The "Best" RPG Ever-9

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---

Lyle sat up, opened his eyes, looked around groggily for a second, and lay back down. Then he bolted straight back up again, the impact of his surroundings finally hitting. He was in a white..room? It's hard to call something a room when it doesn't seem to have any entrances or exits. Just a strange enclosed space where all the walls, the floor, and the ceiling all look the same. Anyway, whatever kind of location it was, the only thing of note were the two circular pedestals with..hologram things floating around above them, the..was that a text box?..and..Ray.

Ray was here too. He was still lying down, unmoving. "Ray! Hey!" Lyle hopped up onto his feet and went over to Ray, kneeling over and shaking him. "Wake up."

"Mmghschrhmb'll hssn't rng 'et.." muttered his friend, turning over onto his side.

"Ray. Wake up, it's me Lyle, you have to see this, man!"

"Wzz..wha?" Ray spun himself around awkwardly until he was sitting up, leaning on his hands, looking wide-eyed around the not-room. "Lyle? What the heck—where are we?"

"I don't know. Last thing I remember we were sitting in front of the computer—"

"—waiting for that weird game we got to load, yeah, me too," said Ray, nodding. "So how'd we get here?"

"I don't know, abduction by..video game? Magic or something?"
"Magic isn't real, Lyle,"
"I know, but how else do you explain this?" he said, gesturing around.

"Uh..gonna need a while on that." Ray stood up and looked at the message box, reading it. "Huh..you know, the game was supposed to be an RPG, right? Maybe this is it."

"How exactly can this be a game? Ray, we are standing in some kind of white capsule. How is this place even lit up?"

"No, no, bear with me..maybe this is like, some kind of super-advanced VR tech or something?"

"What, activated by a CD on your computer? Ray, your computer has trouble playing Doom."
"That was just an overloaded mod, man. Anyway, it's the best I've got. I don't think they're gonna let us out of here unless we do what the text box says, anyway."

Lyle shook his head and walked up to one of the pedastals. "So what, I'm supposed to drag this hologram somehow?" he said, trying to grab hold of it and nearly losing his balance when his hand unexpectedly found something to hold on to. When he got the thing he was holding to go in a direction, the message box split into two smaller ones, one above the pedastal Lyle was messing with, and another above the other one. Lyle's box was a brief description of the knight class, along with a note it was already taken.

"So you think..you think we're somehow still sitting in our room in front of the computer, with the recorder running, and, but we're like zoned out and controlling virtual bodies on the screen?" said Lyle.

"I dunno," shrugged Ray, "good a guess as any."

Lyle scrolled through the next couple of classes, ranting as he read. "Why do they leave the class in the selection list if someone already took it? Why can't two people have the same class, anyway? And..who else is in this game?"

"Are you asking me questions? Because those sound like questions I can't answer," said Ray.

"I'm just talking, Ray. According to your theory, we should still be commenting on all this, right? Show's still going?"
"I dunno, man, that's just your version of the story. And even if you're right, Something this intensive, even my glorious computer would probably have to close some programs to run it smooth. I bet if the recorder is still running, it'll be choppy and out-of-sync as heck. No good for the show. What're you gonna pick, anyway?"

"Uhhh...oh, hey! An archer class. I know how to shoot bows. Think it'll give me a skill bonus or something?"

He read the description to himself while his friend talked: "Archer: Ranged fighters, specially suited to dealing large amounts of damage from afar. Archers lack in melee capabilities, but have the speed required to stay out of such situations in most cases. Usually one who chooses to become an archer has no particular magical affinity or talent; being so mundane is both a blessing and a curse."

"That doesn't sound like a fair game, Lyle. I mean, what if you were playing a fighting game and actually knew karate, and it detected that and gave you free bonus health and powerups? That'd suck for everyone else, wouldn't it?"
"It'd make gamers exercise more, that's for sure. I'm goin' for it anyway." Lyle pulled on the hologram of a longbow, and soon found himself holding what appeared to be a rather real wooden longbow in his hands. His message box changed to something rather unusual, which he looked up to read.

It said, "Preexisting skills detected. Please select a Prestige Class."

