The "Best" RPG Ever-102

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"He referred to this as 'not much'?" Clera held up the necklace while Aria nodded. "A focus of this quality, at this size, is nearly impossible to make. I suppose it would have little direct use to a magicless psion, however."

"I think he's still down there if you wanna thank him," Aria said.

She shook her head. "As I stated, I was in the middle of something. I will give proper thanks the next time we meet naturally, however." She set the jewelry down on her desk at a slow speed which suggested serious respect for the item.

"Right, sorry." The shifter headed back out, then over to knock on Nora's door. "Hey, Tsaron's giving out free stuff!"

He just told us he's out of gifts, actually, Katherine's voice came to both of their heads.

"Oh."

"T-that's all right. Could you p-pass on my thanks for helping me to meet Fazren again?" the elf said quietly from inside.

"Ohh, alright." The shifter ran back down the stairs, taking one of the very few remaining free seats once in the living room again. Rose had also joined the group, either finished with her skill tree or—more likely—too easily distracted not to at least come say hi. That was fine.

Only a brief conversation followed before the old psion excused himself, giving some sort of meaningful nod to Katherine on his way out which she watched with a kind of nervous-yet-serious expression. Obviously Something had happened while the shifter was upstairs, but she wasn't one to pry. She stood up and went over to Rose. "Did you finish the thing?" she said.
"Umm...mostly?" The dragon-girl stood up and skittered back to the kitchen, Aria following at a slower pace. "Some of the descriptions were super long and had big words I don't really know too well..."

"Ehh, just read them out to me and I can fill them in the rest of the way," she said. "No need to tie you up all day with this stuff."

Back in the living room, Rayna resumed where she had left off with the alphabet, but the small wolf-girl seemed far less attentive than she had been before—though not bored exactly; if anything she appeared more excited than before. The fox-girl stopped after a bit. "..You're really eager to play with your new toy, aren't you?"

Lupa nod-nodded. "This one is sorry...focus isn't easy," she said.
"It's all right. We can pick this up a bit later," Rayna nodded. Turning her head up slightly toward Zack, she observed he was still holding Enceladus in his lap and staring at it. "You too?"
"First of all, it's not a toy. And secondly, even an artifact takes some getting used to. The sooner I can get a feel for the different balance, the sooner I can actually use it effectively."
"Oookay then. You guys go play or whatever," she said, standing up. "I'm gonna go do stuff upstairs."

The knight stood up. "Like?"

"None of your beeswax. You all right here?" she said in Katherine's direction. The psion, who hadn't moved much since Tsaron left, gave a partially absent nod, apparently too busy thinking her own thoughts even to pry into Rayna's intentions just now. That, or she had taken the fox-girl's earlier threats about digging too deep into her mind seriously. With that, the illusionist headed into the stairwell.

---

Ezra stood back and let the chipper Felis healer do her work, carefully scanning the dazed woman's body for injuries. Eventually she stood up and took a small step away. "Welp...the armor's all tore up, but it sure did its job. Mostly superficial injuries, or at least nothin' life-risky," she said.

"Any injury to her head?"
"No. Which is weird, 'cause I can tell she's getting pain signals from that area. Kinda..." The healer made a motion indicating a sort of wedge shape with the wide end near her eyes and the sharp end just in front of the base of her ears. "...That shape."

"I see. What can you tell me about the nature of the injuries?"
"Weeelll...there's cuts, a couple of bruises here and there."

"What do you think made them?"
"Hmm...a good sword, big hammer for those bruises maybe? Oh, and there's an arrowhead stuck right in her hip; guess the rest of it came off. Can I get to work on that? Sooner we pull it out the better!"

"Go ahead," Ezra nodded. "I'll be back soon."

---

Mira was left alone with the psion. She allowed a short pause between everyone else vacating the living room and saying, "Hey..you okay there, chief?"

One of Katherine's ears twitched, and she sat up slightly, turning to face the witch. "Hmh? Yeah, I'm fine."

"I'm not the mind-reader here, but that wasn't entirely convincing," she said. "I didn't really expect that offer to bother you much—and I doubt anyone else did, either, who heard it."

