"I'm not dealing with this," Troy grumpily stood up in the booth holding tightly onto his book. He thought of mice. Instantly, everyone in the area started shrinking. Their clothes stayed the same size, but their bodies were rapidly pulling in on themselves. Muscles and bones shrank to barely anything that they had been before.
Troy leaned into the table, making sure that he'd remain on his book. He could feel the soft brown fur erupting all over him and then the long tail push out his backside. His nose pushed into a triangle while the rest of his body looked like a plump little circle. Ears rounded out on his head on only little black eyes remained. The difference in size was even more than he expected as he saw the book about three feet away from him. But being only a few inches tall, that felt like a rather long distance.
He ran over as fast as he could and then touched it. 'Shape,' he thought, thinking about his human form again. He returned to Troy and looked down over the table. Half a dozen mice scurried around but one darted for the book of the mind that had fallen to the ground. The little mouse touched it and Troy felt something in the back of his mind. 'Protect me!'
"Like hell I will," Troy dropped down from the table and started off towards the little mouse. However, it was proving more difficult than he originally planned. Each step he took one of the mice would dart underneath his foot. "HEY! STOP THAT!" he moved his foot out of the way, not wanting to crush the small little creature. His body stumbled around as the mice continued as he tried to walk forward, but only finding himself falling back. Somehow, they could tell where he was going to step and get there before his foot was planted on the ground.
"Damn it," Troy cursed as he felt the table behind him again. Then looked back to see the book of beast being moved. Two mice had gone to the spine and started pushing it towards the edge of the table. "HEY!" he shouted again grabbing it before it dropped. One of the mice tried to bit him. "Shape!" he said. Nails sharpened and curved as his fingers turned into cat like paws. Gray and white fur erupted from his body as he turned more and more into a bobcat. He pounced onto the table and gently swatted each of the mice away while grabbing the book in his mouth. It was heavier than he thought. But he had to get to a different table. Troy pounced off the one and onto a chair just a bit of a distance away. Only to set the book on the table and climb up. Then knock the chairs away with his medium sized cat body.
He paced around the round table, looking down at Drew. The beaty little black eyes slung daggers up at Troy as he sat on the book. Another command went through. 'Protect me!' All the mice in the area started to move into a formation in front of the book. There were at least a dozen. Three out of those dozen were pushing the book back. Drew still sat atop his little throne. Troy's bobcat ears twitched as he heard more squeaks coming from the front door. 'Shit!' Troy hissed. Mass transform and Mass control must have similar radii.
This was getting far more complicated than Troy had expected. He didn't expect a legion of mice to be working against him. If he turned them into anything else then he'd just have to deal with a legion of that. At least with this, he was safe up on the table. But then at best case scenario, it'd be a stalemate. 'Think Troy. Think,' he bat at his own head trying to think of any kind of answer. If Mark could be resistant to Suggestion, would that mean there was a creature that was immune to control? Followed by a second thought, would that even matter?
'Half!' Troy thought about an anthro bobcat. He stood up on his hind legs and felt more ease of movement in his fingers. Same with his mouth. "Hey Drew! Try and control this! GREATER!" Troy pictured the red dragon that Mark had summoned earlier. He felt a lot of energy drain out of him, but nowhere near being finished. He watched as the massive red dragon filled the small space in the shop and then try to spread its wings out only tearing more into the ceiling. Everywhere it moved it destroyed tables, chairs and other memorabilia that was in the area.
It let out a roar. The building shook. But Drew's eyes were fixed on the massive beast. He squeaked something again drawing another loud roar from the beast. The dragon's head went through the ceiling, bursting a water pipe. Another squeak. But to Drew's surprise nothing. Rather not nothing but he felt his body being shaken off the book. He squeaked again and the mice came running. It was too late. Troy opened the book.
'With all the thoughts, feelings and desires a person may have, I grant you the book of the mind. Now the power of human perception is now your grasp to change how you see fit. Revert.'
A blinding white light filled the space between Troy and Drew. The two stood in front of each other in their human forms. "What?! What happened?!" Drew shouted. He looked to Troy. "Control!"
"That doesn't work anymore," Troy rolled his eyes.
"Control!" Drew said again. This time pointing directly at him. "Control! Give me your book!"
"Drew. You don't have your book anymore," Troy waved it in his face.
Drew's anger quickly changed to fear. "What? I lost? But I barely even got to use it!"
"You used it enough," Troy scolded. "Like," then paused, really trying to think about what to say, "what was even your plan?"
