The Precursor Archives Part II: Danger

													Chapter 2: Danger
                There are many pitfalls that an aspiring diver may face when they’re on the job, both literal and figurative. Traps are, of course, a big danger in the business, and this stems from the tribalism that precursors are famous for. Many of the vaults or high value areas of a precursor ruin may have been trapped to prevent enemy city states from raiding. Unfortunately, due to the fact that they all vanished at once many of their traps remain activated to this day. Magically inclined animals are also a danger in these situations. Many species of drake or displacer enjoy making their home in places of intense energy, and few places contain as much arcane might that a precursor ruin. Although now increasingly rare due to overhunting these creatures were once incredible problems or ruin divers and may be what used to garner the reputation for death to nearly all those who entered precursor cities. Yet the most dangerous thing of all to encounter down below is neither creature nor trap, but a fellow diver on the same claim. With resources so scarce and the career booming it is becoming increasingly common to come in conflict with those one comes across down in the catacombs below. More shocking are stories of those groups that go into the white marbled cities with the sole purpose of coming out with one fewer member. Rule one in this line of work is that you must be able to trust the men and women you dive with, to do otherwise is suicide.
										- Osiris P from “Osi’s Guide to Diving Volume IV”

            I don’t remember what happened directly after the green flash. I might have simply been disoriented or I might have been knocked out cold, but I was not in my right mind for at least a few minutes after the surge of light ended. The first thing that came to mind was the uncomfortable feeling all around my body. I felt weak, not fatigued but like I was physically incapable of lifting the iron plates strapped to my arms and shoulder. It was as if the weight itself had pinned me to the ground. Even my helmet weighed heavily enough upon my head that I couldn’t move it, which meant that the faceguard that had come down in the blast and obscured my vision couldn’t be set back up. I was trapped, and the mage who stuck me here was probably long gone.

    	“Caliden,” a familiar voice called out, “tell me you’re still alive!”
Or maybe not

	“I’m here but I think-“

	I stopped. That was not my voice. That couldn’t be my voice. Even through the echoing in my helmet I could tell that it was the voice of someone I’d never met before, the voice of someone much younger than I was. I tried calling out again and attempted to bellow my familiar tone from the base of my lungs only for the voice to call out in its place. It was unsettling, but it did happen to catch Morgan’s attention.

	I could hear the footsteps of Morgan’s boots as he cautiously walked towards me. From his perspective I must have looked like a corpse, unable to move or even visibly breathe due to my breastplate sitting squarely on top of my chest.

	I grunted when I felt the pressure from sole of Morgan’s foot tapping on my arm. It was a cautious gesture, but still extremely risky considering the fact that he’d probably just seen me explode a moment before. It took him a second to register exactly what that sound was, but when he did he immediately dropped to the ground to help.

	“Oh gods,” he said as I found his hands groping at my armor, “Keep still, I can help, I can heal you! Just hang on while I get this off!”

	With a pop I felt my chest piece come off and the cold air flow underneath my tunic. It was nice after being nearly crushed by the damn thing, but something was off. For some reason my chest felt cold and completely exposed. Goosebumps formed on my skin as a cool breeze wafted over me.  Morgan muttered something so quietly that I couldn’t catch it, and after a moment of waiting to receive a reply that didn’t come he lifted my face guard.

	“Who- no no, what are you?” he stammered as he looked me in the eyes, “how did you get in here?”

	Morgan’s face was red, but strangely not from rage of me messing up his expedition. Knowing how lazy elves were this was probably the most exercise that he’d had in decades, and because of the flushing in his cheeks he looked like a youth too scared to ask a girl to the summer solstice festival.

	“Take a wild guess,” the high pitched voice in my throat replied, “You’re the one who told me to trust you!”

	Morgan fell backwards onto his ass and out of my view. I felt his foot kick mine as he scrambled away from me as quickly as possible. His breathing grew even more rapid and frantic, fast and hard enough that I could hear it from the other end of our intimate little pit in the floor.

	“Caliden!?” he cried when he had calmed himself enough to get some words out, “is that you!?”

	“Of course it’s me”, I said, still aggravated at being pinned to the ground, “who else have you fucked over in this place?”

	“But you weren’t- you’re not…” Morgan’s voice trailed off before he could finish his sentence, but then picked up on an altogether more telling one, “Oh gods Father is going to have my head.”

