The small group made camp next to the small river they had wound up following upstream and settled down. It was early afternoon, and they needed to rest and work out what the next step was. Mike was still in shock over finding himself apparently permanently half dairy-cow, and the others were fairly upset as well. Christine particularly was feeling guilty.
Half an hour or so later, she got up from where she had been sitting next to the small campfire and approached Mike, who was still muttering to himself as he tried to lie down under a tree. He found his swollen udder made this quite difficult to do comfortably, as it kept getting trapped under his body whenever he moved. He was coming to the realisation that he seriously needed to be milked, but didn't want to think about what this meant for the future.
Christine watched him for a moment, then said "Look Mike, please realise that this wasn't what I meant too happen. I was only trying to help. We just couldn't leave you as a cow!"
He glanced up at her, then back at his vast mammaries. "I know, but that doesn't make this any easier", he mumbled. He was feeling both angry and embarrassed. He'd realised a few minutes earlier for the first time that technically he was a woman, and that was the worst part of the whole cow-taur thing. He had no intention of referring to himself as 'she' though. His self-image, battered as it was, wouldn't allow it. He didn't think it ever would. At least, as far as he could tell, mentally he was his normal self.
"What the fuck am I going to do?" he half-asked, half-pleaded. "How can I spend the next however long like this? I mean, I think dairy cows need to be milked every day! Sometimes twice! Are you sure you can't do anything?"
She sat down crosslegged next to him and patted him on the shoulder. "I'm afraid not. I had another look just now and I've never seen any spell so complicated as the mess you have on you. It seems to have settled in and wound itself so tight I doubt there's anything anyone can do, except possibly for Ty. And we both know he'd simply find this funny as hell and refuse to do anything about it. Anyway, we want to stay as far away from him as we can."
Mike nodded glumly.
After a while, she stood up and walked off to talk to the others, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Some time later, the uncomfortable sensation in his overfull milk glands became bad enough that he stood up and walked towards them, wincing as his legs squeezed his udder painfully. "Guys, I need some help."
They looked at him. "What?" asked Brian curiously.
"Um, I need to be milked. There's no way I can reach my udder on my own. One of you is going to have to do it." They looked at each other. Joe was obviously unable to help much, so eventually Brian and Christine flipped a coin for it. Brian won (or from his point of view lost) and groaned in embarrassment. The thought of grabbing his friend's new nipples was uncomfortable.
"Oh hell, OK. Hang on a moment." He rummaged through their small store of cooking utensils and dug out the largest pot they had, one that held perhaps a gallon. He approached Mike's side, and placed the pot under his udder. Kneeling down he tentatively grabbing a couple of huge nipples, then flinched when Mike jumped in surprise at the unfamiliar sensation.
"Damn, your hands are cold!" Mike yelped.
"Sorry" He gently tugged one nipple, and a dribble of milk came out. It took several minutes of experimentation and muted yelps and gasps from the reluctant new cowtaur, but eventually he got the hang of it. A few minutes of milking and the pot was full. Unfortunately, Mike's udder obviously had a considerably larger capacity that the pot. Brian looked around, then picked up the pot and carried it down to the riverbank and emptied it into the water with a splash. As the white cloud of milk spread through the slow-moving water and gradually flowed downstream, he returned to Mike and resumed milking.
It took half a dozen trips to the river before he had successfully extracted all the milk he was able to. Mike's udder was still very large, but now hung rather limply between his hind legs rather than being squeezed into too small a space. The relief of having it empty was considerable. Brian placed the final, half full pot to one side and said "That took a lot longer than I expected. I wonder how often we'll have to do that?"
Mike looked very upset. "I hope not too often." The sensation of being milked was quite nice, but horribly embarrassing. He really hoped that this wouldn't have to be done so often he would get used to it.
The small group gathered around the fire as the evening darkened, trying to decide what their next move would be. Finally, they talked themselves out and just stared into the fire lost in their own thoughts. Some time later, Christine put a saucepan of water on the embers of the fire and made coffee for herself and Brian. Neither Joe nor Mike wanted any. It was the last of the coffee they had, and was getting a bit stale and bitter. After a couple of sips, Brian looked a little put off. He thought for a moment, shrugged, and retrieved the pot of milk that was still sitting where he had left it.
Mike and Christine looked on in amazement as he sniffed it, then added some to his coffee and slugged some back. "What?", he asked quizzically when he saw their expressions. "It's just milk, after all. I like milk in my coffee."
"But, it came out of ME!" spluttered Mike, his face going red. Being half cow was bad enough, but to see one of his friends actually drinking his milk was somehow even worse that actually PRODUCING that milk.
"So? Tastes OK? What harm can it do? No sense letting it go to waste." Brian grinned at him, and emptied his mug. He had another one, and eventually even Christine tried a little. Mike glared in disgust, and stomped off to the other side of the small clearing they were in. Lying down, he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come.
The other three did the same after a few more minutes. Shortly thereafter the clearing was filled with the slow breathing of sleeping people, and the intermittent bass snores of a tired dragon.
