The "Best" RPG Ever-125

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"So? Going to call me a coward for that?"
Ezra paused just a second before responding. "No, I agree with you. Their capabilities are unknown in that state—apart from possibly high resilience and some amount of control over normal monsters—and in absence of someone who could quickly bring them out of it, stopping her quickly was absolutely the right call. It's just a shame it didn't work. I'll have to ask you to forgive Rose—I don't think any of them are used to taking another person's life."
"Not like us, eh?"

She shrugged. "At least you weren't in any real danger from her, if she's that unwilling to kill anyone."
"Small comfort. My shirt's ruined!"
"You can afford to buy a new shirt," Ezra replied immediately, fully deadpan.
"Well—I've done my bit. Now I'll be hiding out in whatever tavern I find closest to the center of town 'till that thing, and anything else like it, is gone." He turned, raising his hand behind him in a brief wave. "Try to need someone other than me in the meantime."

---

Aria came through the door to the forest and looked around before calling out: "Hellooo? Rose?"

"Over here!" Some plants waved themselves helpfully, and the shifter followed their directions to somewhere closer to the forest's edge. The dragon-girl was sitting cross-legged on the ground with some roots coming up from the ground to curl partway around her legs and tail.

"Uh, hey. Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, just kinda shaken up," she said. "Um—staying 'connected' like this helps me sense things a little bit better."
"Sure..." Aria sat down across from her. "I just heard what happened after I got home. Since I already had supper, Mira asked me to come out here while she whips something up for everyone else—including you, of course. Then she'll take yours out here, and stick with you in case Mia shows up. Maybe between two fliers, you guys can cut her off if she bolts again."

"Uh-huh," Rose nodded.

"After that, I'll go back to the house. Nora, Lupa, and I can take turns looking out while the others sleep in case Mia comes by that area. The Captain's got the guard on high alert, with a pretty detailed description of what they're after and a warning not to look in the target's eyes or confront it—just report the location for us to go deal with it. Some of their Avian scouts are gonna be pulling all-nighters, no doubt."

The dragon-girl was shaking slightly. Not sure what else to do, Aria leaned up enough to put a hand around her wrist, looking in her face for a second. "Hey, it'll be okay. We're gonna catch her."

Rose nodded. "Mmh."

After Aria had pulled back to her original position, Rose said slowly, "I..r-really...freaked out there, for a second. Like—Randall tried to squash her between two big slabs of dirt, a-and he did, but it didn't...work. But for a second there, I thought he'd killed her for real. M-my first impulse was to—to punch him in the face, really hard, but I knew I couldn't do that without really hurting him, so I just..picked him up and screamed at him. But I was, still that angry. Over someone I don't even know. Or—just the idea of watching someone die that way in front of me. I-I don't know."

The shifter nodded. "I can't imagine it'd be pleasant to see." She brought her demonic sword out, still sheathed, letting it sit across her lap.

"You know how I first started to get my memories in this world? Get them 'back', or whatever? I took a real bad hit on the noggin," she said, knocking on her heat with a fist a couple of times. "A huge goblin slapped me over onto a wall and stole my sword—well, it was more like a spear at the time. And while I was unconscious, the first little bit of memory, like...leaked through, I guess? But—I actually didn't pass out right away, because I was still hopped up on demon-sword-power. But my senses weren't working exactly right...I could mostly just feel this thing's 'blood sense', you know, telling me where blood was...

"The goblin stabbed Clera with it, because she got in the way of 'im throwing it at me. That's how I got it back, I pulled it out of her. And then I came..really close to..hurting her with it myself. It was terrifying, when I realized just what I'd come so close to doing. I stopped worrying about my..originally intended build after that, and starting putting a lot of work into keeping myself sane when this sword is out. I never wanna come close to hurting another person with it again. Even if it's someone who probably should die, I just feel like—if I start thinking it's okay to feed it people's blood, for any reason at all, then...that's it. Someone else better put me down, quick."

"Uh...sorry. I dunno if I really had a point with all that," Aria said after a long pause.
"No, it's okay. I um..I do feel better, knowing I'm not the only one scared by the idea. I mean, like, obviously it's not the same for me, but I know—dragons in this world are well-known for just killing and kidnapping people indsicriminately if they wanna, to make their hoards bigger. Giving regular tribute to keep a dragon happy so it won't do that is common, 'cause it usually takes the sacrifice of a lot of people to put down just one dragon. The...the last thing I'd want is to be like that. Maybe I was angry because I was scared, a-and I was even more scared after realizing I'd been thinking about punching his stupid head in."

