22: Fur And Scales

After the group returned from the White around lunch, they gathered and conference called. It was decided time marched on and the week still had a full docket, so they would meet for a late breakfast tomorrow down in the newly formed gym to flex some allocation muscles and worry about White problems later.

First on the list was transporting Quinn and Padmava to the City building, a task more difficult than anticipated, taking out the seats in the back of the van (Diane announced it was now their van, she had signed the papers to buy it from the rental company) and then with the help of everyone, shoved Padmava’s bulk into the back and slammed the doors closed without loosing too many scales. Then the three purchased their marriage license from a different Justice - Honoka remembered what Benedict said the night he died about someone there leaking their information to the pimp - and Quinn drove Padmava home. Banda, once again using her sister’s truck and shotgunning Eve with her, chauffeured the trio to Honoka’s apartment and packed up all her things.

In this case, Honoka decided to try out her new Class Feature, Mímir’s Draught, after a call to Diane. Diane was busily brewing a massive amount of potions as well as preparing a presentation for tomorrow, so she agreed to some allocation. Honoka greedily added +4 Strength, +4 Endurance and five inches (13cm) to her bust. The bust was a surprise to Diane who grumbled into her phone but Honoka didn’t care, the changes took place and the D cup woman bulged enough muscle to go from emaciated into skinny and enough endurance to go all day. Honoka happily rummaged around in her clothing to find an old t-shirt with a faded white FBB logo on red. She filled out the shirt beyond capacity, pushing it up to reveal some tummy with her tits stretching the logo, nips clear in the colder and cloudy day while she went braless.

The three women disassembled everything, packed and loaded it all into the massive truck within five hours. Seeing everything, Honoka was depressed at how little she owned. She had stripped the bathroom of fittings, the TV and other expensive electronics and her beautiful power dildo. Eve proved exceptionally useful, putting her goblin Dexterity and knowledge of machinery from her previous job to good use while Banda carried anything down all those stairs without breaking a sweat. With only a few tears, Honoka dumped her keys in the mail slot and left the only home she had known for eight years.

Cholena and DeeDee waited at the Harvardtown parking lot, two overloaded carts next to them with milking equipment stacked high. The wives fetched their own trolleys and loaded up before they trekked to the Lair. Honoka and Cholena hung back for the matriarch to question Honoka about Banda’s episode earlier that day. Honoka came clean, not quite going into every detail but explaining some of the more exciting aspects of her Class in broad strokes, careful to keep her voice very low or pausing altogether when they passed through more crowded streets. Cholena only asked a few questions, but in the end nodded with a huge grin, happy for her niece and hoping they’d all be able to make it to the Dairy’s company pot luck next month. Honoka found herself more relieved than anything and agreed, saying goodbye with Banda and enjoying a double dose of buried-in-holstaur-cleavage because the Longhat family were apparently huggers.

Dinner was short but excellent, Quinn already worth her weight in gold while they ate spinach salad and chicken casserole for the main dishes. Also, each wife received a little something extra to account for their Racial diets. Jaya coiled next to her mom, both nagas served a dozen normal chicken eggs with their food. Honoka also received a dozen raw eggs, Diane some fresh cranberries, Banda three heaping bowls of oatmeal, Quinn had raw oysters and to everyone’s surprise, Eve got a putrid month-old rotting chicken.

With some stammering and embarrassed whispers, Eve explained goblins needed to eat rotting meat. Diane broke the tension by reminiscing of the time she watched Honoka eat breakfast, generating curious glances from Padmava and Jaya. It was decided watching the Ymirian eat her true morning meal would be part of the meeting. It was also agreed over childish pouting that Jaya would not be allowed to see the whole, uncensored meeting and would be busy with homework. Everyone drank a tall glass of holstaur milk, fresh off the teat and still warm, which brought on a round of applause to the blushing Banda and sly comments for seconds.

Honoka was barely conscious at this point, nodding into her food before others agreed she would turn in early. Diane’s also been up since yesterday, so they both went to their rooms, dressed then spooned into Honoka’s bed.

That night Honoka dreamed of white rabbits going down tight holes, but she forgot about it entirely come morning.

********************

Jaya loved to watch Honoka eat. Loved it.

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!” With permission, the seven-year-old naga wrapped her warm hands as far around as she could hold along Honoka’s expanding belly, the growth about the coolest thing the young girl ever experienced. In respect of Jaya, Honoka wore a tan skirt and white sports bra, everyone else dressed in more casual PJs, including the currently squealing Jaya who wore an extra-long sleep shirt with fluffy pink bunnies on it.

