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Ponky Kong [@ponky-kong] • 1s
Hey guys! Today's stream might be about a half hour late? Change4Change is acting up and I can't get it to work. Worst case scenario, we just have a regular stream instead of a special one!
🗨️     🔁     ❤️     📊     🔖     ↪️


   Parker stared at their phone, rereading the post they put on Bitter before putting their phone back into sleep mode. Setting it aside on their desk they look back up to stare at the screen of their computer. They sighed at the sight of the error prompt on the screen, a mixture of disappointment and frustration lacing the exhalation of air.


[CHANGE4CHANGE_ALPHA.EXE]
A severe anomaly has occurred that is preventing the Change4Change application from running properly. Please resolve this deviation before attempting to use the application again.
[OK]                                     [RETRY]


   This had been the same error that the application had been displaying for the past hour and a half. One that Parker could not seem to solve no matter what they tried. The extremely experimental nature of Change4Change meant that any checks for a solution online resulted in absolutely nothing showing up.  They weren't in contact with any other alpha testers for the software so asking to see if they had a similar issue was out of the question. Contacting the developers had always been a pretty rigorous challenge as well considering how many days it'd take to get a response sometimes.


   “Ugh, what is your problem?” Parker frustratedly asked, eyes narrowing as they continued staring at the screen.


   They knew it wouldn't really be too big of a loss to just not do their usual Tuesday gimmick stream. Especially since more often than not it left them with mild physical exhaustion that lasted into the next day sometimes, likely due to the fact that the human body isn't really equipped for that kind of transformative scenario. Perhaps this was just the universe’s way of telling them they should just take a little break from the TF Tuesday streams for a while. Although they really don't want to disappoint anyone who looked forward to it.


   They sat back in his chair, conflicted. It's not like there was anything they could do about this without contacting C4C support, and their viewers were usually understanding. Plus, again, they could just do a normal stream…


   Parker’s thoughts were then momentarily interrupted by the slight sound of electric crackling. “Hm?” a brow raised as they turned their chair around to inspect the area behind them. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary however. “...hopefully that’s just coming from outside,” they muttered as they turned the chair back around.


   The crackling still seemed to persist though. A low, repetitive noise that they had hoped wasn't a sign of something more concerning. So they just tuned it out to continue staring at the computer screen in a fruitless endeavor to solve their problem.


   “This really isn't getting me anywhere…” the streamer remarked. The clock on their computer displayed an ominous feeling 6:27 now. “Guess I'll just send an e-mail to them about this and see if they can explain this to me…”


   They proceeded to pick up their phone, turn it on, and open the Gmail application. All the while the air continued to crack and pop, the sound getting louder and more intense. And unfortunately for Parker they could only write down the opening ‘Hello’ of the email before whatever was going on suddenly took out the power of their apartment. Their computer screen blanked out in an instant, and the various RGB lighting that was strung about their streaming room had all gone out.


   Parker continued to stare at their phone for a few seconds though, their brain took a few seconds to process the sudden blackout. “...alright, so that wasn't nothing. Air’s still crackling too it seems,” they commented, finally lifting up their head. Although as they diverted their gaze away from the object in their hand they noticed something in the darkened reflection of their computer screen.


   There was an odd, white-colored brightness that was coming from behind them that was obscured by their chair. The oddness had come from the fact that the room they currently handled their streaming in didn't have any source of external lighting. It couldn't even be light spilling from the room’s entrance since that was positioned to the side of the place and not directly behind him.


   “What the…?”


   Parker turned their chair around again. A part of them was hoping for absolutely nothing to be behind them again, and a separate part was worried something had set ablaze. But instead, once their gaze caught onto what had been the source of the light, their eyes widened in disbelief.


   “Is that a… floating d20??”


   The baffled statement sounded insane the moment they heard it said aloud. It was true, though. Right in the middle of the room and just a few feet away from where they were sitting was a floating, glowing, spectral icosahedron. The notion of it being a d20 came from the faint numbers Parker could just barely make out from where he was positioned.


   That wasn't enough for them though. They needed to investigate this thing! So they stood up from their seat and walked over towards the mysterious object. However, sounds of the cracking air seemed to intensify the closer they got to it, and they were beginning to see the smallest of sparks regularly escaping from the surface of the white polyhedron before dispelling in mid-air. It was already adding a level of worry to their curiosity as they could already tell this was yet another thing they felt like they wouldn't be able to solve.


   The icosahedron didn't seem to react to their presence though. Even with them standing less than a foot away all it seemed to do was float, and rotate to show the multiple triangular faces it had. And being closer seemed to prove to Parker that it did indeed have numbering on it.


   “So what even… are you?” Parker inquired. Spontaneously appearing spectral die wasn't really in their repertoire of experiences so they weren't really sure how to handle this. That coupled with the sounds it made and the strange, electric buzz it gave off didn't really comfort them all that much either. It was another unknown in a day full of unknowns.


   “Wait…”


   A day full of unknowns. They thought back to the error message that Change4Change was displaying to them. “Could this be the severe anomaly it was talking about?”


