A certain dragon shrunk down to the size of a human, where could almost pass as a kobold. He wore a kickass robe with skulls and lightning bolts as he followed behind his new master. They both wore robes that showed people that they had dark pasts and painful backstories. It had leather straps, spikes, and decorative bones.

The two men were trudging through the forest, sweating from the heat of the sun, magnified by the skin tight leather clothing. Both of them not wanting to remove the clothing in fear that they’d be spotted by a passing individual without the intimidating regalia.

Instead they both cooked up a plan that would make them both menacing and cool.

So Dennis was currently FILLING parts of the air with ice and summoning frost wraiths to change the weather.

They left a trail of frost that made the environment seem like winter came early as they walked.

“So where are we heading again master?” Ogier asked while flipping through Dennis’ book on beginner Necromancy.

“Ogier my boy we’re going to get you registered in an adventuring guild.”

“Oh...why?”

“Well I need you to have legal documents before I announce your apprenticeship. Remember, bureaucracy is the only thing impeding the path of mages, warriors, and anything in between.”

Ogier jotted that down with a carbonized bone pencil.

“b-bureaucra- Got it!”

Dennis and Ogier reached the nearest town, Sporia, a relatively well-off town whose main export is mushroom cattle, firearms, and tequilla. The inhabitants are proficient in Mycomancy, the art of fungal craft and fungal magics. Here they make everything out of fungi, walls, chairs, cutlery, clothing, you name it and they probably have a fungus equivalent of it on hand.

He saw organic architecture sprouting out of the ground as towering monoliths of industry. He saw shops and stalls advertising their wares. He saw children running with pistols and knives. He saw people trading hallucinogenic mushrooms. Also someone just got stabbed in broad daylight and everyone acts like it’s just another day.

Truly, it is a vile place filled with the filth of society composed of goons, hoodlums, and liars.

He chose this place to test Ogier’s social capabilities, because if you can survive a day in sporia, you can survive any where. He was pretty shocked to hear that the dragon just stayed in the cave, lifting weights for days on end.

He pitied the dragon. So he thought of the best way to help him. And that would be exposure therapy, the best kind of therapy.

“Ogier, how many years did you say you stayed in the cave for again?”

“Um, probably 300 years.”

“And how old did you say you were?”

“322”

Oh dear, now that’s a real problem.

Dennis clapped his hands.

“Okay, this is your first test. I’m going to leave you for a whole day alone in town. Your mission is to register with the local adventurers guild and make it out alive.”

Dennis took out a bag of silver, enough to live comfortably for months, and a knife.

Ogier stared at the knife and the man who just got stabbed in broad daylight. Wow, that’s a lot of blood. He turned his eyes and saw the one of the children staring at him and making the motion of slitting his throat.

“Master, I don’t think I can do this.” Ogier was sweating buckets.

“Sure you can. You’re basically immortal and soul-linked with me, so there’s nothing here that could kill you, probably.”

Ogier furrowed his brows with concern.

“Tell you what, if you can accomplish this mission, I’ll give you a chest filled with gold.”

Ogier was tempted. He was currently broke and homeless, on account of the burning hole that used to be his cave. Also, with how loaded his master apparently is, he could probably get a hoard fit for a dragon in no time.

“Okay, I guess it won’t be so hard.”

“That’s the spirit!” Dennis patted him on the back and quickly vanished out of thin air.

Ogier was holding the a bag of money and an ominous glowing knife that whispered to him. He looked around and no longer saw his master in the vicinity. He gulped.

-----------------------------------------------

Ogier was a shut-in for most of his life, crippled by most social interactions and only going out of the cave when he buys stuff from hedge wizards and sewer witches. Nevertheless, he has steeled himself to fulfill the mission his new master gave him.

He tucks the sack in his new robes and puts the ominous looking knife in a holster in his waist, then he moves his feet to the town entrance.

He takes his first step, then another, then another.

Okay Ogier you can do this!

He was pepping himself up. He needed to find out where the adventurers guild was first.

He approaches a nearby group of people leaning on a wall.

“Um excuse me sirs and madams, do you know where the adventurer’s guild is?” He tried holding his hand for a handshake.

