In which I act like a grown-up

It was in a jar in a little secret room. I had lost none of my skills with searching and locks, and I was nearly insulted by the simplicity of the safeguards around this artifact. The heart of Darkness turned out to be a black gemstone the size of my fist and cut to resemble a heart. I thought it might be obsidian at first, but it contained deep, smoke facets that made me realize it was something else. Everyone looked at me, expecting me to be the one to grab it. “It’s your mansion,” Qual shrugged.

It was cold to the touch. A chilly numbness shot up my arm to my spine when I touched it, and I felt my heart straining to beat. I felt suspended in time, which I might very well had been, since the others said I opened my eyes after a few seconds. To me, it felt like I was in darkness for an hour. When under the gem’s influence, I could feel the soul of the house calling me, telling me to embrace the darkness. My sanity was under assault, and I could hear the tormented cries of the Rump family going back dozens of generations. Now, it wanted me to join them, to enter the world of undead horror that had trapped the mansion for centuries.

Obviously, that wasn’t an option, but my mind was so clouded with the tormented wailing of the Rumps that I nearly surrendered. But there, in the back of my mind, was another voice. It was a faint little whisper, but it called me back from the abyss. It was not warm, or kind, or reassuring, but it gave me strength nonetheless. It reminded me that I am the master of Tegel Manor, and that the house is mine to command and not the other way around.

Then I opened my eyes. Seconds, they said, but I felt exhausted. We all agreed it was time to go upstairs. No-one wanted to return to the lich. We all knew that the stone should not fall into his hands. Instead, we made our way to the surface, to the little outbuilding where we made our camp. We decided to have a meeting in the morning, when we were all good and healed, to decide what to do with it.

I went for a walk to clear my head, the gem still clutched in my first. Sorel found me on the Cliffside, near where we had kissed.

“Why don’t you just throw it in the ocean?” she asked.

I told her that that would only postpone the problem, and given what had happened to the two of us, we need to look for much longer-term solutions to our problems.

“That’s so unlike you,” she remarked.

“Long term solutions?”

“That, and the fact that you’ve resigned yourself to staying like you are now. The Quinn I knew a week ago would fight tooth and nail to hold on to his masculinity. You would treat this condition like it was the enemy, and you would not rest until you were back to normal.”

I took a deep breath. “Sorel, I didn’t tell you and the others everything.”

“Oh, really?”

“When I touched the gem, I heard the soul of the house calling to me, trying to keep things as they are forever. But there was another voice, one that offered me power. I think it was the voice of whatever changed us into this form.”

“Changed me, you mean. You’re an angel by accident.”

“I don’t think so. Somehow, this feels like there’s a higher power behind it. And while I don’t think that power is good in a good-versus-evil sense, I don’t think it means to harm us.”

“So now you’re an expert?”

“I have a feeling. And I’m more sure about this feeling than I have been about anything else in my life.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“We end the curse tomorrow. But I think I know how it has to be done.”

In which I sort of become a leader and leave my readers with something of a cliffhanger

Well, it was Sorel who finally persuaded me to ease up on Ev and Aleandra. I wasn’t really going to have them fuck each other to death, but they certainly looked at me with something like fear when I finally allowed them to come up for air. “A little respect. That’s all I want. Got it?” I asked. They both nodded silently in reply. Everyone, even Sorel, then kept their distance from me. They all looked at me, as if waiting for me to take charge. I took a deep breath and tried to get things back to normal as much as possible.

“Look, we have two options in front of us. We can either go up to the surface and try to figure out what happened to me. Or we can keep looking for this Heart of Darkness thingy. Truth be told, I’m feeling better than I have in years, so I suppose I could wait on the trip to the surface. Everyone with me?”

Silence. Sorel nodded. They were clearly all afraid of me. This was not good. “Look,” I said. “I know I’ve changed a lot, and I have this crazy power. But I promise I won’t use it on you guys anymore. I may look like a sexy angel, but I’m still Quinn inside.”

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” Qual said. I gave him a look, but true to my word, I did not order him to chop his own dick off. See what a good omnipotent being I am?

Well, compared with some of the other horrors we faced, the dungeon we were now in seemed like child’s play. Ev gave me his short sword for use as a weapon, but I was still effectively unarmored, wearing nothing more than the simple tunic that Aleandra had loaned Golem before. Not that I minded. With my ability to heal instantly, I approached combat with a recklessness I never had before. Even a bite I got from a poisonous snake did not affect me in the slightest. It appears that whatever magic turned Sorel and me into babes also was determined that nothing should mar our beauty…ever. I had always dreamed of one day advancing to godhood from my exploits. Well, now I was as close as I could have dared imagine, but immortality was not exactly what I would have hoped.

At last, we found a teleport room. It took a while to figure the controls out. It sent us all over the dungeon—twice—and it nearly collapsed the boiling lake above on us before we got the thing to work properly. When we did, it took us directly to our target, the resting place of the Heart of Darkness. And I wound up having to make the biggest choice of my life.

