The "Best" RPG Ever-32

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Zack barely talked during breakfast, distrated by his dream the previous night. It didn't feel like it had been an ordinary dream, the kind one just forgets after shaking off the last vestiges of having been asleep the night before. If anything, its events felt more vivid and real now than they had in the dream itself, if no less vague about some of the details. Katherine and Mika were talking about someone they'd met through the psion's dream-walking powers or whatever, and Nora was quiet as usual. Once they were finished, however, he pushed thoughts of the dream off, thinking instead about their next step. It was time to go back to the guardhouse and speak with the Captain about the house—their house.

He knocked on the door, and her voice answered, "Come in." Once inside, she said, "Well, I assume you've made a decision."

"Right," said Zack. "We want it. Also, some of us were wondering what exactly the house came with. Like, what kind of rooms it'd have, that kind of thing."
"Since we're having it built, it can be laid out however you like," said the Captain. "I mean, within reason—we're not building an actual mansion or castle here." Everyone seemed ready to talk at once, but she preempted them: "But we can discuss those details in a moment. There's something else I'd like your help with."

"Oh..what?" said the catgirl.

"Some undead were spotted coming in from the west. Small numbers, but undead are consistently trouble. I'd like you to head out that way and find out what's causing them. If it's a necromancer, we'd prefer them taken alive but you have permission to kill if necessary. However, I suspect it isn't a person...they seemed to be randomly wandering rather than directed by anything in particular."

"Well..what else makes undead?" said Mika.
"It's likely some kind of dark artefact has surfaced, appeared, or activated over in that direction. If so, you'd be able to stop the undead from showing up just by picking it up. I'd prefer you take it here if possible so we can make sure it won't start causing trouble again. On the way there, it'd be best if you got rid of the ones it already made as well. Have you ever fought undead before?"

"I don't think any of us have," said Zack. Obviously all of them were familiar with the concept of undead, but there was no telling how exactly they worked in this setting.

"Well, they're not as easy to get rid of as normal monsters. Just beating them apart isn't enough; they have to be ground completely to powder or burned to a crisp unless you happen to know some holy magic, which can exorcise them."

"Does it matter if it's, uh, dark magic fire?" said Mika.
"It shouldn't, as long as it's hot enough to burn things. If you're willing to take care of this I'll do what I can for any unusual customizations you want on the house, in addition to some regular job pay. But I do want it done soon, before either any undead are sighted close enough to town to create a scare or they grow any greater in number at the source."

"Well, uh.." Zack paused, looking at Katherine. Understanding his intent immediately, she bridged the party's minds together just long enough to get an affirmative vote out of the other two, making it unanimous. "..sure."

"Good," said the Captain, nodding. "Now, about—" she was interrupted by another knock on the office door, and went up to open it herself. An elven man in overalls was on the other side. "There you are," she said. Turning to the surprised party she said, "This is Reed, an architect. Reed: Zack, Katherine, Mika, Nora. You can just use my office to hammer out the details, I have some errands to run anyway." Rather than wait for a response, she brushed past him on the way out.

The witch said, "Uhhh.."

"We just mentioned customizing the house today," said Katherine.
Reed just shrugged, walking inside and letting the door close behind him. "After a while you learn not to be surprised by anything that woman knows," he said.

---

The last person down the breakfast was Rose, who looked strangely tired and stressed compared to her usual bubbly deameanor. She'd even managed to tear a couple of holes into the nightgown she was wearing, despite the fact that it seemed nowhere near loose enough to get close to the claws one her hands or feet. After she sat down and mumbled an order for a bunch of sausages and bacon, no bread thanks, Rayna was the first person to speak up. "Hey, uh, you okay?"
"Mmngh..I didn't sleep super well last night," she said. "I kept having bad dreams about my forest...like I came back to find it all withered without me, or some big nasty monster was tearing it up, or—or it was on fire!"

"I'm sure it's fine," said the foxgirl. "You haven't even been away from it that long, right?"
"I know, but I can't stop thinking about it."