Honoka really did not know how big she would grow, right now she was the size of a beanbag but only after ingested twelve gallons (45 L) of Banda’s milk. That was just the beginning. For the last few days, she had been transitioning to the raw approach for her food, growing larger and larger each morning. Today would be the first she consumed her new meal plan.

• Twenty-five gallons (95 L) of freshly lactated holstaur milk, blessed by the Cleric herself for added nutrition and potency.• Two thousand assorted vitamins and supplements that does a giant’s body good.• Five dozen eggs (to make her roughly the size of a barge) from Dire Chickens, a dungeon breed of poultry that breathed fire and laid magic-infused eggs - about four times the size of a regular egg - colored a fiery red.• One dozen raw and unplucked Dire Chickens, each thrice the size of a standard turkey, from the farm on Floor 7. Total weight, almost six hundred pounds (272 kg) of bird.• One gallon (3.8 L) of Ice Wasp honey from Floor 272, something Diane thought to add yesterday. Honoka instantly declared it was the best thing she ever tasted, now craving the stuff like crack.

Altogether, the daily food budget was outrageous, like the rent of a small house. Annually, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Diane ran the figures and she insisted they would be able to afford it. Honoka almost died by heart attack when she saw the bill, breathing into a paper bag while Diane talked her down and Eve cackled in the corner. Nevertheless, Honoka saw a small change earlier that might make it all worth it to her.

This morning, when she checked her Status, before eating a single morsel of food, Honoka’s weight sat at ninety pounds (41 kg).

Honoka did a double-take, closed her Status and opened it again, yet the number remained the same. For the first time in her life, without measuring while eating or during allocation, Honoka gained weight. This never happened. She was the eighty-nine pound (40 kg) weakling for fourteen years and that number never permanently moved a single ant fart in the direction of ninety pounds, no matter how much she ate or worked out or anything! The meal spread before her down in this gym, on a table near the wall with a thick blue gymnastics mat for her to rest on while they shoveled food into her, was as much food as she used to eat in a week; the Ymirian began to think she just hadn’t been eating enough. For the first time, Honoka hoped she might actually become something other than the famine victim she currently resembled.

“I think we need a funnel,” Eve commented dryly, trying to pour as many of the pills from the plastic bin into Honoka’s waiting gob, dozens of capsules spilling onto the mat.

Jaya was thrilled to help, grabbing a paper plate and scooping the pills off the floor then dumping them in the next bin. She quickly slithered back to watch as Honoka’s black stomach rumbled and jumped out another foot in every direction. Trying to fit entirely around it, the young girl wrapped her whole tail around Honoka and cooed as her warm scales tightened.

“Not too hard, honey, don’t want to…I don’t know, make it all come back up?” Padmava held a Dire Chicken in each hand and peered down at Honoka with a question. “Are you ok?”

“She’s fine, just be careful she doesn’t get caught under me when I really start growing.” Honoka opened her mouth and it kept opening, taking each red-feathered magical chicken into her mouth whole, her neck stretching to accommodate the four fifty-pound (23 kg) birds.

“That’s it, I’m out,” Quinn said, holding her mouth as she almost vomits, running down the wall to the small bathroom. The Dire Chickens and their magical bodies really kicked Honoka’s growth into overdrive. Within minutes, she bloated to the size of a small car and quickly gained ground. By the time she put all the eggs down and the other thirteen gallons (49 L) of milk, Honoka surpassed her previous record of half her old apartment. To get the rest of the food to her, Banda needed to use her impressive strength to hold a bloated black stomach off the ground as wives crawled food to her and finished the meal. In the end, Jaya was told she could climb to the top of Mnt Tummy with a laser measuring tape and find out how big Honoka was at this point.

“Thirty-two feet and seven inches! (9.9m)” Jaya shouted, her scaled decent tickling Honoka to no end as she shook her entire belly with her giggles.

“More like fifty feet (15.3m) diameter from the ground, she kinda pancakes a little,” Eve said, checking her own laser.

Despite the increase of size, Honoka found her body more readily absorbing everything, going back down to plain old Honoka in only an hour. For the first twenty minutes, Jaya had the time of her life crawling over every inch of her new mom while the rest of the women looked at her with a mix of touching love and a bit of exhaustion. Then the seven-year-old was told to go upstairs and work on homework, her pitiful whines totes adorables. Every one of her new moms gave her big hugs and kisses in consolation for being kicked out of the adult meeting. Padmava herself checked the lock on the door before coming back down.

