“So, can we talk about today?” Jessica stood at Alastair’s door that night as they were about to go to bed. The…very strange, possibly very powerful gnome that accompanied them during their culling chores for the abbey was nowhere to be seen. After dinner, which she again ate her fill of, she excused herself, and as far as anybody knew, left the abbey entirely.

  The problem was, nobody did know.

  That was always the fear with [Rogues] of any level, and many classes that were high enough. There was more than one way to turn invisible. The only thing to ease their minds was the fact that, for some reason, both Alastair and Jessica trusted the gnome.

  Alastair was sitting at his desk, slumped forward in his chair- a chair, showing how much they were valued by the abbey to be given anything other than the standard stool- reading a well-worn book of scriptures by candlelight.

  The man had a simple light spell he could call upon as a member of the Holy Order of Light, but he maintained that there was honorable humility in a simple flame.

  Jessica didn’t care. She accepted his many quirks, having known him since childhood. Besides, she didn’t think a “normal” [Paladin] existed. They all had quirks. Mostly of the devout kind.

  “Yes,” Alastair mused, marking his place in the book. He placed it to the side of his desk and motioned toward his bed, bidding Jessica to sit.

  She did so with an exaggerated fall, letting her legs and arms splay like a puppet cut from her strings. Normally they would both joke and banter, but she seemed extra tired tonight. They both were.

  “So.” It was a declarative statement but also a challenge. “Dragon?”

  Alastair rubbed his chin absently. He’d need to shave in the morning, stubble never agreed with him.

  “I’m going to go with no.”

  Though his resolve to arrive at that conclusion this late in the day was vastly different from when he heard it this time yesterday. The day had passed in a whirlwind of surprises, revelations, and…daggers.

  “Because?” Jessica’s question was clinical, as if she was recording an observation for a professor’s experiment.

  “Because…,” Alastair hesitated to buy himself a tiny bit more time, “...she’s a gnome.”

  “Right?” Jessica had spent two hours after they got back from their “hunting trip” searching the abbey’s library on anything she could find about dragons. And calling it hunting…that had been a slaughter.

  “Apart from two ambassadors, which by law change every 50 years or less, there’s been 12 known dragons in the last hundred years of note,” she said, speaking into Al’s pillow. Her voice was muffled and resigned, as if she didn’t like what she found and didn’t want to share. Al waited for her to continue.

  “12. Just 12. That’s how rare it is for dragons to leave the World’s Edge Mountains. Two are Blues. Apparently the color of a dragon shows what flight they’re from and what their affinity is. They’re Leviathans, they live in the ocean. Apparently they can still fly, they just like water. Don’t get out much, keep to themselves. Sometimes they study weird magic at the Academy.”

  “You’ve been studying,” Al mused. Jess groaned.

  “Three reds. They live by themselves in various volcanoes. Apparently they like fire and they’ve got hot tempers. Really strong. 5 greens. Their aspect is Life, so I’m surprised they aren’t sought out by more people, but then again maybe they were and got tired of being bugged. No clue where they live, just not in their mountains at the edge of the world. Who knows how many dragons actually live in that place. Can you imagine? A mountain range rising miles into the sky, all spiky outcroppings like swords sticking a pig, then suddenly getting cut off at a sheer cliff that drops into a gaping hole in the ocean miles wide? No thanks, I’m good.”

  Al watched her shudder and secretly he agreed. Some places in the world were not meant for the weak minds of Man.

  “You only mentioned 10,” Al pointed out. Jess let out a dramatic sigh.

  “Obviously, one is the Dragon King. He’s, like, supposed to be over level 15 hundred. Like, that’s just stupid. Nobody is that strong. Even the White Witch is only like 1200 or something, and she lived through the Age of Upheaval.”

  Some people said the humans only knew peace because of the White Witch, once the queen herself, powerful beyond comparison. Undoubtedly the strongest human alive, even more so than her grandson, the current king.

  And more to the point, Jess had still only mentioned 11 dragons. Both of them knew the last one but neither wanted to bring it up. The thought of something that old, that big, that powerful threatened to give them insomnia. Instead, Al focused on the aspects that all the dragon flights had. He’d done some study in his younger years, as bestiaries of all types interested adventurers. Dragons were trickier than most of Humanity in that one had to pay close attention to their status to tell if they were sapient or a monster, and by the time one was close enough to do so, it was often too late. Dreams of legendary armor forged of dragon scale was foolhardy and suicidal.

  “Blues for magic and water,” Al began jogging his memory, “Greens for life and growth. Red for flames and passion?”

  “Yeah, and gold for greed and earth,” Jess snorted. Besides black dragons, gold were the most likely to have conflict with Humanity, because the dragons wanted people’s stuff. Black dragons….

