Katelyn.

  It was dark, the room finally filled with the soft snores of its sleeping occupant, when Katelyn next chose to move.

  Her body shifted, melting away from its prior ruse and transforming into a visage of a small rat.

  The monster-girl smiled with her rodent-esque lips, scurrying across the bedding and down onto the floor, only to then race up the side of the nearby desk where she sat on her rodent haunches and observed the young man that had unwittingly carried her all through the day.

  His sleeping face was almost cute.

  His boyish features were absent of any stubble or apparent beard, and his messy, fxen hair,, disheveled as it was while he slept, was of a color she found appreciable.

  He was—handsome in his own way… Thin and nearly tall, with brooding grey-brown eyes and sharp, almost aggressive bone structure.

  He could have passed as a model back in her world, face sharing in that bizarre sudo-attractiveness that was perfect at the right angle but somewhat stranger without the ideal conditions.

  Far from bad, and definitely unique.

  She considered the young man she'd tricked into helping her escape, earnestly surprised that her little ploy with the mundane silver chain had actually gone off so fwlessly…

  She could definitely see how simply leaving the dungeon without first having witnessed the outside world might have caused some issues…

  That checkpoint and the truth orbs they used could have easily ensnared her in a thick web of problems had she not known what their purpose was nor how they seemed to function.

  Given that the boy—well, the young man had skirted the truth while exposed to one, she suspected that they were far less a foolproof tool and more a means to aid in a clerk's immediate judgment.

  She wasn't sure if her hoard of loot would count as needing decration as she was theoretically departing from the dungeon with a veritable fortune of valuables, but she suspected it probably might…

  No, her split-second decision to venture beyond Abby's depths for a little exploratory investigation was already providing dividends for any future ventures beyond her friend's influence.

  Abby—probably wasn't terribly happy she'd up and fucked off so soon, but the dungeon hadn't been in a talkative mood, so she just assumed that the other girl would figure it out sooner or ter regardless.

  She clicked her tiny tongue, wondering if she shouldn't just—kill the mage here and now, silencing him before he got too compcent with his safety—but she sort of liked the abrasive bastard and would feel shitty if she just murdered him after all had gone through.

  Hell, even she had been rooting for him to somehow pull the whole 'lying through his teeth' thing off! Less viewing him as a snack and more as something she found, oddly enough, interesting.

  It would sort of be like squashing an ant after piling heaps upon heaps of sand on it while continuously watching it burrow through its many trials...

  Cruelty just for the sake of it…

  And yeah, she could have her bouts of morally reprehensible decisions and abrupt urges to snuff out life from something, but for the most part, Katelyn adopted a responsibly hunter-like mentality.

  Death for the sake of sport could be amusing, but she wanted her kills to mean something so they didn't feel needlessly wasteful! Sure, she'd get a snack and, sure, some experience, but… Abby wouldn't be getting his soul, and honestly, the benefits of riding around in high-profile meetings so she could listen in and eavesdrop was a fairly substantial boon she'd received.

  Getting to pce the face and name against the previously shadowy organization that she would be presumably battling was nice.

  And she'd learned quite a lot about her new world in the past day.

  In all honesty, she saw little reason to throw away such a useful asset.

  That said, listening to the kid snore all night while she just—sat there was boring as all hell! So, having taken upon herself the guise of a tiny animal, Kate slipped under the room's wooden door and made her way to a rather interesting room that they'd passed through on their way in.

  She'd hardly moved through the warmly lit passageways, their dark interiors illuminated by softly bobbing magic orbs drifting along the ceiling, before she heard the unruly and uproarious cheer of merrymaking, which sted well into the night.

  Watching from the precipice of the spacious stairwell, the boisterous and rowdy cmor of drunken patrons filled her tiny ears while the shadows of their many bodies danced and shifted within the glow of bright firelight.

  Shrouded as she was, none seemed to pay her presence any mind as the odd smattering of people stumbled their way up the stairs, likely heading off to rented rooms to sleep or make love with those who held them in soft embraces.

  It was—cheery… And Katelyn found her mood elevating by the moment as she listened, contempting if she wanted to join—or if it might be better to simply lurk upon some wooden beam or other, perhaps while listening to the many conversations that perforated the chamber.

  The answer was rather obvious from a certain—responsible perspective… However, when was the st time she had herself a good drink?

  Deciding there was probably little she really had to worry about given there were equally few of those below that seemed concerning to her, Katelyn darted towards the nearest alcove she could find, shifting her body to one of the personas she'd been toying with in her spare time.

  It wasn't her real body, as she'd begun regarding the petite and blond elven woman she'd first transformed into, but rather, a more square-jawed and tanned raven-haired beauty with pale violet eyes and a canvas of soft freckles. It was her—well, it was a personal favorite that contended with her first appearance for some time now.

