The "Best" RPG Ever-42

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Tsaron Ieado's mental training house had an unusual visitor this morning. A short human woman stood at the door after knocking on it, her arms crossed and a stern expression on her face. Anyone looking at it would suspect that the place's owner was about get an earful for violating some property law, or scamming his so-called customers, or something like that. Eventually, the old elf opened the door and smiled to his visitor. "Well, hello there. Come on in."

Once inside, her expression turned more neutral, with maybe a mild hint of displeasure. "Would you drop the illusion? If you really looked that old, I should look far worse."

"I'll drop it for you if you'll drop the act for me," he said cheerfully, leading the way into a reading room with some comfortable chairs and couches lining the walls. "Could I interest you in some tea?"

"...Sure." The visitor went to one of the couches and lay down across it, sighing and closing her eyes for a moment.

The elf returned from his kitchen, his appearance changed completely to that of a young, red-haired man, not carrying anything in his hands but having a teapot, two cups, and a sugar bowl trailing behind him in midair. He smiled to see his vistor relaxing. "It's been ages, Ezra. Any particular reason you chose to visit today after ignoring me the last few years?"

"I should just as well ask why you moved into my town and didn't even stop by to say hello." While they spoke, the pot poured into the two cups and the spoon in the sugar bowl picked itself up and dumped itself into one of them five or six times. The sweeter cup floated over to Ezra, and she caught it and took a sip out of it before reopening her eyes.

"It was awkward," he shrugged, taking a seat. "We split on a bad note forever ago, and I wasn't sure how to broach the subject. I thought if I made my business sound shady enough the captain of the guard would come investigate before too long."

"I knew better than that because you stuck your name on it," she said, giving a wry smile.

"Anyway, yes. There is something new to talk about. I assume you've been using your own way of keeping tabs on things, so you probably already know."

"We've got new ones," he nodded. "Two of them visited me personally, so I probably know more specifics about them than you do."

"Well, do you have any idea why, after all this time?"

"I always thought it'd happen eventually, unless we were some kind of fluke," he said. "Obviously we didn't do whatever we were supposed to, so replacements were inevitable. I won't insult you by suggesting you didn't think the same thing."

Ezra nodded herself. "The question is, why now? Is it a matter of taking a long time to see what went wrong the first time around? Or is it something that happens at a particular time and place, and that time is too close now to delay it any more? I also have to wonder if they were put right next to my town for a reason."

"Well, I can hardly answer any of that," said Tsaron. "What I can tell you is this bunch seem to've been chosen on some other criteria from ours. None of them seem to fit either of our common threads. Just a bunch of kids who like playing their games. I'm shocked they're not in shock, and don't seem to have been. What have you been doing with them?"

"Same thing I do with anyone useful who comes here: Using them. Occasional advice and guidance here and there. You really gave away those knives of yours?"

"They weren't doing much good on the wall. And I'm not interested in risking my life out there. If you like, I could offer you a few pieces to reward your best workers with."

Ezra shook her head. "Giving away prizes like that is out of character. The guards and adventurers feel relieved if I don't scold them, and positively giddy if I nod my head once at them as it is now. If I start handing out magic weapons it'll be a lot harder to make those who deserve it feel rewarded."

"You do give out land, houses, and lucrative and/or easy jobs," said Tsaron.
"But I don't make those feel like rewards, see." She waved her now-empty cup expressively. "The trick is to announce the strings as if they're why I'm giving it away in the first place."

The elf nodded, paused, and sighed. "I really hate to bring this up, but I know you want to, so it's easier if I do. One of them is a witch."

"Right. Another reason I came to see you. I don't want you killing an innocent person in my town."

"Come on, you know I wouldn't do that nowadays. Rather than risking my own life, I'd just insert the idea of killing her into a few able-bodied individuals and watch the fireworks." She gave him a brief stern look, like the one from the act but sincere. "I know what you mean. It's your town, I'll follow your rules. But for the record, I think we'll both regret it eventually."

"If she happens to come by, you should take a look at her mind. Then I think you'll feel better about it."

"Even if I don't see anything, I didn't see anything last time, either. It's hardly proof."

"You're a lot better at reading minds than you were back then, too."

"I still can't read yours."

"You don't think some kid has had as much time to practice as I have, do you?"

Tsaron opened his mouth, took in a breath, exhaled partway. "Would you like another cup?"
"Of course." She let go of the cup so it could float over to the teapot and sugar bowl, which were both still floating slightly above a table between them. "Anyway, I wanted to make sure you knew about her, because unlike you, I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. If I am wrong, or she's fooled me or goes bad for some other reason, then I'll try and kill her. You'll know if that happens and I fail, and in that case, I know you'll get the job done."

"I'm glad your confidence in me hasn't faded, at least," said the elf.

"If that concludes that topic...there is the one other strange thing about this bunch I noticed."

After receiving the refilled teacup and taking a sip, Ezra said, "Mmhm. We were about half and half. They're all women."

"Yes, and not just that. They're all women the same way you are, if you know what I mean."

"Hmn. I was confident of that for a few of them, but all nine?"

