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.

A Summoning, Part XXXVIII

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Part XXXVIII
~High Priestess~

Would you like to go flying this afternoon?

Thomas woke up half-buried in gold to the sound of a text message on her phone. It wasn't hard to get up or anything, but she still wasn't used to the feeling of cold metal sliding down off of her while she stood up from being asleep. The physical sensation was surreal enough on its own, but the fact that a part of her enjoyed it was even stranger. After that it was hurrying to get her phone and read the two messages on it, the second of which was:

My apologies for not reaching out for a little while. I do need to do quite a bit of studying to be properly prepared for all those exams!

So...would she like to go flying? This afternoon, or any other time whatsoever? Yes, definitely, always. With Stella...? The immediate answer was also yes, but that was bitten back by some hesitation and worry. Curling her tail around to get a few stray fragments of gold to fall off it and back into the pile, she replied in reverse order:

thats ok

sure, what time

---

Dai sat with a goddess and a dragon for lunch on Friday. Well—they were two of his friends, after all. Unfortunately, both of them were too distracted to be much fun to hang out with. Now, with Thomas he knew what she was dealing with, and her flustered fidgeting was honestly kind of cute. But seeing Zotha close her eyes and rub her forehead just below the base of her horns like that was kind of worrying. Did it mean the whole world was in danger and she'd been drafted to help deal with or something?

"Yooo." He reached out and snapped his finger a couple of times. "Earth to Zeke? Or whatever? You awake in there?"

"Ah, sorry." She shook her head. "What were you saying?"
"Next week's game, dude! Am I the only one thinkin' about it?"
"Oh, is..it's that time already, huh? Yeah, looking forward to it," she said, putting on a smile and nodding.

"Seriously, what's up with you, huh?"
"You know..deity business...stuff." Seeing that that didn't satisfy him (or Thomas, who was now distracting herself from her own worries by paying more attention to this), she elaborated: "Any time someone 'asks' to use my power for something, I have to approve or deny it. Nngh...some twenty requests came through at the same time a minute ago. And I was up pretty late last night, too..for a, meeting."

"You still need sleep?" the dragon-girl asked. "Can't you just will yourself well or something?"
"I don't know about need, but I think I'm still human enough for it to make me feel better anyway," she said. "I guess I don't actually feel all that tired from just that; it's more the increasingly frequent requests..because of an agreement I made."

"Hmn..why don't you just 'configure' certain things to be auto-approved, if you're getting so many requests?" she suggested further.

"You gonna run low on steam, sendin' out that much power?" Dai pitched in.

"Nope. Aah, if anything I'm getting an excessive inflow. It's...hard to describe, but that's mentally overwhelming in its own way too. And—that's not a bad suggestion, but I've never tried to 'configure' my own power to do something automatic like that before..."

"Well, no better time than when you need it, right? Just, I dunno, set up a rule that 'this and this is okay as long as whatever', 'if it's like this then ask me for approval'...stuff like that?" Thomas said vaguely, waving a hand in a circle through the air. "Maybe have it 'record a log' you can refer back to to make sure it's working right?"
"Leave it to you to think about magic like a programmer, hmn? Well, I'll give it a shot, I guess—thanks."

"Sure."

Dai decided the next course of action was to poke the bear. Well—the dragon, actually, which most would consider an even worse idea. "Sooo, you gone out with Stella again yet?"

"..No."

"You gonna? Ask her out or somethin'?"
"I...she asked if I wanted to go flying this afternoon."

He tilted his head. "Is that a euphem—"
"No!" This word was emphasized further by her slamming the table with a hand hard enough to make a loud banging sound and rattle all the dishes sitting on it.

Dai couldn't help but laugh at this reaction. "Pffhaha! I was just joking, dude! I know you like literally flying, 'kay?"
"..Right." She looked away, blushing and crossing her arms. "Sorry."

"Yeah, and don't hit the table like that when I'm not around," Zotha said. "That was enough force to rip it off the leg and send it flipping up through the ceiling. Those 'veil keeper' people would have a fit."

"Sorry again."

"Hey, I don't mind—and you shouldn't be the one apologizing anyway. Daaaii?"

"Yeah, sorry. I know it's a touchy subject, I'm just tryin'a help you loosen up about it."

"I know. Just...give me some time."

"All the time you want. Buut, sounds like you've got 'till this afternoon. Unless you said no?"
"I..said yes," she admitted. "Now I don't know what to say when I see her..."

"You don't have to say anything, you know," Zotha said. "If you're happy with the way things are for now, and she seems happy too—then there's no need to push it. Or you can at least procrastinate on talking about how you feel until after you've had some fun together, right?"
"Mmnh. Maybe. I'm not sure that's a great idea..."
"Worst case, she isn't interested, right?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's worse if she is." Thomas shook her head. "I don't..like...how possessive my instincts make me feel. About something that isn't even...well, that isn't, yet. You know?"

"I can't say I quite know what that's like," she said. "I wonder...if there's any 'adult' dragons around who could..help you out? Maybe give you pointers on dealing with 'being a dragon'? I could look into it if you want?"
"...Sure. Thanks."

---

While Prama was busy making some low-difficulty, medium-high-demand potions on her own (with Boreas occasionally looking in to make sure things were going smoothly, which of course they were), she was periodically distracted by some distant yelling. Her analysis after some sampling was: happy in tone, two distinct voices (both female), usually too far off to make out words but with the occasional clear cheering coming through, like a distant "Whooooo!" The strangest thing was that they seemed to be coming from above, and none of her continued careful directional listening seemed to quite dispute this theory.

After the twelfth time, she waited for Boreas to check in on her again. Some more excited yelling came about the time the werewolf alchemist showed up, conveniently enough, but she didn't seem to react to it at all. After listening to her teacher's comments, she said, "You do hear that, right? That yelling?"
"Mmh," Boreas nodded.

