The "Best" RPG Ever-74

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Nora noticed that Clera hadn't gotten up yet, and went over to her. "Are you a-alright?"
"Hfffff..." The winged girl pushed herself up just enough to sit cross-legged on the ground. "I either forgot, hhh." She still seemed to be trying to catch her breath. "...or wasn't aware of just how physically draining the stronger spells can be. Empathic powers grant massive, physical endurance against injury but not, exertion, and in that way this body seems to be somewhat frail."

"I guess that giant bomb attack was pushing it?" Lynn said, walking up. Clera nodded.
"It, hhh. Didn't help I kept going afterward. Once being electrocuted was a significant risk I suspect the adrenaline took over."

"You should be okay, though," Nora said. The elf had knelt over to examine her in her own way; there was no indication of real danger.
Clera nodded. "Once I—hhh—stop feeling like I'm having a heart attack, yes."

As soon as she was done with the ogre mage, Aria had run toward the direction of the other two. Of course, that was about the time that Katherine announced to everyone that Rose had shown up and instantly destroyed them. Still, the blood was probably fresh enough to let the blade take its fill of them yet. When she got there, Rose was explaining how she'd come to them.

"—So I saw this bird girl flying over your house, and flew over to investigate, and she yelled something about some ogres and pointed this way. They're mean-nasty creatures but they like to use wood weapons and they're really fragile if you know where to hit 'em," she said, nod-nodding.

"And if you have the strength of a dragon to do the hitting with," Katherine said, crossing her arms. "Anyway, we probably could've held out for the others to finish up and get here, but your timely arrival made things a lot less dicey at least."
"Glad I could help~. Oh hi Aria!" she waved, finally noticing the shifter.

"Hey there. Just...finishing up feeding the sword," she said. It protested that there was still some relatively fresh blood on the dragon-girl's limbs but she deemed that a little too risky to give it, and insistently sheathed the demon-blade instead, putting it away. "You shoulda seen the one in the middle, throwing lightning around like—" She hesitated for a second; Thor? It was a bad idea to push Earth references just now, so: "—well, like an angry thundercloud. He wasn't much use without his staff, though."

Nora stood up and walked over to the ogre's body, particularly the unusual weapon he'd been throwing around. The crystal at the top of the crude wooden staff was bigger than her fist, and glowed faintly with a brilliant white. She took it in both of her hands and pried it out of the staff to get a closer look.

"What d'you make of that?" Mira asked, landing next to her.
"I-it's..full of a large amount of elemental power. Similar to the uh, p-power source for the moving armor in the ruins. But—more elements. Th-the lightning and fire is weaker than the rest, but it's reasonable to conclude that's from recent use..."
"Iiit's not gonna suddenly explode, is it?" the witch said, leaning away slightly.

Nora shook her head. "It seems more...s-stable. The elements aren't being used to balance each other out like in those. I-it's more like they're, being held in separate c-compartments somehow..."

Rayna was walking up by now, her breath finally caught up from running to the middle group. Mira turned to her. "Well, what do you see here?"

"Uh—'elemental crystal', high magic enchantment readings, like a well-crafted artifact...not a lot else. Maybe the loremaster Ezra will know more about how an ogre got his hands on something like this."

"It'd be a great source of natural elements for you to use, wouldn't it?" Mira suggested.

"I-if it weren't so big, perhaps," Nora said, shaking her head slightly. She put it into her own inventory for now.

Everyone joined up not long into the walk back. "Hi everyone!" Rose waved to the rest of them excitedly, receiving a few nods and an equally enthusiastic wave back from the witch. "Um, sorry I didn't come to visit yesterday. After the uh, f-fire giant attack I got really antsy about my forest, and wanted to make sure everything was okay there. Even though he didn't even get there thanks to all of you!" she rattled off nervously.
"Rose," Katherine said. "It's perfectly normal not to visit someone every day."

"Oh, yeah. I-I guess so. It's just." The dragon-girl tapped her index-finger claws together a couple of times. "I dunno. When I'm not there I get worried about how the forest is doing after a while. But when I am there I start missing everyone. And, I wonder if you're all doing okay. Since you're always fighting dangerous monsters and stuff. But I can't be in two places at once, and even flying it still takes a while to get from one to the other!"

The psion wasn't the only one who immediately thought of the unlinked door in their house's front hallway. But she also knew what Aria had asked Mira to talk to her about, so she didn't bring it up for now. Instead she changed the subject so nobody else had a chance to, either: "So, quick tactical meeting so we don't have to do it when we get back. Lynn, you were absolutely right—there should've been at least one person able to kill an ogre per group. Just stalling them is way less effective than actually hurting them even when it comes to distraction. If Aria'd been switched out with me or Zack things would've probably gone a bit smoother, since Lynn and Clera had enough firepower to take out an ogre on their own as long as they weren't his target."

"Or just put me in a party by myself," Rayna said. "Ogres are just too stupid to stop attacking illusions when it doesn't work. And things only went a little bad when I ran off to help with the big guy. So maybe you two could've gone instead of me?" The wolf barked. "Oh—you three, sorry," she said.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy," Mira said. "If we knew the middle guy was a mage we should've sicced Aria on him in the first place. Maybe with a Nora shield."

"But we didn't expect an ogre mage," Lynn observed. "If we're in this kind of situation again we should have someone who can fly assess the situation in a bit more detail before solidifying a plan. Clera would be a good choice because she can see farther, and even if the enemy spots and shoots her she can probably regenerate. I mean, not to put you as bait but just objectively speaking?"

"I don't mind being bait," the winged girl said. "And your reasoning is sound."

Kayriel swooped down to the ground in front of them, managing her velocity so she could stick the landing without so much as a single bounce. "Well, you lot are as good as I've heard. And Dimeos's face, dragon girl, you cut those ogres apart faster 'n I could see it!" she added, to Rose; she just giggled nervously in response. "Anyway, I should report this whole thing back at the guardhouse and get back to my patrol. Don't mind if I use your door for this do ya?"

"Not at all," Katherine nodded. She rocketed herself into the air by flapping her wings rather than getting a running start, and continued ahead toward the house.

"She's..kind of a show-off, huh," Lynn commented, watching Kayriel make a complex corkscrew through the air once she had some altitude.
"It's a surprisingly common trait among Avians, unfortunately," Clera said. "I won't deny she has some real skill, however."

---

Everyone went their own way once they got back to the house. Mira said she wanted to speak with Rose outside—meaning the conversation was going on between them. Zack went straight upstairs to remove his armor and rest, and a moment later Katherine saw the wolf coming out of the stairwell alone as Lynn was on her way up. He walked over to a spot next to one of the couches and flopped over onto his side.

"Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a wolf sulk before," she said, leaning toward him a bit from her own seat. "What's the matter, Zack kick you out?"

The wolf growled. Alpha needs rest. Then, turning his head upward: Cat already knows.

"That I do. It's just not normal conversation to start by announcing what the other person's upset about."

The catgirl leaned back again, crossing her legs in a more relaxed position. "Frankly I don't exactly get it, though. You were plenty helpful keeping that ogre off our backs for a while. And getting the ice dog's attention the other night. And—well, there's a very limited set of skills that are useful against a pure elemental opponent, so..."

To hunt is to kill. At least wound, the wolf replied with another displeased grunt. Running away, not hunting. Strong pack hunts stronger prey.

"You think you're getting left behind, huh. Not much chance of winning a rematch?"

The wolf lifted his head just enough to stare into her eyes for a second or two. Cat knows (that he had no intention of fighting the alpha again—probably ever.) Alpha not well. Did not protect alpha.

"I disagree. You expressed concern when you noticed, warned him to be careful, and even tried to push yourself a bit so he wouldn't have to work as hard. Besides—he made it through the fight without taking so much as a scratch. You don't think that qualifies as protection?" Katherine said.

Unwell alpha should not have to fight, the wolf persisted.

"Maybe, but you know he would never willingly back down while the rest of us are fighting."

Strong enough can kill prey before alpha must do anything. The wolf was thinking of Rose's instant destruction of the two ogres.

"I don't think you'll get anywhere comparing yourself to a dragon," the psion said. "Look, there's no real competition here. As long as everyone works together, we all have value."

Ignored by Fox.

"Wh—Rayna? I can tell you with confidence she thinks of you as a sort of extension of Zack. You two haven't exactly talked enough for her to see you as an individual, is all. I could help with that if you'd like."
The wolf gave a low, negative bark. Should be honored.

"If you say so. Still, it's not a bad idea for the rest of the 'pack' to get to know you a little better, I think."

