[Mkguild] "Expansion of Power"

[Nathan Pfaunmiller]

This is a new story that I both started and finished today.  It is currently
noncanon, but I am interested in working it into canon if none of the
concerned writer's have a problem with it.  If it at all interferes with
their plots, or my use of their characters at all is unacceptable, I'm
perfectly fine with leaving it noncanon, I just wanted to write it for fun.

_____________

Expansion of Power

By LurkingWolf

Jessica's hyacinth was now in full bloom in the Keep's gardens, and she
squawked with delight as she performed several experiments to confirm its
power.  Everything she tried worked flawlessly.  It allowed her to sustain
several incantations far longer than she could by her own power, and yet the
hyacinth continued to replenish its power as it was consumed.  She found
that she could use it to hold almost any one of her spells steady for as
long as she needed to, since her power was supplied by the magic reservoir
in the hyacinth.

She had tested a good number of spells, now including her more powerful
spells, but each could still be fueled by the hyacinth.  She would not be
able to extend the effect of those spells far from the hyacinth, but it
would at least extend throughout the keep.

However, the spell she had planted the hyacinth to fuel in the first place
had yet to be tried.  She had considered adding a Curse effect on herself,
but she was concerned that her power would be hampered by an unfamiliar
body, and with the strength of the hyacinth's reservoir, she was also
worried that it would be a while before it wore off or she was able to
relearn her body enough to disconnect the spell from the hyacinth.

And so she set off through the halls of the inner keep, thinking of nowhere
in particular, in search of a test subject.

She was eventually surprised by Kyia's choice of subjects, as she somehow
appeared inside Misha's office in the Long House.  Jessica knew that the
entire Long House was kept under extreme security, so it was amazing to her
that The Keep's spirit would circumvent those measures.

The fox himself sat at a large desk towards one side of the room, examining
an array of maps and documents that were spread out evenly across the top,
held down by items ranging from inkwells to daggers.  He apparently heard
Jessica's talons on the stone of the floor, because his ears turned in her
direction, followed closely by his eyes.

"Jessica!" he cried, somewhere between shock and delight.  "How did you get
in here, no one told me you were here?"

Jessica looked meaningfully back down the passage she had entered, and Misha
followed her gaze.  "I figure that Kyia wanted me to come here.  You see, I
was looking for someone to help me test something, and Kyia brought me here
for some reason."

Misha looked confused.  "Does it involve automatons?" he asked, brow
furrowed.

"No, nothing like that," Jessica replied.  She caught Misha's eyes slipping
past her and glanced back to see that the passage behind her had vanished.
 She turned back to look at Misha, who just shrugged towards her.

"Well, there's no pressing Long business right now," he said.

Jessica found that hard to believe, since she could pretty well scan the
notes on the desk with her hawk's eyes.  Still, Misha seemed honest, so she
could only assume that all of the papers on his desk were not very pressing..

"How can I help?" the fox's voice brought her out of her reverie.  She
cracked her beak in a smile and motioned Misha away from the desk with her
wing.

"Just stand over there against the wall," she responded.  Misha seemed
uncomfortable about not knowing what she was doing, but stood up against the
wall as instructed.

"All right, now stand still..."  Jessica usually would not have proceeded
without more fully explaining what she was going to do, but she didn't think
it was very likely that he would let her go on if he knew, and Kyia had led
her here after all...

Jessica carefully constructed her spell, making sure each part of the weave
was exactly as needed.  She then fitted it into the complex web created by
the Curse, and she heard Misha give a sharp gasp.

She couldn't stop to check on the results yet as her construct immediately
began to tax her strength.  Quickly she tapped into the reservoir that the
hyacinth in the gardens provided, and tied the spell to that source of
power.  Tentatively she let it go, ready to control it again if necessary,
but the power from her hyacinth was well more than enough to hold the spell
stable.

When Jessica finally felt comfortable with the stability of the spell, she
let her vision shift back to the material world and gasped at what she saw
before her.

It was still a fox of the same coloration and similar height to the head of
the Longs, but besides this, the clothing was all that made this creature
recognizable as the same person that had stood there before Jessica has done
her work.

