The "Best" RPG Ever-7

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---

Zack breathed a small sigh of relief when he and Nora got back to the town, along with seven of the town guard and a carriage full of things stolen by the goblins. The captain of the guard was with them. She was a human woman, probably shorter than Katherine, but with a kind of energy in her eyes that made it clear it would be unwise to cross her. "Find the rest of your party and meet me in the guardhouse," she said, and Zack nodded. "We'll take care of the ring for Mr. Thron."

"So, uh..who're the other people in the party?" said Nora.

"Katherine and Mika. They look like a catgirl, and a witch with demon wings. They've probably left the healer's place by now, but I'm not sure.."

"No no, I mean..what're they like?"
"Oh, that. Katherine's full of herself, and Mika thinks she's still a kid." He started leading the way toward where the healer was in town, based on the directions of one of the guardsmen, but stopped in town square, seeing the two of them talking about something.

"Hey."
"Oh, hey Zack! How's your foot?" said Katherine.

"It's fine. Thanks for reminding me about that, by the way."
"Well, it's your foot. I wouldn't need reminding if I'd stepped in a campfire."

"I have an ability that defers damage. So if I do something stupid and hurt myself again, remind me before leaving. I'm not sure how you passed up the first opportunity, really."

"Hm..me either, when you put it that way."

"Hey, who's hiding behind you?" said Mika.

"What?" Zack turned halfway around to see the elf half-kneeling in an effort to hide herself behind him. "Oh. This is Nora. Another player, took the Spirit Weaver class. What are you doing?"

"Umm, sorry." She moved to where the others could see her. "I'm just kinda nervous meeting new people. Hi."

Nora tried to wave, but Mika managed to catch her hand and shake it. "Hey. I'm Mika."
"N-nice to meet you.."
"What can you do?" said Katherine.
"Um..I.."
The psion sensed confusion, and clarified. "I mean, what's your class's abilities?"

"Oh! I can commune with elemental spirits or..something like that. I'm supposed to be able to use magic attacks and heal. I have this weird sixth sense for what elements things are made out of..and I can push the elements around, or make more or less of an element, to change..." she trailed off, staring at Mika for a few seconds.

"What?"
"..I can't tell what your wings are made of. Actually, I can barely sense them at all."
Mika tugged at a wing gently to get a look at its tip. "Well, I'm pretty sure they're made of the same stuff as bat wings. I mean, that's what they look like, right?"
"Well...yes, that would make sense, I think, but..they're not. It's like they're not natural or something."

"Hmm..well, I did get them after absorbing a demon soul. So maybe you can't sense demon stuff?"
"That may be it.."

"So do you have any problem with Nora joining our party?" said Zack. He knew, as party leader, he had the last say, but didn't want to let Katherine know about that mechanic until he had to.

"Hmm...nope. She's basically an elemental mage, which seems pretty useful and distinct to me," said Katherine.

Mika added, "Yeah, the more the merrier!"

"Okay. Now, we're supposed to meet with the guard captain for the quest reward and..I don't know, something else she wants to talk about."

With that, Zack started walking away. Katherine and Mika followed him after a second or two; Nora took a moment of confusion before following suit, running the first few steps to catch up.

---

The party of four was seated at a table across from the captain. "Hm..I was told two people accepted this job?"

"The others kind of showed up in the middle and helped us out," said Zack.

She shrugged. "All right. Well, based on the bodies we found, it's lucky they did. This really should've gone to the guardhouse in the first place. Apparently it didn't occur to Mr. Thron that maybe there wasn't already a job up for those goblins because they had left no survivors up till then. At any rate, I would say you've proven yourselves well enough to take on some of the harder jobs. Just be careful."

"We will," said Katherine.

"Anyway, the bag over there has the pay from Mr. Thron, as well as extra from a few other people whose property was returned...and a few things we know to have no owner. We have to hang on to the rest of the unclaimed stuff for a couple of months; after that, if you're still in town, you can just as well have it for all I care."

Katherine smiled. "Thank you."

"Um..how d'you know something has no owner?" asked Mika.

"It has marks identifying an owner who we know for sure to be dead, and without next of kin anywhere reasonably close."

On their way out, Zack picked up the bag and added it to his inventory, causing it to disappear. Nora and Mika looked somewhat confused by this, but didn't ask.

He paused a short way outside of the door to look aound in the party inventory, and found a bunch of items that had separated themselves out of the bag, the bag itself, and two-thousand-something more gold than had been there before. It was getting close to evening. "Hey, are you guys hungry?" said Katherine.

"Yeah!" said Mika.

Nora said, "Um..I think so."

"How about we go back to the Broken Dragon for the night? Huh, Zack?"
He opened his eyes. "Yeah, sure."

After they had ordered food, Katherine opened up a new conversation. "So, I think we have a pretty good party going here. Everything we need."
"Yeah..if you're okay with having one tank and three people who can't take hits," said Zack.

Katherine grinned at that, causing him to groan internally almost on reflex. "Well, yeah, I mean if you think of it that way then yes, we're in trouble. But you really limit your options when you think of it like that. I mean, yes, you're the only one who can take a bunch of damage, but that doesn't mean you're the only tank."

"..Explain."

"Well, there's more than one kind of tank, you know? Tanking is about drawing enemy fire, not about taking hits. So, while there is the tank that draws enemy attacks, and blocks and soaks up the damage with a wall of defense, there's also another kind of tank. Say..someone who's really agile, able to provoke enemies into attacking them specifically, and also has an uncanny..almost supernatural..ability to predict just how enemy attacks are aimed, and dodge them, or even counter and deal damage at the same time."

"You're talking about yourself, obviously."

"Yep. I've had a good look at the Psion skill tree. There's a low-level passive skill that allows me to predict what move an enemy's gonna make. How well it works depends on the difference between my intelligence and the enemy's, and it can be upgraded to work on even some smarter enemies. With that and the whole cat-race thing giving me good dexterity and reflexes, I should be able to make some real use of that skill, don't you think?"

"I guess. You'll still get unlucky and take damage sometimes, though."
"Yeah, but that's what we have a healer for, right? Anyway, you're not really a pure tank. You're more just a physical fighter. You move a heck of a lot faster than a wall, is what I'm saying, and I seem to remember you being the one who killed the big goblin. I get the feeling whoever designed this game had the idea of making classes highly flexible. They probably put every use they could think of into each class, given its general description."

"Say..speaking of game-mechanicy stuff..what's an average stat for you guys?" said Mika.

"Around nineteen or twenty," said Zack. "Strength and Constitution are around thirty for me."

"Sooo..seventy-six wouldn't be an average score, then?"
"No. Definitely not," said Katherine. "What have you got that in?"
"Oh, Luck. Everything else is under twenty, except for Wit. I guess witch is just a super lucky class or something?"

