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Five heads emerged from the pallid surface of a lake. The water elevated to the second story of a flooded underground city, once a magician’s capital. Now, the only residents were horned wraiths: mages who wandered the city’s steep urban peninsulas in madnesses instilled by the stale arcane energy of the atmosphere. They’d no sworn enemies. But they’d attack anyone of flesh and blood who crossed their paths, fearing the living to be city invaders. Recent rumor was spun it wasn’t the flood that fouled the air—rather, a lake monster known in urban legend as Nujabeh. Legend went, Nujabeh swam the heart of the city and constantly drained it of its magical core.

Not that anyone in the five-man party gave a shit Nujabeh had too greatly polluted the air for the wraiths. What they desired was the monster’s hoard. Its treasure hoard.

And so came Kikoli the cleric, one of the five. She climbed with them up ancient steps out of the water, but lagged behind. Jewels and jewelry soon to be hers sparkled feverishly in her mind’s eye.

All the trek to the center of the city, she busied herself less with battling baddies and more with fantasizing.

Fella, kirin archer and leader of the party, at some point evaded a wraith’s Disorienting Howl spell, aligning herself back with Kikoli. The kirin delivered a quick shot that pierced the wraith’s heart thus exploding the wraith then looked over her shoulder, seeing Kikoli. The dragon paced in a melodramatic prowl, as if about to spring at the closest enemy twenty yards ahead, but never did.

“Kikoli!” Fella shouted. “Help the rest at front! We’d appreciate your firepower with Destynn’s.”

Kikoli looked. Destynn, a green dragon, was nimbly bouncing from foe to foe, goring wraith guts with tooth and talon. Lavender spectral shrouds puddled the street in his wake. But he was crowded by hordes of wraiths: secluded from Jame and Tonk, the human mage and White Wolf engineer stuffed in a congestion of bad guys.

The thornskull dragoness cocked her head at Fella sheepishly. “What if they need backup assistance?”

Between rifling out another arrow, Fella spat, “Excuse me?”

“If one of them falls, they’ll need me to fill in,” Kikoli improvised.

Fella was obtuse to her game. “We shouldn’t plan on anyone falling. If we lose someone, we’ll never reach the heart of the city to seize the treasure.”

Kikoli hiccuped, punched by the argument. She gave Fella a purposely obtuse stare—perhaps a venomous glare?—then careened ahead to help the others.

She drilled through the wraiths walling on the outskirts with bolts of fire, all the while thinking to herself, Worthless party. You would think that Green could pull his weight without a female.

They survived that encounter. Barely.

After Kikoli healed the party, the other four were walking ahead. They whispered amongst themselves, and Kikoli overhead this much:

“Boot her . . . lazy doofus . . . unlike Destynn . . .” Jame.

“We can’t! . . . get our asses kicked . . .” Tonk.

“. . . Tonk’s right . . . or else, we’ll . . .” Fella.

Destynn stayed quiet.

Kikoli smiled at Jame. The smile was laced with venom. You’ll be my first, she thought.

Fella nagged her constantly in later battles, bidding that she be more assertive. Kikoli allowed that. She engaged to the extent that Fella and the rest of them held onto their hopes they could straighten her out; that they could utilize her in the final battle. But the best of her, they’d never see until it was too late.

The party walked down a ramp the size of a boulevard, which plunged into the stagnant lake. Lower levels of the city jutted from high tiers like the steps of stairs, rimming over the lake. Centering the lake stood a shattered tower. Tunneled into the tower, fifty feet above the lake’s surface, was an arched hallway. Inside jewels and jewelry and powerful artifacts glowed imperiously. Kikoli’s mouth watered. Inside her, the party was already being trampled down in her wake; was already watching her fly full speed across the lake surface, laughing, saying, “Mine, all mine!” But she quaked herself into solidness.

Yes, it is rightfully yours. But they don’t understand that. Wait for the right time to dispose of them.

We need her . . . Fella’s words cycled through her mind.

The thornskull dragoness wouldn’t ever face the fact, but she needed them too. Until the final boss fell, anyhow.

