When Elise was a human on Earth, she was not what she would have considered attractive. Braces had fixed her buck teeth, and bushy hair hid her overlarge ears, but the rest of her face was still too plain to turn any heads.
Her current form was anything but plain.
Her hair was now the same white that her fur was, as were her eyebrows, and her eyes were the same bright red that her rabbit eyes were, but even ignoring those two aspects, everything was different. The water rippled too much to give her a perfectly clear view of herself, but she could tell that she was stunning. It was like someone had taken her original form and made every adjustment she would have made to improve her appearance.
She stood up to get a better look at herself, and realized a problem: she had no clothes. There was no one around, but she still immediately covered herself with her hands. When the brief moment of panic vanished, and she realized that there was no one coming, she relaxed a bit, and actually did what she stood up to do.
The rest of her body seemed largely the same. She couldn’t tell for certain, but she felt the same height as before, and the rest of her features seemed to be about how she remembered them. Her skin was much smoother, and the bit of pudge she had put on since entering college was gone, but that was it.
She sat back down to think about her situation. The clothes issue was a big one. She was short for a human, but that made her about the size of a tall drow, so getting clothes from them wouldn’t be a problem. What would happen to the clothes when she transformed though? Ideally, they would be included in her transformation, but with the skill being labeled as ‘Lesser’, she doubted it included that feature. She had no way to carry clothes in her rabbit form, so even if she got them from the drow, if she couldn’t take them with her upon transformation, she was out of luck.
That wasn’t something she could confirm until she went back though, and it was the middle of the night, so if she did go back, she would still have to wait. It was better to stay where she was for the time being and experiment with her abilities more.
She transformed back into her changeling form to let the skill go on cooldown so she could try out more transformations. When it wore off, she then changed to a drow. It was largely the same as her human form, aside from a few key differences, like the fact that her skin was pale gray now, or that she was really short. She went from the height of a tall drow in her human form to the height of a short one in drow form. Her facial features were also a bit sharper, and she had elf ears, which turned out to be much more flexible than she would have expected.
After drow, she tried out a dwarven form, and that felt truly strange. She was even shorter than she was in her drow form, but twice as broad. Walking felt more like waddling than actual walking. She felt powerful though.
She kept an eye on her status window as she transformed, making mental notes of the stat differences in each. In all her forms, her Charisma remained the same, which was weird, but all the other stats changed, in some cases drastically. No matter how they changed though, the total points were always exactly 160 lower than her stats in her base form.
As a human, she had slightly improved Strength, and Fortitude, and greatly improved Dexterity, but she took heavy hits to her Mana and Mana Control. As a Drow, her Agility, Dexterity and Mana were greatly improved, while she took hits everywhere else, especially in Willpower and Mana Control. As a dwarf, her Strength, Fortitude and Dexterity got much better, while everything else got worse, with Agility taking the biggest hit. Her elf form gave a moderate increase to Dexterity, a small increase to Mana Control, nothing on Strength and Fortitude, and heavy hits to every other stat, with the biggest decrease being Mana.
After testing her humanoid forms, she switched to a few various monsters, starting with the cows. She was able to transform into the Lesser and normal variants, but when she tried the Greater, nothing happened. As she suspected, it was an evolution above her, and the normal variants were an evolution tier above her when she was hunting them.
She transformed into a few other monsters, like a snake, a bird, and a slime (that one was really weird) before eventually growing bored. Being the cow sucked because she felt like she couldn’t see anything. Having no limbs as a snake was unpleasant, and she also couldn’t see anything. Being a bird was super weird, because she had two pairs of wings, and they didn’t play well together.
In the end though, she turned back into a human, and twiddled her thumbs for about an hour, thinking about the future. What would she do after leaving the caves? She had spent most of her new life in them. She still wanted to confirm that the Grays were safe, but was it safe for her to do that? Regardless of what Freddy’s intentions were, there was no way that letting him know there were people she cared about living right under his nose was a good idea.
Then again, he could find them whenever he wanted. She had foolishly told Jag that Walter killed people she cared about, and if Freddy didn't know that already, she would be surprised. With the level of interest Freddy had shown, he had likely looked into her as much as possible, including talking to Jag. And if he knew that, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to trace the incident and find the remaining Grays. He probably already knew about them.
