The "Best" RPG Ever-76

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Finished speaking with Mira for the moment, Nora was on her way back to the house when Katherine contacted her. Hey, glad I caught you. Just thought of something we should probably discuss. The thought came with a spatial awareness of where the catgirl was, so the elf could find her if inclined to accept the invitation.
Well..okay?

When she got there, Katherine was standing there with her arms crossed, and waved as soon as she saw her to follow. "Hey, I know you haven't had lunch yet, and neither have I," she said. "Pick something up?" It's private, so I'll keep it mental.

"Okay," Nora nodded, to both. So what's this about?

As of last night, we have official confirmation of how your animal spirit weaving thing works. As embarrassing as it is.

Correct. Fazren..well, he kids sometimes but he was quite serious about that. Along with the evidence we already had to confirm it.

Well, I was thinking—the wolf form's main benefits are strength and endurance, right?
More or less. There was a lesser gain to agility and dexterity, and of course improvements to the senses of smell and hearing, but the latter seemed likely to come with other forms too.

Right, she replied to the 'unspoken' clarification. But the point is—it's not a whole lot of help to you? I mean, you're basically a mage. You don't wield a heavy weapon or physically hit enemies at all if we can help it, so the added strength doesn't improve your attack. It would enable to you more easily wear heavy armor, but you literally have to expose skin for your powers to work their best, so no good there either. The best it confers to you is a higher physical endurance, which matters the most if you take a hit—which shouldn't happen most of the time anyway. Right?

True. The elf nodded slowly, half to herself. I am also able to move around for longer without becoming tired, which is rather important since my offensive magic requires a large amount of motion.

You're right, I didn't exactly think of that. Still. It'd be nice to have another option, right?

Nora stopped in her tracks for just a second; Katherine, reading the intent to so, stopped along with her and turned to face her. "A-are you..?" she began aloud, and stopped once she realized it. Are you suggesting what I think you are?
Sure. The psion flashed a confident smile back, her tail flicking back and forth eagerly. A cat form would be a load of help to you for sure. Better speed and reflexes, so you can get where you're needed more quickly and dodge attacks more easily. Or—redirect them, when available. Making that available to you is simply the logical course of action.

Yes, but—

I know what's required. The catgirl crossed her arms again, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks. That's why I brought it up in the first place, she said. You're perfectly capable of having the same idea but you'd never suggest it to me. And I already know about this stuff, as opposed to having to admit what's already happened to Rayna, say.

But the problem is, if you only..want to do it because of how it would help me, or benefit the party..it'll never work, Nora objected. It's a connection of the—soul. I don't know how else to describe it. It involves the body. If you don't really want me to...

Pet me, Katherine finished the sentence for her, physically waving a hand at her to finish the thought.

Right—then your body will react with revulsion, and even if you hold still and let me do it it won't, accomplish anything.

I surmised as much myself. But have you considered the possibility I do really want you to?

"Uuuh..." Nora stammered aloud briefly in response to that. Katherine just gave a quick nod and continued toward a nearby restaurant, letting her stand there for a few seconds more before hurrying to catch up—not that it was difficult with her longer legs.

---

Loren stood in the small living-room-ish part of his apartment, a couple of steps in front of a loveseat. "Will this do?"
"Yeah, it should," Mira nodded, moving to stand a couple of feet in front of him. It would be easiest to do this with an initially standing target, but she'd advised him to be ready to fall back to some kind of seat rather than the floor in case of an abrupt change in balance or something. "Whenever you're ready."

He sighed, and drew himself up slightly, appearing to brace himself. "All right, go ahead."

"Mm-hm!" she nodded.

The witch leaned took a small step forward, channeling her magic outward with a sharp focus toward her 'fire' and 'incubus' aspects. It manifested as a pink, fire-like light around her, and a particularly bright glow to her irises which drew his eyes immediately. This was good; direct eye contact was necessary to really get things started.

