Swamped

It looks like a hen. What's a hen doing on a ship?

No, even weirder. A swamphen. There are farms just a few miles away from the docks, so a hen stowing away is at least vaguely plausible. Maybe a sailor keeping a pet.

But a swamphen? The nearest swamp is practically in the next kingdom. And you don't even know if they have hens there.

On the other hand, you just saw a pile of dead bugs walking around in the shape of a human being. A swamphen makes more sense than that in a number of ways.

Maybe you're hallucinating? It's not like you actually touched the bugs. So you suppose the simplest thing to do is pick up the hen to see if she's real.

She is, or at least that's what your hands are telling you. And it starts clucking. Only the clucking starts sounding a little like words. Then it sounds a lot like words.

"Get me to the wizard!" she shouts.

"Be happy to, if I could figure out my way out of here," you reply. "Don't suppose you can help with that?"

"I don't exactly know how to fly, and it wouldn't help that much if I could. There's no way I can get above the corridors."

Well, since that's not getting anywhere, you suppose you might as well ask some other questions you're wondering about.

"What exactly happened to you?"

"I got turned into a chicken," the hen says, annoyed. "I'm hoping the wizard can turn me back."

"Okay, that makes sense. But how did this happen? And for that matter, what were you doing down here in the first place?"