The "Best" RPG Ever-26

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Just a quick note that I forgot to update the writing status for a while but now it should be up-to-date again.

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Zack's tail-fur was so long and thick that by the time he was finished cleaning only it, everyone else was finished, riduculous hair and/or fur of their own included. He just listened to the others talking about all the things they wanted to have in the new house and quietly suppressed a full smile. It felt like...no matter who they all had been before, the four of them were friends now. He certainly felt that way, at least, and liked seeing them happy, especially for whatever part in that he'd managed to have. He was less successful at preventing his tail from wagging a bit behind him, but nobody was watching him carefully enough to notice that.

Eventually Mika stretched her arms out and said, "Well, I think we'd better get out soon or we'll just prune up. Also I only rented this place for an hour and have no idea how long we've actually been here."
"No way it's been a whole hour yet," said Katherine, "even including changing clothes. Fair point on the first part though." She stood up first and headed back to her own changing room, and the others got up in turn, each carefully wrapping their towel back around on the other way up even though none of them was going to stare anyway.

Zack got out last, and resisted a mild urge to shake himself dry once he was out of the water. The dry towels in the changing room took care of most of him, but the hair and fur predictably refused to get dry. He wondered idly whether there was some magical equivalent of a hairdryer, especially since people having fur was common in this world, while putting his streetclothes back on. There wasn't anything like that here, though, so he'd just have to rely on the sun today.

He walked out of the bathhouse to find the wolf standing next to the door. "Oh...hi," he said, looking at it. It wagged its tail, walked up and sniffed at him.

"He wants to know if you fell in a lake," translated Katherine.

"No, I just cleaned up," said the knight, kneeling over slightly to be at eye-level with the animal. He put out a hand, palm-up, and it sniffed that briefly. "What, you don't ever clean yourself? How does your fur stay white?"

The wolf stared back with what he thought was a slightly confused look. "...He doesn't know," said Katherine, "It just always has. Magic?"

"I guess so." Zack stood back up and looked around at the others. "Well, far as I'm concerned we can just relax for the rest of today, maybe split up and plan on meeting up at the inn for supper later. I'm gonna look into buying that armor I saw the other day."

"Okay, see you guys later!" said Mika, getting out her broom and immediately flying off and up into the sky.

The remaining three shared a brief look and collective shrug. "You gonna be okay without a translator?" asked the catgirl.

"I think we understand each other pretty well." The wolf made a small growling noise in what seemed to be agreement, and followed him off down the street.

Katherine finally noticed that Zack's tail was wagging as she watched him leave, and allowed herself a slight inner chuckle. "So, what're you gonna do?" she turned to the elf to ask, "just out of curiosity."
Nora shrugged. "I'm..uh, consdering looking for a library. Maybe, um, finding a history book or something. It s-seems like at least one of us should know the lore of this, uh, world."

"Cool, cool. Mind if I tag along?"
"N-not at all."

---

Aria woke up fairly close to town, and flailed briefly before being accidentally dropped onto the ground. "Gah!" She popped back up and looked around, excitedly dusting herself off. "Uh.."

"You fainted after we killed the giant bird," said Rayna.
"Did you dream again?" asked Lynn.
"Um...no, I don't think so. Last thing I remember is..." She thought for a moment. "Yeah, running after the bird. Hey, you're new!" She had just now noticed Dr. Kellen.

"Yeah, this is Dr. Kellen. She's another player," said Lynn, "healed you right in the middle of the fight."
"Oh, so we got a healer then. That's good," she nodded.

"If you intend on being reckless and stupid your entire life I may not be willing to heal you," said the winged woman with crossed arms and a stern glare, even though she would never actually not give someone medical attention.

The entire posture she was faced with reminded her of a mother, not something she'd expected from this small newcomer. "W-well, I can't help it," said Aria, her head tilted slightly, "sword makes me crazy." She made a little twirling motion next to her head with her finger to emphasize.

"Insane and idiotic are two different things," she countered, to which the shapeshifter could only shrug.

"Aand, it looks like we're pretty close to town, too?" said Aria, turning around to face the walls.

"Yeah, we had to carry you here or we'd have been back for an hour by now," said Lynn.

"Hey, don't worry, there's still a couple of hours left," said her friend, grinning, before leading the way forward.

"Left for what?" said Dr. Kellen, who had somehow wound up at the back of the group.

"Lynn has a date with a nice town-guardsmen," said Aria.

"Oh. Hm."

"What?" said the archer, turning her head to look backwards. "I-it's not a big deal or anything, we're just having supper together."

"Apologies, I didn't mean to give the impression that I don't approve," said Dr. Kellen. "It's just occurred to me that I seem to be attracted to males also, now."

"Eheh, welcome to the club," said Aria. "I have no idea why whoever's put us here thought that was needed."

"Do you think a single being with intent responsible?" asked the half-avian curiously.

