The "Best" RPG Ever-115

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

As the group of adventurers (plus Vae) approached the door to their house, they found the small space designated for their mail to be overflowing with packages of various sizes, to the point where a few had simply been stacked next to it instead. "Ahh, sweet!" Aria ran up quickly, picking up one box to peek inside. "New toys! And all this after literally one day? Enchanters work fast here, I guess. Hey Lupa, can you help me get this stuff inside?"
"Okay!" The wolf-girl came up, tail wagging, and quickly grabbed the biggest, heaviest-looking boxes all in an unsteady pile between her arms.
"Hey, hey—carry it so you won't drop it, please!" The shifter hurried to try and stabilize the pile before boxes could start popping out of it to the ground. "This stuff's expensive and some of it may be fragile."
"Fragile?" She headtilted.

"You know, easy to break. Like if you drop it or throw it at the wall or something."

In response to a questioning looks from the witch and dragon (and what she guessed was the equivalent from Vae), Nora said, "Aria had an idea of something specific to do with enchanted items, and asked a number of shops in town to make prototypes." She couldn't very well talk of computers with the herbalist present, so she'd either explain in more detail or let Aria do so later. Then she went up and helped the two of them arrange things so that Lupa probably wouldn't drop any of her load, taking a few packages out of the pile in the process and then following the two of them inside with them in hand.

Aria led the way to the kitchen, clearly planning to spread everything out on the table and start opening the packages right away, so Mira turned aside to the living room with Rose and Vae, waving to offer the guest a seat. The bespectacled Vulpin took up residence on one side of a couch, and when the dragon-girl came up in front of the couch she made a clear 'come here' gesture—an invitation to sit next to her which Rose took up eagerly. Mira chose a chair opposite them.

"So, okay, long story short—I sensed demonic magic coming off of you," the witch said. "But it's not quite like any I'm used to 'seeing', which is either the 'naturally occurring' form in a demon or witch or warlock, or a curse acting on someone. It's...more like it's being used as an 'energy source' for something way more complicated that I think I just lack the skill to get a good understanding of. What's more, I didn't sense it when we first met, but I think it was there—just so weak that I wouldn't have noticed it without specifically looking for it. Even now it's weak enough most mages won't be able to detect it."

Vae's ears took turns periodically twitching throughout this explanation, and at the end of it she slowly nodded. "Therefore..." She was briefly interrupted by the noise of paper being loudly ripped apart in the kitchen.

"Ooo! Let this one try!"
"Hey, hey—careful with that!" More paper was then much more enthusiastically and noisily torn.

"Lupa!" Nora's voice came, in a particularly stern tone.

She waited for the interruption to end, and then continued without comment: "...You believe that it may be the energy source for the effect maintaining my youthful appearance, and now for changing it to this one."

"Yep!"
"Very astute. It is usually understood that the effect which keeps elves permanently youthful is an inherent, natural property of their magic. Each race's magic is distinct in subtle ways, which tend to make a perfect imitation of one race's magic by a member of another next to impossible. Nevertheless, I was attempting to develop a potion which would cause a person's magic to, at least temporarily, take on an effect similar to that specific aspect of elvish magic."

She shook her head, slowly and deliberately, both of her ears twitching simultaneously twice. "My goal was to produce something which would make one younger a single time, requiring another use of the potion after one physically aged again. The idea of finding some way to perpetuate the effect, in a true imitation of how it works for elves, had not even occurred to me. I would certainly have considered that a problem to be solved later, had someone else brought it up."

Nora could be faintly heard scolding the wolf-girl in the kitchen throughout this part of the conversation, with Lupa being appropriately apologetic in reply. If Zack was a good elder brother or sister, maybe Nora was the one who best fit the role of 'mother'.

"This also explains the explosion too, right?" Rose said. "'Cause like, maybe the demon magic mixed with the potion magic stuff in uh, an unstable way or something?"

"Hold up—explosion?" the witch asked.
"The experiment I mentioned before went wrong in the form of a large explosion," Vae explained calmly. "I narrowly survived and had a low expectancy of surviving my injuries at first, but my body both miraculously healed and transformed to the youthful appearance. And...that would be a reasonable guess as to why, although my knowledge of that kind of magic is too much lacking to draw any conclusions. This raises the question of how that magic was introduced in the first place, however."

