I lay there breathing heavily and waiting for the world to come back together in a way I could focus on what I needed to do next. That had been one of the most painful, exhilarating, and scary moments of my life thus far. Either of my lives for that matter! I had been through almost all of the things people went to horror movies for on earth in one fight. I had been stabbed, clawed, almost mauled by a bear, and a crazed individual had even chased me with an axe. If there had been someone with a chainsaw or asking me if I wanted to play games with them, then I'd have completed the horror film bingo card. Brutus had come to sit on my chest and let me know the werebear was indeed dead so that I didn't need to rush up to defend myself. After a few minutes, I sat back up. My health was slowly ticking back up, another indicator I was no longer in combat, and so I was beginning to feel better. I cast one more minor heal on myself to really make me feel up to moving and got to my feet.
I walked first over to the werebear and looked at it. Man, was it ugly. I could still make out some of the human features, but it was more bear than man for sure. Since some of its fur had been burned away now, you could really get a good look at it. Despite it not being so pretty to look at, it was an effective fighter, but all strength and no agility was why I had won. The sword had gone out when it left my hand, so I grabbed it and pulled it free of its head, only to have it ignite on me as I was pulling it out. That actually helped with the process of removing the sword as it burned away some of the parts holding the blade in place. Once it was out I looked over the body. Some notifications were blinking in my vision, but I decided to loot the body before dealing with those.
"So, where do we start with this big ugly monster?"
"I'd start with that pouch if I were you."
I looked down where Brutus had indicated near where the loincloth had been. Or I guess was? It looked like the loin cloth had changed as well to be covered with fur that was about the same color as the bear itself. Magic clothing was really impressing me. Mixed in the fur was what looked like a large pouch. The pouch was almost the same color as the fur, so it had been hard to spot on the body. I grabbed the pouch and found where it tied to the loincloth and removed it. I inspected the pouch.
Item:
Oversized Bag of Holding
Item Type: Accessory
Durability: 1000/1000
Enchantment: This bag was enchanted with spatial magic to allow a pocket dimension to be placed inside it. It can hold items in a 20x20 grid and reduces the weight of the items inside by 95%
Item Quality: Excellent
Item Rarity: Epic
I couldn't believe my eyes. This thing was amazing, and the second bag of holding I had found already. Were the loot drops in this game set to ultra high, or was this some kind of world where I needed to worry about how good the loot was going to be for other people when I got out of this dungeon?
"Holy cow! That is an amazing item!"
Must be the former.
"So I think that answers my question. Is the loot I've been getting above average?"
"Way above. You've gotten stupid lucky. But don't question it. Just thank whichever god is watching over you and move forward."
"There are gods in this world?"
"Well, yes, and no."
"That really sheds a lot of light onto the situation."
"There are some really powerful entities who help to watch over the world, but they don't usually interfere in the less important affairs of the weaker people. They are there to help maintain a balance in the world."
"Any idea which one I should thank?"
"Not really. There are a lot of them, but the few that might be responsible would be Hector, the god of dungeons, Therius the god of loot, Pius the god of luck, or Erot the goddess of balance. So I'd give a general thank you to the void and move on."
"How many gods are there in total?"
"One hundred and eighty-six. Would you like me to tell you about them?"
"NO! I mean, no, that won't be necessary."
That was interesting. Erot sounded intriguing to me. I had always tried to have a sense of balance in my life on earth. It was kind of a motto that I lived by "Balance in all things". I silently said a prayer to the void to thank all the gods possibly responsible, then said a specific prayer to Erot.
Prayer Heard:
Erot has heard your prayer and is pleased.
I hadn't expected anything like that. I would have to remember to thank her more often. One hundred and eighty-six gods in this world was a lot though, and I would like to know more about that, but for now, I needed to look at the loot that we had gotten from the werebear. I looked at the bag's grid to see what it had in it. There was not much. There were a few pieces of raw meat the werebear had probably held onto for food rations, and then fifty copper, twenty-five silver, and ten gold coins. Not too shabby, but not really great loot either. The bag was the real prize apparently. I went over and managed to barely get the two-handed axe out of the wall where it was stuck. It was heavy. Even my improved strength was barely enough to wield it. It was rather awkward to try to wield because of its heft. I decided to go back to my loot hoarding days and just put it in the bag of holding until I could sell it to buy something I did want. I was just about to put my other bag of holding into the new bag of holding when Brutus started screaming at me.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! DO YOU WANT TO KILL US ALL AND THE NEXT FEW NEIGHBORING TOWNS?!"
"What? I was just going to keep this bag in the other bag for more space."
"I'm going to say this as delicately as I can...THAT WOULD KILL US ALL AND THE NEXT FEW NEIGHBORING TOWNS!!!!!"
