[b][u][center]The Golden Alchemist The Fall of Arrowdell, Part 1 For Engy By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b] As the gold-scaled dragon left his shop, he could still feel his anger bubbling beneath the surface. The little kobold that stumbled along at his side, naked and shameless about it, had sparked so much that there was no way that he could vent it all on just one person. It was out of control, and Engy no longer cared. Everyone else deserved what was coming to them, and he was going to deliver his form of justice like an avenging spirit. The naked dragon growled deep in his throat, feeling his balls churning hard as they continued to grow, his scales hardening under the influence of the potions that he’d chugged. All the metaphorical armor that he’d put up as a shopkeeper had become a reality, now, his scales as hard as he’d had to be against the insults and the abuse that had rained down on him every day. His wings flared out, larger than they had been, and his claws flexed and flicked as his fingers danced at his side. The only clothing he wore now was a belt of pouches, each one heavy with different potions. He knew what each one contained, understood their contents by heart. He had made each and every one as a side project, never meaning to use them, but now… He reached into the pouch just over his left hip, pulling out a glass vial. It had a small amount of red liquid in it, just light enough to make it clear that it wasn’t blood. He tilted his head to the side as he stared through the glass and potion, looking down at Arrrowdell. Looking at the layered town, how it almost seemed to tumble down the hills that it was built on into the valley below, it looked almost appropriate to see it washed out and turned red. The anger and hate that so many of the citizens kept pushing out made him feel like he was in hell. [i]They put me in hell. They don’t deserve to live in heaven…[/i] With a growl, Engy hurled the glass vial against the rocky, cobblestone road that led down from the raised part of town. It shattered, and the red sunk into the rock. The world shook around them, and several houses lost the tiles of their roof in the sudden earthquake. He stood with his arms crossed, watching as the stones rolled, rising, shatter, quaking before him. The red spread, running like a river of hell itself down the pathway, and wherever it touched, the world changed. Heat rose, the temperature of the village rising by degrees, burning like a hot summer’s day. Even from where he stood, he could see faces take on the shine of sweat, and several plants caught fire as the pathway burned from the effects of the potion. [i]Burn and corrupt,[/i] he thought as he walked to the edge of the road, his scaled feet crushing the residual pieces of glass into nothing more than powder. [i]Burn and change.[/i] The road that ran straight through Arrowdell burned with a bright red, throwing off the heat of forge fire. To Engy, the heat was barely more than a slight comfort underfoot, the way that a hot stone might feel on a summer’s day to another. For those that were not reptilian, the road would be a torturous passage. [i]Be mine,[/i] he thought, lifting one foot and stomping it down again, and the road rippled beneath him. [i]Be mine![/i] His anger rippled through him, and the potion in the road responded. Fire blazed off of it, heat and flame alike leaping from the glowing stones. Shouts and screams rose through the village as the fire surged through the road and then out of the town, rising up and making a dome overhead. Engy looked up, watching the fires rise from the ground, pushing up towards the heavens. The dome of flame finally connected at a point hundreds of feet above Arrowdell, and then shimmered away. The village had been marked, sealed. Nobody would leave, now. Nobody would run. Nobody would…would… He was panting for breath, and as he looked up from the road, he realized that there were dozens of people staring at him. Women, for the most part, those that were going down to market to get their goods for the week. They looked at the road, then they looked at him, their mouths working wordlessly. He looked back at them, the naked dragon slowly shaking his head. His eyes flicked from one to another. This one had accused him of poisoning her when he saved her from drowning in the river, a potion to make her breathe underwater making it hard for her to breathe on land when she insisted on running off when he told her to wait and let it wear off first. This one, one that used a potion of chastity meant for her on her husband, and ended up hyper-horny without any way to get off. This one, who asked for a potion to grow her plants, and used it on her kids, and then said it was his fault that they became giants for a day. And their husbands, too. Bullies that had come by his shop, several that had snuck in during the