Earth

Lehua, Hawaii

August 13, 2019

15:02 HST (21:02 EDT)

My sisters were very excited, and I think Omar, Yuki and my mom were as well. They’re just better at hiding it. I found that with my long neck, I was able to get a good look at myself. Where Ilnod was a carmine red like his mother, my scales were varied in color. I wasn’t quite rainbow colored, but it was close. There were small swept back spines running along my back and all the way down my tail where they tapered off into a large, blunt, club-like tip. It seemed like my wingspan was bigger than my overall length, but it was difficult to tell with my current perspective. There may be an easy way to find out, though.

[Hey, Abi. Are you able to tell how big I am with your sensors?]

[Indeed, I am. Your current form is roughly twenty-four meters long and seven meters tall, with a wingspan of twenty-six point eight meters.]

[What about Ilnod? How big is he?]

[Eleven meters long, three meters tall, with a wingspan of twelve point three meters.]

[Cool, thank you.]

I gave my large wings a few test flaps and then began shapeshifting back into my human form. It took around the same amount of time, but felt a bit easier. When I was done, I walked over to Selales, Ilnod and my mom.

“So, what’s the verdict, did it feel uncomfortable for him?”

Selalea shook her head. “He said he could feel you enter his mind and navigate to wherever you needed to go, but it didn’t bother him. The rest of your group can go ahead with their own scans.”

“I’ll let them know,” my mom said.

[Selalea said you all can come forward and scan Ilnod. One at a time though, please,] I heard her say.

“The color of your scales was interesting,” Selalea said. “Not many dragons are born with the characteristics you exhibited.”

“Is that important?”

“Not particularly. I’ll fill you in more the next time we meet.”

“Ah. So how are you going to carry the gold back for the Precognition Skill Gem?” I asked. “I don’t see a dimensional storage ring, or something similar.”

She pointed to the top of her head, where a jeweled pin was holding her hair up. “I use a hairpin rather than a ring or bracelet. It can easily store that entire stack of gold and have a lot of room left over.”

She held her hand out and the familiar orange of a Legendary Skill Gem appeared in her palm.

“Here you are. If I am not mistaken, seven bars are equal to five million credits?”

I picked the gem up off her hand and channeled my mana through it, as my mom answered her.

“That is the current exchange rate, yes. You can take all one hundred bars, however. They’ll benefit you more than they will us. Use them to buy whatever you need to help your people when they’re relocated to your new home.”

“All of them?” Selalea gasped. “Are you sure? That’s a lot of money.”

“I’m sure,” she said with a nod. “I was prepared to give you all this gold if you allowed all of us to scan a dragon anyways.

“Thank you,” Selalea replied, kneeling down and running her hands over the gold bars. As soon as she touched one, it would disappear, allowing her to load them all into her dimensional storage very quickly.

While we were talking, my sisters, Omar, and Yuki were in the process of scanning Ilnod. When I looked behind us, I saw that my sisters had already finished their scans, and were in the process of shapeshifting into their new forms. Their transformation was a bit faster than mine, and soon there were three identical dragons standing side by side. They had the same coloring, swept spines and club-like tail as I did, though seemed just a tad smaller overall.

Once everyone was done scanning Ilnod, we chatted for a while before deciding to depart. While it was still quite early on Lelua, it was almost 22:00 EDT. We allowed Selalea and the rest of the dragons leave first, and as I watched her fly away, I couldn’t get over how massive she was. They all flew for a short while before blending in with their surroundings and becoming invisible. Abi made her own way back to the moon after activating her shroud, and the rest of us returned through via a portal.

Immediately upon arriving back at the base, we all split up to do our own things for the rest of the night. I teleported outside of my room and pulsed the lock, allowing the door to open so I could get out of my armor. I put my spear and shield back in their respective spots, and then channeled mana into each piece of armor to loosen them, allowing for removal. As soon as the armor was off, I realized how hungry I was. I hung up my armor, redressed in normal clothes, and then proceeded to the dining room.

When I arrived, I noticed my friends were all seated at a table eating their own dinner. I waved at them and continued over to the buffet. Rather than just go through with one plate, I picked up two and went through the line loading them up with a variety of different foods. When I was done, I made my way over to my friends.

