“Wolf!” Erwin decided.
Finn stroked his chin, “You aren’t just shouting some random animal, right?”
“No!” Erwin said indignantly. “Wolves hunt in packs!”
“But Charlie’s all alone. Are you sure he’d be the best hunter?” Finn queried.
“ Erwin think clue is trick and player need to match species. Charlie is wolf so he need pick wolf.” Erwin huffed.
“Fair enough.” Finn sighed.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Time Resumed.
“We should pull the lever to wolf.” Charlie said.
“Really, the wolf?” Veles asked, skeptical.
“I mean, we are the best hunters, after all.” Charlie replied.
“Maybe you have to fight whatever picture is above the hole,” Veles said.
“Yeah, it’s true, we might be misinterpreting the meaning of the puzzle.” Oswin nodded.
“Either way, someone’s gonna have to go through the hole.” Charlie shrugged.
“Then check it out,” Oswin shrugged, pulling a lever.
There was a clank as the hole shifted slightly. Above the hole, the image of a wolf wavered.
Charlie walked over to the hole and climbed up the metal ladder below it. Peering through, he saw an endless expanse of darkness. Holding up his lantern, that darkness yielded somewhat, though all he could see was a long, empty hallway on the other side.
Charlie frowned. There was an infamous trap in DnD that was just like this.
Cautiously, he poked a dagger into the darkness up to the hilt, then withdrew it.
The air around the hole seemed to ripple, but his dagger was still intact, so the hole wasn’t an illusion containing an orb of disintegration. That was a good sign. And as he inspected his dagger, it appeared unmolested. Taking a breath, he did the next test.
The wolf thrust he paw into the dark orifice and held his breath.
It was strange, the movement slower than it should have, like the air inside the hole was made of thick syrup.
His fingers felt as though they were piercing some unseen resistant force. It didn’t slow his movement down, but rather felt like it gave as he pushed through it. A strange warmth passed over his paw, followed by tingling and then an odd popping, like the bones were sliding and shortening.
Panicking, Charlie tried to pull his hand out, but found it was like trying to pull a boot out of thick mud. The harder he pulled, the more the hole pulled back. But when Charlie relaxed, the hole kept pulling, dragging his arm further inside!
Charlie braced his shoulder against the wall and yanked his body backwards…
With a pop, his arm came free.
Heart pounding, Charlie looked down his paw and saw…
A perfectly normal paw.
He flexed it experimentally. All fingers appeared to be in order. He took a deep, calming breath. Perhaps he’d imagined it?
“What are we dealing with?” Oswin called.
“Looks like a dark hallway, but I think there’s something more. My hand popped when I stuck it though.” Charlie called over his shoulder.
“Dagger passed the test and your hand was unharmed?” Oswin asked.
“Dagger… yeah, it’s fine. My hand was a different story. I mean, its fine now, but it almost felt like the bones all broke when I first stuck it though. .
Charlie looked at his hand, still flexing his fingers back and forth.
“It wasn’t painful, it just felt weird. I don’t know how to describe it, like my hand was still there but nothing in it was working right. Veles, can you try using detect magic?”
“Sure thing!” Veles replied as his eyes lit up bright blue.
A minute passed as the cougar inspected the portal. “It’s difficult to tell, but it is magical. Someone placed a False Magic Aura on it.”
Charlie looked back at the hole and gave it a more thorough inspection. He noticed that there was a small metal bar jutting out from the wall in between the hole and the picture of the wolf above it.
"I guess I'm supposed to hold onto that and go through feet first?" he wondered aloud.
"Maybe that’s why your hand had the reaction that it did? It’s possible that this is some sort of science fiction style teleporter. What it’s doing is disassembling matter that passes through this side, then reassembling it on the other side. If it expected you to go through feet first, maybe it turned your hand into a foot?”
Charlie rubbed his chin as he thought about what Veles said.
“That would make sense,” Charlie replied, “my hand did feel more like a foot after I stuck it through.”
“Then just go through headfirst." Veles shrugged his shoulders.
Charlie decided to go for a dive. If this thing was some sort of trap, it was better to get through it quickly. Plus, the added momentum would help him clear any traps that were set to trigger by his passing through.
Worst case, it killed him and Finn let him out of this hell world.
Running forward, Charlie leapt for the hole.
His hands cross the threshold, only for him to feel that strange resistance pushing back, like his hands were squeezing through a tight membrane. Then, suddenly, they were through. With a pang of relief, he felt them continue to move through the wall.
That relief was cut short, however, as warmth and tingles engulfed his hands.
His paws were popping, like the fingers were being pressed back into his paws one knuckle at a time. The membrane gripped his paws tightly, shaping them and molding them into something that felt much smaller as they passed through.
Charlie's dive carried him forward as his forearms passed through the hole, then his elbows.
The more of him went through the hole, the more the sensations coming from his body changed, joints popping, muscles shifting. It wasn’t painful, almost pleasant, like a gentle massage. The transition was slow despite of the speed at which he initially passed through.