“Ok, I think I got this ready!”

Diane was on the other side of the gym, working with a projector set up to receive from a recently acquired data tablet, some pillows and cushions laid out in front of a blank wall. She wore a thick pair of glasses that made her eyes look tiny, grousing this morning about being out of contacts. The gym was an impressive room, each section collecting different groups of equipment, gear and specialty items that would make a Bold’s Gym piss themselves with envy. Diane didn’t stock the place with a lot of machines. The free weights went from the puny to something not even Banda dreamed of lifting, a few of the weight bars shining the telltale silverish gleam of mithril in them.

A whole wall was filled with weapons, both real and practice, a veritable arsenal ranging from Banda’s double ax to a few katanas. More modern police batons and a dozen handguns were next, a couple automatic rifles and a massive tank killer of a sniper rifle, but the majority of everything was medieval bladed or blunt. Kitty-corner to the weapons were armors: these in more modern styles, a lot of velcro holding blends of kevlar, metal woven polyester, strike plates and both arm and shin bracers. One wall held mirrors on the lower half and a few small TV screens over the top with bikes and treadmills; one treadmill, in particular, was the size of a semi-truck. The center of the room remained empty, probably kept that way to give the women a place to practice with those weapons and learn how to defend themselves in the dungeon.

“Ladies!” Diane synced her phone to her tablet, tapping it to start the modern-day slide show. Honoka’s Family: Moving Forward.

“I crave some popc—oh! Thanks, Q!” Eve took the proffered bowl of buttery and salty snack and got to munching, offering it around to everyone else as they sat down.

Diane glared at Eve, who offered some of the popcorn. The succubus relented and grabbed a handful. “Ladies, all of the stuff in this room, my newly outfitted and stocked alchemy lab upstairs, our van and a few months worth of Honoka’s food budget make up the last of my savings. Padmava still has enough to keep our utilities running for another six months and Banda’s big bonus should keep the rest of us eating and comfortable for three or four months. Honoka, Eve and Quinn all have final paychecks which should cover any extra costs that come up. Other than that, before the end of the year, we will be flat broke if we do nothing.”

This sobered everyone up, the reality of their situation pretty grim. It was one thing to fail when a woman lived alone, but it was another thing entirely to fail when others relied on you. Honoka, especially, felt the strongest that it was her responsibility to make this all work.

“That’s a hard deadline, but I found an even more pressing one.” Diane tapped her phone, the next slide appearing. Assault On Bone Castle. “I’ve done some checking with a few sources in local government and cashed in some of my favors. There is a pattern with those taken by the Castle and how long they have before they are either confirmed dead or undead.” Tap.

One Week From Today.

Quinn looked like she was ready to cry, her quivering face giving Honoka and Diane a pleading look. Diane held up her hand, tapping a few times and materialized a detailed list.

“It will be hard, but I think we can be ready to attack in time, maybe earlier. Essentially, we will all need to grind until we can be at levels, harmonization and actual training high enough where we can succeed. I mean serious work, we are going to all be putting in eighteen-hour days starting today if we want any hope of saving Dolly.”

“It sounds so impossible,” Quinn lamented, looking at the floor. “I’m level five. In five years, I’ve gained five levels. How’s a week gonna change anythin’, even with Darlin’s help?”

“Padmava, would you explain how leveling actually works?” Diane asked as she tapped again. Leveling.

“My precious Starlight was not only the highest level geomancer in the world, but he became that way because he was probably one of the most knowledgeable people about the leveling system.” The elegant naga moved in front, addressing everyone calmly. “I am a level sixteen Bulwark, but I only delved twice and gained those levels in about two months worth of casual effort. Too often, people think of levels and Classes in the same way they think of how the same things level in video games. This thinking is harmful if a person wants to level their Class. Going into a dungeon and killing monsters might grant some experience, but that isn’t how one truly levels. Leveling is always linked in some way to utilizing a Class properly, and it can be unique in little or large ways for every person.”

“The best example is Honoka.” Diane tapped and a whole lot of details - very graphic details - popped up. “Seven days ago, Honoka was level one and 0%. Since then, she collected five wives and sexually encountered those wives, I think, twenty-three times and spent around ten hours total allocated and is already a level four.”

