Chapters Ocellus stood in a dank windowless chamber, the walls and floor chiseled from damp stone, mildew growing from the mortar. The air smelled faintly of filth. It was dark, so everything was in shades of gray. Two gaunt baby dragons, or creatures that greatly resembled them, stood nearby – one of them her mistress. Her mistress had not given her any orders yet, so she stood calmly awaiting instructions.
“Summoning, Tixi? That’s a wasted spell to learn,” the other dragon said. His words weren’t in Equestrian, but that was what he meant to say, and she heard the intention behind them even if the actual sounds were weird, draconic hissing and growling.
Her mistress, Tixi, looked down at the book she was holding, then back at the other. “I can learn another spell tomorrow,” she said, defensively, her ears swiveling to flatten against her skull, expressive like a pony’s.
“What did you even summon?”
Tixi frowned, and walked around Ocellus, staring at her from different angles. “I don’t know. It was supposed to be a badger.”
Ocellus obediently turned into a badger, the flash of green flame momentarily bringing light and color to the room, and sending the two small dragons stumbling back.
Tixi grinned, dozens of sharp teeth showing. “What is your name, creature, that I might summon you again?”
“Ocellus,” the changeling-turned-badger responded, and although her form lacked the ability to talk, her mistress reacted as if she’d understood.
===
Another night, Ocellus found herself standing in the middle of a ring of tiny dragons, already shifted into badger form. Her enemy stood before her, and she lunged, sinking her teeth into a wooden shield suddenly interposed between her and her target.
Her enemy laughed. “That was the spell you were building up to? A summon?” He circled around, until he was between her and her mistress, then turned his back on Ocellus to stab a wooden spear, the tip wrapped in cloth, at her face.
Tixi yelped and fell back, stumbling into the arms of the crowd. “Ring out! Rezzo is the victor!” growled the voice of older looking dragon – still tiny and wingless, somehow, but wrinkled and frail.
Ocellus leapt at Rezzo and bit his tail. He yelped and stabbed at her with his spear, while the others laughed.
“Down, Ocellus, I lost,” Tixi said, her entire form signaling submission as she sat on the sidelines now. Ocellus let go and walked over to stand guard over her. She didn’t seem badly hurt, at least.
A clawed hand descended on her neck, then stroked down her furry body, little claws running through her fur.
She awoke.
Smolder awoke with her, peeking down over the edge of the top bunk. “Bad dream?”
Ocellus sat up atop her sheets. She’d tried sleeping under them before, but it just seemed to make the bed messier without actually increasing the comfort. “Not really? I was a badger, and someone was petting me.” She tried to remember the rest, but it fled from her memory.
“Fluttershy?” Smolder asked.
She shook her head. “No, it was a dragon.”
“Spike then,” Smolder said, pulling back and settling back onto her mattress, the bunk overhead creaking as it adjusted to her weight. “You know I’m not really his girlfriend. If you want him to ‘pet’ you –”
“I don’t have a crush on Spike!” Ocellus squeaked, covering her face.
“Then why are you dreaming about him?”
“I wasn’t dreaming about him!” she insisted. “Maybe I was dreaming about you?” That didn’t sound right either, though.
There was a snort, and the faint smell of smoke. “Come on up, then,” Smolder said at last, her grinning face leaning over the edge, and offering a clawed hand up.
She shifted into a badger as Smolder grabbed her hoof, and the dragon rolled onto her back, pulling her to rest on her belly.
“I’m not really sure this is the best form for cuddling,” Ocellus said, and Smolder began to stroke her rough fur, and she let her digging claws scrape slowly down the dragon’s scaled sides.
Somewhat to her surprise, Smolder liked that, a lot. The little dragon’s heart started racing, and she stared into Ocellus’ expressionless black eyes, her own half-lidded.
Half-remembered training told Ocellus exactly how things were supposed to go from there, and she was too drowsy and comfortable to put up a fight. By morning the dreams were all but forgotten.
===
Ocellus was a badger, standing at the feet of her mistress, whose claws stroked her head, scratching her behind her ears.
“Run down the hallway and set off as many traps as possible,” Tixi said, pointing to the rickety wooden construction before them, a wooden mockup of a presumably trap-filled corridor.
Ocellus obeyed, snuffling as she stumbled into the hallway, swerving back and forth to make sure to trigger as many pressure plates as possible, and banging into the walls on either side for good measure. Spring-loaded, cloth-wrapped spears battered her from either side, and a showed of gravel poured from a ceiling compartment to roll off her back. Near the end of the corridor, the floor opened under her and she fell two feet into a tiny pit, lined with straw.
Tixi followed behind her, stumbling a bit as the gravel shifted under her feet, but otherwise unmolested. She hopped over the pit and, as Ocellus scrambled up out of the slight depression, pranced out the other end of the tunnel, flinging her hands into the air as she grinned. “Tada!”
“If those were real traps, you would have lost your summon,” said a voice from out of sight, as Ocellus walked over to stand at Tixi’s side.
“Then I’d just summon it again. It’s not *real*,” Tixi retorted, turning to speak to the other, snatching her hand away just before it would have settled back on Ocellus’ head.
===
“I had the dream again,” Ocellus mentioned over breakfast.
“The one where Spike was petting you?” Smolder asked, smirking. Ocellus felt a warm dragon tail curl around her ankle, under the table. She wasn’t sure how to feel about this. The entire point of what she’d done with Smolder was to make her victim more attached to her, but was it really okay to do that to a friend? How would anything be helped by rejecting her, though? It wasn’t like Smolder hadn’t enjoyed herself, and for her own part, dragon claws were *very* good at petting.
She noticed that Silverstream was staring at her, a wide silly grin on her face.
“You’re blushing!” the hippogryph said, in a singsong voice.
“It wasn’t Spike!” Ocellus said, shaking her leg loose from Smolder’s tail. “Or you, Smolder. This time I was… setting off a bunch of traps? Like a Daring Do story, but none of the traps could hurt me because they were all fake or something.”
Smolder frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the same dream at all.”
“It felt like it was the same,” Ocellus said, reaching down discreetly to wrap shoulder’s tail around her hoof. “I just wish I could remember more about it. Maybe if I was a dreamling…” The others looked at her expectantly, until she explained. “Some changelings can walk the dreamscape. It’s one of the ways we study our targets.” She grimaced. “We *used to* study our targets, I mean. We don’t have targets anymore.”
“Is it something you could learn?” Gallus asked. “Seems like it could be a lot of fun.”
“I don’t know,” Ocellus said. “I was being trained to seduce and replace ponies, not to mess with their dreams.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this conversation,” Sandbar said, the only pony at the table.
“Sandbar not worry!” Yona said, ‘patting’ him on the back with her usual excessive display of force. “No one replace Yona’s friend!”
“But Yona, I’m over here,” Ocellus said, in Sandbar’s doofy voice, from Sandbar’s doofy face.
Gallus smirked, and Smoulder snickered, but Yona just narrowed her eyes at ‘him’, then nodded firmly. “Yona can handle two Sandbars. Twice the smashing!”
“Yona!” Sandbar and Sandbar protested, but Yona was having none of that. She dragged the two of them to the end of the table, arranging one on either side of her, facing each other.
“Yeesss,” Yona said, glancing at one Sandbar, then the other. “Now kiss!”
It was far from Ocellus’ weirdest kiss, and Sandbar seemed to have fun with it as well. Their friends’ laughter somehow made it better.
“You liked taking orders from her, didn’t you?” Sandbar asked, later, when they were alone and Ocellus was back looking like herself.
“I…” she tried to say. “I’m not sure ‘like’ is the word.” She wasn’t sure what the word was, but she hadn’t been able to stop. It was so much easier to just go with the flow.
“Yona’s really into that,” Sandbar said. “If you want to… we could have you over sometime? And we could both be her little pets.” He looked down. “I don’t mind sharing with you.”
“Um… thanks,” Ocellus said, resolving to never take him up on that.
===
The dreams kept coming, never quite the same but the foggy memories of them were similar enough that Ocellus could tell that they were the same.
It turned out that several of the dreamlings had survived the invasion and stayed with the hive, and one of them was interested enough in her dreams to come visit. He sat by her side while she slept, and shook her awake in the middle of the night.
“What is it?” Ocellus asked, having just completed another training session, this time fighting against another summoned badger. Neither of them had been able to take the other down before the dream ended.
“I don’t know,” Parieto replied. “Something snatched you out of your dream, and I couldn’t wake you up until just now. Was it another one of the dreams you’ve been experiencing?”
Ocellus nodded. “I can remember it pretty clearly. There’s a little dragon called Tixi who keeps summoning me, with a magic spell. She has me turn into a badger and fight things for her. This time I was fighting… was fighting…”
“And you just do whatever she says?” Smolder asked, awoken by their talking.
“It’s a dream,” Ocellus said. “I know what I’m supposed to do and just go along with it.”
“And you’ve got a thing for dragons,” Smolder said, smirking.
Ocellus rolled her eyes, not that the dragon could probably tell. Parieto tilted his head at her, and she reluctantly nodded. There was no way she was hiding her ‘relationship’ with Smolder from an older changeling.
“I suppose it’s good to keep in practice,” Parieto said.
“It’s not like that!” Ocellus said. “She started it.”
“Did not,” Smolder said. “But as long as I get what I want, I don’t care if it’s just a workout for you. I’m no romantic.”
“Liar,” Ocellus muttered under her breath. Smolder pretended not to hear.
“At any rate, I think there’s something more to this than just a normal dream,” Parieto said. “I can teach you a little bit of dreamwalking, just enough to unfog your mind and realize that you’re dreaming in the moment.”
“I think I’d like that,” Ocellus said. “Tomorrow after class?”
===
It took a few days for Ocellus to learn the basics. Gallus sat in on the lessons, to Prietto’s obvious discomfort which the griffon entirely ignored.
But at last, Ocellus appeared in the moldy underground lair, and realized at once that she was in a dream. Another badger was across the ring from her, but she ignored her instinct to fight it, and turned back into her true form, stepping over the line. “Tixi, we need to talk,” she said.
Tixi and the other little dragon, across the room, stood there with their mouths open.
“Why do you keep summoning me?” Ocellus asked.
“We’re training to defend our home,” Tixi said. “I’m not very strong, so –”
The other little dragon cut her off. “We’re training to hunt rats,” he said, smirking. “Tixi convinced me to learn to summon, but my summons aren’t anywhere near as cool as hers.” His badger didn’t seem to object, or react to his insult in any way, and soon enough vanished in a puff of smoke.
Ocellus felt the dream wavering around her, like her time was almost up as well, but managed to hold herself together with Pareto’s mental exercises.
“I told you my version was special,” Tixi said. “Ocellus can remember being summoned and learn from it, because I get the same creature every time.”
“Then that’s why –” Ocellus started to say, just as Tixi turned to her and frowned, saying, “Did you want me to stop?”
Ocellus froze. She’d solved the mystery, perhaps, but did she want it to end? “Not really,” she said.
Tixi grinned widely and hugged her, and the dream dissolved, leaving her standing in an empty room made of changeling slime, still lucid enough to recognize it as a dream. Green glowing pods hung from the walls, and the sounds of distant skittering echoed through the hive. She could tell that she was in trouble, because she hadn’t studied for her math test – hadn’t even realized she was learning math – and when Chrysalis found out that she’d failed…
It was a lot less scary when she was lucid. Still, she’d take Tixi dreams over Chrysalis dreams any day of the week.
===
From that point on, the summoning dreams became a lot more interesting. Knowing she was lucid, Tixi would talk to Ocellus while they trained, introducing her to Rezzo – a warrior – and Ijj, who also summoned things but was somehow not a wizard. “I’m a dragon caster!” he said proudly. “The blood of dragons runs in my veins!”
“I thought you were all little dragons?” Ocellus asked, kicking at the badger, who dodged her hoof and nearly took it off with a quick bite in return.
“We are…” Tixi said, frowning, “but there are true dragons. Magic dragons. Fiercer and larger and better in every way. Even the surface-dwellers fear and admire them. They sleep upon piles of gold and gems…”
Ocellus shifted into a wolf, and growled at the badger, trying to make it back off, but the summoned creature knew no fear, and they snapped at each other’s jaws. Ocellus managed to win the exchange, and crunched the creature’s throat between her teeth, briefly tasting blood before it vanished into odorless smoke.
“It’s not fair!” Ijj complained. “You shouldn’t be able to summon wolves yet.”
“I didn’t summon a wolf,” Tixi said, smirking. “I summoned Ocellus!”
Other times, she’d summon Ocellus when there wasn’t any training, showing her around the tribe’s lair. It was all fairly similar – ancient, damp stonework deep beneath the ground. One chamber had a stove, the fire carefully locked away so little light could emerge to hurt the little dragons’ eyes. Dozens of little dragons lived and worked together, warriors and not-wizards and others who dug tunnels, searching for gems or ore, although there wasn’t much to be found.
“So many warriors?” Ocellus remarked.
“So few warriors,” Tixi corrected. “It lets us train and equip them. Most little dragon tribes need everyone to fight when we’re invaded, but the surface dwellers here let us live in peace, most of the time, as long as we keep the other monsters under control.”
“Mostly giant rats,” one of the warriors added.
“And adventurers,” another chimed in. Everybody laughed.
Ocellus was confused. “Don’t they get mad if you fight the adventurers?”
“They’re not supposed to be down here,” Tixi said, indignantly. “But they come anyway. This isn’t their territory!”
“Mostly we don’t even fight them,” the warrior noted. “But some of them get violent, and then…” he winced. “Well, sometimes some of us get away.”
The dream ended before she could ask any more. Tixi was getting better at summoning her for longer periods of time, but her magical power was still very limited.
“If I focused everything on being a summoner, there wouldn’t be a time limit,” Tixi explained, casting a few other spells on herself, layered defensive fields that a group of other trainees tried to penetrate with thrown rocks. “But pure wizardry is so much more powerful…” She yelped as a lucky throw got through her defenses, bruising her arm. “Eventually, I mean. I still only know a few spells.”
She demonstrated another, creating a hovering sphere of light that made the rock-throwers hiss and squint, further hurting their aim. Ocellus, not involved in the exercise, had time to admire the indigo shimmer of Tixi’s scales, fading to a creamy yellow on her belly and chin, while she screamed a battle-cry and starting lobbing gobs of sizzling acid at her opponents, who spun around screaming dramatically when they were hit, before collapsing to the floor and pretending to be dead.
Another dream was spent studying traps and trigger mechanisms, something that all little dragons were expected to be competent at, and Tixi decided that Ocellus might as well learn too. “It’s all well and good to set off the traps by bumbling around, but every trap you can set off safely is another trap that doesn’t kill you and make me waste my magic calling you back.”
Ocellus found the subject fascinating, but had no real talent for it, and her eyes weren’t nearly as good in the dark as the little dragons’.
Then one night, in late autumn, she arrived in the middle of a fierce battle, shouting and screaming and cries of pain all around as the little dragons fought larger invaders, Tixi a nexus of panic behind her tossing acid globs over her shoulder at a hulking, armored figure that towered over Ocellus like an angry minotaur.
Ocellus shifted into a teenage dragon, the most dangerous form she could think of in the moment, tall enough to come up to the monster’s chest, and slashed at it with razor-sharp claws, only for its sword to whip out faster than she could see and take off her arm at the elbow. She breathed fire in its face, and it recoiled momentarily, before lunging at her and sinking its blade into her chest. Ocellus had time to see an acid glob nail it in the face and splatter across its helmet’s eye-slits before the world faded to black, and she woke up in her bed, gasping and running her forehooves – both forehooves – over her chest, which was mercifully unharmed.
It was just a dream. Dying in a dream didn’t mean you died in real life. She’d already known that, Tixi had said so. Still… was Tixi okay? What were those things?
Smolder peeked down over the edge of the bunkbed.
“I’m fine,” Ocellus had. “You don’t die in a dream if you die in real life.”
Smolder blinked, and Ocellus realized her mistake. “I mean -- *sigh* I hope that isn’t the last time I dream about her. Things were going bad.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Smolder asked, offering her a hand.
“I don’t know,” Ocellus said, reaching up a hoof and letting Smolder pull her into bed next to her anyway.
The dragon’s claws snaked around her, and claws dragged slowly along her wing-cases, while a snaky tail spiraled up along her thigh. “Want to not talk about it?”
===
That worked for a while, but eventually Smolder exhausted even a dragon’s stamina, and Ocellus was still wide awake. When cuddling a sleeping dragon stopped being romantic and started getting boring, she slipped out and stalked the dark halls of the school dorm until the morning bell rang. She tried to pay attention in class but was so distracted that she was sent to the counselor’s office for cocoa and empathy.
“So in your dreams, you’re summoned by a Great and Powerful Sorceress?” Trixie asked, reclining in her chair and spinning around slowly. She’d never been very good at the ‘empathy’ part.
Ocellus nodded, albeit while Trixie’s back was turned. “That’s right. Although she insists that she’s a wizard, not a sorceress. I’m not sure what the difference is. And… I’m worried for her. She summoned me to fight off a deadly beast and I failed. What if she never summons me again?”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t give up on you after one little failure,” Trixie said. “Not if you’ve been friends with her for weeks.”
“I’m more worried that she’s dead,” Ocellus said bluntly.
Trixie froze at that, then forced an unconvincing smile. “I’m sure she’s fine. A Great and Powerful Wizard would surely have other tricks up her sleeve.”
Ocellus had seen her other tricks, and doubted that her defensive spells would be enough against the monster’s skill. But she pretended to be comforted until Trixie calmed down, then left to fret privately, given the rest of the day off to settle her mind.
===
She remained unsettled until she was summoned once again, leaping into Tixi’s arms and hugging her. “You’re alive!”
“So are you!” Tixi replied, patting her shoulder and then pushing her away. “I’m glad you were able to reform your body so quickly. I was worried.”
“Reform my… what?” Ocellus asked. “I come here in my dreams, Tixi. When I died I just woke up.”
“You did?” Tixi frowned. “Then why couldn’t I summon you again? I prepared the spell three more times but it didn’t work.”
“Ah,” Ocellus said, lowering her head in embarrassment.
“Olieras said that it was because summoned creatures need time to reform their body, but if you weren’t really hurt why wouldn’t you come back?”
“I couldn’t get back to sleep,” Ocellus said, looking down. “I was too worried.”
Tixi opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Well, Ijj managed to throw his stupid badgers in the way until we could both make a run for it.”
“What were those horrible things?” Ocellus asked. “I thought this place was safe.”
“Adventurers,” Tixi hissed. “They killed everyone at the entrance and made it past our traps. Then they killed a bunch more of us before we drove them off. I hope they don’t come back.” She reached into a belt pouch and fiddled with something. “The surfacers gave us a chest of treasure as an apology, so it wasn’t all bad. I got something for you.” She took out a shiny ribbon, and tied it around Ocellus’ neck. “Do you like it?”
Ocellus tilted her head, but couldn’t get a good look at it. “Thank you, Tixi.”
Tixi hugged her, tentatively, and Ocellus returned the gesture. Tixi’s scales were warm against her chitin… but all too soon, she felt the magic fading.
“I have to go, but I’m glad you made it.”
Tixi nodded. “I’m working on a way to keep you here for longer.”
“That would be nice,” Ocellus said, as the dream dissolved. She let go of lucidity, and let the rest of the night pass in restful dreams.
===
“What’s with the collar?” Smolder asked the next morning, as they were freshening up before breakfast.
Ocellus reached a hoof to feel her neck, then went over to the mirror to take a look. A shiny purple ribbon was tied around her neck, with strange letters inscribed along its length. “Well, that’s not freaky at all,” she said.
“I didn’t do it,” Smolder said.
“Tixi gave it to me, because I tried to protect her,” Ocellus said. “I didn’t expect to have it when I woke up.”
“It’s a good start for your hoard,” Smolder said. At Ocellus’ look she grinned. “You fought a giant monster for it. That automatically makes it awesome.”
“I *died* fighting a giant monster,” Ocellus pointed out. It hadn’t hurt as much as it probably should have, since it happened in a dream, but remembering the fight still gave her the chills.
“Eh, so you lost. Who cares?” Smolder said. “I wish I got to dream about fighting giant monsters. Mostly I just dream about being embarrassed by my brother.”
“I’ll let her know you’re interested,” Ocellus said, deadpan.
“Really?” Smolder perked up. “I knew there was a reason I hung out with you!”
===
“I’m not sure a name will be enough, but I can try,” Tixi said. “Can you describe her?”
Ocellus frowned. “She looks a lot like you, only orange and magenta. She has wings. And she’s a true dragon, just fairly young? Barely past her first molt.”
“True dragons molt?”
Ocellus nodded. “I could try drawing a picture, but that’s not something I’m good at. Oh! I could…” flame flashed over her body as she turned herself into Smolder. “I’m not supposed to impersonate real people, but no one cares as long as I’m not actually trying to pass myself off as them.”
“Hmm,” Tixi said, looking her over. “I don’t think the spell I know is strong enough to work on dragons, but I can try.” She took a deep breath, and stood firmly upright, then started to wave her hands around as she chanted, “Golden hook, silver line, bring Smolder here and make her mine.” She grimaced as if concentrating on something, and her claws strained against resistance of some sort, but eventually she let out a frustrated growl and let her arms fall to her side. “I hooked *something*, but the spell wasn’t strong enough. I can only cast the simplest version, suitable for the weakest of monsters.”
“But it was strong enough to work on me?”
Tixi patted Ocellus on the head, although she had to stand on tiptoe since shoulder’s form was a bit taller than her. “Don’t worry, you’ll get stronger if you practice!”
Ocellus scowled. “If I tell her that, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
===
“Sorry, Smolder,” Ocellus said the next morning. “She tried, but without knowing your mystical true name she can’t choose what to summon.”
“My what?”
Ocellus nodded. “Your mystical true name, unique throughout all the worlds. Without it, she’d have to get lucky and summon you at random, like she did with me.”
“Rats,” Smolder said. “I guess that means you don’t have to worry about getting replaced.”
===
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Tixi asked, a few nights later. She held a trio of slimy, apple-sized eggs that, judging from the smell, had just come from inside of her own body.
“Oh wow,” Ocellus said. “I didn’t know you were old enough to have children. Who’s your mate?”
“Um… I think it was Poxl?” Tixi said, pausing to answer the question in the middle of licking the eggs clean. “I don’t really know him, but he was supposed to be a good match.”
“That’s…” Ocellus said.
“I know I shouldn’t really get attached, but I can’t help feeling a bit sentimental,” Tixi said, cradling the eggs. “Are you sentimental? Have you been poisoning me?”
“I’m a bit sentimental,” Ocellus said. “You could say I’m from a school that teaches sentimentality.”
“Ooooh, oh no no no,” Tixi said. “At least tell me you aren’t spontaneous!”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not *contagious*,” Ocellus grumped.
“But you are! It’s…”
The spell started to fade, and Ocellus didn’t stop it.
She was summoned back the same night, a bit later after Tixi had had time to set up a diagram, and presumably store the eggs somewhere safe because they were nowhere to be seen.
“These are the opposing forces that shape the outer planes,” she explained, waving Ocellus over. She pointed to the four cardinal points of what looked like a compass. “One axis is pragmatism vs. sentimentality, the other is reliability vs. spontaneity. Little dragons are supposed to be pragmatic and reliable.”
“I don’t think morality is quite that… black and white and red and blue,” Ocellus said.
“It’s not just morality, it’s a magical property of all living things,” Tixi explained. “So if you’re sentimental instead of pragmatic, then by summoning you I’m performing a sentimental act, and my soul will be progressively infected with sentimentality, until I’m no longer properly pragmatic.”
“And that’s bad?” Ocellus asked.
“Our tribe has to do a lot of pragmatic things to survive,” Tixi said.
Ocellus looked at the diagram again. “It’s not one of the magically active qualities of my world, but my hive used to be very pragmatic. Or at least, that’s what we told ourselves.”
“But not anymore?” Tixi asked.
“It wasn’t sustainable, and we found a better way,” Ocellus said. “Tixi, where are your eggs?”
“They’re safe,” she said. “Safer than they would be with me, and I have more important things to do than take care of them. I’m a wizard, after all.”
Ocellus stared at her, but was the first to look away. She would have had to give away her own eggs, if she’d ever been favored enough to earn the right to make them.
===
A few days later, Ocellus appeared in the training ring, which wasn’t unusual by itself. This time both Ijj and Rezzo faced off against Tixi, and they didn’t look happy.
“You’re holding us back!” Rezzo snarled, trying to leap past Ocellus to get at her mistress. Ocellus had fought him often enough to know that she was no match for him, but she could certainly get in his way and shove him back, now that she wasn’t forced into a badger shape by the dream logic.
“Tomorrow!” Tixi said. “I can do the ritual tomorrow, then I’ll be ready!” She tossed a blob of acid at Ijj, who flinched back, tripped, and lost concentration on his own summoning spell.
Rezzo slammed Ocellus in the face with his shield, and it smarted a little, but didn’t stop her from sinking her fangs into the wood, holding it in place. She danced to the side to avoid his spear, dragging him around and off-balance by his shield arm.
“Bolts of force!” Ijj shouted, and a pair of shimmering motes erupted from his hands and spiraled through the air towards Ocellus. She tried to dodge behind Rezzo, but they parted around him and slammed into her from either side. The pain wasn’t much, but they broke something inside her, and her vision started to fade in and out.
“Sticky strands of spider’s silk!” Tixi said, and the whole room was filled with thick, clinging cobwebs. Ocellus and Rezzo were both completely entangled, putting a messy end to their fight.
“Oh, come on! Why did you cast that spell?” Ijj complained. “Why did you even learn that spell?”
“It’s the most effective means of disabling multiple opponents from the second level of complexity,” Tixi said, proudly. “But of course it’s too subtle for a dragon-caster like you.”
“It’s not subtle, it’s just indiscriminate. I can’t believe they let you use it in training.” Ijj growled. “Now we’ll be stuck here for half an hour before we can finish beating you up.”
“Or I could light the webs on fire,” Tixi suggested. “I won’t, because this is a friendly match, but you have to admit that you’ve lost.”
Rezzo hissed and struggled against his bonds, and managed to free up his arm enough to stab Ocellus again.
She woke up in her bed, of course, none the worse for wear. But she had questions.
Questions that would have to wait for the next night, since she was far too worked up to get back to sleep. She watched Smolder sleep for a few seconds. She knew her roommate wouldn’t turn her away if she crawled into bed with her, but thinking about it just made her stomach twist. She hadn’t used any magic, hadn’t drained any love, but she couldn’t help worrying that she was taking advantage of the poor dragon.
===
By now her friends recognized the signs of Ocellus being distracted and drowsy due to dream death, so they didn’t remark on it much, although Smolder was annoyed that she’d managed to sleep through the whole thing. Ocellus had gotten better at staying awake during class – as far as her teachers knew. Shapeshifting alert-looking eyes wasn’t difficult. That was enough to avoid another Trixie session, at least.
“You know, I talked to Starlight about mystical true names,” Smolder said, as they were hanging out watching the pegasai arrange the clouds in pretty patterns for sunset. “She said that’s a fairy tale, and magic doesn’t work that way. Are you holding out on me?”
“Um…” Ocellus said, lowering her gaze. “I don’t know much about it personally, it’s just what Tixi told me. She’s just learning magic herself.”