night and smashed his inventory. One that had set his garden alight as a prank. No. No more. They didn’t get to judge. They didn’t get to judge him. He had done everything for them, brought everything that he had learned on the edge of death to make their life better. He had given everything and taken every bit of hate that they had thrown at him, and he was done. He was [i]done![/i] “What are you looking at?” he asked, his voice quieter than he expected. “What are you looking at?” “You…you monster!” the irresponsible parent shouted. “I should have called the guards the moment Julia walked into your shop and didn’t walk out! Where is she? Is she in the belly of that monster beside you?” The kobold. He looked down at it, and the kobold looked back, grinning dumbly at her master. Julia. That was a name that no longer fit. But he didn’t think that she really needed a name. Not now. Not anymore. He looked back up. “If you mean that bitch, that’s her.” “…You…no…impossible…” The women were staring at him like he was some monster that had wandered up from the river, or out from the mountainside. They looked at him like he was some beast, some horrible thing that was there to kill them, to haunt them, to hurt them, to make them pay. Perhaps he was. He didn’t know what he was doing anymore. He was just doing whatever felt right. He took a step towards them, and the two husbands that had joined their wives stepped around them, putting themselves between him and them. Engy shook his head. “Out of my way.” “Shoulda burned your house down instead of your garden,” the more weasel-like of the two said. “This time, we’re gonna take care of you properly.” “Try.” He was quiet again. Engy didn’t know why he wasn’t shouting at them, didn’t know why he wasn’t flailing or fighting or lashing out. All he knew was that he was allowing them to make the first move, and that…that was fine. It meant that they had the chance to do the right thing and get the fuck out of his way. They didn’t. Instead, they moved in with fists raised. One skinny guy, one lumberjack of a man. They came at him from either side, their hands up, their fists clenched. The big guy swung for his face – Crunch. Engy just stood there, the stronger scales taking the hit without even bending. He didn’t even feel the punch to his nose. All he felt was a little bit of pressure, while the human that had thrown the punch pulled his hand back with a scream. “AAAAAAAAAAGH!” The weasel guy just stared, his eyes wide-open as the bigger guy pulled back, holding his hand by the wrist. He kept screaming, clenching his fingers around the base of his hand, two of the digits completely bent out of shape, one of them with blood coming through torn skin. Engy shook his head, reaching into his pouch. “You’re going to learn a lesson…a long-overdue lesson.” He grabbed the screaming man by the cheeks, pinching them until he opened his mouth, and then he shoved the vial inside. The human gagged, trying to spit the potion out, but the metal arm that Engy used was too strong to escape from. It pinched at the cheeks, claws almost ready to sink through the skin, and the human knew that the only choice was to swallow or drown. Maybe to pull back and lose part of his face, too, but he obviously didn’t want to go that far. The human swallowed, and immediately fell to the ground, writhing and shaking, spasming and gasping. “What…what the fuck did you do to him?!” “The same thing that I’m going to do to you.” The thin guy tried to run, but he was too slow. Engy grabbed him by the edge of his tunic, yanking him back and throwing him to the ground. A simple move, one that he’d learned in his adventures, one that the people of this town just didn’t know how to counter. [i]Weak,[/i] he thought, looking down at the terrified human. [i]So fucking weak…and they look down…look down on me…call me a monster…[/i] Was it more monstrous to have the strength and use it, or was it more monstrous to look down on the people with power and be afraid of them, taunt them until they had no choice to use it? They’d come at him again and again, tried to burn down his garden, wrecked all his supplies, just because he wasn’t human. He’d put up with it, tried to be the better person, let everyone hurt him so that they would feel safe because he never hurt them back. Well, that was done. That was fucking done. [i]You want to hate people for not being human? Well, hate yourselves, then…[/i] He jammed another vial in the thin guy’s mouth, forcing more and more of the potion down his throat. It was a thick, green gunk, something that would have been hard to get a kid to take, but he knew how to make an adult drink a potion. A little bit of throat rubbing had much the same effect as it would have had on a dog, and soon, the green goo was all the way down in the human’s stomach, settling in and taking effect. By the time that the alchemist