portals CYOA CH2
Story by Corosi on SoFurry
Imported from SF2 with no description.
Details: Instead of going with transformations right off, take the time to become more familiar with these mechanisms. Question him as to the importance of these alignments and how leaning towards one or the other will affect traits from another alignment. Also question him(her?) as to it's connection to you, WHY exactly it was necessary to erase your own memory until these mechanisms were completed, location of anything that could provide indication what your "previous self" was up to or restore part of your memory, and of course some way to prove this is all in fact genuine.
I shake my head and, deciding to do this as quickly as I can lest my choices be made for me, I ask the bird-person "can you explain how all of this works a bit more? How do these Arcane Generators work? What does my souls alignment have to do with things, and what would happen if I were to lean more towards one or the other? And-" The bird creature interupts me "Perhaps I should answer one question at a time instead of letting you ramble on? That way i'm less likely to forget one, and the answers will be more understandable. I will try to answer them ot the best of my ability with as much speed as I can."
They begin answering the questions, gesturing towards the generators "these are the Arcanin Generators, items the Arcanians used to gather, store, and aid in the use of Arcane energy. Even they didn't know exactly how the energy works or where it comes from, though the theory that most of them, and myself, believe is that the atmosphere of this world contains something which alters the light of stars, or perhaps is created by the reaction of the star-light and the unknown thing in the planets upper atmosphere."
I nod and say "I guess that makes sense, though I guess we'd need a satellite or something to know for sure?" They nod and continue on "I'll begin answering your next question, then. your souls alignment is difficult to understand. You gained the Wolf alignment from birth, your ancestors were aligned to it and it is so deeply ingrained in your blood even the traumas or other effects capable of switching it to something so drastically different couldn't shake it all off. The alignment of the Wolf generally has to do with loyalty, honor, and strategic thinking. From what I understand your souls alignment is unlikely to change except through extreme bouts of trauma or change in your life, but you would otherwise generally go through your life similarly to wolves in their lives. As a child you were curious, potentially dangerously so, and you'd go on to make dangerous risks, and would have likely been a strong "family man" as an adult."
"The change from Wolf to Snake is odd, because they are almost complete opposites from one another. the Snake is associated more with individuality, and cunning used to better ones self, and being extremely defensive. whether you favor one alignment or the other more will affect how powerful your different attributes are, with the Wolf you will become more brave, you'll be able to hear much better and adrenaline rushes would give the ability to make decisions much better whilst under the effects of adrenaline. Whereas if you were to favor your alignment with the Snake would make you extremely fast, and increase your reaction timing even more so. Scent and ability to react to vibrations and heat will be increased exponentially, though sight would lose its place as a primary sense, and Hearing would be replaced by the feelings of vibrations unless you took specific actions to counteract it, such as wolf ears."
"Overall getting into full alignment with one or the other would have both pros and cons. you'd lose color vision and may have some urges with the Wolf alignment, and with the Snake alignment you may become prone to fasting and long periods of inactivity. Whether you decided to go with one alignment or the other is entirely up to you, and i'm sure you could find a way to mix them with enough work and study. Another thing to consider is what sorts of magic you'd like to augment your portals with. Once you have built up a large amount of Arcane energy, more than you can currently safely carry, you'll be able to use it for something else, you may be able to instill someone with great amounts of fear, inspire loyalty in those who fight by your side, or perhaps cause illusions, or perhaps you won't be able to any of that, the books rarely mentioned magic, and when they did they were vague."
"Now, i believe you had more questions?" I nod and, after thinking for a few seconds "How are you and I connected, and why was it necessary to erase my memories?"
The feathered scholar nods and, with what I believe would translate onto a human face as grimace he slowly answers my questions "You saved the part of my world which I lived in. We were suffering from a plague, and our leader was unwilling to alleviate it. When you arrived the priests ushered you to the castle and you heard me arguing the case of helping the peasants, yet the king was more willing to listen to a noble-woman who was of higher blood than to a peasant-born scholar. When the priests ushered you in, the King asked you what you thought of it, and you explained that when your world went through plagues, the leaders who fought against it with science and cleanliness were more effective, lived longer, and were better remembered than those who ignored it or fought it with religion. With the belief that more advanced, more powerful beings from the heavens had supported my case the king relented and began funding study of the plague, and fighting it. I decided to serve you however I could in thanks, and you stated that you did need help understanding the library of information here."
"As for your memories, you suggested they be gotten ridden of, you said that it would be difficult for you to live in your world with the memories of excitement, adventure, and happiness. you also said that, if people were to ask you where you were during the times you weren't on your world you would be hard pressed to come up with a convincing lie, and if you were to tell the truth it would cause many problems for you. You also stated that, if you were never capable of getting the energy necessary to return, you didn't want to have that as a regret when you died. If you haven't changed beyond recognition, I'd guess you want to ask if you can restore those memories now. It took me years to fix the generators, and it took you many more years for you to get the energy necessary to return here, and even with all that I had to burn off your body fat and any sugars in your system just to keep you whole. If your memories are still intact, they are deep within your subconscious, you would need to go to an expert on that if you wish to get your memories returned."