“If you want to fight so bad, I could kick your tail again,” Gallus offered.
“In your dreams!” Smolder shot back, standing up and putting her hands on her hips.
“Loser has to braid Sandbar’s mane!” Silverstream called, grinning and rubbing her hands together.
“Wait, what?” Sandbar said.
“Only Yona braid Sandbar’s mane!” the big yak said protectively.
Ocellus chuckled and took the opportunity to rest her eyes a bit.
That night, she slipped into her dreams as normal, and squirmed her way to lucidity without having to think about it. Her dreamworld home decorated itself with the colorful flowers and vines and furniture she liked to see there, woven rugs covering up the glowing pods. It was still a reminder of the hive, but the additions made it more of a reminder of the new hive, after Thorax showed them how to break free of Chrysalis’ control. Her dream-self was still black and riddled with holes tonight, though, so she folded her legs under herself and meditated on her form, willing herself to change into the pastel version that she showed on the outside.
She felt Tixi’s presence, and opened her eyes, expecting to see the kobold’s lair, but no, she was still in her dreamscape. “Tixi?” she asked, looking around. There was no Tixi to be seen.
Suddenly, the world lurched, and she woke up in her bed – but something was wrong. Her skin was glowing faintly, roiling bands of brighter luminescence squirming across her chitin, making her tingle… but she still felt Tixi’s presence, so she tried to force herself to relax, and not to wake up Smolder. If this was how the new summoning spell was going to work –
There was a soundless *whump* of pressure, and she found herself in round, dark chamber, part of the little dragons’ lair judging from the stonework and the smell, sitting in the middle of a magic circle, runes and stars and spirals and everything else you usually saw when wizards decided to get fancy. There were candles at each point of an irregular five-pointed star, and the faint sound of a bell fading from the air, although she’d never heard it ring. Tixi crouched near the edge of the circle, off to the side, resplendent in the candles’ glow, the light making her scales shimmer. An older dragon stood off to the side, watching, her scales spotted and gray, leaning on a gnarled staff.
“And now the binding,” hissed the older little dragon.
Tixi sat up, reaching one clawed hand towards Ocellus. “Spirit from beyond, bind to my soul, become one with my power, together we face the world. Honor my wisdom as I honor your might, and let the fools who stand against us suffer.”
“Tixi? What is this?” Ocellus asked.
The older dragon tapped her staff against the stone floor. “Again.”
Tixi chanted once more, and Ocellus realized that she wasn’t speaking in her normal tongue. “Spirit from beyond, bind to my soul, become one with my power, together we face the world. Honor my wisdom as I honor your might, and let the fools who stand against us suffer.” The pronunciation was weirdly stilted, kind of like when she was casting a spell.
Ocellus stared at her outstretched hand. She reached out for it, then pulled her hoof back instinctively as she felt some magical force rushing through her the closer she got.
Tixi gritted her teeth, and met Ocellus’ eyes. “Please!”
Ocellus reached out and let her take her hoof, and drag her out of the circle. Fire rushed through her, and she gasped – Tixi was more stoic, but she obviously felt it too.
“It worked,” said the old dragon. “Now put out the candles before they burn any lower! You’ve wasted enough paint on the circle… have your familiar clean it up.” She turned to leave, but Ocellus didn’t turn to look, instead gazing, rapt, into Tixi’s eyes.
Emotion flowed freely between them, the force and clarity dwarfing the rudimentary empathy Ocellus had always had as a changeling, or even the somewhat stronger link she’d felt from the simpler summoning spells. Tixi was relieved, and exhausted, and then worried as she felt Ocellus’ confusion and alarm. Ocellus clamped down on that feedback loop, forcing herself to send love and support, and soon enough Tixi followed her lead until the emotions calmed to a simmer.
“I’m not dreaming, am I?” Ocellus asked.
Tixi let go of her hoof, and scampered around blowing out all the candles, returning the room to the dull grayscale of darkvision. “I don’t know how it works on your end,” she said. “But yes, you should be physically here.”
Ocellus tried to clamp down on the spike of fear she felt at that, with limited success. She kept her voice calm, for what that was worth. “That seemed like a serious ritual. How long does this sort of summoning last?”
“Forever?” Tixi responded, confused. “You’re here physically, gated in and bound.”
“Is that… safe?” Ocellus asked, the fear prickling along her wing-casings.
“I think so? There weren’t any warnings,” Tixi said, gathering up the candles. “Can you help me clean up the paint?” A trickle of worry reflected back from her, fed by Ocellus’ mounting terror.
“I mean if I die again,” Ocellus said. “I’ve been dying a lot, and it’s bad enough when it just makes me lose sleep.”
The wave of understanding and relief from Tixi was heartening, and she felt her fear receding even before the explanation. “Oh! No, it’s just as safe as before. I can summon you back the next day if you die. I don’t think you’d go back to your spirit world, though.” She glanced at the book, then shrugged. “We’ll probably find out soon enough!”
“Right,” Ocellus said, looking around the room. There was a doorway, and she could hear other little dragons moving around in other chambers. She glanced back over at Tixi, who’d found a filthy mop and was getting it wet in a puddle where a corner of the room had subsided over the years. “What do we do in the meantime?”
Tixi held the mop out to her. “You can start by cleaning up the paint,” she said. “I’ll put the rest of the supplies away.”
Ocellus stared at the mop, took it in her mouth, then shifted into her dragon shape so that she’d have hands to wield it properly. The ‘paint’ hadn’t dried yet, and seemed to be water-soluble, but there wasn’t a good way to wash off the mop, so she ended up with it smeared all over the floor while the puddle was opaque from the paint she’d managed to actually clean off.
And she just felt blank, which bothered her. Was she supposed to be angry? Scared? Excited? Tixi was excited enough for both of them, at least.
“I guess I’m going on an adventure,” she said to herself, setting the mop by the puddle and heading for the door.
Even once she’d started forcing lucidity, her summoning dreams had never really focused on the other little dragons in the lair. It wasn’t really overcrowded, by any rational standard – nowhere near as crowded as the School of Friendship, for example, let alone her barely-remembered time in the old hive, before the disastrous invasion. There were dozens of little dragons, but the complex of carved chambers they used as a lair was extensive. Still, walking through a room with three of them turning to look at her was a bit frightening, even if she knew they were friends and allies and weren’t about to attack.
Maybe it would help if she knew their names? She approached the three, who seemed to be playing a game of some sort. “Hi, I’m –”
“Shouldn’t you be with your wizard?” one of them asked.
Ocellus froze, then hurried out of the room into a twisty corridor, ducking under one of the tripwires the little dragons had set up in all their hallways. It was set a bit higher than head-height for a little dragon, but in her slightly larger dragon shape her horns would have snagged on it. It would have just made a bunch of metal scraps jangle loudly, but she was embarrassed enough without setting off traps. She pressed herself against a wall as another dragon scurried past, carrying a sack, and turned left at the next intersection, following some familiar voices.
She found herself in a sort of armory – a room full of rough-looking weapons and armor, mostly spears and boiled leather breastplates, but there were some better-maintained crossbows and other clockwork mechanisms that probably went into the dragons ubiquitous traps. Ijj and Rezzo were there, fussing over a crossbow.
“It doesn’t take any strength, you just put in the bolt and turn the crank.”
Ijj looked dubious. “And it’ll hit harder than a firebolt?”
“Most of the time,” Rezzo said. “All the dragon-casters carry them.”
“Hello?” Ocellus said quietly, as she approached.
Rezzo’s hand went to a sheathed knife in his belt, but Ijj just looked confused. “Ocellus?” he asked, and Rezzo relaxed. “Where’s Tixi hiding?”
“I don’t know. She told me to clean up the magic circle and then vanished.”
“And you’re still here?” Ijj asked.
“She gated me in and bound me to her somehow?” Ocellus explained. “I think I’m stuck here for a while.”
“Do you have to look like that?” Rezzo asked. “It’s a little disturbing.”
“It is? It was the closest shape I had to one of you,” Ocellus said.
“It is,” Ijj said.
Ocellus returned to her base form, light blue chitin with spotted red wing-casings. “Sorry.”
“So this is what she was making us wait for, eh?” Rezzo said, poking at her. Ocellus took a step back, but he still managed to connect. Rezzo shrugged. “I hope you fight better in person than you did as a summon.”
“Apparently it’s still okay if I die,” Ocellus said. “But I should probably work harder on avoiding that.”
Suddenly, she was hugged from behind. “There you are!” Tixi exclaimed. “You weren’t in the ritual chamber, so I was running all over!”
“Um…” Ocellus said, squirming a bit, overwhelmed by Tixi’s broadcast affection. She knew intellectually that it was just the fidelity of the bond, but it was hard not to respond in kind, which was probably inappropriate for the situation. Or was it? Tixi certainly wasn’t letting go…
Rezzo bonked Tixi over the head with a crossbow, dislodging her, then held it out for her to take.
“Take it,” he said. “Wizards need them too.”
Tixi waved it off. “Acid splash is better.”
Rezzo bonked her again. “No, it isn’t. Take it.”
Tixi took it, and sighed, “Fine, whatever. I’m not going to use it though.” She took a harness off the wall – it didn’t cover much more than her usual belt of pouches, but it had a quiver for bolts and a hook to hang the crossbow on, out of the way. Ijj was already wearing something similar.
Rezzo looked Ocellus over. “I don’t think we have any armor that’ll fit you.”
“I can take care of that,” Tixi said. “I have a spell –”
“It’s a good spell, but it’s still a waste of magic,” Ijj said.
“it’s a spell that you should be casting every day!” Tixi said. “I shouldn’t be the one preparing them.”
“I could turn into a dragon?” Ocellus offered, but didn’t shift.
Rezzo bonked her. He’d given away the crossbow, so he just used his fist, although there was no force behind it. “No, your dragon is creepy and the proportions are wrong.”
“Come on, let’s go!” Tixi said, excitement rolling off her so strongly Ocellus was surprised it wasn’t visible.
“We would have gone yesterday if it wasn’t for you!” Ijj said, laughing, and the three of them headed out, Ocellus scrambling to follow.
Ocellus had visited the little dragons’ lair every night for months, but popping in in random rooms for a minute or two at a time hadn’t given her any sense of the layout. The armory was apparently pretty far from the entrance, because they passed a bunch of bustling chambers, full of strange scents and sounds and little dragons, before they finally got to the big common room where most of the warriors hung out, where she’d fought the terrifying adventurer. One of the warriors was waiting by the exit, chatting with some friends, although they fell silent and moved away as the group approached.
“Ah, our new heroes finally awake!” he said. “Are you ready for your patrol?”
“We’re *so* ready!” Rezzo said. “Are we doing the market route?”
“That’s the one,” the warrior replied. “Don’t get lost. Speak Common do you?” The last sentence was strangely halting, and if Ocellus concentrated she could tell it was in a different language, more melodic and liquid, and a lot closer to Ponish although it didn’t use any of the same words.
“I speak,” Tixi replied, while the other two looked clueless.
“Good,” the warrior said. “Talk to adventurers if you run into any. It makes them less aggressive. Now I’ll lead you past the traps so you can get on your way. Be careful, and step where I step.”
Ocellus was very, very careful. She was reasonably certain the traps on the entrance weren’t meant for training.
At the end of the gauntlet of traps, their guide threw his weight against a brick wall, and it swung open, blinding light streaming from beyond, brighter and brighter as it opened… and then her eyes adjusted, and she could see that it led to a large circular chamber in what looked like a buried sewer. Possibly more of a storm drain – it smelled terrible, but not as bad as she imagined a sewer might. The light came through a series of gratings far overhead, and as they stepped out into the open there was the clip clop and rattle of a pair of ponies trotting past, pulling a cart.
The little dragons’ eyes seemed to be having a harder time adjusting to the light, and their guide put on a set of smoky goggles, then fit one on each of Tixi and her friends. She shook her head as he came to offer her one, and looked over to where he’d gotten them from.
“A shop?” she asked, seeing a little dragon sitting behind the counter of a wooden stand that wouldn’t have stood out in Ponyville’s market, but was terribly out of place in a storm drain.
“Sometimes it reminds the adventurers that we’re not here to fight them,” the shopkeeper said. “Sometimes they try to kill us anyway. It’s easier than going up to the surface to trade, though.”
Ocellus glanced up at the gratings. “It doesn’t look like it’s that much of a climb.”
Tixi shivered. “It’s not the climb, it’s the people. So many people!”
“You’ll have to go up there sooner or later,” their guide said.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Tixi said. “I want to explore the underground, though. Isn’t it exciting?”
Ocellus nodded. She could tell that Tixi was certainly excited… and had been excited about visiting the surface, as well. There was no need to call her out on it, though. Her training as an infiltrator and her schoolwork on friendship agreed on that much.
“Now, rats aren’t that dangerous, but…” she cast her force armor spell on herself, Ocellus, and Ijj. Rezzo seemed content with his physical armor. “Try to flank with Rezzo, Ocellus. If you attack from different angles they’ll have a harder time defending. Do you have anything really tough and scary looking?”
“I can use a little magic if I stay in this form,” Ocellus offered. “Otherwise… I never learned the really big shapes.”
“How little is a little?” Ijj asked.
“Mostly just horn zaps,” Ocellus admitted. “I could probably manage light, but I don’t think any of us need it.” She demonstrated a zap against the wall, the green beam leaving a tiny scorch mark. Ijj seemed relieved at that.
“Can we go now?” Rezzo asked. “The rats won’t kill themselves.”
===
The little dragons were all extremely sneaky. Ocellus thought she was fairly sneaky – she’d had lessons on physically sneaking, just in case disguises didn’t work -- but she couldn’t hold a candle to the others without changing into a cat for extra sneakiness. Most of the rats they ran across died without ever knowing they were in danger – Tixi managed to splatter acid right in one’s ear, and Ijj sank a crossbow bolt into another’s throat. When it was Rezzo’s turn, he crept up on it, and got close enough to lunge and sink a pair of daggers into its back before it could react. Each time they’d cut off the tail as proof of the kill, then gut the rat and skin it, keeping the meat and hide for the tribe’s use.
“Do you want the next turn?” Tixi asked Ocellus.
She gave it a shot, sneaking up as a housecat even though the rat was the size of a small dog, leaping and latching on to the back of its neck, then shifting back to her true form to sink her fangs…
Her true form didn’t have fangs anymore, and its teeth weren’t meant for hunting. The rat almost squirmed free, but she was still sitting on top of it and managed to shift into her old shape to confirm the kill. It squealed and struggled and just wouldn’t die until she’d gnawed on its neck for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably more like ten seconds, leaving her covered in blood and feeling very stupid.
“You really need practice,” Rezzo said, walking up to her to start cleaning the kill.
“I probably should have just turned into a badger,” Ocellus admitted, shifting back into a cat and licking herself clean. “That’s the only shape I have any experience with.”
“Or a bigger cat,” Ijj suggested.
Their route took them gradually upwards, until they were only a few feet beneath the surface. The gratings were common, and every fifty feet or so a ladder led up to a covered exit that could have taken them to the world above. The noise was constant, surfacers walking and trading and chatting and yelling and filling the storm drain with the echoing sound of the common language – so much of it that it was difficult to make anything out. Occasionally, they’d run across a group of surfacers camping out underground – ratty looking, filthy surfacers, generally without armor or weapons beyond a rusty knife. They weren’t their target, so they crept past without engaging them.
“Why doesn’t anyone help them?” Ocellus asked.
“Wouldn’t be very pragmatic,” Tixi said. “If we took them in and fed them, they’d probably just steal from us and go get drunk.”
“The city offered us a bounty if we’d keep them out of the underground,” Rezzo added. “It’s too dangerous, though – they’re stronger than they look, and they’ve got horrible diseases.”
The rats were also more numerous near the marketplace – bits of food and garbage regularly fell down through the gates, and there were doorways here and there that led into the basements of nearby buildings, most of which were used for storage. After taking down a group of five rats – which was enough that they couldn’t take them all out by surprise, and had to fight the last couple properly – they stopped to rest by a broken wooden door that seemed to open into some sort of pantry, although entry was blocked off by a shelf loaded with sacks of potatoes and onions.
“We’re not allowed in there, but places like that are where most of the rats breed,” Rezzo said.
Ocellus pushed the door as closed as it would get, then spent a while spitting sticky changeling slime to seal the cracks and keep it closed, basking in Tixi’s sense of wonder at the sight of her doing something that changelings considered routine and most ponies found disgusting.
===
They were just leaving the market behind when they ran into the adventurers. They hid in an alcove while the four tall surfacers in heavy clothing or armor descended a ladder from one of the ceiling hatches, the first down looking around with his massive sword drawn, waving around the hunk of metal larger than any of the little dragons like it weighed nothing.
The last down looked a little stranger than the rest – she was dressed the same, but unlike the others she had a tail, stripey fur, and normal, mobile ears on top of her head instead of the strange circles or triangles on the sides that the others possessed. Her eyes glowed in the dim light, and she looked straight at where Ocellus and Tixi were peering around the corner. They pulled back behind cover, but it was too late.
“We’ve got company,” she said, and there was the sound of a bow being pulled taut.
“Peace!” said Tixi, loudly, not coming out where they could see her.
“Uh huh,” the furry archer said. “That’s why you’re lurking in wait.”
“We wait for you to go,” Tixi said in her broken common. “We patrol for city, hunt rats.”
“The kobolds are supposed to be friendly,” said another, deeper voice. “Lower your bow, Flicker.”
Tixi poked Ocellus, who shifted into her normal form and stumbled out into view. Sure enough, Flicker was no longer pointing her bow at them, although she kept in it hand, with an arrow still knocked. “They’re not immediately aggressive, but I can’t say for sure if it’s safe,” she reported, then waved at the adventurers and smiled. “Hello! Welcome to our storm drain.”
“What in all the hells is that?” Flicker said, the bow twitching upwards for a second before she lowered it again.
“Familiar,” Tixi said, coming out from behind the wall, hands raised – not that that meant anything, since her attacks were magical. “I summon.”
Rezzo snatched at her tail, but she flicked it out of the way before he could drag her back behind the wall.
“I’m a –” Ocellus started, only to realize that there wasn’t a word for ‘changeling’ in common, or at least not one that she could snatch from whatever reservoir of language she was using to speak it. “Bug… pony… shapeshifter?”
“Doppelganger?” suggested a lightly armored woman leaning on a spear. “Were-pony? Succubus?”
“Not a were-pony,” Ocellus said. “I don’t recognize those others.”
“Well, a doppelganger mostly just changes shape, that’s its only real power,” she explained. “A succubus is a demon that can charm people with magic and suck out their life force.”
“Ah,” Ocellus said. “Well, I don’t do that anymore.”
“Not demon,” Tixi insisted. “She good. Too good, make me good to summon.”
“Are you sure good is the word you’re looking for?” Ocellus asked Tixi in her own language.
“It’s the common word for ‘sentimental’, isn’t it?” Tixi replied.
“It’s the common word for ‘good’.”
“Typical,” Rezzo said, stepping out to join them, since hostilities didn’t seem likely to break out immediately. “Surfacers like to judge everything.”
Tixi frowned. “Then what does evil mean? Or lawful ?”
“Sorry, just chatting about terminology,” Ocellus said to the adventurers, in case they were getting antsy over the little dragons talking among themselves. “What are you doing down here? Just exploring?”
“Training!” said the giant sword-wielder, gesturing with his giant sword. “We’ve been practicing against dummies for long enough, it’s time to actually kill something.”
“Do you volunteer?” asked the archer.
Tixi gave a little yip of surprise. “Our first mission too! But why here? Only rats, city says we kill rats.”
“Maybe they could go into the surfacer basements?” Ocellus suggested to her companions.
“I think we’re just supposed to let them do whatever they want,” Rezzo said.
“Are you going to fight us over it?” the archer asked, frowning at the words she didn’t understand.
“Oh come on, don’t be so hostile,” the spear-wielder said. “They’re too cute to be a threat. Don’t you want to just pick them up and cuddle them?”
“Even the bug?” asked the swordsman.
“Especially the bug,” she replied with a grin. “Do you know how much respect I’d get back at the inn if I bagged a reformed succubus?”
“No,” Tixi said, grabbing Ocellus from behind and hugging her to her chest. “Mine.”
“No one wants to fight,” Ocellus said, shifting back into a cat and squirming out of Tixi’s grip, perching on her head. “Or… whatever you’re suggesting,” she added, to the spear-wieldier.
“I’m talking about you and me going back up that ladder, renting out a hotel room, getting all naked, taking a nice bath to wash off the sewer smell, and then getting really, really dirty.” She grinned laviciously, then her face suddenly reverted to a serious expression. “I’ll pay. Five gold to borrow it for an hour.”
Ocellus was about to repeat her refusal, but felt Tixi’s possessiveness warring with a sudden spike of greed. “Seriously?” she asked.
“It’s a lot of money,” Tixi said. “It sounds like she just wants to mate with you? You’re both female, and not even the same species, so it would be safe, right?”
“I’d be all alone among strangers who’d purchased the right to do whatever they wanted to me,” Ocellus said.
“Oh, I promise you’ll have a good time,” the spear-wielder said, apparently able to understand them. “And I trust you haven’t forgotten how to make me scream?”
“I remember my lessons,” Ocellus said, flatly. This would have been an excellent opportunity to cocoon and replace a victim, securing a higher place in society and hooks on a group of close friends that she could drain. But she didn’t do that anymore, so it would probably just be sex.
She glanced at the prospective victim, then back at Tixi. “Are you sure you want this?” She knew that the answer was no.
“I know it’s the pragmatic choice,” Tixi replied. “I can summon you back if they try anything.”
The spear-wielder counted out some coins and tossed a pouch to Tixi. “Have her meet me at the Haunted Box this evening. Probably easier if she comes in a humanoid shape.”
“Oh thank god,” Flicker said. “I thought you were going to go at it right here in the sewer.”
“Storm drain,” Ocellus corrected her.
The adventurers laughed and wandered off, leaving the little dragons to continue their patrol.
They completed the circuit with a few more rats killed, but without any more excitement, and turned in the tails at the shop outside the entrance. The shopkeeper tallied them up, and did some math. “Okay, that pays for the goggles, and the bolts you weren’t able to recover. You’ve got sixteen copper worth of credit left if you want to requisition something else.”
“A gold is a hundred copper,” Tixi noted happily. “And she gave us *twenty*! I think she wants you for the whole night.”
Book 1 - Contract Fulfilled
They had some free time to rest up afterwards, before it’d be time for them to start their dinnertime chores. After returning their equipment to the armory, they found an empty chamber to talk about the mission and just hang out.
“So are dragons usually this casual about sex?” Ocellus asked. “It’s kind of a big deal for most creatures I know. Half of my friends are sleeping with each other,” or with her, although she left that part out, “but we keep it quiet, you know? It’s something you only do with creatures you love.”
“I heard the surfacers are like that,” Rezzo said. “But that one seemed like she wanted to do it for fun?”
“For bragging rights,” Ocellus corrected, scowling.
“We mostly don’t care,” Ijj explained. He hadn’t been brave enough to even peek out at the adventurers, but of course he’d heard the whole thing. “When it’s time to mate, we mate. Thirty seconds and it’s done, for males at least.”
“Laying eggs is another five minutes a week or so later,” Tixi added. “It feels good to get them out of my body, so I won’t complain.”
“That’s how my people were too,” Ocellus said. “We didn’t mate for fun. But we used to have to pretend to be ponies, to steal their love, and part of learning to pretend to be a pony was learning how to mate for fun, in the pony style. We had an entire class on pretending to enjoy it.”
“So you can make the surface girl happy then?” Tixi asked. “Maybe she’ll ask for you again.”
“Probably,” Ocellus admitted. She’d probably even be able to enjoy it. She certainly had with Smoulder. “It’s just… I’m worried, whenever I go back and use those old skills, that I’ll lose all the progress I made learning how to be actual friends with people. People like you, Tixi.”
“That’s the most sentimental pile of rat-scat I’ve ever heard,” Rezzo said, making gagging motions. “I think you’re just out of practice, and worried you’ll embarrass yourself.”
“Want to practice?” Ijj offered. “I know even less about it than you, so you wouldn’t have to be embarrassed if you messed it up.”
Ocellus stared at him in horror. Her ear flicked as she tried to ignore Tixi’s flood of curiosity.
“What?” Ijj said.
“Go screw a badger,” Ocellus said, turning and stalking out of the room.
She got completely lost, but found somewhere to rest where she wasn’t alone, but none of the passing dragons paid her any mind, which was enough for a while.
Until she had to go running back at Tixi’s sudden burst of alarm. She managed to arrive in time to help carry Ijj to the healer to treat the badger-bites all over his legs and tail.
===
Tixi had, of course, handed over the windfall to the tribe, so someone came to fetch Ocellus when it was time to make good on her end of the deal.
“It’ll be easier if you can disguise yourself as a human,” the warrior suggested.
Ocellus did her best to assemble a new ‘human’ form from memory. After ten tries, the warrior and the small pack of spectators agreed that it wasn’t going to fool anyone, and that she should just go as a cat. No one ever stopped a cat from wandering around on the surface.
So it was in her sneakiest feline form that Ocellus crept up onto the surface, and tried to figure out what her client had meant by ‘the Inn’. The market was closed for the day, but there was the loud noise of partying – shouting and singing and layers of overlapping conversations – from just down the street, so she figured that was a good place to start.
“The Pub”, read the sign over the door. Ocellus darted in anyway, and dodged stomping, booted feet until she gave up and leapt onto a table, knocking over a mostly empty mug of ale and getting the attention of a group of short, bearded men.
“Ha ha ha! You wished for pussy, and here it is, delivered on a platter!” one of them laughed, banging his mug on the table.
“Excuse me,” Ocellus said, flattening her ears and pressing herself to the table’s surface. “Do any of you know where I can find the Haunted Box?”
“The cat can talk!” another of them said. “Get him a beer! He can join our party!”
“Um…” Ocellus was helpless before their energy, barely able to get a word in edgewise as they invented a story about a wizard whose unnatural meddling had finally made its way to those of the feline persuasion. She politely took a sip of the mug they ordered for her, shivering and twitching as the foul-tasting liquid burned her throat and stomach, which only made them laugh all the more.
“Ha ha ha, you’re a good sport,” one of them said, slapping her on the back and pounding her into the table. “The Haunted Box isn’t, just head away from the market and turn left at the thingie.”
“The thingie.” Ocellus repeated.
“You’ll know it when you see it!”
She found it hard to walk straight, once she was back to the relative safety of the dark, deserted streets, and her vision wasn’t doing so well either, but even impaired by whatever poison they’d fed her, she could never have missed it.
She stood in the small square and stared at it for a while, until she remembered that she had places to be. “That certainly is… a thingie…”
Her client was standing in the street about a block down the road, looking around impatiently. Ocellus tried waving to her, but her stealth in cat form was too powerful. She stumbled closer, and changed back into her normal form.
The woman started, then put her hands on her hips. “You’re late.”
“I had to ask for directions,” Ocellus said, blinking as her head cleared up a little. Transforming into something larger seemed to have diluted the poison. “I was only summoned to this world this morning you know.”
“It sounds like there’s a story there,” she said, “but that’s not why you’re here, is it?” She held out her hand. “Dannielle. What can I call you?”
