Settling a Dispute

The "Best" RPG Ever-31

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---

Ian Kellen found himself...as himself, once again. It felt almost alien for a second, and his surroundings were blurry, indistinct somehow...but things slowly came into focus. He was...sitting down in...his office. His office back on Earth. Was what had transpired before some kind of dream? He wasn't exactly the kind of person who would sleep on the job.
"Yeah, you're not..." The doctor was startled by a woman's voice, which felt deeply familiar but difficult to place somehow. As soon as it had spoken, its owner appeared sitting in the chair on the other end of his desk: A woman with long dark hair, bright red eyes, and big pearly white wings from her back, but other than this difference in coloration, nearly identical to what he'd seen in a mirror the previous day. Of course...the voice was the one he'd spent all day getting used to having.

This didn't really fit the description of an ordinary dream. He asked the first question that came to mind. "..Who are you?"

"Er..." she scratched the side of her head briefly, uncertain how to proceed. "Well, my name is Clera. We've...sort of...met before? Well, more than that. You saw me in the uh..white place."

"You were the apparition I encountered there, before being transformed," he concluded.

"Right," she nodded. "I was called to an Empath ritual to be a Soul of Empathy, and you were the one who called me there. Ex...cept that it wasn't a normal ritual at all."

"I would be hard pressed to describe anything that's happened today as 'normal'," said Ian, leaning forward onto his elbows on the desk. "What happened?"

"Well, I did what a Soul of Empathy normally does. I sort of...looked into your soul to see if you were worthy of being an Empath, and then when I had decided you were, I joined with you. It had...a different effect from usual, though. But because that happened, when you're awake we're both the same person. I thought it would be...a good idea to try and sort out what happened here."

"Hm." He decided to take this at face value for now. "Did the look at my soul tell you anything about how I got there?"

"Yes. I didn't get a very good look because it wasn't directly relevant to what I was supposed to be checking for, but it looked like you were in the middle of a very complicated, powerful summoning spell. I would guess that's how you got to our world from..." She hesitated, for the first time looking around the office instead of directly at him. "...here."

"So, how does one become a 'Soul of Empathy'?"

"Well, I—"

"Wait." Dr. Kellen remembered some unusual behavior on his part throughout the preceding day. "How much influence do you have over my mind?"

"Er, not really much. The only thing I can do is give you ideas. Or at least, that's how it's supposed to work...you're right though, there were some times we did things you wouldn't have...Um, to answer your first question, a Soul of Empathy is supposed to be someone who died heroically. You know, a sacrifice that saves lives, that kind of thing..."

"Why can you read my mind and I can't read yours?" he asked next.

"I'm not really reading your mind," she said, tilting her head slightly. "You're directing thoughts at me. I can do the same thing, and...I probably should, I guess, for your obvious next question."

Clera was born with an unusual talent for fire magic, a talent which seemed more like a curse than a blessing. Even after years of study as a mage, she had never been fully in control of her power. After a while she gave up being a mage at all and took up a job as a shopkeep in a certain town, keeping her powers a secret. One day a near army of bandits had descended on the town. She evacuated or hid as many people as she could, and then carefully lead the majority of the raiders into a trap. A large storehouse for grain which she claimed was full of treasure. It was winter, so there was no grain, but the place was made of wood. Not using her magic in so long had caused it to build up rather than die down, and since she was surrounded anyway she had just decided let all of it loose. Something after she had died had informed her that her actions saved the lives of everyone in the town, but in the moment there had only been a great deal of heat and pain.

All of that was communicated in an instant, and Dr. Kellen felt as if he remembered the series of events himself, rather than someone else's having related them to him. He jolted back slightly in surprise at the sudden appearance of the information in his mind, and then straightened in his chair, composing himself again. "...I see," he said.

"...What kind of person would be capable of the spell you saw?"

"Someone really powerful with a lot of time on their hands," she said. "I don't even know how they targeted your world for it, since it seems like it operates on completely different laws."
"There isn't magic here," he said, nodding in agreement.

"But uh, back to...I'll try not to take over anymore. It's...got to be uncomfortable."

"Don't promise what you can't keep," said Dr. Kellen. When she gave a confused look he said, "You said we were one person while awake, correct?"

"Uh-huh.."

"Then that person can't tell the difference between your desires and mine. Whatever one of us wants to do, the body will carry out, unless the other one stridently doesn't want it."

"Oh. I guess you're right. But.."

"We are in this situation whether we like it or not," he said. "We may as well attempt to cooperate." He leaned over the desk and offered her a hand.

"Yeah..." She took the hand and shook. "It's nice to meet you, such as it is, anyway..."

---

Aria sat down, perfectly still. As before, the sound of blood pumped through her ears, and even with the benefit of Tsaron's lesson it was very difficult to remain calm and avoid being distracted. Before the attempt at meditation had lasted long enough to yield results, it was interrupted by a feeling like something poking her.

She opened her eyes and looked around, eventually locating a black cat floating in midair a couple of feet off. "Oh, hi...Katherine?"
"Yeah. I can't really—"

"You're adorable like that!" The shifter hopped up onto her feet and moved closer. "Can I squeeze you? Just a little bit?"
"Um, yeah, no.." The cat floated backwards and up a bit, trying to get out of reach. "It's weird enough being this tiny without everyone trying to grab you, sheesh."
"I bet you'd enjoy it, though. A little scratching of the ears, maybe?" Aria had always been quite a cat person, and having one that could actually talk in front of her made it hard to focus on other priorities. She reached up one hand toward Katherine, who sighed and floated down a bit to allow it.

"Anyway, uh, so this is what your dream space looks like..?" she said, turning her head left and right to see the wall of static and giant pit with a demon behind it.

"Yeah, it's not much and I don't like it. You see anything with psycho-vision or whatever?" She ran a hand down the cat's back while she talked.

"Well, uh..the pit over there has some kind of...fear attached to it. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it's like more of a mental wall than something physically dangerous. The other way...it looks, I dunno, damaged? Kinda like it's trying to repair itself somehow."

