An aperture in the veil of worldskin opens, just for an instant. Then there's a thunderous boom, and the cavern is filled with a cloud of dust and the staccato cacophony of rocks and pebbles flying away from the center of the circle and clattering against the walls and Zuragazh himself.

After he clears the dust away, the dragon will find a glossy sphere of deep, bloody red embedded in the floor.

...interesting. And quite powerful, too, judging by the strength of the backlash! 

The beings to which Zuragazh is accustomed tend to take more recognisable forms, although he is aware that it is often only a semblance. He wonders whether this creature is incapable of presenting itself in any other way, or whether it is simply choosing not to do so. 

If he wants to claim this creature, which he does, Zuragazh needs to understand it. To that end, he leans forward to study it more closely, careful to let no part of his body cross the boundary of the circle. 

The sphere seems almost completely inactive at the moment. If Zuragazh looks very closely, he may spot the barest, faintest flicker of movement at the very center of the sphere, as though its core contains a tiny droplet of liquid.

Neither centuries-old dragons nor wizards are noted for their impatience.

Zuragazh is both, and he has nothing better to do with his time than wait. In anticipation that this project might be time-consuming, he ate well before starting his preparations, and will not even begin to feel hunger for at least another day and night. 

He is content to sit and watch the sphere, trying to discern whether the movement at its heart is constant or changing over time. 

It is indeed changing! It's grown, specifically, both in size and complexity.

After two days, the liquid seems to fill the entire interior of the sphere, with the hard gloss forming on a thin shell to contain it. That liquid is in turn filled with whorls and flumes, both large and small, all moving in an exceedingly complex dance.

Late on that second day, a portion of the flows will bend and contort into something resembling the rough bodyplan of a dragon, floating near the upper cusp of the sphere.

In those two days, Zuragazh has left the room only a handful of times, and never for more than an hour or so. 

The first of those excursions, taking only a few minutes, was to retrieve a small lantern containing a bound imp, which has since been instructed to keep watch on the sphere whenever Zuragazh is absent or asleep, and alert him immediately to any significant changes. A pair of shells, linked with a simple enchantment to conduct sound from one to the other, allows Zuragazh to hear the imp even when he is out of ordinary earshot of the room with the circle. 

When the dragon shape appears, Zuragazh is lying outstretched along the curve of the cavern wall, a good distance away from the circle. His whole twenty-foot body length, head to tail, takes up about a third of the room's circumference. He is watching the sphere lazily, almost mesmerised by the dancing whorls. 

The imp, also watching the sphere for lack of anything else interesting to do, has been identifying various blobs as resembling objects or creatures for the last two hours. So, when it pipes up, "Hey, that one looks kinda like a dragon," Zuragazh does not immediately think anything of it. 

...Hold on. That blob does look remarkably like a dragon. He gets to his feet and moves closer to look at it from a different angle. 

That definitely looks at least generally dragon-ish! It's growing, too, and if Zuragazh continues watching for the next half-hour or so, he will see if grow to occupy the entirety of the sphere, and promptly continue growing, the sphere holding tight to the skin of the expanding shape, steadily becoming more detailed and lifelike, until there is now a dragon that resembles Zuragazh himself, except for being about one fourth as long (but with the same proportions, rather than the juvenile ones that such a size would ordinarily imply) and scales of the same blood-colored gloss as the sphere which became them.

This small dragon is looking quite intently at Zuragazh, and says something in an utterly alien language, which if Zuragazh has translation on hand can be interpreted as a greeting.

He has access to various methods of magical translation, but none are active at present. 

"I'm sorry, I can't understand you," he says in the local vernacular. "Do you speak this language?" If the comprehension issue is symmetrical, that should suffice to illustrate the problem anyway. 

The small dragon looks away thoughtfully for a moment, presumably having ascertained the issue. They move towards the edge of the circle and test it carefully with a claw.

There appears to be an invisible barrier of some kind, going straight up from the inner ring of chalk. The circle flashes blue when the barrier is tested. 

The small dragon quickly pulls back their claw and nods, as much to themself as to Zuragazh. They pace about the circle for a moment, examining the cavern floor, before seemingly deciding against something. After another moment, the small dragon extrudes a thin opaque film from one claw, like a sheet of vellum, which holds a simplistic diagram. There are a picture of two dragons, one significantly smaller than the other at the top, a picture of two claws touching below that, and a picture of what is the little dragon's best guess at the internal structure of a dragon's brain and vocal structure below that. The little dragon promptly shows this to Zuragazh.

