The moment we enter the room at the inn, Drake starts shedding his clothes. I make sure the door is closed, then I remove my cloak, letting it fall to the ground before I start undressing as well. Drake finishes before me, then hops impatiently from foot to foot as he watches me undress.

Just to tease him, I slow down a little, and his impatience grows even more. Even with as tired as we are from the journey here and having stuffed ourselves full of food, Drake still has plenty of energy left for sex.

I've barely stepped out of my clothes when Drake grabs me and lifts me up, spinning and dropping me on the bed. I move so that my head is resting on the pillows as he gets between my legs, taking my dick into his mouth.

He holds my right thigh with his left hand and uses his right hand to hold the base of my dick, pulling down the foreskin after a couple of minutes as he pulls back his head, letting only the head of my dick remain in his mouth as he flicks his tongue around it, making me shudder a little in ecstasy. A few times, he looks up, meeting my gaze as he sucks me off, and I just watch him, hoping he moves on soon.

After a few minutes of this, Drake pulls off of me entirely, then moves up and presses his lips to mine as he begins grinding his dick against mine, grabbing the sides of my head with his hands. I feel his sides, running my fingers over his scales and soft skin, thrusting my hips upwards to grind against him as well.

Drake doesn't disappoint, and after only a few minutes, he climbs off of me to kneel between my legs, which I lift up as he oils his dick to slicken it. Then, he takes hold of my legs as he pushes his dick against my ass, slowly pushing in. The moment the head is inside of me, Drake thrusts all the way in, eliciting a light gasp from me before he begins pumping himself.

His dick rubs that sensitive spot inside of me as he thrusts himself back and forth, filling me with himself, stretching me as much as he can. I watch him, the look of lust on his face, the muscles on his body, the way his tail moves slightly in and out of view. The slight reddening of his pale flesh as our sex gets his blood flowing, the way his scales don't change. I listen to the sounds of pleasure on his breath and in his slight moans as I feel his thickness inside of me.

"Ungh!" I moan as I hit my orgasm, shooting rope after rope of cum, my ass tightening around Drake's dick.

Drake stops fucking me as I clench his tool, watching I shoot my load out, the cum hitting past and on my face, then my face, neck, my chest, and stomach, and the little bit that manages to dribble out in the last shots. As soon as my ass unlenches, Drake begins thrusting once more.

His light moans become more erotic, his thrusts faster and more forceful as he draws near his orgasm, and when he reaches it, he thrusts in all the way, shooting his cum into me. This time, he doesn't stop thrusting, and I can feel his sticky cum slicking on his dick as he continues.

Bending forward, Drake does slow down as he begins kissing me once more, using his tongue against mine inside of my mouth as he holds the sides of my head and I rub his sides once more. My dick rubs his stomach as he thrusts inside of me, and Drake continues like this as I feel a second orgasm rising.

When I hit it, I shoot my load onto both of us, and Drake gives my bottom lip a light bite before he returns to a kneeling position, thrusting even harder and faster inside of me, watching me as I watch him, feeling him inside of me as he brings himself to another orgasm.

After shooting another load inside of me, Drake slowly pulls out and climbs off the bed to turn off the light. Then, he climbs back onto the bed and moves the blanket out form under me and to the side, then lies down beside me on his side, shifting me onto my side so that he can spoon me, draping one arm over me and nuzzling me from behind, his dick, slick with oil and his cum, rubbing my ass. He pulls the blanket over me, then kisses the back of my neck.

"I love you," Drake murmurs unexpectedly, then his breathing shifts to the lighter, more rhythmic breath of a sleeping person.

As tired as I am, those three words keep me awake. It's not as if I didn't expect this, but it's still caught me off-guard. Drake and I have sex pretty much every day, before we go to bed and first thing in the morning, and sometimes somewhere between there.

While we did start off as just two horny guys pleasuring themselves out of a mutual agreement, Drake's a pretty good guy. He's kind, even if oblivious about some things, he's open with his emotions, and his flaw of being badly directionally-challenged doesn't take away from that at all.

I've fallen in love with him, too. But I haven't voiced it, because if I voice it, then it changes our relationship. If I told him I loved him, then we'd no longer just be two guys having sex to take care of carnal desires while on a quest to save the world.

Drake's seemed to have become attached to me, too, so I kind of knew he'd fallen in love as well. Does him voicing that he has mean he wants to take this to the next level? Then there's the question of if he actually wants to get into a relationship with anyone while on his quest, or even for several years after.

He's in a new world, after having to give up his old home. As much as he was an outcast there, I sense that there may have been a reason for him to want to stay. He might not be ready for an actual relationship, even if he's fallen in love. Hell, he may be mistaking love for something else.

