Express proper gratitude to Eiwhyl for her care!
Before leaving, you decide you should somehow express your gratitude to Eiwhyl for all her help with healing you and figuring things out and giving you a home and a job and explaining things to you and... everything, really. Of course it's not a one sided thing, you do your best to help and you get the feeling she likes having you around or at least poking you and figuring out how you work, but you still feel the need to express your feelings in some way.
You think for a while about how to best go about showing that to her. You know just telling that to her won't work. You've watched what happens when her patients thank her. She smiles and nods but you can tell it's rehearsed. You don't want her to treat you like that. Credits too wouldn't work, for similar reasons. But maybe some other thing would work if given as a gift. You inspect your hoard, trying to decide what would work best. You consider the glass bird for a while. It's shiny. It has memories on it. You know you like it. But you're not sure Eiwhyl will. It doesn't have a use beyond looking pretty (and perhaps being sold for credits) and you've not seen a single thing around her room that has no use. Yes, best to keep it for yourself. But this thing... You inspect one of the colourful bottles you got from the Killer's home, watching its color change as you hold it in front of the light. You move the thing keeping it closed a bit and sniff near the top, doing your best to capture a hint of its contents. A fruity, tasty scent of alcohol confirms your suspicions. This is some sort of alcoholic drink. And Eiwhyl likes drinks with alcohol in them. She rarely drinks, but the few times you've seen her drink, you could tell she liked it. One of those bottles could make a great gift. You have no idea which one Eiwhyl would like best, both smell better than her usual bottles of Trash Grog, so you choose one at that smells best to you and hope she'll approve.
Once you've packed your things and are ready to move out, you approach Eiwhyl. She's sitting down, reading something while waiting for the machine next to her to finish the printout of its analysis. She looks up from her datapad to stare at you questioningly. You raise your hands, moving them out of your cloak to present the bottle to her.
"For you."She looks at you for a moment and sighs. She doesn't look happy. Did you make a mistake? Then she picks up the bottle and inspects it for a few seconds.
"Did you pick this out yourself?"You confess that you just chose it at random. She snorts in amusement.
"The universe really does have a sense of humor. So you don't know what sort of drink this is?""It has a strange label." you admit.
"It's called Dragonjuice."You process the words for a second and then recoil.
"Dragon juice? Juice from... dragons?"You suddenly feel very glad to be rid of this bottle. Eiwhyl just laughs. You don't see why she's laughing.
"No, not like that." she eventually explains, once she's managed to control her laughing somewhat.
"It's made from something called Dragon Fruit."Dragon Fruit?
"Plants can be dragons too?" you ask with some surprise.
Eiwhyl laughs even harder at your quite reasonable question.
"It's just a name. Don't think too hard about it." she says and pats you on the side.
You are very annoyed with whoever named this thing. People should be more careful with their naming. They shouldn't throw dragon around like it's nothing.
"Even more interesting, the fruit is supposed to have healing properties, which are made more potent by the distillation process that turns it into alcohol. So I'd say it's doubly appropriate."Huh. That
is interesting. You wonder how powerful the healing is.
"Plus, it's damn expensive. Imported stuff like that is hard to come by."You try very hard to focus on the fact she likes it and avoid thinking about all these credits and/or potential health item you just gave up. Yes, you still have that other bottle. Just have to try to forget about this one.
"Thanks." she says with a smile. Yes, she definitely likes it.
"Thank you too." you say and try to imitate her smile.
"...yeah, don't do that." she says while pointing towards your head.
You cock your head to the side, unsure of what she means.
"You'll give someone a heart attack."Without explaining further, she leans down to hide the bottle in a cupboard.
"Let's crack it open when you're back, okay?""Okay." you respond, swishing your tail with some excitement.
She goes back to reading her datapad, though you notice the smile on her face linger for some time.
Item lost: 1 bottle of DragonjuiceYou go to the entrance, double check you have everything you need and then depart.
Visit Ali.
You decide to take it easy and walk to Ali's Apartment. There aren't that many people around and your cloak should hide your appearance enough to help you keep a low profile.
You take the elevator down to her level and then make your way to her apartment. You don't encounter many people, you just see two humans making their way to the exit. They pay you no mind, they don't even turn to look at you. After double checking to make sure nobody will see you going inside, you tap the button that activates the keypad and input the lock-code. The screen flashes red and the door complains with a long beep. They changed the code again. Of course they did. You press the button that requests entrance instead and wait for her to open. Nothing happens for a while. Maybe she didn't hear you? You look around and, after making sure the hallway is still empty, press the button again. A couple of seconds later there's a cracking noise as the speaker activates.