“Hi, guys,” I said, sitting beside Anja.

“Hey,” Anja greeted. “Where were you? We tried to contact you to see what you were up to, but apparently Telepathy doesn’t have the same range that Mindspeak does.”

“Just meeting some dragons in Hawaii,” I replied nonchalantly, taking a bite of fried chicken.

Ben was about to take a drink when he processed what I said. “Dragons?!” he exclaimed. “I thought they were a myth!”

Swallowing, I shook my head. “Not a myth, just very hard to find.”

I filled them in on my day, though glossed over scanning animals earlier in the day. I figured it wouldn’t be very interesting. They were very interested in my encounter with the dragons, and their size and ability to blend into their surroundings, in particular. All of them thought that I was joking when I told them how big Selalea and some of the other dragons are. I told them that I had learned that dragons never stop growing, and that Selalea is very old. I also said I’d show them my own dragon form later.

“So what’ve you guys been up to today?” I asked.

That question prompted them to explain what they were doing while I was off doing my own thing. The reason Sonja needed a large open space she couldn’t easily damage, is because a few of the skills she received are in the Air magic type. Windblade is an example of Air magic, and so is Ride the Lightning, the movement skill she now had. The ability allows her to turn herself into pure lightning and move very quickly. It also allows her to move through enemies along the way, provided they’re not immune to Air magic. She was practicing moving around with the ability where she wouldn’t damage anything. Like Mason, she also acquired a summon ability, Summon Air Elemental.

It seemed like there was a theme going on with each of my friends. Each of them received abilities relating to a different element, including an ability that summons an elemental. Ben got Summon Fire Elemental, and Anja received Summon Water Elemental. Ben also acquired a few fire spells to allow him to do some damage, rather than relying purely on auras, and Anja got a couple of frost magic spells.

Mason spent part of his day on the firing range, and then found somewhere to practice using his Seismic Shove ability. That was good because the ability could be very useful, or a hindrance depending on how it’s used. Anja spent a portion of her day with Yuki, practicing Precognition. She too, got a legendary Mana Regeneration Skill Gem, which helped a lot. She was able to raise Precognition from rank two up to rank thirteen over the course of a few hours. It was similar for Ben. He spent awhile teleporting around to get used to it, and then spent the rest of his time leveling up some new auras.

We had all finished eating and were just sitting around while they all gave me a quick rundown. When they were all done, I led them to the sparring rooms so I could show off a little. Sparring Rooms one through three were occupied, but room four was available.

“Can one of you take out your phone and keep track of my stats when I change forms? When Scyftans shapeshift, our stats change to reflect that. I know what my stats are like in the first two forms, but I’d like to know how much they increase in the third form.”

“I got it,” Ben said, already having his phone in his hand.

“Thanks. Alright, up first is a hybrid form I’ll probably be using in dungeons.”

With that, I started shifting into my Seotross-human hybrid form. After a minute or so, I was standing in front of them as a nearly eight foot tall version of myself, with two extra arms.

“That’s so fucking cool!” Mason said. “Man.. you’re making me wish I was a Scyftar.”

“It does have its perks,” I said with a laugh, and flexing my arms. “If you look at Ben’s phone, you’ll see how my stats have increased while in this form. I think I’ll actually be able to use two shields and two spears, or even go with four swords instead. It will be cool to experiment with it. Alright, here is the second form.”

I triggered the change to my Seotross form, and watched they reactions as I grew in size. When changing my form, I’m still able to keep track of everything going on around me, I just can’t move until it’s done. Soon, I was dwarfing all of them and covered in a thick coat of fur.

“Holy fuck!” I heard, drawing my attention to Ben, who had his eyes glued to his phone with his mouth wide open. The others were looking over his shoulder to see what he was looking at.

“Seriously?!” Mason exclaimed. “That’s insane!”

[Not really, if you think about it. This form is way too big to use in a dungeon. Maybe I can use it for bosses, but that’s about it. That’s why I’ll be using the hybrid form. I’ll get some nice bonuses, while still being able to move around,] I sent to all of them.

“Why are you sending?” Sonja asked.

[I can’t talk in this form just yet. Apparently I’ll be able to, with time. For now, I’m stuck with Mindspeak.]

“Oh.”