"Well, there's now four people here that basically the same stuff happened to. It looks less and less like a coincidence the more it happens."

While they walked into the town, Rayna looked to Dr. Kellen and said, "Hey, how good are you with directions?"
She appeared to consider the question carefully for several seconds before responding, "...Adequate."

"Well, maybe you should just stick with me for now. I'll show you where the inn we're staying at is, maybe show you around town a little 'till you get familiar with it?"
"That's very kind of you, thanks."

"These two've got other things to go to anyhow," she said, indicating the other half of the party. "Have fun on your date and/or meditation!"

"I don't think that's really the point—" started Aria.

At the same time, Lynn said "And/or?"

Rayna just shrugged and grinned at both of them. "Hey, you never know!"

---

Katherine stopped abruptly about halfway to the library. Nora stopped a couple of steps afterward and turned around to see what was going on. "Uhm.."
"I think I'm gonna have to take a rain check on the library for now. Something just came up."
"O-okay? S-see you later."
"Yep!" She ran off in a seemingly random direction, and the elf could only shrug to herself and continue onward.

Shortly thereafter, Aria paused at someone yelling "'Scuse me!" and turned to see the owner of the voice waving and running in her general direction: A catgirl in a t-shirt and shorts, with mildly damp hair.

"Uh, hi?"
"Yeah sorry, this is kind of a strange question but I have the power to read minds and right now yours just seems to be repeatedly chanting the word 'blood' in a very deep-throated voice?"

"...Oh. That's, just the demon sword," said Aria, putting a hand behind her head. "Long story, I pulled something out I probably should've left in."
She frowned, and the cat-ears sank to a horizontal position. "I think you could elaborate slightly on that."

"Okay, so someone sealed a big scary demon in a sword and then sealed the sword with a bunch of wards and curses and things. And here it is," she said, producing said sword, still sheathed. "It's tied to my mind and obsessed with eating blood, so that's the voice you're hearing. Why are you trying to read my mind, by the way?"

"I..I'm not reading your mind specifically, I just have a general sense of what people around me are thinking. I have to leave that on in case someone's about to jump me in the street or something."

"So you heard the demon talking and wanted to know what that was about," said Aria, putting her sword away again. "I guess curiosity killed the cat?" she added with her best imitation of a troll grin.
The catgirl's ears had steadily been going up until this point, and now flattened against her head. "Please don't."

"Aww, I didn't mean to actually offend you," she said. "Look, I can have cat ears too!" She shifted her ears to an imitation of Katherine's and flapped them up and down a couple of times.

"..How did you do that?"
"I'm a shapeshifter! I mean, a...you know, I actually forgot how to pronounce the word for it. My name's Aria by the way!" She jutted her arm out to offer a handshake.

"Oh, uh.." The catgirl took her hand and shook. "Katherine. Nice to meet you." They both had a firm grip but an overall delicate shake. Once their hands disengaged she added, "So does having an insane demon connected to your mind cause..problems..?"

"Yeah, all kinds, like you wouldn't believe. I got massive retrograde amnesia—but to be fair I think that was one of the wards—my dreams suck, and unsheathing the sword turns me into an insane murderous berserker, and even if I don't unsheathe it I can feel its hunger for blood like a massive craving for chocolate that never goes away. I was looking for a place to learn to meditate to help me deal with that second one."

Katherine headtilted slightly. "Your dreams, you say. I can actually visit the dreams of others while I'm asleep, you know."

"Are you suggesting we sleep together?" said Aria with another troll-grin.

"N-not like that!" The shifter giggled and Katherine realized a bit too late that she'd been aiming for this reaction. She forced her tail to unpuff itself and said, "Just, y'know, if we happen to sleep in the same building or something I might be able to take a look. You know where the Broken Dragon Inn is?"

She nodded, "Of course, I was there last night. Me and some of my friends got a sweet gig from the guard after we did them some favors."

"Well, good. I'm planning to sleep there tonight anyway if you're interested."

"Yeah, that could be cool. For now I still need to find someone to teach me meditation."

"Mind if I help you look?" offered Katherine, who had recently bought a skill that buffed her abilities for a while after meditating.

"Not at all. My sense of direction is teeeeerrible."

---

"Mmh, thanks for reminding me to go get our pay. Pretty sure Lynn just forgot as much as I did." Rayna lead the way out of the guardhouse.
"Of all the things one might forget to do, getting paid is hardly one I would expect."

"Yeah, but. I guess I'm still thinking of this like a game a little bit. There's typically a lot of instant gratification in games where you kill things...not always, but.."

"You're just overthinking it," said the winged girl, looking around. "I did not mean to provoke that. People overlook things they normally would consider essential all the time."

The foxgirl glanced around and then started toward the inn, deciding that was the best place to start with. "Oh, yeah...I guess it's really important you don't though, as a doctor?"

"I...try. It can be very difficult, but the stakes are too high to allow errors to creep in."