He tried looking past the hole, to see what was on the other side, but it was just the same, empty hallway from before. Whatever this hole was, the sight of his body vanished as soon as it went through, which meant that it was a portal to somewhere else, and the empty hallway it was showing was an illusion.
Thinking back to his hands, Charlie tried to mentally scan over the nerves inside of them to build a mental picture of what had happened.
As a human, his brain had built an extremely detailed neurological map of his hands. Every ridge on his palms and fingers had been built out in the extreme detail necessary for making grasping and manipulating objects. And now, having been teleported into this DnD world, with his high dexterity, the level of detail and precision that his hands had was immense.
But all of that was gone. Instead, Charlie felt only the most rudimentary of sensations of a straight limb that ended in four blunt fingers. No, Charlie realized as he tried to wiggle them, they felt more like toes than fingers. And what was more, they felt like they were on backwards – instead of his claws facing forwards, away from his body, it felt like his claws were pointing backwards, towards his head.
Wait, if his arms were hindlegs, then his head would be… Charlie’s eyes bugged out as he realized what was about to happen to him.
“Hel-!” Charlie tried to scream.
Then his snout passed through the wall and it instantly slammed shut.
Charlie tried to stop himself, but with his arms already through the hole there was nothing he could do but helplessly flail his legs.
More and more of his muzzle passed through the hole, sagging bonelessly back against his face as it did. No words could pass his wrinkling lips as his tongue flattened and merged with the bottom of his jaw all while his teeth retreated back into thick, leathery flesh.
His muzzle was almost flat against his head now, his nose gone, mouth stuck in an ‘o’ shape. The skin around it was darkening and puckering. Charlie closed his eyes in fearful anticipation as he felt the invisible membrane bend and flex against his face before he slipped through it.
Something grew from his forehead, long and bushy.
He could feel the fur brush his face as his head snapped and crunched pleasantly, like a million little hands were stroking and massaging his skull. A kink in his neck led to it actually shrinking back against his body. At the same time, his eyes grew heavy and shut, soon lost in the thick fur of the wolf’s ass he was becoming.
As the wolf tail finished sprouting and came to rest over his mouth, Charlie struggled to think. His mind was slowing down, brain growing fuzzy and cottony and pleasantly warm. He could feel a pressure growing in him and all he wanted to do was… was…
Charlie felt his puffy pucker bulge, his tail lifted, and he gave a simple, hearty push!
*Pfffpprrt*
As the fart escaped him, the pressure in his ‘head’ went away, along with his thoughts. Only simple feelings and pleasures were left.
The rest of his body quickly followed his newly-formed rear through, limp and thoughtless. And then Charlie’s asshole hit the wall and grew into a fully-functioning wolf’s head. Finally released from his puckered prison, the wolf only had a split second to enjoy himself before he realized he was in the middle of a backwards-facing dive.
The wolf fell backwards out of the hole, landing on its tail with a yelp.
It looked around the cage it was in and sniffed around, picking up scents. Charlie’s thoughts slowly surfaced. Not the replacement Charlie, who was currently back to being a tight, well-used anus, but the original.
He was disoriented, and not just from being his own asshole, but also having to deal with new instincts and a limited brain capacity to work with. Charlie was feeling elated and terrified, because, knowing Finn, this was a bad end, likely to be reversed, and he’d end up an asshole again.
Yes, yes, he’d heard the warning Finn gave other Charlie earlier. It didn’t matter, he knew how Finn worked. There was probably a growing pile of dead Charlies in his lair right now.
The wolf looked up at the whole he had just dropped through, only to see it close up and vanish. With his most immediate avenue of escape closed off, Charlie looked around, only to realize he was surrounded by thick bars.
He found himself lower his head to the ground and begin sniffing, flooding his nose with the smell of other animals. From the sights and sounds, it was clear that he was in some sort of animal holding area, but how did he get here?
One minute he was stuck in the pitch black, stinky confines of his own pants, and the next he was a wolf in a cage. Something about the hole must have done this, and he remembered the group talking about some levers and animal pictures. But as he tried to piece it all together, he suddenly realized just how many pieces to this there were – and how much difficulty his new brain had in keeping it all together.
Unable to focus his attention for long enough to solve the question of how he got here, Charlie began to walk around the cage he found himself in. He knew that there should be a door with a lock, and while one side of the cage seemed to have a strange square sticking off of it, Charlie couldn’t seem to figure out how to use it. All he could do was sit there, dumbly pawing at the square in the hopes that something would catch and the cage would open.
Charlie’s impotent attempts to paw at the cage were interrupted as heavy thuds vibrated through the ground. A large golem stomped over to his cage and picked it up. Charlie experienced intense vertigo as he accelerated upwards, the cage swinging. He whimpered and cowered in the corner, scrabbling to keep himself upright.
The wolf found himself being carried out of the menagerie and into a brightly lit, circular area whose floor was covered in sand..
