(F to Bear, M to Deer, F to Skunk, F to Tree)

Lyra felt a chill along her skin, an icy cobweb that tickled her spine and then wrapped around her. Her eyes widened for a moment, but she carefully turned, her black leather not letting so much as a creak. That was the stealth expected of the leader of the Night’s Hand, her merry little band of thieves.

Sure enough, she was alone in the mansion’s disgustingly opulent halls. There was no way that any alarm spellcraft could have sensed her either, so-

“My, my,” a girlish voice whispered. Her words seemed to bleed from the walls, the lanterns, the very air itself. “Aren’t you just the picture-perfect thief?”

“Show yourself,” Lyra’s blade was in her hand, the motion swift and soundless. She’d waxed the edge to keep it from shining, but it was no less sharp. “And I’ll accept your surrender peacefully.”

“Surrender? Sweet, precious thing. I don’t think you know what you’re dealing with,” the voice purred. “Maybe I should just show you…”

A strange sensation build within Lyra’s boots. She shifted her weight uneasily, her footfall making a slight thump. It was like someone had coated her bones with lead, slowing each of her movements. Concerned, she took what was supposed to be a wary step back.

Her footfall was irritatingly audible, her balance off-set. “Wh-what are you doing?” Lyra winced. She didn’t meant to sound so frightened.

“Just a little remodeling, unwinding some of that coiled tension, making room for some fun... Nothing I’d be worried about.” The voice paused. “Of course, you might have some cause for concern.”

Lyra looked back down to her legs and hissed through her teeth. Her leather leggings were bulging from within, like her body was somehow bulking up from within the clothing. The material creaked loudly in protest, and a few seams snapped like released bowstrings.

Worst of all, she could feel it. She could feel her thickening thighs softly pressing against the fabric, relentless in its expansion. Lyra turned to run with a grunt of exertion, but her legs felt like pillars. She made it a few steps before the tingling made its way up to her shoulders.

She felt and heard the wet crunch of her shoulders spreading, broadening her frame. Like the thunder following a lightning bolt, her tunic loudly tore, splitting itself straight down the back.

“Ah, that’s better. Humans are so much more fun when there’s a little more to work with.”

What was this? It couldn’t be just some mage using stealth magic, Lyra would have noticed by now. She gasped, but the gasp itself deepened. Her lungs bulged within her chest, sucking in more air, expanding her ribs like a blacksmith’s bellows.

The floor seemed further away than it was – was she taller? If so, she was wider, too. Her belly bulged, snapping her belt with a sharp ping. Her armor fell away in tattered strips, undone by her seemingly infinite mass.

“Stop!” Lyra begged. “StuhhhHHRRROOAR!” Her own voice had betrayed her too. It rumbled deep in her new, cavernous chest. Her blade fell from her hands as she clutched at her throat, grunts and growls spilling from her lips as she tried to speak.

Ethereal hands clasped around her fingers, pulling them away. Lyra stared in abject horror at the spirit that had materialized before her, a young woman with a cruel and taunting smile. “Well, we certainly can’t let you keep these. Who knows how many locks you’d try to pick?” The spirit tutted, as though scolding a child.

Lyra’s hands bulged. Her gloves burst at the seams, surrendering to her swelling, fat, thick fingers. Her new sausage-like fingers spasmed as her palms bulged too, puffing up and stealing more dexterity from the master thief. Her fingernails popped one by one, cracking and turning a dark black, curving, sharpening, stretching into claws.

Her hands were paws. “No-nuh-nghhRRUUH!” Lyra tried to scream, but the sound was lost to another bestial rumble.

The spirit laughed, dancing her fingers along the small of Lyra’s spine, from the base of her neck to her tailbone. Pressure built and built, before releasing with a loud pop and a new wiggling muscle. A soft, tufted tail now marked Lyra as less than human.

Fur exploded from around it, like a stone dropped into a clean lake. A dense, auburn-brown pelt erupted from her pores, millions of tiny needles poking out from her skin, radiating from the base of her spine to her toes, to her fingertips, to her nose. It was thick and shaggy and dense and stank like damp earth and animal musk.

“GRRRAUUUGH!” Lyra clawed at her own face, but the thick fur soaked up any harm she might have done.

“Oh, hush. Stop being so dramatic, we’re nearly done!” The spirit hummed.

An invisible hand pressed against the back of Lyra’s head – and pushed through it. Lyra’s face snapped outward, a crunch echoing within her skull. Her jaw stretched, nose and mouth pulling from her skull. Drool spilled past her darkening lips as her teeth forced her mouth open.

“Hrrr… Ghhk!” Lyra swiped at the air clumsily. Her hot breath fogged the air, blurring her vision. She felt like she was choking on her own changing face. She could see her new dark nose, a wet black offense at the end of her face, twitching in time with her heartbeat.