Ocellus bumped her hand with a hoof. “Ocellus,” she said automatically, before considering whether to give a pseudonym. Then she remembered that the ‘mystic true name’ nonsense was something she’d made up. Any name she used, combined with an image of her, would be equally likely to allow a magical connection, at least according to Tixi’s research when trying to summon Smoulder.
Danielle picked Ocellus up – easy, for a creature so much larger – and held her to her chest, letting her rest her head on the human’s oversized (and oddly-placed) mammaries while she gently stroked her elytra. “Oh, you’re soft,” she remarked.
“Optimized for cuddling,” Ocellus said, reaching a hoof around to cling to the human, who was fairly soft herself. “We used to be all black and pointy.”
“Well, come on,” Danielle said, as if Ocellus had a say in how fast they went as she was carried into the inn’s lobby, where the sword-wielder – minus the sword – was sprawled out asleep on a couch. Danielle plopped Ocellus down on the coffee table, and shouted, “Wake up!”
The other adventurer started awake, and blinked a few times, gradually registering Ocellus’ presence. “Oh, it came.”
“Right,” Danielle said. “So, since my *esteemed party leader* and *dear friend* here is a paladin, I need to make this completely explicit. What did you think you were hired for?”
“Um…” Ocellus said, wilting a bit under her gaze, and glancing over her back at the ‘paladin’ apparently holding her in judgment. “Do I have to say it?”
“Yes,” the paladin said.
“Sex,” Ocellus squeaked. “’Mating for fun’, as Tixi put it. I assume you don’t want me to make an egg.”
Danielle grinned. “And do you consent to this transaction?”
“Enthusiastically consent,” the paladin corrected.
That seemed to be asking a bit much. “If I say ‘no’, do we have to give back the money?” Ocellus asked.
Danielle laughed.
The paladin sighed. “I guess if you’re a professional…”
“I guess?” Ocellus said. “It’s a job I was trained for, but I thought Tixi summoned me here to be her familiar, not her spy, so this came as something of a surprise.”
The two froze and stared at her.
“What?” she asked. “I was trained to use… sex… to get information out of people. To ingratiate myself with them and maybe replace one to infiltrate society, since we’re shapeshifters.”
“Well…” Danielle said, “She’s not *evil*. Right?”
The paladin nodded, but asked, “What did you do with the people you replaced?”
Ocellus had never done anything personally, since she hadn’t finished her training, but she knew the answer to that. “We’d drain their love and then put them in a cocoon for storage. I assume you want to skip that part.”
“Yeah, not on the first date,” Danielle said, with a laugh. “If you want to try to wheedle information out of me, knock yourself out. The gods know I like to hear myself talk.” She reached down to snag Ocellus again, this time holding her wing-cases against her stomach and chest, while her hands clung to her belly-plates. “Come on, I’ll show you my room. Assuming I have your permission, dearest leader?”
He sighed, and nodded. “She seems harmless enough. If it’s an act, try not to actually die.”
===
Danielle brought Ocellus up to a large room at the far end of the top floor of the inn, with a huge window overlooking the rooftops of the city, and rose-colored magical lamps illuminating the giant bed. Everything was freshly cleaned and immaculate, and there was a plate of cheese and crackers set up on a folding table.
On the stairs, her hands had wandered all over Ocellus’ underside – which wasn’t unpleasant, although she’d given a lot of attention to the space between her legs where a mammal would have had genitalia. It was still a sensitive spot, and Ocellus made sure to coo appropriately.
“So how do you want to do this?” Danielle asked, sitting on the bed and lying back, releasing Ocellus, who rolled over onto the smooth, shiny cloth and rubbed her hoof against its’ strangely pleasant texture.
“I’m here to make you happy,” Ocellus said, leaning over and nuzzling at her cheek. “If I had to guess at what you’d want – you were interested in me as a strange creature and as a shapeshifter? So I could let you explore my body, then change into something you found more attractive. Although I have to warn you that my human shapes aren’t very good.”
“And what about me?” Danielle asked. “Am I attractive at all?”
“Hmm, I don’t know human standards for beauty,” Ocellus said, thinking hard, since the answer obviously had to be ‘yes’. “You’re aggressive and not shy of just grabbing hold of people, which makes you attractive by dragon standards.”
Danielle sat up, reaching back and untying her top, which sagged off her oversized breasts. She shrugged her arms out of it, and it slipped down around her waist, leaving only a thin cotton undershirt that left little to the imagination. “What about by your standards?”
“I’ve always found dragons *fascinating*,” Ocellus replied, shifting into her dragon form and using one of her new fore-claws to fondle a breast through the fabric. Mammals usually – yes, by her reaction, humans enjoyed that as much as ponies, even if the placement was odd.
The next hour or so was a comfortable exploration of her well-studied skills. A light caress *here*, a gentle lick *there*, skin pressing against scales, mouths wandering around each others’ bodies, culminating in a nice long session of tongues and claws working together to drive her partner to a screaming orgasm. Humans were a lot louder than dragons, or at least a lot louder than Smoulder, but still wanted to cuddle afterwards, which was the best part really, both for energy absorption and for Ocellus’ personal pleasure.
After cooling off a bit in each others’ embrace, Ocellus changed back to her normal form and let Danielle work her over, her lovely soft fingers even better than dragon claws at exploring every nook and cranny. Plenty of attention placed on her belly and ears, and then an *intense* few minutes when she spread her wings as a demonstration, and Danielle decided to massage the tender flesh beneath them instead of letting the casing settle back into place.
“Is this hurting you?” she asked, pressing a little harder.
Ocellus squirmed, and gasped, wing casings quivering as she struggled to hold them open. “I don’t – oh please don’t stop!”
The room had a mirror, so they spent a while trying to teach Ocellus to take a human form. Apparently, pink hair was borderline acceptable, but her blue skin had to be shifted to a more natural shade. Seeing and touching all the new specifically human parts made transforming a lot easier, and Danielle insisted she touch and examine all the key features again, just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten. Afterwards, she had human-Ocellus lay back on the bed, while she tested each part of her in turn with her own hands and tongue. There was pleasure, of course, enough that she was almost reluctant to fake an orgasm when she felt her lover might be getting a bit bored.
She made sure to make it a convincing one, of course. Ever since she’d reformed she’d acquired a deeper understanding of the satisfaction of watching her partner climax, and didn’t want to deny Danielle any part of the experience.
Plus, everyone knew that an orgasm was the signal that it was time to cuddle some more. Humans were fairly good at cuddling, although there seemed to be an extra arm that could never really get comfortable.
Once Danielle was too worn out to continue, Ocellus slipped out of bed and onto the balcony outside. She turned into a cat, found a place to climb down from the roof, and made her way back to the storm drains.
===
Tixi was still awake, waiting for her in the large chamber just past the hall of traps.
“I’m back!” Ocellus said, smiling and waving to her. She was brimming with energy – even without actively draining love, there had still been a lot of emotion in the air. “I wasn’t expecting you to wait up. Were you worried about me?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Tixi replied. “It felt like you were having an awfully good time.”
“You know how it is,” Ocellus said, moving over and nuzzling her. “The pressure makes you nervous, but once you get started it all sort of clicks into place.”
“I’m glad,” Tixi said. Ocellus could tell it was a lie. Nothing but jealousy flowed through their bond. “Although now I wish I was the one who made you feel that way.”
Ocellus put a hoof on Tixi’s chest. “You’re a friend, not a client,” Ocellus said. “I could practice on you sometime if you want, but it didn’t sound like little dragons were really interested in my services, and the entire point would be for you to enjoy it.” That only made things worse, somehow. Ocellus closed her eyes, and sighed. “I’ll let you in on a secret, though.”
The spark of curiosity was a start, at least.
Ocellus spread her wings, and kept the casing open, turning sideways to let Tixi see the over-sensitive flesh beneath them. “If you rub me right there… it’s *super* ticklish.”
There was no sunlight in the little dragons’ lair, but time passed regardless, marked mostly by the daily meals, which were a time for socializing and relaxation, much like they were at school. The eating chamber had dim flickering firelight from the cookfires, and a dozen short-legged tables to hold the food while the little dragons gathered around. Ocellus turned into a cat to nurse a tiny share of rat meat and rice, although she hadn’t felt hungry for food or love since being summoned.
“Why are we feeding a cat?” someone asked.
“She’s my familiar,” Tixi explained. “I gave her a little of my share.”
“If she wants to eat, she has to work,” said a little old dragon at a nearby table. “Have her clear out the rats in the pantry.”
“I’m not really a cat,” Ocellus said. “Besides, I helped Tixi fight rats yesterday.”
“Afraid of a few more rats?” the old dragon cackled. “These ones aren’t even dire. Not much of a familiar if you can’t handle such a meager foe.”
I turned out Ocellus wasn’t much of a familiar. She was stealthy enough to sneak past the giant rats in the sewer, but the little rats in the pantry were more on the ball, and also didn’t sit out in the open daring people to come kill them. After an hour of sneaking around after the faint sounds of scurrying, she decided to try a different tactic.
As a rat, it still took a while for her to find where they were hiding – the pantry was a poorly-organized mess and there was an entire pile of mostly empty boxes that had been repurposed as a giant rat nest. The rats didn’t seem to want to talk to her, but they didn’t run away as she wandered around through their suspiciously well-constructed habitat.
So now what? She could turn into a snake and start eating them, but there were dozens if not hundreds of the things, and while she might get one, she probably wouldn’t get two. Sending a swarm of rats scurrying out into the kitchen probably wouldn’t count as clearing the pantry. If this was where the rats would retreat to, however, maybe she could trap them inside by sealing the exits? There seemed to be a lot of them, but she wasn’t going to run out of slime…
Before she could do any of that, a little dragon snuck into the pantry. He was as sneaky as any of them – she wouldn’t have noticed if the rest of the rats hadn’t immediately swarmed out to greet him. She was near the tail of the pack, and stood there with her little mouth open as she watched him smearing grease from the pile of table scraps he’d been carrying all over his body, cackling and dancing as the rats swarmed all over him.
“Did you get them all?” Tixi asked, when Ocellus finally found her, playing cards with half a dozen other little dragons. “It didn’t feel like you were fighting.”
“Too slippery,” Ocellus said, changing back to her normal form and resting her head against Tixi’s back, idly watching the game to try to figure out the rules.
===
Aside from a few incidents like that, the time between missions was pretty boring. Tixi mostly trained with magic, poring through a giant, ancient book of spells that Ocellus couldn’t read. “It’s the language of magic,” Tixi explained. “It takes years of training to decipher.” It wasn’t that she didn’t know the words – they were translated automatically by her changeling telepathy, just like spoken language – but what they said was utter gibberish. Tixi seemed to get something out of it, though, puzzling over each page with focused concentration until a spark of joy marked each breakthrough in her understanding.
Ocellus couldn’t really help her with that, not without a lot of basic study that would only detract from Tixi’s own progress. She wasn’t often asked to help around the lair, and she didn’t feel confident enough in her skills to offer. So it was like a long, boring vacation, with nothing to do but relax and hang out with people who were supposed to be busy working, and worry about how much homework was piling up while she was relaxing.
She asked about heading to the surface for sightseeing purposes, now that she knew how to disguise herself as a human, but Tixi’s sudden surge of jealousy shut that notion down before she even admitted to herself that she was bored enough that she’d been fantasizing about meeting Danielle again.
Managing Tixi’s jealousy was a full-time job, which Ocellus attacked with constant attention and the casual platonic intimacy that the little dragons enjoyed among themselves. None of it was arduous – Ocellus was a big fan of cuddling and nuzzling and being stroked – but it never ended, and if she felt even the slightest bit of resentment that would only trigger a new wave of negative feedback. Within a week, she’d given up all hope of doing anything beyond following Tixi around like a shadow.
At least the missions were fun! Tixi, Ijj, and Rezzo were a fixed team, apparently, and they went on several more patrols together. Most of them were to other sections of the storm drains, but once they got to visit the sewer itself, a level down and a dozen times worse smelling. The good news was they weren’t expected to fight anything down there – they just had to make sure the catwalk was clear and in good repair, and run away to report back if any of the filth monsters showed any sign of emerging from the filth.
They found Danielle’s adventuring party down in the sewer, fighting some of the mid-level filth monsters that they’d baited out onto the catwalks. Ocellus waved, but the adventurers were too focused on the fight to give them more than a glance, and Tixi quickly led them away from the area ‘for their own safety’.
“Don’t you even want to find out if she’d pay for another night with me?” Ocellus asked, as if the answer wasn’t obvious. “I thought you wanted repeat business.”
Tixi folded her arms, and turned her snout up and away. “Unfortunately, we’re on a tight schedule, and forbidden from interfering with adventurers and from fighting filth monsters. So I’m afraid it’ll have to wait.”
Back home at the armory, after checking their gear back in with the tribe, Rezzo grabbed Tixi and Ocellus by their ears and dragged them into a side room. “Alright, this has to stop,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tixi snapped back at him.
“Everything’s fine,” Ocellus said, leaning against Tixi to try to improve her mood, but to no apparent effect this time.
“Uh huh,” Rezzo said. “Look, just… do your thing on her, and then she can realize she doesn’t like it and stop acting like a child who doesn’t want to share their favorite toy.”
“I don’t think –” Ocellus started, then trailed off and glanced at Tixi, who hadn’t felt as disgusted at the notion as she’d expected. Curiosity? Anticipation?
Ocellus took a deep breath. “Fine,” she said. “This might make everything worse, but I’ll do my best. First, I’m going to need Ijj’s help. Or yours, if you’re up to it.”
“What sort of help?” Rezzo asked.
Ocellus leaned over and whispered the answer in his ear.
Rezzo cringed. “I’ll go get Ijj.”
Ocellus turned into a human to wait for him, sitting down with her legs folded, naked and exposed and a little bit chilly – there was a reason humans always wore clothes. “Sit back against the wall for now,” she told Tixi, who looked tiny and helpless with Ocellus so huge.
“Are you going to mate with him?” Tixi asked, curiously.
“Just watch, for now,” Ocellus told her. She suspected that Ijj would want to, given that he’d tried to screw his own summoned badger, but wasn’t strictly speaking part of the plan.
Ijj startled as Rezzo led him into the room. “Oh! You figured out how to do a human shape!” he said, not nearly as stupid as Tixi made him out to be.
“I did!” Ocellus replied. “Danielle taught me a new way to learn new forms, and I’d like to use it on you, now.”
“Not on me?” Tixi asked.
“Shh!” She held a finger up to her lips, then reached down to grab Ijj and lift him into her lap. “Now Ijj. This might be a bit uncomfortable, but I’m going to need to explore every part of your body, in intimate detail.”
“Okay?” he squeaked, thoroughly intimidated. Ocellus pulled him to her chest with a hand on his spine, pressing his muzzle up as it slid between her breasts. This was, in the end, a performance, but it was easier to pretend to be sexually aroused with a little physical stimulation.
She started with his face, running her free hand and her lips over his horns, biting down on them slightly to test the texture, then dragging her tongue from the base to the tip. A gentle caress across his eye-ridges, a finger slipped into the corner of his mouth and then dragged, one tooth at a time, to the front of his muzzle, which she lifted to her lips and kissed, staring into his eyes as her tongue slipped into his mouth and his long draconic tongue wrapped around it. Ocellus could feel Tixi’s excitement building as she watched them kiss, so she dragged it out for a bit.
“How are you feeling?” she asked Ijj.
“I’m very very confused,” he said.
She lifted one of his arms up and studied it carefully, running her eyes and her fingers between his claws and down to his elbow, lifting his bicep away from his shoulder to run her fingers across every part of it… then took his wrist and pulled his claws to her breast. “Squeeze here, gently,” she told him. “I need to feel how the muscles work.”
After an appropriate amount of fondling, she set him down to give him a full-body massage, from his shoulders to the small of his back, down his tail, across his hips and thighs and calves and to the very tips of his foot-claws. Then flipped him over to get his chest and belly, finally ending on the last little opening between his legs, where the little dragons kept all of their private parts.
It wasn’t much like the dragons she knew, and even less like a pony’s. There was a cavity, which led to his digestive tract, and a penis curled up along the top side, that she was able to coax out and erect with her soft little human tongue. Just as Ijj seemed to be reaching his peak, she backed off and smiled. “I think I know enough to give it another try,” she said, flashing into a little dragon version of herself, blue and pink like her normal colors. She stood up and twirled around. “Tell me if I got anything wrong.”
Ijj pounced on her, and held her down, and got revenge for all the slow, torturous examination she’d give him. To be fair, he did find a few subtle flaws, which she corrected, and Tixi’s embarrassed excitement rose to previously unknown heights as he held her down, his penis erect and resting directly over her vent.
“Do it,” Tixi whispered, hands clutched tightly to each other in front of her chest.
It was hardly a mating for the ages, Ijj not having much experience or training, but his enthusiasm was real, and so was the lion’s share of her pleasure. Her penis slipped out and rose to full mast between them, as he slipped under it and deep, deep inside her, and she triggered ejaculation as she shivered and squirmed in her best display of orgasmic pleasure, while Ijj squirted his seed into entirely the wrong section of her body.
“Two males can mate?” Rezzo asked, staring.
“Of course,” Tixi said haughtily, as if she was an expert. “There won’t be any eggs, but that isn’t the purpose of this sort of mating.”
The purpose, of course, was as an excuse for tired, sticky cuddling, which Ijj and Ocellus were getting on with in the middle of the room. And to entertain Tixi, of course.
Ocellus leaned her head back to look Tixi in the eye, while still cradling Ijj to her chest. “You can be next, if you want? I wouldn’t mind studying the female version of this form.”
Tixi froze, staring at her like a deer caught by a basilisk – then turned and ran, squealing.
Once they were cleaned up – and got yelled at by an older little dragon for being perverts and degenerates for mating out of season, and washed the room thoroughly under his disapproving gaze – Ocellus tracked Tixi down to her sleeping chamber, and smiled to dispel her embarrassment.
“The offer’s open if you change your mind,” Ocellus said, keeping her tone matter of fact. “But I won’t mention it again unless you ask.”
“That’s probably best,” Tixi squeaked, slowly relaxing as Ocellus ran her hoof down the little dragon’s back.
Ocellus slipped into bed with her, and wrapped her hooves around her, cuddling her in a good position for sleeping. It wasn’t quite time to rest, but time was fluid underground.
“If you want to see that human again… I mean,” Tixi stumbled over her words. “You can ask if she wants to pay for another round.”
“Not if it hurts you,” Ocellus said. “We’re stuck together, we can’t be at odds.”
“If she says yes, then I want to watch,” Tixi added.
Which would be a logistical problem, Ocellus thought as she considered the offer, but then again so was just finding a way to contact the adventurers at all. They might as well live in different worlds.
===
Knowing a proper little dragon shape had its disadvantages. Rezzo insisted on dragging Ocellus to his training sessions, teaching her how to fight with knives and shields and how to shoot a bow. She was terrible at it.
“Again,” Rezzo said, as she scrambled to pick up the blunt wooden training knife he’d just knocked out of her grasp.
“This isn’t working,” Ocellus said.
“Everyone has to learn this stuff,” Rezzo replied. “Would you rather wait until the eggs hatch, and train alongside a bunch of babies?”
Ocellus considered it. “That sounds adorable,” she said at last. “I bet all the baby dragons are going to be so cute!”
“At the rate you’re learning, they’re going to be able to beat you up if you don’t get your tail straight and pay attention. Again!”
Tixi was a little sympathetic. “I didn’t have any talent for that sort of fighting either, but learning to sneak and make traps was useful. Everyone should know the basics.”
“I’m surprised you had time to learn to read… this…” she gestured at the magical book, which remained incomprehensible. It was technically their free time, but Ocellus was trying to learn the very first spell that every wizard had to learn, that would let them read the shifting magical words. It was, unfortunately, written in those very magical words, which made it a sort of aptitude test to weed out those who didn’t have the right combination of memory and puzzle-solving to use wizardly magic safely. It should have been right up Ocellus’ alley, but she’d made as little progress as she had with her knife-fighting.
“Oh I didn’t,” Tixi said, stroking Ocellus’ back as she studied. “Learning all the basic skills probably held me back an entire year. I heard the wizard was really angry about it, but he put up with it since it’s so important to our culture.”
“How often does the wizard come by?” Ocellus asked. “Do you think he could get a message to my friends back home?”
“Once the eggs hatch, he’ll be around to examine them for their aptitudes,” Tixi said. “He keeps a record of each generation, and sometimes tells us who should mate with who next time for the best eggs. It doesn’t always work out like he hopes, but the elders say his data shows that over time it’s been having an effect.”
“And I can ask him then?”
Tixi nodded, but seemed uncertain. “Probably. He’ll be very busy with the hatchlings, but I might be able to show you off to him, since I’m one of his special projects. I might even be able to get you to see him a little sooner… but it’s not a sure thing, so I probably shouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“That’s fine,” Ocellus said. “There’s probably no rush. I mean, they’ll be looking for a way to make a mirror portal to get me back, but it’ll take them months since they have so little to go by.”
Tixi’s hand froze on Ocellus’ back. “You’re going back?”
“No!” Ocellus said, turning and hugging her. “I mean, it would be nice to be able to visit home sometimes, and talk to my friends, but I won’t just leave you forever.” As Tixi calmed down, Ocellus continued. “If I could send them a message, I could tell them not to worry. Someday you’ll be a powerful wizard, and we can just travel back and forth whenever we want, right?”
Tixi giggled. “Someday! Maybe someday I’ll even be able to summon Smolder.”
“It would be nice to see her again,” Ocellus said. “I kind of left her hanging.”
A few days later, still a week or so short of hatching day, Tixi interrupted the old dragons while they were handing out missions to the young warriors. “Let us go on egg patrol!” she said. “I speak common, and Ocellus can turn into a dog to carry them safely.”
“Fine with me,” said the little dragon whose team had originally been assigned the task. “I hate going up to the surface.”
“The surface?” Ocellus said, unable to hide her sudden burst of excitement even from the little dragons that weren’t bonded to her emotions.
“Are you sure you can handle it?” the old dragon asked. “You’ll have to talk to many surfacers, and the wizard besides.”
“The wizard!” Ocellus said, even more excited.
“We’re taking my eggs to the wizard,” Tixi explained. “I want to make sure they get there safely.”
The dragon snorted. “Sentimental, but harmless. Fine, you can go…” he waved a claw, idly. “Remember to pick up a disguise. It’s better if you aren’t recognized.”
The first stop was to the hatchery, where the eggs from the last mating season were almost ready to hatch. Ocellus turned into a dog, and the little dragons working there dressed her up in a saddle with three sets of saddlebags, all six bags stuffed full of little round eggs – half the eggs in the hatchery were going to the surface, apparently. Tixi’s eggs were wrapped up tightly in a nice soft blanket, and set on top of the last bag to be fastened shut.
“Are all these eggs going to the wizard?” Ocellus asked.
Tixi flashed pride through the link. “No! Only mine.”
“The rest go to surfacers who’ll pay for them,” Ijj said.
Ocellus felt a little queasy. “You sell your children?”
“We can’t hatch them all ourselves,” Tixi said. “There’d be no room. Luckily, the surfacers find baby dragons cute, and they’re reliable enough to make good workers once they’re grown. Spreading them out through the population usually means they don’t find a partner when it’s time to mate, so it keeps our numbers down without everyone getting killed in battle.”
Ocellus thought there was an awful lot of empty space in the lair itself, let alone the storm drains as a whole, but it was possible there were other considerations. “Do you at least make sure they’re going to a good home?” Ocellus asked.
Rezzo stared at her. “How?”
“If you can tell if the surfacers who want to buy our eggs aren’t worthy, be sure to let us know,” Ijj said. “Bark twice for ‘mean’ and three times for ‘crazy’.”
“Alright, I’ll do that,” Ocellus said.
“Mine are going to the wizard, at least,” Tixi said. “I’m kind of jealous – can you imagine growing up in a wizard’s tower? I’ve never seen it, but I heard he has so many books! And he takes students from all over, and teaches them magic. And the tower has magic mirrors that answer questions and flying carpets that soar through the air…”
“And he’s not mean or crazy?” Ocellus asked.
“He always comes to visit the hatchlings,” Ijj said. “He was very polite when he visited us. He could tell at a glance that I was destined to be a dragon-caster, and Tixi would be a wizard.”
“He could kill all of us with a single spell, but he just laughed when I bit his ankle,” Rezzo said.
“And he’s always giving advice to the elders,” Tixi said. “Everyone respects him.”
“Is he… sentimental?” Ocellus asked.
“He must be,” Rezzo said. “He invests a lot more time in us than we could possible deserve.”
“But he’s not, you know, rude about it,” Ijj said.
“I can’t wait to meet him again!” Tixi said. “Egg duty doesn’t usually mean visiting his tower, but this time…” she patted the saddlebag with her eggs in it, then giggled and hopped a little. “I can’t wait!”
===
The shopkeeper was happy to lend them a disguise when they told him they were headed for the surface. Or maybe a package of disguises? There was only one package, although it was fairly large. They put on their tinted goggles and crept silently through the storm drain towards the market, which had the most convenient exits, Ijj and Tixi ranging ahead to take out any rats that got in their way, while Rezzo stayed close to Ocellus to guard the eggs in case anything came up behind them, since despite her training, she wasn’t stealthy enough in dog shape for them to be confident in remaining unseen.
Climbing the ladder to the surface was a production, since the metal disk covering the entrance wasn’t meant to be opened from below. Rezzo knew how to do it – there were holes in the base where spears could be braced to lever the thing up and slide it aside – but it was really heavy, and eventually Ocellus turned into a human – her largest form with hands – to climb up next to him and provide some extra strength, while Ijj and Tixi held on to the eggs.
But then they were outside! They were in a trash-filled alley, which smelled even worse than the storm drain (but nowhere near as bad as the actual sewer), with brick walls rising high around them to leave them in shadow with only a sliver of bright sky above, but it was still a nice change of pace. Ocellus used her base form’s horn to fasten the egg-harness to herself with her magic, before turning back into a similarly-sized dog, while the little dragons assembled their disguise.
It was a trenchcoat. The three of them stood on each other’s shoulders (Rezzo on the bottom, as the strongest, and Tixi on top since she was the one who knew the language) and hid inside a trenchcoat. The long sleeves dangled far past tixi’s claws, and her bright purple muzzle stuck out from underneath the hood.
“I don’t think that’s going to fool anyone,” Ocellus said, looking at it in dismay.
“It’s always worked before!” Ijj replied, his voice coming from the looming figure’s chest. Rezzo and Tixi shushed him, but Ocellus could feel Tixi’s utter confidence that he was right, and this disguise was impenetrable.
“Maybe I should wear it?” she suggested, but then what would she do with them? She wasn’t going to risk walking around the city on her own, even if a trenchcoat alone would be a good disguise for her otherwise naked human form.
Maybe she was just being dismissive of their efforts because she was a changeling? It was hard to compete with being able to physically change shape. She’d certainly seen ponies get away with some terrible disguises, and Rarity had a story about how she and her friends had covered themselves in a sheet with a few alterations, and passed as a dragon in the dragonlands.
