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[b][u][center]A Whole New Party

Part 5

For Engy

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Audron cast one spell after another, manipulating the dungeon as much as he could. Considering that it was pretty raw, barely put together by goblins before the goblins were displaced by the kobolds that he’d discovered on arrival, there wasn’t much that he could do to rearrange the structure of the place, but he could shift the treasures around, move the more injured kobolds out of the way, and ensure that there were at least a few obstacles for the suddenly-determined party coming his way.

It was surprising just how quickly they’d gone from fighting each other to being a cohesive group coming for his head. Was it the challenge, the dragon wondered? Or was it just the fact that something had dared try and take them down, and so they had to bring the challenger to their knees to show that they weren’t to be messed with?

Whatever it was, the four adventurers were plowing through everything that he could put in their way. The little tricks that he tried to use for diversions got cleared quickly, and the human woman was pushing them hard, keeping them on track every time that he tried to pull an illusion as a distraction.

The corruption on the orc and the mild enchantment that he had managed with the chains on the monk hadn’t done much, either. While he could push at them a little bit, making the orc pause for more vain, show-off-y spells that made it take longer to clear a room, or pull on Red-Arms to pull the monk to a slower pace, he couldn’t actually stop either of them. There wasn’t enough control there to actually do more than slow them down.

[i]They’re determined, that’s for sure.[/i]

And that was kind of exciting. He wanted minions, Claimed, that would be that eager to follow his orders. Once he had managed to bring them to their knees, once he managed to correct the evil-doers and bring them under his wings, he imagined that he would have some of the best minions of any new dragon in his generation. He imagined that they would be perfect for holding his mountain and doing whatever he needed them to do. Powerful, driven, just a little too evil so far. But he could fix that. He knew he could.

As he slowed them down with an acid trap in the next chamber – only two down from where he was hiding – he looked down at the assembled kobolds. They were already arming up for the fight to protect him, and that, he realized, was something that he needed to do something about before it was too late.

“You guys better get out of here,” he said.

“Nuh-uh. We fight for dragon,” one of them said, passing a spear to another. “Gotta make sure you safe.”

“That’s all very nice, but I’m fine.”

“Nope, bad people coming. Gotta make sure you okay.”

“Yes, I know, but I can take care of them.”

“No, we protect dragon!”

The kobolds were all kinds of stubborn, he’d found. Good company, admittedly, and little guys that he had been very happy to get to know, but the platinum dragon knew that he needed to take care of this alone. The evil party were quite happy to kill anything that got in their way, and he didn’t want one of those things to be one of his kobolds.

His kobolds. Well, that had escalated quickly.

[i]Not Claimed, not Claimed,[/i] he thought, just in case anyone was watching and getting ready to judge him. [i]Just temporary allies.[/i]

He didn’t want to waste the first Claim just yet. The evil party would be better minions for him, and he wanted the little guys to be safe. He gestured at the stone wall behind him, making a hole in it with a simple Stone Shape spell.

The kobolds immediately stopped what they were doing, staring at the new tunnel. Audron gestured at it with his tail.

“You better run.”

“But…but we make dragon safe. You no fight.”

“I can take care of myself. Besides, kobolds should stay safe, too.”

“But…but…”

“Go on, little guys. I’ll take care of everything.”

He had to convince them one by one to go, and each one ran up and gave his leg a hug. Teary-eyed, too. They were rather emotional little lizards, when it came right down to it. He shook his head as they rushed through the hole, sealing it at the last minute to ensure that they didn’t come back to him.

[i]That tunnel should take them all the way to the surface, and by the time that they get around to the main entrance again, we should be done and gone,[/i] Audron thought.

It was going to be a pity to leave them behind, but he knew better than to travel with an entourage just yet. That was just going to get the attention of too many people, and when it came right down to it, he needed to travel quickly. Much as he liked the little guys – and they were surprisingly nice – better for his disguise to be this lonely old man that…had too much…money…

He paused in the middle of his train of thought, cocking his head to the side. Maybe that wasn’t such a good disguise, after all.

BANG!

