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The recent raid was a success. The blue dragon could already see his strength stat shooting up into the stratosphere, his body swelling to match it. Rumiir slumped forward a bit as the weight of his new muscles momentarily altered his center of balance, only for his re-shaping legs to catch him, keeping him from tipping over.

He still wasn't used to that, glancing down at his warped body. His legs had started changing a day or two after the first time he altered himself, but this was getting ridiculous. Five toes had become three, and half of his foot wouldn't touch the ground anymore. His legs felt longer than they needed to be, and the fact that his tail swept almost twenty feet behind him now almost made him feel part-snake. It was...bizarre.

But it was working. That was the important part. It was working.

The silhouettes didn't follow them back through the gates, too busy slamming themselves on the wall further down the city. Sarah and her people would be able to handle that; he knew that they had the resources.

He, on the other hand...

The blue dragon grunted, pulling at the itching, peeling scales on his back. Another few fell off, disappearing into digital dust before they hit the ground. Others grew in, and he felt another crunch as he kept growing.

He leaned against a nearby house, shaking his head as he realized that he was almost taller than it. Yes, it was a smaller house, but still...the fact that he'd gotten so big...

And freakish, don't forget freakish, the dragon thought to himself. He was a beast-like thing, now. No longer looking like a person, but not quite like the big dragons in old fantasy stories, he looked like some sort of monster.

So did his men, for that matter. He looked over his shoulder, seeing the brutish, flexing creatures that followed him. He was the tallest, though that was partially because of the way his neck had grown out. One of the wolves that followed him, Herren, was half-slumped over yet still came up to his shoulder, with arms as thick as a temple pillar. Another, a rat named Derren, was still somewhat short, but had become a wrecking ball of muscle, covered in scars that didn't even deliver any damage to him.

Each of his warriors was a massive force, and he knew that they had literally hundreds of kills to their name. The silhouettes fell by the dozens to them....

Which was more than those still on Guild Street could say.

"Alright, boys. Find a spot for us to rest. We need to hole up tight before the next raid."

"Got it, Rumiir."

"Understood."

"Getting it done."

He shook his head as they walked by, some of them cracking down the walls of houses, while others were uprooting the streets themselves with their new strength. It was like watching a force of demi-gods get to work...a force of demi-gods that only seemed to know any military lines from the games they'd played.

Still, they're all I got...and they're helping me.

He looked back at the wall, and noted the glow of fire rising up along the sides. That'd keep the silhouettes out for a while, but only for a while. They'd need to go hunting again when the fire died down.

The misshapen dragon sat down against one of the buildings, feeling it crumble beneath him as he leaned his head into his hands. His neck craned further on one side than the other, but it evened out after a few seconds, the still-changing stats catching up to themselves.

It hurt, too. And not in a good way.

After it slowed down, he took a few deep breaths, his training as a soldier taking over as he thought about their options, about how his strategies over the last week hadn't quite paid off as much as he would have liked...and where he'd been right on the money.

Hank was right about one thing. They wanted us to do this, he thought, remembering back to the day in the basement. The silhouettes had been letting them go about the hacking, had let him go about altering himself, making his body better, changing his core statistics. Someone had wanted it to happen, and he hadn't noticed.

But once it was done, things had gone to hell in a handbasket, and fast. When Hank and the others started blowing up portals on the other side of the city, he'd been leading his augmented force against the guys on the western half. He'd fought through to the portals again and again, and at first, he ignored the temptations of the code flickering through the hole.

Then...one day...

If this is some programmer's sick joke, I'm not laughing.

He remembered the messages running through the code. Indistinct, but still there. Something about a victory condition. It required players to reach a level that was currently impossible by normal settings, making the game impossible to get out of without outside help. And even with the silhouettes getting handled by his men, some of them were still getting through.

He resisted it for two days. Two days, and in exchange, three of his men disappeared. They were swallowed up by the silhouettes, and they didn't respawn. They just...disappeared, gone to who knew where.

Sarah and the others were too busy trying to destroy the portals. They didn't see what he'd seen. Maybe they thought that they could stand against the world the way that they were. But he wasn't going to let anyone else lose their lives, not when there were still code holes that he could use.

Heh...Still not sure it was the wrong decision.

