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
Vials of Liquid
Stepping up to the table you spy an array of liquids all contained neatly in vials on the table. Despite not being heated, some bubble and give off faint trails of steam others churn and twist as if they were alive and seeking some escape. You look over the table with wonder, but keep returning to the vials.
However there is another one that catches your eye, but for some reason it is as if the vial itself can not decide on what color it wants to be. This second it is blue, the next pink. What a strange shop, you think to yourself as you pick up the vial. "Well I don't see a price tag on this. Maybe it is a free sample." The vial is neither hot nor cold, and the color shifting continues as you hold it up to your lips in the dim light of the shop.
You catch a faint aroma of bubble gum, no maybe it is wood chips and campfires. Your brain can't figure it out and you shrug as you down the vial. The liquid courses down your throat coating every inch. You cough at the taste, definitely bubblegum.
"What was in that," you say to yourself out loud. The words becoming softer towards the end and lifting musically in tone. "OH no, what's happening to my voice!?" Your hand grasps at your throat trying to will the liquid back up and out. Each word takes on a more feminine lilt as the vials contents now settle in your stomach.
You stumble back trying to catch a glimpse of yourself, a mirror hung on a sidewall reflects a picture you are not quite sure you're seeing. Your form starting from the middle shrinks in, you feel the world grow around you as you find yourself shrinking. You look down to see the floor rising up at you then stop. You reach out a hand to steady yourself on the table as your center of balance shifts. You feel your shirt expanding around your chest and look down to see two large mounds pushing outwards. Your hands fly to them to discover that they were exactly what you thought they were.
Your stomach churns as your insides boil. "Oh man I should have stayed outside." You say aloud in disbelief.
"Why yes deary you should have." Came a response from behind the counter. A wizened older man steps out from behind a curtain that had obscured the back store room. "If you wanted a sample I could have provided, now it looks like you've purchase the full ride."
"Full ride?" You say the gasp as your feet crunch and shift growing smaller, more feminine. Hair spills forth weighing your head down and threatening to leave you permanently looking at the ceiling as it stops thankfully above your expanding hips.
"Yes, the full ride. I hope you plan on paying for that."
"Pay for it?" The question not registering with you, you take a second to take in your new form in the mirror. Your clothes hang loosely in places on your new figure and are far too tight in others.
"Yes yes, pay for it. This is a shop. You've enjoyed the merchandise. Now how do you want to pay for it?"
"Oh!" You say the context finally catching up. The edges of your vision are cut off by the hair you have to keep sweeping back behind your ears. "I... I have money. I think." You say patting your pockets for your wallet.
The old man sighs. "Money... what would I want with money. You can't expect a practitioner of the arcane arts to want something as simple as money. You simply have no idea how easy it is to conjure piles of the stuff... Money.. Pwah."
"You don't... You don't want my soul do you?"
"Child I am not some sort of demon either. You really have no idea what sort of store you walked in to do you?" The man cackled. "The sign outside is perfectly clear."
"Sign..?" you stammer.
"UGH! YES THE SIGN. "SHOP OF THE DARK AND ARCANE MYSTICAL ARTS AS PRESENTED BY IVAN MAKNARAK." The man yells at you. Some sort of power ringing through voice sounding ominous yet mysterious, like a loud rumble in your ears.
"I... I don't know how I am going to pay... This is my first time... meeting a wizard." You say tentatively not wanting to anger the magic man.
"Wizard! You think I am but a lowly wizard!" The mans brows furrow in anger. "I my sweet dear am a Warlock!" He says emphasizing the title. His focus shifts for a second and then his countenance eases. "I suppose if this is your first time meeting a warlock, you would not know the particulars..."
"I'm sorry... Sir Warlock. But I don't know how to pay you. I don't I have anything you want." You say still unsure of the situation.
"Oh on the contrary sweetie...you have exactly what I want." He says a wicked smile forming on his lips.
Written by Crunchynachoes on 04 October 2018
Try to Escape
You turn quickly, looking for an escape, whatever this old coot has planned is not something you want to stick around for. Your balance shifts on new legs, your extra weight up top carrying you around. Your new legs catch something unseen and with a shock you realize that you're about to crash into the table full of vials and relics.
"No!" Ivan screams at you. "Wait we can talk about it!"
You lift your arms up at the last second shielding your face, knocking the various trinkets off the table sending them clattering to the floor. The scene plays in slow motion to you. Perhaps it was an effect of the shop or some unknown hold over from the vial you swallowed but the fall seemed to take an eternity for your conscious mind.
Your wide hips connect with the table and roll unexpectedly down to the floor, your new bottom cushioning the blow nicely. Your back hits the floor as amulets fly around you. You feel your breasts roll into your armpits their weight pulling on your chest painfully. As if in slow motion you see the contents of the vials had skittered to the edge of the table, and now with your back flush against the floor, you're staring up at your impending doom.
The vials contents tip up and froth precariously, the rack leaning against the edge, threatening at any second to spill their contents on you. Dust kicked up from the floor of the shop settles around you as your eyes are fixed to the rack of vials. Green and red, purple and blue liquids sway back and forth with the sudden flurry of motion. One of the vials, seemingly coated in fur leaks a bead of contents down the side. The last vial glowing a violent shade of neon purple twists and thrashes at the glass.
