Desert Drones (Mind Control and Transformation)

Hey folks!

Writing this after finally coming down from my obsession with playing Blue Prince for the past week or two. I think I've finished it now. I think.

May has begun, and May is my birthday month, so y'all better be nice to me. And in return, I provide some stories. Like this one! A MCTF story set in the same 'verse' as my Tanya and Elora stories - just with some different Adventurers this time. I guess I'd better come up with a name for this setting now...

Enjoy.

-----

“Uuuugh.” The sun was beating down. From horizon to horizon, the only thing she could see was sand, and the awkward haze of heat. “How much further is this stupid place?”

“Not much further.” It was hideous how calm her companion sounded. How together and unruffled she must have been feeling, to speak so smoothly. Did the heat mean nothing to her at all? “In fact, I think it should be just over the next set of dunes.”

Well that could mean anything – everything out here was a set of dunes. Sand piled on top of sand. Flash was starting to forget what anything that wasn’t sand looked like. It had been days since she’d seen so much as a cactus.

“Well if it’s that close, can’t you just carry me?” She squinted up at her companion. “You’re, like, three times my size. I bet I don’t weigh anything to you.”

“Um.” The taller woman hesitated. “The Guildmaster said I had to let you walk the whole way,” she finally said, her voice still surprisingly soft for someone so big.

“Yeah, but we’re nearly there,” Flash argued, waving her hand towards the sand and assuming that their destination was somewhere in that direction. “I mean I basically have walked the entire way. What’s a few dunes up on your shoulders, eh? I won’t tell.”

But the other woman just shook her head, her face hidden by the shadows of her cloak. “Sorry.”

“Tch.” Flash resumed her march, tightening her own hooded robes around her, protecting herself a little better from the unyielding sun. “Typical.”

It probably wouldn’t have helped, even if her minder did agree to carry her a little further. The sun wasn’t going anywhere, and it wasn’t her legs that were causing her issues. The desert was just hot, no matter how many cooling enchantments you layered into your clothes. There was a reason that the sands of Jeven had been the stopping point of many a grand army over the centuries, for both the forces of light and darkness. This desert was unforgiving – you’d have to be truly desperate to try to cross it.

Well, either that, or maybe you just ran up a few too many Guild-owned taverns, and you got pressed into donating your skills on a difficult scouting mission as an alternative to spending a few years in the clink. Sometimes life handed you lemons like that. And as much as Flash liked lemonade, it was starting to feel like jail might have been the sensible option.

“So what did you do to get lumped with this job, anyway?” She grumbled – because even if she was annoyed that the woman who had been sent to ‘look after her’ wasn’t looking after her like she wanted, she was still the only company around.

“Oh, I didn’t get lumped with it.” Again, that voice was infuriatingly together. Were they not sweating buckets under that hood? “I volunteered! It’s such a wonderful opportunity to see a really unexplored part of the world!”

Oh gods. She’d been sent out with an actual, real-life Adventurer. One who wanted to see the world. She was doomed!

“Yeah, unexplored because it’s a death trap, maybe.” Maybe it was the heat, but Flash found it difficult not to be snarky about this whole mess. Ordinarily she liked to think she was a more professional kind of rogue – one who didn’t mouth off until after the job was well and truly done. But out here, well, she needed a way to vent. “What could even be out here? It’s just sand! We’re going to cross over that dune, and what we’re going to see on the other side is going to be what we’ve been seeing for the past four days. And I’ll give you a little preview – it’s gunna be sandy.”

“Nooo…” The hooded woman shook her head. The movement was stiff, and, not for the first time, Flash wondered what lurked underneath those shadows. “The Guild wouldn’t send us out here for no reason. Someone definitely saw ruins out here. Just think! This could be the discovery of a lifetime! We might get into the history books!”

The halfling snorted. “I’ll tell you one thing right now, kid – they don’t put dine and dashers in the history books. This is just a punishment detail to make me sweat for stepping out of line.”

The hood looked down at her, and Flash got a sense of puzzlement from it. “Dine and dashing? Is that why you’re here? I thought the Guildmaster said it was more than that…”

“I- I mean it’s more or less what happened…” Time to change the subject, fast! “Anyway, what could possibly be out here? This is one of the deadliest lands in the entire realm. No water, no plants, no life except us anywhere to be seen. Why would someone build anything out here?”

“Well… Privacy?”

“… I’ll give you that. But it’s still a bit far to go when you could just buy a lock for your front door.” The halfling squinted at the horizon. “Trust me, kid, people are way too lazy for that kind of thing. This is a waste of time.”

