The "Best" RPG Ever-48

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Now that the idea of flying was in her head, Rose wasn't going to stop until she gave it a try. Zack went a different way to get the wolf back from the guardhouse, and everyone wound up just oustide of the town gates before long. With as big a leap as she could manage (pretty high into the air by itself), Rose unfurled her wings in their more gigantic form and gave a few powerful flaps, driving a massive gust of downward wind with each. In no time she was genuinely flying, making a few small circles in the air before coming back down and managing to brake with her wings to get only a little bit of skidding on her feet on the way down.
"Woohoo! This is sooo cool! I can't believe I forgot I could do that!" she said excitedly. "Is it like that for you?" she said vaguely in Clera's direction.
"I...suppose so," she said with a small smile. "It really is something. Although I believe it's even moreso in your case since you appear to really be defying physics."

"Mm-hm. Um.." She looked around awkwardly for a second. "I, need to go back and check on my forest again soon. And since I can fly I wanted to try and see if I could get all the way there doing it! Soo, see you later?"

"Yeah, count on it," Mira said, coming a little closer to pat her on the head a couple of times.

"Heehee~, okay. Bye~!" This time the flap and the jump were at the same time, rocketing her off into the air. Another "Woohoo!" could be heard echoing in the wind while she did some kind of wild corkscrewing maneuver out toward the east.

Aria had a hand over her eyes to watch the dragon-girl disappear off into the sky. She lowered it and looked around. "Okay, that was cool and all, yeah..but I got the impression there was some bigger reason everyone stuck together after finishing the whole bath thing."

"There is," said Katherine, moving closer to the middle of the group. "Actually—who knows already? Raise your hand or something." Zack, Nora, Rayna, and Lynn did so. "I guess that's why you two hung back earlier...well, I was largely responsible for finding out that you four are from Earth," she said, pointing vaguely at the other group, "which is also where we're from."

"Really?" Aria looked at them all again.
Clera nodded. "I was beginning to wonder..."
"Sweet, more players! What've you been doing with your skills?"

"Wait, why was I the last one told?" said the witch.
"You were always busy with someone else, so I couldn't really get you alone to tell you," said the catgirl. "And I wasn't sure if your reaction would be, I dunno, extreme? With Rose and other people around."

"Awwh, who cares what other people think? So, were you all guys before, too?"

"Guilty as charged," Rayna smirked a bit.
"Technically I am carrying the soul of someone both female and originally from this world, however," said Clera.

"I've absorbed no less than three demon souls from this world," said Mira.

"This is great and all, but maybe we could keep talking inside somewhere?" said Zack. "We're not that far from town, but monsters could show up."
Katherine looked around, remembering that was where they were. "Yeah, good idea. In fact—I propose we talk about all this over supper."

The louder members of the group immediately started arguing about where they wanted to go for that. Zack sighed and just started leading the way back to the town gates, which they more or less unconsciously followed.

Eventually the consensus was for a few of them to actually pick up food from one place and everyone to eat it in another—one of the community center's offices, where they would have relative privacy to talk about things most everyone in this world might not fully understand. It took a little while to get everyone there and sitting down, and by then the sun out the windows of the room was well and truly set.

"What were your names, before?" said Zack. He paused for a second or two, looking at his own party members as well. "...I guess I'm really asking everyone that. I didn't go for changing my name at all..."

"Why the sudden interest?" said Katherine. She thought he'd dropped the idea of learning hers a long time ago.

"I guess I just want to know we haven't forgotten."

"That's...fair, I suppose. Alright, I'll start. It's Vincent. Vinny sometimes, you know, for people who don't like pronouncing the letter t."

"Norrin," said the elf quietly, in between some bites.

Mira was preoccupied at the moment. "Come on, you don't want this? Doesn't it smell good?" She aggressively waved a steak at the wolf, which had moved to put Zack between itself and her, still watching her through the legs of his chair. "I ordered it special, ultra-rare—practically bleeding—well-seasoned..." The wolf just growled suspiciously. "It's a reward for saving everyone last night! Whaat, you don't like being rewarded?" It looked at the 'alpha', Zack, inquisitively.

