The "Best" RPG Ever-11

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The witch stood in front of a pentagram of black powder arranged in the grass, facing the same way as the top point of the star, the others behind her and the wolf a ways off. A strange little altar built of wood and stone stood in the middle, with some farm animal's heart nailed to it. When they'd started setting that thing up, the animal had walked away, insisting he wasn't afraid but that he didn't want to be close to something "so unnatural" unless the Alpha said he had to.

Her lips were moving and there was sound coming out; it felt like words, but at the same time nobody quite understood what they were or even seemed capable of processing the syllables. It was like the meaning was deeper, not quite comprehensible. A small spark of fire appeared at the top of the star, and slowly spread down the lines—more slowly than it should have across the flammable substance, and moving along the path very exactly and carefully, seemingly ignoring the grass to either side. Eventually the whole symbol was on fire, and then all of the fire rose up off the ground slowly before all going toward the altar, covering the whole thing, moving up and beginning to resemble a single, straight vertical line, the altar having apparently disappeared. Then it opened up, pushing out to either side until it was a tall oval-shaped opening, the other side vaguely glowing red but otherwise..somehow indistinct.

Mika stopped chanting and panted slightly, feeling winded from the effort of just saying whatever it was she'd just said.

"So..now what?" asked Katherine.

After catching her breath, the witch answered, "I opened up a portal that'll let exactly one demon through. They all wanna be here for some reason, so the first one that comes to it will walk out and then probably attack us."

After a few more seconds, the glow on the other side became more intense, and then what looked to be a mass of fire moved through the portal, after which it closed. It was bright enough that their eyes had to adjust a little bit before recognizing its shape as a small humanoid one. Its feet were floating slightly above the ground but still singing it, head looking around as if curious or confused. After a few seconds, it seemed to notice Mika, made some kind of hissing-popping sound, and charged at her.

Zack, already in dark form, got in the way and blocked it. He could feel the heat coming from the thing as it bounced off of his shield, staggering backwards slightly, and when he tried to cut through it his sword went directly through the creature as if it were air.

He hadn't expected that, and had to move aside when it charged at him again. It kept going, toward Mika, who immediately turned around and ran.

"You missed?!" said the Psion. "How did you miss?!"

"I didn't miss," said Zack, chasing after the demon, "it's not solid. It's made of air or something!"

"Pure fire. Not natural," said Nora. She picked up a thin wall of dirt in front of the creature, and it smacked into it, bouncing back slightly. "Not very smart, is it?" When the wall was gone, it resumed chasing the witch.

Katherine said, "Incredibly determined, though."

"Just stop it already! I'm really flammable!"

Zack managed to catch up, and tried just hitting the demon with his shield. It made contact again, and the creature paused, having to shake off the shock of the hit before moving again. "Can you make a bunch of water, Nora?"
"M-maybe, but not enough to put it out! If it was all already here, I think I could just throw it.."

"Hey Kath, can you make it chase you instead?" said Mika.

"Uh..no. Too focused. I think I can stun it, though!"

"'Kay, do that!"

Katherine stunned the demon, and Mika turned around and threw a pumpkin at it. The pumpkin flew straight through the fire-demon and crashed to the ground, and then it started chasing her again.

"Grrh!"

"Hey, try that again," said Zack, catching up to the demon again and bashing it with his shield. This time, when Mika threw the pumpkin he cut through it right when it was in the demon. The vegetable burst open, and the demon hissed, steam pouring out of it as the pumpkin's guts fell out.

"Hey, it looks smaller!" said Nora.

Next, the weaver stunned it by pulling up more dirt, and Katherine held the pumpkin in place while cutting it in a few places with a knife, and the flame demon shrank a bit more.

"Good, keep going!" said Zack, chasing after the thing again. He noticed that it was more difficult to catch up to this time, but still managed to do it.

"Hey, can you fly faster than running?"
"Maybe, why?"

"It's getting faster!"

The knight bashed the demon with a shield, and Mika took the time to get on her broom and fly up. The fire-creature followed, and she had to dive down to get it back in range of the others. They continued the pattern for a few more times, taking turns stunning the thing and breaking pumpkins in it, and soon the demon had been reduced to a little ball of fire, zipping around through the air too fast for any of them to catch up with.

Then the witch, flying up and down and around trying to get away from it, looked over her shoulder and noticed how small it was. She turned around and charged at it, clapping her hands on it once she was close enough, and slowed to halt in midair, opening her hands up to find the palms slightly burned and something like a single glowing bit of red-orange fire. It floated still for a second more before zooming its way into her chest.

Mika's body seemed to glow bright red for a second or two, and she could feel a distinct, pleasant warmth spreading out along her body and then settling in. When the glow faded off, she flew back to the ground and landed, grinning brightly.

"So..what does that feel like?" asked the psion.

"Great! Like I just somehow had a huge meal and slept all day at the same time..except my stomach doesn't hurt and I don't feel groggy or anything."

"So you can use fire now?" said Zack.

Mika held a hand palm-up, and a small ball of fire, mostly orange but with what looked like something much darker in its center, appeared floating above it for a couple of seconds before blinking out when she made a fist. "Yep."

---

The elemental archer found herself in complete darkness. This was a rare opportunity, so she tried to literally see her hand in front of her own face, and could not. "Hey! Rayna, you still there?"

"Yeah," said the fox-girl from a foot or two away. "I think we got plopped in our first dungeon from the get-go."
"I can't see anything. You have fox night vision or something?"
"Hm..not exactly. Hey, maybe you can shoot a fire arrow. Like, not toward me?"

