A hot bath was waiting for him and he would not allow it to be alone without his patronage. Just the prospect made him smile. He would melt into nothing but a puddy of ecstasy and happiness.

But, before he took his second step out of the room he froze. A look of utter disbelief crossed his face as he stared at the most unlikely thing he could have imagined being there. The sheer improbability for this to happen was beyond his feeble mind. Like the lottery...err...whatever that was supposed to be.

“W-who are you?” he said.

Standing in front of him, was a wide-shouldered female orc with a tattered red and blue dress. She stood frozen with her knees slightly bent like she was trying to tip-toe across the entire hallway. Not considering her considerable size-clearly all muscle from what he could see-the bright colors of the dress made it nearly impossible to sneak anywhere for any reason at all.

The orc looked around in panic. If Jonas had to guess, he was sure she was trying to find somewhere to hide. The sheer absurdity of the six foot six inch mass of muscle hiding behind a clearly all to small drawer or table made him burst out in a fit of laughter.

Everything about this situation was utterly hilarious and nonsensical.

“She made me do it!” The orc, whose cheeks blushed a light tint of purple, pointed towards an empty stretch of wall. The rest of her words were an amalgamation of a hundred different words smashed together making no sense at all.

Jonas took a moment to wipe the tears from his eyes. The orc lady pointed at an empty stretch of wall. As he was about to say something like ‘there was no one there’ to see what other reaction she had in store for him, Frezar jumped in front of him.

Now that he compared their heights, he was clearly a head taller than Frezar. Seeing the man get in front of him like a protective mother had him smiling.

Then the old butler reached to the bottom of his robes... and pulled out a massive sword from under them in a flash of silver. The thing had to be as long as the robe itself.

“Run, Young Master. I shall delay them!” he roared and swung the obviously too large sword. “With my life! With my soul! I shall guide and protect!”

Jonas couldn’t handle it. He was on the floor clutching at his stomach. Choking on his spit and in pain from laughing so hard.

Things couldn’t get more absurd.

And then it did.

From where the orc had pointed at-which he clearly remembered was completely empty-appeared the most ancient green thing he ever saw leaning on an enormous staff that reached the ceiling. Her cheek wrinkles stretched down below her jaw line and hands looked more like bones than anything else.

“Get up, boy! Where is the master of this vessel? I have matters to discuss with him, they are of utmost importance,” the wrinkly old lady said.

Sucking in air like his life depended on it, Jonas did his best to calm himself down. It took him a good minute as he weathered the impatient glare of the old green woman. Probably an ancient orc or something of that ilk.

The ancient woman slammed her staff on the hardwood floor. “Well?”

Jonas got up. He cleared his throat. “The Master of this here fleet. Jonas Leviticus Markus, at your service,” he said with a flourish and a bow.

The old lady sneered. “In my age, we have little time to spare. Spare me the dishonesty, a dragon among men would not be beholden to someone as...fragile as you.”

Jonas frowned. Not only are they stowing away on his flagship, they take their time to insult him too. But before he could reply, a crack in the fabric of the world appeared.

The old lady’s eyes widened in surprise while the orc hid behind the tinier woman.

Out of the crack in reality came out Clay with a yawn and lidded eyes. He stepped in like he had just woken up from a sleepwalking session.

“What do we have here? Oh, its you. Took your sweet time, haven’t you. I almost thought you’ve forgotten about the deal. You still owe me those drake eggs I asked for.”

“Yes, yes. The eggs. They are in incubation at the tiny city near here,” the old woman said.

Jonas’s eye twitched. It was that again. They called another city any sane person would consider massive as tiny. Why? What was the comparison? They couldn’t possibly make cities that large, could they? The thought of it made his head spin. The city would have to simply be gargantuan, beyond his wildest imaginations.

It made a cold shiver run down his back. For a city that large to exist, there must be a power capable of holding it together. And that was not mentioning that both Clay and the old lady-who Clay treated as almost an equal...err...or more like more than an ant in his way-had to have been there beforehand.

In order for them to be here now, in the situations they are in, one bound to him for life and the other most likely the same but to the orc lady, someone or something must have decided it for them and forced it down their throats regardless of their thoughts.

“I wanted to speak to you again.” She looked at Jonas. “Away from undeserving ears.”

“There is none undeserving here, Grega. He is the one I am now bound to and will serve for as long as his life is preserved. Which, mind you, I fully intend to keep in best of health,” Clay said.

Grega, Jonas assumed was the old lady, looked at him disbelief. “Him? B-but he is so pitiful and so...easily broken. A stiff wind could break him.” She walked up to him, then began to prod and check him from every direction. Raising his hands, opening his palm and studying each of his fingers individually.

Jonas pulled his hand from her grip, he was ashamed to say he had to put his entire effort just to do it when she looked so relaxed. A bit miffed at seeming weaker than the old hag, he made sure to jab at her. “Excuse me lady. It’s not appropriate for a lady as old as you to study men so...thoroughly.”

