Toby resisted for a moment, but when Darren put a green hand on his shoulder and applied a bit of pressure, his knees buckled and he knelt down, inching up to the idol in front of him. It…really was beautiful, now that he was closer. He tried to focus on looking at the material, but found his eyes taking in the figure itself–the massive musculature, the thick cock hanging between the wide thighs, gut and hair and beastly face. It seemed…terrifying, the closer he got, but he couldn’t pull himself away from it. If he left, then it would be angry with him, and he didn’t want it to be angry. He bowed down, prostrating himself in front of the idol, and when he looked up at the statue now, it seemed…happier. Was it…glowing? Even in the daylight, it seemed to have its own green aura surrounding it.

“I…Darren, what did you find?”

“I found God, Toby, and I’m going to help you find him too.”

“No–I don’t…we need to quarantine this, or…contain it. I should–”

Before he could continue, Darren planted one sizable foot on Toby’s back and shoved hard, forcing Toby to bow deeper, Darren pressing down and holding him there. Toby tried to look up, but all he could see was the idol over him, that glow. It was so beautiful–glorious, really. He could…hear something, or someone, in his mind–just a whisper, but if he was good, if he was obedient, he’d be able to hear it better. He listened, hard, and followed the ritual, and soon, Darren didn’t need to hold him down at all, and he watched Toby worship their new god for a moment, before tugging at his clothes.

“Kal’Ragek wants to see you as you are.”

Toby struggled, but whether he was trying to help get the clothes off or resist him, it didn’t matter much to Darren, who simply ripped them apart at the seams. When had he gotten so strong? He didn’t seem that much larger, and yet…had he just forgotten what he’d looked like before all of this? He flexed his thighs, and watched the ight pants he was wearing split at the seams as well. In a flurry, he tore at them, feeling better once they were both naked, as they should be, before god. What had he been thinking about again? He’d noticed that his mind had grown a bit muddled, lately. Kal’Ragek was all that mattered, and so everything else was simply draining away. Still, his god desired a new kind of worship, and Darren desired it too–he got down behind the now naked Toby, spread his ass cheeks apart with both hands, pushed his face in and probed his ass with his tongue, giving a deep, guttural moan as he did.

“D-Darren. I…stop…” Toby muttered, but in all honesty, he didn’t want Darren to stop, and the voice in his head didn’t want him to stop either. Instead, he found himself pressing his head to the ground and raising his ass into the air, giving Darren a better angle to work from. His tongue slid into his hole, probing deep, and Toby groaned louder, his cock hard as a rock. Neither of them had ever had sex with a man before, or ever considered it…but this didn’t feel like sex. This was worship. This was for Kal’Ragek.

Darren pulled away, a string of drool connecting his chops to Toby’s crack for a moment, and he licked his lips. “Are you prepared to accept the blessing of Kal’Ragek? Are you prepared to join me in his eternal tribe? To be remade in his image?”

Toby nodded, eyes wide and unfocused, consumed by the light before him. Darren drooled down onto his cock, his much longer and thicker cock, and then pressed the head to Toby’s hole, sliding it inside. He was excited, and Toby nearly screamed from the size of the invasion–Darren reached down and clamped a hand over Toby’s mouth to keep him quiet. After a moment, the pain had disappeared, replaced by deep grunts and moans. The idol was glowing more powerfully now, filling his entire frame of vision. He reached out with one hand and touched it, surprised to find the stone cool to the touch, but a power passed into him as Darren slammed in deep, filling his ass with a massive load of cum from his balls.

“All praise Kal’Ragek.”

“All praise our lord.”

Toby saw that the hand he’d used to touch the idol had turned green, the nails black and much thicker than they had been before. The muscles had grown as well–he looked at his two arms together–one human, and the other…not–and the forearm of the second was nearly twice as large. Short hairs were pushing their way out of his skin, he could feel them, the same bristly fur coating most of Darren’s body now. The green reached up to his elbow and stopped there, but it would spread further, he could…feel it. “Darren…Darren, we…we need to tell someone.”

“They’ll all know, in time, but first…first, more.” Over his shoulder, Toby saw that the Darren’s changes had progressed as well. The green skin covered nearly three quarters of his body now, including most of his face. One eye was human, and the other was a deep yellow, and it looked like his…bones were shifting. “Me now–I praise the lord, and you fuck.”

He pushed Toby to the side, and he knelt down and presented his ass. Toby knew he should run, he should at least tell someone what was happening, but the voice…it was louder now. Instead, he got behind Darren and began licking his green hole, smelling him, savoring him, and he could feel how happy their lord was, at their worship. He required more, still, but the two of them would suffice for now. Toby hesitated, with his cock at the entrance to Darren’s ass, wondering if there was still a chance he might save himself.