"Who is it?" Ali's voice comes through the speaker.
"Draggy." you respond.
There's silence for a few more seconds and then the door opens. Ali is standing on the other side. She looks at you with some surprise. Ah. Yes. This is the first time she sees you dressed like that. You should greet her so that she knows it's you.
"Hell-oof!"Your greeting is cut short by Ali tackle-hugging you, catching you by surprise, arm still half-extended in greeting. Despite her size she almost manages to throw you on your back. You swish your tail and arms like mad, trying to maintain your balance, cursing humanoids and their stupid unstable two legs. Ali seems to either notice your unstable position or to want to go back inside, so she grabs one of your arms and pulls you in with her, closing the door behind you.
...
The meeting was... You'd missed her. It was nice seeing her again, talking about the things she learned and about the things you saw. She told you about all the new things she learned from her books. You told her of the lavish houses under the fake-sun. You talked about a book you gave her, how much she enjoyed the characters and dialogue, how much you enjoyed the action and interesting places, about each one's favourite chapters. She asked you to give her the exercises she'd given you so she could check them. That's one thing you'd be glad if she forgot about. You begrudgingly produced your datapad and proceeded to transfer your work to her in exchange for more work to complete, quite an unfair exchange you think. She talked with excitement about solving some difficult problem, something about fake droids colliding. You didn't fully understand, but you enjoyed her excitement nonetheless. You shared a meal with her while watching holovision and simply enjoyed each other's company. ... She also told you of how hard her parents are working. You think she was concerned, but she told you it's fine. You told her about how hard it was being sick and confined to a bed. About how Eiwhyl can be really helpful but also very stubborn about some things. About how you are trying to learn how your body works. About how you defeated that strange creature that masqueraded as a human to kill others. You didn't tell her too much about your fight. She didn't seem comfortable with it. She asked you to be careful. You said you would. She asked you not to go to dangerous places. You couldn't promise her that. You need to explore. You need to hunt. You tried to explain to her and you think she might have understood, even if she didn't say she agreed. You repeated you'd be careful. She asked you to not kill others. You asked why. She said because it's wrong. You disagreed. She wasn't happy with that. She insisted it was wrong, that you shouldn't do it. But you can't promise that either. You have to defend yourself. You have to defend Ali. You have to defend Eiwhyl. You won't let others take them from you. The disagreement left some awkwardness. Some time later the two of you hugged and you left. Focusing on walking on two legs was a good distraction after that.
HOT DRINKS HOT DRINKS
Visit Ali, THEN GET HOT DRINKS!
Ali, and then see if hot drinks can feed our fire.
You make your way through the streets. There's a lot of people going about their business, but despite some occasionally bumping into you, few stare and nobody bothers you. You make your way back to the place that sold those wonderful hot drinks you so enjoyed last time, still intent on following Eiwhyl's advice and taking it easy for now. You can take it easy, enjoy yourself (and the wonder that is hot drinks) and experiment all at the same time. Clearly it's the best choice to make right now.
You arrive there and are once again greeted by that annoying waiter droid.
"Hello sir." he greets you.
You don't know why, but you think he really wants to say is 'Oh, it's you.'.
"Will you be sitting at the bar again?"He manages to somehow make it feel condescending and accusatory. You know his voice sounds polite, but still, something about it... Maybe it's just your imagination.
"Yes.""Of course. Right this way sir."You make your way to the bar. The place is a bit more packed than usual, so the bartender is a bit busy, but not too much. Most get only
mildly warm drinks instead of
GLORIOUSLY HOT drinks, which don't appear to require as much preparation. Soon enough the plump four-eyed humanoid is standing in front of you, greeting you with a big smile.
"Hey there, friend."He seems to remember you from last time, when you were here asking for information about the Killer. Or maybe he just remembers how you displayed your superiority by defeating his hot drink. Yes, that must be it. You greet him back and request one of those super hot drinks they serve here. You begin searching for the credits necessary but he reaches out and places a hand on your arm, stopping you.
"First one's on the house." he says, still smiling.
You're glad to hear that. You nod eagerly. The one thing better than scalding hot drinks are free scalding hot drinks.