"Careful now!" Ivan calls out to you. "Careful! Just move out of the way of the vials and we can talk about the payment. Easy... Easy." He says coaching you on as you shift around, first shifting your new hair out of the way, then untangling yourself from the various cords and cables that have found their way on top of you.
The dust scratches at your nose, your eyes water, you can feel the inevitable about to happen.
Ivan can see it on your face as he says, "Oh no. Don't, just hold it in!" But he is cut off as you sneeze viciously. The sound was all that was needed to free the vials from their precarious perch.
You try to reach up to stop the vials from falling, your new assets blocking your arms ability to reach it quickly enough. You grab the rack, only to spill the vials over yourself.
You watch in horror as the various liquids mix and tumble shining dimly in the light of the shop as they splash over you coating your face, torso, arms, breasts, and pants. You gasp at the various sensations of the liquids hitting you at once. A generous portion of the potions flows impossibly into your mouth as if seeking refuge from the shop. You feel the burning urge to swallow as the liquid practically forces its way down your throat. You feel your skin quake as it starts shifting and taking on different characteristics. You feel as if you're burning but freezing, wet but dry, alive but dead.
Ivan stiffens and watches the scene unfold. "Aww man not again. I always lose my best customers. I wonder what she's going to look like after this."
Written by Crunchynachoes on 08 October 2018
Something Strange
Your form writhes and shifts, refusing to take on any defined shape. Sensations roast your nerves as they themselves shift into different forms matching your physical one. A long coat of fur forms before melting back into your ever shifting flesh. Multitudes of colors flow under your shin as a thousand beasts vie for final control over your physical appearance.
But something strange happens to you, instead of a single form, your form simply dissolves. Bone and muscle turn gelatinous the boundaries between them blurring. Your skin ripples with a fallen droplet of some wayward potion like a still lake of water being disturbed by a child throwing a stone. You lift a hand to your face only to see your fingertips grow translucent then fall like so many droplets back onto your chest. Panic washes over you . You lose your sense of control over your raised arm as it rains down on you, eventually it collapses into your chest when you can hold it upright no longer. You make to scream but the only thing that comes out is a dull gurgle as you feel your vocal cords washing away.
And to make matters worse everything around you grows dimmer, then darker and darker still until you are no longer able to see, you can still thankfully hear somehow, but you know that you no longer have ears. Your sightless head still lifted in a vain hope to catch some wayward glimpse of light, you have no choice but to settle gently backwards as the muscles keeping your head upright dissolve away.
"Well I guess I should get a mop then." You hear Ivan say tsking under his breath. "I hate it when they get all gooey, makes cleanup a bear... I wish she had been a bear. Get some excitement back into these old bones." You get the feeling that Ivan talks to himself frequently
A new sense blossoms in your mind as the walls of your physical form fall away. One of shapelessness one of your thoughts and body flowing as one like water. You feel the stone floor, you feel the cracks in the stones as your body pours into them, you feel the earth beneath the stones and the coolness it conveys to you. You can feel the wood grain of the table as your body spreads out enveloping its feet.
The new sense grows stronger in the darkness. You can hear Ivan rumbling around in the back office. You can see the world around you, not in a literal sense but you can feel the objects close to you as though you were touching them with your fingers. An image forms in your mind of what you used to look like and you can feel yourself contracting. Your form withdraws into itself slightly. From the pit of despair you might find salvation in this. Frantically your thoughts race seeking to heighten that contraction, seeking to maintain any sort of physical form.
With the mental picture set and your willpower strong you will yourself to take shape. You will yourself back to what you were. You hear Ivan knock something over in the storeroom and curse. You have to come together before Ivan flushes you down the drain!
Slowly, eternally, your form coalesces into one of your prior self. You will yourself to have hair and can feel some sprout on your head. You will yourself to have eyes and stickily open them to have sight again as if for the first time. You will yourself to have arms, legs, feet, and hands again. You can do this. You must do this.
Your head turns as you draw your gelatinous form up, there is no need to stand you simply will yourself to flow upwards, to see Ivan emerging from the back storeroom with mop and bucket in hand.
"Oh you're alive?" He says with more than a little disappointment, dropping the bucket.
You will a mouth to form, but the only sound to come out, is a wet gulping and slushing sound. You'll need more time to figure out speech.
"Oh this is gross. Oh... You're getting your... On my... Ah.. Alright... Um... here. Let me help." Ivan said raising his hand. You hold up a gelatinous arm and hand to Ivan. Who mutters words lost on you, and a red beam shoots out of his arm, hitting your new form.
Your form collapses further, lines become more clear, features become more distinct. You gasp as your throat forms and vocal cords spring into existence.
"The spell is temporary of course," Ivan said "You can figure out the rest when you're out there, doing whatever you want to do I guess."
"Wha.. What's happened to me?" You ask your vocal cords still forming.
"Well you swallowed a bunch of potions and now they're all fighting for control of your body. I thought it was perfectly obvious." Ivan said sarcastically.
"How... How do I change back?" You say.
"Well on that, I have no idea. Maybe it will resolve itself or maybe you'll be a puddle by the time you hit the door. But please. This is your mess, deal with it on your own time. If you will..." Ivan gestures to the door with a plaintive hand asking you to leave.
With a sigh and a gentle gloop you turn and exit the shop. Your new form flows easily as long as you keep a strong idea of what you are and what you want to be in mind. Now then... Where should you go next?
Written by crunchynachoes on 17 October 2018
The end (for now)