Author's Note: While this is a story that strongly involves Role Playing Games akin to Dungeons and Dragons, you do not need to know anything about playing as I describe what you'll need to know to follow the story, within. Although, if you have experience playing D&D then you'll get some of the more esoteric jokes that I include. While most of my regular readers know I abhor the use of cliche, they also know that I like to use cliches and turn them on their end so that they are fresh again. In this story, the cliche I hope to mangle is that of Mary Sue. I hope you enjoy what I've done. Warning: This is the story I was writing for NaNoWriMo that got interrupted mid-stream by a dead motherboard and CPU. As such it is only three chapters long at this point. I'm hoping by posting what I have that your comments or reviews will inspire my muse so that I can finish.

Part One

“Oh my god, my feet are freaking killing me.”

I moved to slip off my boots, but one of the girls stopped me. “I wouldn’t do that. You’ll never get them back on.”

She pulled a folding chair in front of me and grinned, knowingly. “Set them up, it’ll help with the circulation.”

Following her suggestion, I noticed a mild improvement. Short of soaking in hot tub, I didn’t think I would see anything major in the near future.

The girl pulled up another chair and grinned at me when she sat down. “I’m…” she paused and sat down. “Samantia, but call me Sam when we’re not on the floor.”

It was in the rules that Dragon Games laid down when we arrived for the convention. For all intents and purposes, during the duration of our temporary employment, we were our characters. It definitely made for an interesting workday.

Reaching out my hand, I gave her a brief shake. “I’m Ar’ri.” It was a play on my real name. I’ll get to that later. “You’re a Tiefling?”

Her smile grew wider. “Very good, a lot of the geeks think I’m some sort of fire-elf or something.”

“What’s a fire-elf?” I asked with a little confusion, seeing as far as I know, there was no such thing in D&D.

“Exactly.” At least we were both on the same page. “You’re a Half-Elf?”

I nodded. “Rogue-Thief.”

She nodded. “Ah, playing up the outcast angle, I guess.”

It was a common enough scenario in role playing: being shunned by both Humans and Elves led to most Half-Elves to play Rogues or Fighters. “Seventeenth level. Ten thousand points shy of eighteen.”

She gave me a suitably impressed nod and then noticeably paused, looking at me with a knowing smile. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you normally a tomboy in real life?”

I know my eyes gave me away. “Uh, why do you ask?”

Sam crossed her legs, which was a nice sight to see. She was wearing armored above-the-knee boots and the rest was muscled bare thigh, tinged a little bit with a light red coloring that was indicative to Tieflings. The rest of her costume consisted of fairly hard leather in a swimsuit shape with brown leather straps crossing here and there to a very sexy effect. Worn gauntlets and shoulder armor completed her outfit.

“You seem kind of uncomfortable. Add to that the lack of experience in prolonged usage of high heels and…”

I glanced around to make sure we weren’t being spied upon. “I’m not actually a girl.”

This time it was her eyes that went wide and her smile expanded to reveal sharpened canines on her upper and lower teeth. Add to that the bright red contacts that matched her hair and it was a sight to see.

“Oh — my — god.”

I tried my best to shrug it off as commonplace. “When I was at ninth-level, I came across, what I thought was, a Belt of Giant Strength plus two. You know, black belt, iron studs…” I circled my hand in the air for effect and watched as she nodded in understanding. “Our Sorcerer wanted to check it out, but I thought I knew better, seeing as how I sometimes DM our adventures and I’m familiar with a lot of the magical items.”

Sam covered her mouth and I could tell she knew exactly what happened from the hidden grin.

“It was a Belt of Femininity,” I said with a grimace afterward. “Of course, I didn’t find that out until after I put it on.”

I suffered through the inevitable giggle-fest with as much dignity as I could muster.

“Why didn’t you use a Wish spell and reverse it?” she asked.

Shaking my head, I explained. “It only works half the time and we didn’t want to risk our last one on something that was only really on paper. The only guaranteed way to have it reversed is for a divine being to intervene. Plus we have a demented DM. Knowing him, I’d probably not phrase it right and wind up with no gender at all.”

Sam put her hands in her lap and tightened her thighs. I swear she must have worked out daily to make them so defined that I could see her muscles shift.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re dressed up like a girl.” Thankfully she lowered her voice so others wouldn’t hear.

“The roleplaying contest.”

“Damn,” she said. “I’m in the same contest.”

Dragon Games was sponsoring a realistic RPG contest and the character voted as the most realistic role-player received a three month internship with the company, not to mention the thousand dollar prize and a complete set of source-books for the upcoming Fourth Edition that was being released in a month’s time. At forty bucks a pop, that could get quite expensive for a not-so-well-off kid who just moved out of his parent’s house a couple of months before.

I gave her an appraising look. “I think you’ll do good. Your costume is amazing.”

It was. Everything was very realistic, even down to the tail that hung off her backside, down to the floor.

“Yeah, but you pull off the gender change really well. I was only guessing and I thought you were just a tomboy. They’ll give you major points for that.”

I grinned at the complement. “Well, I went all out. Everything I have is homemade.”

She looked at me with a slight bit of doubt. “Everything?”

“Uh-huh, well everything that could be. You don’t want to know how many garage sales I went to find little things, like spade blades, or these crocheted gloves. I even made my own trail food: jerky, bread, I had to buy the cheese though.”

Sam leaned forward. “Oh, that’s a good idea! You mind if I steal it?”

I shook my head and thought of the competition. “We could get together tonight and help each other in the realism department if you like. Tweaks here and there. We’re supposed to be a team, after all.”

“Good point. Okay, sounds cool.”

~O~

We wound up skipping the first nights after party and instead wound up in her room at the Hyatt Regency. I had to stop by my room for the rest of my supplies, which consisted of my trail pack and fake weapons.

Sam was putting on the rest of her costume when I arrived.

“You look really good,” I said at the addition of a dark cloak with a billowing hood to conceal her identity. Tieflings were basically half-human and half-demon. They weren’t really known for being of good alignment, but there were always exceptions. “What class are you in.”

“Rogue-Assassin, and thank you.”

She took the bed and I unloaded my pack on the desk.

“Would you mind if I took off my boots?” It was only polite to ask.

Without any hesitation she brushed off the request. “Make yourself at home. We’re all girls here,” she said with a humorous grin.

I cocked an eyebrow at her, sat down and undid the hook and eye clasps in the rear before sliding off the implements of torture along with the thin socks.

“Wow you weren’t kidding when you said you went all out. A pedicure, manicure and you shaved your legs.”

I felt my face redden. “My sister said I needed the pedicure if I didn’t want foot problems after the weekend.”

Sam nodded. “Well, she’s right. I’m just impressed. There aren’t a lot of guys that would go that far for a job that doesn’t pay anything.”

I shrugged. “Eventually it will, and it’s hard enough to find something right now because of the economy.”

We spent the rest of the evening going over everything with extra attention. The first day of gaming was up next, and we wanted to put our best effort into being the greatest imaginary creature out there.

~O~

“Names and passes, please,” said the moderator. He was the official referee and one of three Dragon Games big wigs that would judge the final outcome of the RPG.

“Ar’ri Bauquinea,” I replied, looking as proud as I could, while I handed him my pass.

He eyed me up and down without any emotion or tell that would let me know what he thought of my costume. “I mean your real name.”

Giving him my best confused look, I repeated. “Ar’ri Bauquinea. Is there some sort of problem?”

His lips quirked to the side ever-so slightly at my response. As far as I was concerned, the contest had begun and I was who I said. I think that was what he was looking for. “Take any chair. Your pack goes on the table for inspection and inventory. You may supervise if you wish.”

Whatever you brought with you was all you had. If you didn’t have any food, then you had to forage for some or starve. If you forgot your plus three Dagger of Soul Stealing, then you were just out of luck. If you couldn’t carry your pack because it was loaded down with too much equipment then you had to leave some behind.

They were impressed about what I could carry. Some of the weight was being offset by the Bag of Holding I possessed. That’s where I stored most of my heavier and bulkier equipment. Everything else was things that I had immediate use for: weapons, thieving tools, a small amount of gold, silver, and copper pieces, etcetera.

Eventually, there were seven of us, two Rogues, a Wizard, two Fighters, a Monk, and a duel-class Ranger/Bard. It was a fairly solid group.

Sam sat beside me, since Rogues tend to have more in common with each other, plus the added fact that we were both outcasts was an added benefit. The previous night, Sam and I agreed to look out for each other, just in case there was a member of our group that was evil aligned.

“You look gorgeous today,” she whispered to me.

I felt the blush rise up on my face. “Thanks, you too.”

While gameplay progressed throughout the day, it was obvious who was not going to win. One of the most basic rules of RPGs is that you need to play your character as you created it. Meaning if you were of a Lawful Good alignment then you can’t go out and start fights for no reason and pillage the enemy afterward with no thought. Those kinds of characters believe in rules, laws, common decency and so forth.

Another example is if you were a Ranger, you grew up and were trained in the wilderness. You have a natural affinity toward natural life. So starting an out of control fire in the middle of the forest to smoke out the enemy is a bad idea. So, the Lawful Good, Ranger/Bard was out of the running.

One of the Fighters neglected to unstrap his shield from his back before delving into battle. I could tell his character was fake and made up specifically to enter into a high level campaign. The boy hadn’t played D&D for very long. That much was obvious. He was out.

The Wizard was working hand in hand with the other Fighter, much like Sam and I were, but he misjudged his partner’s position and unleashed a Fireball attack. It’s kind of like igniting a flame thrower at the enemy, only more ball-shaped; when it reaches its target… boom. Friendly fire accidents occur, and it sucked that our only competent Fighter was now missing his sword arm because it was burned off in a critical hit. They were both out.

That left it down to Sam, me, and the Monk, who had just saved the burned Fighter’s life and probably gained major kudos from the moderator.

That was the first day’s run.

~O~

It was my turn to host Sam in my room. We ordered room service and had a great time going over what had happened, boosting each other’s moral, and trying to come up with some plan before entering the dungeon portion of the campaign the next day.

“You know something I find interesting?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

She lifted her jaw toward me. “Your clothes. I can understand getting out of the costume. God knows that I get sick of the leathers and armor, but you’re still playing the part, even if you’re a civilian until ten tomorrow.”

What she had commented on was my choice of black leather pants and gray silk blouse, not to mention the strappy heels I was wearing.

I shifted nervously. Since she had appreciated my look the night before and that morning, I assumed she was okay with me appearing as a girl.

“My sister said that it would be a bad idea to switch back and forth, so, um, these are hers.”

Sam raised a single eyebrow at me, feeling me out. “Uh huh.” She didn’t sound too convinced. “Look, Harry.” That’s my real name, by the way. “What you do in your personal life, you know whatever, I don’t really care. It’s your life.”

I tried to deny what she was about to say, but I just didn’t have the heart to lie to her anymore, so I stayed silent.

“My friends don’t understand why I want to dye my skin red and go play games with boys, or drop four hundred dollars on realistic looking armor and leathers, not to mention the two hundred for the boots alone.” She paused. “And the thing is I don’t really care about their opinion. I’m doing something that makes me happy.”

I frowned and looked down at my empty salad bowl.

“They look at me and see this Amazon girl with big tits and thighs that could crush walnuts and think they know me.” She shrugged. “Where were they two years ago when I was the lanky D&D nerd and just hit puberty?”

At that, I decided to end the charade. “I like dressing in girl’s clothes. It makes me feel normal, and I hate that I can’t do it every day. Okay?”

Sam’s lips quirked to the side. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“You have no idea.”

She smiled with understanding. “I think I do. Besides, you make a hot girl. It’s too bad that you’ll lose the pointy ears and blue hair. They just make the look.”

My hair wasn’t blue; it was more of a blue-gray, like a steel blue. I thought it matched very well with the gray blouse. “The ears itch and the wig is hot.”

“Yeah, but you look good and that’s all that counts."

I was satisfied with that response. It was true enough. As long as I was happy and I looked good, who really cared about anything else?

~O~

Being a Rogue-Thief-female-Half-Elf is hard work in the morning, just in case you’re wondering. The eyebrows need to be plucked. The body needs to be shaved since body hair is non-existent with Elves. The blue steel colored wig has to be glued on. The pointy ears have to be glued on, and finally, the fake breasts don’t need to be glued on since they already were, but the makeup at the seams needs to be refreshed.

All of that had to be accomplished before I even got dressed and put my regular makeup on. It was exhausting. I barely made it to the breakfast buffet.

“Ar’ri!”

I was startled out of my runny scrambled eggs to see one of the geeks from the floor of the convention that I’d met on the first day.

See, not only was I participating in the gaming contest, Dragon Games liked my story and costume so much that they wanted me to be a Promotional Model. It’s a fancy way of saying Booth Babe. Yes, I was one of the girls by the Dragon Games booth where all of the new Fourth Generation source-books were being promoted. They have to upgrade every few years to fix mistakes and add new and interesting things to the source-books, or it could be because they are all forty dollars a pop, one of the two.

That was also the reason I was in high heeled boots for two days in a row. They wanted me to be a little bit hotter, because like it or not sex sells. I could switch back to my adventuring boots once the gaming started. It was okayed by the moderators or else I wouldn’t have done it. Needless to say I wasn’t going to lose the contest because I was out of character for a second.

Anyway, some of the duties of the Booth Babe were product promotion, gifting of free swag, and to answer any questions potential geeks might have. On occasion, the Booth Babe was to pose for pictures with sweaty geeks that hadn’t bathed in three days because they’d been standing in line for two out of those three.

What can I say; it was a really popular convention to be at. If you were someone, anyone worth knowing in the movie, comics, or gaming industries, you were there or you were an idiot for passing up on some of the best advertisement there was.

Getting back to the geek screaming my name across the restaurant:

I could swear I knew him from somewhere, but I could never figure it out. He gave his first name, which was Barry, but that was it. He had a four-day all inclusive pass, which got him into all of the after parties, and behind the scenes in some of the more exclusive events.

Barry had visited me a number of times over the first two days, had a couple of friends that took several pictures with me and him next to each other and a couple of posed shots of me stealing something from him.

We’re all geeks, get over your disbelief.

When I wasn’t helping other potential customers, Barry would hang out and we’d talk shop.

Dragon Games gave me a free set of source-books — one of the perks of being a Booth Babe — and I gave him the lowdown on some of the changes, what I liked and didn’t like, how it made some game play harder and easier, plus a whole lot of crap that I know you aren’t interested in hearing about. Suffice it to say, Barry was smitten or he thought I was his best friend in the world.

Hot chicks just didn’t get into gaming. Sam was one of the only exceptions that I knew of and I’d been gaming forever. I’m excusing her from the hot chick category as well, because she was a geek that became a hot chick and not the other way around. So it was acceptable.

“Hey, you look great!” Barry said as he stopped by the table and eyed the seat next to me with envy.

Well, I was being paid to interact with the customers and if Barry was anything, he was probably forking over large amounts of his dad’s money to Dragon Games. In other words, I pushed out the seat next to me with my boot.

“Still raring to go, Barry?” It was like watching a twelve year old on fifteen shots of espresso even though Barry was probably in his late teens or early twenties.

His smiled widened when he saw that I remembered his name. Hot chicks just don’t do that.

“Oh yeah, they’re showing the first trailer to the new Green Lantern movie today, and I get to meet Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.”

My eyes widened. “Holy crap.”

He saw my interest. “You want to come? I can get you in, easy.”

My shoulders dropped, crestfallen. “I’m in the middle of a campaign.” Pausing a little to see his reaction, I added, “It’s really important to me.”

His brows furrowed. “Is this about that internship thing?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve wanted to work for DG for a while. Plus I couldn’t let the group I’m with down like that.”

He seemed to be pondering something for a moment. Looking around, he leaned in. “What if I told you that you’ve already won the position? That you’d won it before there was ever any gaming to begin with?”

My fork fell out of my hand and clanged off the plate.

“What?”

I know it was stupid, but the feeling that was rushing through me was like I’d won the Lotto or something equally as grand, but then reality set in.

“That’s not funny, Barry. That’s my future you’re talking about.”

He looked up and gestured to someone. I followed his line of sight and saw some guy bringing over a plate of food and a cup of coffee. He sat them down and left again to resume a position near the front of the buffet.

My attention was drawn back to Barry and I’m sure I looked like a complete idiot with the confusion that was all over my face.

“Bodyguard?”

Barry laughed. “Not exactly. He’s more of a personal assistant.”

I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Who exactly are you?”

He looked slightly wary for a moment before answering. “I work for Dragon Games.”

My mouth unhinged and for some reason I was pissed. “What was all of that on the first two days? I thought you were…”

“Just another random geek? I am. Dragon Games is in my blood, so to speak.”

I was dumbfounded and curious all at the same time.

Barry sighed with determination. “It was all a…” He waved his hand in the air, looking for a decent word. “An interview, if you will. Somewhat unorthodox, I admit. Consider it a tryout. You passed with sterling grades. So, let’s forget about gaming today and press on to more interesting subjects.”

My eyebrows bunched up in confusion. I thought about Sam and the others. Granted Sam and the Monk were pretty much the only decent and dedicated players, but the team was relying on me to finish what we started. So I shook my head.

“I’m sorry. When I started this thing, I made a promise to myself to do my best and even though I didn’t make that promise to the group, it was implied when I showed up.” I cringed a little to show him that I regretted what I felt I had to do. “So, if I’m worth having on at DG then they can wait until the day is out.”

Barry pursed his lips, somewhat amused. “I thought rules were meant to be broken, as long as it’s for a good cause. Isn’t that what being Chaotic Good is all about?”

It was my alignment for my Thief. Of course he would be aware of my character if he worked for DG. “That’s true, but it doesn’t affect a personal code of honor.”

He gave me a nod. “Fair enough.” Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans he pulled out a small chrome case and popped it open. “This is my card. When you’re ready, give me a call.”

The second my fingers grasped the card, he was on his feet and walking away from the table. I looked down at the name and title he held.

My throat tightened up and I had the sudden need to dash off to the restroom and… well, you don’t really need to know any of that. Let’s just say I was sick. It seemed as if I just told my future boss to take a hike, I had better things to do, like play a game.

Leaving the buffet area didn’t require any willpower whatsoever. I’d completely lost my appetite and quite possibly ruined any chance for upward mobility.

The booths on the Floor lost their allure as I shuffled through the aisles trying to get my head back on straight.

Had I taken the whole gaming in character thing too far? Should I have taken him up on his offer? Why had he made it in the first place? He knew I was gaming.

I jerked to a stop in the middle of the aisle. He knew about me, everything. He knew about me and still treated me like I was someone to be adored for two days. Granted, his attitude changed after his offer to drop the campaign was refused, but still. Was it all some sort of test? Did he have a thing for guys dressed up like Half-Elf girls?

His name was legendary, or rather his mother’s name, Mary, was known throughout the gaming industry as the original creator of D&D. Mary Bybax was the end all beat all of Dungeon creators and she was all but worshiped in the late seventies and early and mid-eighties until she had a mental breakdown and wound up being committed.

It was all over something to do with her thinking everything she was creating was real in some way. The company had been taken over by her partners and almost run into the ground before they mysteriously disappeared. Since then, it was run by the estate manager holding everything for Mary’s newborn son, Barry who would be somewhere in the neighborhood of about twenty-four or so.

That brought on even more confusion; the Barry I was talking to didn’t look that old. I shrugged the thought away. Maybe all that money made people age slower.

By the time I made my way over to the private gaming room, I was surprised that it was locked up and there was one of the moderators standing guard at the door. He recognized me and shook his head.

“Campaign’s canceled. Four of the players bowed out last night and there’s no way to complete the game without a Fighter and Wizard minimum.”

While I was having a minor coronary, the guy moved over to a skirted table, pulled my pack and a manila envelope out, and handed them to me.

“Your registration fee’s been refunded, but good news, it was a unanimous decision among the moderators that you gave the best gameplay, the internship is yours. Details are in the envelope.”

I didn’t know what to say. Being stunned a number of times in one morning was just too much. I looked around, in a daze for a few moments before I thought about Sam. “Has Sam been by yet?”

He nodded. “You just missed her.” Pointing off toward the exit he said. “If you hurry, you might catch up before she leaves.”

Shouldering my pack, I made tracks, dodging several patrons on the way to the doors. I caught sight of her red hair.

“Sam!”

She stopped and turned back. By the time I caught up, I saw her brush at her eyes. Was she crying?

“Hey.”

Coming to a stop I gave her a consoling smile. “Hey. Sucks, huh?”

Sam looked back, in the direction of the gaming room. “Yeah, lame jerks.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know if I would have shown back up if I’d put on the performance they did yesterday.”

She semi-snorted. “I guess.”

That’s when she noticed the envelope and compared it to hers in size. I could see she was a little hurt. “I guess you won the contest.”

I cringed. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

“You deserved it.”

“Maybe.” I offered. “You didn’t have a chance to shine. I was really looking forward to seeing you do your stuff since that was the whole point of the campaign.”

She shrugged. “Some other time.”

Sam was trying to play it off like it was no big deal, but I wasn’t buying the act.

We were starting to get in the way of people entering, so I motioned her over to the side. “Look, I met someone this morning at breakfast. I might be able to wrangle two internships if I pour on the charm.”

Sam looked at me in confusion. “Who’d you meet?”

I let out a short laugh. “You remember that guy that was practically slobbering on me at the DG booth the first two days?”

She nodded and started to look scared for me in a girlie way.

“He’s Barry Bybax.”

“No–way.”

I nodded. “He was doing the fawning geek thing at my table this morning and kind of asked me out, sort of.”

Her eyebrows lifted and I could see all of her red contacts, which was kind of weird. “Does he know that you’re…” she didn’t complete the sentence right away, but the way her eyes were gazing downward letting me know what she was getting at, “… not really a Half-Elf.”

I confirmed what I thought he knew. “I can’t see how he wouldn’t.”

“And you’d still do that for me? I didn’t peg you as a… you know… gay, despite the whole Half-Elf thing.”

We really needed to find some privacy. I was starting to equate being Half-Elf with being transgender.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m totally into girls. Um, you in particular.” I couldn’t believe I said that. To make up for it, I tried to not sound like a total spaz. Somehow I don’t think I was too successful. “And not just because of the whole absolute gorgeous thing you’ve got going on. We have a lot of the same interests and you’re really nice, and…” I looked down and shook my head. “I’m such a spaz.”

When I looked back up I saw Sam looking away with a slight smile on her face. That was encouraging, so I decided to go for broke.

“Did you maybe want to go grab some coffee or something? We could see what this whole intern thing is about. Maybe it sucks and…”

“Sure,” she said without any hesitation.

“Really?”

“Yeah, then I’ve got to get out of this costume. The tail is driving me nuts. I shouldn’t have made it so long.”

I looked around her and saw it dragging the floor. “If it was prehensile then you wouldn’t have problem. Plus, I think their kind of sexy.”

Sam rolled her eyes with mirth. “It’s times like these that remind me you are still a guy under that makeup.”

After turning toward the door, and exiting, I asked, “Is that a good thing?”

We bumped hands as we sifted through the crowd and before I knew it, Sam had intertwined her fingers with mine. “Maybe.”

I felt a hundred times lighter on my feet and suddenly felt like I could take on the world. All the morning’s weirdness had been swept to the wayside and I realized that everything I’d put myself through for the last few days hadn’t been for nothing.

We grabbed a couple of mugs, filled them and found our way to a semi-private corner of the buffet room.

Sam already opened her smaller envelope and found her entrance fee and a note from DG with apologies for canceling the campaign and not much else. My package contained an Intern’s pamphlet, a short employment sheet with all my information already filled out, my entrance fee, along with a handwritten letter by Barry welcoming me to Dragon Games.

He mentioned wanting to meet me personally in the afternoon, after I had time to decompress from the weekend’s events. At the bottom of the letter, there was a hastily written post script that read: If you want to get together earlier then call me. His cell number was included.

“Wow, he’s really into you.” Sam was reading the note from the side.

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. It’s kind of creepy.”

Looking a little pensive, Sam leaned in. “You really don’t need to do this, Ar’ri. Flirting is one thing, but this guy sounds like he might be looking for something a little more.”

That was exactly what I was thinking. “Yeah, but I don’t feel right about winning this. I wanted to do it with everything on the table. The Monk guy had a pretty good shot at winning too, and you never got the chance to show what you could really do. I’m not going to say it’s not fair, because that’s just life.”

“True.” She sipped at her coffee and then a determined look came over her face. “Look, I need to know if you are serious or just trying to make me feel better.”

It didn’t seem like an accusation. Sam looked like she really needed to know how I felt. “Well, I do want you to feel better, but I still don’t like the way it was done.”

She gave me a single nod. “Okay, then we try to hunt down the Monk, we can call up Bybax and find out what the deal is together.”

While I thought about that for a few seconds I spotted a familiar face at the buffet. “No need to go looking.” I pointed.

It was the Monk. He left the serving line and I stood up so he could see me. When the look of recognition dawned, I waved him over.

“I guess you guys have heard the news,” he said as he set his plate on the table.

I nodded. “Yeah, and we’re planning on confronting Bybax about it in a little bit. You want in?”

“Bybax? As in Barry? He’s here?”

Sam and I both nodded.

I flipped his business card over to show him.

“Whoa. You have his cell phone number.” The Monk’s eyes flicked up at me and he shrugged knowingly. “Makes sense.”

I felt my face redden and Sam giggled.

“Anyway, I’m supposed to give him a call regarding the internship thing and if you want to come along…”

He shrugged non-committing way. “I was just in it for the prize money, and I blew that when I saved Ben. Not really into it for work.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I thought that would give you major kudos with the moderators.”

“My character is neutral evil. It wasn’t in my best interest or his alignment to waste a Heal Major Wounds potion on someone other than myself.”

Sam leaned in. “So that’s a no, in joining us?”

He laughed. “I don’t think a guy is going to change his mind about anything. Two hot girls, that’s a different matter.”

~O~

Needless to say, we changed our clothes. I don’t think either of us wanted to be reminded too much about not being able to game the day away. There were difficulties however. The glue I used to hold the ears and the hair on were pretty strong stuff. I didn’t want them to fall off in the middle of play, not to mention the fake breasts needed a certain solvent to remove so they weren’t damaged.

Sam had the same problem. Her fake teeth were good for another couple of days, but they weren’t that noticeable unless she grinned really wide. It was the stain she used on her skin. Whatever it was worked kind of like sunless tanning lotion. It had to wear off and be shed along with her dead skin cells. So she was pretty much red for another week and a half or so. At least she was able to rid herself of the tail.

We both looked pretty silly in civilian clothes.

I was back in my grey blouse and leather pants with the cage heels and Sam went with jeans and a red cami top. It matched her skin at least. In flats, she was as tall as I was in heels, which meant five ten or so. The heels were three inches high. No way was I going back to the five inch ankle-busters from the first two days.

After the Green Lantern presentation, I called Barry and he was back in geek mode, wanting to meet right away, and sure, I could bring Sam along, no problem.

It was a private suite.

Barry’s assistant answered the door and they were the only two in the room. Once I heard the light jazz music playing in the background, I was praying this wasn’t going to turn into some bad attempt at making a freaky porno movie D&D style.

He was by the bar waving a red concoction at us. “Hey, you two made it!”

I looked back to see the assistant retreating to a desk with a laptop and a stack of paper beside it.

Good, no camera and no king-sized bed with rubber sheets.

“Can I offer you something to drink?”

I shrugged while Sam and I made our way over. “Coke?”

He nodded, eagerly. “Coke it is, and for you Samantia?”

“Coke’s good, thanks.”

“Not at all.” Barry dug out two cans from a maxi-refrigerator, about twice the size of one of those mini ones, but not quite a regular sized.

I nodded my thanks and watched as he totally ignored Sam in favor of me. After my first sip, I tried to open some conversation that didn’t revolve around me being a guy dressed up like a civilian Half-Elf girl.

“So, um…”

His grin brightened. “You’re wondering why I wanted to meet with you, me being the owner and all, when this should be handled by someone in personnel.”

I cleared my throat at that mouthful he gave me. “Uh, yeah.”

He motioned over to what could be considered a living area in most apartments: two couches, four armchairs, really big table in the middle with an unopened fruit basket in the middle.

Sam joined me on the couch and Barry sat directly across from us on the other. He took a big breath and sighed. Having seen this before I knew he was going to revert to his business personality, or as I like to think of it, Satan.

He glanced at Sam and then centered his stare on me. “I like to keep things as simple as possible, so let’s set all the BS aside okay.”

I took another sip of Coke and nodded. “Sure.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard about my mother’s breakdown back in the eighties a couple of years after I was born.”

I kind of felt bad at that announcement. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

He didn’t accept the pity, but moved on. “It wasn’t really a breakdown. Well, it was afterward, but the years before when she was ranting about an evil Dragon trying to take over the world, she was right about that.”

I felt my eyebrows lift and my jaw hang open a little. “Right, uh… well, good luck with that and all. Sam, you ready to go?”

A large hand found its way to my shoulder and held me in place, Sam too. And when I say large, I don’t mean stevedore large, I mean, oh, let’s say Ogre large.

The hand was olive-skin color and about the size of my head. I’m not going to say how much I screamed like a girl in surprise. That would have been fitting considering how I was dressed. So, we’ll ignore that and move on to the part where Barry stepped in.

“Gnort, that’s enough.”

We were released. Sam and I were on our feet and were halfway across the room before you could say, “Roll your six-sided die for initiative.” So, about two seconds.

“What the…” Sam took the words right out of my mouth, but mine were a little more colorful.

“It’s an Ogre,” I said as I felt my heart slamming against the inside of my chest.

“Very good, Ar’ri. Gnort, back to work.”

The next second, both Sam and I watched as Gnort the Ogre shrank, reformed down into Barry’s assistant and returned to his desk. Barry swept his hand back to the couch we abandoned.

“Please, have a seat. It was only a demonstration to prove the validity of my point. We’ve no intention of harming either of you.”

Like hell, I was returning to the couch with that thing behind us the entire time. “Uh, we’re good here.”

I watched as Barry chewed the inside of his lip. “Here, you’ve spilled your drink. Let me get you another.”

Sam was pissed, not to mention shaking from fear. “Screw the drink, what the hell was that?”

He stood up and set his glass on the table. “I believe Ar’ri already identified, Gnort’s race. He’s an Ogre.”

I thought I was up to speed. “And what are you?”

Barry grinned and tossed his head. “I’d show you, but I’d probably break the room and the one under us. Suffice it to say that I’m powerful and I want you to work for me.”

“Me?” I was taken aback; so much that I literally took a step back.

“Of course, Ar’ri. You were meant for this life. You will be my champion.”

Sam grabbed me by the arm. “We need to go.”

I resisted for a second, but eventually moved with her.

Nobody moved to stop us, but Barry did add something else. “You may leave after I give my presentation.”

Sam tried the door, but it wouldn’t open and by the way the knob turned, it didn’t appear to be locked. We both spun around. Everyone was where they were before and nobody looked threatening at the moment.

My hand slipped down and clasped Sam’s. I swallowed. “This is all real.”

Barry closed his eyes solemnly and nodded. “I am very serious about this, Ar’ri.”

I blinked and shook my head. “That’s not my real name.”

He crossed the floor and retrieved two more Cokes, placing them on the counter at the bar and then started back. “I am quite familiar with who and what you are, Ar’ri Bauquinea. I have been observing you for some time. Please, sit by the bar if it would make you feel more comfortable.”

That didn’t sound ominous or anything. Did you note the amount of sarcasm I threw in that last statement?

What I wouldn’t give for a real weapon of some sort.

We ignored our drinks, and I got the ball rolling so we could take our exit from fantasy land. “So… presentation?”

Barry saw that I wasn’t going to relax and it disturbed him. “Very well. My mother is not of this realm. She came here to escape a world ruled by Dragons. One in particular was a Red Dragon by the name of… well, it’s mostly unpronounceable in the English language, let just say for argument’s sake that it’s Lyzax.”

He took a drink from the glass that was previously on the table and sat it down again. “When she came here, she acclimated to society rather well, began her own business, and started training the younger generations in the art of her world’s warfare.”

Sam looked at Barry like he was crazy. “You’re talking about D&D?”

“Just so,” he confirmed. “During the summer solstice of 1985, she had a vision of dark times to come. You see, Lyzax found out about Earth and that she had fled here. So she made arrangements to block the way until she could bear a child and for it to grow up and eventually challenge him for the right to rule here.”

I blinked. “You’re going to challenge a dragon?”

Barry laughed. “Oh, sorry. I left that part out. Mom was a Bronze Dragon herself, under a Permanent Polymorph spell. She only appeared human. She met a man, conceived me and I’m of mixed race changing as suits my desire.”

That door was looking more and more tempting every moment that passed.

“Anyway, I just want to live my life. I don’t want to rule, but I have to challenge Lyzax and win if I don’t want him to come in and set up shop. So you see my problem.”

Sitting down on the barstool, I was about to palm my face, but I remembered I was wearing makeup at the last second. “Why me?”

“I need a champion, Ar’ri. Lyzax already has agents on Earth and has begun the infiltration process. Eventually he will come and between his agents and his presence, I will be overwhelmed.”

Sam stepped in front of me, blocking Barry from my view. “I don’t know if you’re up on current events here, buddy, but she isn’t a real Half-Elf or a real Rogue for that matter.”

“I possess the power to change that,” he replied.

“What?” I almost yelled and while I stepped out from behind Sam.

Barry slyly smiled at me. “I thought that would get your attention. Tell me, why did you think I set up this little contest of mine?”

I shook my head in confusion. “You’ve had the same contest for the last five years.”

He nodded. “Very true. That was to give you enough time to master every portion of my training manuals. To create your Rogue, to know everything there was to know.”

“Me,” I said with a moderate amount of disbelief.

“Yes.” Reaching down to pick up a folder off of the floor, he motioned me over. “Samantia as well.” Once he took out a sheet of paper, he held it out. “Tell me Samantia, what do you see here?”

Sam looked over at the assistant to make sure he stayed seated. When she was satisfied, she took the paper. I saw that it was a character sheet, specifically, mine. She looked it over and I saw her eyebrows raise a little.

“If it wasn’t for the low level, I’d say this was an Epic character.”

A point of order: For those of you not fluent with the term, Epic characters are those that have gone far beyond the normal levels and risen to great heights. A good example would be Hercules before he ascended to Demi-God status after his Ten Trials. He couldn’t be defeated; instead he grew stronger and stronger until, well, you know the story.

In other words, my character was a Mary Sue. If you don’t know what that is then look it up.

Barry seemed to agree before turning to me. “The only thing that confused me, Ar’ri, is why you never became a Shadowdancer as well. You are well versed in all of the requirements.”

“Wait a second,” Sam interrupted. “This is you?”

I nodded with a slight cringe.

“Twenty Dexterity? Nineteen Charisma? Are you kidding? No wonder you won every single throw yesterday. It’s not as if anyone could have touched you.”

“I had magical help developing those scores.”

Ability scores are based on the numbers three through eighteen, eighteen being the height of human limits and ten being your average person that keeps himself in decent shape.

“No shit? Who would have thought?” Sam’s sarcasm was dripping. She dropped the sheet to the couch and stormed back to the bar for her Coke. “Bruce Lee, super ninja thief bullshit,” she muttered along the way.

“Ar’ri?”

I turned back to Barry. “What?” To say I wasn’t pleased would be an understatement. Nobody is supposed to see your character sheet except for the Dungeon Master.

“The Shadowdancer?”

“Oh. I hate multi-classing. It’s a cop out for those that can’t hack a single class.”

Barry sighed and started making notes on my sheet.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Without looking up, he explained. “You already possess all but four abilities in order to integrate Shadowdancing to your many talents, and you’ll need it.” He finished and handed it back to me.

I frowned. One just doesn’t add a seventh level SD to one’s character sheet. I’m not a homebrewer. I actually earned my way up to what would have been eighteen levels if the stupid campaign would have finished.

“You can’t do that,” I protested.

“Sure I can. I own the game, I make the rules. Just practice your new abilities and I’m sure you’ll do fine. And congratulations on acquiring Epic level status.”

I paused, stunned. Barry Bybax just gave me seven additional levels of experience, *poof*, just like that. Officially, I was twenty-fourth level. Looking back down at my sheet I noticed other changes.

Oh no, Sam’s going to kill me.

Leaving Barry to himself for a few minutes, I went over to the bar to patch things up with Sam. All I received from her was an indifferent face while she drank her Coke.

“I really did earn all of this. I’ve been playing the same Rogue for the last five years.”

Some people don’t realize what that really means. D&D gives you the ability to create upper-level characters from scratch. All it takes is a piece of paper, a pencil, and some dice — if you know all the rules that is. When someone does this, they usually work hand in hand with a Dungeon Master — the leader of the game. They do this so the character won’t get out of hand, much like my current Rogue.

On the other side of the coin, you have people like me, which are very few and far between. We start off our characters at the lowest level and build them up through adventure after adventure. With each scenario comes experience points, magical items, gold, jewels, more magical items, you get my meaning. We do all of this and eventually, we can build a small kingdom if we wanted.

Among my inventory, I carry a few hundred Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Copper pieces so that I can buy what I need on the road. It’s what every person that plays carries. But see, when I was twelfth level a couple of years back, our party went Dungeon Crawling and eventually came across a dragon. Dragons hoard things, it’s what they do. After the resulting battle, and eventual death of the dragon, my party split the gigantic pile of money and magical items it was sitting on.

If you’ve seen Tolkien’s The Hobbit, then you know exactly how big all this was. All it takes is one good score and most people retire their characters, buy some large plot of land and rule over it.

I didn’t retire. Instead, I wanted to see exactly how far, how powerful I could get before being smacked down by some god or deity which inevitably happens when a DM gets tired of how strong a character is.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the process: Big rock falls from sky and squashes Half-elf. Character dies.

What I’m getting to with all of this rambling is that there are certain magical items and artifacts that, if used, will increase a PC’s abilities on a permanent basis. Over the years, Ar’ri had encountered a number of these things.

Normally, a character will use one, increase his or her strength, dexterity, intelligence, what have you, and sometime in the near future get squashed by a large rock, so it was never cumulative. I never got squashed. Instead, the Dungeon Master would increase the difficulty level of whatever scenario we entered: add more traps, increase the toughness of the bad guys, or introduce unwinnable scenarios.

I’d beat them all, Well, not me, personally. Sometimes characters would die and be replaced within our group, but I was never one of them. This would invariably increase my power. It snowballed, you see.

So, yeah, I was a Mary Sue Epic character, but I’d earned it.

Sam sighed at me. “I just thought we were more or less on an even keel.”

I nodded. Odds are she was one of the people that created her character at a semi-high level and worked it up from there, enough to get really familiar with it, but not enough to have experienced as many adventures as I had.

She set her drink down. “Well whatever.” Leaning to the side, she eyed Barry suspiciously. “You’re not going to take him up on this champion thing are you?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“What?”

Taking a defensive stance, argument-wise, I pressed on. “Come on, are you kidding? Think about it. If what he says is all true, I could actually be this person. You can’t say it isn’t tempting.”

Sam blinked repeatedly at me. “Yeah, a Half-Elf in a world of regular human beings. Does the phrase alien autopsy mean anything to you?”

“Oh,” I shuddered. “Good point.”

I turned around to address that problem and Barry was already moving. Granted, he was sitting on the couch about ten feet away. He flicked something shiny at me and I snatched it out of the air. It was a ring, a big ring. Looking back at him I had the obvious question plastered on my face.

He tapped the side of his head. “Dragon, remember? I have really good hearing. That’s a Ring of Polymorph Self. It has ten charges. When you run out, come back and I’ll recharge it. I also have Glamor necklaces if you prefer to just look like a regular person.”

Sam looked at the ring and I could almost see the drool forming. “Is that for real?”

Barry nodded. “That’s one of Gnort’s, but it’ll adjust for size when you put it on.”

That was how the Ogre was able to look like the assistant… or was it the other way around. I wasn’t so sure. Ogres aren’t really known for their intellectual capacity and this one was typing merrily away on his laptop.

I could see the internal struggle going on in Sam’s head. It was obvious from the expression on her face. “Do you want to join me?”

Her eyes snapped up from staring at the ring. “Huh?”

Turning back to Barry, I asked, “Can Sam join me?”

The smirk on his face intensified. Apparently I was too easy to convince. The Earth was in danger from invasion by things that possessed vast powers that most people couldn’t understand, and I was given the chance to be a real hero. What would you do?

“I would think less of you if you wanted to take on this challenge all by yourself,” he said.

~O~

Sam seemed a little more receptive after that.

I assumed that she would want to be her Tiefling character, but the thought of actually being a half-demon hybrid was a little daunting, so she retreated to her hotel room and brought back another one.

When she came through the door, she held a single character sheet along with a bright smile. “Here’s my Mary Sue.”

I grabbed it and smiled at the contents. It wasn’t near as Epic as my own, but it was impressive and I saw why she hadn’t played it in lieu of the Tiefling. It was a six foot tall female Elf. That just doesn’t happen in real gameplay. Unlike Tolkien, Elves in D&D are short, around five feet tall. The best ability score she had was a magically assisted nineteen in dexterity, everything else was respectable but within normal parameters for the level.

Barry was looking over my shoulder. “Excellent, you’ll be able to use spells and you’re a proficient fighter. It rounds out your shortcomings, Ar’ri.”

It all started to settle on me at that moment. “We’re really going to do this.”

Photo Credit: J. Corsentino

Author's note: Thank you so much for the plethora of comments yesterday. They are just want I needed to feel good about this story again. Chapter Four creeped along a little better than average. Hopefully it won't disappoint.

Part 2

Barry insisted that we take the evening off and maybe attend the final after party, something to take our minds off of what we were about to embark upon, but Sam and I couldn’t do it. Instead, we went to our respective homes for one last normal night.

I managed to work off all my fake parts, and stood before a mirror, very disappointed with what I was seeing.

My hair was really short, and brown. I had it cut so the wig would look normal. The ears were gone as well as the false breasts. In short, I looked like a wimpy feminine boy. Mainly due to the thin arched eyebrows.

Sleep took a while to arrive, and I fingered the large ring Barry had given me until it did.

The next morning, I dressed in jeans and an old gaming shirt then spent the rest of the time collecting all of my props for campaigns in the past that I discarded or never used, plus my costume and pack. Loading it up in my Mini Cooper, the last gift my parents gave me before I moved out, I said adios to my old life. The next time I would see the place, I’d be completely different.

When I’d made it to the address Barry gave me to his lair — what else are you supposed to call the place where a Dragon calls home? — I was surprised to find a small staff that was more than happy to help me with all of my things.

The building was the headquarters and manufacturing facilities of Dragon Games. In other words, it was big.

A young lady, a receptionist, I believe, escorted me deep within the building and eventually underground. All the while a guy with a trolley of sorts that carried all of my things, trailed behind.

