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All characters belong to their creator. Do not distribute without all copyright notices and disclaimers intact.\n\nWriting this story does not constitute endorsement of the events depicted herein by the author. Readers are explicitly discouraged from engaging in any activities that are illegal or harmful to themselves or others.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nA great stone fell from the once-proud wall of the library, crashing to the ground. Smoke curled up from various parts of the building, and intermittent explosions shattered the stillness.\n\n``When I find Nance, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind,'' Ord said, the look on his face angrier than Ary had ever seen him.\n\n``Well, now's your chance,'' a voice seethed behind them.\n\nThe mages turned to see Ord's portly former apprentice glowering at them. The air around him had not quite finished restabilizing after he teleported in.\n\n``You miserable, old fool!'' Nance shouted. ``Do you have any idea how much time and effort I have spent trying to end your miserable existence?! First, the gryphon, and now my beautiful qaessbon! They were genius and artistic perfection intertwined, and you destroyed them! You call yourself a mage, yet all you do is destroy all that is beautiful!''\n\n``If you wouldn't sic your `art and genius' on us, we wouldn't have to!'' Ary snapped Before Ord could reply. ``What did we ever do to you?''\n\n``Oh, you're one to talk!'' Steam came out of Nance's nose as his body shook with anger. ``It just goes to show what an idiot Ord is, dropping me for a worthless girl!''\n\n``That girl has more work ethic and raw potential than you ever did or ever will,'' Ord interjected, holding his hand up to silence his current pupil. ``And, what's more important, she would never destroy the priceless knowledge that your abominations have! You have been reckless, Nance, just as I knew you would be. You have defied every magical treaty set in place for millennia, and you flaunt it! That is why I refused to teach you anymore. Your knowledge makes you dangerous, but your arrogance and narcissism make it far worse!''\n\nNance scoffed. ``Dangerous? Psh, you haven't seen the beginning of my power!''\n\nWith that, he hurled a fireball at Ary. Unimpressed, she held up her arm and absorbed the entire bolt with a fire ward. With her other hand, she sent a hundred snaking tongues of lightning towards the rebel mage. He yelled in pain as the energy hit him, making his hair stand on end.\n\n``Stop, Ary,'' Ord said firmly. ``Defend yourself if you must, but we will not be the aggressors here.''\n\n``You miserable coward!'' Nance snapped, telekinetically hurling a stone from the damaged wall at his former master.\n\nA split-second before the rock would have hit him, Ord disappeared and appeared on the other side of Ary.\n\n``Oh, coward, am I?'' he asked ironically. ``Last I checked, Ary and I have fought two of your abominations while you hid in your tower, far from any danger. Who is the real coward?''\n\nRather than answering, Nance balled his fists, and ice bolts shot out from his body in all directions. Ord and Ary quickly cast armor spells to deflect the damage, and then Ord pointed directly at Nance and uttered something. Not about to give up, Nance tried to hurl a fireball at Ord, but nothing happened. He scowled, looked at his hand in confusion, tried again, and then stood, seething.\n\n``Aww, is the poor, angry mage impotent?'' Ary taunted. ``No wonder you have so much penis envy! I bet you can never get it up!''\n\n``Augh!'' Nance shouted, enraged.\n\nLooking around, he grabbed a rock and rushed her, trying to bash her skull in with it. She easily teleported behind him and gave him a good kick in the ass, sending him sprawling. He leapt back up, whirled, and glared at them both with wrath in his eyes.\n\n``We can do this all day,'' Ord said calmly. ``Frankly, it is no effort at all to prevent you from harming us; your poorly wrought manifestations at least put up some kind of fight that wasn't laughably inept. I should turn you over to the Mage Council immediately. But, as I am your former master and feel some degree of concern for you - despite your repeated attempts on my life - I will make you a deal: go away, never threaten me or my apprentices again, and I will spare you the public humiliation of being stripped of your powers. Or, we can keep up this farce until we've beaten you into submission and then take you, bound in chains and gagged, before the Mage Council. The choice is yours, but frankly, after the destruction you've caused to Ac's library and the hundreds of priceless tomes of knowledge you've ruined, I'm leaning towards vanquishing you myself.''\n\nNance glowered, his lip curled into a sneer as he glared from master to apprentice and back. He muttered something under his breath.\n\nThen a cruel smile twisted over his face.\n\n``You fools,'' he said, letting out a guttural, menacing laugh. ``Do you think your spells can hold back my power? Do you think that I'll go along like a docile, ball-less gelding?''\n\nBefore the mages' eyes, he began to grow, bands of light slashing across his torso as his skin thickened, his limbs elongated and began to bulk up, and his face stretched out sharply. Horns sprung from his head, and his leathery hide took on a distinctly armored pattern. He let out a fearsome shout as wings erupted from his shoulder blades. His feet grew, and long, sharp claws sprouted from his fingers.\n\n``No,'' he snapped as pain wracked his body, doubling him over for a moment. Through gritted, growing teeth, he snarled, ``I think it's time you saw the real me.''\n\n``Oh, great, he's turning into a dragon,'' Ary said, unimpressed despite the fact that Nance now towered over her, twice as tall as she was, and was still growing. ``Let's just wait until his gigantic dick pops out, then we'll cut it off, and he'll be dead. Is that about what we've learned so far?''\n\nAn ear-shattering screech erupted from the dragon as he doubled in size. His wings, once flesh-colored, turned dark red and then purple. Long, black claws extended from the tips and ribs of his wings, and sharp protrusions extended from his knees and hips. A long, muscled tail erupted from his back, shot across to the fountain, and knocked the upper levels to the ground as even more horns sprouted from his head, curled like a ram's, and then curled back forward like snakes coiled to strike. His eyes sank into his head and turned golden yellow, with reptilian slits for pupils. A fiery red-orange appeared on his back and spread outward, covering his shoulders, his back, and the tops of his legs, arms, and tail, while his underside turned cream-white, punctuated by glowing orange markings, almost seeming like gaps in his armor through which his burning core could be seen.\n\nDuring all of this, Ord and Ary had spread out and began applying numerous spells to themselves and to each other. But now as the ground quit shaking, the flashes of light died down and eventually stopped, and the dust settled, they both turned to face Nance's latest horror: himself. As he raised his upper body to stand upright, his height doubled once more, and as he unfolded his wings, he must have stood fifty feet tall or more.\n\n``My, what a lovely specimen!'' Ord said, forgetting himself. ``Why, it looks almost like the real thing. But, of course, that's preposterous; true greater winged dragons have not been in existence for millennia!''\n\n``Which means we should kill it, right?'' Ary asked.\n\nOrd snapped back into reality. ``Oh, um, yes. Quite right. So, uh, where's his dick?''\n\nDeep, rumbling laughter made ripples in the water that spilled out of the fountain as the dragon spread his wings.\n\n``You think I'm going to make the same mistake twice?'' Nance asked in a deep, deafening, demonic voice.\n\n``Well...'' Ary said, thinking back.\n\n``No, my penis may be magnificent - and, of course, it is - but the two of you will never be so blessed as to gaze upon its grandeur. No, it will stay safely tucked inside my body. You cannot appreciate its beauty any more than you can comprehend my genius, and for those sins, I will kill you both!''\n\n``Wrong, Nance,'' Ord replied, glancing at Ary, who gave a faint nod, ``This little freak show you've put on is all the evidence any mage needs to condemn you. Surrender now, and despite everything you?ve done, I will still plead on your behalf for clemency. Perhaps they will let you keep your life. Your magic, however, is surely forfeit.\n\n``ENOUGH!'' the dragon boomed, whipping his tail around his backside, hitting Ary - who had been preparing a spell behind him - and knocking her to the ground. ``You insolent little thorn in my side!'' he shrieked, ``If it weren't for you, my miserable former master would be dead. So, die!''\n\nHe flicked his tail up and brought it down hard where Ary had been lying, but she rolled out of the way and stayed close to the ground to avoid the flailing appendage.\n\nOrd fired an ice bolt at the dragon, but it melted on hitting his skin, turned to steam, and vanished. The old mage followed up with a lightning bolt, but it merely circled around the dragon and dissipated harmlessly. In fact, none of the mage's attacks seemed to even faze the dragon.\n\n``Hold still and take what's coming to you!'' Nance roared, awkwardly turning his body to face her, his great, bulky legs proving more cumbersome and unwieldy to move than he had once thought. \n\nAs Nance worked to make his new body move the way he wanted it to, Ary called down a meteor upon the dragon, channeled it long enough to hit its mark, and then teleported to safety at the last second as the ball of fire and rock slammed down on the dragon's head.\n\nAn explosion of fireball-propelled rubble shook the walls of the library as shrapnel rained down upon the courtyard. Ord teleported a split-second ahead of it, manifesting next to Ary in relative safety. They looked out the window to see the sky darken from all the dust and wind that almost completely obscured their sight. But like a shadow in the whirlwind, they saw a dragon's silhouette draw back its lips in a sneer.\n\n``Get down!'' Ary cried, knocking her master to the ground as both of them hid behind the wall, awaiting the infernal fireball they expected as retaliation.\n\nBut it didn't come.\n\nAfter a moment, they peeked up from behind the rubble to see the dust clearing and Nance with a very determined expression on his face. He let out a series of coughs, grunts, and belches, but nothing else seemed to happen.\n\nAs they ducked back down, Ary bit her lip and then began to snicker. Ord gave her a dirty look.\n\n``What?'' she asked, ``Isn't it obvious? He doesn't know how to breathe fire!''\n\n``So, it's a stalemate, then: Nance can't hurt us, but we can't hurt him, either.''\n\n``Oh, come on! It's obviously his dick, isn't it? It's always his dick! Like I said, we go cut it off, and - ``\n\n``But he's also said he's not going to bring it out, and that is actually a good strategy on his part,'' Ord replied. In response to the shocked expression Ary gave him, he shrugged and grinned. ``What, it was bound to happen at some point! Even random chance has him getting one thing right!''\n\n``Laugh it up, you two!'' a voice bellowed.\n\nThe mages peeked up over the rubble once more. Nance's eyes narrowed as he saw them, and then he rushed forward to try to snatch them up with his claws. They leapt out of the way just in time as his fist slammed into the building, knocking down more of the crumbling masonry.\n\n``I'd like to see you practice being a dragon when your tower's only a hundred feet from the next one!'' the dragon snapped. ``How was I supposed to know how to blow fireballs?''\n\n``Well, duh,'' Ary retorted, ``You just don't! It's illegal for a reason!''\n\n``Foolish laws made by nearsighted men who lack the imagination and mental fortitude to harness real power!''\n\n``Oh, and I see you?ve really harnessed it well,'' Ord said, teleporting as the dragon head-butted a nearby wall. ``You've turned yourself into one of the most lethal beings of all time, and yet the best you can do is use your head as a battering ram! Well,'' he conceded, ``At least you're using your head at all...''\n\n``Ooh, burn!'' Ary laughed. ``You feel that, Nance? Looks like Ord burned you more than you burned us, and you're a freaking dragon! You call us cowards when you're the one hiding in your tower and sending your goons to kill us, and we call you dragon when we're the ones doing the burning! Is there anything you can do right?''\n\n``That's it!'' Nance screamed, moving his dragon claws into summoning position, ``I may not be able to breathe fire, but I'll hit you with a fireball anyway!''\n\nThere was a brief pause followed by an awkward, expectant moment devoid of fireballs.\n\nNance growled, tried to snap his claws, and then began muttering to himself.\n\n``You should let him actually cast spells,'' Ary said, grinning. ``I bet it'd be hilarious to watch!''\n\n``Oh, the spell wore off about ten minutes ago,'' Ord chuckled. ``He just fails to realize that the magic fields flow differently in this body than in his human one. Of course, I?m not going to be the one to tell him.''\n\n``So, what do we do? I don't really want to see any more of the library destroyed, do you?'' Ary asked anxiously.\n\nOrd shook his head and then looked thoughtful. ``I think you're probably onto something about his penis. What he's done is a bit of a black art, but I have done a little bit of study on it. If my guess is right, you'll need to climb up inside his cloaca and channel magic straight into his malehood to do any kind of harm to him.''\n\n``Wait, why do I have to climb up into his cloaca?'' Ary protested. ``You're the one who knows what to do!''\n\n``And I'm an old man, not fit for running, jumping, and clawing my way up into a dragon's body,'' Ord replied sagely. ``Besides, you're the apprentice.''\n\nAry shriveled her nose. Crawling up inside dragons' bodies was not at the top of her bucket list.\n\n``Oh, and you'll need something to hold his penis...erm...still,'' Ord added.\n\nAry frowned. ``What do you mean?''