"Hmmh." The catgirl shook her head slightly. "The offer's a good thing. I should aim for self-improvement, and a shortcut isn't a problem either. A little extra pain—physical, emotional, whatever—to correct something that's wrong is worth it, and the idea shouldn't bother me at all."
"It does anyway?"
"Yeah...I guess I'm a little scared to know what happened to me. Even though it didn't happen to 'me'," she said. "Or—more specifically, to actually experience the memory. It can't be pleasant, and somehow having a frame of reference where it can't be 'real' doesn't help either."

"Well, you're far from the only person who got some painful new memories," Mira said, thinking of Zack a little, but herself more.

"Believe me, I know.

"..It's just one of those things, you know, I can have all the information that should make me feel better, or at least less bad, about it, but knowing information just doesn't help. I guess this is exactly the part of my mind I don't have control over exerting its influence?"
"It's just emotions," the witch said. "I don't think any of us would want you to lose those—and like, turn all cold and robotic. Anyway, there's no rush we're aware of. If you need to take a few days, or weeks, or—if you don't want to do it, I'm sure we can still get by. You are pretty powerful as you are."

"Heh. Yeah." Katherine managed a bit of a grin—at least a little more convincing.

In the kitchen, Aria finished transcribing the last few skill descriptions, and then stared hard at the copy of Rose's skill tree, annotated with all the skills already bought. "So you started out with most of this stuff?"
"Mm-hm!" the dragon-girl said. "I didn't even realize I had that for a while. Um, when I did I still didn't buy much. Just like, the carriage thing and...on my first couple of trips to town I got a bunch of points that only work on the uh...'Human-oid Soci-ability' part, which was totally empty at first. Still haven't spent all of those, either."
"I see. Well, it looks like a pretty balanced build overall—like the result of getting lots of levels and spreading the points around evenly. I guess it's a reflection of 'normal growth' over a long period of time as opposed to all our sudden bursts of power. The 'sociability' branch, I'd suggest only spending those exclusive points there on what you actually want; obviously nothing there is particularly useful in combat. But I did notice there's a few 'human form' skills that have these as prerequisites, liiike...claw reduction, that you might be interested in taking just in general."
"Yeah. I'm just not sure it's worth it to...I mean I kinda like the way I am now, so.." Rose fidgeted back and forth.
"Totally up to you. Although I can't imagine any of this really changes your personality, maybe just gives you the ability to read social cues better and choose to act more 'civilized' when you want to be?"

"Hmmn. Might take more of that, then..."

"For the rest—well, your breath power is maybe a little underleveled if you really want the kind of balance you started out with to stand, and the higher-level skills are pretty interesting. Basically a bunch of 'mods' you can turn on or off at will, like improving the healing power, making it put whatever breathes it in into a kind of daze, making it more or less explode-y, to the point of it either putting out fires or igniting from a finger-snap. Or you could go ham on more plant manipulation powers, since I've seen you get a lot of milage out of throwing vines and stuff around."

"Soo, there's no big thing I should be after?"
"Not particularly? Yours is the kind of skill tree that has no one thing that jumps you from under- to overpowered—at least that I can see, and I'm pretty good at spotting that—but does have lots of useful powers and nice synergies scattered all over, the sum total of which adds up to an amazing package. The thing is, a lot of that is already claimed to some extent, and you're arguably 'overpowered' just due to pure level advantage."

"Cool!"

"The one piece of advice I might give you is to actually go ahead and spend your points. They don't do you any good just sitting on them," Aria said, pointing.
"Eheh..That's a good point. I just don't think about it much, and then—well, I dunno if buying this or that thing might be a mistake, and..."
"There's not much here that I would call a mistake to buy—aside from, maybe, putting non-exclusive points in the social stuff. So go for it, girl!" The shifter gave a huge grin and thumbs-up with this which was much cuter than she probably thought it was.

Rose giggled and nodded in response. "Heheh, okay."

---

"Jacob." His hand was almost to the guardhouse door when the Captain's voice came from behind and startled him. He turned around slowly to face her.
"Oh, ah, hello," he said, nervously moving out of the way despite being headed the same way. "I was just coming to see you."
"Inside." She moved past him but stuck a hand out to keep the door open behind her so he could follow, and they quickly made their way into her office.