So she walked behind them quietly as they navigated around some piles of trash and out into the market proper… where she immediately froze. There were so many people! It was like the crowd in the pub but filling the entire marketplace – crowds of humans dense enough that they’d have to wind their way through the traffic and hope others would move aside in turn. All of them talking, or near enough to generate the solid cacophony of voices that had been muted, or at least less recognizable, from the sewer or alleyway, but were now just barely understandable in little snatches here and there before they walked out of range or were drowned out by other people talking over them.
The three little dragons in the trenchcoat hadn’t hesitated, and Tixi had to kick and yell at the boys to stop and turn around to see what was wrong with Ocellus. Sure enough, they seemed to be blending into the crowd just fine – people would stare, but then move on, and if anything Ocellus was getting more strange looks since no other dogs were being used as beasts of burden.
“Sorry,” Ocellus hissed, as she steeled herself and walked out into the crowd. “It’s so loud, and so many…” She spoke in draconic, since it sounded more like the sort of noises a dog might make, if anyone overheard.
“And so bright,” Tixi hissed under her breath, but it was Rezzo who had the map and was acting as their feet, so aside from some drunken wobbling they headed purposefully towards their first destination.
They made it about fifty feet before an armored surfacer extended a spear to block their way. “Ahem.”
Tixi must have had a pre-arranged signal, because the trenchcoat came to a wobbly halt almost immediately. “Can help, officer?”
“I don’t recall seeing you around here before, ma’am,” the surfacer said. “Are you drunk?”
“Not drunk, just bright,” Tixi said. “So bright.”
“Riiight,” the officer said. “You looked like you were about to fall over.”
Tixi flashed with brief anger, and Ijj gave a small yip from inside the coat as she kicked him.
“Apologies,” Tixi said, “will do better. floating claw ” The last was in the language of magic, and Ocellus watched the sleeve of the trenchcoat slowly rise, and swing towards the officer, who stared at it in confusion alongside Ocellus. The mystery was solved when a copper coin emerged from the end, floating in midair as the sleeve dropped back to the dragons’ side.
The officer stared at the coin, then took it and shook his head. “Just be more careful. I don’t want you – or anyone else – getting hurt.”
“See?” Tixi said in the dragons’ language, after they’d moved on. “The disguise worked almost as well as a magical charm. And I got to pay a bribe! Isn’t this exciting?”
“Bribes here are really cheap,” Ocellus whispered back. “Unless I’ve badly misunderstood the value of your money.”
===
Their first contact waved them into a nice, dark room – the family room of a house adjoining the market, with heavy curtains blocking the windows – and the little dragons were able to shed their disguise and rest their eyes a bit. Ocellus wanted to relax, now that they were out of the crowd, but while he was wearing fairly innocuous clothing and wasn’t wielding so much as a kitchen knife, something about him screamed ‘sketchy’ and kept her on edge.
The feeling seemed to be mutual. “I don’t recognize you,” he said, in the dragons’ language. “Do you have the eggs?”
“We do,” Tixi said. “Thirty-five of them this time, although three are for the Wizard. He made a special order.”
“That few?” He frowned. “We had a deal. You go through me. You aren’t holding out on me, are you?”
“The Wizard is an exception,” Tixi said.
“I don’t mean that, that’s fine, that’s the Wizard, there’s no accounting for wizards,” he said, waving it off. “But you normally have twice as many for me. Did you find another dealer?”
“We had to replace many losses this cycle,” Rezzo explained. “Adventurers broke into our home –”
“I fail to see how that’s *my* problem” the main replied, angrily. The little dragons cowered.
“It means they have fewer eggs to sell,” Ocellus said. “Is that a problem for you, or not?”
“You can talk,” he said, staring at her suspiciously.
“She’s a succubus ,” Tixi said, using the common word. “Deal with us fairly or she’ll devour your soul.”
The man looked at Ocellus and narrowed his eyes. “That’s a succubus. Really.”
Ocellus had a brief notion to turn into a naked human and succubus all over him, but they didn’t really have time, and the thought of practicing her craft with this human in particular was fairly revolting. So she dredged up her sexiest voice from the depths of her infiltration training, and batted her big, watery dog eyes. “I can automatically take the form of your deepest desires,” she said, wagging her tail, “Why, what do you see?”
That got a laugh, which wasn’t exactly what she was going for, but she’d take it since it also got them out of there with a list of names and addresses – potential parents for the extra eggs. There were a lot more names than they had eggs, and as they traveled around (thankfully less crowded parts of) the city, all the people on the list seemed aggressively… normal. Families with children, older folks who seemed lonely, the occasional bright-eyed youngster excited just to hold an egg in their hands. The only stop Ocellus vetoed was the arena, where the beastmaster wanted to buy the entire remaining supply.
“But this is a good place isn’t it?” Ijj asked, after they finally noticed Ocellus’ barking and backed off to consult. “They’ll be taught to fight. Fighting’s a good trade!”
“He’s going to use them as monsters and get them all killed,” Ocellus insisted.
“I take good care of my monsters,” the beastmaster said in draconic, having apparently overheard. “Feed them, train them, heal them up between fights, unless they got their head chopped off or something.”
Ocellus and the beastmaster stared at each other, until Tixi spoke up, “We’re short on eggs this cycle, and there are a lot of individual clients who only want one egg each. So why don’t we skip the arena for now; we’ll have plenty of time to reassure ourselves that this is a good place to leave eggs before next time.”
The beastmaster didn’t look that disappointed. “It’s fine, I’ll just post for adventurers to bring in some live goblins or something. Variety is good for business anyway.”
Soon enough, they were down to the last three eggs – Tixi’s eggs, slated for the Wizard. His tower was a ways away, but they could already see it towering over the surrounding buildings.
===
Approaching the wizard’s tower wasn’t quite as easy as just walking towards it. While it was considerably taller than the other buildings, the three-story townhouses blocked their view when they got close, and all of the streets seemed to circle around it, or dead-end short of the grounds. They ended up having to ask directions and backtrack a little to arrive at the start of the Wizard’s Promenade.
If you judged by the buildings alone, it was the same as any other street, save for the tower clearly visible at the far end. That would be a feat worthy of legend, though – somehow managing to ignore the shouting, laughing, flashing spells, and young humanoid wizards in all manner of dress, undress, and sobriety.
Ocellus and the kobolds stood at the end of the street, staring at the spectacle, while the locals hurried past, carefully not looking.
“Hey look, Ocellus!” Ijj said, pointing a claw out of the trenchcoat’s chest. “Humans don’t need to wear clothes here.”
Ocellus and Tixi glanced over at the particularly shameless couple who were, in fact, not wearing clothes. Since the man had the woman pressed up against a railing and was quite energetically railing her, they weren’t the only ones who’d stopped to watch.
“They aren’t very good at it,” Tixi remarked.
“They’re not putting on a show,” Ocellus said. “You can’t judge their skills fairly when they’re focusing on each others’ pleasure…”
The man cried out and gave a few jerky thrusts, and the woman’s expression changed from pleasure and concentration to an angry scowl. “You asshole!” she said, hitting him in the head and shoving him off her. “I told you not to come inside!”
“I know, that’s why we’re out here on the porch!” the man protested, which just made her angrier.
“Okay, you were right,” Ocellus said. “They’re just bad at it.”
“Maybe you could go help her?” Tixi suggested, but Rezzo turned them away from the pair and started down the street. “Eggs first, right,” she sighed.
The street was a minefield of sticky patches and trash that probably would have been a lot more disgusting to people who hadn’t just come out of a storm drain, but he still made sure to step around the more colorful puddles.
The noise and chaos closed in behind them as they made their way towards the tower, shouting and screaming and arcane incantations coming from all directions. Including directly above. “Watch out!” was the only warning before a wizard came plummeting out of the sky, directly on top of Tixi and company. Ocellus leapt back to protect the eggs, but the kobolds were sent sprawling, Rezzo and half of Ijj exposed as Tixi got tangled up in the disguise and yanked it off them as she fell.
“Ooog,” the small young man said, flailing around as he tried to right himself. “I’m pretty sure feathers fall slower than that.”
“They broke our disguise!” Rezzo said, as he and Ijj stood back to back, staring around in a panic. “Run for it!”
“Wait for me!” Tixi squealed as they darted for the tower, her head poking out the hood of the trenchcoat while her arms and legs were hopelessly tangled.
The young man tried to grab her, so Ocellus leapt at him and pushed him back onto his butt… then realized that he was probably trying to help, and stopped with one paw set against his chest. “Um… woof?”
The man gestured, and Tixi lifted up off the ground and settled onto Ocellus’ back. He grinned at her.
“Thanks,” she said, and ran after Rezzo and Ijj, while Tixi clung to her back.
===
Everything was calm once they passed the threshold of the wizard’s grounds, the noise and activity from the approach fading almost instantly into the background. A couple of humans were quietly studying, but gave them barely a glance as the kobolds regrouped and Tixi untangled herself from the trenchcoat.
Ocellus turned and looked out through the gate in the hedge fencing in the grounds proper, which shimmered with some sort of energy field that she hadn’t noticed passing through. It held back the noise and muted the visuals, although she could still tell that the scene outside was chaos if she looked.
“I see you met my… students,” said a deep, fatherly voice behind her. Ocellus turned back around to see a grey-bearded human wearing what looked for all the world like Twilight’s Starswirl the Bearded costume, although after a second she noticed the bells had been replaced with tassels.
Tixi rushed to kneel before the wizard, but one of her feet was still caught in the trenchcoat’s hood, and she shook it vigorously until it finally fell free, then took her place beside Rezzo and Ijj. Ocellus looked at them, then at the wizard, who met her gaze with an unscrutable expression. After a second, she knelt as well, with her forelegs in the pony style, lowering her eyes to the ground.
The wizard patted her on the head, then scratched behind her ears as if she was a dog. It wasn’t unpleasant. “Far too many hopefuls arrive here, hoping to become my apprentice. So I give them instructional material – spellbooks like the one I let you borrow, Tixi.”
“It is very good,” Tixi said, in common. “I learn much.”
“Self-study is enough for anyone with talent and dedication to learn to cast spells,” the wizard continued. “Sometimes one of them impresses me, and I bring them into the tower as an apprentice, to benefit from personal attention and tutelage.” He laughed. “Not that any of this has anything to do with you. You have my eggs, I trust?”
Ocellus stood, and opened her saddlebag, revealing the last three, specially marked eggs.
“Hmm,” the wizard said, gesturing and levitating one into the air, where he spun it around to study it. “I suppose I shouldn’t expect any obvious changes at this stage.”
“What sort of changes are you expecting?” Ocellus asked.
The wizard levitated the other two eggs out of the saddlebags, and floated all three to a quiet robed figure that Ocellus hadn’t previously noticed was standing in his shadow. They placed the eggs in a padded box and withdrew into the tower.
“Tixi is already the result of generations of selective breeding,” the wizard explained, as this was happening. “I’m simply continuing the experiment, seeing if I can breed a more intelligent kobold.”
“They seem smart enough to me,” Ocellus said.
“I’m hoping to come up with a breed whose average intelligence is sufficient to excel at magical studies. Most people can’t manage to get their heads around arcane spellcasting, you see,” the wizard said. “Humans make it up with volume, but…” he glanced towards the gate, and the chaos outside. “They’re a bit… wild. Kobolds, on the other hand, are reliable enough that you can ask them to breed with a partner of your choice and bring you their first clutch of eggs, and they’ll actually follow through.”
Ocellus felt Tixi’s pride through the link, and tried to clamp down on her own unease. “Part of that may be their lack of sentimentality,” she muttered, unable to completely silence herself.
“Hmm,” the wizard replied. “And who are you? The kobolds were expected.”
“My name is Ocellus. Tixi summoned me from another world to be her familiar,” she explained, reverting to her true form. “A group of adventurers said that I’m a ‘succubus’, although in my native tongue I call myself a ‘changeling’.” She carefully pronounced the raw ponish word, which sounded strange among a string of common. “It’s a pun, meaning one who changes, or one who is exchanged for another, since we do both of those things.”
“Well you’re certainly not a succubus,” the wizard said. “I can’t see a kobold summoning one of those anyway. That’s more the sad fate of young wizards whose lust outpaces their good sense.”
Ocellus wondered whether to be disturbed or relieved at that revelation. Regardless, she had more pressing concerns. “I was wondering, do you think you could contact –”
“Enough,” the wizard said. “We shouldn’t speak out here in the garden. Tixi, Ocellus, come inside, I have a proposition for you. The rest of you can head home if you wish.” He looked them over, and concentrated for a second. “Ijj and… Rezzo?”
“Yep!” Ijj said, happy to be recognized.
“We’ll stay with Tixi,” Rezzo said. “The disguise won’t work with only two little dragons.”
“Hmm,” the wizard said. “Very well, you have the run of the gardens, then. Try not to bother my apprentices. Tixi, Ocellus, come.” With that last curt order, he turned and walked rapidly towards his tower. Tixi and Ocellus scrambled to keep up.
“So why does he keep calling you ‘kobolds’?” Ocellus asked Tixi quietly, as they followed the wizard down a long flight of stairs. Apparently, most of his tower was underground.
“It’s the accepted common term,” the wizard replied, because of course he understood draconic.
“It is,” Tixi admitted, a bit of shame coming through the link. “It means ‘cursed ore’, though. The first encounter with surfacers was when we both tried to mine the same vein of ore from different ends, and they ran into our traps before they knew anyone else was there. We prefer to emphasize our origin as the children of dragons.”
“The version of common where it had a meaning other than one of Tixi’s kind hasn’t been spoken in a thousand years,” the wizard replied. “No one but a scholar of dead languages would even remember it.” He paused. “Or a kobold, I suppose.”
Tixi sighed, but this was apparently a battle she’d long since given up fighting, and Ocellus was willing to back down for her sake.
At any rate, they’d arrived at their destination, a small room with a pair of comfortable couches on either side of a coffee table, a few magical implements and books, and a large slate on the wall. “Please make yourself comfortable,” the wizard said, sitting down in the middle of one of the couches with a heavy ‘flumph’. “Tea? Coffee?” he asked, as a plate of cookies levitated from a cabinet to take its place on the table, alongside a trio of teacups with saucers.
Tixi scrambled over the back of the couch and bounced onto the cushion. “It’s so soft!” she said.
“Do you have hot cocoa?” Ocellus asked, walking around the couch and sitting down next to Tixi. It was, in fact, remarkably soft, and showed no sign of damage from Tixi’s claws.
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that flavor,” the wizard said. “I’ve heard of it, but it’s a rather exotic drink in this part of the world and I’ve never partaken.”
“Tea then, please,” Ocellus said. “Four sugars, no milk.” Tixi was still bouncing up and down and looking around the room in wonder, so Ocellus poked at her with a hoof. “Tixi?”
“Oh! Um…”
“Tea with sugar is probably best for her,” Ocellus said, since all she was getting through the link was confusion and embarrassment.
The tea was strangely scented – thick and spicy – but was still a sweet treat with enough sugar. After sipping his own cup of coffee, the wizard sat back and smiled at the two of them. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here today.”
“Are you going to take me as an apprentice?” Tixi asked, leaning forwards excitedly and almost spilling her tea.
The wizard frowned, and Ocellus felt Tixi’s excitement slowly fade into disappointment… but then he narrowed his eyes, and nodded. “Perhaps that’s a good way to think about it,” he said. “There are several reasons that I would like you to stay here in the tower with me, and although giving you extra training wasn’t one of them – you’ve showed great promise on your own, and I’m sure your tribe would prefer to keep you to themselves –”
“Yes!” Tixi said, nodding rapidly. Then tilted her head a bit as she parsed what she’d actually replied to. “I mean no the tribe will just replace me with another hatchling the next time mating season comes around. But yes I will stay here!”
“You would have other duties besides magical training,” the Wizard tried to explain.
“Of course!” Tixi said.
“Maybe we should listen to what they are?” Ocellus suggested. “You’re going to need to know that. Besides, he’s probably prepared a speech.”
The wizard laughed. “I’m more than happy to trade my prepared sales pitch for an eager volunteer!” he said. “But yes, your primary duties would be twofold. First, I’m going to need someone who’s familiar with caring for kobold hatchlings.”
“I can go get someone for you!” Tixi said eagerly.
“I’m afraid I rather meant that I’d like you to take on that task, with the eggs you brought me,” the wizard clarified.
“I… I can try?” Tixi said, a bit less eagerly.
“Is it hard?” Ocellus asked.
“No, but it’s important,” Tixi said, curling her tail up into her lap and grabbing hold of it with her hands. “And it’s hard to spend much time studying when you have the hatchlings to care for.”
“Maybe I could cover for you?” Ocellus suggested. “I’ve been a foalsitter before.”
“Oh of course! Thank you so much!”
The wizard nodded, eyeing Ocellus oddly. “The second reason I’d like you here is for more in-depth study, both of your own magical talents as compared to your bloodline, and seeing how the difference between you and your hatchlings changes their suitability. One of my apprentices also has some theories about altering bloodlines that he’d like to test on an intelligent subject, since the results on rats and dogs were inconclusive. It’s not likely to be a very time-intensive task, but it might involve some amount of pain.”
“I trust you,” Tixi said, clearly making a conscious effort to quell her terror. “If you need to hurt me, I’m sure it’s for something important. I won’t die though, will I?”
“Not unless things go horribly wrong,” the wizard reassured her. “There is always risk with magical experimentation, but none of the previous subjects were permanently harmed.”
Tixi was slightly reassured by that. Ocellus was absolutely certain that this was a terrible idea, but even in the depths of her terror Tixi had shown no sign that she was even considering refusing. She wouldn’t appreciate her familiar interfering.
Unfortunately, the link went both ways. “You think I should refuse,” Tixi said, turning to her.
“Experimenting on living creatures is something only the most… pragmatic creatures from my world ever considered,” Ocellus said. “My mother was among them. She loved to alter her hatchlings to ‘improve’ them in various ways. Some were destroyed by it, some were driven mad. Some became the hive’s fiercest warriors, which is presumably why she kept doing it.” She met the wizard’s gaze. “One of them eventually overthrew her and became our new king.”
“I’m guessing you weren’t one of those fiercest warriors,” Tixi said, giggling.
Ocellus sighed.
“I assure you, we’ll take every precaution,” the wizard said. It was as empty a promise as he could have possibly made, but Tixi ate it right up.
“Then I won’t let you down!” she said, eagerly.
“Good,” the wizard said. “With that settled, I should get back to my –”
“Wait,” Ocellus said. Tixi glared at her, but she continued quickly. “I was wondering if you knew how to contact other planes of existence? I want to get word to my friends so that they don’t worry.”
“Word to your… friends?” the wizard asked. “Surely denizens of any outer plane would be familiar with the summoning process.”
“As far as I know I’m the first,” Ocellus said.
“I’ve been trying to summon her friend, but the second level of summoning spells still isn’t powerful enough,” Tixi explained. “It’s hard to believe that someone with as many tricks as Ocellus was accessible with the very simplest version.”
The wizard suddenly looked interested. “The improved version of the familiar ritual has a wide range of creatures it can bind… but are you saying a shape-changing creature was targetable with ‘Summon Monster One’?”
Tixi nodded.
The wizard looked confused. “It’s only supposed to be able to handle badgers and such.”
Ocellus changed into a badger.
“She wasn’t able to do anything but be a badger at first,” Tixi said, stroking Ocellus as she thought back to how they’d met. “But I was using your modified version that let you build a relationship with an individual summon. The more I summoned her, the more powers she unlocked.”
“I had a ‘dreamling’ teach me how to remain lucid during the summoning,” Ocellus explained, using the equestrian word instead of trying to translate it. “That opened up some additional options.”
“Also, she’s terrible at fighting,” Tixi added.
“YES,” Ocellus said, exasperated. “Rezzo tells me that every day. We’re getting side-tracked, though. Can you send a message for me?”
“I’m afraid I’d have to know which plane you come from, in order to even attempt to contact it,” the wizard said.
“Equestria?” Ocellus suggested. But she knew it was futile -- that was the name of a country, and not even the planet, let alone the entire plane of existence.
“Specifically, I’d need a sample of material from your plane, or a tuning fork exposed to the bedrock of your world,” the wizard explained. “Summoning spells bring over only non-physical samples, and I’m afraid the familiar ritual, while more lasting, has the same metaphysical issue.”
“Don’t worry!” Tixi said, patting Ocellus on the head. “With the wizard teaching me, I’ll be able to cast the third version of the summoning spell in no time. I’m sure that’ll be enough to fetch Smoulder!”
“Or the wizard could—” Ocellus started, but the wizard interrupted.
“Yes, yes, Tixi will be able to help you with your problem in no time, I’m sure,” he said, standing and heading for the door. “Come, let me show you to your room!”
===
“It’s cozy,” Tixi said, looking around the tiny closet underneath the lowest level of the central spiral staircase. It didn’t have a door, as such, or even a wall for that matter, but the piles of boxes of old records and rarely-used supplies were packed tightly enough to give it some amount of privacy, since humans would have to squeeze uncomfortably to get within sight. It did have an old mattress that covered the entirety of the floor space and then some, the mattress curled up at one end where there wasn’t quite room between the boxes and the outer stone wall.
“There’s no room to practice your magic, or… anything, really,” Ocellus noted.
“We passed a bunch of practice rooms upstairs,” Tixi said. “That’s where the books are anyway. I’ll need to borrow another one since mine is still back home. Oh! Maybe I’ll be able to write my own, like a real wizard? The tower has to have stocks of magic ink.”
Tixi leapt onto the bed, twisting in midair to land on her back, laughing as she bounced. “It’s so soft! Come on, try it!”
Ocellus gingerly crawled onto the mattress with her… and it was actually pretty soft. It was old and the casing was faded, but the mattress itself was still in good condition. It didn’t have anything on a cloud bed, but it was worlds better than the bunk beds at the Friendship School.
Tixi grabbed hold of her and hugged her tight. “Don’t worry so much,” she said, stroking Ocellus’ frills. “There’s so much here, even the castoffs are more than enough for me. I *will* assert my place as an apprentice, though, don’t get me wrong. The wizard said I could think of myself that way and I’m going to think it so hard that no one else can dare deny it!”
Ocellus chuckled.
“We should get started. Go see what they’re doing with the eggs, and I’ll go tell Rezzo and Ijj they can head home. Maybe they can bring me my stuff.”
“They’ll need a third,” Ocellus said. “For the disguise.”
Tixi sighed. “I really wish they could stay, but there really isn’t much for them here. Dragon-casting can’t be studied, and Rezzo is about as magical as a sewer rat.”
With that Tixi sprang to her feet, and Ocellus followed her back through the maze of boxes – not much of a squeeze for a little dragon, or a badger – and up the stairs.
===
They weren’t doing anything with the eggs. There was a playroom, full of simple toys and puzzles and games, and the three eggs were simply set out on a rug in the middle of the room. They didn’t look any different than the last time Ocellus had seen them, although there was light here, which made their iridescent sheen very pretty.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” came a voice from behind her.
Ocellus turned to regard the human standing in the doorway, leaning nonchalantly against the frame. He was male, and wearing the same style of robes as the one who’d taken the eggs inside when they’d met the wizard in the garden. “Everything about the little dragons is beautiful,” Ocellus responded. She was speaking common to the man, but made sure to use a more literal translation of the draconic term.
“They’re cute enough, I guess,” he said, chuckling, then knelt down to be on her eye level, and held out a hand. “Marcus Orillion, at your service.”
Ocellus set her hoof in the hand, and felt the fingers close around it and squeeze it tightly. “My name’s Ocellus, Tixi’s familiar,” she said.
“So I’ve heard,” Marcus said, letting her go after jerking her hoof up and down slightly. “Is it true she agreed to be a test subject for Anastasia’s theories?”
Ocellus sighed. “Unfortunately. She would have agreed to anything in order to stay here as the wizard’s apprentice.”
“He’s taking her as an apprentice?” Marcus said, looking surprised. “I mean – clearly she’s a spellcaster if she managed to bind a familiar, but he’s usually… very selective. And very busy. I’ve never heard of him taking four apprentices at the same time before.”
“I doubt he’s going to give her much personal attention,” Ocellus admitted.
Marcus nodded thoughtfully. Then winced. “Excuse me,” he said, standing back up and shaking his leg out. “I don’t mean to loom over you but I was starting to cramp.”
“it’s fine,” Ocellus said. “I need more practice anyway.” Before he could ask what she meant by that, Ocellus demonstrated by shifting into her female human form. She was still a bit shorter, but he could easily meet her gaze. Of course he stared at her breasts instead, but that wasn’t exactly surprising.
“Uh…” Marcus said, staring with his mouth open.
“She’s really looking forward to scribing her own spellbook,” Ocellus said, keeping her tone casual. “I can’t imagine the magical ink is cheap. Will there be a problem getting hold of some?”
Marcus reached a hand towards Ocellus, and she watched with curiosity as it rose toward her breast, shaking slightly. She took hold of it and placed it against her skin. “Does it feel right?” she asked, as he gave a little squeeze. “I had a live model to study, so the texture should be accurate.”
“I… I don’t actually know,” Marcus responded, squeezing it again. “I’ve never touched one before. It’s so soft!”
“I know! It’s probably a human’s best feature,” Ocellus said. “I mean, aside from their hands.” She placed her hand against his, and flexed her fingers against his wrist and palm.
Marcus pulled his hand back, and himself together. “Are you attempting to seduce me? I was warned that you might be a succubus.”
Ocellus laughed brightly. “I’m mostly teasing you,” she said, stepping forwards and tracing a finger along his stubbly cheek. “But this is very important to Tixi, and I want to make sure it goes as well as possible. How badly do you think it’s likely to go?”
“Badly,” Marcus responded, taking hold of her hand and holding it in place, lightly. “Anastasia is a cold bitch, Lucien isn’t interested in anything but illusions and mind control, and as for Rellenore himself… he’s generally absorbed in his own research, and seems to begrudge spending any time teaching us at all. The staff are all constructs that can’t be reasoned with. If she’s not officially an apprentice, she might not even be able to get food.”
“But I bet you could smooth all that over,” she said, spreading her fingers to stroke in a semicircle across his cheek.
Marcus nodded. “I could certainly secure library access, and get her as much magical ink as she needs. We technically have a limit but I’ve never come close to using it. And in return you’d… um…”
Ocellus smiled, and said, “I’d be very grateful?”
“That sounds like the kind of thing you say if you aren’t intending to do anything with me but still want me to do favors for you,” Marcus said.
Ocellus sighed, and turned back into herself. “I’m going to mark that off as a failure,” she said, her tone suddenly much less flirty. “I don’t like the idea of extorting favors with sex, but I thought sex appeal might be enough. Did I come on too strong?”
“You were naked,” Marcus replied, folding his arms.
“I never learned how to shapeshift clothing,” Ocellus admitted. “Few of the intelligent creatures of Equestria wear clothes on a regular basis, so it was never a priority.”
“So if you aren’t willing to actually have sex, what are you offering for my help?” Marcus asked.
“Oh, I’d be willing to have sex I guess,” Ocellus said. “It’d just have to be transactional.” She paused. “And Tixi would have to watch. She feels everything I feel through the familiar bond, and if she can’t see what’s causing it she imagines things and gets really jealous. I could also probably do other favors – I doubt the little dragon hatchlings are going to take up *all* my time.”
Marcus chuckled. “If they’re anything like human babies, you might be surprised.” He sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t cost anything to help you. I’ll just let you and Tixi owe me a favor for now – I don’t like the idea of trading for sex either, really.”
