The Goblin Princess (Episode 3)

Magic Bowl

“Excuse me,” I shouted while looking amongst the items at the antique store, “I’m looking for an old bowl. It was here yesterday.”

“Well, if it was there yesterday and gone today, then we probably sold it,” The person behind the register shouted back.

“No, that’s impossible. The clerk yesterday told me she’d hold it. I mean, he told me he’d hold it.”

“Ma’am, I own this shop. I’m the only one who works here.”

The ‘Ma’am’ part hit me hard. The other clerk (who apparently wasn’t actually a person who worked at the store at all) had shown me the bowl yesterday and demonstrated its powers by using it to swap our genders and races. She (or I guess ‘he’ now considering he had my gender) had told me he’d hold onto it while I tried out being a woman. I had to admit I was curious, and it was a fun day, but I wanted to go back to being me. But without knowing where the clerk or the magical bowl went, I’d be stuck!

True Form

We let the old man join our adventuring party because he claimed to be a wizard, though he often felt like more of a liability than an asset. His magic often misfired, he got tired quicker than the rest of us, and it just didn’t feel like he pulled his weight on this quest. I think most of us were ready to leave him behind next time we got into a town.

Then one day when we had just gotten up from a long rest, we noticed the old man wasn’t in camp. We searched around thinking he must have wandered off. Then we encountered her. We thought about recruiting her to join as well, but then we noticed she was holding the wizard’s staff.

At first we thought she killed him; we weren’t exactly ready for a fight. But then she tried to explain she WAS the wizard, that she was becoming closer to her true form. We had never heard anything like it before, but we also all agreed that the wizard in this form couldn’t be worse than the wizard in the old man form.

Onward

This had all been so much easier last week, back when Chuck still had his own body. He and Emily had found a strange clearing at the top of this mountain that just felt magical. Even though they didn’t end up swapping bodies with each other until a few hours later, he was sure that clearing was responsible for the switch.

He begged Emily to return with him, but she refused. He only hoped that doing this without her would still allow him to return to his original body. Though he was beginning to see why she didn’t want to do this again and why she might want to keep his body -- The climb was much tougher in her body than his own, but he still pressed onward.

Of course, part of him was thinking there was still a very good chance he’d be stuck as Emily for good.

Mother Earth

I died. Or I thought I did. Or, perhaps, more accurately, I was murdered. I’ll spare you the details, but it involved the mob and mistaken identity; and I found myself buried alive.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long I was dead, but I obviously didn’t know what it felt like. The thing I remember was the rebirth. The roots, themselves taking offense at my murder, were the ones to bring me back. They infused me with something, some sort of natural magic. It was this feeling in my veins that awoke me from death.

And while this magic brought me to the surface, it also changed me. It gave me the power to manipulate all plant life, but it also changed my form. I had gone from being male to female, the personification of Mother Earth itself. Nothing about this upset me. In fact, being a completely unrecognizable gender would allow me to get close enough to get revenge on those who had wronged me.

Item

Picking up the strange item up off the floor, it began to transform Brian almost instantly. He quickly became slender, his hair grew out, his form changed. Then he felt the burning in his hand, and it dropped to the floor. He reached down to pick it up again, but it had vanished -- but he was forever changed.

Of course “he” wasn’t exactly a he anymore after the magic item had transformed him. Going from a portly man to a beautiful woman wasn’t exactly something he thought would happen to him today -- and he had no idea how to navigate a completely new identity -- but it was certainly a twist in his day.

INT 5

Eldric still couldn’t believe he had fallen victim to another wizard’s spell in battle. Luckily, the fighter in his party dispatched of the foe in short haste after that, but Eldric was dealing with the results of the curse that had turned him into a blonde bimbo.

The fact that the curse had made him female didn’t bother him in the slightest. He knew women in the realms were just as versed in every facet of skill as the men. It was the fact that the curse had also dropped his INT down to 5 that was giving him concern.

