Swapped Life, Flipped Life - Chapter 2

Swapped Life, Flipped Life - Chapter 2 by Ryu Darragh

As I flew north into what had been Cathderal I could see the building itself. It was truly enormous and far grander than the original SL version of itself. When I got closer I saw a grey-blue dot coming toward me. A dapper dragon in a pinstripe suit and rose colored specs. It had to be Teravus.

When he saw me he stopped and said "Ryu! What did you do?" "Me?" I replied, "Heh. Well, I'm glad to see you too, Teravus." I said with a smile. I filled Teravus in on what had happened and what we suspected was the cause. He was relieved to learn the others had made it, but had no idea where Onix and Daryth were.

"We'll find them." I said. With a bit of practice, Teravus easily mastered the technique needed to undo a bad transformation and we scoured the northern regions of the Isles for black and red auras. After we had found six individuals and restored them we returned to the cathedral and landed by the doors.

"Well," began Teravus, "this is going to be one strange adventure. Have you tried any other tricks to see if we have any other abilities?” he asked. “Yes.” I replied. “We seem to be able to teleport, fly, obviously, and, if I’m not mistaken, change shape.”

“Cool, cool.” smiled Teravus, “let’s go see the others.” We flew back to Limbo and met with Kalira and Talarus. Sure enough, to prove my surmise, there was Jacob, staring at hands that had grown much larger and were now rather scaly and light blue in color.

We all had a laugh at that as Jacob slowly changed into a storm dragon while Jacob looked rather nonplussed. “I did not do this. It just started happening, but, somehow seems right. Does that make sense?” Jacob asked. “Yes. Makes perfect sense to me.” said Kalira.

As we talked, a fire Wyrmling came up to the group and said in a plaintive voice, “Hi. Sorry to disturb. I’m getting rather hungry. Is there anything to eat?” This was going to be a problem. “We’ll see what we can do.” Said a bumblebee colored Asian dragon walking up to us. “Onix! You made it!” said Teravus.

“Yes. Surprisingly. Daryth is here as well talking with a few of the others. Helena and Sam and Lizard. Seems everyone we knew and more are here.” Onix said.

“And food is going to be a problem.” Said Kalira. “Maybe not!” came a voice from above as a golden phoenix dragon landed near us. “What do you mean, Sky?” I asked. “Come see!” he replied.

We followed Skylarian and landed on a hilltop some distance from Limbo. And saw to what he referred. “Oh, great. Cows..” grumped Kalira. After we had stopped laughing, Talarus said “You’re the cow expert, Kalira. I guess you’ll be manager of this herd, now.” Talarus said with a smile. Kalira glared at him a second, then started to laugh as well. “Well, I always wanted to manage a ranch my way.. perfect chance.” she said.

We selected a few cows and Talarus and I dispatched them with carefully measured shots, then sliced them up into manageable sides of beef to make transporting the meat back to Limbo easier.

Kalira looked at the pile of stomach and intestines and said “You’d better dispose of that. Any predators that may exist here will come to investigate and I don’t think incinerating it will be a good idea, either.”

I looked at Talarus and remembered the incident with the stone. “Bon appetite, Talarus.” I said. Talarus looked at me quizzically for a second so I opened my mouth and did the blue matter absorbing cloud trick and “ate” half the pile. It was quite a rush, all that energy. I felt 5 meters tall and ready to tackle anything.

Talarus smiled, nodded, and did the same. Kalira made an “Ewww..” sound so I explained to her “We eat energy and matter is just crystallized energy. Surprisingly tasty. We don’t eat the guts. We convert it to energy and eat the energy.”

“Still not my cup of tea.” Kalira said looking askance at Talarus and me.

When we had carried all the meat back to Limbo and fed all the hungry dragons we met in the center and talked for a while. Toward dusk someone finally asked the one unanswered question, “Where are all our friends and loved ones? Did they make it, too?”

I stood and said “I’d like to speak. I know you all miss your families and I miss Kath and my brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces.. I believe they all made it through. I have been getting a really strong feeling, more like a beacon, that says my Kath is that way..” I pointed east and north “and my sister and the rest of my family are that way..” I pointed north and west.

“If you search your hearts I think you’ll feel it too.” I finished. Some of those gathered looked liked they were concentrating and Stripey smiled and said “Yes! I feel them!”. Several others also chimed in with happy voices.

“What are you going to do, Ryu?” asked Daryth. “I’m going to fund Kath,” I replied. “Good. Hurry back!” said Daryth and several of the others.

I lifted, concentrated and changed from an anthro dragon into a more streamlined dolphinesque teardrop shape. “I can exceed the speed of sound in this shape and once I have been somewhere, I can teleport back there. All of us that can shape this way will do this and bring others there the same way. We’ll all be reunited with our families soon.” I told the group.

“In the meantime, I fly to find my love. Blessings be, everyone!” I said as I started to power up. The group wished me safe journeys as I left. I’d be back. This was my home, as much as the land I owned, where Kath was waiting.

~end