	“What does that mean?!” I yelled, “What did you do to me!?”

	I didn’t get a reply from the mage, but soon felt the weight of my helmet lifting off of my head. As I stared up at the ceiling I noticed the dirt had been blown away and that the sky peeked through, a sight I’d missed for a considerable time. Eventually I felt more of my armor become unfastened, and more of my skin became exposed to the sun’s warm rays and the air’s chilling breeze.

	“Caliden,” Morgan said as he began to remove the last of my right arm’s plating, “was there any chance the shirt you were wearing had any unusual properties?”

	“What do you mean had?” I replied, “what happened to my lucky tunic?”

	“M-my best guess is that it might have had some slight magical properties and interacted with the artifact,” the beat red faced mage managed to stutter, “because it’s not there anymore and-“

	As soon as I felt the piece fall away I balled my fist and sucker punched Morgan straight in the jaw. The blow was on target even though I could feel that the weight and power was off, but it still sent my former employer flat on his ass. I quickly sat up and began to unfasten the rest of my armor, working of off pure muscle memory as I kept my eyes trained on the bastard who got me into this mess. But, when I reached over to undo the knots on my left arm I felt a part of myself get in the way. Not figuratively either, somehow my chest was getting in the way of my arm.

	I looked down, only to that see my pale white skin had been replaced by a soft green, the color of meadow grass with freckles of red across my shoulders. My arms had shrunk in length to a little more than half their original size and all muscle definition was gone, as if they’d never been forced to work a day in their lives. Yet most shocking of all were the large two breasts that hung from my chest. They swayed to and fro as I moved around while desperately trying to get a grasp on my situation. I simply looked at them for a couple seconds before touching them with one of my fingers and I was greeted by the sensation of pressure on my skin. They were mine; I could feel their every movement.

	“What did you do to me,” I shouted again, “is this some sick idea of a joke?!

	“I assure you this wasn’t what I had intended,” Morgan said as he picked himself up, “you were supposed to be magically inert, you were supposed to be fine!”

	“Do I look fine to you?” I snapped, “I’m weak, floppy, and hideously green!”

	The elf took a step back and, as if actually taking my question seriously, began to look me up and down while assessing my new form.

	“Well it’s a better view than before...” Morgan mumbled under his breath.

	I simply stared at the elf and waited for him to figure out that he hadn’t simply thought that last part. Soon enough he flushed a darker shade of red.

	“Er, I meant that you aren’t hideous! No, I meant it’s not the worst thing that could have happened to you! There are plenty of people who’d love to be in your position!”

	“What in the three hells is wrong with you?” I asked flatly, “and why are you moving your hands in front of-“

	I looked at him in disgust as I realized what he was doing.

	“You have an erection!” I yelled as I tried to erase the memory of his hands covering the bulge in his pants from my mind, “Get the fuck away from me!”

	“Wait,” the pervert said while I undid my shin guards and got up onto my stumpy little legs, “I think I know what happened and might be able to help!”

	My pants were too long at this point to fit, although the belt rested easily around my newly ample hips. I tried to ignore Morgan’s staring as I bent over to hurriedly roll up my pant legs, but the silence that came from him made it hard to concentrate on anything else. I felt uneasy when I finally took a few steps forward, shorter legs meant shorter strides and I kept misjudging where I’d make contact with the ground. I was learning how to walk all over again, and like most just beginning to pick up the task I soon found my face quickly meeting with the ground.

	Twenty minutes and a dozen more falls down the stairs later I became significantly more receptive to the elf’s pleas to help.

	“Fine, just use your magic to change me back so I never have to see you again,” I said with a mouth full of dirt, “you don’t even have to pay me, I’ll just forget this ever happened and never set foot into a ruin again.”

	“I, er… that would be extremely difficult,” he replied, “I don’t even know what you are exactly, and without a thorough examination I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

	“What.”

	“N-no nothing untoward!” he said in a hurried attempt to explain himself, “I-it’s just that I’ve never even seen someone with all the features that you have and uh, you see…“

	He rambled on for another couple of minutes in the same manner before he realized his explanation wasn’t doing him any good and shut up. I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or putting on a show of incompetence, but despite everything I knew of the man I was inclined to believe him. I’d never heard of an elf dropping his pride like this, so I thought his little attempts at playing apothecary may have actually been genuine.