She sucked in her first breath through her new nose, and an assault of senses battered her nose. She could smell every particle of dust in the musty mansion, could smell the metallic tang of her dropped blade even past the chemical odor of the polish she’d lacquered it with. She could even smell her companions, and the sharp note of their budding fear.

“Companions… My my, isn’t that interesting? I’ll be back for you in a bit, just be a good bear and don’t go anywhere.” The spirit drifted down through the floorboards, wiggling her fingers in a mockingly cute wave.

Lyra thumped her paws against the wall, pressure gnawing away at the edges of her sanity. She looked up, meeting her reflection in one of the hall’s mirrors. A massive grizzly looked back at her, her wide eyes dulling over, terror fading into animal placidity.

“HRRRRROOOOAR!”

“Kael, did you hear that?” Elara pressed her back against the library door so tightly that she swore it would leave a mark the next morning.

“How could I not?” He snapped, hands flicking between his shortsword or to the daggers at his hip. Neither of them seemed particularly useful against… Whatever had made that sound. “Lyra didn’t say anything about some damned guard beast.”

“I… I think it was a bear,” Sera mumbled, clutching her spellbook to her chest.

“A bear?” Kael paused. He took a deep breath, calming himself. “Well, that’s easy enough. Sera, think you can toast the damned thing?”

“I wouldn’t do that.” A new voice echoed from the walls. “At least, not if you liked Lyra… Though who’s to say if that great, big, grumpy beast even deserves to share her name?”

Kael and Sera thumped their backs against each other, spinning in a small circle, eyes flitting towards every corner of the room.

“Sera, dispel any cloaking spells,” he ordered, some steel finding its way into his voice.

“No need for that,” the voice giggled. A spectral wisp of energy lit the shadows of the room, coalescing into the smiling figure of a young woman in an old-fashioned gown. Her features seemed to fade in and out of reality, making it hard to identify anything past her mocking smile.

“Oh, hells,” Kael muttered, though he didn’t falter. He lashed his blade out in a wide arc, though it did little to dissuade the spirit.

“Ooh, what a hero. Strong, protecting your herd… I like that.” The spirit looked past him to Sera, who was frozen in terror, all thought of spells forgotten. “Though your companion could stand to be a little braver. I can’t smell, but even I tell she reeks of fear-sweat.”

Sera let out a tiny sob.

“I think,” the spirit’s voice dropped low, to a conspiratorial whisper. “We can find some better forms for both of you.”

From her spot against the doorway, Elara saw the spirit’s hands reach out. It was just a small, gentle touch, too quick for her to properly warn either of them. One hand pet Kael’s forehead, and the other lightly booped Sera’s nose.

That gentle touch alone was far beyond what their humanity could take.

Kael’s legs were the first to change, a series of horrifyingly loud cracks splitting the air. His knees and ankles bent and reformed, toppling him over even as his fusing toes burst through his boots. The new hooves scuffed at the floor as he flailed them uselessly.

Behind him, Sera squeaked as she shrank down into her clothes. Her fingers were too small for her spellbook, which thudded to the ground, louder than she was. She felt like she was collapsing in on herself, her clothes billowing around her as she diminished to the size of a common housecat. She tried to call out to Kael, but instead let out a high-pitched “Iiiip!”

The spirit laughed, clapping her hands.

Fur exploded from both of them with an almost audible POOMF.

Kael was enveloped by a short, brown pelt. His growing body tore through his clothing, revealing a cream shade along his belly. His arms snapped at the wrist, becoming forelegs tipped with hooves. He tried to cry out, and bleated instead.

Elara stared, transfixed, as her companion’s face stretched into a long, almost delicate muzzle. She recognized it immediately as a deer’s, from a childhood of hunting. She watched as his nose turned black and wet, his ears stretched towards the top of his head, a small tail twitched its way out from his spine.

All of those paled in comparison to his antlers. They started as two bumps on his forehead, but only grew from there to a pair of bony, branching antlers. A thin coat of velvet fuzz covered them, and Kael shook them in a panic, his legs still scrambling beneath him as he struggled to understand how to make them work.

The bundle of Sera’s clothes twitched, black-furred hands swimming through the fabric, paddling desperately as though to escape drowning in cloth. Small claws burst from her fingertips, just as her face broke free of the hem of her clothes.

Sera’s features were covered in black fur, save for a white band that raced from her nose over past her head. Her ears were larger and her teeth were longer. She squeaked as she dipped below the waves of her clothes again. Her nose lightened as she fell, stretching past her face, pulling like taffy. When her head reemerged from her clothes, it was a pointed, triangular snout.

