Ericka started her shift like it was every other day, boring repetitive and stupid accumulation of credits waiting for a contract that was worth her time and effort, for the past few months NPCs got a new even worse job than ever before, they were literaly cogs in an industrial machine, the best time for credits contracts were these Allen Industries robots that had an absolutely mundane job, it was so bad that the NPCs petitoned for random repositioning during the day between the different machine parts just to get some excitement from the unknown.

Turning the knob for the billionth time cocked the reciever and pushed a new file into the grinder, earning her two credits for every five ground files that she pushed through to the next NPC in the production line, they were making the future, building the infrastructures on which progress will come, for the Players, in the NPC camps this was just another depressing way to pass the day, they were all the same job, idle through the sequence of part production and assembly of the flying, digging, building and everything else machines.

Another two credits in her balance when she idly scanned her contract offers, ogres, trolls, witches, all fodder for player entertainment that had you suffer for every bit of credits unless you went on a rampage and dropped the blockers, then you could make some extra if you could stand the pain and humiliation, no monster was bigger than the Players except for a few gargants that ruled a huge territory and trimmed competition or the contracts that were so rare a lifetime would pass and you will never even hear of one.

A limited dragon navigation contract will probably be some boring fast travel for a player but it was better than going through another turn of the knob, so she took it for a low twenty thousand credits price just to pass the time.

"Ugh stupid contract", Ericka moaned, "what was this Player thinking getting buried alive?", wiggeling with the tiny space she had and she pushed the live tomb around her, "whoever this stupid Meroa is will pay extra for this", she issued a complaint and requested a boost which surprised her at the cost of over three times the contract.

"You got buried deep bitch", cursing alleviated some stress, "no access to magic", she spat and slapped her tail, "no special powers", her right arm was almost freed, "and a stupid prestidigitaion breath that will clean stuff or create random items", scraping her neck from the debries she hit some kind of metal rod and ripped it apart, "what kind of stupid dragon is this?", craning her head with the tiny leeway she used her breath weapon to at least push some of the dust away.

Her only quest was to capture some other dragon of the same kind, probably a runaway lover for the rich bitch that buried her before he started to flee, the breath did not come out as she expected, in seconds the whole tunnel was clattered with trash items that poked her body and were tough enough not to break under her weight, when she tried to store them was the first surprise that she had over two thousand slots, and the second was that they disintegrated in a puff of fine dirt she first mistook to be smoke, falling to the ground Ericka discovered she now had some room to move and decided this was her cheap way out instead of paying the titanic teleportation fee.

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Slowly at first she breathed the items in controlled breaths and immediately turned them to dust, increasing the speed and lowering the downtimes like she learned to do in the factory, push, stop, store, pull, stop, drop, she could hold a steady stream for a full minute before the ground started to shake, but at that moment she didn't care, her target was runing away at a speed she never heard of before beside chained teleportations, and she needed those credits to recoup her losses for this dumb contract.

With everything falling apart around her and her only viable weapon as her breath she intensified its stream and idled the storing part which let her just breath out from her mouth, breath in from her nose and never stop the process of dusting up the tomb she was buried in, finally daylight hit her and she remembered her wings.

Blinking furiously to clear the dusty tears from her eyes she used her wings to clear her area and it let her see what the world outside was like, first thinking this was some kind of joke before the realised the toy sized buildings getting pummeled by pebbles were actually real sized items and the one out of proportions was her, grabbing one of the tiny blimps with her hand she moved it back and forth through the air while making "whhooosh" sounds and laughing at the tiny airplanes that dropped from it like crazy paratroopers.

Something flew at her from one of the silos on the ground and its explosion really hurt, so she decided the game was over for them, using her breath to dust everything in sight and her wings to lift the dust and herself through the air she was delighted to recieve hundreds of PK messages that more than compensated her on the whole thing, turning to her original quest she could see so far away that the whole continent was like a dinner table with dishes arrayed before her.

Turning into a glide toward her targed she was covering good grounds before the idea struck her that these towns she was flying over could be a good source for some free credits, letting the fake winds carry her to her target Ericka turned her head to the ground and streamed her breath, the nonsensical items dropped like the paperweights they actually were and she had to conciously not store them before they hit the ground, after a few failed attempts she got the hang of it and started wiping out the stupid tiny Players that could do nothing against her breath, recieving notifications for blunt damage, suffocation and collateral destruction.

Swerving her neck to get a larger cone made for faster credits per seconds, though she was already in the millions and more it was a fun game to play in trying to perfect her method, this was the best contract ever in the history of NPC contracts.