The "Best" RPG Ever-104

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There was a very light knock on the bedroom door, which Rayna suspected human ears might have missed out on entirely. "Come in?" It opened slowly, and Nora was standing there. The fox-girl sat up on her bed, crossing her legs. "Hiya."
"Err, hello," the elf, currently in her feline form, replied. "Um..I was wondering, whether you might be hungry?"
"Hm. Gettin' there. You?" Nora nodded. "Let's gooo find something, then," she said, getting up.

"Maybe...we could go out somewhere?" the elf suggested quietly.

"Eh? Sure! Lemme throw something travel-worthy on and I'll be right with you."

At the stairwell, Nora gestured for her to go first. "So, did you finish reading?"

"Err, sort of. Um...really, I didn't get much farther. I became...distracted, thinking about my reaction to your visit."
Rayna looked back slightly. "Oh? How so?"
"Well um...I can see how, perhaps, that sort of hesitation from me would...appear normal, to you, but under close scrutiny it, really isn't."

The fox-girl opened the stairwell door and started toward the door to town; once they were both out of the stairs, she continued. "I um...actually had an urge to pet Zack a while before it actually happened. So I jumped at the opportunity when it became clear we both wanted it. That's...how this all began. I was equally, um..eager when Katherine proposed it."

"Well, I already knew you weren't some timid li'l flower," Rayna said, "I guess I just thought being nervous about this was normal in general."
"It is. I think, perhaps, I am not so normal. Not that I consider that a..um, disadvantage."

"So, that is why I became distracted. Uh..wondering, what was different. My conclusion is, that I knew both of them quite well already. And perhaps, I don't feel that I know you quite as well."

Once they were out of the house, Rayna turned her head around briefly to look the tall girl's way again. "Huh, really? I thought we got along alright."
"We do."
"And we went on a whole quest together! To those weird research lab ruins."
"Well, yes but..I didn't do very much of the talking. It's..not really in my nature to speak up around people more eager to talk than I am."
"Heheh, you've got us there.

"So you're saying it's a problem of familiarity, not that you don't like me or anything."
"I..suppose so."
"Well, we can talk right now!" Rayna realized something. "Oh, wait, that was your idea the whole time, huh?" Nora nodded. "Derp. So where to?"

After a short search, they found a small cafe and sat on either side of a booth in a relatively deserted corner, ordering their meals all at once with the drinks.

"Well, let's see uh..how should we start?"

"Um...how did you and Lynn come to..work together? Or, how did you meet?" Nora asked. "...On Earth, I mean," she added a little quieter—not that anyone seemed to be eavesdropping.

"Well...let's see. When I was a kid I memorized factoids—you know, from those books like 'one hundred and one facts about Texas' or whatever—and I liked to roll them out to anyone who even halfway seemed like they'd listen. I got a little older and my reading expanded. And I got into games. Lyle was one of the kids who lived near me and we went to the same school, so kinda by default we were 'friends'. Our little group would get together in one of our houses to play something almost every weekend for a while.

"Sometimes just the two of us would play together. I thought I was a genius back then, and I guess he was the only one who kept up with me—or put up with me, more like. Instead of just ignoring me or brushing me off or telling me to please stop when I spouted some useless information, he'd actually challenge me on it. Like, ask for my sources and their sources and how this or that statistic was gathered. This was—I was like fifteen and we were having these long, drawn-out philosophical conversations sometimes. Like I said, I thought I was smart because I knew things, but really he was always the smart one, you know? Because he didn't settle for just information, he wanted to really, deeply understand, and to know that what he believed was actually true.

"...So anyway, our little group kinda drifted apart throughout high school. I think both of us rubbed the others the wrong way at one time or another, and eventually it got to be too much. And believe me, I can see it, we both kinda have some really annoying personality traits and those were way worse when we were teenagers. In our senior year we decided to just do what we usually do, pick up a game and talk to death about it, but actually record it and try putting it up on that Youtube thing. Really the only difference after the dry run was we had to talk louder so the mic could pick us up, and that also had us put more energy into it than usual. We uploaded like ten video from a single game and thought, 'welp, that was fun, let's get on with our lives'."

The food arrived, and after the waiter left the fox-girl realized she'd been the only one talking for a while. "...Sorry, do you wanna interject?"
"No, um..I'm interested," the cat-eared elf said with a tiny nod. "Please go on."

"Okay, yeah. So, a month or two after that some huge youtuber, like one of the first to get monetized and all that, came out and recommended our videos to his fans. I looked at the channel one morning and our views had jumped from tens to thousands. So I called him and I was like, 'we gotta do more of this, man!' So, uh, we did, all through senior year.

