[Mkguild] The Unknown Arrival Chaps. 2, 3, 4

[Ryan Vikedal]

Almost done with the introduction story. For a first story, I think that a
little over 5,400 words is a pretty good length.

Anyways, Off we go!

~~ Chapter Two - The Rules ~~

As Vikedal continued along the road into the valley, he passed the outpost
and signal tower that marked the entrance to Metamor Valley, and sighed,
knowing that from here on to the rest of the keep, most people wouldn't go
into a frenzy over a dragon walking along the roads. He didn't, however,
morph back into his more anthropomorphic form for many reasons, chief among
them being that he didn't want to attract much attention. As he passed the
outpost, however, he heard from behind him a commanding "Halt," that caused
him to take pause and turn to face the guards.

As he turned and looked, he saw three guards, two female surrounding a male,
quickly walking towards him with their hands on their sword hilts. Smiling,
he recognized the Keep's Crest stamped into their armor, and visibly
relaxing once he recognized it. as they came closer, he dropped his pack,
and with it, his bow and katana. He quickly tied his cloak around his neck,
however, to hide the various sheaths of throwing knives and daggers located
on his shoulder and behind his back on his belt. Once he dropped his visible
weapons, the Guards relaxed as well and approached with a cry of "Hail!"

"Hail," Vikedal replied, greeting the guard with a firm handshake. "What can
I help you with today sir," he smoothly asked the guard. "We couldn't help
but notice the, erm... impressive... collection of weapons as you walked by.
Where are you headed, if I may ask, and why alone?" "I'm headed home," he
replied calmly, dodging the question slightly, "and it's been awhile since I
was last here. I left alone, and I return alone." "Fair enough," the male
guard replied, "but where, might I ask, is home?" Vikedal looked up, making
eye contact with the guard for the first time, and a quizzical look crossed
his face as a flicker of recognition crossed all three of the guards' faces.
"The Keep," one of the female guards stated. "Good guess," Vikedal replied,
lifting his hand and shifting it into his anthropomorphic talon-styled hand.
The guards visibly recoiled as he did so, one replacing her hand on her
sword. He quickly shifted his hand back to normal, while nonchalantly moving
his other hand inside of his cloak and placing it on the hilt of one of his
throwing knives.

The male guard, however, waved his hand at the other guards, and as they
turned and headed for the outpost, Vikedal removed his hands from his
knives. "You may continue home, traveler, but be forewarned, there are
mysterious curses acting in the valley presently. Any human, half-human, or
anyone in a human form, who stays for more than about two weeks is likely to
be transformed." "How much resistance can I expect from guards in the
remainder of the valley?" "Most will probably inform you about the curse and
ask you for the length of your stay and where, with the way you look."
"Well, That can be easily fixed," Vikedal replied, closing his eyes and
shifting into his anthropomorphic form, and smiled down at the guard when he
finished. "I wanted to make a quiet entrance, but I suppose it can't be
helped. Thanks for the warning." "No problem. Enjoy your trip, and safe
travels." Once the guard turned to leave, he shouldered his pack and
reattached his weapons, turning north and heading towards the Keep.

~~ Chapter 3 =96 Sneaking In ~~

As he made his way northward into the valley, he noticed several small
things missing since the last time he had come. There was an unnatural
silence hanging over the valley, almost as though the entire valley had lost
a dearly loved one. As he walked by a house, however, he heard a tremendous
BANG and turned to look. Seeing the shutters quivering, he realized that his
draconic appearance must have frightened the occupant back inside. 'Or
perhaps,' he mused to himself, 'he's gone to get something to defend himself
with. In either case, I think I need to be a little more discreet in my
approach. But how?'

After a short distance, he paused as his stomach rather loudly voiced its
objection about being empty. "Always you slowing me down," he said, and
noticing where he was, decided to head to the eastern wall of the valley, to
a relatively unknown cave on the wall. Approaching the wall, he looked for,
and shortly found, a small arrow scratched into the rock pointing up. Next
to the arrow, there were many small furrows in the rock, making it look as
though the rock had infuriated a rather large bear. As he looked up, he
sighted the medium-sized cave about 15 feet up. Stepping back, he smiled and
lobbed his pack up into the cave, followed closely by his sword and bow. He
then crouched and leapt up to the edge, flapping his wings once for good
measure, and scrabbled into the cave.

