“What the fuck is this then?”

  Cutter looked at the opened binder in Monk’s hands.

  The ogre said nothing, he just looked around at the others with an expression of smug interest.

  Tiller peered at the page displayed and stabbed a finger, not quite touching the parchment. It was a tangled mess of scripts he couldn’t read, symbols he knew nothing of, and beautiful drawings. His finger hovered just above a drawing of a familiar device.

  “That’s a composter.”

  Cutter frowned, “Is it… looks kind of different…”

  The two men looked up at the ogre and Cutter repeated, “What the fuck is it then?”

  Monk let his self-satisfied expression drift towards Tiller. The adept had been staring at the pages as well. Unlike the others, he had remained silent. His eyes glowed with the light that indicated he was accessing his connection with Grim.

  Tiller looked to Reader. “Can you read this? What the hell are we looking at?”

  Reader held up a hand. His glowing eyes remained fixed on the page as though hypnotized. Absently, he said, “Hush a minute. I need to concentrate. I’m… I’m accessing the tomes in Grim’s library… I can’t just absorb language into my understanding but I can kind of do a control-F thing where I can search word by word… I need to concentrate…”

  Monk continued to observe Reader. Tiller and Cutter both gained the sensation that the shaman was testing the adept in some way.

  The moments stretched and the idle men grew restless. Cutter grumbled, “Don’t know what the excitement about a composter would be, I thought we did that part of the arc already.”

  “Maybe it’s a recipe for making more! Imagine, we could build a battery of them or something.”

  Suddenly, Reader’s voice was speaking over them. His tone was intense, excited and filled with wonder. “It’s better than that.”

  Tiller scoffed, “Better than a battery of composters.”

  “Yes… you don’t need a battery of composters. Your restriction isn’t the number of composters, it’s the material to put into it. Besides, it almost works instantly.”

  “Well… yeah, sure…”

  Cutter said, “So what’s so hot about this?”

  Reader’s eyes had lost their glow. “It’s instructions to upgrade the composter. But I don’t understand, if you guys had this all along, why didn’t you use it?”

  Tiller was full of excitement, “What kind of upgrade? What does it do?”

  Cutter was despairing, “More composter bullshit? I thought it was time to slay dragons and shit.”

  Reader had no ears for them, his attention fixed on Monk.

  The ogre nodded, satisfied with Reader’s work. “The reasons are manyfold. The task requires someone on a path of learning to even read these pages. After that it requires a mage, wizard or adept of at least an iron band to accomplish. More importantly is the challenge of the materials. Can you see those as well, adept?”

  Reader nodded slowly, the light of realization flushing his face, “Dragon parts…”

  Tiller was instantly intrigued, “Dragon parts?”

  Reader said, “It needs dragon scales to complete it. Other things as well, but the dragon scales are the biggest problem.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Tiller glanced to Monk, “Your dad told me that his uncle… your brother…”

  Monk nodded sadly, “Died in pursuit of a dragon. Yes. He wanted to gather the parts to make this a reality, to expand the tribe. His death in that cause is a large part of the reason that Father abandoned the task.”

  Tiller whispered, “What does it do?”

  Monk didn’t answer, only waited for Reader.

  Reader said, “It will… wow… it will increase the amount of soil it produces when material is put in.”

  Tiller said, “Like a boost?”

  Reader’s eyes were wide. “Like a really big boost.”

  Cutter narrowed his eyes, interested and yet vaguely suspicious. “What kind of a boost are we talking here?”

  Reader said, “Triple.”

  Both of the other men took a step back. It was Tiller’s voice that rang out, incredulous and ecstatic, “Triple? Are you serious?”

  Reader nodded, soberly, his expression still vacant with wonder, “It doesn’t change the weaves, it just enhances like all of them.”

  Tiller breathed, almost inaudibly, “Triple… holy shit, if I’d known this I’d have held onto the bodies…” He glanced up at Monk and winced. “Shit, sorry.”

  “No, no, clan-father. You’re right. It would have been practical. That is my fault. I would have had you stay your hand, but I didn’t know if a bargain would be struck to make you clan-father. The bodies of my kin were yours by right of victory.”

