[TF, F->Taur, Multileg]

I was one of the best treasure hunters in the world. I'm sure with a little effort I'm sure I could still be, but I spend my energy these days on finding pants that fit, or more commonly buying custom tailored outfits. I'm sure you can see for yourself what I mean, but to properly tell this story I'll have to start at the beginning.

I had humble beginnings. I was a straight A student, I went to a respected college, and I studied anthropology. I was passionate about previous cultures, about the lives these people lived, and the way we can connect our present civilization to our own.

It only took until the first exploration that I realized I had a deeper passion than all of those things combined: artifacts. The first artifact I took home was a simple broach. Just a plain metal pin and clasp that once held someone's hair in place. My simple apartment didn't have a place of pride in it for things like this, so every day I went home, took out the small shoebox I had it stored in, and marveled at the ornate work on the piece of jewelry.

I fantasized about who might have owned this before me. Was it a full grown woman? A child? Was she - if they even were a 'she' - proud to have this in her hair? Or was it forced on her by someone else in her life? The possibilities were endless, and every night I went to bed to dream of who this person might have been, and what their life was like.

Despite my archaeological theft, I was still a great student. One of the best, even, so it came as no surprise when I was invited to more digsites. Every moment we were digging, I thought about the broach back at my apartment, and before long I was pilfering more objects. I'd stay late after everyone else had left - no one questioned the star student, after all - and pocket whatever looked interesting that hadn't been fully cataloged yet.

I started a modest collection, a few trinkets here or there that I kept as safely as I possibly could, all meticulously inventoried and stored away in my small home. I started getting careless, wearing some of the artifacts - especially the cleaned up and restored broach - out to dinners, pairing it with fancy dresses and the like. For me, it felt like I was living a piece of history.

One day, though, I got caught. A professor had apparently been tracking the whereabouts of objects and artifacts more carefully than I had anticipated, and I was summarily kicked out of university. While most of the artifacts had to be returned, they fortunately didn't recognize the restored broach, and I was able to keep that.

Even more fortunately, I was soon approached by a gentleman that represented a 'private client'. At first I told him to screw off - I was in a sour mood from losing my dream future, ok? But then he showed me the money, and I couldn't resist.

This client wanted me to go to some remote location, find a hidden crypt, and retrieve a journal from within it to be added to his collection. Anything else in there that I found would be mine for the taking, along with a hefty payment from him. It was an enticing offer, and a way to get back into the field doing what I loved.

I agreed.

Now you're probably expecting me to go into great detail about this job, with me smashing into the tomb and raiding it of all its treasures. Or perhaps, you want to know about my second, third, fourth, or even fifth adventure into the dark abyss of long forgotten ancestors?

That's not what this story is about. No, this story is about my sixth job. By this point I had a small collection of artifacts again, my pride and joy that I took care of and guarded over. A proper thief, styled after the archaeologists of old who treated taking home treasures as a simple fact of life. Less importantly - to me, at least - was that I had garnered quite the reputation among the type of people willing to pay me to continue my work.

So, this operation. Number six. It was supposed to be easy, some anonymous client sending me to the ruins of a temple of some long since forgotten goddess deep in the Amazon jungle. I'm not being cavalier, the details were simply sparse when I set out. I had gotten used to that though, so I didn't think anything of it.

I arrived at the temple, and was immediately put off by the iconography displayed on its walls and the statues shown there. They were all strange depictions of a woman with multiple legs. Alright, well I suppose most people have multiple legs, but this is different. This figure had four legs, with an elongated section between them. Honestly, she looked much like a centaur would, with the upper half of a woman atop the strange horse-like configuration, though with human features all throughout.

I suppose that should have been the first warning. 'Hey, strange shit going on here!' But, I was blinded by the money, and even moreso by the treasure within. I headed straight into the dilapidated building, eyeing the scene before me.

I clearly wasn't the first one here, and there was nothing more interesting than centuries old dust and spiderwebs. Anything of value or decoration that wasn't built into the walls was, by this point, long since gone. I frowned, advancing through the antechamber toward the main hall. This too, was as empty as the first room. Disappointing, I thought to myself. But that's when I noticed it. An archway that had collapsed in the back corner of the room, which would serve as the perfect place to resume my exploration.

I had to climb over some rubble to make it back there, but then I was in an undiscovered, untouched chamber. Not only were there golden artifacts on pedestals all over the place, but even the walls were gilded! I walked through that hall and the next reverently, in awe at what I was seeing. This was unprecedented in my early finds, this was incredible, this was...

Trapped. Fuck. The clicking sound under my shoes instantly crushed my spirits. Of course the artifacts are intact here for a reason, this place is rigged. For a long second, I held my breath, waiting for something, anything to happen. Nothing. That meant this was one of those traps that only engaged when you stepped off of it, not when you first stepped on it. Not that it made anything better because of that, since it was just delaying the inevitable.

Or was it? I looked around, searching for anything I could use to hold down the pressure plate - even if temporarily - while I made my escape. Other than a few stray pebbles from the nearby cave-in, there didn't seem to be much of anything. I doubted my backpack would weigh enough to offset my own weight. I was stuck.

Slowly, carefully, I made my way to a sitting position on the trap. I didn't know what the trap would set off, so I couldn't safely plan an escape. Arrows? Spikes? Poisonous gasses? A crushing ceiling? It could be anything, or it could be nothing. In a way, this was it. I was faced with the end of my treasure hunting career, and likely my life as well.

Strangely, I wasn't concerned with my life ending. I mean, I wasn't *thrilled* with the concept, but I wasn't opposed to it either. Instead, I was far more preoccupied with the idea of never being able to see my collected assortment of treasures again. Home suddenly seemed a long ways away, and I became restless sitting on the rough stone that likely would be my grave.