“I’m at 87% right now,” Honoka interrupted, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m probably going to hit level five in the next hour after we’re done.”

Diane pursed her lips, quickly updating her numbers on her phone before turning back to Quinn. “Case in point, so long as Honoka keeps collecting more wives, allocating the Races of those wives or just having sex and harmonizing, Honoka might easily be over level thirty by the end of the year.”

“Let me see if I understand because I’m still getting used to using my brains again.” Eve shoveled another handful of popcorn in her mouth, talking messily as she chomped away. “I’m a brawler. If I jump into fights and keep fighting, I might level faster than finding some big baddie deep in the dungeon? I would be level ten if I just walked into a club and started a riot?”

“I know the Internet is filled with leveling guides and ways to reach higher levels faster by killing more monsters, but it just isn’t the case.” Padmava took the bowl of popcorn away from Eve and used her other hands to wipe the buttery mess off her cushions. “If you spent more time in bars or dojos, you would be over level ten right now.”

“People sorta know about this, but they only apply it to the crafting Classes.” Diane tapped, a new screen came up, this one breaking down how she and Padmava think everyone should focus their efforts to level up quickly. “I can level up by making potions over and over again, but high-level alchemists understand the only way to level quickly is to create original recipes. The more I experiment, the faster I level. There are hundreds of thousands of alchemists who just grind out the same potion every day to go up a tiny amount. That’s how I earned most of my levels, I’ve made thousands of potions. If I’d only made a couple dozen of the right kind, I’d be over level ten right now.”

Everyone stared at the screen, taking in this new bit of information. In hindsight, sure, it made perfect sense, but the blue boxes of the Status made everything look so much like a game the media conditioned everyone to think in a certain way. This talk of leveling a specific Class in a particular way was fighting words in most circles. It would cause duels if brought up in the FDR building. Such is the way the human mind can be tricked into thinking a lie is the truth.

“Um, mine just says to cast ‘sexual blessings.’” Banda looked a little worried, rubbing her hands together nervously.

“I looked up your Patron, Teteoh,” Diane replied, double-tapping on her tablet and bringing up some forum posts on the Status Patron, Teteoh, part of the Life Pantheon. “As I’m sure you know, Teteoh is a Patron over harvest and fertility. You probably received most of your experience casting magic on the fields you worked at the Dairy. Lacking fields, that means fertility. Since we are on a time table and none of us can afford to risk pregnancy…yet…” Diane paused and Honoka was mildly surprised and excited to see the entire room nod in agreement and expectation, “the bountiful harvest you’ll be working on is Honoka’s ejaculations.”

“Nope,” the chocolate futanari announced as soon as she realized where the conversation was going. “Notta, no way. Yesterday I came so hard I needed two healing potions, and I’m still tender down there. Now you want me to cum more? Didn’t I almost die when I took an ED potion only a few days ago?”

“First,” Diane tapped and typed on her tablet, bringing up a chart with citations, “that’s if you mix magic with magic. Cleric spells work on a different spectrum, receiving power from a Patron that asks for a reciprocal price from the caster. It's like the difference between doing the dishes or hiring a maid to do the dishes for you. The same effect, but the cost and where the effect comes from are different. So you should be fine, though we will start small to test it out. Second,” another tap, another chart listing various spells and blessing associated with Clerics of Teteoh, “there might be a solution to you collapsing in pain every time you cum. Apparently, we aren’t the only perverts in the world: there are already detailed outlines for a simple blessing to increase the volume of a man’s ejaculation as well as making his penis elastic enough to account for the increased load.”

Honoka glared at Diane for a solid minute before Diane lowered her eyes, the rest of the room feeling the tension. “I appreciate you working on a solution, and I am more than happy to help Banda, but I do not like anything sprung on me like this. Next time, talk to me.”

“Sorry,” Diane mumbled, her wings wilted as she tapped her screen back to getting everyone leveled. Banda would focus on blessing and occasionally healing the wives while delving. Diane stays in her alchemy lab brewing potions and coordinating everyone, doubling as the one watching over the home. Padmava was already a high enough level, making her perfect to lead farming expeditions into the dungeon to procure either Transmutation Crystals for money or rare alchemical ingredients to help Diane save money or make more money. Eve and Quinn will join in those delving expeditions and find large numbers of weak mobs as both of them benefit from fighting large groups. Eve would get into a long fight with some while Quinn will use her swarms to crowd control the rest of the mob from overwhelming the goblin. Ironically, neither would benefit as much if the mobs died, so Banda might sometimes be around to heal the dungeon monsters to give the other two a chance to level even faster.

