Chapter 1 - A New Great Dragon

Chapter 1

Unknown forest, location unclear.

???

"Well, you're finally awake!"

Samantha blinked, and lifted her head up. She felt...Weird. She yawned, and looked down at the voice addressing her. And froze.

A young woman, a serious looking brunette with a pair of glasses that looked very odd to someone that had grown up in a society where such mundane traits as shortsightedness had been eradicated millenia prior thanks to genetic engineering, was currently staring up at her, her hands balled into fists and resting on her thighs.

"Hum, hello?" Said Samantha, before freezing. Her voice...Sounded very odd. Too loud, and, while not deep, just...Powerful. She brought her hand up to touch her throat, and froze as she felt claws touch scales. She looked down at her hand...And a massive clawed hand, covered in shining purple scales, was what greeted her.

For a few seconds, she simply sat there, ignoring the young woman that was currently saying something, contemplating her hand. Then her memories came crashing down. She remembered the desperate fight on Ethrany. The destruction of the PDC's last weapons. Then her meeting with the goddess, and the discussion they had. It had seemed so surreal at the time, but now that she was here...

"Hey, are you even listening?"

"Mmmmhhhh?" Samantha looked up, and chuckled at the woman's -girl, really, if she didn't have access to rejuvenation technology, at least by her multi centenial standards- outraged expression. "Sorry, I was spacing out. This is all...very new to me."

The girl's expression softened.

"Right, sorry, I heard from Her Divinity what happened to you, and that you are from another plane."

"Yes." Samantha blinked. "I assume you are my advisor?"

"Yes!" She made an elegant, if simple curtsy. "My name is Anabelle Carsy. I am a mage of the college of Starhold, and follower-in-secret of Her Divinity Lady Syranis, Goddess of Technology and Knowledge."

"Ah, excellent then!" Said Samantha as she idly noted that Syranis had never claimed being the deity of knowledge. At least not all knowledge. The situation felt a bit surreal to her, but she decided that going forward rather than staying put was the best idea. Some problems you solve with meeting them head on, not retiring to think them through for days. Besides, given the rollercoaster of things that had happened, she wasn't quite sure what would happen to her psyche if she stopped and truly thought through what had happened to her. Better to at least get an anchor into this world when she inevitably went to the deep end. "So, uh, what do we do now?"

"Well, we-"

Anabelle stopped as a might rumble shook the air around them. Samantha colored slightly as she realized where the rumble was coming from. Her. Or at least, her stomach.

The girl smiled.

"I think finding you something to eat would be the first order of the day."

Samantha smiled back.

"Aye, I think that would be a most splendid idea." Samantha looked down at herself. "Although I think moving in this form might be a bit...Hard."

Which was one hell of an understatement. By her own reckoning, she was around 3 meters tall, without even raising her head. She wasn't quite as huge as she thought she would be, around 8 meters in length, but she was still imposing. She had seen smaller surface to orbit shuttles, and even a smaller starship. Granted, the starship was an old automated courier vessel, pretty much a computer core, some communication gear, a reactor and a hyperdrive put together, with some thrusters slapped over it, but still.

"Oh, right. Uh, some basics first." She adjusted her glasses, and started searching in her bag, obvious looking for something Samantha's scaly eyebrow rose as she went up to the shoulder in a bag that was as deep as her forearm was long, but decided to ask questions later as the girl came back with a rather large book. "Right. Okay, so..." She flipped some pages, then stopped. "I assume you would like to turn into a more...comfortable form, and an easier one to move around in." She lifted her head up from her book, and Samantha nodded. "Excellent then! Now, to do that...There are multiple things you can do. You could use your interface, but that's for later in the training program, uh....Say 'Command, Metamorph: Human'?"

Samantha's eyebrow rose even higher.

"Uh, sure. Command, Metamorph: human?" She felt a bit silly, voice commands had been replaced by direct neural interactions millenia ago. Only luddites or backwater worlds still used voice commands to give orders to their computers! Then she froze as her vision was filled with light, and the next second she was looking at Anabelle in the eyes. Not quite her height, but much closer.

