In a room
The sign reads
"Welcome all new travellers.
To continue you must go through a series of doors.
After going through you will pick a costume. You will then become a half- human and half that creature.
After a week(100 mins a hour,20 hrs a day,10 days a week) has passed you may morph and get another costume. To start of with you will only be able to become 40% human to 60% human.
If you put on a costume you will then become that creature, be teleported to it's home town and have to wait a week before being able to morph.
After 50 costumes you may change into one of your other costumes and become 30% to 70% human. When changing costumes you must wait at least an hour before you can change costumes again.
100 different species/gender costumes allows you to gender-morph and become 20% to 80% human
200 different species costumes allows you to combine costumes and become 10% to 90% human
400 different species costumes allows you to return to your world with no more morphing
And 800 different species costumes makes a polymorph and allows you to morph outside of this world.
Also if you have a costume like a centaur then the human part will always be human and is counted towards the human percentage.
Any gender/species transformation magic of yours can only change your gender(if you have at least 100 costumes) and the animal part to a different animal.
When you change into a different costume (that you already have) you may teleport to that species home town but you will have the week penalty where you have no costume changes.
If you die while wearing a costume you will be reborn at the local inn (or appropriate location ). If you have more then 100 costumes you will lose the costume you had when you died and go to an appropriate place for your next costume.
If you fail to make it out in 100 years(100 weeks in a year) one of your possible forms will be chosen and you will be permanently stuck in that form(apart from magic) until you die. Also there will be no possibility of going back to your world.
Also, one final note: should you take a female form and become pregnant, you won't be able to change your gender until the child is born, though the other aspects of your form may change (the child will change to match.) That is all, and good luck!
You realise that you have to do what the sign said to do and go through the doors and grab a costume.
Alternatively you could use the key system to determine the room
Written by Catprog on 11 February 2004
Air Creatures
You find yourself in what appears to be a glass room suspended high in the sky.
The stairs are blocked by a force field.
You realise you have to go through one of the three sky blue doors numbed 1,2 & 3.
What door do you want?
Written by Catprog on 11 February 2004
Myth Air
You go through the door.
All of a sudden it slams shut and with no handle on this side it appears that you are stuck.
There are two more doors however and both of them have a sign on them saying
Costume room for
Element: Air
Type: Myth
Gender: ????
So which door do you want
Written by Catprog on 26 February 2004
Female Myth Air
You go through the door.
All of a sudden it slams shut and with no handle on this side it appears that you are stuck.
There are five costumes in this room, all of them female, all of them are myth air creatures.
Written by Catprog on 26 February 2004
Sphinx
So what are your options?
A pegasus , a griffon , a phoenix although that one looks like it might burn you before you get it on. A dragon, correction a dragoness, female room after all.
The last one however is the one that strikes your fancy, a sphinx. This one at least is partially human. Still you have no idea how you will fill out the 8 limbs including the wings with just your four.
You reach up and take the costume off the hanger, the other costumes rotating behind the wall , although you suspect if you returned your current one they would return to allow you to make a new choice.
Now how to put the costume on. The zipper runs along the spine of the costume. The open limbs seem to be the arms and legs of the costume.
"Well here goes nothing" you say to the empty air as your legs slip into the empty legs of the costume. Your feet being pulled up by the shape of the paws, leaving you standing on your toes.
The fake front legs of the costume dangle down as you place your arms into the costume as well. You turn behind to see the zipper moving by itself, slowly but not stopping, sealing your body into the costume.
The head is the other part of the costume that needs to go on, standing on a pedestal, mouth open showing of her teeth. You walk over , already feeling like your paws are part of your body, your movement as natural as if you were born with them.
You look into the mirror fearful that this will be the last time you see your face for a long time before putting the head over the top of yours. As the parts meet you feel and hear the seal form.
Pain, that is the first sensation when the changes begin. Your spine feels like it is being pushed down hard, the front legs providing support as you fall forward onto them. The wings burrow into your body new nerves sending messages straight to your brain, every feather feeling the wind as it rushes through them.
