PROLOGUE

Rothana stood behind the bar of the Fifth Milepole, hastily cleaning a few wooden tankards so she could hand them out to new customers. And there were plenty of new customers. As the tavern’s name suggested, it was the central feature of a little hamlet five miles from Cornon. And nobody—not elf, dwarf, beastkin, human, or horse, could hike five miles in this heat without getting thirsty.

And thus, the Fifth Milepole. Favored by merchants, mercenaries, and miscreants alike. A tavern with eighty seats that were always at least half full, currently packed well beyond capacity, thanks to the camp that had popped up in the twilight hours of the day.

“Come on, pointy!” one of that camp’s guards said, impatiently gesturing how to clean the tankards faster.

Rothana rolled her eyes. A quip about elven ears, from a beastkin? How gods-damned original. This man surely thought himself a poet to have come up with it. Still, it served her to smile and play along, and so she did. She exaggerated the motions with which she cleaned the tankards to give the appearance of rushing, but made sure not to actually speed up.

After all, the longer she had his attention here, the more likely she was to earn his fancy. Always profitable for a barmaid, that.

“So,” she began, tilting her head towards the door, perpetually swinging open and closed as people came and went. “You’re part of that big caravan, right?” She asked.

“Oh yeah,” the beastkin guard said, proudly standing straight to show off the gray tabard draped over his shiny chainmail, the circle of colored dots making it clear to all who saw him that he served the Convocation. He was handsome enough, for his kind. A small beard and a mullet of white hair stood out against his dark skin, and the twin horns sweeping back across his head finished the look, even if she couldn’t see the tail he surely had. A goat beastkin, one of the less common varieties.

“Well, do you like it?” Rothara asked, next.

“What’s not to like? I get paid to go on hikes, and this principal is the last person to mind if I loiter and talk with pretty elves.”

Rothara suppressed a grin, instead affecting a flustered smile. “You… think I’m pretty?”

He nodded. “I’ve never seen an elf with pink hair before.”

Rothara shrugged, finishing her cleaning of the tankards to fill them with wine. “You should see Gyr someday, then. We’re thick on the ground, there.”

“Gyr,” the beastkin said. “That’s… That’s in Aldressa, right?”

Now Rothana allowed that grin to shine through. “Top marks,” she praised. “I swear, half the time I mention it some human will decide they need to correct me, and that I meant New Gyr.” She put the three tankards on the counter between them. “That’ll be fifteen Scales,” she said.

“Fifteen coppers?” The beastkin asked. “That’s… steep.”

Rothana smiled and winked at him. “Well… if you need some time to shake your colleagues down for it, I can always put it on your tab. Though… I’ll need your name, and a promise you’ll come back and give me what I’m due.”

The beastkin man’s eyes widened, before he put on what she was sure he genuinely believed was a suave expression. “Name’s Drew. And I promise I’ll be back,” he easily said.

“I’m sure you will,” Rothana said. “I might be off for the night by the time you do, though. If someone else’s here, tell them Rothana asked you to come by her room to settle your tab.”

The man beamed a smile at her and he feverishly nodded, lifting the three tankards before heading off with a pep in his step. He’d be back, she was sure of it, and she grinned as he disappeared through the ever-busy door.

Jobs like this were entirely too easy, she thought.

Later that night, she laid in bed in the little room she rented for half of what she made at the tavern. It was a cramped, stuffy affair, barely large enough for a closet and her bed. But she supposed it was as close to a home as anyone working out here was likely to get.

She’d taken a good long look at that camp as she’d walked past it after work. A single lavish tent, glowing from the lights inside, with the furniture and people within projected onto the walls like shadow puppets. Around it, smaller tents for the guards and greater entourage.

She knew who was traveling, of course. One of the seventeen leaders of the Convocation, the pontifex of the goddess Ishara. She’d caught a glimpse of the man when he and his set up their camps, too. Pontifex Jacob De La Cornon, a pale human around sixty years old, his surname derived from the city he and his caravan were traveling away from. He was the entire reason she was here.