Looking around, he saw that the cave was very similar to how he had left it.
The fire pit in the lowest section of the cave, near the entrance, was
filled with water, which he quickly set to fixing by pouring a small bag of
powdered clay into. As he waited for the clay to absorb the water, he pulled
out his fire making supplies and his cooking stand and began to make his
selection of food. He scooped out the clay and threw his tinder and wood in,
and with a few choice words had a roaring fire. Cooking his meal to his
usual consistency, he threw it on a cold skillet and ate it in peace,
silently wondering just what the curse was. In any form but his purely human
form, he was a dragon, and had a dragon's blood. More likely than not, he
would never find out what the curses were, and whether they were reversible.


He quickly finished his meal and took a swig from his water skin, debating
exactly how to find out about this curse. Sure, he could take the easy
approach; walk in with sword in hand and demand answers. However, he learned
over the years that asking cursed peoples about the specific nature of their
curse required tact and understanding, something most people believed a
dragon doesn't have. Running out of ideas, he doused the fire and began
packing his stuff away pausing as he fingered a reflective silver cloak
inside his pack. "Hmm," he thought to himself, "that could work."

Quickly digging to the bottom of the pack, he pulled out a white gown and
the shiny cloak. As he threw his sword and knives into the bag and dropped
the bag to the ground, he thought to himself, 'I hope that nobody will
recognize Lady Nora=85' As he looked down and chanted, the changes began. He
found the changes pleasantly surprising each time, and never quite got used
to it. His gold scales began to soften, still retaining a peach-like glow to
them, and receded, revealing soft, caramel skin. The scales on his tail,
however, remained, taking on instead a white and silver tone. He began to
feel his pants fall a little, even as his thighs widened to compensate for
the collapsing waist. Pausing for a moment, he shuddered as she felt her
manhood change, and then let the transformation resume, flowing and shaping
her legs, arms, and face into a more human, female figure. An itching caused
her hand to move up to her scalp as silver hair grew in quickly, flowing
like a river and stopping at just below shoulder length. Feeling a slight
pushing, she quickly unlaced the front of her shirt as her chest grew,
eliciting a moan from her as it rubbed and pushed against the inadequate
confines of her shirt. Finally, the growing slowed and stopped; her chest
rounded out at a fair 38DD.

Sighing, Lady Nora stripped out of her old clothes and tied the supports of
her undergarments on. Stepping into the gown, she gently slid her tail
through the hole in the back. Curling her tail around in front of her and
holding it with both hands, she breathed to herself, "I never do get used to
that." She slipped into her silver cloak and tied the lapel in front,
leaving the hood down for the moment. On a whim, though, she covered her
tail with the cloak. Quickly tossing her old clothes down near the bag, she
leapt out of the cave, cloak flowing behind her, and landed gracefully and
silently next to her bag. Packing the remaining clothes in the bag, she
quickly made a hand motion and the bag disappeared into her own pocket
dimension. She bent down and picked up the bow and quiver, latching the bow
onto the quiver and tying the quiver around her body. As she made her way
back to the main road, she smiled, lending a friendly glow to her face, and
hoped that nobody would recognize her in the keep.

~~ Chapter Four =96 Finding Answers ~~

After making sure her bow was wound tight, she sheathed the one knife she
kept under her cloak, and walked up the road to the Keep. Stopping at the
gate to the killing grounds, she knocked on the gatehouse door and said,
"can I get through to my home?" A muffled scrabbling was heard and she
withheld a look of surprise as a man who could only be described as the
offspring of a cheetah and a human opened the door. He smiled and said "You
seem pretty human for living here. Plan on staying long?" She politely shook
her head and replied, "Just a few days longer. I've only been here a day,
and I have been informed of the curse." "Alright, feel free to pass," he
replied, "the inside door should be open." "Thank you," Nora replied,
smiling politely to the guard, and followed him as he opened the smaller
door in the gate.

After passing through, she allowed herself a quiet sigh, and mumbled to
herself, "I wouldn't have guessed=85 maybe he was affected differently? What
if the curse affects everyone differently? Will it change me?" After walking
through the inner gate, she decided to find someone who knew exactly what
the curse was about, and how those affected were changed. "=85Guess this
explains Kit's surprise," she laughed to herself quietly.

