FSE

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Tuning his slightly water-logged lute as best he could in the circumstances, Rond asked his recently-acquired simple-minded giant of a companion if he knew what songs were popular in Fawcett. Just talking to Ovin - last name unknown - was a good enough distraction from the angered screams his stomach occasionally sent Rond's way.

"Sorry, sir," Ovin answered, his wide, youthful face looking pained in the crackling light of the campfire. His two huge feet were squarely planted around a heavy-looking wooden box that he had been carrying when Rond had met him on the road between Fawcett and Marsh Hill. "I did a bad thing, and now they don't let me in the tavern no more."

Rond forced on a smile of commiseration, "That's a shame! Don't worry too much, I'm sure you'll be forgiven in time." Rond wondered what exactly it was that Ovin had done, but didn't want to ask: upsetting someone as big as Ovin wasn't something he was in the mood for, particularly not after a day of travelling in the rain with no money and no food. Rond would rather have Ovin on his side and nearby to ward off any far-ranging patrols or bandits wanting to cut his throat. You never could be too careful, not even this far from the road.

"I've always wanted to go to the big cities," Ovin said wistfully, his bright blue eyes looking up at the stars, apparently lost in what Rond guessed passed for thought in Ovin's simple mind.

Rond thought, "Ovin, my poor big dumb lad, the cities would eat you alive." Besides, if anyone was going to be taking advantage of Ovin, it wanted it to be him. He'd heard the unmistakeable sound of coins clinking against each other as Ovin's box was moved; and noticed that the padlock on the box had been extremely flimsy. Rond probably could have picked the locks with the right tools - which he didn't have - but he could probably pry it loose with a rock or even his safely-sheathed thin-bladed dagger.

Aloud, Rond cautioned, "Large cities are very exciting, but the people in them can be very cruel. It's easy to be unkind to people you whore are, uh, to strangers. They can also be very expensive, and there's no places to hunt or forage. You don't want to be spending your money until you have to." He'd convinced Ovin to spend the night outdoors and save what few coins he had "for later"; if Rond was careful enough, he might be able to get them too. He had to do something: the people in Marsh Hill had been incredibly stingy, and he doubted the "fine folk" of Fawcett were going to be much better.

"Oh, well, villagers can be cruel too!" Ovin retorted indignantly, skimming a stone across the lake Rond had decided would be a good place to set up camp.

Rond laughed, remembering his own poor reception in Marsh Hill. "Oh, you're not wrong there, Ovin," he agreed. "You're a very astute fellow. But there are a lot more people living in big cities, and a lot of them are very poor or very busy, and that turns people very mean."

Ovin nodded silently, putting another piece of wood on to the small campfire. Even if nothing else came of the evening, Rond thought, at least he'd found someone incredibly useful for carrying large pieces of wood to make a fire. The night after it rained got cold rather quickly, and a fire was definitely needed, especially for someone with Rond's rather slender body.

To check out his lute, and to pass away some time, Rond played a short piece: using a relatively simple tune, he made up some impromptu words, about the adventures of a strong warrior named Ovin and a clever bard named Rond, and their adventures against a pack of roaming bandits. Ovin seemed incredibly pleased at this, and sat with rapt attention, staring at Rond in wonder until well after the song was over.

"Did you like that?" Rond asked, plastering an expectant smile on his face; he'd met quite a few simpletons before, and they could be inscrutable sometimes.

"Oh yes!" Ovin exclaimed, nodding excitedly. "I just thought there might be a magician in there, too." Ovin emphasized the word "magician" with a lot of reverence; Rond guessed "magician" was probably the most complex word in Ovin's vocabulary.

Rond had run into a few "magicians" in his line of work; none of them had had any real power, they just knew how to play people and get them to give them money for all sort of nonsense. Ovin, Rond assumed, was probably that kind of person's ideal mark. He asked, "Oh? Is there a magician in Fawcett?"

"Not any more," informed Ovin. "There was one, a long time ago though."

