Spenser took pride in the fact that he was a muscular wolf.
He ‘d trained for years as a fighter to help his Uncle out and had finally taken over his father’s position as the Captain of the Guard of Diamond Hollow. To be fair, he hated the place, but his family owned it and he had power there. So why leave and be a nobody somewhere else, when he could stay and be a somebody here?
Beneath him, the jaguar who had insulted him by turning his friends into pigs was gasping and moaning in pain, clutching his wounded leg. Easy prey, and he could tell the man was not going to rise to his feet and fight any time soon. With so much blood leaking from that wound, Spenser would track him wherever he went.
And all that stood between Spenser and revenge was some old fox cunt that was standing in front of him.
He grinned and stabbed his sword down. The fox’s eyes flashed in anger as the jaguar below him screamed and gurgled. Spenser lifted his sword from the gut wound and slammed it into the jaguar again and again, until the jaguar’s screams stopped.
“You think you can save anyone, fox bitch?” Spenser sneered, the seasoned wolf menacing the older fox woman with his sword. “If these fat fucks run, I’m going to catch up to them, then I’m going to gut them. Slowly.”
“I see.” The fox woman’s eyes went flat, “My name is Madame Illusia, Mistress of the Mystical Arts. Veles, watch carefully. This is how one should Trim in combat.”
“Oh, a spellcaster, huh?” Spenser laughed, “You’re at a huge disadvantage without someone defending you.”
“I don’t need someone to help me deal with a bottom feeder like you.” Madame Illusia waved her paws in an arcane gesture. “Hold Person.”
Spenser’s body froze midstride, caught in an awkward stance that would have fallen face forward into the ground, were it not for the invisible magic holding him in place.
Madam Illusia grabbed Veles’ hand, pulling him over to the frozen wolf, who had no choice but to peer helplessly out of his own body at the two foxes that were approaching him. Daggers filled Spenser’s eyes as Madam Illusia placed her other hand on his chest.
“Time Stop.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Color drained from the world, as it froze into a grey still life of its former self – trees were stuck half bent in the wind, birds floated perfectly still overhead, while guards and bandits were frozen with their weapons mid-thrust.
Veles looked around, “you froze time?”
“For everyone but us three,” Madame Illusia replied as she pointed at Spenser, “but don’t worry, he’s still under the effect of the hold spell. I wanted to make sure he knows what’s about to happen.”
“And what is that?” Veles asked timidly.
“Why I’m going to trim him, of course!” Illusia exclaimed, “and give you a valuable lesson in the process. Lesson number one. When you’re new at this, it helps if you can stop time. That way, if you make any mistakes, you can easily revert them before the change actually goes into effect.”
“And if I can’t stop time?” Veles wondered aloud.
“Then I would learn. Unless you want your friend to end up as another sex doll, or perhaps for you to end up as your party’s cow.”
Madam Illusia let go of Veles and began walking towards a suspiciously empty patch of grass at the edge of the caravan.
“Wait there for a few minutes,” she called out, “I’ll be right back with our raw material.”
Veles waited, keeping an eye on Spenser the entire time. From the way Spenser’ eyes were squinting, it was obvious that he was doing everything he could to break free from the spell – all to no avail.
“Here we go!” Illusia called out as she walked back towards Veles, holding up a rather dead catfish in one of her paws.
As she approached Spenser, Illusia tossed the catfish at his feet.
“Trim!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Spenser was stuck. Just as he had been about to gut that bitch of a vixen, she’d cast a hold spell on him, and then his body froze up. He could still feel everything, and he could still tell his muscles to move. But no matter how hard he willed it, the only thing that responded were his eyes. And that made the situation even more maddening, since he was free to look around at the world while being unable to interact with it.
Which was when the fear began to set in. Spenser had never been outside of his village and had never seen a real spell caster before. Sure, his uncle could manage some spell like effects with his potion work, but those were really just cheap parlor tricks combined with some old, valuable artifacts that more famous members of his family had acquired centuries ago.
So while Spenser had certainly been aware that powerful wizards existed, he always assumed that they just cast bigger fireballs. The idea that one of them could freeze his body with a word was something that he’d never even dreamed of until he had become the unsuspecting victim of it.
Hell, it wasn’t just his body that was frozen, it was time itself. And if this old vixen could free time with a word, what else could she do?
Spenser didn’t want to know. At this point all he wanted to do was plea for mercy. It wasn’t his idea to raid the caravan, after all, his uncle was the real mastermind. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move his mouth. He couldn’t even try to hum the words in his throat. All he could do was sit here and stare at the fat fox that had been tossing out fireballs earlier.
Then Spenser saw the fish fly through air, before landing at his feet with a wet thud. He couldn’t look down, given his body’s current position, and he hadn’t been able to see exactly what type of fish it was in the brief second it had flown through his vision.
His mind swirled as he tried to figure out what the vixen planned to use that fish for, and whether the type of fish that it was even mattered. Not that he had much time to do that either.