They descended to the shore. The way animals sense approaching earthquakes, they then sensed a change in the air. The city rippled. For a moment air did circulate in the city, and it was spiced with fresh magic. Throaty sounds of fascination came from her peers, but Kikoli looked annoyed. Woken from her reveries of plunder, she sniffed the air with a hard scowl.

The ripple metamorphosed; became a rumble. Then there was ripple beneath the moat of the tower, and the party braced for battle. With an eruption of water, the lake monster Nujabeh arose. The crash of it surfacing aligned with a roar the size of a battalion, although the eely serpent measured only twenty-two feet long. Slimy wings of an oily blue flapped from its backside. The serpent had three jaws each lined with teeth stained a cavernous color. It opened six slits for eyes.

The eyes flashed at the party. It uncoiled from the water then slinked across the surface with an air of weaving. It splashed onto shore with its tail thrashing forward, forming a half-circle between its tail and body. Rearing its neck, it flared a hood of the head then distended its wings again—which Kikoli realized dwindled in majesty, paired with the rest of its body. A hiss sprayed out of it, softly rattling the shore.

“Destynn, you keep aggro,” ordered. “The rest of you, use your projectiles.”

Destynn nodded.

“I’ll t-t-try!” stuttered Tonk.

“Does the rest of us include Kikoli?” Jame asked. “Or does she get to sit out again?”

Despite desiring to eat the mage, Kikoli kept a guise of dumb transparency. “What do I have to do?”

The fight had sprung into motion without her. The party diverged around Nujabeh, who lunged at Destynn each time he leapt to scrape its underbelly. The monster hurled globs of acidic magenta bile at random party members, and the ooze bubbled across the shore like infected pimples.

Fella unoccupied herself for a moment; snapped, “Projectiles, Kikoli!”

Nodding feebly, Kikoli jumped into the scene. She spat globs of fire at the serpent’s head. With all the oil coating its body, you’d think the fire would immediately conflagrate it. But the oil instead absorbed and cooled the fire: a fishy cousin of asbestos.

In addition to resisting flames—Jame’s, Destynn’s, and Kikoli’s projectile of choice—the serpent’s coat of oil caused Destynn’s claws to roll off without dealing any damage. Aggravated by this, Destynn headbutted the serpent’s side then swiped at its ribs three consecutive times. As before, his efforts did little harm, but gave the serpent a tremendous opening. Its jaws engulfed the green dragon’s muzzle. The oily, snakelike neck straightened and jaws carried the dragon’s squirming forepaws off the shore.

“You can’t do that!” cried Kikoli. That’s MY meal in your mouth-hole, you impudent eel!

Full speed ahead, she charged the impudent eel. A pierce of protesting shouts rang behind her, but those she blocked out, only plowing forward faster. A blink after her feet left the ground her skull cracked into the serpent’s throat. The throat bent like a pipe. Nujabeh choked out magenta steam and radioactive slush—Destynn as an afterthought. Beside him the dragoness landed with style, gold chains and ankle bracelets swiveling.

The party was dazzled. Destynn, just as petrified, opened his mouth to thank the dragon he assumed perfectly useless. Giant jaws however—the same ones that deemed him the subject of that last rescue—punched toward him. He dodged, a loud crunch coming two inches from his face.

Thereafter, the party tolerated Kikoli. Keyword, tolerated—not respected. She seemed suddenly engaged, pirouetting around the serpent and stinging it with fireball after fireball. She even nabbed aggro from Destynn. Albeit, she kept retreating and letting aggro slip to adjacent party members, they pitied her for her unexpected assertiveness.

It shouldn’t have been thought of as assertiveness. What it was was a coordinated stab at the party’s health points.

A fourth of the serpent’s health whittled away, Kikoli spontaneously lost aggro. Fella inherited the burden. Fella, archer she was, took a critical slaying to her health points. Though it softened at 20%, when Kikoli regained control, Fella wouldn’t recover those health points until after the fight.

