We live, we die, we-

  Wait, I don't die, what am I talking about? I'm a Dragon! Nay! I am THE Dragon! The one other dragons fear! The one others talk about in hushed whispers! The one whose very roar inspires fear in the primordial forces of nature!

  "I will not be defeated like this! I refuse to roll over and accept such an undignified end, I-"

  "Checkmate."

  "FUCK!"

  I fucking suck at chess. Why, oh why, did I think it was a good idea to introduce this game too? I swear I just keep introducing games and everyone just keeps getting better than me at them!

  "Maybe if you focused on just one game instead of playing so many, you would not be so easily surpassed by the people who dedicate themselves to just one game," Aqua pointed out.

  "Did I just say that out loud?" I asked, turning to look at her.

  Aqua shook her head. "I've known you long enough to know exactly what you were thinking," she said. "Or at least close enough."

  Fair enough. "Alright, okay, Black Scale Dragon, you know what that's a mouthful, your name is Stephen from now on."

  "You- did you just give me a Name!? Who does that!? Who does that out of nowhere!?"

  "He does," Aqua responded.

  The Black Scale Dragon, henceforth dubbed Stephen because I decreed so, put his hands on his hips. "So does this mean I can go?"

  "You can go," I responded, "also say hi to the kid with the lance," I said. "Sorry about breaking your stuff, don't touch the Strananas, those things will ruin your life."

  "Right," Stephen responded, shaking his head. "Since you went and beat me up so bad I'm going to have to walk," he was pouting, how cute, "you know how annoying it is to walk along the bottom of the ocean? Unlike you Greater Forces, I don't get to just ignore physics!"

  "We get to ignore physics?"

  Aqua looked at me.

  "Right I forgot," I repeated, "I do that a lot... according to all known laws of aviation, I shouldn't be able to fly, and yet," I lifted myself into the air, "I do!"

  The wind blew and the chess pieces flew everywhere.

  "And I am conveniently too big to pick them up and certainly don't possess telekinetic powers that I was just using to play Chess," I pointed out, nodding as if I was not blatantly lying, "therefore I shall now depart and go do something more interesting than staying here and fixing the mess I made!"

  Before they could tell me to fix the mess I made, I took to the skies and cleared the large trees that surrounded my direct lair, and I swear these get bigger every time, going up and up until I cleared them, I think I remember being able to poke my head above the treetops, and as I look down, yep, there's definitely a whole lot of bigger trees surrounding where I live than the rest of the forest.

  Maybe I should cut down the biggest ones so they're not getting in the way when I have to escape?

  Nah fuck it, I can fly up to space, I'll just fly higher.

  While thoroughly ignoring any possibility of being made to be a responsible part of society instead of its very irresponsible enforcing Lizard, I climbed up to the clouds and wondered just what exactly I should do.

  "Maybe I should travel. Staying in one place too long is boring."

  "Travel sounds interesting. There is nothing in the hinterlands that is interesting, so you'd have to go pretty far, Great One!"

  "Right, after all the Priestess beat everyone around us to submission and- oh hey, you finally learned how to use your wings right!" I said, turning to face the Dragon Priestess, who was had most of her Dragonewt bits out. "And I think your tail's a little bit bigger."

  She looked shook.

  "Fat tails are nice," I said quickly, "thin tails look a little sickly and weak."

  That seemed to pacify her. "Then I'll eat well and exercise a lot to make my tail big and strong," she said, smirking smugly. She then did a little pirouette, showing me just how agile she had become in the air, even doing a barrel roll.

  A proper barrel roll, complete with some nice lights, not the boring, aerial maneuver. Always spin to win!

  "How is it?" she asked.

  "I think you need more substantial clothes young lady," I pointed out, wagging my claw as I beat my wings.

  She huffed. "I am an adult, I can dress however I want!" she responded. She was wearing the clothes I had gifted her, an outfit that had seemed like a good idea at the time, but I hadn't really thought about the fact she'd be flying about.

  "Are you not cold?" I asked. "I could make you a big, fluffy jacket, with holes for your wings."

  She seemed thoughtful. "I'm not but if the Great One would give me anything I would gladly accept and treasure it."

