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Writer's Guild / Flight of Fancy

« on: May 27, 2011, 01:20:17 PM »

This is a story I wrote last night on my iPod, and spent the last few hours editing.  I was inspired by several pieces of art on FA that I found, drawn by Catmonkshiro for ArrowQuivershaft.  It has nothing really to do with any of the art in particular, but I would credit the concept to them, since I have never done anything involving Avian TF's before.  I dunno, I liked it enough that I might have to adopt a feathered 'sona...

Also note: I like this concept enough that I'll probably run with the 'verse a little bit, and see if I can't make something more interesting out of it (Not that this isn't already interesting).

At any rate, enjoy!

___________________________

My name is James Anders.  I used to think that I was an insomniac.  I would spend hours at night, tossing and turning in my bed.  I would fall asleep for a few moments, jerk awake, and look at my alarm clock to realize it had been less than ten minutes.  This would go on for days, until exhaustion dropped me into a deep, dreamless sleep.  Only recently did I come to understand how mistaken I was about my condition.

During the times I dropped off to sleep, I slowly became aware of the fact that I was dreaming.  Snippets of the dream would remain in my memory just long enough to verify their existence, but the content of these dreams was invariably lost.  At first, I could remember nothing but the fact that I had been dreaming, but I eventually got the distinct impression that these dreams were always the same.  This intrigued me, and for months on end I tried everything to try to remember, from dream journals to recording my voice during sleep to try to trigger memories.  In the end, it was all to naught, and the pursuit of this dream was almost forgotten, although, like the dreams themselves, the pursuit always remained at the back of my mind.

College came, and I suddenly had much less trouble being exhausted before I went to sleep.  Nights began to pass comfortably for me, in that I never even had the impression of a dream remaining in my mind.  After a school year on a hectic schedule, I went home believing that my mysterious dreams were at an end.

 In fact, the mystery waited for my first night home before immediately appearing again.

My eyes snapped open to the sound of klaxons sounding nearby.  I reached for my iPod, only to have my hand nearly missed by the occupant of the top bunk as he vaulted out of his bed.

"All flights scramble, we are on high alert!"

The voice on the speakers drew my mind back to reality, and I catapulted myself from the bunk inches away from my partner.  He was already in his basic jumpsuit, and was buckling on his sidearm when I jumped both legs into my own outfit.  It was pretty basic, but with the hulls of the Defender class ships built like they were, any more equipment was just dead weight.

I pulled my sidearm from its home in the equipment vault across the hall, and turned to move toward the hangar just as my partner did the same.

We matched our paces until we reached the security airlock, where one of the superior officers quickly checked for valid ID.  My partner was before me, so he spoke first.

"Jason Dawes, gunner," he said, verifying his words with a flick of his jumpsuit's badge.

For the first time since I had looked for my mp3 player on waking up, something seemed wrong.  I had not known my partner's name until he said it.  What was going on?

"Sir, identification?"

The more concerning issue was that I had to grope for my name.

"James..."

My eyes snapped open, and I found myself breathing heavily, sweating like I was in an oven.  My hands shaking, I groped around my dark room for a light, finally resorted to pulling out my cell phone.  With no idea where to find a notebook, and memories of my dream fresh in my mind, I had to do something.  I opened a text message, and began to type out briefly what had happened.

I stared at the screen once I had finished.  I read my own account through several times.  The scene had been so vivid, and yet so nebulous.  I knew what had happened in the dream, but I could not remember at all what anything had looked like.  My mind could reconstruct the entire sequence of events in painstaking detail, but it could not tell me so much as the color of the weapons locker in the hall.

My heart rate slowed, until I was finally certain that I had remembered my dream.  In a flash of inspiration, I deactivated my iPod's klaxon alarm, and lay back down on my normal, single decker bed.

No distractions; I would be ready if the dream came again.  I knew it would not be for a while, as my adrenaline was still pumping, but...

The klaxons sounded, and I jerked from my bed.  No thought of alarms on my mind, I pulled myself from my bunk using the supports of the second bunk.  Jason was right behind me, leaping over my head completely from his bed.  I barely gave him a second glance.  I was more concerned with my own equipment.  As I pulled on the green jumpsuit that functioned as my on-duty uniform, I gave it a once over.  Just like Jason's, it had a nametag bearing an unfamiliar name and rank.  I committed them both to memory as I pulled on the upper section of the suit.  As I did, I noticed that the sleeves were secured along their length by weak snap buttons.  They were done for the time being, and a quick glance at Jason revealed that he lacked this feature.  The chest and legs of my jumpsuit both seemed loose on me, even after I secured the former with the zipper.  Whatever the reason for these oddities, it mattered little in light of the scramble order.

I retrieved my sidearm and again found myself keeping pace just behind Jason as before.  As soon as he had entered the hangar, I was ready.

"David Reynolds, senior pilot," I recited the name from the badge.

I was motioned forward into the hangar.  I found myself moving on instinct, and had soon arrived with my gunner beside the Defender class ship.  It was built low to the ground, barely large enough to allow room for a standing person inside, but its appearance was sleek, suggesting a metal bird of prey.  Jason entered the gun bay at the front of the craft, and I quickly entered the cockpit from a rear bay door.

I tried to fight the sense or wrongness as I stepped in; after all, it had preceded my waking the last time.  I could not help but be surprised at the cockpit, however.  Rather than a board full of controls I didn't recognize, the cockpit was a room well wide and long enough for me to lay down spread eagle in any direction.

Spread eagle...

"Computer, initiate launch sequence." The words flowed as though I had said them every day of my life.  I began to loosen my muscles for a reason I couldn't remember.  Then the computer recognized me.

"Commander Reynolds, voice accepted.  Applying flight preferences."

Several thin beams of light were projected from all sides of the cockpit for a moment, and I found myself standing with my arms spread out and my feet at shoulder's width.  The beams moved until they were centered on me on all sides, and then they seemed to bend until I was cocooned in silvery light.  The antigravity kicked in then, and I found myself suspended a few inches from the ground.  I was suddenly rotated face down, and them brought to about the middle of the room's height.

"Setting pilot configuration Alpha-9."

I suddenly remembered why my suit was different.

With only the computer's announcement as warning, I began to feel m body changing within my uniform.  First, it began to feel warmer.  Discipline kept me from breaking my stance to gawk, but somehow I had memories that told me that a thin coat of downy feathers was beginning to grow on my skin, causing a feeling not unlike goose bumps.  I admitted it to myself now; this was a dream.  Still, I did not wake up, and found he changes spreading rapidly as I lay there suspended in midair.

My waking mind regarded all that happened with disbelieving wonder, but my memory of the dream world, hidden before in the fog of a sleep-starved mind, assured me that this was not the first time this had happened.  This was how all the craft on this Carrier vessel worked.  What better way to have pilots become more effective than by giving them a form used to flight, and using a motion capture chamber to project their movements onto their ship?

My rational mind calmed down as I realized that this was nothing out of the ordinary for my dream self.  Meanwhile, the feathers had covered everything but my arms and legs, and I could feel them becoming harder, taking on a different texture and changing hue to a faded, yellowish orange.  Both looked like bird talons, a fact that seems odd to me at first.  I had never seen a bird with hands.  My dream memories again reassured me; this form was a hybrid, and as such had both hands and wings.  Wings... I couldn't wait to try those out.

Longer feathers had begun to grow in, forming a lair over the softer, downy feathers that had grown originally.  At the same time, I could feel my anatomy beginning to change.  Joints creaked and popped, and muscles moved and reformed as my body became more airworthy.  While I could not feel the effect in zero gravity, my memories assured me that my body was becoming much lighter, bones developing air pockets and body slimming so that I could fly without the aid of additional equipment.