That would be the acid trap broken, the stomping mechanism in the next room starting. That meant that it was time for a quick transformation to his proper feral form.

Well, smaller, proper, feral form. If he went full-sized, he would break part of the walls, and they’d have a cave-in, and that would just end the fun real quick. He closed his eyes, pulling on the pool of magic he had deep down in his core.

Just like when he had transformed himself back at the church, he forced the inner light that all dragons carried up and down his limbs. It pushed out from his core, pulsing softly, spreading through his scales and through his blood. It was a tingling, happy feeling, almost, and he sighed to himself as he enjoyed just how good it felt to just be in the embrace of his magic.

Then he forced it into the shape that he wanted, and his body followed suit. As he curled the essence of his magic down, he fell to all fours. His spine cracked and his tail followed suit, lengthening and pushing out further and further. His ass popped, not billowing out in size, but rather in muscle, becoming the proper haunches and hindquarters of a feral dragon. Each pulse, each bubbling throb back there was a surprisingly good feeling.

His legs arched, his feet changing in shape. No longer flat, he rose up on tiptoes, his digits thickening against the stone beneath his feet. Muscles grew, thickened, hardened along his chest and stomach, getting rid of the slight gut that he was starting to get from all the food that the kobolds had been bringing him.

[i]Cooks, adoring little lovelies…I’m really going to miss them, aren’t I?[/i]

Shaking his head as he realized that he was thinking more about them than about himself, he brought his thoughts back to the transformation. His neck arched, lengthening, growing forward. A good, lean platinum dragon was the image that he wanted to present, a younger, inexperienced dragon that had yet to actually become too much of a huge threat, but had obviously fallen.

[i]Right, right, evil dragon. Uh…what makes platinum evil…[/i]

The whole idea was to curse them with the idea that they’d done something good, getting rid of a dragon that had fallen to evil for the greater good of the world around them. If he was going to do that, he needed marks of corruption or something. Dark eyes? Flaming wings? Something like demonic sigils going up and down his body?

That last one would have been kinda fun, but they had a wizard with them, and that bard was pretty smart, too. Probably not a good idea to pretend to be covered in demon symbols when he didn’t know how to write them properly.

Dark eyes and red wings it was. It was kind of warm having fire burning around his wings, and when he looked into a reflective bowl to see his black eyes, he had to admit that it looked a bit more like someone had gone overboard with scale make-up rather than anything intimidating.

[i]Whatever. Goth phase, I guess. It’ll work.[/i]

The transformation continued, his wings growing out and getting stronger, longer, wider. The leathery skin along the connecting folds got stiffer, mostly to look intimidating rather than any real purpose. After all, he wasn’t going to be flying in this form. He could feel his body growing stronger and stronger, hands flattening out into front paws, and his feet rising up into hind paws.

Of course, there was one other thing hurrying to catch up. His cock flopped down, almost hitting the top of his paws, and his balls hung down in the back, too, showing off just how much he had been holding back lately. He groaned under his breath as they reached feral proportions, the former stretching almost like invisible hands were pulling on it, and the latter being pulled down by its own weight as it churned eagerly.

[i]I’m going to have to do something about that later…[/i]

The banging and thumping had stopped, which meant the last traps had been broken. He would have thrown some treasure in that room to slow them down, but they hadn’t bothered seizing any of the other little bits of cursed gear that he’d laid out before their arrival. Either they were scared off by the chain curse, or they were too eager to see him dead to bother stopping right at that point.

A quick glance at the treasure pile confirmed that there were some treats for them to take. The quick-lived liked treats and treasures, after all, and there was plenty to tempt them, from weapons to armor to magic items. All of them tweaked, of course. Platinum dragons were very good at adjusting pre-existing magical auras, and he hoped that these ones would –

BANG!

The stone door between his chamber and the ones leading out of the dungeon finally came down. Audron whipped his head around, his eyes wide as the shards of the stone barrier rolled across the floor.

[i]…Either that monk hits harder than I thought, or the human woman is much better at this than I thought.[/i]

The four adventurers stepped through, panting for breath and glaring across the room at him. They were all quite obviously pissed off, and not one of them looked like they were interested in talking. He tried to smile at them, then reminded himself: evil. He had to be evil.