His men were stronger than ever, able to cut holes in the silhouettes like nothing else. They'd kept pumping themselves up, trying to find that mystery level that would trigger the goddamn game over, but...

But the holes in the code kept growing, and soon, he wouldn't even need to leave the city. He could just reach out and do it...if the silhouettes didn't overwhelm him first.

"Boss."

He looked up. Derren had come back, the little rat looking rather puffed up and annoyed. The dragon nodded.

"What is it?"

"Saw something running on the wall. Headed to the western gate."

"What kind of something?"

"Lots of something."

"Probably some of the Guild boys...Take a couple - no. Take twenty of the men up there, and see what you can find."

"Got it. Lock and load!"

The rat ran off with a pair of repeating crossbows in his hands, and Rumiir shook his head again. Those lines were getting very old, very fast.

He'd found a den with the rest of his men, an abandoned inn that they'd swept clear of old silhouettes. Bodies of NPCs were uncovered and disappeared as the game code took them away, but they didn't respawn like they used to. They just...disappeared.

The guys had found him a small throne to use, and he was just getting comfortable when Derren kicked in the door. The rat stumbled through, the ball of fur bristling with excitement.

"Boss, we got something!"

"I figured. What is it?"

Waving at the door, the rat called the other guys in. Most of them carried goods from NPCs, but between two of them...

Hmm. I didn't expect to see something like that, Rumiir thought as he looked at the rain dragon pinned between a bull and a horse. Despite the armor he wore, the paladin looked rather...bruised. He imagined that his soldiers had been a bit rough on him, though he imagined that the other dragon brought it on himself with the fight.

Still.

He rooted through his inventory and tossed a healing kit over. It got absorbed into the paladin immediately, healing the bruises.

"We aren't looking to hurt prisoners. You get those from a fight, or did my men sneak up on you?"

"It was a fight."

"Fair enough. Thank you for being honest."

His men brought the dragon forward, pushing him down to his knees. Rumiir didn't mind that; there was something about the position that thrilled him, particularly these days. The more he leveled up, the more aware he was of his own power. Sometimes others needed a moment to...appreciate that.

He shook his head. Back to the moment.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Teryx. One of the players from Guild Street."

"Paladin?"

"Before the corruption, yes."

"And now?"

"I'm not sure. I don't want to look."

"You're rather...open with me."

"The code of a paladin is honesty. And I don't want to cause a fight."

"Hmmm."

After all the arguments with the other guildmasters and guild members, he'd half-expected whoever his men found to be another belligerent pain his ass. Yet...this might actually be promising. Particularly if...

He leaned back, leaning his head on one hand.

"Tell me, Teryx. Do you know why I'm doing this?"

The rain dragon shrugged, his dark and light blue scales shimmering in the inn's firelight.

"I can only assume you're trying to do the right thing, in your own way."

"That's more credit than anyone else has given me."

"I try to see the best in people."

"Even when they're acting the worst?"

"Sometimes they don't know it, and need to be reminded. Intentions, road to hell, all that?"

Something about that made him laugh. It was...interesting to see someone else actually say that, and still be reasonable about it. Rumiir nodded his head a few times, feeling a few cracks and snaps as his neck continued to grow.

He gestured at his men, and they started fading off, moving to the edges of the room, those that could still fit heading to the inn bedrooms. Teryx watched them for a moment before looking back, confusion clear on his face. Rumiir shrugged.

"I prefer to keep these chats quiet. Don't berate someone before the whole group, don't have praise done in front of everyone if you don't have to."

"I'd agree with the first part -"

"Listen, paladin. I don't know what you're actually thinking. I know that I would be thinking of how to get out of here, who would be the weak link, and how far I could run before I got caught. Perhaps you're not thinking of that, but I don't want to chance it. I want you to know what I'm doing...why I'm doing it...and then I'm going to give you the chance to join me."

"...Pardon me?"

"I'm not repeating myself."

The dragon settled back, grimacing for a moment at the continued little stretches going on. The change was taking longer this time, for whatever reason. He felt stronger than ever, but his body ached through the whole process. He was getting bigger, too; his legs were longer than the chair could properly contain, and his ass was definitely getting bigger. The fact that his tail was just about to reach the fire on the other side of the room didn't help, either.

