(AN: I made small changes to the previous chapter. You do not have to read it again; it changes nothing in the story. But if you want, I just changed the last part with Vesuvius POV.)
Vesuvius was totally flabbergasted. All of his planning and him being careful were for nothing because someone found one stupid scale, and on top of that, he reacted without thinking about it, confirming it all.
‘Wait, if they are speaking to me, maybe they want something to be quiet.’
The dragon put himself together and spoke, using all of his focus to not sound nervous, even though he wasn’t sure how a nervous dragon sounds, “Well, and what do you want to do about that?”. The surrounding temperature rose up threateningly as the dragon started unconsciously radiating more heat out of his body.
The elven mage shook her head, getting out of surprise as she spoke, “We are not stupid. We know that you don’t want your secret to getting out… So what are you offering us.”
Vesuvius breathed out in relief as he could tell that they weren’t unreasonable or had already decided to go against him. So he started to think about what he could offer them. As first came to his mind that enchanted sword and remaining potions ‘If I just give them something off monetary value, they will probably later ask for more or even abandon our deal fully. Luckily players are players; they look relative casual, so they are probably playing mostly for fun… in that case, I know what I have to do.’
A domineering and cold voice sounded through the burned settlement once again, causing ash to swirl, “I will give you mortals an offer to become my officer minions! I, as a chosen of the dragon god, will rise up to rule this world, and you as my officer minions will rise together with me!”
The spearmen immediately became smug, a huge smile plastered on his face, “You see, in the beginning, you told me that we were lost, but now, in the end, we found a secret storyline.”
No one responded to spearmen’s remark as all three players became suddenly quiet, looking at each other. Normal NPCs would consider them as thinking, but Vesuvius, as a former player, knew that they were probably communicating through private messages.
POV BoobaFet’s party:
The private message system used by players was very similar to how people imagined telepathic communication. They were basically projecting their voice directly into the heads of other players.
As always, Lili was the rational one, ”Calm down, Fet. We need to think about the implications of accepting such a quest.”
”Lili, but it is a hidden storyline, and we will have great roles in it.”
”That is the problem. We will have big roles, but who knows where this storyline will lead.”
”It is just a game, Lili. You are taking it too seriously. Let’s just have some fun.”
FatHammer, who was quiet up till now, finally joined the conversation, ”Fet is right. It’s just a game, so let’s have fun.”
”But this questline looks like one of these insane difficulty quests.”
”Hahaha, from when we were scared of some challenge!”, FatHammer was always one of these freaks that played games at the highest difficulty, suffering continuous deads.
Suddenly the dragon opened his mouth and spoke, interrupting their bickering, “I, the true dragon, require strong minions for my divine mission, so I will let you drink my blood.”
All three of them became immediately excited, and Lili shouted first, “We accept. We will join your divine mission!”
Dragon blood was probably the most expensive material from dragons. It allowed anyone who drank it to transform into a dragonkin race. Both players and natives of Lorenia were attracted to it. Natives for the prospect of eternal youth and players for strength and prestige that came with ultra-rare race. However, it was extremely hard to collect as dragon blood quickly loses its magical properties immediately after the dragon dies. So normally, blood from a slain dragon of Vesuviuses size would be at best enough to transform one person. Humans were greedy and tried to capture small dragons to use as milk cows in the past, but as a prideful race, dragons self-destructed rather than suffer such humiliation. Of course, one could use the blood of lesser draconic species, but they wouldn’t transform into dragonkin, but to a lesser variant like a wyrmkin. On top of that, their blood concentration was much lower than that of true dragons, meaning that one would have to kill huge amounts of them to harvest enough blood essence from their blood to transform. What made that blood even rarer was the reluctance of prideful dragons to use their precious blood to uplift what they considered a lesser species.
Ding!
//
You have joined the dragon faction!
//
Ding!
//
A quest to investigate the drake accomplished!
Rating: S
Reward: 1000 XP, Race changing item: Blood of the true dragon
//
Ding!
// New unique world-class quest!
Content: Help the dragon to gain a foothold in the Azerlisian Forest
Reward: ???
Failure: ???
//
Massive spam of system messages stunned the players. Suddenly the smoke around the dragon’s head dispersed as if it had its own will. The massive horned dragon head covered in black volcanic stone with cracks filled with magma was revealed. Then the dragon bit into his tongue, boiling hot blood flowing out. He brought his clawed hand under his mouth and showed his tongue, letting the bright red, slightly glowing blood flow into his hand.
Then the massive armoured limb carefully moved towards the players, “Drink my minions, drink and become stronger!”