"Probably. It would explain how you managed to take on a bunch of goblins with such low stats and not get hit once," said Katherine, "even before the two of us showed up."

"W-well, it's not really much of an explanation," said Nora. "I mean..luck is sorta vague, isn't it?"
"Mmh, a little bit," answered the catgirl. "But then, if I describe a situation to you, like 'the little boy bent down to pick up a penny and a bullet sailed right through where his head would've been if he hadn't', you'd say the little boy was lucky, right?"
"I guess so."

"Come to think of it, I don't have any idea how I found my way back to the entrance through all the caves. I was just taking random turns and hoping I wouldn't hit at dead end," said Mika.

"Yeah. Stuff like that."

They took a four-bed room in the inn, and there Zack emptied the contents of the bag from the inventory onto the floor. There were six rings, all faintly glowing in differnt colors, a mace, a pair of knives, and a quiver, with a glowing glyph inscribed on one side, containing a single arrow. "Hmm..these look nice," said Katherine, picking up the knives with her mind and floating them over. "Better made than the goblin knife trash. You want one?" She move the knife over toward Nora just slightly too fast, causing the elf to jump back and nearly fall off the bed.

"Um, no thanks, I can't actually use weapons, or my magic doesn't work as well."
"Really? That's pretty bad. I hope your class powers are worth a disadvantage like that. What about you, Mika?"

The witch was prepared for the other knife to come flying toward her face and stop, but she did reflexively move back a bit when it happened. "I think my native weapon is a broom."
"Well, yeah, but you used knives for a little bit during the fight with the goblins. It's not like you can't."
"I think that was more improvised weapons than me actually being good with knives. I'll probably just end up throwing this if I use it..so, y'know, trash goblin knives work better for me."
"So..nobody minds if I take these?" she asked, moving both knives back over to her hands, and getting them by their handles.

"I thought you were happy with your claws," said Zack.

"Well, that was before I realized I could use telekinesis instead of physical attack. Also before I got my shoulder cut up thanks to their sucky range."

"Then I'm sure they'll work fine." Katherine put the knives into her own inventory.

"What about these rings?" said Zack. "Nora, can you see anything about them?"
"Um..sort of. They have extra elements tied in, but I can't make sense of the networks..it's too complicated. You, uh, you might need to have those actually appraised by someone who knows what they're doing."

"Or..I could try them all on and see what happens!" said Mika, reaching for the pile of rings.

"Don't," said Zack, flatly. "For all we know, there's one that spews fire. You wanna explain accidental arson of this inn to the town guard?"

"Hmmmno, that doesn't sound too fun. But I can try them on somewhere safe, right?"
"..Fine. It'll save us some money anyway, if we can figure out what they do without paying someone to tell us."

"What about the quiver?"

"It's probably enchanted somehow or other," said the psion, pulling the arrow out and slowly twirling it around between her fingers. "If it makes new arrows or something, I might be able to throw them around or something..but if I'm using the knives, my concentration's not good enough to do this at the same time. I'm sure we can find arrows if I decide that's a good idea, though, so you might as well figure out what it's worth and then sell it."

Katherine got up and moved over to the bed on one side of the room. "I dunno about you guys, but I'm pretty tired," she said, stretching. "I'm goin' to sleep." She got into the bed still wearing her clothes, figuring they were soft enough to not be too much of a hassle to sleep with.
"Good idea," said Mika, taking the next bed and hopping in.

"..Look away," said Zack.

"Uh.."
"I can't exactly sleep in armor. Look at the other wall."

"Oh! Okay," said Nora, turning around. The other two turned over in bed to face the wall. Zack watched them to make sure before getting to work removing his armor.

"So, um..what kind of clothes do you have on, anyway?" said Nora.

"What do you mean?"
"Well..most armor is put on over clothes..right?"
"Whoever designed the knight's outfit didn't think so," said Zack, now looking down at a woman's body in white undergarments.

"Oh.."

Zack got into bed as quickly as he could, trying to stop thinking about it. "Okay. You can look wherever you want again," he said.

"You know..it's kinda weird," said Nora.

Mika looked over at her. "What is?"

"Well..I've only looked like, um..like this for less than a day. But I don't feel weird in my body unless I start thinking about it. I can move around like I was born looking the way I do now, and it's not even uncomfortable."

"Yeah..now that you mention it, that is pretty weird. But it makes sense too, right? It's like the game is making sure we know the controls."
"I guess so. It's really hard to think of this as a game, though..everything seems pretty real."

"Mhm.." Mika's eyes were closed, and she stopped talking.

Nora closed her own eyes, and found herself feeling exhausted all of a sudden. Before long she too drifted off.

---

Zack found himself standing behind a pillar in a cave. He knew there was a dragon sleeping on the other end of the pillar.

He thought for a second that he felt strange, and looked down at himself. Everything seemed pretty normal, except he was wearing some kind of white armor and holding a pair of swords. And..on closer look, he had a tail. That was different. It moved around on its own, had white fur..didn't he always have a tail? Just like how his ears were always moving around..that was normal, right?

He shook his head. There wasn't any time to worry about that now. He had a dragon to dispose of..right? He moved carefully to get a look around the pillar. There was a statue of a dragon there; it was highly detailed, painted red across the scales, but clearly made of stone and unmoving. Hadn't he heard it breathing a moment before? He stepped out to get a closer look.

There was treasure around the dragon, gold and gems of all sorts, and even underneath it. But he picked up a piece of gold and rubbed it slightly; it turned out to be a painted stone. The gems were the same, not clear and not sparkling like a real gem. He gently touched the dragon statue. It was cold, unmoving, and made of stone, as it had appeared to be. But it was definitely real before..right?

He had a feeling that someone was watching him, but couldn't quite place it. He looked around, his eyes picking up all sorts of detail in the dark, but couldn't find anyone. He walked up to the dragon statue's head and found something real there for once. It was a black, oval-shaped gem set into the stone-dragon's forehead. He couldn't quite identify what made it seem so real. It shone in the slight torchlight from..torches..? He looked up, and found some torches hanging from the wall of the cave. He hadn't looked up before, but somehow it didn't seem right for there to be any torches present in this cave.

"I wouldn't pick that up if I were you," said a woman's voice, causing Zack to jump and look around rapidly. He eventually identified the source of the voice, a black cat sitting a few feet away on the opposite side of the dragon's head. It definitely hadn't been there before. It didn't look right. There was something..wrong..with it.

"..Who are you?" he asked. He wanted to ask 'what are you'? It didn't look right, and it wasn't a cat.

