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.