Wind? In a sealed room?
You look around and try to move to trace the source of the wind but the front legs are not yet ‘real’ and remain fixed to the floor. However you see the walls of the room fading. The wind seems to be only on your wings though.
The front of the costume begins to hurt quite a bit as you feel bones solidifying in the leg area, the legs becoming long and stiff, unable to be moved until the nerves set in. It is a painful process as each nerve seems to light up as they come into existence.
Written by on 14 December 2014
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
In the temple
You approach the temple and the stones reshape into a doorway. You go through and find a well lit bedroom. You hear the stone reshape itself behind you. You turn your head to look behind you, just in time to see the living rock fuse itself back into a wall; well, if whatever-it-is can reshape living flesh the way it did your body, you suppose it's not that much of a stretch to think they (he? it? she?) can remodel inert matter, too.
You take a step forward and watch it open back out. "At least I can get out again" you think. You then turn back to look inside the bedroom. Like the temple itself, this room is a peculiar mixture of styles -- and they're all Earthly styles, at that. Which is actually a little bit strange itself, now that you think of it; given the sort of power whoever-it-is has displayed, why couldn't it just as easily steal designs from other planets or other Universes?
Your tummy then rumbles. All the changes and the flying must have taken a lot of mass and now you have to make it up—which means hunting. Or at least, that's what the hieroglyphs said... And suddenly you realize: You're naked. This doesn't matter so much for the bits of you that are covered by your built-in fur coat. but you do have some bits of bare skin left, and you're not sure you want to risk coming down with a cold or something. And... sure enough, the bedroom has a door which (something in your mind tells you) leads to a closet. You open that door and, yes, it is a closet. And you find a few unfamiliar-looking bundles of folded cloth which you (somehow) know are clothes for your new form. Reluctantly trusting your newfound instincts, you pick out the sky-blue one; unfolding it, you discover that it's intended to cover your entire body, from neck to forepaws to hind legs. And it's fastened onto your body with straps and buckles.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 02 September 2010
The hunt
You put the thing over your back... or should that be "backs", since you've just added a lion-like back to your human back? ... anyway, you drape it over yourself and start on the frontmost buckles. Happily, you find that your waist—the bit where your human torso meets the lion neck and shoulders—is very flexible, so much so that you have no trouble reaching down to fasten the buckles at your flanks. Sides? No, 'flanks' is probably the better word, now. Anyway, you get the sides buckled, and swivel your human torso 180 degrees to get a good look at your backside. You wonder how you'll be able to get the very hindmost buckles... and then you see the hindmost straps and buckles fasten themselves, as if by magic. You blink in surprise for a moment, before another piece of that weird, implanted 'instinctual' knowledge comes to mind: You have the power of mind over matter, telekinesis. Of course, you think; I'm a flying creature now. But my wings just aren't big enough to carry my weight without some sort of extra 'oomph'—and I guess that means telekinesis. You're not sure how far you can trust this 'instinct', but it surely feels right, doesn't it?
Your ruminations are interrupted by another, more insistent, tummy-rumble. And now you know what you're wearing, and why your instincts chose it: It's a hunting outfit, and the blue color is for camouflage against the open sky! You go outside and take flight to look for prey.
As you fly up you see the walking path that spirals around the mountain. Looking at it you are glad for your new wings. If you had to walk down you belive it would take you 1 maybe even 2 days and you could slip and fall. You dive down going faster and faster and pull out just above the ground, adrenaline racing.
You take off and keep a look out for your prey. You spot a deer and your instincts take over; you dive down, grabbing its head in your forepaws and catching its flanks with your hindpaws, and its neck breaks instantly with a smooth jerking motion as you rise. You start eating when you notice a bunch of humans coming toward you with nets. you take off quickly carrying your prize.
