Joel rolls a 2

Joel winds up his arm and throws the dice into the air. It bounces off of the ceiling and bounces around until two dots are face up.

“All that wind up, and you rolled a two.”

“At least I took the initiative and rolled.”

“Uh oh, look where he landed.”

Everyone looks at the board and counts two spaces forward and sees an orange space.

“OH HELL YEAH! MYSTERY SPACE!” Joel shouts out. He grabs his piece and moves it to the orange space.

“Now what?”

“You draw a card and read the…WERE YOU NOT PAYING ATTENTION WHEN I WAS READING THE RULES?!”

“Not really.”

Joel reaches over and grabs the orange card. The card’s back is only half filled with orange, while the other half remains uncolored.

__

“Better say your prayers,

As orange affects all players.

Get set, you’re in for a wild ride,

It’s time to play from the other side.”

__

A groan comes from everyone except Thomas.

“Man, I hate riddles.”

“Riddles are fun,” Thomas says.

“That’s because you’re smart, and find the hardest riddles to give us in DND.”

“So orange is…” Joel says, looking at Thomas for the answer.

“Bruh, it literally says it on the card. Orange will take one effect and apply it to all players.”

“Gotcha gotcha, uhhhh…”

“So, you either continue, or chicken out, and I assume WE have to also deal with the ‘effect’.”

“And what is the effect exactly?”

“Get set, you’re in for a wild ride, It’s time to play from the other side.” Yonah repeats with a deep thinking expression on his face. Thomas also stares off in thought about what the riddle could mean. Joel sits there in silence with everyone, but gets impatient.

“Alllllright…so…what is the effect exactly?”

“WE DON’T KNOW!” Seth yells at Joel.

“Just say you continue and we’ll find out.”

“Okay, _‘I continue’ _then.”

The backing on the card Joel held revealed the other color half to be green. Everyone saw it change right before their eyes.

“Wow, that’s cool. How does it do that?”

“Not sure…” Thomas was saying before a serious expression came over his face. His hand reached down to his stomach and he hunched over a bit.

“Oh man, I’m not feeling too good. That curry is messing up my insides,” he groans out.

At that moment, a few of the other friends also get a similar sensation.

“Fuck, you’re right, I’m also not feeling good.” Yonah says.

“Me too.” Seth joins in.

“Damn, you all get food poisoning or something?” Ashton says.

“Yeah, me and Ashton are fine.” Joel braggingly says.

Ashton and Joel were known to have strong constitutions when it came to food.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom.” Thomas quickly says before running out of the living room.

“Fuck, how many bathrooms you have?”

“Three”

“Perfect”

Seth and Yonah also get up and run to the other two remaining bathrooms. Ashton and Joel are left alone by the board game. They sit there for a bit before Ashton turns his attention to Joel.

“Crazy stuff…are you good?”

“Nope, I’m actually dying inside. I just wanted to show them I’m fine.”

“Alright, good, cause I feel like I’m dying as well. I’m gonna go in the backyard, don’t come looking for me,” Ashton says as he gets up and opens the screen door that goes outside.

All five of the boys soon realized what the card effect would actually do. After 5 minutes of everyone suffering, they all came to the same and sudden realization.

Joel stayed in the living room during his transformation. He tossed and turned on the couch until his card effect took form and stopped. The first person to return to the room was Thomas. Thomas stops at the entrance of the room and stares at who he, or she now, thinks is Joel, but where there was once a big guy sitting on the couch, now sits a big girl. Thomas and Joel stared at each other, figuring out the changes that happened to them, besides the obvious.

Joel’s hair got slightly longer and less curly. Her hair only became curly closer to the ends. Her arms and legs got thinner, but still maintained some size on her thighs. Joel’s height remained relatively the same. Joel seemed to have lost weight, or it possibly shifted around to her chest more.

As for Thomas, his entire beard has disappeared and his short hair got slightly longer and his face became slimmer and more feminine. His whole body became slimmer, not that Thomas was very big before the transformation. She eventually breaks the stare off first.

“Joel…what the fuck.” Thomas says with a very argumentative tone and a deadly stare.

“Don’t blame me! Blame the game!”

“First, we don’t have any normal board games to play. Then for some reason, you have THIS game. And then you decide to roll like shit and WE ALL had to suffer the consequences of it.”

Thomas walks back to the table and sits back down in her spot around the board. She pulls the hoodie over her head to hide herself and reaches for the rule pamphlet and begins to search through the pages for answers and explanations. Joel watches silently, as to not disturbed her frustrated friend, before curiosity gets the better of her.

“So uhhhh, whatcha looking for?”

“Any way to reverse what just happened.”

“Right. Cool cool…”

A feminine yelp is heard from one of the bathrooms. The door is quickly swung open before a girl with brown hair and glasses in a tan office uniform that looks very similar to Yonah’s comes running out.

“GUYS! I NEED HELP, I LOOKED IN THE MIRROR and…” Yonah’s words are cut short when she looks at Joel and Thomas to see that they have also undergone the same effect.

“We all need help Yonah.” Thomas says without lifting her gaze from the rule book.

Joel holds up her drink as a toast to Yonah and takes a sip. Yonah slowly takes in the new appearances of Joel and Thomas before silently sitting down at her spot.

Seth is the next to return to the living room.

“Phew, I think I’m fine now. But no one go in that bathroom for a few hours.”

She looks up from his phone to see that everyone is now a female version of themselves.

“Uhhhhhhhhh….”

“Glad you finally noticed the issue.”

Seth pulls up the front-facing camera and notices that her face looks more plush and full, but that appears to be the only major change. Her body barely changed height, shape, or hair length.

“What the fuck? How did this happen? I thought it was the curry making me sick.”

Thomas and Yonah both point at Joel.

“Look man, don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

“Well the game just turned us all into women! You better find a way to fix this.”

“That’s what Thomas is for.” Joel gestures her drink to Thomas.

“Well…good news and bad news. I’ll tell you once Ashton is back.”

“Yo!” Ashton walks back into the house from the backyard. She has also undergone this change.

Ashton’s body slimmed down a bit but was still close to his previous size. His previous muscles disappeared along his arms and legs. A bit of weight was applied to his thighs and his hair grew longer, but wrapped itself into a bun on her head.

“Alright, he’s…she’s back. Good news or bad news first?”

“Bad.” Yonah utters first.

“Bad news: we need to continue playing the game in order to revert the changes, and if we can’t revert the changes when the game ends, we will be permanently stuck like this.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“And the good news?”

“Good news, there is a way to revert the changes, but only the winner can do it.”

“Alright, so, someone needs to win to fix everyone?”

“Pretty much”

“BUT! There’s a chance that you may not be the same person when you end up winning the game.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Alright, so it’s like this. Let’s say you roll a…”

“DON’T CARE. LET'S GET THIS OVER WITH.” Ashton shouts out while sitting back down.

“Yeah, I agree with Ashton. Let’s just get rolling again. I don’t wanna think too much about this. Let’s just fix this.”

Yonah reaches over for the dice and prepares her turn.