The Next Chapter: 22

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 22: How Did We Get Here? (Reprise)

Ivan shut off the lights and climbed into bed. Even in the dark with nothing to see, he could tell he wasn't in his dorm room anymore. The sheets and cover and pillow were all the same, but the mattress was like heaven compared to what he'd been sleeping on for the past few weeks, and the entire school year that had preceded the summer before those.

It was only now, lying in bed and expecting to fall asleep fairly soon, that he thought about it a little harder. Was this a mistake? He'd been thinking about sticking with his friends—especially with Gio. He'd been thinking about helping Gio down a path to a healthier lifestyle. But he hadn't really put a ton of thought into one, admittedly fairly important, thing.

---

Ivan crossed his arms. "I really can't believe I agreed to this."

"Whaaat? Getting cold feet already? Dude, we're just visiting our friends who live here now!"

"I know it comes naturally, Gio, but don't play dumb."

"Hahah!"

The two of them were standing a few steps out from the front door of the OZK building. It was afternoon on Friday, not long after both of their last classes had let out. Ivan had stopped to make his comment, and Gio had stuck with him. Their voices were joined by a third from behind: "Hey—you two holding a meeting on the lawn?"

They turned around to find a tall, white-haired wolf-girl in some shorts and a fairly tight-fitting t-shirt.

She seemed very fit and toned; Ivan could tell she'd put a lot of work into those abs. Gio had a different impression, and hurried to get a little closer. "Heeey, cutie! You live here?"
"'Cutie?'" she mumbled quietly, tilting her head a bit. "Well—I'm 'bout to move in, anyway. Name's Tokanwa."

Ivan sighed. "Ignore my friend here, please; he's not too bright. I'm Ivan, this's Gio."

"I can't help givin' out compliments when they're deserved, is all!"

"Huh." The wolf-girl shrugged. "I don't really go for 'cute', but I'll take it as friendly at least. I guess you guys know the deal with this soror? Soro? What is the short form anyway?"

"Pretty much," Ivan said. "A couple of our friends joined yesterday after some, uh, 'wacky events', so we're...visiting them. Do you want any help with your stuff?"

"Hmm, maybe—once I get my room settled with Nancy." She paused, her ears twitching and turning as she tilted her head slightly upward. "..Sounds like karaoke. That, or someone just decided to start singin' on their own."

That got Gio's attention. "C'mon, let's go in!" he said, waving excitedly. Ivan shrugged apologetically in Tokanwa's direction before following. His roommate at least had the presence of mind to stop with the door held open and let the others in before continuing on himself.

"You work out, Ivan? Kinda looks like it, though I've learned lately not to assume."
"Yep," he nodded. "You too, I guess?"
"Totally! I actually found out about this place during a morning jog. Ran into Ed then—you know Ed?"

"Not really," Ivan admitted. They had heard the names of a few members from Hendrix and Fritz, but hardly knew what any of them were like.

"They're upstairs, right? Where's the stairs again?" Gio asked.

"You're the one who's been here," Ivan reminded him.

"Maybe I should lead," the wolf-girl suggested.

They went upstairs, and then to a big sort of theater-like room, where—indeed—a group of the sorority's members had gathered for karaoke. At the moment, a blond dog-girl was sitting on a stool on the little "stage" and not only singing, but also playing a guitar in her lap, along to "All Along the Watchtower". Ivan hadn't actually seen Hendrix's new "girl form" before, but from a previous description and the context, he was pretty confident that was who this was. She also took a hand off of the guitar for a second to give the two of them a friendly wave as they came in.

Gio looked around the room; there was a mixture of guys and girls present, but definitely too many of the latter for him to comment on all at once (never mind the fact there was a performance of sorts going on right now), so he settled for a slightly-voiced gasp for now. Once the song was over, Hendrix hopped down to her feet. "Yo, glad you guys could make it. These're Gio and Ivan," she said, gesturing.

"Hey," Ivan said quickly.

"Hiii!" Gio waved. "Can I go next!?" A number of voices saying something along the lines of 'sure, I guess' was all the encouragement he needed, so he ran up to the stage, picked out his song on the computer (the Chalkeaters' "Trash Can Song") and launched straight into it. He wasn't the best singer, but he certainly had confidence. He was also enough of a goofball to have his audience more laughing than confused, even though several of them seemed unfamiliar with the context. He gave a big bow afterward, and hurried off the stage.

There was some general chatter after that—as they tried to decide who would go next—and Tokanwa came over to the back row, where Ivan was sitting. "Yo—is the offer to help me move in still good? I got my keys and stuff."
"Yeah, sure," he nodded. A big crowd like this wasn't exactly his style anyway.

---

"You, have got the prettiest, bright blue eyes I think I've ever seen."

"Uh—thanks?" Ed had no idea how to take this comment from the newcomer. Fritz had warned he was a 'huge flirt', but her eyes...had never been changed at all, by any of the transformations she'd been through recently.

"Heeyy, don't get me wrong. The whole package is totally gorgeous!" he said, grinning. "That's just the first thing I noticed, y'know?"

"Psst. Ed's already dating someone," Kyosuke (currently male) advised him with a light elbowing.

"Yow! Hey, I didn't mean nothing serious by it."

"Shh—Jay's starting!" Ed bit back an urge to point out the double negative, just focusing on listening to her roommate sing again.

It was, of course, another of Ursa Major's songs. Equally predictable was her basically knocking it out of the park, capturing the full attention of everyone in the room. Ed glanced around a couple of times—just a usual, nervous habit of hers—and noticed Nancy holding out her phone to record this particular performance. There was no way Jay didn't see it too, so if she had a problem with it, surely she would say so.

---

Tokanwa found a fast friend in Ivan, talking about their workout routines and diets and making time to exercise alongside school as they went back and forth from her car a few times. He was also majoring in biochemistry, which meant she would talk about her own studies a little bit without him immediately getting that look on his face like most people did. She was careful not to go too deep into it this time, and he actually seemed semi-interested, which was nice.

On their last trip to her room she said, "So—level with me. You guys tryin'a join OZK?"
He sighed. "Yeah. Gio really wants to, and won't do it without me. It'd be pretty lame if all three of my friends are in and I'm out. Besides, it'd be a pain for me to break in a new roommate at this point."

"I guess you're not too freaked out about being a girl some of the time, then?"
"Me? Guess not. Long as I stay fit, anyway," he said. "Gio's kind of mentally skated past that part, mostly. He's just excited about the place's amenities...and especially living in the same house as a lot of 'cute girls'."

"I can admire the honesty, at least. The vibe I got is that he's not serious enough to cause any trouble."

"I'd say so, yeah."

"Given what Nan told me 'bout OZK's history, I feel like a motive of 'living with cute girls' isn't even that outta line," Tokanwa pointed out. "Their first chapter started as a fraternity; you can bet some a' those guys stuck around for a reason like that."

They came to her door and set down the last few things. "..Yeah, right there's perfect. Phew. Okay—I got one more carload to get, and then I'll have officially joined," she said.

"Great. Lemme know if you need any more help. I guess I better go check on Gio," he said, heading off toward the stairwell.

---

In all the time arguing with Gio about this, Ivan had begun with a tacit assumption that his friend and roommate wouldn't want to turn into a girl. Probing that assumption so many times had seemingly proven it completely false; Gio knew he could turn into a guy at any time with that ring OZK would provide, and that was plenty good enough for him.

When Tokanwa had brought it up, he'd sort of brushed it off; the first thing to come out of his mouth had felt correct, but he hadn't thought about it that deeply, really. Lying in bed now, he tried to assess just how much being a guy really mattered to him. The possibility of having some magic transform him into a girl had never come up before this very week, so he honestly hadn't been mentally prepared for it. He didn't think very deeply about his own looks—other than working out to keep himself fit, and being fairly proud of his hard-earned muscles. Maybe his answer to Tokanwa was right after all: Girls were just as capable of being fit as guys, after all. That wolf-girl herself was even a prime example of that possibility.

---

"Whooaa, hi there!" Gio grinned. He'd been going along with his three friends out of the karaoke room, and paused upon seeing the winged girl standing next to another one he hadn't seen before. "She a friend of yours, Polaris?"
"Indeed—Mary is a long-time friend, as well as my roommate."
"Nice to meet ya, Mary!" He said, offering her a hand to shake. "You pull off that goth look better than anyone I've ever seen! It looks great on you."

"...Likewise." she paused the game she was playing just long enough to very slightly and briefly shake his hand. "Thanks, I guess."
"And duuude, is that a 3DS? You got any homebrew running on that thing?"

"...A little bit."

"Well, hey, I know some guys online working on a brand new game for it, if you wanna see what that hardware can really do!"

"Fair warning, it might melt your console," Fritz added, grabbing his friend's shoulder to lightly shove him along. "C'mon."

"Whoa, hey—I'm coming! No need to drag me!"

They continued from there to the lounge, for a meeting with Nancy that Fritz had helped set up for them. She gave them a brief interview: Basic introductions, why they wanted to join, and so on.

