Chapter 1: The Jiggle of Doom
The rock was still warm beneath his claws. Sir Aldric the Unyielding stood rigid on the jagged obsidian spine of the crater rim, every muscle in his absurd form clenched tight. He was a monument to tension, a statue of dread. Beneath him, the earth gave a low, wet thunk as a bubble of molten rock shifted in the deeps, sending a tremor through the ground.
A tremor through him.
His belly, a vast, pear-shaped expanse of dull green scales over pale, soft underbelly, gave a profound and inevitable wobble. It started deep in the core, a gelatinous shudder that traveled outward in slow, viscous waves. The sound that accompanied it was a long, damp gurgle, like a distant swamp draining.
A corresponding fog descended in his mind.
The scent of her hair was… it was like… what was it? The memory—a woman’s laugh, the feel of linen, the weight of a sword—dissolved into static. His wide, panicked eyes, once so sharp, clouded for a three-count. He sucked in a breath through his crooked teeth, forcing his spine straighter, pulling his gut inward until his scales ached. The fog receded, leaving behind the sweating, shaking reality of his curse.
A knight too proud, and the gods had turned him into this. A jiggly, big-bellied, pear-shaped dragon. Every gurgle, every jiggle, carved a slice off his intellect. It didn’t just make him stupid; it erased him. Piece by piece.
“Ooooh, was that a thought, Aldric?” a voice cooed from the swirling sulfur mists. “Did you almost have a little idea?”
Vexis the Tormentor emerged from the haze, her form a sleek, cruel counterpoint to his blobby mass. Her scales were an iridescent red, shimmering with an oily, bloody light. She moved with a liquid grace, her slender neck weaving as she circled him, her yellow slit-eyes fixed on the quivering mountain of his belly.
“I think it was,” she sang, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. “I think you were remembering how to stand. How very advanced. Don’t strain yourself.”
Aldric said nothing. Speaking required breath, and breath made things move. He kept his gaze fixed on a black rock across the crater, focusing on its sharp, unchanging shape. Sir Aldric of the High Tower. Defender of the… the… The title melted away, leaving only a hollow echo of pride.
“Boring,” Vexis sighed. She was beside him in a whisper of scale on stone. Her spiked tail, delicate and deadly, snaked out and tapped the curve of his distended gut.
It wasn’t a hard blow. It didn’t need to be.
The tap sent a ripple, a jiggling oscillation, through the fatty mass. A chorus of gurgles erupted, a symphony of digestive doom.
NO.
The command was a final, fading spark. The fog roared back in, thick and warm and stupid. His carefully maintained rigidity collapsed. His shoulders slumped. A string of drool escaped the corner of his mouth, hot on his jaw. He blinked, slowly. The rock across the crater wasn’t a rock anymore; it was a blurry, brownish smudge. Pretty.
“There he goes,” Vexis whispered, her head hovering right beside his ear. “Down the well. Is it cozy down there, Aldric? Is it nice not to think?”
He made a sound. A low, confused rumble from his throat, unrelated to the ongoing gurgle of his belly.
She laughed, a sound like cracking glass. “Perfect.”
She fluttered her leathery wings, not to fly, but to create a sudden, gusting wind. It hit his side like a physical shove. His stubby legs, locked at the knees, wobbled. He took one involuntary, staggering step to the side.
His belly didn’t just wobble; it sloshed. It swung. A great, pendulous oscillation that seemed to go on forever, the flesh bouncing and jouncing with a life of its own.
The world simplified.
The fear, the pride, the horrifying meta-awareness of his own crumbling mind—it all vanished. Replaced by a bright, empty feeling. The warm rock felt good. The gurgle in his tummy was funny. He giggled, a wet, bubbly sound.
“Oh, yes!” Vexis clapped her tiny front claws together. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She flew a tight circle around him, her tail flicking at his haunches, her wings buffeting his head. Each contact made him sway. Each sway triggered a new, internal quake. With every seismic event in his gut, another shelf of his consciousness collapsed. Memories shattered into glittering dust and were swept away. Language dissolved into syllabic soup. Purpose evaporated.
He was just a big, warm thing on a warm rock, feeling funny movements inside.
He tried to take a step, but his legs were clumsy. He sat down hard. The impact sent a shockwave through his system, his belly bouncing up and then settling with a colossal, sloshing glorp. His eyes crossed slightly. A wide, blissful, utterly vacant smile spread across his draconic face.
Vexis landed before him, peering into his eyes. She searched for it—the last glimmer, the final ember of Sir Aldric the Unyielding. She saw only a shallow, reflecting pool. Nothing looked back.
