The "Best" RPG Ever-62

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The portal opened wider than usual, which was maybe not a good sign—though about half of those present didn't really have a point of comparison. Then it spat out something that might have been confused for a giant hedgehog at first, except its legs were too long and it had a tail, and a clearly defined, long muzzle on its head. The spines running unevenly along its back were a translucent green; its matted fur was pitch black but visibly stained with several small, bright, variously-colored patches whose consistency suggested they were other demons' blood.

While the portal snapped shut it snarled, surveying its surroundings with visible hostility. Its bared teeth seemed to be the same sort of spikes as those on its back, only smaller. Apart from those few alien aspects of its anatomy, it seemed to be a gigantic dog, big enough to give the dire wolf present a run for his money. Not that the wolf feared a larger opponent; in fact his first response was to snarl back at this new threat to the pack and his second was to pounce at it, claws and teeth first.

He swiped at its side and then ducked away when it turned its head to bite him. Feels cold, he reported mentally alongside a bark. Aria charged in next, her sword turning into something like a harpoon in one hand with a long chain from its back attached to a handle held in the other. With the demon now turned half away from her, she hurled the weapon at its side. Even with the tremendous strength behind her throw, it only made it a few inches in, making a sound like crunching ice when it landed. The creature turned while she yanked the weapon out again, bright green blood trailing out with it, and rared its head back as if to bite her—even though she was clearly out of range. Instead it unleashed a gout of green mist that condensed the vapor in the air it hit instantly into a shower of water and ice. The shifter jumped to the side quickly enough to evade it, but otherwise would have been right in the middle of the frigid breath attack.

Ice dog demon? Mira throught, finally regaining her breath from the ritual and coming around behind it. Wasn't this in a game somewhere?

Yeah, but this one's one-headed and probably can't talk or turn into a whip-flail thing, Katherine replied.

"Ice demon," Zack repeated aloud for Rose and Aria's benefit, ignoring the rest of the banter. He switched to dark form for the shield, hoping it'd be able to block that breath if needed, and ran forward to get the demon's attention off of Aria before it caught up to her. He slashed at its back leg and caught its muzzle with the shield when it whirled to counter. Zack stood firm, but the force of the impact slid his feet back a few inches along the ground and made the demon recoil back.

Hopefully weak to fire? Light it up, the catgirl said, sending an active fire dagger over into Nora's reach. The elf pulled the fire over to herself, amplifying it before throwing a massive gout of flame at the demon's side. Mira added some demonic fire and threw a few pumpkin bombs for good measure, until both of them were forced to scatter by a very angry charging demon dog.

Rayna gave it an illusion to keep chasing, and Lynn made several fire-arrow shots at its side, some glancing off the spines but the rest hitting their marks. Mira took the opportunity to take to the sky on her broom.

It doesn't look like that did much, the psion said. Rose raised and threw some vines, wrapping them around the demon's legs to knock it over.

It's taking damage, Rayna reassured, mentally indicating that her "veil-piercing" HUD told her as much.

"Breathe on it, Lynn suggested now that it was being held still, "we could use the explosion."

"'Kay. Hahhh~" The dragon-girl took a deep breath and let out a big plume of her own special breath, then spread her wings out to their larger size, flapping once to send the green air the demon's way and again to launch herself skyward in the opposite direction. A fire arrow met the cloud as it reached the dog, setting it off, and Nora amplified the resulting explosion and kept it going a little longer.

Before the smoke could clear, Aria dove in screaming with a giant, two-handed spiked hammer, hitting the demons back with it and audibly shattering some of the icy spines. She pounded it three or four times, sending frozne splinters flying and producing more of whatever cold substance the thing breathed out earlier, until contact with said substance started burning her skin and she jumped back away again.

"GAAAAAH! Stupid liquid-nitrogen-ice-breath-green-glow, I'll teach you ta—!" The dog recovered, stood up, and charged at her, only to get a hammer to the side of its head hard enough to throw its momentum to the side and send it crashing to the ground again.

After a rapid-fire mental planning conference, Katherine reached into the demon's mind to get its attention on her as it stood up and Rayna made the shifter invisible. Clera swooped down from her station in the air, landing next to Aria, who was kneeling over from the pain by now.