"Do you have something?" She asked before going around and sitting on just the front edge of her chair.
"Er—yes, actually. I'm not certain—the spell I've made so far is still too complicated to teach an amateur, but I am in the process of refining it. Before I proceed, however, I had a sort of—inspiration, last night." Her expression, despite being the same blank, stern look as always, appeared to be saying 'go on'. "It seemed prudent to get your approval before I pushed on with the idea, because—it would require me to work with some of the more dangerous parts of their research," he said, "to, some extent at least. Just like the main spell I have in progress, this one really wouldn't have an effect under ordinary conditions."

"What was the source of your inspiration?"

"Well—ah. You're aware, I assume, that—Katherine's group had a dire wolf working with them, which personified recently?" The Captain nodded. "I met her, and happened to...well, even before that happened the flow of magic around her was highly unusual," he said, gesturing unhelpfully. "Now, it appears her body is somehow converting chaotic magic into normal magic for her own use. Which—should be impossible, mind you, by everything I understand about the subject, but it's the only reasonable conclusion from the data I have and—"

He cut himself off, aware he was rambling and feeling something like a chill down his spine informing him of the Captain's disapproval of wasting time with it, even though her expression and posture didn't change a bit. "...Right. So—their research eventually, as I'm sure you're aware, came to focus on 'pumping' chaotic magic out of a monster and into a person. The idea I had—based on that, well, it appears that a spell pulling the magic out of one person and into another, would likely be far more efficient at the job than the dispersal spell I already have underway. While of course that wouldn't normally be a net gain under the circumstances where the spells would be needed..." He waved his hands vaguely.

"Go ahead with it," the Captain snapped immediately. "I need you to do something else, first."
"Er..?"
"You believe the current version of your spell is functional?"
"Yes. I mean—not that I, have had any opportunity to test it, but..."
"I have someone you can test it out on." She stood up. "Follow me to the jail."
"Uh—" She was around him and at the door to her office before he could get another word out. "Ah—alright. Okay." Jacob stood and followed her, instinctively filing confusion and distress at the abrupt, impossible announcement under 'deal with later'.

---

Rayna knocked on the door to Nora's bedroom. After a brief pause, her voice could be heard from inside: "Yes?"

"It's Rayna. Could we talk for a moment?"
"Umm, sure." A longer pause preceded the door opening; Nora had evidently changed clothes after breakfast. "W-what is it?"

"Well—a lot of things were said at breakfast," the fox-girl started. "I'm aware the way I made the offer was a little flippant, but you should know by now I wouldn't have any problem with your petting me for the spirit weave thing."

"Oh. Ah. Y-yeah." The elf fidgeted in place a bit. "I d-did think you meant it, but in the moment I was still busy b-being embarrassed."

"I guess I didn't help, huh."
"No. I-I mean, it's okay. It was k-kind of funny. In hindsight, I mean."

"Right."

"...Well, uh." The rapidly escalating awkwardness on Nora's part was making it increasingly obvious that she hadn't been prepared to have this conversation at all, and probably felt even less prepared the longer it went on. Rayna wasn't one to drag something like this on, anyway. "If you wanna do it sometime today, or later, just let me know."

"Okay," she nodded, then sort of looked away to one side and another, and then back (down) toward Rayna's face. "Um...I'm i-in the middle of reading something right now, b-but maybe sometime a little after lunch would be b-b-better? I feel weird sk-scheduling something like this, but..."
"Better than a surprise visit, I agree. That's alright with me, too," the fox-girl nodded. "See you then," she added with her friendliest grin.
"H-heh. Okay."

---

Being taken into a jail wasn't Jacob's idea of a good time. He tried to repeatedly remind himself that he wasn't in any sort of trouble—yet—probably—but found the iron bars difficult to ignore. At least the trip was short, leading to one of the first cells after the stairs—and whose door was open, the interior attended by one of the town's friendliest healers. As for the other person in the room—well, she didn't seem to be very well off by the looks of things.

"This is her," the Captain announced unceremoniously. "I've done a few scans of my own, but I'd like you to confirm them before we try anything."

"Uhh, who's this?" the Felis girl said, apparently not recognizing one of her numerous one-time patients—not that he expected her to. Rather than worrying about that, Jacob got to work scanning for chaotic magic while the Captain of the guard handled the explanations. That was something he was confident she could do on her own.