"So... Everything went well with your hunt?" he asks as he goes about preparing the drink for you.
Age: some months (wyrmling)
Size: about the size of a human (if bipedal)
Status: fine
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: scales
Abilities:
- Flight: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances. You can even fly upwards, though not for very long distances. You can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your flight time.
- Basic Human Language: You are able to understand many of the most common words of the human language, including some that express more abstract things, though there are still a great many words and expressions that you have yet to learn. You can also read, though it takes you some time to understand the words. You can also speak, though it's sometimes hard for others to understand you.
- Communication: You have a knack for understanding other beings, even those whose language you don't know.
- Basic Nursing: You know the basics of caring for patients and preparing and maintaining equipment used in their care. You can also administer certain simple treatments. However you still lack much of the knowledge necessary for you to be able to determine what said treatment should be.
- Magic: You can cause supernatural effects, though doing so consciously is hard and with any level of control is hard. You know of some of the effects you can cause, but there might be more you have yet to discover or unlock. See Magic section for more details.
Inner Fire: Ashes
- Burn Self: Gain a level in hunger or tiredness and in exchange gain a level of Inner Fire.
- Sense Inner Fire: You can sense the inner fire of other beings, allowing you to detect most living things in your surroundings. This also gives you an indication of the danger they could pose and the amount of fire you could gain from consuming them.
Cost: Minor - Cleansing: Direct your inner fire to a part of your body to cleanse a debilitating status effect.
Cost: Low-Medium - Fiery Strength: Direct your inner fire to your muscles and bones, granting you supernatural strength.
Cost: Medium
- Maintenance Tunnels:
- Large Sonic Rifle covered by old torn clothes
- 2 holdout blaster pistols (roughly 20 shots each, effective range 20m, HSB-200)
- Low quality vibroknife (low battery)
- Eiwhyl's Clinic:
- 576 credits (5 orange, 11 blue, 7 red, 4 grey, 6 cyan, 4 pink)
- 2 packs of smoke sticks
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- Warm blanket
- Datacard with human medical information
- Datacard with human language dictionary
- Datacard with dragon info compilation
- Datacard with story about hunter of dragons
- small glass statue of bird
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications (dropped in hallway)
- Large hooded cloak
- Half-used medpac
- Purse with credit-reader:
- 135 credits (2 orange, 1 blue, 1 red, 1 grey)
- 175 slightly burnt credits (1 green, 2 blue, 1 red, 5 grey)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- pack of smoke sticks
- lighter
- keycard with symbol
- 2 stun grenades
- 2 fog? grenades
- 1 grenade
- 2 grenade thrower mines
- 1 medpack
- 1 bottle with red liquid and unreadable label
- Basic Datapad (contains datacard with encrypted files)
- Ali's Apartment: A tiny 2 bedroom apartment. The little human Ali lives there with Dad/Jobal and Mom/Ania. Room 327.
- Ali's Apartment Tower: Apartments arranged in a circle. Clean, bright, mostly locked doors, few hiding places. Little traffic during the night.
- Eiwhyl's Clinic (Lair): Sells medpacs and other healing items and provides treatment. Warning: stabby. Room 509.
- Streets: Dirty streets, parked hovercars, shops, building entrances, street vendors, little traffic during the night.
- Maintenance Tunnels: Interconnected tunnels, small and large, going low and high. Connect various streets and buildings. Wires and pipes. Dark, dirty, with old machines constantly rumbling. Scavenger-vermin and hunters-of-vermin.
- Garbage Pit: A large room with mountains of garbage half-submerged in a sea of sludge. More garbage frequently arrives from holes in the ceiling. A monster lurks here, may pull prey underwater.
- Hydroponic Pool: A room with a large pool filled with plants. A ceiling full of bright lamps. A spherical gardener-droid takes care of the plants. Patrolled by hostile gunmen. A corridor leads to other rooms. Storage room. Processing room. Other rooms are unexplored.
- Iyran Grower Shop: A store located deeper into the tower's streets. Operated by a cephalopoid. The grower sells cheap synthetic meat, amongst other things.
- Upscale Cafe: A small place with tasty but somewhat expensive food and hot drinks. The bartender is nice but the waiter droid is annoying.
- Upscale Streets: A section of the tower mimicking a suburban neighborhood, including a fake sun. Most buildings guarded.