"Okay, time to heal you up now, Rai," Lekthi said. Her hands started glowing green again but more brightly this time, continuing to grow brighter as she moved them towards the other woman's blood-drenched stomach.

Railleth let out another moan of pain, followed by a long hiss. Her color rapidly came back, becoming a red that was still lighter than any of the others, and the fragments of bone sticking out of her chest and arm dove back into her body. There was a series of crunching, clicking sounds, and the gash in her arm was fully healed.

Enzi stroked the recumbent woman's head gently. "Wake up, Rai. Feeling better?"

Railleth made a quiet rumbling sound, and her mouth opened slightly, showing rows of razor-sharp teeth. "Thank you," she rasped as she opened her eyes.

Each of the other women reached in, giving her an affectionate squeeze.

"Railleth's the youngest of them, but she's the strongest fighter," Igyn said helpfully in Tim's ear.

He'd taken a few more steps away during the healing process, stumbling back onto another sofa and remaining there with a hand curled over his mouth as he watched. Upon seeing that he hadn't caused a species to come closer to extinction, he let out the breath he'd been holding.

Every eye in the room turned to him.

Lekthi hissed and took a step towards him. "Why are you here?" she demanded.

Railleth pushed herself up, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment and pressing her hand to the side of her snout as she groaned softly. "I made him promise," she said. She tilted her head from side to side a little before she lowered her hand and looked at him with her startlingly blue eyes that he had to give a nine-out-of-ten to. "Lekthi, look at him."

The one called Lekthi crossed one arm over her middle and planted her elbow on it as she approached, glaring down at him with orange eyes all the while. "He hurt you."

"I was trying to do the same," Railleth said dismissively. She reached a clawed hand behind herself and stretched her torso to each side. "Oogh, that really hurt, too. All itchy now." She looked back across the room at him. "Drake Storm? You fought well. Cleverly. You're a credit to the ancestors."

"The an…" Enzi moved towards him next, and she gasped.

Cindriz walked over after and had a matching reaction, followed by the last one, who he assumed was Nela from the names he'd heard earlier.

"I don't believe it," Lekthi said, continuing to glare.

"You can't tell me you don't see it," Railleth said. "It's even more obvious without his armor. I'll prove it. Drake Storm, take your shirt off."

Tim frowned. "Huh?"

"Take your shirt off!" Enzi said, leaning in until her face was just in front of his. "Please, Drake Storm?"

A faint, vaguely pleasant scent reached his nose, and he looked into her eager, nine-point-one green eyes for a moment.

"If Rai wants your shirt off, you owe her that much," Lekthi said from behind her.

He grimaced. "Alright, alright," he said, grabbing the ends of his shirt and working it up over his head.

"Well?" Railleth called from behind the four who were blocking her view.

Enzi poked one side of his scaled chest, and Nela prodded another.

"Drake Storm, are you descended from dragons?" Cindriz asked with wide, nine-out-of-ten purple eyes.

Tim took a long blink. "Am I…"

"He must be," Railleth called. "I bet he's got scales all over."

Nela's prodding of the scales on his chest had continued, gradually changing into a soft caress that moved up to the scales on his shoulder, but she pulled her hand back like she'd been burned when he glanced down at her hand.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Tim said, holding his hands up as an idea started to creep into his mind. There's… No, there's no way. "How did you… What does it matter if I'm a dragonkin?"

"Are you or aren't you?" demanded Lekthi.

"I…suppose I am?" he said.

"I knew it!" Railleth crowed. "I knew it as soon as I saw his face!"

Lekthi let out a disgusted sigh and wandered away out of view, but her spot was quickly filled with Railleth, whose lips were pulled back to expose her teeth. "Drake Storm, you promised me," she said. "You know what that means, don't you?"

"A promise from Sateus's champion is a promise of victory," Tim recited with a frown. "But… I already won when we fought," he said slowly. He grimaced once more at the memory of the crunch as he drove his hammer down and shattered her arm, now feeling that maybe it was more like a one-out-of-ten crunch when he saw her standing here in front of him like this.