Lyle fist-pumped with his free hand, "Hah! I was right. Let's see what they got." The prestige classes had no description other than their names: Elemental Archer, Psionic Archer, or Grand Archer. "Hmm..I get it," said Ray, "I bet the grand archer keeps the whole 'mundane' theme going, but you get way better at shooting bows. And then, the other two give you, like, supernatural arrows or shooting powers or whatever."

"Well, duh," said Lyle. "What d'you think I should pick? What are you gonna pick?"
"I dunno, Illusionist sounds pretty cool," said Ray.

"Sounds to me like a class that can't fight," answered Lyle.

"Well, maybe not do a lot of damage. But I can make a lot of distractions to keep enemies off your back so you can focus on shooting 'em. I'm thinkin' of you, man."

"Well..I think if I'm gonna do one of these, just getting better at shooting bows is kinda boring. I mean, this is clearly a game full of magic, right? It'd suck to play it all the way through and not get to use any magic, huh?"

"Up to you, man."

"I'm goin' for Elemental," said Lyle, pulling out the small storm of various pulsing colors representing that particular class. Once he was holding the strange mass in his hand, small bits of each color represented snaked out from it and seemed to curl their way around his arm, and then beyond that to be around his whole body.

"Whoa!" Lyle panicked and flailed around for a second or two, but whatever the stuff was, it moved with him, and wasn't quite solid. Besides, after a few seconds it constricted and apparently absorbed itself into his skin. "What the..that was a weird effect," he said, shaking his head.

"Hey, it changed your eyes," said Ray, pointing as if Lyle could see his own eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean I'm pretty sure they weren't purple before, is all."

"Oh. Maybe purple is magic? I—whoa.."

"What?"
"I don't know, I just felt something weird. Like a..tingly feeling. It's kind of..not itchy, but..aagh, there it is again."

Ray looked carefully, and noticed that Lyle's skin was clearly turning paler, and his facial hair looked much thinner. He didn't have time to communicate that before Lyle suddenly dropped the bow and folded his arms, shuddering.

"Aah! What the..heck.." he said, as his body suddenly started shifting. He became thinner everywhere, all at once, and his shoulders fell a bit, pulling in his frame. His shirt turned all white with a ring of black at the end of each sleeve, and his jeans turned into white cloth and started pulling up from his ankles. "My..body's..squeezing.." he said as he continued to shrink. He became no shorter, but before long his arms and legs looked much smaller, and his face seemed a bit rounder in shape, and very smooth, the last of his facial hair having left it.

Lyle shuddered again, his arms clutching each other tightly, as the shrinking faded off. His hair grew out, gaining long bangs and framing his face but stopping just below chin-height; it turned bright blue in color, and two hair ornaments in the shape of five-petaled flowers appeared on one side, just above the ears. Meanwhile, the hems of his pants found their way all the way up to his thights, before the pants themselves spread out into a single skirt with a couple of vertical blue stripes. His shirt pulled slightly tighter against his slim body, showing a bit of an inward curve to the sides of his stomach. Its collar grew out and folded down, a blue ribbon with a bow in front forming around the neck.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Lyle yelled, his arms separating off to his side as if they had been forced there by something. As he yelled, his voice audibly rose in pitch more than an octave, sounding by the end like a girl's voice, and Lyle's chest grew out, pushing two large, round bumps out into the shirt. Finally, as her tense posture relaxed slightly, a quiver full of arrows appeared on her back, the strap wrapping its way over her shoulder, down between the new bumps of her chest, and down the other side, and a glove appeared on her right hand.

Lyle looked down at herself in shock. "W-what the..did I..? I'm..!" She moved her legs closer together, blushing slightly, and paused a second or two.

Ray started, "Um, are you--?"
"Why did I just turn into a girl?!" she yelled.

"Well, uh, maybe Archer is a girl-only class or something?"
"But I picked Archer already, and nothing happened!"
"Maybe just Elemental Archer? I don't know. Just how..?"

"I feel very much like I'm not a guy anymore, thanks," interrupted Lyle.

"You definitely look the part. Actually, you're pretty cute."
"Not helping."

"Well, look, it's just part of the game. If they had real virtual reality and you picked a female player to play this would be a pretty cool feature, right?"