stood up again, both of the men were showing signs of transformation. Their eyes were wide, their skin turning green. Not bumpy and scaly, not like a dragon’s, but smooth and soft like one of the smaller lizards. Their eyes started to bug out, pushing to be bigger, wider, more shiny as they started to change. They couldn’t break free of their own shock, staring at their changing hands as they held them up in the air. Hairy fingers started to lengthen, balding and going smooth with the scales that spread. The ends of their fingers fattened, becoming a little sticky as they went from humans to reptiles, from humans to geckos. “What the hell are you doing to them?!” one of the wives asked. “What did they do to you that you didn’t deserve?” “Everything,” he muttered. “They did everything…and you made them.” He turned to glare at them. He was completely aware of how this looked. He was the naked dragon, the threatening creature that could do anything that he wanted, and they were the ‘innocent’ maidens that were under threat. In any other story, they’d be the ones that were in need of a knight to rescue them. In any other story, he would be the bad guy. No. He was the good guy. He was the one that had been tortured. He was the one that had been pushed to his breaking point. He was the one that deserved this. He stood up, feeling the weight of his balls as he did. They had grown massive, pressing his thighs apart, resting on them to keep from being squished. He flared his wings, then flapped them. The air actually discolored for a moment, yellow fumes flying through the air and striking the women. They fell over, slumping against the nearby building, gasping for breath as the scent hit them. No sooner had they fallen than they were gasping, arching their backs, fighting as if they were in pain. They weren’t, of course. He knew what the potions were supposed to do. They gave him a dragon’s scales, a true dragon’s strength. They gave him power. They gave him stamina. And they gave him the scent of a true dragon. Few who hadn’t faced a dragon knew their power. Breath weapons? Yes, they were dangerous, and powerful enough to level towns. Their raw strength? A danger, true, but something that could be avoided if you were fast enough. Their scales? Nearly impossible to break through, but that wasn’t their greatest strength. No, it was the insidious scent that they gave off, pheromones that clung to their scales and their entire bodies like an ancient enchantment of protection. Even now, he could feel it building up on the rest of his body, a low-level oil that clung to him and left him shiny. He could even smell it, a hot, powerful musk that touched him, soaked him, marked him as the powerful creature that he really was. The women were finally getting a dose of it, and they were feeling what every adventurer felt when they were confronted with a real dragon. A blast of submission, a slap in the face of real power. They were feeling the mix of fear, of obedience, of arousal that all adventurers had to fight when they were dealing with his feral ancestors. There was a reason why there were so many dragonborn and dragon-blooded around, after all. Dragons were horny creatures, and there were many people that were willing to bend the knee – and more – to serve them once they were seen up close. This…this was just the beginning. As the women fought against the power of the scent, Engy flared his wings and flapped them again. “You…will…learn…” He left the path, the fiery road burning against his scales for a few moments until he stepped on the grass again. The grass steamed beneath his feet, burning against the undersides for a moment as the heat that clung to his scales cooked it and burnt it up. There were footprints left in the earth behind him, heated and hardened from what he’d done. The kobold followed after, giggling dumbly. The first of them, the woman that had almost gotten him arrested for ‘poisoning’ her after he saved her from drowning. He grabbed her by the throat, lifting her up and pushing her against the building behind her. She gasped, grabbing his wrist to try and stop him, but it was completely useless. He pushed her back further, shaking his head. “I saved your life.” “You beast…you poisoned…I could have…I could have…” “You only came close because you ignored me. Because you thought you were smarter than the man who made your potion.” “I almost…died…” “You didn’t. I saved you twice. I think that makes your life mine, doesn’t it?” “What…what do you mean?” she gasped through his chokehold. “I’m not sure…yet…” “Then…” “But I’ll decide after I treat you like the dumb bitch you are.” Dropping her to her knees, he let her have one breath before slamming his hips forward. She was smothered between the rock house behind her and his balls, each one bigger than her head by some way, each one throbbing and swelling bigger than