A man in his twenties read the chapter in front of him, feeling a spark of inspiration. The concept intrigued him, and it's open-ended nature led to a lot of fun possibilities, so he began to think up an addition of his own.
Now, of course, Lost (his "true name" for the purposes of this story) didn't believe in the curse. As far as he was concerned, he lived in a perfectly ordinary 20th century Earth, without a trace of magic, or impossible tech, or the like. Why would he have any reason to suspect that by adding to one of thousands, if not millions of stories out there on the web, that he'd be changing somebody in real life, and making himself vulnerable to the same curse, were another author hit by a similar stroke of inspiration? But still, he wanted to be realistic about it, and also make something that would be interesting to read to all the authors involved. If he had the power to change someone out there in ANY way, what would he do with it?
The easy answer would be "abuse it to kingdom come," to say that Wert turned into a genie that granted unlimited wishes and brought about world peace, while making sure Lost got to live a perfectly comfortable immortal life, and then burying all means to change the story and keep things "perfect" forever. But that'd make for a pretty unsatisfying story (and would break the rule about preventing others from telling the story). No, that wouldn't do.
So Lost set his sights to something a little less grand, and more likely to be enjoyable to this "Wert" as well as to himself. He'd always liked anthros, and looking at Wert's previous chapters, he wasn't adverse to them either, so that seemed like a good option. Wert also seemed to like TG, so that could add to the fun too. And of course, he'd add in a couple other provisos to make sure the first change wasn't too difficult to handle even if it stayed that way for a while. With the changes in mind, his set to typing.
Now, Wert had been out grocery shopping on the day the new chapter was written. It had been a while since he'd posted "The Curse of the Storyteller" and, as it had gotten no responses, it'd long since slipped from his mind. So, when he had reached out his hand to grab a carton of milk, and his fingers suddenly started merging together, the idea that the curse was the cause wasn't even something he'd considered.
He gasped, freaking out as his pinky and ring fingers merged, his pointer and index fingers doing the same. He wanted to scream, but something held him back, keeping him from making a scene.
'What the Hell is going on!' He thought, looking as the merged digits in front of him were covered in black hair, the fingernails becoming thick, smooth things that reminded him of cloven, ebony hooves. The black hair began to spread up his arms, and at the same time, Wert realized his pants were sliding down his hips. He was losing weight, and rapidly too! He hurriedly grabbed his pants by the beltline as best as he could with his new digits, looking this way and that for a possible cause as he slimmed down further and further.
To his surprise, not only did he not see a cause, none of the other people in the aisle were paying the least bit of attention to him. He had no way of knowing, at the time, that he was now giving off an "unquestioning" aura, that would make any changes brought on by the curse seem completely mundane to anyone besides himself and other storytellers (at least, until another storyteller said otherwise). So the lack of reaction was freaking him out even more, and he still had no way to express his shock.
His clothing started to feel a bit itchy as the black fur spread all the way up his arms, and under his shirt. He pondered just taking off his clothes for a second, seeing how oversized they were anyway... then immediately shook himself out of that thought. 'Where on Earth did that come from?' Wert thought. And yet, some part of him slowly began to feel as if he'd be just as comfortable going out nude as he would dressed. Somehow, he knew that nobody else would have the slightest issue with it. It was just perfectly normal for anthros to wear as much or as little clothing as they liked. But for now, he did his best to keep his clothes on.
His waist slimmed down quite a ways, and his hips and rear expanded, giving him distinctly feminine figure. This was then made complete by a surprisingly pleasant shrinking feeling between the legs, and two sizable orbs growing on his chest, never sagging despite the lack of a bra.
'A real life sex-swap? It's happening? To me? For real?' She was extremely anxious about this. Part of her had fantasized about this, but it was a very different thing for it to happen in real life. And in public, at that! And with nobody seeming to notice, which would imply something seriously powerful at work, she couldn't help but be worried about her ultimate fate.
She groaned slightly as her legs were covered in dark hair, her toes clenching and merging together into black, cloven hooves, breaking her shoes apart before the poor old sneakers vanished into the ether. The rest of her foot became longer and thinner, setting her into a digitgrade stance.
A thin tail stretched out behind her, slipping between the top of her pants and the bottom of her shirt. It grew to about a foot in length, covered in the same black fur as the rest of her body, ending in a thinker tuft of fur at the tip. Her neck was covered in black fur soon after, which spread over her face as her jaws stretched out FAR in front of her face, her nose becoming wider and darker.
'A horse snout! I'm turning into some kind of horse girl!' Wert realized. Sure enough, her hair grew longer, becoming a flowing black mane, while her ears stretched upward and slid toward the top of her head, flicking slightly every now and then.
'Okay, that's it, right? Change is done, whoever did this is either gonna reveal themselves, or they're the 'mass transforming' type, and I'm just one of hundreds, so they'll leave me alone after this, right?'
But there was still one step left. Wert's guess about his species hadn't quiet been correct, as the sudden growth of bone from the center of her forehead showed. The horn twisted up in a spiral pattern, like a drill, and then began to subtly glow. She felt a sudden headache, as knowledge of magic, and her new identity, poured into her mind from the horn. Telekinesis, teleportation, healing spells, invisibility... all of it came to her as naturally as breathing, now. As did her new name, "Flora." After all "Wert" wasn't really a fitting name for a female unicorn. If she'd bothered to look, she would have seen that the new name had even been written on her IDs, which also bore pictures of her new, unicorn self.
Then, as quickly as they'd started, the changes stopped. Not that Wert/Flora wasn't still paranoid about them. 'They changed my name!' She thought. 'I'm thinking of myself as Flora just as easily as thinking of myself as Wert! Can I really trust ANY of my thoughts are my own? Or are even my thoughts of distrust planted by them... Wait, wait, pull yourself together girl. You can figure out how to deal with this... Don't jump to crazy conclusions just because you're in an insane situation...'
She looked around. Everybody continued about their business as if the black unicorn in barely fitting clothes wasn't anything worth commenting on. 'Guess I'll just... try to act natural, for now.' She thought, grabbing the milk and putting it in her cart with with telekinesis, while her hand tried to keep her pants up.
Her ears stuck straight up as she suddenly remembered: The Curse of the Storyteller! Had that been the cause? It seemed unlikely, but she thought it'd be a good idea to go home and check... once she finished her shopping...
Lost looked over the chapter again. That seemed like a good place to let someone else take control. He clicked "post" and left the site, ready to enjoy his weekend.