---

Thursday night, Ivan said: "Look—I get that it looks like a pretty nice place to live. Being real here, I do kinda get wanting to hang around with a lot of hot girls, too. But, like, with Fritz and Hendrix already members, we could basically hang there as much as we want without actually joining. You could easily ask one of 'em out or whatever. Is it really worth getting us both turned into girls just so we can live there? I mean, we've figured out how to handle living in this dorm, right?"
"Yeah, but...look. I mean actually look," Gio said with a gesture toward his body. "I'm not such a pleasant view to most girls. I might never meet anyonee into this no matter how charming of a personality I've got. With those rings that'd let us turn back into guys though...I mean, I could be fit. Or at least—not—so overweight, y'know?"
"I never got the impression your looks bothered you," Ivan pointed out.
"Well—not that much themselves. But, in how I get treated by people? A little."

He sighed. "I know what it's like to hate being overweight, and wanna improve. That's why I started exercising, and built up the discipline to keep doin' it. You know if you used this as a way to get fit, it won't stick without a commitment to work to keep it."
"Yeeeeaaaaah, I guess it wouldn't, huh?"
"Okay. I'll make you a deal. We can try to join—obviously up to them if they let us in or not. And if they do, and you get the body you really want or whatever—then you've gotta work to keep it. No backing out—you work with me to make time for working out regularly and put up with it."

"For real? Yeah, dude, I'll take that! It should be easier anyway, if I start out better than I am now! Right?"
"Yeah, probably."

---

"Listen: I am not in charge," Nancy explained. "I think this weekend is the time to fix this issue, so I won't be the one doing this anymore—especially if you two do join and put us at, what, fourteen members now? But anyway: I had time to plan ahead this time, so I've got a poll ready." She waved her phone in the air for a second. "I sent out something to all our members—now that most of 'em had a chance to meet you, is it cool to let you join. Just a yes-or-no, and I made it a package deal to simplify things since you definitely want in together in the first place. Fritz, you and Hendrix didn't get the text since I'm assuming you're both 'yes' anyway." He and the dog-girl both nodded. "So, just give everyone a few minutes to answer."

They chatted for another couple of minutes while they waited. "There's a group that's started playing DND," Fritz mentioned. "We kinda walked in on them for a couple of minutes yesterday."
"Sweet! You think they have room for one more?" Gio asked.

"That was the first session, so it might not be too much trouble," Nancy said.

Ivan said, "So uh—you're just hanging out as a girl now?"
"Hah—well, I only got to look like this in our dorm room 'till yesterday," Hendrix answered. "I thought I'd take this look around for a spin today, I guess. It's fun! A little weird to adapt to a totally different voice when singing, buuuut. There's loads of chicks in rock and roll, every one awesome! Plus I guess that Ursa Major chick might be taking advantage of a male form to like, be her own backup singer? That's what Jay says, anyhow; maybe that'd be fun too."

"..Okay, we have enough results," Nancy concluded after checking her phone again. "Basically everyone who's met you two said yes; a few who haven't abstained from voting. Nobody said 'no', which is ideal. You have a majority vote, so you're in if you'd like to be.

"Yeah!" Gio hopped to his feet and cheered. "Woohoo! We're in, dude!"
"Yep." Ivan stood up a little more calmly. "I guess that means we've gotta go move our stuff over. You didn't learn a Sword in the Stone-type packing spell, did you?" he asked Fritz.

"Uh..I learned how to pick stuff up with magic yesterday, but not very well."
"You shoulda seen that pillow hit the ceiling!" Hendrix added.

"Oookaaay, never mind."
"I'll help you guys move anyway," she said. "Lemme go get my ring to change, and I'll be right with ya."
"Yeah, I'll lug some stuff too," Fritz said. "As long as you carry your share."
"Hey, what kinda guy do you think I am?" Gio said. "It's my stuff, so I'll get all of it I can! Really appreciate the help, though!"

---

Hendrix liked being a girl, as far as he could tell. It was, maybe, just a new and exciting thing, which on reflection might be how Gio would see it too—at least at first. Fritz seemed to hate it, needing the temptation of access to a witch's phenomenal cosmic powers to even consider going back to that form. However...Ivan knew him to be a cautious person who disliked sudden change, so it was plausible that he was already in the process of warming up to it, and just reluctant to admit that.

He hadn't really asked how being a girl particularly felt. It would be a strange subject to bring up in the first place. A few of OZK's members, now that the two of them were officially joining, had given Gio and Ivan the warning that it might feel weird; the exhortation that it would probably feel 'good'; and the further warning that they would probably wake up very hungry. None of this really helped him understand what it would be like, or whether he would like the results or hate them.

Do I value being a guy? Ivan fell asleep with this question still not fully answered. But maybe this was for the best; it was very hard to even estimate the value of something like that before experiencing the alternative anyway.

He awoke to the sound of a voice he didn't recognize, a fairly deep female one. It seemed to just be some sleepy murmuring, a soft "Mrrrrnh" kind of sound, but (once Ivan was conscious enough to remember where he was and what was going on) it was a sign that his roommate's change had already happened—or was at least partway done. He squinted his eyes just the tiniest bit open, and found the same pitch darkness as when he'd first laid down; then he closed them again. There was just barely enough time for him to wonder why he wasn't a girl too by now before he noticed a warm, fuzzy feeling running all across his ears.

He tried to move, and succeeded in squirming a little bit in place. As that fuzzy feeling spread to his scalp and face, then began to flow down along his neck toward the rest of him, his ears felt like they were stretching out. He could feel them moving across his pillow as they got taller and taller; he shivered as the fuzzy sensation hit his torso and made a brief tingling race down his spine.

Now he managed to move one of his hands, slowly, upward, and it found some softer, longer locks of hair than he was used to on its way to examine an ear. Then he jolted again as his fingers found soft, warm fur—and the ear that fur was covering proved awfully sensitive to this touch. The base of his spine was still buzzing with that same fuzzy feeling too, even it faded from his torso and made its way out across his limbs. Something very slowly stretched its way out from down there, at the same time as his hand moved up from the base to the tip of a rounded, fuzzy ear that was at least as tall as the length from his wrist to his middle finger.

He shifted around slightly in bed, feeling the thing that had stretched out from his lower back rub across the sheets beneath him. It was covered in fur, too. And he could feel the soft locks his hand had encountered earlier making their way down his cheeks and starting to push their way down in between his back and the bed beneath him. The fuzzy feeling that had spread all across him had left him feeling warm and...comfortable. His ears and hair—and that tail—were nice and soft, and he felt kind of like he wanted more of that same softness everywhere.

"Mmh..." In response to this unexpected desire, his body began pulling itself inward. He shifted around a little more, feeling like that fuzzy warmth was touching him all over, resculpting his build. His arms and legs pulled slimmer and shorter, his face softening and rounding, his shoulders narrowing and his frame collapsing slowly inward. "Aah..aa~aah.." And he was getting shorter, too, made most obvious by the feeling of his feet pulling closer to the rest of his body even as he stayed fully stretched out across the bed. "Mm~mmh.." The soft sounds from his throat came out higher in pitch every time; he gradually became aware of a stronger warmth to his cheeks and his heartbeat picking up as this shrinking continued. And...down between his legs, the fuzzy feeling was getting very strong, pushing the part of him that made him male to get smaller—and yet, at the same time, seeming to stimulate it, causing him to grow still more excited...!

A high, boyish tenor came from Ivan's lips: "Ah..o~oh..mmnn~nnh..!" He squirmed around a lot more now, the changes to his body seeming to grow faster and more intense. Ivan could feel the softness sinking deeper into him, massaging his solid muscles in a way that made them want to relax. And so they did just that, steadily softening and weakening, as he continued to get smaller and rounder all over; he was too enveloped in the fuzzy, pleasant soft sensations all over to really register or worry about what was happening to all of the strength he'd built up over the past few years.

He could feel his underwear shifting, his boxers losing their leggings and pulling tight down there; even the material of that shrinking bit of cloth had turned velvety-soft. And now..there was a tugging, slipping sensation bringing even more heat to his whole body, as the underwear found more and more room between his legs to pull closer against. "Aah, aa~ah..!" His voice left masculine range now, lilting higher, softer, and cuter, as he felt the unbelievably, bizarrely pleasant sensation of his manhood melting fully away, his body's sex shifting completely to female.

"Mm~mm~mnnNNNN~NNNNnhh...!" The girly parts down there erupted in fuzzy, tingly, pleasant sensations just as soon as they had formed, making her squirm and thrash in place. All at once the new girl could feel her hips spreading wide, her thighs pushing themselves out a little thicker, and chest pushing itself out into a small pair of breasts. "Aa~ah..mnf...mm~mmh..." It was only a few seconds before her girlish figure had grown fully into place, the warmth that had spread all across her since the start of the change seeming to settle deep into her core to stay. "Hffh...mm~mmh..." A soft, not-quite-immature soprano tone echoed from her throat as she slowly settled down, enjoying the afterglow of all of the excitement and pleasant feelings the change had brought on. And no sooner had she managed to catch her breath than she felt totally exhausted and drained, and began to drift back to sleep...

