Wizards were a troublesome bunch. There had been that dude from the Hunters Guild who had magically made my wings stupidly heavy and stopped me from flying at the worst possible moment, but mostly they seemed to live their lives a single cock up away from blowing themselves up or accidentally opening a portal to some nightmare plane and dooming the universe.

  Or getting eaten by an annoyed dragon, as was Luckdire’s fate as I stormed through the door in my own damn dungeon, which I had been polite enough to knock on. They lacked common sense and the life expectancy associated with that particular trait.

  “Is there a common sense stat for humans?” I asked as the doors slammed back and thudded against the walls.

  Luckdire was behind a contraption, upon which sat another contraption. It was some kind of grip to lock his new and improved crossbow in place and keep it aimed at the door, which seemed remarkably at odds with basic health and safety. As I glanced back, and the doors swung shut, I saw that a picture of a dragon had been taped in place over the door that had been shot at.

  “Hmm? Oh, hello Bob. What do you think of this?” he waved a hand over his five-foot-long crossbow before leaning in to tweak a screw next to the sight mounted on the top of the thing.

  “Why the hell are you shooting at pictures of me?” I demanded.

  “That’s not you. You’re very impressive in your real form, but you ain’t that. That’s Squirrulax the Savager. He burned most of Lolligot County a few decades ago. He was a beast when he was in his prime. Sad how he ended up. What can I do for you?” Luckdire asked, returning his attention to adjusting his crossbow.

  “I need to learn magic.”

  “You just pick the spells up by seeing them, don’t you? I probably have a few I can teach you if you like.”

  “No, I mean yes, but I just upgraded my mana circuit to novice, and Kat says I need a teacher. Inedible-Reg may be getting his name updated soon, but in the meantime, he’s a shifty bastard, and he legged it. So here I am.”

  He looked up and adjusted his pointy hat, fixing me with a serious look. “I’m not sure that, as a member of faculty at the Academy, I’m allowed to train outsiders. In fact, I’m sure I’m not. But… what mana circuit do you have?”

  “Monster, novice. It was basic, but I got an evolution. I got some more mana as well, which is nice.”

  “I’ve never dealt with a monster circuit user. I suppose we could argue that in the spirit of research and extending a hand of friendship to our less human counterparts, I could take a look at… Bob?” He had gradually slowed down as he spoke before stuttering to a stop on my name.

  “I know I sparkle. If you’ve got any spells that would let me hide them, that’d be great. So, my mana circuit is interesting to you?”

  “We rarely get the chance to interact with non-human wizards. Your lot tends not to advertise your presence if you can help it. I’m sure there are a few monster-mages running around Ankmapak, but they tend to avoid the Academy and the Mages Guild. Come over here and sit down. Good. Now, give me a moment, then cycle your mana through your circuit.” He sat down opposite me and produced a pair of pince-nez spectacles from a pouch of holding that he perched on his nose.

  I sat there and focused on the Ducta Potentia fundamentus, moving mana through the weird little channels in my body. Luckdire hummed and hawed as he watched me for a good ten minutes as I sat and did literally bugger all.

  “Excellent. It really is fascinating. Your channels are deformed while you’re in this form. You’ve got threads that run through what I assume would be your wings that are all snarled up, and your neck, instead of having the cana major and minor channels running in straight lines, has them all tangled because your neck is too short for your magic.”

  “My neck is too short for my magic?”

  “Indeed. The other… alterations you’ve made to your human body are also throwing things out of whack. Your adopted musculature is drawing out the flenser tracts across your stomach and… I won’t ask why you did that other thing to yourself, having met your dear Esme, but it is absorbing an unhealthy amount of your blood flow. I’m afraid I can’t really help you beyond showing you some basic meditations that you will have to do as a dragon.”

  “Fine,” I grumped. Bloody wizards.

  An instructive, albeit dull, series of lectures followed. How to think, breathe, and cycle mana. Rhymes and chants that were intended to lull my body and mind into a suitable state to absorb mana from the atmosphere around me. A diet of particular foods to encourage a harmonisation of my internal energy with that of the universe. I popped open a jar of pickles and promptly ignored that load of codswallop. Many months and years of mind-numbing tedium stretched ahead of me, the only result of which would be an incredibly incremental increase in my mana pool.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “You’ve spent years doing this yourself, then?” I asked.

  “Oh, good lord no.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I was rich,” Luckdire replied with a shrug as he resumed tinkering with his crossbow.

  “I’m rich?”

  “Oh, right of course. Just buy some pills then.”

  “Pills?” I sighed. The word “buy” elicited the usual shudder of revulsion in me.

  “Sure. Magnigoldo’s Mana Maximiser, Charlotte's Channel Cleaner, er, Hartley’s Harmonious Homeopathy. That should set you on the right path and make your meditation a lot more effective.” He twisted something, and the string on the bow thwanged again and put another bolt through my door.

