Zenir of the Dark
Zenir of the Dark rested upon his throne of bone. He stared into the darkness and thought of his plans for today and could not think of any. Today there were no grand schemes to enact after years of careful, conniving planning, no plots to further, no curses to weave upon an offending fool, and certainly no rituals to perform that would herald the end of the current age and usher in a new one of darkness. In short, Zenir of the Dark, Scourge of Aleiz, Butcher of Horn River, and Lord of Terror, was bored.
Of course he could always torture some minions, but that had grown dull centuries ago as had the trysts he once regularly had with summoned and enslaved Succubi from the Hells. He had already memorized every page of the sinister tomes he kept in his decaying library, had his fill of experimenting with alchemy, and explored every secretive nook and cranny of his lair. What to do then? Should he, Zenir of the Dark, go looking for trouble? It was a novel idea, something he had not done for quite some time. Yet, he reflected, there must be a reason he did not.
A sudden growl caught his attention. He looked towards his drake familiar Ward. The green scaled wingless lizard, a little larger than a wolf, growl again and bared his many fangs at Zenir's scrying orb. The dark lord followed his familiar's unwelcoming stare to the orb, which glowed with a hostile red light. From this distance, he could only make out vague shapes and their movement. He stood from his throne of bone to take a closer look.
Once within a reasonable viewing distance, he smiled as he recognized what the orb was warning him. Within the orb was the image of a group of adventurers standing in front of his dark gates, the entrance to his villainous den. They were a rag-tag group, consisting of members of various races and walks of life. At the moment they were arguing and one of their members seemed to be at the heart of conflict: a tall man who wore purple robes embroidered with lines of silver. Zenir quickly determined that the mage was no human though he looked it. The mage had a sturdy but slender frame, pointed ears and yet a beard--a half breed, Zenir mused, and a magic-user to boot. Zenir coaxed the scrying orb into focusing on the half-elf, making clear an arrogant visage. The dark lord had no doubt that the mage was overconfident, brash, and ardent, doubly so for being within a hundred miles of Zenir.
Ward growled at the orb again.
"Oh calm down," Zenir said, absentmindedly petting the drake. "It's just an image."
In the orb, the half-elf shouted one more time and then looked up, as if he were staring in Zenir's very eyes. A moment later, he vanished from the orb, causing great consternation among his companions. Zenir scratched his head. Then, upon feeling a rush of magical energy in his immediate proximity, he looked up into the eyes of the half-elf he had just been spying on.
"Oh," Zenir said. "Hello there."
The half-elf's reply was a bolt of lightning towards Zenir. The dark lord easily absorbed the projectile with a quickly whispered ward and then reverted to a more traditional means of dodging as he ducked the mage's next attack, a lance of fire. Zenir smiled with exhilaration, as he remembered why he didn't go looking for trouble--naturally, trouble came looking for him.
Before the half-elf could cast his next spell, Ward pounced from behind and knocked him to the ground. Zenir's familiar pinned the mage down and began to ferociously tear at his prey. Possessing a surprising amount of poise and constitution, the half-elf remained silent as the drake's claws tore into his flesh. With a muttered word, the mage's hands became alight with fire. He put these hands to the drake's muzzle, but the magical flames were merely absorbed by the drake's resistant hide. The half-elf still did not lose his cool as another one of his spells fizzled against the familiar. In fact, he only concentrated more as resorted to a more powerful spell. He pointed his index finger at the drake and a beam of green energy sprang from the outstretched point. Upon the beam contacting Ward's scales, the drake's flesh began to sizzle and burn. Ward reared backwards, screeching in pain as the half-elf swept the beam over the rest of his adversary's body. For a second, Ward's form coalesced with the green energy; then, all that was left of Ward was a cloud of dust that scattered in every direction once the half-elf got to his feet. He looked in triumph at Zenir and raised his hands for further spellcasting.
"Oh no!" Zenir wailed, clapping his hands to his cheeks. "What will I ever do? You've killed my familiar who will rematerialize in a matter of hours!"
"Not if I kill you first, Zenir!" The half-elf snarled, flinging a fireball at the dark lord.
"Zenir of the dark," Zenir corrected while throwing his own fireball, thus countering the opposing mage's spell. "And don't you think it's a little rude to not introduce yourself since you already know me so well--no doubt to my reputation."
"I am Norros," the half-elf replied, ducking behind a pillar.
"Just Norros? Or is it Norros the Petulant? Norros the Coward? Norros the Familiar Slayer?"
The half-elf sneered. "Your taunts do not bother me! Is that all you have, dark lord?"
"All I--" Zenir smiled as he stalked around the pillar. "Are you truly that foolish? Are you really so overconfident to think that one measly half-breed would be my downfall?"
"My companions? Ha!" Norros popped out and unleashed a cone of cold upon the dark lord. Zenir's body was briefly wreathed with flames, the heat driving away the frigid chill. "They wanted to get to you the hard way."
"The hard way? So why didn't you bring them with you? Is your pride so large that you don't think you need their help? Or is it because you are not powerful enough to teleport so many? Hmm?"
Norros appeared around the pillar again, pointing his index finger at the dark lord. Zenir snickered when a familiar green beam of energy briefly sparked and then fizzled on the half-elf's fingertip. Norros looked down at his hand in alarm, an expression he only maintained for a moment before recovering his resolve. He tried another spell to no avail.
