You are standing by a tree
There are 3 paths.
One appears to go to a jungle,
one appears to go to a cave,
one appears to go to a beach,
you could try and climb the tree,
there is a nearby shop you could go in,
or you could do something else.
So what's its going to be?
Written by catprog on 01 April 2003
In the shop
There is a table with a sign saying
<strong>Free Sample:</strong>
Take one
On the table there is a fridge with a range of liquids. Also on the table are various magical trinkets including costumes. What would you like to take, or would you like to buy something?
Written by catprog on 10 April 2003
Unicorn
You’ve never heard of a door-to-door toy salesman before. But you have the time, a nephew whose birthday is coming up, and a baseball bat ready to hand, just in case. So why not?
You look over the table, looking at the free samples the guy spread there. There’s quite a variety, and they’re all cheap. You pick up a headband with what looks like a unicorn horn, one of a matched pair, and look it over. Good craftsmanship, and would be something a little fun and different from the usual action figure. The man is busy pulling something else out of his display case, not paying attention at the moment. You idely slip it on over your head...
You immediately feel different somehow and go to take it off, but as you reach up a bird lands in front of you and you forget about the horn. You watch it as it does a sort of dance. What the heck? How’d that get inside?
You step forward, hoping to shoo the thing away and outside, and oddly your shoes slip off your feet behind you. You look down and to your shock your feet look more like hooves then your old feet. The horn also seems more solid than it was before.
“Welcome, new unicorn!” the bird says, watching from the floor. Or… is it the ground? “It has been so long since we have had a unicorn. ”
“Unicorn? I’m human!”
“For now, The horn is changing you, I am surprised though you would choose a female horn, though, rather than one for a male.”
“Female? I thought it was just a toy.”
“It was stolen from a unicorn , luckily it has found it’s way to a noble person.”
“How do you know all this anyway?” you ask the bird
“Well most of my knowledge is from the horn and not from myself.”
You look down at yourself. Without ever feeling it you have shrunk slightly, while your chest is most definitely not male anymore. You don’t even want to look below.
“What about the original unicorn?” you ask. You’re a little surprised at how calm you are about this. You’re becoming a unicorn, a female unicorn, and all you feel is a mild surprise and a rather intense curiosity.
Magic, obviously.
“She will be fine, her horn will regenerate. That is one of the ways unicorns reproduce, other than the normal way of course.”
You think you would like to see what you look like and as you watch the air in front of you ripples into a reflective surface. “Woah,” you say, and you’re not even really sure if you mean your newfound magical abilities or what you see there. An anthropomorphic unicorn is standing there, tall and regal. Pure white hair is growing over her body as her head completes the last of its changes into something like a horse. Her horn is long and thin, but you know it is sturdy, able to take most strains it might be subjected to.
The fact that your clothes have disappeared is surprisingly not a big issue. Has your mind changed so much, along with your body.
The toy seller - or, perhaps, the horn thief, you think - you thought was behind you has disappeared along with everything else. You’re standing in a thick forest tangled with undergrowth, except for around you and a mare standing there watching you.
“So I see you found my horn,” she says. “It has been a long time since I lost it - not for a unicorn, of course, only for humans. I am glad though it found a noble person to turn into a unicorn.”
“Er, yes,” you say, your voice soft and feminine. “It’s… very nice.”
“Unfortunately, it turned you female, right?”
“Yeah, I was a man before this. Will I become… four-footed, like you? I kind of like hands…” you add apologetically.
“Eventually, yes. For a while, though, you will be both human and unicorn, a sort of in-between form. But in time you shall grow into your full heritage. But until you choose you will remain like this. You’ll know when it is time to move on and fully embrace your new life. In the meantime, you can disguise yourself as human, too.”
“How far away am I from home?” you ask.
“Very far away and no distance at all. This is a pocket dimension, only we two can access it. The horn is the key. There is another dimension for all unicorns which I will teach you how to access, along with all of our other powers.”