"I'm guessing it can't be a natural part of any herbs or anything?" Mira said, and Vae shook her head gently. "Then—maybe some witch or warlock found out what you were doing and decided to try and 'help'? I wouldn't put it past someone like that to cause the explosion on purpose, even."

Nora came in, shyly sneaking in on one side and quietly finding a place to sit. Her presently fox-like ears had certainly been capable of hearing the conversation so far, even though she'd seemingly been otherwise occupied. Since Lupa wasn't with her, it seemed she'd been allowed to stick around and 'help', or at least watch, whatever Aria was doing.

"Anyway—" the witch continued, "—once I looked closer, I noticed that it's not just that there's more demonic magic on you than before, it's that it's kinda leaking?" Mira continued. "Or, I'd be more inclined to say 'venting'. It's too regular and slow to be just randomly leaving you, and it's not like it's being dispelled or 'slipping out' of the other stuff that's using it as power source. Plus, if it had always been 'leaking out' at this rate, then it should've been all gone before we met. I guessed that it might for whatever reason be using up some of the extra energy by uh, 'growing you up', but once it's vented down to its 'normal' amount, you'll turn back to normal."

Vae nodded. "That is an extremely sensible guess. I cannot account for precisely why there is more to be vented, but magic has always had some link to one's emotions. Regardless, it should be possible to test this theory, should it not?"

"Yep," Mira said. "I mean, we can just wait a little while and see if you turn back or, I could probably 'tug' at the venting magic to siphon out the excess and see what happens. I don't think there's any risk of me accidentally breaking the 'keeping you young' effect—I mean, it feels like I'd have a really hard time doing anything to that even if I really tried."
"Will to live, possibly," Vae said. "A crucial part of my theory was binding the transformative effect of the potion to one's will to live so that it would be accepted by the body in the same manner which ordinary healing magic is. That binding may have become permanent for me, since it remains a beneficial effect."

"Uh-huh, so—you want me to test it out, then?"
Vae nodded. "Please, go ahead."

Mira nodded, and softly chanted something, raising a hand toward the Vulpin woman. Something like a thin cloud of black smoke rose out of her body and floated into the air between them, flowing into a steady stream down toward and into the witch's outstretched hand. At the same time, Vae's body steadily shrank downward and inward, losing the newly-formed curves and height and pulling all the way down to the appearance she'd had when they first met. At the end of this she looked down at herself briefly, her ears twitching a couple of times, and then back up at the witch again.

"It would appear you were correct," she said, her voice also back to its original, higher tone. "If I can occasionally impose on you, this would also be convenient to do should I find myself wishing to return to this appearance to do my work."
"Fine by me," Mira said cheerfully.

"More importantly...do you think you would be capable of replicating the portion of this effect which consists of demonic magic?"

"Uhhmm, hmn. Probably? I mean, it doesn't look that complicated in isolation," Mira said. "That said, there is no way I could make any of the rest of it work—I mean, I don't even know what three-quarters of that stuff is, and there may be other parts too subtle for me to even notice are there at all."

Vae nodded. "That should not be a problem." Her ears seemed to go into overdrive, each twitching off and on in a random-looking pattern as she spoke. "Today, we discovered that the rarest of the ingredients necessary for the potion I was attempting to make, including some which I have never been able to procure for myself, are growing in Rose's forest. She was generous enough to offer me the use of some of them to make another attempt at that experiment, but I was hesitant in part because I did not know what had gone wrong the first time."

"And now you know. Or at least, you know more," Mira said. "So you want me to help you make a youth potion for real this time?"
"That is correct." Vae's mouth closed, and she took a long, slow breath in through her nose, the ear-twitches slowing back down to near their usual rate. "I do not expect full success from this attempt, but would settle for it successfully producing a potion without an explosion, which it seems reasonable to guess that adding the demonic magic at an extremely slow rate will prevent—or at least for that explosion not harming anyone or anything important. If I may, I would prefer to conduct the sensitive final steps, which would require your aid, out in the field near this house, where an explosion would cause no harm."

"Sure, that seems like a pretty good idea."

