I jumped a little when I realized there was someone behind me. He was huge, at least twice my height, and had grey skin. It wasn't stone, but it still looked pretty tough. He was bald, but almost to make up for that his eyebrows were huge, and thick, and he had a short well trimmed beard. He was wearing chain mail, and carried a huge shield, well, huge to me. It was like a kite shield to him.
Lily came up to his knee. "Hey, Bwyd, this is Bjorn. He's part giant or something." She then started making bell noises.
Bjorn held his hand out towards me and said, "What's up?"
"You, definetly you." His hand could have held my whole head, but his hand shake was surprisingly gentle.
He laughed, a deep rumbling laughter, "To you sure, but just the other day I was fighting a twelve foot tall cyclopes. My head was at his shoulders."
"Ooh, that sounds scary. Did you beat it?"
"Not right away, I had to kill his fifteen foot brother." He started acting it out as he told the story. "The taller one had me in a strangle hold, and all I could do was kick the short one..."
Lily inturupted him, with bell noises, and pointed at Marcus.
"What did that?" His thick brow furrowed.
She jingled again, and I tried to look inconspicuous as he stared at me.
"Bwyd? What did you do?" His voice lowered and he kind of growled.
"I, um, I just made him my servant. He did this after."
Lily jingled some more, and he seemed to calm down a bit.
"As long as it's just him being him, I guess that's ok. But, I am the tank of this party, and it is my job to protect them from all enemies. So if..." He kept talking, but Lily started telepathically talking and it was just too hard to listen to both.
"Bwyd, do you have a party?"
I shook my head slightly.
"We could use another member, if you are interested."
I cocked my head to one side, thinking about what I actually wanted. I started playing the game because it seemed interesting, but somehow I had gotten a special story. These people were also interesting, but I was pretty sure that if I spent too much time with them I wouldn't be able to hide the fact that I was a dragon. Or kind of a dragon. Unlike my mother who could just fly away if something went wrong, I was pretty much stuck. So I had to be absolutely sure that I could trust the people I told my secret to. Marcus, Lily, and Bjorn seemed like good people, but they didn't know me. There was nothing to keep them from putting me in a prison, and doing evil anti dragon experiments. I knew it was a game, but I also felt attached to my character. It didn't really feel like there was a difference between reality and the game. Well, except that everything felt a little sluggish and muffled. Like I was in water instead of air. But it would be nice to have friends, so I figured I could join the party, and let things develop on their own. Until Marcus finally started talking...
"Bwyd, I have a million questions for you. Starting with how did you give me such a crazy buff?"
Bjorn stopped lecturing to talk to him, "Marcus, you can keep staring at your corner, I'm giving her the party is family speech."
"When I became her servant, I got a buff, named in some weird language, that gives me an insane bonus to all shadow and fire magic. It also gave me a summoning spell, that didn't work, but it summons a cursed shadow dragon to a point near me." He pausd to take a breath, "Oh, and did I mention that I now have 5 for both shadow and fire resistance? I think my questions are way more important than your family talk."
Lily jingled, quietly.
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"I know you like her, but Bwyd I need some answers, and I need them now." His eyes were so focused on me, I felt like he was looking right through me.
"Well, I'm not sure. I don't have a buff like that. At least I don't think I do."
"You do know how to check your status, right?" Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"Of course I do, I don't have any buffs." Then just to be sure.
Spoiler: Spoiler
Name: Bwyd Diderfyni Titles: Master Race: Dragon (Cursed) Resistances: Shadow 10, Fire 10, Physical 1. Alignment: Neutral Class: N/A Stat Points: 3 Attributes: Shadow, Fire Skills: Natural Armor (Degraded), Dragon Breath (Degraded), Flight (Degraded), Fire Magic, Shadow Magic.
Strength: 5 Agility: 4 Mental: 5 (+5) Fortitude: 10 Reflexes: 4 Willpower: 9 (+5) Dexterity: 8 Perception: 4 Awareness: 3
Natural Armor 1 (Degraded) Gain 1 point of physical resistance per level. (Degraded) Maximum level is 1. Dragon Breath 1 (Degraded) Gain a fire breath attack that ignores half the target's fire resistance. The damage is equal to your Fortitude multiplied by Dragon Breath's level. (Degraded) You will also take half the damage you deal. Flight 1 (Degraded) You can use your wings to fly. You will gain more control, and special maneuvers as the level increases. (Degraded) Maximum level is 1. Fire Magic 5 You can use your mana to cast fire spells. Each level increases the spells you can learn, and the level of the spell. Shadow Magic 5 You can use your mana to cast shadow spells. Each level increases the spells you can learn, and the level of the spell.
So the only new thing was the title...
Master Earned after gaining a servant. +5 Mental and Willpower.
"What about titles, or special abilities that give buffs to servants?" He started moving towards me.
"Nope, nothing."
"Passive ablities?"
"No."
"There's got to be something, have you checked everything?" He was close enough now that he put his hands on my shoulders.
"Have you checked everything?" I pushed his hands off, "I don't have anything that would give you any kind of buff."
He started pacing again. Bjorn sighed and said, "Now he's reading again, at least we have some time. As I was saying, we are a close group of friends and we would do anything for each other. My role is protection, Lily handles healing, Marcus is our mage. We are looking for two more members and..."
Marcus stopped and practically shouted, "I got it! Bwyd, can you read this?"
I was about to say I can't read when he made an illusion of a notification box.
%&$*#@^%^$%&(!
You have contracted as a dragon's servant!
The dragon is young and cursed and a bit shy, but a dragon is a dragon.
As a mage you will gain magic benefits from your contract based on the power of the dragon,
and you will be able to summon her if she is willing and the summons is not blocked by a god.
*#$(&%(@#$ #&# &#$7 #$&*)% #$*&& #)&$)& #)%&p^&&#
#$*&am$!@p#& )#&$*#& 7^_()%^*$ *@)($#*%_
My eyes widened a little when I realized I could read something, then I realized I had been reading my notifications this whole time so I could apparently read something. I just thought that it was a notification so you could read it no matter what, but now that I could see his illusion of a notification it made me realize that they were written in a language you could read. Which meant I could read dragon.
Bjorn interupted my thoughts, "Now she's speechless. But seriously man, that's an awsome buff, resistance and two levels of a couple magic skills. You got anything like that for tanks Bwyd?"
Lily made bell noises and Bjorn laughed. Marcus was still focused on me, waiting for my answer.
"So, uh. I can read some of it."
"Yeah we all can read some of it, it's that gibberish in the middle we can't read." Bjorn poked at the illusion as he talked.
"No, I can't read the stuff on the outside. I can read the middle just fine." I spoke quietly, worried how they would react.
Bjorn just looked at me with a puzzled look, Lily gasped, and Marcus smiled and said, "So, what does it say?"
"It basically says that you get bonuses for contracting with me." I started getting uncomfortable as they all just stared at me.
"Why?"
"I'm, not." I almost said 'sure', but I didn't want to lie to them. "I'm not human."