One of them pulled out their cigarette and put the burning end on Ogier’s hand, which made Ogier hold back a tear. Another guy just spat on him. All of them just stared at him, making him drop his head in shame.

“We don’ loike yer bloody kind ‘ere fokin bloke” They spoke in an abhorrent, unnatural way, as if parodying what normal language would sound like.

“Yeh, wot’re you doin’ ere swishin’ your tail for damned wanker” A thin bony woman without hair said.

Anothe person span on him and gave him the finger.

“Anyfin you needzees isn’t herezees Lizard boy hihi” A pale and wet gremlin creature said so while mocking him.

He quickly turned and ran the opposite direction.

Dang it, what the hell was that about?!

Ogier turned a corner and took a breather. He massaged his temples and kissed his burn mark.

“Okay, maybe talking to groups might not be advisable. Also, I think this place might be racist towards reptile folk and dragon adjacent individuals.”

Ogier pulled up his hood and covered his mouth.

As he was busy adjusting his outfit, a felinekin kid bumped into him.

“Ow watch it.”

“Sorry mistah” The kid walked away.

Ogier reached to his waist to look at his knife, only to find it gone. He panicked and checked the bag of silver he has. It was also gone!

He looked at the kid running away and ran after them.

“Stop!”

The kid looked back and ran faster.

Ogier released his wings and flew to the sky and followed the kid.

The kid saw this and used a technique.

THIEF ARTS: SHADOW STEP

Their body got covered in darkness and sped up considerably. They dove in the alleyways, hoping to lose the flying pursuer in the maze of mushroom brick and hardened structures made of mycelia.

It was getting harder for Ogier to spot the kid, so he dove down and morphed into a different type of dragonoid, a Coatl. Ogier is a direct descendant of the very first dragons, making him one of the few hundreds that have a pure bloodline. This gives him the ability to morph into different dragonoid forms.

DRACOFORM: COATL

His big and bulky form became lithe and compact, as he lost his limbs and gained sleek, feathery wings designed for speed. He twisted and turned as the very wind lifted him to the direction he chose to go. He was optimized for grace and speed in this form, making him adept at pursuit in the dark alleyways.

The kid went to the slums, hoping to lose the pursuer in the environmental hazard of rusted metal, shattered glass, and spiky rocks. Unfortunately for the kid, Ogier avoided all of those with ease.

He was close now, almost reaching the kid’s cloak.

“Now!” The kid said.

Suddenly a dozen orphans jumped on him and pinned him down.

“Gah”

He was completely pinned down, immobile. A mesh of interlocked child limbs pressed upon his worm like form, preventing him from morphing back to his dragon form.

“Let me go!”

The felinekin turned to him and smiled.

“Well, well, well, looks loike we av a morfer on our ‘ands lads.” He took out the sack of coins and perused its contents. “An’ a damned welfy one too innit.”

Ogier could not understand the vile tongue the children spoke in, to him it sounded like a language rooted in sin and evil. He heard it as a perverse approximations of what sounded like language.

“Please let me go!” He begged the children.

“I’ll av’ non a dat scaly, yer goin’ ta mommy” The felinekin’s face showed a wide grin.

“Mommy? Hey, wait, let me go.” Ogier was bound by a collar along with a couple of chains, an anti-shapeshifting lock. His eyes grew wide.

“Oi all a’ yous take Im’ ta mommy!” The felinekin pointed at the sickly children and barked the order.

“On it boss!”

“You gots it boss!”

“Nuffing to worry ‘bout boss!”

The kids produced a rag and stuffed it in his mouth, preventing him from using spells.

With great effort, Ogier was lifted up by the strength of a dozen children, which was, admittedly, not a lot. They lifted him and carried him to an underground set of passages. It was like a labyrinth of sickly mushroom magic and sewage.

It glowed unnaturally, with green fungus and pulsing molds. The walls seemed to be caked in filth and slime, that new species of biohazardous waste could be found in it’s tender arms. It was the definition of rot and decay, and Ogier was filled with dread at what they were planning to do with him.

A cackling could be heard echoing in the tunnels. A horrible tune was being played as hundreds upon hundreds of children suddenly sprung forth and began swaying. They hummed and giggled like little imps that found joy in mischief. Ogier tried his best to struggle out of the situation, but all of them had their eyes set on him.