Kikoli quote-on-quote blundered thrice more. With two fourths of Nujabeh’s HP burned, she staggered into an unprepared Tonk; and at three fourths, she stumbled into Jame. In involuntary service of her, Tonk and Jame both sponged up bite attacks. Alas, they weren’t the sort of sponges that sponged up anything—just bled out every voracious attack. Thus was why the whole party was pressuring Destynn via shout to rein back aggro. He sneaked it away from Kikoli with a brush of her shoulder, and solidified it until the final blow to Nujabeh: two streams of blinding fire from him and the dragoness.

A groan, sounding ancient and arcane, signaled its death. Its corpse hit the shore seething with flames. It reeked of spoiled seafood.

The party hadn’t yet realized how clever a web Kikoli wove. But it was apparent.

Low energy, low health, bad wounds. Destynn and Kikoli’s tough hides had only partially exempted them from agony. Destynn was crippled far worse than the dragoness. Head bowed before her, he panted. She responded by straightening her neck and beaming over him, teeth cruel as piranha’s.

Look at that lesser dragon . . . lauding me. How lovely.

She drooled like a meat-lover before a steak after six weeks vegan.

A blue spark fizzled, meeting her eye. It was Jame’s attempt to cast a spell without enough mana. The dragoness tossed her gaze between him and Destynn. I did say Jame first, but he’s the most useless of them all without his mage fire. A fleck of drool splashed on Destynn’s snout. Startled, he lifted his head. Kikoli gave him no time to react.

Her neck jumped, and the jewelry on her neck jumped too. Screams of her prey rang through her gullet, kneading through tight flesh that had been aching for a massage. Riveting. The flailing Green blasted out scorching flames. Kikoli’s accustomed esophagus sponged up the heat and nostrils billowed out the dark smoke. Deeply her eyelids hung. She dragged the Green backward, her swallows gradually peeling his forepaws off the ground.

Dread and disbelief circulated through the party, expressed through weak groans. They had heard of dragons who ate other dragons—outside of civilization. This—a party member devouring another party member—was ludicrous. But could anyone fight back? The rest averaged 30% health, and were weak and weary; moreover, they’d never attacked a party member before no matter what the situation, for it’d been ingrained into them as unethical.

Unethical. Fella winced at the thought. She’s eating Destynn, and here I am arguing ethic. Currently she was kneeling, weak with slashes about her body that burned a faint magenta, and her bow arced downwards. But she brought it up. She drew back the string, lining the tip of her arrow with . . . Destynn.

Not purposely. The thornskull dragoness had seen Fella’s preparation and clocked her body that way, changing the target to a thrashing green rump. Fella cursed, vaulting to her feet. Exhaustion blasted her with the exertion, and the magenta burns glowed brighter, forcing her back to a knee.

Already Kikoli crept her distended jaws past the Green’s neck. Her nostrils flared and eyes sneered. Sapphires on her golden collar gleamed as the collar distended unlike ordinary 24-karat gold to the funneling-through of the Green’s head through her throat inherently suited for cannibalism; thornskulls loved the taste of other dragons, as was Kikoli loving the taste of Destynn now. Oddly, he tasted of seasoned lamb and of green tea. But Kikoli did not mind. Instead of sharing the treasure with me, you and the rest will be sharing my stomach. The thought encouraged her, and she continued her loud swallows. Her feet splashed into the lake water on a heavy gulp that sent her back. Vibrations in her jaws and gullet weakened as did the Green. Though he’d brought them down to wound, the talons of his hinds slipped uselessly off one of her gold belly plates; soon, they could do only so much as curl.

Have got to fight back . . . was one of Destynn’s last thoughts. Around him, pillowy flesh shined above yucky-looking fluids and the shines shivered to the wavelets of his entry. Dull eyes glowered at these things. The Green attempted flexing his arms held hostage at his sides by the inflexible throat muscles. They had him like dense, taut rubber. Frustrated, he broke his jaws open with a torrent of fire. The blazing flash of fiery teeth shook the stomach walls and set the stomach acids into producing bubbles larger and faster.

