Twisted Wish-ters

Kotep poofs two of their friends into a couple of useless stoner genies. Mature.

Above a sea of lotus columns, an impossible number of stars swirled in the purple of the night sky. Below the columns, Rush and Tama followed close at Kotep’s heels. They both guessed that getting lost in the jackal-god’s home was an invitation to get hit by some ironic curse or another.

"This is the hypostyle hall," Kotep said with a sweep of their hand, looking back over their shoulder. "It's where I do festivals, parties, strip clubs—that kind of thing."

Tama was only sort-of listening, but she nodded along. "Sick."

"So how do you fit all this into one pyramid?" asked Rush.

Kotep did their best not to sigh out loud. "This is a temple, not a pyramid. Pyramids are for dead people."

"Wait," Tama said, "You're not dead? I thought you were a mummy or something."

"I'm a god."

Rush asked, "Aren't mummies kinda gods though?"

Kotep didn't bother answering that. Instead, they led their two guests onward, past braziers filled with golden flame spilling light across the open hall, and into a smaller, cozier room, lit by oil lamps that filled the air with fragrance. Several couches surrounded a table spread with grapes and candied dates, roast vegetables and morsels of meat stuck through with ankh-shaped skewers, and sitting in the middle of it all, a tall silver hookah.

Squash and Stretch

Kotep doesn't let getting turned into a big dumb cartoon jackal get in the way of turning their friend into a big dumb cartoon wolf. Mature.

Surprise is an important part of being a jackal trickster god. Why just visit a friend when you can pop down to his apartment unannounced, fill it with magical traps ready to be sprung, and wait for him to stumble in and kick off the fun? The only problem was he didn't have the courtesy to show up on schedule. I'd been waiting for him for twenty minutes now, tipped back in his chair with my feet up on his table. I was bored of debating what to turn him into (maybe a cow, hadn't done that in a while) and had resorted to fiddling with my armbands by the time I decided to get up and get a drink. All this sitting around in the mortal realm was making me thirsty.

I slipped into the kitchen with my ears perked and swiveled toward the door, just in case he barged in while I wasn't looking. I didn't even have to hunt for a glass; a water bottle sat invitingly out on the counter. Nice of him to leave a drink out for me, especially since he had no clue I was coming. I tipped my snout up and downed the whole thing, then left it by the sink and headed back to my post at the table.

Something lingered in my mouth, like that syrupy feeling after drinking cheap soda. I ran my tongue along the roof of my palate and gulped. The feeling didn't go away; it was thick and gooey and clung to my teeth. I lapped along the backs of my fangs and swallowed again. I didn't want to be sloshing over my words whenever that friend of mine decided to show up.

No sooner had I gulped all that slick, viscous fluid down than my mouth began to fill up again. It clung to my tongue, making it feel blunt and slippery and too large for my mouth. My tongue squashed up against my own incisors, struggling to stay squeezed inside my jaw, curling and twisting and folding up against itself. At first I clenched my teeth and furrowed my brow, but soon the growing pressure was too much and I relented. My tongue flopped free and hung from the side of my muzzle, fat and round and inflated, pinkish-red with a glossy shine. A heavy bead of drool rolled from the tip like sticky sugar glaze.

Kotep Strips Down

Some kind of jackal trickster god manages to turn themself into a Gideon-sized stripper. Explicit.

Deep in the temple, in a small sanctuary off of the hypostyle hall, Kotep stood in front of a mirror flanked by flickering braziers. The golden jackal turned to one side, then the other. They hiked up the edge of their dress, exposing a little more hip, then let it drop back down with a sigh.

"This isn't going to work." Not for this trick. The plan was too complicated to get into, but the important part was that Kotep needed to sex things up for it to work. The only problem was: "What the hell are mortals horny for these days?"

One arm folded across their chest and one finger tapping at their chin, Kotep stared at the floor. They contemplated for a good minute or two before they began to get bored and impatient with waiting. It was too hard to put themself in the mindset of some idiot constantly driven around by their procreatory bits. It was much easier to just cast a spell that would take care of it all for them. Riskier, sure, but no one got to be a trickster god by playing it safe.

Kotep raised a hand and the ground began to rumble. Gusts of wind fluttered against their dress and ruffled through their hair like unseen wings. A few green-blue feathers fell to the floor and traced the outline of a circle around their feet. They cocked their hips, planted their hands on their waist, and watched the mirror, waiting for the sign of some change.

It was their breasts first. Of course it was. Ever since the Thirty-First Dynasty it'd been breasts. Swelling outward with their soft weight, they pulled the linen tighter around them. Kotep arched their chest toward the mirror and ran their hands down their dress to smooth it out. Their breasts stretched with a slow, steady motion, like the filling of a balloon. If they rested their hands on either side, they could feel the faint quivering of mass pumping into them—as well as a small jolt from their nipples, from the feeling of linen brushing against tender skin. Kotep yanked their hands away, rolled their eyes, and huffed, "Mortals."

The Treasury of the Sphinx

An Egyptologist and her partner discover a vast store of riches, then become its guardians. Mature.

To my esteemed colleagues, Victoria began. It was the third draft of her letter asking for more time and funding, and she still sounded desperate. Cambridge wanted another Tutankhamun, but all that the workers had uncovered was sand and stone.

"Ma'am? One of the boys thinks he may have found something."

William stood under the tent flap, surrounded by the glare of the desert sun. Victoria squinted up at her fellow archaeologist like he was a mirage. Then her blue eyes widened.

Victoria slapped on her hat and stuffed her feet into her boots and was still twisting her hair back into a ponytail as she followed William across the camp.

The young Egyptian man still clung to his pickaxe. He beamed brightly, standing next to the apple-sized hole into some deeper darkness behind the rock. William lifted his lantern to the hole. There was a flash of something beyond, but the hole was too small to see through properly.

In her best Arabic, Victoria asked the young man for the pickaxe.

Heart's Desire [Illustrated]

Three friends play a fortune-telling game to grant their hearts' desire, but is it really giving them what they want? Explicit.

Cole stood beside the cabinet, like he was presenting it to them. "It's like a fortune telling game, but it's got special rules to it. You play it with a bunch of people, you get one fortune per day, and the first person to get to five 'blessings' wins."

"Wins what?" Tricia asked.

Cole pointed to one of the rules. "Your heart's desire."

Alex made a soft snort. Cole grinned. Tricia was starting to smile too. It was a cheesy old game.

"So, want to give it a shot?" Cole asked.

"That's what we're here for," Alex said. Even if it was silly, it was something they could all play together.

Alex stood up, fished one of the tokens out of the open coin return, and dropped it into the slot. A tinny recording of a sitar played as the cards on display in the booth swirled around and the lights on the outside flashed on and off in a spinning pattern.

A slot in the front spat out a yellowed card. Alex picked it up, then moved to the side. Tricia stood by her after getting her own fortune, and once Cole got his too, they all turned to face each other.