Scene F - Aristotle's Hoard

"Hold on, It'll take a little while. Physical forms require immense minute programming," he says. The golem that brought it keels down on all fours, then clonks its head with its foot. "Oh dear, this one still thinks its a dog," he says, and the sigil stops glowing. "Stand, golem. Two legs," he commands, and the golem stands up straight - as though magically forced into the position. He then goes back to focusing on the sigil. Polymorphism was a magic that was actually harder to make specific formed sigils for - powerful, aptly trained wizards used simpler sigils which allowed the spell to tap into their psyche for specific instructions - but that required the user to be intimately familiar with how to direct the spell, and what the form was like. Instead, in the center of the ring of arcane symbols would be a radial string of labyrinthine lines detailing a human for like a sort of binary code. As the sigil was carved, it became clear that these line-patterns would not be discernible without a magnification instrument, and look much instead like sandpaper in the center of a runic ring.

After a while, the sparks stop flying and the amulet cools down. Aristotle affixes the crystal and hands it to Aurora. "There, done. You know what do to, reach your will into the gem and let the the spell flow back into you. Remember it will be painful, and I'm sorry - we'll spend some time here getting you used to it. May take a few times before you can comfortably breathe - I'll be sure to catch you when you collapse, and dispel it before you begin to suffocate. Then we can begin tweaking the features. "

Aurora grabs the amulet and affixes it around her neck. She can hardly contain her excitement as she reaches her will into the gem and the amulet begins to activate.

Aurora's claw tips glow and begin to turn to fingernails. The transformation works its way slowly from her limbs in, and everything transformed feels completely numb.

It took a full five minutes, then the transformation finished,
and everything
felt
wrong.

Her heart beat too fast and her limbs weren't turned the right and her jaw was scrunched up and vision wasn't quite the same and her lungs, oh god her lungs were too small, and her diaphragm wasn't in the right place and trying to make it move just didn't happen in rhythm and she couldn't get enough air and her limbs just wrangled about as she tried to move them but they just weren't right.

She falls backwards into her father's outstretched claw. She tries to breathe and manages to start getting air but every breath feels shallow and short and suddenly everything turns back to normal as the amulet's light fades and the spell ends.

"You alright?" Aristotle asks. Her head still spun, but the disorientation was fading quickly.

Aurora gasps out for breath. She can't even begin to describe what she just experienced. It was intense pain and confusion, but something else so wrong. Everything was off. She looked up to her father. "That was nothing but pain. You weren't even kidding. How do humans live like that?"

Aurora grits her teeth and stands up. "Alright. I'm trying again."

Aurora tries again and again, each time it feels less and less awkward, until finally she can hold the form without her head spinning.

Aurora stands on her two human legs. The balance feels so weird, but at least her head isn't spinning. She feels soft, weak, and ungainly. Yet, there's a certain sense of interest too. Familiar things seem slightly different from this angle. She feels her skin. It's so soft and light without any scales to weigh it down. She braces herself and takes a step forward. The balance immediately feels off and she tumbles to the ground. She pushes her arms down to pull herself up. Her arms feel so weak, but she at least manages to pull herself up into a crawling position. "Oooof. The balance is so awkward. How do they walk on only two legs?"

"Give it a few more tries," he says, and offers his claw to steady her.

Aurora pulls herself back up and almost falls over again. She just barely manages to steady herself. She takes a deep breath and tries to walk again. One step... two steps... three st- "Auuugh!" she cries out as she falls again. This time she doesn't even wait to get back up. She keeps at it until she can walk, albeit slightly clumsily, all the way across the room. "I think I'm starting to get the hang of this! So... about clothing, how can I get the clothes I have in mind?"

"Hold on," he says, and golem brings by a chest of various fabrics. This one meows.

"Stand still," he says, and a seal appears beneath his feet, and a set of clothes begin to fabricate themselves around Aurora.

