Arctic

The "Best" RPG Ever-15

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"Hmm..." Rayna stared at the map for a good minute or so once the two girls got out of the restaurant they had had lunch in.

"What? Did you forget how to read maps all of a sudden?"
The fox-girl looked up in the sky for a few seconds rather than responded, and then said, "Hey, do you mind if we buy a compass?"
"..No, that seems like a perfectly reasonable purchase. Probably cheap, too." So they went to the nearest general store and bought a compass.

Back out on the street, Rayna glared at the compass for a few seconds and then glared up at the afternoon sun—not directly, but enough to see its location. "That don't make any sense, let me tell ya," she said.

"What? What doesn't make any sense?"
"Look, based on the way this compass is pointing and my internal weird sense of this world's information, the sun is in the..southwest. Straight southwest, not west and a little bit south. That doesn't make any sense."
"..Yeah, that doesn't make sense, I mean, if this world is supposed to be a planetary body. It would have to..we'd be..actually, what even would that mean?"

The fox-girl scratched her head and shrugged. "I dunno, but probably something bad. Maybe what they call 'north' isn't what we call north, like, it isn't actually aligned with the, uh, axis of rotation?"

Lynn crossed her arms, frowning. "Yeah, but...isn't magnetic north supposed to be based on the way the spin goes or something?"
"Aha!" Rayna snapped a finger, "That's gotta be it." To her friend's inquisitive look she explained, "North on a compass is based on which way a magnet points. This is a world with magic, including maybe electricity magic. What if, in the direction this compass says is north, there's something that magic is making really powerfully magnetic, so much that it overrides the usual planet's magnetic field?"

"That would make sense..I guess? But doesn't that do something to the, uh, atmosphere...?"

The illusionist put up her arms in surrender. "Well, that's the best I can come up with. Otherwise, I guess it's only a game after all and we should really just relax."

"Sure, let's go with that. Now, since you know which way is north maybe I should take the compass and you can lead us to wherever it is we're supposed to be looking around?"
Rayna nodded, "Yep."

---

Eventually, Zack's party found themselves standing before an open gate to an ancient castle. "So uh," said Katherine, "before we go in, do you sense anything from out here?"

"Hm..." Nora looked around and sniffed at the air a bit. "Th-there's something, but I can't..identify it with an element. It feels dark and unnatural...m-maybe it is a demon?"
Mika shook her head, "Nah, that's no demon."

"H-how are you so sure?"
"It's not..tasty."
"Tasty?" said Zack.

"Uhm...when I was around that fire demon there was a lot of stuff going on but at some level I got this sense of appetite, like what happens when someone's cooking a turkey dinner in the kitchen next door, you know? I don't have anything like that with this; actually I think I'm losing my appetite a little..like it's something gross I wouldn't even want to eat if I was starving." She frowned and stuck her tongue out a bit.

"Well," said the knight, "either way standing out here won't do us any good. Let's go."

The inside of the place was predictably dark, so the witch summoned her will o' the wisp again. The castle's antechamber had originally been as wide and tall as the gate leading into it, but the floor above had largely collapsed into it, leaving a few side halls and climbing up the rubble as the only options.

Katherine paused, concentrating. "Hey...did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" asked Mika.

"Ssh." Everyone quiet for a few seconds, Zack listened, his ears slowly homing in on what the catgirl was talking about. "...It sounds like a girl..laughing?"
"No, I think she's crying," said Katherine. Nora just looked confused. "It's pretty far, we can probably only hear it because animal ears."

"Well, whatever it is, it's..that way," said Zack, pointing down one of the halls. "I guess that's where we should start looking."

---

"Hmm..." Now at their destination, the archer and illusionist paused, the latter kneeling to get a better look. "This is..ash. And the ground right under it doesn't have any grass, as if this and only this burned up."

"Looks like..a big circle, and a star..a pentagram?" said Lynn.

Rayna stood up and looked around before agreeing. "Yeah, and more symbols in each of the triangles outside. And a bigger pile right in the center. But hey, if this is ash, why hasn't it blown away in the wind by now? It's not physically glued to the ground or anything..."

"Well, I guess we'd better start getting these symbols down.." Lynn produced the sketchbook and a pen and handed it to the other girl, who first drew about what the pentagram looked like and then got to work on the individual symbols.

"Hm..it looks like some of these got messed up. Like someone kicked them around after they were done drawing it."
"Yeah, and the pentagram's broken like that in a few places, too," said Lynn.

Eventually the illusionist stopped just in front of the pile in the center, and looked up, pausing a good several seconds. Her ears folded back and her tail drooped slightly.

"What? What's wrong?"
"I'm not...sure. Something about this area of space," she said, gesturing a straight vertical line about the height of a person above the pile of ash, "seems messed up. Like..I dunno, like something tore here. It's fixed now, but still not holding together as it did before."

"Maybe this is what the captain was talking about with you sensing the flow of magic or whatever."

"Could be," said Rayna, stepping back a bit before writing down some more notes and marking the position of the ash pile on the diagram. She shuddered slightly. "I don't like this..I think it's getting worse."
"Well, let's get out of here, then."

"Y-yeah." Rayna nodded and turned around, taking a few steps toward the other girl.

---

In the middle of the blank white room, a ghostly image of an absurdly large sword seemed to be stuck straight-down half into the ground. Above it, a message box said, "Blood Saber: A risky class for those willing to cut corners on the road to power. The blood saber uses an extremely powerful and versatile but cursed weapon whose thirst for blood compels them to kill whenever it is drawn. While they can learn more self-control while empowered by the blade, a blood saber will always be difficult to deploy in any strategy that requires them to do more than charge forth and strike."