Beyond the thin walls of her room, she could still hear his guards partying. It was well past midnight already, late enough that she expected Drew to call on her any minute now. As the minutes went by, she was growing a little nervous that her flirtations hadn’t been enough to earn his interest, that the party was enough fun that he’d forgotten about her.

A soft knock on her door dispelled that worry, however. She smiled inwardly, rising from her lumpy mattress, and briefly glancing into a mirror to gauge how many buttons of her blouse to open up and inflame his attention. She decided she might as well go all in, and with a firm pull yanked her blouse open all the way, the buttons clattering to the floor around her.

She reached over to the oil lamp on her nightstand, turning it up a little so she’d have all of the light she might need for this. Then, she stepped over to the rickety front door and opened it.

The beastkin man stood on the other side with a nervous expression on his face and a small pouch of coins in hand. “I was beginning to think you’d not picked up on what I meant,” she told him, and his nervous expression turned into a grin.

“I didn’t think it was right to presume,” he breathed as she stepped farther into her little room, beckoning him inside.

She sat down on her bed, opening the drawers of her nightstand. “Why don’t you close the door behind you and lock it?” she suggested. For a moment he stared at her like an idiot, then looked at the door, and quickly did as she said. “Does flirting with pretty elves often go this well for you?” she asked.

“W-what?” He asked. “Oh. No, not really. Does… it often work this well on you?”

“Nope,” she lied, suggesting he’d been special to appease his ego as she felt around in the nightstand. Her daggers and poisons wouldn’t be of much use with him—not yet, anyways. No, she was looking for something gentler, and subtler.

There you are, she triumphantly thought, as she felt the leather pouch she was looking for. She cautiously pulled it free, heedless of whether or not he saw her.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at her as he stepped closer.

“Contraceptive,” she lied again. If anything, it would do the opposite to him. Without looking up, she opened the pouch, pulling out the little ampule of heavily anesthetic Stilloil, and a clean rag for it to soak into.

“Well… what is it?” he pressed.

She made a show of sighing and rolling her eyes. “If you’re so wet behind the ears that you have to ask, I think I’d rather just settle your tab.”

“W-what?” he asked. “No, uhm… nevermind.”

She let her amusement at that show, figuring it would be harmless. Hells, he was probably used to that reaction from women. Or at least a reaction that very much looked like it. Cautiously, she broke the glass seal on the ampule that was so singular to her organization’s potions, and held her breath as she poured the contents onto the rag.

They immediately started to evaporate, chilling the rag and hand holding it as if it were ice water. She just needed a distraction. “Fetch me a blanket from the closet,” she said. “Then we can get comfortable.”

Thoughtlessly, the young man did as she said. He turned where he stood, and pulled the closet open. She smiled in grim satisfaction as he let out a panicked “what the fuck?!” and a pink-haired elf, the real barmaid Rothana, fell out of the closet. The elf was naked and bound by the wrists and ankles, and slumped against him.

Her trap sprung, Rothana rose from the bed and pounced at him. She held the cloth out in front of herself like it was a dagger, which it might well have been for how dangerous it truly was. She rammed into the man, slamming him into the rickety front door. For a moment, she worried it might break under the weight, but it held.

The breath was knocked from him, and she pressed the Stilloil-soaked rag against his mouth and nose. He kicked at her, the rough metal buttons and buckles of his trousers scraping painfully against her exposed belly. But it didn’t last long. In his panic he quickly took in a hasty breath, and then a second.

By the third, he’d already stopped kicking, his pupils shooting wide open despite the bright lantern shining into his face. She could hold the rag up, she knew. He’d only need another breath or two to pass out, and a little longer to snuff him out entirely. But… he wasn’t her target, just a tool. And this would be a lot more fun.

With a grunt, she heaved the sedated man up from the corner she, he, and the real Rothana had wound up in. He still had enough wits about him to stand when put upright, which she took advantage of. “I’m sorry about this, Drew,” she said, and even meant it. “I know this won’t even come close to making up for the shit your life’s about to turn into, but…”

She trailed off, and pressed her lips to his.

