The Woodland Mansion

Kit led the group back over to the library, Leo walking awkwardly in his tight pants. Sevy walked faster to catch up to Kit, who seemed to be trying to avoid him.

"Hey, answer me, what did you mean by-" Kit walked closer to him so that she could mash her foot on top of his. He promptly shut up.

Leo looked over briefly, hearing his gasp of pain, but was preoccupied by searching the doors they passed.

"Well," he said, taking a deep breath, "a good portion of the world thinks that the Grim Reaper is the one who takes your soul when you die. And that if you see the Grim Reaper, it means you're about to die. When I meet people, they tend to be terrified because of that, or just because I'm a giant talking skeleton..."

He looked over at the otter standing behind the woman, which was still something he was trying to understand. He wouldn't ask now, though. He was too curious about why they didn't know who he was in the first place.

"Hmm," Marisol said, staring this Grim Reaper fellow up and down. "So, three things. First thing is, I dunno what part of the world yer talkin' about, because I ain't ever heard of you, no matter where I've gone. And I've gone to a lot of weird places. Second thing, I'm pretty sure I ain't dead yet, and I've been around ya for the past couple minutes, so I ain't worried 'bout that. Third thing, if anybody's gonna take my soul when I die, it's her" - Marisol shot a thumb in Arlais's direction; the otter smiled and hid behind Marisol - "So there."

When her first sentence clicked, his eyes glowed just a bit brighter, and his jaw dropped to form what could have been considered a smile. It all made sense now. No wonder she hadn't known who he was! "You must be from another world!" he exclaimed, giddy with joy. "I've always known they existed, but I never thought I'd actually meet someone from one!"

"What?" said Marisol, visibly recoiling. She blinked and frowned. "Pretty sure there's the one. I think I'd know if there were others." Marisol was tempted to call him crazy, but she restrained herself. He seemed happy for once, and she wasn't interested in making him mopey again.

His mood was momentarily dampened by the woman's reaction, but that was understandable. Besides having a bipedal otter as a companion, she likely wasn't used to the magical sort of things that he had experienced in the past. He returned his body to its normal state and walked over to her.

"Most people don't know about the existence of other worlds on Earth," he said, "so I'm sure it's like that in other worlds as well. We do have a little knowledge of other planets, but most people don't know how to create the rifts needed to travel between worlds and dimensions."

Marisol raised a finger and tried to come up with a retort, but hesitated. She didn't understand a word skeleton man was saying, and she was growing more and more convinced he was nuts, but he was also more happy and eager than he'd been in a while. Marisol wasn't about to break his mood now, not when the alternatives were him running away or blubbering. "Fine," she said after a pause, lowering the finger. "There's other worlds. And I'm from one a' them. Hooray."

He was starting to guess that she didn't think he was quite all there, but that was alright. He'd gladly take that over being feared for being himself. His identity was a core part of who he was, too, so it was sad that she didn't know who he was. But, at the very least, she accepted him. That was more than anyone had ever done for him.

His jaw lowered ever so slightly, and he took what he considered to be a deep breath for someone like him. It wasn't like it actually did anything, seeing that he didn't have lungs. But it had always made him feel a little bit better, so he did it anyways. And he especially needed it now, if he was right on what they were going to do next.

"So what's the plan now that you've caught up to me?" he asked.

After finding some better pants for Leo in one of the rooms, Kit steered the group back toward the library, figuring that some of the tension from earlier would have ebbed. She walked close to Leo, pointedly avoiding Sevy, who in all honesty she was annoyed with. Now he would be questioning her every opportunity he got, expecting her to spell her secrets out for him.

As they approached Griffith, the woman, and the otter, Leo suddenly let out a scream. He quickly covered his mouth, wincing at how rude he was being. It looked like the man had removed his hat and hair, which now revealed that he was- a skeleton?

Sevy's eyes widened in surprise at Griffith's lack of... a lot of things. He was interested to find out exactly what kind of creature he was.

His elated mood was immediately dashed when he heard Leo's scream. Even though he covered his mouth moments later - likely out of fear of what Grim would do in retaliation - the noise was enough to make him assume a straighter posture and have the lights in his eye sockets grow dull.

"Well," he said, "I guess we don't have to go looking for the others."

Marisol turned back to the newcomers, instantly focusing on the one who'd shouted. "Get a spine!" she yelled, before turning back to skeleton man. The damage had been done; Grim looked more bitter and angry. As much as a skeleton could look angry.

"I was hopin' ta drag ya back," Marisol said. "But it looks like they're all here, so I dunno."

Leo blushed at the woman's comment, his ears turning red in shame. Kit gently nudged him, not wanted to nag.

"Go apologize- I think you hurt his feelings." She mumbled close to his ear.

He walked over to the man, "I'm really sorry... you just startled me, that's all."