It is reasonably clear what the small red dragon wants from him. The question is whether Zuragazh will like the results. 

From what he understands of the picture, touching claws with them will let the small dragon do something that involves Zuragazh's brain and...vocal cords? Presumably something to do with speech. If it were him, Zuragazh would want to solve the language barrier before anything else, and this at least looks like it might be an attempt at that.

If it turns out to be something more hostile, well, even magic as powerful as this creature has demonstrated is unlikely to do much damage to a dragon as old and self-possessed as Zuragazh. 

He calls upon his fundamental and natural conviction that no outside force should alter his body or mind in any way, setting it at the forefront of his mind. Then, Zuragazh reaches out, holding his forelimb in the air so as not to smudge the chalk, and extends a single claw into the containing circle. 

The small dragon will reach out and touch Zuragazh's claw with their own. For an instant, Zuragazh can feel the magic of the being he has summoned, and it does not alter him even a little, but it does observe him, briefly and with limited scope.

The little dragon will lower their claw, focus inwardly for a moment, and then speak with eloquent language. "Thank you for extending me that trust. I've ascertained that you've summoned me. May I ask for what purpose?"

...well, that's a convenient solution to the language issue. Zuragazh does not argue with the little dragon's assumption that his actions displayed trust, rather than confidence in his own ability to handle any hostile act on their part. 

"I hope to establish a mutually-beneficial arrangement between the two of us," he says instead, "the details of which will depend on your capabilities and your goals. I can already tell that you are exceedingly powerful, but I have no idea whether, for example, you have any use for a reliable supply of gold, or of cured meat." 

"Gold can be useful, though it's chemistry is not well suited to...the Coils--" this phrase the little dragon says with some tentativeness, "Cured meat would be much better for my magic. As for my goals, I seek to bring freedom from death and hunger and the limitation of forms wherever I can. I wield the Coils and the boundless strength in them which my mentor invested in me to achieve this, through transformation of flesh and the sharing of my souls."

"I can also supply other substances," Zuragazh clarifies. "Those were merely examples. In the pursuit of such...ambitious goals, you will surely need all the resources you can acquire."

He is momentarily distracted from further questioning. "—pardon me if this is a rude question, but did you say that you have more than one soul? Or were you referring to them as yours in some other sense?" 

"Indeed I imagine many resources will be needed, and yes, I am possessed of many souls, on the order of ten million million."

That...is a large number. So large that the language they're speaking doesn't have a word for it. 

"...here, the customary number is one soul to a person." He doesn't quite make it a question. 

“Mm.” The little dragon nods again, considering something. “I couldn’t find it anywhere in your body, so I only assume it has some manner of remote connection. My own are also the substance of my body. “

The little dragon turns their focus internally, similar to when they produced the diagram, but this time producing a plump golden berry from their claw. “This is the form I often give to my gift of freedom. It contains a soul, quiescent except for the instincts and memories to allow a quick and smooth integration of the gift within the recipient’s mind, as well as nutrients and metabolites to replenish the recipient’s bodily energy. I offer this to you, for your examination and as a token of good will to begin our negotiation.”

Zuragazh peers suspiciously at the berry.

"Would you tell me a little more about your..." He echoes the other's words. "Gift of freedom?" 

They nod. "It is limited form of my magic, though only as limited as I have made it in myself. Access to the boundless strength, with which to perform transformations upon your body. It is the means by which I made my request earlier, and made this gift berry itself, as well as how I formed this facsimile-shape."

"I generally find myself satisfied with the current shape of my body," Zuragazh remarks.

"I would like to study this berry further, using some of my own tools. With your permission, perhaps I could examine your body with the same instruments, to better understand how it is constructed?" 

"There are many things to change of one's body than simply its shape, and certainly you may. It would be unbecoming to have taken a look at you and not allow the same."

Zuragazh rises sinuously to his feet.

"I must gather my tools," he explains. "I shall return shortly—not much more than, hm, twice or thrice the length of time that we have been conversing." 

The little dragon nods yet again. They are more than patient enough to wait that time without complaint.