Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

Pryce woke early in the morning to see Fathom’s great red eyes staring directly at his face, well within arm’s reach. Once he saw that the human was awake he immediately began badgering Pryce to have the stitches removed.

“You’re lucky I’m a morning person,” Pryce mumbled.

“Take out the stitches!” Fathom pestered, ignoring the sentence that he didn’t fully understand. “I want to…move my body?” What had started as a demand died in his throat awkwardly as the dragon realized he didn’t have the word he wanted to use.

“Yeah, yeah, let me get ready,” Pryce said, waving the dragon’s muzzle away with a grumble.

At least taking out stitches was an easy job, he just had to cut the string and pluck them out. Even so, the sheer number of stitches he’d put in resulted in this task lasting more than an hour. He was glad to see that the now pinkish wounds had fully closed and were well on their way to recovery, though they would probably scar quite a bit.

“Wait a minute,” Pryce said involuntarily. “What happened to your old scars?” He asked, noticing that the scars he’d seen when he first met Fathom had faded greatly.

“Healed,” Fathom said simply.

“Huh,” Pryce said; Apparently those were somewhat recent wounds, not old scars. Looking closely he could see that they were still there, just much faded. “Do scars go away after a long time?” He asked.

“Most go away, yes,” Fathom confirmed.

Exceptional regeneration wasn’t really a surprise at this point, though Pryce was a little envious. He certainly wouldn’t say no to faster healing, or to a few extra centuries of life.

“Does this hurt?” Pryce asked, lightly poking the broken wing that was held in place by the two titanium rods.

“No,” Fathom said, then he grunted as Pryce palpated more firmly. “That hurt a little,” he said stiffly.

“Sorry, and I think we need to keep your wing chained for a bit longer, at least until it doesn’t hurt,” Pryce said apologetically. “But other than that, you’re done,” he said, taking out the last stitch he deemed removable. The longest gashes in Fathom’s wings looked like they still needed help holding together, so he had decided to leave them in for another few days, but the wounds on his body were all healing well.

Fathom immediately took this opportunity to stretch, but winced as he pulled on some damaged muscle.

“Yeah, don’t do that, or you’ll rip open your wounds and then I’ll need to put in more stitches,” Pryce warned.

Fathom grumbled discontentedly at this, but moved more gingerly as he tested his range of motion.

“Do you think you can go down to the ship?” Pryce asked, slinging the rifle over his shoulder after Fathom had spent a few minutes twisting himself about.

“Yes,” Fathom nodded eagerly. The dragon had taken a liking to the spices humans used in their cooking, and was eager to try more.

They spent a long time slowly going down the mountain, with Pryce constantly reminding Fathom that the way back up would be harder, and not to push himself too hard. Fathom had grumbled something in response to this nagging that he decided not to translate, instead focusing on how to step down without pulling on the gash along his torso.

The trip took an hour when it would have taken Fathom mere minutes at optimal health, but they did make it to the ship.

“Do your wounds hurt more than normal?” Pryce asked, trying to check his reluctant patient. Fathom was so big that he couldn’t see all of him at once, making it difficult to see if anything had torn.

“No, I am well,” Fathom said, brushing off his concern with a little annoyance. “Get your things, I will help carry them back to my home.”

Before gathering the things he wanted to bring back, Pryce brought out the great steel pot that was used to make stew for the whole crew, lighting a fire underneath it to boil a great amount of soup. His own pot didn’t even make a mouthful at a time for Fathom, and now that he had access to the ship’s stores of food he could toss in all the jerky and vegetables that he wanted.

“Humans have very much metal,” Fathom said, looking at the shiny and perfectly curved steel cylinder with an appreciative eye.

“We have a lot of iron, but less of other metals,” Pryce said, then realized Fathom didn’t know what iron referred to. “I’ll teach you about the names of metal later.”

The chickens had survived despite the fact that he had forgotten to feed them on day 50 as he had far more pressing matters to attend to. The surplus of feed and water he had always left them with had saved their lives, even if they weren’t currently in the best of health. Unfortunately for them, there was no way he could care for them in the future once he left with Fathom to deal with other dragons, so…he made chicken soup.

“Promise me you won’t eat this soup while I’m gone, it’s not done cooking,” Pryce said, not quite trusting Fathom to be alone with a cauldron of aromatic foods he had never tasted before.

“I promise,” Fathom grumbled, setting himself down so that he faced away from the campfire to nap in a sulking manner.

Pryce wanted to bring a large amount of food back up the mountain, but what he could carry wouldn’t even be a single meal for Fathom. Even unloaded Pryce was sure the dragon would have to exert himself greatly to climb back up, so having him help out wasn’t much of a possibility, despite his offer.

What he really needed were books and equipment, so that’s what he decided to prioritize first.