The girl looked at her, then blushed and turned around, and Samantha looked down, and chuckled. She was naked, because of course she was. Although...Damn, say what you will about Syranis, but the goddess had taste. Her body was stacked, and quite well tanned. Samantha idly wondered if she'd keep the complexion, before blinking as she heard a rustling of cloth.

"H-Here, take this!" Said Anabelle as she looked up at the sky, holding a small piles of clothes out. Samantha smiled, and took them, making sure to avoid touching the poor girl and making her even more stressed than she was. Obviously she must be attracted to females in some manner, or she wouldn't have cared less that she was naked. Well, at least she wouldn't have been embarrassed like this.

"Thank you!" Samantha quickly put on the clothes, and found them perfectly to her size. They were a bit odd, evidently of a more ancient style than she was used to, but pants were pants and shirts were shirts. Underwear didn't have that much variation either, now that she thought about it. "Alright, I'm decent now."

Anabelle turned around with visible relief, and smiled.

"Sorry for that, I had forgotten the...State in which your body would be. Are the clothes to your liking?"

"They fit me like a glove. And I never really cared about clothing all that much, at least not the style. If you have some monomolecular reinforced combat fatigues, I wouldn't say no, but..." She looked at the girl's blank expression. "I don't think you do."

"Uh, no...I don't. I don't even know what that is. I could enquire-"

"No, no, it's alright. It's something from my...plane. I wouldn't expect you to have some in here. Still, a girl can hope, can't she?"

She smiled, and her advisor smiled back.

"Now, where to for the meal?"

"Well... Since it's your dragon body that will need nourishment, I'm not carrying enough food. But we should be able to go hunting easily enough."

"Excellent then. Lead the way?"

"Of course!" She looked around, then closed her eyes, and held her hands out. Samantha tilted her head, before her eyes widened as her advisor began muttering, and a green circle of runes and diagram appeared in front of her hands, then, as it completed, she opened her eyes and Samantha saw her body...pulse, somehow.

The diagram and runes vanished, turning into a green waved that expanded outwards at extreme speed, passing through Samantha's vision in a fraction of a second, and dispersing in the woods around them.

"Wow. Was that magic?"

"Yeah. That was the spell detect life. I'll tell me where living things within a few kilometers, as long as they aren't shielded. It's not the most precise spell, but it should lead us towards some adequate prey." She closed her eyes briefly. "Speaking of which, there's a concentrations of large-ish lifeforms 600 meters out, over there." She pointed unerringly towards the nearby trees. "Probably elks. They should do nicely."

Samantha's mouth watered at the thought of food, before shaking her head slightly. It felt like she hadn't eaten in centuries.

"Yes, yes they should. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

A few minutes later, moving as carefully as they could in the forest, they arrived at a small clearing with a stream coursing through it. A handful of elks were indeed drinking at the stream, seemingly unaware...

Samantha froze as one of the elks made eye contact with her, then snuffed dismissively, and went back to drinking.

"Well these animals don't seem scared of humans." She said as she straightened up. "Or dragons."

"That's because you don't look and smell like a dragon right now, otherwise they'd be running for their lives. And most humans, at least most of the locals, wouldn't dream of attacking them without a much larger hunting party. And they would have learned to recognize the smell of the few people that could hunt them in such small numbers."

"That's..." Samantha stopped, and nodded. If they didn't have technology, they couldn't just hand a laser gun, or hell, even an old chemical rifle, to anyone and train them to hunt with it in a few days. So it would make sense that such creatures would be less afraid of humans, especially if, as she suspected, they had more than natural capabilities of their own. "Fair enough, I suppose. So...Do I turn back into a dragon and munch them or something."

"You could. But I think a more civilized method is in order."

Anabelle closed her eyes again, and started incanting once more. This time however, a black diagram began appearing. The elks froze, and turned towards her, before immediately starting to run away.