"Yeah. I guess—I kinda realized after that, that I'd felt some real pain, and real fear. That must've been the point when this whole experience quit being a game for me. I mean, I'm still gonna have fun, but within some...important parameters. Like 'don't risk fighting stupid and hurting my own friends'."

"Yeah, that—that's a pretty good rule."

After they were quiet for a minute or two, Mira's voice called out from the direction of the door: "Roo~oose, dinner~!"

"Uh, I'm over this way!" the dragon-girl yelled back, having some of her plants point the witch in the right direction.

"Welp, that's my cue," Aria said, hopping up. "See you soon."
"Mm-hm."

Mira arrived holding a couple of plates full of food, and came around to Rose's side to offer her one. "Here you go~!"
"Thanks. Um, I could get up, but then I'd have to set all this up again," she said with a vague gesture at the roots.
"No problem. Mind if I eat with you?" She went around to pretty much the same spot Aria had vacated a moment go.
"Not at all!"

"I guess it must be pretty good, huh?" Mira said with a teasing grin, watching her eat.
"Mmngh...y-yeah, sorry," Rose answered after swallowing, blushing a bit. "I, s-still don't have back my uh, social graces from being human back on Earth."
"I don't mind a bit," the witch said. "I guess we could take some time out a little later to re-teach you that stuff."

"Mmh."

"...What're we gonna do if Mia doesn't show up? If no one sees her tonight, or at all?"

"Maybe Lupa could track her down by scent? Although, I guess we'd need something that smells like her first. Oh, yeah, you guys found her eating a deer, right?"
"Uh-huh. Uhhm...even though I've done plenty of hunting and eating animals in, uh, this life," the dragon-girl said, gesturing to herself, "there was something...gross about it. Wh-what she'd done with, uh, the body. It was like...tearing it apart was more important than getting to the good stuff."

"Well, we could look for other dead prey animals messed up the same way. Or maybe have Lupa try to sniff out some deer blood, or something? But, I kinda suspect we won't have to do any of that."

"Mmgh?" Rose swallowed down some more food. "How come?"

"I think if there's any purpose at all behind their behavior, it's to attack 'normal' people, destroy civilization—like our town—and maybe spread the madness or whatever? I mean, Donovan gathered up an army of wolves to at least...stare threateningly at the town."
"Sure, but it's, like..chaos magic, right? Maybe what they do while, um, infected by it or whatever, doesn't actually make sense? I mean—why'd she run instead of attacking us in the first place, when getting squished didn't even seem to faze her?"

"I bet it did hurt her, a lot. But it just wasn't visually obvious at the time. And she left to heal her wounds—maybe deeper into the Frontier to absorb more chaos magic or something? Once she's recovered, maybe she'll come back all on her own."

The witch didn't say any more until Rose finished her food. Then she held out a hand, and after a moment the dragon-girl realized it was for the plate. She sheepishly handed it over after that, and Mira stacked it neatly on top of her own plate, which was also empty by now. "Uh, thanks again. It was delicious."
"Glad to hear it~," Mira smiled brightly.

"I admit I have...one slight worry, if Mia does absorb a lot of choas energy to heal, or..really just in general."
"That she might get even bigger and stronger?"
"Well, yeah, there's that. But also—we pretty much yanked the chaos magic out of Donovan right after he got horrifically transformed, and since he seems to still be unconscious, we don't even know if there were side effects of some sort from that happening. So, what if staying that way for a long time, or absorbing too much chaos magic, makes it...permanent? Like if there's a point of no return, and she's just a super-monster forever?"
"I...r-really hope that can't happen."
"Yeah, me too. But...we have to be ready, if it does. I'm still gonna be drawing all the chaos magic I can out of her and, if possible, into Lupa, since I'm pretty sure that'd weaken her no matter what. But if...either she seems to have an inexhaustible amount somehow, or if getting it all out ends up straight up killing her instead of changing her back...

"Well...I guess, we just need to be ready for that."
Rose nodded, slowly. "At least...at least we'll have tried."
"Right. We'll do everything in our power to save her, and only if it's really impossible will we worry about the alternative. 'Cause that's what heroes are supposed to do."

The dragon-girl tilted her head slightly. "Heroes, huh..?"

"What? Did I say something weird?"

"It's just...I hadn't really thought of us that way before. Especially myself."

"Well, you should!"

---

"Donovan! Stop this!"

Bang. Hyacinth could feel the blunt, brutal force of a greathammer's weight and momentum against her hastily-placed shield, visibly cracking it. He said something back, but it got lost somewhere in the noise...

