The crunching sound of boot against gravel woke the pure red dragon. It was flying around in a brown sack, its dark red wings were scrunched against its bright bellowed body, along with its webby like claws. The small critter was still a newborn, and lacked the features of a true beast. These things took time after all, and he wouldn’t be able to escape without any weapons at his aide.

At its center, gnawing and clawing, the dragon could feel something scream from its belly. The wretched demands of food encroached the dragon, as his small little pouch growled hungrily for some meat. The poor thing hadn’t eaten since it had been born.

“Hey Jackie, shouldn’t we feed these critters? They stink like high-hell by the way!” A man said from outside the sack. The dragon immediately went into a fetal ball, as it tried to hide from the alien sounds.

“Shut up Rick. Nobody wants your input you dumbass. They’re fuckin’ lizards.” Another man said. The group immediately erupted in laughter. The dragon felt unsafe, and rather intimidated by this large influx of sound. It could only softly murmur under its breath.

You are malnourished -1 HP.

The dragon began to think. It mentally thought, huh? I mean, give it a break it’s a dragon. Surprisingly, the peculiar system would further explain what this prompt meant. The dragon would receive a range of notifications.

+LEVEL UP

+1 TO ALL STATS

Malnourished: The state of being without proper nutrients to accommodate one’s bodily needs. Health will continue to deplete exponentially until death. +1 INT +1 WIS

The dragon immediately felt more knowledgeable of its situation, and knew it was in serious danger of death. Which it didn’t want. Using its still undeveloped brain to this extent had exhausted the dragon once again though. It just couldn’t keep up with all of the tasks required of it at this stage. Normally, a dragon would be nursed by its mother, but the dragon had been taken from its natural habitat. This was a serious endangerment to its livelihood.

You are malnourished -1 HP. You are malnourished -2 HP. You are malnourished -3 HP. Hunger Resistance Level 1 Unlocked! You are malnourished -6 HP. Hunger Resistance Level 2 Unlocked! WARNING HEALTH LEVEL CRITICAL

Everything went black for the red dragon, its hunger pains had become unbearable, and its mind had shut completely down. The notifications belled in faster than the little creature could process. It simply went into safe mode, hanging onto the threads of life. Its new caretakers were immeasurably irresponsible, having little care for its well-being.

*********************************

As if on the edge of death’s door, the dragon awoke in a very unfamiliar environment. A yellow hue encased its body, as a bearded man held his hands out to the small baby. “Poor thing, those knights don’t have a clue on how to take care of a dragon. Dragons like these sell at a good price, wouldn’t want to mess your wings up now would we?” The old man talked to the dragon as he healed it up.

“Take this my boy. I’m sure you haven’t ate since you hatched. Haha! Oughta’ be hungry fella’!” He gave the dragon a small piece of meat. The meat was foreign to the dragon, but it eagerly slumped its neck forward to bite into the rigid meat. In fact, looking afar from the table the dragon was sitting on, the dragon wasn’t much longer than half a foot.

It bit into the meat almost dramatically, and swallowed it without taste. The dragon wanted to fill its stomach as fast as it could. It engorged itself with the parcel of flesh and emasculated itself in delight. The dragon hadn’t been this happy in forever!

Hunger Saturated!

Health Regeneration 1 HP/Min

The dragon had long forgotten about its recent level up, nor did it care. After finishing up its meal, it simply delighted in the feeling of fullness. Without a care in the world, it started to form a bad habit of ignoring its status screens. With a loud burp, out came a sliver of hot gas with it. The fire blast was rather anticlimactic.

It was then that the red dragon noticed its counterpart brother, the alpha of the pack. His blue scaly skin was beautiful, and his body was slightly larger than the red dragon. He chewed on his meat as well, cherishing the flavor and swallowing it down instinctively. There was a brief pause as they stared at each other without thought. Then, the blue dragon burped and erupted a large bellowing flame from the pit of his stomach, making the old human man fall over and gasp.

“What a rare commodity! I’ve never seen such a flame so bright at this age, but wow! You could run in the circus ring and become a fire-lighter with that talent, man oh boy, have I found my money maker today!” The white bearded man raised the blue dragon into the air, although it was simply just scared and confused. The dragon pissed in the palms of the man, his stream trickling down between the cracks and onto the man’s face. The man began to cringe as he had realized his serious mistake.

“Awhhh SHIT!” He flung the dragon against the wall, before it cushioned its fall with its semi-developed wings. This dragon in particular was developing at a rate unheard of. It was definitely the prime of this batch, or was it? The red dragon observed all of this with a keen eye, his watchful eye would definitely be his greatest asset to him in the future.

“By god, this blue-scaled dragon is at least Third Rank Epic class in dragon beast nature!” The man marveled at the dragon who had been so far an impressive display, well besides pissing on his hands and face of course.

“I-I could get a hundred gold coins for this rare breed!” The human cupped his mouth in livid anticipation. He had not expected to find such a strong breed of dragon in these shallow mountains. Finding a dragon at all would be enough for this man, but he had definitely humbled himself.

The red dragon now returned fully back to reality, this was his chance at escape! He could get away while this ugly looking thing talked to itself. The dragon hadn’t really developed his wings, but he didn’t know that. Stretching his muscles, he flexed his wings out above him before jumping from the counter to glide away. Instead, he hit the ground with a thud. His wings were still too premature to catch air it seemed.

