I think it is something of a record that I was having the “I think we should see other people” chat with Merlin barely seventy-two hours into our relationship.

I had some wild weekends in my youth, but even within that dark context, this was a bit depressing for someone of my age and experience. Although, twenty-four of those hours were repeated over and over again . . .

So maybe I’m being a bit unfair on myself.

“Mate, I’m not going to lead you on here. The fact is, it’s absolutely you and not me. I need to spend some time with actual people who a) aren’t trying to kill me and b) don’t get their heads blown off by evil wizards within minutes of me meeting them. Also, having a face to talk to in the corporeal world would be peachy.”

As I keep trying to explain, you need to focus -

“Yes, yes, yes. I ‘need’ to focus on my internal journey and advance my cultivation to thwart the great evil casting a shadow across the land. Yada yada yada. Bit of emotional blackmail about my sister. Etc etc. I also ‘need’ someone else I can talk to about this stuff.”

I don’t wish to puncture any illusions you may have here about the plethora of Qi guides in Dark Age Cornwall, but there is no one else who understands this better than me. I am, quite literally, the greatest expert on cultivation in the known - or indeed the unknown - world.

“But you are also the guy that dropped me into single combat with a dragon that killed your last five apprentices. Let’s say I’m having some trust issues.”

And that battle with Vortigern’s Dragon has advanced your cultivation beyond anything that could possibly have been imagined. In a few days, you’ve reached a level of power that should have taken, at the very least, decades of focused study. I do think a little credit where credit is due would not be beyond the pale.

“So now you want the credit for getting me to the cusp of Harry? You’ve been nothing but pissy with me from the second I absorbed that dragon’s Qi. You can’t have it both ways, mate. I’m either nailing this cultivation thing - in which case you can back the fuck off and give me a quick breather to get my head together, or I’m utterly useless, you are needing to do everything for me, and this whole plan is a waste of our time. You can’t double-dip here. And either way, just for the sake of my own sanity I need to talk to someone who isn’t you for a bit.”

We don’t have space for you to have some ‘me time’ here, my dear. I can see in your memories that this is a recurrent theme in your life. Things get hard, and you have a tendency to go missing to ‘find yourself’. But I’m afraid the stakes here are a touch higher here than when you ran away from home because your father took his belt to you -”

“Fuck off!”

And then a strange thing happened.

I felt the Qi in my channels go white-hot, and then it was exploding outwards in a shower of purple stars. The brightness of the light blinded me, and it was several moments before I could see the ruins of the castle again.

Once I could, I realised two things had changed.

Firstly, I had burned a pretty impressive crop circle twenty feet around me.

Oh, and secondly, I couldn’t feel a certain wizard anymore.

“Fuck me, I’ve exorcised Merlin.”

*

It hadn’t been the first time he’d left me alone since I found myself in this world. But it felt a bit different this time. Whereas before, when Merlin had gone a bit quiet, I still felt connected to him in some comforting way: like having the mobile number of a guy you were never going to do, but was helpful to have around when you needed to move furniture.

Now... well, it was like there had been a shell around me, and it had suddenly cracked and fallen away.

That, and the fact that the back half of my tunic had been unceremoniously ripped away when I flipped myself in the air, I was suddenly feeling pretty vulnerable.

I cycled some Qi into my fists, which made me feel a little less like a damsel in distress, and had another look at my surroundings.

Castle ruin. Tick.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Decapitated dragon corpse. Tick.

Giant purple crop circle. Tick.

Yep, everything was pretty much as it was before I forcibly banished the only person who had an idea who I was or what I was supposed to be doing.

I’d basically killed Tom Nook.

I forced down a jolt of panic. This was what I had wanted, wasn’t it? To be left alone for a bit? That was when I was at my best, after all. I had never needed anyone else in my life before, and I wasn’t going to start now.

Although - a traitorous part of my head chimed in - there were worse places to start learning the value of friendship, found family and working together than when you were teleported to a time fifteen hundred years before you were born and when you were, for the second time in as many days, butt naked.

Well, no use weeping over the puddled lactose.

I summoned my inner Beyonce, pulled myself together, shed the tatters of my blood-stained tunic, and tried to pick a direction that looked like the sort of place a tailor who worked for free lived.

I’d taken two steps before my brain finally caught up with my ears. I did have another option before becoming the naked rambler...

What had the dragon said… “defend my hoard.”

*

It turns out dragons don’t tend to be too surreptitious about where they keep their stolen booty. I guess when you have the power to go all Kaiju on unexpected visitors, not that many thieves come calling.