They were pretty fast, all things considered.

They just weren't fast enough.

Samantha's eyebrow rose in wonder as the incantation finished, and the pulse surrounded her advisor once more, then the diagram dissolved, and turned into something like an arrow, which rushed forward, hitting the closest elk, who instantly dropped dead, crashing onto the ground and leaving a shallow furrow.

"There, dinner is served." Said Anabelle as she clapped her hands and rubbed them together.

Samantha chuckled, and stepped forward. She had a feeling she was going to get along great with her advisor.

She stopped in front of the carcass, and tilted her head.

"Uh...Let me guess, I'm going to have to turn into my dragon form to eat this correct ?"

"Well...Yes ! All of your forms require sustenance, when in use at least." Samantha winced, and Anabelle chuckled. "Don't worry, you'll need less and less food as you grow more powerful."

"That's good to know." Said Samantha. "Command, Metamorph: dragon."

She blinked as once again her vision went white, and then she was suddenly towering over the carcass. She flicked her tail in amusement, then froze. How did she- that was reflex, she did it by reflex ! She frowned, and logged that for later investigation.

"By the way." She said as she lowered her head over the carcass, taking a deep sniff. As she suspected, she was smelling rather more than a human could. Now that she focused on it, a ton of aromas were almost assaulting her nose. Blood, fear, of course, as well as the content of the elk's bowels starting to void. But there was also grass, leaves, Anabelle's scent, which seemed...spicy, somehow. And a multitude of other scents she had no idea how to define. "How do I even get more powerful ?"

"Her divinity...didn't explain that ?"

Samantha shook her head. She had a feeling the goddess didn't really care about the small details. Which was fair enough, she sure as hell hadn't cared about every single sensor array or ammo fabricator in her fleet. That's what ship captains and engineering officers were for after all.

Anabelle sighed, and Samantha smiled. Given the exasperation plain on the girl's face, it was pretty clear she had some experience dealing with her goddess. Which was logical, as sending someone unfamiliar with Syranis herself wouldn't have been very safe, or smart. Trusted henchmen, and all that.

"Well, it's...complicated." She shrugged at Samantha's questioning gaze. "Basically, you accumulate essence of creation over time. You know what essence is, right ?" Samantha nodded. "Well, most people don't really know what the hell it is. All they know is that they gain more power through regular actions, going to temples, that kind of stuff. Some call it experience, a few cultures call it chi, but most call it essence. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I think it's some form of distorted concept of the essence of creation that got through. The Gods just call it power for simplicity. But, you know..."

"We're not going to be interacting with Gods most of the time."

"Yeah. Anyway, they accumulate that on essentially a passive level. Actively when visiting temples and such, but they think it's the Gods actively honoring their devotion and granting them gifts and miracles. Then there are...other methods. Certain special concoctions let people raise their power temporarily. It doesn't actually give them essence, but the effect is the same. Special enchantments and some spells also do that, called enhancements. Still following ?"

Samantha nodded. It kind of reminded her of items or potions in video games that raised a character's stats for a while. That wasn't exactly what she was describing, but it was close enough to make the parallel.

"Well, some other enchantments, spells, and especially potions can also give you essence permanently. Those are usually highly sought after, especially recipes or spell books for them." She shrugged. "They don't create it out of nowhere of course, most of them require very rare ingredients, and the spells especially use tons of mana."

"I see....and the last one ?" Anabelle blinked, and Samantha smiled. "There is a last one, isn't it ? You just seem to be hesitant to bring it up."

Anabelle winced.

"Well...killing things. When you kill something, you gain a fraction of their essence. No one knows why, but the closer that thing is to you, the more essence you get. For example, a human killing another human would get a greater share of the essence than, say, killing a dragon. Note that it isn't just the killer that gets some of the essence, everyone nearby gets it." She squirmed uncomfortably. "It has a tendency to make some great dragons, well..."