---

Rayna came into the kitchen in search of a snack and found Aria with her own skill tree spread out on the kitchen table. The fox-girl glanced over it for a moment. "Do you really need to look at it in that form? Like, instead of just closing your eyes?"
"I can't make notes on my eyelids," the shifter said. "This last fight I felt like just a more manic me instead of somebody else, sooo, I think I've finally taken enough control skills for now. Need to shore up the stat boosting side next."

"Mmh." Rayna continued on her quest for food for a moment.

"Say, Lynn told me the way your weapon-change stuff looks a little different now. Like, you were manually reshaping it in your hands before, like it was made of a bunch of rigid pieces that could be broken apart and put back together—but now it's like your own personal T-1000."

"Well, at first the sword wasn't so sure about taking new shapes; now it understands that that gets it more blood faster. So I only have to do that first thing to make a new form now," said Aria. "It's weird, even though Tsaron told me there's nothing but instinct in there I still feel a bit like I'm negotiating with it sometimes."

"He could just be lying," Rayna shrugged. "There's really no motivation present to not lie in his position."

"Nah..it's not like I'm negotiating with an intelligence. I guess it's more like an addiction. I've never really had one of those before. Obsessions, sure, but it's different from that."

"I'll admit to no experience there," the fox-girl said, biting back several potential jokes about being 'addicted' to video games, books, or certain kinds of food. It was sensible, in a way, to think of the dependence on blood as similar to the biochemical need for tobacco or something, and in the direct physical presence of a real addict those kinds of jokes seemed more disrespectful than usual.

---

Rose didn't seem to suspect anything from being led outside; just recently a similar invitation had just led to some casual talk and a race through the air, after all. That was good—assuming the worst case, it was better to spring this kind of thing as a total surprise when possible.

The witch stopped up against the eastern fence, looking out toward the late-morning sun. "So, Rose, I was wondering something. You've been around a long while," she said.
"Well, sure but—um. I've barely been anywhere," the dragon-girl replied. "I know a lot about plants, though!"

"Right. Still, I was curious if you've ever heard someone talking about Earth."

Three full seconds of dead silence. "Uhhhh. Earth. You mean like, um. Dirt?" Rose was a terrifically poor liar, and off-guard enough to make it even worse. That told Mira most of what she needed to know right away. The more important thing, that needed a far lighter touch to get at, was why.

"Not really. I guess I shouldn't be surprised," the witch said. Then, after a short pause of her own: "I guess I can try to explain anyway." She turned toward the dragon-girl to find her still looking extremely nervous. "You know the demon realm, and the afterlives? Familiar with them, at least?" She nodded slowly in response. "Those are other realms, with different rules and limited travel to or from here. It's different from parts of this world we could at least in theory walk or fly to," the witch continued. "So it's not inconcievable that there are other worlds a little like this one, or a lot not. Right?"
"Um. Sure." She was starting to recover from the near-confrontation, as expected. So Mira continued:

"It's a bit more of a jump from that, but I feel like we're good enough friends to share, so..." She put a hand up to her head, poking the side of her forehead with an index finger. "I've got two sets of memories in here. One from this world, and another from a different one, called Earth. That's my situation. Does the explanation make sense to you?"
"Umm..." The gears were visibly turning in her head, trying to figure out how someone unfamiliar with the entire concept would respond. "W-well. I guess so? Is that, do a lot of people have that?"

"Very few that I know of," she said. "It seems to me more like I came from there and had new memories implanted here. Not exactly that the 'new' ones are fake, either, though. But a lot of who I see myself as comes from those other memories. A world I can't show to you, or even prove exists." After that, Mira pointed her head toward the sun again, awaiting a response.

"W-well. Um. I-I think you're an amazing person!" Rose said. "No matter why. Isn't..isn't who you are now more important than where it came from?" That sounded like a good hint.
"Oh, sure," Mira nodded, turning back toward her again. "But that doesn't make my past unimportant." She went quiet again, trying to bait out another response

The dragon-girl took a long moment to form one, but eventually: "I guess..you like who you were? In the um, the other world?"
"Sure. I wasn't perfect, and I'm not perfect, but..I felt like I was living a good, fulfilling life. If anything, it was worse in this world. I was wandering around with no real direction, until I came to this town and met some people who treated me like a normal person."

"But what if...you didn't," Rose said. "Like what if you were a bad person before?"

"Then I don't really see how an extra set of memories would make me not a bad person now," Mira said, shrugging.

"Not, but—like."

"I mean. What if you, were useless. Pathetic. Ashamed to even look in the mirror in the morning?" Rose pressed (and pulling out of character slightly; surely she'd never lived in a place with a mirror to wake up to for very long). "Like, if you knew you were bad but felt like you couldn't change it? And just desperately wishing you could be someone else, or do, something that mattered, that someone else cared about at all?"

"Hmn." Well, this sounded a little familiar. "I imagine suddenly having a lot of magic powers like I do might make me feel better at first," Mira said. "But eventually I'd probably realize it was still just me under all that." Rose looked terrified at the prospect, but the witch continued: "And that would mean one of two things."

"Hmn?" She headtilted, immediately curious.
She counted on her fingers. "Well, one: I could conclude that I'm exactly as useless as I always thought I was, and I'm just faking it somehow now. Or two: What I thought about myself was wrong before. I wouldn't go so far as to say anything I can do with demon magic, I could've done back on Earth, sure. But if my impulses on how to use all that power are good, then the impulse to do good has been there all along. Maybe I just needed something or someone to jolt me out of the belief that I was useless and couldn't change, and this all served as a pretty big jolt.

"...Hypothetically, of course." Mira winked, and turned toward the sky again, leaning her arms on the fence.

"S-sure."

That was enough for now—and if she was lucky, she'd made Rose feel a little bit better about herself. It was time to pull out gracefully. She pushed herself off of the fence, turning back toward the dragon-girl. "Thanks for listening to me, anyway. You can let me know if there's ever anything you want to get off your chest, okay?"
"Um. Okay," Rose said, slowly nodding.

"So did you eat before you flew out this way?"
"Uh-uh," she shook her head. "Not uh, s-since last night."
"C'mon, I can get you something if you want," Mira said, waving and taking a couple of steps back toward the house to lead her. The dragon-girl followed, looking somewhere between worried and dazed. But now that the subject was changed it stayed changed; the witch went on to talk about what kind of food would be easy to get out and ready for her guest, as friendly and casual as the invitation to come outside had been in the first place.

Katherine watched them come inside, and lent some of her processing power to Mira so they could have a quick conversation without alerting Rose to it. ...Well?

Don't bring it up. Surely she knows that I know, and by extension you know, but saying it would be like opening up a scabbed-over wound. Seriously, I have a lot of experience with talking people through problems they don't wanna talk about, please trust me on this.

Sure. The catgirl sent along a brief mental nod. So. What do we tell Aria to keep her from saying anything?

Rose has admitted to nothing and I'm still working on it.

I'll pass that along. You should probably stall for a second or two so she can roll up her skill chart and move it out of the kitchen, though.

The "Best" RPG Ever-73

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---

Nora woke up sometime in the middle of the night and, once she was fully conscious, found Zack gone and the bathroom door closed. She changed back to her base, elf form in an effort not to listen, slowly sitting up on the bed and waiting a few minutes. Eventually he came out.

"Zack?"
"Mngh." His eyes were closed in kind of a groggy, permanent wince.

She stood up. "Um, h-hold still a second." He complied, and she came closer, bringing her hands near his stomach and moving a few things gently around. "...There. It um..i-it wouldn't be a good idea to t-try to stop any of it, b-but it should hurt a bit less now."
He breathed a small sigh of relief. "Thanks. But..."

"I'll leave you alone if you want," she said.
"Yeah." He nodded. "Sorry."
"Th-there's no need to apologize," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder for just a second before ducking out back to her own room.

---

It was a little past dawn when Katherine woke up, pulling Aria with her per her request. Some of the others were still asleep, and—she noted—at some point Nora had returned to her own room from Zack's. Hopefully not an argument or anything...

Eventually she decided to just go ahead and make breakfast. There was no need to wake people forcefully, after the early morning they'd had the day before, but the smell would probably bring any of them down who weren't particularly intent on sleeping in. That plan more or less succeeded, although some were slower to come down than others. When Zack was awake and on his way downstairs it was much more obvious what was going on there. Not something she was looking forward to either, although it felt like a very familiar experience now...which it wasn't yet for him. Now was a good time to be particularly nice to him, if possible.