The humans throw a bunch of spears but you quickly fly up out of range. You then head back towards the temple. "I guess it is home for now" you think "I'll have to do something about those pesky humans though. Wait where did THAT thought come from."
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 03 September 2010
Clean and freak out
You land next to the temple. Now that you are no longer hungry you are starting to freak out about killing the deer and thinking of taking the care of the humans. And you ate the deer raw... somehow, thinking of your latest meal as 'deer sushi' just doesn't help settle your nerves any. You go inside the temple and look for a bathroom. It's obviously meant for you to live in, right? So it's got to have some place to wash blood off. Unless whoever's in charge of the craziness thinks sphinxes like the aroma and feel of blood in their fur...
While you attempt (without success) to avoid thinking about... terrible things, your four paws lead you to a chamber whose floor is half taken up by a nicely deep pool of water. There is a 2-meter-wide mirror that stretches from floor to ceiling; you look in it, and don't recognise yourself. Not just because of the sphinx bits; no, even your remaining human bits are different from what you remember. The olive skin and black hair are fairly attractive, to be sure... but the face you see is the face of a stranger! You wish you could be surprised to see yourself covered in the deer's blood. With a convulsive twitch, you tear yourself away from that appalling image and hurl yourself into the pool for a very thorough washing-up.
The water feels good against your skin... and hide... so you do your best to just enjoy the sensation, and not think about any part of the massive weirdness you've been drenched in today. As you scrub down your thoughts turn to the troubling things of the hieroglyphics reading, the hunting, the blood and your thought about the humans and you start freaking out.
You scrub and scrub and only stop when you yelp and see your own blood flowing from your hide. You look on the brush and see pieces of your hide hanging from it.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 04 September 2010
The libary
You get out and lay out the outfit to dry and look for something, anything to cover up the wound and before you relise it you are licking it clean and stop with a sense of horror of just how much you have been changed by the costume mentally. God, what you wouldn't give to have a cranky computer network to deal with right now, a problem that's nice and mundane and (above all) human...
Wait a second: You were a sysadmin—information-handling machinery was your job. And sphinxes are all about information, too! So maybe you can put your new sphinx-instincts to work for you? Sure; you want to be rather more human than you are, so what can a sphinx do to solve that problem? Yes, you ought to have some scrolls, a library, somewhere around this place!
As you look around you notice a doorway you have not been through. When you go through it you find yourself on a balcony and below that are many shelves of scrolls. You eyes light up and you stroll around looking for any information that can help you. You let your instincts guide you and you find a diary of a old wizard who specialised in Transformation! And even better, it's close by—only a few hours away, by air! "Maybe he has something in his tower to get me back human" you think quite happily.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 05 September 2010
At the Tower.
You go back up, put your hunting outfit on and are about to go outside when your instincts stop you. You go back to the closet and find some saddle bags. You chuckle "I might need these, if i get a lot of artifacts from the tower" optimistactly.
You take off hoping that your magic door only opens for you. There is no key or anything you have seen to stop others from entering. You run off the plateau and jump.
You catch a convenient thermal updraft, and from your new-found vantage point, compare what you see to the descriptions of terrain in the diary; then you set off in what you believe to be the correct direction. "What ever else has happened the flying make up for a big part of it you think" as you settle in to your flight.
As the sun sets you notice the large tower in front of you and beyond that you catch a glimpse of a clear blue ocean. You keep your eye on the ocean to try and get a better look and OOFF. You crash into an invisible barrier that seems to surround the tower.
You land and your tummy rumbles lets you know you need to go hunting again. Maybe you ought to have checked your 'house' to see if you had anything stored in a pantry or smoke-house... well, too late for that now.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 06 September 2010
The hunt
You catch a deer quickly. Its coat is odd—the fur is a rich, dark blue—but for all you know, blue deer are perfectly normal around here, so you don't worry about it and just sink your fangs into the succulent meat. Once you've finished eating, you sigh as you look at the blood you have gotten over everything again and look for somewhere nearby to clean yourself. You go over to the river and as you start washing you start to turn invisible! Fortunately, the unseen bits of you fade back into view as soon as they dry off. "OK" you think, "there is a lot of magic around the tower itself, so it makes sense that the land would have been affected by that magic." Unfortunately, the formerly-unseen bits come back a familiar shade of blue...