"It's not bugging you? Some kids running around your property or something?"
"Flying, more like," the werewolf said. "The area 'round here is protected, so no one under the veil can get to it. Including planes and drones and such, so—convenient place for folks who need to practice flying, or..who just want ta play around in the air."

"Ah. So—you're not about to yell at them to get out of your sky?"

Boreas shook her head. "Nobody owns the sky. Let 'em have their fun, anyhow."

---

Stella came in for a landing, gliding gracefully toward the ground and hitting it with her feet, flapping her wings to lift briefly in a hop and bleed off some forward momentum, then repeated this process a couple of times before finally sticking her landing. After this, Thomas came down a few yards in front of her, landing in a rough, awkward dive that left her briefly rolling forward along the ground before finally coming to a stop. She slowly sat up afterward, and found Stella walking up to extend an arm her way.

"May I...hfffh...help you up?" The celestial was panting slightly from the workout of flying at increasingly high speeds; the dragon didn't feel tired at all.

"Uh, n-no, that's..I'll get myself up, thanks," Thomas said awkwardly, hopping up to her feet and dusting herself off/using magic to cast the dirt out of her clothes and hair. "Guess I don't come anywhere near winning when it comes to landing, huh?"
"Heheh..it is a difficult skill to master, I believe. Hfffh...Nonetheless, you must be quite talented to fly so well with only a few days' experience."

"You seem winded...want to call it a day for now? Um...go somewhere to eat?"
"Certainly!" she smiled cutely, and Thomas had to look slightly away and try to make her cheeks stop heating up.

They started back toward the car, Stella watching her a few times with a slight, uncharacteristic hesitancy to her expression. "Something wrong?" Thomas finally asked.
"I was just wondering...do I make you, uncomfortable in some way?"
"Uh..."
"I only ask because...even though it seems as if you enjoy my company most of the time, you occasionally seem at least, unhappy, or frustrated perhaps? If I have a habit of saying or doing something you find unpleasant, I would like to know."
"It's.." Thomas sighed, stopping her walk and turning to face the short, white-winged girl. "Look, it's not—you. Not really. I just...feel like I haven't been entirely honest, I guess."

"Honest?" Stella tilted her head slightly. "About what?"

"Well. You know how I haven't been a dragon for very long. This...happened because of Zotha. Yeah?"
"Yes?"
"I also..was a guy before this happened. Look, my name's Thomas, I just—did a really bad job introducing myself before, a-and haven't corrected you."

"I see..." Stella nodded, looking down to think for a moment, then turned her head up again to look the dragon-girl in the face. "I don't want to trivialize your concern, but is that all it is? I don't particularly mind if you were male before—after all, I'm in a similar situation. If anything, it's something else we have in common."
"It's..yeah, there's more to it than that," Thomas said. "I, just—I've always been really awkward around girls, and that hasn't really gotten better. Especially if it's someone I...like? And it's worse because I have weird new instincts—being a dragon and all—screwing with my emotions even more. I dunno how to deal with it all."

Stella put a finger just beneath her lips, tapping her upper chin in an adorable sort of 'thinking' expression. "Yet you seem amicable enough most of the time. You need not put up a front for me if I make you feel awkward, you know? Oh, wait—" her eyes widened slightly. "D-do you mean to say that you like me?"

"Uh..y-yeah." Thomas looked away, feeling a mixture of fear and anticipation. "Kinda. You're just..really cute, you know..?"
She wasn't expecting Stella's response to this: a bright blush spreading across her cheeks followed by a slight, soft giggle. "Heheh...! My goodness..."

"Um...?" There were some good signs, but Thomas still wasn't sure about the meaning of that reaction.

"Sorry, sorry! It's just that I found myself at a loss for words, for a moment there." Stella held her hands together behind her back, picking up one foot to lightly kick the ground a couple of times. "To be..perfectly honest, I was beginning to feel some concern that I was taking advantage of you. That is—as new to the world as I am, I want to have all sorts of experiences for myself, but much of what I want to do..can't be done alone, or is at least much better with company. I told myself I was showing my gratitude to you, as you did save my life, but I was also worried about monopolizing your time. I am trying to make other friends, of course, but still found myself wanting specifically to do something with you. There really aren't very many people who can fly, statistically speaking, so making that what we did together made sense—although I think it was only an excuse..." While she spoke, Stella's words seemed to alternate between coming out slowly word by word and flowing out practically an entire sentence at once.

"Y-yeah?" The dragon-girl was even less sure of what to make of this barrage of words, but it seemed like this kind of overexplanation was just how Stella responded to feeling nervous. She was still blushing this entire time, after all.

"Erm. My apologies if all of that didn't make much sense. All I mean is, when you called me cute, I realized that perhaps...I might just like you, too? Because it made me feel...awfully happy, all of a sudden, to hear that from you."

"...Oh."

"...Pffheheheh~!" After a pause, Stella burst into a brief but uncontrollable giggle again. "You know as little what to do with yourself as I do, don't you?"
"Uh—I think so? If I followed that right..."

"Here," she said, holding up her arms, "Perhaps we can just see how a hug feels, and work out the rest later."
"S-sure."

Thomas picked the small girl up in her arms, and found a pair of slim arms pulling tightly around her upper body, Stella leaning her head over her shoulder so their cheeks touched. The celestial's body was unbelievably light—even factoring in dragon strength—and it was soft and warm. She could feel Stella's heart racing in her chest, which was slightly comforting in a weird way, and after a moment the small girl lifted a hand to lightly brush through her hair.

"This is..not so bad, is it?"
"Uh, yeah, no—it's great," Thomas stumbled awkwardly.
"Heheh..all right." Stella let go, so the dragon-girl did the same, watching her hop down gracefully to the ground a foot or so away. Her face wore a joyful grin with an even brighter blush than before...and Thomas was smiling too, she noticed, and her tail was waving back and forth a little bit.

