The journey through the jungle was a lot more complicated than Jake had thought it would be. Out of the water, most of the Kobolds showed how worn down they were. In the early morning, they finally arrived at the giant tree, and by then, Jake was carrying four Kobolds on his back.

Jake staggered out of the jungle line and saw Bolyr rush towards him with a few other Kobolds behind. The blue armed Kobold had a weary look on his face, and a fresh wound along his cheek.

"Jake! It is good that you are back. We need to talk."

Jake looked behind Bolyr, towards the tree and the cabins, and noticed only very few Kobolds were around. The bad feeling from seeing the wound on Bolyr's face worsened. "Where is Mason?"

Bolyr looked at him and shook his head, a pained expression crossing his face.

--

Jake stared at Mason's shuddering form, lying on his back next to a cabin. A black spot lay next to him, and Jake recognized it immediately. Bolyr had told him that Emma was sleeping in the cabin behind it. Although she wasn't changing yet, it wouldn't be that long now. Tir and Ter were with her and would warn them if anything happened.

"Sandra started almost right after you left, and halfway through Mason began."

Trying to suppress his burning desire to jump into Mason's mind and talk with him, Jake shook his head. "Where are the others?"

Bolyr waved at the jungle behind them. "The purple one, Mell'iss a? She is out hunting with Tergin and a few others. The rest are either sleeping or getting more wood for huts, and-.

Mason’s groan caused Bolyr to fall silent. The muscular golden and red Kobold arched up until he only touched the ground with his shoulders and heels. Jake jumped forward, pressing his clawed hands on his friend's chest, jumping inside his friend's mind.

The world changed into an inferno of golden and red flames, Mason struggling against the pull of a colossal whirlpool of red and gold behind him.

"Finally! Took you long enough!" Mason's roaring voice was reduced to a soft whisper, but Jake was shocked that he could even get his voice through the insane suction.

"You had better find your way back to me! No matter what happens here, I will stay on this island! Don't die, don't get lost, don't stay and get married! Come find me, or I will grow old and die here, you bloody fool!" Jake almost choked on his own words, but the resolute nod his friend gave stopped him. Unless Mason died, he would find him.

"See you soon!" Mason's voice drowned away as he stopped resisting and got pulled inside the whirlpool.

A powerful mental shove ejected him out of the mindscape, and Jake staggered back a few steps. He stared at horror at Mason's body as it slowly turned black as tar and began melting away. You had better take care of yourself!

--

He had been struggling for hours now, and Mason felt the other consciousness continue to resist him. Didn't Jake say that it went easy and voluntarily? As he pushed against the invisible bonds trying to hold him inside the inner regions of this body's mindscape, he felt something give. With a mental roar and a last shove, he crushed the other's resistance and felt its consciousness splinter.

Hastily he absorbed the memories before they could dissipate to god knows where. A stream of memories and sensations began finding a place between his own, expanding his consciousness, and he wondered if this was what drugs did.

Parts of himself, of how he thought about things, began changing as he felt the other's, young but powerful desires merge with his. When it finally stopped, he felt odd and out of balance. Panic tickled the back of his mind, but the unbalanced feeling didn't last long. All of a sudden, everything in his mind seemed to click like a puzzle, and he felt whole—more whole than ever before.

Carefully he examined his body; it didn't feel new but familiar like a well-fitting old trouser. The first thing he noticed was the overwhelming hunger and an annoying gnawing in his stomach. Opening his eyes, he stared at the ground in front of him. He was lying stretched out on a large slab of black porous material. Red glowing fissures ran all along its length and pushing himself up he saw he was lying on an outcrop in the middle of a crater.

Let me guess. It's a volcano! Mason snorted as he realized the previous mind had only thought of the place as 'warm and safe.' Sitting down, he inspected his body quickly; it had changed when he took control. Most of the red scales his new memories told him should be there were gone. They had changed into a light golden color with red borders. The few that remained red seemed to form patterns. Mason grinned as he stared at the back of his golden scaled arm,

"Can't wait to show Jake. I look better than him again!" With a wide grin on his face, Mason moved towards the side of the outcrop. Ten meters below him was the hot glowing eye of the volcano. Even from this distance, he could feel the heat on his plated face. Even with his improved scales, he knew that he wasn't capable of going in. The lava would burn his scales off. He had to eat and grow in strength before that would change.

Looking up he was surprised to see it was night, stars twinkling between the thin; softly glowing cloud cover. Strangely enough, he could see just fine, although everything beyond the glow of the lava was tinged orange. Taking a quick look around, he saw there was nothing else of interest. As his stomach growled again, he snorted. His hunger would have to wait a bit. Even with night vision, he wasn't going out hunting in the dark. First, he needed more information. He moved back to where he had woken up and began working through the memories that he had gained.

It didn't take long because there wasn't that much, but most of it was bad. So no siblings for me. Mason felt a stab of pain when he realized he had not managed to protect them. Images of giant two-headed birds, ripping the eggs apart, flashed through his mind. A surge of grief that quickly turned to a boiling, blistering anger caused him to roar at the sky.

Deep down, he knew it wasn't his anger and pain, but he couldn't separate it anymore.

Hosts of red energy rushed towards him like fireflies, and he felt a burning, itching sensation at the back of this throat. He tried to dislodge it, roaring louder while scraping his throat. A torrent of fire rushed out of his maw, lighting up the entire volcano. Like a small infernal twister, it rotated and slammed against the wall. Parts of black rock exploded outwards while the center turned orange and began to melt.

A few seconds later, the hunger caught up with his anger, and the fire disappeared. Drawing a few breaths, Mason grinned a weary grin. He knew from his memories that the other had not been able to do this yet.

"Look ma! I'm an honest to god fire breathing Dragon now!" Grinning at his own lame joke, Mason began racking through the rest of the memories he had inherited.

After a restless sleep, Mason woke up to the pain of an empty stomach, and a stone lodged into his loin. With a grunt, he got up and saw that the sky above was turning grey, an indication that it would be a day soon. He spread his wings and jumped up while flapping. A second later, he passed over the hot air current that began pushing him up and out of the volcano.

Shooting out of the volcano, he already knew what to expect, but the sight of the dismal black island shocked him nonetheless. A dark and dangerous sea surrounded a black ring of cooled down lava stone, which was the only thing surrounding the volcano. There were no plants or trees, and from his memories, he knew the only water came from a small spring on a similar island a little distance away.

Without bothering to look around, Mason headed in the direction of the other island. This is not going to be a cakewalk, walk in the park, or anything else involving walking or cake, he sighed, wondering if he would even make it to the other island.