   It was the only potential lead Parker seemed to have right now. Even then what were they supposed to do about it? Did the developers have some kind of anomaly clearance system that they don't know about? Ugh, that sounds absurd even for them. Then again this is all very absurd!


   “Perhaps I should just-” they started lifting the hand with their phone in it, “-take a picture for the email-”


   Unfortunately however, in Parker’s confused curiosity it would seem they had underestimated just how close they were to the spectral polyhedron. This meant that in the process of lifting up their phone they accidentally bumped it into the bottom of the object. The action caused a sudden jolt of electricity to pierce Parker’s skin, the shock momentarily paralyzing their hand and forcing them to drop their phone.


   “AGH, jeez!” they hissed, retracting their arm and rubbing their hand with the other. Luckily the paralysis would rapidly diminish, but it would seem the die would not take this as a simple accident.


   The icosahedron began to spin. It was slow at first, but with the passing of a few seconds it would only get faster and faster. The air continued to crack as bolts of electricity continuously emerged from the rapid whirling and twirling of the nigh-otherworldly object. Parker could only take a few steps back as the sounds and sights ramped up in intensity. Louder, brighter, faster, and then… And then it all comes to a halt as the die suddenly stops to display a single number.


   A natural 20 presented itself to the streamer, the numeral glowing in a bright blue hue.


   “...yay?” Parker awkwardly smiled. They weren't really sure what this meant but… “W-wait, it’s getting really bright, actually!”


   Parker could only shield their eyes as the d20 practically exploded into a flash bang. Electric snaps and pops pierced the once still air as the entire room was consumed into a blinding light. Then, in just a few seconds, it would all go silent. The light would slowly die down and the polyhedron would be gone.


   Parker would be gone as well. All that would remain was an empty streaming quarters, and a phone with an unwritten email…


                                        

---

   Being consumed by light caused Parker to feel the most intense physical pressure that could possibly be felt by a human being. It was like their body was being squeezed by multiple tons of force that would normally liquify someone. But instead it just kept squeezing and squeezing them, their blindness making them unable to tell just why they were experiencing all of this. What was even worse was it felt like something was being blown out from behind them the longer this pressure remained. As if something, multiple somethings were growing and being pushed out at an increasingly rapid velocity.


   Was this how it felt to experience a nuclear explosion at point blank range? Because that was the only way Parker could think of to describe this feeling. Being exploded. Except it wasn't painful, it was just uncomfortable. So, so uncomfortable.


   But then after a few seconds that in truth felt like hours the light finally began to die down, the pressure along with it. Slowly Parker was given the gift of sight again. Although as they steadily blinked away the blindness they were met with several strange things.


   The first had been the location they were now in. It was no longer their blacked out streaming room. Instead it looked to be some kind of massive pocket dimension. A sky that slowly rotated, a noticeable polyhedral appearance in that very sky judging by the appearance of multiple triangular faces. The ground had also seemed to be some flat blue and white marbled glass that reflected the entire dimension off of it. The only positive was that it was comfortably bright enough to see everything.


   The second of those strange things was an extremely small spectral die that was now floating around Parker's form. It wasn't unlike the one that brought them here, except for some reason every face on this die only displayed a single number: a bright green colored 3.


   Lastly was perhaps the most shocking sight of all though. Parker wasn't alone in this pocket dimension. There were multiple other people here. Eighteen to be exact from their count. All in various states of disarray and confusion. Some lying on the floor, some standing around, and every single one of them seeming to have a tiny d20 floating around them somewhere. That wasn't the most unusual part though.


   The most unusual part was that each of those eighteen people was an exact copy of Parker.


   “What. The. Hell?”


   Eighteen androgynous humans with long brown hair tied up in man buns. Eighteen people all wearing the exact same denim jacket, blue and white undershirt, and sporting a pride flag bandana on their arm. Eighteen genderfluid persons with the exact same face as Parker’s own.


   It was a whole parking lot of confused Parkers.


   Strangely however, it seemed the Parkers weren't interacting with each other. At least not in the way that would confirm each one could communicate with each other. As each one started to get their bearings and walk around it would seem as though everyone could see each other, but not hear each other. It was… mildly eerie of Parker themself had to admit.


   Especially when they were forced to face one version of themselves that walked up to them. One whose associated spectral die displayed a cyan number 5. Parker was basically forced to watch as their clone wordlessly mouthed something that they couldn't understand.


   “I'm sorry but I don't think I can… hear you,” Parker stated. The other one looked at them in confusion for a few seconds before presumably deciding it to be futile and walking off to see if they could get a Parker who could actually hear them. Although judging by the convention of clones behind them that was proving futile for the entirety of the group.


   So instead Parker decided to walk into the group of clones to investigate things further. Unfortunately it was already becoming readily apparent that, other than the scenario itself, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Every single replica of them looked to be like exact copies of themselves. No differences in hair style, coloration, skin tone, body type, nothing.


   “Kind of wish we could actually hear each other,” Parker remarked as they casually made eye contact with another passing version of themselves. They also catch a glimpse of the spectral die that orbited that copy.


