“Can we just get going?” Hana grumbled, swinging her legs boredly in her chair as she watched the others finish off their latest round of drinks and begin pondering ordering another. “We have no idea what this place is going to be like, I don’t think…”
“Calm down,” Korinn said, patting her on the back with a huge, scaly hand, nearly knocking the halfling off her seat unintentionally. “From what I’ve heard, we have nothing to worry about. We’re just preparing for the journey.”
Hana rolled her eyes; she could usually look to the dragonborn for support, but, clearly, not this time. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised… It was a feast day for the god the woman served, so they were lucky they’d managed to convince her to come along at all. Hana suspected that somewhere, deep in her lizard heart, Korinn was starting to get attached to them… Although she still demanded they donate a portion of any treasure they found to her church, besides her percentage, so she must not like them too much yet.
“Why do we always use the tavern as a meeting place?” Hana sighed. She knew the reason – Mai’lyth and Donovan liked to drink, and, on special occasions, apparently so did Korinn – but that knowledge did little to make her feel better. She’d had some cider, though she hadn’t even managed to finish the whole mug before starting to feel tipsy. Halflings were not particularly well known for their alcohol tolerance; she had even less than most. It didn’t help that this tavern didn’t have cups sized for her kind, nor chairs.
She glanced across the room, towards the window, where, sure enough, a raven was sitting outside, watching disapprovingly. Some might have said she was imagining that, but she’d been with her familiar long enough to tell that’s how he felt… The same way she could tell he hated it when she called him ‘Alfie’, rather than Alfred. She gave him a big shrug, then settled back down in her chair, nearly losing sight of the top of the table. She hated this place…
Thankfully, her companions actually stuck to their promise of ‘one more round’, stumbling outside once they were finished. Alfred flew over to Hana, landing on her shoulder and cawing at her to show his displeasure. “I’m sorry,” Hana rolled her eyes. “They don’t like birds in there, and I don’t want you getting baked into a pie or something.”
“Nobody would want to eat that old thing,” Mai smirked. “I’m sure he tastes awful.”
“Not as bad as you probably do,” Hana shot back. The half-elf shrugged in reply; it seemed, at times, she was trying to distance herself as much as possible from the elegance of full-blooded elves. She was quite the impressive fighter, however, despite how barbarous she could act, so Hana was willing to put up with her… Not that she really had much choice, since without Mai’lyth, she wouldn’t have Donovan.
Hana wasn’t sure he was a better warrior than Mai – she’d seen the half-elf fall into rages where she was nearly unstoppable, taking out entire rooms of enemies almost single-handed – but he was very skilled with the glowing axe he could somehow produce with his mind. It was strange… Hana had studied magic for most of her life, yet had never come across anything quite like that before meeting him. He’d apparently learned it at some monastery, far away, although when she asked him specifically which country it was in, he’d never give a direct answer.
He’d never tell her where he and Mai had met, either, or why his eyes glowed blue… Sometimes, Hana wondered if there was really a story behind any of it, or if he just liked to tease her by pretending there was, and not elaborating. Honestly, she wouldn’t have put it past him, and, even though she was smaller than him, Mai’lyth intimidated her too much to go to her for answers.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter anyhow… They’d needed somebody to help them open a magically locked chest they’d found in a dungeon near Hana’s hometown, and, after she’d helped them out, Donovan had asked, seemingly almost on a whim, if she might want to come see a little more of the world with them. There were times when Hana wondered why she’d said yes, and left her nice, comfortable home… For the most part, though, she was enjoying her adventure.
Their little group had gotten quite the reputation, which was, she assumed, why they’d been hired to go investigate this dungeon. Hana wasn’t sure where Korinn had gotten the idea that they had nothing to worry about, since, from what she could tell, nobody had gone more than a few steps into the place until now, other than, of course, whoever had built it… Together, however, they’d been through a lot by now, so she was probably right, even if she had been making it up so Hana would feel more at ease.
The dungeon was further from the town than she’d expected, and the wind colder. She shivered a little, pulling her cloak tighter around herself. “Maybe you should have joined us in that last round,” Mai told her, scooting forward slightly on her horse, closer to Hana, seated in front of her; they’d decided when they’d first started to travel together it would be silly for her to bring a pony, since it would struggle to keep up with Mai and Donovan’s horses, and they didn’t want her to slow them down. She always felt so silly and childish, sharing the saddle with them, especially once Korinn had joined them, with her own, specially bred horse, which was even bigger than the ones Mai and Donovan had, so, technically, they were slowing her down, like Hana would have done with them… “You’d have warmed yourself up a bit for the trip.”
“I’m fine,” Hana grumbled.
“I hope so,” Mai said. “A frozen wizard isn’t going to do us much good.”
