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****

A flash of lightning brightened the stormy night. Even through the rush of wind and rain, most of the brush in the clearing was ablaze with dragonfire. Glowing red cinders blew through the air in violent spirals, like demonic fireflies. Each threw off faint, flickering illumination; just barely enough to see the red-scaled dragon slowly circling around inside the clearing.

The wyrm growled menacingly as his heavy paws thudded grass into mudholes. Bloodied gashes covered his snout and flanks, dripping thick drops of dark red dragonblood into the muck below him. His great, heaving breath was labored from exertion, yet still carried his full rage and fury. Fierkaniszstar was the dragon's name, though he was better known as the Firewing.

Opposite the wounded dragon stood four smaller creatures, all humanoid. All were clad in the somber gray and gold colors of the Inquisition; their armor marked with holy symbols of protection. The four moved together in quick, fluid movements borne from years of careful training and hard-won experience in battle, shadowing the dragon's movements step by step.

In the front was a plate-clad, battle-scarred human with a stoic, steely visage. He was Markus Magnus Accitar, Inquisitor Templar. Blood, water, smoke and sweat formed a thin, greasy red sheen on Markus' face as he drew in deep breaths, favoring his right leg. Huge, bloody gashes crossed his back from where the dragon's claws had rent his armor and struck a telling blow. The Templar was feeling lightheaded and sick both from the blood he had lost and the heady, druglike haze of the healing potion deadening his pain.

Behind Markus and to his left was a young, male elf wearing a thick robe. The elf quietly, fervently chanted to himself, nurturing an amorphous orb of magical frost between his slender fingers. His name was Lesani Lemmaran, Battlemage of the Inquisition. Lesani shivered as he continued to weave together cold and wind into a sphere of coherent power; his hands were white and numb from the strain.

To the right of the Templar, carefully navigating a tangle of fallen branches and muddy holes was a slender woman carrying a set of long, curved knives. Inquisitor-Specialist Rhya Dawnstone paused mid-stride to brush some of her long black hair away from her eyes, before gripping each of her blades with renewed vigor. Her eyes darted from Markus' scarred back to the wyrm's bloody foreclaws, and a faint tremor broke the mask of emotionless focus on her face. She knew her thin, flexible armor would not soften a blow from the dragon like the one that nearly killed Markus.

The final of the four inquisitors was a youthful human male; Inquisitorial Herald Berand de Mere. Unlike the others, the young human seemed possessed by the thrill of battle. Dauntless, fearless, feckless mirth played across Berand's face as he braced his heavy crossbow, tracing the movement of Firewing's head with fluid ease. "Stand fast and ready yourselves, comrades! Know that today this evil beast shall die!" Berand yelled. His voice was strong and mellifluous, his words a clarion call that seemed to cut right through the violent storm.

Firewing tensed on all fours, rising slightly before twisting his head towards Berand. "I... have had enough... of you four..." the mighty wyrm rumbled, golden-black eyes narrowing. "Especially you... you loathsome... little... pest!"

The dragon suddenly leap forward. Berand tumbled backwards into an awkward roll, just barely managing to dodge a snatching bite from Firewing. The dragon crashed into the ground just in front of the battle herald with a muddy thud that send a tremor through the clearing. Then, pulling deep with his powerful lungs, the wyrm began to summon up a blast of dragonfire.

Berand fired blind- missing Firewing's muzzle by a wide margin- before struggling backwards awkwardly. He managed to pull himself over a thick tree stump right before the massive gout of fiery dragonbreath rushed over him. Despite avoiding a direct hit, the force of the wyrm's fury did terrible damage. The inquisitor felt burns sear across his face and sting his eyes closed. His cloak caught fire, and he coughed as the hot press of billowing ash began to push into his lungs as he breathed.

"Ahhhh!" Markus screamed, running forward with his sword and shield raised. Firewing pivoted around and lashed his tail towards the charging inquisitor, which he parried with a heavy blow from his sword. The steel blade thudded into the dragon's thick spiny upper-tail scales without slicing through them.

A split-second after Markus and Firewing matched each other's strength, Rhya darted behind the dragon from the shadows and plunged her daggers into the wyrm's soft, leathery underbelly. Firewing roared out in surprise, but his cry choked off with an explosion and a flash of blue-white energy. Lesani's spell had struck the red wyrm dead in the center of his chest, spreading numbing, magical cold right through the fiery dragon's heart and lungs.

Firewing stumbled forward a half-step, nearly falling to the ground as he began to wheeze. Sensing opportunity, the Templar strode forward as fast as his weary legs could carry him.

Five paces behind Firewing's unprotected neck, he was interrupted by a pale flash of light from the nearby woods. Instinct made Markus tense and break off his attack, suddenly sensing incredible danger...

A pale-blue flash of unsteady light echoed through the muddy ground right in front of Markus, and suddenly a solidified wall of magical force violently crashed into existence. Rain struck and beaded on the frictionless surface, sliding down its perfectly flat, translucent surface as quickly as it fell from the skies. Save for a fine spray of mud and ash coating it near the lower levels of the quasi-real wall, it was almost totally invisible in the darkness.

"What in the name of the holy powers...?" Markus whispered, gingerly pressing the flat of his blade against the wall. It was as sturdy as a steel wall, but there was no rasp of metal-on-metal, no feeling of resistance as he dragged his sword down its height.

"It's a... wall of force, I think," Lesani said. "Something is wrong here; Firewing does not have such magic..."

"Look..." Rhya whispered to Markus, pointing into the treeline before slipping back into the darkness.

Markus turned to the side, focusing his eyes into the woods. He could just barely see a strange creature approaching them; its upper body had the outline of a man, but its lower half was a long, swaying tail...

The templar felt a strange combination of frustration and curiosity as Firewing recovered and the snake-tailed humanoid slithered towards them. The naga was moved seamlessly through the wet grass and muddy ground, his scaly body moving in pushing and rolling waves of serpentine motion that looked oddly natural.

"Hold... let's see what it wants. Stay on guard though," Markus whispered to his companions. Such creatures were not unheard of-at least to an experienced inquisitor-but hardly common. Past, less tolerant Inquisitions had greatly thinned the number of beast-men in the realm.

"Aye, m'lord." Berand said, nodding and locking a fresh bolt into his crossbow. He left it half-raised as he called out into the darkness. "Ho! Whoever approaches shall greet the forces of the Holy Inquisition! We are locked in mortal combat with a monster most vile; for your safety, we urge you to seek refuge away from this place!"

The intruder did not respond. A flash of lightning silently broke through the darkness overhead, partially illuminating the naga's body as it slithered closer and closer.

The snake was covered in tan, black and brown scales; they formed thick bands across his chest and belly, and finer diamond patterns across his snout and hood. He was wearing a black and crimson cloaked robe made out of thick fabric that remained oddly dry in the torrential rain. A golden, metallic weave spiraled up and down the sinister-looking naga-robe, forming bizarre patterns that seemed to reflect a more powerful light than the dying fires around them could possibly give off. In his right hand, the serpentman held a staff that ended in a four-pronged claw in which nothing rested; in his left, he held a cup of tea. The silvered chain of a tea infuser hung from the side of the plain ceramic cup, and lazy curls of steam rose from the hot, freshly-brewed tea.

The snake continued to slowly slither forward, until it was to the side of the clearing, halfway between the dragon and the inquisitorial party, neither of which gave him any ground.

"Hello," the cobra said, blowing air across his cooling tea. "Would someone care to tell me what the meaning of all this is..?"

Markus coughed and looked at the snake with a flash of confused anger. "What in the blazes does it look like!? We're fighting a dragon!"

The naga turned his hooded head from Markus to Firewing. "Might I ask then what you are doing?"

"Exterminating vermin." The dragon huffed, tensing its claws. The dragon was carefully examining the magical barrier in front of it, trying to determine the quickest path to take around it. In Markus' estimation, it would most likely try and fly over it...

"I see..." the snake said, with obviously-forced amicability. "Would you mind terribly... not killing each other? Or, at the very least, not fighting in this clearing?"

"Devils an' devas man, are you drugged from top to tailtip!? We're trying to stop a rampaging monster here! Who cares a gob of spit about a bunch of trees!" Berand replied, laughing nervously.

"I do not care that much for the trees, nice though they may be. The problem is that the trees are inscribed with glyphs that form boundary of my ritual circle, which I have been specially preparing for a powerful magic ritual," the naga patiently replied. "Reality is very weak in this area. You have already destroyed many of my wards. Fighting in the weakest places might be very dangerous... both for you and reality."

Markus turned towards Lesani, questioning him with a look.

"I... don't think that is possible. I've never heard of magic that could do anything like that..." the elf whispered back. "It could be a trap."

"Have you heard me? Do you not believe my words?" The cobra's scratching voice seemed to hang in the burnt clearing as rain continued to pour down from the skies. Markus couldn't help but watch the way water ran off the serpent's robe; it looked like cloth, but repelled water like the slick skin of a frog.

"If I could fulfill your request I would, serpent," Markus replied, turning back towards Firewing. "But the hand of justice has been stayed for far too long; the beast you see before you must die for his crimes!"

"Such arrogance!" Firewing roared, spreading his wings wide and rising to his hindlegs. "I think you're still overestimating your chances, inquisitor!"

"Strike quickly! Stop him from breathing on us!" Berand shouted, bringing his crossbow to the ready.

The naga looked from adventurers to the dragon and then back again, smiling bitterly as he did so. "Hmmm... no one is listening. Did I not make myself clear? There has been enough senseless fighting here, and this is magically-attuned ground not safe for..."

"That dragon is more dangerous than you think! Move away from here, serpent!" Lesani shouted.

"Don't worry about the dragon. Listen. To. Me. Please," the snake said through a set of sharp, gritted teeth. "All of you, stop! This clearing is..."

"Burn, smolder, die!" Firewing roared, before summoning up an immensely deep breath. He turned his maw towards the humanoids, preparing to loose a mighty conflagration of fiery death...

"I! Said! Enough!" the naga rasped, slamming his staff down on the ground. The stormclouds above suddenly split as a bolt of lightning struck the head of the serpent's staff, filling the empty claws with a globe of pure, pulsing white light.

A flash of energy powerful enough to turn day into night silently lit up the stormy forest. Unnatural stillness swept over the clearing, one that seemed to dim all sight and sound...

(Sssssleep...) Markus felt in his mind. With a shudder, the inquisitor tried to steel his mind and ignore the magical compulsion. He turned to call out a warning to his friends, but despite trying to shout at the top of his lungs he found he couldn't make a sound above a whisper. Lesani was stumbling forward in a daze, while Rhya and Berand had already slumped to the ground...

...as had Firewing...

A frisson of nervous, weary, sick thrill ran through Markus when he saw the dragon yawn and close his immense eyes, knowing that the beast was finally ready for a mortal strike. He dropped his shield and took a single unsteady step forward...

(Sleep...) The unspoken word repeated again and again in Markus's mind; even as he trudged through the ash-coated mud towards Firewing's unprotected neck, his eyes began to lid again. He forced his hatred for the evil red wyrm through his mind, trying to find enough anger to keep his blood pumping... finish his mission...

He stumbled forward two more steps before collapsing to his knees, yawning suddenly and powerfully as he pitched forward. The inquisitor only barely caught himself with his hands, mere inches from Firewing's bare, yellow-tinged throat. Markus tried to lift up his sword, but it felt as heavy as an anvil in his tired arms...

(Sleep... sssssleep... embrace the peace of ressst...)

Resting heavily and unsteadily in the wet mud, Markus let the handle of his sword fall from his fingers. He continued to crawl forward in blind desperation, stumbling through the muck on his hands and knees. He was so close to the dragon; so close to delivering righteous justice...

(Sleep.)

Markus yawned again, closing his eyes. He half-heartedly tried to open them again, but found all of his energy exhausted. The last thing he did before succumbing to the snake's unholy whispering was grasp blindly for something to fall upon.

As he fell forward, the human felt himself land on the strong, warm, flexible edge of the red dragon's wings. Bilious rage rose in his stomach as he settled down on the leathery dragonwing, but all of the hate and fury in his heart seemed dull and distant before the calm embrace of...

(Ssssleep...)

**** ****

Rhya Dawnstone awoke to the sounds of a chain's clinking. She found herself resting on a bed of straw, naked save for a rough wool blanket. Above her, she saw a simple, peaked stone roof, into which a number of softly-glowing orbs had been set.

"Rhya? You... awake?" a croaking voice called from the side.

Clearing her throat and slowly stirring, Rhya pulled the rough blanket over the top of her chest to cover her breasts as she rose. She saw that the room was long and low-slung, made up of identical straw-filled pens. "Aye. Lesani?"

"Yeah."

"Where... are we?" Rhya said, rubbing her eyes.

"The naga... he took us all prisoner. Although he used the phrase... 'unconditional guests'. S-strange creature..." the elf replied, voice trembling. "Never knew the Western subspecies could take on cobra traits and morphology; that's unusual for most nagas..."

"Hey... are you alright?" Rhya mumbled, pushing herself most of the way upright.

"N-no." Lesani replied. "I'm afraid that the serpent we encountered is, and I'm not sure on this, an archmage of some sort. His power is... staggering. By all rights, the spell he cast on us should have been impossible to cast without a mage circle. Gods only know how Markus seemed to stay standing... though he must have passed out eventually, because otherwise I'm sure he'd have lopped off the snake's head..."

Rhya turned towards where Lesani's voice was coming from, but a chain fastened around her ankle stopped her from crawling forward. She groggily moaned as her fingers went to the heavy but padded iron cuff, searching for a lock. But her fingers felt nothing but unbroken metal. "Ahh... gods above. What have we stumbled upon here?"

"Hmmm... rather unfortunate, really. We are all relatively unharmed at least; he seemed awfully polite for an archmage, fortunately. One shouldn't ignore the small blessings in life, as they say..." the elf muttered, shaking his head. "But we have a few problems..." Lesani began to say, pulling up a hand to rub his aching forehead. Before he could complete the motion, Rhya saw something that made her gasp in shock.

The elf was still clothed save for his shoes and robe. But Lesani's lithe, elven fingers were gray, scaly, and had grown into grotesque proportions. A thinner, lighter membrane of tan-gray leather ran between his mutated fingers, and blunt, black claws tipped the end of each, save his thumbs. The elf's dexterous thumbs had shrunken in on themselves; they looked like little more than colorless stubs.

"Lesani! What in the name of the gods did he do to you!?!" the rogue whispered with panicked urgency. Rhya strained forward, pulling as close to Lesani as the chain on her ankle would allow.

"Oh... yeah..." Lesani said, looking down at his mutated fingers with a bitter frown on his pale face. "That cobra and I had a very interesting conversation about the ethics of magic and hegemonic socio-political orders. We had a few terse disagreements... the finer points of the debate aren't entirely pertinent, I don't think... but he seems rather keen on punishing us... especially me..."

"Punishment? For what!?" Rhya asked incredulously.

"I'm... not sure exactly. It might sound odd... but I think what we have between us is a deeply philosophical disagreement. Sadly, owing to the fact that he is more intelligent and powerful than any magus I've ever seen before in my life... I've already lost."

"Lost?" Rhya repeated. "What exactly did you lose?"

The elf pitched forward slightly onto his hands, arching his back before twisting and flexing around. Rhya heard a series of dull pops and cracks from Lesani's back as he stretched out, before shaking his whole body like a dog drying itself off. "Ah... ahh... sorry. I don't know what he did to me. At first I thought he was just trying to keep me from casting spells... but this magic is... far more potent. I think it's... some sort of... transformation..."

"Oh, Lesani..." Rhya whispered, shaking her head at the sad sight. But it only took the seasoned rogue a few seconds to compose herself. "Gods, gods... no. No, we mustn't panic. We have to think; we have to rescue Markus..."

"No... I don't think... that's a good idea..." Lesani said, flexing his long, clawed, webbed fingers as if he couldn't believe they existed. "I can feel the spell... spreading through my blood... seeping into my muscles... I'm too far gone. Y-you have to escape without us... flee back to the city. Return with a full Inquisition. Anything other course of action would be suicidal... or worse..."

"What do you mean? I can't just leave you here like this!" Rhya hissed. "Surely together we can take him!"

"Rhya! Y-you don't understand! You have to get out of here as quickly as possible! Before you woke up h-he was here... he... he told me things. Strange things..." the mage stammered, shaking his head as if in pain. "I don't remember what he said, but... I feel... I- I don't know. L-like... ughn..." he groaned, as his fingers began to spread out even further, dragging a leathery membrane up along the underside of his arms. Thick, light-gray hide spilled out of his straining shirt, and Lesani hissed out in surprise.

The rogue winced as she watched Lesani struggle against his own changing body, thrashing away the straw around him as his huge, webbed fingers grew out further and further. Lesani scrabbled weakly against the stone under him as he groaned and grunted, his lithe elven arms disappearing with surges of flowing, unnaturally growth.

"Rhya... I can't remember what he did to me or what he said, but... I'm changing into s-something. And... it feels really, really good..." the mage whimpered, smiling warmly.

Rhya shook her head in disbelief. "W-what!? Lesani, what do you mean?"

"Ungh... no... it's... it's so strong..." Lesani gasped, squirming inside the straw nest. Rhya could see the elf wince as his face began to slowly, subtly push forward, still struggling. Lesani no longer had anything that looked like proper human hands, just two clawed, stubby flaps that looked destined to be... wings?

"Lesani, listen! You have to fight it! That magic... whatever the naga did... it is turning you into a beast!" Rhya sternly shouted. "Focus, for the sake of all good! Focus!"

"Arrghh... ungh... no.... Rhya... I can't... resist it much longer..." the elf muttered, shaking his head. He swallowed and lolled his head towards his friend drunkenly, half-smiling. "Ahh... I've always wondered what would do us in. Bit morbid... never... never really talked about it with anyone else, really... well, not you three. Just the occasional lover..."

Lesani slowly slunk forward, putting his weight upon his developing wings with a sigh. Rhya could see the mage's feet and legs twitch on the ground behind him as they too began to change, arching upward as they grew in size and bulk. All down the elf's lithe body, his unblemished, tan skin was breaking into patches of dull, mottled gray. Along his winged arms, the transformation seemed to spread far more rapidly. Within seconds, the stretched, leathery skin was thickening and solidifying into linked, flexible plates. Dragon-like scales, really... but a bit off in shape...

"Drake scales?" Rhya said, questioning without addressing anyone.

"Drake..?" Lesani said at last, pronouncing the word as if surprised. "I am... turning into a drake..." the elf mumbled. "Yes... I remember... a drake..."

Rhya shot forward, straining against her chains to touch the elf's foot and jolt him into focusing. "Stop! Lesani, think! That is the influence of magic! Fight it!"

"Ahhh... Rhya... don't worry. I know it is. It... it doesn't hurt..." Lesani replied, smiling unsteadily at his friend. "Was... trying to say earlier... always had nightmares... about how this might end. Death... torture... magic can do terrible, terrible things to a body... or a living soul..."

"Don't say that! We're not through yet!" Rhya replied back, trying not to let the sickening feeling of despair in her heart creep into her voice.

"...do you remember that time we fought those lich cultists, under the Dredsel sewers? That poor man I hit... with that fireball... his screams... the look on his face as he... ugh... even now, I can't face it. I cried that night for a very long time..."

"We did what we had to do, Lesani. Stop blaming yourself; you know as well as I do the heretics deserved their fates. We are merely the hand of justice, not the heart..." the assassin said, quoting the Inquisitorial creed.

"I'm not so sure anymore.... but ...ahhh... but this... this is so different. This feels... good... mmm..." he continued, voice wavering slightly. He pulled one of his changing arms down, feeling the weight of the air between his leathery, growing wings. "...ahhh... the scales... they tingle... they feel so snug. I think... I think I'm growing a tail, too... mhng... quite stimulating..."

"...Lesani..."

The transforming elf kept on talking, half-addressing himself. "...you know... he called me ignorant; said I was trying to act like a wizard... without actually doing any of the hard work. A rather scathing insult for someone of my calling, if not an attack on my moral character. His offer was insane... but I have to admit after talking to him he made it sound rather nice, somehow..."

"Lesani! Stop, focus! Resist the spell!" Rhya pleaded. She knew little of magic, but enough to know that Lesani's wavering concentration would spell his doom. She could see a small but growing bulge press against the back of the elf's pants, and saw the elf's long, blonde hair falling off the back of his head, which was rapidly flattening out.