"What? You eat it if you want to," he said. "We were kind of talking about something."

"Yeah, yeah." The witch set the meat down on the floor and then sat back up in her chair. "I've been listening! It was Mike. I know—Mika wasn't very creative offa that. Another reason I wanted to go with something else after the growth spurt."

"We were Ray and Lyle," said the fox-girl.

"Yeah. We had a show...no idea what people who were watching it think's going on with us now."
"Oh cool, I love your show!" said the witch excitedly. "Good entertainment for the long grind sessions."
"You're talking about...MMO's, right?" said Lynn.
"Yep."

"Okay: Why would you ever play a game so boring that you have to do something else at the same time to not go out of your head?"

"If it's a good one, then it's not that boring all the time. I do it for the fun parts," she said. "Just like life." She looked back at where the steak had been deposited, which was clearly empty floor now.

"That's probably...among the best defenses I've heard."

"I guess nobody else here watched us?" said Rayna. To a brief silence: "Well, one out of six isn't bad. I'd have expected none out of ten. Oh, also we were both sitting in front of the same computer and got sucked into the same room at the same time. Doesn't seem like anyone else had that kind of experience."

"Yeah, we were just alone in our rooms," said Katherine.

"Ian Kellen," said Clera.

"Doctor Ian Kellen," Aria corrected with a grin. "Life-saving kind. Super serious. Right?" She ruffled the winged girl's hair a bit.
"...Correct." She didn't pull away, but flushed slightly and looked in the opposite direction.

"And me, Will. Highly appropriate, almost prophetic: I've got the will to do anything, given the time."

Nora looked up, at Aria for a few seconds, and then back down at her food where her gaze had been this entire time.

"What?"

"It s-sounded, familiar," she said. "Um, d-did you have some kind of show too?"
"Oh, yeah, I was a streamer. Speedrunner. That kinda thing."
"I th-think someone at the hospital watched you all the time," she said. "I overheard st-stuff like that every once in a while."

"Cool, cool," Aria nodded. "Wait, hospital?"

"Um, I h-have...I, had a c-condition, with my bones. S-so, I had to go in for t-t-treatments pretty often, when I was younger. My leg was b-broken because of it, but this," she waved vaguely at her current appearance, "f-fixed, all of it."

"Did your injury or treatment cause your speech impediment?" said Clera, sounding concerned; her tone made it clearly a yes/no question rather than multiple choice.

"N-no. It d-d-didn't exist before I, w-well, before this. I have to speak very slowly and carefully," she demonstrated, "in order to k-k-k-keep it even mostly out of my voice."

"I regret that I don't really know the correct treatment procedure to eliminate that kind of disorder..."

"Well, you're bearing it pretty well I'd say," said Aria. "Anyway, it's cute in its own way. Probably puts your opponents off, makes them think you'll be weak."

Rayna interjected: "Yeah, and then bam! Your campfire is my bomb!" This managed to get a genuine laugh out of the elf which she couldn't fully shake for about a minute afterward.

Aria said, more quietly: "Wait, did that actually happen?"

For a while they just talked about home. Even among their two smaller groups, they hadn't seriouly talked about Earth at any meaningful length since meeting up. It was a strange kind of nostalgic trip, reminding each other of an entire culture and a level of technology to support it that everyone had already grown used to living without in the span of less than a week. Katherine complained about minutae in the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons; Rayna and Lynn tried their best to remember and partially recount the contents of some episodes they had recorded but not yet edited before being taken; Nora and Clera discovered that they had actually read a few books in common. Conversation continued long after the food was gone and the moon starting to get high in the sky outside.

Well, you look happy. It's a good look for you.

Zack glanced in the catgirl's direction for a second. I just feel like I'm coming up for air. Like I've been going slowly insane for the last five or six days and finally got to talk and act like a normal person again.

You do realize about half of what we're saying would sound insane or at least nonsensical to almost anyone in the world outside this room.

