“A grassland!? How could that be possible!? We’re up on a volcano!”

But as unbelievable as it was, I was forced to believe it as I walked out of the passageway and into the sun. The grass did feel real, and I could feel the sun shining down on my scales, so this was obviously real. The question was how?

“My first guess would have to be a dungeon. A lot of stories like this have them, and they do usually function in weird ways, so maybe?”

That wasn’t really a satisfactory answer, but I decided it was probably the most likely. Going by that logic I tried to keep my guard up as I traversed farther inside. Dungeon or not, I couldn’t resist exploring something so obviously fantastical.

My first encounter in the dungeon was with what looked like a rabbit with a single horn on top of its head. The rabbit leapt out of a patch of tall grass catching me off guard, and attempted to gore me with its horn, but luckily my scales were able to easily deflect the incoming rabbit.

Using its moment of confusion to my advantage I grabbed it and cut its throat with my claws. Upon killing it two things happened. I got a message that read:

“You have killed level 2 Mono-Horned Rabbit – Gained 4 XP.”

And the rabbit vanished from my hands, leaving in its place a cut of meat, and a pelt. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the pelt as I had no use for it, so I threw it away, but I did eat the meat. It tasted like rabbit but was a little gamey.

With no way of getting an answer I decided against questioning why the rabbit vanished, and just assumed it must have to do with it being a dungeon. Putting that aside, I continued further into the dungeon.

After a few more minutes of exploring, I ran into my next monster. A slime! The blue blob jumped at me, but this time I was more prepared, and sliced at it with my claws. Unfortunately for me, my claws passed right through the stereotypical mob. It did get it to stop its assault though.

With no other real options, I tried burning it to a crisp with fire breath. The heat welled up inside of me, before I let it out in a torrent of flames, disintegrating the slime. Unfortunately, the fire caused more damage than I bargained for when the grass caught on fire!

I leapt on the burning patch of grass to put it out, vowing to be more careful about that in the future. I did my best to pat out every ember before moving on.

With the fire put out I could focus on the other things that happened after killing the slime. Firstly, the slime dropped a vial of liquid, maybe a potion? Whatever it was I didn’t take it. And I got a number of notifications.

“You have killed level 4 blue slime – Gained 6 XP.”

“You have leveled up.”

“You have gained new Racial Skill – Innate Magic.”

After killing the blue slime, I had apparently leveled up! I immediately opened my status board to check what was new.

Name: Nuriel

Species: Red Dragon

Level: 2

XP: 4/15

HP: 15/15

MP: 15/15

Str: 7

Agi: 5

Con: 6

Mag: 7

Racial Skills:

Fire Breath

Flight

Language recognition

Innate Magic

Primary Skills:

Unlike the other racial skills which were pretty self-explanatory, I wasn’t quite sure what Innate Magic did.

“I wonder if I can see descriptions of my skills?”

It was usually a common feature in this kind of story, so I tried thinking about the skill, and lo and behold, the skill expanded on my board to show a description!

“Innate Magic: A unique skill for races that are innately skilled with magic. Grants the owner knowledge of magic, and its functions.”

It seemed the skill was designed to make it easier to learn magic, that seemed exciting. I would have to start practicing! But first I wanted to explore further into the dungeon.

I also noted that the bruises I still had had vanished. It seemed that leveling up heals you.

As I explored further into the dungeon the grass grew in height until I could barely see over it, and a path began to emerge. The path through the dungeon snaked its way through the grass, occasionally splitting off into separate paths.

At the first intersection I arbitrarily decided to go right and continued down that path.

Just when I started questioning why no new monsters had appeared a wolf looking beast jumped out of the grass. The wolf was twice my size. It had spiky brown fur with patches of black and was snarling at me.

I leapt backwards out of its path before it had even appeared. Not waiting for it to land I shot forward, cutting one of its legs.

“RRARG” The wolf cried out jumping backwards.

It tried to charge me, but I didn’t let it get the chance. I bolted towards it, sliding under it, ripping out its stomach. The wolf let out a weak moan before tumbling to the ground.

*Poof*

The wolf’s body disappeared, and left in its place a claw, and a pelt. Both of which I left there. Then I read the notification.

“You have killed level 5 Brown Wolf – Gained 8 XP.”

That wolf was a good deal stronger than the other monsters I’d encountered here, but it hadn’t even landed a hit on me. In fact, I had noticed it before it even attacked. Maybe it had to do with my stats increasing after leveling up.

Continuing down the path I came to a clearing, where the grass wasn’t very tall, and in the center of the clearing was a chest.

I didn’t really expect the chest to be a trap, this dungeon seemed pretty easy, but I decided it was better safe than sorry, so I cautiously approached the chest. I flipped open the lid then jumped back. When nothing happened, I walked back up to the chest and looked inside. In the chest were a pair of boots. Those were completely useless to me, so I just left them there, and continued on my exploration.

The clearing was a dead end, so I followed the path back to the previous intersection and went left this time. After only a few minutes I had my next encounter. I leapt backwards as a pair of mono-horned rabbits tried to pincer attack me. I decided that I might as well practice my fire breathing, so instead of cutting their throats I tried to shoot a single fireball at one of them.

The heat welled up in my body and I tried to only let a small bit out. Unfortunately for me, that didn’t quite work, and while I did only produce a small flame, it didn’t shoot forward like a fireball. The flame didn’t even hit the rabbits.

They both leapt for me again, and I nimbly jumped over them, before trying again.

“Maybe if I hold it in my mouth longer to build up pressure?”

Using that idea, instead of immediately opening my mouth, I left it shut for a few moments before opening it, and just like that, I shot a fireball! The fireball flew towards one of the rabbits, hitting it in the chest, killing it.

The other rabbit tried to charge at me to get revenge for its fallen brethren, but I had already prepared another fireball, and burnt the other rabbit as it flew towards me.

The rabbits vanished leaving behind a horn, two pelts and some meat. I hungrily gobbled down the meat before checking my notifications.

“You have killed level 3 Mono-Horned Rabbit – Gained 5 XP.”

“You have killed Level 2 Mono-Horned Rabbit – Gained 4 XP.”

“You have leveled up.”

After killing the rabbits, I had leveled up a second time. I opened my status board to check what had changed.

Name: Nuriel

Species: Red Dragon

Level: 3

XP: 6/20

HP: 20/20

MP: 20/20

Str: 9

Agi: 8

Con: 8

Mag: 9

Racial Skills:

Fire Breath

Flight

Language recognition

Innate Magic

Primary Skills:

My stats had increased again, but that was basically it, I didn’t get any cool new skills this time.

With that I closed my status board.

I had spent what felt like most of the day in the dungeon, but despite that the sun in the dungeon was still high in the sky. Regardless I was certainly feeling tired, so I began backtracking. Luckily for me no monsters attacked me on my way out of the dungeon.

When I reached the cave, I looked out of the mouth of it to confirm my suspicions. The sun had indeed fallen below the horizon. With the knowledge that time didn’t move in the dungeon I drank some of the water from the waterfall, found a comfortable bit of stone and went to sleep.