“All gone,” she murmured, a purr of ultimate satisfaction. She reached out a claw and gently, almost tenderly, traced the line of his drooping jaw. “You’re all empty now, aren’t you? Just a nice, chunky vessel. No pesky thoughts. No annoying pride.”
He nuzzled instinctively into the touch, a low, contented rumble vibrating through his corpulent form.
From a fold in her scales, Vexis produced a length of stout chain, fitted with a cruel-looking collar. She didn’t need to force it. She simply held it up, and he blinked at the shiny metal. She clicked her tongue. “Come on, then. Good… thing.”
She slid the collar around his thick neck. It locked with a definitive click. He didn’t resist. He didn’t understand. He just felt the new, cool weight and giggled again.
Vexis took the end of the chain. She gave an experimental tug.
Aldric, obedient and empty, heaved himself to his feet. His belly swung freely now, a grand, jiggling pendulum with every step, gurgling and sloshing a constant, mindless rhythm. He followed the pull, his wide eyes blank and sunny, his steps the shuffling, wobbling gait of permanent stupefaction.
Vexis led her new toy away from the crater rim, her laughter mixing with the sulfuric wind and the endless, wet music of his captivity. She had won. He would never, ever think again.
He would never, ever think again.
The chain clinked, a merry little sound, as Vexis led her prize down from the obsidian heights. They moved into the foothills of the volcanic range, where the air cooled from blistering to merely feverish and the ground hardened from glassy slag to gritty, gray stone. Aldric shuffled behind her, his steps a study in unstable physics. Each footfall sent a shockwave up his legs that his belly absorbed, converted, and magnified into a bouncing, jostling parade of gelatinous motion. The gurgles were constant now, a subsurface orchestra of sloshes and glugs and long, wet pulls.
He didn’t mind. The noises were funny. He’d giggle after a particularly loud one, his vacant eyes crinkling. Sometimes he’d try to mimic the sound with his mouth, a clumsy “blub-blub-blub” that made Vexis glance back with a smirk of pure delight.
“You’re a natural, darling,” she’d coo, and he’d preen at the tone, missing the contempt entirely.
Their destination announced itself first by sound, then by smell. A low, raucous din of roars, harsh laughter, and the clatter of stone on stone. The scent was a complex bog of roasted meat, spilled ale, scorched stone, and the musky, pungent odor of many large reptiles in close quarters.
The Dragon’s Tooth was carved not from rock, but into it. The entrance was a gaping maw in the side of a cliff, teeth fashioned from jagged, downward-thrusting stalactites. Firelight pulsed from within, throwing monstrous, shifting shadows onto the scree outside. Vexis paused at the threshold, giving the chain a sharp tug. Aldric stumbled to a halt, his belly swaying forward then rebounding back with a watery sploosh.
“Now,” Vexis said, turning to face him. She adjusted the collar with a proprietary claw, making it sit just so. “We’re going to go in. You will be quiet. You will be good. And you will do exactly as I say. Understand?”
Aldric blinked slowly. The words were just sounds, but the expectant pause had a shape he recognized. He made a soft, affirmative coo, more avian than draconic.
“Perfect.”
She strode in, the very image of slender, crimson confidence. Aldric lumbered after, his bulk immediately catching the firelight and the attention of every creature in the place.
The pub was a single, vast cavern. Rough-hewn stone tables were littered with massive, charred haunches and barrels the size of small cottages. Dragons of every hue and configuration lounged, drank, and argued. A massive, bronze-scaled brute with a broken horn was arm-wrestling a thicker, stone-hided beast, their locked claws trembling over a central anvil. In a shadowy corner, a trio of wiry, blue-scaled dragons rattled knucklebones, their hissed bets cutting through the general roar.
All activity dipped, just for a second, as Vexis entered. Eyes, slitted and round, fiery and cold, fixed on her. Then they slid to the monstrosity shambling behind her.
A wave of murmurs and snorts rolled through the chamber. Not recognition—disgust, curiosity, dark amusement.
“Vexis!” a voice boomed from near the back, a sound like grinding boulders. “What in the deep fires is that?”
The speaker detached himself from a group of onyx-black dragons. He was larger than Vexis, built with a warrior’s heavy shoulders and a thick, powerful tail. His scales were the pure, absorbing black of a starless night, but his eyes were a surprising, vivid copper. They weren’t fixed on Aldric. They were locked on Vexis with a hungry, possessive interest that even the void in Aldric’s head could sense was aggressive.