At least not twice.

Vortigern’s dragon had scooped out a massive spot to call home in the castle’s centre. It had also used this hole in the ground into which to pile an extraordinary mishmash of the precious, the peculiar, the profound and the perplexing.

It was clear that, when not battling Merlin’s apprentices, the dragon had existed in its horse-sized form, as everything about the lair was scaled for a reasonably sized dobbin. The path from the castle gatehouse to the dragon’s lair was strewn with discarded oddments of all shapes and sizes. A signpost fashioned from a gnarled tree branch indicated, in scrawled, slightly singed letters, the way to “My Trove of Tidbits and Trinkets”.

I took a moment to consider that sign.

It seemed a touch... unusual for a dragon to advertise its hoard in this way—particularly one whose response to visitors was fiery death. Maybe I wasn’t the only one around here that needed people to talk to but was a bit spikey with it.

That metaphor felt a bit on the nose, so I continued down the path.

After a short while, I found myself standing before an entrance that reaffirmed my sense that the dragon may have been a little more needy than I had first thought. A worn-out doormat, with the embroidered image of a rather befuddled-looking Kraken, lay at the foot of the lair. The words “Speak Friend and Enter” were written on it in an ostentatiously flowery font.

“Yep,” I thought to myself. “Needy as fuck.”

I stepped carefully over the doormat and turned a corner into the cave proper.

Hoard.

That was a word that had lingered into my own time. Of course, nowadays, it is used more to describe crazy cat ladies and their collection of random crap.

Looking around this dragon’s space, though, I could see more than a few similarities.

It was as if the treasures of a thousand realms had collided, mixed up and then stacked themselves floor to ceiling in the most incongruous way possible.

I found myself humming a little ditty about gadgets, gizmos, whosits and whatsits but quickly stopped: the way things were going, I would probably trigger some sort of transformation spell and end up losing my legs but gaining an ability to sing and talk to crustaceans.

I kept walking further into the lair; the columns of crap in this hoard were just unbelievable.

Gold coins gleamed beside a pile of mismatched socks. Tarnished goblets rubbed shoulders with broken timepieces and forgotten trinkets. Stacks of precious gems lay jostled for space in one corner with half-finished jigsaw puzzles. A pile of dusty tomes teetered precariously on top of bags upon bags of tiaras.

The air was filled with the scent of old parchment and slightly charred teacakes. From looking at the covers of some of the books, this curious juxtaposition spoke of the dragon’s dual interests—intellectual conversations and the occasional baking misadventure.

Stacks of ancient volumes on philosophy and history lay cheek by jowl with curious contraptions of gears and cogs that hinted at the dragon’s forays into inventing, often with rather explosive results.

And then there were the artworks, each telling a tale in its own right. A portrait of a dapper ferret in a top hat hung beside a series of landscapes that seemed to shift with my gaze. Murals of fire-breathing chickens cavorted across the walls, commemorating an incident that had, presumably, become the stuff of legends.

However, there was one particular area of the trove that truly captured my interest. My gaze was drawn to a corner where suits of armour stood like sentinels, frozen in time and memory.

In my naked state, my eyes fell upon one particular set that looked exactly my size. It was bedecked with colourful ribbons and feathers that fluttered with a life of their own. It was as if this suit of armour had attended a masquerade rather than a battlefield, and something about it really appealed to me.

I reached out to touch it.

The second my finger made contact, I was wearing it: like I had equipped it from my inventory in every video game I had ever played.

I moved my arms forward and back experimentally. If it had any weight to it, I didn’t feel it—big thumbs up to my new dragon-enhanced superbody.

I turned to admire my reflection in a stack of gold coins - everyone should do that once in their life. It felt AMAZING - and my covetous eye was drawn to a sword in an elaborate scabbard floating in a glass case.

I told Merlin that I felt I needed a different approach to things than simply throwing hands. I’d got lucky so far with my three fights, but I couldn’t help but feel a sharp piece of metal in my hand might be advantageous. Don’t get me wrong, I had no secret sword expertise - short of enacting every lightsaber fight I’d ever seen - but I was oddly attracted to this blade.

With barely a second thought, I smashed the glass with a Qi-infused gauntlet - did I mention how kick-arse I suddenly was? Real Xena: Warrior Princess stuff- and, with a flourish, drew the sword from its scabbard.

Fuck yeah. Freedom! Me and you, baby. We’re going to tear the world a new one. Let’s FUCK. SHIT. UP!

Well, I did want someone else to talk to...