The "Best" RPG Ever-57

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Morning at last! Rose sat up on the tree branch and stretched, enjoying the early rays of sunlight. Her dreams had been...strange, but she couldn't exactly remember how or why. Anyway, it was time to head back to town to see everyone again. She hopped down to the forest floor, tracked down an animal to eat for breakfast, and then started getting things ready to leave.

Just as she was about to head out, her plants informed her of a visitor...right in the middle of the forest. Now that was strange; normally people appeared at the forest's edge. In fact she was pretty sure it shouldn't normally be possible to just...pop into place somewhere! Maybe they had used something to hide their presence until now, or...some kind of magic thing to really just appear? If her curiosity on how they had suddenly appeared wasn't enough to get her checking it out, the usual concerns about a visitor to her forest certainly were.

She went along the trees, instinctively keeping herself quiet and hidden until the visitor was in view and then going around to behind them to get a better look. It looked to be...a human man, maybe? He was quite tall, in long gray robes that hid whatever most of his body looked like, with short black hair and a clean-shaven face. And he was looking around at his surroundings with about as much confusion as she was presently feeling.

The dragon-girl landed on the ground, deciding he probably wasn't here to burn the forest down, so maybe introductions were in order. "Hi there!"
"Wuaaah!" His reaction was to jump, violently turn around and then fall over on his butt from overmaneuvering. Well...thinking about it, she had just popped in behind him instead of going around front before dropping down.

"Errm, sorry about that." Now that he was facing her, she could see that he also had a pair of glasses on him; really, his facial features registered to her old-self memories as an "obvious nerd". His eyes were bugged out and she could feel him staring; she just tried to ignore it. "Uhh, welcome to my forest! My name's Rose..." she said a little awkwardly.

"Would you..like a hand up?" Rose leaned forward slightly, taking a step closer.

"Huh? Oh, err, th-that won't be necessary." He bolted to his feet and took two or three steps back, looking as if he'd realized something that terrified him...although she had no idea what. "I, d-do humbly apologize for intruding on your domain," he said, bowing slightly. "It was quite by accident, I assure you—not that, err, there's anything wrong with this place. I mean only that, uh.."

"Hmm?" She tilted her head slightly. "Are you worried about offending me or something? I was just curious why you were here. And how you just popped in like that!"

"Uh...w-well, I cast a long-range teleportation spell. Those things are, n-notoriously difficult to target accurately," he said, "without the right kind of focus...so I don't really know whether I'm anywhere near my actual target..."

"Well, where were you trying to go?" she said.

"I, don't exactly know," he said. "I-I mean, I could tell you the exact coordinates but I think they would be meaningless to you. Pardon, but are there any settlements of, lesser beings such as myself nearby?" he said.

"Lesser?" The headtilting worsened for a moment.

"Y-you are a dragon, aren't you?" he said.
"Umm, I think so," she said, putting a finger to her lower lip for a second. She was supposed to be a 'draconian', and she couldn't specifically remember ever being an actual dragon, but 'yes' somehow felt like the correct answer to the question. "Or, mostly at least!" But what did that have to do with anything anyway, she wondered.

After an awkward, quiet couple of seconds, a spark flickered in Rose's head. "Yooouuu just mean a place with a bunch of other people?"

"I, suppose so." The visitor seemed even more confused than she felt by this point.
"Well there's a huuuge city to the west," Rose said. "All kinds of nice people there! I was just about to head that way, if you wanna come with?"

"Um, I-I'd really hate to impose on your hospitality," he said, brushing off his robes. It seemed like he'd been resisting an urge to do so ever since standing up.

"It's no trouble! I can make a cart thing that seats two," she said, grinning widely. "Anyway, there's lots of mean monsters around here, so I'd hate for you to get eaten up on the way."

"Uh." He hesitated for a long moment, the terror from earlier showing itself fully again. "I-in that case, perhaps I will take you up on your m-most gracious offer," he said, visibly shaking.

What was he so scared of? She tried to ignore it. "Okay, follow me!"

It only occurred to her about halfway to the forest's edge that her teeth were rather sharp, and coupling showing them off with talking about him getting eaten might have given the wrong impression. Well, she'd just have to convince him she was friendly on the way there, that was all! In fact...
The dragon-girl paused, turning around to ask: "Hey! Uhh, what's your name?"

"Oh—Loren," he said. "You, introduced yourself earlier, didn't you? I'm terribly sorry for not responding in kind. Really, I'm normally not nearly so rude."

"Heehee, I don't mind. Nice to meet ya!"