Then they began singing.

🎶”Mommy’s watchin’ in the deep

and she’s finding parts to keep

and she blinds the one’s who peep

and she watches when you sleep”🎶

🎶”Mommy, mommy, give me bread

Oh she makes sure you’re well fed

Mommy, mommy, cut his head

Oh she makes your problems dead”🎶

🎶”She speaks in riddles, speaks in rhymes

Oh she tells you of their crimes

She’s lived a hundred lifetimes

Oh she watches at all times”🎶

This legitimately freaked Ogier out.

A cackling sound, who he presumed was ‘mommy’, bounced through the walls as a vicious shadow of a woman stirring a cauldron could be seen at the end of the hall.

They got closer, and closer, and closer, until the air basically burst with malefic energy.

“Mommy! We gots sum morpher wit us. Also sum silver from da pris’ner.”

“What?” The shadow suddenly stopped stirring and held an ear out.

“Morpher Mom! We gots a morpher!”

“Kid what did I tell you about speaking like that again?! Speak normally or you won’t get dessert!”

The felinekin hesitated, before giving up and changing the atrocious perversion of speech.

“I-...We have a morpher and some silver mommy.”

“Good, now was that so hard?”

A short old woman turned the corner. She wore a pointy hat and held a large spoon that also doubled as a cane.

She was stout and had a warm smile. Her white hair was tied in a bun with a twig and had beads dangling in it. She had dozens and dozens of wooden charms dangling from her neck and limbs that shone with a faint homely aura. She hobbled near him to get a closer look.

“Hmmm, you’re a dragon aren’t you?” She put on a pair of spectacles made of broken glass and bent metal, and looked at him closely. She tapped Ogier’s head with a spoon and poked it with her long old woman fingers. She opened his eyelids and plucked a feather, before examining it closely. She closed her spectacles and stuck it in her frizzy hair.

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

She smacked her spoon cane on the felinekin’s head.

“Ow!” The kid rubbed the hit spot.

“What did I tell you about kidnapping changelings and polymorphers! Insolent child, you could have gotten hurt! Next time, just leave it to me okay?”

“I didn’t mean to! It’s just that he looked like a dunce with some cash.” The felinekin pulled out the bag of silver. “Look, look”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The old woman immediately changed her mood at the mention of money. The woman counted the coins, as if she was a greedy banker. She separated all the coins into neat little stacks of ten and moved her hands to store them in boxes marked ‘child-feed’, ‘kid clothes’, and ‘salt’, where salt had the most coins.

The old woman smiled and patted the felinekin on the head. She took a handful of coins and gave it to the kid.

“Nice job boy, go get your brothers and sisters a treat outside.”

The kid grinned. “Thanks mom!”

The wriggly child arms that held him dropped him on the floor as they followed the felinekin with sounds of laughter and giggles.

As the sounds of laughter faded in the background, the once warm and kindly woman turned ice cold. Her smile was no longer there and the space around her started to wriggle with worm like creatures.

A vine of fell from the ceiling and wrapped Ogier tightly. It cut to his flesh as it sapped him of energy. The mold that covered the walls grew into the shape of runes and sigils. It glowed and sucked the magic out of the air.

Suddenly he couldn’t feel magic outside his body. He was completely cut-off from any spell he had in his repertoire.

“I know what you are boy.” She struck her spoon cane on the floor and GREW thousands upon thousands of parasitic fungi that sucked the very life-force and magical energy he has.

“You’re with the lich aren’t you boy. One of his puppets? I can see a link in you that smells of death.” She spoke with tension that choked the very air out of him.

She struck the spoon cane on the ground and suddenly Ogier barfed the cloth used to gag him. His face fell as a hundreds of worms spewed out of him.

“SPEAK!” Her eyes glowed a sickly yellow as she bore straight through his soul.

“Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He said as he coughed more and more things that crossed between fungus and parasite.

But the old woman refused to listen to him as he tried releasing himself from his bindings.