  I used my claw to shoot her with bolts of yellow, green, blue and golden white light, wrapping her in a thick and heavy jacket, with a fluffy fur collar, a hoodie with cones for her horns and a split on the back so her tail could come out.

  "Oh wow it's so soft, fluffy and warm!" she gushed. "What is this fabric, it feels like nothing I've ever felt!"

  Hm, right, I lined it with the same velvety-silky-satiny fabric I used for the lining of the Dragonguard's armor and clothes. I should probably have given her more clothes like this earlier but, eh, whatever.

  "It's... I guess we can call it Dragonfabric? It doesn't really exist unless I make it," I pointed out.

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  "What about... Silverthread?" she asked, pulling at the lapel of her outfit and showing me that it was indeed a metallic silver color, which was really odd for fabric but, it worked, it wasn't quite shiny but it did have a strange, otherworldly appearance.

  "Okay that works, Silverthread it is," I said. There was a lot of that going around, though if people wanted to do anything with it, they would have to unravel the existing Dragonguard armor. Considering how many times I've redesigned it on a whim, they have plenty. "Okay, so, traveling!"

  "Yes! Let's travel!"

  I stopped. "You... wanna come with me? Don't you have to, I don't know, be the spiritual leader of Argentum?"

  She shrugged. "The council can handle civil matters, my apprentices can handle spiritual matters, the Scribes can handle civic matters and the Dragonguard can handle military matters," she said.

  "What about medical matters?" I asked. "You've been using the staff I gave you, haven't you?"

  "Yes, but, Lady Aqua has also taught us many things, and illness has decreased considerably since we started being able to cleanse regularly as you instructed," she pointed out.

  "Okay, fine, but, first, go fetch Castile, Ariel and Ornlu and tell them, uhm, I need to know if there's anybody worthy of making into Kobolds," I finally said, "because if we have more Kobolds then I can be a little more relaxed, they can find me if I'm needed for something."

  "Hmm! Okay! I think the last time I ran a census, there were... sixteen in Ornlu's list, fourteen in Castile's list, and eight in Ariel's list, they were all supposed to have passed their final test, but since we've been expanding a lot, meeting new tribes to trade with is very hard."

  Oh.

  "Uhm, we'll relax that requirement now, honestly I just made it up to prevent abusing the power that the Kobold enhancement would grant, I didn't want it to go to their heads, I wanted to make sure everyone who got the power was deserving of it!"

  There was a moment's pause.

  "Oh. Well. You could just tell us not to do something and we won't," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, lazily drifting, using her wings to direct her flight as we floated high above my lair, the wind up at that height was strong enough we only barely had to worry about lifting.

  "I can't control people-" I stopped. "I don't WANT to control people like that," I said, correcting myself, and thus, continued, "if I'm gonna have cute Kobolds, then I don't want them to be bloodthirsty minions, I want minions that do fun things!"

  "Like coordinated dance numbers or that chorus hymn singing thing Ariel was practicing?" the Priestess asked me, as she dove almost like how Ariel swam through the air when she was in half fish form, twirling and pulling up to do a loop.

  "Yeah! In fact I wanna travel so that when I come back they'll have mastered all those skills and they'll be able to surprise me! I want a full mermaid chorus," I said, nodding to myself, "ready to sing a song about how cool I am when I return!"

  "Okay, we can just tell them to work on that, and then go off to explore the world," the Dragon Priestess said, her tail whipping towards the town.

  "Damn, it's way larger than last time, you guys work fast," I hummed as I saw just how large Argentum was getting. It really was starting to look like before long I wouldn't feel bad calling it a city. On top of that, I could already see in the distance the massive flatlands being tinted by plantations, orchards, farmlands, there was even a massive hole that I recognized as a quarry.

  I didn't even realize they were starting to quarry stone.

  "Oh, I see you're looking at the quarry! We started last season but it's already been very productive, Master Black Scale Dragon," hm, this is the first time I'm really noticing the difference in human languages, Aqua's Tribe's women use six words when speaking that name, the Dragon Priestess uses only four, well five if you count the word Master in front of it.

  Also I was getting distracted. "Could you repeat that I was distracted thinking about language."

