Chapter 6: Chapter 5: New Scenario

Ellie kept her head straight, trying desperately not to look back at Tess’s lovely new form. She would be lying if she said this wasn’t a situation she had often fantasized about; somehow, Thomas would get transformed into a girl, and would have to go on the run to avoid intensive government probing. As a matter of course, Ellie would flee with the newly transformed Thomas, and the two would, over time, grow closer and closer together until at last they would break their unspoken agreement and become lovers.

That was scenario A, anyway. The content and how fantastical each scenario was did vary, but they always contained the part about growing closer and becoming lovers. And…here she was, in the middle of one. And, to make things crazier, Tess had turned out so much better than she ever had even in Ellie’s most wild fantasies.

Then, her train of thought ground to a halt as she realized something. There was the potential that, if Tess absorbed the core of an animal-like monster, she could get the ears and tails of that animal. Right, that would be priority number one on her little list of “things to get Tess to do”. Scenario D might not be a pipe dream after all. Well, all her scenarios had been pipe dreams until this morning, but that one had been a bit more distant than the others.

She spent the rest of their walk practically salivating over the possibilities. She would have to play it cool, though; she was still in the closet, and now probably wasn’t the best time to come out. So, she was hoping that the theoretical awkwardness of being around a newly transformed person would cover for her strange behavior.

Her musings were cut short as her grandpa ushered them into a small room. Inside were The Rumors and, surprisingly, Ess. Gramps shut the door behind them, locking it and muttering a spell.

“I have already received your permission, but let me ask again,” He said, “do all of you, save Ellie and Tess, consent to this Fatebinder’s Oath?”

There was a chorus of assent, so Gramps nodded at Tess. “Go stand over near them. Ess will need you there for the ceremony.”

The Rumors were giving Tess some curious looks, but she walked up to in front of them anyway. Once she had, Ess stepped forward, and began to speak in a slow, careful voice, an almost palpable tension filling the air.

“Ker, Jin, and Alice, I ask you in the name of the God of Fate if you will swear to tell no one about Tess’s special capabilities or this Oath until the day she dies or releases you from the Oath.”

“By the God of Fate, we swear it.” They intoned.

Ess reached out, grabbing Tess’s hand in one of hers, and reached out her other towards The Rumors, who each grabbed part of it. “Then, as witness, I declare the Oath made, binding yourselves and myself to secrecy.” She dropped the hands and then yawned hugely, breaking any atmosphere that she had going on. “I’m going to go nap.” She said, “Oaths always take it out of me. Fill me in on the details later, guildmaster.”

“Of course,” Gramps replied, “thank you very much.”

Ess exited the room with another yawn, leaving everyone else just sort of…standing there.

But, not for long. Once the door had been shut, Alice began to speak. “Right,” she said flatly, “I think it’s time you explain yourself. I take my eyes off of you for two hours and suddenly you’ve got yourself turned into…this, and we have to swear a Fatebinder’s Oath, of all things. Spill it.”

Tess looked to Gramps, who shook his head. “I think it’s best you explain it. It’s your status, after all.”

“Um…ok.” Tess replied nervously. “So, after Ker had me go back home, I went to Gramps’ office so I could…go home. And Gramps was grilling me about why I was so discouraged, and so I told him about the Skills I got, and then he had me go beat the dungeon’s Challenge and try the Rewards Crystal and–”

Alice raised a hand. “Hold up there.” She said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Why would the guildmaster have you even attempt that? Everyone knows it’s the most worthless one of the lot so the danger isn’t even remotely worth it.”

Tess tapped the tips of her pointer fingers together nervously. “Uh, well, I might have been holding back on some of my capabilities. I was supposed to keep quiet but now that you’ve sworn the Oath I’ve been told it’s OK so…”

She took a deep breath. “The Goddess of Fortune has been keeping an eye on me and Ellie because of how closely tied we were to the situation with Mael, and then when I got the worst growths possible and Ellie got the best, she took pity on me and gave me her strongest blessing.”