"Grrnnghl."
"Hold still please, unless you want to have burn scars."
"Scars're cool," she replied, but held still anyway.

The demon ran toward the catgirl as predicted; she cartwheeled away while Rayna put an illusion in her place to keep it charging the same way. Then Lynn sent a fire arrow into its path and Nora amplified the fire just before it landed into another massive fireball for the demon to run through. It had too much momentum to stop by then, and caught the full brunt of the attack.

While it skidded across the ground still trying to halt its momentum, Zack slashed one of its back legs again, and the wolf ran up to bite the opposite one. The dog made a pained, angry noise and turned after Zack again; when it hit his shield this time he was ready, and responded with a slash to its neck before jumping out of the way of its breath. The wolf backed away quickly and then spat some of the demon's blood out, mentally complaining of the unpleasant taste and how cold it was.

Aria was mostly recovered and starting to stand up. "Hey, the hammer was good damage-wise," Rayna said, coming up to her. "If you can do something like that from a range to not get auto-countered again it's probably worth it."
"Right." The shifter reshaped her weapon again, into a nice, long, spiked ball-and-chain flail. She forced herself to pause before rejoining the fight, turning in the winged girl's direction. "Thank you."
"Just be more careful," she said, still wincing somewhat from the absorbed injuries. Aria nodded, and stepped forward, beginning to build momentum on the flail by spinning it around above her head.

Clear away! Mira strongly suggested. Zack took a few more steps away from the demon, just in time for her to finish chanting a spell. A pillar of demonic fire shot out of the ground under it, engulfing its entire body for a moment. "Yees! How d'you like that?!" The dog jumped out from the fire and turned its head upward, shooting its breath in the direction of the witch's voice by way of reply. "Whooops!" She flew up and out of the way.

Rose landed to one side of the demon and drew some vines out of the ground just under it to root its feet into place, making an easy target for Aria's flail. It went flying and slammed into the thing's back, making another shower of splintered green ice and vapor which thankfully no one was caught in this time. Then the dragon-girl breathed some more explodable breath at the dog before flying out of the way, letting Nora throw some more fire from Katherine's dagger (now held in her hand) to set it off. All of this gave the shifter time to reel her weapon back, start it spinning again, and finally throw it at the demon just as it turned in her direction, landing a direct hit to its muzzle, one of the spikes burying itself firmly into an eye.

The demon made more pained noises, shaking its head violently to throw the flail off and then unleashing another plume of cold breath in Aria's direction. She dove away from it, and Rayna made an illusion where she'd been to give her time to recover. Another volley of fire arrows hit the demon's side, the last one amplified into a fireball by Nora.

Mira's working on another pillar. Get ready to hold it in place a second, Katherine said.

"Rose, can you hold it again?" Zack said, mentally reminding the catgirl that saying things aloud was sometimes necessary.

"Yep!" She landed behind it while it was biting the illusion, and drew some more vines up around its legs.

The knight noticed that the fire-pillar spell actually made a clear dark outline on the ground, indicating where it was going to hit. "Hey, back up!"

"Huh?" Rose didn't understand and there wasn't time to explain, so he just ran up and grabbed her under the arms, pulling her back a few steps just before the pillar formed, engulfing the demon again. "Wha—aa~aah—oof!" Unfortunately, she was much heavier than she looked and this awkward backstep landed them both on the ground, with the dragon-girl on top of Zack.

Fortunately, Aria hit the thing in the side with her flail at this point, giving them a moment to recover while the demon turned to chase her instead. Rose rolled over and picked herself up before offering him a clawed hand. "Um, th-thanks.." She was visibly shaken from being so close to the inside of that much fire.
"Yeah." He took it carefully and hoisted himself up.

"Sorry, sorry! Are you okay?" Mira called, bringing her broom down next to the two of them.
"I-I'll be alright," Rose said.

"Try to aim those more carefully," Zack said with a touch of anger, and then turned and ran in the demon's direction rather than waiting for a reply.

Hey, does your vision thing give a percentage or something? he thought toward Rayna.

Of course. We're pretty close, actually!