The wolf seemed to have taken notice that something was wrong, too, although possibly he didn't understand exactly what. He sat up next to Zack all throughout breakfast, watching him. It was curious: Usually one might be inclined to think of staying close to someone during a meal as 'begging' behavior, but it seemed perfectly clear to everyone that this was an expression of concern. Fortunately for Zack, the others (apart from Nora, who already knew) had no idea why the wolf seemed particularly concerned. Apart from a somewhat reduced appetite he looked to them just mildly grumpy, which wasn't an abnormal expression from him anyway.

Rayna was the last one down. She was most of the way through her food (everyone else completely done) when Katherine felt a mind diving into their front yard, landing, and starting a short walk toward the door. "Visitor," she said, and stood up from her own empty plate to go see what it was about.

After an insistent knock, the psion opened the door. On the other side was an Avian woman in what seemed like a lighter version of the typical guard armor, with brilliant purple plumage on her wings/arms and the same shade of hair. She had a small but athletic build to her, like a track star or something. "Hey, sorry to bug ya, but better me than what I saw," she said. "Oh, don' worry about the magic circle 'n stuff, I was cleared on that."

"Okay..? What did you see?" Katherine said.

"Well, there's five ogres north of here. Seems like they're bearing this way. Should take 'em 'bout an hour to get here, at the pace I saw. From what I heard, shouldn't be no trouble for you lot, but better you go kill 'em than have 'em wreck your fence or the walls on the way in, right?"
"Sure."

Katherine quickly relayed the message to the others. "I guess we'll get ready to take care of that, then," she said. "Would you like to come inside?"

"I'd like a rest, a little water if you'd let me," she said with a quick nod.

The psion led her into the kitchen, which some of the others were on their way out of. The Avian girl watched them go by with a deeply interested stare, a similar mood behind it to that of someone seeing celebrities up close for their first time. Katherine floated a glass of water to her own hand and held it out to her, and she snapped it up right away, chugging a few large gulps from it before stopping to breathe again.

"I'll point out the direction more specific like for ya, then keep an eye out to see if things go alright," she said. "I got a crossbow for self-defense, but more of a scout than a fighter, y'know. If things look dire I'll get back to town to get reinforcements quick-like."

"We have a door to town," Katherine said, "across from the one you came in through. You could use that to get back faster."
"Well—" she preened her feathers a bit with the opposite hands, and gave a confident, daredevil's grin. "Not faster, mind, but less outta breath for sure. I'll take ya up on that."

"Oh, yeah. Kayriel," she said. "Sorry, guess I shoulda led withat."
"Katherine," the catgirl replied with a slight nod. "Thanks for warning us about the attack."
"Just doin' my job," she said while beaming proudly, directly contradicting the humble statement. "Hey, I'm not keepin' you from gettin' ready am I?"
"No, I'm already prepped," Katherine said, producing a few of her elemental daggers and suspending them above a hand for a moment before dismissing them again. "Armor doesn't exactly suit my fighting style."
"Hah, know the feeling." Kayriel waved to her own light armoring. "Still, a little leather might be good insurance. Little bit a' strength training and it's like it's not even there. I know you're all about usin' your mind but there's no good neglecting the body."
"True enough." The psion crossed her arms. She had a point, certainly. "Anyway, would you mind 'thinking at me' what exactly you saw from up above?"
"Guess not." Katherine received the thought, and got a feel for exactly how things were. That in hand, she started thinking of a plan right away.

The wolf whined at Zack while he was putting on his armor. "What?" He just whined again. "I'll be fine, okay? This is just..normal for this kind of body." The knight reached out a hand and rubbed the top of the wolf's head, which it let him do briefly before backing up out of it. "If I'm not used to it by now, I need to get used to it. No excuses." He resumed getting the armor on. The wolf gave a quiet bark after a moment. "What, am I ever not careful?" It stared him down for a moment. "Fine. I'll, try not to push it, then."

Okay, so there are five ogres: Two on the left, two on the right, one in the middle. From what our guard friend saw, far enough apart to fight separately. Aria says she can handle one of them practically by herself.

Can and did! The shifter thought back proudly. First monster I killed here. The concept of 'killing' didn't carry through Katherine's filter, but it was easy enough to fill in the blank for everyone else's sake.

Right. So...I suggest we do this: Aria, Clera, and Lynn to the right; Mira and Nora in the middle. Take those out as quickly as you can and move toward the left when they're gone. Zack, Rayna and I will be distracting the left two until someone gets there. They are close enough for me to maintain contact with everyone, so I'll be able to keep everyone aware of the situation. Any thoughts?

Yeah, Lynn replied, Why split it up so you three are just a distraction? Or—why lump everyone who can probably kill one of them together instead of putting at least one to a group?

Ogres are big, slow and clumsy, but they hit hard. Right?

Yeah, no kidding, Lynn said back.

So anyone who takes one hit is probably out of commission, except maybe Aria or Clera. Even then, out of the fight for a minute or two and in the former case someone else has to spend time healing her. If that happens, it's better that more of them are already dead to minimize the risks. And our 'real' healers are in the parties that are really fighting them; the three of us should be able to avoid taking a hit for a long while. Just in case though, Zack isn't a 'real' healer but he can at least get someone stable if they take a hit.

You won't take a hit, Zack replied immediately.

Sure. Anyone else?

Do ogres have a particular weakness besides 'demon-blade berserk stabs'? Rayna asked.

Katherine had, fortunately, browsed the book of monsters the night before. They're big mountains of flesh and muscle. The area near one is dangerous. Normal cutting, shooting and stabbing them would work eventually, but big elemental magic at range is probably a better idea.

Before long, everyone assembled out in the front yard, and Kayriel followed them out through a gate and around to the north side of the fence. She ran, jumped and took off into the air, 'thinking' more up-to-date information about where the ogres were to Katherine so everyone could start off on their way and then flew closer to them to keep an eye on the fight. After that, they divided into the proposed groups and started off at a brisk walk.

After walking a short way, Mira took out her broom, shifting to her more 'compact' form at the same time. "We can fly there a little faster than walking, if you don't mind the passenger seat," she said.
"Um. G-good thinking," the elf said with a nod after a second.
"Okay~! Hold on tight."

Aria watched them take off. "Hey, why don't you ever fly any of us around?" she asked Clera.

The winged girl replied with a long look, and then: "Disregarding the obvious arguments from propriety, you are all far too heavy for me to carry, because my mode of flight obeys basic physics."
"Yeah, that's fair..."

It would be difficult to speak over the noise of the air going past them, so Mira checked whether they were still in range of the psion's powers, and received a quick reply that of course they were. You know, I said to hold on tight, but...maybe not that tight.

Sorry! Nora loosened her grip just slightly. I seem to be more afraid of heights than expected. Or at least flying at high speeds on something that feels this precarious!

Trust me, it's perfectly safe! the witch assured her. Judging by the continued white-knuckle grip on her waist, that wasn't really much reassurance. Well, I'll land and let you off once the monster comes in view so you can get stable on your feet before we need to start fighting it.

Thank you.

Mira's thoughts came in again a little later. Hey, are they supposed to have big robes and a cowl on? It came with a mental image of what she was seeing: An ogre wearing just that, holding a giant piece of crudely carved wood with some kind of white crystal socketed into the top.

The one we fought wasn't wearing much of anything, Lynn thought back. And that weapon...

It's probably best to assume 'ogre mage' isn't out of the question, Rayna said. Be careful with him.

Yep!

She landed (still a ways off, as promised), and Nora got off, shaky for just a moment before taking a deep breath and drawing herself up again. "Good?" the witch asked.
"I should be all right." She shifted to the wolfish form for its slight boost to durability.
"Great! I'll get his attention pointed this way, so don't wear yourself out running." Mira shifted to her more 'mature' form again, and flew forward toward the monster's position. The weaver followed her at a pace that felt just below what would leave her out of breath.

As soon as she had a clear shot, Mira drew her arm around, forming a magic circle to fire a brief volley of ice spikes in the direction of the ogre's head. The first one hit, burying a short way into its forehead, and the monster roared in pain and rage, raising its 'staff' and producing a blazing aura around it that melted the rest of the shots on their way in.

"Oh, do you like fire?" the witch smirked, raising her hand and lobbing a demonic fireball at him. This caught him in the shoulder, and he faltered, dropping the aura. This time he noticed her and charged at her, making one violent swing of the staff that fired a bolt of lightning through the air. It barely missed her as she jerked her flight instinctively to one side with the swing, and the thunder from it at that distance was deafening. "Whooaa there!"

By now Nora was close enough to collapse some of the earth under the monster's feet, throwing it off balance and making it stumble for a second or two. Mira capitalized on this to throw more fire at him with one hand and draw another ice-spike circle with the other, then quickly circle around toward his back as he swatted more lightning toward her in response.

