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Ashley sat on the ground beside her dog. She and Puddles stared at the group of people who were engrossed in looking at the dragon tablet. Vur, Tafel, and Mary were sitting right in front of it while Lindyss sat in a rocking chair not too far away. The surface of the dragon tablet was a blank slate to her and Puddles. The dog turned his head towards Ashley. “Why don’t you ask him to let us watch too? It looks like they’re having fun.”
The Light Lord shook her head. Even if Vur let her see what was on tablet, who was to say the other dragons wouldn’t be upset at her poking around their private network? “Curiosity killed the cat.”
“But satisfaction brought it back!” Sir Selddup said and stood up. He trotted towards Vur. “I want to watch too. Can I?”
“Sure,” Vur said. He picked up a pebble and flicked it at the dragon tablet before turning towards the white dog. “Can you see?”
“Wow!” Sir Selddup said, his eyes widening. “Is that the ninety-first floor?”
“Yep,” Tafel said from her spot between Vur and Mary. “It’s like we’re on a tour of the area without actually having to go there; which is nice because there’s a lot more dragons than I thought there’d be.” The demon turned her head towards the Light Lord; she looked a little pitiful sitting all by herself in the grass. Tafel waved. “Do you want to watch too?”
Ashley cleared her throat and stood up. “If I may,” she said to Tafel as she walked over. “So, the thought of facing lots of dragons makes even you nervous.” She glanced at the group’s seating positions before plopping herself down beside her dog.
Tafel shrugged. “Well, yeah,” she said. “Dragons are strong, and apparently, they dislike phoenixes.”
“If that’s the case,” Ashley said, her eyes shifting between Tafel and Vur, “why are the two of you…?”
“Because love,” Tafel said and nodded.
“I see,” Ashley said, turning her attention onto the dragon tablet, which Vur had thrown a pebble at. The previously blank surface turned into a portal to another world, one she was slightly familiar with: the ninety-first floor. She raised an eyebrow. “Is this a livestream? Those dragons are looking right at us. They can’t see us, right?”
“They don’t see us,” Vur said. “They know we’re watching, but all they see is a magic eye floating around.” He nodded and gestured at the dragon tablet, causing a small box to appear in the top-right corner. “It’s called the clairvoyance app. When looking at non-dragons, it usually goes undetected.”
Ashley furrowed her brow. All those times she felt uncomfortable because she felt like someone was looking at her, perhaps someone really was spying on her? Before she could think about it much longer, a notification appeared with a bright flash at the top of the dragon tablet.
“Are you sure they can’t see us?” Tafel asked. “It looks like a dragon just sent you a friend request.”
Vur blinked at the notification. “Call Me Arden wants to be my friend?”
“Volearden perhaps?” Lindyss asked. “It’s pretty common for dragons to shorten parts of their names and use them as nicknames.”
Vur squinted at the notification, and the line of text within the box disappeared. It was replaced by another line of text sent by Call Me Arden. It read, “Are you from Erde?”
“Direct and to the point, huh?” Lindyss asked, raising an eyebrow. Vur turned to look at her, and the cursed elf snorted. “How you interact with your great-grandpa is up to you. I’m not going to tell you what to do.”
Vur nodded and focused on the notification, causing it to expand to half the size of the dragon tablet. A box containing all the letters of the alphabet appeared, and Vur focused on the letters he needed with his eyes to write a response. “Are you Volearden?”
Call Me Arden responded by saying, “I asked you first.”
Vur furrowed his brow. Letters appeared on the screen, spelling out the message, “I don’t care. You answer me.”
Tafel pursed her lips. “If this dragon is Volearden, shouldn’t you be more respectful towards him?” the demon asked Vur. What if the old dragon was easily angered? Vur and Volearden would probably fight each other if that were the case.
“Speaking with my eyes is slow,” Vur said and blinked hard. “Smaller sentences are easier to write.”
The dragon tablet flashed, and another message from Call Me Arden arrived. “I’m indeed Volearden. Will you answer me now?”
Vur squinted at the stone monument and used his eyes to type out the words, “Hi, Great-Gramps, I’m Vur.”
Call Me Arden did not respond. Vur tilted his head as the chat box, which had taken up half the monument, shrank and disappeared from view. A furrow appeared on Vur’s brow. “This dragon tablet needs better ways to control it.”
“Why don’t you try threatening it?” Lindyss asked, not looking up from her knitting needles. “Intimidation seems to work well for you.”
Vur stared at the dragon tablet for a bit, but before he could turn his thoughts into actions, Ashley cleared her throat. “There’s probably some settings on the tablet you can tamper with,” the Light Lord said. “There should be some accessibility options for blind dragons—maybe there’s a voice recognition option that could turn your speech into text.”
Vur nodded before messing around with the dragon tablet, exiting from the clairvoyance app. Before he could find the settings, Tafel pointed at one of the square images with a depiction of the sun directly in its center. “What’s that one?” she asked. Then, she pointed at another app. “Ooh, that one looks interesting too.”
Ashley picked Puddles up and placed him behind herself. As if he knew what to expect, the white dog expanded until he was the size of a couch. The Light Lord leaned back, using her pet as a backrest while she looked up at the dragon tablet. It wasn’t too different from the personal tablets people had back where she had come from, but it seemed to have an endless number of apps on it. From what she could tell, Erde didn’t have tablets, and Vur and Tafel were using the technology for the first time. Hopefully, they wouldn’t become addicted to it—after all, the fate of the tower rested on Vur’s shoulders; who else was going to eat the Oebu Sin?