Even after all this time Glored still did not get humans. No monster did. They were weird. Bizarre. Utterly off the wall. Insane, yet... everywhere. By all reason they should not survive, and yet they did. Somehow, impossibly, they thrived against all the odds, and the only thing Glored was more afraid of than this mysterious transformation curse was the idea that he might come to understand that madness one day himself.
Case in point, one of the humans, the one in armor who he thought had named herself Gwen, had pulled out a little flute and played a jaunty tune while the other repeatedly raised and lowered their hands in the air.
"Party members get!" they said in unison upon the tune's completion. "Glored and Razz have joined the party!"
"Wh-what was that"? Glored asked.
"Oh, it's tradition," Gwen said. “It’s important to celebrate having a new person join your party.”
"Monster party members are super rare! Oh, gosh! A dragon too!"
"That's like having a high level Sorcerer and Druid at the same time!"
“What is a sorcerer and aren’t druids just a particular type of nature spirit worshiping priests?” Glored asked. The confusion was mounting so hard that if they weren't careful he might attack himself.
“Oh, right, Druid is kind of a term we adventures use to describe divine spellcasters who can invoke nature spirits to shapeshift.” Isabele explained,adjusting her glasses as she did so. "Cross-classes like Sorcerer and Druid are quite rare, you see - Since their magical systems don't tend to integrate too well together when you're grinding out."
"Grinding... out...?" Glored asked.
"Oh yes, when you camp in a single spot and spend hours -" Gwen started. Then, for some reason, Isabele slapped her hand over Gwen's mouth and nervously laughed.
That brought to Glored’s mind a book he had read theorizing about why humans would sometimes spend seemingly weeks at a time doing a single task. Such as fighting giant crabs on beaches, or running out into thunderstorms to try and narrowly dodge lightning bolts. Weird. Upon weirdness, still more weirdness.
"So? So? What sort of spells can you use?" Gwen asked.
"Are you a fire elemental dragon? Or ice? Or - oh! Lightning! I hope it's lightning!"
"Nuh, uh! Darkness would be way better. I want to see him breath darkness."
"You really don't -" Glored tried to say, but they enthusiastically continued with the questions.
"Do you know healing spells? How about support magic? Do you even buff?" Gwen said.
"I bet you have a spell that sharpens claws and teeth!"
"Oh! And improves the sheen of your scales!"
"So, that's attack and defense buffs in the can for sure."
"And he can breathe darkness!"
"Believe me, you don't want to meet a dragon that can -" Glored tried to say, but again they went on ahead of him.
"Hrm, Dragons normally have arcane knowledge, right? So that's got to be high level Sorcerer magic."
"Oh, and what if he does have Druid magic since he can shapeshift! We might be able to use that as a potential cure!"
<b>”WILL YOU SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE!”</b> he shouted, resuming his dragon form for a moment to get as loud as possible before reverting back to the humanoid form (they were in a small cramped room after all.). "Do you even realise to whom you converse?! I am Glorious Crimson! Master of the Dread Crypt of Atoom! Youngest offspring of Divine Radiance the Rainbow Majestic Queen of Dragons!"
"Divine Radiance?!"
And now for yet more bizarre behaviour from humans that would leave the mighty dragon baffled, bewildered, befuddled, and probably other words that start with be. There were stars in their eyes, alternating with hearts as they gawped up at him, hands clasped together, breaths bated and their feet doing a weird sort of jig that was almost independent of the rest of their body.
"The same Divine Radiance who scoured the plains of Ipswin?"
Oh yeah, that was the time mother had a cold and wound up sneezing over some giant field. When a dragon that strong and big breathes a fundamental force of the universe like Light, it burns worse than any fire.
"The same Divine Radiance who demanded tribute from the Kingdom of Lanrey every day for a year and a month?"
Ah, that was especially embarrassing, as that was during the time when mother was nesting Glored's egg, and some dumb adventuring party from Lanrey had accidentally disturbed the nest. Dragons like hoarding at the best of times, but when things are particularly stressful… Well, Stress Hoarding is one of those things every Dragon knows somebody ended up doing..