Aria pulled out her sword as their targets came into sight, with a hungry, slightly crazed grin that might have looked outright evil if it was directed toward people instead of monsters. "Hey," Lynn put a hand on her shoulder, making her pause for a second. "Be a little careful, okay? Trust me, you don't want to be a golfball for these guys."

"Heheh, 'course. I've learned a few tricks since then," Aria said, unleashing the weapon on the word 'tricks'. It turned into the harpoon-and-chain form she'd first tried out on the ice dog demon. "I'll take 'em out from a niiice distance." Then she broke into a full-tilt run toward the monsters. After sharing a quick look, Lynn and Clera took off after her, the latter taking off into the air after building enough speed.

Aria had a good idea of her range, and stopped well short of the monsters, throwing all of her momentum and strength behind the harpoon. It sailed through the air and punctured one ogre's stomach, making him flinch backward for a second. He reacted quickly, pulling it out and tossing it back, but the delay had been long enough to drain quite a bit of blood, and while Aria held up the handle of her weapon and let it retract back into sword form seamlessly the monster she'd hit staggered woozily from the sudden loss.

The one she hadn't hit roared and charged, club held high—at least until a massive fireball that had started out as a burning arrow went through the wooden weapon, cutting through the portion just past the monster's hand like it was butter. The ogre ran straight into the disconnected piece of blazing wood, and recoiled with a more pained cry. "Great shot!" Aria yelled, making a single flying leap to capitalize on the advantage. Her sword slimmed and lengthened along the way, until it was the sort of thing a JRPG antagonist would envy, and with a two-handed swing she made it slice right through the ogre's neck, cleaving its head clean off. The blade drew back to her hands and broke into several knives attached to the handle by chains, all of which were thrown at the monster's corpse in swift order to more efficiently drain out the blood while it was still fresh.

A brief mental conversation agreed Aria was probably going to be too busy 'eating' to finish off the other ogre, so Clera flew toward it, chanting a somewhat stronger fire spell than the moderate amplification one she'd used a moment ago. He was staggering in Aria's direction to try a last-ditch attack, but Lynn fired a bolt arrow straight into his eye, not only stunning him from the pain of that but sending a shock through his body, leaving him a massive convulsing target for Clera's spell. A small, white fireball fell from her to its body, and exploded like a high-yield bomb on contact, incinerating most of the monster and some of the grass and dirt he'd been standing on in the process.

Aria turned toward the noise of the explosion and pouted a little bit. Hey, I wasn't finished with that!

Clera landed next to her, and Lynn walking up. Can't have you getting stuffed yet, the archer thought, pointing in the direction of the middle ogre, and particularly the lightning going unnaturally up into the sky from him.

Okay, that's fair. Aria retracted her weapon back to its native form, and held it up. "Let's gooo!" she shouted, charging toward their next target.

Aim some fire at the grass, please.

Uh, okay? Mira followed instructions, sending a demonic fireball toward the section of grass just ahead of Nora. The heat lit natural flames, which the weaver picked up, amplified, and threw at the ogre before he could send another lightning bolt the witch's way. The blaze destroyed much of his robe and burned his body too, drawing another roar from him and his ire in the elf's direction. He responded predictably, throwing lightning at her. Rather than trying to dodge, she stood her ground, grabbing the lightning as it came close and turning it around, straight toward his center of mass. The hulking monster couldn't react anywhere near quick enough to dodge or block that, and shuddered as the electricity coursed through his nervous system. Mira gave him some more ice spikes while he was staggered, but he shook it off quickly, and threw lightning her way again.

Nora tilted the ground under the ogre, but he slammed the staff onto the ground in response this time, forcing the earth level under him again. She drew a small bit of electricity from her own nerves and rapidly amplified it, throwing the result at him; it wasn't as strong as the reflected shot had been, but he was stunned long enough for Mira to fly around behind him and try to catch her breath for a second.

This guy's giving us a lot of trouble, the witch said.

On your way! Clera was actually visible in the sky by now.

Careful, he likes to throw lightning around! Hey, how're you guys holding up? she asked Katherine. Obviously well enough, since mental communication was still working, but...

Don't worry about us, the catgirl replied. Rayna has these guys on a string. The ogres were ineffectually swatting at nothing for the moment.

We could use some of that with mister happy strikes over here, you know!

Katherine looked toward Zack and the wolf, who were both taking a short breather. "Zack?"
He nodded. "We can handle it."

Rayna turned her head back to them for a second. If you're sure. I'll turn 'em away from us and make a break for it.

The knight just gave her another determined nod. An illusory crowd of people ran away from the ogres in the direction opposite the four of them, sending the monsters on a wild chase in that direction for a bit before dissipating and leaving them briefly confused. Then the fox-girl ran toward the ogre-mage's position.

Zack took several steps forward, raising his shield, and when the ogres turned around they both started in his direction. The wolf ran toward the one on the left, loudly barking as he came just inside its range, baiting it to swing before leaping away. The ogre gave chase while its companion came to Zack and swung its club at him, meeting much the same response. When the giant monster's stride nearly caught up to him, Katherine drew its attention to her instead, making it turn around and move her way. The wolf was faster than either of them, enough to keep well ahead of the ogre chasing it, and he made sure the psion knew about his confidence in that.

Since throwing him off balance wasn't working very well, Nora fired another taser's worth of electricity at the ogre. While he was stunned a volley of smaller fireballs came from Clera's direction, and was then met with more lightning. She was already making evasive maneuvers, a complicated diving and swerving pattern of flight that seemed well-practiced and designed to avoid just this kind of thing, so there wasn't much reason to worry about her.

Aria charged in at this point, throwing her weapon in harpoon form at the ogre. He caught it with his free hand, and pulled. "Not this time!" The shifter stood her ground, holding the handle on the other end of the chains with both hands while the harpoon turned rapidly into a condensed ball of spikes, piercing the ogre's hand and forcing him to let go. She used the momentum to swing it around as it converted into a shorter-range ball-and-chain, and then threw it at him again, sending the spiked ball straight through the fireball he'd aimed at her as a retort. It slammed into his side, drawing more blood until he used his injured, free hand to yank it out and throw it back at her again. Then he tried a lightning strike.

Nora had run up next to Aria while this was happening, and grabbed the electricity into another rebound strike, stunning him. Thanks! The shifter charged, throwing a thicker harpoon from shorter range into the ogre's body. By now Lynn was close enough to start shooting a volley of arrows at him; Mira also had a number of ice spike circles set up, and she activated all of them at once with a snap of her fingers. The monster roared, pulling the harpoon out with one hand and raising its staff with the other to produce the flame aura again. Clera dispelled the aura, allowing more of the spikes and arrows through, and then the ogre began flailing his staff around wildly, sending lightning in every direction he could.

Get down! The elf was barely able to deflect the rapid-fire of lightning away from herself and Aria. Lynn followed her advice, as did Clera after a swift, somewhat rough landing. Mira was a little too high up, and flew up and away from him instead, making herself a far less likely target for the wild strikes. After a moment the ogre stopped, panting heavily and looking around. He didn't see anyone, because Rayna had finally arrived and made them invisible. She gave him a reasonable fascimile of Mira in the opposite direction of the real one to start shooting at, and nodded to Aria, who gave her most vicious grin yet in response before taking a brisk walk toward the monster. In a moment her sword cleaved through the arm holding the staff and then struck into his body with the same motion. He roared, but the staff had clearly been the sole source of his magic. He could only flail his other arm somewhat ineffectually until he lost consciousness from the rapid loss of blood.

Zack doubled over, out of breath and not feeling well. Katherine drew both of the ogres to herself, knowing from sensory information that the wolf needed a breather too—despite his mental insistence that he could keep going. They both ran to her, weapons raised. After dancing through a few swings Katherine was turned the wrong way and could only dodge by reading their intent and listening to the weapons moving through the air. She was surprised when first one, then the other of the clubs failed to move in the predicted direction, or seemingly at all, and made an awkard turn-around to try and see what was happening.

Both the monsters' wooden clubs had spontaneously grown massive vines which were now tightly wound around their wielders' limbs. Panting softly, the catgirl looked around for a moment, trying to figure out how or why this had happened, until she looked up to see Rose diving straight at them. She crashed into the neck of one monster feet first, planting her claws firmly through it, and then made a quick front-flip to the other one, tearing his throat out with one clean slash of her hands. There was a terrifying, sudden animal-like ferocity to her movements; the ogres were dead in a matter of seconds and then she just hopped gently down to the ground.