"Go around killing everything like murderhobos ?" Supplied Samantha helpfully.

Anabelle almost choked as she was starting to speak, before bursting out laughing.

"M-Murder hobos ? I wouldn't have quite put it this way, but it's...very appropriate." She calmed down. "Yes, basically. Most of the legends of dragons burning towns and cities, sinking ships and destroying nations is from that behavior. Not only great dragons do it of course, but still."

"Right. And accumulating great treasure while doing it, I assume ?"

"Well, that's because of the bounties."

"The what ?"

Anabelle sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. Muttering something that sounded  lot like a series of heartfelt curses at her patron divinity.

"I'll...explain that later. Let's stay focused for now." She looked at the carcass. "Aren't you going to eat that ?"

Samantha's stomach grumbled once more, and her mouth watered at the smell of blood, and she winced.

"Yes, but I'm not a barbarian. Let's skin it and at least remove the entrails. And cook it, if possible." Samantha blinked as an idea occurred to her. "Can I breathe fire ?"

"Why ? And yes, you can. But let's not test that right now."

"Why would I want to avoid disease and trying to eat fur I won't be able to digest you mean ?"

"Well...you can. You're a great dragon. You could digest armor if you wanted to. In fact, it would go to the same place everything you absorb with your spell goes."

Samantha looked at her with raised eyebrows, and Anabelle cursed again.

"Alright, so to put it simply, you see the alternate, pocket spaces where your bodies are ?" She barely waited for Samantha to nod before continuing. "Well, there's more. There's a huge one for storing stuff you eat and can't assimilate, and storing loot. A special feature of great dragons is that you have a special ability that lets you absorb objects around you, as long as there are no living beings too close to them, or interference from certain spells. And if you can concentrate enough to use it of course."

"Aaaah, I see. That could come in handy. So I could just...swallow this thing whole, and the parts I can't process would just be separated out ? That's handy." She looked at the elk, and winced. "Not that I can do that, it's too big. Should I just...cut it up ? Do you have a knife ? Or a saw, actually. A plasma -or hell, laser- cutter will do as well."

"No idea what the latter are. And you have claws genius. Use them."

Samantha brought up her hand -and it was a hand, not a paw or anything-, and it seemed to indeed have retractable claws. It's shape was a bit weird, but it definitely had opposable thumbs. She waved the hand a bit, before frowning...She had moved her tail by reflex earlier, maybe she could...she thought about deploying her claws, and with a snap the bone-like instruments of death exited her fingers, revealing themselves in their full glory.

She whistled softly. 'Claws' indeed. She had seen smaller swords. At least what the neurogames and simulations insisted were medieval swords. She brought her hand up to the carcass, willing all of her claws but the one on her index to retract, before bringing it down against the elk, and starting to cut.

The result was...surprisingly clean, all things considered. Whatever else it might be, her claw was very sharp. Sharp enough to be a serious threat to armor, she estimated, although it wouldn't have had a hope in hell to even scratch body armor of her universe. After her grizzly task was done, and she had cut the elk into more manageable chunks, she grabbed one, and winced.

"Well, bon appétit I guess." She closed her eyes and just shoved the bundle of fur and meat down her gullet. Then froze as it went down her throat...and vanished.

What.The.Fuck ?

It was pretty obvious the food had gone to the pocket dimension Anabelle had talked about, but...it seemed she had absorbed the meat instantly as well, as she was already feeling fuller. It also...tasted good. She grabbed another chunk. Then another. And another. And before she knew it, she was done.

"So, not bad uh ?"

"Yeah." Samantha blinked. "Odd. It feels weird not to have to digest anything."

"You'll get used to it." Simply said Anabelle, and Samantha noted that the girl did know what her dragon was talking about.

"Right. What now ?"

"Now ?" Anabelle sighed. "I suppose I should explain to you what your interface is. And what bounties are." She looked to the sky, and winced. "It'll be nightfall soon though. We better find a way to make camp, come on. We'll discuss this around a fire."