Dwarves and Dragoncats
#24 of Shattered Shards
Shattered Shards: Dwarves and Dragoncats
By Von Krieger
Cerzie's grin stretched nearly from ear to ear as she cleared away the last of the overgrowth from the great stone door. Or at least it looked like stone. Running her bare hand over it she found a familiar texture, that of bone. But the sorcery required to keep the once-living material in a certain state, to be able to turn it into an almost metal-like substance, it was a technique that had only been discovered a century, perhaps two previously.
Though the many disparate races of her world did not share secrets as they did goods; the dwarves did wonders with metal and stone, the humans raised animals and grew bountiful crops, and the elves charmed living wood to create their works and weapons. She placed a hand upon the axe at her side, made of a strange blue stone shot through with veins of glowing silver. Her dwarven grandfather had fashioned it in a strange state, overwhelmed with strange images.
The haft had been crafted from a gorgeous ebony, and encircled with bands of expertly polished turtle shell. The non-cutting portions of the head were engraved with images of strange creatures, rather like dragons with their large wings, long, lashing tails, and four heavy, clawed paws, but where a dragon's neck would be, instead there was a humanoid torso, looking rather like one of the tigerfolk that sought employment as bodyguards from the human merchant caravans.
The dwarf-blooded human had never known such a race, and for all her searching in old tomes and dwarven engravings and tablets from time periods long passed, she could not find any knowledge of such a creature, not even in myth. The axe had always fascinated her, the stone it was crafted from unlike anything Cerzie had ever seen. The dwarves didn't even have a name for it, and they had words that intricately described all kinds of stone and ore.
When her grandfather passed away he'd willed to her the wondrous axe that he had made, for while with her near six-foot height, her thick build and gruff personality were very much that of a dwarf. When she had taken it up for the first time, holding it in one hand, she had felt a sense of peace and belonging like she had never known before.
Also upon the blade was what looked like a map, one that she had recognized. It had lead her to a small cavern, the thick vines hiding the entrance parting easily before her axe. Within she had found an old ruin, it looked rather like a workshop that had once been a part of something larger, the stairs downward were flooded with water, and Cerzie did not have the dwarven ability to see clearly in the underground darkness.
But within the workshop she had found some well-crafted tools, a few somewhat oxidized, but still useable bars of gold, platinum, and a strange sort of steel. She had also found a smooth orb, a chunk of the same strange stone the axe was made of. Almost the moment it entered her hands, she had found herself stricken by strange images.
For days she worked with neither food nor water, awakening sometime later from her fugue, feeling stronger, faster, tougher, in general better. After she had emptied her canteen and devoured the salted fish that served for rations she had discovered that much like her grandfather before her, she had crafted an amazing work of art. It was a bracelet, and engraved upon the face, filled in with bits of the steel, were strange runes, as well as another map that Cerzie recognized.
The bracelet had lead her here, to the well-hidden structure that lay beneath the jungle floor. She prepared to light a torch as she stepped inside, but to her surprise discovered softly glowing globes of light illuminating, reacting to her presence. The floor was tiled in alternating squares, small blocks of that strange steel and of a reddish stone.
Cerzie recognized it as Bauxite, a very important stone to dwarves, used especially in the manipulation of magma for various things, usually as defenses for their mighty fortresses. It was rather like a temple, but it showed no age. Everything looked pristine and perfect. Pillars of bonesmelt, made by using magic to heat bone with tree ashes, stood to either side like saluting soldiers, welcoming home a noble dignitary.
The strange material had become quite common in areas plagued with the undead. With decent warriors it was child's play to slay them and collect the bones, as well as using the byproducts of hunting and raising of livestock. For communities who had no experience mining, it made for decent armor and bashing weapons. With a little practice, one could get it to maintain an edge so that it was equal to an iron blade. Sheets of it also made for excellent wall reinforcement.
The valley the strange temple had been erected beneath had once been a dark place filled with such undead long ago, and thus the bonesmelt would be a welcome resource. The engravings upon the walls and the pillars seemed to have been carved for races that did not read the creature's language, for Cerzie could see some structure in the runic writings beneath each scene.
The dragoncat creatures had come from a land far away, taking to the skies in a strange sort of ship without sails. They had struck something rather like an iceberg in the sky and had come crashing down onto the land, their ship broken, and unable to reach their home or their destination, the creatures began to make an outpost in the valley.
They used their knowledge of magic to call stone from nothingness, to harness the magma that powered their ship's engines in order to make forges to rival the magma-powered ones of the dwarves. They had slain undead by the score and had taken to searching the ground beneath for the resources they knew were there.