Intelligence was the most important skill for a wizard, and even things like remembering his own name were often a challenge. Reading was out of the question. And casting spells? Well, he tried, but remembering those big words right was even more difficult than remembering his own name. He hoped the rest of his party could find a way to break this curse!

Mirrored

The swirling mirror in Rory’s room was hypnotic and alluring. He reached his arm out and found it went straight through the mirror as if nothing was there. His curiosity was piqued; what was on the other side?

And so he stepped through.

On the other side, things were very different. Not only was his room reversed, his body had changed as well -- he was a woman! He supposed that was the opposite of what he was, but it wasn’t exactly a reflection. He went back for the mirror, but the swirl was fading; the mirror was once again solid and impassable. He was going to stuck like this in this strangely reversed world.

Sleeping Beauty

How long had it been since Konrad had tried to place that curse on that young lady that had backfired horribly? Judging from the layer of dust and dirt on top of him -- several hundred? Maybe a thousand?

And as he became more aware of not just the dirt on it but the body he now had, the more he realized just how badly the curse had backfired. It wasn’t just that the spell had caused him to be the one to fall asleep for an extended period, it had also caused him to be in the woman’s body that whole time.

He tried to think of the upsides. For starters, he hadn’t aged. Next, even though the spell had required a kiss to awaken, that hadn’t seen to be needed in this case. He had woken up all on his own, although in a very unfortunate state.

Magic Cookie

“I have one magical cookie left,” Armand said to Li as he held the item in his hand. “Once I bite into it, I will have my final wish.”

“Then do it and wish us back into our own bodies!” Li begged him.

“I could do that...or I could wish that you believe you have always been me with no memories of being yourself. I might also wish that you like being in my body so much that you begged me to keep us this way. Or maybe when I eat this, I will wish you thought the last cookie had already been consumed. I have quite a few options,” He said as he put the cookie into his mouth.

Not Too Bad

Emi always tried to explain to her boyfriend Ted how much she hated camping, yet he would always find some way to drag her along. However, planning a camping trip in the middle of winter proved to be the last straw. Emi wasn’t going to take it anymore, and created a plan that she hoped would teach Ted a lesson for good.

With a little magic, she swapped their bodies. There were certain inconveniences she always experienced as a woman in the woods that she hoped Ted would now appreciate.

And yet, several days into the trip, Ted seemed undeterred; he actually seemed to be enjoying himself! Emi had to ask how he was coping with everything as they sipped on hot cocoa by the fire.

“Well, I probably feel colder than I ever remember being in my life, and using the bathroom is more difficult, but it’s not too bad.” He said with a shrug.

Another Spell

Ryan flipped through the pages of the old book. It wasn’t looking promising. Eveything in here talked about how magic spells were permanent. If so, that meant he’d be stuck swapped into Julia’s body forever.

But then again, this thing was older than dirt! Maybe there was a newer edition where the magic has been updated! It seemed like a long shot, but there were still so many books to go through, he had to keep his hopes up. After all, he didn’t want to be stuck as Julia!

And yet page after page revealed few results. Then he finally came across a spell, it wouldn’t reverse the swap, but it might still resolve his issues. It was a short spell that allowed the user to be comfortable in their own skin. It seemed innocent enough, but then again, messing with magic is what got him stuck in this body in the first place.

The Canal

The heavy rains the night before had caused the canal that ran through town to crest in a few places. I noticed a woman splashing through one of the places where he had overflowed.

She looked up and asked me, “Do you know why they tell you not to swim in the canal? To not drink the water?”

“I’m going to guess sewage runoff?” I replied.

“No, it was built on a magical water source that can transform someone’s gender. Believe it or not, I was a man yesterday. I tried to drink it again just now, but I’m still stuck as a woman. I’m wondering if the rain diluted the magic, or if the transformation is one way. Could you maybe drink a little bit and see if you change?”