In which I find out who my friends are, and I get the best power ever

Well, there was no denying it. My soul had somehow jumped from my dying body to that of the mindless construct that had been following me around. It didn’t make sense but, given the alternative, I would rather be stuck looking like Sorel than soup, which is how my body ended up.

I tried to look at my reflection in the water, but the constant boil made it impossible for me to see myself. Instead, I got a good look at my former body cooking. After a few minutes, bits of me started to break off. I’m not squeamish as a rule, but I had to look away. Feel free to criticize after you have seen your body dissolve past the point of possible repair.

So I was stuck. Part of me wanted to laugh at the irony. This mansion of mine seemed determined to make everyone who entered it into a hot chick. It was really only a matter of time before my innie became an outie. At least I was hot, I figured. Sorel was about the most lovely creature I could imagine, and now I was her identical twin, right down to the fluffy feathery wings (which, I found, I could retract just as she could). Of course, wings were the least of the changes I was concerned about at that moment. My hands traced my new curves—my hips, my bubble ass, and those impossibly large and round breasts. Each touch made it sink in just a little more that this was going to be my body from now on. At least I didn’t feel like a construct. My flesh was warm to the touch, and I had a pulse and breath.

A voice snapped me out of my contemplation. It was Qual.

“I’ve found Quinn and the Golem! She must have pushed him into that boiling water!” The Dwarf drew his axe and leapt across the channel (landing perfectly, I realized to my embarrassment).

“Don’t be an ass, dwarf!” I shot at him. “I slipped and fell in. Now put that thing away before you hurt someone!”

Qual and the others just stood there in stunned silence. They had never heard Golem speak before, and certainly they had not expected her to speak with my diction. Naturally, they thought it was a trap. Qual took a swing at me. I tried to jump away, but his axe caught me in the thigh and I went down, bleeding.

“You fuckhead!” I shouted. “I’m Quinn! Put that thing down and listen for one fucking minute!”

This time, Qual listened. That was just as well, because I was getting faint from shock and loss of blood. Apparently, though, by body was able to repair itself, just like Sorel’s. I was pretty loopy for a few minutes, but when I came to the pain had almost gone.

Sorel was leaning over me, a look of concern on her lovely face. “You poor thing! It is you, isn’t it, Quinn? How did this happen?”

I explained about the accident that destroyed my body (by now almost completely dissolved into stock). The Amazon sisters found the story extremely amusing, and one of them (like I could tell them apart anymore!) decided to see if I carried Sorel’s curse as well as her healing gift. “Hey, Quinn! Finger fuck yourself!” she said, laughing.

I half-expected to comply, but I was relieved when I was under absolutely no compulsion to obey. Sorel, however, heard the command and immediately she started frigging herself. “You bitches!” she cried. I was pissed, too. We had pretty much agreed to stop talking dirty around Sorel, and they blew that truce wide open.

“Go fuck yourselves!” I said. Sorel was still immune to my own dirty words, so I thought that my insult was just that. The Amazon sisters, however, froze in their tracks for a second, then they started making out right in front of the rest of us. In a second, they were naked and tangling on the floor, shooting me looks of pure hatred while they made love.

“Enjoy it!” I commanded, and the looks vanished, consumed by expressions of pure ecstasy. Could it be? They way I saw it, Sorel could not resist dirty suggestions, while other people (except Sorel) could not resist mine.

“Ev, suck Aleandra’s tit,” I said. Well, I finally knew which was which. This was going to be good.

In which Sorel and I check out each others goodies

Well, Sorel was the only one who wanted to talk with me about what I went through. She took it upon herself to make me comfortable with my body. Well, our bodies. Whatever. So we went to our spot on the cliff and she strips naked and encourages me to do the same. i don't know what I was thinking, but I did it. Damn, but we looked hot. I suppose if I had to give up my scarred old body, this would not be a bad second choice. And Sorel was giving me that look again. It was clear that her feelings hadn't changed.

In which I look in a mirror

I make one sexy angel, don't you think? If only my head didn't hurt so much from thinking about it.

(And damn the Amazon twins for talking me into this dress!)

In which this whole adventure stops being funny

I wish I could say that things seemed more clear in the morning, but I was as confused as ever. Part of me clearly had no problem looking at Sorel as a romantic partner. But what if she ever turned back? I don’t think I could take that degree of awkward. And every time I thought I had my mind made up about the situation, a little nagging doubt brought me right back to my state of confusion. Worse, my confusion was starting to have an effect on my professional life. I fell into a pit trap and nearly skewered myself on a javelin that fired out of a door. Good thing I ducked—it was dripping with poison.

Well, we finally opened the trapped door so that we could explore the last (and tallest) tower. We find a lab filled with alchemical equipment and a library with hundreds of books. A little bit of the old Sorel emerged and she practically started drooling at the knowledge she could gain from this place. She did not even have a second to explore when the owner of this place made himself known. It was a lich, taking a chemical bath in a vat the size of a rowboat. That’s right. You heard me. A fucking lich.