"Shall we...go on to dinner, then?" Stella said. "N-now that we've cleared the air a bit, I'd love to talk with you some more."
"Uh, y-yeah, sure."

The "Best" RPG Ever-124

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---

"So...how's your project been going?" Aria was sitting across from Loren in a restaurant booth. He'd already insisted that he'd take the bill in the process of ordering their food.
"Oh, to make a computer? Pretty great~! I got a first batch of samples in, gave some feedback, and expect the next one anytime now. It's not exactly surprising to find that people will make whatever nonensical toy I want if I throw enough money at 'em."

"I guess that's one advantage of having to feed your sword monster blood all the time," he said. "How is..that, by the way? Any uh..do you feel any more or less, uh, insane from it?"
"Maybe less? I've learned to..control my dreams, to some extent."

Loren gave her a questioning look, and she realized that this aspect of her 'cursed sword' hadn't come up in conversation with him before. "Well, it's just that when I sleep, I have a completely lucid dream that happens in perfect lockstep with real time, and the demon...I guess what its body would look like if it was alive? Is just kinda chilling way off in the distance, this like ten-story-tall guy chained up and asleep. I used to be just kinda stuck on a 'cliff' place with nothing to see but this...incomprehensible visual fuzz behind me, and him in front of me. But Kath helped me 'craft' that fuzz into some actual, like, imaginary rooms or landscapes or whatever a few times, and now I can kinda do it myself. And I've learned how to meditate to pass the time, too. So, overall, it's not nearly as maddeningly boring as it was at first."
"I...see. Well, I guess that's good?"
"Yep!"

"A-anyway," he said, changing the subject away from one he found moderately uncomfortable, "I had some correspondence recently with one of the cryptomancers who helped me with that dragon's teleport crystal. Just expressing some, you know, professional curiosity about the basics of how her area of expertise works. I got back an excited essay about 'logical chains' and 'code sequences'. Entirely different diagrams and terminology from yours, but some of it felt quite similar anyway. Maybe you'd be interested in a read?"
"Heck yeah!" Aria grinned big.
He gave a slightly confused look. "'Heck'?"
"Uh—don't worry about that," she said. "Just an emphatic...adverb, I guess is what it is in this case?"

"I'll take your word for it."

---

Rose led the way through the door to the house, then quickly around to her own door—not wanting the Felis's awful breath to stink up her friends' home any more than necessary. "Well—here we are!" she said with a sweeping gesture. "Um, what do you think of my forest?"
Randall took a moment to actually look around before answering. "Pleasant place. Bit strong on the nose, but a pretty unusual look to my eyes—inna good way. Never seen something so close to a jungle and a garden all at the same time."

"Heheh..well, I try. Have you..ever been to another nature dragon's place?"
"Can't say I have. Most dragons aren't keen to show off their hoards to anyone."

"Well, that's just a shame," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "What's even the point of making a place pretty if you can't show it off to anyone?"
"Hah. You really are an odd one for a dragon," he half-slurred, starting to step forward. "I don't feel much activity directly below us, which is prolly good news for you. Lezss go a little further out."
"Sure." Rose started off toward the east, making sure to take the less direct, more clear route rather than risk him stumbling over something.

"I s'pose you've shown your friends around the place before," he said after a moment, seeming to hope to make conversation. "Not to mention miss Vaedin, eh?"

"Yep! Uhm, actually Vae's seen more than anyone else, I think."

"I be' she has."

Rose stopped in her tracks, turning around to glare. "Uh, rude."

"Bad joke, I suppose. Sorry," he shrugged.

"Hmph." The dragon-girl just turned around and continued leading the way.

"Ahh, you are sweet on her, aren't you? I applaud your tastes—she's really a f..fine looking young woman."

"There's way more to her than her looks! Just like most people!"

"Oi, I know that.

"After hearing her name, you know, I though' she sounded sorta familiar. It came back to me a little later...I happened to be in the country around the time Vaedin's experiment supposedly caused an explosion."

"I'm well aware of her history, you know."

"Sure. But anyway—knowing full well herbalists usually don't make explosives, I had a look around the ruins myself. Curiosity, an' all that."
"Uh-huh? You find anything?"
"No' as such. No structural sabotage or anything like that. Though—I also went by the healer's afterward, upon hearin' the old fox was still alive, and even recovering. Bumped into an unusual young woman there. Big cloak over a fancy-looking dress. No one else there seemed to notice 'er tail."

When he didn't continue his story for several more steps, she said, "Lots of people have tails, right? I mean, like—I've got a tail, you've got a tail."
"Sure, but most folks haven' got that sort of tail these days. Your witch friend's the only one that comes to mind right now."

"Oh. Sooo, you noticed she was a witch." Remembering the entire thing with Ezra's old party, she asked, "Did you...kill her?"
"Nah. Sure, I followed her out of town, we fought for a bit. She liked to throw a bunch of knives and daggers around, but—didn't bother using her magic. I think she'd noticed I wasn't playing for keeps.

"Anyway. After we'd spoken for a bit, I let her go. Seems she just wanted to 'reward' the old fox for something or other. Errh...it was...helping cure a fever her apprentice had, some years back. I though': If her aim was to help him, funny way to go about it. But at leas', she didn't seem so bad. Not worth the effort to really try to kill."

"Did yoouuu..catch her name?"
"Sure. Grizzle...uh...something." He paused, then snapped a finger. "Griselda! Tha's what it was."

---

Katherine used Lynn's mind for the dream meeting once again, this time bringing in Zack first in hopes of cutting off any nightmares he was having right away. His dream actually seemed less distressing than the night before, although it might have just been because she caught him so early. After that it was Rayna's turn, and then she 'invited' Clera's two minds in, again making a door linked to one in Ian's house for them to step through whenever they were ready. Their dreamspace was about as coherent as she could usually make anyone else's, only without her help, so just yanking them in felt kind of rude when this was an option.