It came very naturally from there; she smiled brightly at him, and he blushed, mesmerised, as she stepped forward and put her arms around him in a close embrace. She ran a hand from the top of his head down to its back, quietly muttering "Relax." And so he did, his body going loose and all but limp, apart from his legs still supporting his weight. Her touch also spread the fire of the spell to his hair, softening it and growing it out until it was framing his face and just touching his shoulders. Next she slid back away just enough to put her hands on his shoulders and give them a gentle downward push; he began rapidly shrinking and slimming in response.

Loren let out a soft "Mmnh" and his eyes fluttered closed as a tingling spread across his skin. His shirt and pants loosened considerably as his frame melted inward—shoulders narrowing, stomach slimming, and with the witch's hands running down his arms to his fingers and her tail flicking across his legs a couple of times, his limbs joined in the transformation, slimming and shortening to fit the smaller form. Soon Loren shrank below Mira's height, his eye level all the way down to her lips, and then he finally stopped getting smaller. She gently lifted him into her arms, hugging him close again to finish up the transformation.

"Mnh..aah..aah..a~aah..." Loren murmured softly and incoherently at the rapid shrinking between his legs, the pitch of his voice rising with each sound. Mira gently lifted a hand and touched the side of his neck with it, making his adam's apple disappear and listening to him let out a longer "aa~aah~aaaAAaahh~!" as his voice lifted out of masculine range into a soft, mid-range alto; this cry, of course, was in response to the pleasant sensation of his sex fully changing, leaving a woman in the witch's arms. She panted, blushing furiously and squirming slightly in place, as Mira pulled her close once more, giving her some gentle curves: Wider hips, slimmer stomach, and some mid-size breasts pushing out against the witch's own. Loren let out a soft, breathy "Aaah~" as this took place, still overwhelmed by the sudden rush of new sensations.

The body finished, Mira set her down again and took a small step back. She stood there in a visible daze, her under- and over-shirts hanging off of one shoulder and her pants threatening to fall off at any time. That just wouldn't do, the witch thought, crossing her arms for a second. She brought a hand forward, and the spell-fire moved forward onto Loren's clothes. Her pants split at the thighs, the bottom changing into a pair of tight black leggings while the top spread into a blue plaid skirt. The shirts underwent a more complex change, the inner one turning into a white shirt, cream vest while the outer became a dark blue jacket along with a red-and-white striped ribbon tying itself around the shirt's collar. Doubtless, beneath that, the new girl found herself with appropriate underwear: A pair of panties and a bra sized comfortably for her new figure.

After inspecting the results, the witch nodded to herself, deciding that this would do well enough; at least it wasn't threatening to fall off of her anymore! Then she realized that Loren was still in the dazed/charmed state, and needed to be snapped out of it. "Uh..hmn." She first dispelled the fiery aura and the glow in her eyes, retracting the magic responsible back into her own body. When that didn't immediately fix things, she tried actually clicking her fingers once, which did the trick.

"Bwah?!" The new girl jumped slightly at the sharp noise, looked around in a slight panic, and got her bearings after a moment. "I..th-that was.." She did a double-take down at her outfit, irrationally pulling the jacket closed with one hand in response to feeling very exposed by the length of the skirt. "D-did you really have to make that so, so embarrassing? A-and what did you do to my clothes?!"

"I just tried to make them fit," Mira shrugged, "they weren't doing you any favors at that size. It's all the same spell, so it can be undone just as easily. Or it'll wear off on its own before long if you remove them. Oh but I'm not really sure what happens if the 'pieces' of something are separate, so they should probably be kept together if you don't want to end up with a bunch of ripped cloth. As for the other part, well, it's incubus-based magic, so what do you expect?"

"Incubus—you didn't say that!" she protested. "This kind of spell could have some kind of weird hyperattraction side-effect, or something!"

"Hmn, I guess for some reason I thought it was obvious," Mira said, putting a finger to her chin. "I'll have to remember to mention that in the future. But—well, do you feel anything particular? That's probably important info for future reference."
Loren stared at her for a long moment. "...No. Nothing...new, I think. It's a little hard to tell, I feel really weird in this body and wrong being shorter than you." Then, after a brief pause: "Hmn. I guess I know how Aria felt there..."

"Well, I can turn you back really easy," Mira said. "Really, you probably know a bunch of spells that'll turn yourself back. Oh, the change wasn't painful or anything, right?"

