Sunday, December 26, 2021

The "Best" RPG Ever-118



Nora awoke to the bizarrely familiar sensation of another girl clinging to her, with a soft, fluffy tail lying over her own, half-curled-around it. Yet in the first groggy moments of half-consciousness, she thought there was something off: Zack seemed shorter and a bit bustier than usual...Oh, right. That was because this wasn't Zack.

"Lupa.." She gently ruffled the small wolf-girl's hair to rouse her, knowing that her impressive strength might make it difficult to get out of her grip otherwise.
"Rrfh." Lupa wriggled her head cutely, the tip of her tail wagging slightly. "..Ah!" Then her eyes popped open and she grinned brightly, the wagging accelerating quite a bit. "Morning! Hi!"
"G'morning," Nora replied. "Think you could let me get up?"
"Okay!" The wolf-girl quickly desengaged from the hug, then proceeded to roll out of her side of the bed onto all fours on the floor.
Nora giggled softly as she got up in a more normal fashion, sitting up on the other side of the other bed. But as childishly as the wild girl acted at times, she was still very much an adult in some ways...


Katherine took the last watch of the night, taking advantage of being awake earlier than everyone else to cook a big breakfast. This left the other adventurers to have 'normal' dreams for the rest of the night, and Zack had to sleep alone for a bit, but he insisted that he'd be fine—his instincts had already been satisfied enough for one night. Besides, there was also the beneficial side-effect that the smell of food woke everyone up, so the psion didn't even need to use telepathy for that.

Clera gave Karl a brief checkup, and declared the venom mostly gone from his system. He still needed some rest, but was no longer in danger of dying from it.

Once they had eaten their fill, the caravan started out once again on the road. They were in a relatively hilly region now, but there was mostly a clear enough view in all directions to make an ambush nearly impossible, even without Rayna and Katherine both having abilities that would let them detect almost anything nearby regardless. On top of all of that, Clera occasionally took to the sky to scout the next bit of their journey. So, while they did remain on guard, everyone felt a bit less tense than the day before.

A short while after sunrise, the psion gave Zack the mental equivalent of a slight nudge. I know, I know, he grumbled mentally, making his way over to Peregrine. He noticed, of course, and smiled warmly at the knight in greeting.
"Good morning, La—ah, Zack," he quickly corrected.
"Morning." His tail was wagging, and his cheeks felt slightly warm; he kept his ears straight and bit back some irrational anger, maintaining a neutral expression on his face through sheer willpower. "...Look, I'm—sorry," he said after a pause to fully compose himself.
"Whatever for?"
"You might've noticed I get...annoyed. Or frustrated. Sometimes. Around you. It's—not you, or..a-anyway, you're not doing anything wrong." Zack paused, taking a silent deep breath through his nose and trying to make his heart stop pounding so hard. "It's just—something personal, I don't think I can really explain right now. But it won't affect how I do my job here."

The prince waited a moment to speak, seemingly in case Zack had any more to say. Then he said, "Very well. I, confess that I do not entirely understand, but I suppose that is to be expected. Regardless, I will endeavor to respect that. Thank you for taking the time to inform me, either way."
"...Of course." Zack nodded, then moved away at a somewhat brisk pace, making for the opposite side of the caravan. He'd delivered the message as Katherine had suggested, and he felt like he'd taken all he could for the moment.


Everyone got their own breakfast, but they all wound up at the table around the same time anyway—even Rose, who'd come back through the door after sleeping in her forest. "I need to go looking for Fazren, and speak with him if he is still here," Nora was saying.
"Well, I fed the sword plenty yesterday," Aria said.
"Yeah, and even before you did, you were sane enough even with the sword out to quote doom guy," Mira pointed out.
"Glad somebody caught that," the shifter giggled. "Anyway, guess we could just take today off, unless something comes up?"
"Mhm," the witch agreed. "We got paid for rescuing Rast and the others on top of the spiders being a bonus over what was offered for the lizards. And, I've got a couple spells to practice, and curse theory to study."