"Hey!" She waved, then looked around to wave at Zack and the wolf too. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, we're...fine," Katherine managed to get out, still catching her breath. Aria had just finished off the ogre mage, so all of the monsters were now dead. "Thanks...for the assist."
"No problem~!" Rose beamed from the gratitude, her hands and feet still dripping with monster blood but otherwise looking every bit as friendly and harmless as always.

The "Best" RPG Ever-72

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---

Nora entered Zack's room to find him sitting up on the side of the bed, facing her. "Uh..hey."
"Zack," she nodded, trying not to pay attention to the loud thumping of his tail against the bed from the moment he'd seen her; it was far too distractingly cute and she'd just braced herself to ask about something serious. "Um..a-are you, okay?" she asked with a concerned look.
"Hmn?"

"I mean, what you talked about today. Th-the, your 'past' here," she clarified, moving closer and then slowly sitting next to him. "I mean—tonight Fazren t-told me that I was rescued from human—uh, p-people traffickers, probably. Whatever happened to 'me' before then, I d-don't remember at all because of how young I was. Probably a-any unconscious effects from that trauma have mostly smoothed over from the years I was raised at the t-temple, aside from a slight speech impediment. But your memories...p-people you cared about died. A lot of them. You were there, you s-saw it happen."

Zack nodded.

"It's just..th-that's the kind of thing someone never gets completely past. And it's, j-just been forced in a-as something you remember, something real..."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, a little too quickly. Then, after a short pause: "No, I guess I'm not totally over it. It's, just that the memories come with a lot of experience ignoring them, too. If anything it...reminds me how easy it is for people to die. Not just here, but back on Earth—prolly any other world, too." He shook his head slightly. "It's good to have friends again, with all of you here. Sometimes..the others can get kind of annoying, but I really like all of them, honestly. But I guess I'm terrified I'll lose you all, too. Really, that's...something I always had trouble with. Maybe it's a little worse with it feeling justified somehow..."

"Zack..." It seemed like an awfully cruel set of memories to saddle someone with. Nora leaned over to offer him a hug, and he returned it, gently pushing her over onto her back after a moment.

"I just try not to think about it," he said quietly. "Maybe it doesn't make anything better, but it feels like it helps. Anyway...it makes me want to appreciate the time we do have together more." He smiled ever so slightly, and Nora's heart practically melted from seeing that. Then the wolf-girl leaned her head in and nuzzled her cheek a bit, letting out a soft "Mrrh." She changed to her own wolfish form and returned the gesture, gently curling her tail around Zack's. Maybe..sometimes it was better to just forget about all of it for a while.

The wolf-girl pulled back slightly after a short while. "..You won't tell everyone I said I like them, will ya?"
"Hmn? Uh..th-that's. No," she said.

"Good..."

But they already know it...

---

Mira popped out of her room when Rayna came out of the stairwell, Lynn behind her. "Soo~, do you wanna come to my room tonight?"

"Uhhhh." The fox-girl blushed furiously, getting some very conflicting internal signals. "No, I'm. I think I can only take so much 'affection' at a time, okay? I-I'm still kinda weirded out by the way I reacted last night, and uh.."
"Awh. That's okay," the witch nodded. "I'll leave you alone so you can sort things out."

"Maybe try Kath tonight?" she suggested, half-jokingly, with a vague gesture in her room's direction. Lynn was busy quietly and slowly fleeing to her room in a clear attempt to stay completely out of the present conversation, and she had no particular interest in pulling her into it.
"I don't think that's gonna happen," she said, crossing her arms. Then she raised her hand in a quick peace sign. "No biggie. See you in the morning~." After that, the witch quickly slid back into her room and shut the door quietly.

Lynn, now standing in front of her door, looked at Rayna. "Hey, your face is redder than your hair."

"Have you looked at her lately?" the illusionist said, striding up toward her own door—and closer to Lynn at the same time. "She has like an, effective charisma bonus toward girls. I'm pretty sure it's not intentional." Then, in a much quieter voice: "And somehow knowing about it makes it that much worse..."

"Incubus powers, huh." Lynn nodded. "You should tell her in the morning, that's really not the kind of thing someone should not know about themselves. Maybe it's weaker for me 'cause I'm already interested in someone else?"

"I really can't say. It could be stronger on me for..some other reason. For all I know, I mean. Anyway I'm gonna go try not to think about it for the next three hours and maybe get to sleep after that," she said, ducking into her room immediately after.

---

It was difficult not to concede Tsaron's point about conversation efficiency, at least a little bit, when someone planned to say something so well and so far in advance that Katherine could probably predict the entire conversation before it ever happened—all in loud, basic surface thought. Clera just didn't want to interrupt the conversation that raged all the way through dinner, and then elected to go scrounge the library for a spellbook that might contain a spell the extra soul didn't already know, and then didn't want to disturb her while her guest was still there, which was nice, and so kept on reading. Then she was so distracted by the reading that she was only now getting up from the chair to go see whether Katherine was still awake.

But of course she was still awake. Sitting up on her bed and trying to be patient, waiting for a conversation which even now the winged girl was busy reciting again in her head, in case she forgot something. It was two sentences long! There was nothing extaordinary to be said! What kind of obsessive, neurotic thought pattern required that much preparation for this?

She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was a mind reader, not a mind critic. Anyway, it's not like she didn't have an answer for that. It could even be answered be another question: What do you get when you cross a surgeon who triple-checks everything for the slightest risk to a patient with a mage who understands deeply the importance of specific, careful thinking and precise ritual in spellcasting? How can someone like that not let the careful, methodical way of thinking spill out into the rest of the mind, rather than risk casual carelessness leaking into the 'important' parts?

Imagine yourself in her shoes. Clera had no reason to think her behavior was irritating. If anything, she was acting (or failing to act—rather failing to speak) entirely out of concern for others. Katherine was being unreasonable in a way that her powers alone permitted someone to be. It was not normal to demand other people have surface thoughts in a way that would be convenient for her. She couldn't demand that people treat her more or less like a normal person not privy to their thoughts and then fail to act like one in return. Right?

A hand was raised to knock gently on the door. The psion bit back a slight urge to open it right away, waited for two soft raps and the hand to be dropped. "Come in," she said, now pulling it open.

"I hope I haven't disturbed you," she said.

"No, I'm still awake. What do you need?"

"Ah...I was wondering if you'd allow me—us, whatever you desire to call it to join you tonight." Sentence one. Followed by suddenly remembering another detail: "Although, I suppose it is Aria's mind."
"She put up an open invitation two or three days ago, and hasn't revoked it yet. Remember her dreams are in real time and immensely boring, possibly insanity inducing too, without other minds to interact with."

"Of course."
"Anyway, yeah. No problem. Soon as you're asleep if you want," she gave a quick thumbs-up.

"To be clear—this isn't something I want you to keep doing after tonight—but in case I ever get tired of conversing with, myself, I would at least like to know what the alternative is." Sentence two.

"Yep. Noted." Katherine nodded. There, now can we both go to sleep please? She mentally flicked a metaphorical wrist for the impatient thought. Stop that, Me.

"Alright. Good night," she said, "although I suppose I'll see you again before long."

"Sure."

---

Aria tried meditating for a little while. It was quite clear that doing something like this was simply against her nature, even sans demon-mind-link. She was much better at running around doing things—or at least thinking them—than sitting still thinking of nothing at all. Every minute she sat there seemed palpable, until she 'felt' the presence of another person behind her.

The shifter popped up, turning around. "Ah! Finally."
"Yeah, sorry, you fell asleep pretty early and I was up a little later than usual," she said. "Now to get everyone else in—right?"
It sounded like she was asking permission—as if she even needed to. "Yep, let's get this started!" Aria said with a small fist-pump.

"Right, well..." She first pulled Mira in; her dream landscape this time was apparently a big dark forest with bright Halloween decorations strewn around. "Hi, Mira. Looks like your first dream here again?"
The witch looked around, only now seeming to really take the forest in. "A little yeah! I guess this is just what the head-space looks like when I'm not being fed new memories, or something. We should go exploring around again!"

"Maybe—we'll see. It's not like I can't be in two places at once here anyway."

The right edge of Aria's vision gained a dusky level of light, transitioning to a more normal, non-decorated forest in the afternoon, and particularly a path cutting through it. Rayna and Lynn, in somewhat flashier clothes than they usually wore while awake, walked into view from seemingly the location of the cliff that Aria and the catgirl were on, continuing a conversation seemingly about the city they had just left for a moment before both noticed something had happened, and looked around.

"Oh. Uh. Hi," Rayna said, seeing Mira. She looked toward Lynn for a second: "I kinda forgot about this."