“I don’t imagine that we’ll always be fighting in dungeons. Sooner or later we’ll be in a real fight. That form will be absolutely devastating,” Mason said. “I definitely wouldn’t want to go up against you, or another one of those things. What is it, anyway?”

[It’s called a Seotross. They’re a predator found on Nedovis. Apparently they have impenetrable shields. My mom has been trying for years to scan one, and I was able to do it right away. Ready for my dragon form?]

They all nodded and I began my transformation into my dragon form. The mana draw wasn’t quite as intense, and it didn’t take as long either, making me think my current size has something to do with it. After maybe a minute and a half, I was done shapeshifting, and stood before them in my dragon form. The ceiling was high, but I had to be careful not to hit it. When I looked at them, they took a step back before realizing that it’s me.

“That’s just not fair,” Mason whined. “Do you know if other races can be turned into Scyftans? If so, sign me up!”

[I don’t think it works that way, sorry, Mace. So, what are my stats looking like?] I asked, looking at Ben.

This time, he was rendered speechless and didn’t even look up when I called his name. The others looked at his phone and the reaction was even more pronounced than when I was in my Seotross form.

[Ben? What’s it looking like?]

He finally looked up at me. “Uhh.. strength is sixteen times higher, agility is twenty times higher, intellect is one point two times higher, constitution is eight times higher, and endurance is twenty times higher.”

My jaw dropped. I was expecting things would be higher, but not by that magnitude. The agility and endurance makes sense since dragons fly, but I didn’t think I would be as strong as in my Seotross form. The slightly higher intellect was interesting as well. Having shown off a bit, I started shapeshifting back into my human form. When I was back in my human form, I walked over.

“You said there are around eighty thousand dragons on Earth? That’s incredibly scary if they’re as strong as you are, or even stronger,” Ben said.

“They are, which is why we’re going to help relocate them to a new planet. My mom was going to meet with Tich to find a good home for them close to Scyftan space so Abi can relocate them there. They may be very good allies in the future, so it’s worth helping them out. Besides that, part of the agreement we made with Selalea is that they help us man the ships on their way.”

“You said they can’t level, right?”

“Nope,” I replied with a shake of my head. “They do get stronger and stronger as they age, though. One on one, Selalea may be able to match my mom. It would be interesting to see them spar. On another topic, have you guys been to your rooms here yet?”

“Rooms?” Sonja asked. “I didn’t know we had rooms already.”

“Yup, yours are right by mine. C’mon, I’ll show you to them.”

I led them through various halls until I got to my room. I wasn’t sure which room was assigned to who, but luckily they all had nameplates. I opened the door to my room and told everyone to follow me, so I could show them what to expect. They looked over the main room, and the bathroom, and then I led them over to the closet.

“I’m not sure if your rooms will have clothing in the closet, but I was told they’d be stocked full in here,” I said, opening the door at the back of the closet. They followed me in, and I showed them everything.

“You’ll all have suits like these in your room. They’re supposed to provide really good protection, as well as have mana gems and mana crystals built in to give you a decent reserve in case of emergency. We can’t wear all of them right now, since we’re too low level, though.”

“What’s in the chests around the room?” Ben asked.

“Ah, that’s the good part. Open them up.”

They went around the room and opened the chests. Mason was closest to the chests with firearm components. When he opened them up, he looked at me. “We all get these?”

“Yup,” I said with a nod.

“Sweet, see you later,” he said, proceeding to run out of the room.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Ben and the girls came over to see what was in the chests, but didn’t recognize what was in them.

“What’s he so happy about?” Anja asked.

“Each of us gets four chests like this. Each contains various components to customize your own firearms. He’s going over to play with his.”

Both girls rolled their eyes and Ben laughed. I had a feeling Mason would spend a lot of time perfecting his weapons. I walked over to one of the other chests, picked up one of the spears and shields, and then turned back to the three of them.

“I’m not sure if you’ll have these, or something different in your chests, but check this out,” I said, pressing the buttons and causing the spear and shield to come out of dimensional storage.

“That’s really handy,” Ben said. “The parts are in dimensional storage, right? I’ve seen similar weapons, but they’re ridiculously expensive.”