"What? No, don't be dense," Railleth said. She came forward and pushed him back by his shoulder, then straddled his waist and draped her arms over his shoulders, continuing to maintain eye contact all the while. "You're part dragon, so you can give us children!" she said, giving his cheek a gentle nuzzle with her snout.

"What?" Tim exclaimed. This has to be a joke.

"The blood of dragons is too strong to conceive with any creature that doesn't also have the blood of a dragon," Igyn said as Railleth nuzzled him again, the act of which was, surprisingly enough to him, an eight-point-eight in how good it felt as she also began to subtly rock against him. "The original dragons used magic for this, but those spells have been lost since long before I became a deity."

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"Oh. Well," Tim began, unsure how to deal with or make sense of any part of the situation. Especially the part where somehow having her grinding on me like this is turning me on. Deep breath. What's wrong with me? "I'm sure one of the other gods probably knows that magic?" he said as he stared into glittering, crystalline eyes. Am I into this or not?

"It's…not really that simple," Igyn said, sounding nervous. "I'd have to trade a favor for that, and I can't even manifest a body, so a favor from me isn't very valuable. There's not many deities who would even be interested."

Railleth pulled back, the excitement slowly fading from her eyes. "You…" she trailed off. "You don't want to help us?" she asked, her bright blue eyes taking on a decidedly sad look as she stared at him.

Enzi leaned in from the side, her green eyes boring into him. "Please, Drake Storm?" she asked quietly.

"We're all that's left," said Cindriz.

"Don't beg for his seed," shouted Lekthi from somewhere distant. "You disgrace our ancestors!"

"Ladies, I'd like to talk to Drake Storm for a short while," Igyn said in a firm voice. "Would you wait outside until I call for you?"

Railleth ground her hips against him one last time before she rose up onto her feet, her toothy smile growing toothier as she glanced down.

"Railleth, you can stay if you promise to be good," Igyn said as though she was an old woman, but the little girl's voice she spoke with gave it an odd dissonance that made Tim have to bite back a laugh.

"I promise," Railleth said, sounding pleased by the offer.

Enzi folded her into a hug right after. "I'm glad you're okay," she murmured.

Nela squeezed Railleth's shoulder, and Cindriz joined the hug.

"We'll be in the storeroom," Lekthi said, returning to the group with her eyes narrowed in what was either a frown or a glare. "Come, let's give the one who almost killed Rai some time to be alone with her." She waved, and three of them followed along, with Nela looking back over her shoulder to give what he imagined was meant to be a shy smile despite the number of very sharp teeth being shown.

"I'm going with them, but I'll come back soon," Railleth said quickly, hurrying after them. "Lekthi, wait," she called more loudly.

The cloud that called itself a deity floated around in front of him, but it remained silent for the time being.

Tim watched the last of the five dragon-women file out the door, and their absence gave him enough clarity to stop thinking about baby dragons and other things he'd never considered before today. "Alright, what the fuck's going on here?" he asked the cloud floating in front of him. How does any part of this make sense? And why is it taking me so long to decide that this is obviously a bad decision that I shouldn't even be considering? He shifted on the sofa, trying awkwardly to adjust his erection in a way that wouldn't be immediately obvious to the cloud. Is this like… Because I'm a dragonkin my tastes have changed?

"Those five are the only ones left who can bear healthy children," Igyn began. "Their world has a sickness which—"

"Sateus told me about the plague," Tim interrupted. "But… Like… This is crazy, right?"

"If your deity told you of the plague, then you know that it passes to children," Igyn said, sounding disapproving. "There are another few dozen of their kin on their world, but they're all sick, dying. I…traded what little favor I could to gain a blessing that would protect them," she continued. "I was close to being able to manifest my body, but I just had to give them all a chance, even if it was a small one, that they could have children."