I'll wait and see what he says in the morning to know for sure, but it still prevents me from falling asleep.

Probably two hours after Drake's confusing three words, there's a soft knock on the door to my room. My guess is that it's Calvin. I pull the blanket off of me and carefully extract myself from Drake, which is a little more difficult to do than normal, then I approach the door.

"Who is it?" I ask in a deep, gruff voice that makes me sound much older than I actually am.

"The sexiest son of my father," Calvin responds with a note of enthusiasm in his voice. "Here to say 'hi' to the ugliest."

"What was the last thing your brother did with you before he left home?" I ask.

"Stab me in the gut!" He answers cheerfully.

I open the door a crack and look at my brother standing on the other side, dressed in black pants, brown leather boots, and a light grey tunic with light blue striping on the sides and shoulders, a belt with pouches around his waist.

"Did I wake you?" He asks.

"No," I let him into the room, flipping the light back on. "Don't worry about waking Drake up, he's not woken that easily."

"Then I won't," he says as I sit on my bed, and he closes the door to the room. "You know, explaining away the injury without getting either of us into trouble was kind of difficult."

"You managed," I shrugged.

"I deserved it," he grins at me. "So did you change your mind? I was sure you'd be avoiding the big cities, to reduce the risk of recognition. And you've got a cutie with you, too? What is he? I've never seen someone with reptilian traits before."

"He's a dragon who took human form," I answer. "Which, of course, means having human attributes as well, so he doesn't have the great might and powers of a dragon."

"A dragon?" He gives me a look of utter confusion. "Nate, those are myths."

"They're apparently not," I tell him. "They're from another world, and can't open the portal often. It's also only one-way, so they only come here if there's a serious situation. And before you ask if I'd believe such an outlandish tale, I did check with Granny first."

"She confirmed it?" He asks.

"She knew his true nature just by looking at him," I say. "And had been expecting a dragon to come. Apparently, the world is dying, and he came here to fix it."

"And you're going with him?" He asks.

"He could use a little help," I shrug. "I won't get into why. Anyway, that's why I'm here, we have to go to the Wind Crystal. We'll stay in town long enough to do the Dungeons nearby, then head off."

"Do you need to speak with the Elemental Guardian, then?"

"He needs to charge a Crystal of Power," I shake my head. "The Wind Crystal was the nearest one, so we're doing that one first."

"Uh, Nate," Calvin leans against the door. "Not to put a damper on things, but don't you need a Crystal of Power to charge it?"

"Dragons are ridiculously strong."

"What do you mean?" He asks, and I explain about Drake's starting stats, even though he's in human form. "Dang, Nate, that's strong. So he was able to do the trial for the Crystal of Power?"

"Yeah," I answer. "I tagged along with him for the CP."

"Huh," he says. "So in addition to being able to hit Tier II here, you'll be able to add in a few more Levels."

"Yeah," I nod. "Though I'm going to save it up so I can take on Healer."

"I'd recommend going Ranger after," he tells me. "I know you'd probably want to do Mage, but-"

"Healer's Map," I nod. "Daniel and Cassidy let me know about the combination and Ascension Skills."

"Good, good," he nods. "I take it they told you the Map Markers, then Healer's Map path?"

"Yeah," I answer. "Though I'd rather do Healer first, then Ranger. I'd rather go for Thief, but Healer's Map, Map Markers, and the tracking Skill for Rangers are all pretty useful, so I'll go with it third rather than Thief. I'll probably do Thief fourth, then."

"Alright," he chuckles. "Ambitious, but then, so is that big goal of yours. You'll probably end up getting four Classes on your way to it."

"Yeah," I say. "Back to the Ascension Skills. You mentioned a 'path'. Does that mean there's another set of Skills I could get?"

"Sort of," he answers. "You could get it anyway. Ascension Skills more specifically require other Skills to obtain. Some Classes offer you multiple Skills for their Tiers. The other path you can take is the Treasure Hunter, Healer, then Ranger path. With Mapping and any healing or buffing Skill, you can acquire Blessed Map. With it, any room or area you're in inside of a Dungeon or some Ruins, you're able to perform a lesser version of it to everyone inside of there."

"Mass healing and buffing," I say.

"Yep," he nods.

"Sounds like it'd be useful if you could get more than two or three Skills for Healer," I say.

"You can," he tells me.

"I mean, other than the Ascension Skills."

"Cassidy and Daniel forgot to mention it, huh?" Calvin folds his arms across his chest.

"What?" I ask.

"Some Classes," he tells me. "Can acquire additional Skills. There are Dungeons called Skill Dungeons, and if you complete them, you'll earn a new Skill if you have the qualifying Class and Tier of it. Healer's one of them."