---

Zack woke up in an unexpected position. That is—he was in his own (new) bed, which was slightly unfamiliar after staying in the inn for so long, but more importantly he was still holding onto Nora and her arms around him, too. This made it quite clear that what he remembered happening the night before had been real. If he'd had any dreams since falling asleep, he couldn't remember them; there only seemed to be a sense of secure, pleased calm to recall.

Part of him couldn't believe he'd done any of that last night—invited her to start petting him, or pet her back when she suddenly gained the ability to look like another wolf-person somehow. But, in spite of himself, he liked all of it. It was hard to deny he really had wanted it, especially after the fact.

He cracked his eyes open slightly, finding her face just in front of his and still breathing calmly—still asleep. She had a small, cute face, and he couldn't bear the thought of waking her up just yet. Zack had never particularly thought of Nora's body before now, just...of her in general, but this situation kind of forced the issue. She was tall, her legs nearly sticking out past the edge of the bed despite being partially tangled up with his, with a slim build but still some very distinct, attractive curves. Her need to keep as much skin exposed as possible led to outfits that left little to the imagination, and his arms were closed around a bare-skinned waist; her long hair was very pretty, especially when she let it out of the huge ponytail like now. Her scent—another bizarre facet of being part wolf was an involuntary obsession with smells—was even pleasant to breathe in. It was kind of an earthy, sweet smell; clean but sort of like a garden of flowers.

It was easy to imagine falling for someone like her—pretty, intelligent, kind—but that didn't seem to be what had happened; being stuck in a female body made sure of that. He trusted her beyond just the fact that she respected him; he trusted her intentions in a way that he wouldn't Mira's or a few of the others he could name. And...somehow that led to him wanting to be close to her like this. He couldn't comprehend that desire beyond just that it physically felt good, the same sort of way that stretching or getting a massage or eating chocolate could.

"Mnh..." Nora made a soft sound, and shifted slightly. Her eyes opened a bit. "Waah!" She gave a small startled jerk on realizing just where she'd fallen asleep.
"Shhh." Zack ran a hand down the back of her head, through her hair, to calm her down, but it also drew a moderate blush from her. "Here..." He carefully pulled himself off of her and got onto his knees on top of the bed. She stood up on the other side of it, her face still very red. "Um.."

"I don't want anyone else to find out about...this," he said well under his breath, fairly certain she would pick it up with those temporary animal ears but not someone outside the room. She nodded, agreeing.

"Y-you um. Are you," she asked incoherently at about the same volume.
"Yeah, I feel a lot better now. Thank you," Zack nodded. He pulled himself back off his side of the bed and stretched. In fact he felt better rested than he had on any morning since coming to this world.

"Is that just, a thing you can do now?" he asked, pointing to one of his own ears. Looking back at her, he thought her face had gone even more red for some reason.

"Um—I-I think so." She shifted herself back to her usual elf appearance, and then to the wolfish one again; Zack noticed a faint six-pack appearing on her stomach. It probably gave her bonus stats or something. "I uh..I-I'll try and think of s-some way to 'learn' this later today," she suggested.

He nodded back. "...I'm really just worried about Katherine." He sighed. "Maybe she'll understand and just let it go, though."
"I-I hope so," she nodded. After a long, awkward pause, she started toward the door to the bathroom between their rooms.

"Hey," he said just as she opened it, slightly louder.

"Mmh?"

"You..wanna do the same thing again tonight?"
"U-uh, um..." Nora blushed furiously now, but slowly nodded after a second, and then hurried the rest of the way to her own room. Zack couldn't believe he'd just asked that, but...it felt so good. And she clearly enjoyed it, too.

---

Clera woke up feeling vaguely better, but wasn't immediately sure why. After a moment's thought, it occurred to her that her magic was working again. It was like a limb had temporarily gone completely numb and now all the feeling was suddenly back; without even trying it she knew that her Empath-powers would work just as they were supposed to again. That was a relief.

Aria came out into the hall just after she did, wearing a characteristically over-enthusiastic expression. "Hey, guess what?!"
"...What."

"I sat up from bed and the room didn't spin!" she said. "I'm almost not dizzy at all anymore." The winged girl crossed her arms disapprovingly. "Hey, I still have my cane," she said, pointing at it. "But I guarantee I'll be back to a hundred percent by like, noon today."

"We'll see." Clera went with her down the stairs anyway.

Katherine had started breakfast already; she offered her assistance since it was a meal for eight, after all. Both sides of Clera had some experience cooking, although the one from this world was constantly fighting an instinct to use fire magic she didn't have instead of the oven and stovetop. Some things like that were distinct enough to pick out as one personality or another just by deduction, although it still all felt like "just her".

