“Oh, ow,” Astrid says with a start as Beist the dragonkin drags her forward away from the alley. Her little talons clack along the cobbled ground. If she weren’t so sturdy, he might have pulled her arm out of its socket. Instead, she just feels some strain in her shoulder when they hide in another nearby alley. “Um, yeah, I’m alright,” she says, rolling her arm and feeling her shoulder move. The kobold girl’s face looks extremely concerned when she notices Beist on the verge of tears.

“...Are you okay?” she asks, a deep furrow on her scaly brow. “Do ya need a handkerchief?” As hard as she tries to figure out why the dragonkin is tearing up, she has no idea.

She’s quickly distracted by the little serpent with wings named Pretzels appearing. “Oh, gods, what a cutie.” Before the little guy manages to get away, she gets a gentle little pet along the scaly noodle’s body.

In the next alley over, a mysterious deal is happening. Well, it’s a delivery of sorts. A cart full of sacks and crates of things that at first glance might seem like flour, sugar, eggs, or other baking ingredients actually holds several illicit materials for illegal activities. The two delivery boys unload the cart and carry the materials inside the storage room of the apothecary fronting as a bakery. One crate rattles with glass vials full of liquids, and a lankier individual tells the beefier one to be careful with it as he takes stock of what they’ve unloaded so far.

At the slight "Oh, ow." from the Kobold, Beist felt horrible and immediately tapped another charm hanging from his hown, this one in the shape of a ram's horn curled around a green gem. When the gem turned white, a huge, green wooled, incredibly fluffy woolful with a pair of curly ram's horns on the sides of its head suddenly appeared beside them and Beist looked to it with tears in his eyes.

"Leon, could you please heal her." Beist sobbed.

The woolful seemed confused for a moment as they took in the appearance of Beist, but after a moment seemed to recognize the beast man despite his new, scalier appearance. This wasn't the first time he'd used the potion before. Leon looked to Astrid, who didn't really seem very injured, but cast the healing magic on her anyways. With a short bleat, a green light glowed on Astrid for a moment before vanishing and the slight pain in her arm disappeared with it.

"Thank yo- oof!" Beist's thanks was cut short as the woolful suddenly head butted him directly in the stomach. It didn't look like it actually hurt, but Beist fell onto his back and the woolful lied down on top of him with a satisfied bleat. Barely anything of Beist was visible beneath the fluffy mountain, only his clawed feet and the tip of his tail poking out from beneath the wool. Two clawed hands came up on either side of the woolful and began petting him. Beist's muffled voice came out from the

"Yes, I love you too, but I'm in the middle of a mission for the Consortium!"

"Behh?"

"No, we're not hunting another ingredient. We're looking for illegal potion sellers this time."

"Beh."

"It's not that dangerous, we'll be fine! This is Astrid, she's also on this mission." One of the hands gestured toward the Kobold. "She's not normally a Kobold, she drank the tonic, too."

"...Beh."

Leon looked toward Astrid and offered a short bleat in greeting.

"Can you get off me please?"

"Beh."

A sigh of resignation came from beneath the woolful.

"Huh?" Astrid says, looking super confused by Beist's absolute breakdown. "Nah, it's alright, I'm no-" But by then it's too late. A sheep appears, bleats a greeting, and casts a magical heal on her. The slight shoulder pain goes away, but it also wasn't anything that wouldn't have gone away on its own. "Uh, thanks, I s'pose..." She offers the woolful a pat on the head gently. Beist has a lot of pets! It must take a lot of magic and responsibility to keep up with them all. 

She watches the odd beastman-turned-dragonkin interacting with the sheep and helps him sit back up after he's knocked over. Astrid starts to get the feeling that she's going to be the muscle on this adventure. "Nice ta meet ya, Leon," she says in a somewhat awkward but still friendly tone. 

Looking in the direction Pretzels went, she starts to grow impatient. "I'm gonna go buy some bread," she declares before turning on her heel and heading out of the alley back to the street and making her way to the "bakery" storefront and walking inside. It does smell like bread in here. Is there anything else interesting going on in the back? With no one manning the front counter, she's tempted to go find out.