   The only noticeable distinction between any of them was the number on the die that seemed to orbit around each and every clone. From the ones Parker managed to pick out there included a brown 1, dark green 2, reddish-pink 7, deep purple 9, pastel green 12, black 15, grayish-green 19. Then there was their own aforementioned light green 3.


   “Identification, perhaps…?” Parker reasoned. But why would they all need to be identified? What purpose would doing such a thing serve? And what did the differentiation in number coloration mean? “What does any of this mean…?”


   Eventually Parker found themselves at the other side of the crowd. Inevitably they hadn't inspected each and every person. Doing so would likely take a while, and with their inability to speak with each other it would make things infuriating more than anything. It did seem as though the density of the crowd of other Parkers was lessening though, so if they had wanted to look into things themselves they might be able to later.


   “What'll doing so even get me though. Any potential answer I could find was lost in that blast, I feel…”


   Parker placed a hand under their chin in thought, their gaze eyeing the lot of other Parkers roaming around the demi-plane they were in. It was now that they were finally realizing just how eerily silent it was. The only noise that seemed to ever break the stillness of the air was that akin to the noise of glass cracking. But hey, it was silent enough to hear themselves think at least.


   It also meant their attention was drawn away from themselves for a bit. Their gaze was not focused on what might have started going on with themselves. Or perhaps a more accurate phrase would be what was definitely beginning to go on with themselves. And it all started within their hands…


   The very first sign something was off was the discoloration in the skin tone on the fingers of both of their hands. The typical pale pigmentation that they had sported was being shifted, it's hue altering to a light green. This shift in coloration steadily seeped its way down their fingers before quickly enveloping their hands. By the time it reached the lower ends of each extremity it had also seemed to start to etch in splotches of black on the back portions of their hands. This was something that became increasingly apparent as more and more green continued to settle into their flesh. Initially indiscernible lines of ink embedded within the recolored skin, although it seemed to gain a level of coherency the more the changes progressed.


   It also seemed to have no intention in stopping at Parker's hands either. The strange swath of changes migrated downwards, moving beyond the wrists and layering onto their forearms. Alterations at a seemingly genetic level overtook the limbs and continuously granted them this verdant skin tone. All the while the aforementioned ink continued the spiral around their forearms now. Strange scribblings of words and drawings that, at first, had no true shape or form. Letters and shapes that were nigh amorphous and ineligible to the human eye. But as the ink, the tattoos, gained further prominence on their arms it seemed as though the confusing appearance was dispelling.


   Soon things would reach their upper arms, and by this point the meaning of their tattoos gained a level of cipherability. Letters became words and those words became sentences. Questions and statements and phrases embedded within their skin, all of which seemed to have now correlation to each other. And yet there were so many arrows and lines connecting the series of seemingly unconnected clauses. All the while strange shapes were given actual form; circles and diamonds and rectangular rings tangibly forming on both ends of their arms. By the time things layered on their shoulders it seemed as though the confusing jumbles of ink had taken on the appearance of what could only be described as a conspiracy board. A conspiracy board that was probably perpetually stuck on their skin now.


   While Parker was beginning to undergo the beginnings of their transformation it had also seemed the cavalcade of their clones were starting to undergo something similar. And unlike Parker with themselves, they could witness the many strings of the changes with the collective of copies. The sight of which already giving them a single reaction: “What the hell…?”


   It was hard to really summarize everything that was happening. With how many versions of themselves that existed it had initially started as what seemed like a sea of themselves adopting the most minute of changes. Everyone was getting slightly different body types, or hair styles, or even skin tones. However as time went on (and their own transformation progressed beyond just their hands) these differences within each other were becoming more and more tangible.


   For example, the Parker whose die was a brown number 1 was getting noticeably hairier. The back of their hands getting increasingly fuzzier, thickening stubble lining their jawline, even the beginnings of fluff layering both the outsides and insides of their ears. Meanwhile the one with a dark green 2 seemed to be a bit taller and heftier in appearance, the hem of their shirt steadily rising to reveal a greenish belly. One with a blue 6 was getting shorter while their hair shifted to a lighter shade of brown while concurrently getting shorter and curlier. Then there was the one with the purple 9 whose skin tone was steadily getting darker while they had simultaneously begun aging almost. And all of this wasn't even scratching the surface of the series of transformations affecting each and every one of them.


   “Oh my God,” Parker whispered underneath a breath. This was when they also began to notice something different about themselves. The strange sensation that each of their copies seemed just an inch or two hair. “W-wait…”


   That was when they finally looked down. The floor was definitely closer than it was before! And that wasn't the only thing either as they were finally given a look at their hands. “M-me too!? What's going on-”


   “I think we're all asking that,” a voice speaks from behind them.


   “WHAT THE-” Parker panickedly turned around, startled by the sudden sound of another human being. “Wait, y-you’re-”


   The one from earlier, the Parker whose die showcased a cyan number 5. They still seemed to be at the startings of their own transformation though. Hands noticeably layered with blue scales and darker blue claws, their chin and edges of their face seeming to gain a rough spikiness as scales formed in those areas. They even looked to be a bit more muscular as well!