"She's wrong! She must be! I'm not—and you're not—"

Bang.

When a dream is interrupted by noise in the real world, depending on the context of that moment in the dream, it's easy to feel a brief shock, perceiving a great threat where there is none. For this reason, Hyacinth sat bolt upright, raising a shield with magic in one hand and readying fire in the other, all before realizing that she was lying in a barracks in the early morning, and someone had just knocked on her door. She took a deep breath, dismissing both readied magics, and went to quickly make herself presentable, calling "Yes?" in a voice almost calm enough to hide that momentary shock.

One of the town guardswomen replied from outside the door: "Er, sorry to bug ya so early, but—Donovan woke up. Cap's headed to explain things already, but figures he might trust the situation more once he sees you."
She took a deep breath. "Right. I'm on my way."

Hyacinth came through the open door to the jail—they'd put him behind bars just to be on the safe side, and she was inclined to agree. The big, burly Canis turned her way immediately, giving a friendly wave. "Heey, flower girl! What's goin' on around here? These folks say I attacked you?"
"That seems to be true," she said. "Something—we don't know what—bewitched you and the others. It probably tried to do the same to me, but failed. Chaotic magic was involved somehow."

"Ah...gee. Hearin' that from you, I guess it must be the truth," he said, scratching the back of his head with a hand. "I don't remember a thing since we were just moving along on normal patrol. Total blank since then..not even seein' anything unusual."

Seeing that Captain Ezra was standing aside, Hyacinth moved to just in front of him, with the bars between them. "That isn't all that's happened. Do you..feel alright?"

"Huh? Sure. I mean...I'm kinda sore, in weird places, and..my stomach hurts something fierce. I think I'd be starving if I felt less sick. Uh, what happened to Mia? And Thrace?"

She crossed her arms. "As far as we know, the same thing that happened to you—but we haven't found them yet."

"Actually—Mia was sighted yesterday afternoon," Ezra cut in. "She underwent an unusual transformation not unlike his, but gained the ability to fly in the process—and used it to escape."

The Vulpin turned on her. "When were you planning to tell me this?"

"Here and now, away from prying eyes and eavesdropping ears. A panic won't do anyone any good." While she wasn't happy about it, Hyacinth couldn't argue with this reason. She had been busy exchanging coded messages to her superiors to help them understand the situation for the better part of the previous afternoon. "Our scouts are looking for her, and the same party that handled Donovan is prepared to intercept her once she is found. You're free to join them if you wish."

"Uh—'scuze me," Donovan waved for attention. "What's this about a, 'transformation', now?"

"...Captain Ezra will explain the situation to you in full," Hyacinth said after a brief moment of consideration. "She can be fully trusted. You'll get him a healer, I hope?"
"Of course," she nodded.

"Then I'm going." She pointed at the Canis commandingly. "Behave yourself."

"Understood, ma'am!" Donovan gave his usual kind of slightly informal salute.

In all respects, he seemed to be back to normal. His eyes weren't...wrong, and he wasn't saying or doing anything out of the ordinary. Still, Hyacinth wouldn't fault the Captain for caution if she kept him in that cell for observation a little bit longer...

---

Aria sat up in bed, taking a second to register what had woken her: a particularly loud knock on her bedroom door. Lupa's voice came through after this: "Chaaangeeer! Turn to stay up and look."
"Oh, thanks. I was getting kinda bored anyway," she said, turning to sit on the side of the bed. "You can go on and nap 'till breakfast, then."
"'Kay~!"

After a quick change of clothes, the shifter headed downstairs and took a step out into their house's front yard, looking around. It didn't seem necessary to patrol or anything; their threat was likely to come from the sky if it came at all, and she had her ears in a tall, fluffy fox-like form to pick up as much sound as possible. After standing leaning against a wall for a couple of minutes, she reached a decision, and turned to go back inside and get a chair to sit in.

Someone knocked on the door to town as she was carrying the chair through the hallway, so she put it down and went to open it, finding Hyacinth on the other side. "Hi—you're up pretty early, huh?"
"Captain Ezra advised me that your party would be handling Mia once her location is confirmed. I would like to join your efforts."
"Hmm..you've got Jacob's spells down pat, right? I don't think anyone would object—Nora still hasn't figured out an equivalent yet, and Mira could be more useful restraining her or beating off any tagalongs. Soo...c'mon in!" She moved aside, gesturing into the house. "Oh, yeah—keep your voice down though—everyone else is sleeping. I'm on watch."
"..Right." The Vulpin finally came inside, looking around while Aria shut the door.

