After some consideration and more than a little whining, I decided the best way to carry my newfound treasures was to combine them. The egg-sucking dragon had a long body, and so the hide I had looted from it was also long. I folded up the steak within the uncured hide into a square package.. Then, I scooped it up in one arm, and my little exhausted fennec dragon friend in the other. This might seem basic to most people, but try getting around with a short leg and a club foot. I have corrective shoes, but my balance sucks and the forested ground was uneven. I have to spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of stuff. There wasn’t a visible path through the forest, and I had nothing useful like a mini map in the corner of my vision. So I aimed for the least dense area of vegetation and strode forward from there. Maybe I would find a road. As I picked my way through the forest, slowly and carefully so as not to drop anything, I read and reread over my profile, trying to glean more information about this new world. ... Because I was pretty sure by now that this was a new world, and that I was not going crazy. If I was wandering around the park in a hallucination or whatever, it seemed like someone would have called the cops by now. There had been no break in my new reality. That was another mark in the ‘it’s real’ category. I realized my quest log had updated and hadn’t given me a notification, which was annoying. Luckily, there was a settings option. From there, I found a screen to customize notifications. The menu was user friendly and the notification filters were both extensive and slightly concerning. Specifically, the settings when and what to notify during combat. Which meant that the system expected me to be in combat. Okay, so this was that kind of world. After some consideration, I set it to give me only highly important news and updates while in combat. Then I set quest changes and updates to always alert (it had been set to new quests only). Loot was set to always alert as well. That was going to be my bread and butter for the foreseeable future, and I wanted to immediately know what I got. Finally, I went to the quest log to read over my updated quest. Quest Update! Stranger in a Strange Land (Part 2) Find the nearest town and win a dragon duel. Reward: Experience points (amount dependent on victory). 1 gold crystal. “I’m pretty sure gold isn't a crystal,” I told the system. As usual, it ignored me. Whatever. I planned on finding a town anyway. But as the sun lowered in the sky without a road or a hint of civilization in sight, I realized this might be a multi-day quest. Also, take a guess what I’ve never done before? Camping. There wasn’t a huge call for camping trips in my group home. The administration’s goals was to make sure that we were fed, housed, and if not happy, at least not causing trouble. My original bio parents weren’t into camping, either. Cutting China-grade fent into everything in town took up time. So, I’d have to rough it. How hard could it be? Cavemen did it for years. I looked for a cave or something, but the closest I could find was a large rock with a hollow depression at the base. It wasn’t exactly clean, either. I brushed away pine needles and sat on the cold ground. I didn’t have a blanket, jacket, or even a towel on me. This was going to be a long night. By this time, Tiberius woke up, yawned adorably, and cheeped at me. Although he said nothing out loud or in my mind — No mind speech. Bummer. — I got the impression he was hungry. “That makes two of us,” I told him. “Sorry, I don’t see any microwaves around.” He ignored me and jumped out of my arms to nose at the package of steak. The steak, obviously, was raw. If I did nothing with it soon, I’d probably get food poisoning. I had to cook it or throw it away tonight. “Should I bang rocks together to create a spark?” I asked, then picked up my phone. The screen was still dead. I couldn’t Wikipedia any of this. I was starting to realize I was woefully unprepared for this adventure. That was when I saw Tiberius nipping at the ruby red hide. I let him do it, glad that he had teeth, which probably meant he didn't need milk. He growled adorably, taking a red scale between his teeth and shaking his head. The scale didn’t come loose, but in his frustration, a wisp of smoke leaked out from his foxy like muzzle. Smoke. “Wait, you’re a dragon!” I wanted to smack my forehead. Tiberius didn’t have wings — yet? — but the system’s description had called him a dragon. And dragons were famous for breathing fire. I looked around. There was deadfall everywhere. I had noticed the plants around here seemed weirdly fire resistant before, but the stuff around me was dry and dead. “Yup, I can do this.” Then I went around gathering dry twigs, more pine needles, and some dead dry grass. I made it into kind of a fluffy pile in front of the boulder and placed some heavier branches next to it. “Okay, Tiberius.” I sat back and gestured to the mound. “If you want to eat, you gotta bring the fire.” Tiberius stared at me. I tapped the pile of dead vegetation and pine needles. “Fire,” I said, “Light it up.” Tiberius turned back to the hide. Maybe the fire was an instinctive skill? Something to do with eating? Taking the package of steak, I unwrapped it and saw that a lot of the… juices had settled to the bottom. Tiberius was instantly interested. He would have dived right in if I hadn’t held the package over his head. Thinking quickly, I dipped one end of a dry stick in the drippings and held it to his nose. Tiberius bit down, looked confused for a second that it was wood and not delicious meat. Then his chest swelled, and he breathed out. The end of the stick caught on fire. “Yes!” Pulling the stick out from between his teeth, I shoved the burning end into the nest of pine needles and dry weeds. I thought that I might have made a mistake and smothered it, but after a moment’s smoldering the new pile caught fire. It burned really, really fast. In fact, it burned too fast. Quickly, I placed heavier branches on it. The thicker wood took a few more seconds to catch fire. Once it did, it burned longer. Soon, I had a somewhat effective fire. “Who is my best little lighter in the world?” I cooed, scrubbing Tiberius's furry mane. He cheeped in reply, confused at what he had done right but happy for the attention anyway. Again, I got the impression of gnawing hunger. Now I had a fire, I could take care of that, too. There was a flattish rock which was dirtier than I liked, but beggars cannot be choosers. My boulder/home was near to a slow-moving stream. Rising, I stumped over and rinsed the dirt off the rock. Hopefully, there weren’t parasites in the stream because that was going to be my drinking water, too. Somewhere downstream would be my toilet. Camping was gross. I set the flat rock in the middle of the coals and the egg-sucker steak on top. It wasn’t a perfect cooking surface—far from it, but I could flip the steak over and over until it looked cooked. I didn’t really know how to camp, but I knew the basics of cooking, thanks to kitchen duty in the group home. You have to get efficient and fast when you are helping overworked staff feed nineteen other girls. I half-hoped I would… I dunno, receive a cooking skill or something for all my work. But I received no new notifications and my profile remained unchanged. Looked like skills weren’t a thing here. Finally, the steak was done. Okay, it was probably overdone, but the egg-sucker was basically a wild animal. I was cooking it through. Using two sticks, I gingerly maneuvered the rock away from the coals, let it cool, then took a bite. Oh my God. It was delicious. It was soft, tender, and kind of a weird combination between a juicy pork chop and a steak even though the meat was red. No salt, but they say hunger makes the best seasoning. I quickly tore off a hunk and gave it to Tiberius. My mean fire-stick trick had injured his pride once, and he sniffed the steak with suspicion. This time, he seemed to like what he smelled. A hot-hot blast of heat came out of his mouth as he bit down. I yelped and pulled my fingers away. The meat burst into flames inside his mouth as he chewed. I watched, shocked, as he reduced his bite to ash and swallowed. Then he peeped and looked at me as if asking for another. “I’m just going to assume that’s supposed to happen,” I said, took another bite for myself and offered a second to my fennec dragon.