Victoria lowered her arms from her face, blinking wildly, desperately trying to regain her sight. "What the hell was that?!"

Before she could even form a mental response, a sound like rapidly approaching thunder filled her ears, intensifying until it erupted all around her as if an immense volcano had sprung from the earth. As her vision cleared, her eyes widened in terror as she absorbed the scene around her.

The ground upon which she stood was no longer the worn concrete floor of the forgotten janitor's office. Instead she now stood on a desolate, rocky plateau with nothing but dead earth and rocks at her feet. All around her was scorched and smoldering, ribbons of wispy, acrid smoke curling upward like long, devilish fingers. Great clouds of dark crimson smoke rose all around from unknown depths to blanket the sky in a bloody haze, while glowing flashes of red and yellow illuminated the billowing plumes from below. The air was thick, and heavy with the odor of brimstone and char; it was difficult to breathe.

Victoria stood frozen in shock, not believing what she was seeing. "I'm dead." she said aloud, voice trembling. "I'm dead and this is Hell. That box was an old confiscated bomb that no one ever discovered was a bomb and I was the lucky sucker to set it off! There's probably pieces of me everywhere!" That last though caused a wave of panic to rise, and her gut told her to run--somewhere, anywhere.

Just as she turned to bolt, there came a distant thundering like the rhythmic beating of enormous wings moving toward her. The sound was nearly deafening as it loomed closer, quaking the earth beneath her feet and bringing her to her knees. A hot, scathing wind began to blow, growing in ferocity and whipping her with rocks, and dirt, and burning ash. The wind seemed to blow in tandem with the thundering beats. Just as she thought she could endure it no longer, and was ready to scream beneath the painful assault...it stopped. The wind, the heat, the beating, all of it just...stopped.

Trembling with fear, Victoria waited several tense seconds before daring to open her eyes, distrustful of the sudden silence and what it betokened. Cautiously she raised her head, eyes darting back and forth, scanning for danger.

An immense sound like the cry of some great beast crashed through the air above, and before her eyes, the head of a massive, ancient dragon burst forth, seeming to materialize from the smoke itself. All she could see of the beast were its gargantuan head and neck, but that was more than enough. It towered nearly fifty feet above her, and everywhere beneath its stone-like scales seemed to flow with living magma, and its form radiated with a strange red glow. The massive creature lowered its liquid, molten gaze to the whimpering figure before it.

This is it, she thought to herself, tears streaming down her face as she braced herself for whatever was about to happen.

"Rise human. You were not brought here to die." A booming voice echoed above and around her.

Shocked, dumbfounded, but above all not wanting to incite some terrible wrath, Victoria rose obediently to stand before the beast; though she felt compelled to prostrate herself at its unseen feet. For several seconds, the dragon said nothing else. He just stared down at her tiny form, piercing her eyes with his own liquid, fiery orbs. With a great intake of breath, the dragon spoke again.

"I am Xareig the Eternal, Firstborn to the First Magic, and Soul of the Stone." Xareig raised his mighty head proudly. It was then that Victoria realized that she still clutched the necklace in her right hand and stole a quick glance to confirm that it was, in fact, still there.

A dragon. I've been kidnapped by a dragon! "W-Why did you b-bring me here?" Victoria stammered, trembling with fear and still unwilling to trust that this creature meant her no harm. Xareig eyed the tiny mortal before continuing.

"Many times in my long existence I have passed through the hands of men, and watched as they used my power to destroy one another. I have grown long weary of the mortal games of power, and I am ready to rest now. For countless centuries I have lain dormant, content with merely existing." For a moment, Xareig's fiery gaze grew distant, and Victoria could almost see what looked like pain behind the smoldering amber eyes, which had slid to the glowing red stone in her hands. A flash of something, disgust perhaps, crossed his ancient features before returning his attention to Victoria. "Of course, in this form," he motioned to the stone, "there was aught else I could do. I invoked the power of the First Magic to create this vessel so that I may be bound to existence. And bound I was. This stone has become a prison from which I cannot free myself. Only the First Magic can release me. It is for this purpose that you have been summoned."

Dumbstruck, Victoria merely stood there, eyes wide, mouth agape. Inside her head, however, was chaos. This can't be real! This has to be a dream! Dragons aren't real! Why would a dragon want me for anything?! How could a dragon need some little nobody's help?! HOW IS THERE A FUCKING DRAGON! This can't be real! Her mind was a little more than unwilling to accept what she was seeing and hearing right in front of her. Tearing her eyes away from the great dragon, she looked down to see that the stone was glowing again, pulsing as if with life, and growing brighter.

"All will be made clear in due course." The ground began to tremble and the wind began to swirl around them as the dragon spoke. "You have been given your task, now...FREE ME!"

With Xareig's final words, he burst into a flash of blazing golden flames. In an instant, everything around Victoria dissipated into ash and swirled into an angry vortex around her, closing in. Now she did scream as the ground disappeared beneath her and she began to tumble through the swirling maelstrom. The stone gave one last blast of intense red light before Victoria's world went black.

* * *