“Hmph.” The cloaked figure huffed. It was surprisingly intimidating! “First of all, I am not a kid, Miss Flash.”

“Mmhm.” Yep, not a chance. This girl didn’t know the ass end of an elf from a hole in the ground. Flash would bet money that she’d never seen a Paladin smashed off her tits. Every word she said just lit a glowing mage’s sign over her head, one that said ‘Rookie!’ in big green letters.

“I’ll have you know I am over eighty summers old!”

“Sure, kid, I believe you.” Nope!

“And second off, I can tell you don’t know your history!” The halfling got the impression that her minder was smirking under her hood. “There have been plenty of civilizations out here! This place wasn’t always a desert, you know.”

Hm. Flash looked around. Kicked at the floor. Yep, that was sand alright. “I dunno, kid, looks pretty deserty to me. These things don’t just pop up out of nowhere.”

The taller woman shook her head. “Well, no, they don’t, but… Y’know, this entire desert doesn’t actually make sense, geographically. Climate wise, this entire area should have the same kind of weather as Corken.”

The halfling squinted at her. “Oh yeah, sure, of course. Infamously dry Corken. You know it only rained on me for nine of the ten days I was last there.”

“Exactly!” The minder nodded enthusiastically. “It’s so weird, right? Don’t you think it’s fascinating?”

“… No?”

“Oh.” The wind seemed to go out of her sails a bit. “Well… It is. So we could find all sorts of interesting things out here!”

Oye. “Look, kid…”

“My name is Syndale, by the way.”

“Kid.” Flash shot her a look. “I’m telling you, we’re not going to find anything. Look! We’re here, and…”

They reached the crest of the dune and looked down the steep, sandy slope.

“… As you can see… Ah. Hm.”

There, beneath them, was a sprawling complex of ancient stone and odd-looking mechanisms. A building that could fit a small village inside of it, with room for livestock, sitting there, baking under the mid-day sun.

“… Well I was still right about the sand.”

-

“Stop.”

“Huh?”

“Stop. Right where you are. Now.” There was an edge in Flash’s voice that made Syndale listen, freezing her in place mid-step. But she didn’t see why the little woman was so worried. They’d entered the ruins pretty cautiously, but there didn’t seem to be any monsters or anything here. Just old, bleached stone walls and floors.

“Okay. Left foot. Pull it back carefully.” She did so, drawing it back and leaving it hanging in the air. “Right. Good. Step back a bit. I don’t want to know what the trap you were about to set off does, and I don’t think you do either.”

Blinking, she retreated, looking down at the ground. The slab she’d been about to step on looked just the same as all the others to her. “Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah.” The halfling nodded. “Just look at the tiling.”

“…” The tiling looked perfectly normal to her, but oh well. This was why the Guild had wanted Flash to do this mission in the first place. Sighing, she turned to try a different way. “Fine. Well what about over h-?”

“STOP!” Again, the yelling. “No, definitely don’t do that. How about you let me go first? Actually, how about you stay over here in the entrance and let me mark out a path for you?”

“Uh.” Well, that sounded reasonable, but…

“Good. Just stay over there. This might take a bit.”

Tch. Fine then.

As it turned out, ‘a bit’ was underselling things. The sun was starting to set by the time that Flash finished marking a route through the entry hall that she was “like, 80% sure” was safe. After a long day of marching, neither woman really wanted to push much further in the dark. Thus, they agreed to set up camp in the entrance, and do a proper exploration of the ruin in the morning.

So it was something of a relief to be setting up their tents and beds on more solid ground tonight. Sleeping on sand was uncomfortable, and while stone wasn’t a great improvement, it was still better than what they’d had. Summoning up a spring for water was easy enough – even with the lack of water in the area, the earth was so soft here she could pull the aqua flow to them from miles away. That was a spell she’d gotten a lot of use out of on this trip.

Finally, once everything was set up and the campfire was burning, she drew back her hood, relieved that tonight they’d have natural-ish shelter from the scouring wind.

“Woah!”

“Hm?” She looked up. Flash was staring at her in shock. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re a dragonling?!?”

Oh. Right. This was the first time she’d revealed her face so far on this trip, wasn’t it? And here she was, covered in red scales and fire flickering between her teeth. It hadn’t been a deliberate effort – it was just easier to keep herself under wraps during the trek.

“No no, I’m…” Syn paused, thinking. “Actually, I might as well show you at this point.”