"Ah!" Rond said, feigning excitement. "The old stories are often the best." Really, he was just interested in hearing anything he could about what things the locals knew about; sometimes it helped a little to tailor heroic epics to match local heroes.

"Well," Ovin explained, blushing, "I told you a lie. He wasn't really from Fawcett, see. He used to live in a tower somewhere around here. But he used to go to Fawcett and Marsh Hill and all the other local villages quite often. To see if he could help people."

"That was very nice of him," acknowledged Rond, still smiling but already kind of bored of this story.

"At first, the villagers were nice to him," Ovin went on. "He made potions and such to make them stop being sick, or to make their crops grow better, or make their animals make more babies."

Ovin's voice grew very quiet, almost conspiratorial; Rond guessed he was mimicking what other villagers did when they were talking about him behind his back. He said, "But then people said he did 'bad' things. Like find young men and turn them into animals, and sell the animals to the villagers. The villagers didn't like this, but they didn't want to make the magician angry and do stuff to them. So they sent someone to a big city to get a man called Varis to come to stop him."

Rond nodded; Varis was a pretty well-known real-life "hero" from from about about two hundred years ago. Rond knew a lot of songs and stories about him already; a lot of them were obviously made up.

"Varis arrived in the village," continued Ovin, returning to his louder, dull voice, "and the villagers invited the magician to come and meet him. The magician liked him, and wanted him to stay with him in his tower. Varis said yes, and they went."

Rond leapt back, because Ovin suddenly bellowed, "KABOOM! The villagers rushed outside. The magician's tower was gone!" Ovin, looking rather pleased at startling Rond, concluded, "Then Varis came back into the village. He told them he blew up the magician in his tower, and that the magician was dead."

With the story over, Rond mustering up as much fake enthusiasm as he could manage, and applauded Ovin. "That was a very exciting story!" Rond announced, his practised voice sounding very convincing. Ovin's face lit up; looking very pleased at Rond's supposedly kind words.

"That's where this lake came from," Ovin added with a gesture. "The tower made a big hole when it blew up, and later it filled up."

Rond simply nodded; he was starting to feel tired of humouring Ovin. If he was going to do anything to get the contents of Ovin's box, it was going to have to be soon. Acting out a yawn, he suggested, "Well, I think it's time for bed. Why don't I take the first shift, then I'll wake you up? That way, the man who's awake can alert the other if there's trouble, and we'll get through the night safely."

"Okay," Ovin agreed, nodding with what seemed to Rond to be an almost-permanent glaze of stupidity on his face. "I need to piss first," he added.

"That's a good idea," Rond said, his mind working quickly. "But don't do it here, it might get into the lake."

"The lake is gross," Ovin argued, his nose crinkling.

"Yes," Rond explained, "but we can always boil the water to remove the gross bits." Pointing off into the dark trees nearby the lake, roughly in the opposite direction they had travelled to from the road to get there, he suggested, "Why don't you go do your business over there. Just make sure to stay in view of the fire, and go as far as you can. That way, if I'm caught by a patrol, then you'll be safe, because they won't see you."

Ovin nodded, the strong muscles in his legs shifting as he moved his weight on to his feet; scooting out of the way of the box, he slowly moved towards the trees. Rond noticed that, when Ovin felt that he was out of sight, his pace quickened. He chuckled; the poor guy probably had to piss like a horse and might even burst if he followed Rond's advice to the letter.

Once the heavy stomping of Ovin's feet through the leaf litter had passed, Rond quickly unsheathed his dagger. Ovin had been naive enough to leave the box when he had dashed off, and if Rond worked quickly he could stuff his purse - and loot - full of what could be quite a decent haul. The blade slipped neatly through the thin metal loop. Carefully, he began to try to wrench off the lock.

Rond's whole body felt on edge as he slowly worked at the metal. Despite the cool night air, he started to feel sweaty. It might not take Ovin long to piss, and when he returned, Rond did not want to be anywhere close by if Ovin noticed what he'd been doing to the lock.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, watching as the metal creaked and groaned, the lock giving away a lot slower than Rond felt comfortable with. One eye quickly scanned the stones scattered about, trying to find one that would work in a pinch if this didn't work.