A vixen now stood, examining her radically changed body with both eyes and
hands.  Her chest had expanded, but the jerkin that had covered his chest
while he was male now did a remarkable job of covering her breasts without
straining.  The jerkin was loose in other places though, giving testament to
the fact that much of his muscle had been lost in the transition.

It was lower down that the changes were most noticeable, though.  Wider hips
made the leggings he had been wearing uncomfortably tight, a fact that she
tried nervously to alleviate.  Her legs also seemed longer than when she had
been a he, and the leggings, once cut just above his paws, now showed most
of the area below the knees.

The final change to the vixen's body was something Jessica had not expected..
 Where before Misha's head had been bald apart from his natural pelt, it was
now adorned by a veritable cascade of raven black hair.  The vixen had
flicked locks of this hair out of her face several times during her panicked
inspection, but it wasn't until the extent of the other changes was realized
that she noticed it had not been there before.  Once she realized just how
much she had changed, she looked in surprise, and perhaps a little fear, at
the hawk.

"What have you done to me?" she asked, cracking voice obviously not used to
the higher register it was now forced into.

Jessica, unable to stop herself, simply burst out Ito squawks of laughter.
 The renowned "mad axeman" of Metamor was now a beautiful vixen, unable to
control her voice, let alone wield her massive black axe.  In truth, she was
quite a stunning specimen, but it was her reputation that made it as
hilarious as Jessica found it.

"Stop laughing!  Change me back!" the vixen demanded, but Jessica shook her
head, still laughing quietly in the back of her throat.

"The point of this test is to see how long I can sustain this," Jessica
explained.  "I can't just remove it now, and besides, being female won't
affect your duties as a scoutmaster, will it?"

"You don't work with the people I do.  Can you imagine what George would do
if he saw me like this?"  The tone of the last question was nearly enough to
set Jessica off laughing again, but a moment's thought on the question left
Jessica just enough time for one comment before she completely lost her
composure.

"I imagine he might try to—” Jessica fell into fits of laughter just before
she was able to say what both of them were thinking.  Jessica's reaction was
uproarious laughter, but Misha's was more akin to mortification.  He
obviously had no intentions of getting used to his current body in the
company of his friend and coworker...

It ended up taking Jessica the better part of the next hour convincing Misha
that she would be all right staying as she as for at least a few more hours
so Jessica could monitor the effects of the changes she had caused in the
Long Scout.  Finally, however, she managed to pry herself loose from the
vixen's constant outpour of question so she could to seek out someone else
to test her new powers on.

As she left the Long House, not without a good number of questioning glances
from the guards charged with the front entrance, Jessica passed by a
familiar otter, Caroline.  They didn't stop to talk for long, as Jessica was
trying to find someone else to test with, but the hawk did gather that
Caroline was bringing food to Misha for his lunch.  Smiling her best as the
two parted, Jessica quietly linked a scrying spell to the otter so that she
could watch her reaction.

She was laughing too hard to walk for the next fifteen minutes.

When she finally did recover, Jessica broke her scrying link to the couple
and hopped down the corridors of the Keep in her talons, searching for
someone else on whom she could test this newfound power.

What she ended up happening onto was quite a bit different than she had
anticipated.  She found herself in a small courtyard located somewhere in
the inner keep, watching as a small group of children played at tag while an
older woman stood by and watched.  The woman's mouth twitched every now and
then in a smile, but it was laced heavily with pain, no doubt part of her
old age.  A quick inspection with Jessica's magic sight revealed that the
Keeper was a gendermorph; her age, however, had not been altered by the
Curse, and it didn't take magic sight to know that she was suffering in her
older age.



Jessica quickly came up with an idea, an idea that would hopefully allow her
to do some good while at the same time continuing to test out her new
abilities.  Switching to her magic sight, Jessica built the intricate weave
that she would need to produce the desired effect, then carefully slipped it
into the weave of the Curse before hooking into the power supply that the
hyacinth now provided her.




The effect was instantaneous, and noticeable enough that even the playing
children stopped to watch as the elderly woman suddenly shrank down in her
clothes with a muffled exclamation, until she finally stopped, age, size,
and appearance now closer to a ten year old than a fifty year old.  The
children gasped and pointed at her, but the woman just stood there, trying
to wrap her head around what had just happened.