“All? I didn’t think unicorns had any, other than purifying water of poisons! What else can you do?”
“Let us begin our lessons now,” the unicorn says, “and I can begin showing you the many things WE can do.”
You nod eagerly. “What is the easiest thing to begin with?”
“Well, talking with animals is quite simple. You merely speak. But I think we can go a little bit harder.”
“Yeah the bird was talking to me earlier. How could he know information about the horn?”
She smiles “The horn passes information to them as well. But it is time for your first lesson.”
“If we are going to work in the human world we need to teach you to disguise yourself as a human. Hopefully my stables are still being maintained over there, I don’t have the power to disguise myself as a human, only a horse.” She looks at you knowingly. “Which will be your ability, too, should you lose your horn. With the horn you can appear as you wish.”
“The horn is important?”
“Very , without it we can only move between the worlds and hide as a horse. The horn tries its best to find someone worthy to take on the mantle.”
“How long does it take to make a new one?”
“A few thousand years. I am still in the early stages of making a new one.”
Lesson one, you think, seems to be: don’t let your horn get cut off. “How did you lose your horn anyway?”
“The short answer is, I was tricked” she sighs before continuing ”I thought I had found someone who would make a good unicorn, and I gave her my horn. But her kindness was a ruse. It rejected her, and rather than return it to me she used its power for evil.”
“That does not sound good.”
“No. Two hundred years she lived. Anyone that went up against her, well they were released into her forest for her to hunt down,” she says hanging her head. “And she didn’t even give them a chance to get used to their new bodies.”
“How was she finally defeated?”
“The regeneration of the horn, it pulled enough power away and it was not able to sustain her any longer. ”
“You mean I am going to lose power as the new one reforms.”
“No, it has found a new host , now both horns are creating the magic rather than transferring it.”
“Does that mean you have to wait longer for your horn?” you ask
She nods “Yes. But better that than one less unicorn in the world. And at the end of the process , we have one more unicorn.” She tilts her head. “I think that is enough of my personal history for now, my child. I think it is time I teach you some of your powers. Is there anything in particular you would like to learn?”
“I still don’t know what abilities are even available,” you point out.
“Of course. My apologies. I suggest you first learn how to disguise yourself as a human, or as something else, so you can return home. Unicorns also have a minor telekinetic ability, enough to mostly make up for our lack of hands; you might like learning that. And, as you know, we can purify liquids, such as water or wine or others. And there are more, besides, but those are all relatively simple and useful. What would you like to try?”
Written by Catprog and Xodiac on 22 February 2014
Disguise
“I think I would like to head home so the human disguise would be the most useful.”
She nods “Very well. The most important thing is to picture the disguise in your mind, as completely as you can. I’m sure the first one you’ll think of to try was your old self, as you were before you found my horn. But I would not recommend trying it. Your old life would probably be hard to maintain while you learnt our magic, and really, you are female now. It will take some getting used to, but it truly is now who you are; adjust to the change, you must.” She smiled sympathetically, despite her equine head somehow moving her ears and face to get the expression across. “Besides, female forms are much easier for us females, and male forms for males, even if our horns were at full strength.”
You nod as indeed you first thought was your old body.
“If you wish for me to help you, I can join you telepathically.”
“Another unicorn power?”
She nods. “I think you may need help picturing a female form, that’s why I make the offer.”
You nod. Picturing a woman in general is easy enough, and you certainly know their bodies well enough to get it all right. But getting it all truly correct, fully detailed and fleshed out properly, that may take a little work. Even if it doesn’t, it couldn’t hurt to have her looking over your shoulders, as it were. “Sure, go ahead.“
She nods and comes over and leans her forehead on yours. “Normally, we would do this horn to horn, but… At least the horn you have was mine. That makes this easier. ”
You feel her mind flow into yours and around the image you are working on. You feel the image shift; it had been fairly androgynous, before, much like your old body but with long hair and breasts. The proportions change, the waist slimming slightly, hips broadening, the face changing subtly. You blush as the crotch flattens down. “You have to think fully female, child. That was a holdover from your male self.”