"Ohh, I get it," said Lynn, with a tone of realization.

"Get what?" said Rose, looking over at her.
"It's because you're part dragon. The forest is like your hoard, right?"
"It's my home!" she said, sounding insulted. She paused, calming down and uncertain why she was so agitated about it. "Mnh..I think someone called it that once, though."

"Well, dragons like to be in their hoard, where they can see all their treasure. Or...in your case, where you can take care of all your plants. Right? It's probably just, like, a natural instinct, and not something rational at all."

"Either way, though, I'm sure you'll feel better when you get back today," said Rayna.
The dragon-girl nodded. "Y-yeah..." She'd really wanted to stay in town longer, maybe get to know these girls—or the other ones—a little better, but now she was all stressed and agitated, which wouldn't be any good for making friends at all.

"You can always come back to visit us again," said Clera, sensing Rose's sadness. "Or we will visit you."
"Uh-huh," she nodded, perking up slightly. "I don't wanna be there on my own for such a long time again."

Even the time it took to eat felt like ages. In this new, alien state of mind Rose found it hard to enjoy the pleasant talk, or even being surrounded by cute girls at all. This was terrible, and if just going away from her forest for a day or so was always going to feel this way...well, that just wouldn't do! She resolved to try and do something about it once this stupid instinct thingy went away and she was back in her right mind again—well, at least the somewhat righter mind she'd wound up with initially on turning into a dragon girl. Either way, as soon as she was done eating she abruptly stood up to leave. "Um..I really—I don't wanna go, but I can't take it anymore," she said. "I'll see you again, right?"
"Yeah, we already said we would," said Rayna, smiling at her. "Don't worry about it."

"O-okay. Bye!" With a wave, she turned and ran off, unwittingly leaving them with the bill for her food but not thinking about that until she was already an entire hour out from town.

Once Rose left, Aria said, "Well, I didn't want to mention it when she was having such bad dreams, but I had a pretty good one last night. It looks like I even managed to unlock a new power!"

"What's that?" said Lynn.
"My sword can shapeshift now. Just like me. Anyway, I hope you're all ready for what we're gonna do today."

"We...haven't exactly decided that yet, have we?" said Rayna, one of her ears flopping aside in confusion.
"Well, we can't put it off any longer, especially since we have a good four-member crew now. Today is the day of the spreadsheets. Today we decide on a build for the whole party." She leaned forward onto the table excitedly. "We're gonna need to go buy a bunch of paper—big paper—and pens first, and then see if there's an empty office or something we can rent. Ohh, I wonder if they have pushpins and corkboards in this universe. Putting it all up on the walls would be the perfect way to see everything without having to crouch all over each other's shoulders."

As she went on like this, Rayna and Lynn exchanged a look to the effect of 'what sort of monster did we unleash?' Finally, however, Clera cut in by clearing her throat. "What exactly are you talking about?" she said.
"Oh, right. Non-gamer," said Aria. The way she said the word didn't seem precisely insulting, but had a touch of 'I forgot there exist people in this category' to it. "So, we all have skill trees we can learn skills from, right? It's better if we coordinate what skills to learn or not learn to get the best possible party for any situation. And the only way to do that is to lay it all out and figure out what kind of synergies and strategies we have available to work with. We sort of agreed to do this before you joined the party, but it seems like a good idea to you too, right?"

"Well...I don't see any reason not to maximize our chances of survival and success," said the winged girl, crossing her arms.
"Good, good!" she nodded excitedly, before picking up some bacon and biting into it, muttering, "Ohh, the delicious synergies..."

Clera looked at the other two for a moment with a questioning look, and they just shrugged, neither of them having quite seen this side of her before. At least she was muttering about something other than blood.

"Any-way," said Rayna, "I had kind of a fun dream too. It was a little weird, but..I was doing some kinda sideshow for people in a town—or uh, maybe a bunch of towns?—using my illusion magic. And you were there too, Lynn! Doing some cool archery trick shots and stuff."

"Huh..." Lynn looked like she was thinking.

