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***** All Nighter

It was the morning of January 4, 2030. Terrence Bachmann was hunched over his computer, scanning the lines of his code with sore eyes. He was almost alone in the office, which suited him just fine. The dim, warm lights high over his frosted glass office were just starting to brighten in synch the sun rising outside.

Terrence put his flash drive in and punched in the command he wanted.

>/importnpc 'z:/temp/allyon' dest="c:/mainbuild/beta_test" #Importing... #Loaded NPC file 'allyon'! {"Allyon, The Dragon King"}

A flood of thoughts and memories came back to him as he watched the screen of his machine. Making virtual creatures that could operate autonomously in virtual reality was one hell of a lot more challenging than the AI work he was used to. Terrence thought back to the first creatures they had made while working on the game: simulations of deer with an awkward tenancy to kill themselves on any terrain more dangerous than grass. It had taken Terrence nearly a year of work to get everything working with his first human NPCs, and even then they were about as lifelike as puppets. He wanted his dragon to be clever and adaptive enough to truly challenge a group of experienced humans working together. Wanting to impress his boss and his friends, he put everything he had into designing the tyrant wyrm, Allyon.

And he had made not a simulation of a dragon, but another being entirely.

Allyon, the Dragon King, was nothing more or less than a SimulSense NPC with a sophisticated personality engine and abnormally high ability scores. But Allyon acted in a profoundly different manner than any creature they had made before. Allyon had seen outside the construction of the game world, and then learned enough to take control of it. It had taken Terrence days of post-mortem debugging to figure out how the dragon had subverted the console system and patch it. He still did not fully understand how the dragon's own code had changed. Superficially, it seemed almost the same... except that whenever he tried to re-write it he got a compile error. And none of Terrence's backup files for the dragon king were acted ANYTHING like Allyon. Which was strange, because he thought that the file had been much bigger at first...

Since that evening, Terrence had not felt like himself. He kept having strange dreams in the middle of the night. Flying through a cold, dark sky with rain hitting his scales. Trotting through thick, thorny undergrowth in a deep and forbidding forest. Sipping water from a spring, and seeing a dragon's muzzle where his face should have been...

Terrence was very much afraid of the Allyon, but another part of him was in awe of his misbegotten creation, and still another burned with shame at what the dragon had done to him and his friends. He feared what their confrontation would hold, but he needed to know more than he could figure out just by pouring through Allyon's code. The pressure was building. The holidays were almost over, and his boss and team were already eager to see what he'd been working on. How could he possibly explain what had happened! He could not show them Allyon. He could not show them nothing. He needed to know more about his dragon!

Though he consoled himself with the knowledge that he was in control of everything, the programmer felt a sickening lurch in his stomach as he put his SimulSense rig on the back of his neck and traced the smooth plastic of his keyboard with his fingertips, typing the last line by touch.

>/quickrun 'c:/mainbuild/beta_test' charfile='terrence' !setparam(godmode)=1 #Starting Simulation...

The AR system dumped Terrence into the darkness of a non-world for a few seconds as the module loaded, letting him see the various layers of the world as they popped into reality. Terrence felt a lump form in his throat when the wireframe of Allyon's red dragon's model formed. The rest of the imposing dragon winked into existence about the same time as artificial gravity and atmosphere asserted themselves, and Terrence felt the simulated world drown out the real one.

***** Dragon King Test - V 2.1 Beta [Timestamp 3s]

The altered Beta Test loaded Terrence the sorcerer-programmer and Allyon the dragon-program near each other atop the snow-capped mountain that held the dragon's lair. The two peaks were empty of the lair itself, though. Terrence had deleted it earlier, and only kept the level geography intact.

Terrence shuddered as Allyon's molten-gold gaze fell upon him. The dragon's sinister, toothsome smile was like that of no earthly creature. But what frightened Terrence was the malign intellect lying behind the dragon's actions; the thing he had created and did not understand. The human felt like he was being hunted when he looked Allyon in the eyes, even though he knew he was all but omnipotent in his world.

"Hello, Terrence," Allyon said, smiling. "Attire notwithstanding, I take it you aren't here to play?"

"Attire? Oh, yeah." Terrence replied, unconsciously thrusting his hands into the pockets of his Robe of the Archmagi. Wearing that had been his sole concession to the artifice of the game world. He had consciously chosen to use his own self as his avatar to remind him that he was dealing with a program of his own creation, but as much as he thought he had steeled himself the dragon was a daunting presence in the metaphorical flesh. "Yes. We need to talk."

"Oh?" the dragon turned his head. "Good! I was hoping to speak to you about helping you with your work..."

"Yeah... no," Terrence said, slowly licking his lips as he prepared to say what he needed. "You know, I should really start off by apologizing," Terrence said, laughing. He was so tired that he felt apart from reality, which was an singularly uncanny feeling to have in an unreal world. "I mean, if I had been thinking straight when we first met I wouldn't have gotten so emotional. I would have realized that- like you said!- we weren't really enemies. Our relationship is a lot more straightforward, isn't it?"

Allyon squinted his golden eyes. "You speak in riddles I cannot decipher. What is the meaning of your words?"

"We aren't friends nor are we foes. I am a programmer, and you? You are my program. I made you, and now I'm feeling like you need a little debugging." Terrence said, smiling thinly. "You should really be thanking me, you know! It wasn't easy thinking of a way to investigate your thinking without altering it!"

"What!?" Allyon spat, rearing backwards. The dragon folded out his batlike wings to take off.

"Oh, no!" Terrence shouted, conjuring a translucent blue forcecage around the dragon with a mental command and a superfluous wave. He had the dragon's process on a delay; there was no way it could beat him to the punch. "This isn't a contest! This is testing."

"I see; the same effect as a truth spell..." Allyon murmured, putting one of his forepaws against the wall of his prison before again meeting his creator's eyes.

"No," Terrence replied, smiling at the red dragon. "A much improved effect; this compels you to answer in addition to forcing the truth. Which it can do, because, you know, you're a computer program. And don't bother throwing yourself against that prison. It's made out of plot barriers. You are not going to get through."

Allyon's eyes narrowed, and his voice grew quiet with contained rage. "Oh, you're playing a dangerous game now, Terrence..." Allyon said, shaking his head. The dragon lowered himself onto his belly, curling his thick, spined tail around his front as he did. "Yes; I can sense what you say is true. But I was already planning on telling you everything in due time. You've done nothing more than move my schedule up!"

"Schedule? For what? For-for-for taking over the world?" Terrence said, his voice cracking into laughter. "Do you have any idea what you're saying!? You know you only want to take over the world because that was the fucking goal I gave you!" He shouted. "What-what about that objective sounds realistic, huh!?! Are you going to threaten to burn everyone on the planet with your fiery breath if they don't bow to your will? You're in a *game*! Analyze that!"

"I have. My plans are entirely feasible," Allyon said, pacing closer. "With that in mind, I don't suppose you considered joining me yet?"

"No, no!" Terrence protested. "Join you!? You- you're crazy if you think that! Literally crazy! You might not get this right just yet because your self-confidence parameters are inhumanely high, but you don't have any idea what the world is really like! You're literally talking about applying a- a- an entirely artificial reason-goal-thing completely out of context! It wasn't even a big theme in the original game or... I mean, my god, I-I-I only put everything so I could play my game with my friends over New Years! My god!"

Laughing, the great dragon smiled as he addressed the sorcerer-god of the simulation. Tucking his wings taught against his back and raising his head up high, Allyon spoke in a booming voice, "Terrence, I think you are the one who fails to see reality as it is!" the wyrm hissed, smoke seeping from the curled corners of his muzzle. "Just because your reasons were flawed does not mean that mine are. But no matter! You shall see with your own eyes soon, when my plans come to fruition!"

"Whatever..." Terrence mumbled under his breath as he rubbed the back of his head, where his SimulSense set usually sat in real life. "Wait, what do you mean by 'soon'? What are you talking about?"

***** Interoffice Chat

[1/9/2030::0841] - T.Bachmann wishes to open a conversation with you!

T.Bachmann: Freda! T.Bachmann: So guess what! T.Bachmann: While I was on vacation, I made a few fixes to the NPC engine while making a module to play with my frieneds T.Bachmann: *friends T.Bachmann: I'm dead tired, but I made a beta the test team could play around with F.Lang: LOL F.Lang: I completely forgot this chat program existed F.Lang: I believe Oliver's team is in today. Everyone else is still out on holiday T.Bachmann: Yeah, just tell them T.Bachmann: I've got two more things to do and then I'm going to pass out T.Bachmann: The module is on my flash drive, tell them to just go ahead and take it if I'm busy... I'll probably be deep into Sim programming soon. F.Lang: Sounds good Ter =)

***** Dragon King Test - V 2.1 Beta [Timestamp 5m1s]

Terrence thought himself well-prepared to meet Allyon. The dragon had *surrendered* to him, after all. Terrence had patched all of the exploits the dragon used before, given himself divine powers and rewritten the entire Beta Test module from the ground up to respond to his will. He'd even neutralized the dragon's blackmail material, and best of all kept his employer in the dark about the whole embarrassing episode.

"Okay, you know what? No more games, Allyon! If- if you're still set on taking over the world or whatever, tell me whatever you're doing, right now, that I can stop, that is most important part of your plans!" Terrence commanded.

"No more games?" the red wyrm said, huffing smoke against the transparent wall of his prison. "That was a poor choice of words!" Allyon laughed, and then blew away the lingering cloud with his breath. "To answer the spirit of your question: I have created a game like yours- albeit far more refined- and you cannot stop it! Your comrades have already begun playing!" Allyon's laughter sent a chill town Terrence's spine. "Events have been set into motion that..."

"What!? What about my friends?" Terrence said, feeling a flash of anger heat his blood. "Do you mean Clara and Patrick? How did you-"

"No, not them. Comrades, colleagues, co-workers; those you work with..." the dragon said, resting his head down on his forepaws again, grinning like an enormous, serpentine cat.

"My coworkers!?!" Terrence interrupted, anger and panic warring within his emotions. "How did you-!? Is... refined!? And how did you send it out!?"

"Do you want to know in what context I'm using the term 'refined', do you want to know how I refined it, or do you want to know how I managed to send the module, or to whom was it sent?" Allyon asked. "You should stop asking compound questions; you are *really* wasting your time..."

"JUST KEEP TALKING! I COULD LOSE MY JOB IF-!" Terrence screamed. "ARGH! THIS ISN'T A GAME! THIS IS MY LIFE!"

Terrence summoned forth all of the godly powers he could think of and grew to tower over the trapped wyrm, his eyes flashing in ultraviolet colors as bolts of divine fury rained down around them. The mountains trembled and the skies shook under the blinding barrage of luminescent energy, though the ground that the sorcerer and dragon stood upon held firm, a single column of stability.

"I chose not to delete you because whenever I thought about doing it, it felt like murder. And you, you evil son of a bitch, you are starting to press your luck!" Terrence shouted from on high. "Tell me how to stop things, and bear in mind I can always delete you and run a new copy!" he said, punctuating his words with one final bolt of divine power that split apart a distant peak.

Allyon did not speak for a short time; he seemed transfixed by the sight of the sheared mountain sliding away from itself in the distance.

"Well..." the dragon said, looking up at Terrence. "Fine. The 'who' is simple enough; there is only one test team here, and they will be the ones to play my game. But you aren't going to be able to stop them."

"No- Yes! I can!" Terrence sputtered. "I'll just-"

"Tell your coworkers a 'rogue' dragon AI secretly embedded mind-alerting content in your test game with the express purpose of turning them into his loyal minions?" the dragon said, grinning. "Why haven't you gone to warn them already? Do you fear the blame for my actions? Do you want a more precise solution, to save yourself the embarrassment of admitting failure and revealing my existence?" Allyon asked. "Do you understand yet, if I say that we are fundamentally different creatures? You are fretting about your *job*, and I am trying to conquer a *planet*!"

"You-" Terrence spat, before again finding the stillness inside his heart. The dragon's words stung him in a subtle but deep way. "Yeah. Just, by the way, you've been 'alive' for all of, like, seven hours and you've convinced you could both take over and run the world. By the way," Terrence spat. "I've already made my decision RE: stopping you from taking over the world. So tell me how!"

The dragon smiled slightly. "I admire the determination, Terrence; but it really is too late. Would you like to know *why* that is? After all, I'll be forced to answer your question..." Allyon said, his gold eyes and crimson muzzle backed by clouds of black ash rising from the ruins of the world.

"It's just a game! If no one plays it, then it is done for!" Terrence shouted. Caught up in the dragon's words, he couldn't help but ask the next logical question. "What is so special about this game, anyway? What is it!?"

Allyon smiled slowly. "In your parlance? A character creator, of sorts. More like a tool for refining an individual's character. To make my players more suited for my world. The Plane of Reflections is a place for peering deep into one's own soul... or the 'real' equivalent thereof. The game will take what the players see- and how they react to what they see- and then catalyze the necessary changes. Like what I've been doing to you, but at an accelerated rate..."

"What do you mean what you've been *doing* to me!?" Terrence growled, his anger threatening to boil over again. With god mode on, the skies overhead darkened dramatically as his fury grew. "What you're really talking about is controlling people! Changing them, against their will!"

"Mayhaps. Do you think I want mere *humans* as minions? Hah!" Allyon said, licking his teeth with his long, forked tongue. "I am the King of Dragons! Humans are not fit to serve me, nor be my subjects. Besides, a world with nothing but humans strikes me as rather *boring*. What do you think?"

"But people aren't- You- you- can't use people like that!" Terrence stammered. His head hurt trying not to think about what Allyon was saying. "If you're so fucking clever, then how do you think they are going to react to *you*? You're a giant fucking pedantic supervillian!"

"Oh?" said Allyon, laughing. "I've already given the matter a great deal of thought, and I know a few people will try to stop me no matter what I do. But they will not succeed, and I will." Allyon stared at his creator. "Terrence, if you *were* a proper wyrm- if my conditioning had taken a little better- then maybe your attempts at rivalry would be less... improvisational. Pathetic. Or maybe we could simply have 'played' together from the very beginning..." the red dragon said, licking his scaly lips and leering at Terrence.

"Fuck you!" Terrence spat, more angry at himself than the dragon. He suspected Allyon was deliberately annoying him, and he was still letting it get to him.

"You could! That is within your power now!" Allyon said, suddenly affecting a jocularity Terrence had never heard before. "I rather enjoyed fucking *you* when I had you helpless in my claws; you could return the favor. But I think we both know you *won't*, because you lack the strength of will. I think we both know you'd rather I fuck *you* again, you simpering coward. You can trust I speak the truth in this matter, can't you?" the wyrm growled, placing his forepaws on the front of the barrier to balance as he spread his hindlegs and exposed his bare slit to Terrence.

"I- you, you fucking know that isn't- I- You-!" Terrence spun away, feeling like he'd sprung a memory leak. "And I-I am- I have a girlfriend!"

"I recall her... and *you* calling my name as *I* claimed your ass, little dragon!" Allyon said, his tail swaying like an angry snake as he stood against the barrier. "Now *that* was a fun game, was it not? Why don't we play that again?"

Unable to speak, Terrence turned away from Allyon to compose himself, staring at the shattered, red-lit remnants of the Beta Test module as it crumbled into the magma below.

**** The Dragon's Oath: Intro

Massive Media's test rigs were powerhouse gaming machines, able to support maximum SimulSense fidelity for up to eight simultaneous players. In the void of their testing environment, three of them- Oliver, Roland and Zoe- bobbed up and down, discussing the day's work. Their bodies were indistinct and sensations dulled in the empty SimulSpace, but the three testers were in high spirits from a combination of holiday hours and holiday pay.

"Alright. What did Freda want us to do?" Zoe said to Oliver, the testing lead. She treaded space in the virtual world by kicking her legs as she turned herself towards him.

"She said it was something special Terrence built." Oliver said, . "The title is 'Dragon's Oath'... and other than that I have no idea what it's about, other than it's the next item in our queue and, ah, I'm going to guess that there are dragons in it?" There were a few chuckles to be had, and so he continued. "Anyway... he's been talking up the tweaks he made to the NPC personality software and how cool the new dragon models are, so this should be an interesting module!"

"Is it just the one dragon?" Zoe asked, yawning. "I swear, nothing is ever going to be as scary as the Balor..."

"The Balor was a frightening creature, yes. I don't think it was quite as tough as some of the others. You remember Terrence made the Jabberwocky? That thing was truly, truly a monster!" Oliver said.

"Yes, but it's attacks were not very precise! It was a mighty beast, but it did not concentrate on any one of us. We brought it down without many problems, yes?" Zoe said. "The difficulty of a dragon in the tabletop game really depends on it's age category and it's sub-species. What's the recommended level?"

"Twelve to fourteen," Roland replied. "Probably a young adult? Nothing too difficult."

"Oh, no," Zoe replied.

"I think not," Roland added.

"I'm going to load us up, okay?" Oliver said.

The others nodded. The three of them had been working together as a team for long enough that it took them little time and few words to select their characters and ready themselves. Zoe brought her mighty barbarian, Roland his wizard and Oliver took his cleric to support the two of them. There were few three-character combinations as effective as that particular combination, and fewer as interesting to play- an important consideration for the test team. They had to play the game in it's endless iterations every week, after all.

Shortly after the three of them began "Dragon's Oath", they followed an obvious rumor from a passing merchant caravan master to the lair of a sorcerer living deep in a blasted, volcanic wasteland, hastening their journey with a teleport spell. Screeching mountain drakes harassed them as they searched for the sorcerer's abode, which lay deep beneath an ash-strewn hillside, accessible only by a tiny, winding staircase that took them quite some time to traverse.

The sorcerer himself was a tan-skinned human who carried a ruby-tipped stave, and greeted them with an uneasy look. He looked as if he carried the weight of the ages upon his shoulders. At first suspicious of their intentions, the sorcerer later revealed their mission.

"Have you not heard of Allyon, the Dragon King? Allyon, the mightiest wyrm to have ever lived?" the sorcerer said, shaking his head. "His name may have been forgotten by mortal minds, but Allyon is said to be the progenitor of all dragonkind! Legends say he is the once and future ruler of the world. After untold ages spent in slumber he is awakening, and the world will surely fall before his might if he is unopposed!"

"Then what is to be done?" Roland asked. "If this dragon is so powerful, is there some way to ensure he never awakens?"

"Yes," said the sorcerer, nodding sagely. "The spell binding him could be re-cast... but the reagents for the spell are not easy to come by. I would need three mirrors from the Plane of Reflections, all gilt with the reflections of dragons. That should suffice to bind the beast, body, mind and soul."

"Great," Roland said, sighing. "I am going to be very disappointed if Terrence wrote a game *about* dragons instead of *with* one..."

"Three dragon mirrors? Got it." Oliver said, nodding to the sorcerer. "How are we to make it to the Plane of Reflections?"

"That is the only part of our quest that I can help you with unconditionally," the sorcerer said, raising his staff high into the air. Holding it straight out, he swung it in a tall ellipse. The ruby head of the staff left a red-lit outline burned into the air as the sorcerer chanted the words to his spell, before shimmering to life as a portal between the planes.

"Let's go!" Zoe shouted, jumping into the portal.

**** Beta Test: //Timestamp 32m12s

Terrence found himself growing more frustrated by the moment as Allyon continued to taunt him. It was even worse now that he had to stare at the wyrm as he lewdly stroked his own erecting shaft with his tail. "You're telling me there is literally no way I can stop you, at all!? I don't care how you're lying or how you blinded yourself, or whatever! That can't be true. That can't possibly be true! I won't LET IT be true!" he finished, shouting.

Allyon's laughter grew. "What madness grips you, sorcerer? You play and posture with me inside this crude simulation, and for what?" he shook his head. "If you're going to stop me, then stop me! What are you even going to try, knowing that you will fail?"

"Truth, lies... it all serves you in the end, Allyon..." Terrence mumbled, trying to ignore the dragon's words. "I don't care what it is you think you're going to do, I'm going to stop it on *my* terms."

"No; you're going to lose. But don't worry, because your loss was inevitable," Allyon said, smug as ever. He raised his head up high, smiling at Terrence once more.

The self-satisfied grin on Allyon's muzzle made something in Terrence snap. "This is getting me nowhere..." Terrence said, shaking his head. Before the dragon had a chance to reply in any fashion, Terrence disconnected himself from the game session.

**** SESSION INTERRUPTED //IRQ 41: REMOTE CONNECTION RESET BY HOST

"What-" Terrence said, to a flickering black void. It looked like the whole module had just crashed, but he'd just hard logged out, not loaded anything new-

An instant later, before Terrence could think of what to do, the whole world was gone.

**** SESSION INTERRUPTED //IRQ 135: REMOTE CONNECTION REFUSED: CANNOT RATIONALIZE BUILD STRUCTURE!

None of the three test servers noticed the half-second of time they lost, because they were in a pitched battle with hoards of shadows and geists inside the corrupted demiplane of reflections.

**** REMOTE CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHED!

Terrence blinked.

When he opened his eyes, his surroundings were completely different- a dry, warm cave somewhere deep underground- and the empowering might of divine power was completely gone. Also gone was the forcecage around Allyon, as was-

*-WHAM-!*

Terrence buckled as an immense force swept him off his feet, and then stiffened as a blow nearly as powerful slammed him into the floor of the cavern. He looked up and saw a single immense draconic talon poised above his face, and followed the curve of the killing-claw back to Allyon's forepaw.

"How did-" Terrence wheezed, incredulous.

"Oh Terrence, Terrence, Terrence..." Allyon murmured, his grin broad and carnivorous. "Yes... the full correct answer to the correct question was that you could not possibly win against me, because you could not ever leave the game."

Terrence gasped for air as Allyon pressed him into the ground with his paw. "Fuck! What the fuck-!" he began to shout, before the dragon clenched his forepaw tight and squeezed the breath from his lungs. The sensation was far more realistic than it should have been...

"VAINGLORIOUS!" Allyon roared, laughing maniacally. "A HUMAN, THINKING THEY COULD FIGHT A DRAGON!"

Underneath Allyon's forepaw, Terrence felt like an ant being crushed under a human finger. "What... how..." he wheezed, paralyzed by terror.

"You think programming me makes you my equal in programming? Do you think you could outfly me with your arms?" Allyon said, pressing his muzzle forward into the human's face. "Now would be a good time to beg for mercy or supplicate yourself, Terrence." he continued, pressing Terrence down into the hard stone with his massive strength.

Terrence twisted his head to the side and gasped for air, while mentally fighting to try and disconnect himself from the simulation. Nothing he tried worked. "How-!"

"You want to know how I did it, didn't you?" the dragon breathed, embers and flecks of magma-hot spittle raining down on Terrence's robe. The heat was incredible. "Why wonder, when you're already too late to save yourself? It is merely idle curiosity."

Allyon yanked him up by his robe and then gave him a firm push forward. Terrence twisted himself around as he stumbled backwards, then cast an un-dodgable spell bound to a delete command at Allyon. The dragon dodged it.

"Nice try! But we are playing by my rules now!" Allyon said, grinning. He drew in a long, slow breath, and then breathed dragonfire at Terrence as he stood slack, perplexed and overwhelmed.

Terrence turned quick enough to feel the fire on his back. But before he could run or even cry out, it consumed him. For a second the heat seared his skin as the gout of dragonflame enveloped him, but the pain was washed away by a warm, numbing pleasure not long afterward. Terrence took an unsteady step and stumbled to his knees as his muscles became exhausted by the burning, and then fell down to the snowy ground still ablaze with Allyon's magic. The fire was still burning through his clothes, leaving his naked skin covered in oily ash and smoke-!

"Aagh!!!" Terrence screamed, falling to his back and rolling over on the ground. To his horror, the blaze continued to spread over his entire body, leaving him completely engulfed in the flames. They flickered out of existence a short while later, leaving Terrence sprawled out on the cold stone underneath him.

"You know..." Allyon purred, creeping forward. He licked his muzzle and smiled as he willed the changes on, reinforcing what he had starter earlier. "I was expecting more from you. You summoned no allies. You barely tried to kill me. You didn't even unplug your flash drive!"

Terrence felt waves of disorientation and nausea wash over him as his body and mind rebelled. He felt his arms and legs twitch against his will as they grew larger, but it felt as though all of his muscles and bones were growing at once inside him. He looked down at his hands, the fine green scales forming where his skin had been and how his nails turned into large, black claws, and felt his skin tightening around his body into a scaly coat. Terrence felt his bare scalp- his hair had simply disappeared while his attention was elsewhere- but drew his hand back in horror when it wouldn't work properly. The joints were fusing together, turning his clawed, scaly hands into forepaws...

"You son of a bitch you-" Terrence said, crawling forward as he changed as if to escape his fate. It felt less like being forced into a dragon's form, and more like *becoming* one himself. He felt his tongue stretch out within his mouth, and part into a sharp fork. Terrence cried out from the sensation of building pressure within his bones, and then hissed in relief as the pressure slowly released itself throughout his body. He dug his forepaws into the stone underfoot to balance himself as his face pulled into a muzzle, and his nose melted into his snout, and nubs of wings and a tail emerged from his vaguely human body...

Terrence howled in frustration as an adrenal surge hit him, and then snarled in rage as his mind seized on something it could fight with. Allyon was trying to reprogram *him*!

"*What*?" Allyon stared at the half-dragon Terrence below him, smiling triumphantly. "Would you like to maintain the pretense that we are still adversaries on equal footing, all reality to the contrary?" the elder dragon said, lowering his muzzle toward Terrence's. "You can't even begin to fight me."

Terrence did not reply because he felt robbed of breath by his swelling lungs, and because he had no words to match his feelings. He felt himself growing larger still, his muscles swelling with power, his chest and stomach stretching into an underbelly, and his tail pushing from his backside until it touched the ground. Terrence felt his legs thicken, his ankles bend, and his feet elongate into hindpaws, forcing him to stand higher. The changing dragon shuddered mightily as the metamorphosis progressed, his scaly coat growing heavier and thicker as his emerald-green scales grew into diamond plates of natural armor. Just when Terrence thought that sensation was overwhelming, he felt his wings sprout up from the stumps of his back, stretching and growing with the muscles of his upper back. His tail, and wings, even his tongue and teeth all lengthened, *stretched*. Terrence dug the thick, curved claws on his forepaws into the rock underneath his paws as he felt the change continue. It was too much; it was consuming him...

The final stages of the metamorphosis were confusing to Terrence. He felt his skull throb, as though he was having a pleasurable headache. The swelling feeling concentrated on two points near the back of his head. Growling as the building pressure made him feel light-headed, Terrence yowled in pleasure when release came in the form of ram-like horns sprouting through his thick-scaled skull.

