11. The Next Morning
“Hey, wake up dummy.." I heard Kat's voice in my ear, bringing me out of my sleep. "Come on... gotta pee..." she jabbed me in the side, jolting me the rest of the way awake, to find her practically swaddled against me by my wings. "Hey sleepyhead..."
"Sorry" I apologize and open up my wings for her, letting her scramble up. I felt my cheeks get warm at the sight of her naked body and glanced away from her.
"Don't be like that~" she giggled softly and rushed to the bathroom, calling over her shoulder: "Not after fucking me like that last night~"
"Sorry, force of habit from before..." I sighed and sat up in bed, looking myself over. First of all, I still had wings and a tail but I also noticed I was slightly bigger than normal and my scales had spread out further than before. As I was checking everything, a popup came up in front of me.
First seal of Rissaeth's Charm broken, default form has been updated.
Abilities have been added:
Sense: Low-light vision(120ft): able to see in low light situations in monochrome.
Sense: Scent (Impercise 15ft)
Mate bond with Katrina Torres established.
Mate provided access to dragon sorcery spells and affinity to arcane magic has been increased.
“Um… Alex… so… you have inspect too right?” Kat called out from the bathroom.
“Yeah…?” I responded as I read the last two sentences of the popup over and over.
“G-good… so mine kinda looks like a game notification… and I just got one…um, it says I have a mate bond with you???”
“I got that one too…” I sighed and dismissed the message as I awkwardly tried to wrap my wings around myself. “Not sure what it actually means… obviously something more than just being together if you got access to sorcery stuff…”
“Guess we'll have to figure that out sometime…”
”Um… how are you feeling by the way…?”
“Sore… but I did have like a foot of dragon dick in me so…” Kat half-laughed. Soon afterwards, I heard her finish up in there before coming back out with a slightly amused look on her face.
“What?”
“So the mate thing wasn't the only part of the update I got, I just wanted to see your face when I told you.” She plopped down next to me.
“... what else did you get?”
“Well first, thanks for increasing my durability a few points~” she laughed and playfully leaned against me. “And I got the first level of the drakonid handling skill~”
“Of course...” I groaned and fell back on the bed.
“You see me as your master or something?” She teased. “Though you did say you liked being pinned… hmm maybe next time I could probably try being more dominant next time~”
“D-don't use me to train a skill like that!”
“What's wrong with it~? I'm sure it would be fun~”
“W-we need to figure out how we're going to explain this to the others first before even thinking about next time!” I hissed at her while motioning to my body.
“Easy, you woke up like this, we don't know why you're more dragon,” she shrugged.
“We need to tell Max what happened last night sometime too. He's gonna realize that he wasn't dreaming when he kissed me eventually and I don't want to hurt him like that!” She glanced over my face for a moment.
“You really do like him… huh…? If he asks, just let me handle it… I missed you a lot, the drinks let me confess to you, we kissed at some point, one thing led to another and we slept together, sound about right?”
“They aren't lies I guess… it just doesn't feel good thinking about hiding this from him… he clearly likes me too!”
“And he'll tell you eventually… I'm just hoping I have you to myself for a bit before I have to share you~”
“Share me???” I sat up again and looked at her “Why do you seem so ok with that? I was going to try to let him down easy and not hurt both of us…” she shrugged again.
“He's cute, want to get to know him more but I don't see a problem getting with him too, you two care about each other.”
“... are you really suggesting I start a harem or something? You want to include Eris too?”
“I mean seeing that she's kinda similar to your player characters… she does fit your type…” she smirked at me.
“Kat…”
“I'm joking. I meant something more equal than a harem, I want to get to know him too, who knows maybe he'll like me too~” she laughed softly. “It’s weird for me too, I want you to myself but something doesn't feel right with stopping you and him from getting together… and I'm… weirdly ok with it?”
“Can't believe my best -”
“Girlfriend.” She corrected as she lied down and cuddled up to me.
“Fine, girlfriend…” I sighed, very much enjoying calling her that finally. “... is suggesting we try going poly already…”
“You could say no and go with your plan~ just let him down easy and it would just be the two of us… but you don't want that do you?” She playfully kissed my cheek. “You want the cute lil dog boy too~? Not sure if you'd fit in him though~”
“D-don't start that, Kat, don't put dirty thoughts in my head like that!”
“Hehe~” she happily nuzzled against my neck as she kept cuddling me. I sighed and hugged her against me more, finally getting to enjoy her being close without worrying about getting flustered.
“We should probably get dressed…” I sighed after a while.
