The next day started as any other, Adrest woke up just as the purple moon faded below the horizon and the air took on that grey pre-light shade.. He opened the shutters to air out the hut and got a hunk of meat from his kill yesterday. Adrest sliced the meat open and stuffed it with berries. Adrest found that the sweetness of the berries complimented the pork like flavor of the meat. It was fast becoming a favorite meal of his.
Adrest had just pulled off the speared meat, letting it cool, when he felt a strong breeze above. There were a myriad of leaves falling to the ground slowly, dancing in the wind. He heard faint gusts of wind above the canopy seeming to get louder. Curious, he looked up and listened keenly, hoping it wasn’t a monster.
Soon he was able to confirm that the wind was slowly getting louder, and more leaves flew. Adrest didn’t have to wait long for the next development to take place, as soon entire limbs snapped, and he saw a dark something in the distance stirring in the leaves. Realizing that this is probably the reason for the abundance of firewood, he took up a defensive stance with his sword, knowing that in a sparse forest such as this, he couldn’t escape a flying enemy determined to get him.
Tensely, he waited until the shadow turned into a distinguishable shape, and unbelievably, the first thing he thought of when seeing it was a dragon. It was huge, as large a 2-story building, and had 4 massive legs and imposing claws glittering. It was a deep purple on most of its body, regal and illustrious in the early morning glow. But on its chest, he noticed a more lavender shade of scale coating the area.
The face of the “dragon” that was coming closer to him and looking his way terrified him. He felt a primal fear that was absent in other fights, even when he was running for his life, Adrest had still been able to try to live, no matter how futile it seemed. But now, with those glowing bright yellow, reptilian eyes locked on to him, and the dagger-like teeth that glittered with saliva, he was unable to muster any kind of resistance, simply staring at the end approaching.
As he waited for the end, Adrest noticed lightning. It was irregularly arcing between the dragon’s deep rich purple horns that each curved outwards and tapered to a lethal end.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, and it was taking all he had to stay standing and holding his sword. Adrest nearly crumpled in on himself with the pressure surrounding him, but defiantly remained standing, wanting to die on his feet.
The dragon moved closer with each flap of its large and leathery wings, they were the same deep purple as its scales and had a bright white membrane stretching across each appendage. It moved closer, death approached, 500 feet, 300, 100.
Then, the dragon did the unexpected and slowed rather than staying on course to turn him into meat paste with the impact of its weight alone. The dragon stopped roughly 30 feet away and lowered its head to be even with himself, before letting loose an ear-shaking roar.
At that, Adrest dropped to the ground and clutched his ears as the sword clattered beside him. Vaguely behind the roar, he seemed to hear someone say something. Rather than hearing, it was more like a feeling in his mind, that someone had imperiously said “Demon! What are you doing in you doing in MY territory. Why should I not reduce you to ash here and now?”
The roaring stopped and feeling like his brain had been slightly shaken, Adrest bowed in subservience to the mighty foe saying,
“Please forgive the intrusion, I did not know this place was claimed! I am happy to leave if you would give me the chance!”
Adrest had no idea if the dragon could understand him, but Adrest had a feeling it could, knowing how weird this world seemed to be, he really wouldn’t be that surprised to find talking dragons, and it seemed better to hope than wait for death.
The dragon let out a huff of steaming air through its nostrils, and roared again, albeit quieter, this time interpreting it as “Hmmp, This one can clearly see that you have claimed the lodestone as your own, hence claiming this, my, territory!”
Adrest went pale in fright as he realized the predicament and how badly he fucked up. He was sure his already pale face became the exact same shade as a corpses’ at that point and decided there was only one way out. His ultimate weapon that he had picked up from many hours of games and fantasy novels.
“Please forgive me. I am ashamed and did not realize the error of my ways until your erudite self explained. I had no idea a presence as mighty as yourself was occupying the area.”
Yes, the pinnacle fantasy techniques, compliment the old master respectfully and go full ass kissing mode, it was the only route available now.
