The "Best" RPG Ever-91

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"...I think that about covers the basics?" Loren was silent and still for several seconds. "I mean, I'm not really getting into what all our—uh, their technology is capable of. Like...just wait until I get to the Internet. Uh..sorry," Aria added after a second, realizing he was trying to absorb what she'd already said—and maybe had wanted to respond before she'd continued on.

"It's..all right. At least I agree, there's no way you or some spellcasters sealing a demon in a sword made all of that up." He shook his head. "I suppose 'trains' are among the vehicles you mentioned?"
"Sure. Kinda outdated though. Eeexcept for subways," she amended. "Underground trains used to get around the huge cities quicker."

"Sub, way," he mused half to himself. "That checks out, I suppose. Are you certain you don't have any magic there?"
"Well, I mean..if it exists there then it's doing a really good job of hiding itself. Modern Earth culture is really good at making verifiable documentation of anything that happens—like, most people in a well-enough developed country have uhh." She halted briefly, to translate the concept of 'camera' into more helpful terms without even getting into the issue of phones: "A handheld device that can, 'see' from its own eyes, and you can record what it 'sees' to show to other people. I'm sure there's magic like that here, but seemingly everyone has it there. Anyway, I never encountered any magic, even secondhand through that. And I know for a fact that everything I've described to you, and all the stuff I know about that world but haven't—it's just taking advantage of how physics and logic inherently work. As far as I can tell, those things are the same here unless magic's involved, so there's no reason any of it wouldn't work here, either."

Loren took a second to clear his throat. "We are getting a little sidetracked. I mean, I guess this does explain how you never seemed particularly...helpless at any point despite the loss of your memories. Since, from your perspective, you had memories. It raises a new question, of why..how..after developing all over again, in an entirely different society, you're still you," he said, holding his hands out toward her. "I mean—you didn't remember anything except bits and pieces of one conversation, yet I knew..it was you before we'd even said much to each other. And everything you've said, the way you've acted since then—still you. The only..uh..parts I can pick out as odd just seem to be because of the.."
"Sex change thing?" she supplied helpfully. "Yeah. And to me those seem like differences from my 'old self' from Earth too..when I even notice them. Hey, maybe...soul transference, or mind echoing or whatever happened just...works that way? Like, there's some identity or personality traits that got 'imprinted' the first time around so they'd show up the 'second' time, too?"

"Maybe. There is only one point of data, after all," Loren said, evidently referencing their earlier conversation on purpose.
"Rrrriiiight." Only after it came out of her mouth did she realize how unconvincing that sounded.

"Well, I'm only aware of one, anyway," he said neutrally, obviously curious after that reaction but politely refusing to press on the issue.

"So, how do you get something like a handheld artificial eye that can record things, without magic?" he asked instead.
"It's—well, there are multiple ways. Early ones used certain chemical reactions, but the newest stuff uses electricity."

"As in lightning?" Loren said, quirking an eyebrow.
"Right. Same stuff, but—very much less of it, tamed and controlled to a precision I think might be unimaginable for anyone from this world." Aria scooted forward in her seat a tiny bit. "I actually worked with computers—um, which I'll explain in a minute—so I'm way more familiar with that."

"If I'm following you correctly, a computer is something which...computes, using 'tamed lightning'?" Loren asked.

"Right!" she said excitedly—instantly distracted into explaining those devices instead. "So..it's all physics. To begin with, you need a material that's like, partway between being a metal and not a metal so that it kind of conducts electricity, depending on its conditions—a semiconductor. I uh, I'm not so good on how you physically put this stuff together because that's really low-level, and what I worked with was very high level, with those kinds of things abstracted out of view. But I do know that the idea is to use it to make these things called logic gates..."

---

"Hmm." After it was decided who would go to consult the Captain on the legal ramifications of the recent event, and they left, everyone else slowly dispersed back to where they had been before Zack shouted loudly enough to be heard on the moon. Rayna was sitting across a table in the library from Lynn, putting a hand to her chin in thought.
"Something bothering you?"
"Well—if animals have the capacity to turn into people, doesn't that kind of make them like babies? I mean—the way babies act is pretty much like animals, and they develop into actual people."
"I...really don't think that's the right way to look at it," Lynn said.
"You just don't wanna give up on being a carnivore."