Vae nodded. "There are...there are other concerns, as well. The effect making and keeping me young was not without its unusual side effects, and I must replicate that effect exactly before I can isolate their cause and produce something without them. However, that requires that somebody actually drink the potion we produce, ideally someone as close a match to my body's state at the time as possible. Finding such a person at all, much less out here in the frontier, would prove..exceptionally difficult."
"Well, uh, what kinda person are we looking for?" Mira asked, thinking that Rayna might be able to pick out what they needed from a crowd if the herbalist could wait a few days for her to come back before they tried to test the potion—and Vae had the spirit of a scientest, so patience probably was something she had in spades.

"I was a Vulpin, just as I am now—and, as I mentioned, the effect may be very closely tied to the magic of one's own race. I was also advanced in age, to a degree considerably beyond the usual lifespan of our kind," Vae said. "This is what I think will be the most difficult thing to replicate, and it is vitally important not to choose someone too young in case the potion is capable of 'overshooting' its intended effect to a highly inconvenient or even dangerous degree. Also, I was male."

"...You were," Mira said, and the fox-girl nodded slowly. "Aand, you're not now."
"This was among the side effects I mentioned, and most likely the one which I would want to isolate and remove the cause for first first. Without testing, however, it is difficult to say whether the effect would change a person's sex regardless, or if it is exclusively an effect which changes males to females, so it would be best to test the potion on someone who is male to avoid wasting the effort if it is the latter." One of her ears twitched, then the other. "This effectively cuts the already miniscule pool of people we could possibly work with in half, which is rather frustrating..."

"Err, excuse me," Nora said quietly, waving as everyone turned. "I uh..know someone, exactly like that. But I, don't know if he'd be willing to..be involved with something that uses demonic magic. And I, am unsure whether he's still in town right now; I know he was a few days ago. And I'm not exactly certain how he'd feel about..upsetting the natural order of things by undoing or stopping aging...actually, the more I consider it, the worse of an idea this feels like." She shook her head. "But—I-I could still ask him, if he is still here in town to be asked."

One of Vae's ears twitched a couple of times. "You should not feel obligated, but I would appreciate the effort. If you do not feel that making this request would adversely affect your relationship with this person, that is."
"I, really doubt it. He's, more or less the one who raised me. And I'm sure he knows one of the people I'm living with is a witch by now," she said. "Or, thinking about it, he...probably knew that when he came to see me before, and didn't even bring it up then."

"Hey, even if he says no, at least you'd get to see him again," Mira said. "You liked getting to talk with him the other day, for like the first time in for-ev-er, right?"
"Right," Nora nodded.

"It is not at all urgent," Vae said, "It will take some time to harvest the materials and prepare the potion's components, especially alongside all of my regular work. But I thank you immensely for making even as unlikely an attempt as this to aid me in finding a useful and willing test subject."

---

While this was evidently the biggest frontier town around, it still didn't house a full-fledged temple of Haestra. After all, such places were generally dedicated miniature towns unto themselves, reasonably far off from regular civilization. When people wanted to worship Haestra inside of said civilization, the tradition was to build a small "park" or "garden" with relatively humble buildings for its caretakers to live in. This was what Fazren had been offered, and graciously accepted, as a temporary home once it became clear that his business in this town was not yet over.

He danced slowly through the garden, weaving water around over the flowers in what was a combination between exercise to keep himself sharp and a traditional, impromptu ceremony that many priests and priestesses of Haestra would do from time to time. Eventually he released the water in an even shower down onto the plants, giving all of them an equal share, and slowly turned around toward an audience of one who he had gained about four-fifths of the way through.

"Ah—hello, Lady Ezra," he said, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"A question. You don't have any more 'unhelpful advice' to pass along, do you?"

"Hmmh, not at the moment, I'm afraid."

"Very well. Since I imagine you might have their ear—I have a question which may make no sense to you personally," she said.
He nodded. "I can pray it to the sky if you think it will help."

"As long as you hear it, that's enough.

"My question is this: 'Are we needed because we are immune to it?'"

Fazren did not actually hear Ezra's question. That is—the sound of it passed through his ears, but missed his mind. He found himself replying, but also failed to understand the reply in just the same way. To him it felt like a natural, if unusually complicated, reflex to the incomprehensible sound he'd just heard. What he said was: "You are immune, and it is related, but is not the crucial element. Inoculation of the natives' minds is Bimorphaeus's task."

