“So… did you get babied by those giant plushies, too?” Matteo said conversationally, swallowing an enormous mouthful of turkey sandwich as he did so. Farix listened closely, for he was very interested to hear whether the dragon replied honestly, or with a lie he thought nobody would be able to see through.
     
     “Nuh-uh, they’re my friends,” the dragon said, smiling and stretching out luxuriously so that his ridged, serpentine spine popped in a few places, “We cuddle lots and lots.” 
     
     “Uh huh…?” Toya said, having stopped to listen, “Well, we were all a halfway decent age yesterday afternoon, before those things… You know, regressed us.” The wolf pouted visibly, rather more childish now that he had the fluffy, even chubby cheeks of a pup, “And they took our stuff! Will you help us get it back?”
     
     “Oh, so you guys are taking the trials?” The dragon said, apparently all the more engaged at this, and began lashing his tail energetically behind him, “Huh, you four must really know your stuff! I mean you’ve gotten this far and you can all still walk, and all…”
     
     “Right, so can you help us or not?” Anzu said, somewhat back to his normal, irritable nature. He didn’t look like he trusted the dragon, either, now that his adult mind had begun to bubble up over the childish surge that they’d all had while sleepy and hungry upon waking up. Before the dragon answered, however, he bluntly added, “And how do we know you’re not that faerie that’s been messing with us? Or… you know, in league with him?”
     
     Farix had to keep from rubbing his head in frustration. They had nothing to gain by being openly skeptical of their new… acquaintance, and he inwardly wished Anzu had had the sense to let him do the talking. Still, it had been said, and, thankfully, Nicky didn’t look offended. He simply sat back on his diapered rump, grinned, and shrugged, “Well, I kind of am in league with him, as you put it. Like I said, most people don’t make it this far, so I thought I’d come down and watch you tackle some of these challenges first-hand.” There was a silence, though nobody looked terribly surprised, Farix least of all. There was scarcely any other explanation for his presence, but, at the very least, Farix thought that he might be able to coax more information out of him with time than the fae, who was sharper than a dwarven beard razor, and less predictable by several orders of magnitude. After everyone else remained silent for an uncomfortably long moment, Nicky continued, “As for helping you… Not really. I can act as a guide, at the most, and maybe offer you some advice in places. Otherwise I’m just here to observe.”
     
     “I see…” Farix said, trying to sound more convinced than he actually was, and nodded, looking again around the enormous plush nursery that had been allocated for them, along with the sliding stone door that the animated objects had rolled into place to keep them neatly contained inside, despite their evident desire to move along through this dungeon. Though things still felt grim, the skunk had give himself a goal — he had to get himself, and his party, out in one piece, and, now that he had a goal, he could begin making tentative steps towards it. Failing that, he’d try to make an escape alone, leaving the other three behind with the intention of calling on a few other, potentially more well-equipped friends to aid him in a rescue mission, hopefully one that the faerie would be less well prepared for. It wasn’t much, but, hopefully, it would be enough to keep him motivated, especially since he had gradually begun to notice his companions growing more and more comfortable with being, well… cubs, the longer that they remained under this dungeon’s regressive aegis.
     
     “Well, no sense in loitering about here, now that we’re all fed,” Anzu said, standing unsteadily and looking around to what remained of his once proud dungeon party. At the moment, Matteo was the littlest of all of them, barely five years old by the looks of him and only able to waddle around precariously in his thick, soaked, and saggy diaper. Toya was faring better, his natural dexterity and experience at moving around in diapers aiding him once again, but that still didn’t change the fact that he was still rendered virtually useless in a fight, as were they all. He, himself, by the nature of his biology, had rather skinny and largely underpowered legs, so the crow likewise found himself considerably slowed, and, while his infantile toddling was certainly adorable, he greatly doubted his ability to lift his sword at the moment, let alone swing it with anything resembling strength or accuracy. “Alright, hatchiebutt, advise us. How the heck are we supposed to get that giant stone door out of the way?”
     
     The dragon, however, had returned to the basket, and was now reaching in to the space-defying container and coming out with a sizable peach, which he consumed in a single bite. “What, do you think I’m here to give you orders?” Nicky said, giggling, then crawled back up to the top of the crib, removing the pin so it fell back into its slot, then flopped over onto the mattress from six feet up, getting comfortable. Nobody stopped staring at him, however, and eventually the dragon seemed to roll his eyes and respond regardless of his previous statement, “Fine, I’ll give you a hint. You can’t move the door, you’re not supposed to be able to. That means you need to find someone else to do it for you. Make sense, now?”
     