Above him came a giggle from the predator. Destynn’s heart, sank side-by-side with his oxygen reserves. She takes me for a joke! he thought, but in the blurred language of his addled mind. He vaguely felt the tip of his tail slipping across some slick appendage; just like time: slipping. Destynn refused to believe this. His body worked in the throes of someone trapped in nightmare. Beautifully horrific bulges-of-gold rendered a slew of different poses on his captor’s midriff. He screamed obscenities and beamed his fire from his maw, the show growing ever rambunctious as walls of flesh suffocated him and sleep coaxed him and coaxed him, and his head exploded with hot signals of distress. Help me . . . every thrash, he was icing himself in the fluids, fluids chewing his hide raw. Where are my friends?

If any of the party members were hankering for a bout with a dragon of their own after that draining encounter with the final boss, none of them bore the strength to show it. Like Fella, Tonk and Jame both needed reprieve. Betrayal by the weakest-link-turned-deadliest-threat of their party had stolen that from them. Accepting this, they hastily gathered their breaths then sprang into action. Too late.

A fleet moment after Kikoli slurped away the green tail, a wrench whizzed into her skull. She almost gagged on the tail descending her gullet. Dizziness. The lift of her head backed her farther into the lake, and brought her sight to Tonk and Jame advancing from either angle. The human mage spun a hand of sparkling blue mana. “You are what you eat, bitch. You’re to become roast lizard.”

Another wrench flew straight at her, punching her in the nose. It knocked out of her a retort turned into a growl. You’re to become part of my hips . . . Yet, because he and she remained in the same party, she could see plainly his mana reduced to 12%, and knew a magnifying glass could sear her worse than him in his condition. It’s all theatre. She had experience with that. The White Wolf, however, is more annoying than the bugs Jame has hope of roasting. She wheeled on Tonk, and her pink eyes flashed harshly.

“Feast your eyes on me, girl. These curves, this body, is female perfection. Look at my feast, and tell me I don’t deserve it . . . that I don’t deserve you too.”

The White Wolf’s arm raised back with a wrench in hand, Tonk froze with a quick blink of pink in her irises. I’m . . . I h-haven’t a clue what she’s talking about! Four cups’-worth of caffeine snapped her back into focus, and with it her arm snapped, too—a wrench catapulting at slingshot speed.

“Yeeowch!” Water splashed and sashayed about the retreating dragoness’ feet. It fluxed near her knees, now. She was grinding her teeth sharply, and on her forehead throbbed a round bruise the rival of an apple. “Did you just—” The sound of a tire-iron going off on a rock rebounded off her thick skull, and she windmilled into the water. It was a mess of wing and tail. She was next gone: but a few elliptical shapes expanding over the skin of the water.

The surface frothed chaotically. Just the tension of it struck into Tonk the fear of Roddscald. She immediately regretted letting go of that last wrench. Her bottom lip peeled down to worriedly reveal her lower jaw. Then she looked sidelong at Jame, who was guzzling down a mana potion with the dire urgency of a drunk fleeing all his sorrows.

Kikoli resurfaced. Skull thorns sopping wet, she had the mop of a drowned dog. Though her face was washed of color, her ears steamed so frightfully, the blaze of heat dried her face almost instantly, and it turned to a hot sauce shade. Striking ashore, forepaws shook, and with the curl of her claws the sapphires on their ankle bracelets seemed to shine like a bright sky harsh with sunlight.

The bruise on her forehead became a blazing red bulb you could light a basement with. “You DARE defile my perfect skull?!?” Coinciding with the chilling cave resonance was the scrunch of her body in preparing to pounce. It created an effect similar to a drumroll.

Jame (emptied potion bottle shattering at his feet) sprang away. Tonk didn’t react so swiftly. She felt the world bend. Then a jeweled dragoness paw floored her.

The shock of her skull hitting the shore was blinding white. Pain diffused from her head and her ribs crackling beneath the forepaw. She’d be seeing stars, were that Kikoli’s thick skull weren’t now the only sight to see. Back at the White Wolf angry, searing eyes watched; flashed. “Tell me I don’t deserve you . . .”

“I . . .”