"It's black. So it's probably bad news. I wonder what this dragon represents?"

"What are you talking about? Who are you?" The cat's voice and appearance was making Zack feel very nervous. He wanted it to leave.

"Well okay then. I thought this would be fun, but I know when I'm not welcome," said the cat, before abruptly disappearing, like a jump cut in a movie.

Zack didn't feel much better, somehow. He felt like something was wrong with his body again. It was something in the pit of his stomach, his chest...

He looked down at the gem in the dragon's forehead. It was glowing somehow, despite being black. He felt a shift between his legs, and a push out from his hips. He looked down farther, to his hips, and saw that his pants had turned to a skirt and a pair of leggings. "Wha.." his voice sounded wrong. Its pitch was too high. The ground pulled closer to him as he became shorter, and then his chest suddenly burst out, becoming a pair of breasts.

His hair grew out then, the back coming all the way to the back of his hips, white strands finding their way into his field of vision. "This isn't..right," he said, a woman's voice echoing on the walls of the cave. He could feel little, almost unidentifiable changes coming to his arms, and legs, and face. A mirror appeared between him and the dragon's head, and he saw a woman standing in it.

---

"Aah!" Zack sat up, sweating, in his bed. He looked around. The others were still asleep; he hadn't yelled all that loud, it seemed.

Okay..I'm really sorry about that. Katherine's voice in his head. She had mentioned learning to do that before. I was trying to help, but I guess it wasn't going to matter whether you touched it or not.

He wanted to answer, but she was on the other side of the room. Instead he audibly sighed, laying back down and trying to go back to sleep.

He found himself slowly curling up under the covers. It was strange how comfortable it felt..much better than maneuvering his tail out of the way to lie mostly on his back. And then he went back to sleep.

The "Best" RPG Ever-6

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---

Mika thought that the catgirl was closing her eyes to mask a look of pain or keep herself still while the healer bandaged her shoulder, but after a while she opened them, and they glowed slightly. Got it!

The witch jerked back slightly in her seat. That had definitely sounded like Katherine's voice, but her mouth wasn't moving. "..Got what?"

Finally figured out how to apply skill points. So I can do this now!

"..Talk in people's heads? I guess it does come with the territory."

Yeah, but it didn't come as a basic class ability. Thankfully, those boss goblins were worth a ton of SP. So now I can do telekinesis, too. The skill tree's all weird for that ability, though. Just three skills: Learn telekineses, improve concentration, and improve size. Both with apparently unlimited levels.

"..So how did--?" Mika paused, noticing an increasingly concerned look on the healer's face. He'd been looking at her wings funny before, too. "Psion," she said, hoping they were less disliked than people trying to become archdemons, and the healer paused for a second before nodding like he understood.

Katherine, understanding the intent of the incomplete question, answered: You can sort of see a status screen when you close your eyes. It has inventory, stats, and a skill tree with a number over it. You kind of have to think about adding points to a skill..but you have to be really certain you want to, I think. Sort of a replacement for an 'are you sure' dialog.

Mika nodded. Then she paused a second, a finger to her lower lip.

What?

"..Wasn't Zack standing half inside of a fire pit at one point?"

The catgirl blinked. "...Yeah, you're right. But she was acting like she was just fine when we left.."

"Maybe she forgot?"
"I don't think I could easily forget my foot being in fire. And even if I did, it would sure be happy to remind me."

---

Zack noticed about halfway down the tunnel to the treasure room, carrying a toch taken from the goblins' fire, that one of his feet was hurting. Which was odd, considering how much he'd walked since coming into this world without any kind of soreness. But on closer inspection, the pain was a kind of dull burning pain. It was also getting worse with nearly every step.

It was getting hard to stay on his feet by the time he got to the chamber, and he all but collapsed onto the cave floor before working to get his shoe and the weird long black sock off and see what the problem was. He found out that the problem was that his foot actually was burned, almost all over. "What the..? How did I not notice that before?!" He remembered now, jumping into the goblins' fire to get in the way of the big one. Why did he do that? Why didn't that instantly backfire instead of taking so long to start hurting?

On a hunch, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes to look around in the status screen. On closer inspection, the skill tree for a knight was divided into three parts: Dark, Bright, and Gray. Apparently, Dark abilities only worked in Dark form, Bright only in Bright form, and Gray in both forms. Worse yet, there were separate skill points for each form: Dark and Bright skill points, which could both be spent on Gray, but had to be spent on the opposite side of the skill tree.

Zack growled slightly at the unneccessary complexity of it, but then took another look. There was a passive skill he had in the Dark part of the tree called "Defer Injury". Which explained why he hadn't felt much of anything until now. And..the Gray skill tree had as its very first skill, and the one required to learn any others, the ability to switch forms at will. Above that there seemed to be a minor healing spell.

As much as his foot was starting to hurt, Zack immediately went for both, and then tried using the spell. The palms of his hands glowed with a soft white light, so he pointed them at the offending foot. It felt nice, like something cool being placed on the burn, and even looked slightly better by the end..but only slightly. He wasn't going to be able to stand on that just yet. He listened for any movement outside of the cave, and then sighed, using the spell again.

His magic and magic regeneration were both really low, and by the time he'd spent the former he was barely able to stand up, and then still with some pain. He sighed and knelt back down, hoping that the town guard or whoever would show up before a thief or monster did.

---

Norrin found himself face down on the floor. He opened his eyes and pulled himself up with an arm, leaned on the other elbow and looked around the white room, and at the pedastal in the center. He adjusted his glasses, which had apparently remained even though his chair had apprently not been allowed. He flopped forward and crawled closer to the pedastal, lifting himself up with one arm and glaring at the text box. "Ugh..what is this?"

"..Must be..that game. Seems like..I think, maybe, a disclaimer..would've been good."

He crawled forward toward the pedastal. "'Best RPG Ever!...Warning: ...Not for the..walking..impaired.'" He stopped, panting, when he was about there, and then awkwardly manuevered himself into a sitting position, having to work around the stiff cast on his right leg. "So..I just pick a class..? But, I have a broken leg...maybe it'll cancel the game if I wait here long enough.

"..I might as well read the descriptions..maybe there's something I can play with a broken leg. Um..probably not a knight, though, no.." He swept his hand over, moving on to another option, reading it carefully and assessing whether or not it sounded like something he'd enjoy doing without being able to walk.

...

"..So how does playing a Construct work..? Would I get..would I get a cybernetic leg or something? I mean..yeah, it'd be nice if it wasn't broken anymore, but..that's kind of..drastic."

...

"Draconian..sounds more like..a race than a class to me. Or is that like, a dragon rider or something? It says they have incredible strength..and..a breath weapon? Maybe it means, like, some kind of flamethrower that breathes fire for you? Hm.."

