***** Amandine’s POV 8:00 AM *****

“Come on Amandine, it’s time to wake up,” said a somewhat familiar voice as they gently pulled on my tail.

“Five more minutes!” I mumbled as I rolled over, getting my feet tangled in my tail.

Wait- “I have a tail!?” I exclaimed, bolting upright.

Sure enough, I discovered that I had a tail, that tapered smoothly as it extended two and a half meters past my rump and ended with an odd bulge. At first glance, I thought my feet were three times the length that they had been, but I quickly realized that I was looking at my lower leg and my actual feet were less than half the size that they had been. My skin was covered with an even distribution of bright green scales and purple fur, but otherwise, my upper half seemed to be mostly the same. The muscles of my lower arms seemed a bit odd, but there was nothing that I could put my finger on. My lower half, however, bulged out around my stomach, but a cursory exploration with my hands proved that the bulge was mostly muscle. There was also an odd flap of skin over my stomach that didn’t serve any purpose that I could see.

“That’s for holding your children until they’re old enough to hop on their own,” interjected the voice from before, at which point I looked up to see the dryad leaning against the wall on the other side of the room.

“Go on, finish your inspection, I can wait,” she encouraged gently, settling into a more relaxed pose against the wall.

Returning my focus to my legs, I realized that below my hips there was almost no muscle in my legs or feet because all of it was located around my hips.

Then I noticed that my nose was taking up more of my vision than I was used to, so I lifted my hands to my face and found a lizard’s head.

“Here, take a look,” interrupted the dryad once again, this time averting my impending panic attack by holding up a mirror for me to look into. I expected to see a monster where my own face should be, but instead, I found one of the cutest things that I had ever seen.

“Oh wow… I thought I was going to be kinda ugly or something,” that’s when I noticed the odd gauntlet like things that were locked around my wrists. “Why won’t these things let me straighten my wrist?”

“Nope. The Lizarolfkang are one of the cutest races in existence. Well, until you pick a fight with several of them. Then heaven help you because nobody else will. The gauntlet things are to prevent you from accidentally skewering yourself with your claws, which can only come out or retract when your wrist is perfectly straight. Here, get dressed, then follow me,” she said, tossing a bundle of clothes onto my chest. “Before we do anything else, we need to get all of y’all familiarized with your new forms.”

“But how am I supposed to get dressed with this great whacking tail in the way?”

“The top half of the outfit splits in half to accommodate your tail, then the back automatically fastens itself above your tail as you fasten the front. While the back is sealing itself, the outfit will also cover your tail. When it asks you about first-time setup, tell it to wait for now, then when it asks you if you want to rig for long-term, tell it no. That last one is especially important as long-term can get pretty invasive even if you’re ready for it.”

“What does long-term mean, and why does it get invasive?”

“Long-term means your going into an environment where the outfit is completely sealed and you're going to stay there for long enough that you’ll need to eat or go to the bathroom, so the suit has the ability to feed you and also deal with your waste. The connections to handle the waste…”

“Oh. I see,” I said as the suit finished sealing itself.

“Would you like to run the first-time set-up?” asked an oddly cheerful yet somehow emotionless voice.

“Wait for now.”

“Would you like to rig for long-term?”

“No.”

Now that I was standing, I tried to walk towards the door next to the dryad, but my legs didn’t seem to work properly. “I’m going to have to learn how to walk again, aren’t I? Wait, why am I just now having trouble controlling my legs?”

As a dungeon creature, you are automatically adapted to your body after any changes undergone. The knowledge portion of this is taking a bit longer to integrate than normal, otherwise, you’d already know that your new legs aren’t built for walking. They’re built for jumping.

“So you’re saying that I have to jump everywhere? Won’t my legs get tired from all that jumping?”

No, they won’t. Do NOT jump as hard as you can in this room. You’ll probably give yourself a concussion when you hit the ceiling. Like I said, your legs are built for jumping.

“I’ll put together an obstacle course for you guys to get used to what you can do once you get used to the mental differences that came with the change. Before you ask, you need to come with me so we can explain all of this to you guys at once.”

Stepping through the door, I discovered I was in the Hall of Rest, Relaxation, and Preparation, except this time there was a bunch of tiered seating arranged around the room so that everyone else could see me and the dryad standing in the middle of the room as the room I just stepped out of retracted into the floor. As I looked at the audience, I realized that other than the two kobolds and a man that I somehow knew to be the dragon, they were all my troopers. Like me, they had been turned into Lizarolfkang, yet somehow I still knew who they all were. I wanted to stop and greet Doskan properly, but he was in the back row and the dryad was rather insistent that I stay in the middle for the moment.

