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The next morning, having had a pleasant afternoon and even better evening in town, Uragh trotted back out of Verbobonc's west gate and made his way to the caravansary. This time he wasn't stopped at the entry, though it was a different set of guards on duty. Maybe they spotted the sticker on his gambeson as he loped towards them, but more likely they'd just been told about him. "Big feral wolverine in a red gambeson" could only really describe one person hereabouts, after all.

They'd been told about him. "Uragh, right?" Said one of the guards. "There's been a change in your caravan schedule, the caravan master said you needed to see him as soon as you got in."

"Thank you," Uragh growled, and trotted to the master's office. This was little more than a cubicle set aside for the administration of a caravan when it was housed at the caravansary. There were several, Verbobonc's caravansary being a large one, but he soon found the one with the Red Horse flag next to the door.

"Sir," Uragh growled as he planted his butt just outside the master's door. There wasn't room for him inside. Even a human standing up would barely find room between the master's chair and his desk. "I would like a change of assignment."

Olaf, whose last name Uragh had yet to learn, blinked. He was a muscular dwarf with a long blond beard who'd been running caravans since well before Uragh was born. "You're not quitting, are you Uragh? Good guards are hard to get."

It is good to be valued, the wolverine thought. Ferals are sometimes viewed as second class citizens outside the Maker's lands. Two-legged sorts are better at using tools than ferals. Uragh's huge forepaws made for clumsy hands, given the opposable toe on each was the size of a man's fist, and he had to stand awkwardly on his hindpaws or lie to down to use them. Ferals made good hunters, messengers, scouts and soldiers when properly equipped though, and it was nice when people realized it.

"Sir," Uragh growled. "There is something I need to do in the City of Greyhawk. Just outside it, rather. I would like to do this soon, if there is a Red Horse caravan heading that way. Or one to Dyvers, as it is in the right direction."

"Hm." Olaf leaned back in his chair. "You know the river traders handle that route."

"I know, sir, but I have to go, and I'd rather work my way than pay."

"Can you swim?"

"Yes, sir," Uragh growled. "As long as I don't have on my top armor. My gambeson is enough protection most of the time."

"All right." The caravan master flipped through a ledger and put his finger on an entry. "We have a guard request from the Silver Stag, that's a river barge that does the run to Dyvers and Greyhawk. They sail back up on the east wind but downriver it's most drifting. It won't get you there fast but it will get you there."

"Thank you, sir," Uragh growled. "I don't expect to stay long in Greyhawk. I hope to work for you again soon."

"The feeling's mutual, son. I hate to go even one season without you. You're the best perimeter runner I've had in years."

Feeling rather pleased with himself, Uragh tucked the note Olaf wrote into a pouch, picked up the new surcoat the caravansary tailor had made for him and collected his armor. He didn't have many possessions, as his life was on the road. One day maybe he'd settle down, start a farm and a family. One of the gifts he might ask of the Maker was a homestead, after all. For now everything he owned fit in a set of saddlebags that he wore when they weren't stowed in a wagon.

He buckled on his armor, which he'd had since he left the Maker's service and which was made to provide as much protection as possible without slowing a feral gul down, and loped back to the west gate. This time they didn't stop him, but then he'd come out of it half an hour before.

He'd looked at the map on the wall of the caravansary before he left but the river shore was a maze of warehouses and docks and he had to ask directions from a cartman. Eventually he trotted up to a pier with a fat-bodied, shallow draft merchant ship moored.

"Red Horse," he growled up the gangplank, having heard that announcing who you were before boarding is required. Back home he hadn't been aboard anything larger than a raft "Permission to come aboard."

The tattooed man at the top of the gang plant stared at the armored wolverine with saddlebags draped over his back.

"Cap'n?" He said after a moment. A tall khardaki woman wearing a broad brimmed hat cut with holes for her upright ears appeared next to him. She paused and stared, too.

"Olaf sent me," Uragh growled. "I am Uragh. I am to join your guard from here to Greyhawk."

The lion woman gestured and he padded up the gangplank. She did not move so he stopped ten feet away.

"What am I supposed to do with you, furball?" She purred. "You fall in the water with that on, you will sink like a stone."

"Permission to stow my armor, captain," Uragh growled. "I do not expect to wear it on board, but I will need it when the voyage is done."

"You say you are red horse?"

Uragh showed her the badge on his harness and belatedly passed her the note from Olaf. "I have a red horse surcoat in my bags."

"All right," she said when she'd read the note. "Olaf thinks you're useful, so I will give you a chance. What do you expect to do on board, to be useful?"

"Fight, if need be," Uragh growled. "I have eyes and ears and a better nose than most. I can stand guard when we are at dock, or at night. I can sniff out intruders. I am best on four legs and know nothing of ropes, but I do have hands and can do simple, heavy labor."

"Show me," the lioness purred, and Uragh padded the rest of the way up the gangplank. He shucked off the saddlebags and stood up on his hindpaws. From the front he now resembled a medium sized bear, as his build was wholly animal. But his long torso and sloping feral shoulders came with great strength and he picked up a barrel that certainly weighed more than the lioness did.

"What do you smell, furball?"

"Tar," Uragh growled. "Fish. Some of these barrels are full of them. Four crewmen on deck, two hiding behind the cabin in case this is a trick and I am a bandit or pirate. One has a crossbow he just cocked. I heard that, not smelled it. One smokes and the other chews tobacco. The more distant one is a half elf. The barrel I just picked up is full of wine, I am no expert but I think it is newly poured, or whatever one does when one makes wine. I am an ale man."

His whiteless feral eyes returned to the lioness, who was six and a half feet tall and slimy muscular. He was just as tall on his hindpaws and at least twice as heavy. She had on a byrnie of incredibly fine chainmail links that probably didn't weigh more than cloth. He'd seen elves wear that, but rarely other species. A long stabbing sword hung at her side and a dagger on the other. A tufted tail swayed back and forth behind her.

She also had claws as long as his hidden in the four toes of her softly padded feet, and fangs in her leonine muzzle. A kharkaki's finger claws are little more than sharp nails, as the wizardess who created the species didn't want the bulky fingertips retractile ones required. He didn't see any scars at all, and her short fur would show them where clothing didn't cover. Small athletic breasts bulged her byrnie. Uragh sniffed. The breeze was from behind her and he caught a good whiff of her scent. Uragh considered what to say.

"Good enough," she purred as he opened his mouth. "You can put the barrel down."

He did with some relief as he'd been standing there for some time. They hadn't commented on his appearance. From the front as he stood on his hindpaws his fur was nearly black, his brown-gold side stripes mostly out of sight. A similar stripe ran across his forehead and down both cheeks, and yellow-white blotches speckled his throat fur. Their pattern was unique to each gul and a stripe the same color ran along his sheath and onto his balls lower down. He thought he caught the lioness stealing a look down there. The tattooed deck hand next to her had been staring at his balls the whole time so he was happy to drop down to all fours.

His forepaws thumped the deck and his armor didn't rattle. Each strip of steel was backed with a layer of felt to keep it quiet and it all lay atop his quilted red gambeson. This lack of clatter of all things seemed to impress the lioness, who cocked an eyebrow.

"Mister Gunn will show you where to stow your armor, red horse," the lioness purred. "I am Captain Varr. You will address me as captain or cap'n."

"Yes cap'n," Uragh growled, and soon was shown a locker. His armor folded up into a surprisingly small space as the strips overlapped and the whole thing could be collapsed like an accordion. He pulled two fur brushes out of a saddlebag and put it on top of the armor before closing the locker, because it was the start of the spring shedding season and if he didn't brush it out every day he itched like crazy. He left on the gambeson, which thanks to its magic was better protection than it looked, his steel bracers and his helmet. He knew he could swim carrying that much metal.

"Can you read and write?" asked Mister Gunn, who was a bosun or first mate or some such. Whatever his role he outranked Uragh, who knew how to address him.

"Yes, sir," Uragh growled.