"Mhgn..." the scaly elf snorted, grimacing as his nose squeezed down into a snout. "...no more magic, no more memorizing spells every day... no more killing and violence... just a chance to be *free* from this grim duty..." the mage said, smiling and letting out a sound that was halfway between a hum and a growl though his half-formed muzzle. "I remember what he said now... yes... he said I would be... rhh... happy this way..."

"Damn it Lesani! You know that's not true!" Rhya cursed, straining forward against her chain. Lesani's stall was too far across the hall, but his eyes focused back on her for a few unsteady seconds.

"Oh... but it is..." the elf replied. "Mmmm.... Rhya... it... it feelssshhh... good. Sschhho good... ahhh... mmmgh..." Lesani moaned and growled, shaking his head as his transformation continued. A lazy smile hung on his face as his eyelashes fluttered away and scales crawled down his stretched cheeks. Slowly, his teeth began to change as well, sharpening into curved points with a creaking sound that made Rhya shiver unpleasantly.

Rhya swallowed as she watched her friend's head morph and change. Hair was still falling out from the back of Lesani's head in clumps as his irises darkened and his muzzle grew forward. Pale gray scales crackled down his throat and up his forehead, even stretching up to cover his long, slender ears. Lesani shuddered and pitched slightly forward onto his still-growing wings and his stocky hindlegs- now a very natural-looking stance for the half-drake- and a long, slimy, purple-tinged tongue lolled past his scaly lips.

"...mmm... I wissshn... you could... undersshtand... forgive... me... for... being... weak..." Lesani managed, before his maundering was cut short by a sharp ripping sound, and a thick, gray tail split the elf's pants apart. Lesani gasped and moaned as the new limb twitched to life behind him, stiffening with tension as it continued to grow. "Ahhhhh... wrrrr..."

Rhya shuddered in revulsion. "Gods... Lesani... I promise we'll find a way to change you back. Just... be strong..."

"Hnngg... ghrhhng... ghrk..." was the former mage's unintelligible reply. He began clenching his talons as he awkwardly sat forward. The tattered remains of his shirt fell from his back into the straw behind him, though Lesani hardly seemed to notice.

Whatever resistance Lesani had been putting up against his metamorphosis had crumbled utterly. Already, the scales coating his body were thickening and his body was swelling with strength as the once-bookish elf grew into a muscular, well-built drake. His tail twitched erratically as it gained length and girth, spraying straw away from his stall as it thrashed about. The short claws on his feet grew into long, curved, deadly talons, though two of them sunk into nothingness before the process was complete. Save for his elongated ears and bright, intelligent eyes, it was becoming more and more difficult to see the fleeting traces of Lesani's elven ancestry...

"Awwrk... mmmrk..." the new drake yelped, giving her a toothsome smile before closing his eyes once more, neck tensing...

Rhya could only watch in helpless horror as Lesani's neck stretched forward, and the changing elf pushed his proto-snout down the front of his own pants. Taking his belt into his drooling mouth, the lust-addled elf began to chew on the leather with his sharper teeth, pulling and jerking at the belt with nothing save his muzzle. The belt gave way with a snap, and then Lesani twisted his head to the side, pulling away the broken leather...

Rhya had seen the elven male naked a few times before; inquisitorial work often required long journeys in uncomfortable, haphazard accommodations. She had been surprised by how similar it looked to a human member- though noticeably sleeker. But the nine-inch, throbbing, crimson-red, headless shaft that was now proud and erect between her drake-like comrade's legs was so strange that Rhya couldn't take her eyes off the bizarre right. His sparsely-haired testes were no longer visible, and his shaft seemed to sprout from a narrow slit between his scaly thighs that was wet and glistening with fluids...

"Ahhh... no... no, no, no. Lesani... what are you doing?" Rhya quietly asked, shaking her head as a strange, pungent, musky scent washed over her.

Lesani craned his head upward for a half-second to look at Rhya, but his comrade's words no longer seemed very important. The only thing that mattered to the drake-elf was the throbbing need in his still-growing maleness, a need that his winged arms could no longer sate. Hissing in frustration, Lesani tried pawed helplessly at his engorged member with his oversized half-wings...

"Hey! What... what are you... stop that! What's wrong with you!" Rhya hissed to him, with growing alarm.

Heedless, the drake-elf's pushed his muzzle against the head of his engorged maleness, curling towards his crotch with his wings spread out to the side. Lesani spread his legs apart as he wiggled his elongated neck forward, slowly pushing his muzzle down on his erect, drooling member. "Mmmmhhgg..." he purred deeply, before beginning to suck hard on his own cock.

Loud, messy sucks began to echo through the stone stables as the horny drake sucked powerfully on his own maleness, his hindpaws and wings twitching erratically. Huge trails of preseed drooled from out of his maw between sucks, pooling on the stone under him...

"Ah, Lesani! Damn, damn, damn, damn! Damn!" Rhya cursed, hitting the nearby wall until her fist went sore and numb. She tried to look away from the lusty creature that her friend had become, cheeks flushing with rage. But she couldn't quite overcome her morbid, terrified curiosity as she watched her fellow inquisitor succumb to his base urges.

Pulling back to licking his long shaft, Lesani's coiled his long, purple tongue around the thick base of his drakehood and then continued to suck his length. The drake's crimson shaft seemed to grow slightly with every twitch it gave, soon swelling up to a full foot long. With the creak of bones shifting and muscles swelling, the rest of Lesani's body quickly followed suit. His wings, hindlegs, tail, talons and body all grew and grew with each of his drooling, wet sucks, until he had grown into the full size of an adult drake.

Now fully transformed, Lesani bent his flexible neck into a more relaxed, comfortable position, and began to slurp and purr contentedly. The once-elf shifted his head from side to side to cover every sensitive inch of his bright red cockflesh as his long tongue licked up and down his needy, throbbing drakehood. The newly-changed dragonkin's motions were awkward and stumbling, but powered by a fiery, aggressive passion alien to the elf he had once been.

Lesani's long tail bucked upwards once, twice, and then held stiff up in the air a third time as he climaxed. Spurting gushes shot through the stableroom as the lust-drunk drake filled his muzzle up with cum and began to swallow. Hot, heavy musk flooded the room as some of the thick seed escaped the horny drake's maw, drooling out along his pubic scales.

The erstwhile elf tried to buck his head forward for a better seal on his member, but got caught on his right wing. The drake's throbbing reptilehood slipped free from his tongue for a couple of seconds, spraying two long trails of cum against his snout and across his muzzle.

Slowly, the drake's sucking slowed, and he began to settle down onto his wings and back, tail flopping down between his talon-tipped hindpaws. Lesani was breathing deep and steadily, tongue lolling from his seed-splattered muzzle. The look on his dark, slitted eyes was one of pure, relaxed contentment, no sign left of his previous trepidation and terror. He gave a low croon and reached his sinuous neck forward, slowly beginning to lick the mess of slitfluid and drake cum coating his reptilian slit and shaft.

Rhya had turned to the side, watching out of the corner of her eyes as her former friend finished cumming into his own maw. Thick, white seed drooled out of Lesani's muzzle and his tail flicked behind him quietly as he licked himself. Only the scaly, winged beast's stiff, pointed ears gave any indication of his ancestry. "L-Lesani..?" Rhya hazarded, staring at the transformed elven mage.

The drake raised his muzzle towards Rhya and barked at her, "Awrrk!"

"Oh L-Lesani... are you still... I mean... c-can you still understand me?" the rogue hazarded, voice shaking in disbelief. It felt like utter madness to know that the blue-scaled drake cleaning its cock with its tongue was the same creature as the quick-witted elven battlemage she had served with for years. "Are... is that still you?"

Lesani looked at her again and gave a toothsome gave a deep, happy, burbling growl while nodding his long muzzle.

"Oh... gods above..." Rhya whispered in shock. Lesani pushed his muzzle back between his hind legs, licking his thighs and lower belly clean.

Unable to stomach the sight any longer, Rhya's eyes darted from her transformed comrade to the nearby stalls, looking for something that might help her free herself. Her heart was pounding and her blood felt as though it was on fire with adrenaline, and the worst of it was knowing her friend wasn't even gone... just no longer interested in escaping...

She checked her restraints again, confirming that it was a solid, seamlessly fused piece of iron. All her clothing was gone; there was nothing within reach save her blanket and the straw under her. The other stalls all looked empty as well; no spare tools or rope had been left lying about carelessly. Rhya picked up the heavy chain under her, and for a brief but grim second contemplated how she might remove her foot. But the inquisitor shuddered as she actually envisioned the idea; there was little chance she could escape so injured, and the thought of losing a limb seemed much worse than the prospect of gaining unwanted ones...

Rhya's frentic thoughts were interrupted by a low, almost inaudible shuffling sound. She could just barely hear if over the sound of Lesani's tongue lapping across his scales, but the drake must have heard it too. His leathery, high-peaked ears twitched upward, and he craned his muzzle up from between his thights.

"Awrk," the drake barked, looking right at Rhya with a curious expression on his muzzle.

"I know..." she replied, understanding what her friend meant even though his words were nothing but bestial babbling. The rogue tensed and pulled the rough blanket closer to her bare chest. "He's coming for me, isn't he..."

"Awwwr," Lesani replied, nodding his muzzle.

**** ****

The soft sound of scutes sliding across stone meandered down the stable corridor. Rhya felt her pulse quicken with both rage and terror as the serpent slithered into sight. "Ah... you're nice and changed, I see," he said, looking towards Lesani. "And-"

"YOU!" Rhya shouted, knuckles going white as she clenched her hands into fists. "You sick, trice-damned, evil abomination! You demon-spawned, worm-bellied, bile-filled monster! You lying, evil, scum-feeding, black-hearted sack of shit and sin!"

"...and... ah... a good evening to you too," the cobra finished, wincing slightly as he approached the stalls the rogue and the drake occupied. He adjusted the cloth hood behind his natural one, giving Rhya a strange, contemplative look. His unlinking, slitted eyes settled upon hers, and he licked his lips as if readying to speak before thinking the better of it.

The naga sighed and frowned, shifting his magestaff to his left hand before addressing Rhya again. "Tell me," he said. "Do you know why I did what I did?"

"What reason could you possibly have!?" the inquisitor shouted. Rhya seethed with anger, even though she was deeply aware of her nakedness and the chain fastened around her ankle. "You turned my comrade... my friend... into a... a slavering beast!"

"Dear... you make too many assumptions too quickly..." the naga said, gliding across the smooth stone floor effortlessly. "Your friend is still very much himself. The process of transformation itself though... it is quite a stimulating process..." Nezan said. He flicked his tongue out quickly and turned back towards Lesani, laughing softly. "Quite stimulating indeed, it seems. Hmmm... couldn't control yourself, I take it?"

"Awrk," the elf-earned drake responded, covering part of his muzzle with the top of his right wing.

"Ah... that is alright. Unlike you inquisitors, I do not believe there is shame in taking such pleasures," the naga said with a soft, gravelly laugh, again meeting Rhya's eyes.

Rhya bit her lip and looked at Lesani again, this time watching him closely and carefully. The former elf looked relaxed and... playful. Happy, even. It wasn't the look of terror and bewilderment she had expected.

Rhya felt a cloud of confusion dull the fiery anger in her blood. "What did you do to him?" she asked, her voice a little more even than before.

"Ah... yes, I should explain things. It is far from simple magic, but the concept is simple enough..." the naga began, petting Lesani twice on his flat, scaly head. "Crude magic brings new realities into creation through sheer force. A mage usually draws upon unreal, metaphysical concepts... like a cage of pure force, or a sizzling ball of fire. My magic is more... elegant. I focus on the study of possibility itself; what is, what could have been, what will be... and how to change it."

"I don't understand..." Rhya mumbled, shivering unpleasantly as she watched her former comrade nuzzle the naga's scaly hand affectionately. How could Lesani possibly be friendly to the very mage who had taken his elfhood from him! It was unthinkable!

Nezan gave the rogue a patronizing smile. "Of course you don't dear... so to put it simply... there are forces in tension within all creatures. Concepts and forms their soul aligns with, even if their mind rebels at the very thought. Take your friend, for example. He might have been rather troublesome as a mage, but there was enough potential in his bones I could give him a much more... manageable... form. And as you can see, one he enjoys as well. All I had to do was persuade him..."

The former elf began to rumble in a contented purr as Nezan moved to scratch him behind his long, leathery ears. As he did, the naga also bent his flexible upper body down slightly and touched the chain fixed to Lesani's ankle. It fell to the ground and the drake stepped away from it, nuzzling up against the naga's long tail as he moved forward on all fours.

"See? Does he *look* unhappy?" Nezan said. "No... aside from a brief feeling of euphoria during the process, nothing changes that wouldn't change naturally, given certain stimuli. And if he learns to behave himself, I'll even give him some telepathy later."

"Awwrk?" Lesani whined.

"Be able to talk again? Ahh... sorry. I can't let a mage in my care have their hands or their voice." Nezan said, dragging his claws up and down the drake's head. The rough, scritching sound made Rhya feel like shuddering...

"You... who do think you are!? By what right do you twist his shape and taint his soul!" Rhya yelled suddenly, flush with fresh rage. "Does this amuse you? Are you so drunk with demonic power you don't even know right and wrong?"

The cobra naga smiled at her. "I am Nezan Nassruzin; I claim no special rights or privileges, nor do I claim any special knowledge of good or evil. My actions and my decisions are my own; perhaps you would care to listen to my reasoning?"

"Really? Reasoning? Really?" Rhya repeated, almost incredulous. "By all means, go ahead! Please, explain to me why you *attacked* us for, horror of horrors, attempting to stop a rampaging dragon! Give me a good reason why you turned one of our number into a... a drake! Please enlighten me, you stupid, blind, foolish... snake!" Rhya said, spitting the last word like a curse.

Nezan never quite stopped smiling at the rogue, though he winced throughout the invective. "Very well. Your crime was nothing more than simple, willful ignorance. But the consequences... the potential for harm was catastrophic enough I could not allow the lapse to go without... correction," Nezan said, shaking his head.

"What did we do! What, damn you, what!?" Rhya replied.

"You did not listen, last night in the clearing. You did not listen to me when I warned you to cease your fighting...." Nezan said, his smile quickly fading away. The look that replaced it was cold and stony. "You four and the dragon alike; you threw spells and fury at one another with reckless abandon, not even noticing the glyphs you splintered and the trees you burned down..."

"...what could that possibly..." Rhya tried to interrupt.

"Quiet! If you demand an explanation, at least have the grace to hear it!" Nezan suddenly said, darting his coiled body towards her a half-foot. "If that circle had become destabilized, one of two things could have happened. The best case would be a mere release of magical energy; the blast would have killed most life within ten kilometers and poisoned everything left alive with contaminating energy that would have taken millennia to quiet. In the worst case, the *very* worst, you five could have torn an unprotected hole through the veil between worlds, one large enough for a daemonic invasion that this world would not survive!"

When he was finished, cold anger showed bare on the naga's face, and his hand was gripped so tight around his staff that the scales were white with stain. Nezan's breathing was heavy, and his tongue flickered in and out of his muzzle in the silence. Under him, Lesani had shrunk away from the raging naga, pressing his muzzle, tail and wings almost flat against the ground. Rhya had the impression he was trying to control his emotions and was barely succeeding; a chill feeling moved through her when she thought of what a awesomely powerful mage might do in a blind rage.

"Teaching. You five require... teaching," the naga curtly decared. I spent about twenty years preparing the area you ruined. The nexus, as well as the magical reagents I purchased and created to catalyze it, is likely lost, as is my very, very precious time. Do you think you could afford pay for that sort of destruction with mere gold?" the snake asked, tapping his claws along his staff. "That dragon has no hoard, and really, as much as your society enjoys setting weregilds I don't need *your* money and I don't see any purpose in immiserating the lot of you either. The damage is beyond price."

"If we have nothing to offer, then what do you want from us?" Rhya asked, bitterly fighting back her rage. "What do you gain by doing... this... to us?"

"The satisfaction of teaching a valuable, lasting lesson... not to mention, this is only the beginning of my recompense. You will be useful to me in your new forms; I could use some help around my laboratory, some fast-flyers to act as couriers and messengers, some company..."

"Oh? And what makes you think you've the right to hold us against our will? We do not consent to such treatment!" the inquisitor replied. "You talk of righteousness and good, but you want to... transform and enslave the agents of lawful justice?"

"Ah... well, imprisonment is also customary in your country, is it not? And slavery certainly isn't unheard of... but I'm not going to force you to accept service." Nezan said, smiling. "If you would prefer, I could simply lock you in the old dungeon for a few years after I change you, but then you would be very bored and I would need to find someone else to do my chores."

Nezan began to slither back and forth down the stone hall, halfway between Rhya and Lesani's stalls. "Or... hmm... I could turn you to stone... but then the time would pass instantaneously from your frame of reference and it would not be much of a punishment at all..." the naga mused, idly passing his staff from hand to clawed hand. "No. I have thought through my decision, and you have not convinced me to change my mind."

Rhya shook her head and scowled. "The inquisition will never..." she began.

"I am trying to conduct important experiments on the fundamental nature and structure of reality; I don't give one half of a damn about your petty little inquisition! You are so short-sighted and selfish! You and that dragon both! Stealing and burning what you fight over like impish teenagers! Do you have any idea what could have happened if you disrupted that ritual circle!? Did you even understand what I was saying!" the naga roared, slamming his staff against the stone under him. "Even you must know that *that* would have been a *worse* thing than any imagined sin I or anyone else has ever done!"

Rhya sat bolt upright as she replied, "oh now? It is *our* fault your evil magic is so dangerous now, is it!?"

"Evil? Evil? Do you even know the *meaning* of the word, you ignorant, childish fool! You trust blindly in the authority of the temple and have the audacity to question *my* moral framework!?" Nezan curtly replied, slitted eyes narrowing. "I am trying to investigate matters beyond your comprehension; the very structure of existence! In the absence of rampaging, quasi-fascist psychopaths, it is a safe and productive process!"

"Heresy and denial in every breath! Nobody is above the law of..." Rhya began, raising her voice.

"Oh, shut up!" Nezan spat, hood flaring. "I don't need an ethics lecture from an assassin!"

Rhya laughed suddenly. "And I don't need one from demonologist!"

"Not everything you don't understand is evil! I do *not* possess demonic magics!" the naga shouted, gritting his teeth and raising his hand. "Allow me to demonstrate what I *can* do!"

"Wait! Wait, don't-" Rhya said, trying to backpedal.

A flash of blue-black energy thudded through reality, flowing into Rhya's body like a hot wind on a cold day. Rhya's words choked off with a stutter, and she felt a sudden, incredibly powerful buzz of energy run through her body. She dropped her blanket and collapsed onto all fours, slowly pressing her forehead to the stone as all her strength departed. Blackness fell over the rogue's vision, as though ink had spilt over all reality. Sound and warmth, the smells and sights of the world disappeared into nothingness... and then came back, one by one, *different*...

Rhya suddenly had the very strange feeling that reality had left her behind. The feel of the ground under her hands and feet felt distant, but the hiss of the naga's words felt very close. Her skin flashed hot and then cold every few seconds, and every inch of it tingled and buzzed. It was a funny feeling, and especially strong on her hands; it reminded her, oddly enough, of being tickled. She was grateful the blanket had fallen away when Nezan's spell hit her; the stimulation would likely have been overwhelming.

Without even thinking really about it, the naked inquisitor smiled and laughed. Everything was going to be fine, really. Lesani looked quite happy. Only a faint, short-lived feeling of unease passed through Rhya's mind when she realized she was having trouble thinking of doing anything except feeling the tickles on her skin and listening to Nezan. But it passed very quickly.

"Yes... isn't that better?" Nezan asked, smiling at her. "Look at your smile! I had a suspicion that without that murderous, icy glare, you would be a very nice and pulchritudinous lady..."

"I don't know what that means..." Rhya mumbled, eyes closed and smiling. She rolled her head around in a circle, enjoying the feeling of her long hair sweeping around her neck and across her nose.

"Ah. I mean to say you're quite beautiful..." the naga said, smiling at the inquisitor. Rhya saw the reptile's unblinking, slitted eyes meet hers, and then drag down her body generously.

"You're just saying that... because you're..."

Nezan raised his hand. "No, sincerely. I mean it, my dear. You're under a very powerful mental charm right now. I could probably persuade you to think you were a table if I was feeling mischievous. Fortunately for you, despite the recent unpleasantness between us I am really quite nice," the cobra said, slithering his long body around a support column before re-appearing on the other side. "But you know... nothing is perfect..."

