Year 1023 of the new calendar, Month of the Sun, 25th day

A new arrival came into the small town a day ago, he seemed to be familiar with the entire place. I could feel the power he held inside him, it was more than the entire rest of this place combined; he was dangerous, I could feel that clearly. Whether or not he could seriously injure me was up in the air, but I didn’t wish to risk it. After the incident yesterday, he left a minute later and left me to my own devices. He usually hung out around his mother's house, Tiflis was in front of me at the moment and was scurrying around. “Do we need to go into the forest for this?”, he said with a scared tone, it was now right before midnight in the small forest surrounding the village.

The two of us didn’t have a real reason to stick around for this long, but there also wasn’t anything compelling us to leave. “Don’t worry, there should be nothing here that’s stronger than me.”, I assured him, but that was a lie; I couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t anything here stronger than me. He visibly calmed down and sat down, “What do you think about that new arrival?”, he asked me and gnawed on a small root. His small body sat next to my side, “He’s strong, but I’m not too sure.” Tiflis coughed a bit and replied, “As strong as the bird?” The memory of that encounter resurfaced in my mind, the bird was the strongest thing I saw so far.

“No, he isn’t that strong, just don’t cross him on things.”, I said, and he went back to gnawing on the root. “Why are we even staying here?”, he asked as he finished eating, “Is there a reason for us to leave?”, I asked, and he shook his head. My mind briefly flitted back to my mission, but seeing as I didn’t have a concrete path to follow, might as well stay here. “Well, what do we do now?”, he asked me, seeking to get my advice. “Try to gather as much information as possible from them, if you can, get me a map.”, I asked and then picked up a small bird from a nest near us. Tiflis nodded at me as I crunched down on the bird, its bones shattering in my mouth, with its blood flowing down onto the floor; it tasted good.

Tiflis ran away from me soon, returning to the small town and leaving me in the forest under the moonlight. It cascaded down from the treetops and made its way to the forest floor, where I could see some small insects running around. It reminded me of the larger ones I fought in the redwoods, though those were much more powerful. My large frame was in a small opening now, with the full brunt of moonlight hitting my scales, they had a slight shine to them. I didn’t feel sleepy, and I was still slightly hungry, so, I stood up and made my way deeper into the forest to find some more food. A small clearing in the forest was in front of me, with a stream passing through it. Large amounts of small amphibians were rolling around in the water, some of it splashing onto the moist bank.

Looking past those, there was a small nest of birds; they were unlike the one in the redwoods, these were small and non-threatening. They had black feathers with a white tuft around their necks. Between the amphibians or these, one was clearly better, so without delay, I made my way to the nest and quickly grabbed the bird tending to it. Another one pecked at me, but it couldn’t do anything to my scales. The bird in my hand struggled for a second, it frantically tried to leave my grip, but I killed it soon enough and grabbed the flying one. It, too, died soon enough, leaving me with two small corpses and a nest filled with five eggs. Eating it didn’t take me too long, and soon, a bit of my hunger was sated.

A yawn came over me, and I didn’t desire to sleep in the woods. This area was around a half-hour away from the village, so with a leisurely pace, I started to make my way back. Soon, I stumbled upon a small opening in the woods with a rancid smell, something about it attracted me. I stayed in the tree line outside the place and peered into the clearing, the smell was a mix of a rotten corpse and something more. Seeing that nothing else was around here, I walked out of the tree line into the clearing and made my way to the source of the smell. In front of me was a corpse, and befittingly, it looked rotten. The pungent smell was several times stronger the closer I got to it, and its dark flesh blended in with the undergrowth where there was no moonlight.

Its decay got to the point where I couldn’t exactly tell what it was, despite trying everything at my disposal. From what I could see, its bones were relatively small compared to mine, and some small maggots infested its orifices. I stuck my claw into its main body, little resistance made its way and some of its diseased flesh fell off the bone. Despite the smell of rot infesting the air, I felt something familiar about this thing. It was as if I already saw one of these before, but nothing came to my mind, certainly nothing that looked this diseased. Shaking my head, I turned my body around, only for something to slowly caress my back left leg.

A shiver ran down my spine, and I saw the small pile of bones start to move; without any delay, I squashed it immediately and waited to see what would happen next. The bones were crushed into a fine powder, and its flesh sank down into the undergrowth below me, but nothing happened after that. It was as if it never even touched me, the air around this place stank of its rot, so I quickly took off from it. Ten minutes later, its stink still hadn’t left me, and the surrounding area looked unfamiliar. The moonlight cascaded slowly onto the surrounding area, so it wasn’t too hard for me to see where I was, but nothing about this area looked familiar. Did I take the wrong turn somewhere?

