The "Best" RPG Ever-105

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Lynn stayed with Rast in the cafe for a good hour or more after they were finished eating; the staff didn't particularly seem to mind, even though they'd already paid their bill. This was the sort of place that catered to people who just wanted to sit and chat, after all. It was nice enough just talking to him.

At some point, she visibly noticed someone out the window, drawing Rast's attention behind him to look. "What is it?"
"Uh, someone who looks..a lot like, your 'girl' form," (she said the last few words very quickly and quietly) "was looking at us out there."
"Aah, I see 'er. That's my ma," he said.

"Looks like she's coming in."

"Oh. Uh, try t'act natural."

"Well, hel~lo theere," she said, coming up to them with her bushy, purple-furred tail wagging vigorously behind her. "Are you miss Lynn?"
"Uh-huh," she nodded. There were some signs of age here and there, but Rast's mother looked relatively youthful for what Lynn understood Canis lifespans to be and how long ago she'd have to have been an adult in order to have a child.
"I'm Rast's ma," she said, ruffling the top of his head—which drew a bit of a blush from him, but he didn't recoil away or anything. "Heard an awful lot about you, mostly not even from my son, mind."

"Yeah? Nice to meet you," Lynn said, offering her a hand to shake. "We were planning a visit to introduce me tonight, maybe."

"Yeah, to you an' pa," Rast added, half-turning her way as she took the handshake heartily.

"Oh, well, there's no need to wait on that. If ya'll ain't busy, Soren's home now. I'm sure he'd appreciate a chance to get to know ya personally as much as I would."

After a brief glance Rast's way to get the approval of a subtle nod, Lynn shrugged. "That's fine with me, if you're not too put out."
"Aww, don't be silly. I'll go get dinner started, and you two can come along whenever you're ready. I'd hate to interrupt a cozy li'l meetin' like this any more than I already have."

"It's no trouble," Lynn said. "Thank you."
"Sure!" She ran off energetically, looking genuinely eager to start cooking something.

"Welp. That's my ma for ya," Rast said a moment after she was out of sight. "Pa's a lot more subdued than that."

"Uh-huh. So was that code for 'stay here a few minutes so I have time to actually cook something', or..?"
"She don't care if we're on her tail straightaway, I'd think," he said.

"Well, I'm in no hurry, but you know..whenever you're ready..."

---

Mira leaned over toward the dragon-girl, speaking quietly: "I think you might be setting a bad example, Rose." She pointed over toward Zack's end of the table, where Lupa was holding a steak in both her hands and messily tearing juicy pieces off with her teeth. The knight was leaning back in his seat and pointedly trying not to look in her direction, having already given up for now.

"Oh. Sorry. But um," she whispered: "This stuff," she vaguely twirled a clawed finger near the side of her head, "kindaa, made me forget how to use utensils and things...that's why I don't order anything that takes them if I can help it."

"Yeah, I guessed as much. She, on the other hand, 'knows' how to use them thanks to Kath but...doesn't."

You know she can still hear you, right? the psion chimed in.

Yeah, but if she's actually listening she doesn't show it. I don't suppose you could knowledge-pump a dragon once you get past the 'haze' thing?

Maybe. Depends on how she was made to 'forget' in the first place.

Zack growled, unable to stand it any more, which drew the smaller wolf-girl's eye. "Gods' sake, Lupa, at least use a napkin," he said, grabbing one and mopping up some of the worst mess on her clothes.

"Eep! This one is sorry, Master," she said, folding her ears in contrition and dropping the steak back onto the plate (which splashed in the sauce, exacerbating the mess). "It was just so good.."

Sighing, he said, "If you really like your clothes, at least eat carefully enough not to ruin them, okay? And don't call me that in public," he added quickly in a much quieter voice.
"Oh! R-right." Whether the first message got through at all was unclear to any but the mind-reader.

"Here," he reached over a bit closer, spreading a relatively clean napkin over her legs.

Somehow I knew Zack would fill the 'primary guardian' role pretty well, the witch thought. You think he has any young relatives back on Earth?

I'd rather not speculate, the catgirl replied.

"Um.." Rose leaned back in Mira's direction. "Is your, uh, thumb..?"
"Oh, yeah, this," the witch said, holding her right hand up where it was a bit more visible. The skin of her thumb had turned a very bright red, like it was badly sunburnt or something. "Someone said the magic words."

While not feeling particularly conversational at the moment, Clera felt compelled to ask: "Since when do you have 'magic words' to turn your thumb different colors?"