“Mwa ha ha ha ha! Welcome to my lair! You’ve fought long and hard, but you’ve yet to face your final test!” Audron said in his deepest of deep voices.

The evil party didn’t answer, but they did arch their eyebrows almost as one. Was that good? He hoped so, so he kept going.

“But you need not die here. Come. Join me. I plan to take over the world, and henchmen like yourselves –”

Blur. A very red blur. Audron’s next word was cut off with a punch to the jaw that felt like it was going to send his head spinning around his neck, and he yelped in sudden, very real pain.

[i]Owwwwwww! That hurt. That wasn’t supposed to hurt.[/i]

“Well, wasn’t going to start the fight with a surprise like that, but now that we’re doing this, we’re doing this.” The human woman pointed her sword. “Everything you’ve got!”

[i]…Everything?[/i]

His only warning was the crackle of lightning energy just overhead, and even that wasn’t enough for the prone dragon. He scrambled to his feet, but not fast enough to avoid everything. Yelp, screech, grunt as he wiggled and slithered between the bolts until –

“YOOOOW!”

One finally caught him right off to the side of his tail, scorching his scales as dark as his eyes. It blasted right through his ass down his leg, knocking it out from under him and sending him stumbling to the floor.

As soon as he hit the ground, the dwarf charged him. He closed his eyes just in time to avoid getting stabbed in them, but the impact was almost as bad. Knowing that he’d be all but blind in one eye for the rest of the day, he threw his head back, hoping to send the dwarf flying. He was halfway through the motion before a kick caught the back of his head, sending him flying back down to the ground with a hard thump.

[i]Ow, ow, ow![/i]

Feeling like his teeth were being juggled around with each impact, he flailed around with his tail. Miss, wall, miss, treasure, miss –

Thunk!

“YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!”

That was a sharp thing, very sharp thing, and his tail was actually [i]shorter[/i] now. He opened one eye, looking down to see a chunk of tail about six inches long hit the floor. It felt like something out of a bad story. How the heck was this going this badly for him? These were supposed to be quick-lived, not legends.

The human woman wasn’t done, either. She grabbed his tail and climbed it, running up along his spine right for his –

[i]Oh, fuck that![/i]

He rolled immediately, and for the first time managed to score a blow against one of them. The woman’s plate armor kept her from being turned into a human pancake, but she still got knocked off his back before she could cut his wings off. He left her gasping for breath on the floor, the lightning storm finally fading.

The red-armed monk darted in again, punching at his chest, at his belly. He almost made it all the way down to the dragon’s balls before he managed a hind-leg kick to knock the monk back, huffing as he felt the blows even through all those scales. They were not holding back, not in the slightest, and he was amazed that they were able to do this much despite him pushing them back as much as he had.

The wizard came forward, the orc offering the human his staff to get up, while the dwarf was whistling, calling something with bardic magic. The monk had gotten to his feet again already, all of them barely looking like they’d taken any sort of damage from all this.

Hell, they didn’t even look [i]tired.[/i]

[i]…They’re either going to kill me, or be the best Claimed that any dragon has ever had.[/i]

Somehow, the pride that should have come from that statement was rather lacking. He shook his head, pulling himself up, looking at them through his one good eye.

“Well…I take it…that you’re not accepting my offer.”

“We don’t work for dragons,” the human woman said.

“Heh, and why not?”

“Because we found someone with deeper pockets.”

[i]…Oh, boy.[/i]

That was going to make things interesting, but he supposed that was better than he might have gotten from someone else. He put on a growl.

“Then perish. I will rule the world as a dark lord, and you will be nothing but – NOT THIS TIME!”

He dodged the monk’s punch, snapping down just after. He wasn’t going to get his jaw clicked around a third time, thank you very much. Whipping his head around, he sent the monk flying back at the party. They dodged out of the way, running for him. Audron shook his head, reminding himself to hold back just enough to keep them alive. They could fix themselves up later, but –

The dwarf’s whistle suddenly hit a particularly high pitch, and the room was covered in magical darkness. Audron tried to blink through it, to see what was going on –

Except he couldn’t. It wasn’t darkness. It was a Blind spell.