...

"..Hm..." Norrin had to pause at seeing just a swirl of colored lights seemingly encased in an invisible sphere floating above the pedestal. It seemed so unusual next to all of the classes that had a weapon for a representative.

"Spirit Weaver: One in tune with the elemental spirits of nature, able to call upon them to bring harmony or chaos as desired. A versatile class capable of destruction and healing in equal measure, but severely lacking in physical prowess. Armor and weaponry are barriers between the Spirit Weaver and the world of nature, weakening both the connection and the powers that come with it."

"Actually..this might work. I mean..a Spirit Weaver can heal. So maybe I could just fix my own leg? I think I've been in here a few hours..and it hasn't booted me out, so this is probably the only way..."

He took a deep breath, raised himself up as much as he could manage, and tried to grab onto the swirling mass of colors. There was a surprising solidness to it; he easily grabbed hold, but couldn't get it to come out from above the pedestal at first. It felt like he was trying to pull a loop of cord out of knot. When he pulled, the lights moved around more rapidly, as if panicking.

The text box above said "Would you like to play a Spirit Weaver? (Pull for yes, release for no)". So he pulled as hard as he could, until suddenly the feeling of a solid piece of rope dissipated, and as he fell onto his back the lights all exploded outward, leaving behind colorful trails as they all flew out from the little sphere and then turned their trajectories all toward him, flying straight into him. He blocked reflexively, but didn't feel anything when they hit him; they seemed to visibly go into his skin, and not through it.

The trails of light faded off, and the pedestal lowered, turning to ring of bright light. The text box said "Step into the summoning circle to begin your journey."

Norrin looked at the message for a few seconds, incredulous. "..S..step in? I can't--! Huh?"

He paused at a weird feeling in his right leg, directly under the cast. The feeling was followed by a mild tingling and itching, and the sensation of the leg falling down just a bit, through the space where the cast had been between it and the floor.

He sat up, looking at his leg. It wasn't in a cast anymore. It looked kind of thin, but that was to be expected. He scratched at it, noticing that, somewhat less expectedly, it seemed a lot smoother than he remembered; there was a lot less hair there. He tested the leg, moving it slightly, and then slowly stood up, surprised that he had the strength in it to do that. Normally rehabilitation was needed to be able to stand without crutches..right?

A motion drew his eyes upward, and there he saw what looked like a big mass of wide ribbon, some of it white and some of it black. While he watched, the white parts darkened and turned black, and it started to untangle itself in midair. He had to stop watching when he noticed that his skin was starting to itch and tingle again..but this time, it was everywhere but his right leg.

"Huhm..?" He looked down to see the hair seemingly pulling in from his arms and legs, the complexion of his skin turning slightly paler, and stranger still, his arms and legs clearly getting thinner. His hands and feet even seemed to be getting a little smaller, his fingers in particularly becoming thinner.

Then, all of a sudden, his shirt tore apart in the middle, just in front of his stomach. The cloth seemed to fold its way out, up and down toward his shoulders and hips. He could see now that his stomach was very flat and smooth in the front, and also very thin; its skin, too, had much the same complexion and lack of hair as his arms and legs. Then he felt an odd stretching of his ears, like the tips were being pulled out to either side by invisible hands, and then an outward push from his hips, like they had been confined by a tight belt and he was just now taking it off.

The dramatic changes to Norrin's clothes continued, with the leggings of his shorts getting vertical cuts down the middle of each leg, the middle section seemingly unfolding out into a piede of white cloth hanging down to between his knees, and the rest of the cloth, including that gained from his shirt, turning into long strips of blue material across the sides and back at about the same length. His shirt's sleeves tore apart, leaving now only a couple of deep blue straps tightly held on either side of his chest, part of the back, and the collar intact, and then all of the extra cloth from his shirt formed some kind of cape hanging from the collar made of light-blue strips of cloth like those hanging from the sides of his hips.

With all of that excitement, Norrin only just now noticed his hair, which now hung down to his shoulders on the sides and was a deep blue color. He turned to get a closer look at it, and could feel a much greater weight of hair from his back swishing around in response..just before it was suddenly pulled up and bunched up, something wrapping around the upper part of his head and tying a the back hair together.

"Wha.." He had to pause in the middle of an astonished question at the sound of his voice, much higher in pitch than he remembered it being..and kind of girlish, really. Norrin blinked, realizing something, just before feeling a mild tingling between his legs that quickly faded off. "I..I-I'm..?" Norrin pulled his legs close together and felt around, and found something quite definitely missing from between her legs. Her cheeks felt hot, and there was a strange sensation from the pit of her stomach for a few seconds before her attention was drawn sharply back to the black ribbons hanging in the air.

All at once they advanced on her. She tried to block them instinctively, with her arms, but they just wrapped themsleves around her wrists..or rather, some of them did; the rest quickly made their way to her legs and wrapped around those as well. Before she had time to react to that, the front of her chest started to feel like her hips had before, and she could feel the material across the sides of it giving way to two bumps quickly ballooning their way out into a pair of full-size breasts, which bounced very slightly at the end of their growth.

Norrin paused for a moment, somewhat in awe of what had just happened. But her attention was drawn away from that yet again, and toward a strange sense she had of being..connected to something. It was in the air, and the ground, and around her, and in her, too. It wasn't all one thing, but a bunch of separate things all bound up together in knots. It felt like she could pull and push at that..fabric, almost, and make things change.

She tried a small push forward, and the air in the little white room developed a slight breeze from her back for a second. "Hm.." Without another word, she stepped into the ring of light, curious what new surprises this game would have in store.

---

Zack jumped at a girl's voice suddenly echoing around through the caves. "Hello? Is anyone there..?"

"I'm over here," he answered, "who are you?"
"Um..over where?"

"Just follow my voice, and look for the light."

"But it's echoing all over..oh, wait."

Zack waited for a few seconds before asking, "Wait for what?"
"Shh."

He remained quiet, and before long his ears turned forward to pick up the clicking of a pair of shoes walking closer. Then he could see by the torch's light a tall, thin woman with elf ears wearing clothes even less useful-looking than his own. Her eyes were closed, and she stopped just short of stepping on him before opening them. "Oh! Sorry." She stepped back a bit. "Um.."

"So, who're you?" said Zack.

"Oh, uh, my name's um..Nora," she said, kneeling over. "What happened to your foot?"
"I stepped in a fire. Please don't ask."
"Um..maybe..maybe I can make it better. But I'm not sure, I mean, uh..what's your name?"
"Zack."

"But you're—"
"Please shut up. You can fix my foot?"
"I..think so. It has too much fire, not enough water. Maybe I can untangle the fire out and the rest would balance out naturally..."