The wolf ran up next to Zack, and when he slashed at the demon's back leg again to get its attention the wolf went around to claw at the same side some more, before moving out of the way when it turned around to bite him. This time the demon sent its breath Zack's way, and he had to act quickly, raising the shield and bringing it up to the thing's mouth so the breath mostly scattered off to the side. A tiny bit of it reached him anyway, but landed on his armor, which thankfully didn't just conduct the cold straight through to his skin or clothes—more of the magic-based protection it had, most likely. Then, since he had it right in front of him, he lit his sword with holy magic and drove it into the demon's neck, grabbing the hilt with both hands midway through to push it deeper. The dog made a choked, whining noise and swiped at him with a forepaw, forcing him to abandon the weapon there and jump back. It was probably hurting it worse staying in than coming out anyway, he figured, turning to run away from it again.

Rayna made Zack invisible and sent an illusion running the opposite direction, straight toward Lynn. The archer shot several fire arrows at the demon's front, Nora amplifying each one into a fireball, and dove out of the way when it got close. I've got five left, she reported. Didn't really plan on literally burning them this way.

We'll buy you more tomorrow. I don't think you need to worry about shooting any more tonight, Katherine replied.

Aria's flail hit the demon near the top of its head now, stunning it. She ran up and grabbed the hilt of Zack's sword, yanking it out in one swift motion. Giggling madly, she shifted her own weapon into a kind of extra coat of metal around its blade to soak up all of the blood on it. Then she drove the combined weapon back into the same hole in the thing's neck, making it wider and driving it deeper with her own berserk strength. The demon struggled to turn its head and breathe cold mist at her, but couldn't catch its breath with a giant sword most of the way through its windpipe; it obviously didn't run on normal anatomy or it should have already been dead by now. With this kind of foothold, she was able to drain quite a bit more of its blood than before, and by the time she pulled the merged weapon out again the demon whined and shuddered weakly before crumpling into a heap on the ground, its remaining spines and teeth melting and sublimating into a cloud of freezing air around it. Aria didn't much care about the risk from that, detaching her weapon from Zack's sword, tossing the latter away and turning the former into a long spear before jamming it into the thing's unprotected side to drain out the rest of its blood.

The knight walked up to his weapon and knelt over next to it, sighing. "I almost feel violated," he muttered, picking it up and putting it in its sheath. Mira flew up next to him, stepped gracefully off of her broom, and came up to the demon.

"Alright! I'd say this went pretty well," she said. "Great job everyone!" Aria was finished, and stood up, sheathing her own weapon (back in its default shape of a sword) before stepping away. The demon's soul, the same shade of green as its breath, blood, and spines, rose up from its body with a small wave from the witch, and then she vacuumed it up, her body glowing with the same shade briefly while she let out a satisfied sigh.
"Tastes like ice cream, right?" the shifter grinned.

"Well, it tastes...cold at least," the witch said. After waiting expectantly for a moment, she concluded she wasn't going to spontaneously change forms this time. "Phew."

Clera landed next to Aria again. "What did I say about being careful?"
"Sorry...I was hungry! Well..I mean the, the demon was hungry," she said. The winged girl just sighed.

"The burns aren't bad this time; I really should just let you recover them naturally." She put a hand on Aria's shoulder to absorb the wounds anyway. "Unfortunately, that is against my nature."

Rayna came up to Rose, who hadn't moved much since standing up earlier. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Heheh..y-yeah. I'll be fine," she said. "Just um..lots of fire..." she squeaked. After a second, she abruptly added: "I-I get it, we needed fire to melt the ice thing! But..um..."
"It's fine, you can't help what you're scared of," said Katherine, also walking up. "At least your fear makes sense."

"Hmn?" The dragon-girl headtilted.
"She's a little bit scared of water," said Rayna. "Right?"
"Deep water," the catgirl clarified, crossing her arms. "Even though I know how to swim just fine, tread water and all..."

"Let's go back inside," Zack suggested. With its soul gone, the demon's body was starting to melt and disappear as though it was made of ice itself. He started toward the door, the wolf immediately coming up next to him, and the others followed one by one.

A little later, everyone sat in the living room—except for Rose, who had decided to go to sleep early on one of the couches in their library. "Right, so...we're reasonably well-coordinated for such a large group," said Katherine. "I'd be able to improve things a bit more if we didn't have two people whose minds I can't connect with, but..well, that's on me to get better skills for."

