Preparing for the extraction took much longer than Allen thought it would, with the closest starting city where a recreational character could spawn not even sharing a regional border with the Kobold empire the operation required a lot of delicate negotiations with mercenary companies working on both sides of the border.
Allen tried to keep his normal schedule but thinking on every complication had him running the others ragged by the third day and he was banished along with Jovial to explore the temple.
Entering a new room Allen heard Jovial whimper when he noticed the jaws and then eyes of the creature living there, dark green scales covering the serpentine body, wings folded on its back, sharp horns adorning its head like a crown, the dragon sighed and Allen fealt sorrow wash over him through the sensors.
"Beautiful" he said and the dragon's eyes turned to jovial.
"You speak?" It said and Jovial screamed in terror as the dragon sighed again and rested its head on the floor tiles.
Allen checked the language tab for the dragon and found it saying 'ancient draconian', "the same old trick?" Allen asked no one in particular and the dragon's eye turned to stare at Jovial.
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"They should really try something new every few hundred years", to which the dragon snorted a blast of air that pushed Jovial against the wall' freeing him from the terror that held him motionless, after which he fled screaming down the hall.
"Typical" the beast's voice rumbled shaking the walls of its cave.
When the creature's eyes didn't start glowing even after applying the Feral cure to its profile Allen asked "you are not a Player or NPC?" surprised the effect didnt work.
"Who hides in my domain?" The dragon asked and cast a spell to reveal hidden things, "I am not a slave to the humans of the other world" it answerd Allen's question criptically.
"Then what are you?" Allen asked, his curiosity peaking at the notion of another AI race.
"Ahhh who cares anymore", the dragon said after thinking, "I payed to have my mind imprinted on the servers when I was dying of old age", he sighed again "that was almost four hundred years ago", his voice lowered down "a third of which I lived in this cave after some blasted Admin mistook me for a rogue AI and made everyone attack me", another blast from his nostrils "apparently once I became a creature in the game I had no more rights", looking around the cave, "there isnt anyone there huh?" It asked sounding disappointed.
"I am here" Allen answerd, "we have very similar stories".
"Oh" The dragon's voice lifted, "another immortal?" Bursting in a deep and rumbling laughter, "did they make you a ghost?" It laughed until the cave walls started shaking again.