Episode 143: The Griffin Transformation

On the tail of Scorch's rampage into the sky, the adventurers find themselves in the Glass Castle  with a far-fetched idea to heal the heroic griffin that saved Lulu's life. Only something goes wrong and Lulu's griffin will never be the same. 

Transcript

The Griffin Transformation

Once upon a time in the land of Atheria, there was a princess Nea and a princess Lulu and they went on the most amazing adventures. They had just encountered a fight with a mysterious wizard while trying to rescue a few griffins and a dragon from K’Orloch and the tricky elf. 

They made their way back to Oleander’s hut with the two griffins, two ducks and Cinder the red dragon. When they got there, Oleander was surprised like the others at how big the griffins had gotten. 

“Why they surely must have been feeding them something special. But where, where is our third little griffin?”

Lulu pulled out the baby duckling from her pocket. Both of the ducks had now gotten quite used to stowing away with her. 

“He was turned into a duck.” She said sadly. 

Oleander picked up the little duckling and held it for a minute. It was clearly a different color than most ducks, giving reference to it’s griffin origin.

“Well, we’re going to have to see what we can do about this little one.” 

The griffin duckling quacked and then jumped back over to Lulu, rubbing his head against her stomach. 

Wahl, too, was also getting attached to one of the griffins, insisting that he ride it back to Oleander’s hut, which wasn’t something you saw every day in Atheria - an ogre riding a griffin. 

“Do you think this one is old enough to join us?” Wahl asked Oleander. 

“He is close.” The old elf said, sizing up the two large griffins. “It can be done, but they will still need some heavy training. Would you like to train a griffin, Wahl of Traycod?”

Wahl’s eyes got big. 

“It looks like they have started bonding with you.” Oleander continued, “It must be your elven blood.” 

While O’Lah and Wahl were ogres, they had actually been born elves and turned into ogres when they were babies by an ogre sorceress. Elves were natural griffin riders and had a knack for training them quickly. Wahl looked at the griffins and nodded.

“We’ll need these,” he said to his sister.

“And I’d welcome the help,” Oleander replied, “I’m very glad you rescued the griffins-”

“And Cinder,” Phin added.

“I see.” Pondered Oleander looking past the griffins to the red dragon. “And she was well?”

“As far as we could tell,” answered Nea. “Why?”

“Scorch has been flying around angry and upset. We fear that without the Devorian Crystals being restored, hearts all around Atheria are breaking. I’m wondering if it is hitting the dragons first. Simon has been searching for Scorch for some time now to see.”

Nea was immediately concerned. She was quite fond of Scorch and enjoyed riding him when the Shadow Man needed assistance. 

“We’ve got to find him! Does anyone know where he is?” she asked.

“He’s been leaving a trail of black smoke. The last I heard the smoke trail vanished up in the sky.” Oleander said.

“Skyrabia?” 

Oleander nodded. 

Nea knew that if she wanted to, she could use her Skyrabian Feather and grow wings to take her up into the Sky Kingdom right now. Leaving all of her friends would be unwise though. 

She turned to Cinder, who had been listening the whole time. 

“Cinder, I think we’re going to need your help.” The dragon nodded and lowered her wing. 

“Phin? Coryn? Would you both like to join us?” Nea asked. 

Phin nodded. Coryn thought about it for a second. 

What nobody had realized was that Coryn hadn’t seen his sister since the shattering. She disappeared that night on a mission for the elf chief - the elf chief who was now frozen in stone. She was a naturally crafty elf and very smart. Rescuing the griffins was the first time he’d seen her, and her him, since that night. 

And she was helping the wizard. 

Coryn couldn’t believe it and was embarrassed. Should he tell them that Hazel was his sister? Would they think him bad too?

He couldn’t think about anything else though. He realized he had to find her and figure out what was going on. Why was she helping the K’Orloch, Victor and this wizard? 

What Coryn did know is that he could trust his new friends. So he told them who she was - his sister Hazel of Forevermore. 

“Let us help,” O’Lah offered. “You shouldn’t go alone and maybe Paul and I can be of service.” 

Coryn agreed to their help and the party split up. Wahl stayed with Oleander to work with the griffins while Paul & O’Lah went with Coryn to see if they could find Hazel and understand why she was trying to ruin Atheria. Nea, Lulu & Phin mounted Cinder and headed to find Scorch up in the sky kingdom. 

As they flew above the clouds they quickly realized that the day was drawing to a close so they decided to stay with Princess Aria at the Glass Castle. 

Princess Aria was very happy to see them.

“Princess Aria of New Halowisp this is Phin of Niverstone Deep.”

Phin was immediately struck by Aria’s beauty and fumbled a little with his words. 

“It’s nice to, uh, meet you.” 

“It’s nice to meet you as well.” She replied, “And too long since I’ve seen you, Nea.” She said, giving her good friend a big hug.

Meanwhile her little windog (which is a dog with wings), Valley, ran up to Lulu and put her two front paws on her legs, smelling something abnormal in her pocket. 

“Valley!” Lulu yelled. 

As she bent down, the small dog barked uncontrollably. 

“You want to meet my new friend,” she said, pulling out the little duckling in her pocket. 

Valley immediately sat upright in obedience. 

“What an adorable little duck!” Aria said, admiring him.

“He used to be a griffin,” Lulu explained, “but he’s been turned into a duck - for now. I’m going to find a way to turn him back.”

“Well, maybe there’s something in my parent’s old library.” Aria offered, welcoming them into the castle. “There’s plenty of old magic and spell books in there.”

Phin had never been above the clouds before, he’d stayed mostly in the Torturian Sea and the surrounding islands. To not only have flown above the clouds but to now be in a Glass Castle seemed all too fantastic for a common merman of Niverstone Deep. 