	Ah fuck it, I didn’t have anything to lose. My pride had been erased by the blast anyway.

	“Fine,” I grumbled as I lifted my head off the floor, “As long as you don’t try anything perverse I don’t care. What do you need me to do?”

	Apparently ‘nothing’ was the correct answer as he swiftly picked me up off the ground and placed me on top of the pedestal that the artifact stood upon. I shivered for as I sat atop it, my breasts and arms still naked to the damp cool air. I wasn’t fond of the fact that he’d been able to pick me up so easily, a man of my old stature wouldn’t have been so portable and it confirmed the fact that I wouldn’t be able to leverage my weight while fighting any more, if I could even wield a sword at all.

     He silently circled me a few times making the usual ‘hms’ and ‘haws’ that one would make when appraising a cut of meat at the market. He seemed nervous, more so than usual, and his face grew an increasingly brighter shade of red as he prepared to begin the examination in earnest. He quickly dove into his sleeves and retrieved a few tools, laying them on the empty space behind me before picking up a roll of twine holding it up to various parts of my body in order to measure them against the knots that had been tied into the string.

	 I felt a bead of sweat fall onto my lap as he leaned in to examine my strange, green complexion. His palm was warm when placed it on my shoulder he moved it up and down my arms, whispering approximations of measurements to himself in order to make the “examination” seem scientific than it was. I felt the slight bruising that I’d incurred during the explosion melt away and tingle as his hands touched the spot, the darker shade of green instantly becoming lighter and less sensitive the moment they passed over. Yet it didn’t just feel better, I began to feel hot. Every place he touched, every place his hands lingered, I could feel a soft warmth travel from my skin and into my very core. It was pleasant to say the least, but more than a little disconcerting.

	“I’m sorry,” he said as he looked up at me, “I used a healing spell on you to mend your injuries, it… uh didn’t have adverse effects did it?”

	I shook my head. Effects yes, adverse no. No spell had ever had that particular effect on me before, few things had, but I didn’t want to explain that his magic may have been making me hot and bothered if I didn’t have to. I simply nodded in his direction for him to keep going with whatever he was doing and get it over with as soon as possible.

	He took that as permission to move his hands off of my arms and place them on my face. He drew his fingers along both sides of my jaw line, feeling its curvature and drawing them all the way up to my ears. Unsurprisingly my sharper features seemed to be gone, replaced with gentle curves padded with a bit of fat to give a feminine appearance. My Jaw, my cheeks, even my lips had been changed though that would be plain to see with even a passing glance. What was surprising however was him grasping my ears between his thumb and forefinger.

	I gasped as I felt that slight pinch as he tugged ever so gently on the tops of each simultaneously. I’d never had that reaction before, but perhaps that might have been due to the fact that they weren’t as long or as pointed and were now oh so much more sensitive. Instinctively I lightly bit down on my bottom lip to muffle any more noises my body wanted to make if another tug was coming.

	“You done?” I asked as shook my head to get him to let go and get rid of the heat that sat on my cheeks.

	“S-sorry there’s just this thing with elves and ears…” replied Morgan as he removed his hands from my head, “are you sure you don’t feel any different?”

	“No,” I lied in order to get him off the subject. The bastard knew damn well what he was doing. It was a good sign in some respects actually, if he knew about the feeling this intimately it meant he probably knew something about the subject. On the other hand the fact that he knew about that feeling and tugged my ears regardless made me a little suspicious. I was a bit relieved when eventually tested my hearing with a few snaps from his fingers around my head, though I was still wary that he hadn’t taken to that first.

	His fingers moved to the top of my head and ran through my hair. A few strands fell into my vision. They were long and still held the characteristic red that I’d had all my life. It was nice to have at least some of me survive this transformation, and it made the fact that Morgan was having a little too much fun somewhat more bearable.

	“Not coarse, but soft. Can detect sweet scent coming from skin, like sugarwood sap,” Morgan grumbled as he took his hands from my head and placed a finger to my bottom lip, “red hue still present in hair and locations with high blood flow.”

	Morgan stopped for a second and withdrew his hand.

	“Would you, uh, mind opening your mouth?” he requested timidly, “Just, um, need a look at your teeth to see what you’re supposed to eat. '”

	I complied and revealed a full set of pointed teeth in the front my mouth as well as 3 sets of grinding molars in the back. While similar to both humans and elves in some respects  they were completely different in regard to just how sharp they were, and we found out the hard way.