"No. It was..." Loren blushed brightly for a second on thinking about it, and then violently shook her head as if to dispel a thought from it. "It did not hurt," she repeated rather than expounding. "And—thanks, but not just yet. If Aria hears this happened and she didn't get to see it I will never hear the end of it."

"I suppose you'd like to come for a visit, then?" the witch said, tilting her head slightly.
"..Sure. I've finished with the business I needed to attend to today—mostly sending out a few letters and getting set up here. Anyway, the sooner this is over with the better."

"Alrighty. I'll stay out of your way if you want tooo...do anything before heading out," Mira said, flashing a quick peace sign and heading straight out the front door. Loren seemed to want to protest about the tone of voice she'd said that in, but didn't. And..she guessed about five minutes before Loren came out with keys in one hand and her assortment of tops looking slightly rougher than they had on first changing. She didn't comment on it; it was only natural, after all, to want to at least take a quick look.

They headed down the stairs, Loren looking around at the surroundings like they were brand new again. It didn't seem like she was having any trouble balancing or walking, however, so perhaps the impression that she was entirely too short was a largely mental thing, while the transformation had perfectly handled balance as a physical issue. She probably could make herself taller, but that would apparently require time and concentration, not to mention maybe making the 'new clothes' fit worse and reveal more than desired as a result, so it was understandable she hadn't tried.

Even still, they'd only been walking along the street for a minute or so before Loren seemed to get somewhat used to the change of perspective, walking a bit more naturally and even starting a separate conversation. "Between yesterday and today, I've been to a grocer, a mail handler, a few restaurants, and a couple of other stores," she said. "Nobody would take my money."
"Uh..currency exchange trouble?" Mira said.
"No," Loren shook her head, "I mean they insisted on giving me what I wanted for free. Or not really free, but apparently 'on the Captain's tab'. I had to argue for five minutes after lunch today to be allowed to leave a tip. It's among the most bizarre things I've ever experienced." Then, hesitating in her step just a second to look down at her present appearance: "What's going on right now notwithstanding."

"Well, I guess it goes to show just how much she values you and wants you to stick around," Mira suggested.

"Sure, but...well, how do I put this."

Loren thought about it for a moment of walking. "Well, it's one of two things. Either the Captain is fabulously wealthy, in which case how, last I checked that position pays pretty well in a place like this but not regular tab everywhere that covers multiple other people wealthy. Or, and this worries me way more, she wields a distressing amount of influence here. I favor the second option as more likely considering the the way the guard talk about her. And the way people said it, too. Not—'the Captain's covering your meal today', no, it was a silent, like subtle hand-wave rejection of my effort to pay and then only when pressed, 'oh you're on the Captain's tab'. Wink. Wink. Nudge."

"You don't think it could be both?" Mira said.
"What?"
"Well, she is an immortal human," the witch mentioned casually, putting her hands up. "And she's spoken about being part of a party of adventurers before."
"Wh—what was that first part again?"
"One guy we know in the guard said she hadn't visibly aged since his parents worked under her, and when Kath asked she flat out admitted to having a 'curse' that prevents her from aging," Mira said. "So who even knows how old she is and how much money she's got from doing all kinds of dangerous work, and maybe this is more like a retirement job she's doing for the fun of it, or the good of the people or whatever."

"I don't know if you're trying to reassure me but that makes me even more terrified than I already was," Loren said.

"Do you know what she did yesterday? Convinced a dragon to leave her hoard behind to help fight something literally made out of its weakness element. Do you have any idea how difficult that should be?"
"If that's Rose you're talking about, I don't think she needed much convincing," Mira said. "She's far from being a normal dragon to begin with."
"Yeah, I got that much within an hour of first meeting her. But still! Dragons don't just abandon their hoards. They can't. It's like—a physical need for them, to be absolutely certain it's safe at all times." Loren was waving her arms a bit as if to illustrate the point. "And they're supposed to avoid their weakness like a plague, to the point of trying to flee with the best of their hoard when the only other option is confronting it."