Aria announced loudly at breakfast that she was nearly recovered, and Clera quietly added that her magic had returned. After that, Mira looked around the table pointedly for a long moment. "Well, I think that settles it," she said.

"Settles what?" Katherine asked for everyone else's benefit (obviously she knew what was at the top of the witch's mind).

"Between the eight of us, we definitely have enough power to steamroll my next demon. I think we should take the day off and get to it tonight."

"Works for me," said Lynn. "I have a date today anyway." The rest of the table offered a general consensus to the plan as well.

"There is the minor problem of this summoning requiring a sacrifice," said Mira a little later. "..Of a sheep, specifically. The ones before just needed some meat burned at most, but this one has to start out alive, get the blood drained out, and then the rest burned to ash."
"Uh.." Rayna was a little nonplussed by how casually she said that. "You, aren't gonna start needing human sacrifices anytime soon, are you?"
"Weeelll, it seems like I only 'learn' what new steps and ingredients I need for the next ritual after eating the current demon," she said. "But I'm pretty confident that animal sacrifice is the farthest it goes."

"Oough, you just had to say 'blood'," said Aria. "I almost forgot I have a hemoholic tied to my brain."
"Well, that blood-gravity thing it does would be pretty efficient for draining blood. If that's allowed," said Lynn; Mira nodded that it was.
"And if you can keep yourself under control between that and when the demon appears," Clera added.

"I'm...pretty sure I can. I've been taking a lot more control skills since the uh, you know."

"Anyway!" the witch interjected. "This is a problem because I'm not sure what some poor farmer will think of a demonic-looking girl coming along asking if she can buy one of his sheep."

"Well, there's a pretty obvious solution," said Aria. "Pop quiz: Which two members of our party are basically guaranteed to pass all persuasion checks?"

By way of answering, Nora pointed at Katherine and Rayna.

"Exactly! Charsima-based class and that intelligence-to-charisma conversion thing. So you two should go double-team someone into letting you have a sheep."

"Well, we're better off still paying for it," said the catgirl. "But yeah, makes sense. Any specifics about this sheep? Pure white; a ram or ewe or lamb specifically?"
"No...just any sheep will do," said Mira. "Maybe you'd better get an old, mottled one though; those sound like the kind of qualifications I might need for later rituals."

---

Loren was still visibly cautious, but at least stopped cowering in seat about halfway through the trip to town. Rose tried to make small talk with him, but he didn't seem too interested in it. Eventually she said, "So um, what brings you to zap yourself way out here in the first place?"
"Oh, well, uh, I am looking for someone," he said. "A good friend of mine..sort of. Possibly."
"Huh?" That didn't seem like the kind of thing a person could be unsure of.

"It's...complicated."
"Well, if your friend's anywhere near here I'm sure the Captain can find them!" she said brightly.

"Um...captain? Where I was headed wasn't anywhere near any ports..."
"No silly~! The uh, defense people? Who lock up the bad ones and keep the town safe from monsters?" The correct word should be painfully obvious but persistently eluded her.

"Ah! You mean the captain of the guard?"

"Right, that Captain!" She nod-nodded. "She acts really scary, but she's actually super nice. I'm sure she can help you. I uh, don't know all that many people myself," Rose added a little more quietly. "Anyway, I'll track her down for you once we get to town!"

"Really, you, don't have to do that," he said. His tone of voice suggested that he expected her to insist on doing it anyway, though.

The guards let them into the gate as soon as they saw Rose, although one of them stared at Loren long enough to seem like they thought he was suspicious or something...he seemed nice enough, the dragon-girl thought, if a little easily spooked. Surely not a threat to the town or anything! Once inside, she tried to think...the Captain seemed to hang out at the guardhouse pretty often, so that seemed like a good way to go. And fortunately, Rose spotted her a small distance away when they came close to the building.

"Heyy!" she waved, and then ran over, Loren trying with little success to keep up. "Hi!"
"Welcome back," said the Captain. She glanced over at Loren for a second. "You found someone out in the wilds?"
"No, it's more like he sorta popped into my forest," she said.

"Hmm. That reminds me, I intended to provide some proper payment for your help with our giant worm problem," said the Captain, and produced a small sack. "Here. There are some rarer plant seeds in this."

"Aww, really?" She took it carefully, not wanting to rip the bag or scratch the Captain's hand, and glanced inside briefly, immediately recognizing some of the species (though she wasn't sure at all how). There was even a strange sense of I've always wanted one of those or another of those for a couple of them. "Thank you~!" The dragon-girl pulled the Captain into a grateful hug before thinking about what she was doing, and pulled herself off and took a couple of steps back when her brain caught up with her. The Captain wore the same scowl as always in response, but at least she hadn't accidentally messed up her clothes.