Rothara could tell a lot about a person by a kiss. What was going through their mind, how they saw themselves, what they wanted in life. She could taste their soul, let it rub against her own, and mimic it. She’d hated herself—himself—for being able to do this, once upon a time, but now he knew better.

It was a blessing. A sorcery his parents had found revolting, but now allowed him to do this. He felt his muscles shift and his bones rearrange. His jaw and shoulders became wider, his arms and legs shorter but broader. Horns painfully shot up through his scalp, and the long pink hair he’d so grown to like in his time as Rothana receded, changing into the much shorter white hairstyle of the beastkin.

His breasts shrank, and his very organs rearranged themselves to what fit Drew’s soul. He could feel the clothes he’d borrowed from Rothana fit worse and worse, becoming too tight in some places, too loose in others. Facial hair poked up from the pores of his skin, growing in thick patches in moments.

The real Drew, the beastkin man in his grip, stared at him in wide-eyed fascination, far too doped-up to feel any real fear right now. “I do hope this doesn’t haunt you too much,” he told him, his voice now rumbling in his chest, but still too high-pitched. He lowered his voice, shifting it down, moving it deeper into his throat. It rasped and trilled, perhaps his favorite part of being male.

“How do I look?” he asked, then felt… a distraction. He’d taken on much of the beastkin’s sense of self, and that could often be overwhelming, at first. This Drew had come here, hoping to sleep with a pretty, pink-haired elf. And now one that looked just like that lay at his feet, utterly oblivious to the world thanks to a substantial amount of potions.

With a grunt, he took a firm hold on her bindings and heaved her onto the bed he’d been loaning from her. Then he opened the nightstand, confident in the knowledge no harm would come from letting anyone see the contents at this point. He laid his sheathed dagger and holstered wand out on top of it, then rifled through the potions.

Keeping Rothana sedated had been a breeze thanks to the potions he’d been provided with for the mission, but… sedated wasn’t quite the state of mind he wanted her in right now. Drew had come here expecting sex, and he was sure he’d told his friends that in advance. So… he might as well loiter here a while, if only so he’d smell more convincing when he made his move.

He fished out one of the more valuable potions he’d been issued. It was a tiny vial of inky liquid with flakes of pink and gold floating about within, and the signature glass seal. This was really intended to be diluted beforehand, but… it would be fine, he was sure.

“I’ll untie you if you drink this, you pretty thing,” he promised the elf, whose distant eyes briefly flicked in his direction before rolling away again. He supposed he couldn’t blame her for being out of it. Taking the vial’s glass seal between his teeth, he bit down and broke it off. He briefly glanced to check it was a clean break and no splinters floated within, then squeezed the pinkette’s cheeks to pour the potion into her mouth.

A few moments of confusion seemed to come and go, before she swallowed, and Drew got to see the effects manifest. She still looked confused, profoundly so. But above that confusion, at the very forefront of the elven woman’s expression, was trust.

An arcane, unnatural trust that would last for hours. Slipping the dagger from its sheath, Drew cut the elf’s bonds. In theory, she’d been set free, but… he knew she wouldn’t have any interest in fleeing with that inky potion clouding her already-addled mind.

“I think you’re fantastically pretty,” Drew said, then frowned as he glanced at the real beastkin, dully standing nearby. He wasn’t nearly so eloquent, not even close. As Rothana, he’d had to spoonfeed him the right answers to her questions. He’d have to act the same if he wanted to convince the other guards of his ruse. “You’re… pretty pretty, pointy,” he tried. Much better.

The elf smiled, groggily. She cautiously moved to sit upright, rubbing the scrapes and bruises around her ankles from her bindings. “Been a while since… since…”

“Since you’ve wanted to go down on a fellow quite as badly as me?” Drew suggested.

The elf slowly blinked, parsing his words before she nodded. “Yeah, that…” She paused. “You’re… you’re wearing my clothes,” she slurred.