"Yeah, if I actually wanted to play a girl in that. Here I had no warning or..or anything! And the way it did that was really weird. Why make me actually feel like my real body is being turned into a girl, instead of just..doing it instantly?"

"Maybe it can't do that, since your real body was already in the game? I dunno."
"Ughhh, whatever. Let's just get on with this. Sooner we get out of this game the better."

"You do know once we get out of here all the NPCs and even any other players are gonna see you as a girl, right?"

"Just pick your class, Ray."

"Okay, okay."

---

Mika came along with her broom, and she and Nora helped Katherine pick Zack up and position him where he wouldn't fall off. The wolf looked up and growled.

Still listening for his communication, Katherine heard, Where are you taking her?

"Somewhere safer," she answered, looking at the wolf in hopes of not confusing the others.

I am here. Nowhere is safer.

"You wanna carry her on your back?"

He snorted. I am no burden-bearer.

"You'd do it if Zack told you to, though, wouldn't you?"

What the alpha commands is done. You are not the alpha.

"Well, you can come with us if you want, but I've known her for longer than you have, and I know she wouldn't like it if we left her out here in the middle of the road."

Mika got on the broom behind Zack, hugging him awkwardly from behind. "I can keep her steady, but I can't see where I'm going," she said.

"Just follow me," said Nora, starting to walk. Katherine followed the pair on the levitating broom, and after they got a few yards off she could hear the wolf standing up and treading along behind them.

"So why were you blocking the road anyway?" she said, looking back at the wolf.

I am strong, to others worthy alpha. I have no direction. Desired a worthy alpha with direction.

"And you think she has direction?"It matters not. She is worthy alpha.

"What made you challenge her in the first place instead of running off like before?"
Others were not even worthy to challenge. Form is man, but scent is wolf. Worthy to challenge, and proved worthy alpha.

When they made it to town, the guards looked at the group, then at Zack, and then around the broom at Mika. "What did you do to her?" asked one of them.

"Besides carry her here, nothing," answered Nora, frowning. "She tired herself out fighting that one," she added, pointing to the wolf in the back.

He gasped. "Ye gods, that's the.."

"Yes it is," said Katherine, giving a grin just shy of being a smirk. "He considers Zack his 'alpha' now, won't be making any more trouble for you guys."

"Oh, that's great news!" said the other guard. "We should tell the Captain immediately!"

"You mind helping us with Lady Zack first?" said Mika. "I don't want to bump into people all the way to the inn."
"Uh, sure," said the guard who spoke first. The two guards picked up Zack, and Nora led them to the inn, the wolf following a bit more closely now that there were so many people around. Nora was a bit surprised at how few of them reacted to the giant wolf in tow..then again, she thought, a few of them looked like they were part wolf or cat or bird or other things, too..

Katherine and Mika went to report that the job was done and claim the rewards. "'Lady Zack'?" said Katherine.

"Well, it makes sense, right? That's what you call a female knight, just like you call a male knight 'Sir Whoever'."
"Shouldn't it be 'Ma'am Whoever?"
"It'd be Madam. They didn't have that slang in the Middle Ages."
"They also didn't have female knights."
"There were a few..maybe..and even if not, it makes sense for any fiction with female knights to call them Lady. Whole lot more than Sir, for sure."
"You know she's gonna kill you if she finds you called her 'Lady', right?"
"Risk worth taking," said Mika with a grin.

Once the reward was safely in the party's inventory, Katherine started toward the inn, Mika following. "Well, I'm gonna lie down for a while. I'm beat."

"I'll be with you in a little while..I think I can probably afford what I need to s..uh..do that thing, you know, that I need to do," said Mika, deciding against using the phrase 'summon a demon' in the middle of town.

"Sure. Maybe we can do that tonight, you think? Since after that fight, all anyone's gonna do this afternoon is lie down and rest anyway."

"Sounds good. I mean, if Zack's okay with it."

"Why do you care so much if she's okay with it?"
"Well, you know, she's pretty much been doing all the heavy lifting so far. Wouldn't be surprised if it happens again~."

The cat-girl shrugged. "See you later."