"I am posting you atop the forecastle, where you can view the gangplank and all parts of the ship except the rear of the stern castle. You will note in the log anyone who approaches the gangplank or otherwise shows an interest in the ship. If someone comes to the foot of the plank, or if there is suspicious activity, call out. Do not fall asleep."

"I won't," growled Uragh, and he didn't, though the duty quickly became boring. The river running through the city was a hive of activity on both banks and as great a threat as boredom was distraction. He did his best to ignore everything beyond a certain distance from the ship, though he almost jumped out of his fur the first time a passing boat blew its steam horn. It turned out that a four-hundred-pound wolverine sitting up on the forecastle of a ship aroused some interest and it wasn't the last time someone tried to startle him.

At one point a double wake in the water approaching the Silver Stag attracted his attention, more so when two lizard men poked their faces out of the water. When they came within twenty feet of the hull he snarled and showed his fangs. That made them turn right around but it also startled a sleeping crewman right below him so badly he fell out of his hammock.

That brought the captain out of the forecastle to look up at him.

"Sorry," Uragh, growled at her, and to the crewmen. "Lizard men in the water." He pointed a paw at the receding wakes.

"Note it in the log, Mister Furball."

"Yes cap'n," he growled, and wrote out the encounter in his shaky Common script.

An hour later the lioness reappeared and looked up at him again. She had a stick of wood from the galley cook stove in her hand. "You are sure you can swim with that armor on?"

"I am sure, cap'n."

"Show me," she purred, and threw the stick over the side.

Uragh took this to mean he didn't have to keep watch for the moment and leapt off the forecastle into the water. The bracers and helmet might look heavy but together they were perhaps five percent of his weight and his huge snowshoe paws were also good for paddling. He soon had the stick in his teeth and a row of faces watched him climb up the side of the ship using his claws, though he was almost upside down at one point due to the bulge of the ship's hull. He appeared dripping over the rail and dropped the stick at the captain's feet like a great wet dog.

That provoked a snicker from some crewman, but only a brief one, because his wet fur clung to his body and it obvious just how muscular and powerful his limbs and neck were. The wet gambeson covered his body but he was twice as heavy as any of the crewmen and each of his paws had five cruelly sharp white claws. Any other crewman who might want to laugh kept his mouth firmly shut.

"Next time use the gangplank, Mister Furball," the captain purred. "Your claws will score the hull."

"Yes cap'n," Uragh said meekly, and returned to his watch post.

His other duties included making a circuit of the decks and poking his nose into every room that wasn't locked, at dawn and at dusk. He was instructed to report any unusual smells or activity. The captain's nose might approach his own in keenness, though wolverines and gul both have excellent senses of smell, but she had many duties whereas in the absence of combat he was the lowest ranked person on the ship.

Occasionally the crew called him to shift heavy cargo, for they were at the dock for two days after he arrived. Mister Samhill, or "Just Samhill," a halfling deck hand who spent most of his time in the rigging, tried to teach him some ship's knots.

"Sorry," Uragh growled after another failure. "Big hands." He held up a forepaw that was half the size of Samhill's whole torso.

"Well, just a simple one or two then," the halfling said. They spent a while as Uragh at least learned the different between a square and a granny knot.

"What is your name, sir? It's not Furball, is it?"

Uragh looked across the tangle of rope at the halfling. "It's Uragh." He'd been joked at before that it sounded like the sound someone made right before they threw up. Samhill didn't laugh, though.

"I've heard some of your people can swallow people whole, Uragh."

"Not me," Uragh growled. "Not even a little person like you. You would fit in my stomach, but you would have to get there in pieces."

"Do you eat people?"

"Sometimes," Uragh growled. The halfling wasn't paying attention to the rope so neither did he. "I ate an orc bandit a week or so ago. I do not hunt people for food, I am not that desperate. But if there is a body and no one needs it for anything," he shrugged. "I know people who can swallow large prey whole. Some of them are smaller than I am and can eat whole humans. Maybe I'll be able to sometime, but not now."

"But why would you want to?"

"Some creatures are hard to kill," Uragh growled. "They die better to stomach acids than fangs. And some people come back from the dead easily. I just talked to a giant badger, he said 'It's harder to Raise someone after a trip through a badger than before'." The city even has him eat convicts sometimes that they worry will come back."

"I heard this city has a giant badger in the guard."

"That is him," growled Uragh. "He's very pleasant. I doubt he'd eat you unless you did something very bad. Though I am told he sometimes swallows people and spits them back up."

Samhill nodded and he and a lanky crewman who was stronger than he looked showed Uragh how to tug on spar ropes so they could be wrapped around a belaying pin. Even this humble cargo vessel was complicated and most of its mechanisms remained a mystery to Uragh. But he was very strong and could drag cargo along by a rope held in his teeth or tug on a spar rope while someone else made it fast.

It was on one of his twice daily sniffing tours that he passed by the captain's cabin. The door was open and she was talking to Mister Grimes, who it turned out was the first mate and not Mister Gunn. Mister Grimes was a type of human Uragh had not seen before, tall and muscular and with pitch-black skin. Uragh had met his share of humans but there were many more he knew nothing about.

Uragh poked his nose in the door and sniffed, which caused the captain to point him firmly down the hallway. Uragh decided his duties did not include sniffing the captain's cabin and went on his way.

He did get a look before he was ordered out, though. The captain's cabin was small and almost entirely occupied by a bed. It was longer and far wider than the lean muscular lioness and the room was full of her scent. Uragh thought about what he smelled and kept his own council.

He brushed his fur before he went to bed and slept on a huge coil of spare sail ropes except when it rained, when he curled up in the galley or, if that was in use, on some crates in the cargo bay. He ate what the crew ate, which was mostly fish stew and onions, and stuck his rump over the side when he had to relieve himself or stood up to pee over the side. He didn't fit in the crew privies, which were just little closets with holes in the bottom above the water anyway.

After two days the loading was complete and they set off down the river. Uragh would have liked to visit the Cracked Flask again, as it seemed the most promising place to work off his natural urges, but the captain was of the mindset that once he was on board he was on duty. Caravan masters felt the same way once the caravan hit the road and Uragh did want a trip down the river. Slow as things went at first it was faster than loping roughly four hundred miles to Greyhawk, easier on his paws, and it paid better.

From there the trip was more interesting. The crew had concluded that he was largely useless as a deck hand unless they needed dumb muscle, so he sat on the forecastle and kept watch. There was always something new to see and he kept a keen eye out. His experience with the lizard men made him alert to suspicious wakes and when he saw a dozen of them one moonlit night he rang the ship's bell with his paw and scrambled to the railing. By the time the river merfolk, armed with tridents and nets, rose out of the water they were confronted by armed men at the railing and a snarling beast with sharp white claws waiting for them to try to climb up. They wisely decided to leave.

On a couple of occasions when docked, people on shore would pay more attention to the ship and its cargo than he liked. Uragh spent his days guarding caravans and knew what it looked like when someone was casing out a potential job. Glaring at them usually did the trick. Only once did he snarl and point a paw, when a couple of shady looking characters got too close to some crates on the dock, and those two ran when his alert sent armed crewmen down the gangplank.

Most of the people who saw him on the forecastle probably thought he was a trained guard animal or ship's pet. That was fine. Being underestimated was useful, too. He made sure to look all around the ship each time someone approached, just in case the person on the shore was a distraction. Uragh didn't think of himself as especially clever but he'd been a caravan guard for most of his adult life.

There were a couple of crewmen who seemed to find him fascinating. Mister Gunn looked him over more than once and if Uragh favored human men as lovers he could just roll on his back and something good would probably happen. If the voyage went on long enough maybe he would. Samhill seemed to be fascinated by his paws and Uragh let him sharpen the claws with the files from his saddlebags. Samhill also offered to brush his fur but there was a lot of wolverine and not much halfling to brush it. Samhill had many duties and they never found the time.