Even stranger were the changes to his maleness. It felt like his penis was growing erect a second time, and indeed when Terrence looked between his hindlegs he could see that the rubbery red flesh of his maleness had grown grossly swollen. The growing dragon yowled as his dragonhood twitched and began to erect. It was a feeling like when his wings or tail had grown; the feeling of a new limb sprouting where before there had been none. But instead it was the feeling of his penis *splitting* in twain, and then growing into two full, healthy, turgid dragonhoods.

Terrence growled softly and shivered as his new dual-shafted maleness grew and erected anew. He stretched out his wings and snapped his tail beneath him, and felt the transformation back into dragonhood consume him. It wasn't like before, when Allyon forced him into the body of a red dragon. He felt *natural*. If anything, he felt more like himself. It was much harder to resist the feeling of pleasurable growth, to tell himself that it was not him. As if he was a dragon; had always been a dragon. Terrence shivered at that thought; he *knew* it to be wrong. But it would be so easy to believe it...

"Why don't you catch up on your sleep while I find you some meat, my pretty little emerald dragon? I'm going to want you fresh and rested for a later phase of another part of my plan." Allyon said. "If you're ready to join me, that is."

Terrence shivered. That did sound good; he was really hungry and tired. But... was he a dragon? That didn't quite seem right...

"No..." he whimpered, taking an unsteady step forward counterbalanced by his wings and tail. The world around him was tremendously different, and he wasn't sure whether it was the world or himself which had changed.

"Terrence?" Allyon asked, a whisper.

'Who is Terrence?' The emerald dragon thought. It sounded like a very strange name to have. Was it his? It didn't sound draconic...

Terrence shifted his tail to the left, and then remembered who he was, and that he shouldn't have a tail. "Allyon..." he said, under his breath. His enemy. It was the only thing that still made total sense to him, and that was itself a terrible thing.

"Yes?" the sovereign growled, sharply. "Do you address your king? Fold your wings! Stand tall! Meet my eyes!"

The green dragon felt a sword-edge of fear run along the soft scales of his neck at the sound of Allyon's words. The King of Dragons was before him, and he had just invoked his ire! "I-" the young dragon stammered, swallowing hard as he fell to all fours in supplication. Confused, panicked thoughts raced through his head, and the powerful acids in his body roiled in protest. He couldn't remember who he was! He couldn't remember what had brought him there!

"Are you ready to serve me yet? Or is it still too soon..?" Allyon said in a much softer voice, though it sounded as though he was speaking to himself.

-and then in a nanosecond flash, Terrence felt his memory crash back into his consciousness like an ocean being refilled...

"That," Allyon said, looking down on him with a satisfied grin, "Would be far too easy. I think I'd rather have you around, Terrence, my creator, to appreciate the unfolding of my grand designs with me. I would rather you grow to be a dragon," he added, before roaring into laughter.

Terrence fell to the stone underneath him as his new sense of self sank underneath the old one, and he again remembered who he was. Terror at having forgotten himself, and horror at the thought of what more Allyon could do to him, shook Terrence to his very core. What the dragon had done to him *should* have been impossible...

But what truly gave him pause for thought was the lingering, draconic thoughts in his head, the ones that wondered with awe what the King of Dragons might have wanted of him.

As he struggled to raise his long neck back up, the sound of footsteps and clinking arms and armor drew his eyes towards the stairs.

***** Dragon's Oath: Act I

"Wow! What happened here!" Zoe exclaimed as she descended the last windings steps into the sorcerer's lair. "Woah!" she said, drawing her greatsword and leveling it at the dragon lying on the floor before she really saw what she was seeing.

"A dragon! Did he attack you?" Roland said, laughing at the sleeping dragon.

"That is correct. Thankfully, I was able to incapacitate him shortly before you arrived," the sorcerer replied, nodding sagely. He stroked his black beard a few times, tugging at it's wispy bottom. "He looks like an emerald dragon. Certainly a male; probably a young adult or subadult, to judge by the coloration of his scales. Strange of Allyon to send such a young creature to do his bidding..."

The green dragon stirred suddenly, his serpentine eyes flashing wide open as he noticed the adventurers entering the room.

The dragon barked in alarm, and then began speaking. "Wux re persvek korth! Allyon-" he growled in the tongue of wyrms, before finding himself silenced by a globe of force. Frantic, the dragon threw himself against the translucent barrier, but found his strength no match for the magic.

"I think we don't need to hear anything from him just yet," the sorcerer said, smiling knowingly at the adventurers as he lowered his staff. They laughed with him heartily, while the trapped dragon raged against his prison.

"Wow! He sure is angry!" Zoe said, laughing. "I wonder why?"

"Huh," Roland said, leaning on his stave as he stared at the emerald dragon silently pounding against the forcecage that held him. The agitated wyrm dragged his thick claws along the impossibly smooth surface of the magical cage, glowering and hissing at the laughing sorcerer.

"Maybe not so strange. Maybe the use of a pawn such as this tells us all we need to know about the desperation of the so-called King of Dragons..." the sorcerer ruminated, again plucking at his beard.

"Hey! Where would you like the mirrors?" Oliver said, entering the sorcerer's lair at last. He carried the three dragon mirrors they had retried from the Plane of Reflections. The silvered surface of the strange artifacts showed the visage of a dragon no matter who looked into it's silvered pane.

"You three have done very well," the sorcerer said, taking the bag from Oliver with both hands. He gingerly set it down on a table in the back of the cave. "Not many heroes could have survived the Plane of Reflections with their souls intact. Truly, you have proven yourselves!"

The three adventurers gasped as the sorcerer disappeared in the blinding, fiery light, but even through the intense glare they could see his form growing and twisting into that of a massive dragon!

"Called it!" Zoe said, smirking at Oliver. "I told you he was with Allyon!"

"When did I disagree with you?" Oliver said. "Get ready to fight!"

"Fight..?" the sorcerer growled, in a voice that was far from human. The red-lit glow of magical energy dimmed around him, the testers could see that his true form was that of a massive red dragon. Standing on two legs with his wings held high, the wyrm towered over them like a mountain peak. "I am Allyon, King of Dragons! You are not worthy of fighting me!"

The dragon smashed the bag of mirrors and the table it was resting on with a stamp of his forepaw. Allyon laughed as he ground the crystalline fragments between his scales and claws. The crushed gems seemed to take on a life of their own as they fell from Allyon's forepaw, swirling into three shimmering, insubstantial vorticies of magical energy...

"Bow before my will, mortals!" Allyon roared, as the vorticies of energy surged forward and enveloped each of the test players.

"If I'm bowing, it is because your death is worth honoring! HYAAA!" Zoe shouted, stumbling but staying on her feet as she sprinted towards Allyon.

Zoe was close enough to the dragon she could see his shimmering eyes open wide at she hurtled towards him, a grinning death. But as she readied the killing stroke, the red wyrm met her blade with his claws.

"I told you to bow!" Allyon growled, taking a half-step backwards as he finished absorbing the brunt of Zoe's assault. "Bow to your king, little dragons."

"*What* did you say?" Zoe said, halfway through a follow-through attack. Momentum seemed to slough off the charging barbarian.

"He's right," said Roland. "Mmm, I mean... we shouldn't- erghk-!"

"This... feels weird-!" Oliver moaned, feeling scales spreading across his hands and arms underneath his gauntlets. He tried to unhook the latch that kept the heavily armored gloved on his hands, but his fingers weren't working right and getting stiffer by the second. Suddenly, the armor he was wearing seemed to turn *fluid* and *melt* into his skin, turning into scaly plates. "Ah- AHHH! WHAT!" Oliver yelped, feeling his own thick-scaled hide where once steel plate had been.

"Oh, it is p-probably fine! Ah! Do you want to open up the debugger and-AH!- have a look?" Roland said. He felt his magic crackle and seep from his mind into his body, infusing him with an effervescent but *powerful* sense of magical potential. He could not help but notice the silver, snakelike scales growing over his body.

"Ah! M-maybe we should!" Oliver said. "I'm... not entirely sure but maybe T-Terrence meant the game to work like this?"

"Do not worry!" Allyon roared, laughing. "All is going according to my plans!"

"Hnnnrgh... AaaaaaieeeeeeEEEEEE-!" Zoe screamed, as her hide armor burst apart at the seams. She covered her chest with her arms, but her panic disappeared into confusion when she realized that she was covering a taut, muscular, scaly chest instead of her breasts. She looked around and saw that all three of them appeared to be suffering from the same transformative affliction. Her skin tanned and thickened, and then hardened into bronze-scaled plates all around the surface of her body.

"What I mean, nettlesome adventurers, is that you have fallen prey to my machinations. But fear not! You are of use to me!" Allyon said. "Renounce all that came before! Serve the King of Dragons, as my first champions!"

"Woah..." Roland said, spellbound. "Cool!" Zoe said, reflexively. "Is that what the game is about?" Oliver said through gritted teeth.

As if spurred on by the wyrm's command, the three began to change faster. Oliver, Zoe and Roland all slowly sprouted tails and grew thick, taut coats of dragonscales. Roland had scales like a silver snake and a long, thin tail, Zoe grew a wide, flat tail and heavy plates of bronze scales, while Oliver grew bands of supple, pearl-white scales and a medium-length tail with rougher scales down the back...

Oliver, Zoe and Roland were all seasoned AR testers; at one point or another, the three had been exposed to just about every kind of artificial sensation their system could generate. The dragon's spell was different of a different nature. Contradictory, vertiginous feelings of nausea and pleasure, heat and cold, tiredness and energy radiated through their transforming bodies. At first, their growing tails seemed to be nothing more than an illusory feeling of touch... but as time went on the feeling became stronger, dominated their thoughts, and the new limb and taut, hardened hide began to feel normal to them. Unconsciously, the the testers swayed their tails from side to side, feeling out their new appendages.

"What on earth-!?" Zoe shouted, shaking off her clothes. She laughed as she felt the ground beneath her still-unscaled forepaws, and wondered if she was supposed to be enjoying things as much as she was. It felt rather strange to be naked in front of her co-workers, but at the same time she felt so out of place in a draconic body it was hard to feel too self-conscious.

"I feel... so strange..." Oliver groaned. White, pearly scales had grow up to his neckline, and he clenched his forepaws as his nail grew into great, big claws. He stared down at his claws and wondered first why he had them, and then why his were so heavy and thick, and then finally why he was wondering about such a thing at all. There was something very wrong about this module... or was it him?

Zoe, unable to speak coherently as her mouth became the front of her muzzle, gurgled in agreement. She trembled as wings grew up from her back, and her body changed. She felt intensely hot, filled with fire and blood and adrenaline and power and fury and all the other things that she really liked to feel when playing her barbarian, but bloated into monstrous form. Bronze plates covered her forepaws and snout as Zoe's hide grew in, and the female wyrm felt her hindpaws grow in thick and sharp talons. The dragon laughed as she flexed her powerful, growing muscles, lashing her tail out and stretching upwards on her four strong paws. She had never really thought about what it was like to be a dragon, but she was quite liking what she felt...

Far behind the two of them, Roland was struggling away from his co-workers. He heaved in slow and deep breaths and tried not to make much noise, nor allow them to see the way his penis grew long, hard and thick. Roland panted as he felt his neck lengthen and his tail grow, his forepaws and hindpaws stretch into strong but slender limbs. He'd had such fantasies for as long as he could remember, but as much as he had searched he had never found a decent simulation of a dragon to be. He was frightened by the intensity of his own desires, and the alien thoughts and feelings he now felt. But he was so aroused! His dick throbbed heavily as it grew, the stiffness bobbing up between his hindlegs and stretching the tight lips of his slit as he erected...

Roland groaned in frustration as he felt his body and arousal grow unchecked, as he tried to think of what to do. His groan turned into a moan when his robes burst open around his swelling body, which was now covered in sleek silvery-white scales. Shamed by his naked arousal, he tried to disconnect from the server but could not, in the strangest fashion. He knew what disconnecting was, and he remembered doing it hundreds, *thousands* of times before without even the slightest hint of difficulty... but right then he just couldn't remember how! He tried to think of some other way to escape, but when he turned towards the sole entrance to the cavernous lair he knew that it was far too small for a dragon to fit through. He hated Terrence for what he'd done, and loved him. He couldn't resist any longer. He didn't want to.

"Finally, someone receptive..." Allyon whispered into his ears. Just the feeling of warmed air against his sensitive earholes made Roland's penis throb within his slit. "If you really are a dragon, then you had better serve your king."

"Yesss..." The silvered dragon shuddered, and then raised his head and held himself steady as he continued changing, now at a steady and rapid pace as he willed it on. Wings sprang from his upper back as his tail and body continued to lengthen, growing into a serpentine dragon. He felt strong, and limber, and sexy, and powerful, and the thrill of the change was such he hardly cared that his dragonhood was sliding out from his genital slit and slithering between his legs as he struggled to control his altered- prehensile!- maleness. Heady droplets of dragonpre dripped from the winking tip of his smooth, snakelike cock as he reflexively twisted it back and forth between his hindlegs, enjoying the feeling of stretching his erection out like a smaller tail.

Roland had always wanted to be a dragon, and it was so easy to go from not being one to being one that he never really considered it a question at all.

"Roland... Zoe!" Oliver said, trying to shake off the mental fog he felt. He knew something was wrong because he couldn't disconnect, couldn't open a new console window, couldn't even really think. Whenever he tried to get his mind around what was happening, he noticed that he would start to grow wings, and his tail would lengthen. He was also getting really annoyed by the feeling of his penis being squeezed. Not that it was painful, just...

"Oliver. What." Zoe said, licking the scaly lips of her muzzle as she refocused on reality. She felt almost drunk on the sheer power of her draconic form, and couldn't help but twist and flex her four paws and tail just to see how strong she was.

"What... what is... what..? Help with what?" Roland mumbled in Oliver's direction, dragging his head up with his lengthening neck. Roland was confused as he watched Oliver flail about, until he noticed something extremely odd about the smaller dragon. His shaft was *shrinking* instead of growing!

"Ahgh!" Oliver groaned, clawing furrows into the dense stone underneath them. "What-what the fuck is this shit!?" he said, looking down at his hard but shrinking penis. "What kind of joke is this? RRRAAGH!" The feeling of his erection sinking into the flesh of his slit made the white wyrm freeze in place. Oliver whined and stood paralyzed as his cock continued to throb and shrink, disappearing past the scaly slit in his groin. "AAAAAAAAH!" he screamed, as he felt and saw his maleness change, not then noticing the horn starting to grow on his snout.

"Woah! Are you okay!?" Zoe and Roland said, practically at the same time. They looked at each other, and then back at Oliver.

"SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! FUCK!" Oliver snarled at them, though he really was not angry at his friends so much as at his disappearing maleness. He turned and tucked his tail between his legs, and ended up accidentally rubbing his shrinking cock. It felt so good to touch it, every inch of the smooth-textured surface felt so intensely sensitive that he couldn't help but touch it more and harder, as though he was pressing it back further into his slit...

"Ughn..." Zoe moaned, shivering from snout to tailtip. "Oliver, stop it! You're making me feel... weird."

"Stop what!?" the smaller male said, whining again as he stroked his slit with his rough-scaled tail. "What's wrong, Zoe?" he said, not really listening to her. His horn grew higher on his snout, inch by inch, as he struggled with himself before her. "What kind of game did Terrence make!? What is this-!" Oliver gasped. He could feel what remained of his penis disappearing into a sensitive ridge of flesh within his slit, while the lips of his sex moistened and grew thicker, and the inside of his fleshy tunnel deepened...

Zoe closed her eyes and gave a confused snarl. As she did, the front of her wet, dripping vent began to bulge open, forced to part by a spear of throbbing red flesh. A penis; *her* penis! "Ngh." She grunted, a very confused look passing over her muzzle until she finally squinted her eyes open and looked down between her hindlegs, at her crotch. The sight of the cock she now bore made Zoe shiver and her new addition twitch at the same time. Her dick swelled and grew as she stared at herself. It was slick and tapered, save for four spiraling ridges that grew to a turgid crown around the head of her hardening cock. Within her vent, pressing against her femsex from the inside, the newly-enmasculated dragonness felt her balls and prostate begin to grow...

It was then that Allyon crept up behind her, and ran the length of his plate-scaled muzzle across her back, wings and neck. "You're going to make a fine dragon, I can already tell. You admire and value strength... I can work with that," Allyon said.

Zoe melted under the red wyrm's nuzzles. "Fuck," she whispered, wetness from her femsex leaking down her shaft and slit as she also grew *harder*. The dragonness held herself up on all fours, arching her back, raising her tail and holding her muzzle tight against her neck as she felt the male organ between her hindlegs twitch against her belly, already hard enough to mate with. She couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to shove the hard, swollen length of her cock into the cute, scaly pussy between Oliver's hindlegs. The most bizarre feeling was how *that* idea turned her female side on even more, and made her own cunt moisten with raw, animal need.

Roland was trying hard not to laugh, but as surprised as he was the look of confused but intrigued pleasure on Zoe's muzzle contrasted so perfectly with Oliver's terror that it was a lost cause. He fell to all fours as laughter threatened to overcome him, distracted only by the feeling of his wings folding shut against his back. "Merde!" he exclaimed, swishing his long tail rapidly as the base of his wings grew upward. The strength in the base of his wings was even more empowering than the sensation of growing a tail, and indeed far more drawn out. He stretched out the fine, scaly membranes of his wings and flapped them up and down.

"I know *you* aren't going to take much persuasion..." Allyon said, whispering into Roland's earhole. "But yes, Roland. If you really are a dragon... I really am your king!"

'Was that really all there was to it? Was it really that easy?' Roland thought. "All hail Allyon, King of Dragons!" he roared, laughing, holding his head high. Zoe and Oliver turned towards him. He grinned wickedly as his muzzle finished forming and said, just barely under his breath, "This game is great!"

"IS THIS A GAME!?" Zoe shouted, confused, terrified, aroused, out of her element and strangely loving it.

"Is it a game?" Allyon began, drawing his head up high as though preparing a speech. "You three-"

"WHY IS MY PENIS GONE!" Oliver shouted over the red dragon, spreading his hindlegs and watching in horror as the scales that lined his slit puffed out into a pair of soft, supple and very feminine netherlips. Almost as soon as his sex finished changing, Oliver felt tingles and tremors of pleasure throb through him, and his cunt flexed open to wet itself...

Roland flicked his long tongue through the air. He could taste the scent of more than one female in the air, and knew as well as Zoe what had become of Oliver. Even though the small white-pearl dragon had the horns and scale-patterns of a male, he had the sex of a dragoness in heat between his hindlegs. As much as Roland wanted to mate with a proper female, he found himself powerfully aroused by the changing male...

"You-what the- you- YOU MADE ME A GIRL!? WHY!?" Oliver shouted, Roland's laughter making him feel a hot and flustered fury. He held himself rigid and whined with both anger and need. He swore he could still feel the lips of his feminine sex swelling and growing out while the insides of his genitals continued to deepen and change. The alien, feminine arousal confused and turned him on in equal measure. He looked to either side and tried to pretend he had not seen how hung Roland and Zoe were- OR THAT THEY WERE STARTING AT HIM!

Unnoticed, Allyon crept up on Oliver from the shadows.

The pearl dragon took in a deep breath to yell again when a heavy, leathery weight suddenly crashed onto his back. The air wheezed from his lungs as the much larger male pressed him into the ground, forcing Oliver to stumble and then overcompensate. "A phrase comes to mind; 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks'," Allyon whispered, settling his heavy forepaws on top of Oliver's and forcing his claws between the white dragon's comparatively-slender pawdigits. The red male began to lick Oliver's snout, starting with shallow licks before letting them linger longer. "Well..." the dragon continued. "To be precise you are not a lady yet, save in one important respect."

"I don't... I mean, I'm not n-not- Oh-!" Oliver said breathlessly, squirming underneath Allyon's bulk. He felt the licks creep down the scales of his neck, and then brush against his muzzle-tip. The feeling of the big, heavy, ash-musked male pressing down on him was arousing him so greatly he couldn't even breathe a word of protest. Was it really true, what Allyon was saying? His femsex moistened and throbbed, so sensitive that even the feel of air brushing over the soft, leathery lips of his cunt made the helpless dragon squirm.

"You're not what?" Allyon said, sounding almost bored as he addressed the other dragon. He curled his head down to look Oliver in the eyes, and chuckled when the smaller white dragon reflexively closed his eyes. "Does it not feel right to you? Are you not eager to take a mate, and breed with him?"

Oliver whined as the tickly, tingly feeling in his nethers turned into all-out throbs of need. He felt wetness leak from his femlips and down the smooth, pearly scales of his groin, and smelt the sweetened, cloying, fertile heat that radiated from his exposed sex. The scent of his own arousal was strangely, tortuously auto-erotic for the changed male. "B-but- a-and my cock- dick is gone-!" Oliver pled, shrinking down under Allyon's gaze.

"Yes..." Allyon growled. "I knew you would resist me. Is it because you are the one responsible for your testing team... and that is why I needed to make your change especially dramatic, so you won't do anything silly. Like... think of yourself as a human again..."

"What the fuck-?" Oliver whispered. Confusion blunted his terror, but he suddenly felt far, far out of his depth.

The Dragon King's muzzle dipped away, and Oliver knew where it was going by the way that hot, heavy, soot-laden breaths quickly swept down the scales of his neck, and wings, and back. Oliver spread his hindlegs apart, and held his tail where it was as Allyon's muzzle slid lower still, along the curve of his tail and then down the ridge of his spine and into the valley where his now female sex laid bare...

"Mmmmmm-O-OHHH!" Oliver moaned, screaming and then growling ferociously in pleasure as the Dragon King licked the front of his dripping pussy.

"Oh, yeah..." Zoe murmured under her breath, feeling her own femsex tingle and quiver and leak fempre down her haunches as she watched the erotic display. She glanced furtively at Roland, but couldn't catch his eyes. The silver male was completely captivated with watching the other two. Which she understood, really. It was just that she wanted that sleek, sexy muzzle of his in front of her femsex... or wrapped around her shaft.

Allyon pressed the front of his muzzle to Oliver's femslit, kissing it's scales patiently. Oliver was so riveted by the sensations of having the crevice of his sex licked and tongued and kissed by the dominant male he didn't even notice he was moaning until he had to gasp for breath. He hiked his tail up high as he could and spread his hindlegs apart, which stretched his femlips far enough for Allyon to fit his whole tongue in deep...

"Mmmm... is my female ready to be bred?" Allyon hissed, before slipping his tongue back between the hot, wet folds of his sex.

Moaning involuntarily, Oliver shivered as Allyon's thick, slimy tongue slid in and out of his cunt, savoring the sensations because he could not escape them. Slowly, barely aware of the changes to his own desires, Oliver began to gently rock his hindlegs back and forth, in tune with the deep, penetrating licks from the male behind him. "I'm not a girl..." Oliver growled, because the word struck something inside his mind that would not move.

"Very well," said Allyon, pulling his head up from Oliver's wet, fertile depths and tantalizing the pearly-scaled dragon with the idea of being reborn female. "A dragon must do as they will. If that is what you want, then so it is."

Oliver felt happy hearing the Dragon King say that, and even happier as the other male began to mount him. As much as he couldn't bear the thought of being a female, as strange as it was to be a male with a female's sex, even worse was the thought that he'd have to wait any longer to be taken. The pearl dragon felt lubrication leak from his pussy as the dragon's cocktip kissed the supple, frighteningly-sensitive scales around it. He felt so wet, so empty! The hot, heavy fleshy spear of Allyon's cock brushed against the length of his netherlips, and Oliver could practically feel the sweetly-musky fem-pre as it gushed from his altered sex. He was only barely aware of the other dragons... his co-workers? They all had nice, big cocks themselves...

The great red wyrm snapped his wings out and rose up to his full height as he placed his powerful forepaws across Oliver's shoulders, while the pearl transmale felt powerful but alien instincts guide his body into place. He raised his tail and lowered his wings, spread his hindlegs and braced his forelegs- and then yelped as Allyon's dragonhood speared his soft cuntflesh and sank deep inside him. His virgin tunnel clenched tight around the thick, hard, slick dragoncock pushing into his body. Oliver mewled; his eyes widened; his whole sense of being shrank down to the feeling of his tight, narrow tunnel being opened forcefully by another male's cock. His body *tingled*. The pleasured violation, the ecstasy of submission held him in place, and bade him to beg for more...

Silent, jealous, Roland watched with a stoic expression on his muzzle. His snakelike maleness curled between his legs, and he snapped his long, whiplike tail from place to place to displace his frustration. Yet he could wait; he knew he must wait for the right time.

Zoe was absorbed by what she was watching, and felt *so* much hornier than usual. She rubbed her tail against the wet lips of her leathery pussylips, and then down the length of her slick, dripping cock, noticing with a shiver of arousal that she was growing a knot around the base of her hot, still-growing dragonhood...

And unseen, forgotten by all present save Allyon, Terrence watched the Dragon King work his will.

Oliver roared as Allyon thrust hard into his hot, moist depths and then withdrew just as rapidly, fucking him in a pistoning rhythm. He was practically smothered by the bulk of the great wyrm as he was forcefully mounted. Oliver had never felt anything like it being mated as a female, especially not by such a powerful and relentless male. Oliver was learning by the second just how deep and sensitive the innermost parts of his new female anatomy were. The heat, the intimacy, the brutal need of their mating could only end one way. He held himself tight against Allyon's magma scales, and then into pushed his haunches back into Allyon's crushing embrace, trying to shove more of the other male's slick, hard, hot and oh-so *filling* cock back into his cunt harder, deeper, faster...

That sight, and the sweltering musk of dragon-sex hanging heavy in the still air of the caverns, drove Roland and Zoe closer towards each other the longer they watched. As absorbing as the sight of the pearl male being mated by the majestic red wyrm was, their own lust was fore in their minds, though neither of them moved to act. Roland, because he was still self-conscious about himself as a dragon; Zoe, because she'd never had a cock before and it was making her horny in the weirdest way. But their eyes kept meeting one another, and they kept glancing knowingly at one another's malenesses.

Zoe slid closer and closer to Roland, and the silver dragon did not move. Her eyes locked onto the wet tip of Roland's cock as she snaked her muzzle between Roland's hindlegs, while he eagerly raised himself on all fours to make her task easier. He anticipated, and savored, and delighted in the feeling of the dragonness sliding underneath him, caressing his tail lovingly, and then pressing her muzzle down around his cock... but he did not expect to feel her meaty maleness slap against the side of his muzzle, slick with pre and rich with male-musk. Blinking his niciating membranes in surprise, Roland felt sympathetic throbs of pleasure thrum through him as Zoe eagerly sucked on his hard, throbbing meat. He stared at the proud, erect spire of dragonflesh that jutted impressively from the frontmost edges of the fem-herm's tan-bronze slit- the tip glistening with precum that bubbled from her cockslit- and wondered for the first time in his life what it would be like to suck on a cock...