She closed her eyes, concentrating. Maintaining a shift for this long had been a strain when she was younger, but these days it felt like second nature. This wasn’t the first time she’d forgotten she was shifted at all. But by carefully relaxing a few core spiritual muscles…

There was a brief rush as her body shrank, dropping down from nearly 8 feet to barely over five, her arms and legs thinning and her skin softening, the long snout of her face melting back into a more humanoid shape. The red scales vanished, her eyes tingled as they turned from ruby to emerald, and her hair fell back around her shoulders, like straw half-spun into gold.

The half-elf sighed, flicking said hair back over her shoulder as the transformation finished. It was nice to be back in her real body at long last – like settling back into your bed at home after a long trip.

Flash was watching her with a raised eyebrow. “Huh. Neat trick. So… shape shifter?”

“Uh. Close enough.” If there was one subject in all the realms she didn’t like talking about, it was herself. “That was just my red dragon form. It makes it easier to manage the heat out here.”

But the halfling was still studying her, eyes narrowed in suspicion… Before widening in understanding. “Oh. Oooh, I get it. You’re a Druid!”

Huh. Syn blinked. She hadn’t expected her companion to work that out. “That’s right, actually,” she admitted. “You know what a Druid is?”

“Sure.” Flash shrugged as she sat down next to the campfire. “I’ve been around, seen a few things. Druids aren’t the rarest sight in the realms, kid, you’re not that mysterious. In fact…”

Her silver eyes flicked towards the half-elf. Oh no. She knew that look.

“Y’know I heard a rumour about how Druids earn their shifts…”

“That’s just a rumour!” Syn spluttered, face turning red hot. “A filthy, ugly, evil, mean rumour! C-completely unfounded!”

“So you didn’t sleep with a red dragon?”

“I don’t even know any red dragons!” The half-elf huffed, folding her arms. “I received this shift in a beautiful ceremony in the sacred grove of Gelandra, as a honour for my tireless work in the-”

“Okay, okay, I believe you kid.” Flash interrupted, clearly trying to avoid another history lesson, and not being at all convincing about it. “Why don’t we talk about something else. Like this ruin. Any idea what it is?”

It was a quick change of subject, but one that Syn was happy to latch on to.

“I’m not sure. The architecture looks like late Kaltaren, maybe early Exeter empire? The Exeters based a lot of their early outposts on the Kaltarens, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see that here. But even so, the whole place has been exposed to the elements for who knows how long – centuries at a bare minimum. Most identifying marks have long worn away. Even the strongest preservation enchantments can’t hold up forever.”

Flash pulled back her hood, exposing her short white hair as she scooted closer to the fire, preparing a few rations to cook. “Didn’t know Druids were such history nerds.”

“Oh no, that’s just me.” Syn blushed, toying with her hair. “I always found this kind of thing interesting. There’s so much mystery in the past! You know we’ve still got no idea why the Kaltaren Apoxis fell? They ruled over nine tenths of the realm at one point. Then they almost disappeared over night.” She clapped her hands in excitement, looking around at the ruins. “Imagine if we found some kind of clue to their fate in here! We’d finally know what happened to them!”

“Can’t say I care much about that kind of ancient history, kid,” The halfling muttered, pulling one of her knives and spearing a dried sausage on it, holding it out over the fire. “Unless there’s actual money in it somewhere, anyway.”

“Well…” The half-elf looked to the side, lips pressing together. “I don’t know. Maybe to the right historian…”

“Mm. Yeah, we’ll just ask all those rich historians we’re always seeing wandering around.” Flash shook her head. “Don’t suppose they were big on riches and magical artefacts, these Kaltarens?”

“Uh. Hm.” Syn paused, frowning.

The halfling looked up. “That was a funny sounding no. Got something to share, kid?”

The Druid fiddled with the clasp of her cloak, clearly uncertain. “Uh… I mean, I wouldn’t sat they were – not more than every other ancient civilisation, anyway. But there were always rumours of something more. Almost every record of their civilization mentions something about some kind of powerful treasure…”

“Oh yeah? ‘Powerful treasure’ – so a magical artefact or something?”

Syn shrugged. “Your guess is as good as anyone else’s. Our records of that time period are awful at best, and our translations are worse. The languages are too old for magic to work on them, there’s no living speakers of any of them left, so it’s all guesswork and hodgepodge. Our nearest guess is that this ‘treasure’ is something to do with how they managed to conquer so much of the world, but it’s just that – guessing.”

“Hm. Sounds interesting though, all the same.” The halfling grinned as the sausage began to sizzle. Her eyes glittered at the thought of wealth. “So you think some of that treasure might be here?”

The Druid frowned. “W-well, that would be… unlikely. I mean, a lot of our best translations say that the ‘treasure’ was stored in a vault in the heart of the empire. We’ve never seen a scrap of it in any archaeological dig. Most people think it’s just a mistranslation – that it doesn’t really exist.