"Okay." Lynn's hands found the bow and arrow instinctively, and she drew back the arrow pointed directly away from her friend. The tip caught on fire just as she let go, and it flew up and down before burying itself in a crack between a couple of bricks.

The human's eyes adjusted fairly quickly to the little bit of light, and made out a hallway of large bricks, a ceiling below and a floor above. She walked a couple of steps and pulled the arrow out of the wall, holding it tip-up like a torch. Her partner was still looking around. "So what should we do now?"

"Pick a direction and walk, I guess."

"I say..that way," said Ray, pointing. She started moving, and Lynn followed.

Before long, the archer saw an actual torch hanging from the wall, and pulled it out, lighting it with the arrow. "Hey, can you hold this in case I need to shoot something?"
"Sure thing, buddy." Once the vixen had the torch, Lynn put the arrow's fire out and stuck it back in the quiver.

"So what do you think this place is?" asked Rayna, as they came upon their first wooden door. It opened into a big empty stone room.

"Just a dungeon, I guess. Maybe an abandoned castle or something."

The next door was ruined, and the room beyond it just as boring. "Then I guess we should be looking for a way up. Dungeons usually being underground and all."

"Mmh."

After some more walking, the hall ended at another big wooden door. Ray pulled on it and it didn't move. "I think it's stuck or locked or something."

"Step back a bit." Once the illusionist was out of the way, Lynn kicked the door square in the center. A bunch of the wood fell through the other side. She reached through the hole and away from the hinge, found a deadbolt knob and turned it before pulling her hand back out again and pulling the handle again. This time the door moved, opening up to a stairwell.

The stairs went up and down. Rayna led the way up, and after a few turns around they found another broken-open door. On the other side was a three-way intersection stone-brick hallway with faded, torn red carpet and regular openings in the wall letting in sunlight.

"Finally, some light." Lynn climbed out, looking around. "Windows are way too small to get out through, though."

Rayna followed, the torch mysteriously missing from her hands. "Hm..someone else is here," she said.

"What makes you say that?"
"I hear some metal clinking..like someone walking around in armor..that way," said the illusionist, pointing down one of the hallways.

"I don't hear it."
"Fox ears," countered Ray with a grin. "So what do you think we should do about it?"

"Well if it's an enemy, and if they're armored, I guess I might be able to hit between the armor. But if it's an animated-armor monster or something stupid like that, we aren't gonna be able to do much about it. I think it would be a good idea to get out of here, find a town, and get more familiar with the game-world, before attacking anything at all."

"Yeah, that's safer..but aren't you at all curious what it is? I mean, it might be someone who can help us out of here. Maybe we're in a legit castle dungeon."

"If that's the case, the next question will be how we got here, what we're doing here, and since we don't have any good answers for either of those questions, they're going to assume we are trying to get someone out of here who shouldn't be out. So we should definitely avoid them."

Rayna gave an exaggerated sigh, her sizable cleavage pushing out and back in again. "All right, Miss Safe, we'll do it your way for now." So they went the opposite direction.

The illusionist paused after a while to lean against a wall and squint out one of the slitted windows.
"What are you doing?" Lynn had started to turn a left corner, and had to walk back to the fox-girl.

"Well, duh. Why didn't we do this earlier?" She leaned back and pointed to the right. "There's a door over that way. It might be an inner courtyard, but if we can get outside maybe there's some way to climb up and get the rest of the way out."

Lynn shrugged. "Worth a try, at least. You haven't heard any more movement, have you?"
"Nope. You know I'd tell you if I did."

They started walking again. "Yeah, unless you made an 'independent decision' to not tell me so we'd run into them and you could find out what it was."

"I can't believe you don't trust me, friend."
"That's not—no, it is. Yeah. I'm your friend, so I know you, so I know when not to trust you."

"Well, I wasn't wrong about the door, was I?"

They stood before a somewhat larger, more intact door than the other ones inside. Thankfully, this one moved with a push. "Hey," Lynn said, "lean on this, would you? It's too heavy for me alone."
Ray put her side against the door and pushed. "What, are you saying I'm overweight?"
"No, I'm saying this door is way too stupid heavy. Maybe it wouldn't be if I hadn't gotten turned into a tiny, skinny girl."

"But then we wouldn't even be here."

"Even better." The door gave up and allowed the two girls to slip out into the sunlight.

"Hmm..sun's a little low, so it isn't noon. What do you think, morning?"

"Nope, it's afternoon," declared the fox-girl.

"How do you know?"
"I can see what time it is," she answered matter-of-factly. "Just like I can see that that part of the wall over there is fake," she added, pointing at a wall across from the door, "even I could probably kick it over."

Lynn walked over. "This wall isn't fake. It looks exactly like the rest of the wall.."
"Try kicking it."
"I'll just hurt my foot."
"Fine, then I'll kick it. Yaah!" Ray kicked the wall, and an area a few feet wide collapsed instantly, apparently turning to sand and dirt in the process.

She stood back, hands on her hips. "See? Totally fake. Maybe some kind of weak magic holding it up or something. And I think this is an exit, even!"

"Okay, okay, I believe you. You're gonna have to tell me how you're doing that, though."
The fox-girl led the way out. "It's because I'm an illusionist. I don't just make illusions, I can see them too."

"What's that have to do with seeing what time it is, or people's stats?"

"Well..I think the whole game is an illusion, in a way. It's what the class description was talking about with 'piercing the veil'."

"So can you bend spoons or something?"
"I can make you think I have..but I don't think I can actually warp reality at all. Not yet, at least."

"But you know it's fake. You can see stuff."
"Yeah well, you can see a missile in the sky and not have anything to shoot it down with, you know."
"Point taken."