The "Best" RPG Ever-1

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Note: I meant for this to come out a few hours later so the other post wouldn't get buried, but mistyped the publishing time so that blogspot's records indicate it coming out much earlier than I wrote it. The take-away from this is that there's a chapter of the Ring story below this post, in case you didn't know that.
 

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Zack received in the mail, in addition to the usual bills and advertisements, an envelope containing a CD. The envelope was missing its return address, and the CD's only label was handwritten permanent marker declaring that it was the "Best RPG Ever!"

He was intrigued, as a great many people in the same situation might have been, but suspicious. He knew a way to put in the CD and have his computer scan it for any malware before running anything on it, and he did that. It didn't detect anything. The only thing on the CD was a single file, named "Begin.exe," that appeared to be taking up more space than the disk had—several times more, in fact. That was weird, but after another few scans of the file Zack figured it must be relatively harmless, and his curiosity inspired him to start it up.

A plain text box appeared, saying only the word "Loading" and a percentage which moved slowly at first, while he watched, but began to speed up after reaching the 25% mark or so. When it got close to 90%, Zack found he was beginning to feel..strangely numb, and just as the percentage reached 100 he suddenly blacked out.

He woke up lying down, looking up at a blank white ceiling, and quickly sat up and looked around. "What the..?" The whole room was blank and white like that, no door or window or anything. He couldn't even place where all the light in the room was coming from. It seemed to be a perfectly cube-shaped room, and right in the center of the floor was the only thing in the room besides him. It was some kind of circular pedestal with a..holographic..image? Floating above it. It looked like a slowly spinning cube.

After confirming that there weren't any hidden doors (that he could find at least), Zack carefully touched the floating thing on the pedastal. Suddenly what looked to be a 2-dimensional box, with a blue background and white text (a message box, he realized), appeared, saying "Drag left and right to select a class for more information. To choose a class, take its associated object."

"So..this is the game?" he muttered to himself. "Not..what I was expecting. But maybe it'll let me out of here if I pick a class." He put his index finger in the middle of the cube and then moved it to the right, hoping that was how you 'dragged' the thing. He was right. The cube seemed to scroll to the right and out of existence, while another object moved in to take its place: A sword with a very wide blade at the hilt that tapered only near its sharp tip.

The message box changed. "Knight: The class of noble protectors and great heroes. Knights excel in the use of the blade and are difficult to defeat in a purely physical fight. A knight can shift between the Bright and Dark forms for offense and defense respectively, and use minor holy magic as well as a few unique spells at higher levels."

"Hmm..that doesn't sound too bad," said Zack. This room frankly creeped him out, so he was eager to get out of it as soon as possible. He reached out and closed his right hand around the hilt of the sword, which despite looking all holographic and transparent was evidently completely solid. The message box changed again to say "Would you like to play a Knight? (Pull for yes, release for no)"

He pulled the sword out without much thought. It was surprisingly light. The center of the circular pedastal glowed with white, and the message box said, "Step into the summoning circle to begin your journey." Zack took a deep breath and then walked onto the circle.

As soon as he had done that, he found himself floating gently upward in the air. He looked around, fascinated, as the room around him seemed to fade to black, leaving him in a singular pillar of light. The message box disappeared, too. Soon he seemed to be floating freely in the air, his feet finding no footholds, yet he didn't feel like he was falling either.

He was less fascinated and more bewildered when his clothes suddenly glowed white and then seemed to shatter off of him, all except for his underwear. He looked around wide-eyed as the white stuff that used to be his clothes began swirling around him, but then he was distracted from the display by a bunch of strange feelings suddenly coming from his own body.

It felt like something inside him was pulling, particularly at his stomach and arms and legs. He looked down and saw that his stomach was actually getting thinner and smaller, and then he became aware of a pushing sensation from his hips. They were growing wider, he saw, and blinked at the sight. He couldn't quite bring himself to be shocked that his body was being altered: He had, after all, just started a computer program that teleported him into a white room with no exits. But it was still very weird.

He became much more concerned when he noticed that his underwear was getting tighter, its leggings shorter, and the pulling sensation was coming from between his legs as well. No way, he thought, as a tingling feeling spread throughout his body. His skin, all over, was becoming paler, the hair on it shrinking in. And then he saw his bangs, and felt his hair falling down across his shoulders. His hair had definitely not been a pinkish white color before, he thought, as it continued to grow and he felt the tips crawling their way down to the small of his back.

The white energy stuff around him drew his attention again when some of it closed in around his legs and feet, and suddenly turned into clothes, black shoes and..stockings? With white bits of armor at the knees and ankles. Then another bit of it closed around his chest and shoulders, becoming a lacy black bra. Zack shuddered, and looked down to see that his underwear was definitely turning into a matching pair of panties, pulling still closer between his legs.