The only furry member of the crew was the captain. Khardaki and gul got along well and the adventurous lion people weren't averse to other-species lovers, even feral ones. Uragh glanced at the captain from time to time and admired her sleek musculature and swaying tail, but then he caught her scent and remembered the huge bed in her cabin. He was young and healthy and as horny as any crewman but he kept his thoughts about the lioness to himself.

Once the ship was in motion they made rapid progress, delayed only by stops at Dyvers and a couple of smaller river towns. Eventually they reached a body of water larger than any he had ever seen, and here they joined a group of other merchantmen because these were far more dangerous waters than the river.

"Pirates," one crewman told him as he sat on lookout, "And monsters. Not like the lizard men and merfolk. Some are big enough to eat this whole ship." Two of the sailors took the canvas off a massive crossbow mounted at the stern of the ship and he saw similar weapons prepared on other merchantmen. The bolts they fired were the size of spears. For the first time he saw Mister Gunn gesture magically. He knew just enough about magic to recognize an augury and he saw the holy symbol Gunn gripped. He guessed that Gunn was the ship's cleric, though by his dress he stood out not at all from the crew. That part he understood. Spellcasters who might go into battle were well advised not to look like spellcasters lest they be the first targets.

All in all it was an uneventful voyage made interesting only by the novelty. When they hove around a peninsula as large as the Maker's entire valley demesne the smoke of a distant city came into view. This, too, was far larger than anything Uragh had even seen. He'd visited Greyston, known as Monstertown, and Verbobonc, a little smaller, but the City of Greyhawk was at least twice the size of both of them together. He was almost to his destination. It would be a brief stayover, most likely, but like everything else this trip, a novelty.

As they drew up to one of the many piers along the city wall he was summoned before the captain. She gave him a chit to turn in for his pay at the caravansary outside the walls. He did not plan to enter the city proper as even from a distance he found the urban sprawl overwhelming. He'd only just gotten used to Verbobonc. He'd be lost in Greyhawk.

"Mister Furball," Captain Varr said to him as he stood outside her cabin. No one was close enough to hear. "You are interested in me. I could smell it this whole trip. You were on my ship twelve days and I know you lusted after me. You want to make four-legged love to me and drag me to the bed by my scruff but you didn't say or do anything. Maybe I would have said yes. Why didn't you ask?" Her tufted tail swayed like a metronome and her eyes never left him.

"I am not what you want," Uragh said. He turned his head to look at the oversized bed that filled the room, and sniffed. The scent had not changed; a powerful smell, and little of it lioness. "You want a lover bigger and stronger than you are, to love you properly. I did not wish to disappoint my captain."

"You are silly, Mister Furball," Captain Varr purred. "You are twice my size and strength."

"No, I am not," Uragh growled. "You smelled me before I jumped in the water. You know the scents on my pelt and you know who I was with. I know what I smell on you and in here. I could scruff you and love you as you are now, but you wouldn't be satisfied. You want more than that. If I were bigger, maybe." He looked around. "But then the two of us would not fit in this room, would we?"

"Maybe not," Captain Varr purred. "You are a good watchman, Mister Uragh, and you don't gossip. You're welcome to sail with us again."

And so back in his armor, with the saddlebags strapped behind his forelegs but without the Red Horse surcoat, as he wasn't looking for work at the moment, Uragh padded down the gangplank. Samhill was at the bottom, supervising the arrival of a new mast. Uragh had no idea there was a problem with one of the old ones.

"Goodbye Uragh," the halfling called. "I think the captain will miss you. I saw her tail twitch as she watched you walk down the gangplank."

"She is a good captain," Uragh rumbled. "I would not choose to spread rumors about her."

That was as strong a warning as he could give without revealing secrets. He went on his way hoping the little halfling wouldn't saw something foolish and suddenly find himself in the lioness's stomach. He couldn't swallow Samhill whole, not yet, but he was almost certain Captain Varr could.

Uragh stopped at the caravansary to check the local maps. Though they were even farther from the Maker's lands than Verbobonc the guards didn't raise an eyebrow when an armored feral wolverine walked in the gate. Gul did make their way around the lands as mercenaries and adventurers so he suspected he was far from the first to visit. Greyhawk was a magnet for wanderers of many sorts.

Uragh visited the bank at the caravansary, for many other mercenaries didn't like the look of Greyhawk's smoke either, and withdrew his entire savings in the form of Platinum Nobles. Each was worth five Wheels and he only had enough money to get fifty and some change. Five thousand Lunars would have to be enough. Bartleby said the wizard's prices were reasonable. Uragh hoped he was right.

He consulted the map on the inner wall of the caravansary and was glad he wasn't going into the city. The maze of streets was intimidating. The map was twenty feet high and forty long. It also covered the immediate area around the city walls and he nodded as he saw a tower on a hill only a couple of miles away.

"Tower of Changes," he growled. "Appropriate." The city map was full of labeled businesses and the tower was another. This one didn't sell pork-pies or potions, though.

The area around the City of Greyhawk was thoroughly civilized and mostly farmland. A little further away the green hills were grazed by flocks of sheep. Here and there were guard watchtowers and he saw both mounted and foot guard patrols. After he saw the first patrol he used his clumsy forepaws to tie his Red Horse surcoat on over his armor, because the most savage-looking thing he saw in a half hour trot was himself.

He needn't have bothered. The patrols barely gave him a second look. He began to be curious just how common monsters were inside the city walls if an armored feral gul attracted no attention. He'd been in Monstertown, which lived up to its name with districts like the Dragon Court and Goblin Towne. Greyhawk was much bigger and from the smell of it mostly human, but clearly there were some monsters here.

From the farms by the city he saw a pyramidal tower atop a hill. Two and a bit miles from the caravansary he left the stone-flagged road and loped up a trail into the hills. There was a sign in several languages that told him he was on the right path. Soon enough he trotted up to the tower.

It was eight or nine times his height if he stood up on his hindpaws, which allowed for about six stories if the ceilings were high. There were no windows he could see but an elaborately carved bronze door faced the trail and a hitching post was off to one side along with a half barrel of water. Above the door was a balcony. Uragh sat down facing the door and saw what looked like a knocker built into the carvings. Before he could knock there was a call from the balcony.

"Hola", said a thin man in a blue robe. The robe was belted at the waist and Uragh couldn't tell if the man had just stepped out of the bath or whether it was proper clothing. He didn't deal with mages much and many of the intricacies of clothing were a mystery to him. Other than armor the most he ever wore was a rain slicker, or sandals when the ground was unpleasant for even tough pawpaws to walk on.

"Hello hello," the mage continued. "You're too small to be a dire wolverine."

"I could be a very young one," Uragh growled good-naturedly. "They have to start small."

"No no, you're adult. I can tell by your paws. Dire wolverines used to be a lot smaller, you know. Most were smaller than you."

"My grandfather told me he used to fuck them in the hills around the Maker's valley," Uragh growled. "He would go up in armor to chase away the males then mate with the females. Now the dire wolverines are much larger. It's all happened since we gul were created, and I know not why."

"Well it wasn't from gul fucking them," the mage said cheerfully. "I'm Wittick. You're Orgg, right?"

"Uragh," the wolverine growled. "Bartleby said he'd send you a letter about me."

"He did," said Wittick and waved downward at the door, which opened silently before Uragh. Inside was a hall that must occupy most of the first floor of the tower. A kneeling minotaur statue on either side of the entry looked so out of place that Uragh was confident they came to life and squashed intruders. Not wanting to be smashed into a rug he resolved to mind his manners. A moment later the mage appeared through a door to one side.

"I've been hoping a feral gul would stop by for months now," he confided. "I've been working on something and I wanted to try it out."

"Something?" Uragh growled doubtfully.

"Nothing bad," the mage said. "You know, I worked for the Maker for a while. Did you ever hear of a ring that let a human turn into a gul?"

"No," Uragh growled. "Why? Humans mostly think we're thuggish brutes and that we smell bad."

"You do have a certain musk," the mage admitted. "Did you know the old sort of dire wolverine could -"

"Spray musk on people," Uragh growled. "So could the first generation of gul. The Lord Maker removed that gland when he made the next generation. Lord Vrassry can still spray, he's one of the few left from that time. That first generation was very antisocial and the Maker hoped removing the gland would help."

