{
  "submission_id": "3804480",
  "keywords": [
    {
      "keyword_id": "524201",
      "keyword_name": "multiple stories",
      "contributed": "f",
      "submissions_count": "16"
    },
    {
      "keyword_id": "23577",
      "keyword_name": "stories",
      "contributed": "f",
      "submissions_count": "277"
    },
    {
      "keyword_id": "799049",
      "keyword_name": "varying content",
      "contributed": "f",
      "submissions_count": "14"
    },
    {
      "keyword_id": "799050",
      "keyword_name": "varying rating",
      "contributed": "f",
      "submissions_count": "14"
    }
  ],
  "hidden": "f",
  "scraps": "f",
  "favorite": "f",
  "favorites_count": "0",
  "create_datetime": "2026-01-31 21:25:02.726346+00",
  "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Jan 2026 22:25 CET",
  "last_file_update_datetime": "2026-01-31 21:23:02.316754+00",
  "last_file_update_datetime_usertime": "31 Jan 2026 22:23 CET",
  "username": "lolboy4",
  "user_id": "290142",
  "user_icon_file_name": "228043_lolboy4_icon.gif",
  "user_icon_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/large/228/228043_lolboy4_icon.gif",
  "user_icon_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/medium/228/228043_lolboy4_icon.gif",
  "user_icon_url_small": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/small/228/228043_lolboy4_icon.gif",
  "file_name": "5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
  "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5891/5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
  "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5891/5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
  "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5891/5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
  "files": [
    {
      "file_id": "5891944",
      "file_name": "5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
      "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5891/5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
      "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5891/5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
      "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5891/5891944_lolboy4_micro_stories_-_batch_8.txt",
      "mimetype": "text/plain",
      "submission_id": "3804480",
      "user_id": "290142",
      "submission_file_order": "0",
      "full_size_x": null,
      "full_size_y": null,
      "screen_size_x": null,
      "screen_size_y": null,
      "preview_size_x": null,
      "preview_size_y": null,
      "initial_file_md5": "6e06547842369fc2f62e2d20ebf0ae39",
      "full_file_md5": "6e06547842369fc2f62e2d20ebf0ae39",
      "large_file_md5": "",
      "small_file_md5": "",
      "thumbnail_md5": "",
      "deleted": "f",
      "create_datetime": "2026-01-31 21:23:02.316754+00",
      "create_datetime_usertime": "31 Jan 2026 22:23 CET"
    }
  ],
  "pools": [],
  "description": "A collection of five relatively short stories. Please check the individual summaries and themes to ensure they're things you're okay with reading.\n\n\n8-1: Got in the mood for Ridley having a bad time one day, and wrote up an idea I asked squirtlerocks07 for since I couldn't think of one myself. Even someone like Ridley needs to relax every now and then! Though he certainly ended up with a good way to show off how tough he is, huh?\n\n8-2: Figured I ought to actually write up the backstories of more of my characters - just the ones that'd be most interesting, though, so probably no Sni-tii or Conduit. I consider most of this story to be taking place in Wind Waker's wind temple, and that \"master wizzrobe\" being the miniboss that's there. It's always neat to think about the lives that monsters have, huh?\n\n8-3: Got the idea for this from a dream! Although I don't think the dream was actually much like this - for one thing, it was a treecko instead of a lizard. But anyway, this is pretty much what I would've done as a kid if we had a pool and I got left alone like that for long enough, though I obviously wouldn't have a spirit keeping me safe.\n\n8-4: A time traveling dinosaur just feels right, you know? Originally considered making him into a proper OC, but I don't think I'm going to. I imagine it shows from this story that I'm more interested in fantasy than scifi, though I do love me some solarpunk.\n\n8-5: My buddy Skylar got the idea for this, we talked about it for a while, and it ended up sounding hot enough that I really wanted to write it. I'm always down for fantasy-themed stuff, and I had fun making this despite doing so many characters at once. Ralis' secret is safe, just barely!",
  "description_bbcode_parsed": "<span style='word-wrap: break-word;'>A collection of five relatively short stories. Please check the individual summaries and themes to ensure they&#039;re things you&#039;re okay with reading.<br /><br /><br />8-1: Got in the mood for Ridley having a bad time one day, and wrote up an idea I asked squirtlerocks07 for since I couldn&#039;t think of one myself. Even someone like Ridley needs to relax every now and then! Though he certainly ended up with a good way to show off how tough he is, huh?<br /><br />8-2: Figured I ought to actually write up the backstories of more of my characters - just the ones that&#039;d be most interesting, though, so probably no Sni-tii or Conduit. I consider most of this story to be taking place in Wind Waker&#039;s wind temple, and that &quot;master wizzrobe&quot; being the miniboss that&#039;s there. It&#039;s always neat to think about the lives that monsters have, huh?<br /><br />8-3: Got the idea for this from a dream! Although I don&#039;t think the dream was actually much like this - for one thing, it was a treecko instead of a lizard. But anyway, this is pretty much what I would&#039;ve done as a kid if we had a pool and I got left alone like that for long enough, though I obviously wouldn&#039;t have a spirit keeping me safe.<br /><br />8-4: A time traveling dinosaur just feels right, you know? Originally considered making him into a proper OC, but I don&#039;t think I&#039;m going to. I imagine it shows from this story that I&#039;m more interested in fantasy than scifi, though I do love me some solarpunk.<br /><br />8-5: My buddy Skylar got the idea for this, we talked about it for a while, and it ended up sounding hot enough that I really wanted to write it. I&#039;m always down for fantasy-themed stuff, and I had fun making this despite doing so many characters at once. Ralis&#039; secret is safe, just barely!</span>",
  "writing": "-----------------------------------------------\nSummary: Ridley is captured while exploring underwater, though manages to escape\nThemes (Mature): Breath holding, drowning\nBased on an idea from squirtlerocks07\n-----------------------------------------------\nThe seas of an unnamed planet held a strange visitor today: A purple creature that resembled an anthro dragon, who was visiting from another planet and currently swimming under several dozen feet of water. The dragon-like being, Ridley, had found himself overworked for some time, and after he was finally done with what he'd been doing - or offloaded it onto one of the space pirates that worked for him - he figured even someone like him could do with some relaxation. He'd gone alone to that planet, and with no one around to bother him, he could finally just not worry about anything for a while. Even his lungs were still comfortable close to 10 minutes into his dive, though he had to remind himself not to push himself; this trip wasn't about that.\n\nAfter another few minutes of swimming along the seabed, it abruptly changed. It dropped off to an underwater cliff, and as Ridley looked over its edge, he couldn't see the bottom. That HAD to have something interesting... As confident as he was in his abilities though, he knew it'd be stupid to go down there without a fresh breath. He jumped from the bottom to swim up, flapping his wings for extra speed, and in seconds he'd reached the surface, taking a calm breath as if he'd only been underwater a few seconds. Some deep breathing followed as he thought about what might be down there... Something valuable would certainly be nice, especially something like phazon. As much as he intended to relax, something like that was certainly always welcome. Once he was ready, he held his breath once again, diving back down and beginning to swim into the depths.\n\nIt was even deeper than he'd expected, surprisingly so. Even once he'd reached a depth where he could no longer see the surface, Ridley still couldn't see the bottom either, the cliff wall next to him being the only terrain visible in the dimming sunlight. The pressure wasn't an issue, and he continued swimming regardless, still determined to see what was at the bottom. Several more minutes passed, the surroundings growing darker and darker... Except for what seemed to be lights deeper down. Now beginning to get a bit confused, he adjusted course to swim for the one that seemed closest.\n\nGradually, he began to just barely make out the shape of something large, some distance away... His attention was briefly drawn from it as he noticed something small nearby had darted away at the sight of him. He hadn't gotten a clear look at it, but it looked sort of silver. There was no way that was something to worry about, there was no known sapient life on that planet... Ridley returned to swimming toward the big thing. Soon, he figured out what it was... Some kind of structure. He paused for a moment. Maybe he should've been more on guard...\n\nBut, by then, it was too late. \"Stop where you are!\" So focused on the building, he hadn't noticed he was being followed, and as he quickly turned to see who had spoken, he found that several dozen aquatic creatures were aiming weapons of some sort at him. Some were accompanied by small drones, which Ridley recognized as one of the ones that had happened across him before. Definitely law enforcement of some kind, and either he was trespassing or they knew who he was. He quickly got his answer as one spoke into what was likely a radio, and while he didn't understand most of what they said, they said his name. That meant they knew his reputation as well, and likely had something in mind for what to do with him.\n\nRidley observed the group and weighed his options. He could handle as lopsided a fight as this... But not underwater. His movements were nowhere near as practiced, his plasma breath wasn't going to work, and these creatures could almost certainly outswim him. This wasn't a fight he'd win. As much as it was going to hurt his ego, there was only one thing for it... His raised his hands in surrender. He'd figure something out at some point.\n\n\nSome vacation this had turned out to be. Ridley sat in a submerged prison cell, continuing to hold his breath - though with small air tanks given every now and then, and then required to be returned back out. These aquatic people knew what they were doing, his cell had an energy field in addition to a reinforced metal door. He could easily break the latter, but not the former, and it wasn't even a type he recognized. But he still wasn't giving up, and he constantly studied his surroundings, looking for any weaknesses whatsoever, no matter how small. After almost a couple hours of imprisonment, he noticed something that could be a chance: While the energy field trapping him was never lowered, the air tanks could move through, and each time they did, the field flickered the tiniest bit for just a moment. It seemed that it selectively allowing things through would weaken it... He prepared himself for another escape attempt, locking his gaze on the hatch each air tank would come in from and readying his tail...\n\nHe stayed like that for some time, watching for the moment his chance would come... The hatch opened again, and an instant later Ridley shot his tail forward, viciously stabbing its tip into the energy field just as it flickered. It became lodged partway in, the field's flickering continuing and rapidly becoming more intense, before it shorted out entirely! Grinning, he tore open the door as an alarm began to sound. It was time to teach those people why exactly almost everyone was terrified of him... Though he made sure to grab the air tank that had been dropped into the cell. Water wasn't exactly an opponent he could win against.\n\n\nDespite the situation, Ridley had managed to actually have some fun with his escape. Quite a few of the prison's guards swam away instead of even trying to fight him, and the ones that did didn't exactly last long against him. His eventual need for air hardly even occurred to him for a while, and he happily spent time tearing up parts of the prison just for the sake of enjoying himself. After a while though, he stopped for a moment as he felt his chest heave, and he went to breathe from the air tank... Which wasn't there. In all the excitement, he'd misplaced it somewhere, and there was no other air to be found. With that, he decided he'd had enough fun, and now needed to focus on surfacing before it'd be too late.\n\nBy the time he left the prison, nobody was even trying to stop him any more, which he'd admit was just a little disappointing. But, it also meant he wouldn't have to slow down, so it was more welcome to him than it'd normally be. After a quick look around for some kind of vehicle he could use to reach the surface faster - before realizing he'd have no idea how to use it - he jumped off the bottom and started swimming for the distant surface. He'd guess that he was maybe... 600 feet down. Not the deepest he'd gone, but he wasn't usually this low on breath when starting his ascent.\n\nHe swam and swam, beginning to slowly grow visibly strained... Every now and then he'd check to make sure he wasn't being followed, which he never was, but the lack of air was starting to be more concerning. There was still a long way to go, and bubbles were leaking from Ridley's nostrils more and more often. He did his best to focus past the increasing discomfort in his chest, watching as the sunlight slowly became more intense once more.\n\nHis face started to go noticeably more purple than usual, then slowly to a more blue tint... His lungs were burning, and he still had so far to go, unable to see the surface yet! Repeatedly puffing up his cheeks and sucking them back in to rebreathe, he kept swimming, kept flapping his wings, even as he was starting to get a little tired. He couldn't slow down, he couldn't let himself breathe, he had to keep going no matter what... Though he was starting to feel dizzy, his body shivering...\n\nRidley's mouth opened, and a cloud of bubbles was forced out of his exhausted lungs that were finally ready to give up. He quickly forced his mouth shut, holding it with his hands, but it was too late; he'd emptied his lungs entirely. He tried his best to resist the inevitable next step, seeing the surface finally in view as he kicked and clawed his way upward... Before he was forced to suck in, water rushing into his nostrils he'd forgotten to cover. He paused, grabbing his neck as he coughed up the water to gasp in more... Then bolted upward, panting and gasping as he frantically swam his fastest yet. He could take it, he'd been through worse... But if he wasn't quick, he wouldn't be surfacing.\n\nHis watery chokes and gurgles began to gradually calm, his blue blush spreading over his face and even the rest of his body beginning to go slightly more blue... The surface was so close, but his movements were slowing, becoming clumsy as his vision dimmed... As he was slowly passing out, it took him a moment to realize when he surfaced.\n\nOnce he did, the intense coughs and gasps returned, purging the water from his lungs and refilling with air at last. He felt like he couldn't get enough, cycling air as fast as possible and trying to resist coughing so he could pant more. It took almost a minute for him to begin to calm, though he fairly easily kept himself on the surface the whole time, and he swam back to the closest shore to collapse onto it on his back. Still panting, he smiled a little. Minus the drowning, all the fun of his escape had been exactly what he'd needed. He was going to keep this place to himself for the moment, in case he needed to relieve some stress again. Once he'd recovered, he got up and took to the air, heading back to his ship to return to his crew.\n\n\n\n\n-----------------------------------------------\nSummary: A particular wizzrobe gets fed up at how other wizzrobes treat him (Nasir's backstory)\nThemes (Mature): Bullying, drowning, magic\n-----------------------------------------------\n\"Nasir, focus. Tighten your motions, and keep your thoughts steady.\" Once again, Nasir was singled out in the middle of a magic lesson being given by the grand wizzrobe of his coven. There was some snickering from other wizzrobes as he tried again, another wave of his wand firing nothing but harmless sparks toward the trio of practice targets.\n\nAnother wizzrobe stepped up beside him, giving him a smug look. \"Like this, you moron.\" With a perfect motion, they shot a trio of fireballs from their wand, hitting all three targets at once.\n\n\"Aeon, we're not here to show off. I'll admit that your casting was exactly right, but don't devalue a good effort.\"\n\n\"A good effort? The guy's not even getting ONE fireball!\"\n\n\"Because this spell is all or nothing. Now both of you, please step aside for the next in line.\" Aeon and Nasir both did as asked, the latter finding a spot that was away from everyone else as he watched. Almost everyone was making it look so easy... Nasir sighed, still remembering what he'd heard magic like this took.