"Ohoh, cut corners you say? Risky you say? Do you know who you're talkin' to?" The redheaded man in the room grinned wide and put his hand on the hilt, finding it more solid than it looked, and the message box instructed him to draw the sword if he was sure.

Pulling with just one hand didn't work, so he grabbed it with the other and pulled on it as hard as he could. For a few seconds the sword didn't budge, but it did start to look more and more solid, more...real. He had to take a few seconds' break when his arms got tired, but then pulled again with renewed purpose, and this time—this time it budged.

It didn't move much, but it somehow felt like it was enough. At first he wasn't sure what it was enough for, but suddenly there seemed to be an awful lot of wind blowing out from the sword, as if it was trying to push him away. As if it could, he thought, still tugging on the hilt as hard as he could, and didn't at first notice that he was starting to get more and more hair to get blown away by the wind.

It seemed as if the wind's force was pulling his hair out longer, and its color seemed to be blown away by the same, fading into a pure white by the time it was long enough for some of it to whip against his shoulders. A pair of black gloves seemed to grow out from the hilt onto his hands, and then it felt like his hands were being squeezed a bit by the gloves as they became a bit smaller, the fingers thinning out slightly.

His face became smaller and rounder, his eyes turning bright green, and the bits of stubble on it seemed to blow away in the wind. He could see and feel his arms slimming down, starting at the wrists, and similarly losing their hair, yet oddly enough they felt stronger the smaller they got. All of a sudden his jeans tore cleanly at the thighs, the top part whipping around as it spread out into a pleated yellow skirt, the belt that he'd been wearing slipping up over his shirt and pulling slightly tighter. Beneath that his boxers lost their leggings and his hips started to push out and back.

The changes spread up to his shoulders and down through his neck, and all at once his shoulders became narrower while his shirt detached from its collar and pulled down his neckline a bit, a red vest appearing over it at the same time. They spread up and down from the hips as the denim leggings cut off from his jeans turned into cloth and pulled tight on legs that were quickly slimming and smoothing to match his arms, and the shirt pulled tight against his waist as it flattened and curved inward, forming a smooth contour with his hips.

By now the sword was more than halfway out, and seemed to be gaining momentum; even though he noticed the changes and even somewhere made quick sense of what was happening, he couldn't bring himself to stop now that he was so close. And so he kept pulling, as his underwear pulled still tighter between his legs and he changed from a man into a woman, followed quickly by a bra appearing under her shirt and then the rapid growth of a pair of breasts to fill it.

Just as the changes finished, she yanked the sword the rest of the way out of the ground and accidentally sliced it up into the message box before bringing it around behind her shoulder easily, the thing seeming to weigh as much as a kitchen knife now. The wind died down and her hair gently flowed down to her hips as she grinned up at the first little bit of chaos wrought: The message box's display was glitching out and flickering as if it had actually been damaged by the sword.

But it didn't have any blood. The man-turned-woman quickly became acutely aware of her sword's mind: It had a rudimentary, animal-like intelligence, and it was starving. The blade's mind felt almost like an extension of her own, and she somehow knew immediately that the only food it could eat was blood. Whose blood didn't matter—just as long as there was blood, and a lot of it, then it would be happy.

There was nothing with blood here but her. She could feed it if she had to, but then it wouldn't have a wielder anymore, and that was no good. As she was thinking this, a small gap in space seemed to open before her, surely a way to go somewhere else. The girl giggled, feeling giddy at the thought of finding something with blood to feed the blade with, and readied her weapon before leaping through.

Adventure: The Magical Day (v.04)

In this CYOA, you play the part of a relatively young man who has awakened to a day off from work and other responsibilities, and expects to find it a normal, innocent day. However, a number of strange, bizarre, magical things are waiting to happen. Can you stay out of transformation-related danger, or are you just going to fall into every trap out of pure curiosity? Actually, that's encouraged behavior, so you're fine if you choose to do that.
Without futher ado, here's the link to begin!

What's New? 
v.04: The beginning of the Dream path, including one ending so far.


v.03: Four new endings since .02! The roots are now built for 4 completely different branches after deciding to wake up, depending on the decisions made.

v.02:  A few new endings and branches.

v.01 : It exists!

(Still very much a work in progress!)

---

Notice: I am retiring the blogspot "Adventure!" blog, as the only purpose it was ever going to serve was to link to the site where the adventures actually are. Instead, I'm announcing updates to this and any future adventures I write (and hopefully there will be more, I dunno) on the main caption blog from now on. To find all of them (if/when I manage to make another), just use the "adventure" tag I'm adding starting with this post.

Truth be told, the new ending mentioned up there has been there for quite a while, I just kept thinking I would add more stuff before announcing it as an update, but whatever.

The "Best" RPG Ever-14

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Rayna was looking through a rack of furisodes, eyeing one in particular in a darker red color than her current outfit, when she saw someone familiar seeing her through a store window and coming inside.

"Hey Rast," she said on hearing him step up behind her. "How are you today?"

"I'm alright. Cap has me on town duty for a while, least 'till Pirr is off the mend. Less dangerous and all. Uh, you and miss Lynn haven't accepted another job yet, have ya?"

"Nope," she said, turning around. He was wearing lighter armor than the day before, and no magic helmet, so his face and long hair were visible. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, ah, Cap has a special job...another of the patrols found something out there needs looking into, and she thought you'd be good for it."

"Sounds interesting," said the fox-girl, putting a hand close to her lip. "I'll have to check with my partner about it."

"Yeah, of course. Er, where is she by the way?"

"Just changing. She should be out soon if you can wait."

"Sure."

She pulled out the furisode she'd been looking at and held it up in front of her, looking it over. "Hmm.."