"What's up?" said the foxgirl.

"I...think I dreamed about the same thing. But...well, while I was on my date yesterday Rast asked me how the two of us came to the frontier, like how we met and stuff. A-and I couldn't just, not answer, so I made some stuff up. But it was—what both of us dreamed sounds a lot like what I made up, pretty much. I'm not sure but—I think something funny's going on."

They sat in silence for a few seconds, processing this strange new bit of information.

"Mmh." Aria swallowed her latest bite of food and turned to the winged girl. "So what about you, Doctor Sweet? You have any curiously backstoryish dreams?"

Clera raised an eyebrow. "What did you just address me as?"

The shifter shrugged. "Doctor Sweet. 'Cause you're a doctor, and you're sweet. Answer the question?"

Dr. Kellen blushed a tiny bit, but folded her arms and glared at Aria. "Let it be known that I do not approve of this nickname. But no, I did not have that kind of dream last night. However, I did learn something rather strange about my nature since appearing in this world..."

---

There had been about an hour or two of negotiating various hopes and desires for the house. The only thing Zack specifically requested was separate bedrooms and the presence of at least three bathrooms, since he'd become quite aware of certain needs all of their bodies now had which none of them were likely entirely used to yet. Reed had no problem with four bedrooms and just said he'd put a bathroom next to each one. The others agreed unanimously on a library and some kind of living room with plenty of comfy chairs and couches (furniture and appliances (probably magical ones) were part of the Captain's deal, Reed had said, but they would need to buy things like books and groceries themselves). A few training dummies for Katherine were easy enough to arrange, but Mika had to be talked down from a full-size outdoor pool to just a small hot tub in her own bathroom since all the real estate a pool would need was right on top of the ritual grounds for summoning another demon for her to eat. Nora had no real demands of her own, but when Katherine suggested a small, maybe magically soundproofed quiet space for meditation she meekly added her own approval to the idea. Beyond that, Reed had already mentioned that a kitchen and dining area were quite standard, along with a few storage areas and of course a door to town.

"A door to town," the psion repeated, not quite understanding the phrase.

"Well, I'm sure you don't want to walk all the way here every single day," said the architect. "Besides, the Captain already paid for someone to set it up. There'll just be a door at a certain address around here, and you all get keys. If you have a key the door opens straight to your new house. If not, it's locked and there's nothing but a wall behind it. Pretty tough to fake a key, at that. This kind of range is easy enough to get done, maybe a little pricey—but again, in your case it's already paid for, so..."
"Yes," said Zack, nodding. "That's good."
"Okay, great!"

After all of that, Reed said he would draw up a plan and get the Captain's final approval for everything, and then they could get the place up and running in probably a few days' time.

"Um, a-a few days?" asked Nora.

"Well, you did ask for a few things not exactly on the standard model," he answered, apparently misunderstanding the direction of the elf's expectations.
Katherine gently elbowed her side. Magic, remember?

"Oh! Uh, r-right," said the weaver sheepishly, in response to both.

After leaving the guardhouse, they went for an early lunch in preparation of the undead hunting expedition.

"Soo...holy magic," said the witch to Zack. "You got some?"

"Hmm." He paused, closing his eyes to see the skill menu again. "Looks like there's something a little farther up the 'neutral' skill chain. 'Smite Undead'. It...channels magic through physical attacks so they can kill undead."

"Sounds perfect!" Mika chirped. "Can you afford it?"
"Yeah...gotta buy a few other things to get there. Seem like...useful enough skills anyway."

"Um, w-what about you?" said Nora, turning to the catgirl. "Undead d-don't exactly have minds, usually..."

"I've got it covered," said Katherine with a smirk. "After my little meditation adventure yesterday the guy offered us prizes. I got a set of elemental knives to throw around; I'll just use the fire one."

"Prizes?" said Mika. "What, like you were a good little meditator?"
She shrugged. "I dunno, the guy just told us he didn't have much use for the things and preferred us having 'em to just letting 'em sit around collecting dust."

"Maybe I should go have a meditation session with you next time," said the witch.