	“Ah!” Morgan cried as he pricked his finger on one of my canines, drawing a small bit of blood that dripped onto my tongue. The coppery taste spread throughout, though unlike what I’d expected it became a welcome sensation. Unconsciously I closed my lips around his finger in order catch any stray droplets that might still be left. For some reason I longed for the taste, driven for it, but when he finally removed his finger the feeling it was gone.

	There was a moment before it dawned on me what had happened. I looked at him hoping that it was some figment of my imagination but was only met by a nervous stare. I’m sure my face went completely flushed.

	“I uh, guess we can be sure you’re at least partially carnivorous,” commented Morgan with a weak laugh.

	“Just tell me you have all the information you need,” I begged as he wiped his spit coated finger on his robe, “I’m not sure I can take much more of this.”

	“Uh… we’re almost there,” he said while averting his gaze from me, “There’s just one thing I need to make sure of before we can be done.”

	The moment the words left his mouth I knew what he meant. The largest thing that he’d been dancing around was the other half of my transformation and I quickly began to realize his intentions. I felt him cup the underside of my breasts and squeeze them with his fingers. The tingling that I’d felt before grew more intense and was followed by yet more heat welling within my chest. That didn’t seem to satisfy his curiosity though and I soon found his thumbs brushing themselves over my nipples. With one touch they hardened and shocks shot through me with every little flick.

	“W-what do you think you’re doing?” I sputtered in-between jolts, “s-stop!”

	“I … I need to see if these are really what they look like,” he replied as he decided to take it a step further and pinched my teats between his fingers, “The transformation of one’s sex is unheard of and I have to confirm that your new… additions aren’t uh, just a function of…”

	He trailed off as he continued to squeeze at my nipples, unimpressed by my squirming as I tried to wriggle out of his grasp. I could feel that the force behind my movement was soft; my strength left me as he pulled and tugged on my sensitive bits. I didn’t want to admit that I could feel my body grow weak when he teased them in between his fingers, like it was aching for the sensation. He rolled them back and forth and alternated to rubbing the tips with his thumb for what seemed like minutes, all amidst my panting and cries of protest.

	“This can’t be right,” he said as he began to tone down his assault on my sensitive nubs, “the magic simply doesn’t exist, these can’t be real. It could change everything… I need to make sure, I-”

	I’d seen that look in his eye before. It was the same excitement, the same glint that he’d gotten the moment he’d laid eyes on the artifact that got me into this mess. Quickly his hands ran down my side and caught on my waistline, dragging my pants and belt down past my hips. I wriggled a bit while yelling at him to ‘fuck off like the fucking perverted milksop he was’ but with my stubby little legs and weakened strength it didn’t seem to matter. The hairs on my legs pricked up as they became exposed, not just to the air but to another person, another man. My blood thumped through my veins and so many thoughts raced through my mind to the point of becoming incomprehensible. It was the first time since the transformation that I would be forced to face the reality of the situation, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

	Not that I had much choice in the matter. Morgan decided to push me onto my back and hike my hips into the air, possibly under the mistaken assumption that I was as curious about the subject as he was.

	“H-hey,” I chuckled nervously in order to maybe get him to drop the dumb exercise, “you think we’ve gone far enough in this little escapaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-“

	I was cut off when I felt his thumb lightly brush what I can only assume was my clit. The sensation was like electricity running and down my spine, warm and tingling all along the way. It was to the point that my legs instantly began to spasm the moment I felt his touch, and as he took a second pass I bit down onto my lip to stifle the noises that desperately tried to escape my mouth. Of course, as his fingers traced my sex a few sounds managed to sneak through.

	Morgan lowered his head towards my nethers as I squeaked from his touches. His pointed elven nose sniffed the air all the way down until his puffing tickled the small patch of my crimson hairs. The feeling of his breath on my crotch might as well have been a polar wind considering how hot I felt at the time, but even still I could feel my body fighting me at every move and loving every second of it.

	“That scent from before is so much stronger here,” he whispered to himself, “It’s sweet, never even heard of this on a mammal and I… I can’t explain it I...”