\n\nIn addition to the proper physical technique, it required an intent to cause harm, and he just couldn't focus on that. He didn't WANT to hurt or damage anything! But, pacifism just wasn't acceptable among his kind, and he kept being ridiculed for only ever being able to manage the most basic attack magic. Name calling, teasing, even threats every now and then for having the potential to change the perception of his species... He was trying to stop caring, but it just wasn't working.\n\nEventually, the lesson had ended, and everyone began filing out... But before Nasir could leave, the grand wizzrobe called out to him. \"Nasir, could you stay here for a moment? I want to talk to you alone.\" He sighed as more snickering came from that, and stayed behind as everyone else left. When it was just him and the grand wizzrobe, they looked him over and sighed themselves. \"I just don't know what to do with you any more, Nasir... Still no improvement at all, even after weeks of this...\"\n\n\"I-I'm sorry, I can't help it! I don't want to have to hurt anything, I can't do it!\"\n\n\"You HAVE to! All of us need to be ready to protect this temple, and you're not! At this point, I don't know if you're ever going to be...\"\n\n\"Everyone else is enough for that, what does it matter!? Just let me live my life how I want!\"\n\n\"We both know the others won't allow that. I've heard some of their threats, and earlier I heard some of them planning on how to \"deal\" with you. This HAS to be done, and soon, or you might not even get the chance at all.\"\n\n\"Why, though!? Who cares if one guy can't do that damn magic, it doesn't MATTER!\" In a fit of anger, Nasir shot a single fireball toward the grand wizzrobe, who immediately dispelled it before conjuring spectral chains that restrained Nasir.\n\nEven after the attempted attack, the grand wizzrobe was calm. \"That's enough. I've come to a decision. Beginning tomorrow, I'll be training you personally, and you will beg yourself to improve. Whether it works or doesn't, you won't be a problem any more.\"\n\nThe chains were dispelled, and Nasir's anger had been replaced with fear. He made for the room's exit, and as he wasn't stopped, he ran out. Paying no mind to the other wizzrobes that had been listening at the door, he went off to be by himself, starting to cry a little once again.\n\n\nHours later, as Nasir tried to keep his thoughts off what the grand wizzrobe had said, he practiced a little magic of his own during his free time. He'd always enjoyed the idea of water magic, and was getting decent at it even without instruction, playing around with the water of a fountain that usually had no one else around. Forming water into semi-solid balls that could be picked up and moved around, turning a little directly into vapor, splashing it around without needing to touch it-\n\n\"And what exactly are you up to?\" Nasir jumped a little at that voice, the water ball he was holding immediately destabilizing and splashing onto the floor. He knew that voice; his worst bully had found him. Even knowing it would probably be pointless, he turned to run away... And as expected, his legs locked in place. He slowly turned to look over... His bully, who had paralyzed his legs for the moment, had brought a couple friends this time.\n\n\"I-I was just practicing some water magic...\" Nasir knew he wouldn't be able to do much, but just talking was worth a shot.\n\nIt didn't help. \"Aw, instead of doing what you're supposed to be doing, you're making little toys for yourself... Like that's gonna accomplish anything.\"\n\nOne of the bully's friends looked at the fountain. \"This wasn't exactly our plan for you for today, but... I think this works even better.\" Aiming his wand at the fountain, its water began gathering up into a ball, which the other of the bully's friends helped make bigger, understanding his intent.\n\n\"Come to think of it, I HAVE heard that you like water... Using it for this ought to work pretty well.\"\n\nWhile Nasir didn't exactly know what the group had planned, he didn't want to find out. He tried to force himself to move, but couldn't, and couldn't stop the magic that was holding him in place either. Getting closer to panicking, he fired a few shots of magic at the bully that was holding him in place, which were all blocked by a transparent barrier briefly appearing in front of them. \"N-no, let me go! What are you even gonna get from this!?\"\n\n\"We won't get much from this, I'll admit, but it'll be fun. And it'll give you a good reason to finally actually TRY to get better at attacking.\"\n\n\"I've BEEN trying, I just can't do it! It doesn't work no matter what I do!\"\n\n\"Eh, don't care. Make excuses all you want.\"\n\nWith the ball of water getting bigger than Nasir, it was slowly pulled away from the fountain and held above him. With a nod of approval from the lead bully, it started descending toward Nasir! \"So, you were doing that water magic when we got here... Think you can use it to get out of this? I don't.\"\n\nNasir went into a full panic as the water touched the top of his head, and tried his best to use his magic to move it aside, or turn it all to vapor, or SOMETHING... Nothing worked. \"N-no, no, don't drown me!\" But, knowing they wouldn't listen, he gasped a deep breath... Just as he was pulled into the water.\n\n\"Go on, keep trying! It'll fun to watch you struggle in there!\" And struggle Nasir did, desperately fighting to get himself out. His attempts to swim would just result in him being brought back to the middle, magic still wasn't working... He was losing a lot of air in his panic, bubbles streaming away and cutting down on how much time he had. Before long, his struggling included fighting against his urge to breathe, and that was something he lacked experience with. Holding his beak shut with his free hand, he tried again and again to manipulate the water, but his magic was nowhere near strong enough to overcome the force of the group holding it together, merely making little ripples on its surface.\n\nBarely a minute in, Nasir dropped his wand as he held his beak with both hands, his face starting to go blue... Before a frantic attempt to swim up led to his beak opening a little to suck in. He immediately grabbed his neck, coughing up water and bubbles, before he gasped again. Thrashing in the water, his body forced him to choke down watery breaths, and he could feel the fluid in his lungs, burning them with the most pain he'd ever felt...\n\nHe was allowed to drown for 10 seconds, before the water ball was dropped and dispersed, leaving the partially waterlogged wizzrobe coughing and hacking on the floor, desperate to get air into himself again. The main bully stood over him, grinning down at him. \"That give you enough incentive? If it didn't, we can always try again sometime, and for longer... Such a shame that that probably ruined your love of water~\" They and the others laughed as they walked off.\n\nAfter he'd finally mostly recovered after a minute, Nasir paused for a moment as he thought about what had just happened... And started blushing heavily. Now that the pain was gone - aside from some soreness in his chest - something about drowning was... Oddly sort of appealing? Maybe not inhaling water, but struggling to hold his breath, losing bubbles... He'd have to give it some more thought sometime. He got up and grabbed his wand again, but stayed where he was. They were going to put him through that again sometime, he knew they would, and he imagined what the grand wizzrobe had planned for him was going to be even worse... He couldn't stay, he was going to die if he did. There was only one thing for it.\n\n\nDoing his best to stay unseen, Nasir made his way through the temple toward its entrance. He'd considered leaving before, but never gone through with it... This time was going to be different. Sooner than he realized, as he found himself not really caring about much, he reached the cave connecting the temple with the outside... And, not long after, he stepped outside.\n\nIt'd been some time since he'd been outside, as there wasn't much to do on the surface of the island the temple was inside of. Indeed, there wasn't even much surface in general, the roughly-circular island no more than about 100 feet wide. Heading to its beach, Nasir sat down and sighed. There were times he came this far in the past, but without any way off the island, this was the farthest he'd get before turning back. This time, he couldn't turn back, so he had to think of something. He of course knew boats were a thing, but there were none anywhere nearby, and he had no idea how to make something like that... Maybe someone would come by in a boat? But who would take a monster as a passenger? ...Someone, he hoped.\n\nAbout half an hour passed, as he looked out at the water for any sign... Then, there was. He could see a ship some distance away! Getting up, and having come up with a plan while he was waiting, Nasir did his best to get their attention. From that much distance, he'd just look like a stranded person, and maybe that would work? And soon, it seemed it was, as the ship was getting closer!\n\nOnce it was close enough, he could make out people looking at him from the ship... With ranged weapons aimed at him, as he'd expected, though at least in a way he could tell was just a precaution. Someone - he believed them to be the captain - called down to him. \"What's a monster doing trying to get our attention? Thought you were a person!\"\n\n\"I-I need to leave! The others here are gonna kill me if I don't!\"\n\n\"Oh, and you think we're just going to be helping out a monster? No, you've got something planned, and we're not falling for it.\"\n\nHe couldn't lose this chance, he might not get another... Looking around, he came up with something. \"There's no way I'd be able to do anything to you even if I wanted to, I'm outnumbered, and I wouldn't have a way off the ship if I tried to sink it!\"\n\n\"...That's a good point...\" The captain hesitated for a moment, then addressed his crew. \"Lower down the ladder and let him up. If he tries anything, you know what to do.\" A few seconds later, a rope ladder was lowered over the side, and Nasir eagerly rushed out into the water to grab it and climb up.\n\nEven once he was on the deck, the crew clearly still weren't too pleased with his presence, and he could now make out how nervous they were about him. As the ladder was brought back up, the captain looked him over. \"We'll take you to the closest town, then that'll be it. And you better find some way to look like less of a threat, I don't need you scaring my crew the whole time.\"\n\nHow was he going to do that? He already felt that he wasn't particularly threatening, but this was that reputation the other wizzrobes wanted him to uphold, and there wasn't much he could do to not appear to be an evil spellcaster. Except... He looked down at his wand. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, then exhaled... It had to be done. He turned his wand around, and held out its handle to the captain. \"Take it. I can't do magic without it, I don't even know a wizzrobe that can.\"\n\nThe captain cautiously took his wand, looking it over. \"...Never thought I'd see a wizzrobe part with one of these... You must really be desperate.\"\n\n\"Keep it if that's what it takes. I'm not good with it anyway.\"\n\nAfter a moment, the captain nodded, putting the wand away. \"We'll head out, then. Don't make us regret this.\"\n\nSoon, the ship started moving again, sailing away from the island Nasir had called home for so long. He leaned against the side of the ship, watching it get farther away... He wasn't going to miss it.\n\n\nMonths later, Nasir's life had drastically improved, especially since he'd found he could pass himself off as an anthro toucan if he didn't wear his robes - no big loss, they brought back bad memories anyway. While he hadn't found a replacement wand yet, he didn't really mind. With his love of water still going strong - and him having realized he was a bigger fan of it than he'd thought - one day, he swam out to a coral reef not too far from shore, and dove down to explore, wearing a one-piece swimsuit he'd gotten for himself. It was as beautiful a place as he'd heard coral reefs were, and with his breath holding ability having significantly improved, he could comfortably stay down for a couple minutes at a time.\n\nOn one of those dives, something odd came into view. In a near-perfectly circular open section of seabed about a foot wide, there was a marble pedestal, with some kind of rod on it. It had light colors, like the marble it was on, but with a blue tint and deeper blue spirals on it... That had to be something interesting. Nasir swam over despite being in some need of a breath, and after inspecting the pedestal and rod, he grabbed the rod by what seemed to be a handle.\n\nThe moment he did, a transparent wave of blue energy emitted from it, and he felt something sort of \"connect\" to him in a way he'd never felt before. In an instant, he somehow knew what he was holding: The Wand of the Tides. \"What the... W-wait, how am I...?\" His voice was perfectly clear in the water, and he could even see better than before! After inspecting the wand, he gave it a wave, and felt the water in front of him shift. That had to have been magic, and he barely even TRIED to do that! He smiled, before remembering his need for air - realizing it seemed to be going slower than before - and began swimming for the surface. Things were going to be different now, for sure...\n\n\n\n\n-----------------------------------------------\nSummary: A young lizard has fun in his home's pool with the help of a guardian spirit\nThemes (Mature): Young, breathholding, brief drowning\n-----------------------------------------------\nJeremy the lizard slowly awoke as sunlight began shining into his room, and eventually sat up and stretched, smiling as he remembered he'd have the run of the house for a good few hours. His parents would be out for some time doing something that couldn't really wait, and despite him being merely 12, they knew he was responsible enough to be on his own for that time. Part of the reasoning for that, of course, was thanks to his best friend, currently the only other occupant of the house - if they could be called an occupant.\n\n\"Good morning, Jeremy. Did you sleep well?\" The familiar voice of Aria entered Jeremy's mind, their physical form - if they had one - nowhere to be found. According to Aria themselves, they were a guardian spirit tasked with keeping Jeremy safe, and that mission would span the young lizard's entire life. Aria claimed they'd always been with him, though he'd only first noticed their presence during a narrowly-avoided incident when he was 6: He'd been outside watching his dad mow the lawn, and the lawnmower had happened to launch a rock that'd been headed straight for Jeremy's eye... Before the rock stopped short in the air, then simply fell to the ground. Other close calls had similarly been averted, and while Jeremy had tried to tell his parents about Aria, they simply believed the spirit to be an imaginary friend (And were impressed he knew the word \"aria\"), one he planned to \"grow out of\" eventually on Aria's advice so he wouldn't look insane.\n\n\"Yep! And it's gonna be cool that I can just talk to you for a while today!\" After getting out of bed and having breakfast - which his parents had left him instructions on how to do, though Aria could've helped if they hadn't - Jeremy wondered how to best spend the time he'd be alone. He hadn't bothered to get dressed, having just his underwear on, but he felt like it'd be sort of a wasted opportunity if he didn't do anything more...\n\nAria spoke up with an idea, sensing his indecision. \"I recall you once saying you wanted to swim entirely on your own sometime. Perhaps that would work, if you still wish to?\"\n\nHe certainly did. The house had a pool, and while it was an impressive size for one in a house, there was a frustrating list of rules he had to follow: No swimming without someone watching, stay in the shallow end, don't dive for more than 10 seconds, wear only swimwear... And now, there was nobody to complain about him not following them. \"Oh, right! Yeah, I'm gonna do that!\" Jeremy happily rushed over to the pool room's entrance, where he stopped as he saw a note on the door. \"Don't go in the pool until we're back, okay? It's not safe alone! -Mom\".\n\n\"...Well... It's not like they know what you are, Aria.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Though you'd certainly be in trouble if they found out you ignored their message... If you still wish to swim, I'll help you in setting everything back to how it was so they won't know.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" Paying no further mind to the note, Jeremy headed into the pool room. So much water, just waiting for him to hop in... And nobody around to tell him what not to do. The first order of business was to get properly dressed though, as he did actually enjoy the swimwear he was required to have. He grabbed his goggles and put them on, and did the same with his trunks.\n\nAs he stepped into the pool, Jeremy knew this was going to be great. No rules getting between him and enjoying the water... And when he began to swim, he looked over to where one of his parents would normally sit to watch him, smiling at how odd it was that no one was there. Firstly though, he had to do something he'd always wanted to do.