I don't really care.

Uh-huh. Do you want to bring it up or should I? While her thought didn't verbally express what 'it' was, the entire idea was communicated along with the words.

"So, we...were offered a house," said Zack. "In exchange for some work for the Captain. Out where the site Mira's been using is. We were thinking of asking if you'd like to join us there, once it's built—if that's okay," he added, looking at the other two members of the party.
"Sure! The more the merrier," said Mira; Nora just quietly nodded.

"We're not really sure whether it's too late to add more bedrooms—like, twice as many of them?—but...if you want, we can try and make it work," Katherine added.

"I'm already on board with the idea," said Rayna. "Opinions?"
"Yes, please yes. Getting tired of hotel," said Lynn.

Dr. Kellen nodded. "I have no particular objection."

"I think it's only fair to warn you that I come with a 'minmaxing room' requirement," said Aria, half-jokingly.

Katherine thought through the requests for specific rooms that had already been made. "One or two places might be able to serve a dual purpose for that, I guess...depending on what you even mean by that..."

---

Ian woke up lying down on his couch at home, dressed casually. He slowly sat up and looked around; the house was dark, as if it was night. Clera walked in from the direction of the kitchen. "Hi again..."

"Welcome, I suppose." He cleared his throat, reached over and turned on the lamp next to him. She walked around to the front of the couch, staring at him the entire time.

"Ian, you're.." she said quietly. He reached up and found hair just shy of his shoulders, recognized bangs just over his eyes and more across the back of his neck as well. Then he stood straight up, carefully compared the winged woman's height to his own. And his voice was...well, it had sounded just different enough to want to clear his throat.

"This seems like more than last night," he agreed, sitting back down. Then he waved to the seat on the opposite side of the couch. "I suppose the change of setting is meaningful here, as if I'm becoming comfortable enough to bring you somewhere more 'personal'."

"Yeah." She sat down, and gave him a concerned look. "Do you...aren't you worried? If your own mental image of yourself is changing...?"

He said, "It's quite clear where this is headed at this point, but I never really cared that much how I looked anyway. If anything I'm merely curious how long it will take, what the transitional appearances will all look like."

"Hmn. I wonder if your acceptance of it is exactly what's causing it to continue, though," she said. "Or if this is more of that complicated summoning spell showing itself. There's no way..seven other people, all acting so comfortable in bodies clearly not their own."

Ian shrugged. "With a shock this great, a person may simply feel forced to accept what has happened and mentally adapt to avoid simply locking up. Still, I would not be surprised if whoever was responsible for casting it 'tuned' it to make that response easier somehow..."

"That sounds within the means of the spell," she nodded.

"So...four more people from Earth. I wonder how many there are," said the winged girl, leaning back and looking at the wall in front of her. "I wonder if I actually met one back in my old life, and just didn't even know. I...don't really know how I would've reacted even if somene did tell me, though. I probably wouldn't believe it."
"You've never considered the possibility of other worlds?" Ian communicated briefly and succinctly the search for extraterrestrial life, the long history of fiction all about beings from other planets visiting Earth.

"Doesn't really occur, no. I mean—we have the demon realm connected to ours, the regular afterlife, and wherever the gods themselves live. I suppose most people consider that to be enough worlds to keep track of without inventing new ones. But—even if we heard there was another world full of people, the idea of no magic—and the things you're able to do without magic!" she said, waving at the lamp emphatically, "It'd just come across as, unimaginable. I guess we lack the imagination to think up little green men."

The space in front of them rippled slightly, and a catgirl in pajamas stepped out, startling Clera enough for her to jump slightly. "..Oh. Uh, hi?" Katherine waved awkwardly on noticing them, mostly seeming confused that she was here.

"It's rude to invade people's dreams without express permission," said Clera, glaring. "You should be aware anyone with the mental strength of a mage, much less two such minds, can kick even a powerful psion out painfully."