"So you're saying it won't do anything bad if I just jump into the pit?"

"No..I mean, since when can dreams hurt you anyway? Especially since this is your dream. Anyway, can't you just grow wings and fly?"

Aria finally withdrew her hand to cross her arms for a second. "I can grow wings, I think, but I'm too heavy to actually...oh wait. That's physics. Dreams don't care about physics, right?"

"I don't think I need to tell you that."

"Well, let's try it then!" Aria willed it, and grew a pair of massive wings from her back, spreading them out experimentally for a second or two while the cat quickly floated out of the way. She looked to the pit again, and felt the same kind of fear from it as before. But she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and remembered who she was—who she had always been. That person had set countless new score and time records on game after game, found all sorts of new bugs and shortcuts with ease, took all the riskiest strats to show off and to get ahead. If it was in a game, nothing was truly impossible...and this was some kind of game after all, right?

Keeping her eyes closed, the shifter ran at the pit, felt its end, and leapt forward and up, spreading her wings out. She flew a short distance before opening them and seeing clearly that the flight was going just fine. After a few experimental flips and turns, she went into a full-on dive toward the abyss below, and went as far down as she dared before turning around and flapping her way back up toward the cliffside. The sense of fear from this place had vanished, replaced by a heart-pounding exhilaration, a knowledge of freedom. This was just her mind, and she was the one in control here after all.

Katherine watched her land and fold the wings back out of existence. "Well, that was easy," she said. "Something's occurred to me, though."
"Yeah?"
"Well," Aria summoned a dream-likeness of her sword into her hand, looking at it, "since this sword is bound to me, or me to it..it's a part of me. We're the same being, more or less. And I—" she paused, and the sword appeared to melt into a kind of liquid metal, followed by reforming into a pair of smaller blades joined by a chain, "—am a shapeshifter." It changed again, into the shape of a massive warhammer, and then a scythe, before going back to its original appearance. "There's no reason this thing has to be stuck as just one big sword if it's as powerful as it's supposed to be, right? And sometimes it's better if I can use it as some other kind of weapon, so it should just be whatever I need it to be."

"So, that means you've figured out how to make it do that in the real world?" said the cat curiously.
"Pretty sure I did, yeah," she grinned. "Um..thank you. Even though I really should've figured it out on my own, having someone tell me that pit isn't really dangerous sort of made some things click in my head."

"Yeah, no problem," said Katherine, nodding. She looked around again. "So...your dreams just last as long as the entire night?"
"I think so. The last one did." Aria looked at the indistinct, staticy area opposite the pit, and briefly considered asking whether Katherine could get cable before remembering what world they were supposed to be from, and making an effort to re-word the request. "Do you know of any way to make that...like, not fixed but less boring?"

"Actually, there's something I've been meaning to try. This dream-walking thing is really just my power to connect my mind to those of others...but I can also bridge people's minds so they can think-talk to each other, so...maybe I can bridge dreams, too?"

"Well, go for it."

"Hmnn..." The cat closed her eyes, concentrating, and gained a slight purplish glow to her outline for a few seconds. The static before them flickered a few times in a way that did indeed remind Aria of a TV changing channels before settling itself to the scene of a dense forest at night, and in front of the two of them in particular was a small girl in very 'witch'-looking clothes, looking up at a boy who had been pinned to a tree trunk well above her reach by about ten knives stuck through his clothes and buried into the trunk.

After a couple of seconds the girl, who Aria now realized looked like a younger version of the 'witch' she'd seen speaking with Rose before, turned to see them, and yelled in surprise. "Aah! Uhmm, this isn't what it looks like," she said.

---

Zack was dreaming again, and back to the same physically-male but still wolf-person form he'd encountered before. This felt a little more...vivid somehow, more real. He was fighting alongside a group of other knights...their faces were indistinct, and the group's opponent even more so. He only knew that their enemy was a woman, and a group of demons she had summoned. They were at the top of some kind of tower...but it was hard to remember exactly how coming up here had gone.

The fight seemed to last an eternity, small blades flying from their opponent as the demons and his allies fell one by one. Eventually there were only two left standing: Zack, and the woman...their target. Having just finished taking out the last of the demons under her command, he raised his sword and said something. It must have been some kind of challenge or declaration of intent to bring justice...something like that. She laughed and said something mocking, driving him to attack.

This last part of the fight was frenetic and rapid, like some kind of frantic dance. Both sides fought desperately against one another, and he took occasional hits to his armor or superficial scratches. But after a little while, she started chanting something, a spell of some kind. It was a long, complicated spell by the sound of it, and it seemed impossible that she should be able to keep it up while still holding up the fight. In fact, it did appear to distract her somewhat to cast it, as he caught a few real mistakes in her movements and got in a hit each time—never a firm enough hit to finish her off, but clearly leaving meaningful wounds behind. There was a sense of urgency—a spell this costly on concentration, this long to cast, had to be dangerous; for her to finish it would surely mean death.

But when she did finish it, death didn't follow. His opponent jumped away from one of his attacks and turned her hands forward, sending the spell at him. There was a brilliant flash, too quickly to respond, and then..seemingly nothing. After a brief pause of confusion on Zack's part, his opponent panting too heavily from the effort to take advantage, he moved to strike her again and the fight seemed to proceed as before. But...something did start to happen, after a moment.

The knight's hair grew longer, flowing its way across the sides of his face. He started to shrink slowly, the tower growing taller around him, and his armor began to subtly shift. In another brief pause of the combat, noticing the changes, he made some demand to know what was happening, which the opponent responded to with deranged laughter. His voice sounded..off, higher than before. The changes progressed, bringing his height down below hers and trailing his hair out down his back as far as his hips. His sense of balance changed subtly as his hips widened, and his stomach pressed inward. His greaves split at the thighs, tightening below and spreading out above, while his breastplate lost much of its visible metal, pulling itself down off of his neck.

