“Lizard thing!” Erwin decided.
Finn stroked his chin, “You aren’t just shouting some random animal, right?”
“No!” Erwin said indignantly. “Lizards can be deadly when big!”
“And that makes them the best hunter?” Finn queried.
“Lizard look like dragon, Erwin think dragons is best, so lizard must be too.” Erwin huffed.
“Fair enough.” Finn sighed.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Time Resumed.
“We should pull the lever to lizard.” Charlie said.
“Really, the lizard?” Veles asked, skeptical.
Charlie pointed at the image over the hole, “Look, we all saw something a bit different when we see that image, right?”
“Sure.” Oswin nodded.
“I saw a salamander...” Charlie trailed off.
“So?” Veles asked.
“Salamanders are often poisonous. They might not be great hunters, but no one is going to eat them.” Charlie replied.
“That’s stupid!” Veles stamped his paw.
“Not necessarily,” Oswin mused. “He has a point. Colorful salamanders are avoided because their skin sheds poisonous mucous. We have some around here. Ancient druids used to lick them to see visions.”
“Yeah, but are they the best HUNTERS?” Veles asked.
“They’re incredibly dangerous to even touch.” Oswin replied.
“Or, we’ve got this all wrong and we’re basically choosing our opponents, and I have a knife.” Charlie smirked.
“Yeah, it’s true, we might be misinterpreting the meaning of the puzzle.” Oswin nodded.
“Either way, someone’s gonna have to go through the hole.” Charlie shrugged.
“Then check it out,” Oswin shrugged, pulling a lever.
There was a clank as the hole shifted slightly. Above the hole, the image of a lizard wavered.
Charlie walked over to the hole and climbed a small ladder that led to it.
When Charlie tried shining his lantern in the entrance, all it illuminated was a dark, empty hallway. He frowned. There was an infamous trap in DnD that was just like this.
Cautiously, he poked a dagger into the darkness up to the hilt, then withdrew it.
The air around the hole seemed to ripple, but his dagger was still intact, so the hole wasn’t an illusion containing an orb of disintegration. That was a good sign. And as he inspected it, his dagger appeared unmolested. Taking a breath, he did the next test.
The wolf thrust he paw into the dark orifice and held his breath.
It was strange, the movement slower than it should have, like the air inside the hole was made of thick syrup.
His fingers felt as though they were piercing some unseen resistant force. It didn’t slow his movement down, but rather felt like it gave as he pushed through it. A strange warmth passed over his paw, followed by tingling and then an odd popping, like the bones were sliding and shortening. And even more peculiar was the feeling of gooey slime between his fingers.
Panicking, Charlie tried to pull his hand out, but found it was like trying to pull a boot out of thick mud. There was a powerful suction, trying to keep his hand in place – no, pulling him further inside!
Bracing himself against the wall, he yanked…
With a pop, his hand came free.
Heart pounding, Charlie looked down his paw and saw…
Nothing. His paw was the exact same as it had been when he’d stuck it through the hole.
He flexed it experimentally, taking note that all of his fingers appeared to be in order. He took a deep, calming breath. Perhaps he’d imagined it?
“What are we dealing with?” Oswin called.
“Looks like a dark hallway, but I think there’s something more. My hand felt slimy.” Charlie called over his shoulder.
“Dagger passed the test and your paw was unharmed?” Oswin asked.
“Dagger… yeah, it’s fine. My paw’s fine too but I think…” Charlie paused in thought.
“It felt cold and slimy in there. Could it be teleporting me into something’s stomach?”
“Wouldn’t that feel warm?” Oswin retorted with a huff.
“Not if it was a salamander’s stomach,” Veles chimed in, “did it burn at all?”
“No,” Charlie replied, “it just felt slimy, can you detect magic?”
“Sure can” Veles intoned and his eyes lit up bright blue.
A minute passed as the cougar inspected the portal. “It’s difficult to tell, but it is magical. Someone placed a False Magic Aura on it.”
Veles rubbed his chin, “I think its probably a teleport spell. I’m guessing that our earlier theory about you having to fight the picture you see is correct, and it’s going to teleport you to a salamander’s lair, hence the slime you felt.”
Palseks walked over to Charlie and sniffed his hand.
“Hand not smell funny,” she said, “you feel sick?”
Charlie looked down at her and replied, “no, why?”
“Slime not poison then. Would be sick by now if was.”
Charlie looked back at the hole and gave it a more thorough inspection. He noticed that there was a small metal bar jutting out from the wall in between the hole and the picture of the salamander above it.
"I guess I'm supposed to hold onto that and go through feet first?" he wondered aloud.
"Go for it," Veles shrugged his shoulders before winding the rope taut. “I’ll pull you out in fifteen seconds.”
Grabbing onto the bar, Charlie pulled himself up, planting his legs against the stone wall to either side of the hole he was about to jump through.