Lynn walked out of the changing room in a black tank top and knee-length skirt, with the same shoes and long socks she'd started out with. "Oh, hey Rast," she said, trying to ignore a noticeable jump in her heart rate and a slight heat in her cheeks. "What's up?"
"Well, ah, Cap wanted to know if you'd be int'rested in a special assignment," he said.

"Did...she say why she wanted us specifically?" asked Lynn, uncertain why she hesitated at the start of the sentence.

"Somethin' about illusionists having a good eye for details, I think..."

"Well, I'm already curious enough to at least hear her out," added Rayna. "What do you say? We weren't gonna do anything else interesting today anyway."

"Yeah, probably not." Looking back at Rast the archer said, "So do you need to bring us to her or do we just go off to the guardhouse on our own?"
"You'd better do the second one, miss Lynn. I have ta attend to my patrol route still."

"Don't want to make the Captain upset, eh?" said Rayna.
"Well, ah, I ain't paid to do nothin', is all," he said.

"We'll head over there as soon as we're through here, then," said Lynn.

"Thanks kindly." He nodded and then walked back out of the store.

"You know, I think he likes you," said Rayna with a mischevious grin, on her way to the changing room with the outfit she'd picked out.

---

"Hm...what about this one?" Nora pulled a notice off of the main board, showing it to rest of the party. "I-it's just, gathering information, so maybe it won't be too difficult?"

"Not with our luck," said Katherine, taking the paper to read it over.

"Your luck, maybe. My luck's awesome," retorted the witch.

"There's more to luck than good or bad. Harder work for better rewards is technically neutral luck. Anyway, yeah, I like this one. It's different." She handed it to Zach next.

"Hey, why do I get it last? Lemme see!" said Mika, hopping and trying to take the paper from the taller girl.

"Ugh, stop being so childish. Here. It's not even that interesting." He shoved it at her face and she had to take a few steps back to actually take the paper and read.

"Oo, mysterious castle exploration. Recommended for people who...can run away really fast? Well, that's us to a T!"

They took it to a desk worker at the guardhouse, a blond elf whose right arm was in a sling. "Hm..yeah, you look like you can handle this one," she said, looking at the four of them over the top of the paper.

"So, where is it and what exactly do we need to do there?" asked Zach.

"For that matter, why do they care about some old castle?" added Katherine.

"Well, the frontier isn't supposed to have been inhabited for centuries. So it's rather strange to find a big castle just standing there untouched. Some archaeologists went in with some of the guard, but they came back without the guard saying they had seen something terrifying, but none of them could agree on what it was exactly, just that they wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The guardsmen showed back up a few days later with a similar story and no idea what they'd been doing in the intervening time.

"It seems like whatever's there isn't bent on killing people, which is why it's out on the main board and not in here. Here, take this," she handed Zach a small notebook and a map with directions from the town the castle in question. "Your job is just to find out what exactly is in there so we know who to hire to go and either exterminate or negotiate with it, depending on the situation. We need you to take notes in case there's some kind of forgetfulness magic involved."

"I assume you don't want notes on the castle's architecture," said Zach.

"No, just anything unusual in there. The first people to notice the castle just thought it was abandoned, so keep notes on anything about the place that doesn't match that description, especially anything especially supernatural in there. In fact..pardon, miss, are you a weaver?"
Nora took a second or two to register that she was being addressed. "M-me? Well, uh, yes, but not a very good one yet..."
The elf nodded. "You'd be best for taking the notes, then. What with the higher...magic sensitivity or whatever it is. Experienced mages should be able to make sense of anything your senses pick up that you can't understand yet if you describe it well enough."

"Okay."

"Hey, I have magic senses too," said Mika.

The elf tilted her head slightly, looking down toward her. "Nowhere near as fine-tuned, but I guess you'd be able to tell if it's a demon. If that's what it is, I'm sure no one would mind if you ate it."

---

Once they had taken their old clothes and the new ones they weren't wearing back to the room at the inn, Rayna and Lynn set out for the guardhouse.

"So hey, what do you mean you think he likes me?" asked Lynn.
"You're still thinking about that? Wow, I guess you really do like little wolf-boy too~," said the foxgirl.

"N-no," she said, blushing visibly now. "I mean—maybe, but it doesn't matter. Look, I just wanna know what you're talking about."

"These big fuzzy ears pick up all kinds of things," she said, pointing to one of them. "As soon as you walked out and he saw you I could hear his heart moving a little bit faster. Yours too, actually."

"And you think that's enough to go on? Maybe he's scared of me for some reason."
"You're not scared of him, though."

"Pshh. I'm not scared of anything."
"Not even a little romance?" she said, teasingly.

"I'm not scared of that, I just don't have time for it. We're trying to win this game so we can get out, right?"
Rayna shrugged. "I'm just trying to have fun, myself."

The archer stopped. "So wait, you don't want to go back to normal?"
Rayna stopped too, giving her friend a serious look. "I do..I mean, I've got people back home probably missing me just like you do, and I'm worried about them, too. It's just, what's happened to us is so crazy that there's no reason to assume any kind of rules apply. If this even is what we think of as a game, maybe it doesn't even have a win condition. Maybe we'll be pulled out and turned back to normal at complete random—or maybe we won't, even if we do 'win'. I'd rather adapt to and enjoy what's going on now than worry about what might happen in the future."

Lynn sighed. "I guess so. I just don't think I can accept this body as really being me anytime soon."

"Even so, there's no reason you can't have just a little fun with it. Heck, you even went with a cute outfit like that rather than jeans and a loose t-shirt or something."
The other girl fidgeted with the material on her skirt a bit with a hand. "This was comfortable, and I can move around in it just fine...and I have bike shorts on under this in case I need to high kick for some stupid reason, too."
"Sooo, A dinner date, maybe?"