"What do you mean, exactly?" Rhya asked, looking up at Nezan with a curious smile on her face, black hair draped over her eyes.

Nezan smiled back at her, before replying, "hmm... I suppose the time has come to be direct. I have a problem with the five of you. You're all insane."

"We are?" Rhya asked. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you wanted to kill each other so badly, you didn't seem to notice or care you were on the verge of destroying a small portion of his continent," Nezan said, still smiling but with a touch of bitterness in his voice. "What sane creature in existence would do such a thing? Are you... inquisitors... really considered authority figures, in your society?"

"Of course we are!" the woman replied, laughing and shaking her head. "We didn't know any better... we didn't trust you... you were... not very convincing..."

A strange smile came over Nezan's muzzle, and he laughed to himself suddenly. "Ah... yes. Now I remember. I sometimes forget that creatures such as yourself are less receptive to logical arguments. Did I not ask politely enough or something?"

"No..." Rhya continued. "It's... you were just some strange... snake. Snakes are... disgusting."

"Well. I think that's unfortunate," Nezan replied, smiling at her evenly. The naga slithered close to Rhya sweeping the lower length of his tail around the back of her feet. "Tell me... does this feel 'disgusting' to you?"

"Actually... no you feel... nice..." Rhya said, sighing as the cobra's scales slid across her body. The feel of the cool, smooth, slightly glossy scales pressing and sliding against the back of her bare but calloused feet was enough to make the rogue sigh with delight, clenching her toes.

"Mhmm... there we go. You've struck the heart of the matter, my dear..." Nezan said, gently hugging the prostrate inquisitor with his tail. "I think that all of you, even that dragon, need to open your mind to the lives of other creatures. You must understand there is a very big difference between the actions of a bird of prey hunting for its dinner ... and intelligent creatures fighting to the death over nothing more than ideology, pride or property, isn't there? "

"Even... dragons?" Rhya mumbled.

"Yes. Even dragons," Nezan replied, evenly.

"Even... demons?"

"Ah... no. I would still recommend destroying demons whenever possible," Nezan said, wincing slightly. "But yes... don't think of this as a punishment. Think of this as... a learning experience. It can be enjoyable if you want it to be..." the naga hissed, slithering forward until he was right in front of Rhya. Gently, the serpent put his cool, smooth, scaly palm across Rhya's back and began to rub her soft, warm skin. "I found a nice form for your elven friend, didn't I?"

Rhya closed her eyes and smiled, enjoying the strange, heightened sensation of being stroked by the snake. When she opened them again, she could see Lesani in front of her. The drake was giving her an odd smile with his muzzle, and his tail gently wagged behind him. The former elf gave her a happy, burbling purr that made her smile herself...

Rhya felt a low, sinking feeling in her belly. She had never felt unease so strong; somewhere in the back of the rogue's mind, she knew that she was out of time. When she joined the Holy Inquisition, Rhya Dawnstone had accepted the dangers of the calling. Death, capture, torture magic and mundane had been the fate of many inquisitors in the line of duty. But Rhya had never imagined that she and her comrades would become the twisted, transformed playthings of a mage, and wasn't sure if the fate was better or worse...

When Rhya looked up to Nezan again, she saw a blink of dark light dance across the wizard's staff. It was quick and sudden, and strangely beautiful.

Though the inquisitor was no wizard, she had always found magic fascinating. Lesani's craft as a mage had always been impressive, but Nezan was in a whole different class of magus. His spells left a tangible ripple in reality strong enough to be seen and powerful enough to be felt. Now, deep inside the black, shimmering light atop the mage's staff, there was a *hole* in reality.

Rhya felt her eyes rest upon the black hole in the cobra's shimmering staff, feeling its presence suck her mind straight into it. Deeper and deeper into the darkness she stared, looking further and closer. All around her, total blackness swallowed up her sight.

The rogue suddenly felt as though she was completely weightless, floating bodily in the dark, featureless void. Except when she looked down, she couldn't see her body. All she could see was yet more darkness, darkness everywhere except where her mind and eyes gazed from...

...but strangely enough, her sight felt as though it was getting better, blurring back into focus. There was not just darkness, but light. Thousands, millions of points of light, slowly prickled into view, each wondrous in its own right but a wordless expression of beauty in the whole. Rhya felt vertigo rush up into her as she realized she was looking out into space and felt an urge to gasp in shock, but there was no sound, no air, nothing to the emptiness around her.

For what felt like an eternity, Rhya floated in the void. Galaxies and stars, eons and epochs passed before her sight, a burden of light and life beyond measure.

Slowly, the awestruck inquisitor felt a lurch as one of the infinite dusty specks under he began to tug on her weightless body. She felt drawn near it, then began to fall towards it, and then finally began to rush towards it with a speed that was beyond comprehension.

Rhya felt a blur as the brightness of the stables stung her eyes; it hurt as though she had never seen through them before. Nezan was there, smiling at her with his inscrutable, fanged smile. Rhya then noticed that Lesani was curled up next to the serpent magus, half-resting his muzzle atop one of the snake's coils, and wondered how long she had been away.

With a sudden sense of purpose she didn't fully understand, the rogue rose up from the bed of straw under her, barely able to summon the strength but aware how important it was she do so. The woman's arms rest slack at her side and her dark hair was wild around her face, as most of the stellar darkness faded from her sight. All, that is, save a single wispy strand of star-speckled darkness, which floated around her like a ring of smoke...

The dark band of magical energy came to rest across her, passing through her skin and into her body. Rhya shivered slightly at the strange feeling, suddenly feeling quite freezing in her nakedness. She looked down at her full breasts and rubbed them as cold, electric tingles ran through her nipples. Even though they felt warm to the touch, she could feel magic flowing through them, *into* them...

"The elf was easy to predict. I can read another mage's aura like a book. But you... I wonder what is within your possibility, inquisitor..?" Nezan said, smiling at Rhya. "What did you see?"

Rhya smiled back at him, and without even thinking about it began to reply. "I... I saw something... beautiful. So many stars... so many places...." the inquisitor said, shaking her head. She could feel her pulse slowly quickening as more, stronger tingles danced across her skin. Rhya looked down at herself and shivered, knowing it was only a matter of time until she began to change like Lesani did...

"Ah... yes. It is hard to wrap one's mind around the sheer size of all creation," Nezan said, tapping his claws against his staff and looking at the other thoughtfully. "To see as much of it as one can... to try and understand as much as one can... to pry as deep into the secrets of the universe as is possible... are these not 'noble' goals?"

"Yes..." Rhya said, slowly. The naga was right; she felt it. She knew it. Breathing deeper, the rogue felt a tremor run up her spine as she shivered. The tingling on her breasts had grown much stronger, and she felt a weak pulling sensation begin to build underneath each one...

The powerful tingles across her skin grew in power, rendering her helplessly enraptured. Looking down, Rhya was struck by a truly bizarre sight. Darkness seemed to erupt from inside her, darkening her tan skin to black. The sparse hair on her body began fall off all over her body, leaving her dark skin in flutters carried away by a nonexistent breeze. The inquisitor had to shake her shoulders to free the long strands of her black hair from her arms as they fell away from her head, leaving her bald but feeling curiously liberated. Rhya continued to shiver and twitch, now with expectation; she felt something rising up from under her skin...

"Ahhh... what... ahhh..." the inquisitor moaned, sighing as she stood stiff. Heat poured into her skin, and she began to tremble as tiny black hairs burst through her skin almost everywhere. Rhya panicked as the hairs grew with explosive speed, soon covering her entire body save her hands and feet. But as the fur-like covering thickened around her skin, Rhya noticed they were far from simple hairs. Each of the small, black tufts kept growing and splaying out as it emerged from her skin, becoming a thick, soft covering of downfeathers...

"Shhh... there is no need to talk, dear... just think. Think hard and long and *deep* about what I've told you, yes..." Nezan said, gently swaying his staff back and forth in a lazy arc. The sight of inky, magical darkness sweeping before her sight again enraptured Rhya, and she began to follow the cobra's staff as it moved back and forth...

"Think... about..?" Rhya mumbled. It was very hard to think, and becoming harder still. The sensations creeping over her body felt wonderful but tremendously distracting. As she began to change, Rhya closed her eyes and smiled, enjoying the feeling of her new feathers tickling and fluffing together as they grew. Her anger and helplessness- so sickeningly strong earlier- was gone, replaced with relaxed, truly inquisitive wonder as her eyes dutifully traced the spiral of magic tracing through the air before her...

"Think about this, then: what a fine bird you'll make, my dear. No more clothes... no more inquisition... no more killing..." the cobra naga whispered, slithering a slow circle around the transforming, feathered woman.

Feeble, instinctive protests rose in Rhya's throat. She could feel thicker feathers begin to press out from her backside and down her arms, and deeper changes burning underneath the shiny blackness of her new hide, and knew her humanity was fading fast. "But... I'm..."

"...sssh; no 'buts'. You're already changing. Accept it." Nezan said, his unblinking, serpentine eyes stoic but infinitely patient. "Watch. Listen. Think. What did that vision teach you..?"

"I... I don't know. It was so much..." Rhya breathed, straining to think through her overstimulated skin. Each feather tingled across her skin as it thickened into a light, leathery hide. She felt lightheaded, light-bodied; her whole frame shuddered as weight seemed to disappear from her. Everywhere, her body was becoming smaller, lighter and weaker...

"Too much? Too much to see. Too much to count. Far, far too much to ever understand, l know," Nezan said, patiently approaching the changing inquisitor again. The snake pulled his hood off as he slithered forward, revealing all of his flat, earless, hooded head. "Yes... being a raven is quite appropriate for you, inquisitor; having a bird's eye perspective on matters, for a change?"

"Nngh..." the woman moaned. The shrinking weakness in her body abruptly vanished, leaving her breathless. But seconds later, a feeling of swelling growth and... change flowed into her arms and across her chest. Rhya steadied herself, relieved to see that while her hands shrunk and her fingers shortened, her wings were growing into her arms instead of replacing them...

Rhya was breathing deep and heavy, so enthralled by the euphoric, transformative rush that her female sex was quivering with sympathetic pleasure. Wetness trickled into the short, fuzzy down covering her slit as her arms grew heavier, broader and bulkier. A row of feathers on the underside of her arms began to droop under her as they grew longer and thicker, slowly becoming the strong, straight flightfeathers of a true bird. The onrushing reality of her metamorphosis was beginning to press into her thoughts; she really was turning into a bird!

The inquisitor writhed about where she stood, winged arms twitching in a useless flutter of confused motion. Rhya felt her muscles tighten and swell up and down her arms and upper chest. Her human breasts continued to shrink as her flightmuscles developed, becoming little more than flat bumps along her thick-muscled chest. She felt her nipples pull into her beasts, and then then they too shrank into nothingness as her upper body became truly avian. Panicking, Rhya lost her balance as she stumbled about, falling backwards only to be caught by a strong pair of scaly arms.

Nezan clicked his tongue and pushed her back onto her feet, though almost immediately afterward Rhya sagged down onto her hands and knees. "Be careful there, dear. You have hollow bones somewhere under all of those feathers..."

Vision dazed and blurred, Rhya turned her eyes back towards the naga. Was that true? Was that why she felt so weightless? She really was turning into a bird; she really would be able to fly like one...

The confused inquisitor moaned softly as she felt the tough, dark skin on her hands and feet tighten further still, quickly swelling up into thick, strong scales. Shuddering from the overstimulating feeling of putting weight on her hands as they changed, Rhya sat down on her long-feathered rump with her hands in her lap and her legs splayed before her. She both saw and felt the advance of scales swallowing up her two smallest toes, while forcing the other three to swell massively. Her fingernails and toenails darkened and hardened before turning into small, blunt points on her fingers and large, curved talons on her feet. A strange feeling wiggled through her heel, and Rhya gasped as a fourth talon grew out the back of her foot...

"Ahhh... almost done, almost there. See? It's not so bad, is it?" Nezan said from behind, as he began slithering his long body back around to face the changing female. "It's only punishment if you let it be one. Why not simply... enjoy it?"

Rhya's whole body twitched as she held her knees tight with her winged arms. The bones deep in her legs were shifting forward, the stretching making them feel hot and stiff. She could feel her legs twist under her clawed fingers, each changing to accommodate the stance of a perching bird. The lightly-creaking groans from her resettling bones made her shudder, but the whole process was completely painless... no. It was not merely painless, but pleasurable beyond words. Wet, fertile heat poured from the half-raven's slit as her sex buckled to the sensations ravishing it. Rhya felt the walls of her dripping, feathered vagina squeeze in against themselves over and over, as if trying to caress an invisible lover's maleness...

The thought of a hard, throbbing cock pushing past her folds and deep into her changed body made Rhya squirm and moan yet more. "Aaah... ahhrrk..." she cried, voice almost trilling. Shaking her head, the former human felt the last of her transformation begin...

The inquisitor's moans choked off as her lips stiffened and her face pushed forward, both squeezed together into a growing, hardening length of beak. Other changes consumed the last few places on her skin free from feathers or scales, while the naked raven's tailfeathers continued to grow out from above her rump. She panicked briefly when her nose disappeared into her developing beak, but soon Rhya could again breathe in through her relocated nostils...

"Arrhhk..." the new raven cawed, surprised to hear her own distorted voice. Her senses were even more confusing. Her eyes stung with clarity as they sharpened, while her sense of smell dulled. The smell of Lesani's spent lust had been getting duller and softer in the air. Now, with her beak fully grown, Rhya could hardly tell it was there...

"Hmm... interesting to have one's senses altered so much, isn't it?" Nezan said, slithering back and forth in front of her excitedly. "Our bodies only define ourselves if we let them, inquisitor...."

Rhya couldn't hear what the naga was trying to tell her after that; everything outside her own body had been silenced by the raging storm of sensations burning through her every nerve. For a half-second, a shred of willpower stayed Rhya's hands as her femsex smoldered with need. A half-second.

Trembling with need, the raven-woman began to brush her scaly fingers against the wet feathers just under her quivering vagina. Brushes quickly turned into lingering caresses, and then slow, squeezing strokes, and then Rhya's fingers began to push into her sex with true purpose...

Something odd greeted the raven's fingers as the young woman tried to explore her avian sex. The small, sensitive button of her clitoris felt softer, hotter and much larger. A few seconds of rubbing her fingers against it, and Rhya had both confirmed the feeling and made it far, far stronger...

Confused by this and yet captured by the thrill of masturbating with her new body, the corvid-shaped human let out a trilling cry. "Caawwwh!" she awkwardly squawked, unused to her changed throat and stiff beak.

Rhya pushed her fingers deep into her still-needy folds, trying her best to ignore the powerful, pulsating feeling in her clit. The raven felt a relaxed, dulling softness spread through her insides, slowly trickling down into her pelvis and femsex. Numbness cooled her arousal, and for a moment the raven thought she might be able to take control of her body once more. But the need for release was still building up in her swollen clitoris. Still confused and overwhelmed with arousal, Rhya moved her hands down to stroke it...

Looking down at her lower body from behind a black beak and still in a daze from her avian transformation, the black-feathered bird could be forgiven for not noticing what was happening to her sooner than she did. But it was only looking down upon her spread legs did she notice that the growing crimson length protruding from out of her sex looked like an awful lot like a maleness, and not a human one either...

Rhya hardly cared either way. The pleasure of masturbating in the throes of the change was such that nothing could have stopped her. Furiously stroking herself, Rhya felt her femslit shrink and her sex quiver, melting into her lower body without the slightest hint of resistance. Throbbing pleasure from her increasingly-cocklike clit built up inexorably, slowly replacing the instinctive need to be *penetrated* and bred with unfamiliar, unrecognizably strange desires...

Stroking her crimson shaft faster, Rhya's tongue lolled from her beak as she felt the change of sex reach the tipping point. The raven's smooth, tapered sex grew in girth and a slit opened at the tip, at last becoming a proper cock...

Giving one last tremor of pleasure, Rhya felt her femininity fade away as her folds sealed themselves up around her new penis. She felt a squeeze as the change carried itself up into her shaft, snugly wrapping up the lower part in a sheathe of feathered skin that grew up from her pubic feathers. Powerful heat echoed behind her maleness as Rhya felt her testicles swell up in throbbing spurts of growth, and within seconds the rest of her internal anatomy had followed suit. Male bird-musk poured into the mix of scents filling the air of the stableroom as preseed began to dribble out of her cock...

Rhya collapsed to her knees and looked down at her clawed, birdlike hands and beak, still awash in a daze of magic, lust and altered perceptions. "Ahh... ahhn... ohhh..." she cried out, as her new sex began to twitch between her legs, swelling up with blood for the very first time. Instead of the familiar, needy ache for stimulation deep inside her femsex, the rogue felt a burning, rising need to bury the hard length between her legs into a male's tailhole or a female's depths. Losing her femininity had calmed her lust, but only for the moment...

"I'm... a raven?" Rhya finally croaked, twisting her head from side to side as she lustfully cawed aloud. The throbbing, deep red erection jutting from between her feathery legs kept drawing her sight and her fingers both. Preseed trickled down the front and sides of her rock-hard ravenhood as the tingling, stimulating aftermath of her transformation ran through it; her cock seemed to beg to be stroked...

"As I said... yes. Judge for yourself by your plumage, talons, tailfeathers..." Nezan said, slithering closer to her. The naga gently put his scaly hand across her beak and gave it a firm but affectionate squeeze. "...and your nice, hard... beak..." the naga said in a low, sultry hiss, before running the back of two scaly fingers up the front of Rhya's fully erect cock.

"Ahhh... c-caw... ooh, oh... why did... I'm a... male?" the former inquisitor half-asked, stumbling over her words. Unlike some of the more prudish and less attractive female members of the inquisitorial order, Rhya had plenty of experience with the male anatomy. Touching, feeling, licking, kissing... having it buried nice and hard inside her depths, *filling* her... but now she *was* a male? It felt strange and *wrong*, but no more so than the weight and warmth of her feathers, the beak before her eyes...

"Oh, yes you are. Yes you are indeed..." the naga confirmed, smiling excitedly at the raven. "You are a sssexy, handsome, birdy boy, and don't you forget it... "

Rhya felt a stiff smile creep up on her beaked face as she listened to Nezan's words, shivering with delight. The naga's advice seemed right; Rhya knew... he... was a male. What was the harm in admitting the truth? What was the harm in listening to a creature as wise as Nezan..?

"Y-yes... I am a male... mmmh..." Rhya said, slowly blinking as he pondered himself in a new way. "Male bird, male bird... you should make someone a female bird, so I could make some eggs..." Rhya said, laughing playfully as he spoke the fantasy.

"Oohhh... no... just because you have a cock doesn't mean you can't enjoy them, birdie." the snake whispered, lewdly running his claws through the raven's pubic feathers but never quite touching Rhya's maleness again. "I bet that nice drake over there would love to play with you..."

Rhya twitched his head to the side, seeing Lesani's toothsome smile greeting him again. The drake's slimy, footlong, draconic cock was hard and aching between his hind legs...

The raven-male felt a stiff smile form around his beak; it was nice to know that the drake had appreciated his transformation so much...

When Lesani threw himself forward, there was little trace of the bookish, milquetoast elf he had once been. His motions as a drake had purpose in them; Rhya knew before he even leapt forward that the reptile was going to breed him well...

The drake half-pounced towards Rhya with a flutter of his wings, rolling into the raven as he spread the bird's feathered legs wide. Rhya felt his tailfeathers twitch in surprise as the drake began to drag his long, bestial member up and down Rhya's feathered ass, sending shivers of anticipation through his own shaft...

Lesani growled as he bent his neck forward, nuzzling the raven's beak aggressively while licking it from out of the side of his muzzle. Rhya panted and cawed into the reptilian kisses as he wrapped his hand around the drake's ready cock, guiding it under his tailfeathers and right against the tensed ring of his anal entrance. The cleft of the raven's ass, still warm and wet with feminine fluids, was soon covered in thicker spurts of draconic preseed. Rhya could only squirm about and stroke his cock under Lesani's wings, his own feathered wings and legs pinned under the stronger, larger dragonkin about to mount him...

The former elf, lost in the need to mate, drove his thick, heavy member into the raven's tailhole with a single wild shove, mating the former female so passionately both were driven up against the stone wall behind them. Rhya gasped and shuddered as he felt his tailpassage forcefully spread open, seared by the strain but drowning in pleasure. Hot, throbbing tingles of anal pleasure joined the wonderful friction of scaly strokes from his masturbation, and the bird-boy's tapered cock ached for release. Rhya could feel warm trickles run through his pubic feathers and belly as raven-pre erupted from his tip...