After this, he said (of his own volution again), "I hope that was helpful, Lady Ezra."

She nodded. "As much as can be expected. Do you plan to remain in town?"
"I hadn't at first, but it is an awfully long way home for these old bones to travel," he said. "I've heard a rumor that there may be a crystal installed in this town very soon, and thought it might be best to wait and use that to stop by my home temple instead. Since my arrival, I've been able to send and receive a number of missives, so I am still in good contact with them."
"Very well," she said. "I may come to you again if I come up with a better question."

"You're always more than welcome to," he said, nodding serenely.

---

After a little more conversation, Vae hopped down off of the couch and turned, pulling herself up around Rose in a hug. The dragon-girl squeaked blisfully, returning the embrace for a moment until they mutually broke it off and Vae hopped back to the floor in front of her; in the process the fox-girl had gained an inch or two of height back again. "I must take my leave now," she said. "The sun is close to setting, and I have work to do before I can sleep tonight. We will meet again soon."

"Y-yeah, okay! Heheh. I'll look forward to it!"

"I will contact you regarding the potion," she said to Mira, and then turned to Nora: "Let me know in correspondence, or when next we meet, whether the person you mentioned before is willing to help."
"Of course," she nodded.

Once the small fox-girl had closed the door to town behind her, Rose gave a high, happy sigh. "Aaa~aahh. She's so smart, and sweet, and cuuuute!" she said.
"It doesn't um..bother you that she used to be male?" Nora asked.
"No, why?"
"Only curious."

"Well—I mean like, if anything, it makes it a little easer for us to understand each other. 'Cause obviously I was a guy on Earth, but 'Rose' was a male dragon originally too, sooo.."
"You didn't seem surprised, though," Mira said. "I guess she told you before?"
"Yep! It's uh, that stuff about the experiment gone wrong and her being turned into a small young girl by it was the thing I wasn't sure whether it was private or not, but I guess she either doesn't see it as private or just, like, trusted everyone here with it by association?"

All of them paused then, hearing a gentle, polite, but still quite audible knock on the door. Nora stood up first. "I'll get it."

When she came to the door, she found Lupa running up from the direction of the kitchen, looking eager to potentially meet someone new—or possibly to bark at an intruder, if needed. Whatever the case, she stayed a bit to one side and behind the fox-eared elf while she opened the door. On the other side was an extremely unusual-looking person, who Nora felt certain she would've recognized if she'd even seen at a distance a single time before: A short, possibly human woman with hair that literally looked like a rainbow spreading out behind her, with a strange little top hat sitting atop her head in a manner which looked like it should have been sliding off constantly. And—behind her was someone who actually was slightly familiar: the avian man the party had rescued from the spiders earlier that day.

"Hello there~!" the strange woman said first, in a high, bright, cheery voice. "My name is Reiaza, illusionist and performer extraordinaire, and leader of the Troupe of Strangers!" She tipped her hat theatrically and put it back on during this introduction, in the process showing off that it really was just a hat—no hairband to keep it in place at all. "And, this is Belwin." She gestured backward toward him, and Nora saw that he was giving her a slightly headtilted look, like he saw something he didn't quite expect to—and yet he was also visibly blushing. "As I understand it, you and the others living here were responsible for saving his life."

"That, would be correct, I suppose," she said. Reiaza had an overwhelming energy and presence about her, not unlike Rayna, Aria, Rose, Mira at times...well, at least Nora had plenty of experience lately with being around such people. "It was, more of a lucky accident that he was still alive when we saw him."

"All the same, I wanted to extend my utmost gratitude to you and the others responsible for his rescue." She paused briefly, then elbowed the red-feathered avian behind her.
"Ah—yes, of course. Likewise with me," he said. "Seeing as I'm the one whose life you saved."

"May we come in for a just moment?" Reiaza asked.

"I, don't see why not.." Nora moved to get out of their way, feeling like the illlusionist girl was just going to push herself inside anyway, but the two of them were very polite on this point instead, waiting for her to finish moving before they came inside.