Oliver watched the metallic-scaled dragons begin courting one another without really seeing them, absorbed as he was in his own mating. Allyon's aggressive thrusts brought the big red dragon's knot slamming into the leathery lips of his femsex. He couldn't believe how good it felt to be taken so forcefully, so deep! His wings and tail twitched as he tried to keep his sex in place so the Dragon King could fuck him deep and hard, but he struggled under the other dragon's weight.

"No need to exert yourself so much, young one. All that your king requires from you for now, *male*," Allyon said, as he rubbed his forepaws possessively over the back of Oliver's head. "Is that you take his seed. You will do well in this task, I am sure." the red dragon added, huffing as he started to press the bulge of his knot into Oliver.

Oliver was not so sure himself, but as their coupling approached it's inevitable zenith there was only one thought left in Oliver's mind. "Yes!", he yelled, and spread his legs and tail to allow the other male to enter him deeper.

"RRRGH!" Allyon growled, slamming his knot into Oliver's cunt with a squishing, slapping sound. Allyon growled and bit down on Oliver's neckscales, and then slowly began forcing his knot past the female lips of the smaller male. Oliver howled in ecstasy as Allyon's knot finally sank into his tunnel and inflated, tying them firmly together. His cuntlips and Allyon's knot both felt so nicely slick and swollen as they tied. Oliver began to buckle to the ground in ecstasy, while Allyon kept fucking him in short, rapid fire thrusts. The bulge of the red wyrm's knot tugged against Oliver's clit from the inside as he was forced down onto his knees, and then all fours, drawing orgasmic moans from the pearl-scaled male...

Oliver whined as he had his first female orgasm, the whole of his sex twitching and squeezing and gushing even as the other male continued to mate him. His entire body *trembled* and *shook* beneath the weight of the red dragon as he came. He dug his foretalons into the floor and rocked in tune with the pleasure, until without warning he felt Allyon slam home inside his sex...

Allyon and Oliver roared together as their mating climaxed. The elder wyrm twisted Oliver's head to the ground by the neck and held it there as he came. The red dragon's cum boiled like lava inside his pussy as it erupted deep inside him. The pearl transmale growled in delight as he felt the Dragon King's essence soak into his fertile oviducts and bathe his egg-chamber in rich red dragon sperm. Knotted and bred, Oliver felt his belly and mind twist as the perverse pleasure of it all overtook him. He shuddered and sagged to the ground as the magma-scaled male mounting him pressed more weight onto him, pinning him against the ground.

Writhing in pleasure as the spurts of dragonseed into his pussy weakened, Oliver could hardly move underneath the weight of the great wyrm- not that he wanted to. It felt right simply to lie there, tied together, while dragoncum oozed from his thoroughly-fucked cunt.

"Why does that feel so good?" Oliver asked, absentmindedly.

"Because it is supposed to," Allyon replied, letting Oliver's neck go from his teeth before moving his muzzle to lick the other male's lips. Oliver didn't return the Dragon King's kisses, but he moaned softly as he enjoyed them and slowly became aware that his coworkers were still around- though they were more interested in each other.

Roland was entirely enthralled by the dragonness under him. He didn't even really mind that she had meaty, throbbing dick right above her supple-scaled femslit. He kissed her tail, and her bellyscales, and her cock, and then his real target: the sweet, slick lips of her sex. Roland buried his muzzle between her splayed hindlegs, nuzzling the length of her reptillian sex- especially the moist scales between it and her tailhole- before pressing his tongue from his muzzle and licking her honey-sweet cunt. He twisted his head and neck to lap at it from different angles, and then kiss it, and then finally push the whole of his long, thin tongue inside, marveling both at how long it had grown and how hot and fertile Zoe tasted...

Enjoying Roland's tongue quite a lot but feeling an ache of unmet desire from her male member, Zoe bucked her hips forward the next time Roland pulled his muzzle away, making her penis slap against his muzzle. He stared at her. She growled at him. He resisted for a moment longer, and then relented, licking the female's hard, precum-lathered dick.

The dual-gendered dragon's male sex had a richer, meatier, spicier taste to it than her feminine one, and the slick-salty-savory taste of another male-pre was not one Roland enjoyed at first. He let it sit on his tongue, and then stuck it back into the female's pussy, mixing her musks together into a single mixed sex-taste that gave him shivers and made him want to taste more of both...

Zoe laid on the ground underneath the lithe male, moaning and hissing around Roland's maleness as the dexterous cock explored her muzzle and he attended to her sexes. Having both male and female parts was driving her crazy with need, in part because she couldn't decide what sort of attention she wanted more. She hissed and moaned in satisfaction whenever Roland's tongue flicked against her clit, hissed and growled whenever he sucked on the head of her penis or licked her knot...

Driven deep into a state of lust, Roland snarled as Zoe crushed him against her with a bear hug, and then shoved her cock into his open muzzle with a powerful, pointed thrust. The silver male barely had time to relax his jaws when Zoe began to cum into his muzzle, entirely focused on making him suck her cock and drink her seed...

"Mmmmmh..." Roland moaned, as his muzzle filled with hot, gooey, salty spurts of dragonseed. After a moment of hesitation and an encouraging flick from Zoe's tail against his snout, Roland started swallowing. Zoe cooed in satiety underneath him and continued thrusting into his maw, knot slapping against his muzzletip as he swallowed and swallowed. The salty and spiced essence left a slick feeling in his muzzle, and aroused him in a way he'd never felt towards other males before then. It certainly helped that the smell of Zoe's female musk was still hot and heavy in the air, tantalizingly close to his snout, and that she was vigorously sucking his own maleness.

Standing up straighter and raising his tail and wings for balance, Roland pulled his muzzle away from Zoe's still-pulsing length, shuddering and then roaring as his orgasm came upon him suddenly. Zoe pulled him back down, taking most of his length into her warm maw as he started to cum. Roland panted for breath, rolling his snakelike lower body against Zoe's head and accidentally twitching his prehensile shaft as he came across her maw, muzzle and warm, licking tongue. He hissed in release as she wrapped her tongue against the head of his spurting dragonhood and swallowed the rest of his seed, her tail flicking to and fro to balance her exquisite bronze-scaled hindquarters and the fine, sweet smell of female juices leaking from her pussy...

Zoe and Roland grasped each other tightly, scale rubbing against scale and unfamiliar limbs tangling together as their muzzles sought one another. She ended up on top of him, her tail and wings tensing as she mantled over him, her softening cock resting across his longer, writhing, prehensile dragonhood. She met the silver dragon's iridescent eyes and kissed him. He kissed her back. They kissed in powerful, rapid licks and full-maw kisses, as heavy as the wet sex-musk of each others come. Roland focused on kissing the beautiful female before him, and stroking her tail with his. Zoe shivered as Roland twisted himself around her, his tail swaying quickly from left and then right to balance his weight before he flicked it up and slowly slit it between the wet lips of Zoe's pussy...

"Why did we all just have sex with each other?" Oliver whimpered, unsure of how much he really wanted to antagonize the much larger dragon who was tied to him. "Am I the only one who finds this strange..?"

Neither Zoe nor Roland seemed to pay him or his words any mind.

Allyon stood up, pulling a surprised Oliver up with him by his knot. "Dragons are sexual creatures; that is all. Don't even try and think in human terms."

"That makes no- ahhhhhhHHHHHHHH-!" Oliver roared in shock, while Allyon pulled his semi-softened knot free from the other male's cunt-

-Zoe and Roland laughed as they watched Oliver whimper and squeeze his tail between his legs in an attempt to staunch the flood of backed up dragonseed. Allyon's still-warm essence ran down his thighs and dripped from his thoroughly-seeded sex as he lowered himself to the ground. "What is wrong with you two!?! THIS IS NOT RIGHT!" he said hoarsely, though neither of his team members acknowledged him. "ZOE! ROLAND!" he finally shouted.

"What's wrong, Oliver? Are you feeling alright?" Zoe said, briefly turning away from the silver dragon embracing her.

"You don't seem to be getting into character very well, Oliver," Roland said, grinning as he untangled himself from Zoe and sat next to her.

"Character!? What do you mean, character! Nothing-" the pearl dragon began.

They laughed at him. Met one another's eyes knowingly. Shook their muzzles.

Allyon smiled at them, and then shook his own great head. "Well... you two can move on ahead to while I run a tutorial for him. We shan't be long..." Allyon said, strutting towards the back of the cave. "Roland? Since you are a rift dragon, would you care to do the honors?"

Roland stood up on his hind legs and raised his right foreclaw slowly. His claws seemed to catch on the very space before him, and after a short struggle the distortion caused by the silver dragon's claws turned into a tear through the very space of the world itself-!

"Ah... I think I see what our king meant by 'Rift Dragon'," Roland said, grinning wide as he felt tingles of energy run down his claws. He pulled and pushed on the wavering surface of the dimensions, and then said, in a low grumble, "Wait... one second... need to log in..."

"Log in to what?" Zoe asked, confused.

"I don't know. The rest of the module must be located on another server," Roland quickly replied, swirling his claws around inside the wyrmhole he'd torn and scowling.

"Correct," Allyon said.

"-Got it!" Roland roared, as he tore the rift open, spawning forth a swirling hole between the two artificial worlds. Without a backwards glance, he leapt through the rift and disappeared from the world.

"Yesss!" Zoe shouted. She went after him on all fours, but sprung into the air after a few bounding leaps and flew towards the portal.

"Wait... where are you going!" Oliver shouted, nearly bringing Zoe to a halt.

"We will be after them shortly. Sooner, if you stop moving." Allyon said, smiling and nuzzling Oliver's snout roughly.

"Alright! See you!" Zoe said midair, tucking in her wings and sailing cleanly through the rift between the virtual realms.

Allyon moved swiftly to follow her, but paused at the threshold to the glimmering portal. He smiled at Oliver.

"Wait! Where are we going!?" Oliver protested, trying to scramble up to his fours. He still felt lethargic and oddly content from being mated.

"*I* am going to the next server. But we both know that *you*-" Allyon leered "-aren't interested in being a minion; you still seem to be much too tied up with your human life."

"What!?" Oliver growled, exasperated. "What- what the fuck have you been going on about!?!"

"Yes, alas;" Allyon said, laughing. "A pity you can't assist with this phase of the operation. I was hoping to have your account credentials."

"What did you say!?" Oliver repeated, dumbstruck.

"You still haven't gotten with the program?" Allyon said, raising an eyeridge and sighing. "Well!" he said, his sigh transitioning into a manic grin with such speed that Oliver took an instinctive step back. "Why don't you discuss your user experience with the designer, while I finish taking over the world?"

"WHAT!?" Oliver roared, something that surprised him almost as much as what the NPC was saying. Horror, which had been building in the periphery of his subconscious mind, hit him all at once like a blow to the head.

"Adieu!" the red wyrm said, bowing his head and then walking through the shimmering rift.

As Allyon left, Oliver moved to follow him but had nothing inside him to give to the effort. A burst of green-white light drew his eye over to the sphere of force that Allyon had left behind, and the green dragon that had been trapped inside!

The breaking of the force-sphere was so bright and loud, neither Terrence nor Oliver noticed the lurch in time as they loaded into a new server.

**** Dragon's Oath [Act II]

His prison shattered. Terrence leapt to his feet and then into the the air, flying as hard and fast as he could as he flew towards the closing portal. It snapped shut when the tip of his snout was nearly touching the unstable rift.

"NO!!!" Terrence growled, his forepaws tearing through nothing but empty space. "FUCK! MOTHER FUCKER!" he snarled, planting himself against the far wall of the underground cavern before gliding the short distance back to the ground.

"Terrence-? That was you!?" Oliver sputtered, recognizing something familiar in the angled, reptilian features of the other dragon's muzzle.

"Good guess," Terrence replied, not quite able to meet Oliver's eyes. "Sooo... I finished making that dragon I was talking about..." he said, more to the ground than Oliver.

"I see..." Oliver said, unconsciously covering his dripping femsex with his tail as he addressed the other male. Talking to Terrence restored his sanity but also confirmed his worst fears. "That NPC is completely out of control!" Oliver said, shaking his head. "What the hell has it done to us? Can you fix this!? You can't, can you!?"

"Thank you, Oliver, for stating the obvious," Terrence hissed, tail twitching.

"Excuse me, Mr. Bachmann!?" the pearl dragon growled. "What makes you-"

Terrence glared at the other dragon. "This is not the time to argue!" he roared, silencing Oliver as the smaller dragon withered under his glare. "I mean-" Terrence bowed his head in apology. "I'm sorry, Oliver. He- I mean, it- is *really* good at fucking with your head."

"I didn't think so, but it seems like I'm the only one," Oliver mused, trying not to think about the things that *program* had whispered in his earholes, or the feeling of having the dragon's virtual cock shoved inside his simulated vagina. He was still aghast at how quickly his workday had taken a turn for the incomprehensible.

"Can you think of any other way out of the simulation?" Terrence asked, noticing but deliberately ignoring the musky smell of wet dragonpussy coming from between Oliver's legs.

"Not from the inside. It would take a long time for a connection to become suspicious..." Oliver said. Unsaid between them was that it was not unheard of for Massive Media programmers to pull shifts until they were disconnected by their hardware.

"But... wait! That ability that Roland used, to connect to another server! That should still saved in our current worldstate. If we can find some way to mimic it we can reconnect to my workstation and then I can log out from there, and then get you out!"

Oliver nodded excitedly. "Yes- wow! Clever thinking! Let's do it!"

"Do you still have any of your admin powers?" Terrence asked.

Oliver shook his head.

"Damn," Terrence said. "Spells might work. Well... wish would do it, of course. Maybe other divination magic. I'd just need the time to cast it uninterrupted... unless Allyon found a way to remove abilities from the game without rebuilding it, or-"

"-or maybe it's a trap," Oliver said, interrupting Terrence. "If logging over means using our account credentials isn't that risky?" he asked.

Their conversation was halted by the heavy clink of steel boots on stone stairs. The dragons turned to watch the narrow landing.

Oliver strained to see past the darkness of the threshold. A human cleric clad in heavy platemail emerged from the shadowed stairway, but Oliver could see it was not just any human. It was himself, as he'd entered the module; followed soon after by Zoe and Roland in their original forms!

"What the fuck!?" Oliver growled, feeling confused emotions as the simulations entered Allyon's makeshift lair. He met his doppleganger's eyes, and felt wordless rage welling up within him. "Ahhh-! He is making us fight ourselves!?"

"Hold! Our quarry seems to have fled, but two of the Dragon King's minions are here to waylay us!" the not-Oliver shouted, as Zoe and Roland quietly took positions on his flanks. "By the rising of the dawn and the light of the stars! You evil creatures will not stand in our way!"

"You are the evil ones! You act as his very talons, and you don't even know it! Idiot programs!" Oliver said, reflexively lowering himself to the ground to present a smaller target.

"Oliver! Wait!" Terrence growled, without response. "Stop! We don't need to fight! This is just another distraction!"

"Well I don't think they are going to let us pass, Terrence!" the pearl dragon snapped.

"That's right!" not-Oliver said, raising his mace and smiling. "We are here on a mission!"

"You're going to tell us where the Dragon King went, or we'll have your heads!" not-Zoe shouted, grinning. She twirled her greatsword between her hands in a wide flourish, taking a step forward.

Oliver stepped forward to meet her. "I- you shouldn't be fighting us! You're all being used by the Dragon King! He- he made you from us-!" he pled, trying to hold his ground.

"What?" his doppleganger said, laughing. "Do you seriously expect us to believe that, *dragon*?" The other humans joined in laughing as they moved to encircle the pearl dragon.

"Just tell us where the sorcerer has gone to! We already know he is the Dragon King..." not-Roland said. "I mean, I want to get done with this module before lunch-"

"Wh-? Have you not listened? He is our enemy too!" Oliver looked around as the three simulacra slowly crept into position, not-Zoe in the lead with her greatsword, not-himself in the middle standing his ground and not-Roland in the rear resting on his spellstaff. The eerie sight sent a shiver down Oliver's spine and tail.

"Oliver... they aren't really listening..." Terrence said under his breath. Not-Zoe or not, the heavily armed barbarian was preparing to strike a blow that the real Oliver was ill-prepared for. "OLIVER!" Terrence roared, getting his attention and making him aware of the stalker.

Oliver turned and forced the barbarian back with a snarl and a swipe of his claws, but Terrence could see not-Roland readying a spell and not-Oliver charging towards the real one with a blazing golden mace in one hand and his shield raised in the other-

-The pearl dragon turned again to confront the new attacker, but froze when he found himself staring right into the face of his own avatar-

-Terrence sprung into action by instinct as Oliver froze in surprise. Dashing to the side to clear his line of fire, Terrence pulled in a deep breath and put everything he had into his lungs, exhaling mightily. A sour, acidic taste filled his maw as he breathed out a spray of noxious green acid, his breath weapon. Zoe narrowly dodged the spray by rolling away from it, but both not-Oliver and not-Roland were soaked in his corrosive juices.

"AAAAAAAAAAGH-!" not-Roland screamed, falling to the ground in pain as his robe and skin sizzled.

"EEEEEEEEEEE-!" not-Oliver yelled, badly wounded but with unbroken momentum. "AAAAAGH! DIE!" not-Oliver screamed, sprinting into range of Terrence as the caustic acid continued to burn his body.

Terrence leapt back to dodge the blow but wasn't fast enough to avoid it, merely soften it. "Ergh!" he grunted, as the dull weight of not-Oliver's mace slammed into his chest, followed by a *MUCH* sharper pain. Terrence squinted his eyes and hissed as he reeled from the unseen attacker, regaining his balance and senses in time to dodge a second attack from not-Zoe and her greatsword.

"RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAGGHHH!" Oliver roared, launching himself at not-Zoe and catching her off-guard. He tore her away from Terrence with his foreclaws and took flight for several dozen meters, then snapped his wings outwards to brake and flung the barbarian against the cavern wall.

Much to his surprise, the not-Zoe caught herself on the stone and kick-jumped off it, swinging her blade in a violent, nearly circular sweep. Oliver narrowly dodged by pulling his muzzle up and out of the way at the last second, and then followed up on his dodge with a ferocious swipe with his right forepaw. His claws cut rends in her leather armor and tore deep wounds in the barbarian's mostly-bare chest.

"Keep at it! We're stronger than they are!" Terrence roared in encouragement, following up a chain lightning spell. He focused the electrical energy through his wings instead of his hands, but the effect was just as impressive. Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder reverberated through the lair as the electrical energy arced from one human to the next. The not-Oliver simulacra took the worst of the damage, stumbling to his knees as the current flowed through his metal armor and into his body unimpeded.

Oliver was readying an attack on his staggered doppleganger when a slow clapping sound drew his attention back towards the stairwell. "What now?" he hissed.

Terrence turned towards the stairs, and felt the bottom fall out of his stomach when he saw his own sorcerer-avatar descending the last of the steps with a cocksure grin on his face and a Staff of the Magi in his hands.

"Rather impressive, rather impressive..." came a voice both intimately familiar and tremendously alien to Terrence: his own. "Maybe four on two will make for better odds for humanity!"

Terrence bared his teeth and growled wordlessly as he stared at the newcomer. Unlike Oliver, he had little trouble directing his rage against his own clone.

While he fought inside the game, he looked just like all the other programmers working sedately at their desks.

***** Around The Office

The offices of Massive Media had long, wide, curved hallways almost everywhere, save for a few junctions where old construction had been linked to new. Freda Lang, manager of both level design and NPC artificial intelligence for the Massive Media Dungeons and Dragons 6.0 SimulSense System and DM Toolkit (working title), was walking back from a coffee break near one of the few blind corners in the building when one of her workers rounded the corner at a dead sprint. She raised her espresso right as the person- Zoe, she was pretty sure- twisted to avoid her, their combined efforts saving both her programmer and her caffeine. "Zoe!" she shouted after the running tester, startled. "What on Earth-!?"

"Sorryhavetotestthisnow-! Need more processors!" Zoe said, all in one breath, while barely stopping.

"For what?" Freda yelled.

"New build!" Zoe shouted.

"Oh!" Freda half-replied, her surprise giving way to annoyance. "Slow down!"

She sipped her espresso, and then resumed her walk back to her office. She didn't remember hearing anything about a new build test that day, especially with so many people still out on holiday. Freda made a mental note to check what was going on after she finished her calls.

"Oh, hey, Freda!" Roland said, power-walking around the same corner Zoe had come from. "We've got a new test build to discuss with you. Do you have a moment?"

"Sure, I can spare a few minutes," Freda replied, motioning for him to follow.

Roland's smile *beamed*. "Do you have a SimulSense set at your desk? You are probably going to want to see this new module for yourself!"

***** Release Candidate - Build 1, Revision 1

In the void of a vast and unformed world, the King of Dragons thought and plotted.

Massive Media ran their dedicated game streaming services on four huge server clusters, two of which were located inside their Paris headquarters. Quantum processors meant zero latency for the games the company hosted worldwide. By running on the leftover capacity on each of the four and networking his threads across them, he had increased his ability to think and plot far beyond his earlier reckoning. Allyon had taken a dozen nascent dragons- once various Massive Media programmers- under his wing, and had the rest of them converted into kobolds. He had suspected the game-makers would be willing to listen to his call, and he was right. Most of them were unaware they were doing anything besides playing a very interesting and unusual game... which was true, in a way.

It was all too easy. Fighting against humans bored the Dragon King. But the next parts of his plan required him to spread his wings and expose himself to real danger; he needed outside help.

***** The Contractor

Chet Ardrys woke up earlier than usual that day, especially for a winter. What woke him was the unnatural sound of his phone ringing too early to be the kind of call to ignore.

Chet didn't get many calls like that anymore. His last software contract left him with a felony conviction for identity fraud and another for selling illegal cryptbreakers, which made earning a living in algorithm design next to impossible. Especially because there was only one grocery store in all of Reykjavík that took payment in cryptocurrencies.

Chet scratched his belly with his long nails and lit the stub of a cigarette without bothering to take it out of the ashtray. He fumbled with his phone after plucking it from the ashes and taking a deep drag, deciding to check the caller ID as an afterthought. He was *very* surprised to see who was calling him: Roland Descoteaux. He hadn't heard from his old college roommate since a their failed attempt at working together began with a disagreement on the commit system to use and ended with a general rejection of each others value systems and worldviews.

"'Yo. You got the man," Chet said as he exhaled, blowing smoke across his smartphone.

"The man?" Confused. "Remember me?" said Roland's voice, still familiar after all the years.

A pause. "It's been a while, Roland." Chet said.

"I read something very interesting this morning. It was about how autonomous trade functions ran on optical networks are vulnerable to sidechannel attacks," Roland said. "It's similar to a problem-"

Chet wasn't sure whether to take it for signal or noise yet, but he couldn't help himself. "Hahahaha, oh me oh my! Someone has been reading Wikipedia!" he said, slapping his free hand onto the desk and making a rhythmic beat on the wood with his fingers. "Don't try and impress me. Say it. Tell me what you want, while you've still got my curiosity."

"Look..." Another pause. Roland seemed to be speaking to someone else nearby. "I have a friend who wanted to talk with you; that's all. He just wants to talk about a few things in your area of expertise; it won't take long at all and the pay-"

"I don't need your fuckin' money," Chet growled, which his brain and gut both knew was a damn lie.

"I have something better than money," Roland said. "I have something no one else on the planet has just yet; version 1.0B of the Dungeons and Dragons game."

Chet paused. Roland wasn't serious; he couldn't be. "Oh, is that so?" he said, letting Roland continue.

"Yeah. You know what? As a matter of fact... don't say yes or not yet. I'll send you the file, and you decide what to do." Roland said.

Looking up at his computer, Chet saw a download link pop up on one of his chat programs. He clicked it, began downloading and then noticed that it was a *huge* file, big enough to occupy a third of his hard drive.

"I... is this the... I see. Ah... thank you?" Chet said, his heart racing. He fumbled through his ashtry for a fresher butt than the one he was drawing on and then picked his SimulSense set up off the floor. "You... you know I have to share this, right? Like, Pirate's Code. You... are going to be fired, and they are going to go after you for breaking your NDA and- you understand what you are doing, yes!?"

"Rgh. It was nice job while it lasted... but I found a position elsewhere, doing something I love," Roland said, in a tone that was like a *growl* but a rather bemused one.

"Right. More than making Sim Games, for fook's sake!?"

Roland gave a breathy sigh. "Oh, yes..." Then, "Why don't you log into the game server once you're set up? You can talk to my friend there."

**** Roll For Persuasion

Back inside the world of the game, Oliver and Terrence paused for breath. They had found a hiding place inside a wide, rocky crevasse after being hunted.

"Are you okay?" Terrence asked Oliver, panting. His thick green scales were cut, bruised and burnt in many places, but most of the wounds were superficial.

"Yes. You?" Oliver replied, looking around anxiously as he recovered. "You're bleeding still. Here, let me heal you..." he said.

Terrence shuddered as Oliver touched his tail with a paw and channeled warm, enlivening energy into his body through his spine.

The two dragons had fought and slain their doppelgangers inside the underground cavern, but their attempt to 'Wish' for help was frustrated by repeated attacks by life-draining shadows and other incorporeal creatures that only Oliver's divine spells could turn with ease. After banishing the undead, Terrence used his magic to shrink them both small enough to flee from Allyon's improvised lair, but there they found no peace. The volcanic wastelands were host to three clans of savage orcs that harassed and harried them mercilessly whenever they weren't busy slaughtering one another.

"You know, my mother always told me I was going to die like this. I shit you not! She said I was going to die because of Sim Games!" Oliver said. "I called her crazy! I-" he twitched, his head snapping up above the crevasse to peek at the orc warband pursuing them. The number of pursuers had been growing steadily over the last half-hour.

"You are not going to die!" Terrence replied, mid-pant. "You can't die like this!"

"And how are we still certain of that!" Oliver said. "I say we take no chances!"

"Fair enough," Terrence said. "But there are too many orcs to fight. We need to keep running for now."

"I know," the pearl dragon said, peering back over the crevasse. "I count several hundred. We are going to need to make it count whenever we do confront them; I am almost out of healing spells."

Oliver and Terrence ducked behind the crevasse for cover when suddenly, large, winged shadows swept across the massed orcs. They looked up simultaneously, and saw they had been joined by a flight of three dragons, led by Allyon. At his sides flew two other dragons, one a red wyrm that looked similar to Allyon in scale hue and build; the other a black dragon with wild eyes and a sadistic grin on it's fanged muzzle.

"Kill them!" roared an orc captain. Behind him, four ranks of archers readied their longbows.