With another roar, still scary, but not as intimidating as the first it said, “Oh? This insect knows its place. Very well! As your new lord you shall offer that meat as tribute.” It pointed its snout towards the deer hind that was resting and still steaming on the cooling spit off to the side of the fire.
Standing stock still for a moment, Adrest stumbled over the words just spoken, wondering if he heard right, but when he saw the gleam in the lizard’s eye as it looked at the meal and huffed steam out its maw he complied, still getting over the nerved from the encounter, he shakily grabbed the meat and presented the offering to his new self-imposed ruler.
It quickly devoured the meat, bone and all, in one mighty chomp. Its eyes widened seconds after. And a delighted thrum passed through its throat, vibrating the air around it.
Basking in the flavor for a few more moments, the dragon soon found its dignity again and cleared its throat before roaring, “Yes, this is a good start of your payment, but I require more.”
Not even waiting for a reply, the cocky dragon moved over to the fire and curled in on itself facing the fire and Adrest, with impatient eyes that seemed to scream “I’m waiting!”
His brain returning to him, Adrest moved to his remaining meat and propped it up before quickly picking a full bush worth of Bloodberries and stuffing them into the empty stomach cavity, sealing it with skewers and placing it over the fire.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
In no time, Adrest was tirelessly rotating a huge deer creature over a fire for the rest of the morning. The scent of roasting meat and the undertone of sweet fruit cooking and caramelizing as it leaked out suffused the air and the dragon was literally drooling at the corners of its mouth as it waited.
Several times it told him to hurry and that it was a sin to make a superior being wait. But Adrest insisted it had to be cooked slowly to be as flavorful as the leg, making it give a snort and mumbling that he should be thankful to have such a patient ruler before going back to silently observing.
After several hours, the dragon’s meal was ready, and while the front of him was warmed from the fire, his back was coated in cold sweat from being looked at with those golden reptilian eyes filled with hunger. As soon as he voiced that it was done the dragon swooped over with more speed than Adrest though a large body possible, it pulled the whole roast off the spit, and devoured it, skewers and all.
Out of reflex Adrest yelled “Oi, don’t eat the skewers, I needed those still, they’re fucking WOOD!” Adrest realized he fucked up when the dragon looked at him with cold eyes, there was a tense stare down for several moments.
It soon let out a snort and turned its head. Saying in its language “To dare yell at your overlord, you must have a death wish. Be that as it may, I am gracious enough to admit that i may have been overzealous and ate in a manner unbecoming.”
Adrest swore this fucking dragon was blushing slightly when it said the last part. While Adrest pondered the blushing dragon, the culprit cleared its throat.
“And that is why this lord will allow you to cook in apology to me, you may express your thanks.”
Thanking her mechanically, just doing whatever the shy dragon wanted at this point, Adrest sighed and raised his voice,
“But gracious noble, that was the last of the meat.”
The dragon lifted its head with a shitty confident snort, “That is no problem, you simply need more Idren correct? I shall return momentarily, hahaha!” With a laugh it rushed off, in its own little world happy to prove its place as the lord again after eating wood in front of its new minion.
Adrest watched the mighty dragon crash through the leaves above and offhandedly noted that the zebra deer were apparently called Idren. Adrest figured this was his new life for the foreseeable future so in defeat he got to stoking the fire in preparation for the next hunk of meat to show up. He gathered an ample number of berries since the dragon seemed to have a soft spot for them.
Minutes later, while Adrest was sitting in his chair, trying to get some sort of normalcy in his abnormal new life, he heard the now recognizable beat of wings and soon saw the dragon with 3 Idrens hanging limply in its claws. Seeing it fly in midair once again, now in the midday sun, Adrest realized just how beautiful those purple scales were, they seemed to glitter and endlessly shifted color as the sun reflected beautifully off them. The majesty of the apex existence in any world, demanded his full attention.
Soon, there were loud thumps as the Idrens landed near him onto the leaves, close enough he could hear loud cracks as the each landed. He saw the dragon land back into its resting spot and give him a toothy grim that screamed “praise me” so he did as silently told and woodenly praised how mighty they were and how beautiful their scales were.