Manmade building materials gradually thinned out and ultimately ended altogether. Electric light was replaced by torches and concrete flooring transformed to hard dirt. It started to feel like I was actually Dungeon Diving. That’s when we finally made it to our destination.

Sam had already beaten me there. She stalled for a second in confusion when she looked at me, then it dawned on her.

“Oh my god, Harry?”

I nodded and waited to see how she was going to react to my male persona. It didn’t take long. “You’re so cute!”

I received a quick hug and stood back from her. She was already in costume. It was the same leather one piece that she wore over the weekend, but considering she was going to be a Ranger, it was outfitted differently, less sexy and more practical. Instead of armored knee boots, they were extended higher to mid-thigh with leather. Fake daggers were strapped to her thighs and a utility belt with several pockets was hanging around her hips.

The impractical fake shoulder armor was replaced with heavy leather and what could only be magical items were scatter throughout.

“I like the new look,” I said.

Sam smiled. “When the red dye goes then I’ll be happy.” She bounced and pointed off to a side door. “Go change. Barry said that he’ll be ready in about thirty minutes.”

Considering I didn’t have to put on all the false items, it wouldn’t take me long at all to slip into the costume.

~O~

Once I finished attaching the last belt and double checked to make sure all of my standard Dungeoning equipment was secure, I stepped back into the waiting room. Sam giggled at me a little.

“You look so much different without the ears and wig.”

“And the breasts, don’t forget about those.

She stepped closer and adjusted my cloak so it was centered. “Well, you look very cute this way.”

I rolled my eyes. Sometimes girls had a way of making a guy feel like he was six years old. “Thanks mom.”

Her attitude changed to one of embarrassment. “So, you’re sure about this? If he can do this then it’ll mean that you’ll really be a girl… of a different species.”

There wasn’t any doubt in my mind. “I’ve always wanted this. Not just the girl part, that is a big one though.”

Sam’s lips pursed and her stare intensified, so I thought I needed to explain further.

“Have you ever felt that your life is… I don’t know, less than what it should be?”

She bit the side of her lip. “How do you mean?”

I shrugged. “Average, boring, just another cog in the machine, that’s me. My parents want me to go to college, major in business, and then go out and find a job.”

My thumb ran over the hilt of my fake sword. “I mean there’s nothing wrong with that. They didn’t insist that it be business, that’s just what they preferred. So, I decided that I’d try for the job at DG and go to college part time, major in marketing or whatever and that it would segue into something that I wanted to actually do. But even that wouldn’t have been enough.”

Sam nodded. “You want to make a difference.”

“Yeah. I want to do something that very few people are qualified for, and when they need someone to take care of a problem, who are you going to call.”

“Ghostbusters,” Sam deadpanned.

I smiled. “Right.”

The one door, out of the three in the room, that I hadn’t used, opened to reveal the Ogre assistant. He grunted at us and I assumed they were ready. He grabbed the trolley and pushed it ahead of us down another passageway that eventually led to a gigantic cavern, and the damn good sized Brass Dragon that was sitting on its haunches with its forearms crossed, looking decidedly pleased.

“Whoa,” I commented. Having never seen any living thing that large, I was kind of in awe.

“You said it,” whispered Sam equally amazed as I was.

There had to be at least fifty torches lining the walls, but it still didn’t illuminate the creature properly. The elemental light flickered off of the metal scales and glittered through the intelligent reptilian eyes as he stared at us.

“Okay, I totally understand why characters have to roll to even do anything around dragons.”

“Uh-huh.”

And to think, my character killed one of those things, well not by herself, and it was a Black Dragon, those are evil. Brass Dragons are Chaotic Good, always… well, not always, but almost always.

“Greetings adventurers,” it said.

The voice was so low pitched that I felt my bones vibrate in my body. It didn’t look like its jaws and tongue were meant for human speech either. It grated and certain letters melted together, but it was still astounding any way you heard it.

I swallowed, noting the dryness in my throat. “Barry?”

It said something next that started off as a Barristix… and then went to some odd place that my ears couldn’t really hear, but I could still feel deep inside myself.

“… but in this form you may call me Barristix.”

Sam raised her hand tentatively. “Is there a bathroom around here? I need to go throw up now.”

The assistant led her away, probably to a bucket, since there didn’t seem to be too many modern conveniences in the area. I totally understood. Even with the proof that was the Ogre the day before, it was a whole other league of weirdness made reality when you face something so beautiful, awesome, majestic, and deadly like the creature that sat before me.

“Come forward, Ar’ri.”

I almost turned around to see who Ar’ri was before I realized that it was me. When I finally closed in enough, I watched as Barristix’s eyes moved to center on a large circle in the middle of the floor. There were a number of glyphs or letters all around the boarders and then another circle enclosing them, leaving plenty of room for our baggage and probably two adult people left over.

I’d read enough sourcebooks to recognize a ritual circle when I saw one.

“Your companion approaches.”

I turned to see Sam rushing to join us, still wiping at her mouth. “Sorry.”

“Quite understandable, Samantia,” said Barristix. “Now that we are gathered, us three, each of us must ask ourselves if there is any reservation as to our goals and what must be done in order to accomplish them.”

Before either Sam or I had a chance to say anything, he went on.

“There will be battle, there will be blood, you will see and do things that will pale in comparison to anything any human mortal has ever seen… and there will be loss. Of this I can promise you. On the good side, however, when my foe comes to do battle with me, I can also promise that you will be at the forefront, having edged the odds of winning in our favor. If you step into that circle, your life will never be the same. Choose now.”

I turned my head to Sam and saw her looking at me. Lifting my hand, I held it out to her. We were both nervous, but I knew I had no more doubts that becoming Ar’ri Bauquinea was what I was meant to do. She slipped her cool hand in mine and we stepped inside the circle, careful not to disturb any of the markings on the floor.

While we waited for Barristix to do his thing, Sam leaned in. “You wouldn’t have an Altoid on you, would you?” She grimaced. “I got puke breath.”

I stifled a laugh right before a low humming began emanating from Barristix.

You know the thing I like most about D&D magic? Most of it doesn’t hurt. Well, things like Magic Missiles, Fireballs, or even Encase in Ice I’d imagine hurt a lot, but other things like Detect Alignment, or Polymorph Self just don’t do a thing, pain-wise.

It still felt weird.

It’s kind of hard to describe the way magic feels if you’ve never experienced it before. Not teaching color to a blind person kind of hard, but difficult. Think of being in a bubble of static electricity, only without the freaky hair and then mix that with a hot tub of warm chocolaty pudding. Soak, rinse and repeat.

The process seemed to make my body turn into that pudding and reform into whatever it was intended. All of that took place in the span of about minute after the feeling first started.

You may ask why we didn’t just use that nifty body changing Ring I was given the day before. The answer is that we were ordinary humans and didn’t possess an ounce of magic; neither did any of the stuff we brought with us. The whole purpose of the ritual was to imbue us with a piece of the Dragon’s real home, to suck out whatever mystical force that created and powered his magic and link it to us and our paraphernalia. It literally made us magical.

Through all of this I looked at myself. What I expected was probably what you would think would happen: I would be feminized, but that wasn’t half of it.

When I felt my body reshaping itself I noticed my skin change as well. Gone was the pale skin with scatterings of freckles and an unobtrusive mole here and there. In its place was skin so smooth I could hardly begin to think it was real. There was no hair, at all, and there didn’t seem to be any pores either. This led me to think about how Elves and Half-elves cooled down if they couldn’t sweat.

Everything started to become louder and instead of the low humming, Barristix’s voice became clearer, to the point where I could actually hear what he was saying. I still couldn’t understand it, but I could hear words being spoke in a rhythmic chant of sorts.

My leathers shifted as I filled them out. The breasts were back, but this time I could feel them being restrained behind the leathers, not to mention I really would have to rework something extra for the top portion of my outfit. I was a little bit better endowed than before. Not by much but still.

Then energy filled me and I felt decidedly different in a way that was indescribable, at least at that point.

That was when a really loud thump sounded that shook the floor and surrounding cave.

I looked up and Barristix had collapsed.

“Barry!”

I leaped forward, which was a trip and a half since it was a good ten foot leap from a standstill. I was beside him in a moment. His eyes were barely open and he looked supremely wiped out.

“Tired… sleep,” he managed to rumble out before his eyes closed and he passed out.

“Is he okay?”

I looked up from my crouch to see Sam standing near Barristix’s snout, tentatively holding her hand out like she was afraid of touching the gleaming brass scales. The thing was, she wasn’t any different. She looked exactly the same.

“He must have used a serious amount of magical energy to link us to where his mom was from. He’ll need to sleep it off, but who knows how long that will take.”

Her hand hovered about an inch off the scales and probably thinking better about the act, pulled it back. Then her eyes ticked to me and widened. “Wow, you look really different. The same, sort of, but different. How do I look?”

My mouth opened to compliment her in some way, but she would find out soon enough. “Uh, you look the same.”

She recoiled a little in confusion. “Really? I didn’t think I looked all that elf-like to begin with.”

I shook my head. “No, I mean you look exactly the same, like there was no change whatsoever.”

Sam sucked in a mouthful of air and pulled back the sleeves of her leather outerwear to see her still red-dyed skin. “But… What happened?”

I frowned and thought about it for a second. “I don’t know, but I can speculate.”

She looked at me, hoping for some sort of explanation other than it didn’t work.

I passed my hand over one of Barristix’s long pointy horns, feeling the rough, hard texture. “Barry’s about twenty-four years old. In dragon years, he’s still very young. They can live to be several hundred years old. He might not have had the needed power or experience to complete the entire ritual. I’m assuming that’s another reason he passed out.”

“So there’s nothing wrong with me. I still have a chance…?”

Shrugging, I stood up. “I really don’t know. I’m guessing here. If the rules he set up in D&D carry over to the real world then anything could have happened as a result of trying to press beyond his magical capabilities.”

That thought didn’t sit well with me. “We could have just as likely all blown up and brought this cavern down on top of us.”

Before Sam could say anything else, the assistant came back in leading six fat sheep by several ropes to a single iron ring imbedded in the rock face.

“What’s the sheep for?” My face turned to revulsion. “Oh, nevermind.”

“What?” Sam asked.

“Barristix is going to be really hungry when he wakes up.”

“Oh… eww.”

I pointed to our supplies and packs. “Let’s get our stuff out of here. I really don’t want to be around a hungry dragon when he wakes up.”

~O~

Gnort grunted when he dropped us off in some sort of living area. From what I remembered, Ogres spoke the same language as Giants, and the more intelligent of them actually spoke Common, which is the language spoken by almost all the different races in D&D. That didn’t explain what he was still grunting at us.

My character knows five different languages, or I should say that I know those languages since I was currently my character: Elven, Sylvan — two of the Elven culture, Infernal — Demon culture, Terran — Earth, and Common.

How did I know so much? Technically, as a Half-elf, I was a lot older than I appeared. As a human, I was nineteen. As a Half-elf, I was more like sixty-five. Elves normally mature into adulthood around a hundred and ten years. That’s the equivalent of a fifteen year old human. Ar’ri’s background had him growing up with the elves and learning leather-working and weapon-smithing before he was driven away into the regular world.

The reason I’m revealing all of this is because while I was looking around the apartment or suite, or whatever it was I was standing in, I was remembering growing up with the elves. It was kind of like a duel existence. I still remembered everything about my regular childhood just fine, but added to it were new experiences, some of which I really didn’t want to remember.

In order to make Player Characters realistic, we often create backgrounds for them and add flaws, or bad times that molded the character into someone realistic. I tended to torture Ar’ri in his youth.

The reason he was kicked out of the Elven village where he grew up was because he was too curious.

One of the duties of his village was to guard a specific Artifact, A Weapon of Sin. This particular one was a quarterstaff called Avarice. It was said to contain the essence of Greed itself within its dark wood grain.

Ar’ri snuck in, avoiding the guards that were always posted to prevent such things from happening and made the mistake of picking up the Artifact. Eventually, it was taken away from him, but as a result of holding it, even for a short time, Ar’ri was an unrepentant kleptomaniac. Like the Belt of Femininity, he was cursed and it could not be undone except through godlike intervention.

That’s why he/she was such a successful thief. It was either learn to become unseen or suffer the wrath of the people he stole from.

One normally doesn’t set out to become a thief; circumstance sometimes leaves no other choice.

“Do you think our stuff got all magic’ed up?” Sam asked.

I shrugged. “One way to find out.”

The biggest table in the room was round and about four to five feet in diameter. It would have been perfect for gaming a small group, and semi-perfect for unloading all our junk. The first thing I checked was my weapons.

~O~

“What’s that?” Sam was pointing at a stripped-down soda can with one of those plastic soda savers — those things that kind of keep all the fizz from escaping -- tops on it.

I grinned. “It was a gag item, homebrewed by a mage that died not too long ago. It’s called A Can of Whoop-ass. Supposedly, you pop the top and five fifth-level Monk’s pop out to do the holder’s bidding. Good for once every twenty-four hours.”

“You’re kidding.”

I shrugged and set it aside and picked up a ring with a single quarter-note embossed in the metal. “Here’s a good one to test whether the magic took or not.”

Sam took it and looked at the musical note, clueless. “I give up.”

“Ring of Theme Songs.” I giggled. “I gamed with some really weird people. Before going into battle you slip this on and it’s supposed to intimidate your enemies with the wearer’s theme song. I never used it.”

Sam was shaking her head hearing about the antics of teen boys. “Well, go ahead. What’s your song?”

Pulling off my Ring of Regeneration, I set it aside. PCs are only allowed one magic ring on one hand at any time. It has something to do with magical interference or something like that. Frankly I always believed the makers were simply trying to limit the amount of magic one person, that wasn’t a Wizard, could use. What’s the point in having a Wizard if rings, wands, rods, and sundry other items could do the work better, quicker, and more efficiently than they could?

I slipped it on the middle finger of my right hand.

“There’s an activation word, let me think…” a few seconds later it came to me. “Muzak!”

If I could have thrown the thing off of my hand, I would have. Ride of the Valkyries blasted loud and deep, rattling everything in the room. I finally managed to slip it off before we went deaf, which deactivated the magic.

My ears were ringing. “Okay, not doing that anymore.”

Sam, still wearing an amused grin on her face, said, “I don’t know. In the right situation that might prove useful.”

With a shrug I went ahead and placed the ring with the other less used ones in the right rear pouch of my belt.

“Hey, Ar’ri?”

“Hmm?” I answered while I was sifting through the rest of my stuff.

“Why haven’t you…?”

Looking up at her, I saw she was feeling a little bashful about asking something. “What?”

She shrugged. “Checked yourself out?”

It was a fairly practical question. I had just transformed the body I was born with into something from mythical tales. “Uh…”

Sam gestured toward one of the bedrooms. “Go ahead. I’m not jealous or anything. If Barry can change me, then hopefully he will. I was nervous about it anyway.”

That lifted a great amount of weight off of my shoulders. I was trying my best to act like it was no big deal, but I was very eager to do just what she was suggesting.

“Are you sure?”

All I got in return was a rapid nod of her head, but it was genuine enough. I spun around and looked at the five doors, not knowing which one to pick, so I chose the closest one to the right. I took one more peek back to see if Sam was watching me, but she was already going through her pack.

I didn’t bother locking the door. It was just us two and well, I didn’t have anything embarrassing to hide anymore.

The room was circular, which was extremely odd. A double-size bed sat directly across from the door, and a small table with a digital clock and a single reading lamp set to the side. A curved dresser of drawers was to the left and the right side had several empty shelves. There were two doors, at either side of the bed. My first choice wound up being a closet. The second was a shared bathroom with the room next to mine. I took a quick peek and saw that the other room was a mirror image to mine.

The bathroom was fairly spacious. A single shower stall was tucked into the corner and a clawfoot bathtub was centered. The toilet was to the other side, and behind me were a pair of sinks and a very large mirror that I still hadn’t looked into.

Taking my time, I took off my costume, or I should say my leather armor. Whatever Barristix had done during the ritual, had toughened up the leather. It wouldn’t ever stop a sword, but it would protect me from casual grazes from bladed weapons and provide padding enough to withstand a few body blows if they weren’t too hard. Most of my defensive armor came in the form of magic and dexterity.

I closed my eyes and removed most of my clothes from memory. I’d done it enough times over the last few days that I could easily perform this minor action.

When I’d reached the moment of truth, I turned around and opened my eyes.

“Oh… wow.”

My hair returned, but much shinier and more natural than the wig I wore. There’s only so much you can do with semi-frizzy synthetic steel-blue hair. What I currently possessed look like something off of a TV commercial. The rest of my body was just as amazing. Maybe it’s because I’d only seen all of two girls semi-naked in the dark that I was overwhelmed with what I was taking in.

The skin texture I noticed during the change was prevalent throughout the rest of my body. There were no flaws and everything was perfectly symmetrical. I was more athletic than full-bodied, more B-cup than C, and more streamlined than hippy. However I was perfectly happy with the entire result. My ears were pointed; more of a teardrop point instead of the curvy Spock ears, and my irises were huge, taking up almost the entire portion of my eyes. There was very little white on the outsides. I looked like an alien or something… maybe an elf, which I guess would make sense.

I could cover the ears with my hair in public, but there was no hiding my eyes. Sunglasses would be needed, or I’d have to resort to the Polymorph ring.

Closing in on the mirror I could see my eyes glassing from the happiness that was running though me. I almost wanted to do cartwheels or maybe a cheer or two, but Sam would probably think I was weird or something.

I didn’t know how long I had dreamed of a moment like this. I mean, doesn’t everyone have a fantasy of changing their body in some way? Taller, shorter, fuller, thinner; usually everyone disliked something? Not me, not anymore. I loved every inch. It was perfect.

I heard a knock at the outer door. “Everything look okay?”

A grin was plastered on my face. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ll be out in a sec.

~O~

We spent the majority of the day sifting through everything we had in our packs. A lot of it could probably be tossed considering that it was meant to be used in a world that wasn’t as technologically advanced as the one we lived in. I mean how many times are you likely to use a waterskin instead of a canteen? Things like trail rations, a block of cheese, and a loaf of bread, could be substituted with MREs, not to mention that it would save a lot of room and actually be healthy instead of simply life sustaining.

Then I began to wonder what we’d actually be doing. Odds are I wouldn’t need to carry my entire pack along with me wherever I went, or dress like I just stepped off of a movie set. Some of the things I had, I’d rather not do without, or they had magic properties, my boots for one. They were Boots of Elvenkind, adding to my Silent Movement skills, not to mention they were very comfortable.

“Hey, Ar’ri?”

I looked up at Sam. She was sitting legs akimbo across from me on the floor looking a little dissatisfied.

“Yeah?”

“We need to modern-up a little.”

I nodded. “New packs, definitely.”

“Clothes.”

I giggled. “Yeah, I’ll need a whole new wardrobe.” After thinking about what that would entail, I frowned. “Think Barry will let me have an advance or at least buy my Platinum and Gold Pieces?”

She smiled sardonically. “Well you are his Champion. That means he has to provide room, board, and essentials for you to do your job properly.”

With a single nod I added, “Clothing would definitely be an essential.”

“Well reasoned; we’ll make a proper girl out of you yet.”

I looked down at my new breasts, swelled underneath the leathers. “I think Barry beat you to that one already.”

~O~

Eventually one the people that escorted us down to the cavern showed up and took us to what I thought was a personnel office. We filled out employment forms for quite a while. The most obvious problem I ran into was what to do about my name and social security number.

That’s when I found out the answer to something that had been on my mind since I’d arrived at the DG headquarters.

The older lady who had been doling out the forms was wearing a familiar ring.

I pointed it out. “It that one of…” Stopping myself before I spilled the beans about magic to someone that shouldn’t know, I paused and then realized that I was walking around with my ears and eyes uncovered. They already knew.

She was an older lady, maybe in her late forties smartly dressed in a gray business suit, but she was one of the lucky ones that aged gracefully. Very few wrinkles adorned her full face.

“It’s a Ring of Polymorph Self.” She smiled after her conformation. “Either these or Glamour Charms are standard issue at DG.”

Hope for her to explain that one was probably written on my face. Thankfully, she obliged.

“This entire wing of the complex is staffed strictly by those in the know, specifically those that crossed over when Mary Bybax fled Qrynn.” It was obvious, from the look on her face, that she felt saddened when she spoke of Barry’s mother. “You have no need to hide yourself once you get past the lobby; however, some of us prefer to keep the human guise in place.”

I was somewhat surprised to know that there were more mythical creatures on Earth. “How many… what are you…” I looked down with embarrassment at my rude question. “Sorry.”

She patted my hand. “Nonsense, curiosity is an admirable trait. I am, or was, I should say, a Gnome. I’ve reverted to my former self only a handful of times since we crossed. I like being tall, you see.”

I giggled.

“There are one hundred and fifty-three of us left out of the original two hundred and ten. Varieties of races are represented, but almost all are civilians and non-combatants. This is one of the reasons you were recruited. Our military elite made the supreme sacrifice for our safety, and very very few made it through with us.”

She took a cleansing breath. “Enough of the sad times. You’re here for a purpose and I am to aid you.”

Leaning backward, toward her desk, she retrieved an envelope for me. Looking to Sam she said, “Once you’ve completed your transformation you’ll receive the same.”

I looked inside and there was a new Social Security card under my new name using the same number as before.

“Won’t the government notice something like that?”

She patted my hand again. “Not really, no. And even if they do notice, as long as the IRS gets their share, they don’t really care. But that is why we have magic, my dear, just to make sure.”

I nodded in understanding. “Um, what about other things, ID and stuff?”

We were led to a room where I had my pictured digitally taken with one of those really bad Department of Public Safety cameras that always seem to capture the worst possible photo imaginable. That was for my DG security ID. She provided a Glamour Charm that gave the illusion I was a normal rounded-ear, blue-eyed, brown-haired girl which was used for a Drivers License and Passport ID. The surprise addition was a credit card which was linked to my expense account for necessities.

I grinned wide at our necessities equals clothes conclusion Sam and I came up with earlier.

Once we were finished with the boring stuff, Ms. Gants — sorry, that was the lady’s name — gave us the lowdown on what we would be doing for the near future.

“Mr. Bybax will be incapacitated until two days hence, recuperating from the ritual. In the meantime, you are to go forth into your fair city,” she said with an ironic flair, “and purchase the necessities for daily living. We have mundane upgrades to your adventuring gear on premise, so do not concern yourself with items of that nature. In other words, children, have fun.”

~O~

I adjusted the glamour to show my blue hair, since, having lived with it my entire life, I was really tired of brown. In fact, the only thing I used it for was my eyes, and once I got some decent sunglasses I was turning it off altogether

Look it up ladies and gentlemen, cosmetic surgery to your ears is the new tattoo in terms of body decoration. Teens were going out in droves to have their ears clipped and sewn back together to look like elven ears. Theirs were more pointy than mine, but the premise was the same. I could brush it off as something trendy.

The Polymorph Self ring wound up being tucked away for future use. I’d just got a new body; there was no way I was giving it up so easily.

~O~

The entire time we were out, I was itching to see what Ms. Gants meant by updated adventuring gear. I had several items that were mundane. Everything I had wasn’t all flashy magic. In fact, the only offensive weapon I had that contained any type of magic was my sword. I reserved magic to necessary things in order to further my occupation and safeguard my life, so it was mostly stuff to aid sneaking around and protective magic.

One of the things about the rules that I wasn’t fond of was that you were only allowed a certain amount of magical items at any one time. Well, you could own them, but you couldn’t use them. For instance, only one ring per hand, one necklace, one belt, etcetera. So I had to get inventive in order to cover my butt. Thus the navel piercing, so I could hang my Scarab of Protection somewhere other than around my neck where my Cloak of Blending was occupying that particular area.

You should have seen the look on my DM’s face when I told him that. Apparently, the boys at DG didn’t take into account the piercing sect of society when they made those rules. He wound up giving me a few experience points for resourcefulness. However that also meant that I had to go have someone stick a needle through my perfectly new skin.

That wasn’t a pleasant experience.

What really sucked was when I had to take out the brand new piercing and replace it with the Scarab. On the plus side, I found out my Ring of Regeneration worked perfectly well. Sam was kind of grossed out the entire time.

Heh.

There was one semi-unexpected event that occurred during my whirlwind attack of the local retail establishments.

“He is not,” I said right before I bit into my soy-burger. Yeah, meat held little attraction to me since the change. I could eat meat; it just didn’t taste as good as it once did.

Sam grinned knowingly. “Take a look for yourself.”

I sipped at my drink while I casually looked around the food court and ended up eying a guy with a Macy’s name badge eying me right back. Except it wasn’t one of those weird, she has blue hair kind of looks. No, this was definitely one of those whoa, babe alert kind of stares.

If I was into guys, I probably would have flirted. It was almost too bad that I wasn’t. It would have been fun. Instead of leading him on, I gave him the not-interested press of my lips and took another bite of my burger.

“Ohhh, that was cold,” Sam said as she was trying to hold back a giggle.

Eventually we ducked out into the parking lot and headed toward the Cooper.

“Excuse me!”

I turned around right before we got to the car. It was the Macy’s guy.

“Sorry, dude, I’m a lesbian.”

He stopped and blinked at me, obviously taken aback at my refusal of his hotness, then he chuckled once and wiped at his upper lip. “That’s not exactly the reason why I stopped you.”

Color me all kinds of embarrassed. Sam grinned at me and then hopped into the passenger side of the Cooper.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Look, you’re exceptionally hot and all, but I’m more interested in the items you took from the store without paying for.”

My eyes widened behind the sunglasses. “Oh crap.”

Like I said before, Ar’ri Bauquinea was a cursed unrepentant thief. It didn’t exactly mean that I was, but something of the curse obviously carried over, much like the curse from the Belt of Femininity did as well.

“Uh…” I set my bags down and started patting at the pockets of my jeans. “I’m sorry. Crap. I know it’s going to sound like total bullshit, but I do this without realizing it. Where did I put it?”

He gave me an odd look and pointed at the Macy’s bag.

With a single nod I popped the back of the Cooper, took the bag and upended it. I was in for another shock.

“Holy crap,” the guy said in shock. “All I saw was the watch. You’ve got half the jewelry counter here.”

Cringing, I apologized again. “Sorry. Really, I don’t know when I’m doing this. Here.”

Taking the bag, I loaded it back up with just the items I inadvertently stole from Macy’s and then handed it to him.

“Can we forget this ever happened?” Lowering my sunglasses I gave him the best pleading eyes that I could.

The guy was frozen in his tracks. His jaw stared working, but nothing comprehensible was coming out, just a lot of uh’s, um’s, and er’s. He swallowed, hard and then licked his lips.

“It’d probably be best if you didn’t shop there anymore. You’re kind of unforgettable.”

I grinned, showing nearly all of my teeth. “Really?”

“Uh-huh.” His shoulders turned to Jello and his face transformed into a decidedly aw shucks look.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I leaned in and gave him a quick hug. “Thanks, James, you’re the best. I won’t forget about you.”

He sighed. “You know my name.”

Stepping back, I grinned and tapped his name badge.

“Oh… yeah, right.” His face was reddening with a flush. “Well, drive safe…”

“Ar’ri.”

“Ar’ri… that’s a beautiful name.”

“Thank again, James.”

I jumped into the car and started up the motor, while Sam was trying to breathe properly amidst the giggling. “You stole his wallet.”

“What?” I looked in my left hand and sure enough, a fat billfold was currently being held by me. Rolling down my window, I backed up a little and held it out to James. “Sorry, I did it again.”

He took it without even thinking. “It’s okay.”

By the time I made it out of the parking lot, Sam had herself under control, for the most part. “Did you forget something?”

I had my bags, and I gave the wallet back. “I don’t think so.”

“You took your glamour off, remember?”

Oh crap, my eyes.

“You just elfstruck the poor boy.”

Humans had a problem when elves consciously turned on the charm. Even as a Half-elf, my eyes were the same as any of the full-blooded. Being elfstruck meant that for the next fortnight no other girl would hold a candle to me and he’d have some of the most realistic erotic dreams starring none other than moi. Eventually, he’d be okay, but in the meantime, I could have taken him for everything he owned. That’s one of the reasons that Elves and Humans really don’t get along all that well. It’s also the way Half-elves are made.

Of course Sam started giggling again.

~O~

We split apart that afternoon to deal with our mundane lives. Gone was my male self, the side that rarely received any respect in any form, the one that was ignored, for the most part.

I bagged all of my boy clothes and the girl clothes that didn’t fit anymore. Granted, I didn’t have very many girls’ things, having only recently been allowed to dress as I wished. I’d collected a few things over the years, but they were worn and far out of style. All of that went to the clothes reclamation dumpsters that littered the city streets for the underprivileged. That took two trips; the Cooper wasn’t meant to be used to haul things.

With four more months left on my apartment’s lease, I couldn’t just abandon it without paying a hefty penalty and losing my deposit. I was still money conscious and I also didn’t want my credit report screwed with; I was using the same Social Security number after all.

So, I wound up clipping tags and hanging some of my new clothes, choosing to use my apartment as a secondary living area for the remainder of the lease. But I did box away any sign that I was once a boy.

It was when I stopped off in the kitchen to grab some dinner that I noticed the blinking light on my answering machine. I stopped and stared at it for a few seconds. It hadn’t even been a full day as my new self and it already looked like my old life was peeking back in.

After pressing the playback button, I sat and listened to the two messages.

“Dude! How’d the weekend go? Any guys pick you up? Hahaha.” It was one of the guys that I played D&D with, Fred. “Lookit, Tom is pullin’ out, you have to talk to him, man. That’ll knock us down to three people and you can’t have a decent RPG with only three… BEEP!”

I shook my head.

The next message, I wasn’t really expecting.

“Harry, it’s your mother.”

My eyes widened at that announcement.

“I don’t really like the way we left everything when you moved out. Your father has been moping around feeling sorry for himself and I regret what I said. You’re right, it is your life, but you can’t expect the people that have been a guiding influence in your wellbeing for nineteen years to suddenly wash their hands on your decisions. That’s not what being a parent is about.”

I heard her sigh. “Please call me. We’re going out to Brennans for dinner tonight. I’d really like it if you’d join us. Same time as always. Bye, honey.”

Looking over at the clock on the microwave, I saw that it was already five, and their traditional time for dinner at the steak place was five-thirty. It was exactly how long it would take to drive there.

~O~

I pulled into the parking lot five minutes late. There was a light out. Being stuck in traffic for ten minutes felt like an hour. Looking at myself in the mirror, I tasked the glamour charm to make my eyes and ears human looking. Everything else stayed the same. They never looked well upon the time I spent gaming, so I didn’t want to freak them out even more with the thought that I’d gone and had surgery to look like an elf.

It was funny when she’d pointed out that they couldn’t just turn their decision making off like one would a faucet. I came to that same conclusion a couple of months earlier, but my pride kept me from calling them and attempting reconciliation. We didn’t end on an awful note. I mean, kids move out eventually, it’s what they do. Ours was just a little more tense than normal, I suppose.

I made sure my blue blouse was straight and that there wasn’t any dust on my skinny jeans from the packing. Ammunition, they didn’t need. Then I made my way into the restaurant.

The host took one look at my blue hair and I don’t know if he wanted to bar me from the dining area or take me home. The look on his face was very conflicted. I decided to put him out of his misery.

“I’m joining a table,” I said as I breezed by him and headed toward where my parents traditionally sat.

It was my father that caught sight of me first. He had just popped an appetizer into his mouth, and then promptly choked. Maybe he didn’t like my three inch pumps, or it could have been the breasts… well, any number of things really.

Without waiting for Mom to notice me, I sat down beside her and watched as her attention moved from Dad finally swallowing to me and my new appearance. It was times like these when I was glad they were both in perfect health, because the way my mother’s face went white, I would swear that she was having a heart attack.

“Hi, Mom, Dad.” I crossed my legs and grabbed a cheese stick. “Thanks for the invite.”

They didn’t get a chance to say anything before the waiter showed up. Again, I was the object of a nice long gaze. Smiling brightly at him, I ordered an iced tea and a trip to the salad bar.

Mom started in, or tried to before I cut her off. “I’m gonna go get a salad. I’ll be right back and you can interrogate me then, okay?”

A few eyes followed me to the salad bar, probably because of the hair. Brennans didn’t really attract the punk crowd too much, so I was an oddity.

My plate was loaded up. The soy burger I’d eaten earlier didn’t really fill the void in my stomach and they had really fresh items on the bar. Why not take advantage of it?

When I returned to the table, Mom’s face was red and Dad looked clueless. “So, go ahead and tell me that I made a bad decision and I look nothing like a girl.”

Dad wiped his hand over his mouth, which was a signal that he was still thinking things over, but Mom had a few words.

“How did you… your hair… and…” I didn’t say they were intelligent words.

“I got the internship at DG. Well, I really got a paying job with them. I impressed the owner so much at the con that he offered me a real job right on the spot.” See how I stressed the word owner?

“Looking like that?” Dad asked with a little bit more than his usual amount of disbelief.

I shook my head. “Of course not. I had my pointed ears on and I was dressed in brown leather and five inch high knee boots.” Turning to my mom, I added, “If you wanted to put me off wanting to be a girl you should have mentioned how bad your feet hurt after wearing those things all day. I might have listened.”

“Harry…” she started off.

“I’m going by Ar’ri now, if you don’t mind.”

“What is that… French?” asked Dad, trying to get a shot in. He was kind of a racist where other countries were involved, France in particular, for some reason. The color of a person’s skin or sexual orientation didn’t matter, but if they spoke a different language then all bets were off.

“Uh, no. Sylvan.”

His brows bunched in confusion. I’d let him stew on that one for a bit and try to figure out what country I’d adopted the name from. I didn’t have the heart to tell it was High-Elvish.

Mom looked like she had a bad taste in her mouth, then she avoided calling me anything at all. “You look very different. Your skin… have you had plastic surgery?”

I shook my head as I crunched down on a crouton. “Nope. It’s all natural.”

“That hair is not natural.”

As far as she was concerned, I was just dressed up like a girl and all she had to comment on was that my skin looked different and her displeasure at the color of my hair. Maybe I was making progress after all.

I skirted as close to the truth as I could. “It’s amazing what they are doing with hair color and extensions nowadays.” Well, it was.

The low light of the restaurant prevented her from getting a detailed look, which was one of the reasons that I decided to accept their invitation.

She pointed, unobtrusively at my chest. “And those?”

I just shrugged.

The next few minutes went by with nothing said. Dad sped up his consumption of cheese sticks while Mom emptied her wineglass faster than normal.

“Well, you look nice,” Mom said to her plate. “Except for the hair.”

I giggled. “Thanks, Mom.” They were parents after all. I’d take what I could get. Dad just grunted. That made me think of Barry’s assistant, and I wondered if grunting was just a guy thing.

“What are you doing at that place you’re working?”

After setting my fork down, I sipped at my tea and swiveled a little to face my dad. “The place I’m working is called Dragon Games. It’s a major employer of the community. I’m in… Special Projects, heading up the division that will be, uh, fighting the competition.”

Meh, close enough.

He didn’t sound too convinced. “You don’t sound too sure about that. You aren’t lying about your position are you?”

I sighed, annoyed that he thought I was a liar. “If you want me to get into specifics about a business that you hate, producing a product that you once said rotted my mind, then I will. I was attempting to put the position into terms that you’d understand and not in tech-speak which I know you hate. You know, kind of like when I really hate when you talk in technical terms about the Bank?”

Dad was a regional manager of one of the bigger banks in the nation. He oversaw forty branches the last time I’d checked.

“Harrison,” Mom warned.

Dad just nodded. “You’re right. Look… Arri.” He ran my name together so it sounded more like my guy name, but at least it was progress. “I told your mother that I wasn’t going to fight with you tonight.”

“I appreciate that. Thank you.”

He gave me a nod. “You’ve got to see how this is from our side.”

“Yeah, I get that.” I really did. “Your son looks like he up and changed into your daughter overnight. That’s got to be a little nerve-wracking.”

He snorted.

“The thing is, Dad, I’ve been like this for a while. From my view, which you’ve got to see, it’s been a very slow process. It’s not every day that a son tells his parents that his whole life has been one big masquerade. I was scared to death that you’d disown me or hate me. So, exactly when was I supposed to bring this topic up?”

Mom took my hand in hers. “Honey, when have we ever shown we’ve hated you over anything? We might not agree with some of the decisions you’ve made in your life, but that’s… well, that’s life. Everyone out there isn’t going to smile and nod with you.”

“I know, Mom.”

Dad looked like he wanted to take my other hand, but was confused about the whole son-turning-into-daughter protocol. “We’re scared for our child.”

I took the option out of his inaction and set my hand on his. “I get that, Dad. That’s why I’m here.”

~O~

The night ended with my mother petting my hair, encouraging me to go back to brown, but we were on much better terms regarding my independence. Again, I would take what I could get.

All that was left on the agenda would be telling my friends. I wasn’t really looking forward to that. Guys were guys. Unless confronted with the reality that their worldview wasn’t simply what went on in their living rooms every night, they were likely to react in a stereotypically male fashion.

They were the type that woo-hoo’ed girls kissing and lesbian porn, but were squicked out if confronted by the same from the other side of the gender spectrum. The thought of one of their own switching sides had probably never occurred to them. I wasn’t too hopeful that they’d take it as well as my parents.

Nighttime had come since I’d entered the restaurant and I was starting to get emotionally and physically tired after such a demanding day. I wanted nothing more than to soak for a little while in the tub and then crawl into bed.

When I stepped out of the Cooper, I looked around like I always do, for safety’s sake.

My night vision had drastically changed.

Half-elves have something called Infravision. In low light they see heat sources somewhat like those infra-red scopes you’ve seen in the movies. I could see regularly for a bit, on the drive home, but the darker it got, the more my vision changed.

One other thing to note: Remember Barry anointing my character sheet with the Shadowdancer class? Well, one of their abilities is Darkvision. Picture the world, at night, in black and white. Quite disturbing. Now, layer that with the Infravision and it was like my eyes were spazzing out trying to keep up. It was all inherent to being Half-elf and being a Shadowdancer, meaning that I couldn’t just turn it off. It was definitely something that I would have to get used to.

The reason I’m telling you all of this is because of the crouched heat spot near my door on the second floor of the apartment.

I very rarely receive visitors, except when I’m hosting game night every fourth week of the month. And of course, there I was without any sort of weapon.

So, I took the easy way out and confronted the squatter from a nice safe distance.

“Who’s up there?”

A green and red body popped up with a white face, and when I say white, I mean exactly that. I could barely make out any distinguishing features among the heat source I was seeing.

“Harry, that you?”

Oh. “Hey, Fred. I just saw someone up here and it freaked me out.”

Well it looked like I would be doing the whole girl-exposé thing for my friends a little earlier than I thought. It was going to be a long night.

TBC...

Author's note: Again, thanks to those that commented yesterday. This is the third chapter and the last of what I have completed, chapter-wise. I'm at the halfway portion of chapter 4 currently. Your comments keep me writing.

Part 3

Perhaps it was better this way. I’d planned on coming out at the next gaming night, but idiots in large numbers tend to have a group mind. That means, if one of them decided to freak out then there was a large likelihood that all of them would join in so the others didn’t think they were weird too. It seemed like nobody could actually think for themself unless they were by themself.

It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the stairs when Fred got a look at me. Of course the stairs were illuminated just fine.

“Dude?”

I looked up at Fred standing at the top of the stairs. “Save your questions until we get inside.”

The glamour was still going strong since the restaurant. I hadn’t thought to take it off during the ride over. I was kind of glad I didn’t. Less explaining needed to be done.

His eyes were glued to me the entire time. It was weird, when a total stranger ogled me, I was completely comfortable. It was flattering to me. But when someone I knew well did it, like Fred, I was nervous as hell.

I was through the door pretty quickly, setting my purse on the cushy chair that edged up against the single loveseat. Hey, I was relatively poor, and I’d only lived there for two months, give me a break about the lack of furniture.

Before Fred had the door closed, I disappeared into the kitchen and retrieved two beers from the fridge. There was no use doing this without alcohol. I’m just glad one of us four was old enough to buy the stuff and nice enough to leave the extras behind.

Exhaling a large breath to give me courage, I steeled myself and reentered the living room holding one of the beers out to Fred.

“I thought you might want one of these.”

He got his first good look at me from the front and to say he was astonished was downplaying the expression on his face. Dumbly, he took the proffered beer, unscrewed the cap and took a really long swig.

“You want to sit down for this?”

His head moved a little. I wouldn’t exactly call it a nod, but he dropped down on the couch and took another swig. I followed suit and crossed my legs, luckily I was wearing jeans; however, his eyes did drop to my heels and my polished nails poking out of the tip.

“Fred?” His eyes popped back up to meet mine. “I’m a girl.”

He coughed while he was finishing off the last dregs from the bottle. Short of shotgunning a beer, that was the fastest I’d ever seen anyone finish an entire bottle. I think some of it backed up into his nose, because he coughed a few more times and rubbed at it for a moment.

“All this time?” he managed to slip in at the end.

There was my out. Considering the gullibility of the guys I knew, I could probably get away with that, but I had a hard time lying to people. I just wasn’t any good at it.

“No, well, sort of. Biologically I was a guy. Now the body matches what was inside.” For the most part.

He pondered that for a minute. “So you’re one of those tranny guys?”

Isadriembor give me strength. Oh, sorry. Elven god of wisdom. Isn’t it weird how I’d fallen to my new Elven heritage for help in not strangling my friend? “No, I’m not a tranny. I’m a girl. Please don’t try to pigeon-hole me into preconceived idiocy, Fred.”

“Uh, sorry.” He looked confused. “Don’t you need to have an operation or something to do that?”

I nodded. “I took the or something route.”

“And now you’re a chick.”

“Right.”

“Can I have another beer?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head in disbelief. “Help yourself.”

Fred returned a few minutes later with two beers. I guess he was looking ahead. “So, uh, you don’t have any… um… I mean down there?”

“No, Fred. I don’t.”

“How, I mean… how can they do things that fast? Six days ago you were a dude.”

Okay, I could understand the confusion. I would probably ask the same inane questions if I didn’t know about the true existence of magic. “I was a special case for a different type of procedure than the traditional gender reassignment surgery.”

“Really?” He kind of accepted the answer but still had his doubts.

“Really.”

He stared at me again. “Are you actually Harry’s hot cousin in town for a visit? ‘Cause that would make a whole lot more sense.”

I sighed. “Do the thing where you ask me a question that only Harry would know.”

He bounced in his seat. “Oh, good one. Uh… Okay, I’ve got one. What’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

“Fred, that’s a movie quote. Anyone could get that.”

He looked crestfallen for a moment. “Right. Uhhh… oh, I know! Who did I want to dress up as, originally, last Halloween?”

I nearly snorted. “Percy Jackson, but I wouldn’t be your goat friend.”

“He’s a Satyr, man… Gah! Okay, you’re you.” He took another swig off his beer. “Dude! You’re a dudette!”

Well that went well.