"Hi!" Lupa said cheerfully, wagging her tail for the two visiters.
"Why, hel-lo there~!" Reiaza strode up quickly, raising a hand toward Lupa and then using it to ruffle her hair a bit when the wolf-girl didn't react negatively to the offer. "Aren't you just the cutest little puppy?"
"Cute!" Lupa chirped back. "Small-hat is cute too."
"Awwh, you like my hat? I'm rather fond of it myself," she said, removing the hat to slip her hand into it, drawing out a bright red flower with a stem too long to have fit inside—besides the fact that Nora had been able to clearly see the empty interior of the headwear when Reiaza had tipped it before.

"She's, actually calling you cute," Nora explained. "Lupa here rarely uses anyone's actual name."

"Ooh, why thank you~," she said, offering the wolf-girl the flower. Lupa took it, but stared at it with her head tilted like she didn't understand why it had been handed to her. In fact, there was the distinct impression that she was wondering if she was supposed to eat it. Thankfully, she snapped out of this without putting the flower in her mouth once Belwin came closer.

"Red bird! Meet," she said happily, offering him the flower.

"Err, I suppose it is my color," he said, taking it and placing it into a shirt pocket. "My name's Belwin, miss Lupa."
"Red bird," she answered back cheerfully.
"Heheh," he chuckled, seeming to find this more endearing than annoying.

"My name is Nora, by the way," the weaver said, "excuse me for not introducing myself sooner."
"Oh, no trouble at all," Reiaza said. "And you two are quite capable fighters, as I understand it? Among those who slew the spiders whose webbing caught my star acrobat?" she gestured to Belwin to indicate who she meant by this.

"Yes! This one is super strong," Lupa proclaimed.
Nora said, "The others are farther inside. If, you'd like to follow me?" She gestured for them to follow her and headed for the living room.

"Pardon me, miss Nora," Belwin said, coming up next to her. "Is it my..am I mistaken, or are you truly a Vulpin?"

"Err, I'm actually an elf," she said, and received a predictable look of confusion from him in reply. "I am a priestess of Haestra," she continued.

"Oh, a weaver~!" Reiaza exclaimed excitedly, also coming up on the other side of her—leaving just Lupa in the back. "Weavers can gain the ability to freely take on different beastfolk forms, I've heard, but it's only the very best of them who achieve such a feat. You'd be the one who got the dread venom out of Belwin's poor body then, I'd assume?"
"Errm. R-right..."

At this point they finally reached the living room, where Mira had already gotten on her feet and was now thankfully ready and waiting to rescue Nora from these overwhelming people. "Hey there," the witch said, offering Reiaza a hand to shake. "I'm Mira, this is Rose; we heard your introductions from in here."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Reiaza said, shaking her offered hand and somehow leaving behind in it a black-petaled flower. "And—" she turned toward Rose and seemed to visually register her for the first time. "Oh my~!" She hurried over. "I had heard this town recently discovered a dragon living nearby, but nobody warned me she was such a stunningly gorgeous beauty~!"
"Eheheh." Rose blushed as she hopped onto her feet, her arms hanging behind her body, and nervously scratched the floor with her left foot—unintentionally damaging it in the process. "Uh, hi. I wasn't actually—um, I was somewhere else when they fought the spiders and stuff," she said.
"All the same, I understand you've been responsible for saving many other lives. And it's not too often any dragon is friendly enough to ever take human form," Reiaza said, coming slowly closer as she spoke.

Belwin was still stuck on Mira, ending a long stare with the sudden outburst, "Gods, a witch? Reiaza, did you not notice?"

"Oh, I noticed alright," she said, turning her head back. "But Mira's reputation precedes her, Belwin. The people of this town regard her as nothing less than a hero, so I can see no reason to doubt them."

"Lucky you," he told the witch. "Last time I saw Reiaza with a warlock, he was in the middle of gettin' an impromptu hanging."

"That's uh..nice," she said, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated it wasn't. "Anyway, the rest of our party is away at the moment, except for Aria, who's..oh, there you are."

The shifter came into the room, having briefly peeked through the doorway so that she could now enter in a form the same height and build as Reiaza. She was also trying to imitate the rainbow-hair look, with only extremely limited success. "Hiya! Yeah, we trashed those spiders good." It looked like her hair didn't 'like' trying to be more than one color at a time, and kept insisting on all taking on each new color she tried to give to just a section of it.
"I suppose you must be a shapeshifter, to be doing that," Reiaza said. "Although I don't believe I've seen one who could change so swiftly before. Saay, that's quite an impressive talent, is it not?"
"It really is," Belwin agreed—having apparently been who she was asking.

