Aetuornos Beta 1-5

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1-5: Cleric Ordination

A man with brilliant, almost flaming red hair, bright spikes of foxlike ears poking out of it and two fluffy tails coming from his back, stared at the big machine taking up over half of the office room of his apartment. "Feh. These humans and their machine fetish." The other half was split between a recliner and what used to be the rest of the room's contents: A stand with a big-screen TV on top, some consoles below it; a desk with a desktop on it, computer chair stuffed under it with the stand now pressed right up against its back. "This is nothin' but a big plastic shell, I bet!"

He tugged at the cracks of a panel on the thing's side a couple of times before muttering something and making a pulling motion with his hands which made a firelike glow travel from his fingers into the cracks, audibly popping the panel off to expose a blend of circuitry, glowing crystal, and metal etched with runes between the two. "Yyyep. This could fit in a headband. Or a glove, maybe. But nooo, let's make aalll the prototype models these big, clunky, horrible uncomfy bed-things that don't fit nobody with a tail!"

He leaned in slightly again, his fingers tracing the lines of runes and crystal. Eventually he tapped one of the small ones a couple of times. "Hmmmyep. Forced meditation, too. Can't just let folks who know how do that on their own, either. Welp, I know how to fix this. So I will." Muttering a brief spell under his breath, some more fire-light wove into the crystal he'd tapped and back to his hands; with a few motion of his fingers he altered the enchantment just slightly. When it was done, he clapped his hands together a couple of times and the light disappeared. "Theeere we go. Hmmh...I could try to tear this stuff out, but they might actually notice that. Soooo...good enough for now."

This done, he stepped back and over to the chair, leaving enough room for his tails to curl up over the backs of the armrests, pulled the lever back so the footrest went up, and leaned his head back until it landed. "Aahh," he sighed. "Now then." He folded his arms and closed his eyes, focusing on nothing and, at the same time, the crystal whose enchantment he'd just finished modifying. After a moment, everything activated, and he was falling back through the chair and the ground—into an imaginary sky.

He let himself fall upside-down for a bit, taking in the surroundings. Maybe their idea of how a magic-based video game ought to physically present itself was all wrong, but this transitional effect was top-notch, promising for how things would go from here on out. And, indeed, it didn't take long for him to notice his hair whipping upward into his face with far more length and volume than it usually had, its red color fading steadily brighter as it began to hit his shoulders and cheeks. His ears and tails tingled faintly as well, and looking "down" (up, really) he could see the latter's red fur brightening just like the hair, while their snowy white tips remained the same.

Next, the Kitsune gasped slightly at a feeling a bit like being squeezed, and rotated so his back was below him to get the increasingly long hair out of his face so he could get a good look at his body shrinking. He saw his shirt and warm-ups billowing out looser at first as his shoulders and waist narrowed, his arms and legs slimming down, his frame pulling inward as he became shorter and smaller. Then the pants slipped entirely off of his hips, splitting apart at the middle and suddenly thinning and wrapping themselves tightly against his legs from the thighs down. The sleeves of his shirt tore off, sliding down to the forearms while growing rapidly longer and wider. The freshly-exposed skin was already quite smooth, hairless and a bit paler than his usual complexion; reaching a hand up to his face he found it soft and pleasant to the touch, all facial hair gone and the shape of it changed to a much more feminine one.

At this point he wondered whether his voice had already changed. "Aa~ah," he half-sang; indeed it was a little higher in pitch, and it rose more in the midst of that sound. Looking down again, he found the main part of his shirt in the process of drastically reshaping, breaking apart at the lower waist only for the bottom to spread out into a red pleated skirt, the rest splitting down the middle and folding itself back together again while a sash appeared and pulled itself around his waist, which istelf was looking quite slim by now. Then he became distracted from watching this by a sudden, sharp, tingling and slipping sensation down between his legs.

He squirmed in place as he felt his manhood rapidly shrinking smaller and smaller. "O-o~oh..mrrn, now tha~at's what—aah!" His voice rose much quicker than before, swiftly leaving male range at this last cry in response to a particularly sharp tug. "Mm~nnh, t-talkin', mrr~rrnh..." His voice continued to change, pulling higher and squeakier, even as he let out some deep, animal churring at the unexpectedly intense and pleasant sensation of his sex changing, the thing down there melting away completely and being replaced with something quite different—yet no less tingly and pleasant; if anything even more so.