When he stopped and stood back up, she said, "...Well?"
"I fear I shall soon exhaust my supply of saying this but—I haven't seen anything like it," he reported. "There is—solidified—chaotic magic, formed into a spike driven straight between and through the eyes and into the brain. It isn't supposed to be able to do that, naturally."

"Can your spell disperse it?" she pressed.

"I...believe so. It wouldn't be pleasant. If you can imagine—the sensation of someone actually pulling a spike out of your brain through your eyes." The healer winced visibly at this, while the Captain didn't flinch.
"Try."

Jacob nodded, and knelt, carefully thinking through the slight modifications to his spell needed to do this efficiently. After a moment he began chanting, reaching a hand toward the armored Vulpin's forehead and making a slight pulling motion toward himself with it. She twitched a few times and then started screaming, continuing almost nonstop until he had gotten about an inch of it out and dispersed back into the air where it belonged. He panted slightly, the exertion cost of making his magic do this being higher than he'd expected.

She was still crying out, in between gasping for breath. Over her, the Captain said, "Can you numb it?"

"Y-yeah! Maybe. I'll give it a shot." The healer moved around to her side and put a hand on top of her head, chanting.

She quieted down and shuddered violently before slowly blinking her eyes a couple of times. They looked unfocused, but no longer glazed over—much more like those of a conscious person. And, for the first time, their disturbed visitor spoke coherently.

"Where am I?" she demanded. "Where's my squad?"

The Captain held a hand out to Jacob to hold off on resuming his work and moved around to his right. "I am Captain Ezra, under service to the crown of Kyzerath. Two of my guard found you alone and unresponsive yesterday. Who are you?"

"Squad leader Hyacinth, fourth division, under service to the republic of Nir. My hands appear to be bound. Are my eyes injured? I can't see anything."

"You were rambling and incoherent, so we bound you to prevent accidental self-injury." The healer waved slightly at the Captain with her free hand. "The blindness is a side-effect of our current attempts to correct that, including numbing the portion of your head which was clearly in severe pain a moment ago."
"Pain? I don't remember..." Hyacinth shook her head slightly. "No, I do, I remember a massive headache. And before that...I don't know. We were out for standard patrol work, and the next thing I know it feels like someone stabbed an icepick through my forehead and—then I'm here."

"Who are the members of your squad?" Ezra asked next.

"Donovan, Thrace, and Mia."
"Wielding?"
"Ahh—Donovan uses a greathammer, Thrace a longsword; Mia's an archer. You have no word of them?"
The healer exchanged a meaningful glance with the Captain, who shook her head slightly. "As I said, you were found alone. Do we have your permission to continue attempting to heal you? It may hurt as much as you just did a moment ago."
"Y-yeah, sure. It'll stop after that, right?" Hyacinth said.

"Umm—it should," the healer said, speaking up for the first time. "You look really tired, the pain's been keeping you up for a long while, soo..you might kinda pass out for a bit."
The Vulpin woman took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "A nap's fine by me. Now that you said it, I'm feeling it."

"I believe we have enough to send a report, at least," Ezra stated, before turning slightly toward Jacob. "Continue, if you can."

"R-right." He got to work chanting again. Thankfully, the healer's numbing spell worked reasonably well, and while Hyacinth appeared to be clinching her teeth while he worked, she wasn't screaming anymore. The more of it he got out, the easier it was to do the rest—as if it was becoming less solid due to having less 'material' to work with. Whatever the case, he had the 'spike' of chaotic magic out of her within a few more minutes, and she did indeed pass out afterward, while he sat down to rest from the physical exertion of the spell.

It was clear this was going to need more refinement to make it not just easier to cast, but less costly, and—preferably—scalable. It wouldn't hurt to keep some advanced versions of it for situations like this, but he'd leave it up to the Captain who to teach the different variations after he had an actually decent 'base' spell together. Overall, this was a disturbing and deeply concerning incident, but—would prove highly valuable in refining the end result. If only his real research could run upon sudden discoveries like this, he thought. Well—preferably without someone having to suffer and possibly three other people going missing in a concerning fashion.

The "Best" RPG Ever-101

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---

"What brings you here this morning?" The sun wasn't up yet. Tsaron asked his question after shutting the door behind the captain of the guard, whose combat-ready state of dress and general demeanor suggested she didn't have time to stay for a proper visit just now.

