"Are you ready for this?" I ask. "Last Dungeon run before your quest begins."

"I am ready," Drake asks.

We're standing in the access ring to the Silent Valley Medium Forest, the seven-room Dungeon here. It's a two-hour walk from the town, and only one room larger than the Silent Valley Small Forest. I'm pretty sure most 'medium' forest Dungeons are bigger than this one.

I'm sure of it because Daniel and Cassidy have told me that before. Normally, 'medium' requires at least ten rooms or two floors. For whatever reason, though, we have it at only seven rooms here.

The stones at the access ring each have a small tree growing out of the top of them, in the centers, including the access stone itself. The trees are only about sixteen inches tall, and are oak trees, and their leaves match the season. With it being spring right now, they have leaves, but in autumn, they'll turn and fall, and in winter, they won't have any leaves.

I place my hand on the access stone.

Would you like to enter the Silent Valley Medium Forest Dungeon? Yes No

I hit Yes, then accept Drake coming with me, hit Done, then confirm the party. The runes on the stones glow for a few moments, then we find ourselves in the arrival room. Forest Dungeons have walls like Granny's island does – trees packed together tightly, the only gaps being the tree in the center of a wall missing if there's another room on the other side.

Sixty feet of space on each side is enough that the canopy doesn't cover the whole thing, the center of each room exposed to the sky. Right now, it's daytime, matching the sunny skies we had outside.

The arrival chamber this time has an entry on the western wall, and that's it. Even Dungeons with only one entrance on the entry room can be complex, so there's no telling how many rooms will have branches.

Then again, this is a seven-room Dungeon, so it still won't be too difficult.

"Let's go," I tell Drake.

We enter the next room, inside of which is a single, grey wolf. It spots us almost immediately and attacks, and Drake lunges forward, driving his sword into its chest as it jumps. The wolf fades away, and I look between the northern entry and the western.

I pick the western entry, and we walk through it. It's a single room with another wolf in it. Almost all of the monsters which can form in this Dungeon are wolves to the point that we could do twenty or thirty runs before encountering a different monster.

In this chamber, Drake attacks the wolf before it notices us, cutting into its neck and killing it. After it fades away, we return to the previous chamber, then walk to the northern, which has two wolves in it. Drake attacks one of them while the other goes for me.

Drawing a knife, I step to the side at the last moment, slicing the wolf's neck, a small bit of blood getting on my hands. The wolf whines as it crashes to the ground, and I step forward and plunge my knife into its back, killing it. When the monster fades, so too does its blood from me.

That's one thing I like about the monsters in Dungeons – any part of them that's removed fades away when they die as well. It makes cleanup so much easier, unlike outside of Dungeons. There, I'd have to scrub the blood off myself, and sometimes, it sets in before I return to town, especially on hotter days.

This chamber has an entryway on the western wall, so we step through it, nearly walking into a wolf. It doesn't get a chance to react before Drake kills it, and Drake's stomach grumbles. That isn't unusual, though.

He really wants to try eating some of the animals we have here, and fighting the monsters doesn't help that at all. Even though we could go hunting outside, Drake's not sure if he wants to try eating them raw. Since he took on human form, he's not sure if he's able to eat uncooked meat without any risk that humans would have.

"Drake," I say after noticing something about the ground in here.. "Step exactly where I step in here. And lift your tail up, don't let it get closer than six inches to the ground."

"How come?" He asks, his tail shifting a little behind him.

"This room is trapped."

"Oh."

This isn't our first time encountering a room that had both monsters and a trap, and Drake's reaction to the first one was pretty amusing. It took several minutes for him to be able to comprehend that a room where we could fight something could also be trapped, especially since the traps are active even before everything is killed to ensure that people could get snared in them if they pass through without fighting. I don't really blame him, though, since from an outside standpoint, that could seem weird.

If the ground is trapped in a combat room, the traps generally just send in more monsters when triggered, up to a certain limit based on the Dungeon's size and the size of the party that entered the Dungeon. It's one of the only ways to exceed the maximum limit for a room.

However, it will never completely fill the room with monsters. There's a higher cap for how many monsters can be in a trapped room through the trap-spawned monsters, and if it is reached, any additional monsters summoned through the trap enter a queue, appearing only after the number of monsters drop.

To avoid triggering the traps, when we come across such rooms, I always tell Drake to step exactly where I did. Otherwise, he might trigger them on his own, and if he gets to fighting in here, then chances are decent he'll continue to trigger more summons.