Honoka would be spending most of her time in bed, orgasming.

In the end, the final goal was for everyone to reach level ten in their Class and level five in their harmonization. The points gained when Honoka sexed one of her wives averaged 20%. Diane was level two, Eve and Banda were level one, Quinn and Padmava were level zero. The math was simple. Honoka needed to have sex in the next week, minimum, around a hundred times.

Diane saw the moment Honoka realized what her week entailed, and she nodded sagely, tapping a chart into being. Honoka’s Boinking Schedule. Every moment of every day was accounted for, wives coming in and out of the Harmony room at the top of each hour and making sure they earn those twenty points before they left at the end of the hour. It ensured Banda performed numerous blessings and everyone took at least two sets of C&A potions every day at specific intervals. Honoka’s potion schedule was also rigorous to avoid her dying from stamina or mana depletion. Even her breaks existed just to eat more food in her need to feed the Beast. The only time remaining was each morning when she trained for two hours with an ‘expert.’

“Who’s the expert?” Honoka asked, her penis hardening, which the black woman thought was a complete betrayal.

“Friend of a friend,” Eve replied quickly, still picking some of the popcorn crumbs she spilled off the floor and chomping away. “Level fourteen Dualist - I don’t know either, but apparently it's powerful - she recently quit her guild for moral reasons. Specifically, some of her guild defended the actions of a pedophile, so she beat them all into a bloody and bruised mess and walked away. Been experience trouble finding work and planned on moving back to Japan to try her luck with the dungeons there. For three years, she was her guild’s top raid leader into the deep levels, past Floor 200. Name’s Miaka Watase.”

Waves crashing against rocky cliffs, sakura petals gently falling in the breeze, the wet earth smell of mountain rice fields in the morning, the unbreakable spirit of the people of the morning sun! It should surprise no one, but there were not that many natives of Uzume’s homeland in Boston. A few otaku here and there, a Mormon who spoke very fluently sometimes, but not many Nihon-jin. Honoka’s face lit up with 国粋主義, the love of country Uzume told her children that is born into the blood of all Japanese people.

“I figured you might like to meet her. She’s coming tonight to sign the Contract and then begin training early tomorrow,” Diane said, tapping her phone and pulling the next slide up. Quinn and Padmava: Time To Pop The Cherry. “Because we’re on a schedule, I don’t mean to excite anyone into an orgy, but we all need to get naked now. Honoka also needs to pull up the two new Status’ so I can record the digits.”

Everyone complied with some good-natured dirty talk in the mix. Honoka expected this, thankfully recovered from her headache yesterday and began with Quinn.

“Beastkin don’t receive much fancy Racial stuff, it's added to their Attributes.” Quinn scratched her head, unconsciously doing an ineffective job of coving her boobs while she fidgeted from her Status read off like that. “Even Water Creature only means I swim a little better an’ can hold ma breath for about twenty minutes. I added my points in Charisma ‘cause that helps with my Class.”

“Look at her, she’s embarrassed she has three of her Ten in the twenties.” Eve joked, folding her arms and harrumphing with a lot of melodrama, which did bring a blush and a smile out of the otter girl. “Just read off P’s so we can get on with the show: I want to see snake Honoka!”

“I put +8 into my Health from leveling because that is where my Class needs it,” Padmava said, her nakedness on full display without any shame, “+4 into Dexterity because even with Racial assists it is hard to coordinate four arms and +4 into Strength because I grow quickly tired moving this much body. I am unable to put anything into Endurance. I respectfully request some of my Harmony points going into Endurance.”

Diane typed into her phone. “Done.” Then the succubus looked at Honoka expectantly, her tail twirling in a get on with it motion.

“Slave driver,” Honoka mumbled, receiving a few chuckles from the peanut gallery. Going in order, Honoka focused on Quinn’s slider and pushed it up.