it already was. She gasped against him, flailing around for a few seconds, but she only needed two or three breaths before she was already falling, slipping, dropping down into a more suitable mind state. “That’s it…breathe…breathe…” He felt her doing just that, sucking in shallow breaths against his sack, unable to pull away, her world condensed to the stone wall behind her and the big balls in her face. Despite his rage, he took more pleasure than he thought he would as he ground forward, back, forward, back, smearing her with the sweat and oils on his testicles. The other women were gasping for breath, their eyes rolled back, their bodies spasming and shaking like the victims of a werewolf curse. They looked like they were on the verge of breaking out of their own flesh, like they were on the cusp of turning into something else. Probably because they were. Engy shook his head, remembering one rogue that had run into a dragon all that time ago. He remembered how she had been overwhelmed by the scent, how she had not only submitted herself to the dragon, but had given up everything. Her cause, her mind, even her body. And as the dragon stared at her, the dominance that it had over the world, the power that its scent and pheromones had, mixed with its natural magic to create a warp in reality. He remembered how that woman had been transformed before their eyes, how the elf maiden had been transformed into a dragon-like female, one with wide hips, a big ass, a long tail, and almost no breasts. She’d submitted to her master, becoming an egg-layer, and there was no more of the elf woman after that. Perhaps the enhancement potions had taken things to that extent… Engy dragged his hips back, and he saw that it had started. The bitch beneath his balls had started to grow a snout, her eyes rolled back, her mouth hanging open as a tongue that was both long and forked hung out. “A serpent…” Engy snorted. “That’s too good for you. At least a serpent has some cunning. All you have is spite and venom.” “Nnngh…” Pushing her to the ground, he squatted over her face. He had never done this, never, ever been this…crude…with someone else, but he no longer cared. He’d saved this human’s life. That meant that he could do what he wanted. He dropped his hips down, smearing his balls over her face, grinding them into her cheeks, over her eyes, over her nose. Everywhere he touched, her skin started to turn to scales, going from pale white to soft green. She groaned, arching her back, her body already shifting and going slender. The men were still gasping for air as they changed, and he watched them as the woman below was buried beneath his balls again. The heavy gold orbs smothered her from both sides, burying her face until she had almost no air at all. He didn’t care. He wanted her to learn a lesson, and this was the best way to do it. As she huffed, as she sucked, as she even went so far to lick at him, he watched the men. They were almost completely out of their clothes, ripping through their trousers as their hips became too much to contain. Long legs ending in long-toed feet ripped through pants and boots, leaving them bare and naked from the waist down. Their arms were long and thin, not strong, but dexterous. Their faces were changed, rounded, wider, with big, rubbery lips that some part of him imagined in the process of sucking cock. But even all that transformation wasn’t enough to distract him from what was happening under him. He could feel the growth of the woman’s snout, could feel the way that her face was narrowing, becoming more and more snake-like the longer that he stood over her. The more that his balls touched her, the more that she changed, and it was only a matter of time until she was a snake completely. He looked over his shoulders, watched as her legs were joined by a new limb, a tail that was slowly slithering out from under her dress. It didn’t take long before it was completely present, long enough to poke out between her ankles. Her feet were swelling, growing, new claws pressing against the insides of her shoes, forcing them to stretch and swell and – RIIIIP! Long toes with powerful claws pushed through, reptilian soles being revealed in the process. He smirked, turning to look down at her as her breasts started to shrink into her chest. They were slowly getting smaller and smaller, and further down, he could see that something else was growing. “If you’re going to be a stupid…fucking…bitch…You’re going to be a dumb…lumbering…” “Stop!” Engy looked up just in time to see a bulky, wide-shouldered man charging him, but not soon enough to stop him. The gold dragon took the hit right to the shoulder, and he went rolling off the once-woman that he had been straddling. He hit the ground and rolled, his balls swinging over his hips and carrying him along for a second or two before he came to a full halt. When he was finally able to look up again, he saw a familiar face. A hunter…a hunter named Joseph… Joseph… The name pierced through the back of his brain, reminding him of something good. One of the only goods. One of the people that were not in the hateful group. One of the people that…that came to him… [i]Sitting on the counter in his shop, bringing in a pouch full of ingredients from up the mountain, passing it over and sharing a beer. A few minutes of quiet, a few minutes of sympathy, a few minutes of smiles.