  This one being a touch more reminiscent of her old self in both proportions and species. Human rather than elf, taller but not a beanpole, curvy but not notably so given how svelte she was.

  It was, as it happened, a body that she felt—comfortable enough with to sit at a bar and enjoy a few drinks. No less stunning to behold, but less the tragic and angelic princess that the elven variation appeared as.

  This girl had a bit more of a street-wise bite to her!

  Clothes magically appeared from her bottomless trove, a previously put-together outfit that was made from a mashup of the outright department store quantity of clothes she'd collected, all of which let her blend in with its sorted, weathered, and ill-matching appearance.

  Tight leather breeches that were covered in discolored patches of shallow grooves that hadn't yet bitten clean through. Tall bck boots, worn and comfortable, reached halfway up her calves, buckled with tarnished csps and slightly dusty at their soles.

  A blue cloth tunic that exposed a good deal of her muscur stomach, it's center ced with dark and oiled strands that purposefully exposed just a little cleavage from her purposefully bold and prodigious chest.

  Her arms were bare, her hair tied into a single long braid, legs and hips fashioned with a myriad of small bdes and knives. Though she didn't actually possess the css, it was ultimately the rogue that she took inspiration from.

  However, Katelyn knew she could pass herself off as a ranger all the same. In fact, she even adjusted her phony status page as such, altering her level to six, two in rogue, two in ranger and two for her base body.

  Nothing special by way of observation, but she did make a small handful of addendums once descending into the tavern and spying on a few nearby patrons.

  Katelyn made her quiet and quick adjustments the same moment her foot touched the stained and well-sanded floor.

  Several patrons immediately seemed to turn her way, eyes of a predominantly male sort but not exclusively so, observing her with an assorted variety of emotions and curious gnces as she wandered her way over toward the semi-crowded bar.

  Finding a seat wasn't terribly difficult as the bartop stretched from one side of the room to the other. Behind it, five seemingly overworked tenders rushed about while trying to fulfill orders while waitresses weaved and danced through the field tables, carrying refills or empties to and from the kegs as the hive of frantic activity continued around her!

  Kate sat herself upon a free seat that had an empty space to either side, her presence being noted by a nearby barman who nodded at her as if to say he'd be there in but a moment.

  The hectic insanity of the tavern was—exciting! The st time she'd been to a nightclub, this rambunctious was—hell… Bianca's birthday? It was sometimes hard to remember… parts of her previous life were already starting to dissipate into amalgamated memory…

  Concerning, but not in a way that really bothered her, this new life had become absolutely more fun than her st, and besides, she really didn't care too strongly after those that had been left behind.

  Nearer her ter days while at college, Katelyn hadn't exactly—gone out to party as she'd used to…

  The bizarre reality that was her using her real ID to get into bars less often than she had with her fake one was—somewhat amusing…

  Still, school hadn't left her with any sort of windfall of disposable income that wasn't tied to her family's credit card, which she'd always caught fck for using at bar, so her partying days had sort of just—evaporated as she'd attended college, the effect only getting worse near her st years.

  Given it had been so long for her, this was actually something of a pleasant surprise!

  "Ay, don't recognize ya ss, but, even if you're good lookin', I've got ta be fair with the price just as everyone else!" A bartender grinned, sliding into the space before her with a near-expert grace; he pnted both hands on the counter, his cheery disposition free of any hint of ulterior motives or designs.

  However, with a slight nod in the direction just over her right shoulder, the man continued in a slightly hushed tone that was filled with wry entertainment. "Just taking the piss, ss! And your first round’s already been bought and paid for by a group of grinning gentlemen sitting right over yonder table."

  "Really?" Kate inquired, an eyebrow raised as she turned, eyeing the men in question while delighting in the fact she was getting so much attention!

  Getting hit on this quickly was a straight-up dopamine injection that had her smiling with genuine pleasure!

  "Heh, things move fast around here… You can take it and whatever expectations might arise with it, or I can take your coin and tell them you said to piss off and let ya drink your peace!"

  Kate shifted, somewhat surprised, again gncing over her shoulder where there was indeed a group of young men watching her as they sat around a game of dice. Each waiting with bated breath as though in expectation of her decision.

  "They don't think they're buying me, do they?" She asked, a quirk to her delighted smile lifting as she turned back around to the barman.

  "Nay, but one might get the courage to come over and 'av himself a seat if you take it, invitations and all that."

  "You know what, I'll take whatever it is they want to buy me! And, can I drag a chair over and sit with them?"

  "Of course! No need to bother asking, miss, this ain't some fancy alehouse up upstreet from Stiptee! We're all a little rough around the edges here!"

  She grinned at him, nodding along with what she'd heard before accepting the frankly massive Stein of—surprisingly not that cold beer while the man who'd served her wandered away to his next patron with a wave goodbye.