Jessica saw a few of the non Cursed children turn to each other, asking
fearfully if something was going wrong with Kyia, while the age-Cursed
Keepers did their best to keep level heads and point out that none of the
rest of them had been effected.



Meanwhile, the girl that had just had forty years taken from her age was
quickly fashioning a makeshift robe out of what had once been her shirt,
tying it around her middle with her old cloth belt, although she now had to
wrap it double around her waist.  This makeshift clothing actually did its
job quite well, as the shirt was now several inches beyond the girl’s knees.



One of the age-regressed Keepers from the group of playing children walked
over to her.  He seemed to be a little uncomfortable with how she had
suddenly changed, but he had also made up his mind to not let it show.  After
all, it was Metamor, so odd things happened every day.  Everyone just tried
to fit them into their everyday lives.



“Hi,” the child said to the newly-regressed Keeper.  “My names Ryan, what’s
yours?”



The girl blinked, surprised at his words.  He sounded more like he was
greeting a new arrival, rather than deciding to talk to her after her
change.  It took her a few minutes to realize that she hadn’t said anything,
and she immediately tried to remedy the situation.  “I… I’m Alice,” she
said.



“Hello, Alice,” Ryan said.  “Would you like to join our game?”



The girl was still obviously recovering from her change, as the confused
look on her face testified, but it quickly gave way to a dimpled smile as
she realized what she had been asked.  It had to have been such a long time
since she had been asked a similar question…



“Would I!” she exclaimed.  Rather than give an answer straight out, however,
she just jumped up and hugged him tightly around his neck.  He coughed a
little bit in surprise when she suddenly restricted his breathing, but he
handled it remarkably well nonetheless.  The girl didn’t seem to notice that
she had done anything strange and simply stood there, bouncing on her bare
toes in excitement as she waited for Ryan to explain the game to her.



Jessica observed in contented silence for quite some time, feeling a sort of
warmth that she had never before felt.  She had given a gift to the woman,
one that no other person on earth could do without claiming some price from
her.  It was something truly special, yet something Jessica felt should be
truly secret, and so she moved away, traversing the twisting halls of
Metamor once more, leaving the sounds of playing children behind.



She still had one Curse effect that she needed to test out, however, and so
she once again allowed Kyia to guide her steps for her as she thought of
nothing in particular.  It took a while for the Keep to move her steps in
the proper direction, but presently she could hear sounds in the
distance.  They
sounded of laughter, barking, and… metal on stone?



Jessica’s question was answered before it could be vocalized as she stepped
around a corner to see a boy, around ten years of age, running down the
halls in front of her, followed closely by a metal fox, which yipped
playfully as he gave chase in some impromptu game of tag.  Jessica
recognized Madog immediately, but recognized Father Hough more by reputation
than anything else.  He had doffed his priestly robes in favor of more
appropriate play clothes, but was still having trouble keeping up with the
automaton.  Madog was doing his best to even the playing field by running
stop-and-go, but Hough still had trouble catching the fox, even given this
advantage.



Jessica stood there for a moment, unnoticed by either boy or fox, thinking.
The idea wasn’t long in the coming, but she remembered her first test on
Maud.  She had been able to hold a change into a specific form, but only
because she knew the nuances in the spell, and it had still been difficult…
Jessica had no examples right now to work from, so she stood for a while,
thinking through the little modifications she would have to make to produce
the specific, desired effect.  She thought through all the people she knew
that were changed in that way, and slowly came up with a spell that she was
reasonably certain would have the desired effect.



Both priest and automaton had noticed her by now, but neither paid much
mind.  They were too busy trying to run each other down to care who watched,
although Jessica couldn’t imagine that they would mind if someone joined
them.  At that moment, however, she had other things in mind.



She formed the threads of the lattice carefully in her wingclaws, now
looking more the professional weaver than the uncertain apprentice.  She set
up the basics of the spell, then slowly added to them the little nuances she
had decided would be essential for the desired effect.  The synthesis of
spells made her head swim a little as she tried to sustain the weave, but,
grinding her beak together in determination.  She would be able to hand it
off to the power of the hyacinth momentarily…



Finally, it was ready, and she laced it into the weaves that already
surrounded the boy priest.  With her weakened so, it seemed to have just a
little bit of trouble getting settled into the Curse’s own weave.  Finally,
however, it latched onto the primary spell, and Jessica hurried to tie her
own spell into the hyacinth’s power before almost swooning under the strain
of such an improvised spell.