"IIII...did not know that. And I swear this was an accident," she added, putting up her hands, "I was trying to get back into Aria's mind to help her remember that name but it, deflected me or something? I think you must have 'more gravity' from being two minds, too. Wait," looking back at Clera, "do you know about the—"
"We both have all of the memories from being awake in the same body," Ian said, feeling some of the winged girl's annoyance bleed into his own emotion. That was happening more, too...

"Sorry, I overreacted a little bit. You just spooked me, is all," said Clera, calming down. "Let me think...if there's a 'new' portion of her mind emerging then maybe it's confused and you're not used to navigating confusion, got so turned around that you went out the wrong way and wound up here. You should massage her mind from the outside to focus on some memory of both of you together first, and then just insert yourself into the memory-you, and once you're inside you'll be dealing with the mind that's already used to having you around."

"..How do you know any of that?"
"Mage schools here are a lot like colleges on your world," she said. "You end up studying a lot of things you'll never find a practical use for. I took a couple of classes on psions because I was worried an evil one would try to puppeteer me to do horrible things with my magic."

"Oh." Katherine looked at Ian briefly. "..Are you—?"
"Yes. No, I don't particularly care," he said curtly. "Will you please leave now?"

"Y-yeah, sorry. I'll get outta your hair. Oh, but we have been having off and on dream parties. Let me know if you two ever want to join in!" She waved and rippled out of existence again.

"..Ugh, I feel like I lost whatever train of thought I was on," said Clera.
"Aliens. But we had more or less exhausted the topic." Ian stood up. "Perhaps I can show you around. I am a little curious just how different this is from one of your houses."

"Sure!"

---

Katherine had agreed to appear, so it was a little strange when she didn't show up for a while. Eventually Aria decided to just try meditating to pass the time; maybe she was just having trouble getting to sleep or something? Just as she was getting started, something unusual happened: The static wall in front of her (which was honestly pretty good for meditative staring) flickered a few times and opened up to show three of the walls of Tsaron's meditation room, the ones covered in probably-enchanted weaponry all over the place. And Aria was pulled—or it felt more like the spot on the floor she'd been on that day was moved over to underneath her, even though she was definitely somehow removed from the cliff. Katherine popped up next to her in the same position she'd been in at the time, and after a second or two opened her eyes. "...Phew."
"Um..hi? Wait, are you like from the memory or actually...?" Aria started, before realizing the catgirl wouldn't even know what she meant by any of that if this was just a memory of her at that point.
"No, it's really me." She stood up, brushing herself off, and her clothes remade themselves into pajamas. "I had trouble getting in. Clera thinks it might be confusion from the new memories or something.."
"Clera?"
"I got knocked into her mind and met her. Um—the, not the winged girl you've met in person but the extra soul from this world," she attempted to explain. "The point is, at least I'm here now."

"Right!" Aria stood up to. "So do you have easier access to that extra part of my mind from here, or anything?"
"...Not that I can tell." She pointed to the giant demon: "That guy still makes it hard to go any deeper than the surface, even here. I really think it's more like you're forcing him to even let me in this far."

"Hmm. Well...let's see here...TV!" She pointed dramatically at one of the walls. "Can you make a TV?"
"Uh...sure?" The catgirl waved a hand, and part of the wall turned into a big flatscreen.
"Just what I was thinking. Now turn it on, I'm going to think really hard about what I saw just after getting my head caved in and try to project it on there."

With that concentration, and possibly Katherine's help, Aria got the entire collection of scenes to show on the screen: Static and sound and all. Eventually it ended. "Hmn. Ar..." However, the psion was clearly still drawing a blank.

"Yeah, it's annoying we only get one syllable so far."

"But you know the other guy's name now, right? It was on that invisible ink note..."
"Yes: Loren."

"Hmm..." Appearing to have an idea, she backed the 'memory footage' up, scanned along it, and eventually stopped at a blurry picture of the dark-haired guy from it. "Loren..." Her body began to glow pink, and she floated into the air slightly. "Loren." She said the name again, but did more than just say it. Aria would be hard-pressed to come up with a good verb for exactly what action she did with the name, but the effect was a visible ripple of space out from her in all directions, rapidly warping and rearranging space. Similar to the effect of being "pulled" into this room a moment ago, the two of them were pulled to the cliffside in the dream, everything spinning strangely until the spot where the altar with the sword on it was broken off and replaced by the cliffside the demon stood beyond, with Aria placed where the white-haired man had been in the image and Loren standing in front of him.