In that case, the only thing stopping her from going to see them would be wanting to stay away from Ostra. However, they were a national organization who had people like Freddy working for them. Was staying away from them even possible? If they wanted to get their hands on her, they could do it at any time. Therefore it wouldn’t be any less dangerous to go the opposite direction than it would to go straight into the belly of the beast.
Elise resolved herself to go to Jelor to see Sophie, but she still felt a little conflicted. She couldn’t directly meet them, obviously. The only person who might have known she was anything more than an odd rabbit was Sylvanna, and she was dead. What would they say if it turned out that their old pet had not only survived what should have been a deadly attack from a powerful monster, but she was now a shapeshifting fey? She’d be lucky if they didn’t attack her.
And going with that line of thought, would she even be able to see them at all? She would need to find a way to sneak into the city, and even then, there was no guarantee she could find them. What if they didn’t go back to the university? Or what if Nick and Bianca graduated and moved away with Sophie? What if they were at the university, but it was a gated community with magical security?
As she was now, she would need incredible luck. Or perhaps Fate…
Bad idea, she told herself.
Maybe if she just went, Fate would guide her toward them, but what then? So far, the only thing Fate had guided her toward was the middle of a war zone. What if that happened again, and the Grays got stuck in the middle of something dangerous like that?
A chill ran down her spine, causing her to shiver as a sudden thought struck her.
Wait… she thought. Was the warg… Was that because of me?
She had been avoiding thinking about the incident as much as possible until then, but the memories suddenly came flooding back. At some point, she had considered that the warg’s presence at that house might have been at least partially due to her high Charisma, but as she lived longer in this new world, she pushed that thought aside. Her charisma was high back then, but it wasn’t high enough to draw the attention of something that powerful, and hold it for that long.
However, she never considered it would be because of the Rune of Fate. Was its attack that night really just coincidence? Was her first meeting with it when it was still a {Greater Frost Direwolf} coincidence? Was anything that had happened to her since arriving at the world coincidence?
What if she didn’t go live with the Grays? What if she just kept running away from Sophie instead of trying to make friends? What if she just left them after a day or two, instead of getting comfortable living as a house pet? Would they still be alive?
What if the same thing happened when she went to visit them again? What if her going back to Jelor brought another Fate-induced calamity down on the Grays. She would feel bad if she did that to anyone, but especially if something happened to them again.
She slapped her cheeks and shook her head. Those thoughts were ridiculous. If she brought “Fate-induced calamity” wherever she went, why wasn’t it appearing for the dwarves and drow? If anything, she had prevented calamity with her presence there. Maybe the warg was Fate. Maybe it wasn’t. However, stopping Emilia was definitely at least partially due to Fate. Then again, it was the warg’s attack that had driven her into the dwarves and drow…
“System, what is Fate?”
“I’m sorry. You do not have permission to receive that information.”
She sighed. She was a fool for even hoping for anything else. Something about the way the System spoke though felt strangely reassuring. There was an answer. It just wasn’t allowed to tell her. But if she thought through it well enough on her own, she might be able to find the answer.
The way she saw it, Fate was one of two things. It was either a simple prediction of the future, or it was a set path that the future would have to follow. Neither answer was comforting. If the future was predetermined, did her actions even matter?
Of course they do, she wanted to say. They had to. But she couldn’t be sure.
She laid down on her back and looked up at the ceiling. She suddenly didn’t want to do anything. She knew she had to return to the drow at some point and try to see if she could take clothes with her when she transformed. She knew she had to visit Greta again. She had to let Hallbjorn know whether she would be attending the feast. She knew she had to prepare to leave and say her goodbyes. But it all just felt so meaningless.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, nor did she remember turning back into her changeling form, but at some point she closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she was on her stomach again, and back to being a rabbit.
“Elise,” said a voice.
Elise jumped to her feet and turned around to find herself face to face with a woman so golden she glowed.
“T-Titania?”
“Hello, dear,” said the woman.
Elise waited a few seconds to see if she would wake up like she always did when Titania appeared, but nothing happened.
“Are you- are you here?” she asked.
“Only in your dream,” said the goddess.
“Why am I not waking up like last time?”
“Last time, you could not handle more than a few seconds. This time, you are stronger. You will have a minute. I believe you have questions for me.”
“I-” Elise hesitated. “What is Fate?”
