That evening Alexander finally managed to put his groceries away, but he mentally marked some of them—like his Greek yogurt—as being suspect. Next, he pulled out the terrarium mesh top as he left his apartment and stood before Emily and Janelle’s door. He wondered at his choice of gift for a moment. Was a house-warming gift for a lizard odd? It seemed a bit odd. His musings about his social inadequacy were interrupted by a blue screen.
^
New Quest!
Something wicked this way has shipped:
An unknown menace is plotting against you, be on guard!
Objective: Stay alive until the menace is slain or subdued
Quest rewards:
-2000 xp
-2 gold
Closing the window Alexander sighed and wondered just how much this ridiculous Wizard thing was going to affect his daily life. It seemed likely he was about to hire a little girl with super strength—which he felt might not be a good idea—but she was really his only potential ‘face-to-face’ recruit right now. Needing to do some thinking he decided to get this over with and knocked on the door.
“Coming!” A muffled voice shouted.
In an even quieter voice Alexander heard someone say, “Wait! Don’t just open it! Check the…”
The door opened to reveal Janelle. He saw Emily sitting at the small dining table behind her, a slightly nervous expression replaced with a smile.
“Oh, hey Alexander.” She said, standing. “What brings you by?”
“I informed you earlier today that I was going by the pet store and saw a screen for your terrarium for sale. I decided it might make a considerate house warming gift as you mentioned yours was broken.”
“Oh, thank you!” Janelle said. “That is so sweet.”
“Did you manage to find the Pogona yet?”
“The what?” Janelle asked.
“I meant… the Bearded Dragon.”
“Oh, Fafnir. No, not yet. I am sure he’s somewhere around here though.”
^
New Quest!
Drawers and Dragons:
Your neighbors have misplaced a dragon!
Objective: Kill or Capture the dragon.
Quest rewards:
-500 xp
-5 silver
-Inferior Magic Stone, unattributed
Alexander silently judged the quest screen for recommending he kill his neighbors' pet.
“Well, I recommend looking in warm places like near your water heater or furnace, under your refrigerator and similar places. You might even need to remove some panels here and there as they can crawl behind them.”
The sisters glanced at each other with questioning looks before turning back to Alexander.
“You have some experience with missing lizards it seems.” Janelle said amused. Alexander nodded, but did not want to push his assistance upon them.
“My brother enjoyed keeping lizards and they escaped from time to time. Good luck in your hunt, I will keep my eyes open.” Alexander said excusing himself.
“Thank you! We will let you know when we set a day for the party.”
They shut the door and Alexander retired to his apartment to prepare his plants for transfer to the aquarium. After draining the water from the bags so no disease transferred from the store water source—he buried the roots carefully into the substrate. His fish were obviously agitated by this and scattered to the corners to hide behind anything they could find. He was not worried about them getting overly stressed, however as this was a fairly quick process. It would be a few minutes before they would resume their normal behavior and start checking out the new plant.
Alexander washed and dried his hands and had a thought. If his abilities disappeared, would his earned silver disappear as well? He already had various assets split between the bank, a personally controlled investment fund, a mutual fund, and his sock drawer. Savings were extremely important and he always wanted to be prepared for an emergency.
Why not split up his wizard funds? With that thought in mind, Alexander withdrew half the silver in his screen into physical silver coins. As he looked at them they seemed minted by the United States Treasury.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Could this cause inflation I wonder?
He moved to the oak wood dresser in his room—pulled open his sock drawer to place the silver with the other various gold and silver collectible coins. As he got the drawer halfway open however, a gout of flame billowed out of the drawer right into his face. He jumped back in surprise swatting the air with his hands and patting his face. He was fairly certain his eyebrows had been singed as the sickly smell of burning hair filled the air.
“What in the spontaneous combustion was that?”
He took a step to the side craning his neck in an attempt to look in the drawer from a distance. As he did so he went through a mental check list of anything combustible he had in the house. As he stood on his desk chair he was just able to see a lizard crawling to the edge of his sock drawer. It locked eyes with him and puff up its body as big as possible. Recognizing this as Janelle’s missing pet, he thought back and tried to recall if any species of Pogona could breathe fire. The answer came back as a clear and resounding no. This seemed like a bad joke, attempting to conflate the popular name Bearded Dragon and the traits of a fictitious legendary monster.
Alexander circled slowly around the sock drawer and out of his closet. When he cleared the doorframe he ran to the kitchen and started opening up cabinets grabbing a fire extinguisher, a saucepan with a lid, and his oven mitts. His urgency did not come from a place of fear that the Pogona would harm him, but of fear it might burn down the entire apartment complex. It was exceptionally difficult for firefighter's to contain a fire in these types of structures.
After equipping himself he moved back to the closet. Slowly approaching the partially opened sock drawer he could just make out the Pogona curled up on his coins. The Pogona had chewed through the packaging and made a small mound of them, pushing all of Alexander's sock and underwear out of the way.
