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The bright amber light faded from Vur’s vision, and he looked around before glancing down at the dog held underneath his arm. “Where are the bears?”
“There’s one right behind you,” Sir Selddup said.
Vur turned his head around, and Ashley met his gaze. The Light Lord rolled her eyes. “Puddles has a bad sense of humor,” she said.
“Oh.” Vur tilted his head to the side. “Why are you following me?”
“I’m not following you,” Ashley said and pointed at the white dog. “I’m following my pet to make sure he doesn’t make a mess. There are fines for not picking up after your dog.”
Sir Selddup snapped at the Light Lord, his teeth clicking and clacking as he bit at the air. “You’re the one who makes a mess wherever you go,” he said. “The tower’s going to be chaotic now, and it’s all your fault: you shouldn’t have lost to Vur.”
Ashley shook her head. “I won’t argue with a regular old dog,” she said. Her root bracelet flashed amber, and a cloak appeared in her hands. She put it on, hood included, obscuring her face from view. “Don’t mind me; you can pretend like I’m not even here—like how you did earlier when you dognapped Puddles.”
Vur blinked and glanced down at the white dog he was holding. “She called you Puddles.”
“Coincidentally, that’s the title of one of the chapters in the autobiography I’m writing,” Sir Selddup said. “Let’s ignore that stuff and move on to the bears. Do you know how the eleventh floor works?”
Vur shook his head.
“Well,” Sir Selddup said. “It’s a wide, open space with all sorts of things. It’s like the tower collected bits and pieces of land here and there from different dimensions and cobbled them all together, so the terrain is like a giant mishmash of different regions.”
“And some of those regions have bears,” Vur said, nodding his head. “Which way?”
“Well, that depends on the type of bear you want to eat,” Sir Selddup said and licked his lips. “I recommend black bears; they’re tastier than the other kinds of bears. If you head east from here, you’ll find them soon enough.”
Vur nodded and placed Sir Selddup on the ground. Then, he pointed at the dog and said, “Polymorph.”
Sir Selddup eyes widened, and he yelped as his body expanded. He grew larger, and a pair of white, leathery wings extended out of his back. “What?” he asked and turned his head to look at his back. “What? Are these wings?” He furrowed his brow and reached forward to touch his newly obtained wing, flinching upon making contact. “Why are they furless and scaled?”
Vur shrugged. “Habit,” he said and jumped on top of Sir Selddup, vaulting over the large dog’s head. He sat down just behind Sir Selddup’s head, sitting on the scruff of the dog’s neck.
“Excuse me,” Sir Selddup said, staring at Vur with his head turned. “What are you doing?”
Vur blinked. He glanced down at himself before raising his head to meet Sir Selddup’s gaze. “Riding,” Vur said.
Sir Selddup frowned. “What kind of dragon rides a dog?”
“Me.”
Sir Selddup stared at Vur for a bit, but it was too difficult for the dog to come up with a response, so, instead, Sir Selddup looked at Ashley, who was climbing up his hindleg. “You’re not allowed on.”
“That’s what I said about my couch, but you never listened,” Ashley said as she sat on the dog’s back and gripped onto its furry body. “Now you’ll know how I felt.”
“A couch is different from a dog!”
“Not by that much,” Ashley said and used her thighs to hold onto Sir Selddup’s back. “They’re both property.”
“Do you see why I call her a bad owner?” Sir Selddup asked Vur before shaking his furry head. He leapt into the air, flapped his wings, and wobbled through the air like a drunken sparrow. He swerved to the side and, with a yelp, careened towards the ground. Sir Selddup tumbled a few times, but Vur and Ashley stayed on the dog’s body despite getting crushed. The fluffy dog spat out a mouthful of dirt. “Alright, this flying stuff is harder than it looks. How about you turn yourself into a dragon, and I ride on top of you?”
Vur pointed at Sir Selddup and said, “Polymorph.”
The dog didn’t shrink down to its original size; instead, its wings receded back into its body, but at the same time, an extra pair of legs grew out of its waist. Like the wings, the legs were scaly and furless, the feet claws with talons, not paws with pads. Sir Selddup furrowed his brow as he twisted his body and looked at his side. “What are you doing to me this time?”
“Since you’re not good at flying, I turned your wings into legs, so you can run faster.”
“More legs doesn’t mean….” Sir Selddup stopped talking and let out a sigh. If he complained about having too many legs, what if Vur turned him into a two-legged dog or, even worse, a human? “Hold on tight.”
Vur squeezed his legs, gripping onto the dog’s neck with his thighs. Sir Selddup barked three times before dashing forward, not using his newly added legs at all. He kept them bent and tucked against his body to prevent them from dragging on the ground.
Ashley inched her way up Sir Selddup’s back, approaching Vur. When she was at the spot where the dog’s wings used to be, she stopped. “So, you removed the requirements for entering different floors to hunt bears?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Vur said. He turned his head to look behind himself. “Didn’t you tell me to pretend you weren’t here?”
Ashley shrugged. “I was curious,” she said. “Didn’t you want to see the other dragons? You don’t have to clear ninety advancement exams to get there now. Why are you hunting bears when you can go to the ninety-first floor?”
“Because hungry,” Vur said, displaying a remarkable mastery of the human language.
“I see,” Ashley said and nodded. “I appreciate you satisfying my curiosity. You can pretend like I don’t exist again.”
“You sure you don’t want to ask him about the dead bat on his head first?” Sir Selddup asked. “Ask him if he wants to share some with me. I love bones.”