Pushing off, Charlie swung back, still holding the bar, then pressed his legs together and headed for the hole. As his feet passed through the wall, everything sort of slowed down. Charlie felt that strange resistance pushing back against them, like they were squeezing through a tight membrane. With a pang of relief, he felt them continue to move through the wall.
That relief was cut short, however, as warmth and tingles engulf his lower body.
His paws were popping, the air growing cooler as though the fur was receding. The membrane gripped them tightly, shaping them and molding them as they passed through. The wolf swore his paws felt somehow softer, the flesh loose.
Charlie's swing carried him forward as his calves passed through the hole, then his knees, then his thighs.
The more of him went through the hole, the more the sensations coming from his body changed, joints popping, muscles shifting. It wasn’t painful, almost pleasant, like a gentle massage. The transition was slow despite of the speed at which he initially passed through.
He tried looking past the hole, to see what was on the other side, but it was just the same, empty hallway from before. Whatever this hole was, the sight of his body vanished as soon as it went through, which meant that it was a portal to somewhere else, and the empty hallway it was showing was an illusion.
Thinking back to his legs, Charlie tried to mentally scan over the nerves inside of them to build a mental picture of what had happened.
Whereas his old legs had felt long, built for walking and stalking, his new legs had joints that felt built for walking on all fours. His thighs felt thicker and plumper, more like haunches. As Charlie’s tail passed through the hole, he swore it was growing longer, fatter, and cooler, like there was no fur on it. In fact, his entire lower half felt cool.
His crotch went through, his groin straining against the membrane. Then oddly, he felt it being pressed back up against him. And then, with a cry of pleasure, he came as they were somehow pressed inside of him, tucked away forever. Charlie shuddered in delight, his paws slipping.
Charlie leaned back as his hips passed further through the hole and, with a sudden snap, his legs splayed out to the sides, as his groin shifted to the underside of his belly.
As the momentum carried his stomach through the hole, the tightness forcing the air out of his lungs with a soft wheeze, Charlie eyed the picture of salamander on the wall above him. It had a strange aura to it, like fog or fire. The body was soft and the tail was long, fat, and hairless. That and the absence of any genitalia made him think-
"Guys!" Charlie shouted as his eyes bugged out of his head, "help! I'm not going to fight a salamander, I'm going to-"
But it was too late.
Charlie tried to pull back on the bar, but his initial jump had imparted too much momentum into his body, and it now inexorably carried the last parts of his torso through. Unable to maintain his grip on the bar, his hands slipped off and his arms began to enter the hole. Charlie could only watch as his head came closer and closer to the hole, all while the sensations coming from his arms slowly shifted.
It felt like his arms were shrinking, his paws feeling cool against the air, like they lacked fur. His shoulders were pulling together, a joint like a hip limiting their movements as he slipped through the hole.
Charlie closed his eyes in fearful anticipation as he felt the invisible membrane bend and flex against his chin before he slipped through it.
His head snapped and crunched pleasantly, like a million little hands were stroking and massaging his skull. Charlie’s tongue slid out of his mouth, long and tapered, able to lick his face and his nose, tasting his sweet and salty sweat as his skull melted and warped, rounding, elongating, nose disappearing into two slits just above his mouth. As his head transitioned fully through the wall, his skull flattened and his mind felt like it had dropped into soft cottony warmness.
He landed with a wet *thwap* on the floor of a steel cage.
Charlie shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness from his mind, and then tried to look down at himself, only to feel his chin press into the ground below him.
He blinked and tried to take stock of the situation. He could feel his belly resting on the ground while all four of his limbs were permanently splayed out to the side. His tail, meanwhile, felt too fat to move much – it was more like an extension of his abdomen that tapered off than his old, flexible wolf tail.
There was a little tray of water near the front of the cage and he found himself trundling over to it awkwardly.
What he saw in the reflection was the flat round head of a salamander, though he suspected as much. The rest of his body was dark and wrinkled, covered in a thin layer of slime. A few bright red and yellow stripes, like those of a tiger, ran down his back.
A wisp of smoke wafted from his skin as he started to panic.
Charlie’s heart beat rapidly in his little chest, and he was sure he could feel it thump against the floor. There were no breastbones to stop that from happening, after all. The smoke continued to rise from his flesh as he began to experience a full-blown panic attack.
No!
Charlie clamped down on the thoughts. He wasn’t a salamander, he was a wolf in a salamander’s body. It was going to be okay. But he was hungry and that bowl of dead flies over there looked rather tasty and he found himself gulping them down before he could even consider NOT doing it.
His heart started beating a little faster as he realized that the time between need and want and fulfilling the action was almost non-existent. This body had felt hungry, saw the flies, and then ate them without a thought. Literally.
In fact, his memories were rapidly fading as well. The salamander’s brain just wasn’t big enough to hold unnecessary things like that. The first things to go were his memories of being a human. While he was still aware that he had once been a human, when he tried to think back to that time there was just nothing there.