"OK, OK. I got it now. Why though? I thought it would just be an efficient storage method, you know like a grid within a grid."
"I know you don't understand the finer details of spacial magic, but suffice to say, if you put a bag enchanted with a small pocket dimension into another bag with a small pocket dimension, the gravitational forces of the two-dimensional spaces would act against each other and form a rip in space itself...do you know what we call that?"
"A black hole?"
"A black hole...do you know what happens when you are near a black hole?"
"You get sucked in?"
"You get both compressed by a gravitational force so strong it can move planets while also being stretched out simultaneously. It's literally called spaghettification. Does that sound like fun?"
"No."
"No, it does not! So please let's just carry our bags of holding. OK?"
"You were a little harsh don't you think?"
"You were about to rip open space...should I have set out milk and cookies for your story time while giving you a good tummy rub?! I had to get a point across!"
"Message received, loud and clear."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
With that out of the way, and disaster avoided, I pulled up the notifications waiting for me.
Congratulations
You have defeated the boss of this dungeon. For Completing this feat you have been awarded 6,000 XP! For completing this feat without the aid of a party, your rewards have been doubled! You may now choose to leave the dungeon or continue exploring. You have currently explored 78% of the dungeon.
Leave Stay
I moved this notification to the side, for now, to see what the others said.
Level Up!
You have earned enough XP to advance to the next level. You are now level 7! Continue to work hard and push yourself to gain more XP to continue to level up. As a human, you now have 10 attribute points and 4 skill points to distribute as you see fit.
That was some great news! After beating that monster all alone I was able to jump straight to level 7! I couldn't wait to spend those attribute points. I noted that this definitely was a dungeon meant to be completed with a party. That would have likely made the werebear fight a lot easier. Hopefully, I could find a town once I got out and try to party up with some people. The next option was an interesting one as well and something I hadn't even thought about for my items, but now that I knew it was an option I wanted it for sure!
Soul Bound
The bag of holding you have found was soul bound to the creature you have slain. In slaying this creature you have been given an opportunity to move the soul-bound option to yourself. Would you like to bind the bag of holding to you? Doing so will mean that this item cannot be stolen from you as it has been imprinted with your soul. Only you and those you give access to it will be able to open the bag as well. It will be released from its soul-binding upon your death.
Yes No
I selected yes and felt something stir in my chest, then die away. Looking at the bag there was nothing noticeably different about it. I shrugged for now as there really wasn't any way of testing it without another person. The last notification, I didn't understand.
Soul Bonding
The Egg in your care has now reached the point it will be able to hatch and soul bond with you. Bring the egg to your side to begin the Ritual of Soul Bonding!
Didn't I just use soul binding for the bag of holding? Though it did remind me that I needed to go get the egg and bring it closer. If it dies I die is a pretty big motivator to keep it safe. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have put it in a place that was out of the way of the fight that I had no idea was going to happen.
I walked over to where the egg was sitting and picked it up. After I had taken about five steps back toward the center of the room there was a cracking sound from the egg. I stopped and stared down at it. A crack appeared on the outside of the egg and began to spread. It was clearly trying to hatch. I just stood there in shock, not knowing at all what to do, thoughts blazing through my mind such as "I'm holding a dragon egg, dragons breath fire, I could be burned," and "I wonder what color it will be" and "what if it hates me" all the way to "am I even ready to be a mom...dad...parent....whatever" when it suddenly burst free from the shell sending fragments in all directions, including into my face, leaving just the bottom of the shell in my hand with a small creature sitting in my hands.
"Ow..." I said somewhat calmly as I stood there with eggshells embedded in my face.
Most people who love fantasy and fantasy games have pictured what holding a baby dragon would be like. I have pictured it many times in my life and wondered how I would feel at that moment. I was was both not feeling any of those feelings, and feeling all of those feelings at the same moment. Pride, fear, elation, concern, pain, and many other feelings all played out at the same time.
It was about the size of a Great Dane puppy but with a much longer tail. It was hard to say exactly what color it was. I was expecting to see some specific color like red, blue, black, green, or even white, but the scales seemed to almost change color based on the light's reflection of colors near it. It had an iridescent color effect when I held it and turned it in the light causing the colors to shift and change, but it appeared that black may be the base color, or it might just be that without light reflecting off of its scales that black was just what my eyes could see. Ridges ran down its back in small protrusions that stuck up like tiny pieces of armor all along its back. It had folded wings that seemed to have connecting membranes so thin, it was almost see-through. It had two tiny horns sticking out of its head growing backward, and claws on all four feet. Its belly though was a shiny dark silver color, which was a contrast to its other scales that seemed to need the light to show coloration.
