SIB: Magic Foxification Wand

Author's note: This story is inspired by Virmir's picture entitled "Magic Foxification Wand".  Please see my comments for a link to the original pic.

A circular chamber sat at the center of a mountain.  Years it had sat there, waiting for one that could overcome all the hazards that stood in the only passage leading to it.  Years of disuse had thrown the room into utter disrepair.  Slabs of stone, once adorned with protective runes of great strength, had now cracked and fallen away, runes still intact, but no longer adorning the stone walls.  Everything in the room was covered in a century's worth of dust, except what sat on the pedestal at the center of the room.

The pedestal itself was octagonal, with a side facing the only entrance, and all other sides, each the same length, pointing towards another set of runes, although many now lay elsewhere.

On the center of the pedestal, surrounded by no less than seven circles of delicate, perfectly preserved runes, was a scepter, made of gold and still shining, untarnished by the march of ages.  Atop this scepter was a single, shining jewel, cut in an impossible sphere shape and fixed in a complex, ornate sconce.  It seemed to glow in the pitch blackness, although that was impossible since there was no available light source this deep in the earth.

Suddenly, a ray of light pierced the darkness, and a figure stumbled through the door, holding out a glowing orb in front of him.  His robes marked him as a Mage, but the hem was tattered and the carefully hand-sewn design was starting to pull out of the base blue of the cloak.

He stumbled a bit over the rubble inside the door, but quickly straightened himself, especially when he sighted what sat in the middle of the room.

"Ah, at last!  The end of my quest!" he declared, though there was no other to hear.

Or so he thought, for as soon as he had said it, another man entered the room, this one running through the door.  Although he was flustered and hurried, he certainly looked like he had avoided much of the peril that his predecessor had suffered.  He was plainly no user of magic; his clothes were little but tattered rags, and he had the appearance and rough features of a working man.

Before the Mage could even react, the common man rushed into the room and past the Mage.  The Mage could only turn and watch as the man dashed to the center of the room.  As he reached for the scepter, the Mage uttered one word.

"No!"

The other man pulled the heavy scepter off of the pedestal, then held it aloft, smiling grimly at the mage.  "I've won," he declared.

The Mage shook his head.  "You fool, you have no idea what that thing does.  You haven't won, you've been made an agent in your own downfall."

"You are only trying to intimidate me," the common man said, but the mage simply crossed his arms.

Unseen to the common man, but clearly visible to the Mage's magic sight, the innermost ring of runes on the pedestal was beginning to glow.

As it did, the man's ears suddenly shot up the sides of his head and ended up nearly on top.  At the same time, the upper ears stretched out, creating an odd point to the ear.

The man noticed, but before his hand could reach the points, his ears had been coated in a fine layer of golden fur.  As soon as his had touched his ears, he flinched noticeably.

"What have you done to me?" he screamed.

The Mage just shrugged.  "I just let you suffer the results of your own haste and discretion."

Another layer of runes began to glow, and their effect was immediate and obvious.  The man's legs suddenly gave out underneath him, and he toppled forward onto all fours, his legs changed to where they made his pants bulge toward the top, while allowing him to comfortably stand on his hands and feet.  The commoner's face was ashen by now, and he cried for the Mage to stop it somehow.  The man just shrugged and continued to watch, however.

The changing feet of the man burst his shoes as the third row of symbols began to glow; his feet now resembled animal paws rather than human feet, and they quickly were covered in the sane tawny fur as his ears had been moments before.

The fourth layer of runes glowed brightly for a moment, and his arms changed rapidly into the forelegs of a feline, complete with paws and retractable claws where hands had once been.

With the lighting of the fifth layer, the man's entire face was overtaken by changes, mouth and nose together pushing away from the rest of his face, while his top lip altered to appear almost split, like a cat's.

His eyes became golden and oddly shaped, while his cries for help were replaced by unintelligible yowls.  Fur overtook all visible features on his face while his nose flattened out into a feline nosepad, leaving nothing human visible about the former man's body.

The sixth layer of symbols began to glow, and the unfortunate man shrunk, disappearing into his ill-fitting clothing for a moment before pushing his way out, now little larger than a housecat.

The final change came with the lighting of the seventh row of runes, as a feline tail, long and uniformly covered in golden fur, grew from the changed commoner.

The cat meowed once towards the Mage, but seemed resigned to it's fate now, and stared down at it's front paws in sorrowful silence.

The Mage paid him little mind, for sitting just beside the changed man's clothing was the scepter, liberated from its enchanted resting place by the sacrifice of the man's human form.

The Mage stooped and picked it up, turning it over and examining it in his magic sight.  All the enchantments were as they should be, both those that had earlier saved it from decay, to the more intricate ones that most interested it's new owner.

"Now," he said, bringing the eyes of the cat to him, "Let us see if the tales of this scepter hold true."

He waved the scepter aloft, summoning forth inner energies that he had awakened through years of painful work.  He completed an intricate weave with the wand, then spoke a single word of power.  "Vulpus!"

From about the Mage, rays of blue energy were summoned into being.  They shone brightly, following the path that the Mage had set out for them in his dance.  They cascaded in and out, enveloping one another, yet growing ever stronger, ever larger as the power became a single wall of magic.  The power showed the Mage fleeting glimpses of what was to come in its fibers, but only when the wall was
complete did the image solidify.  Before the Mage stood a reflection of himself, only much changed.  With a smile and a nod, the Mage stepped forward into the wall.  As he did, the wall again separated into fibers, which wrapped themselves around the Mage, effecting the desired change.

The cat's curiously perked ears lowered slightly when he saw before him exactly what he had wished for himself.

A Reyn stood where the Mage once was, admiring it's lush red-furred tail with satisfaction.  It appeared as a fox, only bipedal, and, although much shorter than a human, it could still stand on two legs and speak as clearly as humans could.

The Mage flicked his tail experimentally, smiling.  "At last!" he exclaimed.  "I shall finally be accepted into the Academy at Caerreyn!"

The cat lowered it's head and ears, feeling the great press of disappointment.  The man he had once been had wished for his own uses of the power, but seeing his opponent use it instead made him feel his failure more strongly than ever.

"Ah, do not look at me so," the Mage said, making slight adjustments to his clothing where it was an awkward fit.  "I won our duel, but I am not a cruel man... Pardon, Reyn.  Come.  I cannot at present give you more, but with enough training at the Academy, I may be able to fully liberate you.  For now..."

He lifted the scepter and began the weave again...

A moment later, a Reyn and a fox left where a Mage and a pauper had entered.