"I made that ring," the mage said. "One of the Maker's simulaculi wanted to understand the early gul better so he turned himself into one with the ring."

"'Understand' them," Uragh growled with a smirk.

"Oh, I don't think he fucked a single one. I heard the Lord Maker is still using simulacrums."

"Not as many as he used to," growled Uragh. "He has more flesh and blood followers now."

"I left his service after a time to and tried to make some followers of my own. That didn't work out and I ended up inhabiting a body a lot like yours for a while."

Uragh tilted his head quizzically. "How did that happen?"

"Long story. Short version is I got killed and had to hide my mind in a thing called a Magic Jar which is used to possess creatures. The only creature in range was a giant wolverine I was studying. Now, Bartleby said you wanted to be able to gulp people."

"Yes," Uragh rumbled. "People keep assuming I can do it, so I might as well. Depending on the price. I am not a rich man."

"Ah," said Wittick, who held up a finger. "I'll do it for free if you let me try something out."

"I don't know if I like the sound of that," Uragh growled. He glanced around to see if there were any brains in jars or shambling lab experiments. None were in sight, nor were there tormented howls or the rattle of chains.

"It's safe," Wittick said defensively. "As safe as the rest of the change." He looked at Uragh, who had begun to back toward the door. "I'll do the gulper change for free, then I'll explain the rest and you can decide. Either way you get the first part free."

Uragh, who did not earn much money and who had some saved only due to not spending unless he had to, stopped backing away. "All right."

"Good!" Wittick clapped and another Wittick came in through a different door. This one had a bowl and a potion bottle.

"So..." Uragh growled, looking from one identical figure to the other. Even he could see they were the same man.

"Yes, I have a few simulacrums too," the first Wittick said. "You know they say about talking to yourself, sometimes it's the only way to have an intelligent conversation."

"Now this will make it so you can swallow people up to your size. Same size is going to be a struggle and you'll be more or less incapacitated until you digest them, so I'd recommend creatures about one third your size. Human sized, that is. I'll even throw in bonus I've come up with something I call a 'smart stomach'. If you swallow someone and part of them is indigestible, that part will lodge in a pocket of your gut so you can cough it up later. No worries about passing a section of armor or a wadded up cloak. Neither of those is any fun, I'm told."

"You've tested this, of course." Uragh growled.

"Of course. I've been giving it to people for a year. Usually I charge an extra thousand on top of the three thousand for the basic skill."

That wouldn't quite have wiped out his savings, but close. "Cast away, wizard."

"All righty then," said right-hand-Wittick, "Now whatever happens, don't move."

Left-hand-Wittick pulled a wand out of his sleeve, but he didn't gesture with it. Instead he put his free hand on the side of Uragh's face below the helmet.

Uragh stood there while the mage chanted under his breath. The underside of his jaw grew warm, and the warmth spread downward, but it didn't hurt. Then suddenly it did and he flinched where he sat, but his forelegs did not buckle. Wittick took his hand away.

"The wand was in case you had a bad reaction. It stores a wild magic spell that would give you a second chance to resist any ill effects. As I understand it the Maker uses the same trick. You didn't but it makes things safer. The drawback is that wild magic is itself is risky. All sorts of things can happen when you cast it, even from a wand. I'm just as glad I didn't have to."

Uragh looked from one mage to the other. "Was that all the spells?"

"Yawn for me," Left-Hand Wittick said. Uragh did, and he felt the difference. His jaws creaked open and there was a pop felt through his skull as they opened wider than they ever had before. He sucked air in through a gullet that was wide enough for man's head to fit down. He couldn't be positive without actually swallowing someone, but he felt that he could now. He shut his mouth before he drooled on the floor.

"Thank you, wizard," he growled, and ducked his head respectfully. "I will let you know how it works out."

"Ah," said Right-Hand-Wittick, "We aren't done."

"You changed me," Uragh growled, "And gave me your smart stomach thing, right?"

"That was the bonus," Left-Hand-Wittick said. "Not the experiment I wanted to try."

"Experiment," growled Uragh, and the word sounded bad in his mouth. He'd hoped the smart stomach was the experiment. "Cast away wizard."

"No casting this time," said Right-Hand-Wittick. He put the bowl on the floor and poured the potion into it. "Drink this, please."

Uragh sniffed. It smelled...rather like a gul, actually. And like something else. "I have agreed to do this," he growled. "And I will. But I'd like to know what I am drinking first."

The two Witticks shared a shifty-eyed look. "Well, it's got some werewolf in it."

"Werewolf," Uragh growled.

"And some dire wolverine," the other Wittick said.

Uragh didn't claim to be brilliant but he knew enough math to put two and two together. "I am a caravan guard by trade," he growled. "If I turn into a giant were-wolverine and eat my caravan master I will shot full of arrows, then fired. Or the other way around."

"No no no," Left-Hand-Wittick said. "Nothing like that. Well, a little like that. This won't make you a Were. The idea is you will be able to turn into a dire wolverine at will. You won't change during the full moon and you will be in full control. You will be able to be hurt by non-silvered weapons too. You'll just be bigger and stronger when you're like that."

Uragh peered doubtfully at the bowl full of potion. "Why did you make this?"

Left-Hand-Wittick sighed. "It's research, all right? Dire wolverines used to be smaller. So did most of what we call dire animals now. Some of them have spikes growing out of them now and I don't know why or why they got bigger. Maybe someone does, but not me. If dire wolverines and gul are magically compatible I'll learn something."

"So I won't be a were-wolverine," Uragh growled. "Just to be sure."

"No," said Left-Hand-Wittick. "You will be in control the whole time."

Uragh peered doubtfully at the mage, then shrugged in a feral way and lowered his muzzle into the bowl. He already had what he'd come for but now he was curious, too. He'd trusted them so far and it'd worked out.

The potion didn't taste particularly good or bad. It had a faint meaty taste and he wondered what parts of werewolf and dire wolverine were in it. He knew magic only from seeing it and experiencing the effects, and it was the same with potions. He'd drunk his share of them but didn't know the first thing about making them. There were gul alchemists and clerics and even the occasional mage, but he didn't have the talent. What he had a strong body and the willingness to use it. Right now he used it to drink a potion.

Uragh sat back and licked his lips. He looked from one Wittick to the other. "Now what?"

"Do you feel any different?"

"No," Uragh growled.

"Well, think about being bigger," said Left-Hand-Wittick. "No, tense up and push your muscles against themselves," Right-Hand-Wittick said.

Uragh pressed his paws out in four different directions. He was very strong and caught his claws in gaps between the stones and pushed as hard as he could. Nothing happened until he imagined himself growing so large he tore the stones out of the floor. Then something happened. Something very bad.

The tension in his muscles was suddenly released as his paws slid outward. Suddenly he was bigger, longer, wider, his fur shaggier. One moment he was a little more than three feet tall at the shoulder, a bit taller still where his back arched up, then suddenly he was nearly six feet tall. In gross details he was the same, the great snowshoe paws with their cruel curved claws, the weaselly snout full of sharp fangs, and while he limbs were a little thicker to support his new weight, from any distance he would look much the same. Just bigger, one moment some four hundred pounds, the next five times as much.

Some parts of his equipment dealt with this peacefully enough. The steel bracers on his forelegs grew with him and so did his gambeson. Other parts did not. The leather straps securing his segmented steel armor snapped like strings and the armor of steel strips sprang off his back. While it was springy, his suddenly wider body was too much. Even his helmet popped off his now larger skull to clatter on the floor.

The bad part was that the sudden change seemed to suck all the energy out of him. He'd always assumed that Weres changed with sheer magical power and suffered no ill effects from the transformation. Clara the were-rat had shifted right in front of him and just smiled. He wasn't a Were and the energy came out of him instead. Suddenly he was ravenous, so overwhelmingly hungry he lashed out at the closest source of food. Uragh whipped out a paw, pulled the food close, and his jaws snapped down over it. With a heave of his muzzle he bolted it down and he relaxed as he felt it slide heavily down his his throat.