I wish I could see myself, but found I had memories of similar changes that I had watched, and I tried to remember what each feeling meant as it happened.  By now, my underbelly had been covered in soft, tan feathers.  On my chest, which had begun to fill the suit as it changed, there were several black feathers, forming a pattern that stood in contrast to its background.  On my back, red-brown feathers had sprouted.  As I thought through these memories, I sudden felt some discomfort behind me, until a long, beautiful tail grew behind me, finding the hole built specifically for that purpose without issue.  In lieu of the ability to see myself, I thought until I located the muscles in charge of controlling the tail feathers and began to maneuver them around, marveling at how different it felt.  Different, but amazing.

By now, my body had been almost full altered.  Feathers covered everything except  my arms and legs, and they had altered, losing fingers a toes while maneuvering the remaining ones into new positions and lengthening them into talons.  A curious thought occurred to me; I could now grasp items in both my hands and my feet.

My face began to change.  First, in between blinks, I could see that my eyes had changed.  The darkness around me suddenly seemed much less dense, and I could see the silvery lines around me in startling clarity.  As I looked at this, a sudden ache overtook the whole of my face.  I worked my jaw for a moment, and felt it changing drastically.  I was moving differently somehow; my beak was growing in, I realized.  It felt backwards at first; my mouth was now in front of my face.  Still, memories came to me, and as my beak finalized I found that I was comfortable moving it about.  With a hooked, black beak in place of articulate lips, I was worried that I might not be able to express myself as much.  I tried a few expressions, and found to my surprise that I could express myself just as well with a beak as with a mouth.  The expressions looked completely different, but they communicated the same feelings.

Thinking through the change, I realized that I was almost done changing.  Only one thing remained, and I flexed my arms in anticipation.  My wings wasted no time growing in; they grew out, first connected to my arms, but extending away from my arm in an impressive wingspan.  My sleeves could not contain them; the snap-away buttons were all released in a moment.  I experimentally spread my wings to their full lengths.  Because they were attached until my elbows, both arms and wings had some degree of independent movement, which would be helpful if I ever wanted to use one without interference from the other.  Overall, the change had taken only a few seconds, but unfamiliarity made it seem like several minutes.

I was ready now, physically that is.  Mentally, I was still freaking out.  I had just changed into a hawk-man of some sort!  It wasn't exactly something I did every day at college.  In this dream world, however, I apparently did this as part of my job as a pilot.

Suddenly, a display panel started up directly on front of me.  I found that turning my neck so I could look straight forward was now natural.  I also found out that I knew exactly what all the displays were trying to communicate.

"You set?" Jason asked.  His face was displayed to the right and below the main view panel.  His normal, human face.

I nodded, then spoke to the computer.  "Initiate takeoff sequence."  There was a bit of what could best be described as an accent added to my voice, but it was still quite intelligible.  I could hear the engines roar to life, and the ship lifted from the ground.  With little more than an adjustment of my wings in my suspended state, I spun the ship to face the open airlock doors.  I settled myself a moment, then set off towards the vast arena of space beyond.  I could already see the periodic flashes that signified a space battle, and I would be in that fray before too long.

The flight was amazing.  Our enemies, using crude spacecraft a century old, fought to maneuver around floating debris, and were useless against precisely aimed laser fire.  I guided the ship expertly through the battle, setting up shots for Jason and avoiding enemy fire with ease.  All it took was a turn of the wing, and we glided through the maze of debris without once taking a hit.

We were one of the last to reenter the hangar.  My change from my half-hawk form to human was equally as enthralling as the experience had been in reverse.  I was still snapping the buttons back into place for my sleeves as I exited the ship.  Jason patted me on the back as we left.

"Good flying out there.  I thought you might be rusty after a few empty months, but you flew as well as ever."

"Well, you know.  Flying is natural in that form.  Once you've done it for a while, the skills just never leave you." It was true, though I only had my dream memories to go by.  The memories told me something else, though, something that I wanted to try.

"Say, I don't think I'll be getting back to sleep after this," I commented  "We've got a few hours before our regular duties start.  Want to join me for a spin in the flight chamber?"

"Why not?  Maybe I'll learn some of your tricks; can't help my case for pilot at all."

I walked to the chamber as though I had done it every day of the voyage.  If my memories of the dream were correct, that was very nearly correct.  In fact, it seemed that I spent much of my time off duty in that chamber.  After my experience in the Defender, I had no question as to why.

"I want to try one I found three days ago." We had arrived at the door to the chamber on our deck, and I tapped out a combination of characters on the keypad by the door.  Once I finished typing my password in, the door opened, and revealed row upon row of simulation spheres. In these spheres, various people, some in hybrid form, and some even in full form, lay suspended in the same antigravity matrix that was used in the cockpit of my Defender.

I found a couple free spheres adjacent to each other, and quickly used the computer to synchronize them so that I would share the same simulation with Jason.

The two of us stepped into our spheres, and the antigrav matrix initialized immediately.  I felt the wave of feathers beginning again, and it was not long before I had resumed my hawk form.  Beside me, dressed in his own flight suit, Jason's form changed as well, until he had become a bald eagle.

The simulation began as soon as we were both changed.  At first, it was an obvious projection.  After a few moments, however, we were fully immersed in a new world.  We stood together on a green plain, looking about at rolling hills and green forests, and feeling simulated gusts of warm air ruffling our feathers.  I pointed at the top of a nearby mountain.

"The view is best from right up there," I said.  "Not to mention, it gives us both a chance to spread our wings."

The flight I had charted was by no means a short one, but neither of us cared.  We loved catching the currents of air in our wings, gliding effortlessly through the air high above the earth, and watching the world go by beneath us.

Once we arrived, I was completely taken aback.  My recommendation of the view was merited completely. The view we had seen from the ground was completely dwarfed by the magnitude of beauty we saw from here.  Even the thought that I wasn't really there could not spoil it for me.  After all, we were looking at a real spot on Earth.  We might not really be there, but we would be able to see the same view once our voyage had ended.

I knew the place was real, because I had been there in my waking life once, on a rock climbing venture with some fraternity guys.  The view I saw then was not even comparable.  As a hawk, my eyes were several orders of magnitude better than my human eyes.  I could see the details of the landscape in impeccable detail.  I could very nearly discern individual blades of grass hundreds of feet below me, and was able to track the movement of several creatures that also occupied the slopes.

"When we get back to Earth, I think I'll apply for a long-term change.  There are so many places I actually want to be able to see like this," I admitted, nearly breathless from the view.

"I'm not sure I'd take it that far, but this is a view I would not mind seeing for real." Jason's gaze took in every detail, and his beak was cracked in an avian smile.  "If I ever did go on a flying vacation, though, I would want you as my travel guide.  You have impeccable taste in great views."

We spent almost an hour just taking in the sights, and spent our remaining time before active duty soaring lazily through the air.  I had thought that my earlier comment about wanting to keep the form longer had been exclusively from my dream self, but I found myself agreeing more and more with the sentiment.  If it was ever possible to take on such a form in my waking reality, I would be sorely tempted.

I woke, startled not from any occurrence in my dream, but from the fact that I had woken without warning, right in the middle of my flight.  I looked at my clock; it was well past noon, thanks to me deactivating my alarm.  I wouldn't call the day wasted, though.  The vivid beauty and excitement of the dream stayed with me when I woke, and I longed to experience more.  I found a notebook and set my pen down to write out what I had seen.  Words seemed so worthless to describe the experience.  Still, I could not risk losing the memory, especially if I was unable to return.

My story written, I went about my day.  On my mind a question nagged; would I be returning to that strange world in my dreams?  It was a question that would have to wait for the night.  For now, I went about my life, unable to shake the daydreams of flight, andhoping I would live that vivid dream again.

