“This is the place?” Hugh asked while pointing with his foreclaw as they both stared at a large stone-and-wood building on a small hill that raised out of the swamp. The hill had no trees on it, just sparse grass, and appeared almost dead compared to the fecund swamp around them. The building resembled a series of circular stone buildings connected by extremely short hallways with the ceiling created of huge logs rather than more stone.

And just behind the stone building was a floating rock that radiated intense magic—Earth magic, stable and strong and solid. A node. Around the base of the node were a few large rituals.

As one of the trees subtly shifted—something Leo was becoming innured to—around the outside of hill, he scratched his head. “I think so. You know as much as me.”

“Normally, dragons don’t build structures to live in.”

Leo glanced over at his huge, roughly twelve feet long, bronze scaled friend and laughed. “You complaining—or even pointing out—that a dragon isn’t doing what a dragon normally does is awash in irony.”

Hugh chuckled. “True.”

Then he pointed to the front, which was an open hole. “Shall we check it out?”

Leo walked up the side of the hill, thankful to be out of the swamp. He immediately noticed the lack of bugs, like their was a wall around the hill—and he could feel Wyld magic, subtle, a magic felt to him as a scary night in the forest, fearing for predators. He reached the edge of the building. The open stone door looked into a large front room, with a huge map of the Empire of the One Land, set in a frame and fronted by glass, on one wall and a huge table with a few books in the center. Leo couldn’t read any of the book titles or marks on the map—the Tongues ring let him speak and understand verbal communication only.

Leo glanced at Hugh, and Hguh shrugged in turn and then mouthed “knock?”

I can’t believe I’ve learned to read a dragon’s lips. Or that Dragon’s have lips.

He knocked on the outside of the stone entrance.

A voice floated from the inside. “Umm.. is someone there?”

“Hi, I was wondering if I could speak with the resident researcher?” Leo called.

A moment later, a wyrm poked its head into the room that Leo could see into. It appeared to be about the same length as Hugh, but thinner, and had the same moss-and-bush covering on its back. It focused two dark green eyes, first at Hugh and then at Leo.

“Who are you?” the Wyrm asked.

“I’m Leo il Stardew, and this is Hugh of Storm Vale,” Leo said.

“Hugh of Star Port,” Hugh corrected.

“That tells me… almost nothing,” the wyrm said, and rubbed at its eyes. For some reason, Leo had the strong impression of a fussy man adjusting his glasses, even though the wyrm had a draconic face with moss on it and no glasses.

Leo was starting to feel a bit absurd, since he was theoretically here to do kill a dragon or steal wealth from them. “I’m an interdimensional traveler that is trying to complete the ‘gifting’ quest to gain rank in the Empire of the One Land, also called the True Kingdom. This is my friend, the dragon Hugh, a storm dragon that has been my closest companion since I arrived on Toth, the world I now hail from.”

The wyrm stared at them again. “That might tell me too much to easily think about. But the fact you’re on a gifter quest I understand… Am I in danger?”

God I feel absurd, Leo thought to himself. “I mean… kinda? We hadn’t really decided what we’re doing here. I mean, you obviously know the outlines of the gifter quest, but I didn’t want to kill an, um, nice dragon.”

“Well, I think I should point out that I’m a really great person, doing magical research to help dragonkind and maybe even elf-kind. And I’ve rescued a couple elves from the giant bugs.”

Hugh laughed. “See Leo? It’s super awkward when the stuff you wanted to kill talks to you.”

Leo rolled his eyes at his friend.

“So… what are you researching here?” Leo asked the wyrm.

The wyrms voice became a bit more animated. “Well, it’s a paltry work space and my tools are absolutely wretched, but I’m trying to learn more about the fundamental magical nature of the world and universe. Recently, I’ve been studying the magical phenomenon that is the dragonflight. I think I have an accurate way to measure when the surges will occur.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“The Empire of the One Land can do that,” Leo replied. “They told me it will happen in about fifty years, and be incredibly intense.”

“I… see,” the wyrm said.

Leo could tell it was hiding something.

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Lo-Ru Xiashou, but call me Ru,” Ru replied.

There was a brief pause. Leo really didn’t know how to proceed. He didn’t want to kill this guy, but should he rob him? Or perhaps find someone more overtly evil?

Ru scratched his face again and then broke the silence. “So… I’ve been thinking about what you said. You’re an interdimensional traveler?”

“Yeah,” Leo responded.

“What dimension do you hail from?”

“Toth is the name of the world—I assume it’s the dimension name as well. Certainly my kingdom has been using it that way.”

“You have access to Travel magic? As in, your civilization is advanced enough to use it?”

“I mean, kinda—where is this all going, Ru? Not to be mean, but I’m not really sure I should be answering all these questions.”

