There was a bright flash as the door swung open and Tileki jerked backwards in surprise, he could have sworn he countered all the spells on the door. The light spread outward, engulfing the landing at the top of the stairs. He had time to see Noucous rolling back down the steps before his vision swam. There was a strange sensation of shifting & slithering, his inner ear was roiling which was no mean task considering kobold ears were quite different to mammalian ones. It left him feeling incredibly nauseous however and if he’d had a gag reflex he might well have upchucked. From the sound and vile smell one of his companions hadn’t been quite so lucky and as he picked himself up there was a rather final sounding clunk as something made of glass thunked down on all sides of his body.

Starting up, reaching for one of the weapons he kept hidden in pockets of shadow the pink kobold screeched as some magical force lifted him up off the ground. Azimuth and Garn were floating next to him and one of the bat’s little mirror ferals as well. Their glass prison span around them until the opening was above and a big brown paw screwed a cap into place. Then the magic ended and all three of them landed on the glass with a thunk. A creature was peering in at them,it was mostly one huge black nose with hints of brown fur beyond. It was hard to see what they were they were so big compared to them. They appeared to be talking to themselves but sound didn’t translate well through obviously ensorcelled glass. The jar they had been caught in however was being carried through the door into a large room beyond.

“Ok what happened?” Garn demanded as he righted his kilt and sat up, running a paw through his dreadlocks, the various charms glowed and then died out and he frowned at them. “We’re in a magic trap, it’s pulling all my magic into the glass to reinforce the spells keeping us powerless… so… what happened Tileki?”

“I don’t know,” the kobold hissed, “I disabled everything on that landing and the door, there was no way I missed anything I double checked and Azi’s bats said it was clear too!”

Azimuth turned from where she had been peering out of the glass and flapped her wings, “No fighting boys, I think we got caught by a rather devious mind. One of my bats escaped with Nocu, it said the spell came from behind the door.”

“Oh that is just not fair!” Tileki whined, “What sort of mage puts a spell behind the door were honest thieves can’t see it!”

“An insane one,” Garn muttered, “That sort of trap spell could go off inside the room whilst you are using it for legitimate reasons.” the otter stood up and held one hand out, straining with a frown on his face, “Ok I can still reach Russet but the connection is fuzzy, give me a few minutes and I’ll summon my spear and we’ll bust out of here.”

“Or Nocu will come get us,” Tileki said, swishing his tail from side to side, “My purple bro is pretty devious.”

“Yes he is, you make a good team that is why I hired you for this,” Azimuth said, “Now we need to….” she cut off as with a yelp a spectral force seized her and yanked her upwards. The lid of the jar rippled as she passed through it and Garn and Tileki pressed to the side of the jar to try and see what was going on. The perspective was all wrong however and then less than a minute later Garn was yanked out of the jar leaving Tileki very much alone and rather worried. Worry turned into a lazy yawn, then a stretch, a half second struggle of alarm to stay awake and then quiet, peaceful snooze time as whatever mage had captured them put him down for a nice long nap.

Struggling back and forth against the powerful spell holding him in its thrall Garn growled at the bear, watching as he extracted Tileki from the jar and transferred the now sleeping kobold to a rat cage against one wall. Looking around was hard, the otter's neck didn't want to move but he got half an inch and was able to see Azimuth strapped to a table. She appeared to be her regular size once again though the leather holding her down glittered with runes of sleeping, somnolence and power drain.

“Release us…” Garn growled out, glaring down at the bear-skunk below him, “I will be merciful.”

“Perhaps,” the bear mused, adjusting his glasses and peering up at the otter, “But I think you are the most powerful here, the others are interesting but present little challenge.” the bear made a hooking gesture dragging Garn closer to his robe covered body, “We’ll have plenty of time to talk later. For now let's get you into something more suitable for such a powerful servant.”