"Hello?" she calls for anyone who might hear her. 

Beist crawled out from beneath the fluffy green hill that was Leon and sat up with Astrid's assistance. He pet Leon a little longer before bidding the woolful farewell. With another tap on the charm hanging from his horn, the gem turned green again and the woolful disappeared.

While Astrid and Beist waited in the next alley over, Pretzels listened in on the conversation between the shady men loading and unloading carts of product and ingredients. One crate looked to be filled with eggs for the bakery to use, but after lifting the top layer the crate was revealed to actually be filled with herbs being brough in for the potions. This was definitely the place. Looking around to see if anyone was watching, a cart with boxes of chocolate cupcakes was brought out and handed over. With one more glance around, the lankier man walked off while the beefier individual went inside with the delivered materials. Pretzels followed from above, keeping an eye on the man.

Beist was surprised when Astrid suddenly walked off toward the bakery. He got up and ran to follow after her, but he was much too slow to react. She was already walking in the door with the sound of a little bell tinkling above when Beist turned the corner to the alley!

"Oh goodness me, this is a bad id-" Beist began mumbling to himself as he hurriedly followed after her, but suddenly a cart of chocolate cupcakes was pushed into his path. Cupcakes were scattered everywhere, the cart knocked onto its side, and the big, heavy Dragonkin falling directly atop the unsuspecting cart pusher.

"Oh dear, are you alright!? I'm so sorry!" Beist scrambled to his feet and looked over the man who was knocked cold from the fall and being flattened beneath the mountain of muscle and scales.

With the workers outside busying themselves with the delivery, Astrid starts snooping. Everything in the front of the shop seems normal. Various baked goods in baskets line the walls and shelves. It all smells great, and upon closer in-sniff-tion, she doesn't find anything strange about them, so she scoops some up and goes to the counter. "Helloooooo?" she calls in her raspy kobold voice. 

The beefier man carrying a crate hears her from the back and sets the crate down and peeks into the front of the store. "Wot's this, then?" He barely spots Astrid's tiny horns peeking up from behind the counter. "Ah, a customer. Olright, that'll be it then, lil' miss?"

"Aye!" she squawks, getting ready to put the coins on the counter when there's a commotion outside as Beist flattens the cupcake carter.

"Wot the?" the beefy man says, looking out a window. 

Astrid opens the door and sees Beist scrambling to wake the man up. In all his worry, he didn't even notice the pools of multicolored liquids leaking from cupcakes scattered along the ground! Bits of glass mix with cake, icing, and potions on the ground. One red puddle even catches fire! 

"POTIONS!" Astrid squawks again, pointing at Beist with her little feet stamping. She has no control over anything that just happened. 

"Wot? MOI POTIONS!" roars the beefy man as he sees the mess. Astrid looks up at him with this devious draconic grin as if she's just caught him red-handed. "Wha- no, I mean... Wot's goin' on out 'ere?" he stammers. Suddenly, he's yanked off his feet by Astrid having wrapped her tail around his ankle and pulled hard. He hits the ground with a startled thud, and he screams as Astrid lets out some animalistic growl and pounces on him to attack him with her claws. "AH! AH! GET 'ER OFF!!"

"Wha-!?" Beist was startled by the sudden shrill cry of potions behind him. He looked back to see Astrid pointing at him and finally noticed the fires starting to catch around him. What the hell was happening!? Why were there suddenly fires around him!? AH. The potions had been hidden inside the cupcakes and some of them had shattered in the fall! He grabbed a few cupcakes that were still intact and put them in his pocket. Well, mission accomplished, but also oh lord!

He scrambled back to his feet with the unconscious man in his arms in a princess carry. Just because he was an illegal potion dealer didn't mean he deserved to be left in the middle of a pile of spontaneously combusting potion cupcakes! Beist ran over to help Astrid deal with the much more threatening looking of the two men.