Stupefaction. Why shouldn’t she? The passionate gaze . . . the hugely implacable body (figure/hips/dragon-shaped belly). Without her, Destynn would have been destined for a much worse fate. She single-pawedly downed the lake monster and, and we could not have survived it without her. What life had Tonk to withhold from she who’d preserved it?

“Tell me . . .”

It’s the least I could do . . . to respect the queen . . . Her thought lost focus. To become part of the queen . . . y-yes . . . got to . . .

Jame had produced another potion from his pouch, but when he lifted it for a sip there came a second crash. His open fingers were twitching, not contrary to his eyes. Shimmering in his own two, a pair of White Wolves were tunneling their bodies into a dilating dragon’s maw. The effort had an unsettling willingness to it. Boots thrusting. Arms waxed against the ribs paddling. Body twisting like a manual drill. And as bulges of ears and snout bludgeoned Kikoli’s esophagus, Kikoli seemed slack; too slack to be devouring a meal. Slight bobs of her grinning muzzle punctuated its tilt toward the high cave roof. But the boots—the boots—

Jame felt ghost fire torch his face. His skin changed to bleach-white with a cold-blue tinge.

This was when the thornskull dragoness met his eyes. This is when she confirmed his suspicions.

Lips locking away her prey, Kikoli grinned at him. The grin was sharp as wire ends. The dragon targeted him with her look and assigned all attention into its cruelty, and yet the bulge just kept swimming—freestyling?!—down her throat, all by itself, with the speed of butter-wading. All free will, Jame thought. And if I don’t gut this scaly bitch I’m fodder too.

Maliciously eyeing him, she gulped. The gulp sound and the unbudging stare she gave him brought to mind a talon gesturing a slit of the throat. Should he retaliate, what fate the dragon and White Wolf received, he would too. And on that fate, he was being given a course—and studying right now. The prominent bulges of her dragon and wolf prey brawling for the most comfortable spot in her puckered stomach; gross rumbles blurring its golden plates in wavelets of sound, disturbing the ground beneath Jame’s boots; the green of the dragon’s health bar of 82% climbing.

Yes. Just concentrate, and you could view the healths of party members floating above their heads. Jame squinted, in fact, and visualized the phantoms of Tonk’s and Destynn’s; as a guessable force chiseled away at their green bars (-45, -45, -45 . . .), the assumed same force stacked the burned health points onto Kikoli (+90, +90, +90).

Enox’s Index, cursed Jame, she’s digesting and absorbing health! That fell into the top five unspokenly illicit acts of a party member against others. Then again, consuming a party member was stroke-of-fire enough to set the kitchen ablaze. You fight fire with fire. Jame pitched one elbow back and clutched air in both hands. His arms rocked, and the air blazed into blue fires. Too bad you’re not immune to mana!

His palms thrust forward side by side with an ephemeral gust of flame. The cyan shot curled toward Kikoli. But the thornskull dragoness was oblivious to the projectile, partly since her eyes screwed closed as her neck tucked backward with the gesturing of an oncoming sneeze. What belted from her mouth, instead, was a barbaric belch. “BuUUUURrAAAAwwwWWrrurruuuwp!”

Like a bonfire drenched with gasoline, the flames mushroomed into a huge gassy blast. Sky blue light painted the horrified mage. He turned to flee. The blast crashed into his cheek and swept him off his boots, his normally-red-and-gold robe gusting. When he met the ground, you couldn’t discern the ashy man from the alchemist of a lab experiment gone wrong.

The dragoness, exhausting smoke from her maw, snickered at her handiwork. Then she oofed, sensing the rewards of devouring her own party members unpacking. Squint good, and you’d see the last of the green ticker off Destynn’s health bar; what remained was a great red brick. Tonk soon met the same fate, and the shapes molding Kikoli’s gut began to disperse into the gut’s round shape. “Nn-ungh . . . GrRROoooOAAAAAwwRP!”

Ding! A gold flash set the illusion of the dragoness’ body being black. “Huh-EhRRRRRRRrrRWRWP!” A second ding, a third, a forth, a resonated with the same flashes. A few inches taller Kikoli grew. “GrooOAAAAAWWwwWoooooop!” Slimy dragon bones coalesced with wolf ones, clattering at her feet; coughed on top of them were two juicy skulls, one with head fans and the other more canid. Her stomach shriveled, but only by half.