  There was a cheer from the table that bought her the drink, which only redoubled with excitement when she turned and toasted them; then they got even louder when she wandered over and dragged a nearby chair!

  "Thanks for the free drink!" She ughed, seating herself between two of the young men who scooted away to make room, each staring at her as though dumbfounded she'd walked right over.

  "Thank you for having such a fine rump!"

  "Here here!" another chimed in, upending his beverage before smming it on the table. "Penny! We need another round over here!" He shouted, gaining the momentary attention of a bustling barmaid who did little more than nod her weary head, "And, whose turn was it with the dice?"

  "Now, Richard, there's no need to jump right back in; we've got a girl with us now! Surely that's more interesting than a few hands of sevens?"

  "Oh, and who are you ta say she didn't come over to join in? Surely you don't assume a fine ss like that's interested in your craggy mug!"

  "Better pox scars than being born ugly!"

  "Ugly? I'll have ye know my mother's told me I'm the most handsome prince alive since I was but a babe on the teet, no offense, but I trust her word more than yours!"

  The group ughed with each other, all grins and smiles without a sembnce of sore feelings to be seen, the bright cheeks and bubbly demeanors all speaking towards the notion that each of them was piss drunk.

  To her left, Richard, acne scars and all, scooped up the two ivory dice they were pying with and rattled them in his hand, "Y'know how to py?"

  "I do not," Katelyn reported, though she leaned in with curiosity to eye the various stacks and piles of copper coins that littered the table in front of each participant, their eager and merry expressions looking perfectly patient.

  Their eyes contented themselves with wandering below her chin, none bothering to be obvious about what they were staring at, and Kate let them enjoy the way her braless tits shifted and wobbled as she leaned over the table.

  It really didn't bother her much… Self-consciousness and anxiety over her appearance and the dangers associated with being a woman—weren't among the short list of things she felt herself worrying over.

  Instead, their looks were more tickling at her greatly infting narcissism and akin to a puppy's loving stare, harmless to her and somewhat amusing as it was gratifying to the hard work that went into her appearance!

  "The games rather simple love! Fast paced, but easy to learn and jump on! The goal, you see, is to take these here dice," Richard gestured, rolling them in his hand, "A try yer best at rolling as many doubles as ya can! Each time you do so, everyone else has to toss in another copper! You get five rolls or, until you roll a seven, then, you get one more roll, and that's that, off they go to your mates!"

  "Afterwards," another of them chimed in, "The next bloke repeats the process, and we go round and round until, eventually, someone rolls two sevens in a row! And whoever does get to take the pot!"

  "Ah, sometimes you get miserable luck and roll sevens right on the get-go!"

  "Others," Richard added, "Ain't nobody rolling doubles so the pot stays at its initial buy-in; it's a fun and reasonably simple game for those that like their liquor and ta pit themselves against the fortunes of those around them without all that pesky nonsense that card pyers have ta deal with!

  C'mon, you can watch us py a round to get the gist of it. Then join in for the next one if you're feeling so inclined!"

  So saying, the group of friends began tossing coins and dice as they cheered, booed, ughed, and argued with each other over the validity of crooked rolls, Katelyn finding herself rather taken by the fun she started having when she produced a handful of coppers from her purse and started pying right along with them!

  It was well into the morning when their heads fell upon the table, and Kate finally decided to rise. The alcohol didn't actually do anything to her, much as the rogue's poison had been ineffectual.

  Sadly, though much of it did imitate a normal body to mirror its functions, her internal workings were to mammalian life as a true extra-terrestrial might be. Alien, if not somewhat familiar in form.

  And since she didn't have blood to perform the same function, the stuff merely existing for theatrical sake, the booze she consumed was more for—taste than anything else.

  She heard a groan of agony from somewhere nearby as she looked about herself and noted just how many people had passed out in the bar… Already, a new set of workers had stationed themselves behind the counter, now supplying water and food rather than liquor and mead.

  Large and muscled men and women moved from table to table to poke and prod the drunken crowd into extracting themselves in the time-honored understanding that one could go wherever they wanted, so long as it wasn't here.

  She got a few curious looks as Kate deposited the somewhat scavenged remains of her copper coins; luck had not been entirely on her side... However, with as much as she had, a few handfuls of copper were basically couch-change to her. Moreover, they had all been buying her drinks all night. Not one of them willing to see her out of pocket for that, at the very least.

  Pretty good guys, all things considered, and if she ever ran into them in the dungeon, well, she'd try to be nice about it...

  She yawned, stretching with pleasant ease, before wandering back the way she'd come earlier that morning and setting off towards Markus's room as though she hadn't a care in the world.

  The door was locked, but upon a quick inspection of the hall to make sure nobody was nearby, she transformed into another rat and slipped under the crack, storing her clothes before sneaking back into his bed, where she once more took upon the guise of a simple silver chain.