Garn struggled in the grip of the alchemist, but his spell was too strong and Garn was cut off from his power. It was just out of reach… he had no choice but to watch and hope Nocuous was OK. The bear-skunk was mixing things together at one of his work benches, pouring odd chemicals into one another, from the stench of one of them he was using the liquid from his own scent gland. It was a foul smell but the end product was a bright yellow and the bear forced it down Garn’s throat. Overriding his protests by using a pipette, forcing the glass tube between his clenched jaws and emptying it down his throat. It was foul and made the big otter's head swim as he swelled in size, returning to his natural height. The bear was laughing gleefully but with the restoration of height came his power, Garn seized the opportunity to reconnect then gasped in shock and fell to the floor. The moment he touched the source of his power pain blossomed throughout his body, it was flooding into him but some outside agency was directing it inward. Soft fur smothered him next, the bear-skunk’s tail was growing larger, exploding in Floof and volume, covering his body, coiling around him, pulling him deeper. The last thing Garn saw before the world was reduced to a haze of black fur was the bear’s gleeful smirk, then he was lost inside the coiling length of tail.

Inside the constrictive prison Garn felt hot, cold, nauseous and his whole body ached, as if his skin was too tight. The potion inside was twisting his powers, feeding them into the natural sorcery of the alchemists tail. Garn screamed as ice like shards penetrated his mind and his body shook with the first hints of change. He couldn't stop it, couldn't fight it, his own magic was being turned back on him, struggling in the coils of fluffy skunk tail he screamed again, bucking and fitting as the bear-skunk’s desire overrode his and made him change.

-0-

Clutching his head Nocu groaned then rolled onto his side and gulped down several lung fulls of thick, dust laden air. He felt like throwing up and as he clutched his temples he focussed on the lump of white bone lying on the floor in front of him. Slowly it dawned on him that the red paint on the tip looked suspiciously like the war-paint he used on his own horns. That brought him upright in a hurry and he reached up to feel his head, he was missing eight inches off his right horn, this was practically the whole thing.

“Well just great,” he cursed in his natural tongue, which was mostly yaps, hisses and yips, “These take fucking years to grow,” looked around groggily he shoved the piece of horn into a pocket and growled, “What the hell happened?” he eyed the steps leading up then peered out through the arch; it lead back into the room they had fought the polar bear golems in. He must have fallen all the way down the stairs. Looking around the kobold found his crossbow lying behind him and hurriedly reclaimed it, wrapping his fingers around the haft whilst reaching out with his mind for it. ~You still in there?~

~I am here, glad you’re awake Nocuous, that was a nasty fall, do be careful not to move too far, you are inside a cloak-shield I fired.~

Frowning Nocu checked his surroundings again and quickly found a crossbow bolt buried in the wall that was generating the field to keep him hidden. ~How did you fire that off if I was unconscious?~

~Help, from one of the bats, here he comes now, I let him know you were awake.~

Nocu looked up as something bright and shiny came flapping down the stairs and coasted over to land atop of the kobold’s sentient crossbow. The little feral bat settled down, wings draped to either side and smiled up at Nocu with his mirror bright grin. “I am glad you are not dead purple one! The mistress has been captured along with Garn and Tileki, I was worried they would capture you too.”

Rubbing his head were it still smarted from hitting every step on the way down Nocu peered up and frowned, “Well I am glad they didn’t find me, good work on using the Varsi Joursi to hide me… ah… how long was I out for and which bat are you?”

“Oh I am Augustus, there is only Augustus, the nice wolf has been fully assimilated; we are mirrors.” the bat frowned in concern, misinterpreting Nocuous shifting uncomfortably at the implications of that sentence as pain. “Are you still hurt? You were sleeping for over an hour, maybe longer, I am not good at time, but the magic crossbow said you would be ok and told me what to do to hide you.”

“Well I am glad you did,” Nocuous said reaching out to pet the little bat, “So what did you see upstairs? Anything important I should know about?”

“Well there is some sort of spell on the other side of the door, it got everyone, the bear in robes who captured everyone did come down to look for you but seemed to give up.” he tilted his head and chirped softly, “Mistress, Master Garn and Tileki are all inside the room at the top of the stairs. I can’t see much but it is some kind of lab and the bear is inside with them, I can’t get any closer.”

