—Orion—

  I stepped out of the stream of water, feeling bone-achingly cold as the crisp cave air exacerbated the chill I was experiencing.

  I placed my washed clothes onto the ground as I wondered how I was going to get warm again. Getting clean was important enough to risk hypothermia, I could heal that, bacterial infections were much riskier for me.

  But as soon as I'd flicked off as much of the water as I could, Sally got up and started walking around. The drakeling struggling to stay upright properly as she explored the environment. Her movements were sluggish and weak, confirming one of my fears about her physiology.

  I'd only suspected it before, but she seems to be a species of reptiles that's extremely reliant on external heat to be able to function properly, if her sudden stumbling about was caused by the cold.

  As I watched her move around, I eventually decided to lay out my clothes before doing anything else, there might not be anything to hang them from, but it's better than nothing.

  I spread them out, and looked up to realise that Sally was no longer within my view. My heart accelerated as I looked around to see that she wasn't anywhere I could see inside the cave.

  "Sally?" I anxiously called out, and after a few seconds of silence, I heard her yip. The sound was too close to have been from far away, and I looked towards the noise to see that it came from behind the waterfall.

  I stood up and walked over, looking around the stream of water to see that she'd found something very interesting. From the cracks in the stone just behind the geyser, there were the remains of a shrub that I didn't know the species of. All that was left of it now were dry, brown, dead branches. It was very clearly dead, and had been for a long time.

  Sally was pawing at it with her claws, trying and failing to rip it out of the cave floor. I leaned over her and ripped it out of the ground in one smooth motion, Sally letting out a panicked yelp and fleeing as she realised that I walked over and lent over her.

  The plant itself was surprisingly dense, its branches feeling far heavier and robust than any other shrub of its size. Aberrations aside, it would make for excellent firewood.

  I fished the [Sacrificial Dagger] out of my still-dripping jacket and used it to cut up the wood into kindling, sticks and logs that'd serve as the base for a campfire. The dagger slid through the material like it was wet clay, reminding me that level fifty for a weapon was extremely high, and as a rule of thumb, able to pierce anything below that level.

  After piling it in a such a familiar fashion that I think I could do it in my sleep, I then fetched my lighter—which I’d set aside before getting in the natural shower—and used it to ignite the wood. I let out a sigh of relief as the shavings ignited easily, working better as a fire starter than some chemical ones I’d bought on Earth. I only ever did get the chance to use them once before Father discovered them.

  But as the branches started emitting a warm glow, I moved my clothes into a circle around it, hoping to use the fire's warmth to dry them.

  With the dire issue of drying and getting warm assuaged for now, I allowed myself to think of the strangeness of the current scenario. This 'shower', and firewood is such a fortunate coincidence that it must be more than just that. Now that I gave it some more thought, everything from miraculously surviving the fall, to the shape of the passages and now this perfect rest stop seemed too good to be true.

  To put it simply—even with my [Talent]—I shouldn’t’ve survived that fall. The Path had congratulated me on finding a 'secret passage’, making it the more likely source of my survival. Whatever the Path did, it has some sort of special power in here, connecting it to the [Dungeon]. In what way, or how much, were things I'd yet to figure out.

  The route it had forced us to take was strange as well, the bottom of the cavern—more accurately a canyon—shouldn't have been uniform and straight. It lead to a tunnel that varied so little in height or width at all it might as well have been bored by human drills. And the room the passage led to contained a grotty pool of water that would've been potentially fatal to Sally—maybe even me—if there weren't tools to mitigate it in the tunnel leading away from the pool.

  If there hadn't been a stream of spring water that functioned suspiciously close to a shower, the stagnant and dirty water might've led to a deadly infection in either of us. My [Talent] was extremely weak to bacteria and viruses, worsening them if I tried to heal while sick—I learnt that the painful way.