[i]…Shit.[/i]

Another lightning bolt followed, and then an acid orb. Cutting strikes danced across his chest, and then over his forelegs, all of them going deeper than he had intended and driving him further and further back.

[i]On second thought, maybe I should just play dead.[/i]

#

The fight was surprisingly quick, all things considered. When she’d seen the dragon, Viola had expected to find herself fighting for her life. Even young dragons were powerful opponents, after all, and she’d already resigned herself to limping out of the dungeon when the fight was over.

Instead, the dragon collapsed after a few full attacks, dropping down and falling on its side. A rather…distended dick was difficult to ignore when it did fall, but it didn’t draw another breath as it fell. She kept her hand on her blade, anyway, nodding at Olfel and Kyo’Thar.

“It faking?” she asked.

“I do not believe so; the chest does not rise or fall.”

“And it doesn’t feel like an illusion this time. Want me to Countersong it?” Olfel asked.

“Let’s be sure. No trickery.”

The room was tense as the dwarf sang low, the room rumbling for a few seconds. They were all ready to continue the fight, if needed…

But it wasn’t. The dragon remained where it was, and Viola sighed as she sheathed her blade. The damn thing had been a pain in their ass for the whole dungeon. Just figured that it didn’t have much of a fight at the end.

[i]However it got in here…[/i]

Shaking her head, she nodded at the treasure piles.

“Alright, let’s start gathering this up. Usual routine. Kyo’Thar, start cataloguing the magic shit. Mandred –”

“Red-Arms.”

She blinked. First time that he had protested to his real name in a while. Whatever.

“Find the weapons. Use the ring to see if they’re cursed; if they are, bring them to the wizard. If not, second pile. Olfel?”

“I’ll begin taking notes.”

“Right. Break.”

The gold and jewels could be catalogued once they were out of the dungeon. The magic shit, however, was better figured out right off the bat. The more that they could find that was actually dangerous, the more that they could leave behind rather than see if they could ditch it on some merchant later. The last time they tried that, they’d gotten fined out the ass, and she didn’t want to deal with that again.

As her party split, she walked up to the dragon, resting a hand on his shoulder foreleg. No movement, nothing.

“The hell was a platinum dragon doing down here…”

She’d seen some ‘good’ dragons in her lifetime, but this was the first time that one had been in charge of a dungeon. The fiery wings had been almost comically demonic, and the black eyes looked like he’d been bullied on the playground. But there was no doubt that the damn monster had been in charge here.

“This doesn’t make any sense…”

The dragon wasn’t going to give her any answers, either. The damn thing was dead. She shook her head, taking her sword out again. She might as well take something of a trophy, she supposed. Remind people that she had taken down a dragon. It’d been a while since anyone had gotten a fresh reminder of her skills.

She leaned down, and with a single chop, she took one of the dragon’s foreclaws away with her. Not the toe, because the meat would have gone rotten, but the claw. She tucked it away for the moment, standing up and going back to searching the cavern.

Eventually, the piles of treasure grew. There weren’t many things that reached the cursed pile, surprisingly. A couple weapons, a couple of rings, a piece of armor: all of them were relatively useful if the curse could be overcome, from what she could tell, but she was used to finding half the treasure in a dungeon being cursed.

“So, what’s the verdict, Kyo’Thar?” she asked.

“I am still studying them,” the orc muttered.

“Well, study faster.”

“Do you want this done properly, or done quickly?”

“…”

“Indeed. Now, let me work.”

She rolled her eyes, looking at the clean pile. There were weapons aplenty there. Most of which were too small, admittedly, suited more for kobolds and for dwarves, goblins and gnomes, and that sort of thing. If they weren’t made of fine steel, she would have left them behind rather than cart it back, but it would be worth some money. However…

There was one larger blade in the pile that had her attention. She pulled her two-hander free, letting it sag to the ground, then pulled a two-hander out of the pile. It tingled against her hand, obviously enchanted, and she glanced over at Red-Arms.

“You sure these are all clean?”

“Yes. Completely.”