You instinctively try to fight it, to retain something of your old self. But the unicorn’s mind is much stronger and holds the form in place.
“Now imagine being that image, let it flow over you. Your hooves changing into feet, your horn becoming invisible. Your face becoming human, fur vanishing...”
As her words echo in your mind you feel your body changing again. And when you open your eyes the mirror is there to show of your body. You blush again as you realize that you forgot to include clothing in your image, leaving you completely naked.
You hear a chuckle, “You have to remember to include clothes in your changes, most new unicorns forget that little detail. As humans it is almost an instinct, but when they become unicorns many forget about it. It’s a good sign, though, to be honest; it indicates you will adapt well to your new life. Now, I will let you try to create the clothing yourself without me helping you.”
You gulp and nod trying to picture some clothing. Long jeans and a shirt. You concentrate on those items and yourself wearing the items. After you feel the weight on your body you open your eyes again to find you are now indeed clothed.
“Very good. VERY good! And stylish, too, I see.”
You smile until what she says next “You may want to work on the undergarments though. Of course if you want we can go back to your world without them.”
“Er,” you stammer. You hadn’t even considered underwear. Panties… bras… yikes. “Probably not a good idea.” You close your eyes and start thinking of the extra clothing, trying to get used to the idea of wearing them.
You feel them form underneath your clothes. They feel odd, especially the bra. You open your eyes to see the unicorn has been decked out in a saddle and all the other parts of horse tack.
“Did I do that?”
“Of course not. How do you think I plan to disguise myself in your world? I just hope my stables survived the years.”
“Your stables?” you say. You remember she mentioned something about them before, but not in any detail.
“Of course, I set up some stables so when I returned I would have a base of operations.”
Written by Catprog and Xodiac on 23 February 2014
Head Home
She lies down, inviting you to hop on. Once you have she hops up and the forest disappears. In the new setting you find yourself by a river. “Is this where you wanted to end up?”
She nods. “Yes, now we have to find the contract.” She closes her eyes and concentrates, before a cylinder rises up from the ground.
“This is the contract, Also hopefully a touch of magic for you.”
“Hopefully? For me?”
“Yes if the stables are still up we can use them, otherwise we need to use this magic to fix them.”
You nods and hop off her to open the cylinder, Inside is a stone tablet and a necklace.
“The necklace is the mana stone, and the tablet is the contract”
You put the necklace on and you feel the magic inside of it ready if you need it.
“Now to the stables.” she says hoping down so you can get back on.
She follows the stream down to overlook the remains of what could've been a stable on the edge of the forest , the city almost surrounding it.
She sighs “I have been away too long”
“You said you could use the magic to rebuild it?”
“Yes, but there’s not as much land as there was.” She sounded distressed, which was not a pleasant thing to hear from anyone and even less so from a unicorn. “There is much less room to run around in. Although I was afraid we would not even have the stables”
She heads down into the stables, the shadows of the city gives a chill to the ruins.
“Please layout the contract and the necklace on top of it,” she says.
You lay the contract out and with some relatance put the necklace on top.
“Stand back please.”
As soon as you have left the ruins she rears up and lands right on the necklace cracking it.
“Hey!” you cry out, rushing forward and as you get close you see the magic from your horn joining from the necklace and from the unicorn.
The released magic from the necklace flows over the contract. Oddly, it moves left to right and top to bottom, almost as if reading the words there, before it flows into the ruins and you see it start to knit the building back together.
Soon the stables have been rebuilt, new and smelling of fresh sawdust and hay. There are stairs up to what you hope is a loft for you to sleep. The stalls are nice enough, but you are still human (well, sort of…) and would prefer a bed.