  The dead tree made for perfect firewood, without it I would've probably scraped by, but Sally probably could have frozen to death. Reptilian infants can be weak to frostbite, and she most likely would've suffered in the cold. Only now, after sitting next to the fire for a few minutes had she become more active again.

  I watched her look at me out of the corner of my eye, confused by what she might be doing now. Many of the things that she does still confuses me. One moment, she’s acting like any infant animal would, then she’s like a human, confusing and calculating.

  Currently she was just… lying there as far as I could tell, staring into the fire without any of the energy she was showing earlier. Her claws were fiddling with the pendant that'd become attached to her neck.

  It was something she found in the cesspit, the weird necklace more important than I’d originally gave it credit for. In the time it'd taken me to shower and wash my clothes it’d attached itself to her neck, tightly enough that she couldn't get it off. I had been tempted to try and help her, but she did not let me that close to her in the first place, let alone have a knife near her neck.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 1] on: Sally’s pendant and collar]

  [Sally’s pendant and collar – Level 0 Accessory]

  [An enchanted necklace holding the remnants of a soul, bound to a strange infant]

  [A promise made, the trinket exchanged.

  Held until death, then she lost the faith.

  Will you keep it? The words made secret?

  While the choice was strange, it made a perfect exchange.

  Sin, Ranger had done, sky-scale companionship won,

  Souls conjoined, from blighted soil a bond Anointed.]

  I’d used [Appraisal] on it, and all it’d revealed was that it was [Sally’s pendant and collar], and a poem. No information on its possible abilities or enchantments, leaving me clueless as to what it was capable of.

  Items usually gave those details by default—like how the [Sacrificial Dagger] did—but strangely this collar did not. At the very least I didn't think it was a threat, the name and description of cursed items always referenced the dangers it could have. At least that's what the priests of the Sun god had said.

  Possible dangers aside, it did look nice, reminiscent of some cultural pieces I’d seen from some of the native tribes near where I lived. Of those, most were ancient relics kept in museums, the couple of others had been made and sold by locals in stalls. I’d been tempted to get one when I was in the north American forests with Father, but I had decided not to in the end.

  The strange familiarity of the artifact aside, it's going to be useful when we get into a town. Nobody could mistake her for a wild animal with that attached to her. But I do get the feeling that she’ll protest if I try to add some sort of identification tag to it.

  I poked at my clothes, finding them to still be soaking. With a sigh shuffled around and got as comfortable as I could, the hard stone was awkward, but I was familiar enough with the feeling to ignore it.

  But something about the description of the collar was extremely familiar, it's second verse mentioning a ranger, and a line that had to be referencing [Soul Bond]. I opened the Path to double check, and saw something much more interesting.

  Now that I gave that portion of the Path more attention, a lot had changed in the section near the bottom. I read through the [Notable Emergence] section and saw two new ones that I must've received from bonding with Sally, and saw their potential for well… everything.

  [Notable Emergence]s were usually rare, and even though I hadn't gotten the most out of the path when compared to the others, I know that I now had the most by far. You could only receive them when completing a significant achievement, good or bad.

  I'd only been given [Intimidation Maestro] before this, which I'd gotten while having a conversation with locals in Solis. I thought it'd been going well, then the Path gave me a [Notable Emergence] for being skilled at intimidating people, and its cruel joke had ruined my mood.

  The other was incomplete, [Trickshot! [1/10]] needed to be done another ten times for it to be enabled in any way. However, the new [Notable Emergence]s I got from bonding was [Animal companionship]and [Soul bond].

  I was confused by the reward of two [Notable Emergence]s from simply using a skill, because to get even one required a lot of effort and time. Two at the same time hadn't happened before, within my old group at least.

  [Soul Bond], while useful, would only need to be equipped if I'd somehow lost Sally, but she's right next to me at all times, so it's not important at the moment.