\n\n``Well, he has a cloaca, which means that if he were to decide to get rid of you, he'd just turn his penis inside-out, and you'd fall out of him. So, you'll need a way to keep him from getting erect.''\n\nAry rolled her eyes. ``Should I start whispering stories about his grandmother's sex-parts or something?''\n\n``I was thinking something a little more...potent,'' Ord replied. ``Or rather, impotent.''\n\n``Master, surely you don't know a spell that specific?'' Ary asked in disbelief.\n\nOrd frowned in mock indignation. ``I'll have you know that I know a great many specific spells for all occasions, you little upstart! That is why I am the master and you are the apprentice.''\n\n``All right, all right, rub it in, then. How do I cast it?''\n\nOrd whispered the words in her ear, carefully clasping his hands behind his back to prevent it from being cast at their utterance. Ary nodded comprehension, her lips forming the words silently.\n\n``I don't know how much magic it will take to overwhelm him,'' Ord said, ``But to be on the safe side, it would help if I were able to direct magic at him, as well. For that, we need a channeling lens.''\n\nAry pursed her lips. ``I don't think I've ever seen one,'' she said. ``Do you have one?''\n\nOrd shook his head. ``No, but I saw one on the lower level on one of the bookcases. I'm sure it's covered in rubble now, but if we can get to it, you can take it with you into Nance's cloaca, aim it where his glans would be, and then I can blast it while keeping him distracted from a safe distance away.''\n\nA roar from Nance got their attention.\n\n``Speaking of safe distance,'' Ord said, teleporting out of sight.\n\nAry followed, and both were transported deep into the library on the lower level. Here, the place was relatively unscathed as yet, far enough away from the courtyard wall to be protected from damage. Each of them summoned a glowing orb and began hastily looking for something lens-shaped. Bookcase by bookcase, shelf by shelf, they scoured the place for the channeling lens, but without any luck. As they split up, Ary followed her set of bookcases back to where they'd fought the qaessbon, shuddering at the thought of its cruel-looking claws and fearsome face as it lunged at her. A fallen bookcase made mental images flash into her mind as the creature tried to kill her. The crunch of broken glass underfoot brought her back to reality with a gasp. Looking down, she squatted, moved a book aside, and unearthed a cracked, circular, convex lens about the size of saucer whose iridescent glass traced out strange runes on deformed, non-Euclidean shapes in all manner of muted colors.\n\n``Master Ord!'' she called, holding up the cracked glass, ``Is this it?''\n\nHer mentor appeared beside her, took the glass, and cursed under his breath.\n\n``Alas, it's no good,'' he said. ``Yes, this was it, but with it broken, we cannot use it.''\n\n``But it's only the one edge that's chipped off,'' Ary protested. ``Why can't we use it?''\n\n``Magical fields at the boundary of the crack will be unpredictable,'' Ord said, shaking his head. ``If I were to fire magic at it, it might shoot at you or back out at me. No, it's too great a risk.''\n\n``But can't we polish it or something?'' Ary persisted. \n\nShe immediately regretted asking as Ord launched off into a ramble about the intricacies of magical fields, the various lens-grinding techniques, and the qualities of different types of magical polish, punctuated by random comments involving food, cats, or cats as food. Ary knew better than to interrupt, but years of studying under him had taught her that she could safely sneak away while he went off on his tangents, talking more to himself than to her. She just hoped that the dragon wouldn't come crashing through while Ord was still going.\n\nLooking around, she glimpsed something golden and shiny sticking out from beside another fallen bookcase. Curious, she carefully picked her way over to it, grimaced a bit as she put her shoulder into moving the bookcase that pinned it beneath a book, and then pulled the book out. Below it was a plain, circular disc that appeared to be made of pure gold. Though it was only the size of a dinner plate, it seemed to weigh twenty pounds, and she grunted as she lifted it up for a better look. It was completely unmarked, and her yellow reflection looked back at her as though she was holding a very expensive, off-color mirror. While it was pretty, she didn't think it served much functional purpose, but as she started to put it down, she caught sight of the book she'd moved to free it. On its cover was what she believed to be a visual depiction of the disc she was holding. That such an unassuming artifact warranted its own book piqued her curiosity despite her peril once Nance figured out where she was, and she propped the golden plate against the bookcase, took up the book, and flipped through the pages. Her eyes widened, and a grin came over her face. She dropped the book, heaved up the heavy disc, and went back to Ord with as much speed as she could muster.\n\n``Master Ord!'' she cried, interrupting a particularly detailed accounting of the flavor of Siamese versus Persian.\n\n``Now, my apprentice, you know better than to - ``\n\n``It's urgent!''\n\n``Be that as it may - ``\n\nAry held up the golden plate. Ord's eyes flashed. He glanced at her, stroked his beard, and nodded.\n\n``You know what to do with it?'' he asked.\n\nAry nodded. ``Take it up into Nance's cloaca and then - ``\n\n``Zap it with a lightning bolt.''\n\nAry cocked her head. ``Not a fireball? The book said - ``\n\n``The book doesn't know what it's talking about. Trust me, my child: a lightning bolt is the way to go. Once you've done that, stand back and make space for me to join you, and then send me a mental image of the space.'' He grimaced. ``I did not relish the idea of hanging about in a dragon's dong today.''\n\nAry rolled her eyes. At least he could just teleport. She was the one who would have to climb up inside, carrying that heavy plate with her.\n\n``All right, I'll get him into position and distract him. You teleport underneath him and climb up inside. Once you're inside, cast the impotency spell first thing,'' said Ord.\n\nAry nodded, and the two teleported back to their hiding spot just inside the crumbling walls. Nance had not made much progress while they'd been away. Still seething, he'd resorted to picking up rocks and throwing them petulantly at the edifice with varying degrees of success; dragons aren't exactly known for their upper body strength, after all. The mages peered out, and Ord quickly found a mound of rubble tall enough for Ary to use as a makeshift ladder and narrow enough for Nance to straddle.\n\n``There,'' he said, pointing it out. ``As soon as he's in position, go right there.''\n\nThe apprentice mage made a face but nodded as Ord called out to Nance, ``Are you going to stand there hurling rocks feebly all day, or are you going to finish what you started? Just like you, always starting something and then failing to follow through!''\n\nThe dragon whirled to face the speaker, snarled, and lunged forward, swiping with his claws towards Ord. But the dragon's arms were shorter than he imagined, and he didn't even reach the wall, let alone smash through it enough to be able to hit the mage. Ord glanced down, grimaced, and quickly trotted about ten steps to his left, hesitated, and then moved over another five steps.\n\n``Come on, then!'' the mage taunted, pelting the dragon with a weak firebolt. ``Is that all you've got?''\n\n``Fool!'' Nance snapped, lunging forward. ``What kind of imbecile taunts a bear?''\n\n``Oh,'' Ord replied, ``The kind who knows that the bear has no teeth, no claws, and has not mastered the art of walking on four legs, let alone two.''\n\n``Awfully cocky, coming from you!'' Nance retorted, lunging again and getting a face-full of wall for his troubles as Ord stepped out of reach just in time.\n\n``Speaking of cocks,'' he said, ``Are you ready to end this poorly conceived dick-measuring contest? You know you cannot win this, don't you?''\n\n``Ha! My malehood is ten the size of your whole body and at least five times your girth! In a dick-measuring contest, I beat you hands-down!''\n\n``Is that so?'' Ord asked, giving a faint nod to Ary, who had teleported between the dragon's legs atop the rubble-heap.\n\n``Of course it's so!''\n\n``I believe you are lying,'' Ord said, grinning sweetly.\n\nAry reached up, grasped the folds of the dragon's cloaca, and heaved herself upward. The dragon appeared not to notice.\n\n``I think that unless you prove it, you're nothing but bluster!'' Ord continued.\n\n``Ha! A pathetic attempt to try to get me to show you my malehood. No, you don't deserve to bask in its glory - and it is, of course, a thing to behold! - but you two are swine, and I shall not cast my pearls before you. How could you possibly appreciate the magnificence of such a sublime member?''\n\nAry gasped and grunted, pulling herself up inch-by-inch and using her elbows on the slippery insides of the dragon's cloaca to hold herself in position while she gained a new handhold. All the while, Nance continued heaping praise on his penis to the point that she couldn't help but roll her eyes. Sheesh, a penis is a penis, she thought.\n\nReaching up, she was surprised to grasp something hard, almost bony. She looked up to see a sharp spike growing out of the dragon's insides. But, she was losing her grip on the cloaca's slippery insides, and she didn't waste time contemplating why this strange three-foot-long spike was here; she grabbed it and used it to hoist herself up until she could straddle it. Looking up, she saw more of the strange spikes sticking out and growing much closer together. She was grateful for this; with much less effort, she was able to use them almost like stairs as the cavern above her curved forward, flattening out and becoming horizontal. Panting from exertion, she became aware of a musky smell and oppressive humidity and heat inside the dragon's body. Shriveling her nose, she took a few deep breaths to get herself over the initial shock of the stench and muttered the impotence spell. A dull, dusky blue light appeared on all surfaces of the fleshy cavern and then dimmed.\n\nOkay, I cast the spell and have found some level ground, she said telepathically to Ord.\n\nExcellent. I'll be in shortly.\n\n``Your penis is about the only thing you have going for you, you pathetic weasel!'' Ord snapped at Nance. ``I think the only reason you're not showing your dick is you haven't figured out how to do it!''\n\n``You impudent waste of magical energy!'' Nance bellowed. ``If you want to see my penis so much, then fine! Be dazzled by its splendor, but don't come crying to me when the sight is too much to behold!''\n\nAbruptly, the whole cavern heaved and began to move. Ary cried out and wrapped her arms around the nearest spike as the floor shifted unpredictably under her, and the spikes shuffled around dangerously, each of them creating sweeping arcs front-to-back and side-to-side. Ary kicked off the floor and quickly wrapped her legs around the spike, too, just as another spike leaned over and would have sliced a deep gouge into her calf if she hadn't.\n\nWhat's going on?! His penis is moving all over!\n\nMy mistake; I seem to have perturbed him a bit. Go ahead and fire up the scarab. I'll join you in a moment.\n\nI can't right now; the ground is moving too much below me.\n\nI'll see what I can do.\n\n``What is happening?'' Nance growled, frustrated as he tried to figure out which muscles to flex to evert his penis, unaware of the spell Ary had cast.\n\n``Just as I thought,'' Ord said, shaking his head. ``This is what you've always done: come up with a half-baked scheme, failing to consider all the ramifications, and made a colossal mess as a result. Well, I'm not cleaning up your messes again, Nance. I have tried to be fair, to give you far more chances than you deserve, but you're like a rabid dog: you go out of your way to hurt others, oblivious to how much harm you cause not only to them but to yourself as well. It is time I put you out of your misery. Goodbye, Nance.''\n\nWith that, he disappeared. The dragon looked around but didn't see anyone. He was alone.\n\n``Ord, you coward! Come back and fight me!'' he roared, slamming his fist into the wall, sending a big section of it tumbling to the ground. ``Where are you?''\n\nMeanwhile, Ary had put the plate on the hot, squishy ground back towards the back of the cavern, where the dragon's glans would be if it were everted and where the spikes weren't as close together. Taking a step back and bracing herself against one of the spines, she fired a lightning bolt at the plate. The electricity struck it, bounced off, and then crackled in a halo around it before disappearing entirely. \n\nAry waited breathlessly, but nothing happened. Frowning, she started to fire another lightning bolt at it, but then movement caught her eye. It was subtle at first, but then definite: the bottom of the plate was slowly growing, expanding, and becoming dome-shaped. Meanwhile, little appendages seemed to poke out the sides of the plate, growing sideways, and then becoming jointed, bending, and clawing furiously in the air. The front edge of the plate, now sloping backwards and downwards towards the bottom of the upside-down dome, seemed to grow eyes that alternately glared at her and looked piteously at her for help.\n\nAry shuddered. She knew it was called a scarab for a reason, but she hadn't imagined it would be an actual ball-sized bug made of metal! But as the ground below her gave a heave, she knew that her recently awakened bug was not going to be very effective if it couldn't get to its feet. Swallowing hard and fighting back the urge to leave it there, she took a few cautious steps forward, carefully avoided the scrabbling legs, and flipped the scarab over before leaping backwards, shuddering in disgust.\n\n``It won't hurt you,'' Ord said as he teleported in behind her.\n\nAry jumped in surprise. ``Don't scare me like that!''\n\nOrd ignored her and looked at the bug, which was looking over its shoulder at them - or it would be, if it had shoulders - instead, it was doing a pretty good approximation of it and wearing an expression of beleaguered sense of duty.\n\n``It wants you to tell it what to do,'' Ord said. ``Since you summoned it, it will obey you until its task is complete.''