Fortunately, beyond the cold, it was an uneventful journey; Hana almost wondered, when they came across the entrance, waiting there for them, open and inviting, if Donovan, who had taken the lead, as usual, had gotten the directions wrong. Surely, there ought to be some sort of creatures guarding this place, or something, right? It was almost too easy….
“I don’t know about this,” Hana fretted, nervously toying with her dagger as she watched the other tying their horses to a tree outside the entrance and prepare themselves, Donovan summoning his axe, Mai attaching blades to her gauntlets, Korinn readying her mace. “Maybe we should rest, and wait until morning, or…”
“Aww, are you tired already?” Mai teased, her concern gone now that they weren’t alone, on the horse. “Need a nap?”
“No, I don’t need one,” Hana glared. “I just think we should prepare ourselves… Something doesn’t seem right here.”
“Let’s take a look inside, at least,” Korinn suggested. “We’ve come all the way here… Let’s get an idea of what we’re up against, anyway.”
Hana couldn’t really argue with that; even if she could, the others clearly had their minds made up already. “Come on, Alfred,” Hana sighed, calling the bird down from his perch on the tree, onto her shoulder as she headed towards the dungeon. The place gave her a very bad feeling, the sensation that something wasn’t right… But what could it be?
The entrance was thrown open, large, wooden doors leading to a long staircase downwards. It all looked normal enough, she supposed, if not a bit ominous… Yet, she couldn’t shake that funny feeling. “Wait!” she called, stopping Mai in her tracks, about to start down the steps.
“What now?” the half-elf asked.
“There’s just…” Hana sniffed the air, then sheathed her dagger to free up her hands so she could cast a spell to dispel any magic in the area. It was harder than she expected, a sure sign that there was more going on than met the eye, but after a moment, the area shimmered, transformed, the formerly green grass around the entrance becoming black, charred by magical flames, explaining the scent she’d picked up. There were a few small skeletons, though they looked more like animals that had, unfortunately, flown too close and triggered the trap, rather than other adventurers.
“See?” she shook her head. “We need to take our time with this!”
“Did your little spell disable the trigger, too?” Mai asked.
“I think so,” Hana shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but… Mai!”
Hana winced as she watched Mai’lyth step over the threshold, onto the first step; thankfully, no burst of flame came shooting out of anywhere to incinerate her, or anyone else. “Come on,” Mai turned back towards her. “Clearly, you need to keep an eye out for us.”
“But…” Hana rolled her eyes. She hated when she got stuck doing this… It made sense, she supposed, since she was shorter than the rest, closer to most tripwires, or switches in the floor, so it should be easier for her to see them… And, generally, arrow traps, and things of that sort, were aimed over her head… She still wasn’t a fan, though.
It didn’t take long for her to be reminded why. It wasn’t really her fault… She had been paying attention, and spotting nothing out of the ordinary. It was only when Donovan called from the back of the group, “Can’t you got any faster?” that she got distracted.
“No, I can’t!” she yelled back. “These stairs aren’t made for halflings, and… Oh, crap.”
She felt the stone sink into the step, eyes widening as she looked around to see what she might have set off. At first, she didn’t notice anything, thought maybe it was a decoy, or the trap associated with this trigger had malfunctioned…. Then, she heard the loud thumping behind them.
“What was that?” Korinn asked.
“I-I think I…” Hana spoke up, only for her voice to be overpowered by Donovan’s.
“Go!” he commanded, rushing down the steps. “Go, go, go!”
“What is..?” Hana turned to see Mai and Korinn doing the same, and, behind them, the sight of the steps they’d been climbing down starting to collapse, falling down, one by one. Hana scrambled down, her teammates brushing past her as she hopped from step to step, trying desperately not to trip and tumble down the rest of the way and break her neck, or get caught up by the falling stairs.
“Come on!” she gasped as Korinn scooped her up, having turned around and seen how far behind she’d gotten. Hana was small enough, any of the others could have done that with no problem, although they all knew how much she hated it… In this instance, however, she was grateful, as the dragonborn could easily descend the stairs faster than her, depositing her at the bottom, beside Mai and Donovan, as the staircase crumbled into the dark pit below.
“Well, then,” Donovan said, once he caught his breath. “I guess we’re going to keep exploring, then.”
Hana stared up at the faint light of day, shining at the entrance, looking quite far away now. She could cast a levitation spell on one of the others, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t powerful enough to get them that far… They were just going to have to hope there was another way out, further in.
“I-I guess so,” Hana nodded.
“It’s all right,” Korinn smiled down at her, in the light of the ever-burning torches lining the walls. “Don’t feel bad… Those two have set off more than their fair share of traps on their own… It happens to everyone.”
Hana shrugged, looking back up at the entrance again. She could send Alfred up, and he was smart enough to repeat a few words… If only they’d left somebody up there for him to deliver them to. Splitting up the party was almost never a good idea, but at least if they had, whoever was there could have gone back to town for help, if nothing else. “Thanks for helping me out.”