She had her hands up to the injured foot already, about to do something. "Hold it. What are you talking about?"

"Oh, uh..I'm not entirely sure," she said.

"Great." There was a pause of a few seconds, before Zack sighed again. "Well, you probably can't make it much worse. Go ahead."

Nora made a pulling motion, and Zack winced at a sudden, sharp pain at one small spot. "Oh! Sorry," she said, noticing his expression, and let go, which put the pain in his foot back to how it was before. "So..don't just pull on the knot," she muttered, before moving her hands around in a much more intricate motion, as if untying something. His foot tingled slightly, but didn't hurt any worse.

"So, Nora. Where'd you come from?" said Zack.

"Uh..that's kind of..hard to explain."
"Are you a player?"
"I'm not sure.."
"If you don't know what I mean, you're not."
"Well, I might be thinking of a different meaning from yours that that applies to, though..."
"Were you recently in a blank white room having your body and clothes forcibly rearranged for no good reason?"
"Oh! Yes. I guess. Well, I mean, maybe there was good reason for.." she trailed off, looking intently at Zack's foot again. "Ah..okay," she said, before sliding one hand over the other as if pulling a piece of string across it. Surprisingly, Zack's foot started feeling better. It wasn't hurting nearly as much, though it didn't look like it had actually healed from the burn at all.

Nora held up her hand, still pinched as if holding onto a string, and a small fire appeared floating above it for a few seconds. Then she let go, and the fire disappeared. "So, what exactly did you just do?" said Zack.
"Oh, um, I picked Spirit Weaver. As my class. Which means I can sort of push and pull elemental spirits around. And..sense them, too, so I'm not just blindly groping around."

"And..they look like strings in knots?"
"Um..sort of? It's..hard to explain," she said. "They don't really look like anything, but they don't have a sound or smell either. And they're intangible..sort of..I mean, they either make up or are in everything, I can't really tell which, but they.." she trailed off, not really sure how to explain beyond that.

"Well, thanks, anyway." Zack stood up, testing his foot. It still seemed vaguely sore, but definitely would work for standing on it. "I've met a couple of other players so far. You want to be in our party?"

"Sure! I mean, if you're okay with that. Um, I might be kind of a burden since I can't really do physical stuff all that well.."
"Well, I'm a Knight, so I can handle that," said Zack. "We really need someone who can heal, actually."

"Oh! Well..I can definitely do that. I think."

It took Nora a few seconds to realize that Zack was holding out a hand for her to react to. She awkwardly took it and shook it for a second, simultaneously noting that Zack was..slightly shorter than her? The wolf-woman looked at least the height of an average guy compared to the pile of stuff in the room..had Norrin actually gotten taller?

The "Best" RPG Ever-5

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"Yeah..what's wrong with witches?" asked the new girl.
"Just..okay, hang on," said Katherine, putting a couple of fingers to her forehead for a second before continuing. "You were a guy before, right?"
"Umm..yeah, but I wasn't gonna say anything."
"Well, then why did you pick an obviously female-only class?"
"Because it sounded like fun! Aaaand..I have kind of a habit of playing the Guy IRL anyway. Also, I was curious if the rules wouldn't let me or something, but the game had a pretty neat way of fixing that!"

"If you want to call it that," said Zack.
"I guess it doesn't matter, it would've happened anyway," said the psion. "Both of us used to be guys, too."
"Still am one," said the knight, slightly irritated.

"Um.." the witch looked pointedly at Zack's pretty impressive figure, before shrugging and saying, "if you say so! By the way, who were all these jerks?" She pointed around at the dead creatures on the cave floor.

"Goblins. They raided a caravan, and we're on a quest to take them out and get the stuff back," said the catgirl. "You want to join us?"
"Sure! These guys have no sense of hospitality anyway."
"Well, my name is Katherine, this is..Zack."
She put a hand to her lower lip for a second or two. "Oooh, I haven't thought of a name yet. Um, how does Mika sound?"

"Fine, I guess," said Zack, "now can we—"
"No no, I mean does it sound cute enough? I mean, I'd hate to go around with a body this cute and not have a name to match."

He put a hand to his face and shook his head. Katherine smiled, patting her on the shoulder, and said, "It's plenty cute, and fits you just fine. What can you do?"

"Um..so far, I can summon pumpkins and a little light."
The two others looked at each other. "..Pumpkins?" said the psion.

"Yep! I absorbed the essence of a pumpkin demon. They're actually pretty good at stunning enemies. Oh, yeah, and if we ever fight a demon I call dibs on its essence."

"I don't think either of us has any use for that anyway," said Zack. "Now can we go look for the other two goblins? The noise of this fight already told them we're coming, so they've had plenty of time to run away or prepare a bunch of traps. Not to mention we have no idea which direction they went in."

"Well, not that way," said Mika, pointing, "I came from in there and this was the only exit."

"And we would have noticed them coming out the way we entered," said Katherine. "Which leaves..three ways. Maybe you could sniff them out, Zack?"

"What?"

"You know, using your clearly wolf-like sense of smell? It makes sense as a racial trait, you know, same as how I can balance and do gymnastics all of a sudden. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what a goblin smells like around here."

"Fine, I'll try," said Zack. He went over to the nearest dead goblin and bent over to sniff at it. The others looked away from the inadvertent flipping up of his skirt and at each other's faces, Katherine shaking her head and Mika stifling a giggle. "I can hear you, you know."

"Then kneel down or something next time," said Katherine, "just because you claim to still be a guy doesn't mean you're not wearing a skirt."

He abruptly stood back up and walked to the nearest unexplored cave entrance, and they could both see him trying to hide his beet-red face. He sniffed around at the walls for a second or two. "Nothing this way..."

He moved over to the next opening, on the opposite side from the way out, and sniffed around. "It's here, but..old. How do I even know that?" And at the last of them he said, "The scent is a lot fresher here. Doesn't look like it gets any brighter in there, though."

"I can make a light, like I said." The witch pointed over her head and a small glow appeared there.

"Okay, let's go."
"Behind me. I'm the closest thing to a tank we've got," said Zack, starting on his way in. The others followed, Mika in the middle with her light.

This part of the cave was surprisingly spacious, not especially wide but tall enough for all three of them to stand upright; in some places it looked like the roof had been carved out a little bit with tools of some sort to keep it that way. "So why do you think they're in an order like this?" said Katherine, quietly. "Two guards, four in the main campsite, two more presumably with the treasure?"

"It means the last two are the boss," said Zack bluntly.
Mika said, "Are you sure?"

"It's obvious. We have to beat them last to finish the quest, and we haven't exactly run into any other bosses yet. Anyway, if they can order all the other goblins to guard them, then they have to be the most powerful."