\n\nDoing her best to look authoritative, Ary held out her finger and pointed at the far wall of the dragon's inverted penis. ``Attack that,'' she said.\n\nThe bug turned to follow the direction of her finger, saw the far wall, gave the equivalent of a shrug, and began walking on six needle-sharp legs towards where Ary had pointed. \n\n``Let's give it a kick in the butt,'' Ord said. ``We haven't got all day.''\n\nWith that, he fired another bolt of lightning at the beetle. The reaction this time was instantaneous. The creature's face grew fearsome, and its legs began to secrete green droplets. Before the mages' eyes, the droplets began to hiss and sizzle, boring tiny holes into the penile floor. But more alarming than that was the creature's speed. While it had started at a slow amble, now it suddenly moved with zeal, charging into the far end of the dragon's penis, sprouting mighty mandibles, and ripping and cutting into the thick, spongy flesh.\n\n``That's it!'' Ord said triumphantly. ``Let's hit it again!''\n\nBoth of them now fired lightning bolts at the scarab. Each bolt made it ooze more corrosive green liquid out of its feet and move with greater ferocity, now using its front legs to dig and cut into the slippery, spongy flesh.\n\nSeething with rage at having lost sight of his former master, Nance weighed his options. He didn't know where Ord was, but he felt fairly sure the mage was not foolish enough to go back to his home. Where would he have gone, then?\n\n``Damn it!'' he screamed, punching the wall again.\n\nHe winced - such acts were not supposed to make his hands hurt - but as he contemplated his lack of desirable qualities in this body, a growing sense of discomfort began to grow in his nether regions. It started out as a mild tickling, but a particularly noticeable prickling feeling led to a general itchiness in his groin. He grimaced and moved his legs together, not certain where the itching was coming from but acutely aware that it was getting worse - and fast! Yet squeezing his legs together wasn't helping him at all; the itch persisted relentlessly and seemed to get worse as if to spite his efforts.\n\n``Damn it,'' he said again, spreading his legs and trying to look between them at where his cloaca was. Whatever the itching was, he felt certain it was coming from somewhere inside it. ``Of all the creatures of the world I could have chosen, I picked the one with a venereal disease!'' he snapped. ``Damn it, that itches!''\n\nThe walls, floor, and particularly the spikes around the mages moved almost constantly. The floor churned beneath their feet, and they both clung to the spikes for dear life. The scarab, with its very pointed legs whose acid had eaten away pits in the floor almost deep enough as to make it rest on its belly, didn't seem to mind the rocking, rolling motion. It continued taking bite after bite out of the wall in front of it, seemingly oblivious to the blood that sprayed it in the face or dripped into its acid-pools.\n\nA bright blue flash momentarily blinded the mages, and an ice-bolt struck the scarab. Ord looked at Ary, who gave a sheepish grin.\n\n``Sorry, master,'' she said, ``The floor moving so much has me a little distracted.''\n\n``I know you're tired, but you've got to pay attention!'' Ord replied, ``What if that had turned the scarab on us?''\n\nThey both realized nervously that the quiet hissing of the acid eating away at the dragon's penis had stopped. They slowly turned to look at the scarab and gasped. What had once been green, oily acid exuding from the scarab's feet was now blue ice crystals. Instead of forming pools that ate away at the striated tissue, each drop from the scarab's feet made the crystals grow, creating fractals of needle-sharp barbs that stuck out in every direction, turned on each other, crisscrossed, and began driving and expanding into the dragon's penile matter.\n\n``Hmm, interesting.'' Ord said, completely forgetting his original train of thought.\n\nHe cocked his head and fired his own ice bolt at the scarab. Its forelegs grew large ice-claws that raked into the thick flesh, drawing deep, bleeding gouges in the increasingly porous flesh.\n\nNance's eyes bulged, and his draconic mouth dropped open.\n\n``O-ow!'' he cried, dropping to his knees.\n\nWhat had once been furious itching now felt like a million needles being stabbed into his... His...\n\nHis eyes narrowed, and he spat out between clenched teeth, ``I know where you are, you rotten man! And I'm going to put an end to you once and for all! You should have known better than to stray into the belly of the beast!''\n\nFinding a fallen timber, he reached down and - with some difficulty due to his poor dexterity - positioned it below himself. He dropped it several times in the process but finally managed to point it straight at his cloaca.\n\n``Time to die, Ord!'' he snapped, driving the splintered wood into himself.\n\n``Look out, Master Ord!'' Ary cried as a beam of wood about a foot in diameter plunged towards them. \n\nThe old mage leapt backward, grabbing onto another spike just inches from the beam. Not wasting a minute, he crawled backwards on his hands, butt, and feet, until he felt another spike behind him.\n\n``Thank goodness for these spicules!'' he said, panting.\n\n``Spicules?''\n\n``These spikes - they're kind of a lock-and-key mechanism, making sure that only dragons with similar patterns of them can breed.''\n\nThe beam retreated, leaving a sprinkling of splinters embedded in the tender flesh, and then came again, closing half the distance between its previous position and Ord.\n\n``We have to finish this, and quickly,'' he said, scurrying back even further, ``or he's going to incapacitate us before we can finish him off.''\n\nNot thinking, he fired over his head at the scarab, engulfing it in a fireball. Almost instantly, the smell of burning flesh assaulted their nostrils. The mages turned and looked to see the ice vaporizing and the penile skin under the scarab's feet charring as if being cooked by a torch. The scarab's feet glowed blue-hot, and as it continued burrowing through the dragon's penis, the flow of blood stopped entirely, sealed in by countless cauterized scratches.\n\nOrd and Ary exchanged glances, and despite their predicament, grins cracked on their faces.\n\n``Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'' Ary asked.\n\n``I'll do fire again,'' Ord said. ``On the count of three.''\n\nNance panted, sweat beading on his forehead as the sensation in his abdomen changed from itching to pricking to searing.\n\n``I'm a fucking dragon!'' he protested. ``Fire shouldn't hurt me!''\n\nBut regardless of what should or shouldn't happen, he pulled back on the beam, trying to pull it out. But it had gone in so deep that it caught on some of the barbs. They grabbed it, embedded in the wood, and locked it in tightly. Too pained to stand, Nance fell over on his side, spread his legs, and tried to work a finger up into his cloaca next to the beam to try to figure out why it was stuck. But his arms were awkwardly short, and the beam stretched his cloaca painfully tight; he couldn't get his finger in deep enough to see what was the matter.\n\nOrd, Ary, and even the scarab fell over on their sides as the floor became the wall and the wall became the floor. Blood that had pooled on the floor now sloshed downward, splattering on the mages' faces and saturating their robes. The scarab had flipped over and was once again clawing at the air, desperately wanting to get back on its feet and back to work. Once she collected herself, Ary moved over shakily to put it upright.\n\nThe combination of fire from Ord and ice from Ary had made its legs particularly dangerous things that periodically fired flaming, steam jet-propelled lava balls every which way. Where they landed, they scorched and cauterized the flesh and slowly flattened out, spreading and cooking blotchy patches of flesh before vaporizing away, like water onto a hot skillet. Ary therefore moved very quickly, pausing for a volley of the dangerous projectiles to fire off and then leaping on the scarab, flipping it over, and leaping back just in time to avoid being singed.\n\n``Most interesting,'' Ord said.\n\n``My gosh! Ord, are you all right? You nearly landed on that spike!''\n\n``Spicule.''\n\n``Whatever.''\n\n``Yes, I'm fine. I think maybe we should try something else, though,'' he said as a flaming lava-ball flew over his head, splattered on a spicule, and melted it into a nub.\n\n``Fire and electricity?''\n\n``Sure.''\n\nNance's eye twitched. Something was pressurizing inside of him. He gritted his teeth, feeling the beam trying to pull itself out and yanking excruciatingly on something inside his cloaca. It felt like it would rip him! Desperate to ease the pain, he grabbed the shaft and forced it deeper into himself, roaring in agony as the pressure increased even further. Something shifted, and a jet of blue flame shot out of his backside, burning the wooden beam and setting it alight. Shocked, Nance began striking it with his hands and then immediately regretted it: each blow he delivered yanked on his innards. He felt something hot and warm trickle out of him, hugging the singed wood. Unable to see, he reached down and felt of the wet spot. Bringing his claws to his face, he gasped on seeing blood.\n\n``Let's not do that again,'' said Ord.\n\n``Agreed.''\n\nThe two mages were now bald and naked; the flaming tornado the scarab unleashed when they hit it with fire and lightning had burned off all the hair and clothes on their bodies, and though their skin was intact and shockingly unscathed, they decided it was best not to press their luck. The blazing whirlwind had also burned up a large chunk of the wood; what remained was smoldering. Many of the spicules had likewise been burnt to crisps, and the entirety of the dragon's inverted penis was charred like a steak being seared.\n\n``Maybe we should just leave it alone?'' Ary suggested. ``It seems to be making good progress digging through Nance's internals?''\n\n``Now where would the fun in that be?'' Ord asked. ``Electricity and ice. Come on. It's the only one we haven't tried, yet.''\n\n``Really, Master Ord, I don't think we should - ``\n\n``Come on, come on, you little whippersnapper! What are you, chicken?''\n\nNot about to take that kind of insult lying down, Ary retorted, ``Fine, I get electricity.''\n\nNance lay on his side, his breathing labored. The pain in his abdomen was getting worse. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut, stabbed, and then had salt rubbed in the wound, a burning, stinging feeling that took his breath away. Periodically, a particularly bad pang would wrack his body, making his legs kick out involuntarily and his tail whip like a flail, knocking yet another hole in the crumbling library wall.\n\nIt isn't supposed to be like this, he thought to himself. I'm supposed to kill that idiot and his apprentice and then destroy that damn mage council so that I can practice magic the way I see fit. It was supposed to be so simple. Where did I go wrong?\n\nA searing pain in his gut momentarily blocked out all thoughts. His mouth opened in a silent scream as sweat poured from his body. It felt like his dick had been bored through with an ice pick.\n\n``That worked well,'' Ary said, standing with her hands on her hips.\n\nA giant ice spear had shot out of the scarab's head and driven its way clean through the tip of Nance's penis. Blood trickled down around it, slowly thawing it and letting more blood follow in growing streams that carved spiral-shaped grooves in the ice.\n\n``I was hoping for something a little more...corrosive,'' Ord remarked, his withered, wrinkled body faintly illuminated by the ice crystal.\n\n``There's always just a plain lightning bolt,'' Ary suggested.\n\n``Yes. Enough playing around; this has been a fun little experiment, but it really is high time we finished him off.''\n\n``Agreed.''\n\nThey both began firing lightning bolt after lightning bolt at the scarab. Little drops of green acid began seeping from his feet, and then big drops, and then little streams, and then full-on sprays. Everywhere the acid struck, it began to hiss, smoke, and eat its way through the floor of the cavernous, inverted penis. Meanwhile, the scarab was clawing and biting manically, like a creature possessed, boring along what was left of the quickly-melting icicle and making a ragged hole in the dragon's penis. If he wanted to get hard now, he couldn't; the hole had grown so large that blood would shoot out his cloaca like an inverted fountain without the slightest hint of inflating his penis.\n\nNow that he had a clean path, the scarab began to move, taking bite after bite out of the nearly meter-thick flesh, eating ravenously and insatiably while its feet continued to dissolve through the dragon's meat like butter, leaving little spongy holes everywhere it went. As it moved away in search of fresh tissue to consume, Ord and Ary followed along behind, shooting the occasional lightning bolt at it for good measure.\n\n``Now that we've got a clear opening through his dick, do you think we can finally start attacking him directly? Will it work?'' Ary asked.\n\nOrd shrugged. ``No idea,'' he replied. ``You can give it a try, if you want.''\n\nAry nodded, stepped up into the hole in the dragon's penis, and took aim at what looked like the dragon's intestines. A fire bolt appeared, smacked against the flesh, and fizzled harmlessly.\n\n``Ugh,'' the apprentice groaned. ``How do we kill this jerk?''\n\n``It may be his testes protecting him,'' Ord said thoughtfully. ``You can see one of them just ahead there. Maybe take aim at it instead?''\n\nAry looked into the distance and saw something ellipsoid buried among the rest of the dragon's internal tissue. It was large, at least as tall as she was. She couldn't quite make out its color in the dim light, but it appeared to be mostly red with bluish tints here and there. Taking careful aim, she let loose another fire bolt. It hit home, and a slightly seared spot appeared on the ellipsoid shape, leaving the rest of the flesh intact.\n\n``Bingo.''\n\nThe ground shifted suddenly and violently, throwing the mages into the air (the scarab had burrowed in enough as to not be affected). They landed again on the surface, the wind knocked out of them.