It was a talking female cat named Tabitha,who had once faced the same predicament as Nicola.
Tabitha had once been a human girl who had tried to hide from
Jasper by hiding under the tables,crawl holes and nooks and crannies that the building was famous for.
She had lerned to her regret that the evil wizard didn't actually need to be near someone to transform them,all he needed ws a
article of theirs,such as a purse or a strand of their hair
in oder to do the job.
In Tabitha's case Jasper had gotten a hold of a strand of hair
from her when she'd still been human,a strand of hair that had
snagged on a rough crack in the wall from a cubbyhole Tabitha
had hidden in for days whilst Jasper had unsuccessfully searched for her.
In the end the frustrated wizard had announced to the hidden
Tabitha that since she had won their game he would reward her by giving her the form that would make it easier for her to hide
from now on.
Jasper had cast his spell on her strand of hair and she'd felt
a overwhelming pressure as her body got squeezed smaller
and altered into that of the talking cat she now was.
A smaller body Tabitha found it easy to hide in.
Tabitha had a pretty good idea that if Jasper found his quarry
Nicola in this room it would not end well for either her or Jasper's prey.
So the talking cat lied and told the desperate fugitive that there
was a secret tunnel behind the fireplace in the Banquet Hall
that lead to the outside where Nicola could run for it.
The cat explained that there was a snouty dragons head stone
carving in the front mantel of that fireplace and if the fugitive
turned that stone decorative piece three times clockwise,
two times clounterclockwise and four times clockwise again
a sort of padlock 'shuffle' the fireplace would swing open
and Nicola could use the escape tunnel on the other side
of that fireplace to escape Jasper.
This was partially correct.
The fireplace,the dragonshead lock and the first part of that tunnel existed.
However there had been a cave-in decades earlier that blocked off the rest of the tunnel.
Not that the talking cat was going to tell Nicola about that
matter.
And so Nicola left the talking cats room and carefully made her
way back down the stairs and got to the Banquet Hall where
the stone fireplace stood as described by the talking cat.
Nicola rotated the dragonshead stone 3 times,2 times and finally
4 times.The fireplace swung open and Nicola rushed into that dark tunnel just as Jasper entered the room and the fireplace swung closed behind the fleeing fugitive.
Nicola rushed along and soon found the blockage in the tunnel.
The talking cat had betrayed her.
So slowly she crept back to the sealed entrance to the tunnel where she could hear Jasper chuckling away.
He was twirling the dragonshead lock from the other side
and began chanting a strange spell with the words
squamous drakonis monstrous gigantis serpentosis undula
in the spell the evil wizard was chanting over the bit of Nicola's hair he had gotten ahold off.
Nothing happened immediately and Nicola wasn't even aware at
first she was transforming into a dragon,namely because it was
pitch black in that tunnel and beyond a slight itch of her skin,the
emerging dragon couldn't see her skin hairs slowly receding back into her skin.
She even missed the initial beginning of growth as her nude
body began to get bigger and her fingernails and toenails began to blacken in colour.
Then her eyes began to glow a orange red and her pupils narrowed and elongated into the reptilian eyes of a dragon.
Then came the sound of tearing skin on her back and as the still growing Nicola turned a much more flexible neck and began to
scream a high pitched scream at the sight of her dragon wings
rising up out of her still growing back.
From the other side Jasper listened to the unseen transformation of his quarry as her weak human screams
grew deeper and harsher as Nicola's lungs swelled to better
allow the beast she was rapidly turning into to
roar loudly and throw that firebreath good.
Jasper laid his hand on the fireplace and muttered a spell to
caused the tunnel on the other side to get bigger,lest the
emerging western flamebreather Nicola was transforming into
get too cramped as her scaly body continued to grow in size.
Finally the deep throated beastial screams stopped and Jasper
cautiously swung open the fireplace and gazed
apon the dragon in the tunnel,which still had a look of
confusion and shock on its snouty face as it realized it was indeed
a dragon with plenty of sharp pointy teeth,spiky back ,cramped huge wings and a long neck,long barbed tail.
Nicola still appeared docile,but the experienced wizard knew that wouldn't
last as her dragonish urges took over her thoughts.
So the wizard looped a harness onto the monsters neck and lead it outside his house and left it in a grden of outdoor statues of
the sort of thing a draon likes to eat,such as maidens,knights
deer and winged horses.
Jasper left Nicola the Dragoness there and rushed back into his
house and waited....
It took Nicola about 33 minutes to come out of her dulled docile
state but the sudden swoosh of her inner fires spewing forth
out of her chest ,down her long neck and out through her fang filled maw as a fire geyser came with Nicola's first
"ROARRR"
of surprise and horror as the dragon got down to dragon business.....