Hefting the Varsi Joursi Nocuous transferred the shiny bat to his shoulder and sidled up the first few steps, “Ok well we need to take this bear down quickly and avoid his traps. What skills do you have little bat and Varsi can you do something about that trap that got the others?”

Augustus flapped his wings and chirped, “oooh well I am a spell-conduit, I have a few spells stored in me already but once I use them up I am out until mistress puts more on me. But I do have a few special abilities of my own too.”

~I think the best thing to hit that trap with would be a lightning bolt into the ceiling,~ Varsi Joursi whispered in the kobold’s mind, ~The sudden discharge should disrupt anything magical, be it ward based or set in something mechanical.~

“Ok cool,” Nocu said as he slipped a quarrel into the Varsi and let the sentient crossbow set itself for firing, “So what spells do you have available right now Augustus?”

Augustus nuzzled in against the kobold’s wrist before answering, “I have colour spray, prismatic spray, magic missile, fire-lance and a protection from elements ward. Once they are gone the only thing I can do is turn someone into a bat.”

“Ok that’s something,” sliding up the last few steps on his stomach Nocuous aimed the Varsi Joursi at the closed door, the bolt loaded in the bow started to glow with a blue/white light. “Now Augustus, I need you to work the handle and open the door so I can take the shot from here. Once we are inside you need to create a distraction with colour spray then free Azimuth.”

“Ok,” the bat enthused happily and flapped over to the door, landing lightly on the handle, “Won’t the door be locked?”

“I doubt it, this mage wants to capture me, we need to turn his trap back on him, now open the door and get out of the way.”

The small mirror bright bat forced the handle down, the door swung open and Nocuous fired. The door was barely three inches open when the bolt from his crossbow arched through the air, no longer a piece of wood but a crackling shard of lightning. It splashed across the ceiling, arms of sparking electrical energy spreading in every directions. This caused a whole series of flashes, explosions and at least one shower of ceiling stones as the arcane energy discharged all the carefully proscribed magic protecting the doorway. Nocu had slid back several steps to avoid the worst of the discharges, what he’d just done was incredibly dangerous. The amount of magic now firing randomly was enough to kill anyone else and from the shattering crash of glass and howls of rage he’d made a mess of the alchemist's laboratory.

The kobold didn’t wait for the storm of lightning to finish, once he judged the worst of it was over he hissed an order at Auggy and the mirror bat swooped into the room. He span in mid air and released streamers of incandescent coloured mist. It poured out of his whirling body, spreading rapidly to form a multi-hued rainbow fog bank that Nocuous dived through for cover. Discharging magic flashed here and there inside the cloud but the weaving course the kobold ran was clear and as he leapt free of the shroud of colours he landed atop a large metal workbench and fired a bolt across the room toward the brown bear raging on the far side of the large chamber.

The bear ducked with a curse, his thick black and white skunk tail swirling from side to side as he rolled behind a desk. He shouted something obscene in a language Nocu didn’t follow and hurled a flask filled with a noxious orange fluid in his direction. Nocuous was already moving, he’d rolled off of the table top and ducked behind another to reload so was well out of the way when the flask shattered and liquid splashed everywhere.

Nocuous froze and watched as the strange liquid bubbled over the plain granite work-bench, transforming it into shining, sleek white marble. This bear-skunk was dangerous if he had been able to suspend a petrification spell in a liquid medium he was a very advanced practitioner of his craft. Slotting a bolt home the kobold cautiously peered around the edge of the table then scuttled forward toward the next one, Augustus clinging to his tail as he went. He was halfway there when the bear popped out from behind a cabinet full of strange crystals and hurled another flask at Nocuous. The kobold swung the Varsi around and fired a bolt of golden light; it slammed into the flask knocking it backwards toward the bear who yelped and ducked out of sight again.