"Yeah, me too," the witch said. "I guess it's just still weird to say I'll see somebody in my dreams, even if I know I will."
"I can put you back if you want," Katherine offered to Rayna, waving.
"No, nope. This works fine for me," she said, shaking her head. Lynn nodded, indicating she wanted to stay too.

"You forgot to say something?" Mira prompted, head tilting slightly.

"Well, no. I just noticed something I thought you might better know about," said the fox-girl, walking through the strip of dusk into Mira's more festive woods. "My 'sight' is showing a, uh, pretty substantial passive charisma boost toward girls. Aaand its effects are pretty obvious now that I'm aware of it."

"Oh, yeah, that skill," the witch said, crossing her arms and shaking her head slightly. "On the 'incubus' part of the tree. It's on the way to some stuff I want for other reasons. I only bought it once, but it's passive, so I can't exactly turn it off either."

"Maybe the real problem is the way you always talk turning the charm up to eleven anyway," Rayna said.

"Aw~wh, I'm glad you think that," she said with a light blush, which made the fox-girl blush a little more brightly and back away slightly.
"L-like that! Stop it.."

Mira put her arms up to the sides in surrender. "I can't help who I am."

"A-hem." Katherine cleared her imaginary throat to get everyone's attention. "Clera also asked to join us just for tonight. Since she seems to be aware of her dreams as long as she wants to be, I'll try something a little different..."

With a slight wave of her hand, the psion made a door rise up out of the ground on the border between the forest and cliff face. Then she knocked on it. After a moment it was opened from the inside by a very androgynous-looking person with long brown hair and a very pretty face, wearing a suit that seemed a little loose on the shoulders and tight on the hips. Behind was a mid-sized living room, a woman strongly resembling the Clera they knew but with white wings and dark hair was sitting in a chair.

"Clera, Dr. Kellen," she said. "Would you like to join us or should we join you?"
The person at the door—Ian Kellen—leaned his head out the door to look around. "I don't think there's room in my living room for all of you. Not that that actually means anything, but.." The voice sounded pretty feminine—a low alto, maybe. He stepped outside, and Clera rose and followed him out.

"So you really are two separate people in your dreams, huh," Aria said, coming a little closer to the doctor. "I mean—I knew that, not that I didn't believe you, but it's somethin' else to actually see it."
"I imagine so." He nodded.

Lynn came up. "I guess you've technically been a male mind, at least in dreams, but it's..what, wearing off?"

He sighed. "It makes little difference to me, so the longer I stay in that body and the more comfortable I become with it, the more I think of myself as female." As if in response to his saying that, his height visibly sank slightly. "I, appear to be in the final throes of that change, as well..."

Clera made her way over toward Mira as soon as she was out of the door, and stared at her for a long moment.

"What?" the witch said, giving a confused expression.
"I don't really know. I've read a lot about witches and warlocks, but never thought I'd meet one anywhere besides combat. From seeing you in the waking world, you seem nothing like the characterizations I've read of the type."

"Well, I'm committed to being nice," she said.
"Exactly. That." She pointed at Mira for effect. "By definition a witch is a person willing to give up their original self, their reputation—maybe their very soul—for power. That kind of desperation or power-hunger just doesn't seem compatible with being nice."

"You got her history at the same time as the rest of us," Rayna said. "Besides not really being from this world at all, so her nature is different just from that, the backstory here says she wanted to be a witch so young she didn't even understand the price—and for reasons that had nothing to do with desperation or greed. Right?"

"Heheh, yeah...I guess in both versions of events I just thought it was cool. For, different reasons though." Mira shrank into her 'original' appearance, not much taller than Clera. "Remember: My first experience on this world of a witch was a kind lady who was nice to us orphans and beat up the mean bullies sometimes."

Clera backed up slightly. "Yeegh. It's unsettling to see you change forms so fast..."

The witch tilted her head. "You're not bothered by shifters, are you?"

"Most shifters can only change a tiny bit at a time. Aria is a freakish talent who can do things in seconds that would take most shifters days to a month," she said.

"Woohoo, I'm a freak!" Aria had moved steadily closer to their conversation, and chose this moment to interrupt from a foot or so behind Clera, making the winged girl jump so high it seemed like she was going to fly away.
"Don't, DO that!" she said, glaring.
"Oh. Uh, sorry." Aria put a hand behind her head for a second or two, then dropped it again.

Lynn came over, too. "Hey Clera. Maybe there's something you can help us clear up."

"And, what is that?" she said.

With just a look from the human, Rayna realized what the subject was, and tried to get her map out of her inventory again. Even though they were dreaming, this caused a reasonable fascimile of what she could remember of it to appear, already unfolded, in her hand. "Take a look at this."

The winged girl leaned in a bit. "Some kind of map..?"

"The whole map. Well, as much of the world as Lynn and I have been to plus some; pretty much everything but the frontier." Rayna turned toward where Katherine was still speaking to Dr. Kellen. "Table please?" A slight wave of the catgirl's hand produced a long table and a bunch of chairs, too; she placed the map on the table.

"So, have you seen something like this before?" Lynn asked, pointing at the map. "Like, at magic college?"

"Only in passing. My interest wasn't really in geography.."

"What about history? Do you know much of that?"
"A fair bit, yes," she said with a slight nod.
"Has anyone ever tried to go all the way around the world? In any vehicle? Or—even flying themselves?"
"Of course," she said. "Not very many are successful, but some Avians see trying to get around the world under one's own power as a sort of rite of passage. It usually takes a whole year or more to do it, though, and of course the route tends to meander a bit..."
"Do they ever fly over the frontier?" Rayna asked.

"Not unless they're suicidal!" Clera's wings flared out a bit. "That big bird we met you fighting is the tip of the iceberg. One of us tries flying out that way very far, we'll get snapped up and fed to the chicks of something two or three times that size. Even landing for a short break too close to monster lands can be fatal."

"So there's not somebody who's flown deep enough into the frontier to see what's in the middle of it and lived to tell the tale," Lynn said.
"The middle?" Clera appeared unfamliar with this concept.

"Yeah. There's only one frontier," Rayna said. "You can see it on the map, there's just one fuzzy border. I mean, it's pretty big but—"

"It seems logical that this thing has a center, more or less. And something might be there," Lynn finished.
"Well. Nobody'd be foolish enough to try to look for it," the winged girl said with a nod. "The monsters even as far out as we are now are frequently capable of crushing entire armies." She leaned over, pointing to the dot indicating the city they'd spent much of their time in. "Having an actual city here, that's survived more than one generation, is nothing short of an anomaly. The blessing of the gods, a more superstitious person might say."

"Or it could be the work of one ancient, overpowered jill-of-all-trades with some very well-trained guards," Rayna said.

"One army alone's not enough," Lynn said. "I think it's more the constant flow of adventurers willing to go take risky hunts probably helps quite a bit as well."

"I still can't believe we killed a fire giant today," Clera said. "Even with significant heat resistance, the best strategy for dealing with one of those is to pray to the gods that you're not on its path and it'll burn itself out elsewhere."

Mira wandered away from the conversation not long after Rayna pulled out the map, much more interested in Ian Kellen. "You know, you say it makes no difference but you look a bit uncomfortable," she said.
He shifted on his feet slightly. "Well, it's simply that it 'feels' uncomfortable. Especially for how long it's dragged out by now."
"Well—why not just, y'know, finish it?" she suggested. "You know you're in a dream, so just think that you'd like the changeover to hurry up and finish now and it should happen. I mean—Aria was able to grow wings and fly in here, even though shifters are usually too heavy to do that."

"You're mentally strong enough to turn into an elephant if you want to," Katherine said, putting a hand out toward him for a second.

"Hmph. Well, I suppose it is worth a try. Not the elephant—" he clarified after a brief instant. "Just, ending this."

Dr. Kellen focused on completing the transformation, such as it was. Just hurry up and be female, and whatever else you're turning into, he told his body (which was imaginary anyway). Right away he felt a mildly familiar tug between his legs, and let out a soft "Oh.." A faint blush crossed his face as it became hers; she shrank only a tiny bit more, but her body visibly reshaped as she did so: Hips widening more, shoulders and stomach narrowing further, and a pair of mid-sized breasts rapidly growing into place, making the suit extremely ill-fitting on her. She opened her eyes, frowned at the attire briefly, and it blew about as if in the wind briefly, reorganizing itself. The pants changed into a blue pleated skirt and dark stockings, the tie into a bowtie; the jacket outside and the white shirt inside simply shrank to fit a little better while the outer vest changed into a tan sweater top. After that, she looked up and actually smiled.

