Jane and Sienna seemed to be in a state of shock. I couldn't blame them. I was pretty surprised, too.

No way in hell that my plan should have turned out so well. Maybe Tiberius's luck stat was working in my favor. Or maybe revenge was the great equalizer. I had only a vague idea of what breaking a bond event to a dragon, but the mimic seemed to hate Todd even more than I did. Maybe even more than Jane did.

"I can't believe she just left you with her eggs," Sienna said. "Harmony, do you have any idea how much dragon eggs are worth?"

"Or Mimic eggs?" Jane said, looking poleaxed.

"No, but judging by your expressions… A lot?"

Sienna nodded. "Each one of these is worth enough to buy you a house on Main Street."

"Nice incentive," I said, blandly. "Are of those fancy houses on Main street strong enough to hide me if Arcee comes back and finds out I sold her eggs?"

I turned to take my first good look at the clutch.

Tiberius's egg had looked a little like a generic egg out of a videogame. Cream-colored with green splotches all over it.

Mimic eggs looked a lot like chicken eggs, all creamy white… Except each was the size of an iPad. The color seemed… Lacking, somehow. As if each shell were a blank canvas ready for a little paint.

"Weird question," I said. "What does the mimic look like when it's not, uh, mimicking anything?"

"No one knows." Jane seemed to have gotten over her shock. She approached the nest carefully, stepping so lightly it was as if she were worried there were landmines hidden by the nest. "A mimic hatches with its first form already fixed in place."

"That would make it easy to confuse it for something else," I said. Then I glanced at Sienna. "You look like you're about to hyperventilate. Sit down. These eggs aren't going anywhere."

Sienna didn't sit down. She just stared at me. "Did you really mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"What you told the mimic. That you'll just let her go after the battle's over. Harmony, she has to be at least a tier three."

I've decided not to tell them that Arcee was a tier four just yet. Sienna seemed to be on the verge of a total freak out as it was.

"Yeah,” I said. “What's the big deal? I thought you two dead set against me running off. Now, I'll use Arcee to embarrass Todd. Then, with the winnings we’ll hire a cart or something to truck these eggs to a safer part of the forest away from the village. Then I’ll release Arcee to go off and do whatever mimics do. What's the problem, here?"

"There's no problem," Jane said, wrinkling her nose slightly at my phrasing. "Forgive me, but it's quite an unusual situation. Not only is she female, which is rare enough, she is an exceptionally rare breed —"

"At a fairly high tier," Sienna added.

"And, as I said, female, with eggs," Jane continued. "Not many dragon tamers would be able to let that power fly away."

I thought about her words for moment. Then, I was bent and picked up Tiberius who had wandered to my side.

"She's not mine," I said simply. "This is a temporary alliance. She's not close to me. Not like Tiberius is — I can't explain it."

"I can't believe use a gold crystal on a dragon you don't need to keep," Sienna muttered, and this time I definitely heard jealousy in her tone. But she didn't sound snarky. Just wistful.

I couldn't blame her. Here I was, completely new to this world, and I was throwing around high leveled crystals and rare dragons like it didn't matter. Jane seemed to be taking it with a bit of grace, but I got the impression Sienna's family was not well off.

There was nothing I could do about that right now except keep it in mind. And maybe buy her and Jane cool 'thank you' presents when I finally took off for good. I wasn't above bribing my friends.

Huh. Friends.

I looked up to the sky. It was hard to tell through the thick foliage above, but I was pretty sure the sun was setting. The air was growing noticeably cooler, too.

"Arcee wanted me to watch the eggs, but you two don't have to stick around if you don't want."

Both girls shook their heads. Jane turned and brushed off the top of a fallen log to sit primly on it. Meanwhile, Sienna finally came over to examine the eggs... though she kept her hands firmly to herself.

Good idea. Arcee might freak out if she smelled human on the shells.

Well, since I had a moment I decide to pull up Arcee's whole status sheet.

Mimic "Arcee"

Tier 4

Tier 1 -- House dragon form

Special Attack (Sapphire)

1. Silver Claw

2. Bullet Speed

Tier 2 – Winter dragon Form

Special Attack (Sapphire)

1. Icicle Breath

2. Scales of Ice

Tier 3 -- Phoenix dragon form

Special Attack (Sapphire)

1. Flames of Justice

2. Rejuvenating Fire

Tier 4 -- Unassigned Form

I blinked.

Several things didn't add up about the sheet. I wasn't sure if it was because Arcee was a mimic and thus a little weird, or because I didn't fully understand every nuance of dragon taming.

I'm guessing it was the second.

As I studied the sheet, Jane and the Sienna had spoken quietly to each other. I only caught every other word, but the gist of it was that Jane was going to use Commodore to send a message to her father saying she was staying over at Sienna's house for dinner.