"I'm pretty sure he'll be able to tell if you're not serious. He did invite us to come for tea, though, so maybe we could invite you along too, if we give him some advance warning..."

A little later, Mika said, "Hey, you know what we should do if this goes well?"
"What?" Zack sincerely hoped it wasn't another trip to the baths.

"We should go kill another demon tonight while we still can. Y'know, before the construction mages or whatever get there? I'd say we're powerful enough to take on the next one by now—especially if I get some kind of sweet dark magic artifact or whatever today—and I'd love to taste another delicious—err, I mean, be more powerful! So I can help out in fights a little more."

"What, seeing Aria's humongous sword-demon-nightmare thing last night whet your appetite or something?" said the catgirl.

"No!" Katherine gave her a knowing look, enhanced by the knowledge she could read minds. "Okay, maybe a little, but I'm serious about the helping out part! High luck is great and all, but I can't stand to keep being the useless one in battle."

"Seems reasonable enough," said the knight. "Okay, if we get back soon enough from the skeleton hunting we can take a nap this afternoon and head out around sunset. If there's somebody around already there, though, we'll have to call it off."
"Yeah..." Mika nodded, sounding a little saddened by that possibility.

---

Rose finally stopped, panting, feeling as if she had sprinted the entire way, when her forest came into view at last. It was...fine. No fire or smoke, and as she took a few steps closer and felt her influence reach out across the whole domain once more it became clear that there were no trespassers or visitors here, nor had there been in the last couple of days: Not a blade of grass was out of place.

She breathed a sigh of relief as her feet reached the soft grass of her home, feeling her usual sense of excited, cheerful confidence return. After that, however, her face changed to a small frown of though as she realized Lynn was almost certainly right. This wasn't merely like arriving at home, comforting an event as that was in Rob's memories; it had felt terribly awful to be away for so long and now it felt immensely good to be back. Was she really...addicted to being here? It might be instinct, sure, but it was awful to think she couldn't handle going off somewhere with her new friends for even as much as a day without feeling all awful and having to come running home to her...hoard.

She sat down on a tree stump, leaning her chin on a fist and that elbow on a thigh, and closed her eyes to think. Was there a plant here or something that could suppress this unsavory part of her instincts?

As if in response, the menu reappeared. At first her mind stumbled in confusion; a menu like...a game? Right, this was some kind of video game or something. There was an empty inventory which—come to think—she could have used to carry more flowers and herbs to town; maybe uesful for next time? And there was a skill tree; she'd seen it before, just rapidly skimming over a bunch of powers she already had, but it was in the middle of a crisis situation and she hadn't really taken stock of the whole thing.

First of all—Rose giggled to herself—the skill tree was arranged to fit over an image of a great, spreading real tree, like from nature. Long chains of nodes had come pre-filled with all those powers she already felt quite used to having, some of them upgraded several times: Physical enhancements to strength, endurance, balance, speed, agility; magical powers largely running down a line focused on allowing her a massive home-field advantage in her own forest...but one line, clearly labelled "Humanoid Sociability", was conspicuously empty, not one of the skills ever taken.

Indeed, the very first one sitting at the tree's trunk was "Diminish Hoard Instinct", with a description indicating it was exactly the sort of thing she was after. There were loads of points available to buy skills with, seemingly all accumulated over her recent adventure; many were labeled as only usable on this particular branch with a note indicating that meeting and interacting with a bunch of "normal" people had awarded them.

This was perfect! But the dragon-girl also recognized that some parts of her socially awkward behavior was actually sort of cute and endearing, and may have been responsible for the kind of reception' she'd gotten from some of those girls. Besides, the idea of drastically altering her own personality felt deeply discomforting, so there were lots of reasons to be wary of some of these skills. But not freaking out so quickly about her forest every time she left it for a few hours? That was a far more than welcome change to make. She went ahead and started making it, upgrading it a few times to be really sure she'd be okay going out to visit the town again. For now she still wanted to rest in her forest a little while, but when the time came it would be great!