	Slowly he dipped his head closer and inhaled my scent. His cheeks grew even redder than before, and the tension in his posture melted away. It was if he’d grown drunk on the air around him,  any sense that he’d had at the beginning of the “examination” long lost. With his composure gone his tongue fell out of his mouth. He became poised to give me a taste and end the charade once and for all.

	Which is why I kicked him in the face.

	“AUGH!” Morgan screamed as he recoiled in pain, “by the Ether what was that?!”

	I cocked my head sideways and took a long took at him. The haughty inflection of his voice had returned and nestled itself back inside of his vocal chords. Blood dribbled out from under his hands as Morgan grasped his nose and swore at me in languages unknown. It was nice to know that my foot still carried a little bit of weight, and seemed at the very least to have knocked a bit of sense into the knife-eared bastard.

	“You tried to molest me you overgrown gnome!” I yelled at him, “and if I hadn’t booted you I’m sure you would have done a lot worse!”

	Morgan dropped his hands from his nose and simply stared at them, then looked back at me, and back at his hands. His dismay would have been readable from a hundred yards as the realization of his actions dawned on him.

	“I would never do that!” he said, as the color drained from his face, “B-but I think wanted to… what the hells is happening to me!?”

	“Divine favor,” the voice in my throat said without my direction, “I intended to grant you a boon, but your tastes just had to run stubborn, didn't they?”

	Morgan’s eyes went wide as he looked up at me when the final words left my mouth. His ears twitched a bit, a common nervous tick among the elves, and the fear that emanated from him was strong. By the time I’d clasped my fingers over my mouth he was already reaching into his robe in preparation of what was to come.

	“Caliden,” Morgan started as he grasped at something within his sleeves, “what did you just say to me?”

	I attempted to say something, eek out anything that could possibly make it past my lips and hands, but to no avail. I could breathe, but it was as silent as the city that surrounded us. It was only when I relented on my attempts to speak that my the voice on my throat returned.

	“Drop the wand mage,” it said with all the sternness that my new voice could muster, though slightly muffled as it came through my hands, “I still need you to protect this one, and your attempts at petty spellmanship will only-”

	The elf, of course, didn’t comply, and before the words had finished leaving my mouth he’d drawn an ebony wand and pointed it at my head.

	“EXPUN-” Morgan managed to yell before the black stick violently blew up in his hand. The bright ball of light that would have normally shot from the tip instead traveled backwards out the wand and spiraled up his arm before colliding with his face. He flew backwards with the force of a man being kicked by a horse, landing splayed out upon the stairs and still as stone.

	“And now you’re probably going to die, fantastic...” my voice sighed as I lowered my hands, “with that blast I'd say any magical creature within the kingdom should be headed straight here.”

	I clutched my head and attempted to yell out of frustration and panic, but again my larynx refused to cooperate.
“Oh stop that,” the thing in my throat chided, “you're wasting the precious little time you have. If you have any desire not to be eaten by a drake or hydra I'd suggest looting the mage and finding something you can use to get out of here. If you can’t then… well I’m sure there are more than enough idiots and artifacts out there for this sort of thing to happen again eventually.”

	I tried to reply, tell the voice to go to one of the three circles, but she wouldn’t listen even if I could tell her. She was right too. If I were an ether hungry monster and I sensed a magical explosion like I’d just experienced I’d be running full force in this direction if I thought I was powerful enough to take on the other horrors that had the same inclination. I didn’t know what exactly Morgan was keeping on his person, or how to wield it, yet it seemed like my best option considering the damage done to the ruins and the ominous rumblings from deep within the empty halls.

	“Quickly my little queen,” I said again without any input, “I think I can hear them coming now.”

	Immediately I jumped off the pedestal and landed on my feet, only to instantly slip and lose my balance, leading me to fall forward onto my ample chest.  Thankfully being so low to the ground softened the impact a bit, but it was evident that even well motivated I’d still have trouble walking. I gripped the now dirty tiles and slowly but surely scooched myself towards Morgan’s undoubtedly nearly overflowing pockets.

	Of course, robes don’t actually have pockets. Well, not the ones that Morgan was wearing at least, but I didn’t know that at the time as I clawed at his torso and desperately tried to find wherever he was keeping his stuff. I tugged his clothing everywhere in order to find some kind of opening, to little luck, at least not for me anyway. As I turned Morgan over from his position sprawled out onto the steps I accidentally brushed his… little indiscretion he'd been trying to hide much earlier.

