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Description
- The Adventures of Dreyfus and Neshae 4 - Call of the Gods -

Chapter 1: Dreyfus in Wonderland

My name is Dreyfus Vandolin III.  I am a pretty tall 16-year old boy, with lush brown hair and shining brown eyes to compliment my French skin.  If this were any old story that's what you'd probably be told.  Well, there's more to my description than that little bit of info.  I am not just any boy--I am a dracotherianthrope boy, a shape-shifting dragon.  Since the day I was born I have had violet fur with a white ring around my neck.  I have stood on paws and hooves--paws on my forelimbs, hooves on my hindlimbs; and I have looked through eyes topping an orange head, white spots around my eyes and a white stripe along my nasal cavity.  I have licked my lips many times with my long, slender blue tongue; I have bonked my head many times thanks to my large antler rack; and I have many a time yelped when somebody stepped on my long, twisting purple tail and its whale fluke striped with orange and white.  By now, the calls and roars of my people have been familiarized and accepted within the community I live in.

But I am not always looking like a dragon.  Being the special kind of dragon that I am, I can change my shape to resemble animals and demons alike.  By simply biting somebody and devouring their soul I can replicate their appearance--temporarily, but all the same a useful trick.  Fortunately, though, I don't need souls to transform into five specific forms or mix and match with them; as good as souls taste, I don't think people like it when I snack on them.  I can turn into a human boy, whose description of you heard already.  I can also turn into a nimble deer, a shady kitsune, a howling wolf, and a bulky orca.  Most of the time though, unless I'm somewhere where people aren't used to my kind, I socialize in public in a mixture of the five forms.  Pretty similar to my human form, but with some differences.  From my head protrudes two antler stubs--not to mention a blowhole concealed by my hair.  My ears are large and powerful, as they are those of a deer.  Sticking out from under my upper lip are two long canines, which I use to suck a soul out of an individual.  I walk on my toes--rather, hooves--instead of the typical plantigrade style of humans.  And lastly, my two kitsune tails quiver this way and that from my rump.

To top it all off, my kind also has elemental powers.  I have been born with the power of ice, and as you may see in my following tale my ice powers have many uses.  I'll save you all from a long introduction, however, and leave my description at that.

It all started almost two years since my first adventure with my spiritual brother, Neshae.  I had always had a large imagination, but little would I know that on the eve of a warm May night I would be thrust into a land beyond my greatest dreams; a land of nightmares, from which it was a struggle just for beings to survive.  The story you are about to hear is the story of my and Neshae's adventure through this land of nightmares.

-

Mother's Day was coming up and I couldn't wait.  My mother was more dear to me than anybody in the whole wide world; the cow-like dragon was that great.  In only a few days, the day to celebrate her would arrive.  I was going to make for her a great seafood dinner; maybe even an ice statue if I wanted to go the distance.

This was all that was in my mind as I dropped onto all fours, sprouted my purple fur from my French-colored body, stretched my long neck, and curled up on my blanket.  Shape-shifting took up energy, and it was always a relief to remove my mask and just be a dragon again.  As I prepared for sleep I stretched, opened my sharply toothed mouth wide, and made a great big yawn.  Boy, was I tired!

Shortly after my head hit the floor I was almost in complete slumber.  I didn't struggle to stay awake; the night was for rest, and I welcomed it with a smile.  But as the last bits of reality were replaced by the clouds of dreams and Dreamio began to cast his spell of slumber on me, something changed.  The darkness of my shut eyelids turned into a dark crimson.  My last moments of being awake screamed at the horrors that grew in an on-coming nightmare, but I was far too drowzy to truly react.  Instead, I did what my body told me to do and fell into a nightmare of a rest.

-

My eyes jumped open with a start as the sinister nightmare became more and more real.  And to my shock, it was real.  Opening my eyes did not save me from the dark shadows that roamed about in this crimson abyss.  "Mom!" I called, but nobody could hear me.  I wasn't even in the same world, probably.  Nothing like this existed on Earth.  Dark shadows crept ever closer, empty eyes fixed on my icy flesh.  Scrambling for an escape, I shrunk into a kitsune and played my own shadow games.  Maybe, I thought, if I can see what these things are, I can figure out a way to escape!  Being the demon fox I was, I drained myself from the real world and watched as reality flipped upside-down.  I was my shadow and my shadow was my body.  Real objects turned gray and two-dimensional as shadows became real and lifelike.  And so I saw my stalkers.

Both were in white cloaks, masking their identities.  They wore African tribal masks--or at least, I think African tribal masks--which chilled me to the bone (and that's saying a lot!).  "Who are you?" I asked.

"We are the Reapers, gatekeepers of your worst nightmares," they echoed back.

"And why have you come to me?"

"Oh shadow fox, we have come to haul you away.  In that we shall succeed, no doubt."