Flash raised an eyebrow. “So why are you- Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Ohh. You think this might be the vault!”

“No!” Syn shook her head unconvincingly. “No, that’d be… ridiculous. What are the odds of that? It’s much too unlikely…”

“But it’s possible?”

The blonde twiddled her fingers. “… Maybe?”

“Well why didn’t you open with that?” The halfling took a chomp our of her cooked sausage. “And there I was, thinking history was boring.”

Syn smiled, only a little nervously. “That’s… Well… I suppose I’m glad I could help ignite your interest in education?”

“Sure.” Flash chuckled, waving the sausage-laden knife in her direction. “And tomorrow, I’ll return you that favour by getting us into the heart of this place – and we’ll see if that treasure of yours really exists.”

-

Descending into the ruins wasn’t any easier than crossing through the entrance had been. The stone was less weatherworn as they crept deeper into the darkness, but that just meant the traps were harder to spot, and easier to trigger.

And whoever had built this place absolutely wanted to make sure no one else got into it. There were false floors and hidden dart traps everywhere. Even with Flash’s skills hard at work, it was a miracle they didn’t trigger any. But then, she did always do her best work when there was a good payday on the line.

Thankfully, whatever this place had been, it wasn’t complicated. Big, yes, but the entrance led to a hallway that led to a staircase that led down and down and down. No branching paths or little offshoots. This ruin wasn’t a maze filled with switches and medkits and underwater passageways, no matter how nice it might have been to see water this far out into the desert.

So when they reached the big door at the bottom, still partially decorated with withered gold patterns and faded magical seals, lit only by their light spells, they were pretty sure they’d found what they were looking for.

“I mean, look at this place. It’s gotta be a vault. What else could it be? What other kind of building would you make like this?”

“I… I… I’m trying really hard not to get too excited…” Syn was definitely breathing hard as they stared at the doors. “It could be a big nothing! But even so, there’s gotta be something here. H-how do we get in?”

She looked to the halfling expectantly – only to find Flash looking back at her, confused.

“What do you mean? I got us here. I figured you’d know how to open the door.” The halfling folded her arms. “Do you see a lock on that thing? There’s nothing for me to pick!”

“… Oh.” The Druid looked back at the door. Now that she mentioned it, yeah, she could see that the door was just a pair of big stone seals. There wasn’t anything complicated about them to manipulate. “Maybe they used to use magic to move them?”

“That’d make sense.” The shorter woman nodded, then shrugged. “O’ course, I’m not a mage, so I still can’t help. How about you, kid? Know any spells to open a door?”

“Uh.” Syn thought for a moment. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?” A white eyebrow rose.

“Yeah.” The Druid grinned, feeling a flex in a spiritual core, her voice starting to drop into a lower octave as her body began to swell. “Sort of.”

Her form grew, shooting up from just over five feet to just under eight – and her limbs bulked up respectively, before hulking out even more. Fur spread over her body, spreading out over her face and across her torso – thick and shaggy, the same faded gold colour as her hair, except around her neck, where it grew into a wild copper-brown mane. Her clothing stretched, even its specially enchanted stitching, designed for a Druid’s powers, struggling to hold in her new frame.

“Oh. Wow.” Flash whistled. “You’ve got a Bearleon shift as well? Ha, hey, who did you sleep with the get this-Oof!”

Suddenly, she found herself pinned, with glowing green eyes, situated above very sharp teeth, looking down at her.

“No one.” The beast growled, her voice so low the halfling felt it vibrating through her bones.

“Okay!” She squeaked. “Just checkin’!”

… Though she couldn’t help but note that Syn’s transformation had put quite a lot of work into enhancing her curves as well as her muscles… But for once, the Thief managed to keep her insights to herself…

“Good.” The Druid pulled back, drawing up to her full height. “Now, let’s see what’s on the other side of this door…”

She stalked forward, forcing her clawed hands into the paper-thin gap between the slabs, and pulled. There was a groan from somewhere in the masonry, and then the doors grudgingly gave way to physics. With a rumble and a crack, the stone parted, shoved to the side, revealing the interior to the Adventurers at last.

Flash pouted as the gleam of gold didn’t immediately assail her eyes. But when the dust cleared, something stranger was waiting for her. “Huh. What the hell are those…?”

Syn tilted her head, equally confused. “I’m not sure,” she said, her voice lightening as she shifted back to her true form. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything like this…”

In front of them, stretching out in long, single-file lines that ran so far that the light from their spells couldn’t illuminate the end of them, were… statues? Humanoid statues, made out of some pitch-black substance that glistened in the light. What were these things, obsidian? Why were there so many?