     Realizing what was intended, Toya groaned and wrapped his paws around his face, “That is not a solution!” He said, indignantly looking up at the drake and grimacing when everyone else turned their attention to him, expectantly. “Damn it… He wants us to get out by getting that giant raccoon’s attention again… Remember what she said about play time after our nap? I’ll bet a weekend’s rum ration that will be a damn sight easier for us to escape than this place. It’s full of holes, though! So many things could go wrong!”
     
     “Y-yeah, I agree. This plan is stupid, we need to find something else,” Matteo said immediately, blushing and looking around as attention turned to him. In the usual course of events, the raccoon was by far the lest intuitive when it came to tactics and strategy, but, on this point, he seemed totally concrete and unmovable. Then, one by one, everyone realized the real reason that the bard was so eager to avoid any more contact with the enormous, overbearingly motherly plush that had rather taken it in stride to treat him precisely as though he were her own cub. Nobody met his eye after that, and the discussion trailed off after a few more comments before Anzu came out and said it.
     
     “Matteo… We need you to take a dive and get that giant raccoon’s eyes off us for an hour or two,” Farix said, deciding that this was the only way to proceed. The bard gulped in a very uncharacteristically anxious way, and wiggled in his heavily soiled pamper, “These things absorbed a lot of our… age, I guess would be the best term, yesterday, and hopefully they’re not at their most active right now. This isn’t cobalistic magic, but golems of the magical sort typically get lethargic after consuming energy. I’d like to use that to our advantage, but we need that Mama character out of the way for a bit. Why don’t you play her a lullaby or something…? Maybe that’ll help.”
     
     “I’d need my lute?” Matteo said, pouting for the first time that Farix had seen in… well, ever. This reaction seemed silly, and more than a little bit comical to the rest of the group, all of whom covered their faces to hide grins at the sight of the raccoon’s pouting lips and red cheeks.
     
     “So… ask her for it?” Toya said, giggling a bit and poking the bard in the belly, “You’re basically an actor… play a part for us. Make her think that you’re the cutest, most helpless, adorable little baby raccoon in the world, and that you’ll keep crying and crying until you get a change, some new clothes, and your special lute back. Don’t try to get our stuff back, I’ll handle that.”
     
     “How are you going to handle that?” Farix asked, now that the discussion had begun to heat up again. The skunk, like all of them, was in desperate need of a diaper change, and was swiftly becoming ready to take one from any source which offered. 
     
     “When she runs off to get Matteo’s lute, I’ll follow her. Don’t start crying until we all get changed — I don’t want to have to chase a giant in a stinky pamp, alright? And if she tries to separate you from us, just keep crying.” The raccoon simply gulped, turning a brighter shade of crimson with every passing moment as he suddenly found himself the subject of everyone’s expectations, the bard being so rarely the party member on which a plan settled the prestigious, yet often stressful position of linchpin. Desperately, he tried to dig up some problem or other that the others had not yet already picked out and solved, but, again, the bard was far from a strategic or tactical genius, and all his effort soon came to naught.
     
     “B-but… what if she sees through my act?” Matteo said in desperation, looking almost like he was ready to start crying regardless of the plan, but, seeing that he needed to intervene, Farix crawled over and gave their friend a great big hug.
     
     “Then we’ll think of something,” Farix said, trying to sound more confident of the raccoon’s abilities than he felt, “But this has our best chance of success… Really, just try to act, well… like a baby, and I don’t see how you can go wrong. Make yourself look as adorable and helpless and pitiful as you can, and I can guarantee that big raccoon lady will eat it up. Trust us, Matteo, we all have faith in you.”
     
     The bard gulped hard, blushing, then looked around at his three friends, surrounding him. He sniffled a few times, tearing up already, then returned Farix’s hug and began to cry in earnest. He didn’t even particularly know what he was crying about, but, once he started, Matteo found that his mind was jumping from one topic to another indiscriminately, and it was considerably easier to simply keep crying than to try to reason it away or resist. The tears started to flow down his face, and, in immediate need of comfort, the little regressed raccoon wrapped his arms around Farix’s back as he began to properly bawl, surrendering willingly all control of his own emotions and giving in to the powerful, childish urge to call for a parental figure.
     
     A bit startled by this sudden and rather convincing display, Farix squeezed the raccoon tighter, embracing him close, and, for no reason he could accurately convey through words, he felt tears begin to come to his own eyes, too, falling to soak into the fabric of Matteo’s onesie and the fur beneath as he sniffled, suddenly needing things, acutely and desperately, that he had only wanted previously. Only distantly, the weeping pair of overgrown cubs felt Toya and Anzu reluctantly cuddle up to them, and, in short order, there were four babies curled up in a heap on the carpeted section of the nursery, all pretense of adult dignity willingly discarded and reduced in all practical terms to the emotional state of the children who’s bodies they now inhabited.
     