While they waited, the wolfgirl strode up to a couple of feet in front of Rayna. She paused, confused by this behavior. "...Yes?" He reached across, taking one of her ears in each hand, and gave just strong enough of a tug to be painful. "Oww!" She recoiled, stumbling back a couple of steps and putting her hands over the 'injured' ears. "What was that for?!"

"Like you don't know." He walked away with no further elaboration.

"Wait—how'd that hurt here anyway?" she asked, Katherine's way. "Shouldn't I just, wake up?"

"Not if I don't want you to," the catgirl said with a slightly mean grin. "Especially while you're in someone else's dream."

Before this conversation could continue, Clera's door opened, and the winged girl stepped through, followed by Ian. Looking around briefly, the former said, "Am I interrupting something?"
"Nothing important," Zack said, going to a couch Katherine had 'spawned in' to sit down.

"So, what did you..remember? Or—did you remember something?" the catgirl asked.
"I—or we—had a feeling that something was familiar about the events described in the letter from town," Ian started. "But it was too distant to grasp. We suspected it was in Clera's memory, and would be easier to bring up while separated."
The winged girl nodded. "That turned out to be right. But, it's not something I have a lot of detail on; just something I heard about from one of my professors back at magic college. An echo of a rumor used as a cautionary tale, if anything.

"It was...regarding a small group of mages trying to research chaos magic..some of Jacob's predecessors, you could say, but much less careful in their methods. They set up a small base not even very far into the frontier, with a few soldiers to keep them safe. Their research was seemingly uneventful for a few years, but at some point, something went..wrong. It's uncertain what happened, but most of them—including all of the soldiers—were later found dead in ways that suggested the use of rather powerful and...creative magic. Those who did return, well...
"It's not that they were completely mad—at least, not in the usual way. They seemed to possess all of their faculties, I mean. They could cast the same magic as before—if not a bit more powerful. And they spoke in complete sentences, but there was something unhinged and panicked about their tone of voice, and nobody could quite make sense of what they were saying. The concepts would just—slide off one's mind, or else thinking about what they were saying too much would hurt...which sounds to me like how 'dangerous information' behaves. They also tried to lock eyes with anyone they could, and some of those who they succeeded with became...suddenly violent. Others just said their eyes looked 'wrong' and wouldn't elaborate. The whole group was eventually killed off by those who didn't go mad from looking in their eyes—and others who managed to avoid doing so at all."

She shook her head lightly. "Sorry—now that I've recalled it, it really doesn't seem as useful as I'd hoped it would be."
"Hmmn...It still tells us something," Lynn said. "This kind of thing has happened before. It's a thing chaos magic can do, just in general. But it usually doesn't?"

"And dangerous information is involved!" Rayna added. "That means dangerous information is tied in with chaos magic in some way. Maybe it's 'dangerous' because it can make people crazy like that!"

"That would seem like a good reason for knowledge to be locked away," Clera said.

"But none of them turned into actual monsters, like that Donovan guy?" Katherine asked. "Do you know what their races were?"
"Hmmh...the country this professor was from was largely populated by humans," she recalled. "It's a fair bet that's what they were, or at least the majority."

"Beastfolk are genuinely part animal, and chaos magic can turn animals into monsters," Rayna mused. "Maybe humans are so non-animal that its 'way' of turning them into monsters is..different?"

"Where does that leave elves, then?" Ian asked. "Then again—I suppose we had better hope to not find out."

---

After a moment of quiet, Randall rolled the subject of conversation back slightly. ''Abou' miss Vaedin, though...what's she think of her whole situation? Being stuck as a lady, and all?"
"Well—she told me it was a pretty low price for basically getting to stay permanently young and healthy," Rose said. "What, have you seriously never, like, tried being a girl? There's totally magic that can make that change, at least temporarily."
"Oh, I've tried it. It just felt..unnatural, and off, to me," Randall said. "Never really wanted a second taste."

He sighed. "Immortality, eh? I suppose it's no' so bad for dragons 'r elves. Maybe Vaedin's early enough in on the experience to not feel any downsides yet. But I've long since felt like it was more of a burden than a blessing."

"Huh. The, uh, Captain said something like that once," Rose said. "Like—she said she was 'cursed with an inability to grow old', and how it's not in a human's nature to live forever. Or, like, not forever I guess—no one really lives forever."

"I s'pose not. Hmm." He seemed to be thinking about something, but she didn't feel much like asking what.

"I don't really feel like there's anything special about me, though. I just feel like, as long as I'm happy with my life now, how long the future or past is for me doesn't really matter?

"..Ah, here we are!" She gestured outward. The border between her forest and the land beyond in this direction wasn't especially sharp. There were still plenty of plants around; they just weren't quite as bright and vibrant. But Rose could feel the difference. "D'you feel anything underground around here?"

"Hmmh. Not right here," he said. "I do feel something faint off...that way." He pointed in a mostly-north, slightly-east direction. "Allow me to lead the way forra moment."
"Sure!"

---

Being guided by the gods, in the completest sense of the phrase, required a certain frame of mind—or else was bound to cause a great deal of frustration. It was fairly often that one would be led to do something that appeared inconsequential, nonsencial, or even counterproductive, and it was only when one was lucky that the reasons came to light at all, even if it took a decade before they did. Sometimes one would have to deliver a message, or answer a question, without even knowing any of what was being said. The tasks varied in difficulty and risk to one's health in a fairly random pattern, requiring one to always be on one's toes.

This frame of mind began with understanding that they weren't being capricious on purpose. They simply don't think the way mortals do, and every mortal in the world is their collective concern, rather than any particular one. With so much on their plate, it was understandable that they wouldn't have time to sit each person they needed something from down and fully explain the details. Perhaps their plans even required such secrecy that even most of those carrying it out needed to be ignorant in order for it to succeed.