"An anti-magic zone," Norros said. "Clever, but it denies you your power as well. It will still not stop me!"
The half-elf drew a wicked kukri from his belt and lunged at Zenir. The dark lord chuckled as he swept his arm sideways, sending the half-elf into the air. The look of surprise on Norros's face was priceless as he flew backwards and landed with a solid thud on his back.
"An anti-magic zone for spells of lesser power," Zenir said, pacing towards the half-elf as he struggled to his feet. "I essentially just called your disintegrate trick a lesser spell you do realize, right? That's a spell even the most experienced of mages never master. Now think. If I have something greater than a incantation that could reduce even an elder dragon to dust, should you not be scared?"
Bruised, bloodied, and battered, Norros just could not regain his footing. He scrambled backwards as Zenir moved forward.
"Look at you, crawling on the ground. You know what else walks on four limbs?"
Zenir chanted a spell with words so sinister that Norros was infused with a new sense of panic and terror. He flipped onto his knees and began to truly crawl as the dark lord continued to work on the spell. Once it was complete, a formless reflective cloud sprang from Zenir's outstretched arms and zoomed towards the prone half-elf. It covered his frail body, making his figure appear wavering and formless for but a moment before it solidified. This only increased Norros's fright and haste of his crawl.
As the half-elf continued to crawl, his body was subject to changes. Green scales began to replace skin and hair all over his body. A scaled tail burst out of his spine and pressed against his robes, making further movement more difficult. Still, this new impediment was somewhat relieved as his hands and feet both twisted into three taloned manus. His legs twisted and bent as they shifted into limbs meant for digitigrade movement while his arms lengthened and at the time drew slightly inwards. Now just noticing his changes, Norros looked back and screamed as his face contorted and stretched into a reptilian muzzle complete with sharpened teeth and a forked tongue. He closed his eyes and when they opened again they had modified into slitted pupils. With a shriek that sounded much different than his scream before, the former half-elf pushed with his powerful new legs and shed his torn robes. When he emerged standing in a raptor's stance, he surfaced as a fully-grown drake, though the changes were far from complete. Distinctive red frills formed from the back of his head to the end of his tail. Last and most surprising of the alterations was within his cloaca, where his member nestled comfortably. It shriveled and wasted away, the rest of Norros's reproductive structure likewise shifting until her procreative anatomy was that of a female drake.
Norros glanced in confusion at her new body and then lifted her tail so she could catch a glimpse of her new sex. This elicited a chuckle from Zenir, who muttered the words of another spell. At once Norros felt something he had never as a male: ovulation. The second spell continued its effects as it caused retained sperm that had not converted into ovaries during Norros's gender shift to rush to their fertile counterparts. Norros's eyes opened wide in surprise as the spell facilitated and sped up the fertilization and growth of the eggs until her womb was heavily laden with them.
"You're looking good, my dear," Zenir said. "Ward will be quite pleased to have a mate when he reforms. Of course, he can't have you with all those eggs you're carrying..."
As much as Norros wanted to snarl and attack the dark lord, the weight of her eggs and her discomfort with her new body made any movement uncoordinated and clumsy. Still, she took a tentative step towards Zenir, the only advance she made before she began to feel incredible pressure within her womb. Without truly knowing what she was doing, she pushed and released a slimy egg onto the floor.
"How rude!" Zenir shouted. "Bad girl! Who said you could just go out and give birth on these immaculate floors?"
Norros glanced towards the dark lord with an expression of humiliation and intense concentration as another egg plopped out of her sex. The former half-elf was not even given a break as another was soon on its way.
"Well fine then!" Zenir said.
While she continued to give lay eggs, Norros tried to think of some way she could escape this situation. Without her components, regular hands or chords for proper vocalizations, she could not cast any of her spells. Giving birth had also made her extremely exhausted to the point that she doubted she could muster the energy to attack Zenir even if that was a realistic goal. The dark lord had already made his point in that he possessed the greater power--Norros was sure he could have killed her if he had really wanted to. Thus, Norros's only hope lay in his friends, the same companions he had left behind to fight Zenir alone.
As if reading her mind, Zenir motioned to the orb. The scrying mechanism floated off its base and towards Norros until it floated in front of her eyes.
"Do you see them?" Zenir asked. "I know you do. Now think what I did to you--do you really think they have any more of a chance?"
Norros shook her head as she pushed another egg out. Any hope she had died then, to be replaced with a despair so deep and horrible that it registered in her otherwise inexpressive reptilian eyes. It was in the throes of Norros's misery that Zenir cast one final spell, freezing the former half-elf's conscious and burying it deep inside her reptilian cranium. The primal instincts of a broodmother drake emerged as any trace of her former intelligence left the drake's eyes. No longer concerned with individuals she no longer recognized, the drake only concentrated on birthing.
Zenir of the Dark chuckled deeply, turning his focus away from the female drake and to the object she no longer cared about. He watched the adventurers within the orb continue to argue, no doubt about Norros's disappearance and his lack of reappearance. No longer bored, Zenir knew what he was to do with the rest of his day.
"Yes," Zenir breathed as the tallest of the adventurers stepped forward to open the dark gate. "Come entertain me, you brilliant fools."