So you and David head to the Tournements R Us building beside the castle and look to rent some suits so you two can engage in knightly combat.
Prices are expensive however and you stare enviously as David pops out his fat wallet and puts down a fair number of twnties to rent a nifty suit of armour.
He takes his rental to the change room and a hour later goes clanking off to exchange lances with Sir Lancelot or somebody.
You've spent that hour going up and down the aisles,looking for the suit of armour you can rent with your meager funds.
No dice,so glumly you leave the shop and follow far behind a proud David.
"Psssssst,want a suit real cheap" comes the whisper from one of the
side alleys.
You stop and turn.Beckoning towards you to come closer is a hunched figure in a cload,a hood over his(?) head and no indication if he's
even human.
The figure is holding a suit of armour,made with sewn together red and green
scales that might have come from some large reptile.
The suit looks like its seen better days,and the armour all looks like
its been sewn back together a few times.
And that helmet,with the weird long snouty face/visor sets off the alarm
bells in you.
You begin to turn to walk away.
A cold iron hand stops you and the hunched figure says
"I sell it to you for 5 20's,and you can take it home as a souvenier
afterwards."
That stops you.He'll sell you the suit for a fraction of what it costs to rent one from Tournements R Us.
You know you'll get no better deal then this,and soon the cloaked
figure has your money and you have what he admits is a suit made
from real dragon scales.
You take your purchase to another side alley and spend 2 hours forcing the tight fitting thing on.
Finally you're done and go marching out of the alley in your battered dragon suit of armour.
However after 3 hours,the regular entertainment is over.
Theres no sight of David around.He's probably off in the castle with Sir Lancelot and a Lady or two.
However there still seems to be a tournement going on for the non humans and so you march over and am somewhat surprised when the dwarf registering the non-human tournement entrants
looks at you and gives you a ticket number to pin to your suit.
"Clack clak clak " goes the gate behind you as you are locked in to the waiting area where a variety of animals,monsters,humans and other
less then human entrants await their turn.
You mill around and find a table where sits a nerdy human kid who's
got the same ticket number as you pinned to his slideruler.
He's slight and not the kind of material you'd expected for your
opponent in the arena.
The two of you pleasantly chat about the weather,meanwhile various
figures in hooded cloaks keep plunking two glasses of ale to your table.
The two of you drain a glass,then soon another 2 glasses of ale are brought to the two of you.
The two of you are completely unaware of whats going on in the arena,because
of the high gates surrounding it.
If the two of you were less inebriated,you might have heard the roars,the squeals and the sounds of huge heavy bodies banging about in the arena.
And you might have realized that no one entering the arena from the waiting area ever returned through it.
Finally its yours and the nerds turn,and the two of you stagger through the
gates into the arena.
Strangely the nerd seems a little more beefy and muscled then he was a hour earlier.
The two of you stagger to your opposing ends of the arena and you're
rubbing your eyes as you realize the figure of the nerd is growing bigger and hairier as he approaches his end.
Then,just as he reaches his end,you hear the sounds of cracking bones and stretching skin and muscle as he gets much bigger
and animalistic looking.
His clothes burst off his enlarging frame as his legs reform
into goats legs,his pair of eyes fuse into one glaring cyclops eye
and his face pushed outwards into the fierce muzzle of a lion.
In a manner of minutes he's gone from being a mouse to being a
huge hulking monster.
A monster with a new attitude towards its opponent.
The beast roars,picks up a ten foot long club lying near it and rushes at
you,and you're sure you're a goner as the club comes down on your helmet.
Seconds later you reawaken,dazed and battered,but still alive.
Around the arena the crowds are chanting "kill kill kill"
and in horror you realize this is a tournement to the death.
Theres something wagging behind you and you turn to look.
A sinuous dragons tail,coming off your rear end,is swishing back and
forth.
Slowly you're turning into a monster yourself.
You stagger to your feet and realize the suit is stretched
around your enlarging,altering body.
You're not ready for this and squealing in protest run away from the huge
lion monster circling you with his club.
Theres a tarp off to one side,covering what looks like
a pit,and you hobble along towards it as your legs and feet begin to alter.
You slide under the tarp,to hide,your green and red dragons tail swishing
about out in the open.
You change and the tarp rises about your expanding body and wings.
However to be honest,you're not even aware you actually are a dragon
after you've transformed.
Only the urge to hide goes through the brain of yours.
So one of the tournement staff,hired to poke and prod reluctant monsters,silently slips over to your twitching tail and pokes it under the scales.
Which sends a red hot sizzle of pain down your lengthy spine to your reptillian brain,and you convulsively spray out fire,snap out your wings and burst out of the pit as 2 tons of spitting hissing dragon.
You leap out onto the arena on all fours and the rest is a furious foggy haze of talons,teeth and wings and tail as you attack your enemy monster.
You defeat it,and would have delivered the killing bite,but suddenly chains appear around your legs and you are pinned down.
The other monster shrinks and changes back into the human nerd,who is carried off the arena in a stretcher.
You on the other hand,won the prize,to stay a monster.
So the gates to the other side of the waiting area are openned,and you're winched outside ,outside Camelot,where other victorious monsters are flapping,twitching
and getting back on their feet.
Once the staff are sure you're far enough away not to cause them any harm,the chains binding you vanish .
You won't be needing to buy or rent any more dragon suits of armour.
You're not covered in your own suit of scales...