At any rate, Fazren was long since used to taking on such a frame of mind. The reasons didn't matter; the consequences weren't his to know. He attributed his peculiar longevity first to healthy living, and second to this attitude—which, even if it went unnoticed and so failed to garner him any particular favor with the gods, at least prevented a great deal of life-shortening stress he might otherwise experience.

He found himself in the garden he'd been meditating in that afternoon, stirring as though from the same unintentional nap. The general idea was there, and the details matched completely in a small area close enough to his position for his mind to have remembered well, but farther out things were fuzzier. The garden seemed to stretch out beyond its boundaries in the real world, enough that the rest of the town appeared as some distant shadows of structures obscured by fog. Recognizing this, as well as a strange sort of awareness that he was supposed to have been awoken by a splash of water at this moment but had instead awoken naturally, led him to the conclusion that he was in a dream. Furthermore, it was one that appeared orchestrated to make him aware of this—to ensure he would be lucid.

Fazren stood up, looking around, and soon picked up on a figure walking in from what would have been behind him a moment ago. He could tell that the figure was female, and sported canine-like features, athough whether they were those of a fox or a wolf—a Canis or a Vulpin—was less clear. Somehow her figure wavered between being quite tall (almost his height) and slender (even a bit lanky), and quite short with some deep curves.

He squinted his eyes at the figure as she came closer, yet didn't seem to grow any more distinct. "What's the matter?" she teased. "Can't decide what you like?"

"I've long since learned to appreciate beauty in many forms," he said pleasantly. "Then—I suppose I ought to feel honored."
"Hmhm...there's no need for that." She drew close enough to reach her hand...up, maybe?...and lightly touch his half-missing ear. "You should do what you like, you know? You deserve that much for putting up with us for so long." She ran her fingers across it briefly, touching the healed nub where it should've attached to the missing bit, before dropping the hand. Her fingers through his fur was an unusually pleasant feeling, but the old fox restrained himself.

"...I'm not sure whether I should take that to mean it's what you want," he said. "I don't suppose you have any hints for me to pass along to a more talented weaver?"

"Not my area of expertise, I'm afraid. No worries, my husband is sure the two of you will figure it out soon enough. I'm just here to give you something she already has—for later."

She opened her arms out toward him, physically asking for a hug. "Shall we?"
Fazren smiled. "By all means."

---

Randall's right ear twitched, and he stopped, turning that way to look at whatever he'd heard. "..Oi! You need—"
Rose caught up enough to look in the same direction, at about the same time as the person he was talking to turned around. It was a fairly small, thin Felis girl with bright pink hair, wearing some badly-damaged light armor, but what had made him stop mid-question was the fact that her face—now turned their way—was covered with a splatter of blood, some dried and some still warm enough to be wet. By her position now, she seemed to have been crouched over the dead body of a deer, which looked less like an animal had killed and begun to eat it, and more like someone had spared extra effort to tear it apart and mutilate it. The claws of her blood-covered hands and her bare feet were all fully extended, and now that she saw the two of them, she'd started hissing threateningly.

"What in the..?" Judging by his reaction, Randall probably hadn't had a clear view of what she'd been doing before she turned around.

It took the dragon-girl a moment to process the sight herself, but after that she started to think she recognized the girl's face. That, and she perceived something distinctly...wrong...with her eyes. "Wait, that's..!"

"Hey!" The hissing Felis pounced in their direction, claws out; Randall reacted blindingly fast, raising a chunk of dirt diagonally upward with enough force to violently swat her away to one side and send her rolling off along the ground. He remained facing her as she recovered, raising more ground up into the air to join with what he'd already taken hold of, splitting and compacting it all into a number of spikes all in a half-circle in front of and slightly above her. His hand was raised threateningly, ready to throw them all at her as soon as she made another move. "You stay away from me...!"

"W-wait, don't kill her!"
"Crazy woman don' look interested in a truce to me!" She had pulled herself into a posture very much like a normal feline getting ready to pounce at something.

"B-but that's Mia!" Rose said quickly. "One of Hyacinth's, um, friends. They're only crazy because of the chaos magic stuff, and we know how to fix that!"

When Mia tensed to jump at them again, Randall settled for smacking her with the flat end of one of the spikes, sending her rolling sideways for a second. "Can you fix it?"

"Well—no. But Mira can! O-or the Captain, or Jacob. We'd just need to get her back to town."

"And how do you propose we do that?" As soon as she'd caught herself, the hostile Felis was again standing on all fours and hissing at the two of them.

"Knock her out?" Rose suggested, although they'd tried that with Donovan without much success. She tried pulling up some of the plants around Mia into some vines to restrain her, but she reacted unnaturally fast, jumping to one side and out of range before any of them could grab her.

"That first or second hit should've done that!" Randall said, keeping his spikes between Mia and them as she moved. "And now what's she..?"

"RrrRROOOOWWRRH!" Mia made a sound like an angry wildcat (or maybe one experiencing extreme pain) as she convulsed. From her back erupted some ten or more...well, they looked a lot like her tail, except they were coming out of random spots across her back, and they were longer and thicker than normal Felis tails were supposed to be.
"Uh, she must be turning into some kinda super-monster form! Th-this happened with Donovan, too!" Some of the 'tails' seemed to violently split apart from about halfway down onward, fanning apart with webbing between to turn into something resembling insect wings. Others had just their ends erupt out with white spikes that looked like they might be made entirely out of bone. Mia's body had grown slightly in size—though not nearly as much as the Canis man's had—and was fully covered in matted fur, her head changing to look like that of an actual wildcat as she continued to painfully howl.

Rose finally noticed that Randall had raised up and compacted together two big walls of earth on either side of the transforming Felis, and was spreading his hands out in preparation to slam them inward. "No good reason to wait for her to finish—"

"No, don't—!" She couldn't get her objection out before he slammed his hands inward, clapping them, and in the same motion brought the earth-walls in on the monstrous girl with surely enough force to squash anything flat.