~O~

The next morning, I locked up and made haste to the Cooper before anyone else stopped by unannounced. My wardrobe consisted of forest green linin shorts and a brown cami. I was going for a woodland look, considering the whole elf thing, I thought it was appropriate. My shoes were downgraded to simple flat sandals. After being in heels for most of the last four days, I felt short.

“Good morning, Miss Bauquinea,” the receptionist at DG chirped when I entered.

“Isn’t it a beautiful morning?” I replied. I was in such a good mood that I wanted to share it with everyone. And yes, I hated people like me when I was a guy.

With a swipe of my ID badge I was through the security door and behind the scenes where I could finally take off my sunglasses and be myself.

I pulled both sides of my hair back behind my ears and then strode meaningfully to the Personnel office. Elf pride… I’m thinking about starting a parade or something. Hold it, Lesbian Elf Pride! Better.

When I turned the first corner I ran smack into a wall of concrete that was playing at being a living being.

You’ve seen Conan and the Terminator… hold on, those are both the same guy, uh… oh, the Hulk, the TV show, not the movie. Well, it was easy to see that gigantic muscle-bound guys actually existed, they’ve just never been anywhere around me. I always thought, you know, maybe it was all special effects or something.

Nope, they existed and I was eye level with the bottom of his ribcage.

I looked up, and then looked up a little further. Oh shit.

It wasn’t readily apparent as to what type of creature he was: definitely humanoid, tawny skin with some impressive scarring here and there. He had a full head of messy black hair and a giant jaw with two thick, sharp teeth jutting from his lower lip.

“Hi.” My voice sounded like it came from a squeak toy.

He grunted and then his head tilted to the side like he couldn’t comprehend my presence.

“Kog, you’re blocking the way,” a voice sounded from behind the mountain of maleness before me.

He really was blocking the hall. It was kind of hard for him not to. I’m talking really big muscles here.

“Is that your name? Kog?” I stood my ground and waved up at him. “I’m Ar’ri. I’m new here.”

“Kog,” he rumbled. “Ar’ri.”

I nodded. “That’s right. Look, I’m kind of in a little bit of a hurry. Can I get past?”

“Pretty girl.” It kind of sounded like he might have thought I would taste good with a little barbecue sauce.

“Thank you, Kog. And you’re quite the specimen of… uh, what race are you anyway?”

“He’s a Half-Orc,” the voice said from behind him.

A hand squeezed through underneath the canon of a right arm. “I’m Steve. Me and Kog are kind of a matched set.”

Seeing the human—sized hand I severely doubted that, but I shook it anyway.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Looking up at the giant Half-Orc, I gave him a stern face. It wasn’t a good idea to show fear to a lot of different races, Orcs were one of them.

“You going to step aside for me, Kog?”

He grunted again and showed me some of his malformed teeth with a little drool dripping down the side of his mouth. “Pretty girl.”

I cleared my throat. “Kog, please don’t make this pretty girl kick your ass.”

Steve’s voice whimpered. “Oh shit. You shouldn’t have said that.”

Before I knew it, there were two large meaty hands wrapped around my waist and lifting me up to eye level with the small mountain.

A long flat tongue raked across my entire cheek and I thought I was going to lose my breakfast right there. “Pretty girl kick Kog ass?”

He grunted and I could see he was amused at the thought.

“Yes, yes I can. This pretty girl kicked Black Dragon ass. Half-Orcs aren’t near as tough.” Okay, I was laying it on pretty thick since that particular campaign occurred before I actually changed into my new body.

Steve nearly bounced. I actually got to see him this time. He backed up enough to where I could see over Kog’s shoulder. “You’re her! Shit. Kog, put her down. That’s our new boss lady.”

Kog grunted, confused. “Pretty girl… boss?”

“Yeah, buddy. There’s a good chance that she really might be able to kick your ass.”

Kog looked me over with a critical eye, even shaking me at one point to see if anything fell loose, I guess. Then he turned in place and set me down. “Kog hungry.”

The muscles in my abdomen pulsed and I stifled a groan. Steve shifted and gave a short wave. “Sorry about that. Kog is like a force of nature.”

Once they had turned the corner, I leaned against the wall. “Epic bullshit. I’m not epic if I don’t have all my stuff.”

That was a lesson that I didn’t want to learn the hard way. Like it or not, I needed to be prepared, and if that meant that I couldn’t be miss girlie girl all the time then that was something I’d just have to deal with.

Ms. Gants fawned over me and provided a wet towel to wipe off the Orc spit that coated half my face.

“I’ve told that behemoth a hundred times to keep his tongue in his mouth.”

Something shifted inside my body in the vicinity of my waist and I felt decidedly better. “It’s okay. I have a feeling he’s not all there, mentally.”

She eyed me with judgment in her eyes. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing you are so forgiving, since he’ll be on your team for your more challenging adventures.”

Oh joy.

“Look, um, the reason I’m here is that new gear you talked about yesterday.”

~O~

I frowned at the supplies that hung on the walls and the racks of the Equipment Room. It all looked too modern. I wasn’t a SWAT girl and that’s exactly what it all appeared to be. About the only thing that I liked was one of the cross-shoulder bags and a couple of the backpacks.

“This utility belt needs work.” I said holding the best example they had. “We’ll be carrying potions with us, so the flimsy pouches are useless. One strong bump against anything hard and I’ll have a wet pouch full of broken glass.”

Ms. Gants held up a finger. “We’ve improved the regular vials.”

Moving to a table she reached into one of the little bins and pulled out a tiny metal vial. “How is this?”

I sidled up beside her and unscrewed the top. “Oh, cool, excellent.” I took several and stuffed them in the various belt pouches, took the cross-shoulder bag and the best looking backpack, and left the rest.

“You’re not going to use any of the uniforms?” Ms. Gants asked.

I shook my head. “No, I’ve got a better idea. Thanks for your help, Ms. Gants.”

When I eventually found my way to the residential suite, I got to work transferring my most used items over to the smaller cross-shoulder bag and utility belt. Rings, potions, and the most useful lockpicks went into the belt, and the rest of my Thieves’ Kit went into the smaller bag. A pair of armlets was slid to my upper arms and a leather thong circlet around my forehead. Those two items were always useful; more on them later.

Everything else went into the larger pack. With the Shadowdancer abilities, the Cloak of Blending was all but useless, so I left it for Sam. It took me another twenty minutes to swap out the glass potion vials for the new ones and to mark them, but it was time well spent.

When all of that was finished, I looked at my watch, wondering where Sam was. It was already mid-morning. I guessed she wasn’t feeling all that pumped to get more things done since she wouldn’t be able to do much considering she was still just an average human with no training.

“Ar’ri Bauquinea.”

I nearly jolted out of my chair. There wasn’t anyone in the suite, but someone that sounded suspiciously like Barry, said my name.

“What?”

“Gnort is coming to retrieve you. Gather your things. Timing is paramount.”

“Uh, okay.”

Rushing to the bedroom, I dropped my shorts and slipped into my leather bottoms, grabbed my top and just slid it on over the cami. I stopped and sniffed. Someone cleaned my leathers. Weird.

Dropping to the bed, I pulled on my boots right when I heard the knock on the door.

“Come in!”

I wore my sword on my back with a harness that secured to the utility belt. Gnort appeared at the bedroom door and I nodded. “Barry called, I know.”

Grabbing my bags on the way out, I threw on the first one, backpack style and the second slipped over my head and rested on my right hip.

~O~

Barry was still Barristix and he was still in the ritual cavern room thing. There was a lot of loose wool over by the wall and he was picking at one of his teeth with a massive claw on his right fore…hand-leg, whatever it was.

Standing in front of him, conversing with the Dragon in Draconic — the language of Dragons -- was what could only be an ancient Elven Wizard or Sorcerer.

Barristix’s eyes moved to me when I entered the room. “Good,” he grated. “Come, Ar’ri. Dá»rdor Faladhen may I introduce Lady Ar’ri Bauquinea.”

Lady? I didn’t offer my hand as full-blooded Elves don’t really like to be touched all that much. Instead, I gave him a nod of acknowledgment.

Turning to Barristix, I got to the point. “What’s happened?”

The dragon sighed which sent a wave of heated air in my direction along with the strong smell of raw meat. “You were to be notified not to interact with your relatives or friends when you left here. I’ve already dealt with the person responsible for not informing you.”

My eyebrows bunched together. “Why?”

“I have already sent some of our people to pick your parents up at their places of business, however your friends will be out of my reach in time enough to save them from opposing forces.”

“What!”

“Manners, child,” the Wizard said.

I shot him a nasty glare and then looked back at Barristix. “I have to go.”

“Which is why I am here.” Before I could ask what he meant by that, the wizard stepped closer to me. “Concentrate on the home of your male human acquaintance you met with, unchaperoned, last night. Set it in your mind as if you were presently there. The more detail you remember, the closer you will be when you arrive.”

He was going to Teleport me to Fred’s house. Oh wow!

“Geek out later, Ar’ri, there’s a job that needs to be done.”

Looking over at Barristix, I nodded.

“Transportation will arrive in approximately fifteen minutes. You have that much time to deal with the minions that are coming for your friends. Do not stay your hand in mercy, for they most assuredly will not stay theirs. There will also be no assistance from your transport, they are not warriors.”

“Great. Okay, let’s do this thing.”

“Concentrate and nod when you have a firm picture in your head,” Dá»rdor said.

I’d been over to Fred’s so many times it was like a second home. In other words, this was cake. I nodded. That static bubble thing I mentioned before? Well, that again, and the next thing I knew I was standing outside the front door of my destination.

A quick look around and I saw that I was unobserved, so I knocked repeatedly and punched the doorbell until he answered.

“Dudette!” He spun around and pointed at me. “See?”

Oh great, David and Tim were there too. All we needed was Tom and we could game.

Without asking for an invitation, I pushed my way inside. “Guys, we don’t have a lot of time here.”

“Whoa!” David almost screamed. “What’s with your freaky eyes?”

Shit, I forgot to add the glamour. Oh well, screw it. Too late now.

Before I knew it, everyone was talking, loudly and at a rapid pace, totally freaked out by any number of topics. With a frown, I slipped off my Ring of Feather Falling, and replaced it with something else.

“Muzak!”

Ride of the Valkyries blared in the small living room until everyone shut up and I removed the ring. I held it up. “Recognize this? Ring of Theme Songs anyone? Short version: Magic is real. Problem: There are things coming over here any second to kill or kidnap all of you. Solution: Grab your shit, a ride is on its way.”

Nothing. Not even a peep. Instead, all three of them were staring at my eyes and ears.

“Now!” I snapped.

Fred was the first to move. David didn’t live there and thus had no shit to grab. Tim skirted waaaaaay around me and headed to his bedroom.

“Man, are those for real?”

David started to reach for my left ear and I smacked his hand away. “Yes, now go help the others. I’ll watch the door.”

Since it was a ground floor apartment and there was only two ways in and out of the place, I was well positioned between the front door and the sliding glass door directly opposite, on the other wall. I unsheathed my longsword and looked at it for the second time since it was made real.

“All right, you and me, babe. Don’t let me down and you’ll get a nice polishing and oiling when we get back, okay?”

I may have got a little antsy and activated the Circlet that was tied around my head. “Carnac!”

It was a Circlet of the Inner Eye. In D&D-speak, for those of you not in the know, among other powers it bestows upon its wearer, I could hear the thoughts of anyone within a select radius if I could look them in the eye. What I was more concerned with at the moment was part where I could tell if anyone was in the general area.

There were two people upstairs and judging how close they were to each other, they were probably having sex. The guys were in their rooms and…

A knock sounded at the door.

…someone was outside… several someones.

“Psst!”

I looked back and saw Fred at his bedroom door holding a backpack.

“Shit this is so fucked!” he thought. “Should I answer it?”

I shook my head. “Get together in one room and stay there no matter what you hear, okay? Maybe grab a baseball bat or something.”

I eased over to the door and looked through the peephole. I blinked at the aura I saw surrounding the blond-haired guy standing on the other side. With the aid of the Circlet, I knew his alignment was Lawful Evil. That was a very bad thing.

He leaned in, like he was trying to see through the peephole from the other side. “Open up already. Stupid humans,” he thought.

That’s when I rammed my sword through the door. It’s a magic sword, remember? Otherwise, I would have probably scratched up the door rather nastily with a mundane one.

“Screw it. Muzak!” What the hell, it might help.

Taking two steps back, I pulled my sword back out and decapitated the single lamp, throwing shadows all over the room. The door blew off its hinges and I barely sidestepped in time to avoid it embedding itself in the wall behind me.

It looked very similar to Gnort, except it wasn’t wearing a business suit and tie. So, Ogre. He had a battle axe in his right hand and charged. I took a step back into a shadow cast by the entertainment center and came back out of a shadow cast by the full sized couch by the door.

Okay, that was seriously cool. Sensing someone else about to enter the apartment, I swung my sword as hard as I could, parallel to the ground about chest high for a human male.

The scream was cut off and I watched as the Ogre turned back around looking supremely pissed off. I didn’t have time to scurry into the shadow again before his axe was coming down at me, so I lunged forward and buried the sword under his ribs and out the back through his shoulder blades.

It was the one good thing about their height. It was almost impossible to miss any vital organs. But the thing about Ogres is that they are very resilient because they have redundant hearts.

I ducked under the panicked swing of his free arm and pulled the sword away while we were about to be joined by a fourth from the backside, namely the glass door.

There wasn’t enough room to get another decent swipe at the Ogre and his axe was coming around for a third attempt. He was going low this time and I leaped into the air, over and on top of the couch, bounding away in time for the sliding glass door to shatter inward.

One of my daggers at my hip was out and tossed at him, nailing the human in the arm, sinking about half the length of the blade

In the same movement I brought the sword around and took the Ogre’s weapon arm off at the elbow.

The axe dropped to the floor and the Ogre bellowed loud and strong, above the sound of the Valkyries riding, while he grabbed at his injury. Another swipe and I opened up his throat.

Spinning back around to face my last opponent, I was caught off guard since he was already gone. I concentrated on the surrounding area and felt him making tracks out front to his vehicle.

Looking down at my watch, I noticed that the entire fight took less than two minutes and we had another eight or nine until our ride showed up. I swallowed and slowed my breathing before taking off the noisy music ring. My ears were throbbing from the decibel level of that magic.

“It’s safe to come out now,” I called out.

Fred was first through the door with a golf club in his hand and his eyes wide. “Is that…?”

I nodded. “Dead Ogre.”

The one human body I could see was transforming. I was guessing those Polymorph rings were like candy for us considering the need for them, and very little magic worked on dead bodies unless it was Necromancy, which I didn’t even want to think about at the moment.

The sound of retching came from the bathroom. Since I couldn’t see Tim, I was guessing he lost his lunch at the carnage.

Bending down, I wiped my sword on the Ogre’s jumpsuit to clean the blood off, and then slid it back into its scabbard.

“Guys, now’s the time. You might want to pillage while you have the chance. Our ride will be here in a few minutes.”

Fred finally looked back up at me. “She so freaking hot right now,” he thought.

David stared at me like I’d just grown a second head. “What are you?”

I smirked and then looked around for the dagger I threw at the last guy and seeing it on the floor by the destroyed glass door. “I’m Ar’ri Bauquinea, Half-Elf and Champion to Barristix the Bronze Dragon. Care to join the team?”

~O~

It was a cargo van with no rear seats and a twitchy driver.

“Are you sure nobody is following us?”

I reached out with assistance from the Circlet and felt for the injured guy that I’d knifed. “All clear.”

We were already halfway back to DG headquarters and I was still being assaulted by questions.

“Can I go home?”

Tim was the weak link. I didn’t have to read his thoughts to see that he didn’t want anything to do with what I’d stumbled upon. D&D was supposed to be a game. He was the only one that stood back when Fred claimed the battle axe and David was rifling through the pockets of the two Orcs. That’s what the other guys were once the magic of the Polymorph wore off. They didn’t find much. The Orcs each had a dagger and one of them had a short sword, plus the rings. There wasn’t supposed to be much resistance after all.

“Not right now. There are still a lot of dead bodies in your apartment.”

He turned a little green when I reminded him of that.

“I mean my parents place.”

I tried to be consoling. “Let me talk to Barry and see what the deal is. Maybe he can work something out.”

Fred was caressing the axe blade. “You can so count me in this game.”

David nodded in agreement. “Should we call Tom, give him a chance to come back?”

Fred’s face screwed up. “He bailed on us, Dude, right in the middle of a module. Said his job was more important. Whatever.”

I shrugged. There wasn’t any love lost there. If you had to leave for whatever reason, it was only right to finish the current adventure you were an integral part of. “You guys weren’t supposed to be dragged into this. I wouldn’t involve anyone that doesn’t have a clue of what’s going on.”

David looked more closely at me. “Damn, those are sweet tits.” He thought. “I can’t believe he’s a she now. That is so incredibly awesome.”

I rolled my eyes and turned away. It was kind of hard to find a time to cancel the Circlet when I was so close to the guys, so I was catching every stray male surface thought when I saw their eyes. Guys think about sex way too much.

“Do we become our characters too?” David asked.

He was a Wizard and Fred was a Fighter, both sixteenth level.

“I don’t have a clue. But I don’t see why not.”

Fred got a concerned look on his face. “I don’t have to turn into a chick though, right?”

A smirk rose on my face. “That’s all part of the deal. How does Frederica sound for a new name?”

David laughed. “She’s jerking your chain, man. Her character was a girl so she is.”

I nodded in conformation and Fred relaxed considerably.

“Majorly uncool, dudette.”

“All of you are nuts.” Tim shouted from the rear of the van. “It’s supposed to be a game. You’re all gonna get killed.”

I raised my eyebrows at him and then looked at the other two. Fred led a boring unfulfilled life like I did. I knew he’d want in. David came from a decent family and was attending community college. It was kind of a surprise that he’d want to join.

Strangely enough it was he that defended our position. “Tim, we’re not ragging on you for being a coward. That’s cool, that’s who you are.”

“David…” I warned. Using the word coward was a little harsh.

“No, Harry, it’s true. I’m not knocking him for it. It’s just a fact.” Turning back the boy in question, he continued. “The way I’m looking at it, is that the world needs people to step up, ‘cause pretty soon it’s invasion time and where are you gonna be, Tim?”

Tim lowered his head between his knees.

“I’ll tell you where I’m gonna be, right up front, kicking ass with Harry and Fred. If that means I die at some point, then I’ll know I went out fighting for my family so they didn’t have to. But if I come out the other end in one piece, then hell man, I’ll be a fuckin’ hero.”

Fred gave a single nod. “Fuckin-A.”

They high-fived each other while I rubbed at my temples, feeling a headache coming on.

~O~

Tim wasn’t even allowed past the front desk. It was like they were expecting him and knew that he didn’t want any part of what I had. They said that they’d take care of him and make sure he’d make it to his parents’ house.

I was a little concerned that he’d spill the beans about what he knew, but then again, who would believe him? If he tried to tell everyone about dead Orcs, Dragons, and a Half-elf that used to be human, he’d wind up with an armful of Thorazine for his troubles.

Once I’d swiped my ID at the door, one of the people that helped drag my stuff out of the Cooper, the previous day, said she’d escort the boys to the suite and that I had things to deal with behind one of the closed doors along the corridor.

I had totally forgotten about my parents. Barristix told me that they’d be taken care of and I believed him with barely a thought. However, it was up to me to deal with the fallout.

My hand hovered over the knob to the door for a few moments while I argued over whether or not to bring my glamour back up. I elected to let it stay down, but I did slip my sunglasses on so I didn’t have to deal with every issue all at once.

The room was pleasant enough, styled a bit more relaxing than a waiting room, equipped with a wet bar, restroom and comfortable seating. This didn’t take away from the one person that was pacing the floor looking angry and worried, my dad, and the person who was wringing her hands while an untouched glass of water with condensation dripping down the sides to form a small puddle on the table in front of her.

“Harry!” she cried as she jumped up from her place on the couch and rushed to hug me.

We’d have to work on the whole I’m a girl and have changed my name to Ar’ri thing after I’d explained what was going on.

“You guys okay?” I asked over Mom’s shoulder while she was squeezing the life out of me.

Dad nodded. I saw the look on his face that was present every time he wanted me to explain myself. He was never one of those fathers that demanded explanations right up front. I’d just get the stare and know that I’d better explain myself or there would be consequences.

When Mom eventually released me, she backed up a single step and looked me over. “What on Earth are you wearing?”

“Sylvia,” Dad interrupted. “I think our… daughter’s wardrobe choices are the least of the issues we need to deal with at the moment.”

I held back a wry smile. Shows how little he knows about girls.

“Why don’t we sit down and I’ll explain.”

I shrugged off both bags and set them to the side of one of the chairs so they’d be less obtrusive. Of course there was no way to hide the sword strapped to my back, so I left it there.

“Is that a sword?” asked Mom.

With a nod I got to the meat of the conversation. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve got to talk to you two about. Have they told you anything about what’s going on?”

Mom looked increasingly frustrated. “No. The only thing we know is that you were in some kind of trouble and they sent a limo over to pick us up so we could be here for you.”

“I want to show you something, not to shock you, but to prove to you that something you thought wasn’t real is actually very real. So don’t freak out, because nothing is wrong.”

“Arri, what are you talking about?” Hey, Dad remembered my name, even if he was still mangling it.

“Remember when I first got into playing D&D and you sat me down to verify that I knew the difference between reality and fantasy?”

He nodded. Conversations were never lacking in our house. We talked all the time, about everything from drugs, to sex, to school. That included my predilection for role playing games.

“Well let’s just say that you were misinformed.” It was then that I took my sunglasses off and pulled my hair behind one of my ears.

I looked up at them, and even with the Circlet, I couldn’t tell what they were thinking because their minds went into complete chaos.

~O~

Canceling the Circlet, I left the room after a few minutes of insanity to let them cool off and regain their composure. It was a lot easier to convince the guys that what I was saying was real when I had a dead Ogre and two dead Orcs for evidence. Dad was convinced that everything I showed him could have been attained through scientific means and my body alterations through medical. Set aside the fact that I looked very different the night before. The Glamour Charm didn’t even work. Apparently that was attributed to micro-holographic projectors or something equally as inane. Suffice it to say that Dad was in denial.

Before I’d even gone two steps Barristix decided to butt in.

“Bring them to me, Ar’ri. It will prove the validity of your claims.”

I was getting progressively creeped out that he could talk to me in my head.

“We will deal with your unease at another time. Bring your parents to me.”

With a sigh, I backtracked and opened the door. Mom and Dad were locked in some sort of hushed debate before they looked over.

“You guys want undeniable proof? Come on.”

Mom looked at Dad and he suddenly appeared very apprehensive. Some people just couldn’t accept anything that went against what they had come to believe was the truth, even if evidence to the contrary was stacked in front of them.

Eventually, he assented and followed me down into the depths of DG.

“I can’t believe that all of this is down here,” my father said. “Aren’t we below the water shelf? How do they stop the place from flooding?”

“Magic, Dad.”

He grunted. “More like advanced engineering, I’d say.”

When the floor started turning into hard dirt and the electrical lighting was replaced with torches, he guffawed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I just let him have his notions to ease his nerves until we’d reached the anteroom to the cavern. After I set my packs down, I turned to them.

“Okay, beyond this door is a really big cavern, and in there is my boss.”

Dad almost looked triumphant. “Finally we can get down to disturbed individual that has filled your head with all this rot.”

I gave him a look that was almost sympathetic, because I knew what he was about to face. On the other hand, Mom seemed to be taking this a lot more seriously. That was appreciated by me.

“Prepare yourselves, because seeing him is mind-blowing.”

“More pointed ears and contacts to make his eyes look bigger?” Dad quipped.

I shook my head. “No, more like a Brass Dragon about twenty feet tall and about fifty or sixty feet long. Please try not to embarrass me. He’s very smart, can understand everything you say, and then some. Alright?”

Dad looked at me like I’d gone over the edge. “We’ll see.”

Mom grabbed my hand, and I smiled softly to her. “It’ll be alright. He’s a good guy… dragon, whichever.”

Her returned smile was anything but confident, but she was trying, that was easy to see.

Without any further ado I opened the door and tugged Mom through. Let’s just say that you didn’t have to look around to find the most amazing thing in the room. She sucked in her breath and I actually heard my dad swallowing with a gulp sound.

“It’s not real…holograms or something…” he whispered.

The Wizard was still there and he turned to face us. Even as far away as he was, I could see the displeasure written on his face. My guess was that he didn’t like to deal with humans on any level.

“Come on. It’s perfectly safe.”

Dad kept up with us while we closed in on my boss.

“Ar’ri,” Barristix said in greeting.

I nodded in acknowledgment after I heard my mom whimper at hearing the Dragon speak.

“Barristix, I’d like to introduce you to my parents. This is my mother, Mrs. Sylvia Higgins and her husband, my father, Mr. Harrison Higgins Senior.”

Barristix’s head shifted to eye them directly. “It is a pleasure to meet both of you. I regret it is under such stressful circumstances. And no, Mr. Higgins, I am not a Hologram.”

I closed my eyes, forgetting about how sensitive his hearing was.

“If you wish to sate your curiosity then you may touch me.”

The Wizard lifted his hand. “I could always morph him into a squirrel. That usually gets the point across.”

I scowled at him. “You could always try. But don’t be surprised if you pull back a stump.”

“Dá»rdor,” Barristix warned. “We’ve spoken about your antiquated views.”

Mom’s hand was shaking until I gave it a squeeze. The ancient elf looked properly rebuked. “Mom, this is Dá»rdor Faladhen. He’s a Wizard.”

“I am a Sorcerer, child. Do not presume there are limits to my ability.”

Turning to my mom, I explained. “He’s a magic user and he’s arguing semantics. And if your powers were limitless then why did I have to rescue my friends and why haven’t you dealt with the threat.”

The Sorcerer’s eyes narrowed, but he was cut off by Barristix. “Enough. I will not have the two most important figures in this campaign bickering at each other over meaningless drivel.”

It was my turn to be scolded. “Sorry,” I said to the Dragon.

“To answer your question simply, Ar’ri, the only thing that is standing between Earth and Qrynn are the talents of Dá»rdor Faladhen. It was he that opened the veil between our worlds and freed the limited few that chose to accompany my mother to Earth. He is also the only person that is holding that veil in place so that only a small measure of the enemy is allowed though.”

“Enemy?” My father was through with his inspection and it looked like he had a new subject to poke at. “Arri, what’s he talking about.”

I sighed and was about to explain, but the Dragon beat me to it. “Your daughter is a very singularly talented individual, Mr. Higgins. Through her devotion to what you thought was a simple game, she has learned the skills and knowledge not only to survive, but to thrive and overcome any adversary.”

His eyes tracked to me. “Once confronted with the true threat of invasion from my mother’s home world, your son gave up his mundane life on this plane and instead chose another, becoming your daughter and my Champion.”

Mom finally snapped out of her fear and realized what the Dragon was saying. “Champion? Invasion?” She turned to me. “What have you done?”

I grabbed her forearms and tried to calm her, but I already knew it was a fruitless effort. “Mom, Barristix’s mother came over here to escape a world that is run by evil Dragons. They’re just here trying to live, like anyone else. But the head Dragon over there isn’t content with just ruling his place.”

“Her place,” Barristix corrected. “She is female.”

I smiled. “Her place then. Anyway, she’s been trying to break through this veil thing and has been successful enough to send enough of the enemy through to start things up. Barristix’s people here are civilians. They need someone experienced to help them fight. I volunteered.”

“You can’t,” she said with a little more conviction that I was used to seeing from her. “You’re just a teenager. You’re not experienced. You’ll be hurt.”

I shook my head. “Not anymore. Look at me, Mom… Dad. He was able to turn me into the character I played when I gamed. I have seriously wicked skills now. Just a little while ago, I took out two Orcs and an Ogre, by myself and I didn’t even work up a sweat.”

Looking over at Dá»rdor, I saw that his thin white eyebrows lift.

“Anyway, I’m not alone in this. Fred and David want to join in and I know there’s a Half-Orc here that could do some serious damage if he wanted.”

Dá»rdor groaned. “Kog.” He said the name with a serious amount of distaste.

“Right. He looks like he is spoiling for a fight. If he wants, I want him on my team.” It looked like Dad wanted to say something, so I faced him. “What?”

We were both interrupted by Barristix. “They both doubt your abilities, Ar’ri. I have summoned Kog. If he is to be led by you, then he will have to be defeated in single combat. He will have no respect for you otherwise.”

I paled. “You’re joking.”

“I am not.”

“What’s a Kog?” asked Mom after seeing the look on my face.

I swallowed a dry lump in my throat. “He’s a Half-Orc. Well, you’ll see for yourself.”

“Well, you’re not fighting. It’s as simple as that.”

“It’s not that simple, Mom.”

“No weapons, Ar’ri,” Barristix said.

With a nod, I unbuckled my sword and took off my utility belt.

“The gloves, Dá»rdor.”

I turned around at the Dragon’s voice and saw the Sorcerer withdrawing a pair of fingerless gloves. He held them out to me. “I insist on their return after your… brawl. They are Gloves of Ogre Strength. There is no command word.”

Salvation! I nodded my head slightly. “Thank you for letting me borrow them.”

He inclined his head at my show of respect. Perhaps we could come to some mutual understanding after all. I slipped them on and then made a fist so that they’d conform to my hands properly. Before anything more could be said, the door opened and the guy from earlier came inside Steve looked sharp in his poet shirt and pressed jeans carrying some sort of guitar.

“Greetings one and all. Kog is preparing for his bout with yon opponent. Where is he, by the way?”

I raised my hand.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.” Steve rushed up to stand over me. “Kid, Kog has been wanting to test your mettle ever since this morning. Are you sure you’re up to this?”

I shrugged.

He noticed Mom standing beside me and then looked back and forth between the two of us. “Ah, and you must be Ar’ri’s slightly more mature sister. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Bard, Steve. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

He was piling on the charm and it was working its magic on my mother. More mature sister, whatever. He kissed her hand and then moved his attention to Dad.

“And your father, Ar’ri?” Holding his hand out for a shake he toned down the smile for him. “Sir, your stunning daughters obviously get their beauty from their mother and their daring from you. Well met.”

The door slammed open and was filled with the mountain of muscle I’d run into earlier. He didn’t look quite as big as I remembered, but he was still easily twice my size in height and four or five times as wide. Kog had to turn himself sideways to fit though the door.

“Begin at any time, Ar’ri,” said Barristix.

I put a lot of distance between my parents and where we would fight before they tried to stop me.

Kog grinned his mismatched teeth at me. “Pretty girl fight Kog.”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

He shook his head. “Girl not be pretty anymore after.”

Summoning as much courage as I could, I returned his smack. “Kog not look pretty any more after.”

That seemed to stall him for a second. “Kog pretty?”

Taking a single step, I leaped in the air and brought my fist down with every bit of strength I had against his jaw. I landed before he could react and spun out of the way.

Kog blinked and I watched as he shifted his mouth around. A tiny trickle of blood escaped his lip.

Oh shit. That was probably a bad move. I looked at the Gloves of Ogre Strength like they were a pair of Isotoners or something equally as useless.

“Pretty girl don’t hit like girl.”

I was still crouched on all fours, ready to move if needed. “Kog give up?”

He moved a lot faster than a person his size ought to, grabbing out at me. I rolled to his left and into a shadow, reappearing behind him. Leaping up, I pulled back and gave him a roundhouse to the back of the neck.

Kog staggered a second and dropped to one knee. When I dropped back down it was into his shadow, where I reappeared in a shadow ten feet in front of him.

“Are we done yet, Kog?”

In answer, he yelled so loud that my ears rang. I was caught off guard by his speed and should have dived through his legs, but instead I tried jumping over him. He grabbed ahold of my ankle and body slammed me into the hard dirt.

Everything went black for a second and then exploded into sparkling lights shooting off behind my eyes. When I refocused on the real world, I heard Mom scream and I saw a fist, bigger than my head, rushing down to end me. I rolled to the right this time and felt the ground tremble at the impact.

My legs were shaky and my arms felt like Jello, not to mention I could have probably used a quick trip to the Chiropractor. I felt something pop and knew the Ring of Regeneration was doing its job on whatever happened to my spinal column.

In the meantime, Kog spun around looking a whole lot like the Hulk, except without all of the green skin involved. His muscles bulged and his teeth were clenched together and red foam at the corners of his mouth. That’s when I came to the conclusion that he wasn’t simply a really big fighter. He was a Barbarian which basically meant that the madder he got, the stronger and faster he was. And at the moment, he was severely pissed. If he got one hand on me from there on out, he’d pop me like a Twinkie, which gave me an idea.

“Pennzoil!”

Those armlets I was wearing? Armlet of Escaping. It basically meant, in magical terms, that I was covered in the most slippery substance known to man. I wasn’t really, but the magic that was shifting all over my body made it seem like I was.

I rushed him and Kog welcomed me with open arms, literally. Quicker than I could move, which is pretty darn fast if you ask me, he had his arms wrapped around me in a vise grip. Instead of staying still and waiting for my fate, the pressure increased and I began to feel the downside to my plan.

Like a greased pickle, I shot through his arms and straight up into the air. Tucking my body in, I flipped over and came straight back down at a stunned giant of a Half-Orc. One more time, I reared back and let him have everything that I had, which was backed up with about a hundred and thirty pounds of Half-Elf body weight.

We both crumpled to the ground.

I heard something snap and didn’t know if it was from him or me until the pain hit.

TBC...

Author's note: Again, thanks to those that commented yesterday and to those that have commented on everything as well. Hopefully, I'm back on track now. I'd expect something about every two or three days from here on out. Your comments keep me writing.

Part 4

“I don’t give a flying crap if you are an imaginary creature from some acid induced hippy’s hallucination. I’ll sue you and Dragon Games…”

“Harrison, shut it, she’s waking up.”

My head was still a little cloudy, but listening to Dad chew out a twenty foot tall Brass Dragon that could feasibly swallow him in a single gulp was something that I wanted to see.

“Honey?” Mom sounded worried. “How do you feel?”

“Mmfine, Mom, just a little dizzy.”

“There, see.” Dad went off on another tirade. “She has a concussion, obviously.”

Mom patted my hand. “Do feel like you want to throw up, baby?”

I blinked a couple of times. “Mom? I’ll be okay.” Raising my right hand, I wiggled my fingers. “See this? It’s a Ring of Regeneration. It takes care of any injury I get, it just takes time. In fact, I feel a lot better. Give me a hand up.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, which wasn’t the best of ideas, but it got my point across. Forcing myself up took a good ten or so seconds and if you don’t think that’s a long time then time yourself. My muscles screamed at me, my right hand felt swollen, and my shoulder ached like it was going to fall off at any moment. That must have been what broke. The ring would take care of the worst injuries first before moving on to the lesser.

“There, see? A little shaken up, but in an hour you won’t see a mark on me.”

Dá»rdor stood beside Barristix, looking somewhat impressed, if I was reading him correctly. I tugged off the gloves and dragged my tired body over to him. “Thank you for the loan. It’s appreciated.”

Looking just a little up at me — he was tall for an Elf, maybe about five-five or so — he didn’t move his hand from inside his robes. “That was a highly calculated risk you took, relying on your armlets’ magic to work in precisely that way.”

I shrugged. “I’ve used the move before. I wasn’t sure I could make the spin in the air, but that was a chance I had to take if Kog could be on the team.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think he is that important to you?”

“Me? No, us. We’re in this together, Aelaes.” I was hoping that calling him Elder in the Elvish language would score me some brownie points.

His lips pursed and he regarded me for a few moments then looked down at the gloves I held out to him. “I said return the gloves after the brawl, I did not specify how soon after.”

The problem with Elves is that they are a proud lot. If you treat them with the respect they think they deserve then they will tolerate you in turn. His offering me unlimited use of his gloves was a show of respect to me. We may not agree on some things, but we both recognized the need for me to succeed. He wasn’t getting any younger, and Tolkien aside, even Elves die of old age.

I gave him a slight bow. “I’ll return them at your request. Thank you, Aelaes.”

The Bard, Steve — I giggled internally — stood by with an impressed look on his face. “I had my doubts. There’s not a lot of people that can go toe to toe with Kog and survive, much less knock him unconscious.”

I cringed a little. “Is he okay?”

Steve laughed. “Ar’ri, he’s probably having sweet dreams of Orcish women and mead so thick you could chew it. He hasn’t had a decent fight in a decade or more. It’s made him soft.”

I paled at the thought that the fight I just went thought was him on a bad day. Looking over the Half-Orc on the floor, his left eye was swollen and red, but he had a grin on his face.

“Well we’ll see about toughening him up a little. I need everyone with their A-game.”

Steve took my left hand and kissed the back of it. “Your wish is our command, Captain.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m a lesbian.”

It was his turn to cringe. “Foiled before I could even try out my best material.”

Looking over at Barristix, I noticed he didn’t seem very comfortable.

“Deal with your parents, Ar’ri. I must sleep. I am still not recovered enough to be of any use to anyone. Tomorrow morning we will meet and discuss what must be accomplished from this day forward.”

After acknowledging him I returned to my parents. Dá»rdor was holding a rather thick candle and talking to them. I did catch the tail end of their conversation.

“Simply light the wick and set it somewhere safe.”

My mom nodded and took the candle from him. Dá»rdor gave me his attention. “I have gifted your parents with protection similar to what we have here. No evil aligned creature, may approach within several hundred feet of this or suffer.”

I didn’t bother asking what they would suffer. He didn’t seem the type to screw around. It was probably some flesh eating curse or something equally as awful.

“Thank you.”

He tried to play it off. “You’ll be of no use to us if you are worrying about incidentals.”

My lips quirked to the side with amusement. “Mom, Dad, come on. Let’s get out of here. Barristix needs his sleep.”

~O~

With a little more bitching and moaning, Dad relented. He and Mom reluctantly left. It wasn’t the end of the discussion, by far, but for now, they knew I could defend myself against seemingly overwhelming odds. I think that’s what was holding them over at that point.

“Dudette, where ya been?”

Fred was kicking back on the floor looking over… I couldn’t believe it. Out of all the things Fred decided to bring with him, he grabbed his D&D paraphernalia. He didn’t go all out like I did in creating a costume or anything, but he had his own special dice, character sheet, and Player’s Handbook, among other sundry items.

All I got was a shrug from David, who was not that far away from his best friend, lounging on the couch.

“Dealing with my parents. I had to fight a berserker Barbarian so that he would respect me enough to lead him on our team, and I also had to kiss up to an ancient Elf sorcerer so he would feel better about being superior to everyone.”

Fred stared on with an open mouth. David actually sat up. “You know if I hadn’t seen what I did and know you like I do, I’d so call bullshit on that.”

I shrugged. “On the plus side, I got these.” I pulled the gloves from where they were tucked behind my belt. “Gloves of Ogre Strength.”

Fred was on his feet in a second. “No shit?” He rushed over and took them from me. “Whoa.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the magic wouldn’t work until he got a power up from Barristix, and considering how long it knocked him out of being useful for two days just to do me, I didn’t know how long that was going to take.

“Sorry, Fred, the Elf that gave them to me is anal, in the tightest sense. I have to give them back when I’m done.”

David sidled up and got a look at the goodies while I took a load off. Most of the worst injuries were well on their way to being okay instead of throbbing away. At that moment I was just sore and achy, but I needed to clean and oil my sword and dagger before showering. I found out that oil smells and doesn’t wash off very easily, so I had to do it before I took a bath.

He watched as I set my stuff down and unsheathed the sword. Fred was still fondling the gloves.

“Is that your Luck Blade?”

I nodded.

“How many Wishes do you still have on it?”

I shrugged. “Not sure, really. I hadn’t used it before all of this started, so it should still be one, but how am I supposed to verify that without using it? I’ll wait and find out later.”

There was one thing about having a current character sheet in front of you when you played D&D. You knew precisely what you had at the end of each adventure. You knew all the die rolls you had to make in order to do something. You knew everything there was to know about your character.

Playing for real meant no die rolls, and only you could tell if anything had changed about yourself. I could guess about different things, like damage points. Obviously I’d taken a serious hit if I was knocked out, collarbone broken, etcetera. The regeneration ring could heal one point for every turn that passed, but how many points of damage had I taken on?

It made me very aware that this wasn’t a game anymore. This was real life. Granted it was fantasy mixed with reality, but still, I could die out there. That thought loomed in my head for quite some time as I passed an oiled cloth over the sword’s blade.

Fred could only fondle the gloves for so long before he set them by my packs. “So what’s the plan? We get a powerup and join the club?”

“I don’t know, I guess.” I really didn’t know. “Barristix is out of commission until tomorrow morning.”

He bobbed his head.

David seemed to be the thinker between the two of them. “What about the stuff? I know you geeked out and made your costume, and magic items. Do we need to do the same?”

Sheathing the sword, I took up the dagger I had used. “Probably. I imagine that they’ve had time to make some of their own things here, but they aren’t warriors, so I don’t exactly know what’s what. It couldn’t hurt.”

“The Ogre’s battle axe is a good enough weapon for me,” said Fred. “I’ll need something to double for my chain mail though.

I shook my head. “Think realistically, Fred. You can’t walk around out there in real armor.” I stowed the dagger and packed the oil and cloth away. “I’m heading over to the Harley Davidson place for new leathers.”

Fred looked puzzled. “A motorcycle shop?”

With a grin, I explained. “The leather clothes they have are really tough stuff. It’s made to protect someone that’s riding a bike if they were to get into an accident. And it actually has armor in all the soft places, underneath the leather. A few modifications here and there and it would serve as decent protection.”

David eyed me critically. “A lot of it is harder leather. It makes noise when you move. That would be fine for Fred, but might not be the best choice for a thief.”

Crap, he was right. “What do you suggest?”

He shrugged. “Maybe something along military lines or police tactical units… which is basically a scaled down version of military grade uniforms.”

“That’s no good against blades,” I pointed out.

Fred piped up. “Magic protection.”

“Hmm?”

“Bracers, or amulets can serve the same if it’s the high grade stuff,” he said.”

“I’ll talk to Barristix and see if they have any premade, if not then we need to include it in your ritual.”

~O~

I was getting worried about Sam, since it was already dinner time and I hadn’t heard anything from her since the previous day. It all could have been solved with a simple phone call, but I didn’t have her number and I realized I didn’t know her real name so I couldn’t even call information or look her up in the book.

After my bath, I chose a shorts and cami set that was something more revealing than anything that I’d ever worn, short of a swimsuit. It was really comfortable and that’s what I was looking for until I was back to normal. The bath helped. I was down to sore muscles and minor scrapes that were pink and quickly fading, even before my eyes.

The guys were kind of surprised at how much of a girl I’d turned into. Fred just treated me like any of the other girls he knew. That was comforting. David, on the other hand… I’d catch him staring sometimes. I don’t even know if he knew he was doing it. The whole situation made me very conscious about how I sat or what I was doing. I mean, was I showing too much leg if I sat a certain way, or was I bouncing my dainty bare foot too cutely. Perhaps I should have worn my hair down so it didn’t show off my thin neck and shapely shoulders.