His relief lasted only a moment. Uragh came back to himself as the meal arrived in his stomach. A moment ago there'd been two blue-robed mages in front of him. The one with the wand was still there. On the other side was just the empty potion bowl and a slipper that somehow didn't go down with its owner.

"Oops," Uragh rumbled, and burped. He was still hungry, but a hundred and fifty pounds of mage at least took the edge off a one-ton wolverine's appetite.

Oddly enough, Left-Hand-Wittick wasn't running in terror, though Right-Hand-Wittick was just a bulge in Uragh's middle now. The swallowed mage kicked only briefly and then was still, either gravely wounded by the sudden bite and gulp or squeezed into submission in the depths of Uragh's gut. Either way there was no sign of the wizard magicking himself out. It seemed he would get out the way a wolverine's food usually did. Maybe his robe would be coughed back up due to the 'smart stomach' but the rest of him was just food.

"That is very interesting," Left-Hand (and now only) Wittick said. He stored the wand in the sleeve of his robe. "Were you suddenly hungry when you changed?"

"Yes," Uragh rumbled. "I guess I ate your simulacrum. I couldn't control myself. It's lucky I didn't eat you. Then there would be no Wittick."

"Don't be silly," the mage said. "I'm a simulacrum too. I don't negotiate with people in person. It's not safe."

"I suppose not," Uragh rumbled. "How many simulacri do you have?"

"One less now," said the mage.

"Sorry about that," rumbled Uragh.

Later, when discussing the incident with a mage in Red Horse employ, he'd be told that simulacri turned to snow and evaporated when they died. Wittick's didn't. Right-Hand-Wittick made the same trip through Uragh's bowels that other people did. Maybe they weren't really simulacri but some other magical creation. They were decent eating, though.

Uragh looked at his armor and helm, which didn't appear damaged save for the leather straps snapping. "Why didn't the rest of my armor come off too?"

"Well, if I had to guess, it's because your bracers and gambeson are magical," Wittick said. He walked in a circle around Uragh. He pulled a tape out of his sleeve and took some measurements of his now much larger guest. "Magical gear can sometimes resize itself to match its owner."

Uragh considered this. "I'd hate to give up my armor. I've had it my whole life. I'm used to it and I can't afford a suit of magic plate for a feral. I'd have to have it custom made."

"I'm not an expert, but I have changed a lot of people," Wittick said. "Go talk to an armorer, maybe they can alter it so it works in both forms. You're not that much bigger than before."

"Really," Uragh rumbled as he stood up on his hindpaws. Normally he was about six and a half feet tall standing up even with his short legs. His long body made up for that. Now he guessed he was ten or eleven feet all. He was bigger and probably stronger than some of the smaller giants now. "I feel bigger."

Involuntarily he glanced down his furry belly. He'd grown everywhere. He'd had to be gentle with most humanoid ladies before. They were pretty much out of the question now, except maybe Weres. He might have to start looking for friendly centaur mares if he spent a lot of time in this form.

He gathered up his armor, which at least was still in one piece as only the straps had snapped, not the rivets that held the steel strips together. He was about to try to change back to his normal self when Wittick held up a finger.

"Wait," the mage said, having correctly divined his intent. "A few things. Don't change too often. From the sudden hunger, it may be a strain on your body. No more than once a day, I'd suggest. Definitely don't change more than once if there's no food available. Also, I don't know if what you eat will change size with you. If it doesn't, and you eat something big in your big form, it may be too big for your stomach when you shrink down."

"I have a meal in my belly right now," Uragh rumbled. "It's not a big one. Could I shrink down?"

The mage considered this. "Now might be a good time to find out." He got the wand back out. "If you have a bad reaction this will give you another chance."

Uragh contemplated being smaller. It was easier this time, and in a few seconds he was back to his normal four hundred or so pounds. He found out two things. First, shrinking wasn't as draining as growing. Second, his meals didn't shrink with him. Uragh belched as a comparatively small meal suddenly filled his belly. That made him more like five hundred and fifty pounds and his belly threatened to drag the floor.

The Wittick he swallowed was forced to curl up tightly inside his gut. There hadn't been time to digest his meal yet but the man folded up readily enough. Now he had a substantial bulge in his middle, but at least he was full.

"So it's growing that is the strain," Wittick said thoughtfully.

"Is that the last of the spells," Uragh growled.

"Yes," said the mage. "Thank you very much. I would greatly appreciate it if you write me if, and when, you learn anything else about your new ability. Maybe there is nothing to learn, but maybe not. If any problems develop, please come by and I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," Uragh growled. He folded up the armor as small as it would go and tied it and the saddlebags in a bundle with the broken straps. Granny knots were good enough for that. With some effort and a few bits of rope he normally used to hold on his red horse surcoat he got the bundle situated on his back.

In the course of this, and even though it was early in the day he grew tired. Digesting a meal a third his weight took a lot out of him so he untied the knots he'd just tied and curled up next to the tower door for a nap.

He was awoken by a thump of broad wings and opened his eyes to find a gryphon just landing by the door. The gryphon had elaborate but light scale armor on its forelegs and flanks and a harness not unlike his own that secured more lightweight armor. Whereas his armor covered his topside since he was low to the ground, the gryphon's protected its underside, presumably against arrows. Its wings were unarmored as they needed to be free for it to fly. A light helm of pierced brass protected its head while leaving its beak free to bite.

He noted rings on its harness that probably secured a saddle. Given it was here alone it was a free creature who volunteered or was paid to carry a friend or ally. He sometimes carried people on his back himself, but he didn't have a saddle.

The gryphon landed and shot him a fierce look, probably thinking he was a guard animal or servant of the wizard.

"Pardon me," Uragh growled. "I will be out of your way in a moment." He busied his clumsy forepaws putting the bundle back on his shoulders.

"Is this the Tower of Changes?" shrieked the gryphon.

"It is," Uragh growled. "The wizard Wittick surely knows you are here. He is probably waiting for me to leave so I do not see anything I shouldn't."

"That's right," said a voice from the balcony. "You'll have to digest your meal elsewhere." On the balcony a Wittick, perhaps the real one but probably not, waggled his hand at Uragh in a dismissive gesture.

Uragh ducked his head politely to the gryphon as he left. "Uragh," he growled.

The gryphon, fierce but polite, ducked its head back. "Shinefeather. Good travels."

"Good travels, and good luck with the changes," Uragh growled. It was none of his business what the gryphon wanted done to itself. It was the only fellow feral he'd met hereabouts though, so he was polite in passing.

On the way back to the caravansary he noted several more distant specks that looked like gryphons circling over Greyhawk. At least one of them had a rider. It stood to reason the city would have an aerial guard. Shinefeather hadn't worn any Greyhawk iconography so he probably wasn't part of it. Unless maybe he rented his services...Uragh shook his head. It was pointless to speculate.

He arrived back at the caravansary and the guards did stop him this time, but only because they were curious about the bundle of metal on his back. He found the red horse badge in the straps used to secure the bundle and they let him in. He went straight to the armorsmith who worked there.

"You want what?" The weathered blacksmith said.

"I can change size now," Uragh growled. "This is my normal size. I can growl to about five times this size. Five times this weight I mean. I burst all the straps of my upper armor when I did it earlier so I was hoping you knew a way for the armor to fit me at both sizes."

"Hm," pondered the armorer. "I did something like that for a werewolf once. I'll need measurements of both forms, though."

"I can't change right now," Uragh growled. "The wizard who gave me the ability said to grow only once a day. Maybe tomorrow."

"I couldn't measure you right now anyway," the blacksmith said. He poked Uragh's fat belly with a toe. "Unless you want the straps pre-stretched."

"Fair enough," Uragh growled. He stowed his armor in a locker, since getting the straps repaired and then turning it right back in to the armorer sounded silly, and found a corner of the floor near the common room fire to curl up. He even managed to scrounge up a couple of spare blankets to make himself a rude bed.

