Rolls for Charisma

The ascent had been an arduous one. They had travelled miles from the nearest settlement, first through farms and dense woodland before reaching the bottom of the mountain. They had camped towards the base, continuing their travels up to the peak at daybreak to face their intended foe.

Many adventurers before them had made this journey, yet only one had returned to tell the tale of the dragon that lived in these mountains. A fierce, loathsome creature, rarely seen and yet supposedly as dangerous as any dragon that had terrorised the region in the days of yore. The bounty upon its head had only climbed with each missing party that had been lost to it.

The kenku bard had debts to pay. Big debts. Defeating a dragon was the last thing that Crow felt capable of doing, despite the hired party of low-budget mercenaries following behind them.

Some halfway up the mountain was a plateau. It was here that Crow’s observations had determined the dragon’s cave was located, and the most opportune place to prepare themselves.

They set up a minimal camp, prepared spells, took inventory of their supplies, and discussed tactics.

It was all a lie, of course. Crow had no intention of meeting the dragon with force. A dozen or more had tried that before and not survived to tell the tale. The hired goons were only ever intended to be a distraction. Crow was a bard, and they were going to tackle this problem with a little bardic inspiration.

Go time.

As the mercenaries gathered at the mouth of the cave they made a point of being loud, clattering their weapons and armour to try and draw the dragon out. Crow, meanwhile, shimmied to the edge of the cave’s entrance and ran inside, hopping from one shadowy outcrop to another so that their plumage might camouflage them in the darkness. There, they waited. And waited. And waited.

Where was the dragon?

Confused, Crow directed the others to make more noise, to cause a racket that couldn’t be ignored. They started banging shield to chest plate and shouting at the top of their lungs, but there was no sign of movement within the cave.

Crow scurried onwards. Their plan didn’t require the others, so they might as well try their luck without them. The cave bent downwards, tunnelling deeper into the mountain and narrowing as it went. Crow lost sight of the entrance behind them, but spied a shimmer of warm light up ahead and moved towards it.

The light grew brighter as they approached, the feeling of warm air wafted outwards through accompanied by the rhythmic sound of breathing.

Crow poked their beak through around the corner. In the centre of a vast, open cavern was the dragon. The… very overweight dragon. The very, incredibly, obscenely obese dragon.

No wonder hardly anyone had seen it before, it was certainly too fat to make it out of the cave it had settled into, never mind take flight or walk with any speed. A number of kobolds were scattered around, each of them varying levels of obese in themselves. A few of them were tending to the dragon, but most were sat around the edges of the cavern, seemingly unable or unwilling to move.

Crow prepared themself for their move. They took a deep breath and—unarmed and spell-free—stepped around the corner.

“Hello, your majesty!” Crow stated, voice projecting around the cavern. “I have heard such tales of your lustre, but I simply insisted I come here myself so that I may witness personally your… gratuitous beauty.”

The dragon and a number of kobolds looked up at Crow in silence.

Crow chuckled nervously. “You may not be aware, but stories of you have travelled far and wide. ‘The Jewel of the Mountain’, some call you. ‘The Fifth Wonder of the World’. And I daresay they are all correct in their assessments. You are a truly majestic creature.”

There was a moment more of silence before the dragon cracked a small smile.

“What is it you want, intruder?” The dragon said.

Its voice was booming and yet soft, delicate almost. Was this, in fact, a dragoness?

“Firstly, only to have had the pleasure of seeing you! But I must confess, I would greatly appreciate a souvenir of our encounter so that I may remember this moment for ever more. Perhaps you can spare one of your lustrous scales?”

Crow slowly began to approach the dragoness. This was it. Get a fresh scale, take it back to civilisation as ‘proof’ of the dragon’s defeat, and cash out. Probably hop town before anyone was any the wiser. All Crow needed to do was charm the hell out of her.

“And what if I don’t want to give you one of my scales?” The dragoness asked.

“Then I shall have little choice but to leave here distraught,” Crow contended, still approaching the prodigiously large dragon. “Or else crawl upon my knees before you and beg your greatness for some other memento of our time here.”

The dragonesses smile grew wider. “I believe I can accommodate your wish.”

“Oh! Thank you, thank you!” Crow relaxed. “What is it? A scale? A shed claw or tooth? Really, any part of your beguiling body will suit most handsomely.”

“Not quite the kind of memento I had in mind.” The dragoness chuckled softly as she extended a thick forearm and plucked Crow off the ground by the scruff of his tunic. Crow gulped, their plan quickly seeming to go awry.

They tried to maintain some composure whilst struggling to not slip out of the clothes keeping them aloft, now dangling helplessly before the dragon’s wide face. “Now now, your dragon-ness-nes?! I— I think we can come to an understanding here!”

BBBBWWWWWWUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!

A torrent of hot, humid air rushed over Crow’s body as the dragon unleashed a huge, reverberating belch. For seconds it was all they could feel, hear and smell. Their body was buffeted, steadied only by the dragonesses grip, until it finally ceased, their feathers in disarray from the point-blank gale that had struck them.

“Wuh… what was that for?!” Crow cried.

“A memento, of course,” the dragoness said calmly, “Of your adoration and servitude to me.”

“I… wuh… what does that mean?”

The dragoness didn’t answer. Crow didn’t push for one. Their mind was woozy, their body dangling in a pool of magic-infused vapour, only one flavour of which Crow could recognise.

Crow’s stomach bulged outwards, pushing aside the fabric of their tunic and exposing a thickening dome of dark feathers. They could only laugh upon seeing it, all panic and concern had drained from their mind.

They saw their prominent beak shrink away, feathers on their arms and bulging middle rapidly hardening into overlapping scales as they continued to swell outwards, their tunic rode upwards against the onslaught of belly, trousers conversely pushed downward from a thickening, pointy tail.

Satisfied that the intruder was well under her influence, the dragoness set Crow down upon one of her many rolling chins.

“Do you know how to conjure food?” She asked.

“Y-yes, my dragoness!” Crow stuttered. Every magic-using adventurer had at least one food spell in their itinerary for emergencies. Crow had quite a few.

“Good! Very good!” The dragoness smiled. “Come, give your dragoness a kiss to show how much you love her.”

Crow grunted as they instinctively stumbled to their feet. They were unused to this size or this stance, and the dragon’s unstable rolls did little to help, but still they waddled desperately to the dragon’s face. There was nothing more Crow wanted to do right now but push their freshly-formed snout up to their wonderful dragonesses lips.

As they did so, the dragon’s claws grasped Crow in place and she let rip another incredible

BBBBWWWWWWUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPppppppppp!!!!

A hurricane of hot, moist, magic-infused belch forced itself down Crow’s neck. Crow could only moan gleefully. Any gift from the dragoness was one to be cherished, much more so one as intimate as this.

The effects were instantaneous. Crow’s body erupted outwards with blubber, dozens of pounds quickly mounting into hundreds and then cresting over a thousand. Their clothes tore away, equipment fell to the floor, leaving nothing in the dragonesses hold but a dark-scaled blob of a kobold.

“Now feed me.” The dragoness commanded.

Crow was placed down next to some of the other immobile kobolds that they’d seen on the way in. A fleeting awareness striking that they were the magic-using adventurers who had come before, similarly transformed and now engrossed in silently conjuring food for the dragoness their every waking hour.

But no time to dwell on that, Crow knew. The dragoness demanded food, and they shall provide for her royal massiveness.