She still managed to shift her sight back to the real world in time to see
the effects of her weave.  Hough was now leaning down with his hands on his
knees, trying to catch his breath as Madog waited, tail wagging happily as
he waited for the age-regressed man to catch his breath.



As they both waited, however, Hough suddenly gave a short cry and held his
hand out in front of him, watching as fur swiftly covered it, creating a
black glove.  Claws came out from his fingertips, while the same fur that
had grown on his hands began to cover everything under his play clothes.  He
gasped and turned around as a long, vulpine tail came out under his shirt, a
brownish orange with a black-ringed white tip.  The fur took his face, and
it pushed out into a fox’s muzzle, while his ears trekked up his head and
came to points, colored black against the deep red fur that surrounded them..



Madog had run over as soon as he had seen that something was happening to
Hough, and he whined in concern as the boy changed into a fox.  As the boy’s
feet became paws, he looked around in shock, finally settling his eyes on
the one other person in the room.



“Did you do this?” he asked Jessica.



Jessica nodded.  “I thought you might like to be able to keep up with your
friend a little better,” she responded, motioning to Madog.  The automaton
still seemed concerned, but much less so now that he knew that it had been a
friend that had cause Hough to change.



Hough could have reacted in any one of a number of ways.  He remembered how
he had once feared the Curse in all its forms, only coming to terms with how
it had affected him after the evil Loriod had been destroyed from Eli’s
green earth.  He still wasn’t sure about the Curse, regardless of the number
of Cursed people he spoke to on a daily basis in his Fold.  As he looked
himself over, however, he couldn’t help but feel an immense gratitude, but
several questions still hung heavily in his mind.



“Can you change me back?” he asked in a whisper.



“Whenever you want me to,” Jessica responded.  Hough nodded, but still had
one more question that he was almost afraid to ask.



“Do you think…?  Is it possible…?”  He sighed, settling himself before
finally finishing his question.  “Could you make it so that I am entirely a
fox, so that I can run on all fours like Madog?”



Jessica couldn’t hear the priest at all in the question.  Replacing him was
just a boy, a boy who wanted very much to have one chance to run wild with
the metal fox that sat loyally by his side.  Jessica was sure she could not
have born it if she had had to say no, but she fortunately was reasonably
certain that his request was possible.



“Have you ever used the Curse to change your age?” she asked.  Hough looked
sheepishly at the floor and nodded once.  Apparently he was not too proud of
experimenting with the Curse, even though he had done nothing wrong.  “Then
you should be able to change into a full fox the same way.”



She wasn’t entirely certain how her spell would behave when put through the
motions in this manner, but, as she remembered, Lindsey had for a moment
been in the form of a full kangaroo while under the Marquis’ spell, so
Jessica had a good bit of hope that it would work for her, now that her
hyacinth was ready.



Hough nodded and looked at Madog, placing one hand on the magically animated
automaton as he prepared himself to try to realize his desire.  He licked
his lips with a much longer tongue, trying to work away his nerves before
slowly tried to settle his mind on the desired change.



Jessica didn’t watch how it happened in the physical realm, as she had moved
her eyes to observe how the threads of magic allowed the change to take
place.  When it had just been the Curse acting, the weave showed no
intelligible signs of how it altered.  As the threads of her lattice slowly
reformed around the shifting form of the boy-priest, however, she could tell
them apart from the rest of the Curse, and cawed in delight as she watched
them smoothly slide into another form.  Jessica’s heart raced at the sight.
She could think of so many things she could use this for.  If she could see
how someone shifted between all of the Curse-granted forms, perhaps she
would be able to unlock doors to new forms, and even turn the Curse to the
Keep’s favor.



Or even, perhaps, someday turn the Curse entirely back on itself.



Hough, however, had much more present thoughts in mind.  As he settled his
mind on shifting between his morphic and feral forms, he felt his body begin
to rearrange.  For a moment, he was frightened nearly out of his mind, but
the changes continued smoothly, and he didn’t even feel any pain.