Watching the ground, I carefully step where there are no signs of tree roots peeking up out of the soil. If we step on the tree roots that peek up even the slightest, we'll trigger the traps. Normally, tree roots don't stretch this far from trees the sizes of the ones here, but this is a magically-constructed location. That doesn't matter.

We reach the entry on the northern wall and pass through it, entering a room with a chest sitting on a raised stone ring. Even if Drake could notice the traps easily on his own, he'd have probably led us back to the eastern door during our trip in the last chamber.

"Does this room have traps, too?" Drake asks, looking around.

"Probably," I answer. "But not on the ground."

"Okay."

I walk up to the platform, and Drake follows me since there aren't any traps on the ground. I examine the platform, then step up onto it and approach the chest. It's a simple wooden one, like normal around here.

Kneeling in front of it, I examine the lock, then pull out my lockpick set and immediately set to work on picking the lock. It takes me about six seconds to manage, then I push the lid open. Inside is a tin of healing salve, which I place into my Inventory.

The chest looted, I stand, then lead Drake into the eastern entrance, then watch as he dispatches the pair of wolves in here. He fights these things with such ease, it impresses me. Most of it does come from his strength and speed, though. A single strike is all he really needs at the moment. In more difficult Dungeons, he'll struggle a little more than he is now.

There's only one room left, and we enter it through the eastern door in here. A single, lone wolf waits in here, and Drake kills it, too, with ease. The final entrance, which leaves to the exit room, rests on the southern wall, putting the exit room as the room directly north of the entrance room.

We enter the exit room and step into the exit ring, where we are given our reward of 7 CP for completing it and the notice that we have reached our maximum number of runs where we will receive CP. That brings me up to 8 CP, and I need more than that to bring my Class up another Level. Since Drake has the same amount of CP as me, I don't bother waiting for him to apply it, since he can't, either. I place my hand on the access stone and take us out of the Dungeon.

"That was nice," I stretch. "Let's head back to town and sell our loot, Drake. Then, we can buy you a new sword."

"What's wrong with this one?" He asks.

"It's a little on the cheap side," I tell him. "And probably won't hold up in the trial for the Crystal of Power. I'd bought it just to be nice to you, since I didn't know you back then and wasn't planning on being around you much. But you're definitely going to need a better one if you want to do the trial. Luckily, our weapon shop does keep a few higher-quality swords in stock."

Though if he's doing the Elemental Trials as well he'll probably need to replace the new one soon enough, too. Our weaponsmith might be decent, but his swords aren't exactly the best. Our hunters use bows and spears, and he's better at making knives than he is at swords. We are just a town out in the middle of nowhere.

"Okay," Drake says.

We make the walk back to town, talking none along the way. Our walks are usually quiet. I'm not sure about Drake, but I don't really know what to talk about with him. His expressions shift between curiosity, amazement, and confusion for the most part, so I know he's thinking about something. More likely than not, it's something he's spotted that I didn't notice. In addition to excellent hearing, he has amazing eyesight.

Not just in distance, but in range. He can see further than I can, more colors than I can, and can see other things, such as heat or lack thereof. Infrared, he called it. What is ultraviolet and ultrared? He uses terms so unfamiliar to me, and Daniel and Cassidy both say they've never heard of them before, either.

"Drake," I finally come up with something to talk about on the walk. "You keep using terms I don't know, and when I ask, you say they're used on other worlds."

"They are," he says. "Your world hasn't developed many of the terms yet."

"I get the impression," I tell him. "That you can view other worlds from the dragon world. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"How many worlds can you view?"

"Any we want."

"And just any dragon can do that?"

"No."

"Special dragons?"

"The Elders are the ones permitted to."

"It's a permission thing?" I ask.

"Yes."

"I'm assuming that an outcast isn't an Elder," I say, and his face starts to redden a little. "What was your rank?"

"Initiate," he answers. "We can become one as soon as we turn three."

So fifteen, when converted into our years. He's been an Initiate for four years?

"What are you before then?" I ask.

"Rankless," he answers.

"What's the difference between the ranks?" I ask.

"Rankless are either the young or the laborers," he answers. "They're the 'standard' dragon. When a dragon earns a rank, they become more powerful. Every rank increases their power to another threshold."

Sort of like Tiering Classes, though from what he's told me, the System is unique to this world, which means it's probably some infusion or something that increases their power.

"How do you become more powerful by going up a rank?" I ask.

"If we acquire or increase a rank," he explains. "The sacred tree recognizes us by increasing our power."

"That's how dragons become more powerful?" I ask.

"One way."

