The "Best" RPG Ever-47

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As soon as he came back out, Zack stopped to check with the wolf. "You don't want a bath, right? I'm not sure they'd let you in, anyway.." The wolf looked confused. "A bath? Getting in a bunch of water to clean—yeah, I didn't think so. Looks like everyone's gonna be...doing that. So I guess you could wait outside, or maybe come in and sit next to us if you want, but...that'll be pretty close to the water." It didn't look pleased with that idea, either. "Well, are you hungry again? Want to go off and hunt? We're not doing anything dangerous for a while, I think." It made a slight growl, a negative gesture. He couldn't tell if it meant it wasn't hungry or had some other reason, but the rejection of the idea in general was clear. "Okay, well..you like the Captain? You could just stick with her a little longer. I'd come back after you even if everyone else managed to forget...not that they would." Finally, it barked an affirmative to that. "Fine, then. Just, um, don't get in her way. I'm pretty sure she's stronger than I am." The wolf tilted its head slightly, apparently not believing this claim. "Well, as your alpha or whatever I'd rather you didn't annoy her. Okay?" Another affirmative bark.

Mira came out after everyone else. He looked over at her. "Hey, what took you so long?"
"Um..the Captain wanted me to know she was watching me and would stop me if I turn evil. But that won't happen anyway, sooo..." She gave an arms-up shrug, and then went to go talk the two of the other group they hadn't already met into the bath plan. Or at least, help Rose do so.

"Alright, I'll see you later then." On an impulse of some kind, Zack stuck his hand out and rubbed the wolf's head and ears a bit. It didn't resist or bite him, and even leaned into the petting slightly, but when he was done it gave a soft, brief growl and drew its head back again, pretending to be offended by the gesture. About this time Zack's name came up in the context of "handling something", and he stood up to shake his head at Mira, not really caring to find out what she was attempting to volunteer him for before deciding he didn't want any part of it.

The catgirl walked up with a serious expression. "Hey, are you done negotiating with the animal friend?" The wolf was already stalking its way back into the guardhouse, taking advantage of one of the guards pushing the door open on her way out. "I have something to talk about in mental--private."

"Yeah, go ahead." Mira was waving her hand and leading the way off toward the bathhouse, with Rose almost falling over from excitement behind her, so the two of them followed the group, taking the rear.

There's another reason to get to know those four from the other party, I mean besides us just fighting together with two of them and them being cool in general and all.

What reason is that?

Um, I was distracted earlier, before we went out to get the worm, because uh...I did a little bit of digging in one of their minds. Aaaand, found out they're from Earth. Confirmed all four are, at this point.

Zack looked ahead; Aria and Clera were just ahead of them, moving much more slowly than the others. More 'main characters', huh?

Maybe? That was the lines I was thinking along too, but Nora suggested there might be a ton more people from Earth by the time we've met four, in which case it isn't too surprising. But...it's something we all have in common. I suggested we could all meet whenever Rose leaves back to her forest and just, talk. Too bad it can't be this bath meeting, but, you know.

She wouldn't leave from this if someone told her it was on fire, he agreed.

Anyway, I had the idea, but didn't want to formally offer before checking with everyone...the house we're getting built. Maybe they could live there too? It seems like they haven't thought to make any 'permanent' arrangements here yet.

I guess we could talk to the Captain about adding more bedrooms. Or just have roommates. He didn't like the idea of again not having a room completely to himself, but still...

I can sleep on the couch if you want.

Zack gave her an angry look. That was not a thought for you to hear!

Sorry, to me it was like you were yelling your doubts even louder than the suggestion they came with. Hard not to hear it. She looked at him, put a hand up on his shoulder briefly. Hey, you can't be making all the sacrifices. Not good for you. You're just as important as everyone else and deserve to be treated that way.

Yeah, yeah...

---

Rose thought she was perfectly comfortable, used to this body. Running around in revealing clothes, or changing clothes, didn't seem to bother her at all. She certainly liked the way it looked and felt, after all! But standing in the changing room just before going to the big bath they'd rented out, she was not just facing herself even more exposed than usual, but thinking about all the other girls seeing it, and it made her feel awfully nervous, embarrassed even. A towel draped over most of it somehow felt like far less than some underwear definitely covering certain small parts. It didn't help that she couldn't hold the towel all that well with the clawed hands, and her tail made it impossible to cover her entire back. She just bounced around in front of her other-self in the mirror for what felt like a long time, trying to work up the courage to go out there, before finally forcing herself to just do it and let whatever was going to happen, happen.

