The humans seem to think there's some reason we shouldn't go out. So if we do we need to be careful and make sure nothing sees us.
Agreed. Would it be possible to watch the holovision to learn more about the language? Trying to copy what they say?
This would be done instead of the previous plan
You are already doing that. Whenever Ali watches holovision you usually join her. It has helped you acquire an extremely vague general knowledge about the world. You could ask her to teach you about something specific, if you can figure out how to ask about it.
Make sure door locks behind us.
Good catch. I'd have you leave the door unlocked if you hadn't written that. Remember everyone, you're a cute baby dragon, you don't know much about anything.
Wait until nightfall, then unlock the door and exit the building, hunt for something to eat
The rest of the day goes like normal, though there's an unusual tension in the air. You try to be unassuming, eating quickly and then curling up to pretend to sleep. You wait until the final light goes out and then you wait some more. When you think enough time has passed, you get up and then approach the locked door as quietly as you can.
You lean against the doorframe with your front legs and use your snout to push the button that activates the lock-pad. Then you very carefully input the lock-code by nudging the holographic symbols. 1. 1. 3. 8. With the final number the holographic lock-pad disappears and the button that opens the door turns from red to green.
You hesitate for a moment. This house has been almost your entire life. Everyone has been telling you not to do this. Maybe it would be safer to listen to them. Maybe it would be better to just stay here and watch holovision all day. But you don't want to do that. You
can't do that. You feel the urge to go out, to walk freely, to stretch your legs and wings, to explore and most of all to
hunt, to
kill, to
eat. This life has been good, but it has also been a life of little freedom and constant
hunger. It's time to change that.
You press the button. The door quietly slides open, revealing the familiar slice of wall you've seen so many times. But now it doesn't close immediately like it did so many times before. You poke your head outside. Outside is a long curving hallway. Your door is on the outer curve. There are many other doors in this hallway, both in the inner and outer curve.
There's a thing out there. It's not human. It's floating, making a weird noise, sucking dust and dirt through a hole on its underside. You've seen things like this in holovision "advertisements". You think they're called "smartvacs". Machines that eat dirt and gather things from the floor. Humans like to keep their floors clean, Mom uses a soft device at the end of a brown stick, a "broom", to do the same. If it's like a broom then it shouldn't be dangerous, as long as you don't stand in its way. It's also not edible. Well, hunting couldn't be that easy.
You slowly walk out. You then get up on two legs and (after making sure there's an unlock button on this side) press the door lock button. The door slides closed and the button turns red. The first thing you do is look around and memorize this location so you can get back in the correct door. Most doors have some numbers next to them. The one you got out of has the numbers 3, 2, 7.
After you're certain you remember which door is the right one, you start exploring. You keep walking through the hallway until you notice you've arrived back where you started. This hallway is a circle, then. It doesn't have any bipeds in it, the smartvac is its only inhabitant. Almost all the doors in it have red buttons, which probably means they're locked. There are two doors like the one you came out of that have green buttons. One is on the outer wall, has the numbers 3 4 3 and some glowing symbols you don't understand. The other is on the inner wall, has the number 3 1 0 and a small rectangle with symbols you don't understand. There's also two doors that are far larger than all the others, one on the inner wall and one on the outer wall. Both have green buttons but the one on the outer wall also has a green sign above it, similar to the ones you saw after you hatched.
Age: a few weeks (hatchling)
Size: about the size of a large dog
Status: hungry
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: soft scales
Abilities:
- Glide: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances, though your wings are too weak to allow you true flight. However you can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your glide time.
- Rudimentary Human Language: You are able to understand human language to a very basic degree. You won't understand everything though and there will likely be misunderstandings. You can also attempt to speak, but you can only form simple, short sentences and it's very hard for others to understand you.