You turn to look at the tower which almost seems like it could fall down. It's easy to trace the barrier; you lope around the tower and tap on empty air, and soon you find a tunnel leading to the front door. But by the time you locate this entrance, you find that you're blue all over, skin and hair and fur alike. Even your claws are blue! You hope you don't acquire any other traits from your recent meal... and you also hope you won't need to eat again while you're close to the tower.
You open the door and immediately cough as a cloud of dust comes out. You look inside and see everything covered in a thick layer of dust. It looks like the wizard has not been here for a while. You think he would of had a spell to clean everything so this would not happen. Then again, maybe he did and the spell stopped working after he died? Of course there is the main barrier spell which is still working... Well, nobody ever said magic had to be logical.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 07 September 2010
What do you find.
You start brushing the dust off shelves and cabinets, looking for usefull items. You find a book of spells but you can't understand most of them but one is all about changing your colour. This one might be worth keeping if you stay blue; you put it in your saddlebags.
You turn around to see all the dust is concentrating on one point, as if it's being sucked into a hose or something. You go to it and find a gem in the floor that seems to be collecting dust. A few seconds' observation tells you that this gem functions as if it were a dust magnet; it draws dust in towards itself, and that's all it does. Well, that could be helpful to any home, couldn't it? Picking this gem off the floor, you put it in your saddlebags, next to the book. You then watch as dust starts collecting on the outisde of the bag.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 08 September 2010
And in the room
You find the stairs and after a bit of working out how to do so you start climbing them. You find a door and inside is a very pretty necklace that captures the last rays of sunlight and reflects a pretty pattern onto the wall which fades soon after you see it as the sun finally sets. There is even a mirror so you could see what it looks like on you; well, why not? You pick up the necklace, then tak-tak-tak over to the mirror and hold it up against your chest.
It looks almost like it was designed for you and your purr in delight at the look... hold on a second. You've manoeuvred yourself around to get different angles on how it looks, and your 'footsteps' don't sound the same? Looking down to check, you find that your claws aren't there any more! They've been replaced by hooves. Blue, deer-like hooves. And as you watch, you see your legs reshape themselves, shifting away from a leonine configuration! It must have been the deer that you ate, it is changing you... into a new deer, to replace what you killed?
You notice the skin around the necklace seems to be your normal sphinx skin.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 09 September 2010
Wearing the necklace
Well, if the thing protects against turning into a deer, you'll be better off wearing it... right? You tie the thread together, hoping you will turn back to a more leonine form. The results are immediate: Your legs revert back to their former lion-like state. The fur is still blue, but at least the deer stuff isn't there any more!
To your shock the lion fur is growing up your torso. You go to untie it and find that your hands have disappeared and your arms are also shrinking. You look down and notice your torso is being sucked up by your body. You look inn the mirror to see a normal sphinx (well with blue fur). "Great now what" you think. And what are you going to do without hands? Well, maybe you can pull the necklace off with your forepaws; with any luck, that will undo the changes it put on you when you put it on. This prove to be quite difficult and you only managed to get your paw up to the necklace and no where near where you could pull it off. You can catch the necklace on a claw, but the chain is too tough—it simply will not break, no matter how hard you try to snap it or cut it! Would you have been any worse off if you'd allowed the deer transformation to run its course, rather than using the magic necklace?
You bow your head to let the necklase slip off of you, but it might as well be glued to your hide; it will not come off.
Well... you did come here in hopes of finding a way to assume a more-human form than you had... and if the necklace means anything, this tower clearly contains magic that can effect physical changes in its users. So you can still work towards your goal, right?