Sounds from his throat rose higher and higher, soon drifting entirely out of masculine range. He said something else, an accusation of what he suspected was happening. She replied in a coy way that clearly indicated he was right. Just then, he began to feel an unusual tugging between his legs, a heat in his cheeks. The full realization of the spell's effects, along with her mocking response, finally drove him over the edge into a full rage.

He attacked faster and harder than ever before, and even her more desperate maneuvers didn't save her from losing ground and taking hits over and over again. In the full heat of rage he didn't even consciously register the shift of his body from male to female, the slow growth of a pair of bumps on his chest into a waiting bra which had formed beneath the altered armor. Only after one final, decisive set of swipes gave him an opening to plunge his sword straight through her chest and into the wall behind it, and that opening was taken, did he really begin to notice the full effects of the spell. She laughed, and said something about it being a curse, and mocked him with her final breath. He drew back, letting go of the sword's hilt, panting heavily from the effort.

Time seemed to stand still as he remained there, alone, in the top of the tower, slowly coming to grips with what had happened.. There were no witnesses to the change; nobody would recognize him like this. He couldn't imagine trying to explain to anyone he knew what had happened, even if he wanted to convince them.

So many people had died to do this...a part of him questioned whether it had been worth it. But something...some indistinct memory convinced him that it had been. He couldn't stay here, couldn't stand to be a stranger to people he knew. Instead...instead he needed to go somewhere else, and try to make a new start.

Zack felt at the same time deeply immersed and yet somehow detached from the events of this dream. He had no control over the actions and decision of the knight, so it felt less like something he was experiencing now, and more like some kind of...memory being relived. He couldn't remember all the details...so much of it was missing...but somehow, the events felt real. It felt like something that...maybe didn't happen, but certainly could have happened.

---

"Well, what's it supposed to look like?" said Aria.

"Um, sorry if I'm interrupting something. I wanted to try out the dream bridging thing," said the cat, floating over to Mika.

"Oh. Uh, no, you're not really interrupting something. I'm not really even sure what's going on," said the witch, her body slowly starting to grow and mature. "I was going through the forest to get...something, I think, and then I found this guy pinned to a tree. I...feel like someone was going to see me here and accuse me of doing it when you two showed up."

Aria came a little closer, noting that the lighting on her own body and clothes changed from the reddish glow of her own 'dreamscape' to the dark, bluish night look of the witch's as she went from one to the other. "Well, I don't see how anyone could blame you for that. You're nowhere near tall enough to get up there, and there's no ladder or anything around..."

Mika turned toward Aria to respond with something, and then paused, headtilting. "Who're you?"

"Mika, this is Aria. Aria, Mika."
"Yeah, nice to meetcha," said the taller one, offering a hand. By now Mika was rapidly progressing through the teenage years and starting to (re?)gain her breasts. Not seeming to notice this, she took the hand and shook.

"Did Kath tell you anything mean about me?"
"Not particularly. Just that you were a witch?"
"Oh, yeah—whoa!" Mika's eyes widened as she finally noticed the gigantic demon across the pit. "Wow, that demon's so big and powerful.." she visibly salivated.

"Mika...that's Aria's demon," said Katherine, moving into a spot to obstruct the witch's vision of said demon. "You can't eat it. I don't even know how you'd go about trying to kill it, honestly."

"Eat? Kill?" said Aria, "Can people eat demons for power?"

"Well, just witches. And warlocks, I guess," said Mika, looking completely like her usual self by now. "Uhh, a witch actually kills demons and eats their souls for power. But if that's yours I won't bother it."
"That is so.." Aria restrained herself from using the word 'metal', "..cool. I wish someone had told me how to become a witch before I tried pulling the dumb cursed sword out of a rock."

"You pulled a sword from a stone?" said the witch. "You're probably better off than I am, then. 'Cause that's like, classic hero stuff."
"I can think of a few villains who start that way, too, though...especially with a cursed sword?" said Aria.

The shifter turned to Katherine. "Hey, how long can you keep this up, anyway?"

She shrugged. "Until someone wakes up. This is basically zero-effort."

"Great! I'd love to just hang out with you two instead of being stuck on the cliff by myself the whole night. For that matter, can you pull other people in? We could have a dream party!"

"I mean, I can but I don't really want to do it without their permission," said Katherine, remembering the incident with Zack. "Sometimes people are dreaming about...y'know...private stuff."

"Oh, yeah, that's fair. Well, this is still a huge improvement over last night, anyway."

"Soo," said the witch, "Did you get Kath to let you pet her?"
"I tried, but she's awfully stiff about it."
"I'm right here, you know!"

Midas Journal 21

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This part originally posted on its own under the title "Holy cow I'm an idiot":

I'm working on a bit more stuff right now, but I just wanted to quickly call attention to something that happened over the last few...months by now, I think?

It looks like blogspot or google or whoever changed the way in which the interface I'm looking at displays comments awaiting moderation, and for this entire time I didn't notice that they were there. So  today I finally figured it out, and there were some twenty comments that I hadn't seen at all! I was seriously under the impression that everyone had completely stopped commenting anything whatsoever, and it was discouraging to think. It's good to know that was entirely my own fault.

Once I get something else up (which should be fairly soon), I'll just append this notice to the start of that so it doesn't take up an entire post, but I just wanted to let anyone interested know that all the comments have been published again and I know what was happening now so maybe I can avoid making this error in the future.

While I'm at it, I'm going through those comments and responding to anything that seems to need responding, so look out for that if you posted something as well.

In addition to that, one of those comments I realized were there recently asked if there could be an email subscription option, so I added that over on the side in case anyone is interested.

---

Entry: May 10

Today I went to school as a girl. It was..well, it felt pretty normal for the most part, aside from a few of what I would call knowing glances from the people who more or less know what happened. Adena and I had lunch together again, when I noticed something a little strange about her. Or, well, not strange exactly, but different for sure. I wasn't sure exactly how to bring it up, but I did anyway, in about the most awkward way possible. When we were already sitting down, starting to eat, I said, “So...you seem a little, uh, taller.” I didn't actually mean that she was taller. Actually, she might have been a little taller, but my own perspective had gone down a bit since the last time I'd actually seen her so it was a little harder to tell, but—you know, the point is that her bust had grown. Not a ton, but noticeably.