Making her way into the village square, she immediately noticed several
things different from her parting trip 50 years ago. It was a lot quieter in
the square, despite the vendors shouting their wares. There were many more
anthropomorphic humans walking the square; many with weapons. Of the adult
humans left, there were many more women than men, and there were many more
children, as though a large percentage of the village had simply grown
younger. The Keep stood its ever-present guard as when she had left. 'Not
much changes about a castle that has lasted over 5000 years, I suppose,' she
thought to herself.

Deciding to do a little research, she headed towards the south gate to the
Keep, stopping as the gate guard blocked her way. The guard, who appeared as
a female vixen morph, said, "Who are you, and what's your purpose in the
Keep?" With a charmed smile and polite tone, replied, "I'm Lady Nora, and
I'm here to use the resources of the Keep's library and historian." Nodding,
the guard stepped aside to let Nora pass. As she entered past the gate, she
had a sneaking suspicion that something wasn't quite right. As she turned
and stared above the gate, she couldn't quite figure what it was. Suddenly,
it clicked. The stone immediately around the gate was a different shade than
the stone around the wall. Something had broken clean through the gate.
Turning back to the castle, she decided that it was about time she found out
what.

Finding her way through the castle wasn't impossibly hard. The layout hadn't
changed much since her last visit, but remembering specifically which room
went where and through what corridor was a little tricky after not having
your memory refreshed in 50 years. With a little work, however, she managed
to get to the Keep's library relatively uneventfully. After a quick scanning
of the Index of books, she quickly located a small stack of recently-written
history journals and headed to a sequestered corner of the library to crack
them open. After a quick scanning of the Index of books, she quickly located
a small stack of recently-written history journals and headed to a
sequestered corner of the library to crack them open.

Finding anything about the curse was easier said than done. After Nora had
run through half of her pile of books, she let out an explosive sigh and,
slamming the current journal she was on shut, got up and walked over to a
window. Rubbing her eyes, she muttered to herself, "Doesn't anyone here
update those blasted books?" As a hand reached up to tap her on the
shoulder, she turned quickly to meet it and the person it belonged to. "Who
might you be," she asked the fox morph. "My name's Fox Cutter, and I'm the
one who updates those blasted books; the Keep's Historian."

"Oh," Nora replied, "sorry, I didn't think anyone was listening to me.
However, if you're the historian, I suppose you'd be the one to ask about
the curse?" "Correct," he said, smiling, "what do you need to know?" "Start
from the beginning. I'd like to know exactly who caused it, how it works,
what its effects are; everything." As they moved back over to her table of
books and seated themselves, Cutter rubbed his chin and replied, "The cause
was easy. An evil wizard who went by the name of Nasoj assaulted the Keep,
nearly overrunning it. As a distraction, he launched three curses at our
three entry gates, each one with a different effect. One gate caused a
gender switch into an=85 over-endowed=85 member of the opposite sex, with no
control over their sex drive. At another gate, anyone there had their age
regressed to that of a small child. And at the third gate, everyone was
changed into an animal. There was some bleeding of curses into other gates,
so some were affected by two curses at once. Do you follow me?" "I think
so," Nora replied carefully, "Three gates, three curses." Nodding, the
historian continued, "Yes, and thus the name, The Battle of Three Gates.
Anyways, moving onto your next question, we're not sure of precisely how the
curse works. There are some theories, and some experimentation was done,
although rather unconventionally, but we still have no idea. We've been able
to counter the curse to some degree, but as you can see, the regressed can
only attain an age of 14, those transgendered can't return to their normal
gender, and those changed into animals can only become partially human. I'm
sure you've seen the effects firsthand; those affected by the animal
transformation are especially obvious. For some odd reason, the curse
lingers over the entire valley now. Anyone here for longer than two weeks
changes rapidly, and from what we can tell, once the changes begin, there's
no stopping them."

"Is that all," Nora asked, after listening with rapt attention to the entire
story. "That's about the gist of it," he replied, "details about the battle
are easily bought from those who were in the battle." "What's the price,"
Nora began to ask, but smiled wryly as she did so, "right, free drinks."
Smiling, Cutter nodded. "Alright, I suppose that's what I came up here to
find out. Thanks for your help," she said, smiling warmly towards him. "Feel
free to ask me more anytime. I practically live here," he replied. She
picked up her pile of now-useless books and carefully shelved them where
they belonged, much to the watching librarian's delight. "Thanks," she said
to him as she walked past the desk. "Thank you," he replied, "and have a
good day."
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