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 10 September 2010
Escaped
"Of course you still have to get out of the room" you think as you look at the firmly shut door. "Clever" you think "Trap anyone in here and then only he would be able to turn them back"
There's a knob on the door; you place your forepaws around it, one on each side, and find that you can't pull the thing open. Unfortunately, your paws just can't get a firm-enough grip on the thing to turn it... Another idea comes to mind: The knob is small enough to fit in your mouth, so you could bite into it and turn it by moving your head. You try this, and...
...it works! The door slips open and you escape. You look up the winding staircase and back down trying to decide between the two. What the heck; you're here, so you may as well keep looking for something that can re-humanize you. And now that you know you can open the door, you go back into the room so you can give it a nice, thorough search...
This thought is interrupted by a long yawn. Well you have had a big day and this appears to be a good place to sleep. You curl up on the floor and close your eyes...
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 11 September 2010
A secret room?
You rise with the Sun, and get started on the search you tabled last night; your belly is still comfortably full from your last meal, so no need for breakfast. You start tapping the walls and are shocked when you hear a hollow sound you could swear was an outside wall. After a few seconds' pondering the seemingly-blank wall, you decide to try breaking in, so you slash into the wall with your foreclaws. It turns out to be a paper-thin imitation rock, and you slice right through it!
Beyond the false wall, you find a room of about the same size as the one you're in. But you thought the other room was all that could fit into the tower..? "Never mind, it's magic," you tell yourself. This room seems to be a number of cells, each with its own sheaf of parchment sheets tied together by leather thongs. You step into this 'new' room, padding as softly as the cat-thing you are, and take a closer look at the nearest sheaf of parchments. There's writing on the sheets. It seems to be a description of an experiment to turn a human into a ordinary house cat and what effect it has on the subject's behaviour. Curious, you scan the cell where that experiment was presumably conducted. That cell is empty, not even a bed, the subject appears to have been moved a long time ago. The other cells revealing similar results but with dogs,cows and pigs. Hmmm... in the cell which was used for the cow experiment, you see a primitive machine which has a few hoses and cups... right, a milking machine. But it's rather different from any milking machines you've seen or heard of back home!
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 12 September 2010
Oops
Sphinxes being part-cat, it's hardly unexpected that curiosity spurs you to pad on over to examine the odd milking machine more closely. But the moment you step into its cell, it activates! The hoses reach for your belly, where your udder would be if you were a cow, and you flap away. Of cause this is right into the roof. you are stunned and crash partially through the wall.
When you recover you notice your front legs are now looking a lot more eagle like and your hair—what was left of it, on your head—has been replaced by feathers. And the hoses are still coming for you!
Luckily this time you are able to run out of the reach and avoid them. The hoses stretch out as if they could still sense you but they cannot reach outside the cell and you breath a sigh of relief.
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 13 September 2010
Back on the ground?
You pad on out and back to the stairs and start going up hoping for better luck on the next level. This level does not have a door just the outside walls and a large window to an ocean. Funny; you don't recall seeing an ocean when you were outside. Turning around you see the door outside and ground just outside? You stand there, blinking, in mild shock. You had been on the ground, and then you went up two flights of stairs, and you're back on the ground? You aren't at all sure you want to know how that works...
You look out and are surprised to see what looks like roofs in the middle of the ocean. You almost gag on a horrible smell -- the place is heavily infested with mildew! But wait, you can't see any mildew growing... The wallpaper is clearly water-stained, and much of it is peeling off the walls; there's a lot of furniture piled up near the stairs going down. It looks like this room must have been flooded at one point; as for the stench, perhaps you just have a more-acute nose, now that you're a sphinx-creature.
Unfortunately there is nothing here to help you on your quest for greater humanity. You shudder a little and climb up the stairs again. The next landing opens up into what looks like a library; at least, the walls are lined with shelves filled with scrolls and books, and there are a number of free-standing shelves in the middle of this room. A mage's library...
Written by Catprog & Cubist on 13 September 2010