Ocellus nodded.
“But if you’re ever in the mood… I probably wouldn’t say no?” he added, nervously. “I’ve never – it’s just, I’m kind of, um.”
A virgin, Ocellus thought. Prime target for seduction, since their resistance was unnaturally low, but avoiding actual sex for as long as possible was recommended for an efficient harvest. Her skin crawled as she found herself making that observation.
“You know what?” Ocellus said, “I think I have a trade we can make on the side. I’d like to have a male human shape to shift into, and being intimate with someone is the best way of learning a new form.”
Marcus looked at her oddly.
“What?”
“Does that mean you were intimate with a badger?” he asked.
“No.” She glowered. “The second best way is to dissect a cadaver,” she added. “That wasn’t a threat. I want this badly enough to sleep with you, not to murder you.”
“And what do I get out of it?” Marcus asked.
“Sex,” Ocellus said. “It’s the normal sort of transaction people make when they want to have sex. You get sex, and I get sex.”
“Okay then,” the apprentice said, after a few moments of thought, looking a bit nervous and excited. “Now?”
“Well, as soon as Tixi gets back from sending the other little dragons off,” Ocellus said. “I wasn’t kidding about needing to let her watch.”
===
It didn’t take long to find Tixi. They managed to reach the front door just as she was coming in. She looked at Ocellus and Marcus, and grinned. “Oh! You’re making friends?”
“Mmm hmm,” Ocellus replied. “This is Marcus, another of the wizard’s apprentices, who offered to help you get settled in.”
“Right,” Marcus said. “Let’s go up to my room?”
He was obviously a bit eager, almost running up the stairs, and Ocellus and Tixi had to hustle to keep up.
“Oh, is this the library?” Tixi asked, as they passed a doorway on the stairs with a giant book engraved on it. “I need to find a spellbook to study.”
“Later?” Ocellus suggested, looking back and forth nervously between Tixi and Marcus, who was about to leave her line of sight.
Tixi pushed on the door, but it didn’t budge. “Hmm, I don’t seem to be keyed to it yet anyway. What has you in such a rush?”
Marcus had vanished by that point, but after a few seconds came back around the curve of the stairs. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“The library’s locked,” Tixi said, but followed Ocellus at a sedate pace as she climbed the stairs towards the eager apprentice.
Marcus, it turned out, had half a floor to himself as his suite. The door from the stairwell opened onto a sitting room which was cluttered with loose papers and precarious piles of dogeared books, and other doors led to additional space. The door in the middle was evidently his bedroom, as he made a beeline for it, leaping nimbly from clear space to clear space among the clutter and somehow avoiding to knock any of the piles over. Ocellus and Tixi followed suit, neither having any trouble bypassing such a rudimentary trap gauntlet.
Still, by the time they passed through the doorway, Marcus was somehow already naked and erect. He snagged Ocellus off the floor and pulled her to his chest, his penis thrusting up between her legs to slide ineffectively along her unbroken chitin.
“Oh!” Tixi said, closing the door behind her and finding a stool to perch on, staring intently at the pair as they failed to have sex.
“Slow down!” Ocellus said, placing a hoof on Marcus’ chest and prying herself out of his grip, wings spreading and suspending her in midair.
Marcus breathed heavily, and finally nodded, sitting down on the edge of his bed.
Ocellus shifted into her human form and knelt in front of him, letting her fingers run over his fuzzy scrotum. “Just relax. I’ll take care of you,” she said, her other hand wrapping around his penis and squeezing, feeling the specifics of its construction – not so different from a stallions, except in shape. She kissed the tip, and gave it a lick, squirming her tongue across the slit at the end.
She was so focused on her exploration that she didn’t notice him move until it was too late. He grabbed her shoulders, threw her back onto the surprisingly soft and fluffy carpet, and landed atop her, resting his weight on her chest, each hand on a breast, while he forced his way between her legs and thrust his only slightly dampened cock into her crotch with bruising force, as he didn’t quite hit his mark. Ocellus had the presence of mind to quickly make herself wet before a second thrust sank into her with all the grace of a farmer digging a hole for a fence post, and after three more thrusts, he was done, squirting inside her and then collapsing on top of her, moaning.
“Are you okay?” Tixi asked, helping drag Marcus off Ocellus while she gasped for breath.
Ocellus coughed, and shifted into a form without breasts, which only helped mitigate the pain a little. “What the fuck, Marcus?”
“Sorry, I couldn’t wait,” he said. “Do you have any idea how –”
“How did it feel when you shoved your way inside?” Ocellus asked. “Nice and moist, right? Slippery?”
“Oh yeah, it was amazing,” he said, dreamily.
Ocellus put a hoof on his chest. “If I wasn’t a shapeshifter, and you didn’t even let me finish *sucking your dick*, it wouldn’t have been like that. Foreplay isn’t just a tease, you idiot!”
He blinked at her and took hold of her hoof. “I can’t…” he croaked, gasping for air but unable to take a breath while she pressed down on his ribs.
“You also don’t rest your weight on the woman’s breasts,” she said, letting up on the pressure and letting him gasp for air. “What were you even thinking?”
“That was a lot like how little dragons mate,” Tixi noted. “It’s efficient.”
“I can’t get pregnant, so efficiency isn’t exactly a concern,” Ocellus replied. “This was supposed to be fun.”
“I had a lot of fun,” Marcus said, a silly grin on his face.
“I’m glad,” Ocellus said, then sighed, and lifted one of his hands with her hooves. “Now you owe me an examination. It was *going* to be sexy but now it’s just going to be clinical. Try not to squirm too much.”
And that’s how Anastasia found them, when she barged into the room following a glowing wisp, which circled around Tixi’s head and then vanished.
“Please tell me you weren’t fucking my research subject,” she said, glaring at Marcus.
“He was fucking me,” Ocellus answered. “I’m her familiar.”
“Ah, the succubus,” she said. “That’s fine, then. Let me know if you need to dispose of his body. Tixi, come with me, I need to get some baseline measurements.”
“Alright,” Tixi said, getting to her feet and following her out. “Can you let me into the library afterwards?” She asked as they headed towards the suite’s outer door. “I need a new spellbook.”
“Of course,” Anastasia said. “Your magical abilities are the primary focus of my research, so –” the conversation cut off as she shut the door behind her, leaving Ocellus and Marcus alone.
“Oh god, she saw me naked,” Marcus groaned, covering his face.
Ocellus was busy examining the muscles and fat of his abdomen, kneading at his belly curiously. “She didn’t seem to care.”
“You’re not actually going to kill me, are you?” he asked.
“I’d like to think we can still be friends,” Ocellus responded. “You didn’t do anything I hadn’t agreed to, you just got the timing wrong and made it hurt.” She ran a hoof along the line where his hips attached to his torso, then prodded at his thigh. “I’m tempted to give you some further lessons, for the sake of anyone else you try to sleep with.”
“I… wouldn’t mind that,” Marcus said. “The friends or the lessons.”
“Will you pay attention to the lessons?” she asked.
“I think so?” he said, as she nuzzled under his knee, and gave a lick at the joint, since her hooves weren’t doing a very good job of exploring it. “Ahh!” he squirmed, kicking his leg in midair. “Stop, that tickles!”
===
Even if Marcus expected the lessons to involve another conjugal visit, he did an admirable job of hiding his disappointment when what actually showed up on his doorstep a few days later was a thick hand-written booklet, “Ocellus’ Practical Guide to Mutually Enjoyable Sex.”
The illustrations were quite detailed.
===
The little dragon eggs hatched about a week later, just as Ocellus was starting to think that she was prepared for them. The wizard – Rellenore, apparently, although she’d only ever heard him called that once, by Marcus – had taken detailed notes on raising ‘kobolds’, and the library golem had silently handed her the loosely bound stack of pages when she’d asked for information. She’d turned the nursery into her study-nest to organize and absorb the information, which meant spending very little time with Tixi who mostly haunted the library. The empathic bond meant that they were still comfortably connected, even when they were studying in entirely different rooms.
That peace was broken by a sudden ‘crack’, as one of the eggs broke open, and a tiny, ravenous dragon emerged. After a second of panic, Ocellus shifted into her little dragon shape, and dangled her tail for the hatchling, who latched onto it just as the papers had described. It was a little more painful than she expected, even if the tiny newborn teeth had no hope of actually piercing her scales.
By the time she’d retrieved the crushed meat paste from the cupboard, and coaxed her passenger to try eating actual food instead of her tail, another egg had hatched, and the hatchling was trying to get its teeth around the remaining egg. Ocellus dove across the room and smeared meat paste on its nose, confusing it long enough for her to whisk it away to sit with its sibling.
All three had hatched and were stuffed full and sleeping by the time Tixi led the wizard and his apprentices into the nursery to see them.
“Okay, they are pretty damned cute,” Marcus remarked. “You’d better not hurt them,” he added to Anastasia, who was looking them over carefully.
“That is literally the opposite of my intention,” she replied absentmindedly, taking out a notebook and a ruled ribbon and getting their measurements.
“Did it work?” Tixi asked the wizard. “Are they all going to be wizards?”
“It’s still a bit too early to make that determination,” the wizard replied. “If you’d indulge me, I’d like to give them names? Since they’re the first kobolds I’ll be raising in my own tower.”
“Of course!” Tixi said, admiration and pride flowing through the link.
The wizard pointed at each in turn. “Ek,” he said to the first, a drab purple with lighter purple belly-scales. “Dui,” he said to the second, who was a very light creamy green all over. “Tini,” he said to the third, brilliantly striped in orange and slightly darker and yellower orange.
“One, two, and three?” Ocellus asked, a bit of annoyance coming through.
“I’m afraid my imagination isn’t my best quality,” the wizard replied, confidently, “but I used a language that no one they meet should speak. It’s perfectly normal for names to have some original etymology like that.”
“Ek and Tini are good dragon names,” Tixi said. “Dui is a bit weird though. Duji? Duni? Duxi?”
“Duxi is a word in the same language,” the wizard said, a bit uncertainly.
“’Miserable’,” Ocellus translated, then shrugged. “I suppose it’ll be more incentive to make sure she doesn’t live up to it.”
Book 1 - Failed Experiments
Taking care of the hatchlings was both a tiring, never-ending slog and an extremely boring routine. Little dragon babies were surprisingly self-sufficient, and normally a pair of little dragons would mind a clutch of twenty to forty hatchlings. This meant that most of the time Ocellus had nothing to do, with only three to keep an eye on, but at the same time she couldn’t ever leave or allow herself to get distracted. There was a cage she could lock them in where they couldn’t get into any trouble, if she really had to go do something else, but they hated it and it seemed fairly cruel. In theory she could also have some time to herself when they were all asleep, but that rarely happened simultaneously and never for long. Tixi had to come spell her for a few hours a day so that she could get some sleep herself.
In general, this left her exhausted both mentally and physically, and the days blended together without her paying much attention to anything but the hatchlings. Duxi, at least, was the opposite of miserable – she was always running around, happily pouncing on siblings or toys or Ocellus and wrestling with anything she could get her claws on. The others were more sedate, although Tini had a disturbing fascination with breaking things into pieces and then carefully chewing the pieces into smaller pieces. Ek was just kind of there and it was easy to forget he was even around.
The wizard returned one day, Tixi and third apprentice, Lucien, in tow. Lucien stepped forwards, and cast a dazzling pattern of moving lights and colors that had all three hatchlings – and Ocellus herself – staring in fascination. The wizard went to each of them in turn – Ocellus last – and touched them on the forehead, closing his eyes and concentrating briefly. Ocellus could feel the distinct tickle of a mental connection, but it must have been a one-way reading since there were no thoughts placed into her mind. It was enough to break her out of her trance, though.
“Just reading surface thoughts,” the wizard explained. “It’s how I assess a young creature’s aptitude. Lucien, cast Detect Thoughts on each of the kobolds, and we can compare notes.”
“Of course, master,” he said in a strangely accented, high-pitched voice. Ocellus took a closer look at him, and it was obvious that he wasn’t fully human, although she hadn’t had the chance to study this worlds’ many, many human-like species to hazard a guess at what he might be.
“As for you, you have a love of focused study and abstract concepts,” he said to Ocellus. “Suitable for a wizard. It’s almost a shame that you’re bound as a familiar.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Familiars can’t learn magic,” he said, simply, as if it was self-evident. She certainly hadn’t had any luck back in the storm drain lair when she’d tried to parse Tixi’s spells, but she also hadn’t spent the multiple years that it was supposed to take to make progress.
“As for our little gremlins,” he said, turning to the still-fascinated hatchlings. “What do you think, Lucien?”
“Are we sure they gave us the right eggs?” he asked. “Only the purple one has any talent for magic whatsoever.”
The wizard nodded. “It’s a bit perplexing, but I’m certain they didn’t send us the wrong eggs on purpose. A quick divination could tell us whether some mistake was made.”
“They’re not good at magic?” Tixi asked, disappointed.
The wizard shrugged. “Ek should be trainable, but he isn’t even as talented as you are, and they were all meant to surpass you.” He paused. “Tini is smart enough to learn, but his interest is more in crafting. Duxi is… more on the physical side.”
“I’m sure they were my eggs!” Tixi said. “I remembered what they looked like when I laid them, and made sure they gave me the same ones back! I double-checked even though we kept them separate the whole time!”
“Regardless,” the wizard said, “let us make sure, shall we? Nethys, he who sees all, send us a servant to answer our questions!” The last sentence was in the language of magic, of course – a rather powerful spell, if Ocellus was any judge.
The air shimmered. “Ask your questions,” said a dry voice in yet another language Ocellus had never heard before.
The wizard had no trouble understanding it at least. “Are these three baby kobolds the children of the older kobold, Tixi, there?” He pointed.
“Yes,” the voice intoned.
“Were their eggs fertilized by the father I selected, as instructed?”
“Yes,” the voice intoned again.
“Did anything else interfere with the experiment, leading to these unexpected results?”
“Yes,” the voice said a third time.
“What was it?” the wizard asked.
There was a pause. “Chaos,” the voice said at last.
“Do you mean a demon, or some other chaotic entity?”
“No,” the voice said immediately.
The wizard paced back and forth in front of the shimmer. Eventually, he asked, “What is the most important thing I could do to improve this experiment?”
“Numbers,” the voice replied.
“What is the second most important thing,” the wizard asked, muttering under his breath, “I hate being restricted to one-word answers.”
“Baseline,” the voice replied.
“What is –“ the wizard started, but the shimmer was already gone. “Ah, never mind. It was going nowhere. I suspect the last few answers were random.”
“I think it was describing the scientific method,” Ocellus suggested. “A larger sample size, and a control group to compare against.”
Everyone stared at her, including the three baby dragons, since the hypnotic pattern had faded during the creepy divination.
“It’s a mundane technique for developing technology,” she explained. “But that’s what you’re doing, right? You’re trying to breed better dragons using animal husbandry. ‘Aptitude for magic’ is obviously more complicated than you thought, so if you want to see if your methods are working you need a statistically significant sample so that instead of ‘1 in 3’ you can get results like ‘25 in 100’, and a baseline to compare against where you didn’t take any action, so you can say ‘25 in 100 is better than 10 in 100’.”
“More like one in one hundred,” Tixi remarked. “Most of our magical dragons are dragon-casters.”
“So one or possibly two in three seems like an overwhelming success, doesn’t it?” Ocellus asked.
“You don’t understand,” the wizard said. “This wasn’t merely a whim where I picked a talented wizard and had them breed with another who had nearly as much talent. Both sides of the family tree have been carefully controlled for seven generations. This was to be the culmination of decades of work.”
“Perhaps the talent you expected is merely latent?” Anastasia suggested. “I could change my focus towards awakening hidden talents.”
The wizard glanced at her, then at Tixi, then at Ocellus and his failed experiment. “Do nothing drastic, for now,” he said, at last. “I must meditate on these results at length.”
===
After that debacle, a pall lay over the wizard’s tower. Ocellus tried to shield the hatchlings from it, but she’d never been good at masking anxiety, and Tixi had anxiety in spades. So did the real apprentices, when they stopped by – which they all did, often, with one excuse or another as to how playing games with – sorry, ‘studying’ the hatchlings was vital for their research.
Well, except for Marcus, who just thought they were cute and wanted a break from his spell formula work… and to get Ocellus back into his bed. “I studied the booklet you gave me cover to cover,” he said, while spinning around to give Duxi a griffon ride. “I’d really like to try it out and make sure I’ve got everything right.”
Ocellus couldn’t have been less in the mood to humor such feelings, between exhaustion from taking care of the babies, Tixi’s anxiety assaulting her constantly, and the general tense atmosphere. Marcus’ obliviousness to all of that did not speak well of his ability to actually put her sexual suggestions into practice. “Well, what’s stopping you?” Ocellus asked, then leapt back as that somehow prompted him to take a swipe at her. “From going outside! From finding another human who shares your interests!”
“Um,” Marcus said, having recoiled when she dodged his attempt at a hug. “I’d have to go outside?”
Duxi took advantage of his distraction to clamber up onto his head and start eating his hair.
“I get it, you don’t want to do it for free,” he said. “I’ll give you anything you want – I mean, within reason. If you want a magic item or something it’d have to be more of a –”
“Tixi is *not* in the mood,” Ocellus attempted to explain. “She’s been really scared ever since the wizard rejected her babies. And could we maybe not discuss this in front of the kids?”
“Oh please,” Marcus said, tugging on Duxi and eventually getting her out of his hair. “You’re so cute!” he said, wiggling her in front of his face, making her giggle. He set her down. “They’re far too young to understand anything we’re saying, let along care about sex.”
“Sex!” said Ek, from across the room.
“Congratulations,” Ocellus said. “His first word.”
“Fuck,” Marcus huffed under his breath.
“Fuck!” said Duxi energetically, running around in circles.
“Alright, I think I’d better –” he started to say, then froze as turning around left him eye to eye with the wizard, who’d crept into the room with an uncharacteristic lack of fanfare.
“Stay here and watch the kobolds,” the wizard said to him. “And I can’t believe I have to say this, but do *not* have sex with them.”
Marcus looked horrified at the thought.
“Ocellus,” the wizard said, turning to leave. “With me. We have much to discuss.”
===
“Is this about the hatchlings?” Ocellus asked, as they wound their way up the stairs to the wizard’s personal lab, on the very highest floor of the tower.
“In a way, I suppose,” the wizard replied. “But for the most part, no. I will not make a decision on that matter in haste. Rather, with my schedule unexpectedly free, and my mood unexpectedly dire, I have decided that it is time that I helped you with that little problem of yours.”
Ocellus was a bit confused. Surely he didn’t mean Marcus.
“That is, it’s time we located your home,” the wizard explained, as they passed through a set of wards powerful enough to make Ocellus’ horn tingle. “This should be a rather straightforward operation, and I could do with something succeeding for once.”
“Oh!” Ocellus said. “I thought you were going to let Tixi do that.”
“I was, but it will take her months or years to increase her skill to sufficient levels purely through library study.” The wizard took a heavy, leather-bound book from a shelf and placed it on a stand before a rune-lined circle. He flipped through the pages, then back a few, until he located the spell he was looking for. “This isn’t one of the spells I normally prepare, so it will take me a few minutes to refresh my memory. In the meantime, can you describe this friend of yours Tixi has been trying to summon? In as much detail as possible.”
Ocellus shifted into a copy of Smoulder, since that was the easiest way to show her physical form in detail. “She’s a young female dragon – not a ‘kobold’, a true dragon, or at least the equivalent from my world. In a few hundred years she’ll be a massive beast guarding a hoard in a cave. She’s already nearly indestructible and capable of breathing fire that can melt steel.”
“What color is she?” the wizard asked, not looking up from his book.
“Orange,” Ocellus said. “With purple frills.”
That at least got the wizard to glance at her. “Hmm. Certainly not a true dragon from our world. What are her favorite things?”
Ocellus hesitated, but this was certainly important enough to reveal her friend’s open secret. “Frilly dresses.”
“That seems… unfortunate,” the wizard said.
“Dragon society is extremely unfortunate,” Ocellus replied.
In the end, they went ahead without tailoring a dress as a lure. The wizard was confident that his magic would be strong enough to drag her here against her will, if it could target her at all, and Ocellus didn’t think Smoulder would take much convincing since she’d always complained about not being summoned.
And sure enough, Smoulder appeared in the circle, large and garishly colored as life.
Ocellus leapt into the circle and embraced her. “It worked!”
“Oh, hi Ocellus,” Smoulder said, a bit absently, patting her on the head but otherwise extracting herself from the hug. “I think I’m supposed to fight somebody. Is it you?”
“What? No,” Ocellus said. “We’re trying to locate my home plane so that we can open a proper portal there.”
“Yeah, I don’t know anything about that kind of nerd stuff.”
“Well… how are things back home?” Ocellus asked.
“Same as always. Dragonlands never change,” Smoulder said, turning in a circle but still not finding anyone to fight.
“I mean, back at school?”
Smoulder grinned. “It’s nice to have a private room.”
“Enough,” the wizard said. He cast a quick spell, and levitated a metal tuning fork over to Smoulder, who grabbed it out of the air and looked about to eat it when the wizard gave further orders. “Take that back with you when the spell ends. Place it onto the bedrock of your world, and ring it loudly for at least thirty seconds. Then bring it back to me. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Smoulder said. “Ring the thing, then bring the bling.”
“Do not forget,” the wizard scolded her.
“Whatever you say, king.” Smoulder saluted sarcastically, then disappeared.
“She wasn’t very lucid,” Ocellus said.
“No, she wasn’t,” the wizard said. “We may have to try this multiple times before the instructions stick. Go back to your kobolds, and we can check again tomorrow.”
===
Smoulder did indeed forget about the tuning fork.
“Oh right, that thing. Sandbar said it was for making music, but it was broken or something, so I ate it.”
“You… ate it,” the wizard said, flatly.
Smoulder nodded. “Yeah, it tasted weird.”
“Maybe we could send her back with a note?” Ocellus suggested.
“My magic allows me to understand her and speak to her, but not to write in her language,” the wizard replied.
“I can write it,” Ocellus said. “I really should have written a whole letter for her, shouldn’t I? But I can get a quick note down before the spell wears off.”
“No,” the wizard snapped, then quickly softened his expression. “Let’s try this, instead.” He waved his hands, and the replacement tuning fork started to glow brightly. “Take this back with you when the spell ends. Place it onto the bedrock of your world, and ring it loudly for at least thirty seconds. Then bring it back to me.”
“Sure thing,” Smoulder said, taking the tuning fork and peering at it, then vanished in a puff of smoke.
“I think a note would have worked better,” Ocellus said.
“Then prepare this letter you want to send, and give it to me ahead of time so I can verify its contents,” the wizard replied. “I need to make sure you aren’t telling any of my secrets.”
“I’m not sure I even know any of your secrets,” Ocellus responded. “Mostly I’d be telling Tixi’s secrets.”
“Regardless,” the wizard said.
===
Ocellus spent the rest of the day writing, while watching the little dragons play. They kept interrupting her by wanting to involve her in their games, or for her to read them a story, or sit as judge when Ek had a problem with how the others were treating him. Still, the toys the wizard had supplied were many and varied and very, very distracting, so by nightfall she’d managed to put down a detailed explanation of her situation and of everything that had happened since she’d disappeared – and especially detailed, salacious renditions of her various sexual encounters, since she knew Smoulder would love reading about them. She’d probably read them out loud in public just to see the others’ reactions. Ocellus smiled at the thought.
The instructions for using the tuning fork were at the end, but just in case it didn’t work as well as the wizard hoped, she copied a part of an astral map from the library which pinpointed the plane she was currently on.
Once Tixi was back in the nursery to take the night shift – which mostly just involved sleeping, since the little dragons were getting old enough to be children instead of hatchlings at this point – Ocellus headed up to the wizard’s chambers and knocked on his door.
After a minute or so, the door cracked open, and a giant toad stared at her wordlessly.
“The wizard wanted to review the note I planned to send back before our summoning tomorrow,” she told it, and held out the large, bulging envelope with her letter inside.
The toad stared at it, at her, then at it again, and after she set it down on the ground, grabbed hold of it with its mouth and slowly dragged it back into the room, then closed the door again with a click.
The wizard woke her up in the morning, stomping into the nursery and waking up all the little dragons. “What is this?” he asked, angrily, shaking the envelope at her.
“It’s the letter I wanted to send,” Ocellus said uncertainly, cringing back from the looming glower.
The wizard thundered, “It’s fifty pages long! You expect me to read all of this?”
“You can skim the parts that obviously aren’t about you or your secrets?” Ocellus suggested.
“Half of it is… disgusting smut!”
“The only parts you should care about are the last two pages,” Ocellus said, narrowing her eyes.
“And I’m supposed to trust you on that?” the wizard asked, as if that was the most insane thing that anyone had ever asked him. “Fine. If those are the only important pages, then…” he took the sheaf of pages out of the envelope, peeled off the last two pages, and scattered the rest across the nursery floor. Looking them over, he crumpled up her rendition of the astral map and then set it on fire with a spell. “This will do,” he said, heading back upstairs with the remaining page.
Tixi peered around the corner of a toy chest, where she’d been hiding with her children. “What did you do?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” Ocellus complained. “I don’t like this. We should leave.”
“Leave?” Tixi asked, blinking and looking around at the wonderful room full of wonderful toys, with a glance down towards the library.
“Bark bark bark,” Ocellus responded.
“He’s not crazy,” Tixi said, shaking her head. “He’s just feeling stressed because his experiment didn’t work out exactly like he wanted. Have you tried sleeping with him?”
“What?” Ocellus asked.
“Have sex with him! That’s supposed to reduce stress, right?”
“I don’t think –” Ocellus started, before a scenario began to play itself out in her head, entirely against her will. One of the standard practice scenarios. Calming an angry pony by starting with subtle flirtation and flattery, working gradually up to seduction and capture. It was dangerous, but if she was careful…
“No,” she said firmly, to Tixi and herself.
“It could work!” Tixi insisted.
“If we want to have any chance of staying here, I have to be honest with him,” Ocellus replied. “I’ll see if I can calm him down by apologizing; maybe I can figure out what made him so angry.”
“And if it turns out to be lack of sex?” Tixi asked.
Ocellus rolled her eyes and headed upstairs.
===
The summoning was already in progress when she arrived, so she lurked quietly in a corner until Smoulder appeared and waved to her.
“I see you don’t have the tuning fork with you,” the wizard replied, not seeming to notice.
“Oh right, that,” Smoulder said. “It was glowing, so Starlight confiscated it for study. She thinks it might be the breakthrough they need to finish their mirror.”
“What? That’s nonsense,” the wizard replied. “Arcane magic isn’t specific to a particular plane.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Smoulder replied.
“This could be a good thing,” Ocellus said, stepping forward to make herself known. “If they finish their mirror portal we’ll have a stable way to travel back and forth.”
“A good thing?” the wizard said, incredulously. “A stable portal to an outer plane is a *good thing*?”
“Isn’t it?” Ocellus replied. “I could visit home, reassure everyone that I was okay, then come back to Tixi so she wouldn’t have to find another familiar.” She paused. “You could send someone with me to make sure I wasn’t giving away your secrets?”