"I'll prolly go back to the forest to do some gardening, then~," Rose said cheerfully. "But, lemme know right away if anything does happen!"
"Of course," Mira nodded. "Don't forget you've got a landmark tree to feed some magic, though."
"Oh, yeah, of course! Uhhm, after lunch I think."
"Speaking of going out into town, this seems like a pretty good opportunity to commission my second round of logic circuits too," Aria said.
"So, what'll you do, Lupa?" Nora asked the wolf-girl.
"Go with Nora?" she asked. "Want to meet tall fox for real! This one was only a wolf before."
"I suppose that's all right," she said, nodding.


Clera went up on another scouting flight, and this time almost immediately landed again. Rayna, she thought toward the fox-girl, along with a direction. Taking a look that way herself, Rayna saw the trouble right away.
Uh-oh, we better stop, she had Katherine broadcast—but especially send toward the prince.
What's wrong? he asked, already giving the signal to halt.
You see those two blobs waay out in the distance? she asked, the thought including a direction to look in.
...Somewhat?
That's ogres. Two of 'em. Those guys could trash the carts if they get up close to us.
What do you think? Katherine asked, Keep the caravan invisible and the rest of us go get rid of them?
Sounds like a plan! the illusionist said, going ahead with the first part—and 'silencing' and 'de-smelling' the entire caravan as much as she could while she was at it. Clera can fly back if there's trouble here, right?
Yes, the winged girl replied.


"Hunting~, tall fox~!" Lupa sang happily as they walked away from the door to town.
Nora giggled softly. "You do know we aren't planning to attack him or anything, right?"
"Yes! But, finding is hunting. So, where first?"
"I believe this town has a garden of Haestra somewhere..I was, avoiding it before, out of fear of meeting someone I knew, and then I suppose I just had no reason to go there, but..."
"Fear? Of meeting?" Lupa headtilted.
"Mmh. You remember the conversation I had with Fazren before?"
"Some."
"To put it simply, I ran away from home originally. I was concerned I would be taken back to them by force."
"Hmmn, weird fear. If not want to be part of pack, leave. No one chases," the wolf-girl said.
"Human—or, I should say, 'people' society—is a bit more complicated than that," Nora advised her. "Ultimately though, that was somewhat true in my case; they were sad to see me go, I think, but understand now that I needed to. That I should have been allowed the freedom to leave a while before that. Or—at least Fazren understands, anyway."

They stopped at the guardhouse to get directions to the garden of Haestra, and then went that way. It wasn't far from that end of town, and before long she could see the old Vulpin sitting cross-legged on a clear patch of grass near a field flowers, eyes closed and posture loose.

"Ooh! Is that—?"
"Shh," Nora interrupted. Then, quietly: "That is him, but we shouldn't barge in loudly. He's meditating."
"Or, taking a nap?" Lupa said, tilting her head slightly.
"No, he's definitely meditating. Come, we can wait for him to finish," she said, walking toward a bench on one side of the garden.

However, as they came closer to the bench, her presently fox-like ears picked up a distinct sound from Fazren's direction. She stopped not far from the bench, turning toward him. "...Never mind, he is napping. Maybe without meaning to? In that case, I suppose I should wake him." She got out her bracelet with a blue crystal on it and drew out a bit of water, flowing it over to in front of the old Vulpin's face before tossing it forward, splashing him.
"Bwaah!" He jumped to his feet, immediately taking on a battle-ready stance as he glanced around, before spotting Nora and the wolf-girl, and relaxed again. "Ah. You know you shouldn't disturb an old fox who's meditating like that," he said.
The fox-eared elf crossed her arms. "Why, because he might be sle—"
"He might be sleeping! Hahah..ooh, you got ahead of me on that one. Now, how might I..?"

It evidently took him this long to actually recognize his fellow Weaver. "Ahh! Nora," he said, smiling brightly and coming over to them quickly. "My, I didn't recognize you at all at first, between the sharp tongue and being so much shorter...so, you've managed a fox form as well, have you?"
"Mmhm," she nodded.
"Easily the best of the three, isn't it?"
"Well. It's, not so good in combat, but for whatever reason, I don't trip over my words in this form..for the most part," she said.
He reached the two of them at this point. "Oh, that's wonderful news! And," he said, looking to the wolf-girl now grinning brightly up at him with her tail wagging rapidly. "Who's this pretty girl? I don't think she was around when I visited you before."

