The "Best" RPG Ever-103

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Lynn wasn't a block away from the door to the house when she nearly walked into Rast, both of them backing up awkwardly in the aftermath. "Uhh...hey."

"Hey there, pretty miss," he said, giving his best effort at a reassuring smile. "I was just comin' to see you."
"Heh. I was on my way to see if anyone in the guardhouse knew where you were. Didn't see you at all yesterday."

The wolf-man put a hand behind his head for a second. "Aah, since Pirr was finally all put together again she was itchin' for a more serious assignment, so we took on a patrol rovin' pretty far outta town. Got a little...complicated, an' we had to camp out last night."

"Neither of you got hurt, right?" On closer examination, he looked a little tired, but not injured.

"Nah. We ran into someone...err, I ain't sure how much of it's supposed to be secret or not."
"Well, we can talk about something else, then. I've already eaten, but—you had breakfast?"
"Sorta. Been a trip back to town and a nap since then."
"Alright. I could use some coffee," she said, leading the way.

"I, guess things got a little weird night before last."
"It was fun," Rast said. "Though—yep, I'd say 'weird' is applicable too."

"I'm serious about meeting your family sometime soon. I mean—" She paused in her walk for a second to abruptly sigh. "I actually, don't know how serious I am, or this is? It seems like every time I try to think about it I get distracted and it slides off. Maybe, I'm hoping it's still too early to worry about it."
"I ain't in any rush, at least," he said. "But if ya do want to meet 'em, I'd be happy to introduce you anyhow."

"Yeah. At least in the sense of it only being fair, anyway."

"Well, I reckon they'll both be around tonight, and that oughta be long enough to give fair warning. Not that I...gave you much, come to think of it."

"Not one of them cared to be warned, frankly; I live in a house of crazy. Not that I'm complaining, mind you." Rast laughed; the one evening around all of them was enough to get what she meant.

"Speaking of crazy...oh, hang on, we're here." Lynn waved Rast into the cafe and waited until they were seated to complete her thought. "Anyway. Remember the wolf?"
"Sure. That ain't the kind of thing a body forgets after a day."
"Well..."

---

Aria and Rose returned to the living room in time to encounter Mira carrying a stack of mail inside. Most of it she was in the process of setting onto a coffee table for everyone else to sort through, apart from what looked to be a sizable packet of papers tied together with some thick string. "Hey, mail's here," she said. "On an unrelated note, I think I'm gonna need to go study something up in my room for a while for...reasons."

"Very convincing," Katherine retorted, already floating the envelopes over where she could look through them.

"Ookay?" Rose said, not having any of the context for said 'reasons'. "See you later, then?"
"Sure!" The witch hurried upstairs after that.

"Yeah, I'm feeling inspired since yesterday. Wanna go see if I can find someone willing to do a Thing for me in town," Aria said. "I don't mind any tagalongs."
"Eheh, that's okay," the dragon-girl nodded, appreciating the effort to at least be included. "I sorta agreed to a strength contest yesterday. So, like, maybe I'll get that over with."

"Hey, this one's for you." The psion sent another letter from Vaedin Rose's way, and she started to reach out for it before dropping her hand again.

"Can you uh..open it? Sorry."

"No problem." The envelope came off, and the letter opened itself up where she could read it.

"Uhh..hmm. She's awfully...formal and stuff. Just an 'official confirmation' thingy—so like, we agreed yesterday I could use my cart thing to bring her to my forest tomorrow."
"Hey, if we get the door installed by then, that'd be quicker," Katherine pointed out, hopping to her feet. "I think I know who to ask for a job like that, if you're alright with it."

"Mm-hm!" Rose nod-nodded, cradling the letter carefully into her hands before sticking it into her inventory.

"Guess I'm off too, then," she said, swinging the door open ahead of the shifter, and following her out into the town.

"Now, I'd like to maintain some normalcy and ask what your inspiration's about, but you've been thinking it loudly for too long," the catgirl said.
"Eh, I don't care," Aria shrugged, shrinking herself down to Katherine's height and taking on a similarly feline form. "It's efficient."
"'Kay. You really think a magic-based circuit board is possible?"
"Just the most basic of circuits for now, and not tiny—big enough to physically test switches and connections. If it works, a batch of slightly smaller ones to try some basic binary additions. Then I wanna make a small, simple display and see about putting basic graphics up on it."

"Who do you think is gonna understand what you want, much less be willing to try to build it?"
The shifter shrugged. "They don't need to understand how it works or what it's for as long as they can make the connections do what I say they should. Anyway, this is the frontier, right? Home of the adventurous and crazy! I doubt it'll be in the top twenty weirdest requests this week, and my pay will be generous, even if the first attempt fails."

"Don't break our bank on a vanity project," the psion admonished, pointing at her briefly.

"Please, I've thought about this. What I'm after is something made with common materials that does a single, basic thing. Expensive enchantments do many things, or big, complex things, and those in turn seem to require 'better' base materials to function. Plus I get the impression that the cost of any magic usually scales as a factor of how much the effect breaks normal physics, chemistry, etcetera, and what I'm after should be possible with minimal physics-breaking. Plus, starting with big versions and then asking them to go progressively smaller is a great way to get them used to making the designs, which should wear down the sense of novelty and turn it into something 'normal' to make, which should drive price per unit down even more if I start wanting big batches."

"That's pretty insidious," Katherine said, nodding slightly. "If it works, that is. And you don't announce your plans straight to whoever you're commissioning your circuits from."

"Hey, if I'm super successful and a legit computing industry takes off—then I'm doing them a favor. They'll be the experts on making magic-circuits, and other people will come to them. I dunno if patents are a thing in this universe, but there's certainly an advantage to being the first and best at making something super-specialized right when it starts building demand, regardless."

"But you're planning to ask multiple shops to build these things, if you can," the psion pointed out.

"Yeah. I don't know the first thing about what kind of magic will work best, so hopefully different perspectives will lead to different conclusions. Hence, my instructions are vague: I just need a 'source' and 'flows' that have the designated properties."

Now in the cluster of shops they'd been headed for, Katherine stopped off in front of one. "Well, good luck with all that. I'm gonna see a guy about a door."
"Yep! Seeya!" Aria flashed a sideways peace sign across her forehead and waved it away before running off, resuming her usual proportions in the process.

...I wonder which one of us is going to disrupt this world's society more, the psion mused as she headed inside—thinking about Mira's current efforts, Zack's...situation, the excessively friendly dragon-girl, Rayna's impending burst of reality-warping powers...then the witch again, with her 'niceness' agenda and the spell she'd tested on Loren and Rast, not to mention the level of power she was set to attain. Okay, it would probably be Mira. But maybe Aria would tie, if enough of her plan worked.

---

Lupa threw her new axe in a high arc, watched it peak and start to fall, then held her hand up; the crystal on the glove glowed faintly, and the weapon slowed its forward motion, twisting impossibly in the air until it was swinging back her way. She giggled, waving her hand back and forth and seeing this guide the axe until it finally came in reach, and she caught it easily despite its still-considerable momentum. "Look at that, Master!"
"Hmmh." Zack nodded. "It doesn't just come back, it's guided. We ever run into something that's only weak from the back, use that."

"Yep! So this can work with the big axes, too?"

The knight shrugged. "I'm sure we can see about it. At least having a few spares would be good in case that one gets stuck in something, or you break it."