[/i] Engy groaned, slowly lifting himself back to his feet as Joseph stood between him and the other women, the human shaking his head and nursing his shoulder. It took him a moment to realize that the other man must have broken it when he body-slammed the dragon off of the woman. The woman. Looking around Joseph’s shoulders, he saw that the transformation was complete. Human woman to snake man. Not a very well-endowed snake man, but with none of the feminine features remaining, either. Engy shook his head. “What are you doing here?” “Fucking hell, man. What the hell are you doing?” Joseph muttered. “I’m…I’m doing what’s overdue…” “You were killing her!” “No…I was changing her.” “There’s nothing left.” “There’s a body.” “Do you think that’s enough?” Engy looked back at the snake again. The hatred was gone from her eyes, true, but…so was most everything else. She looked like an even dumber version of the kobold that stood at his side, like she had given up everything to the worship of his balls while she’d been under them. She – no, he, with the way that dress moved – was completely gone, leaving nothing but a ball-craving slut behind. There was nothing of the human that had been there at the start of the day. Nothing of the human that had insulted him… His eyes drifted from the transformed one to the gasping, shaking, half-broken ones on the ground. Their eyes were glazed, but they weren’t ripped of intelligence. The beginnings of scale patterns had started on their skin, but their transformation hadn’t begun in earnest. They were still intelligent…Still there… Still alive… Engy shook his head, glancing at the geckos again. They’d finished their transformation, grown into something different. Big-hipped, long-legged things, not at all the sort of thugs that they had been. They were different, too, their eyes focused, staring at him. They walked up to his side…and then bowed. “Master,” the geckos muttered. They knelt there, their fists punched into the ground, their other hand on their knees, staring down and not looking up at him. They were like soldiers before a king, like slaves before a master. They weren’t drained, not like the snake man was, but they weren’t the same, either. They’d been changed. No, not changed. Lessened. Their minds were…taken. Leashed. Engy groaned, pressing one hand to his head. “Joseph…” “Engy…Engy, look at me.” “They need to pay…They hurt me…so much…” “I know. I know. And I should have done something – Engy, Engy!” The human grabbed him with his good arm, forcing the dragon to look at him. The hunter shook him gently. “Look at me. I know you’re hurting. I know someone should have done something. [i]I[/i] should have done something. But not like that. Not like…” The words started to fade as Engy took it all in. He could be a monster. The fear in their eyes, the worry that they showed when he approached. All of that could be true. He could be that. If he wanted, he could be as powerful and as despotic as the feral dragons that roamed the far lands, claiming territory, ripping through everything that he came across, marking his lands and expanding them like some conquering warlord. But that wasn’t him. He could warp every human, every elf, every species into his own image, turn them into servants like he had with the geckos, or into braindead sluts like the snake man. He could do that, and they would be helpless before him. But that [i]wasn’t[/i] him. He was angry. He was so…so angry…but that wasn’t him. No matter what, that wasn’t him. Engy looked at Joseph, saw he was still talking, barely heard the human. [i]Helped me…He…he stopped me…[/i] And he wanted things to be better. Joseph had always wanted things to be better. The human had been one of the only good things here. Hunter. Friend. Good person. He needed good people. He needed people who could think. Who would be kind. Taking Joseph’s good hand, he took a deep breath…and flapped. The stream of words came to a sudden stop, and the hunter stared at him. Not quite vacant, not empty, since Engy had only flapped lightly this time, but still with a bit of a glaze in his eyes, as if the pain in his arm had stopped, as if other thoughts had started taking over. “Joseph…” Engy didn’t know what to say, but he knew what he needed. Gentle. Gentleness, someone kind, someone with a brain that was willing to stay with him. The hunter had done good things. Had