To Ty's amazement, Mike remained in the stall. His pacing had stopped, he seemed content to simply stand there and chew oats from the bin. The former human was more horse than centaur now, his arms thin as a child's and the shaggy brown hide all the way up to his shoulders.
The changing centaur turned and snuffled the air with flaring nostrils. His face was pushed out in a definate muzzle, and even his eyes had taken on the dark, liquid appearance of a horse's. Why hadn't he noticed anything?
Then Ty suddenly realized how the magic wa working. He had set up the overall situation, but let the magic work out the details. Of course! Mike's skull had flattened - his brain had changed first! He had started thinking like a stallion before the changes became obvious.
Since it was alrady too late for Mike to do anyhting, Ty popped into the stall and awakened him long enough to gloat. "You call yourself a gamer? No real adventurer would be so stupid as to walk into a trap like this. This character will spend the rest of its life pulling plows and wagons, being worked hard and badly treated until it dies of old age in ten or fifteen years. You are out of the game!"
Mike twisted his head around and lookd at his still-changing body. "Wha - " He concetrated to speak with his almost equine mouth. "What happens now. I guess you send me back?"
Ty grinned evilly. "Send you back? No, I told all of you that you were the characters. In a few more minutes, you will be that poor, mistreated work horse. You made the choices, now you can pay the price!"
Mike's eyes widened in sudden terror. "No! Ty! Please don't leave me like this! I don't wan to be a horseerwhhiiinnneeeee!" His voice beacme an equine squeal as his head and neck finished transforming. Ty popped outside of the stall and watched the former human, and now, former centaur, kick and scream in fear and horror until even his mind dulled. Mike's identity, his basic sense of self, was now that of a common plow horse. And that's what he would stay for the rest of his life. Ty laughed and popped back to the main party.