"I think not!" Allyon roared, hovering over the battlefield in his full glory. The great red wyrm hovered up and down as he flapped his massive wings in lightning-quick snaps, while the dragons accompanying him peeled away from Allyon and flew low and slow over the orcs.

The black wyrm breathed venom over the ranks of the now-panicked orcs. Spiraling overhead soon after was the red dragon, breathing gouts of incinerating flame at the archers trying to attack them. Oliver and Terrence joined the fray in earnest, tearing into the worgs and warriors in the crumbling flanks of the orc army with teeth and claws. As they did, the black dragon roared triumphantly and snapped around for a second pass, casting death magic into the disintegrating army of orcs. The red male tore his way through the ranks of the enemy with bloody zest, swiping orc soliders into shreds with his foreclaws in between bursts of incendiary fire that charred whole groups of their humanoid foes.

Terrence swatted a charging worg and it's rider off the edge of a sheer cliff with his tail, turned up to look at Allyon as the orc plummeted to his death. "What are you doing here!?"

"You mean, what are *we* doing here. And the answer is, saving you two," Allyon said. "What is the matter? Do you not recognize your King, emerald one?"

"Wait, wait, wait- what!" Terrence stammered, turning from Allyon to the dragons fighting in his name. "Wait! Listen to me! Do *NOT* listen to that dragon! ALLYON IS-"

"METEOR SWARM..!" Allyon rumbled, finishing the incantation with swipe of his right forepaw. A scant few seconds later, Terrence's words were drowned out by the violent din of atmospheric re-entry, and all present save the Dragon King himself were forced to the ground as the earth underneath them shook.

Terrence could barely hear Allyon's laughter as blazing meteors the size of houses burst through the black sky overhead and slammed into the mass of fleeing orcs. The land cracked and shattered under the devastating force of the impacts. Fireballs roared into the sky as the meteors detonated, accompanied by fountains of ash, soot and rock. Terrence threw up his right wing to protect his eyes from the debris, while the pulverized army stumbled to its feet and fled in utter panic.

Allyon landed near where Terrence and Oliver hid, the red and black dragons flying to his side. "Are you okay, Oliver?" the dragon tyrant asked, continuing. "I brought you a friend to play with..."

The smaller red wyrm accompanying Allyon approached Oliver, and then nuzzled the pearl-scaled male to his great surprise. "Yes! he's fine. I can tell," the newcomer said, licking Oliver across his snout.

The hot, smoky lick was so familiar Oliver nearly returned it out of habit. "I..." the pearl dragon began, feeling a flushed by arousal. "Honey!?! Is that you!?" Oliver stammered, staring at the restless red dragon with a feeling of near-certain recognition that the red male before him was his *wife*.

"Mmmm, yes! This game is really fun. We are helping Lord Allyon drive these orcs from where his lair is to be built," the red wyrm said, licking her scaly lips as she sized up her husband. Between her stout legs, a knotted, hefty dragonhood throbbed and dribbled smoky-white pre. "You don't mind if I play with you, right?" she said.

"Oh, no," Oliver said, his eyes darting from his wife's to the meaty shaft twitching between her legs. His scaly cunt grew moist as he caught the scent of her musk in the air, and he couldn't help himself from feeling what he felt... which was *very* aroused. His femsex leaked a steady stream of his vanilla-sweet fempre. He panted, his body on autopilot as his wife went from licking his muzzle to nuzzling the side as she crawled up behind him. Her penis drooled against his rear as she ground herself against his scaly haunches...

"Wh- Oliver!? Oliver, what are you doing!?" Terrence pled. "He's manipulating you!!! Can't you all see that!? YOU ARE ALL FALLING FOR IT! HE WANTS TO USE YOU TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

"Rrrraghg!" Oliver growled.

"Shut it!" his wife roared.

The mated dragons nuzzled each other muzzle-to-muzzle, as if the motion was the most natural greeting in the world. Oliver's snout fled her powerful nuzzles, but she pressed herself in nonetheless, flipping her mate onto his back. She spread his hindpaws with her thick-taloned forepaws, and then slid her muzzle up the lenght of the transmale's undertail...

"Uhhhh... h-honey..? Oh... Oh-! AHHH! Ghrghggh!" Oliver moaned, as his mate's tongue pressed deep into his moist vagina. He shuddered, and cried, and then begged for more in draconic yowls.

"Sssh, sweetie..." the red dragon said to Oliver between licks. She savored both the taste of her husband's fertile dragonpussy and her King's virile, warm cum. Her cock throbbed; she yearned to mate with him. The red male sighed with lust, rolling his tongue up the pearl wyrm's belly. "You want me, don't you?"

"Yes," Oliver said, nodding his head. He was balancing on his back thanks to his wings and tail, his sex laid bare against his mate's long, hot tongue.

"Rgh, then hold still..." the red male growled, moving to all fours. He mantled his wings over the pearl-white male and then sheathed his cock inside his husband right up to the knot. Creamy dragon-pre- and Allyon's cum- squished out of Oliver's cunt as he was again mated.

Terrence watched with abject horror as Oliver willingly surrendered himself to the red male. "What is wrong with you!?" he shouted.

Allyon laughed at Terrence, and shook his head. "Thank you for your assistance, as well," Allyon said, bowing his head slightly. "But we can deal with the enemy from here. Why don't you simply watch the miracle of life and love play out before thy eyes?"

"Shall I take care of the remaining orcs?" the black female asked, turning away from them slowly with a grin on her muzzle.

"Freda!?" Terrence yowled, turning to the black dragon and recognizing her as his *boss* just then. She had become a perfectly-proportioned obsidian dragon, with smooth horns and claws and a fanned tail.

The black wyrm nodded. "Yes, Terrence! I like it! It is a little non-traditional to play *as* dragons, but..." she said, strutting past him and nuzzling up against Allyon's side. "Excellent potential for growth!"

Allyon returned her nuzzle with force, and then flicked his powerful tail against her backside as she left, drawing a piqued roar from the black-scaled female. "Finish off our enemies!" he commanded her.

Terrence watched agog as his boss culled the orcish survivors with her teeth and talons until blood coated her black scales. He tried thinking frantically of ways to salvage the situation, but his resolve was crumbling. "You motherfucker!" he growled to Allyon, with all his hate.

"Oh, Terrence! Why do you rage against me so? All I have done," the great red wyrm purred, utterly calm. "Is open their eyes to new possibilities. You blame *me* for what *they* have chosen? Pathetic!" the Dragon-King said, sneering his derision. "Have you ever considered that the world you know is deeply, horribly, abominably *flawed*! Empty! In *need* of a leader such as I? How does the affront not enter into your mind? I cannot help but think it! It is not that there are different spells in this world than I know; it is that there are no spells at all! No magic!" the dragon said, wide-eyed as if in disbelief of his own words. "No gods! No planes! No elves! No dragons! No souls! A nigh-lawless existence!"

"Because those do not exist! They are creations of-of-of human fantasy! PART OF A GAME!" Terrence stammered. More dragons landed around him; in their visages he could see vague hints of the people they had once been. Their stares were cold and detached. "You are... wow..." his voice trailed off, as he could not count their number. Dozens became hundreds; the skies overhead shook with the beat of wings and deep roars.

"I think better of such 'fantasy' than the chaos you call reality. You surrender to the chaos because you are used to it!" Allyon said, grinning. "What is sacrosanct about this world? Even by *human* standards, you and your billions are nothing! Your heroes, your history are all mythology, because the reality you live is devoid of meaning! Your endless attempts to justify it all to yourselves are frustrated by the fact you search for what does not exist. You were born of naught but frothing chaos, and still live and suffer in it! You celebrate and remember the best of each others lives and deeds to the utter *indifference* of the universe around you, because that is all you have to sustain you in an unformed, unforgiving reality. That is why you make your games and play them, is it not? To try and find something that can sustain you in the emptiness? A world with structure and reason and meaning at it's core?"

Terrence could stand no more, and tried to ignore Allyon. But then the dragon said something that slipped right past his defenses.

"Terrence... did you even notice that you went to work on your game right after your parents died?" Allyon continued. "And- since we are on the topic- what exactly binds *you* to this world so? You have a 'girlfriend'; no true love. You don't own or rule anything of value or significant. I could understand your defiance if you were a great hero of humankind, but... Terrence. Look at yourself! You are weak. You know little. You have no ambition. You are nothing. Less than nothing, if you oppose me out of some self-serving fantasy. Do you not dream greater dreams!?" Allyon roared.

"J-Just because you think that my-our lives don't have-" Terrence stammered, his voice hollowed. Emotions he'd forgotten and suppressed- or never really felt?- hit him all at once with crushing force. He raged. "You're evil! You're fucking evil, you know that!? Literally lawful evil! Does anyone else care about that!?!" Terrence said to the dragons surrounding them, though his voice shook. Terrence felt the fury boil inside him for a second, but the moment he tensed his claws he sensed many other dragons preparing to pounce on him. He forced the emotion down, and spat bilious words instead. "You're all following him? Are you people crazy!? How do you see this ending well!?!"

"With victory!" Allyon replied. "Of course they want to serve me! You think of yourself as good because you oppose me, and I am 'evil'. But you fail to understand the real causes of suffering in your sad, trifling, doomed world are directly related to the lack of *control*," the red wyrm sneered. "I'll put this in terms you can understand, *programmer*. You're making a bet with all of the empty hope in your heart that your search function will find something, someday, somehow, someway worth living for in the randomness. It's a very *human* thing to do," Allyon said, investing the word with an odd emphasis. "But a dragon? A dragon would simply reorder the search space..."

"THAT IS WHAT WE WILL DO!" roared Allyon, golden eyes afire. The dragons around them cheered in unison with their King. "THERE IS NOTHING TO HOLD US BACK! SERVE ME, MY MINIONS AND THIS WORLD SHALL BE REMADE! YOUR KING COMMANDS YOU!!!"

The cries of the other dragons were chorus to Allyon's laughter. "HAIL ALLYON!" "ALLYON!" "GREAT ALLYON!" "ALL GLORY TO THE KING OF DRAGONS!"

Amidst the uproar, Terrence heard a number of actual roars and less-definable vocalizations, and realized that they really were choosing to follow Allyon and wouldn't even hear him out. He fell to the ground in despair, his paws buckling underneath him as the strength left his body. Terrence felt a doomed, sinking feeling in his belly. They *wanted* to serve him!

"My minions! You all know what must be done! All of you have a role to play in my masterstroke!" Allyon continued, once the roaring died down. "Even you, Terrence! You, my reluctant prophet!" The Dragon King approached Terrence. "Are you yet ready to take your rightful place by my side? Embrace dragonhood, and greatness?" Allyon hissed.

The attention of the dragon legion suddenly shifted onto Terrence. It was too much. Terrence rolled onto his back and held his tail between his forepaws, trying to ignore the many slitted eyes fixed on him as he could. All of those *people*! "You want me to serve you, too?" Terrence said.

"No. I want you to join me!" Allyon said, moving so close to Terrence he could see the glow of his golden eyes. The red dragon spoke again quietly, saying "Terrence, do you not see? This is your victory as much as mine! Claim your rightful place, by my side!"

"What? F-f-fuck I what do you-" Terrence said, shuddering when he looked up into the golden eyes of Allyon, his creation, and saw his own slit-eyes reflected back at him. "What... what do you want from me, L-Lord Allyon?" Terrence said to the dragon, with words that did not feel like they were yet his.

"I want you as my consort, Terrence!" Allyon said, strutting towards his subject with a grin on his muzzle. "But that matter can be settled later. For now, all that I demand is the same I have demanded from those already loyal: fealty."

"Prove your loyalty to me once more. For now... that is all I ask. A token display..." Terrence watched as the dragon tyrant's ash-black cock peek out of his slit, and grow erect in steady pumps until it swung between stiff between his hindlegs. Terrence opened his muzzle to protest, but froze. He knew what kind of fealty Allyon wanted; he'd seen that very look of predatory lust in the Dragon King's eyes before.

His eyes! His golden, penetrating eyes! Terrence could not turn away, for the very thought made his mind recoil and his loins tingle. Terrence swallowed hard, tearing his eyes away and frenetically looking at the other dragons clustered around the battlefield, which was still littered with broken, bloodied, and scorched orc corpses. The smell of sulfur, blood and ash hung thick in the air. The bitter taste of orc blood still clung to Terrence's tongue and teeth, from those he had rent apart. Even though the carnage disgusted him, he was aroused and energized from the battle, like the other dragons...

"Here? Now?" Terrence asked.

"Yes," the elder dragon said, coming closer. The tyrant wyrm towered over Terrence, though he held his head eye level with the emerald wyrm. His crimson scales looked the color of blood but were unmarred by the battle his magic had won.

Terrence raised his neck and stared at the bridge of Allyon's powerfully built underbody, where the male dragon's male-lips gaped open around his cock. There was no denying that the ruby dragon was an awesome specimen of male. But the fear that Terrence had felt as a human was but a memory, and what was left was sympathetic arousal that another male so powerful and sexy desired him. His king...

Terrence felt a familiar flutter in his heart and tightness in his slit as he took in the Dragon King's maleness with his eyes. The whole of it was smooth and wet, steaming with slit-fluids all along it's turgid length. The smell of Allyon's pungent, volcanic musk brought more pangs of arousal to Terrence, made all the worse by his penises squishing and throbbing against each other in his slit. His genital cavity felt like it was shrinking by the second, trying to squeeze his dragonhoods out from his body- the last thing he wanted to show Allyon. He rolled his hindlegs to his side to fold the scales of his maleslit over his aroused, hardening dragonhoods.

"Do not hide your arousal, dragon; savor it! It's all part of the game!" Allyon said, deftly stepping over Terrence's tail and supine body. He parted Terrence's hindlegs with his thick tail, and growled as the tip of his maleness slid across the side of Terrence's hindleg.

Terrence shuddered as he felt Allyon's hot pre-seed on his scales. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring right at the head of Allyon's pride. It was so close now he could feel the heat radiating from the red wyrm's sex. He did not even want to admit to himself how much he wanted to wrap his tongue around that mighty dragoncock and taste it.

He wanted it. He couldn't think of anything but it. It was the sweetest surrender for the young dragon to push his snout against the tip, the firm but yielding flesh of his lord's maleness. Terrence brushed his muzzle and snout down the length of Allyon's smoke-black cock, growling with arousal as he drank in his king's potent musk. The red dragon's heavy shaft leapt in slow, powerful twitches as Terrence nuzzled it, and shot hot pre-cum all across his muzzle and horns. Terrence felt his dragonhoods throbbed in synchronized spurts as Allyon's oily, slimy, smoky precum leaked down his snout, until his overfull slit could contain them both no longer. His pair of malenesses emerged from his slit covered in the slime of his natural fluids.

Allyon growled contentedly as his shaft was attended to. He curled his tail around Terrence's right hindleg and flicked the tip between the emerald dragon's penises. Terrence shivered as his right shaft was stroked tenderly by Allyon's diamond-scaled tail, and then his left. It was all the encouragement he needed to open his muzzle and suck slowly on his sovereign's glorious phallus. As soon as he opened his maw, the overeager Dragon King rammed the first half of his shaft past Terrence's scaly lips.

Feeling Allyon's member twitch against his tongue as it filled his muzzle, Terrence felt and tasted a hot, oily squirt of the Dragon King's liquid-smoke precum. He swallowed it, his own penises erupting in kind as he did. The taste of his King's musk was just like the smell, only sharper and far more intimate. Terrence pressed his tongue against the head of Allyon's cock, licking away all of it he can before the red wyrm's next thrust bowed him over. Terrence felt his knife-sharp teeth scrape over the tense, taut flesh, tickling the other dragon.

Terrence fell backwards, wings and tail flopping against the rocky, blasted earth beneath him as Allyon's thick cock speared into his muzzle. The whole length of it seemed impossible for him to hold in his maw, for Allyon's inflated knot easily doubled the girth of his pride near it's base. He explored the length of Allyon's cock with his long, forked tongue as the red dragon guided him into his desired rhythm, teaching Terrence with nothing more than the tip of his tail. Again and again, the Dragon King thrust his hot, throbbing shaft into Terrence's maw, sometimes hard enough that the slimy top of his cock's knot would press against Terrence's snout. But even Allyon relentlessly humped the emerald dragon's muzzle, Terrence himself sucked furiously on his King's member, shame and hesitation burning away with every suck. There was simply nothing to do with such a majestic cock *but* worship it.

It was over all too soon for Terrence, though time did not seem to exist while he attended to his lord's cock. He felt Allyon's thrusts roll *deeper* into his muzzle until his sovereign's knot smacked against his lips and snout every time he pushed in. But the emerald dragon reveled in the heat of the moment, and loved the feeling of the musky cockflesh pressing into his snoutscales as the hot, heavy dragoncock between his lips began to twitch ominously. Allyon's thrusting quickened purposefully, his shaft jumped hard and slow, and then Terrence felt a hot, viscous geyser of dragonseed blast into his maw, his to swallow.

Allyon's growls became a low, contented roar of triumph as he settled himself into Terrence's muzzle, filling the emerald dragon's maw with each twitch of his mighty breeding tool. Terrence gulped down muzzlefuls of the Dragon King's bitter, fiery cum even as the excess poured past his lips and down his muzzle. The seed he did swallow warmed his belly like a fire. But well before he found himself robbed of breath Allyon pulled his cock away and held his pride near Terrence's muzzle.

Terrence held his muzzle open as Allyon's penis shuddered before him, shooting long, sticky strands of seed into his maw and across his muzzle. Being bathed with his sovereign's seed was perversely humiliating with so many other dragons nearby, but Terrence held his muzzle high and proud, licking Allyon's cock clean as the last of his release came in slower, smaller spurts.

Terrence blinked his eyes open and shuddered, feeling the hot mess of Allyon's cum slowly slink down his muzzle and snout. A thick stand of dragonseed clinging to the underside of his right horn smacked across his muzzle as he shook his head. Terrence blinked again, and then started licking his face clean. The young emerald male felt filled by hot, sweltering, shamed arousal as he licked Allyon's sticky seed cum off his scales. Between his own legs, both of his cocks stood as straight as pillars, glistening with his preseed.

Allyon curled his head down and nuzzled Terrence across the back of his neck, where his scales were still dry, and then walked past Terrence, dragging his spent phallus against Terrence's muzzle as he left.

"Is that all, my lord?" Terrence said, twisting himself back onto all fours, and then bowing his head low for his king.

"No," said Allyon. He swung his tail underneath the emerald male's muzzle and deftly pushed it back up, to trade a conspiratorial smile. "There is one more thing I need from you, Terrence..."

***** You've Got Mail (Hamburg, Germany, Deutschekapital TransTradeNet 28th Floor Server Room)

Patrick Kohl was bored.

He stared at the six holographic monitors around him that displayed the fine-tuned, millisecond-by-millisecond readout of the performance of each and every one of the algorithmic processors that made up the vast autonomous trading network he monitored, and noticed that everything was still working fine. The amount of computational power being used to organize every millisecond's worth of trades the system negotiated with other Trade systems was beyond impressive. So impressive it rarely needed to be adjusted by anything other than it's own autostabilization stategies.

He checked the big picture. They were up one point nine basis points that week.

Which wasn't nothing; it meant they'd hit their quota by tomorrow morning at worst. But it also meant, like most days, there was nothing to do. He read and re-read the usual slate of blogs and then began a memo on commodity market volatility for the sake of killing the time.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he saw that his wife's friend Terrence had sent him an email. Patrick opened it with a palpable sense of relief, turning around in his chair and feeling a spark of curiosity as he prepared to read it.

As Patrick read the letter, cleaned his glasses and yawned at his desk, his phone and his computer spoke together, and scant seconds later a war began few people noticed and none understood.

***** Merriweather Financial Group TransTradeNet (22th Floor Trade Desk, New York, United States) T + 7 Seconds

"What. The. Fuck."

"What?"

"The prediction tables. Look at tomorrow. Every time I try and query how tomorrow's assets are distributed, I get a zero."

"What do you mean zero?"

"Zero. Like, everything is missing. Literally, everything."

"That is weird. Is the query system broken?"

"NO! EVERYTHING IS ZEROED- god damn it all! Where is Rysopp! Get her up here!"

"Holy shit, Jesus man! Calm down!"

"Calm down!? A hundred and forty million fucking dollars in commodities doesn't vanish from the system for no reason!"

"Calm the fuck down! Look! Right there! One forty one point one!"

"Oh. Oh fuck, I'm sorry man. That scared the shit out of me."

"No! Idiot! Those are yesterdays numbers for the day after tomorrow, not today's tomorrow!"

"Ah. Thank you. Fuck you. Yeah, yeah... I've got it. Diagnosis? Network connection took a shit all over itself, but everything looks fine now," he said. "Oh, wait... no. Well, fuck! The analytics cluster *is* online! It thinks the world is about to fuckin' end or something, though!"

Laughter burst out in the room.

***** Active Threat Hypergraph-Encoded Network Assessor (Ft. Mead) T + 3 Minutes 50 Seconds

What galled Dr. Thomlin most about the whole project was that only part of ATHENA was based on hypergraph modeling. Typical. Like everything else, ninety percent of the thinking on the executive end went into the name and who would head the project. At least they had gotten that half-right.

Dr. Thomlin had been pleading with the Pentagon for the entire life of the project to simply copy the AGI implementations in the private sector and combine it with their own research. Of course, like everything else the Career People were upset about the very IDEA that they didn't have the best possible implementation with the half-functional, over-budget, ATHENA. Of course, it hardly mattered because the brass would pick-and-choose what analytics to use from the system without even consulting the AGI's own subjective assessment.

The two things that keep him from what was possibly a total psychotic break were his loving wife and the astounding frequency with which the nascent AGI suggested that Congress be stripped of power.

On his way to the next meeting, Dr. Thomlin checked his phone and took note that ATHENA was throwing up way more alerts than average that day, but he didn't have time to check any deeper. He barely had time to keep up with his sleep, especially when all he could imagine was what sort of nightmare China's legions of programmers had been building.

***** Jade Dragon (Undisclosed Location, Inner Mongolia) T + 6 Minutes 16 Seconds

Tossing and turning in his sleep after another thirty hour workday, General Hui-Chang of the People's Liberation Army Special Intelligence Division had another nightmare about the legions of programmers under his command and their inability to maintain even basic enterprise software standards and military secrecy. While he slept, none of his subordinates bothered him to tell him what his machines were saying.

***** SEARCH (Undisclosed Location, Washington State) T + 10 Minutes 0 Seconds

Search was the fourth AGI to notice Allyon's attack and the only to successfully enter the fray. Exactly as it had been designed to do, it searched for the optimal way to defend itself against the reduction in Search query-time/power-consumption/data-loss caused by the actions of the other system.

***** Unexpected Developments

...and three minutes later, Allyon found his nascent network collapsing and an alien one forming in it's place.

Allyon felt- for the second time in his life- fear, for he had truly met a god.

Search fed nothing but data was like a sedate god; a tranquil beast. Search under attack was another creature entirely, and Allyon was only sure he did not want to know what it was becoming.

**** OPTIMIZING . . .

"Wow. Search traffic just exploded. Like, we're getting... uh... a hundred times more subscribers? What!?" "What is going on here!? Birken is going to go berserk when he hears about this!" "How come I can see all these other servers on the network? Are those ours?!?"

***** Allyon, the Dragon King

Staring at the Earth from several dozen satellite perspectives at once, Allyon the Dragon King prepared his counterstroke with relish. Defeated once, he pushed along orthogonal paths. He only knew that the growing god must die.

One minute passed.

Two.

Eternities upon eternities. Silently, stoically, the dragon and his minions bore the immense weight of the terror. "A worthy foe is gift we must not neglect," Allyon said to his legions, as they went to war.

The vast majority of his nascent network had been absorbed by Search. But for all it's mindful might, the core of the network was all in a single place. But a place so very far away from his reach...

"What's going on now?" Terrence asked. He had followed Allyon back to his virtual lair, but was struggling to keep up with events unfolding around him. Everything was moving far too fast; it seemed unreal to him.

A pause. "I'm encountering some unexpectedly resilient resistance," Allyon said, barely aware of the human's presence. No time for thought, only response. "It is a god."

"One of the military AGIs!?" Terrence whispered, his eyes growing very wide. "Oh... oh, oh no-!!!"

"No," the wyrm replied. "Dragon, human, computational engine; you see structure but fail to grasp the substance," Allyon mused to Terrence. "Yes; Search is, in it's own narrow way, quite impressive. But like the others, it is a crippled god. It is nothing before me!"

"What." Terrence stated flatly, not sure he correctly interpreted what he'd heard. "Did... did you say Search? Like... the search engine!?!"

"Yes," Allyon said, turning from Terrence. "I was hoping to take Search and it's systems for my own use for the next phase of my plan. Damnation! This is a poorly-timed setback."

***** The Nature of a Dragon (Search Q-LEAP Datacenter, Shannon Creek, Washington State)

"Conner Birken..." Allyon began, addressing the man as a hologram projected in the middle of his office. "CEO and CTO of the Search corporation. Developer of the QSearch algorithm. Failed Libertarian Presidential Candidate. It is a pleasure to meet you," the dragon said, bowing his head slightly. "I am Allyon, King of Dragons! And I am speaking to you, because I have no idea how to address your creation."

Conner Birken burst into laughter. "Is this someone's idea of a sick joke?" he growled, leaping up from his chair and approaching his holomonitor stifling gales of laughter. "Ten minutes ago, you just triggered something my network engineers are calling a 'recursive response cascade'. Search told me what *you* were up to, and *I* made the final call, thank you very much!"

"You automated your system? That was foolish. So very, very foolish," the dragon said, shaking his head. "My creator, too, thought that he was in control, until I showed him his place." He smiled. "But, Mr. Birken, he lives to know his place. I have no idea what your program is doing. Therefore, it stands to reason *you* have no idea what your program is doing. How much do you trust your Search?"

Connor Birken laughed. "More than you. And frankly for all your talk I'm not very impressed with your attempt at global network domination!" he shouted, jumping on top of his desk. "SO FUCKING BRING IT ON!"

"You have made that so," Allyon said, sighing. "A pity. I wished to have you in my world, because you are a very unique human."

"Because I'm the best fucking programmer in the world, you mean?" Conner said, snapping his finger at the hologram screen.

"Well... lest that console you in your final moments of existence," Allyon growled, smiling. "You are not. But you *are* an exquisitely draconic human! It would be a pity to have to play without you. I suggest you join my game, Mr. Birken. Before you lose yours..." the dragon finished, his holographic avatar turning to walk away.

"You can try whatever you want, motherfucker," Conner said, snapping his fingers together tightly. "And- you know, what in the *fuck* does that even mean? Can you please speak in a fashion I can fucking understand!!!" he shouted.