He could stretch out on a bed made for humans but he tended to tear the bedclothes with his claws if he stirred in his sleep, and at his current weight he wasn't sure the beds would support him. He didn't mind sleeping curled up in the corner so that is what he did. Here, unlike some times on the caravan trail, people didn't complain about having a huge feral wolverine in the same room.

The heavy meal earlier meant several visits to the privy during the night, but at least he fit in the privies here. By the time people began to stir in the morning, with caravaners forming up their trains and the cooks and smiths doing last minute repairs on departing wagons, he had digested and passed most of the Wittick simulacrum.

He'd never eaten a whole human before, or any intact bones as large as the ones that made one up, but his stomach had no trouble. Eventually he felt a pressure inside him unlike the ones that sent him to the privy, found a quiet spot in the courtyard and coughed up a slimy mass of blue cloth that used to be a wizard's robe. His stomach acids left the thing bile-stained mess so after washing it and asking a friendly red horse mage if it was magical (it wasn't) he added it to his blanket bed.

By mid-morning he was back to his usual self and stopped by the armor to get measured. He brought his strapless armor and the smith nodded knowledgeably as he saw how the strips of armor were designed to slide over one another, allowing him to twist and bend.

"This is good work," the smith said. "I'll need to see your larger size too."

"I'll be right back," Uragh growled, and went to talk to the gate guards.

"So you know," he growled, "I can change size now. That's how my armor was burst yesterday. The smith is measuring me for some armor work so I'm going to go change into my larger shape. I'm new at this so I'll do it outside. When I come back I'll be bigger."

"Got it," one of the guards nodded, and yelled up at the tower guards not to shoot the wolverine in the red gambeson no matter how big it was.

Uragh wasn't sure if the sudden hunger he had last time would happen this time too so he went a fair distance from the caravansary to change. Eating someone in an uncontrollable surge of hunger would be just as bad here as on the trail. He bought a bag of newly baked bread on the way out so he'd have a snack at least, then loped a quarter mile from the walls and concentrated on changing.

It wasn't as bad as last time but as he stood on suddenly double-sized paws he was hungry. He ripped the bag open with his claws and wolfed down the bread, then loped back to the gate. He was still hungry, but not enough to eat anyone. He hoped.

The red gambeson was a godsend. Without it he'd just look like a dire wolverine from a distance. As it was the guards looked him over briefly then waved him though. He was bigger, but not monstrously so. He still fit through the gate.

"I see, I see," said the smith as he measured Uragh with a tape. "Not quite twice as tall or long, but a lot heavier. I'm going to have to make a new helmet from scratch, but I think I can re-use most of the body armor."

"Use as much as you can," Uragh rumbled. "It's a keepsake."

"It won't be cheap," the armorer warned. "It's going to take a couple of days and at least a thousand lunars."

That reminded Uragh that he was still carrying his life savings so he left the blacksmith with five Nobles as a down payment. (Sadly, they hadn't gotten bigger when he did.) He deposited the rest at the same bank kiosk where he'd checked them out.

He decided he should get used to his larger form and loped back out of the caravansary. The guards didn't pay much attention the day before but they certainly did now. A one-ton wolverine seemed to catch the eye a lot better than a four hundred pound one.

He trotted back in the direction of the wizard's tower, that being the shortest route to the hills. Unless he wanted to trample someone's farm the hills were the only alternative to running on stone roads.

Up ahead, past the last farm and where the land began to slope upward, there was a fight going on. Even from half a mile away he saw the swirl of wings. Two gryphons were fighting.

Uragh picked up the pace. He could run faster than before due to longer legs and a bigger body. He wanted to see if one of the gryphons was Shinefeather and it turned out one was. Part of the gryphon's armor was torn away but it was the same lionbird. The other gryphon he didn't know. It was bigger than Shinefeather, fast and powerful. It was also male and Uragh quickly realized it was trying to rape the smaller gryphon.

He'd only met a few gryphons but he knew some could talk and some couldn't. He got the impression that this new one, who he called Blackfeather in his thoughts, was a savage animalistic sort. The armor might have given Shinefeather an early edge in the fight but the dark gryphon was too big and too strong. Uragh watched as Shinefeather tried to fly clear only to be caught and dragged back to the ground.

He'd been upwind of Shinefeather and old saw her from the front when they met, so only now did he realize she was a female. One gryphon looks much like another from the front.

He knew nothing of gryphon mating habits and stood a little ways off, not wanting to interrupt what might be a normal if violent courtship. Both of the lionbirds were bleeding from long scratches but neither had what looked like a dangerous wound.

Then Shinefeather, bloody and bruised, looked at him and croaked "Help."

Normally he'd have held back. Each of the gryphons was larger than his normal form. As he was now, though, he was bigger than both of them put together. "I should probably stay out of it," Uragh thought, just before he clubbed Blackfeather with a forepaw.

The dark gryphon was climbing atop the battered Shinefeather to mount when a paw as long as a man's chest is wide slammed into his beak. Uragh hit him full force but didn't curl his claws in to slash. The impact threw Blackfeather off Shinefeather and stunned the big gryphon. Uragh nipped Shinefeather's feathery scruff and dragged her a couple of body lengths away, then let go the bite and waited to see what would happen. He was ready to run if both the gryphons turned on him. He didn't have anything against either of them and was ready to flee if he'd misinterpreted the situation.

Shinefeather shook her head to clear it and rose to all fours, backing away from both Uragh and the dark gryphon. The black-feathered one also shook his head, as he'd been clubbed almost senseless by a huge wolverine paw, but the second he recovered he came right at Uragh.

Uragh ducked his head, reflexively relying on his armor due to a lifetime of wearing it, and got a beak right in the ear for the trouble as his helmet was back at the blacksmith. Blackfeather dug his claws into Uragh's shoulders but the wolverine was an experienced fighter and now his reflexes worked the right way. Uragh lashed out his own forepaws and snapped at the gryphon.

Blackfeather got in that first good hit and should should have flown out of reach, maybe dive bombing Uragh until the wolverine was dead or ran. Instead he beat at Uragh with his wings and his claws drew blood when they didn't land on Uragh's unexpectedly tough magical gambeson. But he had let his balls think for him and that was a mistake. Uragh got his forepaws on the gryphon and slammed him repeatedly against the ground. Blackfeather realized he'd overestimated his chances when he found his head in Uragh's mouth.

Uragh still wasn't used to this form and some of his behavior was instinctive. The gryphon's wings beat against his sides but he got on top, using his weight to pin Blackfeather. The hunger that hit him the first time he transformed returned, perhaps awoken by the violent struggle, and he swallowed Blackfeather's head. By the time he realized what he was doing the gryphon's feathery neck was down this throat and he felt a prodding far down his throat as the gryphon tried to open his beak to bite. The inward-pressing flesh of his gullet must have held the beak shut because all Uragh felt was a vague pressure.

When he realized what he was doing he turned his head as much as he could with a gryphon partly swallowed. Shinefeather was looking at him wide eyed. He tried to communicate with his eyes that he was as surprised as she was and flicked a forepaw away from his maw to say he'd cough up Blackfeather.

That made her laugh. "Hah," the gryphon shrieked. "Finish what you started, weasel."

Uragh was suddenly very hungry. The few loaves of bread he gobbled up earlier weren't nearly enough and here was a filling meal. He wrapped his forepaws around Blackfeather to trap the gryphon's wings to his sides and worked his jaws over the lionbird's wing roots.

Swallowing live, struggling prey almost half his size was a challenge when that prey was as well equipped with claws as he was. Uragh knew how to fight other ferals and blocked the clawed kicks of Blackfeather's powerful leonine hind legs as best he could. By the time the fight got properly started the gryphon's forelegs were pinned to its sides and all Blackfeather could do was kick. It wasn't enough to save him. Uragh's tough pelt absorbed the worst of it, though he got a number of oozing scratches, and when he swallowed the second time there was a rustle of feathers as most of Blackfeather's wings and body were sucked into his maw.