\n\nJeremy took a deep breath, dove down, let himself sink to sit on the bottom of the shallow end, and Aria counted the seconds for him as always. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10... 11, 12, 13, 14, 15... A wide smile grew between his puffed cheeks as he purposely disobeyed one of the pool's rules. He always knew 10 seconds was too short... This time, he'd go as long as HE said. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22... Strain was growing in his chest, a kind that was rare for him to feel underwater. He'd only ever gotten to hold his breath this long on land before. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31... A little grunt was audible as his chest heaved, demanding he go up and breathe. But, his instincts joined the 10 second rule in being disobeyed. 36, 37, 38, 39, 40... A cluster of bubbles left his lips with a strong contraction, before he covered his mouth. 44, 45, 46, 47, 48... He tried to focus on something other than his need to breathe, having read online he should do so. The cool pool tiles against his scales, the warbles of the bubbles he was continually releasing... 52, 53, 54-\n\nHe bolted up and shot for the surface, gasping loudly and panting. He struggled to stay above water for a moment, before he felt an upward force around him as Aria held him up. \"I'm glad you didn't get carried away. And well done, that was quite close to your record.\"\n\n\"Th-thanks...\" Jeremy took some time to catch his breath, before eventually beginning to swim again, Aria letting go of him. He decided to just relax for a while now, idly swimming around, occasionally floating on his back for a while - or his front for a shorter while. Every now and then he'd dive again, to swim around, blow bubbles, or both - always making it a point to stay down longer than 10 seconds. On one dive, he even walked on the bottom, to Aria's surprise. \"You never, I never considered that before... Interesting.\"\n\n\"Yeblah, thblis-\" He paused, realizing how bubbly his voice was as he spoke underwater for the first time. He giggled at how he sounded, and tried talking more. \"Ibl soblund sblo fublnny! Hblahblahbla!\" A little whine followed as it occurred to him how much air that had taken, and he surfaced again to refill.\n\n\"Be sure not to do that too far underwater.\"\n\n\"Yep, I know. Oh, speaking of far underwater!\" The whole time so far, Jeremy had stuck to the shallow end without thinking, but there was a whole section of the pool that was just asking to be explored. For the first time, he swam out to the deep end. It did admittedly make him a little nervous, seeing the bottom so far below him at about 15 feet down... But knowing Aria would be ready to help him if he needed it, he had the confidence to close that distance. After trying to calm himself a bit, he took the deepest breath his little lungs could hold, and began his descent.\n\nIt was... A bit less impressive than he'd expected. But still, it was surreal to be going so far from the surface, so far from any air... Seconds ticked by, the depth increased, and soon Jeremy planted a hand on the pool's true bottom. Proud of himself, he reoriented his body to look up at the surface, seeing bubbles floating back up toward it. He blew out a trickle of air to add to it, and continued, a string of bubbles soon going all the way between the surface and the lizard's lips.\n\nAs he bubbled out his breath, his mind wandered. He'd always wondered how long he could truly stay underwater without needing to worry about that stupid 10 second rule... He was decent at holding his breath thanks to having had a lot of practice on land, but he'd never gotten the chance to really test himself underwater. Until now... He decided he'd go for it.\n\nFirst order of business though, he needed more air, his lungs were complaining again. Jumping off the bottom, Jeremy began swimming back up, which was a bit slower than going down since he didn't have as much air in him. His nervousness returned; he hadn't planned on staying underwater so long... But before it could become a real issue, he successfully surfaced to catch his breath, not needing to be held up by Aria this time. Once he'd recovered, he informed Aria of something. \"This next dive, don't tell me how long I've been holding my breath until I surface, okay?\" He'd need to focus.\n\n\"Of course. Just be careful not to go too far.\"\n\n\"I'll be fine, all this is easy!\" He began to ready his mind for the dive... And soon, with another huge breath, he dove back down. Knowing he'd sink regardless, he didn't waste oxygen on swimming, focusing entirely on relaxing while he watched the surface get farther away. Despite his best efforts, his heart was pounding in the anticipation of seeing what he could really do.\n\nHe eventually sank to the bottom and sat down, already feeling his lungs asking for air again. He was determined to not come up until he absolutely couldn't stand the urge to breathe any more, though it was certainly possible he'd end up giving up early. For the moment, he had the willpower to continue, and looked up to watch his bubbles, finding that that helped distract him a bit. He guessed it'd been about... 20 seconds? He was sure Aria was tracking it better than he was. Taking in his surroundings was helping him stay calm, but it was slowly becoming less effective, the complaints of his lungs getting more and more intense.\n\nJeremy eventually covered his mouth like before, bubbles trickling out regardless. The idea of giving up had entered his mind, but even as the discomfort kept building, the lizard kept pushing himself to stay. It got harder and harder to do so, and his chest was heaving more often, nervous whines becoming audible in the pool's depths. A burning feeling began to form in his lungs, and as he wasn't familiar with it, he became even more tempted to scramble back up... No, he still wouldn't give up, no matter what.\n\nThe burning continued to build, the lizard feeling like his entire chest was on fire. Not yet... Not yet... Shivering all over, bubbles streaming away... His nostrils flared as he sucked in water without thinking! He instantly coughed it back out along with a cloud of the last of his air, before gasping as he started to drown! He grabbed his neck, choking while his face gained a blue tint-\n\nHe was yanked up through the water, breaking the surface in less than a second as Aria pulled him to safety. \"I told you to be careful!\" Jeremy was coughing too much to respond, spitting up water and sputtering while trying his best to get air back in him. Aria set him down on the side of the pool while he slowly recovered, eventually managing a \"S-sorry...\".\n\n\"Hold still, I need to check your lungs.\" Jeremy felt odd for a moment. \"Right, they're fine. If a bit wet. You're lucky it's not worse than this, inhaling water can be disastrous...\"\n\nNeither said more for a little while. The lizard decided he was done with swimming for the moment, though one thing was still on his mind... \"...How long did I hold my breath down there?\"\n\n\"1 minute and 24 seconds. You've beaten your record by nearly 30 seconds.\"\n\n\"Really!? Awesome! I wasn't sure I'd ever get over a minute... But I definitely need to not swim for a while now...\"\n\n\"Indeed, your body needs rest. Get dried off, I'll start putting everything back how it was before you came in here.\"\n\n\nSome time later, after Jeremy had enjoyed more time on his own, his parents returned, his mom being the first in. \"Hi buddy, we're home!\" Jeremy happily ran up and hugged her.\n\nAfter the hug, she looked down at him. \"So, how was it being on your own for so long?\"\n\n\"It was cool!\"\n\n\"Glad to hear it! Your dad's going to be here in just a minute.\"\n\nSure enough, he came in soon as well. \"Hey, little dude! How's it going?\"\n\nJeremy hugged them as well. \"It's good!\"\n\nAs his dad hugged him, they sniffed a little, frowning for a moment... But returning to smiling before Jeremy would notice. \"Didn't have any parties while we were gone?\"\n\n\"Haha, no I didn't!\"\n\n\nThings mostly went back to normal afterward... Until Jeremy's dad sat him down to have a talk.\n\n\"So... Did you enjoy your swim earlier?\"\n\nJeremy froze up. What had he and Aria missed? \"N-no, I didn't swim! I wanted to, but that note reminded me not to!\"\n\n\"I smelled chlorine on you when I came in. Look, Jeremy, the rules about the pool are to keep you safe, nothing more.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, I just really wanted to!\"\n\n\"I know you love it... And, I'm not going to punish you this time. While we were out, your mom and I were actually talking about those rules, and we've decided we're going to loosen them up. No more 10 second rule, and you can swim where you want.\"\n\n\"Wait, really!? That's awesome!\"\n\n\"You still need someone supervising you, though. I don't imagine that \"Aria\" friend of yours is a very good lifeguard.\"\n\n\"That's still fine, thanks!\" Jeremy hugged his dad, who hugged him back.\n\n\"Now... I'm in the mood for some Mario Party, if you're up for that.\"\n\n\"Yeah, sure!\"\n\n\n\n\n-----------------------------------------------\nSummary: An ordinary raptor gains and uses time magic, to varying effect\nThemes: Gaining sapience, time travel, brief drowning\n-----------------------------------------------\nTo the raptor, there was little beyond fulfilling his instincts: Find food and water, find shelter, find a mate. Water and shelter had been sorted for the day, though any sort of food was evading him for the moment. That happened sometimes; living on his own, he couldn't hunt all that well, and mainly needed to ambush other unaware dinosaurs to get his meals.\n\nLate that day, he came across an odd sight: A collection of bones, next to a long branch with something glowing on one end. While he may not have had much capacity for thoughts, those bones were a kind he didn't recognize... Though he knew not to bother even chewing them. That branch-looking thing, though, he didn't even recognize the material of it... Maybe that was edible? The raptor picked it up off the ground and tried gnawing on it. It didn't taste like much, but it seemed promising, it had a little give to it. He bit down harder-\n\nThe branch abruptly snapped, and the glowing thing flared as something non-physical began rushing into the raptor. He reflexively dropped the two pieces, but it didn't stop, and he growled as searing pain started to fill his head. In his mind, it felt as if his instincts were being pushed aside and condensed, leaving far more empty space than there used to be... But it wouldn't remain empty for long. \"...Wh...W-what's happening...?\" Words entered his mind for the first time, and the pain abruptly stopped after just a few more seconds, the branch going dark.\n\nDeeply confused, and with clarity he'd never experienced before, the raptor tried to take stock of the situation. That staff - how did he know what it was now? - had clearly made some rather enormous changes to him. Outwardly, his body seemed the same, but the newfound intelligence he had would be clear to anyone who saw him. Even his instincts just felt more like guidelines than anything else now. \"...This doesn't make sense...\" This time, that wasn't just in his head; he'd become able to speak, and somehow already knew how to do so. After a moment of surprise, it occurred to him that that was kind of useless without anyone that'd be able to talk back.\n\nWondering how far his new intelligence went, the dinosaur checked the bones again to see if he recognized them now... Still no. No answers to anything that had happened seemed to be coming. With a sigh of frustration, he looked up at the sky, trying to get an idea of how long he had before night. Something else entered his mind: 7:37PM, August 17th, 75,000,012 BC. The time and date. It seemed like an awfully large number for the year... He smiled and shook his head. \"Great, I can... Tell the time. So helpful.\" As he gave it some thought though, it felt somehow... Mutable? He reached out, both physically and mentally, and touched the year number in his mind. Sure enough, he could adjust it up and down, the BC changing to AD if he brought it to 0. \"No clue what this is doing...\" The raptor put the year number to 1,000 AD, and nothing seemed to happen. Something seemed to be awaiting his approval though... He allowed whatever it was. At that moment, a circle of energy briefly shot up around him, and the raptor vanished inside, the energy dissipating.\n\n\nWhen his vision cleared, he felt nothing beneath his feet, and his environment had gone oddly blue. He looked around for a moment, confused as ever, before he started coughing after an attempt to breathe. Silvery blobs of some kind floated up from his muzzle with each cough - he was underwater! Trying his best to hold what little breath he had, he struggled to awkwardly swim up, thankfully not all that far down. Still, he was slow, and with so little air he eventually had no choice but to inhale again, choking on the water-\n\nHe broke the surface, hoarsely gasping and coughing up the water while struggling to stay up and keep from panicking. After a few seconds, he managed to recover, and took a look around where he'd ended up. He was in a lake, but there wasn't a single thing he recognized... The trees were different, the terrain itself was different, there were weird structures he'd never seen before... Wait, structures?\n\nThe raptor did a double take. Those things weren't even SIMILAR to anything he knew... He needed to investigate. Swimming to the lake's shore and shaking off some of the water, he started on his way to the structures. As he approached, he noticed odd creatures walking around near them, once again new to him. Bipedal like him, but with arms that were far more developed than his... They reminded him of those bones he'd found. While trying to talk to another dinosaur certainly wasn't going to work, maybe these weird creatures could respond? It was worth a shot.\n\nGoing up to a lone one that was facing away - and ignoring his instincts telling him it'd be an easy meal - he tried. \"Um... Hello?\" The creature turned, and immediately yelped in fear. \"W-what the hell is that!?\" So, they could talk too! The raptor tried to figure out what he could say to try to calm them- And, they were already running away. \"No, come back!\" He briefly prepared to make chase, but realized just in time that thay'd just make it worse. That creature must just not have expected the raptor to not be intending to eat them. Surely there was someone he could talk to, though.\n\nHe kept trying, but it didn't go well. Everything he tried to talk to just ran away, and before too long the whole place was deserted, all of the creatures having either run off or hidden inside one of the structures. The raptor sighed, trying to think of what to do... He went to one of the structures he'd seen something enter, approaching what he thought might be a blocked entrance. \"Please, I just want to talk!\" There was no response, though he could hear some movement past the entrance. Maybe there was some way for him to prove he meant no harm, but if there was, it wasn't coming to him.\n\nGiving up on it for the moment, the dino decided to at least look for answers of where he might be, and began walking through the area. There was still almost no one around, and the few creatures he did see would run off before he could even get close enough for them to hear him. While he was used to being feared - he was a predator, after all - this was beyond what he'd experienced before. Now that he thought about it, he noticed how hard it was to remember things that had happened before he became intelligent... He definitely could, but it felt like he was trying to recall a dream.\n\nAs any answers continued to evade him, the raptor became lost in thoughts of how different his life was going to be... Before a somewhat familiar smell brought him back to reality. It was definitely meat, but a little different than what he was used to. Remembering how hungry he was, he followed that smell, and quickly found where it was coming from: There was a much smaller one of those structures, seemingly entirely made of wood, with quite a selection of meats on it! As odd as it all looked - in clean, consistent chunks instead of... Well, ON something - meat was meat, and he was ready to finally get a meal.\n\n\nHaving cleaned out the stall of nearly all the meat, the raptor was satisfied, pleasantly full for the first time he could remember. He still held onto the last little bit of meat, pulling it off the bone it was on as he continued wandering. It was definitely odd that that had all just been left there... Maybe whoever had gotten it hadn't gotten to finish it in the panic of his arrival-\n\n\"There it is!\" The dino stopped and looked where that came from. Several creatures had shown up, each holding shiny things that sort of reminded him of claws, and wearing different similarly shiny things as well. One of the creatures stepped back a bit as he turned to them. \"Damn it, it's already eaten someone...\"\n\nThe raptor looked down at the bone he was holding, realizing that that definitely wasn't a good look among things that he wanted to not be scared of him. \"N-no, this was just-\"\n\n\"It talks!?\" \"Stand ready, this is no normal beast...\" The group started cautiously approaching him, as he thought about what to do. Getting on the good side of these things was definitely a lost cause... He reached with his mind, trying to alter the date again, but it was as if some intangible muscle was still exhausted from the last time he'd done so. And, clueless as he was about whatever the creatures were, he didn't want to fight them either, leaving one option he was thankfully good at.