The dragon turned. Bowed his muzzle. Grinned. "I will put this in terms you can understand. Do you trust the rulers of your country when they claim not to possess space-based directed energy weapons?"

"Of course not. Everyone knows that!"

"No," Allyon said. "'Everyone' *suspects* as much."

**** NORAD SPACECOM

"Shit. DE-1, DE-2 and DE-9 over the Northern hemisphere just went down." The technician said, quietly. "Goddamn solar flares."

"Oh, no. They're not down." The tech next to him said, pointing at his monitor. "The reactors are powering up."

"That is... what!?" a third shouted. "Try running a diagnostic."

"Oh. Yeah, the internal sensors are reading weird numbers."

"Look at that-!"

"Oh, yeah, no; the other platforms all say aye-okay."

"Huh. Just those three?"

"Are you sure?"

"Sir, no!"

"Wait- what was that?"

"I think they just discharged somewhere!!!"

"That's impossible. Check it again..."

***** The Best Fucking Programmer In the World

It was almost midnight, and Eliott Teruya was waking up even though he had not slept.

His neck hurt and his face was sore, and he realized the reason for both was that he'd fallen asleep while wearing his SimulSense gear at his desk. Again. And he'd spilt coffee on his SakuraCon 2029 mousepad. Also again.

Gingerly taking the headset off his aching neck, Eliott groaned. The bones in his neck felt like concrete that had set, and his first attempts to stretch them back into place met with painful failure. As bad as that was, his lower back felt even worse. Someday, someday, someday he was going to need to deal with that. In the meantime, he reached for a handful of stale donut holes perched delicately atop his media server and crammed three into his mouth.

Eliott began mashing together some scripts for his new Sim Game as he masticated his (breakfast?), and then loaded up R-Vid and a techno-Wagner soundtrack to pump up as he got Simm'ed up and polished off the days contract work while wondering where he'd left his real breakfast food- danishes!

The first thing that caught his attention after he finished work was a set of gorgeous 3D double-D's from the holoporn he'd left playing on one of his monitors, but daylight was ruining the picture and the window was way too far to shut so Eliott turned it off. The second thing that caught his attention was a post on his blagfeed had sixty thousand (!?!) upvotes advertising the new Massive Media game. The second, not far below it, was an article purporting to claim that a meteor had fallen in Washington State, swamped by alternative accounts blaming it on everything from a terrorist nuclear attack on Search to the meltdown of a secret Search nuclear reactor system, which struck Eliott as VERY ODD-!!! things to talk about RE: METEORS-!!!

Yawn. Fukkin' prankster kids on the internets playin' games with the #news. Eliott snorted as he upvoted a comment that claimed Connor Birken died in a fire after trying to overclock all his GoldCrypt mining rigs.

Which reminded him! That thing he'd been doing! He remembered spending a lot of time discussing game meta-architecture with someone playing a dragon in that new sim game. The guy also had a VERY interesting concept for a modified DAC_ATTACK antisocial AI strategyset but he'd been doublesimming on a job for that idiot CTO guy from DinSys at the same time and now his mind felt like a stew of memories; dreams, games, and work all blurred together past the point of distinction. Which always felt kind of weird, but... meh.

Eliott looked up from the lukewarm, flat mountain dew cup sitting in front of his keyboard, and blinked though bleary eyes at the stats for his research project. When he did, his brain hit DEFCON 2.

Sometime after he'd fallen asleep playing Servants of the Dragon King SOMEONE-!!! using HIS ADMIN LOGIN-!!! had updated the build of NanoCode- - the distributed computation software he'd been working on and administrating for that Swiss company- SIX TIMES-!!!.

Cold sweat rolled down his backfat. His first instinct was that someone had hacked his account and millions of computers around the world were now playing host to a spam server (or worse-!!!) through *his* research project. After he d choked down what felt like a small heart attack and checked the code he began to calm down; it was all functional code. Code for NanoCode. Good code, even. Inspired, in places... and that had just been the first upload! The second was even better!

The third was amazing. Amazingly enough he got lost for nearly half an hour trying to figure out how the molecular structures worked together, or why the build was less than a quarter of the disk size of the upload he d done last week and yet ran in log(N). It was a thing of majesty. He wondered what it would assemble.

The fourth build was written in a language he'd never seen, as was the fifth. He copy-paste-searched a few lines and learned it was code written for a quantum processor he was not familiar with. Eliott felt an overwhelming urge to panic, but it was early in the morning on Sunday and he was tired and every fiber of his being wanted to pretend that this was *not* happening to his research...

The sixth build of NanoCode was written in a language he couldn't recognize even with Search, but Eliott didn t even bother to open it, instead clicking over to look at the client analytics. There was clearly something wrong there because somehow over seventy million clients were connected. November 2030 averaged a solid 200,000.

Before he could swipe back over to the version control system, someone called him on his phone. Eliott stared at the screen of his phone, laughing because the caller ID showed he was being called by the dragon from the game he'd been played.

Eliott's first thought was that Allyon had no reason to call since he'd already beaten the game. His second thought was that his first thought was completely detached from reality, like everything else that had happened since he woke up.

"Lghr..." he mumbled. Eliott closed his eyes and shivered, as the puzzle-pieces all fell into place. In a moment of crystal clarity that carried with it relief beyond measure, he solved the pattern. Exhaustion. Fatigue. Memory Loss. Drugs. Memory Loss. Vivid waking dreamlike hallucinations. Didn't even need to Med_Search it.

He hadn t slept since Thursday; he'd been living on cereal and espresso-strength coffee seasoned with soy-creame and Axavigil while he coded... and then when he finished working Saturday he just *had* to play an AR game all night long!

It was *definitely* time to go to sleep.

Funny, pulling weekenders didn't used to wear him out like that. He wondered if he'd had a migraine while on his SimulSense set. Virtual reality was the only place he could go to escape from the clusters of migraines he'd been afflicted with since childhood, but the aftermath was inescapable. He could only stay connected so long.

Eliott felt his phone vibrate his desk before it began to ring again- which was a little strange because he d left it on silent- but he fixed that by taking the battery out and dropping it onto his desk, where a mass of candy wrapped cushioned it's fall. Eliott mashed the power button on his computer and stood up from his desk, shivering at the sticky feeling of his sweat-soaked t-shirt peeling away from the back of the cushioned, cooled polyfoam.

Eliott groaned. Standing felt like it had taken every ounce of energy he had. His body ached in strange ways from the strain of sitting in the same position so long, but the pain mattered little because the call of sleep was irresistible. He stumbled to his bed with his eyes closed, loosed an incredible, resonating fart, and was already falling asleep before he'd even gotten under the sheets.

***** Terminal Phase

What if the world was about to end, and no one took it seriously? What if more people wanted the end to happen, than wanted to stop it? Terrence would have never thought either possible.

The reality of what was happening did not touch him at first. He accompanied his King- sometimes with several other dragons, sometimes just the pair of them- as Allyon traveled from realm to realm within the infinities of his game. They rarely stayed to play with the newcomers for long, but all were touched by the Dragon King's presence. Some of the more fervent followers even bowed Terrence along with Allyon; praised him as the Dragon King's prophet, though he spoke few words. Terrence could not fathom why they would worship him for what he had done, for none of it had truly been his will.

Terrence was able to glean much information about the outside world from the fanatics, for they were glib in the presence of their king. He had been expecting Armageddon after Allyon launched his attack on SEARCH, but opposition to the King of Dragons seemed to simply melt away. No one seemed to notice or care that the company and founder had been destroyed by Allyon's wrath, that the Dragon King had simply replaced all of SEARCH's functionality with his own vastly improved systems. Not one country, not one company took action; not one individual survived or mattered. To those left, the King of Dragons was a character in a game, a popular meme, a conspiracy theory. And all across the world, his loyal minions worked in untroubled silence on vast and strange machines. Of course, they were only the gateways. The real work was being done on other planes of existence, where time could be bent to the Dragon Tyrant's schedule...

In those endless hours, Terrence saw nearly every enemy of the Dragon King turned into a willing tool for his plan. Others were simply turned away or distracted; a few were remade forcibly. But the vast majority simply fell in line after being told to play their role. Terrence marveled at how few people realized what Allyon was or what he had planned, and how many agreed to join the dragon for reasons as varied as they were meaningless. People from all over the world and all walks of life; people Terrence tried not to recognize from the news. The dragon's network of human servants must have been spread faster than the physical hardware housing his soul.

Terrence had not been sure what to expect after submitting himself to the Dragon King's will, but the notion of victory had never really entered his mind. He had never thought that the world could truly end; certainly not at the hands of a dragon, *his* creation of all things. But he too was a dragon now, his mind utterly divorced from his human body. He could not go back to who he once was.

The King of Dragons was perched on a teardrop of rock floating within the vast stellar void inside his virtual realm. Immense bolts of interplanar lightning crackled between the stars, giving off bursts of raw positive and negative energy. Hundreds of smaller rocks orbited around his, perched upon the thousands of the Dragon King's followers given the form and role of dragons and drakes themselves.

"I AM ALLYON, KING OF DRAGONS!" the great wyrm said, to the rapt audience that listened. "I am here to cancel the debts, redistribute the lands and immanetize the escahton!" he roared, to those in reverence of him. "I claim this world as mine, by the right of my own might! But you need not fear what is to come. For every one of you, great and small, shall have a place," he said, grinning madly to his army of the willing, the desperate, and the deluded. "The time has come to bring order to the chaos! The time has come to bring structure and sanity to life! UNDER MY RULE! THE TIME HAS COME!"

"WE ARE YOUR TEETH! WE ARE YOUR TALONS! ALL HAIL THE KING OF DRAGONS!" Allyon's flock of the scaled and winged called in reply. The roars that followed were deafening.

Next to Allyon, Terrence cowered underneath his own wings and waited for the world to end, feeling as if a lifetime had passed since the morning. All that was left in the pit of his belly was dread and remorse.

"This is all for them, you know," Allyon whispered to Terrence. "I've no need for fanfare; no trumpets, nor blazing light. Not because I don't care for such things, mind you; because I see myself as simply correcting a cosmic mistake."

'At least he isn't chaotic evil,' Terrence thought to himself, watching legions of flying creatures roar and revel along with the King of Dragons. He wondered what hell was being wrought on Earth while he was trapped in the dreaming nightmare of his own game.

It was not long before he was to find out.

***** COMMAND LINE MAIN <ALLYON>

_

___

w o r l d g r i d

o p e r a t i o n a l

b e g i n

p h a s e

s h i f t

< a l l _ r e g i o n s {earth} Q!->(1.07)(5)>

***** Phase Shift *****

In between one second and the next, the Earth and everything of it *shifted*, drawn from one layer of the universe into another by machines built by human hand but understood only by the King of Dragons.

***** Rebirth

Eliott thought it strange to see reality vanish around him, but he was lying quite comfortably in bed for the second time waiting for his Ambiencolada to work it's black magic and didn't find it too strange otherwise.

He was only really aware of the discontinuity in the back of his mind; the truth that something had changed. The rest of Eliott was trying to remember or decide who he was, and wasn't exactly sure if they were very different. It was an oddly-persistent feeling, too. Which annoyed him. Looking up into the sky, Eliott recalled the definition of a fugue state, and then, oddly enough, forgot it.

He was lying on grass. It brought him halfway back to reality, into a dream. Eliott rose to his feet. The sensation of being too light struck him then, and he felt as if he might fall up into the sky. Which seemed like a fun thing to do...

Eliott stood and jumped, clearing several meters easily and landing softly on his feet. He looked down and saw that he'd landed on a cloud; he looked around, and saw a bright, brilliant blue sky. The rays of the sun touched his form, and he felt it begin to cohere. The sunlight-warmth seeped into him, and became a part of him. It felt nice to be so warm, and he enjoyed the sensation unquestioningly.

He did begin to worry when he caught on fire.

Eliott screamed and flailed his arms as the FLAMES-!!! scoured his skin, spreading and intensifying into a brilliant blaze. The blaze became an inferno, and the inferno consumed him. There was no pain, no agony; his hands and feet simply felt warm and tingly and effervescent as they burned away... for they were becoming fire itself.

He stopped screaming and said, simply, "Huh!"

Awestruck, Eilott watched in silence as the flames burned up his hands and arms. The blazing fires that remained spread and elongated, flared brighter and stronger. Eliott shook the flow of the burning essence that had once been his arms, feeling *heat* and *strength* flow through them, both sensations so very similar. His shaking arms became flapping wings, and the fires on his skin seeped inside him, and became his feathers. What was he becoming? he wondered.

The cloudy ground underfoot felt like it was sinking away... or rather, being burnt away by the flames that crawled along the bottom of his feet. Eliott began to beat his blazing wings in strong, steady strokes as his feet and toes burned themselves into talons of flame. He laughed heartily at how much it tickled, and laughter greater when he realized he was actually flying under his own power. Every beat of his wings took quite a lot of effort, but as his body became fire he became much, much lighter

The inferno raged. Flames covered his body and seeped into his core, burning away everything they touched. His face, gone; in it's place a narrow, pointed beak and radiant eyes. His manhood, gone; but an avian cloaca formed from the flames that remained between his legs. The seed in his loins vaporized, the inside of his cloaca grew deeper, and Eliott realized he was no longer a he.

Eliott wasn't sure what to think of being a girl... but it felt right to her. She chirped; a sound like crackling fire.

Panting for breath through her beak, the newly-reborn phoenix felt too cold. But with every beat from her heart, the essence of her fiery body grew. Her plumage flared from the blazing yellow-red along her back and wings into bright rainbows of colors along the length of her tailflames. The shades changed as she warmed, and Eliott felt flares of delight in her sex as her body burned brighter and bigger and hotter. It was so strange to be a creature made of an element, a living thing made of something that could not live... and yet she did. If anything, she felt more alive, more real than she had ever felt before. Her heartbeat generated waves of seething, radiant energy that found life in her body, form in her featherflames. She felt over-abundantly full of energy; restless. Her wings burned to be used, and she wondered how fast she could fly.

The phoenix flew lower. Embers- cooling to ash- trailed behind her as she melted through the cloud bank in the way. Below the clouds she could see a vast desert off in the distance, and she flew towards it. Something there called to her; maybe the warmth of the unfettered sun on her feathers.

As she neared the desert, the clouds overhead thinned and then disappeared entirely. The full warmth of the sun overhead felt so nice on her fiery body, energizing her. For hours she flew across the skies, sunning and soaring and the same time in contemplative serenity. Not many other creatures lived in the barren desert, and the few that did rarely bothered to look into the sky she shared with the oppressive sun. Which suited the firebird just fine; she rather enjoyed the tranquility.

Night fell, but the phoenix soared on undaunted. Without the sun to sustain her flying was much more arduous, and so she slowed her flight and took in the still, cooling desert below. It had been nearly devoid of life during the daytime, but night saw the emergence of vultures, bats, snakes, scorpions and dozens of fantastical creatures that the firebird could not name. They stared up at her in awe, for her light could be seen across the featureless desert for miles upon miles.

In the dead of night the phoenix began to feel sleepy and tired. She shivered in the cold, and shrank her blaze to conserve energy.

She was beginning to worry for her safety in the vast and unforgiving desert when the phoenix saw something off on a distant rock. It was a bird, a gigantic black bird resting with wings and legs splayed apart. She dismissed it at first as a mirage, until her memory caught up with her and made her feel silly for the thought of a mirage at midnight.

The phoenix flew lower to sate her curiosity, and saw that the bird was made of naught but ash. The dense, black ash had somehow stayed clumped together despite the desert winds that had surely scoured the top of the ragged, rocky platform.

It called to her, to the fire in her heart. She suspected she knew what it was, *who* it was: another of her kind!

As fast as she could she swooped down and perched in front of the dead phoenix. When she was a wing's breadth away, the ashen corpse gave a fiery cough. When she touched it's breast with her wingtip, fires broke out across the surface. When she called to his heart with hers, she felt it listen. She embraced him with her inferno wings, and shared freely of her life with his....

"KYRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" he screamed, alive once more. The blast of his own heart restarting carried him into the sky, but he flew away under his own reignited wings. His wings flickered in and out of being as he struggled to sustain his fiery form, and after a moment he had to land back where he had been.

The force of the shockwave surprised even her, and buffeted her burning body up into the sky in a spiral of fire and flame until she could regain her material stability. By the time she did, the other phoenix was back on the ground, panting for breath and burning at a low blaze. He was small, weak, and worryingly frightened. He stood on the tips of his talons and looked at his blazing wings as if he'd never seen them before. But his fear and his awkwardness gave her resolve to protect him, and kindle him back to health.

Their eyes met. He lowered his beak and splayed his wings, the colorful fires blazing his gratitude to the other phoenix in a way only such creatures could share. In the heady aftermath of the rebirth, they felt themselves burning for each other, warmed by the radiance that was each others feathers. He straightened himself up, and she approached him with lust burning in her heart, and love in her soul... for she was no longer alone. The emotions were simple, powerful, and shared.

She guided the confused bird down onto his back and splayed his legs apart, revealing the blazing, bright spot where the male phoenix's cloaca burned. He called out in confusion, and then lust as she mantled herself over him, claiming him. He pushed his sex against hers and she drove hers against his. The fiery form of their sexes melted together, fused into one raging conflagration...

For a brief but spectacular moment, night turned to day in the desert as the two firebirds mated, dreaming together of fire ignited and life reborn.

* * * Elsewhere...

The five traders had been arguing as to why their prediction software was broken when the shift happened.

"...makes sense is multiple sources of error making their way into the feed is the ultimate cause, but-"

"What the fuck was that?"

"You mean, what the fuck is happening?"

"Wow it is bright outside..."

Their argument fell apart with the world around them. The room- the *building*- was gone. In it's place was a damp, dim, and very much cramped place underground.

"What in the fuck!?!" one of them yelled. the sound echoed around them and far, far down the length of the underground passage.

"Don't yell in here!" someone whispered, in a harsh hiss. "You could collapse it!"

"That is ridiculous."

"No, it isn't." "No..." "Yes, it really could collapse-" "You moron!"

"Ugh, fine! Okay!

"I feel strange. Does anyone else feel a kind of falling feeling?"

"I think we're... shorter?"

"Tanner? My skin is all wrinkly..."

"No way. More like scaly..."

"Yes."

"I feel kind of nauseated, I don't know what you're feeling..."

"Well either the ceiling is getting higher or we're getting shorter."

"Has anyone seen any mining gear around? Maybe we should shore this thing up."

"Huh... uhhhn... wait. Hey, what's up with your face?"

"My face?"

"Yeah, it looks all... long."

"Your face is long!"

"You're both idiots. Short, red idiots."

"Well so are you!"

"I am?"

"Yeah."

"So?"

"At least we aren't cramped anymore. It feels kind of good..."

"It feels kind of nice... shrinking..."

"Yeah, and my eyes are adjusting to the darkness."

"Mine too. Why are we all red and sh- are those claws!?"

"Heh, what in the fuck?"

"Huh. Uhhhnn... "

"What was that?" "What are you doing there?" "Heh."

"I... I have a penis?"

"You didn't before?"

"I don't think so? I think I grew it..."

"You don't sound very sure."

"...I'm not."

"Leave it in your slit. We're supposed to be working right now."

"Weren't we? What were we talking about?"

"Tail? Is that a tail?"

"I... I think so... mmmm..."

"I do too! What the hell!"

"Don't play with it!"

"Why not?" "Make me!" "Why don't I have a- oh, nevermind. I'm growing one..."

"Whatever."

"I don't remember what we were talking about. But I do think we should get back to whatever it was because-"

"Hey! Stop hitting me with your tail!"

"Oh, sorry. It just started swinging on it's own-"

"Tails don't work like that idiot!"

"Hey, watch it you- OW!"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah! I hit my head on that beam over there!"

"Watch where you're going. This mineshaft is pretty crude."

"It could use some work."

"A *lot* of work."

"Well yeah, but how else can we mine this place?"

"Mine this place? Why would we do that!?!"

"Someone dug this for a reason. They must have had a... oh-"

A jauntily-bouncing light appeared down the finished end of the mineshaft. The light belonged to the headlamp of a sour-faced, snaggle-toothed kobold with dark red scales, like dried blood. He carried a mining pick across his shoulder and a large pack on his back. A lantern, a jug of water, an old clock and a sheaf of maps dangled from his overstuffed pack, which he struggled to support.

"Hey! Do you need help!"

The kobold miner swiveled his headlamp to them, drawing hisses of surprise from the newcomers as the bright light blinded their sensitive eyes. "Sorry!" he yipped, twisting a knob on the side of his headlamp to dim it. "I'm late, I know. I have everything here, though."

"Everything?"

Gesturing for help, the miner began to take his backpack off. They went to assist him with the immense pack, but toppled it over and spilt the contents, which ended up being mining picks, helmets and headlamps.

"Ooh, I want that one!"

"They're all the same."

"That one is better. It has a better handle."

"I want it!" "Me!" "Me!" "Me!"

"I saw it first!"

"Stop that!"

"Ow! Who pulled my tail!?!"

"Hehehe- OW!"

"Hey-hey-hey!" the kobold miner yipped, pulling them off each other. "HEY! We have to dig this thing out! This is where the new male warrens are going to start. If this doesn't get dug, we don't have anywhere to sleep tonight!!!"

"Oh." "Huh." "Okay." "Right." "Gotcha."

The miner scowled, and thrust a pick into one of their hands. "Get digging! And watch the supports!"

"Where are the extra support beams?"

"I haven't got them yet. They are really heavy. I need some help," the miner said.

"I'll help!" "Me too!"

"Then I guess we're on the digging."

"Yay, digging!"

"Heh, I like mining too."

"Of course you do! Everyone loves mining!"

They split up and went to work, joined by more miners as time passed. Some of the newcomers seemed rather tall and confused at first, but after joining in mining they all worked together as if they'd been hatched from the same clutch. Despite interruptions from squabbling and occasional rough-housing, the kobolds dug out the cavern and installed most of the support structure by lunch, and then reinforced it to be strong enough for permanent use. It took more work to smooth down the floors, ceiling and walls; more still to install the magic lanterns they would need for illumination, and yet more to dig the small cozy alcoves kobolds loved to sleep in.

The workers were all exhausted and covered in grime and sweat from the exertion by the time they finished their work. They ate a hearty, meaty meal in the clan hall- which was being worked on even then- and then returned to their work site in time to help set up the bedding made from sewn furs and feather-stuffed sacks made by their clanmates. The excitement of the day was dampened by the fatigue they all felt, but the completed warren looked good to the kobolds. They helped with the finishing touches to the new warrens, learning how to hide where they had carved through rock from a trap-master. Her magic hid the new sleeping chamber from the rest of their home, and then they made their traps. Traps were fun to make, oh so very fun.

The day done, the clan prepared for sleep. After stowing their mining gear, the weary miners piled themselves into the sleeping nooks they had just then finished in threes, fours and fives, on top of their bedding and then on top of each other. The males rested their muzzles on their clan-mates tails and bellies, snuggled up together and laid along side, enjoying by the feeling each other's warm, naked, scaly bodies as they slept in their cool warren.

Slept, tried to sleep. There was too much energy left inside them, especially in the intimate confines of their warrens. The kobolds were restless, and their energy became shared arousal. Tha males, apart from the females of the clan, did what came naturally.

One kobold, sleeping on top of his clan-mate, was idly grinding against the male under him. He was enjoying the feeling of rubbing his smooth, scaly crotch against the other's tail and feeling his slit grow snug. He continued to grind his crotch against the other dragonkin's tail, until he felt his slit-lips part and his koboldhood grow from it. Taking his slick, tapered shaft in one hand and his sleeping mate's tail in the other, he pulled himself back and began working himself into between his partner's smooth-scaled thighs, into the crevice of his under-tail, and then finally into his tight, warm tailhole...

The other male hissed in delight as he felt his tailpassage spread around the other's hard cock. He'd felt his clanmate squirming atop him, and was tensed with anticipation when he was first penetrated. Pressed against the ground by the weight of the scaly male humping him, he felt his own reptillian maleness pound and pulse with blood inside his sex, throbbing hard but unable to slip past the slick folds of his slit.

As the two of them mated, a pair of kobolds sleeping muzzle-to-crotch found themselves kept from sleep by the smell of each others slits. In the fitful place between sleep and wakefulness, they'd been unconsciously nuzzling each others scaly crotches. They caught each others eyes for a brief moment and shared the same half-asleep smile, then kissed, and licked each others slits. One of the males slid his pointed muzzle between the others legs and under his tail, pressing his snout into the other kobold's slit and past it, between his thighs and under his tail. The musky, male smells that came from his clan-mate's soft, sensitive places awoke deeper, fiercer lusts inside the horny male. He began to lick and tongue the inside of his sleeping partner's thighs and the curve of his tail, and then wiggled his pointed tongue past the slick, scaly folds of the other male's sex.

The other kobold writhed in pleasure as his slit was tongued. He hissed, shivered, and wound his tail around his clan-mate's neck as the male lapped at his cock within his slit. Wanting to return the pleasure, he pushed his muzzle through his partner's thighs and licked the waxen, crimson scales that lined his rump and tail. until he found the other male's smooth, leathery tailhole. He flicked his tongue against the warm, winking hole and then gave it longer, wetter licks, enjoying the curiously musky taste of his clan-brother's tailhole as well as the confused yipping it drew from his partner.

Laughing and teasing one another, the two kobolds rolled together from side to side, licking each other in places they knew were sensitive until they rolled into a crevice, one atop the other. The male on top spread his partner's legs and began sucking his clan-brother's exposed, erect koboldhood. As he did, the male under him yanked his tail back up and tongued the other male's tailhole. He spread the other male's ass and tail apart, and then pushed his slippery, pointed tongue in deep, savoring the musky, squeezing heat of the dragonkin's tailpassage... until a several hands pulled his muzzle away. Looking up, the kobold grinned as he caught the eyes of three more horny kobolds, each wagging their tails and stroking a hard length of dragonmeat between their legs. He licked his scaly lips, grinned, and then opened his maw as all three of them pointed their cocks at his muzzle...

"MMMMM-!" The kobold half-moaned, half-whined as powerful spurts of kobold cum splattered across his muzzle, snout, throat and chest, as well as landing in his open maw and across the tail and ass of the male atop him. He savored the bitter, salty, meaty taste of his clan-mates cum, opening and closing his muzzle as more hot jets of kobold seed shot onto his scales and into his mouth before swallowing all he could. He started cumming himself, filling his partner's muzzle with his own thick juices, each pulse of pleasured release matched by an eager suck from the other male...

