales with what looked like a transparent film covering the scales, making each scale look like it had a layer of glass atop it. Her legs were arranged in a somewhat feline arrangement, with sharp claws on the end. She had two of what were probably wings, but they were very thin, with scales only covering the “arms,” with the webbing between the fingers being pinkish-gray flaps. Her body ended in a long tail, nearly doubling her length from snout to tail. The tail had two flaps on either side at the end, which looked very similar to the wings.
Lawrence noticed that she was inspecting her appearance, and said something in the unknown language to the taller kobold. They produced a mirror from somewhere in their flowing purple robe, and she could see her face in it. It appeared very snakelike, but with a more pronounced forehead and horns sticking out from behind where a snake’s ear holes would be. The horns were a dark brown, and started facing backwards, but turned forwards in a J shape, running parallel to her mouth. When she opened her mouth, she saw that it was filled with sharp teeth, and two fangs hung from the top. Though the two large ones were distinctly snakelike, the other ones were much larger than they’d be on a snake, built for tearing, as opposed to strangling. Her nose had a slight spike to it, and looked more like a lizard’s nose than a snake’s. The most noticeable thing was her eyes, which were feline with slit pupils, but their irises almost glowed orange.
Having inspected her body, she righted herself and attempted a more careful walk. There seemed to be a way to walk that her body preferred, and as long as she took careful steps, she was able to move about relatively safely, only stumbling once or twice, and not taking any more large tumbles. Seeing her walk around and inspecting her environment, the tall kobold evidently decided it was time to talk to her, and says something in the unknown language, and suddenly Stephine could understand what they were saying.
“[-speech] Honored Dragon! I am Karaxia, High Priestess of Dragonsoul village. The Great Galaxos informed us that you would be born soon, and we have made preparations for your arrival! Your egg’s Dragonstorm has protected our village for generations, and our honor dictates that we must repay you for this.” She looked confused at the word dragonstorm, and Lawrence picked up on that. He said something to the priestess, who nodded and clarified. “When a dragon is born, the world itself bends to acknowledge the holy event and makes a dragonstorm.” She gestured to the outside of the temple, where Stephine could see distant red storm clouds surrounding the local area. She had once been in the eye of a hurricane,and the sight reminded her of it. The only difference were thin wisps of cloud that spiraled from the edge of the eye towards the sky directly above the temple.
Karaxia continued talking about the “holiness of dragons” and “repaying their debts to her”, and Stephine began to tune her out and decided to inspect the remains of her eggshell. It was primarily a deep red, with gold veins running along from the top. It was slightly flexible, and the part where she climbed out had torn, rather than shattered. Lawrence allowed the priestess to babble on, but he poked Stephine when Karaxia returned to relevant conversation.
“...in order to protect the holy dragonchild from the elements, there is a sacred cave that was constructed when the village was built by my ancestors after it was requested by the parents of the holy egg.” She pointed outside, and Stephine could see a very large cliff, with numerous caves dotting the cliffside. The cliff was painted in numerous colors, depicting what were presumably adult dragons flying, sleeping, and breathing fire. “It is my honor to lead you, honored dragonspawn, to the dragoncave, where you will live with your chosen servants.” She put the mirror away, somehow pulled an entire walking stick from the robe, and began walking towards the cliff face.