"What exactly are you a deity of?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm a fertility deity," Igyn said happily. "I love children!"

"Right, of course," he said, narrowly resisting the urge to rub his face to see if it would wake him up from whatever weirdness he was obviously sleeping through. "And it's just…chance…that you all happened to be here when I was? How often do these tournaments even happen?"

"Every hundred years," Igyn said. "But Sateus can only compete every hundred thousand years, so it really is quite a coincidence!"

The door at the other end of the room opened a little, and a blue-eyed dragon-woman slipped in. "I'm back," Railleth said.

"Stay quiet for now, Railleth," Igyn said in a fond tone. "Come sit with us."

Railleth had changed her attire and cleaned up a little, and she was now wearing a strapless, dark blue, eight-out-of-ten dress that exposed more cleavage than Tim had imagined her to have, to the extent that it was firmly above average at a seven-point-three. She walked quietly over and sat on the sofa next to him, close enough that he could feel her there but not quite touching as she towered over him.

Tim determinedly didn't stare, nor did he spend time thinking about whether the woman sitting next to him was attractive, refusing to revise his initial post-healing estimate of a seven-out-of-ten. Instead, he needed some answers. "Why? Isn't Sateus a true god? And a strong one?"

"Oh yes," Igyn said. "Very, very powerful. Sateus is one of the most ancient deities. The stories I've heard… Anyway, Sateus can't compete every time."

"If a god of victory competes, a god of victory wins," Railleth added, now speaking in a slower, more measured way. "There's only one god of victory, which means if they compete…"

"So… Sateus can't lose and thus is only allowed to win once every hundred thousand years," Tim reasoned.

"Mm-hmm, right you are," Igyn said in a pleased tone. "You're a smart one! For lots of things, there's more than one deity. Pleasure, for example, has ten. Beauty has…more. Light has four. There's only ever been one deity who represents victory though. If there were two, then they could challenge each other, but since there's only one…"

"Why even compete then if you know you'll lose?" he asked with a frown.

"A few don't," said Igyn. "This is the first time I've been to a great gamble that Sateus has attended, so I don't know that much other than stories I've heard. But becoming a deity is a different sort of thing. It changes a being. Many become arrogant, drunk with their own power after stepping beyond the limits of mortals. They think they'll be the one to defeat victory."

"Is that even possible?" Tim frowned. This is more philosophical than I expected.

"Nobody knows!" Igyn exclaimed with the feel of someone throwing her hands in the air. "I heard that last time Sateus was disqualified for some reason, and there was a big uproar about it, but that was all before I became a deity. It wasn't exactly a defeat, but things didn't go the way everyone expected since there's rules for that, or so I hear. Worlds that had been won were forfeited—that sort of thing." She paused for a moment. "There's lots of deities who want to be the first to defeat Sateus though, so they keep trying to win, especially after the disqualification. Then there's other ones—like me!—who have other goals. Well, I'm only even here because Sateus helped me, so naturally I'm not going to try and defeat—"

"Wait, helped you? And what was that about a great gamble?" Tim fired off his questions quickly, trying to keep up with his racing thoughts.

"Yup!" Igyn chirped. "You hear all kinds of nasty rumors about Sateus, but I've only ever had the best experiences. I was hoping to find a group of champions to fight for me, and Sateus pointed me to Railleth, and Enzi, and Lekthi, and Nela, and Cindriz, and I love them all so much now!"

"We love you too, Igyn," Railleth said quietly.

"Oh, you're sweet," Igyn said, swirling a little in her direction. "But… You don't know what the great gamble is?"

"Should I?" Tim asked, feeling a sort of dread creep over him.

"I'm sure it just wasn't important enough to be mentioned with all the great things Sateus is doing," Igyn said as though she was waving the idea away. "This competition is the great gamble, Drake Storm—Can I call you Drake? The gamble is that we bet and compete for dominion of worlds, Drake."