“Well,” Aylin said slowly. Sable could tell she was still worried about her clan’s safety, but Sable had brushed her off. What could she do about that? Insist on a direct answer? Not likely; she understood the dynamic. “Let’s see. Earning gold. There’s taking it from people, to name the obvious, and then there’s dungeons.”

[Dungeons?]

“Underground structures filled with monsters. They spawn chests, and sometimes there’s money inside.” She paused. “Er, does it need to be coins?”

Good question. Intuition told her any valuable would do. Beyond coins, prestigious pieces of art, exquisitely made furniture, or anything that could decorate her lair in a lavish, opulent way.

[Anything valuable,] Sable said. [Or, perhaps, anything perceived as such.]

At Sable’s phrasing, Aylin tilted her head. “How’s that work? Who picks what’s ‘valuable’? How much strength does each item give you?”

Sable wondered that too. Coins were easy to quantify, but other items? While curious, she didn’t have time to dig into the minutia of the system and puzzle over potential exploits. For now, she would meet the game-like world on its own terms. Take things at face value. Discovering exact definitions of what ‘valuable’ meant was low priority.

[Focus.]

“Right,” Aylin said. “Well, dungeons aren’t an option, anyway. Don’t know where any are. And they’re guarded real close. There’s new ones opening and closing, but none I know.” She paused. “Could take over one the clan’s, but you’re trying to stay hidden, right? Since you’re in a ‘weakened state’, or whatever?”

[For now,] Sable said. Before engaging with organized groups of people, she intended to lift her crippling stat debuffs.

“So no dungeons, as it stands. No pillaging either, for the same reason. Something smaller. Maybe … we can kill two birds with one stone? The Ruins might have something valuable. Doubt there’s piles of gold laying around, but something? Probably. And you can pick up a golem while we’re there, since you’re looking for subjects.”

A golem did sound useful. A powerful humanoid who was, presumably, not as intelligent—and therefore high maintenance—as Aylin. Someone who could stand around and guard her hoard.

[It’s as good a plan as any.]

Aylin perked up. She seemed eager to please Sable, which was good.

Sable looked around the island, then nodded. They had a plan. The starts to a hoard, and a second minion.

[Let’s head off, then. No point in wasting time.]

Aylin nodded, then grimaced as she looked into the sky. “Right. More flying.”

***

The trip to the Ruins of Nefar was longer than the one to Lake Plateglass. Sable soared through the air, Aylin clutched in her clawed grip, and she basked in the warm sun. It was a beautiful day out. The blue sky stretched to the horizon, not a cloud in sight. In the distance, the Endless Peaks sprawled and sprawled, as seemingly infinite as the sky. It had been aptly named. 

With the goblin girl secured in her grip, it was difficult for Aylin to guide her. Beyond the buffeting wind making speaking difficult, she wasn’t used to seeing the terrain from so high up, and thusly found herself disoriented. Still, she managed. She knew the local landmarks, and was highly motivated to complete the trip as fast as possible. Every passing minute it seemed the goblin girl grew an even more nauseous shade of green.

Sable supposed she could have left Aylin back on the island, since she was far from necessary on this expedition. But she was a useful resource in less direct ways. As a local to this world, she could answer whole slews of questions that might crop up that Sable would, as an outsider, never be able to answer herself.

Notably, Sable needed to get a handle on her spellcasting situation. But her quick departure to the Ruins had been caused by an itching to get some work done rather than spending all day chatting and planning. The ‘magic talk’ would come later.

And who knew? Maybe she’d had so little luck casting because her stats were reduced by ninety percent. Maybe her magic stats—intellect and wisdom—influenced how easily she could conjure magic, and so if she eased the detriments by starting a hoard, the problem might sort itself out.

She doubted that, but it was a possibility. More likely, Sable would need to procure a tutor. Of what sort? A mage from Aylin’s clan, if they had one? Some sort of magic-competent monster?

A problem for later.

From this high above, the crumbling Ruins of Nefar were a maze of broken walls and tumbled towers, overtaken by vegetation. Weathered stone arches, once tall and proud, sagged and leaned, if standing at all. The once-smooth pathways had been replaced by rubble-strewn trails, and open courtyards were piled high with debris and detritus, overgrown like the rest.

Despite this, there was a sense of grandness to the decayed city. What had happened here? How had such a large, once-proud civilization fallen? Or been abandoned? How old was this place?

[Where should I set down?]

Sable saw no obvious threats, but a sense of ominousness pervaded the ruins, strongest at the center. Her scales itched, promising that however abandoned it might seem, danger lurked in the crumbling, overgrown structures.

Over the loud beating of her wings, Sable had difficulty making out Aylin’s response. “No. Outskirts. Not the center.”

She carried them to the side of the ruins, a decent way away, then set Aylin down. Like before, the woman knelt on the grass a few seconds, clutching the ground as she fought away nausea. Not a natural flier in the slightest. Then again, Sable wasn’t the most hospitable stewardess.