Magical devices that had been upon their ship were coaxed back into working order, and they managed to find the rare ore that they could use to repair their damaged vessel and take to the skies once again.
As they dug it seemed that the almost supernatural dwarven sense for Adamantine had lead a caravan to the area, discovering the strange creatures, who were more than happy to trade things with some of the natives.
Even with their great strength and mystical knowledge, it took a long time to draw out and process the Adamantine, the creatures carefully skirting around the chambers within that held demons prisoner, unable to break free from their god-made cage of the great metal within the earth.
Then a greedy dwarf, seeking some of the metal for himself, snuck in with a pick and breeched the demonic chamber. After a dire battle the demons were somehow cowed and forced to surrender, magically bound by the great creatures to be their servants. Their magic had been strong enough to even warp demonflesh, transforming the monsters into creatures rather like the dragoncat race, but not quite.
Cerzie was fascinated by the history, following it along one wall, each scene rendered in wondrous, exquisite detail to rival the greatest of dwarven artists. Behind her was a strange alter, dragons made of gold, silver, platinum, and the strange steel surrounded a floating orb made of the strange veined blue stone, only this stone was more vein than blue.
Though the dragoncats breed rapidly and grew quickly to adulthood, there were still more needed to work upon the grand sky ship, to crew it once it took flight once more, and still more to replace the workers that nearly a century before had been promised to be delivered to those who the dragoncats made a vow to. They would uphold their part of the bargain.
The items that had made of the rare, strange stone had an odd effect upon those who were in proximity to them, making them susceptible to dragoncat magics that influenced the mind. They called those that owned them to the valley, where the same magics that had been worked upon the demons were used, transforming those of myriad races into dragoncats.
The sky ship had its crew and its cargo, and it took flight, leaving behind only the seven elders that were all that remained of the original crew. They had been altered by their masters, unable to bear children, something that shamed their bountiful, dual gendered race.
They were the ones that made the temple, using magic to hide themselves away from the rest of the world so that they might live out their remaining years in peace and tranquility. As each one felt their life force begin to ebb, they used their magic to be reborn. It was not quite reincarnation, as an individual knew the sum of their previous lives. Those few dragoncats who had been slain in battles with goblins and orcs were reborn, transforming the bodies of captive warriors into those of dragoncats, and then the slain dragoncat's soul entering the body, cowing the resident spirit, who would similarly be reborn as the dragoncat's child.
But instead of this sort of rebirth, the seven elders placed themselves within an orb, to be reborn again when the world was ready for them as peers, rather than conquerors. When that time came, the descendants of those influenced by the strange stone would be drawn to the temple, the power of the mystics channeled through the objects they brought with them. They would be given the gift of the dragoncats' knowledge and they would serve as the elders for a new generation of creatures.
Cerzie's eyes widened and she looked down at her bracelet, the silver veins seeming to have turned to liquid, flowing from the bracelet onto the human warrior. She gasped and turned, seeking to flee the temple, but she found a pleasant, hot ache filling her loins. She clenched her teeth, unable to walk straight as the sensation of her thighs rubbing together as she walked was enough to send her body in to fits of pelvic-thrusting ecstasy, her body trying to mate with a non-existent lover.
She gripped one of the bonesmelt pillars, found herself grinding against it for sensation. With a growl she tore her bronze breastplate free of its straps, tossing it aside as her hands sought the sweet, sensitive flesh of her expanding bust. The dragoncats had been a very fertile race, with children born in litters often numbering nearly half a dozen. Cerzie recalled from somewhere that nursing beasts typically had twice as many teats as they did average offspring. Humans, dwarves, and elves only had two, while the tigerfolk's rarely seen females had six.
And not only were the engravings of dragoncats shown with many breasts, but they were huge. Heavy, filled with milk, larger than any Cerzie had seen on a real living being. She found herself rubbing and caressing her tits, moaning as she did so, finding herself enjoying the sensation of them growing outward to the obscene dragoncat size. They were so big, so heavy, so wonderfully lush, Cerzie couldn't help but adore them.
They were so soft, so sensitive, feeling so good to touch and be touched. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have more of them, and she didn't have long to wait before she didn't have to imagine. She felt a second pair beginning to bud beneath them. She also felt her entire body growing, a gentle sensation of stretching as bone and muscle expanded, courtesy of the strange silver liquid that had flowed into her pores.
