by Prax Venter
Klax produced a wooden wand with a black sphere attached at the end from his cloak and began waving it around in long, sweeping arcs. He then gazed deeply into the sphere’s opaque surface as if he were reading something.
“Life mana saturation at optimal levels,” he said. “We should have a clear path to the end of the ritual.”
“Excellent,” Jayna responded as she sunk her legs into the ground between two of the plinths. The wooden woman moved downward until she was up past her hips in the grass and then extended her arms over her head.
Klax took his position behind her and flicked out his small orange hands as if he were about to perform a piano concerto.
“Are you ready, Jezebel?” he asked, and the nervous satyr nodded. “Good, this process will take about 20 seconds. You need to hold still, but don’t stress out over being motionless. Just don’t- you know, run away or anything. It might hurt a little as your body takes the new shape. Nothing too intense, and it will end quickly.” He paused and pointed an orange finger at Mark. “And don’t any of you interfere! The last thing we need is foreign magics tainting the process.”
“Understood,” Mark said.
“Very well. Engaging Force Shift: Centaur… now.”
The small pumpkin-man took hold of Jayna’s long branch-like arms, and they both closed their eyes. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and Mark was wondering if there was going to be the crazy light show he imagined for this process- and he wasn’t disappointed.
Both tree and pumpkin began chanting in a language Mark didn’t understand as the runes carved into the stone circle lit up with a vivid lime hue. Green fingers of lightning started to radiate inward from the stone plinths and strike Jezebel’s hooves with sporadic bursts. He could tell it wasn’t pleasant for her, but it wasn’t quite painful.
However, as both Kalorplast mages raised their voices, the vibrant energy gathering on the tan satyr ramped upward as well. Intense surges of power constantly washed over the ritual components arranged on the five pedestals, and their spidery tendrils of light began striking farther up Jezebel’s body.
He saw her try to clench her teeth as pure, primal power flowed into her doe legs and up her back, and Mark fought with everything he had not to pull her out or Heal her.
The flashes of violent magic became too much to look at directly, and he saw that the whole forest was lit up around them. The oversized faces carved into the bark were everywhere too, and the arcane brilliance of the ritual splashed them all with eerie dark shadows. The faces in the trees began adding their own much deeper voices to the magic spell, and it all combined into an overwhelming crescendo of light and sound threatening to obliterate his sanity.
Jezebel let out a terrible gurgling scream, and Mark turned back to face the blinding magics swirling and crackling around the center of the ritual stone.
Then, with a final explosion of sparks, the tremendous power subsided, and standing in the center of the stone disk was a nude and tightly muscled, doe-like centaur.
He watched Jezebel look down at her hands and noticed right away that she was missing her horns. Her perfectly round head appeared odd after so long of knowing her with them, but she was still beyond attractive. Her torso was pretty much the same, including her tight, spherical breasts, but she was much more buff than she was before the ritual. Her lower half now had two extra legs like a deer, and it was all still covered in the same short reddish-brown fur with white spots on her thick haunch.
“Jez,” Mark said, stepping to the edge of the ritual stone, “are you okay?”
She nodded and said, “I think-” but then noticed that something was off. She brought both of her hands up to the top of her head and seemed more shocked to find her horns missing than having four legs.
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said as she dropped her hands and turned toward the two mages. “Can I move now?”
“You sure can,” Klax said, blowing the smoke raising off his soot-covered hands. “Glad to see everything went relatively smoothly.”
“There are deer-centaurs?” Jezebel asked, twisting to run her hands over her new hindquarters, and Mark couldn’t believe her chiseled, tan ab muscles.
“Why wouldn’t there be?” Klax answered.
“The buffalo are the ones you have to watch for,” Jayna added as she pulled her wooden legs out of the ground.
Klax let out a short laugh. “Ha, yeah, but you should really watch out for all centaur races though.”
“What’s it… look like back there?” Centaur-Jezebel said as she tried to see her own ass. Mark, Sasha, and Abby watched as their newly upgraded Druid backed up toward them. Her short, furry tail pointed straight up, and they all got a close look at the goods.
“Pretty much the same,” Mark said as he slid his hand down the curve of her sleek-furred ass. “It’s all you… but bent over.”
“You’re bigger,” Abby said from his side. “The proportion is equal to your previous state, yet I would estimate you’ve increased in size by five to ten percent.”
“And you’re ripped, sweetie. Like rip-a-tree-in-half, ripped.”
“Well, now. Let’s not get carried away,” the wooden woman said as she helped Klax clean up the ritual circle.
“One of the benefits of the centaur form,” the pumpkin mage said. “They are all terribly strong. The spell worked with Jezebel’s natural talents and abilities to create the appropriate form. A huge success, if I do say so myself.”
Jezebel stretched her toned arms over her head and then dashed around the edge of the forest, testing out her mobility on four legs. She blitzed around the whole thing in two heartbeats and then leaped in the air only to land right in front of Mark on strong, solid legs.
Her tight, well-defined abs flexed as she breathed, and Mark panned up past her bare breasts to her gold-flecked green eyes, his jaw hanging wide open.