The orc lady snorted in laughter, but turned silent when Grega turned to glare at her. “You’ve just earned yourself another session of battle forms, Raneria. I am sure you’re thrilled to have it.”

Raneria, the orc, flapped her mouth in disbelief. Until finally she could get something out of her mouth. “But that’s not fair!”

Grega only huffed in response. She turned back towards Clay with a staple old person look. “At least his body has been soaked in high quality monster meat. You’ve stuffed him like a pig, I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t get anymore benefits from lower leveled beasts. Unlike his foul mouth, he could be tempered into a decent warrior.”

“You forget what lineage he has, old woman. You always do. Humans do that often, keep their most powerful within a single family line. Terrible way to survive the horrors of the world.” Clay yawned again, his eyes fluttered like he was about to sleep there. “The twelfth daughter of the kingdom north is his mother and the Duke of Flame is his father. Strong lineage and combination-”

Grega began to tap her staff on the ground in irritation. “I don’t have another century of just listening to you ramble on. I need it."

She said that like it spoke volumes by itself. Jonas was confused and so were Frezar and Raneria. Though Clay just looked annoyed. He seemed to understand what she wanted without any further explanation.

“Already? You still haven’t fulfilled your side of the latest contract as well as you promised. You were supposed to get me a dragon egg! But instead you brought me seven drake eggs instead!”

“I am already incubating them for you. Stop fussing about these small matters. All you needed was three anyways, but I paid extra!”

“What am I supposed to do with four extra drake eggs? I won’t be able to devour their essence anyways. I’d reach my limit with the first three. They’re just going to sit there collecting dust-”

“I’d like them!” Jonas interrupted. This sounded pretty important. He already had three behemoth sharks, megalodons as his dream labeled them, but adding drakes would be even more fruitful. He could actually sell those even if they were frozen solid or encased in a hundred layers of stone. Maybe even keep one for himself as a pet.

“You? Master, you're not strong enough to absorb their essence. And it would take you centuries before you could, probably. You never know how slow humans travel down the Path,” Caly said.

“I’d like to...err...keep them as pets! Yea! Pets. Tame them and then train them like hounds or something.” Now that Jonas thought about it, he’d love to get a few hounds of his own to breed and raise. They were wonderful guards and even better hunting companions.

Clay tapped his sharp chin for a while in deep thought. He seemed to calculate everything that could possibly go wrong. And from the way he took his time, it must have been quite a few.

“Well, its possible, but we’d have to soak them in your blood when they are born and aren't fully sapient yet. So, were going to have to bleed you dry, master.”

“What?” Jonas said intelligibly. Bleed him dry...he did not agree to that!

“Yes. Did you think it would be easy? Drakes are the masters of the lands just as dragons are the masters of the sky. They do not bind easily. Anything less than absolute authority is a guaranteed death. Even I would think twice before facing an adult drake.”

“B-but-”

Grega groaned. “This is taking years of my life. You won't die, boy! They’d feed you a liver of some powerful mana beast or troll to keep you pumping blood like a maniac. Now can we get back on topic!” The bag of wrinkles, Jonas came to call her-in his mind of course-shook in anger. “The doors have cracked open, SleepingDragon!”

Clay suddenly looked alert. His eyes were wide open, back straight as a board.

“The horrors are going to arrive within the century. They took out the giants before us, and they’d do the same to us if we don't get it out and free. I don’t care if it destroys a kingdom or two! Our survival depends on it! You know the Higher realm would not act for mortals’ lives, only we with a connection to the short lived must endure the endless hate.”

“I-I...It took nearly seventy of us together to force it back into hibernation, Grega. I am more powerful, and so are you, but Haldhiem and his riders are not with us anymore. He choose to transcend the previous decade remember,” Clay said, uncertainty lined his words.

Jonas shook like a leaf. What ever took seventy of Clay to just make it go to sleep was...scary to even think about. He’d rather not if he could, but the image had already taken root. And it only got worse when he heard Frezar’s frightened voice.

“Karashque.”

A thing of nightmares. A tale meant to never be spoken out loud lest it hears you and wakes. The embers of the deep, ravager of entire civilizations. The one thing even the tales had narrated it to kill the great masters-warriors even Clay would shiver before.

Jonas was told the stories as a child to scare him into obedience. Magic impervious, as large as a small mountain, swims in earth as well as it would in water, spews lava from its mouth, absolute regeneration-regardless of injury- and to top it all off, only the blades of the Grandmaster Smith Lehid could even scratch its outer shell.

And he only lived long enough to make seventy.

“Raniera, go play with the boy. We adults have important matters to discuss.” Grega said to Raneria.

“I am not a child!” she responded with indignation, but a withering look had her pulling Jonas by the cuffs of his shirt. He was happy to follow. Whatever they planned to do was far beyond his league, best he stay out of their lest he finds himself splat on the ground somewhere. Stepped on as an aftermath of a Karashque’s careless step was not the way he wanted to go.

At least he got the drake eggs.

His dream of swimming in gold was not as long term as he thought it out to be