Rayna nodded. "Yeah, I...don't have any idea what that's like. Feels like we're from totally different worlds."

Suddenly an unusual woman with short blond hair and a lot of scales bounced in front of them. "Heey!"

Rayna took a quiet half-step back. "Um..hi. Can I help you?"
"Uh—um." Rose paused, realizing she'd just done something socially strange again. "I just uhhh, I thought your outfit was really cute!" she said, hesitating only briefly before bursting back into her usual overenergetic mode of speech.

"Well...thank you," said the illusionist, "you look pretty cute yourself." She felt the awkwardness of the situation at first but it seemed to just roll off of her.

"Eheh, thanks. I'm Rose, I'm a dragon!" She offered a handshake. "I mean, part dragon, orr, something like that." Rayna (who could see that the actual word was 'Draconian') took her hand gently and they both navigated carefully to avoid any injuries by her claws. "I'm sorry, I'm not really used to being around people..."

"Rayna. That's okay...you did just sorta jump at us out of the blue there though."

"I just, wanted to meet a few people in town before I head back home. I didn't even know there was a town here yesterday!"

"Where do you normally live?" asked Dr. Kellen.

"Oh, I live in my forest out to the east, but I'm not supposed to..tell anyone about it," Rose said, and immediately winced at herself.

"I hardly think the general direction is sufficient information to find it," said the winged girl, crossing her arms.

Not wanting to see this poor girl blurt out more specific directions, Rayna asked, "Why is it even a secret in the first place?"

"Oh, uh, the guard lady said she would keep people from going there who might trample or steal my plants and burn it and stuff." She tapped a clawed finger on her chin a couple of times. "I guess..it's really up to me if I wanna tell someone about it though, and you seem nice enough!"

"You met us two seconds ago," said Dr. Kellen, "and technically only her."

Rose jumped slightly. "Oh yeah! Sorry! What's your name?"

"..Clera." The winged girl wasn't entirely sure where the name had come from, but she hadn't wanted to use a male first name for fairly obvious reasons. "You do not have to apologize; I was just making the point that you probably don't know whether someone is trustworthy based on a single meeting."

"I guess that's true. You're really smart!" she said excitedly.

Dr. Kellen raised an eyebrow in Rayna's general direction, hoping she would take back control of this conversation.

"So, do you want to know where I got my outfit from?" offered the foxgirl. "I'm sure they make one that can fit your, uh, wings."

"Yeah, they make clothes to fit all kinds of stuff! I was surprised. But um, I'm kinda mostly out of money right now so I couldn't buy it anyway, I just really wanted to talk with you and thought starting with a compliment would be good, which doesn't mean I don't think it but you know I probably could have come up with a better way to introduce myself than getting in your personal space and saying something that might be kinda awkward from a random stranger I guess? I'm really sorry about that."
Clera was holding her forehead as if a headache was coming on. "You could stand to take a breath every now and then," she half-muttered.

The foxgirl was a little more diplomatic: "You said you were going back to your forest?"

"Uh-huh!" she nodded.

"Well, it's.." Rayna half-looked up toward the sky to read off the time, "it's a little into the afternoon, depending on how far off it is you might want to head out soon to get there by nightfall, right?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, I don't really have to worry about it getting dark because I can beat up any monsters that try to mess with me anyway but...I guess you're saying that because you have somewhere you want to be." She scuffed a clawed foot against the ground briefly and said, "Err, I'll get out of your way," before turning to leave.

Clera regretted stopping the dragon-girl before she had even done it, but couldn't restrain herself. "...How long of a journey is it, exactly?"

"Oh, uh, it's not too far. We left after sunrise and got here a little after lunchtime I think." It seemed like whatever sadness had been in her voice a moment ago was entirely forgotten.

"We?" asked Rayna curiously.

"I had some guests in my forest last night, and they showed me the way here," said Rose. "Well, um, actually I had some uninvited guests and one of those guys kidnapped one of them and the others came to rescue her but she already rescued herself by blowing up the bad guys with fire, and I came along here because they needed help carrying the bad guys here to get arrested and stuff."

"So, another adventuring party," the illusionist nodded. It finally dawned on her just how high Rose's combat-important stats were...coupled with the fact she'd casually talked about beating up monsters like the ones their little party had run into, alone, like it was nothing.

"Look, we're not really doing anything important. I was just gonna show Clera here around town." She made a small gesture in the winged girl's direction while producing a small illusion of her own voice in Dr. Kellen's ear. "If you want to stay in town tonight to make sure you're not too sleepy tomorrow, maybe you have enough to stay at an inn? They're very reasonable."
"Oh, sure, probably I think," she nodded.

The illusion said: "Rose is a crazy powerful fighter and if we're friends with her she might help us fight a monster every once in a while." Clera glared at Rayna briefly, but not for the reason the foxgirl might have thought, before turning a much kinder-looking face on Rose.
"You might as well join the tour, then. We were going to start with an inn anyway."