Gabe and Freetail considered Mark’s offer for a moment, “Sure, we’ll tag along.”
Merlin quickly locked up the shop and the gang proceeded to make their way across campus. The satyrs had illusions up, the wizard ostensibly did too (no one was looking oddly at his robe), and Gabe was wearing his soccer practice gear. Mark honestly felt like the odd one out with his borrowed set of lost and found clothes. Which was saying something when nearly half their group was naked.
Peter bleated self consciously, “This illusion has pants, right?” He tapped his thighs gently. “What if someone hears my hooves clopping?”
“Relax.” Freetail smiled, “Just act natural and people won’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”
Merlin counted on his fingers as the group crossed the quad, “Alright, so I rented a werewolf outfit, a ghost costume, a robot, a haunted suit of armor, a two-person donkey-taur outfit… Ugh, there was enough orc body paint for at least a half-dozen guys.”
Gabe meanwhile was pointing out all the small little magical touches to the campus that Mark would have missed before. The old clock tower now had an impressive college of magic beneath it, you could see the occasional delivery-gryphon flying across the dorms, and there was a small pack of werewolves studying in the shade of a large tree.
“You’re telling me those weird guys with the sackline rope hammocks things have just been studying levitation spells this whole time?” Mark stared at a practicing mage.
“Baah, don’t be rude.” Freetail nudged Mark. “There’s a lot on campus you don’t know about.” He grinned, “Wait until you see our cafeteria-“
“Uh… Mark?” Peter looked up, pointing at the approaching frat house. “Since when do our parties have lines out the door?”
Underage drinking around campus was an ever-present concern, and the good frats would always make a show of stationing someone outside to check IDs. Usually it was just a formality, but during the big annual parties the larger frats were known to have quite the line to get in. TFU was usually on the smaller side of things, but tonight the line to get in wrapped around the block.
It wasn’t just the size of the line either. The vast majority of people in the line were some type of mythical creature. Either that or they had a robe on like Merlin.
At the front of the line, a satyr was casually checking IDs. He was doing his best to manage the crowd, but clearly looked disinterested in the task that had been assigned to him.
Freetail stared. He knew every satyr on campus. He should immediately have been able to think of this guy’s name, but instead he only vaguely recognized him.
“Baah? Is that… Dave?” Peter stared incredulously. The last time he saw the accounting major, he remembered a distinct lack of horns.
Mark started to nod his head. Before he could react fully however, a centaur got out of the line and excitedly galloped over.
Gabe’s eyes lit up with recollection, “Stormchaser, hey!” He waved at the horse man, “What are you doing here?” He turned to his friends, “Guys, this is out team’s goalie.”
“Hey yourself!” The centaur grinned, his guffaw coming out close to a neigh. “Good to see you Gabe.”
Peter and Mark shared a brief look. Wasn’t having someone the size of a horse between your goalposts kind of cheating?
Stormchaser playfully nudged Freetail in the shoulder. “You sly goat, why didn’t you tell me the school had a satyr fraternity?”
“We… don’t? There’s a student association but uh…” Freetail stared at the frat house, trying to see inside.
The centaur snickered, “Well apparently TFU didn’t get the memo.”
“How’d you hear about this party Stormchaser?” Gabe asked curiously.
Stormchaser reached into a small saddle bag around his waist, pulling out his phone. “Word of mouth? I think someone mentioned it on our team’s group text. How did you hear about-” The goalie glanced back at his rapidly-vanishing place in line. “Gah, I better go!” He galloped off, “See you inside!”
“What. Did. You. Do?” Merlin glared at the four. The sound of lusty bleats could be heard from the street at this point.
“Woah, hey! We all came right back to your shop!” Mark put his hands up defensively.
“I don’t think we rubbed off on anyone on our way out.” Peter scratched one of his horns self consciously.
Freetail tilted his head. His thoughts were still a confusing jumble of his old self and his new life, but one relevant fragment started to rise to the surface of his consciousness.
“Didn’t one of you cum in the punch bowl earlier?” He bleated curiously. At the time he didn’t realize how potent satyrs were. Now it seemed like a very pertinent detail.
“By the Maker…!" Merlin put both of his hands on his head, "I’m totally losing my business license!” He stared at the frat house, “I can’t shift this many people back to normal- I- On man, expulsion might be on the table.“ He looked at the group, “You all need to help me fix this!”
“How? I thought you just said…” Mark looked at the manic wizard nervously.
“Maybe if we just find the guys who started all this. There couldn’t have been that much punch.” Merlin fixed his hair. “Yeah- That might work. Just focus on shifting back the guys who got the ball rolling.”
Peter looked up at the frat house, “This is a big party. How do you plan on doing that?”
“You start with the drunkest satyrs and work your way out from there.” Freetail laughed, “But uh, do you really think you can work faster than the satyrs?” He rubbed his sheath gently, “Foreplay isn’t our forte.”
“Now’s not the time for pickup lines Free.” Merlin started flipping through the spell book he had brought with him.
“Freetai-“ The satyr started.
“We know.” Merlin shut his book, “Look, your centaur friend thinks this is a satyr frat. Maybe we could leverage that somehow?” The wizard suddenly looked a bit more calm.
“Leverage that…?” Mark blinked, “Hold on, you want to keep them like this, don’t you?”
Merlin looked a bit sheepish, “It might be easier. Just find the head of the frat and nudge him into a reality where he’s in charge of the campus’ raucous satyr frat. Everyone will be none the wiser.”
“Baah, err, we could maybe talk to Victor about it?” Peter wagged his tail pensively, “This sounds like a plan to get you out of trouble, not to turn everyone back.”
"Hey, frat boys and satyrs have a lot in common." The wizard shrugged his shoulders.
Peter glanced down at himself skeptically, “Uh huh.”
"It'll be a lot easier to find one satyr instead of a bunch of guys who had spiked punch." He started to move towards the back of the line, "I still need to track down all the costumes I rented too."
“Hey wait,” Peter grabbed the sleeve of Merlin’s robe, “We can get in through the back door on the kitchen.” He cocked his head towards the back.
“Oh! Good idea.” Merlin nodded, “Alright, let’s go.”
Gabe watched the group start to sneak around to the back. They seemed to be forgetting one very key detail: This was a party full of satyrs! Just three of them had been a handful earlier…! He squeezed his satyr pants a little tighter as he chased after them. He had a feeling he was going to need them tonight.