At the praise, the dragon huffed in satisfaction and turned its head shyly at the complements of its appearance. Now he was positive, this dragon was actually really simple, it wanted to be praised, fed, and didn’t handle complements well.
Sighing, not even surprised anymore, he got his sword out to prepare the animals, and made replacement skewers before getting it on a spit and roasting for the third time today.
Many hours later and with 3 less Idrens, Adrest finally had a content dragon laying curled in on itself, watching the fire with a content look in its eyes. Adrest was finally able to sit down and think about some of the information he had gotten out of the dragon.
The first thing was obvious, they were in a massive forest. That forest spanned the lower eastern side of the continent and was separated from the rest of the world by the sea to one side, and a mountain range encircling all but the north most part of it. It was home to all manner of strong monsters, and as he could see by the debris around him, there once was a fledgling nation here. Only a few hundred miles from the mountains that separated the land. It was called Mountains Reach, and was led by a demon lord, said to be born from the mountains themselves. Unfortunately, not being human and trying to control the many natural resources in the forest, he was marked as an enemy of the nations just on the other side of the divide. One was the Holy Empire of Itola, the other being the merchant Nation Radagon, respectively to the north and south of here.
Adrest had tried to ask about what they nations were like, and what kind of people lived there, but the dragon just shrugged and said that it has never had a reason to enter their borders. But they did say both nations should primarily be humans. The biggest difference being, Radagon should be quite diverse because they were a nation of merchants, and only cared about benefits. Whereas Itola would be almost entirely humans as the god of light and the sun, Ifreit, favored humans and to protect them, intervenes from time to time. Such as divine intervention, miracles, holy cures, and heroes in times of strife.
As it turned out, Gods were quite real. Each nation worshiped a different god, and the gods offer some degree of protection in return, although some were more hands off than others. Speaking of hands on, the god of humans, Sun God Ifreit, was said to literally touch those deemed worthy and they were granted evolved bodies with infinite potential, just as Adrest was changed into a demon by touching the lodestone, a relic left by the Demon God Beel.
Onto ranks, the dragon explained that it went from F for the most basic of species, all the way to SSS rank which were considered demi-gods, with a + or - to used to denote strength within a rank. They themselves were happy to show off that they were already A- rank. They also said that as a dragon they could forcefully shed their skin to grow stronger when they reached their natural limits.
Between the endless cooking and the surprisingly easy conversation with the dragon, the day had about passed, and it was nearly dark. The surroundings taking on a deep purple hue as the first moon rose, adding an air of mystery to this odd dragon.
It seemed to have fallen asleep after eating three whole Idrens, so sitting down on his chair and munching on the last of the berries as dinner, Adrest sighed and didn’t know how to feel about his sudden neighbor.
As he lounged there and took comfort in the shifting, but familiar, starry sky that he had come to love. He also noticed with a wry smile that there were several new holes on the crown of the trees above to look through.
Some hours later, he slowly stood up from his chair after having nearly fallen asleep. He stretched his whole body and started sleepily headed to his wooden hut when he heard the dragon stir and quietly let out a growl that said, “Where is my underling going?”
He sighed and put on a smile before answering he was simply headed to sleep and opened the door to his small and cozy home. The dragon lumbered over and looked inside to see the small cottage’s interior, with a comfortable-looking bed and a soon to be warm woodstove to keep the chill out of the smooth grey rock floor.
The Dragon looked for a moment and then nodded before looking over to Adrest roaring to him “Very well, quite a comfortable dwelling indeed. This should do for now.”
He just stood there confused by what it meant but was mostly focused on the lightning arcing off its horns sparking dangerously close to the wooden walls of his home.
Adrest’s eyes jumped to a bright white light that came from all over the dragon’s body, first expanding and brightening until he had to close his eyes. But it quickly dimmed, and standing in the dragon’s place was a beautiful woman who looked to be about the same age as his new self.