"Hi! This one's Lupa," she said, putting up a hand for him to shake. "This one was around, but as a big wolf then!"
"Oh?" He took her hand, shaking it gently. "Well, I am pleased to actually make your acquaintance then, miss Lupa; my name is Fazren. I, take this to mean someone personified you?" he said, tilting his head to one side slightly.
"She personified herself," Nora said. "It was rather a surprise for all of us."
"This one is much stronger than before, too!" Lupa bragged.
"Good for you," he said, reaching over to ruffle her hair a bit. "You're also much easier on the eyes, at least in this old man's opinion."
"Heheh!" she giggled, enjoying the bit of petting and blushing happily from the compliment.

He turned back to the other Weaver. "Now, I suppose you didn't only come looking for me to introduce us, did you?"
"I, did want to come see you just to talk," Nora said, "at least, if you were still in town. But a few things have also come up that I'd like your help with..or, that I at least need to speak with you about."
"Very well," Fazren nodded. "If anything, I am elated to know I can still be of use. I would guess that you've surpassed me in ability by now, if you hadn't already by the time of my first visit."
"Erm..I, don't know about that," Nora said.
"No need to be humble for my sake! Come," he invited, leading them over to where he'd been 'meditating' before, "let's take a seat and we can discuss whatever you like."


While the four adventurers went off to take care of the ogres, the prince assigned his soldiers positions all around the caravan, placing himself just next to/in front of the illusionist presently leaning against a cart near the center-left. Her intuition was that he intended to keep their lifeline—her—safe as possible. She knew he was right to consider himself the most capable fighter, at least stat-wise, of the lot of them, but it was still a bit sad for the escorts to be of less use in combat than the noble they were meant to be protecting.

Around the time they got far enough away to be out of hearing distance for animal ears, Peregrine sighed very slightly. It wasn't an expression he really meant anybody to hear, just for himself, but of course Rayna could hear it. "Anything wrong?" she said, and he looked back at her briefly with an expression of slight, apologetic surprise that she'd heard it.
"Er—not at all, really," he said, putting back on a smile. "I have seen more than enough evidence to put my faith in both your and their capabilities to keep us from harm."
"Well, I didn't think that was it," the fox-girl said. "I'm keeping our present conversation muffled if there's anything else you want to vent about, though."
"Vent?"
It took her a second or so to realize he meant that he didn't understand her use of that word, making it another 'Earth-ism'. "Ah, pardon me—talk about to someone else, just to sort what's in your own head—without necessarily having any answers or solutions replied back at you. Must be a more local expression than I thought," she said as an excuse.
"Ah. In that case...w-well...." He cleared his throat politely, turning to face the front again, taking on a ready posture.

Still facing away from her, he said, "I am...somewhat conflicted. But I'm uncertain whether it's appropriate to discuss it. And it isn't anything important, at any rate."
"I can keep a secret," she said. In fact, Katherine was stretching the distance of her telepathy a bit to listen in for any distress calls from Rayna, but the 'sensation' of that listening in was faint enough that it was unlikely she was picking up full sensory information and surface thoughts the way she usually passively did to anyone nearby. And even if she was, the psion was vastly better with secrets than everyone else, anyway.
"I..do not know how I should interpret L...er, miss Zack's behavior or words. That is, how I ought to respond to them. The most obvious course of action is to respect what seem to be her wishes and not disturb her further, unless it concerns your job of getting us to town safely."
"That seems like a sensible choice," Rayna agreed.
"Indeed. But...at the same time, I cannot help but notice that she, ah..well, here I am uncertain what should be said."

"She's blatantly attracted to you?" the fox-girl said, making him glance back at her briefly. "It's not exactly difficult to tell."
"Perhaps. Ordinarily I would think so, but she also seems irritated by my very presence. As if I am reminding her of something or someone else whom she loathes. Whatever she feels is obviously not as clear-cut as attraction."
"The reasons for that are obviously not mine to say," Rayna said. "But—are you attracted to her?"
Peregrine paused and cleared his throat again. "I, can admit to finding her physically attractive, at the very least. I also admire her courage, the way that she protects everyone around her. Her care and empathy toward others is incredible, for as much as she seems to put on a rough exterior to hide it. But it's..fair to say that I do not know enough about her to even consider any form of courtship. She also seems, mysterious, which is..rare for me. Ordinarily I can make sense of another person fairly quickly, with only some observation."
"Zack is among the most straightforward people I know," the fox-girl pointed out. "I guarantee she isn't trying to be mysterious, but I see what you mean."
"Right. I think an artificial air of mystery would not..have the same effect," he said.