You have suffered blunt damage -14 HP.

The dragon was starting to understand that this message only appears when he was in pain. So was this message something he was supposed to avoid? He wasn’t sure, but he’d definitely run away from flying for a while.

+1 WIS

The dragon thought to itself, bad. It thought of this notification as bad as well. Confusing the two that simultaneously showed. The dragon had become a little wiser, able to distinguish good and bad. All that was left was to get away as fast as possible!

The man looked over his shoulder to see what the sound was. It was the puny red dragon that might give him a single silver coin if he was lucky. The unhealthy thing looked as if it wouldn’t live for another week, let alone grow to be anything nice. The dragon was nearly half the size of the blue dragon and definitely the smallest of the bunch. If there was any dragon he’d scrap, it’d be this puny red one.

“Alrighty boy you can’t be leaving here now. You may be a useless bastard, but you’re still profit. Now get yer’ ass on that table counter.” The man lifted the dragon back onto the counter, hoping it would learn from its previous mistake. Which it did, because the dragon wasn’t willing to risk hurting itself again for a while.

The man turned his attention back to his prize possession before examining the other dragons for other exquisite qualities. His senile age and confident hands gestured that he had been dabbling in this workmanship for many years. A sudden knock came on the wooden door beside him, which somewhat startled him. He opened the door to be greeted by the knights who had brought him the dragons.

The man immediately turned pale, as if ice had been positioned on his skin for a long period of time. The knights had removed their helms, and it was clear they had grins of evil nature plastered on their faces. A strong presence of wretchedness seeped into the walls of the room. Something terrible lingered in the air.

“We want double.” A knight with blonde hair came forward. The old man trembled, he backed away slowly as tears filled his sockets. It was clear that he was powerless against these knights, and that he had often experienced this gruesome act.

“P-Please, I don’t have anymore money to give! These dragons are all I have…” He said. The knight looked toward the dragons who were all separated onto their respective counters. It was clearly a dragon raising facility, or whatever those things were called. The knights didn’t care though. They had shiny armor and swords, and would fuck shit up if they didn’t get what they wanted. The blonde headed knight made a gesture with his eyes to the man standing beside him. Apparently that glance meant, “Cut the head off of that dragon beside you,” because that’s exactly what happened. It went balowopp. As the dragon head fell to the ground and blood spewed out.

For some reason, this infuriated all of the dragons in the room and made them pounce on the knight. He started swinging his sword around, trying to kill the dragons, but only managed to cut two down before being swarmed by sharp baby teeth. The knight was dead, but so were three more dragons who decided it was too far.

The message? Family sticks together. The knights were long gone, running down the street like babies who’d just seen the boogie man. “We’ll get you for this, you crazy old bastard!” The blonde headed knight screamed. The old man was simply in awe, this was why he loved dragons. They communicated family love like the family he once had himself. The man began to cry many emotions as he held himself to the floor.

It was strange to the red dragon who was weak and without intellect, how come this blue dragon didn’t join the fray? To the red dragon, the blue dragon contained all the qualities he lacked. Why would such a dragon dissociate himself from the pack? Was he just arrogant? The dragon considered all of these questions as primitively as it could, its thoughts were much more basic and compact though. Such as, strong not fight?

+1 INT

Regardless, the red dragon cared not for its brothers and sisters, and its insight and curiosity had led it to gain some more intelligence. The dragon for the first time considered this: what is INT? The system would respond instinctively to this kind of subconscious questionnaire.

INT, or Intelligence is one of the many basic attribute stats that create a profile. A profile is the most basic way to explain the law of objects and matter in this space. You can view your profile by verbally announcing “profile.”

The dragon actually wasn’t sure what this screen meant, nor what it said. Although the system was in dragon language, the dragon hadn’t actually harbored the time to learn such things thoroughly. It would come naturally with time after one became comfortable with its surroundings, but this red dragon in particular had no interest in such things.

In fact, its attention span was still that of a baby’s, having little interest in what it could not immediately understand. The dragon quickly turned its attention back to the blue dragon, disregarding the screen to another dimension. The blue dragon looked back at the red dragon’s glare, but with a hint of intelligence behind its posture.

The two were oddly conjoined with the curiosity of the other, their staple colors were defiantly different in contrast. Blue eyes with the glare of intelligence and dominance. Red eyes with the glare of ambition and harbored power. In reality, if the two were to be observed, it would look much more like a predator hunting its prey. The predator being the larger blue dragon.

The local militia had gathered the body, and they questioned the man on what had happened. Using lie detection magic, they could verify the accuracy of what the man retold. They gave him no further trouble for the time being, only that they’d have him come in for questioning later that evening.

The old man had recomposed himself and started sorting the common dragons back in their rightful designated spots. A single militia guard stood by the doorway to ensure the old man didn’t try to flee in case he was responsible for this crime in some regard. Worst case scenario he might lose his dragon business.

The red dragon closed its eyes and rested its body from the constant strainage of stress. He wasn’t necessarily sleepy, but he wanted a break from this crazy world. Dragons were hibernating creatures after all, they’d often have crazy levels of composure.

Meditation Level 1 Unlocked!