With the sudden collapse and disappearance of my perch, I found myself kneeling on the floor while the rest of the party came rushing over to check on me.
“Are you insane?! You are, aren’t you!” Kiera was... less than thrilled with my strategy.
“You’re actually not the first to make that accusation. It worked, didn’t it?”
“I… I can’t deny that.”
Jayren chimed in at this point. “It was pretty awesome, if slightly suicidal.”
“... Are you hurt?” Aurora had reached me by this point and was examining me for injuries.
“Na, I’m fine. Your spell recovered a good bit of it right after he hit me with the wall.”
“Normally, wouldn’t that be phrased the other way around. He hit the wall with you.” I just shrugged at Kiera’s sarcastic comment.
Suddenly, we were all startled as a window appeared in front of everyone.
Congratulations, You have completed the dungeon “Eridell Goblin Cavern”. Because this is your first time completing this dungeon, you are eligible to receive a bonus reward. Choose from the following:
Mask of Determination - A masquerade style mask granting a bonus to willpower
Gloves of Heavy Fists - A pair of gloves granting a bonus to strength
Boots of Sure Footing - A pair of boots granting a bonus to dexterity
“Huh, I guess that confirms we’re finished.” I said, reading over the screen.
Kiera nodded. “Yeah, this is an interesting system for rewarding completing a dungeon. It’s actually a somewhat difficult decision.”
“Is it? I’m done already.” Jayren materialized a new helmet and put it on.
“Did you even bother reading what they did, or just pick the first one that caught your eye?”
“Well, I wanted to get a helmet, so I just went with that.”
“You… you really are a moron sometimes, you know.” Kiera said as she shook her head in exasperation. Jayren just looked confused at why she seemed angry.
After thinking it over, I chose to get the Boots of Sure Footing. I had immediately decided against the mask, mostly because those masquerade masks seem impractical and uncomfortable to wear for long. It was a toss up between the gloves and boots for a while, but if I wanted to use my claws, the gloves would get in the way.
Quickly switching the basic shoes I had been wearing with my new boots, I found myself wearing a pair of tight black boots that reached to my knees. At least the game spared me from high heels. That would have make getting around impossible.
After everyone had selected a reward, we began the trip back to town. Before leaving the cave, I reactivated my Hide Nature skill. Just for fun, this time instead of red hair I went blonde, trying to match my appearance with the twins as much as I could. I ended up somewhat like an older sister to them, something Celeste in particular found very entertaining.
“Yay, now not only do I have a twin sister, but I have an older sister too! This game is giving me all the sisters I never had!”
I looked at Aurora.
“...She has three older brothers.” Ah, that actually explains a bit.
---
The trip itself was another uneventful trip through the night. We had gained a couple levels in the dungeon, so the monsters we encountered were even less of a threat to us than they had been on the way there. We made slightly better time, and arrived back in town early in the morning.
As we entered the city gate, Kiera turned to us. “Well, we’ve made it back. Thanks to all of you, I’d say that was a very successful dungeon run.”
“We gained a couple levels, got some new gear and money, and had some fun. I think if this doesn’t count as successful, nothing does.”
After that we split up into our original two parties, and added each other to our friends lists before heading into the city.
Although it had only been a couple days, the town seemed to have changed somewhat noticeably. Originally, aside from a small number of NPCs, the population had been almost entirely Astoennians. However with the increased number of players getting strong enough to leave their starting areas, there were a few of other races represented in the crowds on the streets. There were beastmen around with canine and feline traits, as well as one who appeared to be a bear-man of some sort. Shopping for food near the front gate I saw a couple of elves who seemed overjoyed to see meat at the stalls. There was also a woman with blue skin and hair walking around looking at the various wares.
After taking a look around I found a place out of the way to sit down, with the twins in tow. We gathered a bit of attention, but no one tried to bother us this time. After sitting down, I sent a message to Horvath.
Hey, we just got back. Are you in the city yet?
“What are you doing, Lilith?” Celeste was looking at me questioningly as from her perspective, I was just staring into space.
“Ah, just sending a message to Horvath to see where he is. And there’s the response.”
We should be arriving around noon. I’ll let you know when I get there.