Catching her breath, Aylin shakily stood.

“So. Strategy.”

[Strategy.]

“What first? Golem or loot?”

[Golem. Perhaps it could help with the second. If anyone would know where to look for valuables, it would be a resident, no?]

Aylin tilted her head. “Huh. Yeah, that’s true. Not sure how much help a pile of rocks will be, but maybe.” She rubbed her chin, then grimaced. “More help than me. I’m good in a fight, but … not that sort of fight. The Ruins are dangerous.” Aylin didn’t seem pleased at having to admit that. Indeed, the follow-up came shortly: “For now, at least. Until I get a class.”

Sable hummed. The noise, as a dragon, came out a little more aggressively than it might have as a human, a deep, dangerous-sounding rumble. Fortunately, Aylin gleaned the intent behind the idle noise. She didn’t mistake it for Sable’s earlier hum, which had been intended as displeasure.

[That’s fine,] Sable said. [The fight, and exploration, I will handle. You can stay here. With luck, the golem will simply submit.] As Aylin had. Sable hadn’t even needed to weaken her in a fight. She had a suspicion that a more powerful being would need some roughing up before her [Dominate] skill would take hold. [You said you don’t think a golem will be intelligent?]

“I won’t pretend I know. But they’re monsters. So, probably not?”

Monsters. Sable would’ve classified both Aylin and herself as such, but she had a feeling the term meant something specific in this world. Aggressive creatures without intelligence. But then what differentiated monsters from simply wild animals?

Maybe that they were linked to the system? Sable’s [Inspect] ability hadn’t presented any message when used on her hunting targets, earlier. Perhaps normal animals didn’t mesh with the system in the same way sapient creatures and monsters did.

[And what do they look like?] Sable hadn’t spotted any golems while flying above. The Ruins had been eerily still.

“They keep themselves hidden. Piles of crumbling stone, I’ve heard, but animate when you get close.” She hesitated. “Again, though, that’s just what I’ve heard. Even the veterans stay away from the Ruins.”

At least Aylin recognized that stories weren’t reliable. It demonstrated her as a reasonably careful thinker. She might be uneducated—Sable didn’t know if she was, but she suspected it as a member of a goblin clan—but she wasn’t stupid.

The same situation Sable was in, really. Not stupid, but pretty clueless to how things worked. Though Sable much more so when it came to this new world.

[And strategy? For fighting one.]

“Well. You’re a dragon. So.”

[A crippled one,] she pointed out.

“Crippled? It’s that bad?”

[A ninety percent reduction to my stats.]

“Ninety!” Aylin reeled at the announcement, then paused. Finally, she shrugged. “I mean. Still. You’re a dragon.”

So a ninety percent reduction wasn’t that devastating? Maybe for a creature as powerful as a dragon, even working at one-tenth capacity, she’d handle a low-level golem without problem.

“But, uh, strategy,” Aylin said. “Still smart to have one. I dunno. You can fly. Drop a boulder on it? Burn it to a crisp? It’s made of stone, but isn’t dragonfire hot enough to melt metal, much less rock? And what’s your class?”

Melt rock? Did her flames get that hot? She wasn’t sure. She’d tested her fire-breathing abilities, but only loosely. She hadn’t pushed herself. If she concentrated, put everything she had into the gout of flame, could she bring it to a hot enough peak that it would melt stone?

[I suppose it’s worth testing.]

Aylin watched, interested, as Sable found a nearby boulder. Conjuring that pulsing, always-present burning in her breast, liquid flame spewed from her mouth, dousing the rock in white-blue flames.

Rather than maintain the stream, Sable focused on deepening it. The sensation of heat washing through her throat grew stronger, making her uncomfortable, but she intensified the flame. She put everything she had into it.

And sure enough, the rock started to melt.

Sable cut off, then checked her mana.

[ MP: 1362 / 1500 ]

It had expended the valuable resource many times faster than a normal stream of fire. Seeing how Sable didn’t know how to regenerate mana, she needed to be careful, there.

Er, she could ask, actually.

[How does mana regenerate?]

Like usual, Aylin was briefly taken aback by the question. “Um, passively?”

[Is it tied to a stat?]

“Wisdom, I think.”

Then her massive stat reduction was the fault for her agonizingly slow regeneration. Or, at least, part of it. [Is there any other way?]

“Meditation?” She sounded only half sure about that. “Well, for us.”

[For you?]

“Might be different for a dragon. Who knows?”

That was true. She couldn’t apply the experiences and standards of a humanoid race to her own. There were certainly similarities, but at a guess, plenty of differences, too.

She glanced at the molten rock, which was burning orange and still cooling from its superheated state. The test had worked. She had an effective weapon for defeating a golem, should it come to that.

[They look like piles of rubble,] Sable mused. That was sure to be a headache to find in a city of rubble. [Stay here. This shouldn’t take long.]

She took off without further warning, her green-skinned companion shrinking into the trees beneath her.