"Well—partly that, yes, but also—that wolf was showing really obvious signs of having human-level intellect long before this happened. Basically from the moment they met him, right? So, that's probably just one of the indicators that an animal has the capacity to turn itself into a person this way. I guess there's a spell that personifies an animal, but that seems more like a case of a 'create-a-person' spell which uses an existing animal as a component."

"Yet there is still continuity of the mind between being an animal and being a person...as far as we can tell, at least," the fox-girl said. "The person remembers being the animal and sees no disconnect."

"Well, sure. You're expanding on existing brain matter that remembers being an animal," Lynn argued, "so of course that information is still there. That kind of perception would obviously exist whether or not they'd been a person while they were an animal."

"...You're not seriously thinking of going vegetarian after this, are you?"
"Nah." Rayna shook her head after a moment. "The one funny thing is, our folklore suggests beastfolk came from either self-personification, or maybe some interference by the gods...but there's not a beastfolk race for every animal, or even most warm-blooded ones. There's just the four. So...maybe herbivores like sheep and cows that you'd even eat on a regular basis don't have the capacity to self-personify. Something about lesser intelligence or potential for it coming alongside being an herbivore?"

"Or the gods selected predators to elevate into being people on purpose for some reason," Lynn suggested. "Maybe they figured the result would have an easier time learning to eat plants too, than someone who remembers being an herbivore would have learning to hunt and eat meat. Or maybe being used to hunting and killing things was important for survival in a primordial version of this world with monsters everywhere."

"That's a pretty good point. If first-generation beastfolk are all super-strong and stuff, maybe they were even raised up to help protect humans and whatever of the other races already existed at the time from monsters," Rayna said.

"You know what bugs me?" Lynn asked, indicating a shift of subject.

"What?"
"It was one little detail among the first things Lupa said. Something like...about her 'first pack' and wanting to 'stay forever'? Which apparently means she was really happy with that first pack..."

"Beast monsters are basically mutated animals," Rayna stated. "Maybe...wolves are the same species as dogs, so maybe she was someone's pet dog a really long time ago and just got hit with chaos magic sometime after that?"

"I suppose that would explain why her first action after being told she was super-strong was not to challenge her 'alpha' for dominance over the pack," Lynn said, "plus the 'Master' thing, which is way more of a pet-type word than just calling him 'alpha'."

"I'm not totally sure where she learned language from, though, in the first place." Rayna shook her head. "Why does she talk common, but not seem to have words for some concepts, and refuse to use pronouns? Can magic just teach someone a language if they want to know it badly enough, but it's also a really bad teacher?"
"I mean—well, there is mind-affecting magic, so it's not inconceivable that an expert mage could come up with a 'teach concept' spell," Lynn said. "Orrr, in this case maybe personification has a well-recognized pattern of effect because..the gods made it behave that way? So it'd be easier for an animal that's effectively become a person to then integrate into the society of other people, instead of being unable to even communicate with them?"

"Can they just change the effects of magic at will, though? If so, why pick the way it works here over a 'whoever can do whatever' system?" Rayna wondered.

"I doubt they have total control over the rules of magic. Maybe they have a way to detect when it's happening, and just step in on a personal basis to make sure it goes the 'right' way?" Lynn said. "After all, it's rare enough that even a relatively small pantheon won't feel much burden from it. We travelled the world for years, after all, and didn't encounter a single personification, or even a report of one in recent memory."

"Maybe one of the reasons it's illegal pretty much everywhere is to do with the gods not wanting to shoulder all that extra work?" the fox-girl grinned.

---

The first priority for Lupa was to have her measured and buy enough undergarments. She seemed to favor mostly conservative pieces when it came to this, and mostly in varying tones of red. Her choices in other clothing was fairly eclectic, like a kid at an ice-cream shop who honestly just wants a bite of every flavor but knows that's against the rules—but again in similar coloration, from deep crimson to neon pink. At least most of it will match, Katherine thought. The overall expense for a considerable wardrobe for her was a drop in the bucket for the party's present wealth, which was hardly surprising.