"Get 'er off! Help!" The beefy man yelled from the ground, guarding himself with his arms that were now bleeding from the slashes of little Kobold claws all over. His white apron was starting to be stained nearly completely red as the blood dripped down from his arms. Despite his physique, he seemed to not be a very experienced fighter from the panic on his face while dealing with such a tiny enemy. Maybe he just lifted a lot of heavy weights in his line of work or something.

"So sorry! We'll get going now!" Beist apologized as he scooped an arm around Astrid's waist and pulled her away.

"Here you go!." Beist dropped the lanky man directly on top of the other before running out of the bakery and down the street with Astrid in his arms and cupcakes in his pockets. How did it end up like this? Above, Pretzels followed from the air with a hissing laugh at the chaos that had suddenly broken out.

Having claws is super nice when you suddenly feel like an absolute little gremlin out for blood, and that is exactly how Astrid feels. The man begs for mercy, but she is unwilling to give any. Evil potion sellers selling things that blow up disguised as tasty treats deserve all the scratches! SCRATCHES! 

As things start to catch fire around them, Beist suddenly hoists the small kobold up by the waist and starts booking it down the street. Astrid's little lizard legs and arms flail about wildly. "Let me go! I want to scratch! Let me scratch!!" Her kobold voice is shrill, screaming out into the street and drawing a lot of attention toward the dragonkin running away from a fire that's suddenly broken out. 

In all honesty, Astrid doesn't even realize the behavior she's exhibiting. This is something completely outside of her norm. In this form, with a smaller brain and beady eyes, she has a mighty need for violence. It'd be kind of cute if she didn't also possess the strength of several grown men. Still, Beist's arm is long enough to keep hold of her, and after a few minutes of pitching an absolute fit, the tantrum tires her out. Her head bounces limply as she just hangs there until he stops running. 

Beist didn't stop running until they were far enough away for him to feel comfortable that no one else from that shady bakery was going to pursue them or any of the city guards for either attacking a baker or starting a fire. And for the cowardly old giant, that was quite far. They were nearly on the other side of town before Beist slowed his running down to a walk, breathing heavily and holding a stitch in his side. It was only then he realized he could have just summoned Dora and gotten a ride on the griffon's back, but it was too late for that. He hadn't thought of it in his panic. He finally looked down at the Kobold that was hanging limply in his arms once he finished catching his breath.

"Aw, tuckered out, eh?" Beist chuckled. The sight was cute enough to almost make him forget they'd just run away from catching an assault and maybe an arson charge. He hadn't noticed her stop struggling. She was far stronger than the average Kobold, but Beist was also far stronger than he appeared and that was on top of actually looking quite strong. He'd hardly felt her trying to escape his grasp at all.

With one of his free hands, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cupcake. It was a bit smashed up from being in his pocket while he ran, but within the chocolate crumbs was a glint of a glass bottle. Cleaning them off and counting them out, he'd managed to nab a half dozen bottles of the illegal product. Even more than the Consortium had requested.

"Maybe a bit messy at the end there, but mission accomplished." He proudly proclaimed in a hushed tone.

After a long while, Beist finally stops running. His labored breathing stirs Astrid from her impromptu tantrum nap. She shakes her tiny lizard head to wake up and looks around. They're in a different part of town. With Beist so tired, she manages to slip free of his grip and tumble clumsily across the ground. Her tail pushes her to her feet with ease, and she looks around then at the much larger, scaled man. 

"Did ya get somethin' fer the Consortium?" she asks, scuttling back over to see what he's pulled out of his pocket. When she sees the smashed cupcake the potion inside revealed, her eyes light up, and her feet prance excitedly. "We did it! We got an explodin' potion! We diiiiid it!" 

Suddenly, she stops, wondering what's just come over her. Being a kobold is really weird, and she's not sure if she likes it. "Right, mission accomplished. Sure, it was a bit messy, but we got outta there, and the guards are gonna be lookin' fer two scaled folk, not us! ...Whenever this potion wears off. Maybe we should head straight ta the Consortium, huh?" she suggests. 

With that, she starts prancing down the road, feeling proud of the accomplishment if not a little concerned with her need for wanton violence that's honestly difficult to control. "Next time, maybe I'll be somethin' else," she murmurs.