It really seem to like these two are planning to stick it out with me.

I never had good friends back on earth, and I'll be honest, I was a little suspicious that these two's motivations weren't altruistic.

Since hanging with me, they'd been through several adventures. And now, I had tamed a mimic. Maybe they hope to some of my good fortune would rub off on them. Maybe they wanted to see what happened next…

Or maybe they were genuinely nice people, and you are a stone cold bitch who can't trust anybody, said a little voice in the back of my mind.

I knew the voice well. It was the voice of reason, and I ignored it as much as possible.

As I mused, Commodore flew off holding a little message in his front pincer claws.

Jane look pleased with herself. "There. Now my father will believe that I will be having dinner with Sienna's family."

"What about your family?" I asked Sienna.

She shrugged. “My father and mother are bakers and today is a festival day. They will be working late."

"I'm surprised you're not working with them," I said.

The normally dour girl blushed, and Jane grinned at her.

"Sienna hates baking," Jane said.

"I want to be an explorer, not a baker. Also, I hate the taste of sugar. It's too sweet," Sienna said.

Yes, they may not have goth kids on this world, but she definitely had the right attitude.

"I can see why that would make it hard to be a baker," I agreed, adding, "Unless you're into savory stuff."

"Savory…?"

"You know, meat pies, caramelized onions and vegetables. Desserts that are supposed to be a little good for you but end up fatty and full of carbs anyway…"

Once again, Jane and Sienna gave me that look that said I was an oddball. Oh well. I had bigger fish to fry.

"Okay, I know it's kind of taboo to talk about dragon special attacks and stuff, but I was just looking at Arcee's sheet, and it's pretty weird. Do you mind helping me out?"

"I would love to see it," Jane said with a little too much enthusiasm. "And I promise I won't use it against you… Not too much, at least," she chuckled.

"Yeah, that's probably good because I have the feeling Arcee would curb stomp your house dragon. No offense," I said and then went on to briefly outline what I saw in the sheet.

Too bad there wasn't the ability to transfer the sheet from one system to another for easy viewing — I checked, and once again I got that weird oddball look from Sienna and Jane.

"An unassigned tier four?" Sienna repeated, once I was done laying out the sheet. "Well, that explains why she agreed to the taming."

Jane nodded.

I raised my eyebrows. "Okay…?"

Sienna went into lecture mode. "A mimic is generally able to change into a new form with every tier. That's why we thought she was a tier three, before. Because we saw three of her forms — house dragon, winter, and phoenix. But she must have recently acquired that tier because now she has empty slot."

"And the quickest way for dragons to advance is through structured combat," Jane added. "In the wild, they do grow through fighting each other, and level fighting lesser monsters, but they still have to feed themselves and have eggs to look after. Human partners take care of the housing and feeding requirements and they see a lot more combat."

Something clicked into place, and I glanced over at Arcee's eggs. "Okay, so she recently leveled into a new tier, but she was stuck because she had eggs to look after. She wants to grow stronger and not be housebound to the eggs. And that might explain why she ditched them to me at the first opportunity. She might be trying to go out and get a new form already… Or she was just hungry."

"You could ask her, if you had a quartz crystal."

"It's on my to-do list," I said. "But why does she only have two special attacks per tier?"

"Natural dragons — that is, dragons who level without a human partner, have one attack per tier," Sienna said. "She would have two attacks if she was previously tamed before using a Sapphire crystal."

"Somebody tamed a mimic with a Sapphire? What a waste," I muttered, feeling bad for Arcee. "So, I'm not her first tamer. I mean, there was Todd, but he doesn't count."

"Likely not," Jane agreed.

I was troubled. "Who would get rid of a mimic? A female mimic?"

"If the tamer dies, the dragons are automatically released," Sienna said bluntly.

Oh. It sounded like Arcee had a tough life. "Is there any way to know who her last tamer was? Like… A database, or a government department that takes care of things like that?"

Both girls looked at each other and then shook their heads.

"Arcee might tell you, when you communicate with the quartz," Jane said.

Well, that definitely bumped up the priority on my list.

Suddenly, both Tiberius and Ferdinand came alert. Their heads swiveled to the right, and Tiberius's large ears pricked up to full height.

"What's going on, boy?" I asked, resisting the urge to add, Is Timothy stuck in the well?

In answer, Tiberius let out a low growl. His gaze never left the thick brush up ahead.

Even Ferdinand parted his goose like beak, showing small but wickedly sharp teeth.

There was something out there in the brush. Something that the dragons did not like.

"What is it now?" I grumbled. Seriously, what was with this day?

My question was answered as the bright green shrubbery parted and a familiar snaky red nose stuck out. It was another egg-sucker dragon. And, judging by the way the brush moved to either side, it had brought along friends.