“So he found me now has he? Well, I’m not giving the page back. Not until I find what I’m looking for.” She frowned, as a million vines and parasites spread throughout her body and warping it to resemble an eldritch horror. Her teeth was now made up of flowing worms with pincers, her hair now a bunch of flowing speckled mycelia, and her skin a sickly leather with maggots flowing out of it.

“Please! I just came to this town to register as an adventurer.”

Ogier said in a panic as several hundred maggots suddenly broke from the bricks below him.

“Hah, enough lies boy. I can feel the link between you. You young people are all the same, always disrespecting your elders. The thing with youth is-”

Wow, she’s still talking.

Her fingers wrapped around an ethereal link he’s never fully realized he had. He felt something in his very core tug at him as her fingers strung the untouchable connection with his master.

This is what I get from buying suspicious cups from witches and using it without the instructions.

“- and further more, why is it that I always get treated like an old hag. I used to be a real looker back in my day. You probably think I’m past my prime don’t you? Don’t you? I’m only 34,000 thousand years old for crying out lou-”

Ogier was tearing up, an old crone was literally holding his soul in her hands while committing to a monologue. He was literally and figuratively dying of boredom.

He felt the soul-link vibrate. It spoke to him. It spoke to his master.

He knows where I am. He can come and save me.

Ogier felt a spark of hope inside of him. He heard a voice inside his head, the one his master has!

“Ogier!”

“Master!”

“Ogier listen closely, you’re dealing with a very dangerous individual. Whatever you do, don’t let her stick a maggot inside you.”

“There’s already one inside me.”

“Okay, then don’t let her fill you with worms.”

“It’s in my mouth.”

He could hear Dennis sigh from the mental connection.

“Okay then buy some time, I’m on my way. Remember Ogier you can’t fully die right now, use it to your advantage.”

The mental connection cut off and he’s listening to the woman commit to a really long speech.

“Back in my day we didn’t have fancy shmancy-”

The old woman was still speaking.

Ogier needed to think of a plan, he needed to buy time.

Ogier remembered what his master told him. That he was immortal. Now he has a new idea, one that he’s never tried before. If he succeeds then he’ll be free, and if he isn’t, well maybe might suffer a few burns.

Ogier concentrated all his magic to a single point in his body. Heat was building up in his heart, the most magically resistant part of dragons, and tried to ignite his very essence as a bomb. He was never any good with magic and would much rather use his body to do things, which made him get kicked behind everyone else of his kind. ‘Ogier the crude’ or ‘Ogier the brutish’ or ‘Ogier the dim’ were names that they branded him since he was young, because what the others learned in a day, Ogier learned in ten. Ogier was absolutely horrendous at magic and he couldn’t think of a spell to get him out of this situation, but maybe he doesn’t need to.

It feels strange, it’s like he’s destroying something inside him and breaking it down to it’s base components. The link between him and his master was humming, like a word was calling to him. It felt wonderful and horrible, like a truth was there in his mind, something so close, yet so far.

It asked him to DESTROY a part of him and make it new.

So he listened to the voices, the voices that came through the link in his soul. He felt a word from the other side, it had the power to FILL anything, an endless ocean of infinity. His word however hummed in a different polarity. It asked him to erase, to delete, to break, and bend, and snap. It asked him to DESTROY.

So he listens to it and releases the tiny point of infinite destruction from his heart. An act of infinite suicide and rebirth. He becomes a flame of fusion and fission as his body was recreated the very moment it broke down.

He felt a fury, a passion, a fire that lit in his mind and body that told him he was more. He had a word that embodied everything he truly was.

And it was beautiful.

A gentle light of degradation and entropy DESTROYED the very matter that bound him. It destroyed the structure of spells designed to restrict him. A blast of pure destruction pushed away everything that wanted to be whole and allowed everything within the space to atomize and burn.

“Gah!” The old woman let go of his soul link like it was a hot skillet.

Ogier managed to break free and he quickly put some distance between them.

His form was quickly making

Her eyes widened and she grinnned.

“Immortal”

“DRAGOMORPH: QUELBERE”

His wings turned to a golden cape of skin and scale that shone like metal. His feathers fell and became tiny stars of flame and destruction. White horns of brutal majesty formed a crown around his head. He stood tall and proud in a new body of woven chaos. Tiny whirling balls of fire danced around him as if to coronate the birth of a new monarch.