“Fuck me, fuck me!” Darren grunted, pushing back so the head of Toby’s cock popped into him, and his thought of escape slipped away. This was the escape he craved, anyway–Kal’Ragek would free them from this tiresome world, and give them a new one. A better one. A twelfth tribe–one that would last longer than all the rest.

“Jesus, what the fuck is happening to you?” Toby said, looking at the skin of Darren’s chest and arm. “Is…is this, contagious? What even is this? I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

It had been a few days since Darren had dragged the idol back to camp, since he’d first worshiped at the altar of Kal’Ragek. That was the closest he could come to pronouncing it, the name in his head–the consonants didn’t quite fit right in his mouth, and saying it made his tongue itch and burn like someone had struck a match and laid it across the surface. The next day, he’d left the idol at camp, and gone back to the excavation, but he hadn’t been able to focus at all, and he felt physically ill. He barely managed to make the trek back to camp that evening, and he told everyone that he was just feeling exhausted and a bit sick. He’d need a few days of rest, he thought, and he’d be back to normal, or perhaps, better than normal. He’d confined himself to his tent, and everyone had largely forgotten about him–they had made a great discovery back at the site–a third dwelling–and everyone was busy working around it, cataloging finds, and so Darren managed to catch a few days without being disturbed–just him, the idol, some food snuck from the mess, and the god slowly revealing himself to Darren’s mind.

The changes had only continued, and while Darren was concerned, his god assured him that this was the way things ought to be–that in order to serve him and worship him properly, Darren would need to become…something else. He had laid awake for hours on end, sweating and shaking with fever, scratching at his skin, feeling the patch of green spread further and further over his body. Now, it was nearly impossible to hide. His entire right arm was covered with the new skin, as was most of his chest, stomach, and back. Even his cock had turned color, grown an extra four inches of length, with a thick foreskin extending over the previously circumcised head. The cum from his balls had turned sour and yellow, but delicious–he found himself compelled to eat every load he shot during his periods of worship–gifts from his god–but what they might be doing to his insides, he was too terrified to try and imagine it, but from the cramps and muscle aches, it was clear that the transformation was more than superficial. He was getting bigger, for one thing–both taller and more muscular, with patches of dark hair sprouting on his green skin. His hair and beard had grown out as well. The hair he could at least keep knotted behind him, where it fell past his shoulders, but his beard was wild and tangled, nearly an inch long and impossible to tame.  

Toby was staring at him, disgusted by him, but Darren steeled himself, and refused to be humiliated, standing straight and tall, looming over him. He’d hidden for long enough, now. It had become clear to him that hiding in his tent and hoarding Kal’Ragek to himself–it wasn’t right. His god, it was pleased to be worshiped again, and very pleased with Darren’s devotion, but it had been…a very long time since the last tribe had dispersed, since Kal’Ragek had been forgotten, and he was starved for praise and devotion. Toby and Darren had been close, as close as two academic rivals could be, he supposed. They had been the two students selected to go on this dig by their mutual professor, Dr. Edwin Jeral. He had seen Toby crossing camp, and called out to him, knowing Toby would want to drag him away from his god, but that was only because he didn’t yet understand. Everyone had forgotten the tribe, like each time before, but they could learn again. They would learn, and Darren would teach them with the light of Kal’Ragek.

“I’m not sick,” Darren said to Toby. He’d put on a pair of tight fitting pants, knowing that if he’d been completely naked his friend would have likely bolted, but the feel of the fabric against his skin felt…wrong. Leather or hide or nothing at all would be better, but this would have to do. He had to be careful when moving not too flex too much–he’d ripped apart nearly all of his other clothes by accident, as he’d grown. “I know how this looks, but I feel great. I…I just wanted to show you something, I want your opinion on it.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Darren? We need to get you to a hospital! Your…skin, I mean, and…how could you not tell any of us about this? It looks like gangrene or something.”

“It’s not something I can explain, it’s something I need you to see, or taste, or smell…” Darren said, and pulled the oil cloth from over the idol. He had constructed a rudimentary altar–it was wrong for Kal’Ragek to rest on the ground–and the hours he had spent polishing the smooth green stone with his own spit showed–the green was luminescent, and nearly shown of its own accord in the dim daylight filtering in through the flaps of the tent.

“Is…Is that from the dig? Did you fucking smuggle that thing down here? Are you insane?” Toby said, and stepped closer, “What…even is it? I’ve never seen stone like that before. Is it jade?”

“I don’t know–you were always better at stone materials than me. That’s why I wanted you to look at it, Toby. Go on, look close, kneel down in front of it, and tell me what you think.”

