When my eyes opened, I saw the mosaiced ceiling of the temple. I had likely fallen down after being… connected? Whatever, the terminology of talking to gods wasn’t likely to be a continuous issue, so rather than lingering on it, I just sat up instead. Simon stood nervously nearby. “How long was I out?” I asked. “Well, about three hours, I believe. Uh oh. I reached up to my neck, confirming that under the fabric of my scarf my sore neck was now freed.

While that was in fact the goal of this visit, I now had a problem. I had been hoping that it was one of those “The conversation was an hour, but in reality was only seconds!” tropes. The fact that it was the opposite was bad… very bad. Depending on when the collar actually came off, the distance from here to the cave, flight speed… let’s see, multiply by rage, carry the one- “ANIMUUUUUUUUSSS!” Came an impossibly loud roar from outside. I was right- this was VERY bad.

“Gotta run!” I declared before activating my Boots of Swiftness and running full sprint towards the back of the temple where I knew from casing the place an underground exit existed. Just as I exited the main chamber the ceiling exploded into colorful tiles and dust as an ancient green dragon smashed into the holy building. “RETURN TO ME NOW!” boomed my former employer.

While I was sympathetic to getting crushed by a ton of brick, I also worked very hard to secure this freedom, and now was my chance. With [AGILITY], [ENDURANCE], [STAMINA], and [SPEED] all at lvl. MAX, I ran like there was actually a tomorrow, only using [PERCEPTION]’s [DARKSIGHT] to navigate through the musty tunnels.

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I poured on the speed, fear and exhilaration coursing through my veins. The fear was obvious- a massive glittering green reptile who wanted to melt me with boiling acid- but the exhilaration came from the fact that when she told me to turn around, my boots firmly continued to point towards my freedom. This was it. My free will was now my free will again.

I rocketed through the tunnel at breakneck speeds, not ever looking back. After a full two hours of twists and turns, I reached a trapdoor at the end of the stone tunnel.

I had two options, one being waiting here. There was a risk in opening the trapdoor only to find out I wasn’t as far from town as I had hoped, and the exit being spotted from above, reducing my chance of escape. Waiting a day or two for her to clear off could raise my chance of evasion. With certain traits I possessed, food was a non-issue for a few days. The problem in this plan was whether the old lizard would practice ‘diplomacy’ and get the location from the exit out of a priest or guard, or just send one down the tunnel.

My other option was to break for it right now, and get as much distance as possible from wherever it opened up to, in order to get out of an effective search range. Dragon or no, searching the whole world simply wasn’t an option without shattering treaties and pacts, which would stir up all sorts of trouble for her.

I would need to do that eventually anyway, but for now, I had decided. I would go with… option three. I kicked the trapdoor open, and got a grasp of my surroundings. I was in a thicket of trees that perfectly surrounded the trapdoor, and just outside the cluster of foliage was a road. A quick look around told me I was about 40 miles north northwest of the (once) lovely city I had just left (in the talons of an angry dragon).