… And why were they so curvy? Each figure was very obviously female, with prominent breasts and asses all bigger than their heads. Whoever had made these things was definitely a massive pervert. None of them had faces, though. Human shaped heads, but they were completely smooth where they should have had features. It was creepy.

“How curious. I mean, everything else aside, this is still a fascinating discovery,” the Druid muttered, stepping forwards to examine these strange totems closer…

And as Flash’s ears picked up the quiet click of a pressure plate, she realised a second too late that she’d let herself get distracted. “Look out!”

“Hu-Oof!” Syn spun around, panicked – just in time to take a halfling headbutt to the stomach as the Thief shoved her out of the way. Since she wasn’t in a shift and was just a rather scrawny half-elf at the time, she learned a lesson that many members of the taller races had learned, to their misfortune, over the years. Namely, that halflings were much stronger than they looked. She was thrown on her ass, hard.

Shoop!

And thus, she found herself blinking up at the glass tube that had descended from the ceiling. Not from the inside, thankfully – it had dropped down where she had just been standing. Unfortunately, that meant that when she looked through the glass, it was into the eyes of a very annoyed looking Thief.

“Uh oh…” She bit her lip, trying not to shrink back from the halfling’s glare. “Um. Sorry?”

“…!” Flash’s lips moved, but no sound reached the Druid.

“What?” She raised a hand to her ear. “I didn’t hear…?”

“… … …!”

“Wait wait, hold on…” The half-elf reached out and tapped the glass. “I think this must be sound-proof or something. Amazing! Ah, but, I should be able to… Give me a moment…”

She pressed the side of her head against the tube and concentrated, focusing on her ear. It tingled as she performed a minor-shift, transforming from a half-elven blunted point to a large, furred flap – a bat ear. “Try talking again?”

“I said don’t be sorry!” Flash was yelling. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

“Yes!” Syn’s eyes lit up, delighted that her plan had worked. “Hearing you loud and clear! I’ll… Uh… Oh right.” It dawned on her that she had no idea how to follow that request. Was there, like, a button or something to make the trap lift back up…?

“Vagehqre Qrgrpgrq! Vagehqre Qrgrpgrq!” A voice blared suddenly from the ceiling as lights throughout the facility snapped on. “Vavgvngvat Pbairefvba Cebprff!”

“Wh-What?” The Druid looked around, stunned. Could this ruin still be functional, after all these years? Astounding!

Tink! Tink! Tink! Flash was slamming her fist against the glass. Oh right, the trap. Yeah, this was bad, wasn’t it?

“Fpnaf Fubj Fhofgnaqneq Obql.” The voice continued to announce, its language completely foreign to Syn’s ears. “Pbeerpgvat Synjrq Zngrevnyf.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? And why was the tube starting to glow? Uh oh.

There was a crackle and a buzz, the familiar kind of staticky sound that came with a discharge of old mana. Inside the tube, Flash’s eyes widened as her clothes disintegrated, leaving her completely nude, just a moment before gravity seemed to vanish, leaving her floating helplessly in the air.

“… … …! …! … …! …! …! …!”

Whatever she was shouting never made it through, though, judging by her expression, Syn suspected she got the gist. But there was nothing she could do! She couldn’t see any way to deactivate the trap or make it stop – all she could do was watch!

So before her eyes, the halfling grew. For a moment, she wondered if this was similar to one of her shifts, but, no, this was definitely different. Flash wasn’t turning into another creature, she was absolutely remaining herself – just, a bigger version of herself. Distractingly long legs, slender arms, a perfectly proportioned torso… Actually, it looked like she’d been turned into a human, if that made any sense. But then, humans had always looked like bigger halflings…

The Druid blushed, looking away as she realised she was staring at her companion’s curves. She- She had to admit, the Thief had a pretty fetching body…

Tink! Tink! Tink!

Huh? She was drawn back by the halfling – the former halfling? No, she was probably still a halfling, just bigger – tapping on the glass again. This time, in addition to the glare, Flash was also doing something with her hands – miming punching a fist into her palm.

Syn blinked. Oooooooh. Right, that’d probably work.

SMASH!

Shifting back into Bearleon form again, she slammed a fist into the side of the tube. The glass was tough, but not that tough. It shattered, raining glass shards down everywhere, but fortunately none of them had to force to pierce the Druid’s furry hide.

“Finally!” Flash threw herself out of the trap’s remains, grabbing her companion’s mane and swinging herself up on top of the beast, evading all the glass shards on the floor. “What took you so long?!”