Her first sound uttered as a woman was an unashamed "Aaa~aahhnn~nnNNnnn..!" as she felt feminine pleasure rush through her, her womanhood reaffirming itself at the same time with a gentle upward push of some necessary organs growing into place near the pit of her stomach. Then she panted slowly, a few long huffs, looking down again at the new shape of her clothes. Beneath the skirt her hips steadily widened, her thighs thickening; the robe-like vest she had as a top, however, still hung loosely across her chest.

"Hh-heheeheh," she giggled in a combination of happiness, nervousness, and embarrassment, a clear, high soprano now coming from her throat. "Th-that was, is that what it really feels like? Think I'm gonna enjoy this body more'n the game itself, heheh! Mmnh!" This thought was interrupted by a sharp tingling across her chest, the skin turning much more sensitive there than it had been before. "O-oh, not over yet, huh? I can't waaa~it," she sang cheerfully, a bright grin on her blushing face.

It didn't take long for her bust to start expanding, little bumps pushing themselves out, making sensitive skin brush across the soft material of the top. "Mmh, mrr~Rrrn...think I could get used to this," she mumbled in between some more vulpine churring. Her hips squirmed back and forth a bit as the pleasant sensation between her legs returned in response to this, and she gave herself to enjoying it fully as the bumps steadily pushed their way out, bigger and bigger, soon filling the top and then starting to stretch its material forward, forcing it to grow a bit with them. Her voice erupted into some excited barks and yips as this continued, before finally terminating in a very human and extremely feminine "Aa~aahhnn~nnn..." as her breasts finished their growth, gently bouncing a bit at the end of the pushing motion, and at the same time the girlish pleasure down there finished satisfyingly before subsiding and leaving her more or less back in control again. At some point, a collar had slipped itself around her slender neck, complete with a gigantic golden bell hanging from the front into the bit of neckline exposed by the top of her robe.

She huffed, looking down and gently pressing on one of the new globes with the palm of a hand. "Oh ruler, that felt nice. And I came outta it lookin' great too!" Her ears twitched slightly then, detecting some sort of change in the sound of air or whatever she was falling through going by, and she quickly turned to look behind her—below, really—and saw a shrine befitting her new state of dress. It looked a bit like she was going to fall onto the ceiling, but before she could worry about that she went through it instead, her already-slow descent decelerating further as she went the short distance between that ceiling and a soft bed in a room beneath it.

The new girl took a moment to catch her breath before sitting up and looking around, getting the distinct feeling that this was her "home". This same feeling said she was far from the only miko or priest working here, however, and soon enough some adventurers would show up in need of her help and guidance. Then—she could go with them as long as she liked. She stood up and spread out her arms, grinning brightly into a mirror at her lovely, adorable appearance, already feeling quite at home as a short, pretty pink-haired vixen in a shrine maiden outfit.

"Heh, I never really got the appeal of this look 'fore now," she commented, turning around slowly and trying to get used to her high, almost squeaky voice. "Guess it does have a certain charm to it, though." After that, she picked up a gohei from a corner of the room and stepped out through the sliding doors to the shrine proper, making a short tour of the place before heading up to a shrine at the top of some stairs to watch and wait.

It didn't seem that many of the beta testers had chosen a class like hers, or at least none who had had been dumped here with her. Apart from an old wolf-eared male priest and a human shrine maiden at a little stand near the entrance—both boring, repetitive NPCs—there was nobody else here at the moment. At least this meant she didn't have any competition to join a group...although it also meant that whoever showed up first would expect her to join them by default. She silently wished to herself that it'd be a party of cute girls, or at least mostly cute girls...being the only female with a bunch of guys would be fun for a little while, maybe, but it'd get dull quickly after that.

Fortunately, it wasn't that long before she got her wish. She spotted three girls cresting a hill to the west, one of them a tall one with sheep horns carrying another with a huge fluffy tail in her arms, and the third a slim, white-haired little thing who she reckoned for a mage. Concluding that this was perfect, the two-tailed fox-girl went running down the steps to go to them before anyone else could show up—either to claim them instead, or to try to claim her (as if she'd let them!).

The short one was holding a hand up to her brow to look at the shrine. The vixen's ears could pick her up saying, "I dunno, it looks kinda deserted."

"Don't look now, but someone's coming," the tall one carrying her friend responded. And soon enough she was in front of them.

"Hey there, y'all," she said cheerfully. "You need a healer?"

The white-haired mage girl's eyes twitched slightly. "What is happening right now."

"Don't be rude, Ara," the wolf-girl said. "Hey, yes! A spiny jackal thing bit my leg."