That proved unnecessary; just as he was about to give up, the padlock fell apart with what felt to Rond like an ear-deafening groan. It thumped onto the dirt with a muted thud, but Rond was already fixated on opening the lid of the box.

Nothing.

Rond's jaw dropped in amazement. He'd heard, on multiple occasions, the sound of coins moving about when Ovin had been carrying it on their way here. He'd heard of trick boxes - with hidden cabinets and false bottoms, but this box was evidently not of that kind; and if it was, it didn't have the capacity for the quantity of coins he had heard jangling about.

"I think the term that street magicians use is 'Abracadabra'," a rather mirth-filled voice said from right behind Rond. Startled, he turned; it was Ovin - or rather, it was the large man than Rond had met who had claimed to be Ovin, because now Rond was sure he'd just been very cleverly tricked - who was standing, completely naked, behind him. The cold night air didn't seem to bother Ovin in the slightest; he jovially stood there, muscular body and privates on full display, his massive arms folded in front of his large pectorals, grinning in an incredibly smug manner.

Wanting to appear to be a good sport, Rond replied, "I take my hat off to you, good sir; you had me completely fooled." Meanwhile, his dagger slowly inched out of sight, as he readied it to be used in case "Ovin" tried anything. "Would it be rude to ask for your real name?"

"It's Shepherd," the large man replied, walking back around to where he had been sitting before. He gestured for Rond to return to his seat. "'Ovin' was small play on the old word for 'sheep', you see."

"Clever," Rond acknowledged as he got up, carefully concealing his dagger. Hopefully, at some point, Ovin - or, rather, Shepherd - would forget about it or lower his guard; Rond felt slightly angry that he'd been tricked and wanted to get something, even if it was just cutting this guy's throat.

"Thank you," Shepherd said, smiling dangerously. "I knew a clever man like you would."

Rond felt like a mouse being toyed with by a cat. "So," he inquired cautiously, "how did you do it? I distinctly heard the sound of coins rattling around in there."

"Oh that?" Shepherd grinned, baring his teeth. "That's just a little auditory hallucination; a bit of cheese to get the rat into the trap. I'd been following you since you arrived in Marsh Hill, actually; and once I gathered you were the transient type who could disappear without causing a fuss, then I just waited until you decided to leave town."

Rond prepared himself to pounce, until Shepherd waved his meaty hand. "Oh, don't be so dramatic!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going to kill you, not when we can be so useful to each other. The box, amongst other things, was a test."

"Planning something nefarious, are we?" Rond asked dubiously.

"Hah," Shepherd barked. "Actually, your first question should have been: 'Why are you naked?'" Shepherd stood up, as though he were going to put some wood onto the fire. Rond quickly jerked back when Shepherd advanced, onto to freeze in horror when he noticed Shepherd had stopped, seeming no worse for wear standing amongst the burning logs of the campfire. Rond felt his jaw dropping.

"A nice trick," Shepherd noted, a little wistfully, "sadly it comes at the cost of being alive. The story of how I can be dead and appear before you is a rather long and sad tale. But I'm sure, being a travelling story-teller, you should relish the chance at broadening your repertoire." He stepped out of the fire, returning to his seat.

Rond wasn't sure to make of this story so far. Shepherd, or Ovin, or whoever he was in reality, could be playing a trick; maybe some simple magic or chemical applied to his legs. A ghost speaking to him from beyond the grave stretched things a little too close to the line of credulity for him. He said, "While I'm sure that I'd enjoy hearing it, I wonder why you need me, and wh-."

Shepherd laughed, noting, "I should have guessed: what's in it for you? Don't worry, I'll tell you the old tale after I'm done with the more contemporary one.

"Now, I didn't just die. I was murdered; and rather viciously. I suffered a great deal, possibly so great that it prevented me from moving far from this lake, let alone into the afterlife. My murderers were able to; but their lines will not. What I want - I need - you to do is be the seed of my vengeance.

"You, in return, will get power. Not just the power of wealth or position - but I imagine those will come in time - but real power. I will give you the ability to use the same powers that I had before my death."