\n\nHe turned and ran, dropping the bone and leaving all the structures behind. The creatures didn't even bother trying to chase him, likely not being able to run nearly as fast as him, though he could hear them shout threats and demands that he not return. He didn't plan on it, he didn't like this place. The first voices he'd ever heard that weren't his, and they were coming from things that seemed torn between running from him and fighting him... It wasn't that unusual for him, other than the talking. Now that he was able to think though, he wasn't sure he wanted to live like that any more. Maybe he'd find more meat just laying around in this new world? That'd be nice.\n\nNot knowing what else to do, the raptor followed a dirt path he'd found, hoping his date-altering ability would come back soon. This place didn't really seem to have much for him... After a while, he felt odd for a moment, and with a quick test, found that his ability had returned. Relieved, he thought about the date again, trying to decide what to set it to. Maybe a higher AD number for the year... He set it to 2,200. That seemed as good a number as any. He wished he knew some way to be careful about it... But, he accepted it, and another ring of energy formed and sent him off.\n\n\nOnce he was able to look around, he found he was in an even weirder place than before. While there were still things that were clearly natural - though still unfamiliar - there were more structures than before, and they looked a lot different. Shinier, with some having transparent parts that had weird symbols on them... And more bipedal creatures were around, staring at him. Before anything else, he had to make sure he made a good impression. \"H-hi, um... Honestly, I'm just as confused as you all are. The last hour and 17 minutes haven't made any sense...\" He assumed his time-telling ability was what let him be so precise about that.\n\nTo his surprise, there was no panic or aggression. Some of the creatures approached to get a better look, while others stayed back to talk amongst themselves. The raptor allowed himself to be examined. \"So... Where are the other dinosaurs? I don't recognize what any of you are...\"\n\n\"...Dinosaurs haven't been around for millions of years. I think you might be the first anyone's ever seen.\"\n\n\"...Oh...\" He thought for a moment. \"...I think I'm able to go back, at least...\" Trying to ignore how weird it felt to know he was the only living member of his species, he started answering the many questions the creatures had for him, and a good few of his own were answered as well.\n\nAfter some time, new people arrived, looking important as odd shiny things floated alongside some. Said importance was quickly confirmed, as everyone else stepped aside for them.\n\nWhile the one that seemed to be the leader was the first to approach, someone else had... The same staff that had started all this for the raptor. As he tried to hide his surprise, the leader spoke up. \"So... We've heard that you're from the past. We're a group of paleontologists, studying... Well, you, basically. We don't imagine you have anywhere to stay, nor that you're very familiar with this time, so we have an offer for you. If you let us study you, and answer as many questions we have about your era as possible, we'll get you whatever you need to live comfortably here. Within reason, obviously.\"\n\nIt didn't need much thought. \"Yeah, sounds good! And, by the way, that staff the one guy has...\" He pause got a strange feeling that saying too much about the staff was going to cause... Unimaginably large problems. \"...I-it's pretty cool.\"\n\nThe one with the staff smiled at that. \"Thanks. As much as magic is kind of rare now, there's always things it can do that technology can't. One of these days, I'm gonna figure out a time travel spell and go back to your era myself, this staff's already set up for time magic!\"\n\n\"Well, um... Good luck with that.\" With his suspicion about that person confirmed, and with nothing more to discuss for the moment, the group all left together. The raptor hadn't even had his new power nor his intelligence for two hours yet, but already... He was excited to see what else there was for him to explore through time.\n\n\n\n\n-----------------------------------------------\nSummary: A mage helps his adventuring party through an underwater dungeon, while trying not to let on that he's into some of the aquatic things that keep happening\nThemes (Adult): Hyper cheeks, underwater farting/burping, bubbletalking, embarrassment\nBased on an idea by Skylar/Rebag102\n-----------------------------------------------\n4 adventurers had gathered around a table at their base, checking a map as they plotted their next move. The leader of them, Eltig, an anthro lizard, was the first to speak up after the map had been unrolled. \"So, we still have a fair bit on our plate right now... Ralis, quick reminder?\"\n\nRalis, a rabbit that acted as the group's spellcaster, nodded as he checked his notes. \"Investigate signs of odd unknown creature in nearby forest, deadline in 2 weeks. Recover coral crown from underwater dungeon just off the coast, deadline in 8 days. Clear out unearthed ruins of any possible monsters or traps, deadline in 20 days, although we've been asked to do it as soon as possible.\"\n\nNext to him, Kefre, a crow archer, sighed. \"We're really cutting it close, we've been kind of slacking on this stuff... I say we start with whatever's closest to its deadline, so that underwater dungeon.\"\n\nThere was a nod from Telika, a wolf who specialized in spears. \"Sounds good to me. Those guys wanting the ruins cleared out can wait a bit longer.\"\n\nRalis quickly grew nervous at the thought of seeing everyone underwater... \"H-hang on, they wanted us to hurry! Are we sure we shouldn't do that first?\"\n\nEltig shook his head. \"We'd risk being late to getting that crown back. Who knows how big those ruins are? Kefre and Telika are right, we should do the underwater dungeon first.\"\n\nTelika, picking up on Ralis' discomfort, let out a chuckle. \"What, not a fan of water? I remember you saying a while back that you can still use your magic underwater, we'll be fine.\"\n\nRalis tried his best not to blush. \"I-I mean, I can, but...\"\n\nKefre: \"Then what exactly is the issue? I've got those specialized arrows that'll work underwater, you can give Eltig that magic that lets him swing his sword freely, and Telika's fine since spears work underwater regardless.\"\n\nEltig: \"Try your best to keep yourself calm there, Ralis. That's where we'll be heading.\"\n\nRalis sighed. \"Fine...\" The map was rolled back up, and after some preparation, the group headed for the coast.\n\n\nThe water looked inviting to everyone, including Ralis, though he didn't plan on explaining that he was far more attracted to it than everyone else was... Since he was an aquaphile, and enjoyed things about it that he knew his friends would think he was weird for. But, as everyone got ready for the dive, he just had to accept that this mission was going to be a rough one.\n\nEltig looked to him. \"Now, you said you have magic that'll let us stay down there longer, right? I've always wanted to see how it'd feel to breathe through gills...\"\n\nRalis: \"N-not exactly waterbreathing magic, since I don't know any... Um... Instead, you'll be able to hold a lot more air. In your cheeks, since I can make them more elastic.\"\n\nKefre looked incredulous for a moment. \"...We'll be getting big cheeks?\" His expression softened as he laughed. \"Man, magic is so weird sometimes...\"\n\nTelika: \"Well, hit us with it, let's see. Might not be so bad.\"\n\nRalis nodded, and as he wielded his staff, a blue glow formed around him and his friends, before settling onto everyone's cheeks and fading away. As subtly as he could, he also set up an illusion that would cover any blush he'd get, glad he'd gotten a lot of practice with that just in case.\n\nExperimentally, Eltig took a breath and puffed his cheeks. Sure enough, they inflated much bigger than normal, and it took him a second breath for them to reach their new maximum size that matched the size of his head. Ralis' anti-blush illusion was immediately justified.\n\nRalis: \"U-um... Y-you should be able to talk without them deflating...\"\n\nEltig: \"Let's see... Yep, your magic's keeping the air in.\"\n\nKefre: \"Well, we may as well all fill ourselves up.\" With a nod of agreement from Telika, the two both inhaled, puffed, inhaled, and puffed again. After a moment of hesitation, Ralis did the same. This was only ever a spell he did when he was enjoying himself underwater in private... He could only hope no one questioned it.\n\nEltig: \"Right, let's get going. It's a shame we won't be able to talk clearly down there, but that shouldn't be too big a problem.\"\n\nTelika nodded, his cheeks bobbing up and down a little. \"I doubt the air loss from that's gonna be an issue, we've all got a couple extra breaths in these things.\"\n\nRalis: \"Y-yeah, we'll be fine in that regard at least...\" They all swam into the water, and after some deep breathing, they dove down to begin their mission.\n\n\nOn the way down, Ralis couldn't help but stare at the cheeks of his friends. He'd always wondered how they'd look with cheeks like that, and had always wanted to find an excuse to use that spell on them. Now that it was happening though... He found himself wishing both that there'd been another way, and that he might get the chance to give someone's cheeks a good squeeze without them getting suspicious.\n\nHe almost bumped into Kefre as they gestured ahead to something on the seabed. \"Thblere, thblat's thble enbltrablnce!\"\n\nEltig: \"Goblod eyble abls alblwaybls, Keblfre.\" Soon, the group settled onto the bottom in front of the dungeon's entrance, its darkness not lasting long as Ralis sent a ball of light inside.\n\nTelika: \"Mmh... Hblope thblerebl's aiblr ibln thblere.\"\n\nRalis: \"W-we cobluld problably do abl couple diblves if wble hblave to...\"\n\nKefre looked over at Ralis, a bit of confusion visible. \"Yoblu're tablkinblg clblearbler thblan ubls...\"\n\nRalis' face would be almost entire red without his illusion making him look normal. \"M-maybe Ibl'm partly aqbluatic oblr somethbling, hbleh...\" He had quite some experience with talking underwater, mostly to fish he'd encounter on his private dives - if anyone asked, it was for situations like this.\n\nEltig: \"Whblateblver iblt ibls, thblat'lbl ble hblelpblful. Coblme obln, webl're bublrniblng oxblygebln.\" With that, they all entered the dungeon, preparing themselves to fight any hostile aquatic life that might be there...\n\n\nWhich, of course, there was. While everyone but Ralis wasn't all that used to fighting underwater, they all managed, Kefre having the best time of it. The crow made use of the vertical mobility better than the others, having little difficulty staying well out of harm's way while still landing his shots. Ralis, meanwhile, tried his best not to get distracted by everyone's cheeks wobbling around with their movements...\n\nAs the dive went on, fatigue and minor cuts and scrapes piled up from the fights... And eventually, Eltig called a break. \"Riblght, evbleryblone coblme hblere foblr soblme pobltioblns. Niblce tblo fiblnalbly usble thblose boblttlbles wble cabln drblink frblom unblderblwatbler.\"\n\nEveryone helped themselves to one each, and Telika looked his over. \"...Thblese arble thblose neblw hblybrblid stblamiblna anbld hblealbling pobltioblns, arblen't thbley?\"\n\nEltig nodded, cheeks still as wobbly as they'd been upon entering the dungeon. \"Fiblgurbled wble oublght tblo sablve tiblme doblwn hblere. Goblt abl goblod deblal obln thblem toblo.\"\n\nAs they all drank, Kefre winced a little at the bitter taste of the potion. \"Whbly dblo thblese alblwaybls hblave tblo tablste sblo babld...\"\n\nRalis: \"F-flblavoblring thblem meblsses wiblth the mablgic...\"\n\nTelika: \"Yoblu dobling okblay, Rablis? Yoblu're stblill neblrvoblus.\"\n\nRalis: \"Ibl-I'm fine... Jublst don't liblke not sebleing the sublrface...\" Of course, to his arousal, that was the opposite of a problem. On top of that, hearing everyone's bubbly voices was making it even harder to focus.\n\nTelika: \"...Iblf yoblu're sublre.\" Soon, everyone had finished their potions, and after stowing the bottles, they carried on, most feeling only a slight urge to breathe while Ralis felt none at all yet, his breath holding ability being fairly impressive from enjoying pushing himself.\n\n\nAfter another couple minutes, Ralis was beginning to feel a slight rumble in his gut, and his eyes briefly went wide before he tried to calm himself. There was a pressure building up in him, and it would certainly be extremely obvious if he relieved it underwater... As he looked around to see whether anyone else was feeling the same, it didn't seem that way at first, but gradually Eltig and Kefre were looking a little more strained...\n\n\"Frblrblrlt!\" Everyone but Telika paused as a cluster of bubbles rose from the wolf's rear. Telika himself wasn't obviously phased. \"Nblo poblint ibln wablstiblng foblcus hbloldbling iblt ibln.\"\n\nEltig: \"...Ibl sublppoblse thblat mablkes seblnse.\" He let out a bubbly fart of his own. \"Feblels weblird tblo dblo thblat unblderblwatbler...\"\n\nRalis didn't find it weird himself, but had to put up a front that he did. Underwater farting was yet another aquaphilia-related thing he was into... He tried to hold back. \"L-lobloks like wble alll miblght hblave iblt, I'm febleling iblt too...\"\n\nKefre: \"Sablme hblere... Urblrblrbp!\" A burp was let loose into the water.\n\nEltig: \"Thblis mublst ble frblom thblose pobltioblns... Ablt leblast thbley woblrkebld.\"\n\nRalis: \"D-definblitely gonna hblave a tablk with the gubly that mablde them, hbleh...\"\n\nTelika: \"Yoblu sablid yoblu're febleliblng iblt toblo, jublst leblt iblt oublt sblo yoblu cabln reblax.\"\n\nRalis shook his head. \"N-no, Ibl'm fine... Leblt's just keblep going.\"\n\nThe four continued on, though Ralis certainly wasn't fine. Every now and then, someone would burp or fart, and by this point he was fully erect under his robes, bulging out the front a little... He set up another illusion to make that look normal. His magic certainly couldn't with his gas situation though, as it kept building up and up... It was gradually taking him more focus to keep holding it back, and tiny farts were eventually leaking out despite his efforts, his belly beginning to ache.\n\nKefre looked over at him. \"Yoblu reblallbly shbloulbldn't ble hbloldbling iblt ibln, yoblu nebled tblo foblcus obln yoblur spblellbls...\"\n\nThey were right... Ralis held back a sigh, closing his eyes and pushing. \"FBRRBLRFBLTBBFRLTLBFLRBLRFT!\" Bubbles erupted away in a long, loud fart, the back of his robe billowing out. It lasted a good couple seconds before tapering off and ending. Everyone stopped at the spectacle, and a moment of silence followed.\n\nRalis gave an embarrassed smile. \"N-not goblnna try not tblo fart or anblything now...\"\n\nTelika: \"Jeblez, yoblu're lublcky yoblu dibldn't exblploblde frblom hbloldbling onblto thblat...\"\n\nEltig: \"Hblopeblfulbly yoblu'll ble able tblo foblcus bebltteblr noblw.\"\n\nIt did indeed help at least a little, as there was one less distraction keeping him from doing his best. He was finally starting to feel a little better about everyone's cheeks, farts and burps... Though every now and then, when he was certain no one would see, he'd briefly reach into his robe to stroke his cock a little.\n\n\nAfter a fight with a fairly tough monster - that may have gone poorly if Ralis was still trying to hold back his gas - it was done, and the coral crown the group had come for was within reach. By then though, everyone's need for air was becoming obvious, their already oversized cheeks having grown even further. Eltig quickly grabbed the crown, bubbled out \"Wbl-wble nebled tblo gblo qublick, beblforble wble drblown!\", and began leading the way back outside. It was thankfully much quicker than it'd been on the way in, and the gassiness side effect from the potions was finally beginning to wear off... Ralis wished both that and the completion of the mission had come sooner.\n\nWithout incident, and with only a few farts or burps, the group returned outside and began swimming for the surface. And, before much longer, they all finally reached it, letting their cheeks deflate at last as they all panted to catch their breath.\n\nKefre: \"Man, that all... Ended up so weird...\"\n\nTelika: \"Those potions were annoying... Glad they didn't do something worse than gas...\"\n\nRalis gave his first genuine smile since the group had decided to go to that dungeon. \"Glad that's over... S-so embarrassing...\"\n\nEltig: \"I don't think it was embarrassing... We all had the same things going on...\"\n\nThey all returned to the shore to rest. Once his arousal calmed down, Ralis subtly dispelled the illusions on his face and crotch, no longer needing to hide anything. As awful an experience all that had been... He was certainly going to enjoy fantasizing about his friends indulging the same way he tended to. He just wished he'd gotten to see someone's cheeks squish.",
