The locals

You point to the quietest member of your group, a young, lean woman with short dirty brown hair, dressed in furs and painted in mud. She carries a fox in her arms. Its breathing is labored, and you see a series of deep scars across its chest.

The woman steps forward and gently sets the fox down at your feet. It tries to stand, but collapses, looking to its bearer with a pained whine.

"Tozi," says the woman, pointing to herself, then the fox. Her voice is hoarse and breathy, as though she hasn't used it in a very long time. "Fox save Tozi. Men come, hurt fox. Tozi kill men, use good leaves on fox. Fox lives. But fox still hurt." She looks you in the eyes with the intensity of a lone, outsider animal about to challenge an established pack leader. "Tozi hunt. Tozi scout. Tozi make, make soft mats, make shelter, make other things. Men loud; Tozi teach quiet. Tozi teach good leaves, bad leaves. Tozi mate." She walks up to you, stopping inches from your face and staring up into your eyes. "Fix fox."

Nothing more needs to be said. You kneel and channel your Heal spell, bolstered by the primordial flame of your birth. The scars on the fox's chest close up, and it bounds up to its feet, yipping and jumping. Immediately, Tozi's demeanor changes. She sags in relief, releasing the tension she's been holding since the moment you hatched, and falls to her knees, play-wrestling the fox, yipping and snarling right back at it. After a minute she stands. "Tozi yours," she says. Tozi and the fox return to the circle.

Thank goodness some things are allowed to be simple. Best keep the momentum going.

"Thank you Tozi. Now, your turn," you say, pointing at the Ixtacotaki warrior woman. Her compact frame is filled out with lean muscle, her skin crisscrossed with scars, war paint, and tattoos. A thick ponytail of fiery red hair emerges from behind a modest feather headdress, The woman nods, steps forward, and taps the butt of her spear to the stone cave floor.

"I am Nenetl," she proclaims. "I am a warrior of the late Dragonlord Tect'vacan, slain by the usurper [[Kusimayu]]." Next to her, Metztli stirs in surprise; you're not sure whether it's from the mention of Kusimayu's name or the sheer contempt laced in Nenetl's voice. "My honor demanded that I serve the cur, even as he proved he had not a shred of honor for his own. My wish has been granted already. I wished to free myself of the monster, and enter the service of a true dragon. A true ruler," she says, gazing at you with a look of adoration. "From your treatment of my fellow companions alone I can see you have more worth in a single scale than in all of Kusimayu's grotesque body. I offer you all that I am and will be, and ask nothing in return save that I may remain your subject."

"The pact is struck," you reply. Nenetl bows deep, then steps back into the circle. "Now," you add, "priest and priestess; you want the same thing, so we will hear you at the same time."

A man and a woman step forward, both in fine, elaborate dress. To the left, a woman, wearing a revealing outfit comprised largely of jade and gold plates, held together by leather straps and decorated with green feathers. She is beautiful, but there is a weariness behind her eyes reminiscent of Tiana's thousand-yard stare. To the right, a man, decrepit and sickly, spindly limbs barely holding him up with the aid of a cane, skin yellowed with jaundice, with patches of long stringy hair interspersed at random intervals with missing clumps. And yet you see a fire behind his bloodshot eyes, a **** driving need to push forward, whatever his goal may be.

The woman is the first to speak. "I am Metztli," she pronounces. She speaks with the authority of a practiced orator, used to commanding crowds great and small and impressing on them the gravitas of the power behind her. "I am a dragon priestess, and a Lightweaver. I was born with the gift of healing, but at a price. Any life I grant to others is siphoned from my own. I have seen too many suffer and die because there was not enough left of my own life left to burn on the altar of theirs." She shudders at a memory. You don't pry - that can wait for later.

"As I am now, I have only two years left, at most. I wish for an inexhaustible font of lifeforce, not for myself - " she pauses, thinks a moment, looks down. "Not *only* for myself," she admits. "Primarily so I may use it to grant any who need healing the full extent of what can be given. I am tired of having to meter out my gift, ration it like water in a drought. So tired." She looks directly at you, lowers her voice, and speaks slowly, letting every word fall with impact. "I can no longer bear to look the dying, the suffering, the grieving in the eyes and tell them 'no,' knowing that I have the power to help them, but that to do so would be my last act. I beg you, my lord. Unshackle me."

You nod, then turn to the last of your companions. "And you," you say. "What of your wish?"

"I am Xixi, a spirit, drawn to this world by ritual and kept in it by my will," says the sickly priest in a hoarse, pained-sounding voice. "I want nothing more than to keep exploring this world, to experience all its wonders for myself. But this body is dying, withering around me after just a few short years. I would rather cease to exist altogether than let myself return to the spirit world when this body expires. I need a new form, I need more life, and the time to see it all."

"So you both seek undying bodies and inexhaustible fonts of life," you say. The two look to each other, then to you, and nod affirmations as one. "I can grant you that. In return, those bodies shall belong to me, for use at my discretion." They nod, having easily picked up the pattern, and you continue. "Further, I claim a portion of your mana. I survive off it as you do on food. I can produce enough of my own to subsist, but I will require yours to supplement me when I do battle or need access to my full capabilities." A look of slight surprise from Metztli. "This should not interfere with your healing abilities," you add, mollifying her.

You place your left hand on Mitztli's head, and your right on Xixi's. You focus, channeling the last of the ur-dragon's power into them. The three of you all glow with the white-red fiery aura of creation as the last wishes of this dragonfall are granted.

Mitzli's transformation is simple. As you pull your hand back, she stands transfixed, eyes rolled back in her head, aura building and growing until it abruptly flickers out. Her body relaxes, her eyes right themselves, and you see that they now possess a soft glow behind them. She clenches a fist, relaxes it, calls a spark of healing magic forth, and her face breaks into a giddy, elated smile. She throws herself to all fours and prostrates herself before you. "Thank you, my dragonlord," she says. "With this you have touched not just my life, but the lives of all we encounter who require aid and restoration."

As she does this, Xixi undergoes a more dramatic procedure. The fire around him grows, burns brighter and higher, until it obscures him completely from view. Dust starts to swirl around the blaze, faster and faster, until it forms a second shell around the transforming priest.

Still on the floor, Mitzli's head turns to the display, eyes widening with concern. "My lord," she asks, "should I perhaps -"

"Stand clear, yes," you say, taking a half step back yourself. She scrambles to her feet and rejoins your remaining companions in the circle, all of whom have now backed up as close to the chamber walls as they can.

The light around Xixi grows higher, higher, until it forms a solid column of primordial flame reaching all the way to the cavern ceiling. With a roar, the column detonates, sending a wash of energy through all present, forcing the humans present to shield their eyes from the brightness.

When they adjust, they see a new figure in the center of the room. Skin still the same warm brown as the prior host, but healthy and stretched over a frame of taut, lean muscle. His forearms and hands have shifted into something birdlike, small ocean-blue feathers fading forwards into clawed, four-fingered hands.

The greatest difference, though, is his head. Xixi's face resembles an owl's, with red eyes, a narrow black beak, and a frill of feathers growing downwards, giving the effect of long, flowing hair - or perhaps more accurately, a mane.

The spirit stands, flexing and stretching his new form, testing the basics of its movements and adjusting his balance. He is unsteady on his feet for now, but you know that will pass shortly. Your remaining companions gawk, awed by both the display and the strange elegance of the new body.

Xixi slowly, delicately, kneels before you and bows his head. "My lord," he says. "For this, you shall have my service eternal. What shall be your first task for me?"