Illusia walked back into Spenser’s view and uttered a single word: “Trim!”
Spenser’s body tingled as magic flooded into it, then he felt himself being pulled out. It was strange, but his perspective began shifting forward, until his “eyes” were at a point that was midway between his head and Illusia. And while he could still feel his body, it felt so distant and foreign – like it belonged to someone else.
But what was most peculiar about the situation was what happened when Spenser tried to look behind him – his entire perspective rotated around until he was looking directly into the angry face of a huge black wolf that was stuck mid-charge with his sword held high in the air.
“That’s… me?” Spenser thought to himself. He could still make out the vague feeling of his tongue pressing up against the roof of his mouth and his foot digging into the ground, but for as close as his body was to him, it felt like it was a hundred miles away.
Spenser’s perspective swung back to the two foxes as he heard Illusia begin talking.
“Tailoring is rather simple. All you’re doing is swapping lives, so there’s not much that can go wrong,” Illusia said as she gestured to an empty patch of air in front of Spenser.
“Trimming however, is a different matter. When you pick bits and pieces of something you can create inconsistencies, which the world then tries to correct. As you’ve no doubt seen, the effects of that correction can be rather dramatic.”
The fat fox standing next to Illusia kicked the dirt with a bashful look in his eyes.
“The art of trimming is to create inconsistencies in such a way that the world will correct for them in a way that you want.”
Illusia paused briefly and look directly at Spenser, “Oh I almost forgot about you! You must be so confused by what’s going on. Here, let me help.”
Illusia stuck a finger out and pressed it into directly in the center of Spenser’s field of view, “Arcane sight.”
Two glowing sheets immediately came into existence directly in front of Spenser’s vision. On one was a picture of a large black wolf – of him. Next to it were stats, and then a lengthy description that seemed to scroll as Spenser read it. And the more he read, the more he realized that it was his entire life. Everything that he’d ever done was in that description.
Then there was the other glowing sheet, the one for the fish that Illusia had thrown at his feet. But Spenser didn’t have time to give it more than a quick glance before Illusia started up again.
“That’s your life, my dear. That sheet is everything that you’ve ever been or ever will be. The same goes for that fish.”
Illusia looked straight at Spenser again, “don’t worry if you don’t have time to read, you’ll be getting much better acquainted with that fish soon enough.”
In his quick glance at the fish’s sheet, Spenser had noticed that the fish was quite dead, which caused Illusia’s words to fill him with ever more fear.
“Oh don’t get worked up over nothing!” Illusia said, as if reading Spenser’s mind, “I’m not planning on bringing over everything from that fish. You’re going to be quite alive at the end of this.”
Turning to Veles, Illusia began ignoring Spenser as she continued, “Now we just take these stats here, swap them over here, and…”
Spenser took a good look at his sheet,
Race: Anthro Wolf
Gender: Male
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 15
Intellect: 10
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 9
Then, with a flick of Illusia’s wrist that all changed,
Race: Feral Catfish
Gender: Male
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 5
Intellect: 10
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 2
“And now for the most important part!” Illusia exclaimed. With another flick, Spenser saw a picture appear in a previously empty box titled Status Effects.
Spenser had no idea what the picture was, but he could read the words that appeared below it: “polymorphed”.
“You see Veles, its all about giving our subject here a plausible explanation for his sudden change into a fish.” Illusia said as she gestured to Spenser’s sheet, “while I’m not sure how the world will polymorph him, all we need to do is wait for his description to change. And that’s also why we stop time, if it changes in a way that’s harmful to us, we simply make some more changes.”
Spenser’s heart sank as the text in his description box scrolled past a section on the battle he’d just fought. Then, at the end, new words began to write themselves into existence. The new story scrolled faster than Spenser could read, but he could still get the gist of it: the jaguar baker he’d just killed had been favored by some manner of river god – a god that had turned him into a catfish in revenge.
Turned him into a catfish. The description didn’t say that it was going to happen, he noticed - it said that it already had.
“Ah, perfect!” Illusia exclaimed, “although our subject might look like he has the body of a wolf, as far as the world is concerned, he’s already a catfish.”
Veles just sat there with a puzzled look on his face, “but the time stop prevents that from having happened yet?”
“Exactly!” Illusia replied, “and that’s what I’m going to do. You see, our fish friend here could always use his last breaths to beg for forgiveness. The gods are fickle creature, so perhaps this one decides to do something else. We don’t want that do we?”
“No,” Veles replied, “I suppose not, we want him to be a fish right?”
“Yes, so let’s make things a bit more permanent.”
Spenser could only watch as Illusia flicked her wrist again, causing the polymorphed status effect to disappear. Once again, the text in Spenser’s description started scrolling as the previous addition vanished, only to be replaced with:
‘Unbeknownst to Spenser, he was born a catfish in the river that ran through Diamond Hollow. While he was still a fry, Rodrigo bathed him in a transformation potion, intent on creating a new captain for his guard. Saying that he was the orphaned son of a long-lost brother, Rodrigo raised Spenser as a nephew, making sure to slip just enough potion into his food every day for him to maintain his form.