  “You know you’re paying for the repairs, right?”

  “Hmm? Oh my dear boy, it’s fine. Incolumem Rem!” I saw the sigil he pointed at the door. The bolts wormed their way free of the wood and fell to the ground as both they and the panel on the door returned themselves to as good as new.

  New Syntheticus unlocked!

  Incolumem Rem

  I grumbled my way back down to Bob’s Bargain Bonanza and headed into De Boneville’s Beneficient Bottles. The place stank. After one taste, I locked my lips shut. It was like a hospital waiting room got jiggy with a hippy shop and had disinfectant-scented candles as babies.

  “Cyrus?” I called. The counter was laden with jars and bottles, and glass shelves surrounded me on all sides with ingredients and potions strewn over them. I picked up a couple, turned them over to check the labels, then hurriedly put them down. The ingredient lists did not inspire confidence as to the cleanliness of the containers.

  “He’s not here, how can I help– oh, it’s you. Bob.”

  “Gledna, how long have you been working for Cyrus?”

  “Well, seeing as I can’t use my spells to heal, and people complain about my cooking, I needed a new role. Cyrus was kind enough to take me on.”

  “I thought you were doing laundry?”

  “There was an… incident. Suffice to say, I am no longer allowed to summon slimemoulds to eat the sweat and whatnot out of bedsheets.”

  “Did it escape? Achieve sentience and lead a rebellion?”

  “No. I started writing satirical plays after it got done with the dwelver’s bedclothes and organised the Janglebonks into a theatre company. They can’t do anything except honk, so it got mad and tried to eat them. So here I am. What can I do for you?”

  “I need some magic-enhancing pills.” I rattled off the list Luckdire had provided.

  “Uh-huh. You men and your pills. I don’t have them to hand, not much call for that kind of stuff here. Not much call for any kind of stuff. You’re my second customer. Inedible Reg came in earlier, looking for some Indigo’s Invisibility Inducer.”

  “That little… I will find him in the end.”

  “Just ask Kat, she can find any of us when she wants to. No hiding from her for a minion.”

  “How long to get the pills?”

  “Cyrus, how long to get the pills?” She cupped a hand behind her left ear and paused for a moment. “Oh yeah, he’s not here, so I can’t ask him. I’ll find out and get back to you when I know. Shouldn’t be more than a week.”

  My life was a constant stream of disappointment and delays at the moment. I get a job, I try and do it, but all I got in return was roadblocks and complications.

  “I’ll pop back later then. See you, Gledna.”

  She waved cheerfully and headed through the door behind the counter. I caught a brief glimpse of a comfy chair surrounded by slimes in little cages before the curtain swung shut behind her.

  I stepped out into the marketplace and tapped my chin with one finger. My stomach rumbled, so I grabbed another jar of gherkins and munched as I made my way up to my lair. I shucked off the human skin and settled down onto the best mattress in the universe. The soft clinks as I shifted my weight slightly sapped my worries of their strength. All was right in the world.

  I luxuriated, I stretched, I sighed. One of my tails curled around and held up the coin I had gotten from the unknown dragon all those months ago. I channelled a little mana, and a glowing arrow appeared, hovering above it, and pointing to the southwest.

  Slithering to the ledge, I looked down over my territory. Oranges and reds marked the forests around the base of Mount Bob, and tilled earth had replaced the green fields after the harvest. I slipped out into the air, my wings snapping open and catching a thermal to help me spiral up into the sky. I flew southwest, the land flashing by far below me.

  A few hours later, I saw a pair of armies camped across a shallow valley. They looked up as I passed overhead. In the fading light, the trail of sparkles I left behind made me annoyingly visible. I spiralled down to pass over their heads. The odds were that one of them was on my side in the Civil War.

  Sure enough, the army on the eastern side launched volleys of spells and arrows at me, while the other cheered as I passed by. Was it worth it? Getting distracted yet again and pulled into mammal affairs even deeper than I already was?

  Well… a stream of orange-green fire shot down from my nostrils and cut a line through the army that was dumb enough to attack a dragon. I assumed they were the followers of Umbra, but it occurred to me that it was unlikely an army hundreds of miles away from Baginton would know whose side the weird sparkly dragon was on. Thirty thousand odd gold spawned in at my lair, and I pulled up and away to consider the fact that I had no idea who I had just nuked from above.

  What words would Kat use to describe me? No, scratch that. I took enough crap from people as it was; I had no intention of beating myself up in my own head. So let’s be a little more generous. What would Esme think of me? Dear sweet, beautiful Esme. As the Lust-monkey perked up, I decided to shelve that thought experiment as well. She’d be kind, that was all I needed to know.

  A tail swung forward, the token gleamed on a sucker as the arrow appeared, guiding me towards my first meeting with others of my species.