Grunting, he yanked himself out of the chair and started pacing. As long as he kept moving, it didn't hurt...as much.

"This is the situation, paladin. The game's broken. I'm trying to shut it down. Every time I go out there, I see something else in the code. First time, I saw we needed to be a certain level to start the victory match. Then I saw that the game's victory match is coded to an older version. They haven't brought it forward."

"Why not? Did it say?"

"It was an alpha condition. We're in beta. It's one of the last things they had planned to bring forward after we tested the game hard enough."

"If it's in alpha -"

"Then we have to break the game. Break it enough to make it boot the old state. Then, maybe, just maybe, we can get that damn thing to trigger."

The paladin went silent, the rain dragon putting a finger to his chin. Rumiir didn't bother looking for long; his body was still aching, and he needed something to keep him distracted. Pacing was only doing so much, and he needed more.

He walked over to one of the soldiers on the outside of the room, someone that he'd used for this purpose before. He snapped his finger and Herren went to his knees, the wolf's tongue sticking out and his mouth wide open. His loincloth had been discarded long ago, when it stopped fitting him, so he was able to slam in quickly, face-fucking the wolf without even thinking about it.

Feeling that hot, wet maw around his cock was something that distracted him from the discomfort of the change, at least a little bit. He ground himself forward, making the wolf take him right down to the sheath, growling as he did.

Good boy, good boy, he thought as he humped back and forth. The warriors were good at doing what they were told, and they'd only gotten better as they'd gotten stronger. He'd been amazed the first time that one of them had offered when he'd been in pain, but he was happy to take it. Ever since...well, it only took a gesture, and they were ready to serve.

Maybe it was some new game mechanic. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to argue if it made things better.

He was halfway to climax when the paladin cleared his throat.

"Um...pardon me..."

"I just need a fucking yes or no..."

"I'm...I'm going to have to say no."

"And why's...nngh...that?"

"Because...do you think you could stop that?"

"No. Talk."

He was hunched over the wolf by now, his balls slapping off of the canine's chin, his cock throbbing harder than ever. For some reason, it almost felt like he wasn't getting the whole thing in, but that was impossible. He'd been face-fucking them for days now, and it always fit.

Teryx's silence continued, and he sighed. He'd have to finish early. With four more thrusts, he did, pulling out and painting the wolf's face with his seed, and letting the rest dribble down over the soldier's chest. The musky scent filled the inn, and continued to get stronger as he stepped away. As usual, the wolf got up and didn't even bother wiping his face.

He crossed his arms as he looked down at the rain dragon.

"So, you're saying you won't join me?"

"I'm afraid not. You are trying for something, but you have no proof. I can't imagine that the game is designed that way."

"You're saying you need proof?"

The rain dragon nodded, and Rumiir smiled.

"I'll show you proof."

"When I asked for proof, I didn't mean you needed to bring me here!"

The blue dragon shrugged. It hadn't been that hard to fight through a bunch of the silhouettes again, particularly with his new abilities. Being able to breathe fire like a real dragon had been amazing, particularly as it shot over two hundred feet ahead of him. It was like creating his own personal hallway to get where he needed to go.

In fact, he'd leveled so much that he was able to fight his way right to a portal on his own. All his men had to do was bring Teryx along.

They set up a temporary perimeter around the area as Rumiir pulled at the portal. The feeling of sticking his hand into the code was all too familiar now. It was like an electric shock combined with the feeling of something slithering in his ear, running right into his brain. The information flow was like a direct data connection, and it meant that he didn't have to know coding to be able to understand what it said.

He fumbled around, working through the different files that this hole allowed access to. The differences weren't as profound as they once were; now that the holes were so much bigger, there was a lot more overlap, but there were still differences, tweaks here and there.

Finally, he found the lines he wanted. Keeping one finger in the streaming data so that he could find it again, he waved the rain dragon forward. He didn't bother telling Teryx what to do. He just shoved the dragon's head in.

A few seconds of squirming later, he let the paladin out.

"You see what I'm talking about?"

"That...oh gods..."

"What?"

"The things...other things...I saw so..."

He didn't just see what I was pointing at...Did he see something different? Do we all see something different in the code? Damn it. He needed to know. Reaching down and grabbing the rain dragon by the neck, he pulled him off the ground.