Rond shifted forward, putting another log on to the fire, his mind trying to process all of this somewhat unbelievable stuff. Something clicked in his mind, and he guessed, "That story you told earlier - about the magician - that was about you, wasn't it?"

Shepherd nodded, spreading his legs and leaning back, showing his muscular - and, Rond thought, if he were to be believed, dead - body. "Most people make the mistake of thinking that magicians of legend are old, frail and wise; but, really, if you had that kind of power, you'd want to use it to be young, strong and virile, wouldn't you?"

Rond shrugged his shoulders, laughing, "I can't argue with that, no." He found his eyes drawn towards Shepherd's muscular body. He'd noted his size before, but hadn't noticed quite how hairy and masculine it was. Sure, Rond had seen quite a number of naked and near-naked men before, but hadn't really "looked" until now. Something caught his attention: the muscles of Shepherd's body only moved when Shepherd seemed to want them to move. His trunk didn't rise or fall as he sat there; a living, breathing, man's should've. Another thing did too: his own breath was starting to mist in the cold air, but Shepherd's never did.

"See," Shepherd began, "I came from a family of farmers - hence my name - and working the land made me very physically strong. But I seemed to have a knack that my other siblings didn't: I could, somehow, channel life. It wasn't deliberate at first, my body just seemed to react to life, growing bigger and stronger far more quickly than other people my own age. By the time I was fourteen, I was almost indistinguishable from a fully-grown man."

Rond continued to stare at Shepherd's body, his mind filling with the image of his massive, bare-chested body toiling, sweat rolling down the curves of his muscles as he laboured under the hot sun, muscles flexing. Rond had never had that - reedy from birth - and he found a deeply-buried jealousy of the bigger boys who had gotten more attention from the girls growing up: the blacksmith's apprentice, the brothers who came in every week or so having brought in supplies of lumber, the farm-boys settling around, drinking ale in the local tavern. He hardly noticed the slight chill - his own body seemed to be heating up enough - as a cold miasma from the lake rose and began to encircle him.

"My older brothers were rather jealous," Shepherd continued, "and got me into trouble frequently. I think they were worried my father would pass on the land to me once I'd found a wife and had a child. A lot of women were very attracted to me back then - my natural magic talent for channelling the life seemed to make a lot of them very receptive to me - and they suspected that, despite being very handsome men in their own right, that I would get what they viewed as theirs."

Rond moaned subconsciously, spreading his legs slightly. His foot send his lute spinning. Now, instead of one large, muscular, sweaty man, there were several; joking and playful, all handsome and full of life. His pants started to tighten as Rond's shaft dropped down, growing in length as it had only done before when he'd imagined about, or paid to bed, a woman. The bard's face was flush, his whole body feeling pleasantly warm. The miasma creeping over his body clung to his skin, creeping up his arm; the nearly-invisible blond hairs on them stood stiff and straight.

"They really needn't have worried," Shepherd said, winking at Rond in a way that only made him moan again. "I had no interest in women; not in that way, at least. Maybe, because I had such power over life on my own, the appeal of a female counterpart seemed strange. Plus, as I have learned, their energy to create life is powerful but finite, whereas men - while much weaker - is only limited by health and vitality.

"My first crush was on a local stable-boy of the local tavern; strong, too, and rather simple. I decided to pay him company one night, when his father had made him stay in the cot out there to tend to a wealthy, early-departing traveller. In the stables was a mare in heat, and a stallion eager to get at her. After a few ales, he got very boastful, saying he was as big as the stallion. He wasn't - not by a long shot - but I told him I could make him, if he did something with me first."

The rest of the story seemed to pass unsaid, but Rond could see the vision forming in his mind. Shepherd coaxed the drunken, foolish boy into lowering his pants. Shepherd fondling him, slowly caressing him into an erection that seemed to grow larger and larger the more Shepherd placed his hands, or lips, or tongue on to it. Shepherd groping at his balls, causing them to grow to fill those strong, wide palms of his. Shepherd's own pants on the ground, removed, his cock leaking in excitement at his first sexual encounter.