Of course, her first response was a sly grin along with, “Well, you're one to talk. Last week you were totally flat, but now, bwoom!” (With this she cupped her hands over her own chest and then pulled them outward to mimic growth)

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, feeling a slight heat in my cheeks and my ears drooping slightly. “But—seriously, did you use your Kitsune magic or something to..?”
“Nope, this is just what happens. Anytime a Kitsune grows a new tail, they have a small shift in appearance that makes 'em more attractive. So unless they're in some kind of disguise, nine-tailers are the prettiest people you'll ever see.”

“Um..attractive to who?” I said, thinking about just how long I'd had to deal with that kind of question about my own power.

“I dunno,” she shrugged, “just generally more alluring? You know, to look more trustworthy or just outright mesmerize the opposite sex? It's all to help along the art of deception.”

“So...bigger boobs,” I said.

“Not just that!” she said, a little annoyed. “Sometimes you get a better figure overall, or get taller, like actually taller, or a prettier face, or a more melodious voice..any number of things.”

“Okay, okay.”

I was quiet for a couple of seconds, before I caught on to something. “..So if I could back up a little, you said it's to...help along the art of deception,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“That makes it sound like it has some kind of intent?”
“Well, of course it does,” she said, putting her hands to the sides, palm-up. “I dunno how that's surprising.”

“But how does magic have an intent? It's just...like...someone's power, right?”

“Not for Kitsune,” she said, shaking her head. “Everything about the way Kitsune magic works is determined by our ruler.”

“Ruler?” This was the first I'd heard of that.

“You know—patron deity, goddess I guess? I mean, technically she can look like anything she wants. The highest possible authority among Kitsune, and...well, it's hazy whether she created us or used to be one of us or what, but basically she's the one who decides the rules.” After thinking for a couple of seconds, Adena added, “I guess that is pretty unusual, though. It's not like werewolves have someone to point to when you ask them why the full moon affects them how it does.” I nodded, and at the same time some kind of spark went off in my head at the mention of the full moon.

It's this Friday. Exactly when the full moon is going to be just seems to be something werewolves learn to memorize, myself in this body included. Am I going to stay a werewolf for that long? I technically remember other full moons, but it's kind of a fake memory, and anyway I wasn't in a pack at the time or anything, so I didn't spend those times with anyone, or really doing much different from usual besides being covered in fur. Scheduling some kind of pack get-together for the night of a full moon seems exactly like the kind of thing Lue would try to do, and I don't really know whether to look forward to or dread that possibility. This train of thought led me primarily to the conclusion that I should get Brian to join the pack as soon as possible so I wouldn't have to deal with that alone.

I had some time to think during the day today, specifically about my power, and how I should or shouldn't try to use it. I feel different about it from how I did at first, or even a week ago; it's not a terrible thing, and I shouldn't treat it like that. But I'm not comfortable altering people's lives arbitrarily all the time, either. I settled on some ground rules to try and work with.

My experience so far suggests it's going to just spill out by accident every once in a while no matter what I do. If that happens, I will try and talk to that person as soon as I can afterward, explain exactly what happened and offer to change them back. I feel like I might finally have enough control over my power to make it change them back, especially if the want it. If they don't want to go back, I'll try my best not to worry about it.

On the other hand, I may sometimes get a feeling someone nearby could change. If that happens, and if I can, I will try and figure out what it is they want that my power would “grant” before touching them. My first instinct is to stay away from someone I might change to keep from doing it by accident...but if it really, really seems like I could help them with something serious, then it could be wrong not to help them. Still, I have to find some way to talk to that person before touching them, and try to explain what'll happen if I do. And then..well, if they want it to happen then I'll let it.

I had to test out these rules a lot sooner than I thought I was going to.

When school was over, I was at my locker, moving things back and forth, and I felt a sharp tug from the weird extra sense that tells me my power could affect someone nearby. It's weird—I never really noticed a sense of magnitude before, but this one at least felt a lot stronger than most of the ones before. My going theory for now is that a stronger pull means someone wants something more, but that's honestly just based on this one time that it was a lot stronger than usual so far.

I carefully turned around to see where it was coming from, and I saw a guy in a wheelchair. Specifically, one of those motorized wheelchairs, like, a person with one of those has probably been unable to walk for a while. His legs looked tiny and weak, which was more evidence for that theory, too. I couldn't help but guess at what it was he wanted so badly, and there was no way I could just ignore it.

I took a deep breath, thinking. I needed to...get him alone somehow, to talk about this. He probably wouldn't believe me if I just put it bluntly, and there was a real risk of him thinking I was pulling off some kind of horrible prank and then leaving in anger if I wasn't really careful about how I approached this. Should I find someone else who knew what I could do, or would multiple people just make it look more suspicious? Eventually I decided to just follow him, and see if I could figure out the right thing to say.

Being a werewolf now, I seem to have a set of instincts related specifically to stalking something quietly. Those kicked in almost as soon as I decided to try and follow him somewhere slightly more private, and I kept myself well out of sight, using the better hearing of the wolf ears to keep track of the electronic whirr of the chair. The whole time I was trying to plan out what I would say once I finally got a chance to, and it seemed steadily more solid with each revision. At the same time, a part of my mind was distracted by how completely bizarre and absurd the situation was. I think if someone told me a couple of months ago that I would soon be a female werewolf stalking an injured person to see if he wanted to turn into a girl I...well, I guess my exact reaction would depend on who had said it, but let's just say I wouldn't have believed them.