Five miles in, and five miles out, every day. The history was worth it, of course, but that didn’t exactly make it easier for Darren. After all, as a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology, he spent most of his time with his nose stuck in a book, or looking at centuries old artifacts in secure laboratories and museums–five mile hikes were not part of his usual activities. He wasn’t exactly out of shape–but at five foot seven and skinny as a rail, he had a hard time keeping up with some of the more sizable men working on the excavation. It was the hike back that was always the hardest. After ten hours focused on meter by meter sized squares of dirt: digging, brushing, cataloging, and measuring–all under the hot sun–hiking back at dusk to base camp was a trial, when all he and everyone else wanted was a meal, and to collapse for another night.

But field work was where you made a name for yourself. You could spend a career analyzing the discoveries of other researchers, sure, but if you wanted to be on the cover of magazines, you needed to be out there, and this dig…nothing had ever really been found quite like it, ever before. A dwelling had been revealed by a muddy rockslide, and spotted by some shepherds, miles from the nearest city…and no one knew what culture it belonged to, and as they’d been digging, things had only made less and less sense. But Darren…he’d found something today, something he was somehow certain was a key to all of this mystery. An idol, carved from some stone–he’d thought it was jade at first, but a far deeper green than he’d ever seen before. He’d touched it, and he’d…felt something, a power inside of it, a logic…but more than anything else, he’d felt…possessive. He’d found it, so it was his, right?

In fact, it belonged to countless other governments and bureaucracies…but before anyone else spotted him, he took the idol, surprised by how heavy it was, wrapped it in some oilcloth and shoved it into his bag. Now, hiking back, feeling the heavy stone knock against his pelvis with each step, he wondered what in the hell he thought he was doing. Not only was this completely unethical, it was criminal! If anyone caught him with this thing, he’d be thrown in prison–and not a relatively nice American prison. The prisons here–well, his advisor travelling with him and another student on the excavation had warned them both, and he knew better, but he’d done it anyway. Still, when he’d felt it…he’d been so sure, somehow. He’d just have to take it back with him the next day, and pretend he’d found it in another square.

The crew arrived back at the base camp, where they all ditched their packs by their tents and then went to the mess hall to eat–everyone except Darren, who pulled his pack into his tent with him, dug around inside and hauled out the wrapped idol. He needed to see it again. He needed to touch it, to know that what he’d…felt earlier hadn’t been some strange folly of his own imagination. He unrolled the cloth, and there it was–he turned on his flashlight in the dusk light and examined the statue a bit closer.

It was obviously masculine in appearance, though done in slight caricature–that is, unless people in this society regularly had penises that hung to their knees. The figure was corded with muscle, and a bit squat–arms a bit longer than normal, but not quite ape like either. The surface of the stone was smooth, but the pattern of the green material almost gave an impression of hair all over the surface of the idol’s body. It was the face that fascinated him the most–rough, beastial, with short tusks emerging from the mouth, surrounded by a thick beard hanging to the idol’s belly. It had to be a god of some sort, and yet it was no god he was familiar with, especially not in this region of the world.

He stood the idol upright on the ground by his cot–it didn’t seem right to leave it lying down on it’s side. Touching it again…it felt good. Cool against his sweaty hand, but with some kind of deeper warmth. It was difficult for him to recall what, exactly, happened next. The idol needed him, it needed his praise and his worship, and in return, there was a promise–but what that promise was, he couldn’t tell. It came to him in feelings and scents, more than words and images, but he found himself prostrated in front of idol, watching it glow with a soft light, the light spreading to him as well, infusing him, and as terrified as he was, his cock was so hard it was nearly ready to burst without him so much as touching it.

Half an hour later, the idol was stashed back in the oil cloth and tucked under his cot bundled with some spare clothing. He’d had to change clothes, because he’d shot a massive load of cum right into the front of his pants, the largest load he’d ever seen, and his cock and balls were still throbbing. He went to the mess hall and piled his plate high with food, more food than he ever would have eaten normally, and stuffed himself, trying to forget what had happened–what he’d allowed to happen, and what he…knew he would let happen again. He did his best to pay no mind to the extra inch his cock had grown, or that…strange patch of green skin that had appeared on his torso, stretching from under his chest around his side and to his back, or to the fact that his clothes didn’t seem to fit quite right, suddenly. When he got back to the tent and prostrated himself before the idol to worship again, he was surprised by the sound of cloth tearing, as a burst of growth across his back and shoulder muscle tore the yoke of his shirt apart. He tugged it away from him, hand shaking, and chucked the tattered shirt towards the wall of the tent. It would all be alright, he told himself, worship the idol, and everything would be as it should be, once again.