He felt power he has never conceived of before, one that told him the secrets of DESTRUCTION, one of wrack and ruin, one of ash and bone. And he felt changed.

The old woman’s eyes grew as she saw him transform to a quelbere, a form that only his parents and older siblings could do. And she grit her teeth and scowled at him with thinly veiled hatred.

“So you thought of me a fool have you?”

She gripped her spoon staff till it broke from the sheer strength she applied to it.

Her pointed hat grew teeth and tongues, as a gaping maw opened above her hateful stare. And it bit her head with many jaws and many fangs. It ground her very flesh to paste as limbs and mandibles devoured her body in a festival of gore. Spores of wriggling horrors and insect hatchlings flooded out of the hat as it bloated and burst in screaming agony.

Ogier was speechless at the scene that he hadn’t even noticed something rising from the pile of writhing life.

A fetus floated above the pile and faced him with eyes of anger and loathing. Several colossal worms raised themselves from the ground and bit on the flesh of the child, replacing the parts and morphing into the shape of a human woman. The woman’s eyes were replaced by pulsating slugs that mimicked eyes, her tongue was replaced by parasitic isopods, and her teeth replaced by hardened fly eggs.

Her form was the grotesque romance between revulsion and beauty. Even her flesh was now tinted in pink by the worms that dug into her skin. The air that she breathed turned to yellow-green poison that changed the spores in the air into black and white fungal strands that wove to form her new regalia. She was adorned with parasitic animals that replaced her body with parts that simply GREW from them.

She looked beautiful, loving, and cruel. If Ogier had to imagine a Demi-goddess, it would look something like her, yet perhaps it still wouldn’t come close.

What the fuck?!

Large tentacles of meat and chitin spread out from her and she faced his direction.

Ogier was now in a state of panic enhanced with the bitter scent of adrenaline.

He spread his wings and booked it, flying faster than he has ever flown towards the exit.

Shit, I need to get out of here.

Unfortunately the distance did not decrease, in fact it extended continuously, preventing him from reaching his destination. Space slowly expanded and GREW, turning the cramped room into a dark forest of brick and rot. The exit he saw was now a dark hallway that no longer bore any light beyond it. He was stuck here, without escape.

꒷︶꒷SWARMCRAFT: BIRTHING RAIN꒷︶꒷

The tentacles that wrapped around her suddenly grew orifices that spit out eggs like cannons, each firing volleys of countless sticky bullets towards him. The bullets multiplied as it mimicked the image of a relentless downpour. In the blink of an eye, the battlefield was covered in eggs.

Ogier swerved and twisted, trying to avoid the eggs. Something told him that he wouldn’t want to get caught in it and he was right. The eggs hatched, and what came out is a creature straight out of a nightmare. It birthed tooth fairies.

Ogier was shocked. Why the hell was something that dangerous here. It ended empires and caused mass extinctions and this old woman could just make them willy nilly.

Ogier focused himself and swatted his tail in an arc, crushing the flying menaces. He was preparing a spell that could cover him.

“FLAME AURA”

Heat and fire coated his scales setting all the fairies ablaze if they got too near, well atleast he hopes so.

The woman started moving, growing insectile limbs that dragged her body, or more likely bodies, towards him. Multiple copies of her body sprouted out of her, each moaning and yelling in anger. She shed each piece of herself that made even more biomass as her stepping stones.

A flood of meat and limbs tried to grab him from the air.

Ogier twisted himself and started burning all his energy to propel himself forward.

Ogier was pretty shit when it came to magic, but he wasn’t a slouch when it came to physical combat. So he tried mixing it with the new ability he acquired.

The swarm of tooth fairies soon caught up to him. Hundreds and hundreds of fairies clawed his body as they melted from his aura. But unfortunately it wasn’t enough, the dead and smoldering fairy corpses stacked on top of his body, weighing him down and letting the living swarm latch on to him.

The fairies bit down and gouged his flesh with a thousand cuts, each getting more brutal than the last.

Pain filled Ogiers head as the fairies dug through his body cavities, tunneling through the blood, fat, and meat till they reached his bones.

Then they crunched.