I was pleased to find us finally both on an open section of sidewalk with nobody else around. It reminded me a little bit of when I first met Rio, and something about the situation felt...correct. I had fully formed the way I wanted to speak by now, too. In addition to the magnitude thing, I'm also working on the theory that maybe my power has some kind of effect like this sometimes, too, where it helps make things convenient...even though other times, I've changed someone right in front of a crowd and instead it just made them not see anything happening. Anyway, I picked up the pace a little bit to catch up with him, and before I could say anything he stopped the chair, turning half-around to look at me.

“You been followin' me,” he said. “Did I run over your tail or somethin'?”

“Uh...” Of course, my planning hadn't accounted for the possibility he might say something first. I really thought I'd done a decent job following him without his notice, too, so there was also that. And he specifically mentioned my tail, which meant...what? He knew I was a werewolf? How much magic was aware of? Or was he just making a weird expression without any knowledge of magic? I struggled out a “...nooo?” while attempting to process all of that. “I have..something I want to talk to you about,” I said finally, moving around so I was more in front of him rather than behind.

“Uh-huh.”

There were a few seconds of awkward silence before I realized he wasn't going to say anything else, and I pushed ahead. “Do you...like..being in a wheelchair?” As soon as that had come out, I winced. That wasn't how I was going to word that at all! “I mean—no, I..ugh..” I had to bury my face in my hands at this point.

“Well, to answer your question I don't,” he said, crossing his arms. “Am I to 'sume you have some alternative?”

“Um.” I tried to remember how I was supposed to put this. “Look. What if—purely hypothetically—someone could fix your legs. But...to do it, they had to turn you into a girl.” Okay, that was a little better. I don't actually think that saying something as weird as that is 'purely hypothetical' does anything besides make the other person suspect what you're talking about is somehow not hypothetical, at least to you. But it feels like being less direct in that way gives people permission to talk about bizarre things they wouldn't feel okay bringing up otherwise.
“Hnm. A girl?” he said, tilting his head sideways. “I guess that don't matter much, if I could walk.”

I huffed another deep breath. “Okay then.”

“Okay what? You got somethin' to tell me?”

“Uh..” I could tell him that I actually had that power, but it felt like he'd already said yes. And...I could undo it if he didn't like it, right? “I'll just...” I reached forward slightly and brushed my hand against his wrist, just a little bit. He recoiled back slightly, seeming to expect me to do something more drastic, maybe even attack him or something, but I drew my hand back to my side, and he stayed tensed for a second or two before realizing that was it and settling a little bit.
“What's that s'posed ta...?” he started, but of course the touch was already starting to have an effect on him.

The first thing that happened was a little more dramatic and strange than usual. He floated up out of the chair into a standing position, but hovering a few inches in the air like he was being held up by some invisible strings. At the same time his skin was going through the usual cycle of losing a lot of body hair and turning softer and smoother. Next his legs grew, plumping out from the scrawny unused look to normal, healthy limbs, but of course they were more feminine-looking than before. He didn't seem able to change his position much in this weird floating state, but he leaned his head over as much as he could to look down at them as this happened. “Hey, it feels like..” He swung his legs slightly in midair, managing to bend them a bit and wiggle his feet slightly. “Y..you weren't kiddin'?” he said, turning his head back up to look at me.

“Yeah, uh..I just didn't know any other way to get you to believe me,” I said. His hair was starting to grow longer and change color, moving toward red. His body began to slim and shrink down, his face rounding and his shoulders narrowing.

“O-oh, you weren't kiddin' about the other part either,” he said, his face reddening slightly at this second wave of changes. His clothes shifted around too, his shirt's sleeves detaching and spreading out and downward into a cape while the rest of the material grew thicker and paled in color. His shorts slid down off of his hips entirely, split apart at the middle and flowed down along his legs, merging with his socks into a pair of thigh-high leggings; the boxers beneath that were already getting shorter and tighter, but as he lost more height his shirt fell down before that to provide a little decency.

“Well, th-this feels...ain't any words for it...” he said, his voice starting to float upward in pitch. By now his hair was brilliant red, framing a cute feminine face and falling down a little past his shoulders, but its color shifted further, gaining a bit of blue and paling more as it continued to grow out. A big blue ribbon appeared on his head and a collar with a cute little rabbit symbol appeared around his neck while his shirt slid down enough to show some neckline.

“Y-yeah, I know,” I said, echoing the blush on his face with one of my own. I could tell he wasn't going to be male much longer, as his hips began to push out and back and the shirt (now more of a white sleeveless sweater thing) pulled tight against a new inward curve to his waist.

He closed his eyes at this point, his face reddening even more, and a soft “Oh..a-aah!” in a voice just reaching girly range came from his lips. I saw a pair of strings from a pair of panties appear just beneath where the top now reached and somehow I could just feel that the person in front of me was absolutely a girl now. As if to confirm that, she let out another “O-o-o-oh!” as her chest rapidly ballooned forward, stretching the material of the shirt as it went. Her voice hadn't risen in pitch much at all since before, leaving her with a deep alto tone, but still an unmistakeably female one.

As she continued to fill out, I thought she shrank another inch or so, until I realized that whatever had been holding her up in the air had gently let her down. At the same time, a pair of white bits of fuzz poked up from the top corners of her head and rapidly stretched out into a pair of...rabbit ears? That was a new one, I thought. Her hair flowed down well past her hips by now, and had taken on a bright purple color. Her breasts finally finished growing, winding up even a little bigger than mine, and she slowly opened her eyes, raising a small hand to her face and giving a little smile as (I'm pretty sure) a new set of memories filled her mind.

“Th-this is..I can't hardly believe it!” she said, looking down at herself (I think specifically her now-working legs), and then back up at me. “You did this? Really?”
“W-well, yeah..” I said.

She responded to this by immediately tackling me into a hug. She was just slightly shorter than me, so this had the effect of squishing her new assets against my own, and she chose a form of hug that put her cheek against mine and (probably accidentally) brushed one of the new ears against one of mine.
“Thank you thank you thank you!” She said while I awkwardly returned the hug.
“U-um, you're welcome. I guess you're okay with being a girl, then..”
She drew herself back enough to look me in the face, but kept her arms around me. Still grinning brightly she said, “Okay? This is even better than I coulda thought up. Look, I'm already a gymnast!” She finally let go and then did a quick backflip right there on the sidewalk, sticking the landing and giving a small bow at the end. (I should probably mention at this point that the wheelchair had disappeared, it would've been in the way of doing this I think) “Yeah? Yeah? I always wanted to be able to do tricks like that.”