Ker raised an eyebrow. “And, what does it do?”

“Well, if you, uh, look at my sheet, you’ll notice that my Luck is 0 and has 0 in all its growths. She said that’s because the blessing bypasses my Luck stat entirely and just gives me the best result in any situation it would be used.”

“What?!” Alice yelled, suddenly angry. “You have that, and you wanted to quit?! Do you have any idea how amazing that is!?”

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Jin placed a hand on her shoulder. “Alice, calm down. It’s a natural reaction to the day he had.” He turned back to Tess, then continued. “Uh, come to think of it, he or she?”

“She is fine, I guess,” Tess said sulkily, “I apparently don’t much care, though I’m willing to bet it’s the transformation’s fault for that. And if you didn’t catch it before, everyone’s calling me Tess now, so you might as well do that too.”

Jin nodded. “Right, well, Luck is a vitally important stat for freelancers. It controls how often your effects go off, how often you get hit with things, certain Skills require it to work, and it even affects how much experience you get and how often monsters drop things. It’s not flashy, but it’s effective. Ask Alice, she’s got low Luck, so she knows better than most how important it is.”

“Oh yeah!” Alice said, “how many cores did you leave on the ground back there?! Surely you got more than the rest of us.”

“Um…Every monster dropped a core. So, if I didn’t say anything then it was just left on the ground.”

Alice started to go over that in her head. “You killed probably 100 slimes, that many cores would add up to…”

“No,” Tess said in a small voice, “every slime. Including the ones you guys killed.”

Alice stopped, staring Tess dead in the eyes. “You…that’s hundreds of cores you just left there!” She sputtered, “You probably could have made a few gold from that!”

“Actually, that’s something I should talk about,” Gramps interrupted, “Tess, I’m going to have to ask that you don’t sell all the cores you get, at least not to other guild branches; there’s a real risk of crashing the market. It probably won’t be an issue with smaller cores like regular slime’s cores, but for things like Bertha’s core it’ll become a problem fast. If you’re around, come to me and I’ll buy them from you in bulk, and we can have the guild hold onto them in case of emergency. If you need cash fast and aren’t here, go ahead and sell a couple to other branches, but be careful about it. The same goes for other drops.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Tess replied, “that’s a good point.”

“We’re getting off-track,” Ker said, “and while this is obviously an important secret to keep, I don’t think the guildmaster had us swear an Oath just for that. You were talking about the Challenge, right? Please continue.”

“Oh, um, right,” Tess said, “so, I got a resistance Skill for all the elements the slimes in that Challenge use, and Gramps tested it, as long as there’s a possibility for me to resist a negative status effect, I will, so it was perfectly safe for me to try.”

Alice groaned. “That’s not fair. You don’t even know how good you have it.”

“Just ignore her,” Jin instructed.

“R-right. Um, I used the Rewards Crystal, and it gave me this Class called Monster Breeder, which did…this,” Tess gestured at her body. “And gave me four Skills.”

An expression of understanding flashed across Jin’s face. “Let me guess, one of them’s Phantasmal?”

Tess shrunk back into her oversized shirt. “Um…they kind of…all are.”

There was a long pause as The Rumors processed this, which was then broken by uproarious laughter from Ker. “I think that this counts as ‘some crazy Skill or something’,” he said, walking over and clapping Tess on the back. “That blessing alone probably would have let you get by in some higher-level dungeons, but four Phantasmal Skills on top of it? You’ll be totally capable of making your way to the very top, stats or no. Let’s hear about them, shall we?”

As Tess explained, Ellie got to thinking. Apparently, the Goddess of Fortune had been keeping an eye on them, and she was at least somewhat involved with Tess’s change, so…was it possible that the Goddess of Fortune knew about Ellie’s sapphic scenarios and had tweaked things? It wasn’t…right?

Ellie jumped as a screen popped up in front of her, unbidden.

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