	“Mmmmmm…” the mage moaned as I accidentally touched him, “please wait until we get back to the room my ginger toy…”

	I shuddered at the thought at what was going on in his mind and gagged, only for my mouth to suddenly be usurped by laughter.

	“Hehehe, I knew It!” the voice decided to blurt out, “I wonder which one of you he’s referring to!”

	I rolled my eyes, though more for my own benefit than the thing that was possessing my voice box. Whether Morgan felt any feelings towards me other than his newfound lust was a moot point considering his treatment of me as his personal trap springer. Even if he’d outfitted me with some decent gear to do so, something would have gotten through if I wasn’t careful enough.

	I pushed the horrible thoughts to the back of my mind and continued to rummage through his robe, eventually coming across the sleeve where he’d been keeping his things (the left one). As I scrounged around with my stubby little arms scroll after scroll came tumbling out. Though each were light as a feather the combined wordcount seemed almost immeasurable to someone such as myself who had never set foot in a library or bookstore larger than a small tavern. I’d never seen so many bits of knowledge in my life, but as I perused over the contents a reminder of the pending danger echoed in the distance.

	A crashing and the sound of beating wings rang through the halls as clear as church bells. If I wasn’t already kneeling the rattling of the floor beneath me would have caused me to fall over as everything around me jumped with each stomp of the heavy goliath coming my way.

	Quickly I began to skim the scrolls to see if anything stuck out. While I’d never performed any actual spellcraft before I was slightly more read than the average mercenary. In theory if I ever put my mind to it I should have been able to at least release the contents of one of the pieces of paper. Nearly all were inscribed with runes and glyphs that formed strange arcane circles upon the page, but only about half of what I picked up was readable to me, and even fewer of those seemed to be of use in this situation. Yet I looked through them with a speed of one possessed (hah) and in my haste I didn’t even notice my mouth moving as I picked up and put down each text.

“No, useless.”
“No, pitiful.”
“No, anamancy.”

	Slowly it dawned on me that the sound I was hearing wasn’t my inner thoughts but my stowaway’s input on each scroll. With each passing moment I, and she, seemed to become a bit more distraught. The stomping grew closer, and whatever was attached to it came with it. Whatever it was, it was big enough to drown out everything around it. I hurried, and must have gone through thirty of forty of the papers before I heard her loudly proclaim YES!

	“Hand on the circle, queen,” I said against my will, “comply with me or be swallowed by whatever comes through that doorway. And make sure you’re touching the fool of a patron you’ve chosen or you’ll be out of a job.”

	It took me all of zero seconds to give in and touch the concentric rings outlined within the magical scroll. As soon as I did so she began to speak in tongues unknown to the world for thousands of years. Lights danced around me as blue as a starberry as she chanted and sang praises to some unknown power or some arcane spirit in order to work the spell. My throat hurt, and my body tingled as I lifted off the ground along with Morgan and the rest of his belongings. Higher and higher we went until we could almost touch the ceiling and the floor below us looked like a child’s knocked over set of blocks and twigs. The azure lights that danced around us began to spin, slowly at first but then faster than an elk running for its life during a hunt. They moved so fast that they looked as if they were multiplying right in front of my eyes, covering my vision with a blue trail of light so dazzling I could barely see past it.

	But it was hard to miss the dragon below me.

	It wasn’t a hydra, nor a drake, nor wyvern, nor serpent, but a fully fledged dragon. He was the kind of creature that’s hardly seen in the kingdoms of the civilized world, and never seen by anyone who wished to live. The thing was massive, a titan in reptilian form with claws that could rip open mountains and teeth that could murder mammoths. Its scales shimmered in the glow of the spell and its eyes looked straight into me. I saw it, and I saw it grin. It smiled at me a sinister smirk that I’ll never get out of my mind for as long as I live. It was the look of a fat noble picking out which goose to hang for the feast that night. Even with the willpower that Morgan touted to the high heavens I still quaked in my boots as I gazed upon it, and it only got worse when I saw it getting ready to pounce at me.

	“Zenos,” I chanted as the dragon crouched down and put the might from every inch of its body into its legs.

	“Imol,” I said as its nails dug into the stone below it and lifted the beast towards me at the with the speed of a cannon ball.

	“SAMON!” I yelled as the things jaws began to clamp down around my leg.

	And then it all went blue.