A few steps out through the hallway, she found Aria and Mika—err, Mira slowly making their way along, and quietly passed them, waving nervously back when the witch said hi. Everyone else was already sitting in the bath, and Rayna waved her over, pointing out a seat next to her. Rose felt herself blushing pretty badly and involuntarily making a noise like a hot kettle, but made it over there and slid herself down into place. Embarrassment about her own body aside, the number of pretty girls wearing hardly anything in close proximity was enough to make her brain overload.

Rayna patted her head a couple of times. "Calm down, girl. Easy there."
"Eheheh," she fidgeted. "Um, s-sorry."

This particular bath was a big almost-circle shape with room for probably even one or two more than they had. Rose was across from Zack, who was blushing almost as much as it felt like she was but for probably slightly different reasons; he had on some kind of necklace still but it was partially obscured by the towel. Nora was to one side of him, Katherine to the other, Lynn past the elf, close to Rayna, and Clera to Rose's right, in the middle of a bunch of empty space. Knowing what she did about the relationships between everyone present, it seemed like they must have arranged this intentionally to some extent, maybe with Katherine's mind-talky thing. The winged girl was focused intensely on the hallway, and it became clear she was watching Mira half-carry Aria toward the bath. After a moment the shifter was carefully slid into place between her and the catgirl, and then Mira sat next to Rose.

"You've got an adorable blush," said the witch, drawing another short squeak from Rose.

"Please, stop, that sound hurts my ears even worse than yours," said Zack, folding his ears down. He was busy running shampoo through his hair and ears to get the green worm-blood out.

"I'm really sorry," she said, looking away.
Zack sighed. "I was talking to her," he said. Aww, he was so nice and knew she couldn't help it. Or...well, he didn't think much of her self-control judging by this seating arrangement anyway, but Rose could accept that. It wasn't like she'd made a good impression as far as holding back her impulses went.

"How are you feeling?" said Clera; Aria's eyes were closed.

"Greeaat," she said in a half-sigh, stretching her arms a bit. "This water's really nice. Thanks for letting me try this." She smiled brightly, ruffling the smaller girl's hair.
The intended effect of Clera's stern expression was slightly ruined by the blush. "Just be as careful getting out as you were getting in."
"Mhm. Oh, do you want me to try and figure out the skin area thing here? You can even observe it this way."

"That, seems sensible..."

The fox-girl hummed to herself, carefully running some shampoo through her ears, hair, and tail all at the same time with her eyes closed. Well, she knew she was kind of giving Rose a show but honestly didn't mind.

"You're just off in your own little world, huh," said Lynn.

"It's a happy world I live in~," she replied. "You're always welcome to join it if you want."

"I don't even want to know what that would entail."

"Hah, tail."

"Not everything is an intentional pun."
"The unintentional ones are the best, though!"

"Do you want any help washing your back? The tail, or wings, or anything?" said Mira. "Or, hmm..maybe I shouldn't though."
"Aww, why not?"
"You just look really sensitive around the base of your wings. I don't want to do anything that'd make you uncomfortable."

Rayna turned her head, opening her eyes. "Hm? How do you know that?"

"What, did I find something your 'special vision' doesn't do?"

"Well—maybe, but why would I want that?"
"I can think of a few reasons," Mira chuckled. "But anyway, yeah, I ate an incubus last night, we're pretty sure. Along with turning my eyes purple it gave me a kind of...you know, sensitivity vision. But only toward girls, because incubus."

"Seriously!?" said Katherine.

She shrugged. "I can't completely turn it off, either. You know how that is, right? I can tell you if you're curious."

"Well, I'm interested," said Rayna. "Although I think I already know~..."
"Mmh. Well, in general it seems like the fuzzy parts of people who have those tend to be a weak point. Especially right near the base. It's not universal, but..pretty common. Certainly applies to you. But it's special, it sort of doesn't 'activate' around someone you don't already trust quite a bit."

"Anything else?"

"You really want me to say? I could route it through Katherine and only embarrass you in front of one person at first."

"I do not volunteer for this!" said the catgirl.

"Well, that's out."

"I'm not embarrassed. It's my boobs, right?" Rayna grinned.

"Uh-huh. Not as common as you'd think, that...but in your case, that's the spot."

"How does that work on someone whose body can change at will?" said Aria. "Ears, no ears," she added, giving herself tall foxish ears for a second as a demonstration.

"Well, I mean there is most of your body that's always there, right? I noticed a few specific places on your back, and I won't go into more detail than that unless you really want it."

"W-well, I was just wondering about the ears or tail themselves," said Aria, reforming them and blushing slightly at the half-revelation.