"I didn't want to bring this up while there was a god eagerly answering all my questions, but I'd appreciate an explanation as to how you knew someone was walking my dream."
"Oh, that?" He waved a hand dismissively. "Since I have nothing better to do when I sleep, I do regular sweeps of anyone nearby to see if there's another psion about. It wouldn't do to have a troublemaker here and not be able to warn you, would it?"

"You mean another one?"
"Right. Naturally I picked up on someone inhabiting your Fort Knox of a mind and immediately—well, let's say it piqued my curiosity."
Ezra chuckled just slightly. "You sounded much more than curious last night. Well, I appreciate your concern at any rate. Just try to get a read on whether I'm taking audience with a deity next time before bursting in like that. I got the impression he found it rude."

"I imagine so. It's his gift I was using to try to intrude, after all. Anything else?"

"Well.." She crossed her arms. "I'd say if there's any more gifts you're willing to part with, now might be a good time to start handing them out. If they're as desperate as she said, then the sooner they can all start getting used to using whatever you've got the better."

"You don't want to give them anything?"
"And break character? Not just yet," she shook her head. "I've heard rumors those two performers are hoping to put together some kind of production. Think I know someone who'd like to be in on that, once it's a little closer to bein' off the ground."
"Heh. All right, then." Tsaron turned in the direction of the hallway, starting toward his collection. "Well, you know the way out."

"Oh, ah—" Just as her hand was on the door, he half turned around. "How much of this are we sharing with Randall?"
"...Some, I suppose. I'll have to think on it."
"Better you do it than me. I think he still doesn't like me for some reason."

---

Zack sat down on the couch and sighed; Lupa took the seat next to him, giving an immediate look of concern. "This is as good a time as any to start trying to teach you how to read," he said.

This drew some predictable confusion. "Reed?"
"Like.." Zack picked up a book from an end table and opened it up where she could see the pages inside. "What's that look like to you?"

The wolf-girl squinted, legitimately trying to come up with an answer that would please her Master. "Um..squiggles? Lots of shapes repeated in different places."

"Yeah." He put the book back. "That stuff represents words, the same kind we're speaking right now. And 'reading' is—the ability to interpret this into the language. Ideally you'd be able to turn language into this too, which is writing."

Lupa headtilted a bit. "Why turn talk into squiggles and back when, can just talk?"

"Talk can only reach so far," Rayna said, coming in from the kitchen, "both in distance and time. See, if you can write what you have to say down then people can still read it long after you're dead. Or you can send a message to someone who's the whole world away, without having to go to them yourself, and know it's the same message you meant and not someone else's interpretation of it." She came and took a seat across from them, nodding just slightly in response to Zack's relieved look. "A long time ago, people got into the habit of writing down what they know. If you learn how to read then everything that all those people wrote is open for you to learn, even if they're not around to tell you themselves." Lupa sat up and really paid attention on this point; Zack was still the best at reading her, but the fox-girl at least had this bit of her motivations pegged.

"And, Master can teach this one this? Or Fox?" she said, looking between them eagerly.

"Well, we can certainly try," Rayna nodded encouragingly. "It helps that you already know a lot of words in Common—the language we're speaking now. If we can get you a good grasp of phonics then you'll be able to read lots of words without anyone teaching you them specifically."

This isn't something you could just 'give' her, is it? Zack asked Katherine, who—while she was currently in the library—could obviously still hear him.

Too complex, still way above my skill level; sorry. Anyway, I think it's probably healthier for her to learn some things naturally, especially since she seems to enjoy it.

In the kitchen, Mira took a short break from cleaning dishes to take a look at Rose's progress. Aria had hovered for the first minute or so and made her too nervous to work, and then left on finally sensing that. Even now, it didn't seem to be going all that well: The dragon-girl was alternating between closing and opening her eyes, trying to meticulously draw out the decorative graphics of each individual skill. She'd drawn a partial shape of the skill tree's shape, scribbled out some errors and drawn arrows to insert missed bits, and had cramped, unreadable writing where the descriptions wouldn't fit in the space she'd allotted herself. "Nnngh.."
"You don't need to make an exact copy," the witch said. "Look—the pretty pictures are nice, but not really what Aria needs. As long as you've got the names and descriptions, and the right connections between them, that'll be enough."

