Chương 8: Meeting the Party

The stagecoach pulled into the Hammerfall depot just before noon, the journey having taken a little over 4 hours. Melia's eyes were wide as she sat upon the carriage roof, not wanting to risk getting trampled by the two dozen passengers eagerly disembarking. Her first look at Hammerfall did not disappoint.

In the game, Hammerfall had been little more than a sentry tower atop a hill, with an inn and stables at the bottom of the hill, and a small firepit where some vendors on wagons had made a semi-permanent settlement. Well, the sentry tower remained on its hill, but it was far, far bigger in real life than Melia would have ever guessed, and that wasn't because of how small she was.

The "tower" was practically a small castle or a keep, with a broad, high-walled base that dominated the entirety of a massive, low topped hill. It still had a spire stretching for the sky, but it was large enough to hold rooms on several floors, not just a single, internal spiral stairway that led to a tiny observation platform on top. Melia guessed they could house an entire militia inside there, maybe more than a thousand people. And that was just what she could see of it from a distance.

Hammerfall was vast, a far, far cry way away from two buildings and a cart. This was no simple outpost to watch over nearby farmsteads, but a full city. It probably had a population in the 10s or 20s of thousands, maybe more. An ear-bleeding shriek cried out above her, which nearly everybody ignored, and Melia got her first view of a gryphon in this world as it set down somewhere closer to the castle, likely where the old game flight path had been.

Melia was both excited and scared to try riding on those giant, formidable beasts.

"Here we are," Alastair said as he caught up with the girls, having done all the annoying paperwork for their travels with the driver and the office at the depot. He was stretching, likely quite stiff from where he sat in the driver's box with the driver the entire ride. He noticed Melia staring around with undisguised awe and smirked.

"First time in the big city, little dragon?" Melia kicked him playfully in the shin, but made sure not to put any strength in it.

"I've seen bigger before," she made a show of sniffing and sticking her head up in the air. She knew the move gave off the impression that she was trying to downplay the size of Hammerfall, which she honestly was impressed with, but she wanted to feed the fires of their silly little game a bit longer before revealing her true form. And speaking of fires….

"So, where's the bonfire?" The Midsummer Fire Festival event in game was focused, as advertised, around fire. Each location big enough to have a flight path, and a few popular locations without, had a giant bonfire.

Players could run up to it and do one of several activities: they could speak to the Flame Warden (ticking a hidden game box that tracked which locations they'd visited), dance around the fire (for a buff that granted bonus xp, lasting longer proportionate to how long they danced), or participate in fire juggling. That last one sounded perhaps a bit too dangerous to Melia, even though she was probably fire proof in her new body, her own inner flame being much hotter than any bonfire could ever reach.

"You really are eager to see the festival, aren't you?" Jessica mused.

"Well, we can go see it, it's in the big central square, but they were still setting up when we left a few days ago. They aren't set to open up until tonight, so they might not have any attractions for us."

"Let's go find the inn," said Alastair.

"We can introduce you to the rest of the team." The streets of Hammerfall were wide and clean, even if they were simple avenues of hard packed dirt, and the residents bustled about with lively joy, excitement for the upcoming festival palpable. Melia could already see where the real world expanded upon the game's simple event, with most homes hanging dangling lanterns or strings of decorations, mostly in the shape of flames or fireworks.

Several dozen small peddlers had set up shop already, hawking wares from the back of hand- or beast-driven carts. Alastair led the trio to, surprisingly, what Melia would have considered the actual game inn. It was a large building, three stories with probably over a hundred rooms, facing the huge, central square, directly across from the base of the hill that led up to the keep.

There, in the middle, was a gigantic pile of wood and sticks angled together like a teepee, with several monstrous stacks of lumber set aside to keep the fires burning for weeks. Jessica and Alastair watched the tiny gnome march confidently up to the inn's front entrance and were curious to see how this would play out. Melia, caught up in the excitement, was fully intrigued by her first visit to a real fantasy inn. She wondered how it compared to hotels and resorts of her original world.

Would it be closer to a Motel 6? Something like a chain that people knew what to expect, and weren't too surprised to find bland, generic rooms with the barest amount of security? Or would it be closer to one of those vacation hotels on sunny beaches in tropical paradises? She was so preoccupied that she forgot her one fatal flaw: she took the two steps up to the door, each step she had to physically climb, and then stared up. At the handle. Far above her head.