     Almost instantly, all four of the adventurers were caught up in the fit of crying, realizing only after they had made the plunge into those murky waters that they were far more turbulent than they, at first, appeared. Despite having experienced a true, total regression at the hands of this faerie once, already, nobody in the group could compare the two. This had been a willing regression, whereas that had been largely a contrivance of the creature to which they seemed little more than toys, and, by several orders of magnitude, the tantrum was by far the more powerful. It was, to try to explain something that is very nearly impossible to put into words, the four of them experienced the sudden and wholly unintentional discharge of two decades of pent-up emotion, everything that they had repressed and ignored and set aside since their last, full-on infant spat. It was the total, unbroken surrender of responsiblity onto others, a statement to those around them that the four adventurers were not, and, in fact, could not be held responsible for their own actions, problems, or emotions, and that they needed someone to gather up and take care of them with all immediacy due to four careening babies, all with the sheer vocal chords of deep youth to use, and it had an immediate, profound effect on them.
     
     The fit waxed and waned, like a storm over the ocean, sometimes with the four of them huddled into a heap and whimpering, other times bawling at the top of their lungs. It, however, lasted only a fraction as long as it would have needed to do to clear their minds of the considerable backlog of unspent emotional baggage that needed cleaning, and, now aware of its presence, nobody could shift the thought of its weight fully from their mind, not even Farix. The four were promptly interrupted by the grinding slide of their stone prison door rolling into its wall socket, followed immediately by the onrush of half a dozen large plushies, all of them bigger than the four adventurers and led by Mama herself, all of whom scooped up a separate cub and began using every parental trick in the book to coax them back to happiness.
     
     Perhaps honed by as much as several centuries’ regression therapy, Mama, who had naturally gathered up Matteo without hesitation, almost immediately began to successfully sooth the raccoon out of his self-incited fit. Still, he kicked and cried and fought the desire to calm, having opened the floodgates of emotion his tiny, childish mind-shard could think of nothing less desirable than to close them again before the unhappy reservoir was wholly emptied. The others, by their own bursts of furious kicking and complaining, were of Matteo’s mind as they were cradled in the soft, loving arms of the plushies. It took about ten minutes to fully calm them, everyone but Anzu immediately receiving a bottle of warm milk whether they liked it or not, followed promptly by a pacifier and all the cooing and belly rubbing and affectionate nuzzling that they could ever desire. Still, the result was that the party was left sobbing and red-eyed at the end of it, emotionally in turmoil and finding themselves in no way, shape or form ready to feed themselves, let alone escape.
     
     The plushies didn’t take the party from the nursery at once, or, indeed, for a considerable amount of time even after they had been rendered somewhat calm. None of the four were ready to tackle the onrush of emotion, so dense and powerful and lacking any psychological tie-ins that would make them graspable, handleable, lacking any effective adult counter to the unbound emotions of their new, childish selves.
     
     Matteo had badly filled his diaper with the previous night’s meal after the bottle feeding, driven on not only by the urges of his body, but by the small child deep in his lizard brain. You have to use your diaper, it said, giving the mental equivalent of a scratch on the head, and, still a psychological mess, he had obeyed, relaxing his bowels and blushing regardless as he shamelessly messed himself. 
     
     “It’s okay, little one… you’re safe now… you’re safe…” Momma cooed into the little raccoon’s ears, hushing him gently and holding him against her enormously soft, warm belly. Unable to articulate anything more than the most base vocalizations, Matteo simply curled up as deep into the mitt-like paws of the giant plushie as he could get, and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others doing much the same. For a while, the little whimpering raccoon drifted into the insensible world of infantile thought, focusing only on his most intrinsic emotions and feelings while letting the rest of his higher brain functions meander off in all directions. He came back to reality only when Mama set him down, alongside his three best friends in the world, his family, and gently unclipped the buttons of his onesie to reveal his squishy diaper, in desperate need of a change.
     
     The experience of having his diaper changed in a legitimate cub mindset was a totally new hurdle for Matteo’s already strained adult mind to jump, and one that seemed to change height at any given moment. As an adult, he still had serious reservations about being diapered at all, as they all did, let alone messing his diapers, let alone messing his diapers, then being changed by someone else, virtually a complete stranger, in public, or, at least, as close to public as he could reasonably get deep in an underground dungeon. His mind drifted between his adult indignation and humiliation at having so willingly submitted to his body’s desire to mess, and the far simpler, less unpleasant, diaper squishy, stinky, need change, that his cub side was feeding him.
     