In the morning, Ivan woke up in a soft, curvy body with bunny ears and a small tail to match. She sat up, slowly remembering the experience of change itself, and then jumped down onto her feet, hurrying over to the dresser to have a look in its mirror. Her shirt had changed into a long-sleeved dress shirt, completely unbuttoned, and her underwear was a pair of frilly sky-blue panties. She had already noticed a cape of brilliant hot-pink hair trailing into her vision, the tips of its locks touching her upper thighs; a pair of bright-yellow eyes also looked back at her in the mirror from a cute, brightly-blushing face. She hesitated for a second, then pulled the top apart to get a better look at her torso.

"Mrrrrgh." She growled a complaint quietly to herself; it was just as she'd feared. Her belly was soft, slender, and flat, with no trace of the abs she'd had as a boy just the day before. Her legs were likewise completely lacking in muscle tone, and—while there were shirt sleeves covering them—there was no doubt her arms were just the same.

Being a girl felt..nice? Being soft, cute, and curvy sure didn't bother her, to say the least. Bunny ears and a tail were certainly different, but seemed to just add to that pleasant softness and cuteness. The pink hair was...whatever; it made sense enough for a girl like the one in the mirror. But, now that she was awake, she was feeling very annoyed at just how not-physically-fit the magic had made her!

---

Gio is the type to go hard into the "rap/dubstep" section of that song with absolutely zero hesitation. Anyway, I guess the existence of gacha-based games proves this modern-fantasy setting isn't exactly a utopia.

The Next Chapter: 21

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 21: Who Can Fix This Mess?

"Hmm hmm hmmmnn~..."

Beth passed by a girl who was walking slowly in the same direction and humming to herself. She was about average height, skinny, with exceedingly long light brown hair and half-closed eyelids. She seemed sleepy, yet content. Alyssa and Zurik passed by this person too, but after another few steps it was Beth who paused, turning around to do a little double-take. Her companions didn't stop until she said something.

"Hey—sorry, but. You look...super familiar for some reason?"
"Oh?" The stranger tilted her head slightly, and also opened her eyes just a bit more. From a front-on look, and that expression, it finally clicked.
"Oh, I know what it is! Did you ever, uh, model? Like for an artist?"
"Sometimes, yeah~." She spoke a little slowly, some of her words sounding like they were mid-yawn. "Pretty much exclusively for my body pillow, though."

"Your—uh—what?"

"Ooh, sorry~. I guess it's s'posed to be 'boyfriend'?" She smiled peacefully. "This'll be way easier once he finally gets around to proposing...then I guess I can say 'waifu' instead~."

"Uh...s-sure. So, your boyfriend though—is Xavier? That hot new artist known for super colorful, bright paintings, but who's all gloomy and moody in person?"

"Heehee, yeah, that sounds like Xavie~. Oh, I'm Vade, beeteedouble-you."

"Sure. I'm Beth, this's Alyssa and Zurik," she said. "What brings you to a college campus, then?"
"Oh, just wooorrrk," Vade said, her tone of voice betraying a tiny bit of annoyance at the concept. "Say, d'you know if this is the right way to the Omega Zeta Kappa house?"

"It is. We, were actually just headed that way ourselves."
"Really? Are you three members?"
"Nope—just guests. But invited ones!"

"We're, gonna play DND with some of the actual members," Alyssa pitched in.
"Cool~. I'll just follow you then, if you don't mind?"

"That's fine, I guess," Beth said.

She'd had a twinge of concern that this "Vade"'s slow walking pace might make them very late, but after the three in front had turned around and started walking, she glanced back once or twice to find the odd woman always the same distance behind them as she had been to begin with. The stranger thing, on further reflection, was that she usually didn't hear any of Vade's footsteps either. She just shrugged to herself after a while; it surely wasn't that important.

"What...um...kind of work do you do?" Alyssa asked around halfway from where they'd met to the house.
"Commissioned enchantments, spells, that kinda stuff. I'm a mage," Vade reported nonchalantly. "Apparently some of my work turned out to be a tiny bit defective...I guess."

"Your work...d-do you mean the house? How it transforms men?"

"Mmm-hmm. I mean—I totally can't take full credit for the design, but I'm the one they called in to fix that stuff."

"It's um...not going to start transforming people, while you're repairing it, is it?"
"No way—I'm lazy, but not stupid," Vade said. "I know very well to turn things off before working on them."

They split up once inside, Vade heading off toward the lounge while the others went upstairs and to the game room. Besides the three of them, Ed, and Jay, another couple of members had expressed an interest in playing: Kyosuke and Lyrica. Evidently both of them were kitsune with majors in the realm of theater; Lyrica had already warned that she might have to be an "only sometimes" kind of player if (she'd said "when") she made it into a play and rehearsals got busy enough.

They entered the room to find one large table set up for the day's session as previously instructed through some emails, and people crowding around another, smaller table in another part of the room. A wolf-guy Beth presumed to be Ed in "male form" was playing chess with that goth girl who'd had a shadow-arm on their earlier visit, and Jay (currently a girl) and a black-haired fox-girl with two tails (probably one of those two kitsune) were spectating.

"Check," Mary said right as the three of them came in, and then the whole group turned to briefly look. Maybe it would be more precise to say that Ed was losing a game of chess, going by the relative number of white and black pieces on the board.
"Uh, hey—we were just waiting," he said.

"Lyrica's running back here from class as we speak," Kyosuke added.

"Got it," Beth said. "Let's get the snacks and papers in place, then!"

---

"We're like ten minutes late..!"

"Sorry 'bout that," Hendrix said. "Teach just kept talking past when class was supposed to be over."
"No—it's fine. I know it's not your fault," Fritz said, hurrying to get the door to the OZK house open. "I just—really hate being late. But I guess, in this case...maybe they deserve for us to make them wait anyway!"
"Yeah, that's the spirit."

They headed inside, Fritz leading the way into the lounge—which he had seen on that tour a few days earlier, and which was the agreed-upon meeting place. Their arrival coincided with an unfamiliar person finishing her sentence: "..'till I actually see it for myself." The speaker was a girl with absurdly long, light-brown hair, who was lying all the way across one of the lounge couches across from a seated Nancy and Polaris. She sat up slightly as the two of them entered the room. "Ooh?"

The other two sat up slightly and turned toward the newcomers as well. "There you have it—just who you were seeking!" Polaris said, waving dramatically. "This is Fritz. Fritz, Vade."

"And this is Hendrix," Fritz added, gesturing.

"Uh-huuh..." she waved. "Nice to meet you guys." Her eyes seemed especially fixed on Hendrix. "Whaaat am I lookin' at here?"

"What do you mean? He's my roommate. I mentioned him in the call last Tuesday; did it not get passed on?" he asked, looking Nancy's way.
"Oh, I mean—I get that. But like..wow. There's a double-stack of super complex enchantments on him to do stuff that can be done just way simpler in one. Who cobbled that mess together?"

"I guess that'd be me? It's not like I have any idea what I'm even doing!"

"Huh? But you don't...ooooh." Vade nodded. "I get it. Prob'ly, anyway. Can you take your ring off so I can confirm though?"

Fritz sighed. "Fine.." He slid the ring off, and immediately started turning back into a girl again. The sensations of his hair growing, body shrinking, manhood disappearing, and then her curves pushing out into place seemed no less strange despite having endured them every night since Monday. But something new and different happened, too: His jeans split apart at the thighs, the top spreading into a dark blue skirt while the rest of the leggings merged with his socks into some long, dark stockings; his shirt grew long sleeves, a bra forming underneath it to catch her breasts just as they grew into place, and it turned into a dress shirt—complete with a bright-pink ribbon tying itself around the collar right as the transformation concluded.

"A..aack! What the heck!?"

"Wh-what happened to my clothes!?"

"Huuh? The ring always makes your clothes fit, whenever you change, to avoid embarrassment," Vade said. "I thought you'd used it a few times already?"
"Y-yeah, but—but it never put me in a skirt before!" she said, awkwardly tugging at the hem of that article of clothing.

"At least you're fully dressed?" Hendrix offered.

She blushed, remembering the past few nights when—of course—she had wound up in an open shirt that nearly threatened to show off bare breasts. "Rrrgh."

"Well~..putting that aside, I totally felt it once you became a girl," Vade said. "Just like I thought—you must be a witch! So how'd you make those enchantments on your friend, exactly?"
"I..I don't know! I just—like—tried to do what this crazy house did to me. A-a-and then, when that changed him by accident, I tried to do what the ring did to turn her back?"
"Huh..? Huuuh. Hmmn." Vade pulled herself mostly upright, giving Fritz a long, interested stare. "You mean to say—you imitated those magic effects? Successfully? After just seeing them in action once?"
"I..guess?"
"Buuuut, the exact method isn't identical. You only put an enchantment on, while the house's effect does something a little more permanent. Yeah, of course! That must be your 'specialty'! Hey, can you do this?" she said, lifting her right arm. A pillow on another couch in the room floated into the air in response to this motion, coming over toward her. When she dropped her arm, it stopped floating and fell to the floor.