Down inside him he felt the gryphon's head slip into his stomach and was instantly worried that with more room the beak would tear him open. He pressed his belly against the ground, which seemed to muffle the inner struggle, and with a toss of his muzzle he got Blackfeather's rump in his mouth. The gryphon's powerfully muscular hind legs kicked from the corners of his mouth and Uragh blocked the claws from hitting him in the neck. His steel foreleg armor earned its keep though he got a few more scratches. Uragh tensed, swallowed heavily, and a twitching set of lion hindpaws, a lashing tufted tail and a mass of feathers were all that were left of Blackfeather.

He never intended to do anything like this when he saw the fighting gryphons and he looked at Shinefeather again. It wasn't too late to cough Blackfeather back up. She just made a go-ahead gesture with one taloned forefoot and watched as he swallowed her fellow gryphon down.

Uragh tossed his muzzle and the paws were gone. They slid along his tongue, their claws unsheathed but with no leverage to hurt him. Uragh swallowed and the tufted lion tail drained into the corner of his mouth as rustling feathers slid in alongside. A great bulge moved down his neck as Blackfeather went to his doom and the wolverine's furry belly sagged heavily. Like it or not, and he didn't, Blackfeather slid into Uragh's stomach, slicked down all over by gullet slime and with worse fluids awaiting his arrival.

Shinefeather nodded her approval as Uragh popped his jaws back into shape. It was the biggest meal he'd swallowed yet, proportionally, bigger than the Wittick was even after he returned to his normal size. That had only been a third of his weight, Blackfeather must be nearly half his size.

Uragh let out a long belch and Shinefeather cackled her approval.

"I know what you asked the wizard for, weasel," she cawed. "I just didn't expect you to be bigger too."

Uragh burped again, pressing his belly against the ground to muffle Blackfeather's efforts to escape. The gryphon had many sharp points and if he got to use them he could hurt Uragh badly.

"I didn't mean to eat him," Uragh rumbled. "I wasn't even sure I should butt in. For all I know that's normal courtship for gryphons."

"We choose our mates," Shinefeather cawed. "He chose me, I didn't choose him, but he was determined. He's been after me for weeks. I was hoping to do to him what you did, but he was too strong."

"Ah," Uragh rumbled. "So you asked Wittick for that too."

"I got his head in my beak before he knew what was happening," she cawed. "But he pulled back out. I should have found a way to weaken him first. I also probably shouldn't have tried him as my first big meal, but he is such an asshole I couldn't help it."

There was a shudder inside Uragh, then stillness. Blackfeather's violent struggle had used up all his air. Uragh burped up a last bubble of it, probably from the gryphon's lungs.

"Was an asshole," Uragh rumbled. "Not any more."

Shinefeather paced in a circle around him, admiring the lumpy swelling her would-be lover made. He was pretty sure she checked out his balls, pushed into view by the bulge of Blackfeather. He for his part observed a female gryphon's genitals for the first time. They were catlike and small. He wasn't sure they were compatible with his but if he were his normal size he'd like to find out. There was no chance of that right now. Even if he weren't stuffed full of gryphon he was nearly four times her size. He'd probably hurt her badly if he tried to mount.

It had been two weeks since he lay with a woman and he'd only used his muzzle to relieve his urges once during the voyage. He couldn't help but be interested in a handsome feral female. Someone had just tried to rape her, though. There was no way she'd be interested in return.

He was wrong. "You did me a favor, wolverine," she cawed. "I don't know you well enough to trust myself near your muzzle, but if you roll on your side and keep your paws away, I'll return it."

"This is a bad idea," Uragh thought, but he rolled on his side and moved his upper haunch out of the way. He could feel the stiffness of his sheath where it pressed against the swallowed gryphon.

"I should ask her to stop," he thought as her cruelly curved beak disappeared behind the bulge. She saw him looking and unfurled a wing to block his view.

"That beak looks sharp," he thought, but then the carefully closed beak was stroking up and down his sheath and if he hadn't been stiff as an iron bar he would have been after that. A taloned foreclaw rubbed his balls and Uragh groaned as he unsheathed. He hadn't seen his member in this size but he sensed it was as least as thick as a man's ankle. He was more suited to fucking horses than humans now. That didn't stop his his cock from sliding into her now open beak and right down her throat.

She had just been to see the same mage he did and even if she hadn't, she was a gryphon. She could surely swallow a halfling or perhaps a human whole even before she was changed. A wolverine cock the thickness of a man's lower leg was no challenge, even if it was over two feet long.

He'd swallowed her would-be lover and now she swallowed him, her throat muscles massaging his shaft. A narrow tongue slithered over his balls as her head bobbed and he thrust uncontrollable into her maw. It was a completely different feeling from when he sucked himself, or the time the were-opossum swallowed his cock.

"When I looked under your tail," he groaned between growls, "I thought, 'If I were normal sized now I'd like to see if I fit there.' I'm not sure I would. I fit in you now, though."

Shinefeather chuckled and swallowed, and it wasn't long before Uragh shivered and snarled. It turned out orgasms felt the same in this larger form, a shuddering heat moving through his balls and spurting into a gryphoness's gullet. Shinefeather swallowed and when she sat up next to him there was no sign of what just happened. Every drop was gone down her throat.

"Can you change back to your smaller form now," she cawed, having divined from his words that he wasn't stuck at this size.

"No," Uragh rumbled. "Not with a whole gryphon inside me. I'd burst."

Shinefeather looked around, made to stand, then sat again. She shifted a wing uneasily. "I have tasted you down there, wolverine. You are too big for me."

"I know," rumbled Uragh. "Maybe when he is digested, we can meet again."

Shinefeather clacked her beak. "That is too long." He could smell her need. She was as aroused as he was. "I shouldn't trust you. We've barely met and I know you could swallow me as easily as you did him. There is room inside you for a second gryphon."

"I thought I shouldn't trust your sharp, sharp beak down there," Uragh rumbled. "But a male has two brains, and my lower one decided it should. I am glad it did."

Shinefeather cursed under her breath. "This is a bad idea," she cawed, right before she turned around and sat on his muzzle.

Later, feeling very satisfied with life in general, belly full and balls emptied, Uragh returned to the caravansary. He paid the resident cleric for some minor healing, washed the blood off his fur, then headed to the armorer.

"Oh, what is this now, " the blacksmith complained. "I was going to take a last few measurements. Can't you keep your gut empty for one day?"

"These things will happen," Uragh rumbled. "I hadn't planned to gorge, but someone needed to be eaten and there he is."

The blacksmith poked his flank fur with a finger. He could see the shape of the undigested skull pushed out of the fur. "Gryphon?"

"That's right," Uragh rumbled. "Dark feathers and a very bad attitude."

"Not in Greyhawk livery, I hope."

"Not in any livery. He didn't talk, he wasn't wearing anything. All that went down my throat was feathers, fur and flesh."

"Probably a wild gryphon. I suppose I can take some measurements as you are now. Chances are this isn't the last creature you'll swallow."

Uragh nodded and let the blacksmith measure away. After that he found a dusty bit of courtyard and curled up. The common room accommodated a 400-pound wolverine well enough, but things would be cramped for one five times that size. Rather than ask people to sleep next to a giant ball of fur he moved outside. His blanket bed was only big enough to be a pillow now.

The next day he went out next to the road and hacked up a mass of feathers slick with stomach juices but otherwise remarkably unchanged. A passing merchant took one look at it and started to pick through it for the longest and most intact ones. Uragh left him to it and fertilized the surrounding farmland with what used to be Blackfeather.

He couldn't change back to his normal size until the gryphon was fully digested and passed so he paid for his stay at the caravansary by sitting atop the outer wall and keeping watch. He was so large and so full he had to squeeze out of the way when a guard made a circuit of the walls. "Sorry," he'd say each time, and the guard would grin and poke him in his sloshing belly. It was nice to be in a place where even genuine monsters were trusted, provided they were on their best behavior.