The dragon-girl stared at the unnatural column of dirt resulting from this moment, now starting to crumble under its own weight without the earth mage's help, for a moment in silence. Then, without warning, she picked him up by his neck, her hand-claws tearing into his shirt. "I said DON'T KILL HER!!!"

He put his hands on her arm, not pushing to get free but putting his weight on something other than his neck, and he yelled back as angrily as she had: "That thing was not a 'her' anymore, Rose! It was obviously getting ready to kill both of us!"

She was crying uncontrollably at this point. "But I could've—!"

The argument was interrupted by the noise of a bunch of the dirt being thrown aside from near the top of the mound. Both of their heads turned to find Mia, seemingly unharmed by the impact, just finished digging her way out with the bizarre spiked claw-tail-things, and shaking off some leftover dirt like an animal would some water.

Rose dropped Randall and raised some vines to grab her again, but Mia leapt into the air and—unexpectedly—used the wing-like appendages from her back to fly. She flew toward them briefly, while ascending, before making a sudden midair 180 to start flying away. The vines couldn't reach her in the air, and it didn't look like she was coming back.

Without a word, the dragon-girl took off after the feline monster. But Mia had a head start for one thing, and she flew surprisingly fast, with an amount of maneuverability Rose's gigantic wings couldn't quite match. Mia wasn't flying particularly high, and soon found a collection of trees to dart around and between; Rose had no choice but to fly above the treeline, and after a minute or two, she no longer had any idea where Mia had gone. After some more searching—which included even landing on the ground and trying to 'feel' for the monstrous Felis's presence between the trees—she gave up and flew back.

"Well?" Randall was waiting, arms crossed and obviously displeased—but Rose still felt much angrier than he looked.
"I lost her."
"You should've torn that thing's bloody throat out before it turned into an invincible beast!" he said.

"Well—I didn't, and I won't. You go back to town and report what's happened, I'm staying with my forest. If she comes anywhere near it, I'll wrap her up in vines so tight she can't move, and then I'll take her back to Mira and we'll fix her."

"Works for me. I ought to at least be safe back there."

Wishing Cookies

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The "Best" RPG Ever-123

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---

Rayna had an idea of what to suggest, but it wouldn't work if she just brought it up out of the blue. Plus, if she approached the prince to talk to him right after checking for monsters ahead, he and the soldiers would assume it was about something to do with that, and she didn't want to make anyone worry. However, just as she was trying to think of some other 'meaningful' excuse to talk to him, he approached her.

"Hey, something the matter?"

"Oh, not at all," he said with a quick, reassuring head-shake. "I simply...had a small point of curiosity. Having experienced your magic for myself..you really are capable of making one temporarily stronger, or faster, or otherwise more capable?"
"Sure," she shrugged. "It has 'upkeep', though; I mean, it costs me some...energy, you could say, and concentration, to keep it going."

"Of course," he nodded, "Magic is loathe to give something for nothing. But, I am curious: If you can enhance those attributes, surely you also have some way to discern their original states? That is, some objective way of knowing one's capabilities at a glance?"

"Right. That's actually one of the easiest things for me to do."

"That was what I thought, which brings me to my actual point of curiosity.

"Please do not fret about offending me; I only want the truth. In your estimation, compared to—say—the guard you have seen in town, how do I and my escort measure up?"

Obviously, Rayna kept their voices low to everyone else for this part of the conversation. "Well—you're at least as good as one of the members of the guard, I'd say," Rayna said. "I mean—not the Captain, obviously, but one of their better members otherwise. You're pretty agile, and have obviously had some training. I think the only thing that's tripped you up recently is that you're more experienced in, uh, social fights than life or death ones, but that's nothing you couldn't adapt to with some practice."
"That does match my own expectations," he said. "And the soldiers?"

"Well...honestly, I'd more compare them to your average civilian back in town than one of the guard. Now—that doesn't mean they can't fight; your 'average civilian' out in the frontier is still a tough customer compared to, like, a farmer or merchant way inland or something. I mean—they all had to get here somehow."

He nodded. "I..might have guessed as much. Perhaps I could ask Lady Ezra to have some of her guard train them during their stay in town? If they come back noticeably more capable than when they left..."
"Another way of showing the folks back home the worth of the frontier town?"
"That, and they could earn far better positions than their current ones," he said.

"So, it'd be out of gratitude to them?"

He nodded. "Conscripted into this task or not, and regardless of ability—they have put their lives at risk for my sake."

For a moment, Peregrine glanced quietly in a particular direction, mostly forward but slightly off to the side. At a glance he appeared to just be looking at the carts to make sure they were still rolling along as intended, but Rayna could trace his gaze in a straight line through the carts to right where Zack was.
"Still curious about something else?" she said, a hint of teasing to her tone—but not enough, she thought, to be disrespectful. "You knooow, if you really want to know about our knight friend's past, you could do worse than just admitting your curiosity to her. Surely a noble would feel compelled to give some answer to a prince, right? You might even guarantee yourself the full story if you phrase it as suspicion about her trustworthiness."

"I wouldn't dare stoop to that," Peregrine said. "You all have Lady Ezra's trust, which is sufficient to have mine—and if not, then your actions so far have also more than proven worthy of it. But I will..consdier asking her, if the opportunity presents itself."

"Good luck," the fox-girl said with a friendly grin, heading back to the front to check the monster forecast again. Giving him a more extreme alternative she knew he wouldn't like made the 'nicer' option seem even more reasonable, just as she'd guessed.

---

After the bath, everyone headed back to the house. As they came up to the door, a familiar figure was standing in front, his hand on the way to his side from having just knocked on it.

"Oh—hey Loren!" Aria got his attention while she ran closer. "What's up?"
"Up?" He glanced skyward for a second.
"What brings you to our door?" she tried instead.