David was a pal, a friend; that was all. I was still firmly entrenched in the lesbian category and looking at him did absolutely nothing for me. I know, I actually checked him out in that specific way at one time. So there was no doubt. Just the thought of Sam made me feel gushy. That eased my mind somewhat, but I still felt a little uncomfortable when I’d catch him eyeing a body part.

Perhaps the solution was simply to wear more clothes.

For the remainder of the day, I caught the guys up on everything that had happened since the beginning of the convention. That took up more time than I thought. We’d ordered pizza delivery and it annoyed me to no end realizing that a vegetarian pizza sounded a lot more attractive than the traditional meat lovers that we normally sent for. The sad part was that it really was a lot better tasting than the boy’s choice smelled.

Shortly after seven Sam finally showed. She looked a complete mess, but she was still hot in a rumpled way.

“Honey, I’m home!” she playfully called out.

She had stepped inside the room without looking up and when she did, she saw we had guests and froze.

“Honey?” asked Fred. “That is so hot.”

David didn’t look too pleased, but he didn’t make an issue of it with his displeasure disappearing almost as soon as it appeared.

I hopped up and gave her my worried, disapproving look. Since she’d never seen it, I was wondering if it would play well.

“I really need to get your cell number,” I said.

She gave me a curious look. “Why? What happened?”

I waved a hand to the boys. “Sam this is Fred, he’s the one on the floor, and David.” They waved and she waved back. “They’re part of my regular gaming crew. Somehow the bad guys found out about Fred and tracked him back to his place. They made a run on him and my parents this morning.”

Her eyes nearly bulged. “What? Why?”

With a shrug, I shook my head. “Unless they wanted to use them as hostages or something then I don’t have a clue. David and Tim were at Fred’s when it all went down. Tim bailed. These guys want in.”

She took all of the information in and then sat at the table while setting a large gym bag on top. “Wow.”

After standing there for a few moments, I asked, “Where have you been all day?”

Sam blinked and ran her hand through her hair. “I’ve been packing away all of my stuff. I told my mom that I’m moving out.”

Even with the rooms being offered, I didn’t really think of DG as my new home. After my lease was up, I’d planned on just putting everything I had, for the most part, into storage. I guessed that Sam had other ideas.

Fred finally got off the floor and eased up beside me, putting his chin on my shoulder from behind. “Why is your skin red?”

Without missing a beat, she looked up at him. “M&M’s, I hate all the other colors.”

~O~

The office Gnort led me to was a lot more civilized than I had expected, or at least a lot more modern than the cavern where Barristix had been hanging out for the last couple of days.

Though he may have been the owner and CEO of a minor business, the décor would have never given away that little factoid. The only things in the fifteen by fifteen foot room was a trashcan half full of Mountain Dew cans, a large modular desk that held ten computer screens, and two chairs.

While I patiently waited for my Commander-in-Chief, I casually stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong. A good number of the screens displayed monotonous information. Since I wasn’t really interested in finding out how many cases of toilet paper Dragon Games employees went through in a single month, I moved on to things that were more my style.

“That’s the Fifth Edition.”

I jumped at Barry’s voice.

“I didn’t touch anything!” Looking down at my hands, I saw I was holding a gold colored paperweight in the shape of Griffin. At least I thought it was gold colored. From the heft of it, I decided that setting it back down on the desk was the best course of action.

Barry smirked. It seemed that he was highly entertained by my presence. “It’s okay to touch things, just try to remember to bring them back when you realize that they found their way into your pockets.”

I started to protest, or explain really, but he cut me off. “Ar’ri, I know all about Avarice. You don’t have to feel guilty.” When he got to his desk, he picked up the paperweight and looked at it before setting it back down. “It was one of the many reasons that I chose you. It isn’t everyone that includes that major of a flaw into their character. Most choose to pick simple things that don’t make any difference, like biting their nails, or something equally as lame. The others wind up going off the deep end, like accidentally killing their entire family with a spoon and they are on the road to redemption.”

He rolled his eyes at that one. “Anyway, I suppose we need to get to the answers that I’m sure you have numerous questions for.”

Barry held his hand out to one of the chairs and I chose the one that wasn’t on rollers, meant for coasting back and forth in front of his desk. “Did you want a soda? Coke, right?”

My nose wrinkled up a little at the thought. “You wouldn’t have any green tea, would you?”

He grinned. “Being a Half-Elf is a little more different than you thought?”

I shuffled around a little, crossing and then uncrossing my legs, while he leaned over the desk and punched a button on his phone.

“Carrie, would you bring us a Mountain Dew and a green tea, please?” When he got the response he was waiting for, he clicked off the intercom. “Talk to me, Ar’ri.”

I sighed. “It’s nothing that I can’t deal with. I’m a Mary Sue, for Radriemir’s sake,” — Elvish god of Thieves, don’tcha know — “I shouldn’t have anything to whine about.”

“Whining and dealing with something you didn’t think about when you accepted my proposal are two totally different things.” Barry looked me over while I nibbled the inside of my bottom lip. “Are you satisfied with your new form?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s great. Thanks, by the way.”

He shook his head. “Don’t mention it, really. You’ll earn everything that you have been given and that which you desire as well.”

The office door opened which was followed by a girl in her early twenties with a tray. Barry took his Dew and me my tea before she left with my boss’s thanks.

I was desperate to get the focus off of me so much. Talking about me, my faults specifically isn’t something that I particularly like. “Did they tell you that the ritual didn’t work on Sam?”

Barry took a sip from his soda. “Yeah, I’ve got Dá»rdor working on that. He has some research to do, but he says that he should be able to pinpoint the problem.”

Looking at him expectantly, I shifted my head with a curious lift of my brow.

“He said it might have something to do with your devotion to your character. Samantia’s PC isn’t the one she primarily plays.”

I leaned back and groaned. “Does that mean she has to be the Tiefling?”

Barry sighed. “The ritual took a lot more effort, on my part, than was originally intended. I am still young for a dragon half-breed.”

My eyes narrowed. “You’re Barry; you’re not a half-breed.”

With a gentle smile, he shook his head. “It’s beside the point, Ar’ri. I did learn something that will further our cause, however.”

After sipping on my tea, I set it aside, on the desk and listened.

“Dá»rdor learned that by acclimating you to the magic of my mother’s world, I have awakened a channel, for lack of a better word, to this world’s magic.”

“A channel?”

“Yeah, that’s the cool part.” Something of the geek I knew before, at the convention, was slipping back into Barry’s personality. “I’m the first child of my people that was born here, on Earth. My magic was a gift from my mother. My people’s magic is still that of Qrynn. But yours is different. Dá»rdor thinks he can tap into that specific magic in order to gift your friends with their characters.”

I looked at him with a confused face. “I’m sorry. Magic isn’t my strong suit. I’m not a Wizard.”

“True enough, but you can act as a channel for your own people, Fred and David, perhaps Samantia as well. But that is for later. For now, you have a mission, your first.”

My attention span sharpened. “What already?”

Barry didn’t bother with confirming what he’d just told me; instead, he opened up a desk drawer and withdrew an iPad. With a touch of the power button, he flipped it around and handed it to me.

“Everything you need to know is on that directory. You have ten missions that must be performed by the end of the month.” When he saw the protest on my face, he continued. “We need some breathing room, Ar’ri. Lyzax has far too many people on this world. We need to interrupt her supply lines of personnel and help ourselves to what equipment she provides to her people. Doing this will give us time to prepare, time for you to insure your team is ready.”

When he explained the situation like that, I understood. I needed time. I was just nervous about jumping right into the game without so much as a sourcebook to reference. Well, I had an iPad. Maybe that would do.

“The first two missions will be undertaken by you alone. Hopefully, you will have assistance after that.”

Rolling his chair back, Barry grabbed his Dew off of the desk. “You have your assignment. Prepare yourself, Ar’ri. You begin tonight.”

~O~

I was totally immersed in the contents of the iPad during my trip back to the suite. The information that Barry had gathered read like a regular D&D adventure module: background information, layout of the dungeon — or in this case the building, known rooms, and information of known enemy forces that I might encounter. With my experience in DM’ing and as Ar’ri, it looked far too easy.

By the time I’d made it back, I realized that we had a guest.

David, Fred, and Sam were seated on one side of the table and Dá»rdor on the other, looking over what looked like character sheets. After I closed the door, Dá»rdor spared me a glance. I nodded.

“Hello, Aelaes.”

“Lady Ar’ri,” he said with a nod of his head before resuming his perusal of the sheets.

Fred was enthralled with the Sorcerer and Sam wasn’t too far from being so.

“Excuse me, David.”

He looked up and I gestured to the other side of the room. When we’d gotten there, I whispered. “What’s going on?”

“Dá»rdor figured out what happened and he wanted to look over our sheets to make sure of… something.”

My mood brightened considerably. “Really? Cool. Hold on. You had your stuff with you?”

David shook his head. “No, I always leave my gaming folder with Fred. It was in his bag.”

Not everyone was as paranoid about having their character passed around like I was.

“Children,” Dá»rdor called.

We returned to the table and I powered the iPad down. “David says that you’ve figured out the problem with the ritual?”

“The ritual was not at fault, but magic in this plane instead. It is not entirely the same as that of Qrynn. Lord Barristix was able to bridge the difference, however the cost was too great as you saw after your transformation.”

I nodded, understanding as much of that as I could. “And the solution?”

From within his cloak, Dá»rdor withdrew three silver hoops. They were all fairly thin and were inscribed with Elvish runes that were somewhat familiar to me. I could only guess that Ar’ri had seen them sometime in his or her past, probably as a child.

“What do those do?” asked Fred, and then with an afterthought added, “Sir.”

Dá»rdor gave the answer to me. “Barristix has informed you of his theory of channeling?”

I nodded. “Something about using me as a connection to this world’s magic.”

With that conformation, he set the collars on the table. “You three have a decision to make. With these I will be able to create a pathway through Lady Ar’ri to each of you. The magic involved will sample her essence and connect it with your mortal bodies. Through that channel you will be able to transform into your characters.”

Fred started to reach for the one that was closest to him, but Dá»rdor held up his hand. “However, there is a one limitation that I am aware of.”

I stopped myself from blurting out, “Of course there is,” just in time.

“Once transformed, you will be locked into whatever form you take. The Rings of Polymorph will be useless. Meaning you may never be human again.”

Sam started to raise her hand, but realized what she was doing. “What happens if we take the collar off?”

Dá»rdor gave a slight shake of his head. “Once donned, they will be a permanent fixture, solid and unbreakable by any means without killing you.”

“Will the Glamour charms still work?” I asked.

“Yes, for they are simply an illusion. Additionally you will be immune to any number of spells or cursed items that would change your bodies in any way from your chosen race and gender, short of divine intervention.

Sam had the most to lose here, so I wanted to make damn sure she was willing to return to being a Tiefling.

“Have you told them about the restriction concerning the characters they use?”

The frown on Sam’s face was answer enough. I got up and walked around to the other side of the table. “You don’t have to do this. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.”

She looked at me and I saw her eyes were welling up. “I’m sorry.”

My arms were around her, as she buried her face in my chest. “Shh, it’s better that you don’t.”

After a few moments, she pulled back and turned to the sorcerer. “If I make the other character my main, and play her only…”

Dá»rdor nodded sagely. “You must immerse yourself in your secondary character, child. Only then will it be successful.”

Sam smiled. “I can do that.” Turning back to me, I got a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be late to the party, but I’ll be there eventually. In the meantime, I’ll be around to help in whatever way I can.”

Pulling the chair out closest to her, I sat down and held her hand.

Fred was biting at the bit. “Came we put them on now?”

Dá»rdor narrowed his eyes at my friend. “You will become your Ranger. Even though he is human, he will be a different type of human, you understand this?”

“Yep, totally, dude… uh, sir.”

Turning to David the wizened Sorcerer eyed him as well. “And you, you understand that you will be a full blooded Sylvan Sorcerer including the adjustments we spoke of.”

“Wait, what?” I said. “What adjustments? I thought you couldn’t do those.”

David held his hand up to calm me. “It doesn’t have anything to do with my character. The Elder asked if he could include his bloodline into mine.”

Dá»rdor took on a very solemn tone in his features and voice. “I am the last of my race, Lady Ar’ri. My wife left for Arborea soon after our arrival on Earth. We have no living offspring. This joining serves two-fold. Continuing my bloodline through a surrogate and eventually increasing your companion’s ability to better serve you. He will be my apprentice for the remainder of my time, until I join my wife.”

Arborea was a polite way of saying his wife died, in case you didn’t get that.

“Oh, okay.”

“Yes, Elder,” David said. “I understand and I want to proceed.”

It was the first time I’d seen Dá»rdor smile. Granted I haven’t known him for very long, but still.

“Very well. Let the Ranger proceed. I would suggest finding someplace comfortable, first. This is new magic and I have no way of anticipating the immediate after-effects.” Seeing my concerned face, he explained. “He might lose consciousness.”

“Ah. Yeah, couch for you.”

Fred grabbed the collar and almost dashed for the couch, jumping over the small coffee table and flopping onto the cushions. Dá»rdor sighed as I sidled up beside him. “You’re granting his fondest desire.”

“What do I do?” Fred asked.

“Simply put it on and relax. The collar closes on the left side of your neck.” The Sorcerer motioned for me to move to one of the other chairs. “For safety’s sake, Lady Ar’ri.”

That might be a good idea, since the magic was going to be channeled through me. I stepped over and sat down, making myself comfortable. Fred looked at me and grinned as he snapped the collar into place.

The static thing happened again, except this time I could actually taste the chocolate pudding part. I think it was dark chocolate.

Fred glowed briefly. “This feels funky.”

Then before my eyes, I could see his body reforming, becoming thicker and lean at the same time. His face filled out and his hair darkened from the ash blonde it was before to a brunette color with multiple streaks of highlights filling throughout. Before I knew it, the transformation was over and my friend was blinking and grinning like it was the last day of high school all over again.

“Fred?” David asked warily.

He sat up, completely distracted from looking at his thick muscled arms and running a hand over his chest down through his abdomen.

“Awesome,” he whispered. Looking up, he gave us all a wide grin and then sprang from the couch. “This -- rocks.”

Fred’s voice had become a little deeper, but it was still the same in a way. His attention was drawn to David. “Dude, you so have to try this out.”

I rolled my eyes and relaxed. “You’re up, Sorcerer’s apprentice.”

He gave me a nervous nod and rounded the coffee table to take Fred’s place on the couch. “Okay.”

I heard him mumble something to himself. From his body language I could tell he was trying to psych himself up as he sat down and donned the collar. Before he completely closed it, I saw him look at me and then at Dá»rdor. The elder Sorcerer appeared as placid as he normally did, but there was a hint of expectation at the sides of his eyes.

That’s when I heard the click of the collar closing and saw David ease the rest of the way down on the couch. Nothing was said for a few moments, until I felt the telltale presence of magic in the air around my body and the taste of dark chocolate on my tongue.

As expected, David’s body began to shrink, but not nearly as much as I’d anticipated. I said before that Elves in the D&D world were much shorter than their Tolkien counterparts, around the five foot range. David shrunk, but not nearly that much, staying more in line of where Dá»rdor was at. That’s when I remembered the elder Elf’s bloodline was being included in the mix. Of course, David stood a high probability of being taller than the average Elf with that included.

His black hair lightened and then switched to a vibrant reddish-orange, lengthening until it looked like it would touch his shoulders.

Sam leaned down to me and in a concerned voice she whispered, “Are those breasts?”

My eyes widened and I pushed myself up from the chair.

“Ah, dude,” Fred said warily.

Sam pointed out her observation correctly. David had grown a pair of smaller, yet well-defined breasts. It was his face that told the tale even more. It had switched from the hiss square jaw and dimpled chin to a heart-shaped face with a pointed chin. His lips thickened and plumped out.

“Oh, Eá¤rá³lindá«, no,” I whispered. Sorry, that’s the Elven goddess of beauty.

Something had gone wrong and David was, without a doubt, turning into a female Elf.

Then the static of the magic was gone.

His eyes snapped open and he… she sucked in a sharp breath. Her vibrant green Elf eyes looked at me hovering over her with concern showing on my face. She didn’t move, except for running a tongue over her lips. With a few blinks of her eyes, I could see that she was desperately thinking before she said anything.

“I’m a girl,” she said in astonishment. I couldn’t tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing at that point, but when her hand went up to her mouth and her eyes closed, I dropped to my knees and took her other hand in mine.

“David, it’ll be okay. I’m sure Dá»rdor can think of something to do.” I knew it was a lie. While she was wearing the collar she would be unable to polymorph into any other form.

Snapping my head around, I glared at the elder Sorcerer. His face was ashen white, and from the way he was clutching his chest, he didn’t look too good.

“Sam,” I snapped.

She saw what I noticed and rushed to Dá»rdor side, ushering him to the closest chair. There was a sharp intake of breath from him. He reached inside his robes and pulled out a metal vial, quickly unscrewing it and downing its contents.

Turning away from him, I refocused my attention back on David. “What can I do?”

She was looking up at the ceiling, her eyes already brimming with unshed tears as she tried to calm herself. I felt a tug on my hand when she focused on me. “Help me up.”

Her hand was shaking as I tugged her gently into a sitting position. I watched as her clothes sagged all around her body. Proper clothing came to the back of my mind, but that would be later. Her reality was now and possibly forever.

“We’ll figure something out, David.”

Tears dropped down her cheeks when she nodded. Looking down, she grabbed her jeans, at the waist, and balled them up. “Can I get something to wear?”

My smile was sad and placating. “Of course we can, sweetie. Come on. Let’s get you to a room and some privacy.”

Fred backed away with a stunned look on his face as he tried to look like nothing was wrong and this sort of thing happened every day. I suppose it was the thought that counted, but it was an awful attempt.

David’s movement was more of a shuffle since her jeans were bunched up at her feet, but we eventually made it and she waited as I closed the door.

“Ar’ri, what am I going to do?”

Her voice was on the edge of panic and desperation. It was imperative, I felt, that she didn’t lose herself in this, so I mustered up the best speech I could think of on the fly.

“You do what you’ve always done. You’re the smartest out of all of us, David. Now with your… um… new self, you’re even more intelligent. You told me your specialty was Spellcraft. That means if anyone can figure out a way around that collar, it’s you. Now you have the power to do that. With Dá»rdor’s knowledge and power, between the two of you, I don’t know what you can’t accomplish.”

The earnest look on her face told me that I had her attention. I pressed on.

“Believe me when I tell you that I know what it’s like to be in the wrong body. For years I knew that I was supposed to be a girl. It was hard; I’m not going to lie. There were times that stood in front of the mirror and wanted to kill myself just to end the pain of knowing I’d never have what I wanted. But every day I moved on. You just do. Because giving up is even worse.”

Her large green Elf eyes looked at me with empathy radiating from their depths.

“I’m not going to say get over it. All I’m asking is that you push through the now and start that brilliant mind working on a solution to get what you want.” Moving my hands up to her shoulders, I gripped them. “You are a sixteenth level Sorceress, David. You have amazing power and you have Dá»rdor as a mentor. If anyone has the resources and the ability to help you achieve that goal, it’s him.”

Releasing her shoulders, I let my hands trail down her arms as I stepped back. “And you can be damn sure I’ll be there with you every step of the way.”

More tears trailed down her eyes. “I need to pee.”

A short giggle popped out of my mouth. “Okay. Do you… uh.”

David shook her head. “Something got rewired in my head. I have a whole Elf childhood in my brain. I know how to pee.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s a robe hanging beside the shower stall. You can use that until we figure out your clothing situation. You can borrow something of mine, since we’re about the same size now. Just let me know when you need my help.”

She gave me a short nod and shuffled off to the bathroom. When the door closed, I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed.

~O~

“Okay, what the hell happened?” I snapped at Dá»rdor, who had regained his color and didn’t look like he was about to collapse.

“In truth, I do not know. The only change I made was to include my bloodline. From the look of her features that was successful. She closely resembles, my father’s sister. There should not have been any chance of a gender change. Her character was male. This should not have happened.”

I tapped my foot on the floor. “Well, it obviously did. What I need for you to do is to undo it. Find a way. If it means I have to hunt down one of the Elven gods and perform some sort of impossible task then let me know. David is my friend, and I know exactly what’s going on in her head now. I won’t have it. Nobody should have to go through…”

I was ranting and I realized it, so I shut my mouth and breathed through the anger. “Just… just… make it happen. I don’t care what you have to do.”

The door behind me opened and I saw David poke her head out. “I’m ready, Ar’ri.”

Giving Fred a glance, I turned to Sam. “We’re going on a clothes run soon. Want to come?”

She grimaced. “Barry wants to see me and Fred.”

I nodded. “Okay, that’s fine. It will probably be better if I took her by myself. The Cooper is kind of small.”

“Alright, I’ll see you when you get back.”

When I reentered David’s room, she was waiting for me on the bed, sitting there in my gray satin bathrobe that barely made it midway down her thighs. She was simply gorgeous and I had to steel my mind and think of the business at hand.

I waved her to the bathroom. “My room’s on the other side. Let’s go raid my wardrobe.”

She was very graceful when she stood and we made our way through. “You don’t mind us sharing a bathroom?”

I shook my head. “I want to be nearby in case you need me. Like I said, I know what you’re going through, literally. So, if anyone can understand it’s me.”

“Thank you.”

Unlike my voice and Fred’s, David’s had changed radically. Instead of the decently educated, suburban traits I’d come to associate with him, he had a Sylvan accent that wasn’t too far from what you might think of as upper crust British with a hint of something foreign thrown in, like French or Spanish. It was odd, but soothing at the same time.

“Most of what I have is very… girlie, sorry. I told the others that I would take you out for your own clothes. Maybe you can ease into…”

“Would you call me Shae?”

I blinked at the abrupt change in topic. “Pardon?”

I’d opened up my closet and she perused what I had. “Shae, it’s short for Shaeria… David doesn’t sound…” She took a breath and let it out. “I’m not him anymore. I also agreed to take Dá»rdor’s last name to use when we are behind the scenes. Out in the… human world I’ll be Shea Coraer, behind the scenes Shaeria Faladhen.”

Testing the name out, I said, “Shae.”

She nodded.

“Okay. So, uh, what do you think? Jeans?”

~O~

Shae chose a green cami and I found some brown shorts to go with it. Her reasoning was simple. She wanted to blend in and not stand out in the crowd. It was a warm day and girls just didn’t hide themselves on warm days. I changed to something similar. My clothes were a little loose on her, except in the hips. I had much more narrow hips than she did. She also had smaller feet than I did. When she slipped them into a pair of sandals, a brush of her hand over them and a slight feeling of static in the air caused them to shrink until they fit perfectly.

Got to love magic.

By the time we’d made it out to the main room, the only person that was still there was Dá»rdor. Rising from his seat, he took Shae in and looked proud and embarrassed in the same moment.

Shae pressed her hand to my upper arm. “Can you give us a minute?”

I nodded and went to grab my smaller bag. While I couldn’t really wear my utility belt, it didn’t mean that I was totally defenseless. Transferring a few potions and a dagger to the smaller bag still left room for other things. It didn’t really look like a purse, with its numerous pockets on the outside, but it would serve the same purpose. Plus I made it a habit to always wear my circlet and armlets wherever I was.

When I was done, I stood by the door and occasionally glanced back to make sure Dá»rdor wasn’t being a horse’s ass. You can never tell with High Elves. I did notice him take something out of his robes and hand to Shae. From her motions I could tell they were rings, one for each hand and also silver cuffs for each wrist.

Afterward, he took her head in his hands and kissed her forehead. I looked away at that point. Obviously he was feeling a little paternal or something, and I shouldn’t be eavesdropping.

“You ready to go?”

Shae was a few feet away and Dá»rdor was behind her. I opened the door and let her exit while the Sorcerer held back a little. He leaned in close. “Shaeria has consented to join my family. She has my protection, but you must watch out for her, Lady Ar’ri. Protect my daughter.”

My eyebrows rose at that announcement. “Nobody touches her without losing a hand or two at the minimum, Dá»rdor. You just make sure that you find out and fix what went wrong. No screwing around.”

He didn’t rebuke my mild cursing, and nodded a single time. I didn’t second guess his motives. By bringing Shae into his family, he’d taken personal responsibility toward her physical and mental well-being. Elves were very serious about those types of things. Being of his blood originally or not made no difference. In his head, Shae was now his daughter and he was honor-bound to make good on his duty to her. Sylvan Elves had something worthy to teach a lot of people on Earth about responsibility, even if they were asses most other times.

~O~

Because of my wandering hands, I thought it best not to return to the mall and instead I chose some of the better strip centers nearby. We were about halfway there when Shae decided to open up a little.

“Is the inevitable shopping trip part of turning into a girl?”

I held back a snort. “I guess so. I just thought that you’d want some clothes so you would have one less thing to worry about. It’s a big change, even if you get the memory dump of being a girl for years.”

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her stroking her right thigh, almost out of sight. “I know what you mean. In some ways this feels perfectly normal, but I know for a fact I should be curled up in some corner having a mental breakdown.”

I nodded. “I’m not going to say you get used to it, but you can learn to tolerate the imbalance.”

We went on in silence for another mile before Shae dropped the sun visor down and opened up the vanity mirror. She made few faces, smiled, frowned, checked out her pointy ears, and finally closed it before leaning back with a sigh.

“I just had to have a seventeen for a Charisma score.”

I don’t remember if I told you about that particular ability. Charisma isn’t necessarily devoted to how you others perceive you. It covers a number of different characteristics and purposes. For instance: can you make people believe you? Can you gather followers simply by standing on a milk crate and talking to a crowd? Can you be a leader? All of that takes charisma. However, it also takes into account beauty. As sad as it is, people flock to look at beautiful people.

Having a Charisma score of seventeen, out of a possible eighteen, means that you have beauty and a presence that equates to high-end move stars like Angelina Jolie in her prime. Regardless of what you think of the woman, she has the ability to sway others and she has the beauty to make most men crawl. Off hand, I’d rate her at about a seventeen or eighteen on a really good day.

Due to some magical enhancements, I have the Charisma score of twenty. Starting to get the picture of what I’m capable of? I forget about that sometimes. Case in point was the unlucky Macy’s security guy at the mall. When I poured on the charm, compounded by the natural Elven ability to influence humans, he didn’t stand a chance. Thinking about it, I should probably check in on him somehow. I’d hate to think he was sitting at home furiously masturbating for hours on end without regard to his health.

I’m serious. It sounds bad, I know. But it’s the truth. Magic can do some really weird and terrifying things to people.

~O~

I think the shopping turned out to be somewhat cathartic for Shae. Putting her concentration onto something so mundane allowed her to ease into her new gender. It wasn’t too long before she wasn’t asking my opinion on every little thing. She wound up going middle-of-the-road: mostly jeans and slacks, tons of leggings, tops that didn’t show too much of anything, and comfortable shoes. But she did choose a few things that some would regard as entirely feminine. Bed clothes for one; silk was a must. Underwear another; she picked things that felt good instead of simply being functional.

It was very confusing at times.

When I asked if she wanted to get any makeup, she told me only simple things, and when I mentioned jewelry she just shook her head in the negative.

Shae was going to be a complicated individual, but I was more than willing to help her every step of the way.

~O~

When we made it back to DG we had assistance carting the purchases to her room. While she put her things away, I climbed into bed for a nap. I still had a mission to carry out that night, late, and I wanted to be fresh.

When sleeping, I like to wear only a nightshirt and panties, not much else. So you might understand my surprise when I woke up to my alarm beeping softly at me to find Shae curled up beside me, under the covers.

There’s something to be said about the intimate contact of a hand and arm over your midsection, gripping you lightly and the feel of one leg pressed up against yours while another is wrapped around the other side.

Her head was just underneath my shoulder and her breathing was smooth and even.

I didn’t want to move. It was so comfortable and warm.

TBC...

Author's note: Again, thanks to those that commented and reviewed throughout this story. Remember, your comments keep me writing.

Part 5

Once my brain actually engaged, I slowly untangled myself from Shae and slid out of bed. Closing the door to the closet, I flipped the light switch and blinked away the suddenness of my pupils contracting.

“Head in the mission, Ar’ri. Deal with Shae when you get back.”

I slid on my leathers and noticed that once again they had been cleaned. Looking around on the floor, I searched for tiny hidden doors where little creatures might get in and randomly clean my things. Not that I was complaining or anything. It was just plain weird.

Once everything was set and back to where it belonged, I slipped my sword on followed by the backpack and my smaller bag. I double-checked everything and then clicked the light off. Giving a few seconds for my vision to adjust, I exited the closet and saw Shae had evidently wiggled around and was clutching my pillow. With a frown I left the room.

She was on my mind while I went down to the cafeteria and grabbed a small snack to wake me up. She was on my mind as I ran through the details of the mission on the iPad once more to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything important. She was on my mind as I met the person that was providing transportation to the office building that was the opposition’s cover story. She was on my mind as I stepped into a shadow at the ground floor and jumped six floors straight up then exited outside the window of the target office I was to infiltrate.

Then there was nothing but the mission.

The window ledge was six inches wide, if that. The office was dark. Too bad I couldn’t use my Shadowdancer abilities to move through solid matter. Looking down, I made sure I hadn’t been seen, before I dug into my thieves’ kit at my belt pouch and removed a tension wrench and a thin bladed knife.

The insulation was easy enough to remove, which gave me room to work on the simple latch lock. In under a minute I was inside. Hey, I could have been quicker, but it was a weird angle.

There was a bad smell, something rotten, maybe some spoiled Chinese food. Double checking the only door in the office resulted in a dark hallway with night-lighting at either end. I closed it back up and locked it. The file cabinet to the right of the door was moved in front of it easily enough.

If the data on the iPad was correct, the safe should have been located underneath the desk where the chair pulled out. I double checked it for traps. The whole thing was way too easy. I even had the combination for the keypad. After checking the door for traps, I eased it open and looked inside.

Stuff.

Two thick files which I flipped thorough before dropping into my Bag of Holding, followed by a small black case, and…

“Oh, someone hasn’t been claiming their taxes properly.”

I don’t know how many bundles of twenties and hundreds I stuffed into the back, but it wasn’t chump change. At the very bottom of the safe was my main goal. A quick jimmy off the false bottom revealed a large gemstone, from the looks of it, a fire diamond. Judging by the size of the rock, it would be extremely hard to come by on Earth. It took two hands to lift it out, not because of the weight, but because it was so big.

According to the notes in my mission brief, the gem was an anchor-stone for the veil that led between worlds. Without it, they were cut off until another was located or the veil was breached again. What I didn’t get was why it was in a half-assed safe out in the open like it was. I figured there would be dozens of guards surrounding it, not to mention boatloads of high tech equipment guarding it.

Once I’d closed the safe back up and put the chair back the way I’d found it, I looked around the office. The rest of my time was spent sifting through the file cabinet and checking for any other hidden spaces.

No joy.

Covering my tracks was the most annoying aspect of that mission. They’d find out sooner or later they didn’t have the diamond anymore. Who really cared when? However, cover my exit, I did.

Once I’d made it back to the Jeep down the street, I was home free.

~O~

Dá»rdor was waiting for me when I returned. I pulled out the stone and sat it on the cart. He nodded his appreciation.

“Any problems?”

“Pfft. I can probably go ahead and do the other mission tonight. This was no challenge.”

His face turned stern. “Please stay to the schedule. It was made that way for a reason. Do you have the files?”

I nodded and pulled out the two files, handing them over. “How about the money?”

“Distribute it to your people, Lady Ar’ri,” he replied. “We have what we wanted.”

“Oh, cool.” I was distracted at the thought of how much I’d walked away with that I didn’t notice when Dá»rdor slipped away. It was somewhat annoying because I wanted an update on the situation with Shae, which meant that I was back to thinking about her.

With a shake of my head, I closed my pack and made my way back to the suite. Imagine my surprise at finding Sam and Shae sitting on the couch and one of the other chairs, respectively. Sam didn’t look too pleased and Shae just looked tired.

“You’re back!” Sam said as she jumped up and headed to the table where I was unzipping my pack.

“Yeah, it was a simple B&E and a snatch. Took all of fifteen minutes.”

Awareness of the situation wasn’t beyond my notice. Sam had taken possession of my waist, with a firm hand and a kiss on the cheek as Shae scowled from her chair.

Trying to defuse the entire situation, I took out my Bag of Holding and began pulling out bundles of cash to throw on the table.

“Holy cow, did you knock off a bank too?”

I smiled. “Certain things went to Dá»rdor and Barry, and we get to keep the spoils.”

The haul was pretty impressive for such a small job. Once I got them all out, Sam started helping me with the sort. “Why does it look like Shae just ate a sour pickle?” I whispered.

Sam's lips twisted a little. “I found her in your bed, waiting for you to come back.”

With a nod I confirmed that. “She was there when I woke up. Don’t tell me you jumped on her because of that.”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “But… I thought…”

My shoulders dropped a little with regret that I had to actually explain situation. I thought girls were supposed to be naturally empathetic. “Sam, she just got turned into a girl. How would you feel if you’d decided to put on Dá»rdor’s collar and wound up as a male Tiefling?”

At the look on her face I saw that she was starting to understand.

“David went into this with his eyes open, expecting to become a Sorcerer. Now he’s turned into someone that is totally against his nature and he was one of my best friends. If Shae needs comfort with something as simple as sharing a bed, then I’ll give it to her. She doesn’t need to explain herself.”

Sam’s face was going a little red, even above the dye tint on her skin. She couldn’t even meet my eyes.

“Nothing went on last night, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re my girlfriend, even if we haven’t made anything official. I don’t cheat. So relax, okay?”

I received a quick nod in return. With a squeeze of her hand, I called Shae over.

“Look, Profit!”

A bright grin in her direction and her face changed from disgruntled to almost elated. I virtually choked when she jumped off the couch. Remember about her choice of intimate apparel? She was wearing a silky half cami in emerald green and the shorts that came with it were cut up the sides… all the way up. The girl had no modesty. So, my attention immediately dropped to the table before I got caught ogling by accident.

I made four piles, one for each of us and started doling out the bundles once I found out how much was in each. The hundreds were in way smaller straps, twenty in each, and the twenties were in the thicker ones at one hundred in each, so they were both in two thousand dollar bundles. By the way, there were way more hundreds than twenties.

“That’s twelve apiece in the hundreds. Shae, would you break down the remainder evenly for me.” It was the odd one out. “And that leaves six bundles apiece of the twenties. Sam, if you wouldn’t mind?”

There was a single one out of the twenties as well that had to be broken down, which she quickly took. “A hundred and fifty grand is not too bad of a take.”

Once Shae finished separating hers and adding it to the four piles she looked up at me. “This should be yours. You’re the one that did all the work.”

Sam’s counting slowed down and she sighed. “She’s right.”

I picked up my portion and pulled it to me. “This is mine, and I would highly suggest you take yours, or my klepto side might get ideas. You guys have given up a lot to be here. Consider this the beginning of your compensation. Night.”

Standing up I snatched one of the finished piles of twenties that Sam was working on and made my way to my bedroom. Not really knowing where to put it, since I didn’t have a safe, I opened one of the bottom drawers to my dresser and started lining the bottom. Setting aside a few single hundreds and a good portion of the loose twenties for mad money, I shut the drawer and stuffed the rest in my smaller bag.

~O~

The next morning I found myself in a familiar position, sort of. The comfortable warmth was there again, except this time it was all down my front and since I was lying on my left side, that meant I was spooning someone. Cracking a single eye open I spotted short wavy hair which meant that Shae had found her way into my bed again and the soft, but firm mass of flesh in my grasp was her right breast.

As slow as I could, I let go and pulled my hand away, then dropped out of bed. If sharing my bed was going to become a habit then we needed to have a talk about suitable clothing for bedtime. I ducked into my closet and gave my leathers a wary look before leaning in and sniffing them. Still fresh.

I’d only worn them for a couple of hours the previous night so it wasn’t like I was expecting them to be rank or anything.

A gray-blue trapeze tunic and black leggings sounded comfortable for the morning, I grabbed the proper boots on the way out and made for the shower. Afterward, I plugged in my hair drier heard a soft knock on the door that led to the bedroom.

I had on a bra and my leggings so I was covered enough. “I’m decent.”

Shae entered and gave me an embarrassed smile as she made her way to her room.

~O~

By the time I had my hair dry, Shae was out of the shower, dressed, in dark slacks, conservative button down, and comfortable flats. Her hair was dry and perfectly tossed. Okay, I was jealous. I had to work on mine to get it to look good; she just had to wave her hand and *poof* salon style hair.

“Are there any plans today?” Shae asked.

“Yeah, another mission for me this afternoon.” I paused for a minute. “Do you feel like doing anything mundane today? I know you had college…”

She shook her head and looked away. “I need to think about it for a little while. A Glamour charm could get me through classes, but I don’t know if a degree in English is for me anymore.”

“I get that.” With my duties to DG and Barry, I’d found what I wanted to do more than anything in the world. “Why don’t you spend some time with Dá»rdor and see if this is something that you’re really interested in doing all the time.”

Taking my smaller bag, I transferred a few necessities over while we talked. Shae leaned against my dresser and flipped her hair out of her eyes with a really natural gesture.

“They kind of need me, Ar’ri. There’s nobody that’s talented enough to be Barry’s Sorcerer. Once Dá»rdor passes, the protections he has that keep the veil in place between the worlds will fall. If there’s nobody there to replenish them…”

I blinked and finally understood the whole apprentice thing. “He’s going to be training you to take his place?”

Shae nodded. “I want to do it, so don’t get that look on your face. Nobody’s using me. I’d just rather have done it in a male body.”

Looking at her, I wouldn’t have guessed that she’d been anything but a natural girl, all of her life. If it wasn’t for her gigantic irises she’d even looked human, since her hair was so thick that it covered her Elf ears.

“How are you doing?”

Her eyes ticked to me briefly before finding something else to concentrate on. “I think the thing I’m most disturbed about is how I’m taking this.”

She brought a hand up to her forehead. “There’s so much going on in my head, two totally different lives.”

Shae laughed but not in a good way. “I remember playing with other Elf girls and teasing the Elf boys. I remember my first crush when I was eighty something years old. How fucked up is that? Eighty years old and still not an adult, but I remember it all.”

I gave a sardonic grin. “I’m right there with you.”

Her face softened. “Yeah, you are.” Then her hands moved over her hip and then up her torso. “The thing I’m conflicted about most is this body. Everything feels so right and so wrong at the same time.”

A slight blush rose on her face and her arms crossed under her breasts, then she went silent.

Once my bag was safely secure over my shoulder, I moved in. “Maybe it would help if you didn’t fight it.” Shae’s look of mild betrayal told me I’d said the wrong thing. “I don’t mean give in and not try to find a way back to a guy’s body. What I meant to say was, right now in your head, you are more girl than guy. You’re twenty-one, right?”

She nodded.

“There, you have over a hundred years of memories and experiences, in comparison, as a female Elf. It’s overwhelming. Don’t fight it. I’m not saying give in, but I will say don’t be ashamed that you automatically know how to look gorgeous like you do now.”

Shae’s eyes dropped and her face blushed even more.

“Just go with what feels natural. There’s nothing wrong with exploring alternatives and nobody is going to give you crap about it.”

“Fred will,” she said.

I snorted. “Fred didn’t treat me any different. Well, other than additional eye candy, but that’s beside the point. He’s not being mean or derogatory to me. He just calls me dudette instead of dude.”

~O~

The conversation wasn’t a cure-all. I could still see that Shae was conflicted, but it looked like she was trying to relax the David side of her personality. The only thing that would make it better was time or a miracle on Dá»rdor’s part.

All four of us went to breakfast together. Fred looked like he was in heaven, surrounded by three beautiful women. While I was asleep before the previous day’s mission, Sam and he went out to procure him some decent clothes, so it was easy enough to go to a public restaurant.

Sam had noticeably inserted herself between Shae and me in the semi-circle booth we sat at. As a result, Shae excused herself after ordering and made a trip to the restroom. When she returned, Fred was encouraged to scoot around while she sat directly across from me. What I didn’t know was whether it was because she didn’t want to sit next to Sam or if it gave her access to occasionally touch me with her foot from under the table.

The whole situation was becoming increasingly uncomfortable for me. From the disgruntled looks Shae sometimes gave Sam to the fact that she returned to my bed the previous night, I was fairly confident that there was an attraction toward me on her part.

I spent most of the meal thinking about whether or not I’d inadvertently given her the whammy in same way I’d done to the Macy’s guy. She didn’t seem Elfstruck, but then again she was an Elf herself. And then again, I remembered that David was doing the scowl thing to Sam before he’d been changed. Perhaps it was a holdover from her male self.

Either way, Sam had her left hand possessively on my thigh throughout the time we were there. I wondered if I’d whammied Sam! She didn’t have any protection at all.

With a sigh, I ended my meal even more confused than when I began.

~O~

When we got back to DG, I was summoned to Barry’s office. Shae went to find Dá»rdor, while Sam accompanied Fred to get outfitted with goodies.

The door was open and Barry was typing away on a keyboard.

“Knock knock,” I said at the door.

He waved me though. “Just one moment, Ar’ri, I need to finish this thought.”

A cup of green tea was waiting for me on the desk beside the chair I was in the last time I was there. From what I could tell, he was working on the Fifth Edition of the D&D source-books. Since the Fourth still hadn’t even come out, I didn’t know why.

With a click clack flourish on the keyboard, Barry spun around in his chair and smiled. “Your first mission went very smoothly last night.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Almost anyone could have done that job. Why did you wait for me?”

He shrugged. “Because it needed to be accomplished at a certain time, by a certain person. You.” He finished off the last dregs of a Mountain Dew and tossed the crushed can into the trash bin. “It went smoothly because you are currently the best at your job. Sure I could have sent someone else, but then they might have accidentally alerted the security on guard. If that had happened with you, I have no doubt that you could have handled yourself.”

I wasn’t so sure that was the reason, but whatever made him feel better, I guess. “The job tonight looks a little more challenging.”

Taking the iPad out of my bag, I powered it up.

“It should. Do you feel okay about it?”

With a shrug, I looked at the layout of the opponent’s lair. “We’re talking about sabotaging a Wizard’s den. I’d really like Shae as backup, but it’s a one person job. At this moment, I don’t know that she’d be able to keep up. She’s dealing with a lot.”

“How about the security? Killing someone in defense of your friends is one thing…”

I held up a hand and then tapped my circlet. “If they are Lawful or Chaotic Evil then I don’t have a problem.”

More alignment talk, sorry. Think of Lawful Evil as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood or maybe Darth Vader. They like things nice and neat, rules, laws, order. Then think of Chaotic Evil being someone like Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter fame. He likes to inspire rampant fear for no other reason than he gets off on it. It’s a little overly simplistic, but the description works.