stopped the full monster from coming out. Had given him…something. A chance to think. A chance to pull back. A chance to see. He needed to keep that, so he pushed. He gently pushed, true enough, but he pushed Joseph down to his knees. The hunter went willingly enough, his leather jerkin fluttering slightly, his quiver thumping lightly against his back, his trousers staining against the muddy earth. Engy pulled him forward slightly, resting the human’s nose against his sack ever so gently. “Please…breathe…and stay…” “…Alright…” “Please…I need…friends…” “I’ll stay. And I’ll watch…over you…” The human took a single breath, soft and gentle, and the transformation began. The scales spread from his nose, and the beginning of a snout started to form along Joseph’s face. Each little breath spread the wave of scales further, a soft green-brown that ran out in pebbly shapes, going up and over the human’s head. His hair fell out, leaving a bald dome that flattened out slightly, growing more distinct as the hunger’s mouth was pushed out along with his nose. As that snout formed, Joseph’s neck began to stretch, rising up, pushing out. Not too long, but a bit longer than a human’s would be. Engy shivered at the soft breath that puffed over his balls, his cock starting to rise in response. [i]Change and stay, change and stay,[/i] he thought. [i]Be what I need.[/i] More and more, the pebble-scale pattern spread across Joseph’s head, running down along his back. Muscles started to pop along his neck and shoulders, thickening and growing wider. The leather started to tear and rip at the sides, getting more and more distressed, but there was nothing that he could do to slow that down. He didn’t want to slow it down. He wanted Joseph to be big, strong, to be there for him. As the hunter nuzzled into his balls, starting to grind the side of one cheek, then the other against his sack, Engy let out a deep breath that he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding. He’d forced everyone else – no, [i]punished[/i] everyone else – that he’d run across, and he’d almost given up hope that there’d be anyone that was willing to be gentle with him. The fact that there was [i]someone[/i] almost made him want to cry. Almost, because the rage was slipping into something else. The more that Joseph transformed, the more that the new reptile ground against his balls, even going so far as to lick them, gently. And that was giving the dragon a genuine boost to his libido. He groaned as he rolled his hips forward, grinding his balls against the hunter’s face. The sound of leather ripping as muscles grew too big to be contained, the soft smell of sweat and other musk rising from the other man, the warmth against his balls kept his cock growing harder and harder. The dragon bit his lips, panting softly as he reached down and grabbed his dick, slowly stroking to the feeling of that tongue working up the gap between his balls. Looking down, he saw the scales spreading further and further. Joseph was slowly turning into a Komodo Dragon, still vaguely lean, but with a lot more muscle piled on top of his frame than he had before. The sight of him would have intimidated anyone, even the professional soldiers out there, and Engy grinned slightly to himself. “Stand…” He panted softly, and the Komodo Dragon did just that, getting to his feet. Thigh muscles had also grown, on the verge of ripping through the hunter’s pants. Joseph’s eyes were still glazed, but the intelligence was still there. The mind was [i]still there.[/i] It meant that there was hope for this. Engy grabbed his friend by the crotch, feeling the thick bulge that was hiding just behind the leather layer. That cock was definitely getting bigger, but it wasn’t there yet. He smiled, pulling a final vial out of his pouches. “Take this.” “What is it?” “A gift…for a friend.” “Then I’ll take it happily.” The hunter quaffed the potion, and no sooner had he swallowed than the changes occurred. The leather crotch ripped out, a scaly dick and a pair of balls that were bigger than fists, bigger than a pair of fists each suddenly burst free. They rolled and bubbled and swelled, growing so huge that they forced the scales tight and taut around them, all while the Komodo Dragon’s pants completely ripped apart. He was exposed, completely, totally exposed from head to toe, just like Engy. Just like his master. Engy took a deep breath, nodding in approval. This was going well. This was back on track. He wasn’t quite…quite so angry anymore, now that he had vented the worst of it, but he wasn’t done. This town… Arrowdell. Arrowdell was his. And he would make sure that everyone remembered that. Particularly his greatest tormentors. “To the church,” he said, and his geckos, his kobold, his snake, and his Komodo Dragon all followed him down the burning road. [b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]