"Ah. Well—I was just wondering whether you were in, or off doing adventurer things."
"Not anymore! We just got back from driving off an army of wolves and a chaos-magic-infested Canis guy."
"And a bath," Mira added, lifting a bit of her hair to show it was still slightly damp. "Does 'you' mean all of us, or just her?"

"Err—just Aria, really." He crossed his arms. "I've been making preparations for the teleport crystal's arrival since this morning, and figured it was about time to call it a day. So, you want to go somewhere? Have dinner?"
"Are you asking me out on a daaate~?" she teased, grinning viciously.

"N-no!" He flushed; it probably didn't help that the witch had just put the image of all of them undressed and bathing into his head. "I'm just bored, is all."
"Huh. Well, I was sorta planning to check in on you anyway, sooo, I can come along, sure!"

While the two of them headed off together, the rest of the group went inside, Lupa following close behind Nora on the way to the living room. The weaver shifted to fox-form as she went to find a place to sit and read, but when she turned around to actually sit down, she found the wolf-girl looking up at her expectantly. "Yyes?"

"Um, Nora!" Using someone's actual name meant she was serious. "What's a 'daaate'?" she asked, imitating Aria's drawn-out way of saying the word.

"A date?" Nora repeated back. "It's just—when two people are attracted to each other, and go somewhere together. With each other, but...otherwise alone."
"Attracted...uhhm...'interested'? Like Mira said Red Bird is?"

"Right. As in, romantically?" Lupa got an especially sharp head-tilt from that word, and the elf sighed.

She finally sat down on the couch, patting the opposite end so Lupa would sit there. Why wasn't Zack here to have to deal with this? Then again, he might be reluctant to talk about it. At least Mira could be called in to help if her own efforts to explain didn't work out so well.

"Look, you're an adult...mostly. I mean, you were an adult wolf, at least. So, you know how..puppies are made, basically, right?"

"Mating? Yes," she nodded.

"It's—people don't just come up to each other and st-start..doing that. At least, not..normally. It's usually, a matter of two people who are..interested, possibly, in that, getting to know each other. Preferably over a number of meetings, over a fairly long period of time. Because...for people...getting together like that is, a big deal. A commitment to stay together."

"Oh. That's nothing strange," Lupa said. "Only mate with one who is worthy."

"R-right. Annnd, the idea of 'worthy' among people includes...it being someone you can get along with. Hence, going on dates with someone you think you're interested in, to figure out if you're right for each other."

"Soooo. Is Aria dating Glasses Man?"

"Not..according to them. Although, I thi—I mean...it, really isn't any of my business," she said, cutting herself off from speculating. However, this also confused Lupa.

"Not..business?"

"It's—look, there are some personal boundaries that it's rude to cross without permission. It isn't right to guess at others' relationships when they aren't comfortable sharing. Even if..some people have a habit of being nosy."
"'Nosy'?" she repeated, confused at that term too.

"Err—too curious about other people's private matters. The idea of the term is..sticking your nose somewhere it doesn't belong?" Lupa seemed to only sort of understand this part, raising her hand to place her palm on her own nose.

Putting her hand down again, she said, "But, Lynn is dating, right? Black-fur...uhhmm, Rast? Or, is that business?"

"Well—yes, she is. They've openly admitted to it, so it's okay to say they are."

"And! Rose and Glasses Fox?"

"I..you'd have to ask them, but it certainly...seems like it," she admitted.
"Is Master dating?"
"Uh, n-no. I..don't think Zack has any desire to be interested in anyone 'that way'."

---

A while after sunset, the prince called the caravan to a stop and they made camp. Once everything was set up, he called everyone (except Katherine, who was already busy making supper) together to briefly speak. "Good work, everyone. We have made excellent time today, and quite safely at that—thanks in no small part to the contribution of you courageous and capable ladies," he said, with a small arm gesture/bow in the four adventurers' general direction. The soldiers briefly clapped and cheered in agreement with him about this. "Because of that, we should only be two days' journey off from town now, at the most. There is no need for us to dangerously rush, but I believe we could easily do as well tomorrow. Get a good rest tonight, and remain alert and ready until we finally arrive."

After his speech, everyone scattered to various parts of the camp to wait for supper to be ready. The prince waited a moment for them to do so before starting to make some rounds to check in on everyone—the soldiers first, then Katherine (though he exchanged no more than a brief greeting with her, not wanting to disturb her work), Rayna and Lynn (briefly joining their conversation on what to do for entertainment later that night), Clera (who was sitting down cross-legged and eyes closed, so he didn't disturb her either), and finally...coming to Zack.

The knight had positioned himself on a far edge of the camp, looking outward. Of course Rayna would 'sense' trouble before he did, but he was too well-trained a soldier to feel at ease in the wilderness like this without someone actively watching for threats. Not that he didn't notice what Peregrine was doing.

"May I join you for a moment?" he asked gently, coming up next to Zack.

"Suit yourself." He sat a polite distance to the side, and was quiet for a moment. This was mostly just annoying—he was obviously here to say or ask something, so why not just get it over with?

Seeming to sense the knight's negative mood, he said, "I..hope I don't irritate you too much by asking this. And—you shouldn't feel as if you must answer, but I wanted to at least admit to some significant curiosity."
"About?"
"Your..background, mostly. By my own observation, I believe that you have a noble's upbringing, and a great deal of training and experience as a knight, so I see no reason to suspect that you are not what you claim to be. Yet—how is it that a knight of your caliber is alone, in the frontier, without any order to answer to?"

Zack began to growl, but quickly stifled it. "You really want to know? Fine." He whispered, to guarantee the soldiers wouldn't hear: "I'm out here, because I am a failure. My order was more of a family to me than those I was born to. We lived and fought together for most of my life, and all trusted each other. But in the end, I couldn't protect any of them—many died right in front of me. I alone survived, and there was no point going back to a family or a country full of people who didn't know me. So I exiled myself.

