“You gotta let me win, but make it look close,” Geeku muttered to me as he waved his hands over his head and worked the crowd, who were still chanting about arboreal challenges. “I’ll move da mob east, but if I lose, we have to fight, and you’ll be da new chief.”

  This was interesting news. Did I really want to take control of a warband of seven-foot-tall, battlemad lunatics? Sure, why the hell not?

  “What are the tree trials?” I quietly asked him.

  “Breaking, climbing, an’ pissin’.”

  “I accept the three trials!” I yelled out. “If I win, we move against the Dwarves!” I boomed out, even louder than Geeku. The self-proclaimed Super-Cyan glanced at me nervously.

  A series of massive logs was quickly fetched over from the camp, and I realised that while there were indeed three of them, the trials were very much tree-themed. One log was two feet wide and nearly fifty feet long. It took dozens of Orlics, straining with the thing on their shoulders, to lug it over and tip one end into a hastily dug hole. The next log was thinner, merely a foot wide, and considerably shorter. It was laid across four large stones set equidistant beneath it. A single scrawny-looking Orlic was dragging the final log, and it was a stripling in comparison to the others. This one was also placed vertically, rising perhaps fifteen feet high.

  “First! Da climb!” Geeku yelled, and the crowd cheered. It had swelled somewhat in size, as the trunks had been brought out of the camp; they had attracted a lot of attention, and now the fifty or so onlookers from before had swelled to hundreds. As ever, when a crowd gathers, people trying to sell them food appear out of the ether.

  I walked over to the nearest organic snack machine while Geeku worked the mob up into a frenzy and paid a few coppers for some lumps of meat on a stick. I wasn’t too confident about the food hygiene standards that the Orlic might employ, but I ate shit whole, including whatever I had eaten's own shit, so I was probably safe. The meat was hot and spicy, and the juices dribbled down my chin as I devoured the surprisingly pleasant snack.

  “You ever need a cooking job, give me a shout, dude,” I offered as I headed back to Geeku, earning a confused look before I turned away.

  “Da climb is easy,” he whispered as we squared off on either side of the most massive log. “First to da top wins.”

  “And how do we know when to start-” I began to ask, only to be slapped in the face so hard my head snapped to the side. In the fraction of a second it took me to recover, Geeku was already swarming up the log, fingers digging grooves in the wood as he hauled himself up like an oversized green squirrel. Most unsporting!

  I shifted my fingers and toes to end in claws and took a standing jump. I latched onto the former tree about three-quarters of the way to the top and, with a pair of lunging jumps that threw splinters to the ground from my claws biting deep into the wood, and, more importantly, splinters into Geeku’s shocked eyes, I arrived at the top and sat down on the flattened pinnacle. I surveyed the stunned crowd as Geeku arrived and latched onto one of my ankles.

  He yanked at me, and I dug my claws in to hold myself in place. He came free and ended up dangling from my leg with both hands. I leaned back and raised my leg, lime-green ankle weight and all, until I could see Geeku’s worried face.

  “I guess I have to knock you off as well?” He frantically shook his head.

  “Well, I do owe you for cheating. Cheating is a bit like stealing, and I really don’t like thieves.” My other foot lashed out and struck his broad chest, sending him tumbling to the ground, where he bounced and rolled into the crowd. I jumped down and landed lightly before striding over to offer him a hand up.

  “An honourable bout. Which one is next?” He hauled himself up and grinned toothily at me. I could do it better, but that wasn’t part of this competition.

  “Breakin’,” he called out loud, lifting my hand above his head. “Dat ‘urt me pride, Bob,” he muttered more quietly. “Lemme win!”

  “Sure thing, Geeku. Sure thing.”

  Breakin’ turned out to be, well, breaking. We were given sections at opposite ends of the log. Our task was to break our section into as many chunks as possible and then cut the middle piece with a karate chop to mark a victory.

  A wizened Orlic, more machine than living thing with his synthetic limbs and eyes, moved to stand at the center of the log. Geeku moved to the far end, and sparks rose up from his shoulders as he psyched himself up. He caressed the bottom of his right hand like a lumberjack oiling a hatchet.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  I shaped the bottom of my hand into a razor's edge of hardened chitin. Shapeshifting was very much underappreciated by the wider world, it seemed, and I was going to abuse their ignorance like a rental car.

  The Elder raised his right arm up to the vertical, then let it drop with a bellow. Geeku started battering at the log, each blow making the whole length vibrate. His chops soon started to split the wood, and after half a dozen blows, there was a loud crack, and his log fell. The short section at the end bounced upwards, and he snatched it from the air and tossed it over his shoulder.