“Probably...” she stretched a bit then slowly got up. An aura lit up around her head as my magic detection ability activated for a moment. “Huh we slept in pretty late… I was hoping to have more time with you…” she sighed as well and kissed me softly “as much as I want to be called your girlfriend all the time… we should keep quiet about it for a bit… I think if we announce it so soon it might scare Max away from confessing to you…”
“You're serious about trying to share me…”
“Yes…” she smiled comfortingly at me “It'll be fine, just trust me on this~”
“Fine…” I got up and wandered over to where I kept the shirts I was intending to repair to look for one mostly together but had holes for wings already. “Come on there has to be one good enough somewhere”
“Um so I just thought of this… I want to call you my boyfriend but…” Kat brought up as she started getting dressed.
“I'm not a guy anymore though… it's still weird but like I said, I'm getting used to it.”
“Girlfriend then?”
“Definitely fits better” l sighed, feeling my tail flick a bit on its own in my mild irritation over my situation. “And everyone here knows me as a girl anyways, makes it easier.”
“Ok, I just wanted to make sure before we got far along with this~”
“Mhmm, as if fucking you isn't very far along” I laughed softly, grabbing pants and underwear to put on as well. I quickly found that my clothes didn't fit right anymore, wings made the bra more awkward than it already was for me, and it was harder to get pants on over my hips and thighs, the more scales did not make that any easier either. Clothes shopping was put on the list to do for the day after that discovery.
Once she was dressed, Kat went out before me to get the other two. I was left on my own and that eventually led to me checking my reflection in my boredom to make a few more discoveries. My pupils were no longer round, they were cat or snake-like vertical slits, all four of my canine teeth had become a set of short fangs, and my tongue was more serpentine: dark blue and the end had split into a fork.
‘Course she forgot to mention this…unless my face turned like this whenever I raged…’ I thought as I wiped my hand off from poking around at the changes in my mouth. ‘Guess that explains the marks I put on her though… she didn't say anything, did she even notice them yet?’ I sighed and walked back to the bed to lay down while I waited for the others, spending the time picking at some surprisingly already-loose scales on my tail. Eventually, a knock on the door made me jump up to answer it.
“Alex?!” Max yipped adorably when I opened the door in front of him. I was surprised to see that it was only him without the other two.
“Hey, where's Kat and Eris? Kat said she was getting both of you…?” I asked as I pulled him into the room, noting in the process that he was now a half a foot shorter than me instead of only a couple inches.
“Um, Kat said she was going to go look for Eris when she talked to me… what happened to you??”
“Woke up like this” I responded and I felt my weight shift a little as my tail flicked back and forth a little on its own. ‘That better not turn into a tell or something…not with all the half-truths I have to give him…’
“You woke up like this?” He cocked his head a bit. “D-do you have any paper and something to write with?I want to see something …”
“Um sure…, think I have something around here…” I went to search through my belongings and eventually found a charcoal stick and paper for him to use. He meanwhile fished a book out of his pack and flipped through it until he got to the page he wanted. “What's that?”
“Old spellbook from the wizard my dad used to travel with… it has a version of the appraisal spell that works on people in it… the guild uses something similar to make our cards…” he answered as he copied a rune pattern from the book onto the page I gave him. “I haven't used it enough to use it without drawing it but it should work…um, I'm going to need a drop of your blood though…”
‘So that's how natives of this world use inspect…’ I thought as I brought my thumb to my mouth to use one of my new sharp teeth to prick the tip of it just as he finished drawing. He then gently took my hand and guided it over the rune to let a drop of blood fall to the center. The lines of the drawing burned up immediately then letters slowly got inscribed onto the page. At the same time, I got a popup above the page that listed out my name, species, class, and abilities. The important part was within the first two lines.
Alexandra Steele
Dragon (I) Bloodrager
It then glitched like before and corrected itself:
Alexandra Steele
Quarter-dragon (F) Bloodrager.
The page lagged behind my pop-up quite a bit and only printed out the ‘corrected’ version of what I saw above it, thankfully. When my species printed out on the page, Max cocked his head at it then looked at me”
“How did you get more dragon? It doubled…”
“I don't know now it works” I shrugged and sat on the bed again. ‘At least that's the truth this time…’ “don't really appreciate the growth spurt though, nothing fits right anymore… if my body was going to do this, I wish it was over time…”
“I-is it from using your rage? M-maybe we shouldn't use it often?”