One final fifth ding rang out. It tore Fella’s and Jame’s faces apart with icy dread. That couldn’t have been what they suspected, yet one glance at the number beside Kikoli’s health bar confirmed their worst fear. Kikoli had leveled up. Five times. Her elevation in status came not only as a bite in the back, but not possible. Who’s dastardly enough to digest their teammates for E.X.P., first of all? Secondly, how had she reached level 95? Levels only went to 90.

Could eating players be a loophole to the max experience? whispered the kirin archer.

The mage received that whisper; expanded on the thought. If so, it makes sense she wouldn’t be limited to 90.

But even bosses awarded nothing near to five levels’-worth of experience. How did she gain so much? The answer lay in the numbers beside the raw red HP bars of Destynn and Tonk. As Destynn’s counter counted from 49 downward, Tonk’s trailed behind at a current 54. Fella saw at it soon after Jame.

Enox’s—

I know, groaned Fella, his Index.

She’s not only reducing them to mush but stealing their levels, using their experience points against us.

Seeing her and Jame’s health both above 70%, Enough, Fella whispered, we’ve both gathered strength and have let her accumulate plenty enough. Now or never’s our chance. Are you prepared?

With the abruptness of a salute, both sprang into readiness. Their sworn enemy—the dragon Fella’d been swearing they needed twenty minutes ago—looked unimpressed.

“My. You two are anxious to hop onto my hips.” She could have gone on but stopped there. She knew talk, while a powerful tool of deceit, could be just as easily flipped to favor her foes if timed badly. Certain signs alerted her they were coordinating an attack. Rigid, synchronized mannerisms. Eyes mirroring one another.

The first bolts fired.

Galloping forward on a semi-full stomach, Kikoli felt an arrow crack in two off her thickly scaled shoulder; she also sensed a blast of magic dusting off of her flank. But she had grown to level 95, and they hardly posed a threat to her now.

She stomped down between the two, and they piled on the shore behind the boss' corpse.

Steely pain ached in Fella’s bones. Kikoli’s landing dazed her and whittled a percentage of health, but the kirin archer refused to let fatigue endanger her. She notched an arrow and plucked her bow point black. Another shaft splintered. The arrowhead tinkled off her belly, thumping punily to her feet. What the? Fella thought, and a powerful presence reminded her of the level increase. She paddled on hooves and hooves backward, but Kikoli grabbed her.

A forepaw swung her up then released its grip. She screamed, reaching her peak in the air. Cartwheeling, she faced gravity and faced the maw expanding. Jaws then jowls then a uvula then gulp.

Kikoli refused the kirin the same tasting and teasing she gave Destynn. She didn’t allow that Fella be captivated by her glamour and wriggle herself inside, either. One strong swallow brought the body through her esophagus and through her sphincter and into a slimy, fleshy bog.

Decomposing dragon and wolf floating around her, Fella screamed. Scale and fur had long been corroded. What remained now was watery flesh, mushy organs and skeletons of whatever bones that weren’t yet burped up. Thrashing, the kirin lunged for her bow and notched an arrow, but the string snapped with even the pluck silenced by reawakening digestive juices.

Jame reacted. When Kikoli gulped the party leader, he gulped a little somethin’ somethin’ of his own: a venerable magic potion. The large bulbous bottle glowed with a fiery ooze—all of which he chugged. And chugged. And by the time Kikoli had a third meal in her gut, he had not only a full bar of mana but a bar of mana that extended beyond its normal limit. Venerable potions increased mana capacity to 150% for five minutes. Some spells required 125% of all your mana to perform, and now Jame had enough.

