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lunarrolls · 1 year ago

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polymorph, chetney, and ashton. i know the prompt list was hurt/comfort but honestly go as silly as u want with this one

this is literally the best prompt ever i think. i had far too much fun with it. ashton and chetney are already two of my favs, especially when put together, and then you throw in the ULTIMATE SHENANIGANS KNOWN AS POLYMORPH? absolutely FLAWLESS. they’re so stupid. i love it. banana you’re the best

•

Polymorph is a fourth level transmutation spell on the bard, druid, sorcerer, and wizard spell lists.

This spell transforms a creature that you can see within range into a new form. An unwilling creature must make a Wisdom saving throw to avoid the effect. A shapechanger automatically succeeds on this saving throw.

The creature is limited in the actions it can perform by the nature of its new form, and it can’t speak, cast spells, or take any other action that requires hands or speech.

The target’s gear melds into the new form. The creature can’t activate, use, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of its equipment. This spell can’t affect a target that has 0 hit points.

•

Ashton stood with the handle of their hammer between the doorknob and the jamb, trying their damndest to keep their pursuers from breaking the thing down completely. Their muscles strained as they leaned all of their not insignificant rocky weight on the door.

“Any fucking day now, Chetney,” he gritted out, scowling in the gnome’s general direction.

“Shut up! This shit takes time,” the old man snapped back, flipping him off as he picked the lock on the desk. “No goddamn patience.”

“Oh, by all fucking means, take your time!” Ashton said, pointedly staring at him as one of the crew (probably the damn goliath, the way the door nearly buckled under the strike) slammed against the door and nearly sent him flying across the room. “I don’t know what I was thinking!”

“Finally getting some appreciation from you,” Chetney sniffed as the lock clicked open. “See what happens when you shut your mouth?”

“Just grab the fucking necklace so we can get the fuck out, Chet,” Ashton snapped without any real heat. They were actually sort of worried this crew was gonna start using weapons to break open the door, and they preferred their body un-skewered.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m working—oh,” Chetney said, going very still.

“What?” Ashton demanded, his gaze whipping over to where Chetney stood. “Hells, Chet, what could be so—“

His sentence was interrupted by a loud popping noise, followed by a strange green arcane blast. Ashton’s first thought was fuck, a trap that bastard forgot to disarm, as they ducked and covered their head, trying to avoid whatever magic was just released by Chetney’s incompetence. When they opened their eyes again a fraction of a second later, they were not greeted with the familiar sight of a crotchety old gnome. In the gnome’s place, a small, furry mammal wrapped in leathery wings and sporting massive brown ears sat, blinking confusedly. A fruit bat, Ashton thought.

The good news was that nobody could take the necklace from Chetney now. Ashton didn’t see it anywhere in his little hand-talon-wing appendages. So that was good.

The bad news was that, in his surprise, Ashton had stopped leaning against the door as much, and now those fuckheads were seriously about to slam him across the entire damn room if he didn’t move in the next two seconds.

Quickly, they stumbled to their feet, snatching their hammer from where it was wedged—protecting the room was a lost cause at this point, they’d already gotten what they came for, even if it turned the old man into a fucking fruit bat, apparently, what the fuck—and the small, furry form of what was probably Chetney Pock O’Pea from the carpeted office floor just as the goliath smashed the door in half with her polished battle axe.

“Greymoore!” she bellowed, leveling her axe with Ashton’s face. “Nowhere to run, fuckhead. It’s just us now.”

“You underestimate the shit I’m willing to do to not have to deal with your bad breath,” Ashton said, immediately feeling like a twelve year old for the stupid taunt. The feeling was pushed to the back of his mind as he assessed his options.

“I don’t think I’m underestimating shit,” the goliath snarled, her friends (the fucking sneaky little katari who ratted him out and the elf with the bow who’d tracked him, dammit) fanning out behind her, “considering the shit you pulled to avoid paying me back.”

“Listen, I forgot about that. Genuine mistake. I can get the gold to you soon, promise,” Ashton said. He did kind of mean it, too, but mostly he was just trying to figure out how the fuck he was supposed to get out of this second story room. The original plan was to have Imogen fly up and get them if anything went wrong, but she hadn’t arrived yet, probably because Ashton had held the door instead of signaling for her. He hadn’t accounted for several random people who he’d apparently cheated out of a small fortune in a gambling house a couple years ago showing their stupid faces again, sue him. Honestly, he hardly remembered even playing a game with them. He’d cheated a lot of people out of money in that gambling house.

Besides the point. The bat in his arms seemed displeased. Ashton was very displeased, also, so Chetney wasn’t fucking unique in that regard.

They clutched the small animal tighter, realizing the only possible escape.

There were rooftops close to the study they were standing in. Ashton was gonna have to jump out of a goddamn window again, because that had gone so well for him last fucking time. Couldn’t get enough of window jumping.

Chetney seemingly realized what he was about to do before he did it, squeaking loudly in surprise, or maybe warning, but Ashton never listened to Chetney even when he could speak and he certainly wasn’t about to start listening to him now that he could squeak.

He hastily stuffed the small bat into the pouch around his leg, slung his hammer over his shoulder, and sprinted for the window.