“I- I didn’t think of it!” Syn’s voice was far less intimidating now that she was stammering like a student. “I thought there’d be a switch or-!”

The lights in the chamber began to flash. “Nyreg! Pbagnvazrag Oernpu Va Cebterff. Npgvingvat Fhoqhny Flfgrzf: Gnfx - Pncgher Naq Pbaireg.”

Suddenly, the blank faced, busty statues moved. Their heads turned, every single one of the uncountable masses staring directly at the Adventurers – even with no eyes. Then, together, they all took a single step forward. The sheer force of the collective motion sent shockwaves rumbling through the floor.

“Y’know what?” The white haired ‘halfling’ said, looking around and clinging on to Syn’s neck even tighter. “Never mind what you weren’t thinking. Run!”

The Druid wasn’t about to argue. Falling to all fours, the hulking shifter galloped out of the vault, charging straight for the stairs. The blaring alarms still followed them – as did the swarm of statues, the faceless golems (?) moving at a much quicker pace than you’d expect, given their frames. Nothing compared to the speed of a fully shifted Druid going at full sprint, though.

But there was a slight problem with being fully shifted. Being that much bigger and bulkier meant it was a lot harder…

“No, don’t touch that!”

… To avoid all the traps they’d woven around on the way down.

Fwp Fwp Fwp!!!

Syn grunted, slowing and stumbling as she felt a sharp pain in her rear. Suddenly she found herself beginning to shrink, her shift unravelling itself. Before she knew it, her powerful limbs had evaporated, and she was back to her half-elf form, laying half-way up the stairs, getting mildly choked by a giant halfling.

“What are you doing? Why’d you stop?!” Flash was understandably panicking, looking back over her shoulder at the steadily advancing golem horde – while not quite getting off of her former ride’s back.

“Ooohhh…” Syn, though, had other concerns. Now that her shift had ended, the pain in her backside was gone – but it had been replaced by a strange, bubbling heat in her thighs that was steadily spreading through her body. “I feel… a little funny…”

More than a little, honestly. She felt weird, like she was shifting, but without any of the usual steps. It was like her flesh was growing, swelling with the heat, plumping out around her chest and her behind…

… Wait…

Gaping, she rolled over and sat up, staring and the incredible boost that her breasts had gotten. She’d gone from mildly, nervously curvy to having an insane figure, with both of her boobs being bigger than her head. In fact, her whole figure was now much closer to what those statues looked like than it was to her normal form. “What the hells?!”

“Well I think we can confirm that whoever built this place was a pervert,” Flash growled, trying to help Syn to her feet despite the Druid’s new curves. “This is why we don’t trigger traps all over the damned place! Now come on, we have to move. And be careful this time! How hard can it be to-?”

Click!

Fwp!

“Yeowch!” The giant halfling stared down at the dark in her arm. It vanished in a puff of dark smoke, but she could still see the glistening traces of pink poison dripping from the small hole in her skin. “Oh for the love of-Ooohh…”

The silver haired Thief’s eyes crossed for a moment, as her body went through a similar metamorphosis to Syn’s. The Druid got to watch from the outside as her companion’s breasts flared outwards, expanding like rising dough in the oven, evenly matched by the halfling’s now fat behind.

“Not so easy, huh?” The blonde couldn’t help it. Stressful situations gave her tongue a snide edge.

Flash had the grace to blush, at least. “In my defence, it’s hard when your body’s-”

“-Bigger than you’re used to?”

That got a stink-eye. Then the halfling grabbed her companion and pulled her onwards. “Just shut up and run. Carefully!”

That was much easier said than done at this point. Syn was used to moving around with a shifted body (though right now she couldn’t seem to shift at all) but these curves were murder on her sense of balance, and even she was finding it hard to hurry without completely falling out of her clothes. Flash didn’t have that kind of experience and was struggling not just with her breasts bouncing all over the place, but also with a set of much longer limbs and a completely different centre of balance. The pair ended up leaning on one another heavily as they climbed, each trying to help the other as well as they could.

Still, it felt like a miracle when they got to the top of the stairs ahead of the horde. They could still hear them, marching up the staircase in thunderous synchronization, but they had a good lead.

But such good luck could never last, it had to run out eventually. And just as the pair stumbled into the entrance hall, it seemed that their tab had come due.

Crack!

The floor suddenly parted underneath them, dropping down to reveal a pit trap – and dropping them along with it. Flash reacted quickly, hurling herself backwards to try to grab solid ground, but she couldn’t make it the entre way there, just barely managing to grab the lip of the pit. Fortunately her supporting arm around Syn meant she managed to catch her companion, at least, leaving them both dangling over darkness.