The best plan now seemed to be to backtrack to that area and go from there, even if a part of me was entirely unwilling to go back and face that abomination. It didn’t feel right to see it in the same world as me, something about it felt off, and it wasn’t just because it was a rotten corpse. It held something about it that felt… artificial in a way, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I followed the route I took, and with a bit of assistance from the rotten smell it exuded, I found it.

The clearing was the same as ever, and except for a few ruffles from where I ran past, it was mostly undisturbed. The trees around here were relatively small, but still large enough to completely cover my frame. I scratched the trunk of one with my claw, a large mark was now born on the tree. Before I could turn around, a small thing that stank with the smell of the corpse launched itself at me. It held a green glow in its eyes, and its flesh was hanging on by a thread to its bones. The thing landed on my back, and before it could do anything, I shook it off and picked it up with my claws. The flesh melted away from its frame immediately, leaving me with the bones only, and they didn’t look like anything I knew.

The thing was vigorously trying to leave and tried its best by scratching, kicking, and biting whatever it could. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t deduce anything from him, so I stomped it into the ground and broke all of its bones. Slowly, but surely, it lost its energy and slowed down, succumbing eventually when all of its bones were ground into a fine powder. I looked around and noticed the area in which I first came here, I followed that way — periodically scratching trees just in case I got lost again — and arrived in an area I definitely knew. It was only fifteen minutes away from the village from this small pond, this forest was littered with small bodies of water all throughout it.

I made my way up to the pond and took a sip from it, unlike a stream, the water here sat placidly and tasted a bit funny. I shook my head and drank my fill before making my way back to the village in due haste, still scratching the trees in case I get lost, though that wasn’t likely around here. Around two minutes away from the village, I stopped scratching the trees and slowly walked into the village, Tiflis was fluttering about near the tree line and stopped what he was doing when he saw me. “Where were you?”, he asked me in a nervous voice, “What, I just came back, what is it?”, I inquired, and he nervously looked around.

“Something about tonight just doesn’t feel right, I just feel like something bad’s going to happen.”, my ears pricked up at his response. From what little time we spent together, I could gather that he was above average when it came to making predictions. Just as Tiflis started to make his way to me, a weird feeling came over me as I made my way to the entrance of the village. It was where that guy came in before, Tiflis followed behind me, adhering as close as he could; when we got there, there was nothing particularly wrong about the area. However, soon, a familiar stench hit me from the forest to my right, Tiflis seemed to have smelt it as well. With a slow gaunt, I made my way over to the right and saw a… thing with the exact same frame as I saw deeper in the forest.

“What is that thing?”, Tiflis whispered to me, but I stayed quiet. Unlike the ones deeper in the forest, this one didn’t attack me immediately, but instead, it walked slowly along the forest near the road. I hadn’t made my way down the road to see where it goes, but it’s probably a larger city. It made its way down the road and left us to our senses, Tiflis turned around and said, “There’s another one.”, in a meek voice. On the other side of the road, there were two more of these things, and were walking the same way. We made our way, slowly, back into the village and I made my way back to the boy’s house. Him, his father, and his older sister were sleeping as far as I could tell; Tiflis ran back to the lone mother’s house as I sat down in the yard of these people. The moon shone brightly in the village, and my drowsiness came back to me after the adrenaline wore off. I closed my eyes as I rid my mind of anything that could stop me from sleeping.

When I woke up, the sun shone brightly on the ground, the events of the night came back to me, but I put it out of my mind. The blacksmith was still working, but I could see that the boy and his sister weren’t around here. A child was walking around with their mother and father near me, his eyes lit up as soon as he saw me, “Woooow, so cool.”, he said to his parents. I stood up and stretched my body, my tail hovered briefly in the air. Some soreness was still with me, and hunger came over me. Tiflis was already up and running about, he made his way into the forest, and so did I.

Tiflis sighed and said, “Why are we even here?”, he seemed to be pretty shaken up by the whole ordeal last night. I shook my head and instead started to comb the earth, Tiflis shook his head and walked behind me. After a second, I could feel something under a patch of reddish-brown dirt; my hand quickly dug into the area, picking up a small rodent and killing it. Tiflis looked away as I ate, and he said, “What do you plan on doing?” I thought for a second and couldn’t think of anything, Tiflis continued on, “Well, while you were sleeping. I found a map.” A smile came over me, Tiflis ran back to the village as I stayed in the area. A few minutes later, he came here with a map of the local area.