32

Writer's Guild / Work-in-progress story

« on: April 28, 2011, 11:14:11 PM »

Here's something I started a few days ago.  It's a concept I wanted to try, and here's the first part.  Enjoy.

----------------

​Colin slid along the edge of the roof, carefully keeping solid footing on the slanted shingles that made up the inner edge of the roof.  It was precarious footing, but it was the only way that he was going to be able to reach his target.  He leaned back against an outset window, using it to steady his perch, before continuing his way along the roof.

 

​Below him, most of the people in the close cluster of houses had long since headed to bed.  The most obvious exceptions were the men that marched in connected circles about the base of the mayoral house, protecting its contents from people like Colin.

 

​A leap took Colin to the next roof.  His feet slid a bit on the slick shingles, but he expertly adjusted his footing before it could cause him major trouble. He lay flat against the shingles for a few moments, watching the guards.  He was only two houses away, and they were paid to be observant.  He had to make sure that they did not see him if they heard anything.  The cycles continued as always, however, and he quickly crossed the breadth of the roof and leapt for a balcony on the side of the other house.  He couldn't risk moving directly to the roof, so the balcony presented the opportunity he needed to get to the roof quietly.  Once he had steadied himself, he leapt up and pulled himself onto the roof.

 

​The mayor's house was purposely built further away from its neighbors, so jumping to the roof was impossible.  The more affluent occupants of the house gave Colin another option, however, in the decorative metal flowerboxes that hung from the side of the roof.  It was a bad angle, but if he could time the jump right and reach the edge of the box with his fingertips, he had done this enough that he could probably pull himself up.

 

​The only other problem was the guards.  The sound of the metal creaking under his weight would be loud even if he succeeded perfectly.  That meant that he had to avoid being seen or heard until he hit the flowerbox.  If he was lucky enough to avoid alerting them with his landing, that would be good; otherwise, he needed all the time he could get to pull of this job before he got caught.

 

​He angled himself towards his destination so that he could run immediately as soon as he saw an opening in the patrols.  He watched them quietly until he found his opportunity, then he took off at a sprint.

 

​The shingles tried to deny him the necessary traction to achieve his speed, but he fought against them as he crested the peak of the roof.  As the slant of the roof began to work in his favor, he pushed off of the peak to give himself the last bit of speed, then launched himself towards the box.  He flew over the wall that separated- the mayoral estate from the rest of town, and just managed to get one last kick off the top of it as he flew for his mark.

 

​For the first time ever, he jumped farther than he needed to.  His hands still managed to find purchase in the wrought iron that surrounded the flowerbed, but his legs swung wildly underneath the ledge.  He choked to avoid crying out, and quickly worked his way along the available handholds, until he finally stood on the potted soil inside the box.  He didn't have time to check if he had been spotted; he worked a thin rod of metal in between the halves of the door and pulled up, opening the latch completely.  He pressed through, just in time to hear the voice of a guard calling an alarm.  He had to make sure that he avoided his entrance point when he left...

 

​The halls before him were still familiar, even after all of these years.  He wasted no time in getting to his destination.  He heard footsteps rushing through the house, but he focused on keeping himself moving, only sliding to a stop when the maze of halls emptied out into a large room bearing a set of double doors and several guards.  They quickly closed on him as soon as they saw him, but he had no intention of fighting.  Instead, as they closed, he dodged through their ranks quickly, managing to pick the keys from the belt of a guard.  He rolled to avoid tripping over any feet, and came back up in time to juke around the tip of a halberd that was turned in his direction.  He grabbed the shaft of the weapon and pulled it, and its shocked owner, around in front of the door with him.  It wasn't much, but it gave him time to unlock the door quickly.  For anyone else, it would have taken ages to find the right key, but he had been here before.

 

​The door opened for him, and he jammed the halberd in the door quickly enough to clothesline its owner on his own weapon.  The other guards were quickly approaching, but Colin had direct access to the item he was seeking.  He rushed to the pedestal in the center of the room, and took the object inside along with its case.  He slipped them into a bag at his side, then ran around the border of the room, simply to gain speed.  The guards stopped just inside the doorway, unsure of what he was doing.  There was no other way out; had he failed to account for this?

 

​Colin suddenly turned and sprinted back towards them.  They took up defensive positions just inside the doorway, but were caught off guard when he vaulted from the pedestal and flew in their direction.  Had they taken care to raise a weapon against him, the chase would have ended quickly.  As it was, he caught the top of the doorjamb in his fingertips and swung himself straight through one of the guards.  The man stumbled backwards while Colin switched to holding onto the man until he fell over, just in case his wits returned enough to try to attack him.  As it was, they both hit the ground without any such incident, and Colin used his momentum to roll off of the man and straight back into the maze of halls.

 

​He turned right now, after having come from the left, and headed for the nearest window.  As expected, there were men waiting for him.  Colin charged them, and leapt for the wall beside them at the last possible minute.  He grasped the decorative molding that ran around the room just below the ceiling, and used it to transfer his momentum along the wall and past his pursuers.  He kicked off of the wall a moment before coming down, turned him so that he faced the window directly.  He ignored the latch on the window, and simply snapped it as he carried straight through it.

 

​There was no stopping at this point.  Although there was a flowerbox outside of the window, he was already past the edge by the time his next foot tried to hit the ground.  He readied himself as he fell two stories, but performed an expert role as soon as he made contact with the ground.  He was already at a running pace before he was standing again, and what few guards remained in the courtyard were easily left in the dust as he made for the gate.

 

​He was not fool enough to think that it would be open at this point, but it did give him the most direct route back to town.  The guards in the courtyard, not knowing their opponent, had clustered before the gate to town.  They assumed he would try to make his escape that way, and made no move to head him off once they saw him.  A few moments later, while they still waited for him at the gate, he leapt and took two steps along the wall, using a corner to keep himself moving.  After his second step, his next foot hit a column in the wall, which he used to propel himself upward.  The wall was twenty feet high, but he knew better than to try to clear it all in one move.  Instead, he managed to grasp a decorative ledge fifteen feet from the ground, a ledge only present on the columns bordering the gate.  Once this height had been achieved, he pulled himself towards the wall and took two more steps up, just enough to get the top of the wall within reach.  He vaulted over the wall in one more fluid motion, leaving the guards to try to open the gates while he dropped back into the town.

 

​By the time the guards were able to leave the gates, Colin had slipped back into the shadows between the close-clustered homes that made up the town outside of the manor.  He checked his bag to make sure that the item remained after his escape.  The bag had fortunately been made with his style of movement in mind, and the prize he had sought remained in his possession.

 

​Colin sighed his relief and watched for a few more moments while the guards moved out with torched.  It would make no difference.  They had only a few more minutes left to find him, and after that he would be home free.

 

​With his first task complete, he returned to where his journey began.  He stood in the shadows behind a small house at the edge of town, and slipped his fingers into the open window.  He cracked it open further, and verified that the girl inside remained asleep.  She hadn't stirred an inch since he left her earlier that night.  He pulled himself quietly into the room, and closed and latched the window behind him.

 

​With a sigh, Colin removed the case from his bag and set it on a small, round table that occupied a corner of the room.  He ran his fingers along the seal on top of the box before smiling.  He wished he could check the contents of the box, but that would defeat the purpose.  He could not be truly certain of his success until the young girl opened it for him.  It was the only way.

 

​A quiet tolling from the front of the house drew his attention from his prize, and he gave a quiet sigh.  He glanced at his gloved hands, and noted as the thick, black leather thinned and merged itself with his hands.  The palms remained similar to before, albeit thicker and black, but the backs of his hands began to grow black fur.  As this happened, his fingers adjusted, still capable of grasping things, but now different in their appearance, especially where his thumbs were concerned.