"Well, this is much more comfortable," she said. Her voice hadn't actually changed further, but her inflection seemed more feminine now, clearly willing to emphasize its higher range. "Thanks, Mira."

"Heheh, don't mention it," the witch nodded. "I dunno how much your thoughts influenced it exactly, but that's a cute look on you~."
"Thank you," she nodded. The smile faded to Dr. Kellen's more serious expression, but was still clearly present in her eyes.

Clera ran over. "Hey, did I miss something?!" Now that she was looking, the answer was fairly obvious. "I could feel that. I guess you're through?" she said, looking her body-mate over.

"It would appear so. This won't likely have much effect on our behavior, aside from the body being marginally more comfortable."
"Still, I'm glad it's over with. You did seem a bit uncomfortable with it."
"Indeed." She put out a hand toward the witch. "Mira was astute enough to notice."
"Awwh, you're just trying to make me blush now," she said.

Aria, having followed, came up behind the 'new' girl, and put a hand on her head to ruffle her hair a bit. "Hey, you turned out really cute!"
"Aack!" Ian whirled and backed off, visibly blushing. "S-stop that at once!"
"Quit approaching us from behind, would you?!" Clera added.

"Well, that's just no fun," the shifter said.

---

Please ignore the text on the image there. I have no idea what it says but it's not (intentionally) relevant, nor was it really feasible for me to remove.

The "Best" RPG Ever-71

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---

It was really surprising that having wings didn't make lying on one's back significantly less comfortable, as long as one was careful about their positioning. Mira, tired of sitting down, had decided to continue reading on the bed in her room. It was truly fascinating how well she seemed to understand the descriptions and methods for casting the spells in the book, although there were varying responses on whether or not she actually felt able to cast them herself. It was enlightening anyway; if they ever needed to fight a mage or something she might even be able to tell which long-winded—therefore powerful—spell they were casting before they finished casting it, and prepare everyone else appropriately.

There was a knock on the door, so she sat up and swung around to the side of the bed, setting the book down still open and running a hand through her hair. That was one thing lying on the bed like that didn't do any favors for, but the 'wild' look was decently cute on her anyway, she thought—at least under the right circumstances. "Come in."

Aria stepped inside, waving a little awkwardly. "Heyy. There's something I've needed to talk to you about all day, but didn't really get a chance to," she said.

"Yeah?"
"Okay, I know you probably weren't paying much attention to this last night but—right when we were about to summon the demon. You said something about getting off track, I mentioned a trainwreck and then Murphy's law."
"I remember that. It did seem a little weird," the witch nodded.

"I was watching Rose the whole time. Uhh—so, yesterday, when I was talking to Loren I said something about the conversation going off the rails. He was very confused by that, and I was pretty sure why. This morning I made sure.

"They don't have trains here," she said with an emphatic, sweeping motion of her hands. "Why would you waste a bunch of metal and wood and whatever laying down tracks, and come up with steam engines, when there are magic crystals and people who can teleport you back and forth between them? And they don't have anyone named Murphy famous for a law about everything going wrong."

"Only what can go wrong," Mira corrected. "So, you were watching our dragon friend at the time and—"
"She didn't react! She didn't look confused or, anything. And I could tell she was paying attention too. I think she might be from Earth."

"Mmhm." Mira gave a pointed pause. "So, why are you telling me this instead of waiting to ask her yourself?"
"Because—okay look. There are three possibilities for why she didn't react to me saying that stuff." She counted on her right fingers: "One: She's from Earth and doesn't know we are. Two: She's from earth, knows we are, doesn't want us to know about her for some reason. Three: She's not from Earth and just took what I said in stride because she's barely interacted with people at all for centuries and is completely used to not understanding every expression she hears. If it's one then sure, fine, I could handle it. But if it's two or three then—nooo, bad idea."

"How come?"
"Well, I'm not—I can't really."

Aria took a moment to get the words together. "Ever since I got here, I've been terrible at putting anything the right way," the shifter said. "Half of what I say I didn't really want to say, and the other half I don't say it right. Or—I dunno, maybe I've always had trouble with this stuff and never noticed it because I was around people who always 'got what I meant' or something."

"You seem to communicate fine around me," said the witch with an encouraging smile. "Maybe I'm just that sort of person, though."

"Sure. Um." Something about the way Mira had said that flustered the shifter for a second, with the slightest tint of red to her cheeks even. Cute. "Uh...th-the point is, if something needs to be handled tactfully, or talked about delicately, I am the wrong person to do it. We're talking about an extremely lonely dragon who might be keeping a secret from us for, like, an emotionally upsetting reason for all I know? Or possibly asking her something that's complete nonsense to her and then needing to skate by that confusion carefully so she stops thinking about it."

"That's fair. Rayna might be a little more persuasive than I am though, if that's what you're going for," Mira suggested.
"Maybe? But it seems like you're a little closer with Rose than she is. Right? You've got a—thing going," she said, putting her index fingers together in an attempt to express what said thing was. "Maybe you can get her to admit to something she wouldn't to someone else. Orr, you know what she'd be ready to accept as 'just joking' if that needs to be it."

"I suppose you're right about that," the witch nodded. "Well, I'll try and get her alone to talk with her the next time she's in town."

"Good. I guess I'll probably find out what the results are one way or another."
"Yep. But no need to spread it around to everyone until we are sure," Mira said.

---

Katherine left the door unlocked, since she was standing nearly right next to it, and so was able to 'see' Jacob's mind as he came toward it. The main thing that kept her from opening the door before he even arrived at it was a strong desire to not be like Tsaron toward other people; she (im)patiently waited for him to come and actually knock on the door, and then waited a second or two longer before opening it up.

Zack, the guy's here.

Got it. He set the wooden sword in the rack it had come from, and started toward the door into the house. The wolf raised its head, then stood up and shook itself once before coming up next to him. "We have a couple of visitors. Don't scare them half to death this time if you can help it," he said. The wolf grunted once, a slightly displeased agreement to that much.

"Hey there. C'mon in," Katherine said, waving the elf inside. Jacob nodded, coming inside.
"Where is this, exactly?" he wondered aloud, looking around at the size of the place.
"It's out east of the city proper. We were offered to have this place built in exchange for helping defend this side—well, along with a few other favors."

"I thought it looked a little big for being where it looked like it was. So—the door's a link portal, then?"
"Yep."

"This far out...couldn't have been cheap to set up. But I suppose can see how the benefit might be worth it for them."

They headed for the living room, and Nora sat up from leaning forward as she saw them coming in. Fazren, following her eyes, turned toward that side and saw them too. "Oh, hello there," he said with a small wave. A few introductions followed; Katherine noted that Jacob introduced himself as a scholar but didn't say exactly what he was studying, evidently uncertain how a priest of Haestra would take the news that it was 'monsters' or 'chaos magic'.

After that, Zack came in, the wolf following. "..And this is Zack, and that's the dire wolf," Katherine said, gesturing toward them.
"I..see." Jacob seemed to visibly resist an urge to take a large step back while he looked at the animal, especially since it greeted him with a quiet, slightly suspicious growl.

"You need to get close to scan him?" Zack asked.

"Er—that would be best, I think."
The knight turned back toward the beast, and pointed to a spot near one of the room's walls. "Sit, please." Then he knelt over to come face to face with the wolf once it obeyed. "That guy's gonna wave his hands over you or something. I want you to stay still, and not threaten him, okay?" The wolf's response was close to a 'hmph' but its tail wagged some, indicating its willingness to obey.

Zack stood back up, turning toward Jacob and Katherine. "He should be good for you now. Or if he's not, tell me." Then he moved closer to the center of the room, having noticed Nora with her visitor present by now.

"Er, hi Zack. Th-this is uh, Fazren. One of the priests from my temple," she said. Then, toward the Vulpin man: "Uh..Zack."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss," he said with a friendly grin, putting out a hand to shake. Zack came just close enough to reach it and made one up-down motion before pulling his hand away again.

"You're not planning to take her back," he said, more of an imperative than a query.
"Oh, of course not," Fazren nodded. "There were merely a few things to discuss, besides wanting to catch up of course..." Now that his eyes were on the knight, his head tilted slightly sideways as he appeared to notice something.

"Hmm. If I am not mistaken, something seems to be binding your appearance," he said.

"Yes, I have a curse," Zack said, crossing his arms. "It's a long story."
"Form-locking? I'm not sure I understand how a form that appealing qualifies as a curse."
The wolf-girl's ears folded down as far as they would go. "I'm a man."
"Oh! Well, that clarifies the matter some," Fazren nodded. "Although, it can't be all bad if your curse lets you live among so much beauty, can it?" Nora had practically seen this response coming, but couldn't think of a good way to warn him against it quickly enough. The knight just glared at him silently, visibly repressing an urge to growl only because that would probably have agitated the wolf nearby.