"It disgusts me to hear someone like you compliment my bravery or strength, to talk about me like I'm some kind of hero, because I know that I'm not. I'm just a coward, afraid of losing everything again. I'd rather die myself first, so I put myself at risk even when I don't need to. Even when I shouldn't.

"...Is that enough for your curiosity?" The last sentence came out in kind of a hiss, decidedly more hostile and sarcastic than he'd initially meant it to. Most members of royalty would never tolerate a tone like that, but he had a feeling he didn't need to apologize—and was better off not doing so in the long run.

Peregrine was briefly taken aback, possibly even not by his rudeness but the entire explanation. And, indeed, when he recovered, he apologized. "That..I can hardly imagine such an experience. I am terribly sorry to have brought up such painful memories for you. It was not my intention."
Zack sighed. "Yeah, of course it wasn't. Anyway, I'm mostly over it these days.

"...Rayna put you up to this, didn't she? I'm gonna pull her ears off."

"Er—"
"Not literally," Zack said quickly, seeing his shocked expression.

"Oh! Right, of course," he nodded. But his reaction had basically confirmed Zack's suspicion.

"However, I..do not entirely agree."
"With what?"
"I think, to call yourself a 'failure' or a 'coward' is far too cruel," he explained. "From your own description of events, I believe you must have put forth all of your effort and will to save the other members your order. It cannot possibly be your fault if it wasn't enough—the enemy must simply have been too strong. That would rather be a failure on the part of whoever sent you without sufficient reinforcements."
"You could argue that, I guess, but..it doesn't change how I feel about it."

"And surely you would have avoided forming attachments with others altogether if avoiding the pain of losing loved ones were all that drove you."
"That's..the reason we go to know each other is..complicated. I can't explain it to you."
"But even if you must work together with them, you surely could have remained more emotionally distant," he insisted. "Instead, it seems to me that you chose to move on and forge new friendships—which appear to my eyes to have grown quite deep. I would even be so bold as to say you have a new 'family' now. Not that it could replace the old one, but..."

"Yeah, I guess I just can't help myself."

"I simply believe that you are a better person than you think you are," the prince insisted.

"You're not the first person to say something like that to me."
"Then..perhaps you ought to try to believe it."

With that, he finally stood up and walked away. Zack breathed a sigh of relief, but it was slightly insincere. He felt...less tense and irritated about that conversation in retrospect than he expected to. Or maybe it was just less than he wanted to.

---

Mira stopped just inside the door, looking over at Rose. "Headed back?"
"Um, yeah, why?"
"Aren't you..possibly forgetting something?"
"Wha—oh! The tree! Yeah, I'll go take care of that." The dragon-girl skittered quickly back out the door, and then the witch headed upstairs. If Nora needed her help with Lupa, she'd holler.

Genuinely eager to get back to tending her own garden, Rose took about as quick a pace as she felt wouldn't make other people in the town her feel threatened. A small part of her thought why don't I just fly there, but she resisted the temptation—and she reached the tree before too long anyway.

"Hello there~." She leaned forward, placing a hand on the trunk to feed it some more magic. While she worked, she whispered, "Sorry, I really almost forgot about you today...glad Mira's less of a scatterbrain than me."

After a moment, Rose tilted herself back upright again, lightly clapping her hands against each other. "Phew, all done!"
"Oi, flower girl!" The dragon-girl turned toward the source of this call to find Randall splayed back on a bench, raising his hand to wave at her in greeting.

"Oh..you're here again. Hi," she said, coming closer—but stopping a fair distance away, as the alcohol on his breath was already starting to overwhelm her.

"Awwh, don't gi' me that. Who saysIev..ever even left?"
"Since yesterday? You wouldn't be anywhere near that drunk still."
"Hah! Go' me there.

"Shhsssay, where's your fox friend?"
Rose headtilted. "Vae? At home, working, I guess. What, you want her to mix you a hangover potion?"

"Hey now." He sat up to point emphatically at her. "I don' get hangovers. Anyway, that's no' who I meant," he slurred.

"I guess you mean Rayna, then? She's out of town, helping escort a prince or something."

"Any idea when she'll be back?"
"Uhhmm..a couple more days, I guess? They were teleported pretty far away."
"Egchk." The incoherent sound he replied with seemed to convey annoyance, especially since he fell back against the bench with his head tilted skyward. "Gods, I am boooorrreeed!"

Rose had a thought. It probably wasn't a good idea to bring it up, but then again—he was apparently super bored...

"Say, would you be able to find, like...fault lines? Or volcanos, or other stuff like that?"
His reaction was to sit upright, sort of acting mock-insulted: "Would I be able—would I be able to find...! Wha' sort of novice earth mage you think I am, anyway?"

"I'd guess the drunk kind."
"Hhhaahah, sure! Anyway—what, are you worried about a quake bringing harm t'your forest?"
"Well, I am now. A little. But that's, uh. I was actually considering looking for a place some hot springs could be dug up or something. Maayybe not in my forest, but like, somewhere nearby? Or near the others' house?"

"And you thou' I might be able to sniff out if there's somewhere worth digging, eh?"
"I mean—if you're really that bored," she said, putting up her arms, "then it's something to do at least?"
"Ehh..sshure. It ought to kill an hour or so for me." He used his hands to lever himself up off of the back of the bench and forward to his feet, stumbling briefly forward before his tail seemingly caught him from falling over entirely, letting him recover to a fully upright stance. "Lead on!"

---

Rayna watched up until the prince got up and walked away from Zack, then quickly turned her head Lynn's way again. You see that? Progress!

Yeah, they've had a real, if brief, conversation, Lynn agreed. Though—he didn't get nearly as angry as I expected. Rather, I think he's in a slightly better mood than before. Tail's even wagging!

Looking again, the fox-girl replied, I dunno if that counts as a wag. I mean...it's in motion, but very slowly.

Well, I'm still taking it as a good sign.