 

​At this same time, the black mask that concealed his eyes from view merged as well, immediately sprouting black fur to match the color  of its material.  Blue eyes darkened and became brown, and ears became larger and moved towards the top of his head.  His patchwork, brown and gray clothing went through a similar process as his mask and gloves, merging with his skin, and beginning to grow fur that closely matched the color of the cloth.  It covered him entirely in mere moments, brown and grey on the back, and lighter grey on his underbelly.  As his boots and leggings underwent the process, they also began to twist slightly, changing in shape until they best suited quadrupedal movement.  He stayed standing, though, as his boots changed to strong paws, more than capable of keeping him upright when he wished to stand up straight.

 

​Finally, as the waves of fur finished covering his body, it moved up to complete on his head.  The brown and grey from everywhere else now covered his face entirely, only excepting his nose, which grew leathery and black.  Moments later, his face pushed out into a triangular muzzle, filled with sharp teeth and a longer tongue.



The final change to his form was an addition, as a long, ringed tail grew behind him.  It lashed involuntarily for a few strokes, then sat still behind him.



With his form now fully changed, the raccoon began to shrink down.  It was always the most disorienting part, and Colin dropped to all fours so his head would not be swimming when it finished.  As the shrinking stopped, the raccoon looked again at the low bed where the girl slept.  The thin cushion was now level with his eye when he stood on two feet, and this allowed him to climb up and curl under the girl's arm.  She must have felt the soft fur against her arm, as she reached out and sleepily stroked her pet's fur.  Colin sighed and focused his eyes on the case.  He prayed that this would work.  He had come too far to fail now.

33

Art Gallery / Speedpainting

« on: April 14, 2011, 10:46:47 PM »

Apparently the only way to get myself to finish a piece of art is to not give myself time to think about it.  With that in mind, I submit my 20 minute Paint speedart of my fursona.  I know there are so many things i could have done better, but I finished it.

34

Writer's Guild / Mansion of Change

« on: January 30, 2011, 11:00:20 PM »

My latest accomplishment, if it can be so called.

*


   An intrepid group of explorers had set off from their homes in search of the single weapon that could defeat the great foe of the universe.  For some inexplicable reason, they had all the time in the world to do this without having to worry about their homes being destroyed, but such things tend to be ignored when the success of the heroes is the most important thing in the story.  For this reason, the heroes had been walking around one area of the world in particular, notorious for the large numbers of enemies that inexplicably appeared there at random.  They used these creatures as their punching bags, learning what they could from the battles, and slowly gaining confidence in their skills.

   The haphazard group consisted of three freedom fighters, none of whom had yet reached the age of eighteen.  Their fearless leader was a common boy who had some inexplicable swordsmanship skill, which surpassed the combat abilities of his companions.  Regardless of the fact that one companion carried a bow, and the other had been training since his infancy, he somehow always managed to be the first prepared for a battle.  His name was Playr, a name that was notoriously hard to pronounce, yet fit within the world's unspoken stipulation that no person should have a name with more than five letters.

   The only person whose combat ability was justifiable in any way was a squire in a nobleman's court.  Despite this, and the fact that he lacked only a year or two before he would complete his training, he was somehow still unable to match the party's leader in skill with the blade.  His sword was also ridiculously small compared to the back-mounted monster his leader wore, regardless of the fact that said leader had been a farm boy up until three weeks ago.  Ed they called him, obliging his request that his full name, which surpassed the five letter tradition, should never be spoken in public.

   The token female of the group was Eliza, who insisted that her name did not stand for anything longer.  She was sheltered her entire life, and yet still managed to handle herself quite well with the bow she produces out of essentially nowhere.  She had been brought into the team before Ed, but had always taken the back seat to him in the chain of command.  The only reason she was taken with the party was because of another inexplicable skill she had developed, that of instantaneous healing.  Combined with the firepower of the boys, her skill as an impromptu healer made them almost invincible, despite the fact that they had faced things the size of castles in the past.  Strategy was paramount, and they had long since established exactly what their combat strategies would be in any given situation.

   These three finally deemed themselves ready to move on, and so proceeded to the place where their advisor, NPC13, had instructed them to go next.  So helpful were the people of their city that they had never been without such direction, and so never found themselves wandering in frustrating circles.  When they arrived, they found the place to be a mansion.  It should be a break at the current rate; after all, the mansion could not possibly contain anything larger than what they had already faced, since it was itself smaller than their last conquest of note.

   So they set off into the first hallway of the fortress, passing unmolested through the curiously open door, which just as curiously closed behind them.  They did not worry, though.  Just as it had many times before, the door to this fortress would open as soon as the villain within had been dealt with.

   Their wary search of the halls continued on for the next few moments until they noticed the disturbing fact that there were no others in the halls with them.  Besides the unforgivable lack of loot to be found, they were also faced with the tension created by unfulfilled expectation.

   As they tried to set off again after clearing the empty halls, a sudden disturbing *thunk* broke the silence of the halls.  All three stopped to look at each other for a moment, but very quickly lost sight of their companions as they disappeared through three tubes leading to various area of the mansion.  They were on their own now.

*   *   *

   Playr mused as he slid through the strange stone tube, trying to consider just what this interruption meant.  For one, the extremely well-thought-out battle style that he had developed was toast.  Fortunately, they had stockpiled enough healing potions in their shared stock to tide them over until they were reunited.  He was certain that they had enough.  All that remained, then, was to avoid getting himself into any huge trouble until his friends arrived.  If he knew this battle as well as he thought, that reunion would probably take place in the foyer of the mansion's owner, and their host in this area.

   The tube ended about twenty feet from the floor, but Playr mysteriously landed in a three point stance with little more than a quick exhalation.  He stood and looked around, considering the room he was in.  It was not a prison, a fact that somewhat relieved him.  On the other hand, it was a completely random room, and that was something that was slightly less comforting.  Random rooms rarely meant anything good.  This one was, however, more or less without enemies.  At least none that he could see.  Wary of chest monsters, however, he proceeded to loot the room with care.

   Several hundred gold pieces later, Plays felt confident that he had found everything worth finding.  That is, until he turned and ran into a table that he had not noticed before.  The intrusion of the furniture concerned him little, though, especially when he noted what sat in a curiously centric position on the round table.

   It was a pendant, with jewels inset in a gold talisman, all strung onto a long gold chain.  The beauty of it was overwhelmed by just one thought in Playr's mind.  What kind of attack bonus might it have?

   He picked it up, and felt nothing particularly special about it.  There was no attack bonus in it, and he was magically inert and so could feel no magic bonus if there was one.  All this important information slowly faded into the background, however, as he noted once again the beauty of it.  That was curious; he had always been very utilitarian.  Once he had thrown out the queen's wedding ring before he realized that it was important, and spent five hours searching the bushes outside the castle before he found it again.  This pendant was different, however, for reasons he himself did not comprehend.

   He stroked along its surface, feeling the fine details that had been worked into its surface, marveling silently at the work of art.  As he examined it, he felt less and less focused on the fine details, and began to appreciate the full effect.  Finally, all else faded into the background, and he could only think of one thing that really mattered about the pendant.

   It was shiny...

   As his mind was thus drawn to the less specific details of the pendant, he failed the realize that it was shaped in the likeness of an animal's head.  Within a mask of curiously black gemstone lay two lighter gemstones, standing as the eyes of nature's bandit.

