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This vignette was written for Catprog as part of my themed Patreon request day for the month of March 2019. This month's theme was "Getting Lucky", and this story contains transformation involving a non-binary adult! It takes place during the events of the 5th edition dungeons and dragons adventure, "Tomb of Annihilation." :3

The Loot of a Lifetime

'Beyond the Laughing Gorge

and the Nine Gods' tomb,

South of Ash and Smoke

and the Night Serpent's womb,

Cross the dead river,

and pass the Cyclops' ford,

There you will find it,

the Dragonless hoard.

~ Chultan Verse from after the Fall of Omu, transcribed by Orvex Orcrammas'

It had been over three months since the tabaxi's damnable words had sent Bryll and their companions out on this double-damnable quest, tantalising them with promises of wealth beyond their wildest imaginings and plunging them deep into the jungles of Chult. For a month or so, all had gone well. They were seasoned adventurers, and even the party's barbarian companion Marg of the Pounding Rivers being torn in half by a T-Rex had only been a temporary setback once they'd dragged the various body-parts out of the animal's gut and had their cleric knit the half-orc back together. But then... then something foul had begun to creep into the air of the jungle. Just days after slaying the T-Rex, its zombified carcass hunted them down and attacked them again. Marg survived, but was gravely wounded in the attack, and when the party attempted to heal her... her wounds would not close, and the life that had been restored to her days prior began to ebb away once more.

After that, they began to fall one by one, and until his own death even Lathander's chosen cleric could not bring them back no matter how much he prayed.

Now, just a day after Ryzkxz had been crushed underfoot by not one but half a dozen Cyclops as he and Bryll attempted to cross their ford unseen, only the rogue remained. They stood before a vast cavern whose walls were fire-scorched and whose floor was littered with ancient, charred bone and warped, melted weapons and armour. They stood before the entrance to the cavern which had been the party's goal from the start, triumphant as they wept for their lost companions, and then they dried their eyes on one sleeve and forged on inward, to meet whatever fate had in store for them whether alone or amidst their party.

Dagger drawn, the adamantine blade forged in Hrakhamar's fires twinkling in the torchlight by which the human could see, Bryll dove deep into the mountain's reaches. Yet for all the scorched stone and corpses, there was no resistance. No magical traps. No hoards of firenewts. No zombies or grungs or tyrannosaurus rexes, alive or undead. And most importantly of all, no dragon. What there was however, after hours upon hours of walking in the torch-lit gloom, was gold.

At first, just one piece, glinting in the torchlight until Bryll crouched down to examine it, to check it for traps and to wish that someone with even the slightest proficiency in arcane matters was still alive to tell them if the gold coin was going to explode if they picked it up.

They took a breath.

They closed their eyes.

They reached out, and plucked the coin from the rock before them.

Wincing, they opened their eyes slightly, and saw themselves staring at a gloved hand clutching a golden coin. For the first time in weeks, Bryll smiled. Their friends may have been dead and gone, and a curse of inescapable death may have been sweeping the land, but at least something was still right with the world insofar as the truth that gold still never failed to make Bryll grin.

Moving onward, deeper still into the cavern's seemingly endless reaches, Bryll's smile grew as they found another coin. Then another. And another. Then three more. Five more. A dozen, a hundred.

"Oh... oh, by all the gods..."

Their cheeks ached from smiling as they turned a corner around a jagged formation of solid igneous rock, and their eyes burned from the dazzling sight of a mountain of gold and platinum coins, gemstones, jewellery and fine sculpture stacked metres deep at the rear of the cavern.

"Marg, Elenath, Cyrus, Ryzkxz... this is your victory as well as mine. Your treasure as well as mine, a-and... I swear to each and every one of you..."

Bryll giggled helplessly as they began to walk towards the vast mountain of treasure, then to run towards it as fast as their legs would carry them.

"...I'll think of you all, every day I spend living a long, happy life because of it!"

They stopped just short of doing a full dive into the nearest pile of coins, but threw themselves forward so that they sprawled into the mound, sending coins cascading down over their squirming, laughing, leather armour clad body. They cried out with joyous laughter as they dug their hand into the mound and tossed gold up into the air above them, not even really caring that it did kinda hurt when it inevitably crashed back down all over their still grinning, still laughing head. They all but wailed in elation when upon digging around again they drew forth a ruby the size of an eyeball, gloriously carved and without a single occlusion to its interior. Pulling off their gloves, they cupped the ruby between their bare hands. Trying to feel its weight, to judge its value. Three thousand gold? Four? Did it really matter, given how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of gold pieces lay around them right now?

Shrugging and laughing at the insanity of the fact they were able to act with such little care, Bryll tossed the ruby aside as they began to sweep their hands and legs back and forth within the gold, half like they were swimming, half like they were attempting to draw 'gold-angels' within the vast wealth around them. They closed their eyes in contentment, in elation, and only minutes later did they open them again; lifting another handful of coins up into the air and preparing to let them tumble down across their chest.

Before Bryll could allow those coins to drop though, they noticed something.

Something which they hadn't noticed until now through the sheer ineptitude which during their youth as a pickpocket Bryll had always thought was a trait predominantly associated with the rich. A trait which now, they guessed, they had inherited along with their new wealth.

The torch had gone out. At some point, by some method since Bryll had flung themself forward into the mountain of gold, the torch had been extinguished. And yet... they could still see.

More to the point, they could see their hand trembling slightly as it held onto the gold above them. They could see it shifting as its smooth skin grew rough and scaley. They could see it growing, thick claws extending from its fingernails as with a strangled, snarling gasp Bryll felt the rest of their body beginning to change alongside it. Clothes and armour tearing. Skin toughening to leather, to steel, to adamantine, to something even stronger still.

To dragon-scale.

Bryll roared and thrashed and beat the wings that were just sprouting from their back. They choked and coughed as smoke billowed from their lungs, and they screamed as a heat unlike anything they had ever known began to boil in their gut; a heat which only stopped searing their innards when the organs of Bryll's body itself began to shift and grow and change into a form which could deal with that new, vastly heightened body temperature.

Clawing, flailing, writhing within the mountain of their hoard, the dragon let loose a bellowing roar and belched forth white hot flame, scorching the walls of the cavern anew, and sending echoing cries ringing out beyond the cavern's opening.

Cries that announced to the cyclops', to the zombies, to the vast jungles beyond and every humanoid, every beast and every abomination within them that the dragoness hoard was dragonless no more.

That it was protected.

That it was claimed.

And that in the days, the months, and the decades to come... it would begin to grow anew, under the guardianship of its latest owner.

By Jeeves

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