"Heey!" Rose was on her way out to them, and waved when the two wolf-girls looked her way. "Hi."

"Flower lizard!" Lupa ran over to her (still carrying the axe by her side). "Strong contest time?"
The dragon-girl headtilted. "Flower lizard?"

"Master said 'big lizard' was rude."
Zack sighed. "I said it might be rude to call you a lizard at all."
"Pfssh, I don't care," Rose said, holding her hand up and dropping it at the wrist dismissively. "I am named after a flower, anyway. But yeah! I thought we could do that now. You wanna judge?" she asked Zack.

"Not really, but I don't see anyone else volunteering.

"How're you gonna compare strengths, anyway?"
Both managed to "Uuuuhhhmm" in chorus; Zack facepalmed and sighed, shaking his head afterward for good measure.
"Look, unless you want to go rent out a gym we don't have a bunch of heavy stuff for you to both lift. Why don't you just see who can throw the same thing the farthest?"

"Ahh, that could work!" Rose said, lighting up eagerly, which Lupa imitated in agreement. "What'll we throw?" Both of them looked around for a moment, until the wolf-girl encountered a rock half-buried into the ground which was maybe half her own height and fairly wide besides. After bending over to get her hands on either side of it, she managed to yank it out of the ground in one motion and hold it up over her head.

"This! Heavy, but easy to throw," she said.

"Yeah, I think that'll work," Rose agreed. "You go first?"

"'Kay!"

Before she could wind up, Zack put a hand on her shoulder. "Away from the house," he said. "Try not to mess up Mira's spell circle either. So.." Zack pointed in a direction perpendicular to the line between the two. "I guess it's fine if we break our own fence, but you can probably throw over it, right?"

"Yep!"

"Okay, great."

Lupa went about her throw by whirling in a few circles first before giving the big rock a hard shove upward with her hands as it left her arms in the specified direction. The oversized projectile sailed over the fence and well into the horizon before landing into the ground with a distant, dull thunk.

Zack crossed his arms. "That's terrifying. You realize I was the 'strong one' in my group before you two came along."

"Heheh, jealous?" Rose said. "I'll go get it back." She leapt into the air and flew out in the direction of the rock.

A moment later, her voice carried on the wind. "Uuhm, can you hear me? The rock kindaaa, like, broke a little bit?"

Zack sighed and walked out to the fence line. "Just bring the biggest pieces you can carry or something."

"Oh, wait! I got an idea!" The knight shook his head, wondering why he'd thought his input necessary in the first place. A moment later, Rose came running back with what appeared to be a giant plant bulb in her arms, stopping on the other side of the fence. "Uhhmm..."
"Just drop it over," Zack said, having already backed away in case she decided to chuck it instead.
"Oh, right!" After it dropped, she vaulted over herself, and picked the bulb up again. "Now uh..where'd you throw it from exactly?"

"Here!" Lupa said, waving. "This one didn't move!"
"Ooh, smart!" Rose ran over, and set the bulb down, carefully opening it at the top a bit where the wolf-girls could look inside. The rock had, in fact, broken into no less than seven pieces, with several other smaller bits rattling around when she carried it around earlier. Then she took Lupa's spot and closed the bulb again before picking it up.

"Heere we gooo!" She gripped the top of the bulb, where it had been open before, and simply pulled her arm back before pitching it like a baseball, at a slight upward angle. Her throw wasn't entirely straight, veering off to one side and audibly failing to quite clear the top of the fence on its way out. This also tore the bulb open and sent the pieces of the rock scattering out in a wide arc from the point it hit the fence, several of them skipping or bouncing across the ground on their way out to the horizon.

"Uhm...it...wasn't s'posed to do that," Rose said, awkwardly scratching the side of her forehead with a claw. "How can we even tell how far the rock went if it like, scattered all over the place?"

"I'm not counting steps out that far," the knight said. "Did you even mark where her throw landed?"
"Of course! I put a purple flower right on the spot, since uhm, the landing sorta uprooted the plants that'd been there before."

"Call it a tie?" Lupa suggested. "This one broke it, Rose put it back together again and carried it back and still threw it." The dragon-girl consulted Zack for this, who shrugged, already on his way to inspect the damaged bit of fence.

"If you're happy, I..don't really care," he stated.

"Okay! Tie it is!" She held out a hand for a careful shake, which Lupa grabbed with both hers to enthusiastically reciprocate. "We'll think of something less likely to break on us next time."
"Yes! Next time!" the wolf-girl echoed, her tail wagging excitedly at the prospect.

Once Zack was satisfied that the damage was largely cosmetic, the three of them started back toward the house. "Uuhm..sorry for kinda dragging you into that," Rose said, rubbing the back of her head briefly. "Err—draggin' rather? Dragon? Eh? Mmmnn.." She shook her head at her own belated pun.

"No big deal."

"Hey...do I make you nervous?"

Rose paused in her step for a second to headtilt at him. "Eh?"
Zack shrugged. "Sometimes you just seem really nervous when you talk. Like you're not sure about what you're saying, or if you ought to be speaking at all."

"Oh! Well um, that's not just you. I talk the way I talk with pretty much everybody!" Rose said. "I guess it's, um..liiike...you know how I was before?"

"Not really."

Well, I was, pretty quiet. Reeeaal shy. Like, I was terrified to talk to anyone I didn't know sometimes, and there weren't too many people I did know."
"But you're not like that now," he said, in a tone that suggested an implied question.

"Yeah! Uh, when I...this happened," she said, waving to her present form, "I felt this rush of..I dunno. I just really wanted to talk to people, and couldn't stand the idea of being alone once I knew there were people I could talk to. It was really weird at first, like I didn't really know myself."
"Weird. Most of us seemed to be mostly the same, mentally," he said. "Like, the 'new lives' were based on the personalities we already had, rather than getting 'new' ones that were wildly different."

"I don't mind it, though! I mean, like, really I've always wished I could be the kinda person who wouldn't be afraid to speak out anywhere, about anything, and go out and meet new people all the time...so I leaned hard into it. But, uh...to tell the truth I'm still not exactly like that. See, I do speak out everywhere, but I'm still terrified! Eheheh..."

"You feel like you're gonna say the wrong thing and make everyone hate you," Zack stated, and Rose nodded a little sadly. "I guarantee that won't happen with this crowd."
"I know! Kinda, I mean. It's a feeling though, so like, I can't just switch off even if I know it's wrong. I just...have to deal, y'know?"

"That's fine."

---

"Soo, in theory it's possible you could spar with her and even teach her a thing or two, if you know anything about using axes," Lynn said. "Then again, I'd be careful. Rayna said she was stupid strong, and I've seen enough of her fighting to believe it."
Rast twiddled the tip of an ear for a moment. "This wouldn't be the girl I heard showed up during trainin' drills yesterday and yanked the Cap's sword right outta her grip to throw it into the sky, would it?"
"Mmmaybe? The rumor might be exaggerating a bit, but I heard she did a brief 'test' to see if it was okay for us to bring her out on quests."
"Short, with white fur? Same red eyes as before?"

"Yeah."
"Yep, I don't think I wanna spar that one anytime soon," he said, shaking his head slightly.

"Well, you should at least meet her some time. I guarantee she's a lot less scary to talk to now."

Weight Loss Program

A sequel of Shore's Emissary!

