Sir Riley Clary stood at the entrance to the tower, he had trained his whole life for this, to slay a dragon and save a princess; the final test a squire needed to complete to become a full fledged knight. On the surface Riley was calm and poised ready to take on anything the world could throw at him; internally he was screaming. Just save the princess, no pressure right? What could possibly go wrong? It's not like dragons are one of the most dangerous species on the planet or anything.
"Pull yourself together Riley. you can do this." He muttered under his breath. He took a step towards the doors of the great tower, looking up he could barely see the top of the tower through the thick fog that had begun rolling in that morning. With bated breath the knight reached out towards the glass doors of the tower, they opened on their own. Inside the tower was cold and clinical looking, adorned in little but white marble and reflective steel, the only striking feature was a stairway leading up to the top of the tower.
Climbing the stairway felt like an eternity, each step up brought Riley closer and closer to the inevitable battle he had to fight, each step bringing more and more troubling thoughts into his head. What if I have to kill it? What if the dragon has already killed the princess? What chance do I stand against a dragon anyway? I've never even seen a dragon before this, except on TV. He shook his head.
"Stop it, thinking like that is not helping anyone." he said to no one in particular. step by step, floor by floor, featureless hallway after featureless hallway, the climb that had initially brought dark thoughts left him with only one. I should have taken the elevator. After what seemed like hours Riley came to the top of the staircase to another floor, this one was different than the rest. Rather than being greeted with more featureless beige walls and identical wooden doors of the previous floors Riley was greeted with a large open space with glass windows on all sides looking out over the city where the tower stood.
In the center of the room was the fabled dragon, it was nothing like he expected. Rather than some lumbering reptilian Godzilla, he saw a man in a suit.
"What is this? Where's the dragon?" Riley thought aloud. "Who are you?" The man just gave a laugh in return.
"Riley, did you really think we would actually have you kill a dragon? The Animal Protection services would be all over us. Plus dragons are expensive. It costs us most of our money to rent out this building every year." The man in the suit shook his head, "My name is Jacques Vainquere, senior officer of the Knights Group and you have just been hazed, welcome aboard kid."