There was a place that sold beds across the street from their last stop among the clothing stores (more or less by the psion's design), and they led Lupa (already wearing a newly-purchased outfit, a much tighter-fitting shirt than before along with a pair of dark red denim shorts) inside, wandering around until finding a display of beds small enough to fit about where the giant dog bed was in Zack's room. The small wolf-girl just looked around the place with an expression of innocent curiosity until finally addressed about the matter.

"Well...you think you could sleep on this?" Zack said, indicating one of the beds.

"Um..? This one can sleep on rocks," Lupa said. "Or the ground. As long as Zack is near."
"Still," the knight crossed his arms. "It's better if you sleep somewhere comfortable, so you're better rested in the morning."

"The thing this one had before is very comfortable," Lupa replied.
"You haven't tried it since your appearance changed," Katherine said patiently. "It's made to fit something...shaped a lot like how you were before? These beds are designed for people who look...more like you do now."
"Oh." Lupa blinked a couple of times, and then walked up to the one Zack hand indicated, reaching her hands out and pressing them into the mattress a couple of times, then just suddenly vaulted up into the air with her right hand, flipping herself around on top of it, belly-up. Zack recoiled slightly, wincing, but the mattress and frame both held against the sudden impact, springing violently for a moment before returning to normal. All the same, the action drew a number of onlookers.

Lupa moved her arms and legs in a manner similar to making a snow angel. "This one likes it!"

"Um...good. I guess we'll get one like that then," Zack said. "Could you...not...violently throw yourself off of it now, please?"
"Okay." Lupa did the wakeful, intentional equivalent of turning over and falling out of bed, landing on her hands and knees on the floor before popping back up onto her feet, totally unharmed by the landing.

I do know what she was thinking, the psion reported as they were on their way to actually buy the bed, but maybe you have some insight on why?

She really wants to show off how capable she is. I'm hoping this will die down the first time she helps us take down some big monster or something, Zack replied.

After they left that store, Zack paused out in the street for a moment. "Is something wrong?" Lupa said after a second.
"Well, the Captain said it'd be a good idea to get you some weapons. As long as we're out, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a look at some," he said.

"Okay!"

Of course, the knight had seen plenty of weapon stores around town, especially nearby the place he'd gotten the new suit of armor. One in particular seemed to his eyes like a good choice for quality weapons, and advertised the presence of a small training yard in the back for testing out one's potential purchases before buying—perfect for testing out what would be most comfortable for her to use. A thought to this effect floated Katherine's way not long after they started in that direction, and she responded in the affirmative—that this was a good idea.

A few blocks later, they came to the place. It sold not just weapons, but varying types of armor (not 'shape-changing' armor like Zack had; apparently that was a specialty item). While Zack started toward the weapons display with Lupa in tow, the psion mentally informed him she wanted to look at something else and went toward the light armor section.

The knight crossed his arms, looking around at the various types of weapons present. There were plenty of 'normal' weapons, but also some very outlandish, surely unusable sorts which his memory from Earth saw as typical of JRPGs that had way too many characters they wanted to stand out as using "different" fighting styles, but which simultaneously his memory of this world knew to be deadly in the right hands.

Such hands weren't Lupa's, however. While she had been more or less at home in the clothing store, eager to try every single thing, here she stared at the various bladed and bludgeoning implements blankly, seemingly not even certain that any of them were particularly useful. The Captain had suggested something she could use in melee and throw with her immense strength behind, which was an excellent idea, but maybe javelins weren't the best choice after all...they required a certain degree of precision to fight with accurately, right? Zack went over and picked out a couple of them anyway, just in case. But as far as throwing weapons went, it seemed to him that axes may be a better choice. Simply having a handle to swing around and a big blade to target the enemy with, instead of aiming to jab with a tiny point, seemed much easier to teach the personified wolf to use. While he was at it he picked up a couple of big, two-handed battle-axes on a whim to try out also, as well as a few sizes of swords. He offered about half of this load to Lupa, and noted she held the pile including some truly gigantic weapons like it was a lightweight sack of candy.

