"Dope!" Metria screamed. "That's Nada!"

Startled, Dolph choked back his fire and changed to serpent form, matching the species of the other. He felt backed-up smoke sifting between his teeth; he had changed form, but it hadn't. He coughed.

Nada appeared in her natural form: a serpent with her human head. "Dolph!" she exclaimed gladly.

He changed again, to his human form. "Nada! I almost—"

She became human. "I know!" Then they embraced.

Somewhere in the background he heard a lesser dialogue: "Sammy! You found help!"

"Meow." Dolph was no longer in feline form, so could no longer understand cat talk, but it wasn't hard to guess. Sammy never uttered two words where one would do.

Then he became aware of several things. The first was that they were both naked, because their clothes didn't change with them. The second was that Nada was the most wonderful armful of woman he could imagine, especially this way. He had never before gotten to hug her like this, for reasons that had to do with his mother's odd notions of propriety. The third was that they were not alone.

He looked around. He saw nine pairs of eyes focusing on him, belonging to four goblins, one Betrothee, one centaur foal, one elf, one demoness, and one cat. The eyes of the cat didn't bother him; he knew Sammy didn't care. That left—well, he wasn't sure how many eyes, math not being his strong point, but he knew it was about eight pairs too many.

"Uh, let's change to naga form," he murmured in her ear.

Nada glanced around. Her lovely lips pursed. She turned naga. He followed, so that they were twined together but relatively sanitary.

"Uh, what's going on here?" he asked, still somewhat at a loss, and not just because of the strangers he saw.

"The Adult Conspiracy forbids an answer," Metria replied. "If she had had panties on, we would have had to lock you up and swallow the key."

Nada's head turned to cover the demoness. "And who is she?"

"Uh, she's Metria," Dolph faltered. "Demoness Metria. She—"

"I see." For now the demoness had assumed a form even more luscious than Nada's, which was a feat only a supernatural creature could accomplish, and she surely couldn't maintain it for long.

"She just appeared!" he protested. "She said she needed—"

"I can guess."

"Oh come on, Nada," Electra said. "You know he loves only you."

Nada was taken aback. "You mean I was getting jealous? Woe is me!" Then she laughed.

Dolph suspected that she was teasing him, but he wasn't sure. He also didn't know how to respond to Electra's remark, because of course Electra was the one who loved him. So he got away from that subject as fast as his tongue could take him. "I mean, who are these goblins?"