Suddenly, Lesani pulled back and shoved his hips forward, withdrawing and reburying his drakehood inside Rhya. The smaller male cawed in surprise and shuddered. Then, still shaking from the sensation, Rhya threw his free, winged arm around Lesani's neck, pulling himself closer to the warm, smooth-scaled drake. Growling with lust, the long-eared drake pulled away from the other's tailpassage again, and then thrust back in even harder than before. He was beginning to build up a rhythm...

It was there, shoved against the stone wall with a footlong drake-cock buried in his rump, that the last traces of resistance crumbled in Inquisitor Rhya Dawnstone's mind. But he was too busy to notice, and probably wouldn't have cared, anyway...

Lesani brought his flexible muzzle downward as he bucked in and out of the small, deliciously tight bird under him, purring a growl. Both his eyes and the raven's were glazed with focused lust, but inhuman smiles kept flickering across their muzzle and beak as they mated. Lesani kept up his pounding rhythm, preparing to fill the other male's tailhole with seed, while Rhya continued his furious stroking. Caws erupted from his beak as he mindlessly expressed his joy, tailhole and cock both spasming with pleasure.

Rhya panted through his beak and his talons clenched behind Lesani's back as their mating continued. The feeling of an unavoidable climax building up in the raven's swollen, feathered balls rushed up his shaft in molten-hot waves of pleasure, while the drake felt his own shaft prepare to breed the bird's tailhole. In one perfect, glorious, wordless moment of sexual and physical transcendence, Rhya and Lesani climaxed together.

Rhya felt his tailhole quake with stimulation as the drake's footlong breeding tool twitched inside him, shooting thick, sticky spurts of semen straight into his rump. There was so *much* seed entering his tailhole; the inquisitor knew he would have been made pregnant a dozen times over if he had received such a gift with his cast-off, feminine sex...

Moaning shamelessly, the bird felt hot cum pour into the feathers of his chest as his new maleness bathed him and the former elf in smaller spurts of seed. It was stimulation beyond words for the former female; being filled with cum while shooting his own...

Breathless and soaked in each other's essence, Rhya- now a male raven with a look of dazed, lustful carelessness on his beak- and Lesani- now a winged, reptilian drake in every way save mind and pointed ears- collapsed onto the straw underneath them in the rogue's stall.

"Mmmm... how are you feeling, inquisitor?" Nezan asked, tongue lewdly flickering in the air. The snake moved forward and touched the manacle still fixed to the raven's scaly ankle; it cracked down the middle of its smooth, solid surface and fell apart, though the bird hardly seemed to notice his new freedom.

"Inquisitor? Caw?" Rhya asked, rubbing some of his bird-cum into his chestfeathers. "No... nah... nope," the raven quipped, cawing lustfully as the drake still spearing him licked his neckfeathers. "Ahh... mmm... no. Not important."

"Ah! A change of heart, I see. Much like your friend..." the naga replied, laughing softly to himself as he slithered slightly back from the two mating males. "I'm glad you see things my way... but I won't ruin your fun. We can talk more later."

"Sure thing, sexy," Rhya said, winking at the cobra as he licked some of his own cum from talons. "Now... Lesani..." the lustful male began, nuzzling the drake with his beak.

"Awrk?" the former elf obediently barked.

"Roll over... show me your tailhole..." the raven murmured, stroking his still-erect ravenhood. "I'm dying to put this inside someone..."

Lesani gave a deep, rolling purr and began to pull himself away. Gingerly, the drake pulled his thick, semen-covered cock out of the raven's tight ass, accompanied by a small wash of seed that soaked into the bird's rump-down and tailfeathers. Rhya sighed with relief as the massive penis slid free from his tailpassage, though he quickly missed the sweet, pleasurable heat it gave him to be filled by another male...

Down the corridor, Nezan slithered away humming pleasantly to himself. He turned for one last look at the two former inquisitors as they prepared to mate yet again, and tried to ignore the almost-painful snugness inside his slit. "Two down, three to go..." the cobra said, sighing and throwing his hood back on his naturally-hooded head. "I really hope the others prove more cooperative..."

**** ****

"This is great," Berand said to himself, sighing deeply. "Just... great..."

Waking on top of a large, soft bed had been welcome; finding that his clothes were gone and his right ankle was chained to the floor less had been less so.

After hastily covering his lower half with a length of sheet, the inquisitor had checked out the rest of the room as much as he could. There was a lot to see.

Even though the bedroom was obviously well-used, it gave the impression of being a study as well. Tapestries of all shapes and sizes hung from the ceiling and maps decorated every wall; books collected in piles and stacks near the corners and around furniture, filled with dog-eared pages and scraps of note parchment. Berand could even see a few tablets on the snake's well-worn desk that predated the invention of paper. The richness of the lore around him would have given the polymath inquisitor fits of joy were he not worried for his fate.

The bedroom door was ajar; Berand could faintly hear noise from beyond as he sat waiting.

Berand was debating the wisdom of trying to reach and read one of the books near him when a blur of movement from just past the bedroom door caught his attention. Berand turned towards the door and sat straight up, calling out "Halt! Who goes there! As a representative of the Holy Inquisition, I demand an explanation!"

Berand glared defiantly at the open doorway. Slowly, a pointed, gray, draconic muzzle crept into view...

"By the good grace of the gods..." Berand whispered to himself, taken aback. "What is a wild drake doing wandering the halls? Did someone leave an exceptionally large window open?"

The drake blinked at him and sniffed through his nostrils, before pushing more of his long neck into view, craning his head past the door. It began to trot into the bedroom, much to Berand's consternation.

"Ack! Not good, not good, not good!" Berand said, scrambling to pull himself as high up on the large bed as he could. The chain affixed to his ankle only gave him a few feet of leeway; it was just barely enough for him to rest his legs full on the mattress. The young man then froze, praying to the gods that the drake wouldn't want him for a meal...

The horse-sized beast approached him quietly, splaying out its wings once it had passed through the door's threshold. It was long enough that part of its scaly tail remained outside the bedroom as it approached the frightened, helpless inquisitor, coming to rest on two sets of talons that looked big and nasty enough to carry away a goat or vivisect most larger creatures. Berand saw the drake's muzzle open slowly in an awkward, half-curl that bared rows of sharp, curved teeth, and then...

"Awk," the drake growled, in a low, almost polite bark.

Still tensed on top of the bed, Berand scooted away slightly more.

"Awk," it repeated, pausing to twist its long neck behind it before looking back at Berand and barking a third, "awk."

"Uh...

"Awrk?" the drake croaked, turning his muzzle to the side in an oddly-human gesture of quizzical surprise. But it kept approaching closer...

"Go away! Shoo! Booo!" Berand yelled at the reptile, kicking his free foot at it.

"Awwwwr..?" the creature seemed to reply, dodging backwards with a quick hop. "Wrrrr?" it whined, looking at him as if hurt.

"Away. Go. Now," Berand hissed. "What a stupid, stupid beast..."

The draconic creature's yellow eyes suddenly narrowed and it stopped moving. "Awwwrrr," it growled, tucking in its wings and tensing on its large, taloned feet...

"Oh dear... can you understand..?" the inquisitor managed, before the scaly beast jumped towards him, wings spread wide. Berand felt the drake's bulk slam into him and push him down into the bed, but most of the force of the impact was dissipated by the softness under him. "Aaahg!"

Expecting a fatal bite on his unprotected neck, Berand closed his eyes and tried to scream, but instead felt a wet tickle on the bare skin of his neck.

The drake licked him again, more adventurously than before. The long, warm tongue dragged sensually across Berand's throat, making his protests trail off into a sharp sigh. "Aaahhh... stop that, please..." he mumbled, nervously putting his hands around the beast's scaly neck.

While the drake seemed to notice Berand's awkward protests, it took little heed of them. "Grrwhhhrr..." the wyvern rumbled, sliding its slender neck through Berand's arms so he could lick the bard's nose.

"Heh, oh... well! Aren't you a... friendly little guy..." Berand nervously chuckled, awkwardly trying to back away. More licks assaulted his hair and ears, making the overpowered inquisitor squirm as he tried to protect his bare skin. "Ahh! Stop, stop, stop! Please stop!" he pleaded, half-laughing from the way the long, slimy tongue tickled his face.

Laughing but still half-trying to push the heavy reptile off his chest, Berand caught the eyes of the long-eared drake large yellow eyes and saw something *familiar* in them. It was like a flash of excitement... acknowledgement... some secret that the beast knew and wanted to hint at, if not share...

"Awwwwrrr..." it purred to the human, smiling at Berand through rows of jagged, meat-tearing teeth.

"Hey there... I was wondering where you were!" a familiar voice called from the door. Rhya! Except her voice was deep and scratchy; timbre off...

"Oh, Rhya!" Berand exclaimed, too excited to worry about the strange discrepancy in her voice. "How did you escape!? Quick, get this creature off me! We have to find Markus and Lesani!"

"Escape?" came a quizzical reply. "Oh! Yep! No longer tied up. Nope! I'm free!"

Twisting his neck around to looking behind him, the drake on top of Berand jumped off the bed and wandered back towards the doorway. Berand quickly squirmed upright, only to be greeted by a truly bizarre sight...

Instead of his fellow inquisitor, the battle-herald found himself looking at rather large, bipedal raven with a pair of winged arms resting at its side.

"Berand! Hey Berand! Caw!" Rhya said, flapping his wings gracefully as he jumped from the doorway to a spot on the floor in front of the still-human inquisitor. The raven folded his winged arms around his back and hopped backward and forward on his talontips, beak bobbing up and down excitedly. "Berand! Guess what!"

Horrified, the inquisitor stared slack-jawed at the enormous bird hopping in front of him.

"Berand. Berand-Berand-Berand-Berand-Berand. Hehe, you're not guessing!" Rhya excitedly tittered, jumping in place. "Guess!"

Brought low by shock, Berand shook his head and sucked in breath through his teeth before managing, "R-Rhya?"

"Yep! It's me! I'm a bird! Caw, caw, caw!" Rhya replied, springing upward before dancing back and forth on his scaly feet. "Also a guy. Also I think I might be quitting that inquisition thing. Mhm! It has been a really strange day for me! Strange but nice."

"And..." Berand began, trying to still the panic welling up in his heart. "Lesani? Have you seen him around?" he finished, barely holding onto his composure.

"Oh! You've seen him! There! Like this. And this." the raven said, head twitching from bard to drake and back again.

"What are you... oh," Berand replied, biting his lip and digging his hands into the bedsheets under him. "Ah... this explains much. Uh... so I take it..."

"Mhm! Mister magic-snake is probably on his way here right now!" Rhya cheerfully replied, hopping up onto the bed with a weightless jump before flumping down onto the sheets. "Wow, these sheets are soft! Soft, nice, soft! If you tore this bed up and put it in a big hole, you could swim in it!" Laughing excitedly, the raven bounced back onto its scaly feet and began to jump on top of the bed.

"Rhya... please... stop!" Berand whispered urgently. "This is not the time for... I said stop it, by the gods! What in the *hells* is the matter with you!"

"Huh? I'm fine! I feel great!" the raven said, jumping off the bed and facing Berand directly. "I know it can be kinda hard to tell with the beaky-beak covering it up, but I am smiling!"

"And pray tell *why* you are smiling at a time like this!?" Berand shouted at him, "The problem is not *with* your beak; it is that you *have* a beak! Has that... that naga has broken your spirit as well as your form!?"

"Caw? Broken me? Really? Hmmm...." Rhya considered, sweeping one of his winged arms around to his beak, tapping it. The raven scratched the underside of his beak and froze for a second, motionless.

"Nope!" the raven finally said, jumping up and hugging himself with his big, black wings. "I feel great! I feel like... ooh, what is that?" Rhya said, suddenly releasing his wings and hopping towards a nearby pile of books next to an armchair. Leaning down, the half-bird plucked a silver chain from out of the bottom of the stack with his beak, fishing up a silver-etched snowglobe.

"Put that down! Damn it all, Rhya! Listen to what you are saying!" Berand said, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "Focus! What sort of magic did he use? Did that snake let slip any way to reverse it?"

"Now why would I do that..?" an amused, rough voice said. Berand turned and again saw the naga who had captured them.

The hooded, robed snake slithered into the room slowly, tapping his staff along the ground in a way that made the inquisitor shudder. "Ah... I see you're awake, Berand. Allow me to introduce mys..."

"Hey! It's Nezan! What's going on?" Rhya excitedly called out. "I've been wondering; do snakes ever wear clothes over their tails? I know it *sounds* silly, but I've been flying around a lot and I keep thinking that some goggles- at least a hat- might be pretty useful! Also, where is your food? I am starving! And also, can you answer a question? I know I'm not a woman anymore and I'm not really hung up on that or anything crazy but I've really been wondering: if I was and I got pregnant somehow, would I lay eggs or just give birth normally? Also, is that snowglobe magic? If so, what does it do?"

"I... see..." the naga dryly replied. "Anyway... we shall do reintroductions later," the naga said, waving the two changed inquisitors away.

"Caw-awww... come on!" Rhya whined. "We can help!" "Awwwwwrk..." Lesani contributed from behind him.

"Please. I promise I will make it easy for your friend," Nezan replied, sighing. "Go spend some of your energy on each other, or something..."

Berand heard the drake give a soft growl before turning tail and departing, while the ravenlike creature simply shrugged his shoulders, pirouetted stiffly on his talons and bobbed away.

"Anyway ..." Nezan continued, slithering past Berand to a distant corner of his bed. "Before we begin please understand that I've had a very stressful day with all of the disruptions you, your friends and your enemy have caused. I've already had it out with two of your number, so I am going to politely request that you *not* bother with yelling, screaming, cursing, crying or indeed anything even approaching an emotionally-draining display of melodrama," the cobra sardonically commanded.

The snake slithered his bulk up into the bed before turning his long body around and falling back into the softness around him. Nezan covered the upper part of his head with a pillow as he sighed, leaving his staff lying well outside of Berand's reach. "For once, I would like to just talk some *sense* into someone!" he finished, sighing again.

The inquisitor stared at the snake and felt his hands shake with nervous tension. "You are... a very strange villain. I am unsure what we might talk of. Do what gloating you might; I'll not give you the pleasure of seeing..."

The cobra let out a threatening hiss.

"Well... what would you like to talk about!?" the herald said, his own anger rising. "Taking over the world? Capturing virgins for sacrifice? I'm sure you have a lovely assortment of torture implements which you'd enjoy describing to me at length..."

"Stop! Stop it!" Nezan hissed, suddenly grabbing his staff again and arching up onto his tail. "You stupid, childish misanthropes! Why do you automatically assume anyone who disagrees with you in any way is your enemy!?"

"Because one of my friends appears to be an adult Timberline Drake, and the other a... a... I don't even know how to summarize what all is wrong with Rhya!" Berand shouted back at the snake, fists clenched at his sides.

"I estimated that transformation was the least harmful method of teaching you to respect powers beyond your willingness and ability to comprehend," the cobra tartly replied, slithering off his bed and facing Berand from across it. "Although, yes. Those two are annoyingly energetic. *That* I shall accept full blame for..."

"Really now, y-..."

"Really." Nezan stated. "My magic merely taps into the essence of a creature; what they are, what they could have been, what they want to be. It is a dramatic process for someone living a rigid life, with rigid ways and rigid thoughts. The freedom certain realizations bring can be... hard to adjust to. But it is an extremely enlightening process, to live one's life in a wholly different way..."

"But... why!?" Berand said as his eyes met the cobra's lidless, slitted, unblinking eyes. It was difficult to read the mage, and not merely due his strange, serpentine visage.

"If you will listen, I shall explain," the naga said, sighing. "I am Nezan Nassruzin; as I hope you have already surmised, I am an archmage. You five were fighting in the middle of a ritual circle I was preparing, and refused to even stop and *consider* the consequences of your actions. Let me try and explain... in a way you might understand..."

Nezan slithered his upper body into the armchair while his tail meandered between two stacks of books next to it. "There was once a powerful sorcerer, who lived a long time ago in a desert kingdom far away..." Nezan began to say, sitting up slightly to meet Berand's eyes.

"This sorcerer was a vain and evil man, someone who accrued power and developed plans that merely served his own desires. He worked tirelessly for many years, subtly perfecting the arcana of enchantment while pretending to serve the people of the kingdom."

"The sorcerer did everything he could to further his power. He studied old lore and harvested artifacts from the tombs of the ancient dead; he manipulated priests and politicians into doing his will, and amassed a fortune in gold. Of course, his successes never did more than whet his appetite for power and help further still-greater schemes."

"Eventually, the sorcerer found the power he had long sought: a magic spell that granted him true, permanent, total mental control of its intended victim. Whether he developed the spell itself, or found it, or paid for it with some unimaginable sum ultimately matters not. What does matter is the way he used it..."

"Oh? Just how did he use it?" Berand asked. Nezan had been looking at him as if inviting the question.

"Ah. He took control of a blue elder wyrm and smashed his way into the king's throne room, demanding allegiance from all within... which he was promptly granted by the terrified monarch and everyone else present. All, that is, save the king's daughter, who remained defiant. A terribly unwise decision... or rather, it would have been... if not for what happened next."

"The sorcerer was livid at her defiance. 'Take care of the princess!' he said to his ensorcelled dragon, laughing manically..." Nezan said, smiling at Berand with an amused twinkle in his eyes."...at which point the mighty wyrm smiled, gently offered his paw in marriage to the young woman, and then disemboweled the still-shocked sorcerer..." Nezan continued, smiling at Berand as he pantomimed the scene with his hands.

"There is actually a very nice story about the aftermath of that little incident involving the princess and her new husband, but I'll leave such enjoyable frivolities for later. The gist of the matter is this, dear inquisitor: reality does not care about your *intentions* so much as your *actions*," the cobra said, crossing and uncrossing his claws as he stared at Berand. "Magic is the art of telling reality what to do. You must choose your words with *exceptional* care," the snake said, turning his head upward as if to ponder his own thought. "Tell me... would you care to guess what killing someone on my ritual circle would have done?"

Berand winced, shaking his head slightly. "I could guess, but I do not care to. I... I see your point," the inquisitor slowly admitted, shuddering. "Sorry. Truly, I am sorry."

"Thank you," the snake replied. "Not everyone can face up to the facts when they make mistakes. Least of all certain types of authority."

Berand looked up at Nezan, an earnest smile on his face. "It is an experience I do not shy from, but few in the inquisition share in my philosophy. But... having seen the error of our ways, is it really necessary to go through with all of this... unpleasantness?"

Nezan smiled. "And what is it you do for the inquisition, Berand?" the naga asked, pointedly ignoring the human's question. "The elf referred to you as a bard."

"Inquisitorial battle herald is the proper term, my good snakeman," Berand replied, raising one finger and wincing. "But! It isn't a bad description. I am a diplomat, a marksman, a trader, a scholar, a tactician and an orator. To confuse those with the mere manufacture of music... well now! It wouldn't do to make such hasty assumptions, yes?"

Nezan laughed softly. "Indeed."

"Speaking of assumptions... I have to ask one thing. Why was I the one shackled to your bedroom floor? I mean, seriously! Please tell me you weren't planning anything untoward!" Berand pleadingly exclaimed. "Tied up in the villain's bedroom, like some princess in a fairy tale! It's a little insulting!"

"Well... for certain unrelated reasons... those manacles were already installed here," Nezan said evenly. "Do not take that as an insult to your capabilities. I do not usually have to accommodate prisoners in my home."

"Oh."

"Nonetheless, I did evaluate you as the least threatening with the least chance of escaping..." the cobra continued,

"Aw."

"...and as to more amorous affairs, I did not plan anything but I might be amenable to such after you have finished your transformation," the snake admitted, flashing a smile at Berand.

"Hey! No! Not a chance!"

Nezan was nonplussed. "Why not?"

Berand cringed. "Is that a serious question!? You're a... a snake!"

"And what does that have to do with anything?" Nezan replied, curling his tailtip around Berand's bare leg. The bard froze as the strong, smooth, scaly appendage began to squeeze around his calf, sending shivers up his spine. "You know, depending on your nature you might end up looking very similar to me quite soon. My dear bard, would you still supply that answer if that happened..?"

"Maybe," Berand quickly mumbled. "But that's besides the real point of the matter! I don't want to be... anything not like me! I like me very much! It's just not something you can just take from us, mage or no!" he yelled, shaking his finger in protest. "And there ain't a thing in this world or the next that would make me think otherwise!"

Nezan smiled broadly, and twice flicked his tongue out quickly. "Is *that* so?"

