The "Best" RPG Ever-5

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"Yeah..what's wrong with witches?" asked the new girl.
"Just..okay, hang on," said Katherine, putting a couple of fingers to her forehead for a second before continuing. "You were a guy before, right?"
"Umm..yeah, but I wasn't gonna say anything."
"Well, then why did you pick an obviously female-only class?"
"Because it sounded like fun! Aaaand..I have kind of a habit of playing the Guy IRL anyway. Also, I was curious if the rules wouldn't let me or something, but the game had a pretty neat way of fixing that!"

"If you want to call it that," said Zack.
"I guess it doesn't matter, it would've happened anyway," said the psion. "Both of us used to be guys, too."
"Still am one," said the knight, slightly irritated.

"Um.." the witch looked pointedly at Zack's pretty impressive figure, before shrugging and saying, "if you say so! By the way, who were all these jerks?" She pointed around at the dead creatures on the cave floor.

"Goblins. They raided a caravan, and we're on a quest to take them out and get the stuff back," said the catgirl. "You want to join us?"
"Sure! These guys have no sense of hospitality anyway."
"Well, my name is Katherine, this is..Zack."
She put a hand to her lower lip for a second or two. "Oooh, I haven't thought of a name yet. Um, how does Mika sound?"

"Fine, I guess," said Zack, "now can we—"
"No no, I mean does it sound cute enough? I mean, I'd hate to go around with a body this cute and not have a name to match."

He put a hand to his face and shook his head. Katherine smiled, patting her on the shoulder, and said, "It's plenty cute, and fits you just fine. What can you do?"

"Um..so far, I can summon pumpkins and a little light."
The two others looked at each other. "..Pumpkins?" said the psion.

"Yep! I absorbed the essence of a pumpkin demon. They're actually pretty good at stunning enemies. Oh, yeah, and if we ever fight a demon I call dibs on its essence."

"I don't think either of us has any use for that anyway," said Zack. "Now can we go look for the other two goblins? The noise of this fight already told them we're coming, so they've had plenty of time to run away or prepare a bunch of traps. Not to mention we have no idea which direction they went in."

"Well, not that way," said Mika, pointing, "I came from in there and this was the only exit."

"And we would have noticed them coming out the way we entered," said Katherine. "Which leaves..three ways. Maybe you could sniff them out, Zack?"

"What?"

"You know, using your clearly wolf-like sense of smell? It makes sense as a racial trait, you know, same as how I can balance and do gymnastics all of a sudden. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what a goblin smells like around here."

"Fine, I'll try," said Zack. He went over to the nearest dead goblin and bent over to sniff at it. The others looked away from the inadvertent flipping up of his skirt and at each other's faces, Katherine shaking her head and Mika stifling a giggle. "I can hear you, you know."

"Then kneel down or something next time," said Katherine, "just because you claim to still be a guy doesn't mean you're not wearing a skirt."

He abruptly stood back up and walked to the nearest unexplored cave entrance, and they could both see him trying to hide his beet-red face. He sniffed around at the walls for a second or two. "Nothing this way..."

He moved over to the next opening, on the opposite side from the way out, and sniffed around. "It's here, but..old. How do I even know that?" And at the last of them he said, "The scent is a lot fresher here. Doesn't look like it gets any brighter in there, though."

"I can make a light, like I said." The witch pointed over her head and a small glow appeared there.

"Okay, let's go."
"Behind me. I'm the closest thing to a tank we've got," said Zack, starting on his way in. The others followed, Mika in the middle with her light.

This part of the cave was surprisingly spacious, not especially wide but tall enough for all three of them to stand upright; in some places it looked like the roof had been carved out a little bit with tools of some sort to keep it that way. "So why do you think they're in an order like this?" said Katherine, quietly. "Two guards, four in the main campsite, two more presumably with the treasure?"

"It means the last two are the boss," said Zack bluntly.
Mika said, "Are you sure?"

"It's obvious. We have to beat them last to finish the quest, and we haven't exactly run into any other bosses yet. Anyway, if they can order all the other goblins to guard them, then they have to be the most powerful."

"Or just the most cunning," said Katherine. "Maybe they're like goblin wizards of oz. 'Pay no attention to the disgusting mud-creatures behind the curtain'!"

"There is no way we're that lucky," he answered flatly.

The trail hit a few random dead ends, but Katherine managed to keep track of where they'd been before and kept them from going in circles. Eventually the three of them found a hallway to a clearly larger cavern. Mika dimmed the light as they got closer, the others listening as two separate patterns of wheezing breath became just barely audible. They entered the room, and Mika all but turned the light out, standing still in the doorway.

Zack was surprised at how well his eyes picked up the area in front of him: A giant, fat silhouette lying on its back on one side, and a leaner, more muscular one hunched down, sitting on the floor to the other, of an indistinguishable pile likely full of stolen goods. He carefully drew the thick sword, and looked between the two of them.