\n\n``I think that hurt,'' Ord said.\n\nAry nodded. ``The sooner we finish, the sooner we can get out of here,'' she said.\n\nOrd nodded, and the two stood side-by-side, both aiming at the seared spot while the scarab continued to burrow through the dragon's flesh, cutting through bits of spongy matter like nougat, through striated parts like gristle, and through the rest like a laser through ice. Its sharp mandibles deftly snipped away at a piece of flesh, and then as they snipped away at another piece, its palps stuffed the previous piece into its mouth. It chewed noisily, and the sound it made indicated what kind of flesh it was consuming: squishing for spongy matter, nearly silent for striated matter, and quiet smacking for everything else. At that moment, it was making squishing sounds as it burrowed back towards the dragon's cloaca.\n\nThe sound of crunching and then of something falling caught Ary's attention just as Ord was about to count off. She turned and gasped to see the spicules toppling over one-by-one, leaving bleeding holes where they used to be. Amazed, she walked over to the nearest one and looked down: the scarab had crunched its way right through the hard, bony material like it was nothing.\n\n``Remind me not to get on that thing's bad side,'' she said.\n\n``You've fed it a whole lot today,'' Ord remarked thoughtfully. ``It ought to love you, and even if not out of a sense of loyalty, it'll be too full to eat you after it gets done here.''\n\n``Gee, thanks.''\n\n``On the count of three.''\n\nNance doubled over at feeling something akin to getting kicked in the nuts. He could not have known that the fire and lightning that had just struck his testicle had caused it to explode, spraying burning clumps of tubules into his intestines where they continued to smolder. He could not have known that the force of the explosion shoved his intestines out of the way, giving the mages perfect access to his other testicle, which was hidden behind the first one. Nor, indeed, could he have known that the burst of lighting hitting just after the fireball had shocked his remaining testicle into dysfunction, that he was now in grave danger.\n\nWhat he did know was that he wanted to die. His plans thwarted, his body now stuck as this ungainly, clumsy form that couldn't even reach to scratch itself ``down there'', his spirit broken from the dull ache that seemed always to punctuate itself with excruciating agony at all of the worst possible times, he was ready for it to be over. He realized now that even if he could somehow extricate his mentor and replacement from his body, the damage they had done would surely be permanent. His malehood - his magnificent, beautiful malehood that he had never even seen - was ruined. What was the point in living now?\n\n``There, I see it!'' Ary said. ``That's the other testicle, right? Then we can bring him down?''\n\n``That should do it,'' Ord replied, nodding. ``Same as before, right?''\n\n``Yeah.''\n\n``Okay. One, two, three!''\n\nThey unleashed another volley. The fireball missed slightly, but to their surprise, the non-testicular flesh vaporized. The two mages looked at each other, and Ary grinned.\n\n``Now?'' she asked.\n\n``Now.''\n\nThey looked different directions and began blasting everything they had at whatever was handy. Ary fired another fireball at the remaining testicle. It erupted into flames. The fire found a pocket of fat protecting his gonads and engulfed it, wreathing his remaining testicle in fire. The heat made the liquids in it vaporize and expand. It ballooned, doubling in size and stretching. Veins and arteries that traced its surface spread apart and flattened out, looking as though they'd been flattened under a rolling pin.\n\nIt was at that moment that the scarab returned, poked its head out curiously, and then without warning, lunged for the oversized testicle.\n\n``Duck!'' Ary cried, knocking Ord to the ground.\n\nThe testicle exploded spectacularly, catching fire, launching flaming tubule streamers over the mages to set fire to the top of the dragon's inverted penis, and releasing a concussive shockwave that leveled the closest spicules.\n\n``Well,'' Ord said as they shakily got to their feet, ``At least we don't have to worry about impaling ourselves now.''\n\nSomehow, Nance knew exactly what had happened just by feel. Shuddering, he realized that he was now, for the rest of his pitiful but mercifully short-lived life, a eunuch. But while he was sorely tempted to lie there and wait for his death, something inside of him urged him to his feet. Staggering, he wrenched the still-smoldering beam from his cloaca - it came out much more easily now, though he didn't know why - and made his way to the fountain. If he was going to die, he decided, he was taking those wretched mages with him! Peering into it, he breathed a sigh of relief; though he had damaged it, there was still plenty of water in it to do the deed. With great difficulty and pain, exacerbated by what felt like his intestines rupturing, he climbed into the fountain, spread his legs, and then reached down to find the lips of his cloaca. They were crusty under his fingers, and his touch on them made him hiss in pain. He spread them anyway, and then lowered himself into the water. It felt cool and soothing. For a moment, he forgot revenge and just relaxed, feeling the cooling water quenching his burning insides. And then, with a snarl of determination, he stretched his legs wider, plunging himself in as deep as he could go.\n\n``Drown, you little vermin!'' he snarled.\n\n``That's it, Ary!'' Ord said enthusiastically as they sent volley after volley into the huge cavern of the dragon's torso. \n\nThe scarab had continued its fervent trek, made all the more fervent by the occasional lightning bolt one of the mages sent at it to spur it on, and it had gnawed its way halfway around the circumference of the dragon's meat and then bored through spicule and spongy and striated flesh to reveal the rest of the dragon's body. The mages had lost no time incinerating the flesh around the scarab's opening to give themselves both a clear shot. Now, as fireballs exploded like flesh-flinging fireworks and lightning bolts coursed through the dragon's body, lighting pieces of it up in dazzling fractal displays, the scarab continued its work of hollowing out the floor, walls, and ceiling, chewing through strip after strip of flesh and making the ground sink beneath the mages, like a groundhog's burrows do to the ground above it.\n\nFat crackled, organs exploded, and burning tissue made a constant rain down on the mages, who quickly brushed off the smoldering flesh before it could burn their naked skin.\n\nAnd then, at last, they saw it: the dragon's heart. Wrapped in his ribcage and his lungs, it glistened in the firelight and lightning like a beating ruby the size of a bus. An ice bolt shredded through the lungs, clearing a path. Ord took aim and launched a fireball at it. The fireball exploded, setting the lung fragments alight and burning them up like lint, but the heart continued to beat.\n\n``Ary!'' the old mage called, ``Aim for the heart!''\n\nIce bolt preceded fireball, smacking into the enormous organ and driving itself like a knife through the muscular tissue. The fireball followed immediately thereafter, melting the ice bolt and cauterizing the wound.\n\nNance let out a silent groan, his eyes bulging as he clutched his chest. Only then, as he tried to gasp, did he realize that he had no lungs with which to do so. Panic gripped him, and he clutched his throat, desperate for air. His tail whipped around protectively, demolishing what was left of the fountain and letting the water rush out.\n\nNo! he thought desperately, my revenge!\n\nAnother volley of ice and fire ripped through the dragon's body. This time, the ice penetrated the ventricular wall, lodging in the muscle between ventricle and atrium. The heart continued to throb, rubbing up against the sharp edges of the bolt and widening the hole it had cut. The fireball exploded, vaporizing the ice. Blood began to pour out of the dragon's heart, raining down on the emptiness below. Two more volleys followed after in quick succession, piercing into the atrium and then penetrating all the way through the dragon's heart. The fireball sailed through the dragon's heart and exploded on his clavicle.\n\n``Wait, wait!'' Ord said, holding his breath and listening intently. \n\nAry stopped casting and listened, too. Aside from the soft munching sounds the scarab made as it continued to strip-mine the dragon's penis, she heard nothing. \n\nBut then she heard it. It was a soft sound, almost like sighing. As she and Ord watched, they saw the dragon's body sag above them and then list to the side.\n\n``We've got to get out of here!'' Ord cried.\n\nForgetting the scarab, the two scurried towards the dragon's cloaca. But as they did, the dragon's body began to fall over. Once again, floor and ceiling became walls, and walls became floor and ceiling. They had been running downhill, but now they were running on nearly level ground that curved off to the left. \n\nThat's good, at least, Ary thought. But all was not well; the scarab's ministrations had created hidden sinkholes in the dragon's penile tissue, and after falling into a couple of them and nearly twisting her ankle, she began to pick her way much more carefully. Why couldn't it have just bored through and been systematic about it? she grumbled mentally as she felt her foot try to sink out from under her again.\n\n``Ugh!'' she exclaimed.\n\n``What is it?''\n\n``It's wet!''\n\nOrd looked over Ary's shoulder at the pools of water standing here and there.\n\n``How strange,'' he said, holding up his hands helplessly. ``I can't imagine why there would be water there.''\n\nSomething zipped past the mages underfoot and then erupted out of the dragon's flesh in front of them. Having reduced the integrity of the dragon's penis just below the surface, it now set about eating away the meat that formed the dragon's cloaca. Before the mages could protest, it had begun noisily crunching into the scales, sounding a cross between a jackhammer and a tree shredder. Brilliant sunlight streamed into the cavern, and Ord and Ary shielded their eyes as they quickly slipped out and slid down the dragon's leg.\n\nCatching their breath, the two mages looked at each other and then turned slowly to see what had befallen Nance. Teleporting to a safe distance where they could observe his head, they peered out from behind some rubble.\n\n``He looks pretty dead to me,'' Ary said.\n\nOrd nodded and then sighed, shaking his head. ``It's a shame,'' he said. ``I had such high hopes for him.''\n\nAbruptly, he shrugged and then sauntered off, whistling atonally. Ary looked from the dragon's corpse to her master and back, hesitated, and then took off after Ord.\n\n``You don't have to feel bad,'' she said. ``You couldn't have known that he'd do all of this.''\n\nOrd looked at her quizzically. ``Who?'' he asked.\n\nAry opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed her mouth. They walked past the dragon back towards the library. Just as they passed its posterior, something gleamed in the light. The scarab glinted brightly and began trotting over at an alarming pace. Ary fumbled to cast a spell, but it was too late. The scarab leapt into the air, aiming for her chest. She yelped and held out her hands defensively. Something hard, heavy, and cold landed in her arms. Hardly daring to look, she peeked open her eyes and gasped. The scarab had returned to its disc form. A fleck of blood near where its mouth used to be was the only indication anything had ever been different about it. She wiped off the blood and then turned just in time to see Ord launch a firebolt at the dragon.\n\n``Ord, he's dead!'' Ary cried, whirling in case she was wrong.\n\n``So?'' Ord launched another spell.\n\nAry caught her breath and watched the fireball. It sailed towards the large, flaccid penis that had drooped out of the dead dragon's body and exploded on top of one of the spicules, which shivered half a moment and then launched itself off the dragon's flaccid, mangled penis. To Ary's amazement, the penis itself seemed not to be much-affected by the spells; only the spicules seemed to suffer.\n\n``Well, other than its resistance to magic, I wouldn't say it's all that impressive, now that we finally got a look at it,'' she said as Ord took yet another shot at it.\n\n``Good for target practice, though,'' her mentor replied tersely.\n\nAry watched him plink off another spicule, then shrugged, took aim, and launched an ice bolt. It hit its mark precisely, hitting the tip of one of the spicules and splitting it open. The spicule seemed to linger a second, and then it fell to the ground.\n\n``Show off,'' Ord muttered.\n\nAry frowned and looked at him, but a hint of mischief in his eyes told her he was kidding.\n\n``There's a style to plinking off your former pupil's penile spicules,'' she said. About halfway through saying it, though, she shook her head and laughed. ``Sorry, I can't say that with a straight face.''\n\nOrd gave a tight-lipped smile, a hint of sadness in his eyes. It wasn't the first time that Ary wondered whether his raving and madness wasn't all an act. Play the fool, she'd read somewhere. Was it always an act, or did he have his moments? Was his sadness even related to the corpse he was defiling? For all Ary knew, he could be thinking of what Ac would say to him on seeing her library destroyed!\n\nReturning from her thoughts, she looked up to see that Ord had cleared the rest of the visible spicules and walked off. She frowned thoughtfully, summoned a meteor to finish off the rest of the monstrous corpse, and then hastened to catch up to her master, who was sauntering through the library as though nothing had happened.\n\n``Ary,'' he said as soon as she caught up.\n\n``Master?''\n\n``Put that gold plate down; that belongs to Ac. Have you found that spell, yet?''\n\nAry opened her mouth incredulously, sighed, and then closed it.\n\n``No, Master Ord; I'll find it right away.''\n\n``And Ary...''\n\n``Yes?''\n\n``Put some clothes on. It's not right for a master to see his pupil without clothes.''\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "The Attacks End