And it wasn’t just his time as a human that was gone, as Charlie tried to remember simple details about how he got here, he realized just how little he could remember. The core concepts were there – he could remember the fact that Finn had teleported him to a different world and made him an anthro wolf assassin. But the fine details were all gone. He knew that he had defeated a hag, but how? It was a blank. He knew that was in this mess because he had fallen for a trap, but what trap?
It was so strange to be able to remember the basic factual information of his life, but nothing else. It was almost like his brain had changed from an encyclopedia to a dictionary, with nearly all of the information inside lost as well.
Charlie began looking around the room he was in, only to realize that he couldn’t make sense of any of it. He was surrounded by a wall that had lots of little gaps in it. Something about that seemed wrong – why would a wall have so many gaps in it?
He knew there was something else to this, that what he was looking at wasn’t quite a wall, but the concept he was looking for just never came to him.
Maybe it was magical? He didn’t know how he got in here, after all, so maybe magic was responsible? Did that mean there was no way out as well?
Charlie let out a squeaky hiss of dismay.
He lay back down on the floor. Veles and Palseks could use magic. He couldn’t remember the spells, but maybe one of them could get him out of here? Or, at the very least, do something to help him before he lost himself to the salamander’s creeping instincts.
He rolled over on his back, then leaned forward and grabbed onto his tail, pulling himself into a ball like shape with his snout positioned just above his crotch. His spine was incredibly flexible, and while he marveled at it, he was more concerned with the fact that he couldn’t see his dick.
Instead, there was a swollen slit.
Cautiously, he explored himself. His slit opened and it felt… funny. Not haha funny, but not pleasurable either. His rubbery digit wasn’t making much headway, so Charlie cautiously stuck out his much tougher and muscular tongue and probed himself, looking for his cock.
As it turned out, he didn’t have one. Not one he could readily identify. It was oddly soothing to lick himself, so he did that. So lost in the gentle ripples of pleasure rolling over him that he didn’t even notice the orgasm until his slit contracted around his tongue and some thick, slimy gel oozed around it.
The salamander shivered, withdrew his tongue and lay languidly on the floor of his cage, feeling profoundly satisfied.
Was that cum? It tasted like cum, he realized, so did that mean he was still a male? He got the sense that he was, but before he could dwell on the implications of that, heavy thuds vibrated the ground as a large golem stomped over to his room and picked it up. Charlie experienced intense vertigo as he accelerated upwards, the room swinging.
The salamander was carried out of the menagerie and into a brightly lit arena. The golem set the room down in the middle, then removed the top. Grabbing Charlie, it carried him in a strangely ceremonial fashion to the sand in the middle of the arena and set him down with a loud thump.
Charlie let out a hissy squeak, the sand gritty and almost painfully dry to his moist skin.
High above him, maybe thirty feet or so, was a soft chaise lounge. Lying atop the lounge was a huge, well-muscled pitbull, instantly recognizable as the visage carved into the statues in the ruins’ entrance corridor.
The pitbull leaned over and surveyed the salamander, which had begun to smoke.
“You are one of the adventurers who dared to intrude upon my chambers,” The pitbull’s voice was calm, though there was an undertone of menace to it. “I know you still retain a semblance of your former personality and intellect. That will fade in time.”
Charlie hissed violently, the smoke curling off his body growing more intense.
“What is this?” The pitbull leaned forward. “Oh my, you seem to have chosen a rather unique form to take, my friend.”
Friend?
Charlie hissed louder, arching his tail over his head, and suddenly his body was on fire. He glowed a brilliant red and yellow as his skin incandescence flared to life. The heat was so intense the nearby sand melted into runny streak of molten glass.
“Ah-ha! How wonderful!” The pitbull clapped excitedly. “Golem 7, craft a proper terrarium for my new pet and find a place for him in my private chambers. It’s so hard keeping a fire lit, but he’ll do.”
The golem trundled away.
Soon, Charlie found himself in a huge crystal terrarium in the pitbull's private chambers. There he stayed, though occasionally new creatures found their way into the pitbull’s room as well. A pretty spider that spun webs and could play a lullaby with the silk as an instrument. A yellow mouse that could fire electricity from its cheeks.
He kept hoping for rescue, but soon, his memories of his friends faded away, and only the dull salamander mind was there. His mind. And there he stayed forever and ever…
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
With a *pop*, a flaming salamander appeared on the stone floor of Finn’s lair.
“Oh, yeah, just like that, little one!” Finn groaned, bucking hips into the kobold’s maw.
Finn noticed the heat of the salamander against his snout and turned to look at the amphibian.
“Wow, you’re looking hot, Charlie!” Finn chuckled at his own joke.
The dragon glanced down at the kobold nuzzling his cock and back at the salamander that was moving rapidly towards him.
Uh oh.
“You know what, it’s not really your fault...” Finn said hastily. “You seem a bit upset with me right now and you’re immune to fire, so I’ll just send you back. Lucky for you, this isn’t….”
The End
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