If this is true, then Cassidy and Daniel really did leave out something that could be pretty important. Nothing I've read has mentioned Skill Dungeons in any context. At all. Yet they sound extremely useful.

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers. "So is Treasure Hunter, actually."

What additional Skills could it obtain outside of the ones earned by Ascending the Class? I really can't think of anything, especially since there are records going up to Tier V of it, and they seem to cover all of the Skills that I could think of that would be useful that aren't in Thief.

"I take it the Skills they give are preassigned?" I ask. "So unless we go to a specific Dungeon, we can't obtain that Skill?"

"No," he shakes his head. "If you go to a Healer Skill I Dungeon and complete it, you'll earn the same Skill, regardless of where in the world it is. However, you do need to be either Level 25 in that Class or a higher Tier to obtain it. They all give 5 CP per Tier, regardless of their size, number of rooms, or difficulty, so even if you obtain all of the Skills available for a given Class and Tier of it, you can still earn the CP by doing the rest, though the Skill is the real reward."

"Sort of like the Crystal of Power during that one's trial?" I ask. "We go through up to four hundred rooms, yet only earn 25 CP because we get something even more valuable at the end."

"Yeah," he looks at Drake. "So a dragon, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Want me to tell Dad about the quest?" He asks.

"Go ahead," I snort. "He'll act like he doesn't care that I'm on a quest to save the world. How much input did he give for the knives?"

"He personally went to Forgetown to commission them," Calvin smiles. "He did have me teleport him there and back, but he didn't return until after they and the reward for finishing your own quest were all done."

"Dad does know I know he actually cares and has an interest, right?" I ask. "That he's not actually upset with me for heading to Silent Valley?"

"He's currently oblivious," Calvin answers. "He's actually a little jealous, since you get to visit Granny a lot more than he does."

"He could visit her on his deathbed, and she'd probably think it's only been a few months," I tell him.

"Yeah!" Calvin laughs. "Granny's sense of time isn't all there. I visited her two days in a row recently, and she thought I'd gone to the bathroom, it seemed such a short departure to her! Completely confused her as to why I'd told her 'goodbye' just to go to the bathroom."

I knew he visited her, I didn't realize he visited her that often. Of course, two days in a row probably isn't that common for him, but he still probably visits more than I'd thought, now that I think about it and hear him talking about it.

"Speaking of Granny," I decide to get a little more serious. "My big fear with being recognized by an adventurer who knows you and Taylor isn't actually them treating me as they should someone of my status. It's actually that if they recognize me, they'll treat me like they might Granny. How common is the rumor that I'm training under her and learning her powers?"

Calvin sighs, then pushes off the door and takes a step closer to me, dropping his arms to his sides.

"Very common," he answers. "It's well-known you went to Silent Valley, even if you avoided most of the adventurers who went down there to speak with Granny. The only explanation anyone could think of is that you wanted to start learning her magics. It isn't common for a child to be able to start learning magics, but it's not unheard of."

"I was afraid of that," I sigh. "So my fears are right. If people realize who I am, they'll probably start asking for my advice, especially if they know I'm traveling around."

"Yeah," he says. "Sorry, Nate. I did my best to dispel the rumors at first, but that could only work for so long. Eventually, well, it ended up going beyond what I could suppress. Sorry."

"Everyone has their limits," I smile at him. "It's not your fault. Besides, I'm apparently going to eventually take Granny's place as the Oracle."

"What do you mean?" He asks, and I explain about our bloodline magic, and how I inherited the more raw version of it. "And she foresaw you taking her place?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I guess once the thrill of hunting treasure wears off, I calm down and settle into learning how to use our inheritance. It doesn't bother me, though, I love the island."

There's no point in mentioning she made it for me, though I'm sure he'll learn this soon enough. He's probably going to pay Granny a visit to ask her more about me taking over the role of the Oracle.

"The island does feel pretty nice," he tells me.

"Yeah," I nod, then cover my mouth as I yawn. "Sorry, long day."

"I'm sure," he tells me. "Well, I'll be going now, Nate. Get some sleep. I'd hug you, except, well, you know."

"Yeah," I chuckle. "I know. Have a good night, Calvin."

Nate leaves, and I step off the bed and cross over to the door, flipping off the light. As I return to bed, I realize that I didn't ask Calvin if he knows anything about the guy who visits Gretel at the inn. Since he's the only person I know of who can teleport, I'm pretty sure he does.

If we run into each other again, I'll ask him then, if I remember.

I snuggle back up against Drake and pull the blanket back over myself, feeling the warmth of him against me. Even with my thoughts over what he said to me after our sex, I'm now too exhausted to stay away, and immediately fall asleep, drifting into dreams of Drake and me.