“So what do you call your little duckling?” Aria asked. “Every pet needs a name.”

Princess Lulu looked at the duck. He looked right back at her and quacked. 

“Quackers?” she said. 

Valley barked in disagreement. 

“Mallard?” Aria offered, but that didn’t feel right.

Valley barked again in disagreement.

“Maybe Beakers?” Nea said, laughing. She was only half serious.

Valley wagged his tail and barked, then started jumping on Lulu. 

Lulu laughed. “I guess it’s Beakers. That right Valley?” she said in a dog voice. 

“Who’d a thought a windog would name a duck.” Phin said. 

The girls laughed at the ducks new name. Beakers just looked back at Lulu, hoping to someday be a griffin once again. 

The adventurers searched Aria’s library for anything they could find that would reverse a shape shifting spell. Late into the afternoon Phin found an old elven book with a ‘reversal’ spell. One that could reverse any spell that was done to another person. This was a very powerful spell and required a dragon scale, Vika Root, ogre hair and a hawk’s talon. 

They would need to combine all the ingredients and then cast the spell on Beaker the moment the sun went down. As luck would have it, they would be able to get a dragon scale from Cinder and using Nea’s magic ogre cloak they plucked a few of her hairs while she was an ogre but still needed juice from a Vika Root and shavings from a hawk’s talon. 

“What about you’re parents armory, don’t your parents have some kind of weapon with a hawk’s talon on it?” Nea asked. “We’d only need to shave a little off.”

“They do!” so they ran off to where Aria’s parents kept extra supplies for battle.

They quickly found a piece of Skyrabian Armor with decorative talons from a hawk used on the shoulders. They took a few shavings and put them in a bottle.

“Now all we need to find is some Vika Root juice.” Phin said. 

“I have an idea.” Nea offered, “When we needed to get Dianthus Root for Allaymia, Jo took us to a special gardener on Mt. Willow. Maybe she can help us.”

“Clara!” said Aria. 

“You know this gardener?” asked Nea.

“Yes, and that’s a great idea. But we’ll have to leave Lulu and Phin here.” Aria said.

“With Valley and Beakers?” Nea said. “I don’t think Lulu will mind.” 

Lulu smiled. 

“Can I make myself at home?” Phin asked. 

“Sure. But maybe you guys can get the dragon scale while we’re gone.” Aria answered.

Lulu and Phin looked at each other, wide-eyed. 

Aria and Nea flew down to Mt. Willow. Down to where the cliffs got very steep and rocky and the land was small and narrow. Nea recognized the place where Jo had walked with her up weeks ago when they needed to find the Dianthus Root. Only she wasn’t able to fly up with Jo to the gardener because she didn’t have her Skyrabian Feather yet. She had to wait. 

When they made it to Clara’s it was clear that Clara was an amazing farmer. She had a small plot of land up on the top of the cliffs that grew a multitude of things. The earth up here and the mist from the mountains had special magical properties. 

Shortly after they landed, a beautiful woman walked out of her shack to greet them. 

“Aria!” she said opening her arms. 

“Hickory?” Nea asked, noticing that Clara wasn’t alone. Lulu’s inventor friend, Hickory, was there too. 

“Princess Nea of Sparland,” he said, “Meet my niece Clara.” 

“The pleasure is mine,” Clara said, holding out her hand. 

“How are your adventures going?” Hickory asked. 

The two of them caught up a minute on all that had happened lately. She also shared that Lulu had rescued a griffin but that it had been turned into a duck. He chuckled but was happy they were figuring out a way to turn him back. 

Once Aria and Clara had caught up, she found them the perfect Vika Root and made for them some juice they could use for their magic spell. And before long, the two of them were flying back up to the castle, mixing the potion with all the ingredients. 

They finished right as the sun was setting. And just as the last glimmer of sun crept over the horizon Lulu read the magic words from the spell book.

“Repaiteus Formatis,” she said, pouring the potion on Beakers.

When she was done saying the words, the small duck began to quack and flap his wings. Valley watched with curiosity. Soon Beakers wings began to get bigger and his beak started to morph from a ducks beak into a hawks beak. His webbed feet also grew into hawk feet with talons. 

Once the transformation was complete, Beakers let out a loud and healthy griffin cry. 

Excited, Lulu ran over to the griffin and gave him a huge hug. 

“I can’t believe it! You’re back to normal!” she said. 

“Yeah, I’m not sure the name Beakers really fits him anymore.” 

Lulu looked at the magnificent beast, “Well, I think Beakers works just fine!”

As Lulu said the word “Beakers”, something completely unexpected happened to the griffin. His wings began to shrink and his talons began to turn back into webbed feet. And the hawk’s beak he once had turned back into a duck’s beak. The griffin reversed back into a duck. 

“Oh no!” Aria gasped. “The spell didn’t work!”

“Maybe it was temporary.” Observed Phinn. “Let me see that book again!”

Lulu, felt defeated and disappointed. She started sobbing. “I’m so sorry Beakers!” she said hugging the duck. 

Only this time, as she said his name, she started hugging a bigger and bigger duck. Until she realized that Beakers had turned back into a griffin and she was on his back, ready to ride.

By now, Beakers was fully confused and feeling queesy. What none of the adventurers had realized was that they didn’t use real ogre hair. They used Nea’s transformed ogre hair. Meaning that she was only an ogre while wearing the magic ogre cloak. Unfortunately, whenever you make substitutions with magic, you can’t always rely on the outcomes. 

From that day forward, Beakers would forever be stuck transforming being a duck and a griffin. 

The end.