“I don't do it that much” he only glanced at my small pile of wing-ripped shirts then back at me in response “ok fine, it's useful… if it makes you feel better, I'll try not to use it as often but it happened on its own with that tempest wolf so I can't prevent it every time…” that seemed to make him relax a bit.
“It kind of does…” he sighed.
“So…” I said after a moment of neither of us saying anything, trying to change the conversation and distract him from worrying about this. “Um, you feeling ok after last night…?”
“Yep! Thanks for getting me home again.” He gave an adorable smile that made me have to glance away from him for a moment.
“U-um sleep well then? No hangover?” I prodded, trying to see if he remembered. He seemed to think a moment then his face started turning red and his ears cutely folded back.
“Y-yep, t-the couch was comfy and I slept fine…”
‘Ok, he remembered it, but still a dream to him, I think…’ I smiled a little in relief and he seemed to get more flustered. ‘Oh, is he into the fanged look?’ “That's good, I was worried that you'd be hungover, I forgot to push water to you as much last night”
“I-it's ok,” he gave a shy smile then he jumped a little when there was a knock at the door before it opened and Kat and Eris walked in. The redhead paused for a moment at the door when her eyes focused on me.
“Hey, you two” I greeted them as they walked over and Kat handed my key back to me.
“Oh, you weren't kidding, she is more dragon.” She observed then looked at Kat. “Why did I have to know though…? Sorry, but I don't know her well."
“I was going to invite them to our party or join theirs so it seemed important.” Kat responded
“I don't have a problem having a dragon lady frontliner and a mage if that's what you're getting at, we were kind of lacking in those spots to be honest.”
“Let's hold off on joining each other's party for a couple days” I said and Kat gave me a confused look. “I can figure this out and talk about this with Max”
“What? I thought we'd just join together when we met up…?”Kat asked as she moved a bit closer.
“That's the plan, just wait a couple days, let Max-”
“N-no it's fine… I want to come with you, you don't have to put it off for me” the half-inugami interrupted, the adorable, determined look on his face again.
‘Why does he have to be so cute…’ I gave him a comforting smile. “You sure? We can wait a couple days for you to make a decision…right, Kat?” I looked back at her and she glanced between the two of us before finally realizing I was doing something for him.
“Yeah that's fine, we can accept a quest together to do while we wait, it's no trouble.” She responded. “Guess also that'll let you try out.. this,” she motioned up and down my body.
“Oh if we're testing it out, I can help” Eris said and I could hear some excitement in her voice. “Let me drop off the supplies I got this morning and we can go have a bit of a sparring session. Might as well, right? We're going to be fighting side by side soon anyways”
“Have you ever not thought about training…?”
“What? Fights are fun and it's my way of getting to know people” the fighter laughed.
I sighed and used my threat analysis skill on her to see what I might be getting myself into
Comparison analysis of Eris Castellane to Alex Steele.
Strength: Slightly lower
Dexterity: Significantly higher
Durability: Moderately lower
Arcane Magic: Significantly lower
Divine Magic: Slightly lower
Nature Magic: Slightly lower
Conclusion: Barring undetected abilities, Eris Castellane is of Minor threat to User.
Rage will reduce minor threat to no threat, rage emotional threshold or damage threshold has not been met.
“Ok, sure it sounds like fun” I said and she gave a grin.
“Good, I hoped you'd say yes, Kat hasn't been accepting many quests that let me fight bandits or anyone with more skill than a goblin. But first, no magic or your dragon breath, that'd be unfair.”
“Fine, makes sense”
Rules of Engagement changed results of previous analysis.
Conclusion: Eris Castellane is equal threat to User without use of User's magic and racial abilities
“Y-you sure that's a good idea to do?? You just changed into this, shouldn't you let yourself get used to it??” Max butted in as I felt him touch my arm worriedly “Maybe we should go see my mom first…?”
“It'll be fine, Max” I smiled at him and gently patted his hand before standing and stretching. “I'll go see her after, ok?”
“Ok…”
“I'll be fine, you don't have to worry about me.” I reassured him then looked back at Eris. “I'll stop by the blacksmith, try to convince him to let us borrow some practice weapons, and we can go to a spot I know just outside of town. We might have to chase away some slimes, though, we haven't been there for a bit.”
“Sounds good to me,” she laughed. “I'll go set down what I bought earlier and I'll meet you guys at the blacksmith.” She quickly turned and left before any of the rest of us could say anything.
“... well you'll definitely become friends with her quick.” Kat laughed softly “She might kick your ass though~”
“Maybe but we'll see,” I sighed then got up to retrieve my armor to adjust it before we headed out.