Alexander shuffled slowly up the apartment steps with a giant crystal in one arm, and a pet store bag in the other. His body ached all over, not only from being hit in the ribs by a rock, but also from over strained muscles from his lack of physical activity. He determined his ribs, in fact, were not cracked. This didn’t make sense to him as he had been thrown sideways from the rock’s impact… but he was too tired to think too deeply about it.

  Despite the pain and exhaustion he still managed to swing by the pet store. He wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave his new charge, the pagona, starving. The looks he got from the employees were genuine concern. He waved off all offers to get the first aid kit. He unlocked his door and was about to go in when, like clockwork, Emily stepped out and greeted him.

  “Oh, hey Alexander! Woah! You look like you had quite an adventure.”

  “You… have no idea.”

  He looked at his clothes completely covered in dirt and ripped in areas. Even a button was missing.

  “Are you ok? What’s with the crystal?”

  “Uh, geology dig. For fun.”

  “What!? You found that?”

  “Yep, at the state park, but uh, you shouldn’t go looking for one like I did. It turned out to be pretty dangerous.”

  He thought about the food he had in the pet store bag and silently prayed she wouldn’t ask about it, seeing as it was all for her sister’s missing pet.

  “I’d imagine! It sounds like quite the story! You’ll have to tell me all about it, but you look so tired. I bet you want a bath and to get to bed early.”

  “I very much do want those things. When the time is right I will be sure to tell you all about it.”

  “Well, I just wanted to let you know that our house warming party is set for Friday night this week.”

  “Oh, five days? Perfect. I’m looking forward to learning more about the R.O.U.S.es.”

  “You should! Goodnight, Alex.” She smiled as she moved back into her apartment.

  “Goodnight Emily.” He smiled back, feeling a bit less tired.

  He went into his apartment and set his load down for a second. He crashed on his couch for ten minutes before exerting minimum effort to scramble some eggs. He didn’t feel any special healing properties, but he felt a bit of his energy returning.

  He decided next he needed that bath—adding plenty of epsom salt.

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

  As he painfully got undressed he looked at his ribs. His bruising wasn’t nearly as intense as he felt it should be. He would simply have to count himself lucky he supposed. Dipping into the steaming hot bath he sighed with relief. He simply soaked there in a state of bliss. After a few minutes his mind wandered to his crystal.

  First, he resolved himself to prepare for his workday tomorrow. Stepping into his newly wood framed room he set out his uniform, shirt and tie. Fortunately, the podium had not decided to rearrange his clothes. He then packed his lunch—a fresh roast beef sandwich—and placed it in the fridge. He resolved to increase his protein intake as he planned to start a new workout regimen.

  He was anxious to see how the podium would respond to his crystal but a complication arose as he went to feed a lizard.

  “You look bigger.”

  The pogona spun in a circle at what it believed to be a compliment although it also seemed aggravated at the fact that it didn’t have much room to do so.

  “Not just bigger, your snout is a bit longer, forehead taller… and what is that coming out of the sides of your spine?” Alexander groaned as he reached into the terrarium slowly and stroked the pagona’s back before pushing outward on the thin membrane growth of what was certainly an under-developed wing.

  “Nooooo…” he whispered, “I’m not so sure about the food I bought you anymore.”

  Alexander sighed as he offered it a traditional diet for a Bearded Dragon; Mealworms, Kingworms, Crickets, he even sliced up some sweet potatoes. It looked at the food then up at Alexander expectantly. Normally you would just leave them in the cage and see what it ate over the next two days, but the unusual responsiveness and intelligence in the pogona's eyes told him the truth of things. So he went and cut off a slice of his roasted chicken and made a small ball of his raw ground beef.

  As soon as he entered the room he knew by the look in the pagona’s eyes that he had the right of it. As he moved to set it in the cage the lizard pounced on the meat, as expected, favoring the ground beef. Looking at the bag of wasted pet food that represented $20 of unplanned expenses he sighed.

  “Just when I wanted to reduce my food budget.”

  Then he realized he was completely done with his to-do list. His eyes shifted to his new, hard won crystal and picked it up with anticipation. With much effort and achy limbs, he climbed the stairs and set the crystal down in the center of the podium.

  ^

  Item identified.

  Crystallized Essence of Earth

  Rare

  May be used as a ritual component or turned into magical resources.

  The following magical resources can be extracted:

  Earth- 22

  Unattributed- 34

  Would you like to extract resources?

  Alexander would be lying if he said he wasn’t slightly disappointed he had not received the key resources for upgrading his World Encyclopedia. At least he had gained some of the ones he would need for the terrarium, as that obviously would need to be upgraded soon.

  When he selected to extract the resources he was surprised to see the option to only extract some and not all of the resources from the crystal. This would leave the crystal mostly intact, which he realized would be helpful when Emily asked about it again. He went ahead and did just that. Then pulled out a notepad to jot down some notes as he went ahead and used a few of those resources to find more magical objects and quests.

  Finally, after a terrible long weekend, he went to bed a full hour ahead of schedule.

  He fell asleep swiftly with a feeling of contentment and concern over that feeling.