   “How am I able to hear you…?” Parker asked their scalier self.


   “Whatever is layering this pocket dimension seems to be some kind of magic silencing,” the other explained. “All it took was a simple Dispel Magic on both myself and you. Although I'm… not quite sure how I knew any of that.”


   The shorter Parker raised a brow. “Dispel Magic? Are you implying-”


   Their copy shrugged. “Maybe? I’m still not really… sure.”


   Parker then broke eye contact. “Fascinating…”


   They had also realized they now had to start looking up to properly look into their other selves’ eyes. This definitely reaffirmed their steady loss in height. If they had to hazard a guess they would assume they lost about half a ruler in height by now, and their body was showing no signs of slowing down. It didn't help that their clothing was getting increasingly baggy on their form. And they could swear they felt something shift in their torso.


   In truth, while they didn't have the tools to fully discern it, Parker had been getting a little bit skinnier. By default they already didn't possess the most muscle mass or fat, but they still had a bit of it as a result of their age. Much of that was already getting lost though. Arms getting more awkward and gangly. Their torso squeezing thinner as what little fat they had melted away. All the while they were constantly bombarded with this sensation of squeezing in their skeletal system that had likely been what was causing their change in stature. It had also seemed the discoloration in their tone was rapidly consuming the rest of their body, moving across their chest and down their abdomen with ease. This was becoming a bit more tangible as splotches of green started to rise up their neck.


   “So, any particular reason you decided to come to me in particular?” Parker asked, looking back up at their other self. The scales enveloping the other Parker had only grown further in prominence, and even they themselves knew this other self was seemingly getting taller. Their hair also seemed to be thinning out a bit, if not starting to fall out as horns started to materialize atop their cranium.


   “You seemed to be the one investigating the situation the most,” the now-more draconic Parker responded. “Although I have a feeling you haven't gotten any leads as to what's going on.”


   “Not really,” Parker said. They began to turn around and eye the crowd again. “There just seems to be too much going on to really discern what is happening exactly.”


   The lot of Parkers had seemed to be clueing into their transformations at this point. There hadn't been any overt panicking as Parker’s nature as a transformation-heavy streamer made such things pretty unsurprising. If anything there were a lot of people who were just investigating their bodies, or helping each other out despite the barrier blocking their communication.


   The Parker that had started growing fur earlier seemed to have taken an extremely furry visage while their face seemed to be in the process of pushing out into a more canine muzzle. Their hair was shortening to mix into the fur more, which had resulted in their manbun splitting open and assimilating itself into the fuzz. It was honestly quite impressive just how much of a fluffy mane that one had developed! And all the while they seemed to be interacting with another transformee, the two seemingly having some kind of non-verbal communication with each other.


   The other fellow seemed to be one that Parker hadn't taken note of the number of earlier. A version of themselves denoted with a number 4 tinged in gray. Their skin had been in the process of developing a deep green tinge while their body was getting relatively taller than it had been prior. Their hair was getting slightly shorter and attained a brownish-green tone, coupled with a series of white streaks forming across it. They had also seemed to be developing pointed ears and tusks.


   Parker’s gaze continued to investigate the group of people yet again. Their beefier self from earlier had become noticeably larger, fatter, and taller as well. Their hair had drastically shortened, and their face began restructuring to accommodate a larger nose and tusk filled mouth. They had also seemed to be in the process of aiding another Parker with standing upright. This other one, denoted by that reddish-pink 7 from earlier, had also taken on a more orcish appearance. They had become fatter and taller with a tusked mouth and a more aggressive looking visage. Although they also looked relatively aged, with a more weathered face and grayer hair. And judging by how their seemingly rounded chest strained against their shirt now it seemed they were having an entirely different gender be reinforced in them entirely. They didn't appear to be protesting though, the most of their troubles seeming to be just leaning up against the other Parker.


   It actually was at this point that Parker was noticing just how many people were becoming green in the skin. One guy with a silver 11 on their die had taken on the darkest of green skin tones while they were in the process of swelling up with a mixture of fat and muscle. A significant chunk of hair on their scalp had sloughed away, and what hair did remain was their man bun that managed to reposition itself to the back of their head. All while they were growing a thick beard across their jawline and a mustache over their lip. They also had the longest, pointiest of tusks among the orc transformee population.


   There was one guy with a grayish-green 19 on their die, probably the highest Parker had seen out of anyone. They were rapidly getting shorter and greener. Developing longer ears and pointier teeth that Parker had noticed were manifesting braces. They had also seemed to be the first person that was developing shifts in their clothing as their denim jacket seemed to be hardening to leather while also gaining a fuzzier interior that was noticeable on its collar. Some kind of bomber jacket from the looks of it.


   Meanwhile the one they noticed had a pastel green-toned 12 was also in the process of getting shorter. Ears fanning out to become larger and pointed while their hair restyled itself into a shorter, stylish, and straight appearance that was parted at the side. They also seemed to have a thin, parted pencil mustache. Their clothes were shifting as well, undershirt bleaching to a clean white while splitting down the middle and materializing buttons on it. It had even grown a collar that went around their neck, and their pride bandana slipped away from their arm and slithered beneath the collar to become some kind of tie that was solid orange in collar. It also seemed as though they were relatively further from the group, taking on a similar investigative role as Parker had done when this had all started.


