Getting back to my hoverboard was easy, the water lifted me up and then left just as easy. Damn I love sorcery. Good sense would dictate staying on the river, being in my element affords a level of protection that feels similar to home. I eased the enchantment on the hoverboard so that it floated on the surface of the water directly instead of ten feet above it, river surfing. Holding my newly formed mace, I considered strangeness of its actions not five minutes ago. It turned into a mace when I wanted to smash something, and it released concussive energy without me directing it to, almost like it was somewhat sentient or sensitive to my emotional desires. As the river gently pushed me down its current, I focused on my weapon, Gungnir, and imagined that it was a knife. Nothing. I filled it with energy and did it again, no dice. Well fuck, if will doesn’t work, then maybe emotion might. I imagined the goblins from earlier and me stabbing them, the weight of the mace didn’t change but its shape matched to what I viscerally imagined, a slender, wickedly sharp, serrated dirk. “You and I are going places beautiful,” I cooed to my beautiful shapeshifting blade, admiring the way the light played through the crystal, “I might even use you to do some crazy shit. I dunno, slay a dragon, destroy a Gate . . .”

“When did humans get so pathetic?”

No sir. That did not just happen. My weapon did not just talk to me. I fucking swear, if this is . . .

“Seriously, when? I mean, it's only been a couple thousand years without magic. Back in my heyday y’all had balls.”

Ok, the voice is definitely not coming from the knife. I swiveled around on my hoverboard, searching and stretching with my magical senses for anything.

“Down here ya misguided sack of primordial chaotic slime. Your hairy cousins could figure this out faster.”

A lizard. A talking lizard. A small talking lizard swimming two feet from my hoverboard. A small talking lizard that burned with the magical might of the sun swimming next to me. Fuck no. Just one glance at it revealed that this little iguana lookin creature could wipe me off the map by sneezing. It’s magical signature was a mix of incandescent orange and bitterly sharp sharp blue that met and exploded in the middle.

“You gonna give me a ride or let a little dragon work his ass off trying to keep up with your lazy ass huh?”

My shock was eventually overridden by the ingrained instinct of years of conservative household upbringing, manners maketh man. “Well good sir, you may if you would like, but I may require some information during the course of the ride?” Maybe my forced kindness would wrangle something out of this fucked in the head lizard.

“Agreed.” He grunted, slapping his tail to propel himself on the hoverboard. I expanded the board to make room for the passenger as he was in midair.

“Oooohhh, a baby sorcerer, this early in the game huh? Hahahaha, can’t wait to see what kind of carnage you wreak.” He chuckled as he sprawled on his back, “Always so fun in the beginning, but they never really last.”

This is why I went the tank route at first. I figured that the odds were stacked against me, but I’ve come out ahead-ish so far. Making myself hard to kill is conducive to a decent lifespan. My flesh magic could probably make me immortal, but the rest of it would keep me immortal. Taking his words to heart, I carefully rechecked all of my gear for the most likely outcome ahead, bloodshed. My hands almost went to the shard of Chaos I slipped in my lower leg pocket. It was my trump card, my bit of forced insanity that may let me flip the table if the cards fucking suck.

“So what’s a little lizard like yourself doing all the way out here?” I asked, calculating a little bit of risk with the minor offense, I’m surprised some of the neighborhood dogs haven’t come nippin atcha?”

He opened one yellow eye to look at me. “Dogs know better than to mess with a dragon,” he rumbled, the word dragon oddly two octaves lower than the rest of his sentence.

“Ok, hold on, how are you a dragon? I thought they were huge with wings and spitting fire or some other element along with capturing the sexy princess?” I joked, trying to keep things light.

“Oh don’t worry, the mana on the planet just isn’t dense enough yet, but it will be soon,” he laughed, his tail trailing in the water while his claw whipped out, snagging a fish, “And when it does, I’ll be the least of anyone’s worries.”