"Uh..sure?" Fritz tried to do what she'd just seen, imagining she had the force and wanted to pick up the pillow with it. When she waved her arm to do that, a bunch of sparks appeared around the pillow, and it began floating upward. "Oh..wow..!" Then some more sparks erupted around it, and it shot into the air so hard that it hit the ceiling with an audible thump. "Uhh..!" She quickly let go, and it fell under normal gravity until Vade put out her hand to 'catch' it and give it a more gentle landing, floating it back over onto the couch it had come from.

"Pffheehee...that was a pretty good try! You've got a ton of power in you, maybe enough to be kinda dangerous? I'd seriously recommend, like, finding someone to teach you some better control. But being able to imitate an effect right away like that is amazing!"

"Sure, I guess..? You said something about a 'specialty'?"
"Yeah." Vade sat fully up, bringing her legs around to the front of the couch. "Normal mages, like me, usually have to learn spells and stuff to do magic. Witches and warlocks are special 'cause each one has a 'personal' way of doing magic that tends to make it 'just work'. Like, I know one witch who has to phrase her 'spells' in the form of a question. Or, the guy who taught me magic is a warlock who has to speak in palindromes to do it. Those're kinda hard to work with, though, so he mostly just learned to do magic like a 'normal' mage instead."

Polaris cleared her throat. "All of that aside, miss Vade—are you able to confirm why the enchantment affected Fritz, despite his being conscious at the time?"
"Oh, yeeeaaah," she nodded. "Seems like this might happen for anyone with a big enough store of untapped potential, who's super close to awakening in some way. That's totally not ideal, though, and I guess I'm gonna have to come up with a way to filter those people out. Uuugh, there's soooo many ways that can happen, though; there's no way I could just manually detect every single one."

"I may have already devised a workable solution, actually," Polaris said, gesturing proudly toward herself. "If you would permit me a look at the enchantment's source itself?"
"Really? That'd be super convenient," Vade said, smiling.

"Uh, hellooo? What about changing me back?! Or, fixing Hendrix?" Fritz said, waving at her roommate.

"Oh, right. Yeeeaah, we should do that first." Vade stood up. "Hmmh. Are you suuuure you wanna permanently become a guy again, though? You'd lose access to that amazing talent of yours. Besides, uhhm. If you had so much buildup already before, it might just cause you to 'pop out' again later."

"Pop. Out," she repeated.
"Yeah," Vade nodded. "Liike, you're just walking down the street, and someone in the next house over does something that puts out just a liiiittle too much ambient magic. Your own magic might just grab onto that and turn you into a girl all over again. You'd be way better off with something that'd let you go back and forth, plus learning to use your magic properly and stuff."
She crossed her arms. "...But I'd be stuck as a girl most of the time."
"No no! Just some of the time. Like, when you wanna, or when you wanna do magic," Vade said. "Look—my boyfriend's a witch, and is basically only a girl in private. But we don't have any more of 'that' potion, sooo...hmm. Oh, I've got it!" she said. "Can I borrow that ring for a minute?"
"Sure..?" Fritz held out the ring (which was still in her hand since taking it off), and Vade waved her hand to have it float over in front of her, keeping it in midair around an inch above the palm of that hand.

"Hmmmn...yeah. I can work with this." She squinted, a look of intense concentration taking over her face for a moment, and the ring glowed like it had been put into a furnace and was about to melt. After a moment, the glow faded off, and Vade let out an audible huff of air. "Okay! There. Now it'll work differently for you." She sent the ring floating over toward Fritz again; as it arrived, she observed that its color had changed to a similar shade of bright blue to her hair. "Putting it on will toggle to the other form; taking it off does nothing. So you won't have to wear it all the time no matter which one you want."

It landed in her hand, and actually felt slightly warm still. "Great...thanks. So uh, what about Hendrix?"

"Weellll. I mean, you can obviously change him yourself, right?"
"I'd rather not be in charge of that forever!"
"Okay okay~. Theen, we should just dispel both the enchantments. If I do that all at once, it might get kinda messy, but—you've turned the second one on and off a few times already, right? Just do that, to start with."

"Okay.."

Fritz carefully 'pulled' the magic that was trying to imitate her ring (or at least what it had been doing before), and a few sparks flew out of her roommate as he shrank and shifted, letting out a soft "Rr~rfh!" as he grew the usual dog-like ears and tail. Hendrix's pants pulled rapidly shorter and tighter as he turned into a girl, until they were a pair of tiny daisy dukes with some rips in the leggings; his shirt grew a huge collar to expose her neckline and cleavage.

"Heheh~.." she giggled slightly as the shift came to a close, leaving her back in that dog-girl form she'd spent the past few nights in.

"What!? Why'd you still get to wear pants?" Fritz demanded.
"I dunno? I'm totally showin' way more skin than you are, though," she said with a slight shrug.

"I-I guess.." she agreed, feeling a blush hit her cheeks again. "S-so you can turn her back to normal?" she asked, quickly looking Vade's way.

"Sure, but.." She tilted her head a little bit Hendrix's way. "Do you want that?"
"Uh, well, I dunno. I do like me the way I am—you know, as a rockin' dude. But this is pretty sweet too," Hendrix said, twirling a little of her hair in an index finger. "Could yooou...hook me up with somethin' like Fritz got, maybe?"

"I don't see why not," she said, shrugging slightly. "I'd just need another ring?"

"Well." Nancy stood up, finally interjecting. "Strictly speaking, those rings—altered or not—are only supposed to be for members of OZK. I mean, I gave Fritz one because him getting transformed was our bad, but if the newbie witch transformed her friend, that's kinda on you?" She crossed her arms. "I can support turning her back as a one-time thing, but I don't know how our backers would feel about giving away an expensive item like that just because you want it."

"Oh. So, like, what iiif...we joined OZK, then?" Hendrix said.

Fritz looked back and forth between them a couple of times. "What if—we—what?!"

---

Right after Ed lost his third chess game of the day, Lyrica arrived. Mary waved goodbye, saying that she had some homework to get to, and everyone gathered around the table for the game.

Behind the DM screen, Alyssa seemed to turn into an entirely different person. She was bold, dramatic, and sometimes loud, practically acting out all of the NPCs their party encountered. It also seemed like she was ready for absolutely anything, given how quickly and smoothly she reacted to events such as Jay doing something incredibly stupid or Kyosuke's character flirting with every girl he ran into.

Ed had chosen a fighter: Straightforward and simple. Kyosuke and Lyrica had gone with a rogue and bard respectively; Jay chose a sorcerer with wild magic; Zurik was a wizard; and (probably after seeing what everyone else had picked) Beth played a cleric. Each of their characters had come to some kingdom to earn a reward offered by its king for exploring some ruins, and the chancellor had insisted that they work together. Apparently there was some place called the "tomb of horrors" which had, a couple of centuries earlier, been full of treasures and traps and had attracted and killed would-be adventurers in droves. The trouble was that those same adventurers' remains were now walking out of the tomb's ruins as undead and making trouble. The group's goal was to at least find out what was causing that to happen, and ideally to stop it.

As they progressed through the ruins, Alyssa gave a surprising amount of detail—though not so much as to become tedious—about some obviously pre-solved puzzles and broken, disarmed, or already-sprung traps. They fought a few groups of those undead adventurers and dealt with a couple of still-partially-functional traps along the way; the only treasure to be found was some mostly-ruined old equipment those undead had been wearing. And then they came upon one last group of undead, who did not seem to want to fight. Instead the one whose head and mouth were most intact was clearly trying to talk, but in a language that no one in the party knew. Lyrica's bard managed to figure out a way to communicate through sign language, and it seemed like these undead knew something about what had raised them, and wanted it dispelled just as badly as the king did. This was where the session ended.

---

"Think about it, dude! You're gonna be a chick like half the time, right?"
"I mean—no! Not anywhere near half!

"But still some of the time, right? Like, if you wanna practice magic stuff in our room?"
"Maybe? I'm still not totally on board with that."
"Aww, c'mon. Seriously think about it. You've got a super-amazing talent, riiight? Besides, I could see your face when you just casually picked up that pillow from way over there..."

After the blond dog-girl suggested joining OZK, Vade had gestured for Polaris to follow, then floated herself up off of her feet and quickly out the door and down the hall toward the laundry room. The celestial took a moment to comprehend this cue, and then quickly made her own movements silent so she could vault over her chair and run to follow. Their voices trailed off as the two of them entered the room, drowned out by the noise of a running dryer.

"Not that I will deny my own desire, but—are you certain this was an appropriate time to leave?"