  Now it got harder for him; the next section was less elevated, and the force of his blows was being diffused by the lack of solid backing the log now had. He struggled on, occasional lumps of wood lying over his shoulder as I considered the problem. My end of the log had risen considerably, hovering above the stones.

  My first blow was easy. The edge of green flesh that had been hardened to bone sliced through cleanly in one blow. I made a mental note to use shapeshifting for this kind of thing more often. My entire wrist was currently locked solid by the artificial bone lining the bottom, but I could see some ways to combine this with Dragon-Fu to really up my game. Spiky chitin knuckledusters immediately sprang to mind.

  I’d positioned my left foot under the log to catch it as it fell, and my heel sank into the dirt, but my upturned foot had also been turned into a bony protrusion and held the log aloft easily. Another swipe and I had another half-foot wide chunk of firewood, and I’d crossed my legs to repeat my foot trick with my right leg. I blurred down the log, leaving cleanly sliced wood in my wake before Geeku could batter half of his section into large, broken chunks of kindling.

  I strolled casually into the central section and lazily swatted the middle of the log into two. The crowd had gone quiet as I saw-milled my way along. They erupted into cheers as I slashed the middle of the log, and Geeku snarled in frustration.

  “You can’t cheat on this one, dra-bruv!” he snarled at me. I gave him a green grin in reply. I was willing to bet I could.

  He led me to the thinnest of the branches and waited expectantly. He mugged at me and made hand gestures around his middle that made me want to eat him. What the fuck did he want me to do?

  “Challenger goes first. So go on, piss.”

  “You want me to pee on this log?”

  “Yeah, highest wins! Dis is da most important one. Let me win dis, and we’re good!”

  “I couldn’t possibly go before such a champion on the most important trial! I will permit the boss to go first, as befits his honour!” I announced loudly.

  There was some muttering, broken up by the calls of the vendors, but it was mostly supportive. I saw more heads nodding than shaking. Geeku, for all his very obvious faults, had earned the respect of these fierce people.

  “Fine. I’ll show da outsider how it’s done.”

  I have struck the memories from my mind, but the gist of it was that a stream of highly acidic orange justice splashed against the beam about nine feet from the ground. I’ve never seen wood smoke from someone peeing on it. Orlic biology was intriguing, but realistically, I had no wish to learn any more about it.

  “Are there any other rules I need to know about?” I asked when he was finally done.

  “Nah, start with yer feet flat, you can go on tiptoes if ya want. Dat’s it. You’ll never beat me stream, dragon.”

  “Only rule is to start with my feet flat on the ground?” He nodded, and I started to cogitate. Could I adjust my biology enough to turn the danglies into a power hose? I suspected I could, but the risk-benefit didn’t feel good to me. I had a vision of the most delicate part of my anatomy exploding like an over-pressurized tire hitting a curb, and while it wouldn’t be an issue when I switched back to my true body, I suspected it might sting more than a little.

  I glanced around. This kind of exhibitionism was way outside of my comfort zone, but I did what was necessary and initiated the process with a confidence that human-me would have found impossible to feign.

  The arc soared upwards, depressingly lower than Geeku had achieved, but then I leapt upwards, tracking my victory all the way to the top of the beam before I fell back to the ground and returned myself to decency.

  Geeku lunged at me, but half a dozen members of the crowd interceded and blocked his path.

  “Dragon-bruv cheated!” he snarled at me.

  “I followed the rules.” I shrugged casually, further enraging him. His hair rose up, and sparks began to fly. The crowd pulled back as his chest heaved up and down, muscles expanding. He even grew slightly taller.

  “I’m going to finish this right now!” he growled.

  “Are you sure you want to do the ‘final form’ bullshit again?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. His hair fell down, and his body returned to normal.

  “Yer da new chief,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

  “Pardon?”

  “Bob is da new chief!” he declared loudly, bitterness dripping from his voice.

  “Excellent. First order of business: Geeku is in charge! A mighty hero should lead this warband! Secondly: fuck off to the west. I want loot!” A roar went up from the crowd, and Geeku had perked up when I announced he was still in charge. “I want mountains for dwarven treasure! Come back here in three months' time with the loot! We’ll share it out and, uh, have a barbecue!”

  “What’s a barbaku?” asked one of my new minions.

  “A feast!” The crowd roared in approval. Thank god for that. Was it morally good to send this mob of crazies off to the east to mess with the dwarves? Maybe not, but they were the endpoint of the pixie slave trade. I was too busy, for now, to go deal with the supply side of that particular problem, so I could use these assholes to handle the demand end of the equation. Two birds killed with one band of green psychotics.

  “The wedding will be tomorrow, then we march!” Geeku declared with an evil grin.

  “The what?”