Erick opened one of the doors in the east wing of the mansion, and found an old playroom, covered in dust and cobwebs, but otherwise filled with antique toys in pristine condition. There were old rocking horses, wooden figures, and dolls and stuffed animals of all sorts.
"I wonder if any of these would be worth anything?" Eric thought to himself. He walked toward a pile of stuffed animals, and began to examine a few of them.
Meanwhile, the Heiress was watching from her crystal ball on the top floor.
"Oh, he likes playing with toys too! I think I know something he'll like."
Back in the playroom, Erick began to feel strangely light. He felt relaxed and at peace, and his breathing began to slow down. All the stuffed animals around him looked so happy and content, and something in the back of his mind made him feel envious of them.
He wondered what it would be like to just be content like that all the time. To have fur and cute ears and a tail. It vaguely occurred to the teenager that these were weird thoughts to have, but he was starting to feel so relaxed, he couldn't really stop any stray thought that bounced around his head.
He thought the room was starting to look a bit bigger, and it was getting harder to hold the other toys in his paws... hands, he meant hands. He didn't care that his body was getting covered in hair, no, fur, as he kept shrinking and shrinking, his fingers and toes vanishing as his hands and feet became rounded paws on short, stubby limbs. His torso grew wider and plumper, and his insides began to feel warm and soft. Something inside Erick's head told him that this was wrong, but he knew his head just had more of the same puffy stuffing the rest of his body had, so it could make a lot of mistakes about things. Not like the heiress, though. She had a real brain in there. He was just a fluffy happy friend for her.
A short little tail appeared behind him, and his mouth shut completely, becoming a single black string tied into a smile on the front of the little snout that grew out from his face. His eyes dried out, and hardened and flattened into little green buttons, and a little black dot appeared where his nose had once been. His brown hair shortened to match the rest of his fur, and his ears moved to the top of his head and became rounder.
Eric the teddy bear awkwardly climbed out of the much-too-big-for-a-little-bear clothes, and looked around. None of the other toys seemed to be awake. Well, he wasn't going to be rude and interrupt them if they were asleep. But he knew the Heiress had woken up, and she'd want someone to play with. He couldn't call himself a good friend if he left her lonely, so he waddled over to the door on his short legs, leapt up to grab the knob, turned it, and left, looking for the top floor.