Something else struck Alexander. He had seen this little lizard just a few days ago. It was about the size of his hand. Now it was the size of his forearm. It could be a different lizard but Alexander sincerely doubted it. The quest he received, and had attempted to ignore, was during his conversation with Janelle after all.
He readied himself by crouching down and slowly lifting the saucepan with one arm and the drawer handle with the other. He pulled slowly from below. Inch by inch it slid on the rails. Alexander needed it almost fully open before he could scoop the saucepan and lid in simultaneously.
Just another few inches... but before he was ready the Pogona popped its head over the edge of the sock drawer. Alexander didn't believe lizards made facial expressions, but at that moment he could have sworn that the Pogona seemed amused. It opened its tiny maw and Alexander saw a glow form at the back of the lizard's throat.
He pulled the saucepan up over the Pogona's head as it spewed fire. He watched the flames lick out the sides into the front of the wooden drawer and begin to char the face of it black. By the end, the fire had set several pairs of socks aflame. Before the flames stopped, he watched as his saucepan started glowing red, warping it where the fire hit it directly. It seemed that when he had first opened the drawer he had only received a reflexive warning puff of fire. Finally, the spray of fire stopped.
He pulled the pan back and after looking at the now ruined piece of slag metal, he decided he might need a different approach to deal with the lizard. Groaning he figured it might as well be a magical solution. Alexander still had one more spell available from his level up. Initially Alexander had not planned to need this spell as he was against using violence, and the need for it would mean he had placed himself in a foolish position. After the events of the day however he felt it was better to prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Making his selection he stood and moved towards the lizard. It backed away and spun a quick circle on the pile of gold and silver, little smoke streams coming from its nostrils. It seems it was far more dexterous than the rest of its species as well. It slowly puffed itself up and opened its mouth wide again.
“Shield!” Alexander yelled as he yanked the sock drawer open fully and placed his hand over the top. The fire licked over the surface of the shield, a translucent blue plane made a circle over the top. After yanking the drawer free of the dresser, Alexander ran to the kitchen with the wooden drawer hoping that it would hold together. The heat was getting to his hand just as he entered the kitchen. He threw the smoldering underwear and socks into the sink along with the Pogona and his coins. He moved his hand, which was still manipulating the shield, over the sink and left a crack open to start pouring water in from the faucet.
The lizard ran in circles blowing fire at the shield. Alexander began to sweat as he felt his hand might be burned if this kept up any longer. He needed the shield to be a bit stronger. Structurally he thought it might disperse the heat better as a panel of multiple smaller shields. As he did he felt a tug, a psychological rope so to speak. He mentally grabbed it and pulled in sync with his vision of a multi-panel shield of hexagons. Mentally he mimicked the shapes he had observed in his microscope forming a tessellation.
^
Your Magic Shield spell has upgraded to Advanced Magic Shield
You have discovered a hidden principle.
The Shape of Magic IV
Rewards:
-2000 xp
+10% increased proficiency to all spells you cast.
+10% increased control over your mana
+10% increased success to all arcane creations
Be aware that casting magic outside of the system established principles may cause unusual and unexpected results.
Congratulations, you are now level 4!
Well, if that wasn’t a clear sign his hypothesis was correct. The pagona, now unable to do any significant damage to the shield, started scurrying frantically as Alexander poured more water into the sink, completely dispersing the heat.
He looked at the little beast. “You are regrettably too dangerous to return to Janelle. Should I dispose of you?”
The lizard suddenly stopped moving, then looked at him. Its eyes narrowed into slits and it stood still, starring at Alexander as if measuring him up. The lizard certainly seemed to have an odd amount of self awareness.
Alexander had a flash of insight and applied his two points in animal handling. The option to gain 5% in rapport with animals was selected twice.
“What will it be? I’d honestly not enjoy ending the life of anyone's pet.”
The pagona blinked then moved to a corner of the sink and picked up a single silver coin. Moving towards Alexander it stretched its neck upward in his direction as if to offer the coin to him.
^
Quest Complete!
Drawers and Dragons:
Your neighbors have misplaced a dragon!
Objective: Slay or subdue the dragon.
Quest rewards:
-500 xp
-5 silver
-Inferior Magic Stone, unattributed
Now if Alexander was a trusting man he would have taken this as a sign that the pagona was subdued. Alexander however was far too cautious for that. He continued to fill the sink until about four inches of water sat at the bottom, covering the lizard up to the neck.
He pointed at the pogona and said, “Stay.”
^
Animal Handling is now level 3
You have 1 point to distribute to your Animal Handling skill tree.
Taking a cookie sheet he covered the sink and poured a layer of water in it to disperse any heat coming from beneath it. Then he looked about for something heavy within arm's reach. He managed to grab a crock pot and placed it on the cookie sheet. It might hold for long enough to give him warning should the lizard try to escape. Alexander would need to create something that could contain a tiny dragon.