“And if they are Neutral Evil?” he asked.

“Then they’re probably just a minion, but if they get in my way, it’s not an issue.”

Barry nodded thoughtfully. “Make sure to see Dá»rdor before you leave. He’ll have a couple of trinkets that should come in handy.”

After setting my tea back down, I crossed my legs and eyed him critically. “You know about what happened to David?”

He didn’t twitch at all, not even a change of expression. “I do.”

“No comment? Nothing to add? Just I do?”

Barry’s hands spread, palms up and out. “What would you have of me, Ar’ri? Magical accidents happen all the time. You yourself were victim of two such occurrences.”

I didn’t know if it was me, but his mode of speaking sounded a little off, more formal. “Did you know that it was going to happen?”

His lips ticked to the side for a moment. “Why would you expect me to have advanced knowledge?”

I smiled, knowingly. “Because you seem to be aware of a lot.” Leaning forward, I interlaced my fingers and rested my elbows on my knee. “Why did you pick me? Out of all the gamers in the world, me?”

“It’s a little late in the game for questions like this, Ar’ri.”

With a shrug I leaned back again. “Call me curious, and I’d appreciate you ending the deflections. It’s obvious you’re hiding something.”

Barry considered me for a moment. “Very well. When we started this, back in that hotel suite, I told you that my mother was a seer of some regard, that she had visions of Lyzax coming to Earth.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“The gift has been passed on to me. I have known you to be my champion for the better part of ten years. I also know those that will join your party. I know that Shaeria will never return to her male form even as I know, given this information, she will never cease in her attempts to seek out a method to do so.”

My throat almost hurt when I swallowed.

“What went wrong?”

There was sadness in his eyes. I don’t know if it was for me or Shae. “Dá»rdor’s blood was necessary in adjusting the collar to include a successful transition to his bloodline.”

I figured as much. “He’s male, that doesn’t explain…”

Barry cut me off with the answer. “However his twin sister is not.”

I blinked and shook my head. “What?”

He sighed and hooked a leg up on his knee. “Dá»rdor had a twin. You should know that is highly unusual amongst High Elves. Here on Earth Twins of different sexes are simply minor oddities; they share similar genetic structures, as any brother and sister would. High Elves are different.”

My mind drifted off to Ar’ri’s childhood and his lessons. Twins, even brother and sister are always created from the same split egg, and they were exactly the same. There were never any differences between those born together except for their sexual organs. A pair of brother-sister twins was even rarer, because they were the exception to the rule one being male and the other female. In effect they were the same person split into two similar bodies.

I know I’m not explaining this scientifically right, because science doesn’t take magic into account. Think of it this way. Dá»rdor’s genetic structure was already set up to be half male and half female. David was unlucky and wound up with the female portion. If they tried again, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he could wind up male, but with the collar affixed to his Shae’s neck, there were no second chances.

One other thing of note: if Dá»rdor had a sister, and had no more living family, then she was dead.

“Is that why he looked like he was having a heart attack last night?”

“Likely.”

I nodded in understanding. “So the memories that Shae has…”

“Are the genetic memories of his sister up until her current age.”

It felt like my head was going to explode from the revelations. “What else?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What else haven’t you told me?”

Barry stood up and crossed the floor to look out of his window. “The future is static, Ar’ri. Knowledge will not help you change what will be. This isn’t a scene from a movie or a book. Are you sure you wish to know the future? Are you sure you wish to know which of your friends die first?”

My chest ached. “I can tell them to leave. I’ll kick them out.”

“It won’t work. My mother thought as you did and look where she is.”

I stood up in a rage. “There’s no such thing as fate. I make my own destiny. Me, nobody else.”

He turned around with that sad look on his face again. “Believe what you must Ar’ri Bauquinea. It changes nothing.”

“Then what’s the point? How can you go on living if you know exactly what’s going to happen?”

He shook his head. “I don’t. Oh, I know many things, but not everything. I know that Samantia will become her female Tiefling. I know that you and Shaeria will become lovers, I know that your friend Fred will be the father of Samantia’s only child before he dies at the…”

“Shut up!” I covered my ears and closed my eyes. “Shut up!”

Blood was rushing through my veins at a frantic pace so much that I could hear the pounding of my heart and nothing else. Barry grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands away.

“I’ll say no more.”

Shaking my head, I said. “You’re wrong. I’ll just get Dá»rdor to make Fred a Ring of Regeneration. Then he can’t be killed.”

He sighed. “The ring is not foolproof as you well know. Decapitation or being injured bad enough while not wearing it will end someone’s life. Besides the method of its creation is not… pleasant. Someone of Good alignment cannot participate in the making.”

While I knew he was telling the truth, I also knew that I wasn’t going to sit by and do nothing. “Then I’ll find another way. Oh, and you’re wrong about Sam. She won’t be a half-demon. She’s already said so.”

Barry released my wrists and clasped his hands behind his back. “Patience is not one of her virtues, Ar’ri.”

~O~

The walk to Dá»rdor’s rooms wasn’t one that I was happy to make. The Sorcerer had a lot to answer for and not just for lying to me. However, I did have a mission to complete and he had… trinkets.

His rooms lay below, not too far away from the cavern room where I’d become who I current was. I suppose it was a home away from home for the Elf. No power, no technology, just a room carved out of solid rock.

The door was sturdy and it was also locked. A few slams of my hand on its surface and it was answered.

“Ar’ri,” Shae said with a smile. “You won’t believe his lab. It’s…” she giggled. “Unbelievable.”

Before I knew it, Dá»rdor was behind Shae. “Lady Ar’ri. How may I be of service?”

My eyes went cold when I saw him. “Barry said you have something for me, for my mission.”

Shae looked at me curiously.

“A moment, if you would,” he said before retreating into the darkness.

When he was gone, Shae leaned in. “What’s wrong. I know that look.”

I shook my head. “I need to talk to him alone, for just a minute.”

Her delicate brow furrowed. “What happened?”

“I can’t say… or I can say, but it’s not for me to say.”

“You’re talking in riddles, Ar’ri. What’s the big deal?”

I pressed my lips together and started to tell her the truth, but the Sorcerer showed back up, holding out his hand. “A Ring of Invisibility and a scroll for your mission. The blast radius of the Fireball is twenty yards. Please make sure you are well out of range before activating the contents. Return the ring tonight. It’s the only one I have.”

The ring went into one of the outside pouches and the scroll case into the bag. “I need to talk to you, alone.”

Shae gave me a disgruntled look for being uninvited, but Dá»rdor looked agreeable. “Will the hallway suffice? I have protections on my lab that prevent… thieves inside. No offense.”

“Hall’s fine.”

Dá»rdor gave Shae and expectant look and he reluctantly stepped back while he closed the door.

“Can she hear us?” I asked.

“No, the door is soundproof.”

“Good.” I stepped into his personal space and glared at him. “If you ever lie to me again when I ask you a question, I will personally make your life a living hell.”

Something sour made its way to the sorcerer’s face.

“You knew exactly what happened and why it happened with that collar. You will tell Shae and quit dicking around, or so help me Dá»rdor, in Legá¡rith’s name, I will have justice for your deception. Do we have an understanding?”

His eyes left mine and dropped to the side with a single nod of his head.

Stepping back, I tugged my tunic down and tried to ease off the anger I was showing. “By tonight, before I return. You have that long. I thought you were honorable, Dá»rdor. Your vanity has doomed an innocent to a lifetime of unimaginable pain. Do you know what it’s like to be trapped in a body that you know you do not belong in?”

Pointing at myself, I kept my voice low and even. “I do. Make it right. That’s not a request.”

Without waiting for a reply, I spun on my heel and made my way back up to the suite.

~O~

“Somebody’s in a bad mood,” Fred said as I entered my room with no more than a nod in their direction.

I made a beeline to my closet and started stripping along the way. Sam was in my room before I even had a chance to grab my leathers.

“What happened?”

It took restraint to hold back, but I did manage it. “I can’t talk about it right now. When I get back, I can.”

A worried look dropped over her face. “It’s the mission. It’s dangerous.”

“No… well, yeah, but that’s not it.” I stopped. “Look, I really want to tell you, but it’s not my story to tell.”

Sam didn’t seem too mollified. “Is this about that girl? I know she slept with you last night.”

“What?” I shook my head in disbelief. “Sam, you need to get over yourself. Shae is innocent in all of this. I told you I wouldn’t cheat on you and that should be enough.”

Apparently I didn’t explain that very diplomatically. The next thing I knew, Sam’s face turned red and she stormed out of the room.

“Great, just what I needed.”

I stood there for a few moments trying to breathe through the madness of the last twelve hours. “This isn’t anything like D&D,” I said to myself as I donned the leathers. “I should have just done this by myself. I shouldn’t have brought the others in.”

Grumbling throughout the bedroom, I prepared for the afternoon: sword, potions, scroll, weapons, rings; everything was in its place and secure.

I decided against sticking around and dealing with the soap opera type drama that was going on and made my way out. Imagine my surprise when I found Sam and Fred on the couch trying to eat each others face. She was straddling his lap, grinding her hips into his, and Fred’s hands were securely on Sam’s butt, squeezing and encouraging her actions.

My throat tightened up and I felt my eyes burn at the shock of seeing the betrayal, not only from my pseudo-girlfriend but from one of my best friends. It wasn’t like they were even trying to hide it.

“Get out,” I growled.

Fred was the only one that jumped. I saw the surprise on his face and the realization of what he was doing. Sam just scowled at me. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, get out. Get your shit and get out, both of you. If you want to play 90210 then go play it somewhere else.”

She stood and pointed an accusing finger at me. “So you can have sex with your new girlfriend and I can’t even have a kiss? Doesn’t feel good, does it?”

Fred’s head was bouncing back and forth between us. His face was red and guilty looking, but he wasn’t saying anything.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The door, behind me, opened and Shae came in. Her face was blotchy and her eyes swollen with tears. I cringed. Talk about timing. She saw me and nearly raced to my arms.

“It was all a lie!” she cried into my neck.

“Shhh.” I rubbed her back. “It was a mistake. He got overconfident and made a mistake.”

Shae’s arms tightened around me. “I don’t want to be a girl forever.”

I didn’t know what to say to that and only stood there and led her, whispering platitudes and trying my best to calm her. Before I realized it, Sam and Fred were standing there, concern written on their faces and most likely curiosity about what we were talking about.

While I petted at Shae’s hair, I explained. “It was Dá»rdor’s blood. He had a twin sister that died back on Qrynn. He thought that he was making himself a son of sorts and instead it turned David into his sister. Now she’s stuck.”

I pulled back and pried Shae off of me to look her in the face. “But you’re going to change that aren’t you?”

Her face was a mess. She sniffed. “It’s no use. There’s nothing that can take the collar off.”

I cocked my head to the side and tried to manage a smile. “If it can go on then it can come off. You just have to figure out how. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, Shae. Now that you’ve been powered-up you’re even smarter. You’ll find a way.”

Getting an idea, I thumbed back to my room. “Now, go get cleaned up. You’re going on the mission with me.”

She blinked her red eyes and then looked at what I was wearing, then nodded and rushed to the room. When the door was closed I turned back to Sam and Fred.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think…” Sam said.

“No, you didn’t. You just decided that I was cheating on you and damn any other possibility. Well, that’s over with. You got your wish.” Giving my attention to Fred, I started in on him. “And you. What the fuck, Fred? This isn’t a damn game. I thought you knew that.”

I sighed in muted anger. “Until you two can take this seriously, I want you out of here. This isn’t the place for a teen melodrama. This is my life and everyone’s on Earth. If you want to act this way then take it somewhere else. Either way, I don’t want to see either of you right now, so get out.”

Leaving them there, I returned to my room to see the connecting door open between the two bedrooms. I stopped off at my closet and retrieved the Cloak of Blending. While I had an invisibility ring, Shae didn’t. It would help her stay in the shadows. I forgot what kind of spells she knew as a Sorceress. At sixteenth level, I was sure she knew an invisibility spell, but why waste it on something like that if she didn’t have to.

Magic users, in the game, had a limited amount of energy to use. It was comparable to a rechargeable battery. The older and more experienced they were the more powerful and knowledgeable they became. So, Shae could hold her own quite well, but I didn’t see the need of wasting her energy if it wasn’t needed.

When I made my way through the bathroom, I saw Shae at her perfectly made bed, changing into what looked like a body stocking but a lot thicker. Considering all that she was wearing was a sports bra and tiny panties, I got to see almost everything there was to see. My eyes darted away while I waited.

“You can look. I don’t mind.”

I still couldn’t lay my eyes directly on her. Picking a point over her shoulder, I concentrated my vision on that particular spot. “Where did you get the outfit?”

“It was in my closet along with some other things. I guess… he had it delivered. Do you like it?”

My gaze drifted back down to see her body encased in the stretchy non reflective fabric that hugged every square inch of Shae’s body. My face heated up and then I just barely stopped the stupid look from appearing on my face.

“It’s… um… nice.” Holding out the cloak I said, “I thought you could use this.

“Is that your Cloak of Blending?”

I nodded.

“Thank you, Ar’ri. That’s sweet of you.”

She swung the gray-colored cloak around her shoulders and then pulled the hood up.

Barry’s words came back to me. I know that you and Shaeria will become lovers. I licked my lips and retreated further into the bathroom. “I’ll just wait for you in my room.”

“Okay,” she said with a smile as she turned to the mirror above her dresser to see how she looked.

I was wringing my hands together about ten minutes later. Shae stood at the bathroom door. The addition of laced up knee boots, a utility belt at her waist, and little bits of jewelry, which I assume served some magical purpose, adorned her wrists and fingers.

“I’m ready.”

I abruptly stood, taking her in. “You feel up to this?”

Her hood was back and she brushed the hair out of her face, but quickly nodded. “Uh-huh.”

With a confirming grin, I motioned to the door. “Okay, let’s do it.”

The suite was empty, but I saw Fred’s pack that he’d brought with him from his apartment still on the floor by the coffee table. That pretty much told me he had every intention of returning. Sam, I wasn’t so sure about. Even with Barry’s prediction that she’d be assuming her Tiefling character and bearing Fred’s child, I wasn’t all that confidant.

By the time we’d made it to our transportation, I noticed that we were still very early. It didn’t really matter, I still had to go over the mission particulars with Shae and adjust it for two people. This wasn’t anything new to me. Like I’ve mentioned a few times, I’ve been DM for several games, and that’s one of the things that you have to do, adjust for more or less people in the campaigns. This was simply doing it from the other side.

Our driver didn’t seem too surprised to see us and in a couple of minutes we were on our way.

The thing about this particular mission, that I wasn’t too thrilled about, was that its timing was in the middle of the day. Being that this is not a fantasy game, I had to take into account local authorities, witnesses, traffic, any number of things that normally wouldn’t be a hindrance if I was in the middle of a forest or somewhere equally as benign.

Shae and I poured over the details from the iPad.

“Are you sure you need me along. This looks like a one person job?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, Barry’s got it into his head that things can only be done a certain way. We’re going to prove him wrong.”

Her brows wrinkled a little. “Are you and he not getting along?”

With a shrug I waved the concern away. “It’s not that. He had some things to say that I believe are wrong, and this is one of them. He may be this really powerful dragon, but I’ve been doing this for years.”

Reaching out to her hand, I squeezed it lightly. “Trust me. When we pull this off, it will be a really good thing.”

It’ll prove that his predictions are a load of bull, or at the very least, not the only way things can go down.

~O~

It was an abandoned apartment complex next to an ice cream distribution center. That’s where we got dropped off. Glamour charms had us disguised as a couple of teenagers dressed in streetwear, unwashed and unkempt. The complex was home to more than a few squatters. It wasn’t them we were interested in; it was the sewer access that they shared with the distribution center.

Who ever said adventuring was glamorous?

We worked our way slowly through the vacant parking areas, acquiring more than a few stares from its inhabitants, not to mention more than a few propositions for drugs, and even a few sexual advances. The back of the complex smelled even worse than the front, mainly because of the overly full dumpster that was spilled on its side. It provided a closed in quiet space that seconded as a public toilet.

“How can people live like this?” asked Shae.

I shrugged. “I guess you can be motivated to do lots of things when you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

The circular manhole cover came off with a mild grunt from me. Rummaging in my pack, I withdrew a flashlight and checked to make sure the way down was clear.

“I’ll go first. Be as quiet as you can. The iPad says there aren’t any traps, but it’s better to be safe.”

She nodded as I made my way down the small ladder that was welded to the side of the hole.

Technically it was a storm drain that rid the low areas and streets of standing water. It still smelled. Once Shae was by my side, I clicked the light off and stowed it away. Like it or not, my Darkvision/Infravision was better suited to see and not be seen, and my companion was a full Elf. She could see well enough in the dark.

“I’ll take point. Hang about ten feet back and watch out for our rear.”

Shae nodded and I withdrew a dagger from my thigh sheath. The sword was nice, but with only about five feet to work with, side to side, it didn’t leave a lot of room for maneuvering.

Our footsteps were silent, and any noises we made from breathing were covered up by the background squawking from above. I suppose there was one thing that drug addicts and their suppliers were good for. About fifty feet in and I paused. Cocking my head, I concentrated on my hearing. There was a light skittering moving closer, but it wasn’t in front of us and it wasn’t from behind either.

“Up,” Shae sharply whispered.

Letting my instincts have free rein, I spun, ducked, and swiped the dagger in a quick arc above my head. By the time I actually saw what it was, it was pinned to the side of the storm drain. Eight hairy legs kicked madly as the spider twitched in its death throes.

“Great. Giant spiders,” I said in hushed tones.

“They must have brought them over with them. That thing is a foot wide easy. Definitely not local.”

I nodded and withdrew the dagger. Looking up, I spotted its nest in a recessed area, which explained why I didn’t see it on approach. A quick pack dive and I pulled out a squeeze-bottle of lamp oil. It’s not just for lighting lamps. After dousing the two foot wide webbed egg sack, Shae snapped her fingers and it went up in flames.

No, I didn’t want to come back this way and find hundreds of hungry baby mutant tarantulas blocking the way.

Moving on, I was vividly aware of any more recesses. Live and learn.

The rest of the way was clear. That led me to believe that the spiders were a fluke. Nobody guards a passageway with only spiders. If they were serious about their security and they recognized the drain as a risk, they would have booby-trapped it to death.

After the fifth opening I knew we were in a secluded area of the complex. A quick peek through the helpful manhole cover showed the area was clear and we were up and out of the drain soon thereafter, right next to another stinky dumpster. I peered around the concrete enclosure and spotted a single guard at the rear door to a warehouse looking building. He was dressed in standard rent-a-cop attire except there was no visible weapon. I guessed it was kind of hard to justify an armed guard for ice cream.

Looking up, I silently cursed the sun for being where it was. That was probably the reason that Barry scheduled the break-in in a couple of hours. The back of the building would throw shadows at that point.

“Good guy or bad guy?” Shae asked.

I said the activation word for the Circlet. “Carnac!” Another peek and I was able to tell his alignment. “Lawful Good. He’s just a hired hand. Can you put him to sleep from here?”

She gave me a nod and with a single finger, she traced a Zee pattern in the air and then pointed at him. A second later he was eating pavement.

“Nice.”

I received a proud grin from Shae. “It was just a Sleep spell.”

We double-checked to make sure we weren’t being observed and then made a dash for the door. It was locked and while Shae was searching the guard for keys, I was already picking at it.

“Nothing,” she said.

“That’s okay, I got it.”

Click.

Looking back at her, I put my picks back in the small bag and pulled my dagger. “Okay, first hallway to the right, L-bend to the left, third door on the right. Ready?”

Shae nodded. The door hinges were either new or well oiled; it didn’t make a sound. Just like I like it. The hall was cleared and Shae was two feet behind me the entire way. When we hit the L-bend, I shot a quick glance around the corner.

“Clear.”

There were three doors on the right and the third was all the way down on the end, right before a T-juncture that eventually led to the front of the building. Pointing to the door, I went up to make sure there wasn’t anyone approaching.

“It’s magically locked,” Shae hissed.

That wasn’t in the briefing. How the hell did Barry expect me to get in? With a quick look up, I noticed the acoustic ceiling tiles. Oh, never mind.

“I can use a Knock spell.”

Magical lockpicking in case you were interested. I nodded, and Shae traced a rune over the front of the door before pulling back her hand and knocking once.

She backed up and let me go through first. Good thing. The guy on the other side was human, armed with a short sword and drawing it as he knocked over the chair he was sitting on. The Circlet told me he was Lawful Evil which was music to my daggers.

There was no time to draw my sword, but there was enough to pull my back up dagger and lunge forward. His first and only attack came from over the top. I neatly stepped to the side, plunging my first blade into his sword arm, at the shoulder and then the second into his heart.

I heard the door close behind me as I eased the guard to the floor and watched as the life left his eyes.

Should I feel horrified after what I just did? It was part of the mission. The bad guys died. Still, it wasn’t the most pleasant of feelings. I wiped off the blades on the guy’s pants. His shirt was kind of messy at the moment.

Sheathing my back up blade, I stood and eyed the next door we had to go through. “That one’s trapped.”

Shae took a step to the side. “I’ll stand over here.”

I grinned and pulled out my lockpicks again. At the proper moment, I swiveled my hand out of the way and sprung the minor lock trap. A tiny needle snapped out where most thieves’ hands would be. On the end was a drop of green fluid which would have probably meant a very painful death for me if I didn’t know about it ahead of time. The lock clicked open a second after.

Shae moved forward and I held my hand up. “Sorry, one more.”

Avoiding the poky poison needle I swung the door wide open and heard the snap of a tension device within. Several bolts shot out and flew across the room, embedding themselves into the far wall.

It almost seemed like cheating, me knowing that it was coming and all. Meh, the fewer holes I had in my body the better.

“Okay, it should be clear. Kill the light.”

Shae glanced at the switch on the wall and I saw it drop. Sorceresses and their telekinesis, what can you do?

Once my eyes adjusted to the dark, I peered down the staircase. “Can you float down? The stairs are trapped too.”

Shae nodded then I sprang up and did a handstand onto the two banisters connected to the walls on either side. Balancing myself, I hopped and spun around so that I was facing the proper way. By the way, I freaking love having massively high agility and good strength. My boobs didn’t though. They felt weird hanging at an odd angle.

Slowly hand-walking downward, I dismounted and performed a Y-pose at the bottom while Shae golf-clapped at my gymnastic ability.

The room we entered was more like a storage area than anything else which would leave the average person to think that there was nothing to be gained by sticking around, however I knew better.

Somewhere in that room was the entrance to Dá»rdor’s counterpart’s lab. It was my mission to destroy it with the Fireball scroll.

“Can you sense any magic around here?” I asked Shae.

Holding her hands out, it looked like she was searching blindly for something until her finger pointed to the east wall. “Over there somewhere. It’s cloaked pretty well, so I can’t pinpoint it any better than that.”

With a nod, I ran through a standard search routine, examining crack and seams in the wall, looking for scuff-marks on the floor, tugging and pushing objects in an attempt to release some hidden catch. It was the one thing that wasn’t on the mission notes. Apparently Barry can’t see everything. That was okay, it let me practice my basic skills and that was always good for experience points so I could move up to the next level, skill-wise. Granted, when you reach a level as high as mine, it would take a heck of a lot to move up to the next, but every little bit helps.

That’s how a character moves up in the world, in case you were wondering. Think of it this way: everything that I’ve done, since becoming my new self, earns experience points. So defeating an Ogre and three Orcs at Fred’s apartment, fighting and defeating Kog, and completing my first mission all earned me good points. Those are the obvious ones. But you have to take into account how I’ve acted as well. It’s not too hard to be Ar’ri since I’m actually her already. So that adds just a few points.

Plus, anything that I happen to pick up along the way adds to the mix. That gigantic Fire Diamond? Big points. That’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t simply going to destroy our counterpart’s lab. I was a thief and I had a curse that I needed to placate by thieving. Not to mention, I really wanted to get some goodies for my team. Even if Fred and Sam didn’t stay, I wanted to make sure Shae and I had the best advantage we could manage.

When I heard a click sound over by Shae, I smiled. She’d found something. Then I heard something gurgle, like water moving. Without thinking about it, I jumped through the darkness, as I could through any shadow, and tackled Shae to the ground a half second before a spray of something shot out, coating a stack of shelves directly in front of the newly opened door.

She hit with an exhalation of air from her lungs, with me on top of her.

“Oh god, are you okay?” I said in a rushed way as I quickly examined her to make sure nothing was wrong.

Shae patted herself down and then sighed. “I’m fine. What was that?”

Looking back, I saw the boxes on the shelf, as well as the shelf itself, smoking. “Acid.”

Shae gripped my hand, and I could feel her fear. I didn’t even want to think what would have happened to her if she was standing in front of the spray when it triggered.

“You saved me.”

I gave her a quick comforting hug. “And sometime in the near future, I’m sure you’ll save me. It’s one of the things we do.” When I backed away, I smiled. “Now let’s go do some looting.”

TBC...

Author's note: Again, thanks to those that commented and reviewed throughout this story. Remember, your comments keep me writing.

Part 6

We had to jump over the puddle of acid that coated the floor in front of the door, but being the adventurers that we were, it didn’t take much effort. A snap of Shae’s fingers and all the torches lit along the wall leading into the room in front of us.

Once my eyesight returned to normal, we made our way carefully into the lab. Thankfully, there were no more traps.

Shelves lined the wall and tables with various potions and apparatus to make more filled the rest of the space.

“Jackpot,” I said somewhat greedily.

“Let me check for the bad stuff, Ar’ri. We don’t want to bring back anything that’s cursed or overtly evil.”

I nodded and hooked my thumbs behind my belt so that I wouldn’t let my wandering hands touch anything without my full knowledge.

“This might take a little bit,” Shae said. “I’ll point out things not to take and you shovel everything else in your bag.”

“Cool. Go right ahead.”

Withdrawing my Bag of Holding from my larger pack, I waited for my chance while Shae did her thing.

The Bag itself would hold about two hundred and fifty pounds worth of stuff, displacing the weight somewhere else other than the holder. As long as there were not really freaky things going inside, it would be relatively safe. I’d really like to get ahold of one of the bigger Bags that could hold about fifteen hundred pounds. Those come in real handy when adventuring.

Think about this: It was a real pain in the butt to haul away all of the treasure that my team came across when we killed that Black Dragon. One just doesn’t stuff thousands of pounds of gold, silver, and platinum pieces along with various weapons and magical items in our pockets. We couldn’t just leave it either. That took about two months of game time to resolve. While it was technically possible to purchase magical chests and Bags of Holding from random Wizards or shopkeepers, it’s not like they are on every street corner.

Thankfully, the DM simply did a time leap and said that we took two months to take care of the issue. That’s how things work in D&D. One of the things I found on that trip was a Manual of Quickness in Action. In D&D-speak that means, if I take the time to study it, then I magically gain ability points to my Dexterity. That’s how I jumped from a seventeen to a twenty-one, and that’s how I can pull off looking like an Olympic athlete in gymnastics. Well, compared to me, Olympic athletes look like second-raters. It’s one of the many joys of being an Epic-level character.

Shae woke me from my mild introspection. “This entire shelf is cool.”

Magic wands. “Oh yeah, come to momma.”

“Not this one. Don’t even touch that book,” she said as she pointed as a large black tome.

My face screwed up. Another Manual would be too cool. Rings were next, only a small handful, then a couple of necklaces, a staff that Shae wouldn’t even go near, and a cool dozen scrolls. Fifteen minutes had already gone by.

“We need to blow, Shae. Anything we can skip over?”

She looked around and spotted a chest. “I don’t suppose we could fit that in the Bag?”

I shook my head. “Too big. You think it’d be worth it to look?”

She shrugged. “It’s a regular lock.”

My inner thief cringed at leaving something like that behind without bothering to take a look. “Go check the hall. Make sure we’re still clear. I’ll pop it open.”

A nod later and I had my lockpicks out working at it from odd angles, just in case it was trapped, and guess what? Another poisoned needle.

“Psst!”

Shae came back. “All clear.”

“I got it open. Do your thing.”

She lifted the lid. “Oh, baby. Jackpot!” She ran her hand over the precious stones inside and then started tossing them into the Bag, along with a couple of smaller boxes. When she got to the gold underneath, I held a hand up.

“Leave it. We don’t have time.”

Shae looked at me. “But…” She paused and remembered that sometimes greed kills. “Damn! Do you know how much gold is going for on the open market? We’d be set for life.”

“I know. It sucks, but sooner or later, someone’s going to discover that guard.”

She glanced at the door. “Look, I’ll make it and myself invisible and float the chest along behind me. Just cover our front.”

With a groan, I nodded. “Okay, but if it comes down to it or us, then drop the damn thing and run. Promise me.”

“Cool, I promise.” She bounced and lunged in, kissing me on the lips before turning around.

I blinked and forgot what I was thinking about for a second there. With a shake, I cleared my head, and got back in the game. “Make it upstairs and then throw something to the foot of the stairs to let me know you’re clear. When I throw the Fireball, this place is going to light up and I don’t want to have to run you over getting out. Oh here, take this.” Pulling out the Ring of Invisibility, I handed it to her. “No sense in using more power than you have to.”

I waited, giving her enough time to levitate herself and the chest up the stairs while I stored the Bag of Holding and pulled out the scroll. Something clattered on the floor at the base of the stairs and I proceeded to read the words that would destroy everything else in the lab. When I reached the end, the scroll lit itself on fire and shot off down the hall into the room while I slammed the door behind me and ran as fast as I could for the stairs. Since I already knew what was at the top, I entered the shadows and appeared again at in the room where the dead guard lie.

BOOM!

The walls shook and I turned to see flames in the basement area below. “Ring, now! Let’s go, and stay right on my tail.”

Shae and the chest disappeared. We were out of the room and racing down the hall. Alarms were screaming throughout the building. By the time we made it to the back door, I could see the guard had already been discovered, and four others were entering the hall in front of us.

My daggers were in my hands as I hit a shadow caused by the sunlight streaming through the open door. When I popped out, I sunk one blade into the kidney of one of them and through the throat of another. The last two were surprised to say the least. Spinning around, I took out the third with both daggers into his chest. The last one raced backward, pulling his own weapons out.

“Shae, go!”

I heard her footsteps run past me as I faced the last guy.

He held up two medium sized blades and lunged for me. My hands danced in the air, blocking two swipes. Great, damn Evil Monk. Martial arts bullshit.

I couldn’t get a decent slash inside his guard and all we were doing was blocking each other’s attack. There wasn’t enough room to maneuver properly, and that was good for me as well. He had the longer blades and in that space we were evenly matched. Eventually I would lose if I didn’t cheat.

So I stepped into his guard and felt his right blade sink into my side. I screamed out in pain, but I didn’t lose my focus and blocked the other while I slammed my free blade into his chest.

“Die fucker!”

He collapsed and I nearly went with him. Instead, I braced myself and looked down. The Monk’s blade was buried in my stomach to the hilt and from the way it felt, it was probably sticking out my back.

“Oh crap,” I groaned.

With as much speed as I could muster, I stumbled to the dumpster and looked down the manhole. “Shae?”

“Down here,” she said as loud as she dared.

“Oh god, Ar’ri!” Shae said as she caught me after I stumbled down the last few rungs of the ladder. “Tell me you have your Ring on.”

I nodded. With a relieved look on her face, she made to grab the blade and pull it out, but I stopped her. “Not ‘till we’re out of here. It’ll make it worse. Come on.”

By the time we’d made it back to our transportation, I thought I was going to die. I was overdramatizing it, but still. You try running with a foot and a half worth of steel sticking in your gut and tell me how you fare.

She loaded the chest in the back and then saw to me. “You can’t sit like that. We have to take it out here.”

I nodded and braced myself on the SUV. “Do it.”

Shae put one hand on my shoulder and grasped the hilt with the other. “On three. One…” She jerked it clean and I screamed.

Very little blood came out due to the effects of the Ring of Regeneration, but it tore something inside of me. This time, I did collapse, and passed out at the same time.

~O~

When I woke, it was in my own bed. I braced myself for pain but didn’t feel a thing. My hand moved to the spot on my abdomen where I knew the short sword penetrated and felt nothing but smooth skin. Obviously I’d been out for most of the afternoon if I’d fully healed. It was fine with me.

“How do you feel?” Shae’s voice came from the corner of the room. I looked over and she had brought in one of the dining room chairs to sit on while she waited in the corner. Her face was full of worry so I did my best to alleviate her fear.

“I’m fine. Good as new.”

Sitting up, I realized that I was nude underneath the sheets which I held up above my breasts.

“Someone came by. They’re repairing and cleaning your leathers.”

She looked resigned to some sort of awful fate or something.

“What’s wrong?”

Looking down, she stared at the floor. “It’s my fault. We shouldn’t have stayed. I shouldn’t have…”

I smiled. “Shae, shut up. Because of you we have tons-o-magic items and I can probably by that Ferrari I’ve always wanted. I can take a little pain if we come out if it ahead.”

When she looked back up, I could see her eyes were red and tears were trailing down her face. “When you screamed… and then you fell…”

“Hey,” I said softly. “Come here.”

She stood and shuffled across the floor. I patted the bed beside me. “Sit.”

Shae sat then I took her in a hug. “I’m fine. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt. It did. But, to me, it was worth it. That’s why I have the Ring, so I can do stupid stuff like this and eventually walk away just fine. You’re totally uninjured, we came out ahead and the bad guys lost a lot of their loot in the process.”

Leaning back I used my thumbs to brush away her tears and we paused, staring into each other’s eyes.

“You’re one of my best friends, Shae. I know you didn’t want for me to get hurt.”

It was then that I realized that I hadn’t turned off the Circlet because I could hear her thoughts.

“She’s just saying this to make me feel better. I don’t deserve her. Oh god, if I could just kiss her one more time…”

I closed my eyes, so I wouldn’t eavesdrop on her mind. It just seemed wrong. Instead, I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers, pecking lightly. Then I wrapped her in a warm hug, throwing as much care as I could into the embrace.

A good minute later and I eased back. Her eyes were glassy when she opened the, with a half-smile.

“There,” I said. “Does that convince you that I’m serious and I don’t hold a grudge?”

Shae’s bottom lip curled in cutely. I watched as her teeth lowered, holding it in place. Then she nodded.

With a smile, I patted her thigh, now that I realized where my hand was. “Good, now go change. I need to get into some clothes so we can sort through the booty.”

Staying in bed and watching her almost skip to the bathroom, only to look back one more time with a smile, I grinned happily.

By the time I threw my legs over the side of the bed I heard her voice, just barely above a whisper. “Yes!”

~O~

“Ar’ri Bauquinea, you are well?” Barry’s voice echoed through my head as I was slipping into a pair of shorts.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking. Oh, and by the way, I blew your preordained one person mission. Shae went with me and now we have a lot more magic stuff because of that.”

I felt a mild amount of humor being broadcast over the airwaves. “The missions are not preordained. I only foresee certain aspects and strategize the rest. You’ll have to try again, Ar’ri.”

With a roll of my eyes, I buttoned the shorts and pulled the short zipper closed. “Whatever. I’ll talk to you about it in the morning. I have gold to count at the moment. Do you know where we can trade this stuff in for cash?”

A mental sigh followed. “I have contacts, however it would be prudent to introduce only a small amount at a time or you will saturate the market and cause prices to fall.”

“No prob. Bye now.”

I mentally pictured a phone hanging up and felt the connection break. Then I promptly turned off the Circlet. No more eavesdropping on my friends.

Grabbing my daggers and cleaning supplies on the way out, I spied Shae sitting on the floor by the couch with the chest beside her and my large pack on the table by the door. I opened it and retrieved the Bag of Holding then found a comfortable spot right next to her.

“Hi,” I said with as cute of a grin as I could manage before leaning in and pecking her lips.

“Hey.” She paused and grinned back. I hadn’t seen her really really happy since the transition and was glad that I could give that to her.

Shae reached for the latch to the chest but I caught her hand at the last second. “Hold on a second. Watch out for that needle. I need to grab my kit.”

Retrieving my thieves’ tools, I pulled out a pair of pliers and snapped off the poison needle. I wrapped it up in several tissues and tossed it into the trash can. Better safe than sorry. She waited until I returned before opening the lid again.

In the bright light of the suite, as opposed to the meh torchlight of the lab, the chest looked a lot bigger, probably being three feet long and two wide. From top to bottom it was about two feet. The gold pieces were a little smaller than a regular sized quarter, but slightly bigger than a nickel.

While Shae began stacking them in piles of twenty each, I cleaned and oiled my daggers then set them aside.

It wasn’t long before I saw her making separate sections, four to be exact. I don’t think she was aware that I had broken up, or whatever it was, with Sam and kicked both her and Fred out until they grew up. Eventually she would know, but I didn’t want to spoil her fun.

~O~

She’d barely made a dent in the chest and had to move everything to the floor, because there wasn’t nearly enough room on the coffee table. Gold isn’t light. Eventually, she got bored, stood up and said, “Screw this. Back up.”

I scrambled back and grinned as she started this complicated gesture with both of her hands. Low pitched clinking sounded as almost all of the gold rose out of the chest and split apart in four pretty even piles.

Shae looked at me. “Fair enough?”

I nodded. We’d find more gold. It’s almost a given, and I wasn’t that greedy. All four piles settled to the carpet and were soon followed by the stacks she’d spent so long in separating.

Shae relaxed her hands. “There. Now all we need are chests of our own.”

A bright smile popped up on my face. “Ready for the pretty stuff now?”

I’d taken out all the jewels from the Bag and sorted them by color and type. Shae’s eyes sparkled.

“You get first choice since I know you can use the stones for more than their cash value.”

A number of precious jewels were ideal for magical use. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds were the best for spell storing and using in rituals. A lot of them were already cut and a few were still in their uncut state.

Once she separated the really useful ones, I picked up a few for myself.

“I think I should bring the magic items to Dá»rdor and let him take a look. That was never my specialty,” she admitted.

I set my hand on the Bag. “I’ll do it. You need a break from him.”

She seemed a little nervous, but looked at me with relief in her eyes. “I’ll be right back, and then we’ll go out and celebrate, okay?”

~O~

The next morning, I awoke alone in bed. It wasn’t too much of a surprise. Shae had settled well in her room the previous night after we returned from dinner.

Once I’d gotten dressed, I made my way out to the main room and saw that Shae was seated on the couch pouring over a small sheet of laminated paper. Looking up, she spotted me.

“Morning,” she said brightly.

“Hey.”

Looking over to Fred and Sam’s room, I saw that the doors were wide open and it didn’t look like they’d come back. Regret gnawed at my insides at the way we’d left everything. I wasn’t sorry about the action I took. It was more of an annoyance that I’d let things go so far before taking more of a leadership role.

It wasn’t really something that I was used to. As a thief in D&D I spent most of my time in a secondary position, even with being a higher level character than the others. It was normally safer that way. Being one of the fighter classes tended to put you on the front lines. Thieves snuck around, staying out of the limelight.

Now that I was Champion to Barristix, I was expected to lead my team and not just be part of the background anymore.

“Barry called…” she paused and looked kind of odd. “Sort of. Does he talk to you in your head?”

I nodded. “Freaky, huh?”

“Yeah, anyway, I’m supposed come with you to your morning meeting.”

My eyebrows rose in mild surprise. “Okay. I was just about to head up there.”

When she stood, she picked up a small sealed manila envelope and handed it to me. “This was on the table when I came out. I got one too.”

I looked at my name printed on the front and then tore off the top to see another laminated sheet inside, much like Shae’s.

“It’s our character sheets.”

True enough, when I perused the contents I saw a miniaturized version of my new stats. From what I could see, it was very detailed and up to date as of the night previous. I noticed that my Experience Point total was up to date. Since I’d become my character, I’d earned a little under five thousand points. I thought that was a little excessive considering the lack of challenge in all but my last encounter.

There’s a lot that a DM must take into account when measuring awards for a PC: level of PC, level of opponent, difficultly level of fighting, and a whole lot of other things. I mean it would take me next to no effort to smack down the average human out there with no fighting skills, heck even a group of humans wouldn’t prove to be too hard. That wouldn’t earn me much. In fact I could probably earn more points by talking my way out of a fight.

However, if I faced a talented and high level well-armed opponent, well that would be a different matter.

The thing was, it was up to the DM to do the math and make judgment calls. So the question was poised. Who was my DM?”

“Weird, huh?”

I nodded. It was kind of strange to see my life summed up on a sheet of paper.

She tilted hers and pointed at her Known Spells list. Every Magic User had what amounted to a spell book wherein they would have a list of each spell they knew, the components needed to perform the act, and instruction on how to actually do it. Sorcerers were a little different but essentially the same. What I’m getting at here is they are limited to a certain number of spells a day and additionally limited by what they have learned thus far in their education.

“I have a lot more spells than I did when I was playing.”

I thought about that for a minute. “It might be because of Dá»rdor’s influence. I get the impression he’s a lot more powerful than he looks.”

There was no sense in speculating. “We’re can ask Barry about it when we see him. Did he say anything else?”

Shae, distracted, shook her head. “Nuh-uh.”

I shrugged. “Okay, you ready or…”

She nodded. “Oh, hold on a second.”

After running into her bedroom, she came back out holding the Ring of Invisibility. “We can give this to Barry and he can return it to Dá»rdor. I really don’t feel like seeing him today.”

I knew the feeling. A second later Shae was beside me and her fingers threaded with mine. The walk upstairs was fairly silent and peaceful. I nodded at a few familiar faces along the way and pointed out some offices that Shae hadn’t seen thus far.

When we reached Barry’s office, the door was open, like the previous time, except there were actually people inside, namely Sam, Fred and the Bard, Steve. To say I was surprised was an understatement. I was hopeful that my friends had decided to take our team more seriously.

Shae’s hand clinched a little tighter when she saw Sam, but otherwise her body language hadn’t changed.

“Ar’ri, Shaeria, come in, join us,” Barry said, a little more jovial than he normally was.

He flicked his hand at the door and I heard it shut behind me as Shae and I took the only two empty chairs left. When Barry saw our hands linked, I could have sworn I witnessed a slight smirk on his lips. With a sigh, I crossed my legs and gave him a dull look.

He stood and took his Dew with him. After finishing it off, the can wound up the trash and his attention on all of us. “Thanks to Ar’ri, the Stone of Ingress has been captured and with the aid of Shaeria, the opposition on Earth has been crippled magically and financially.”

Fred raised his hand like he was still in high school. “What’s the Stone of Ingress?”

Barry nodded with a flourish. “It is the means in which the magic users of Lyzax have bent the veil between our worlds. They will face much difficulty in replacing that minor artifact. Fire Diamonds on Qrynn are not that plentiful and certain not in the size needed. Eventually they will make do with something smaller that will reduce the level of forces and equipment that can be transferred. That is why we must take advantage of the lull.”