"To be clear, I do not mean only in her behavior, but..who she is, and what she is doing in the frontier in the first place. Knights exist as members of orders, which are tied to particular countries. There are no lone knights, at least not actually ordained ones with holy and healing magic at their disposal. None of Kyzerath's knights are posted out in the frontier, besides the fact that she has already implied she is not from anywhere near our country. Yet she clearly has the upbringing of a noble, along with equipment and training that only a knight could resaonably be expected to have. That is...a Gem of Brightness is not so difficult to come by, but hers is clearly too well-attuned to have been only recently linked, and it looks to be of exceptional quality. I presume the reasons for this are not yours to say, either—I only mention it to explain myself."

"What would you say all of that meant, if you heard it about somebody you hadn't met?" Rayna asked.
"I suppose...my first guess would be a disgraced knight, perhaps a deserter, as otherwise I don't see how her equipment would remain with her. But I rule that out on the grounds of her behavior," he said, shaking his head. "A deserter would not go to the frontier to fight even harder battles except, perhaps, out of financial desperation. She would not gather such trusting companions, especially not a psion who would be able to tell her personality at a glance. She would certainly not volunteer to help escort me, a noble who might work all of this out."
"Hmn.

"Soo," Rayna said, channeling Lynn just a bit. "I can tell you that this isn't the case, but just hypothetically—what if she was just some commoner who picked up a dead knight's equipment, figured out some way to make it all work, and then carefully adopted a knight's mannerisms, all to make a name for herself? Or worse yet, someone who killed a knight just so she could pretend to be one?"
"I couldn't believe that," he said. "But all the same, I think I would feel the same way about her. Her actions since I have met her, besides her reputation by association with Lady Ezra and the four of you who work alongside her, speaks for itself. In my eyes, she would be a true, worthy noble even if she isn't one by birth."
"That's a pretty nice compliment, coming from royalty," Rayna said. "You still might want to avoid saying that to her directly—in that hypothetical situation, I mean."
"Indeed...

"...It would be best not to mention any of this to the soldiers," he said. "I believe their confidence in your team is boosted by believing that a noble, especially a knight, is leading you. Although I'm certain they would still follow your advice either way as a mere matter of survival, if not out of respect for me...belief is a powerful thing."
"Like I said, I can keep a secret," Rayna said.


Nora explained to Fazren as best she could what had been happening with chaotic magic apparently driving people mad, Jacob's spells to deal with it, and Mira's theory that a Weaver might be able to imitate their effects to some extent. Lupa stayed quiet for the most part, aside from interjecting that she could 'eat bad magic' when Nora mentioned the spell for moving chaotic magic from one person to another. At the end, the old priest of Haestra nodded solemnly.

"I knew there was some reason I was compelled to remain here," he said. "What you suggest is..not impossible, I think, although I have never attempted something like that myself. There are...some records of those blessed by Haestra turning away 'normal' magic with their gift, which I suspect is something similar. I may be able to ask if anything regarding such a technique survives back at our home temple—the principle should be the same, if so. In the meantime, you and I should experiment on our own," he said. "Between your talent and my experience, way may well stumble upon something."
Nora nodded. "Thank you. I..know that dealing with this kind of magic is probably something of a taboo."
Fazren chuckled. "It is not our actions the gods judge, I have learned, but our intentions and results. Perhaps it would be frowned upon by the less flexible priests out there, but what they don't know won't hurt them."
"Mmh."

"Apart from that, I also have a..." Nora paused. "I am, not really certain what to call it. An..offer, a request, a blasphemous suggestion, perhaps?"
Fazren chuckled. "I certainly hope it's that last one, it sounds like the most entertaining!"
"Well, all right. Erm.."

<hr />

Rayna glanced around, and saw an encounter approaching from behind the caravan. It was...very, very low-level, thankfully. "Hmn." She walked that way to look, and the prince followed her, sensing that she'd spotted danger enough to draw his blade.
"Is something the matter?"