Ru shifted a bit, scratched his face again, and then breathed deep. He moved fully into the closer room. “Please permit me two more questions. If the answers are the ones I want, I think I can make it worth your while.”

Leo glanced at Hugh, who just shrugged.

“Fire away,” Leo replied.

“That… translated odd, but I think I take the meaning,” Ru replied. “My first question is this—is this dragon you friend, and do elves and dragons get along in your civilization?”

Leo placed his hand on Hugh’s side. “Hugh is my best friend in the world. In my kingdom, we have about forty dragons or wyrms, and they do get along with the elves, and hold government jobs and places of pride among our people. But there are more outside the kingdom there are still far more dragons inimical to our society. It’s something I am aiming to change, however, and we have made a real start.”

“And are you a place of learning?” Ru asked.

Leo thought about the question. “A place of learning? A baby place, perhaps. We lack any great magical minds, currently. But we are building a university right now, implementing natural science advances—like plumbing—far beyond the norm, and we have a few people with he capacity to learn Travel magic.”

“A university, hmm?” Ru mused.

Leo continued. “But most importantly, my city is a nexus for three dimensions, currently, and will be adding more all the time. I think we will become a hub for rare knowledge that you could barely imagine.”

Ru scratched his face again. It was such a common gesture to the dragon it was making Leo itch.

“Actually, third question,” Ru continued. “Is it acceptable for dragons or elves in your territory to steal from other dragons and elves if they’re stronger?”

“Not even a little bit,” Leo responded.

The wyrm sat, and tilted its head downward. “I would formally request permission to immigrate, then.”

“What?” Leo asked, more a question to buy time than anything.

“I want to immigrate to your kingdom. I can sweeten the deal if you would like. But I need help moving all of my stuff. I have a lot of research material here and would want your burly friend to help me haul it out of here. As well as protection if anything tries to abscond with it on our way out.”

“How?” Hugh asked.

Ru scratched at his face again, and Leo scratched his own nose before realizing he didn’t itch. “Well, if the elves think the dragonflight is coming in fifty years, they are gravely mistaken. I can tell you the actual date, or very near. It’s a lot sooner than you think.”

Leo did want that information, and quite badly. But… “Can I also ask for something to give to the emperor? I need to bring him something worth at least a thousand gold to be given a position I need to control the trade with the empire.”

“A thousand gold is an extremely high price to pay to immigrate,” Ru replied.

“I’ll pay it back—I just need it for now. Although you cannot, under any circumstances, admit this deal to anyone after the fact if you make it. In the alternative, I can just hunt something else in the swamp.”

Ru considered. “Very well. I have a variable field, node reliant anti-insect ritual worth about twelve-hundred gold in the back—to keep the bugs from my work and food. You can have that since I’ll be going to a civilization, and I assume some enterprising elf can build me an insect-tight lair.”

“Thank you,” Leo said. “Now, can you tell me about the dragonflight?”

“Follow me,” Ru said, awkwardly turning his entire body around by walking around the central table in the circular stone room rather than turning in place. He went through the tight tunnel—or maybe long door—into the next room, and then one more. Hugh followed, his wings and shoulders brushing the roof and sides of the tunnels respectively, almost too big to fit.

In the third room, Leo found Ru hovering over a contraption. It was a small clear crystal that gave off flashes of light. Attached to it was a pink crystal, and to the side was a huge tablet with a grey crystal attached to it. Silver tracery ran over all the parts involved, and connected them through the base board they were all attached to at the bottom.

“This is a crystal designed to emit colors the same as the colors of magic in the ambient region,” Ru said, pointing to the top crystal. “it gets it’s information about the magic through the Soul magic crystal attached to its base.”

“Uh-huh,” Leo said, looking at the tablet itself, which was covered in writing he couldn’t read.

“This,” Ru said, pointing to the grey crystal, “Is a mind magic crystal that measures the exact light emissions, down to such minute detail we can’t even see it. The tablet here, using a formulae I devised and powered by an internal Mind magic crystal, will let us know the exact magical energies in the air. Based on—”

“Whoa,” Leo said. “I think I understand the basics, and I can’t read the rest enough to really appreciate it. You’ve made a device to exactly measure magic and know enough about previous magical evens to predict them, right?”

Ru’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. And thank you for spoiling the explanation of my genius.”

Leo almost laughed, but contained himself. Ru has a distinct know-it-all-professor vibe.

But Leo only had one question of any real importance. “When will the next Dragonflight be?”

“The magic changed all at once about a week ago,” Ru said. “Something altered the flow of the magic from the Sea of Chaos. The dragonflight is now coming in roughly two weeks more time. Although it’ll be far weaker than it originally would have been.”

Leo, horrified, turned to Hugh.

“It was us, wasn’t it?” Hugh asked.