“Hello Troy,” said RK, “I believe you just experienced your first contraction, correct?”
“Why are you calling, you piece of shit!” Troy screamed into the phone, “you did this to me! You did this to Rusty! If I ever see you again I’m going to…”
“Calm down Troy,” said RK, “unless you would like to be an actual piece of shit, I suggest you listen to what I have to say.”
“So you do have the Book of Transmutation after all? Why lie to me RK? Why try to trick me like that? Why do you think I’d trust a word that comes out of your shitty little mouth now?”
“I didn’t lie to you Troy,” came RK’s reply, “I am the owner of the Book of Divinity. After our talk I saw that you were not going to ally with me, so I approached the owner of the Book of Body instead. He, now she, didn’t want to compete in this game and willingly gave her book up in exchange for being allowed to live her dream life. I gave that to her Troy.”
“Then I took the owner of the Book of Transmutation by surprise, took his book from him and left him in a form fitting someone like him,” continued RK, “I could have easily ambushed him after his fight with you, but I didn’t want to risk you losing. I’m not evil Troy, I don’t want to hurt you, I just don’t want to get turned skunk sexdoll and left out in the woods either – which, by the way, is what you would have done to me if I’d approached you after you beat the owner of the Book of Transmutation.”
“But I don’t want to hurt you Troy. Just give me the book and I’ll do for you what I did for the owner of the Book of Body. Whatever you want. You want to be Rusty’s gay tiger husband? No problem. You want to be his sexy rabbit wife? I can do that too. You want to be fit? Fat? Remember your old life or not? I’ll let you hang onto the Book of Divinity while I change you. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just give me the book.”
Troy didn’t know whether to trust what RK was telling her, but she had managed to calm down and the situation was weird enough to give her pause.
“So why do this to me? Why make me pregnant? Why turn Rusty into… that?” asked Troy.
“I told you Troy, you would have done far worse to me if I’d approached you first. YOUchose not to ally with me after I approached you peacefully. I told you what would have happened if I’d approached you after you beat the owner of the Book of Transmutation, but if I had approached you just now, having beaten Transmutation and taken the book myself, well, being a skunk sex doll and being left in the woods would be a mercy compared to what you would have done to me.”
“And what if I say no?” asked Troy.
“Then I’ll leave. In a few days you’ll be a new mother with an invalid husband. You can’t fix any of that with the Book of Beasts. Well, I suppose that’s not true. You could turn Rusty into an invalid pet instead. But then you’d just be a single mother.”
“I’ll find you,” said Troy, “I know you’re close by.”
“Obviously, I need to be able to see you to cast a spell on you. But you have no idea where I am. And in your new body you’re not going to be able to search for very long – and that’s assuming that I don’t just disable you and take the book. And I’ll point out, Troy, that I could have done that at the start. I told you, I’m not a bad guy. Just walk outside, place the book down on the curb, then go back inside. I’ll come get it then give you whatever you want. Again Troy, whatever you want. If I can’t do it with my current books, then I’ll do what I can now and come back when I have more.”
Troy didn’t know whether he should trust RK or not. It was true, RK could have done to her what he’d done to Rusty, but he didn’t. Then again, Troy didn’t know what the requirements were to cast a spell. Its entirely possible that a spell could be cast despite the book’s owner being blind or mute. And if that was the case, Troy could have used something like Mass Shape to turn the entire neighborhood into worms, RK included, regardless of what RK did to her with the Book of Body. Which is all Troy could confirm RK as having right now – despite his claims at having the Book of Transmutation Troy had no reason to believe that was true.
And even if Troy could trust RK, should she just give up? She was in love with Rusty. She was in love with the baby. Right now she wanted nothing more than to settle down and raise a family. But she was also aware that wasn’t necessarily her wants as much as they were her new body’s. That raised the question, what exactly did Troy want? Did she want to be a mom? A gay boyfriend? Or a literal god?
“I’ll think about it,” Troy said before hanging up the phone.