"Eight," Tsaron attempted to correct. She shook her head. "Four and four, isn't it?"
"There's one other. I don't know if you've heard, but this town suddenly gained a dragon neighbor that it had all along and somehow failed to notice."
"A dragon? Why wasn't that an option for us?"

"I agree, it just doesn't seem fair. It's some evidence that it's just shy of too late to bring in the new group, and in turn that whatever we're all here for has a specific time and place."

"It's also worth mentioning there are two distinct groups—or, three I suppose if you count the dragon as one. They've met here and there, but it's clear they're not really aware of each other," said Tsaron. "Are you going to get them to notice each other, or should I? "
"I have a plan for that. If they're absolutely clueless it might not work, and you're free to plant a few ideas, I suppose."

---

It felt a little bit like cheating, having access to this much information—not that she would complain. With enough concentration and digging through the HUD in front of her, Rayna could 'see' how likely they were to run into monsters if they went this way or that, and occasionally warned the others to go around the riskier patches. It made their trip that little agonizing bit longer than the most direct route would have been, but it was pretty clear they couldn't handle a major monster attack in this condition. Sure, she and Lynn had managed a few encounters before as a party of two, but now they'd have to deal with having two more or less defenseless people to defend, not to mention the possibility of Aria's head injury getting beyond repair from not being treated for too long if the fights delayed them too much. Well, she didn't actually know if that risk existed, but their resident doctor was clearly exhausted and it didn't seem worth bothering her to ask something that was basically immaterial. After all, they wanted to get to town as safely and quickly as possible regardless.

Eventually they did make it to town, and the fox-girl breathed a sigh of relief as her poor, flimsy arms finally relinquished control of the unconscious shapeshifter to a few of the town guard who clearly knew exactly how to carry someone with a head injury. The three of them watched silently, planning to follow to the healers in a moment, and she rubbed her arms a bit to try and get some of the soreness out. "Ffff. That didn't go as well as it should've," she said.

"Understatement central. Are you okay?" Lynn looked to Clera, who looked ready to actually collapse.

"I am..badly exhausted, and close to fainting," she reported matter-of-factly. "Someone should probably..." Lynn caught her by the arms as she actually did collapse, and Rayna waved at some more of the guard to come get their healer, hoping this wasn't some kind of deadly afftereffect of the scream-healing earlier. They followed both of their teammates slowly, and wound up sitting nervously in the waiting room for a while.

It was an awkward silence for only a moment or two before the two friends couldn't stand it anymore, and both started to ask something at the same time. "Why do you—"

"How are—"

The exchanged a look. Lynn waved, and then Rayna waved back. This was kind of a common bit on their show, but only because it was a genuine habit between the two of them. "Just go already," said Lynn.

"Why do you think that went so badly? I mean, yeah, Aria lost control but she always goes out of control, right?"

"I think it's a bunch of specifics of the situation. That big goblin had enough initiative to steal her weapon, is the real problem. And then I'm not entirely sure jumping in front of that attack was a good idea. Shouldn't demon-power be enough to survive something like that? For that matter, shouldn't she just be immune to her own weapon?"
"Hmm..." The fox-girl thought for a moment. "A few problems with that: It's a hostile, cursed weapon deal, so I wouldn't expect any immunity at all. If anything, some kind of weakness or drawback. You noticed what happened at the end there, right? It was sucking in Clera's blood until she stuck it all the way in the big goblin. If it starts eating its master's blood, there might be some kind of feedback loop problem where there's no easy way to stop it at all. In that case, even if she would've survived the initial hit, she might've died afterward."

"Clera...didn't know that, though. Right? She just jumped straight in front of an attack that our toughest member was gonna take and, at least in theory, survive just fine."

Rayna shook her head, understanding the implication. "I don't think I'm capable of that. Based on what we already knew before, it takes a special kind of person to be an Empath in this world. So maybe that brand of crazy is required."

"It saved her life, though. I mean..." Lynn looked around the waiting room, and vaguely in the direction of where the healer's proper offices were. "...probably."

"So what was your question?"

"Oh, um.." Lynn had to rewind the conversation in her head to remember what she'd been trying to ask. "Right. Are you sore or anything from the carrying? Being basically our, y'know, least athletic member, it's no good if you pulled a muscle or something on top of that. And we are already at the healer's."

Rayna stretched a bit to test. "Mnh...I'm a little sore still, but I don't think I actually hurt anything. Come to think of it—" She took a brief look at her own vitals "—Yeah, veil-pierce stuff doesn't show any real injuries either. We must've taken just enough breaks, I guess." She paused, and sighed. "I should probably be doing some kind of exercise on our days off, just to have a little more stamina, be able to keep up and all. I think it's gonna be as hard to make myself do that stuff here as it was back home, but there's even more motivation here at least."

---

"Awwh, that's a lot cuter than I expected." Nora jumped at Mira's voice suddenly coming from a few feet away, having been too absorbed in her current book to notice the witch's approach. It was a murder mystery the librarian had recommended; she'd gotten tired of research and just wanted some relatively normal reading for once. "And that fur! Did Zack take a bath without us?"
The elf lowered her book, trying to hide the fact she'd been startled a moment ago. "Um, he s-said they wouldn't cut it any shorter, and insisted on sh-sha-shamp—grooming the rest."