He stared at Leo for a good minute, pinpricks of light in his eyes brightening and widening in shock. He was used to people being terrified of him because of his appearance and who he was, but he had never once had someone apologize for it. Was Leo like Marisol too, having come from another world? Or was he just so used to bizarre things in his life that he could be accepting of someone like him? His friend, after all, had wings sprouting out of his back, although that made him looked far more beautiful than Grim's skeletal appearance made him look.

"It's alright," he said. "I'm used to it-"

He immediately fell silent, having felt the beginnings of that strange intrusive warmth that he had felt back during the changes. He gave a startled cry as the magic washed over him and seeped into his bones. He dug his feet into the ground. It only took the briefest of moments, but the change felt like it had last an eternity.

And when it had finished, he was faced with the same suffocating feeling as before and when he went to move, everything felt just as tedious as it had when he had become a zombie. But there wasn't any sudden urges to moan, and he didn't smell of decaying flesh. So what had happened to him?

He held his hands up in front of his face.

And immediately screamed, because it was thing to expect a change and another thing to actually be prepared for it. His hands were covered in flesh. Pale flesh, free of blemishes. He stared at them with a morbid fascination, flipping them over and studying both sides of them. Then he raised his hands and frantically felt his face and his head, already guessing what he had become. When his hands grasped onto a thick mess of hair, a grin began to spread across his face.

"I'm-I'm a human," he managed to get out.

He needed to find somewhere with a mirror. Maybe that room with the clothes? No, that was too far. He needed somewhere close by. The window behind him would have to do. He spun around and stared at the man in his reflection. He still appeared to be tall, though not as tall as before. The tips of thick, raven locks of hair just barely touched his shoulders, and a pair of excited brown eyes peered out from a face that could have only belonged to someone in their early twenties.

"I can't believe it," he whispered. "I'm a human-"

He was cut off by the sound of a very loud scream coming from the first floor, following by a series of slightly less loud screams, large amounts of glass shattering and the lights upstairs flickering violently. Though the window he was standing beside didn't break, a large crack began to race through it as the screaming continued.

"Congrats," Marisol said, clapping her paws together. "Yer normal. So who in the-"

Paws?

Marisol looked down. She was suddenly a bit taller, covered in thin and ragged black fur, and had a protruding snout. Her clothes had stretched to fit, which made about as much sense as the missing piece of her ear and scars littered around.

"-f***," Marisol continued slowly, before realization hit her. She slapped a paw onto her face and spent the next few seconds prying the claws off. "Guess I'm Kendrik now. Ugh." She wiped the blood off as best as she could with the back of her hand.

"Marisol?" Arlais said quietly.

Turning around, Marisol saw Arlais had sunk into the ground, up to about her head. If it wasn't for how pale Arlais looked, and that Marisol couldn't get a grip on her, Marisol would've assumed Arlais had blended into the ground. Not that this was any better.

"I f***in' hate this f***in' g****mn a****** place," Marisol said, watching Arlais float up and down as the crack on the window grew longer.

Leo had been opening his mouth to respond when the skeleton seemed to instantly morph into a man. His heart began to beat erratically, and his skin seemed too tight, but he wasn't sure if it was in response to all the sudden changes or something else entirely.

Regardless of the reason, he felt that he needed a moment to process, and attempted to take a step back. Instead, he felt a strange imbalance, and his feet slipped out from under him. He landed with a smack on the floor. A dull ache pulsed up his legs, but as he got a good look at himself, his pain was pushed to the back of his mind.

He had horse legs- white horse legs. And hooves. It was all Leo could do to swallow another scream.

Kit covered her ears and winced at the sudden piercing shriek that carried upstairs. A familiar feeling washed over her and settled in the pit of her stomach. With dread, she realized that her senses had changed again.

A glance down at herself revealed that she was wearing some sort of thin fur coat. And, she noted with exasperation, nothing else. She moved to feel the fur and saw as she did so that the freckles on her arm had morphed into large, blotchy spots. To top it all off, it seemed that an actual seal head was attached to the hood of her coat- or pelt, rather.

Sevy blinked again and again. His vision had suddenly gone dim and grey. He reached a hand up to feel his eyes and had to blink once more at the condition his arm was in. It was covered in black scales that shimmered green as the light hit them. He could see that, at least.

With a sigh, he let out a hissing sound, and a thin forked tongue flicked his way out from his mouth.

"I guess I'm a snake guy." he managed to say with more hissing.

Sevy looked over at the others, and something caught his attention, first and foremost. It seemed that Leo, once again, had drawn the short straw with his transformation. He studied his friend. It looked like he was some sort of half-horse, half man, with one set of legs and a long tail splayed on the floor. At least he seemed himself from the waist up.

Oh, wait. Make that unicorn, he thought, observing the long horn that protruded from his head.