"It would also help if you'd warn us when you're planning to cast a big AOE spell," Zack said in Mira's direction.

"I said I was sorry! Really! It's hard to concentrate on chanting and communicating all at the same time." She'd seen him annoyed at her or others plenty before, but he seemed genuinely angry at her for the first time she could remember. It was making her very uneasy.
"So tell us first and then start casting it," he said, in a tone that suggested this was the most obvious course of action—which the witch had to admit it sort of was.

"Oh. Yeah, duh."

"Anyway, we're not all totally used to working with each other yet," said the catgirl, trying to bring the discussion back to her intended subject. "Based on what I could see going on mentally, its basically a matter of the two four-person parties being so used to working exclusively among ourselves, even after just a few days together. That's—good, really, but it'd be smart for us to keep splitting our parties differently for smaller quests, like we did yesterday, to get used to working with each other for any situation like this where everyone needs to be involved."

"Wise counsel," said Aria. "I'll admit, unfortunately it's still not a good idea to put me in a party without a good healer, though. For as much control as I've got over myself with the sword out, looking out for my own saftey just seems to be off the table."
"The demon doesn't care if you get hurt as long as it gets blood," Mira observed.

"Well, we'll think about how to split up when we find jobs to do," said Katherine. "Obviously we'll want to assign people who'll be effective for the task at hand. Like, bring Zack along to kill undead, or Rayna for..drawing maps I guess?"
"I can do way more than draw maps!" the fox-girl protested.

"I know, just playing. Anyway, that's what I wanted to discuss with everyone. Well...I also wanted to see who wants in on dream party tonight? Much easier to ask everyone before we all go to sleep, after all."

"Oh, right, about that," said Mira. "Count me out juuust for tonight. I've been getting closer and closer to seeing my whole 'backstory' thing, and I'd like a full 'normal' dream to give it a chance to all come together."

"Okay.."
"You know I want in," said Aria, "I am the host of the dream party. And it's...really boring being stuck with just the demon all night."
"Last night was fun," said Lynn, nodding.

"I'm in if she is," Rayna added.

"Not us—me," Clera said, and Zack shook his head no.

"Um..I-I might like to t-try it once," said Nora. "Maybe..."

"Cool, cool." The psion nodded, making a mental note to be extremely careful about separating two minds in nearby bodies, to avoid something like how Rayna was pulled in the previous night. "Well, that's it from me, unless anyone else has something to say. Good night everyone."

Zack went upstairs right away, to change out of his armor; Mira got up to follow him. While he was in his room, she knocked lightly on the door. "What?"
"Hey, it's um, me. I really am sorry I was careless about that," she said. "Really! I don't know how else to convince you of it besides repeating myself a bunch..."

He audibly sighed. "Don't make a big deal out of it. It's fine. We're fine." The tone of voice didn't sound like they were fine to her.

"Are you sure? I can't do...something to make it up to you?"

"I'm not even the person you should be apologizing to." He meant Rose, she understood. "But I think she's already over it, or it didn't even bother her that much in the first place, so—whatever, I'll be over it by tomorrow morning," he said.
"Okay..if you say so."

A few hours later, Zack knocked on the door of the bathroom adjoining his room to Nora's. "Uh, c-come in," she said. She had been sitting at her desk reading, but realized it actually was getting pretty late.
"Um..hey." He seemed a little nervous. "I uh.."

"Y-you want me to um," she left a brief verbal gap in place of the verb, "again?"

"Well, just." Zack looked away, blushing slightly. "I-I feel like the way I asked you this morning, it wasn't really fair, um..k-kind of hard to say no? I don't want to, I mean..i-if you want I can just leave you alone tonight..."
"Uh, i-it's okay," Nora said, putting a bookmark in and standing up next to him. "I um...i-it's sort of, relaxing for me too. Unless um, you d-don't want..?" His expression informed her that he did. "Uh, l-let me change clothes, and th-then we can um...i-in here, if you want."
"Okay," he said, his blush not looking any better but his mood visibly improved some. He went back out to his own room. Nora wondered what they were doing—what she was doing. It was too bizarre to make sense of, but at the same time...it was nice. It seemed to help both of them somehow. So, for as long as he wanted her to...she would.