“No problem,” Korinn told her. “Now, come on… We’d better catch up.”
Mai and Donovan had, of course, gone ahead, down the hallway further into the dungeon. Thankfully, they’d stopped when they came to a large, ornately carved wooden door, rather than barging ahead with only half the team. “All right, little miss smarty,” Mai teased, as Hana and Korinn approached, “Are there any traps on this you want to set off?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Hana glared at her, before turning her attention to the door. She didn’t sense any magic coming from it, although there was no way to know for sure… The caster could have been more powerful than her, and able to hide their work. Or, like the staircase, there might be a trap that had nothing to do with magic… “I think it’s safe, but…” If they were definitely going to go through the door, she probably ought to use a Find Traps spell, just in case…. If they were going to try something else, however, it was better to wait, and not waste a spell she might need somewhere else.
“Well, it’s locked,” Donovan said. Of course they’d already tried; she had her doubts they’d searched for traps first, either.
“Maybe there’s a hidden passage somewhere we missed,” Korinn suggested. There had been no other obvious paths from the bottom of the staircase, but that didn’t always mean anything. “Or we could… Oh, come on, you two…” She rolled her eyes as she saw Mai and Donovan backing up. “Not again… Didn’t you learn anything from last time?”
“We survived that,” Mai shrugged. “I don’t want to spend all day looking for a loose stone to push on. Hana said there wasn’t a trap on this one, anyway.”
“No, I said…” Hana interjected, hurriedly starting to cast Find Traps, but it was already too late. Mai and Donovan were already charging forward, slamming their shoulders into the door. It shuddered, burst open… And the floor began to shake.
“You said it was safe, you stupid…!” Mai raged, before her words were drowned out by the sound of grinding stone, as the floor began to turn. Hanna was thrown off her feet as the ground shifted beneath them, the section of hallway they’d been standing on splitting into four pieces, each rotating away from the others.
There was, it turned out, a secret passage… Or, at least one. Hana scrambled to her feet, turning around to see a solid wall behind her, all her friends gone, and an unfamiliar new hallway ahead of her. She hoped the others had been at least that fortunate, and hadn’t been dropped into a pit of spikes or something.
“Hello?” she called, pressing her ear to the wall, hoping she could hear them on the other side, but there was nothing. “Well,” she gulped, looking over at Alfred, perched on her shoulder, “I guess we’d better keep going, huh?”
He cawed at her, tilting his head. “What else are we going to do?” she sighed. “Stay here?” She pulled the dagger out of its sheath again, creeping forward. “N-No, I’m not scared… I would just feel better if one of the others were here, but for all we know, they’re all waiting for us to rescue them… We should…”
“Hana?”
Hana’s ears perked up. Maybe she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought… “Donovan?” she called back. “Is that you?”
“Hurry! I don’t know how long I can…”
“Hold on!” Alfred was chirped at her, but Hana shook her head. “We have to be brave,” she told the bird, gripping her knife tighter as she rushed onwards. “I know it’s his fault, but…”
If she hadn’t been moving so quickly, she might have sensed the glyph before she stepped on it; instead, she felt it as soon as her foot touched it, and knew she was in trouble. A sinking feeling grew in her stomach, then she felt something wrap around her ankle. She gasped, looking down in time to see a shadowy tentacle there, pulling on her, curling further up her leg.
“Get away from me!” she demanded, starting to draw back her knife to stab at it, as another reached up, winding around her arm, squeezing tightly enough to make her drop her weapon. “Donovan!” She twisted, staring down the hall, searching for any sign of him, the glow of his eyes, or his axe; there was none.
Her mind raced, trying to decide what the best spell to use was. The tentacles were coming from a growing shadow, one that ought not even be there, since it was right under a torch…. She was pretty sure they were purely magic, but, if they weren’t, a Dispel Magic spell might be useless, and there was a chance she wouldn’t have time to cast anything else before it was too late…
Another tentacle shot up, wrapping around her middle, squeezing her slightly, holding her more firmly in place, as one more began to rise out of the shadow. She opened her mouth, trying to cast a spell, but couldn’t even get the first word out before the tentacle zoomed forward, right at her head, magically passing through, and into her mind…
“Hey, hey, calm down…”
Hana gasped, eyes she couldn’t even remember closing shooting open, staring up at the human looking down at her. Everything was different… She wasn’t in the dungeon, certainly, but a strange, brightly colored room, although it seemed like she had been taken prisoner, since she was surrounded by bars…
“You just got all tangled up in your blankets, sweetie,” the woman told her, reaching down and tugging them away from Hana’s arms and legs. “Were you having a nightmare?”
“Who are you?” Hana demanded. “Are you the one who built the dungeon?”