While he did know some amount of history, it completely failed to hold a candle to the wealth of scientific knowledge he had accumulated in the fifty years of his time on the planet. The ship hadn’t brought any history books, save for when past events were mentioned in an academic light, so Fathom’s history lesson would have to wait for later.

What he decided to bring were ultimately books on physics, chemistry, geology, and of course, biology. Pryce tried to look for easier books to bring so that Fathom would be able to learn to read, but he only found a handful. After a moment’s hesitation, he packed up Siebert’s son’s book of Fairy Tales. He was sure they wouldn’t have minded if he used it to teach a dragon how to read.

Next, he packed a few basic lab supplies including a microscope; there wasn’t much Pryce could do here, but he could identify fungal species, which would be helpful in developing other antibiotics in the future.

Finally, he plugged in one of the radio receivers. No signal, as expected, so he packed it into the bags so that he could use it back by the caves. The device was heavy - especially the battery, but it was critical to know when and where the next ship would be arriving.

Pryce felt like he forgot something, but there was only so much weight he could carry. Even if he had forgotten anything he could simply come back for it tomorrow, so he slung the backpack over his shoulder and returned to check up on Fathom.

…who was now brooding over the soup.

“Looking at it won’t make it be done faster,” Pryce said in amusement.

“But it smells good,” Fathom groused plaintively, tail twitching restlessly.

Pryce must have been gone for longer than had he thought, the soup was steaming and looked close to boiling. Ten minutes later he scooped out a large bowl for himself and left the rest to Fathom, who examined the soup studiously before drawing his head back in dissatisfaction - the broth was still scalding hot, and apparently he had ‘seen’ the heat with the pits in his muzzle.

The dragon looked up to see Pryce blowing on a spoonful of soup, and a second later he tried to copy this action with a little too much enthusiasm, causing a bit of the soup to slosh over the edge and onto the sand.

“Wait,” Pryce called out, stifling a chuckle as the dragon fretted over this loss. He added more salt and drinking water to cool the soup off, allowing Fathom to experience the foreign flavors within the stew without burning his tongue.

A dragon sticking his head into a pot was a strange sight to say the least, and soon Fathom was licking the sides of the pot clean while he was only halfway through his own meal. Pryce felt the need to finish it a bit quicker as Fathom licked his chops while casting surreptitious glances at his own bowl.

“Was it good?” Pryce asked. It was a rhetorical question if there ever was one; the pot was sparkling clean.

“Yes,” Fathom murmured contentedly, too pleased to offer a sarcastic response. He had gotten so comfortable that Pryce had to coax him back up the mountain for fear he would fall asleep right there on the beach.

[JOURNAL ENTRY]

Day 56,

Fathom was exhausted by the climb back up today, and immediately went to sleep upon our return. Perhaps we will only make a trip to The Horizon every other day so that he has time to rest inbetween.

It’s not surprising given how little he’s moved and how much muscle he’s lost in the days since he received those injuries; it will take some time for him to make a full recovery.

It seems that teaching him how to read will have to wait given how deeply he’s sleeping. I panned through the book of fairy tales and realized they would be a very confusing thing to start with given how nonsensical they are. There were a few about dragons that Fathom might be interested in, but I don’t think they would be good books to start with.

There are no children’s books aboard the ship for obvious reasons, perhaps I will simply read out loud to him and see if he can memorize each spoken word’s written equivalent.

Now that I think about it, perhaps it’s time for me to try and learn the dragon language. I know I can’t hear some range of frequencies, but I should still be able to recognize most words.

Like I said earlier, I need to somehow get the dragons on my side so that they won’t attack the next ship, whenever it will arrive. This expedition was planned to make landfall on the eastern side of the island at a longitude of around 30 degrees, but The Horizon was blown far off course. No one knows that, so they’ll probably try to find us at that location.

Of course, the second ship could be blown off course too, so best case I somehow get the word out to all the dragons to not attack any humans they see, and to let me know as soon as they find one.

How the hell am I going to do that?

[Day 57]

That morning Pryce had gotten up early to hear the radio ring out at 6:29 AM. It was comforting to hear that noise again, even if it was a pain to wake up so early in the morning. With nothing to do without daylight Pryce went back to sleep, and woke up later to make petri dishes.

“What are you doing?” Fathom asked as he chewed on some of his smoked meat with a dissatisfied air. He had exerted himself too much yesterday, and was forced to eat his own stock of bland meat instead of the relatively flavorful human rations.

“I’m making places for fungi to grow,” Pryce explained, waving the open petri dish around. “I want to see if any fungi here can make antibiotics, I only have 400 grams left, if another dragon gets sick, then I cannot cure them.”