  “And black,” Al stated solemnly. “Black…for death.”

  Certain scholars theorized there were other affinities, since all dragons seemed to occupy more than a single trait. But, for the black dragons, it was generally things like "plague", “pestilence”, or razing civilizations to the ground. It led back to death.

  “Death,” Jess repeated in a whisper.

  While those were the dragons known to be running around meddling in the mortal world, that did not account for any unknown dragons. It also did not count the ones that were known…and died. Dragons were functionally immortal, so they didn’t simply “die”, they were killed. Often at great cost, or during times of great unrest. Some, sadly, had perished defending Humanity, while at least three in the last hundred years had tried to end it.

  And yet, there was always one more, sometimes spoken of in whispers, oftentimes thought to be a mere myth or fable, a boogieman to scare children, discarded as impossible by the foolish. It was not the oldest, nor the most well known, despite its fame. It was by far the strongest and largest. And it was a black dragon. And it had a title. “Destroyer of Worlds.”

  There were also severe gaps in Humanity’s knowledge of The Destroyer. For one, it was said to be all-powerful, yet it had not actually destroyed the world. Some claimed it actually loved Humanity…enough to pull pranks, once upon a time. Granted, this was a hundred years ago, so most humans who were not high level that were alive back then would have passed.

  The fact that nobody knew its name was a bit suspect, lending credence to the belief that The Destroyer was merely a myth.

  The troubling thing about dragons was that they generally embodied their flight, their color, in their whole being. That meant that blues generally tended to have blue hair, blue eyes, wear blue clothes. Same with the reds, greens, golds, and blacks.

  Melia wore provocative black clothing and her hair was pitch black. If she really was a dragon, that would be telling. However, no known dragon, alive or not, had ever taken the form of a gnome. Most were demons, humans, or elves.

  That the most powerful [Mage] during the Age of Upheaval was a human woman named Melia was a better guess of the gnome’s naming heritage than a world destroying dragon. And more to the point, sketchy reports from a century ago said that The Destroyer’s preferred form was a tall human sorceress. It was more believable that the supreme [Mage] was actually the dragon in disguise than the tiny gnome. And the sorceress disappeared long before the Age had turned to what it was now.

  Jess and Al looked at each other.

  “”Not a dragon.””

  A weight seemed to be lifted from them as their smiles returned. It just didn’t seem possible for Melia to be a dragon, certainly not any of the ones famous enough to be known to them. So, while they were almost completely certain she was just an eccentric gnome, probably somewhere in her mid 600s for her level, the questioning seeds of doubt had been planted. Especially because of that unknown level. She’d displayed a level of strength today the two had never seen in person, only having heard about such things second hand in guild halls and newspapers.

  “Sooo,” Jessica began, lifting the pillow off her face and swiveling her eyes toward Alastair without actually lifting her head. “If she was a dragon…”

  Al quirked his lips as he watched Jessica’s smirk return.

  “What color do you think she’d be?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You mean what dragonflight,” Al corrected.

  “Same thing, same thing! My vote is gold.”

  “No chance,” Al denied with a bark, causing Jessica to finally sit up. “If that were the case she’d have bled those poor workers dry when she helped them with the wall, and she didn’t even demand tips for giving everybody these buffs.”

  “Yeah,” Jess begrudgingly admitted, “Can’t deny that. And man, I’m so looking forward to this. It’s the good kind, too. I’ve got double xp for my whole next level.”

  “Nice. I recently hit my current level, and my buff fills nearly the entire bar. I’d say it’ll bring me to 95 percent. So, yeah, not a gold.”

  “But she’s full of herself,” Jess countered. “Golds are supposed to be arrogant.”

  “All dragons are arrogant and full of themselves,” Al countered right back. “That’s not an exclusive trait to gold dragons. Besides, there’s a difference between arrogance, being full of yourself, and confidence. I wouldn’t say she was actually arrogant at all. She didn’t actually brag or boast about how great and mighty she was, not even when she did…whatever she did to those wolves.”

  “Those poor wolves,” Jessica echoed. They both shared a look.

  “”Maybe a dragon.””

  They hadn’t gone hunting. Nobody could call what that gnome did hunting. No, it was a systematic slaughter and eradication of a species. Yes, they would respawn again tomorrow, but if she did this every day for a month? Well, neither of them knew if anything would actually happen, but that was the kind of culling that scholars claimed changed zones. And Jessica was busy trying to burn every second she had witnessed into her memory. If she could learn a fraction of one of those openers, she’d hands down get her [Rogue] class in a week. Probably a couple of days.