No… Not just darkness. As they looked down, both women could see ripples running through the black, bubbles popping on the surfaces. There was liquid below them – oil of some kind, maybe? Whatever it was, it didn’t look good.

Naturally, this seemed like the perfect time to complain. “What did you do?!?”

“I didn’t do anything!” The Druid protested. “I avoided the traps, just like you said!”

“That-!” The silver haired woman was about to argue, but then the floor shook again, and another floor panel collapsed nearby, dropping into the oil below with a splash. “Wait – Oh damnit, it’s them! The golem things! They’re shaking the place apart and activating all of the traps themselves!”

“Oh.” Syn bit her lip. “… Maybe this’ll slow them down?”

“That’s one hell of a positive spin to-Gah!” Another tremor shook through the ruin, and the stone the Thief was holding on to shattered. Desperately, she and the Druid both scrambled to try to get another handhold, but neither of them could do anything to arrest their descent.

Splash!

The surface of the thick, oily goop writhed for a moment, thrashing and bubbling as the pair vanished beneath its midnight waves. Then, slowly, ripples still spreading across the pond in little waves, slowly rolling into nothing, it went still. All was silent.

Then a hand, dripping with black goop, reached out of the dark pool and latched on to a piece of fallen rubble, one of the false floors that had fallen from above, and pulled. Grunting, a dark figure emerged from the black lake, hauling itself back onto a small semblance of dry land. And after a moment to get its breath back, it reached back into the goop, and dragged a second figure out as well.

The pair lay on the rocks for a few seconds, gasping for air, before, as one, scrambling upwards, clambering their way out of the pit and back into the entrance hall, leaving dripping trails of black goop on everything they touched.

It was only when they were out of the trap fully, still gasping for breath and trying to wipe the oily liquid away, that they turned to face one another – and had to do a double take.

“… Syn?”

“Flash?”

The two stared at each other. Neither one would have recognised their companion – but then, neither of them would have recognised themselves right now, either. If there had been a mirror present, both women would have refused to accept their reflections.

After all, neither of them thought of themselves as blank, featureless drones, covered in - or perhaps made out of – an unidentifiable, soft, black, rubbery substance. But their dip in the pool had coated them thoroughly, and though they’d escaped it was clear that the goop had changed them dramatically. It had soaked into them, right to the bone, and converted everything it managed to contact with into this slick new form. They could feel it – their bodies were completely different, lacking in heartbeats or breath. Their figures – still ludicrously curvy – had been transformed into golem-like dolls.

Just like every single blank faced drone they’d found in the vault.

They would have fitted in down there perfectly.

“What the hell is this?”

“I- I don’t know! I’ve never seen this kind of transformative magic!”

Neither of them had any idea how they were talking when they both seemed to lack mouths – but then, they could see without eyes and hear without ears, too. This transformation was a bizarre one, but it wasn’t impractical. Indeed, they both felt stronger than ever, and all of their fatigue from the disastrous day had vanished, like they were no longer human at all. How deep did this transformation go?

“Rgh. We can worry about it later!” Flash shook her head, trying to hurry towards the exit. Her legs fell into a comfortable march easily. “Right now we need to get out of here!”

“Right…” Syn followed, synchronising steps worryingly easily. “We’re nearly there.”

“Yeah.” The… halfling? What even was she now?... nodded. “We’ll be fine as long as we don’t-”

Click!

She looked down. Beneath her foot, the very first trap that she had pointed out to Syn – the tile that looked completely normal – had sunk into the ground under her foot.

She looked back up. The Druid was glaring at her. Even without a face to reference, she could tell that much.

“Oops?”

There was movement behind them, and both women/dronethings spun to face it, preparing to defend themselves. But instead of another trap, the two found themselves facing a blank screen that had slid out of the wall. It was glassy, almost reflective. Coated in something, perhaps? But it was the surface behind it that was interesting – it was colourful, prickling with little magical lights as it warmed up. Neither woman had ever seen anything like it.

“What’s-?” That was as far as she got before the ‘screen’ lit up, a purple spiral spinning over a black background filling it entirely. After that, words didn’t seem so important anymore.

Obviously, Flash knew exactly what this was. She’d heard stories about this kind of thing from old dungeons. Funny stories, at that. Like, come on. Was this really what it looked like? A hypnotism trap? As if that was going to work. She was way… too… strong… minded… to… … … …. …

…

The Flash golem slumped, shoulders going slack, back stooped as she focused completely on the screen. One got the impression that if she’d still had a mouth, she would have been drooling into her cavernous cleavage.