She raised an arm weakly and stared at her outstretched fingers, still many inches from the bottom of the handle.

"Bwuh." Melia turned around to find Jessica cackling madly while covering her mouth. Alastair was much more of a gentleman, stepping forward to open the door.

"Allow me, your dragon-ness." Inside was much of the same. Melia found herself eye-to-wall with the bottom half of the reception counter, the lady completely unaware of her presence. She shook her head wryly. She signed up for this, she had no one to blame but herself.

"Good afternoon," Alastair said as he approached.

"Our party made a reservation here several days ago, possibly under McKenneth or Barnes?"

"Ah! The catkin. Yes, party for four, booked for a week with a possible hold for extensions. And you are…?"

"Trevain and Miller," Alastair supplied, pointing to himself and Jessica. Meanwhile, Melia had gotten bored of staring at the oak paneling, no matter how interesting the swirling patterns were. She tugged on Jessica's pants and raised her arms, the universal sign for up, up. Jessica, having spent too much time around the children in the orphanage, reacted without thinking. By the time her brain caught up, she had a gnome in her arms, nestled against her hip.

"And a dragon," Melia helpfully grinned, making her companions roll their eyes. The receptionist blinked in surprise at the small gnome before smiling brightly.

"Hello, Little One! We don't often get gnomes this far west, but we should have a halfling bed that should fit you well. We can have it delivered to your rooms?"

"Let's meet up with the others," Alastair denied her tactfully. They weren't sure yet if Melia was officially joining them as they hadn't actually had all their members meet.

"Very well," the receptionist bowed gracefully.

"Please let us know of any accommodation requirements." A short walk carried them (literally in Melia's case) up the first flight of stairs to the second floor. Melia was surprised to find they reserved two rooms, but it was explained that the second floor mostly had cheaper, two bed rooms that weren't meant for much more than sleeping. Jessica and Alastair had one while Ellesea and Y'cennia shared the other. A quick knock at the door had a chipper, frisky voice answering.

"Coming~! It's abo– oh." The door swung open and Melia got her very first look at a real life catgirl. Beastkin came in many shapes and forms back in the game and Melia wouldn't doubt it if there were even more in the real world. The game had certain presets players could choose during character creation, such as "Tabby, Siamese, or Tiger," for cat variants, or "Husky, Retriever, or Wolf," for dogs, but players weren't limited to simple templates. Neither were those templates all that different from each other.

The base form of all beastkin was human, they simply had ears on top of their head instead of on the side, tails sticking out of their back, and sometimes different pupils in their eyes. Y'cennia, the girl Melia was certain was standing in front of her, had bright orange hair with jagged black highlights, hinting at a "tiger" lineage, with emerald green cat eyes. Her eye teeth were perhaps a bit longer and sharper than a human's, too.

"You must be Y'cennia," Melia cheerfully broke the awkward air.

"I don't think I ever personally knew anybody from the Y clan. Are they mostly all tigers?" The girl perked up and nodded quickly. She stepped aside and let everybody walk inside, and as Melia passed, she could taste the acrid smell of burnt alchemical ingredients on her. This was definitely an [Alchemist].

"At least four generations back," Y'cennia admitted, collecting herself.

"I'm surprised a gnome is familiar with niche catkin traditions."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Melia said as Jessica set her down.

"'Y' is the clan name, 'cennia' is your given name, and McKenneth is your family name."

"That's right," said another voice. Melia turned to see the final member of her potentially new party sitting on a bed. She was regretfully short, not that Melia had a leg to stand on in that argument, being barely any taller standing up than she was sitting on the bed. The top of her head barely reached Jessica's shoulders, and she was only average height. Ellesea could not have been 5 feet tall. That still put her height at double Melia's.

She had the look and feel of a quintessential [Mage]: long, silver hair pulled into a braid and tossed over a shoulder, a large, wide brimmed cone hat, and robes that obscured her shoes. She had a gnarled staff leaning against the bed and a thick, heavy grimoire was open on top of it. Her cool, collected face melted the moment Melia turned to face her. Her cheeks turned a rosy pink and she wiggled in glee.

"Oh, she's adorable! Can we keep her?" Melia quickly felt herself being swept into a crushing hug, revealing not only that Ellesea was fairly well endowed up top in her baggy robes, but she was a sucker for cute things, which Melia most certainly was, if she said so herself. She could have easily escaped the [Mage]'s grasp, not exactly known for their strength stats, but Melia was touch-starved from her long imprisonment and really needed a good hug.