Sliding to a stop behind new cover Nocu plucked the bat off his tail and hunched over him, "I saw Azi, she's tied to a table on the other side of the room, stay low and get to her," he then fired the Varsi directly into the floor and the bolt dissolved into a cloud of thick white smoke. Auggy grinned and winged off through the air and Nocu scampered through the fog toward where he had last seen the bear-skunk. Rolling out of the fog he darted around the cabinet right into the coiling, fluffy embrace of a massive wall of black and white fur! Yelping in surprise the purple kobold was swept off his feet as the fur constricted and coiled in all around him and dangled him upside down. He struggled to bring the Varsi to bear, to fire it but it was pinned against his body and his finger had slipped off the trigger. The tail twisted and the fur parted allowing Nocu to see face to face with his captor.

The brown bear smiled, his muzzle showing off a lot of sharp bear fangs as he crooned gently, "Hello little lizard, oooh I knew there was another one of you around! I am so glad you are here, now then let's make you into something much more enjoyable."

Nocu started to tingle, he could feel magical energy seeping out of the constricting fluff, working its way into his scales, preparing him for something unpleasant. Reaching out with his mind he linked to his crossbow and called out to his ancestors' spirit.

~I need you to fire Varsi, ice bolt into the tail as powerful as you can make it, now!~

~Firing!~

Frost raced across the tail and Nocu's scales, a billowing cloud of frozen air that turned everything it touched ice encased needles. The bear screamed, unravelling his tail in one whip like motion to hurl Nocu across the room; the kobold crashed through a glass display stand and rolled under a metal trolley in a cascade of falling glass, crystal and strange liquids. The act of unravelling his tail snapped most of the frozen fur leaving the alchemist with a patchwork of bleeding, crippled tail. Whimpering he backed away to the far side of the room and pulled on a heavy chain causing a large wooden door set in the wall creaked open.

"Come my servant, come to me and kill he who would dare defile my beautiful tail!"

Wiping gunk off his hands Nocu dropped a new bolt into the Varsi Joursi and peered out from under his temporary shelter as something roared. Well three somethings roared and a creature emerged from the darkness of the adjacent pen. Three heads wove back and forth, a bronze scaled dragon head in the centre, a grey furred billy-goats head with curling horns and curly goatee to the left and a sharp-beaked, red eyed, green and white feathered gryphon's head with feathery ear tufts to the right. The bird head let out an angry screech as the dragon roared again, the goat shape bleating angrily and gnashing blunt teeth in the air

The three heads each had their own sinuous neck that joined to the torso of the chimeric beast. Curly grey fleece covered the forward part of the creature and covered the front legs that ended in large split hooves that clopped loudly on the stone as it advanced. The middle of its body and its wings was covered in white and green feathers whilst its hindquarters were the powerful scaled legs and clawed feet of a dragon. The dragon tail coiled and flicked sinuously in time with the lion-tail of a gryphon with a feathered tuft and the long, fleece covered, black tufted goat tail. The chimera roared again in three different voices and charged across the room, powerful wings beating down to lift it up in a long glide over the various work-tables, benches and cabinets that dotted the room. Noucous screamed and fired the Varsi Joursi, a bolt of bubbling green poison flashing through the air toward the monster. It boiled off as the dragon head unleashed a stream of blue-white flame as a counterattack forcing Nocu to leap aside as it reduced a line of flagstones to molten slag.

“Fuck, Augustus hurry up!” Nocu shouted as he dived into the rapidly dissipating cloud of white smoke and vibrant fog, using the momentary cover to reload his crossbow. He was almost bowled over as a gust of wind from the chimera’s wings blew off the covering of smoke exposing the purple kobold to scrutiny. The gryphon head then screeched, a wave of sonic energy slicing across the room, bisecting a table, a trolley and almost Nocu as he flung himself out of the way! He yelped as the outer edge of the wave of energy sliced through his armour and bit into his side.
“Fucking, mule headed beast,” he screamed as he rolled over, grimacing in pain. Nocu fired the Varsi Joursi, a barrage of sharpened shards of earth leaping across the room to pepper the creature's body. It seemed to shrug them off however and roared, the goat heads eyes glowing as its tail crashed from side to side and hurled a massive spell in his direction.