As a side note, I couldn't quite believe that I not only haven't used this title before, but don't seem to even have used any titles with the word "weight" in them. It's certainly an obvious concept that I have used before, but I suppose I was more original with my titles in the past.

Shore's Emissary

Finally managed to get a caption written again. Wow.

Aetuornos Beta 1-3

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1-3: Pugilist Start

An old, unusually short man stood with his arms spread apart, impatiently waiting while one piece after another of monitoring equipment was affixed to his body. He was quite unusual in appearance compared to those attending him: His eyes were a bright red that glowed faintly, reflecting the room's light outward, with tall, slitted pupils; the gray hair on his head was interrupted by a pair of long, sharp-pointed ears covered in fur of a much darker shade of gray, and a long, slim tail of the same fur twitched impatiently behind him. Everything from his heart rate and blood pressure to the motion of his eyes and ears was to be carefully watched for—none of which, he had insisted, was the least bit necessary.

While he was far from the leading expert on the matter, he was the first one to say yes when a human-led company had come to him for help in developing their dream project. The magic driving the connection between mind and "imagined" body was largely his work, and he had done it based on fairly routine principles known by most of the magical community to be extremely safe. Nonetheless, humans were nervous, and trusted their technology more than any one person's word. He would bear with it.

"There. You're all suited up, mister, ah, Carthan," the medical man said, pulling his hands away first. The cat-eared expert dropped his arms.
"Right." A young woman he'd met a few times, but couldn't remember the name of, nodded. She was the head of the team working on their "game"—an unbelievably frivolous use of what Carthan had helped to craft, but he understood and appreciated the company's ambitious plan by now. "In addition to testing for any physical feedback, you'll be helping us see how the randomization options work, how the experience is for someone less familiar with video games in general...oh, and while you're in there, just pretend to be some normal person playing the beta. We've got lots of questionnaires for them to fill out, but it's good to get the kind of opinions people say to their peers, when they don't think anyone official's watching, too. So, uh, ask what they think of the experience if you think you can get away with it sounding natural."
"Hmph. You want me to ply them for their addresses, too?" he said.
"Um, no, that's—"
"A joke," Carthan said, shaking his head. They never did get the straight-faced ones. "If there's nothing else, I'll get to work."

After some general affirmation, he walked over to the pod and carefully climbed in, lying on his back. Most of the big, sensory-depravation-chamberesque shell was completely unnecessary, but he was told the design made people feel safer—as it was impossible to accidentally roll out of it. At least the interior was comfortable. He reached over and tapped a few buttons on the panel, then lay back and closed his eyes, feeling an enchantment the likes of which he'd spent most of his adult life working with sweep over him.

A forced meditation state wasn't so necessary for him, but the ease of dropping into it was convenient. He let himself fall "down" and "out" of reality, toward the artificial one their world-builders and programmers had constructed, and then opened his eyes to look around at the transitional state.

He would never have admitted it aloud, but in addition to his pride compelling him to personally do this sort of safety testing for older players, Carthan was honestly looking forward to the experience. The idea of taking on a different role in another world was, at least, intriguing, and as all the player forms available at the moment were—or at least looked to be—young adults, he would be able to enjoy feeling youthful again for a bit as well. The designers had been very excited when he said he didn't care what form or powers he wound up with, as relatively few of the testers had that attitude and the ability to be assigned a role at random was bound to be a selling point to some of their eventual customers.

He could feel a push at his ears and tail. It was mildly uncomfortable, he thought, but it was to be expected that he wouldn't randomly be assigned an appearance too similar to his own. He reached up out of curiosity and felt at his shrinking ears until they became small and rounded, yet not furless; his tail, likewise, became much shorter but remained presnt in the end. The more curious change was something in his teeth, which he eventually realized had been several of them shortening and dulling a bit toward a less predatory shape. Finally, a squeezing sensation near the corners of Carthan's forehead portended the rapid growth of something from there. Examination by his hands found long, thick, curved keratinous horns which he would later see were dark, nearly pitch-black in shade. It would seem his new form was closely related to some sort of ruminant.

An urge to stretch came upon him, and when he did, Carthan felt his body expanding upward in response: His arms and legs lengthening and his torso growing taller. Transformations were not his area of expertise; they had consulted some actual experts on the matter to help craft that part of the experience. This was supposed to be close to the sensation of actual change, or at least the most comfortable, least painful means that existed. It was another thing he'd never had an interest in really experiencing, but was quite interesting in this consequence-free context.

Looking down, he observed a difference to his skin. Wrinkles and blemishes had largely vanished, as might be expected from a youthful, somewhat idealized appearance; however, his body hair, too, was mostly gone. Aside from that, his longer legs and arms seemed slim, and his shoulders appeared narrower than before. Suspicions regarding these anomalies mounted as Carthan found soft, light brown hair trickling across his cheeks and the back of his neck and trailing some bangs just down to the top of his eyesight. Well—this made a kind of sense. Complete randomization gave him a coin-flip's chance of remaining male...with the other option equally as likely.

"Hmmn..." He was a little interested to listen to the anticipated change of voice. Nothing yet, though he was beginning to feel a slight tingling from between his legs. This was followed by a gentle, strangely pleasant tugging which made him feel some heat in his cheeks and a raise in heart rate which his real body wouldn't actually be hit with. "Mmn, mm~mmm." There it went. His voice simply floated upward in pitch slowly, quickly taking on a feminine quality as the change of sex steadily progressed. Carthan could feel his waist squeezing narrower, his hips gently pushing outward and pulling his thighs apart as they, too, grew. "Aa~aah...aah!" Somewhat to his surprise, this feeling ramped upward in intensity the smaller things became down there, drawing a sharp, high gasp of air as it accelerated further.

"Mmh—!" Finally, manhood melted away and was swiftly replaced. "Mm~mmnnnh..." A deep, womanly alto hummed from her throat as her new equipment finally seemed to release all of that intensity into a strange, exhilarating new form of pleasure. This, well..perhaps she could get used to this. Less welcome was an awkward bleating noise she made when her mouth opened, seeming to fully identify her as some sort of sheep-person.

Looking down again, the new woman found her clothing altered. Her shorts were even shorter, denim now rather than cloth, and almost excessively tight between the legs—though that wasn't the least bit uncomfortable now. Her shirt had lost is sleeves and failed to gain height with her, exposing a slim, flat belly that seemed to have a faintly visible outline of muscle running across it. Her chest was beginning to tingle faintly under the top, likely the beginnings of some upper-body curves to match the wide, womanly hips her shorts did little to hide.

Indeed, she found herself bleating again in surprise at a sudden push from her chest, bringing a small pair of breasts into view and running suddenly-sensitive skin across the soft cloth of the tight top. "Aa~ah!" Another push made them a bit larger, and gave them more to feel, drawing a new wave of blushing and pleasant tingles down between her legs. While she had no complaint about how this felt, she wondered—was the only option really between pain and this sort of..intensity, when it came to a change of sex? Some people were certain to complain about this, if any of their testers had been brave enough to try it. And how did it feel going the other way? These thoughts were difficult to hold onto as her breasts expanded once again, even more than the last time, and drew a deep, thoroughly pleased "Oo~OOoohh..!" from her lips, her body squirming slightly in pleasure as she felt herself filling out to a full-figured, voluptuous form, seemingly stretching the top to its limit. By the end of it her breasts were large—not gigantic, but big enough to be the envy of a great many real women out there.