"Oh, just the past hour or so," the witch said, shrugging as if that was that.

After getting some inquisitive/annoyed expressions, she continued: "Okay okay. So I'm doing some base-level testing on curses. Only testing them out on myself, naturally, and only completely harmless nonsense like this. My end goal is to see whether I can develop actually beneficial curses which are easy to dispel on purpose but impossible to dispel by accident. At the moment I'm working on 'key phrases'. So—if anyone happens to say 'this one', it turns it red or back again." Since she said it, the color faded back to normal again. "The curse is fully dispelled after three hours, or when someone other than me says a certain opposing phrase."

"Which is?" Zack said.

"Oh, now, that'd be telling," the witch said with a mischevious grin.

"Well, whatever. Is looking into curses dangerous or anything?" he said, obviously understanding one possible purpose to understanding them to have to do with his own curse.

"Nope. I mean—obviously, like any magic, it could be used irresponsibly, but for that reason I'm being quite a bit more responsible than usual. Which, you know, is quite a bit."

The wolf-girl snorted, but didn't say anything specific to that.

"Anyway—" she continued, not losing a beat, "—there are basically two broad 'categories' of curses. Those designed to be dispelled when certain specific conditions are met, and those which are supposed to follow a person their whole life. Griselda usually favored the former, being a huge fan of ironic punishment, but was known to..occasionally do the latter, of course, when she thought a person didn't deserve to be free of whatever it was.

"It turns out that 'conditional' curses are actually much stronger against what I would call 'general attacks', like overpowering them or whatever, than the 'forever' ones, but that's only when you're comparing two curses that had equal power put into them. Dumping a lot of energy into a curse is a good way to make it difficult to break no matter which kind it is. Still, it's good information I'm getting in the process of studying curse-making, which I feel like most who try to break curses tend to lack."

"Indeed, I haven't heard of anything like that," Clera said—speaking from the fire mage's perspective. "Even the most studious of 'ordinary' mages treat information about curses like bedtime stories and wild legends rather than looking for anything practically useful from them. Is it true that a kiss can break most weak ones?"

"Weeellll," the witch spread out her arms a bit. "Not just a kiss. The conditions for that sort of 'general' cure are, ironically, quite specific. Like, I couldn't just dispel this one by pecking my own thumb once or twice," she said, holding her thumb up so it could be seen turning red again.

Lupa, who had turned to holding the steak in her hand and roughly cutting off chunks almost small enough for her mouth with the knife before stuffing them in to barely chew and swallow, chimed in at this point: "That one?"
"Huh?" Zack said, turning partway toward her.
"That what, Lupa?" Rose added.

"This one thinks 'that one' is the opposite of 'this one'...right?" she replied, further confusing most of the table.

"Ding ding ding!" the witch said, displaying her thumb (which should have, perhaps, faded partly before turning red again) returning to normal. "Were you thinking about that the whole time?"
"A little bit," the wolf-girl admitted. "Do curses always have opposite things like that, big-hat?" (Mira wasn't wearing a hat at the moment.)

"Mm-hm; very perceptive, Lupa. This is kind of a sticking point in my research so far," she said. "Often a conditional curse needs to have something about its 'nature' which is 'opposite' the thing that's supposed to dispel it. It's all very conceptual and abstract, and it's not an absolute rule—just necessary to get any kind of cost efficiency, which happens to be an advantage that that sort of curse usually has from the perspective of the caster. Like: A fire-related curse is easy to make dispellable with some specific use of water, but tricky and/or costly if you want wood to get rid of it instead."

On the way back to the house, Lupa paused and turned her head upward, sniffing the air a few times. "Smell something?" Zack said.

Her ears folded back slightly and she quietly whined, just once. "Um—rain," she said, taking a second to remember the word for it. "Smells like, big rain."

"Oh. Well, we better get inside, then." He gestured in the direction they'd already been going, and Lupa nodded, hurrying to catch up toward the front of the group.

Can you smell the weather? Katherine asked him, to which he mentally shrugged.

I don't think, any more than I could back on Earth. Definitely not "miles-off rain and here's how heavy it is". So either her nose is better than mine—which is definitely possible—or she just thinks she knows what weather smells like.

Hasn't been wrong yet, but I agree—not a lot of data points, either. Guess we'll see.

---

"That's an interesting plan, to be sure," Nora said. "You're not at all worried about the shops finding out you hired others for essentially the same task?"
"Nah," she shrugged. "They get paid the same for this job no matter whose I think is best, and if in the future they become competitors, that can only be good for innovation in the end, right?"