I jumped a bit.  "Take me away?" I gulped.  "What did I ever do to you guys?"  The Reapers made no reply.  They simply lashed out and pinned my poor little fox body down.  With little effort they pushed me through my shadow and back into reality.  And as shadows, they held me by my defenseless shadow.  I struggled a little, but decided that if I was going to have to fight I ought to save my strength for more powerful forms.*

Creeping up towards me from the crimson abyss was--it couldn't be anything else--a giant glove.  It was ghost white, without dust on it or anything.  No hand made the glove its home--it just flew towards me slowly.  I struggled a bit more, but did my best not to panic.  Panic would only lead to more trouble.

Suddenly, though, just as the glove was upon me the Reapers released my shadow and I bolted.  Growing into my quick deer form, I galloped for all it was worth.  My efforts were pointless, though, and the glove quickly caught up to me and snatched me into the air.  I could only hang there helplessly as it dragged me back to where it had come.

-

Through clouds and mist, the glove flew onwards and onwards.  After a while, though, it broke through the clouds only to greet me with a purple twilight sky.  I looked down and gulped.  The ground was so far down that I could hardly see it.  I was no doubt very high in the stratosphere (maybe higher!).  The hazy sky had only one thing in it:  a small cloud.  But as the glove took me farther and farther out, I came to realize that it wasn't a small cloud but instead a very big cloud--the size of a castle--that was just far away.  Within moments the glove was passing by a wall with a large iron gate preventing casual entry to this castle of clouds.  It flew around the castle a few times and then started rising towards the cloudy roof.  As I spun, I swore I could hear a faint, hard-to-hear "help" from somewhere nearby.  But it was only once.

The glove finally came to a grinding halt.  I found myself face to face with a giant cloud...thing.  Whatever it was, it seemed to be a demon.  It was a single large cloud, but with several smaller clouds radiating from it like arms and legs.  On the large cloud was simply two devilish glowing eyes.  In the twilight, these eyes shone brightly on me.  It scared me, those eyes.  A voice--assumably this creature's voice--spoke in my head.  Its voice was low and rumbling, kinda like thunder.  "Little dragon, I am Nightmerrio.  Welcome, little dragon, to your worst nightmare."  The voice had been quiet, but I knew it wasn't friendly.

For all I've described, though, I truly only was held before Nightmerrio for a mere ten seconds before the worst possible thing happened.  The cloud creature slightly squinted his eyes.  Suddenly, the glove whirled me around and--to my horror--let go.  I flew away and away before finally gravity took hold of my body and brought me shooting down towards the earth like a comet.

Description
- The Adventures of Dreyfus and Neshae 4 - Call of the Gods -

Chapter 1: Dreyfus in Wonderland

My name is Dreyfus Vandolin III.  I am a pretty tall 16-year old boy, with lush brown hair and shining brown eyes to compliment my French skin.  If this were any old story that's what you'd probably be told.  Well, there's more to my description than that little bit of info.  I am not just any boy--I am a dracotherianthrope boy, a shape-shifting dragon.  Since the day I was born I have had violet fur with a white ring around my neck.  I have stood on paws and hooves--paws on my forelimbs, hooves on my hindlimbs; and I have looked through eyes topping an orange head, white spots around my eyes and a white stripe along my nasal cavity.  I have licked my lips many times with my long, slender blue tongue; I have bonked my head many times thanks to my large antler rack; and I have many a time yelped when somebody stepped on my long, twisting purple tail and its whale fluke striped with orange and white.  By now, the calls and roars of my people have been familiarized and accepted within the community I live in.

But I am not always looking like a dragon.  Being the special kind of dragon that I am, I can change my shape to resemble animals and demons alike.  By simply biting somebody and devouring their soul I can replicate their appearance--temporarily, but all the same a useful trick.  Fortunately, though, I don't need souls to transform into five specific forms or mix and match with them; as good as souls taste, I don't think people like it when I snack on them.  I can turn into a human boy, whose description of you heard already.  I can also turn into a nimble deer, a shady kitsune, a howling wolf, and a bulky orca.  Most of the time though, unless I'm somewhere where people aren't used to my kind, I socialize in public in a mixture of the five forms.  Pretty similar to my human form, but with some differences.  From my head protrudes two antler stubs--not to mention a blowhole concealed by my hair.  My ears are large and powerful, as they are those of a deer.  Sticking out from under my upper lip are two long canines, which I use to suck a soul out of an individual.  I walk on my toes--rather, hooves--instead of the typical plantigrade style of humans.  And lastly, my two kitsune tails quiver this way and that from my rump.

To top it all off, my kind also has elemental powers.  I have been born with the power of ice, and as you may see in my following tale my ice powers have many uses.  I'll save you all from a long introduction, however, and leave my description at that.

It all started almost two years since my first adventure with my spiritual brother, Neshae.  I had always had a large imagination, but little would I know that on the eve of a warm May night I would be thrust into a land beyond my greatest dreams; a land of nightmares, from which it was a struggle just for beings to survive.  The story you are about to hear is the story of my and Neshae's adventure through this land of nightmares.