"Mmngh." Some of Lynn's earlier blush came back. "Maybe. If he's interested. And not today, either."

---

Zach, now back in his original armor, stood a short ways outside of the town, looking at the map.
"You're not reading that map correctly," said the cat-girl from behind him.

"How do you know? Your eyes are closed!" Zach

"I can skim your neurological processes. The part of your brain that's supposed to be involved with navigation isn't even lit up. I bet you think that way is north," she said, not opening her eyes but pointing in the general direction of the afternoon sun.

"Well—you read it, then," he said, pushing it into the arm she had out.

"Thank you. Not interested in wandering around lost for hours." She opened her eyes and scanned the map. "We need to head south, which is this way."

A few minutes of walking later, Mika said, "Say, how do you know which way is south? Is that a psion thing?"
"No, I'm just paying attention to where the sun is."
"W-wait, this isn't earth," said Nora. "How do you know which way the planet spins? Maybe it rises in the west..."

"Oh...right. Hang on." Katherine closed her eyes again.

Excuse me. One of the guardsfolk standing at the town's edge snapped to attention, looking around.

"Whowhatwhere?" 
Shh. I'm a psion. Just need to ask you a quick question.

"Uh...what's that?" he said, under his breath.

Does the sun rise in the east?

"Nnnnno..everyone knows the sun rises in the northeast. Is this a prank?"

Thank youbye.

Opening her eyes again, the psion consulted her map again and then made a 45-degree turn to the left. "We need to go this way."

---

"Hey, I'm Rayna, this is Lynn. Rast said the captain wanted us for something?"
"Hm?" said the desk worker. "Oh, sure. She's in that door over there, same as usual, Just knock."

"Good morning," said the captain flatly after letting them into her office. "I hope you don't mind me making a request so soon after you got in town."
"Oh, that's fine, we need all the work we can get anyway," said the fox-girl.

The captain nodded. "Right to it, then." She handed Lynn a map with a specific location outside of town marked on it. "Our regular patrols found something unusual there...some burn marks in the grass that don't look like a monster made them, some kind of symbols or something. I have my suspicions as to what it is, but their description wasn't enough to confirm them."

"Soooo...you want us to go get a better description?"

"Right," she said, nodding, and handed Rayna a small sketchbook. "I'm hoping between the keen eye of an archer and someone whose magic deals almost entirely in appearances, you'll be able to pick up on things your average warrior wouldn't. I need you to draw any symbols you find out there in as much detail as you can manage. And...I don't know exactly how magically sensitive you are, but if you notice any peculiarities to its flow around there, make a note of it."

"Hm...I'm not complaining, but I am curious," said Rayna. "This seems like a really easy job for a slightly more observant guard, or really any adventurer. Why seek us out in particular?"
"Yes...this is the other part of my request," said the captain, leaning forward on her desk a bit. "If this is what I suspect it is, I don't want word getting out about it. Don't discuss it in detail with anyone but me. I had Rast go after you for this in particular because seem trustworthy, and I'd hate for you to prove that wrong. Understand?"
"Well, of course," said the fox-girl, giving an emphatic nod. "But...what is it you think it is that would get people so worried?"

"Hmm...I'll explain it when you get back. It'll just sound silly if I turn out to be wrong."

"Okay," said Rayna, looking at Lynn.

The archer nodded, and turned back toward the captain, "We'll take it, then. Probably...right after lunch?"

"Sure. Just don't put it off too long, I'm having patrols go around that spot for now and I don't want to arouse the suspicion of any nobles about that."

The "Best" RPG Ever-13

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---

The Captain lived up to exactly her reputation, except that Rayna hadn't expected her to be so short. After sending Pirr to a medic and shoving Rast out to the same place after he'd delivered a report, she turned to the two players. "Thank you. Out here, we need all the help we can get. I'll make sure you're rewarded for this, but I have to go through some red tape first since this wasn't an officially posted bill or anything..at the very least, I can put you up in an inn for the night. I'm sorry if this business sidetracked you much from wherever you were going before."

"Ah, actually we were headed to this town anyway," said Lynn.

"And neither of us is that good with directions, so if anything we got here faster," added the fox-girl.

"That's good to hear. I'm guessing you two are adventurers coming out to the frontier for work?"
"Pretty much," said Rayna.

"Well, you're better than you look." She turned toward a board on the wall covered in papers. "These are the guardhouse bills. They're tougher jobs than the ones out on the board in the main square, but give better rewards. Normally we require people to take on some of the easier ones first, but I can make an exception based on Rast's recommendation. Just..don't take these jobs lightly. Lot of people get killed trying to do too much, too early."

She shook her head, and then turned to one of the guards. "Heron."
"Yes!" he said, standing upright at attention.

"Show these two to the Broken Dragon. Tell 'em it's on me."

"Sir!" He nodded to them, and they followed him out.

The guardsman left once they had reached the inn in question, and they looked at each other briefly before walking in and finding a seat.

"'Better than we look.' Is that a compliment or an insult?" said Rayna.

"Well, to be fair, I look kinda frail and you look..." Lynn waved vaguely at the other girl, "...worse."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Your clothes don't exactly look combat-ready, for one thing."
"Well neither do yours, you're just wearing a dress..thing."

"It's all one piece, and I can move around in it without worrying about it falling off."
"I'll have you know I'm not worried at all about my clothes falling off," said the fox-girl with a slightly mischeivous grin.

"That worries me more. And you're kind of overweight, too."
"No, I'm busty and charismatic. There's a difference. If I was overweight this thing wouldn't fit me at all," said Rayna, pointing at the belt-thing around her waist.