"Or just the most cunning," said Katherine. "Maybe they're like goblin wizards of oz. 'Pay no attention to the disgusting mud-creatures behind the curtain'!"

"There is no way we're that lucky," he answered flatly.

The trail hit a few random dead ends, but Katherine managed to keep track of where they'd been before and kept them from going in circles. Eventually the three of them found a hallway to a clearly larger cavern. Mika dimmed the light as they got closer, the others listening as two separate patterns of wheezing breath became just barely audible. They entered the room, and Mika all but turned the light out, standing still in the doorway.

Zack was surprised at how well his eyes picked up the area in front of him: A giant, fat silhouette lying on its back on one side, and a leaner, more muscular one hunched down, sitting on the floor to the other, of an indistinguishable pile likely full of stolen goods. He carefully drew the thick sword, and looked between the two of them.

"You should stab the smaller one," hissed Katherine. He looked over at her, and saw her eyes glowing slightly in the dim light. "Big one'll survive a hit because of all the blubber, and it'll be angry either way."

"Small what?" said Mika, as quietly as she could manage.

"Big goblins, right here," answered Zack. "Move the light over to the other side of this cavern. When it gets loud, make it bright."
"Sure." She moved the little will o' wisp into position, and waited.

He slowly moved toward the leaner goblin, wary of anything that might have spilled on the floor from the pile, and especially aware of the noise of his armor..again. About halfway there, the bigger goblin made a noise in its sleep, and everyone froze. It shifted slightly, but didn't wake up. Then he started moving again, trying to get an idea of which way to stab at the thing.

It was curled up. He wasn't completely sure of the position of its arms. But the head...he could see the top of its neck, once he was close. So he raised the blade as high as he could, brought it down in a swift chop, and missed the neck by what might as well have been a mile. Instead, the sword clanged against the creature's skull. His target screeched, and the noise woke the other goblin. He picked back up the sword and drew back as it got up, standing a few inches over him, and in a fluid motion drew a curved sword—scimitar? he thought briefly—and started swinging wildly at him with it. Zack had to back up, blocking with the thin blade, and within a couple of seconds the tip of his tail was against the wall. Then the light flashed, blinding nearly everyone. Zack was ready for it, and ducked down and to the right, moving around to flank his opponent. Then he had to jump out of the way of something large and heavy he heard coming from directly above his head.

The big goblin had a giant club for a weapon. Naturally. And now the smaller one was running at the witch.

Mika saw the tall, thin goblin coming at her with a sword, and reflexively threw a pumpkin at him. It hit him square in the chest and barely slowed him down. So she threw a knife at the same spot. That stopped him for a second, although he managed to deflect it off to one side so it would graze him. Then he noticed the catgirl right next to him and unarmed. He slashed, she jumped back, but not quickly enough, and it cut her across the shoulder.

She held her shoulder, trying to stop the flow of blood. "Ow! That hurt, you—ack!" She ducked out of the way of another attack, and then directed her aggression at his mind, trying to stun him. But since the emotion communicated was aggression, he was provoked instead. He hissed and screeched at her, and started attacking more erratically and less methodically, which admittedly did make it easier to dodge. Or would have, without the shoulder pain.

Zack didn't have room to maneuver, and that was bad. But the big goblin seemed to like his pile of stuff too much to smash it with the boulder, so he didn't exactly have a lot of options for where to swing his giant club, either. They were at a virtual standstill, Zack beginning to dash forward only to have to get back before he could become a giant's baseball. And then Katherine practically danced straight into the fat goblin's line of fire, the smaller one in tow.

The witch saw an opportunity. "Kath! Jump back!" The club started its trip down. Mika turned off the light, and everyone was briefly blind again, but quite capable of hearing a distinct cracking sound as the big blunt weapon met with someone's head. She turned the light back on as quickly as possible, hoping desperately the idea had worked, and found that it had. The thin goblin dropped its sword, standing there badly dazed, its head bleeding and looking somewhat..crumpled.

The fat goblin looked at its partner for a second or two before suddenly roaring and charging at the witch.

"Wuh-oh!" Mika ducked back into the hallway, then turned around and started running when the big goblin didn't slow down. He barreled straight thorough the small bit of wall between the cavern and the hallway and ran after her, the knight and psion right behind him.

"Get on his back!"

"Can't you stun him?"
"I'm trying, I think he's got some kind of berserk psychic shield thing going on! Just jump on his back!"

"Fine!" Zack jumped onto the goblin's back, swords in front, and stabbed both into him. He didn't even seem to feel that, so he took out the wide sword, keeping anchored to the big moving mass of flesh with the slimmer one, and started hacking at its back-flesh.

Mika wasn't completely sure which way she was going, other than away from the enraged giant goblin that could probably kill a little girl like her just by sitting on her. Somehow, through all the twisting maze of cave, she managed to avoid finding a single dead end, instead winding up back in the main area, the big room they'd found the other goblins in. The fire was still burning, so she ran around it and turned around, panting, and then saw the fat goblin barrel through yet another opening.

Zack backflipped from the goblin's back before he could be caught by the rocks that used to separate the corridor from the chamber, and had to hop over them to catch up. Without thinking about it very much, he ran around the big goblin as it barreled closer to the witch, stepping right into the fire and apparently ignoring the pain in his foot. Zack stood between her and him, holding up both swords and hoping he had enough strength to block the giant club coming straight at him.

There was a bright flash just when the club connected with the blades. And then, suddenly, it seemed as if time stopped all around him. He could look around, but couldn't move his arms. He saw the gem he'd found on his person earlier making its way from up above the twin blades to just in front of his neck. His clothes shifted rapidly, the leg armor turning to boots and stockings, the skirt becoming cloth, the top turning black and the shoulder armor dissipating. The cape shortened a bit, the gem attaching at its center, and Zack felt some sort of headband forming around his head, just below the ears. The thin sword disappeared, and instead his left hand's glove became heavier, some kind of gauntlet showing up on it. Both gloves became fingerless, and there was some kind of bracer on his right hand..

And then the flash pulled back, all into the gem, and time seemed to slowly resume. Now the club's impact hit the side of his left arm, or rather some kind of force field just in front of it that seemed to glow when hit, in the shape of a bunch of connected hexagons. Surprisingly, he had no trouble with the impact; it didn't hurt at all, just pushed him back slightly.

The goblin drew its weapon back, and Zack hopped back slightly, panting.

I guess that's what the gem of brightness does, he thought briefly. And now that he could block its attacks instead of having to dodge all of them, he could do something about this goblin. It drew its club out to one side and swung it at Zack. He blocked again with the weird magic-shield thing, grateful it had come from his left side so this move wasn't awkward, and as soon as the club's momentum was gone he jumped straight up at the goblin, and stabbed straight into its neck, digging his shoes into its chest as he did.