Carthan panted softly, looking down and taking in her form. In the process she perceived the world below coming into view: What looked to be an unusually thin-treed forest, and in particular a small, grassy clearing in the midst of it. Looking quickly around, she saw an edge of the woods nearby and made a quick mental note of the direction just before the treeline passed her view and she landed, kneeling on one knee and placing a hand on the ground to soften an impact which was already very soft to begin with.

She stood up easily, and without knowing exactly why she put her arms up. A coat fell down onto her, the sleeves neatly sliding onto her arms so the rest could sweep down around her, a thick fur trim covering her shoulders while the hem trailed down almost to her knees. She stretched, giving a satisfied sigh; this body felt not only beautiful but strong, almost unbelievably so for how little muscle mass was visibly obvious. It would have seemed odd that no weapon presented itself to her, if her mind wasn't busy filling up with some knowledge of how to use her fists and feet as lethal weapons in their own right. She grinned confidently, reaching back to run a hand through her hair and finding it long enough in the back now to reach her hips.

After a quick look around, Carthan strode confidently in the direction of the forest's edge. Surely she should be looking for civilization, after all. Any players there were would be drawn that way eventually, from her understanding of the way this game worked. At the same time, she looked around; for a false-feeling forest with too little animal life, this area at least was pleasing to look at. The scents seemed about right to her too; although perhaps her nose wasn't as strong as she was used to, it would have been easy for human designers to neglect something so vital to certain kinds' perceptions. It was strange being this tall, but not at all unpleasant; every step was like a leap or bound forward, and her energetic body seemed to have no difficulty making one of them after another.

After a short while, her body stopped walking and tensed, and for just a moment Carthan wasn't sure why. The answer came when a gigantic bear—maybe twice her own height and considerable in girth—leapt out from hiding to one side of her, charging and swinging its enormous claws her way. Her body seemed to react before her mind processed any of it, turning and backing away from the first few swipes, then dodging neatly just aside of an attempted tackle, letting the creature land and roll past her as she turned around to continue to face it.

Right...there were "monsters" here. That was why the players got deadly abilities and/or weapons. Carthan pondered whether her skill set was suited to something that big, but something told her she could do some real damage with a throw if it tried that again. Now acting rather than reacting, she swept closer to the giant bear as it stood up and side-kicked at its midsection, landing a solid hit that made it sway ever so slightly off balance. She pressed this advantage, leaning in for a hard forward punch that knocked it tumbling backwards and hopping back out of range of its flailing claws as it fell.

The bear roared, pulling itself up again and charging at her; this time she grabbed a spot on a foreleg just behind its paw and guided the momentum, arcing it up into the air and slamming it down hard onto its back on the ground. The bear was stunned briefly, and she took the moment to kick it in the side again before hopping back a few times again, anticipating the quick rise to its feet and further enraged attack.

It felt like she was doing damage, yes, but barely chipping away all the same. While hitting a giant bear with one's fists was normally inadvisible, Carthan felt as if the problem here wasn't one of practicality. This thing was just able to take a lot of hits. Well, she felt perfectly able to keep those hits coming. She maintained a loose, ready stance and stared down the bear, waiting for it to make its next move. It roared loudly, charged, and—something interrupted it. There was glinting flash just barely in her perception and the bear staggered back slightly, a gash of a cut visible across its gut. While unsure what had happened, she wasn't one to miss an opportunity, and quickly went on the offensive, leaping forward in a dive-kick to the bear's center of mass. This sent it flying backwards, slamming into a tree hard enough to audibly crack its trunk.

"Woohoo!" A loud, high voice yelled from her right as she rolled and picked herself up again. Glancing briefly that way, Carthan found a silver-haired woman with canine traits and a katana in her hand. The bear stood back up with another roar while the tree it had landed on slowly toppled to the ground behind it. "Come at me, bro!" the wolf-girl taunted, and the bear appeared to take the bait, charging headlong at her. Somewhere behind the two of them, a third person's voice chanted something Carthan didn't exactly understand, and several points of light arced their way through the air, seeming to dodge around both of them to travel straight at the bear, burying themselves hard in its body and drawing more blood from the points they hit. Then it made it to where the wolf-girl was, and she moved again too quickly to quite make out, the glint of her sword passing across the bear and leaving it with a nice big cut across the side, ending with her behind it. Carthan also took the opportunity to shove hard into it, forcing its momentum sideways so it slammed itself straight into a tree, from the front side this time.

Turning around to face her target, the sheep-girl could see the source of the other voice now, a short, petite girl with a sort of witch-styled hat and absurdly long white hair that was currently blowing upward around her slightly as a bluish glow surrounded her. She held a staff in her hands and appeared to be chanting something else now; Carthan caught sight of her just in time to see her make a throwing motion as though slinging something out from the staff's orb, which indeed seemed to catch a portion of the blue glow around her into a small, concentrated bit of light, a crescent-shaped blade which sailed straight through the air and buried itself into the stunned bear's neck before dissipating out of existence, leaving another nasty-looking wound behind.

The wolf-girl also made a follow-up attack, leaping up and stabbing her blade straight into the bear's back for a moment, pulling it out again with some slight difficulty as the bear thrashed around wildly. She backflipped away as the bear turned around and roared again, only to be interrupted by a swift kick to the gut from Carthan. The sheep-girl fillowed this up by grabbing a foreleg in both hands, just near where it connected to the bear's body, and twisting hard until she heard a cracking sound, then jumping away as its free claw went swiping at her. It only succeeded in cutting up her coat a bit in the back.

Some more points of light swarmed at the bear from the mage, one of them even managing to bury itself straight into an eye. With the broken foreleg the bear's blind thrashing was badly off-balance, and it careened onto all fours (threes?) to run wildly at whatever it could smell nearby. This happened to be the samurai at the moment, who jumped over it when it charged her and swiped her blade down across its back as it passed under her. Carthan ran to catch up with it as it swerved to turn around; she jumped and landed hard on its back before leaning forward and pummeling the back of its head a few times with her fists, then backflipped away as it began trying to shake her off.

The bear's claws skidded across the ground as it turned, roaring and struggling to pull itself back upright again. A light-blade from the mage caught it square in the front of the neck. Finally, the monster made a choked sound, shuddered, and collapsed forward onto the forest floor. The two melee fighters nearby panted softly, both still tensed for a continued fight, and everything was silent for a long moment. Soon, however, it became clear their opponent wasn't getting up.

"YeeEEes!" the wolf-girl yelled first. "That was a boss, wasn't it?" she said, looking at Carthan. "It totally felt like a boss!"

The sheep-girl scratched her head, unsure what to think of either this exuberant woman or what she was saying. It was a little strange to find herself taller than another adult for once, her own eye level about where the tips of this stranger's ears reached.

"Scylla," the spellcaster began in an admonitory tone, "we introduce ourselves before interrogating strangers."
"Oh, right! Heheh." She put a hand behind her head in an embarrassed gesture for just a second. "I'm Scylla, this is my buddy Ara."
"Aranthra," the mage corrected, walking closer to the other two.

"I..see. Well, I'm.." The sheep-girl thought on it for a moment; it would be preferable not to use her real name, especially looking like this. "..Jesse," she settled on after a second, and offered a hand toward the wolf-girl, who immediately took it to excitedly shake.

"Nice to meet you!"

