I’m surrounded by an inky darkness. I can feel that I’m curled up, and that my back and shoulders are touching a rounded wall. Where am I? What’s happening? I wonder, while trying to move around. It only takes a second for me to find out that I can’t move anything except my head. It also brings up the question of What even am I? I don’t have arms, like I normally do. Wait, do I normally have arms? Why would it be abnormal for me to lack them?
My train of thought ends up circling back to the original question. What am I? I’m not getting any answers, and I see no reason why that would change, so I attempt to leave. I move myself more forcefully, and end up pretty much just flailing my body randomly. Just a second later, I’m met with a resounding *Crack!* I stop moving. A sliver of light peeks through a fracture in the wall in front of me.
After hitting the wall several more times, it splits open, and I tumble out, dropping onto a stone cold floor. I’m assaulted by a musty smell that permeates the entirety of the room. That smells disgusting! Bleh. It takes me a second to realize that I’ve closed my eyes, subconsciously trying to escape from the intense smell. I reopen them, and quickly stand up. At first I'm met with darkness, but my eyes quickly adjust, and I see large, cavernous walls surrounding me. Details are hard to discern because of the shadows shrouding the room. However, there is one part in the very middle of the cavern where a spot of sunlight that is roughly the size of a car peeks through. I also notice that there is a moderate amount of gold coins lining the edges of the room.
Glancing behind me, I make out the egg that I likely hatched from, among a pile of similar looking eggs. Mine is about the size of an ostrich’s egg, and is split down the middle. The egg looks like it’s made of a dull aluminum, with a green liquid oozing from where it cracked. There are no signs of any other living creatures. Where are my parents? I turn around a little bit, stumbling, as I’m still not used to walking. Moving closer to the walls, I inspect them more closely, and realize that they're actually made of a red substance.
As if something is triggered by my investigation, two large creatures descend into the cave. They smell of the wind, of plants, of more than this musty cavern. They also have appearances that are far more grand than whatever this cavern is made for. The first of them is a female that is covered in crimson scales. Her snout is long, filled with rows of small, dagger-like teeth. Majestic wings unfurl behind her, membrane looking as smooth as silk. Her tail curls at her feet, as long as an adult is tall. The claws on her feet and wings are black, like onyx, and don’t even gain the tiniest scratch from digging into the stone, however slightly it’s happening. Her black horns are twisted spires, about as long as an adult’s arm.
The male looks similar to the female. His scales shine a similar sheen. His snout is only slightly less elongated, teeth only slightly less wide. His wings are identical, and the tail is the same length. His claws and horns are indistinguishable from hers. While they were descending, all I had was a single thought. Are those dragons?
The two creatures land right in the middle of the sunny spot, folding up their wings as they do so. They look around the cavern, their gazes landing on me. Their imposing forms and curious stares make me shy away. “Well, this is unexpected.” The male rumbles, shifting his scrutiny to the small pile of eggs. “I didn’t think any of them would hatch so soon.”
“Something seems off about this one. There’s no way any of them should have been able to hatch in such a short period of time.” As the two adult creatures (dragons?) discuss my hatching, I back away. The female then turns her scrutinizing gaze back to me, stopping me dead in my tracks. Her eyes turn a shimmering ocean blue as she appraises me. When she speaks again, she sounds disappointed, “It seems this one has far less mana than would normally be expected for a young dragon.”
What? What does that mean? Wait, are they going to do something to me? She sounded disappointed. That’s bad. I hope I’m not punished, or something. Well, at least I know what I am now.
The male booms, “That’s truly a disappointment, should we kill it, or just banish it?”
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“I believe that we should just banish it, as it is possible that it will grow stronger in the wild.” The female replies, her eyes changing back to crimson. I don’t want to be banished or killed! “Squeak!” Both of their gazes shift back to me as I try to deny a banishing. “Can it understand us? Most baby dragons can’t understand language until they are at least six months old.”
Are they interested now? Will they not banish me?