Drew dropped to the ground and hugged his legs. He drew a little circle with his finger in the white void the two were standing in. "Use the book to force you guys to let me play again," he answered. "All I needed was another chance and I could prove that I was going to make it fun again."
Troy sat down with him. "Do you have many friends?" There was a bit of silence between the two as Drew refused to properly answer the question. He continued to sit there making little circles with his finger as Troy sat across from him. "Look, we're stuck here till I use a spell on you. Alright? Why'd they kick you out of the group."
"Cause I killed an NPC," Drew sighed.
"Okay? That doesn't sound like Mark would kick you out for," Troy said. "I mean we're almost 30..."
"OKAY! FINE! It wasn't just an NPC," Drew exclaimed. "It was a whole thing. I was supposed to kill a different NPC and then the rest of the party became friends with the guy I was contracted to kill. I brought one of the guys over and tried to talk to him about what I was supposed to do. He said that I should just ignore the task. But that's like my thing! I told him that then someone else would just come and kill that NPC. He said that the party will protect the NPC. So, I found out who got the hit out on the NPC and it turns out it's his mother in law. She never found him to be good enough for his daughter. SO! I told Ben that. Ben said, ignore it and let's just continue the quest. But I said no! Of course not! If we continue the quest the hit will remain! And then we got into an argument. I wanted to do my thing and every one else just wanted to move on. So when everyone else was asleep I went and killed the mother in law. But then the wife heard me cause I rolled a 1 on stealth. So I killed her too. Then cut off her hand and used her finger and blood to write a message, 'You should have listened.' Then everyone got mad at me."
Troy stared in a bit of shock, shook his head and calmed down. "That'll do it... And you don't see this as a problem?"
"I don't know..." Drew muttered. "Maybe..." His face shot up as he continued to explain himself. "It's just that Ben kept saying that it was stupid and a waste of time and then Greg was backing him up and they were both being so annoying about it. It's just I wanted to help but it felt like they weren't listening to me."
"Were you listening to them?" Troy pried. It was quickly met with silence as Drew went back to drawing circles in the void. "Here's a suggestion, try listening to your friends more and actually being interested in what they want to do too." But before he was able to say 'alright,' the void around them collapsed in on itself. Troy found himself standing in the game shop again with a dragon and dozens upon dozens of mice.
"Oh shit!" the sound of police sirens were echoing from the outside. He quickly dismissed the massive dragon then shouted, "Mass transform!" Instantly all the mice returned to their human forms. However, Greg, Lancer, and Mark were turned returned to their Leonin, Half-orc and elven form respectively. Everyone grabbed their heads as a bout of confusion seemed to be swiping through them. Followed quickly by what had to be a murderous headache as many of them sat right back down.
The shop's door flung open and Officer Halbrook busted through. The white wolf had his gun drawn as he paced through the demolished building. There were several holes in the ceiling and water was starting to fill the shop. Tables and displays were completely crushed. Each step he could hear the breaking of glass under his police boots. He rushed over to Jerimiah, back in human form. "What happened here?"
Jerimiah gave a weak, "Huh?" then gripped his head again. "I don't know. I've just got a killer headache..."
"Right..." Officer Halbrook nodded, then looked around seeing the rest of the people doing the same. All but Troy, who was standing awkwardly against one of the back walls. His gun pointed at him, "Dragon?" But Halbrook's glare was enough to kill, so he lowered his gun.
Troy felt an overly broad grin fill his face as he shrugged. "Don't know if you'll believe me..."
"Try me," Officer Halbrook ordered. The two went outside as paramedics rushed in. Troy did his best to explain the situation as he could, purposefully ignoring the books and claiming sudden lack of building integrity. Officer Halbrook didn't seem to be buying it, but every camera in the area seemed to have gone offline. Again. And no one else seemed to be able to remember anything. "You stay here till I talk to Officer Brinks. Got it?"
Troy nodded as he gripped the blanket he'd been given tightly around his body. Even though it was still fairly warm, he suddenly felt so cold. How long could he possibly keep this up? Each battle seemed to drain him completely and cause massive amounts of destruction. And would they only get bigger? Cause more damage? "Damn it..." he cursed as he tried to a comfortable way to sit on the bumper of the police car.
"Don't look so glum," a familiar if not annoying voice greeted him. Troy looked up to see the stranger tip his bowler hat with his cane. He held out a yellow sticky note. "Here you go."
Troy grabbed it, examining it. "Hey! This is just an address!"
The stranger kept walking away through the flashing red and blue lights. "You took too long and I was getting bored. Just be glad other versions of you are being interesting. Still, better get a move on..."
"Rude..." Troy grumbled as he looked over the note again.