"You should stab the smaller one," hissed Katherine. He looked over at her, and saw her eyes glowing slightly in the dim light. "Big one'll survive a hit because of all the blubber, and it'll be angry either way."

"Small what?" said Mika, as quietly as she could manage.

"Big goblins, right here," answered Zack. "Move the light over to the other side of this cavern. When it gets loud, make it bright."
"Sure." She moved the little will o' wisp into position, and waited.

He slowly moved toward the leaner goblin, wary of anything that might have spilled on the floor from the pile, and especially aware of the noise of his armor..again. About halfway there, the bigger goblin made a noise in its sleep, and everyone froze. It shifted slightly, but didn't wake up. Then he started moving again, trying to get an idea of which way to stab at the thing.

It was curled up. He wasn't completely sure of the position of its arms. But the head...he could see the top of its neck, once he was close. So he raised the blade as high as he could, brought it down in a swift chop, and missed the neck by what might as well have been a mile. Instead, the sword clanged against the creature's skull. His target screeched, and the noise woke the other goblin. He picked back up the sword and drew back as it got up, standing a few inches over him, and in a fluid motion drew a curved sword—scimitar? he thought briefly—and started swinging wildly at him with it. Zack had to back up, blocking with the thin blade, and within a couple of seconds the tip of his tail was against the wall. Then the light flashed, blinding nearly everyone. Zack was ready for it, and ducked down and to the right, moving around to flank his opponent. Then he had to jump out of the way of something large and heavy he heard coming from directly above his head.

The big goblin had a giant club for a weapon. Naturally. And now the smaller one was running at the witch.

Mika saw the tall, thin goblin coming at her with a sword, and reflexively threw a pumpkin at him. It hit him square in the chest and barely slowed him down. So she threw a knife at the same spot. That stopped him for a second, although he managed to deflect it off to one side so it would graze him. Then he noticed the catgirl right next to him and unarmed. He slashed, she jumped back, but not quickly enough, and it cut her across the shoulder.

She held her shoulder, trying to stop the flow of blood. "Ow! That hurt, you—ack!" She ducked out of the way of another attack, and then directed her aggression at his mind, trying to stun him. But since the emotion communicated was aggression, he was provoked instead. He hissed and screeched at her, and started attacking more erratically and less methodically, which admittedly did make it easier to dodge. Or would have, without the shoulder pain.

Zack didn't have room to maneuver, and that was bad. But the big goblin seemed to like his pile of stuff too much to smash it with the boulder, so he didn't exactly have a lot of options for where to swing his giant club, either. They were at a virtual standstill, Zack beginning to dash forward only to have to get back before he could become a giant's baseball. And then Katherine practically danced straight into the fat goblin's line of fire, the smaller one in tow.

The witch saw an opportunity. "Kath! Jump back!" The club started its trip down. Mika turned off the light, and everyone was briefly blind again, but quite capable of hearing a distinct cracking sound as the big blunt weapon met with someone's head. She turned the light back on as quickly as possible, hoping desperately the idea had worked, and found that it had. The thin goblin dropped its sword, standing there badly dazed, its head bleeding and looking somewhat..crumpled.

The fat goblin looked at its partner for a second or two before suddenly roaring and charging at the witch.

"Wuh-oh!" Mika ducked back into the hallway, then turned around and started running when the big goblin didn't slow down. He barreled straight thorough the small bit of wall between the cavern and the hallway and ran after her, the knight and psion right behind him.

"Get on his back!"

"Can't you stun him?"
"I'm trying, I think he's got some kind of berserk psychic shield thing going on! Just jump on his back!"

"Fine!" Zack jumped onto the goblin's back, swords in front, and stabbed both into him. He didn't even seem to feel that, so he took out the wide sword, keeping anchored to the big moving mass of flesh with the slimmer one, and started hacking at its back-flesh.

Mika wasn't completely sure which way she was going, other than away from the enraged giant goblin that could probably kill a little girl like her just by sitting on her. Somehow, through all the twisting maze of cave, she managed to avoid finding a single dead end, instead winding up back in the main area, the big room they'd found the other goblins in. The fire was still burning, so she ran around it and turned around, panting, and then saw the fat goblin barrel through yet another opening.

Zack backflipped from the goblin's back before he could be caught by the rocks that used to separate the corridor from the chamber, and had to hop over them to catch up. Without thinking about it very much, he ran around the big goblin as it barreled closer to the witch, stepping right into the fire and apparently ignoring the pain in his foot. Zack stood between her and him, holding up both swords and hoping he had enough strength to block the giant club coming straight at him.

There was a bright flash just when the club connected with the blades. And then, suddenly, it seemed as if time stopped all around him. He could look around, but couldn't move his arms. He saw the gem he'd found on his person earlier making its way from up above the twin blades to just in front of his neck. His clothes shifted rapidly, the leg armor turning to boots and stockings, the skirt becoming cloth, the top turning black and the shoulder armor dissipating. The cape shortened a bit, the gem attaching at its center, and Zack felt some sort of headband forming around his head, just below the ears. The thin sword disappeared, and instead his left hand's glove became heavier, some kind of gauntlet showing up on it. Both gloves became fingerless, and there was some kind of bracer on his right hand..