“Still, I think that we have to get rid of it. It would likely be too much effort to raise, and probably not worth it,” the male said, voice still thundering at a truly impressive volume.
No! I am worth it! Don’t banish me!
“Well. You take it out. I shall tend to the eggs,” the female dragon says, shuffling over to the eggs, and leaving the male more room in the sun spot.
“Come, little one.” The male says, gesturing to the sunspot. No! I don’t want to go! “Squeak.” I try to move away, but the female dragon (my mother?) grabs me with her jaws, and tosses me to the male, and then continues doing whatever she was doing to the eggs.
Ahhhhhhhhhh!
After a couple of seconds in the air, I finally reach the male dragon. He quickly grabs me out of the air, stopping my forward momentum. However, he lets his claw drop a bit, and I still feel like I'm falling. Just as I’m about to touch the ground, he stops the falling motion of his arm, unfurls his massive wings, and beats mightily to get a boost into the sky. My breath is taken away by the sudden increase of warmth from the sun. This is the first time I’ve basked in the sunlight, and it feels great!
As we rise from the hole that I was born in, I start to smell, see, hear, even taste things - things that I’ve never experienced before. I see dirt. I smell the earthy scent of a healthy forest, so intense that I can practically taste it. Then grass. The smell grows stronger. I start to hear leaves and grass rustling. Then the bases of trees appear, sprouting from the carpet of green blades. I follow one of them up, and it just keeps rising. And rising. And rising! I can only see the blurry canopy after looking almost completely straight up. Right next to the trees are flowers. Roses, Tulips, Lily of the Valleys, even some Sunflowers.
Except, unlike normal flowers, these ones are huge. Most of them are about a quarter the size of the trees, but some, like the Sunflowers, are twice the size of that! And that’s not even half of what’s in my field of vision right now! My breath is taken away once again by the sheer amount of life that’s surrounding me. I’m so distracted that I don’t notice that we’re still rising.
Before long, we’ve risen to the height of the tallest trees. The male dragon suddenly stops, then speedily turns completely around, facing the opposite direction from where we were facing before, and starts flying forward. The trees zoom by below us, and any birds I see immediately turn and start flying away. I wonder why, before realizing it’s likely because we’re big and moving fast.
After what feels like an eternity of flying, the dragon that’s carrying me begins to angle his flight downwards. The lower to the ground we go, the more details I notice. Things like the forest growing less dense, and the scents of wildlife growing farther apart.
Are we getting close? I mean, I can’t really think of any other reasons for us to start going lower. Unless maybe there is something more powerful than this dragon, and he’s going lower to avoid its attention.
After another five or so minutes of descending, the dragon stops at about ten feet above a clearing. He then drops me to the ground. I try to spread my wings to catch myself, but they just don’t have enough surface area to do so, and I end up flipping. When I reach the ground, I get some bruises, but don’t take any more serious damage. I quickly stand up as I try to understand why he let me fall.
Why did he do that? Is it because he knew that I would survive?
“Well hatchling, I shall leave now. One last piece of advice to help you survive. Think [Status].” He spoke something akin to a word of power. It carried a meaning to it more than just its basic definition, yet it somehow perfectly embodied just that. It resonated with the world in a way that just cannot be described.
Well, it can’t hurt to try. [Status]
Razag
Level: 1
Species: Dragon Hatchling
General Skills:
[Passive - Dragon Scales] lvl 1
Skills:
Unused Skill Slot x 5
Stats:
STR: 10
END: 10
VIT: 14
WIS: 15
INT: 15
When I thought the word of power, I felt a part of my mind that I didn’t even know existed opening up. I instinctively knew that this status screen was not fully unlocked, and that more could be unlocked by speaking more of these words of power. I also knew that if I killed other creatures, I could level up, which would make me stronger. This all happened in an instant. My knees buckled, and I collapsed as all the information was shoved into my mind.
I was slowly sorting through the new information when I felt the wind pick up. I looked up to see the adult dragon gone, leaving me alone in the clearing.