"Well, you aren't exactly built for running."
"I'm a mage. Mages are never built for running."

"...Fair point.

"But they should be. If I was being raised as a mage I would take up every sport I possibly could at the same time. People would come and try to beat up on the squishy mage and they wouldn't even be able to land a hit."

"Ehh, you didn't exactly do that your first time around—being raised as a nerd, you know? Maybe real people just aren't built for min-maxing."

"Sure they are. Just isn't a lot of fun to live that way..."

"Hey, speaking of clothes," said Rayna, "I don't think either of us has a single thing besides what we're wearing right now. You think we could go and buy a few with whatever the guard captain pays us?"

"Eh, sure, I guess so. I mean, I need to buy a few more arrows—which isn't something I usually think about, so I assume I'm only thinking about it because of the same class-based mental whatever that lets me know exactly how to make an arrow light itself on fire—but that can't possibly be too expensive. I mean, most game shops sell you arrows for an in-game cent and won't buy them because they're just that worthless. Anyway, we could both use something more practical for fighting monsters."

"Psh, practical. I just wanna have more cute but culturally inaccurate furisodes."

"So you're not worried about being useless after your clothes fall off or get torn up in the middle of a battle, then?"
"Lynn, my class is entirely charisma based. I'd be just the opposite of useless if that happened...and anyway, I can make illusory clothes if I wanna."
"Well, speak for yourself. Archer class does a lot of jumping and running around, and this stupid short dress thing isn't gonnna cut it for me."

---

The first time he'd gone and bought clothes, Zack had taken as little time as possible between removing his armor and putting everything back on in the right order, avoiding the changing room mirror as much as possible. This time he had a lot of clothes to try on and needed to make sure they fit right since they weren't just acting as an extra layer of undergarments to the armor. Besides which, avoiding mirrors for however long he was in this game was ridiculous. He needed to get used to this..body..so it couldn't be used against him in combat. Someone could get hurt.

So this time, he removed his armor and put it on the opposite side of the room from the clothes he was going to try on, and forced himself to turn fully toward the mirror. A beautiful woman looked back, blinking a couple of times. She had a very generous figure and a pretty face, but also a kind of physical sturdiness, some visible muscle on her stomach and limbs. Her expression was (aside from a slight blush) serious, stern even; her ears were folded back slightly, but still twitching occasionally, picking up the noise from the shop outside. The lingerie she was wearing was black and lacy, a little too ornate, really.

He would have asked a girl like that out on a date any time...even though the wolf ears and tail were a little strange. Zack started to open his mouth to say something to himself, but paused, noticing that some of the girl's teeth actually looked sharper than usual. Curious, he stuck out his tongue and saw that it was actually longer than a normal human tongue, or at least it was able to move farther out of his mouth than seemed quite right. This didn't make any sense; teeth like those and a longer tongue should make it harder to speak normally, or at least to speak human languages. Then again, his hair (which he noted was still ridiculously long) should have been chopped up in fights at least six or seven times by now. The "game" made accommodations like that that clearly weren't magic at all, but were still in violation of basic physics, so why should he be surprised?

Zack crossed his arms, trying to find a comfortable way to do it with the big chest in the way, and thought about finding some new underwear, too. After all, anything else he wore was apparently subject to damage from fights, and it would suck to have none at all. It would mean actually changing underwear, which in turn meant not wearing anything for a few seconds...but oh well, this was his body right now and he'd just have to put up with it. Someone could get hurt.

He tried briefly to imagine what the girl in the mirror would look like as a guy: Taller, very muscular, short hair thanks, but the image of a muscular guy gave him an odd feeling between his legs and a slight heat in his cheeks that he immediately did not like. He shook his head to dispel the image, his hair swishing around, and wondered briefly how it stayed so straight, like it had just been brushed, after lying in bed multiple times. Did this world have "no-bed-hair" magic, too? Whatever.

Dismissing the thought, Zack turned toward the pile of clothes with a small sigh, picking up the first few to try on.

---

Katherine came out of the changing room wearing a t-shirt, some jean shorts and dark stockings. "What d'you think?" she asked, giving a small spin.

"It looks cute!" said Mika, Nora nodding in agreement. "Kinda like a Pokemon trainer, though."

"With a bust this size?" she said, prodding her chest with an finger. "Please. They're like, twelve. You'd look like a trainer in this..but only with a ridiculous hairstyle."

"Haha, yeah."
Nora said, "Wait..h-how does that fit with your tail..?"

"It comes out above the hips, see?" She turned to one side and pulled the back of the shirt up a bit to demonstrate. "Why do you think my skirt never got flipped up at the back?"

"I j-just thought you were being careful.."
"In the middle of a fight with a giant goblin?"

"W-well, I wasn't there to see that..."

"The fire thing chasing Mika around?"
"Oh..y-yes."

"Sooo, is this the last one?" said Mika.

"Yeah, I'm starting to get hungry for lunch, actually. Maybe they'll let me wear this one out after we pay."

Once they were out and on the way back to the inn, the catgirl said, "You know, it's never really occurred to me before now how weird it is that girl shorts are so..short. It's like, if you're a guy and you wanna wear shorts, they'd better go down to the knees, but for girls...way up on the thighs is the norm?"

"I think there are some, uh, cultural..historical reasons or something," said Nora. "N-not that that explains why it's like that in this world, though."

"It's the same thing, though. If this world really is inside of some kind of super-advanced video game, then that game was made by someone from our world," said the witch.

"B-but there should still be s-some kind of internal reason, for the setting to make any sense..right?"

"You know, the same kind of lore would be needed to explain why girls wear skirts at all in this world when they apparently fight just as much as guys do here, since pants are way better suited for fighting," said Katherine.