The goblin dropped its club, making choking noises, and then staggered backward. Zack pulled the blade out and dropped to the cave floor, landing on his feet. The fat goblin landed on its back.

For a moment, nobody said anything, and the only sound in the cavern was the party of three catching their breaths. Then Mika said, "Wow, where'd you learn to do that?"

"I think..it's a class ability or something," said Zack, looking at the arm the shield came from and trying to figure out just how that worked. "I started with this gem thing, and it said I couldn't use it unless an ally is in danger. And..part of the description for Knight said something about switching between two forms, I think."
"So, that form is focused on defense, and the other one is attack," said Katherine, stepping forward, still holding her shoulder. "We should probably go make sure the other guy's really dead."

"Yeah." They went back through the corridors, following a trail of the big goblin's blood, and found the smaller goblin collapsed on the ground of the treasure chamber.

"I don't think he's breathing," said Katherine. "Still, wouldn't hurt to stab 'im again."
"On it."

"Sooo...how are we gonna get this stuff outta here?" said Mika.

"Hm..we're supposed to contact someone to come get it all once the monsters are cleared out," said Katherine. "I call 'not messenger'."

"That's not a good idea," said Zack. "You're hurt, and if we missed one or something else comes to steal this stuff, you can't kill anything yourself."
"Sure I can. I got a knife."

"Why don't I go alone?" Mika chimed in. "I bet I can fly on this broom. 'Cause that's a thing witches can do."

Zack looked over at her. "They wouldn't recognize you as our messenger. Besides, do you even know where the town is?"

"Umm..nope."

"Look, I'll stand guard. You need medical attention anyway."
Katherine sighed. "Fine. Since you put it that way.."

"Great! Every witch needs a black cat," said Mika.

"Shut up, I'm not 'yours'."

They continued on their way out of the cave. "But you are a black cat, right? It's just so fitting. Ee-he-he-he!"

"Stop that. I swear I'm gonna blow up your head first."

"You can do that?"
"Well..not yet. But when I learn how to explode heads, I'm gonna test it out on you."
"You'll have a hard time if I'm an archdemon by then~."

"Wait, you can become an archdemon in this game?"
"Sure. I mean, eventually. Apparently it's what witches do. Absorb demon essences, turn into an archdemon, be super powerful. Sounds neat, right?"

"...Yeah, I guess. If you don't mind being a girl."
"But you're a girl, too!"

"Yeah, but I didn't know I would turn into one anyway at the time..."

"Mm-hm. By the way, do you think Zack's boobs got bigger when she changed forms like that?"
"Um...no. It's probably just the different top making it look like that. And why're you using female pronouns?"

"'Cause she's not around, I can call her what I want. Anyway, that dude is obviously a lady. I mean, I might be able to pass as a little boy or something, but that's just silly."
"You seem to like being silly."

"That I do!"

By now they were outside. Mika sat on the broom, and managed to get it to slowly lift up into the air, before taking a quick flight up and around in a circle, and landing again. "Okay, it works great! Hop on."

"I don't think that's very safe.."
"Well, you need to get there fast, right? Just hold on tight!"

"...Fine." The psion sat behind Mika on the floating broom, wrapping her uninjured arm around the witch's stomach. "I swear if you drop me I am going to really kill you. Somehow. Even if I have to become a psychic ghost."

"Don't worry, I'm sure it's just like riding a bike. One that floats waay up in the air. Now, which way's the town?"

---

Phew, huge gap between writing the lead-in and the actual boss fight. And..now I'm not totally sure what to do next. There are so many options! I know they gained lots of skill points from all these battles, so they're going to spend those and finally have new abilities. After that..I need to figure out what happens next. Some tougher quest maybe? Some event in town or having to do with the town? I want an excuse to introduce another party member soon, I think..

I don't want to bog things down in a bunch of simple quests, is the problem. There's a trajectory toward a specific, very important quest, but it has to happen when the party is larger and somewhat higher in average level.

Still looking for suggestions, ideas, et cetera!

Ring 5.1: Clearing the Air

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Ring 5.1:

Clearing the Air

Liam leaned against the wall, sighing a quiet “Phfff..” This would be fun to watch, but he suspected it would get a little bit tedious for him personally. And waiting around beforehand was kind of boring. Maybe he shouldn't have run the whole way, and maybe he wouldn't have if he hadn't been convinced the next part would be so much more fun if he made it here first.

He didn't have to wait all that long. Pretty soon he could see four figures making a turn around another house and heading toward him, the guys looking pretty surprised.

Especially Cole. “Liam? Wh--. How did you--? Gh..”

“One question at a time oughta help ya,” he advised.

“Okay, what are you doing here?” said Cole.
“Waitin' for you guys. I'm sure ya know I don't hang out here all the time.”

“Well I should, considering this is my house.”

“Calm down, Cole, he probably knew to wait here 'cause he's magic,” said Akio.

“Nah. I just took an educated guess.”

“But how did you know where his house even is?” said Rolf.

Liam pointed at the mailbox, which had Cole's family name on it. “Knew it was 'round here somewhere. I just had to look a little bit.”

There was an awkward pause after that. Fortunately, he was an expert at ending those. “So, c'n we go in already? It's way too hot out here.”

“..Sure, fine.” Cole opened the door, and everyone spilled into the living room. On the way in, Kevin gave a small giggle. “You ran all the way here to do that, didn't you?”

Liam shrugged. “Maybe.” He remained standing, and so did Rolf; Kevin took a chair, and Akio and Cole opposite sides of the couch. “So, we're here 'cause you guys have somethin', huh?”

“Yes!” said Akio. “I'm sure you guys remember last Friday. I was a girl.”

“You told them it was you?” said Cole.

“No, of course not. Liam figured it out.”
“'Cause I'm magic.” He pointed a thumb at himself, leaning against a wall again.

Cole gave Liam a look for a few seconds. “..Would you stop saying it like that?”
“Like what?”
“You keep saying you're 'magic', but when you say it like that it sounds like you're claiming to somehow be the embodiment of all magic everywhere.”

“So what if I was?”
“I don't even have any reason to believe something like that exists. Could you just say you're magical or something?”
“Hm..nah. You c'n say it that way if ya want, though.”

“Guys, we're getting off track here,” said Akio. “Yeesh, I thought I was the one who ran off on tangents all the time..”

“That's because you are,” said Rolf.

“Whatever. Anyway. The way I did that was..” he held out a hand to Cole and started trying to grab something out of the air. “Was..” After waving it around for a few seconds, he turned toward him, glaring slightly. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing?”
“That's your cue to give me the thing, so I can show it to everybody. Duh.”