"And another?"

"By growing older."

That makes sense, I guess. Do dragons always grow more powerful? Or are they like people, who weaken once they become older? I know magical power doesn't ever decrease, but ability still can. Is it like that for them, too?

"And when you turn fifteen – three – you become an Initiate?" I decide to go back to my original line of questioning.

"No," Drake answers.

Jeez, Drake. It's been two weeks, and you still do this. How long will it take for him to learn to expand on answers?

"How do you become an Initiate?"

"The Masters administer a test five times a year," he answers. So once a year here, then? Interesting. "You have to be recommended by at least five Adepts, three Masters, or an Elder to take the test."

He mutters that last part, probably because an outcast couldn't get the recommendations. Which makes me curious…

"How did you get to take the test?" I ask.

"I… don't want to talk about it," he mutters.

All things considered, I doubt he snuck in to the test.

"Okay," I say as something catches my attention. "What kind of stuff did you do?"

There's Ben, in the distance, doing his work on the farm. He's bare-chested right now, and I barely even noticed him. I guess having Drake around has helped me a little with everything. I might have forgiven him after the apology and the birthday present, but that doesn't mean there weren't other issues still around.

"Labor," he answers. "I was mostly a servant, even as an Initiate."

He did answer the question, but it's still more than a little vague.

"Erm," I say. "Drake, what kind of labor and duties did you have?"

"I mostly had to clean the dens," he answers. "As an outcast, even an Initiate, I was given a job no one wanted."

It's time to ask the question I've wanted answered for two weeks.

"How did you get selected to come here?" I ask, and he stops walking, looking away from me, at the ground, and with rapidly reddening cheeks. I turn and face him. "What's wrong?"

"I wasn't selected," he mumbles.

"What do you mean?" I ask. "Granny said the quest is real-"

"It is," he mumbles even quieter. "I wasn't the one chosen to come."

He wasn't supposed to come? Someone else was?

"Drake," I say. "If you weren't the one selected to come, then why are you here?"

He's silent for several moments, then sighs.

"The portal can't be opened often," he tells me. "And it's one-way with no possibility of opening it from this side. Then there's that we can't change form off of our world, so we'd be stuck in a weak, human form until we died. No one wanted to come, because it would mean becoming much weaker and forever abandoning our world, never able to return.. So the Elders drew a lottery of the Masters to pick which one would come. Even if I was an outcast, I was allowed to be there for… well, it's not important. When it came time for him to come through the portal, though, he resisted, and the Masters present backed him. The Elders and Masters got into an argument over who would come. The Masters told the Elders to, since they were older, wiser, and more powerful, and thus would have a better advantage. The Elders said they had to stay to watch and guide our people."

He picks up volume as he speaks, but not much. Shaking his head, Drake looks at me, and I can see the pain and sadness on his face.

"The portal had already opened," he says. "Once opened, it would remain open either for about thirty-nine minutes, or until someone passed through it. A minute before it would have closed, I performed the transformation. It took me almost a minute to complete, and no one noticed it. I didn't want this world to die, not after… it's not important. I had only seconds left, so I jumped through the portal."

Now, there are tears in his eyes.

"They probably didn't even notice I was gone and it had closed," his voice is bitter. "They were too busy arguing about who would come and save this world. It normally takes around a hundred thousand of your years to be able to open the portal here, and they probably didn't even notice it had closed and that no one could pass through. How long after I left did they realize what I did?"

As I try to come up with something reassuring to say, something he mentioned registers in my head. The portal is one-way, and he can't open it from here. While the Elders and Masters were bickering, he gave up his life there to save this world. There might have been some selfish reasons for it, but I can tell by his face that he wanted to stay there.

"Well," I smile at him. "When you complete the quest, Naku-Naku, you'll have an accomplishment greater than anything those old dragons could achieve. And experiences they never had."

"Yeah," he smiles, still looking sad. "You're right. Let's get back to town."

"Yeah," I tell him. "And since you lost the fight earlier, you'll have to do whatever I want for two hours one we're back at my apartment. You ever want to challenge me for the reverse, just let me know."

It's not like I'd be unhappy with anything he'd make me do. In fact, I'm actually curious about it, which is why I want to do this. It'll encourage him to challenge me in a fight, as well as encourage him to train more so that I can't just use my own training to best him. That should make our journey a little easier.

Okay, so there's some selfish reasons and some intent on bettering his abilities there, but the smile on his face right now is actually the main cause of that statement. It's clear he's looking forward to whatever I have planned. Tonight's going to be fun.