It wasn’t a detailed map of the entire world by any means, but it could give me some sense of direction. We were in Iabrun, and as far as I could tell, this was a border city with the country of Gawain. The road we saw yesterday went to a small city named Gareth, we were near the Vereth River and in a relatively peaceful part of Iabrun. A thought came to me, I obviously need to become a dragon in order to do anything of real importance, but how to get there exactly escaped me. I knew I needed to keep killing things, but were there other ways to get what I wanted? Besides, I needed to kill a whole load more things at my current pace if I wanted to evolve again, and that should be a top priority.

However, that came with risks, the thought of the bird came back to me, and it sent a shiver down my spine. I didn’t want to be hunted down by another thing like him, but it seemed to be a necessity for me to be met with that kind of danger. Not to mention that if I hunted down everything in an area, it would destroy the local ecosystem and alert some people from the country to something abnormal in the area. I was stuck, and looking at this map didn’t help me, going into a city filled with sentient species was something out of my options immediately. I got extremely lucky with this area, and testing that again in a city doesn’t inspire confidence in me. I couldn’t get to the rest of Gawain without an arduous journey through the mountains of this land, and as I looked at the large mountains in the distance, I shook my head and put it out of my mind.

Tiflis, who was sitting around and doing nothing, was also a worry of mine. Even if I didn’t want to admit it, I did grow a bit fond of him, and I didn’t wish to just leave him here or let him come with me to die. My fighting capability would be hindered severely if I had to protect him as well, so leaving him here or elsewhere seemed to be the best choice, but a large part of me was unwilling to just leave him. My best bet seemed to travel alongside the Vereth River and grow my power through the forests and plains surrounding it, but even still, it would be far more dangerous than the surrounding areas that were relatively tame. Not to mention the sightings that other, sentient and civilization-bearing species, would have of me if I stuck around the Vereth River, which seemed to be infested with tourist destinations and such.

Another sigh came over, I was stuck in a situation where I didn’t know what to do, and with no perfect options to quickly grow my strength. My mind flitted back to the Almosanguine, the underground city, and the blue haze around the grasslands, but they were far from here. Both the redwoods, swamps, and grasslands were far, far away from this place; they were on the other side of the country of Iabrun, and seeing that it was a huge area, it could take me years to get back there. “Tiflis, could you go see what the brother and the sister are doing?”, he nodded and left me with the map. I couldn’t stay here forever, but I didn’t want to leave its relative safety; a small plan came to my mind which seemed to be my best course of action. If I stayed here until I became my desired level of twenty, and then go to the Vereth to get myself a little area, then it should work.

Tiflis came back rather quickly, “The sister and new guy are walking around the village, the brother is playing with some of his own friends.” I nodded and walked back to the village, mainly staying around the area of the blacksmith. After half an hour, in which Tiflis left me to go to the mother’s house, the boy with two of his friends came up to me. Their appearance was nothing exceptional, but the boy had a glowing look of pride on his face, “Look, I nursed this guy back up to health. That’s right, I did it by myself with no other help.” He came up to me with full confidence, and while it felt disgusting and degrading, I let him pat my side scales. The two others looked skeptical at first, but after the display, quickly came up to me and patted my sides as well.

“You see, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Let alone me.”, the boy said with confidence, “Really? My sister said she saw him eat a bird.” That caught my attention, but then I remembered that I snacked on one near the village last week, so I quickly pushed it out of my mind and closed my eyes. Oh, how amazing would it be if I could raze this entire place to the ground, but alas, I’m still a bit too weak for me to go around and do that to a nation’s citizens. My mind started to wander as the three talked about random things, that blue haze came back to my mind and I released I got no concrete answer for it. Perhaps I’ll go back there eventually to see what it was all about, but for now, I was only worried about the present. They laughed and giggled around me, the boy left and only his two friends stayed behind.

Once he was sufficiently far away, their expressions changed, “Isn’t he weird?”, one said and the other nodded. “Why are we still friends with him?”, the other said and the first one nodded, “To get to his sister, of course, why else?” The two laughed and looked around, it was of no concern to me, but I felt that it was cowardly to talk bad about a person behind their backs, and it was an insult to my standing to do such an act in front of me. “You heard about Mike, right? Apparently, he can do magic.”, one said, and the other nodded. Hearing their voice made me angry a little, and so, I flicked my tail on the ground and sprayed some dirt near me onto them. The two were now fully covered in dust and dirt, they looked surprised and incredulous. I could see some thought of action forming in one of their minds, so I stood up and intentionally exaggerated the size of my body, baring my teeth in the process.

