Rod of Gender Transformation Ch. 3

“That’s weird,” Scott said. “I thought all harpies were female.”

“Does it actually say that in the stats?” Mark asked. “I think they’re usually female in Greek mythology but not necessarily in this fantasy world.”

“I was actually about to get to something relevant to that, if you’ll let me continue,” Brian said. “Okay? Okay. So, the foul bird-winged humanoid crumples to the ground, its hollow bones surely shattering. Tucked into the folds of its stained loincloth you find a small handful of coins and a large metal cylinder, about one inch in diameter and two feet long.”

“Rod!” Scott said. “Wow, if that was in its loincloth, I guess it wasn’t happy to see us.”

“Well, it did attack us on sight,” Luke observed.

“In fairness, maybe it lives here,” Mark said. “If a group of people holding weapons suddenly showed up in your house, I doubt you’d be thrilled about it.

“Okay, but this is a dungeon,” Scott said. “Like, if you live here you should realize there’s a certain base level of risk. We can’t be the first adventurers to come through here.”

“I pick up the wand,” Luke said.

“Ew! Do we have, like, any disinfection spells?” said Andy.

“I don’t think any of you took it, but ‘Purify Food and Drink’ presumably kills microbes? Although calling this thing food is probably a longshot.” Brian said.

“Would it help if I deepthroated it?” Mark asked. Andy flipped him off.

“I have a plan,” Luke said. “I have a bottle of fortified wine in my pack, from that alchemist monk we helped out. I’ll pour that over the rod and wipe it with one of the cultist robes I still have.”

“Alright, you’ve now gotten the rod reasonably clean. Did you want to try using it?”

“You better not point that thing at me,” Andy said. Mark snickered.

“I’ll try to use it with myself as a target.”

“Better hope it’s not a wand of pepper spray,” Mark said.

“Alright! So you point the rod at yourself and will it to activate. A  moment later, you feel parts of your body shifting and changing, as your organs rearrange themselves and the whole shape of your torso changes. Your hair grows rapidly as your facial features begin to soften.”

“Oh, facial features softening? I thought this was maybe lycanthropy-related,” Mark said. “Wait, this better not be turning you into a furry.”

“As the rest of you watch in shock, Willow now appears to be a female halfling, although her garb and equipment seem largely unchanged.”

“OH! It’s a wand of gender bender,” Mark said. “Wait, does it have limited uses? If not I will absolutely fuck with this.”

Luke winced a little. He didn’t really want Mark to turn the whole thing into a joke.

“I’ll allow it, as long as you don’t do anything inappropriate,” Brian said. “I don’t want descriptions of you feeling yourself up or anything like that.”

“Nah, man, I was just gonna turn into a girl so I can fuck with the NPCs. Ooh, I should flirt with my rival from bard college!”

“Are you sure he’s straight?” Andy asked. “I mean, he did go to performing arts school.”

“Hey, can we get back to the dungeon?” Luke said. “I want to finish this section before we run out of time.”

“Okay, so, as I said previously, there are two rough-hewn, rectangular doorways cut into the stone wall before you. Above one is carved a stylized rendition of a winged serpent, and above the other is an icon of a bird wreathed in fire.”

“Wait, this is definitely related to that riddle earlier!” Mark said. “What was it again?”

“Let me pull it up,” Brian said. “I figured it’d need repeating. Alright:

I spring from flame and climb the sky

An endless cycle whirling by

I have no egg and have no womb

And yet I dwell within this tomb”

“Okay, the phoenix for sure,” Mark said.

“Is it that obvious?” Scott asked.

“Yeah! Dragons would have an egg, right? And the endless cycle thing is definitely about rebirth.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Luke said. “Although it sounds like we might encounter a phoenix in there? But that’s still probably preferable to encountering a dragon.”

“My favorite game, Tombs and Phoenixes,” Andy said.