He tried not to think about that, looking instead at his arms and stomach again. They were so slim now, and the stomach had an inward curve to it, supplemented by his now-wide hips. He managed to actually get distracted when he noticed another few pushing sensations, this time coming from his ears and..his back? Just below where his hair now reached, which by the way was nearly to his hips. As the pushing continued he could feel his ears beginning to twitch and move, and became aware of air moving across them; the thing coming from his back began moving more and more like an appendage, and he could feel air on it as well. It occured to him this must be fur, as he managed to get the thing from his back to move to where he could see the tip. It was a tail, for sure.

Now the white stuff closed in around his torso and hips, and he could feel a long-sleeved shirt pulling tight against his stomach and arms, gloves on his hands, and some unfamiliar weights on his shoulders and the sides of his hips. He looked down, wondering why there wasn't something up against his upper legs, and realized that there was now a white skirt surrounding them. "No way.." he muttered, but then had to pause at just how high-pitched his voice was. It wasn't squeaky, but it didn't sound like him.

And now he became aware of a flatness between his legs, a realization helped along by the tight panties that were definitely still there under the skirt. Zack shook his head, trying not to think about that, and turned to see what the weights near his hips were. He noticed first of all that he seemed to be wearing a black cape held on by two bits of shoulder armor, and then noticed a pair of sheathes, one of them with a thin sword in it and the other designed for a familiar-shaped broadsword but empty.

The problem reasserted itself as his chest began pushing out, and he could feel the tight shirt's resistance as two bumps formed, quickly expanding and giving more cleavage for the space between his collar and the top of the shirt to show. He stared at it as it filled the bra underneath. "I..no, this can't be real," he said, shaking his head but only getting the feeling of the weight of his hip-length hair swishing back and forth. Before he knew it, and without any say in the matter, he had the body of a rather well-endowed young woman.

He looked down at his right hand and realized that he'd been holding the sword this whole time, and that it no longer looked the least bit holographic. Yet it still felt so light! He looked to his left hand and found some kind of gem was on a..bracelet? It looked like it should fit around his neck, he thought. All the white stuff that had been his clothes before were now his clothes again, it seemed, because there wasn't any more of it swirling around him. And then, before he could think about what had just happened too hard, he found himself feeling exhausted, and couldn't stop himself from drifting off to sleep.

Zack woke up to a sunlit blue sky above him, soft earth and grass below, and was immediately confronted with all the sensations the tight clothes imposed on his very womanly body. He immediately sat up, and then stood up, looking around and wondering how his tail (which was definitely also still there) hadn't made lying on his back incredibly uncomfortable.

He seemed to be standing in the middle of a circle of stone pillars, not too unlike stonehenge, he thought. Both of the swords were sheathed, he noticed as he looked down, and he gently pulled them out. It was odd, he knew the swords were heavy by their balance, heavier than he should be able to handle..especially with how thin his arms looked now. But he could raise them up and give them both a few experimental swings with very little effort. In fact, their balance felt rather right, and he seemed to know just how to hold them and strike with them without them running into each other, like he'd been using them this way for years. "Right.." he muttered, trying to get used to his higher, alto voice, "RPG mechanics. Even a level one warrior knows how to swing a sword."

He sheathed the weapons, and then looked to the odd gem-bracelet thing in his hand. "Where do I even keep things?" he muttered to himself. It wasn't like his new outfit came with pockets, after all, that would be silly. "Guess I'll just put it on.." he pulled the clasp open from his hand and then tried to put it on his neck. It wouldn't latch. "What the..eh?" His attempts were interrupted by the appearance of another 2D blue-with-white-text message box in front of his eyes, close but small enough to be readable.

It said, "A knight's gem of brightness can only be used when an ally is in danger without the proper skill."

Zack shook his head as the box disappeared. "So what am I supposed to do with this, then? I swear, I need a bag or something to put it in..wha?" When he said he needed a bag to put it in, the gemmed amulet-bracelet thing disappeared. "Huh." He thought about wanting it back in his hand, and it appeared. "Guess I do have an inventory system. So that's good."

"Now..where am I going?" He looked around at the circle of stones, wondering if he could find a town nearby. Maybe someone could undo the changes to his body at least, if not get him home..maybe beating the game would send him back. No telling. But for right now he'd need to play along, he probably was level 1 or this game's equivalent of that, after all, so angering whatever super-powerful being sent him here now would probably be a bad idea.

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Okay, this is an idea that's been knocking around in my head for a while. There are a few general, overall things I know I want to do in this story, but a lot of the details haven't been hammered out. So I'd like to do something interesting with this story: I want you, in comments, to suggest a general idea of what happens next. There will be more party members eventually, but not the very next part, I don't think. If you're not sure what to suggest, think about what's going on. In this case, obviously Zack is going to look for some kind of town or village or whatever, but what will he find? Any interesting sorts of people in the town? If there's a random encounter, you might suggest what sort of enemies appear. That sort of thing.

(Just so we're clear, it's not necessary but it is helpful if suggestions go with the latest entry, rather than all of them being on this first one. I'm not sure if there was some confusion about that, but thought I should point it out just in case.)