“But—What's the deal anyhow?” she asked, walking up a little closer again. “What'd you do, 'xactly?” I explained to her as best I could how my power worked: Specifically the wish granting plus turns person into a girl thing, and the reality rewrite thing. And I mentioned the detection part, to explain why I'd been following her.

“Well, I got you all wrong. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover, huh?”
“Um..is there something wrong with my 'cover'?” I said.

“You're a werewolf, ain't ya?” she said, looking pointedly at my ears. I nodded. “Well, only thing I ever seen a werewolf do is bully an' hurt Rabbits like me.”

“You're a...rabbit?” I repeated. “So, like actually the animal or..?”
“No, silly. Person Rabbit. Like how you're a person wolf?”

“Well, yeah, but...so you're not a were-rabbit or some kind of like, rabbit spirit or something,” I said, attempting to clarify.

“That'd be silly. Naw, I'm just a Rabbit. I guess maybe all werewolves ain't bad. I just had an awful run in with some when I was young. Or, uh...I guess I didn't anymore?” Her ears flopped to the side slightly in some confusion. “'Cause that's how I got paralyzed in the first place, only now I ain't.”

“Yeah...dealing with multiple versions of your own history is confusing,” I said. “As far as my, like, real of memories are concerned I wasn't a werewolf, and didn't know they actually existed until a few weeks ago. But I have met a few nice ones.”

“Well, don't go spreadin' around that I'm a Rabbit all the same,” she said. “We really don't like folks to know if we can help it. Predator types have a long history of hurtin' us, you know.”

“I don't really, but...you kinda have obvious ears,” I said.
“Aww, those only show up to folks we reveal 'em to,” she said, flapping a hand dismissively. “Although I'm not real exactly sure when I did that for you...”
“It seems like another weird running theme with my power,” I said, “where people who have animal ears hidden to me tend to show them all of a sudden or something.” But that didn't happen with Lue. Was it because she didn't have them 'out' at the time? Or, he didn't, whatever. “I...don't really know how that works,” I admitted.

“Oh, back up a minute. I didn't even introduce myself,” I said. “I'm Kaela, uh...usually I'm a guy named Kael but I sort of used my power on myself to look like this for a while...” I offered a hand to shake.

“Well, nice to meet ya either way,” she said, shaking it. “Ya'll can call me Annabel. It wasn't my name a minute ago, either. Not that I'm complainin'!”

“Yeah,” I said. “Uh, I get that response a lot for some reason. I've just recently decided not to worry about it too much but it's a hard habit to break.”

“Even if I didn't like this, it'd be more'n worth it to have the use of my legs back,” she said, nodding. “I feel like I oughta' reward ya somehow for doin' somethin' like this for me, honestly.”

“Er...don't worry about that,” I said. “It doesn't really take a lot of effort to..do that, as far as I can tell.”
“But ya'll sought me out and even chased after me a little bit to help me!” she said, “And bearin' up to the awkward conversation took some bravery. That's worth somethin', ain't it?”

“W-well, I guess a little,” I said, feeling just embarrassed about it enough for another small blush. “But I don't really like to, you know, relate to people through transactions like that...”
“Well, ya'll can consider me a friend, then,” she said, nodding. “You need somethin' you think I can help out with, I'll be there, alright? Anyhow, I think I have practice pretty soon now, so I gotta go get clothes to change into from home.”

“Practice?” I said.

“Yeah, I said I was gymnast now, right?” she said, and then started to run off in probably the direction of home. “See ya'll later!”

“Um, you too.”

While I waved, watching her leave, I started thinking again. That's always dangeorus. So this was another kind of 'magic person type' I'd run into now, in the form of someone I'd changed who turned out to be that. I started the walk back home on automatic, wondering what kind of person was next (it's a safe bet there will be a next, after all). Demon people beyond Kitsune seems pretty likely. Some kind of dragon person or something? Driders? I have no idea how far down the rabbit hole goes (I didn't really want that pun but I couldn't think of a better expression).

Something occurred to me: Did it really go down that far at all, or was I the one digging it? Did werewolves used to not be real until I touched Lue? or Neko until Rhia? What about witches? From my perspective there's functionally no difference between a world where none of those things existed until the time I “discovered” them. But then, all of the actual people had told me that they'd always been that kind of magic race, and it seems inconsistent somehow for them to have an “honest” double memory about everything else but for my power to weirdly alter things so they were always magic or whatever. I don't feel like that's really how it works. It can't be, right?

I think have an idea of what I can do about it. Assuming I do “discover” some new kinds of magical person in the near future, I'm going to have a way to check if I'm actually adding those things on or not, or at least to see how likely it is that that's happening. The only way for this to give me a wrong answer of “yes I'm discovering existing things” is if my own memories are being changed this way too, and if that's happening then it might as well have always been this way anyway.

The "Best" RPG Ever-30

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---

This particular part has been an endless source of writer's block to me, for some reason, so I'm very glad to finally be putting it out there. I even have the entire next part written already, and know pretty well what happens afterward, but I just couldn't seem to get past this one part!

---

Mika's conversation with the dragon-girl was interrupted by something like a low grunt. She looked in the direction it came from to find Zack's wolf looking up at her. "Oh, uh..when'd you get here?" He made another short grunting noise in his throat, which wasn't particularly helpful at answering the question. "Did you see him come in?" She asked, looking back up at Rose.
"Nope. Sorry, like..I was looking at you, and the door's behind me," she said.
"Yeah, that's fair."