The first thing Honoka felt was itchy. Really itchy, along every part of her skin. Her body contorts as she tried to find relief but the sensation quickly went away as all her hair retreated and was replaced with thick, light brown fur. The weirdest phenomenon is the fur covered all of her skin, and for a few seconds, Honoka sported a furry dong before it shrunk down into a clit. Feeling over her pelt, it was so plush and soft, Honoka hardly noticed her hands gaining claws and webs. She did note when her center of balance shifted as her legs shortened and her abdomen stretched, almost falling to the ground. Honoka’s newly grown, thick tail pushed her back into stability and kept her steady. Looking at one of the wall mirrors, Honoka saw and felt her face shifting and reforming into an otter shape, flat black nose thrusting forward and whiskers springing out like time-lapsed weeds growing. She also noticed that most of her fur was a light brown unlike Quinn’s black on some white, but from her neck and down along her chest and belly, it was more beige. Then the other changes hit.

With a silent scream, Honoka desperately tried to cover her cute, round ears as she suddenly heard everything. Heartbeats, breathing, scales scraping on the ground as loud as jackhammers, women rushing towards her but Quinn shouting for them to back off ‘an’ try ta be quiet as mice!’ The Lair echoed with sounds of people walking and talking in the distance, the commotion of an entire city in an enclosed cavern, reverberating all the noise back and forth, the dungeon itself making little groans and ticks all by itself. Cacophony is the only word Honoka found to describe the noise. If she hadn’t gone through something similar with Eve, it might have taken her longer. The goal wasn’t to try in shut out the senses, it was to come to terms with the information and adapt. Five or so minutes and Honoka’s breathing slowed, removing her hands and she was able to look up and think again.

“ARE YOU ALRIGHT!!?” Diane shouted.

Honoka flinched back from the question. Only, on thinking about it, Diane had whispered, it just felt like a bullhorn in her ear. Keeping calm, Honoka readjusted and gave a thumbs up.

“Wow, guess I gotta buy a razor if’n I’m gonna be humaning much.”

Human Quinn - all the women looking at her silently agreed - was a knockout. A blond bombshell with the same baby blue eyes, the teenager only needed some pompoms and she would be the head cheerleader. A touch of Scandinavian softened by her Southern features, she exuded youth and vibrancy. Her bright blond hair reached to mid-waist, her perky juggs jutting outward without a hint of sagging, down to a narrow waist and rounded hips. She was, as she lamented, rather bushy in her crotch and down her legs, but it was all light blond hairs so hardly noticeable in the light.

“I would definitely love to help you shave,” Eve offered, coming up and rubbing her face against Quinn’s thigh, getting swatted for her efforts. “Or wax, or slowly nibble.”

Honoka laughed as she silently agreed, giving the Southern belle one last look before moving around. The change in senses made her miss the physical changes that came from the allocated Attributes, but feeling herself up, she was pleased with the effect. She gained some muscle tone under the fur, though it didn’t show through very well, popping a bicep and feeling the small bulge there. She also developed some breasts, though no more than an B cup. Jumping lightly on her feet, Honoka caught some real air and her entire body felt so very flexible. She crouched down on all fours and ran around, amazed at how fast her lithe body moved. Standing up, she discovered the wives all cheering her on, apparently enjoying the show. Embarrassed, she pulled up her Status and allocated back.

“Crap on a crust!” Quinn swore when her Race and Attributes returned, the shock putting her on her butt. “There needs ta be some hand signals or somethin’ ‘cause this just switchin’ back and forth is hard on the nerves!”

“You get used to it,” Diane said deadpan, though she shook her head in the negative, a few locks of fiery red hair tousled over her green horns. “I lied, you don’t get used to it.”

Honoka was still a dozen feet (3.7m) from the group, but she allocated away from them because she wasn’t sure what a naga would do to the floor space.

Padmava was distracted with everyone else as they lightly joked about Eve still hugging Quinn’s leg, the otter girl only mildly keeping the horny goblin’s hands away from her erogenous zones. When the naga felt the changes, something clicked in her mind and she spun around with her arms waving frantically. “Everybody run! NOW!!”

Honoka wasn’t sure what was happening, but she only paid half attention when the wives didn’t question the tone of Padmava’s urgency and moved their naked butts further down the gym, Banda helping the transforming naga as her tail rapidly shrunk. Honoka then fell to the ground as her legs were forced together and melded, stretching further and further out as her entire body expanded and grew. The stretching sound she came to associate with allocation wasn’t present. Instead, a sort of scraping noise echoed in the large room as scales formed underneath her black skin and then burst outward, shedding her skin like a reptile. Her entire face crushed in on itself before exploding flatter and much longer, her mouth reforming into the inhuman shape of a snake’s. Her tongue grew over a foot longer and widely forked, bringing a sudden rush of senses and information that invaded her mind but she wrangled it under control.