"Naah, it's all good," Vade said, taking out a key from her purse to open the door to an adjoining room—which Polaris knew was where some "mundane" utilities such as a hot water heater were stored. "Trust me, I've seen this kinda conversation before. She'll end up agreeing to join, and then they gotta go aaallll the way upstairs and back again to get another ring for the blondie."
"If you say so."

Vade floated into the utility room, going to a bare wall, and placed her hand on it. Some glowing white magic appeared outlining the hand, then spread out into a large circular sigil. "That's...I thought I looked for enchantments everywhere," the celestial said.

"Heheh~. It's 'powered off' unless it's actually in use, which makes it pretty hard to notice," the mage said. "It only accepts a few specific people's magic—plus one 'backup key' we keep someplace else, just in case." The sigil brightened, then spread its light out into a brief flash across a section of the wall in the shape of a slightly thin, tall rectangle; then that section of the wall disappeared, revealing a doorway into a narrow downward stairwell.

"Sooo like..we technically weren't supposed to build stuff underground," Vade said with a slight shrug, "but it's way safer if the focus for structural..stuff, isn't inside the place it's affecting. You can keep a secret, right?"
"Immaculately."

"Pfft. Zale would just love hanging around you." The mage continued floating her way down the stairs into a small basement cut into the house's foundation, Polaris right behind her. The room featured a few tall, hexagonal crystals, each glowing and floating in place. She identified their effects immediately, and followed Vade to one whose light was bright pink—which was responsible for the transformation enchantment. With a couple of gestures of the mage's hand, that one's glow faded out.

"Theeere we go. Now, what's your idea for fixing the problem?"

"I was able to directly observe the enchantment's flux when it affected Fritz. It was quite irregular for several minutes before actually entering him. Therefore, it should be possible to detect such an irregularity," Polaris explained.

"Oooh, of course! Reactive rather than proactive," Vade nodded. "Let the magic's flow do the hard work of detecting instead. Just the kind of solution I like."

"Indeed. I believe I have some concept of how to implement the detection and cutoff measures, as well..."

---

"I-it was a lot of fun...! Um, y-you're really good at this," Zurik said.

Alyssa smiled. "Thanks. I have a theory that one can get good at anything, given sufficient practice."

"That bunch is a lot of fun to play with," Beth said. "Already looking forward to next time. Aaaand I appreciate you not making me turn undead another twenty times."

They split off from him after that, and Beth gently elbowed her friend. "Hey. You were kinda looking back a couple of times as we left the place. Something up?"
"Um...n-nothing too extreme. It's just that..."
"That..?"
"Lyrica. Whenever I looked at her, I.."
"Uh-huh?"
She blushed a little with embarrassment "I really...really wanna hug her tail! I-it looks like a cloud made out of fluffy fur. I bet it's really soft, and warm too..."

"Pfft. I guess you'll have to console yourself with your stuffed animals for tonight," Beth said. "Still—we're totally gonna see her again. I guess you could ask her then?"

"I-I don't know...it seems like a, well, a sensitive topic, is all. I'm, u-uncertain how to approach it," Alyssa said.
"Eh, you're smart. You'll figure it out," Beth said, patting her friend's head. "At least talk to her one-on-one next time, yeah?"
"Th-that'd be a good start, I agree..."

---

Nancy knocked on the door to the game room, then strode in, Fritz and Hendrix (both back to being male for now) trailing behind her. "Excuse my interruption, but—those of you present who are members of OZK are enough to combine with existing votes into a majority, and I don't wanna be accused of making decisions like this by myself. We really need to elect a high council soon, at this rate. Anyway—these two are Fritz and Hendrix. Due to some exceptional circumstances which are entirely Polaris's fault, they already have female forms, and want to join OZK. Introduce yourselves?"

Fritz fidgeted his hands for a moment. "Uh..hi. I'm a sophomore in pre-law...and apparently a witch or something," he added quickly under his breath.

"Yo! I'm Hendrix, and I'm gonna be a rockstar," his roommate said almost immediately after, just as some of the sorority members (who all had animal ears) were reacting to that last statement. He made a brief 'air guitar' gesture, as if to further demonstrate his intentions.

"Oh, hi! I know you," Jay said, hopping up to her feet. "You're in choir, right?"
"Yep."

The two of them endured a barrage of questions after that—largely from the three fox-girls. Kyosuke was not willing to let go of the subject of Fritz being a witch, and seemed impressed to hear of his "copycat" talent, eager to see it for herself. Lyrica wanted to know if either of them "gamed", and Fritz admitted that he did "a little". After some chatter back and forth, the group more or less seemed to agree that they were cool with the two newcomers joining. On their way out, Kyo strongly urged Fritz to get with her later to meet "some of the magic profs". After that, they were off to get supper before heading their dorm room to start moving out.

This really wasn't how Fritz had expected this afternoon to go. But...the house was a huge upgrade from their dorm, and at least the people he'd met so far seemed like the kind of nerds he could get along with.

But...how were Gio and Ivan going to take this news?

Contract Trap

On the table in the middle of the room was a statue, just starting to glow ominously. It was a little taller than a person's head, cast in some pitch black stone, in the shape of a sort of rectangular-prism plinth with a detailed human figure standing atop its center. That figure would appear well-dressed at a first glance, but then the distressing detail of a collar around the figure's neck, with a chain-leash attached, would reveal itself to any careful observer. After the glow had brightened a little, it lifted itself an inch or so off of the table's surface.

Niko, who'd been sitting at the table in front of it, jolted back slightly. "What th—?"

A voice from the statue interrupted him: "In exchange for altering the contract's terms, one must taste it in full."

"Aack! No, wait—stop..!" Being an experienced mage, and an expert particularly in enchantments, artifacts, and the sort, he put some active defenses up between himself and the statue to add to all of the passive ones already built into the room. But it was no good; he'd intertwined his magic with this artifact's own in the process of 'negotiating' with it to alter its rules. He realized this after a second and started trying to sever the connection, at the same time saying, "I didn't want to—I wasn't even finished with...ugh!"

It didn't seem interested in these objections, instead continuing to push its power into him, initiating its 'contract' just the same as if he'd spoken its usual activation phrase. It felt like the harder he tried to pull his own magic apart from what was flowing in, the more that power seeped into and took it over. Pretty soon he'd be practically powerless against it.

Niko groaned, leaning over and putting his face in his hands. "Auuugh! Stupid, dumb—first rule is to not mess with anything you don't have to!" But he'd only meant to make an indestructible, horrid curse of an artifact less dangerous for anyone who stumbled across it in the future! It wasn't like he could guarantee it'd stay locked up somewhere forever, no matter how hard he tried to make it so.

He sat up, starting to feel a sharp tingling racing across his scalp, and immediately saw his bangs growing longer before his eyes. By now, the statue had stopped glowing and floating, and just looked like an inert hunk of rock on the table, but its power had entirely swallowed Niko's, and now it was using his own magic to start transforming him. His ears were tingling too, as that hair's color brightening from brown toward red, and—given the state of the last person to activate this thing—he was fairly sure he knew which way this change was going.

Niko had an idea: Maybe he could stall or cancel this with some other enchantment's power! It was unlikely, but worth a try. He quickly stood up and hurried out of the room to go look for something, mentally sifting through a list of what he knew he had. The tingling was spreading its way down his face and to the rest of his skin, making him pause in the hallway to shudder briefly, and he stopped again when he was passing a bathroom, catching sight of his face in the mirror: That hair had turned a blazing, brilliant red by now, was long enough to almost touch his shoulders, and framed a smooth-shaven, soft-looking face. Furthermore, he'd started to feel his ears stretching as their tingling got stronger, and now they were big enough for their pointed tips covered in reddish peach fuzz to poke out past that hair.

The strange thing was, seeing his face like that, the thought that popped into his head was: Wow, cute.

He quickly shook his head. Focus, dummy! It was only a brief sprint from there to where the item he hoped would help was held. As he ran, the tingling was replaced by a squeezing sensation, and his perspective began sinking downward, his stride and balance starting to change. Niko stumbled, caught himself with a hand on the wall, and then had to slow his pace as he continued to shrink. He could feel his face growing smaller and rounder, his shoulders narrowing, his arms and legs and waist all slimming down, and as he made his way into the storage room, the shelves already looked strangely tall.

He kept on shrinking as he went and rifled through a box, before finally pulling out a small metal bracelet. "Ah—he~ere!" Niko tried to ignore his voice cracking strangely, and how small and delicate his fingers looked holding that item, and simply snapped it onto his left wrist. It was an unremarkable enough item, something novice mages wore sometimes; its enchantment canceled out a large portion of one's own power so that casting even basic spells would become meaningful practice. But no sooner had he put it on than he felt a rush of his stolen power straight to that wrist, and the bracelet glowed a bright red before disintegrating into dust.