“There, “ she says. “This will do nicely as a base of operations. I can teach you here, and you can do your work in the rest of the world.”
“What work is that?”
“Well we have to keep the environment healthy, it is a lot harder for us these days. There used to be a lot more of us but we have been hunted out. Also there are quite a few species that cause a lot of problems. Not just humans, but others can grow out of balance. It is for us to correct things as best we are able.”
“That sounds like a lot of responsibility for just us two,are there any others in this world?.”
“Well there once was, but now we have been scattered into the other worlds.”
“How many others are there?”
“Well, I think counting us there are at least two. I should add, though, that as one who has not yet completely changed you will be dealing mostly with the humans. You know them best, and your disguise means you can interact with them well, unlike me.”
“And only this city area right? I don’t have the whole world to take care of,” you ask hoping you can settle down for a bit.
She nods. “At first, yes. As your skill and confidence grows, so will your responsibilities.”
You gulp “I see.”
“We probably should rest for the night though before we do too much more. The rebuilding of the stables have taken a large amount of our magic, even with the stored amount in the necklace.”
You nod, as she mentions it you do feel a lack of energy from your horn “I don’t think I got your name by the way.”
Written by Catprog and Xodiac on 08 March 2014
A new Name
“Oh! Oh, dear. It’s Launia! Do you wish to have a unicorn name or keep your old name?“
“Um,” you think. “Well what would you suggest for one if I did change it?”
“Nokomi, I think. It loosely means daughter of the moon,” she responds. “Our line was once responsible for it, and I think it fits you well.”
“Nokomi, “ you say, trying out the name. It sounds… nice. “I think it does, at that. Thank you.” You feel an odd tingle run across your body as you accept it, and know that name is yours now, well and truly yours in a way that your original name never had been.
She smiles. “I shall see you tomorrow morning, Nokomi. Feel free to sleep in the loft or a stall of your choice. You may want to magic up a hammock to sleep on. You should be able to do that without me watching,” she walks into a stall and closes the door behind her.
Now that you’re alone, you consider the possibilities. You might take her suggestion and sleep, to begin anew tomorrow, or you might check out the city to try and figure out where exactly you are.
Written by Catprog and Xodiac on 16 March 2014
Play it safe and sleep the first night
You decide that it is probably best not to go out low on magic. The last thing you want is for your disguise to break and your secret to be revealed.
You head up the stairs to find a small loft. It seems like your magic was involved building this room. While the bathroom is small, it is definitely made for humans. There appears to be a single electric light in the roof, though no light in the bathroom. No bed, either, but she did say you would need to magic up a hammock.
You imagine the hammock up following her guidelines before heading into the bathroom for a shower. You hang the clothes on the hook and step into the shower. The shower fills with steam. You wonder for a moment if this is magic or if there is technology in the stables. Probably something to look at in the morning.
You step out of the shower and find your clothes have disappeared. Your hammock is still there but your horn is now showing. You must be running very low on magic. Well one job for tomorrow will be setting up a non-magic source of shower. And a light that doesn’t need it to run, too.
You look over in the mirror seeing the human you almost as you pictured her(well except for the horn in the center of your forehead). Trying to save magic you stop maintaining the disguise. As you change, you head over and lay out on the hammock
Your dreams leave you with a sense of worry. You imagine the magic of the earth itself running out and just the two of you left looking over a dry,dead wasteland of a planet.
You wake up in the morning, the hammock has gone, and you are laying out on the floor quite uncomfortably. Well first thing to find out, how do I make permanent items. Second thing, what does your dream mean.
You look over yourself. Right new first thing, restore human self. Perhaps even a male human? You try to picture your old body but you find yourself unable to keep the image straight. Giving up you try the female one but find out that is too hard as well.
You check downstairs to see that no one has snuck in to see Launia waiting for you at the bottom. She sees you and calls up "Come on Nokomi , the morning is wasting away"
"My disguise is gone" you call down " and I can’t restore it."
