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The Ratkin let out an ear-piercing screech almost in unison as flames of raw darkness licked their hides. They stumbled around, attempting to put out the flames and left unaware of the dancer rushing towards them with her dagger. One by one, they fell, each none the wiser to the demise of the other.
There was a particularly large Ratkin that only roared in response, the wound seemingly only awakening its priorities. It roared as it attempted to crush its attacker under a clawed palm, only to be speared through the head by a blade made of the same darkness as the unnatural flames burning its body.
Primrose stumbled to the ground, her breathing ragged as the last of the Ratkin fell. Her exhaustion was her price to pay for wandering blindly into an ambush, away from the party she had carelessly strayed from. She could already feel that she was nearing her limit.
One did not simply acquire a magic as contentious as darkness without realizing the risks of overusing it, even if she herself could not quite recall the encounter that granted her such accursed power. It had helped against odds that no single person could hope to overcome, but every time she sent out a spell, she could almost feel a bit of the residual dark energy seemingly seep back into her fingertips.
This disastrous encounter led to her releasing what felt like an even greater wave of dark energy than what her body should've been able to contain. She could still feel it lingering over her body.
She tried to steady her breathing. The battle was finally over. All she could do now was to wait for her strength to return. But as seconds turned to minutes, she did feel that relief coming. In fact, with every passing second, it felt as though her body was growing progressively rigid. Her very nerves were beginning to burn, but not in a way that came from the usual exertion. It was more like a force was beginning to prod at them, seizing her very structure and testing their limits.
Something was wrong. This wasn't fatigue she was feeling, she realized. She grew pale as sweat began to mat her body. She couldn't stop herself from shaking. She looked down at her hands where the shadowy magic vanished into. She realized it had failed to disappear. In fact, it was spreading upward.
She began to hyperventilate as she tried scrubbing the growing darkness off of her arms, only for it work its way deep into her skin, tinting it a sickly light purple until it faded into her veins. Her skin color reverted back to its usual paleness, but she could still feel it worming into her body, seeping into every bone and muscle before converging to her heart.
Her eyes widened as she flashed back to all those times the dark magic retreated into her body. Now, she could feel exactly where all that magic had gone, and how past her limit she had truly gone. There was only so much magic she could hold inside her body before it inevitably took hold.
Then she felt the first bone crack.
Primrose let out a cry of agony into the air as the flames erupted inside her, seizing every part of her vulnerable form. Her gums ached as her teeth sharpened, slowly chiseling their shape to fit a predator. Burning blood rushed to her ears as they twitched outwards, the lobes growing progressively pointier with every movement. Amidst the raking pain, she could feel the bones in her hands beginning to change shape, forcing them into convulsions.
She forced herself to look down at them, her eyes widening as she watch her delicate nails darken and thicken, growing out and curving into a set of cruel claws. Her fingers one by one dislocated, curling back into her palms as they grew thicker. Her thumbs shrank back to practically nothing as they pulled up to her wrists. The undersides of her now stubby digits and palms were growing progressively rougher. At the same time, patches of brown fur the same shade as the hair that adorned her head burst from the back of her hands and gradually worked up her arms, the disheveled tufts almost swaying like wildfire. In seconds, in the place of hands were a set of canine paws.
Her body suddenly shuddered with a series of sickening crackles, forcing her to hunch forward. The pain of her shifting structure mixed with the horrifying foreign sensations of her shoulders and spine slithering just beneath the surface of her skin. And every push against her skin brought with it an aggravating itch, as layers of fur were forced up to the surface. The feeling of fur pushing against her top was unbearable, not helped by how progressively tight her top was feeling as her back muscles began to thicken with a series of ripples.
A particularly loud crack sounded from a sudden convulsion in her hips, forcing her completely onto the ground, giving purpose to her newly-formed front paws as they caught her upper body. She cried out at her spine was pulled up into an arch, sharp jolts punctuating it as the segments began to multiply, subtly but disturbingly elongating her torso. But even as her torso ceased to elongate, her spine continued to lengthen until it was pressing tightly against her tailbone. Muscle and skin seemed to tighten until it felt like they were on the verge of tearing. Instead, the skin continued to stretch, more muscle and nerves wrapping around as a furry bump slowly pushed out above her rear, steadily growing longer as the fur began to thicken along its midsection. Then she felt the growing appendage begin to twitch and wag. It was a part of her.
As her tail reached its full length, it stiffened as an acute burning sensation smothered her limbs. Her arms shook violently as her joints violently twisted in and out of place, bones stretching to fit their new purpose as front legs while her elbows seemed to travel closer to her shoulders. Abruptly and painfully, said shoulders crunched together, though that did practically nothing to alleviate the now unbearable tightness of her top, the fabric now strained to its limits. Her hips at the same time were also now experiencing a similarly aggravating tightness, not helped by the severe itch of her skirt's fabric brushing against the fur covering her legs.