After that, it was off to the training yard. The pile was set down, and Zack pulled out one weapon at a time, asking Lupa to try swinging them around a bit to get a feel for them. As expected, she wasn't very good at any of them, but did appear to understand that the sharp or bladed bit needed to go forward. Her handling of the swords seemed particularly clumsy to him, but maybe that was just because he had so much training in that style himself. Eventually his instincts concluded for him that she had promise with most of the axes—and was totally hopeless with the javelins, simply swinging them around like everything else.

"Okay...let's try one more thing," Zack said once they had exhausted the entire pile of weapons (and he'd subtly sorted them into two piles along the way: 'maybe' and 'no'). "Take one of those axes and try to throw it at the training dummy over there," he said, pointing.
With an eager "Okay!" Lupa (in what should have been a predicatble move at this point) grabbed one of the battle-axes off the top of the pile and swung it hard horizontally before letting go, resulting in a helicopter spin that wound up smacking the middle of its handle into the training dummy hard enough to snap it apart at the stomach, giving it the look of someone hunched over in excruciating pain while the weapon clattered loudly on the ground in front of it.
The knight physically face-palmed, folding his ears back and nearly closing his eyes while shaking his head. There hadn't even been time to tell her not to, or to react in any way. "The small ones," he clarified, going over to get one himself. "Try..one of the targets over there. Like this." He demonstrated the correct way to throw an axe, but missed the target (having never been very good with them). Imitating this motion to some extent, Lupa sank a second throwing axe into an archery target dead-center, the blade going from the peak of the circle almost down to the bullseye and burying deep.

"That's...pretty good," he said. "Think you'd feel okay using those in a fight?"

"Yes!"

"Maybe the big axes too," Zack suggested. "But not throwing those."

"This one is a good thrower," Lupa responded brightly with more tail-wagging; it wasn't entirely clear whether she was arguing with him or just basking in the attention of a few impressed onlookers.

Some of the store's staff were already busy taking the broken training dummy away and replacing it with a new one; thankfully having their targets destroyed by overenthusiastic customers seemed to be a part of their business model. Zack had the smaller wolf-girl gather up the 'no' pile for him, and went to collect the thrown axes and the rest of the weaponry to take back inside. She was absolutely a beginner with using weapons, he concluded; it was a bad idea to give her too many different things to learn at once. Throwing axes were different from the giant battle-axes, but she seemed to grasp the basic principle of each (apart from which ones were meant to be thrown), so sticking to those for now seemed like a wise decision. There was a mild sense of eagerness welling up in Zack to have someone to train the use of weapons again, as a part of his memory remembered doing with a number of squires back in the order.

After putting away everything else and picking up several more throwing axes and a couple of spare battle-axes (fully anticipating some broken or bent handles), Zack proceeded toward the front of the store to purchase them. Katherine was waiting nearby, a light leather armor floating in the air next to her, neatly folded up. You have fun?

For some values of fun. I guess you're buying that, he thought back, holding out an arm to add it to the small pile of weaponry he was already carrying.
This is literally zero effort to carry myself, she responded to the gesture—although it had been about half-reflex in the first place. Zack dropped his arm and continued on to the cashier.

They stopped outside the store to take stock of things. "Well...anything else?" the catgirl said aloud.

"No..unless the Captain has those papers drawn up," Zack said. "She did say not to leave town."
"I'm pretty sure she meant to include our house. Come on, we have a lot of junk to put away," Katherine said, starting to lead the way. Lupa bounced along eagerly behind Zack as they headed back toward the house.

After unlocking the door to the house, they could hear Rayna's voice through it. "So they went out to ask the Captain about that. I actually thought it was them when you came in..." Katherine didn't hesitate to open the door during this, and led the way inside.

"We went and bought her some clothes after that," she said, entering the living room. Rayna and Lynn were there with Mira; evidently the dragon was elsewhere and the others still upstairs. If Aria was back, she wasn't down here.

"Oh, hello!" the witch waved. "Welcome back..aah, is this her?" she said, spotting Lupa and immediately running closer.

"We explained what happened," Lynn interjected.
"Yes! Hello big-hat," Lupa said.
"Aww, aren't you just the cutest~," she said, immediately ruffling the small wolf-girl's hair. If anything, she seemed entirely pleased with the gesture, leaning into it and grinning brightly from the appraisal of her appearance.

"Cute!" she chirped. "Big-hat is cute too."

