Meriel screamed as the knife bit into his hand. The flesh, though tender, still hurt with every move. He grit his teeth, bit his lip, felt his eyes roll into the back of his skull, and yet he continued hacking, sawing, and everything he could do to make the damned arm fall off.

  It was an extreme measure, he knew, far too brutal compared to anything he'd ever done before. But as for now, it was his only choice. He hacked again and again, each self-inflicted attack bringing a new wave of pain. He felt his thoughts fall into oblivion, but his body moved as if on its own.

  Finally, he felt the knife go through, and the pain, though still ebbing slightly, receded. He looked at the stump of his hand and found his hand still hanging by a loose strip of skin. He gripped his knife tighter, the blade completely bloodied, and did one last swipe.

  The hand fell to the ground with a wet slop, and he fell along with it, sitting on his bottom. His breath was ragged, but the worst of it was over. The air was even thinner now, the pain making him breathe harder than he'd like to.

  Only a few dozen minutes to go.

  He looked at the stump again, inspecting it. The blood was gushing out in small spurts, reflecting from the barrier onto the ground. The smell of iron became overbearing. Meriel felt sick to his stomach, fevered from the pain and the stench attacking his senses.

  Quickly, he cast a spell to close the wound. He wasn't a healer, but he knew enough. He couldn't close the artery, sew it or regenerate his hand as some of the other really skilled mages could. But he could do something different.

  The blood flowing from the small tubes protruding from the stump congealed, blocking the wound from letting even more blood flow out. The pain and feverish feeling were still there, but at least they stopped getting worse. He took a deep breath, trying to settle himself.

  Quickly, he dropped the mushrooms and the herbs on the ground and got to crafting. Creating a new spell was quite hard, especially with all these disadvantages he was under, but Meriel only thought harder, the urge for survival pushing him to focus more than ever before.

  The structure of the beast he needed to craft came to him naturally, basically a copy of the dragon he fought earlier, just changed to fit the smaller size; the chest cavity smaller, the wings a bit larger.

  He made the body basically infused with the plant’s structure, focusing on letting it absorb the unwanted air particles and exhale oxygen. Lungs were drafted to be larger than the thing would ever need, so it could keep up with his own demand. The draconic properties of being almost eternal, the fungus’s ability to grow in the dark, to absorb the moisture—all just parts of the process, a piece of the puzzle.

  A thought occurred as he was adding one aspect onto the magical circle; he didn’t need to eat, but would the beast? It would be trapped here, yes, but he had to admit that his lack of understanding on how this stasis spell worked was greater than he’d like to admit, especially since it was prolonged.

  The solution hit him almost as fast. The mana… kept seeping inside. The spell wasn’t perfect, though that hardly mattered for the five seconds it was supposed to last. Here, however?

  It would be his lifeline, and the source of the dragon’s energy, whenever it needed some. He removed the arcanic line for a stomach, adding a small mana-crystal instead, also adding a line so it could grow and absorb more as the dragon grows bigger. Not a perfect solution, but one he could lament over later.

  Now came the dragon’s personality. For most of his conjuratons, he didn’t bother; why create a personality for something if all that was needed was just an instruction to hurt one single enemy? But this wasn’t the usual case.

  He’d need a personality for the beast. Who knew, after all, how long he’d have to stay here until he figured a way out? He looked at the magical circle again, but stopped almost immediately.

  Meriel couldn’t think clearly enough to create complex structures or behavioral patterns from scratch; the delirium was only getting stronger, and he felt his brain already tiring, the lack of oxygen evident.

  He thought on a pattern he could copy, and over them all, one became more clear than any—his childhood dog, Nessy. She was Meriel’s father’s dog, charged with protecting the sheep. Fiercely defensive of them, if the rumors around his birth village were true, but to Meriel, she was always just a silent friend who was always there when Meriel needed her the most. His comfort in the small village.

  His always happy and energetic friend.

  He copied that pattern, though he put more mana into the brain to make the creature a bit more intelligent.

  And with the magic circle finally complete, he pushed mana into the circle, and activated it.

  The materials in front of him turned into a bubbling heap of flesh, the stench more rancid than anything he’d ever smelled before, but thankfully, it dissipated quickly, and the beast started forming in full.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Two legs came first, then the others, followed by the structure of the head, tail, and wings, the formation quicker than even Meriel expected. The form of the dragon took on a blue, bright light, casting everything around in blue, baring over the two other light sources, the congregation of mana dense like a crystal. And then it disappeared, almost as quickly as it came to be.

  And a small dragon stood there, its bright green eyes locking onto Meriel’s for a moment, and then it jumped at him, shoving him on his back, licking his face. Meriel laughed, hungrily breathing in the fresh air, grateful for both that and the fact he apparently had a companion now.

  Softly, he scooped the dragon up, inspecting it. Its scales were olive green, not the black of the dragon that Meriel used in the crafting, but there were leaves around its body, their look almost like feathers. Its mouth was full of small, pointy teeth, its tongue black. And Meriel saw the intelligence in the dragon’s gaze, inspecting him almost the same way that he inspected the dragon in turn.