“Let me pose a hypothetical situation for you,” the wizard said, glowering at her. “Let us assume that a mysterious portal opened in the middle of one of your cities. How would people react?”
“Do you mean in the middle of my hive, or in the middle of a pony city?” Ocellus asked, then immediately answered herself, “A pony city, of course, since this is an analogy. They’d… probably call in their heroes to investigate, and have the guards set up a cordon around it in case something nasty came through.”
“And what would they do to the person who caused the portal to be opened?” the wizard prompted.
“She’d probably have some explaining to do…” Ocellus admitted. “So you’re worried the city will get hold of the portal, and blame you for it?”
“It would be an immense blow to my prestige,” the wizard said. “Or, perhaps, things would go badly, and I’d be forced to flee the city, while every kobold was put to the sword by frightened angry mobs. Interplanar travel is tolerated when it’s transient, and under the control of a responsible caster.”
“Maybe you should add that to the note, then,” Ocellus said. “Because the ponies aren’t going to stop until they get me back. King Thorax threatened to start a war the last time I went missing.”
“And a sample of my magic might be enough for them to finish their portal?” the wizard asked.
“That’s what Starlight seemed to think,” Smoulder said. “Something about homing in on its signature from astral space? It’s all unicorn nonsense.”
“Then I suppose we have no choice. We’ll have to send you back now,” the wizard replied. “Come here.”
Ocellus obediently approached him. “Send me back? How?”
“We’ll have Smoulder carry you,” the wizard explained, kneeling down and taking her head in his hands.
“That only works on non-living objects,” Ocellus said.
“Flashing Claws of the Storm,” the wizard intoned. Ocellus had enough time to recognize it as a spell, but his grip was surprisingly firm, and she failed to pull free in the half-second before the spell completed. There was a flash of pain –
Ocellus found herself sprawled out on her back in the center of a magical circle, in an unfamiliar room.
“Well done,” Marcus said, his voice coming from far above the pair of feet standing a few feet outside the circle.
Tilting her head a bit let her see the rest of him, and she followed his gaze as she rolled to her hooves to see Tixi crouched at the edge of the circle. Tixi met Ocellus’ gaze, and the familiar bond snapped back into place, relief and pride in accomplishment flowing from the little dragon.
They weren’t in the tower. From the smell, they were in somebody’s cellar, adjacent to the storm drains, although a closer look showed that the wooden stairway that should have led to the floor above was rotten and collapsed, and the room itself was mostly empty except for a few bits of litter scattered here and there. Duxi and Tini were also there, playing with some old shredded canvas that was getting more shredded by the second as they worked it over with their claws. They looked a lot older than the last time she’d seen them.
“Where’s Ek?” Ocellus asked, looking around again.
“The wizard decided to keep him,” Tixi said, slowly approaching Ocellus and, as she didn’t back away or otherwise respond with anything but her continued confusion, pounced on her and started hugging. “I’m so glad to have you back!”
“I’m on an official mission to return Tixi and her other offspring to the tribe,” Marcus explained. “This is an unofficial rest stop to summon you back. Against Rellenore’s direct orders, by the way.”
“I’m no longer subject to his direct orders,” Tixi replied. “If he won’t have me as an apprentice, he won’t have me as anything at all.”
“He ordered you not to resummon me?” Ocellus asked, her confusion congealing into something a bit darker. “Why would he do that?”
“We were hoping you could tell us,” Marcus answered. “Tixi knew you were dead, but there was no body, and all he would say is that she was forbidden from resummoning you.”
“What did you do?” Tixi asked. “I know you didn’t attack him, you weren’t even angry when you died. Did you try to have sex with him?”
Ocellus cringed at the thought. “He was really worried about my friends back home opening a portal,” she said, replaying the conversation that, from her point of view, was about thirty seconds in the past. “He said he was going to send me back with Smoulder, but that didn’t make any sense because you can’t send living creatures – oh. Oh! Oh no. Oh no no no.” She squirmed, but couldn’t escape Tixi’s continued embrace, which only got tighter as her emotions shifted.
“What?” Marcus asked.
“He sent my *corpse* back with Smoulder so that my friends back home would stop working on their portal,” Ocellus explained, her seething anger only slightly mitigated by Tixi hugs. “Which means Smoulder – one of my best friends, and my lover – woke up that morning holding my *dead body*.”
“That’s, um…” Marcus said.
“Yeah, I don’t really have words either,” Ocellus said. “How long has it been?”
Tixi backed off from the hug and looked at Marcus. “Six weeks?”
“Seven,” Marcus said. “Anastasia kept insisting she needed Tixi and the babies for her research.”
“He listened for a while but then he started getting really nervous,” Tixi said. “He kept looking at me and frowning and I couldn’t talk to him about anything. He’d even slam the door in my face if I tried to sit in on any classes. Finally he sent me away.”
“He must have realized he’d made a mistake,” Ocellus said, shivering as her blood ran cold. “Killing me wouldn’t stop them from trying to open a portal. It just means that instead of opening it to rescue me, they’d be opening it to avenge me.”
“So why send her away?” Marcus said. “Why not summon you back and pump you for information, if he was going to be attacked?”
“He’s not going to be attacked. They don’t even know he exists,” Ocellus said, turning to look Tixi in the eye. “They’ll be coming for you.”
Tixi’s response to the dire warning was a slowly building excitement that built into a large grin. “I’ll get to meet your friends!”
Ocellus blinked, and let Tixi’s optimism wash away her terror. “Yeah, that – when they see me alive I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to talk it out. You’re right. No need to panic.”
“Just don’t die again,” Tixi said. “I only stole enough materials for one ritual.”
They set out through the storm drains again, Tixi and Ocellus (in cat form) practicing their sneakiness, but Marcus and the kids made enough noise that any dire rats they would have run into had plenty of time to run away. A few hundred feet from the kobold lair, they stopped in a familiar room – a junction of six corridors, with an unusually large and dry platform in the center with pipes and valves leading down into the sewer proper.
“Wait here,” Tixi said to Marcus. “I’ll take the children to the tribe and see them set safely in the nursery, then come back to fetch you once I’m sure the tribe is okay with your visit.”
“Alright,” Marcus said.
Ocellus went to follow Tixi, but she held a hand out to stop her. “You wait here, too. Keep Marcus company.”
Ocellus blinked. “Why?”
“No reason!” Tixi said, giggling, then ran off.
Marcus places his hand on Ocellus’ back, between her shoulderblades, just above her wing casings. “I think she wants us to… you know.”
“Have sex,” Ocellus filled in.
“Yeah, that,” Marcus said, stroking her shoulders, then moving up her neck. He wasn’t half bad at it.
Ocellus pressed back against his hands, enjoying the physical contact. “Why?” she asked.
“I think she’s trying to butter me up,” Marcus said. “I’m here to negotiate with the tribe on the wizard’s behalf, I know secrets that could get her in trouble, that sort of thing. She tried to offer herself to me once, but she couldn’t go through with it.”
Ocellus cringed.
“Yeah, it was pretty bad,” Marcus said, moving up to her ears, fondling them one at a time. “So what do you say?”
Ocellus sighed. “Maybe if you make it worth my while.”
“I was never going to turn you in,” Marcus said. “No one liked how the wizard was acting. I’ve got some gold, though?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Ocellus said. “Sex has some interesting sensations, but I mostly have to fake it. Cuddling, though…”
“Naked cuddling?” Marcus suggested.
“It’s not like I have any clothes,” Ocellus said, turning to smirk at him, and giving a little hint of seduction.
Marcus made a halfhearted attempt to brush aside the dirt covering the floor, then cast a spell that cleaned off a few square feet, and took off his cape, setting it down for cushioning. Then he started on his robe, although he looked around at all the entrances. “This place is pretty public, isn’t it?”
“No one’ll be by here except for little dragons, and they won’t care,” Ocellus said, shifting into her human form.
Marcus’ breath caught at the sight of her, and his robes were soon folded as another layer for the two of them to sit on. He had on some underclothes, and hesitated for a second before stripping them, too, but Ocellus motioned that it was okay and that was all the encouragement he needed.
Ocellus sat in his lap, facing him and letting her breasts press against his bare chest. She wrapped her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder, and stroked his back. After a few seconds, he followed suit, squeezing her close and stroking her back as well. Without her fragile wings to get in the way, having her back stroked was a lot less stressful, and she let herself relax in his grip, breathing in time with him, and enjoying the closeness.
“And this is what you actually like?” Marcus asked, licking her ear between sentences. Human ears weren’t as sensitive as changeling ears, but it was still nice. “Without having to fake it?”
“It’s nice,” Ocellus said, giving his neck a little nibble. “At home we sleep in, like, big piles of our whole family and a bunch of friends, but at school I barely touch anyone and it’s just so strange.” She sighed. “I think that’s why I started sleeping with Smoulder. Other species think cuddling is nice, but they usually want to move on to sex.”
“And you don’t like sex,” Marcus said, as his penis hardened underneath her. She shifted so that it pushed up between their bellies.
“It’s not horrible,” Ocellus said. “Most of the sensations are nice enough, I guess? But it’s so much work.”
“Hmm…” Marcus said. “But if I shifted so my dick was inside you, you wouldn’t have to do any work at all, right? And it would feel nice for both of us.”
“If I made myself wet, sure,” Ocellus said. “But you wouldn’t leave it at that. You’re a sexual being with arousal pushing you towards orgasm. And this is *not* a position where you could ‘do all the work’.”
“I bet I could leave it at that for a while,” Marcus said.
Ocellus sighed, and shifted to make herself ‘aroused’, then rose up enough to let Marcus slide his quite genuinely aroused penis inside her. She groaned as it stretched her out, but after a few seconds her body adapted, and she could sit there almost comfortably while Marcus moaned in pleasure and brought his hands in to grope at her breasts. Which was nice, but not as nice as him stroking her back. It also pushed her back to where she could only rub his shoulders, and was altogether less intimate, at least in the ways she cared about. She leaned forward to kiss him, which helped a little, and squeezed her muscles around his cock, which helped stimulate them both.
Marcus jerked his hips, wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, and then exploded inside her.
“Sorry,” he murmured, holding her and stroking her and kissing her again, while his penis softened and slipped most of the way out of her, leaving a wet sticky mess connecting their crotches.
“For what?” Ocellus asked, leaning down to nibble at his neck and shoulder again. “You got past it quickly, and now we can go back to the good part.”
Marcus laughed, and dutifully cuddled with her until his penis started to get hard again about ten minutes later, at which point she let him lie her down on the makeshift bed and show off what he’d learned from her pamphlet in a more traditional position.
He was pretty good with his tongue, for a newbie at least, but she didn’t feel like faking an orgasm, so after she had her fill of intense clitoral stimulation, she told him to move on. He made sure to wrap his arms around her and squeeze her tightly as he spread her legs and thrust inside her, which hadn’t been in the pamphlet but showed that he was paying attention to her needs.
“How was that?” he asked, after his orgasm, his embrace turning just a little bit into him resting her weight on her as he caught his breath.
“Solid B,” she informed him, rolling a bit to the side so he wasn’t pressing down on her.
By that point they’d acquired a small audience of little dragons, including Ijj and Tixi. “Are you done?” Tixi asked.
“I don’t know, are we done?” Marcus asked, cuddling Ocellus in what would have been the afterglow if she was actually able to orgasm.
She squeezed her arms around him and sighed. “If you keep cuddling me in between, you can go as many times as you want.”
It turned out two more times was his limit, after which he was too worn out for cuddling. Tixi and a couple of the other little dragons took over cuddling Ocellus, who wasn’t quite as worn out but was pleasantly sore, while Marcus lay there panting in exhaustion. They didn’t even ask for sex afterwards.
===
Eventually, Marcus recovered enough to clean up all the wet and sticky fluids with his cleaning spell, then he and the other little dragons headed into the tribe’s lair for negotiations. Tixi and Ijj stayed outside with Ocellus, who was back in her normal form, and kind of thoughtful.
“So we’ve been banished,” Ijj said out of nowhere.
“What?” Ocellus asked, snapping out of her reverie.
“Not banished banished,” Tixi said.
“Right,” Ijj said. “Just ordered to go far away from the tribe and not come back.”
“Temporarily,” Tixi stressed. “Just until we find your friends or they find us. They didn’t want them blasting their way into our lair looking for me.”
“And they sent me to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t run off forever and become an adventurer,” Ijj said.
“Could you actually stop her?” Ocellus asked.
“No, but I could report back that she’d done it,” Ijj said.
“I’m not going to abandon the tribe!” Tixi said. “Although adventurers make a *lot* of money and get powerful really quickly.”
“Or they die,” Ijj said.
“So I was thinking we could pretend to go be adventurers for a while,” Tixi said, ignoring him. “Just until your friends find us.”
“Or we die,” Ijj said.
Since they were trying to be found, they went outside brazenly during the daytime. The tribe hadn’t given them crossbows to use or armor to wear, but they had left Ijj and Tixi with the goggles that helped them not be completely blinded by the sun.
“Excuse,” Tixi said in common, after walking up to the market guard and tugging on his cape. “We want adventure.”
The guard looked at her strangely for a bit. “I’m afraid I don’t have any work for adventurers. I’m just guarding the market.”
“We want to be adventurers,” Ocellus explained, her magic-assisted common much more fluent than Tixi’s rusty skills. “Is there somewhere we should go for that? A guild or something?”
The guard laughed. “As if adventurers would stand for being subject to guild law.” He shook his head. “You could try asking around at the Pub, or the Haunted Box. Lots of adventurers hang out there.”
“I know where those are,” Ocellus said. At least, she thought she remembered. The Pub was right next to the market, and to get to the Haunted Box was a quick jaunt past the thingie.
The Pub was, surprisingly, a lot less crowded than Ocellus remembered. There were maybe a dozen people scattered here and there, mostly keeping to themselves, instead of the boisterous crowd that filled the place at night. A few of them looked like they might be adventurers…
“Excuse me, but are you lost?” asked a tiny human barmaid, blocking their way a few steps after they entered the building.
“Is this adventurer place?” Tixi asked.
“It’s a place for everyone who can pay,” the barmaid said, folding one arm to her side and glaring at them. “You don’t look like you can pay.”
“What makes you think that?” Ocellus asked, as if it wasn’t obvious. All three of them were naked, except for the little dragons’ goggles, and only Tixi had a sack with her spellbook in it. “Um… we can work for food? Mostly we just want to talk to people though.”
“Can clean with magic!” Tixi said enthusiastically.
“Uh huh,” the barmaid said. “I’ve seen plenty of wizards clean with magic. It’s why we hired an actual dishwasher.”
“Okay, so we can’t actually pay for food or drinks,” Ocellus said. “Do you mind if we –”
“OUT.” She shouted, stepping towards them aggressively. “Don’t make me get my broom!”
So that was a bust.
In contrast to The Pub, the thingie was much more crowded than it had been at night, when no children were dangling from its impressive arch or racing in circles around the bulbous base.
It also hadn’t had Danielle sitting in its shade, playing her lute and singing for spare change. Tixi recognized her too, and they sat down nearby and waited for her to finish her song.
It took a long time – she seemed to have infinite verses, each one describing another of the main character’s heroic encounters or sexual exploits, depending on how you decided to interpret the metaphors. Ocellus blushed a bit when it got to the story of how the hero had tricked the devious shapeshifter into copying his form, then wrestled it into submission until it cried out in surrender.
Eventually she stopped to take a break, and they approached her.
“Didn’t expect to see you folks out during the day,” she said, taking a long swig from her waterskin. “Or ever, really. I heard the wizard got you.”
“Was exiled from wizard, then exiled from tribe,” Tixi replied. “Want to be adventurer now!”
“I don’t suppose your group is looking for a couple of spellcasters?” Ocellus asked.
“What level?” Danielle asked.
It took a bit of a conversation to figure out what she meant by that – apparently, adventurers were rated from one to twenty depending on how much experience they had and how powerful they were. With their little bit of rogue training, and ability to cast second-rank spells, Tixi and Ijj were likely fifth level; Ocellus didn’t get a level since she was a familiar. A valuable utility familiar with her magical abilities, but not combat-rated.
“My party just hit seventh,” Danielle said. “I could ask if they want to take you on anyway, but you probably wouldn’t get a full share since you’re so far behind. Orrrrr…” she mused. “I could take on Tixi as a cohort. Then I’d be paying you directly, and they wouldn’t get a say.” She turned to Ocellus. “You’d get to come along as her familiar of course.”
“What about Ijj, then?” Ocellus asked.
“Ijj can go home,” Tixi said. “He not exiled.”
“He’s not going to leave you,” Ocellus said.
Tixi snorted. “Then he can hang around camp like camper and not get paid.”
===
“We really need a cleric, not another wizard,” complained the party bookkeeper, a kobold alchemist who made sure everyone knew his real name wasn’t Keeper and that he had nothing to do with Tixi’s tribe other than his master absentmindedly buying his egg from them. He could throw extremely deadly bombs that he whipped up on a moment’s notice, but what Tixi was (slightly) jealous of was that his spellbook was so much easier to read than hers, and could serve the same function with the spell’s characteristics spelled out in plain text instead of shifting mystery runes.
This was mitigated by the fact that he also kept the party’s financial status in a separate notebook, and that notebook had provided thousands of gold which from which Danielle had spent half her share on Ocellus during the resulting shopping trip.
Nothing mitigated Flicker’s open suspicion, but nothing mitigated anything about Flicker. She could hide in plain sight in bright light or shadows, effectively becoming invisible thanks to her elf-made gear, and snipe enemies with her horrible crossbow that was larger than Keeper.
“Why do we need a cleric”? Danielle asked. “We’ve got a paladin, we’ve got my healing spells, even you have *healing bombs*. We’re covered for sustain.”
“Not with your cohort. Adding two more arcane elements unbalances the party dangerously.”
“There’s nothing a cleric could do for us that I can’t,” Danielle said proudly.
“They could cast Gentle Repose so we’d look beautiful on our way to the graveyard of half-casters,” Keeper replied. Then he sighed. “I suppose we’ve made it this far, and our next mission should be a bit of a walk in the woods.”
“Don’t you mean a walk in the park?” Ocellus asked.
“Hardly. The woods are fairly overgrown at this point since no one’s thought to check on the missing village for almost ten months,” said William, their paladin, as he finally arrived at the café they’d agreed to meet back at after shopping. “Keeper, how unbalanced are we if we add an arcane trickster? With a little retraining I think Ijj here could make a good one. As a cohort of course, I’m not expecting another share of the loot.”
Keeper groaned. “Let me check my books.”
===
The pair of ogres sat in the middle of the path, picking their noses, armpits, and toe-jam and eating it. The stench was indescribable. Two humans and a kobold walked slowly towards them, rounding the corner and approaching.
“Hail friends!” William said.
“Who you call friend?” one of the ogres said. “I call you lunch!” The other one uprooted a sapling and threw it at them like a javelin, which the paladin deflected off his shield. Danielle, at his side, started to sing.
It was a slaughter. Tixi, hidden with the other half of the party, tossed a web as the ogres charged, slowing their assault enough for William to switch to his own massive longbow, and they peppered the ogres with ranged attacks. Massive bolts from Flicker’s heavy crossbow rounded out the assault.
“Walk in the park!” Ijj exclaimed. He’d learned a little common in his time with the party.
“Don’t get overconfident,” Flicker hissed at him. “These couldn’t be more than scouts.”
“An ogre tribe could certainly block the road,” William mused, “but there has to be more to it. Word would have gotten out by now.”
“Word of the stench if nothing else,” Danielle said, covering her face and coughing.
“Were they alive before?” Tixi asked. “Some undead are stinky.” She edged around to the bodies, and poked one with a stick, focusing on the eyes and teeth. “No sign of undeath, just stinky ogres.”
There was nothing else to do there, so they made their way deeper into the forest, a bit more on guard. Shortly, they came upon a little cabin in the woods – part of an overgrown farm, with a barn still in good repair.
The stench from the cabin suggested that there were active ogres living there, but if there were they were hiding because there was no sign of movement.
===
“In Shelyn’s name that was the worst,” William said. “Everything about that was the worst.”
“Learned a lot!” Ijj said, having been on trap duty. According to Flicker, every door in the house was trapped. According to Ijj, it was always safe for someone else to try opening the doors he didn’t find traps on. Somehow, William kept believing him, probably because he sensed no lies. Just mistakes. Mistake after mistake, that landed him safe in his full-plater armor on poop-covered spikes, which would have caused some horrible disease most likely if he hadn’t been a paladin and immune to all that nonsense.
The family of extra-stinky ogres ambushed them in the bedroom, where their extremely fat mother was bedridden except for her ability to fly. She kept out of reach of William’s sword, but scorching rays of magic and Flicker’s giant crossbow were a little harder to dodge, and soon enough she teleported away leaving them to finish off the rest of her boys.
They found the baby daughters slaughtered in a closet.
They also found the bones of several rangers from the local chapter (judging by the armor and other non-consumables left behind) in the barn, alongside one survivor who described how they’d been betrayed and giants now occupied their fortress. Which still didn’t explain why Turtleback Ferry was sending no traffic down to the city since the fortress was past the town, built right up against the dam that now threatened to flood the entire region if it was under ogre control since the ogres lived at the top of the long mountainous ridge it was built into.
“Are adventures always like this?” Ocellus asked. “Not the disgusting stinky bits, I mean the way they seem to snowball since I think this means we have to go save the dam also?”
“Pretty much,” Keeper said. “But it usually ends up with us getting extra loot, and we’ve always survived so far.” In a whisper under his breath, he added “Somehow.”
There were a few other towns on the path to Turtleback Ferry, and from the commission they’d gotten from the Mayor it wasn’t clear whether or not their messages were getting through. None of them had any particular reason to send messages – most were lazy fishing villages along the river they were following, and didn’t have any close ties with the city – so they hadn’t really noticed the disruption.
Turtleback Ferry, when they finally arrived, was larger, and surprisingly not on fire. It was a fishing village but also had farms, a large dock for a large ferry, and a central market, making it more of a rural town.
“Shopping time!” Tixi exclaimed happily.
One look at the prices disabused them of that notion. Even the temple was marking up their healing potions 200%, and the blacksmith was even worse.
“Look, this is what things cost,” the blacksmith said. “If you can’t afford it, you can get on the ferry like everyone else.” At their looks of confusion, he elaborated. “There wasn’t much traffic across the lake since the forest went bad, so they turned it into a casino. Really good odds, almost everyone is a winner. Pumped a lot of gold into the local markets, so we had to raise prices to keep from being overwhelmed.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” William asked.
“I didn’t ask,” the blacksmith said. “I also didn’t get on the ferry. Seemed kind of shady, you know? And I was making enough selling at a mark-up.”
===
“So,” Ocellus said. “The forest went bad.”
“It’s a sidequest,” Keeper replied, “we don’t have to investigate that.”
“1000 gold says we end up having to,” Ocellus said.
“I’m not betting on whether or not we end up doing sidequests,” Keeper said. “It’s a bad habit that can distort our decision-making process.”
“We have a decision-making process?”
“WE have one,” Keeper said. “You’re the familiar of a cohort. You don’t get a vote.”
“I hope I at least get to talk in an advisory capacity,” Ocellus replied.
Tixi giggled. “You can have my vote if you want. My half a vote.”
“Alright. Do we care about the ferry, or should we move on directly to the giant-occupied dam?” Ocellus asked.
“Cult activity has been behind most of our quests,” William said. “We should at least find the people backing the ridiculously unprofitable casino and see if they’re Sihedron cultists.”
“Sihedron?” Ocellus asked.
“It’s a seven-pointed star. They’ll have it tattooed somewhere on their body,” Danielle explained. “We think it lets Karzogg claim their soul when they die.”
“And Karzogg is bad,” Ocellus said.
“He’s claiming souls. I doubt it’s for ‘sentimental’ purposes,” Keeper said.
“Especially since the previous cults skinned people alive or turned them into ghouls,” William said.
“Or burned them alive in a secret sawmill,” Danielle added.
“Technically that was us,” Keeper replied.
“We didn’t start the fire,” Danielle said. “We just locked the doors and let nature take its course.”
“And then Karzogg’s minion showed up to congratulate us on helping their cause,” Keeper said. “Tixi, do you know Fly? Because it would have really come in handy against the flying naga that we’ll probably have to fight again.”
“Of course!” Tixi said. “It’s a staple. How many people need to fly? I can start preparing it.”
“Flicker and William,” Keeper said.
“I can shoot her just fine from the ground,” Flicker said. “I don’t need a kobold’s spells.”
“Then why did she get away?” Keeper asked.
“Because none of us have Dimensional Anchor,” Danielle said. “I don’t think we have anyone that can cast it even.”
“Ijj and I are close,” Tixi said. “I’ll take it since Ijj gets locked in to his choices.”
“Not locked! Can change old ones when I get more power,” Ijj said. His common was really improving.
===
A few hours later, they met up in the ridiculously expensive inn. It was still affordable for adventurers, so they’d decided the stay there despite the mark-up.
“I have good news, and bad news,” Danielle said. They’d all split up to investigate the town, but most had come back with no news. “The good news is that the ferry is, in fact, run by Sihedron cultists. I found a recruiter and they tried to give me a Sihedron mark as the secret sign for ferry access.”
“The bad news?” William asked.
“The ferry’s missing. It should have been back days ago, but it went out on the lake and never returned.”
William gave a heavy sigh. “They’re all dead, aren’t they.”
“Probably. Should we go check?” Danielle asked.
“No,” Keeper said.
“Yes,” William replied. “There might be survivors.”
“After two days on a lake?” Flicker said, skeptically. “We missed our chance. Let’s head to the dam and see what’s going on there.”
“Yeah, I don’t feel like swimming to find a destroyed ferry either,” Danielle said. “I vote no.”
“I want to swim. Tixi knows water breathing spell, right?” Ijj said.
“Too bad, you’re already outvoted,” Keeper replied.
“I don’t actually know that spell anyway,” Tixi said.
“Aww,” Ijj said. “Fine.”
===
The trip to the dam was uneventful.
“So,” Keeper said, as they hid just in sight of the occupied dam, which blatantly flew a Sihedron flag. “The dam has a fort built next to the base of it. According to the ranger we rescued, there are three ways in. First, the front doors, which would involve breaking down a gate while under fire from ogres manning the wall. Second, there’s a monster-filled cave that eventually leads to the fort’s water supply. Third, we could climb the cliff and attack the fort from above.”
“If we can climb the cliff, can we just skip the fort entirely?” Tixi asked.
“Unlikely,” Keeper replied. “They have siege weapons that can train on anyone on the ridge, and probably a patrol up top.”
“Monster cave then,” Ocellus said.
The people with actual votes unanimously agreed with her. Monster caves were an adventurer’s bread and butter, after all.
===
“Web’s still holding them back!” Tixi said, firing her crossbow into the throat of one of them where that wasn’t quite true. Ocellus backed her up with a horn blast but managed to somehow miss the immobilized centipede.
There were so many centipedes. Ijj fired a perfectly placed fireball that fried the cluster that was bunched up attempting to take down William and Danielle.
“That was not stealthy,” Flicker objected, firing her giant crossbow and taking out yet another of the larger centipedes that were trying to hang back out of range while their smaller cousins overwhelmed the party.
“If the ogres want to come in and fight us here, all the better,” William said, readying his weapon to attack the next target that got close.