"Then we had to stop, though, because we were graduating, and not even going to the same college. I went looking for a degree in logic, philosophy, that kinda thing, because..I felt like I needed to train myself to see things the way Lyle always did. Not a bunch of known answers filed away, but questions waiting to be asked. Meanwhile, he was looking for a job that would pay well, I think some kind of engineering...I always forget what exactly.

"We still did the show. Just—we happened to have the same days off, and we'd always come back home and take some time to record a little more. We started making, basically side money off of it, but kept up at school until graduation. Then it was—looking like a stable income. We talked back and forth about it for a month or two, and eventually decided to try doing that full time for a while. If it fell through, it was still famous enough to go on a resume, and we had pretty decent degrees to fall back on for jobs, if we had to. Well—him more than me."

"Mmh." Since the story was over, Nora took a moment to chew and swallow before responding. "I, uh..don't think I've seen this from you before."

"What 'this'?" the fox-girl said, one ear tilting down a bit.
"Sorry. I mean, just...self-deprecating, even a little bit. You usually come off as, uh, extremely confident. Like you know everything and nothing bothers you."

"Heh, well, I try," Rayna said. "Really though, 'overconfidence' has always been my default state. It took me a long time to learn to admit my mistakes and faults at all, much less see someone else as better than me in any way. So with that done, noow I'm perfect!" she said with an exaggerated flourish of her free hand. Slightly to her surprise, the joke actually landed, Nora giggling softly in reply.

"But, as um...'arrogant' people go, you don't really match my idea of one, either. You know, uh..instead of treating other people like they don't matter, you kind of, project your confidence on them, too."

"Well, it's a little bit of a false bravado thing. If you act like everything's good, it's easier to make it that way. I envy Aria's total self-confidence a little bit."

"Hey, how about you?" the fox-girl said. "What's your story? I've heard bits of it before, but..."

"Well, um..there isn't that much to say," Nora said. "I was born with a, genetic condition that made my bones fragile...so I spent a lot of time reading, mostly."
"What kind of books?" Rayna said, leaning in a bit with interest.
"Um..history, science, fiction—fantasy, mystery, sci-fi...almost anything my parents would let me buy. We um...went with home-schooling because I was in and out of care a lot, so my textbooks, too. I don't...want to brag too much, but...I ran out of 'high school' level material a couple of years ago, and had to start working out of college books instead."

The fox-girl raised an eyebrow and the adjoining ear. "You were just about to start college when this happened, too—right?"
"Mmhm," she said with a small nod.

"Yeesh. That on top of all the reading you did here, as 'Nora', you're probably smarter than me and Lynn combined."

"Mmngh," Nora blushed and squirmed in her seat slightly. "I don't, um, think I know as much as either of you."

"You're more than ten years younger than we are!"
"Uhm...'here' I'm actually forty-something, though..."

"Good point. Wait, does that mean you know more about this world than Earth?"
"Maybe? Um...my reading here was broken up with meditation, prayer, exercise, uh, practicing weaver powers. Not so much the kind of, breadth my education had on Earth."

"Either way, I'd say you probably know more useful stuff than I do already."

"What's useful or, not, is really...a matter of opinion," Nora said.

---

Since there was nobody downstairs, Zack led the way up the stairwell—both the shorter wolf-girl and the dragon following behind him—like uncertain puppies, he thought. "Hello?" Nora and Rayna's doors were open; they weren't there, either. Mira came out of her bedroom, carefully shutting the door on her way out so the interior couldn't be seen and waving awkwardly at the three of them.
"Heeeyyy."

"Where is everyone?" It was unusual for the witch to be awkward at anything, but he chose to ignore it because he probably didn't want to know why.
"Ah, well, Aria and Katherine went to town to take care of some errands. Lynn's still out, so she probably found Rast; I bet she'll stick with him at least through lunch. Clera's here; I think I heard Rayna inviting Nora to go eat, so if they're not downstairs I guess they went to town for that, too." By this point the empath had opened her own door to look in on the conversation.

"Hey, if you're hungry we could try to run into those two and eat out too," the witch suggested cheerfully. "You in, Clera?"
"Thank you, but I think I'd rather just take something up to my room from the kitchen."

"Oh, come on, you can study or whatever anytime!" Mira went over toward her. "Just imagine eating delicious food in the company of friends! Or do you not like us anymore?"
The shorter winged girl crossed her arms, giving a look of disapproval. "Don't attempt to emotionally manipulate me. If you were going to insist, then you shouldn't ask my opinion in the first place."

"I was just trying to tempt you," Mira said, "not...whatever you said. It's no more fun than you not being there if you feel like I twisted your arm."

"You and I clearly value different things," she said. Then, with a brief exhalation of a sigh, "I'll come. Give a me a moment to prepare."
"Okay! We'll be downstairs," Mira said.