As long as the girl didn't try anything handsy, Melia didn't mind being a teddy bear for a while.

"Eh," Alastair coughed lightly to try and take control of the situation.

"Team. Right, team meeting. Melia, this is the rest of our team. We mentioned it before, but Y'cennia is our [Alchemist] healer and Ellesea is an Arcane [Mage]. Team, this is Melia." The two new girls looked to Melia, obviously expecting a little more than that.

"Just Melia" was something like they would expect from a floozy barmaid. Jessica cackled.

"She's a dragon [Bard]."

"I'm not a [Bard]," Melia rolled her eyes and squirmed free. She stuck her hands on her hips and pouted up at Jessica, who couldn't seem to get that right. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Oh, and you're so much of a dragon, then?" Jessica teased right back.

"Yeah!" Melia smiled mischievously.

"Watch!" Before the two new girls could figure out if this was some sort of inside joke or not, Melia thrust her hands out, squatting down, and screwed her eyes shut. Dragons in the game had four forms. The first was entirely cosmetic: their true form. The second was a smaller version of a real dragon, a whelp. It was tiny and chubby and had itty bitty wings that flapped rapidly and let them hover at eye level. This was done so players could still feel like a dragon while lounging in their favorite main city.

The next two were the ones people actually played as, since they had access to all their class skills and abilities. There were no performance differences between them in the game, but there were differences for in-game lore. Physically, one was their base race form, a human, dwarf, elf, gnome, -kin, elf, or whatever they chose. The other was their "draconic" version, which was that same base, but with horns and a tail.

Many players complained that the draconic base made them look like lizardkin, but that's what they got. In lore, the difference was supposed to be much more striking. The base form was supposed to be the disguise a dragon used to blend seamlessly into society, how they infiltrated kingdoms and enacted their plans. It was severely weakened as it focused entirely on stealth, subterfuge, and blending in, sacrificing a dragon's monstrous strength. The draconic base was a middle ground.

It gave back a good chunk of that strength, not nearly as much as their true form, but it doubled or tripled the stats that had been weakened. So Melia, not wanting to destroy the inn, was going to try and bring out her draconic form. She never really used it in game, mostly preferring the huge dragon or the tiny gnome, but she designed it to be huggable and adorable, much in the same way that gnomes were chibi versions of humans.

Melia felt deep within herself, a mysterious, budding energy swirling around her belly, or maybe her lungs, or even her heart. It shifted as it moved, likely part of her new anatomy she didn't have any clue about, being a dragon with natural flame sacs and two hearts: a mana heart and a normal one. She grunted deeply and forced that energy to split, sending some of it up to her head to manifest her horns, and the rest to shove out her tail.

But it was stuck, like she'd eaten a huge meal and she felt stuffed, or like she was really, really constipated. She grit her teeth and squatted down low, bringing her arms close to her chest as she grunted physically.

"Oh shoot, wait, Melia if you really need to go there's a bathroom right down the-." Jessica's eyes went wide, having been around enough of the younger kids at the orphanage to know that particular stance. And boy, she did not have cleaning up gnome poo as part of her daily goals. But she was far too slow, as by the time she reached out her hand, something hit the floor with a wet, fleshy plop.

"Ahhh, much better!" Jessica froze in horror… but the soil she expected did not come. Instead, the tiny gnome really did transform… in so much as she could barely justify the term. From the side of Melia's glistening black hair, just above her temples, two great, fat horns erupted. For how thick they were, they were quite stubby, but they looked enormously sturdy and hard. They curved immediately after leaving her skull, pointing straight into the air above her, sticking up several inches over her head.

And there was the source of the… noise. Jessica leaned to the side and easily saw a huge, chubby tail laying lazily on the ground directly behind the gnome's legs. The thing was massive, taking up nearly her entire back where it erupted from her tailbone, thick and squishy and possibly the least threatening thing Jessica could ever dream of. If the gnome had been a doll or stuffed animal, she would have fit right in with some pampered, spoiled aristocratic daughter's bedroom.

"See?! See?!" Melia proudly exclaimed, bouncing around. Alastair simply slapped his hands over his face and groaned. Y'cennia looked supremely confused and Ellesea looked like she wanted to kidnap the gnome, but Jessica's jaw was working…only no words came out.

"Yes," she eventually said, mechanically.

