The elderly dragonkin led Ray to the outskirts of the group. He dragged a log with him and muttered something under his breath. As he did so, a small campfire appeared. The old man sat and beckoned for Ray to sit next to him.

“Here boy, drink this. It’ll remind you of home I suspect” The old man said as he passed Ray a small glass vial.

Ray grabbed the vial and uncorked it. Before drinking, Ray used identify on the vial.

Identify Used

Carbonated Drink

Poor Quality

A poor-quality drink made using carbonated water and a lot of sugar.

Without a second thought, Ray drank the small vial in one gulp. “Is this cola? You guys can create soft drink?”

“Heh, so you do know what it is. This old man was told that coke was perhaps the most popular drink on your home world, but he never believed it. Too sweet for my liking”.

Ray could still experience the aftertaste in the back of his throat. “Believe me, this is an extremely poor replica of coke, the real stuff, super addictive”. Even though Ray had been addicted to the stuff back on earth, he hadn’t really given a proper thought to the food and drink here aside from the barbeques he’d had. Could Ray make some serious coin by becoming a merchant and selling custom Earth wares?

Ray turned to the old dragonkin. “So, what’s your name anyway?”

“Vaeldren” he said.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Vaeldren. As you are no doubt aware, I’m Ray”

For the first time since coming, Vaeldren looked Ray up and down. He refrained from using identify on Ray as it was clear he still didn’t have any way to protect himself.

“I suppose you know all of my stats already? Why can people use identify on me but I can’t use it back? I don’t understand the rules of this world.” Ray said. He was a little annoyed at the situation.

“First off, no, I didn’t use identify on you, even though I easily could. It’s considered rude to use identify but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. Someone as young as you should just use it on all initial meetings, level it up as much as possible, who knows, you may need it in the future. The..”

“But then why would it be rude to use?” Ray cut Vaeldren off.

“Laddy, give me time to explain and don’t interrupt. If you want to know all about what’s going on, listen to me and I’ll give you a run down on the workings that we know of”.

“Alright, sorry... Could you at least call me Ray? I don’t like being called Laddy” Ray said, looking a bit guilty. It had sometimes been a habit of Ray’s to jump to conclusions and cut people short. He had been working on fixing the habit back on Earth.

“Heh, so you do have a spine, I was waiting for you to snap a bit. Anyway, if you must know, you should stop worrying about being rude to people and start preparing for war. In peacetime, using identify is considered rude but right now we are at war. If you ever use identify and see System Touched. Run or fight immediately. There are a few states you should look out for, here, I’ll send you a list to your notes.”

[Vaeldren Draz has sent you a note. Do you wish to open?]

“Yes” Ray accidently said out loud. He was too tired.

Be Wary of These

System Touched

Things directly controlled by the system, treat as enemy to be killed on sight.

System Chosen

Off-Worlder – Mind kept intact but generally allied with the system. Attempt to reason but generally kill.

System Linked

Local – Mind kept intact but generally allied with the system. Can be converted back but generally consider an enemy, even if family member.

Corrupted

Entity that has been corrupted by something other than the system. Their mind was broken during the process. Deemed extremely dangerous.

Rebel

Self-explanatory.

Before Ray could ask any questions, Vaeldren continued speaking. “Now, as for skills. Anything you can use to defend yourself should be used. We Dragonkin definitely won’t take offense to you using identifying skills on us. We may ask you to stop but we won’t be offended. In fact, I highly suggest you go round the group and use it on everyone here. As for how we can block the skill, that’s actually a simple matter. Once Identify hits level 20, you will receive a subskill aptly named Block Detection. The skill will not always work but when it does, you’ll be notified that someone has attempted to identify you. If you are much lower level then your target, you may only have a success rate of 1% or less”.

Ray was perplexed by this. It meant that levelling skills wasn’t just important, it may be the most significant thing on Arkus, perhaps even more important than regular stats. Throughout the night, Ray learned many new things about skills and the Dragonkin race. The race was an offshoot directly born of dragons. It turned out that bonded dragons were able to shapeshift into any of the other races, though not entirely perfectly. Shapeshifted dragons still had the basic characteristics of a dragon, such as a scaled tail and wings but clearly had the features of the race they took on, such as pointed ears for an elf. The most surprising of this was that shapeshifted dragons were able to reproduce from any race, thus creating Dragonkin. Weirdly, Dragonkin always looked like scaled lizards, regardless of which race the dragon originally used for reproduction.

Ray quickly learnt that the total number of races on Arkus was unknown. He had likened the planet to a hodgepodge of all of Earths mythic stories. Hell, there were even Undead and Lycans on Arkus. At least, this was while the planet was whole. Unfortunately, it wasn’t even known which races still lived, died, or now served the System.

“So… What happens now?” Ray asked

Vaeldren sat for a while. He was lost in thought. He wasn’t sure how to answer Ray. The rest of the Dragonkin were debating this point. Most of them believed their home was truly lost with no way of recovery. They believed they should try to find shelter with a different race and thus was the reason they had been on their way to the Dark Elves.

“Truthfully, I don’t know. Most of us want to go with the Elves. They believe the Elves will treat us fairly and integrate us into their society.” Vaeldren said.

“But you don’t believe that do you?” Ray responded.

“No. I don’t. I believe that if we are going to survive and eventually win this, we need to find a home of our own. I don’t think placing reliance on another race is going to help anymore. Sure. We need them to start fighting back, but if we are to create an integrated society, it can’t be one that already exists. It needs to be a new territory” Vaeldren said

Ray honestly wasn’t surprised. It’s hard to integrate somewhere that automatically favours a particular race. Even on earth, differing cultures often clashed. Ray supposed it probably made more sense to start from scratch.

“Well. Ray… Boyo, I’ll see you in the morning.” Vaeldren said as he stood and walked back towards the rest of the Dragonkin.

Ray settled down on a bedroll next to Miu. He had a lot to think about and he knew these next few days would potentially determine the rest of his life on Arkus. On one hand, he could accompany these Dragonkin to their destination. They had been reasonably nice to him so far, even helped him gain a better understanding of life here. On the other hand, he didn’t really owe them anything. Sure, they did probably save his life from the rats but saving an entire race, was it really his fight?

Miu was staring at her master who was clearly troubled. She wasn’t really sure how to help him. All she could do is be there for him no matter what. So she cuddled up close and asked “is everything alright master?”

“After hearing the conversation, what do you think we should do here? We need to make a decision and I just don’t know if we should continue down this path. I mean, I like the Dragonkin but we’re clearly outsiders here. Just look at where we were placed. Our camp is on the edge. By the end of the night, no one really wants to be here with us.”

“Master, you need to stop worrying. When you entered my den after killing my family, I was frightened as hell but sometimes you just have to do what you need to do. Besides, no matter what you’ve always got me. I’ll never leave you, no matter what happens.”

Ray gave Miu a scratch behind the ear. “Thanks… I really mean it. It means a lot to me”

“No worries master!” Miu said happily. By this point she was purring and beginning to fall asleep.