Ruvius Inkweaver meandered absently into Sarannas’ office.

Sarannas eyed him with exasperation, “anything new to report Ruvius?”

“Um, oh, er yes, that snake thing that the New Town guild sent us for evaluation,” answered Ruvius as he gazed blankly at his assistant guildmaster.

Sarannas sighed, “yes Ruvius, what about it. The sea serpent right.”

“Um, er... well the thing was young, we could tell by the skeleton that it had not finished growing, oh and it has lungs as well as gills.”

Sarannas fumed silently, getting a complete report from this idiot was like pulling teeth. “So it can venture ashore for a while and it might grow a bit more, anything else?”

Ruvius blinked at her in confusion, “no, no it could double in size and it would be fully at home on land, it’s basically a snake. Nasty poison too.”

“Wait a minute, that thing was twenty meters long. Are you saying it could reach forty meters?”

“Oh at least, maybe fifty. Its scales aren’t enchanted but they have some strange material woven through them that makes them very strong and somewhat flexible too,” Ruvius finished with a grin of satisfaction.

“So when can I have your official report on this new dungeon monster.”

Ruvius looked confused as he frantically searched his memory, “Err... what new dungeon monster?”

Sarannas sighed again, “the snake, the gigantic sea snake!”

“But... but it isn’t... it doesn’t have the receptors that allow a dungeon evolved monster to use a dungeon’s domain and mana to overcome the inherent incompatibilities that inhibit a viable...” Ruvius paused on seeing Sarannas’ eyes glaze. “It’s a reptile, a normal animal, if you dropped in Garonmouth... um... it wouldn’t fit, but outside town it would thrive,” he finished with a beaming smile.

Sarannas closed her eyes for a moment seeking patience then after double-checking to assure herself that Ruvius had divulged all he knew she dismissed him with a renewed demand for a written report.

Ruvius left Sarannas’s office turned right and wandered along for a while before stopping, looking vaguely around, turning round and walking past her office once again on his way to his lab.

Not long after guildmaster Sofos Ironfist came close to exploding. “Right that does it! Upgrade that damn dungeon, if it can create new races then... Arrgh, rerate it Godlike.”

* * *

Sreecator and Zashaan were soon back in the Blue Lagoon dungeon where as a first order of business they sought out the dungeon’s Voice. Despite his last visit Sreecator had not expected Alessandrina.

Grumbling to himself about eccentric dungeons and gods who were over fond of secrets and enjoyed surprising his followers Sreecator set about explaining his mission.

“So Creevar wants some man-rats of his own. Mary might agree if her man-rats agree but all the man-rats currently worship Ocidon. Mary says we need to confer with a priest of Ocidon, ideally either Danilus Oakborn or Altor Seaswept.

The meeting took an hour to arrange and both Danilus and Altor were present together with a scribe in the special meeting room under the fort.

The Voice opened the meeting by stating Mary’s views. “If Creevar can locate and provide a spell, enchantment or potion that will enable the man-rats achieve human or near human size for a limited time then Mary Silvestre as the Blue Lagoon Dungeon would agree to introduce a number of man-rats to Creevar or one of his representatives. The man-rats would be urged but not forced to accept Creevar’s offer.”

Altor spoke for Ocidon, “the man-rats all worship Ocidon, Ocidon is willing for the ones under discussion to worship Creevar so long as they can still worship him.”

Sreecator listened to his god, “Creevar agrees so long as you give him three years to find this enchantment. Creevar would need at least forty man-rats.”

The Voice smiled, “Mary says that she considers a promise from a god to be binding so she will have fifty man-rats ready to hear Creevar’s offer in one weeks time.”

Danilus, Altor and Sreecator stated, “Agreed!” almost as one.

* * * INTERLUDE * * *

As Mary parked her jeep in Kahului Airport’s main car park she thanked her lucky stars that the work on the parking areas seemed to have almost finished. She fed a bit more of that – mana – well, Bluey said it was mana, so why not believe him, into the anti-theft and anti-vandalism – spell, no not spell, enchantment. She wished ill of any sticky fingered mal-intentioned being that touched her prize.

She walked towards the terminal and smiled as she passed Flip’s Chevrolet Malibu, in her eyes it somehow seemed to lack character. She continued on her way slightly resenting a Saturday away from the beach but she didn’t often see her father now that he lived in Florida with his new girlfriend and her daughter.

She joined Flip who was waiting patiently in arrivals.

“Hi Sis, sorry for not giving you a lift but with Dad and his new family we wouldn’t have fitted.”

“’K Flip, I agree. Um... any of your friends changed?”

Flip sighed deeply, “Yeah, Morry’s gotten thinner and taller and his ears are long and pointed, even his hair’s changing colour. He’s in the hospital panicking.”

“’K, an’ the CDC an’ the feds’ll be runnin’ round like headless chickens. They’ll soon figure out everyone involved got it at the Con, then they’ll panic. A potentially infectious... Hey look there’s dad!” And Mary started waving.

“Flip we’ll havta be careful what we say to the feds.”

“Yeah sis, we’ll say as little as we can get away with.”

* * *

Meanwhile, in Atlanta at the HQ of the CDC a neatly dressed man walked briskly down a corridor and rapped at a door.

“Come in Dr Jones.”

“Morning sir, you wanted to see me?”

The grey haired man behind the desk gestured at a bulging folder on his desk as he asked his visitor to sit.

“Got a weird one for you Jones, there have been over fifty cases over the last few days of people undergoing extreme morphological changes, the worrying part is they all attended the recent HawaiiCon and in at least two cases infected friends who had not attended. All the information we have is in that, and copies of everything are in the external drive that is also in there. Get your team up and running and take charge of this case please.”

Dr Jones shuddered, his son had attended that con and was currently flying back to Atlanta with his mother.

“Yes sir, I’ll get right on it, anything else of note?”

“Most of the attendees we have interviewed are having hallucinatory episodes, they complain of seeing blue screens.”