"Um...I guess so. But it hasn't stopped you or Zack from fighting in them..."

---

The archer and the illusionist received their pay for saving a couple of the town guards the morning after they arrived in town. After eating breakfast, they went out to look for clothes.

On the way, Rayna stopped dead, turning toward a window. "Hey, look at that!"

Lynn nearly ran into the fox-girl, and wound up a with a facefull of fur. "Pfft! Hey, you have a tail now, y'know!"
"Yeah yeah whatever, look."

"What?" She turned to look. "Ray, that's a weapon store. We have—well, I have a weapon already."
"Yeah, but look. The sign says that quiver is self-refilling. Didn't I hear you complaining about having to go pick up or make your own arrows all the time?"

"I wasn't...well okay, I said I didn't like it but it makes sense because it's realistic."
"Who cares about realistic when you have magic like that? Let's go get one."

She ran inside, the human girl following her.

"Okay...that is definitely too expensive," said Lynn. "We'll just have to come back for it later."
"But they only have one. What if someone else buys it first? Anyway, we do have enough to buy it..."

"...And then no new clothes. I'm not doing it."
"Hmm. Well, I have an idea, and I'm gonna try it."
"That sentence has heralded so many disasters, Ray.."
"Raynaaaa," said the fox-girl, "and just watch me."

She picked up the quiver and walked up to the store's counter, looking the skinny guy behind it square in the eyes. "Hey," she said, leaning forward on the counter and putting the quiver down next to her. "My friend and I are adventurers, and we just moved into town, but we already helped the town guard out once. Lynn here is an archer, and a quiver like this would be really useful, but we can only afford to pay half of its price right now. We're gonna take another job soon that should pay for the rest of it, and even if it doesn't we're planning on sticking around for a while, so we could always return it if things don't work out. Do you think we could just put off paying the other half for a few days?"
"Uh, um," said the guy, blushing a little bit and conspicuously not trying to look at her chest. "Well, I mean, we didn't pay all that much for it...if you can pay half what it was marked for, you can have it, miss..."

"Rayna's the name," said the illusionist, standing back up with a big grin and taking his hand before shaking it, "you've got a deal, sir. Thanks so much!" She handed him the money, and then walked out of the store with the quiver, the archer following.

"Well, was that great or what," said Rayna, handing her friend the prize.

"I'm not even sure what that was," said Lynn in retort. "I thought you were just gonna buy it anyway and make me wait to buy more practical clothes."
"Aww, what kind of friend would that make me?"
"The kind you always are," said Lynn, starting along the road again. "But seriously, what did you do?"

"I just figured, I have all this ridiculous charisma, I may as well use it..and it worked!"

"But you, you were totally flirting with that guy."
"Yeah. That's how you use charisma on the opposite sex, silly."

"Did you like him, though? Do you like guys?"
"Sure. Don't you?"

"I..." Lynn paused to think. "Huh. I guess I do. That's weird and uncomfortable."

"Really? I think it's exciting. Like seeing the whole idea of romance from a completely different angle."

"Are you gonna get you a bizarre fantasy world boyfriend, Raynanana?"

"Mmmmaybe. I mean, if I find someone I actually really like. First things first, though."

---

The three girls found Zach sitting with his legs crossed at one of the tables in the inn, reading a newspaper and wearing a loose-fitting shirt and jeans. The wolf was asleep next to him.

Still near the doorway, Katherine whispered, "I really wish she'd quit this 'I'm still a guy' business because I swear she looks gorgeous in everything. It's ridiculous."
"I know, right?" whispered Mika back.

Once at the table, the catgirl said, "A newspaper? Where did you even find a newspaper?"

Putting the paper down, the knight said, "I just asked the waitress if they had any. Thought it might be useful to get some clue about the overall setting here."

"Well, were there any interesting articles?"

He shrugged. "A few. Apparently a prince of the country that actually owns this town wants to visit soon, but they keep saying the trip is too dangerous. They actually have statistics on the number of people that die trying to get out to the frontier."
"What kind of statistics?" asked Mika.

"Oregon trail statistics. Even though this is a huge city, anyone who makes it here is lucky."

"Then how do they know the prince wants to visit if they can't reliably get messages back and forth from the castle or whatever?"
Zach shrugged. "Magic, probably. From what I can tell, these people use magic the way we use computers."

"To screw around and play games all day?" said the witch.

"For everything," said Zach. "You have a disease, go find someone with healing magic. You're rich and want a ridiculously tall thing built to honor yourself? Find some people who'll do earth magic for cash." He pointed at another article with a picture of a giant statue of a man on horseback, with an actual person standing by the statue who looked tiny in comparison. "I really wouldn't be surprised if there's a magic telegram system or something where you can pay to have messages sent back and forth between cities. Maybe rich people have magic two-way radios made out of carved wooden ears or something."

"You didn't eat ahead of us again, did you?" said Mika.
"No..you're not that late this time."

"Great, get a waiter, I'm starving!"

"Hmm.." said Katherine a little later, looking at Zach.
"What?"

"I dunno. You seem more relaxed than usual."
"Well, I'm finally wearing something halfway normal for once, I guess. And you're not being annoying right now."

"You'll have to wear the skirty dress-armor again if we go out to fight any more monsters, though," said Mika.

"Yeah..but at least I'm not wearing it all the time. Anyway, there's no reason I can't afford better armor once we do a few more jobs. I actually saw some sensibly-designed armor that would fit me on the way back here, so I know it exists."

"Wow, if I knew all it took to cheer you up was a change of clothes I would've suggested it ages ago," said Katherine.

"It's not all, but I'll take it for now."