"Let's see..." Mira stared for a second. "Nope, not those. I kinda wonder if you couldn't shift yourself to intentionally have certain spots if you're consciously aware of it. Anyone else?"

"You'll tell me in private later," said Lynn quietly.

"I will, huh? I assume you're not asking for a demonstration though..."
"Yeah, I have a boyfriend," she said. "Just..."

"Maybe I'll tell him and let you figure it out from there," she said with a mischevious grin.

"You better not!"

"Rose is boiling over again," Zack pointed out, putting his hands half into his ears. Rayna took a moment to pull her into a side-hug and run a hand over her shoulder a couple of times.
"Keep it together, hmm? This is a lot of fun but we don't want to make the big bad wolf mad."
"I can still hear you through this."

"I know!" she said cheerfully.

"And—" he started to say in Mira's direction.
"I wasn't gonna say anything about you!" she said. "I know, that's private. And probably irrelevant. Right?"
"Thank you."

"Um, I-I'm a little, curious," said Nora quietly, the first thing she'd said since coming in.
"You want me to tell you later, or just announce to everyone?"
"I d-don't really care. U-unless i-i-it's somewhere, uh.." she blushed and looked away vaguely.

"Oh, it's not. So I can say?"
The elf nodded, still looking away.

"Belly. Mostly the front side. I know, you have that out in the open all the time, but it's sorta like the fuzzy parts thing. If a total stranger touched you there, no effect, so you don't have to worry about that at least."
"I-I guess that's good..."

"Err, uh.." Rose had calmed down and disengaged from Rayna's hug. "S-so, what about me? Y-you said, where my wings..?"
"Yep. Sorry I kinda started announcing it without asking you," said Mira.
"W-well—I don't really care. I just wanna know!" she said excitedly.

"That's...why I did that, I guess. Thought that'd be your opinion. Okay. You're sort of like someone with fur, except of course it's scales?" She pointed at each in turn: "Just the base of your wings is one spot, and then the whole tail but especially the base, and also on your head just right around where the horns are coming out from. Obviously there's no..feeling in the horns themselves, but that's pretty close."

"Oooh."

"Pardon my skepticism, but I haven't heard of anything like this," said Clera.

Katherine said, "Like what exactly?"

"'Sensitive spots', as you call it. Not that those..don't exist, but normally one would expect the same...kind of person to always have them in the same place."
"Well, I don't know," said Mira. "I can only tell you what my weird new magic power is telling me. I guess I could prove that it actually is telling me something and I'm not making it all up myself at least, though. With...two volunteers."

"Ooh, me!" Rose said excitedly.

"Why two?" said Zack. "Ow." He had been trying to reach a certain part of his tail to clean it, and drew back from the stretch hurting a bit.

"Well, one person needs to be the target and the other person needs to try a spot or two to touch. I can't be the one doing the touching or you could accuse me of using incubus magic to make just any touch have an effect," said Mira.

"That..I had not even considered that possibility," said Clera.

"Well, I don't mind, just a little," said Rayna.

During this, The wolf-girl was looking at Nora, apparently having a mental conversation with Katherine's help: You didn't have any trouble before, no, she agreed. I think you're still sore from the injuries.

Well, can you get it then? You're the only one here I feel like I can trust with this, to not make it weird.

Okay.

The elf nodded after a moment, and took the shampoo from Zack, getting to work on the part of the tail he'd had trouble reaching. "Thanks."

"Okay, well, the wings aren't near anything particularly, uh, private," said Rayna. "How do you feel about that?"
"Go ahead," Rose nodded. The fox-girl reached over and gently ran her fingers up and down the ridges right where the draconic wings emerged from her back.

It felt...pretty good. A little calming, or freeing maybe; it would be hard to put into words. The dragon-girl found herself closing her eyes and making a low, almost growling sound, but a very pleased one. Some green mist emerged from her nostrils, and she felt like..stretching for some reason. Her wings spread out...and out, and out; she didn't see this part but they glowed faintly green and rapidly grew out, quickly expanding into grand, gold-scaled wings with pink undersides, and a wingspan wide enough to reach behind and past both of the girls next to her and tall enough to dip halfway into the water.

Rayna, of course, pulled back in surprise almost as soon as this started. So Rose opened her eyes, blinked a couple of times, and looked back at her wings before willfully folding them against her back, where they weren't threatening to knock anyone into the water. "Uhm..hmm...?"
"That was...unexpected," said Mira, in a bit of an understatement.
"Oooohh, heehee...I, forgot I could do that. Oor, uhm, it's more like I figured out how to do this," said Rose, focusing on making her wings small again and feeling them quickly constrict back to their usual, vestigial-looking size, "a really really long time ago, and, uh, forgot I could undo it. I guess that sorta relaxed them?"