   Playr himself was paying for his banditry, along with his lack of care around possibly magical items.  As his attention settled wholly on the talisman, grey fur began to grow in waves, covering his body in a matter of seconds.  It was broken only by black gloves on his hands and feet, as well as a very familiar mask around his eyes.  He shrank rapidly, and as this happened his body reformed, hands becoming paws, face growing out into a muzzle, and ears moving to the top of his head.  He did not notice, even when his clothing removed itself in a swirl of smoke.  He continued to admire his latest acquisition, occasionally chittering as he prodded it curiously.

   Finally, as he fell to all fours with his treasure in one paw, a ringed tail grew out behind him, and Playr had become a raccoon.  He didn't seem to mind.  For the time being, he just wanted to find someplace where he could live and, more importantly, keep his treasures.

*   *   *

   Ed was a unique type of person.  He had never liked being in charge of anything.  He locked up whenever his master gave him a great responsibility, and he hadn't been much better since joining the team.  Still, his sword arm was well used to battle, and he formed a good fighting duo as long as Playr didn't force him to make any calls for himself.  That usually worked out well enough; after all, Playr was the hero with the big sword, and he liked giving orders.  A lot.

   Now, however, Ed was on his own, and his blade trembled under the weight of responsibility.  Choosing thing for himself just wasn't his specialty, and he was now forced to make all of his own decisions.  Such are the downfalls of the professional sycophant...

   Ed found that he had more success than he could have hoped.  Just through wandering around, he somehow made it out into the open air without running into any enemies.  He was exulting in the feeling of individual accomplishment for the first time in ages, when he noticed exactly where he was. He was still under a roof, albeit a flimsy thatched roof which simply kept rain from entering, and all around him were signs that he was in some sort of stable.  Down to the various stalls, everything looked much like it did back at his master's castle.  Turning, Ed found the equipment for his master's horse hung in the same place as always, and he moved over to take them out of sheer force of habit.

   Once he had the leather straps in his hands, however, he noted that there were no horses in need of equipment.  The stables, while well-stocked, were also quite empty, and the clean, uncrushed hay in the stalls told that they had seen little use in recent times.

   Ed chewed his lip for a moment.  He had always known exactly what he had to do in the stables, but now that ease was denied to him.  He held all the equipment, but there was no creature present to equip, and so he found himself in another quandary, unsure of how to handle himself.

   Presently, however, he felt the bridle being lifted from his hands.  Curiosity would usually have caused him to turn about to see who had done this, but he felt frozen in place.  It was almost as though he knew what would happen next.  Indeed he did, but he had more often been on the other side of the process.

   The bridle was slowly pulled back onto his face.  As it moved slowly, the straps moved curiously, as though they were being filled by some invisible form.  Even the bit was pulled up strangely, floating in midair as though it were already inside a horse's mouth.  Ed's mind refused to question this, however, and he just stood there calmly as everything fell into place.

   Finally, as all the straps tightened and adjusted around some invisible shape, Ed's face began to stretch forward, even as his eyes slid to the sides of his head and darkened.  His nose and mouth pushed forward until they rested against the bit, and Ed opened his mouth without question to allow the device to enter.

   It tasted horrible to put it bluntly; any question Ed may have had as to why metal was rarely put in a person's mouth evaporated as soon as this registered.  Then again, so did many other thoughts.  Rather than continue his concern over where he should go next, he felt perfectly content to let the person who held the reins lead the way.

   Nothing seemed odd to him, even as the bit pulled forward and caused him to fall to all fours.  It seemed slightly odd perhaps that he had not already been on all fours, but he had been through a lot lately.

   As the fur quickly covered his body, his physical features were also rapidly altered.  His ears slid to the top of his head and began to move to pick up every sound.  His arms became more sturdy, while hands and feet hardened to hooves.  Finally, a lush brown tail emerged behind him, and he stood as a stallion on his four hooves, content as always to do what his master said, but now thinking of the woman who held the reins as that master.  As the vision of the stable collapsed to cold stone walls, his master led him upstairs towards the real stables, where he would find the other horses that his mistress had acquired before.

*   *   *

   Eliza was irate, in a word.  Her beautiful locks of raven hair had been blown in every direction on the way down, and she had no way that she could fix them without being able to see them.  She had often worked on spells that would do this automatically, but no trick could possibly replicate the beauty of her style.

   It was no secret that most of what she did was to impress.  She always needed her mana restored rapidly because of the extra she used in her healing spells, but the boys knew better than to complain.   After all, she was the one keeping them alive out there.  She had a right to showboat every now and then.

   That said, she really needed to find a mirror somewhere so that her appearance could be fixed without delay.  She searched every room, ignoring easily-accessible staircases that led back up.  After all, if it was so easy to get back up, the boys would be there, and she would not allow them to see her as she was now.

   Finally, she found something that would do the trick.  It was in a drawer, just a simple hand mirror, but it was large enough that she could angle it in order to see how she looked.  Still, she needed both hands to perform the necessary task of fixing her appearance, and so she propped it up against the wall, using the desk in which she had found it to pin it against the wall.

   She was good at what she did, and so her hair was fixed before very long at all.  She stood there admiring herself for a good five minutes, posing in any way she could to make sure her hair would fall right in any position.  After that, however, she was suddenly stopped by another face in the mirror.

   She would have turned around, but the woman in the mirror stopped her by asking one simple question.

   "Who's a pretty bird?"

   Those words triggered something deep inside Eliza, and she found herself staring into the mirror even more, not to see the mysterious stranger in the mirror, but the admire her own beauty some more.  She could truly be called a pretty bird with no hesitation, and she was surprised that this stranger was the first to call her such.

   Still, there were things that could be better...

   Eliza began to adjust her hair, her clothing, and her posture all at once, making sure that she was as pretty as possible.  As she proceeded, however, she failed to notice when her hands stopped working on her clothing, and her mouth began to preen and reposition feathers.

   It was a mouth, for it had not yet changed enough to be called a beak, but her skin was now absolutely covered in bright, colorful feathers.  She preened them proudly, puffing them out so that she could gain better access and order them one by one.  She was somewhat haphazard at first, as her mouth was not quite suited to this task, but the changes soon remedied that situation. A beak grew where her mouth had been, giving her a much finer tool for setting her feathers in order.  She was so satisfied with this adjustment that she did not even notice when the hair that she had been arranging so carefully before simply ceased to exist, as did her ears.  Her eyes also changed and shifted, while the final touches were being added to her wings, and her legs were becoming more suited to a perching bird's than a fighting mage's.

   Finally, she felt that she had preened enough, but she found that she could no longer regard her appearance.  With an indignant squawk, she took off from the ground and landed, perched on the back of a chair.  She regarded herself in the mirror and cracked her beak in a smile.

   "I'm a pretty bird!"

*   *   *

   So ends this tale of intrepid adventuring.  The heroes were defeated, but eventually the companions that were playing cards at the local tavern during the events of this story realized that it had been a long time since they had seen their companions.  They set off on their own adventure, and only another tale may tell what will become of them.

35

Writer's Guild / Schrodinger's Cat Revisited

« on: January 19, 2011, 10:57:35 PM »

Author's note: No, I m not proposing that anything in this story would actually work.  If something is wild and wacky, it is probably by design.  That said, basing the story on a real thought experiment makes it even more fun.

   My name is Elliot.  My friends call me Doctor, my enemies call me crazy, and my mother calls me every weekend to make sure I haven't killed myself.  I'm a mad scientist, entirely self-employed, and have a few assistants that keep me company.  I never bothered to learn their names, so they're all Jim to me.  It helps me achieve a sense of continuity in my work.  Having the feeling of your help leaving after four hours, only to have another one come in interrupts any kind of flow that I might have in my experiments.

