Plateau
The room fades and you find yourself on top of a plateau.
You don't give yourself time to think about it; you just run, hurling yourself off the edge of the plateau. You plummet like a boulder... until your wings open with a loud flap-ping noise. After that, you're not falling any more. After that...
...you're flying.
Flight under your own power: It's everything you dreamed it could be. The experience is euphoric, even intoxicating, and for the next while, you lose yourself in the sheer joy of flying.
You eventually glide back to the plateau and find... you're not sure what that structure is, but in some ways it reminds you of an ancient temple. Whatever it is, its architecture is peculiar; it has Greek-style columns, but its main body is more of a step pyramid such as might be found in Central America. You have no idea how these disparate design elements ever got together. You also notice Egyptian-looking hieroglyphs, and, surprisingly, you can actually read them! It's anybody's guess which is more disorienting: The fact that there's some force or entity capable of transforming you into a sphinx-like creature, or the fact that new information/knowledge could be inserted into your mind without your even being aware of it. What other bits of your mind and personality might have been altered..?
You read the hieroglyphs: "Welcome, player of my little game, to your new home for the next two weeks. I hope you enjoy your time in your new form. You should find you have enough new hunting skills to feed yourself for your time here."
Hunting skills? you think to yourself. But I don't have any... And then you realize that yes, you do have a pretty good idea of what to do with your new claws and fangs---fangs!? when did you---wait, it must have happened when you put the costume on. You run your tongue over them, feeling just how different your mouth is now. And you know how to hunt the same way you can understand a written language you never did before today, most likely. More mind-meddling... you shudder at the thought.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 01 September 2010