"Is this your pet wolf? His fur is so pretty!"
"Well, not mine exactly. And he doesn't like being called a pet." She looked back at the animal: "Well, where's Zack? What do you want with me, huh?" Rather than making another sound, he stood up.
"I think he wants you to follow him," said Rose. She could...remember having friendly animals around her forest now and then, and it seemed like the kind of thing a wolf did to get someone to follow.

"Oh. Well, I guess I'd better do that, then. Anyway, you'd bite me or something if I kept ignoring you, right?" The wolf made a small whine that sounded suspiciously like a 'no' to her, but she stood up anyway. "I'll catch up with you later, okay Rose?"

"Sure!" she said enthusiastically.

"Have fun with your new friends~!" Mika waved and went out the door, following the big canine out onto the streets. It started running off and she was able to run after it for a minute or so before having to stop to catch her breath. The wolf ran back and sat down in front of her while she puffed. "Well excuse me for not having four legs," she said. "If you wanna race, I'm gonna cheat." The witch produced her broom and sat down on it. "Okay, go wherever it is you're going, I'll follow you from up there," she said, pointing up. "Get it?"

He grunted again, which she took to mean yes since he then turned around and started running again. Mika counted herself lucky that the team pet had shiny white fur that was easy to see from above, and followed along with her broom for a few minutes before finally seeing the animal stop at a particular building and coming down to land next to him.

"Okay...so, this is a library," she said, reading the sign over the door. "You want me to read you a bedtime story?"

The wolf growled at her with what seemed like annoyance. "Okay, I guess not. So...is this where Zack is, then? Alpha, or whatever?" The wolf whined again, its tail wagging a bit. "I'll take that as a yes. So why don't you go bug him if you're bored or whatever?" It gave her a deep-throated bark in response, which didn't make any sense. "Okay, I'll go bug him then."

The poor man behind the counter looked like he was going to have a heart attack when he saw Mika's wings and tail, and when she looked just about ready to ask him something he said, "Y-you'll have to ask someone else about the restricted section, ma'am!" before ducking behind the counter.

"Err..." The witch stepped a little closer and leaned over the counter to look at the attendant, who seemed absolutely convinced he had disappeared from sight. "I was just gonna ask if you saw a, uh, wolf person come in here a while ago. A kinda tall girl, white hair, white fur?"
"Oh! Uh..um...yes," he said finally. "I-it looked like she didn't really know where she was going, but I last saw her on the way to the reading lounge."

"Okay, thank you." Mika started in that direction, and briefly turned around about halfway there to see the man in the middle of the process of slightly raising himself back up, only for him to see that she saw him and instantly squat back down.

The witch found her mark on a couch in the lounge, slumped back and eyes closed, with an open book lying across the top of his chest. Nora was sitting next to him on the same couch, her hand hovering in the air partway to Zack's head. The elf noticed her after a second and withdrew the hand with a soft "Oh!" before crumpling herself emphatically against the opposite side of the couch, her face conspicuously red.

Mika waited until she was closer to them, and spoke very quietly. "What have you two been up to without me, huh?"
"E-err, uh.." Nora's blush brightened considerably. "We were b-both reading to t-t-try and get a better idea of the world, but um..I l-looked up a minute ago and he was asleep," she whispered.

"You were thinking about touching her fur, weren't you?" said Mika with a smirk.

"M-maybe a little..b-but I thought maybe I should w-wake him up since it's p-pretty close to suppertime, too.."

"Well, I don't blame you. It does look temptingly soft, especially after the wash today," said Mika, leaning over Zack's side of the couch. Not having nearly as many reservations as the weaver, she reached out a hand and ran it across one of Zack's ears right away. The ear twitched and he shuddered slightly but didn't wake, and made a soft, high "Mrf" noise in the back of his throat. After grinning at Nora, who now looked nearly as terrified as the attendant had earlier, she made a small show of brushing her palm against the very tip of the wolf-girl's tail before bringing her hand back up to Zack's head and poking him slightly hard in the forehead.

"Gah!" This was enough to wake him up, and he jolted forward enough for the book he was wearing to clatter onto the floor. He looked around in a panicked fashion for a couple of seconds before catching up to his surroundings. He looked slower, first at Nora and then in the exact opposite direction at the witch standing over him. "Oh...was I asleep?"

"Yep! Your pet was getting worried about you, so he went and got me," said the witch.

"Huh. How long have we been here, anyway?"

"P-pretty long," said Nora, most of her blush from earlier gone by now. "We should uh, p-probably head back to the tavern to meet Katherine for supper by now."

"Yeah," Zack shook his head slightly as if to clear it. "Um, sorry I dozed off. I guess I'm more tired than I thought I was..."

"I-it's fine," said Nora, standing up.

"Go apologize to the wolf!" said Mika.

---

On their way into the inn, the party of three saw a girl in the doorway waving at Rose. "Have fun with your new friends~!" she said, and then ran off, following a white wolf. Aria watched them go more intently than the others.
"...Hh-uh."
"What?" said Rayna.
"You'd just get the same answers twice," she said with a shrug. "Let's not keep that dragon waiting." And immediately started into the inn. After sharing a brief look of mutual confusion, the other two followed.

Rose stood up and turned around to wave bye to the witch, only to see Clera and Rayna coming in behind someone she didn't know. "Oh, hiii!" she said excitedly, skipping over. "Who's this? Another friend?"
"Another member of our party," answered the winged girl.
"Yo, I'm Aria." She offered a hand to shake.
"Ohh. I'm Rose, nice to meet you!" she said, grabbing the stranger's hands between her palms and waving both arms up and down a couple of times.
"Um, you too," answered Aria, initially confused by the unusual handshake. When she withdrew the hands the reason became more obvious.
"You're so taall," said the dragon-girl breathily, looking up at her.

"Well, I don't have to be. I'm a shapeshifter," said Aria, demonstrating by pulling her height down some inches to match Rose's.

"Wow, that's so cool!" she said excitedly, her grin widening.

The swordwoman looked to Rayna at this. "Well, I like her. Can we keep her?"