Unfortunately, Rodrigo became distracted by the new caravan and its high-level guards. Having unknowingly missed his first dose of transformation potion in his life, Spenser reverted to his original form at the worst possible time – in the middle of a battle with the caravan’s remaining guards.’
Spenser wanted to scream. He suddenly couldn’t remember his parents, or if he’d even had parents. Whatever memories he may have had before, all he could remember now was being raised by Rodrigo. Of being the favorite nephew. And of Rodrigo’s only rule for him – that he had to eat the dinner that Rodrigo prepared for him every night. Worst of all, he remembered last night, and how he’d used the caravan, and how distracted Rodrigo was with it, to break that rule.
Spenser didn’t know who he had been. From the circumstances, he could surmise that just minutes ago he had probably been someone else. But whatever Illusia had done to him had changed that. It had changed his memories, his life, and his very existence. She had changed him from whatever he was into some masquerade of a person, who didn’t know that they were really just a worthless fish.
“You see Veles,” Illusia began, “by using that polymorph status effect as an intermediary, we got the world to make it so that our subject was already a fish in a way that allowed them to retain their mind. Then, by removing that effect, we were able to alter his entire backstory in a way that preserved and continued to preserve the majority of that mind.”
Illusia once again looked directly at Spenser before speaking directly to him, “sure, you’re probably missing some of your old memories. And I’m sure you realize that you weren’t originally born a fish, but none of that matters anymore.”
She paused briefly, before resuming in a more mocking tone, “its too bad you had to kill my friend there. Originally, I was just going to swap you with one of the sows around the caravan, maybe let your old friends have their way with you. Perhaps you could have enjoyed that though I doubt you’re going to enjoy the new life I’ve given you instead.”
Illusia’s eyes narrowed into an angry squint, “Release.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Color came back the world, the sound of swords clanking against one another filled the air, and Spenser found himself suddenly off balance, being carried by his own momentum as his body tumbled over and crashed into the ground.
Spenser’s felt the adrenaline coursing through his heart as he shoved his palms into the dirt and pushed himself up to his knees.
“Please,” he managed to gasp, “I don’t wan-“
But before he could finish his sentence, his dissipating lungs ran out of breath, and all he could do was make a desperate gulping motion with his mouth as he sucked air into his stomach.
Spenser wanted to stand, but he could already feel his arms and legs growing weak as they shrank back into his body. Looking down, he could see a stream of midnight black fur falling off of his body and forming clumps on the ground below him.
His limbs continued to shrink back into his back until Spenser could no longer support his own weight, causing him to fall chest-first into the mud. He tried to grab onto something – anything – only to find that what was left of his fingers had grown webbing between them as they formed the spines of his new fins.
Spenser could only gulp and trash as brown scales covered his shrinking body, while a thick, finned tail pressed out of his back. His vision shifted and blurred as eyes moved to the sides of his head and a dorsal fin grew out of his back.
His body already felt so alien that the sensation of several fleshy “whiskers” growing out of his face was almost too much to process. And as they grew in, a new sense flooded his mind – he could “feel” what was in the ground below him. It was like he could sense the presence of every insect and worm, and his hungry brain told them exactly where he would have to burrow with his snout to get food.
Then the world suddenly got a lot bigger, though Spenser knew that what was really happening was his new catfish body was just shrinking down to a more appropriate size. And as the last few changes rolled over him, all Spenser could do was lay there on his belly in the mud.
His four fins still felt somewhat like arms and legs, though all he could manage was a weak back and forth motion with them. Then there was the fin sticking out from just below where his neck had been – he could feel it, held rigid above him by several bony spines, but he couldn’t move it at all.
He tried wiggling his tail, which unlike his fins was muscular and powerful. But all he could do was thrash it back and forth, and that didn’t accomplish much out of the water.
Then he felt his mouth gulp again, drawing air inside of it. But unlike last time, this time he felt the skin behind his cheeks open up, sucking the burning air over new gills.
Burning.
Air.
Spenser’s mind filled with panic. He might be a fish, but he still needed to breath. And the fire in his gills told him that air wasn’t good enough – he needed water.
He tried to look around like he had been able to as a wolf, but he couldn’t move his eyes. He couldn’t even blink. All he could see was a strange, blurry image of his surroundings from eyes that were fixed on the side of his head.
He could feel his instincts kicking in, telling him to thrash his tail and hope that he ended up in water. But Spenser still had his old mind, and he knew that wouldn’t do any good. With one, last burning gulp of air, Spenser steadied his mind and held his tail still. Wriggling in the mud, he managed to point himself in the direction of the red blur that he assumed to be Illusia, and then did his best to make an otherwise emotionless fish face look as sad as possible.
Spenser knew just how bad his situation now as, and all he could do was hope that Illusia would take some small mercy on him – like throw him into some cool, breathable water.