Leo took the stairs down from the top of Elgin Isle to the beach. The stairs were a work of art now, carved by Hugh, with an almost snake-like path down with railing that appeared to be an extremely stretched mud dragon on either side.

  Hugh had Earth magic instead of the normal storm dragon magic, which was Air. The lack meant he couldn’t fly and had no breath weapon attack, but could level. He had done so, and taken Earth shaping abilities, which he used to create statues. Once they had been crude, but after a year of paid instruction from a renowned artist and near-constant practice, he had gotten very good at it.

  The beach itself was covered in sunbathing dragons, as well as multiple statues—all also of dragons. Hugh had done a statue of his lover Zun in her armor with rocks hovering around her, her face downward facing with blind eye. He had placed near the top of a large rock on the beach—to give it perspective, he claimed. He had also done another piece of his lover Tea playing with multiple of their adopted mud wyrm children, which he had placed in the surf so it looked as if they were playing in the surf. Other, slightly less creative statues of other dragons—his friend Cal, his mother Ann, a dragon he had once carried a flame for named Polly—around the beach.

  A few more dragons waved at Leo as he walked among them, but most ignored him. He made his way over to Hugh’s cave.

  Hugh had made his own cave amazing. The entrance was thirty feet across now, with a deep channel on one side for dragons to swim in, a shallower channel for those that wanted to walk in through water, and a raised space for those that wanted to walk in dry. Glowstones shed light throughout the entrance, and the whole thing was carved with Bas relief of various scenes of famous dragons.

  Waiting at the front was one of the mud wyrms that Hugh had adopted after the fight against House Orsini last year. Hugh had raided their bank as part of a campaign to put pressure on them and force them to come out of their fortress and fight. He had found a bank vault with the four eggs in them. No one had ever discovered who had the eggs, or why—and according to Hugh, mud wyrms were very common dragons, so even storing them in a vault was a bit weird.

  Regardless of the who or why, Hugh had rescued them and was now raising them. Each mud wyrm, as a baby wyrm, had a thin, longer body with mud colored scales and a face closer to an Axolotl than a true dragon in Leo’s opinion. They also didn’t fly.

  But they could level—and get larger. Only one had been consistently availing himself of the opportunity, however. With the leveling stats came size, so that wyrm stood out to Leo.

  “Hey Mac,” Leo said to the six-foot-long mud wyrm at front.

  “King Leo,” the mud wyrm said, contracting its long body in an awkward parody of a bow which revealed a bottle of wine behind him.

  Leo frowned as the one-year-old wyrm took a drink and then sighed. “Man I won the lottery being born here. Did I tell you that I left a bottle of wine in the dungeon and it occasionally reproduces it?”

  Leo waved his hand at Hugh’s adopted child. “Don’t bother with bowing. I’ve never stood on ceremony.”

  “Want some?” the wyrm asked, holding the bottle forward.

  Leo wasn’t sure how to deal with a sentient, talking, fighting one year old that was also drinking. He just knew he didn’t like it. But every dragon thought it perfectly normal for those that could afford it. They were more weirded out by Hugh depleting his own hoard for his child. Especially an adopted child. There complaints usually boiled down to ‘a dragon shouldn’t drink till he can pay for it or raid it himself.’

  Ignoring the wine bottle, Leo asked, “How has adventuring been going?”

  Hugh had been paying far more money to buy delves into the two dungeons inside Leo’s realm than for booze. It was so that his children could level. Hugh had offered it to all his children, and each had made a level, but three of them barely bothered. Mac, however, went all the time. He had the demeanor of a sleazy used-car salesman, and Leo knew a lot of his build was tricky and… roguelike… but he was a hard worker.

  Mac gave a tooth-filled grin to Leo. “Well, given that Dad is so generous and kind to me, I’ve made Level Six with my adventuring party now. Also, since that new dungeon is a Water dungeon, I’ve been super useful to my group. I’ve made a ton of money, and I’ve got my own little hoard going, and some decent abilities. I’m going to be an amazing dragon someday, just like Dad.”

  “Wyrm,” Lily said automatically, correcting.

  Mac frowned at her. “Well, sure, I’m a wyrm. Dad can’t fly either, so it’s fine. No need to point it out.”

  Lily flushed slightly. “Sorry, just an automatic habit to correct inaccuracies, I wasn’t trying to be mean.”

  “It’s cool,” Mac said. Then he tilted his head slightly, an expression clearly learned from Hugh. “You guys here to see the hatching of Hugh’s real children?”

  “You’re his real child,” Leo said, automatically. “He cares for you deeply. Why aren’t you in there?”

  “Eh, seems boring,” Mac replied, waving his bottle around.

  “C’mon, ya scoundrel,” Leo said affectionately. “No hiding out here and getting drunk to avoid seeing your new baby brothers and sisters.”

  “You can’t make me…” Mac began, but Leo just raised an eyebrow.

  “Fine, fine,” Hugh’s kid groused. “I’ll lead you there. But I’m out the first time your back is turned, just sayin’.”

  Mac ran across the dry walkway, his Chinese-style dragon body awkward on land, then jumped into the water entrance. He led them into the main cave, which had a huge pool in the center, with a rock covered in carefully placed bioluminescent mushrooms in the middle of the pool. Numerous tunnels led off the main cave, and Mac exited the water again and led them waddling down one. It was a much less stylish tunnel that led to a nearly empty cave. In the center of the cave, however, was a thick set of woolen blankets around the base of five more eggs.