"Well, I'm convinced the Captain is a good person, anyway," Mira said. "She didn't judge me as automatically evil right away, despite a super negative prior experience with a warlock apparently, but informed me I will definitely die if I start abusing demon power to hurt people. Good thing I had no intentions of doing that in the first place, yep."
"That's just the problem though—convince," Loren said. "She's, she could probably sell weeds to a gardener if she wanted to. I'm scared to even talk with her again because I'll probably wind up doing exactly whatever it is she wants, whether I really want to or not. It's almost worse than a psion!"

"Hey, I'm friends with one of those too you know," Mira said.
Loren sighed. "I just mean the terrifying prospect. Not specific hatred for everyone with powers like that. You can't possibly tell me you like the idea of someone being able to literally change around your very memories and intentions if they're dedicated enough to the task."

"I also don't like the idea of being burned alive, but that doesn't mean I spend all day worrying about every person with the ability to set fires," Mira pointed out.

She tried to come up with a retort to that, but after two or three visible tries, couldn't. "I guess not. But I really can't help what I'm afraid of."

"Hmm." Mira gave a mysterious grin. "I really think you and Kath will get along juust fine," she said, producing a confused look, as expected. "Anyway, we're almost there, so you should get prolly start getting mentally prepared for whatever reaction you're expecting out of Aria."
"Oh, right. Sure. Yeah."

---

Perhaps it shouldn't have been very surprising, but when she wasn't knocking him on his back the Captain was an extremely good teacher. She seemed to know exactly how to explain and demonstrate each new technique in a way that let Zack immediately replicate it, although most of his efforts were rough and in need of practice before they would be useful enough to become regular parts of his reportoire. Eventually he stopped paying attention to whatever 'compliments' she gave his present appearance, if only due to them gaining a basic Pavlovian association with immediate blunt-force trauma. They switched to the dual blades after a while, and Ezra produced a smaller sword to accompany her own—which she'd been consistently wielding one-handed anyway. It wasn't much longer when she nodded, it satisfied he had learned enough for now, and put both weapons away.

"Well, you're doing better than you were," she said. "I suspect that you're able to tune it out more easily just because you know I don't mean it, but it would prove difficult to find someone who would mean it but still willingly cooperate with this exercise. I'll look around anyway."

The knight was sore in several more places before, and not actually feeling any better physically speaking; he wasn't looking forward to the proposed further practice either. But he nodded and said, "Thank you," and meant it.
"Of course." The Captain came closer and gave him a brief handshake, looking straight up into his eyes with her usual fierce gaze. "Your team's benefit to our town is difficult to overstate. Let me or any of the guard know if there is ever something you urgently need."

"Right." She started toward the house at a brisk walk, Zack following more slowly. Still sitting up at attention, the wolf joined him when he came up next to it.

---

Rayna heard the front door open, and started to get up from the living room couch until it became clear that they weren't headed for the yard. Mira walked in with someone her 'sight' informed her was 'Loren', and a shifter, but who was quite obviously female. "Hey, welcome back," the fox-girl said with a small wave. "Who's your friend?" she asked, to confirm what she suspected.

"Ah, this is Loren," she said. "He volunteered to help me test out a new spell."
"You sought me out specifically to ask me," she corrected, glaring up at the witch. "Anyway yeah hi. Do you know where Aria is?"

"She went upstairs a minute or two ago, to pester Clera I think. Oh, Rose is in the library with Lynn at the moment," she added to Mira.
"Mm-hm," the witch nodded. "I should go upstairs first so there's no confusion."

They went up, and Rayna heard Mira get as far as "I tried a new spell out on Loren—" before Aria interrupted her, immediately getting what was going on.

"Aaah~! You're so cute!" she gushed immediately.

"Thanks I think?" Loren obviously didn't know how to take that.

Outside, it seemed Ezra was finished 'sparring' with Zack (or whatever). The illusionist dropped the silence she'd set up for them with a small relieved sigh; it was good practice, but auditory illusions were still quite new to her and maintaining one for that long took more effort than expected. Mira came back down, leaving the shifters to it, and looked around for a second. "Hey, is the Captain still here?"

"Just coming in," Rayna said.
"Great!" The witch went around to the door to meet her, apparently having some business with her too.