Looking at me, expectantly, Barry said, “Ar’ri, have you had a chance to look over the next mission.”

I shook my head. “I was kind of out of it yesterday when we got back.”

“Indeed,” he said, looking concerned. “Well, no matter. I suppose it’s better to tell all of you at once then. As of tomorrow morning, all of you, not to forget Kog who couldn’t attend today due to lack of attention span, will form a cohesive unit that will infiltrate the enemy stronghold to retrieve an object of great importance.”

Surprise made me lean back and take in the group. “You’ll need all of us? That’s a little overkill, don’t you think. I’ve barely met any resistance so far.”

Barry’s mouth looked like it was going to stretch into a smile, but he held it back and then licked his lips. “I think you have misunderstood me, Ar’ri. I meant the main enemy stronghold… on Qrynn.”

~O~

I had to pull Barry out of the office, so many questions were flying. “Are you nuts? We haven’t even gone on one mission together and you’re going to throw us into the fire right away?”

“Your team will perform well, Ar’ri. There will be no major injuries or fatalities on this mission.”

My eye roll told him what I thought of his pre-cognitive visions. Then it clicked. “What about Sam? She’s just a civilian.” That’s when I figured out just what he was doing. “You’re hoping she bails on her idea about waiting and building up her other character.”

He didn’t try to deny it. I’d just about lost it right there. “What? Do you have the collar in your back pocket right this moment?”

“It’s on my desk actually. She will become a Tiefling, Ar’ri. It is simply a matter of when.”

I pointed my finger at him. “It’s not for you to play God and decide if or when that happens.”

Barry nodded. “Correct. It is my job to point out the options and let others decide on the course of action. Didn’t you go against the mission parameters and bring Shaeria with you yesterday? Have I scolded you or disciplined you in any way?”

With a scowl, I dropped my hand. “Don’t push her, and you can be darn sure I’m going to point out the bad points.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

We reentered the office. Fred was pacing the floor and Sam was staring at Barry’s desk. She’d spotted the collar. Shae looked relieved I was back, even when she saw the look on my face that clearly said I wasn’t pleased about something. I gave her a comforting look and then faced Sam.

“You’re thinking about it aren’t you?”

She looked at me and then back at the collar. “I can’t go with you guys if I’m like this.”

“You’ll be a Half-Demon, Sam,” I said as blatantly as I could. “What’s your character’s background? Was she raised in a hell dimension? Are you ready for those kinds of memories to be slammed into your head?”

Sam pressed her lips together. “She was raised by her mother in the human world. She’s Neutral Good, Ar’ri.”

Moving in, I crouched in front of her and pleaded. “You’ll be like that forever, Sam. You won’t be able to change back. The best you can hope for is a decent Glamour charm to make you appear like a human. Are you ready for that?”

She closed her eyes and rubbed at her face. “You said it yourself, last night. I need to take all of this more seriously. You need me. You need all the good characters you can get, and Samantia is a hell of an Assassin.”

The Bard, Steve was sitting closest to her, eyeing me and chose that moment to speak up. “Lady Ar’ri, it is not your choice as to what someone is willing to sacrifice for the good of others. Each of us has to make that decision. That is why Kog and I came here. It wasn’t to escape the brutality of Qrynn. It was to make a difference in lives of those that travelled here. Plus, we owed it to Mary.”

Sam was already nibbling on her thumbnail and really staring at the collar.

“Fine.” I stood up and spun around as I made my announcement. “Just in case anyone is wondering, Barry inherited his mother’s gift for seeing the future.” I watched as his eyebrows jumped a little at my announcement. It looked like he was willing to see just how far I was going to take it.

“Yesterday, he let me know a few things. Some of them aren’t pretty.” I made my way to the window and then turned around to see everyone’s attention directed at me. “I don’t believe that everything he sees is going to come true, but I can’t discount the possibility that there’s a chance that the future he sees is one possible future for us.”

Fred’s eyes were wide and I could see he was insanely curious about what I knew. So I stared him down. “Do you want to know how and when you die?”

Switching to Sam I pressed on. “Do you want to know what will happen if you choose to put on that collar?”

She didn’t let that question lay. “Will I become a guy?”

My shoulders dropped. Was that all she was concerned about. “Not according to Barry. You’ll be a female Half-Demon. But that’s not all of it.”

Looking at Shae, I relaxed my face. “Do you want to know what your future holds? Here’s your chance.”

“That’s messed up, dudette,” Fred said.

I agreed. “Yeah, it is. So now you know why I was so on edge the other night.”

“I vote no,” declared the Bard, Steve. “Knowing your future makes no difference one way or the other.”

My brows bunched up. “What?”

“It’s too much of a distraction, prescience. Should you take another path if you know the one that you are on might lead to trouble? If so, then another path might lead to something worse. You can’t know for sure. Or if by knowing what is to come, you try to manipulate the outcome in your favor, you might very well be the cause of the problem in the first place.”

I shook my head after trying to wrap my mind around that one. Fred pointed at him. “You’re talking about a self-fulfilling prophesy thing. If you left things alone in the beginning then it wouldn’t have come true.”

The Bard, Steve, shrugged.

Fred shook his head. “I don’t want to know anything. I’m not much of a planner. I’d screw it all up either way.”

“Same here,” declared Shae.

Sam stood from her chair and briskly walked across to the desk and picked up the collar. I started to say something, even going so far as taking the first step toward her, but I stopped. It was her decision. She paused for the briefest of seconds and then snapped the collar close around her neck.

Magical static surrounded me and the taste of dark chocolate coated my tongue. Sam’s skin darkened to a tan-red and her hair deepened to the color of fresh blood. Her face looked pained then I heard the sound of fabric tearing and her tail dropped to the floor with a muted thump before lifting itself and curling around in the air. Her muscles thickened and became even more defined than she was before. Then it all stopped.

“Whoa,” whispered Fred.

Sam blinked and looked around the room then her eyes settled on mine. “There, that wasn’t so bad.”

Her voice had changed from the soft tone it had before to the harsh raised whisper that was common to demons and Tieflings. It was really easy to see how the average person would automatically assume they were evil. They sounded like B-movie demons that liked to hiss a lot.

“How do I look?”

I wondered if she’d noticed the change in her voice.

“Smokin’ hot,” announced Fred.

Barry took the moment to bring things around to business. “Now, if we’re all agreed, let’s go over mission parameters for your journey to Qrynn.”

~O~

We spent a good portion of the afternoon getting geared up. Remember Shae’s sexy Sorceress unitard thing? It served as more than a really cute way to show off her curves. Once I got to see it up close, I noticed the runes that were a part of the stitching. It was supposed to keep the person who wore the outfit reasonably well protected from breath weapons: fire, acid, frost, among others. Breath weapons are what dragons use when they want a quick way to eliminate a bunch of people in a fast and efficient manner.

I lost one of my teammates in the Black Dragon fight to acid breath. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and remember, I have that memory in my head now. It wasn’t just gameplay like before.

So everyone got that outfit to wear under their regular leather and armor. It was reminiscent of those tight ski suits I used to see on those Olympic downhill skiers like Lindsey Vonn. Sexy stuff, just less pink.

Sam wouldn’t take one. She was immune to fire and acid breath through her Tiefling blood and she was willing to take the chance with the others. Kog wouldn’t take one either. Apparently he likes the scars. Me? I’m not into pain as much as the others. I’d take any advantage I could get.

I did have to switch out my main pack for something a little larger since I’d be carrying a bedroll and camping supplies as well. It was almost like old times, in Ar’ri’s memories, except things were a lot more compact. MRE’s instead of trail rations, flashlights instead of torches, you get the idea.

The best of the bunch was the fold out compound bow I picked up. Hey, I was a Half-Elf. I was supposed to be good at shooting a bow. It wound up hooked on my pack, but I had it in case I needed it.

Sam decided on her original costume armor that she wore when I got my mojo on down in Barristix’s cave. Now that she had the wherewithal to use it, her magical items worked just fine.

I had to talk Fred into toning down a little. Originally he wanted one of everything, but that just wasn’t prudent. He was a Ranger and with his regular pack, loading up with a giant axe, a bastard sword, seven daggers, and a whole plethora of other goodies was a bit ridiculous. He ended up with a long sword, a fold out bow like my own, and a few daggers.

And lastly Shae. She stuck with the basics, and looked pretty much like she did the previous night, just a little more rugged. Only one thing was added to her equipment besides the standard pack set up. A staff.

There was one thing that I insisted that everyone bring, because I wasn’t sharing with anyone: toilet paper. God knows what they were using in that medieval world to wipe with. We were only supposed to be there for two days, at the most, but I brought two rolls, just in case.

Most of our things were sitting in the suite as we remembered last minute items to add or other nonsense. While it was nice to be ready for any eventuality, I knew I could survive with my blades and my small bag, bare minimum.

The four of us sat in the couch area. Sam was checking her weapons and other deadly items used to dispatch people. Fred was checking all of his arrowheads and shafts. I was sharpening my daggers and Shae was communing, or whatever, with her staff.

At one point, as I was testing the edge on my blade, I said, “You guys…”

Everyone looked up at me, expectantly.

“Thanks for being here. I never said it before. I’m just saying…”

~O~

Breakfast the next morning was a muted affair. Nervous energy ran through us. In our memories, this was yet another in a long line of adventures, but there was something to be said about entering an entirely different world than we’d ever experienced before. One by one I met everyone’s eyes with a different unsaid message. To Sam and Fred, forgiveness ran both ways. To Shae, a look that told her that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else at that moment. To the Bard, Steve, a shared smile, and to Kog… well, Kog was too busy inhaling a small goat to care about anything else. I hope they packed the ultra-big MREs for him, otherwise the local wildlife better watch out.

When we’d had our fill, we made our way down to the massive cavern where all of this started for me.

Dá»rdor was there, along with the big honking fire diamond on a pedestal. We watched as he focused and pointed his own staff, shooting out some sort of magical laser beam. It filtered through the stone and the air tore open for a short while showing a grassy glade beyond before closing.

Barry was watching everything when he leaned in and whispered. “Lyzax knows when and where the portal opens. Dá»rdor has been opening them all over Qrynn this morning at random intervals to throw them off the trail. He’ll keep doing so for an hour after you leave so they can’t track you.”

It was a good plan. They wouldn’t be able to check out every single instance.

“Ready?” Dá»rdor asked.

I didn’t bother asking the team. They were ready. I just nodded, and Kog belched which lightened the mood a little.

Taking one last breath of cave air, I walked up to where I saw the tear appear before and drew my sword, just in case.

Dá»rdor nodded solemnly at me and I returned it. Then the air in front of me tore open, this time showing a forest. I quickly walked through the magical portal, feeling a wall of static for a moment before the smell of the land hit me.

With a quick spin, I surveyed the scene. Not even a deer was close by. I waved the rest onward and they followed without pause. The last I saw of Barry was a wave and a smile before the tear in the air closed back up.

My sword went back in its sheath, as I found the morning sun sifting through the trees.

“Alright, let’s go. We need to put some distance between us and here, just in case Lyzax gets lucky with her patrols.”

For most of us, it was easy going at a light jog; Kog was having a hard time of it because of his size. I tried to make sure to pick the thinnest thicket of trees, but sometimes he just had to muscle through. After about thirty minutes, we slowed to a hiking pace. The Bard, Steve was winded and already looking tired.

I hadn’t noticed his age before, but if he had traveled with Mary Bybax from Qrynn to Earth then he had to be no younger than his mid-thirties and that would have put him as a newborn when he first arrived. For a human he aged quite well.

“Do not give me that look, Lady Ar’ri. I will hold up well enough to complete the quest,” he said.

With a cautious eye, I nodded. “You’ll tell me before you pass out from exhaustion, Steve. An unconscious guide is worthless to me.”

“I’m just catching my second wind. Long has it been since I traveled Hangbern Forest.”

I held back a wince. He was old enough to have traveled. That added fifteen to twenty years to him. Not a speck of gray sprinkled his black hair, and only a few wrinkles were etched beside his eyes and brow.

Stepping on a felled tree, I kept an eye out for dangerous wildlife. While in my past, Harry had very little experience with hiking an unknown terrain, Ar’ri had many years under her belt. It was comforting in a way. The Elf in me celebrated being in the wilderness. The smells and sights of trees awoken something inside me that I didn’t know I’d longed for.

“You grew up around here?” I asked.

Steve shrugged. “About thirty leagues to the west.”

Throwing the conversion around in my head I wound up with a little over a hundred miles. A league, in this sense of the word, was how far a single person or horse could walk in an hour, roughly three and a half miles.

“I’m sorry we won’t have time to visit. Maybe…”

I stopped when he shook his head. “My village was one of the first razed by Lyzax’s kin. Nothing is there but bad memories, Lady.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “You were not yet born. There was nothing that you could have done.”

Reaching over, I set my hand on his shoulder. “I’m alive now, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure the dragons pay.”

“Of that I have no doubt, my captain.” Looking back, he pressed his lips together. “I’d better see to Kog. His personality does not favor the forest nor hiding.”

Two hours later, trudging through the wilderness, and we stopped for a rest break.

Fred found a reasonably soft pile of pine needles to sit on while he watched Sam’s tail flit back and forth as she arranged a place for herself. I could tell it took great effort to pull his eyes away and make some excuse to talk to me, probably as some sort of distraction.

“How much further?”

I grinned. “Did you just ask me, are we there yet?”

Shae smiled through a bite of her granola bar.

~O~

Within the standard MRE pack is: one entrée, one side dish, dessert, crackers and spread, a pack of eating essentials like salt, hot sauce, plastic spoon, wet napkin, matches, etc. and then they throw in a flameless heating unit so you can have a hot meal. It’s a chemical that heats up when mixed with a small amount of water.

So you can probably see why, when Kog wanted to have a snack in-between small cows, we had to talk him into not eating the entire plastic wrapped package. It wasn’t that Steve thought that the chemicals in the flameless heating unit would harm his friend. He explained it was more about the intestinal gas that would be produced afterward that gave him pause.

We buried our waste materials and headed out again. By the end of the day, we reached the edge of the forest. Steve found his bearings and pointed north toward a decent sized mountain.

“There, that’s our destination,” he said with a grim look on his face.

Shrugging my pack off, I motioned back the way we came. “We have to wait until nightfall. Good time to eat and rest. We’ve got a long night ahead.”

This time, I didn’t spend my break on the ground. About twenty feet up in a tree, I found a decent perch that provided a fairly good view of the valley ahead. I wanted to be prepared for anything that would slow us down, so I had to map out the best direction to go before the sun fell.

Fifteen minutes later, I heard Shae make her way up behind me.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Not hungry.”

“You will be later.”

To tell the truth, my stomach couldn’t handle anything at the moment, so I tried changing the subject.

“Do you… have any memories of this place?” It’s an odd question, but considering what got shoved in our heads it was pertinent.

“Not so much here. The Elves live about four hundred miles in the other direction.” Pulling her cloak around her, she shivered slightly, but not from the temperature of the air. “It’s the weirdest feeling of déjá  vu. Ever since we stepped thorough that portal, I feel like I should be happy to be here, but…”

“I know.” There was a sense of wrongness in the world. Maybe it was our imagination. Perhaps it was simply knowing what was going on, the injustice, the tyrannical ruler, the lack of seeing anyone on the trails we encountered along the way. It just didn’t feel right.

We sat in silence for a short while before it was broken again by Shae. “Are you scared?”

I glanced at her in the fading light of the fallen sun. Her warily curious green eyes searched mine.

“No. Maybe that will change when we get closer, but for right now I’m where I need to be. I don’t fear that.”

Shae slipped her hand through my arm and it settled on my own before she lay her head on my shoulder.

~O~

We raced across the valley in the dark of night. Only a sliver of the distant white moon, hanging a quarter of the way into the sky, lit our way. Light couldn’t be risked, not that most of us needed any. The only people on our team that couldn’t see well in the dark were Fred and Steve, both of which had their respective guides to keep them away from errant rocks or places where footing would be less than ideal.

The way up the other side proved a little more difficult. It was the beginning of the mountain range. Outlying rocks and small boulders slowed us considerably. Steve slipped more than a few times and Kog eventually hefted him over his shoulder. Fred was a little more light-footed.

Once we were past the wide open valley, outcroppings of trees on the hillside provided enough cover to make our way without fear of being spotted from whatever could spy on us from above.

It was Shae that grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop while pointing a finger at her ear.

Cocking my head to the side, I finally heard what had given her alarm. Horses, or something close to it, were riding hard nearby.

“Everyone down,” I said as loud as I dared. “Find cover.”

My bow was in my hand and extended to its full length in a matter of seconds. I pulled an arrow from my quiver and notched it as quickly as I could. Fred followed suit and found a good vantage point before we got an eyeful of what was coming.

Ten feet in front of us was a well-worn wagon path and it was currently in use, but it wasn’t horses that were traveling on it. The beasts looked like a cross between bear and a rhino. There were ten in all and each had an armed rider atop, scanning the tree line as they slowed. Most of them were human, but there were led and trailed by lizard scaled humanoids.

They came to a slow trot about fifty feet down the trail in front of us and I heard voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“Dragonkin,” grumbled Half-Orc from behind me. “Kog kill.”

I waved Steve to my side. Before I even asked, he gave me the information I needed. “The Dragonkin are a distant relation to the Dragons. They have high resistance to fire and their hides are difficult to cut though. Their throats are their weak point. The men are no doubt mercenaries. If they are here then we have been found out.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Alright, weapons everyone. Fred, lizard-guys first, in the throat. Shae, stop any of them from getting away. Try not to be too flashy. Everyone else spread out and attack after you see our arrows.”

Almost a full minute had gone by as the others moved into position. Kog stayed close by. There just wasn’t an easy way for him to move very stealth-like. His double-headed battle-axe weighed heavy in his hand, but there was a glint in his eyes that let me know staying hidden was asking just a little too much.

I looked at Fred and gave him a nod as the enemy was reaching optimum range. Pulling back on my bowstring, I aimed at the center of the lead Dragonkin’s throat and whispered. “Now.”

The muted twang of both our bows sang together and our arrows found their targets. Then Kog yelled before leaping into battle.

TBC...

Author's note: Again, thanks to those that commented and reviewed throughout this story. Remember, your comments keep me writing.

Part 7

Notching one more arrow on the fly, I let it loose into the first mercenary in line and then dropped my bow. Three steps and I leaped into the air drawing my sword, following my teammates into the fray of battle.

A few of the Rhino-bears reared back and swiped at us. They were obviously war-trained, but since they didn’t have long sharp pointy bits of steel as weapons, the only thing they did was lose forepaws or hoofs, whatever they were. It did have the added advantage of throwing their riders around so they couldn’t be as effective.

Kog didn’t bother checking to see if I killed the Dragonkin, instead he insured he was dead by loping off his head with the heavy battle-axe he used most proficiently.

My Luck Blade bit into the chest of the second mercenary as he was lifting his sword to defend himself, and I had to bounce off the beast he was on to avoid a thrown dagger from the next in line.

By that point everyone scattered.

Fred was still in the tree line annoying the riders with arrows from his bow.

Five of them were down before I had to avoid one of the Rhino-bears charging. Little magical laser-beams embedded themselves into the side of the beast and I knew that Shae had fired a Magic Missile spell at it. It roared loud and hard.

Not so good.

The stealth portion of our mission was over for sure after that announcement to the hillside.

I slit its throat anyway. My Elf ears couldn’t take much more of that at close range. Its rider tumbled off, but he was nimble enough to land on his feet and attacked me without delay. With a parry, I pinned his longsword to the ground and followed up with my dagger into his chest.

When I looked up to take on my next target, all that was left were the Rhino-bears, and they were starting to make tracks back the way they came.

Shae ran up to me with my bow in hand. With a grimace, I folded it back up and stowed it on my back. Everyone knew what would happen if we were discovered early.

“Plan B.”

Fred cursed and kicked one of the felled mercenaries. “We were almost there.”

Kog didn’t look too happy either.

“Open it up, Shae.”

She nodded. From around her neck she pulled out a necklace and sent a pulse of magic through the stone attached.

“Sorry guys, but we can’t be tracked,” I said. “This has to look like a scouting mission gone bad if we’re going to succeed.”

A few moments later and the air ripped open again. Sam said something in Infernal that I couldn’t exactly hear. That’s one problem with the demon language. It’s too subtle. I understood it well enough, but one hiss sounds just like any other if spoken soft enough.

Kog still stood there defiantly. “Kog stay, kill Dragonkin.”

I gave him my stern face. “Do I need to kick Kog’s ass again?”

I could hear his teeth grinding together and he looked like he was weighing the chances of taking me on with an actual weapon, so I tried to defuse the situation.

“We’re coming back, Kog, just not tonight.”

He gave me another nasty glare, but backed off. Instead of complaining anymore, he reached down and grabbed ahold of one of the Rhino-bear’s and dragged it through the portal with him. Fred nodded at me and then gave Sam a look of longing before she joined him.

“Stay safe,” he said to Shae and me.

The Bard, Steve nodded grimly as well. “Good luck. We’ll be waiting.”

More than half of our team disappeared behind the tear in the air after it closed.

I turned to Shae. “Save your magic. I’ll jump us away.”

She nodded and I slid to her side. “Hang on, this might feel weird.”

Shae didn’t even get a chance to ask before I pulled her into a shadow and exited from another, deep into the forest.

“Cloak,” I ordered. She made sure her entire body was covered by the Cloak of Blending while I stayed half in and half out of the shadows, impatiently watching the mountainside for activity.

It didn’t take much longer before my Infravision saw a gigantic heat source shoot out of the side of the rock face at a very high altitude.

“There!” Slipping my hand around her waist, I said, “Hang on. This one is a long jump.”

The level of any particular Shadowdancer dictates how far they can travel through the shadows. A beginner can only manage ten feet or so. At my level, I can go a little over a mile, but I still need to see where I’m going.

From what I knew about Dragons in general and Barry’s intel in specific, I knew that Lyzax was a very paranoid Red dragon. That meant she wasn’t going to go sharing her lair with any males or for that matter any females either.

While I was sure there were a number of ways into the mountain fortress, it would take forever to reach our goal. The surest and fastest way was to find Lyzax’s bolt hole and then drop down through that while she was otherwise occupied, much like she was when strangers were attacking her patrols on the hillside. Not to mention sensing a portal opening that close to her lair had to be gnawing at her.

Plan B took that into account. If we tripped up and announced our presence then Shae and I would proceed alone. Normally it would just be me, since I was the stealthiest of the group, but she was the only one with the proper kind of magic that could activate the signal stone that let Dá»rdor know to open a portal.

It was a tricky jump.

The cliff face was shear and smooth at least a hundred yards on any side. That would prevent an intruder easy access. The lip of the large hole was barely enough to capture a decent foothold. That meant I had only a second or two before I had to shadow jump again to the bottom.

Shae swayed, but I had a firm grip on her waist.

“Carnac!” I whispered as low as I could.

This deep in the mountain, it was doubtful that we would come across anything of the living variety. Paranoid Dragons don’t tend to have guards. Anyone insane enough to go against an adult Red in her own lair got what they deserved.

Killing a Dragon isn’t as easy as poking it with your sword. Their scales would stop anything less than a magically sharp weapon, and even if you managed to pierce their hide, you had to reach a few feet into their body to hit any vital organs. The heart isn’t conveniently located in a soft spot that any fool could shoot an arrow into. That would defeat the whole purpose of having natural armor.

You had to have an edge when fighting the monsters, which was why we were there in the first place.

The bottom of the shaft led to two passageways. There was one that led only to darkness and the other that led to a yellow glow in the distance.

Shae’s hand squeezed my side, and I could feel a faint tremor in her touch. She was scared out of her wits.

One more jump took us to the edge of the light. That’s where I released Shae and took her hand in mine. The Circlet let me know nobody was in the general vicinity, so I entered the lit chamber and nearly fell over at what I saw.

“We’ll never find it,” gasped Shae.

The mountain was hollowed out much like Barry’s lair back home, but about four times as big, most of which was taken up by what looked like a nest. At the center were four eggs that each had to be two feet wide at least. Surrounding it were gold, silver, platinum, and copper pieces, treasure, jewelry, precious stones, closed chests, weapons of every type, and worst of all, the skeletal remains of what I suspected were her past victims.

I shook my head. “Look for a black and bronze chest. We know it’s here. Hurry, and don’t even think about getting greedy this time.”

Shae and I split up, rounding the treasure trove. All the while, I kept stretching out with the Circlet to make sure we weren’t being snuck up on.

“Ar’ri!”

Running over to the other side, I saw Shae pushing a lot of gold to the side, revealing a large black chest. My sword was in my hand in seconds.

“Back up. We don’t have time for subtlety.”

I didn’t care if Lyzax knew we’d been there. Our scent would be proof enough, so my thieves’ tools weren’t of any use. Once Shae cleared, I brought the blade down against the latch and severed it from the chest with a single blow. Kicking it open we were treated to something rolled up in a black cloth.

“It’s cursed,” Shae snapped before I touched it.

“Crap!”

Looking around, I spotted a metal quarterstaff. “How about that one?”

Her hands hovered over it for a second before she grabbed it and tossed it to me. Using the end of the staff, I prodded the cloth. It took a lot more time than I was comfortable with working it out of the chest, but eventually it fell to the side and I lunged for the item we came for.

The end of the quarterstaff was turning black and green as I dropped it to the side and reached in, placing my hand on the hilt of the greatsword and pulling it out without any trouble. The blade was around four feet in length and the hilt another eight or nine inches. Something that big should have been much heavier, but it felt as light as one of my daggers in my hand.

I was spellbound by its intricate beauty, the long lines, the jeweled guard molded in the shape of two dragon claws, the dwarvish runes inlayed into the blade itself.

Shae shook my shoulder. “Ar’ri?”

Blinking, my attention on the sword broke. That’s when I noticed my Circlet screaming at me.

“Oh god, hide! She’s coming back!”

Shae pulled a ring out of her belt pouch and slipped it on her finger. She went invisible a second later.

“Get by the tunnel, I’ll distract her and meet you by the shadow on the right,” I said hurriedly.

Looking around, I noticed there weren’t any shadows anywhere. The light in the cavern was provided by several glowing globes hanging from the ceiling. Fear finally raised its ugly head in my chest. I wasn’t sure if it was caused by the approaching dragon or knowing I there was no way for me to escape without confronting it in its own lair.

Without wasting any more time, I leaped to the center of the nest and finished sheathing my regular sword when Lyzax’s head poked through the passageway. She was sniffing roughly. I knew she’d find Shae quick enough if I didn’t distract her.

“Lyzax!”

Her head fully emerged and I’d never seen a more fearsome creature in all of my life, and that was just her head. She roared! The walls and floor shook, and I’m not too proud to say I pissed myself. As light as the greatsword was before, it felt like it weighted a thousand pounds in my hands when I faced the wrath of an enraged Red Dragon.

She stalked into her lair, growling so deep my bones hurt. I backed up and tried my best not to collapse on the spot.

“You dare enter my lair and steal from me!”

Lowering the sword, I held it over one of the eggs. “Don’t come any closer.”

My voice sounded a whole lot braver than I actually felt.

Lyzax’s eyes flashed in anger. “Elf-kin you are dead. Your family is dead. Your entire race is dead for this. I will personally melt the flesh off of your bones inch by inch, and then feed it to my hatchlings.”

I believed her. “If you come any closer, you won’t have any hatchlings. You recognize this sword?”

Her eyes centered on the weapon and then shot to the open chest. Steam started shooting from her nostrils turning the air more than humid. The flame that was building up within her would be massive. I reared back and started to bring the sword down on the first egg.

“NO!”

My ears, already aching, were close to being seriously damaged. I met her gaze straight on and nearly dropped to my knees at her thoughts. She was truly enraged and calculating, devious and evil, but most of all she feared for her unhatched eggs.

Lyzax stepped back, deeper into the cavern. “You may go, but know this, intruder. I will find you. I will not rest until I am picking your innards from my teeth.”

She was lying so hard about letting me go that I probably didn’t need the Circlet to deduce that one. “You’re lying. As soon as I step away, I’m dead.”

Her yellow eyes flashed again. “Who are you to dare question my given word?”

The longer I was in her presence, the more fear slipped away. “I am Ar’ri Bauquinea of Earth, Champion of Barristix the Bronze Dragon, who you’ve been threatening for the last few years. See, you sent your minions to kill my family already, so now I feel I have to do something to kick your red scaly ass. You brought it on yourself Lyzax.”

Her tail slammed onto the floor, shaking the entire cavern. This time, I did fall, but my new sword didn’t waver. Cracks sounded along the walls and the floor, but most importantly one sounded directly in front of me.

“Oh crap. You did that. I didn’t.”

The Dragon’s eyes widened. “No,” she almost whispered… well whispered to her. I’ve come to figure out that a dragon just can’t whisper. It’s impossible. “Step back, Elf-kin. By all the gods of Qrynn if you do not…”

“You’ll burn me, crush me, kill me?” I snapped back filling it with as much sarcasm as I could manage. “Exactly how many different ways can you kill someone more than you’ve already said?”

Another loud crack sounded from the eggshell.

“Go, take your trinket and go. You have my word you will come to no harm until we meet next.”

There was serious fear in her voice. This time she was telling the truth, but I couldn’t take the chance that she wouldn’t change her mind a second after I cleared the nest. Before I knew it, the shell cracked again and the hatchling stuck its head out meeting my eyes straight on.

Something reached down into my head and flicked a switch inside me. That’s the only way I could describe it.

“NOOOOOOO!”

Lyzax’s tail smashed into the ground, knocking me to the side, breaking the connection between me the newborn Red Dragon. That’s when the ceiling started to cave in.

The glowing globes that provided brilliant light throughout the cavern started falling, which created tons of nicely dark shadows across the nest.

Don’t ask me why I did it, but I grabbed the little dragon and pulled it into my arms before disappearing into the closest shadow available. A second later I was in the bolt hole standing next to a now visible Shae. She had her back to me and we both watched as the ceiling came down on top of the nest crushing what remained of the eggs and pelting Lyzax as she tried to rescue them.

“Ready to go?”

Shae jumped and spun around. Her eyes went wide at what I was carrying. I passed the sword off to her. “Hold this.”

“Ar’ri, that’s a baby dragon!”

Before she said anymore, I grabbed her around the waist and jumped us to the top of the bolt hole and then again to the forest below, and for good measure, I pushed the limits of my Shadowdancing abilities to put as much distance between us and the mountain as possible.

Both of us stumbled to the ground this time. The baby dragon hissed at the abrupt landing, but didn’t offer any resistance against me.

I heard Lyzax roar again. Looking back, I saw a jet of intense flame shoot out of the bolt hole we’d left only seconds before. The sky was lit with burning Dragon Flame which allowed me to see her exit the hole and fall down the side of the mountainside. From the looks of it, one of her wings appeared bent at an odd angle.

Off in the distance, I heard other dragons answering her call.

“Shae, now might be a good time to place a call to Dá»rdor.”

The necklace was out and in her hand. A pulse of magic later and we waited quite impatiently for the portal to open.

“Ar’ri, you have a baby dragon. W–What are you doing?”

I honestly didn’t know so I shrugged. “I had to take him. He’s innocent. It’s not his fault that his mom is a freaking psycho.”

“Yeah, but it’s a Red Dragon. They’re evil!”

I looked down at the little thing, well he wasn’t that little. Maybe a foot and a half long in body and he felt like he weighed thirty pounds or more. Letting the Circlet tell me what his alignment was, I smiled. “Right now he’s True Neutral. I’m not leaving him here.”

The portal finally opened, and I could see Barry and Dá»rdor clear enough. “Come on.”

We stepped through together and the Sorcerer closed the portal as soon as we were clear. Barry got one look at what I was holding and he nearly freaked. Scuttling backward we were treated to a hell of a transformation. His clothes exploded off of him and his body ballooned into Barristix in a matter of seconds.

The baby Red I was holding hissed at the Bronze, struggling against me to get down.

Looking at it, I snapped. “Stop it. Behave.” Bringing my attention to Barristix, I did the same. “You’re scaring him! Back off!”

The Bronze’s mouth dropped open. If you’ve never witnessed a great Bronze Dragon utterly befuddled before, it was quite the sight to see.

Dá»rdor was wide-eyed. It was the first time I think I’d ever seen him out of his depth. Stunned, yeah, I’ve seen that already. Frightened? Sure. This was more along the lines of poleaxed.

Barristix finally snapped his jaw closed and cocked his head. “Ar’ri Bauquinea, what have you done?”

I raised an eyebrow. “What? Didn’t see this one coming? Not as all seeing as you led me to believe? Huh, who woulda thought?”

His eyes snapped up to meet mine. The Circlet announced his presence, but kept him out of my head. I could see the annoyance on his face at not being allowed through to speak to me. He’d have to talk like normal people did. That was almost reason enough to leave the thing on all the time.

“How in name of the Ten Races did you manage a maternal bond with a Red Dragon, Ar’ri?”

It was my turn to be poleaxed. I looked down at the baby dragon and it looked up at me. It wrinkled its nose, shot out a tiny blast of steam and squeaked out a noise in Draconic, the language of Dragons.

Looking back up to Barristix, I saw an amused grin, and on a Dragon those are kind of scary. “Welcome to motherhood, Ar’ri. Your hatchling just called you, Mama.”

~O~

“What is this?”

I held what looked to be some sort of armored baby bottle. The Wyrmling — that’s their proper name, by the way — squirmed in my arm and tried it’s best to reach for the bottle.

“That how my mother fed me before I learned to transform,” Barry explained, now that he was back to his human form. “It’s a single malt scotch with nutrients and cayenne pepper added.”

“You’re giving my newborn dragon booze?”

He gave me a withering look. “It’s the closest thing to mother’s milk he’s going to find on this planet, Ar’ri.”

With a moderate amount of skepticism, I brought it to the Wyrmling’s mouth and it latched on quick. Just for good measure, I narrowed my eyes at Barry.

“Now that he’s occupied, would you care to tell me how you managed this unlikely feat?”

Shae and Dá»rdor disappeared somewhere, so it was just us in the cavern, so I gave him the short version of the story. When I got to the point where the ceiling fell on the other eggs he winced, but when I reached the part were Lyzax took a nosedive of a few thousand feet I got his attention.

“Oh really!”

I nodded and the Wyrmling started squirming. Taking the bottle away, I noticed that it was empty and then stared at the little dragon. “Do I have to burp him?”

“No, dragons, as a rule, don’t normally get gas.” Barry reached for the bottle. “You’ll need to do that once every four hours for the first two days and then we can get him on some solid food.”

I groaned.

“Hey, you’re the one swiping baby dragons from their mothers. This one’s all on you.”

Getting up off the floor with a thirty pound dragon in your arms isn’t exactly easy.

“He isn’t going to go burning down my room is he?”

Barry chuckled. “No, it’ll be a while before his breath weapon works. The most he can do for the first month is steam clean your clothes. Just make him a nest with your gold and gemstones and he’ll settle right down.”

So much for that Ferrari.

“I’ll have someone bring up some more bottles. Remember, every four hours or you’ll have him gnawing on anything he can find.”

Once I was out of the cavern, the Wyrmling got really interested in everything that was going on. It was mostly a lot of hallways and a number of doors, but still. It was all new to him.

Fred and Sam nearly crapped themselves. After the mutual hissing between Sam and the Wyrmling was over, they got to know each other and settled down.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I haven’t really thought of any. It’s not like they have any baby dragon name books on the internet or anything.”

Fred ran his finger down the spine nubs. “I think it’s totally cool, dudette.”

“You do realized how big these things get, right?” Sam said.

I nearly laughed. “Yeah, I faced her mother. Speaking of which, I need to take a shower and… um, never mind.” I wasn’t about to tell them I wet myself.

My arm felt like dead-weight by the time I made it to my room where I was surprised to find a decent sized box with my share of the haul from the Lab job beside the bed with the gold pieces arranged like a small bed for the dragon. The gems I’d picked out were in there as well. The dragon squirmed in my hands again until I set him down in his new nest. He stood up on shaky legs and then twirled around a few times until he found a good position then dropped down, curling up and looking at me.

He made a squalling-like noise then set his head down and closed his eyes.

~O~

Virtually four hours to the nose I jerked awake to hear the worst high-pitched wail I’d ever heard.

“I’m up. I’m up.”

I looked at the clock by the bedside and saw I’d only been asleep for barely two hours. The dragon was standing by the bed looking up at me. The bottles were on my dresser. A quick shuffle over and I grabbed one and then returned to sit on the bed. While I lifted the little whiner up onto my lap, a knock sounded at my bathroom door before it opened.

“You okay, Ar’ri?”

The light from the bathroom was enough to kill my Darkvision. “Yeah, it’s time for Junior’s feeding, sorry he woke you.”

She smiled at me as I brought the bottle to his mouth. “He said, Mama, Hungry.”

I looked at her incredulously. “You speak Draconic?”

Shae nodded as she sat down beside me and stroked at Junior’s cheek spines. Red Dragons have a boatload of spines sticking out on either side of their cheeks and three rows of them down their backs through their tails. Luckily, Junior’s were still stubs.

“It’s a hard language to learn though. But given your bond, you should be able to figure out his needs easily enough. Maybe Barry or Dá»rdor can figure out something to help.”

That’s when she spotted the nest of gold and grinned. “Already started hording has he?”

I sighed. “Yeah, they grow up so fast.”

We sat there in companionable silence for a few minutes listing to Junior suck on his bottle before I posed a question that I had been itching to ask. “Everything okay with Dá»rdor?”

She nodded. “He apologized profusely. At the end, I felt sorry for the old guy. The guilt was radiating off of him.”

“You’re a better person than I am. I would have milked him for all sorts of things.”

Shae giggled. “Who says I didn’t?”

My eyes widened at her sneakiness. “What did you do?”

She gestured casually with her head. “I told him about how helpless I felt watching you face off Lyzax all by yourself. He’s loading up my staff with a few spells that should prove useful the next time we face off.”

I was suitably impressed.

“Plus, I have access to his Lab any time that I want, with some limitations.” Her face came alive at that point. “I wish you could see it, Ar’ri. It’s amazing. He has so many spellbooks. He’s probably forgotten more magic than I’ve ever learned.”

Junior started squirming again, and I pulled the bottle away then let him down to the floor. He went over and sniffed at Shae then returned to his nest, curled up and closed his eyes.

She patted my leg. “I better let you get some sleep. You’ll be up again soon enough.”

~O~

It went on like that for the next four weeks.

I was officially grounded until Flamestrike — that’s Junior’s new name — was sufficiently weaned off the tit, so to speak. Everywhere I went, he had to go or destruction would follow. The first time I snuck off to grab a snack from the cafeteria, I came back to find my mattress being ripped apart. I was only gone for ten minutes, tops.

In the short span of a month, he grew to a little over four feet in length. Goes to show you what a diet of rabbit and squirrel does for a dragon, not to mention the two gallons of single malt scotch formula he runs through every day. I tried to slip in a cheaper blended brand, but the little snob snubbed it.

Barry’s been teaching him the ways of being a good dragon, you know, like not eating humans if they anger you. He’s even giving me lessons in Draconic… shoving more crap in my brain is more like it. Picture Rosetta Stone on steroids with a little magic added to help with the absorption rate. Within two weeks I was able to talk to my adopted dragon, for the most part. There are still some words that don’t work properly without a thin forked tongue and a mouth of teeth to grind, but I can get my point across.

The one problem I was having concerned his nest. Simply put, it wasn’t big enough. He pretty much surrounds it now instead of it surrounding him. Given that Red Dragons are natural hoarders, if he doesn’t have enough treasure and sparkly things then he can’t sleep properly. Sounds like some people I used to know.

Any way you look at it, an insomniac dragon is a grumpy dragon.

“Mama, can we go treasure hunting?”

I marked my place on the map of Qrynn I was studying for an upcoming raid to see Flamestrike sitting by the table with such a pathetic but hopeful look on his face. Giving him a reluctant smile, I reached out and brushed my hand over his head. His spines were starting to lengthen and sharpen slightly.

“Flamestrike, you remember what your Uncle Barry said. It’s not safe for you to hunt on your own until you at least get your breath weapon.”

He shuffled a little closer and I could see his eyes widen and somehow he’d gotten his pupils to dilate a little. Considering he’s got those vertical lizard slits to work with, it was quite an accomplishment.

“But what if you go with me and we can bring Aunt Shaeria and Aunt Samantia. Nobody would mess with us then.” He saw the look of denial once again on my face. “I can’t sleep, Mama. Even when you spread out the gold and gems it’s not enough.”

He slumped and set his head on the table.

I sighed. “Honey, you know I can’t leave here until you can control yourself while I’m gone. But I’ll make you a deal.”

Flamestrike lifted his head up a little, hopefully.

“If you can be without me for a single day, I’ll go out and see if I can find something to add to your nest.”

He looked to the side, like he was trying to think hard about something. “I can’t go with you?”

“Not until you can get your fire working.” I pointed at him. “That means working on it down in the cavern, not in the bedroom.

It took a few moments, but he set his head back on the table and sighed with resignation. “Okay.”

~O~

I brought Flamestrike down to the cavern for his daily training. Barry had an obstacle course built. It was more like a playground, just directed to be run through instead of aimless play. While my little dragon was teetering on a balance beam, Barry and I sat down to go through the next mission.

“You were right,” I admitted. “He’s ready to be on his own for a little while.”

“That’s just experience, Ar’ri, not prescience. I remember how eager I became at that age. It was worse for my mother, since there was no place she could acquire that much gold without going broke.”

I cringed at the thought. “What did she do?”

Barry leaned back and played with his Dew can. “I made due with loose change, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. She threw in her jewelry to take the edge off.” He chuckled to himself. “I whined for weeks on end, but I was able to get some decent sleep. Reds have it a lot worse than the rest of us. It’s so engrained into their personality. They just naturally know the worth of their hoard. If it’s not enough then, well, badness.”

Flamestrike unfurled his wings and leaped from a five foot stand beating them rapidly, but they were still not developed enough and all he was able to do was land on the ground below without a resounding thump before dashing off to the next obstacle.

“He won’t be satisfied here, Ar’ri.”

I looked over at him, scowling slightly. “I know.”

The conversation was already becoming old. Red Dragons didn’t become proficient in magic until they reached adulthood, and by that time, Flamestrike would be trapped in the cavern, unable to go anywhere else due to his size. Their natural armor prevented magic from working properly. It was one of the reasons Dragons were so hard to fight. Only their own magic affected them to any worthwhile degree.

“I’ve been looking for somewhere on Qrynn that he can call his own. But the entire place is taken already.” Gripping my pen, I looked him in the eye. “I’m going back on active duty, today. If Flamestrike is going to be able to live in peace then I need to take out the opposition.”

Speaking of the five foot long terror, he slid to a stop in front of me.

“Mama, did you see the jump? I almost flew!”

Grinning at him, I leaned in to hug his neck. “I sure did sweetie. You’re doing so well!”