  Not one of them was rocking, despite the intense stares of the three dragons in the cave.

  The largest one, almost twelve feet long, was Leo’s best friend Hugh. The other two were Zun and Tea, his lovers. Zun was about nine feet long and was missing a wing and had an obviously shattered and atrophied leg. Tea was seven feet long and missing her front foreleg.

  Since they all had bronze scales, swept back horns, and no visible primary or secondary sex characteristics, Leo was very glad they were all different in such large ways. He hadn’t ever mistakenly called them the wrong name, and could recognize all three easily.

  Hugh glanced up, grimaced, and rolled his eyes. “Might as well go back, Leo. By Merdrek’s long slumber, they’re taking their sweet time hatching. Not even a wriggle to any of the eggs. I’m legit beginning to think that they aren’t going to be coming today at all.”

  “They will,” Tea said, confidently.

  “I hope so,” Zun said. “Not that I don’t ejoy both your company, but this is boring beyond all reason.”

  “Too true,” Mac said quietly from beside Leo. “And on that note…”

  Leo watched, amused, as the mud wyrm scurried back out of the cavern.

  Hugh called after him, “You have to help welcome your brother’s and sister’s to the world when they’re ready! If you don’t I’ll cut your wine ration!”

  Then he lowered his head and spoke in a quieter, slightly higher-pitched voice.. “Hey, Tea?”

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Would you mind if I went and hung out with Leo and Lily for a bit? Just at the front of the cave, maybe?”

  “If he goes I’m going,” Zun said.

  Tea sighed. “Just stay in ear shot and I’ll call if anything interesting happens.”

  The three of them walked to the front of the cave. Mac saw them coming and scampered out further onto the beach, although Leo wasn’t sure why. Maybe just a sense it was his Dad’s friend group, not his. Leo had never had any desire to talk to his Dad’s old gold buddies when they came over either.

  “So, gate formed yet?” Hugh asked.

  Leo shook his head no. “Anxious to get away from all your kids? Nine is rough, even for a three parent household.”

  Hugh shook his head. “No, not at all. But I’ve been paying an absolute ton of money to get Mac, and the other three lazy bastards, delves in the dungeon. I helped finance the Dragon’s Fall inn relocation. I paid for essence potions so I could make caves—which is super inefficient, I had to give that up fast. I have paid for a ton of alcohol for my friends and kids.”

  Leo held up a hand, “About that—”

  Hugh laughed. “C’mon, ya cat, I’ve told you and told you—dragons are different. We’re more capable, and more knowledgeable, than an average adult human. Right out of the egg, even. Drinking isn’t a problem for us.”

  Well, you certainly aren’t wiser, Leo thought, but held his tongue. Everyone on this world did seem to believe that dragon’s drinking was fine… But it still made Leo shudder.

  Hugh continued. “As I was saying, I’m bleeding gold. My hoard is dropping the same way my Mom dropped me into that river—like a rock. What you pay me can’t even begin to cover it. I either get adventuring or wildly change my lifestyle. Not to mention cutting down on what I’m doing for my kids and my community. Plus, Tea and Zun are getting pretty irritated by the shrinking hoard.”

  “Yeah, shrinkage upsets women in a lot of categories,” Leo said.

  Usually, Hugh got his jokes, but this time he just nodded vigorously. “Yeah, they’ve been frustrated. I thought that staying with my mates and kids would be a great new lifestyle. I must admit though… somehow it never clicked to me that they would then get to have a huge say in how I spend my hoard. I don’t want to be a bad mate myself… so we need to go beat up some more creatures and take their ill-gotten goods.”

  “And get experience,” Leo said. “I’ve been stuck at Level Sixteen for the whole year.”

  “I finally made Twelve, so I’m caught up as a Level sixteen creature myself,” Hugh said.

  Leo raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, I’ve been adventuring with my kid. While everything I kill only gives me a single experience, I was already kinda close.”

  “Huh, not bad,” Leo said. “What did you get as an ability?”

  “I took the advanced Earth manipulation ability. I can hold for ten times as long for twice the essence.”

  “Huh.” Surprised he didn’t take more defensive or offensive abilities.

  Hugh gave him the side eye. “By Merdrek’s teeth, you’ve been packing more opinions into your stupid ‘huh’ noise from the day I met you than you do into full blown speeches.”

  Lily laughed.

  Hugh grinned a Cheshire cat grin at her. “Lily gets it. And I know what you’re saying, but I do want to be able to manipulate the Earth better. I’ll spend most of my powers on combat stuff, swear. Besides, ya cat, I know you have four or five non-combat abilities yourself.”

  “Huh,” Leo said again, and all three chuckled.

  In the silence that followed, Leo looked at his own status chart.

  It hadn’t changed in a year, except for a few skill increases. Leo felt a certain frustration and greed both. He couldn’t deny that he secretly hoped he could level again, and soon—he wanted the gate to open to an easy adventure against really bad people, although he hated the thought. It was easy to fall into the trap of trying to self-improve by killing things for experience. The dungeons would solve that someday, but for the moment, Leo was too high level to benefit much.

  For the third time today, Leo glanced up at his tree. Soon. He knew he was playing with fire in his wish, and he really didn’t want interesting times in the Chinese sense of the word… but he did love leveling.

  Lily laughed, and Leo flushed. She knows what I’m thinking.

  Lily stood and brushed her hands off on her dress, although no dirt appeared on the illusory garment. “Well, shall we head to the meeting, then, since we’re not about to see eggs hatch?”

  Leo stood as well. “Let’s do it.”