Like I said before: you fight fire with fire. Jame clenched his fists. Shaking unstably, he inherited a primitive stoop to his back, and spread his legs for support. His teeth, clasped tightly together, pulsed bigger and sharper. His face protruded forward into an animalistic shape, and his distending jaws sprouted new teeth just as carnivorous. A crackling sound came from the stoop of his back, and a sick crunch elongated his neck; and next thing you know, he was on his hands and feet; and hands and feet burst into forepaws and hindpaws, covered with regal maroon scales. His robes of red-and-gold grew tight on his maturing body before shredding away, revealing bulky forelegs and haunches; and the last of the robes, the coattails, ripped to pieces to herald a maroon dragon’s tail. A golden morningstar exploded from the tip of his tail, with an ovular curve that made it like a herculean pinecone. And on the dragon’s other end, smoky black horns sprouted behind a red-and-gold dragon’s face. Fittingly, his secondary color, gold, swept his lower jaw, head-fan membranes, underbelly and wings. Fiery eyes blazed open like newborn phoenixes.

Jame roared.

A counter for the transformation spell appeared below his health bar, ticked down from “5m, 0 s” to “4m, 59s” and continued.

Jame’s dragon form was slightly larger than Kikoli, making the corner of her mouth water. He saw this; squinted derisively.

“I’ve the strength of three in this form, ugly wench. Perhaps I should make a meal of you.”

His misogyny would have upset players less vain than Kikoli. But she didn’t become infuriated; she threw her head back and laughed. “You’ve made a meal of yourself. It makes no difference, your strength. Now that I’m five levels above you, I’m irresistible.”

She can’t be serious.

So Jame thought. Then her eyes caught him; and the muscles of his dragon form seized up. He wasn’t paralyzed; only, he lost sense of everything round him save the pound of his heart, accelerated by the pink dragoness. Flabbergasted, Jame raised a forepaw, snapping his talons for a magic-enhanced disengaging spell.

It did nothing. He had perfect mobility, but all 10,500 pounds of his dragon form were entranced.

Cold sweat turned his thoughts to incoherent slashes. Vision blurred, and things in motion smeared across it. Kikoli was one of them—circling him, whispering in his ears. “Every bit of you will deliver itself unto my gut, hips and ass,” she told him. Juicy pink haunches smacked his sweating face as she strode by. Laughing, “That. All of this. You will join me and you will join your friends as carcasses cleaned to the bone.” Her tour ended in front of him, with her rank dragonbreath bearing words, “To make me all the stronger.”

How was it she stared up to him, yet discharged an air of superiority? He felt his 12,203 hitpoint advantage wither into irrelevancy. He felt his thirteen-inch height advantage boil down to naught but gristle. None of this he felt directly, but in a mental relinquishing: a symbolic transference of power he thought just. Join her and my friends, Jame thought, like I said before . . . you fuel fire with fire . . .

The complacent mage-dragon steered his head inside her maw. Her eager breaths fogged his vision and played in the ear-holes protected by his head-fans, head-fans perking to lovely, stinky warmth. The dragoness was not so cruel as he imagined—had once imagined. How could he? She let him go his own pace, through the quietus of sticky lliyllcks and yylks and kcks passing along his wriggling, thorned neck. All until he grew so comfortable in the gullet, even beginning to rasp and wheeze—suffocate for her—that he grew limp and became still. The dragoness strode forward, forcing him to with clumsiness backpedal up the boss' corpse. There he stayed until slowly gravity beckoned him back into downwards crawling, assisting his predator with her dragon meal.

Subserviently, Jame nosed out of lubricated tunnels into the stomach, wherein the bony remains of his friends floated still. Joining them, just like she said I would . . . He knew her to be kind. He knew she would not tell a lie. The maroon dragon reared the rest of his upper body into the slimy chamber, forepaws splashing out and elbows jerking into the front of the gut. That got a draconic croon from his superior, and hearing it he made a loving return grumble. With his squirms of conviction, in jutted the tips of his wings; delicate maroon triangles unfolded over his either flank with the revealing of his wings’ fingers. Acids bubbled around his scales as the stomach trenched lower. Contacting the floor, it flattened, folding fatly at the very bottom and dispersed wider, far surpassing her flanks. Her lips suckled down the tip of the dragon’s golden spiked tail.