  "writing_bbcode_parsed": "<span style='word-wrap: break-word;'>-----------------------------------------------<br />Summary: Ridley is captured while exploring underwater, though manages to escape<br />Themes (Mature): Breath holding, drowning<br />Based on an idea from squirtlerocks07<br />-----------------------------------------------<br />The seas of an unnamed planet held a strange visitor today: A purple creature that resembled an anthro dragon, who was visiting from another planet and currently swimming under several dozen feet of water. The dragon-like being, Ridley, had found himself overworked for some time, and after he was finally done with what he&#039;d been doing - or offloaded it onto one of the space pirates that worked for him - he figured even someone like him could do with some relaxation. He&#039;d gone alone to that planet, and with no one around to bother him, he could finally just not worry about anything for a while. Even his lungs were still comfortable close to 10 minutes into his dive, though he had to remind himself not to push himself; this trip wasn&#039;t about that.<br /><br />After another few minutes of swimming along the seabed, it abruptly changed. It dropped off to an underwater cliff, and as Ridley looked over its edge, he couldn&#039;t see the bottom. That HAD to have something interesting... As confident as he was in his abilities though, he knew it&#039;d be stupid to go down there without a fresh breath. He jumped from the bottom to swim up, flapping his wings for extra speed, and in seconds he&#039;d reached the surface, taking a calm breath as if he&#039;d only been underwater a few seconds. Some deep breathing followed as he thought about what might be down there... Something valuable would certainly be nice, especially something like phazon. As much as he intended to relax, something like that was certainly always welcome. Once he was ready, he held his breath once again, diving back down and beginning to swim into the depths.<br /><br />It was even deeper than he&#039;d expected, surprisingly so. Even once he&#039;d reached a depth where he could no longer see the surface, Ridley still couldn&#039;t see the bottom either, the cliff wall next to him being the only terrain visible in the dimming sunlight. The pressure wasn&#039;t an issue, and he continued swimming regardless, still determined to see what was at the bottom. Several more minutes passed, the surroundings growing darker and darker... Except for what seemed to be lights deeper down. Now beginning to get a bit confused, he adjusted course to swim for the one that seemed closest.<br /><br />Gradually, he began to just barely make out the shape of something large, some distance away... His attention was briefly drawn from it as he noticed something small nearby had darted away at the sight of him. He hadn&#039;t gotten a clear look at it, but it looked sort of silver. There was no way that was something to worry about, there was no known sapient life on that planet... Ridley returned to swimming toward the big thing. Soon, he figured out what it was... Some kind of structure. He paused for a moment. Maybe he should&#039;ve been more on guard...<br /><br />But, by then, it was too late. &quot;Stop where you are!&quot; So focused on the building, he hadn&#039;t noticed he was being followed, and as he quickly turned to see who had spoken, he found that several dozen aquatic creatures were aiming weapons of some sort at him. Some were accompanied by small drones, which Ridley recognized as one of the ones that had happened across him before. Definitely law enforcement of some kind, and either he was trespassing or they knew who he was. He quickly got his answer as one spoke into what was likely a radio, and while he didn&#039;t understand most of what they said, they said his name. That meant they knew his reputation as well, and likely had something in mind for what to do with him.<br /><br />Ridley observed the group and weighed his options. He could handle as lopsided a fight as this... But not underwater. His movements were nowhere near as practiced, his plasma breath wasn&#039;t going to work, and these creatures could almost certainly outswim him. This wasn&#039;t a fight he&#039;d win. As much as it was going to hurt his ego, there was only one thing for it... His raised his hands in surrender. He&#039;d figure something out at some point.<br /><br /><br />Some vacation this had turned out to be. Ridley sat in a submerged prison cell, continuing to hold his breath - though with small air tanks given every now and then, and then required to be returned back out. These aquatic people knew what they were doing, his cell had an energy field in addition to a reinforced metal door. He could easily break the latter, but not the former, and it wasn&#039;t even a type he recognized. But he still wasn&#039;t giving up, and he constantly studied his surroundings, looking for any weaknesses whatsoever, no matter how small. After almost a couple hours of imprisonment, he noticed something that could be a chance: While the energy field trapping him was never lowered, the air tanks could move through, and each time they did, the field flickered the tiniest bit for just a moment. It seemed that it selectively allowing things through would weaken it... He prepared himself for another escape attempt, locking his gaze on the hatch each air tank would come in from and readying his tail...<br /><br />He stayed like that for some time, watching for the moment his chance would come... The hatch opened again, and an instant later Ridley shot his tail forward, viciously stabbing its tip into the energy field just as it flickered. It became lodged partway in, the field&#039;s flickering continuing and rapidly becoming more intense, before it shorted out entirely! Grinning, he tore open the door as an alarm began to sound. It was time to teach those people why exactly almost everyone was terrified of him... Though he made sure to grab the air tank that had been dropped into the cell. Water wasn&#039;t exactly an opponent he could win against.<br /><br /><br />Despite the situation, Ridley had managed to actually have some fun with his escape. Quite a few of the prison&#039;s guards swam away instead of even trying to fight him, and the ones that did didn&#039;t exactly last long against him. His eventual need for air hardly even occurred to him for a while, and he happily spent time tearing up parts of the prison just for the sake of enjoying himself. After a while though, he stopped for a moment as he felt his chest heave, and he went to breathe from the air tank... Which wasn&#039;t there. In all the excitement, he&#039;d misplaced it somewhere, and there was no other air to be found. With that, he decided he&#039;d had enough fun, and now needed to focus on surfacing before it&#039;d be too late.<br /><br />By the time he left the prison, nobody was even trying to stop him any more, which he&#039;d admit was just a little disappointing. But, it also meant he wouldn&#039;t have to slow down, so it was more welcome to him than it&#039;d normally be. After a quick look around for some kind of vehicle he could use to reach the surface faster - before realizing he&#039;d have no idea how to use it - he jumped off the bottom and started swimming for the distant surface. He&#039;d guess that he was maybe... 600 feet down. Not the deepest he&#039;d gone, but he wasn&#039;t usually this low on breath when starting his ascent.<br /><br />He swam and swam, beginning to slowly grow visibly strained... Every now and then he&#039;d check to make sure he wasn&#039;t being followed, which he never was, but the lack of air was starting to be more concerning. There was still a long way to go, and bubbles were leaking from Ridley&#039;s nostrils more and more often. He did his best to focus past the increasing discomfort in his chest, watching as the sunlight slowly became more intense once more.<br /><br />His face started to go noticeably more purple than usual, then slowly to a more blue tint... His lungs were burning, and he still had so far to go, unable to see the surface yet! Repeatedly puffing up his cheeks and sucking them back in to rebreathe, he kept swimming, kept flapping his wings, even as he was starting to get a little tired. He couldn&#039;t slow down, he couldn&#039;t let himself breathe, he had to keep going no matter what... Though he was starting to feel dizzy, his body shivering...<br /><br />Ridley&#039;s mouth opened, and a cloud of bubbles was forced out of his exhausted lungs that were finally ready to give up. He quickly forced his mouth shut, holding it with his hands, but it was too late; he&#039;d emptied his lungs entirely. He tried his best to resist the inevitable next step, seeing the surface finally in view as he kicked and clawed his way upward... Before he was forced to suck in, water rushing into his nostrils he&#039;d forgotten to cover. He paused, grabbing his neck as he coughed up the water to gasp in more... Then bolted upward, panting and gasping as he frantically swam his fastest yet. He could take it, he&#039;d been through worse... But if he wasn&#039;t quick, he wouldn&#039;t be surfacing.<br /><br />His watery chokes and gurgles began to gradually calm, his blue blush spreading over his face and even the rest of his body beginning to go slightly more blue... The surface was so close, but his movements were slowing, becoming clumsy as his vision dimmed... As he was slowly passing out, it took him a moment to realize when he surfaced.<br /><br />Once he did, the intense coughs and gasps returned, purging the water from his lungs and refilling with air at last. He felt like he couldn&#039;t get enough, cycling air as fast as possible and trying to resist coughing so he could pant more. It took almost a minute for him to begin to calm, though he fairly easily kept himself on the surface the whole time, and he swam back to the closest shore to collapse onto it on his back. Still panting, he smiled a little. Minus the drowning, all the fun of his escape had been exactly what he&#039;d needed. He was going to keep this place to himself for the moment, in case he needed to relieve some stress again. Once he&#039;d recovered, he got up and took to the air, heading back to his ship to return to his crew.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />Summary: A particular wizzrobe gets fed up at how other wizzrobes treat him (Nasir&#039;s backstory)<br />Themes (Mature): Bullying, drowning, magic<br />-----------------------------------------------<br />&quot;Nasir, focus. Tighten your motions, and keep your thoughts steady.&quot; Once again, Nasir was singled out in the middle of a magic lesson being given by the grand wizzrobe of his coven. There was some snickering from other wizzrobes as he tried again, another wave of his wand firing nothing but harmless sparks toward the trio of practice targets.<br /><br />Another wizzrobe stepped up beside him, giving him a smug look. &quot;Like this, you moron.&quot; With a perfect motion, they shot a trio of fireballs from their wand, hitting all three targets at once.<br /><br />&quot;Aeon, we&#039;re not here to show off. I&#039;ll admit that your casting was exactly right, but don&#039;t devalue a good effort.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;A good effort? The guy&#039;s not even getting ONE fireball!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Because this spell is all or nothing. Now both of you, please step aside for the next in line.&quot; Aeon and Nasir both did as asked, the latter finding a spot that was away from everyone else as he watched. Almost everyone was making it look so easy... Nasir sighed, still remembering what he&#039;d heard magic like this took.<br /><br />In addition to the proper physical technique, it required an intent to cause harm, and he just couldn&#039;t focus on that. He didn&#039;t WANT to hurt or damage anything! But, pacifism just wasn&#039;t acceptable among his kind, and he kept being ridiculed for only ever being able to manage the most basic attack magic. Name calling, teasing, even threats every now and then for having the potential to change the perception of his species... He was trying to stop caring, but it just wasn&#039;t working.<br /><br />Eventually, the lesson had ended, and everyone began filing out... But before Nasir could leave, the grand wizzrobe called out to him. &quot;Nasir, could you stay here for a moment? I want to talk to you alone.&quot; He sighed as more snickering came from that, and stayed behind as everyone else left. When it was just him and the grand wizzrobe, they looked him over and sighed themselves. &quot;I just don&#039;t know what to do with you any more, Nasir... Still no improvement at all, even after weeks of this...&quot;<br /><br />&quot;I-I&#039;m sorry, I can&#039;t help it! I don&#039;t want to have to hurt anything, I can&#039;t do it!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;You HAVE to! All of us need to be ready to protect this temple, and you&#039;re not! At this point, I don&#039;t know if you&#039;re ever going to be...&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Everyone else is enough for that, what does it matter!? Just let me live my life how I want!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;We both know the others won&#039;t allow that. I&#039;ve heard some of their threats, and earlier I heard some of them planning on how to &quot;deal&quot; with you. This HAS to be done, and soon, or you might not even get the chance at all.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Why, though!? Who cares if one guy can&#039;t do that damn magic, it doesn&#039;t MATTER!&quot; In a fit of anger, Nasir shot a single fireball toward the grand wizzrobe, who immediately dispelled it before conjuring spectral chains that restrained Nasir.<br /><br />Even after the attempted attack, the grand wizzrobe was calm. &quot;That&#039;s enough. I&#039;ve come to a decision. Beginning tomorrow, I&#039;ll be training you personally, and you will beg yourself to improve. Whether it works or doesn&#039;t, you won&#039;t be a problem any more.&quot;<br /><br />The chains were dispelled, and Nasir&#039;s anger had been replaced with fear. He made for the room&#039;s exit, and as he wasn&#039;t stopped, he ran out. Paying no mind to the other wizzrobes that had been listening at the door, he went off to be by himself, starting to cry a little once again.<br /><br /><br />Hours later, as Nasir tried to keep his thoughts off what the grand wizzrobe had said, he practiced a little magic of his own during his free time. He&#039;d always enjoyed the idea of water magic, and was getting decent at it even without instruction, playing around with the water of a fountain that usually had no one else around. Forming water into semi-solid balls that could be picked up and moved around, turning a little directly into vapor, splashing it around without needing to touch it-<br /><br />&quot;And what exactly are you up to?&quot; Nasir jumped a little at that voice, the water ball he was holding immediately destabilizing and splashing onto the floor. He knew that voice; his worst bully had found him. Even knowing it would probably be pointless, he turned to run away... And as expected, his legs locked in place. He slowly turned to look over... His bully, who had paralyzed his legs for the moment, had brought a couple friends this time.<br /><br />&quot;I-I was just practicing some water magic...&quot; Nasir knew he wouldn&#039;t be able to do much, but just talking was worth a shot.<br /><br />It didn&#039;t help. &quot;Aw, instead of doing what you&#039;re supposed to be doing, you&#039;re making little toys for yourself... Like that&#039;s gonna accomplish anything.&quot;<br /><br />One of the bully&#039;s friends looked at the fountain. &quot;This wasn&#039;t exactly our plan for you for today, but... I think this works even better.&quot; Aiming his wand at the fountain, its water began gathering up into a ball, which the other of the bully&#039;s friends helped make bigger, understanding his intent.<br /><br />&quot;Come to think of it, I HAVE heard that you like water... Using it for this ought to work pretty well.&quot;<br /><br />While Nasir didn&#039;t exactly know what the group had planned, he didn&#039;t want to find out. He tried to force himself to move, but couldn&#039;t, and couldn&#039;t stop the magic that was holding him in place either. Getting closer to panicking, he fired a few shots of magic at the bully that was holding him in place, which were all blocked by a transparent barrier briefly appearing in front of them. &quot;N-no, let me go! What are you even gonna get from this!?&quot;<br /><br />&quot;We won&#039;t get much from this, I&#039;ll admit, but it&#039;ll be fun. And it&#039;ll give you a good reason to finally actually TRY to get better at attacking.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;I&#039;ve BEEN trying, I just can&#039;t do it! It doesn&#039;t work no matter what I do!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Eh, don&#039;t care. Make excuses all you want.&quot;<br /><br />With the ball of water getting bigger than Nasir, it was slowly pulled away from the fountain and held above him. With a nod of approval from the lead bully, it started descending toward Nasir! &quot;So, you were doing that water magic when we got here... Think you can use it to get out of this? I don&#039;t.&quot;<br /><br />Nasir went into a full panic as the water touched the top of his head, and tried his best to use his magic to move it aside, or turn it all to vapor, or SOMETHING... Nothing worked. &quot;N-no, no, don&#039;t drown me!&quot; But, knowing they wouldn&#039;t listen, he gasped a deep breath... Just as he was pulled into the water.