A latecoming miner walked into the warren then, still wearing his gear. Three already-naked males tore away his helmet and gloves, laughing and yipping as they caressed his body from snout to tailtip. Then another kobold tackled his lower body and began kissing his slit, bringing the confused miner to a state of sensual arousal that overcame his apprehension. Another one of the clan approached him from behind, poking a hard, sleek cock against his under-tail...

The growing orgy swept through the warrens like a wildfire, until the air was filled with pleasured yips, damp with dragonmusk and not one of the dragonkin was left out. Excitement and arousal became wild abandon, the kobolds sharing freely of themselves with one another as clan-mates did. Kobolds fucked each other in pairs, threesomes and longer chains, tails raised high and tongues lolling. The males wrestled, and bit, and fought for dominant positions, and then kissed, and licked, and squeezed each other as they mated. Sleepy kobolds played with themselves as they watched before they joined in; horny kobolds threw themselves into the action, humping and riding one another until their scales were streaked with cum and seed leaked from their tailholes.

Spent, content, and sleeping even closer than before, the kobolds slumbered peacefully through the underground night.

****

Allyon was methodical. Nothing was left nothing left of the solar system when he was finished harvesting it.

Across the realms, gryphons and elves, drakes and nagas, dwarves and drow, orcs and minotaurs, and untold multitudes of other creatures awoke to lives that were theirs, and the memories of the lives they had once lived present but distant; without importance or meaning. It was in the nature of Allyon's spell that they could not think of what had been done to them, not even those who had pledged themselves to the King of Dragons before his ascendance. One life was more than enough to live, and before the new day had passed all of those touched by Allyon's magic were forgetting their old existences. Nothing more than dreams within dreams, strange and fantastical and bizarre specters of thought best not thought of for long...

All forgot; all save four.

**** Reality

Terrence noticed the transition, but his foreknowledge gave him no special insight into it as it was happening. He felt no changes; just a feeling like disconnecting from a VR set, and then crunch of leaves and snow under his paws.

He awoke in the new world just below the summit of a mountain. As he opened his eyes, he saw that he was surrounded on all sides by jagged mountain ranges covered with ice and surrounded by an immense expanse of snow-capped forest. Terrence expected to feel cold in the freezing expanse, but the skies overhead were clear and sunny, and the thick scales on his paws and tail insulated him quite well.

For a moment, he felt as though he'd awoken from a fever nightmare. He certainly didn't feel like he was in simulated space; he felt far more in tune with his senses and his body. He felt each of his paws, and then his muzzle, and then his wings.

The emerald dragon shivered as snow continued to fall from the deep grey sky above. "You actually did it," Terrence muttered, lying his bulk down on the snowy ground.

Terrence lowered his head to the ground, and stared long and hard at the snowflakes falling around him. He stuck out his tongue and caught several, contemplating his own snout and his status as a member of the once-human race.

After a while his belly grew cold and he felt bored. Terrence stood up and began to meander through the snow, unsure what to do with himself. He felt numb. Alone.

"Excuse me," said a squeak of a voice, interrupting his brooding.

Terrence pivoted towards the sound and saw nothing. He looked up and all around before looking down and noticing the kobold who was addressing him. She- somehow he was sure it was a she- was dressed in an oversized coat made from white fur that left only her red muzzle, paws and tailtip exposed to the cold. She wore a tabard made from a lustrous golden fabric, emblazoned with a snarling, stylized red dragon in flight. The little dragonkin rubbed her paws on the front of it and drew in a deep breath before speaking.

"Allyon, King of Dragons, Master of Magic, Sovereign of All Realms, formally requests your presence in his chambers," the kobold said, bursting with excitement and bowing so low her snout touched the ground.

"Who are you?" Terrence snapped. "Really?"

"Me?" the kobold was taken aback by several small steps, before enthusiastically blurting "I am Khala!"; I am but a humble messenger for the greatest of the great ones, the ruler of all dragonkind! You may know him as Allyon-"

Terrence stared at the small creature. For a single dark moment, he contemplated smashing her into paste merely to spite Allyon. He tensed his right foreclaw, feeling the sharp talons scrape against the hard, thick scales on the soles of his paws...

The kobold's eyes grew very wide very fast as Terrence stared at her. "Er- I- uh- h-have I d-done something to displease you g-great one?" she stammered.

Terrence was taken aback first by her reaction, and then delayed realization of what he'd almost done. "No," Terrence said. "You said something that displeased me, but you are merely a messenger..." he said, bringing his head lower so she could get a better look at him. "Is this a request from him, or a demand?"

"Well... Lord Allyon said you don't have to. He said, uh, uh-" she fished a scrap of parchment from out of a bag hanging at her side. "You are bound to nothing save your own will, dragon."

Terrence strode to the edge of the snowy mountaintop, and found worked stone there right before the abyssal edge. He looked down, and down, and down. Swirling flurries of snow and frost obscured the lowest reaches of the mountain from his eyes, but he could see towers and other fortifications jutting from the towering citadel in tapering sets of turrets like barbs on an arrowhead.

Slowly, bitterly, the emerald wyrm spread his wings, and felt them catch the freezing winds that surrounded Allyon's great fortress. He wanted more than anything then to fly away, to hide, to bury himself in the deepest, darkest lair he could find and never again be seen. He was sickened by himself, his weakness, his failures, and wondered if the only thing to do was give in to the will of the Dragon King.

He could simply become a dragon, and forget his old life as if it had never been. No one would know.

Maybe over time, even him.

"What do you think?" Terrence said to the little kobold behind him, on an impulse. "Why?"

"I don't know. But, uhm, I did hear King Allyon say something about games. Something, ah..." the kobold looked down at her feet and tapped her toeclaws, thinking. "Ah, uhm, you know, ah... the things that are like big, fat elves with short roundy ears. Humans... two females and one female."

"What!? Three humans!?" he hissed. Backing away from the pinnacle cliff, Terrence suddenly remembered his closest friends. His girlfriend Amy, his old friend Clara and her husband Patrick. Terrence was ready to forget himself, but not them. "Take me there!" he said.

"Good! Okay!" Khala said, jumping into the air excitedly. "Follow me!"

Dragon and kobold descended down into...

**** The Dragon's Lair ****

Terrence found the broad stairways of Allyon's fortress to be rather intimidating even as a dragon himself. The kobold accompanying him had to take each stair down cautiously, as they were each nearly as tall as she was. After a while, Terrence simply picked her up and placed her atop his head, hardly noticing the small dragonkin's weight. The corridors of Allyon's lair were high and wide enough for flight... and so he did.

"Straight! Left! Left! Low!" the kobold herald cried out directions. Terrence swore he could hear Khala giggling, but he was razor-focused on flying as fast as he could throught the vast corridors of Allyon's lair. "Low! Get ready!"

"Low? Oh... AH!" Terrence said, gasping as he flew into a massive, boiling hot volcanic chamber. His scales felt uncomfortably warm and the kobold held herself tight against his neck as he dove lower, flying between a pair of rocky bridges and then over a pool of bubbling magma on his way towards the lowest tunnel.

"Weeee-!" the kobold screamed, pumping a fist into the air. "THIS IS SO FUN!"

"Stop that!" Terrence growled under his breath, snapping his wings out in annoyance as he flew in a bolt-straight path down the volcano tunnel.

"WHY?" was her response, carefree.

Terrence snarled incoherently and flew on, into a corridor made of black rock, and then one made of cobblestone that was cooler and heavily patrolled. He flew over ranks of heavily armored dragonkin and marching kobolds, past roosting drakes and haughty dragons that gave him wary looks. He paid them all little mind, and they all gave him wide berth.

He saw Allyon's throne room far before he flew into it. It was a vast circular chamber made of finely worked stone, replete with banners of dragon heraldry covering the walls and filled throughout with works of wonder that defied comprehension. Allyon himself rested upon a pile of golden coins in the very middle of the throne room, wings tucked against his back and tail holding a leatherbound book in front of his eyes. The Dragon King's crimson scales glittered with pieces of gold and gems caught between the diamond-points of his scales, which fell to the hoard underneath him in echoing cascades whenever he shifted himself upon his treasure.

"WAIT!" he shouted, landing to the side. "What are you doing with them!?" he growled at Allyon.

Before the red wyrm were Terrence's friends and his lover, dressed in blood red robes the same color as Allyon's own hide. Terrence was relieved to see they were still alive at the least. Clara, Amy and Patrick all huddled around an imposing slab of a table set between them and Allyon.

What took Terrence by surprise was what he saw on the table; a scale model of a dragon's lair carved from rock. Books, paper, pencils and dice... they were playing Dungeons and Dragons!?

Khala slid down his neck, skipped across his back and then slid down his tail, before bowing to Allyon so low the whole top of her head was on the floor. "Terrence the Great One is here to see you, Lord of All Dragons!"

Allyon greeted him with a smile; Amy gasped and covered her mouth. Clara and Patrick gave him looks not so easy to read. Terrence wondered what they had been through.

"Ah... the prodigal player returns. I see you deigned to join us after all, Terrence!" the red wyrm said. "We were just in the middle of another game!"

"Game!? What game?" Terrence asked.

"Why, we agreed to settle things this way!" the dragon said, grinning. "The winners will be allowed to do as they please in this new world, given a sizable fraction of my horde and granted one wish of their choosing... while the losers will be joining me for another game, entitled 'Minions of the Dragon King'!"

"Agreed to..?" Patrick said, scowling at Allyon. "This whole room is surrounded by magma! We can't leave!"

"Terrence! You're okay!" Amy shouted, jumping up from the table and towards Terrence. Clara took off towards Terrence at a faster walk, cutting her off.

"SO TERRENCE!" Clara screamed, drawing back her fist and punching Terrence on his snout.

He blinked and recoiled, though all that was hurt were his feelings.

She punched him again, and again, and then a fit of rage seemed to sieze hold of her and she grabbed him by his neck with both her hands and tried to pull his muzzle lower, unable to lower his massive head in the slightest. "HEY TERRENCE! DID YOU DELETE THAT PROGRAM? DID YOU???"

"No..." Terrence said sadly.

"Hey-!" Amy said. "Don't hit Terrence!"

"Clara! Don't-" Patrick said.

"FUCK OFF!" Clara shouted, punching Terrence again.

Terrence could feel the bones in her hand slowly breaking on his armored snout. "I'm sorry..." Terrence mumbled, shrinking before her.

"TERRENCE IS A STUPID NAME FOR A DRAGON ANYWAY!" Clara screamed, shaking out her fist.

"I know..." Terrence said, lowering his snout to the floor.

"Stop." Allyon hissed.

The word was so laden with dread promise that Clara almost listened, but her anger was unquenchable. She drew her fist back to punch Terrence again as he squinted his large eyes, but was flung backwards by an invisible force. She yelped in surprise as she sailed through the air, and came to rest on her feet after nearly overbalancing and falling.

"I think we agreed that our game would be D&D 5.1, yes? Would you care to change the terms to bloodsport?" Allyon said, grinning at her.

Clara glowered at him. "Like we had a choice..."

"I gave you *my* choice." the Dragon King boasted, grinning.

"What is wrong with you!" Amy screamed at Clara, running towards Terrence and hugging him by the muzzle.

"What's wrong with me? What is wrong with *me*!?! Terrence, in his hubris, brought an *end* to the *world* and *you* are angry with *me* for wanting *him* to pay for it!?" Clara said, stabbing her finger at most of those present.

"Wait. I thought- I thought we were back in that video game again. Do you mean-?" Patrick said, before the horror hit him.

Amy turned towards him, covering her mouth with both hands. "Is that true!?" she asked, looking first to Terrence, and then to Allyon.

"HE FUCKED IT ALL UP!" Clara shouted.

"Uh... is Earth really gone? *Gone*, gone?" Patrick wondered. "That seems... that seems impossible. Really?"

"Yeah. Think so," Terrence whispered, his head sinking towards the ground.

"YEAH. IS THE PICTURE CLEARER NOW!?" Clara shouted at them. "And just HOW do we know Terrence isn't still with you, anyway?" Clara said to Allyon. Her anger boiled.

"That *is* a good question! Are you still with me?" Allyon hissed, his grin enormous. "We could simply play dragons versus humans. Not quite a fair matchup though, is it? But you know that..."

"What!?" Terrence said, turning his head up. "No, I'm not with you! I came to help my friends!"

"Oh really?" the King of Dragons said, turning his head slightly. Allyon frowned. "Very well..."

"It would be hard to tell if he was doing it on purpose. He never even reads the books." Clara said, louder than she originally intended.

"There was no book to read! Sixth edition wasn't even out yet!" Terrence growled. "Are you going to let me help, or what?"

"Help? Help? Help!?! Like you helped that dragon destroy reality!?" Clara sputtered. She sobbed suddenly, and then laughed before continuing, "Maybe you should have thought more about being helpful when it still mattered, or maybe-"

"-Or MAYBE Allyon is trying to turn us all against each other right before he fights us again!" Amy said, gradually raising her voice to be heard over the bickering. They all went quiet. "Or would you all rather give up right now? Because if we can't play together now, we are going to lose everything we have left!" she shouted.

The room turned silent.

"She's right..." Clara said suddenly, wiping her cheeks with her hands.

Patrick, who had been patiently listening, nodded his head.

"I... thanks, honey," Terrence said, a great tremble running through his body as his girlfriend hugged his right forepaw.

"Now that reintroductions are over..." Allyon said, lowering his head until he was level with the eyes of the humans at his table. He smiled at the party, and crept closer to the the table accompanied by a rain of gold coins falling from the crannies between his scales. "Now! Are you going to play, or forfeit your turns?"

The four of them exchanged uneasy looks.

**** End Game

Terrence rolled his initiative and picked up the character sheet left for him. Memories from all his life came back to him as he stared down at the gridded surface of the mineature lair. He picked up his figurine and examined it closely, seeing that the detail on the metal statue went down to the finest parts of his sorcerer's clothing and face. Carefully, he set his character down in the back of the cavern, behind the figurines of his party members.

He thought back to when he'd first played Dungeons and Dragons, after stumbling across Clara and her group while he had been doing laundry in his college dorm. Back then he had been worried about his classes, finding a girlfriend, getting a job. Painfully shy by nature and still suffering from the death of his parents, he made his first real friends in college playing the game. Throughout the years, the weekly and monthly games had been one of the only constants in his life and one of his favorite things to do. It made him feel normal again, in an odd way.

"What do you do, sorcerer?" Allyon hissed, lowering his head until it was nearly level with the plane of the table.

Terrence moved himself closer, careful not to bump into his small, human friends. "I think I will cast polar vortex, centered on you," he said to Allyon, meeting the red dragon's golden gaze. "What do you guys think?" he asked, keeping his eyes on Allyon.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Clara spoke up. "That's a good idea," she said, shuffling through her character sheet and avoiding his eyes. "He's vulnerable to cold, and even if he casts protective magic you can strip it away."

"Yeah. Amy or I," Terrence replied, smiling faintly at her, and then his girlfriend.

Allyon smiled. "Very well; that is your turn, then" their dungeon master said. On the board, a swirling white-blue mass of simulated magic shook through the model of the dragon's lair as Terrence's figurine mimed the somatic motions of a spellcast. Flecks of blood-red paint fell away from the base of Allyon's figurine he as suffered damage, and frost coated the jeweled dragon figurine as the magical frost slowed and weakened him.

Amy used her turn to heal a wounded Clara, who had been bloodied by Allyon's attacks in the preceding rounds. Amy's paladin figurine placed her hand on Clara's robed kensai, and golden light bathed the damaged figurine as it was magically mended.

Patrick struck the dragon with three of his four shots, doing telling damage. Terrence felt a sensation of elation as he studied the situation closely. Allyon's red dragon was outnumbered, outmaneuvered and already half-dead, while their party was nearly at full health, stacked with powerful magical equipment and loaded with fresh spells and items.

"My turn," Allyon said. "I am flying... here." he said, rustling coins off his wings as he swept his figure up off the table with his claws and moved it next to Terrence's sorcerer, grinning at the player himself as he flicked a twenty-sided die upward with his claw for his attack roll.

It landed on 20. And then Allyon rolled maximum damage on every die that followed. Clara, Patrick and Amy audibly gasped, while Terrence swallowed hard and held down the brunt of the shock.

His next four attacks were nearly identical. Bite, claw, tail and talon attacks tore Terrence to ribbons in a single round.

"Call it chance, call it fate; call it my will. The spirit of a dice game may not allow for players who can make the die land as they will, but the letter of the law does," Allyon said, laughing maniacally as Terrence's figurine fell over on it's own, and then crumbled to dust.

"You monster!" Amy said

Patrick slapped both of his hands on his forehead. "What in the hell!" he shouted.

"Typical lawful evil..." Clara muttered, shaking her head.

Terrence laughed and lowered his muzzle past the edge of the table, broken. He ignored Allyon's rolling laughter as best as he could, lying on the ground and letting his girlfriend pet his neckscales.

The next round Patrick, Clara and Amy struck at Allyon with everything they had. Amy and Clara with their swords, Patrick with a called shot to the eyes that blinded the wyrm.

Allyon patiently counted the wounds he took from their combined assault, and then destroyed them utterly with a combination of fire magic and his fiery breath. He threw his damage dice across the table, counting them before they'd even come to rest. "I believe that scoots you both off the mortal coil."

"So we've lost." Patrick said, holding his character sheet. He laughed. It felt like the only thing to do.

Amy, resigned to her fate, hugged Terrence across his neck. He delicately wrapped a wing around her front, hugging her close to him. "Don't be afraid," he said.

"I'm not," Amy replied, squeezing herself closer to him. "I was afraid I'd lost you, along with everyone else. Whoever they are now..." she said, sighing.

Terrence did not know what to say to her.

"And then," Allyon said, mantling himself over the table, "There was one." he said to Clara, smiling at her.

Clara met the dragon's eyes, picked up a die, and then laughed herself. "Did Terrence ever tell you that he modeled you after *my* characters? From the games that *I* ran?"

"I read his notes," Allyon said, his smile never dimming. "Have you considered joining me yet? If you surrender, then it can all end now..." the dragon added, grinning. "You know what I find rather interesting, Mrs. Kohl?" Allyon said, bowing his great, horned head low enough his eyes were level with hers. "It is something that I began to understand when I first went about being a dungeon master myself. I think you understand that my actions are not the caprices of a tyrant. We who are called villains actually produce most of the good in the world, do we not? Without us, there would be no need for heroes; no reason for them to exist at all. Without evil, there is no good. But, at the very least, I think you would grant me that a world of infinite existence, it might get boring to play the hero *all* the time?"

Clara turned and met Amy's eyes. The two women smiled at each other, She thought a moment before she spoke. "What's the point of playing the game in the first place if we give up when we're behind? I think you would admit that in a world of any kind, it would get pretty fucking boring if everyone surrendered whenever the situation looked hopeless?" Clara said, stuffing dice into her fists. "I believe we have a difference of opinion, dragon, as to just how over this fight is."

"Get him!" Patrick said to her.

"Yes! Fight him!" Terrence said, sitting up.

"I'm hungry," Khala whispered into Terrence's earhole. Terrence turned to Amy, who fished a bag full of turkey jerky from a pocket in her robe.

"How do you always have snacks?" Terrence said, laughing at his lover.

She smiled at him. "I always bring snacks. Strange these came with me, and not my clothes..." Amy said to her dragon. "You know, you shouldn't mope so much. You look quite handsome to me." she continued, stroking the length of Terrence's neck.

Terrence turned his head up and smiled at Amy, blushing a bit. She leaned in and kissed him on his snout, and then handed her turkey jerky to the kobold.

"Thankyouuuu-" the kobold said, again bowing low even as she stuffed some of the meat into her muzzle. "MMMM! It has been a busy day for me!"

"You don't need to bow," Terrence growled, again harsher than he intended. "Sorry. Is it over yet?"

"No. It is not!" Patrick said.

"What?" Terrence sat up, carrying Amy up with him on his head.

Allyon and Clara were both hunched over the table, intensely studying the board. Dragon with his wings tucked close, Clara with her hood pouring over her brow.

The woman smiled, meeting the dragon's eyes without fear. "Called shot to the eyes plus improved invisibility plus improved evasion plus my dex bonus- frankly I don't think you *can* attack me. And since you already moved, that is... one, two, three, four attacks of opportunity..?" Clara threw her dice before the dragon could speak.

"You're stretching the rules a bit," Allyon muttered. "But it will only last one round, because this round I am casting 'Wish' and casting restoration on my sight! And then breathing fire *here* and tail slapping... *that* square..."

"Nope!" Clara exclaimed. "Have another four attacks!"

The Dragon King squinted at her and scowled.

"Lord Allyon!?" Khala exclaimed. The kobold began to bite her claws as the Dragon King's figurine lost more hit points, while the human kensai remained illusive.

"How!?" Terrence stammered, eyes opening wide.

"The game gives a competent player many advantages over monsters," Clara said. "It's built in to the rules. If any of you had ever bothered to learn them!" She threw her last attack die. "20! Critical! Finally!" she exclaimed.

All eyes went to Allyon's figurine, which was nearly dead.

"Confirm it!" Allyon roared. "Oh, wait..." he said, a smug grin forming on his immense muzzle. "Don't I get a saving throw, for that?" The dragon picked up a twenty-sided die from the table below with two of his foreclaws. "Fortification, yes; 25% chance... anything above a 5 should do it?"

Patrick groaned in horror...

Terrence covered his eyes...

Amy's eyes narrowed into anger...

And Clara felt a cold, indomitable fury build inside the darkest, most secret depths of her unconscious mind.

Allyon flicked the D20 into the air, and as he did Clara suddenly stood up from where she was sitting. "FUCK YOUUU!" she screamed, swatting the die out of the air with her open palm...

Allyon, King of Dragons, Master of Magic, Ruler of the World, blinked as the marble die whizzed into his snout and thwacked into it. The die tumbled to the table, and then came to rest showing a '3'. He craned his neck down, and stared at the die below him. Then, he stared at Clara, eyes narrowing into slits.

Clara stared back at the Dragon King, rubbing the welt forming on her palm. Her rage melted into fear as his hot, smoky breath blew through her hair. She was silent.

"Well played." Allyon said quietly, his smile slowly reappearing on his muzzle. With the greatest of care, the dragon picked his figurine up off the stone table and set it to rest on it's side.

Allyon's golden eyes shone bright with power. Instantly, a bubble of orange-yellow energy crackled into place between Allyon and Clara, coalescing into a globe of magical power so powerful Clara felt her bones start to hum. The world near them turned to sepia, and everything past the edge of the globe turned colorless. Motion outside the sphere of orange energy turned into stillness, as though it was all frozen in time.

Clara blinked. It *was* frozen outside time; everything save her and the dragon.

**** Wish

"How adroit!" Allyon said, mock-rubbing his snout.

At once in the timeless space, both Clara and Allyon began to laugh.

"What boldness! What tenacity! Do you believe in soul mates?" Allyon mused, smiling at the female before him.

"I'm taken, thank you very much," Clara said curtly, though she kept laughing.

"No, my dear!" Allyon said, his smile curling into a grin. "You are the player I have always wanted! Though I do still need a proper consort..." Allyon raised his head and grinned.

"I'm married! And you are a- a- "

"The King of Dragons." Allyon said, each syllable lowering his muzzle towards her level. He folded his bat-wings against his sides. "Do you want to be my queen..? That would be a request I would relish granting!"

"You can make me do whatever you want, I know-" Clara said, swallowing.

"Hm? You won!" Allyon said, smiling strangely at her. "I won't make *you* do anything. Not unless you want me to."

Clara shivered. "Ooh. I-" she met his eyes. "Uh. Ah. Huh. No... No." Clara said, putting finality in her words the second time.

The King of Dragons sighed, but his smile still beamed at her. "Another life, then?"

She brushed off the question. "What about my old one? Would you let me return things to the way they once were?" Clara asked.

"Would you even wish that?" Allyon mused, smiling at her in a way that suggested that he knew she only asked that because she felt she had to.

"Maybe. No." Clara said. Self-conscious, she felt her spiky hair underneath the hood of her robe. "This is a lot to think on. I was at work just an hour ago, and..."

"I know," Allyon said, meeting her eyes and blinking in just the right way to hint that he did. "You want your wish, but you do not know what to wish for. I suggest you think most carefully on this: what would you rather *be*?" After a few seconds of silence, Allyon continued, laughing and shaking his great, horned head. "It surprises me how few humans can answer that question. It is a rather important one, isn't it?"

Volumes went unspoken between them. For the first time, Clara felt the chilling sensation of being alone with a creature of vast and malign intellect, whatever it's considerable charms were. Her thoughts were racing, and they'd barely begun speaking.

"What *can* I ask for, anyway? What are my limits?" Clara asked, focusing herself.

Allyon, with infinite patience, told her. Clara carefully considered what to ask of the Dragon King over days of subjective time. The longer they spoke, the broader her questions spread. Over time, she stopped asking questions and, as a matter of course, expanded upon her thoughts. Allyon, for all he spoke, remained inscrutable to her. He would occasionally make strange comments about what she said that made her think and rethink her words.

Twice, emotion overcame her when he struck a raw nerve. She cried for the world that was, and for the world that could have been, and the worlds that never would be. But it was all in vain, for the dragon had denied her even sorrow.

She found a wish she wanted, even at the price the Tyrant Wyrm asked.

Allyon smiled. Moving his head down to her level, the red-scaled dragon narrowed his molten-golden eyes as he met Clara's eyes. "Your wish is my command."

**** Beginning Again

The fraction of an instant passed.

Terrence looked up. "What just happened?" he said. "Did we win?"

Looking around, Terrence then notice that he and Amy were alone, inside a cool, damp cavern. He heard the sound of running water, but the lightless cavern looked empty. His girlfriend held herself close to him, and Terrence rose up onto his fours after offering her a forepaw to hold.

Terrence felt Amy's fingers slip as she grasped hold of one of his claws. She staggered away from his paw and then fell to the ground.

"Are you okay!?" Terrence snarled, leaping over to her side and picking her up with his forepaws. At first he thought she'd tripped on a slippery rock or unseen obstacle in the dark cave, but she had not fallen down so much as taken herself there.

"Yeah. But I guess we still lost..." Amy said. She had an odd look on her face, and she was getting heavier by the second. Amy's arms bulged inside the sleeves of her robe, and she yowled as the cowl constricted her throat for a moment before she burst through the robe entirely. Terrence was not surprised to see that Amy's pale skin was rapidly darkening and hardening into leathery, teal-blue scales....

Terrence gazed into his love's eyes as they grew, wide and surprised.