“Looks like he’ll be here in a few hours. Got anything you want to do until then?”
Aurora unexpectedly spoke up. “... I want to find someone to teach me the cooking skill.”
“Oh, I’ll go with you. You need someone to eat the results, after all!” Celeste grinned.
“Alright, I think while you two are doing that, I’m going to head to the Mages Association for a bit. I’ve made a deal to provide some help in exchange for a “meal” there, after all. I’ll contact you two when Horvath gets here and we’ll go meet him at the gate.”
With that we split up. I couldn’t help but notice Aurora looked slightly disappointed that I was heading off on my own, but I don’t receive any benefit from normal food so there’s no point in my coming with her for the cooking lesson.
Arriving at the front entrance of the Mages Association, I paused a moment, took a deep breath, and braced myself for what I was about to walk into. Entering, it seemed there weren’t any applicants right now, so Elenore, who was sitting at the desk again today, was free.
“Hello again Elenore.”
“Hmm? Oh, it’s Lilith. I didn’t recognize you at first.” She set down the glasses and called one of the apprentices who were assisting her to go get Samantha.
“How have you been? Any problems since we last talked?”
“No, no problems. I’ve been out clearing a goblin cave for the last couple days with my party. We just got back this morning.”
“Ah, that place. I suppose that means you told them about yourself. Now that I think about it, you look a bit like one of the girls you came here with last time. The quiet little one who wanted to be a healer.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to be travelling with her and her twin, so I figured I might as well match them. By the way, I really wish you had warned me how my feeding affects people who aren’t mind controlled. She couldn’t look me in the eye for hours after I fed off her.”
The old woman laughed. “And ruin the surprise? I wouldn’t take that fun away. Now you know why I insisted on you controlling Samantha. By the way, that rule still is in place. I’ll let you feed without me being there, but you must use your ability on her first.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. She already clings to me enough, I don’t need want to give her any more reasons.”
As Elenore laughed, I heard the tapping sound of rapid footsteps coming from the hallway to the rest of the associate, and before long Samantha came flying into the entry hall.
“I heard Lilith was here, so I came right away!” She looked feverishly around the room, then stared at me for a moment.
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“Ah, it is you! You looked different so I couldn’t tell at first! Master, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be taking her for a while.” With that, she grabbed my arm, and started dragging me away. Elenore just smiled and waved at me as I was pulled deeper into the association headquarters.
“I’m glad you’ve come back, there’s some things I want to ask you about. But first, let’s get to my room.”
“Alright, I’m coming. You don’t have to drag me.” My complaints went ignored. “There’s actually a couple things I want to try as well, if you don’t mind.”
“Things related to you? Sure, I’ll help. Ah, this is the room.”
She pulled me into a small room. In one corner was a bed, but aside from that it was more a laboratory or study then a bedroom. On a desk sat the book I had left here the other day, and notes scattered all around it. There were bookshelves lined with reference books on magic and demonology along nearly all of the walls, and apparatus for various magical experiments were strewn around the room.
“Alright, first you should probably feed off me. I wouldn’t want to have the memory erasure wipe out something important on accident. I wish Elenore would let us do this without the mind control. I wonder why it is...”
“There’s very good reason. There’s some… interest side effects that happen if I don’t mind control my victim first.”
Samantha got excited at that. “Oh what kind of side effects? Wait, that means you’ve fed on someone without the control. Who was it? And what happened?”
Rather than answer, I looked the girl in the eyes and activated Seduce. “...sorry, forget about that.”
I had poured quite a few point into Charisma at this point so I should have quite a bit of time before it wore off, but it was best not to take unnecessary risks. I quickly fed on Samantha until my satiety was filled, then had her relax on her bed before taking the chair by the desk myself. I took the opportunity to remove my disguise for now, since I figured she’d prefer that anyway.
It was some time later before her consciousness returned. Sure enough, the mind control lasted quite a bit longer than it had before. She looked around and gave a confused look for a moment when she saw me in her room.
“Oh, Lilith. That means I just fed you again, didn’t I. That would explain why I feel a bit weak.”
