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.