High above him, maybe thirty feet or so, was a soft chaise lounge. And lying atop that lounge was a huge, well-muscled pitbull, instantly recognizable as the visage carved into the statues in the ruins’ entrance corridor.
A golem brought a gagged wolf over to him, affixing it to a stand that held its neck over a golden goblet.
The pitbull laughed as his voice boomed out over the arena, “One of your friends perhaps? It appears that someone else went through the hole right after you did, but I don’t need two wolves.”
The pitbull slit the wolf's throat, causing it to spasm as hot blood poured into the goblet below it and took a lap of the blood, his eyes flaring red as he did.
“Ah!” The devilish pitbull licked his crimson-smeared chops. “The blood of the vanquished is always so sweet. And the flesh is so delectable.”
The pitbull leaned over and surveyed the wolf.
“You are the adventurer who dared to intrude upon my chambers,” The pitbull’s voice was calm, though there was an undertone of menace to it. “I know you still retain a semblance of your former personality and intellect. That will fade in time. But while I still have you aware, I want you to fight for your life.”
Charlie cocked his head, considering the pitbull’s words.
It wasn’t over yet, then. He still had a chance. This could work out for him if he played his cards right. He was an assassin. Charlie could take out anyone if he could study them for a little while.
“Woof,” He barked in agreement.
The pitbull chuckled. “Excellent! Should you survive 13 battles, I shall make you my personal guard.”
And that was his way out. He just had to win. If he could do that, an avenue of escape would open up to him, he just knew it.
The golem came back with two hunting dogs. Charlie frowned - an expression odd on a feral wolf’s face - but he wasn’t TOO concerned. A wolf was bigger than a dog, that fight would be over quick. Two dogs were more of a challenge, especially when there were spiked collars around their necks.
Charlie turned to the pitbull.
“What?” The pitbull grinned. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”
The hounds were howling and pulling at the leashes the golem held in its mechanical fists. With a click, the leashes snapped off the collars and the hounds bounded forward. Charlie stood his ground as he was met with a whirlwind of teeth.
Charlie’s loose skin saved him from a few nips and bites, but he was bleeding severely by the time he brought the hounds to bay. They circled the wolf. Charlie eyed them both for any openings. As an assassin, he was at a severe disadvantage here.
There weren’t many openings. The obvious killshot was covered in leather and spikes, while getting in close to snap their tendons was risky but possible.
He darted in, nipping at one hound’s legs, and the other immediately snapped forward, going for Charlie’s throat.
They fought back and forth for five minutes.
Charlie was panting and tired, bleeding from multiple wounds now. He could keep up with one, but two hounds was too much. Fuck this. Time to reroll.
He looked up at the pitbull and deliberately rolled over, exposing his throat.
The hounds darted in.
There was a flash of pain, and then cold. Charlie watched his lifeblood spurt across the sand.
“A pity,” the hell hound chuckled. “Ah, well. Trim.”
For a brief moment, Charlie found himself floating just outside of his body, staring down at it. The wolf’s eyes were glazing over as the blood flowing out of its neck began to slow. And then, Charlie found himself thrust back inside.
Just seconds ago, his body had felt painful and cold, but now it just felt… normal? There was no sensation of cold or heat, no sensation of pain. He could feel the gash in his neck, but it didn’t hurt. In fact, it almost felt like it was supposed to be there.
He tried to move his legs or wag his tail, but nothing responded. It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel his limbs anymore – they just felt so weak, and stiff. The best way he could describe it was as though all of his joints had just vanished, like his body was one gigantic bone that was permanently stuck in place.
And while Charlie didn’t know it, nor would he ever have a way to figure it out, he wasn’t that far off from the truth. Which was that there was no longer any flesh or blood inside of body. Instead, everything under his skin had been replaced with an intricately carved, life-sized wooden figurine of a wolf. The only part of Charlie’s old body that was still around was his pelt, now tanned, which had been stretched around that wooden figure and then sewn shut.
Charlie the wolf was now Charlie the wolf taxidermy, perpetually frozen in place, on its back with its paws in the air, and a large, bloody gash in its throat.
Then the world popped, and Charlie found himself on a stand out in the hall
His friends turned and stared at him on display.
“Well, shit.” Oswin said. Then he shrugged. “Guess that wasn’t the right hole after all.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==--==-
With a *pop*, a taxidermied wolf, throat torn out, appeared on the stone floor of Finn’s lair.
“Oh, yeah, just like that, little one!” Finn groaned, bucking hips into the kobold’s maw.
Finn glimpsed the taxidermy out of the corner of his eye.
“Hey Charlie!” Finn chuckled. “Well, the REAL Charlie. Don’t know which end of you that is. You really like making an ass of yourself, huh?”
The dragon glanced down at the kobold nuzzling his cock and back at the taxidermy.
“Well, it’s not really your fault. I’m afraid I distracted young Erwin here with my enormous dragon dong.” Finn chuckled drily. “You don’t really fit with the Feng Schui of my lair, so I’ll just send you back. Lucky for you, this isn’t….”
The End
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