I nodded. “Really? I’ve seen telescopic spears, but not ones that use dimensional storage. Even telescopic spears are very expensive too.”

“They’re really expensive. I’m talking hundreds of thousands of credits, each. A telescopic spear is what? Ten thousand credits, or so?”

“About that, yeah. It depends a lot on the material used to construct them.”

“Are these grenades?” Sonja asked, drawing our attention over to her. She was crouching in front of a chest with a lot of round, fist-sized objects in it.

“No idea, actually. My sisters showed me around, but we didn’t talk about those. They do look like grenades, though,” I replied, pressing the button to collapse the shield and spear back down to their handheld forms. “I think it’s getting pretty late. Let’s go check on Mason and decide if I’m driving you guys home, or you’re staying here tonight.”

We left my room and looked for Mason’s room. Both Anja’s room and Sonja’s room was on the opposite side of the hallway. We continued down the hall, and found Mason’s room right beside mine. The door was closed, so I had to knock. We waited and the door didn’t open, so I knocked again. This time, the door opened after a short time.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?” he asked, stepping to the side to let us in.

“I need to know if I’m driving anyone home tonight. It’s getting pretty late, and I’m going to head to bed soon, myself.”

“I don’t think you’ll actually need to drive us home at all, actually. With Teleport, all of us should be able to get home in one or two teleports,” Mason said.

“I didn’t even think about that. So far, I’ve only been using it at short distances, and keep forgetting how far I can actually teleport with it. You’re all fine with getting home, then?” I asked.

“I don’t know about everyone else, but it will take me around two jumps to get home, I think,” Mason replied.

“I’ve actually been home for a minute already, when I was practicing teleporting,” Ben said.

“Anja and I won’t have any issues either.”

“Alright, then. I’m going to go say goodnight to Vixa, and then go to sleep. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

Everyone bid me goodnight, and I teleported to the elevator that leads down to the enclosures. Apparently it was at the bottom, because when I had to wait a minute or so for it to arrive after I pressed the button. I got in the elevator when it arrived and had to wait another minute for it to reach the bottom. When the doors opened, I teleported outside of Vixa’s room. I saw that she was sleeping on her little bed. As soon as I opened the door, she woke up and teleported in front of me.

“Hiya, Vixa!” I said, bending down to pick her up.

I still had the chair in my dimensional storage, so I took it out and set it down. I sat down and moved Vixa to my lap, proceeding to pet her back.

“I just figured I’d come down and check on you before I go to sleep. Less than two days and you’ll be allowed out of here.”

She yipped and licked my chin. I sat there for fifteen minutes or so just spending time with her before getting up and placing her back on her bed. I verified she had food and water before turning back to her.

“I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

She yipped once more and then did a few circles on her bed before plopping down and closing her eyes.

I made my way to the door, putting the chair back in my dimensional storage along the way. I turned off the light on my way out, and then teleported to the elevator, riding it up to the main floor. I teleported outside of my room. Once inside, I took a shower and crawled into bed after grabbing a pair of pajama pants and putting them on.

*****

Earth

Unknown Location

August 13, 2019

23:09 EDT

A short time after Jonathan went to bed, Selalea was walking through a tunnel deep underground. She was in her human form, as the tunnel she was in was too small for her dragon form. The reason for the tunnel being so small, was it allowed them to build smaller, allowing for more room.

Along the walls, were light globes that kept the tunnels well lit. Up ahead, she saw two large creatures that looked like humanoid dragons. They were Dragonkin, a variant of dragons that were smaller and couldn’t fly. The two in front of her were well armored and carried large, very heavy halberds. They nodded as she approached, and turned to allow her passed.

Just before she reached them, the heavy granite doors swung open, allowing her access to the council chambers. Walking inside, she could see her fellow council members sitting and conversing around an octagonal table. Behind each council member, were two Dragonkin, who acted as their guards.

“Sorry for making you all wait,” she said, walking around the table and taking her position. Her two guards took their positions along the wall behind her.

“That is quite alright,” an elderly looking man dressed in a white robe said. “We are all very interested in why you have summoned us. It has been a while since we last met.”

“I received some very good news today, and felt that it was best to inform my fellow council members as soon as possible, so we can make a decision.”

“A decision?” a lithe young woman in a blue dress asked.