Ogier used his limbs and tail to crush the flying pests.

Then he remembered, he can destroy himself. He can DESTROY himself!

Ogier focused on the core of his body and detonated himself, destroying the swarm that pursued him and was inside of him in a horrible flame of ruin.

The energy that expanded out, immolating the cloud of pestilent life that covered him. The heat and matter then got sucked back in and reformed his body, healing him of any injuries.

Ogier opened his eyes and noticed he was alright. He grinned.

I can do this.

He started flying closer to the walls and kept destroying his body in a periodic manner, pulsing an area of continuous chaos around him. Whenever his heart stopped, it begun again. In this moment of death and rebirth, he was invincible.

“Crafty little lizard.” The woman, now the size of a mountain of flesh, opened her many fused mouths to reveal a maggot infested abyss that threatened to swallow him. Her teeth, now made out of her skeletons in different stages of decomposition, crunched the space he occupied.

Once inside the maw, she jabbed a hand inside Ogier and put something inside him.

Ogier panicked and released an even bigger explosion. He reformed and flew out of her jaws using the force from the blast.

He felt weird.

Then he suddenly lost his energy, suddenly destabilizing his grip on his flight.

“What did you do?!” Ogier yelled as he tried flying faster. His flame sputtering every now and then.

The woman said nothing and just smiled.

She pointed a finger in his direction and rammed a huge, building sized brick his way, knocking him out of the air and into the floor.

She raised the bricks from the floor and grew them, flattening Ogier in the process.

The bricks grew from the ceiling, floor, and walls, as it sandwiched him between the rapidly expanding stone. It was quickly outpacing his ability to destroy it, trapping him within the space.

“Like my little gift for you dearie?” She cackled with glee using her many, many mouths.

Ogier weakened considerably, no longer having the ability to constantly output the aura of destruction. He felt so, so tired.

With a wave of her hand, she stopped the bricks from growing. And with another, she GREW the tooth fairies weeks, aging them past their natural life cycle, effectively killing them all.

“Aren’t I nice little lizard, I even stopped the little pests buzzing in your ear, hoho.”

Ogier couldn’t say anything, and could only lie down in exhaustion. It was as if he was riddled with growths, tumors, and parasites he could not see. They were sapping him, not through his body, but through his soul.

“They’re soul parasites boy. I guess your little lich didn’t teach you how to deal with it yet did he?”

She smiled as maggots fell from her maw. Worms as thin as hair and ones as thick as fingers sprouted from her flesh and dug into him.

“GAAAH!” Ogier felt them burrow deep within him.

“See, I think you can only do that light show if you explode yourself and destroy your body, which triggers your revival. So, I just infected you with something that GROWS somewhere you can’t influence. And voila, no more pesky exploding and what not.”

She stretched her limbs wrapping him in vines and limbs, rooting him in place.

“Clever boy, exploiting something like this. But I don’t need to kill you now do I? Which means we can talk this time...”

He felt things dig into his brain, warping his senses and thoughts. It was excruciatingly painful, until it wasn’t anymore. He was slowly forgetting what he was fighting for. He was losing focus of his surroundings.

One of Ogier’s eyes now bore a worm. A long wriggling string of flesh that danced inside the fluids of his vision.

She took out a piece of paper from her many mouths.

“What do you know of this boy?”

She took it and placed it near Ogier’s restrained head.

image [https://imgur.com/gallery/star-bdQRL6W]

Ogier stared at the image before him, an object that emitted rays inside a circle of unintelligible writing. Points littered the background, like stars in the sky. It felt like the thing was looking directly inside him. Like he knows it and it knows him. And it loathes him.

He felt fury and malice at the point in the circle. It looked at him with eyes filled with hatred and rage. And now it became a part of him. A burning hate.

He hated it.

HE HATED IT.

Fury beyond his comprehension filled him as he cried tears of blood.

The woman turned his head towards him and the effect significantly decreased.

“What do you know of the hateful star?” Her voice was desperate, despite effortlessly defeating Ogier. Her eyes filled with equal parts hope and equal parts despair.

“Tell me what you know!”

“W-what is that?” Ogier felt a chill inside him. He hated whatever that was. And he knew it was dangerous.