“You’re magnificent,” he said.
“I can’t wait to see what the armor does when I shift with it,” she said, and Mark felt a sudden flash of worry from her. “Wait… something’s…”
Jezebel’s brows came down as she trotted away from him a few steps. He could tell she was sharply focused on her interface. She clenched her fists with mental exertion, and panic flashed outward from her mind in sharply rising waves.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked, taking a step closer.
“Um, Klax,” she said, turning around to face him. “I can’t shift back.”
“What do you mean?” he said, dumping some blacked ash into a wooden bucket.
“I mean I’m stuck! I can’t even shift into a bear now!” Jezebel turned away to continue some internal battle with her abilities.
“Relax, my child,” the tree-like woman said then dropped what she was doing to move toward the doe-centaur as if she were approaching a wild animal. “Will you allow me to examine you?”
Jezebel unclenched her fists and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Please do.”
The Tender of the Grove nodded as she stepped up close and raised her wooden hands to Jezebel’s flushed cheeks. There, her fingers grew longer until they met under the centaur’s strawberry-blonde hair, encircling her whole head.
“Mmm, your mind is not from here, although I am not surprised. Regardless, the blockage is not a result of the ritual, sweetling.”
Jayna pulled her hands away, her examination apparently concluded.
“What are you talking about? Change me back!”
Klax took one careful step away from the fuming centaur.
“We did just force open a locked portion of your mind, after all. Give it some time, do the mission- then, if you haven’t regained control of your ability, we’ll see what we can do.” He shrugged. “Being stuck as a centaur will probably up your chances of not being detected.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed as he found his boots carrying him straight toward the pumpkin-headed mage. His ability still didn’t detect any lies, but these were pos
sibly some of the most powerful creatures within this powerful city who also knew ahead of time that he was a ‘seer’.
He grabbed the shocked Kalorplast by the robe and bunched the fabric into his fists.
“Did you do this to her on purpose?” Mark opened his blind eye wide, giving it free rein to probe past any possible defense this creature had at its disposal.
“N-no- I…”
Was all he got out before Mark felt hard wooden branches slowly wrap around his body. One of them lightly constricted around his throat, and then Jayna whispered in his ear.
“Do not plant seeds you cannot harvest, Collector.”
There was still no deception from either of them, so Mark let the mage go. Once he was released, he smoothed out his black robes and then nodded to Jayna. A moment later, her branches unwound themselves from Mark’s body.
“Perhaps I could have phrased that better,” Klax said, “but touch me again, and you will only know flames.”
“Fine,” Mark said, “What about Jezebel. How do we fix her ability?”
“Time? Meditation? Jayna says the shift was successful.”
“More than successful,” the wooden woman joined in from behind Mark. “All of her other abilities are still interwoven and even pulling from all attributes. It’s not a magical problem.”
Klax jumped back in. “There is, of course, a magical solution. It’s a much more expensive and dangerous ritual. One that takes abilities away. Not only will the CEO not approve, I wouldn’t do it until she’s had a long time to work it out, first.”
“S-so, I’m just stuck like this?” Jezebel asked. Mark turned back to see one of her back hooves stomp against the ground.
Silence hung over the Grove in response.
“Look,” Klax said eventually, “this is rare, but not unheard of. The body will sometimes reject the forced shape and stop responding. Just give it time. Seriously- if you are still unable to return to your satyr form after you get the door code, we’ll stop at nothing until you’re back to normal.”
Mark picked up that he was dangling their help on the condition of finishing this mission once again, and despite the silence of his blind eye, Mark was beginning to mistrust these people for old-fashioned reasons.
“I can’t even put my armor back on…” Jezebel said, looking down at her satyr-sized gear.
Mark clenched his jaw and then tried to take back control of the situation and of their plans. They needed at least a day or two of downtime to figure this out.
“We need to eat and to rest before we run off on your dangerous mission. Where is a good place in Starglade to…”
Klax held up his hand, and Mark stopped.
“Jezebel cannot enter the city,” he said. “Not only would a centaur boldly trotting down the center of Red Apple Way cause a profound panic among the citizens, but your cover would be instantly blown- negating the whole point of this ritual in the first place.”
Mark looked over his shoulder and saw Sasha draping their dark-blue cloak over Jezebel’s top-half while Abby rubbed her flank with one of her green tentacles.
He left the two magic users and walked across the ritual stone toward his stunning enthralled centaur.
“We’ll figure this out,” he said, taking her hand. They had always been about even in height, but he could tell she had grown maybe two inches taller. It was small, but they were both very familiar with the proportions of each other’s bodies. Their bond, however, was still as strong as ever, and he felt her sadness. There was a growing fear deep past her emerald eyes that he wasn’t going to find her desirable anymore.
He reached out and started poking at the nebula of freckles on her chest not covered by the cloak. She looked down, slightly confused.
“But we aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “That is, until I count all of these and make sure each freckle is where it should be.”