Selalea nodded. “Earlier today, I came across some articles put out by the Adventurer’s Guild. They were looking for a Precognition Skill Gem, as well as a dragon, and were paying handsomely. I took a group of dragons with me, and met with a group of people from the Adventurer’s Guild. The meeting was.. enlightening.”

“I understand the Precognition Skill Gem, but why would the Adventurer’s Guild be looking for a dragon?” a young woman wearing a dress with an odd blend of colors, and a similar hair color questioned.

“We’ve known about Scyftans for a long time, but I found out today that they control the Adventurer’s Guild. I also found out why the number of Scyftans on Earth has increased over the past millennia.”

“Really?” the man in the white robe said. “Well that explains a lot. From what we’ve seen, Scyftans are quite capable. Now we know that it wasn’t humans who came to their senses. What was the reason for them arriving on Earth?”

“Apparently over fourteen hundred years ago, the king and queen of their people were assassinated during a coup. The original Scyftans who arrived over thirty-four hundred years ago were scientists. The ones that arrived over the past eleven hundred years are ones that escaped the coup, including a son and three daughters of that king and queen. Apparently the majority of Scyftans will be leaving Earth in six months or so, which gives us a unique opportunity.”

“When they leave, we can finally take the planet back from the humans!” a man dressed in yellow exclaimed. “It was ours long before it was theirs, and it shall be ours again!”

Selalea scoffed. “War is not the answer, Bonanem! We are much stronger than humans, but don’t underestimate their numbers, and technology. No, there is a much better option.”

“Please, enlighten us,” Bonanem spat.

Selalea slid a device across the table. When it stopped in the middle, it activated and a three dimensional image was displayed above it.

“There is a reason they’re leaving Earth in six months. It’s because while they’ve been on Earth, they’ve been biding their time until they can go back and depose the man who took power when their king and queen were assassinated. Apparently they have a large fleet arriving in two months to do this. I think the ship in the image in front of you is their most advanced one, though.”

“Her name is Abi,” Selalea continued. “If we come to a decision, she can relocate our entire species off of Earth to a planet of our choice, in less than a month.”

Everyone started talking over each other, but Selalea just sat there until they stopped.

“‘She’? What do you mean ‘she’? It’s a spaceship,” Bonanem said.

“She may be a spaceship, but she is a sentient one. She is able to grow in size over time, and change the inside of the ship at will. I saw a door form in the side of the ship where there wasn’t one before.”

“Why would she agree to relocate our people?” an older, burly looking man wearing black asked.

The image projected in the middle of the table changed. “It was explained to me that this man is the son of the deceased king and queen. When I asked them why they were leaving Earth and they told me about the ships on their way, I asked them if they could relocate our people. They took a short time to confer, and said they would, with some conditions.”

“The first is that the man you see wants to be given a tour of one of our facilities to see how our eggs are --.”

“You told them about our eggs?” Bonanem almost screeched.

“Oh, shut up, Bonanem,” the burly man growled. “Let her continue.”

“Thank you, Olmith,” Selalea said with a smile. “As I was saying, he wants to see how our eggs are stored. They seem to have come up with a way to store eggs as large as ours are, but he may be able to improve on that after he sees one of our egg chambers. I doubt it, but there is no harm in letting him see them.”

“The second condition is that they be allowed to hire as many of our people as possible to crew the ships on their way to Earth. The ships are currently manned by skeleton crews, but they’ll be using the next two months to secretly recruit people to crew them. Originally they were planning on recruiting humans, but dragons would reduce the amount of people they need to find greatly.”

“If we agree to both conditions, they will move all our eggs, egg-tenders, elders and children to a planet of our own choosing. The young man in front of you, named Jonathan, said his people would start combing through their data finding a variety of planets for us to choose from. As soon as Jonathan regains power, our people manning his ships will be returned to our new planet. In perhaps a month, we could finally start allowing our eggs to hatch, rather than have them sit in their egg chambers for years to come.”

A spirited debate went on for many hours. There were some concerns, the main one being all of their eggs located in one location, but Selalea managed to assuage their concerns a bit. They exited the council chambers after agreeing to Jonathan’s first condition. After he toured one of their facilities, and met with the council, they would make their decision.