"Likewise," said Ara.

"Now, on the subject of that big bear..it sure seemed to have a lot of HP," Ara said.
"Eichpii?" Jesse repeated, clearly not understanding. Both of them gave her a confused look. "Ah, is this a 'game' term? Forgive me, I'm less than familiar with this sort of game."

"Ah, well, it just stands for 'hit points'," the mage explained. "Or 'health points'. A number representing how 'still alive' something is, that goes down if they're hurt and up if they're healed, and typically you die if your HP is zero."
"Ah. That tracks," Jesse said, nodding.

"Hey! Loot!" Wagging her tail, the wolf-girl bounded over to the bear's corpse—or rather, where it should still be. Instead there were some neat piles of fur and what appeared to be fully-intact claws and teeth extracted out of the animal. "This is definitely boss-level loot, for sure!" She scooped up some of it and it vanished in her hands, though Jesse had the distinct sense that she had simply 'put it away'.

"Don't hog all that!" Ara said, hurrying over. "You know we basically kill-stole in the first place, right?"

"Erm, I was actually rather grateful for the help," Jesse said. "Is any of that actually even useful?"

"If a monster dropped it, it must be," Scylla stated. Then, to the mage: "I wasn't planning to take everything. I bet those claws could be fashioned into some sweet knuckles or gloves or something." The sheep-girl just shrugged and went over to take those, as well as a pile of fur of her own. Experiencing "putting things away" first hand, the process seemed to make a bit more sense: This was just a fictionally convenient version of a standard storage spell, without the need for an item to function as the entry to the storage space.

"Hey, how'd you get invited to the beta if you don't play video games?" Aranthra asked. "Excuse me—I mean that in the nicest way possible, just curious."
"Well—I was interested in experiencing this sort of crafted 'other world'," Jesse said. "Tell the truth, I have only had firsthand experience with modern technology for the past few years or so."

"Really?!" Scylla was excited again. "That's so cool, we've never met a 'magic' person up close before!"

"At least not that we know of, anyway," Ara corrected.

"Heheh. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we really aren't that different. Progress simply forked at a certain point," Jesse said. "We achieved many of the same things, around the same times even. It's gratifying to see that human tech is only better at some of them."

"More on the subject of what we're doing now," the mage said, "where were you headed? We were just sorta going in a straight line, hoping to find where the forest ends."

The sheep-girl nodded, then paused a second to look around and reacquire her bearings. "I believe the edge is that way," she said, pointing. "I was headed that way myself before being ambushed."

"Sweet! Can we go together?" Scylla said. "We make a great team! Although, that bear was probably a boss guarding the forest exit or something, so we may not encounter much else on the way out."

"I don't see why not," Jesse said with a slight shrug. Something about this girl made the request difficult to refuse, not that she'd been inclined to in the first place.

"Just remember I can't walk as fast as either of you," the mage advised. "I am a squishy mage, and also tiny."

"Yees! Tiny and cute," Scylla said with a teasing grin. "I'll keep it nice and slow for ya!"

"Ah, perhaps I should lead the way," Jesse suggested. "I'm confident that I can keep a reasonable pace for everyone."
"Yeah, and you already know which way we're going too," the wolf-girl nodded in agreement. "Lead on, Jesse!" This was accompanied with a dramatic point forward..in not quite the right direction.

Shrugging slightly again, the sheep-girl set out on her previous course, two followers richer, and began trying to think of ways to ask them what they thought of the game. Well..Scylla seemed the sort to voice her every opinion anyway, given enough time, which would provoke a response from her friend easily enough. So...perhaps just sticking around them for a bit would be sufficient for now. Anyway, they were fun.

Aetuornos Beta 1-2

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1-2: Initialize Thaumaturge

"Whoa-waaAAagh!" Remus flailed around after feeling himself start to fall, and spun around in the "air" a bit as a result until he calmed down and actually looked around. "Oh, oh okay! Just—no warning about this, huh? First thing: Definitely have options for..logging in. Or whatever. If I was afraid of heights I'd be having a full-on panic attack right now, seriously." He slowly righted himself so his feet were below him, anticipating an eventually landing, and crossed his arms. Then he noticed the pull of his hair flying up around his head was more than expected, and reached up, pulling some of it down in his hand. The lock he got a hold of was longer than it should be, and its color was pinkish instead of read.

"Oh." He exhaled the end of a sigh. "I guess we're doing this already? Okay." He let go of the hair and looked down again, feeling a vague tingle and seeing the body hair vanishing off of his arms and legs. "Shouldn't be surprised, I guess. What else would come first?" The hair on his head was already so long that the "wind" blowing it upward couldn't keep the bangs from edging into the top of his eyesight, and the rest was curling up from just above his shoulders. The color was even more faded than before, too.

"Ghhgk." Remus shuddered, feeling a kind of chill run down his spine. This was followed swiftly by a pressure across his body that seemed to cause a rapid shrinking everywhere. His arms and legs slimmed, his shoulders and waist narrowed, and his face felt funny as it, too, grew smaller and rounder. "Yeesh! This is supposed to be a ge~entle..adjustment?" he paused, hesitating, when his voice cracked, and the rest came out at a higher pitch than before. "I feel we~eird! And..aah!"

He'd been about to complain of an especially strange tingling down between his legs, when it was accompanied by a sudden inward tug that made him feel warm, especially in his cheeks, and caused him to gasp for breath briefly afterward. "Hff..that was uuh, is that what it'd really feel like?!" His voice was unfamiliar now, a high tenor that was difficult to confidently identify as a man's voice at all, but that hardly deterred him from speaking. Remus looked down to see his body still getting smaller, while his shirt and shorts seemed to have shrunk with him, the latter even getting a little shorter in the leggings. Bright hair with only a faint reddish tint was cascading down his slim shoulders to almost past his chest, and still growing and fading out as it went. Running a small, delicate hand through the soft locks, he mumbled, "This looks like a pain to..mmf!"

The thought was interrupted by another tug downstairs. This one continued longer than the last, causing him to open his mouth in a loud, high gasp as he felt his manhood melting away, his shorts, along with some soft cloth that hadn't been beneath them before, suddenly pulling tight against a tiny, still-shrinking bulge. "Aah...t-this is..mnn~nngh..!" Remus's voice slipped out of male range now, edging toward a higher alto tone. "Aa~AAAaahh...!" As he cried out, squirming around through the air, he felt the last vestiges of masculinity disappear from between his legs, and at the same time her womanhood quickly formed into its place, asserting itself with a sharp, tingly, fuzzy sensation that was difficult not to enjoy.

"Mmnn~nnh..." The new girl helplessly groaned, huffing in some more breath, as she felt the rest of it forming into place in her lower belly. Her body was unbelievably warm, and her cheeks felt like they were on fire, but unfortunately it was hard to deny it felt good. She felt her shirt shuffling around on her tiny, petite frame, until she finally had the presence of mind to open her eyes and look down at the results.

"Wha—that looks ridiculous!" she complained. Her sleeves had torn off, attaching at the forearm and growing to nearly cover her wrists; the collar had dipped so far her chest was half-visible through it; and after only a bit more cloth it split apart in time to show off her slim, flat belly. "Ugh..I guess it's par for the course, though..mnngh.." Her chest began to tingle faintly, and pushed forward against the cloth; the skin there was suddenly very sensitive, and giving her aftershocks of the sensations from just after the change of sex.