(c) 2019 Jack Doe. All characters belong to their creator. Do not distribute without all copyright notices and disclaimers intact.

Writing this story does not constitute endorsement of the events depicted herein by the author. Readers are explicitly discouraged from engaging in any activities that are illegal or harmful to themselves or others.

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A great stone fell from the once-proud wall of the library, crashing to the ground. Smoke curled up from various parts of the building, and intermittent explosions shattered the stillness.

``When I find Nance, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind,'' Ord said, the look on his face angrier than Ary had ever seen him.

``Well, now's your chance,'' a voice seethed behind them.

The mages turned to see Ord's portly former apprentice glowering at them. The air around him had not quite finished restabilizing after he teleported in.

``You miserable, old fool!'' Nance shouted. ``Do you have any idea how much time and effort I have spent trying to end your miserable existence?! First, the gryphon, and now my beautiful qaessbon! They were genius and artistic perfection intertwined, and you destroyed them! You call yourself a mage, yet all you do is destroy all that is beautiful!''

``If you wouldn't sic your `art and genius' on us, we wouldn't have to!'' Ary snapped Before Ord could reply. ``What did we ever do to you?''

``Oh, you're one to talk!'' Steam came out of Nance's nose as his body shook with anger. ``It just goes to show what an idiot Ord is, dropping me for a worthless girl!''

``That girl has more work ethic and raw potential than you ever did or ever will,'' Ord interjected, holding his hand up to silence his current pupil. ``And, what's more important, she would never destroy the priceless knowledge that your abominations have! You have been reckless, Nance, just as I knew you would be. You have defied every magical treaty set in place for millennia, and you flaunt it! That is why I refused to teach you anymore. Your knowledge makes you dangerous, but your arrogance and narcissism make it far worse!''

Nance scoffed. ``Dangerous? Psh, you haven't seen the beginning of my power!''

With that, he hurled a fireball at Ary. Unimpressed, she held up her arm and absorbed the entire bolt with a fire ward. With her other hand, she sent a hundred snaking tongues of lightning towards the rebel mage. He yelled in pain as the energy hit him, making his hair stand on end.

``Stop, Ary,'' Ord said firmly. ``Defend yourself if you must, but we will not be the aggressors here.''

``You miserable coward!'' Nance snapped, telekinetically hurling a stone from the damaged wall at his former master.

A split-second before the rock would have hit him, Ord disappeared and appeared on the other side of Ary.

``Oh, coward, am I?'' he asked ironically. ``Last I checked, Ary and I have fought two of your abominations while you hid in your tower, far from any danger. Who is the real coward?''

Rather than answering, Nance balled his fists, and ice bolts shot out from his body in all directions. Ord and Ary quickly cast armor spells to deflect the damage, and then Ord pointed directly at Nance and uttered something. Not about to give up, Nance tried to hurl a fireball at Ord, but nothing happened. He scowled, looked at his hand in confusion, tried again, and then stood, seething.

``Aww, is the poor, angry mage impotent?'' Ary taunted. ``No wonder you have so much penis envy! I bet you can never get it up!''

``Augh!'' Nance shouted, enraged.

Looking around, he grabbed a rock and rushed her, trying to bash her skull in with it. She easily teleported behind him and gave him a good kick in the ass, sending him sprawling. He leapt back up, whirled, and glared at them both with wrath in his eyes.

``We can do this all day,'' Ord said calmly. ``Frankly, it is no effort at all to prevent you from harming us; your poorly wrought manifestations at least put up some kind of fight that wasn't laughably inept. I should turn you over to the Mage Council immediately. But, as I am your former master and feel some degree of concern for you - despite your repeated attempts on my life - I will make you a deal: go away, never threaten me or my apprentices again, and I will spare you the public humiliation of being stripped of your powers. Or, we can keep up this farce until we've beaten you into submission and then take you, bound in chains and gagged, before the Mage Council. The choice is yours, but frankly, after the destruction you've caused to Ac's library and the hundreds of priceless tomes of knowledge you've ruined, I'm leaning towards vanquishing you myself.''

Nance glowered, his lip curled into a sneer as he glared from master to apprentice and back. He muttered something under his breath.

Then a cruel smile twisted over his face.

``You fools,'' he said, letting out a guttural, menacing laugh. ``Do you think your spells can hold back my power? Do you think that I'll go along like a docile, ball-less gelding?''

Before the mages' eyes, he began to grow, bands of light slashing across his torso as his skin thickened, his limbs elongated and began to bulk up, and his face stretched out sharply. Horns sprung from his head, and his leathery hide took on a distinctly armored pattern. He let out a fearsome shout as wings erupted from his shoulder blades. His feet grew, and long, sharp claws sprouted from his fingers.

``No,'' he snapped as pain wracked his body, doubling him over for a moment. Through gritted, growing teeth, he snarled, ``I think it's time you saw the real me.''

``Oh, great, he's turning into a dragon,'' Ary said, unimpressed despite the fact that Nance now towered over her, twice as tall as she was, and was still growing. ``Let's just wait until his gigantic dick pops out, then we'll cut it off, and he'll be dead. Is that about what we've learned so far?''

An ear-shattering screech erupted from the dragon as he doubled in size. His wings, once flesh-colored, turned dark red and then purple. Long, black claws extended from the tips and ribs of his wings, and sharp protrusions extended from his knees and hips. A long, muscled tail erupted from his back, shot across to the fountain, and knocked the upper levels to the ground as even more horns sprouted from his head, curled like a ram's, and then curled back forward like snakes coiled to strike. His eyes sank into his head and turned golden yellow, with reptilian slits for pupils. A fiery red-orange appeared on his back and spread outward, covering his shoulders, his back, and the tops of his legs, arms, and tail, while his underside turned cream-white, punctuated by glowing orange markings, almost seeming like gaps in his armor through which his burning core could be seen.

During all of this, Ord and Ary had spread out and began applying numerous spells to themselves and to each other. But now as the ground quit shaking, the flashes of light died down and eventually stopped, and the dust settled, they both turned to face Nance's latest horror: himself. As he raised his upper body to stand upright, his height doubled once more, and as he unfolded his wings, he must have stood fifty feet tall or more.

``My, what a lovely specimen!'' Ord said, forgetting himself. ``Why, it looks almost like the real thing. But, of course, that's preposterous; true greater winged dragons have not been in existence for millennia!''

``Which means we should kill it, right?'' Ary asked.

Ord snapped back into reality. ``Oh, um, yes. Quite right. So, uh, where's his dick?''

Deep, rumbling laughter made ripples in the water that spilled out of the fountain as the dragon spread his wings.

``You think I'm going to make the same mistake twice?'' Nance asked in a deep, deafening, demonic voice.

``Well...'' Ary said, thinking back.

``No, my penis may be magnificent - and, of course, it is - but the two of you will never be so blessed as to gaze upon its grandeur. No, it will stay safely tucked inside my body. You cannot appreciate its beauty any more than you can comprehend my genius, and for those sins, I will kill you both!''

``Wrong, Nance,'' Ord replied, glancing at Ary, who gave a faint nod, ``This little freak show you've put on is all the evidence any mage needs to condemn you. Surrender now, and despite everything you?ve done, I will still plead on your behalf for clemency. Perhaps they will let you keep your life. Your magic, however, is surely forfeit.

``ENOUGH!'' the dragon boomed, whipping his tail around his backside, hitting Ary - who had been preparing a spell behind him - and knocking her to the ground. ``You insolent little thorn in my side!'' he shrieked, ``If it weren't for you, my miserable former master would be dead. So, die!''

He flicked his tail up and brought it down hard where Ary had been lying, but she rolled out of the way and stayed close to the ground to avoid the flailing appendage.

Ord fired an ice bolt at the dragon, but it melted on hitting his skin, turned to steam, and vanished. The old mage followed up with a lightning bolt, but it merely circled around the dragon and dissipated harmlessly. In fact, none of the mage's attacks seemed to even faze the dragon.

``Hold still and take what's coming to you!'' Nance roared, awkwardly turning his body to face her, his great, bulky legs proving more cumbersome and unwieldy to move than he had once thought.

As Nance worked to make his new body move the way he wanted it to, Ary called down a meteor upon the dragon, channeled it long enough to hit its mark, and then teleported to safety at the last second as the ball of fire and rock slammed down on the dragon's head.

An explosion of fireball-propelled rubble shook the walls of the library as shrapnel rained down upon the courtyard. Ord teleported a split-second ahead of it, manifesting next to Ary in relative safety. They looked out the window to see the sky darken from all the dust and wind that almost completely obscured their sight. But like a shadow in the whirlwind, they saw a dragon's silhouette draw back its lips in a sneer.

``Get down!'' Ary cried, knocking her master to the ground as both of them hid behind the wall, awaiting the infernal fireball they expected as retaliation.

But it didn't come.

After a moment, they peeked up from behind the rubble to see the dust clearing and Nance with a very determined expression on his face. He let out a series of coughs, grunts, and belches, but nothing else seemed to happen.

As they ducked back down, Ary bit her lip and then began to snicker. Ord gave her a dirty look.

``What?'' she asked, ``Isn't it obvious? He doesn't know how to breathe fire!''

``So, it's a stalemate, then: Nance can't hurt us, but we can't hurt him, either.''

``Oh, come on! It's obviously his dick, isn't it? It's always his dick! Like I said, we go cut it off, and - ``

``But he's also said he's not going to bring it out, and that is actually a good strategy on his part,'' Ord replied. In response to the shocked expression Ary gave him, he shrugged and grinned. ``What, it was bound to happen at some point! Even random chance has him getting one thing right!''

``Laugh it up, you two!'' a voice bellowed.

The mages peeked up over the rubble once more. Nance's eyes narrowed as he saw them, and then he rushed forward to try to snatch them up with his claws. They leapt out of the way just in time as his fist slammed into the building, knocking down more of the crumbling masonry.

``I'd like to see you practice being a dragon when your tower's only a hundred feet from the next one!'' the dragon snapped. ``How was I supposed to know how to blow fireballs?''

``Well, duh,'' Ary retorted, ``You just don't! It's illegal for a reason!''

``Foolish laws made by nearsighted men who lack the imagination and mental fortitude to harness real power!''

``Oh, and I see you?ve really harnessed it well,'' Ord said, teleporting as the dragon head-butted a nearby wall. ``You've turned yourself into one of the most lethal beings of all time, and yet the best you can do is use your head as a battering ram! Well,'' he conceded, ``At least you're using your head at all...''

``Ooh, burn!'' Ary laughed. ``You feel that, Nance? Looks like Ord burned you more than you burned us, and you're a freaking dragon! You call us cowards when you're the one hiding in your tower and sending your goons to kill us, and we call you dragon when we're the ones doing the burning! Is there anything you can do right?''

``That's it!'' Nance screamed, moving his dragon claws into summoning position, ``I may not be able to breathe fire, but I'll hit you with a fireball anyway!''

There was a brief pause followed by an awkward, expectant moment devoid of fireballs.

Nance growled, tried to snap his claws, and then began muttering to himself.

``You should let him actually cast spells,'' Ary said, grinning. ``I bet it'd be hilarious to watch!''

``Oh, the spell wore off about ten minutes ago,'' Ord chuckled. ``He just fails to realize that the magic fields flow differently in this body than in his human one. Of course, I?m not going to be the one to tell him.''