When the second set of arms grew under her standard arms, she panicked a little because it felt so alien. It wasn’t as if some appendages were tacked on, she felt the shoulders form first before bone and muscle crept outward with a strange pulling sensation that made her tremble all over. Then grasping all four hands together, the woman had trouble coming to terms with the weirdness of it all, the new anatomy disorienting her. Honoka’s tail really kicked into high gear, mass curling down the stone floor, each new yard pushing the rest of the reptile train outward until the weight surpassed the energy of the allocation and her upper body propelled forcefully along the floor by her own magically growing naga flesh tube. Scrambling to stay upright, she almost missed it, but there was another sensation scratching inside her mouth and throat.

“Aim away from us!”

It didn’t make sense. Honoka was really unsettled, but she tried looking away when her mouth forced itself open by her newly grown fangs, a stream of steaming black tar shooting out of her mouth. It caught some real air, a couple dozen yards, and as an expert on the volume of expelled bodily fluids, Honoka would estimate around ten gallons (38 L). It was sticky and very accurate, the pool of black foulness relatively small and exactly where Honoka faced. Coughing, her neck and head itching a bit as her hood grew in, Honoka’s eyes widened as she heard a loud sizzling from the puddle.

“What was that?” Honoka hissed, laying down on the ground from the most exhausting allocation yet. Breathing in and out, tasting the air in the room and knowing instinctively her family was running towards her, Honoka thought about taking a nap.

“Naga venom.” Padmava was a lovely Indian woman, straight black hair down to her thighs, wreathing her motherly beauty.

Honoka squinted to parse out details, her snake eyes framing everything in a mild blur. What she saw through the murkiness, the older woman appeared lovely and hardly showed her age. Spitting her tongue out, though, it was like the tastes painted a picture for her and she sensed relief and concern and a lot of trepidation from the woman.

Padmava continued. “Day of the Change, nearly killed my husband and melted half our dining room wall. Outside of some high-level alchemical potions or potent spells, it is the most deadly poison in the world and possibly the most acidic. About once a month I milk my fangs and sell it off online for a few thousand dollars, but the greater cobra subrace also spits it.”

“No naga blowjobs, got it.” Honoka’s comment broke the tension, and everyone laughed.

Quinn and Eve went to the puddle cautiously and peered down into the hole in the floor. “Its already over twelve feet (3.7m) deep but it looks like the dungeon is eating the rest of the venom.” Eve whipped out her phone and made some calculations. “Gonna be about fifty bucks of concrete to fill this.”

Diane was distracted as she ran her hands along Honoka’s violet scales (lighter than Padmava’s, though the yellows appeared darker and slightly red). “Can you take care of that, Eve-chan? I’ll order the stuff and it should arrive tomorrow.”

Eve nodded, putting her phone away…Honoka did a double-take, seeing goblin phone wedged firmly between butt cheeks as she waddled around.

Note to self, don’t use Eve’s phone ever. Honoka was about to do more checking out of her body, but the taste in the air of trepidation from Padmava increased.

“I know this is going to sound selfish, but could you stay allocated for the next hour?” Padmava asked, putting her hands over two of Honoka’s. “You’ve probably guessed by now, but snake eyes don’t work very well. Glasses don’t do anything to help. I want to look at my children with my own eyes if possible.”

“Of course,” Honoka replied instantly, better controlling herself and lifting off the ground into a hug with the Indian mother. The perspective difference in size was daunting. It was like hugging a small child, but when they broke, both women wept tears and a few others cried some as well. “After this week is over, any time you want.”

“In fact, I’ve been putting some thought into this,” Diane announced, coming around and holding onto Padmava’s shoulders. “Obviously, it would be wrong for Honoka to collect your daughter, but Honoka’s…fluids may hold the key to creating a potion that suppresses a person’s Race. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I’m already working on a prototype.”

This was big news. Like, Holy Grail big news. Since the Change, the number one unobtainable magic remained transforming people back into humans. Some spells might imitate it, but they were costly, rare, extremely painful and lasted only a minute or two. Padmava, correctly understanding what such a gift meant, to see and touch her little girl as a human, it was as if she woke from a dream. Grabbing Diane tightly, she bawled her thanks into her chest then broke away, laughing as she looked down at herself.

“Does anyone have some clothing I could wear?”