I nodded. “That’s right. You wanted to have me feed first so you would remember anything we discussed afterward. I’ll help with your research, but I would like to try a couple things myself as well.”
“Sure, I’d be happy to help. I’m struggling some to translate that book you brought. Between Master’s knowledge of the demonic language and the few resources I’ve been able to find I can translate it some, but given how rare it is and it’s association with underground and illegal cults, there aren’t any complete references to the language.” She got up and walked over to the desk, and began going over the book as she continued.
“You seem to be able to understand the demon language as expected, though. Are you able to speak it as well?”
One of the features of SWO was a built in language translation system, but this feature extended beyond just languages of earth. If your race has a native language of their own, the game will automatically make you able to read and understand that language. It wouldn’t make sense for an elf not to know elvish or a dwarf not to understand dwarvish, after all. Speaking it was a bit challenging, however. By default, speech was translated to the native language of the player you were speaking to. In order to speak another in game language, one had to manually control the language settings to translate your speech to the chosen language temporarily.
“I should be able to, but I’ve never done it before. That’s actually one of the things I wanted to try.”
“Sure, I’d be interested to hear what spoken Demonic sounds like from a native speaker, after all. Let’s start with that then before we get to translating the book.”
It took me several attempts to get the language switching down properly. I found I could do it by focusing on speaking in Demonic while I spoke a sentence normally. As long as I maintained my intent, a small icon appeared in the corner of my vision, and all speech was automatically converted for all listeners, but if I got distracted, the translation would turn off and I would revert to the common language and translated so they could understand me. I don’t see many uses for it, but maybe this could prove helpful somehow. If nothing else, it does make for a fun trick.
As a side note, I attempted to force myself to speak French this way as well, but it seemed to be limited to either the automatic translation or Demonic, so I can’t use this to speak other Earth languages I don’t actually know.
After that, I spent a few hours working with Samantha on the passages of the book she was struggling to understand. I also corrected a few mistranslations she had made.
“Hey, what are you going to do once you’ve translated this? Surely you aren’t planning to actually cast any of these spells, right?”
“No, I don’t plan to cast them. At least none of the big, dangerous ones. The basic small spells should be fine. But the Mages Association often finds itself in conflict with the groups that do use these spells. It could prove very helpful to understand what their magic is capable of and how it works.”
Hmm, so she was actually thinking of a valid reason beyond pure curiosity. That’s somewhat comforting, I suppose.
Samantha looked up from her notes on the book. “Hey, wasn’t there something else you wanted to experiment with?”
“Oh, right. I encountered a few new races today on the way here. Since my ability to disguise myself allows me to appear to be any race I have encountered before, I wanted to try that a bit.”
“You can be more than just an Astoennian? I didn’t know that. This seems fun! let’s get started right away!”
I smiled and activated my disguise. Up till now, I have been given a menu allowing me to select the hair and eye color, but this time another menu appeared before me.
Select a race to disguise yourself as:
Astoennian
Caninid
Catfolk
Ursan
High Elf
Undine
“Hmm, looks like I’ve picked up a few options. I can now become a Caninid, a Catfolk, an Ursan, a High Elf, and an Undine.”
“Let’s see. A Caninid is a dog or wolf like beastman, while a Catfolk is a feline beastman. The High Elf is exactly as you would expect. Undines are water elementals, so we see them from time to time here at the Association. I’m surprised you saw an Ursan though. There aren’t many of them, and they rarely leave their communities. I’ve never actually seen one myself.”
Oh, so that guy was probably a rare race like me. Which means I am able to disguise myself as other rare races. I feel like that would sort of defeat the purpose. I disguise myself to blend in and be inconspicuous, so picking something unusual like that would be the opposite of what I want. Realistically, I should be pretending to be the local native race.
But for now…
“Let’s try some of these out. I’m especially curious about this Ursan now.” I smiled and selected Ursan. I was presented with a choice for my fur color and eye color, then the transformation was quickly underway.
Before long, I found myself as a cross between a bear and a woman. It was strange to see myself with large, bulky muscles while still actually being the same weak caster I always have been. The stumpy bear tail on my back also felt strange compared to my usual long one. I’m a little concerned I’m considering having a tail to be comfortable at all, honestly.