Cat Costume

Ring 5.4: Sowing Confusion

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Ring 5.4:

Sowing Confusion

“I'm tired of this. Can we leave after lunch?”
“Aww, come on. You promised you'd come with me today.”

Sam sighed and continued looking for an empty table. “I promised to come with you, not take up permanent residence in the mall.”

“We've only been here for two hours, Sam. That's not even enough time to put together a whole outfit!”
“Maybe not for you. Your problem is—hey, look.” A tall blond-haired guy at a table by himself was waving at them.

They went over to him. “Uh, sorry, I couldn't help but notice you were looking for a table? I'm not using these seats.”
“Thanks!” said Sara, taking a seat. Sam took the other one. “I'm Sara, this is Sam.”
“Uh, I'm...Lewis. I'm a little new in town.”

“Oh, maybe we could show you around,” said Sam.

“Maybe later, we're a little busy right now.”

“You're busy, you mean. I probably have enough clothes to last me a whole year at this point.”

“Ah, well, I was getting some clothes too. Just...a few spare changes, I'm basically done myself,” said Lewis.

They kept talking and eating for a few minutes, until Lewis suddenly stood up. “Uh, e-excuse me, I have to go. I'll be back in just a minute!” he said, before taking off at a run toward the bathrooms.

Sara stared at him as he went. “Huh..?”

“What?”
“Something is up with that guy. Something weird.”
“What, like needing to go to the bathroom?”
“No, I..his hair was growing, Sam. Like, visibly?” She tugged at her own hair to illustrate. “And I swear he looked shorter by the time he got in the door.”

“Things tend to look smaller from a distance, Sara.”

“That's not what I mean! I..ugh, I don't know what I saw. But he was acting kind of weird before that too, like he doesn't know how to talk to girls or something.”
“So maybe he isn't used to doing it. Nothing wrong with a guy trying new..” Sam paused, finally noticing someone just off on the right side of her view who had definitely been there for longer than expected, and turned toward them. It was a dark-haired girl with her own tray of food, looking at both of them. “Uh, hello?”

“Excuse me,” said the stranger with a smile, “I was just eavesdropping. I can leave if you want.” It was an unusually calm smile, almost too calm, and it didn't seem to want to leave her face.
“No, there's another chair here,” said Sara, “Take a seat. What's your name?”

“Oh, I am Leiko,” she said, “and thank you for the invitation, Sara.” She pulled back the chair back and sat down. Her movements seemed unusually graceful, like she was dancing on a stage or something, but not quite that exaggerated.

“Well, what do you think? Did you see anything weird about that Lewis guy?” said Sara.
“Hm..I have yet to see him at all. But I do not doubt that you have.”
“You think people can just start growing long hair and getting smaller?” asked Sam.

Leiko shrugged. “I have learned a great many things to be possible. For instance, I hear that a boy turned into a girl recently around here.”
“Oh yeeaah, Kevin,” said Sara. “How did that happen, anyway?”

She gave another grinning shrug. “Can't say. I find it's usually best to not overthink such things.”

Lewis walked back to the table, looking to Sam just as short-haired and tall as ever. “Oh, uh, hi,” he said, noticing the new member of the table.

“Greetings. I am Leiko.” She offered him a hand.
“Oh, I'm, uh, Lewis,” he said, awkwardly taking it but recovering a more natural-seeming shake.

“Pleasure to meet you. Have you been buying clothes?” she asked.

“Uh...” Lewis hesitated for a second, but even Sam had to admit the question seemed a little strange. Besides that, she hadn't seen him, so she couldn't have heard him say something about buying clothes...right? “Y-yeah, why?”

“You might have seen my friends around. We entered the mall together, but seem to have become separated.”

“Yeah, maybe...I mean, what do they look like?”

“Hm..one of them is blonde, short and chipper, one is thin with white hair, and the other is dark-haired and well-endowed.”

Short and chipper..? “Is that first one named Aki?” said Sam.

“Ah, yes, I think so,” said Leiko, nodding slightly. “Do you know her as well?”

“Well, I've met her once. But I haven't seen her around the mall today. Would that make the other two Flora and Jenna?”

The other girl nodded again. “They're around each other quite a lot.”

“But..I thought Flora's hair was light brown or something, not white.”

Leiko shrugged. “It's always been white around me. Perhaps she had it dyed when you met her, and changed her mind?”

“Either way, I haven't seen any of them around.”

“Me either,” said Lewis.

“Oh, so you've met my friends as well?” asked Leiko.
“Um—uh, no, I just meant that I hadn't seen anyone like what you described, or anything. But, uh, wouldn't, I mean..did you not set up a place to meet when you all split up?”

“We weren't originally planning on splitting up at all. Once I finished with my purchases, I thought I might wait here, as it is a central sort of location.”

“Why don't you just call them?” said Sara.

Leiko shrugged. “I neglected to bring my phone. Rather a blunder on my part. I suppose I should just walk home and get in touch from there.” She calmly pushed the chair back and stood up. “It's been nice meeting with you,” she said, “we should hang out sometime I'm not looking for someone else.”

When she had disappeared back into the crowd, Sara said, “She's kinda weird, isn't she?”
“I dunno, she seemed nice enough to me,” said Lewis.
“Of course she did,” she answered, with a touch of sarcasm. “But look, she's all..smiling all the time. And the way she talks. And the whole..eavesdropping thing. Isn't it kinda creepy?”

“A little..but maybe she was just raised differently,” said Sam. “She was obviously trying to be friendly.”

“Well, what about her story with the missing friends? It's like she was making it up as she went along. None of us saw them all day today. How do you split up from people without noticing it? And who doesn't bring their phone?”