     Without any appearance of hesitation, the enormous plush raccoon, seeming to tower over Matteo and increase the already palpable intensity of his comparative littleness, reached down and untaped his diaper, already with a handful of wet-wipes to clean him up with. The bard, who was, at the moment, little bigger than a large toddler, simply whined and chewed on one of his paws while the contents of his diaper was easily wiped away from his well-tended backside. The diapers had clearly been enchanted for easy-cleanup, but Matteo was no mage, and simply relaxed, comforted by the feeling of freshness that settled on him once the used diaper had been removed and disposed of. 
     
     Despite having not previously had his diaper changed by someone else since he was an actual cub, the previous few days in the dungeon notwithstanding, Matteo began to find process familiar, and deeply comforting. Perhaps the plushie’s hypnotic cooing had wormed its way into his mind and set up shop permanent, or, at least, that was how he felt. The raccoon began repeating the words over and over again in his head, I’m safe, I’m warm, I’m dry… I’m safe. Again and again the words repeated, both in his head and out loud until they became a mantra, lulling the raccoon off to a dazed, infantile trance.
     
     Once his diaper had been removed and canned, the actions of more thoroughly wiping down the raccoon’s backside, sliding a fresh pamper beneath it, powdering him, and taping it back up around his waist were wholly routine, albeit with much more affection than Matteo was used to. Still, he was wholly in a child’s head space at the moment, and, as such, unthinkingly obeyed when Mama lifted one of his legs, rolled him over, or otherwise manipulated him to make her job easier. Alongside him, the other three of the adventurers were receiving their own diaper changes, each of them with equally affectionate caretakers assigned to the duty. When, finally, Matteo was back in a fresh diaper and had his onesie buttoned up snugly once more, the giant raccoon plush cradled him in her arms again, rocking him back and forth while she waited for a second wave of considerably younger, smaller plushes with nursing bottles to arrive.
     
     If having his diaper changed had taken Matteo down from adult to toddler, then the bottle feeding which followed it took him down from toddler to baby. No sooner had Mama hefted him up to about where breasts would have been on an organic creature than did she pop the pink rubber nipple of a large nursing bottle into his muzzle and let him begin to suckle. Some part of Matteo’s mind tried to resist, but was promptly overwhelmed by the onrush of pleasure and comfort that he felt, suckling warm dairy straight from the nipple. His entire body relaxed compulsively, and, drifting, he felt his mind begin to wander. It was strange, being able to suckle without so much as thinking about it, curled up like a baby around the bottle and in the arms of a loving, caring creature.
     
     When the raccoon began to come to again, he almost mistook his position entirely. It felt, naturally, enough like Mama’s arms that, at first, he imagined that he was still being held by the enormous plush. However, when he drearily opened his eyes, he didn’t see her, but rather felt merely the nipple of a pacifier in his mouth, snug bindings engulfing him from every direction, and a soft, warm presence directly below him. The color up at which he found himself looking wasn’t grey, or black, like Mama, but rather a peculiar shade of dirty white and blue, vaguely familiar.
     
     “It’s okay, little guy… You four cubbed out pretty quick for a bunch of big boys,” Nicky teased, but did so affectionately, leaning down into Matteo’s proper field of view and giving him a warm nuzzle. Vaguely, the raccoon recognized him, but was in no psychological position to make an adult response even if he could somehow escape the tantalizing grip of his addictive, enchanted pacifier. “Your friends all went down pretty hard. I didn’t expect you all to get that little. Oh well, I guess you all just had really big cubs inside you that wanted out bad.”
     
     It was indignation, more than anything else, that began drawing Matteo out of his comfortable haze. One by one, he began to recognize things around him again. He was swaddled, for one, and his head had been laid down in Nicky’s lap. Toya, too, had been laid down like that, albeit with his body sticking out in the other direction. Nicky was talking to both of them in turn, and, judging by the peculiar assortment of whimpering, whining, and chirping, the later entirely generated by Anzu, the others were beginning to come out of their fit, as well.
     
     “N-nnnghh… whatth tha hewk waff dath?” Toya babbled, equally unable to spit out his pacifier as was everyone else, save for Nicky and Anzu, the latter of which lacked a mouth capable of holding one. While each of the four adventurers, in the strictest sense, could remember what had just happened, over the past fifteen minutes or so, they were an odd sort of memories, unusual in the extreme to those used to the level-heads of an adult body and mind. Rather than connecting the images to words, or people, Matteo and the others found themselves thinking in terms of raw emotion of the sort adults rarely felt, incommunicable, bound up into bundles and bursts of memory that failed to form a coherent narrative.