"Oh, is that all?" The vixen came closer to examine the hurt ankle. "I oughta be able to fix this in a jiffy. Just hold still, now." She softly chanted a brief prayer to her chosen in-game deity, waving the staff in her hand, and a faint white glow traveled from it to the injury, closing up the wounds and making it good as new. "There y'are."

The sheep-girl set her friend down, letting her put down the leg that hadn't been hurt first before carefully setting the other one on the ground and leaning her weight back and forth a couple of times. "Yay! It worked! Thankyoouu!" As soon as the healing was confirmed she excitedly tackled the vixen with a hug of gratitude, surprising everyone and knocking her straight to the ground.

The miko couldn't help but giggle at this overexcited reaction, patting the top of the wolf-girl's head a bit and blushing slightly at having the taller—and bigger—woman on top of her like that. "Heheh, down girl."

"Meep!" At this point she seemed to realize what she was doing, and jumped up and away, complete with a full-rotation backflip, her face flushing as the vixen sat herself back up. "Sorry!"

"It's cool. You were just sayin' thanks, right?" the miko said, using the gohei to pick herself up again. "Y'all must be other players, right? Orr—ahem, 'adventurers'?"

"That's right," the tall, horned one said. "I suppose you work at that shrine?"
"Yep! Name's Kite," she said—having decided on this well ahead of time.
"I am Jesse," she replied.

"Aranthra," the mage said.

"Uuh, Scylla!" the wolf-girl added, after taking a second to catch up on the conversation now that she was recovered from total embarrassment—quite a quick recovery at that, Kite thought.

"Good to meet ya. Now, I don't want to pressure you, but I haven't seen no other healers here yet. I'd be more than happy to join up with you, though."

"That would be great!" the wolf-girl said excitedly, but paused when the mage cleared her throat to get her attention.
"Just because you're the 'lead' doesn't mean you make every decision by yourself," Aranthra said. "What kind of healer are you?" she asked.

It was a little strange for the only one of the three who was shorter than her present shrunken stature to be the assertive one, Kite thought. "I'm a miko," she said, "bit of an agile mage on top of healin' powers. Worshipper of the goddess Aegis, which means I can do all kinds-a protection and barrier spells, too. So if you take me along, you won't just get healed, you also won't even get hurt as often in the first place. Plus, barriers can be used offensively too, y'know."

"That sounds pretty good," she nodded slowly. "Jesse?"
"I don't have much of an opinion here," the brawler said, crossing her arms. "We need a healer, here one is. It is a long, potentially dangerous journey to find another."

"And we all know what your vote is," the mage said in Scylla's direction; the wolf-girl bashfully turned half-away from her, but her tail started wagging at the glance. "Alright then. Welcome to the team." She offered a hand to shake.

This the vixen took gracefully right away. "It's a deal." She could've played around a bit, quizzing them on why they were worthy of her help, but eagerness to join the party of cute girls before anyone else showed up won out over that urge. Anyway, there would be plenty of opportunities to mess with Aranthra, she could just tell.

After this, the mage explained: "A smith in town told us about a mine roughly north of here infested with spider monsters. We plan on going to take them out, maybe kill the mom spider so the rest will go away."

"That's a pretty noble pursuit," the fox-girl nodded.

"Before that, we'd like to use the facilities of shrine you're from for a bit. I'd like to have more than two spells to confront a boss monster with, and we could do with a few healing supplies or something if there's a shop around."
"Oh, sure there is," Kite said with a little nod. "Come on along, then." She turned and led the way back to her 'home', the others following.

"It would be more efficient for me to meditate while the rest of you shop," Aranthra suggested. "Perhaps I can trust you to keep Scylla from buying a bunch of junk we don't need?"
"Oh, sure. I can pick out what's useful," Kite said, grateful they were all behind her and couldn't see the smirk on her face before she was able to pull it back to a normal, relatively innocent smile again.

"Out of curiosity, are you 'magic' or not?" Jesse asked.

"Yeah, Ara and I are just normal humans in the real world," Scylla interjected.
"Oh, I'm an honest-to-goodness Kitsune," the fox-girl said proudly. "Wasn't comfterble with the idea of losin' my tails, even for pretend. Thankfully the foxy folks in the game-world can have as many tails as you like." Now her desire to mess with the wolf-girl was even greater; people always had the most hilarious reactions when they weren't used to having fuzzy parts and animal instincts. It certainly went a way towards explaining that pounce-hug earlier, although it also seemed like she was just that excitable by nature in the first place.