“You'd just drop it again.” Cole held up the ring himself. “What he's trying to say is, we found this.”
“You mean, I found it and I bought it. With my money.”

“Yeah, that. Anyway, this is supposed to be a 'perfect disguise' ring. It literally turns a person into whatever they think of when they put it on...with maybe some limits we don't know about.”
“The first time, at least,” said Rolf.

Kevin looked like she was about to say something, but Liam looked at her and shook his head slightly.“Ya wanna demonstrate that?” he asked.

“Well, um,” said Cole, moving the ring back into the palm of his hand. “I should warn you we sorta didn't know it 'saved' a form like that, and also we weren't sure it actually worked the first time, so we kinda used the amazing power for something sort of silly.”

“Silly?” said Akio. “Free arcade night is serious business, man.”

“Yeah, that. So the 'disguises' the three of us have are all girls. Do you want to..?” Now he offered Akio the ring.
“Nah, you go ahead,” he said, waving.

Cole sighed, and put on the ring, waiting quietly for a few seconds until it glowed. “It does that to say you've decided what disguise to turn into,” he explained. “And you actually take the ring off to change.”

With that, he stood up, took off the ring, and immediately started visibly changing. His hair grew out and his face changed; his stomach drew in, his hips pushed out, and his arms and legs slimmed down. His shirt shrank up against a flat, slim inward curve of a stomach and his jeans' leggings pulled up to just above the thighs, the remainder pulling tight, particularly between Cole's legs. Then her chest burst out into the usual fair-sized breasts; the tight shirt seemed to stretch out with them, the collar opening down until it showed a little bit of cleavage, leaving Jenna in a girl's t-shirt and denim shorts.

As usual, she managed to hold on to the ring the whole time and remain pretty calm. “So..yeah,” she said, putting a hand behind her head. “Sometimes it doesn't go as fast as that..but this ring is pretty amazing, right?”

“Heh, I'll say,” said Liam. “Pretty complex enchantments goin' on with that. It probably wouldn't give ya powers if you tried to disguise yourself as a superhero or somethin', though.”

“Um..” Kevin looked at Liam, and this time he nodded. So she got up. “I think I should probably show you guys something, too..”

All eyes were on Kevin while she dug into her pocket and pulled out a ring, looking just as cheap-plastic as the one Jenna was holding, but of a slightly different shade. She quietly, shyly put it on, waited for it to glow, and then started to change..it was pretty slow, and the differences in the end result were relatively small: Her figure became more pronounced, the breasts especially growing out, and there were some more subtle changes to her limbs, skin and face that all made her look decidedly more feminine. Her clothes didn't change at all, or at least not the shirt and pants. After a minute or so of silence, the person standing in the room was unmistakeably Kell from the arcade.

“So..you were lying earlier about having some dream, I guess,” said Akio.

“Yep. I mean, I didn't really want to lie to you guys but I also didn't want to tell everyone all the details, either. I was pretty sure you'd do this at some point, and figured it would be a good, private place and time...”

“That's fine,” Rolf said, “but..so, wait, you actually wanted to turn into a girl?”

Kell shrugged. “Sure. Well, not exactly. I mean, the first time I used the ring I just wanted to turn into someone who was the opposite of me..in all the good ways, that is. But the ring interpreted 'opposite' to also mean..” She made a slight sweeping motion over her body. “..And taller, I guess. But I really liked being not totally paralyzed by other people, and I started using the ring a lot..”

“So..that's what 'becoming the mask' means?” said Jenna, sitting back down again..and getting a slightly concerned frown on her face.

“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it kind of messes with your head a little bit, too, but probably nothing too bad if your disguise thinks a lot like you do. Oh, but you guys don't need to worry; the only reason I've actually changed this much, this fast is because I've been using the ring, like, two or three times every day. Once or twice a week is probably perfectly safe..right?” She directed the question to Liam, who put a hand against his chin for a second or two.

“Hmm, yeah, prob'ly. Now that I've seen it in action myself I got a better idea of how it works. The ring uses the magic of the person usin' it to do all the work, which's why it don't need a power source. Problem is, when you're not yourself often enough, your own magic starts forgettin' details of what ta turn back to. There are a few ways it could screw up and not work like it's supposed to, but they don't apply to you four..or me, for that matter. 'S long as I don't ask for the wrong thing in a disguise, at least.”

Akio said, “So wait..we all have magic?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, sure, everyone's got magic. Some more'n others.”

“Neat! But uh..Kell. Or, Kevin. Kellvin. Whatever.”

“Yeah? You might wanna get used to the first one.”

“If you could turn back into a guy, and still be all confident like you are now..?”

She shrugged. “I never really put much value in being male, and I like how I am now. If I suddenly decide I hate being a girl for some reason..and yes, I can think of a few possible reasons but it might be worth it..then I might consider it. But not as an impulse decision or anything. I mean, I kinda decided to become Kell after a lot of thought and discussion about it.”
“Mostly with me,” said Liam.

“Plus, at this point it'd be kinda suspicious, don't you think? I mean, people would start asking me how I managed to turn back, and I might not be as good at coming up with a consistent lie this time..

“Anyway, didn't you promise you'd try something if they did have a ring, and told us about it?” Kell looked at Liam.
“I didn't promise nothin'.”
“You said it'd be 'too interesting to pass up'. You've never passed up anything interesting before.”

“Yeah, well..it's a Monday. Not a whole lot of time when ya get right down to it, and what I'd like to do might take a while. How 'bout we save that for the weekend, huh? Ta have somethin' to look forward to.”

“What are you talking about exactly?” said Akio.

“Aw, nothin' major,” said Liam. “Just maybe borrowin' your ring. Or Kell's. Comin' up with a disguise to use next week.”

Jenna thought for a second or two. “..What's next week?”

“Arcade night. Duh!” said Akio, standing up. “But what are we gonna do now? I mean, we're already all together here and stuff..”

“I dunno. You wanna play some games or something?” said Kell.

Everyone said yes or nodded, but Jenna qualified her agreement. “Well, I have to change back before my parents get home.”

“But then Kell'd be the only girl. What if we just relocate?”

“Yeah, everyone'd fit just fine in my house,” said Liam. “Or..I ain't seen you as a girl yet,” he added, looking at Rolf.

“I'd rather not,” he said, speaking for the first time in a while.

Liam shrugged. “Eh, suit yourself. My house it is, then. I'll lead the way in case anybody don't know it. Or forgot.”

---

Great to have this out. But if you think everything will be 100% resolved after the next weekend, you might have missed some foreshadowing...