Image Description: A young naked woman with shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair sits on a wooden cube with various shapes and patterns on each of the sides. She looks downward and to the side, with a calm, contemplative expression on her face, and her legs crossed over one face of the cube.
Caption: Hector was a master of puzzles, so naturally he jumped at the chance to examine the latest acquisition of the Antiquities Department, an alchemist’s puzzle box from the 11th century. It was in pristine condition, and Hector was shocked by the sophistication of its interlocking parts. He twisted and pressed different pieces, and was shocked again when a pattern locked into place and glowed. Almost immediately, he felt his sciatica disappear, along with the arthritic aches in his joints. A quick look into his cell phone camera showed that he looked thirty years younger, maybe more! The allure of real magic was too tempting to pass up. He tested other sequences, carefully and dispassionately noting each effect. His race changed a few times, skin darkening and lightening, features altering in various combinations. His age cycled up and down the decades, and at some point he became a very attractive young woman. He played with the cube a little longer, but while his breasts grew and shrank, along with his hair and hips, he couldn’t find the pattern to restore his male form. The longer he remained in this new body with its new desires, the more he wanted to explore himself rather than the box. And so he resolved to do a thorough exploration, just as soon as he figured out how to undo the changes that left him two feet—whoops, make that eight inches—tall. On second thought, maybe his height could wait...