"Shoot!" He'd hoped that would at least buy him a few more minutes! As if in response to his attempt to stop it, the change briefly accelerated, squeezing Niko hard enough to briefly fix him in place and making his height plummet. "Aa~aa~aah..!" At the same time he could feel his ears pushing their way up hard, growing into a pair of huge, fluffy triangles, and a tail sprouting from the base of his spine, too..!

"Ugh...ffh..." Niko panted briefly, feeling some heat in his cheeks. He looked around the room he was in, trying to think of what else might work here. "W-wah!" A high, cute surprised cry came out when he tried to move, as he nearly tripped over his pants. He realized then that they'd fallen off of him, and his shirt was hanging awkwardly loose across a very slender frame; his underwear, however, miraculously stayed on? Or, maybe it wasn't such a miracle, he realized, as he noticed its leggings were gone and it felt awfully tight, especially..down there.

Speaking of which, he was starting to feel...kind of tingly, in that same area.

"Urrgh, no no no...s-something else..." Niko's voice came out in a soft, mature, womanly alto now, as he carefully stepped over the lost pants and went over to another shelf to pull out another item. What he decided to try next was a necklace that normally did nothing if a man wore it, but turned a female wearing it male. He hurriedly pushed it past the new huge, vulpine ears to hang it around his neck, hoping it would at least reverse that part of the effect once it happened.

That tail he'd sprouted earlier pushed its way out past the hem of his shirt now, swishing back and forth behind him. The heat in Niko's cheeks had grown stronger, and his heart was racing—was that because of the sprint earlier, or the change? Maybe both? The tingling downstairs had been steadily picking up in intensity, and he could feel the...what were surely panties, starting to fit more comfortably as there was less and less in the way. This felt...nice? He hadn't felt bad at all after the sprint, so...was his heart racing because he was...excited? Niko remembered how cute his face had looked in the mirror; he had to be even cuter now.

"Urgh..n-no, stop that..!" He shook his head again, hard enough for the bright red locks to swish around and the big animal ears to flop around. "Th-that's the...enchantment talking...!" But his voice did sound kind of nice like that...low enough to be mature, but cute too.

"Mnnfh!" The tingling progressed now into a tugging, slipping sensation; Niko's new tail had grown out into a huge, fluffy pillow nearly as long as one of his arms, and was whipping back and forth excitedly behind him. His ears lowered out to point to his sides, and he felt warm all over...! "Aah...mnn~ngh...!" His sex was changing...! He tried to reassure himself that the necklace would stop it, or at least soon reverse it, but then he realized that his neck and the skin around his left shoulder exposed by the too-big shirt could feel no such object on them. But...he'd put it on, hadn't he? Then he realized that when he'd been shaking his head, his magic had reached out and swallowed the necklace's, just like the statue had his own. So...he'd only made it stronger!

"Aa~aah...-m-mmrr~rr~RRRRRRRrrrhh...!" This realization was punctuated by the immediate shift down between Niko's legs. What had made him male his whole life disappeared, swallowed fully into his body, and a rapid shift from there up to the pit of Niko's stomach replaced it with everything that would now make her female. It felt...unimaginably nice! And it was immediately followed by a tingly, fuzzy feeling down there, drawing a soft, low "O-oo~ooh...!" from the new girl's lips.

"R-rrgh..." She tried to get a hold of herself, as that fuzzy feeling faded slightly. Her hips were starting to press outward, and her chest tingling, but she mumbled. "M-must be..s-something that c'n...rrgh..." There were plenty more items similar to the first two she'd tried, but Niko knew deep down this was a statement of denial; it was pretty much too late. Her mind was hazy from the pleasant sensations of turning into a girl, and now of starting to grow some curves; she was distracted by thinking about how cute and sexy she must look now and kind of wanting to go back and look in a mirror; and already she was starting to think about who...who to...

"M-mnnhh...aah...mrr~rrrrrh..." Her mental fortitude exhausted, the fox-girl just cried out softly, letting out some vulpine churring, as her hips and thighs filled out, and the tingling across her chest gave way to a gentle, pleasant push, expanding them out into some small breasts. "Aah..AAH!" Her voice went high and squeaky as her bust continued to push out, then descended again to a helpless "Oo~oh...mm~mnnfh.." when the feeling of some suddenly-sensitive breasts pushing into and sliding across the material of her shirt made her new girly parts erupt into more fuzzy tingles. "Mrr~rrnnh..ah...oo~ooh..." There was pretty much nothing she could do but enjoy the ride as those puppies continued growing for a moment longer, spreading out into some generous breasts that completed her new soft, curvy figure.

"Hfff...ugh..." Niko blinked her eyes open (wondering when she'd closed them exactly) and then turned around and hurried back to the bathroom to get a good look in the mirror. What awaited her was more or less expected, but no less distressing: A short, curvy redheaded fox-girl, with an adorable, brightly-blushing face, bright yellow eyes, huge fox-like ears, and a big, fluffy tail—red with a white tip.

"Aauugh! Th-this is even worse than I thought," she said, tugging at the edges of her shirt with her hands. "I can barely even feel my own magic." Normally a transformation like this would be easy for Niko to reverse, but now, thanks to that statue's contract, she needed someone else's help.

About a week back, Niko had gotten a call to help with a "cursed" statue, and what he'd found was much worse than that description suggested. The girl who'd been affected by it was extraordinarily lucky to have a friend she could actually trust—but they would be much better off not knowing the full truth. He kind of wished he didn't know how it worked, because that meant that someone had intentionally made something like this. It was purpose-built, and the worst part was that its age suggested that it had served its purpose for quite some time in the past.

Ancient enchanted artifacts such as this were like the radioactive waste of magic. In some ways they were worse, since magic itself could be coaxed into making that mundane waste a little bit less of an issue. The insidious thing was that this "Servant's Statue" didn't really have a curse at all; it was instead a channel and source for a very particular contract spell. Curses could be cured, but someone who agreed to a contract spell was most likely stuck with the results for good. And, unlike legal contracts, magic didn't particularly care if it was "signed" under duress.

That was how she'd wound up in this situation. After helping the two "renegotiate" the terms of their contract (which required the "master" to be willing, so again the one affected was very lucky), Niko had claimed it as 'payment', hoping to defang its effects once he got it home. And he'd taken every precaution he could think of before even touching it, too!

Trying to destroy or disenchant something like this would cause its magic to throw a tantrum, whose effects would be vastly worse than anything it could do while intact. So the only reasonable way to make the statue less dangerous was to change the terms of its contract. He'd spent over an hour analyzing that contract, poking and prodding it to see what kind of changes it would accept, and then taken another hour to actually make the changes it would accept, and which would make it do as little harm as possible, even in the wrong hands. And now...that new form of the contract was what the fox-girl was stuck with.

Ordinarily, the statue's magic granted the person who activated it a certain amount of power. It charged up energy over time, then dumped whatever it had built up into the next person to use it. Its immediately-previous owner had been after a very long time of disuse, and so had wound up with power on the level of maybe a three-tailed kitsune. However, that power was only usable under the orders of the "master".

Since Niko had acquired it right after that, it had little power to grant, but he hadn't realized that it would lock up the user's own, intrinsic power too. Of course it made sense for the new power to join with one's existing power, but for a mage like Niko, having her power sealed like this was somewhat scary and extremely irritating! And this effect was something Niko had been completely unable to change, along with the statue always transforming its activator into a form designed to "please the master".

She crossed her arms, sighing. "Who can I...?" Fortunately, she had removed a lot of the nastier mental effects: Almost no emotional manipulation, no compulsion to talk or not talk in any particular way, little-to-no constant urge to please the 'master', didn't even have to call them 'master' in the first place. But whoever she took on as the other member of this contract, she'd still be compelled to do whatever that person ordered her to do. Unless the order would keep her from talking. Niko had thought that both parties being forced to obey each other was at least a decent compromise, but she hadn't expected to actually be one of said parties! The worst part was that, now that the contract had begun, she'd feel an increasingly strong compulsion to choose a 'master' and convince them to agree to it...

That compulsion had already started, too; right now it was a dim but persistent thought in the back of her mind. So it was best to do this now, when she could actually focus and think more or less rationally. Niko went through a mental list of people she knew, trying to decide who would be the best to ask. However, she was slightly distracted on each name, when picturing that person, with some foreign-seeming thoughts: He'll think I'm really cute. She isn't really into animal ears. He'd pull my tail. She'll just be jealous of how big my...

"Urrgh...s-stupid statue...!" Shaking her head again, the fox-girl tried to clamp down on those thoughts, and focus on who she could actually trust—and who might willingly agree to this absurd contract. One person did stand out as the right answer once she really thought about it. Only—at the same time—he was...

That is, he really liked...

Niko huffed, crossing her arms and glaring at her reflection in the mirror like it was whoever made that awful artifact. "Did it already decide for me?!" It wasn't an impossible notion, considering the original form of the contract chose whoever the activator looked at first as a 'master' and caused a transformation into what that person would like. Niko had accepted the transformation happening right away for the ability to actually choose and require both parties to agree, but hadn't considered how this could still satisfy the condition of "pleasing the master". Many artifacts had something like a 'mind' to them, but she hadn't expected this one's to be quite that sophisticated.