"I can fix that for you" she says " just come down."
You have to be careful on the stairs, thanks to your hooves, and in fact you’re holding the rail in a death grip all the way down. But you make it to the bottom without breaking anything, most importantly your neck. "I think I’d better move my bed down here," you say ruefully. "Especially if I’m going to keep draining myself each day."
"Or you could learn to create the disguise yourself. You could create a hammock and clothes yourself right?" She asks you before coming over and placing her forehead on yours.You feel her stabilizing the image and you let it flow over you. Of course the clothes were not part of the image and you are standing there naked. That is quickly fixed and you make sure that you include the underwear this time.
"See you can do clothes easily, living things are only a little harder"
"Speaking of which, all the things I created disappeared." you ask
"Of course, they are constructs of magic. Making things that are real are much more taxing on your magic. There was a story of a baker who paid a unicorn to make sweets and sold them as non-fattening."
You nod "I was hoping to get some modern conveniences up in my loft without having to rely on magic, but it seems like that would take just as much magic"
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, gutter to collect the rain, perhaps a solar heater for heating the water."
"I see. Well the water system here does not take magic to run"
"What? then why did I lose so much magic for my shower?"
"You had a hot shower right? That combined with all the other magic was too much for your first day."
"Oh." you say.
"If you want a solar shower though, it will be a good lesson for today though."
You nod "Thank you. Oh , I had a dream of the planet being a wasteland!"
She nods. "We keep the balance, the Earth has it’s own magic. The humans take the fossil reserves and she tries to rebuild them. That is draining the magic from the other areas."
You gulp. "Should we be using our magic then? If it is draining from the Earth itself..."
She smiles "No, our magic comes from us and the Earth cannot use our magic.So do you want your solar heater?"
Written by Catprog and Xodiac on 21 December 2014
Yes
You nod.
"Ok. Well first thing to do is to study the object you wish to modify. In this case the barn."
You nod "What am I looking for?"
"The biggest catch with this sort of thing is to have a clear understanding of the object to be modified. I Imagine in this case you are looking at the pipes. Now touch the barn and imagine that area."
Nodding you place your hand on the walls and imagine the pipes behind your shower. To your surprise the hot and cold pipes connect just below the taps. This is true of both the sink and the shower.
"Ok I can see the pipes," you say.
"Now you want to bring them outside so you can connect them to the heater."
You imagine the pipes shifting and are ‘rewarded' with the sounds of water leaking from upstairs.
"You may however want to turn the water off before you do so," she says, chuckling. "The tap is around the back of the barn."
You sprint out and around to find the tap and quickly come back once you have done so.
"Another lesson to be learnt. Make sure you consider the entire object. Otherwise normal physics will still occur. Now finish the job"
You nod and move the pipe around but find a lack of pipe available. "I need more pipe" you say.
"Create it like you would the clothes"
You nod and do so. You add in some taps as a last minute thing to avoid the water leaking again. "Won't they just disappear?"
"Yes, until we put more magic in." You feel her access your magic after a brief pause as if asking permission. The magic flows from you to complicated to understand but you know the pipes are now solid and don't need your magic to be maintained.
You slump, slightly exhausted from the simple spell. "Is it always that difficult."
"Of course not, you just are not used to using magic. It may be better for you to do the heater itself as the last thing today. That way you won't lose your disguise."
"Now you can make breakfast for both of us. If you go into the forest you should be able to find enough for both of us. Remember though any magic you use will make it that much harder to make your heater later"
You nod and set off, wondering how on earth you are going to find food without using your magic.
You step into the forest, despite it being overgrown you find that you are able to walk through it without impediment. And also you know exactly where to find a grove of fruit. But what else might a unicorn eat? You're reluctant to go back inside and ask; you get the feeling Launia wants you to figure this out yourself.
Written by Catprog and Xodiac on 22 December 2014