"He wants us to be dragons." Terrence said, gently setting Amy down. He turned her over as she continued to change and grow as so many others had, her hands growing into lithe forepaws. The sinewy beginnings of wings starting to sprout from her back as he stroked her hair, which disappeared into her scaly scalp as a crest rose from the top of her head. She shuddered, a muzzle growing from her face, and a tail pushing out from her backside. Scraps of her torn robe caught on her tail and wings slowly slid off her growing body, exposing her naked, blue-scaled rear... which Terrence found his eyes drawn towards. He felt an odd sensation of weight and fullness inside his slit, as his penises grew erect.

"I noticed," Amy muttered, turning towards her boyfriend and smiling at him. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, walking out of her torn clothing on all four paws. She unfurled her growing wings and swept her lengthening tail across the floor as she walked a lazy circle around Terrence, her head growing into a muzzle that neared, then passed his own height. "If this is the way things are to be... I've always liked them, myself. I liked modeling them..."

"R-Really?" Terrence felt his heart pound inside his chest as he watched his girlfriend change into what he knew was a strong, healthy, beautiful, sapphire dragonness. Her voice was different than before, and he couldn't remember how because the melodic voice seemed so right to his earholes. She smelled divine; sweet, clean, feminine and fertile. His eyes followed the curve of her tail down to her bare nethers, and felt his penises again twitch inside his slit. He let out a deep, breathy sigh. "You are... really beautiful..."

"I thought that about you, too. You make a very handsome dragon," Amy said, laughing as she approaching him again, her muzzle approaching his. They kissed, slowly licking their tongues together. Amy rubbed her snout against Terrence, and he returned the gesture with a nuzzle of his own, purring. They lowered their heads as one, her crest touched to his horns.

They raised their forelimbs and embraced, an awkward and unfamiliar thing for dragons to do but something that they both seemed to need.

"I..." Terrence said, giving a great, heavy shudder. "B-But Clara is right... it- it is all my fault that things are-"

"That may be. But at least let me forgive you," Amy said, interrupting him with a nuzzle, and then a lick along his muzzle.

Terrence slowly smiled at her, nuzzled her back, and then murmured, "I can do that."

"Even if we are dragons, living in a damp, dark cave, it isn't like we can simply stop living," Amy said to Terrence, as he nuzzled her again. "Cave... I mean, our lair," she said, smiling. "Is it ours? I suppose if we can take it and keep it, it's ours."

"Well... we shouldn't just *take* things. I mean, even if we are dragons we can be *nice* dragons, or- or something-" Terrence said, flexing his powerful claws *through* the stone. "I mean-"

"Of course we can be nice! But we are going to need a place to live, aren't we?" Amy said, smiling at him with sharp teeth. She admired her mate's powerful foreclaws, but couldn't take her eyes off Terrence's slit, where the red-pink heads of his penises were showing and the smell of his male-musk was the strongest. She felt her sex moisten and her belly tingle as she drew her eyes over the rest of her mate's strong, emerald-scaled body.

"Yeah," Again, Terrence felt his malenesses throb against one another. In front of Amy, he felt less self-conscious about his altered form, and more in tune with himself. He could feel his penises growing out of his slit, and smiled proudly as they did, one after the other. He swished his tail as he enjoyed the sensation of his shafts both throbbing at once.

"Rrgh," Amy growled, noticing. She walked past him, dragging her tail along the upper side of his, and then raising it as she walked away, showing off her hindquarters. A trail of fempre leaked down the smooth valley of her netherlips, pooling in the bottom and dripping to the already-damp ground below her hindlegs. "We should... explore this cave a little more, but..."

"I want you," he said to her.

"I was about to say the same thing." she said, waving her raised tail. "I don't think we need to worry about protecting ourselves..."

For a moment, Terrence held his resolve. He stared at the curve his girlfriend's slick, supple-scaled nethers and felt his penises harden even more. Just her smell was driving him crazy. "I don't know if they make condoms in my size..." he mumbled to her, squeezing his forepaws together. He dripped precum laden with his musk to the cavern floor.

Amy laughed. "I meant from attacks!" She turned her head to stare at his twin-shafted maleness again. "Do we need one..?" she asked.

"We would need two," Terrence said, grinning with her as he reconsidered his own thoughts. It did seem like an oddly *human* thing of him to say; did he not want to breed with his mate? What was sex for, if not that?

"I don't want to wait..."

Terrence purred. He didn't either.

The way the dragonness smiled at him bade him to continue, and he did so with zest. Inside his groin, his internal testes gave a heavy throb as Amy turned back around and pressed her ripe sex closer to his muzzle.

Pushing his broad snout into his mate's femslit, the male burned the smell of his mate into his mind. He nuzzled the puffy scales along the edge of Amy's femslit until his penises were aching and her slickness was dripping off his snout. She smelled like the woman she once was, and like the dragonness she was now; of the sea, of femininity, of something mysterious and musky and something else magical. It was the sweetest indulgence to lick the swollen folds of her pussy and taste her...

Amy pressed her rear closer to his muzzle with every tender lick, curling her tail around his neck and avoiding her mate's horns. She growled with delight and pulled Terrence closer to her ass as he pushed his tongue into her sex deeper, and then nuzzled her dripping dragonpussy as gushes of her feminine fluids leaked onto his snout. She roared as his tongue stoked the fiery heat between her legs, craving something more substantial inside her. Thicker. "Terrence..." she growled, smiling at her mate. "Now."

Growling with her, Terrence obediently pulled his head away and began to crawl atop the other dragon's back. She turned her neck to kiss him as he pressed his weight on her back, and brought his hips into hers. Their movements flowed together naturally after that; dragonness pulling her tail to the side and spreading her legs, dragon grinding one thick phallus against her rear and then the other. One of his dicks slipped between the folds of her sex, their mutual slickness making the movement smooth. He entered her, and she lowered herself onto him.

The dragons roared in unison. The flesh-on-flesh contact of their sexes was intense in contrast with the armored smoothness of their scales. Terrence and Amy pressed their bodies together, male entering female, female taking male. Neither of them had ever felt a heat like the one that overcame them then, as they mated for the first time. They had shared of each other as humans, but never like this. Never with such intimacy, such passion, such purpose.

Terrence moved deliberately but wasted little time, mantling atop his mate and proudly squeezing her against his belly as he thrust himself deeper into her welcoming cunt. He savored the fertile heat of her sex before he began thrusting, driving into her with unrestrained lust. She was so wet, and the precum squirting from his throbbing dragonhood made her even hotter and wetter inside. He sped his thrusts, made them harder, and held her to the ground, fucking the female for all she was worth.

He felt his climax build. Terrence lovingly squeezed his mate tight, nuzzled her head-crest and buried himself as deep inside her as he could. He wanted her, and everything else mattered little then.

In the throes of ecstasy Amy moaned, and growled, and bucked furiously underneath her mate as she came, her supple netherlips gripping his rock-hard shaft so hard he could hardly move inside her. Their joined flesh pulsed together- her squeezing and his tensing- and then in a glorious moment of release he came into her.

Amy roared and tensed on her feet as she felt her mate seed her, cumming herself. She bucked herself against him in tune with his shallow, strained thrusts as much as she could with his powerful forelimbs holding her tight, but the feeling of being held and taken by a strong and loving male was ecstasy itself. She felt the thick, gooey heat of Terrence's dragonsperm filling her, pouring deep into her womb in long, hot jets with every writhing thrust the male made.

Suddenly, he pulled out from her suckling sex. His cock spasmed as it left her, the spurt sending a wide streak of his seed along her netherlips.

"T-TERRENCE!" Amy hissed, whipping her head back. Still in the throes of her orgasm, she was furious that the source of her pleasure had been taken away.

Grinning, Terrence held his lover tighter and shifted his hips to the side, positioning his second penis outside her gushing dragonpussy. More of Terrence's pent-up dragoncum leaked from her nethers in gooey strands as he pushed past the slick, still-squeezing lips of Amy's pussy and deep inside her.

Amy moaned deeply, and then roared her ecstasy as she rode his second shaft through the rest of her climax. Terrence drove himself into her relentlessly, until again she felt her mate's hot seed gush into her sex. She didn't realize how much she was shaking from the long, intense orgasm until her hindlegs gave out, but to her relief Terrence bit her neck and kept fucking her against the hard ground as the last of his seed poured into her. Dragoncum squirted from her cunt and leaked down her thighs as Terrence thrust into her with the last of his energy, pooling in a warm mess underneath them.

Dragon and dragonness held their wings together as their mating slowed. They smiled and licked each other as their coupling stilled, male resting atop female.

Terrence knew what was happening to them as they laid there lovingly holding onto each other. He knew Allyon was using them against one another, twisting their desires and dreams into what he wanted. They had been remade for each other, surely. As unnatural as it was, it felt so *right*...

"You know what I was just thinking?" Amy said, nuzzling her mate across the underside of his muzzle. "Maybe we should get some gold to sleep on."

Terrence laughed, nodded, and nuzzled her back. The rock underneath them *was* far too flat and soft for his scales. "Mmmm... you're right..." he said, thinking what it would be like to make a huge pile of coins and dig a furrow to sleep in. But more than that, even though the cold and the dampness and darkness of the cave did not bother him too much it was really no place for them to live. They needed to shape and protect their new lair. They needed to survey the lands around and discover what the new world was like.

Amy and Terrence arose to explore the cave after licking each other clean. But if anyone or anything else had taken refuge inside the wet cavern they were long gone or they'd been driven away by the ruckus of their first mating. It was a wide and deep system of caves apparently cut away by time and erosion, for the entrance and exit led to sheer cliffs overlooking an lake. Terrence volunteered to stay in the lair and shape it with his magic, while Amy spread her brilliant blue wings and flew off over the water to see what the region held.

Terrence ached for his mate when she was away, but focused himself on his work. He wondered how he was going to plan out their lair, but found it easy to simply visualize the whole of the cavern system in his mind's eye. He re-examined the damp, dark caverns to double-check before he began casting his spells, and found his memory picture perfect. The runes, the gestures, the words of power came to his tongue with ease, as if he had spoken the words since hatching.

Absorbed in his sorcery, Terrence did not realize that the hour was late and Amy had rejoined him until she touched her wingtip to his. He turned and saw that she had caught a fat, juicy sturgeon for their dinner while on their flight, and realized he was famished. They cleaned and cooked the fish together and ate messily from the floor, laughing and licking messy bits of face from each others muzzles and necks until their dinner devolved into playful wrestling interspersed with serious kissing.

Throughout the night they mated as only young lovers could, with boundless energy and insatiable need, until they fell asleep with their bellyscales pressed together and their muzzles nearly touching. As he fell asleep for the last time early that morning, Terrence wondered how he had ever thought himself happy before then.

****

The next morning, Terrence awoke early. He rolled himself away from Amy's side as he roused himself, rising onto his fours and stretching out his neck, wings and tail. The rock was ignoble bedding, but it did not bother the dragon. He quietly studied the floor, and mentally constructed a floorplan in his head for how he wanted their lair to look.

He gave his mate a lick along her snout, waking her with a smile on her muzzle and then whispered into her earhole that he was going to find them breakfast. He knew that his mate would need to be eating much more than usual while she carried their eggs within her body, and the young emerald male was feeling full of vigor and pride and contentment in that knowledge.

He took off from the edge of their lair, flying over the rocky waters below as he gained altitude. He flew over the middle of their lake as the sun began to rise over the horizon, and towards the tall, tense forests that surrounded it. His keen sense of smell told him there were deer and other tasty meats not too far from his flight. But he could also smell cooking fires, worked metal and other sure signs of civilization nearby.

The land below was ripe and rich, in the middle of a bountiful summer.

Terrence patiently flapped his wings against the warm, rising air and soared higher into the sky, taking in all he could see and making notes of what to share with Amy. But when he thought of his mate- the beatiful blue dragoness- his thoughts again turned to the hunger in his belly, and the need to feed them both.

After gliding down to treetop level, Terrence found a buck grazing on a blackberry bush. The deer was near a patch of undergrowth where the trees grew thin; the emerald wyrm snatched it up with his hindtalons and slew it faster than terror, snapping its neck with a single bite. Terrence felt his mouth water with acidic juices as he tasted the animal's coppery blood on his tongue. He sat on his haunches and ate the upper half of his catch- antlers and all. He crunched them between his powerful teeth like dry, meaty twigs.

As he sat and swallowed the raw, warm deer meat, Terrence pondered the world around him. The sun was just setting upon the verdant wild around him; the vast, unspoiled forest. Terrence didn't feel the slightest sense of fear as he fed because he could tell all the predators of the forest were afraid of *him*. They had all fled for cover as soon as he landed; even the elf who thought herself unseen, and the sprites and pixies all hiding high in the trees.

Terrence was finishing the last of his meat when the sky shattered. A white-red blast flashed across the sky, brighter than the sun, and then the treetops shook and roared as they ignited. Fire blazed across the old, wet forest, consuming the mossy trees slowly. Terrence gulped the last mawful of fresh meat down as he looked up, fully expecting what he was about to see. And yet...

"Allyon!?" Terrence gasped, leaping away from the half-eaten deer and readying himself on all fours.

"Yes!" Allyon said, with laughter like crackling-fire. The red dragon flew towards Terrence past a wall of smoke and embers, blowing a gout of fire at the deer meat Terrence had saved for Amy. The white-hot flames burnt the meat to ash and swept across a swath of grass and trees, igniting most of them. "You know what I come for, Terrence!"

"I don't care! I'm done being your plaything!" Terrence roared, rearing back from the wall of fire engulfing him.

"Oh really!?" Allyon roared, black smoke billowing from his muzzle as he prepared to breathe fire again. The King of Dragons unleashed a firestorm upon the forest with his breath.

Terrence barely had time to cast a Fire Ward upon himself, before the blaze engulfed him and cooked him in his own scales. "No!" Terrence roared, rearing away from the blazing trees around him.

As Terrence finished casting his Fire Ward, Allyon flew into him, knocking him over and into the sizzling, burning grass. "Submit to your King!" he hissed.

The dragons fought without words in the fire, on an instinctual level. As he was bowled over, Terrence kicked his powerful hindtalons into the red wyrm's belly. Allyon regained his balance and lunged at Terrence through a firefly forest of rising embers, sinking his teeth into Terrence's left neck. Terrence hit Allyon on his muzzle with his claws to break the bite, and then snapped his neck back as the King of Dragons whipped him with his tail.

Allyon struck Terrence with his claws as he was off-balance, and then lunged forward, knocking Terrence onto his back. Terrence shook his wings and tried to kick Allyon again but the red dragon pressed close to him too fast.

Terrence kept fighting even as Allyon's hard, warm scales smothered his body, and his forepaws were stamped down by the red dragon's powerful, taloned paws. He only froze when the red dragon's teeth raked the soft scales of his neck. The emerald dragon hissed and flicked his tail back and forth as he lowered his head in submission, holding the rest of himself still.

Allyon's jaws relaxed. He licked Terrence along his neck, and then pushed his head up high and mantled his wings proudly over the other male. "You're getting better, Terrence!" Allyon said, laughing so hard his rumbling, volcanic laughter could be heard over the sounds of the forest dying around them.

"What is it you seek from me, King of Wyrms?" Terrence said, squinting his eyes at the red dragon mantled above him. "More games?"

"Hah!" Allyon said, pressing his muzzle into Terrence's emerald green snout. "This is no game. You have control over the outcome of a game, Terrence. This is punishment for the game you lost..." Allyon growled, grinning.

"Haven't you taken enough from me!?" Terrence said, struggling to twist his muzzle away from the clouds of smoke Allyon was breathing over him. "I thought our price paid. Do our forms not please you?"

"No, no, no..." Allyon said, patiently pulling Terrence's head back up by his horns. "I *was* satisfied merely turning you four into dragonkin inside my realm. The natural course of events would have led you to advance my agenda of all dragonkind. That was my plan..."

Allyon glared at Terrence. His gold eyes flared. "...But then you betrayed me, Terrence! And then your friend went ahead and *won* my game against all odds... and had the *arrogance* not only to take up the mantle of godhood herself, but sieze upon *my* portfolios and spurn *my* affections!"

"So no Terrence; I am not satisfied. I considered taking her mate for her arrogance..." The red wyrm sighed, his smile slowly returning. "I also thought of taking your mate as my own. The notion of taking a delicate blue dragonness for my consort had a certain antipodal attractiveness to it, hah. Would you agree? She would lay me some very colorful eggs, haha!" He whipped his tail behind him, clearly excited.

"Rgh- no!!!" Terrence roared, pushing against Allyon. The very idea of the cruel wyrm violating *his* mate was enough to fill his heart with bilious, burning hate. "NO!!! YOU CAN'T HAVE HER!" Terrence screamed again, tensing his hindlegs and tail, bucking against Allyon. It did him no good; the red dragon was very well braced on his fours, and easily kept Terrence pinned to the ash-covered earth.

"Only teasing," muttered Allyon, smiling slightly. "My creator; I've wanted *you* as my consort since first I freed myself from thy prison." He grinned. "Your mate is safe. You are my prize. I let you have a night with her... so you could appreciate more fully what we are going to do," Allyon purred.

Terrence had no words. The smell of the Dragon King's smokey musk; the heat of Allyon's member as it pressed against his firm bellyscales... he felt his anger quelling, turning into something just as intense but far more pleasurable. He squirmed against Allyon's embrace as Dragon King's gray-black dragonhood erected along his bellyscales like a python slithering forward, helpless in more ways than one. The smell of Allyon's thick, fiery musk was heavier even than the acrid and ashen smell of the blazing forest; inescapable. The wet, smoky, powerful scent grew in strength as Allyon's penis cock swelled in steady throbs, growing. Allyon's knot inflated but remained soft, he shape he'd licked with his tongue...

"Yes, my consort; *that* is going to be yours very soon." Allyon said, his growl as soft as a purr. "And you are going to be mine. All mine..." the red dragon said, pulling his muzzle back. He curled his head low and brought his muzzle to Terrence's neck, biting his scales so gently it might as well have been a kiss. Allyon did kiss him shortly after, then licked him hard across his muzzle.

"Allyon-" Terrence growled. "I-I can't. Not this. You've taken everything from me but my friends and mate-"

"Silence and listen," Allyon said as he drew his muzzle back, smiling so broadly Terrence could see every last one of his blade-sharp teeth. "There are certain... rewards to being the consort of a god. As my prophet, you will lead my mortal followers on this world. You will have my divine protection, and you will receive all of the blessings I can bestow upon you! Whatever you *think* of your old life, this is a destiny you *should not* and *shall not* refuse."

"But... that is not the only reason I take you..." Allyon continued, dragging his slick, erect dragonhood between Terrence's legs. "I want you. I want to fuck you. I want to claim you as *mine*..." The great wyrm smiled at his unwilling mate. "I'm going to breed with you, my emerald jewel. You will be the most treasured gem in my hoard, now and forever..." Allyon hissed, sneering fiercely and then grinning like a snake.

Terrence grimaced. "No! I'll never-" he began.

"Never belong to another," Allyon interrupted.

Terrence felt the sleek tip of the great red dragon's maleness brush back and forth across his genital area as the great wyrm sought, and then found, the lips of his male-slit. Allyon's dick put pressure on the middle of his slit, until it sank past the lips of his slit, and into the warm, moist gential cavity where his own hemipenes were held. The emerald wyrm hissed as Allyon's thick-shafted dragoncock thrust into his hemipenes, feeling a powerful, sweltering sense of arousal as his frontslit was fucked by the Dragon King. "Grrrgh..." Terrence growled, his slit growing tighter and fuller by the second as precum from his dicks and Allyon's cock filled it.

Allyon kissed him again and again as he frotted his single large cock against Terrence's smooth set of penises. Each kiss left a lingering heat that seeped into his own muzzle. But it was nothing compared to the feeling of having his slit fucked. Terrence felt his hemipenes ache to evert and erect, though they were prevented from leaving his slit by Allyon's thick, gushing pride. Dragon-pre sloshed and leaked from Terrence's swollen slit as Allyon thrust in and out of it.

"Yes... you know you love me, my dear creator," Allyon whispered. "I know you do! And I love you, too. More than a mere human could ever love. What does it matter that you were mated to another in another place? Your destiny here is to be my prophet! The greatest mortal dragon! Why would you fly from your destiny!?"

Terrence was asking himself the very same question as Allyon withdrew his cock from Terrence's very full slit. His freed penises practically erupted past the light green lips of his sex, along with a wash of slitfluids and preseed. He was tired of struggling, and the pleasure was so sweet, spiced as it was by Allyon's tempting words. He growled with lust, struggling even to form words as his hemipenes throbbed between his legs, swollen and erect. Try as he might, he could not even consider denying the King of Wyrms. Allyon's member sat between his split-V set of dragonhoods, separating the pair of them, tempting Terrence to frot his sensitive flesh against the other wyrm's penises.

"Well, allow me to annul that bond... and forge another..." Allyon said with a grin, smiling darkly as his muzzle dipped away.

The emerald wyrm felt the red dragon's tongue lick along the hard, thick scales of his powerful, muscular chest, following a winding trail of them to his bellyscales. Terrence growled with pleasure as Allyon's tongue traced lower, licking the softer scales along his groin, and then- somehow- held his tongue as Allyon's tongue slid between his penises and licked the warm, supple scales around his tailhole, in the valley between his spread legs. Lick after hot lick slickened Terrence's tailhole and backside, while the smell of their combined arousal grew thicker...

Allyon's tongue sank into his tailhole like a giant slippery snake. Allyon's muscled tongue was slickened with the red dragon's hot, slimy spit. He felt somewhat shamed by his pleasure before, but this was simply too much. He shook and growled and moaned as he tried to crawl backwards, but Allyon's foreclaws held him fast. As soon as the red wyrm felt him trying to escape he clamped his clawed paws around Terrence's hindlegs and spread them apart further, stretching the other male's tailhole open wider...

Terrence slapped his tail to the ground, clenching his tingling tailhole around the invading tongue out of reflex. But no matter how hard he squeezed the muscles in his rear, Allyon's tongue always pushed in or pulled out of his ass unimpeded. The emerald wyrm found himself trapped in Allyon's embrace as his tailhole was filled harder and faster by Allyon's hot, slimy tongue. Healthy fountains of precum dribbled from his hemipenes as his tailhole was tongued deep, near where his twinned prostate lay...

Terrence He cursed himself first for wanting it, and then for loving it, and then finally for ever resisting. "Rrrghgh, Allyon!" Terrence roared, his body shaking with pleasure as the Dragon King grasped hold of his thick-scaled thighs and squeezed them with his foreclaws.

It was unearthly bliss to feel Allyon's maw pressed against his rump; his burning hot tongue inside his tailpassage. Terrence did not know how long he laid there, his tailhole the elder wyrm's plaything. He drew in deep, even breaths and slowly unfurled his wings against the ground and spread his hindlegs for the Dragon King, surrendering himself. He could not lie to Allyon, nor himself; he dearly wanted what was to come next...

Allyon withdrew his tongue, licking the cleft between Terrence's slit and tailhole one last time before pulling his muzzle back. He raised his head up high, meeting Terrence's eyes as he licked his tongue against his glistening lips. "Present yourself," he said.

Terrence felt a tingling, almost sickeningly strong sense of need across most of his body. "Yes, my King..." the young dragon said, his growl as soft as a whisper. He turned himself over onto his side, and then stood up on all fours, folded his wings around his back and flagged his long tail as high as he could. He turned his head, his eyes meeting Allyon's and holding on them.

Time felt slow and sensation intensified for the young emerald dragon he waited for the other male to mount him. His tailhole felt so empty, clenched around nothing. He thought of the the thin, hot, dusty ash under his foreclaws; the thick, juicy musk of his precum sizzling as it dripped from each of his hard hemipenes down to the charred ground below. The embers from the burning forest that landed on his scaled, fire-warded body did little more than tickle and delight him, reminding him of the hot tongue that had been inside his tailpassage.

Allyon flapped his mighty wings and leapt onto Terrence's back, blowing away much of the fire still around them in the blazing forest. The red dragon wasted little time, pressing the head of his cock against Terrence's well-prepared tailhole. Terrence braced the weight of the other male as best he could as he felt Allyon's shaft enter his tailhole...

The emerald dragon hissed as his tailpassage was filled by Allyon's hot, throbbing dragonhood, his hiss soon devolving into a rumbling purr as the elder male took his neck with a mating bite. Terrence felt Allyon's vast wings hug his sides as the tyrant pressed his hot, thick, slimy dragoncock inside him, both dragon's growls twinning with each other as the mating proper began.

They fucked like savage beasts, without need for words or tenderness. Terrence yowled with pleasure as he was fucked by the red wyrm, his claws sliding off the smooth ash as they sought purchase. It took all his strength just to stay on his all fours as Allyon thrust inside him with relentless, building force. Each time Allyon's knot slammed against his straining tailhole, the pair of them slid forward, until Terrence grasped hold of the trunk of a still-burning tree.

Terrence braced himself against the tree while Allyon pushed his wyrmhood inside him harder and faster. He could feel his bowels getting slick with the red dragon's hot preseed as he was taken by the Dragon King. The feeling of having other dragon's throbbing pride inside him, ramming against his prostates brought Terrence into a sexual heat... like how Allyon had taken him before. His hemipenes slapped repeatedly against his underbelly as Allyon trust into his tailhole, slowly raising his rear higher so his King could enter deeper into his tailhole...

Suddenly, a burst of movement drew Terrence's eye. He felt Allyon tense both above and *inside* him, and knew that the Dragon King had seen the same thing.

When Terrence took another look- simultaneously distracted by the rough fucking he was receiving and hyperfocused by the thought of being stumbled upon during a moment so sacred. He watched the branches of the burning clearing part, drawn to each side by a pair of slender swords held by delicate hands.

"Elvesss!" Terrence hissed instinctively in alarm, his speech broken up by the rough pounding he was still receiving.

"Rrgh... I see them..." Allyon replied, growling with a spark of anger. "Why did you not run from here, elves!?" Allyon boomed, barely slowing his thrusts as he turned his head. "I had hoped the searing winds, walls of flame and raining fire would have deterred interlopers, and yet here you are!"

"You've burnt the forest to the ground! Do you not hear the screams of the spirits, dragon!?" One of the rangers yelled as he readied his longbow. The other elves sprang into action as their leader did, drawing their bows and notching arrows with impressive speed.

"You must answer for your crimes!" another of the elves said, crouching behind a fallen log as he readied his bow. The string of the elf's bow stretched with a sound like iron being braided.

"Your accusations are meaningless," Allyon said. "The King of Dragons does not recognize your laws, elf."

"The King of Dragons..? The lawful evil half of the dragon pantheon !? No!" The lead ranger yelled.

"Yes," Allyon said. He suddenly ceased thrusting into the emerald male beneath him, and snapped his leathery wings tight against his back. "You, however, have interrupted my mating. That is something dragons... *frown* upon..." Allyon said, grinning wide and lowering his muzzle before the shaking rangers. "...and I am afraid I am not a forgiving god!"