"Anyway." She turned toward Loren. "I surmise that you are a telemage?"
"That's correct, ma'am," he nodded. "Loren Sigrith."

"I recognize the name," she said. "What's one of Boracath's foremost telemagi doing all the out here?"

"Please, I'm not worthy of that appellation," he said. "Er...I came out here looking for someone, on the off chance—the hope, rather, that they are still alive. The situation's a little odd..."
"Just tell me who you're looking for," she said, crossing her arms, with a tone that suggested don't waste any more of my time.

"Well, it's a little..I'm not sure if you'd know them by name, I didn't get a good look at them so to speak, and they're a shifter like me anyway, very talented at it too, so all bets are off on appearance really. I'll just—the most recognizable thing is that this person would be in possession—in more ways than one—of a gigantic sword with an extremely powerful, literally bloodthirsty demon trapped in it."

"You're looking for Aria," she replied immediately. While Loren was busy being stunned by the rapid response, she turned toward Rose again. "Your friends received a house recently. I'll have someone show you the door to get there."
"Oh, cool!"

The shifter, meanwhile, had finally recovered enough to begin to ask: "Um—"
"Aria is among her friends," she said curtly, and then grabbed the nearest guard, an elvish woman with her right arm in a splint, to guide them.

They followed the guardswoman through the streets. "She's..uh, not what I expected," said Loren after a bit.

"We get that a lot, yep," said the woman. "Name's Pirr, sir. You come at a pretty convenient time, y'know."
"I do," he said, in a way that suggested the obvious follow-up question.
"One o' our princes is s'posed to be bringin' a caravan with a nice big transport focus on it, yep. Expectin' them sometime in the next coupla weeks. I bet they'd be more'n happy to have a real expert tune the thing, and no way our country risks one a' those for the trip out here."
"But—they're sending a prince?" he said. "Doesn't that naturally entail quite a bit of security?"

"'Bout sixteenth or seventeenth in line," she said. "Other words, pretty disposable. Rumor is they put together a token guard and bought the focus crystal jus' so they wouldn't have to hear 'im nagging 'em about supporting the frontier an' all that. Cap's been askin' for a proper focus for..I dunno, years? If he makes it close enough to send help from here 'e'll get the very best, and if that focus gets here in one piece we might actually see 'er smile. Truly a terrifyin' thought."

"Pardon my ramblin'. Here we are," she said, pointing to one of several doors along a wall spaced too closely to fit anything Rose would consider a "house" inside. "Now, I guess you'll hafta knock or somethin'..." The door opened while she was speaking, and Katherine and Rayna both stepped out.

"Oh, hey there!" Rayna ran up, the catgirl following behind her more slowly, and jumped to give Rose a brief hug, which was carefully returned for a second or two. "Welcome back to town," she said. "We got a house!"
"You got a, house?" Rose repeated, leaning to one side to pointedly look at where the door was.

"It's uh, the house is actually outside of town. That door links the spaces," Katherine said, trying to illustrate by poking her index fingers together. "You should be able to see what I mean if you go through the door."
"Ohh, magic stuff," the dragon-girl said, feeling like she sort of understood somehow.

"Hmm. Your name Rayna?" said Pirr, looking at the fox-girl.

"Yeeaah..?"
"Partner says you an' your friend saved our bacon a few days ago. Thanks for that," she said, offering a hand to shake.
"Sure. Nice to meet you not unconscious in a suit of armor, Pirr," she said. "Feeling better?"
"Yep, I'll be back to fightin' shape by tomorrow maybe," she nodded. "Back to patrollin' for me. See you all." With a small wave, she wandered back into the crowd.

Katherine turned toward the shifter Rose had brought with her. "So you're Loren, huh?"
"And what are you, a mind reader?"

"Yes," she said with a smug grin.

"Oh."

"I'm sure Aria will be glad the beacon thing worked. Anyway, the two of us have some...'shopping' to do. I don't think the others will mind if you let yourselves inside." She led the way off along the street, Rayna giving the dragon-girl a brief farewell wave as she followed.

"...How many...'friends'...do you have, anyway?" said Loren, slowly.

"Uhhmm..eight? Nine if you include the Captain! Ten with you...?" Rose added hesitantly.

"As long as you don't eat your friends, sure," he said, starting toward the door.
"I don't eat anyone! That's super gross!"

"Good to hear..."

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Fun fact: I wrote that first section immediately after I finished with the ruins part, and have been looking forward to reaching it and the stuff after it ever since. I really like how this whole part came out, with Loren just gradually coming to accept the madness he's encountering.