"Always expect the worst," she mumbled to herself, turning around to go get her phone. The sooner he came over, the sooner she'd have access to her own power again, and then she could turn back....

...If he wants me to.

…......If I really want to, I mean!

Since some of the artifacts Niko had (and would lend customers the use of) could transform people, she kept some spare clothes around in various sizes. It didn't take her long to locate a shirt and some shorts that would fit. Her ears twitched as she pulled the shorts on, picking up the buzz of her phone vibrating to notify her of Jordan's response to her text. She felt a brief urge to run and look, but forced herself to take a deep breath and walk slowly over to pick it up. Still, her heart skipped a beat when it was a response from him.

Their conversation, in full, was:

Need your help badly. Artifact screwed me over.

whoa

sounds serious

how?

I got a contract spell forced on me, and need another person to 'sign' it.

It sealed my magic until I do.

And transformed me.

so you want me to 'sign'?

what r the terms n stuff?

Short version: We'd have to obey each other's spoken orders.

Plus other things I can tell you in person

ok ill be over when im off work.

Thanks, sorry.

Niko was briefly worried that needing to wait a couple of hours for Jordan to get off work and come over to her house-slash-place of business would result in the compulsion to find a 'master' driving her crazy the entire time through. However, she actually felt that mental effect fade off instead; it was 'satisfied' that she'd found a candidate, apparently. However, she did catch herself thinking about how it might feel for him to put his hands through the fur of her ears...which he would almost definitely want to at some point.

That is: She could trust him not to screw her over, but she also knew that he was really into furry girls. His computer's desktop wallpaper, some art he hung around the rooms of his house, and some of the media he liked ensured this was no secret, and he wasn't shy about it if someone asked. He wasn't weird about it or anything; Jordan was just someone who knew what he liked, and didn't care if other people knew that too. It was just that—the way she looked right now—Niko was pretty sure that what he liked included that. And now, some kind of mental effect of the contract that she hadn't even noticed was making her kind of want him to pet her almost as much as he was going to want it.

Well...no...that didn't make any sense, actually. Niko had had a very close look at the entire contents of that statue's magic. He couldn't have missed something this big, especially not attached to its transformative effect—as it would have had to be. Was she just thinking like this because of the dull but still-present urge to 'please the master'? Yet, Jordan wasn't her 'master' according to the contract yet; she could very well pick someone else, or he could decide not to agree to the contract, so...

So...?

She struggled over this for a few minutes before deciding it was best to just distract herself instead. So Niko stood up from her chair and went to get something to snack on, and thought about picking out something to watch until Jordan's shift at work was over.

Eventually her phone buzzed again, and on seeing that it was a text from Jordan saying that he was on his way, the fox-girl hopped to her feet and took five or six rapid steps toward the door. Then...she slowed herself down, eventually stopping around halfway there, and took a deep breath. "Ugh...he's not here yet. Why'd I want to...? Oh, right...compulsion.." She was at least pretty sure this was part of the compulsion to hurry up and get a 'master'. At the same time, when Niko tried to figure out which part of her thought process said mental effect had hijacked, she remembered only thinking of showing off her cute, curvy new form to him. Realizing that brought on some warmth to her cheeks...and she quickly shook her head hard again. Nope—nope! I just want really my magic back, and out of this stupid, tiny form!

Hearing a car pulling into the driveway, Niko clamped down on another brief spike of excitement, and then made herself take some slow, deliberate steps to the front door. Then she waited until Jordan knocked to open it.

"Uh, so...hi," she said, craning her head up. A brief thought of wow he's tall! flashed through her mind before the realization that actually, she was just short now. Really, Jordan was a little on the short side for a guy, with black hair and clear blue eyes. He worked an IT job sitting in front of a computer, and wasn't a very active person in general, so he was a bit overweight, and usually wore loose-fitting shirts to partially hide that fact. But he had a handsome enough face, at least, which lit up with a slight blush at this moment.

"Uh—wow! You uh.." He was checking her out! "...didn't mention what kind of transformation, huh?"
"It's r-really annoying," she said. "Please don't be too weird about it...come in." With that, she got out of the way, and hurried back through the foyer to the living room.
"Um, sure," he said, closing the door behind him before following.

"So, like—what kinda artifact was this, anyway? A hot vixen maker?"

Niko sighed loudly, although she could feel her face burning with a brighter blush on being called 'hot'. "It's called the 'Servant's Statue'. It was originally designed to force people to be slaves against their will, with a constant compulsion to 'please the master' in any way possible."

"Oh." That deflated him a bit, thankfully. "That sounds pretty gross."

"I was trying to make it less gross and dangerous, and mostly succeeded. Now if someone uses it, then it makes two people obey each other instead. But it decided that me changing its effects counts as 'using it', and now I have to find someone else to be the other party of the contract."

"So, like, that's me, huh?" he concluded, and Niko nodded. "What'd I have to do?"

"Well—agreeing is easy," Niko explained. "I'll ask you if you want to, and you just say yes. But after that, any time one of us tells the other to do something, they have to, so we'll need to be really careful how we talk to each other afterward. I know that's inconvenient, so if you don't want to then I can.."

"No, no—I can see you're kinda in a bind. I guess you can't dispel it or anything, or you wouldn't have asked me."
"Right. It seized control of my magic. You'll need to tell me to use it freely first thing, so I'll have access to it again."
"Okay, sure, I can do that."

"All right. If you're ready?" Niko was starting to feel that compulsion come on fairly strong. With someone right in front of her more or less willing to agree to the contract, she almost wanted to force him to do so!

"Yeah, sure," he nodded.
"Okay. Will you...'be my master and my servant, aiming to please me as I do you?'" The phrasing came out this way partially against her will.

"Uh..?" he looked a little concerned about the wording.
"I have to put it that way; stupid magical contract nonsense," she said.
"Okay. Then, uh—yes. I will."
Immediately Niko felt the compulsion lifting off of her mind, and breathed a sigh of relief. At the same time, a piece of her magic flowed out to in front of her, gathering into a brightly glowing red orb. And now that she could focus a little bit better...she realized that she'd forgotten to mention something.

"Oh—shoot!"
"Uh, what? Is that not normal?" he asked, taking a couple of small steps backwards as the orb started moving toward him. "Like, is it supposed to do that?" It wasn't like he'd be able to escape it anyway.
"Yes, but—listen. One of the things this contract originally did was make the servant transform into a body that would 'please the master', and I couldn't get rid of that part. So it's gonna..." By now the orb had made it to him, and sunk its way into his body; he was starting to gain a halo of red light all around him, and lifted his hand up in front of his face to get a better look at it.

"Whoa..uh, so this is..?" Jordan's hair started to grow longer at this point.
"Um—yeah. But, don't panic, I'm pretty sure I can fix this part once I have my magic back!" she assured him.

"S-sure." As his hair grew to shoulder-length, Jordan's beard started to thin out and disappear. "Uh, wow, this feels we~eird," he added, his voice cracking slightly.

"It'll..probably get weirder before it's over," she warned him.

He nodded, picking up some of his hair to run it through his fingers. "Uh..w-wow..." It became softer and more voluminous as it tumbled out, at the same time starting to look messy and unbrushed. Jordan shuddered as it reached about halfway down his back, then let go of the hair to pull his arms close around his body.

"Aa~ah...w-who~oaa...!" He began to shrink then, growing slimmer all over. Jordan's face—already missing all of its facial hair by now—turned round and cute; his shoulders narrowed; his arms and legs slimmed down; and his shirt loosened across his belly as the fat there began to disappear. "Aah, aa~aah..!" His voice audibly changed bit by bit, its pitch steadily rising. However, unlike Niko's transformation earlier, he didn't seem to be getting any shorter at all.

After all...she did kind of like how tall he was now. Especially if he was fit, solid and strong enough to easily pick her up...

"Aah, aa~aah..I-I...nn~nngh...!" Jorrdan's clothes began to change, too. His pants and shirt alike started rapidly pulling tighter and shrinking shorter. Soon the slight pudge of his belly was exposed, just in time for the last of it to vanish away; his shirt quickly went from hanging loosely across his now-slender shoulders to being sleeveless, with a deep dip in the middle, and so only hanging on to those shoulders by a pair of straps. His hair tumbled out as far as his hips as his body finished slimming down, leaving him a fairly androgynous, slender, cute-looking guy. However, his pants—now a pair of tight shorts—had pulled very close now against a bulge between his legs, and the way that was beginning to get smaller made it clear he wouldn't stay a guy for very much longer.

Jordan dropped his arms back to his sides, looking around briefly and then down at Niko. His cheeks were getting increasingly red. "U-um..N-niko..?" His voice was a high, soft tenor, barely male-sounding at all. "I...th-this feels super we~eird..! Wah, was it like this f-for you, to~o...?" Through a couple of little cracks, his voice completed the shift from tenor to a cute, girly mid-soprano.