   “Is it me or is everyone here looking… familiar?” Parker asked, their sentence breaking towards the end as they noticed just how different their voice was sounding. Its tone seemed to have been pitched slightly differently. Like it had attained a level of awkward confidence that it did not have prior.


   They looked up to their scalier self, awaiting a response. Although they were oddly surprised with how much hair their clone had lost in the past minute. They had turned around in time to watch as the manbun of their now-draconic clone just straight up dropped from their scalp and onto the ground. All the while a series of fins seemed to form across and around the top and sides of their head. They had also seemed to have begun taking on a more draconic muzzle, alongside thinner eyes.


   “Hm, you do have a point there,” the partial-dragonborn Parker responded. Their voice had a slightly deep and elegant air to it now. “Although this familiarity is oddly… eerie to me.”


   The dragonborn’s gaze momentarily flicked to a partially transformed Parker in the crowd. One recognizable by a grayish-red 16. Growing a thick and stony gray beard while their bun repositioned itself to the lower back of their head and lengthened into a ponytail. They seemed relatively taller, muscular. Something about the sight of them made something in this Parker’s chest ache in pain.


   “W-wait,” the short, green Parker said as a realization seemed to hit them. “I think I've got it!”


   A hand clasped the side of their head as they let out an awkward, slightly vocally cracked laugh. “How didn't I realize this sooner…”


   Their gaze flicked back down to the ground. So much closer now. They had to start holding their pants up because of how much thinner their waist had gotten now. And they could tell that their legs had thinned out a little bit as well to match the length, gangliness of the rest of their body. Their shoes had felt a bit more airy thanks to the fact their feet had become smaller to match the rest of their body. What would the ruler loss count be for them now? A full one? A ruler and a half? They sure as hell were shorter than five feet now!


   “...so are you going to say it?”


   Parker’s eyes widened. “Right! Sorry, got distracted- but uh, Fantasy High! It seems we're all becoming Fantasy High characters!”


   The dragonborn raised a brow. “Wait-” they then looked down at their hands, reevaluating their changes with this new revelation. “...Oisin, huh?”


   “I guess that would explain your magical prowess?” Parker remarked before slipping their hand down to rub their cheek. “Augh, my teeth are starting to ache…”


   Within their mouth their teeth were in the process of sharpening. Likely a sign the final portions of their own transformation were setting in as the changes seemed to properly encapsulate their head. Head pressuring as their skull reshaped itself, seemingly thinning out a bit as their jawline reshaped and became a little more rectangular. The same flush of green that enveloped their entire body was reaching their face, a series of freckles speckling their cheeks as verdancy enveloped their visage. Their eyes were even changing color as a bright yellow overtook the once white sclera, and their pupils became slitted.


   “I can't be the only one with magical abilities though,” the semi-dragonborn remarked. By this point they could feel a bit of pressure building up at the base of their spine, which would end up relieving itself rather quickly as a tail broke free from the back of their pants.


   The shorter Parker’s eyes remained fixed to the crowd. And something happening with one of their transforming copies had caught their interest. “You might be right about that…”


   Parker hadn't kept their focus on the one labeled with a 9, but now that they had been brought back to them it seemed that out of everyone here that specific copy was extremely far in their transformation. Their pale skin had been given a hefty amount of melanin that shifted it down to a dark brown tone. White hair sprouted across their face to distend into a beard that had gotten extremely long, meanwhile the rest of their hair had fallen off their head to leave them bald. They had the appearance of a significantly aged older man that deeply contrasted with their former age. Meanwhile their clothing seemed to mostly have shifted, denim jacket and jeans taking on a purple tone and softer material while concurrently morphing into a more formal suit.


   While the collective of clones were becoming easier to tell who's who, this one was perhaps the one that stuck out the most. That one in particular had become Arthur Aguefort. And they seemed to have no intention of just standing around in the utter silence they were still in.


   Parker watched as the newly-minted wizard took a look around the crowd for a few seconds. Then, with what they could only describe as a manic grin, his eyes started to glow a bright white as he started saying something. A verbal component of a spell judging by the sigil that started to expand on the ground from below him. A sigil that had grown rapidly to envelop the entire floor on the demi-plane.


   The sigil was composed of multiple circles nested within it, each one spinning independently of each other. These circles spun faster and faster as the spell continued for the next few seconds. Then, in one sudden burst, a blast of light came out from the outlines of each circle. And shortly after this blast the silencing veil that cloaked the pocket dimension seemed to be broken as the multiple voices of the other 17 Parkers could finally be heard.


   “AHHAHAH, there you all go!” the wizardly Parker (or would calling them Aguefort be more accurate?) yelled out in sheer joy. “Now you can all hear each other!”


   There was a chorus of thanks from a good few of the mostly transformed Parkers. Many of whom had very noticeable vocal shifts that Parker themself could properly pinpoint.