"Something like the intended effect, then," said Clera. "You did seem to have a...reaction, at any rate. I'm convinced enough for now." She was blushing a little, maybe a little concerned about what behavior Rose might have if she 'relaxed' too much in this setting. And..she had let go of her towel, but it was still there; Katherine waved when she seemed briefly surprised, and she nodded a quick thanks.

"I wonder if you can fly when they're out like that?" said Lynn.

"By all accounts, her body should still be far too heavy for any wingspan to carry," said Clera. "Um, to clarify, I am not calling you overweight; the only reason I am able to fly is that my bones are actually hollow, which I strongly doubt yours are."

"I dunno, I feel like I should be able to fly with them," said Rose. "I can almost remember flying..." The memory was a slippery one, mostly forgotten and hard to get any solid grasp on.

"Well, I mean, you are a dragon after all," said Rayna. "Dragons are supposed to be able to fly, and I don't remember any reports of them being particularly lightweight or having hollow bones. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a magic thing. Actually, wait, you said you could hover with tiny wings, right?"
"Mhm!"
"Well, that's already kind of absurd. So we should definitely test whether you can fly with big-wings. Somewhere the landing won't accidentally destroy someone's house, preferably."

"I hate to be the one to say this," said Lynn, "but I kind of wonder what other changes you've forgotten you did to yourself and could possibly 'relax' to undo under the right circumstances..."
"Heheh, well, um. I don't wanna take Aria's thing," said Rose awkwardly, blushing again. The way she'd felt just from the wing-touching was already making her feel a little shy, exposed maybe.

"Oh, I don't mind. I'd be pretty happy in a world where everyone could shapeshift," she said.

"It's so cool, and convenient, you know? You can match heights to always look people right in the eye.." She shrank herself down to Clera's height, the towel becoming extremely loose on her in the process as she not only lost height but some of her usual figure. "..have whatever figure you want, barring already unhealthy ones.." Her next trick was to grow only an inch or so of height while shifting to a voluptuous figure, a little like Rayna's. "...make changes to your ears, face, hair even, all without anyone else's help!" In turn, she gave herself pointy elf-ears, made her face slightly rounder, pulled her hair up to a short just-framing-the-face look. "I mean, the power to decide whether or not to have a tail is totally something I think most people with tails would appreciate." Shifting the rest of herself back to the usual height/sizes, and taking care to draw her towel back up around herself to keep the growth from really exposing anything, Aria gained a raccoon-like tail for a moment, white with dark stripes instead of the usual coloration. "I think even the voice is malleable. Hmm, hmm, hmmm~" Aria hummed a few times, each one in a very different voice: High, squeaky; low, rumbling, back to normal. "Great, right?" The tail disappeared and she turned back to her "base" appearance.
"Yeah, cool!" Rose forgot about her towel again to clap some, but Katherine was cognizant enough to catch it. Lynn and Rayna shared a look which was meaningful only to them for the moment, ending with a mutual nod.

The rest of the bath was relatively uneventful. There was some more chatter between them in pairs or so, some relaxed quiet. As offered, Mira helped Rose get her wings and back clean, being careful not to "upset" things too much out of mutual courtesy for everyone else around. Since Nora was helping him, and his hair wasn't as ridiculously long as before, Zack finished at about the same time everyone else did, and was the first to get up, declare he was done, and start off toward the changing room to dry off. The others followed one by one, with Clera making sure Mira and Rose both helped get Aria up and onto to a chair in her room before going off to their own. Lynn and Rayna were the last ones out, staying behind after the human girl started to get up but Rayna gave her some kind of meaningful look. Probably some kind of private conversation that couldn't wait. All in all, Rose felt like the entire adventure was a huge success. All of her friends seemed to like each other, and liked or at least tolerated her okay, and while nothing too much was ever exposed she did see more of their beauty than she had before.

It had been a while, and she was starting to get the itch to see how her forest was doing again. Although not as extreme now thanks to the skill she'd learned, that was not something to ignore, as the dream that one night had taught her, so it seemed like a good idea to go test whether she could fly, and then either do that or take the plant-cart out to her forest and rest there for a while. As wonderful as it was being around everyone, it would be good to have some quiet time to think about things a little bit. Rose felt like she was starting to remember and/or discover things about herself that really needed to be sorted out or at least considered to some extent, whatever it was that meant. The need to go back to her forest and be there alone for a bit was a perfect reason to attempt to really think about things, no matter how little success she anticipated in that department.