<br /><br />&quot;Go on, keep trying! It&#039;ll fun to watch you struggle in there!&quot; And struggle Nasir did, desperately fighting to get himself out. His attempts to swim would just result in him being brought back to the middle, magic still wasn&#039;t working... He was losing a lot of air in his panic, bubbles streaming away and cutting down on how much time he had. Before long, his struggling included fighting against his urge to breathe, and that was something he lacked experience with. Holding his beak shut with his free hand, he tried again and again to manipulate the water, but his magic was nowhere near strong enough to overcome the force of the group holding it together, merely making little ripples on its surface.<br /><br />Barely a minute in, Nasir dropped his wand as he held his beak with both hands, his face starting to go blue... Before a frantic attempt to swim up led to his beak opening a little to suck in. He immediately grabbed his neck, coughing up water and bubbles, before he gasped again. Thrashing in the water, his body forced him to choke down watery breaths, and he could feel the fluid in his lungs, burning them with the most pain he&#039;d ever felt...<br /><br />He was allowed to drown for 10 seconds, before the water ball was dropped and dispersed, leaving the partially waterlogged wizzrobe coughing and hacking on the floor, desperate to get air into himself again. The main bully stood over him, grinning down at him. &quot;That give you enough incentive? If it didn&#039;t, we can always try again sometime, and for longer... Such a shame that that probably ruined your love of water~&quot; They and the others laughed as they walked off.<br /><br />After he&#039;d finally mostly recovered after a minute, Nasir paused for a moment as he thought about what had just happened... And started blushing heavily. Now that the pain was gone - aside from some soreness in his chest - something about drowning was... Oddly sort of appealing? Maybe not inhaling water, but struggling to hold his breath, losing bubbles... He&#039;d have to give it some more thought sometime. He got up and grabbed his wand again, but stayed where he was. They were going to put him through that again sometime, he knew they would, and he imagined what the grand wizzrobe had planned for him was going to be even worse... He couldn&#039;t stay, he was going to die if he did. There was only one thing for it.<br /><br /><br />Doing his best to stay unseen, Nasir made his way through the temple toward its entrance. He&#039;d considered leaving before, but never gone through with it... This time was going to be different. Sooner than he realized, as he found himself not really caring about much, he reached the cave connecting the temple with the outside... And, not long after, he stepped outside.<br /><br />It&#039;d been some time since he&#039;d been outside, as there wasn&#039;t much to do on the surface of the island the temple was inside of. Indeed, there wasn&#039;t even much surface in general, the roughly-circular island no more than about 100 feet wide. Heading to its beach, Nasir sat down and sighed. There were times he came this far in the past, but without any way off the island, this was the farthest he&#039;d get before turning back. This time, he couldn&#039;t turn back, so he had to think of something. He of course knew boats were a thing, but there were none anywhere nearby, and he had no idea how to make something like that... Maybe someone would come by in a boat? But who would take a monster as a passenger? ...Someone, he hoped.<br /><br />About half an hour passed, as he looked out at the water for any sign... Then, there was. He could see a ship some distance away! Getting up, and having come up with a plan while he was waiting, Nasir did his best to get their attention. From that much distance, he&#039;d just look like a stranded person, and maybe that would work? And soon, it seemed it was, as the ship was getting closer!<br /><br />Once it was close enough, he could make out people looking at him from the ship... With ranged weapons aimed at him, as he&#039;d expected, though at least in a way he could tell was just a precaution. Someone - he believed them to be the captain - called down to him. &quot;What&#039;s a monster doing trying to get our attention? Thought you were a person!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;I-I need to leave! The others here are gonna kill me if I don&#039;t!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Oh, and you think we&#039;re just going to be helping out a monster? No, you&#039;ve got something planned, and we&#039;re not falling for it.&quot;<br /><br />He couldn&#039;t lose this chance, he might not get another... Looking around, he came up with something. &quot;There&#039;s no way I&#039;d be able to do anything to you even if I wanted to, I&#039;m outnumbered, and I wouldn&#039;t have a way off the ship if I tried to sink it!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;...That&#039;s a good point...&quot; The captain hesitated for a moment, then addressed his crew. &quot;Lower down the ladder and let him up. If he tries anything, you know what to do.&quot; A few seconds later, a rope ladder was lowered over the side, and Nasir eagerly rushed out into the water to grab it and climb up.<br /><br />Even once he was on the deck, the crew clearly still weren&#039;t too pleased with his presence, and he could now make out how nervous they were about him. As the ladder was brought back up, the captain looked him over. &quot;We&#039;ll take you to the closest town, then that&#039;ll be it. And you better find some way to look like less of a threat, I don&#039;t need you scaring my crew the whole time.&quot;<br /><br />How was he going to do that? He already felt that he wasn&#039;t particularly threatening, but this was that reputation the other wizzrobes wanted him to uphold, and there wasn&#039;t much he could do to not appear to be an evil spellcaster. Except... He looked down at his wand. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, then exhaled... It had to be done. He turned his wand around, and held out its handle to the captain. &quot;Take it. I can&#039;t do magic without it, I don&#039;t even know a wizzrobe that can.&quot;<br /><br />The captain cautiously took his wand, looking it over. &quot;...Never thought I&#039;d see a wizzrobe part with one of these... You must really be desperate.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Keep it if that&#039;s what it takes. I&#039;m not good with it anyway.&quot;<br /><br />After a moment, the captain nodded, putting the wand away. &quot;We&#039;ll head out, then. Don&#039;t make us regret this.&quot;<br /><br />Soon, the ship started moving again, sailing away from the island Nasir had called home for so long. He leaned against the side of the ship, watching it get farther away... He wasn&#039;t going to miss it.<br /><br /><br />Months later, Nasir&#039;s life had drastically improved, especially since he&#039;d found he could pass himself off as an anthro toucan if he didn&#039;t wear his robes - no big loss, they brought back bad memories anyway. While he hadn&#039;t found a replacement wand yet, he didn&#039;t really mind. With his love of water still going strong - and him having realized he was a bigger fan of it than he&#039;d thought - one day, he swam out to a coral reef not too far from shore, and dove down to explore, wearing a one-piece swimsuit he&#039;d gotten for himself. It was as beautiful a place as he&#039;d heard coral reefs were, and with his breath holding ability having significantly improved, he could comfortably stay down for a couple minutes at a time.<br /><br />On one of those dives, something odd came into view. In a near-perfectly circular open section of seabed about a foot wide, there was a marble pedestal, with some kind of rod on it. It had light colors, like the marble it was on, but with a blue tint and deeper blue spirals on it... That had to be something interesting. Nasir swam over despite being in some need of a breath, and after inspecting the pedestal and rod, he grabbed the rod by what seemed to be a handle.<br /><br />The moment he did, a transparent wave of blue energy emitted from it, and he felt something sort of &quot;connect&quot; to him in a way he&#039;d never felt before. In an instant, he somehow knew what he was holding: The Wand of the Tides. &quot;What the... W-wait, how am I...?&quot; His voice was perfectly clear in the water, and he could even see better than before! After inspecting the wand, he gave it a wave, and felt the water in front of him shift. That had to have been magic, and he barely even TRIED to do that! He smiled, before remembering his need for air - realizing it seemed to be going slower than before - and began swimming for the surface. Things were going to be different now, for sure...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />Summary: A young lizard has fun in his home&#039;s pool with the help of a guardian spirit<br />Themes (Mature): Young, breathholding, brief drowning<br />-----------------------------------------------<br />Jeremy the lizard slowly awoke as sunlight began shining into his room, and eventually sat up and stretched, smiling as he remembered he&#039;d have the run of the house for a good few hours. His parents would be out for some time doing something that couldn&#039;t really wait, and despite him being merely 12, they knew he was responsible enough to be on his own for that time. Part of the reasoning for that, of course, was thanks to his best friend, currently the only other occupant of the house - if they could be called an occupant.<br /><br />&quot;Good morning, Jeremy. Did you sleep well?&quot; The familiar voice of Aria entered Jeremy&#039;s mind, their physical form - if they had one - nowhere to be found. According to Aria themselves, they were a guardian spirit tasked with keeping Jeremy safe, and that mission would span the young lizard&#039;s entire life. Aria claimed they&#039;d always been with him, though he&#039;d only first noticed their presence during a narrowly-avoided incident when he was 6: He&#039;d been outside watching his dad mow the lawn, and the lawnmower had happened to launch a rock that&#039;d been headed straight for Jeremy&#039;s eye... Before the rock stopped short in the air, then simply fell to the ground. Other close calls had similarly been averted, and while Jeremy had tried to tell his parents about Aria, they simply believed the spirit to be an imaginary friend (And were impressed he knew the word &quot;aria&quot;), one he planned to &quot;grow out of&quot; eventually on Aria&#039;s advice so he wouldn&#039;t look insane.<br /><br />&quot;Yep! And it&#039;s gonna be cool that I can just talk to you for a while today!&quot; After getting out of bed and having breakfast - which his parents had left him instructions on how to do, though Aria could&#039;ve helped if they hadn&#039;t - Jeremy wondered how to best spend the time he&#039;d be alone. He hadn&#039;t bothered to get dressed, having just his underwear on, but he felt like it&#039;d be sort of a wasted opportunity if he didn&#039;t do anything more...<br /><br />Aria spoke up with an idea, sensing his indecision. &quot;I recall you once saying you wanted to swim entirely on your own sometime. Perhaps that would work, if you still wish to?&quot;<br /><br />He certainly did. The house had a pool, and while it was an impressive size for one in a house, there was a frustrating list of rules he had to follow: No swimming without someone watching, stay in the shallow end, don&#039;t dive for more than 10 seconds, wear only swimwear... And now, there was nobody to complain about him not following them. &quot;Oh, right! Yeah, I&#039;m gonna do that!&quot; Jeremy happily rushed over to the pool room&#039;s entrance, where he stopped as he saw a note on the door. &quot;Don&#039;t go in the pool until we&#039;re back, okay? It&#039;s not safe alone! -Mom&quot;.<br /><br />&quot;...Well... It&#039;s not like they know what you are, Aria.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Indeed. Though you&#039;d certainly be in trouble if they found out you ignored their message... If you still wish to swim, I&#039;ll help you in setting everything back to how it was so they won&#039;t know.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Thanks.&quot; Paying no further mind to the note, Jeremy headed into the pool room. So much water, just waiting for him to hop in... And nobody around to tell him what not to do. The first order of business was to get properly dressed though, as he did actually enjoy the swimwear he was required to have. He grabbed his goggles and put them on, and did the same with his trunks.<br /><br />As he stepped into the pool, Jeremy knew this was going to be great. No rules getting between him and enjoying the water... And when he began to swim, he looked over to where one of his parents would normally sit to watch him, smiling at how odd it was that no one was there. Firstly though, he had to do something he&#039;d always wanted to do.<br /><br />Jeremy took a deep breath, dove down, let himself sink to sit on the bottom of the shallow end, and Aria counted the seconds for him as always. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10... 11, 12, 13, 14, 15... A wide smile grew between his puffed cheeks as he purposely disobeyed one of the pool&#039;s rules. He always knew 10 seconds was too short... This time, he&#039;d go as long as HE said. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22... Strain was growing in his chest, a kind that was rare for him to feel underwater. He&#039;d only ever gotten to hold his breath this long on land before. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31... A little grunt was audible as his chest heaved, demanding he go up and breathe. But, his instincts joined the 10 second rule in being disobeyed. 36, 37, 38, 39, 40... A cluster of bubbles left his lips with a strong contraction, before he covered his mouth. 44, 45, 46, 47, 48... He tried to focus on something other than his need to breathe, having read online he should do so. The cool pool tiles against his scales, the warbles of the bubbles he was continually releasing... 52, 53, 54-<br /><br />He bolted up and shot for the surface, gasping loudly and panting. He struggled to stay above water for a moment, before he felt an upward force around him as Aria held him up. &quot;I&#039;m glad you didn&#039;t get carried away. And well done, that was quite close to your record.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Th-thanks...&quot; Jeremy took some time to catch his breath, before eventually beginning to swim again, Aria letting go of him. He decided to just relax for a while now, idly swimming around, occasionally floating on his back for a while - or his front for a shorter while. Every now and then he&#039;d dive again, to swim around, blow bubbles, or both - always making it a point to stay down longer than 10 seconds. On one dive, he even walked on the bottom, to Aria&#039;s surprise. &quot;You never, I never considered that before... Interesting.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Yeblah, thblis-&quot; He paused, realizing how bubbly his voice was as he spoke underwater for the first time. He giggled at how he sounded, and tried talking more. &quot;Ibl soblund sblo fublnny! Hblahblahbla!&quot; A little whine followed as it occurred to him how much air that had taken, and he surfaced again to refill.<br /><br />&quot;Be sure not to do that too far underwater.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Yep, I know. Oh, speaking of far underwater!&quot; The whole time so far, Jeremy had stuck to the shallow end without thinking, but there was a whole section of the pool that was just asking to be explored. For the first time, he swam out to the deep end. It did admittedly make him a little nervous, seeing the bottom so far below him at about 15 feet down... But knowing Aria would be ready to help him if he needed it, he had the confidence to close that distance. After trying to calm himself a bit, he took the deepest breath his little lungs could hold, and began his descent.<br /><br />It was... A bit less impressive than he&#039;d expected. But still, it was surreal to be going so far from the surface, so far from any air... Seconds ticked by, the depth increased, and soon Jeremy planted a hand on the pool&#039;s true bottom. Proud of himself, he reoriented his body to look up at the surface, seeing bubbles floating back up toward it. He blew out a trickle of air to add to it, and continued, a string of bubbles soon going all the way between the surface and the lizard&#039;s lips.<br /><br />As he bubbled out his breath, his mind wandered. He&#039;d always wondered how long he could truly stay underwater without needing to worry about that stupid 10 second rule... He was decent at holding his breath thanks to having had a lot of practice on land, but he&#039;d never gotten the chance to really test himself underwater. Until now... He decided he&#039;d go for it.<br /><br />First order of business though, he needed more air, his lungs were complaining again. Jumping off the bottom, Jeremy began swimming back up, which was a bit slower than going down since he didn&#039;t have as much air in him. His nervousness returned; he hadn&#039;t planned on staying underwater so long... But before it could become a real issue, he successfully surfaced to catch his breath, not needing to be held up by Aria this time. Once he&#039;d recovered, he informed Aria of something. &quot;This next dive, don&#039;t tell me how long I&#039;ve been holding my breath until I surface, okay?