"Uh..y-yeah...it does feel really weird," she assured him. It was hard not to stare at that bump between her friend's legs getting smaller and smaller..but he was going to be positively gorgeous once it was done, an intrusive thought informed her.

"Aah...a~aah...o-ooh...aa~aa~AA~AAAAAAaahh..!" With one particularly loud, high-pitched cry, Jordan's shorts pulled completely flat between the legs. "O-oh...mnn~nngh..." Between her legs. She squirmed them back and forth, her face turning completely red, and wobbled around briefly in place. "Aah..o-oo~ooh..!" Already her hips were beginning to push out wider, her thighs growing thicker, and her bottom pushing out bigger; thankfully, the new girl's very tight shorts seemed content to let themselves out a bit to continue to fit those growing proportions.

"Aa~a-aah..w-wah..? M-my ears feel...f-funny.." she mumbled softly, still swaying in place. And then, Jorrdan suddenly let out a high, cute "Y-yip! Wha..? Rrr~rRRRUFFH!" Each sudden dog-like noise came with the sudden growth of an ear, covered in pitch-black fur, pushing its way past her hair to become a big fluffy triangle. Seeing those appear above Jordan's now-adorable, blushing face, Niko felt like she very suddenly understood the appeal of girls with furry parts.

"Aa~ah..y-yip, yip! Rrufh!" Next, a tail sprouted from her back. The motion of it spreading out into view drew the fox-girl's eyes back down that way, and she could now see the new girl sporting some very impressive curves down there. Plus, her slim, flat belly was starting to get more solid, showing off some faint abs so far. "Aah..o-oh...m-maa~aahnn...!" As the tail continued growing longer and thicker, Jordan's chest pushed itself out into the tiny tank top that her shirt had become, quickly stretching its material to its limit before it finally loosened itself up to make them fit. "Mnnh, mrr~rrrRRrfh..!" Only then, those new breasts pushed out even bigger, pulling it tight all over again. "A-aa~aah..o-ooh...wah, w-woo~ooowh..." Jorrdan's eyes fluttered shut as this cycle continued, again and again. Before long she had a tail at least as long and not quite as fluffy as Niko's wagging back and forth behind her, but still her bust continued to expand out. The fox-girl couldn't help but watch, wondering how big they were going to get...but, at the same time, feeling like she already knew.

After all—not that Niko had ever broadcasted it anywhere—he really liked tall, busty, curvy women. So...of course, that was what Jordan was becoming. The wolfy parts and barking were unexpected, but the rest was...no huge surprise, on reflection. It still looked great, though.

"Aa~aa~aaAAAaa~aah...! Mmh-mnngh..." Finally, the wolf-girl's breasts finished growing, bouncing out into place as the tiny tank top loosened itself one last time, just slightly, so they would fill it out comfortably. She huffed briefly, slowly catching her breath, and then opened her eyes, looking down a her new figure. "Uh..w-wow..." She then realized Niko was looking up at her, and pulled her hands together, wringing them briefly.

"S-so uh..this is...I mean, you're into this kinda girl?" she asked, having apparently, at some point, put together the way the contract spell chose a form to change someone into.

Niko flushed. "Errrrr..y-yeah...if you let me use my magic, I should be able to turn you back, though."

"N-no way!" she said suddenly. "Uh, I mean. I-I'm not totally sure I wanna be turned back. L-like, I've never been..fit before," she said, patting the solid abs of her belly for a second. "Never mind, like, actually hot. H-heh, I almost feel like I could get used to this. Especially with you lookin' at me like that."
"L-like what!? I-I wasn't," Niko started, but couldn't properly finish the sentence. "J-just hurry up and let me use my own magic again!"

"Uhh..erm..I can't, be ordered to do that?" Jordan said slowly. "Uh, wait, I wasn't trying to say that! Why'd I say that?"
The fox-girl facepalmed. "Ugh, right. Obviously. Remember how we can order each other around now?"
"Oh..right," Jordan nodded.
"Well, clearly it'd defeat the purpose if we could order each other to give specific orders. So—as a request—please let me use my own magic again! I won't do anything to transform you again unless you want me to."
"Oh! Uh, sure. Let's see...um, Niko, use your magic however you want to from now on to forever," she said. Jordan had definitely played enough roleplaying games to know she should word a magically-binding order carefully.

Immediately, Niko felt her power returning to normal—plus a little extra. She tested it out by holding a hand out and making a point of light appear above its palm, and then dismissed that, breathing a sigh of relief. "Phew. Thank you. It's like suddenly not being able to move your own arm, I swear!"

"Hahah, you do seem a little more relaxed," Jordan said. "So, now that that's done, uh..."

"..What?" The wolf-girl had stopped talking, just staring down at Niko with her tail wagging back and forth behind her. The blush from just after her transformation hadn't faded much, and she had a slightly expectant look on her face. "Wh-what's with that look?"
"Would you..? I mean, would you maybe be willing to? Pet my ears a little bit?" she asked, seeming to remember at the last moment to phrase it as a question rather than an imperative.
"Uhhm. W-well, I can't exactly reach them. Since this stupid contract spell made me so short," Niko said, crossing her arms. "I-I guess, if you picked me up then I probably could, then."

"Oh, yeah? Theeen—!"

With that, Jordan picked the small fox-girl up into her arms. Niko was immediately assaulted by the feeling of those slim, strong arms wrapped around her, and the wolf-girl's huge breasts squishing close against her own (rather sensitive) pair. It was all...a bit much! But it felt nice, and she didn't want it to stop, either. Something was...really coming over her. And it couldn't be that statue's magic, either! So it was just...?

Jordan was looking at her expectantly again.

"Uh-um..r-right..." Niko returned the wolf-girl's hug, reaching her hands up to gently touch those fluffy black ears. At the slightest touch Jordan flinched, the ears twitching, but then she smiled as the fox-girl's small fingers pressed into that fur and began gently brushing through it, properly petting those warm, soft ears.
"Rrufh! Aah, that feels amazing~..!" she said. "I...I just wanna...! Mrrr~rrfh." With no further warning, Jordan pressed her nose hard into Niko's cheek. This made her feel warm again, her heart racing as the fuzzy feeling from the tail end of her transformation began to come back in force.
"O-o~ooh...mmnngh..." She couldn't help herself, and began nuzzling the bigger girl back. Part of her tried to demand What am I doing!?, but it felt really nice after all, plus Jordan definitely liked it.

"Mrr~rrrhn..."
"Ehehee! Y-you're super cute, you know that? B-but really sexy too," Jordan said, probably just babbling in her excitement. Not that that kept Niko from enjoying the compliment.
"P-pet my ears too—if you want," she said and then quickly added, barely remembering in time.
"Heh..s-sure..!"

"Aa~ah!" They were very sensitive! Niko had touched her own ears earlier, and they hadn't seemed nearly so responsive then, but something about someone else doing it...or maybe Jordan specifically...! At any rate, she would be very weak at the knees right now if she wasn't being entirely held up in the air by the tall, strong wolf-girl. "Mmh, mmrr~rrrrh...!"
"Aa~h, so cuuute...!" Jordan gushed, then went back to softly barking and yipping.

It did not take Niko very long to want to feel the other girl's tail, too, and—knowing full well that Jordan was into this kind of thing—curled her own tail forward to brush them across each other. The wolf-girl jolted in surprise, then let out a soft, helpless "Aa~aaah...!" She didn't (probably couldn't) make her tail stop wagging, and that motion had their big wads of fluff running constantly across each other with very little extra motion on Niko's part. After that, the wolf-girl stumbled awkwardly around before finally falling backwards to land her button the couch.

Still holding one of Jordan's ears in her hand (moving the other one to the back of her head to gently stroke through her hair), Niko pulled her head back enough for their noses to almost touch. "Hmmnh?"
Jordan returned a slightly apologetic look with an extremely bright blush to her cheeks. "M-my legs were getting, kinda weak...heheh...! Uh, g-girls have it pretty good, huh?"

"Mmnh." Niko went back to nuzzling the bigger girl, gently pushing her down until she was lying flat across the couch with the fox-girl on top of her.

Much later that evening, the two of them were lying in a similar position on Niko's bed, both completely exhausted. The wolf-girl let out a soft "Mrr~rfh," already half-asleep.

The fox-girl thought: I'm gonna bury that statue in the middle of a desert somewhere. Maybe teleport it ten miles down from the bottom of the deepest hole I can get dug.

...Then, I think I'll ask if she wants to move in with me, or the other way around.

---

This is sort of a "soft sequel" to A Friend When Cursed. I started writing this not long after publishing that one, but the first draft started out when Niko acquired the statue, went through the precautions and negotiations with the statue's magic first...in short, it was very boring and I couldn't figure out a good way to continue. Pushing the transformation to the story's start, while interleaving some of that information (and cutting out unnecessary detail), really did the trick.