“W-well, the people she mentioned are real,” said Sam. “I met them at the arcade the last time there was a free night.”
“Yeah, but who supplied the names, hmm? Not her.”

“Huh..”

“A-and, you even said that Flora doesn't have white hair, like she said, right?” added Lewis.

“Yeah..you're right, that is a little strange. Maybe if I see one of those three I'll ask if they know her. If they don't, then maybe the whole thing was made up.”

“What was made up?” The sudden interjection of the new voice made all three of them jump slightly, before turning to the source: A certain tall redheaded girl who hadn't been either of those things just a few weeks ago.

“Oh, hey Kevin,” said Sam. “Or, uh..Kell?”
“Either one's fine,” she nodded, “I'm thinking of having it legally changed..maybe moving my old name to a middle name, since I've never had one of those before.”

“Um..” started Lewis.
“Oh yeah, you're new, right?” said Sara. “Well, the gorgeous girl you see there was a shy little boy named Kevin a few short weeks ago.”

“Wow, really?”

“Um..yeah,” said Kell, blushing a little from the 'gorgeous' part. “So, what were you talking about?”

“Oh, this girl named Leiko was here a minute ago,” said Sam. “She said she was looking for her friends, but the story sounded sort of fishy.”

“How do you mean?” The tall girl moved around to an empty chair and took a seat.

“Well, she claimed to come into the mall with three people, none of which any of us has seen,” said Sara, “and even though Sam said their descriptions almost matched some people she's met once, one of them had the wrong color hair.”
“Yeah, it sounded like her friends were Aki, Flora and Jen,” Sam interjected. “But she said Flora's hair was white.”
“..It wasn't?”

“I didn't think so.”
Kell scratched her head. “Well, uh, I guess I wouldn't really know, since technically I wasn't actually there.”

“What are you talking about?” said Sara, becoming increasingly confused.

“At some point before he started turning into a girl, Kevin dreamed of being Kell on free night at the arcade,” said Sam. “But a person named Kell who looks just like she does now was there, and did all of the same things that Kevin remembered doing in the dream.”

“All the same stuff?” said Sara.

“Um, well, we compared notes, but not in detail,” said Kell. “It sure sounded like the same stuff.”
“But you remember Flora's hair being white?”
“I think so?”
“But if you remember that differently from how it actually happened, then it would be the only thing you remembered differently.”
“Ye-eah...”
“That doesn't make any sense at all.”

“Not unless Sam just remembers it differently.”
“But—” started Lewis, and then paused for a good few seconds. “But if you could find another person who was there that night, they'd be able to tell you that—I mean, whether Flora's hair was white. Right?”

“Look, maybe I'm just remembering the dream wrong. It's been a while, and I don't exactly keep a journal or anything. It's weird enough that I remember it at all.”

“But another witness would still tell us whether or not Leiko was just blowing smoke,” said Lewis.

“Or if I actually manage to run into Flora somewhere,” added Sam. “At any rate, I'm sure I'll see those three again at the arcade next weekend.”

“Uh, anyway, how are you doing?” Sam asked.

“Well, I think I finally stopped, um, growing,” said Kell, her face turning slightly red.

“I didn't mean that...just, you know, in general.”

“Oh! P-pretty well, then. The other day I punched Morley in the face.”

“Why would you do that?” asked Sara.

“He wouldn't leave me alone. I told him I was gonna do it if he didn't shut up.”

“Well..don't make a habit of it,” said Sam.
“Oh, don't worry. I swear I'll only use this fist of mine for good.”

“Being overzealous about using it for good is just as bad,” said Lewis.

“Well I just won't be overzealous then!” said Kell, and laughed.

Then she noticed someone else in the food coort, which immediately drew the attention of the other three. It was a white-haired girl in a t-shirt, some dark shorts and stockings. “Who is that?” said Sam.

“Isn't it Flora?” asked Kell.

“But—that doesn't—hold on. Hey!” She waved at the girl, who walked over.
“Oh, hey Sam, Kell.”
“Are you Flora?” asked Sam.

“Last time I checked. Why?”
“I thought..weren't..wasn't your hair a different color before?”

“Oh, yeah. I tried dying it, but I didn't really like the color. Don't you think this looks better?”

“Yeah, it looks great,” said Sara. “Hey, I'm Sara, and that's Lewis. You wanna join us?”
Sam noticed movement out of the corner of her eye Kell was in, but when she turned to look the redhead wasn't moving. “Uh, I would,” said Flora, “but I'm looking for someone. Any of you seen a, kind of Asian-looking dark-haired girl? Talks really formal, grins all the time?”
“Named Leiko?” asked Sara, and Flora nodded.

“She was just here,” said Lewis. “She said she forgot her phone, and was just going to try and get in touch from home.”

“Oh, well, that's nice,” said Flora, sarcastically, and sighed. “I guess I have to go chase her down, then. See you later.” She walked off.

“Uh, wait..have you talked to Flora at all since your dream?” asked Sam.

“No. I think she doesn't even know I used to be Kevin.”

“But you remembered her hair being white,” said Lewis.
“Well..I guess I just did remember the dream wrong.”

He abruptly stood up, his things already in hand. “Um. Excuse me, I have to go. I'm starting to get a nasty headache.” And with that, Lewis walked off.

“I think I have to go too,” said Kell. “Nice talking with you!” She stood up and walked away.

Once everyone was out of earshot, Sara said, “I tell you, Sam, there is something fishy about every one of those people. Except Kell, he's cool.”
“You really think so?”
“Yeah. Just a victim of circumstance. Weird, unexplainable circumstance, sure, but still.”

“Well, I'm getting out of here, too. See you later.”
“Sure, sure. Ya lightweight,” said Sara, with a grin.