“Huh, this is pretty weird.”
“Yeah, you’re dress really doesn’t fit on an Ursan.”
I glanced down at my gown. Ew, she was absolutely right. I look like a bodybuilder with a tight black cocktail dress on now.
“I think that’s enough of this,” I said releasing the disguise. Samantha sighed in relief as my normal appearance returned.
I considered trying out a few more races, but at that moment I received another message from Horvath.
Hey, I’m about 10-15 minutes out. I’ll wait for you guys at the front gate.
“Hmm, looks like I’m about out of time today. Hopefully you’ll be able to make some progress now at least.” I said as I restored my disguise to the one I had come in with. It would look pretty strange for me to leave as a different race, after all.
Samantha was clearly disappointed, but didn’t try to hold me back like she had last time. “Alright. You’ve been a tremendous help today. Come back any time you want, you’re always welcome here.”
Guided by Samantha, I made my way back to the front entry hall and said goodbye to Elenore, then sent a message to Celeste and Aurora to meet me in the central district.
Once in the central square, it didn’t take long for us to find each other. Or more, it didn’t take them long to find me. With their size they disappear in a crowd pretty easily, while my appearance still draws a lot of attention when I’m around. So while I was searching for them, they just had to follow the gazes of the people around them to find me.
“There you are. How was the Mage’s Association?” Celeste asked as she jogged up to me with Aurora in tow.
“Fine, I was able to confirm a few things, and got a free meal out of the deal. Not a bad morning, all in all.”
Aurora looked at me curiously. “What were you confirming?”
“Ah, that. I’ll explain as we walk.” With that we started making our way toward the gate in the southern district. Along the way, I explained that I figured out how to speak in Demonic, as well as disguise myself as things other than an Astoennian.
“Hmm, that seems like it could be fun. You can look like anything you want.”
“Well, we found out there’s a downside to that. While I can alter my race to look different, my clothing still looks the same. And this outfit really doesn’t look good on larger races. Trust me on that one.”
“Oh, ew. I didn’t need that mental image.”
I turned to Aurora. “How did the cooking lessons go?”
“...Good. I got the cooking skill, so I can make food for us now. I need to level it some before I can make anything great, though.”
“That’s fine. I’m sure anything you make yourself will be better than what we can get at the store, after all. Although I suppose my opinion is pretty worthless, since I don’t need to eat regular food at all.”
Aurora shook her head. “You can still enjoy the food.”
“True, it just won’t have any real benefits. Well then, I’ll be looking forward to your delicious cooking in the future.”
She nodded with a determined expression on her face.
By then, we had reached the gate area. Looking for a landmark we could use to meet up, I noticed a peculiar statue by the side of the gate. It looked like it was carved from stone to look roughly humanoid, but no details were added so it seemed unfinished. It stood head and shoulders taller than most of the people around, so I figured it would make a good meeting place.
“Hey, was that statue here before?” Celeste asked, noticing the same thing I did.
“I don’t remember it, but we were gone for a couple days. Maybe it was put in while we were gone and we didn’t notice it when we came in. It makes a good landmark, though. Let’s stand by that and I’ll have Horvath meet us there.”
We made our way to the statue. Getting closer, it looked like the statue had real armor, rather than just carving it from stone like the rest of it. I looked curiously at it, then turned around toward the crowd and sent Horvath a message.
Hey, we’re at the gate. We’re standing near the big statue, so you can’t really miss us.
After sending the message, I started scanning over the crowd, looking for anyone making their way towards us. It only occurred to me now, but I have no idea what his character looks like this time. I avoided discussing races because he would ask for mine, and I wanted to surprise him with that in person.
As I was searching for anyone coming over to us, a deep voice rang out from behind.
“Excuse me, could you girls help me out. I’m supposed to meet some people near a statue, but I don’t see one anywhere.”
Spinning around, I realized the statue was looking down at me now.
“Ah sorry, did I startle you?” The “statue” raised its hands, looking apologetic.
“No, that’s not it.” I smirked up at it. “Horvath, have you seen a mirror lately?”
“Huh? Oh right…”