  Meriel chuckled, bringing the palm-sized dragon onto his chest, gently hugging it, letting it settle in. “Welcome to the world, little buddy. We’ll be good friends, you and I.” He patted it on its back, feeling the two small horns that protruded from its base.

  And then he closed his eyes, filling his lungs with more breathable air, letting the stress leave him, and letting the oblivion take him. A notification beeped just as he almost fell asleep.

  [New skill - Dragonmancy - Created]

  [Dragonmancy - LVL 3]

  Elsa

  Elsa watched the Azbokeus dungeon recede behind her as she walked toward the forest surrounding it, her mind still heavy with grief. The final quest of the party ended up being a success, with the dragon slain and all, but she could not even pretend that she felt any happiness from the fact.

  Her lover was dead, after all. Meriel, her ray of sunshine. His long black hair, beautiful jade green eyes. His beautiful smile which was oftentimes only reserved for her eyes and the eyes of their party. His quiet tall presence whenever someone needed advising on anything.

  Gone.

  The wait in front of the dungeon entrance felt endless, each sound making her hopeful that Meriel and the others would return. Just for her hope to die down every time. More often than not, it ended up being just a small critter walking and snooping around the mountain.

  Finally, the delvers emerged from the dungeon. And as elated as she was to see them, her excitement disappeared quickly. Four went inside, but only three came out. And one that was missing was Meriel. Jonathan was absolutely livid, angry yet sad, telling her about how he fell into a giant ravine.

  Apparently, as he and Meriel talked about some relationship advice, and the relationship of Meriel and Elsa herself, one of the smaller dragons sneaked in the air and threw Meriel down into the ravine. The fall being several hundred meters deep, Meriel’s death was almost guaranteed.

  And Elsa didn't know how to feel. How to process this information. At first, it seemed like a bad joke to her. Something that Jonathan came up with as a surprise, a jest after which Meriel would jump out of the entrance, once the others had laughed enough.

  But that wasn't the case.

  She knew that, from deep inside. Since the first moment when they emerged, the delvers’ faces were grim, completely broken. Jonathan barely talked, and the others didn't at all. Instead, they only grunted when asked by Jonathan, confirmed that they went looking for him, but just had no way of getting down into the ravine.

  “So, what about Meriel? How do we get him out? How do you even know he's dead?” She screamed, hopelessness overtaking her senses. She had goosebumps all over, and her mind was a blur of emotions, her speech barely coherent.

  "Elsa, we will go. I get it. Look, I want to try to get him back, but the fall was too high,” Jonathan said, grabbing his head. “I saw him fall, I saw the damned beast throw him down. I'll never forget that, not as long as I live. But I fear we can’t do anything to change it.”

  And so, to Elsa’s protests, they walked away. The plan was to return once they got some help from the city, get some craftsmen, some ladders, and try to climb down safely. If nothing more, she at least wanted to bury Meriel.

  She didn't want to leave his body there, in the damned beast's lair. Too long has the dragon made living in the Lavaza kingdom insufferable. She wouldn't let it have this one last victory.

  The forest finally got thick and the mountain, the Azbokeus dungeon, was out of sight. Not out of mind, but it was as much of a relief as any. She couldn't even focus on anything. Elsa just walked forward, absent-mindedly listening to the sounds of the others treading on the dirt and sticks.

  She'd let them alert the guard. They mostly spoke to fighters, and though she was a part of the team, she wasn't much of a fighter.

  Meriel was the true fighter. She met him when she was 40. As a half-elf, she had spent more time on the planet than most humans, but it still felt insufficient when she thought about how little time they'd spent with Meriel.

  The man was a teenage boy when they met for the first time, though it took time for their love to blossom, and then even more time to realize how much of a gem he was. And now she would just lose it all? Lose him? She would never find anyone like that in her life. She didn't even want that. He was her only true love, her soul mate.

  “Perhaps,” Jonathan mused, stopping after saying the first word, making the others look at him expectantly. “Perhaps we should lock the dungeon up make sure nobody else enters. We've killed the dragon, yes, and we could sell the body parts of it if we got the corpse outside, but I don't know… It feels wrong to profit off from this last adventure, especially when it ended as it did.”

  Did this mean he wanted to block it after the exploration or before?

  She wasn't sure, but she didn't like the implication. “We get Meriel out first, and then we go and block it up. I don't care about the money to be made from the corpse or whatever. I have nothing to spend it on anyway. But I’ll be damned if I just let the possibility that he’s alive haunt me for the rest of my days.” She said, hurting at how much that statement rang home. All of this, and she’d not even have anything to spend the money on. Not without him at her side.

  There was something strange as she looked at Jonathan, however. Something in his body language, something in how he didn’t choose to respond to her statement. It was the first time she began thinking about Meriel’s apparent fall again. Jonathan was the fastest man she knew, with reflexes to match, and he didn’t see this threat coming, even in such an open space?

  Something was wrong. She would find out what.