Drew looked down at himself, as if he needed the confirmation. For some reason that just always slipped his mind. He could take on so much of a person after just a brief kiss, but despite how he mentally perceived himself and others, clothes were just clothes, and did not abide his powers.

“Sorry about that,” he said, then gestured at the other Drew -the real Drew, he reminded himself- as he said, “he seems to have wound up in mine. Why don’t you… help me undress, then help him so I can take my clothes back?”

“Huh?” Rothana asked.

Drew shook his head. “Nevermind,” he said, starting to shuffle out of the barmaid’s getup, tight though the leggings were on the current shape of his body. “You’re very pretty,” he again told her once he’d stripped.

The elf giggled. “You… you’re…”

“I’m pretty, too,” he assured her, grinning when she couldn’t help but nod along. Already, the… equipment that came with a male form was starting to wake up, springing to life at the smell of a pretty girl, and the heat of her body on his skin. He put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back, urging her to lie prone as he pressed his lips to hers.

Then, having gotten to know her body from her own perspective, he set about enjoying it from this side.

Drew’s heart beat away in his chest, the heavy rhythm felt most intimately after needs are sated. Cuddled up by his side, Rothana giggled softly, trailing a pale finger up his neck and playing with his beard. He felt fantastic, of course, breathing heavily as he basked in the afterglow. “Tha… was… nice…” Rothana slurred, and he was inclined to agree. “Wanna… uhm… go again?”

Oh, how dearly he wished he could say yes. It was a shame he couldn’t loiter and enjoy another round. But doing that would simply carry too great a risk. The real Drew’s friends might come knocking in search of him if they didn’t see him re-emerge for too long, and he couldn’t have anyone raising any alarms. Not yet.

So, with a sigh, he shook his head and moved to sit upright on the bed. The real Drew still stood where he’d left him, dully staring ahead. “Help him out of those clothes,” Drew eventually commanded Rothana. He’d need them to really sell the disguise.

Together, he and Rothana rose from the bed. She led the beastkin man to sit down and start to undress him, and he got out of her way in the cramped little room. He watched for a moment as she set about the task, enjoying her mindless obedience and his stunned stupor in equal amounts. They made him feel so… powerful, and that power was why he relished going on missions, rather than loitering at home, in the Hightown gardens.

He gathered everything he’d brought into this place to pass the time she needed to prepare his clothes; stuffing some of the potions into a bag, and laying out his weapons to quickly put them on.

Once the real Drew was completely naked, he wasted no time in getting dressed. Underwear, trousers, tunic, boots, armor, tabard. He put on all of it without so much as hesitating, intimately familiar with them already thanks to his powers.

By the time he was ready to leave, the only thing that set him apart from the Drew that had entered was an extra leather belt resting on his hips, holding a dagger, war wand, and some potions. He smiled, feeling good about the odds of his mission. It was dangerous, of course. But not nearly as dangerous as displeasing his masters would be.

In her addled state, Rothana didn’t seem to even notice the naked man sitting on the bed with him wasn’t the same one she’d already had a bout with. She was pressing kisses into his neck now, whispering gentle things into his ear. Drew thought about leaving, and getting on with his mission, but… that just didn’t feel quite right.

He’d lured that man into this room to have sex, after all, and she looked more than eager to make good on his promises. He stepped closer, and whispered, “let’s go again, then,” into her ear. He stepped back, smiling as he saw her press her lips to the real Drew’s, and usher him to lie down. Sure, he might be ruining his life, but… at least he’d have this, first.

Not willing to delay any longer, he unlocked the door, and slipped out.

Beyond the door, the tavern was just as busy as it had been earlier in the evening. Drunkards still came and went, singing, shouting, or fighting depending on what struck whose fancy, and when. The massive tent was only a few dozen paces away, no longer illuminated from within, but still surrounded by a great many very awake people.

People who were all used to Drew walking among them.

Confidence was key for an imposter, and he wasted no time in making his way over there. As he walked, he could see the ever-glowing city of Cornon in the distance, just as awake as the Fifth Milepole still was. Several people sat around a fire close to the big tent, talking, drinking, and laughing as they spun an empty wine bottle on a table.

