The man fixes his glasses as he pulls out a form and a clipboard, fixing his stance as he pulls out a pen last.

“I’m actually here on behalf of the Draconic Taxation Bureau. We noticed that you failed to file your dragon hoard taxes last month and I’ve been sent here to find out why.”

Quixalus didn’t believe what he heard. He had been dutiful on his work and made sure that everything was in order. Adventurers had been making scams all over the continent, or so he had heard from fellow dragons, so the fact that this man, this meat-thing was here to audit him and his hoard did not sit right by him.

“I did file my taxes. You perhaps didn’t receive them!” A low rumble echoes through the cavern, but the representative looks at the dragon unfazed.

“That fine sir, but I still need to look over your docu-“

“No!” Quixalus roared, rising high above the man as flames dance from its maw. “I filed my paperwork on time as a dutiful draconic member such as myself should! If you didn’t receive my paperwork, then it is your fault!”

He felt a rage he had not felt in centuries. The affront of this man to think he would not follow the correct rules of proper file submission and taxation was an insult to his very being.

The man blinks a few times. “We just need to go over your papers sir. Then I will need to take a look at your hoard and note any changes that happened in the past year.”

“Or perhaps I should burn you where you stand, and feast on your corpse!”

“According to article 127, subsection 8, subarticle 55b, paragraph 9, any harm that comes to a representative of the Draconic Taxation Bureau by a dragon shall be penalized in a summary removal and confiscation of any and all items in the draconic personage in question that inflicted said injury, damage or death upon the representative. The draconic personage shall also incur a fine of no less than 30,000 gold pieces due expediently, and all rights, advocacies, protections, licenses and duties shall be forthright withdrawn from said draconic personage for a period of up to a minimum of two years.”

Quixalus’s tempered his rage. If there was something that all dragons across the land respected more than power was the bureaucracy of the Draconic Taxation Bureau, at least, any respectable dragon would.

He doused the flames he had been feeding, and took a deep breath, exhaling a thick cloud of black smoke through his nose. He heard the representative cough somewhat, but as the smoke cleared, the puny human was still standing there, with a blank and unfazed look on his eyes, almost as if the whole task of auditing dragons without being eaten alive was too much of a burden.

“Fine!” Quixilus said with a low rumble in its voice. “We will go to my hoard and I will allow you to audit it. But if I smell so much as a hint of trickery, you will be the first to be eaten from your companions. Understood. Human?”

The representative yawned. “Sir, I don’t need to remind you of the laws involving-“

“Be quiet and do your duty. I’ve naught time to deal with the likes of you, and the longer you remain here, the less time I have to do my other duties!”

MEANWHILE IN A DARK CORNER

“Holy shit! I can’t believe he pulled it off!” An elf in leather armor whispered in amazement.

“I thought he would definitively get eaten alive!” The dwarf retorted. “Now lets go and get the artifact!”