The miasma, encasing his whole arm, now spread down and around the side of Rond's body. It seeped into his flesh, sending tingles throughout the skin and muscles as the effects headed towards he central core of his limb. The hairs that had been standing on end seemed to freeze, falling out unnoticed, sliding off of his arm like pine needles in a strong wind.

"His father caught us; he got beaten and I ran away, upset and confused." Shepherd noted in a flat voice. "I never saw my family again; I just panicked and fled. I lived off of the land for a while, much like a wild animal would, avoiding people whenever possible. I was just driven to act on instinct. Eventually, though, I snapped out of it, although by then a long time had passed, and I suspect everyone I knew had thought me dead."

Rond imagined Shepherd, wandering the land, his naked, strong body growing wilder and hairier, a spear in his hand for one moment; it flying the next, and him gorging on the freshly-killed flesh of a deer in the last. Then the image was of Shepherd washing the blood from his body, diving into a cold lake, emerging with rivulets of water trickling down his hairy pelt. Rond's erection grew stronger, his attention drawn down the taut, round abdominals as though he could see the water running over them.

From the ends of his warm, miasma-covered fingers, Rond felt a slow tugging; if he had not been so transfixed by the muscles of the vengeful spirit speaking to him, he might have noticed to some horror a set of sharp, dark claws bursting from the ends. Tiny rips started to appear in the skin running along his fingers.

Shepherd breathed heavily, "Instead of returning to my family and upsetting everyone, I spent some time examining nature, and what I could do with my magic, wondering if I could control it. It took years, but slowly I became very skilled. I could coax plants out of the ground as though I was the sun itself. I would find injured animals, learning how to heal them, and then to make them even stronger. I even kept a couple of wolves as pets for a while, when I found their mother and most of their litter-mates dead in the winter. Over time, I transformed them into the peak of their species. Eventually, they went off to sire litters of their own."

Rond's eyes finally settled on where they had been guided. His conscious mind filled with visions of Shepherd caring and befriending animals, observing the change of nature over several seasons; but his deeper, animal brain was fixated on Shepherd's package. Thick and long, with a heavy foreskin in front of a pair of heavy, dangling testes, Rond found himself hypnotized. Even deeper than the growing animal lust he felt for Shepherd was the slow growing of an even deeper bond: Shepherd was strong and powerful, but he was caring and compassionate. He wanted to help; Rond's deepest instincts wanted Shepherd to do that for him, and in him grew a desire to do anything to let that happen. Rond's cock strained against the leather of his pants, his body shaking with a strong desire.

The flesh between his fingers of his changing hand split as a new, thicker webbing between them began to grow. The newly-exposed flesh that pushed out of Rond's pale skin was covered in jet-black scales. The fingers began to lengthen, the claws and freshly-exposed scales glinting in the lights from the fire and from the moon. Long tears appeared along the skin of his arm as the muscles expanded, twitching slightly as rapid contractions and relaxations strengthened it. The miasma had spread along his whole side, slowing as it met the centre and the more complex structures there.

"After that, I grew lonely, so I made my way here." He smiled slightly, eyeing the transforming Rond, before continuing, "Using my magic, I merged a bunch of trees into a tower, then offered my services as a healer and veterinarian to the locals. They were suspicious at first, but after a while my results spoke for themselves, and I won more and more of them to friendship. Or at least, so I thought."

Rond couldn't bear it any more; barely even noticing the changes in one arm, he used it and his uninfected one to slowly remove his clothes. "After all," he felt, "Shepherd is naked. I should be, too." His hands clawed at his tunic, slowly rending the fabric - and the flesh of his chest - with the claws of the one hand as he struggled to remove it. He shed his undershirt more easily; it basically fell off from being torn after his struggles with the tunic.

Moving his arm hastened the tearing; one arm was now completely covered in jet black scales. The lower arm was covered in thick, muscular cords that caused his new scales to ripple and glimmer. His upper arm, still growing, was nonetheless twice the size of the opposite arm. The miasma, still creeping slowly across him, crept up and across his neck, sliding over the dimple of his belly button, and across the quivering, dripping shaft aching to be released.