The monk had taken a seat by the dead body shortly after they had finished clearing the room, and he was clearly thinking of something else. However, he had been using the ring, something that went from cold to hot when it was near something cursed, so it should have been idiot-proof. She hoped that it still was.

Back to the new sword. She turned it around, checking the metal. Not steel, but something darker. Obsidian? Too hard for that, but sharp as could be. Scraping her blade against it, she expected to feel it catch, and it did…as the other blade cut hers.

“Mmmph…well…that’s an upgrade…”

Levering her blade out of the other, she checked it properly. The grip? Nice and strong, marked with some dragon scales. The hilt and the guard were large, too, sufficient for bashing, though less wrist flexibility there. It would make it harder to bend the sword to guard the body, but that was something that she could work around. The blade itself was sharp as hell, though, and even as she rested it against the stone floor, it pressed through the rock for an inch or two before stopping.

Definitely enchanted, and the longer she held it, the stronger she felt. The magic was pouring through her arms, upping her strength, and she groaned as her armor felt slightly tighter in the upper body.

[i]Strength-boosting, sharp as hell…there’s gotta be a downside, but I bet it’s manageable…[/i]

“This one’s mine,” she said.

Nobody argued with her about that, and she started rooting through the pile to see if it had a scabbard somewhere. She wasn’t about to trust the old one to this; it’d cut right through it in seconds flat.

Everyone picked a prize from the pile. Olfel picked out a monocle that was crusted with enchanted stones, something that he claimed had magical vision powers. Red-Arms picked out a pair of arm bracers, which were light enough to count as something other than armor, but had something that would make his blows stronger, as well as something that he seemed loathe to talk about. Kyo’Thar chose a wand, one that he was considerably silent about.

All in all, it meant that there were still a dozen enchanted weapons and pieces of armor to sell, and they were going to be rich from this little haul. It still didn’t make up for the bucket adventure, but it was a hell of a lot better than what she had expected to get out of this mess.

“Alright, everyone. Bag up the rest of the treasure. Back to Lork-Lund.”

She imagined that the old man was still waiting for them there. If he was, she might just let him keep his head. Particularly if he had something else for them.

#

As soon as the adventurers were out of the chamber and out of earshot, Audron leaped back up. He transformed back to his bipedal form, and gripped his wrist tightly.

“Owwwwww, that…mmmph!”

She had taken his claw. She probably hadn’t even considered that that meant, but it was almost like getting a gods-damned fingernail ripped off. His finger was still bleeding now that he was in a two-legged form, too. He shook his head, channeling a bit of healing magic into that.

The rest of his injuries were, thankfully, more or less fixed from the transformation. That was part of the transition of the magic, moving from one form to the other. The only things still damaged were the tip of his tail and the missing claw. Overall, considering that he had been pelted with lightning, nearly lost three teeth, and gotten ripped to hell by all their attacks, he was pretty sure that he’d gotten off lightly.

Still, all things considered, he’d have to take this a bit more seriously. They were a lot more competent than he had imagined, and quick-lived or not, they were going to be a pain in the ass if he had to go through this every time.

At least they’d taken some of the ‘gifts’ that he had left behind. The various spells on those had been missed by the monk and the wizard. The monk had been too busy being distracted by the ‘restraint’ spell from the chains, and the orc had been distracted by the residual bit of ‘correction corruption’ that his staff had absorbed earlier. They would have missed the ‘cursed’ things that would begin the correction process on the evil party members.

The dwarf’s monocle had the capability of seeing far and finding secrets, but it also would feed one’s need to know that. It would cause an obsession of sorts, something that should keep the dwarf nice and distracted, eager to know things, more willing to bend to those that would feed that need for information.

The monk’s bracers would expand that control that Audron already had over him, allowing some body manipulation. For the monk himself, it would be like having the ability to reach outside his body, projecting himself to different people, and being able to touch them. Astral projection, he believed it was called, and he could use that through the monk to ensure that he did as he was told.

The orc? He had taken a wand of charm. Not that he needed help casting it, but Audron was sure that the wizard would see that there was something different about it, something that would charm people to actually [i]like[/i] him rather than just obey him. He was pretty sure that the big guy could use a friend.

