A few minutes later....
"I can't believe that we three are actually going to be taking a potion just so that we 'can' be our counterparts for a day." Dale tells his friends as they watch Stacy at her workbench.
"I know Dale, it kind of bugs me too, but what choice do we have here?" Mitch asks him. "I doubt that we three can blend into this place well enough to fool everyone into thinking that we are the Dale, Alan and Mitch that they know. And we can't fool them if we don't know how similar we and our counterparts are to one another."
"Yeah, you are right, Mitch."
"Hey its okay, Dale." Mitch says to him while giving him a playful hug across his shaggy back. Dale stops worrying for a minute and just leans into his friend. Mitch then goes from hugging him to playfully massaging his neck. Dale pants contentedly from his friend's gesture. Alan watches on and smiles before looking back to where Stacy is.
"So Stacy, can you explain to us on just how these potions will make us fit in like our counterparts?"
Stacy stops what she is doing and swivels her chair around to get a good look at them.
"Well, Alan, it is quite simple really." She tells before reaching back behind her for one of the potion. "This potion just contains a distillate of Memory moss."
"Memory Moss?" Dale interrupts her. His ears and tail twitching with a bit of anxiety. He starts feeling nervous again and looks at his friends while remembering the paranature of that particular species of moss. As he can recall all too well from his studies that this species of moss steals a day's worth of memories from anyone who has gotten with sixty feet of it. And that the only way to reclaim those memories was either to eat the moss or drink a rather foul concoction of its' sap.
"Memory Moss, Stacy?" Mitch asks her while catching on to his friend's anxiety. "Where did you managed to get your paws on that stuff? It doesn't grow anywhere near the campus."
"Yeah, it's practically the bane of spellcasters because of its memory theft ability." Alan says following up on Mitch's comment.
Stacy looks at the nervous trio of fellow canines in annoyance.
"Relax guys, this distillate of memory moss isn't going to steal the memories you have experienced since you got here. I made this concoction from some Memory Moss that had accidentally fed on someone else's set of memories." She tells them.
"Whose memories by the way?" Dale asks her while cocking his head at her in puzzlement.
She doesn't her shaggy friend right away but smiles impishly.
"Why you three of course, or should I say the 24 hour old memories of your counterparts."
"How did you manage to get this moss again and how does it happen to have the memories of our other selves?" Mitch asks her before turning toward both of sides of him in order to gauge the reactions of his friends.
Swiveling the chair around to fully them, Stacy tries to hold back the mirth she is feeling at seeing how the counterparts of her friends react to Mitch's question. Only her tail swishing back and forth betrays her amusement to them. She finally gives in and tells them.
"Well to make the story short and simple, the class me and your counterparts are in were looking around for some Mandrake roots in Murkwood forest yesterday when we ran into the damned moss. It managed to steal the memories of the previous day from your counterparts before I rendered it harmless with a simple stasis spell."
"And you then decided to take it back with you to your lab." Dale asks her. "Why?"
"Well despite being the bane of spellcasters like us, it does have its uses."
"Okay, okay, so you got your paws on some Memory Moss and have now made a distillate of it. How will it help us fit in into this place and not arouse anyone's suspicions?" Dale asks her. "Because if I remember the stuff from my botany class correctly, the memories of another person taken by the Memory moss only last for 24 hours before they fade away."
"I think I know." Mitch speaks up before Stacy can. " This distillate when imbibed by us will bestow upon the stolen memories of our counterparts...."
"And with those memories we would for a time know everything that our counterparts knew at the time those memories were stolen by the moss." Alan finishes up on Mitch's little discovery. He smiles at his friends while wagging his tail happily. Stacy smiles at him. He smiles back.
"Exactly!" She tells them.
"So we don't really have to be worried about losing our actual identities by taking this stuff?" Dale asks her with the scent of his own continuing nervousness in the air.
"DALE!" Stacy says to him while starting to look cross at him for being so hestitant.
"Okay, okay, no need to get your hackles raised here." Dale tells while holding up his paws before her.
"Hmmph!"
Mitch reaches over to her and gently takes the potion from her hands.
"Well I guess we three had better take this potion of yours, Stacy, before we all get second thoughts here." He says to them all while reaching out with his other paw to give Dale another reassuring touch on the shoulder.
Stacy smiles at Mitch before quickly swiveling her chair around to pick up the other two potions on her workbench. She then turns around again and hands the potions to both Alan and Dale. Both of them take the potions from her paws and then look at Mitch.
Mitch looks at his friends in turn and smiles.
"Bottoms up." Alan tells his friends with toothy smile before bringing the potion up to his muzzle. Both Mitch and Dale follow suit while Stacy watches on to see if her potions worked or not.
For a brief moment after Dale, Mitch and Alan imbibed their potions, nothing happens. And then.....