Beside her, the Syn golem was putting up more of a fight. She had no idea what this spiral was, but she knew that it felt nice to look at, so she figured that doing so was probably a bad idea. It was a trap, after all. Best to try to look away!

Best to… Wait, what had she been thinking, again? Oh, right, yeah, she was thinking that since she was staring at this pretty trap, then she should… she should…

Uh… No, hold on, she almost had it for a second there. Right, she had to do something. Something to do with this pretty spiral… so pretty… so nice…

Um… What was it again…? She had to do something… with the spiral? She had to… Had to… Had… to…

Oh… of course… She had to… stare… stare… at… the…. …. … pretty… … … … …

…

More of a fight, perhaps, but still not a winning fight. Soon, she was slumped over as well – a pair of big titted golems staring into the spiral, their minds as blank as their faces. The swirling light sucked it all out of their heads – their panic, their worry, their concern, their thoughts… All of it just drained down into the purple and black depths, leaving their minds so nice and empty.

“Vagehqref Fhoqhrq.” The alarm voice rang out. Neither woman heard it. “Vavgvngvat Zragny Chetr.”

Suddenly, the screen grew brighter. The colours, the purple and black, grew sharper in contrast, the spiral spinning faster and faster. Both Adventures dropped to their knees, their tits bouncing and rocking as the spiral burned into their minds, growing more and more intense.

Slowly, it began to suck more and more of them away. Memories dissolved and flowed away like water vanishing into the desert sands. Personalities were deemed as irrelevant detritus, and thus similarly disposed. Not even core concepts were safe. The idea of themselves as people, or even of people at all, were bleached away.

Bit by bit, the concepts of ‘Flash the Thief’ and ‘Syndale the Druid’ faded into nothingness, every last trace scraped out of their skulls by the swirling lights.

“Vafgnyyvat Borqvrapr.”

The light dimmed for a moment. In theory, this was the moment that the pair could try to escape the trap. Of course, that didn’t happen. Neither woman had enough of a mind left to consider escaping. They didn’t even have enough mind to be considered women, really. It was much more accurate to think of them as slumped, curvy objects now, rather than as Adventurers. They were completely identical in every way.

But then the spiral began to turn again – in the other direction, this time. Lights flashed, bombarding the pair’s vacant brain with information and concepts. Nothing like the concepts that had occupied those spaces before, of course. No, these concepts were blocky and simple, with no care for subtlety or nuance.

“Vafgnyyvat Language.”

Understanding leaked in, in the most literal form. The language of the alarm inscribed itself into the pair’s heads, even as every other language they had known was replaced and forgotten. They had no need of such things anymore.

“Installing Designation.”

The spiral flashed, and the two drones shuddered as names were printed onto their souls. The drone on the left suddenly understood that it was XXFGB12, without understanding what that meant. The drone on the right, likewise, suddenly knew that it was KGGF5RO. Neither of them were compelled to do anything with the information – it was simply something that they knew. The only difference between the two of them, now.

“Conversion Complete. Alert Ended.” The light of the spiral faded, the panel sliding back into a wall, and the flashing lights going dark. The marching sea of drones, only now starting to enter the entrance hall, came to a halt. “Initiate Trap Repair, Followed By Return To Storage Protocol.”

The commands filled the drones heads – all of them, the marching horde, and the two new additions near the exit. As one, every single glossy black golem straightened up and went to work, mindlessly moving according to preprogramed commands buzzing in their empty brains. Together, they marched, crisscrossing across the room like streams of ants, steadily repairing the floor, replacing spent darts, or polishing the hypno screens.

By the time the work was done, of course, it was impossible to tell which of any of these dozens of drones may have been XXFGB12 or KGGF5RO. Certainly, there was no trace of Flash, or Syndale – nor was there any trace of their presence in these ruins, all of which had been tided away or destroyed by the cleaning drones.

And soon enough, there was no trace of the drones, either. As soon as the work was complete, all of the curvy, jiggly golems retreated down the stairs – the two new additions presumably among them (though, who could tell?). In complete unity, they all returned to the vault, combining their considerable strength to re-enchant and reseal the door. Then, each and every drone marched into their formation, standing blankly in lines, mindlessly awaiting new commands from their Masters.

Most of them had been waiting for a very, very long time for those. The new arrivals would likely be doing the same. Silence settled over the hall as it fell into complete darkness. All was still. Time lost all meaning. The incident came to an end.

But there was one silver lining, even if it would never occur to the former Flash, nor the former Syndale…

When this ruin was eventually discovered, some day, they’d definitely be getting into the history books!