&quot; He&#039;d need to focus.<br /><br />&quot;Of course. Just be careful not to go too far.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;I&#039;ll be fine, all this is easy!&quot; He began to ready his mind for the dive... And soon, with another huge breath, he dove back down. Knowing he&#039;d sink regardless, he didn&#039;t waste oxygen on swimming, focusing entirely on relaxing while he watched the surface get farther away. Despite his best efforts, his heart was pounding in the anticipation of seeing what he could really do.<br /><br />He eventually sank to the bottom and sat down, already feeling his lungs asking for air again. He was determined to not come up until he absolutely couldn&#039;t stand the urge to breathe any more, though it was certainly possible he&#039;d end up giving up early. For the moment, he had the willpower to continue, and looked up to watch his bubbles, finding that that helped distract him a bit. He guessed it&#039;d been about... 20 seconds? He was sure Aria was tracking it better than he was. Taking in his surroundings was helping him stay calm, but it was slowly becoming less effective, the complaints of his lungs getting more and more intense.<br /><br />Jeremy eventually covered his mouth like before, bubbles trickling out regardless. The idea of giving up had entered his mind, but even as the discomfort kept building, the lizard kept pushing himself to stay. It got harder and harder to do so, and his chest was heaving more often, nervous whines becoming audible in the pool&#039;s depths. A burning feeling began to form in his lungs, and as he wasn&#039;t familiar with it, he became even more tempted to scramble back up... No, he still wouldn&#039;t give up, no matter what.<br /><br />The burning continued to build, the lizard feeling like his entire chest was on fire. Not yet... Not yet... Shivering all over, bubbles streaming away... His nostrils flared as he sucked in water without thinking! He instantly coughed it back out along with a cloud of the last of his air, before gasping as he started to drown! He grabbed his neck, choking while his face gained a blue tint-<br /><br />He was yanked up through the water, breaking the surface in less than a second as Aria pulled him to safety. &quot;I told you to be careful!&quot; Jeremy was coughing too much to respond, spitting up water and sputtering while trying his best to get air back in him. Aria set him down on the side of the pool while he slowly recovered, eventually managing a &quot;S-sorry...&quot;.<br /><br />&quot;Hold still, I need to check your lungs.&quot; Jeremy felt odd for a moment. &quot;Right, they&#039;re fine. If a bit wet. You&#039;re lucky it&#039;s not worse than this, inhaling water can be disastrous...&quot;<br /><br />Neither said more for a little while. The lizard decided he was done with swimming for the moment, though one thing was still on his mind... &quot;...How long did I hold my breath down there?&quot;<br /><br />&quot;1 minute and 24 seconds. You&#039;ve beaten your record by nearly 30 seconds.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Really!? Awesome! I wasn&#039;t sure I&#039;d ever get over a minute... But I definitely need to not swim for a while now...&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Indeed, your body needs rest. Get dried off, I&#039;ll start putting everything back how it was before you came in here.&quot;<br /><br /><br />Some time later, after Jeremy had enjoyed more time on his own, his parents returned, his mom being the first in. &quot;Hi buddy, we&#039;re home!&quot; Jeremy happily ran up and hugged her.<br /><br />After the hug, she looked down at him. &quot;So, how was it being on your own for so long?&quot;<br /><br />&quot;It was cool!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Glad to hear it! Your dad&#039;s going to be here in just a minute.&quot;<br /><br />Sure enough, he came in soon as well. &quot;Hey, little dude! How&#039;s it going?&quot;<br /><br />Jeremy hugged them as well. &quot;It&#039;s good!&quot;<br /><br />As his dad hugged him, they sniffed a little, frowning for a moment... But returning to smiling before Jeremy would notice. &quot;Didn&#039;t have any parties while we were gone?&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Haha, no I didn&#039;t!&quot;<br /><br /><br />Things mostly went back to normal afterward... Until Jeremy&#039;s dad sat him down to have a talk.<br /><br />&quot;So... Did you enjoy your swim earlier?&quot;<br /><br />Jeremy froze up. What had he and Aria missed? &quot;N-no, I didn&#039;t swim! I wanted to, but that note reminded me not to!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;I smelled chlorine on you when I came in. Look, Jeremy, the rules about the pool are to keep you safe, nothing more.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;I&#039;m sorry, I just really wanted to!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;I know you love it... And, I&#039;m not going to punish you this time. While we were out, your mom and I were actually talking about those rules, and we&#039;ve decided we&#039;re going to loosen them up. No more 10 second rule, and you can swim where you want.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Wait, really!? That&#039;s awesome!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;You still need someone supervising you, though. I don&#039;t imagine that &quot;Aria&quot; friend of yours is a very good lifeguard.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;That&#039;s still fine, thanks!&quot; Jeremy hugged his dad, who hugged him back.<br /><br />&quot;Now... I&#039;m in the mood for some Mario Party, if you&#039;re up for that.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Yeah, sure!&quot;<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />Summary: An ordinary raptor gains and uses time magic, to varying effect<br />Themes: Gaining sapience, time travel, brief drowning<br />-----------------------------------------------<br />To the raptor, there was little beyond fulfilling his instincts: Find food and water, find shelter, find a mate. Water and shelter had been sorted for the day, though any sort of food was evading him for the moment. That happened sometimes; living on his own, he couldn&#039;t hunt all that well, and mainly needed to ambush other unaware dinosaurs to get his meals.<br /><br />Late that day, he came across an odd sight: A collection of bones, next to a long branch with something glowing on one end. While he may not have had much capacity for thoughts, those bones were a kind he didn&#039;t recognize... Though he knew not to bother even chewing them. That branch-looking thing, though, he didn&#039;t even recognize the material of it... Maybe that was edible? The raptor picked it up off the ground and tried gnawing on it. It didn&#039;t taste like much, but it seemed promising, it had a little give to it. He bit down harder-<br /><br />The branch abruptly snapped, and the glowing thing flared as something non-physical began rushing into the raptor. He reflexively dropped the two pieces, but it didn&#039;t stop, and he growled as searing pain started to fill his head. In his mind, it felt as if his instincts were being pushed aside and condensed, leaving far more empty space than there used to be... But it wouldn&#039;t remain empty for long. &quot;...Wh...W-what&#039;s happening...?&quot; Words entered his mind for the first time, and the pain abruptly stopped after just a few more seconds, the branch going dark.<br /><br />Deeply confused, and with clarity he&#039;d never experienced before, the raptor tried to take stock of the situation. That staff - how did he know what it was now? - had clearly made some rather enormous changes to him. Outwardly, his body seemed the same, but the newfound intelligence he had would be clear to anyone who saw him. Even his instincts just felt more like guidelines than anything else now. &quot;...This doesn&#039;t make sense...&quot; This time, that wasn&#039;t just in his head; he&#039;d become able to speak, and somehow already knew how to do so. After a moment of surprise, it occurred to him that that was kind of useless without anyone that&#039;d be able to talk back.<br /><br />Wondering how far his new intelligence went, the dinosaur checked the bones again to see if he recognized them now... Still no. No answers to anything that had happened seemed to be coming. With a sigh of frustration, he looked up at the sky, trying to get an idea of how long he had before night. Something else entered his mind: 7:37PM, August 17th, 75,000,012 BC. The time and date. It seemed like an awfully large number for the year... He smiled and shook his head. &quot;Great, I can... Tell the time. So helpful.&quot; As he gave it some thought though, it felt somehow... Mutable? He reached out, both physically and mentally, and touched the year number in his mind. Sure enough, he could adjust it up and down, the BC changing to AD if he brought it to 0. &quot;No clue what this is doing...&quot; The raptor put the year number to 1,000 AD, and nothing seemed to happen. Something seemed to be awaiting his approval though... He allowed whatever it was. At that moment, a circle of energy briefly shot up around him, and the raptor vanished inside, the energy dissipating.<br /><br /><br />When his vision cleared, he felt nothing beneath his feet, and his environment had gone oddly blue. He looked around for a moment, confused as ever, before he started coughing after an attempt to breathe. Silvery blobs of some kind floated up from his muzzle with each cough - he was underwater! Trying his best to hold what little breath he had, he struggled to awkwardly swim up, thankfully not all that far down. Still, he was slow, and with so little air he eventually had no choice but to inhale again, choking on the water-<br /><br />He broke the surface, hoarsely gasping and coughing up the water while struggling to stay up and keep from panicking. After a few seconds, he managed to recover, and took a look around where he&#039;d ended up. He was in a lake, but there wasn&#039;t a single thing he recognized... The trees were different, the terrain itself was different, there were weird structures he&#039;d never seen before... Wait, structures?<br /><br />The raptor did a double take. Those things weren&#039;t even SIMILAR to anything he knew... He needed to investigate. Swimming to the lake&#039;s shore and shaking off some of the water, he started on his way to the structures. As he approached, he noticed odd creatures walking around near them, once again new to him. Bipedal like him, but with arms that were far more developed than his... They reminded him of those bones he&#039;d found. While trying to talk to another dinosaur certainly wasn&#039;t going to work, maybe these weird creatures could respond? It was worth a shot.<br /><br />Going up to a lone one that was facing away - and ignoring his instincts telling him it&#039;d be an easy meal - he tried. &quot;Um... Hello?&quot; The creature turned, and immediately yelped in fear. &quot;W-what the hell is that!?&quot; So, they could talk too! The raptor tried to figure out what he could say to try to calm them- And, they were already running away. &quot;No, come back!&quot; He briefly prepared to make chase, but realized just in time that thay&#039;d just make it worse. That creature must just not have expected the raptor to not be intending to eat them. Surely there was someone he could talk to, though.<br /><br />He kept trying, but it didn&#039;t go well. Everything he tried to talk to just ran away, and before too long the whole place was deserted, all of the creatures having either run off or hidden inside one of the structures. The raptor sighed, trying to think of what to do... He went to one of the structures he&#039;d seen something enter, approaching what he thought might be a blocked entrance. &quot;Please, I just want to talk!&quot; There was no response, though he could hear some movement past the entrance. Maybe there was some way for him to prove he meant no harm, but if there was, it wasn&#039;t coming to him.<br /><br />Giving up on it for the moment, the dino decided to at least look for answers of where he might be, and began walking through the area. There was still almost no one around, and the few creatures he did see would run off before he could even get close enough for them to hear him. While he was used to being feared - he was a predator, after all - this was beyond what he&#039;d experienced before. Now that he thought about it, he noticed how hard it was to remember things that had happened before he became intelligent... He definitely could, but it felt like he was trying to recall a dream.<br /><br />As any answers continued to evade him, the raptor became lost in thoughts of how different his life was going to be... Before a somewhat familiar smell brought him back to reality. It was definitely meat, but a little different than what he was used to. Remembering how hungry he was, he followed that smell, and quickly found where it was coming from: There was a much smaller one of those structures, seemingly entirely made of wood, with quite a selection of meats on it! As odd as it all looked - in clean, consistent chunks instead of... Well, ON something - meat was meat, and he was ready to finally get a meal.<br /><br /><br />Having cleaned out the stall of nearly all the meat, the raptor was satisfied, pleasantly full for the first time he could remember. He still held onto the last little bit of meat, pulling it off the bone it was on as he continued wandering. It was definitely odd that that had all just been left there... Maybe whoever had gotten it hadn&#039;t gotten to finish it in the panic of his arrival-<br /><br />&quot;There it is!&quot; The dino stopped and looked where that came from. Several creatures had shown up, each holding shiny things that sort of reminded him of claws, and wearing different similarly shiny things as well. One of the creatures stepped back a bit as he turned to them. &quot;Damn it, it&#039;s already eaten someone...&quot;<br /><br />The raptor looked down at the bone he was holding, realizing that that definitely wasn&#039;t a good look among things that he wanted to not be scared of him. &quot;N-no, this was just-&quot;<br /><br />&quot;It talks!?&quot; &quot;Stand ready, this is no normal beast...&quot; The group started cautiously approaching him, as he thought about what to do. Getting on the good side of these things was definitely a lost cause... He reached with his mind, trying to alter the date again, but it was as if some intangible muscle was still exhausted from the last time he&#039;d done so. And, clueless as he was about whatever the creatures were, he didn&#039;t want to fight them either, leaving one option he was thankfully good at.<br /><br />He turned and ran, dropping the bone and leaving all the structures behind. The creatures didn&#039;t even bother trying to chase him, likely not being able to run nearly as fast as him, though he could hear them shout threats and demands that he not return. He didn&#039;t plan on it, he didn&#039;t like this place. The first voices he&#039;d ever heard that weren&#039;t his, and they were coming from things that seemed torn between running from him and fighting him... It wasn&#039;t that unusual for him, other than the talking. Now that he was able to think though, he wasn&#039;t sure he wanted to live like that any more. Maybe he&#039;d find more meat just laying around in this new world? That&#039;d be nice.<br /><br />Not knowing what else to do, the raptor followed a dirt path he&#039;d found, hoping his date-altering ability would come back soon. This place didn&#039;t really seem to have much for him... After a while, he felt odd for a moment, and with a quick test, found that his ability had returned. Relieved, he thought about the date again, trying to decide what to set it to. Maybe a higher AD number for the year... He set it to 2,200. That seemed as good a number as any. He wished he knew some way to be careful about it... But, he accepted it, and another ring of energy formed and sent him off.<br /><br /><br />Once he was able to look around, he found he was in an even weirder place than before. While there were still things that were clearly natural - though still unfamiliar - there were more structures than before, and they looked a lot different. Shinier, with some having transparent parts that had weird symbols on them... And more bipedal creatures were around, staring at him. Before anything else, he had to make sure he made a good impression. &quot;H-hi, um... Honestly, I&#039;m just as confused as you all are. The last hour and 17 minutes haven&#039;t made any sense...&quot; He assumed his time-telling ability was what let him be so precise about that.<br /><br />To his surprise, there was no panic or aggression. Some of the creatures approached to get a better look, while others stayed back to talk amongst themselves. The raptor allowed himself to be examined. &quot;So... Where are the other dinosaurs? I don&#039;t recognize what any of you are...&quot;<br /><br />&quot;...Dinosaurs haven&#039;t been around for millions of years. I think you might be the first anyone&#039;s ever seen.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;...Oh...&quot; He thought for a moment. &quot;...I think I&#039;m able to go back, at least...