“Kragnor,” Vexis said, her voice all silk. “This is my new pet. A little project.”
Kragnor circled them, his copper eyes finally raking over Aldric’s form. He snorted, a jet of hot, ash-scented air washing over Aldric’s face. “A project? Looks like a mistake that got left in the sun too long. It’s leaking.”
He poked Aldric’s belly with a claw-tipped wing.
The jiggle was immediate, a profound oscillation that seemed to travel from the point of impact up to Aldric’s shoulders and down to his knees. A symphony of internal sloshing answered. Aldric let out a soft “oof” and giggled, swaying on his feet.
Kragnor’s laughter was a short, harsh bark. “It’s an idiot!”
“He is refined,” Vexis corrected, though her smirk showed she loved the reaction. “Unburdened by thought. A clean slate. I find it… peaceful.”
Kragnor moved closer to Vexis, his voice dropping to a rumbling purr meant to exclude the rest of the room. “You always did have a taste for the broken things. I prefer my companions with a bit more fire.” His copper gaze was an explicit challenge. “And less… wobble.”
Vexis didn’t retreat. She met his stare, her own yellow slits glinting. “Are you offering to buy me a drink, Kragnor? Or just criticizing my acquisitions?”
“Both,” he rumbled. He gestured to a nearby stone slab that served as a table. “Sit. Let’s see what your ‘refined’ pet can do.”
He was posturing, and everyone knew it. This was about Vexis, not Aldric. Aldric was just the soft, stupid battleground. Vexis gracefully settled onto a stone perch, pulling Aldric’s chain until he stood beside the table, a massive, quivering ornament. Kragnor signaled to a hulking, dull-gray dragon behind a rough bar—a creature who looked more like a moving boulder than a being.
“Bar keep! Three barrels of the Gutter-Mead. The strong stuff. Not that watered-down piss you serve the runts.”
The barrels thumped onto the table. They were huge, carved from dark, resinous wood and banded with iron. Each one held enough liquid to drown a man. Kragnor shoved one toward Vexis, who merely dipped a single claw in, lifting it to her tongue with a mock-appreciative nod.
He took the second for himself, tilting it back. Thick, foamy, foul-smelling mead—brewed from fermented fungus and volcanic honey—sluiced down his throat.
The third barrel he kicked, with a dull thud, against Aldric’s nearest leg.
“For the pet,” Kragnor said, his eyes on Vexis. “Let’s see if it drinks. Or if it just sloshes.”
Vexis smiled, a needle-thin expression. “He’s not really a drinker, Kragnor. He’s more of a… container.”
“Everyone’s a drinker,” Kragnor countered. “Especially things with no brains. Instinct. Come on, beast. Show your mistress you can follow a simple order.”
Aldric looked from the barrel, to Vexis, to Kragnor. The conflicting pressures meant nothing. But Vexis gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. A permission.
Slowly, awkwardly, Aldric bent his neck. His mouth, designed for biting and roaring, was clumsy around the barrel’s rim. He got it on the third try, his blunt teeth scraping the wood. He tipped it.
The Gutter-Mead hit his tongue. It was vile, shockingly bitter, with an alcoholic burn that cut through even his dimmed senses. He coughed, spluttering, pulling back. Mead fountained from his mouth, soaking his chest.
The cavern erupted in roaring laughter. Kragnor slammed a claw on the table. “See? Useless!”
A hot, unfamiliar spark flickered in the empty furnace of Aldric’s mind. Not pride. Not anger. Something more primal. A desire to stop the loud noise, to make the dark dragon stop looking at him, to make Vexis’s sharp smile return. He associated the smile with good things. Warm rock. Gentle touches.
He lunged forward again, wrapping his jaws more firmly around the barrel. He tipped it back, far back.
This time, he drank.
He swallowed in great, gulping, unthinking pulls. The mead wasn’t a flavor; it was a sensation—a burning flood filling a void. It coursed down his throat, a searing river that poured directly into the immense, waiting reservoir of his belly.
Kragnor’s mockery died in his throat. The other dragons fell silent, watching.
The drinking was a spectacle of pure, mindless consumption. Gulps that would have choked a lesser creature. The barrel emptied with shocking speed. Aldric dropped the first empty with a hollow clatter. A deep, resonant glug-glug-glug echoed from within him, as the mead found its level inside.
His belly, already vast, tightened. The scales, particularly those on the pale underbelly, stretched. They didn’t just wobble now; they swelled. The gurgles grew deeper, wetter, more pressurized.