“All right everyone, listen up! I apologize for the things on your wrists, but they’re there for your safety. I could tell you why, but it’s better if I just show you, which is why I’ve dragged Amandine up here with me.”

She paused gesturing at the ground beneath our feet, at which point a circle sprang into being around us etched into the floor in silver light, followed a moment later by the things on my wrist retracting into themselves leaving my wrists free to move.

“Now, with those out of the way, the rules are no magic, stay in the circle, and the round ends when for one reason or another neither of us can continue. Understood?”

“Yes, but I’m still confused as to why.”

“You’ll see. Now give me your best shot!”

“Alrighty then. Here goes nothing!” I said as I settled into a ready stance, one foot sliding back and to the side, my tail instinctively curling around in the opposite direction, and my hands curling into fists.

The instant my hands finished curling, a switch flipped somewhere in my head and I went from calm and slightly confused to highly aggressive in no time flat. At the same time, a claw the length of my forearm sprouted from the front of each fist, another sprouted from the odd bulge on the end of my tail, my lips pulled back from a mouth full of teeth that would do any predator proud, and I attacked in a whirlwind of claws and teeth.

It was over before I even realized that I’d begun, at which point I relaxed, my claws retracted, and calm settled over me once again as the gauntlets once again settled around my wrists.

I stepped back to where I’d begun, still trying to process what had just happened, as was everyone in the bleachers except the dragon, who stepped forward into the ring.

“This is why we have the training gauntlets on your wrists. This is why the slavers were foolish to try and conquer the Lizarolfkang. Yes, at first glance y’all appear cute and cuddly, not to mention calm, cool and collected, the ideal nursemaids really. However, the slavers didn’t consider what went on in your coliseums. They ignored the powered armor and the mecha, golems with their pilots riding inside of them, which gave your new people a way to let loose the inner beast without loss of life and limb. If the slavers hadn’t gotten bogged down in a dispute between seven different queens over who was in charge of the Lizarolfkang’s world, they would have learned the hard way that your people make very, very bad slaves.”

“So, where did the name ‘Lizarolfkang’ come from?” I asked. “Something tells me that’s not what they call themselves.”

“No, it wasn’t,” answered the dryad who had pulled herself back together while the dragon was speaking. “Their name for themselves is rather difficult for most humans to wrap their heads around, so someone took the names of the three things they most resembled and combined them together. The ‘Lizar’ at the beginning is from lizard, and the ‘kang’ at the end is from kangaroo.”

“Wait, that’s only two things. What about the ‘olf’ in the middle?”

“Werewolf.”

“Oh. Well, that explains the carnage.”

In part, yes. One of the things that make the Lizarolfkang unique is that they have two mental states that they can switch between at will. You’ll spend most of your time in the Relaxed state, where you’ll be able to take most things in stride. That isn’t to say you won’t have emotions, but you won’t be driven by them as much. The other state is the Energized state, where your emotions will be stronger and your body will want to prepare for fight or flight. However, once you get used to both states, most of you will probably be able to balance between the two, enabling you to hyperfocus and think much clearer for a time.

“The main danger of this is that if you don’t spend enough time in the Energized state, you will eventually snap and be forced into it. This often results in a rampage where you fight anything and everything in your way, which is how the Lizarolfkang almost wiped themselves out at one point in the past,” said the dragon. “The other danger is spending too much time in the Energized state, at which point you will either pass out from exhaustion or die from a heart attack.”

Then the fairy flew into the room, zipping around the room enthusiastically before hovering in the middle.

“Hello, my name is Tracey, and I’m the Dungeon fairy. I’m so glad that I finally get to meet you!”

“Hello, Tracey. Do the dragon or the dryad have names?” I asked.

“Oops,” chorused the dragon, the dryad, both of the kobolds and the dungeon.

I’m sorry, we got so focused on helping y’all adjust to your new forms without cutting each other to ribbons that we forgot to introduce ourselves. I’m Bud, the dragon is Broohn, the Dryad is Zona, and the kobolds are Porthos and Artemis. Will you please forgive us?

Before any of us could respond, all of our stomachs growled in unison, causing me and several others to burst into laughter.

“Sure. All I ask is that you let us go hunt without the safety gauntlet things getting in the way.”

Agreed.