Both halves of her had never been especially fond of large crowds—but then, for 'original' Clera it was a matter of not wanting to hurt people rather than something she didn't personally want experience. And Ian was also rather unused to having 'friends', come to think of it, as opposed to colleagues, coworkers, subordinates...

The door to town opened not long after they got downstairs, Katherine coming through. "Hey, I'm back. We've got an appointment this afternoon for someone to come hook up the door and hand us the new one it goes with, and I guess we then need to take it out to the forest by foot—or wing, or whatever. I checked on Aria too, and she said not to wait up on her—plans on being busy for the next hour at least."

Mira gave her a quick mental summary of what she'd told Zack and the decision to eat out; the stairwell door opened and Clera arrived. "Soo, should we go drag her in on this?"
The catgirl shook her head. "She let me know she plans to grab something to eat on the way between shops pretty soon. We know where we're going yet?"

This started an energetic volley of suggestions from the witch and the dragon-girl, and a rapid-fire discussion of the options afterward; Zack didn't participate, but Lupa started to express her own opinion on the matter (mostly "This one wants good meat!") before long. Clera watched this quietly, thinking: Said friends were a bunch of strange, rowdy kids, but on the balance it was nice to have them. Being completely stuck in her old ways wasn't good for her mental flexibility, so something to challenge that was almost refreshing. An open, relatively simple mind was preferable to an "intelligent" one that was entirely closed off to new ideas.

---

"Helloooo? Anybody home?" Rayna's call, loud though it was, went unanswered. She took a moment to turn and peek outside, again not finding anyone. "Well, I think they abandoned us."
"We must've just missed them." Nora said. "...Now I feel a little bad for not inviting anyone else."
"Nah, it's for the better. Between you preferring not to talk, and me wanting to talk to everyone, we'd probably never have a serious one-on-one conversation is if we weren't totally alone," the fox-girl said. "Besides, if everyone else is gone, then we have the house to ourselves, right?"
"Yeah...um..."

The cat-eared elf fidgeted a bit. "Uh..do you want to, do 'that' now?"
"Sure! Your room or mine?" Rayna headed for the stairwell, holding the door open for the other girl to go ahead.

"Mmaybe...yours?"

"Alright. Think I threw what I had on over the covers, so I'll just need to get that outta the way..."

After leaving the stairwell, Nora paused in the hallway for a second like she just remembered something, and then shifted forms, growing taller and losing the tail and the fur of her ears. "Back to the tall elf form?" the fox-girl asked, her tone merely curious.
"Yes. I-it's um, I have the sense that the 'p-proper' way to 'commune' with someone for the first time is as my 'native' self. S-something like, if I'm t-trying to learn to weave my spirit to be like one animal's, it would be c-confusing to already have it woven into another's?"

"Mmh, that make sense," Rayna said with a nod, continuing on toward her room. "Might be a little hard for us both to reach at first though, heheh."

"I'll m-manage," Nora assured her, following slowly.

Once it was cleared off, the two of them sat next to each other on the side of the bed, the door in front of them closed. "Well, you start any time you want to~," Rayna invited, and Nora almost immediately reached over to play with an ear a bit. "Mrrh, you're pretty good.."

After progressing her hand on down to the base and scratching both ears for a little bit, the elf felt Rayna pulling herself around, coming up close with her arms wrapping around Nora's waist, and pressing her face unashamedly into her chest. She continued some vulpine churring, seemingly aware but not caring about which part of the elf's body she was nuzzling, while the weaver gently ran a hand across the top of her head and down through her hair a bit.

They moved around and over until the elf was on her back with Rayna on top of her, face still buried in her bosom. The hand not occupied with the fox-girl's ears brushed a little farther down her long, red hair, this time closer to the body—feeling the curve of her back—until it arrived at the base of her tail and continued its way on along that. It was a bit of a challenge, as the big fluffy thing was busy swishing back and forth constantly, but Rayna's high, pleased yips encouraged her to stroke the tail again, and a third time yet. After this the fox-girl reached up and pulled at Nora's shoulder, crawling herself up to where her face was hovering over the elf's blushing visage.
"Ye~es, you're really good at petting," she murmured. "Nice and gentle, but bold where you need to be...rrf. Love it~." With that, Rayna slid down to nuzzle Nora's cheek, her enormous breasts now pressed right up against the elf's own pair and her arms holding on tight to keep it that way.

Nora giggled softly, then nuzzled back, her senses reaching into the fox-girl's spirit and feeling exceptionally welcome there. The fox was agile, yes, but also very clever. Her confidence was different from Katherine's feline confidence; the weaver had the sense that a cat's attitude was very independent and self-centered in some ways, while the fox's was projected outward toward her friends and allies—her pack, if the word applied. It was a very social sort of certainty that made not just herself, but others feel at ease. Gently the elf tugged at that vulpine spirit, crossing it with her own, and began to change.