   Ah, my experiments!  Now to the subject at hand.  It's been a few years since I created a serum that allows someone to turn into an animal, and approximately three weeks since I invented the formula to turn back.  Naturally, the Jims that I tested this serum on were less than impressed with my order of priorities, but they became reasonably docile once they realized that I would be in control of the antidote.

   Throughout my studies, however, I have yet to successfully produce a serum that would turn someone into a hybrid.  Why do I want to?  Does the term "mad scientist" mean nothing to you?  All mad scientists need a couple of hybrids running around in order to complete the effect for anyone who might come in on a holy quest to end their research, after all.  Following stereotypes is about the only way to get noticed these days, after all...

   Regardless, administering a smaller quantity of the formula to turn someone into an animal never works out.  The only reason the formula works is because it moves fast.  By stopping it halfway, you end up with quite a few mechanical impossibilities, and the body ceases to function correctly.  Thankfully, the vital organs survive reasonably well, but the subject's limbs tend to get locked in impossible positions, making it inconvenient at best to try to work in such a form.

   As I write this, however, I am documenting the discovery of a way that we can make it work!  It came to me as I was revisiting the old thought experiment of Schrodinger's cat.  The intent of it was to prove the ludicrous nature of quantum mechanics by producing a paradox.  By setting up a box, closed to observation from outside, with a flask of poison and a radiation-triggered mechanism within, and by providing a radioactive element that would trigger the breaking of the flask, Schrodinger proposed that the cat would exist in a state of flux, both living and dead at the same time, until a time at which the cat could be observed.  This state of flux was the paradox in Schrodinger's system, but it was the theory over which I would now be building my attempts at creating the perfect halfway form.

   The Jim that came into work that day could see that I was excited about something, so he quickly steered away from me as soon as he entered.  I saw him, though, and called for his help.  He was noticeably concerned by the metal coffin that was sitting on one of my workbenches, and became even more concerned as I described to him the materials that I would be needing for my experiment.

   Still, for any Jim to be worth the trouble, they have to be ready to follow orders, and this one was no exception.  The mechanism for breaking the flask would be assembled later, but the radioactive material was simply laid on the table near the coffin.  I couldn't be bothered to worry with safety at that point; I set it in place with my bare hands.  Jim raised an eyebrow at this, but that one eccentricity was nothing in the vast scheme of things.

   He noticed I had already placed a flask of cat serum in the coffin, modified so that it would have effect through the air.  That final strange thing finally got his attention.

   "All right, sir, what are we doing?"

   "We're revisiting a classic experiment," I responded simply.  "Schrodinger would be proud."

   Jim nodded slowly as he began to understand.  "Schrodinger's cat," he mumbled.  "I don't suppose it would help stop you to point out that Schrodinger never performed the experiment himself?"

   "Nonsense.  How else would he know the cat was either alive or dead in there?"

   He wasn't intending for me to see it, but I quite distinctly read the words "Common sense" on his lips.

   Undeterred, I continued with the set-up.  The rig that would break the flask was finally in place; all that was missing was to put the flask in the holder, and the experiment would be ready.  I motioned for Jim to follow, and pulled a fold-up chair from beside a white board and set it up with a clear view of the coffin.

   "Now, I want you to sit in this chair," I told him.  "You watch that coffin until it opens up and you see me."

   "Won't that defeat the purpose of the paradox?" he asked.

   I pointed to a familiar-looking device that was rigged near the chair.  It was another rig, much like the one in the coffin, this one designed to smash a button into the floor, which would cause my custom-made coffin to fall open and push me out, allowing him to see me and removing me from the experiment at the same time.

   I explained this to him, and he simply stared at me.  "Exactly how does this help?" he asked.

   "Don't you see?  By the mechanics of the experiment, unless someone else observes you, then there will be no one around to observe whether you observed, so you will be able to observe me and not observe me at the same time!"  He remained in that annoying, incredulous position for a few moments.  "It's genius!" I cried triumphantly, pumping my arms.

   "Whatever you say, see you on the other side," Jim muttered.

   I grinned at him and walked towards the coffin.  I pulled out an auto-syringe full of sedative and injected myself while I climbed in.  After all, I couldn't observe myself, or the experiment would fail.  I still had a few moments, though, so I set the flask of cat serum in position, and laid down inside the metal coffin for a nice little cat nap.  Cat nap...  I like that pun...

   The next thing I knew, I woke up on the floor of my lab, staring up into the face of a very confused-looking Jim.  A quick inspection proved that I was successful; I was now a human-sized tabby cat that walked on two legs and talked.  The whole situation confused Jim so badly...  He asked me why observing myself didn't break the paradox, and I dutifully reminded him that I was outside the bounds of the experiment now, and Schrodinger had made no comment on what might happen once the cat left the confines of its metal cage.  I was, therefore, free to be a paradox for as long as the idea suited me.

   I am currently writing my dissertation on the subject of my experiment.  As I write, my tail is bobbing back and forth in anticipation, and my whiskers are arching up in a smile every time I remember a particularly noteworthy part of the experiment.  More in-depth study into this form will be required later.  For now, I will work on in hopes of becoming a mad scientist DOCTOR!  Who will be able to resist accepting my clearly-researched dissertation, after all?

   Especially if I bring some of my serum and a few Jims to help out?  A dissertation by a talking cat who can threaten you with being a non-talking animal with a little muscle to help out seems like a winning formula to me.

   OR I could just use them as subjects for further tests on the Box...

36

Writer's Guild / Otter TF

« on: January 17, 2011, 10:59:58 PM »

For AO and because I needed practice at writing off the top of my head.  Written in 25 minutes.

______________________


David's route to and from school rarely deviated more than five feet in one direction or the other.  For years he had walked to his little private school through the same park, the same direction, and with the same lack of attention to anything but the road in front of him.  Like so many other things, this part of his life had fallen into an unchanging loop.  It wasn't exciting, but he didn't exactly think of it as boring either.  It was merely the way he let the years slip by.  Throughout these years he waited for something to change.  He didn't know what, but he knew that, when it did change, he would finally have some sort of adventure in his life.

He was seventeen now, just one year from the great change that was college.  There was no expectancy of adventure there, just a change from one routine to the next.  He was of a slim build, neither too fat nor too thin.  His height was stuck just over five feet, and had been that way for a year and a half, waiting for his last big growth spurt.  He could run well enough to stay out of trouble, but not well enough to make the track team.  His grades fluctuated between B's and C's, which was just enough to keep his parents and his teachers happy.  His brown hair never took him more than five minutes to comb, but it always had the same disheveled look as always by his second class period, probably from his bobbing in and out of consciousness in class.  In every way and in everything he did, David was simply average.

Possibly the only thing not average about him was a nagging feeling that told him that he was someday going to have some great adventure.  He awaited this coming event with some anticipation when the mood hit him, but otherwise made no attempt to prepare for it.  When it came, he was sure that he would be ready.

This feeling was probably the thing least on his mind as he cut across the park on his daily walk to school for the fiftieth time that semester.  The school year was almost up, and he knew that he only had to walk this path a few more times before he left for college.  Far from feeling any sense of regret, or backtracking just so he could walk the familiar steps again, he quickened his pace with each day he came closer to leaving.  He now trudged across the stretch of grassy terrain silently as always, but with a purpose in his stride that he rarely matched in anything he did.  David allowed himself to hope that he might have some profitable change at college once he got there, and any change whatsoever seemed preferable to his current predicament.

Today, however, something about his walk changed.  It was not rare for him to stumble across something on this trail; he had done it many times in the past, and even with a few weeks until he was done with it he was sure he would do it again many times.  Still, as his eyes caught the glint of something sitting in the grass before him, he felt a thrill run through him.  He stopped.  The item he had seen was only a stone's throw away from him.  Surely this deviation would not break his silly, monotonous life.