The bard was confused by Nezan's reaction, until he juxtaposed it against his own last words. "...wait... let's not be too hasty..."

"No! Let's!" the snake replied, slithering closer, smiling all the while. "Of course, I shall respect your wishes. Before we begin, I shall withdraw my... solicitation."

"Thank you," the bard worriedly, trying to squirm backwards. "I'm glad that's out of the way, but..."

"Well... we shall see." Nezan said, quickly pulling his tail away and slithering off his bed. Berand pulled his freed leg up onto the bed and began to rub it. "For now... it is enough that you simply accept this..."

"Hold on now, I'm not accepti..." the inquisitor began to protest, looking back up at Nezan. When his eyes rose to meet the cobra, Nezan again held his staff in right hand.

Berand tried to ask the cobra a question, but instead found his sight captured by a startling presence...

He was staring into the end of Nezan's staff, where a shimmering, glowing portal had opened. Through it, Berand thought he could stare, stare deep into... something... sights and sounds and smells alike..? It felt strange and discordant, yet startlingly urgent...

"That's right... look closely, dear bard. Surely you trust your own mind..?"

Berand shivered with unease as he fell deeper and deeper into the growing presence of the mage's staff. The golden, shimmering portal was so beautiful; so awe-strikingly full of rich glows... it was like looking into an entire other world... but it felt even larger than that...

It was not large. It was *vast*. The light washing over him felt like the beating heart of creation; it was warm and filling and so awe-inspiring that Berand felt insignificant in comparison...

There was a sudden flash of light from the portal, and Berand felt a numbing wave of warm energy surge through his body. The bard felt his muscles relax and his worries melt away; everything in the present suddenly felt so *unimportant*. Obviously the snake wasn't going to hurt him; what did he really have to be concerned about? Rhya and Lesani hadn't seemed too worried...

Smiling, the bard laughed once at the absurdity of his predicament. He knew that the mage's spell had done something to him... but it didn't feel that bad...

Nezan slowly lowered his staff, and the vision dimmed away.

"How are you feeling now, Berand..?" Nezan asked. He was no longer wearing his robe, oddly enough...

Berand stopped to think, finding it much harder to gather his thoughts than it usually was. He felt little twinges inside his body, pinpricks of magical power that were surely beginning to alter his body. "I... hate you... you... dastardly villain?" the inquisitor replied, smiling and squirming on the edge of the bed. "I... think?"

"Ah... for a bard, you are not much of an actor, I see," Nezan replied, chuckling softly to himself. The cobra slid his hood off his hooded head and slithered slightly closer to Berand. Far behind his lengthy tail, the naga wagged his tailtip excitedly.

"You can't do this... to us..." Berand replied, laughing. "We'll escape!"

"I literally cannot believe this," Nezan hissed, smiling at the bard and flashing his fangs. "You may cease your deception, inquisitor. We both know it to be a lie. You're far too sensible for this..."

"It's... you can't be nice to us. We're the nice ones. We're the... good people..." the bard strained to reply. He grabbed the comforter covering him and bunched it up around his crotch, trying to conceal his growing erection...

Nezan smiled and rolled slightly forward. There was an amused grin on the cobra's muzzle, one that seemed to broaden with every passing second. "Guilt. Shame. My dear inquisitor, you are positively marinating in a rich, strange admixture of self-loathing. Would you care to tell me why..?" the naga asked.

Sighing aloud, Berand fell backward against the soft bed and let the comforter he was holding go. He felt relaxed and muddled; the serpent's question felt so innocent...

"I... feel... attracted. To... you..." the bard began, grimacing.

"Really now?" the serpentine mage replied, slithering forward until his tail pressed against the front of Berand's legs. "Is that actually a problem? I think I am quite fine with that state of affairs..."

Berand shivered as the strong, lukewarm, scaly snake-tail pressed against his hot skin, partially pinning him down. Yet instead of making him feel trapped, the physical contact actually felt... nice. Nice, safe and relaxing...

"Maybe..." Berand finally mumbled. It was hard to think; every little bit on contact on his skin felt *so* good. "But..."

"Shh... stop," Nezan said with a smile, pressing one scaly finger against the bard's lips. "That's all I needed to hear. As I said, I was hoping at least one of you would be reasonable and... amenable to affections. I've no shame in admitting that my isolation leaves me wanting for company..."

Berand swallowed as he lay there breathing heavily, staring into the serpent's black, slitted eyes. There was a long silence between them, interrupted every so often by the bard's breaths and the flick of Nezan's forked tongue. Berand's skin was beginning to feel tighter and heavier; the warmth in his skin was spreading deep into his muscles...

"So..." Berand began to say.

Nezan pushed him down into the bed, covering him with most of his strong, humanoid upper body. "Ahh... Berand... I think it's time we re-evaluated our relationship to one another."

"*Oof*... what..?"

"Shhh... there's nothing wrong. " Nezan said, continuing to stare into Berand's eyes.

Berand reflexively looked away from Nezan's gaze, which continued to press in closer. Looking up at his hands, the bard could both see and feel his skin as it grew thicker and harder. The tanned white of his skin was taking on pallor, but the sickly-paleness didn't last long. It was being replaced with a shade of light green...

Berand looked at his fingers as they twitched involuntarily, each growing slightly larger right before his eyes. Similar but stronger feelings were making his toes stretch and grow, and all over his body he felt his skin continue to grow heavy and taut. He was changing, no doubt transforming the same way that his comrades-in-arms had been changed. Idly, the inquisitor wondered what he was going to become...

...and then, quite suddenly, the bard felt his eyes drawn back towards the cobra lying atop him. Nezan's snout was pressed nearly to Berand's nose, and his eyes were gleaming, shifting... almost glowing... Mindlessly, Berand felt himself falling deep into the snake's slitted eyes, admiring them, following them...

"That's right... look into my eyes... nice and deep... let me... assist you... with your transition..." the naga whispered, swaying his head back and forth.

"Transition..." Berand mumbled.

Nezan smiled. "Yes... your transition. I don't think you belong in the inquisition, my dear bard. You would make a much better... pet." He said, smiling broader.

"...pet." the slowly-changing human slowly repeated, before shivering. "What... do you mean..."

The cobra leaned down and licked Berand's lips. The contact was electric; his lips tingled with sexual heat. The bard could feel the clammy skin on his face and head begin to change as the rest of his skin continued to tighten, thicken and turn green...

"Ahh... a pet is someone who is eager to help and please othersss... someone who... wants to be told what to do..." the cobra said, still smiling.

"And... I am..?" Berand asked, dreamily staring into the naga's deep, beautiful, reptilian eyes. He still couldn't look away from them, any more that he could stop listening to the creature's sibilant voice, or crawl away from his powerful tail...

"Oh yes; yes, you are..." Nezan replied. "You're going to enjoy doing what I tell you to do; you're going to enjoy pleasing me, as my personal pet. Especially... in bed."

"Bed..." Berand repeated. That felt like a fun word. "Sex?"

"Yes; lots of sex..." Nezan said, chuckling as he continued to sway his hooded head back and forth over Berand. "Do you know why?"

"Why..?" the bard asked, smiling and shivering.

Nezan brought his head low, looking almost directly into the human's wide-open eyes. "Because you... are... a totally shameless... tail-raising... cock-sucking... cum-loving... ssssslut... and you love nothing more... than being wrapped up in my coils... being a good pet..."

"Ahhhh..." Berand moaned, accepting the snake's command. His body began to truly change...

Berand felt his legs beginning to change in bulk and shape, growing into some strange, twisted configuration. Cold, warm numbness was moving through his whole skeleton, from the tips of his fingers, all the way through his legs, into his skull and jaw, and down his spine through the back of his tailbone. He felt his pinned feet twitch helplessly as they swelled with incredible growth. The tips of his toes quivered, and he felt them clench; he could feel the growing talons inside them...

...and yet the strongest feeling was growing inside his penis. Berand felt his cock swell with arousal as the transformation hit him, becoming fully erect within seconds. The bard panted and squirmed underneath the cobra as he felt Nezan's scales rub against his bare chest. The snake's tail began grinding against his covered crotch, and then Nezan's strong arms slid above his shoulders. Berand shook from the sensation of being touched by the hooded, scaly male... being *taken*... and it felt so *good* he couldn't stop from moaning aloud...

"That's right..." the cobra asked, pulling Berand's head into his arms, forcing the human's face into his hood. "That'ssss a good pet. Show your massster how much you like it..."

Berand pushed his face into Nezan's neck, following his lust and the cobra's commands without even a fraction of pause for thought. The bard kissed the smooth, scaly leather of the serpent's hood and then began to lick it, dragging his tongue along the side of Nezan's muzzle before pressing into a kiss.

Eyes unfocused and heart racing, Berand felt his mouth pushing forward as he kissed the snake right on his muzzle. His toes felt like they were never going to stop growing, and his skin was already so thick and smooth it felt more like a scaly hide. Berand continued his kiss, pressing deeper; that was what he had to focus on. That was important. The inquisitor could taste the snake's slimy saliva, feel the warmth of his mouth, lick the fleshy bumps where the cobra's fangs were hidden...

The snake's powerful, forked tongue met his and pushed right back into his mouth, and as it tickled the roof of Berand's mouth he forgot why he was so worried about being kissed by a venomous snake. Nezan kissed him, rolled his serpentine body against him, groped at his hardened cock, and licked his ears...

Berand felt his whole body lurch as he was assaulted with serpentine affections, and his transformation kept growing stronger and stronger. It was a sensory overload for the hypnotized bard, who lacked the presence of mind to do anything more than *feel* and *obey*...

Nezan pulled him forward and twisted him around, and suddenly Berand's arms and chest were wrapped inside the cobra's powerful tail. The changing human felt Nezan's slither around his body, and felt slick scales press tight against him as the cobra's wrapped around his legs. Completely trapped inside the snake's coils, he felt Nezan give him a powerful, body-hugging *squeeze* that made him gasp and moan at the same time...

Nezan's hooded head drifted into Berand's sight again as the lengthy cobra continued to wrap around the inquisitor. Berand was squirming atop a bed of cobra coils, trapped on his back. It was instinct more than anything that made him struggle; the feeling of the snake- his master- squeezing and slithering against him was damned near orgasmic.

"I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to do thissss again..." the cobra hissed, smiling at the inquisitor trapped inside his tail. Berand's head and shoulders were visible, but everything except his swollen, growing feet were thoroughly wrapped up in the snake's thick, dusky-brown tail. Behind Berand's head, Nezan's thick tailtip slowly wavered back and forth...

Berand gave a low whine as he felt his face continue to grow forward, pressing his jaw up and his nose down as his very head changed. "Aarhg... Nezan..." he gasped.

"Ssshhh... no. You are to address me as 'master', pet," the cobra cooed, powerfully squeezing Berand's whole body.

"M-master..." the inquisitor repeated, trembling as he felt an odd surge of pleasure run through his manhood. Every little surrender the naga forced upon him made him feel more relaxed, safer, *better*...

Berand saw Nezan's tailtip moving towards him as the cobra continued to hug him with his long, strong tail, but he was helpless to do anything but watch as the soft-scaled, scuted base bumped against his face. The bard tried to squirm away as Nezan's tail ground against him; it was slightly wet with something warm, cloying, and very musky...

At first, the inquisitor tried to twist away from the tail pressing into him, but Nezan's strong hands held his head firmly in place. The cobra's tailbase began to rub against right against his nose and mouth, forcing him to breathe in the oppressively thick musk. The scent was so strong Berand felt as though he was going to gag, but at the same time his whole body began to grow hot with arousal...

"That'ssss right... you know what that isss..?" Nezan hissed to the bard, holding him in place. "That issss your master's sex. A good pet lovesssss his master'ssss slit... his hemipenessss... a good pet loves the taste of his master'ssss cum..."

The transforming bard could feel a break in the scaly tailbase as it again pressed against his nose. No doubt the long, slightly bulging slit was the likely source of the snake-musk being rubbed all over his face, but Berand no longer wanted to escape from it. Instead, the bard opened his mouth- now long and scaly enough it was more of a proto-muzzle, really- and began to kiss the warm, moist scales, sucking upon his master's slit. He loved his master's slit; loved the salty-sweet taste of the slick male-fluids that leaked from it...

Nezan's slit began to bulge as the hemipenes inside it grew heavy and turgid. Berand could sense the spark of stronger snake-musk in his nostrils- he noticed he was now possessed of a snout proper instead of a nose- and continued to kiss the cobra's maleslit. His ministrations became bolder as he fell deeper into the trance of lust, pushing his tongue inside to lap at the warmer, softer internal flesh of his master's sex. The bard could feel his tongue growing as he wiggled it around inside the cobra's increasingly-snug slit, broadening and lengthening enough to fit snugly inside his grown muzzle. As his tongue grew larger and Nezan's hemipenes grew erect, the two began to touch, and then meet and linger, and then press closely together...

Proto-muzzle flush with his master's slit, the changing inquisitor felt the smooth, solid, warm, slickness of a serpentine cock twitch and evert right past his eager lips. Berand closed his eyes as the warmth of the other male's member filled up his muzzle and began to spurt salty-tasting preseed right onto his tongue. Contentedly giving the member a few eager but experimental sucks, Berand only opened his eyes again when something rubbery smacked into the top of his snout. The human inquisitor was rather shocked to see a second tapered snake-shaft jutting from Nezan's slit, and finally understood what the word 'hemipenes' meant...

"Yessss..." Nezan whispered, stroking the side of Berand's head. Wisps of brown hair fell away from the bard's flattened head, which was now entirely green and covered in rough patches of scales. His ears had shrunk quite a bit, but Berand still had no trouble hearing Nezan as he continued to speak, saying "show your master how much you love hissss malenesses, pet..."

Without a thought of disobedience, the raptor pulled his muzzle away from the cock lodged in it, then pushed his snout between both of the warm, hard hemipenes. He began to stroke them both with his hands, rubbing the slick shafts against his snout whenever there was a good enough quantity of preseed covering them. Berand licked each of the tapered, rubbery shafts with the front of his tongue, breathed heavily across their tips, nuzzled them and felt the heat against his scaly face. He closed his eyes as cobra-pre began to wet each of the cocks and smiled, breathing deep of the potent male-musk as he rubbed his face against it...

"Good... now... ssssuck one, bitch..." Nezan growled, squeezing his coils and pressed his tail forward, directly against Berand's blunt proto-muzzle. He wiggled the end of his tail, making his hemipenes press into Berand's muzzle in turn. "Whichever one you choose..."

Blinking, Berand could see a single gossamer strand of cobra preseed dangle between the edge of his muzzle and the very tip of Nezan's leftmost member. The scaly-skinned human pressed his muzzle towards the cock, opening up his stiff lips as wide as he could, to take the whole of the tapered, rubbery, warm penis into his mouth...

Nezan's breathing was growing heavy and labored as Berand fell deeper and deeper into his lust, obeying each new command slightly quicker and more enthusiastically with the last. The cobra smiled and felt his hood flare slightly with arousal as he watched and felt the bard's proto-muzzle accept his left cock. Yes; there was something nice about having a real, warm, wiggly male to mate with...

"Now... keep ssssucking. Harder. You can sssstop when I cum, but you will sssswallow as much of my sssseed as you can. I want you to get used to the taste, my pretty, pretty pet..." the mage hissed, smiling broadly as he felt the sucking on his member grow stronger. "Ahhh... yesss... good pet. Sssso eager... ssssso obedient... loving his changessss" Nezan continued, cooing. He knew that Berand was far past resisting the trance now; the bard was truly *his*...

Berand felt his own maleness tingle and become rock-hard as he suckled upon Nezan's cock, now fully in the throes of its transformation. The bard willed his changes onward at the cobra's urging, feeling his member swell up in a strange and new way as he let the cobra's magic flow through his body without resistance. Giving the serpent pleasure, obeying him made Berand feel warm and good and *right* deep inside; so *right* that his mind went blank of everything save pleasure. For a very long time, the only thing the erstwhile inquisitor could focus on was the steady, warm gush of preseed into his muzzle. He swallowed rhythmically, bobbing his scaly head up and down on the left shaft of Nezan's hemipenes while the right one continued to buck against his face and snout, covering him in more of his master's delicious, lingering musk...

Nezan's hisses became more urgent.

Berand continued to eagerly suck on his naga's cock as the unsteady gushes of preseed against his tongue grew heavier and happened more frequently. Again and again, he bobbed his growing muzzle down on the thick, turgid meat, sucking and licking the male's hemipene while letting the other slap warm and wet against his face. Berand was lost so deep in the entrancing sexual rhythm, he could feel it overpowering the rest of his mind. He was a good pet; he loved his master's taste... loved fulfilling his master's needs... loved being covered in his master's scent...

"Ahhhhh.... Yessssss!" the serpent hissed suddenly, forcing his tail hard against Berand's muzzle.

As he felt the snake's cock begin to twitch inside his muzzle, Berand felt the snake give him a tight, full-body hug. The cobra's tail pushed harder against Berand's long green snout, and he felt the snake's serpenthood *throb* hard and fast inside his maw. Hot cum, slightly bitter, somewhat salty and overpoweringly musky began to flood into the bard's mouth. The taste surprised him slightly, and for a moment Berand felt a pang of worry touch his mind. He couldn't remember ever having sucked another male's cock before, and yet swallowing Nezan's seed came *so* naturally to him...

The changed inquisitor closed his eyes and gave a lust-drunk smile, sloppily-suckling at his master's spurting member. His muzzle filled with seed as Nezan began to pull away from him, and Berand felt the hot, sticky fluid splatter across his scaly lips. More spurting twitches from the cobra's left hemipene left ropes of fresh seed decorating Berand's snout and the side of his muzzle; bathing him in a thick layer of serpent musk...

Half-growling, half-purring with contentment, Berand nuzzled against Nezan's spent cock, taking it back into his muzzle one last time to give it a single hard, cleaning suck before the serpent could withdraw it.

"Mmmm... wait on that a little bit, pet. That was... a very nice start... but we're not quite done..." Nezan whispered, petting the bard on his scaly head. The bard shivered, realizing the serpent's hand was rubbing against his own scaly, hairless scalp...

Nezan pulled his body away from Berand's and then pulled Berand up off the bed. "Here we go... stand up... yesss..."

Getting back on his feet caused a rush of energy to flood through the transforming inquisitor. He had been so focused on pleasing Nezan he hardly noticed what had been happening to his own body...

"What... mmm... massster..." Berand began to mumble, confused. For one thing, his legs bent backward the wrong direction, and his feet were splayed out, so that he stood right on the front of his toes. Berand was relieved to see he still had all of those, but each had grown *huge*. He could see the sharp talons growing through each of his toetips, each still tingling warm and cold as they continued to lengthen. But that feeling was nowhere near as strong as the tickling, powerful, haunting sensation of his tail-stub growing behind his backside...

"Oh? Need a little bit of time to get used to yoursssself..?" Nezan asked, chuckling slightly. "Go ahead, pet."

Berand's legs quivered as he felt the weight of his tail continue to grow, making pleasantly warm, tingly cracking feelings run through his spine. The leathery tail swayed slightly as it grew from the bard's body, already partially under his control....

"Aaahhh... massster... I feel ssso... ssstrange..." Berand cried, shivering as the tail jumped with each spurt of growth that ran through it. The bard brought one hand around to the back of his stiff, still-growing tail, stroking the green-orange length as if in disbelief. But the feelings from his scaly fingers- and from his tail itself- were very real indeed...

"Why do you feel strange, hmm?" Nezan nonchalantly asked, smiling at the bard. "Don't you trussst your own mind? Surely you can believe what you feel..."

Berand opened his hands and inspected them, seeing how his skin had changed into leathery, light scales on his palms. Berand slid his hands together and felt the leathery, smooth, slightly oily friction of his scaly palms rubbing against one another. It was real, absolutely real... and yet the former human still felt as though there was something wrong with his body, something he couldn't quiet place...

Looking down, Berand could see his testicles partially submerged into the flesh of his crotch, already uniformly coated in thick orange and green scales. His manhood had become crimson-red, slick and slightly tapered, more of a reptile-hood, really, despite the fact it still had a noticeable head and a tiny bit of foreskin left...

Nezan smiled at his changing pet, and cupped the half-raptor's leathery, full balls, giving them a firm squeeze. "Ahh... does my cute little pet raptor need to cum..?" he asked, tugging hard on Berand's swollen, scaly sack before letting it sink upward into the scaly male's crotch.

"Rrraptor?" Berand half-asked, half-squawked, shivering as his master groped his changing testicles.