Hours passed, and night eventually fell. It was marked by the light - as little as there was - that made it through the chambers of the temple into my lonely backroom dwindling and diminishing until even the radiant gold that adorned everything blended in with the bluish black of the world around me. I looked down at the pressure plate for the first time in hours, and realized I couldn't see it. Nor could I feel its edges with my fingers. It was as though the darkness had erased it, and subsumed it into nothingness. A strange sense of giddiness swelled through me: the problem was less real, which meant escape seemed more possible by comparison.

I rose to my feet and crouched, careful not to shift my weight too much. I had only one chance at this. I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath, and then another. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I realized I was delaying the inevitable. Before I could second guess myself, I lept off the stone pad...

...and immediately tripped over myself and fell straight onto my face to be accompanied by a loud tear. The sound of a sharp inhale filled the chamber, and then I waited with my breath held. Seconds passed, and nothing seemed to happen. My eyes darted over to the opening of the room, barely illuminated by what little moonlight found its way into this temple. I crawled like my life depended on it despite my ripped pants falling apart around me - while the trap didn't seem to set off anything immediately unwanted, I didn't want to be around if something slow like poison gas was being released.

Crawling felt strange. It felt like something was dragging behind me, but in the darkness I couldn't make out what it could be. I figured my pants were caught on some rocks or something like that, but that didn't explain how it felt. It felt like my hips themselves were dragging something attached to them. It was a concern for later though. I made it to the entrance to the room, still filled with the same rubble and debris. I scrambled up the pile of rocks, forcing my head and arms through the hole. Pushing with my legs, something feels off but I ignore it. I get my legs through the hole and try to slide down the rocks to freedom... only to get stuck.

I turned my head back as far as I could, cursing under my breath. I couldn't make out what I was stuck on. I wiggled my ass, and the entire pile of rocks I was on shifted. For a moment, basic self-conscious thoughts infiltrated my mind. Was my ass so fat it got stuck when the rest of me got through fine? The hole wasn't huge, but it was big enough I got through it with no problems earlier in the day. It finally occurred to me - and put my worries to rest - that whatever I was dragging behind me was what was caught in the hole.

I fought and squirmed and writhed as best I could in that opening, making all sorts of undignified whines and grunts as I struggled to escape. Finally, whatever was stuck slipped through the hole, and I tumbled into the sparse antechamber. It was illuminated, thankfully, though just barely by the light of the moon. I stood up, and upon feeling my hips being tugged to the floor, I took a look behind me.

I, somehow, was still sitting. I looked back down at my legs that were clearly standing, and then behind me at my legs that were clearly sitting. I was certain all the accounted for legs were mine - a large scar I've always had on my right leg was visible on both of the right legs, thanks to the shredded pants.

I was reminded of the centaurs from mythology. A race of mythical beings that were human from the waist up, while their waist transitioned into the shoulders of a horse, giving them the majority of a horse's body as well. It seemed I was similar to them in some form now, though instead of being half human and half horse, I was half human and... well, half human.

I'll admit, my brain made the comparison it did perhaps as an attempt to keep me from panicking, and while it worked for a moment, it didn't keep the anxiety attack away for long. I sank to my knees - my front knees, to be specific - and broke down sobbing. I spent hours like that, awkwardly sitting on four knees trying to keep myself from spiraling into further fear and confusion.

If my day had been spent unproductively sitting on a trap that would - in ways I hadn't been able to imagine - alter my life, then my night was just as unproductively spent mere feet closer to the entrance wishing anything else had happened when I stepped off the pressure plate. But come morning, I knew I couldn't give up. I had a job to do.

Sure, the job that sent me here was a moot point at the moment. Now it was time to use the archaeological skills I'd spent years honing and figure out how to fix this. My first thought was to return to the engravings detailing the woman with four legs that I saw earlier. What had just seemed like strange iconography was now my life. My hand reached out and rested upon her figure in the stone carvings, feeling a bond through time to this woman.

Who are you?

What happened to you?

How did you fix this?

The engravings on the walls painted a story through their symbols, and as the sun moved across the temple, so did I, working through the various lessons on the walls. As the day progressed, I begrudgingly made progress in communicating with my new legs. It turned out that using them was just as easy as my original legs. Whenever I became engrossed in my studies and needed to walk to another section or I would start pacing, it became natural to use all four legs in an alternating stride.

It felt too natural. I hated it every time I realized it was happening, though I had to admit: it was better than dragging my rear on the rocky ground like I'd done the night before.

By the end of the day, the story of the woman who shared my fate was deciphered. I collapsed against a pillar, the sun's fading light filtering in behind me. She was a high priestess of an unnamed goddess. She'd be 'blessed' into having her rear end stretched into another torso with extra legs behind it, and rejoiced and served her goddess dutifully. On and on it went, until a cryptic passage at the end.

She'd failed in her duties - somehow - and had her form revoked from her.

And that was it. Her story ended without an explanation of what she did, how she went back to normal. Apparently, once she'd failed she was hardly worth a second thought to the authors I'd spent the day reading. There wasn't any more in this room, and I wasn't going back into the temple yet again. So, with a heavy heart, I made my way out of the temple and back home.

I didn't take any treasures with me that day, save for pictures of all the engravings, and my legs if you count that. Like I said at the start of this tale, I spend most of my time getting custom tailored clothes these days, which means I've had to sell off most of my artifacts. I've got next to nothing left. But that's why you're here.

We're going back to that temple, and we're going to explore the entire thing. We'll solve this mystery, and if we can't do that... I don't know. Open up an exhibit showing off human-centaur people? Either way, we're going to be rich.

So, are you in?