6. Use It On Your Cave

It's not a hard decision to make. While you're sure you could trade it to the goblins for more sex, you're feeling rather satisfied at the moment, and the possibility of claiming your own land intrigues you.

The journey back to your cave is, as you predicted, long. However, it's also largely uneventful. You spend some time ruminating on Amanda, and wondering if you'll see her again. The way she had debased herself worshipping your cock had been almost cute, for a human. You wonder whether she even heard your offer to come and find you again. Eventually, you decide it's unlikely. If nothing else, without David she would probably struggle to get this far out again. It's a shame, but you'll survive. There's plenty more easily duped people out there, after all.

Eventually, as the sun begins to dip on the horizon, you find yourself back in the familiar rocky terrain that signifies your home. The pathway that winds up the mountain has several off shoots, and it's one of these that you aim for, a narrow pathway which runs through a cliff face, shear wall to one side and sheer fall to the other. This is where you respawn, and thus, where you lair.

Your cave isn't particularly deep, comprised of an entrance easily large enough for most adventurers to fit,and a small cavern, around seven foot to a side. Against one wall a small rivulet of water filled a natural indent. Against the other you had dragged a small pile of stones together to form your bed. Against the third wall, opposite the entrance, an indent in the wall was a reasonable place to store small items.

In the indent, you unloaded the paint box and health potion, giving a small smile imagining what the adventurers who killed you and found these as the loot would think.

You examined the Claimant Crystal still in your inventory, suddenly uncertain if you were making the right choice. How would you claiming land even work? You were far from the most powerful monster on this mountain. What if one of them decided they liked the look of whatever you built here?

You took a deep breath to steady yourself, then Used the crystal. Worst comes to worse your reasoned at the crystal vanished, you just die a bit more than you did before.

You look around, nonplussed.

Nothing looked different.

Nothing felt different.

Disappointed, you slake your thirst at your spring.

Must have been a player only crystal, you reasoned. Maybe there's a way for monsters to get one too.

Still, overall it hadn't been too bad of a day, even with the lacklustre end. You decided to step outside and watch the sunset before you went to sleep.

You view of the sun dipping beneath the forest is somewhat obscured however, by a large popup that looked to be hovering in front of the entranceway. It was, of course, backwards, but you'd gotten quite good at reading backwards popups lately.

Well, that explained why nothing had changed. You accepted the claim and were immediacy given a second, backwards, popup.

And a third, this one in front of you

...Huh.

You'd never had a name before.

Your mind swam with possibilities denied for a moment. You could call yourself Infernox, Lord of Flame and strike fear into the hearts of those who saw you. Up until they saw you were level 5, and a drakeling. Maybe not.

Or you could take a human name like... uh... David. Or Amanda. You couldn't really remember any others at the minute, and you didn't think either of those were particularity appropriate.

In the end, you chose the only thing you could remember being called recently.

“Red Scale” you enunciate clearly, and the third popup vanished. The second now read

You chose yes, again, and the popups vanish.

You wait a few moments but nothing else shows up, and you have quite missed sunset while you waited, so you head back inside to a most unwelcome surprise.

While the inside of your cave is unchanged, two things are missing. You loot hole now contains only a healing potion, and your bed has vanished.

Growling with irritation, and resolving to go out and find some more stones tomorrow, you flop down onto the bare floor after heating it with your breath. Before you go to sleep, you open your character sheet again

Level 5 DrakelingMonster, Microboss, Drake, ExplicitExperience to level up – 420/500AttributesStrength 23 Dexterity 17 Endurance 25Charisma 32 Manipulation 32 Appearance 32Perception 27 Intelligence 25 +1 Wits 23SkillsBrawling 25Athleticism 25Presence 20Lore 25Occult 20Stealth 10Dodge 10Crafting (Stoneworking) 5FeatsFire Breath – Invite – You can invite other creatures to take up residence in your lair as mooks. Doing so successfully grants you experience, and you will gain a small amount of all the experience your mooks gain. You must have a place for them to sleep to invite them.

Micro-Boss – When you are defeated in battle, lose accumulated progress to your next level rather than all gained experience. Spend Fame on unique bonuses to your lair, your mooks and yourself.

Monstrous Appearance – Natural Weapons – Winglets – Wisdom of the Ages –

At the top of the page, you saw a new tab, marked Fame. You flicked over to it.

You expanded the options and saw a more thorough breakdown.

Below that you saw a long list of options, almost entirely comprised of greyed out strings of question marks. However, the top two options were instead greyed out words.

Grinning to yourself, you settle down again, this time much more sure you've made the right decision. You can't begin to guess what most of this will mean for you, but as you close your eyes to sleep as Red Scale for the first time, you finally have the feeling that your life might be about to get better.

You sleep soundly, and dreamlessly, and awake refreshed. Just out of sheer giddiness, you look at your character sheet again, and your fame options. Then you frown.

This, you decide after very little time's consideration, is bad.

Upon a little more consideration however, you decided it could be worse. From the sounds of your new feats, it wouldn't be the end for you. And while you would apparently lose experience, you wouldn't lose fame. Fame which you could now use, you realised.

You hovered over Draconic Liegelord for some time before committing to the expenditure, wishing you could get more information. As soon as you accepted it, however, the option changed.

Your Fame now read: 3 (13), but you were more impressed with the ability you had unlocked. It seemed like whatever this update had done, you looting a Claimant Crystal was one of the best things you'd ever done.

Still, today was a new day.

Who knows what it could bring?