"You wouldn't like being called 'cute' this morning," Zack pointed out, crossing his arms.
"This one wasn't cute then, so an insult," Lupa said, half-turning toward him. "Like 'weak'."

"I guess that makes sense." About as much as any of this.

"I'm glad you're feeling so friendly," the witch said. "Maybe you'll let me finally see what your fur feels like sometime?"

"Any time Mira wants," she replied cheerfully (finally using the name Katherine taught her earlier). "This one wants to be close to the rest of pack."

You named her 'thiswan'? the witch inquired mentally.

She chose the name Lupa, Zack replied. She's saying 'this one'.

Oohh, okay. Also: Cute.

"Anyway, we've got a lot of stuff to put away," Zack said, turning toward the stairwell. "If anyone wants to help."

"I'll help," Katherine said; Lupa also turned to follow her 'Master' as a matter of course. Mira shrugged to the other two in the living room and went after her, clearly wanting to speak to the former-wolf a little longer.

---

Aria went through several of the steps of making logic gates and connecting them together, going so far as to request some paper and a pen to scribble down a few diagrams. Loren seemed interested and followed along, interjecting a couple of questions or early guesses along the way which indicated he understood what was going on. About the time that she got through explaining how to use them to do basic binary addition, he had a somewhat more skeptical question.

"So...you make devices that force electricity to flow this way...in order to do some basic calculations that anyone could do on paper by hand," he said.
"This is the basic of basics," Aria said. "The point is, if you can make circuits that add small numbers, then you get enough of them together and they can add much bigger numbers. Or, by extension, any other operation you want and can define cleverly enough. Simple calculations are the building blocks for unimaginably gigantic calculations that would take a person years or decades to do, but a good enough computer can do it in seconds."
"It seems like a lot of trouble to go through, just to be able to manipulate some numbers," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Maybe something a cryptomancer would be interested in, although I think the better ones already make enchanted items that can do certain calculations for them."
"Maybe oracle machines?" she said eagerly, leaning in a bit. "That'd really be something. But—anyway," she continued, ignoring his confusion at yet another new term, "that's the thing about being clever. With the right kind of thinking, lots of things can be turned into numbers. If you make a device that translates numbers into visible colors in a predictable way, you can have a computer show whatever visuals you want on that device. Like—imagine if you had a tool that'd draw glyphs for you."

"That hardly seems possible," Loren said.
"It is, though. Glyphs have, like, predictable rules for how they way they look affects their function, right?" When he didn't seem to disagree: "You could program a computer to 'know' those rules and spit out a detailed image of what the glyph that'll have a certain effect looks like, or even build something that it drives to actually draw out the glyphs automatically—though that'd take a lot more work, I guess."

"Every bit of this sounds like a lot of work," he replied. "Still—I suppose your other world pulled it off without magic, and at least your enthusiasm suggests those things can be very useful. I don't think it would be very difficult for someone to imprint a crystal so that an energetic element could flow like some of these," he said, pointing to the logic diagrams.

"Cool."

"Um..." After a brief hesitation, Aria returned to the original purpose for this entire conversation. "So...do you still feel like you're taking advantage of me or something?"
"I guess not. It's hard to argue with this kind of evidence that you are your own person—as though I needed any more," Loren said. "It's still a lot to take in."

"Sure. Yeah. Sorry if I overwhelmed you with...stuff," she said, waving to her excited scribbles. "I haven't had anyone to talk to about this sort of thing in a while, and I guess I missed it. And it seemed like you actually do understand what I'm talking about."
"Sort of," he admitted. "At least, it's something new to think about..." Loren paused, his eye having caught sight of a window. "Seems like we've been here a long time," he commented. "Sun seems to be setting."
"Hey, yeah." Aria stood up. "I guess time flies when you're explaining alien worlds, huh."

"I'm not saying you have to leave or anything," Loren said. "Your friends just might be wondering what's taking so long."
"Mm-hm. And I'm a little hungry. Are you hungry?"
"...Now that you mention it, yes."
"We should just go out somewhere then! I can stop by the house and tell them not to wait up on me," she declared.

"If you'd like," Loren nodded, also standing up. "Maybe we can talk about something that won't give me a headache, though."
"Sure."