“Fate is what is.”
“What does that mean?”
“You would not understand if I told you right now. But you will someday. Just be patient.”
Elise was frustrated with that answer, but she was on a time limit and knew pressing further wouldn’t get her a better one.
“What is the Rune of Fate?”
“The Rune of Fate marks those who guide Fate.”
“And what does that mean?”
Titania smiled. “Your time is running out. I believe there is one more question that you wanted to ask.”
Elise wanted to shout about how unfair it was, but Titania was right. The other questions were just roundabout ways to try to get to the bottom of the real question burning a hole in her chest.
“Was what happened to the Grays my fault?”
“Did you force that warg to attack them?”
“No, but I have the Rune of Fate and-”
“-the timing…”
Elise was awake again, still in the same chamber, but now alone. She was frustrated at how little information she had gotten, but at the same time she was comforted. The answer to the final question wasn’t a clear “no”, but it was about as close as she could have hoped for. She definitely didn’t force the warg to attack the Grays, so according to Titania, it wasn’t her fault they died.
That didn’t tell her anything about how the Rune of Fate was involved though. She didn’t even want to start trying to decipher the cryptic answers she got on that topic. It was sure to give her a headache, and if Titania was to be trusted, she would find the answer on her own eventually. For now, she had other things to do.
She was a bit surprised at how easily she was able to mentally switch tracks, but after talking with Titania, she felt strangely energized and optimistic. She didn’t care as much about Fate. Whether it was changing things around her or not, what was she going to do about it? All she could do was move forward, and prepare herself for anything that might get thrown her way.
Back in the drow’s main cavern, it was midday. Elise had slept for long enough that despite falling asleep in her human form, her transformation skill was already off cooldown. That worked out perfectly for her, since she needed it to test out her experiments with clothing.
Her return to the cavern brought a fair amount of curious onlookers to gawk at her new form. A few of them called and waved to her, and she responded by dropping some blessed {Fairy Dust} on their heads before continuing on her way to Naomi’s hut.
“Elise, you’re back!” said Naomi, emerging from her hut after sensing Elise’s approach. “You’ve gotten bigger!”
“I have,” agreed Elise. “I have another favor to ask you, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course!” said Naomi. “What do you need?”
“Clothes.”
Stat sheets for all humanoid forms:
I'm only including the stat portions to save space, since the skills remain the same
Base Form:
Name Elise Burrow Age 0 (20) Race Lesser Changeling (Rabbit) Level 1 (IV) Stats Base Bonuses Total Strength 109 0 109 Agility 286 0 286 Dexterity 274 0 274 Fortitude 107 0 107 Charisma 900 0 900 Intelligence 514 0 514 Willpower 324 0 324 Mana 463 0 463 Mana Control 508 0 508
Human Form:
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Name Elise Burrow Age 0 (20) Race Human Level 1 (IV) Stats Base Bonuses Total Strength 109 10 119 Agility 286 -30 256 Dexterity 274 50 324 Fortitude 107 10 117 Charisma 900 0 900 Intelligence 514 -50 464 Willpower 324 -50 274 Mana 463 -50 413 Mana Control 508 -50 458
Drow Form:
Name Elise Burrow Age 0 (20) Race Drow Level 1 (IV) Stats Base Bonuses Total Strength 109 -10 99 Agility 286 50 336 Dexterity 274 20 294 Fortitude 107 -10 97 Charisma 900 0 900 Intelligence 514 -60 454 Willpower 324 -100 224 Mana 463 50 513 Mana Control 508 -100 408
Dwarf Form:
Name Elise Burrow Age 0 (20) Race Dwarf Level 1 (IV) Stats Base Bonuses Total Strength 109 40 149 Agility 286 -100 186 Dexterity 274 40 314 Fortitude 107 60 167 Charisma 900 0 900 Intelligence 514 -60 454 Willpower 324 -40 284 Mana 463 -50 413 Mana Control 508 -50 458
Elf Form:
Name Elise Burrow Age 0 (20) Race Elf Level 1 (IV) Stats Base Bonuses Total Strength 109 0 109 Agility 286 -30 256 Dexterity 274 50 324 Fortitude 107 0 107 Charisma 900 0 900 Intelligence 514 -50 464 Willpower 324 -50 274 Mana 463 -100 363 Mana Control 508 20 528