“Oh that is cheating, having one of your heads be a mage!” Nocu’s protests were cut of as the fireball exploded, singing his scales as he ran for it across the room. He ducked around a corner and came face to face with the bear skunk. He hurled a spell at Nocu’s chest, the ball of grey energy seeming to emerge from the bedraggled tail to explode as it hit his chest Thick tendrils of grey webbing pinned the kobold to the wall with a heavy thump as they rapidly spread to engulf his body.

“Got you, you miserable lizard, how dare you attack me, my beautiful tail is ruined! Ruined it will take months to restore! I shall take great pleasure in destroying you!” He stalked closer, eyes wide and tail lashing from side to side as Nocu struggled against the webbing, wriggling his claws against the fibres, cutting his way free. It’d take time though, too much time, the bear was almost upon him, the chimera stalking up behind him growling from all three mouths.

“I think not,” another voice purred as Azimuth finally made an appearance, the bat landed on a table and unleased both of her tiny mirror bats. They swept down at the bear as she hurled a prismatic spray of colours right into the face of the chimera forcing it back. Growling the bear swept his tail around, paws gathering energy for a counterattack when one of the mirrored bats landed atop his snout! Spreading his wings he chirped loudly then dove off as the bear tried to swat it away before turning the gesture into a spell that hurled a lance of flame after the little winged creature. Whilst he was distracted the other bat flittered across his vision, cartwheeling back and forth until the bear hurled a lance of flame toward it. It was an impressive display, one bat would flicker back and forth across his vision trying to ensnare him whilst the other dodged a counter attack.

The chimera was still being forced back by Azimuth’s attempts to petrify it and Nocu was still slicing his way free of the webbing when the impossible happened! The bear stopped attack then froze in place as one of the Augustus’ crossed his vision. His hand lowered, his spell fizzled out as his cute round ears suddenly stretched into large pointed things. Shaking his head the bear shouted an obscenity at the little bat and threw a ball of air it it tossing the Augustus across the room. His ears had quite definitely changed and as he span around looking for a new target Nocuous could see that his muzzle was shifting too, becoming thinner, less rounded with prominent bat-like fangs.

“Hey Auggy, land here on my head!” Nocu bellowed and one of the mirror bats obliged, settling atop the kobolds head, chittering angrily at the bear alchemist. He roared and stomped across the room towards Nocuous, gathering more energy from his tail, preparing another spell. It didn’t seem to occur to him that it was odd that the large bat mage had left him alone like this. Azimuth was still toying with the chimera, keeping it back and as the mixed creature roared and snapped at Azimuth. She flicked her wings, lifting herself up toward the ceiling and threw a dazzling ball of light into its eyes blinding it. It snapped and roared at thin air; angry and impotent to reach its master's side as he stalked right up to Nocu and his little passenger.

“This is it, I have had it with your insolence lizard!” he drew his hand back, an incandescent purple flame erupting from his paw. He was ready to strike but looked up at the bat perched atop the kobold’s head and froze for just a moment, losing himself in the bright reflection of the bat creature. Nocu wasted no more time, his claws sliced through the webbing and he kicked the bear squarely between the legs as he shrugged his way free of the sticking mess. Gasping in agony the bear fell forwards, tears blurring his vision and pain hiding his shrinking body and changing fur from his attention. His thick, rugged bear pelt was becoming a light, smooth hide of layered furs and his clothes were falling off as his size shifted. Gasping for breath he raised his head, bat muzzle opening wide as he wheezed out a curse at the kobold as he danced out of reach. Crawling forwards the alchemist shrugged out of his robe, leaving it behind as his shank, the black and white fur becoming a smooth pelt covering a tiny, flicky bat tail. He stumbled forwards onto his chest as his arms were pulled in against his body, the bones crunching and twisting as they were twisted into a rigid wing shape. Hands morphed into tiny digits, feet arched into sharp clawed paws and his new wings scrabbled at the floor in an attempt to hold himself up.