“You’re a dragonoid, a royal one at that, one that! How would the lich know to take one of you if he hasn’t shared his plans about the hateful star?! So tell me boy, what do you know!”

“I’m sorry, I really don’t know.” He found it harder and harder to resist her words and ignore her commands.

Her eyes grew a sickly yellow as she compelled his very essence to tell her the truth and nothing but the truth.

“TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THE CRUEL SUN. REVEAL EVERYTHING YOU KNOW TO MOTHER”

Her voice echoed as it reached to his very soul. It reached to the things that squirmed inside him.

Ogier shivered as his brain rumbled from within. He felt so, so weak.

“I-I know n-nothing.”

Ogier heaved and leaned on the rock around him.

“I have never known anything about the thing until today.”

The woman took a step back as her eyes widened.

She slowly grew back to what she was before, a frail old woman. She lost her fleshy growths, her teeth, the monstrous body she puppeteered, and the fury that she held.

To Ogier, she looked nothing like what she was a few minutes ago.

Now she just looked like a scared old woman who clutched herself tightly.

“So, you don’t even know anything do you.” Her voice sullen, as her form sunk.

She flicks a finger and GROWS a bunch of mushrooms from the wall in the shape of a couch. She sits and buries her head in her hands.

Suddenly the space around them started to return to it’s original state, normal on some areas, irreversibly changed in others.

She sits in silence for a moment as she thinks about what to do next as parasites dug inside Ogier’s brain, preventing him from forming thoughts of resistance she wouldn’t allow.

“....Stop....” She said, like an afterthought and Ogier was simply free, free from the things that crawled inside him, free from the things that held him down.

Suddenly the air filled with frost, ice, and aetheric hale that was as cold as absolute zero, effectively killing off the tangible and intangible parasites around him. His constantly reviving body stood unblemished as he continuously revived from the unnatural cold.

He felt a gentle hand pat him on the back.

“You did good Ogier. I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier.”

The old woman saw this and GREW mycelia, crabs, ticks, worms, and dozens and dozens of other species to continuously sacrifice themselves to create a safe space for her. A flood of fecundity that overode all the rules of the biological lifecycle.

A gash in space was torn in front of Ogier.

What stepped out was his ratkin master filled with silent fury.

“Frau, how delighted I am to see a thief interrupting my apprentice’s training. I’d never think one of the old crones would do something so petty, so rash as to harm a bystander. So, is this what you’ve been doing all these years? Hiding and terrorizing people.”

“Oh, it’s you. Spare me the lectures and diatribes Gahlor, it would do you no good to spite me in my domain.” The old woman suddenly burned with energy, one that far eclipsed the one she showed fighting Ogier.

She GREW the moment longer and longer, until seconds felt like months, and minutes like eons.

“Come to bring back your new project eh? Well, take him, he’s useless to me now. Even he doesn’t know anything about it.”

A shimmering field covered Ogier, shielding him from all harm.

“Apologies Ogier, never have I thought this old monster was responsible. She has always managed to evade us. But i am here now.”

The woman, Frau as his master called her, GREW back to her sprightly form, this time sporting a robe made of ethereal wood. If the last one was the image of demigod, this one was fully divine.

“Monster? Well I certainly know another in this room to fit the description.” The woman laughed.

His master FILLED the air with magic. A flood of energy that changed the very color of the air and made it harder to breathe.

His master laughed too. “Well, we wouldn’t have been such monsters if everything went well back then. Maybe in another life we could have been friends Frau. But we are long past such a point.”

She smiled softly at that. Their eyes drifted off to a time beyond now.

“It would have been nice wouldn’t it.”

“...Yes, yes it would have.”

The tension died down as the woman sat back on her seat, this time Ogier heard soft sobs.

“I figured as much.” The woman chuckled.

Everything in the area returned to what it was before all the chaos, the violence, and the fury. They were back to the dark and dank tunnels.

The only sounds he could hear were the dripping walls and the sobs of a broken old woman.

She held the piece of paper in her hands and sobbed.

Dennis lifted Ogier up and gave him his cape to cover.

“Let’s go.”

Without a word, they left the tunnels, as sounds of a sobbing woman echoed.