"The same Divine Radiance who undid a solar eclipse by flying in front of it and shining so brightly you wouldn't even know?"
“That one didn’t happen.” He said. Honestly where had that rumor come from?
"Oh gosh, oh gosh!" Gwen started to fan her face with her hands. "Isabele, do you realise who we have in our party?"
"The youngest of a living legend!" Isabele said, her voice so high pitched that Glored was able to hear it only because Dragons have damned good hearing.
That was it. Glored could definitely feel the urge to attack himself rising. Who knew that he'd rather fight a human than have an extended conversation with them? Humans are <i>fucking weird</i>, no question of it. He had to get the convesration back on track. For the sake of his sanity.
"So what do we need to do to sort this mess out," Glored said through grit teeth. "How do we stop this curse from spreading further afield?"
"Well, it's not really a curse per se," Isablee said. And it was also kind of unnerving how easily she slid from one emotional state to another. So serious all of a sudden after all that! "It's more like a viral infection. That is transmitting a magical transformation. Most curses are fuelled by malice, but this spell... I have no idea what it's being powered by. What we need is a cure and/or a vaccine"
Right. Well. Before he could digest that information, something more important happened.
"Mmmm, what a nice dream," Razz said, sitting up and stretching her limbs out. Ah! The spell had worn off! "I wonder if Glored could do that with his tail in reality..." She said quietly, but just loud enough for everybody to hear.
“Ooooohhh…” Gwen said, “Didn’t think about that.”
“Didn’t you date a Felineian back when you were just a Knight?” Isabele said.
“Their tails aren’t flexible.”
Glored was ignoring that to rush to Razz. "Are you alr-" he began to ask, only to suddenly have a very enthusiastic Goblin-turned-human grab his head and smoosh it into her boobs.
It should be noted that Glored’s humanoid form is somewhat short by human standards (though tall by Dwarf standards) and as such Razz was just tall enough to be able to smash his face into her large by human standards (and massive by Goblin standards) boobs.
“You’re safe! Ohhh my gosh Glordy I was soooo scared! But you’re in your normal small form instead of being some kind of weird human monster ooohhh and you’re so cute like this too!” She wailed, squeezing him tighter and forcing his head deeper into her cleavage.
"Awwww, that's so adorbs!"
Glored finally managed to extract his head, took a deep deep breath. "Wh-Why are the affected monsters so damned horny?!" he yelled, and then found himself face first in Razz's cleavage again.
“Huh? That’s how I am when I wake up next to my dear wife here.” Gwen said, patting Isabele on the shoulder.
“Awww you’re too sweet.” Isabsle said, “Not that your boobs aren’t amazing Gwen, but it can be a bit hard to breathe when you get into it.”
"Wha-?" Razz asked, taking great pains to hold Glored in place. "I mean... You guys feel like this when you wake up next to each other? How do you focus on anything?"
"Normally by starting the day off scissoring each other stupid, then making breakfast naked." Isabel said.
“Naked <i>Apron</i> on special days like birthdays and anniversaries.” Gwen added.
Something clicked in Glored's mind. It felt like his worst fear from earlier was coming true. He had gained a measure of understanding of the human condition. To wit- humans are horny. All the time. They don't have a mating season. Actually that's wrong. They did have a mating season. It simply stretched around the calendar until it was touching the start of the next one.
“Oh.. wait what am I going to do then Glordy!?” Razz said, “I feel really hot looking at you…”
“So, uh, since we got to the topic of sex… is there a place we can get some privacy?” Isabele asked, her face was red and she was now getting more touchy with her wife…
<i>Oh Tiamat give me strength.</i> Glored thought. This was going to be a long and difficult journey, he could tell.
- If Glored thought he was horrified by humans, he's learned nothing yet.
- It turns out there's a rival adventuring party - who want’s the curse to spread further afield.
- Glored hosts a meeting with a lot of half truths about how he’s going to “Force” the humans to lead him to the cure for this mess.
- Arte and the Slime Girl have… noticed the issues with being human.
- Something Else
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