"Mhm. You can tell by those pretty little stripes growing along your flanks, pet. Although I wouldn't bother trying to interpret the meaning of your new form too deeply; unlike your friends, *I* chose it..." Nezan said, laughing and gently rubbing the back of his claws against the disappearing head of the half-dinosaur's maleness. "I wanted a nice, scaly, obedient, slutty little raptor for my bedchamberssss... it's just a nice little bonussss you happen to be a rather interesssting bard. You'll learn how to please me quickly..." Nezan hissed, smiling evilly at the former inquisitor as he scissored his scaly fingers up and down Berand's shaft.

Berand shivered and gave a soft growl as he felt his cock twitch and harden further, already beginning to slicken itself and Nezan's claws with preseed. His hips had spread far enough and his tail had grown heavy and long enough that he could rest on his talons with ease, which he began to do instinctively. His tongue lolled from his muzzle as the cobra continued to tease his raptorhood, and once more all thoughts of disobedience left him...

"Aahhhr... mmmmh... yes masterrr... anything..." the former inquisitor promised, dazedly staring into the cobra's eyes. He was eager to fall deeper into the pleasant, mind-twisting depths of his trance.

Nezan flicked his tongue at the bard, smiling at him before saying, "Turn around. Show me your backsssside, my little treat..."

A flicker of doubt rose up in the half-human's mind as he listened to the cobra's words. Absentmindedly licking some warm cum from his muzzle, Berand tried hard to remember why that command sounded strange to him, but couldn't think of a good reason. His master wanted to mate with him, and he wanted to please his master so *very* much...

"Yesss... masterrr..." Berand croaked, smiling and nodded at Nezan. The bard lurched towards the bed, falling onto it with his clawed, scaly arms pressed far forward. He buried his muzzle into the soft comforters and took a deep snoutful of the bedsheets, enjoying the faint but fresh scent of their mixed musks...

"Mmmm... that's a very... very sexy tail, my pet." Nezan said, slowly, lewdly licking his scaly lips. "But... your master wants to see what's under it..."

Berand began to hike his still-growing tail upward. The new muscles woven deep into his backside felt warm and soft as Berand used them for the first time, but nonetheless his tail rose up behind him with a few unsteady jerks.

Nezan was quickly on Berand, slithering over the raptor's back and pinning him to the bed. "Good..." he said, rolling his tail up against the bard's scaly rump. "Now... your master wants you to relax... it'ssss time you start acting like a *proper* pet..." the cobra continued, slowly pushing his dual-shafted hemipene against Berand's under-tail, slickening the bard's tailhole with preseed...

The raptor was sure he liked the sound of being a proper pet, but the feeling of having two rather large, inhuman penises rubbing over his ass *felt* very, very strange indeed. Berand spread his legs further and held his tail higher, trusting his master more than his instincts...

It did not take the naga long to seize the opportunity. Nezan took ahold of Berand's clawed hands from behind, pressing his muzzle down into the bard's snout. Poking his unspent cock up under the former inquisitor's tail, Nezan hissed and held Berand tight against the bed...

Berand whined as he felt his tailhole clench and quiver from the snake's probing. Nezan's thick members had slathered his hole and the cleft of his leathery rump with warm snake pre. The bard knew what was coming and tried to calm himself; he wanted to take his master's length, but it felt so *strange* to be taken by another male...

"Yessss... take it, bitch..." Nezan whispered from above Berand, pressing his muzzle into the raptor's right earhole.

Growling softly and lowering his head, Berand softly replied, "yes... masterrr..." Slick rubbing sounds came from behind the pinned raptor as his lubricated backside was humped against... he could feel the snake's cock start to press right against the ring of his virgin tailhole...

Nezan rocked against him. Berand felt time seem to slow as the strain on his tailhole grew, and then felt his anus part around the thick, headless cock forced against it. The flash of shock and surprise that ran through the raptor made his whole body shudder and tense. Berand tried to pull away from the hard, rubbery maleness still pushing deep inside his straining tailpassage, but Nezan's body pinned him firmly to the bed...

...and then the raptor felt Nezan's hemipene rub into something deep inside his ass, something that made a hot surge of pleasure flow into his raptorhood. Berand's taloned feet kicked helplessly into the side of the bed as his own cock was rocked with stimulation, growing fully hard in an instant. The sexual shock running through him from having the cobra-cock forced into his ass made the bard regret he's not asked his master to fuck him sooner...

The pleasure kept building for Berand. His tail hiked up and the pressed his muzzle deeper into the bedsheets, claws tearing into a nearby pillow. The raptor bard struggled and rubbed his tapered, slick cock against the comforter under him, aching for more stimulation. He felt like he was on the very verge of cumming, but as Nezan finished hilting into him, the pleasure coming from his well-filled hole simmered down. Berand felt Nezan's drooping, spent hemipene come to rest against the tip of his own raptorhood, and shivered as he realize that their malenesses were now alike in slickness and texture if not shape or size...

The cobra withdrew from Berand's backside before he could even voice his desire for more, and then forced his cock back inside without pause. "Aaaahhhh... m-mast... errr..." Berand moaned, crying with overstimulation. He felt Nezan's forked tongue kiss his leathery earholes, and felt like he was again just about to climax. Berand kept whining and wiggling, wordlessly begging Nezan to speed his thrusts, helpless to control the pleasure ravishing his body...

"Mmm... how doessss that feel, pet?" Nezan hissed, continuing to thrust in and out of Berand's ass with steady, powerful flexes from his tail. His hood rubbed across the back of the bard's head as he whispered into his earhole, "does my raptor like having his tail-hole fucked..?"

"Mmmhgn... y-yessss... m-masterrr... fas... ter..." Berand softly cried, muzzle thrashing from side to side against the bed as his tailpassage kept throbbing. His tailhole still ached around the serpent's girth, but each time the filling member slid into his prostate pleasure blanked out the pain...

"Yessss... beg for it, bard... sssssing for me, bitch..."

He did.

Over and over and over again, the male serpent mounted him. Berand felt a numb shock each time; his tailpassage was forced stretch hard around the cock penetrating his tail-hole. But the strain was accompanied by warming, spine-tingling, positively *unnatural* feelings of pleasure, pleasure that made the lithe raptor's internal testicles clench, made his cock throb and gush pre, made him clench his torn pillow tighter, made his moans grow louder, made his whole body shiver...

The only warning the bard received that Nezan was about to climax was the feeling of the serpent squeezing him tighter and hissing. After that, a hot burst of thick liquid shot into Berand's tailhole, and he felt the thrusts into his body become slick and wet. Berand, still shivering on the verge of his own orgasm, felt his cock *throb* over and over again, and suddenly knew that he was about to join his master in ecstasy...

Berand's tail twitched between his legs as hot snake-cum jetted into his tailpassage in great, throbbing spurts. As the other male deposited a hot load of seed into his tailhole, the raptor's own member began to twitch and jerk, shooting hard, wet sprays of hot raptor into the comforter under him. The raptor moaned and growled and clawed at the bed as he was forced through a torturous series of anal orgasms, feeling pent-up arousal explode from his internal testicles and out his throbbing raptorhood. He felt his strong, scaly ass clench around the reptilian hemipene lodged inside it, milking the serpent's shaft of yet more cum...

Nezan pulled away from Berand as he felt the smaller creature's tailhole fill, popping his still-cumming member from the raptor's tailhole with a slight gush of serpent seed. Smiling evilly and hissing with lust, the cobra stroked his member as he continued to cum, shooting long ropes of hot, sticky seed along Berand's undertail, against his rump, over his lower belly, and finally down onto his muscular, digitigrade legs.

Weakly, Berand panted and spasmed with pleasure as the last of his orgasm spilled into the sheets under him. They were completely soggy with the sticky warmth of his cum, but fresh seed that was stuck everywhere on his scales. He could taste it in his muzzle, smell it in the air, and feel it inside his tailhole...

It took the bard a minute of slow breaths to restore enough energy to push himself up from the bed. Sitting up on the end and rubbing his sore backside, the raptor looked over to Nezan.

The naga mage was balanced in an odd, curled shape in front of the bed, upper body and tailtip both raised into the air. Naughtily, Nezan flicked his tongue out into the air, again tasting how thick the air was with sex. "Good... mmm.... now you may clean your master's cocksss, pet..." he said, curling his lower tail up against the raptor's muzzle.

"Rrr... yes, masterrr..." the raptor growled, closing his eyes and blushing as he smiled.

Berand grabbed ahold of the waving length of tail and held it in place, eagerly rubbing his snout against the cum-soaked, still-hard hemipenes. Closing his eyes and growling with lust, the former inquisitor dragged both of the snakeshafts against his scaly cheeks and throat, before opening up his muzzle to suck the left hemipene clean. Berand felt the snake's maleness against his tongue... it was so *big* it filled up most of his mouth...

Berand smiled as he began to suck, falling deeper and deeper into his trance. He forgot what it was like not to have the weight of his tail hanging from his backside, or to have scales instead of human skin. He forgot the female humans and elves he used to bed with; every sexual fantasy in his mind was featured Nezan's thick, hard cocks cumming inside his tail-hole, against his slit, over his face or into his muzzle. The bard forgot the Inquisition. All that mattered to him was being happy; all that made him happy was being Nezan's pet, in whatever form Nezan wanted him...

The lithe raptor suckled on Nezan's left hemipene while stroking the right one, collecting the gooey mix of reptile cum, preseed, sweat and slitfluid in his leathery palms before brushing it over his chest and back. The lust-struck dinosaur took more and more of the girthy hemipene into his deep muzzle, until he had swallowed all of serpent fluids covering it. Then, he moved his muzzle straight from the naga's left cock over to the right one, sucking it clean just as vigorously...

...and then the raptor's hands went behind him, underneath his tail. Berand brushed his scaly fingers against his cum-soaked rump and collected some of the hot, sticky serpent-semen that had been spent inside his tailhole. He dragged his clawed hands back around to his male-slit and began to rub the still-warm serpent-seed around his crotch, mixing his master's musk right into the strongest source of his own scent.

"Ohh... you naughty, naughty little bard..." Nezan hissed softly, petting the raptor's broad tailbase to show his approval. "Mmm... I have to say, you made a rather nice raptor and you're making a *very* nice pet, Berand. Exceeding expectations. I just hope your leader will prove as... compatible... tomorrow."

"Mmgh... why? What did you do to me, masterrr..?" the lithe raptor replied, bending over to lick a huge gob of snake-cum from his own inner thigh.

"Oh... something mildly, self-indulgently evil," Nezan replied, smiling at the sexy, submissive raptor-bard lying next to him. "But really, after meeting you five I was seriously tempted to throw you all onto the Demiplane of Radiance for your stupidity. I think I deserve one little... toy... for such equanimity."

"Radiance? Mmm... that sounds nice," the raptor repeated, scooting up on the bed until he could rest against Nezan's upper body.

Nezan smiled and began to stroke Berand's head as it came to rest on his scuted chest, scratching the bard's scaly skin gently. "Ah. Ever hear of the phrase 'gamma radiation'?"

"Mmm... no," Berand said, snuggling his way into Nezan's coils.

"I see. Anyway, it is enough for now that you're enjoying yourself, pet," the naga said, pulling a blanket over the both of them. "We'll have plenty of time to talk in the morning."

"Yes... mrrgh... I hope we can do more than talk..." The raptor growled, pressing closer to the naga's upper body and instinctively curling his large, sharp talons together as some of the snake's coils wrapped around him.

"Ahhh, Berand... you're so much more enjoyable to be with than your dysfunctional friends... I probably won't even have to keep you entranced for much longer..." Nezan said, smiling as he squeezed his coils around the smaller raptor.

"Trance..?" Berand half-asked, eyes wandering over to Nezan's muzzle.

"Ssshh... that was nothing important. Go to sleep, my cute little pet..." the cobra said, giving Berand a magnanimous smile.

"Okay..." Berand replied, slowly closing his eyes.

Nezan continued to stroke the bard's new tail for a long time as the two of them drifted off to sleep, enjoying the feel of the lithe appendage, so unlike his own and yet sexy in its own way. He was enjoying the feeling of having another share his bed more than he wanted to admit, despite feeling a little regret for letting his lust get the better of him. For the first time in a long while, Nezan went to sleep with a smile on his muzzle.

**** ****

Markus Magnus Accitar blinked his eyes slowly as he awoke. His head was pounded with a throbbing, ache so painful it made his sight blur; it felt as though his brain was trying to force its way out of his skull.

With an exertion of willpower that left him feeling queasy, Markus forced his head left and right, to try and take stock of the situation. He could make out the faint, broken outlines of a cavern-like dungeon around him, along with the sleeping, chained bulk of Firewing. Markus could feel the heavy weight of manacles around his ankles and wrists as he struggled to each side, and then just as quickly realized that he had been stripped naked.

Through the haze of searing pain, he could see the blurry outline of a scaly, green and orange striped muzzle.

"Wakey wakey... ahh... how are you feeling, Markus? Probably not so hot?" the creature asked. Markus could make out sharp teeth and claws, as well as a long tail. Not a lizardfolk; it was more like a dinosaur..?

"Here," the saurial creature said, setting a small cup in front of Markus. "Master Nezan said this would be good for your headache..."

Markus laughed and knocked the cup over with his hand; a thick, white liquid poured out into a puddle in front of him. "Please, you... pathetic... creature; if you think we're dumb enough to drink something offered by our captors, you sorely underestimate the Holy Inquisition."

"Aw. I helped make that..." the dinosaur whined, frowning slightly.

Markus began to take a closer look at the servant before him as his grogginess slowly left him. It looked much like a cross between a raptor and a human, with a long tail and digitigrade gait, but five-fingered hands and a clear look of intelligence in its reptilian countenance. The raptor wore very little; a belt of bells around its tail, a loincloth the size of a handkerchief, a few golden bangles around its arms and a necklace of small gems and feathers. It absolutely reeked of something musky. Markus could see that the raptor's brightly-colored hide was stained almost everywhere with faded, off-white trails..?

"What... ungodly creature... are you?" Markus asked, shaking his head at the dinosaur.

"Haven't you guessed?" the raptor asked, cocking his muzzle to the side. "I am... er... Berand."

"Lies." Markus said immediately, spitting on the ground. "If your master thinks that mere humiliation and confused attempts at dissociation are going to break me, he is going to be sorely disappointed. I highly doubt torture will get you what you need, either."

The raptor brought his claws together and laughed nervously, looking from side to side as if expecting to catch another's eye. The bells on his tail tingled softly in the air as he continued, saying, "Aheh... well... that's not the most paranoid thing I've ever heard or anything... but wouldn't you rather just ask me a question, Markus? Should I tell you something only the two of us would know..?"

Markus' reply was tense. "Your persistence is futile, creature. Go fetch your master... and take a bath."

The raptor lowered his head slightly, and Markus swore he could see the scales along the creature's orange-green muzzle blush. "I... don't need a bath, really..." the raptor mumbled, with a slightly faraway look in his eyes. "But Markus... really. Nezan doesn't mean us any harm; not really. He's..."

"...had me chained to the floor of a damned, bloody dungeon!" Markus finished for the raptor, shouting right over him.

"Aheh... that is... quite right. But! I think if you'll hear him out a bit, you might realize that he's not a bad... pers- I mean, snake!"

The Templar stared at the raptor as it continued to talk. The way the creature spoke... the annoying way it clicked its claws together... the way it seemed to walk around energetically while talking...

"Berand... is that... really *you*?" Markus slowly asked.

"Ye-e-es. I said that, didn't I?" the bard replied, cocking his muzzle slightly to the side and shrugging. "Anyway, about..."

"Berand! In the name of all that is holy, what is *wrong* with you!? Do you *enjoy* being a corrupted beast under the control of a demented abomination!?" Markus yelled, seething with anger.

"Mmm... I don't see things quite like that..." the creature said, sighing and smiling. "Markus... you just don't understand the way certain things are. I mean... well, Nezan might have, uh taken certain liberties... but that doesn't mean he's a bad..."

"Are you even listening to what you're saying?" Markus said quietly, shaking his head. "No. Clearly, you do not. I see now that he has you under his control; deeper than you realize. Clearly, this *fiend* has much to answer for..."

"What? No!" Berand protested. "Do I sound like I'm under some sort of spell?"

"Is that a serious question!?!" Markus shouted back at him. "Yes! Unless... you're a traitor." The Templar looked up at the raptor in front of him and gritted his teeth. "Which is it?"

Berand raised his clawed, scaly hands in protest. "It's not that simple Mar-" "Like the hells it isn't!" the inquisitor shouted over him.

"By the nine hells Berand... you've... you've betrayed the inquisition?" Markus said, seething with anger. His headache was getting worse. "For... for what?"

"For himself, I would think..." a whispering voice from the stairwell said.

The scaly bard and the naked human turned together in time to see the snake slither down the last of the stairs. Markus' countenance twisted into a mask of pure hate; Berand smiled and began to wag his tail.

Nezan shook his hooded head. "My dear inquisitor... I don't see why you are so angry. I only offered your friends what they wanted..." the naga said, smiling insincerely. "Surely you can't blame me for being too... persuasive?"

"What did you do to them! Answer me, damn you!" Markus screamed.

"Why Inquisitor... I simply freed them! Body and mind!" Nezan replied, smiling and laughing softly. "Except for the bard. He and I have a different arrangement... but that is none of your affair."

"You demonic filth! You aren't going to get away with this atrocity!" Markus again screamed, face flushing red with anger.

"Oh, I believe I will get away with this, and this is *hardly* an atrocity," the cobra dryly remarked, slithering up to Markus before putting a single hand on Berand's shoulder. "Berand... go upstairs and prepare something for lunch. The templar and I have matters to discuss."

The raptor turned and nodded to Nezan, before swiftly walking away. Markus watched him leave, but remained silent.

"Now inquisitor... allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Nezan Nassruzin. As you may have surmised, I am an archmage. The reason I have taken the measures I have is this: you four holy fools and that dragon..." -Nezan pointed at the sleeping beast- "...nearly unleashed a catastrophe the magnitude of which I doubt you can even comprehend. Would you care to explain to me why killing Firewing was more important than ensuring that all of us remain alive?"

Markus shook his head violently, saying "What!? Mage, if protecting your precious circle was so important, you should have helped us kill that beast!"

"Ah... really. Why is everyone so quick to jump right to death as a solution?" Nezan asked, shaking his muzzle and sighing.

"If you knew what that monster is capable of..." the inquisitor began to say.

"I wouldn't be one to talk, inquisitor. You *both* have enough blood on your consciences," the cobra tartly interrupted, slithering forward.

Firewing coughed smoked suddenly, and his eyes opened. The dragon growled, trying to rise before noticing his four paws were all tightly bound to the ground.

"Ah... I was hoping you were going to stay asleep a little longer. Good morning, Fierkaniszstar," Nezan said, turning his head slightly up to face the dragon. "I trust that..."

"YOU!" the dragon boomed to Markus, golden eyes narrowing on the inquisitor. "Lucky... little... man. You will die yet, Markus Accitar!"

Markus' rejoinder was swift "Like the hells! Justice will be served! But if it took my final breath to slay you I would pay the price, wyrm!"

"...we can all come to an understanding with one another as reasonable, civilized creatures..." Nezan continued, raising his voice slightly.

"That *creature* doesn't have the slightest idea of what civilization is!" Markus said, pointing sharply at the dragon. "Dragons care for little save gold and murder!"

"You insectsss accuse us of bloodlust and greed!? You little skittering *insects* with your heedless use of *magic* and *metal* but not one thought for anything besides petty tribal warfare! They *eat* and *grow* and *kill* and *conquer* without limit, and yet dare call their insanity 'civilization'!" the dragon growled, slowly rising from the ground. "It will be *stopped*!"

"Bah! You savage, arrogant monsters! You *will* lose in the end, dragon! We will cut your kind down from the skies and..." Markus shouted.

"Oh, *ENOUGH* of *THIS*!" Nezan tried to shout over the both of them, before finally slamming his staff into the ground. The torrent of blue-white energy that blasted out from the swirling eye of his staff was powerful enough to blot out the cobra's image.

This time, neither Markus nor Firewing had a moment to realize that they were going unconscious...

****

Markus awoke, feeling sluggish and half-asleep.

His sight was blurry and his hearing was dampened and distorted; his naked skin felt warm, and there was a strange, hissing sound coming from ahead of him. Whispers, but he couldn't quite understand them. He could almost *feel* their meaning... but something else drew his attention away.