And as for the human woman, the leader? That blade was powerful, but he had heard some of her complaints. If she didn’t want to be looked down on as a woman…perhaps she would like it better as a man.

He didn’t know if it was the best decision, but they felt like good gifts that would slowly bend them towards him, in gratitude. Maybe he was wrong, but hey, he could try again if he was.

[i]Of course, if they need more payment then this, I might have to talk to mom…[/i]

He groaned at the idea. Going back to his mother to get a loan from the hoard was going to mean begging, and she could be rather insistent about knowing exactly what he wanted this sort of stuff for. The fact that he was outfitting an evil party, even under the idea of Claiming and redemption, was probably not going to sit well with another platinum dragon.

But that was for later. For now, he needed to get going before they got back to town. They were faster than he liked, and he wanted to make sure that he was sitting in the tavern when they arrived. Maybe their gifts would slow them down, maybe not, but he couldn’t rely on that being the case.

He grunted as he dragged himself along, already having to correct for not having his full tail any longer. The difference wasn’t that much, but it was enough to throw him off-balance and leave him very, very annoyed.

#

Lork-Lund. The town was just as quiet as had been when he’d left it, and while he hated the feeling of keeping a smooshed-face disguise on, it was better than walking around, hiding a tail, and stumbling over his own two feet while he was trying to keep a low profile. He’d entered town the night before, bought a room with a platinum coin – he was getting low, but it would be enough for a month, the innkeeper said – and he’d gotten as comfortable as he could in the common room.

There had been an incident flying back, one that had surprised him. He’d felt the presence of the kobolds while he was resting at the halfway point, and realized that they’d started following him from the dungeon. He hoped that they would go back when they didn’t immediately find him, but if they didn’t…

[i]I hope they’re okay.[/i]

That was all he could think. That was all he allowed himself to think.

He was sipping on some mortal drink – there was a fuzziness to it that made his head feel weird – when the door slammed open. The evil party walked in, still looking as rough-worn as they had been after the fight…and some of them looking rather embarrassed, as well, particularly the woman. She marched right up to him.

“Done,” she muttered.

“Hmm?” he asked. “Already?”

“No. [i]We[/i] are done, unless you can cough up enough money to make up for the [i]bullshit[/i] that you sent us after on the way there.”

“What are you talking about? You needed all that stuff.”

“The door…was…open, numbnuts!”

“…Oh.”

He’d known that he had forgotten something. He’d made his way there, taken over the dungeon, gotten the traps started and begun working on making it all his own, and he had forgotten to lock the door. No wonder they’d been pissed arriving and pissed leaving. They knew someone had wasted their time.

Before he could open his mouth, the woman leaned in, almost nose to nose with him. She was spitting mad, too.

“And let’s not forget the goddamn dragon inside.”

“There was a dragon?” he asked, trying to play dumb.

“YES!”

She rooted around in her pocket, slamming a claw – [i]his[/i] claw – down on the table. He stared at it for a moment, fighting the urge to ram it back onto his finger, before looking back up at her.

“I am [i]so[/i] sorry. I didn’t know that things had changed. But…you got what I sent you there for, right?”

“…”

“Right?”

“…What did you send us there for, again?”

“A bright green cloak, enchanted.”

Something that hadn’t been there, of course, but it would flip the blame back on them, remind them that they had been less than professional bringing back what they had been hired to get. Something that he’d only barely thought of, but one that he hoped would save his scales for the moment.

After a quick conversation between them, they realized that they hadn’t brought it. The human woman – Viola – sighed, rubbing her forehead.

“Fuck. Okay, we fucked that up.”

“Well…I have another mission for you –”

“Hoped to hear that, but if you’re giving us another mission, you’re coming with us.”

“…Pardon?”

That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Audron continues to play the baddie in the dungeon, but what’s he gonna do when the party reaches him?

Tags: M/solo, fight, fighting, human, orc, dwarf, dragon, feral, transformation, anthro to feral, treasure, series, magic, pain, humor, what the fuck, fantasy, kobold, cute,