It turned its neck and head and then looked up at me. As soon as our eyes met, I felt a horrendous pain in my head. I was frozen in place and couldn't move, but it felt as though someone had just jammed an ice pick into the side of my skull. I mentally screamed and heard some other noise as I did that sounded a bit like a scream as well, but I was in too much pain to focus on what the other noise was.
Suddenly I was in a bright white space, similar to the place I was brought to for my reincarnation. Once again I couldn't see nor could I feel anything. I turned around or rather felt like I turned around, and saw a giant dragon with shimmering radiant scales that changed to every color of the rainbow as it moved. It flew through the air and came racing towards me. As it got near it coasted to a glide and alighted on the ground about thirty yards away and walked towards where my incorporeal self was. I couldn't move. I was mesmerized by the beauty of the sight. It was magnificent. It lowered its huge head and put its nose right up to me. I felt something inside me say I should reach out to it, so I did what I could with my being and reached out. As I made contact with the dragon, I could feel all of my senses at once firing off as though every experience I had ever had were being recalled at once. I felt like my mind was going to be ripped apart from the massive overload. Then just as suddenly as it began, it all stopped. The dragon was now the size of a Great Dane puppy in front of me and I recognized it as the one that had hatched from the egg. Suddenly I felt like something I had been missing from my life was returned. I felt...whole and complete. I would have cried if I had a body, such was the level of emotion I was feeling. I noticed a shining on my incorporeal self and looked down to see a mark appear on my...chest area? It is really hard to describe when you don't actually have a body but can see yourself being marked. That is when it hit me. This must be my soul. It was talking about going through soul bonding. That must have meant it was my soul in the reincarnation as well. That made sense to my brain at least. So my soul was marked with what appeared to be the head of a dragon inside a double circle with some kind of glyphs or sigils inside the two rings. I looked over at the dragon and it too had a mark appearing on its chest. The same two rings with sigils inside but instead of a dragon head it was a picture of a man. We locked eyes again, and I was ripped back to my physical body, standing there holding the little dragon.
After what seemed like an eternity, the pain subsided, my body was released, and I crashed to the floor holding the dragon in a way I hoped would keep me from crushing it as I fell. I hit the ground hard and lost my hold on the tiny dragon. The world blurred and wavered like I had been out drinking and taken fifteen too many tequila shots. I turned my head and threw up. I could feel my body trying to release other bodily fluids, but I managed to clamp down on that. More nausea and I threw up again, dry heaving and coughing until I spit out blood.
Finally, my vision started to clear, the nausea began to go away, and I wiped my mouth to clear the spittle, then spit out the last bit of blood from my mouth. I cast minor healing on myself for good measure and felt even better. There was a new message waiting for me again when my head cleared.
Congratulations!
You have completed the Ritual of Soul Bonding. You are now bound to your familiar, Young Dragon. Name your familiar to help strengthen and deepen your bond. This bond will allow you to sense the direction your familiar is in relation to you at any time no matter the distance. Due to the fact that you have taken the Draconic Mind skill, your bond has also been upgraded to allow basic communication telepathically across your bond while you are in range. Increase your familiar's attributes to increase the level of communication.
Current Range: 300 yards
I put my hand to my chest as though I might be able to feel the soul brand, not quite sure what to make of all that I focused on the one thing I could for the moment. Naming the familiar. Now to figure out if it was a girl or a boy. As I thought this something licked my hand.
"Well, hello there little one. I have to give you a name. Can you help me out with whether you are a boy or a girl dragon?"
It cocked its head to one side, then seemed to get its bearings. I felt a little nudge in my mind. It was the oddest sensation I think I have ever felt. I didn't know something could touch my mind. But I remembered the prompt saying I had a connection with it now so I tried to mentally touch the nudge. When I touched the nudge it felt like where I touched it got stuck, then it connected to my mind and I panicked for a moment, then realized the connection just felt...right. I tried thinking the same question to it and got back a mental response.
"Girl."
That was spectacular progress. So I tried reaching out again.
"You want to help with your name?"
The little dragon nodded.
"How about, Sally?"
The dragon looked at me with an odd slightly disgusted look. She then sat up very fancy-like on my leg and began to preen herself as though she was a bird. It stretched one wing out to reach to clean itself in the crevices of its wing's connecting points in a way not unlike a dog lifting a leg to lick itself.
"Alright, something more regal then. Something that fits you better. How about...Aeolith? It's regal, it embodies someone with power and strength, and it is beautiful, just like you are."
She sat up and looked right into my eyes.
"Yes."
The voice seemed stronger and assured.
"Alright then, Aeolith, I would like to introduce you to Brutus, my fairy friend."
Speaking aloud I said, "Brutus, I would like to introduce you to Aeolith, my dragon familiar."