Once they reached the shrine, Ara hurried up to the altar to sit down and start meditating, and the fox-girl led the other two to the little stand near the entrance, noting that here was at least one thing the little mage was eager to do. "So, how much money do y'all have, anyway?" Scylla and Jesse reported their numbers; both were higher than Kite's current capital and the samurai's slightly higher than the brawler.

"I suppose you were in a battle before meeting me," Jesse said.

"Yeah! I took out a few slimes by myself."

"Good for you," the miko said. "Now, I think it'd be best to pick up a couple potions and bandages, and some a' these." She grabbed a handful of seal and talisman papers, some of which had strategically relevant effects but most of which were essentially cosmetic and/or useless, and swept them into a little pile at one end of the stand. Neither of the physical-class players would even be able to tell what they were, she knew; a mage would, and might even be able to use some of them, but this class of items was pretty much intended for mikos and other similarly Shinto-themed magic users. "That aallll comes out tooo, a little less than you two have combined."

"That's great!" the wolf-girl said, getting out her money right away.
Jesse put an arm out in front of her. "What, exactly, are these papers good for?"

"Huh?" She dropped an ear in performative confusion, before pretending to remember: "Oh, right, fighter classes. Any mage could tell ya, these things have the effect of spells but don't cost nothin' but consumin' the item to use. The ones I picked are mostly buffs and bonuses. Like—this one boosts XP gain from the next battle," Kite cheerfully lied, showing off a paper which emitted the scent of pumpkins when activated. "Oh, but this one can explode like a napalm bomb," she added—this time telling the truth. "Useful against a big spider, right?"

"As long as we're not also in range," the sheep-girl said. "Very well, then."

The prior conversation had strongly suggested Jesse to be a "magic" person, and her obvious suspicion of a declared Kitsune's claims confirmed it. That said, Kite was a little surprised at how quickly she'd decided to believe her. Perhaps the extra few points she'd stolen from constitution into charisma were paying off? Or—after all, it wasn't that much money she was possibly wasting, just the tiny starter bit plus two or three battles' worth. That said, if Kite played her cards right, maybe they would think her shopping choices on this trip wise by the time the boss was down, so that afterward they'd let her make some much more expensive purchasing decisions for them. That could be fun.

After sitting and meditating, Aranthra found herself facing a much more "sci-fi" feeling interface. This was good; it was intuitive enough to read, gave a clear view of what she was editing, and seemed to respond to her very thoughts as controls. One boss bear and four predatory hedgehogs didn't amount to a whole lot of experience, of course, but she'd elected for the minimum possible number of starter spells in exchange for some free experience points that could only go toward learning more spells, and there were a lot of inexpensive ones available standard, not to mention a few of her own ideas were sure to be affordable enough.

The first thing to get was a 'fire elemental tweak', essentially a modifier which she could apply with a slight overhead beyond any compatible spell's usual casting cost to give that spell the fire element. Such tweaks were available in just about any element imaginable, and she meant to get a lot more eventually, but this was a good start for a nest full of spiders. Next she constructed her first custom spell, "Glimmerblast" or perhaps "get outta my face". This spell played off of the multi-missile attack she'd started with, but had near-zero range and had the missiles all give off little explosions of light, impact, and heat when they stopped. Its time and mana cost were very low, as well as its experience cost, so she could use this to push away or keep back anything that got too close and give her slow-moving self more time to flee.

After that, it was time for some buffs. One of the basic spells (intrinsic to a more buff-oriented mage class) would temporarily "enchant" and thereby enhance the effectiveness of other fighters' weapons; this could be chained with elemental tweaks to make physical weapons do things like fire or electrical damage. A bit higher in level and cost was something to temporarily boost constitution, allowing the target the physical endurance to run harder for longer as well as survive slightly worse injuries.

Finally, Aranthra invested her remaining points in some modifications of the crescent blade spell. One sharpened it into a piercing arrow, another thickened it to do impact damage, and a third let the blade break off mid-flight into some smaller ones at the caster's will. Cutting enemies up from a distance had been an effective strategy for her so far, so she upgraded the effectiveness of this whole "tree" as her last action, granting better damage, range and overall control.

Though she was out of points to spend now, the mage took a bit longer to create some more custom spells to be learned in the future and queue up both those and some standard spells to be learned in the specified order as soon as the XP was available—a convenient feature which would allow her to take longer before needing to meditate again. First on the list was a proper, traditional fireball, explosion on impact included.