“Alright Todd, you can do this,” Todd told himself, staring at the elegant doors to the massive tower in front of him. “Alexandros gave his life so I can save everyone. You’ve got an enchanted buttplug that makes you resistant to most of the book’s magic, and you’re essentially immune to his contracts. The odds are in your favor! You just gotta get in there, kick his ass, and save the day. You got this…YOU GOT THIS!”
The wolf took a few deep breaths before charging forward and throwing open the tower doors, only to see…something he definitely wasn’t expecting.
On the other side of the door was a large spiral staircase that wound around the walls of the tower. Todd stepped toward the center of the tower and looked directly up. The stairs seemed to go on forever…
The part that Todd found most interesting, however, was the fact that mirrors lined the walls all the way up the tower. Everywhere Todd looked, he could see hundreds of identical wolves looking back at him. Why the hell would someone put up so many mirrors?
The wolf turned his head towards the bottom of the stairs and let out a long sigh. “Would it really have killed them to install a fucking elevator?” He muttered as he walked towards the stairs and began his long ascent to the top.
As he walked up the stairs, Todd occasionally glanced at himself in the mirror. Surprisingly, he hadn’t really looked at himself in a mirror all that much since he had transformed. Sure, he’d seen his face in mirrors when he went to use the bathroom, but he hadn’t really gotten the chance to admire himself in a full body mirror. As he walked past one mirror in particular, however, something caught his eye.
On the left side of his neck in the midst of all his fur was a single gray feather. It was rather large and noticeable if you were close enough, but from afar, it would be much harder to see. Todd stopped in front of the mirror and looked at the feather.
“Must’ve landed in my fur when I was walking in,” the wolf said to himself, pulling the feather out and dropping it on the stairs behind him before continuing up the staircase. As he kept going, the young wolf noticed strange tingling sensations that would pass through his body every now and then, only to disappear just as soon as they started. At first, these sensations happened infrequently, but as he kept climbing, it became more and more prevalent. After feeling it for the fifth time in the span of a minute, the wolf stopped and looked at his reflection, only for him to stumble back slightly at what he saw.
More gray feathers had appeared on his body. A lot more. The majority of his body from his waist up was now covered in gray feathers instead of gray fur. The fur below his waist, meanwhile, had drastically thinned, making it look like he’d just been shaved for the summer heat.
“Wh-What the fuck?!” Todd shouted. “What is this shit?! Why the fuck do I have feathers?!” The wolf began to pull out some of the feathers, only to find himself wincing in pain each time he pulled one out. These weren’t falling into his fur from somewhere above him…they were replacing his fur.
“Okay Todd, you gotta calm down…” the wolf said to himself, taking deep breaths. “Of course climbing this tower wasn’t going to be easy. Someone or something is doing this to you. All you have to do is figure out who or what it is and deal with them. It’s that simple!”
Todd continued forward, though much more cautious about his surroundings. He routinely checked everywhere around him as he walked, keeping an eye out for whoever or whatever had been attacking him. However, each time he checked put him more and more on edge. No matter where or how hard he looked, there was nothing to be seen. It was almost as if he was being attacked by an invisible force…
The tingling started again, and Todd quickly stepped backwards, frantically looking around for what was changing him, only for him to realize that the sensation had vanished just as soon as it had appeared. He took a step forward, only to recoil when he felt the tingling again. The wolf continued to frantically look around for the source, but there was nothing to be seen. The only things in the tower were him, the stairs, and…
Hesitantly, Todd stuck his left arm out in front of him and stepped forward, crossing another mirror. After one or two seconds, the tingling sensation began in Todd’s arm, and the wolf watched in horror as the feathers on his arm began to fall out, revealing a layer of orange scales. He pulled his arm back, and the sensation dissipated.
“Of course it’s the fucking mirrors!” Todd growled, cursing himself for not thinking of such an obvious answer earlier. Some of these mirrors had to have been enchanted, and the tingling he felt was their magic transforming him into…something. But then, that begged the question: how was Todd going to get to the top of the tower without being transformed more than he already had been.
Then, he had an idea. A terrible, painful idea.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Todd balled his left hand into a fist…and punched the mirror. The sound of glass shattering echoed through the empty tower, and Todd opened his eyes just in time to see wisps of purple smoke rise from the shattered mirror. Miraculously, his hand was mostly unscathed, but it appeared to have changed a little more in the process. His nails had grown longer and sharper, and his paw pads had completely disappeared. His thumb also appeared to be a bit farther down the side of his hand than he remembered it being.