“My, such a big word!” the woman chuckled. “Where did you hear that, dear?”
“I have…” Hana started to say, prepared to brag about all the adventures she’d been on, when she tried to sit up. It was more difficult than it ought to have been, mostly because of the strange, bulky garment around her waist. She frowned, glancing down to see her usual wizard robes gone, replaced by a fuzzy, pink garment, of a rather unnatural hue, covering her from toe to neck. Beneath the crotch, she could see something bulging, as if barely able to be contained, and, as she moved, it rustled softly. “Where are my clothes, you fiend?!”
“You’re in a silly mood today, aren’t you?” the woman smiled. “And such a vocabulary! Well, sweetie, you fell asleep playing with the dollhouse, so I brought you here for a little nap… Don’t worry, as long as you stayed dry, you’ll get your Pull-Ups back.”
“What are you talking about?” Hana shook her head. “Let me out of here, I need to…”
The woman reached for Hana’s neck, and the halfling raised a hand to defend herself automatically, only to have it swatted away as the woman grabbed at something on the garment’s collar. With a tug, she pulled it down, and the clothing split in two, revealing Hana’s bare body beneath… And the thing wrapped around her waist.
“Oh, Hana,” the woman sighed. “I don’t even have to check… Your diaper is soaked!”
Hana froze at the word; maybe she should have realized that’s what it was before, after helping care for her younger siblings for so long, but this was nothing like any other diaper she’d seen before. It was so smooth, almost shiny… And she hadn’t heard the noise it was making from a normal diaper, either.
“I don’t need a diaper!” she gasped, squirming, only to notice the garment did feel warm, squishing slightly beneath her bottom. It had been a very long time since she’d worn a wet diaper, and that was almost certainly not what they had felt like then, yet she still knew what was going on. She also knew, at last, that those bars she saw around her weren’t a jail cell, built just for someone her size… She was in a crib.
“Obviously, you do,” the woman said gently. “I’m sorry, but that’s your fifth frowny face on the chart this week, and that means no more Pull-Ups for now.”
Hana had no idea what she was saying, only that the woman was carefully helping her out of the garment, leaving her in just the diaper, before picking her up, lifting her out of the crib, setting her down on a soft surface, one that made much the same sound as her diaper when she moved on it. “It’s all right,” the woman told her as she grabbed something on the front of the diaper, giving it a tug, making a ripping noise as it lifted off. “Everyone learns at their own pace… You’ll be ready eventually…”
She repeated the process again, then opened the diaper, wiping Hana’s privates with a thin, cool, damp cloth a couple times before lifting her up, taking the diaper away. “Now, I don’t want you to be fussy about this… I know you’re upset, but rules are rules, Hana; you need diapers.”
“No, I don’t!” Hana whined, sitting up as the woman looked away for a moment, gasping as she spotted one of those shadowy tentacles, reaching up from beneath the thing she’d been set on, grasping for her. “No!” she whimpered, trying to kick it away, only for it to wrap around her leg.
“N-No…” she shook her head, her vision swimming slightly; she could tell something wasn’t right, that the tentacle was doing something to her, taking something away, but she couldn’t tear herself free.
“Don’t be such a little drama queen,” the woman chuckled. “Just give me a second to get you a fresh diaper…”
“G-Get… Get away…” she gasped, kicking at the thing with her free foot. It was around her leg, but it was really her mind that was being attached… There was little doubt of that. She closed her eyes, steeling herself, gritting her teeth, trying to force it off that way, unsure if it would even work…
After a few long, worrisome moments, she felt it loosen, and she ripped herself out of its grasp, rolling away… And, without meaning, over the edge of the thing she was on. She let out a yelp as she tumbled to the floor, glad for the soft rug to break her fall somewhat.
“Oh, no, sweetie!” the woman exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
Hana could see the woman approaching; she could also see, across the room, an open doorway. The fall had knocked the wind out of her, but she managed to scramble to her feet anyway, racing for it, hoping her friends would be there, waiting, ready to help her… She hated that they’d see her naked, though better that than the alternative, she supposed.
“Where are you going?!” the woman demanded. “Stop right there, young lady!”
Despite her smaller size, and how stunned the fall had made her – and how much her head was still swimming from the tentacle – she was still faster than the larger woman, reaching the door ahead of her and bursting through, slamming it shut behind her before turning back around to get a lay of the land, to see where in the dungeon she was, to try and figure out where her friends might be…
What she saw in front of her was no dungeon; there was no sign of her party. There were plenty of other people, many her size, but it was immediately apparent they weren’t halflings, like her. These were human children, many obviously wearing those same diapers she’d just been taken out of, toddling around, playing with unfamiliar toys… A sudden, dreadful thought hit her, made her feel almost sick to her stomach. Did that woman actually think she belonged here? As a baby?
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