   “Ugh, jeez, this is going to make my ears ache actually-” Parker remarked. Then again their ears already did kind of ache as the two pulled out to be longer and more pointed. They had noticeably stuck out both sides of his head, and it seemed one ear had attained a notch in its lobe.


   “Someone seems pretty far in their transformation,” the blue dragonborn commented as they began pulling off their shoes to allow their thicker, more draconic feet room to properly shift and morph. Even if they had already looked drastically more dragon-like than they had human now, now sporting a digitigrade stance with four toes each with thick claws.


   “O-oh, yeah,” Parker had gotten so enraptured in watching the crowd that they hadn't gotten a good look at themself. They had brought forward their unoccupied hand to give it a good look, and let their jacket sleeve slip down the arm to reveal the layering of tattoos that had formed on it. “Huh… Riz?”


   “You're just now noticing that?” draconic Parker teased.


   The mostly transformed goblin nervously laughed in response. “I-I mean, I was pretty focused on everyone else!”


   Parker went back to rubbing their own cheek. Feeling out the strangely different, slightly straighter structure of their face. They couldn't exactly see it but they knew a lot more had changed beyond that. Their nose getting a bit thicker and rounder, their eyebrows darkening in color while thinning out a little. They could at least feel a few of their now sharper teeth poking out from their bottom lip.


   They then let out a little “Oh!” as they felt the strange sensation of their manbun breaking. Tightly and neatly folded hairs breaking apart and unraveling to graze the back of their neck. Then came the sensation of the long follicles of hair gently touching the skin as they began to shorten. What was once a voluminous, thick head of hair just steadily retracting into their scalp while simultaneously recoloring into a deep green. All the while the style of it seemed to be shifting beyond that. The hair at the sides of their head practically shaved itself down into a buzz while the rest of their hair maintained some level of length. A length that allowed it to restyle into a neater, straighter cut that parted at the side. One that seemed a bit more boyish than it had been before.


   “Huh,” Parker vocalized, smiling a bit. “This does feel a little nice at least…”


   “I do feel a little inclined to agree,” their dragonborn friend responded. He had seemed to start inspecting his more muscular form a bit more, watching as his clothes began to shift around his body. Jacket seeming to just dematerialize as their undershirt refitted and formed buttons and a collar. The pride flag bandana even unwrapped itself while shifting to brown leather that stretched across their body diagonally to create a series of belts. “I still do wonder how we're going to deal with any of this though.”


   “...yeah,” the goblinoid Parker looked at the group yet again. “I mean, at least everyone else seems to be enjoying this to some degree!”


   There was truth to that statement. The dispelling of silence had allowed for some actual interaction among the crowd now that they didn't have to rely on awkward lip-reading. The furrier Parker, one who was at the tail end of their transformation into Jawbone, was actually conversing with the half-orc one whose mostly morphed hoodie proved him to be Gorgug. Despite the awkward scenario, the two other orcs in the crowd (noticeably proven to be Ragh and Lydia Barkrock judging by appearance and the morphing clothes of the two of them) also seemed to be taking the situation quite well.


   The range of characters within the crowd had become rather impressive at this point as well. An earlier transformee denoted by their die’s 6 had settled into becoming a short and stocky man with short curly hair and a thick mustache, alongside their clothing being shifted into a postal uniform confirming their transformation into Bud Cubby. Near them was another Parker who had become extremely furry. Although their face had pushed out into a more bovine visage with longer, fluffy ears and lengthy brown hair that was tucked into a hat. Horns adorned their head, hooves were what became of their feet, and their pants and jacket merged and changed into a jumpsuit. Parker number 10 had become a splitting image of Mazey Phaedra.


   Meanwhile a very noticeable duo of Parkers had obtained quite a sizable growth in height, and they both had taken on a tinge of red in their skin tone. The main difference between the two had become extremely overt however. The one assigned a red 8 had a muscular form that burst out much of their clothing and revealed a selection of skull-themed armor plating. A pair of wings unfurled out their back and hooves encapsulated their now digitigrade feet. Their face had taken on a rather demonic visage with spikes jutting out their chin and horns escaping their now bald head. Right next to them, a Parker whose die displayed a blood red 13, had also gained a level of muscularity, although their clothing had morphed into a stereotypical pirate’s uniform. They seemed to undergo more drastic shifts in their limbs as their left leg shifted into a golden peg leg, and they grew an entire third arm that was adorned with a golden hook. All the while their face aged, a brilliant deep red beard unfurling from their face while a sextet of horns emerged from the sides of their skull. A duo of demons the two had become; Gorthalax the Insatiable and Bill Seacaster respectively.