"That's a little strange. Maybe haircuts are a little different from our world," said Mira. "The hairdresser tells you what looks good and won't do what doesn't. It would explain the lack of mullets. Hmn..." She had turned to look at Zack again, and leaned slightly toward him.

"He'll wake up and p-punch you in the face eventually if you k-k-keep touching his ears in his sleep," Nora warned quickly, though she was actually more concerned about what might happen if Zack's ears were rubbed while he stayed asleep.

"You're no fun. But relax, that's not what I was hmming about." Mira sniffed the air a couple of times.

"W-well, what then?"

"...I dunno." She stood up again. "I thought I felt some dark magic coming right from him, but now I don't sense it anymore. Maybe it was coming from somewhere else in here...yeah, it wouldn't make any sense considering he's supposed to be a light-magic class or whatever."

"M-maybe it's from the scythe, or the demon last n-night?" Nora suggested.

"Like, residual magic or something? I guess that would sorta make sense." She turned back to Nora, and moved a little closer. "Umm...speaking of the demon last night, I feel like I should apologize to you."

"What f-for?"
"Well, he—it messed you up, right? It's ultimately my fault for summoning it looking for power and putting everyone in danger. Sorta. Right?"

"All of us ch-chose to help you, because we wanted to," said Nora, with a touch of annoyance. "Don't apologize for s-someone else's choices."

"Shee, sorry." Mira sat down on the other end of the elf's couch. "I mean, sorry for my choice of trying to apologize. Should I just not apologize to you without asking permission first?"

"Now you're just being a t-troll," said Nora. "Ignoring f-friendship or anything like that, we wanted to help you because you being more p-powerful benefits all of us. S-so we're all equally resp-spon-sssspon—urrgh—at fault for t-taking that risk. You should recommend we fight the next d-demon only after you're sure we're overpowered for it."

"That's...a good idea, yeah," said Mira, more seriously. "I'm sure where I am now, plus normal leveling, should be good enough to be a proper credit to team anyway. So what're you reading?"

"Umm.."

---

Clera sat up with a sudden start, causing the Felis woman standing nearby to jump back with a surprised "Whoa!" She looked around the room, and quickly identified it as some kind of equivalent to a doctor's office...and her current position as the patient's bed, of course. "Hey there, not so fast ma'am," the healer said. "Your right wing was pretty banged up, you don't wanna tear it up while it's still trying to heal."

"..Sorry. Did you see any cranial injuries?"

"Crani..oh, head. That's the first thing I looked at, since you were passed out, but nope, your head is healthy as can be. Nope nope, it looks to me like you just totally wore yourself out." The healer headtilted slightly. "I dunno how you managed to even do that. Couldn't you tell when you were pushing past your limits?"

The winged girl nodded. "There was...a life at stake. I am still uncertain that I did enough."

"I guess I can see that. But now you've got a problem of your own."

Clera shifted around so her legs could hang off of the raised bed. "What is that?"
"Welllll, when I said you wore yourself totally out, I mean like totally. I almost never see this kinda thing, even with the more reckless mage-adventurer types. It looks like you managed to burn out your magic."

"Burn out?" The nature of personal magic was one thing the winged girl had zero experience in. Although other-Clera's memories recalled being a fire mage, they hadn't gone into enough detail to make full sense of the expression.

"Uh-huh. So look, I'm gonna tell you what you need to do, and I don't think you're gonna like it, but if you don't do it it's not gonna end well," she said.
"Just tell me."

"Well, so, when a person's just used up their magic it'll come back over time, but you can drink a potion or have someone channel some of their magic into you to help it along. But burnout's a different problem. You've stressed it so much that if ya don't let it just rest its way back to normal, it'll come back all unstable. Unstable magic is even worse than a burnout 'cause it'll feel normal most of the time but either flare up or die out at random until it heals, and that takes way longer than just recharging or coming back from burnout. So don't drink any magic restoring potions and don't have anyone channel you magic, or else, y'know, that. It's like, uhh, a poorly-cast bone mending spell that leaves the bone brittle and likely to shatter way worse than it did before, you know?"

"Hmn." Clera nodded. "How long should I wait before coming back to check if anything else is wrong?"

"Oh? Uuummm..." The healer girl seemed a little caught off guard that her patient wasn't either complaining or looking for a loophole in those orders. Dr. Kellen knew how it was. "Well, I'd guess a day or two at most. You'll feel it when it happens, a'course."
"Do you have any recommendations for helping it to return naturally?" she asked.

"Uhh, not much really. I mean, you know, good food and proper sleep is a good idea. Relaxing won't hurt. You physically need some rest anyway, 'cause pushing your magic waaay past its limit like that is bad for your body too. And wait a few hours for the healing to finish up on your wing before you try to fly, or uh, like, flap it at someone. I dunno what else Avians do with their wings actually, sorry."

---

Mostly a coincidence, but it feels appropriate that something momentous happens on part 42. I'm not sure if it's correct to call it a reveal since at least one person guessed at some of what's being shown already, but at least it's a degree of confirmation for a few things.