Their idea was nipped in the bud, and as I went back to my position on the ground, they quickly left. Once they were at a distance from me, one said, “We don’t tell this to anyone, imagine how it would look if we ran away from a lizard.” The other one nodded tentatively, “Just don’t go near him.”, the first one said and walked off. The boy came back to me, but couldn’t see where his friends were, so he left shortly after and left me to my own devices. I felt particularly lazy today, and the thought of doing any work didn’t excite me in any way. If I wanted to, I could survive a couple of weeks without any food, though it wouldn’t be enjoyable, so one day of not hunting should be fine. Mike was the name of the new guy, interesting, he was strong, but I couldn’t tell whether he was strong enough to seriously injure or kill me.

I looked around and noticed him and the girl coming back into the town, huh, speak of him, and he appears I guess. He said goodbye and went back to his mother’s house as the girl came over to the blacksmith’s house near me, “Audrey, it’s done.”, I heard her father call her over and noticed the artistic sword that was in his hands as he left the office he has. It was a small sword, with an inscription on the side of the hilt, with a blue and white pommel. The blade had a white gleam with no blemishes upon its surface and an artisanal pattern on the flat side of the blade; it was definitely not meant to be used in an actual battle, but instead, it was an art piece meant to be looked at. The two looked proud of their work, “I’ll be out for a few days, take care of your brother, will you? I have to deliver this to him personally.” She nodded, with her eyes lingering on the sword for a little. She went into her house and took out a quilt of sorts, she put it down near the blacksmith and sat down upon it. Her father got ready rather quickly, heading off in about ten minutes, it seems like he was already ready for this early.

I didn’t wish to do any work, and there was nothing else for me to do, so I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I could feel the ground around me and noticed the girl looking at me, I opened my eyes again and stared at her, but she looked back at her phone. With a snort, I once again closed my eyes and fell asleep. When I woke up, it was already dusk and I could feel the soreness in my entire body, a simple stretch helped that immensely and I noticed that there wasn’t anyone near me. Tiflis wasn’t around me either, but I now had a craving for some food; even if I was lazy, this shouldn’t be too hard to do.

I walked into the forest and went into the clearing that Tiflis and I use, it was thirty minutes away from the town, so I shouldn’t have killed the things here. I noticed that the number of animals surrounding the town has gradually reduced, perhaps they’re running away from me. Another yawn came over me as I noticed the sun slowly setting down in the distance, the last light from the sun blending into the sky and trees around me. Suddenly, I noticed a smell similar to last night, it wasn’t as strong though. My curiosity was piqued, so I stood up from the area and started to follow the stench, it took me about three minutes until the scent from it started to become exponentially stronger.

There was a large clearing, it would take me about two minutes to run from this side of the forest to the other. It was flat, with a light smattering of rocks and a few trees dotted around the area, but it certainly wasn’t as densely covered as the forest. The stench was strongest there, and I could see a human perfectly in the middle of the clearing. He was sitting down, his face was gaunt and with a yellow complexion; black flesh covered his legs and part of his arms. I slowly made my way around the tree line of the clearing, “Who-Who’s there?”, he said, sensing that I was there. He didn’t stand up, but instead looked around with a manic ferocity, his eyes were bloodshot and red with mucus rushing down his nose. “Don’t, don’t come closer.”, he yelled out into the forest, but I ignored it and walked out into the open after seeing that he had nothing on him and no magic was sensed.

He looked at me and gulped, “Nice lizard, nice lizard. You don’t have to kill me, right?”, but I put what he was saying out of my mind and came up to him. His legs were fully converted by what seemed to be necrosis, and he couldn’t move them, his thin face and bloodshot eyes looked at me with abject terror. I made my way ever nearer to him, and as soon as he was close enough, he tried to bite down hard on my scales but broke his teeth in the process. Instinctively, I slapped him away and his flesh fell down with no resistance from his body. The bones and rotten flesh on the ground now mingled together into some sort of amalgam of the two, it looked suspiciously similar to what we saw yesterday. I crushed it instantly and tried to remember why it felt so familiar, and then, it hit me; my eyes darted back to the area of the village with apprehension.