Somewhere during the change, his hand slipped off of Madog’s back and landed
on the floor, but he hardly noticed it, as the soft pads on his new paws
cushioned his landing.  When he was done, he realized that he had closed his
eyes during the change.  As he opened them, he found himself looking from a
new perspective, up into the automatons eyes.  He felt a bubbling joy well
up in his heart at this sight, and he gave a happy bark and jumped up to
lick Madog’s nose.



Madog gave a startled step backwards, but then happily licked the fox kit
back, and the two were soon back at their games.  Hough was now well fast
enough to keep up with the automaton, and Madog soon found himself trying
harder than he ever had before to keep up with his friends.  Both of them
loved it, and Jessica watched with her own laughter joining theirs for many
hours.



Something finally took her attention from the pair as a pair of female
voices came down the hall behind her.  Jessica glanced backwards and cracked
a smile at what she saw.



Caroline was coming up the hall, walking arm in arm with a slightly
reluctant looking vixen.  Misha was the first to catch sight of the hawk,
and she shyly turned her head to try to avoid eye contact.  Jessica could
see that her ears had gone read inside, and that almost made her crack up
entirely before the pair of women reached Jessica’s position.



“Hello, Jessica,” Caroline’s voice said in a friendly tone.  Jessica smiled
her best, noting now that Misha had also been dressed in a manner more
fitting to her new body.  “I was trying to find you so that I could thank
you,” the otter continued.



“Thank me?” Jessica asked with some surprise.  “I thought you would be after
me to bludgeon me with a blunt instrument for doing this to your man.”



Caroline laughed.  “Really?  Misha told me you can turn her back, and
besides, do you know how long it has been since I have been able to talk him
into taking a trip to a tailor?”



The two women shared a laugh, while the vixen gave a very quiet chuckle,
although her attention was drawn to the pair of foxes, one real, one
automated, that raced through the halls after each other.



“Is that—” she began.



“Father Hough,” Jessica answered.  “I’d say he liked it pretty well,
wouldn’t you?”



Now all three women laughed as the two foxes played their game.  Jessica’s
laughter was interrupted, however, when she heard someone call her name.



“Hello?” she answered.  Caroline and Misha didn’t react though, either to
the call or Jessica’s answer.  They also seemed to be fading, which made
Jessica even more nervous.  Was someone using some sort of magical power to
draw her to them?  After the long trip to Marzac, an even more horrifying
question came to her.  Two of her friends had been taken by a power from
Marzac; was it now coming for her?



And if she was taken, what could Marzac do with this power she had?



The voice called her again, and now all was blackness.  The women she had
been talking to were now gone, as were Madog and Hough, and she found
herself scared and alone.



“Who are you?!” she demanded.



Suddenly, light returned to her eyes, but this time it was different.



“Jessica, wake up!”  Her hawk’s voice finally pulled her from her slumber,
and her eyes fell on him first.  “Jessica, are you okay?  You were sleeping
peacefully, but when I tried to wake you, you started tossing like you were
having a nightmare.



Jessica gave a dry caw before she could bring her tongue to pronounce
anything intelligible.  “I’ll be all right,” she said, trying to still her
beating heart.  “It’s just… that place.  It may be gone, but it still
follows those of us who went there…”



Weyden hushed her fearful stuttering and draped his wings around her.  “There,
there,” he said.  “I’m sorry for scaring you.  There, you’re safe, my love,
I will protect you.”



In truth, Jessica could do far more to save Weyden than he could do to save
her, but her thoughts didn’t even travel in that direction.  Her hawk was
here, watching her.  There was no doubt in her mind that he could face the
entire host of Nasoj by himself if that was what it took to save her from
danger, and she rested soundly in that confidence.



Now calm in her lover’s arms, Jessica thought back through the dream.  It
was surprisingly vivid to her, unlike so many other dreams that stayed out
of mind as soon as she had awoken from them.  She could still see the
intricate weaves that she had places around Hough at the end of her dream,
down to the last thread of magic.  Flexing her talons, she imagined
performing such a casting on her hawk, but she couldn’t for a moment think
of anything that could possibly be an improvement.  He was hers, and he was
perfect for her in every way.


!DSPAM:4c48ff8a69265126175762!
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