"Yes. I see. Congratulations." If anything, she had to admire the gnome's dedication to the bit. Whatever transformation spell she had used to give herself horns and a tail was masterfully crafted, blending in seamlessly unlike so many poorly regulated polymorphs, and Melia seemed to have full control over them as well. It most certainly could not have been cheap, and there had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of better ways to spend that money.

Because this was most certainly the least draconic thing the gnome could ever have done, if she was really trying to be a dragon, or claiming to be a dragon in disguise like she was. Dragons were all about power, might, and authority, not… squishy, cuddly hugs. Sensing that this inside joke was above her pay grade, Y'cennia recovered first.

"Not a [Bard]?" she asked. She and Ellesea had not been given any information about their potential teammate when Alastair had sent the letter the previous morning, which was short and to the point, saying they had a lead on a potential member that was powerful but quirky. He obviously didn't feel the need to splurge for a live call at a Communicatiorium, which would have allowed them to talk in real time across the kingdom, but it was exponentially more expensive than a simple letter.

She wished he had though, because this… might be too weird, even for them. Instead, she tried to focus on something she could understand, like real, actual classes. Having a [Bard] on the team would be a huge boon, but why did Jessica bring it up if the gnome instantly denied it?

"Not a [Bard]," Melia rolled her eyes, which had become those of a dragon's, with vertical slits. Most of the party found themselves staring at them whenever she looked at them.

"Please," Jessica begged, "Give it a rest? For a minute?" She turned to the girls to explain.

"The first night we met, Melia was telling stories to the kids at the abbey. We stayed to listen, because we figured she was the one we heard rumors about all day, and they weren't wrong. Both Al and I got [Rested Bonus] for listening…," she bragged, watching the envy form in real time, slowly dragging it out, "... for an entire level." Ellesea threw her hands in the air and flopped backwards onto her bed while Y'cennia looked like she swallowed sour milk.

Melia felt herself wilt a little, though she did her best to keep her gigantic smile on her face. She knew all too well what a difference in level could do to friends who were leveling in a video game… it did weird things to some people. She'd heard of friendships getting destroyed because one person leveled while another couldn't log on, and then they got into huge fights about advantages, cutting ahead, or leaving the other behind. It often got messy.

Melia remembered Jessica telling her their team's ranks and levels. Jessica was 243, Alastair was 287, Ellesea was 312, while Y'cennia was only 198. It was harder for non-combat professions to level like a dedicated tank or dps, so it made sense that she would feel touchy if the rest of the gang got a buff that essentially made them pull further away.

"Ah, look," Jessica said awkwardly, most likely realizing what she'd stepped in.

"Levels…levels aren't everything. We aren't replacing you or leaving you out or anything, you know that!" Y'cennia nodded but looked absolutely gutted. Like it was only a matter of time before the "new girl" replaced her. Melia marched up firmly and placed a hand on her thigh.

"Hey," she said seriously, holding the [Alchemist] captive in her gaze.

"The Festival starts tonight, right? Come with me. I'll show you something good." Y'cennia was subdued for the rest of the day while Ellesea kept trying to sneak up on Melia to trap her in a hug. Jessica sat and watched, vindicated, as the gnome became somebody else's problem, until it suddenly struck her that Melia had already sort of become part of the team.

That gave her a thoughtful frown, even as Melia undid her ridiculous transformation that gave her horns and a tail, after she'd stabbed their poor mage in the boob. Alastair had retreated to his room to get some rest before the festival and Jessica couldn't blame him. For a day basically filled with nothing, she felt wiped out. Melia, on the other hand, had unlimited energy… both the generic, everyday sort and the very real resource that fueled most of her [Rogue] abilities.

She spent the better part of an hour profusely apologizing to poor Ellesea, who in retrospect had gotten what she deserved when she eventually managed to "catch" Melia, who obviously let it happen. But Melia had not anticipated nearly skewering the poor girl in an incredibly sensitive spot, not with six inch horns harder than adamantium. She was surprised there wasn't blood. Melia herself was not small (proportionately), and she felt a little queasy.

At least that tempered the playful mood in the room and let everybody rest. She didn't need it, but it was obvious her new friends were tired. She idly wondered if this was how kids felt looking up at their parents after a long road trip. To make it up to the girl, Melia sat and listened as the [Mage] started talking about her lessons. Apparently she was a student at the kingdom's premier magic university, Arcanus Scholastia.