His beautiful doe-centaur reached her tan arms around him and pulled him in for a tight squeeze against her solid body. He had to reach his chin up a bit higher, but her lack of horns made it much easier to lean into her embrace, pulling in her familiar strawberry scent.
“Together,” he whispered into her ear, “we can figure out anything.” He sent her confidence in both her strength to handle this situation and his penchant for fixing things with his cheating abilities. She felt his emotional energy and squeezed him even tighter against her breasts- and one of his vertebrae popped. It wasn’t unpleasant, but any more pressure and she’d start crushing his spine.
“Easy there, girl,” Sasha said with a smile. “Looks like we got us an ornery little filly here. We’re going to have to break her in rough.”
“Your power is breathtaking,” Abby said, still exploring with her long appendage over Jezebel’s dense new body.
All the attention was helping her feel less trapped. Getting out of this smoke- and this whole damn city- was starting to sound like a great idea.
“Let’s get to work,” Mark said, pulling away from Jezebel. They locked eyes, and she gave him a sharp nod. She was back under control and ready to push forward.
Her spirits dipped again, however, when she glanced down at her unusable armor. Jezebel knelt down with her front half, and it wasn’t quite graceful, but she snatched up one of her iron fist-weapons. When she wore them and shifted into a bear, they covered her claws with a razor-sharp edge, but now she couldn’t get her slightly bigger hand through their already-snug fit.
“All my gear won’t fit in the backpack,” she said, already at a complete loss for how to proceed.
“I’ll tell you what,” Klax said, quickly reaching into the large leather sack he had somehow tucked into his robes. “I always keep a few extra condensing bags on me, just in case. These go for 100 gold, but I’ll only charge you for the component cost. 10 gold for one Voidweave Condensing Bag.” He pulled out an exact duplicate of the bag he was holding.
Mark’s mental antenna was still extended and quickly picked up that Klax was doing this first and foremost because he wanted the mission to succeed. This would solve their problem and obscure the fact that they carried around armor no one could wear. Below it all, the pumpkin mage truly thought it was an amazing offer and did feel a small amount of sympathy for Jezebel’s situation.
“What specifically does it do?” the strawberry-blonde centaur asked.
“Everything that goes in becomes one-tenth the weight and one-tenth the size.”
“And you’re charging them one-tenth the price,” Jayna said with a half-smile. “Perhaps your outer rind isn’t so stiff after all.”
Despite the situation, it really was a ridiculously useful object they couldn’t pass up. Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out ten of the glinting coins Klax had rewarded him moments ago and exchanged them for their new bag.
“While we’re at it,” the small pumpkin-man said and reached back into his own bag before coming back out with a disk of plaster between his orange fingers. “This charm will take you to the Recall Zone near the outside ring. Many shops and merchant stalls have set up there over the years of centaur occupation.” Mark took the charm, and the mage continued. “You won’t find anything as nice as you would in Starglade, but a moderately sized town has grown around our stolen orb and should be able to handle your every need.”
“Thanks, Klax,” Mark said. “We’ll be back soon with your frequency.”
He walked back to his team and watched as they stuffed all of Jezebel’s armor and gear into the condensing bag, and then placed that in her normal backpack before strapping it to her back over the cloak.
With one final nod to the two mystics watching them from the other side of the ritual stone, Mark snapped the charm and teleported his team to their next adventure.
- 23 -
Mark didn’t exactly know what to expect of the Centaur Technocracy when they arrived, but it was not staring up the barrels of centaur-mounted gun turrets. Bright-white lights switched on and flooded his one good eye,
so he turned away and found Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby close by. Behind them was what appeared to be the inside of a warehouse and a long line of diverse creatures waiting to get to some counter.
A deep voice rumbled from behind the weapons pointed at them.
“State your business here.”
Mark sighed and put up a hand to block the light. Another group of strangers he’d have to prove himself to.
“Collecting essence,” he answered dryly.
“Why do you and your Enthralled not possess Technocratic Questing Badges?”
Mark held up his palms and shrugged into the light.
“First time here, but they sound like something we’d want.”
“Exit through door C.”
The spotlights turned off, and Mark was able to see that the one talking was a dark-skinned centaur male with half of his head replaced with metal. His left eye was a glowing red circle, and it reminded Mark of his own ocular replacement. The centaur uncrossed his muscular arms and pointed to the metal wall behind them with a large letter ‘C’ displayed on what couldn’t possibly be a flat-screen monitor.
Next to it was the line of various beast-people and other monsters by other exits labeled 1, 2, and 3. All around the area were other bionic centaurs armed with futuristic rifles and shiny silver armor keeping a close eye on anyone that appeared.
“Come on,” Mark said, gathering his team with a look and lingering on the blue-cloaked Jezebel, “let’s see what this place has to offer.”
He led them to the indicated door with no line, and the metal slab lifted into the ceiling when he approached with a hiss of hydraulic pressure. Beyond it was a black conveyor belt that disappeared into darkness. The walls near the door were made from some type of glossy blue metal, and he saw complex circuitry covering everything.
“Keep moving,” said a deep voice to his right, and Mark turned to see that a pale horse-man with cybernetic front legs was watching them closely.