I nod, understanding, if not quite agreeing, with the logic of whats been said "How... how do I know that this is all real? That you're not lying to me about some or all of this, and that it's all real and i'm not just delirious or anything?"
They nod and respond "I'd imagine the pain you've been feeling should cut the idea of htis being a fantasy or dream of some sort off of the list. As for the chance of me lying to you, or bringing you here under false pretenses, well, you're going to have to trust me. You left little evidence of your presence here other than myself and the clearing of dust where you stepped, and perhaps the histories of the worlds you've been to. Although, you looked considerably different when you went to those worlds, so they're unlikely to recognize you."
I let that sink in for a few seconds, thinking about what has been said. "I... okay. I guess that will have to do for now." "do you have any more questions, then?"
Action: Transformation
Details: Assuming everything seems to be on the level with our....servant? Proceed with a transformation, attempted to primarily affect the head, with the goal of attaining expanded sensory abilities of both canines and serpents (heat sense and smell). Any changes in your own thought processes are of course an acceptable (and on some level, desired) side effect. Also attempt change to own genitals within your own alignments, but make no attempt to control or predetermine the outcome in either gender or features.
I take a few more moments to consider what I will do now, shaking my head to show that I've no more questions. I way my options, but ultimately decide to go with something from each of my alignments, and primarily to do with the sense. If i'm going to be going to different planets, it might be necessary to have better or different senses if i'm to stay safe. "could you give me the ears of a wolf, and the heat-pits of a snake?" I make a mental note with myself to remember to consider going for scent augmenting transformations next time, unless something else seems more important.
They nod and put both of their hands against my face "now, this is going to be extremely painful, and the differences in ability, the heightened hearing, the ability to sense heat, they are going to take you awhile to get used to things. I'm not sure how the heat sense will present to you, since it's not something your species has, and it is a primary sense for snakes, it may fight for a while with your vision."
When he said that it'd be painful, I was thinking itching, heat, something similar to the pain of my feet changing. All those expectations get thrown out the window immediately though, because apparently i'm stupid. I feel the flesh and bone and cartilage in my face shift and tear and crack and pull apart, my nose pulls upwards, getting shorter as small holes form just above my mouth and up to my nose, small enough that they probably aren't that visible but definitely big enough to feel and i'm assaulted by the heat of everything around me, blinding me, burning up through my body. Than my ears start tearing apart, skin tearing off and cartilage twisting bad reforming, my ears pulling up and reforming, getting wider and taller,and I can feel an itchiness as the hair, or maybe fur, starts growing to cover my ears. The shock is more subtle, my hearing much much better than it was before, the alien birds and the flapping of wings, the buzzing of insects which were just a slight bit of background noise, or a murmur, are now much more present in my mind, I can tell the direction of the noise making things so much better now, but it's just a bit too much. I make a mental note to see if I can do something with my bits later, but for now I just "I'm going to-" The bird quickly responds "go to a corner or just outside, there are no bins or anything in the accessible parts of this temple.
When I'm done with the unpleasant reaction to my transformations, and have becomes somewhat used to them, at least so that I'm not going to hurl again, I get up and slowly come back inside the temple. "slow down, you don't need to run right back to me, we have time. Don't over exert yourself." I nod to him and slow my pace a little. As I walk to my guide I think over how i'm going to word this. How am I supposed to talk about messing with my genitals when I just started throwing up? I guess I may as well just go with it, and hope he doesn't judge me too much for it.
"uh, I do have another question, actually." He tilts his head to the side for a second but then nods "go ahead." I swallow, and look away from him for a few seconds before I get the nerve to spit it out "uh, would it be possible to, uh... do something with my... bits?" from his blank expression it's pretty obvious he doesn't understand which bits i'm talking about "uh, y'know my uh, stuff." I, as far from subtly as I can, point toward my crotch. He finally gets what i'm saying.
"oh, um... It would be, and it wouldn't cost nearly as much energy, but I wouldn't be able to do it, you'd have to do so yourself. You should be able to shape how the Energy changes your body, and with a lot of practice and study you might even be able to do more complicated things, like creating or changing sense, but for now it is likely that even changing something with as minimal overall effect will be hard for you for now. Now, if you don't mind, i'm going to go into a different room and let you deal with that for yourself." and he does exactly that, grabbing a few stray books and walking out through a door and towards some unknown destination.
before he said anything I couldn't notice it, maybe because I wasn't looking for it, but now I can sorta notice the energy in me, a small, almost unnoticeable, crackle of electricity thrumming through every part of me. although, it seemed like I have to shape what it does to me, so I probably can't just make it do something random, or if I could it's probably not a very healthy idea. I should come up with a plan on what to do before I try doing anything. Knowing what I do now, do I still want to fuddle with my genitals, or should I just leave them alone for now?