"Mn~nh.." The elf's body started shrinking down right away, even as the first of the light purple fuzz appeared on her ears. "Mrr~rh..." Her body seemed to relax even more than usual, her muscles losing a bit of strength in the process. As a tail sprouted from her back, her figure began to improve itself, her hips widening and her chest puffing forward, more flesh filling out to press against Rayna's generous proportions.

"Mmrrr..rrf...!" Her mouth wasn't so different from the wolf form, with some fangs and a longer tongue, but Nora heard her voice deepening ever so slightly as she continued getting shorter—smaller already than her feline form by now. "M~mnhh.." No sooner did she sport a pair of tall, foxlike ears than Rayna eagerly rubbed them, and her still-growing tail found the Vulpin's gigantic ball of fluff brushing across it right away, drawing a few high yips from Nora's mouth as that confidence and assurance became her own.

"Mnh...mrrrRRrrh...rrf!" Soon Nora's transformation concluded, her tail and breasts seeming to both reach their final size at the same time. She was still taller than Rayna, but not by nearly as much; her body had a much curvier figure than before, with a bust to rival Mira's, if not Zack's. And she felt good...at least as sure of herself as she did in feline form, if not more. Continuing to nuzzle and pet Rayna felt not just good but right; any trace of uncertainty or embarrassment vanished away for the moment, so they continued this way, slowly rolling onto their sides, for a long time.

Both of them certainly lost track of time, finding a kind of animal bliss in each other's touch. This spell was only broken when both of them heard the sound of the door downstairs opening and being tossed shut shortly after, the noise making them both flinch slightly before pulling apart just enough to see each others' blushing faces.

"I'm baaack!" Aria's voice yelled from downstairs. Neither of them really saw fit to reply to her for now.

"I must say, you make a lovely vixen~," Rayna said. "I'm impressed."
"Me too," Nora said. "Feels good being a fox. And you're really...mrr, affectionate." Her hand teased the Vulpin's hair a bit.
"Heheh, you're one to talk. After all this time thinking of you as the shy one, too. Were you like this with Zack and Kath?"
"Mm-hm. If it's not who I 'really' am, it's definitely someone I want to be when I can," Nora said with a pleased grin. "I feel..calm, and like I'm helping someone else feel better too. Which I am, right?"

"Oh, absolutely," Rayna grinned back, before getting a thoughtful expression.
"Something up?"

"Yeeaah...you're not stuttering. Or getting weird pauses between your words or anything. Right?"
"I'm not?" Her ears twitched around for a second as she thought about the past minute or so of conversation. "I'm not! Heheh, I guess I just feel that confident like this. Thank you~," she added, rubbing Rayna's ears again.
"Mrrh~...you might get us in trouble starting that up again," the fox-girl said.

"Anybody hooome?" This yell was going up the stairwell, with the door open.

"I'm tempted to just keep quiet until she goes away," Nora whispered.

"Naah, she'll just grow cat ears or something. We can certainly do this again sometime, though," Rayna said.
"Yes, let's."

After taking a moment to disentangle themselves, Rayna hid Nora from sight and sat up on the side of the bed. "In here!"
"Oh, hey." Aria opened the door. "You look...happy."
"Am I ever not happy? I think everyone else went somewhere to eat. Oh, and Lynn's not back from going to see Rast yet."
"Yeah, they'll probably hang out all day if we let 'em get away with it. Hey do you know much about computers?"

"I knooow...how to use one," Rayna said. "Some of the theory of programming and stuff. Not much at the 'bare metal' level. Why?"

"Mmnh, I already talked to Kath about it, but I wanna brag to someone else about what I'm doing."
"I know a few things about computer hardware," Nora's voice said—from behind her. The elf had snuck around through Lynn's room to get back out into the hallway.
"Oh? Heeey, fox ears!" Aria said, instantly distracted by the new form. She shifted herself a similar pair of ears and tail in pure white. "Congratulations, you two! Orrr, is that not the right thing to say?" she corrected after a second, only just now remembering the results of a similar reaction at breakfast.

"Congratulations are acceptable," the elf said. "I'd also take 'you look good like that, Nora', or 'hey, why aren't you stuttering your mouth off'?"

"Wh—heey, you're not!" she said, pointing. "That's great!"
"Yes. It's freeing to be able to put things however I like again. If I can just take this back to my other forms, it'll be perfect," she said. "Now, what did you want to brag about?"

"Oh, yeah!" Aria said, her short attention span returning to its original focus. "I have set a plan in motion, and if it works, this world's gonna have computers like ours within a year. I mean—maybe not as powerful, but like proper, computationally Turing complete Von Neumann machines."