“I’m a what?” I roared. And I had to admire that I really could roar now. The sound bounced back from the distant walls, and I winced as I partially deafened myself. Bob, don’t be an idiot! I was struggling for perspective. You don’t realise how self-obsessed you are when it comes to comparisons until your body gets warped into a completely different shape and size.

  Someone is objectively tall if you have to look up to meet their eyes. I had been a little under six feet back on Earth. Now, I had no idea how tall, or rather long, I was. The gold coins that lay scattered around my former egg might be really, really big or…

  “Am I the tiniest dragon in the history of the world?” I wondered aloud.

  “Nah, Grumwalt the Grey only ever grew to three feet long, tip to tail. You’re easily four-and-a-half feet already.”

  My snout swung back and forth as I looked around for the source of the voice that had been with me throughout my lengthy incubation. I couldn’t see anyone nearby. It sounded soft and feminine but with a hint of something else, something powerful threaded through it.

  I tried to sniff, but my nostrils appeared to be purely ornamental. My tongue flicked out like a snake, and I tasted the air. I clamped my front paws across my mouth. The only thing I could “smell” was the stone, gold, and broken egg. I’d never known gold had a smell, but some part of me understood immediately what that flavour-scent had been. It smelled good. Really good.

  “I’m not sure you’re ready to see me yet, Bob. My name is Kat; I’m your dungeon sprite, levelling guide, general font of wisdom, and best possible companion. It’s hard starting again, but the big bosses aren’t as heartless as you might think—they’ve given you me!” the cheerful, feminine voice babbled away nervously.

  “Dungeon sprite? Is this a prison?” I asked. My voice was more sibilant than it had been, perhaps a shade higher in pitch as well, but otherwise, it was my normal voice from back home.

  “Only if you want to make it into one. Due to certain karmic irregularities on your part, the W.O.O. has decided to make you a bit of a special case!” Kat declared proudly from wherever she was hiding.

  “Special in a good way or special in a ‘how badly can we fuck with Bob’ kind of way? And who the hell are the Woo?”

  “Special in a good way, of course!” Kat snapped, perhaps a little too quickly for me to honestly believe her. “The W.O.O., or Wise Old Ones, are transcendental beings who have conquered fate and time. They’re the big bosses!”

  “So I have yet another set of bosses? Oh, joy!”

  “They aren’t like Killroy, Bob. They aren’t philandering petty tyrants with tiny dicks and Napoleon complexes. Well, they don’t have Napoleon complexes anyway. Their reward for their success was what amounted to middle management positions in the divine hierarchy, so they can be a little crotchety sometimes. However, I’m reasonably sure that, in this case, they were genuinely helpful. I think. Seventy, seventy-five per cent sure at least.”

  “Kat, you’re telling me that the Cosmic HR department has taken an interest in me. It’s never good when those assholes take an interest in anything,” I replied. I was feeling strange impulses. Some reptilian part of me wanted to move back to my egg. I started slithering, a sinuous movement, along the smooth stone of the floor. With my wings pressed back against my flanks, I imagined I must look like an oversized gecko.

  My tongue flicked out, and I caught the taste of gold again. It stopped me in my tracks. Up close, it tasted… fantastic. Like Wagyu beef, chocolate, and coffee, all mixed together. Like the finest wine blended with the freshest fruit juice. It was so divine that it was throwing off my metaphors. It smelled terrific.

  I reached out a clawed hand and picked up one of the coins. On one side was etched an image of a smiling dragon, forked tongue protruding. I rotated it slowly, entranced by the gleaming metal, and found a large number five carved into the other side. I spun it back and caught a hint of my reflection in the gold. I blinked, eyes that I had just discovered were a deep and luminescent purple. My neck curled back into the same shape as the image on the coin, and I dropped it in surprise.

  “That’s me!” I exclaimed. “That’s me on the bloody coin!” I snatched up a fistful of the oversized discs and went through them quickly; I found my visage emblazoned on every single one.

  “Of course it is! As you get kills, you’ll earn coins; they’ll all have you on them. The system shits them out; you can make coins in a handful of other ways as well,” Kat replied from wherever she was hiding.

  “Kills? Ah, shit. Some asshole with a glowing sword and a magic shield is gonna rock up and try and kill the ‘evil dragon’, isn’t he?”

  “Well, maybe at some point—” Kat began.

  “I knew the Woo had shafted me!” I interrupted. “Do you think if I explained I’m not that interested in virgin sacrifices and would be happy to coexist, they might listen?” Despite my protestations, as I had said, “virgin sacrifice,” my stomach rumbled. I felt a sudden bout of self-disgust that I pushed aside. My head swung back towards my shell, and my jaws hung open. My tongue flicked in and out; this time, it wasn’t the taste of gold that had mesmerised me.

  “The fact that you’re even vaguely interested in virgin sacrifices will be a problem. They wouldn’t believe you anyway,” replied the disembodied voice.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Why do I want to eat the shell?” I wondered aloud.

  “Perfectly normal draconic behaviour, kiddo. Don’t worry about it. Go on, dig in.”

  I glanced around again, trying to spot Kat, but she was still in hiding. I began to worry about what kind of Lovecraftian monstrosity she resembled. Dropping that particular line of thought, I found I couldn’t keep my attention from the shell for more than a few seconds.

  I slithered the rest of the way, discovering that the feeling of the gold coins beneath my armoured paws reminded me of the softest silk sheets from back home. I stretched out my neck, and my fangs cracked off a chunk of the brittle shell. It crunched as I chewed it thoughtfully, and then I swallowed.