Danielle spun around, dancing to inspire the party while she readied her own attack.
Ijj fired off a couple more fireballs – one of them incinerating Tixi’s web and the centipedes inside – and the remaining monsters retreated.
“So wasteful,” Tixi said, shaking her head. “Are we going to have to rest before we attack the fort?”
“Might as well,” Danielle said. “But not until we clean out the rest of this cave.”
“I can track them back to their lair,” Flicker said. “Follow me.”
The lair was full of eggs, and noncombatant centipedes, and both of the remaining leaders went down under a dual attack from Tixi and Ijj, using up Tixi’s only memorized fireball and Ijj’s last burst of magical energy. The rest tried to scatter but couldn’t get past the party, and were slaughtered mercilessly, squashed like the bugs they were.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s take a rest and recover,” Danielle said.
“I’m almost out of bombs for the day,” Keeper said. “I second the motion.”
Tixi and Ijj also voted to rest, as well as Danielle who was a little winded from her magical dancing, and that was four to two. William and Flicker stood watch while the spell-casters recovered their magic, and soon it was the middle of the night – the perfect time for a sneak attack against humans and other creatures that, unlike ogres, didn’t have darkvision.
“It’s still good against ogres,” Flicker said. “The fort is 300 feet across, and ogre darkvision only goes 60 feet or so.”
“So what’s the plan?” Ocellus asked. “I don’t think we’d survive a frontal assault.”
“Ijj and I sneak into the camp, lock the barracks, and set them on fire,” Flicker replied. “It worked well last time. Can we borrow some bombs to set the fires?”
“My bombs go off three seconds after I prime them,” Keeper objected. “I have some lamp oil and ordinary alchemist’s fire, though. That should be enough to set the buildings on fire.”
“This’ll still be a hard fight,” William said. “Ogres are no laughing matter, and these are soldiers, not the bandits we fought earlier. We’ll have to assault the keep immediately afterwards, so don’t use up all your spells. Save some for the inevitable boss fight.”
===
Even with most of the ogres burning alive in their beds, the courtyard fight was a wonderfully chaotic mess. The ogres weren’t actually soldiers, and at ogre-shaped Ocellus’ call for a charge came down from the wall to fight hand-to-hand instead of staying near their piles of throwing rocks, and there was a pair of watchtowers that were tall enough that the ogres inside couldn’t see the ground, and were sent toppling, spilling out injured ogres right on top of Danielle, who wasn’t amused but managed to come out on top.
The doors to the keep were closed and locked, but that didn’t stop Flicker for long. Inside there was scattered resistance from mostly-noncombatants, although after seeing the contents of the kitchen and larder there was no mercy to be had.
On the second floor, they ran into the inevitable boss fight – the mother ogre who’d escaped, the naga who’d escaped earlier, and a new ogre boss who cast Dominate Person basically every turn, at least until Tixi put up a circle of protection against evil which blocked him from giving commands long enough for Flicker and Ijj to take him down with sneak attacks.
“I still don’t understand how you can sneak attack with a fiery ray,” Ocellus remarked.
“When they see it it’s too late,” Ijj explained.
When the new boss ogre fell, the other two bosses teleported away, leaving their remaining minions to die. There weren’t a lot of clues about where they headed – instead, they found out that the reason the forest ‘went bad’ was because the captain of the Black Arrows who’d previously owned the fortress had been a very close personal friend of the dryad in charge of the forest.
===
“So the obvious adventuring options are to check the dam for stragglers to make sure this place is really clean of ogres, or to go to the dark forest and… I don’t know, try to console the dryad or something so that it stops being ‘bad’,” Keeper said.
“The dam is closer,” Ocellus pointed out. “It’s literally at the top of the cliff.”
“What I want to know is when you fucked an ogre,” Danielle said, with a smirk.
“The other option is dissection,” Ocellus reminded her. “It’s usually more controlled than hacking them to bits but you’ve spilled enough ogre guts that I was able to get what I need out of our previous fights. I’ve also collected a couple of others…”
“Show us!” Tixi said excitedly.
Ocellus didn’t reprise the ogre, but showed off the giant centipede and the giant sewer rat. “If we kill more things, I’ll get more shapes, but I’m not really going to be good at fighting in any of them. I’m not really as strong as an ogre and the centipede just has normal changeling venom. Which I guess is nice since I don’t have it anymore in my base form.”
“What does normal changeling venom do?” William asked.
“Remove consent from the equation,” Ocellus responded. “It’s hypnotic. The victim has to trust you for it to work, but after they’re dosed they’ll do literally anything you ask.”
“Date-rape venom,” Danielle said with disgust.
“What?” Ocellus asked. “No, there’s no need for sex after they’re dosed. Seduction is for getting them to trust you enough to dose them.” She paused. “Was for. We don’t do that sort of thing anymore. We used to be unable to generate our own love to feed off of, so we were very *pragmatic* about acquiring it. Now that we’ve broken that curse we can feed off of each other or just eat normal food. Or leech Tixi’s life force through the familiar bond, in my case.”
Tixi snickered at Ocellus and stuck out her tongue.
“Only use it on people you intend to kill,” William said. “I can turn a blind eye to dirty tricks during a fight to the death, but dominating others because it’s more convenient is a step too far.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ocellus said. “It wouldn’t even *work* in a fight to the death.”
William nodded. “Then don’t use it at all.”
Ocellus shrugged. “Kind of hard to find someone who trusts a giant centipede, anyway.”
“No,” William said, glancing at Tixi. “It isn’t.”
The dam was a bit harder to reach than they expected. The various stairs and pathways didn’t go all the way to the top, so they’d have to either climb a few hundred feet to the top of the ridge and hope that it was navigable from there, or approach from the ground. They chose the latter, since it at least had a trail.
The dam was impressive, if macabre. A hundred feet high, it held back the Stormval Deep, with five skull-shaped spillgates making sure it didn’t overflow. The top was covered with missing pieces, cracks, and ogres banging away at the dam, trying to destroy it.
As they watched, a serpent-like head loomed over the edge of the dam and struck at the ogres, alongside some squidlike tentacles. The ogres scattered, but the impact was the last straw, and a good chunk of the dam collapsed into the pond below, a surge of water behind it.
The adventurers were already running for higher ground, but Keeper was a little too slow and was washed downstream. They chased after him, and found him after a few hundred feet, clinging to a small tree. Ijj levitated the end of a rope out to him, and he wrapped it around his arm a few times and then let them pull him to safety.
“I’m fine,” he said, coughing up a bit of water. “I barely had time to lament how you’d possibly survive without me before I hit that tree.”
Danielle cast a light healing spell on him anyway, just in case.
“Thanks,” he said, dismissively. “We should head back to Turtleback Ferry – this flood is going to do a number on the town.”
“Something’s wrong with the dam,” William said. “Did you see how the water was almost overtopping it? The spillways should have opened days ago.”
“Maybe the ogres got inside and sabotaged it?” Tixi suggested.
“What I want to know is what kind of monster was that?” Ocellus asked. “I want to dissect it. I don’t have any really large shapes.”
“Too much for us to handle, that’s what,” Danielle replied. “Hopefully it’s still up in the Deep and we’ll never see it again.”
“Don’t jinx us,” Flicker hissed.
===
It was a long slog to Turtleback Ferry, since the trail was submerged and none of them knew the second thing about building a raft – they were reasonably sure the first thing was tying logs together, but there was a distinct lack of perfectly sized logs sitting around waiting for them.
When they finally arrived, the town was a mess. The swell from the river hadn’t abated and most of the roads and buildings were flooded. The church or Erastil, formerly up on a hill, was now on an island, and a bunch of small children were being rescued off the roof of what used to be the schoolhouse. The party approached to see if they could help out, but as if on cue a giant snake emerged from the depths and lunched at the delectable morsels, closing its mouth around one of the children and threatening to swallow her whole.
A barrage from the part put an end to that – and the snake. Ocellus grabbed onto its body as it started to slide back into the waters, and Tixi and Ijj ran to help drag it back up onto what passed for the shore now. “Yes!” Ocellus said, pumping her hoof into the air. “I always wanted to be a giant snake!”
“Why?” Tixi asked.
“Best hugs,” Ocellus replied, nodding sagely.
Unfortunately, before she could get to dissection, the monster from the dam reared its ugly head up over the church.
“We’re doomed!” cried one of the teachers who’d been pulling the half-swallowed girl out of the snake’s mouth. “It’s Black Magga, come to devour us all!”
“It’s going to destroy the church! Dozens of people are sheltering there!” someone else cried.
“Well, what are we supposed to do about it?” a fisherman asked. “Sail out there and stab it with harpoons?”
“We’ve got something better to stab it with,” William replied. “Just sail us close enough that I can hit it with my sword.”
“We’re no match for that thing!” Danielle insisted. “I’ll try to support you from here if you want to commit suicide, though.”
In the end, Flicker and Ijj headed out in one boat, trying to get close enough to use their sneak attacks, while William, Keeper, and Tixi headed in another, planning to create a distraction. Ocellus and Danielle stayed on shore to play cheerleader (“and write the story of your inevitable demise,” Danielle added).
The story of their demise was quickly obscured by a cloud of black smoke, engulfing both boats, and then the tentacles snaked through dimensions to try to grab hold of the people on shore. Danielle stabbed at them while furiously dodging, aided by some telekinesis from Ocellus’ horn… but it wasn’t enough and she was wrapped up in a tentacle that squeezed tightly around her, cracking a rib…
Fortunately, the giant monster wasn’t very invested in the pointless battle against the town, and left after a few seconds – fortunately, because the black smoke had caused massive, seemingly irresistible confusion and both fisherman were dead by the time it wore off. Ijj wasn’t in great shape either, with Flicker’s claws at his throat as she got her senses back just in time. Keeper’s boat was on fire, and once it burned to the waterline the three on it had to use the flotsam to paddle their way to shore.
“Yeah, we were no match for that thing,” Ocellus admitted, once everyone regrouped and started patching each other up. “But at least the church was saved. Do you think we’ll get a reward?”
“From these guys?” the blacksmith asked. “Only if you negotiated one ahead of time.”
“Saving lives is its own reward, apparently,” William said. “I’d do it again.”
“And that’s why they won’t pay you,” the blacksmith replied.
As it turned out, not even the mother of the child they’d saved was willing to pay them anything, so Ocellus was the only one to get a reward from the entire battle. Her and Danielle, who got to experience snake hugs and did seem to thoroughly enjoy them, and Tixi who watched raptly as her familiar coiled around the bard.
===
The floodwaters receded after a few more hours, but the center of town was essentially a loss – the docks were ruined, most of the fishing boats smashed or lost, and all the buildings filled with filthy mud.
The mayor sent the party upstream to reinforce the fortress with a new contingent of rangers, since the Black Arrows were basically all dead. They broke off halfway to head to the dam, since it had other damaged parts that could send another flood if they didn’t figure out what was wrong with it – and the ogres might have sent reinforcements to continue the demolition, after the last batch was wiped out in the partial collapse.
They arrived around nightfall and camped at the bottom of the dam, carefully concealing their campsite since there seemed to be five ogres left on the dam – five exhausted, listless ogres that didn’t seem to be in any shape to fight, let alone finish the dam’s destruction. Still, better to be safe than sorry.
Tixi, as always, was scribbling in her spellbook before going to bed. “I think this might actually work,” she said, staring at the most recent iteration.
“What’s that?” Ijj asked.
“Dimensional Anchor,” Tixi replied. “I also upgraded my summon spell, so I might be able to actually summon Smolder this time.”
“Does that mean I can go home?” Ocellus asked. “To visit at least?”
“No…” Tixi said. “It might let us make a tuning fork for your world, but I’m still a long way off from casting Plane Shift. And trying to get Smolder to use the tuning fork properly was an uphill battle that we didn’t win last time anyway.”
“Smolder’s really good in a fight, at least,” Ocellus said. “All dragons are, but she’s kind of special.”
“And she can tell your friends you’re still alive,” Ijj added. “Maybe they’ll come get you.”
“For now we should focus on the dam,” William said. “A dragon fighting on our side is great, but if the spillgates don’t open I’m worried it might come down even if the ogres don’t do anything – and that’ll be a lot worse for Turtleback Ferry than the storm surge they just got.”
“Do we really care about Turtleback Ferry, though?” Tixi asked. “They’re kind of mean.”
“Yes, we do,” William said, firmly enough that no one argued.
In the morning they headed up to the top of the path and executed the ogres. They had to fight past an Ettin who lived in a cave halfway up the trail, but Ocellus spat goo to make a ladder up the small cliff the Ettin probably intended to slow them down, and once everyone could focus their attacks it went down quickly. Ocellus neglected to copy the two-headed giant’s shape, out of trepidation for what it would be like to have two heads.
The ogres, on the other hand, were pathetic – during the night some weird green creatures – trolls, according to Danielle – had emerged to harass them and keep them from getting any sleep, so the fight wasn’t an exciting, deadly battle so much as a foregone conclusion.
“But now we have trolls to deal with,” Danielle said with a scowl. “I hate trolls.”
“Have you ever even met a troll?” Keeper asked.
“No, but I hate the stories I’ve heard about them,” she replied. “You need fire or acid to keep them down and we’re on the edge of a giant pool of water they can use to put themselves out or wash themselves off.”
“Ijj and I know acid splash,” Tixi volunteered. “Make them unconscious and we can splash them.”
The trolls weren’t as bad off as the ogres – although there were only a few of them left from the dozens that used to live in the little fortress atop the dam. They seemed deathly afraid of the water, at least, so there was no worry about the acid used to finish them being washed off.
“Skulltaker clan,” Danielle translated from the guttural screams.
“Does that mean anything in particular?” Keeper asked.
Danielle shrugged. “Presumably it means they take skulls.”
A staircase led deeper into the dam, and at the bottom was the skulltaker chieftain, lurking in a swimming pool with a humongous pile of skulls behind him, piled up almost to the ceiling.
“Come on out and fight us!” Danielle taunted him.
“No, you come in and fight me!” he replied in common.
There was a bit of a standoff, until the troll finally got bored and lunged out of the water to try to pull William in. Scorching rays and other prepared attacks went off, and he was driven back for the moment, only for his wounds to slowly heal once he was underwater – except for the burns, of course. He tried this a few more times before screeching in anger and fleeing through an underwater tunnel. No one volunteered to make chase.
“That was… interesting,” Keeper remarked.
There were two side chambers. One was empty except for another pool with an underwater passage that seemed to lead to the Stormval Deep at the top of the dam, the other held a scale model of the dam – an undamaged version of the dam – and a giant scorpion seemingly made of skulls. Flicker, who’d been the one to peek through, quietly closed the door. “Nope.”
“What’s in there.”
“A giant nope,” Ijj said, having peered over her shoulder. “And a scale model of the dam.”
“Do you think those might be the dam controls? They’re guarded pretty well for something useless,” Tixi asked,
“Thye’re guarded by a giant nope, apparently,” Danielle said. “And the mayor said the dam was automatic. We shouldn’t need to touch the controls.”
“There was also a shiny gem, but I’m not fighting a giant nope for a shiny gem,” Ijj added.
“Well, something’s broken somewhere,” William said. “We should do a thorough search.”
“Maybe it’s under all the skulls?” Tixi suggested. “Skull-based pressure might have broken it.”
“Better than fighting a nope,” Flicker said, leaping over and digging her way into the pile.
It didn’t take long for them to reveal the door. It took several more hours to clear away enough skulls to be able to open it, since it opened towards them and thousands of skulls piled up actually did get pretty heavy.. It was locked and barred, but that wasn’t a problem since it was barred from this side and Flicker, despite rarely using the skill, was pretty good with locks.
Inside was a pit fiend. Fortunately, one trapped inside a circle.
“Ahhhh, company, after all these years,” the fiend croaked. “Come, stay a while and listen to my plight.”
“I think that would be a bad idea,” William said.
“Do you know how to fix the dam?” Danielle asked.
“I do, I do,” the fiend said, glancing towards a second circle. “I might even know how to fix it without you dying. But first, release me from my prison.”
“That’s not going to happen,” William replied.
“After being linked to it for so long, I can feel the dam in my bones,” the pit fiend replied. “It doesn’t have much longer, if you don’t open the spillways. After ten thousand years, I’ll soon be free of Karzoug’s imprisonment… one way or another…”
“Karzoug is your enemy?” Tixi asked. “Isn’t he the one behind everything?” she said turning to the others. “We should let him go.”
“We should not do that,” William said, “He’ll just gather his strength and come back to kill us.”
Tixi started casting a spell.
“Yes, yes!” the pit fiend cried. “Dispel the circle and free me from my plight!”
Smolder appeared in the other circle. Both her and the pit fiend screamed in agony as life force was drawn from them… and then the dam rumbled as the floodgates opened at last.
The pit fiend turned to ash. Smolder stumbled out of the circle and cursed. “That hurt,” she said. “And now there’s no one left to fight. This is the worst dream ever.”
“How did you know that would work?” Ocellus asked.
“Seemed pretty obvious to me,” Keeper said, shrugging. “Two circles against evil, two creatures trapped in them. Except that Smolder wasn’t evil so she wasn’t trapped.”
===
“We don’t have long,” Ocellus said to Smolder, sitting down in front of her. “Do you want to talk?”
“There are other things I’d rather do,” she said, grinning.
“In front of everyone?”
“Shame isn’t a dragon thing,” Smolder replied.
“It’s a me thing, though,” Ocellus said. “How are things going at home?”
“Well, everyone thinks you’re dead,” Smolder said. “So the mirror project was scrapped and Starlight went kind of crazy trying to turn back time again, but the five of us stopped her. Twilight was devastated. Thorax declared war on this entire world but has no way to do anything about it, so I declared war too, but only on that stupid wizard. How’d you survive that anyway?”
“I’m Tixi’s familiar,” Ocellus explained. “Once it was safe they summoned me back.”
“Here!” Tixi said, rushing over and handing Smolder a tuning fork. “Ring it against the bedrock and bring it back, then after I get twice as powerful as I am now I’ll be able to come visit!”
“Have you been holding onto that thing this whole time?” Ijj asked.
“I have six!” Tixi said proudly.
“So,” Smolder said. “Just how far away is that wizard?”
As they watched the dragon fly off in a futile attempt to reach the city and wage war on the wizard, Ocellus smacked herself in the forehead. “The wizard kept giving tuning forks to Smolder because she’s the only one he knew. We should summon Gallus – he sat in on the lucid dreaming training. He might actually be lucid.” She modeled his bright blue griffon form, and Ijj cried out in pain.
“Ahhhh, the colors, I’m blind, I’m blind!”
“Kobolds are way more colorful than that,” Ocellus said, rolling her eyes.
“Yeah, but we’re supposed to be so it doesn’t count.”
===
It was another day’s travel back to Turtleback Ferry, so they summoned Gallus at nightfall, not having run into anything that needed a dragon’s strength (or any fighting at all, for that matter). He wasn’t lucid at first, but managed to break through before the spell expired.
“So that’s what those tuning forks were for,” he said, turning it over in his foreclaws. “We were wondering why Smolder kept appearing with them. She never told us.”
“She just wants to fight,” Ocellus sighed. “She gave me a brief rundown of the situation back home, though. Very brief.”
“There’s not a lot to say,” Gallus replied. “You’ve been gone for a long time and aside from some outstanding declarations of war people have mostly given up. Seeing your corpse was pretty convincing.”
“Anyway, if you bring it back tomorrow then we’ll have a way back to your world, assuming we can find a wizard strong enough to cast the spell who doesn’t want to kill us,” Ocellus replied. “Not sure where we’d find one of those though.”
“Take this,” Tixi said, handing him a second tuning fork. “It’s attuned to this world, in case you have someone powerful enough on your side.”
Gallus read the engraving. “Golarion? Is that the name of this world?”
“It is,” Tixi said, nodding. “Please don’t destroy the whole world though, it was only one wizard who killed her.”
“And we have problems enough of our own without adding interdimensional warfare,” Keeper added scowling. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”
Gallus vanished as the spell expired.
“Nevermind,” Keeper sighed.
Book 2 - Saving the World?
They tried to head south in the morning, only to be intercepted by a pixie.
“Please! You have to help me!” the pixie pleaded.
“With the forest?” William asked.
Tixi sighed, exasperated.
“Yes! My mistress is… ill, very ill. Death would have been a kindness. The land sickens with her heart, and it cannot be cleansed until her misery is purged. You are friends with her lover, yes?”
“No, we actually never met him,” Tixi said. “And we don’t care about the forest.”
“Thousands of fey are suffering and dying!” the pixie protested.
Tixi shook her head. “I still don’t care. Find someone else. Someone who was friends with him, maybe.”
Ocellus was overwhelmed by Tixi’s impatience and couldn’t say a thing.
With Tixi and Ijj getting half a vote, it ended up in a 2.5 to 2.5 tie. William wanted to go, of course, and Danielle was swayed by the fact that it was a love story. Ijj just thought it might be fun to see a haunted forest. Flicker, Keeper, and Tixi wanted nothing to do with the whole affair.
So rather than ask Ocellus to break the tie – which, to be fair, wouldn’t be fair with her emotions being affected so heavily by Tixi’s – they flipped a coin. “Heads,” William said. “We help them.”
Keeper groaned. “We’re never going to leave here alive, are we.”
“Well, we certainly won’t be leaving here dead!” Ijj said brightly.
===
The pixie, Yap, wanted to come with them to ‘guide’ them, although apparently the path to the center of the woods had no major branches. It was awfully spooky, though, although nothing seemed overtly dangerous – will-o-the-wisps led Ijj to a pool where he saw frightening visions, a moaning sound turned out to be a half-dead dryad merged with the mangled remains of her tree.
But leave it to Yap to find actual danger. After he nearly died tried to go dancing off with a procession of ghostly fey, Ocellus cocooned him in changeling goo and put him in one of Tixi’s many pockets.
“What?” she asked, as the party stared. “It’s for his own safety.”
“How will he breathe?” Danielle asked.
Ocellus shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s never killed anyone before.”
Half an hour later came the extra spooky trees, with limbs like claws and gaping, fanged mouths set in their trunks.
“Oh!” Ocellus said. “I know a counterspell for this, I think. Pinkie taught it to us in laughter class.”
“You had a class on laughter,” Keeper said, droll.
“It’s one of the fundamental forces of my world,” Ocellus replied. “Let’s see if it works here.”
“When I was a little filly and the sun was going down
The darkness and the shadows they would always make me frown
I’d hide under my pillow from what I thought I saw
But granny pie said that wasn’t the way to dear with fears at all
She said ‘Pinkie you’ve gotta stand up tall, learn to face your fears.
You’ll see that they can’t hurt you just laugh and make them disappear…’”
She turned to one of the trees, and bravely proclaimed, “Ha ha ha!”
The tree swung one of its branches and hit her. It didn’t break the skin, but it was obvious that it wasn’t going to sit there and let her dispel it.
Ocellus rubbed her cheek. “Or we could just walk past.”
The only other encounter of note was a giant, three-masted ship somehow beached in the middle of the forest. Since few of the other encounters had been actually harmful, they decided to explore it, and found the captain in his chamber holding tightly onto his treasure. William smashed his head, but apparently he’d been dead instead of undead and just crumbled to dust, leaving the party with a bunch of papers – arcane nautical maps of no terrain any of them recognized, and some sheet music that Danielle was pretty sure she couldn’t play properly without practice.
Then, at last, they reached the center of the swampy forest, to face the cursed mistress who’d caused all the trouble.
===
Yap emerged from Tixi’s pocket. “This is it! This is her glade! I dare not get any closer…”
“When did you get out of my cocoon?” Ocellus asked. “How did you get out of my cocoon?”
“About five minutes after you put me in it,” Yap said, “and I have a knife. A very sharp knife. I stayed hidden because I didn’t want to be cocooned again. It’s so slimy!” He cowered behind a gnarled tree. “Be cautious… she is very angry, and not entirely sane.”
“What kind of fey is she?” Danielle asked. “A dryad?”
“A water nymph,” Yap said.
“Then don’t look at her,” Danielle said to the party. “Their beauty is blinding, so avert your gaze.”
“Here, we can do medusa protocol,” Keeper said, handing out blindfolds.
“We have a medusa protocol?” Danielle asked.
“After that time we faced the medusa we do.”
“It wasn’t a real medusa…” Flicker said. “Just a mask that turned people to stone.”
“Either way, we have a protocol now,” Keeper replied. “Wear the damn blindfolds and don’t try to look at her.”
They heard the nymph rise from the water as they approached. “You! You have failed me, over and over! You failed to protect my love! You failed to protect fort Rannick! You failed to keep the ogres of Hook Mountain from taking his body from me! Explain why I shouldn’t kill you right here and now!”
William kneeled before her. “Lady,” he said, “I pledge to do what I can to make things right, but all of that happened before we got within a hundred miles of this place. We’re not the ones you want to punish.”
“I want to punish everyone for my pain!” she screeched. “But if you will truly help, then I may let you live for now.”
“How can we help?” Danielle asked. “If the ogres took him he’s almost certainly dead…”
“Worse than dead,” the nymph said, calming down a bit as she realized the adventurers were willing to do her bidding. “I tried to resurrect him, but it failed, and I fear… just bring me his remains, and I can bring us both peace.”
“Where’s Hook Mountain?” Keeper hissed.
“It’s part of the cliff on the other side of the fort from the dam,” Danielle hissed back.
“Oh gods, we’re never going to escape this cursed place.”
===
While there wasn’t a trail heading north out of the forest per se, there was a trail of destruction left by the ogres when they invaded the forest to kill the nymph and her lover, and it was pretty easy to follow and blessedly free of undead fey, who gave it a wide berth. At the forest’s edge, as the sun set, they set camp and summoned back Gallus.
“Here,” the griffon said, handing over the tuning fork. “Although you might not need it. The last thing Twilight needed to finish her mirror project was something to target, and your tuning fork did the trick. When I wake up after the spell ends, that’ll be the signal to open the portal.”
Ocellus stared at him. “So I can finally go home.”
“Yep,” Gallus said. “In about five minutes. Your friends can come too, I got special dispensation from the changeling army to spare them from any harassment, even if they are part of the world that kidnapped and killed you.”
“Changeling… army,” William said.
“It’s okay,” Ocellus said. “We’re good now. They won’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.” She paused. “Unless cocooning panicking civilians counts as harm.”
“It most certainly does,” William replied.
“Pleeeease don’t fight them,” Ocellus said. “I don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
“We’ll negotiate,” Danielle said. “Explain the situation.”
“I’m not sure Pharynx will care, honestly,” Gallus said. “He’s going to lock down the area and then go from there.”
“Why aren’t you happy?” Tixi asked Ocellus. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“It just feels like the timing is bad. Like it’s a giant anticlimax,” Ocellus said.
“Any anticlimax that gets me out of seeing Turtleback Ferry one more time is good in my book,” Keeper said. “Let the army of Ocelluses burn the place to the ground.”
Book 3 - Back to Ponyville
The portal opened on schedule, and the changeling swarm emerged – thousands upon thousands of brightly colored bug ponies, coating the land in multicolor resplendence and spitting goo to start building a temporary hive.
William, Danielle, and Flicker intercepted the others before they stepped through the portal.
“We’re staying,” William said. “Danielle and I are combat healers who know the enemy, and Flicker thinks she can learn some things from shapeshifting infiltration specialists.”