"Yeah, I'm pretty awsome," Aria grinned—giving up on the 'rainbow hair' and just settling on a flat, bright pink for the moment.

"Allow me to properly introduce myself, then," Reiaza said. "I am the current leader of the Troupe of Strangers. We are a variety of performers who gather once every few years or so to give a grand, spirit-raising show to the inhabitants of one fortunate, needy city. We've performed for this very town once before, many years back, and with rumors of things heating up out here in the frontier, it seemed like a good time to raise their spirits once again." This was possibly a reference to the fire giant attack, although it seemed like she meant to indicate that things had lately been more dangerous in general, too.
"Our name," Belwin continued where she'd left off as if on cue, "comes from the fact that we never have all the same folks the next time we get together. Only those who survive the years between shows, and are willing to go to the venue of the next one, are held in common from one performance to the next. I've been fortunate enough to survive the world and make it to three shows so far—and now that'll be a fourth thanks to you lot, of course. With that, we're always looking for new talent to participate in the next show."

"Hmn. I guess I get your meaning," Aria said, "But I'm not really sure my shapeshifting would come across that well on a big stage."
"You let me worry about that, m'dear~," Reiaza said. "That is, if you find you're willing to give it a shot. But I shan't hit you with an offer right now, so suddenly; I'll prefer to have you think on it for a while. After all, I've only now arrived in town myself, and it will be some days yet before the rest of the willing survivors from the last show can be expected to reach this remote and dangerous location."

"Sounds like the kinda thing Rayna and Lynn might be into," Aria commented.
"They're some of the ones who're away right now," Mira explained for the visitors, "on an important mission. But they were traveling performers before coming here. Rayna's also an illusionist—but, different kind, I think—and Lynn's an archer, storyteller, and other stuff."

"Shame they're away, then," Reiaza said, "I'll bet they're charming young ladies in addition to being talented."

The witch nodded. "They should be back in a few days or so."

"At any rate, I would like to extend to all of you my utmost gratitude," Reiaza said, taking off her hat once again for a deep, theatric bow that managed to point toward everyone without seeming the slightest bit awkward. "As something of a small gift reflecting that—at least, for those of you who don't wind up joining the show—you're all invited to attend a performance of the Troupe once it's fully formed, free of charge. You may bring along the rest of this town's heroes, for that matter; I'm all the more eager to meet with them after seeing the five of you."
"Sure," Mira said, "Sounds like fun. Thanks!"

"Oh, no, but of course thank you," Reiaza said, showing off by now somehow producing an entire bouquet of flowers from her hat. "I won't keep you ladies any longer, but I do very much look forward to our next meeting." She turned to leave after this, offering the bouquet to Nora, who awkwardly accepted it and watched as the strange woman left, Belwin in tow. He paused to look her way and give a strange kind of smile to her, seeming like he wanted to say something else, perhaps—but turned away to follow the leader of the Troupe instead.

The weaver breathed a sigh of relief once they were gone and the door was closed. "That was..unusual."
"I'll say," Aria said, resuming her usual hair color and figure. "Reiaza looks super weird. I mean—not in a bad way or anything, it's kinda cool-looking, but—if I encountered someone with a visual design like that in a game, I'd say 'oh look, an obviously important person'. 'Cause why would you waste the time designing something that elaborate for a minor character? But I guess she's just, basically like a magician? Like, the equivalent of an Earth magician?"

"I guess there's more than one meaning to 'illusionist' here," Mira said. "Those flowers sure seem pretty real."
"I think they are," Nora agreed, gently placing them on an end table nearby. "To all of my senses, they appear perfectly normal, and they aren't disappearing without her continued presence, either."

Rose was busy staring at the big gash she'd made in the floor with a moderately mortified expression. Mira came over to her. "It's okay," she said, "we'll put a rug over it or something."
"Eh-heheh, thanks, sorry. She was uh—very um, forward?"
"You're one to talk."
"Mm-hm, Iii, guess I am, huh?"