Cerzie had been expecting the painful, agonizing transformation that a werewolf was supposed to endure upon the full moon, a punishment for their wickedness. But this was only agonizing in that she couldn't bare to stop fondling her breasts to caress her aching netherlips. Instead she continued to press against the pillar, moaning from what little stimulation she could achieve through her trousers and undergarments.
But it was enough, it was more than enough to make her continue to perform such an act. She could feel her clothes growing tighter as her body expanded, taking on the form and the scale of the great dragoncats that she had longed to know about for so long. Her forked tongue slithered out of her mouth of its own volition, wrapping around a plump nipple as Cerzie coaxed her lower pair to grow, to expand, to equal her original breasts in size.
She wanted the change now, wanted more breasts, wanted the lean, agile, sensual, bestial body of a dragoncat. She growled as a sudden tightness filled her groin, something that seemed to suddenly sprout from just above her sex. Cerzie ceased in her thrusting for a moment, granting her new cock the space is required to grow in her ever-constricting trousers.
It tore right through the flimsy cotton underthings, but the thick, durable leather that served as armor held fast under the assault of her growing member. The dragoncat-to-be continued her grinding against the pillar, yowling like a cat in heat at the intense pleasure of her new organ.
Her ears tickled as they too began to grow, smoothing out, growing longer and wider, her hearing growing keen enough to hear the sounds of the living jungle beyond the doors some hundred feet away with crystal clarity.
Cerzie let out a cry of pure lust as something tore through the back of her trousers; heavy, long, thick, flexible... she delighted in the feeling of the cool temple air upon the bare skin of her new tail. It tingled as the spiked frill of her new race began to grow in.
Imprisoned by the rest of her leather pants, Cerzie's lower body decided to free itself. Much like her tail, a new set of appendages tore themselves free, growing, it seemed from somewhere between her hips and waist.
The becoming dragoncat gripped the pillar with her forepaws, crying out as the rest of her lower body seemed to explode into being all at once. She dug her talons into the bonesmelt of the pillar, digging huge rents into it. The thick, ripping claws of her hind legs scraped upon the iron floor.
Her pants had torn just below the belt, which still hung around her waist. Cerzie growled and wriggled, trying to free herself from the scraps of leather, but all she succeeded in doing was making the slick, precum soaked leather rub over her thick, throbbing dragoncat cock.
It felt huge, rubbing against the undersides of her six underbreasts. It felt so perfect beneath her, and it would feel even better between them. She shivered as a cool sensation flowed over her body, sleek, shiny, shimmering silver scales appearing all over her lower body, almost as if the strange fluid that had been a part of her bracelet had become a part of her.
She felt a gentle chill flow up from her draconic lower portion up to her humanoid torso, the color of her skin lightening, becoming a pale white. Her nipples took on a metallic, slightly bluish tint, as did her medium length hair. Cerzie moaned softly as she felt her face pushing forward into a muzzle, the sensation balanced by the growth of her new horns. She knew she wasn't quite like the dragoncats of old, she was more dragon than feline, only light traces of the feline part appearing with the retractable claws upon her fingers, the shape of her face, and her large, triangular ears. She was the first of a new race, not quite as powerful as her predecessors, but that mattered little to her.
She cried out in sheer bliss as her thick member erupted, thick jets of silver seed splattering onto the floor. Oddly the puddles seemed to move on their own, flowing around the room. One of them oozed up Cerzie's body and out onto her arm, replacing the silver veins in her bracelet.
The dragoncat directed the nanites to remove the scraps of her human clothing; it was far too torn up to be used for anything, and it didn't fit her anymore. She smiled and stretched her seven limbs, knowing that if she did well as overseer she would be rewarded with her wings.
She felt a gentle tickle within her mind, the nanotechnology granting her the memories that the Elders had deemed appropriate for her use at the time. In time they would reveal more to Cerzie and the others, as their minds grew more to be like proper Leiaouta and their cybernetics were provided by the nanites.
Cerzie could sense the nanites now, command them, control them. She could sense another wearer of a nanite-infused Fluxstone item. The dragoncat grinned and called them to life, to prevent the new convert from fleeing or resisting.
She licked her lips and had the nanites begin to alter the new arrival as they had her, but far more slowly. She wanted to savor her new pet, wanted to make the elven woman virtually worship her horse-sized cock. The smug Elven superiority would be quickly brought down.
Perhaps it was her dwarven blood compelling her, but Cerzie had always disliked the forest-dwellers' attitude and sense of entitlement, threatening war over mere trees.
The dragoncat let out a laugh, she would take great joy into taking a creature who religiously and slavishly served natural order, and making her as absolutely unnatural as she could be.
Cerzie's shaft drooled just thinking about it.