Once more Melanie went through the annoying tutorial, at least she knew how to get it over quickly these days. Joren and Gwaine weren’t so bad, she also learnt to accept the quest to kill wolves while also taking on the truffle quest to make things easier. She would’ve skipped the quest to help Gwaine get truffles altogether if it didn’t reward relationship with him and give her a nice charisma ring.

Now she found herself back in the first town, looking at the all too familiar quest board. Help Mrs Tibbins with her cat, Clear the Brewery of rats, and of course get the elf amulet back. Despite the xp, she wasn’t going to do that last quest again unless she really needed to, she didn’t even get the xp last time as it went on the toad form. So it was a waste of a lot of time and effort.

Surprisingly she found a few quests on the board that didn’t have her transformed into anything too drastic this time round. She accepted one for the thieve’s guild which had her turn into a halfling with short blonde hair and a scar down her left cheek. The only downside to that one was being three feet tall and all she had to do was go to a bar and intercept a parcel. It even got into a fight so she was able to experience her new found skill, even at such a small stature. The reward for it was good too, she could now sell any stolen items to the guild.

Though the followup quest for the thieves guild wasn’t nearly as fun. She was instructed to steal an item from the local shop. Unfortunately for her she was a warrior and not a rogue so got caught out straight away. As punishment, before spending the night in gaol, she was turned into a wooden mannequin. After that she thought it best not to do any more thieves guild quests for a while, unless it was a disguise related one.

After that she found quite a few quests to take out bandits. It was fun trying combat and the attacks barely hurt, even the ones that killed her. At one point she was brave enough to buy a potion of gorilla strength. Which proved to be a huge problem when she turned into an actual gorilla and lost all her intelligence and charisma skills. Though she couldn’t deny how fun it was to pummel bandits with her fists. Eventually she ended up getting herself killed to remove the effect. Fortunately she had reached a check point from Resp-Awn and so didn’t lose much progress.

All the bandit slaying eventually lead her to a small ransacked town, boarding the Fairy Woods, a place she refused to step into again unless absolutely necessary. Still the town was still a good distance from it.

“Adventurer, you have to help me,” an old lady in a white baking outfit approached Melanie. “Bandits have raided our small village and…”

“I accept your quest,” Melanie had learnt to say this to get people to cut to the chase. It’s not that she didn’t feel bad for the lady but she was on a mission.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” the woman grovelled. “Now this won’t hurt a bit, it’s just a bit of magic I learnt from my mother, who learnt it from the fae before being turned into an oak tree.”

Bwak! Bawk! Bawk! Melanie cried as she was now a helpless chicken. The lady picked her up and took her down to her house by the bakery and placed her in a cage. “I just need two eggs from you and then we’ll go to the next step.”

Unfortunately for Melanie, two eggs would require at least two days spent as a chicken. She wasn’t even allowed to roam. Though the lady did feed her, giving her the leftover scraps from her bakery. Laying an egg wasn’t a pleasant experience and she wasn’t looking forward to laying the second one either.

“Two eggs,” the baker said the next morning as she grabbed the second egg from Melanie’s pen. “Now I just need milk.”

‘No, no, no!’ Melanie cried out mentally as she shed her fowl form and ended up as a large black and white dairy cow.

“It looks like you might need a day to get ready,” the baker commented examining Melanie’s udder. “I have the finest food for you, so you produce the freshest milk.”

Once again Melanie was left in a small yard with only grass to feed on for a full day. Then the baker finally returned with a stool and a bucket. It felt uncomfortable having this woman’s cold hands squeeze what was essentially her breasts, just to get a half bucket of milk out.

“Thank you so much,” the woman smiled. “You’ve saved my life. I was ordered to make a cake for Lady Rebecca, after the last one I made was poisoned with fairy magic. If I didn’t then I was to be turned into a newt. But then the bandits attacked and stole all the livestock.” The baker explained. “Now here’s the awkward thing, I don’t know how to reverse your curse, but it is a curse so it can be cured with one of those fountains, the only one I know of is the one in the Fairy Woods.”

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Melanie scream came out as a long drawn out moo. She did try to find the flower to summon Sparkflower to undo this mess but apparently that only worked when in a humanoid form.

“If you ever find yourself back in your elven form, come visit me and I’ll offer you a reward.” The baker started to lead Melanie out of the paddock and release her in her current form.

‘You don’t want me coming back,’ Melanie thought as her tail raised up and she left droppings behind.

Before she was released from the gate however, horns blared as a caravan came down the dirt road. There was a wagon of gold, as well as black stage coach being pulled by a large troll. The coach stopped right in front of the gate as a woman with green skin and wearing a black robe stepped out.

“I’ve come for my cake,” Lady Rebecca announced, eying off the baker and the cow.

“I’ve only milked the cow this morning,” the baker pleaded. “I need more time, bandits ran off with my…” the woman froze, mid plea as Lady Rebecca floated off the ground and approached the cow.

“Fancy finding you here,” she gave a wicked grin. She then turned back to the frozen woman. “You might not have had my cake but you have an even better prize,” Lady Rebecca smirked. “I’m taking this as payment.”

“My lady that cow is a kind adventurer, who…” now the baker was a cow as well.

“I know exactly who she is,” Lady Rebecca replied. “But you have robbed me of doing the transformation myself, so enjoy your new form. She then turned back to the stage coach and looked at one of the people near the wagon. “Take them both,” she instructed.

After being dragged behind the caravan for ages, Melanie found herself back at Lady Rebecca’s castle. Where she and the baker were taken down to the dungeon, which was filled with all sorts of objects and animals that used to be people. Melanie was chained to a brick wall and given old hay to eat.

‘Well Melanie, how are you going to get out of this one?’ she wondered, hoping that she would be reset back to Joren. For now though she spent her days in that dark dungeon feeding on stale food and being milked by goblins, who’s claws hurt her teats.

“Your milk produces the most delicious cakes,” Lady Rebecca came down to the dungeon one day, with a cake in her hand. “I think I’m going to need to keep you like this forever.”