  Tiller was distant. “Still… if we could triple production… stockpile material until the upgrade is done…”

  Reader waved a hand at him, “Whoah. Hold up. You’re skimming over the big parts. I need to level up to make this happen—”

  Tiller cut in. “You’re almost there, your bar is nearly full like mine!”

  Reader went on, “AND… and we need to kill a dragon!”

  Tiller said, “Can’t we just buy the scales?”

  Monk laughed, “You can’t afford them. Even if they were on the market, you couldn’t afford them. And they are never on the market. Such things are so rare, they are snapped up as soon as they appear.”

  Reader said, “See!”

  Cutter barked, “But you wanted me to get you a dragon horn!”

  Tiller glanced at him, puzzled. Cutter waved him off, “Later.”

  Monk said, “Father told you of the location of a dragon. If you don’t know the details, then I do. The same dragon that slayed my uncle.”

  Tiller sobered. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I didn’t think that far ahead. This is amazing, Monk, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not worth any of us dying over.”

  Cutter snapped, “Like hell it isn’t! I want to kill a fucking dragon! I’m all iron-banded and shit now! I can kill a dragon! Let me at him! You don’t need me hanging around any more with the threat of ogre-wars all wrapped up.”

  Tiller said, “We still need some security around here.”

  Cutter said, “There’s Norris, he’s getting better, be right as rain soon. And Huntress is hanging around a lot. I bet she’d take a security job and defer payment till later. Poor little bunny is trying to get in my pants, I think. She’ll do anything to keep me happy.”

  Reader said, “And Stone Robot.”

  Cutter shook his head, “He’s my wheels. And he’s the Robin to my Batman. If I go after a dragon, he’s coming with me. Plus, don’t know if you noticed, but he basically can’t die. That’s hella useful.”

  Tiller said, “The two of you can’t go alone. The thing killed Monk’s uncle. It will kill you too. You’d need to take the other fighters as well.”

  Reader said, “We can’t let them all go. We’ve got two stations now, the farm and the ranch, we need fighting classes to protect it.”

  Tiller cursed, “Dammit. If I had more cash to spare I could hire more goons… wait, what other shit can you get from a dragon?”

  Monk shrugged, “The claws, teeth, scales, eyes, tongues… all of it has value. Even the bones are worth more than you might think…”

  Tiller turned to Cutter. “Shit. If you can kill it… and we use the scales for the composter and the horns for whatever the hell Reader is after, then the rest of it could be used to generate enough money to fund the farm for… wait, how much gold are we talking about?”

  Monk said, “Even a small dragon would be worth several hundred gold, clan-father. Even after the scales and horns were used elsewhere.”

  “Oh my God! That’s the solution then! Cutter, you’ve got two weeks to go find it, kill it, then get back here. We can use the scales to really up the soil coverage and up our production and sell the other parts to cover our expenses until the new soil starts making money! If I can stockpile enough material for composter, then we triple production, we’d get close to breaking even.”

  Reader said, “Still need a rancher or something to manage the animals.”

  Tiller said, “Yeah, for sure. But if we increase the tillage space and make a mint on dragon parts then we’ll have time to fix that too.”

  Reader was hesitant. “Yeah, but if we send all the fighters on the quest then we’ll be exposed. Some raptors or goblins or some shit will show up and we’ll lose everything.”

  Cutter was excited and expansive, “Boys! Boys! Those are just details! Pesky little details! Details don’t matter! You know what matters?”

  They both said, “What?”

  Cutter grinned savagely, then went on to finish another chapter with the same phrase he’d used all the way back in Chapter 8 of Book 2. “When this is all done they’ll call me… Cutter the Hoo-man, Dragon Slayer!”

  Chapter 2-...

  “Wait! What? You break this shit into chapters and books? When did Book 2 end? What do you mean I said this before?” The fighter was staring into the sky and burning with irritation.

  He paused and breathed deeply, “You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill a dragon!”

  A Time of Change and Broken Chains. That process is moving along pretty well, I’m more than a third of the way through it, but it’s taxing. I could write all day long, every day, and be so happy. Rewriting and editing are not my jam. They are so not my jam that I struggle to stay focused, to get through it. It’s honestly really hard going for me. I know, boohoo, but it’s a personal thing where I just have to keep muscling through.