"I was just on my way outside. You want a chair?" Aria offered, picking up the one she was getting for herself.
"..I'd prefer to stand."

"Suit yourself~!"

In short order, the shifter sat down outside, crossing her legs and leaning back. She stared off into the distance, watching the sky start to change colors as the sun rose. Hyacinth stood upright with her arms crossed for a couple of minutes, then took a couple of steps backwards to lean against the wall.

This was...a lot less unpleasant than staring out at a demon, or in at static, but still kind of boring. But then—there was someone she could talk to. And, now that she thought of it, maybe the soldier lady needed to know this anyway.

"Uh, you know.." She planted both feet on the ground and sat up, turning her head the Vulpin's way. "I'm not the expert on this stuff, but Mira mentioned that..well, we might've just been lucky with Donovan. I mean—we were there right when he went all super-mutant on us. Mia will have been a big monster thing for, like, half a day at this point, sooo..yanking the chaos magic stuff out might either, not work for some reason, or might just, like, kill her?"

Hyacinth nodded solemnly. "That had occurred to me. All soldiers accept the risk of death, especially those of us who volunteer to man Nir's frontier outpost. It will still be a relief if she is no longer a danger to others, and no longer suffering—and the same for Thrace."

"That's fair..."

Aria kicked her feet forward and back for a moment. "You know, I took a pretty big risk myself, grabbing the demon sword. For a while, I didn't remember anything from before I landed out here in the frontier—not even my name, much less why I'd bound myself to a blood-hungry demon."

The Vulpin didn't reply for several seconds—Aria had the distinct sense that she'd be happier not talking. But, perhaps sensing the shifter's need for conversation, she eventually said: "Do you know now?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "My memories aren't all back, but I do know why I took the sword. It—magic stuff is weird. The demon wants 'blood', but it will accept a lot of things that you could metaphorically refer to as blood, including...the life of plants. With that sword stuck in the ground, what should've been our town's most fertile fields kept dying. The effect was expanding, and getting worse—within maybe a decade, it wouldn't be possible to grow anything in the whole area. We'd all have to move away—far away, if we didn't want to ever deal with that cursed sword again. But—some of the folks living there were the descendants of whoever was originally supposed to be guarding the sword, you know, to keep someone evil from picking it up to gain its power? So, besides the fact that it would suck, everyone moving out would be irresponsible."

"...I must admit that's more noble than my first impression of you."

"Hahah, well—I knew taking it wouldn't immediately kill me. I had my friend Loren teleport me far away, too. And I think I went out of my way not to think about the decision too hard before acting on it.

"I wonder, though—and maybe this is just 'cause I'm still missing some memories, but..why would you seal such a dangerous demon inside a weapon and jam it in the ground in the first place? Why not just, you know, kill it?"

"If a demon is exceptionally powerful, enough to cross over from the demon realm on its own, then killing it does practically no good," Hyacinth answered, almost immediately. Aria had the sense of a math professor immediately spitting out a long-memorized equation. "Its soul returns to the demon realm, and it reincarnates almost as powerful as it was before—meaning that it can simply return to our world to wreak havoc again. Killing such a demon repeatedly would weaken it to the point where it would eventually be unable to return, but that would be unacceptably costly in terms of lives and resources. It helps that the emergence of a demon that powerful is extremely rare."

"Oh—I guess they teach you that stuff at mage college?"
Hyacinth nodded. "The sealing ritual for such a situation is kept on public record in numerous places. It is said that Sophol himself first developed it, providing it to mortals to aid in our self-protection. The intent is that a demon's power will fade if it is sealed away long enough, to the point that it can eventually be destroyed and sent to the demon realm too weak to ever return. But...if yours had found a 'loophole' to regain power from its surroundings, even while sealed, then it may never have become safe to dispose of."

"If that's the idea, why make it a weapon? Surely there'd be less people who want to pick up a demonic, like, chair or spoon for power."

"That...I don't know. The instructions for the ritual specifically mention the vessel being a weapon, so perhaps it's simply necessary, or at least makes the spell efficient enough to be practical to cast."

Aria nodded, "Magic stuff is weird that way."

Feeling that the conversation had reached a logical end, and not wanting to pester a relative stranger too much, the shifter kept quiet for a little while after that, trying her best to just enjoy the view. Fortunately, it wasn't more than a few minutes from then that both of them turned their heads at the sound of some wings approaching: an avian swooping in toward them from above.