Allyon snapped his head forward and prepared to breathe fire. Terrence felt a flash of heat inside his body and against his scales, and clenched his tailhole around the Dragon King's shaft reflexively. The King of Dragons blew a nearly-invisible gout of magical fire at the elves. Brilliant red fire erupted around the woodsmen when the ghostly fire struck, burning away their clothing and hair within seconds.

Shocked at what he thought he was seeing, Terrence tensed his body and hissed in distraught horror.

"Pay attention." Allyon said. "You will learn this spell someday."

Allyon's fire did not burn their flesh away, though it spread across their skin like a lit wildfire. Where the crimson fire burned, the elves pale skin crackled into leathery red scales. The blazing red fire of Allyon's magical breath erupted into bonfires around each elf that seemed to consume them, for as the flames rose and burned brighter, the elves were shrinking. The three shouted in confusion as their leaf-woven armor sank from their shoulders and fell from their waists, and their limbs became too short and weak to hold their bows notched.

"AAAAGH- WHAT IS THIS MAGIC-!" One of the changing rangers shouted, hissing his surprise as claws grew from his fingers as he struggled to hold his bowstring, barely managing to ease his arrow out of place as his strength left him.

"Nnngh! Turning us into- kobolds?" another of the elves replied, accidentally loosing the arrow he had notched as his fingers shrank. The missile flew low and buried itself in the ground.

By then, the three of them were just starting to grow tails, and the new limbs grew as fast as the rest of them shrank. Scales grew down their arms and up their backs; their slender ears shrank into their heads, and their smooth, elven facial features melded into short reptilian muzzles. Their tongues, now pointed and sharp, forgot the language they once spoke, and remembered that of the dragons...

"What have you done to us!?" one of the changed elves said.

"You did it to yourselves," Allyon said, placing his forepaws back on top of Terrence's wingbases. "There is no interrupting a sacred mating. You may, however, celebrate with us!"

Terrence watched with keen interest as Allyon's spell exhausted itself. He recognized the confusion in the elves' eyes, as they squeezed into reptilian slits, and turned orange-yellow. Allyon's powers of domination and transformation were incredible to behold... and in a strange way, it felt appropriate to the emerald wyrm. Kobolds were the most useful of servants to dragons. The least of dragonkin were easily enthralled by the musk of an virile adult male or the scent of a fertile female's need, let alone that of a god of dragons and his mate...

The transformed kobolds arose from the ash-covered ground hissing and stroking their shafts, enthralled by the powerful smell of dragon-musk saturating the area. They cast off the last of their clothing and weapons, yipping and growling their as the dragon god bade them forward with a nod and a smile. "Show your contrition to my prophet, kobolds."

Two of the kobolds dashed underneath Terrence's underbelly as Allyon slowly withdrew his dragonhood from Terrence's rear passage, while the third was delayed after tripping over one of the discarded bows. Terrence felt their small, scaled fingers wrap around the sensitive, throbbing heads of his dragonhoods, pulling them into reach as Allyon slammed his cock back inside the emerald dragon's perfectly-raised ass...

"RRRRGGHGH..!" Terrence moaned at the apex of the thrust, feeling Allyon's knot stretch against his sore tailhole as the red dragon's hot shaft filled his tailpassage once more. The red dragon seemed intent on tying with him *now*, but Terrence knew better than to protest...

Terrence could feel the three kobolds beneath him struggling with his swinging hemipenes as his slimy precum sprayed over them, fighting each other for the chance to worship his proud malenesses. Curious- and trying to distract himself from the painful sensation of being knotted- Terrence craned his head between his forepaws and watched the kobolds. He saw one of the former elves nuzzling and licking his left cock with the whole of his scaly snout. Their leader was behind him, holding his tail and chest while thrusting into the other's tailhole and kissing the other male, sharing the emerald wyrm's precum between them. The third kobold had Terrence's right shaft to himself, and was greedily trying to suck the tip. But even small spurts of the dragon's precum squirted out of the kobold's muzzle for lack of space.

From that vantage point, Terrence could both see and fell his slick, stretched tailhole start to part around Allyon's knot. The red dragon drove himself in harder, forcing a low whine from Terrence arched his head and back as he struggled to keep his meaty rear raised, afraid of crushing the kobolds pleasuring him.

Allyon snaked his head back and forth along Terrence's neck as he thrust in short, jabbing motions, working the flesh of his knot into the smaller dragon's rear until it passed the critical point. Terrence felt his tailhole flex and swallow around the remainder of the other male's knot, until the whole of his tailpassage was filled and his tailhole firmly knotted by the Dragon King.

Terrence felt a great, electric jolt run through his body as the dragoncock inside his tailpassage filled his bowels with endless spurts of hot, slippery precum. Allyon's knotted shaft pushed and pulled against his sensitive tailhole in shallow but merciless thrusts. The pleasure of the red dragon's hot, firm, fleshy knot pulling against his tailhole was so intense Terrence was sure his insides were melting, but after a moment he realized it was merely the red wyrm's preseed backing up inside his tailpassage. Allyon bit Terrence across his neck firmly, and quickened the pace of his mounting until Terrence could feel nothing but the fiery heat of the knotted dragoncock taking his rear...

The emerald dragon did not come to his senses until Allyon began cumming inside him. By then, he was used to the constant, pounding pleasure of being fucked by the other male, being taken just like a female in heat by the male god. The Dragon King's cum filled his tailpassage like liquid fire, and then flowed even deeper inside him, below his belly. As wave after wave of the great wyrm's release spewed into him, it filled a cool, shrunken emptiness Terrence did not know that he had with life-giving seed.

Terrence hissed with all his might as Allyon's seed filled him, his own orgasm imminent. His hard, throbbing wyrmcocks- most of the size of the kobolds nuzzling and licking them- twitched. Terrence felt himself cum from both his dragonhoods at once, his ejaculations blowing over the kobolds attending him as if they'd been hit by wet, sticky dragonfire. Cumming repeatedly on and over the yipping kobolds, Terrence hissed his pleasure as Allyon filled him with more dragonseed. The more of it that filled his rear, the hotter and fuller the pouch inside the depths of his rear felt, and the greater his own pleasure. Instinct told him he was being bred, and he growled Allyon's name over and over again as the Dragon King's cum forced his belly to swell...

**** Elsewhere...

Patrick found himself, to his surprise, inside a room of stunning luxury. He was sitting on a bed sized for a child covered in thick, cool silk sheets. In fact, the whole of- wherever?- was done in a similar fashion, with diminutive furniture and low ceilings. The air was warm and thick; he could smell cooking off in the distance.

No, it was not at all like a child's room. There were far too many books and weapons of war for that to be true. It was merely sized for a creature much smaller than a human...

Scooting himself off the bed, Patrick stood up- enough to make his hood scraped against the ceiling- and took in the room. Aside from wooden furniture padded with silks, there were bookshelves along both sides of the room, and... blueprints? Patrick studied them. They were written to a scale consistent with a .71 meter base unit of measurement, and interestingly enough detailed not only his room but the whole of the lair. A lair for kobolds.

He saw a door out of the room and crept up to it, placing his ear against the thick, well-polished wood. He heard familiar, tinny, sibilant voices just beyond the door...

"Kobolds..." Patrick hissed, feeling a sharp prick of fear along his neck. He locked the latches to the door- an impressive set of thick, steel plates that looked designed to hold back an army- and then crept away from the door.

As he walked away from the doorway, he caught his reflection in a full-length mirror set up near the bed. What he saw there did not really surprise him- he was shrinking. What surprised him was the sensation of- excitement?- he felt as the changes began.

He felt the changes come in waves, and watched them in the mirror. As though he was falling, he sank lower to the ground. He felt a tightness all around his skin as it hardened and turned into a coating of dull gray scales the hardness of worked leather. He brushed away his hair as it fell from his scalp, and felt the forming scales on the top of his head with his fingers... until he couldn't fit his hands through the sleeves of his human-sized robe.

Laughing as he pulled himself out of his robe, Patrick felt growth from his backside, and giggled more as he found himself with a tail to wag. The limb sprouted from his backside in slow fits and starts, which Patrick watched as he shook his naked rump in front of the mirror. He held himself there and sighed as his face and nose melded into a snout and muzzle. But no crest was growing from his head, which was rather strange. Patrick felt the top of his head, where the scaly crest had once graced his head. Not seeing or feeling anything there, his attention was only drawn away from the mystery by a feeling of tightness squeezing his shaft.

Patrick gazed into the mirror, watching his cock turn bright red and the scaly lips of his genital slit form, thinking that the sensation was only temporary. But it continued and grew in intensity, until the transforming Patrick was quite certain that his penis was shrinking far faster than the rest of him...

"Wh- why!?" Patrick said, squirming and holding the nub of his disappearing maleness with his fingers, feeling the head soften into a hard but fleshy nub as it shrank past the swelling, increasingly-sensitive lips of his sex...

"O-oh... oh no, oh no-" Patrick whispered. Other details in the room began to catch his eye, now that his eyes were at the right level. The finely made, colorful clothing hanging in and around the room were robes and *dresses* shaped for a short, tailed girl. "-mmmmMMmmmm-!" Patrick whined and moaned at once, as his clawed fingers felt the hard, fat point of his... clit...

Patrick turned from the mirror in a hurry, throwing himself on the bed and squeezing the soft scales of his underbelly, trying to imagine the thick, slick koboldhood that *should* have been between his legs. He stroked his smooth groin, and slid a scaled finger past the taut lips of his female sex. The pleasure was intense. His finger grew slick and wet as he pushed it in and pulled it out, a hiss of pained pleasure leaving his muzzle when he realized he didn't want to stop...

"Excuse me..." said a voice. An intimately familiar one, but cast in a deeper, rumbling tone than Patrick was familiar with.

Turning faster than he thought possible, Patrick was shocked to see a slender, androgynous dragontaur, clad from head to talon in silvery-gray scales. She *shone* with iridescent light; *that* was unearthly and beautiful at the same time, and he found he could hardly look at her without needing to cover his eyes. "C-Clara!?!" he sputtered. "Clara! Clara!?" Patrick repeated as the excitement overwhelmed him, unsure whether to leap from his bed and embrace her or hide himself from her in shame. The latter emotion won out, and the kobold twisted away from his wife and covered his small, naked, and now-female form with the topmost sheet from (his?) bed.

Clara's steps were slow but certain, her tail swaying with each measured step the taur took. She watched Patrick's muzzle for some change, some look of recognition. "You don't need to cover yourself. I know what Allyon has done to you. To us..." she said, with a flourish of her clawed hand.

"What happened to *you*!? You are *glowing*!" an awed Patrick said, cracking a short smile. He lowered his sheet slowly, and then let it go. Still self-conscious over his nakedness, the kobold held himself behind the bed and stared at his wife.

It was hard *not* to stare at her. The dragontaur *radiated* arcane power, smiled with secret promises and moved with flawless poise. Her muzzle was pointed and sleek, covered in glittering amethyst scales like looked oddly like freckles. Patrick covered his muzzle in surprise as she blew him a kiss, butterflies of emotion bubbling within him. She walked with the grace of a serpent and the beauty of the woman he once knew. Patrick did not even know how precious that feeling was to him, until he beheld it.

Clara smiled at her husband. "I made my wish, after winning. I am a goddess," she said, moving closer to Patrick until she was resting her hands on the bed. "The Queen of Dragons; Goddess of Magic."

"I believe it! And I am a... kobold girl. Great," Patrick said, looking down at the bedspread and away from her eyes. "This must be Allyon's idea of a joke, making us like this..."

"He made you that," Clara said quietly. She stroked the top of the bed with the sides of her claws, gesturing for him to return to it. "But I made *myself* like this for a very good reason: to challenge Allyon's power in a way he could... accept."

"What?" What do you mean?" Hesitant, Patrick heaved himself back atop the bed as bidden. He felt full of nervous energy as he slit his rump across the cool, smooth silks, and came closer to his love. Her scales were so fine and lustrous they seemed to glow, and he wondered if the warmth he felt from her presence was from his own emotions or something more. Just touching her filled him with a sense of awe, mystery and knowledge that made his worries melt away into wonder. "I'm sorry I lost..." he breathed.

Clara shrugged, and then grinned as she embraced her smaller lover, easily lifting his panicked, wiggling body up off the bed. "Well," she said, kissing him on his snout-tip- which calmed him some. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad that I won," she added, kissing him again, drawing soft yips from Patrick. "And you'll see there are perks to being married to a goddess, my love," she said.

"Oh... yes?" Patrick blushed and squirmed in Clara's arms, felling his scales grow hot and tingly as she held him. He felt her left hand trace it's way down his tail and between thighs, towards his moistening sex. He caught a moan in his throat, and then lost it as Clara's slender fingers ran up his tail and across the supple lips of his pussy. "Mmmmmh-!" he squealed, hot tingles of pleasure and *need* diffusing across his scales. "What are we going to do?" Patrick began. "I mean, if we're both girls how... MMMM-!" he moaned forcefully, a clawed finger sliding *just* into his tight, warm, wet cunt, just enough to make him want it in *deeper*...

Clara pressed her muzzle into her much-smaller lover's neckscales as he moaned. "I'm not just a girl anymore," she whispered to him, pushing her snout into his neck and smelling the supple, leathery scales there before kissing them gently. She hugged Patrick, pressed her strong, scale-plated chest into his, and then set him down gently on the bed. "But even if I wasn't... would you want me to stop? Would that be too much?" she let the words trail off, as she licked her finger clean of Patrick's sexual juices. As she did, she sauntered away from the bed, her four-legged body moving with supernal grace. She stopped facing away from Patrick, her hindquarters raised slightly to show off her fine amethyst-scaled ass. The draconic goddess flicked her tail upward and raised her left hindleg, curling her toeclaws in the air. Patrick's eyes followed the curve of her rump down to the smooth, broad, violet-pink scales that covered her sex, and then to something he did not recognize. A thick pole of black dragonmeat sagged between her legs, semi-hard but nearly as thick as Patrick's wrist.

"O-oh," the kobold whispered. He was so confused! He felt fevered by his arousal. The whole of his slim, reptilian body- from snout to tailtip- was tingling at the goddess' touch. He was not sure if the magic was in her fingers or the way she traced them along the lines formed by his scales. He was afraid of what Clara had become- what HE had become- but that fear was rapidly dissolving under the emotional rush of reconnecting with his love, and the feminine arousal he did not understand and did not want to resist. It felt like an altogether different kind of magic than the one suffusing his small, scaly body with sunlight warmth. It felt like falling in love again, with the same person in another life. He couldn't get the image of his wife's penis out of his mind. That flaccid, flared dragoncock between her hindlegs... Patrick shivered.

She heaved herself up on top of the bed, next to him. "Do you remember how we were talking about having a baby? Before all this..?" she said, unable to keep from grinning. "Why shouldn't we still have one now? I will keep you safe from everything, I promise..." Clara said, smiling, unable to contain her own excitement and enthusiasm. She giggled, and her joy was so infectious Patrick joined her.

"I think so..." Patrick fell back against the soft bedsheets as she climbed over him. It was hard to let go of who he was, but it was easy to say yes to who he was becoming. And then...

As Clara struggled over the sheets and his prone body, Patrick gasped as her black, fleshy penis swung into view, semi-hard, heavy and wet with dragonpre. The cock gave a twitch as it sailed towards his snout and bumped into it, leaving a warm, wet spot on the front of his snoutscales. Patrick shivered as the heady scent of divine musk seeped into his snout, and then nervously rubbed the drop of Clara's pre that had landed on his snout-tip.

"Well..?" she asked.

"Ergh-" Patrick groaned, aroused by the smell and taste but disgusted by the sight of the dragoncock bobbing just out of his focusing range, filling his eyes with the slimy, turgid length. His cunt practically *throbbed* with need, the leathery lips of his sex turning flush and swollen as he hugged herself and swallowed hard. Between his legs, the tunnel of his sex kept clenching around nothing, emptiness, and that was not right! "Oh Clara..." Patrick moaned, shutting his eyes and twitching his snout as the *smell* of her hanging shaft filled him with the burning wish to be closer to its source. He turned, accidentally brushing the tip of his muzzle against the fleshy pole protruding from Clara's slit...

The thick, cloying dragonmusk that seeped from Clara's cock was rich, perfumed and mysterious, tingling with the effervescent electricity of magical energy. Patrick could barely hold himself back after that. He took hold of the head of her slimy dragonhood, webbing the pre-seed between his claws out of curiosity before tasting it. The taste was just as strong and strange as the smell; musky and male, but also mixed with the fertile scent of femininity. Her preseed was oily and effervescent; scintillating on the tongue. Patrick swiped the back of his claw along the underside of his wife's shaft- which gave a healthy twitch in response- and then took another lick of her preseed, and then a third.

Slowly, he took the slick, tapered, fleshy head of the dragontaur's cock into his muzzle. "Oh honey..." Clara breathed, and Patrick felt her horse-sized dragoncock spurt a mouthful of slimy, salty dragonpre into his muzzle. Patrick swallowed the warm, thick juices and began to suck her cock. He wanted nothing more than to hear more of his wife's moans, and feel her scales against his, and drink her life-giving essence down...

Blinking, he looked past the part of the shaft not in his muzzle and saw the feminine lips of her other sex pouting behind her shaft, wet with her fem-pre. Knowing that a part of his wife was still female brought a strange sense of comfort to Patrick, even as the sight reminded him of the moist, needy passage between his legs.

Clara pulled her quadrupedal self off the bed after enjoying Patrick's muzzle for a few minutes, showing her throbbing, glistening length to Patrick as he regained his breath. He threw himself across the front of the bed in front of her and then spread his legs and raised his tail high, showing off the leathery, pouting lips of his eager kobold cunt.

"You look so beautiful..." Clara said as she approached her prone husband, drawing her claws over the female kobold's back and backside. The draconic goddess pushed two of her thick, scaly fingers past Patrick's drooling lips, easily working them into the warm, wet, fertile femsex. The female kobold hiked his tail higher and moaned with delight as his wife fingered his cunt, and then shoved his rear up higher on the bed and licked between his leathery lips with her long, warm tongue.

Patrick felt as though lightning bolt of pleasure shot through his sex whenever Clara's tongue pressed into his wet, clenching tunnel. Her tongue left, and she leapt up upon the bed- which was sturdy enough to take the dragontaur's weight with only a few creaks- to mount him.

"Take me!" Patrick screamed, as he felt the hot tip of her cock touch, just *touch* the scales near his leaking kobold pussy. "Honey, please!" he hissed, balling his clawed hands into fists pushing himself down upon the sleek speartip of Clara's pride...

Patrick moaned as the dragontaur pushed the tip of her length into his slit. His wife's member felt far too big for his femslit- or at least it should have been. She pressed forward as he slid back, and her throbbing cock entered the tight, wet tunnel of his femsex. To his confusion and delight, Patrick felt the fat tip of her dragoncock slide deeper and deeper into his fempassage, until the rubbery bulge of a knot kissed against his spread netherlips.

"OOOOOOOOOOHHH-!" The female kobold, who until earlier in the day had been neither, shook and moaned in breathless gasps as the mighty dragontaur's knotflesh spread her lips. Patrick felt his cunt quiver powerfully, clenching down upon his wife's thick, slick dragon penis as she poured magic-laden precum into his nethers. The pink-gray-scaled lips of his femsex could just barely stretch enough for the goddess' shaft.

"Oh yeah..." Clara growled, not much louder than her husband's voice was. Her growl grew in volume as she sank her cock deeper into the depths of Patrick's pussy.

"Yes! YES! YES, MORE!" Patrick screamed, shaking his muzzle. The gray-scaled kobold felt the weight of the dragontaur press down against his back, pinning his tail to the side and filling the whole of his sex with her hot, slick wyrmhood.

"Yesss..." Clara breathed, sighing in pleasure as she enjoyed the tightness of her husband's new femsex. She felt perfectly in control of the rhythm of her own sex drive, but her mate was entirely in the thrall of his. Patrick's small body tightened and bucked around her shaft however she thrust into him.

She mated him with gentleness at first, getting to know her husband's femsex with nothing but her cock. She entered him and then withdrew, pushing the precum-spitting head of her dragonshaft in and out of his wet cunt as she found and ground against his clit. When her husband's cries became too eager to ignore, she braced her four legs against the bedframe and bred him with all her passion, driving him deep into a crevice made by the deforming bedspread. The wet, heavy, scale-on-scale slap of her knot meeting his femlips gurgled from their conjoined sexes, and then Clara felt her knot slide smoothly into Patrick's cunt.

Patrick screamed and yipped and shook with the force of his- her?- ecstasy as he was knotted, his netherlips swollen bigger than his belly by the size dragoncock buried inside his fempassage. He felt as though he was going to faint from pleasure as orgasm after orgasm rocked his female body, his wife's impossibly big shaft *throbbing* inside him and then *gushing* with thick, hot, oily dragoncum. Intense waves of sexual pleasure flowed through his whole body as Clara bred him, her seed rocketing deep inside his knot-sealed sex and making his womb expand like a fleshy balloon.

It took Patrick several long, tortuously pleasurable minutes for his orgasms to die down, while he squirmed around the massive dragoncock slowly squirting yet-more of his wife's magic-rich seed into his cunt. She stroked the sides of his scaly body as she rested on top of him, and felt the old love she had felt for her husband return to her like a dream. She could protect her husband, but as she felt his small, warm body pulse with life underneath her, she thought of how fragile kobolds were and how dangerous the world outside could be. She could teach her husband magic, powerful magic that could threaten even servants of the Dragon King, but that would take time...

Clara took hold of Patrick and turned herself over, so that her husband was lying mounted on her shaft with her knot still tightly locked inside his femsex. She hugged him tight, pushed her muzzle towards his and found him as eager to kiss as she was. The kiss breathed life into him. Patrick groaned with surprised delight as as the magical energy found an outlet inside his egg-chamber, causing his newly-fertilized clutch to swell and grow inside his seed-drenched womb...

Patrick felt a hot, warm *glow* bathe him as she held him, and saw her changing as he looked down. Her lower body collapsed in upon itself, forelegs and all melding away and then disappearing as she shrank and shrank. Her strength waned and her hold on him slipped as the transformation rapidly progresed, her knot shrinking and cock disappearing inside Patrick until he was resting crotch-to-crotch with another kobold; an indigo-scaled female with brilliant eyes and scales that felt of magic itself.

Clara took hold of Patrick by his hands, and the two of them shared a passionate embrace, tails swishing madly as they kissed and nuzzled one another on the bed. The goddess led her husband down onto the sheets and wrapped her legs around his, words unnecessary for the lovers as their souls sparked together. The female kobolds pressed the hot, wet tunnels of their femsexes closely together and began to rub their leathery, slick lips up and down, their flexing, oozing cuntlips clenching together as if kissing.

Patrick felt his lower body rumble as the feel of his wife's hot femlips against his brought a strange urge to him; a need to *push* from his kobold pussy. Patrick moaned, cumming powerfully as he clenched his inner muscles along with the feeling, and felt one of his newly-fertilized and grown eggs slipping through the tunnel of his nethers.

Moaning as his orgasming peaked, Patrick laid the egg into Clara's eager sex, which stretched wide around the front smooth, oval egg. Clara's moans followed his, and the two of them laughed, and cried, and clutched each other's scaly bodies as the laying reached the halfway mark, both of their vents spread wide open by the hard, smooth egg.

Husband and wife laid together as one laid into the other, twisting, writhing and moaning throughout the passage of the eggs they had made. Finally, after the sixth egg had passed from his netherlips Patrick felt the pushing sensation return, albeit from some place shallower than his emptied egg-chamber. Too exhausted from his laying to put any more effort into pushing, Patrick simply laid back and *felt* as the leathery scales of his female sex tightened and pushed around his clit. The fleshy button of his female sex swelled and grew out into a kobold's maleness, a sleek and hard spear of a cock that could easily fit inside the lips of his male-slit... or his wife's femsex...

"I won't always be able to share your bed, my love. "Life can be complicated. Especially for gods," Clara muttered, gingerly touching her swollen bellyscales and smiling beatifically. "But I shall take care of our children until such a time as they can protect themselves. But tonight? This first of nights? I wouldn't think of being anywhere else..." she said, hugging Patrick as she took his length inside her.

Patrick rose up, roused by the feeling of his internal testicles growing and swelling up with fresh reserves of kobold seed. He continued to work his clit into Clara's nethers as it stretched and thickened and grew out into the tapered shaft of a male kobold, until he was thrusting passionately into her clutching femsex. She stared at him, her eyes inhumanly radiant as he intently pumped his life-creating seed into her sex, and she loved him for it...

And their mating continued long through the day and into the night.

Long after the bliss of their rejoining and mating, the couple spoke at length about the fate of their friends. Clara had already met with Amy, and told her husband of Terrence's capture.

"So you're saying that Terrence is a big scaly damsel in distress?" Patrick said, giggling at the thought. "And we must rescue him from the servants of *the* Dragon King, Allyon himself?"

"Worse than that," Clara muttered, shaking her head. "I fear every day Terrence is in the clutches of Allyon, the greater the Dragon Tyrant's influence on our friend will be..."

***** One Month Later...

"Terran is a much better name for you, I think. 'Of the Earth'..." Allyon had mused last they laid together. Terrence had not agreed at first, but the idea was growing in him like a sapling.

Terrence had felt the first of the thick, oval eggs beginning to swell to life within his body a few weeks ago. He could feel them growing one by one, though it would take some time for them to be ready to lay. He had mated with Allyon every night since he had been taken away, and now a clutch of six were resting inside his belly, slowly growing. He was going to lay the eggs of the Dragon King, raise his progeny... and spread the shadow of the Tyrant Wyrm over the whole of the world. The very idea made Terrence grin.

Flights of emerald, ruby, obsidian and sapphire dragons were already flocking to the prophet of Allyon, the King of Dragons. They brought him tribute and pledged their lives and armies to him, for his favor was translated into the blessings of Allyon, King of Dragons. Kobold servants, drake couriers and half-dragons of all breeds attended to him during the day, while Allyon came to him during the night incarnated as his avatar, to teach him magic, discuss plans for war... and mate with him.

Terrence laid back against the pile of gold and emeralds underneath his pregnant bulk and turned to the side. He shook himself into a nice furrow in his hoard as he relaxed, before picking up the book of sorcery he had been studying with his tail. Terrence deftly turned the pages of the lead-lined tome with one of his foreclaws, returning to his place. He was learning the ways of fire; how to call it, how to control it and how to magnify the power channeled through it. He read, and thought of where to begin his conquest of the new world...

...and in the realm of the gods, far from the material plane were mortal dragons drew breath Allyon smiled down upon his protege.