Then a sudden explosion of oxygen burst in her chest as her lungs rapidly expanded, pushing out her ribcage in the process and reducing her straining top to mere scraps. Air blew out from her nostrils as they flared out, her previously dainty, pointed nose flattening and darkening. Muscles rolled across her chest, completely absorbing her buxom in the process before moving downward to diminish her other traditionally feminine curves. Her waist rounded, while her wide hips crunched together, all changes contributing to a singular lupine body. The strap of her skirt snapped apart in an instant, ornate belts and accessories clattering to the floor as the muscles shifted around her thighs, or rather flanks as they were rapidly morphing into.
The muscles bubbled down her legs, cracking and remolding the bones beneath in the process. Knees shot up closer to her lower torso while her ankles slinked further up her legs, stretching her feet out in the process. Her sandals and ankle bracelets snapped apart at the sudden changes just as her toes snapped forward. Another ripple based through, causing most of her toes to swell rapidly, nails shooting out into curved claws, while her two largest ones succumbed to the same fate as her thumbs, shrinking back further up her feet as residual claws.
Something deep, throaty and not quite human rumbled out of her throat through her clenched lips as she shook her body, thick tangled fur swaying in tandem. Nothing was left of her human form, replaced instead by one that closely resembled a lupine quadruped. Her still-human head looked uncannily out of place attached to the beastly body, though the burning pain still coursing through her was a clear indication that her transformation still had a ways to go before it concluded.
Primrose growled much more sharply as the fur crept up her neck. Her eyes clenched shut as she bared her fangs, raising her head up as her neck stretched and thickened slightly, her necklace repurposing itself into an ornate collar. There was a dull clatter as her large earrings detached from her ears and fell to the earthy floor, unable to adjust to her lobes, which had begun to shift once more as tufts of fur sprouted forth. They twitched violently as they grew larger and more triangular, pulling up to the top of their head where they stood erect from a split second before suddenly folding down as her body braced for the remainder of her transformation. Her large ponytail came loose as its ornate brand snapped apart, the large plume of hair intertwining with the fur covering her body, until it more resembled a wild mane.
As the fur crawled up her cheeks, her lips began to darken. They peeled back further as a splitting pain worse than any migraine blazed across her skull. A protracted creaking noise sounded from her clenched jaws before the air was suddenly pierced by a loud cacophony of cracks. She roared as her nose and mouth elongating, sharp teeth multiplying rapidly to fill the space, darkened nose fully transitioning to a wet and leathery black as it bulged out into round somewhat triangular shape. The last of the bare skin on the bridge of her nose prickled as the fur claimed it.
With that the pain and disturbing noises fully subsided. The creature that was once Primrose collapsed to the floor panting. Slowly, all complex thoughts faded. When she woke up, she'd no longer be a woman on a quest, let alone human in any capacity.
===
Olberic pushed his way through another row of shrubs, cursing himself for the situation the party had just wandered into. All of them had underestimated the deceptive nature of the fauna in the area, how they used their dense surroundings to attempt to separate their prey. It was only after recovering from a particularly nasty ambush that the traveling companions realized that a member of theirs had gone missing.
As the first companion to join him on his own personal quest, Olberic felt a particular attachment to Primrose. He wasn't in much of a state to mount a search party, yet he felt compelled to anyways. At the very least, he could afford to investigate a few dozen more meters further out.
He had been attracted to a strange howl in the distance, one that sounded strangely...feminine. For some inexplicable reason, his intuition told him to find the uncanny howl's source. However, as he approached the approximate source, the deadly still air had suddenly given way to a scattering of sharp growls and tearing noises. As he inched closer, his hand gripped the hilt of his blade ever tighter.
Then he saw the wolf. It had just clamped an attacking Ratkin in its jaws, its fangs digging deep into its jugular before it flung it further away. Torn corpses lay strewn about as the wolf's chest heaved from exhaustion.
Olberic's grip on the hilt began to lessen as he inspected the creature more carefully. Its limbs were slender, muscles smoother and curved in a way that gave its form an air of grace. And rather feminine in build. Curled fur slightly matted by blood covered her entire body, the fur on her tail in particular flaring out in a way that matched the thick and wild mane-like tufts running down her neck and back.
However, what alerted him the most was the ornate golden necklace wrapped around her neck like a collar, as well as the bracelets adorning its limbs. There was also the way she looked up at him. It had an element of fear to it, but something seemed to keep her from taking a hostile stance against, as though there was something in the back of her mind that recognized him.
"Primrose?" Olberic muttered in shock.
He slowly approached the wolf. Her ears flattened back, yet she remained in place. He dropped to a knee, gently extending a hand out to her muzzle. As his hand slid across her fur, she closed her eyes, a calm seemingly washing over her.
"What's happened to you?" Olberic asked. He did not know if his companion still remained in the wolf's mind, but it was a small victory having finally found her again.