“Hey!” the goliath shouted behind him, taken aback by his decisiveness, but Ashton was already on the windowsill, catapulting themself out into the air.

For a horrifying moment, they were suspended there, mid-leap, left to briefly wonder if this was how they’d fallen off that stupid balcony. Then, gravity took hold, and they started on the gradual arc of descent.

Randomly, they found themself annoyed that Orym hadn’t been sent on this mission as Chetney’s bodyguard. He was certainly more likable and far less likely to have a group of people out for his blood for doing literally nothing (in the past two years) to piss them off, and he had those magic boots that let him leap jumps like this no problem. Ashton had fucking nothing.

They didn’t bother to pray, just brace themself as they fell and hope that either their feet hit a solid rooftop or that they didn’t hit anything too horrible on the way down.

They immediately proceeded to drop like a stone (ha ha, they sarcastically thought to themself) and slam their head on the edge of the rooftop they’d tried to jump to. Their hands scrambled against the shingles, trying to find purchase, but of course, they were too heavy to get any traction, so down they went, straight onto the pavement.

Ashton yelped as they landed hard on their tailbone, probably fracturing it, and smacked the back of their head on the wall of the alley. Bat-Chetney protested in his pocket, squeaking as if to say, the fuck was that, Greymoore?

“Shut up, Chetney, hells,” Ashton growled, shakily standing up. They had to get the fuck out of here before that stupid gang caught up with them.

“Come on,” Ashton hissed, sprinting deeper into the alley. “We gotta blend in. We’ll find the others in a bit.”

He blended into the crowd as best he could when looking like he did, keeping his hood up and his head down and sticking to alleys until he was sure they’d lost their tail. Sighing and wincing, he roughly grabbed Chetney from his pouch and held him up, studying his new form.

“Gods,” they said, poking Bat-Chetney’s snout, “you’ve never looked better.”

The bat squeaked. Ashton snorted. “Don’t suppose you even understand me right now? Fuck, I’m trying to remember how this shit works. Fearne would know.”

Speaking of Fearne, Ashton had no idea where she was. Looking up, they realized they also had no idea where they were. They’d lost the tail, but in the process, it seemed like they’d also lost their allies.

Well. They’d be getting a strongly-worded message from Imogen, then. Hopefully she didn’t try to message Chetney. That probably wouldn’t go well right now.

Ashton did spend a little too long giggling at the idea of Imogen sending out her usual psychic brainwaves or whatever and just getting a bunch of confused bat noises back. That was probably what happened whenever she tried to message Chetney anyway, though, they reasoned.

•

Imogen was about done with their missing party members. She loved them to death, but gods, they were stupid sometimes.

They should have sent Orym with Chetney. Lord knows what possessed everyone to agree that Chetney and Ashton were the right people to discreetly grab that necklace. They’d managed to fool everyone into believing they were competent thieves, and now she was having her second infuriating psychic conversation from halfway across a city with Ashton.

The good news was that they weren’t dead or captured, and they’d gotten the necklace, but true to Ashton fashion, they’d managed to piss someone off and also turn Chetney into a bat, somehow. That did sound pretty funny, though, she had to admit. She hoped Chetney was still a bat when the duo was found.

Her hopes were dashed somewhat when F.C.G.’s locate creature spell led them to their friends, both in their respective humanoid forms, hiding out in the back of an ally.

“What in the hell were you two thinking,” Imogen demanded, waving her hands with the words. “That was supposed to be a quick smash and grab!”

“Well, it was!” Ashton smirked. “We’re here, aren’t we? And we have the necklace. We smashed, we grabbed. Good times were had by all. Now we can go get drunk off our asses to celebrate!”

Imogen massaged her temples. They had no goddamn business being that smug, considering the amount of magic she and Letters had burned trying to find them, but if she told them that, both Ashton and Chetney would get even more unbearably smug.

These two would fucking kill her one day if she didn’t kill them first.

“Fine, whatever,” she said, crossing her arms and turning to peer out of the alley, making sure nobody was paying attention to them. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“Where’s the necklace?” Fearne piped up, putting on her best innocent smile. It worked on exactly none of them, but it was funny to see her try. “I can hold onto it. For safekeeping, of course.”

“Of course,” Ashton agreed, smiling in that enabling way they often did when Fearne stole shit and leaning to fish the pendant from Chetney’s grasp.

“Ash, wait—“ Orym started, but he didn’t finish the sentence.

A green flash of light and a loud popping noise later, a very confused adolescent deer was standing with the Hells in the alley.

Chetney laughed so hard that he bashed his head on the wall.

Imogen was actually going to murder both of them as soon as Ashton turned back. Even though part of her was very happy at seeing her earlier wish fulfilled.

#cr #cr3 #ashton greymoore #chetney pock o'pea #imogen temult #roll performance #charisma save #spelling disasters #i rolled three times for this prompt hehe #chetney rolled a seven on his polymorph save #ashton rolled a nineteen on a dex save to avoid the door slamming open #and then subsequently rolled a fucking seven athletics to jump to the next rooftop #i probably could have rolled stealth and another saving throw for ash’s polymorph #but i wanted the funniest possible option #i am a huge fan of polymorph shenanigans i’ll eat them up every time #i’d write this forever if i could

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