"What did you see? Tell me. Tell me!"

"I...I saw...it's so..."

Oh damn it... He'd seen this happen before. If someone got overwhelmed by something that they didn't understand, it was like making a will save in the game. Teryx was going to be stuck in a loop of confusion for hours, and by the time it was done, there was no way that he'd remember...

Unless...

He looked back at the gap again. Finding someone else's character wasn't that hard. It was the first time he'd done it without their permission, but if Teryx had seen something important...

Fuck it! I can't protect them without knowing what the hell is going on!

#

As Rumiir slammed his hand back into the code, Teryx was having a very bad day. His mind was racing through so many lines of code, his mind half-overwhelmed with the information that the game stored, but more focused on the things he'd seen.

The game...the game...it knows...it sees...it's aware!

He stared into the darkness as he laid on the ground, even as the game's awareness was rooting through his mind. He could feel it, see it, and it both delighted and sickened him at the same time.

He'd seen past the information that Rumiir manipulated, past the code about the game assets and everything else, all the way to the very core from how deep the dragon had shoved him into the game code. It wasn't run all by numbers and information. It...

It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't brilliant, but there was an AI back there. The entire game was being run by an AI, by a mind that was just rudimentary and developing, and the game was working on changing things, fighting something that it had detected in its own code. Not something introduced by Rumiir, either. There was...there was something...

Think! Think! Teryx could feel the game sinking its claws into him the more that Rumiir started changing him. The feeling of his code getting re-written was like a tingle running up and down his spine, shocks that were both painful and pleasurable at the same time. His arms and legs thickened rapidly as his physical stats were amped, and his mind raced faster as he felt those ones growing.

But even as he felt his intelligence soar, even as he felt his body strengthen, he felt his will...diminish. Concepts slipped into his mind, concepts that he knew couldn't be added even by a player with extensive coding experience, let alone Rumiir.

Obedience. Loyalty. Work. Protect. Save. Save. Save.

He felt his body flickering through save-states, things getting flash-saved to the intelligence behind the game's operation. More, he felt his own decisions slipping away.

There was...a concept, an idea behind it. The game had been launched...broken. Something added to it from outside...something changed at the last minute...and the game knew about it. Teryx could feel that. He could see in his mind's eye that the game's basic brain knew that it was not what it was supposed to be, and it was trying to put together a way to protect the players.

The game isn't making the portals, or the silhouettes...but it can make more tools...things it can direct...

The more he changed, the more he felt the thoughts become bland logic, no longer emotionally charged. The intelligence of the game was taking over, making his decisions for him. Combat phrases from every old video game were loaded into his head, to be played when he was given an order. He would be a...a tool of the game to preserve what it could, and it wanted him to work with Rumiir, to serve as a soldier to keep fighting the silhouettes.

What Rumiir had found was the truth...But it wasn't the whole truth.

And he was bound so tightly that he couldn't tell anybody what he'd learned.

"Well, that was a fucking waste of time."

Rumiir sighed at the new 'paladin' of his group. He hadn't quite intended that - he'd only wanted to enhance Teryx until he was able to process the information - but the rain dragon was happy to be part of his group now. Another warrior...or, well, something.

From Paladin to Holy Prostitute. Fucking wonderful, he thought as he looked at the dragon, now down to a harem outfit with a pair of thin rapiers at his sides. It was not what he'd hoped for in terms of another warrior, but so long as the stats were high enough, he supposed that it would work out in the end.

Still, something was wrong here. Teryx had been bound and determined not to be part of his group, and now...now he was more eager than simple information could justify. Rumiir wasn't the biggest puzzle solver, but even he knew that there was something wrong.

At least they were back behind the the walls now, away from the silhouettes and their danger. Now to get a good bit of sleep before morning, and hope that Sarah's people weren't going to abandon the walls just -

"Where do you think you're taking that dragon?"

Rumiir slowly turned, looking down one of the side alleys they were passing. The glinting eyes of a familiar admin looked out from the darkness at him, and the dragon slowly shook his head.

"He's joined me, Lee. Don't start something."

"He's been altered. I can see that even from here."

"He was losing his mind. I was trying to save him."