That constant garble . . . like being underwater, but louder, and more distorted by these walls. This and more nonsensical thoughts crossed the mage-dragon’s mind. Exhalations rewarded him with no breath to inhale. But that oxygen he donated to a greater cause he knew. Air for Kikoli . . . for her stomach . . . to digest faster what is rightfully hers. What other gods Jame may have worshiped, he recalled none of them now. They’d look no prettier with him as sacrifice. But Kikoli. Every party member to become part of her marshmallowy fat, her pillowy tail. May that Jame’s maroon hide make her own shine like the sapphires and the gold jewelry she wore, and the luxurious treasure soon to be hers.

Humming contentedly, Kikoli eyed his transformation counter. One minute left, above a health bar of 22%, slowly being nicked away by her stomach acids.

“Splash yourself around some,” she ordered, and bounced on him herself.

Jame did as his superior bid him.

The consistently delicious transfer of health (-57 from Jame, +57 to Kikoli every second) skyrocketed to -114 from Jame and +114 to Kikoli; he doubled his received splash damage. As he drove himself weak, the transfer returned to normal rate. But by then, the dragoness was a few seconds from finishing him, with a whole minute of his transformation to spare.

The dragon’s health bar blinked bright red. The corpse, an object entirely on its own, did not discern transformation from true. It remained draconic and served Kikoli a heap-ton of experience points. Her stomach shrank. Mounds of pink fat surrendered to her hips and rippled along her tail in an inflammatory ritual. Without party members imposing a threat against her any longer, digestion burned down, with the calm of a candle, all of her exquisite meals.

“BuuRRRRRrrrrrRRRRRoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!”

Out volleyed all of her meals’ bones against the boss' decaying hide. She’d appreciate that weight lifted off her body went she went to fly for the central tower of the lake: to claim the treasures rightfully hers . . .

Ever since Kikoli digested Destynn, Tonk, Fella and Jame, the characters’ players have been unable to play them. A message pops up on the character selection screen, reads, “The character is currently in-use on another system.”

Well, Kikoli’s making better use of them than the other players ever could.

* * *

Today, Kikoli walks through the marshlands above the flooded temple. Her bags jingle, encumbered with the treasure she would have shared with the rest of the party, would that they survived the tragic boss encounter. She’s lamented over it since she logged off yesterday, and can’t take the occasional glance-back at her humongous hips, thighs and rear without being reminded of the sacrifices said hips, thighs and rear required. She’s contacted by other players—friends and guildmates of the offline party members—who have heard rumors of the party members being absent from the game since yesterday. Now, this wouldn’t give cause for suspicion if they weren’t hardcore gamers. To each whisper, Kikoli responds, They died for a noble cause. :’( After that, she gives no reply to their responses.

The questgiver hovers around his designated spot. Kikoli speaks with him and bestows him the Eye of Nujabeh. Since the quest is a group-quest, the quest giver carries rewards for each and every one of the group members: a golden bow (reserved for Fella); a citrine-studded staff (for Jame); a firebreath-enhancing medallion (for Destynn); and a giant gizmo Kikoli’s never seen the likes of before (for Tonk), though she imagines it’s valuable in the Trade Market. All of these things, reserved for whoever, are now property of Kikoli.

“They would have wanted to me to have these things,” she says to herself, walking off with an enormous traveler’s sack. She heads into town, where she auctions off most of the rewards for brilliant jewelry and gold (for her hoard back at her own private player-cave); and, once done, she empties some valuable weapons and keepsakes off into a bank vault.

And so the cycle returns her dungeon adventure began. At the Group-Finding boards, center of town. She leveled her character from 20 to 95 from groups formed by these Boards—and she doesn’t plan on stopping there. Using the Stat Anonymity feature, she hides her level on the Board, and uses her newly-budding locale fame as “the only one back from that dungeon run” to advertise her as a highly capable player, eliminating doubts caused by her level.

Another group is set up, and set to head out for the dungeon. Now, Kikoli’s ready to do it all over again. And again. And again. And it’ll be too late by the time anyone finds out. By then, I’ll be stronger than the GMs.