And yet, there is always hope...

David picked the object up in his hands and turned it over.  It was an old style pocket watch, with a faux gold chain running about a foot from the top.  He had never seen these things outside of movies before, but quickly discovered how to operate it.  He pressed the top and watched the catch release, showing the face inside.

The inside was, oddly, of more note than the outside.  Both of the hands that showed the time were intricately crafted to appear as swimming otters, and the background of the watch seemed to be made of a fine blue gem, which reflected the light in a very faithful imitation of water.

The only flaw to the piece was the time it showed.  David checked his watch and carefully reset the pocket watch, using only his experience with other people's watches to guide him.  It only took him a minute, though, and he clicked the watch back into place as he finished.

The hands of the watch began to move, and he smiled.  It was quite a fine timepiece.  He clasped it and tucked it into the pocket of his blue vest.

But... he had not been wearing a vest before...

That realization must have triggered something within him.  As he looked down to see what vest he was suddenly wearing, he became aware of his body changing.  He began to breathe faster; he couldn't believe this was happening!  His skin was beginning to sprout brown fur!  He could see it coming down from his neck, quickly overtaking everything in its path.  As it went, it left nothing but the vest behind, instead leaving a stripe of tan fur down his chest and belly.  His hands shifted, becoming webbed and stubbier.  Claws appeared at the ends, looking at once wild by their appearance, and civilized by their neat trim.  His leg shortened, and his feet changed much like his hands.

He could not see as the final changes overtook his face, but a moment later he saw a row of black whiskers sticking out on either side of his face, which now sported a short muzzle!  He gave a surprised bark, and then felt something twitch behind him.  As he used his increased flexibility to watch, a tail grew out behind him, complementing and finishing the other changes perfectly.

37

Writer's Guild / Why I'm a Raccoon

« on: July 22, 2010, 07:10:01 AM »

Well, since I already posted the 'spiritual successor' to this story, I figured I'd clear up some questions by posting this one.

__________

Why I'm a Raccoon

It has now been many years since my initial change, so occasionally I am surprised when someone asks me how I came to be a talking raccoon that works an office job for an IT firm in New York.  I'd like to say that it is particularly interesting, but in fact it is a rather short tale.

Like most respectable IT workers, I started out very low on the chain of command.  That worked fine for me.  As long as one was careful during the work day, he could essentially go anywhere he wanted on the internet, provided he was smart enough to get by the department's secured network.

Unfortunately, it was not until after my own attempt that I figured out why no one else was doing it.

I was sure that I would have no trouble getting through network security.  I programmed a setup that would essentially do all the work for me, uploaded it to my Droid, and set it up so that it would run as soon as the device was connected to the computer.

Unbeknownst to me, there was a fox two cubicals over that had tried almost exactly the same thing.

Everything seemed to be going just fine at first.  It was one of the times of the day when I didn't have much to do, so I could personally keep track in case anything went wrong with the program as it ran.

It ran just fine until it started setting up an encrypted portion of the Internet in which it could run undetected.  At that point a screen, which I knew had nothing to do with my program, popped up with a message.

"Network intrusion detected.  Executing anti-hacking protocal ANIM~N.TF"

I had never heard of this being a protocal, nor had I ever seen anything like that file name on any of the drives.  I immediately moved to try to abort the operation, but my fingers wouldn't fall right on the keys.  My thumbs didn't even seem to want to land on the space bar right, and a quick inspection showed why.  Instead of a thumb, I had an extra finger on each hand.  That wasn't all; my hands had also started turning black, and they quickly sped through the process in front of my eyes.

To that day I had never seen an office computer that could produce physical changes in the user, so I was understandably spooked.  I tried to roll my chair back and find someone who could help me figure out what was happening.  It would have helped if my feet would have been on the ground, or even had or been possible for me to touch the ground with my feet while sitting.

Instead, I discovered that I had become a great deal shorter, and was now dangling my feet a good foot above the carpeted office floor.  My pants touched the floor, but even after living for a good while as a raccoon, I have yet to find a way to push away from a desk with empty pant legs.

My legs were just the first things to shrink.  In little more than a second, my torso, head, and arms had also shrunken down, and, for a few moments, I could see my shirt sticking up above me, collar like the mouth of a cave, before it collapsed and left me swimming in my own clothing.

My shrunken stature quickly produced another problem.  I had become a good deal lighter already, and my clothes were no less heavy than they had been a moment before.  The weight of my pants alone was now sufficient to tip me over the edge of my office chair and send me dropping to the carpet.  I landed, shocked, on all fours, and had just a moment to look around before my shirt again dropped on top of me.  I heard an odd chattering sound as I pulled it off so I could move again, and I realized right after I had done it that the chattering had been my own vocalization of my frustrations.  I clasped my hands to my mouth just in time to roughly collide with my growing muzzle and follow it out along the path of it's growth.

I stared for a moment at the black furred muzzle and cold, wet nose before I felt itching running down my neck and up my head, from directly around my new muzzle.  I itched with my newly repurposed paws, scratching my stomach, back, and head, or rather trying to do all three with only two paws.

I felt my ears moving at this point, and was somewhat annoyed to realize that I had no free hands to scratch at them with.  Strangely, however, in an almost automatic action, I stopped scratching with either hand, dropped to my haunches, and started scratching in the general area of my ears with one of my hind feet.  It felt so good that I actually continued scratching after my ears had relocated.

What finally brought me around was the sensation of something popping out behind me.  Looking back, I saw the rapidly growing length of a ringed tail, which didn't stop until it was almost the length of the entire rest of my body.

That was the last of the major changes, but one minor one remained, that I still debate the necessity of today.  As I stood up on my hind legs to examine myself, my stomach popped out a little bit, making me look like a chubby little raccoon that all of the female employees would want to hug.

I managed to climb back up on my chair, just in time to see my monitor go to sleep.  It served my purposes well enough, though.  I got a pretty good impression of what I looked like now.  I still couldn't see very well, though, so I climbed over onto the desk.  I bumped the mouse in the way up, but that just made me get a little original and use my webcam to see what I looked like.

I was essentially a normal raccoon, with black paws, grey back, and creamy stomach fur.  The bandit's mask that now grew in my face fur was wide, and it almost made my dark eyes disappear in the middle.  Lastly, I had become slightly "better rounded" than I had been before, but it somehow did not interfere with my coonish acrobatics.  I chittered again, just to see if I could, and was not disapointed.  I was completely changed into a raccoon.

At this point I was absolutely flabbergasted.  I didn't know how to react.  It was quite a change, going from human to raccon in probably a little less than a minute.  What happened next was possibly even more concerning.

My boss peaked around the wall of my cubicle and saw me standing on top of my desk.  I saw him on my webcam, and turned to face him.

"Good to see that the change went well," he commented.

"You did this to me?" I asked.  This revealed another thing I had not known before.  I could still talk alhough my voice now had a strange churr behind it.

"It would be more correct to say that you did this to yourself," he responded.  "If you had paid attention when signing the contract, you would have noticed that there is a strict 'no bypass' policy on the network security."

"So?"  I churred loudly in anger.  "That doesn't give you the right to turn me into an animal!"

"I'm afraid that was also in your contract," he noted.  "If you're signing on for a job somewhere, I suggest looking the employment contract over more closely.  That said, I'm more than happy to keep you on.  Your productivity shouldn't be hindered too much.  A little refresher on typing with your paws might be in order, but as long as you keep yourself active andr productive, we should be able to keep you on."

For the moment, there was really nothing I could say to object.  I doubted my chances of finding another job that would pay a raccon, so my options were limited.