“...I do not see anything in this glass, only some water-like thing,” Fathom said, squinting at the petri dishes. “How can fungi grow here?”

“These glass things are called petri dishes, and the water-like thing is called agar; it’s like food for bacteria and fungi,” Pryce explained. “Fungi grows from very small seeds called spores. I cannot see spores, there are always spores in the air, so I’m trying to get fungi to start growing in the petri dishes. I can’t make antibiotics without better tools, but I can see what fungi on this island can make antibiotics.” He sighed as he looked at the currently transparent gel. “It’s too bad I don’t have the fungi from the mainland, then I could make antibiotics using the things on the ship.”

“...spores are small, and you can not see them, yes?” Fathom asked slowly.

“Yes, why?”

“Does this mean that you can have spores of fungi that make antibiotics on the ship?”

“No, that’s almost impossible,” Pryce dismissed. “The fungi is called Penicillium chrysogenum, it grows on dead fruits, so there’s nothing in the ship that it can grow on.”

“...Are spores like seeds?” Fathom asked after humming in thought for a few moments. “Some seeds last a long time, then become trees.”

“Yes, spores can last a long time,” Pryce confirmed, nodding his head as he laid out the last petri dish. “But I do not know where those spores can be, I would just be guessing where they are.”

“What if spores are on clothes you wear when you make penicillin?” Fathom asked, still gnawing on the dried meat.

“No, I washed my clothes since then,” Pryce said, a little annoyed now. He supposed it was fair for Fathom to be interested in making more penicillin, but -

“How long ago did Max give you Chronometer?”

“...Oh.”

“Good idea,” Pryce said to Fathom, who held his head up smugly until the ache of his injuries made that position unsustainable. Pryce was quite glad he had not voiced any of his irritation as he pried the metal casing open with a screwdriver - it had been crimped shut by one or more of the impacts it had received.

When the device finally popped open he saw that the glass of the clock face had shattered into innumerable pieces. Using a pair of tongs he picked up a few shards of glass and placed them into the petri dishes. The years he spent working with the mold made it a certainty that some spores made their way into the device, though it would likely be in the corners, grooves, and other such hard-to-reach places, which he carefully swabbed as well. All he needed was for at least one spore to be viable, and then he could start a new colony.

Once Pryce was done setting up the cultures Fathom swallowed one last bite of smoked meat and declared that he was fit to climb down the mountain after all, belying his earlier complaints of soreness.

“Alright, just don’t hurt yourself,” Pryce shrugged, rolling his eyes. It was obvious that Fathom wanted more human food, but he had no problems sharing if that meant the dragon recovered more swiftly.

They followed much the same routine as they had yesterday, with Pryce adding extra dried meat into the soup so that Fathom could get the protein he needed to rebuild his atrophied muscles, and the dragon slurped up this meal with just as much enthusiasm as the day before.

“So, I wanted to talk more about the future,” Pryce said after Fathom had finished licking the pot clean.

“You talked about this before,” Fathom said.

“Yes, but I want to talk more about it. More humans will come to find me, but I don’t know when and where they will be here. I need to tell all the other dragons about humans so dragons do not attack any humans, do you know how to do that?” Pryce asked.

“Summer solstice is in 61 days,” Fathom said thoughtfully. “That is when most dragons in this province will be in one place.”

“Yeah, I thought about that too, will those dragons tell dragons in other provinces about me?” Pryce asked.

“If you are interesting,” Fathom scoffed, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Yeah, that won’t be hard to do,” Pryce agreed. “What will be most interesting to them?”

“I think the most interesting things you tell me are how far and how big the sun and moon are,” Fathom said. “But do not tell them the sun is not fire. They will not like that,” he added severely after a moment’s thought.

“Understood,” Pryce nodded. “So if I offer to give them things if they tell me where humans are, do you think they will agree?”

Fathom parted his mouth in a draconic grin. “How many bottles of alcohol do you have?”

[JOURNAL ENTRY]

Day 57,

In short, the plan is to offer a reward (alcohol, as it is one of the more disposable things on the ship that the dragons will covet) to any dragon that can offer information regarding the whereabouts of a human ship, under the condition that they do not approach the humans or the ship while allowing Fathom and I to talk to them first.

One issue is whether or not we should inform the dragons about the existence of guns. Fathom agrees that the dragons might see humans as a threat if we do, but if we don’t then a dragon might get themselves shot by a group of terrified humans.

I dislike deception on principle, but perhaps some ambiguity is the best option for now. We can slowly introduce our capabilities so that it does not come as one big shock.

This plan needs a lot of work, and I’m still conflicted about Pathogen. I’d like to convince Fathom to try and not kill him, but I know nothing about Pathogen himself. If he’s truly malicious, then that advice could get Fathom hurt or even killed…