“Should we really split the party?” Keeper asked. “Do you want me to stay?”
Danielle shook her head. “We’ll have an army with us – we hope – and you’ll be going to a safe place to rest and forget all about this horrible little town.”
Thorax and Pharynx landed in front of them. Ocellus leapt forwards and hugged her king with joy in her heart. “You came! You came yourself!”
“Just for the initial incursion,” Thorax said. “Pharynx will be handling the invasion proper.”
“They won’t know what hit them,” Pharynx said. “Literally, if we do our jobs correctly. Do you have any patterns from this world we can copy?”
“Of course!“ Ocellus said. ”Is it time for a cuddle pile, then?”
“It’s not a –“ Pharynx started, then sighed. “Fine, it’s time for a cuddle pile.”
Ocellus passed on her best forms, through the preferred method of cuddling – the human male and female, and the troll. “I know it’s horrible and stinky but it regenerates slowly, which might be useful. I also learned a giant centipede and snake, and an ogre which is like a troll without regeneration, but these are the important ones.”
The changelings she’d taught spread out to teach others, while William and Danielle got them up to speed.
“Yeah, we’re staying,” William summarized. “They don’t have proper healers at all. They just cocoon wounded changelings until they get better on their own.”
Three unicorns in golden royal guard uniforms stepped through the portal, after the swarm was through. “Artillery Unicorn Volunteer Squad reporting for duty,” the mare in the lead said.
“Oh wow,” Ocellus said. “I’ve never even seen an artillery squad.”
“I’d be surprised if you had, and lived through it,” said a stallion in the back.
“Seriously, we were held in reserve during your invasion of Canterlot,” said the other mare. “It’s pretty harsh to have your enemy not only knowing your deployment plans but *writing* them for you.”
“What does an artillery squad do?” Tixi asked. “There’s only three of them and thousands and thousands of changelings.”
“Gigantic bubble shields and wide-area fireballs mostly,” the mare in charge said. “We can also teleport a few hundred troops. Unicorns are the most magically powerful race and we’re recruited from the most magically powerful unicorns.”
“They say it’s not an army without artillery,” the stallion said. “Just a bunch of dead ponies marching in the same direction.”
“They don’t really mesh with our normal operations, but we’ll want them if it comes to a pitched battle,” Pharynx said. “Or a magical battle. It sounds like this was a case of individual action on the part of a powerful wizard – I didn’t trust Smolder’s comments on the matter since it was just a dream to her, but Keeper filled me in. He also told me to burn Tutleback Ferry to the ground, but I’m going to ignore that.”
“So what are you going to do?” Ocellus asked.
“That’s classified,” Pharynx said. “Go on through the portal, Ocellus. You’ve given us what we need, and your friends are waiting for you.”
===
So three kobolds and a changeling walked through a portal. In typical Twilight fashion, the dangerous portal to an unknown world was set up in sight of Ponyville and the School of Friendship. A crowd of ponies and changelings – not everyling had been up to taking part in the swarm – were gathered around, Ocellus’ friends in front, earth ponies and unicorns behind them, and pegasai hovering overhead as they do.
“How are they flying?” Keeper asked, looking up at the pegasus ponies as Ocellus rushed to hug her friends.
“With wings?” Tixi replied, feeling no trepidation or confusion through the familiar link, which meant that this was all perfectly normal to her.
“Their wings are way too small,” Keeper said.
“The changelings’ are even smaller.”
“Yes, but they buzz,” Keeper said. “These are just lazily flapping.”
“Magic then, I guess,” Tixi said with a shrug.
“Welcome to Ponyville!” said a mare with brown fur and gray hair. “I’m Mayor Mare and as the ones who helped bring Ocellus back to us, everything is on the house. Feel free to take from the market stalls if you’re hungry, and we’ve got a house set up for you if you need to rest.”
Keeper sighed. “Now this is how heroes should be treated.”
“It’s morning for us, Mayor,” Ocellus called, “But we should probably get something to eat. Sugarcube Corner?” she asked her friends. “I’ve missed Sugarcube Corner like you couldn’t believe.”
“More that you missed Yona?” asked a giant yak.
“Yep!” Ocellus replied, grinning. “I missed Smolder the most, then Sugarcube Corner, then the rest of you.” She giggled under a hoof she lifted to her mouth. “Come on, let’s get some sickeningly sweet baked goods and convert my new friends, too.”
===
The next few days were idyllic. The ponies were fascinated by the kobolds, her friends were there, if perhaps a bit too clingy… Keeper made a trip into the supposedly dangerous Everfree forest to meet Zecora and compare alchemical notes, burning down some overly eager flora and fauna on the way. Everyone had the time of their life, except for Tixi.
“This is not an adventure,” she said. “And I’m worried about the tribe.”
“The tribe? Why?” Ocellus asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? The changelings are looking for an army to fight and there they are, hundreds of kobolds serving the evil wizard who killed you. I was sent away to avoid bringing trouble, but that’s exactly what I ended up doing anyway!” Tixi wrung her hands, worry flooding the link. “We need to at least warn them.”
“I… I can’t, Tixi,” Ocellus said. “That would be a straightforward case of treason. But you shouldn’t worry! At worst they’ll be knocked out and cocooned. Changelings always knew restraint, even when we were… overly pragmatic.”
“And they’ll probably try to catch the Wizard by surprise,” Ijj said, munching on a scone he’d saved from their last of many visits to the bakery. “They wouldn’t face down an army if they didn’t have to. Stealth and infiltration, right?”
“Still worried,” Tixi replied, huddling into a ball.
For her sake, the four of them headed for the portal to see what could be done.
“Sorry,” said the Pegasus managing the gate. “You’re all on the no-portal list, at least until the situation over there is resolved.”
“What is the situation over there, then?” Ocellus asked. “If we’re not allowed through you might as well tell us.”
“Well, I only know gossip,” said the black furred, blue haired pony that Ocellus knew as Thunderlane. “But apparently the first thing they did was retrieve some bones to heal a forest? I’m all in favor of healing forests. There was a bit of a pitched battle between the changelings that could fit in the cave and the boss, and the boss teleported away so they might be trouble later.”
“See? I needed to be there!” Tixi complained. “I’m the only one who knows the anti-teleport spell!”
“Turtleback Ferry and Black Arrow fortress have been conquered, peacefully. They impersonated the old leader of the Black Arrows, apparently, and paid off the Mayor.”
“That must have been expensive,” Keeper replied.
Thunderlane shrugged. “Diamonds are super-valuable there, and Equestria is swimming in them. Other than that, the swarm is still moving towards the city, but they haven’t reached it yet. Just a second,” he flipped his notebook to another page, and wrote down all their names. “Now that you know some ‘classified’ rumors, I have to put you on the super special do not allow through the portal for any reason list. Sorry, it’s procedure since they discovered that ponies can’t help but gossip.”
“So…” Ocellus asked. “What time do you get off work?”
===
It wasn’t that simple. Shift change was combined with the designated messenger changelings coming through the portal to report to Twilight and Thorax about the progress of the invasion, and there was always at least one pony on guard, with dozens of others walking around the base camp on this side, not especially alert but alert enough to notice someone trying to sneak through. There were also dreamlings searching ponies – and kobolds’ – dreams for possible saboteurs or traitors, which meant that Tixi got put on a third list where she wasn’t even allowed to approach the encampment.
“So we’re prisoners here,” Keeper summarized.
“Prisoners in an entire world,” Ocellus replied. “I’m sure we could find some adventure if we really wanted – the badlands where the changelings live have all kinds of nasty monsters. And the deep Everfree is pretty dangerous – there’s a reason it used to be known as the cursed forest from where no one ever returned.”
“Used to be?” Ijj asked. “What happened?”
“People finally noticed that farmers had been going into the outskirts for generations, and then the Elements of Harmony went right to the heart and emerged… well, they came back alive. Unscathed would be overstating the case.”
“No cursed forests please,” Tixi said. “One was enough.”
“It’s not *that* cursed,” Ocellus said. “The deer live there after all. They hate ponies but none of us are ponies, so we might be able to find them and visit.”
“Anywhere else?” Keeper asked.
“Let’s get a map,” Ocellus replied.
===
“So… this is Equestria, which is mostly safe except for world-ending problems.” She circled most of the northern section of the map, then another section further north. “Crystal Empire. Tourist trap.” She circled another, smaller northern area. “Kingdom of the Yaks. Friendly because I’m friends with Yona.” Another area to the east. “Griffonstone, where Gallus came from but refuses to talk about. Supposedly a real dump, but all the griffons I’ve met are rich, so who knows.” To the south. “Dragon lands. Legitimately dangerous because of all the lava and, well, dragons itching for a fight. Smolder’s home.” To the west, past the Everfree. “Badlands, my home, at least originally.” To the south, past the badlands. “Slaver cities. Really, really dangerous because they’ll just yank people off the street to enslave them, the more exotic the better, and you’re all pretty exotic.” To the east of that. “Hippogryph kingdom. Tourist trap, Silverstream’s home.” She paused. “It’s a really good tourist trap, though. They all have shards of their old giant magic pearl and can use them to turn you into aquatic forms if you want to try transformation. Not really my thing but you might enjoy it.”
“I’m seeing a lack of actual wilderness,” Keeper remarked.
“Most of the land is wilderness, even inside Equestria,” Ocellus responded. “The white-tail woods just next door are essentially wilderness. Just… not as many large, dangerous creatures as you’d see on Golarion. Ponies still disappear from time to time.”
“But it’s all claimed by one group or another,” Keeper said.
Ocellus laughed. “Sure. Claiming unclaimed land is free. Making it actually livable is the step where most ponies balk. Oh!” She circled part of the map far, far to the west. “The ‘undiscovered west’. Full of native pony tribes and their temples, which are like dungeons with traps and magical treasure at the end. Or maybe that’s only in stories, there’s a popular adventure series set there.”
“If ponies live there, why is it ‘undiscovered’?” Ijj asked.
“They don’t talk to anyone else?” Ocellus said. “I’m not an expert.”
“These are all distractions,” Keeper said. “Either we’re putting ourselves in danger for no reason or we’re exploring a tourist trap. We need to get Tixi back to Golarion.”
“If she goes, I have to go too,” Ocellus said, quietly. “I’m bound to her. And if I commit treason against my own people, I don’t know if I’ll ever be allowed back.”
“Then you just have to make sure they don’t realize it’s you,” Ijj said. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”
“We also have to do it today, or at least before we sleep,” Ocellus said. “The dreamlings are watching our thoughts when we sleep because we’re ponies of interest. I know how to guard against it, but you three…”
“Could you teach us?” Tixi asked.
Ocellus shook her head. “Not in one day. We have to do this now, or not at all.”
Book 3 - Cleaning Up Your own Mess
“I don’t like saying this,” Keeper said, “but we need to kill the wizard. It’ll end the war with us being heroes of the winning side. There’s no other way to clear our names.”
“We could also capture him and hand him over alive?” Ocellus suggested.
“It’s hard to keep wizards captured,” Keeper replied.
Ocellus shook her head. “Our cocoons are strongly anti-magic. They even held Princess Celestia herself! We just need to search him for knives.” “Apparently,” she added under her breath.
“He killed you with one spell,” Tixi said, trepidation coming over the link, along with just a shred of hope. “It wasn’t even a big spell. I could cast it.”
“Yeah, that’s an issue,” Ocellus said. “But we’re rich. Is there anything we could buy that might level the playing field?”
“If the whole party was here, that could do it,” Keeper said. “One scroll of Scry to find our friends, two scrolls of Teleport to go there and back, Tixi could probably manage it and we *are* rich and can afford backup scrolls in case she flubs one.”
“Assuming they’re all in one place,” Tixi said. “They’re going to be in the middle of the army so we would need to grab them and go.”
“I wish Ijj was here,” Ocellus said. The poor kobold had been captured while the changelings gooped up the corridor. “He’s one of our sneak attack specialists.”
“Two scrying scrolls then,” Keeper said. “He’s probably unguarded if we really did draw them all in.”
“I’ve got a few other ideas,” Tixi said. “Let’s shop!”
===
Scrying on Ijj revealed that he’d freed himself and was waiting for them in the Inn. “We probably should have checked there first,” Keeper admitted, as the expensive scroll crumbled to ash, its magic expended.
They decided to wait for nightfall before scrying on the rest of their party. “We always get together for food, if we can manage it. It’s the mostly likely time to find them all together.”
Sure enough, the scrying sensor showed them all together, eating dinner… in a mess hall full of changelings, the center of one of their camps.
“Oh boy,” Keeper said. “Still, this can work, as long as they trust you. If they don’t, teleport out anyway.”
“Got it,” Tixi said. She pulled out two scrolls of teleport, and read one of them, and vanished – along with Ocellus, dragged along because she was a familiar.
William stood up and drew his sword. “Scry and die? Really?” he asked.
“Scry and live,” Tixi corrected.
“Come with us if you want me to live,” Ocellus clarified. “We’re off to see the Wizard. We have *plans* for him.”
“I trust you,” Danielle said. As the changelings around them started to realize what was happening, they joined hands (or in Flicker’s case, paws) and vanished, back to the City.
===
“The outer gate has been breached,” intoned a magic mouth, waking the Wizard from his sleep.
“What?” he asked.
“The outer gate has been breached,” the mouth repeated, the pre-programmed response the only thing it could say.
“How?”
“The outer gate has been breached.”
The Wizard had had a long day of experimenting, and hadn’t had time to refresh his magic, but he still had enough tricks to handle any invader. Not that he’d need to – the outer gate had the weakest defenses of any part of his tower, even if the useless wastrels outside had never managed to get past it before.
He went to the balcony and looked out on the riot going on in his poor, trampled garden. He sighed. Cleaning up would be so much work for his apprentices.
===
“Stop breaking things!” Marcus shouted at the crowd. “I’m the one who’s going to have to clean this up!”
“Then you might as well join us, and have some fun!” one of the rioters shouted back. “Because this place is getting *trashed*!”
He didn’t even notice the adventurers running past, heading for the tower door.
===
“The tower door has been breached,” said another magic mouth.
Okay. This was getting serious. He checked the wards and locks on his bedroom door, and triggered the extras that were only to be used in case of emergencies. He didn’t have the spells left to discipline the entire riot of failed would-be apprentices, which meant they’d get the run of the tower, except for the important rooms like the library which would have closed and locked themselves by now.
===
“No, I’m not letting you into the nursery!” Anastasia shouted, making sure the door was securely locked, and adding her own Arcane Lock just in case. “My research subject is in there! Go find somewhere else to debauch yourselves.” She turned as the party tried to rush past her, her gaze focusing on Tixi and Ocellus. “You! You’re the one who stole my baseline kobolds!”
“They deserved better!” Tixi protested.
“How am I supposed to do a proper study with only one kobold?”
“I don’t know… maybe you could ask the tribe to send someone else?” Ocellus suggested. “They seem happy to be at the Wizard’s beck and call.”
Lucien slowly walked down the stairs. “Someone just ran past me, covered in antimagic,” he said, waving at the party and the riots. “I think this is a distraction.”
“Um…” Ocellus said. “Are you distracted?”
“Distracted enough. After all, if Rellenore dies, his apprentices inherit his tower.”
“We’re taking him alive,” Danielle said. “But I don’t imagine you’ll be getting him back.”
Anastasia and Lucien looked at each other, then Anastasia shrugged. “His lectures sucked anyway.”
===
“The tower door has been breached.”
“The outer gate has been breached.”
Stupid magic mouths.
To his horror, he heard scratching at his door, and the lock clicked and unlocked itself. That shouldn’t have been possible – not without setting off dozens of very noisy, very explosive spells.
The door opened, revealing nothing behind it. He blasted the nothing with a lightning bolt anyway, to no effect except to show a twenty foot gap in the lightning, which resumed on the other side.
“Antimagic Shell,” he whispered. “Assassins!” he shouted to his apprentices, but if the assassins were here they were probably already dead in a futile attempt to defend him.
Then she was on him – a suncat of all things, being ridden by a kobold. He screamed as she pinned him to the bed, then stopped screaming as she tore out his throat with her teeth.
The kobold on her back stared at the Wizard’s corpse. “Weren’t we supposed to take him alive?” Ijj asked.
“I’m supposed to do a lot of things,” Flicker growled. “Let’s take his head to the changelings, and end this.”
===
They ended up taking his entire body – raised from the dead, at what would have been an exorbitant cost if they hadn’t provided their own diamond, then safely searched for pointy tools and cocooned. After the spell was finished, they quickly fled the city – murder was a crime, after all – and turned themselves in to the changeling vanguard, which was only a few miles from besieging the city. Ocellus personally dropped the wizard’s cocooon at Pharynx’s hooves.
“Am I forgiven?” she asked.
Pharynx looked at the wizard, then at the city. “I was really looking forwards to the siege,” he said. “You robbed me of that.”
“This is the one who killed me. He wasn’t working for anyone else. We can all go home.”
“I suppose,” Pharynx said. “I’ll leave Thorax to decide your fate. He’ll probably make you go to therapy to get in touch with your feelings or something stupid like that.”
“I think I’ll live,” Ocellus said.
Book 3 - Back to the Tribe
Four pegasai dropped out of the sky on top of the pony on guard duty (who Ocellus recognized as Cloud Chaser, not that it mattered).
“Food delivery for our brave guard pony!” Ocellus said, handing her a box of donuts.
“Oh thanks!” the pony replied. “I’m not allowed to eat on duty, though.”
“Oh no! I’m so sorry! I didn’t want to make you break the rules.”
“Nah, it’s fine, rules were made to be broken.” She giggled, and took a pink-frosted donut, scarfing it down in a few bites. “Huh, that tasted a bit off.”
Ocellus took the green donut from the box. “Hmm, tastes fine to me.”
“Probably just a case of horrible guilt, then,” the pony on guard said, with a short laugh.
“Mark us down as important couriers, and let us through the portal,” Ocellus said, quietly. “And give us courier badges so we don’t get any questions on the other side.”
Cloud Chaser’s eyes swirled. “Of course. What are your names?”
“Jester, Worrywart, Black Ink, and Fidelity.” Ocellus pointed to each of them in turn.
“Eat the purple donut two minutes after we’re through,” Ocellus added.
“Yes ma’am!” Cloud Chaser said, saluting.
On the other side, they showed their perfectly legitimate courier badges, and left the base camp post-haste, which was not unusual for couriers.
“That seemed too easy,” Keeper remarked, in his black and grey form.
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Ocellus replied. “Change Self isn’t a normal sort of magic in Equestria. Also, I give us ten minutes to make ourselves scarce before they start sending out patrols. Cloud Chaser won’t give us away, but our identities won’t hold up if someone compares them to the master list.”
===
That night, Parieto met Ocellus in her dream, forcibly shifting it into an interrogation room. “I understand you escaped Equestria. What are you planning, little one?”
“Treason most foul,” Ocellus responded. “My wizard is worried, for good reason, and I can’t dismiss her worries. I tried, I swear.”
“Explain, and you might not be thrown in the Pit forever,” Parieto said.
“The Pit’s a myth,” Ocellus said.
“So were traitors to the swarm, before Thorax,” he replied. “If necessary, we can dig one. It won’t take long.”
“Still, no. I’d prefer to only be a traitor to *one* side, thank you very much.”
“I’ll just get the answers from your friends,” he replied. “None of them have any more defenses than Pharynx has mercy.”
“It’s like Dash said in Loyalty class. Sometimes you have to balance the possible harm.” Ocellus frowned. “Which means I should be loyal to the swarm, but I can’t dismiss Tixi’s worries. Kobolds she cares for could die.”
“Ah,” Parieto said. “Thank you for the information. I’ll be visiting her next to verify it.”
“Please, don’t tell anyone…”
“I only have loyalty to one side, so choosing a side is much easier for me,” he replied.
Ocellus awoke. It was still the middle of the night. She shook the others awake. “We have to go, now. They know everything.”
===
Three days later, they stumbled, exhausted, back into the city, leaving the ferry they’d stolen on the docks. The water rushing through the dam’s spillgates made the current fast, even as far downstream as they were, but Ocellus had spent what time she could as a giant snake, hanging off the back of the boat and pushing it faster like a big snaky outboard motor. Unlike a motor, she didn’t have the limitless endurance of a come-to-life spell, but she was pretty sure they’d at least beaten the army.
They still weren’t *safe*. Fast flight – the kind they didn’t dare use – could have gotten a few changelings there before them, and anyone in the crowd could be a hunter. Still, they could blend into the crowd too, and she’d forgotten to give them a kobold shape, so if they could make it to the tribe – no, no, there were kobolds that the changelings could be copying scattered throughout the city. Nowhere was safe, even with Ocellus in a fake human form. Change Self was good for getting through a checkpoint, but it didn’t last all day. They were flush with Equestrian diamonds, though, and used a few them to buy the kobolds hats of disguise, which let them at least pretend not to be kobolds so long as no one touched them.
“A trenchcoat would have been much cheaper,” Tixi complained, flicking the feather in her cap as she walked around looking like a halfling. “There are three of us, so we could have used it as a disguise.”
“This is better,” Keeper said. “’Three kobolds in a trenchcoat’ is a joke that people play along with, since we’re supposed to be friendly with you tribals.”
“It is not! People were fooled! We bribed a guard and everything,” Tixi protested.
“Whatever you say,” Keeper said with a sigh.
Then they headed to The Inn and hired some adventurers to guard them while they slept. It was the middle of the day, so it didn’t cost much.
When they woke, their hired guards reported a strange human asking around about kobolds. “We told them we hadn’t seen any. You’re not kobolds in disguise, are you?”
“No,” said Tixi, obviously a kobold since she’d been asleep and unable to keep the hat of disguise active. “We’re halflings, see? Let me turn this off.” She tapped her cap to turn it on, and shifted into halfling form.
“We just like pretending to be kobolds in bed,” Ijj said. “It’s a sex thing. You know what they say – once you go scaly, you’ll be back daily.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever said that,” Keeper remarked under his breath.
The guards didn’t seem convinced, but Keeper gave them each an extra diamond to at least stay quiet.
===
They headed directly for the tribe, finding an old unused entrance to the storm drains and navigating the labyrinthine tunnels until they arrived at the front door. The kobolds on guard duty pointed their spears at the presumed adventurers, before they deactivated their hats and revealed themselves.
“We have to talk to the eldest!” Tixi cried. “I know I’m banished but this is really, really important!”
“I’m sure it is,” said a voice behind them, as various rocks and debris flashed and transformed into changeling infiltrators. “Which is why you won’t be telling anyone anything.”
The warriors stared in confusion, until the shopkeeper shouted at them, “Open the door! We’ll hold them off!”
“Will you,” said one of the infiltrators, his brightly colored pink and purple contrasting with his aura of menace. “Goop them all! Let none escape!”
Tixi and Ijj ran into the tunnels, deftly dodging the traps they’d memorized. Ocellus turned into a giant centipede, grabbed Keeper, and scuttled across the ceiling where she trusted there were fewer traps. Tixi saw what she was doing, and yelled at her to stay to the left. “No, my left!” she cried as the upside-down Ocellus swerved the wrong way and had to dodge a volley of darts in addition to the goo. Seeing the trap go off, and correctly figuring it was one of many, the changelings didn’t enter the tunnel, but managed to tag Ijj and send him tumbling into a pit which Tixi doubted was full of pillows.
“I’m okay!” Ijj yelled. “I mean I’m dangling by a string of changeling slime over a bunch of poison spikes, but I’m not hurt!”
The others ignored him and moved on.
Once they were past the gauntlet, they were hustled deep into the lair, to explain themselves to the kobold elders.
===
“Why have you brought trouble to our doorstep, Tixi,” the elderly kobold in charge of magic spoke. “We sent you away to avoid this, yet here you are, and here is trouble.”
“The trouble was coming despite me,” Tixi replied, prostrating herself on the ground before them. “Trouble moves. I raced here to try to tell you before it was too late, but, um, I was too late.”
“What is the nature of this trouble,” said the elder warrior, who looked quite young compared to the others.
“An army of changelings, here to avenge Ocellus against the Wizard,” she said. “You can’t withstand them – they outnumber you twenty to one and can look like anyone, or anything. You need to let them have the Wizard, and not intervene.”
“The Wizard has done well by our tribe,” the eldest kobold of all said. “Some would say our tribe exists because of him, and they would not be wrong. Why should we betray him now?”
“Because you can’t win,” Tixi said. “It’s not pragmatic to fight against this enemy.”
“Then we’ll do our best to be reliable,” the eldest warrior replied. “The Wizard can replace us; we can’t replace him. As long as he lives, the tribe will live on, even if none of us are there to see it.”
“You should not have come,” the elder of magic replied. “You should have stayed away, and safe.”
Tixi cried, sobbing at the oncoming death of her tribe.
Ocellus stroked her back, trying her best to radiate reassurance. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “They haven’t killed anyone yet, not even Ijj. They were slinging goop, to capture. We might all be prisoners, but they won’t just murder us out of hoof.”
“That’s an interesting weakness,” the elder warrior said. “I wonder if we can capitalize on it.”
“Brutality leads to brutality,” the eldest said, shaking his head. “If they want to fight to capture with their goop, we can do the same with our traps. They’ll learn what it means to face a tribe of dragons.”
===
The changelings spent an hour or so gooping up the entrance tunnel so that none of the traps there could go off. Then they left, or so it seemed. A few hours later, the guards and shopkeeper made their way through the gooped up tunnel into the lair.
The kobolds weren’t fooled.
One of their sorcerers cast glitterdust on the group so they couldn’t change form and hide, and soon they were captured and tied up, dragged deep into the lair and locked into a pit.
The next group looked at the goop strangely, and the lack of activity in what should be the main gathering room of the lair with alarm. They rushed forwards and were soon tangled up in nets. Ocellus stunned each of them with her horn zap, and none of them reverted. “I think these might be real kobolds,” she said.
“Does the horn zap always work?” Tixi asked.
“90% of the time, it works 100% of the time,” she replied. “There are a few who know how to resist it.”
So they got put in the pits anyway.
There were a few more attempts – sneaking in as cats or bugs, trying to shift camouflage to blend in with the walls, and at last an attempt at diplomacy, complete with a white flag – but none of them got far.
“Is that all of them?” Tixi asked. “All the ones sent ahead to the city I mean.”
“Maybe,” Ocellus said. “But the main army isn’t going to be far behind, and I’m sure they sent word of where we went before they tried sneaking in.”
“We can hold back an army,” the elder warrior said. “You should go, if they’re chasing you. Go to the wizard.”
“He will literally kill us,” Ocellus said. “He already killed me once.”
The elder mage replied, “Then go out of the city, and take your pursuers with you. We have been warned.”
“And that’s why there’s a changeling hive in Varisia,” said the nursery changeling to the hatchlings of the Turtleback Ferry Hive.
“But what happened to the wizard? And Ocellus?” one of the grubs asked.
“Ocellus went on to have many more adventures at Tixi’s side, but that’s another story,” the nurse replied. “The wizard… well, he joined Twilight’s collection of evil wizards to rehabilitate, and was eventually returned to his own world to spread the word of friendship.”
“He got off too easy,” another grub grumbled. “They should have left him dead.”
“Now now,” the nurse said. “We’re powerful enough that we don’t need to be so ‘pragmatic’.”