Later on we came to an agreement that, if I was ever promoted to a lower management position, or if I ever wished to find another job, they would turn me back.  Just a year ago I got the management position, but by then I had decided that being a raccoon wasn't so bad.  I guess it could be more convenient for me to be human (if I had any sort of social life), but for my purposes, I can find about anything I need to eat just by rummaging around wherever I happen to be, and I sort of enjoy the attention I get from customers and fellow employees.  It ended up not being too bad of a deal, I guess.  At any rate the option of changing back is still open to me at any time, so I'll enjoy myself for a while more, and turn back when the time is right.

38

Writer's Guild / Puppy Virus

« on: July 20, 2010, 10:39:47 PM »

An idea given to me by a friend after he read my "Why I'm a Raccoon" story.  It's absolutely madcap craziness, just so you know.

39

Writer's Guild / Stories Inspired By - "Magic Foxification Wand" by Virmir

« on: July 10, 2010, 10:00:07 PM »

This is, hopefully, the "pilot" of a story series called "Stories Inspired By..."  I wrote this today while on the set for a movie I'm playing in as an extra.  I made it as Virmir-appropriate as possible (although with a distinct lack of muffins), so I think you'll enjoy.

You may have to forgive a few misspellings.  I didn't have internet, and typed it up on my iPod.

(Might want to count the offhand references as you go...)

Stories Inspired by:
Virmir's "Magic Foxification Wand"

A circular chamber sat at the center of a mountain.  Years it had sat there, waiting for one that could overcome all the hazards that stood in the only passage leading to it.  Years of disuse had thrown the room into utter disrepair.  Slabs of stone, once adorned with protective runes of great strength, had now cracked and fallen away, runes still intact, but no longer adorning the stone walls.  Everything in the room was covered in a century's worth of dust, except what sat on the pedestal at the center of the room.

The pedestal itself was octagonal, with a side facing the only entrance, and all other sides, each the same length, pointing towards another set of runes, although many now lay elsewhere.

On the center of the pedestal, surrounded by no less than seven circles of delicate, perfectly preserved runes, was a scepter, made of gold and still shining, untarnished by the march of ages.  Atop this scepter was a single, shining jewel, cut in an impossible sphere shape and fixed in a complex, ornate sconce.  It seemed to glow in the pitch blackness, although that was impossible since there was no available light source this deep in the earth.

Suddenly, a ray of light pierced the darkness, and a figure stumbled through the door, holding out a glowing orb in front of him.  His robes marked him as a Mage, but the hem was tattered and the carefully hand-sewn design was starting to pull out of the base blue of the cloak.

He stumbled a bit over the rubble inside the door, but quickly straightened himself, especially when he sighted what sat in the middle of the room.

"Ah, at last!  The end of my quest!" he declared, though there was no other to hear.

Or so he thought, for as soon as he had said it, another man entered the room, this one running through the door.  Although he was flustered and hurried, he certainly looked like he had avoided much of the peril that his predecessor had suffered.  He was plainly no user of magic; his clothes were little but tattered rags, and he had the appearance and rough features of a working man.

Before the Mage could even react, the common man rushed into the room and past the Mage.  The Mage could only turn and watch as the man dashed to the center of the room.  As he reached for the scepter, the Mage uttered one word.

"No!"

The other man pulled the heavy scepter off of the pedestal, then held it aloft, smiling grimly at the mage.  "I've won," he declared.

The Mage shook his head.  "You fool, you have no idea what that thing does.  You haven't won, you've been made an agent in your own downfall."

"You are only trying to intimidate me," the common man said, but the mage simply crossed his arms.

Unseen to the common man, but clearly visible to the Mage's magic sight, the innermost ring of runes on the pedestal was beginning to glow.

As it did, the man's ears suddenly shot up the sides of his head and ended up nearly on top.  At the same time, the upper ears stretched out, creating an odd point to the ear.

The man noticed, but before his hand could reach the points, his ears had been coated in a fine layer of golden fur.  As soon as his had touched his ears, he flinched noticeably.

"What have you done to me?" he screamed.

The Mage just shrugged.  "I just let you suffer the results of your own haste and discretion."

Another layer of runes began to glow, and their effect was immediate and obvious.  The man's legs suddenly gave out underneath him, and he toppled forward onto all fours, his legs changed to where they made his pants bulge toward the top, while allowing him to comfortably stand on his hands and feet.  The commoner's face was ashen by now, and he cried for the Mage to stop it somehow.  The man just shrugged and continued to watch, however.

The changing feet of the man burst his shoes as the third row of symbols began to glow; his feet now resembled animal paws rather than human feet, and they quickly were covered in the sane tawny fur as his ears had been moments before.

The fourth layer of runes glowed brightly for a moment, and his arms changed rapidly into the forelegs of a feline, complete with paws and retractable claws where hands had once been.

With the lighting of the fifth layer, the man's entire face was overtaken by changes, mouth and nose together pushing away from the rest of his face, while his top lip altered to appear almost split, like a cat's.

His eyes became golden and oddly shaped, while his cries for help were replaced by unintelligible yowls.  Fur overtook all visible features on his face while his nose flattened out into a feline nosepad, leaving nothing human visible about the former man's body.

The sixth layer of symbols began to glow, and the unfortunate man shrunk, disappearing into his ill-fitting clothing for a moment before pushing his way out, now little larger than a housecat.

The final change came with the lighting of the seventh row of runes, as a feline tail, long and uniformly covered in golden fur, grew from the changed commoner.

The cat meowed once towards the Mage, but seemed resigned to it's fate now, and stared down at it's front paws in sorrowful silence.

The Mage paid him little mind, for sitting just beside the changed man's clothing was the scepter, liberated from its enchanted resting place by the sacrifice of the man's human form.

The Mage stooped and picked it up, turning it over and examining it in his magic sight.  All the enchantments were as they should be, both those that had earlier saved it from decay, to the more intricate ones that most interested it's new owner.

"Now," he said, bringing the eyes of the cat to him, "Let us see if the tales of this scepter hold true."

He waved the scepter aloft, summoning forth inner energies that he had awakened through years of painful work.  He completed an intricate weave with the wand, then spoke a single word of power.  "Vulpus!"

From about the Mage, rays of blue energy were summoned into being.  They shone brightly, following the path that the Mage had set out for them in his dance.  They cascaded in and out, enveloping one another, yet growing ever stronger, ever larger as the power became a single wall of magic.  The power showed the Mage fleeting glimpses of what was to come in its fibers, but only when the wall was
complete did the image solidify.  Before the Mage stood a reflection of himself, only much changed.  With a smile and a nod, the Mage stepped forward into the wall.  As he did, the wall again separated into fibers, which wrapped themselves around the Mage, effecting the desired change.

The cat's curiously perked ears lowered slightly when he saw before him exactly what he had wished for himself.

A Reyn stood where the Mage once was, admiring it's lush red-furred tail with satisfaction.  It appeared as a fox, only bipedal, and, although much shorter than a human, it could still stand on two legs and speak as clearly as humans could.

The Mage flicked his tail experimentally, smiling.  "At last!" he exclaimed.  "I shall finally be accepted into the Academy at Caerreyn!"

The cat lowered it's head and ears, feeling the great press of disappointment.  The man he had once been had wished for his own uses of the power, but seeing his opponent use it instead made him feel his failure more strongly than ever.

"Ah, do not look at me so," the Mage said, making slight adjustments to his clothing where it was an awkward fit.  "I won our duel, but I am not a cruel man... Pardon, Reyn.  Come.  I cannot at present give you more, but with enough training at the Academy, I may be able to fully liberate you.  For now..."

He lifted the scepter and began the weave again...

A moment later, a Reyn and a fox left where a Mage and a pauper had entered.