“No! What have you….” he screamed before he fell flat on his face before the now gigantic kobold. His wings twitched, his legs kicked at the air as he tried to fight off the changes but as he watched Nocu saw his eyes changing. They lost the soft brown cast of the alchemist and took on the docile green reflection he’d seen in Forest’s eyes as the former wolf obediently obeyed Azimuth. His will was now subjected to Auggy’s mind who in turn was Azimuth’s creature. The big powerful bear had been neutralised, his mind was now Azimuth’s, his power added to hers. It was a really ingenious way of disposing of an enemy. Sapping their willpower and transforming them into a new conduit for their own magic. It was pretty impressive but Nocu was pulled away from his admiration of the newest bat when Azi screamed his name from across the room.

“Stop admiring my handiwork and help, this thing is getting way out of hand, shoot it already!”

Looking over Nocu saw that Azi was being backed into a corner, the dragon head was breathing flame one way and the gryphon was screeching sonic bolts at her, “Coming, duck I’m going to basilisk bolt it!”

He swiftly reloaded and took aim but Azimith screamed, “Don’t statue it, dispel magic, it’s Garn! Break the mind control you dolt!”

“Oh… can we do that?”

~Firing,~ Varsi replied mentally, the crossbow jerking in Nocu’s hands and launching a silver bolt that exploded sideways into a wide net of glowing lines. The net wrapped around the chimera causing it to roar and then slump onto its side, heads resting atop each other in a pile. During the following moment of silence Nocuous’ attention was drawn to the wire cage on a shelf where a familiar pink figure was calling out in a squeaky, high pitched voice. Gently opening the cage and picking up Tileki the purple kobold hurried over to join Azimuth where she was knelt down next to the three headed beast.

“Well this went weird… ah… any chance we can fix them?”

Azimuth looked up, the brown bat running a wing-hand through her grey hair, she wriggled the fingers of her other hand at Tileki and Nocu squeaked as the pink kobold suddenly swelled and exploded back to his normal size. “There I can fix a simple spell like that, but Garn is beyond my skill, at least here in the tower I don’t have the equipment.”

“Ok…” the bronze dragon head muttered suddenly as its eyes opened

“This is so,” the goat head said next.

“Weird… what the hell!” the gryphon snapped, all three voices subtly different due to physiology but same in intonation and emotion. Scrabbling with dragon feet and goat hooves the chimera managed to pull its body up into a sitting position and fold its wings back, three heads weaving around to look at everyone.

“Weird…” the goat muttered with a bleat, “I mean I can see three things at once but it’s just me…” his gryphon head twisted back to look along the length of his body whilst his dragon head swung around to look at Azimuth.

“You really can’t turn me back now?” his dragon voice had a soft roar to it, a lilting gravelly tone that hissed of scales and sand.

“Sorry, that bear-skunk did a number on you, this is not a polymorph spell but an actual conversion, “I can’t reverse it, can’t you use your own magic?”

Lashing his three tails together the former otter, now monster shook his head, “No… he did something, used my own power against me. It is like I am using my energy to maintain the shape… I can’t stop it. I’ve got my shamanistic elemental powers but not my greater strength. It’s all going into making me strong and fast and magic resistant.”

“Well what do we do now?” Tileki demanded as he finally extricated himself from Nocu’s arms, the pink kobold had latched onto his clan-brother in a tight hug as soon as he was back to normal size, “Do we go on as we are or quit now?”

Holding out one wing for her new bat to settle on Azimuth used the mirror charm on him. This completed the former alchemists transformation from bear-skunk sorcerer and master of alchemy to just another mirror bat, feeding his intellect to the hive-mind that was Augustus. “We go on of course, we can’t quit now, I am sure having a huge chimera on our team will help as well.”

“I can go on, it’ll just take a few for me to get used to this body,” the gryphon Garn head said softly, “Let’s rest here for a few then head on up.”

Shouldering his crossbow Nocu nodded and nudged Tileki, “Come on, let’s see what we can pilfer from this place. I bet there are some things we can make use of,” the pink kobold nodded and followed the purple to get in some looting whilst Azimuth hung back to help give Garn some pointers in having wings now. It was going to be an interesting journey, the tower was guarded by stronger protections than their intel suggested. It wasn’t just the outside that was a fortress but the inside too, they’d have their work cut out if they were to reach the summit before dawn!

~fin - Part 2?