``So, what do we do? I don't really want to see any more of the library destroyed, do you?'' Ary asked anxiously.

Ord shook his head and then looked thoughtful. ``I think you're probably onto something about his penis. What he's done is a bit of a black art, but I have done a little bit of study on it. If my guess is right, you'll need to climb up inside his cloaca and channel magic straight into his malehood to do any kind of harm to him.''

``Wait, why do I have to climb up into his cloaca?'' Ary protested. ``You're the one who knows what to do!''

``And I'm an old man, not fit for running, jumping, and clawing my way up into a dragon's body,'' Ord replied sagely. ``Besides, you're the apprentice.''

Ary shriveled her nose. Crawling up inside dragons' bodies was not at the top of her bucket list.

``Oh, and you'll need something to hold his penis...erm...still,'' Ord added.

Ary frowned. ``What do you mean?''

``Well, he has a cloaca, which means that if he were to decide to get rid of you, he'd just turn his penis inside-out, and you'd fall out of him. So, you'll need a way to keep him from getting erect.''

Ary rolled her eyes. ``Should I start whispering stories about his grandmother's sex-parts or something?''

``I was thinking something a little more...potent,'' Ord replied. ``Or rather, impotent.''

``Master, surely you don't know a spell that specific?'' Ary asked in disbelief.

Ord frowned in mock indignation. ``I'll have you know that I know a great many specific spells for all occasions, you little upstart! That is why I am the master and you are the apprentice.''

``All right, all right, rub it in, then. How do I cast it?''

Ord whispered the words in her ear, carefully clasping his hands behind his back to prevent it from being cast at their utterance. Ary nodded comprehension, her lips forming the words silently.

``I don't know how much magic it will take to overwhelm him,'' Ord said, ``But to be on the safe side, it would help if I were able to direct magic at him, as well. For that, we need a channeling lens.''

Ary pursed her lips. ``I don't think I've ever seen one,'' she said. ``Do you have one?''

Ord shook his head. ``No, but I saw one on the lower level on one of the bookcases. I'm sure it's covered in rubble now, but if we can get to it, you can take it with you into Nance's cloaca, aim it where his glans would be, and then I can blast it while keeping him distracted from a safe distance away.''

A roar from Nance got their attention.

``Speaking of safe distance,'' Ord said, teleporting out of sight.

Ary followed, and both were transported deep into the library on the lower level. Here, the place was relatively unscathed as yet, far enough away from the courtyard wall to be protected from damage. Each of them summoned a glowing orb and began hastily looking for something lens-shaped. Bookcase by bookcase, shelf by shelf, they scoured the place for the channeling lens, but without any luck. As they split up, Ary followed her set of bookcases back to where they'd fought the qaessbon, shuddering at the thought of its cruel-looking claws and fearsome face as it lunged at her. A fallen bookcase made mental images flash into her mind as the creature tried to kill her. The crunch of broken glass underfoot brought her back to reality with a gasp. Looking down, she squatted, moved a book aside, and unearthed a cracked, circular, convex lens about the size of saucer whose iridescent glass traced out strange runes on deformed, non-Euclidean shapes in all manner of muted colors.

``Master Ord!'' she called, holding up the cracked glass, ``Is this it?''

Her mentor appeared beside her, took the glass, and cursed under his breath.

``Alas, it's no good,'' he said. ``Yes, this was it, but with it broken, we cannot use it.''

``But it's only the one edge that's chipped off,'' Ary protested. ``Why can't we use it?''

``Magical fields at the boundary of the crack will be unpredictable,'' Ord said, shaking his head. ``If I were to fire magic at it, it might shoot at you or back out at me. No, it's too great a risk.''

``But can't we polish it or something?'' Ary persisted.

She immediately regretted asking as Ord launched off into a ramble about the intricacies of magical fields, the various lens-grinding techniques, and the qualities of different types of magical polish, punctuated by random comments involving food, cats, or cats as food. Ary knew better than to interrupt, but years of studying under him had taught her that she could safely sneak away while he went off on his tangents, talking more to himself than to her. She just hoped that the dragon wouldn't come crashing through while Ord was still going.

Looking around, she glimpsed something golden and shiny sticking out from beside another fallen bookcase. Curious, she carefully picked her way over to it, grimaced a bit as she put her shoulder into moving the bookcase that pinned it beneath a book, and then pulled the book out. Below it was a plain, circular disc that appeared to be made of pure gold. Though it was only the size of a dinner plate, it seemed to weigh twenty pounds, and she grunted as she lifted it up for a better look. It was completely unmarked, and her yellow reflection looked back at her as though she was holding a very expensive, off-color mirror. While it was pretty, she didn't think it served much functional purpose, but as she started to put it down, she caught sight of the book she'd moved to free it. On its cover was what she believed to be a visual depiction of the disc she was holding. That such an unassuming artifact warranted its own book piqued her curiosity despite her peril once Nance figured out where she was, and she propped the golden plate against the bookcase, took up the book, and flipped through the pages. Her eyes widened, and a grin came over her face. She dropped the book, heaved up the heavy disc, and went back to Ord with as much speed as she could muster.

``Master Ord!'' she cried, interrupting a particularly detailed accounting of the flavor of Siamese versus Persian.

``Now, my apprentice, you know better than to - ``

``It's urgent!''

``Be that as it may - ``

Ary held up the golden plate. Ord's eyes flashed. He glanced at her, stroked his beard, and nodded.

``You know what to do with it?'' he asked.

Ary nodded. ``Take it up into Nance's cloaca and then - ``

``Zap it with a lightning bolt.''

Ary cocked her head. ``Not a fireball? The book said - ``

``The book doesn't know what it's talking about. Trust me, my child: a lightning bolt is the way to go. Once you've done that, stand back and make space for me to join you, and then send me a mental image of the space.'' He grimaced. ``I did not relish the idea of hanging about in a dragon's dong today.''

Ary rolled her eyes. At least he could just teleport. She was the one who would have to climb up inside, carrying that heavy plate with her.

``All right, I'll get him into position and distract him. You teleport underneath him and climb up inside. Once you're inside, cast the impotency spell first thing,'' said Ord.

Ary nodded, and the two teleported back to their hiding spot just inside the crumbling walls. Nance had not made much progress while they'd been away. Still seething, he'd resorted to picking up rocks and throwing them petulantly at the edifice with varying degrees of success; dragons aren't exactly known for their upper body strength, after all. The mages peered out, and Ord quickly found a mound of rubble tall enough for Ary to use as a makeshift ladder and narrow enough for Nance to straddle.

``There,'' he said, pointing it out. ``As soon as he's in position, go right there.''

The apprentice mage made a face but nodded as Ord called out to Nance, ``Are you going to stand there hurling rocks feebly all day, or are you going to finish what you started? Just like you, always starting something and then failing to follow through!''

The dragon whirled to face the speaker, snarled, and lunged forward, swiping with his claws towards Ord. But the dragon's arms were shorter than he imagined, and he didn't even reach the wall, let alone smash through it enough to be able to hit the mage. Ord glanced down, grimaced, and quickly trotted about ten steps to his left, hesitated, and then moved over another five steps.

``Come on, then!'' the mage taunted, pelting the dragon with a weak firebolt. ``Is that all you've got?''

``Fool!'' Nance snapped, lunging forward. ``What kind of imbecile taunts a bear?''

``Oh,'' Ord replied, ``The kind who knows that the bear has no teeth, no claws, and has not mastered the art of walking on four legs, let alone two.''

``Awfully cocky, coming from you!'' Nance retorted, lunging again and getting a face-full of wall for his troubles as Ord stepped out of reach just in time.

``Speaking of cocks,'' he said, ``Are you ready to end this poorly conceived dick-measuring contest? You know you cannot win this, don't you?''

``Ha! My malehood is ten the size of your whole body and at least five times your girth! In a dick-measuring contest, I beat you hands-down!''

``Is that so?'' Ord asked, giving a faint nod to Ary, who had teleported between the dragon's legs atop the rubble-heap.

``Of course it's so!''

``I believe you are lying,'' Ord said, grinning sweetly.

Ary reached up, grasped the folds of the dragon's cloaca, and heaved herself upward. The dragon appeared not to notice.

``I think that unless you prove it, you're nothing but bluster!'' Ord continued.

``Ha! A pathetic attempt to try to get me to show you my malehood. No, you don't deserve to bask in its glory - and it is, of course, a thing to behold! - but you two are swine, and I shall not cast my pearls before you. How could you possibly appreciate the magnificence of such a sublime member?''

Ary gasped and grunted, pulling herself up inch-by-inch and using her elbows on the slippery insides of the dragon's cloaca to hold herself in position while she gained a new handhold. All the while, Nance continued heaping praise on his penis to the point that she couldn't help but roll her eyes. Sheesh, a penis is a penis, she thought.

Reaching up, she was surprised to grasp something hard, almost bony. She looked up to see a sharp spike growing out of the dragon's insides. But, she was losing her grip on the cloaca's slippery insides, and she didn't waste time contemplating why this strange three-foot-long spike was here; she grabbed it and used it to hoist herself up until she could straddle it. Looking up, she saw more of the strange spikes sticking out and growing much closer together. She was grateful for this; with much less effort, she was able to use them almost like stairs as the cavern above her curved forward, flattening out and becoming horizontal. Panting from exertion, she became aware of a musky smell and oppressive humidity and heat inside the dragon's body. Shriveling her nose, she took a few deep breaths to get herself over the initial shock of the stench and muttered the impotence spell. A dull, dusky blue light appeared on all surfaces of the fleshy cavern and then dimmed.

Okay, I cast the spell and have found some level ground, she said telepathically to Ord.

Excellent. I'll be in shortly.

``Your penis is about the only thing you have going for you, you pathetic weasel!'' Ord snapped at Nance. ``I think the only reason you're not showing your dick is you haven't figured out how to do it!''

``You impudent waste of magical energy!'' Nance bellowed. ``If you want to see my penis so much, then fine! Be dazzled by its splendor, but don't come crying to me when the sight is too much to behold!''

Abruptly, the whole cavern heaved and began to move. Ary cried out and wrapped her arms around the nearest spike as the floor shifted unpredictably under her, and the spikes shuffled around dangerously, each of them creating sweeping arcs front-to-back and side-to-side. Ary kicked off the floor and quickly wrapped her legs around the spike, too, just as another spike leaned over and would have sliced a deep gouge into her calf if she hadn't.

What's going on?! His penis is moving all over!

My mistake; I seem to have perturbed him a bit. Go ahead and fire up the scarab. I'll join you in a moment.

I can't right now; the ground is moving too much below me.

I'll see what I can do.

``What is happening?'' Nance growled, frustrated as he tried to figure out which muscles to flex to evert his penis, unaware of the spell Ary had cast.

``Just as I thought,'' Ord said, shaking his head. ``This is what you've always done: come up with a half-baked scheme, failing to consider all the ramifications, and made a colossal mess as a result. Well, I'm not cleaning up your messes again, Nance. I have tried to be fair, to give you far more chances than you deserve, but you're like a rabid dog: you go out of your way to hurt others, oblivious to how much harm you cause not only to them but to yourself as well. It is time I put you out of your misery. Goodbye, Nance.''

With that, he disappeared. The dragon looked around but didn't see anyone. He was alone.

``Ord, you coward! Come back and fight me!'' he roared, slamming his fist into the wall, sending a big section of it tumbling to the ground. ``Where are you?''

Meanwhile, Ary had put the plate on the hot, squishy ground back towards the back of the cavern, where the dragon's glans would be if it were everted and where the spikes weren't as close together. Taking a step back and bracing herself against one of the spines, she fired a lightning bolt at the plate. The electricity struck it, bounced off, and then crackled in a halo around it before disappearing entirely.

Ary waited breathlessly, but nothing happened. Frowning, she started to fire another lightning bolt at it, but then movement caught her eye. It was subtle at first, but then definite: the bottom of the plate was slowly growing, expanding, and becoming dome-shaped. Meanwhile, little appendages seemed to poke out the sides of the plate, growing sideways, and then becoming jointed, bending, and clawing furiously in the air. The front edge of the plate, now sloping backwards and downwards towards the bottom of the upside-down dome, seemed to grow eyes that alternately glared at her and looked piteously at her for help.