  Melia hadn’t just erased her presence with [Stealth]. She’d completely vanished. There was no tell-tale fade-out present even in the highest level [Rogues] she’d been allowed to observe. The gnome was simply there one moment…and gone the next. Jessica watched. She made sure her eyes were peeled open the second time Melia disappeared. And the third, and fourth. Jessica didn’t blink and it was like Melia had just been removed from this plane entirely, like a picture that was taken down from a wall. There one second, gone the next.

  Only to reappear a heartbeat later, hovering slightly in the air as she descended upon her hapless victim. There had been no noise, no glint of light, no indication that she was about to rain death from above. Simply gone and back again. And when she landed on the creature’s back, her daggers slid perfectly between the shoulders and spine, gliding through tough muscle like melted butter. Neither she nor Al could do anything like that with any of their skills. If Jess wanted to kill a wolf that fast, even with the difference between the wolves and her level, she’d have to hit it straight in the eye so the arrow traveled through the brain. And even if she got the shot perfectly straight, which she wasn’t confident she could do 100 percent of the time like Melia had done, there was a chance the wolf would still have a sliver of health left in its dying throes, and she’d have to use another attack to finish it off.

  Not Melia. The gnome was almost clinical in her brutal efficiency. One attack per wolf, and then she would vanish in [Stealth] to do it again. And again. And again. With each explosive trigger of [Backstab] utterly destroying her target. And the corpses piled up.

  Jessica and Alastair had sought out their new trial member with the hopes of speeding up their culling of the local wolves that preyed on the Wololols, especially since the current batch of sheep monsters were getting ready to be sheared. They hoped they’d be able to clear out 50 wolves in a day, nearly double their previous record in a single day. They were confident they could at least match the record and add another 10 if they all worked together.

  In 45 minutes, Melia had smashed their old record by herself, racking up more than a kill per minute, which for their rank was unheard of. It was like, and this was sounding much more plausible, the gnome was several ranks above them. They guessed in the mid 600s, maybe close to 700. Al and Jess knew a rank 7 adventurer that sometimes mentored them and they knew what a level 700 could do. It was impressive.

  Not quite “dragon” impressive yet, but far stronger than they were, combined.

  The problem was that they just couldn’t see enough of the gnome in action to properly judge. When she was invisible, nothing they could do would track her. And when she wasn’t, it was for less than 5 seconds as she killed her prey, cleaned her daggers, and reset. An hour in and Melia had passed 50 wolves, and Alastair and Jessica needed to hurry with their butchering because the wolves were starting to force despawn, the ambient mana trying to reclaim them to spawn again.

  Which it did. Al and Jess rushed as fast as they could and they still missed out on some kills, helpless as the body of a distant wolf broke down into a dark mist and faded away. But at the rate Melia was killing, they didn’t need to worry about her earning her keep for dinner. By the time they finally managed to get her attention and stop her, it had only been 2 hours and the gnome had killed over 300 wolves. The forest actually seemed to groan in relief when Melia sheathed her daggers, looking at what she’d done, suddenly appearing a little bashful.

  Not the trait of a dragon.

  She helped them by storing wolves in her inventory, which was much larger than Jessica or Alastair’s, severing the wolves connection to their spawning ground and allowing them to be harvested fully later. Jess could only hold a handful of full wolf corpses if her inventory was entirely empty, and Al could manage a couple dozen.

  Melia had greedily sucked them up like a little loot hoarder.

  Definitely a dragon.

  “Okay,” Jessica admitted, “Not a gold. I don’t think she could be a blue.”

  “Agreed.”

  While there had been something magical about the way the gnome had told her stories, spinning a web of intrigue and excitement, it wasn’t magic like people expected when they thought “magic”. It wasn’t huge fireballs, great columns of earth being ripped from the ground, or giant lances made of ice. No gigantic illusions to convey images or displays, no magnificent barriers that couldn’t be breached. It wasn’t even the more subtle (sometimes not subtle at all), harder to understand workings of the arcane. Thank the gods it didn’t have anything to do with messing with time or the fabric of reality. That never ended well. Never. Whatever magic the gnome had used was subtle, and dragons were not exactly known for their subtlety.

  …except when they were infiltrating kingdoms to overthrow, which Jess and Al weren’t thinking about.

  So not a dragon. Not a blue, at least.

  “Green?” Al asked, but his heart wasn’t in it. Both he and Jessica shook their heads. In stories, green dragons were the ones to swoop in after all the fighting died down and heal the land, cure wounds and injuries, and generally restore the natural balance.

  If a green dragon were to appear in today’s age, it would be in the elven lands. But there hadn’t been a green that cared enough since before part of the Everbloom became the Evergloom, plagued and full of rot and decay.