"Oh." She set down the pen. "I-I guess that's kinda obvious now that you've said it. Rrgh." Rose started to pick the paper up to tear it.

"Ahp!" Mira pointed, making her stop. "Just turn it to the other side. Start from the roots, go up, write down the whole description where you can read it before moving on to the next skill. It's for your benefit, in the end."

"Yeah.." Nodding, she set the paper down and carefully smoothed it again, pushing it to where she could start at the bottom.

Katherine and Lynn returned to the living room at about the same time, the latter having gone upstairs to change into something she could leave the house in. By now, Rayna had moved to the seat opposite Zack on the couch and was busy taking Lupa through the Common alphabet (which had a few more letters than English, possibly a result of even the first magic-based equivalent to printing presses being a bit less limited) drawn carefully on a piece of paper.

"This one makes either an 'eh' sound or an 'ee' sound, usually. But if a word with this in it sounds like you added one of those to a word you already know, then it's probably that word itself instead."

"You..teaching her to read?" Lynn said, coming a bit closer.

"Yeah." Lupa appeared a little confused. "Once we're done with all these I'll be able to use that to give you some examples to clarify, okay?"
"Okay!"

Everyone's ears perked after this at a couple of gentle raps on the door to town. "I'll get it," Katherine said, using her power to set the book she'd picked out next to a chair while she went in the other direction. She unlocked opened the door once she had it in view. "Oh." Tsaron, the psion silently informed the others. "What do you want?"
"Well, since you all have visited my home a couple of times, I thought it would be appropriate to return the favor. Unless this is a bad time?" the elf said, leaning forward just slightly.

"No, that's...fine." The catgirl moved out of the way. "Come in, I guess. We had a long night last night, so we just finished breakfast."

"I imagine so," he replied, following into the living room. "Adventurers are always busy with something. It's good to take a break now and then, have some tea." It was a bit amusing to see him having to duck his way through the doorways, which even Nora could fit through no problem—although of course he could just be faking all that height. "Aah, this is nice," he said, looking around. "Second story, too? I might have sought such a large lot myself if I didn't need so badly to feel the pulse of the city around me."

Unlike everyone else so far, he didn't have any questions about their newest member. But since he had her rapt attention by now, Rayna decided it was best to introduce them anyway. "Tsaron, this is Lupa; our wolf friend personified. Lupa, Tsaron." She popped to her feet and scurried over to him, offering a hand upward.

"Big tall one! Hello!" she said cheerfully.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, giving a perfectly gracious handshake. "I did think you looked smarter than an average wolf before."

"This one is smarter than a smart wolf," she replied confidently.

"And, I do prefer 'Tsaron'," he said.

"Tisar—sstar...stizzisiss..." One of Lupa's ears folded to the side as she tried unsuccessfully to pronounce the almost-silent t at the start of his name. "Ron!" she concluded eventually. "Close enough, right?"
"I suppose so." There was a tiny bit of surprise on his face—or perhaps those who thought they saw that merely imagined it.

"Well, everyone else is either upstairs or in the kitchen," Katherine said. "You can take a seat if you want." There was no way he was just here to look around and say hi.

"Thank you," he nodded, heading over to an open chair and carefully sitting down. "I do hope a spot to drink isn't out of the question. After all, I did walk the entire way here."
"We weren't expecting you, so there isn't exactly any tea on or anything," the catgirl said, and then sighed before heading in the direction of the kitchen. "I'll, see what we've got."

"Well—no reason to keep you in suspense," Tsaron said, "since I'm certain those ears can hear through a wall or two. I've been looking through my collection lately, and found a few more old things I'd be willing to part with—at least to see them in the hands of some capable youngsters. You look like you were just on your way out," he said, looking toward Lynn.
"Yeah?"
"I won't take up too much of your time, then. Just have a look at this," he said, producing what at first glance appeared to be an ornate wooden bow, and holding it out toward her.

Lynn picked it up and immediately noticed a problem: "No string?" Putting her hand through where one should be, it only found air.
"No need. Restringing bows is always a pain, right? Just nock an arrow like you usually do, and it'll work fine. It can be a little more challenging to draw than an ordinary bow, but it lends more power in exchange," he said.

