You ended up being surrounded by centaurs. Of all colors known to man or horse. Their scalp hair matched their tails and coats, whether the hair of the head was similar to the coat of the equine body or tail or the color of the fur was like that of the scalp hair. Thus even one young centaur had hair with palomino hues. Most centaurs were men, with a few women amongst them. Yet all were muscular, tense and armed with various weapons, mostly lances and bows and arrows. They were frowning at you and this did not bode well.
"A human," growled a bearded centaur with a black and white equine body. "One that tried to steal a precious relic."
"I... I didn't mean to..." you gulped and stammered.
"You didn't see it? I have trouble believing you," sneered another.
"No! I did! I just didn't know it was so important to you! Or else you can be sure I never would have tried to grab it! Honest!" you exclaim, your eyes riveted upon their pointy weapons.
"Ah! So you wanted to get it for yourself!" shouted in triumph a dark brown centaur with blonde hair and tail.
"No! I work for an archaeologist! I had to get the relic to give it to him! To study it!"
"And what's the difference with stealing?" said calmly yet tensely the bearded centaur.
"Well... Um... I don't get money out of it..." you stutter. "That... That counts, right?"
Some centaurs seemed to ponder about that but another argued that you could be lying.
"She's right!" said angrily another female centaur. "And he still should be punished! Or others will come after him. You know the rules! He must be stopped from ever talking about what he's seen or the exact location of the temple!"
Everyone burst out talking and you were terrified at hearing the words death being called our loudly. Yet another word reached your ears, one that looked like "Adoption" or "Transformation". The bearded centaur reared up and raised his hand, calling for silence at once. He peered at you with a deep frown and signed to a buff centaur a few steps from him. Before you could react but enough for you to see the weapon coming towards you, making your eyes widen in pure terror. The club didn't kill you but knocked you out. Telling the difference was arduous, though and as you lost consciousness it was only to wake up in the afterlife for all you could guess. You did not even feel anything or hear any sound as you were hoisted upon the back of the buff centaur that had rendered you unconscious. It would be another few hours before you would wake up in a smoke-filled hut to adjust to a new body.