"I healed their animals and plants, and even the people themselves. I improved their breeding stock and seed harvests. I even played match-maker on occasion, using my knowledge to pair up sometimes unsuspecting men and women into happy, fertile couples with many children. People started to come to visit me. For a moment, I felt happy."

Rond had worked himself free of his pants. Sweat rolled down his unchanged skin. His shaft pointed up, oozing fluid as his pants dropped. His clawed hand tore off one boot, then aided the other, tearing at them until he stood naked in front of the slowly-dying fire. Not that he needed the fire to see; his mind burned for the briefest touch of Shepherd. He yearned to go over there, bend over and present his hole: Shepherd could violate any part of him, and he would gladly accept having that thick, hot piece of flesh entering him, squirting into him his manly juices. But an even stronger force kept him standing there, slowly dripping and aching for some attention.

Flesh continued to rip off of Rond: tears ran and criss-crossed across half of his torso, strips of dark scales peeking through as his slender muscles expanded on half of his body. A pectoral thickened, the nipple pulling taut and disappearing. Abdominals firmed and smoothed out, small ripples denoting the edges of the more aerodynamic shape Rond's body was taking.

"But I still wanted intimate companionship." Shepherd sighed, before continuing. "That what probably caused my downfall. I knew I could affect other people's thoughts and feelings, just as easily as I could affect their bodies. I didn't want to, but... sometimes, there'd be a murderer, or rapist; someone so horrible that they'd be killed. I arranged a deal: I would take the prisoners, and make them useful."

Rond flexed his transformed side, aware that his body was changing, but feeling somewhat distant from it as his mind burned in a combination of lust and the need to earn Shepherd's approval. He wanted to submit, totally and completely, but he was confused: why did he not seem to give him that blessing? To ask him to bend over, even if just to be collared and ordered to call Shepherd his master. Rond's cock pulsed hard at the thought, a heavy string of fluid gushing out.

The rips crossed over to the other side, drawing some blood from the areas still not consumed by the miasma; it seemed to respond to that, quickly sealing the wound, flowing through his bloodstream and hastening his changes. Dark talons burst from his changed side's toes, leaving small rents in the dirt below. Fluids bubbled out of the narrow slit at the top of his cock, dripping down his cock, sliding down both the about-to-change and actively changing lower limbs, soaking into the ground. A slow pushing extended the flesh near the base of his spine; a long, thick tentacle emerged like a tail. He rubbed his neck, large grooves flapping uselessly in the air.

"I would take the worst of the worst, and make them into my slaves," moaned Shepherd, lost in sexual thoughts that poured across into Rond, making the living, transforming man's shaft squirt out a thick load of seed. Shepherd went on, ignoring the interruption, "It was a lot like breaking wild stallions. A lot of them just bubbled with the power of life, an untapped well-spring of power. I drank from that. I enjoyed many wonderful nights with a lot of hard, rough guys as I slowly reshaped their bodies, day by day, into more useful forms. Beasts of burdens to serve wronged families. Studs to put their sexual domination needs to good use. Even trees to firm up the soil."

Rond's personal thoughts barely registered. All he wanted was to serve his master. His old life, barely remembered, was being actively rejected by both what was left and what was gaining prominence. His cock pulsed, spilling out the last of Rond's seed; his old testes started to be absorbed into his body, his scrotum contracting into a protective shell of black scales, the same that slid around the side of his shaft. The fluid that oozed, almost ceaselessly, from his shaft now glowed in the darkness.

The fluid slowly melted away the human flesh of his cock, as a slender, flexible dark shaft emerged from underneath, thickening and growing out from the slit formed by the advancing scales. The sigh that he gave when that happened rattled in the thickening throat, flesh growing to smooth the eventual flow of water over his shoulders. His tail raised up, the large, suction-tipped end rubbing the smooth area under his shaft and the hole, once needed for waste, that was being re-purposed. Inside, the internal organs he would no longer need dissolved, replaced with a simple digestive and storage system that would allow him to eat anything and convert it into a concentrated magical ejaculate that his mind was being trained to control.