And then the flash pulled back, all into the gem, and time seemed to slowly resume. Now the club's impact hit the side of his left arm, or rather some kind of force field just in front of it that seemed to glow when hit, in the shape of a bunch of connected hexagons. Surprisingly, he had no trouble with the impact; it didn't hurt at all, just pushed him back slightly.

The goblin drew its weapon back, and Zack hopped back slightly, panting.

I guess that's what the gem of brightness does, he thought briefly. And now that he could block its attacks instead of having to dodge all of them, he could do something about this goblin. It drew its club out to one side and swung it at Zack. He blocked again with the weird magic-shield thing, grateful it had come from his left side so this move wasn't awkward, and as soon as the club's momentum was gone he jumped straight up at the goblin, and stabbed straight into its neck, digging his shoes into its chest as he did.

The goblin dropped its club, making choking noises, and then staggered backward. Zack pulled the blade out and dropped to the cave floor, landing on his feet. The fat goblin landed on its back.

For a moment, nobody said anything, and the only sound in the cavern was the party of three catching their breaths. Then Mika said, "Wow, where'd you learn to do that?"

"I think..it's a class ability or something," said Zack, looking at the arm the shield came from and trying to figure out just how that worked. "I started with this gem thing, and it said I couldn't use it unless an ally is in danger. And..part of the description for Knight said something about switching between two forms, I think."
"So, that form is focused on defense, and the other one is attack," said Katherine, stepping forward, still holding her shoulder. "We should probably go make sure the other guy's really dead."

"Yeah." They went back through the corridors, following a trail of the big goblin's blood, and found the smaller goblin collapsed on the ground of the treasure chamber.

"I don't think he's breathing," said Katherine. "Still, wouldn't hurt to stab 'im again."
"On it."

"Sooo...how are we gonna get this stuff outta here?" said Mika.

"Hm..we're supposed to contact someone to come get it all once the monsters are cleared out," said Katherine. "I call 'not messenger'."

"That's not a good idea," said Zack. "You're hurt, and if we missed one or something else comes to steal this stuff, you can't kill anything yourself."
"Sure I can. I got a knife."

"Why don't I go alone?" Mika chimed in. "I bet I can fly on this broom. 'Cause that's a thing witches can do."

Zack looked over at her. "They wouldn't recognize you as our messenger. Besides, do you even know where the town is?"

"Umm..nope."

"Look, I'll stand guard. You need medical attention anyway."
Katherine sighed. "Fine. Since you put it that way.."

"Great! Every witch needs a black cat," said Mika.

"Shut up, I'm not 'yours'."

They continued on their way out of the cave. "But you are a black cat, right? It's just so fitting. Ee-he-he-he!"

"Stop that. I swear I'm gonna blow up your head first."

"You can do that?"
"Well..not yet. But when I learn how to explode heads, I'm gonna test it out on you."
"You'll have a hard time if I'm an archdemon by then~."

"Wait, you can become an archdemon in this game?"
"Sure. I mean, eventually. Apparently it's what witches do. Absorb demon essences, turn into an archdemon, be super powerful. Sounds neat, right?"

"...Yeah, I guess. If you don't mind being a girl."
"But you're a girl, too!"

"Yeah, but I didn't know I would turn into one anyway at the time..."

"Mm-hm. By the way, do you think Zack's boobs got bigger when she changed forms like that?"
"Um...no. It's probably just the different top making it look like that. And why're you using female pronouns?"

"'Cause she's not around, I can call her what I want. Anyway, that dude is obviously a lady. I mean, I might be able to pass as a little boy or something, but that's just silly."
"You seem to like being silly."

"That I do!"

By now they were outside. Mika sat on the broom, and managed to get it to slowly lift up into the air, before taking a quick flight up and around in a circle, and landing again. "Okay, it works great! Hop on."

"I don't think that's very safe.."
"Well, you need to get there fast, right? Just hold on tight!"

"...Fine." The psion sat behind Mika on the floating broom, wrapping her uninjured arm around the witch's stomach. "I swear if you drop me I am going to really kill you. Somehow. Even if I have to become a psychic ghost."

"Don't worry, I'm sure it's just like riding a bike. One that floats waay up in the air. Now, which way's the town?"

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Phew, huge gap between writing the lead-in and the actual boss fight. And..now I'm not totally sure what to do next. There are so many options! I know they gained lots of skill points from all these battles, so they're going to spend those and finally have new abilities. After that..I need to figure out what happens next. Some tougher quest maybe? Some event in town or having to do with the town? I want an excuse to introduce another party member soon, I think..

I don't want to bog things down in a bunch of simple quests, is the problem. There's a trajectory toward a specific, very important quest, but it has to happen when the party is larger and somewhat higher in average level.

Still looking for suggestions, ideas, et cetera!