Pillars

You walk deeper into the room, taking pictures as you go. The walls are covered in strange arcane symbols, similar to the ones on the leprechaun's box. You know you're dealing with real magic here. Looking down, you realise that the floor is covered in vaguely circular symbols. On the outer circle, there are seven pillars, equally spaced around the room. Each bears a different symbol, and they all glow with a dull luminance. Those must be what are lighting the room. You inspect the closest one, which bears the image of some sort of cat. As you get closer, it begins to glow brighter, and the air begins to crackle around you. You attempt to take a picture, but the camera begins to smoke and melt in your hands. You drop it in shock, and it melts into the ground. Good thing you kept a back-up camera. You get closer to the pillar, and the light gets brighter until you can barely see. You stretch your hand out in front of you, and place your hand on the pillar. A spasm of pain shoots through your body, and with a loud ZAP, you are thrown clear across the room.

Dazed, you look around the room, seeing two of everything. Which is a surprise, since you couldn't see anything a few minutes ago. The room seems to be lit with sunlight, and you can see everything as clear as day. Strange. You pull out your back-up camera, and take a picture of the room. When the picture appears on the screen, though, everything is dark, like before. You compare the picture and the things you can see with your eyes. There must be something wrong with the camera; you shake it around a bit and take another picture. Nope - same result.

You go back to the cat pillar. It doesn't glow anymore, and the electric feeling in the air is gone. You brace yourself, then place your hand on the pillar again. Nothing happens. You take a look at your palm, and discover a strange circular pattern, like a tattoo. Then you realise it's the same design as the one on the floor. You turn on the portable light in your camera (brand new technology#, and take a picture of your hand, then another of the floor. Your fur bristles as a cold wind suddenly blows through the chamber, and you flick your tail in annoyance.

Wait.

Fur? Tail? You check yourself over. You are covered in a bristly orange fur with black stripes. Something catches your attention out of the corner of your eye, and you whip around. It's gone. Then it appears again, and you start spinning around before you realise that you're chasing your tail. You place your hands on your head, feeling a short muzzle, whiskers, and pointed ears. You're a cat. Well, not exactly - you have the fur, tail and head of a cat, but the rest of you is still pretty much human. You take the camera and snap a self-portrait. The picture appears, and instead of your face, the picture of a cat appears.

How did this happen? You pace back and forth, thinking of the different possibilities. Was it the leprechaun? Some sort of revenge for throwing him in that well? No - this isn't something the leprechaun'd turn you into. If this was the leprechaun's work, you'd probably be fat. Or a girl. Or both. You look back at the pillar, and your mind connects the dots -

A pillar bearing the image of a cat. The fact that you could see in the dark after touching said pillar. The fact that you are now some sort of were-cat.

Looks like the pillar's responsible for your transformation. #Wow, it took you that long.) Out of curiosity, you inspect the other pillars. As you expected, each bears the image of a different animal - there's a fox, a wolf, a bird, a fish, a human, and some creature that you can't identify. You go to the human pillar, and place your hand on its surface. It throws you across the room, like the cat one did, but this time you hit your head on the ground and lose consciousness.

Written by Traveller

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