It wasn’t a very complicated game they were playing, and it only took walking closer to figure out it was a thinly-veiled excuse to drink more liquor.

One of the people around the fire, a yellow-haired elven priestess, grinned at Drew as he got close. She struggled to her feet before he’d even gotten close, and when she said, “Drew! Tellushowitwent!” with a dull smile on her face. He suppressed a groan at being stalled by this nonsense.

The elven priestess had obviously had her fill of the alcohol the people around the campfire were being so liberal with. She was excited and peppy, seemingly on that precipice before drinking more made you feel worse, rather than better. “How… what went?” Drew cautiously asked.

The priestess staggered closer. “The hook-up, dummy!” she said. “It obviously went well, you reek of Lady Ishara’s blessings!”

He really did tell his friends he was going to meet a girl, Drew thought to himself, bemusedly, then nodded at the elven priestess—who, unlike Rothana, towered over drew—and said, “it was… good. I think she enjoyed herself more than I did.”

“Oh, I bet she did, you dog!” the priestess said before she burst out into a fit of snickers, and pointed at one of the other people around the fire. “You heard the man! Let’s settle up, Temmy.”

The person she’d pointed at, a guardswoman with canine beastkin features, rolled her eyes and rose to her feet as well, with some more ease than the priestess had managed. “Settle up?” Drew asked. “You bet that I…”

“Look,” the guardswoman said, “I was just playing the odds, Drew! Good for you, getting some!”

He smiled. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, which would hopefully make it easier when it came time to make his exit, sooner than later.

“Ready?” the priestess asked. The guard only nodded in response, swallowinging as if to force down nerves at something. Drew was tempted to ask, but… he knew that the more he spoke, the more likely he was to give himself away, when disguised. So, instead, he simply watched on in curiosity. “Voulez,” the priestess intoned in the familiar, sharp tones of the divine language.

Drew was intimately, painfully familiar with this kind of magic, and didn’t need to see what it would do to the woman, who only gasped as it took effect. “W-woah…” she mumbled, much to the priestess’ amusement.

“Go on, then,” she said, tilting her head to the others around the fire, all of them having paused their game to look on in shameless amusement. “Ishara won’t let you off the hook for a while yet. Don’t you want to make the most of it with one of them? Blow off some steam?”

A simple desire spell, so very popular in the stories about the goddess of love and lust. Drew had never seen one cast in such a public place before, but… he really had no right to judge anyone.

Ever.

Drew watched for a moment as the pretty guard looked around, eyeing everyone around the campfire until her eyes settled on one of the few people Drew actually recognized. An orcish woman in a dress, who his briefings had told him was his target’s favorite consort.

The desire-struck woman stumbled towards her, and Drew wasn’t the least bit surprised to see her newly-expressed affections were quickly reciprocated by the orc. He smiled, not so much at the sight of a crush allowed to bloom, as at the knowledge that seeing two attractive women kiss would allow him to slip away.

And slip away he did, easily moving closer to the big tent, away from the jovial encouragements being exchanged behind him. He… decided not to think about that. How much fun they were having, how happy they sounded, it… It only upset him.

In one motion, he lifted the flap of the large tent, slipping inside, into an area without any flooring, separated from the greater tent by another flap, and empty save for some shoes and the wet grass. The laughter of the outside fell silent behind him, muffled by whatever spellwork suffused the tent. He’d expected something like that—something to give the tent’s occupants some privacy and peace—and he was very, very glad to find it worked as well as he’d hoped.

He waited in that little foyer for a while, holding his breath to listen for signs of activity from deeper inside the tent, and waiting in case someone had seen him slip inside, and would follow him.

But there was nothing. Not so much as a peep from within the tent, and certainly nobody following him. Cautiously, Drew slipped his holstered wand and dagger from his belt, aiming the former like a crossbow and holding the latter in a reverse grip as he pulled aside the second flap, and stepped into the tent.