Ary shuddered. She knew it was called a scarab for a reason, but she hadn't imagined it would be an actual ball-sized bug made of metal! But as the ground below her gave a heave, she knew that her recently awakened bug was not going to be very effective if it couldn't get to its feet. Swallowing hard and fighting back the urge to leave it there, she took a few cautious steps forward, carefully avoided the scrabbling legs, and flipped the scarab over before leaping backwards, shuddering in disgust.

``It won't hurt you,'' Ord said as he teleported in behind her.

Ary jumped in surprise. ``Don't scare me like that!''

Ord ignored her and looked at the bug, which was looking over its shoulder at them - or it would be, if it had shoulders - instead, it was doing a pretty good approximation of it and wearing an expression of beleaguered sense of duty.

``It wants you to tell it what to do,'' Ord said. ``Since you summoned it, it will obey you until its task is complete.''

Doing her best to look authoritative, Ary held out her finger and pointed at the far wall of the dragon's inverted penis. ``Attack that,'' she said.

The bug turned to follow the direction of her finger, saw the far wall, gave the equivalent of a shrug, and began walking on six needle-sharp legs towards where Ary had pointed.

``Let's give it a kick in the butt,'' Ord said. ``We haven't got all day.''

With that, he fired another bolt of lightning at the beetle. The reaction this time was instantaneous. The creature's face grew fearsome, and its legs began to secrete green droplets. Before the mages' eyes, the droplets began to hiss and sizzle, boring tiny holes into the penile floor. But more alarming than that was the creature's speed. While it had started at a slow amble, now it suddenly moved with zeal, charging into the far end of the dragon's penis, sprouting mighty mandibles, and ripping and cutting into the thick, spongy flesh.

``That's it!'' Ord said triumphantly. ``Let's hit it again!''

Both of them now fired lightning bolts at the scarab. Each bolt made it ooze more corrosive green liquid out of its feet and move with greater ferocity, now using its front legs to dig and cut into the slippery, spongy flesh.

Seething with rage at having lost sight of his former master, Nance weighed his options. He didn't know where Ord was, but he felt fairly sure the mage was not foolish enough to go back to his home. Where would he have gone, then?

``Damn it!'' he screamed, punching the wall again.

He winced - such acts were not supposed to make his hands hurt - but as he contemplated his lack of desirable qualities in this body, a growing sense of discomfort began to grow in his nether regions. It started out as a mild tickling, but a particularly noticeable prickling feeling led to a general itchiness in his groin. He grimaced and moved his legs together, not certain where the itching was coming from but acutely aware that it was getting worse - and fast! Yet squeezing his legs together wasn't helping him at all; the itch persisted relentlessly and seemed to get worse as if to spite his efforts.

``Damn it,'' he said again, spreading his legs and trying to look between them at where his cloaca was. Whatever the itching was, he felt certain it was coming from somewhere inside it. ``Of all the creatures of the world I could have chosen, I picked the one with a venereal disease!'' he snapped. ``Damn it, that itches!''

The walls, floor, and particularly the spikes around the mages moved almost constantly. The floor churned beneath their feet, and they both clung to the spikes for dear life. The scarab, with its very pointed legs whose acid had eaten away pits in the floor almost deep enough as to make it rest on its belly, didn't seem to mind the rocking, rolling motion. It continued taking bite after bite out of the wall in front of it, seemingly oblivious to the blood that sprayed it in the face or dripped into its acid-pools.

A bright blue flash momentarily blinded the mages, and an ice-bolt struck the scarab. Ord looked at Ary, who gave a sheepish grin.

``Sorry, master,'' she said, ``The floor moving so much has me a little distracted.''

``I know you're tired, but you've got to pay attention!'' Ord replied, ``What if that had turned the scarab on us?''

They both realized nervously that the quiet hissing of the acid eating away at the dragon's penis had stopped. They slowly turned to look at the scarab and gasped. What had once been green, oily acid exuding from the scarab's feet was now blue ice crystals. Instead of forming pools that ate away at the striated tissue, each drop from the scarab's feet made the crystals grow, creating fractals of needle-sharp barbs that stuck out in every direction, turned on each other, crisscrossed, and began driving and expanding into the dragon's penile matter.

``Hmm, interesting.'' Ord said, completely forgetting his original train of thought.

He cocked his head and fired his own ice bolt at the scarab. Its forelegs grew large ice-claws that raked into the thick flesh, drawing deep, bleeding gouges in the increasingly porous flesh.

Nance's eyes bulged, and his draconic mouth dropped open.

``O-ow!'' he cried, dropping to his knees.

What had once been furious itching now felt like a million needles being stabbed into his... His...

His eyes narrowed, and he spat out between clenched teeth, ``I know where you are, you rotten man! And I'm going to put an end to you once and for all! You should have known better than to stray into the belly of the beast!''

Finding a fallen timber, he reached down and - with some difficulty due to his poor dexterity - positioned it below himself. He dropped it several times in the process but finally managed to point it straight at his cloaca.

``Time to die, Ord!'' he snapped, driving the splintered wood into himself.

``Look out, Master Ord!'' Ary cried as a beam of wood about a foot in diameter plunged towards them.

The old mage leapt backward, grabbing onto another spike just inches from the beam. Not wasting a minute, he crawled backwards on his hands, butt, and feet, until he felt another spike behind him.

``Thank goodness for these spicules!'' he said, panting.

``Spicules?''

``These spikes - they're kind of a lock-and-key mechanism, making sure that only dragons with similar patterns of them can breed.''

The beam retreated, leaving a sprinkling of splinters embedded in the tender flesh, and then came again, closing half the distance between its previous position and Ord.

``We have to finish this, and quickly,'' he said, scurrying back even further, ``or he's going to incapacitate us before we can finish him off.''

Not thinking, he fired over his head at the scarab, engulfing it in a fireball. Almost instantly, the smell of burning flesh assaulted their nostrils. The mages turned and looked to see the ice vaporizing and the penile skin under the scarab's feet charring as if being cooked by a torch. The scarab's feet glowed blue-hot, and as it continued burrowing through the dragon's penis, the flow of blood stopped entirely, sealed in by countless cauterized scratches.

Ord and Ary exchanged glances, and despite their predicament, grins cracked on their faces.

``Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'' Ary asked.

``I'll do fire again,'' Ord said. ``On the count of three.''

Nance panted, sweat beading on his forehead as the sensation in his abdomen changed from itching to pricking to searing.

``I'm a fucking dragon!'' he protested. ``Fire shouldn't hurt me!''

But regardless of what should or shouldn't happen, he pulled back on the beam, trying to pull it out. But it had gone in so deep that it caught on some of the barbs. They grabbed it, embedded in the wood, and locked it in tightly. Too pained to stand, Nance fell over on his side, spread his legs, and tried to work a finger up into his cloaca next to the beam to try to figure out why it was stuck. But his arms were awkwardly short, and the beam stretched his cloaca painfully tight; he couldn't get his finger in deep enough to see what was the matter.

Ord, Ary, and even the scarab fell over on their sides as the floor became the wall and the wall became the floor. Blood that had pooled on the floor now sloshed downward, splattering on the mages' faces and saturating their robes. The scarab had flipped over and was once again clawing at the air, desperately wanting to get back on its feet and back to work. Once she collected herself, Ary moved over shakily to put it upright.

The combination of fire from Ord and ice from Ary had made its legs particularly dangerous things that periodically fired flaming, steam jet-propelled lava balls every which way. Where they landed, they scorched and cauterized the flesh and slowly flattened out, spreading and cooking blotchy patches of flesh before vaporizing away, like water onto a hot skillet. Ary therefore moved very quickly, pausing for a volley of the dangerous projectiles to fire off and then leaping on the scarab, flipping it over, and leaping back just in time to avoid being singed.

``Most interesting,'' Ord said.

``My gosh! Ord, are you all right? You nearly landed on that spike!''

``Spicule.''

``Whatever.''

``Yes, I'm fine. I think maybe we should try something else, though,'' he said as a flaming lava-ball flew over his head, splattered on a spicule, and melted it into a nub.

``Fire and electricity?''

``Sure.''

Nance's eye twitched. Something was pressurizing inside of him. He gritted his teeth, feeling the beam trying to pull itself out and yanking excruciatingly on something inside his cloaca. It felt like it would rip him! Desperate to ease the pain, he grabbed the shaft and forced it deeper into himself, roaring in agony as the pressure increased even further. Something shifted, and a jet of blue flame shot out of his backside, burning the wooden beam and setting it alight. Shocked, Nance began striking it with his hands and then immediately regretted it: each blow he delivered yanked on his innards. He felt something hot and warm trickle out of him, hugging the singed wood. Unable to see, he reached down and felt of the wet spot. Bringing his claws to his face, he gasped on seeing blood.

``Let's not do that again,'' said Ord.

``Agreed.''

The two mages were now bald and naked; the flaming tornado the scarab unleashed when they hit it with fire and lightning had burned off all the hair and clothes on their bodies, and though their skin was intact and shockingly unscathed, they decided it was best not to press their luck. The blazing whirlwind had also burned up a large chunk of the wood; what remained was smoldering. Many of the spicules had likewise been burnt to crisps, and the entirety of the dragon's inverted penis was charred like a steak being seared.

``Maybe we should just leave it alone?'' Ary suggested. ``It seems to be making good progress digging through Nance's internals?''

``Now where would the fun in that be?'' Ord asked. ``Electricity and ice. Come on. It's the only one we haven't tried, yet.''

``Really, Master Ord, I don't think we should - ``

``Come on, come on, you little whippersnapper! What are you, chicken?''

Not about to take that kind of insult lying down, Ary retorted, ``Fine, I get electricity.''

Nance lay on his side, his breathing labored. The pain in his abdomen was getting worse. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut, stabbed, and then had salt rubbed in the wound, a burning, stinging feeling that took his breath away. Periodically, a particularly bad pang would wrack his body, making his legs kick out involuntarily and his tail whip like a flail, knocking yet another hole in the crumbling library wall.

It isn't supposed to be like this, he thought to himself. I'm supposed to kill that idiot and his apprentice and then destroy that damn mage council so that I can practice magic the way I see fit. It was supposed to be so simple. Where did I go wrong?

A searing pain in his gut momentarily blocked out all thoughts. His mouth opened in a silent scream as sweat poured from his body. It felt like his dick had been bored through with an ice pick.

``That worked well,'' Ary said, standing with her hands on her hips.

A giant ice spear had shot out of the scarab's head and driven its way clean through the tip of Nance's penis. Blood trickled down around it, slowly thawing it and letting more blood follow in growing streams that carved spiral-shaped grooves in the ice.

``I was hoping for something a little more...corrosive,'' Ord remarked, his withered, wrinkled body faintly illuminated by the ice crystal.

``There's always just a plain lightning bolt,'' Ary suggested.

``Yes. Enough playing around; this has been a fun little experiment, but it really is high time we finished him off.''

``Agreed.''

They both began firing lightning bolt after lightning bolt at the scarab. Little drops of green acid began seeping from his feet, and then big drops, and then little streams, and then full-on sprays. Everywhere the acid struck, it began to hiss, smoke, and eat its way through the floor of the cavernous, inverted penis. Meanwhile, the scarab was clawing and biting manically, like a creature possessed, boring along what was left of the quickly-melting icicle and making a ragged hole in the dragon's penis. If he wanted to get hard now, he couldn't; the hole had grown so large that blood would shoot out his cloaca like an inverted fountain without the slightest hint of inflating his penis.

Now that he had a clean path, the scarab began to move, taking bite after bite out of the nearly meter-thick flesh, eating ravenously and insatiably while its feet continued to dissolve through the dragon's meat like butter, leaving little spongy holes everywhere it went. As it moved away in search of fresh tissue to consume, Ord and Ary followed along behind, shooting the occasional lightning bolt at it for good measure.

``Now that we've got a clear opening through his dick, do you think we can finally start attacking him directly? Will it work?'' Ary asked.

Ord shrugged. ``No idea,'' he replied. ``You can give it a try, if you want.''

Ary nodded, stepped up into the hole in the dragon's penis, and took aim at what looked like the dragon's intestines. A fire bolt appeared, smacked against the flesh, and fizzled harmlessly.

``Ugh,'' the apprentice groaned. ``How do we kill this jerk?''

``It may be his testes protecting him,'' Ord said thoughtfully. ``You can see one of them just ahead there. Maybe take aim at it instead?''