Katherine floated behind him, her arms spread out and her eyes obscured by pure, white light. Glancing into those eyes Aria felt more than heard: I'm holding a pathway open you will have to do the talking here this is the most I can do and it won't last very long so hurry up please.

His image was still annoyingly indistinct; his mouth was open and making almost-word sounds interspersed with static.

"I...knew you, right?"
"A—wha—do—en?"
"You knew me, at least. You must have really liked me to promise to find me..even knowing I was going to forget you."

"Sacri—like—efore?"

"Loren. What was my name?" She unconsciously stepped forward.

"—planning—You c—someone else—"

"What was it? You knew, I knew it. Right? A name should be the easiest thing to remember."

"wards—everything. But—not—ever—"

Aria grabbed his shoulders, feeling a painful emotion that was difficult to place the source of. "Come on, it's like the first thing a person with amnesia's supposed to get back, right? You must have said it three or four times right here. What did you say?"

"Ar—those wards—"

"Right, right. Come on.." Something out on the corners of her eyes felt like a piece of paper folding and crumpling itself. The ground around them was being eaten by static.
"—not forever—lead me to you."
"Lead you to who?!" She shook him, feeling certain they only had a few more seconds.

"You. You you you you you—" The three of them were all that was left—Aria, the vague memory of a man whose name was Loren, and Katherine behind him floated in a sea of static.
"My name please!?"

"...Ares." Her head jerked back with surprised expression. For just a second it felt like she could see him exactly—but that image didn't stick around in her memory, just the vague, useless one. He disappeared and the two real people present were abruptly dumped onto the demon's cliffside, the static returned to its usual place.

They were sitting down, which was good because Aria was panting and for the moment didn't quite feel up to standing. "Ares, huh."

"That was...something," said Katherine. "Felt a little like playing tug-of-war with a huge rubber band as the rope, up until it snapped."

"As in the Olympian? Weird coincidence from a different world. At least I know now, I guess."

"...Are you alright?"
"I think so." The shifter put a hand to her forehead. "I felt..something. It wasn't me, but it was."
"It wasn't 'Will', right? It was the other guy," she suggested.

"Maybe. But I'm—me. Not him." She shook her head. "Right?"

"As, far as I can tell. But whatever he is...he's definitely, in there," said Katherine, tapping her own head a couple of times. "If you turn on that Beacon thing and see Loren for real—you know, it might pull him out a lot more."
"Hmh." Aria took a deep breath, exhaled, stood up. "I feel a little scared of what that might mean, I guess. But I won't let that fear stop me." She offered a hand to the catgirl, who just shrugged and floated herself up to her own feet. "I can't let anything stop me, or I really don't feel like me anymore. You get that, right?"

"I think so."

"Anyway, now I know what to say to it. Tomorrow morning, or—maybe it can wait an hour or two. Sometime tomorrow, anyway."
"You're not worried about needing a last name or something?"
"No. It's..." Aria scratched her head. "Now that the name came b—came to me, it feels like I should've known all along that was what I needed to say. Just 'Ares'. Uh, I'm not sleep-talking am I? Can you tell?"
"No, but I think one of your roommates would've noticed it by now. Anyway, it's in your 'inventory', not just out in your hand while you're asleep, right?"
"Yeah. So my point is—work's done, let's play! Now that I know you know what a TV is and how to make one appear, I want to see about getting a NES in here!"

Turning back toward the static wall, Katherine put together a blank wood-floored room with a couch in it, and then made a TV. "I don't really know how successful I'll be at making games..I'd have to remember basically every detail of how it plays..."
"Try my memories. I'm sure I got half the megamans and kirby pretty down pat, at least."
"Alright then, let's see what we can do."