Twist of Fate

Using the magic spell to steal his neighbor’s body was the easy part. But sneaking the book back out of the house so she’d never find it was the real challenge.

Then again, you learn a few things as a 300 year old wizard that come in handy in cases like these. Spells that trigger on a timer, illusions that make things invisible, teleportation. Heck, the body swap spell that allowed him to take Sandra’s body was actually the easiest part of this whole thing! And she’d never know about the magic either; she’d think it was all some weird twist of fate.

Say Cheese!

Evan’s friends often wondered why he carried a traditional camera around with him instead of simply using his phone. The fact of the matter was that the camera happened to be anything but traditional -- it was magic!

He could load a photo of anyone he had ever taken a picture of and use the camera to transform into that person. It was fun being someone else for a while, and -- while he never told anyone -- he took a particular pleasure taking the form of any women he captured. Over the years, he had collected thousands of photos of thousands of people, and he could be any one of them for as long as he wanted.

Scrolling back to the start of the roll where his photo was stored was always a bit of a pain. And, truth be told, sometimes it spent a little longer than originally planned as someone else simply because he didn’t want to bother with all that scrolling. Though he never really minded the extra time as someone else...

S41ft - "Odd One Out"

Godd*mn Tourists

I couldn’t believe crowds were already starting to gather in Times Square. It was December 30. New Year’s Eve was still a day away, but there they were. As a typical New York guy, I can tell you that any time someone gets in your way, it’s annoying -- and tourists blocking your path for some event is especially annoying. I wished I was here at literally any other time.

I didn’t expect my wish to be instantly granted.

I also didn’t expect it to grant it in a way that put me in the exact same place two weeks later and inside someone else’s body. I stopped dead in my tracks, taking in the fact that I was now a woman on top of everything. My mind was racing, and I felt frozen forever, but I knew it was only a split second when I heard a guy behind me yell, “Keep moving, will ya!?” Then I heard him mumble something about, “Goddamn tourists.”

Escape from the Underdark

From an early age, Ghuanyl knew his mom was different from other drow. The fact that his father was human and treated as an equal was more than enough for him to realize how strange she was in drow culture. Of course, that meant Ghuanyl himself was only half-dark elf and a male child on top of that -- neither of those went over well in the underdark, no matter how much his mother loved and protected him.

When he came of age and with her own health failure, she granted what she thought was a kindness -- casting a spell that would transform him permanently into a female. His new form felt so wrong and strange; he hated it to his very core, yet he still could never forget it was done out of love.

But living in the underdark with the expectation of being cruel to others felt no better than having the curelty done to him. He decided to leave drow society and venture to the surface, to see where his father had come from all those years ago, and to start anew...

Books

If there was going to be anything in this college library about how to reverse a body swap, this seemed to be the correct section. Of course, Daniel had never been in this part of the library before; he had never even considered such a section would even exist in this library.

Maybe he was able to find it because he was currently affected by magic after swapping bodies with Maggie. Or maybe he just lucked out.

But amongst all this spooky stuff, there had to be a book about magical body swapping though, right? He pulled one of the books out, and was sorely disappointed. It was an outdated text on 1700s biology. In fact, while most of the books were rare, old, and interesting -- the subject of magic just wasn’t among the topics...whatever happened to him and Maggie that caused this body swap, he was likely stuck like this!

An Adventure

“I’m not sure if I’m still upset about swapping bodies with you, or if its simply the biological nature of drow to be pissed off all the time,” Ibrim said, “But we need to find that wizard to have him undo this body swap spell.”

Araj agreed, “The stench of your human body bothers my nostrils -- even as I am breathing with human nostrils. And to be in a male body is so degrading. I never should’ve travelled to the surface, but I had no other choice in order to restore my family’s house.”

“Whatever. I get it. We all have our own reasons for adventuring. But they won’t likely care for you too much in the Underdark if you return there still inside my body. And I have no interest running around in your body or clothes any longer than I have to myself. So let’s just get a move on, okay!?”