Remus breathed in sharply through her teeth, trying not to lose composure again, even though there wasn't anyone to really see. Then she let out a low "Oo~ooh..mnnh..." as a pair of modest breasts finished filling themselves out, giving some cleavage for the low cut of her top to show and poking out as visible bumps even where they were covered. At the same time, she wriggled her hips back and forth, feeling them press outward as they grew wider, her thighs thickening up again and her rump rounding out behind her, giving the new girl a modest, but still quite womanly, figure. By now her hair was a pure, snowy white, with a few ribbons and bows holding onto it in various places, and it trailed down as far as those hips, even while billowing out around her from her continued fall. Finally, a pair of tall red boots fixed themselves to her feet, stitching themselves up as far as her calves and pulling tight.

"Hfffh...phew." She shook her head a bit to try and clear it, and felt her hair swish around all across her shoulders and back. Since she wasn't really paying attention at this point, Remus didn't see the ground coming, and landed on it a bit roughly, her front splaying out across the soft grass with an audible clunk.

"Ooww.." It didn't really hurt at all, of course, but hitting the ground was still a bit uncomfortable. For some reason, her hand instinctively reached forward and grabbed something—a long rod..a staff, she realized, and pulled it up with her, pressing the bottom into the ground he help push her up onto her knees. A black, brimmed, conical hat she hadn't had on her head before slipped off onto the red crystal topping the staff as she came upright, and stayed hanging there for a second as she looked around, taking in her surroundings as she heard footsteps coming closer. She was in a small clearing in a bright, green forest, it seemed. The trees looked huge around her, and perhaps they were, but it was difficult to tell for sure that it wasn't just a product of her drastically reduced height.

The footsteps stopped as someone leapt into the clearing, immediately drawing her attention: A tall (to her eyes at least), curvy woman with fluffy ears, a gigantic tail, and even more ridiculous clothing than Remus was wearing. "Aha! I knew I heard something. Hey there," she said, waving, her tail wagging like an eager puppy's.

"Uh, hello." Remus pushed herself up onto her feet with the staff; her eye level was about at this woman's chest, which made it..awkward to look that way without craning her head upward. She flipped the hat over onto her head. "I guess I tripped?" she said, trying to think of a plausible reason to be in that position within the setting. "My name's, uhh, Aranthra." She'd tried to think what she'd put on the character sheet at first, but the name came to her more easily by thinking of it as 'her own'.

"Oooh, it is you!" the wolf-girl said excitedly, putting her hands together. "I thought I shrank, but you're positively tiny!"

Aranthra held the staff in her right hand, letting it slide down so the base hit the ground, and put her free hand on her hip. "I told you this was a stupid idea, Marcus," she said.

"Ahp! That's 'Scylla' to you," the wolf-girl said, putting up an index finger admonishingly. "Also, your name's too long, so I'm just gonna call you 'Ara', 'kay?"

"Don't, that sounds dumb. Anyway, uh..I thought I got it bad, but those things.." She waved at Scylla's impressive bust.
"I like 'em!" the wolf-girl replied, poking one with a thumb. "If you're gonna go girl, go big! Otherwise what's the point?"
Aranthra shook her head. "That's an impending back hernia, in the real world at least. How long have you been in?"

"Just a couple minutes more than you. Oh! But I already got to fight some monsters," Scylla said excitedly. "I got to use some sweet samurai moves, like that thing where you pull the hilt out just a little bit like—click—and then you slash them and put it back and its like whoosh and you land and then the thing splits apart. It's so cool!"

"Heheh," the smaller girl chuckled, noting her friend seemed even more excitable than usual. "I'll relish the opportunity to try some spells out when the time comes, then," she said, slowly spinning her staff around in her hand. It was surprisingly lightweight for how big it looked; her strength score was very low, so it had to be another magic thing of some sort. "Although I can't imagine the experience is much like the real thing, at least it's much easier to 'learn'. I guess you didn't find a town or anything yet?"

"Nope! I was just gonna start looking when you dropped in," the wolf-girl said. "You wanna go with me?"
"Sure."

Since she was the melee fighter, Aranthra let Scylla take the lead, and followed behind. Moving around in this form felt different—not the least because of her hips swaying a bit and the severe reduction in size coming with a similarly extreme reduction in her stride length—but it didn't feel particularly uncomfortable or unfamiliar. It felt as natural as if she'd walked this way all her life, although..keeping up with the excited wolf-girl was still no easy feat.
"Fff..ff..hey! Slow down, Scylla! I'm not a physical class!" she yelled when they started to really get separated. The wolf-girl turned around, and her ears spiked up in surprise when she saw the distance between them.
"Oh! Sorry, I just felt like I was walking normally," she said, coming back Ara's way. "I'm not used to having this kind of crazy stamina. I should really try working out or something!"
After catching her breath, the mage nodded. "Yeah, you do that. For now, try to remember someone's following you."

"Okay, okay!" Scylla turned around, and did at least seem to try to slow down. It was tough, but Aranthra at least felt physically capable of keeping up this time.

"Seriously, I can't believe you didn't go for any exotic traits."
"I'm half elf," Aranthra said, brushing back some of her hair to show the mild points to her ears.
"Noo, I mean—this is an opportunity to see what it's really like to have a tail, or wings, or like horns! Without having to commit to anything major on your real body. How could you pass that up?"

"Being female is a drastic enough change for me," the mage said, shaking her head. "I happen to like the way I normally am. This just feels weird to me."

"New experiences, risk-free!" Scylla swept her arm around at the beautiful, false nature around them. "Isn't that what VR is for?"

"I wouldn't say risk free," Ara said. "I just said that the extent they went to to guarantee nobody would get body-jacked, or stuck in the game, or mind-rent, looked acceptable to me."

"I dunno what more you want from them. One of the gods taking over as head of security?"

Aranthra shook her head in a shrug. "I just think a disgruntled low-level worker could still wreak havoc on a small scale once the audience for this gets big enough for a couple of little details to slip through.

"..Still, I admit. I never imagined anything like this would be possible for another two lifetimes or so; and, it probably wouldn't have been before the Unveiling. How real this all feels, definitely drives home that we are living in the future."
"Yeah! That's the spirit," the wolf-girl said. "Hey!" She stopped in place, turned, and then suddenly ran off at a right angle to their previous course.
"What!? Where are you going? I can't follow that fast!" Aranthra yelled, following behind briskly but cautiously enough to avoid tripping over the uneven terrain.

"I smelled somebody! Yess! I think another player landed here," Scylla announced, already stopped in a small clearing similar to the ones they had begun in. Once the mage got there, she observed that the grass did look a bit disturbed, and a visible trail was going out in another direction.

"Well, what do they smell like?" she asked—half as a joke. The wolf-girl pointed her nose into the air and visibly sniffed a few times, taking the question seriously.

"I dunno, kinda...sheepy? Is what I'm picking up, anyway. You wanna go find them?" she said excitedly, her eyes practically sparkling.
"Well, we were sorta trying to find a town and if this person came in after we did then...oh, all right," Aranthra said, finding it difficult to resist the puppy-dog eyes the initial signs of rejection produced. "I can always use another meat shield, if they'll come with us." This was evidently what it felt like to be bent to the will of someone with much higher charisma, she thought.

"Yaay!" Scylla wound up to take off in the stranger's trail's direction.