Ary looked into the distance and saw something ellipsoid buried among the rest of the dragon's internal tissue. It was large, at least as tall as she was. She couldn't quite make out its color in the dim light, but it appeared to be mostly red with bluish tints here and there. Taking careful aim, she let loose another fire bolt. It hit home, and a slightly seared spot appeared on the ellipsoid shape, leaving the rest of the flesh intact.

``Bingo.''

The ground shifted suddenly and violently, throwing the mages into the air (the scarab had burrowed in enough as to not be affected). They landed again on the surface, the wind knocked out of them.

``I think that hurt,'' Ord said.

Ary nodded. ``The sooner we finish, the sooner we can get out of here,'' she said.

Ord nodded, and the two stood side-by-side, both aiming at the seared spot while the scarab continued to burrow through the dragon's flesh, cutting through bits of spongy matter like nougat, through striated parts like gristle, and through the rest like a laser through ice. Its sharp mandibles deftly snipped away at a piece of flesh, and then as they snipped away at another piece, its palps stuffed the previous piece into its mouth. It chewed noisily, and the sound it made indicated what kind of flesh it was consuming: squishing for spongy matter, nearly silent for striated matter, and quiet smacking for everything else. At that moment, it was making squishing sounds as it burrowed back towards the dragon's cloaca.

The sound of crunching and then of something falling caught Ary's attention just as Ord was about to count off. She turned and gasped to see the spicules toppling over one-by-one, leaving bleeding holes where they used to be. Amazed, she walked over to the nearest one and looked down: the scarab had crunched its way right through the hard, bony material like it was nothing.

``Remind me not to get on that thing's bad side,'' she said.

``You've fed it a whole lot today,'' Ord remarked thoughtfully. ``It ought to love you, and even if not out of a sense of loyalty, it'll be too full to eat you after it gets done here.''

``Gee, thanks.''

``On the count of three.''

Nance doubled over at feeling something akin to getting kicked in the nuts. He could not have known that the fire and lightning that had just struck his testicle had caused it to explode, spraying burning clumps of tubules into his intestines where they continued to smolder. He could not have known that the force of the explosion shoved his intestines out of the way, giving the mages perfect access to his other testicle, which was hidden behind the first one. Nor, indeed, could he have known that the burst of lighting hitting just after the fireball had shocked his remaining testicle into dysfunction, that he was now in grave danger.

What he did know was that he wanted to die. His plans thwarted, his body now stuck as this ungainly, clumsy form that couldn't even reach to scratch itself ``down there'', his spirit broken from the dull ache that seemed always to punctuate itself with excruciating agony at all of the worst possible times, he was ready for it to be over. He realized now that even if he could somehow extricate his mentor and replacement from his body, the damage they had done would surely be permanent. His malehood - his magnificent, beautiful malehood that he had never even seen - was ruined. What was the point in living now?

``There, I see it!'' Ary said. ``That's the other testicle, right? Then we can bring him down?''

``That should do it,'' Ord replied, nodding. ``Same as before, right?''

``Yeah.''

``Okay. One, two, three!''

They unleashed another volley. The fireball missed slightly, but to their surprise, the non-testicular flesh vaporized. The two mages looked at each other, and Ary grinned.

``Now?'' she asked.

``Now.''

They looked different directions and began blasting everything they had at whatever was handy. Ary fired another fireball at the remaining testicle. It erupted into flames. The fire found a pocket of fat protecting his gonads and engulfed it, wreathing his remaining testicle in fire. The heat made the liquids in it vaporize and expand. It ballooned, doubling in size and stretching. Veins and arteries that traced its surface spread apart and flattened out, looking as though they'd been flattened under a rolling pin.

It was at that moment that the scarab returned, poked its head out curiously, and then without warning, lunged for the oversized testicle.

``Duck!'' Ary cried, knocking Ord to the ground.

The testicle exploded spectacularly, catching fire, launching flaming tubule streamers over the mages to set fire to the top of the dragon's inverted penis, and releasing a concussive shockwave that leveled the closest spicules.

``Well,'' Ord said as they shakily got to their feet, ``At least we don't have to worry about impaling ourselves now.''

Somehow, Nance knew exactly what had happened just by feel. Shuddering, he realized that he was now, for the rest of his pitiful but mercifully short-lived life, a eunuch. But while he was sorely tempted to lie there and wait for his death, something inside of him urged him to his feet. Staggering, he wrenched the still-smoldering beam from his cloaca - it came out much more easily now, though he didn't know why - and made his way to the fountain. If he was going to die, he decided, he was taking those wretched mages with him! Peering into it, he breathed a sigh of relief; though he had damaged it, there was still plenty of water in it to do the deed. With great difficulty and pain, exacerbated by what felt like his intestines rupturing, he climbed into the fountain, spread his legs, and then reached down to find the lips of his cloaca. They were crusty under his fingers, and his touch on them made him hiss in pain. He spread them anyway, and then lowered himself into the water. It felt cool and soothing. For a moment, he forgot revenge and just relaxed, feeling the cooling water quenching his burning insides. And then, with a snarl of determination, he stretched his legs wider, plunging himself in as deep as he could go.

``Drown, you little vermin!'' he snarled.

``That's it, Ary!'' Ord said enthusiastically as they sent volley after volley into the huge cavern of the dragon's torso.

The scarab had continued its fervent trek, made all the more fervent by the occasional lightning bolt one of the mages sent at it to spur it on, and it had gnawed its way halfway around the circumference of the dragon's meat and then bored through spicule and spongy and striated flesh to reveal the rest of the dragon's body. The mages had lost no time incinerating the flesh around the scarab's opening to give themselves both a clear shot. Now, as fireballs exploded like flesh-flinging fireworks and lightning bolts coursed through the dragon's body, lighting pieces of it up in dazzling fractal displays, the scarab continued its work of hollowing out the floor, walls, and ceiling, chewing through strip after strip of flesh and making the ground sink beneath the mages, like a groundhog's burrows do to the ground above it.

Fat crackled, organs exploded, and burning tissue made a constant rain down on the mages, who quickly brushed off the smoldering flesh before it could burn their naked skin.

And then, at last, they saw it: the dragon's heart. Wrapped in his ribcage and his lungs, it glistened in the firelight and lightning like a beating ruby the size of a bus. An ice bolt shredded through the lungs, clearing a path. Ord took aim and launched a fireball at it. The fireball exploded, setting the lung fragments alight and burning them up like lint, but the heart continued to beat.

``Ary!'' the old mage called, ``Aim for the heart!''

Ice bolt preceded fireball, smacking into the enormous organ and driving itself like a knife through the muscular tissue. The fireball followed immediately thereafter, melting the ice bolt and cauterizing the wound.

Nance let out a silent groan, his eyes bulging as he clutched his chest. Only then, as he tried to gasp, did he realize that he had no lungs with which to do so. Panic gripped him, and he clutched his throat, desperate for air. His tail whipped around protectively, demolishing what was left of the fountain and letting the water rush out.

No! he thought desperately, my revenge!

Another volley of ice and fire ripped through the dragon's body. This time, the ice penetrated the ventricular wall, lodging in the muscle between ventricle and atrium. The heart continued to throb, rubbing up against the sharp edges of the bolt and widening the hole it had cut. The fireball exploded, vaporizing the ice. Blood began to pour out of the dragon's heart, raining down on the emptiness below. Two more volleys followed after in quick succession, piercing into the atrium and then penetrating all the way through the dragon's heart. The fireball sailed through the dragon's heart and exploded on his clavicle.

``Wait, wait!'' Ord said, holding his breath and listening intently.

Ary stopped casting and listened, too. Aside from the soft munching sounds the scarab made as it continued to strip-mine the dragon's penis, she heard nothing.

But then she heard it. It was a soft sound, almost like sighing. As she and Ord watched, they saw the dragon's body sag above them and then list to the side.

``We've got to get out of here!'' Ord cried.

Forgetting the scarab, the two scurried towards the dragon's cloaca. But as they did, the dragon's body began to fall over. Once again, floor and ceiling became walls, and walls became floor and ceiling. They had been running downhill, but now they were running on nearly level ground that curved off to the left.

That's good, at least, Ary thought. But all was not well; the scarab's ministrations had created hidden sinkholes in the dragon's penile tissue, and after falling into a couple of them and nearly twisting her ankle, she began to pick her way much more carefully. Why couldn't it have just bored through and been systematic about it? she grumbled mentally as she felt her foot try to sink out from under her again.

``Ugh!'' she exclaimed.

``What is it?''

``It's wet!''

Ord looked over Ary's shoulder at the pools of water standing here and there.

``How strange,'' he said, holding up his hands helplessly. ``I can't imagine why there would be water there.''

Something zipped past the mages underfoot and then erupted out of the dragon's flesh in front of them. Having reduced the integrity of the dragon's penis just below the surface, it now set about eating away the meat that formed the dragon's cloaca. Before the mages could protest, it had begun noisily crunching into the scales, sounding a cross between a jackhammer and a tree shredder. Brilliant sunlight streamed into the cavern, and Ord and Ary shielded their eyes as they quickly slipped out and slid down the dragon's leg.

Catching their breath, the two mages looked at each other and then turned slowly to see what had befallen Nance. Teleporting to a safe distance where they could observe his head, they peered out from behind some rubble.

``He looks pretty dead to me,'' Ary said.

Ord nodded and then sighed, shaking his head. ``It's a shame,'' he said. ``I had such high hopes for him.''

Abruptly, he shrugged and then sauntered off, whistling atonally. Ary looked from the dragon's corpse to her master and back, hesitated, and then took off after Ord.

``You don't have to feel bad,'' she said. ``You couldn't have known that he'd do all of this.''

Ord looked at her quizzically. ``Who?'' he asked.

Ary opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed her mouth. They walked past the dragon back towards the library. Just as they passed its posterior, something gleamed in the light. The scarab glinted brightly and began trotting over at an alarming pace. Ary fumbled to cast a spell, but it was too late. The scarab leapt into the air, aiming for her chest. She yelped and held out her hands defensively. Something hard, heavy, and cold landed in her arms. Hardly daring to look, she peeked open her eyes and gasped. The scarab had returned to its disc form. A fleck of blood near where its mouth used to be was the only indication anything had ever been different about it. She wiped off the blood and then turned just in time to see Ord launch a firebolt at the dragon.

``Ord, he's dead!'' Ary cried, whirling in case she was wrong.

``So?'' Ord launched another spell.

Ary caught her breath and watched the fireball. It sailed towards the large, flaccid penis that had drooped out of the dead dragon's body and exploded on top of one of the spicules, which shivered half a moment and then launched itself off the dragon's flaccid, mangled penis. To Ary's amazement, the penis itself seemed not to be much-affected by the spells; only the spicules seemed to suffer.

``Well, other than its resistance to magic, I wouldn't say it's all that impressive, now that we finally got a look at it,'' she said as Ord took yet another shot at it.

``Good for target practice, though,'' her mentor replied tersely.

Ary watched him plink off another spicule, then shrugged, took aim, and launched an ice bolt. It hit its mark precisely, hitting the tip of one of the spicules and splitting it open. The spicule seemed to linger a second, and then it fell to the ground.

``Show off,'' Ord muttered.

Ary frowned and looked at him, but a hint of mischief in his eyes told her he was kidding.

``There's a style to plinking off your former pupil's penile spicules,'' she said. About halfway through saying it, though, she shook her head and laughed. ``Sorry, I can't say that with a straight face.''

Ord gave a tight-lipped smile, a hint of sadness in his eyes. It wasn't the first time that Ary wondered whether his raving and madness wasn't all an act. Play the fool, she'd read somewhere. Was it always an act, or did he have his moments? Was his sadness even related to the corpse he was defiling? For all Ary knew, he could be thinking of what Ac would say to him on seeing her library destroyed!

Returning from her thoughts, she looked up to see that Ord had cleared the rest of the visible spicules and walked off. She frowned thoughtfully, summoned a meteor to finish off the rest of the monstrous corpse, and then hastened to catch up to her master, who was sauntering through the library as though nothing had happened.

``Ary,'' he said as soon as she caught up.

``Master?''

``Put that gold plate down; that belongs to Ac. Have you found that spell, yet?''

Ary opened her mouth incredulously, sighed, and then closed it.

``No, Master Ord; I'll find it right away.''

``And Ary...''

``Yes?''

``Put some clothes on. It's not right for a master to see his pupil without clothes.''

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