"That isn't what I meant," she said, shaking her head slightly. "Suppose they collude, and the first shop you asked makes something cheap but minimally useful, then proceeds to sell it to all the others?"

"I've spread my offer pretty far," the shifter said, "So I'm sure there's at least one rivalry that would prevent total collusion. And then I can choose only to go back to whoever made clearly original, superior work with my next offer. If word gets around that handing me the cheap stuff loses you out on future jobs, I may have people knocking on our door with their own, honest attempts. Or, maybe it is a total failure, for that reason or any one of a million others, and I have to come up with a new strategy," she shrugged. "That's just the kind of risks you take trying to personally jump-start a tech industry."

As if to punctuate this last statement, there was a sudden, loud peal of thunder outside which made all three jump—Nora, being in fox-form, had ears as sensitive to the sound as Rayna's, and Aria had also taken on a vulpine appearance to 'fit in' with them, so was no better off.

"Yyikes! Little warning next time, rain!" Aria said, shaking her fist vaguely skyward. There was the light tapping on the windows now of the beginnings of a rainfall.
"I'm sure this society has weather forecasters of some sort," Rayna said. "I mean, I can predict the weather myself if I look up at the sky the right way—I just, haven't today."

"None of us really reads the newspaper," Nora stated. "Perhaps it would be wise to at least peruse it."

"Oh, yeah, man! That's such an obvious place for quest and story hooks!" Aria said. "Can't believe I forgot about that."

The door to town was thrown open, and someone ran to the stairwell and upstairs too quickly to be properly made out as more than a white-and-red blur. After a brief pause, Aria said, "Uh..was that—?"

"Lupa, yep," the illusionist nodded.

Then everyone else who'd been out for lunch filtered in after her, Zack coming into the living room first. He opened his mouth to say something, saw that Aria was already pointing toward the stairwell, and exhaled a short sigh, opening the door and heading up right away.

While the storm was beginning to pick up outside, the group coming in looked mostly dry.

"What was that about?" the shifter asked.

"The wolf was terrified of thunder, and Lupa still is," Katherine replied. "She heard that crack, yipped and just bolted."
"Huh, that's a heck of a min to take," Aria half-joked. "I guess Zack has it in hand, though?"
"Should," Mira answered. "He's proven pretty good at the parental role so far, anyway."

"Or at least the 'older sister' role," Rose said, and then "..What?" as a couple of heads turned her way. "Oh! Um..brother?"
"Blame the curse," the witch said, "Anyway, I have some research to get back to." She headed for the stairs herself, Clera following a bit more slowly but stopping in front of the door.

"So, any of you seen Lynn?" Rayna asked. "I'm not too worried, but she has been out with him since this morning and all."
"Didn't pick up either one's thoughts on our way back," Katherine said. "But I'm sure they'll find somewhere to ride out the storm."

"That's what I'm worried about!"
"I thought you said you weren't worried," Nora stated, finally drawing everyone's eyes her direction.

Rose spoke first, pointing dramatically in surprise: "Nora, you're a fox!"

Upstairs, there was no immediate sign of the smaller wolf-girl. That was, at least, until a relatively distant, quiet peal of thunder hit, and Zack made out the clear sound of whimpering from his room. When he got there, she was still not visibly present, but his ears picked up her location easily enough. "Lupa...come out from under the bed."
"No!"

"No?"
She whined, and then: "No."

The knight knelt next to the bed, leaning his head to one side where he could just barely see her bright red eyes peeking out at him. "Is this what you did when you were the alpha of a giant wolf pack?"
"This one went deep in the underground place and growled at any who came close. They learned quick to stay away when this one growled."

"You were fine when we fought the fire giant."

"No loud noises then!" The conversation was interrupted by another nearby bolt of lightning, the resulting rumble drawing another whimpering squeak from Lupa as she pulled herself into a tiny ball under her bed.

Seeing that this might be a long conversation, Zack pulled himself into a cross-legged sitting position to be slightly more comfortable down on the floor. "It's just a loud noise, though. That sound can't actually hurt you."
She managed a fairly weak growl. "This one knows that! The big fire flash is the hurty part. Not any less scary!"