Two days after swallowing the gryphon and a dozen visits to the fields later he was hungry again and decided that the last of Blackfeather had gone the way of all flesh. He returned to the blacksmith to see the results of his work.

"It looks the same," Uragh growled doubtfully. He poked a paw at the segmented armor. "Except this chainmail fringe here." Off to one side was a whole new helmet and the old one that served as its model.

"Does it?" Said the blacksmith, whose name turned out to be Willick. Confusingly similar to Wittick, though no copies of the blacksmith had so far been through Uragh's bowels.

Uragh walked in a circle around the armor, which was propped up on an anvil. "It looks flatter." He swiped a paw at one of the dangling straps, which had the same oversized buckles with a hole for a clawtip.

"It is flatter. Any more observations?"

Uragh kept looking. Each strip of the armor had the old original curve along its middle part, then bowed out on each side. This was probably to keep it atop his spine while leaving room for either his normal or larger form. That left his flanks bare in his large form though, unless...

He reached out a paw and hooked his claw tips into the fringe of chain mail and pulled. He managed to pull almost a foot of it into view and when he released it the chainmail snapped back mostly out of sight. "It stretches."

"Very good," beamed the blacksmith. He rolled the armor off the anvil so Uragh could see underneath. "See, I used a series of chainmail sections I had lying around the smithy and connected them across the middle of the armor with stretchy straps. These are from way down south, "rubber" they call it. Normal leather straps connect to the chain mail and when you grow they will pull the chain mail into view. When you shrink back down the chainmail hides again. It's heavier, there was no way around that, but you are very strong. It shouldn't slow you down in either form. Mind, your belly and part of your haunches will still be unarmored but putting armor there would be a major change."

It was still the plainest armor imaginable but it was all Uragh needed and he thanked the blacksmith profusely and tipped the man a whole Noble on top of the twelve he paid for the work.

"You'll need to decide for yourself how to adjust the straps," the blacksmith said. "And every year or so the rubber will need to be looked at. Depending on how often you change size some of it may need to be replaced."

Uragh shrank down to his normal form and put on the armor. Like all feral gul armor it was made to be simple to put on even with clumsy paw-hands. The blacksmith had even polished it and buffed out some of the worst nicks and cuts. The new, larger helmet did not have the chainmail fringe and simply fit loosely when he was in his smaller form. The padding held it in place and compressed when he got bigger. The new helmet had the same brass trim around the eyes as the old one, the one bit of ornamentation on the armor.

Armored again, Uragh decided it was time to test the stuff out and trotted down the road to the docks. He'd heard the Silver Stag was still loading cargo and he was pleased to see it at its pier. He trotted to the foot of the gangplank.

"Permission to come aboard," he growled, and there was Mister Gunn at the top. Just like last time, the ship's cleric called for the captain.

"I haven't anything from Red Horse saying you'll be on board this trip, Mister Uragh," she said from the railing.

"I won't be, cap'n," he growled. "I have decided to stay near Greyhawk for a time. There is something I would like to show you, though."

"Is there," the lioness purred, but she came down the gangplank and let him lead her into the dockyards. She cast a curious glance at the goat tethered nearby, and another when Uragh took its lead in his teeth.

"Your armor has changed," Captain Varr purred.

"So have I," Uragh growled, and led the way into a storage shack he'd rented for the day. She paused at the doorway and looked around for ambush, but there wasn't one.

"All right," the lioness purred. She closed the door behind them and they were alone in a room ten paces square. "You wanted to show me something, Mister Uragh. Show me."

So he did. Uragh growled, the tone dropping to a rumble as he doubled in weight, and doubled again, and then grew yet a bit more. In moments he was ten times the size of the lioness instead of only twice her size. She watched as he snapped up the goat and swallowed it whole, lead and all. It had time for one terrified bleat and was gone.

"Changing is a strain on the body," he rumbled. He licked his chops and burped. "Tends to make me hungry."

The lioness nodded. "That is why your armor is different," she purred. "It fits you at both sizes." The chainmail had appeared all around Uragh's sides and rump as he grew so the same parts of him were covered still, albeit partly with only chain instead of plate.

She did not seem afraid at all, though he was much larger and more threatening now. "So why am I here, Mister Uragh?"

"You know why," Uragh rumbled. He reached his muzzle forward and rested his chin on her shoulder. "I'm interested. The crew won't see anything here. You can be yourself and be with me. Or you can turn around and leave."

"Well," Captain Varr said, and she unbuckled her sword belt and pulled her chainmail byrnie off over her head, "I hardly ever get to be myself."

As she dropped her gear in the corner her purr descended into a growl and she fell to all fours. He knew what was coming from the scent of her quarters and gave her room. Captain Varr might be a khardaki but she was also a weretigress, or maybe a tigress-were. She could look like a humanoid lioness or like her true form, a great feral tiger. That was why the bed in her quarters was outsized. She returned to her natural form to sleep.

She grew until she stood on four padded paws and was twice the size he was normally. These were not normal times. Uragh bit into the tough hide of her scruff and dragged her to the center of the room, only then mounting her.

Feral cats are hung small by the standards of some species and even in his normal form she'd be tight, but Uragh knew all about Weres by now. He was gentle only for a moment, to make sure she wanted it all, then he arched his back and gave it to her. Captain Varr yowled and pawed at him, only her claw-tips exposed, and he pinned her to the floor with his weight and fucked her until both of them were exhausted. It was the first time he fucked her in dire wolverine form and he hoped it wouldn't be the last.

"So, you're staying in this area for a while," she purred as they walked toward the ship. She was back in her byrnie and to look at her you would never know what happened. "I am only here once a month or so."

"Until I am used to this new form at least, cap'n," Uragh growled. He too was back in normal form and his armor had worked just fine, though he'd had adjust a strap or two. The goat, only half the size of Wittick, made his belly sway as he walked. "If you are in port and need to be yourself, just let me know."

Back at the foot of the gangplank and a model of civility, Uragh ducked his head to Captain Varr and trotted off down the road. She had her reasons for keeping her nature secret and he would never say a word. But if she wanted to be scruffed and mounted by a strong male in her tigress form, he was at her disposal.

Uragh sent a letter to Olaf in which he apologized for breaking his word. He hoped to be back on the roads around Verbobonc eventually but for now he was working out of the Greyhawk caravansary.

While he waited for his first caravan assignment he familiarized himself with the trade roads around the city, trotting down a different one each day while wearing the red horse gambeson. He introduced himself to the guard patrols and explained that he had a larger size now. For the moment he remained in his normal form since he ate less at that size. He saved the large one for combat or special occasions. He was thus at his four hundred pound size when a gryphon spiraled down to land next to him.

"Uragh," Shinefeather said, and led him to a grove of trees where picnickers and romantic couples often dallied.

"My heat is on me," she cawed, "And my need is strong. Several males want me, but I have no wish to bear their eggs. Maybe another season, but not this one. Yet the itch is there. If only there were a male to help me scratch it, yet not fill me with his young."

"If only," Uragh growled, and licked her fragrant sex when she turned her rump to him. She was larger than him now, but only slightly, and when she crouched down before him to accommodate his shorter legs he was happy to mount. He was careful until he found that despite the seeming smallness of her sex, he fit just fine. Then he bit down on her feathery scruff and started humping.

They were fucking when footsteps on the path made him look up. There was a charming young human couple, picnic basket in hand, looking wide eyed at the giant wolverine atop the gryphon.

"Go away," Uragh growled, and they did. But only to the far side of the grove, where they opened their picnic basket and blushed as they watched the two horny ferals go at each other. Soon enough they were stretched out on the picnic cloth, the food forgotten and their limbs intertwined.

That was how Uragh met Shinefeather, first in his larger form, and later in his normal one. It was well known that couplings between greatly different species almost never ended in pregnancy, unless one was a dragon or some strong magic like a 'love spring' was involved. Uragh couldn't get Shinefeather pregnant no matter how vigorously he tried, nor could he fill a certain tigress with his cubs despite his best efforts. But try he did, repeatedly and enthusiastically.