Her arms, so much shorter, tugged her body out. Her female figure was lost to an animal’s form, her new tiny flanks heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. She dragged herself a little further out, and Elara saw what was weighing her down.

Sera had a… Well, tail didn’t seem right to describe it. It was a thick, massive white plume of fur, longer than her entire black-and-white body. It shook off some of the remains of her clothing as Sera the skunk tumbled down and out, falling onto her face with an undignified thump.

Kael stared at her, his muzzle now bigger than her entire body, bleating in surprise and a little well-deserved panic. Unfortunately for him, the sound was loud enough to trigger precisely what he was trying to avoid.

“Ii-IIP!” Sera instinctively stamped her little paws on the floor, lifting her tail. Some new muscles clenched in her lower body, and a thick cloud of spray burst from her backside.

The act of spraying dropped her IQ like a rock. Smelling it dropped Kael’s. The two transformed thieves wobbled as though drunk for a moment, and the last thing their human minds processed was the sight of each other past their new muzzles.

But Elara wasn’t there to see it. The moment Sera sprayed, her last nerve broke. She wrenched the door behind her open, bolting out of the mansion. Damn this job, damn the gold, damn it all. Who the hells even bound a spirit to defend their house?

Her boots pounded on the wooden runners. She dimly noted the sight of a bear near the upstairs balcony, gnawing contentedly on Lyra’s boots. By now, she was too far gone to care.

“Running so soon? We haven’t even transformed you yet?” The spirit’s voice was suddenly right behind her, mockingly musical.

“Leave me alone!” Elara shrieked. The door to the mansion was in sight, and she focused on it and only it. She should have looked down.

The loud slap of her boots against the foyer’s marble floor turned into a dull thud, then stopped altogether. She pitched forward, her feet immobile, like her boots were rooted to the ground.

“Ooh, there’s an idea. I was wondering what we’d plant there,” the spirit mused.

Elara looked down in a panic, finding she’d run into some circle of soft, loamy soil. She was sucking into it like it was made of quicksand, her boots sinking into the soil, and… Splitting? She could feel dirt against her toes, feel her toes stretch.

“Wha-no, please no!” Elara tugged at her legs, unable to see her feet through the dirt.

“Someone’s picky. You didn’t seem to want to be an animal, so I thought you’d prefer this. Oh well, not like I’m able to stop the changes once they start,” the spirit drifted before Elara, pouting.

Elara shuddered as her toes stretched, her feet pulsing as they unfurled into thick, invasive, burrowing tendrils. A warm pressure gripped her ankles, and it was moving up. She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself.

Dark, thick fiber was covering her body. It wasn’t fur, like the others. It was wood. It cracked as it hardened, swallowing her skin.

“N-no… Please, I don’t… I want…” Elara whimpered, unsure of what to even say. How was she supposed to bargain against… Against this?

The bark crept up to her waist. Her legs bulged and merged into a solid mass, a single rough, solid trunk. She tried to claw down at the bark, to pull it from herself. But her arms were no longer hers to control.

“Hggh-gaaah!” She groaned, her arms lifting towards the ceiling. Her fingers snapped, stretched, branched out. New limbs stretched from her armpits, from between her breasts, from between her shoulderblades. Bark twisted up them, turning them into branchings.

Everything was stiff. Rigid. She was being pulled up and out, up and out, widening and lengthening more and more. “P-please… I… I can’t… Move…” Her jaw was becoming stiff. Her voice was a whisper.

“Well, of course you can’t. Trees aren’t exactly known for that, are they?” The spirit drifted around her, admiring her own handiwork.

Elara felt the bark at her neck. It was stiff. Choking her. She tried to scream, but a muffled hiss let her lips. Wood fused her lips, sealed her nose, her ears. Her hair thickened into a spray of leaves that raced upwards, coating her multitude of branches.

She couldn’t even tell which branches used to be her arms.

Elara stared, wide and unblinking, watching helplessly as the spirit opened the door to the mansion. She felt the bear’s wet nose as it snuffled against her bark. She mentally shuddered as the buck scraped his antlers against her. She would have sobbed as the skunk’s soft tail danced along her roots.

Then, one by one, her former companions stumbled out from the house. The spirit waved at them, then turned towards Elara, a wide smile on her face. Her lips moved. Elara shouldn’t have been able to hear the apparition, but her voice pierced into the tree-woman’s brain nonetheless.

“Thanks for sticking around, it’ll be so good to have some company.”

Then the bark crept across her eyes. Elara’s last sight was the spirit’s wide smile. Her mind raced, trapped in the wooden prison of her body. She wondered if she’d lose her mind like the others. But as time stretched on, and the spirit’s inane chattering grew to be her only company, Elara realized her punishment was far, far worse.