He didn’t wait for anymore praise, before dashing off to run the gambit again.

“I know you haven’t gotten anywhere with the sword, Barry, but I need it.”

When we originally returned from Qrynn, Shae gave the greatsword to Dá»rdor so that he could discern its secrets. Nothing that he tried worked. The most he could tell was that the blade was unnaturally sharp and deadly. That was about it. If you know anything about magical weapons then you already know that pretty much any blade that is tempered with magic is unnaturally sharp, like my Luck Blade for instance. However, there are different degrees of effectiveness.

It’s a fairly easy system to figure out. A plus-one weapon generally means the height of human ability to forge without magical means. Then each level above that increases its effectiveness. Some weapons are specifically made to defeat specific creatures or to cut though certain things.

Evil’s Bane’s — that’s the name of the greatsword — purpose, as far as legend states, is to destroy non-human creatures that are evil, no matter what kind of creature they are. Don’t ask me how; that’s what Dá»rdor was supposed to figure out.

Sometimes only action will reveal a weapon’s true nature. Facing one’s enemy, using it to fight, saying a command word, there were an infinite number of ways to discern a weapon’s purpose and power.

“You have a plan already in place?” he asked.

“Yeah, I just need Fred, Sam, and Shae. Where we’re going, Kog won’t be able to fit.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you plan on doing?”

Looking back at Flamestrike, I saw him leap again from the five foot stand and actually glide for a few moments.

“The others need to face a real dragon if they’re going to be able to beat the fear they radiate. So we’re going to the bottom rung.”

Once I’d said that, Barry knew exactly who I was talking about. “Obsydiax.”

I nodded. “Black Dragon.”

~O~

Flamestrike looked heartbroken as he sat there in the cavern watching us. Shae volunteered her gold to widen his nest while we were away so he could sleep properly. It still wasn’t enough to make a proper bed for the dragon, but it would help.

“You’ll behave and listen to Uncle Barry while I’m away, right?”

He nodded. “Don’t stay for long, Mama, okay?”

I sighed and brushed a hand down his hardening scales. “Only for as long as it takes to make sure you have a proper nest. You’re going to be getting very big soon. Make sure you finish all your formula if you want to grow up big and strong.”

His mouth opened and he showed me all his sharp needle-like teeth. The third row was coming in nicely.

“Lady Ar’ri,” Dá»rdor called from his place in front of the Fire Diamond.

I looked back then I grabbed Flamestrike’s head and kissed him on the snout. “I’ll see you soon. Be brave for me.”

The pathetic look dropped off his face while he attempted to look older and stalwart for my departure. “Bye, Mama.”

“Bye sweetie.”

At my approach, Dá»rdor opened the portal and the four of us dashed through.

The greatsword was strapped to my back a lot lower than I was used to. Due to its length, I couldn’t wear it on my hip or it would drag the ground, and wearing it high on my back prevented me from fully unsheathing it properly. In short, it looked like I was hauling around a giant sword that I couldn’t use.

Everyone else had what was now their standard equipment. They’d been on missions of their own during my downtime. Mostly it consisted of meeting with villages and people we knew sided with us, arranging for safe houses and opening trade relations.

Under Lyzax’s rule, virtually all of Qrynn suffered. Disease ran rampant, crops were spoiled, and earning a living was virtually non-existent. At times, it was every man for himself. So you can probably see how when Shae and Fred arrived with a Bag of Holding, containing nothing but MREs, they were hailed as servants of old times returned.

Potions cured a number of problems, and purified village wells. Minor weapons increased hunting abilities and kept bandits from running roughshod across the land.

All in all they were very productive while I was going insane for lack of anything to do but care for a baby dragon.

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived far in the south. A hundred leagues to the east lay Elven land and many times that to the north Lyzax was hopefully still nursing a broken wing, but probably not. What lay before us was a swamp.

Late summer had fallen over the land, so the water level was low and in a lot of places dried up. The only thing we had to worry about was the wildlife, for the most part. We had to keep in mind natural hazards: quicksand, mog pits, leeches in the water, and so forth.

Each of us had a quarterstaff on this adventure. It’s presence obvious as we poked the ground in front of us as we made our way into the thickest of the marsh.

“It stinks,” Sam commented.

Fred was up on his dragon lore. “It’s the Black. They magically poison the local water to keep things away from their lair. If enough dead bodies surround the place then nobody really wants to investigate why. ”

I nodded in agreement. He was one of the players that faced off the Black Dragon from my past. Fred actually survived; David’s Cleric, not so much. He was the one that got doused with Acid Breath. Now David was Shae and she got to go through the whole thing all over again. However this time, she was loaded for bear… or dragon rather.

“Yeah,” I said. “So make sure not to drink the water. You really don’t want to be out here with a case of Montezuma’s Revenge, ‘cause I’m not sharing my toilet paper.”

Sam grinned and rolled her eyes.

Fred got his quarterstaff stuck in some soft ground and pulled it out with a dull squelch. “Where’s this place at again?”

I took off my pedometer and checked the distance we’d already walked. “About three more miles.” With a grimace I stopped and looked around. “We’re well within his hunting grounds. Let’s keep the chatter down and make sure to check the water for any movement. I don’t want to get surprised by this thing.”

We had to double back a couple of times to avoid big pools of water. It wasn’t that I was afraid of leeches or anything since we were all wearing those ski suit things under our leathers, but I’d seen way too many horror flicks where the stupid characters always waded through the swamp only to be sucked under by the monster that they already knew was out there. There I was, all along, yelling at the screen at how stupid they were. This time, I took my own advice.

Another hour went by and we’d probably progressed an additional two miles. It was slow going for sure.

“…”

Stopping, I turned around and looked at Shae. “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”

She cocked an eyebrow and looked at me weird. “Nothing.”

I looked around. “You didn’t just whisper something to me?”

Shae shook her head.

Shrugging it away, I scanned the woods and looked for ripples in the dead water. With nothing there I looked up into what sky I could see. Nothing again.

I’d wasted enough time and turned back to making slow progress toward our goal.

~O~

The swamp thinned out because the ground started to rise. Conditions didn’t seem to improve though. Surrounding grass was brown and thin, the trees old and gnarled, the atmosphere dark and dreary. We were very close. Memories started to come back to me from the encounter with the previous Black. The smells were the same and the inevitable feeling of oppression pressed in.

“Psst.”

Sam stopped and looked back. I could already see Fred’s face. He could feel it too. Gathering together, we kept our voices as low as possible.

“The entrance to his lair is somewhere around here. It won’t be big. Maybe a five to ten foot circle or cave entrance. Weapons out and eyes open.”

Slowly I withdrew the greatsword. It was held by a hard-leather sheath strictly for this mission. There was no need to alert anything with that cliché metal scraping against metal sound.

“Evil approaches.”

I spun around and Shae jumped back looking at me like I was about to lose it or something. My head jerked left then right. She gave me the universal signal for what the hell is up with you? It looked like she was going to say something, but I held a finger to my lips. It wasn’t her that said anything to me. I was sure of it, since the voice was male and the only male around was Fred. He was a good ten feet away and the voice sounded like it was right at my ear.

“Something’s screwing around with me,” I whispered.

Sam was already twenty yards away, and Fred half that distance. The area cleared of trees, which was ominous enough for me. The bare space would make a perfect landing place for the…

“DRAGON!” Sam screamed as she leaped to the side to avoid being taken out from the Black shooting into the sky from a camouflaged hole in the ground. Brush and branches exploded everywhere.

“Teams! Find cover!” I yelled.

Fred whipped out his tarp that Dá»rdor assured us would resist a spray from the Black’s breath weapon. Shae was right behind me, the translucent stone on the end of the staff was lit in preparation for my defense since I was the one that stood the best chance of killing the thing.

The plan was for Fred to distract it by making it protect its eyes from his arrows and Sam was supposed to protect him from any minions that happened to be around.

Ditto with Shae.

Me? I got to charge Obsydiax with the big honking sword. I’ve got to talk to Barry about better working conditions. OSHA would have a hissy fit. Before anyone realized it, the Black dropped from the sky and landed with a resounding THUMP while simultaneously spraying us with his breath weapon. Shae’s magical shield flared in front of me. Before it had a chance to stop, I stepped into a shadow and reappeared at the shadow that it was casting on its right side, raised the greatsword high, I brought it down as hard as I could against his hide.

“YESSSSS!” the unknown voice yelled. “AGAIN!”

Obsydiax, screamed, and then screamed again when one of Fred’s arrows took out its right eye. The dragon rolled to its left, away from me and its wings unfurled to take flight.

I couldn’t let that happen or we’d lose it, so I did something extremely stupid and leaped on top, right behind its wings. Obsydiax was only about twenty five feet long, including the tail, so we’re not talking massive monstrosity like Lyzax, but still.

Swiping from left to right, I took off both wings and then leaped again, an action that took about two seconds in totality. As soon as I cleared, a crack of lightning arced from Shae’s staff and slammed into the Black’s face. Static electricity filled the area.

“AGAIN! THE NECK!” the unknown voice yelled.

While Obsydiax looked temporarily stunned, I jumped in and drove the greatsword through the back of its throat, nearly decapitating the creature. Rearing back I stabbed the red meaty flesh underneath and left the sword there as I scrambled back.

The Black Dragon shuddered and collapsed to the ground.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Fred’s right arm was smoking as he hurried to remove his leather top. Sam backed away, her eyes wide with fright.

I wanted to help, but the ground all around Fred was saturated with acid. “Shae!”

“On it,” she said back with little emotion. She had kept it together. “Fred, stay still.”

Her hand arced in front of her and a cone of frost shot out all over the grass. “Hurry, get out of there.”

“Sam,” I called. “Don’t freak. I’m coming for you.”

She was barely holding it together after her first experience with the fear aura that almost all dragons possess. Stepping into a shadow, I emerged from behind and took her by the arms. She jumped anyway, but this time it was into my arms with a strong shudder.

Once she was safe, by Shae, and Fred had rid himself of his acid splashed leather, we took stock.

“Everyone okay?”

“No!” Sam snapped. “You didn’t tell me that fear thing was that bad!”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t. Compared to Lyzax, that thing was a walk in the park.”

She hid her face in Fred’s neck. I watched as Shae shrugged made her way over to the hole in the ground. With her foot, she kicked a broken branch over the edge and listened at the fall. When it hit she turned her head. “About a hundred, hundred and ten feet.”

Looking back at Fred and Sam, it looked like she was starting to shake off the aura of fear. “I’ll go down and check it out. Keep an eye on that sword. It’s possessed.”

That’s where the voice and the whispering were coming from, the sword. Oh, you wouldn’t know about that. Magical weapons are sometimes wielded by the fanatics that create them, at least this type of weapon. When they go out crusading against whatever pissed them off in the first place, they put their heart and soul into the blade… literally. It’s to increase the effectiveness of the weapon. Remember that thing I was talking about earlier about increasing the effectiveness of an ordinary sword by giving it a zap with the ole magic? Same thing.

Considering how it went through Dragon Scale like a hot scoop through ice cream, I’d estimate that it was one of the best blades ever made, at least against evil dragons.

They’re funny that way.

If I were to maybe use it against a Bugbear it might only act like a plus-two sword, but in its use against evil dragons it could very well be a plus-five Holy Sword. However, since I wasn’t a Bible-thumping Paladin, the Holy part was highly unlikely. I digress.

The trees along the edge of the open area cast enough shadows for me to step into and jump down to the bottom of the hole. My Darkvision eased in, and since there wasn’t a whole lot of heat down there, my Infravision wasn’t too active.

Black Dragons, by nature, weren’t very social creatures. They were pretty much the bottom of the totem pole. They generally got picked on by the other evil dragons and didn’t really like any living thing, except when they were hungry. Hence, the lack of minions, rodents, insects, arachnids, you name it.

The tunnel was clear enough.

When I stepped out of the shadow, up top, Shae jerked slightly. “Still a little jumpy?” I said with a grin.

I just received a glare and a smack on the arm. “You did that on purpose.”

“You guys want to go Dragon Lair diving? It looks clean enough down there.”

Fred glanced over at the neck of the Black. “You gonna to leave your sword there, dudette?”

I really didn’t want to pick it back up again. Fanatics tend to be, well, fanatical. It’s one of the drawbacks of fighting with an Intelligent Weapon. Sometimes the wielder will take on the traits of the presence. Basically the longer it was in my possession, the worse it was. My Wisdom ability score was pretty good; it wasn’t exceptional like a few of the others. That’s what determines who wins the battle of wills between the wielder and the weapon.

That laminated character sheet, that had all the neat information on it, would be pretty helpful at a time like this. Since the intelligence revealed itself, all the pertinent details would be displayed on the sheet, for the most part. But any way you look at it, I couldn’t just leave the thing sticking out of the dragon.

With regret, I walked over and looked at the hilt sticking out. “If you mess with me, I’ll leave you down in that hole, comprende?”

Grabbing on to the hilt, I pulled it out and swiped the blood off.

“Greetings warrior!”

“Great, now it talks to me.” Looking over to the group, I asked. “Can you guys hear this?” All of them shook their heads no.

“Does anyone have an oil cloth? Dragon blood can be corrosive if left on steel for too long. Now that you have me warrior, together we shall vanquish evil dragons everywhere!”

I groaned. “Great, I have a chatty sword as well.”

“Onward warrior! To the next great adventure! Taran-tarah!”

TBC...

Author's note: Again, thanks to those that commented and reviewed throughout this story. Remember, your comments keep me writing. Merry Christmas to all! Depending on how hectic the next couple of days are, I might have another chapter out on Christmas day, no promises, but I'll try.

Part 8

You know what sucks, and I mean really really sucks about having a talking sword? They never shut up. I mean, I can see being stuffed in chest surrounded by a Cloak of Pestilence or whatever that thing was for a few decades, might be a little boring, but gheeze!

“And so I said to him, HA! Have at me, knave! My wielder and I will drink your evil dragon blood! And then he said…”

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I snapped.

There was a slight pause. “No… he said, ‘come hither and you shall…’”

“No,” I said on the edge of mild hysteria. “I meant for you to shut up. I swear by all the Elven gods if you say one more thing, unless I specifically ask you something, then I will take you back to Qrynn and toss you in the middle of that swamp where we left that rotting corpse of a Black Dragon.”

Five seconds went by without a sound. “Ah, blessed silence.”

“How rude…,” the sword muttered.

“That’s it! Dá»rdor, open this damn thing back up. I have a sword to drown.”

The ancient Sorcerer looked up at me from examining the greatsword, or more like the great-pain-in-my-ass-sword.

“Lady Ar’ri, you may not dispose of this minor artifact in such a way.”

My eyes widened at his refusal. “Artifact, pfft. This thing hasn’t shut up for more than a minute since I first cut into Obsydiax.”

Dá»rdor looked thoughtful. “Yes, I assumed as much. A triggering event occurred. It was likely dormant until then or perhaps it was waiting to see if you would use it for its intended purpose. What is its name?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It hasn’t mentioned anything but its past adventures, and believe me, I’m starting to think that most of it is B.S.”

Dá»rdor looked confused. “B.S.?”

“Oh, sorry, B.S. means bullsh… uh, hockey.”

That earned me the raised-eyebrow-of-disappointment from the Sorcerer. Dá»rdor seemed to have delusions of turning me into a proper Elvish Lady. Since the only other Elf around was Shae, she couldn’t be associating with the common-folk. Given my position, supposedly I’d earned a certain amount of class. I wasn’t buying it for a second.

He cleared his throat in way to let me know that we were moving on and pretending that I wasn’t thinking in a profane way.

“Perhaps you should ask the sword about its creation.”

Taking a step back from the table, I shook my head. “No way, José. I finally got that thing…”

Again, he gave me the face of expectancy.

I might have mumbled something under my breath about annoying magic users, but I’ll deny it if pressed about the issue. “Fine.”

Stepping up to the table, I looked down at the sword. “Okay, only in concise terms, without any embellishment, tell me your name and about your creation.”

I’d learned a thing or two about how to pose these types of requests in the past. There’s nothing worse than finding a perfectly good Wish spell or Magic Lamp with a Genie inside only to misspeak and totally ruin a good thing.

There was one thing I forgot about: the egos of intelligent weapons.

“It’s ignoring me.”

Dá»rdor silently considered the options. “Perhaps if you asked nicely.”

Rolling my eyes, I leaned in. “Please.”

“I’m rethinking the terms of our relationship, Warrior.”

“What terms? I rescued you from eternal rust in the lair of a Dragon. You owe me.”

“True. However, a weapon of my exceptional exquisiteness should not be wielded by anyone less than a true champion.”

I stood there boggled. “A true champion? I went into the lair of the most fearsome Dragon in all of Qrynn and…”

“Ran away.”

I pointed at it accusingly. “The ceiling was coming down. I was supposed to get crushed?”

“Lady Ar’ri,” Dá»rdor interrupted. “You’re arguing with an inanimate object.”

With an annoyed sigh, I turned around and headed toward the door. “I need a break, and I have to check on Flamestrike. I’ll be back later.”

~O~

My bed was gone and in its place was a big pile of gold, silver, and platinum pieces with a Wyrmling rolling around in the center getting everything juuuuuusssst right.

“Mama!”

Flamestrike jumped up, flinging gold pieces all over the room and ran at me. Luckily there wasn’t enough room for him to fully extend his wings or I would have been a stain on the carpet. He’d gotten quite heavy in only a month.

“Mama, I got lots of gold now.”

I smiled and hugged his head against my leg. “I know, sweetie. Do you like it?”

He pulled back and nodded. “They had to take your bed out ‘cause it took up too much room. You can sleep with me if you want.”

The thought of waking up with coins stuck to my forehead and cheeks, not to mention other unmentionable places, wasn’t particularly pleasant.

“We’ll work something out. Now, go on, I know you’ve been waiting ages for the perfect nest.”

He showed me all of his needle sharp teeth and then almost tripped turning around and diving back in.

Looking to the side, I saw Shae approach. “I kept the more important items out here.”

“I appreciate that.”

She led me over to the coffee table where a good amount of things were already spread out. It was our haul from Obsydiax’s hoard. That’s when I realized that I was suffering from treasure overload.

It’s a common ailment amongst adventurers with too generous of a DM. When a character starts off at their first level, they basically have squat. A few coppers, maybe some silver pieces and a gold piece or three. Finding your first magical item is a really big deal, especially if it’s actually useful. Gold is also quite helpful in purchasing better weapons, armor, ale at the local inn, and for bribing people.

However if you have a DM that gives you heaven and Earth after every adventure, the PC comes to expect it, and then eventually grows bored even with some great finds.

A plus one longsword is a really nice find, but if you already have a plus five Vorpal blade, it’s meh.

We found a lot of those amongst the hoard, along with several suits of armor, some of which still had the owner’s bones inside. There were various trinkets as well. None of which were of much use to us.

That which was useful, got put in Shae’s Bag and wound up on the coffee table that we were all currently staring at.

It was going to be an ongoing problem. Think about this. All of the evil dragons basically ripped off everyone, stealing everything of any worth. Picture all the really precious metals of the world divvied up and put in a hundred different places on Earth. Now add to that all the precious stones as well. Then picture big gigantic monsters destroying your ability to do anything, like manufacture things, or even to grow food.

The inhabitants of Qrynn had it rough.

“I’m thinking about telling the Elves that Obsydiax is dead and there’s still a lot of gold to be had if they go to get it.”

Fred looked like he was going to rebel, but he paused and leaned back. “Yeah, I see what you mean, dudette.”

Sam chewed the inside of her lip before speaking. “A lot of that armor was Elven.”

Shae smiled at me, like she was proud. “We’re rich enough. That’s a good idea, Ar’ri.”

I shrugged. “Well, you guys are rich enough. Flamestrike’s already claimed all of mine.”

Fred was fiddling with what looked like a pair of archaic motorcycle goggles. Giving him a shrug with my head I sat down. “Neat things?”

He grinned and held them up. “Darkvision Goggles. Now the ever-scrumptious Sam doesn’t have to lead me around the dark by the hand anymore.”

My eyes ticked to our resident Tiefling to see her lips twitch just a little bit. Something told me she didn’t mind that chore so much.

“Cool, what else we got?”

Shae was eying small book of some sort. “Spell book. There’s some interesting magic inside that can affect dragons, sort of.”

“Sort of?” I asked.

“Yeah, a few of the spells require the dragon to ingest a potion beforehand. It lowers their magic resistance to specific spells.”

I nodded in understand. “That’s going to be a tough one to pull off. I can’t see Lyzax willingly drink anything that came from us.”

Shae nodded. “Still, an opportunity might arise…”

Sam pushed at a red bauble. “Necklace of Acid Resistance.” The she pointed at a pair of silver cuffs. “And Bracers of Natural Armor plus three.”

And that was it.

You might be wondering why we just so happen to have so much stuff useful for fighting Dragons. Who do you think donated all the nice armor, weapons, and magical items to Obsydiax’s hoard? It was from the hunters that came before us, except they all died and left their stuff behind in the process.

We spent the rest of the morning figuring out how best to return the useless, to us, stuff to the Elves. Guess who got nominated to do that?

~O~

There was no way I was taking Chester the Chatty Claymore with me, however I had to find a nice belt to attach my Luck Blade. Dá»rdor insisted that I dressed in proper Elven noble attire. Since I was Barry’s champion, I could go without a formal dress, but everything else had to go or at least be hidden from view. Hence the Corset of Holding.

“This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to fight in this thing?” I said as I held it up.

Dá»rdor frowned. “It is an Elven weave, and I would appreciate you not insulting one of the few remaining items I still possess of my wife, Lady Ar’ri.”

I winced. “Sorry.”

He let the issue go. “As I was saying, this specific weave is made to be quite flexible, so if you are forced into battle, you will suffer no penalty to your dexterity.”

“I will, if my boobs fall out.”

Once he had it fitted properly, I felt the corset tightening itself. Well that’s a useful bit of magic.

“Please try not to acquire any damage to the fabric, Lady. This took me just over six months to make. The magic was very temperamental and did not like the adjustments I made.”

Looking down at my breasts, I noticed the entire top halves of them were exposed and it looked as if I’d grown two cup sizes somewhere along the way.

“What’s it do, anyway, I mean other than close itself up?”

Dá»rdor’s face flushed a little and he cleared his throat. “Your… ahem, cleavage acts as a Bag of Holding class one, much like the one you normally carry.” Before I could make a smart-ass comment he continued. “What makes this different from a regular bag is that the opening is regulated by whatever necessity you require.”

I blinked. “You want to say that in regular English?”

His face dropped in minor annoyance. “You can put big things down your cleavage and it won’t affect the way it looks.”

I tried, I really did, but a small giggle worked its way out of my mouth. “So I can stuff my backpack in here and I won’t have to worry about the sides tearing?”

He nodded, his face reddening even more. “And take it back out the same way, yes. You still have a limit of two-hundred and fifty pounds.”

Once he turned away to retrieve something else, he continued. “You’ll find your charisma has increased as well. Please try not to take advantage of that in unnecessary ways.”

I almost snickered at that. It looked like Dá»rdor was just as perverted as the rest of the males I’ve ever met. He’d purposely designed a corset for his wife that would make her breasts gigantic, improve her looks, and god knows what else.

He set out a pair of tan leather pants and some rather stylish flat-heeled boots, along with a few other necessities to the side.

“You’ll find that the rest of the clothing will alter itself to a proper size. Once you are prepared I will meet you in the cavern.”

He left rather expediently afterward. Shrugging out of my shorts, I slipped on the pants and nearly fell down afterward. The leather was so incredibly soft that it felt like it was caressing every inch of my skin. A stylish belt threaded through and buckled nicely. The boots were also indescribably comfortable, lacing themselves perfectly down the front of my leg. Yes, they were thigh boots. I felt very fetish-like at the moment.

“So this is how Elven noblewomen dressed. Kinky.”

I wiggled around a little, testing the limits of the clothing. He was right. Anything I could do in my regular leathers, I could do in what I was wearing. I simply looked really good doing it.

The walk back to my room was almost comical. Two guys nearly had to be hauled off to the clinic. One totally missed the hallway he was turning off into and smacked straight into the wall, while another had tripped and face-planted onto the floor. Once he had a handkerchief pressed to his bloody nose, he scampered off down the hall.

That really made me wonder how much my Charisma had increased. This brought to mind that laminated character sheet that I’d received the previous month before the Lyzax mission. I hadn’t bothered to even look at it since. Stuffing it away in my chest of drawers in the bedroom was the last I’d seen of it.

It wasn’t a priority. I mean, I already knew my stats and I hadn’t really done anything useful so they shouldn’t have changed much in the interim. Well, there was the mission itself, and I had just killed a Black Dragon. I decided it might be useful to take another gander and see what there was to see.

Bam! “Owww.”

Okay, make that three injured guys.

~O~

“Whoa,” Shae said when she got a load of the new duds.

“Like?”

Her pupils noticeably dilated as she nodded. There was almost no color left. “You should… um,” she swallowed and fidgeted a little, “… dress like that more often.”

I smiled brightly and saw what she was wearing. Being a Sorceress, she could get away with wearing a pretty dress. “You look really good yourself.”

Her blush radiated quickly. “Thanks.”

Pointing to my room, I said, “I’m just going to grab my stuff and we can go.”

Want to talk about weird looking? It was seriously weird looking when I took my backpack, barely tugged on my corset, right at the cleavage, and stuffed it inside. It just sucked it up. I turned from side to side in front of the mirror and couldn’t tell in the slightest. My smaller pack went in next and then I attached my Luck Blade scabbard to the belt that hung at an angle from the top of my hips. My backup dagger went on next and finally my thigh sheath for my main dagger. There was no way that my weapons were going down in the corset.

Yep, I look seriously hot and dangerous. Speaking of which…

Opening the top drawer of my chest, I moved aside my panties and retrieved my laminated character sheet. The first thing I checked out was my Charisma score. Looking up at the mirror, I checked myself out again then my eyes dropped to the sheet once more. Twenty-five.

“Holy shit.”

There’s a little place beside the score labeled Ability Modifier. Normally it reads plus five, hence my normal score of twenty. Now it read plus ten.

“That’s one hell of a corset.”

Perusing the rest of my stats, I noticed that my Armor Class had dropped a little, which meant that I could be injured easier. Since I was wearing civilian clothes that wasn’t a major revelation. There were two things of note, however.

One, I knew what kind of weapon the greatsword was as it had been added to my equipment list. And two, apparently I had a familiar which was all kinds of weird because I wasn’t a Magic User or a Ranger. Those are the most common Classes to have familiars. Single class Rogues simply didn’t do animals. The oddest part? It was Flamestrike.

~O~

“Mama, you look pretty!”

Flamestrike slid to a stop in front of me, gazing at me open-mouthed. Even Barry did a double take when Shae and I walked through the door. He blinked a couple of times and then it looked as if something slid over his face as he returned to normal.

“Thank you, sweetie. How are you doing on the course today?”

He bounced up. “I can glide now! Wanna see?”

I nodded and he took off a second later running through the obstacle course. Barry sidled up soon after.

“I don’t think the Elves will have much of a problem believing you are of noble blood.”

Looking at him out of the corner of my eye as I watched Flamestrike going through his paces, I said. “The corset is adds a plus five to my Charisma.”

His eyes widened significantly. “How do you know that? It’s supposed to be variable.”

I held a finger up. “Hold on a second.”

Flamestrike leaped off of the five foot stand and flapped his wings three times before gliding around the cavern. Every once in a while he’d flap a couple of more times keeping himself aloft. He didn’t just glide. He was flying!

“Astounding!” commented Barry. “He shouldn’t be able to do that until his third month.”

I grinned wide when he came in for a landing right in front of me. I guessed that he was so excited he’d forgotten what he was doing and tumbled to a stop on his back. Scrambling up on all fours, he bounded at me.

“Mama, I can fly! I can fly!”

Squatting down, I wrapped him in a hug and squeezed tightly. “You’re doing so well, Flamestrike! I’m so proud of you.”

He backed up and flapped his wings, but winced afterward. “Oww, it hurts.”

Barry didn’t look worried. “It happens, little one. You have to build up your muscles. It takes a lot of work, but pretty soon you won’t feel a thing. Now, go get yourself something to eat. You did very well today.”

Once Flamestrike disappeared into another portion of the cavern, Barry turned to me. “About this ability you have to know your current Charisma score…?”

He left that one hanging for me to finish. “It was on the character sheet you had made up.”

Barry looked at me, interested and totally clueless. “What character sheet?”

I frowned. “The laminated one. You know, the ones you left for Shae and me? They were in our rooms before we went to Qrynn the first time.”

His curiosity turned to concern. “Ar’ri, I have not had anything made up for you. Where is this laminated character sheet?”

“Upstairs in my…” I pointed at him, almost accusingly. “You stay out of my panty drawer. I’ll get it for you when we return.”

Barry’s lips pressed together. It was easy to suss out his annoyed face. “Were there any other changes that you noticed?”

I shrugged. “Nothing that I wasn’t expecting, for the most part. I’m about fifteen hundred points away from my next level-up. My Armor Class is reduced because I’m not wearing my good stuff. Um… oh.” Looking around, I made sure Shae was busy talking to Dá»rdor before leaning in and whispering.

“It listed Flamestrike as my familiar.”

Barry blinked hard in astonishment. “What? You can’t… that’s not possible.”

I nodded. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Only Wizards and Sorcerers can have familiars. Even Rangers and Bards can only have Companion Animals.”

There’s a difference, not much; it’s subtle. I shrugged.

He pressed the issue. “Rogues can’t have familiars and definitely not one that is a highly intelligent creature. That’s against the rules.”

“Apparently someone on high pointed their omnipotent finger down on us and said, ‘they don’t need any rules.’”

Barry crossed his arms in a mild huff. “That’s got to be wrong. Here, let’s test it out. Concentrate on Flamestrike, specifically seeing through his eyes.”

It’s one of the abilities that Magic Users have, to see through their familiar’s eyes, smell what they smell, and taste what they taste.

“Okay.” I closed my eyes and concentrated on my dragon. A moment later, I was looking down at a bowl and the bottom half of a squirrel within. The taste of the upper half of that same creature was rolling around in my mouth.

Snapping my eyes open, I gasped and then choked like I was going to lose my breakfast. Barry was by my side as I retched dryly. “What happened?”

“He’s eating a squirrel. I could taste it. Blech!”

Grabbing my shoulders, he pulled me up with a look of glee on his face. “Ar’ri, this is unprecedented! I must speak with Dá»rdor immediately.”

I spit mildly. It felt like I had fur in my mouth. Gah! Before he had a chance to run off, I grasped by the arm. “Keep it between you two. I don’t want anyone else to know, especially Flamestrike.”

Thinking of the implications he nodded. “Understandable. Now, off you go. When you get back, bring that character sheet to my office and we’ll compare it to your original.”

~O~

I had to rinse my mouth out a couple of times after we got to Qrynn, a few miles north of the Elven forest.

“Is everything okay? You looked like you were getting sick back there.”

“Bad taste in my mouth,” I said.

She gave me an understanding nod. Before we set off, I looked up at the clear azure-colored sky. There was one very large hawk that was circling about a hundred feet in the air, probably hunting for any rodents. It evened out and rode the thermals above the forest in the distance.

It was a shame that Qrynn was overrun with evil. The landscape was beautiful and the air very clean. Hopefully I was there to change that.

~O~

“Do you get the feeling we’re being watched?” Shae asked.

“Ever since we entered the forest. They’re up in the trees.”

She looked at me incredulously. “How…?”

I tapped my Circlet. “Pretty much on all the time now, especially when we’re here. I don’t like to be snuck up on.”

Shae rolled her eyes playfully. “You always get all the cool stuff.”

“You can have the greatsword if you want.”

“No way. That’s your punishment for being that gorgeous.”

She ducked her head. I don’t suppose she meant for that to come out, so to ease her discomfort, I changed the subject.

“You’d think these guys would come down and take us to their leader.”

Shae shrugged. “They’re probably gun-shy. Being under siege for so long makes one a bit edgy about strangers.”

There was a reason we hadn’t approached them as of yet. At the onset of the war that drove Mary Bybax to Earth, the Elven nation had become nomadic. According to Dá»rdor, it was in self-defense. If the enemy had found their true homes, they would be burned and looted. Some broke off and went underground or in vast caves underneath the mountain, while others traveled weekly, sometimes nightly to avoid the Dragons. The only thing that protected them from eventually being burned out was that the trees mysteriously would never burn.

Even Dragonfire, the hottest natural flame known, wasn’t enough to penetrate the canopy. That didn’t stop the Dragons from landing amidst the trees and creating their own destructive brand of havoc. However, it was enough to allow large numbers of Elves from being killed indiscriminately.

I came to a halt in a small clearing. “Well, enough of this random walking around routine.”

Thumping my quarterstaff on the ground, I yelled out. “You might as well come out. I know you’re up there.” As proof, I pointed to several places where I couldn’t see any evidence of life, but I could feel a presence. “There, there, there, and there. You move around so loud that an Orc could hear you.”

Elves aren’t big fans of Orcs. Ever since Corellon Larethian, the High God and leader of the Elven Pantheon, took the eye of their Orc god in battle, they’ve had a grudge. After thousands of years, it’s still a major point of contention between the two races.

Something sounded in the distance and I had the faintest of seconds before I reached out in front of my face and snatched an arrow out of the air.

“All right, that’s it. Shield yourself Shae. This’ll only take a minute.”

One of the great things about being under a canopy of leaves with the sunlight only poking through in a few places? Tons of shadows.

I slid out of a shadow where the idiot was that shot at me and clubbed him on the back of the head. Grabbing his limp form, I dropped him off beside Shae, and then proceeded to do the same to the other three. Between the Circlet and my Shadowdancing, they really didn’t have a chance.

While they were all unconscious I pulled my small bag from between my breasts, to Shae’s amazement.

“What the…? Where were you hiding that?”

I winked at her. “A girl’s got to have her secrets.”

From the bag, I withdrew a black Sharpe and etched the Sylvan ideogram for Idiot and Amateur on the shooter’s forehead. Then I replaced everything. Shae took special notice of me stuffing the bag back in its place.

We disarmed them, adding their weapons and personal belongings to the goods we were bringing to the Elves. They could get them later. After that, Shae conjured a jet of water into their faces while I leaned against a nearby tree.

“Wakey-wakey.”

Two of them scrambled to their feet and the other two stayed low, but all of them were wary and befuddled at the same time. They all reached for their secondary weapons only to find nothing.

“Yeah, okay. Are we done playing around now?”

Idiot-Amateur rushed me, doing some kind of Elven version of Kung-Fu, but I slid into a shadow and back out again to lay the end of my quarterstaff against the back of his head.

After he dropped to the ground, into unconsciousness, I pointed to the other two aggressive Elves. “You two, carry this paragon of utter fail.” Pointing to the fourth Elf that had stayed low and appeared the least aggressive, I crooked a finger. “You, come here.”

None of them moved, so I leaned in and poured on the intimidation, which considering my Charisma score at the moment, should be utterly devastating. “Did you hear what I said?”

The two standing nearly tripped over themselves to grab ahold of Idiot-Amateur and the last one looked like he was going to crap himself as he inched toward me. That’s when I eased up on the intimidating look and relaxed.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

The fourth Elf had long blonde hair and a thin face. Being of average Elf height, I towered over him.

“What’s your name?”

“Maeli Mor, Scout, Missus.”

Clasping him on the shoulder, I smiled wide and bright. “Maeli, I’m Ar’ri…”

“Lady Ar’ri,” Shae said.

I frowned at her. “Sorry, I forgot I’m supposed to do that now. Anyway, I’m Lady Ar’ri Bauquinea. Take me to your leader. I have some gifts to bestow that they just might want.”

He cringed and stepped back. “We can’t do that, Lady Ar’ri. It’s a secret and unless you know, then you can’t know.”

I sighed. “Do I need to whack you with my quarterstaff?”

He shook his head.

“That was a rhetorical question.”

Okay, we do this the hard way.

Backing him up against the tree, I gripped his jaw and looked deep in his eyes. “Where are the Elves of this forest hiding?”

“One mile south-southwest, please don’t make me say it,” the Elf thought.

Looking up at Shae, I nodded and pointed in the direction we had to go. “That way. I’ll take the lead.” Then to Maeli. “As long as you don’t give me any cra… grief, I let you tag along. If any of you decide to become a nuisance then I’ll just knock you out and leave you for whatever wildlife happens by, m‘kay fine.”

~O~

By the time we reached the village, I’d lost count of how many arrows were pointed at us. It was a bit unnerving, but I still felt fairly confident that we’d be okay since it was two against about a thousand or more. Temporary housing was giving the tents they lived in way too much credit.

We came to a halt at the outer perimeter of the village and I waved the three scouts and their baggage through. “Tell your boss I want to talk to him. We’ll wait here.”

There were some Elves that had blades in their hands, but most had only bows and arrows. That didn’t make them any less deadly, but against Dragons they were less than useless.

Shae looked like she wanted to say something, but held her tongue under the circumstances.

It didn’t take too long for the head honcho to show up. I should have said head honchos since five really old, I mean really old Elves made their way through the crowd.

They looked at both of us and then then their eyes didn’t leave Shae for a few moments.

I offered to break the ice first. “This is Lady Shaeria Faladhen daughter of Dá»rdor and I am Lady Ar’ri Bauquinea. We come in peace bearing gifts and news.”

The Elders looked at each other, and the one that looked to be the Eldest said, “What news?”

Straight to the point. “The Dragon, Obsydiax, that claimed the swamp to the west and supposed laid claims to these lands, is dead.”

There were several gasps deep in the background. The gaze of the Elders intensified.

“How?” asked the Eldest.

“By my hand and those of my friends.”

Shae pointed at me. “Mostly by her hand.”

The Eldest stepped forward and I heard several bowstrings pulled taut. “Word of the Black Dragon’s death has been bandied about for years.”

I nodded in understanding. “From the look of the armor we found amongst his hoard, I assume it was from this village that several warriors were sent forth? We come bearing what we found. If you have someplace we can lay out their belongings other than the ground?”

The Eldest scowled. It was my guess that he didn’t believe me from the looks of things. Since we didn’t have any packs or even a pack animal, from his point of view we didn’t have much to offer.

“Lady,” he said with some doubt. “We don’t stand on pleasantries here, nor do we have gilded tables with which to set things, or even chairs to rest your delicate behind. Set your findings on the ground before you and then leave.”

I considered him briefly. Instead of getting uppity toward him, I felt extremely empathetic. Here was a man and a people that had been beaten into submission; barely holding on to what dignity they could carry around on their own backs.

With a nod to Shae, she reached into her cloak and pulled out her Bag of Holding. After whispering something at the opening, she set it close to the ground.

The Eldest looked at her curiously and then his eyes widened. Holding out his hands, he motioned for everyone to back away. Then the armor and treasure started coming out in droves.

Normally with a Bag of Holding, you have to think of or say what you want and then stick your hand inside. It usually appeared in your hand and you simply pulled it out. However, Shae knew the command word for hers so it was like dumping everything out at once.

Gold, Platinum, Silver, Copper, jewels, gems, armor, weapons, quivers of arrows, books, papers, personal items, everything spilled out onto the ground.

Shae looked at me, and shook her head in disbelief. Something was off. Remember what I’d said about there being a limit to what every Bag can hold? Hers was a Type II. That meant it held about five hundred pounds before bursting. What was coming out had far exceeded that weight. Armor is heavy, gold is heavy. The more Shae backed away, the more that came out. Piles upon piles until it looked like the entire hoard had somehow emptied itself on the forest floor… and it was still coming out.

MREs, fresh fruit, vegetables, dried meats, water skins, bottles… wine bottles for god’s sake, all of this and more kept falling from the Bag until eventually it stopped.

There was a trail at least fifty feet long and two feet high of everything imaginable in Shae’s wake. She looked dumbfounded, but then she smiled.

The area was deathly quiet. All the weapons were lowered as everyone stared at the bounty that had been laid at their feet. And then it all stopped.

Everything.

No birds, no insects, no shuffling of feet or murmurs of voices that you’d normally heard in crowds that large. It all stopped.

My brows bunched together and I looked around. Everyone was frozen in place.

“Shae?”

She was still smiling with what happened, but she didn’t react to my voice at all.

“Your companion is perfectly fine Ar’ri Bauquinea.”

I spun in place to see a man, an Elf actually. Middle aged, but strong, well fed and dressed, but not overtly so. He had a longsword hanging from his belt, but no other weapon. His hair was yellow like the sun and highlighted all over the place.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He smiled warmly. “Call me Cory.”

Looking back at everyone, I saw that they were still frozen in place and I swallowed.

“Did you…?”

He nodded. “We needed to speak, and though I love my people, I have no wish to let them know of my presence.”

My quarterstaff shifted into my left hand as I shuffled nervously to the side.

“You have nothing to fear from me, Ar’ri. In fact, you’ve nothing but my thanks and warm regard for what you have done since your transition to one of my people.”

Oh god…

He smiled again and winked at me. My knees felt really weak at that moment. “Cory?”

I received a nod in return. “I’d rather not use my full name if you don’t mind. It tends to attract far too much attention that I want to keep away from this forest.”

My mouth stayed firmly shut after that. I wasn’t about to say a word and accidently tick this person off. Who says I don’t know when to shut up?

“I’ll ask you to take the credit for this bounty, if you would. It’s necessary in order for certain things to happen, you see.”

I shook my head. Well, I really didn’t see.

Bending over the pile, Cory brushed off a few gold pieces and picked up what looked like a small book. “This is the journal of Jhyr Mas.” He walked over and opened the hand of the Eldest, placed the book there and closed his fingers back up so the old man wouldn’t drop it.

“He was the great grandson of this Elf. They never knew of his adventures and eventual death at the claws of Obsydiax. Thanks to you, he will.” Cory’s face turned dark. “This world has been held far too long under the tyrannical rule of the Dragons, Ar’ri. You’re going to change that.”

“I…” My mouth wouldn’t really work right.

“You can and you will. You are one of mine now, and being one of mine, I think I have a say in the matter. Come to me.”

My staff dropped to the ground and my legs betrayed me. I could feel a mild amount of fight within my head, but whatever he was doing overwhelmed even me.

His fingers trailed down my face as he looked at me with that same warm smile he originally showed. “You shall be my vengeance on the Dragons. Let them hide in fear from you. Let them feel your wrath. Your kind and brave heart is what brought you to me, Ar’ri Bauquinea. You chose to return what all that was not yours and kept only that which would further your quest. For that you have my thanks and that of my people.”

His lips lowered to mine and he kissed me. Somewhere deep inside my brain, I felt a minor revulsion at kissing a guy, but the rest of my body felt like it was being lit on fire. One of his hands slipped around and pressed against my lower back, onto his body. The other threaded through my hair, deepening the kiss. All the while, I was burning within and without.

“Remember the things I have told you, child, and remember this: all that you are is not quite all that you can be, for you are now one of us.”