Aria shifted herself to match Loren's new proportions and hairstyle. "Twiiiins! Heheheh!"

"That's really weird to..do I really look like that?"
"You would in these clothes, I think," Aria nodded. "Oh, but your hair's a different color still, plus the glasses which I think make you that much cuter~."
"Uhh. I don't really know how to react to being called 'cute' repeatedly," Loren said.
"Own it! You're a girl now. I mean, it's temporary—right?" her enthusiasm hesitated for a second out of worry it might somehow not be.
"Right."
"So enjoy it while it lasts!" She reached over and ruffled Loren's hair a bit. "Waah, it's soft~!"
"S-stop that!" she took a couple of steps back, blushing in response to the gesture. "H-how did you ever get used to any of this?"
"I dunno." Aria headtilted. "It just felt like—well, this is me now, whatever I was before. And I can't not like 'me', sooo. There we are."

"Anyway, you wanna talk in my room?" she said, growing herself some puppy ears and a tail, which immediately started wagging. "There's a desk with a chair you can sit on, and I'll take the bed."

"Sure, I guess?" Loren's blush had faded but returned somewhat with a look of uncertainty toward the canine parts and expression appearing on something like her present body.

"Great," she said, turning to lead the way. Over the walk there, she resumed her default height and look but kept the animal bits.

"I've really never known you to be this..touchy feely," Loren said, taking the offered seat when Aria pulled it out. She crossed her legs quite naturally, but her expression suggested she didn't exactly know where the impulse to do so had come from. "You're not like this when I'm...normal."
Aria gave a toothy grin for a second or two. "You have no idea—like, I'm suppressing an urge to just pull you into the tightest hug I can manage and keep you there until you suffocate."

"Uuhhh..." She leaned away from Aria.
"Like I said, suppressing! Anyway, it's just a 'girly' thing I guess. Girls are a lot more comfortable with physical contact with each other, right? So if I wasn't before, maybe the ward spell thing 'adjusted' my mind somewhat to fit the body." The 'summoning me here' spell definitely did that, she thought. "As I am now I can hardly imagine acting any other way, it just feels like normal friendliness. Like if I don't reach out to at least touch your hair or something then I'm being unusually cold to you, and I don't wanna do that."

"And this applies specifically because you like me and see that I'm female," Loren stated, for clarification.
"Yep!" Aria gave a short nod. Then her ears drooped slightly. "I hope I'm not making you too uncomfortable, though. I'd rather you enjoy being a girl for an hour or two so maybe you'd be willing to do it again later."
"Again?!" Loren questioned, in a tone that said 'this is bad enough one time'.
"Uhh..I said that part aloud, huh," she said, looking away. "Sorry. It's up to you, really. I just uh..I think you're really cute like that and.." Aria trailed off, blushing mildly, and then shifted the subject slightly.

"I dunno if you've noticed but I have some kind of massive impulse control problem. Is this new? Is my head cursed that way along with the memory loss or have I just always been like this?"
"Well..I'm not really sure?" Loren said. "You've always been the kind of person who just dives straight off a pier into the ocean to learn how to swim, you know? You've got to have some sense of..discretion or something to be successful at the job you had, but I would say it's pretty normal for you to blurt out whatever you're thinking around me, at least.

"...To be honest, I kinda like it," she continued. "I never have to guess what you're up to, or what you're thinking, because you always seem to want me to know. You share all your crazy ideas with me and I tell you why they won't work. Orrrr, you end up convincing me it's the best option instead, and then you wind up half a continent away in the Frontier a year later turned into a girl," she shrugged. "This is, by far the most extreme thing you've ever wanted to do, with the most extreme consequences. So I can only feel relief that you probably won't top it anytime soon."

"At least the end results are fun though, right?" she said with a bright, half-teasing grin.
"It's...something all right. I suppose I must be enjoying it on some level or I wouldn't keep going along with it."

"That's the spirit!"

"You know what, at this point it even has me receptive to crazy ideas from other people I barely even know. That's how I wound up like this in the first place," Loren added, sweeping a hand across her present appearance.

"You can only blame me for it if you also thank me for it," Aria said, giving another wide smile.