"Uhm... huh. Everything feels so... touchy. It's soft, but kind of scratchy. Human skin isn't really much for protection is it? Everything touches on it so much," Aurora says as the clothes finish forming around her. She takes a moment to appreciate how they look. "What do you think, Cedric?" she says turning to the cat and giving a slight twirl. She falls on her butt on the end of the twirl, but manages to catch herself with her arms enough to keep from falling flat on her back. She sits up and gives a little laugh.

Aurora gives a genuine smile and laughs a little. "I thought it'd be cute!"

"By the way Cedric," Aristotle says, turning to him, "I would like you to accompany her on this journey."

Cedric stiffens. "And just l-leave? To the end of the world? That will take my whole life! Especially considering this body only has about a decade or two! Aurora can't put me in a new body you know."

"Ah, yes well, I do have some distilled feline life-force, about 8 extra life-spans worth. That should last you long enough to find another solution."

Aurora looks at her father inquisitively. "Uhm... daddy, why do you have 8 life-spans worth of feline life-force in a bottle?"

"Oh. Well when you put like that it sounds pretty reasonable," Aurora says. Then she pauses for a moment, as if unsure of what to do next. Then she gets up and clumsily walks over to her father. She then attempts to wrap her arms around his lowered neck in a tender embrace. "Thanks daddy. I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too dear," he responds, moving to touch his nose against hers.

"And I'll miss the comfortable life," Cedric says wistfully.

"I guess I should probably head back to the ship now. Goodbye dad," Aurora says as she lets go. She wipes tear from her eye as she looks at her father. Then she looks over to Cedric. "Come on buddy. Drink up. We've got to get going."

Aristotle suddenly looks up. "Your friend Troy is back..." Aristotle activates the ice lift for Troy once again.

"Sorry if I'm interrupting anything, but I thought to retrieve a sample of our assassin's remains - I was hoping you might be able to tell us a thing or two?" Aristotle nods, and Troy holds out a vial of ash, which floats away from his hand. "They and their gear disintegrated into this ash."

Aristotle takes it and stares at it awhile. A silver disk, lightly bent as a bowl, floats out from some container, and he pours the ash into it. The edge of the bowl glows with a sigil for a few seconds, then stops.

"This is dark stuff, but largely indistinguishable. You said these were cloaked, armored figures?" Troy nods.

"Any idea who they are?"

"If I had to guess..." a number of books float before Aristotle, and he flips through them at an unreasonable speed, "I'd say Black Dawn, militant demon cult who hope to weaken Sol's body as Luna's was. They're mostly a myth, however, but given they supposedly sink a lot of resources into covering their tracks, it wouldn't surprise me if there was more to them that a children's tale. Still, I'm afraid..." he sighs, "Believe it or not fables is about all I've got for you. I can't even tell if they were ash homunculi or people enchanted to deconstruct. All I can get is a very, very faint aura of shadow magic, but even then few could distinguish it from ash."

Troy sighs. "So, we're dealing with pretty powerful players."

"It would seem so, I'm afraid. Or some people who simply have a talent for secrecy. I'll keep the sample and try to dig deeper. Aurora, you know my pool's signature. Does your ship have a scrying pool?" Troy nods.

Aurora just sits and listens when Troy comes back. Since he doesn't seem to notice her at first she just sits down and continues to try and feel more comfortable in her new body. She listens to the conversation, but while doing so wiggles her fingers around a bunch and tries to pick up one of the books from her bag. She fumbles a bit, but luckily human hands are easier to adjust to to walk on two legs. It still feels off to be picking up a book like this, but she at least manages not to drop it. When her father finishes Aurora stands up and waves at Troy. "Hi, Troy!"

Troy looks down at the strange little girl and blinks. "Do I... know you?"

Aurora just laughs and smiles wide. "It's me, Aurora! Daddy made me an amulet which lets me assume the form of a human. It was pretty painful at first, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm still pretty clumsy though."

Troy's eyes widen as he stares at Aurora. "I suppose I s-shouldn't be surprised," Troy says, choking on his words at first, "That you could pull something like that off within a just few hours, but..."

Aristotle chuckles. "Yes, such a thing would take a skilled wizard weeks to get right." Troy just bows curtly.