~O~

The world snapped back into place. I was back where I’d started, staring at Shae and seeing her bright smile.

“By the gods!” the Eldest said in astonishment. He looked up at me, startled that he was holding his great-grandchild’s journal.

I looked back at him. “I’m sorry for your loss.” My eyes traveled the area. It was peaceful and I felt a sense of protectiveness draped over the forest. “Elder, make your homes again. There will be no more Dragons that will bother you. You have my word.”

Shae looked at me, startled, again wanting to say something, but holding back. “Shaeria, come. We have work to do.”

Turning away, I hadn’t gone two steps before the Eldest called out. “Wait!”

Half-turning I smiled back at him. “I’ll be back sometime, Elder. I will bring some friends with me as well.”

He moved with new energy in his step, looking like a heavy weight was lifted off of his shoulders. “How can we thank you?”

I shrugged. “Pray for me. That’s all I ask.”

The Elder gave me a firm nod. “It shall be done. You have friends here, Lady.”

Leaning in, I gave him a hug and kissed his wrinkled brow. “Bless you, Elder.”

Shae caught up, looking at me very strangely. I slipped my arm around her and then slid into a shadow, exiting at the edge of the forest.

“Um, Ar’ri?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Since when did you start glowing?”

Bringing my hand up, I looked at it. Surrounding each finger and my arm, in fact my entire body, was a golden glow that reminded me of Cory’s hair. I touched my lips then smiled.

“Call the portal, Shae.”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “We can’t do it here. Lyzax will know.”

I shook my head. “No, she won’t. Go ahead. The forest is guarded anyway. No evil shall breach its borders again.”

Shae appeared very nervous. “How do you know that?”

Serenity ran through me. “I just do.” I gave her an easy grin. “You worry too much, Shae. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

I got the cocked eyebrow for that one, but she called the portal while I stood there and looked up into the azure sky to see a single bright star in the distance. Well, it had to be bright to make it through the sky during daylight hours.

~O~

The glow faded when the portal opened and I’d stepped through. Dá»rdor looked at me expectantly.

“They’re rebuilding. Oh, and they recognized Shae.” I patted her on the back. “She’ll fill you in on the rest.”

There was a token protest from both of them, but I moved on through to the hallway and made my way up to my room. The suite was empty; even Flamestrike was missing. I closed my eyes and thought of him.

Apparently there was another cavern somewhere else. Barry was in his dragon from and he was chasing a laughing Flamestrike around the place.

With a smile I shut down the link and added a decently matching coat to my outfit to cover up the corset a little, made a side trip to my dresser to snatch the character sheet. Then I grabbed my keys and purse. Twenty minutes later I pulled into Charlie’s, a comic book and gaming store where I had spent most of my childhood. Right as I reached for the door handle to exit the Cooper, there was a ringing from my purse.

After checking the caller ID I opened my phone and said, “Hi Barry.”

“Ar’ri, where are you?”

“I’m at Charlie’s.”

There was a brief pause. “And what are you doing at your old gaming haunt.”

With a slight smile, I answered. “I’ll tell you about it when I get back. I won’t be too long, and quit worrying so much.”

One of the things to know about the comic and gaming industry retailers: they don’t make a whole heck of a lot of money. Most stores are run down and their shelves are second-hand, if not made by hand. The counters are littered with ancient action figures and free displays. There’s always a life-size cardboard cutout of Princess Leia and Darth Vader around somewhere, usually faded by the bad fluorescent lighting from above.

There is usually a mid-twenties geek behind the counter in raggedy jeans and a con-t-shirt giving you the wary eye because he thinks you’re going to steal something. The main portion of the stores are fold-out tables with white boxes containing thousands of comics, not usually worth much because the ones that are really expensive are tacked up on the walls and behind glass cases that badly need Windexing.

But the smell… the smell is what denotes a true store. If there is even a hint of air freshener or incense in the air, then run away. They’re trying to cover up the mold. If all you smell is old paper that is reminiscent of libraries then you’re in the right place.

It was the middle of the afternoon. School was already out and regular customers were firmly in their places.

Ben Smith was by the Witchblade posters, aimlessly flipping through them to figure out what he could afford. Stan and Stu Redman were by the X-men comics still in their heated argument about who was tougher, Wolverine or X-23. A few aimless customers were walking around looking somewhat interested in the contents of the store. Chris Fleming was behind the counter perusing the latest issue of Dragon Magazine. All was as is should have been.

When Chris laid eyes on me, he slipped off of his stool but caught himself at the last second. The racket he made, knocking over a box of pewter figurines was enough to get everyone to look up. Suddenly I was the center of attention.

Well what would you look at if a hot looking girl, wearing a corset, tight leather pants, and thigh boots came into your hang-out. I gave the onlookers a brief smile and approached the counter.

Chris tried his best to look casual, like he’d meant to fall off the stool and disturb his display.

“Can… can…” he stammered.

“Can you help me?” He nodded quickly and I gave him a smile. Tapping the display case, I didn’t bother to look down. “I need some new dice. The clear ones, full set.”

Without taking his eyes off of me he reached down and pulled the correct item out. While he did that, I dipped my hand in my purse to retrieve a twenty. No, dice don’t cost that much. It was simply the smallest bill I had. He waved me off.

“It’s on the house.”

Giving him my best smile, I said. “Thank you. That’s sweet of you.”

Tearing off the cardboard backing from the plastic that kept my new dice trapped, I poured them into my palm, and rolled them around. It’s weird, I know, but there’s something about having a handful of dice. It wasn’t anything freaky. Just that act of holding them brought back memories of so many hours spent with my friends exploring new worlds and stealing their loot.

It was satisfying in a way, and I always wanted to remember that. One by one, I took each die and popped it down my cleavage, leaving only the twenty-sided die left.

That was the one that was most important. The others had their purpose, the d12, d8, d6, d4, and the percentage dice all had their purposes, but you really played with the d20. Attack, defend, and saving throws all depended on that specific die.

If you can’t tell, I missed playing.

“Anyone up for a game?”

~O~

It was a short module. I DM’d to the stunned looks from the ones that volunteered. Like I mentioned before at the start of this tale, hot girls just don’t play D&D all that often, much less DM a game.

We ran through, playing lower lever characters, and it made me remember what I loved about any RPG much less D&D specifically. It was the thrill of taking someone that had nothing and working with them to achieve their dream: riches, magic, fame, and fortune were there to be had. It was within your grasp if you wanted it bad enough, if you were daring enough. It literally could change your life. I was proof positive.

On my way out, Chris stopped me. “We have a regular game every Sunday morning… if you’re interested in…

Reaching up I cupped his face. “You’re sweet, Chris. If I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll stop back by again.”

As I exited, right before the door had fully closed, I heard Chris call out to the store, “Did ya hear that, ya poozers! She knows my name!”

Playing a simple game like that put things into perspective. This was how it all started for me. I wasn’t exactly sure about Barry’s sight. He may have been watching me all these years. Maybe he’d even influenced a decision or two along the way, but in the end, his machinations were meaningless, because he’d forgotten to take one NPC into account.

Oh, sorry. NPC means Non-Player Character. They’re the ones that the gamers don’t play. The bartender, the King that sends you on the quest, the bad guys, those are all NPCs.

Remember the one thing that can change anything in the game? The one thing that could counter the effects of the Belt of Femininity, the one thing that could break those collars that changed my friends so they could have a normal life through the use of a Ring of Polymorph Self?

One was a Wish spell. Those are temperamental, basically relying totally upon the mood of the DM that happens to be running your campaign. They are the cliché genie in the bottle. You wish for something and they can arbitrarily grant you that wish or twist it into something that defeats the purpose in the first place.

I could wish to be the richest person on the planet and then find myself surrounded by all the gold in the world, in a cave, with no exit, waiting for the air to run out.

The other way was to encounter a deity. Sometimes that is even worse. You could do something to offend them and WHACK! big rock falls from the sky and kills you… or worse. There are lots of or worses in the world of D&D. Poof, you’re a zombie. Poof, you’re a Slug Monster. You get the point.

But every once in a while… every once in a while, you meet one that’s not psychotic or so vain to think that the world was their playtoy.

Sitting in the parking lot of Dragon Games, I felt the spring sun bearing down on me. Spring was his time. The time of growth and rebirth.

I got out of the Cooper and stood there staring at the entrance. Reaching inside my purse, I pulled out the laminated character sheet and perused it once more before withdrawing a lighter and setting the corner on fire. I let it burn until it was full engulfed and then dropped it to the asphalt until it burned itself out.

TBC…

Author's note: Again, thanks to those that commented and reviewed throughout this story. Remember, your comments keep me writing. What do you know. Yesterday wasn't as crazy as I thought. It helps to have all of your Christmas shopping finished before hand. Merry Christmas to all!

Part 9

By the time I returned to the suite, Flamestrike was fast asleep after his long day of training and play. Fred and Sam were still missing and Shae was atop her bed delving into the spellbook that was found amongst Obsydiax’s hoard.

She looked up as I poked my head through the door. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” I said with a small smile. “Busy?”

Shae shook her head and marked her place before closing the book. “Barry’s looking for you.”

“Yeah, well, he’s gonna have to wait for now.”

Her eyebrows rose a little at my response. “Something happened to you and you’re not sharing.”

I gave her a thoughtful nod. “I can’t really talk about it. Well, I can, but I don’t know that you’d believe me. I don’t really believe it myself.”

Scooting back on the bed, Shae patted the comforter in front of her. While I was situating myself, she said, “I know something is up. Dá»rdor nearly gave birth to a cow when I told him about what happened on Qrynn. I’ve never seen him so animated.”

That brought another smile to my face. “I guess he has some idea then.”

“Care to share that with the class, Ar’ri? I know I’m seriously curious.”

Sitting there, I looked at Shae’s face, full of questions and a thirst for knowledge, then my eyes trailed down her neck to the collar. “I need you to think about something. Seriously. In fact, I’m not going to take your first answer, so whatever it is, I’m going to ignore it.”

Shae rolled her eyes. “Quit being cryptic-girl and get on with it. What’s the question?”

“If you could take off your collar and return to what you were, would you?”

She blinked and immediately started to answer, but then stopped. “Would that mean that I couldn’t do magic?”

I shrugged. “I’m sure Dá»rdor could make a new collar and leave out his blood this time. You’d be a regular Sorcerer. Your powers would be a little less considering you wouldn’t be related to him.”

A second attempt at speaking proved fruitless to her. She seemed to think of something else, and again, she stopped herself.

I patted her knee. “Just something to think about.”

Rising off the bed, I made my way through the bathroom toward my room.

“Ar’ri?”

Stopping about midway through, I turned around. Shae was standing at the door appearing very nervous, but she forced herself to ask something that was proving very difficult for her.

“Do I have a chance with you?” Shae frowned and then shook her head. “I mean, do you think… I know you’re only into girls… I mean…”

Slowly, I made my way back to stand in front of her. “Shae, you and me… I just don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been so focused with what’s going on with Qrynn that I haven’t really thought of much else.”

Seeing the hurt look on her face, I corrected myself. “I’m not saying I haven’t thought about you. I have. I’ve even thought about the possibility of an us, but that can’t be my first priority right now. So, don’t make your decision on how it might affect a future relationship.”

~O~

Withdrawing my pack from between my breasts, I pulled out my personal Bag of Holding and started filling it with my leathers and adventuring boots, along with little things like clean underwear. Once that was complete, I took off my Circlet, my Armlets, unloaded my Rings and potions. I left the Scarab attached to my navel, because it was cute. All of this went into my empty panties drawer.

Right before I stepped out of the room, Flamestrike lifted his head.

“Mama?”

I moved over to him and kneeled down to kiss his head. “Go back to sleep honey. I’ll see you very soon, okay?”

With half-closed eyes, he lay his head back down and was asleep before I closed the door.

Looking around the suite, I sighed with happy memories of what we’d accomplished so far. It was only the beginning. That’s why I was doing what I had to do.

The map of Qrynn was laid out on the big table, which I folded and stuffed down my cleavage. With a last look, I turned and left the room.

A few minutes later I knocked on the door to Dá»rdor’s lab. He opened the door and saw me. A few seconds later the stunned look on his face faded and I felt confident enough to speak.

“Do you have a minute?”

He nodded and started to step out in the hall, but I held my hand up. “This needs to be private. Don’t worry about your protections, they won’t bother me.”

He seemed a little startled. “How…?” Then he stopped himself and backed up while I crossed the threshold.

I felt the tingling of static and a faint taste of dark chocolate in my mouth, but noticed that I wasn’t turned into a big pile of goo and tossed out in the hall.

We proceeded down a very short hallway and entered his lab properly. Unlike the Wizard’s lab that Shae and I raided, this was fully stocked with every conceivable magical item in existence, or so it seemed. Two wire racks, with five shelves apiece contained nothing but scrolls, another single one with rings, and so on. It looked like Dá»rdor had been working non-stop for years; ensuring Barry had what he needed whenever the Sorcerer passed on.

“Shae was right. This place is awesome.”

Dá»rdor graced me with a pleased smile. “I’m sure you didn’t come here to speak of my magical stores, Lady Ar’ri.”

Reaching into the corset once again, I pulled out a pair of gloves. “I needed to return these. I won’t need them anymore. Thank you for the extended loan.”

He took them reverently. “What Shaeria said was true. Somehow you’ve become a deity.”

I bit my lip in contemplation. “I don’t really know what I’ve become, to tell you the truth. I’m not a god. At least I don’t think so. That would mean I would have some sort of godly presence, wouldn’t it?”

Dá»rdor chuckled to himself. “Lady Ar’ri, the charisma you currently hold is making it extremely difficult to speak to you without sounding like a blithering idiot. I’ve taken magical measures in order to do so.”

That seemed wrong. “Shae doesn’t need to do that. Are you sure?”

Moving to a large cabinet, Dá»rdor opened it and placed the gloves within. “I am sure. I’ve also noticed you have removed all of your magical items, including your Ring of Regeneration.”

I nodded. “I’m going back to Qrynn alone. There are a few things I have to do before the big battle scene.”

Dá»rdor turned back around, looking at me strangely.

“If I don’t make it, can you tell the others, they can divvy up my stuff between them, and if they can watch over Flamestrike for me, I’d appreciate it.”

“You do not have to go alone,” he stressed.

I gave him an easy smile. “Yeah, I do. But that’s okay.”

When I turned to leave, he stopped me. “Lady Ar’ri…”

“Don’t let them through for two days. Then tell Barry to bring it.”

~O~

The greatsword was still on the table down in the cavern.

“… he is the Pirate King, Taran-tarah, Taran-tarah, and it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Pirate King! Ah Warrior! You’ve returned!”

Strapping on the shoulder belt, I pulled the greatsword out. “Listen up, Chester. We’re going to Qrynn, and I don’t need any lip. If you want to be helpful, then great, but if you just want to blather on then keep your mouth… or whatever it is you use to speak, shut. Do we have an understanding?”

“Something about you has changed, Warrior.”

I pursed my lips. “Do — we — have — an — understanding?”

“Will we kill evil dragons?”

“Oh yes. Many.”

A change of attitude overcame the sword. “Then let us go, forthwith and without further ado, Warrior. You will have my complete cooperation and dedication.”

When I turned around, Dá»rdor and Barry were standing by the Fire Diamond. I shot an angry look at the Sorcerer, but Barry stepped in front of him.

“I have excellent hearing within my own domain, Ar’ri Bauquinea. You may not go to Qrynn alone, especially without your protections. Too much is riding on this.”

My stride was long as I made to go around them. “Get out of my way, Barry. This isn’t about you anymore.”

He lifted his hand and I could feel the static in the air. Snapping the greatsword up in the guard position, I felt something ricochet off the blade. Barry’s eyes widened.

Then I pointed it at the Fire Diamond. A red beam of energy shot out of the point into the diamond and the air tore apart, showing nothing but blue.

As soon as the portal was opened, I felt lighter, at ease. I also felt need and danger.

“The portal has opened in the air, Lady Ar’ri,” said Dá»rdor.

“Yeah, I know.”

“This is suicide, Ar’ri,” Barry said. “Please wait.”

“Two days, guy’s. No sooner or I’ll be seriously pissed.”

With that, I ran for the portal and leaped through. I didn’t bother looking back because I had opened that thing pretty far up in the air for a reason.

“Tally-ho!”

A second later, my legs were wrapped around the neck of a Blue Dragon letting loose its Breath Weapon, a lightning bolt, at the protected forest. The sky was filled with at least twenty Dragons all doing their best to penetrate the canopy.

The Blue I landed on roared in defiance.

“Muzak!” I yelled. Ride of the Valkyries exploded out of the greatsword a hundred times louder than I’d ever heard it before.

The grouping that was diving along with the Blue, scattered as I brought the sword down through its neck, severing the spine. Before it had the chance to flounder, I rolled backward to my feet and leaped through the air.

A Red was closest, but it was coming at me head on. Instead of at the angle I needed, so I reared back, and just as it let loose its Breath Weapon of fire, I swiped at its mouth. Chester bit into the side and tore a five foot gash along the neck as I grabbed ahold of one of its horns and flung myself further up in the air.

Another Blue thought it would end the fight by snapping me up in its mouth, but lost the first foot of its snout in the process as I grabbed another spine and landed on the injured Blue.

Dragon Fire blasted atop me, but Chester’s protective aura kept me from being Elf Flambé. The Blue I was on, screamed at the attack, turned in mid-air swiped at its former ally. I took that chance to bury Chester deep in the Red’s belly as it dodged. Its own momentum against the greatsword disemboweled it in a second.

Holding on to the longest horn of the Blue, I stood. “Who’s next?”

Anger and determination poured off of me. That’s when I noticed my skin glowing the gold of Cory’s hair again.

The Blue rolled, trying to dislodge me, but I held firm until it looked like it was going to use the forest below to knock me off. It roared the entire way. A half second before it made contact, I swiped Chester through the Blue’s neck and then leaped again into the trees below.

Doing this at a hundred miles an hour probably wasn’t a good idea. I rammed into several fairly thick branches and hit the ground, knocking the air out of my lungs.

“To arms, Warrior. We have them on the run!”

I groaned as I pushed myself up and ran toward the tree line. Three reds landed on the ground, waiting for me, I suppose, or maybe waiting to see if I went splat, more likely.

I didn’t bother just trotting along. Willing everything into my legs, the tree’s blurred by as I exploded out of the forest and buried the greatsword, to the hilt, into the forehead of the first Red. I didn’t slow until I jumped into the air and severed the neck of the second and landed by the third and slammed the greatsword into its side, just behind the foreleg of the last Red and into its heart.

Spinning around, I looked up in the air at the remaining Dragons.

“Come on!” I screamed. My voice echoed in the air. “This forest and these people are mine!”

They hovered momentarily and then ran, or flew in the opposite direction, I guess. The bottom line was they left.

When they were just dots in the sky, I cancelled the Valkyries ride. That pretty much answered my question of what Cory did to me, at least part of it anyway. I really was all that I was before, even without my magic items.

My ribs and hip ached. Looking down, I saw that I got some dirt on my clothes. “Oh shit. Dá»rdor’s gonna kill me.”

I turned as I was brushing it off and saw the tree line littered with Elves, all staring at me in wide-eyed adoration.

“Salute them, Warrior. They are yours.”

Bringing the blood-covered sword up in the guard position, I then held it high. Then I slid into the shadow that the last red cast beside me.

Deep in the forest, I stepped out and checked the area before pulling out my pack and the cleaning kit within.

“Quite the show.”

Looking up, I saw Cory standing there, leaning against the tree in front of me. While I was still amazed by him, I could actually think straight for once. “You’re welcome to join in anytime you want.”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, I think you have things well in hand here. I have duties elsewhere.”

“You had duties here. Our people have suffered.”

He nodded and then came to sit on the ground before me. “Which is why I sent Marimaxzithuirn to Earth. The answer to Qrynn’s freedom lay there.”

Running the oil cloth over Chester, I looked up at Cory with a little doubt in my eyes. “So, you’re behind all of this?”

He shrugged. “In a way. I nudge others here and there. They choose to act.”

So Marimax… Mary Bybax was sent to Earth, to give birth to Barry, so he could make a fantasy game, that was really a training manual, that I would pick up and geek-out over, and then become this Elven Mary Sue, come to Qrynn and free the Elves? That’s more than a little nudge, Cory.”

All I got back was some sort of Gallic shrug.

“What did you do to me?”

He smiled innocently. I wasn’t buying it for a second. “I gave you possibilities. What you do with them is your choice.”

“Another nudge?”

Another shrug.

“And you had to kiss me to do that.”

“That was the fun part. If you wouldn’t mind keeping that to yourself, I’d appreciate it. My consort is the jealous type.”

I slid the greatsword in its scabbard and set it aside. “So, exactly what kind of possibilities have you given me?”

Cory shook his head with another smile. “That’s for you to discover. Though after your performance just now, you should be finding out fairly soon.”

He stood up and brushed the seat of his leather pants.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you’ll see.”

With that he exploded into golden sparks and disappeared.

“Warrior, are you there?”

“Yeah, what’s up Chester?”

“I could neither contact you nor see beyond my material self. It was quite alarming. And as a matter of note, my name is not Chester.”

“Really? It’s not Chester the Chatty Claymore?”

“No.”

~O~

It was the noise that woke me. Somewhere in the distance, there was music, and someone was calling my name. I folded the blanket I was resting on and stuffed it into my pack before stowing it between my cleavage. Slinging Chester over my shoulders, I slid into a shadow and halfway stepped out high in the trees above the busy Elven village.

The music faded into the background as a flamboyantly dressed Elf climbed onto large, hastily-made platform.

“And out of the heavens, she flew,” he said in a pretty good stage voice. “Her mighty sword cleaving the ferocious head of Sapphirix from his sinuous neck with one mighty blow!”

He held a wooden sword, easily twice his size, in his hand, cutting the air in front of him. “A Triumphant song trailing her wake, the alluring, angelic, the angry, Ar’ri Bauquinea flew from her perch above the deadweight Blue and with her next blow smote the dreadful Red Dragon Searifax from the sky.”

My jaw dropped open as I watched the Elven Bard recount the battle above the forest.

“Oh my god,” I whispered.

A battle that could have lasted for more than a few minutes got stretched into an epic tale of twenty or more minutes. From the way he told it, I personally killed about four hundred dragons, or that’s what it sounded like.

I sat down on the branch and watched, dumbfounded as Bard after Bard took to the badly constructed stage. Two of them sang songs dubbing me Ar’ri Dragonslayer, and Ar’ri Dragonsbane. Another recounted my battle on the ground. The last person to take the stage was the Eldest.

His clothes weren’t the best I’d ever seen, but they were clean and somewhat regal. Considering what I saw of their village only the day before, I was surprised that they still had decent things at all, much less official clothing.

“You have heard the tales,” he started. “The visitors from the other tribes have seen her acts of bravery and her incredible presence. Each of you have witnessed and received the bounty with which she blessed us. And lastly you all heard her words throughout the forest and under the mountain this very day. When she stood defiant against the legions of Dragons and proudly proclaimed: This forest and these people are mine!”

A ripple of energy rushed through me. My heart started racing.

“There can be no doubt that the gods have returned and they have sent us one of their own, to wrest control of our world from the evil grip of Lyzax and her minions.”

Then eldest slammed his staff to the platform and light flared from crystal atop. “Does anyone doubt? Will anyone have an errant word against what they have seen with their own eyes?”

All that could be heard was the wood crackling in the flames of the various campfires.

“Good, as it should be. From this day forward, we shall do as she said. Her people will remake their homes here, in her forest, under her protection. And we will honor her request. We will pray to her.”

My eyes widened. “No, no, no, no,” I whispered. “Not pray to me. Pray for me. For, for, for. F-O-R.”

“Bow your heads.”

I didn’t hear his words, but ohhh did I feel them. After each line, the rest of the Elves in the area repeated them. There had to be thousands of them down there. In the darkness of the forest, my skin came alive, glowing deeply and bright. Energy surged through my body. The aches in my ribs and hip disappeared. I felt alive and powerful, moreso than I’d ever felt before.

“Look! In the Uppers!”

My eyes snapped open. There were a few of the infirm laid out on cots so that they could watch the proceedings and they had nowhere to look but up, right where I was.

All of the Elves looked skyward.

“There! The golden glow of Corellon Larethian. Ar’ri Bauquinea blesses us with her presence.”

Even though I knew it pained him in his elder years, the Eldest kneeled and looked up at me. “Thank you, Lady.”

I had to get out of there, but I couldn’t just disappear. They had hope now of a new life free of the Dragons. I couldn’t take that away. Unsheathing the greatsword, I concentrated and from the end, a golden burst of sparks shot forth over the forest, raining down upon all of the Elves like snowflakes. They cheered in unison, shaking the trees.

At the height of the cheer I pressed down on whatever was making me glow and watched as it faded before slipping away in the shadows.

~O~

From the side of the mountain, I looked down on the forest, still hearing their cheers. Frustration and shame poured through me. I wasn’t a god and leading them on like that just piled on the guilt even more.

“All you have to do is leave.”

I flinched at the new female voice, but looking up from where I sat, she wasn’t just a simple female. It was another one of them. Lithe of frame, true Elven features, seriously long shimmering black hair and very little to wear.

“I’m sorry, what?”

She smiled and sat beside me, also looking down at the tops of the trees. “I said all you have to do is leave, go back to Earth and never return. Eventually, the Dragons will return and destroy their new homes, killing many in the process since tens of thousands will return to their place in the forest.” She turned toward me, looking less than happy. “The Elves will curse your name for abandoning them and you will lose your godhood. You can be mortal again.”

Rubbing at my eyes, I scowled at her. “You’re not funny, you know.”

Her grin reappeared. “I’m told I can be very funny, but I am serious. Ar’ri, how do you think Cory and I became gods?”

I shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “We were once like you. Cory was a Bard. Boy can that man sing.” The look on her face was nostalgic, but happy. “He inspired people, much like you are doing now. He’d show up, kill a few Orcs in true heroic fashion, and eventually people started praying for him to show up.”

Holding her hand out to the forest, I got the hint. “Much like what your people have done here.”

I felt tears escaping my eyes and running down my face.

“They didn’t have that much longer to go, Ar’ri. There was infighting, plays for power. The Eldest was about to be unseated, and then you show up. By the end of the day tomorrow, most of the Elvish nation shall know of your deeds, and you think you have power now?” She started laughing.

With a groan, I fell back on the earth. “Why me?”

She grunted a little, in a feminine sort of way. “Because you care. That’s Cory’s biggest weakness. Give him someone that actually cares about others and he comes around and lays one on them. Don’t think I don’t know about the kiss my consort gave you.”

My face heated up. “Sorry.”

She shrugged. “It’s how he passes on a spark of his essence. The rest is up to you.”

I eventually sat back up, listening to the celebration in the distance.

“You have a choice Ar’ri: shall you return to Earth and let your people die off, or will you fight and give your people someone to believe in once again?”

Turning my head to her, I was just in time to see her explode into little silver sparks.

“Great. No pressure or anything.”

~O~

Regardless of what I thought about being one of the High and Mighty crowd, I had a job to do. Pulling out the map, I spread it out on the ground and retrieved my Sharpie. Giving the Divine powers a try, I reached out and felt for any Dragon’s presence. The map lit up several points of light throughout Qrynn. After marking each one, the light disappeared. I circled Lyzax’s lair last.

Packing everything away, I pulled out Chester. “Ready to get to work?”

“Onward, Goddess, I am your faithful servant!”

I rolled my eyes before sliding into the shadows.

When I stepped out it was into a swampy area much further south than Obsydiax lived. The Black Dragon was only ten feet away. It hissed at me.

Concentrating, I let the golden glow return. “For your crimes against the Ten Races of Qrynn, Dragon, I sentence to you death.”

Acid flew from her mouth, completely covering the entire area, but the golden radiance kept any from touching me or my sword.

~O~

And so it went.

~O~

By high noon the next day, I felt stronger, by moon rise, stronger still. My awareness expanded to encompass the majority of Qrynn. I didn’t need the map any longer. I simply knew where the Dragons were scattering. Few of them were in their own lairs anymore; only the most stubborn stayed.

Instead of hissing or trying to fight me, they were cowering in my presence, the younger ones anyway. Chester was glowing brighter than even me. Instead of yammering on and on, he just kept getting brighter and brighter throughout the second night.

By the morning of the third day, the remainder of the Dragons sought shelter with Lyzax. There were only about twenty left. The rest of Qrynn was free, and my friends were coming. Chester went through a complete cleaning and a nice oiling before being allowed to rest.

I felt the portal open close to the Elven forest. Finding a shadow, I slid about four hundred miles south-southeast into the tree line. I told you I was getting stronger.

Muting my charisma as much as I could, I stepped out into the morning sun and saw Kog was the first one through, followed by Flamestrike.

“Mama!”

I dropped to my knees and he rammed into me full force, which made me lean back a little.

“Hey sweetie! You’re here. Does that mean you’ve got your Breath Weapon working?”

He backed up and showed me all of his needle sharp teeth. “Uh-huh. Look!” Turning his head to the empty glade, he took a deep breath and blew forth a torrent of flames worthy of his namesake. Oh, sorry, there’s a Flamestrike spell, kind of like Dragonflame, big, fiery, large with the destruction.

“Wow! That’s impressive.”

Barry stepped up. “For some reason, yesterday morning during practice, he almost destroyed the cavern with his first flame. You wouldn’t by chance know how that happened, would you?”

Being my familiar, Flamestrike took on a portion of my power. The stronger I got, the stronger he got. Whenever he grows up, he’s going to be a hell of a dragon to contend with.

“Me?” I asked innocently. “What makes you think I had anything to do with this?”

He wasn’t looking at me anymore, but at the tree line. “A few thousand Elves kneeling in the forest kind of gives you away.”

The rest of the gang was virtually lined up beside Barry, armed to the teeth and ready to do some major damage. I stood.

“Wait here.”

I made my way to the trees. “Eldest, please stand up.”

Reaching out, I helped him to his feet. “You guys don’t need to knee for me. I’m not that kind of…” I cringed, “… goddess.”

I saw him wince a little. Being that old, even Elves had some Elven form of arthritis. I pushed a little energy through him, taking that away. Nobody should ever hurt just for being old.

He gasped and I saw his face light up. “Lady Ar’ri…”

I held up a finger and shushed him with a smile. “Now, these are my friends. They are the reason I am here today. Once I was shown how much you all were suffering. I couldn’t stand by and not do anything. Please look past their heritage and treat them as guests. They are all very honorable.”

The Eldest saw Flamestrike and swallowed. “Even the Dragon, Lady?”

I smiled. “Especially the Dragon, Eldest. He is my familiar, Flamestrike. During my first attack on Lyzax’s lair, I bonded with him as he was hatched from his egg. He’s as Good as I am, because he can’t be anything else.”

Looking back, I waved at my dragon. “Come here, honey.”

The little Red bounded forth and came to a stop beside me. “Do they want to see me blow fire, Mama?”

I shook my head. “I think they saw before, honey. Flamestrike, this is the leader of the Elves. We call him Eldest, okay?”

He nodded and I turned to the old Elf. “Eldest, this is Flamestrike. He will guard our forest while I am away. If anything approaches, I will instantly know because Flamestrike knows.”

My dragon’s eyes nearly bugged. “I gots to guard a whole forest?”

I nodded. “It’s a very important job, sweetie. And make sure to blow fire away from the forest and not into it, okay?”

He looked back and forth and then into the forest. “Um… where’m I gonna sleep?”

“Hold on just one second and I’ll show you.” Turning back I called the rest of the gang over. I was surprised to see Dá»rdor in company, but of course he’d want to be there for this.

Motioning the Sorcerer forward I saw the look of recognition on the Eldest’s face. “I believe you two know each other. I’ll leave the introductions to you. Play nice while I show Flamestrike his new digs.”

~O~

It wasn’t an artificial cave, meaning it wasn’t manmade or Elfmade, whichever. It was simply a natural cavern inside of the mountain that overlooked the forest of the Elves.

Flamestrike and I stood at the entrance while he looked into the darkness with a mild bit of trepidation.

I grinned down at him. “It’s safe, sweetie. I made sure it was cleaned out and there wasn’t anyone living here. Plus, only you and I can see the entrance. If anyone tries to take one step past this point… well, I really wouldn’t want to be them. Plus, it alerts me and I can be here in a second to make sure you’re okay.”

Inside we went.

“It’s dark.”

Shaking my head, I snapped my fingers and watched as the torches along the wall lit up on their own. “Sorry, I forget sometimes.”

At that point Flamestrike wasn’t listening any longer, because he was staring at his nest. I dropped down and hugged his neck to gain his attention.

“This is yours, and it’s big enough to where you’ll never have to add to it, so that means no swiping other people’s money. If you ever need something for your nest then you come to me, okay.”

He still wasn’t looking at me, but he nodded. “Can I go see now, Mama.”

I nodded. “Go on. Have fun.”

He took a running leap into the air and flew to the middle of the pile, landing on top. It looked like his flying had gotten better over the last two days. Immediately, he started rolling around getting everything juuuuuuussst right. Considering the size of his hoard, it was going to take quite a while.

“Flamestrike.”

His head popped up, eyes wide and blinking at me.

“You’re safe here okay; nobody’s going to bother you. If you need anything, just call out for me. I have to show the others a few things.”

“Okay, Mama!”

I grinned at the thought that he’d be busy for hours, happy and comfortable in his new home. The idea that he might have been trapped underground on Earth weighed heavily on my shoulders, but with Flamestrike being on Qrynn he was happy and he served a greater purpose which he would come to appreciate when he became older.

Sliding into the shadows, I exited close to my friends who were already in the Elven village. Kog didn’t look too comfortable. I wasn’t really surprised. Like I’d said before, Orcs and Elves didn’t really get on all that well. Him being a half-Orc, made it a little easier, but still.

“Lady Ar’ri.”

The small group of Elves that were behind me didn’t startle me. It’s one of the advantages that came with true power. While I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head, I might as well have.

I turned around. Five Elves, three men and two women, stood there with their heads bowed. All of them were wearing gray cloaks with smatterings of blue and red throughout, much like my current clothing. I sighed internally. It had to happen sooner or later.

Like all deities, there were mortals that followed them around or performed deeds in their name. Usually they were peaceful, but some ventured out, spreading the word of their chosen god. They were called Clerics. Since I was viewed as a warrior god, Paladin’s — holy warriors — were sure to follow. I really disliked Paladins. Clerics I could deal with.

All they needed was direction, a purpose — defending trees, or protecting injured children, celebrating on the winter solstice, things like that. In return for being devoted and praying nicely, they would be blessed with a portion of a deity’s power. They’re kind of like holy Wizards, though not usually as flashy. The can cure diseases, heal wounds, bless others, turn back the undead, create protections against evil, a whole lot of interesting things.

It was obvious their intent was to find out what they needed to do in order to perform their job properly.

“You five are the first?”

The guy in the lead lifted his eyes slightly. “We are simply the delegation sent to humbly ask for your favor, goddess.”

I didn’t let any emotion show on my face. It was best if the people didn’t know that their god didn’t quite know everything. I was surprised that they were merely a small group representing a larger.

“Please just call me Lady Ar’ri. I’m not into all the reverence that goes into this.” I chuckled a little. “And you can look at me. I’m not going to bite my own people.”

Their eyes lifted, but still never met mine. It’s like they were staring at my forehead or at my mouth. Well, I’d take what I could get for the moment. “I’m not too different from the other deities; I’m good, obviously, since I’m fighting evil. However, I’m not into laws.”

This had to be explained properly since they weren’t aware of Alignment classifications, so they probably didn’t understand the concept of Chaotic Good. “Just treat each other as you’d like to be treated yourselves, and protect those less powerful than you. Pray for the talents you wish to use and I will grant them.” I didn’t exactly know how to do that at the moment, but I’d learn.

“One thing that I must insist upon though is this: race does not matter to me. As you can see, I am friends with a half-Orc, and a Tiefling, as well as humans and even good Dragons. Males and females, even those in-between are equal in my eyes. I’m more interested in what is inside a person, their true self, than anything else. I will not tolerate hate for hate’s sake.”

A few of them looked confused. One of the girls looked out from behind the chosen speaker. “Even Orcs, Lady Ar’ri?”

My lips twisted to the side. “Especially Orcs. I know they are the enemy, but what if you were to come upon an abandoned Orc child that didn’t know about the hate our two races have for each other? Would you kill her for simply existing?”

Her brows furrowed.

“The Dragon, Flamestrike, is my familiar. What you don’t know is that he is a hatchling from the clutch of Lyzax herself.”

Surprise was apparent from the looks on their faces.

“He was newborn when I took him straight from her nest. Teaching him to respect others was easy enough, and now he will be your guardian when I am away.”

The spokesman nodded. “We understand, Lady. We have much to discuss amongst ourselves. By your leave?”

I nodded. Turning around, Barry and Shae were standing side by side mere feet in front of me. Shae was looking at me with trepidation and Barry with curious unease.

“This explains so much, Ar’ri Bauquinea,” he said.

I poignantly ignored him, grabbed Shae’s hand and walked over to Sam and Fred who were talking with a pair of Elves that seemed interested in how a motley crew consisting of different races came together. The Elves saw me and bowed, dismissing themselves from the conversation.

“Dudette, you’re a goddess?”

Rolling my eyes, I smiled at Fred threateningly. “It’s time we got rid of these.”

Reaching my hand up to their necks, I tapped the side of the collars where I knew they closed. A snap sounded and they both cracked open.

“Now you can use a Ring of Polymorph if you want to change back at any time.”

Sam nearly knocked me over with her appreciative hug; she even got her tail into the action. “Thank you, oh god thank you!”

When she pulled back, I gave Shae a look. She appeared scared, so I didn’t immediately break her collar open. Returning to Fred and Sam, I noticed they were locked at the lips. “Uh, guys, Shae and I are going to go have a chat. Hold the fort?”

Breaking apart, Sam nodded, happily.

I tugged lightly on Shae’s hand and we moved to the shadow of a thick tree and reappeared halfway up the mountain that overlooked the forest. Shae looked around.

“It’s beautiful.”

Looking out over the forest and the plains of the north, I nodded. “I come here to think. It’s peaceful.”

She turned to me, but didn’t say anything.

“Have you made your decision or do you need more time?”

Her head dropped and turned to the side. “I don’t know what to do.”

I left her to her thoughts for the moment while I pulled out a blanket and set it on the ground, where we eventually sat.

“If it’s any help, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do in the future,” I said. “After we take care of Lyzax, I mean.”

She laughed, somewhat disbelievingly. “You make it sound like we’re cleaning out the garage.”

I smiled and shrugged. “There’s only twenty-two… oh, twenty-one left.”

Shae looked up at me, surprised.

“They’re fighting amongst themselves right now. A Blue just got smacked down by another Blue.”

“How?”

I gestured to my back. “Me and Chester have been pretty busy for the last two days.”

Shae’s eyes widened. “You’ve killed like fifty-something Dragons in two days?”

I nodded. “The Elves… they pray to me. The more they bring in, the more powerful I get. There’s about fifty thousand or so doing it since this morning. Once they get some of the other scattered tribes together, it’ll be a lot more.”

Her mouth opened a little. “Um, I’m not up on the Godly ranks. Where does that put you in the grand scheme of things?”

I thought about it for a few moments. “When we came to the forest the other day, an Elven god kissed me. That made me a Rank zero, kind of like a hero with a touch of divinity. When I came back, the forest was under siege and I killed… uh five dragons, I think. It was done in a pretty spectacular way. So, that night they gathered and started praying.”

Shifting uncomfortably on the blanket, I looked out over the forest again. “I jumped from a zero to a Rank five in moments. Over the next two days, they brought in other elves from under the mountain and I’m probably sitting around Rank eight or nine right now. So I’m a Lesser Deity.”

“For the moment,” Shae confirmed, and I nodded. “Once you hit eleven you go up to Intermediate.”

“Yeah, that’s the start of the big leagues.”

“You don’t sound too enthused.”

Facing her, I finally looked Shae in the eyes. “I’m scared to death of doing the wrong thing. What if I say something stupid and start some freaky holy war, or the Elves start sacrificing Orcs to me.”

She set her hand on mine. “I seriously don’t think that’s going to happen, Ar’ri.”

Shaking the thoughts of my divinity aside, I gripped her hand. “So, collar?”

Shae looked at me for a moment and then her face steeled up a bit. Raising herself up, she wiggled over and straddled my legs, seating herself on my lap. Her arms went to my shoulders and her hands behind my head before she leaned in for a kiss.

At that moment, I wasn’t thinking about anything else except for her. I don’t know how long we sat there, or even when I lay back and we deepened our exploration. I simply knew that afterward, I felt at peace for the first time since I’d come back to Qrynn.

We lay there in each other’s arms as Shae made her decision.

“I can always use a ring if I needed to be a guy for some reason, right?”

I nodded. “You don’t want to return to being David?”

She kissed me on my jaw, right in front of my ear. “I’m still David; I’m just Shae as well. And as long as I’m with you, I like being Shae. There’s just certain things… like my parents. I’d like to pop in and let them know what’s up, and I’d like to be a guy when I do that.”

My hand brushed her collar and it snapped open. “You’ll still be related to Dá»rdor. I can change that too, if you want.”

She shook her head. “I like things just the way they are.”

Then she showed me how much she’d like things to stay just the way they are.

~O~

One of the things that deities deal with is the lack of need for things. I didn’t have to eat or drink anymore. I never felt tired. I didn’t even have to breathe if I didn’t want to. The power that the Elves gave me in prayer sustained me. But not doing any of this is just weird. That’s why we were sitting on the ground around the campfire drinking decent mulled wine and partaking of a feast in honor of my friends.

At least that’s what it started off as.

“They’re down to eighteen now. Scratch another Red off the enemies list.”

“Dudette, that is so weird how you do that.”

I shrugged and sipped at the wine. “I can just feel it. Lyzax is about to blow her top. She’s lost control.”

Looking over at Barry enjoying a helping of deer meat and Flamestrike looking decidedly sleepy, beside him, I asked. “You want me to leave Lyzax to you?”

He looked thoughtful and swallowed his mouthful. “It’s my destiny.”

I rolled my eyes. “We both know it’s one possible destiny, Barry, not the only one.”

He dropped his hunk—o-meat to the plate. “I feel useless and Machiavellian with you taking care of all of my problems.”

With a bright grin, I laughed. “At least you’re coming to terms with your personality.

Something happened. I didn’t want to be overly geekish and say it was a disturbance in the Force, but that’s exactly what it felt like. Setting my goblet down, I stood up and stared off in the direction of the Dragons.

“Ar’ri?” said Shae.

The Eldest stood as well.

“No, no, no,” I whispered. “Shit.”

Barry was to his feet a moment later. “What happened?”

My eyes dropped to his and then I looked around. “A new player just took the field. You might get your chance after all, Barry. To arms. TO ARMS!”

TBC...