-

Mother's Day was coming up and I couldn't wait.  My mother was more dear to me than anybody in the whole wide world; the cow-like dragon was that great.  In only a few days, the day to celebrate her would arrive.  I was going to make for her a great seafood dinner; maybe even an ice statue if I wanted to go the distance.

This was all that was in my mind as I dropped onto all fours, sprouted my purple fur from my French-colored body, stretched my long neck, and curled up on my blanket.  Shape-shifting took up energy, and it was always a relief to remove my mask and just be a dragon again.  As I prepared for sleep I stretched, opened my sharply toothed mouth wide, and made a great big yawn.  Boy, was I tired!

Shortly after my head hit the floor I was almost in complete slumber.  I didn't struggle to stay awake; the night was for rest, and I welcomed it with a smile.  But as the last bits of reality were replaced by the clouds of dreams and Dreamio began to cast his spell of slumber on me, something changed.  The darkness of my shut eyelids turned into a dark crimson.  My last moments of being awake screamed at the horrors that grew in an on-coming nightmare, but I was far too drowzy to truly react.  Instead, I did what my body told me to do and fell into a nightmare of a rest.

-

My eyes jumped open with a start as the sinister nightmare became more and more real.  And to my shock, it was real.  Opening my eyes did not save me from the dark shadows that roamed about in this crimson abyss.  "Mom!" I called, but nobody could hear me.  I wasn't even in the same world, probably.  Nothing like this existed on Earth.  Dark shadows crept ever closer, empty eyes fixed on my icy flesh.  Scrambling for an escape, I shrunk into a kitsune and played my own shadow games.  Maybe, I thought, if I can see what these things are, I can figure out a way to escape!  Being the demon fox I was, I drained myself from the real world and watched as reality flipped upside-down.  I was my shadow and my shadow was my body.  Real objects turned gray and two-dimensional as shadows became real and lifelike.  And so I saw my stalkers.

Both were in white cloaks, masking their identities.  They wore African tribal masks--or at least, I think African tribal masks--which chilled me to the bone (and that's saying a lot!).  "Who are you?" I asked.

"We are the Reapers, gatekeepers of your worst nightmares," they echoed back.

"And why have you come to me?"

"Oh shadow fox, we have come to haul you away.  In that we shall succeed, no doubt."

I jumped a bit.  "Take me away?" I gulped.  "What did I ever do to you guys?"  The Reapers made no reply.  They simply lashed out and pinned my poor little fox body down.  With little effort they pushed me through my shadow and back into reality.  And as shadows, they held me by my defenseless shadow.  I struggled a little, but decided that if I was going to have to fight I ought to save my strength for more powerful forms.*

Creeping up towards me from the crimson abyss was--it couldn't be anything else--a giant glove.  It was ghost white, without dust on it or anything.  No hand made the glove its home--it just flew towards me slowly.  I struggled a bit more, but did my best not to panic.  Panic would only lead to more trouble.

Suddenly, though, just as the glove was upon me the Reapers released my shadow and I bolted.  Growing into my quick deer form, I galloped for all it was worth.  My efforts were pointless, though, and the glove quickly caught up to me and snatched me into the air.  I could only hang there helplessly as it dragged me back to where it had come.

-

Through clouds and mist, the glove flew onwards and onwards.  After a while, though, it broke through the clouds only to greet me with a purple twilight sky.  I looked down and gulped.  The ground was so far down that I could hardly see it.  I was no doubt very high in the stratosphere (maybe higher!).  The hazy sky had only one thing in it:  a small cloud.  But as the glove took me farther and farther out, I came to realize that it wasn't a small cloud but instead a very big cloud--the size of a castle--that was just far away.  Within moments the glove was passing by a wall with a large iron gate preventing casual entry to this castle of clouds.  It flew around the castle a few times and then started rising towards the cloudy roof.  As I spun, I swore I could hear a faint, hard-to-hear "help" from somewhere nearby.  But it was only once.

The glove finally came to a grinding halt.  I found myself face to face with a giant cloud...thing.  Whatever it was, it seemed to be a demon.  It was a single large cloud, but with several smaller clouds radiating from it like arms and legs.  On the large cloud was simply two devilish glowing eyes.  In the twilight, these eyes shone brightly on me.  It scared me, those eyes.  A voice--assumably this creature's voice--spoke in my head.  Its voice was low and rumbling, kinda like thunder.  "Little dragon, I am Nightmerrio.  Welcome, little dragon, to your worst nightmare."  The voice had been quiet, but I knew it wasn't friendly.

For all I've described, though, I truly only was held before Nightmerrio for a mere ten seconds before the worst possible thing happened.  The cloud creature slightly squinted his eyes.  Suddenly, the glove whirled me around and--to my horror--let go.  I flew away and away before finally gravity took hold of my body and brought me shooting down towards the earth like a comet.