"All right. Thanks," she nodded, putting it away. "I really do need to go, now."
"Of course," the elf nodded back, and Lynn headed out toward the door to town.

Katherine returned with a glass of water, and offered it in Tsaron's direction. Naturally, he didn't reach out a hand for it, instead just picking it up telekinetically and bringing it to his lips for an exasperatingly long sip. "Aah. Thank you," he said, floating it aside and gently placing it onto an end table. "Now let's see, what else...?" After a moment's pause, he produced a broad, long black case, perhaps a bit like a trombone case but square in shape. "Mm-hm." After setting it on his lap, its latch unhooked and the lid opened facing outward to reveal a ordinary-looking broadsword. "Now, I'm not really willing to part with this piece for good. For one thing, artifact-grade items are exceptionally hard to come by, and for another, it has some real sentimental value. This was made with the help of an old friend for use by another one, and well...I had to do some digging to retrieve it. It was too much a shame to leave it where it was." He floated the sword up and carefully over to where Zack was. "It's one of those things that judges whoever tries to use it. Give it a shot?"

The knight's ears folded back a bit; if his own experience with the old elf wasn't enough, he naturally picked up on Katherine's general annoyance toward him. "Is this gonna do something to me if it doesn't 'like' me?"
"Not to you," he replied, "It only changes its own appearance and efficacy. Anyway, I'm almost certain it will. The kind of person it 'doesn't like' is more like myself—sensible and cautious. If I took hold of that hilt, that thing would turn into a rusted piece of junk, unrecognizable as fit for anywhere but a scrap heap. Had to find someone 'average' to get it looking normal again after I first made that mistake."

"Fine..." Zack reached out and carefully placed his hand around the hilt. The sword glowed, taking on a slightly more ornate appearance and gaining some width and length; the white glow persisted afterward, pulsing around like a faint ethereal flame it as he brought it closer and held it vertically in front of himself.
"That's what I thought. It really prefers the sort of person who would—I don't know—say, willingly risk their own life for the sake of a stranger? As far as I'm aware it should amplify holy magic channeled through it, and not chip or rust or anything inconvenient like that. Oh, and like all good artifacts, it has a name."
"Which is..?" Rayna asked first.
"Enceladus." Tsaron shrugged. "I don't know; that old friend I mentioned came up with it. Anyway, you can borrow that for now, but I may ask for it back eventually. Sentimental value, and all."

"I did hear about you before I came," he continued, turning just slightly toward Lupa, "but I don't actually know what you use, so I got a bit of everything."
"This one throws axes good," the wolf-girl informed him cheerfully while she hopped to her feet and bounded over to him in anticipation of a gift. "Ron knows that, though, since Ron can mind-talk like Kat. Right?"
"Heheh, you've got me there. Well, this should be of some use to you, then," he said, producing a glove with a small crystal set on the center of its back along with a one-handed axe. "If you throw this axe while wearing the glove and then hold up your hand like you want to catch something," he said, holding up his own hand to demonstrate, "then the axe will try to come flying back toward you. Good for retrieval, sure, but also with a bit of practice it's possible to catch enemies off-guard by throwing it past them and having it come back from behind."

"Can it work with a bigger axe?" Lupa said eagerly.
"I...suppose it wouldn't be too difficult for an enchanter to copy the effect," he said.

The stairwell door opened, and Aria came out. "Heyy! Kath said you were down here."

Tsaron gave her a calm grin while he handed the glove and axe to Lupa. "Indeed?"
"Your idea for filtering the thoughts or whatever worked great. Thanks!"
"You're quite welcome. I don't suppose Clera is coming down after you?"

The shifter gave a flicker of a glance backwards before shrugging. "Probably not?"

"I was informed she regained her older self's power over fire." Tsaron produced a necklace with a small red gem set into it, and floated it over toward her. "It isn't much, but this should help focus that element a little more efficiently than doing it raw."

"Oh, sweet." Aria took the offered necklace. "Can I keep this if she doesn't want it?"
"I suppose so," Tsaron shrugged. "You better not pawn it off, though."

"Aww, you got me. It's fine, I'm sure she will. Or Nora could use it maybe. Thanks, either way."