She only had classes a couple of days a week, not every day, so she could still take part in other things. In fact, it was actually encouraged by the administration, as students could only learn so much from books, and practical lessons only went so far. While they could not force a student to become an adventurer, and most students did not, hailing from affluent or prestigious families, they highly recommended some sort of physical extracurricular activity.

Ellesea was no exception, hailing from a wealthy aristocratic family of low nobility, and her declaration to become an adventurer was met with a not-inconsiderable amount of pushback. She was stubborn, and in the end got her way, and she dove into both sides of her life, scholastic and adventure, head first. It did not hurt Melia's interest that the girl was an Arcane [Mage] either. Melia had long moved on from playing her [Mage], but when she did, it was full Arcane.

It was not the strongest or most efficient, since those included hybrid talents in other trees, but Melia owned it to her own level of success. So she listened raptly as Ellesea explained abstract concepts that flew over everybody else's heads but she found herself nodding along as if being reminded of something she knew long ago and had merely forgotten. Melia was also intrigued to learn of some of the differences between the Arcane branch that she followed versus the one Ellesea described to her.

There were tons of similarities, more than there were differences, but there were a few that caused Melia to jolt in surprise, thinking "What? Why?", but she kept that to herself. If she managed to integrate herself into the team, she would definitely share her opinions, but for now she didn't want to rock the boat. That went especially for the young, budding [Alchemist]. Melia desperately wanted to talk shop with the girl, see what she knew and what she wanted out of her class.

As a max level [Alchemist] herself, Melia was spoiling to give all sorts of helpful tidbits and advice, things she learned to help make crafting easier, and maybe even kickstart some projects with an infusion of materials. Oh God, materials. Crafting professions nearly bankrupted Melia early in the game, as it had many players besides her. Some even in real life, if they fell prey to real money trading schemes to fuel their addictions, but that wasn't Melia.

But since this was real life now, she knew how important it was to any young crafter to get their hands on any sort of materials. Quantity was a quality all of its own in the early stages, where fundamentals and good habits needed to be built, and things like "outcome rarity" would come later. Melia had to be careful with how she approached the young [Alchemist], especially after witnessing how devastated she had been to find half of her party had a buff to pull their levels further away.

That was another real worry for a crafter who relied on a combat class. If the crafter needed lower level materials than was worth it for the combat class to gather… well, tensions rose easily and fractures appeared. Which was why Melia had decided to share something special with the crew at the Festival that night.

If it was anything like she thought it would be, like it had been in the game, Melia knew she had a surprise up her sleeve that, while it wouldn't even the playing field, would show her intent to not leave anybody behind. She was not a [Bard]. No matter how much Jessica wished it were so or tried to will it into existence. However, Melia was not without her support classes. She was, in fact, a [Dancer]. The [Dancer] class had come out at the same time as a race of bunny girls were released by the game devs. …

Never mind the fact that there were boy rabbits in the rabbitkin, to Melia, and to most of the world, they were all bunny girls. The class was meant to be a DPS class, which traded some raw damage up front for buffs to the entire party, which in theory averaged them out to be viable. Melia didn't know anything about that, because she never cared for the ultra-sweaty min-maxing of top-end guilds, but she found she did enjoy the class much more than when [Bard] came out.

[Dancers] were a mix of rhythm, combo, damage, and support. They wore extremely revealing translucent silk clothing on top of high rise bikini briefs: the stereotypical harem pants made popular by early television shows portraying genies and stories of "Arabian Nights". As a sharp- literally -contrast, they bore twin chakrams, often styled in the fashion of circular sawblades.

Melia, always a sucker for giant weapons on her tiny gnome, had two such blades, which were almost as tall as she was herself, easily able to fit around her like a hoop. She checked her inventory and smiled. Her outfit was still there where she left it, one of the few she carried around with her since she used it in roleplaying from time to time, as were her weapons.

Unlike the game, she could not simply exchange one outfit for the next, instantly slipping out of her goth bitch-breaker persona into "I dream of harems". But she did have something that would work as a close second. A personal [Changing Room]. In the game, it wasn't really an item as much as it was part of the system itself, but it allowed her to try on any outfit she found in the game, either by [Inspecting] it or [Identifying] a link.

A small rectangular room would materialize around her, where she could view how her character would look, and then either revert the changes and go back to playing or change into it, provided she actually had the clothes. And unlike her [Reverie of the Midnight Queen], her [Sultana's Favor] was a complete, functional, end game set, with all its stats and multi piece bonuses.