Luck be Damned

2

^^ Dragon ^^

— Alice —

Travel to and from the other two cities in the Forest was incredibly difficult, I learned, but if the problem of security was handled, my initial estimates for the cost/profit ratio would hold up perfectly, which made my day, as my parents began taking notes while I explained modern economics and the concept of spending more to make more.

Apparently, the most dangerous part of the journey was actually when you were close to the cities; the monsters laid in wait there, knowing that prey would be coming along the paths. There was a safe road, just one, that went from this city to the edge of the forest, but none that connected the cities, to my annoyance.

Each city was treated as an independent nation, ruled by a merchant council that decided its laws and collected a small tax, which it used to keep the roads safe.

Upon the discovery that this method was simply for a paid witch to cast monster-repelling barriers around the roads, I grinned, and began to formulate plans for another road, which would connect all three cities and therefore open up new routes for the import and export of commerce.

Another plan was the Tunnel idea, but that was foiled by the fact that Earth Mages didn't actually exist, here; there were Mages whose spirit was a Mole or other earth-tunneling creature, but most people with such spirits became miners, not Mages, and my plan was therefore useless, until such a time as I found a mage who would dig tunnels for me.

A third plan was to fly shipments around, hopefully invisible, but that was a no-go for three reasons; 1: flight magic and magical technology existed, but was prohibitively expensive. 2: Invisibility was, likewise, possible, but prohibitively expensive. And finally 3: even overcoming those two obstacles, my profit margins would be so low as to be almost Zero, therefore invalidating the idea, sadly.

Before I could continue with my brainstorming session, however, there was a mighty, shrieking roar outside the city, and father ran to the door, looking out at the roof.

I darted past him, toddling my little legs towards whatever that was. It sounded like a dragon. "Please be a dragon, please be a dragon, please be a dragon..." I muttered fervently, and dashed even harder when I heard my father behind me, yelling at me to come back.

I reached an observation deck, one of the only ways you could look out at the sky in this city, and gasped in awe; in front of us, wings flared wide and the jaws open to gather up a fireball, a dragon with silver scales was being surrounded by a dozen spirit warriors.

I grabbed an oil lantern from nearby, and sprinted up to it, waiting for it to lean its head down to strike, then threw the lantern into its throat just before it could breath fire, rolling out of the way instantly.

First, I'd misjudged it's size, maybe because I was so small; it was barely ten feet tall, which wasn't very impressive, so the throat was too small for the lantern. Instead of going all the way down, it began choking on the lantern, and then the fireball erupted inside its throat, making it swell up momentarily like a frog, before it laid down, slowly choking and clawing at its throat.

The hunters watched in baffled amazement as it slowly stopped twitching, choking totally to death... on a lantern.

I screwed up my nose and looked plaintively at my father as he sprinted towards me, looking worried. "Oh, come on!!! I killed a Dragon, and it wasn't even remotely cool!!!" I complained.

The warriors around it began chuckling, and then roaring with hearty bellows and guffaws, some of them patting my head and promising me the loot, since I'd killed it with my own two hands... or technically a stolen lantern. Still, I was four years old, and so killing a dragon was pretty freaking cool, no matter how you do it.