"My...I'm trying to be friendly, but it's clear I've only offended you instead. I do apologize," Fazren said.

Meanwhile, Jacob slowly approached the wolf, and when it didn't open its mouth to bite his head off, raised his hands near it. Its eyes watched him, ears lowering some in suspicion, but it didn't move, as per its alpha's request. Katherine could see him trying hard to concentrate against a persistent fear that it would snap his hands off, and subtly shared a little of the mental load of the spell he was casting to ensure nothing would go wrong.

He tuned out the conversation just behind him, and a faint glow appeared from his hands. His expression turned slightly confused, and he moved his hands downward, still glowing, and continued doing so, kneeling himself, nearly down to the floor. Then back up again, to the top of the wolf's head, before he finally ended the scan, dropping his hands to the side.

"Something wrong?" Katherine's voice drew Zack's attention back away from Fazren, and he turned around to see what was going on.

"I'm just not sure what to make of what I'm seeing," Jacob said. "The evidence of my eyes tell me I am looking at a dire wolf, which can't be this big without the help of chaotic magic. But my scan sees no more than the ambient concentration...in fact, I think it's a little less."

"So what's that mean exactly?" Zack said.

"Well, ah. It's not much use for my research in particular, but it certainly explains why he's so...friendly." Jacob took a careful step away from the wolf as he said this. "Now that I think of it, I believe I saw a higher concentration of normal magic in there than I'd expect from an animal too..even accounting for size. Hmm. How exactly did..ah...?"
"'Joining our pack' go?" Katherine supplied—not the words he'd been about to use, but the ones that would probably offend the wolf the least. "He was leading around a big pack of dire wolves, and after we killed a lot of them he walked up and challenged Zack to a one-on-one fight."
"I suppose you read this off of his mind?" said the elf; she nodded. "What sort of mind is it?"

"It's not too different from a person's. I guess that is pretty unusual for an animal now that I think of it..."

"Right. Well, whatever's going on, I would guess it started before you met him then. Maybe someone tried something to reverse the effects of chaotic magic on him, and decided the experiment had failed, let him back in the wild—when in fact it merely worked more slowly than expected?"

The wolf barked once, startling Jacob.
"Uh...he says he's never been captured by anyone," Katherine said.

The scholar stood himself upright and brushed off a sleeve, trying to pretend he hadn't jumped quite so high a second ago. "That, would make such an experiment more difficult, but not necessarily impossible. Maybe even explains how they could've lost track of him before noticing it was taking effect...?"

"Either way, this doesn't really help with what you wanted to figure out," the psion concluded.

"That's correct," Jacob said with a small nod.
"I guess we'd have to actually take you along to scan a real animal-monster, then. Have someone hold it in place, maybe. Or—would a just-killed one be good enough?"
"Perhaps? I-I'm not sure my presence would be a very good idea, though.."
"If I may," Fazren interrupted, "what is it you're studying, exactly?"

"Ah." This was a question Jacob feared, particularly from him. "Well. Hm." He was trying to figure out how to put it.
"He's trying to figure out how chaotic magic affects creatures to turn them to monsters," Katherine said. "Or where monsters come from in general. It'd be nice to fix the frontier's main problem at the source, wouldn't it?"
"Well—that's a bit idealistic. What I'm after might be a small puzzle piece of an eventual solution, however," Jacob said, immediately agreeing that this was the right angle to approach it from.

"I see," the priest nodded. "Just be aware that some undertake that sort of research hoping to harness chaotic magic, with usually disastrous results for everyone involved. You might not be able to trust just anyone with what you find."

"Of course," he said.

---

"...Huh."
"Huh?" Having decided it was probably best not to overwhelm the guests with a bunch of other people running around, Lynn and Rayna were sitting in the library, across from each other.
"Guess what I found in my inventory, that definitely wasn't there before?"

"A note from Tsaron?"
"Uhh—good guess. I mean that's a thing that could've happened but—no. A map!" Rayna stood up, producing a folded piece of paper bound in some string. She moved straight to the nearest table and spread it out over it. "Map of the world...well, as much of it as we've been to, at least."

Lynn got up and moved over to it, noting her own familiarity with the countries, cities, and even some of the geographical features drawn on it. "So, you didn't have this before?"

"Conflicting memories. I checked my inventory when Aria noticed the crystal and note from Loren, and there was nothing unexpected. Now, this," she said with a slight gesture toward the table. "But I also remember working on this the whole time we were travelling, using my power's unique ability to judge distances accurately and know the names of a lot of things by just looking at them to make it as accurate as possible. I did also use some existing references to fill in areas we've not been to ourselves."

Lynn crossed her arms. "So that confirms: Whoever's responsible for what's happened to us can put stuff into our inventory at will if it 'needs to be there' for the 'backstory'. Not that I'm surprised about that.."
"Yeah, anyway. Here's where we are," Rayna said, pointing to a dot near the far edges of the map, with very few markings of any kind nearby. "Aaand, there's the capital of the country that 'owns' this town," she swept her finger over to another dot, far off in a much more detail-filled portion.

"I want to say 'I knew that'," Lynn said. "I guess I did know that. This is kind of disorienting: I went from wondering about how this world worked to just having a ton of lore readily accessible in my head in, what, two or three days? You too, right?"

"Seems so," the fox-girl nodded. "With who we 'are' it makes sense to know all this stuff, but it's kind of surreal to learn something and then feel like you learned it ages ago."

Lynn leaned over the map for a moment, then stood up straight again and sighed. "I have fond memories of a lot of these places. Makes me wish I'd taken more opportunities to travel back on Earth."

"You were planning some trips," Rayna reminded her. "Not like either of us knew how little time we had there."

"Not that anyone ever does," Lynn nodded.

She looked down at the map again: The edges, where borders stopped and little in the way of landmarks was present. "Hmm..."

"What?"

"Is there just one frontier? Not a bunch of different places that each get called that?"

"Yeah, pretty sure. Nations' border claims sort of tendril out into it and there are some conflicts as to whose is what part, but it seems to be one contiguous border."
"Curious. And—this world is clearly spherical, like Earth."
"Right. All my measurements match up with that, plus the really obvious fact the horizon still looks the same..."
"Any idea how big it is? I mean, surface area, pretending it's a ball."
"Um...hmm." Rayna closed her eyes for a second, trying to remember some distances and angles, some half-forgotten formulas she'd always have relied on the Internet to remind her of. "I'd have to go measure things and have a think about it. I'm sure it's in the supermassive ballpark of Earth, though, since walking around this one doesn't look or feel noticeably different. Why?"

"Well, I'm wondering just how big the frontier actually is. How much of this world is claimed by monsters and the brave, adventurous few who fight them? Has anyone ever circumnavigated this globe, or is there so much frontier that there's always some of it in the way?"

"That seems like the kind of historical minutiae that I'd have read at some point, if someone had." Rayna put a finger to her chin. "But I also don't remember reports of anyone trying. Well, instant teleportation magic maybe makes mechanical marvels of transportation that are capable of doing such things less culturally important?"

"Still, this world must've had some point in its history where people thought it was flat, right? That you'd drop off the edge? Unless..well, unless the gods knew it wasn't and told everyone before they had the chance to become superstitious."

"I think an entire race of people capable of seeing the world from a literal bird's-eye view might've also had something to do with it," Rayna suggested.

She stared down at the map herself for a long moment. "..To answer your question, though, I think the frontier must at least be...'pretty big'."

"What d'you mean by that, exactly?"
"Well...if I imagine placing this onto a sphere...try to account for the stereographic warping...proportionally speaking you'd get a hole that would be sort of like a circle this big," she said, using her fingers to make the shape. "Well—not exactly a circle, but a big blob sorta shape that would fit one yea big. You could stuff maybe three of the biggest country in that circle. Now, we don't have anything the size of Russia here, but..."

"Yeah that's, pretty big," Lynn agreed. "And the monsters get bigger and nastier the farther you go out, right?"
"That's what they say. Not that it's easy to bring back records of such things, especially if it's true."

"Monsters come from chaotic magic. So bigger monsters means more magic. Therefore: Deeper in the frontier, more chaos."
Rayna tilted her head for a moment, then righted it. "Ooh, I see what you're saying."
"It's all over the world—there are monsters everywhere, basically, but when you sort them by size.."
"The whole thing looks like some kind of localized phenomenon spreading out to the rest of the world," said the fox-girl. "It makes you think...something happened, in the middle of the frontier."

"Right. No telling what, though."