"Well, you can't live your entire life hiding from every thunderstorm."
"Why not? This one did before!"
"You'd miss out on a lot, for one thing. For another, people are a lot harder to fool than wolves. You won't be seen as a strong person if you panic every time there's a little thunder. And what if there's something else dangerous, that someone you care about needs protecting from? Would you run away then?"
"Nooo...but this one would really want to."
"That would make you a lot worse at actually fighting," he pointed out. Lupa just whined in response, unable to think of a meaningful reply.

"You realize, if lightning did strike the house, you'd be much better off on the ground floor instead of upstairs."

Lupa whined quietly a bit more, and then: "This one feels safer here."

"And why's that?"
"This is this one's place. With Master."
"Well, I wanna go downstairs. So would you rather stay under the bed alone, or come with me to where everyone else is?"

The wolf-girl whimpered again, and then slowly poked her head out from under the bed before bringing one of her arms out. Zack tried his best to give an encouraging smile (and succeeded much more than he thought he did), reaching out a hand and putting it on one of hers for a second. "That's it. Come on." She continued slowly crawling out, pausing to flinch but not retreating backwards when another distant thunder echoed through the house. Eventually Zack got up with her, an arm around her upper back with the hand gently rubbing the far shoulder. Lupa went with him to the stairs, then willingly got in front of him (but stayed very close) on the way down them.

"Why thank you," Nora said, straight-faced. "That means a lot coming from you."
"Errrm, no I mean uh," Rose spouted confusedly. "Like, not that you aren't, I mean not that I don't think you're—but like, you're really um, a.."
"Yes, we did the Thing," Rayna said, rescuing her. "The Vulpin spirit weave costs a bunch of height and some physical stats but grants higher intelligence, wisdom, and especially charisma."
"And she doesn't stutter or pause like this!" Aria added enthusiastically.

"Interesting...I don't suppose this is a direct result of the higher 'charisma'?" Clera said. "Since it appears you may be able to enchant someone with a higher amount of that soon."

"Hm..you know, I hadn't thought of that," the illusionist admitted. "I'd say it's worth a shot. Maybe a temporary patch, but it would be handy to talk like that in your other forms, right?"
"'Handy' is a severe understatement," the fox-eared elf said. "I'd daresay I didn't realize the value of being able to speak unimpeded until it was taken away from me."

"Well, it's a deal then. Whenever, you know, I learn to do that thing to a sufficient degree," Rayna shrugged.

The winged girl got out of the way as the stairwell opened again, Lupa coming out trembling a bit with Zack behind her, hand on a shoulder. "Clear a couch."
After exchanging a brief glance, Rayna and Nora split off to a couple of chairs to comply, and Zack set the smaller girl down before sitting himself, letting her hold close onto him. A sudden, loud crack of thunder that made most present jump also caused her to make a gasping squeak noise and bury her head in Zack's chest, keeping it there even after the noise died down. He just put his arms up in a nonverbal 'well, whatever' response to a questioning look from Aria before dropping one of them around her in a gentle return hug.

"So, she's a lot more afraid of thunder than we thought," Katherine said, pointing. "This is kind of a problem."
"This is already an improvement from hiding under the bed," Zack replied. "Anyway, you can't always control what you're afraid of, right?"
The catgirl's ears folded back slightly. "I know that only too well. Hey, while you were upstairs—"

"I could hear," he said, pointing to an ear with his free hand—the other arm still wrapped around Lupa. "You look nice, Nora."
"Heheh," she giggled, looking slightly flustered for the first time since getting fox ears. "That's a...somewhat unusual first response."

"Well, what do you want me to say?"
"It's perfectly fine, just unexpected," she shrugged.

"I'm going upstairs," Clera announced, and entered the stairwell—having already opened the door during the conversation.

---

Things have been relatively quiet lately due to a case of general overall writer's block on my part. Most of this was written quite a while ago, with bits and pieces chipped into get it to this 'finished' state over a month or two afterward, so I can't really guarantee the block is over, either. 

(Ranting below, ignore if you want...)

Contributing to my stress over the last month or two is google, who are once again meddling in things they shouldn't and trying to fix what isn't broken. In this case, they've arbitrarily decided that the blogger editor that has been in use ever since I started using the site is no good and they need a "mobile friendly" interface for a task involving typing a large number of words (i.e., a task for which computers will always be better suited than phones), so rather than offering the new interface as an option they're trying to shove it down everyone's throats as the only option in the near future. I've been sending complaints, but I doubt they'll listen to me or any number of people. I don't think it's going to make the site unusable for me, but it's just yet another thing that'll be less convenient and more annoying overall, and I feel powerless to stop it.