“Well,” Kragnor said, his copper eyes alight with a new, cruel idea. “It can drink. Bar keep! Another. Let’s see its capacity.”
Another barrel thumped down. Aldric, still riding that primal urge to comply, to make the commands stop, seized it and drank. This one went down faster. The burning was less now, replaced by a spreading, warm numbness. A pleasant fuzziness at the edges of his void.
When the second barrel dropped, his belly was visibly larger. It pushed outward, rounding the pear shape into something more symmetric, more taut. He let out a soft, breathy sigh. A tiny hiccup escaped.
“Another!” Kragnor bellowed, leaning forward. This was no longer about Vexis. This was a experiment in grotesque endurance. The other dragons crowded closer, placing bets in hissed syllables.
A third barrel. A fourth.
By the fifth, Aldric’s transformation was horrific and complete. The pear was gone. In its place was a perfect, gigantic sphere. A stomach so profoundly distended it seemed a separate entity attached to his front, a grotesque, organic moon. His legs splayed wider to support the shifted, forward weight. His pale underbelly scales were stretched so thin they were nearly translucent, webbed with tiny blue veins. They shimmered under the firelight, tight as a drum.
And it moved.
Every tiny shift in his balance, every breath, every heartbeat, sent liquid ripples across the monumental globe. It didn’t just jiggle; it oscillated with a slow, physics-driven majesty. Deep, bog-like gurgles churned constantly, the sound wet and organic and immense. He was filled to the absolute brim, a living cistern of foul mead.
He was also, for the first time since the crater, feeling something beyond blankness or giggles.
He was plastered.
The world, already fuzzy, melted into a beautiful, wobbling painting. The firelights were soft blobs of gold. The dragons were swirling shapes of color and noise. A wonderful, buoyant warmth floated from his gigantic belly out to his claws, his tail, his skull. He tried to take a step toward Vexis, but his body didn’t obey the right commands. He listed to the side, his spherical gut leading the way with tremendous momentum, nearly toppling him into a group of spectators who shoved him back with roars of laughter.
He righted himself. A monumental hiccup racked his frame.
It started deep in the core of the liquid sphere. A convulsive spasm that traveled outwards. The entire belly, all thousand pounds of sloshing mead, gave a single, violent, jiggle. The skin rippled. A sound like a tidal wave in a cave erupted from him—BLORRGGGHHH—followed by a puff of mead-fumed air from his nostrils.
Aldric’s eyes crossed. The hiccup had been surprising. It felt… funny.
He giggled.
The giggle triggered another hiccup. This one was stronger. His whole body jumped with it. The belly bounced, a truly spectacular water-balloon jiggle that drew whistles and stomps of approval from the crowd.
HIC-giggle-hic-GIGGLE-HIC.
It was a cycle he couldn’t break. The drunken, neurological misfire of the hiccups, the sheer physical absurdity of the bounce, the fizzing, happy emptiness in his head—it all fed into the giggles. And the giggling strained his diaphragm, which triggered more hiccups.
He stood in the center of the raucous circle, a captive moon tethered by a chain, a slave to his own ridiculous bodily functions. Hic-giggle-slosh-giggle-hic-BLORGL. Tears of vacant mirth streamed from the corners of his eyes. He was a fountain of idiot joy, vibrating, bouncing, sloshing, utterly lost.
Kragnor leaned back, his earlier interest in Vexis temporarily forgotten, thoroughly entertained by the living puppet show he’d funded. He roared with laughter, pounding the table.
Vexis watched, her chin resting on one claw. Her smile was no longer just one of cruel satisfaction. It was softer, more possessive, more… complete. This was the masterpiece. This was the final painting. The proud knight was gone. The defiant, tense beast on the crater was gone. Even the placid, giggling simpleton was being overwritten.
What remained was this: a drunk, hiccupping, spherical vessel of oblivion. A thing that could do nothing but be. A perfect, mindless toy.
She stood, collecting the chain. The crowd’s noise faded to a respectful, amused murmur as she stepped down.
“Come along, darling,” she said, her voice barely audible over his internal sloshes and hiccups.
Aldric tried to focus on her. His eyes, swimming with drunk, happy tears, couldn’t quite manage it. But he knew the voice. It meant good things. Warmth. No thinking. He tried to step forward, but a massive hiccup seized him, making him bounce in place. HIC! The spherical belly quivered gloriously.
He giggled helplessly, stumbling after the gentle pull on his neck, a universe of mead and stupid happiness held together by the thinnest, tightest skin, leaving a trail of damp giggles and the deep, liquid music of his own ruin.