  It took me about two minutes to devour the whole thing. It tasted amazing. I lay down on my hoard, belly swollen and distended, gold coins cushioning my back and glimmering all around me. I draped my wings out over the hoard like a cloak. They were midnight black, tinged with a golden hue at the tips, leathery and flexible. A loud belch rang out, and I squirmed my way deeper into my pile of coins, all four legs burrowing into my shinies.

  “That shell was really, really good,” I murmured.

  Biomass stored:

  8.5 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 25 KG.

  “Kat? You’re here to help, right? So, what happens when I evolve?” I called out as I idly swatted the words away with one claw. She clapped her hands together next to my right ear, and I opened a purple eye, but she was still invisible.

  “Heaven’s Fury! You’re not the brightest Bob-in-the-Box, are you? Evolutions are how you level up your body! How much more biomass do you need?” she asked.

  “A fair bit,” I replied lazily, snuggling a little further into my pile of gold and closing my eye again.

  “I can only access your dungeon core status. How much?” Kat said in an enthusiastic rush.

  “Erm… sixteen-and-a-half kilos to go. So what do they do?”

  “What don’t they do?” she babbled. “As a dragon, you get to grow bigger and stronger and unlock your latent powers like breath attacks and armour-piercing claws. Magic later on, as well. All that fun stuff! And unlike other sapients, all you need to do is eat to gain levels!” I curled up my snake-like neck as I looked around, blinking both eyes. She was still hiding.

  “Breath attacks?” I’d forgotten just how awesome dragons were. Even as I was now a mere baby, I was confident I could easily fight off any normal human.

  “That’s just the start!” Kat said happily. “Once you’ve got a couple of levels, we can start upgrading our core, and eventually, we’ll take control of the mountain. Tribulation’s Wrath, you’ve got a lot to learn,” she cursed.

  “Does the core need to eat to level up as well?” I asked, looking around. It was still just a huge, empty cavern with one vast opening looking out onto a cloudy blue sky and a series of gloomy tunnels reaching into darkness.

  “No! It doesn’t even have a mouth, moron! You spend coins to buy floors, minions, and rooms.” As soon as she said “spend,” I felt my body tense. My wings pressed down protectively over the pile of coins, and my claws clutched at handfuls of them. I didn’t like the word “spend” at all.

  “I’m sure it’s not necessary,” I muttered, relaxing back into my never-to-be-spent horde.

  “It damn well is, you scaly lump! When–Later on, you’ll need the security of a well-equipped dungeon to keep the hoard safe,” Kat growled. “Bring up your Dungeon Status!” she ordered.

  “How do I do that?” I asked as I pondered the idea. Before she could reply, a new screen appeared in my vision.

  Unnamed Dungeon.

  Level: N/A

  Floors: N/A

  Rooms: N/A

  Sprite level: 1

  Minions: N/A

  Hoard: 2,341 gold

  Purchase Floor: 150 gold. Y/N?

  NO! I mentally commanded.

  “What happens later, Kat? You cut yourself off there. If you’re going to be my guide, it feels off that you’re hiding things from me already. Like what you even look like!” I was clicking through the other options on my dungeon screen and getting nothing until I clicked on Sprite Level, and then another screen popped up to overlay the dungeon status.

  Sprite: Divine Harbinger Of Solar Glory, Lower Jade Empress, Cultivator Of Gold, Stone, And Air, Her Imperial Majesty Ekaterina Von Nachtensturm, The Nineteenth Of Her Name.

  Level: 1

  Abilities:

  Incorporeal Form

  I snorted with laughter at Kat’s ridiculous title.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Your title is insane! Where the hell are you from?” I rolled onto my back and snuggled into my hoard, neck snaking round so my chin lay on my chest. Something kicked me in the snout, and I opened my eyes in shock.

  Standing on my chest was an eight-inch-tall, semi-translucent woman with tiny, insectile wings. In her right hand, she carried a longsword almost the same height as her body.

  “Is that an armoured bikini?” I asked as I started laughing again. Her tiny face flushed red, and her miniature bosom heaved as she drew in a deep breath, but rather than answer my questions, she began to unleash some of the most impressive cursing I’d ever heard in my life. Her shoulder-length red hair flicked back and forth as she poured out invective that covered not only my draconic heritage but the activities and relationships of most of my family on Earth, going back three generations. She knew all their names as well.

  “And that is why your great-grandmother cheated on your ‘supposed’ great-grandfather, meaning you are actually the spawn of a long line of toilet cleaners!” she finished, panting for breath.

  Curiously, none of the insults and curses had moved me very much. Some of them would have stung if someone had said them to me back on Earth. Here and now, with the comfort of a golden bed and a fat belly, they just rolled over me and faded without leaving a mark.

  She stood panting, metal-clad chest heaving, leaning on her oversized micro-sword, and glared at me. I blinked slowly and considered trying to blow her off my chest but thought better of it. I needed her, and I needed her in a helpful mood, not sulking and raging.

  “So… you were a big deal back home then? I’ve never seen a title like it before.” I asked, hoping to placate her.

  “I was. But that’s history now. Just rest assured, I came this close,” Kat held up a tiny, perfect hand and made a small gap between her thumb and index finger, “to being a full member of the W.O.O. rather than this stupid internship. You need me if you’re going to survive, so maybe you should be a bit more polite!” I didn’t like the idea of survival coming up yet again. Despite the glorious luxury of my shiny bed, I got the feeling this world wouldn’t be peaceful.

  “OK, Your Highness. What’s next, then?” I asked, rolling to my feet reluctantly. My tail flicked out and tidied the coins that had spilt away from the hoard, sweeping them back into the pile.

  “Oh, you’ll love this!” she said with a remarkably evil grin.