  Not a dragon.

  “Okay, so she’s got to be a red then, right?” Jessica grinned. If they were going to support the “our cute gnome is really a bored dragon in disguise” theory, surely she fit reds.

  “She’s strong,” Al put a finger to his chin thoughtfully, “But….”

  “Not that strong, right?” Jess’ smile faltered. Red dragons were the kind to move mountains. Literal mountains. It was said that the Ashlands, the crater where evil things lurked between Horizon and Deepholme, the Dwarven Stronghold, was once the tallest peak in the Searing Ranges, but because several members of the red flight got into an argument, it became a valley instead.

  There was a bit of a difference between killing a hundred low level wolves in an hour and redesigning an entire region.

  “Right,” they both nodded. Not a dragon.

  That only left black, and both Al and Jessica dismissed that outright. Mostly due to fear, because black dragons were more famous than the others, due to how they reveled in enslaving and killing Humanity. In the Age of Upheaval, Lord Silus Maledus, the king’s right-hand advisor, betrayed and grievously wounded the king. He was only driven off due to the efforts of every soldier and adventurer in Horizon, and was eventually slain by an entire army of rank 9s. Black dragons were evil.

  And despite only knowing Melia for a day, Alastair and Jessica were good judges of character. Especially Alastair, as a [Paladin] in the Holy Order of Light. His patron deity, Celestara, was the goddess of kindness and compassion, the goddess of heroes past. She did not abide a wicked heart. Even if she had been silent since all the heroes vanished or died, signaling the end to the Age of Upheaval, Alastair held the faith.

  “Ok, enough about that,” Jessica declared, springing to her feet as if to physically shake away the gloom. “So. Miss ‘maybe a dragon but not actually really a dragon’. She was good right? She was cool.”

  “Yes,” Al agreed, amused. “She was cool.”

  “If we can get her to join, we totally should. Do you think she will?”

  “I can’t imagine what we could offer her to make her stay. She obviously doesn’t need us.”

  “Are you kidding? She obviously needs somebody. She’s lonely as heck. You could see it by how she drank up any conversation we gave her. Even those weird ones where she acted like she didn’t know what was going on.”

  “I’m not sure that was an act,” Al countered. “I’ve heard of people, especially long lived races like elves, losing big chunks of memory.”

  “Yeah, but that’s like, when they’re a thousand years old right? And they’ve got more important things to remember than who you had lunch with last week.”

  “She did say she got really hurt and almost died. Maybe she was too curious as a young gnome and, after finding out how strong she was, got herself into something way above her head?”

  “She’s a gnome, Al,” Jess snickered. “Everything is above her head.”

  “You know what I mean. She’s young, brash, gets a taste of leveling up fast in a short time, and thinks she can take on something powerful, to brag or bring glory or whatever. Something like a dragon. A real dragon.”

  “And she nearly dies and goes into a hundred year coma. Maybe. Sounds sketch, but when I think of the alternative…maybe.”

  “It also sounds like it could happen to us,” Al warned, ever the voice of reason. Jessica could not argue. Their 4 man party had nearly gotten killed on several occasions when they thought too highly of themselves. That’s why they wanted, no, needed a healer.

  “Yeah. Let’s try to get her to stick around.”

  The heavy mood dispelled, Alastair leaned back in his chair, smiling fondly as he thought of his other two party members.

  “Can you imagine what it will be like when Ellesea meets Melia?”

  “Oh, she’ll be thrilled to no longer be the shortest on the team. I’m sure she’ll never let us live it down for treating her small once she meets a real gnome. Oh, and Y’cennia? She’s going to flip. Think of all the materials she can work with if Melia brings them in like today.”

  “If she decides to stick around,” Al cautioned. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Right, right,” Jess sighed. “We gotta convince her to come to Hammerfall with us. You think she’ll go for the festival? The abbey isn’t building a bonfire this year, so the closest one is Hammerfall.”

  “Maybe we can convince her to tag along.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” Jess smiled in satisfaction.

  “Just so long as nothing else major happens,” Alastair said, thinking of that terrifying roar that had shaken the whole abbey several days ago. “We can’t leave Abbyton unprotected.”

  “Please,” Jess scoffed. “I know they like us, but we’re rank 2. After that roar, they’re sending real adventurers. Rank 5s, at least. If anybody is going to protect the abbey, it’s them.”

  A thought occurred to Jess, and she smiled her mischievous smile.

  “Heyyy, speaking of that roar, and totally real fake dragons….”

  The image of a tiny gnome stuffing her cheeks with food and yawning hugely invaded both their brains.

  “”Not a dragon!””