"...Off that way, three goblins," she pointed. "Not big guys, just the small ones. They can't see or hear us, but they're coming along the road, and I can't keep them from literally bumping into us or the cart unless we move it off the road pretty quick. And if we do that, they'll be ahead of us and we'll just have to deal with them later anyway."
"True...while it is a smaller number than those we encountered before, I am still somewhat apprehensive," he said.
"You'll have a much easier time just from being on the right side of the element of surprise," Rayna said. "But you know—you said before that belief is a powerful thing. I am no ordinary illusionist; in my hands, that's even more true. Call a couple of the soldiers over, keep the rest watching out for anything else to appear."
Peregrine nodded, giving the order; Isarac and Jehora joined them.

"Sire!" they saluted, and he gestured to the fox-girl to give direction.
"Got a few goblins coming our way," Rayna said. "When they get close, you three can take them out." Her eyes began to glow much more brightly than before, enough to easily be seen in the sunlight. She boosted their strength, agility, and dexterity, distributed to shore up whatever was weakest—spending more of the 'points' she had available to give on the soldiers than the prince, since their actual stats were lower in the first place. "You will now feel stronger because you will be stronger, thanks to my magic—but it's only temporary, so don't do anything crazy."
Peregrine nodded carefully; the two soldiers were busy looking down at themselves, trying to make sense of the strange feeling of suddenly being stronger and faster. "Wow.."
"This is incredible!"
"Yeah, I'm pretty awesome~," Rayna said. "Now, they can't see, hear, or smell you, so when they get close, attack in a way to kill them before they know you're there. Got it?"
"Ma'am!" the soldiers said in unison, somewhat clumsily saluting at her. The prince just nodded again.


"So, in short, you're asking an old man whether he'd like to try something that would almost certainly let him become—and remain—young again, with only the cost of being potentially stuck as a young woman?"
"With, some other complications..yes?"
Fazren chuckled. "Perhaps you don't have the proper context for this, being an elf and all, but getting old is a rather unpleasant business. I doubt there are very many who wouldn't jump at the chance, and I'm hardly very different from any of them in my opinion on this."
"You're not..concerned that it's unnatural?" she asked.

"Nora. Civilization is unnatural. Wearing clothing is unnatural. Farms and gardens—" (he gestured around him) "—and great temples built of hewn stone are unnatural. The gods do not begrudge us these things just because of that. Haestra's desire is that we live, as much as possible, in harmony with nature, not destroying or exploiting it in harmful ways. If something can save or improve a life, and does not actively destroy the natural world in the process, there is no objection to be found there."
"You're right. I'm..uncertain why I didn't think of it that way," she said. "And the...demonic magic involved?"
"Intentions and results," he said, nodding. "I have hardly had a conversation with her, but I know by reputation that miss Mira is a kind person. It seems to me that the stigma against demonic magic has robbed people everywhere of the potential it has to do good, and I would gladly seize the opportunity to help erode that stigma by demonstrating one particular mircale it is useful, and possibly required, for."

"If there is one concern I do have," he said, "it is that this potion aims to acheive its effect by slightly 'tuning' the connection between one's soul and their magic. That connection is almost certainly where a Weaver's power lies, and I would not want to diminish my ability to serve the gods with those powers by 'damaging' them. However, I admit I don't know nearly enough of the theory to determine whether or not there is any risk of such a thing. Did Vaedin mention anything of her own magic being changed or diminished as a side effect?"
"Well...no, but I have the impression that she doesn't have much of a talent for casting spells in the first place," Nora said. "It would be an unknown to her, I think."
He nodded. "In that case, I have a proposal of sorts. I will beseech the gods' wisdom, through prayer and meditation, on this matter. I merely want to know whether that risk exists, and whether they would disapprove of my taking this potion for any other reason. If I do not receive a clear objection by the time it is prepared, then I will take this silence to be their approval, and take it."
"You really think they would answer you?" she asked, and Fazren shrugged.
"At least I can say that I tried," he said. "If my power and being is unimportant enough to not get an answer, then that is a kind of approval in itself."

"I..admit that I rationalized something similar, when I decided to leave," Nora said. "I waited some days, and had no word telling me not to—and nobody was forewarned to stop me from leaving, either, I suppose."
"Perhaps it just means that you were right to go," Fazren said. "Although I would say none of us being prompted to stop you comes down more to the gods' respect for free will, of course."
"Right..."
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