He could distantly see the cobra's swaying smile, the gleam of his fangs, the whisper-quick movements of his claws, and yet the only thing that held Markus's attention was the slow, swirling galaxy of raw possibility inside the naga's staff...

Markus could see something deep inside that triggered a distant, achingly poignant memory... or was it? Had his comrades fallen to the very same trap? It was possible, but he *had* to know what he was looking at. Markus kept staring deeper and deeper into the blue vortex as the ephemeral energies flared yellow, and then crimson-red... and then the unreal patterns collapsed together suddenly, and he saw an image of himself.

Except... it wasn't quite right. It was a distorted reflection... different...

His eyes were far too large and his face was a scaly, red muzzle. The creature was huge and muscled; massive leathery wings folded behind its back, and a long red tail swept out behind it. Proud fire burned in the visage's eyes, and Markus saw it meet his gaze with a look of arrogant, lazy contentment. Markus felt a bizarre twinge in his mind looking at the dragon; a sense of dvu. Time itself seemed to stop, and he felt the image *speak* to him, in his mind.

'Hello, my old friend. Tell me... do you know who I am?'

"A demon. A devil. Some... specter... some force of deception," Markus slowly said to the unnerving simulacrum before him, still waking from his half-wakeful state.

The dragon laughed quietly, showing some of its sharp, glistening teeth. 'No, Markus; the very opposite is true: I come to you as the very vision of veracity. I am your future, in a way.'

"Impossible. You're a dragon." Markus replied. "Lesani, Rhya and Berand were all good Inquisitors, but apparently they all succumbed to this deceptive sorcery. You'll not trick me so easily, specter."

"Trick you into... what? Don't be daft. I am you as you *will* be; I have no interest in deceiving or harming myself," the annoyed apparition said, letting out a smoky huff. "This spell simply allows me to speak with my past self. Though from your perspective, you can think of it as a spell that enables you to talk with your future self."

The inquisitor laughed cruelly. "You really expect me to think I'll become a dragon? The very thing that we came here to stop? Hah!" Markus gave a harrumph. "Talk all you want. Do your very worst. You are not going to break the will of a Templar, spirit."

"Break your will..?" the dragon purred, turning the phrase over as it walked forward on all fours. The image seemed to shimmer as it moved forward, constantly becoming more or less real. "Twist your mind..? Was I ever really this paranoid? I was simply going to ask you to consider Nezan's offer and accept it, rather than fight on fruitlessly."

"Wait... this is it? This is the magic that broke the will of my inquisitors?" Markus said, incredulous. He barked a short laugh. "You expect me to simply... give in!?"

'Ah. Have I forgotten to say 'please'?" the dragon added, smiling a bit more. "What were you expecting?'

"Is shallow trickery all you have?" Markus said to the grinning doppleganger. "Begone. I'll not be fooled, I'll not be controlled, I'll not be broken. Certainly not by something so simple! You address a holy Templar of the inquisition!"

'Now there is an interesting topic... something I was hoping we might address.' The dragon spoke, its smile disappearing. 'Have you ever stopped to think about your fellow inquisitors? The Inquisition itself? You've seen others burn villages to the ground. Torture helpless prisoners. Flay skin from muscle with magic... I know how that made me feel. Sick, disgusted... that feel of boiling bile in your belly from watching those monsters go about their grim work.'

Markus felt his body tense as memories drifted past his mental defenses. For a second, he imaged he could smell the sickly, metallic aroma of old blood and filth that wafted from the Inquisition's dungeons. "One... one does not judge the whole by its separate parts, but..."

'You're going to justify atrocities with a platitude? Really... was I really like that?' the dragon asked, turning its muzzle upward as if to question the empty darkness hanging over them. 'Why do you do it, Markus? Why do you continue to serve those puerile, tradition-bound, morally-bankrupt, weak-willed fools in their desecrated temples? They make the decrees thoughtlessly and you enforce them blindly. Don't you realize they treat you Templars like a band of trained ogres? That is a crime if I've ever seen one...' the doppleganger spoke to Markus. 'Think on it. When I did... I changed my mind.'

"No! The holy inquisition is an instrument of good in this world! It might not be perfect, but... asking questions just weakens the integrity of the whole edifice. You'll recall the monsters we've slain, abominations we've banished!" Markus spat. "My loyalty to the inquisition is without question. Whatever you are, monster, you are not me!"

'Perhaps. But the inquisition has had a nasty history of declaring other creatures to be abominations without ever really bothering to prove the change. And do you actually agree completely with the inquisition's official stance? In all matters, great and small?'

"Well... I..." Markus began to say, slowing down to think.

The dragon-Markus smiled at his past-self as he interrupted. 'You wouldn't disagree with, say, the inquisition's tolerance of slavery and torture? The way justice can be bought freely in any Templar court? It's support for King Reymek's grand purge of lizardfolk from the Marshlands? Come now, Markus; I remember how I felt...'

"Those do not truly define the inquisition! All of that pales before the grand struggle against the great evils of the world!"

Again, the dragon interrupted the inquisitor Templar. 'Hmmm... this spell is so very odd. I remember having this exact conversation... saying each word as you are now... and yet the explanation still rings so hollow I can't remember why I ever spoke the words. Can't you at least admit that you have your own moral code separate from the Inquisition at large? Firewing may have been born a dragon, but you *chose* to join their ranks...'

Markus spat at his projection, sneering. "Stop with the deception and trickery! I am going to complete my mission, and that is final!"

"Ah... an interesting point. You are quite right! Your mission was to stop Firewing, don't you remember? I assure you that, hah, he is quite under control now...' the red dragon laughed with an arrogant, amused smile on its muzzle. 'Isn't that right, dear..?'

"What!?" Markus shouted in surprise.

"Oh... yes. You wouldn't believe how much alike we are..." the red dragon said, softly laughing. "Ahhh... but you don't have to believe me. See for yourself, Markus..."

Markus felt darknesss slowly cloud his vision. "Wait! What sort of... *unholy* alliance are you part of!? Answer me, specter!" he continued to shout at his draconic apparition, even as it vanished from sight.

The darkness grew heavy and cool, smothering him like a blanket of snow. Markus couldn't feel or see anything, but he could heard the vague, sibilant whispers come back. Some of them were almost intelligible...

"A... dragon? Me..? No..." Markus said, shaking his head and trying not to let his anger get the better of him.

"Hm? Why not? It fits you quite well." the sibilant voice said, faint and distorted. "You know, in some cultures being compared to a dragon is a *compliment*? Strong, assertive, willful? You practically act like one al..."

"Don't you dare say that! Don't you even dream of such a thing!" Markus screamed at the darkness. "You don't know what that means!"

The voice was louder, closer. "Ah... this is a rather *interesting* reaction. I think that my magic has struck a nerve?"

"My parents... were killed... by a dragon..." Markus said, trembling in the darkness. The inquisitor felt exhausted suddenly, as if the hate energizing his body and shielding his mind had suddenly become a terrible, leaden burden. His breath left him in a great shudder, and he sobbed through his last words. "...I held them, as they died. They were... broken. Dragons are so very strong. There was little left, and yet they clung to life, somehow. They tried to talk... but couldn't... It took a... long time. I..." Markus managed, before tears and heaving sobs overwhelmed him.

A deep sigh echoed around him. "Violence. Hate. You should know what it ultimately means; you should know better than most. Inquisitor... think of how many dragons there are in this world. You would kill them all, for the actions of a single creature? Would you kill the little wyrmlings, too? Would you slit their soft throats and break open warm, living eggs?"

Markus spoke softly. "I would do whatever I had to. Crime or no crime... they would still be dragons..." the inquisitor said, feeling a sinking, sharp feeling of *guilt* plunge into his stomach like a knife made of ice.

There was no rejoinder. The darkness around him was silent, for a long time.

"I do not believe you *truly* mean that, inquisitor," the voice finally said. It was clear enough now that Markus could recognize it as Nezan's, though it reached his ears as an echo of a whisper. "But let us see..."

"What do you mean?" Markus asked.

"I mean *exactly* what I say. Don't tell me your morals. Show me." Nezan said.

"I... don't need to prove anything to you..." Markus replied, trying not to let the darkness overwhelm him again. But blackness continued to drip onto Markus' mind like a spill of cold oil...

("Shhh... just focus.")

"No." The inquisitor's voice was a quiet shred of despair. He could sense something very wrong was happening to him.

("Yessss Markus... keep thinking... keep imagining what it was like. Show us who you really are...")

The inquisitor felt a shiver run through his mind. His body slowly began to come back to his senses, but his arms and legs felt *different*...

("...show us what you would have done, had you been in Firewing's position. Imagine it, please... except... imagine you had been in time to stop the soldiers...")

Markus opened his eyes and felt a rush of vertigo. He was high, high up in the deep blue sky; the inquisitor's mind reacted swiftly. Markus knew it was impossible. He had to be dreaming, or under some sort of trance...

("Ahhh... is this really a mere dream, Markus? Memories are made of sterner stuff, and besides... we can still learn something important about *you* either way...")

A bolt of panic made the inquisitor's eyes shoot open. He *was* incredibly high up from the ground. So much of what he saw felt real but terribly, terribly *wrong*. He could see the scenery pass by far below him and felt air rushing past him on all sides as he was...

Flying... along..?

("Oh, this wouldn't be much of an experience if you weren't a dragon, now would it? Come on Markus... imagine your wings; feel the wind under them... feel the claws jutting from your forepaws... feel your tail whip behind you in the air...")

...and, with a sudden shudder, Markus realized that he *could* feel those very things. He growled, wavering in the air as he beat his wings, fighting powerful waves of revulsion that made it hard to even *think*. He could *feel* the rush of cold air around him, the chill dulled by the thickness of his scaly hide and the warmth in his belly and lungs. Markus could sense the weight of his massive dragon-paws; he could even curl his long, scaly neck far enough to *see* them tucked under his chest as he soared through the air...

("Yesss... this might not be real, but it will feel very close. Let'ssss see what you would do. You don't even have to kill his mate. All you have to do it let her die...")

Markus felt a sharp, hot spike of pain hit him in his mind. He shook his massive head in the rush of wind, trying to focus on the memory he had never had. There was something wrong happening, something he *had* to remember...

But his focus wavered. Far underneath him, Markus could see countless miles of wilderness stretching out below him, rivers and trees and villages alike. It was a truly stunning vista, and it became even more exhilarating when Markus realized he was actually *flying* over it..!

Markus laughed quietly in the rushing air. He almost gave in to the tiny, burning urge in him to flap his wings and see what it would be like to fly as a dragon. He wanted to climb higher he wanted to dive down, he wanted to truly experience how it might feel to soar under his own power... but he knew that was what Nezan wanted. The creature wanted him to give in, but would not be fooled so easily. All he had to do was...

Something down below caught Markus' attention.

He could just barely make the scene out, from his vantage point near the clouds. A large group of soliders were approaching a wounded dragon with pikes and halberds at the ready. Somehow, Markus knew, with the dead weight of certainty, that they were going to kill her.

Markus wavered in the air, feeling powerful, sickeningly sad emotions run through his body. The female was important to him, somehow. If this was Firewing's memory; was this his mate?

The dragon-minded inquisitor shivered and felt his heart race as pangs of terrible anger and sorrow ran through him over and over. He knew what was happening. He could see the soldiers advancing cautiously; he heard a mournful, wounded croon rise from the felled wyrm. It was the sound of a loved one, terribly, *wrongly* distorted by pain and fear...

Markus had never felt injustice so strong. He had never felt anything so terribly, terribly *wrong* in his life. As if he had been born in the dragon's body, he broke off his leisurely soaring and began plummeting into a tight dive with his wings tucked...

The descent lasted seconds. Markus aimed straight for the dusty town square where the wounded dragon lay, so absorbed in the intricacies of flight he was unable to think on anything else. Time felt slower as he approached the ground...

With an incredibly powerful beat of his wings, one that both halted his meteoric descent and blew down a score of the humans before him, Markus landed in the square, directly in front of his wounded mate.

The look of horrified shock that passed through the ranks of the assembled army was matched by a furious scowl across Markus' muzzle. He was shocked for a half-second when he realized he was speaking to Inquisition forces; it made him stay his claws. Surely it couldn't have been... no.

"Another one! Kill it!" the man in front said, raising his lance.

No... surely... they would listen...

The dragon-minded inquisitor lowered his wings and began to speak, summoning every last shred of willpower he had to keep from loosing his power on the assembled Inquisition...

"All of you! Stop this at..." he began to boom, when he felt a lance pierce his side.

Markus turned in an instant as he felt the needle-like pain jab into him, blinded by fury. Time seemed to slow down, and his very mind burned with the awesome fury of a dragon's rage. These... creatures... were trying killing a defenseless, egg-heavy female!? Those stupid, short-lived little *pests* would try and slay him when he would offer them *mercy*!? The *depravity*! The *injustice*!

With a snarling roar that would have terrified him had his senses not been blinded by rage, the dragon-minded inquisitor raised one clawed forepaw and struck the knight who had lanced him. The force of the blow was enough to fling both rider and mount into a nearby building, crumpling against the stone wall with a wet slam.

In a split-second, the rest of the assembled soldiers began to rush towards him, but Markus was far faster. He whipped around, scything down one squad with a lash from his long tail, before arching his head up above his wing...

Reflexively, Markus took a deep breath and felt the air mix and boil with something inside his powerful lungs. The hypnotized inquisitor let his instincts take over, letting his lungs fill up with the heavy, roiling feeling before aiming his muzzle towards the densest concentration of Inquisition soldiers and unleashing his breath...

A massive conflagration of dragonfire billowed forth from deep inside Markus' lungs, shooting out from his muzzle and cascading over the onrushing soldiers in a solid blanket of burning fluid. The fiery mist flared bright against the grey-gold armor the men wore as it clung to them. Most of those struck dead-on were quickly incinerated by the fire, but a few lucky survivors were left running aimlessly and screaming in pain as the dragonfire roasted their flesh... and then it had caught on several nearby buildings...

...and suddenly everything was gone. Markus was back inside the cavernous dungeon, still chained to the stony floor.

Markus looked up, panting for breath as a powerful aftershock of battle stress ran through him. He looked down at his fingers and saw the scales and claws were gone from them, but he felt very far from normal. What had he *done*? He had done his... but he had *attacked* his own comrades...

When Markus looked up again, his eyes were wet but his face was set hard as stone. "No... I would never..."

"You *did*," Nezan said. He was not smiling, simply looking at the Templar with a slight, pitying frown. "Is that so hard to believe? That the dragon you've been hunting had a good reason for his rage? Do you think dragons are literally *hatched* with evil in their blood, any more than humans are?"

"I..." Markus began to protest, but felt his voice die in his throat. Words could not even come *close* to explaining away what he had felt under Nezan's spell. The inquisitor lowered his head and shook it slowly, sighing deeply before finally saying "...no."

"And you? Are you truly surprised that humans can love their families just as much as dragons?" Nezan asked, turning to Firewing. Markus turned to look at the red wyrm, who was lying on his side half-curled together.

"...no," the great dragon slowly replied, slowly lowering his own muzzle.

The naga sat on his tail, staring at the dragon and human both. "Congratulations," Nezan said, without much emotion in his voice. "Both sides of your vendetta, exposed for what they really are. I hope you are happy with the results."

Markus did not respond as he tried to staunch the flow of tears from his eyes. He looked up at Firewing in his daze, and was surprised to find a look of shocked sadness on the dragon's eyes as well. The red wyrm trembled and slowly lowered its snout downward as it sighed, until it was pushing it into the floor of the cavern.

"For your lesson... I'm going to teach you two about life. I've seen your memories... you both destroy it rather thoughtlessly..." Nezan said, hissing evenly. The cobra slithered towards Markus, and then began to drum his fingers along the man's chains. Magically, the metal cuffs fell off the inquisitor's limbs with dull thunks.

Markus crawled forward on his newly-freed hands and knees, but was moving more to feel freedom of movement than escape. He felt something growing in his chest; something fiery and powerful...

"What...do you intend... mage..?" Firewing asked, eyes lidding with strain. The dragon sighed heavily, standing up on his paws.

"Oh, I'm not doing anything to *you* myself. But I predict that our good friend Markus-" Nezan said, running his hand along Markus' chin affectionately-"will be doing something to you after he is done with his change."

"Change?" Markus asked, turning his head up to meet Nezan. He thought he heard the word right, but was *that* why he was feeling strange? It was so much *power* it made his pulse thud rapidly and his vision blur. He was having trouble thinking, too...

"Yesss... you two can hardly mate in the state you are in. And, sorry to say... I happen to prefer dragons to humans," Nezan said, smiling at Markus, and then Firewing. "And I do mean mates in the most literal sense. I predict that the two of you could produce enough eggs to make up the murder count in a century or so..."

"What!? What!?" Firewing growled, arching forward with his head held as high as possible. His wings and tail were both restrained behind his back; there was no way for him to protect his tail-hole if the worst case were possible...

"I believe you heard me," the naga replied with a smile.

Markus was oblivious to the exchange between the dragon and the naga. He felt as though his very bones were beginning to tingle. It was like something he had not felt in a very, very long time; growing pains. Except it wasn't exactly painful...

Firewing shook his head. "Him!? He and I... you would make usss..." the wyrm said, haltingly. Firewing's pride was enormous, but the reality of the situation was so clearly out of his control that he held it in check. "Please... perhaps we could make a different sssort of arrangement? What you speak of is against the very... the natural order of life!"

"Hmmm... the natural order of life, you say?" the cobra said, laughing softly to himself. "If the 'natural order of life' wanted to be immutable, then I wouldn't be able to change it, would I?"

Markus looked at his hands. They felt larger... they *were* larger. He could see his skin darkening; it felt so clammy and warm. Soon, it felt smooth; almost waxen. Half-remembered visions ran like a blur through Markus' mind. Himself as a dragon; himself as Firewing. Each one seemed to push the changes onward...

"He is changing so fast... how can you do thisss, mage? How do you have so much power?" the awestruck dragon asked. Firewing struggled against his bonds, but could soon tell they were unbreakable. There was only one thing he could try...

"When I said Markus was like a dragon, I was not joking," Nezan replied, smiling. "The form is practically... natural... to him"

"Inquisitor! Do not surrender to the naga's illusion! I have seen magic like thisss before! Believing in it makes it real; *very* real!" Firewing protested, trying to catch Markus' attention. "Templar Markus Magnus Accitar! Pay attention!"

"I have been," Markus said calmly, grunting as he continued to change. A naked stump of tailbone was growing out of his backside, and his skin had a scaly sheen to it already. His hair was falling away in small patches, disintegrating completely before it even hit the floor...

"I... think I might have been wrong about a lot of things," Markus continued, lowering his head. "Maybe... we should... ungh!" he groaned.

The inquisitor grunted and moaned as he felt his muscles surge with strength all over his body. He was too worn down to resist Nezan's strange magic, but in his heart he no longer wanted to fight it. In his heart, he knew that his faith in the Inquisition had been misplaced. In heart, he wanted the change...

"You've... made him willing? I can ssscarcely believe this..." Firewing quietly said to Nezan, curling his muzzle into a frown. "This magic is... frightening. He isssn't even aware he isss under your control..."

Nezan smiled. "Oh? Well... that depends," he said, slithering away from the growing, prone form of Markus. "He is not being magically compelled to do anything... but my wordsss and my will are guiding him. The resultsss are the same... but isss it magic? Is it even compulsssion? Semanticssss..."

Markus was staring at Nezan's back and tail as the cobra talked to Firewing, eyes staring into the scaly pattern of tan, black and brown scales. As he felt his vision grow clearer, he could see the fine patterns in finer and finer detail, until he could make out the snake's individual scales with his naked eyesight.

Taking a deep breath, the inquisitor looked down at his own hands. Markus saw scaly patches growing in on his knuckles, forming out of his thickened, sleeker skin. The scales felt tight on his hands as they grew in, and they continued to thicken and grow long after they ceased to resemble anything like human skin. Markus felt a twinge in his fingers as scales swept over them, and gasped as his fingernails began to grow. Oddly, it almost felt like they were growing *in* towards his fingerbones as well as growing outward; they sharpened and grew larger with odd, bony creaks. Markus could see what they were now: his claws...

"Yes... I see now... I understand..." Markus said, lifting one of his scaly, clawed hands closer to his face. He grunted and arched his back as he continued to grow larger and scales spread across his body; already patches of them were turning a dusky, blackened shade of red. "Maybe we... deserve this..." he said, looking up from all fours to see Nezan and Firewing looking at him.