While the shifter ran back upstairs, Mira entered from the kitchen. "Hey there, stranger." She came and took a free seat across from Tsaron. "You've just missed a good breakfast."

"It's a little late for me," he commented, "although I'm certain it would have been delicious. Not worried I'm here to make good on any previous threats?"
"Please. No way you'd show up in person, much less announce yourself. Anyway, I've been as good as I said I would. You got anything for me or Rose? She's a bit busy at the moment, but I could pass it on."
"Sadly, no; I've exhausted my supply of physical gifts for the day," he said with a wry smile. "There isn't much I could offer that would do anything for a dragon's natural talent, and you've already got Valemdrüng, as I understand it." Seeing her unfamiliarity with the name, he leaned forward a bit. "Gods, did Ezra not tell you its name? The warlock's old scythe. I suppose such a pretentious, meaningless name must have slipped her mind entirely."

"Oh, yeah." The witch produced the scythe, standing it up next to her in her right hand. "Randall said it could split in two or something?"
"Right. You just hold it in both hands and push in near the middle and bottom with your thumb," he said, mentally projecting the notion of what he meant to her. Mira pulled the weapon over her lap to try it out, and the lower half of the pole slid off the rest, a smaller curved blade clicking out from it as it did so.

"Well, whaddaya know? Thanks." Mira slid the pieces back together as easily as they'd come apart, and put it away again.

"That reminds me, I had something for you as well," he said, obviously meaning Katherine from his gaze. "Or at least an offer."
"Which is?"
"Well—as a first-generation psion, I must assume your powers appeared suddenly and unexpectedly when you were young." She nodded, but didn't say anything since he was obviously going to continue. "Psions tend to awaken in one of two ways: Either the power arises slowly from careful meditation and thought, or suddenly as a result of some traumatic experience or other. The trouble with the latter is that the newfound power usually blocks a part of the mind off from conscious use—that part containing the memory of said trauma. It's possible to work that out naturally, in the same way as the gentler awakening, but it tends to take forever. Or—herein lies the offer—a fellow psion can simply force it out. This is more painful, to be sure, but it would give you more control, therefore power, far sooner, and really, I'd be astonished if you didn't have the fortitude to handle it."

"Oh, that's...great," Katherine said, not looking like she meant it. "I mean—"
"I don't intend to rush you into something like that," Tsaron stated in a much more serious tone than usual. "It's best done in as complete private as possible, which I believe would be easier to find at my home than here. Take all the time you need to think on it, and if you do decide that you want my help with this, my doors are open."
"...Okay," she nodded, appearing relieved.

---

A vulpin woman in badly damaged armor was sitting leaning forward on a chair in a cell of the town jail, her arms tied around behind her. Her eyes were glazed over, and her head sort of wobbled around in place. "This is 'er, Cap," Rast said, standing at attention nearby with his partner. "Not one a' ours, but the armor looks sorta like our neighbors off to the southwest—if an ogre chewed it up and spat it out again, leastways."

"She was like this when you found her?"

The dazed captive mumbled something mostly incomprehensible, the most coherent word being "hurts".

"Yep," Pirr replied. Ezra moved closer and started to draw a hand back, palm facing forward.

"Err, Cap—"
"Tried that first," Pirr finished for her more hesitant partner. "She was standin' up, so just spun around and nearly toppled over. Rast caught 'er."

"Hmm." The Captain dropped her hand again. "You two tell someone to send a healer, and then get some rest. I'll handle it from here," she said. They were supposed to have been back from patrol the previous afternoon, and instead spent the night carrying a dead weight—apart from what amounted to a short nap for each of them while the other watched her. Both saluted, and marched out.

The other town's guard mumbled again. "Don't..."

"What are you trying to say?" Ezra leaned in slightly, snapping her fingers a couple of times near one of her ears. "Speak up."

"The..." Her eyes appeared to focus for just a second. "It...hurts to.." Then they winced shut, and she leaned away, folding her ears back and hoarsely moaning.

Shaking her head, the captain went over and retrieved another chair, pulling it up in front of the apparent victim. Depending on what had happened, a psion might put themselves at risk or simply be useless here. First she began a series of scanning spells to see whether this was magical in nature, quietly chanting them one at a time to see if anything stuck out.