&quot; Trying to ignore how weird it felt to know he was the only living member of his species, he started answering the many questions the creatures had for him, and a good few of his own were answered as well.<br /><br />After some time, new people arrived, looking important as odd shiny things floated alongside some. Said importance was quickly confirmed, as everyone else stepped aside for them.<br /><br />While the one that seemed to be the leader was the first to approach, someone else had... The same staff that had started all this for the raptor. As he tried to hide his surprise, the leader spoke up. &quot;So... We&#039;ve heard that you&#039;re from the past. We&#039;re a group of paleontologists, studying... Well, you, basically. We don&#039;t imagine you have anywhere to stay, nor that you&#039;re very familiar with this time, so we have an offer for you. If you let us study you, and answer as many questions we have about your era as possible, we&#039;ll get you whatever you need to live comfortably here. Within reason, obviously.&quot;<br /><br />It didn&#039;t need much thought. &quot;Yeah, sounds good! And, by the way, that staff the one guy has...&quot; He pause got a strange feeling that saying too much about the staff was going to cause... Unimaginably large problems. &quot;...I-it&#039;s pretty cool.&quot;<br /><br />The one with the staff smiled at that. &quot;Thanks. As much as magic is kind of rare now, there&#039;s always things it can do that technology can&#039;t. One of these days, I&#039;m gonna figure out a time travel spell and go back to your era myself, this staff&#039;s already set up for time magic!&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Well, um... Good luck with that.&quot; With his suspicion about that person confirmed, and with nothing more to discuss for the moment, the group all left together. The raptor hadn&#039;t even had his new power nor his intelligence for two hours yet, but already... He was excited to see what else there was for him to explore through time.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />Summary: A mage helps his adventuring party through an underwater dungeon, while trying not to let on that he&#039;s into some of the aquatic things that keep happening<br />Themes (Adult): Hyper cheeks, underwater farting/burping, bubbletalking, embarrassment<br />Based on an idea by Skylar/Rebag102<br />-----------------------------------------------<br />4 adventurers had gathered around a table at their base, checking a map as they plotted their next move. The leader of them, Eltig, an anthro lizard, was the first to speak up after the map had been unrolled. &quot;So, we still have a fair bit on our plate right now... Ralis, quick reminder?&quot;<br /><br />Ralis, a rabbit that acted as the group&#039;s spellcaster, nodded as he checked his notes. &quot;Investigate signs of odd unknown creature in nearby forest, deadline in 2 weeks. Recover coral crown from underwater dungeon just off the coast, deadline in 8 days. Clear out unearthed ruins of any possible monsters or traps, deadline in 20 days, although we&#039;ve been asked to do it as soon as possible.&quot;<br /><br />Next to him, Kefre, a crow archer, sighed. &quot;We&#039;re really cutting it close, we&#039;ve been kind of slacking on this stuff... I say we start with whatever&#039;s closest to its deadline, so that underwater dungeon.&quot;<br /><br />There was a nod from Telika, a wolf who specialized in spears. &quot;Sounds good to me. Those guys wanting the ruins cleared out can wait a bit longer.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis quickly grew nervous at the thought of seeing everyone underwater... &quot;H-hang on, they wanted us to hurry! Are we sure we shouldn&#039;t do that first?&quot;<br /><br />Eltig shook his head. &quot;We&#039;d risk being late to getting that crown back. Who knows how big those ruins are? Kefre and Telika are right, we should do the underwater dungeon first.&quot;<br /><br />Telika, picking up on Ralis&#039; discomfort, let out a chuckle. &quot;What, not a fan of water? I remember you saying a while back that you can still use your magic underwater, we&#039;ll be fine.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis tried his best not to blush. &quot;I-I mean, I can, but...&quot;<br /><br />Kefre: &quot;Then what exactly is the issue? I&#039;ve got those specialized arrows that&#039;ll work underwater, you can give Eltig that magic that lets him swing his sword freely, and Telika&#039;s fine since spears work underwater regardless.&quot;<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;Try your best to keep yourself calm there, Ralis. That&#039;s where we&#039;ll be heading.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis sighed. &quot;Fine...&quot; The map was rolled back up, and after some preparation, the group headed for the coast.<br /><br /><br />The water looked inviting to everyone, including Ralis, though he didn&#039;t plan on explaining that he was far more attracted to it than everyone else was... Since he was an aquaphile, and enjoyed things about it that he knew his friends would think he was weird for. But, as everyone got ready for the dive, he just had to accept that this mission was going to be a rough one.<br /><br />Eltig looked to him. &quot;Now, you said you have magic that&#039;ll let us stay down there longer, right? I&#039;ve always wanted to see how it&#039;d feel to breathe through gills...&quot;<br /><br />Ralis: &quot;N-not exactly waterbreathing magic, since I don&#039;t know any... Um... Instead, you&#039;ll be able to hold a lot more air. In your cheeks, since I can make them more elastic.&quot;<br /><br />Kefre looked incredulous for a moment. &quot;...We&#039;ll be getting big cheeks?&quot; His expression softened as he laughed. &quot;Man, magic is so weird sometimes...&quot;<br /><br />Telika: &quot;Well, hit us with it, let&#039;s see. Might not be so bad.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis nodded, and as he wielded his staff, a blue glow formed around him and his friends, before settling onto everyone&#039;s cheeks and fading away. As subtly as he could, he also set up an illusion that would cover any blush he&#039;d get, glad he&#039;d gotten a lot of practice with that just in case.<br /><br />Experimentally, Eltig took a breath and puffed his cheeks. Sure enough, they inflated much bigger than normal, and it took him a second breath for them to reach their new maximum size that matched the size of his head. Ralis&#039; anti-blush illusion was immediately justified.<br /><br />Ralis: &quot;U-um... Y-you should be able to talk without them deflating...&quot;<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;Let&#039;s see... Yep, your magic&#039;s keeping the air in.&quot;<br /><br />Kefre: &quot;Well, we may as well all fill ourselves up.&quot; With a nod of agreement from Telika, the two both inhaled, puffed, inhaled, and puffed again. After a moment of hesitation, Ralis did the same. This was only ever a spell he did when he was enjoying himself underwater in private... He could only hope no one questioned it.<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;Right, let&#039;s get going. It&#039;s a shame we won&#039;t be able to talk clearly down there, but that shouldn&#039;t be too big a problem.&quot;<br /><br />Telika nodded, his cheeks bobbing up and down a little. &quot;I doubt the air loss from that&#039;s gonna be an issue, we&#039;ve all got a couple extra breaths in these things.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis: &quot;Y-yeah, we&#039;ll be fine in that regard at least...&quot; They all swam into the water, and after some deep breathing, they dove down to begin their mission.<br /><br /><br />On the way down, Ralis couldn&#039;t help but stare at the cheeks of his friends. He&#039;d always wondered how they&#039;d look with cheeks like that, and had always wanted to find an excuse to use that spell on them. Now that it was happening though... He found himself wishing both that there&#039;d been another way, and that he might get the chance to give someone&#039;s cheeks a good squeeze without them getting suspicious.<br /><br />He almost bumped into Kefre as they gestured ahead to something on the seabed. &quot;Thblere, thblat&#039;s thble enbltrablnce!&quot;<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;Goblod eyble abls alblwaybls, Keblfre.&quot; Soon, the group settled onto the bottom in front of the dungeon&#039;s entrance, its darkness not lasting long as Ralis sent a ball of light inside.<br /><br />Telika: &quot;Mmh... Hblope thblerebl&#039;s aiblr ibln thblere.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis: &quot;W-we cobluld problably do abl couple diblves if wble hblave to...&quot;<br /><br />Kefre looked over at Ralis, a bit of confusion visible. &quot;Yoblu&#039;re tablkinblg clblearbler thblan ubls...&quot;<br /><br />Ralis&#039; face would be almost entire red without his illusion making him look normal. &quot;M-maybe Ibl&#039;m partly aqbluatic oblr somethbling, hbleh...&quot; He had quite some experience with talking underwater, mostly to fish he&#039;d encounter on his private dives - if anyone asked, it was for situations like this.<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;Whblateblver iblt ibls, thblat&#039;lbl ble hblelpblful. Coblme obln, webl&#039;re bublrniblng oxblygebln.&quot; With that, they all entered the dungeon, preparing themselves to fight any hostile aquatic life that might be there...<br /><br /><br />Which, of course, there was. While everyone but Ralis wasn&#039;t all that used to fighting underwater, they all managed, Kefre having the best time of it. The crow made use of the vertical mobility better than the others, having little difficulty staying well out of harm&#039;s way while still landing his shots. Ralis, meanwhile, tried his best not to get distracted by everyone&#039;s cheeks wobbling around with their movements...<br /><br />As the dive went on, fatigue and minor cuts and scrapes piled up from the fights... And eventually, Eltig called a break. &quot;Riblght, evbleryblone coblme hblere foblr soblme pobltioblns. Niblce tblo fiblnalbly usble thblose boblttlbles wble cabln drblink frblom unblderblwatbler.&quot;<br /><br />Everyone helped themselves to one each, and Telika looked his over. &quot;...Thblese arble thblose neblw hblybrblid stblamiblna anbld hblealbling pobltioblns, arblen&#039;t thbley?&quot;<br /><br />Eltig nodded, cheeks still as wobbly as they&#039;d been upon entering the dungeon. &quot;Fiblgurbled wble oublght tblo sablve tiblme doblwn hblere. Goblt abl goblod deblal obln thblem toblo.&quot;<br /><br />As they all drank, Kefre winced a little at the bitter taste of the potion. &quot;Whbly dblo thblese alblwaybls hblave tblo tablste sblo babld...&quot;<br /><br />Ralis: &quot;F-flblavoblring thblem meblsses wiblth the mablgic...&quot;<br /><br />Telika: &quot;Yoblu dobling okblay, Rablis? Yoblu&#039;re stblill neblrvoblus.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis: &quot;Ibl-I&#039;m fine... Jublst don&#039;t liblke not sebleing the sublrface...&quot; Of course, to his arousal, that was the opposite of a problem. On top of that, hearing everyone&#039;s bubbly voices was making it even harder to focus.<br /><br />Telika: &quot;...Iblf yoblu&#039;re sublre.&quot; Soon, everyone had finished their potions, and after stowing the bottles, they carried on, most feeling only a slight urge to breathe while Ralis felt none at all yet, his breath holding ability being fairly impressive from enjoying pushing himself.<br /><br /><br />After another couple minutes, Ralis was beginning to feel a slight rumble in his gut, and his eyes briefly went wide before he tried to calm himself. There was a pressure building up in him, and it would certainly be extremely obvious if he relieved it underwater... As he looked around to see whether anyone else was feeling the same, it didn&#039;t seem that way at first, but gradually Eltig and Kefre were looking a little more strained...<br /><br />&quot;Frblrblrlt!&quot; Everyone but Telika paused as a cluster of bubbles rose from the wolf&#039;s rear. Telika himself wasn&#039;t obviously phased. &quot;Nblo poblint ibln wablstiblng foblcus hbloldbling iblt ibln.&quot;<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;...Ibl sublppoblse thblat mablkes seblnse.&quot; He let out a bubbly fart of his own. &quot;Feblels weblird tblo dblo thblat unblderblwatbler...&quot;<br /><br />Ralis didn&#039;t find it weird himself, but had to put up a front that he did. Underwater farting was yet another aquaphilia-related thing he was into... He tried to hold back. &quot;L-lobloks like wble alll miblght hblave iblt, I&#039;m febleling iblt too...&quot;<br /><br />Kefre: &quot;Sablme hblere... Urblrblrbp!&quot; A burp was let loose into the water.<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;Thblis mublst ble frblom thblose pobltioblns... Ablt leblast thbley woblrkebld.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis: &quot;D-definblitely gonna hblave a tablk with the gubly that mablde them, hbleh...&quot;<br /><br />Telika: &quot;Yoblu sablid yoblu&#039;re febleliblng iblt toblo, jublst leblt iblt oublt sblo yoblu cabln reblax.&quot;<br /><br />Ralis shook his head. &quot;N-no, Ibl&#039;m fine... Leblt&#039;s just keblep going.&quot;<br /><br />The four continued on, though Ralis certainly wasn&#039;t fine. Every now and then, someone would burp or fart, and by this point he was fully erect under his robes, bulging out the front a little... He set up another illusion to make that look normal. His magic certainly couldn&#039;t with his gas situation though, as it kept building up and up... It was gradually taking him more focus to keep holding it back, and tiny farts were eventually leaking out despite his efforts, his belly beginning to ache.<br /><br />Kefre looked over at him. &quot;Yoblu reblallbly shbloulbldn&#039;t ble hbloldbling iblt ibln, yoblu nebled tblo foblcus obln yoblur spblellbls...&quot;<br /><br />They were right... Ralis held back a sigh, closing his eyes and pushing. &quot;FBRRBLRFBLTBBFRLTLBFLRBLRFT!&quot; Bubbles erupted away in a long, loud fart, the back of his robe billowing out. It lasted a good couple seconds before tapering off and ending. Everyone stopped at the spectacle, and a moment of silence followed.<br /><br />Ralis gave an embarrassed smile. &quot;N-not goblnna try not tblo fart or anblything now...&quot;<br /><br />Telika: &quot;Jeblez, yoblu&#039;re lublcky yoblu dibldn&#039;t exblploblde frblom hbloldbling onblto thblat...&quot;<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;Hblopeblfulbly yoblu&#039;ll ble able tblo foblcus bebltteblr noblw.&quot;<br /><br />It did indeed help at least a little, as there was one less distraction keeping him from doing his best. He was finally starting to feel a little better about everyone&#039;s cheeks, farts and burps... Though every now and then, when he was certain no one would see, he&#039;d briefly reach into his robe to stroke his cock a little.<br /><br /><br />After a fight with a fairly tough monster - that may have gone poorly if Ralis was still trying to hold back his gas - it was done, and the coral crown the group had come for was within reach. By then though, everyone&#039;s need for air was becoming obvious, their already oversized cheeks having grown even further. Eltig quickly grabbed the crown, bubbled out &quot;Wbl-wble nebled tblo gblo qublick, beblforble wble drblown!&quot;, and began leading the way back outside. It was thankfully much quicker than it&#039;d been on the way in, and the gassiness side effect from the potions was finally beginning to wear off... Ralis wished both that and the completion of the mission had come sooner.<br /><br />Without incident, and with only a few farts or burps, the group returned outside and began swimming for the surface. And, before much longer, they all finally reached it, letting their cheeks deflate at last as they all panted to catch their breath.<br /><br />Kefre: &quot;Man, that all... Ended up so weird...&quot;<br /><br />Telika: &quot;Those potions were annoying... Glad they didn&#039;t do something worse than gas...&quot;<br /><br />Ralis gave his first genuine smile since the group had decided to go to that dungeon. &quot;Glad that&#039;s over... S-so embarrassing...&quot;<br /><br />Eltig: &quot;I don&#039;t think it was embarrassing... We all had the same things going on...&quot;<br /><br />They all returned to the shore to rest. Once his arousal calmed down, Ralis subtly dispelled the illusions on his face and crotch, no longer needing to hide anything. As awful an experience all that had been... He was certainly going to enjoy fantasizing about his friends indulging the same way he tended to. He just wished he&#039;d gotten to see someone&#039;s cheeks squish.</span>",
  "pools_count": 0,
  "title": "Micro stories - Batch 8",
  "deleted": "f",
  "public": "t",
  "mimetype": "text/plain",
  "pagecount": "1",
  "rating_id": "1",
  "rating_name": "Mature",
  "ratings": [
    {
      "content_tag_id": "2",
      "name": "Nudity",
      "description": "Nonsexual nudity exposing breasts or genitals (must not show arousal)",
      "rating_id": "1"
    },
    {
      "content_tag_id": "3",
      "name": "Violence",
      "description": "Mild violence",
      "rating_id": "1"
    }
  ],
  "submission_type_id": "12",
  "type_name": "Writing - Document",
  "guest_block": "f",
  "friends_only": "f",
  "comments_count": "0",
  "views": "1"
}