"Slowly, so I can actually keep up with you!" the mage reminded her.

"Yeah, of course!" nod-nodding, the wolf-girl took off at a comically slow pace at first, and only after Ara walked ahead of her to cross her arms and shake her head did Scylla take on a relatively normal pace in the direction of the scent, giggling briefly at her own joke.

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Being well aware that I'm already writing a "people in an RPG" story, in many ways I'm intentionally setting this to have an opposite situation to TBRE. Everyone knew what they were getting into and agreed to it willingly; everyone can log out whenever they want. It really is a virtual reality video game, with no ambiguity about it being a real other world. For that matter, it's such a cliché of this kind of story that people get stuck in the game, so I'm wondering whether I could make an interesting story without that particular hook. Hopefully this will all lead to a pretty distinct story. As usual, I don't really know where this is going to go from the start; I just have ideas and run with them.

Aetuornos Beta 1-1

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Author post thing:

So...hi. 

I've been very quiet lately. The main reason for that is essentially a gigantic writer's block that lasted two or three months, and was really gearing up to happen even without the help of the world going upside-down on me. I have personally been just fine, and I hope if you're reading this that you're okay too. Despite said block, I have been slowly chipping away at some of the ongoing stories; I've had ideas for captions. It's just that nothing has been brought fully to fruition yet.

So this is what I have. I had an idea for a story, more or less, and I'm running with it for as long as it takes me. I think eventually I'll be able to put out more captions and more of the other stories, but since I have this I want to publish it so that I'm not just posting nothing for, what, going on three months straight?

Anyway, I hope you like it.

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1-1: Warrior's Inception

It was like it opened up beneath him, and he fell. The falling felt slow—not air rushing across his body, but like water flowing slowly out of his way as he sank through it. Like he'd taken off in a cannonball and landed on his back, and then just given up, uncurled, and let gravity carry him down the bottom of the pool, or the depths of the ocean—only without getting wet, nor any difficulty continuing to breathe. He opened his eyes, and looked around; it was clear, slightly blue, with enough light filtering down from above to make out his own body. The "ocean" seemed empty around all sides, and below as well, and a rapidly retreating surface above. Motion was easy, at least as far as rotating himself around and upright went; resisting the downward momentum seemed pointless, and sideways movement didn't bring him much of anywhere.

His first thought was this: There was a lot he'd expected to be impressed by here, but he hadn't expected the first thing to be the loading screen. However, he had to revise that thought when he discerned a distinct sort of pressure and motion all across his body. Looking down, he saw that it was being visibly pressed and molded: His waist trimming, his arms and legs slimming down steadily. Also, the "water" had already washed off every trace of body hair, and reaching a shrinking hand up to his chin, he found soft, smooth skin all across his face. Speaking of hair, there were bright silver locks starting to trail down into his view, bits of hair floating around to either side of his face and occasionally tickling his cheeks, and more of it creeping its way down the back of his neck.

"Oh, woow," he said, patting his increasingly flat belly through the t-shirt billowing around his torso. "So this is how they keep it from..mmh!" His thinking aloud was interrupted by a mild tugging sensation between his legs. Squirming his thighs around a bit confirmed that something was much smaller—but still present—down there. "O-oh. Hahah, well," he said, feeling the heat of a slight blush on his cheeks. His throat tickled strangely, and he said, "Tha~aat's gonna feel sorta weird, I guess, thi~is, wa~ay," the pitch of his voice rising mid-word a few times.

"Aah!" His blush intensified as another tug downstairs diminished him further. Now he could feel his hips gently pushing their way outward, his bottom plumping out behind him and thighs steadily thickening. Looking down, he could see his shirt and shorts pulling themselves tight against his shrunken form, revealing the beginnings of some curves: A slim wist, still-narrowing shoulders, and the widening bottom, of course. "Oh! M-my clo~othes, too?" he mused, hearing his voice rise out of tenor range in the process. The shorts were rapidly losing their leggings, their material softening as they pulled almost uncomfortably tight between his legs and showed off a very pathetic little bulge down there, despite some..excitement he was presently feeling.

"Yeah, I guess at so~ome point..mmnh!" His voice cried out, sounding like a young boy's, as he felt a sudden, sharp tingling down there, which progressed into a weaker but steadier version of the earlier tugs. "Aa~aah.." His voice rose still higher as he felt his manhood melting away, and squirmed in place in response to the unexpectedly pleasant sensation. "Aah, aa~aAAaah..!" This time his voice seemed to mature a bit, sounding less like a girl and more like a woman, as indeed... "Ooh—oh—yyeeeeaaaAAAAAHHH!" The changes down there concluded, female replacing male all at once and instantly asserting itself with an unfamiliar yet deep and irresistible sensation alongside a gentle upward push toward her belly as all the rest formed into place.

"Hff, hff..t-that was, amaa~zing!" the new girl declared, looking down past the tight shirt on her slim torso at a pair of frilly black panties now holding comfortably snug against her new equipment. "M-maybe a little, uhm, extreme?" she added, trying to get used to the altered voice—now a sort of low soprano, not squeaky but fairly youthful and energetic-sounding. "Should probably mention that to the, uh..whoa..." Her ears felt strange, like they were stretching themselves out and sharply tingling all at the same time. Reaching a small, delicate hand up as she felt them brushing right past her nearly shoulder-length hair, she felt fuzz growing across them, as well as far larger ears than they were just a moment ago. "Heheh, that feels kinda weird too," she said, running a hand across the growing fur. "Not bad, though. I'm really wondering about the tail, now.."

"Mmmn?" Her mouth felt strange for a moment, and when she ran her tongue over some of her teeth afterward she discerned the presence of some longer and sharper teeth than before in a couple of places. "Fangs?" she realized aloud, grateful the dental change hadn't affected her speech. "Now that's commitment. I wonder..rr..mmh.." Her thought was cut off by a sudden spread of a tingly sensation all across her chest, but especially near the nipples. Looking down, but not finding anything to see just yet, she could already feel a new blush oncoming.

"O-oh yeah..I kinda forgot about that. Heheh," she giggled nervously. Her...reaction to the major change below had been something else, and this was already sparking a slight fuzzy feeling down between her legs. At the same time, she felt a gentle push from her lower back, and twisting around slightly she caught the beginnings of a silver-furred tail making its way out past the hem of her shirt.

The tingling intensified, and she felt the material of the shirt brushing across suddenly sensitive skin as her nipples grew wider and taller. "Mmh! O-oh...here gooees," she mumbled, bracing for impact. "Aah..aah...!" A little bump pushed its way up from below each nipple, the beginnings of a pair of breasts. "Aaah..rrf!" The growing tail swished rapidly back and forth, the girl's now-gigantic, fluffy ears lowering toward the sides of her head, and she surprised herself with a high bark. "Wha-aaAAaarrf!" A louder one interrupted her attempt to express the confusion. Her tail tingled and stretched, growing longer and thicker; the small bumps accelerated their growth, seemingly pushing the shirt out to accommodate their growing size. Her eyes fluttered shut as she began to find it difficult to think in the flood of sensations.