Carefully, Todd stepped in front of the shattered mirror, and a wave of relief washed over him when he realized he didn’t feel a tingling sensation. “So smashing the mirrors that cause transformations will stop them,” Todd said to himself. “I guess this got a little easier…”
The wolf continued walking up the stairs, stopping to smash any mirrors that seemed like they were enchanted. Most of the time he could smash them before they caused him to transform any more, but could only do so much at points. By the time he’d smashed at least five enchanted mirrors, Todd’s fist hurt like hell. He looked up and realized how much longer it was to the top. There was no possible way he could keep this up.
Then, Todd had another idea. A terrible, but significantly less painful, idea.
He had noticed that the mirrors took a few seconds to start transforming him. If that was the case, he could theoretically run past the enchanted mirrors before they could do anything to him.
“This idea better fucking work,” Todd muttered to himself. He began to lightly jog up the stairs, managing to make it past a few enchanted mirrors with little to no transformations occurring. For a while, it seemed like Todd’s plan was working. However, this changed rather quickly. At points it seemed like the mirrors were affecting him longer than they used to, and it seemed like there was a much smaller gap between the enchanted mirrors.
The mirrors were getting bigger…
When he found a safe spot, Todd stopped and took a few deep breaths before looking at himself in the mirror. He felt a lump in his throat when he saw that his “hands” were no longer hands. They looked much more like…talons. His tail, meanwhile, had turned completely black in color, and it looked much more like a horse’s tail rather than a wolf’s tail. Looking up, Todd saw that he only had a few more flights of stairs to climb. He was so close. If he was going to make it to the top, he was going to have to sprint. He took a deep breath, and he ran.
Todd sprinted as fast as he could, running past multiple enchanted mirrors on his way up. While he was safe for at least two seconds upon crossing in front of an enchanted mirror, there was nothing he could do for the remaining five or so seconds he was in front of the mirrors.
As Todd ran, his canine ears shrank into his head, being replaced by two small holes on the side of his head. Suddenly, something in his back cracked, causing him to cry out in pain and lurch forward. He tried to get back up, but his spine shifted and locked him on all fours. That didn’t stop him though.
As he kept running, Todd’s back paws shifted, his digits molding together and hardening into hooves. His front feet shifted into full talons, complete with four digits in the front and what used to be his thumbs in the back. It felt much more normal running on all fours now. Todd could feel his body get larger, gaining slightly more mass. As he glanced at the mirrors, he realized that his body looked much more…horse-like.
The bones in his neck began to snap and crack as his head was pulled upwards. His muzzle began to curve and harden into a completely new shape. Todd cried out in pain, but it emerged as a loud squawk instead. As his muzzle turned into a beak, the creature cried out again as an immense pain spread through his body. It felt as if his back was splitting in two, and it technically was. Two large, feathery wings soon burst from his back, ready to carry the large beast into the air. His head fully shifted into that of an eagle, and Todd finally realized what he had become: a hippogriff.
The newly-transformed hippogriff didn’t stop running up the stairs. He needed to get to the top as fast as possible, but…he wasn’t entirely sure why. Why wasn’t he just flying to the top? Why was he even trying to get to the top of the tower in the first place?
Todd shook his head, snapping himself out of the daze he was in. He’d come this far, and he wasn’t going to lose himself. He had to get to the top! He had to stop Sebastian! Then, he finally saw it: the door at the top of the stairs! This was it! He was finally going to get to fight that sick fuck! He readied himself to burst through the door and…
The hippogriff was stopped dead in his tracks as he ran into the door. Todd let out a screech of pain as he was pushed backwards, stumbling down a few of the stairs. His eyes widened in horror as he realized that the door was locked. Was this it then? Did he just climb this whole tower and get turned into a hippogriff for nothing?
No…not yet…Todd wasn’t giving up just yet.
His mind was foggy, the tingles increasing. Was he born or hatched? He got back up into his feet and sprinted towards the door, throwing all his weight into the door. Then he did it again…and again…and again…
The door was beginning to buckle under his weight. He was getting so close…he’d break through the damn door if his name wasn’t…wasn’t…the hippogriff gave up trying to remember. His name was irrelevant. It breathed heavily, feeling a bit lightheaded from ramming into the door so many times, but he wasn’t going to stop…not yet. With the last bit of his strength, the hippogriff charged at the door, throwing the full weight of his body against it…and it broke.
The heavy wooden doors broke off their hinges and flew into the room on the other side. The hippogriff stumbled into the room, collapsing onto the floor from pain and exhaustion. His lungs were on fire and it felt like he’d broken one of his wings…but he’d made it. He’d made it to the top…
The hippogriff’s vision went blurry as he fell unconscious. He never saw the young woman in the room, looking at the hippogriff with a shocked expression on her face. The woman ran over and knelt down next to the creature, gently stroking his head.
“I don’t know who you were,” the woman said, looking at the prone hippogriff with a sorrowful look in her eyes. “But thank you.”