The interior of the tent was downright cozy, from what he could tell. It was dark, save for the firelight that made it through the thick canvas from the outside, and there was soft flooring underfoot. He could hear his target, the pontifex, snoring in a hammock in the middle of the tent, a mere silhouette in the dark.

Drew skulked closer, unbothered by whether he would look guilty if he were caught at this point, entirely preoccupied by not waking the man up, here at this critical moment. He snuck forward, ever closer, ready to be done with this and go home. His heart rate again made itself known, anxious and unsettled.

He… didn’t want to kill this man. Not really. A sixty-year-old priest who’d not hurt a fly in his life didn’t deserve death. But… as he loomed over the sleeping man, he also knew he had to. This man stood in his people’s way, would surely damn them all a hundred times over if only he knew about them.

His successor, though? Drew had heard they might be able to reason with her.

Drew holstered his wand, and readied to press his hand to the pontifex’s face. And as he dragged the dagger across the man’s throat and let it sink in as deeply as it would go, Drew dearly, desperately hoped that his masters had been right to send him.

He stood there for a while, taking in the horrible sound of the man gasping like a stuck pig, watching him flail about in his death throes. He thankfully couldn’t see much, merely a shadow struggling in the brief moments of lucidity between the bite of his blade and the smothering of blood loss.

Drew felt when the man stopped moving. He felt whether the man had a pulse, and his finger came away distressingly sticky and wet, slick with hot blood. The only sounds in the tent was his own heart pounding in his ears, and a wretched, muffled patter of the blood dripping. He… he hated it, and wanted to be out of there.

He rushed towards the tent’s flap, stuffing his dagger back into its sheath and hastily rubbing his bloodstained hand on the grass in the tent’s foyer. He emerged from the tent shortly after, relieved to once again hear the cacophony of life rather than the oppressive silence of death.

He glanced about, checking whether anyone had seen him, terrified he’d be stopped now and caught literally red-handed. There was nothing, though. Nobody so much as spared him a glance, and he cautiously made his way through the rest of the camp, eager to be free of this place and run home to Cornon. He made his way past another group of revelers, and was halfway to the tree-line when he heard someone loudly ask, “Drew?!” and his heart sank.

He froze at first, terrified to look and see a dozen angry faces glaring at him. But… when nobody spoke up again, and things became eerily quiet even in the joyous campsite, he couldn’t help but look back.

He was shocked to see not a single soul was looking at him. The cry of his assumed name hadn’t even been meant for him. On the opposite side of the camp, towards the row of shacks that was the bulk of the hamlet, stood a naked, stunned-looking beastkin man, with a pink-haired elf clutching his arm.

The real Drew had somehow found his way outside, and… and he didn’t speak to any onlookers. Instead, he only looked straight at his imposter, and pointed.

All at once, the heads of the camp-goers turned to look at him like long grass spinning about in a changing wind. That sense of terror grew stronger and stronger as he could see them start to put things together and form suspicions, and he didn’t dare risk trying to come up with an explanation for any of it.

Instead, he spun on his heels, and ran. Almost immediately, he could hear alarmed orders to give chase, and people started to rise to follow him. On instinct, his body shifted, painfully calling on aspects of the various people he’d impersonated in the past. The strong legs and tail of a feline beastkin man, the thin frame and light build of the elven woman he’d been impersonating these last weeks. The chimeric mix didn’t grant him—her?—much of an advantage, didn’t spontaneously guarantee escape.

But it did at least give a slight edge.

They rounded the outside corner of the Fifth Milepole, disappearing from view of the camp just in time for a few arrows to whizz past, and some half-drunken fool appeared as if from nowhere to try to be a hero. They rewarded his attempt at heroism with a headbutt, the horns of Drew’s head giving that attack a nasty bite.

Already, they were scolding themselves. They should have known better than not to tie the beastkin and elf up before they left, and they definitely should have known better than to shapeshift in front of others in their panic.

As they ducked into the treeline and ran farther and farther away from the scene of their crime, they could only hope nobody had noticed their changing features, and that word of their near-miss didn’t get back to the others.