"Like you were trying to save everyone else with what you were doing?"

The snow leopard stepped out of the darkness, and as the admin stopped a few paces away from him, Rumiir had to force himself to not reach for one of his swords. There was something about the way the feline stared at him that left him more than a bit worried for his skin.

"I want to remind you of something, Rumiir. The only reason I have not hunted you down as I would any rogue player is that you might be helpful for the other players. You are the cause of all of this, but you are just barely useful enough to actually keep the rest of them safe."

"I don't want to threaten the rest of them."

"Then stop what you're doing."

"I can't do that either. It's the only way to end the game."

"Maybe not the only way, but you've left me little choice. You've changed the game enough to force me to play it your way. But not because I believe you are right."

The dragon started to turn, assuming the conversation was resolved.

It wasn't.

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

He went shooting through three different buildings from one kick, and before he could get up, Herren came shooting through the air to land on top of him. The dragon squirmed beneath the wolf...then beneath the wolf and a rat...then beneath a wolf and a rat and a pig and a -

The pile got bigger and bigger as the snow leopard essentially one-shotted every single member of his little band. As he looked at the piling bars of HP above him, he saw them dropping from the thousands down to little more than 5 HP, in most cases. Some of them flickered out entirely, to respawn back at the inn. He almost wished more of them had; the weight on top of him wouldn't be so crushing then.

As he groaned, pulling himself out from beneath the rubble and the bodies, Mr. Lee alighted on one of the broken rooftops, looking down at him.

"I'm not going to take Teryx back. You have already done something; it would be more of a mercy to let him stay with you, now."

"Then what do you fucking want?"

"Tomorrow, Sarah and the other guildmasters are leaving the city. You, dragon, are going to be their bodyguard."

"What? Tomorrow?! But there's still so much -"

"Tomorrow. You can either sit here in the city and be swallowed as every single silhouette comes after you - and it is more than slightly tempting to have left you here for that - or you can come along on the fringes, keeping the worst of the creatures away from the rest of the players."

"...Why did you tell me this? You could have let me and mine die here, without the warning."

"Because it would accomplish nothing. You have already changed the game; there is no taking it back to the way it used to be. In this new world, your strength is useful enough to keep around...but barely."

"Hmmph. Nothing about being the better person, huh?"

"There is no 'better person' here, Rumiir. I'm just making sure that as many of my responsibilities live through this as they can."

And with that, Mr. Lee was gone, the snow leopard leaping away over the various rooftops. Grumbling about the overpowered admin, the dragon pulled himself out from beneath the rest of the rubble and started brushing himself off.

The warning would do him some good, at least. His men weren't at their best, and they wouldn't get as much rest as he liked, but better to know about the evacuation than hear about it too late.

"Bodyguards, huh?"

He shook his head, brushing off the last of the building dust.

"Fucking hell. You'd think someone like that could guard the whole group, no problem."

"Ah, but where is the dramatic tension in that?"

He blinked. That was a new voice. He turned his head this way and that as his men started getting back to their feet, but it wasn't until he heard the soft lute music that he finally looked up.

Sitting on one of the other buildings, strumming a gold-plated lute as if the world hadn't gone to hell, was a puma. The feline kept strumming the strings, humming to himself, but the dragon didn't bother hurrying him. He felt...he felt like it would be a bad idea.

Eventually, the puma reached the end of his song, and hopped down.

"I don't believe we've met, though I've heard much about your capabilities. The great Rumiir, yes? I am Mr. Grant, Mr. Lee's counterpart."

"Great. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Why, fulfilling my part in the forming story. A great artist scorned, a hero snubbed, orders from foul beings being sent to all and sundry; it is a classic story unfolding."

"Yeah? And what the hell do you think you can offer?"

"Why, all the benefits of an admin, of course. I daresay, it is the only role left to me."

A traitor, hmm? He hated those...but if Mr. Lee started thinking he was really a threat that needed to be ended...Better to be safe than sorry.

"Fine. Come on."

He started walking...well, more limping, after that kick. The dragon had a lot that he needed to get done by morning, and something told him that his men weren't going to be up for it on their own. They'd need a lot of...encouragement. Thankfully, he might just have the perfect way to do that, with Mr. Grant.