-------
Christine jolted awake at the sudden yell. The fire had gone out, only a dull residual warmth coming from it, and it was pitch dark. Looking up at the stars she quickly worked out several hours had gone by. She could hear odd noises coming from the other side of the fire pit, sounding like someone was thrashing around heavily and almost crying to himself. Uttering a quick simple spell, she produced a small ball of white light which she tossed into the air where it hung, illuminating the clearing nicely. She looked towards where the noises were coming from, and simply stared in disbelief.
For a second she thought she was looking at Mike, but the cowtaur was over to her left ten yards away, also staring at what she was looking at. The OTHER cowtaur, that is, because she was looking at one already!
After a moment, the realisation of what she was looking at hit her, and she groaned. "Oh shit!" she managed, as Brian struggled to stand on his four new cloven hooves, his full and flopping udder slapping against his belly.
"WHAT HAPPENED?" screamed Brian, finally managing to coordinate his unfamiliar body sufficiently to stand up, although wobbling around considerably. He looked down at himself, then back at his lower cow body. Taking a shaky step forward he stopped abruptly as his udder swung back and forth uncomfortably.
His companions stared at him in amazement. He was more than slightly reminiscent of the new Mike, the same huge protruberant udder, the same black and white markings on the cow body which had replaced his normal one below the waist. He even had the same small horns sticking out of his hair. The rest of him was unchanged, which made him appear a little out of proportion, since his humanoid torso was considerable smaller and more lightly built that Mike's, although his lower body appeared to be exactly the same size. The only real obvious difference was the the pattern of his cow hide was not the same as Mike's.
He was freaking out seriously now, the only thing stopping him running around in a panic being his unfamiliarity with working four legs in sync. Christine, after a few moments, shook herself out of her daze and went to comfort him and calm him down. This took half and hour and a small spell, but finally she managed to get him quieted. Examining him magically for some time, she groaned in annoyance.
"Damn. It looks almost exactly the same as Mike's spell. You're stuck as well. How did this happen?" She was puzzled. The transformation was obviously related to the one that had changed Mike, there was no other way it could have happened. But how had it affected Brian. The answer hit all four of them at the same time.
"Fuck. The milk!" She cried as they looked at each other, dumbstruck. Brian was shocked, Mike was worried but somehow very slightly glad that at least he wasn't alone in misfortune. He told himself firmly not to be so petty.
Brian moaned and put his head in his hands, jerking them away briefly when he felt his new horns. "Oh god. Drinking his milk did this? You mean he's contagious?" He looked up suddenly. "Hold on, you drank some as well! Why didn't you change?" Christine stared at him dumbstruck. She hadn't thought about that.
"Well, perhaps it only affects you if you drink quite a lot. You had three cups of coffee with the milk, I only had a sip of it. Or maybe Drow aren't affected by it."
She stood in thought for a while, then scratched her head. It was itching just above the hairline. A few seconds later she had an itch on the other side, and reached up with the other hand. Suddenly stopping with both hands on her head, she looked at them in horror. "Or perhaps it goes more slowly if you have a small dose" she said glumly, and slowly lowered her hands. They looked at her head, and after a few seconds noticed what she had felt, as small cow horns slowly pushed through her hair.
The transformation took about ten minutes, and when it was finished yet another cowtaur stood in the clearing, feeling herself in disbelief. "Bugger it" She said as she walked around slowly, feeling the dangling weight of her udder sway around under her. She was, like Mike and Brian, a black and white patterned cow below the waist and her normal self above it. Like Brian, her cow body was out of proportion to her slender Drow torso, it being once more the same size as Mike's. Once again the main difference was that the patterns in her fur were changed from the other two.
Joe snickered, and rumbled "A whole herd of you guys! What now?"
They all glared at him, and began shouting.
"It's not funny!"
"This is all your fault, turning me into this thing in the first place!"
"No, it's HIS fault. Drinking the milk, what a stupid thing to do!"
"Well, you drank it as well, and I don't remember you saying anything about cowtauritis being contagious! How the hell are we supposed to get changed back?"
"WE CAN'T! Haven't you been listening? We seem to be under the same spell Mike is, more or less, and we're STUCK like this."
Brian crossed his arms in anger and glared around at the other two. Turning around he walked around the clearing trying to get used to his new shape.
After some while they all decided to get some sleep and try to work out what they should do in to morning. Lying down, the two new cowtaurs rapidly discovered what Mike had found earlier, about the problems involved with living with a large udder. He snickered slightly at the grunts of pain and fell asleep once more.
-------
The next morning they all awoke stiff and cold, and found out it hadn't been a dream. Struggling to their hooves, they walked slowly around the clearing working out the kinks. Mike realised that his udder had filled up again during the night and groaned. It looked like he was going to have to get used to being milked as part of his morning ritual. At least he wasn't alone in this, he thought, as he saw the other two cowtaurs coming to the same unwelcome realisation.
After a little discussion, they went down to the river bank and took turns milking each other into the river. Mike did Christine, she did Brian, and Brian did Mike. The thought that this would have to be done every morning for the indefinite future weighed heavily on them and they didn't speak much.
When they had packed up their camp, they discussed what the next step was. Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that continuing on with their mission to find some way of protecting themselves from Ty was the best course of action. There was alway the bare possibility that magic sufficiently powerful to do this might offer some hope of returning to normal. If not, they didn't have anything else to try. They began walking, following the river steadily away from the town that had been the cause of all of this.
They left the milking pot behind, though.