  "I said that Master Black Scale Dragon taught us a lot of ways on how to detect usable stone, how to process and cut it, and more importantly, when and where to use it," she explained, "apparently he was happy he got to do something like that, he said his people were much stronger than us but consequently way behind us."

  Were they?

  I didn't notice anything super special about them, they weren't like Aqua's Water Tribe, her amazonian girlies could bench press several regular humans at once. Though I suppose to me, no matter how strong, a human is just as puny.

  I started to drift towards the town that bears my name, knowing it'd soon be time to start making some more Kobolds. Blue puppies, red lizards and green fishgirls. Sounds good to me.

  Probably.

  Luckily, explaining matters didn't take long at all. The Priestess flew ahead of me, and by the time I landed on the platform built for me at the town plaza, only the last few of the chosen were still to arrive, which was impressive given the short notice.

  Seventeen were called forward by Ornlu, seven were called forward by Ariel, and twelve were called forward by Castile.

  I wouldn't give them names, they had their own even if I couldn't even hear them because of this stupid translation thing. I would've made a whole ceremony of it, but...

  "I really hate wasting time, so," I brought each of the primary Kobolds forward, "I granted you treasures, I will trust your judgement to use them," I said, charging the artifacts that would help them turn their followers into Kobolds, making a show of it by using my powers as a visible aura of the corresponding color, flowing into them.

  In reality that was just for visual appeal.

  I pretended that I was paying attention while the Priestess guided the Kobolds through the initiation. Technically, she was kinda sorta a being that was like a Kobold herself, what with being a modified human made by draconic power... but I guess it's strange to consider her a Kobold, she's more like, a lieutenant than a minion.

  Yeah.

  Also they were through several of the transformations, a lot less dramatic, most of the Kobolds were smaller, weaker and not as capable as I would've thought they would be though I suppose this is the difference between me making them as strong as possible, and them just getting the template I made applied to them.

  Probably that was closer to what they were supposed to look like.

  Still, three by three until they were all done, the Kobolds transformed, until at last, they all swore their fealty, and the last reminder of their mission was set upon them.

  "Now - you three have your tasks. You are my eyes and my ears and my claws, each of you, rule the land, the underground and the sea," I intoned, "also don't hesitate to ask Aqua for help and if you really need me, this," I stabbed a claw into the ground and then raised a pilar of rock, at the top, I put a weathervane, though, not just any, it was like a compass, "this always points in my direction," I said, "so you can find me if you need me."

  I tried not to think about the fact that I wanted it to look like a miniature version of me in flight and instead it looks like a rooster with its feathers plucked.

  "Remember, I've not abandoned you, if you need me, I shall return!"

  I spread my wings.

  "But no seriously if you don't tell me I won't know so send a VERY fast messenger to find me if it's an emergency."

  With that, I took to the sky, and started flying in the random direction that best suited me, where the winds carried me, heading towards the distant horizon, lazily drifting across the sky, looking to learn more about the world, now that my people didn't need me constantly looking after them.

  "So what are we looking for first?" the priestess asked, as she caught up to me.

  "Well, the first thing I'm going to look for is a place away from people, secluded, where I won't be interrupted," I explained. "What you'll do in the meantime is find the nearest tribe that has never heard of us so we can go observe them."

  "Oh? And what will you do while I do that, Great One? If you don't mind me asking!"

  "None of that, as long as we're on this trip, I don't want you behaving like I'm me and you're you, instead, let's leave that behind, and just have fun traveling," I said, "after all you are a being like a dragon now, and you know I hate stuffy formality."

  "Noted," she replied.

  "And as for your question," I hummed, "I'm going to be preparing for the consequences of my actions."

  For once.

  "What consequences?" she asked, turning to look at me, her wings extending, so that she could fly basically sideways, banking to her left so she could turn to face me and having to adjust.

  "Well, how long do you think it'll take Aqua to track me down?" I asked.

  "Oooh... I see, then I'll make myself scarce for a couple days and their nights!" she chirped. "Wouldn't want to get in your way!"

  "Excellent choice," I agreed. "Now let's move, I really want to find a good place before she catches up! I've only got so long until Stephen is no longer enough of a distraction!"