   Perhaps what could be considered the most concerning of the transformed cavalcade was what became of Parkers 15 and 17, whose numbers were illuminated with a deep black and a bright yellow respectively. The former had been enveloped with black fur while their jacket and pants reshaped into an equally as black spy’s uniform. They had also adopted a more feline facial appearance, alongside a long thin cat's tail. And while their bun broke apart, their hair had remained long while becoming yet another shade of black. It had also seemed like their eyes attained a piercing coloration of yellow to them. Meanwhile with the latter of the two, they had retained being human in appearance but swelled up with fat and gained a significant amount of age. This age was signaled by their shortening hair, growing beard, and manifesting mustache, all of which had taken on a gray hue in follicle coloration. Their jacket disappeared, their undershirt morphed into a white button-up that hugged their thicker body, and their pride bandana thinned out into a string adorned with a sun-shaped broach that wrapped around their neck to make a bolo tie. Kalina and Bobby Dawn, perhaps the shortest ends of the transformative stick…


   “...okay, maybe not everyone but…” the goblin looked away from those two and looked back up at the draconian. “...although I do question if we're all individually enjoying this, or if I'm enjoying this collectively…”


   “I think we might be better off not overcomplicating the specifics,” the dragonborn blinked a few times as a pair of glasses manifested onto his face.


   “I-I mean, that weird dice thing just showed up! There had to be a reason for it,” Parker reposting their hand to curl it under their chin in thought.


   It was by this point that the final bit of changes happened on Parker. Or at least on their clothing. Multiple things started to shift and change in conjunction with each other. A deep black entering their jacket as the denim softened into a different material. Collar flattened and a lapel formed from the inner portion as the ends of the split gravitated to each other and fastened multiple buttons. Beneath it their undershirt radically shifted, splotches of white overtaking it as multiple buttons lined the middle of it and a collar raised from the neck. All the while both articles of clothing were properly shrinking to fit their new form. Their pride bandana slipped away from their arm, all the color deepening to black as it thinned and slithered around their neck before tying itself into a tie. Furthermore, something about this new necktie seemed to attain some level of magic within it that Parker could sense.


   More and more alterations ensued. Pants softening into a black material to fit their new suit jacket. Shoes radically altering, appearance taking on a more formal look as cloth turned into sleek black leather while simultaneously reshaping to look like a pair of dress shoes. A leather belt materialized around their waist, adorned with a series of pouches and holsters for various tools and weapons. Meanwhile on their fingers multiple rings atomized into existence on just about each and every one of them.


   It did seem to end with the appearance of a pair of glasses on their face. Black frames with square lenses with multiple complexities on it that made them far from the standard normalcy that a pair of glasses would typically have. It honestly looked kind of cool though, both from an outside perspective alongside their own as they wore them.


   That would mark the end of Parker’s physical transformation. And in truth, the culmination of the transformations in general as all their other selves reached a point of being fully transformed into their respective characters. Gone was the crowd of identical looking genderfluid persons. Now there were people of multiple races, species, genders, ages, everything. Everyone had seemed to become distinctly unique from each other at a physical level. Although alongside that, hints of mild mental alterations seemed to become quite tangible among the populous as well…


   “This feels more like a strange magical anomaly than anything else, if I had to hazard a guess anyway,” dragonborn Parker (or maybe Oisin at this point) remarked.


   “That can't just be it though!” the goblin rebutted. “Stuff like this doesn't just happen randomly. There just… needs to be more to this situation that we're not getting.”


   Even without an overtly noticeable shift in personality, the goblinoid Parker was very much ready to spiral into a mental corkboard. Although unlike the corkboard of ink that adorned their arms, the one in their mind lacked any actual foundation or clues to really prove anything in full.


   “It just came into my streaming room randomly for no reason. Maybe it was initiated by the Change4Change app? Seems unlikely since the air didn't start to crack until a half hour into my attempts to solve the app’s error message. If anything the app seemed to try and warn me about the existence of the weird spectral dice-”


   “Uhh, Parker?”


   Parker's ears only flicked in vague acknowledgement as they continued on. “-would this mean Change4Change has some weird anomaly detection system? If so, why did the anomaly even appear in my room in the first place! Does this happen if the app is overused? Is it some weird bug that the developers haven’t ironed out yet?”


   “Parker!!”


   “But what if it's also something else entirely! I have heard about weird cases of weird gaps in reality. Always thought they were stupid conspiracy theory stuff but maybe this could be one of those?”


   “RIZ!!!”


   The sound of that name broke Parker out of their spiral and forced them to make eye contact with the blue dragonborn. “Oh, sorry! What is it?”


   The dragonborn motioned their eyes to Parker’s die, then his own. Almost instantly Parker noticed that their dies had began glowing intensely. The numbers were no longer visible, instead the color the numerals once were being what enveloped the surfaces of the polyhedron.


   “Uhh, how long have they been like that?”


   “A few seconds,” Oisin!Parker responded. He then looked towards the crowd, finding many of the other transformee’s dies being consumed by their respective lights. “Seems like it's happening to all our weird die identifier things.”


   “Woah,” Parker continued to eye their own. A bright light green constantly swirling around their form like a moon in some kind of haywire orbit. “Is it… getting faster?”


   The answer was yes. The spectral icosahedron was spinning around their form faster and faster. The same could be said for the blue light around Oisin, the brown light around Jawbone, the numerous green lights around the multiple orcs and goblins in the ground, all of them. And then they all began to blink. Colors slowly going in and out between white and their representative coloration.