Well, I did my best to be polite, as the last thing we wanted was to make him angry. He was already pretty steamed at the way we barged into his private abode, so we told the story of how Sir Runic gave us ownership of the place. Well, the lich’s attitude changed after that. He was also a Rump, Ridwick, but his claim to the Manor ended when he died. He said there had to be a living owner of the manor, but as long as we left him alone to his rest and research in the tower, we had nothing to her from him. Qual wanted to put conditions on the promise, like no experimenting on sentient beings, but I knew when to cut a deal, so I cut the dwarf off and shook the lich’s bony hand. Oh, there was one other little condition we had to recover a stone for him called the Heart of Darkness that had been lost under the manor. Seems he can’t go look for it since his teleport gate only functions for the living.

Well, of course I had misgivings, but I would have agreed to anything in order to get out of there. Old Ridwick could have toasted us in less than a minute, and we could not even have made him break a sweat. So Ridwick leads us up a few levels in the tower to a magic mirror in his quarters and we all step though. When we step out, we are in a cold damp chamber, doubtlessly deep underground.

Our first priority was to find a way back up. Our plan was to find the Heart then go have it evaluated. If it was not some key to an evil plan that would blot out all life in the planet, we would keep our word and turn it over to Ridwick. Otherwise, we would toss it in the ocean and leave Tegel for good.

So the dungeon turns out to be something of a pushover. We run into a bunch of skeletons and zombies that take us all of ten seconds to put down. We find some stairs up and a tribe of goblins. In a way it was cathartic to be fighting goblins again. We butchered several dozen of them without taking any serious injuries. My dragon scales were pretty secure protection, and just to change things up a bit I played at being a fighter for a while. The goblins guarded an escape tunnel that led to the beach, so we were double sure that we had a way out.

We also found some stairs down, and since we were all still feeling pretty good, we decided to press on. On the next level down, we started meeting some serious challenges—ghouls, a wight or two, and a pack of boars. No idea how the pigs survived in this steamy hole, but they proved to be the toughest of the lot. I took some pretty bad hits, and Ev was torn up pretty bad, too. I think I’m done playing fighter for a while.

It was about this time that we noticed that Golem had gone. Sorel said good riddance, but I felt kind of responsible for her. I wanted to go look for her, but the others thought that she wasn’t worth it. That made me kind of mad. Just because I brought her to life didn’t mean that she wasn’t alive, or that she wasn’t worth saving. The others pointed out that she hadn’t done a whole lot to help us, and I said that wasn’t the point, since Ev barely did anything to help us and we kept her around. Well, I meant that as a joke, but Ev gets all upset. Naturally, Aleandra sides with Ev and they both turn into unicorns so they can wave their big horsey asses at me. Sorel sides with the amazon twins since she never liked Golem in the first place, and Qual sided with the girls since he’s been kind of a dick since the whole werebear incident.

So I set off on my own to find Golem, just to show that I could have principles, too. It took a while, but I found a secret door that she must have slipped through. That door led down into some kind of natural sauna, where a pool of boiling water surrounded a small island. There, in the center of the little island, was Golem. She must have flown out there, because it looked too far to jump. She seemed happy to see me, but no amount of coaxing could get her to fly back to me.

So I decide to jump out to her. It was a stretch, but I’m pretty athletic, and I knew that I had jumped greater distances before. I sailed across the boiling water with no difficulty, landing right next to Golem. The one thing I hadn’t counted on was the slippery rock on the island. I remember seeing the look of surprise on Golem’s face as I slid right past her, completely out of control until I plunged into the boiling water on the far side.

I remember intense pain, pain that shot through my entire body, making me spasm in agony to such a degree that I could not muster the control needed to swim to the surface. I could feel my skin scald and blister. I screamed, and with the scream boiling water entered my body and began to cook me from the inside out. Then it became too much, and all of my sensations just dissolved into a white light that washed over me, ending the pain and the feeling of being cooked alive.

And then, a moment later, I was looking down at my body through the water. I could no longer feel the heat or steam in the chamber. All I could feel was sadness at seeing my dead, blistered body under ten feet of boiling water. Then I felt anger that my brilliant career had ended in such a clumsy and ignominious manner. Then, I felt confused, since I was dead and still having these thoughts. There was no “step into the light,” no greeting a warm and welcoming divinity. I was still here, in this world. And I was quite clearly still standing in the island, with a real physical body, staring down at my corpse past my…

Breasts. Big, round beautiful naked breasts, of the sort I used to love to ogle. But there they were, hanging on my own chest, and a little farther down, there was a small patch of blonde pubic hair where my “Dagger of Piercing” used to be. I knew the body that I now wore, although I had never seen it from this angle. I had become Golem.