Firewing turned to Nezan and hissed fiercely at the cobra. "Sssssnake... what you two decide is *your* affair... but what if I don't agree with this twisted bargain? Hmm?"

The cobra looked the wyrm dragon right in his eyes and laughed. "My dear dragon; you don't have to! But somehow... I think you two might not be able to resist the temptation... not with the condition Markus will be in. Not with your own heat setting in..."

Returning Nezan's stare, Firewing hardly had time to gasp in surprise as something began to tingle inside his body, right above his internal testes. It was a burning, oddly pleasurable feeling of... something wet and *swelling* and spreading inside him...

"I could simply make one of you a female or both of you into... a little of each... but you both prefer to be male. And so it shall be. Am I not a generousss soul, Fierkaniszstar?" Nezan asked, spreading his hands into a half-shrug.

"Ahh-hh!" the dragon exclaimed, shivering as the strange pleasure began to move all the way down his anal passage before ending in his tailhole. The dragon felt things *twisting* and reshaping inside him; the strange feelings made him thrash against his bonds in a helpless release of energy. Firewing's whole rump felt tensed, and he felt his tailhole start to quiver restlessly, as if in *need* of something...

"Are... you okay..?" Markus hoarsely groaned, crawling forward slightly. His face was slowly beginning to grow out into a muzzle; most of his hair had fallen away, and most of his chest and back was covered in growing, glossy red scales. A prominent set of bulges rose on Markus' back as he slowly crawled towards Firewing, while the thick, stubby tail behind him rose and twitched as it grew in length.

Firewing was in shock, both from the strange feelings coming from inside his own body, but to see just how much Markus had *changed*. His once-mortal enemy now looked- and sounded- more like another wyrm than a human...

Markus kept crawling forward, even as his thin, membranous wings broke through his back and his shoulders began to swell with new muscles. His pace slowed but did not waver as scales cascaded down his lengthening tail and his body continued to grow, face distorted into a draconic visage but still barely recognizable. Markus could see his snout grow in right in front of his eyes, could *feel* his lungs growing with every fiery-hot breath he took. His whole body felt absolutely *ablaze*, and yet the fire didn't burn. No matter how hot the still-growing fire became, it only energized him further...

The transforming human gasped for breath suddenly as his growing wings unfurled from his scaly back, shuddering forward on his hands and feet. Both his fingers and toes were becoming stiff, strong and short relative to his massive body; more the bestial paws of a quadruped than the slender digits of a man. Markus looked up at Firewing, now nearly snout-to-snout with the dragon. The red wyrm stared at the curious creature before him, entranced by the sight of the draconic transformation...

"Let me... protect you. Let me... take you..." Markus growled to Firewing. Underneath him, his modest maleness was twitching as it went through the change, growing longer and thicker as it grew into a proper dragon's shaft. Behind his penis, his plump, warming testicles pulled up into his body, receding deep into a slit that formed on his scaly crotch. The inquisitor felt the fire in his body explode into a conflagration of pure need as his balls filled with dragonseed; it was unbearable. "Please... I mussst..." Markus began, searching his feelings for the strange *yearning* that called to him. "I mussst... mate you..."

Straining against his bonds, Firewing tried to pull away from the other male's muzzled visage. The dragon could smell and taste the potent, hot scent of arousal coming from Markus, and couldn't help but feel a tightness in his own slit. Even stranger, Firewing felt a similar, lustful *burn* inside his rump; a curious, undeniable yearning of his own. The thought of having another male's slick, hard dragonhood shoved up his tailhole, *filling* him with hot cum suddenly ran through Firewing's mind. It was not idle curiosity, not even a passing fantasy. It was *need*, pure and potent as the need to breathe...

The ex-inquisitor also was overwhelmed by horrible, bestial lust; lust the likes of which he had never even imagined. His shaft continued to twitch and grow under his belly; it was now deep red and obscenely large, nearly a full foot in length. His underside was completely covered in thick, dusky scales, and the fingers on his hands were tipped with huge claws as they shifted into paws. Markus moaned pitifully, shaking his now-earless head as he felt his need grow stronger.

"Let me mate you... pleassse... let'ssss... breed one another. Let'sss... replace the life we have taken..." Markus pleaded, cock aching between his hind legs. His crimson, ridged member glistened with preseed, continually throbbing and spurting fresh fluid all over the ground and itself. The air around both dragons reeked of the potent, pungent musk of two very virile, very horny dragons...

Firewing felt strangely detached from himself as he replied. "Y-yesss..." he moaned, suddenly relaxing and lowering his forepaws, raising his exposed rear upward. The dragon's bound tail and arched legs revealed a prime, inviting target to Markus.

The sight was so arousing, Markus felt the ridges on his still-changing cock grow larger and more prominent in seconds. The rest of his body was fast becoming that of a mature red dragon. Markus felt his wings grow outward to full size, snapping crisply to attention; his tail snaked across the ground as it too matured, thick and long and strong, taut against his backside. But his own changes could scarcely draw his attention; the ex-inquisitor was too focused on the gently-flexing, leathery ring of Firewing's tailhole. It was already wet and lubricated by a musky, clear fluid that dripped from glands along the dragon's tailhole. Firewing's girthy member quivered between his legs, hard and dripping dragon-pre onto the stone floor. He *wanted* to be bred...

Quiet but trembling with desire, Markus put his forepaws on the other dragon's sides, getting a firm grip on the warm, scaly hide of the other male. He could feel the steel-tight muscles of Firewing's body, and sense the fiery warmth of his heartbeat. Markus marveled at the strangeness of holding such a large creature while being so large himself; something changed in him as he felt the tenderness. Every time he had seen a dragon before, he had thought of them as living weapons with their deadly breath, sharp teeth and claws, monstrous size and keen, inhuman intellect. He'd never considered what it would be like to a dragon, but now he *felt* it with every last part of his being...

Markus felt the last of his changes, but could not see them. As he was consumed by his thoughts, his scaly, muzzled head was changing. Soft, scale-covered spikes pushed out from his chin and eyeridges; larger, fan-like grows pushed out from his head and earholes; down his back and tail. Slowly, the new dragon blinked through his golden-yellow, slitted eyes, hugging his new mate tight...

"Breed me," Firewing whispered, hissing and huffing for breath. The dragon pressed his scaly backside up against Markus' erect dragonhood, and began rubbing his warm, scaly rump-cleft up and down the head of Markus' member...

Markus' reaction was instant. He clamped his paws up higher on Firewing's back, careful not to put weight on the other dragon's bound wings. Then, he lifted himself up onto the other male's back, with his cock firmly pressed into his hot, tight, slickly-lubricated cleft. There was a moment of tension as Markus- not used to lacking hands- couldn't quite angle his member into the other dragon's tailpassage. The both of them hissed with mutual need as Markus rubbed his fully-erect length all around the other's ass; their musks rose heavy in the air.

Then, suddenly, Markus found the right angle, and felt the hot, tight, quivering tailhole flush against the head of his slick cock. The lust-drunk male bucked his hips forward, burying his throbbing length straight up into Firewing's tailpassage. Markus and Firewing roared in shared arousal; within seconds, Markus was eagerly thrusting deep and hard into the other male's tight, squeezing passage.

Firewing pressed the back of his neck into Markus' muzzle and relaxed his whole body, instinctively submitting to the other male. The dragon knew he needed to be bred; he needed to take the dominant male's seed. It did not matter that the need he felt had been given to him by the cobra; it was a need that brooked no protest...

Markus, too, knew what he had to do. Nezan's will had to be obeyed; he gently took the back of Firewing's neck into a mating bite and continued to thrust hard and slow into the bound wyrm's tailhole, deeply enjoying the feeling of his testicles tightening and his dragonhood swelling with an incredibly powerful orgasm. It was pleasure so vivid and potent and *right* that nothing could question it...

Mating Firewing's tight tailhole with the passion of a true dragon, Markus felt his knot swell, locking him together with the other. The former human growled and tightened his mating bite, burying his cock as deep into the other's rump as he could force it before his knot *throbbed* into a huge, fleshy bulge...

Markus felt his cock *throb* again he came. Growing in ecstasy, he felt his member twitch up and down inside the hot tailpassage squeezing it, shooting gallon after gallon of hot dragonseed into the other wyrm's tailhole. His first few spurts completely filled the other's ass with potent, virile cum, but his voluminous, knotted orgasm was far from done. Markus bellowed in pleasure and dominance as his climax continued, cock twitching in ecstasy as he continued to pump Firewing's tailpassage full of wet, hot jets of semen. The former inquisitor gave a deep, satisfied roar as he felt the now-smaller dragon's rump relax and his belly begin fill with seed, the jets of cum becoming wet and lewd splurts of liquid deep inside the other's body...

Firewing felt his body fill with seed. Much of his load was going into his new egg-pouch, grown between his rump and his belly not long ago. There was no doubt in his mind that he was going have a fully fertilized clutch of eggs very soon, but knowing that he had just been impregnated made Firewing's own cock throb so strongly...

Markus' knot trembled as he felt the other dragon's tailhole hard squeeze around him, and then felt Firewing shudder and roar under him. The now-pregnant male was beginning to cum as well. Both wyrms roared together in a harmonized crescendo as they climaxed; Markus shot more and more seed into his mate's full tailpassage, while the wyrm shot buckets full of gooey, white, hot seed onto the ground under them...

The twinned orgasms peaked and began to die down. Beneath the tied dragons, the spreading pool of hot dragonseed that Firewing had splattered the ground with washed over their locked hindpaws, covering them in sticky warmth.

Firewing was in a total daze. He could feel the molten-hot load of dragonseed resting inside his tailpassage; it made his egg-pouch tingle in the strangest way, which was in itself a strange thing to consider knowing he hadn't *had* an egg-pouch until a few minutes ago.

"M-Mar... kussss..." the dragon breathed, still senseless from shock.

"Shhh... rest..." Markus rumbled, licking the other dragon along the bridge of his snout. "Save your energy for later."

"L-later..?" the other dragon asked, confused.

"We're going to do it again... I want to make sure you're going to be as pregnant as possssible, my mate. We should try and make our firsssst clutches big..."

****

Nezan had slithered away some time ago, though neither dragon had noticed his absence. The sight of the two former enemies passionately mating- not to mention the reekingly-potent musk- had made the cobra's hemipenes swell considerably. The thought of temporarily transforming himself into a dragon and joining in had tempted him more than he wanted to admit, but the mage knew that the mating of dragons was something that deserved a certain respect, even...

"Hey, caw!" Rhya suddenly cawed, jumping down from a rafter hanging overhead.

Nezan, who had suddenly clutched his staff at the ready, relaxed his stance and uncurled his tail. "Please don't sneak up on me. It would be the best thing for both of us."

"Verywell! I shall announce my presence... like this!" Rhya exclaimed, raising his winged arms into the air and flapping them thrice. "Anyway, just checking on Markus. Is he okay? He looked like he wanted to kill all sorts of things this morning!"

Nezan smiled at the raven, laughing. "I think he's doing much better. But of course, you are too, my good bird. It is as I thought; a little change did you all some good."

"Yeah! Well, actually, it's still kinda strange. I mean, you turned me into a huge bird, caw. And a boy-bird at that," Rhya replied, scratching his beak. "But then again... I feel great! Caw. Also, I really like caw. Caw. Caw-ing!"

Nezan let his tongue flick out, but did not respond at first. "I don't remember putting a compulsion in you to caw like a bird. I think I might have made you a bit too... unserious..."

"Don't worry about serious or cawing! I really just like doing it!" Rhya excitedly replied. "But we should do this magic you have to more people. It would be fun!"

"Right... sure," Nezan replied, looking past the raven towards the door to his bedroom. Despite the interruption, his slit was aching the desire to mate. "Is Berand inside my quarters? We have something we need to do."

"Yep! He's right in-" Rhya began to say.

"Excellent! Leave us alone please," Nezan curtly replied, slithering right past the bird as he tried to continue speaking, then entering his bedroom and locking the door.

The raven spun around on his talons idly for a second, considering what Nezan had said.

"Well, if I heard Nezan right, I just got my first mission!" Rhya said to the empty hallway around him. "I'm not really sure if we count as minions, or just... I don't know, sort-of-people who live in his castle. But I think it's a good mission! I believe in it!"

**** Epilogues ****

The dungeon had, after extensive renovations, been made into a rather fitting lair for the newly-mated pair of dragons.

Firewing smiled and shivered as Markus continued to lick his muzzle, relaxing his body completely and letting the larger male cradle him between his strong paws. Gingerly, the smaller dragon rubbed his forepaws over his swollen, still-warm belly, feeling the pleasant weight of the seed stuffing his body. Strange feelings of vulnerability and smallness continues to shiver around inside Firewing's mind as he felt the eggs growing in his belly, but it was counterbalanced by the comforting strength of his mate's claws. Yes... what did he have to fear, with such a powerful, intelligent male as his mate? He was actually looking forward to laying the first clutch. Though it would take the eggs another decade to hatch, after he had lain them it would be Markus' turn to be bred and become nice and egg-heavy...

Firewing nuzzled the other dragon's muzzle one last time before yawning slightly. Though he didn't know it at the moment, Markus was thinking exactly the same thing as his mate.

****

A sandstorm blew through the muddy oasis, obscuring Nezan's robed form and dull scales. But the floating skull with crystalline, glowing teeth shone as bright as an unnatural star. Protective magics continued to crackle and flash as they deflected sand from his bony exterior.

"What... is your objection... creature? Do you find my methods... disturbing?" the lich spoke telepathically, while it's jaw moved in an exaggerated mockery of speech.

Nezan shook his head slowly. "I find your ends rather distasteful as well, lich."

"You care too much... for things that are none of your concern..." the lich said, hovering forward slowly. "I want this desert. There is much of use... beneath the sand, if not above it."

Nezan looked around the oasis. Dust and bones were all that remained of the merchants who usually rested there for respite. "You've seen to that, I see," the cobra said, narrowing his eyes as he looked the lich right in his jeweled eyesockets. "But I have made this place my concern. You can now choose whether to surrender yourself or be annihilated."

"Ahhh... so confident. So much energy. Your soul... shall make a feast for..." the lich began to say, rushing forward...

"No," Nezan spat, raising his staff.

Night turned to day as a massive pulse of yellow-white light arced down from the heavens, striking the skull-creature. A deafening blast swept over the impromptu battlefield, blowing dust and debris away from the pillar of light with impossible force. Only an echoing scream and a ghostly, rapidly disintegrating shadow was left of the lich as it was bathed in supernal fire...

The cobra smiled at the narrow, deep, smoking crater in front of him, patiently slithering forward to check it. "Got it. You can come out now, pet."

From a distant brush, the scaly, sleek, raptorial form of Berand emerged.

"Massster... what wasss that? What did you do?" the bard asked, awestruck. He was furiously scribbling on a pad held between his claws, tail wagging behind him.

Nezan turned to smile at his companion. "Oh... nothing much. Just gave it some nice, natural sunlight..."

"Sunlight!?" the raptor repeated, putting down his pen and cocking his muzzle to the side.

"Mhm. Approximately... half of one percent of this planet's total exposure, give or take a hundredth of a percent or two..." Nezan said, showing his fangs and laughing. "Now! Where do you suppose a demi-lich might store their research notes?"

Berand went back to scribbling along his pad, deftly twirling his quilled pen around with his claws. "If I identified it'sss dialect of ancient Hestani language correctly... that creature wasss... at least seven hundred yearsss old. There are ruins..." the raptor began to say, flipping through his notes rapidly. "...seven miles to the north-eassst that match that time period. But that place issss said to be haunted; nothing alive hasss ever returned from there."

"Well, that wouldn't be a sssurprise if a demi-lich was interred there," Nezan replied, thoughtfully rubbing his muzzle. "We should prepare ourselves, do a bit more investigation and then have a look if it remains a promising prossspect..."

****

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm... this is strange, strange, strange! You were supposed to meet us an hour ago!" Rhya said, bobbing his head up and down. "Don't you agree, caw? We don't want to disappoint Nezan on our first big mission!"

"Awk," Lesani replied, tail swinging under him.

Both raven and drake were perched on a branch of a tall, ancient tree, looking down at the merchant underneath them.

"Sorry, we had to go around a broken bridge, but I think... we are in agreement, creature," the merchant said, after a moment's consideration. "Uh... I mean, not to offend or anything, but... what are you?"

"Caw, what?" Rhya replied, cocking his head to the side. "I am a birdy, bird, bird! A raven!" he exclaimed, spreading his winged arms out. "See?"

"Yes... I... see..." the merchant said, turning towards one of his guards and shrugging. "Anyway... we have the items you 'requested'. Where is the money?"

"Caw, money-gold-cash is right here!" the black-feathered bird replied, picking up the sack with one of his taloned feet before dropping it off the tree.

The merchant barely managed to catch it as it fell from the branch, grunting as the weight of the coins hit his hands. "Oof... that is... quite heavy."

"It is full of money!" Rhya said, nodding.

"Er... of course," the man replied as he counted the money, turning towards his other guard and nodding curtly. "Excellent. Hand the gentleman his purchase, Dasery."

"Gentlebird." Rhya countered.

The mechant blinked, before saying, "Hand the gentle... bird... his reagents."

The guard picked up a heavy chest from off the merchant's cart, grunting as he lifted it. The burly ex-soldier looked up at the branch Lesani and Rhya were perched on as he carried the crate over towards their tree, dropping it at the base.

"Ah, great! By the way, where are your gloves?" Rhya asked.

"Gloves?" the guard replied.

"Awk," Lesani barked noncommittally.

"Gloves. Uh... I reminded you guys to wear gloves when carrying that stuff, right? Remember? Lead-lined gloves enchanted with stability magic and all that good stuff..." Rhya began to say, rubbing his feathered hand against his beak. "Oh dear, no. I remember. I definitely told you. I even wrote it on my note! It was underlined! You guys messed up!"

"Halt, halt... listen... creature. This has been an exceptionally difficult order to process. We recovered all of the goods you requested. What does it matter how they were transported?" the merchant answered, wringing his hands together nervously.

"Well, do I have a funny story to share with you!" Rhya said, spreading her wings and gliding down to the ground. He landed with a gentle counter-flap of his wings, which he then swept back and wrapped around his sides.

The raven paced forward, walking between the merchant and his guards before heading back towards the delivered crate. He pecked at it, plucking a glass vial from the interior. "Er see 'es?" Rhya asked, still holding the shimmering, faintly glowing vial in his beak.

"Yeah. Potions." The merchant said.

"Not potions," Rhya corrected.

The man was hesitant. "Not potions?"

The raven spat it out, catching it in his scaly hands and tossing it back and forth between them. "Nope! Not potions! This stuff is actually, no joke, seriously powerful magic! The fluid acts as a medium for storing dissolved, empowered magic."

"Oh." the merchant said, shrugging to his guards. "I thought they were jus' potions. Oh well."

"Nuh-uh. You might want to hold off on the 'oh well' part for a bit. Damn. I told you to wear gloves!" Rhya said, skittering around the merchant in a twirling half-circle. "Hey... listen... I have teensy little itty bitty question for you three! Did any of you all steal and drink some of our potions?"

"Yaren, I'm not likin' what I'm hearin' from that... bird..." one of the guards said to the merchant. "You said we wasn't taking transporting anything dangerous! You said they'd never know if we nipped one or two, ye'd just replace 'em!"

"Oh, it's not really dangerous!" Rhya replied. "But I have to ask you... how do you three feel about..." the raven began, stopping to glance at the label on the crystal vial. The arcane sigils looked like gibberish to the men. "...snakes?"

The merchant, who until then had been looking quite strained, laughed at the question. "Snakes? Why d'yeh want to know what I think about snakes?"

Rhya smiled insincerely, head twitching from the confused humans up to Lesani's perch, and then back again. "Let's just pretend I'm really curious for no reason! On a totally unrelated note, I think Nezan is either going to be really angry or really happy about this, and I'm not sure which yet! If I had to guess, I would say both are going to happen in that respective order."

"What in the blazes are yeh' speaking of!?" the other guard asked, panicking. The man drew his sword and began backing off. "You dragged us into a haunted forest fulla' talking monsters, Yaren! No gold is worth this!" he yelled, facing from Rhya to the merchant, and then to the other guard. Only then did he notice that rash on his arm- the one he'd thought was from some allergic reaction- had taken on a rough, green, scaly texture...

"Ahhh!" the man screamed.

"Stop!" Rhya yelled, raising his wings into the sky. "Don't panic! No need to panic! I know what to do! Just relax... be calm about this... and take off your pants."