"RrrRRF! Yip!" Two sudden jumps advanced her bust size, each one accompanied by a torrent of wonderful feelings from her newfound womanhood. "Aah, aAah, AAH!" The breasts grew even faster now, as it felt like her entire being wanted—needed them to keep going. She was already past a mature, visible pair and growing toward above-average size, and it was clear it wasn't about to let up yet. "OoOOh yeeEEAaahh!" she yelled incoherently; a gigantic, fluffy tail now wagged vigourously around behind her as she writhed around in ecstasy, just riding high on it all. Finally, as one last push brought her breasts from 'big' to 'huge', she tilted her head back and let out an honest-to-goodness howl, a piercing "Awrooooo~!" that could have been heard for miles around—if she weren't still floating out in abstract space, at least.

The voluptuous woman bent forward, alternating between panting heavily and rapidly for a bit, before slowly straightening herself up as she felt something going on with her clothes. "H-hahah..that was..yeah, definitely..t-too intense." She shook her head, her ears flopping about and hair swishing around her a bit in response, but her face was still covered in the hugest, goofiest blushing grin ever. "Iiii, don't think I'm gonna forget to mention that!" Looking down, she could see her shirt in the process of reorganizing itself, the sleeves coming off and sliding down to the forearms, the hem traling down to her knees but splitting apart on either side in the process. A sash suddenly pulled itself around her waist, a giant red-and-gold ribbon tying it off, and a scarf wrapped itself around her neck, its tattered ends billowing out behind her to one side. A purple floral ornament attached itself to her hair just below her left ear, and similar stylings appeared on her sleeves as they billowed out near the wrists, some bridal gauntlets crawling their way up onto her hands from inside. Besides that, a pair of leggings pulled themselves up from her feet to her thighs, a pair of shoes appearing over them on her once-bare feet.

"Hahah, wow," she turned around in place, taking in the outfit. "Talk about revealing. Pretty standard stuff, I guess..I kinda like it, though! Oh..!" Her thoughts were interrupted as she passed through something resembling a thick, white fog to find herself falling slowly through a sunlit sky; looking up it became clear she'd just passed through a cloud, and looking down she could see a small, grassy clearing in the middle of a forest approaching—though much more slowly than her sense of physics suggested it should have. "Comin' in for a landing, eh! Hahah!" Her heart was racing; while that particular, girlish "excitement" from the transformation was steadily wearing off, she still felt excited and exuberant, full of energy and constantly eager to let it out. It didn't hurt that she was enjoying that part too.

"Whooooaaa—boom!" The wolf-girl landed on the grass, bending her knees as she hit the ground and immediately popping upright again. "Yeah! Stuck the—yip!" There was suddenly more weight from the back of her sash than expected, and reaching back her hand found the hilt of a sheathed katana and gripped it naturally, as its presence quickly began to feel not just expected but comforting—like as long as she had it, she could take on anything.
"Oh yeeaah! Hahah. Samurai," she said to herself, looking up again and beginning to really take in her surroundings.

"Well, time to go. Onward!" She released the sword to point dramatically forward, then began walking that way at a brisk pace, looking around at the unbelievably realistic beauty of the simulated nature. "I dunno if we get a tutorial or what, I mean, this all feels pretty natural. Maybe I'll just look for a town, and see if I can figure out where Remus wound up. Or I guess 'landed'?"

She was going to say something else, when her ears twitched, picking up a noise from nearby. It was a weird sort of rhythmic squishing, fluid noise, and before long she discerned the source: A small group of green, slimy blobs with small, spherical cores glowing visible within them, in the process of surrounding her. There were two to her left, three to the right, and two more coming up in front of her—none behind just yet, but they were clearly aiming to get there. "Oh-hoh, think you can get the drop on me?" she said, placing a hand on the hilt of her sword and staring at the pair straight ahead. Her body seemed to instinctively tense up, and she became aware of a kind of muscle memory for various movements she could make to attack in this situation. Just as soon as one of them got close enough...

It wasn't long before one of the ones in front of her tried its luck, squishing itself nearly flat before springing upward to lunge toward her. The wolf-girl grinned, her fangs gleaming, just before she made a sudden, swift motion forward, the shing of her sword exiting the sheath audible as she swung it twice in a single leaping arc toward, into, and past the first slime, followed by the second slice through the other one just past it on the way to landing. When her feet hit the ground the sword was already halfway into the sheath, and it audibly clicked into place as the glowing cores of the slime-creatures fell apart, the clean cuts cleaving them in two, and the rest of their substance collapsed into puddles of goo on the forest floor.

After that, the samurai turned around easily, facing the remaining slime-things with a winning, fanged grin and her hand still on the hilt. "You want some more~?" she said in a happy, playful voice, and was pleased to see the five remaining monsters quiver and hesitate in their motions—clearly intimidated. Two of them fled, the remaining ones approaching her as she gave a 'come on' motion with her free hand.

Deciding to try out a different move, she unsheathed the weapon and flipped it around to an underhand grip, the blade pointed behind her. When another slime lunged, she swept the blade up through it—slicing the core in the process—let go so it flipped in the air and caught it in her other hand flipped the other way so the blade could slice down and finish it off. After that she leapt off to one side, twisting around so her feet hit a tree trunk, kicked off it and landed blade-first, the katana's tip piercing straight through the second monster as she flipped over it like a polevault to land to one side of the collapsing goo. The final remaining monster went down with an easy side-swipe just when it was halfway into a lunge her way, and she danced around to one side of the spray of greenish slime before it could hit her.

"YEEeaaah! Awe-some," she said, fistpumping with her free hand while the other one put away the weapon. "I know those're prolly just level one baddies but I don't care, that felt so cool! I even scared some of 'em away! Saay.." Looking around, she discerned that a couple of the sliced-apart cores were still present, as well as a couple of glittering chunks of some sort of ore that had fallen out of the other ones. Kneeling toward the closest one, she picked it up and immediately felt a certain familiarity with what she was looking at, which confirmed her thoughts.

"Loot! I guess these core thingies are for crafting or spells, aand..." She picked up the ore, her tail wagging vigorously. "This stuff can be sold for money. Neat!" All she had to do was pick the item up, or—as it turned out—walk close enough to it to do so, and think about putting it away, and it disappeared, giving her a distinct since that it had been "put away". Obviously her ridiculous getup had no room for practical things like backpacks or even pockets, but that was no hindrance to lugging around as much treasure and spoil as she liked. Just like it should be, really.

Humming to herself, the voluptuous wolf-girl continued on her way after this, quickly coming upon a small lake fed by a nearby river. The water was clear and still enough to serve as a reflective surface, so she stopped by to take a look. "..Wow," she mumbled, flapping her ears up and down and watching her reflection's do the same. While it was in some ways obvious, it took seeing her reflection to really appreciate just how drastically different she looked just now. The way her fur faded from bright at the base to dark near the tips was nice, she thought, and...

"Is my tail really that big?" She curled it forward to have a look; it really was. "Heheh, wow," she giggled, pulling the enormous mass of fluff into her arms and running it across her cheek for a moment before letting it fall back to its preferred position. "So soft and warm~..."

This bit of self-appreciation was interrupted as her ears twitched again, picking up a faint thud of something landing on the ground, followed by a short, whining groan. Another person had fallen, possibly from the sky like her! So she took off at a run to investigate, impressed at just how good this body's sense of hearing and direction was compared to her real one's. It was a fair distance off, and she knew it was, yet despite dodging around several trees and hopping over stumps and briars she never lost her sense of where the sound had come from, and quickly made it to another little clearing to find exactly who she'd been hoping to see.