"You will learn how glorious it can be," Shepherd stated, his tone becoming more authoritarian to Rond's disintegrating ears and reshaping mind, "to become intimate with all sorts of amazing, different creatures, eager to do your bidding. That didn't last. One prisoner I took and changed was from a powerful family; nobody knew at the time, of course, or we would have been cautioned. The villagers, fearful of reprisal, let them send in someone to 'deal with the menace'."

Although some of Rond's human body remained, his mind had gone. A new identity began to grow: a loyal thrall, mentally connected to his long-dead master. It had no need for a name; it was just a thrall, so as Thrall was how he considered himself. Thrall ran his transformed fingers along his goo-coated shaft, smearing it over his head. The flesh of his old body irritated him; he wanted it gone, and the concentrated miasma-like seed he was producing would help him finally destroy that weak creature, and many others.

As he covered the flesh on his head, the new features that had slowly been replacing them expanded faster. His thick neck was topped by a hairless and smooth head, with increasingly bulging, blood-red eyes. The old nose disappeared, leaving holes that opened and closed with fleshy flaps. Gone, too, were the lips: what remained was a row of sharp, terrifyingly white teeth embedded in black, scaled gums.

Shepherd concluded, "Varis played the part of a charming hero. I actually fell for that horrible monster, and he knew it. We went back to my place, and we talked a great deal about my power. As it turns out, he had a power too. The power of death and decay. I will never know exactly what he did, but it hit me with a force that tore apart my body and my home with such force. The last thing I remember from my life was my heart breaking."

Thrall gurgled in pleasure. His tentacle-like tail slid into his rear hole, coating it in his new seed that slowly dripped down from both his front and rear ends. He was busy coating it on the remaining unchanged parts of himself, slowly waiting as the one half began to resemble the other.

"That is my story of my life and death," Shepherd said. "Did I tell it well?"

"Yes, master," Thrall answered, the syllables drawn out, almost bubbling from of his throat.

"I suppose you would say that," Shepherd sighed, weakly smiling at his latest creation. He beckoned the creature over; Thrall couldn't smile, but his thoughts were easy to read nonetheless, and eagerly obeyed. Shepherd petted Thrall, the latter squirting a heavy blob of seed into the air every moment the two touched. "I need to rest," Shepherd admitted, "I have used up a lot of my strength giving you your strength and power, but know it's for a good cause."

"What is your will, master?" Thrall enquired.

"Most of my enemies live in the nearby villages," Shepherd mused, "but I don't think having whole villages vanishing would be a good strategy. You will need to move secretly at first, weakening our enemies and strengthening our own forces in turn."

Thrall flexed his body; by now most of the transformation had completed. A long, dark tongue licked at the pointed fleshy tip of his penis, marvelling as he got used to it, having it change thickness and length at his will. He glanced outwards, his new eyes seeing clearly in the night, life shimmering in front of him. Most of it was relaxing and cool greens and blues, but not far off he saw blurred warning red blobs.

"It would be better for you to travel," Shepherd suggested. "At first, I would try hunting in remote places, or places where people would disappear easily. Don't feel like you must go alone; if you meet someone whom you think needs help, then you can offer your gift to them too. And remember, we have an eternity to perform our work, no need to risk yourself needlessly."

"Yes, master," Thrall replied; before he could thank his master, Shepherd faded away.

Thrall felt very alone; for comfort, he lengthened his shaft, sliding the fluid-covered ends into his mouth, cleaning himself. Doing so calmed him, and after a while Thrall let his whole penis retract. He, too, was in need of rest; his body had expended a lot of energy. Deciding to rest for a whole day, and to familiarise himself with his new powers deep under the lake's surface, Thrall planned to emerge in the night; find a stream, and follow it up into the mountains.

Slipping quietly into the cool waters, Thrall's gills opened for the first time, and with a powerful thrust of his strong legs he dived deep into the lake to recover and plan.