   “Any ideas on what this might be!?” Parker asked their taller, blue friend.


   “I'm not sure but I think I can sense some kind of arcane… thing!?”


   The blinking was getting faster now. Faster and faster, less seconds between color changes, it was oddly stress inducing because nobody knew what was going on. And that lack of knowledge was causing quite a commotion among the nearby group.


   A commotion that was pierced by the oddly excited yelling of the Parker-turned-Arthur Aguefort. “I hope everyone's ready for one wild ride!” he exclaimed, the proclamation practically echoing throughout the bright polyhedrals innards of the pocket dimension.


   The goblin and dragonborn only could gaze each other cursory glances, both mouthing a what. Such a statement only brought more confusion and concern. “Wait, does he know-”


   Parker didn't get a chance to finish their statement. Nobody got a chance to react in full actually. Like some kind of timed flash bomb each and every one of the die exploded in a blast of colored light. Glowing spheres escaping from the polyhedrons and enveloping those they were beside, and the people near those people. Each and every newly transformed person was consumed by a colored light.


   That included Parker, whose vision was filled with a bright, bright shade of green. The ground was practically atomized beneath them. The sense of someone near them was completely and utterly lost. They were left alone now in a void of green unable to see the world or themselves.


   What was worse was how disorientating it was. How much the light made their head hurt. Searing something beyond their corneas and into their brain. And that something was abstract. Incorporeal.


   Mental.


   “U-urgh-” a nauseating feeling entered the human’s (goblin's?) gut. Something churning within them, within him. A different sensation of- of self, of identity. “C-can’t… think!”


   Can't think. Can't focus. Their head hurt. Their brain was filling with so many thoughts and memories. So much knowledge they didn't possess before. They could've sworn they were human. Older with an indiscernible gender and a life that was mundane but different. But something about that was being scrubbed.


   Thoughts of him being a goblin, being younger and adventurous and investigative. Something fundamental was altering beyond his existence from this. As if a series of seemingly arbitrary numbers were being implanted and changed accordingly, shifting and altering a menagerie of aspects of himself to a point beyond being common. Unnaturally high dexterity and intelligence mixed together with an impressive series of skills in stealth, insight, investigation. A certain amount of expertise that they- he did not possess before.


   All the while he had different thoughts, differing memories. So many things washing away what was once a young adult with a promising career in streaming. What was in there now was a student in adventuring, and a student who already had many stories to tell in that regard. A life that was practically a far cry from his former self. His former identity that was getting so lost in everything going on.


   “Nngh,” his voice vocalized as he managed to reach a hand up to the side of his head. He was still physically here. He could still hear despite the silence. The sound of his voice. His voice. So familiar, and so challenging to remember having it sound like anyone else.


   “What is going on…?” he asked. He staggered forward. When did the floor become solid again? Why did the temperature feel a bit warmer? The light was dying down at least. Clarity was just ever so slowly returning to him.


   Clarity. He needed clarity in something. He was missing something vital and that was far from good. He couldn't be missing anything because he had to have all the pieces together. To have every bit of information he could get his hands on, no matter the cost. That's what being a detective meant, right? That's what being a Rogue meant, right?


   He grit his teeth, watching as his vision continued to restore itself. The dull light of a lamp was nearby and the walls of an isolated room in an office building became increasingly visible. His legs continued to move forward until he let out a slight oof, feeling his stomach hit the end of a table. Was he being affected by some kind of Confusion spell? That could be the only good explanation for this. That or he's having some kind of coffee crash…


   He knew there was a chair nearby at least. All he could do was heave himself over to it, the chair luckily seeming to be turned in the right direction for him to just flop onto it comfortably. “Uuugh…”


   He blinked his eyes a few more times. The darkness of the room had gotten more prominent, alongside the lamplight in his peripheral. This was his office. The office of Riz Gukgak, Private Eye. Him. This coherency of thoughts seemed to prove the fog in his brain was fading. That he could think straighter, that he knew who he was.


   “Never felt like… this before,” he groaned out, loosening his tie a bit. Not even being hit by a Dominate Monster was this disorienting.


   With a strained huff he pushed himself up a bit to sit straighter in his seat. Despite his still existing feelings of disorientation he still elected to look around the room a bit. Try and gauge some sign of a breaking and entering or struggle that had left his brain completely scrambled. And yet…


   “Nothing…?”


   Nobody else was around. It was just him and the office cabinets. And it couldn't be a weird mirror entity that could be hiding since the room was void of any reflective surfaces. And he didn't feel hurt either. If anything he felt weirdly… rejuvenated? New?


   “...still feel tired though,” he said as he swiveled his chair to face the table. “Could probably just… drink another coffee…”


   He folded his arms on the table and lowered his head down onto them.


   “Just have to… get a bit of energy back…”


   He slowly blinked a few more times before, ultimately, his eyelids descended fully. His senses proceeded to disconnect, and his brain went into energy restoration mode. One last thought did pass his mind before passing out though…


   …something had just happened. He just had to determine what it was.