"She isn't a pet," snapped Clera from the opposite direction, annoyed.

"I was joking?" Aria turned around to give a sideways grin and palms-up expression.

"Anyway, the fourth member of our party is out on a date," said Rayna. "So I thought it'd be nice to go out to one of the other restaurants for a change instead of eating here yet again. Maybe we'll just happen to run across wherever they're eating and see how it's going."

"Seems acceptable," said Clera.
"Uh-huh, as long as they have meat!" added the dragon girl.
"Lead the way!" said the shifter enthusastically. So they all started back out of the tavern.

"You really just want to spy on Lynn, right?" said Aria.

"We've been friends longer than my memory actually goes," said Rayna. "I have every right to be curious. Besides, it's not nearly serious enough if me stopping by to embarrass her ruins it."

"What were you saying about getting the same answers twice?" said Clera.

"Hm? Oh, right." Aria turned to the dragon-girl. "Rose, who was that we saw saying bye to you on her way out of the inn?"
"Oh, that was Mika," she chirped, "one of the ad-venturers I came to town with. She's a, uhhmm, a witch but she's really nice! Not evil or anything."

"You realize saying that has the opposite effect," said the winged girl, to which Rose responded with a perplexed look. "If you sound like you are emphatically denying something it sounds like you believe the opposite of your own words and want to fool others," she explained patiently.

"Oh..b-but that, I didn't..."
"We understand," said Rayna. "Anyway, what about her?"

"Well, I met a different member of the same party today," said Aria, "Katherine. She's a mind-reader, and got curious when she couldn't hear anything but the demon talking in my head. Apparently it just says the word 'blood' a lot."
"You have a demon in your head?" said the dragon-girl.

"In my sword. Same thing, I guess. Anyway, I think Mika is also our witch."

"We don't have a witch, last I checked," said the fox-girl.

"I'm talking about what the captain said. You know, about the portal I came out of at first? The work of a witch or a warlock? I think it's this one."

"Would you mind explaining this from the start?" said Clera.

"As I recall, we're supposed to keep that quiet," said Rayna, frowning with her ears down a bit.

"I can keep a secret!" said Rose. And then, with no prompting other than a brief pause, she amended: "Um...maybe. Well, I mean I'll be back in my forest soon anyway..."

Rayna sighed. "Fine, fine."

---

Katherine walked up next to the rest of her party. "There you are. Tracking you down was much harder than it should've been."

"We were just on the way back to the inn," said Zack. "You know, where we agreed to meet."

"Yes, but I wanted to see if I could track someone by checking the recent sense memory of a bunch of others who might've seen them go by without specifically noticing 'em. I couldn't find much of anything until I picked up Mika's trail, and even then I got led the wrong way five or six times."

"You d-didn't account for the fact that th-the witnesses move around," said Nora.
"Well, I know that now. Anyway, I think it's best to just keep relying on Zack's nose for now."

Zack grunted, "Hmph."

"What? You did a good job of tracking Nora down."

---

A good sign: The food had come, and they were still talking. Well, Rast was talking right this second. "So then I—oh, uh.." He pointed vaguely behind her. "Someone's tryin' to get your attention there."

Lynn turned around so her knees were on top of the seat. There was a window in that direction, and Rayna was standing there waving, the rest of their party behind her and behind that a girl with horns and scales she didn't recognize. Once Lynn was looking, she mouthed 'how's it going?'

Lynn glared and waved her hands off to one side, 'Fine, go away!'

Instead of going away, Rayna tugged at her own skirt and mouthed 'when did you pick that number up? It's really cute!'

Feeling a heat in her cheeks, Lynn half-whispered 'Later! Go away!' and made a more violent wave away.
'Fiiiine. Have fun!' Punctuating that with a wink, the fox-girl turned aside and moved on along the street, the rest of the little entourage following.

She turned back around to a normal sitting position, glad she hadn't managed to kick her food off the table in the excitement. "What was that all about?" said Rast.

"Just Ray being Ray," she said, deliberately shortening the name out of spite even though she wasn't there to hear it. She sighed. "I guess dating me means dealing with her."

"Well, that's alright," he said, "she seems nice enough. Not nearly as cute as you, though."

Lynn felt another blush come on along with a small giggle. This was all so strange...but hearing him call her cute felt fuzzy and nice in a way she hadn't quite experienced before.

The rest of the date seemed to float by quickly, neither of them ever running out of things to say. He kept complimenting her, and she started openly flirting back. But eventually, they were standing at the door to the inn. "Um well..." Lynn half-turned toward the door, and then back to Rast. "Look, we need to do this again sometime. Pretty soon," she said.

"Yeah, we do," he said. "We c'n figure out a time now, if you like."
"No, yeah, I—I don't know. I need to—to check with, um.." She felt very flustered all of a sudden, and it was hard to make normal sentences. "Just check with me, we—I'll be around the guard station pretty often, after I can—I don't really want to, you know.." She was trying to explain that she needed to check with the rest of her party to figure out exactly when they could have another date, but it kept coming out wrong because she was terrified he was going to misconstrue it as her putting it off indefinitely.
"I know what you mean," he said. "You're awful jumpy all of a sudden, you know?"
"Y-yeah, well..to be honest it's because I was thinking of—maybe, uh...oh, forget it I'll just show you."

Lynn leapt at him, wrapping her arms around him when she landed, and in the same motion pressed her lips against him as hard as she could. There was still a big part of her worried he was going to be disgusted and push her off or something, but those worries died as she felt his arms wrapping around her, him returning the kiss just as eagerly as she was giving it. It lasted for what felt like hours before they finally both seemed to tacily agree they needed to come up for air, and then their faces parted by a few inches, both panting slightly.

"Uh—um," Lynn's face was practically on fire. She slid herself down to the ground while he was still stunned and hopped back a step or two. "S-so, definitely sometime soon. Like this week!"

Too embarrassed to wait for his response, she ran for the door to go inside, but he did yell back "S-sure!" before it closed behind her.

The Bow