  [Animal Companionship] on the other hand, was exactly the thing I needed to help better understand Sally. It was a [Notable Emergence] that I'd like to have equipped and active, unlike [Intimidation Maestro], which would've just made it even harder to talk to people. [Animal Companionship] promised to help me better comprehend the current physical or emotional need of Sally.

  I was already much better at understanding her already than the people I’d spent months with. I think it was because—unlike humans—she was honest with her feelings, lacking the barrier that I struggled with when it came to humans. She didn't hide behind words when it came to declaring what she wanted at least.

  However, I still needed to care for her physically.

  I know that I have an above-average understanding of animals, but I don't want to assume every detail about a drakeling's dietary needs, and other important details from my general pool of knowledge. How badly the cold affected her just now could simply be known instead of guessed. I could also know when she needs to eat, instead of learning what particular noise meant hunger.

  Another thing the emergence could help with is her quirks, the ones that aren't shared by any animal I've studied before. Like her intelligence, and how magic might potentially affect her.

  [Assigning [Equipped Emergence] to [Animal Companionship]]

  [Animal Companionship: When equipped you gain the ability to better comprehend the current physical or emotional need of Sally.]

  I equipped the emergence and waited for it to activate, the Path's effects always unpredictable.

  But no Path screen appeared before me to explain what Sally needed, like I'd expected, nothing had happened as far as I could tell.

  I looked at her to see if anything would pop up now, but all I saw was her looking… dejected, sad, while clutching the stone pendant. As far as I could tell, nothing had changed. Maybe later it would activate, when she had a strong need.

  I leaned closer as I watched her scales twinkle in the firelight, it was like she'd become a pile of glinting silver. She looked like both a dragon and its horde of treasures. But rather silver instead of Smaug's gold. She was much better than that dragon anyways.

  But as I moved, she threw me a disgusted look, as if bothered by my current nakedness. The reaction confused me, as if anything, the concepts of clothes should confuse her. Why’d she be agitated by it? She’s been naked ever since her birth, if anything the concept of clothes itself should be weird to her…

  Though her strange reaction did remind me of another important thing about the little drake. She’s far smarter than I thought, even human toddlers aren’t anything like Sally. What she is capable of surprises me—making calculated movements, picking up and wearing necklaces, and… maybe she even took that dagger out of me.

  The last one I still found unbelievable, how would a baby drake even know how to do that? Not even counting that the blade is enchanted to be harder to take out. Though… if the [Soul Bond] accelerated her mental growth—along with what it did for her [Intelligence]—maybe she could've done it.

  Though… that increased intelligence could be why she reacts strangely to things. Nothing is meant to be this intelligent just after birth, so it might be clashing with her instincts. Able to figure out what clothes are, but too young to know why I might have them and she doesn't.

  I think I'm getting better at understanding her, confusing as she could be sometimes. Usually, animals were simple things with simple processes. But Sally was capable of much more than those small thoughts, partially reminding me of my previous group of teammates.

  But it's not anywhere near as bad as when I had to try and struggle to learn how to interact them either. I already understood her better after a couple of days than the people I spent months with. The progress I'd made with her reaffirmed my confidence in caring for her.

  But that high intelligence could also explain why she has such abnormal pauses after following her instincts. She's smart enough to figure out and be aware of her body pushing her to do things, biting when she plays, or that I'm not like her, and be repulsed by it. It can't be good for her development to be over-aware of those things. She might end up like me, a stranger amongst her own species.

  It reminded me of caretaking for infant animals, and having to make sure to not let them become over-reliant on humans for survival, or ruin their natural instincts. But dressing up in a drake suit wouldn't work on Sally, she's already far too smart for that to work.

  Well, I could always just make sure she feels comfortable enough to act how she should. Then she won't feel as awkward fulfilling her instincts.

  I returned my gaze to her, and saw that she'd curled up into a ball while I was thinking. She looked alone, scared.

  Feeling her pain resonate with my own feelings, I leaned over, hoping to distract her by scratching her head again and relieve some of her stress.