  The disturbance was enough to cause the young man to grumble something unintelligible, Markus rolling over before abruptly shooting upright with wide eyes and panting breath!

  His gaze darted through the sparse and humble room as though expecting himself to be elsewhere… Though his nerves seemed to—settle as his fingers moved to touch Kate's metal links.

  They remained there for a time, holding her without a sembnce of suspicion as to their true nature, his fingers tightening around her as though working himself up to break what he thought as some cursed artifact, yet, ultimately, he allowed his hand to fall away…

  "Ahhh… going to need to—visit home again…" He groaned, shifting his legs off the mattress while staring bnkly at the wall. "No money, no team, no equipment… Ha! Even if I wanted to go back in… how by Sprigg's tits would I even start?

  Just wander up to some random team and ask to join them? Oh, and by the by, my st team was completely wiped out except for myself, of course, and I don't have a magic focus, so I'll need to borrow one or just be—useless…

  Sure, that'd be swell for you to come along and take an entire portion of our loot and experience while contributing nothing in return! Of course, we'll treat you right! Now, come right this way to the dark alley, where our associates will take the clothes off your back!"

  The young man paused, scoffing at his own maddened rambles as he plopped back on the bed, one of his hands covering his eyes. "Hmph, maybe I'd even get lucky, and they'd steal the neckce… Who knows? Maybe if it's not me who takes it off, I won't die when whatever horrible magic inside it blows everything up in a block-wide radius!"

  Markus ground at his teeth while rising again, exiting the room and smming the door as he entered the hallway with a decidedly gloomy set to his shoulders.

  Kate wasn't sure how his imagination exactly managed some of the assumptions he was clearly working with; however, she also wasn't going to argue.

  Hell, Kate hadn't even explicitly stated that the damned thing would do anything to him! Sure, maybe it was implied, but his brain had, for the most part, done an apparently far better job at selling the deception than she ever could!

  His stomach growled as he stomped along the passageways; Markus made short work of proving his prior outburst to be more of a—self-deprecating and annoyed nature than anything approaching reality.

  The young man led them to a sort of guild-run bank where he retrieved a pin and unadorned staff, a small pouch of coins, and a new pair of spectacles. Though, unlike the ones she'd plucked from the dirt after knocking him out, these had a discernible crack through the left lens that did little to seemingly brighten his dour mood.

  Markus then stomped along the cobbled roadway through the city streets as he moved from a somewhat dipidated and run-down series of neighborhoods before emerging into a slightly—affluent part of the city.

  One where he eventually appeared before the gates of a well-manicured estate and impressive, if not small, home. It was far from any sort of mansion that would otherwise mark him as belonging to the nobility or exorbitantly wealthy parents, but it was a humble and quite nice house all the same.

  The building was much more akin to a kind of early nineteenth-century townhouse. Only the property was once again as wide on either side before a wrought-iron fence marked its shared perimeter with the neighbors.

  It was freshly painted with a bright-white finish and even brighter blue shutters and trim, all at once impressively gaudy and somehow—charming in its own weird sort of way.

  Honestly, it was imminently humanizing to what had otherwise been a somewhat detached concept of a fantastical magic city. Even if it had thus far appeared so more in name than visible function…

  For the most part, Taeldra looked and felt like what most cities were like. Crowded, filled with low-income apartments, and vivisected by countless construction projects that seemed more a hamper on the citizenry than any notable boon…

  This was the first example of what she might call a nicer suburb that was less akin to downtown slum life and more approaching something she was accustomed to.

  All the same, with his head hanging, Markus pushed at the squealing gate, causing nearby birds to take flight to escape the horrid sound; all the while, a dog within the interior of the home began losing its marbles while the young man performed his very own walk of shame…

  Hardly a single knock at the door resolved a suited and elegant-looking fellow with a waxed mustache and the most—curious features.

  Rather than another human or elf, Katelyn got her first real good look at what she might have named a beast-man.

  Slim, mousey, not just with wordpy, sporting gelled hair that approached the wet side of stylish, the rather short and middling aged gentleman animal-man seemed to gawk at Markus's person for a long moment before his face bloomed into a friendly grin!

  "Master Markus!" He enthused, just loud enough, Kate thought, to alert those inside as to whom had approached their lovely home. Around him, a small—corgi-like creature with an insatiable lust for waking the dead with its endless yips and barks scrambled about the tiled floors as though someone had injected it with cocaine! "It has been too long; come, come inside; your mother and father will be so excited to see you!"

  Markus frowned, staring at the insane little canine as it ran in circles, then at the trim butler, before turning around and marching right back the way he'd come.

  "Ah—Master Markus?" The man called, looking for all the world like he hadn't a clue what was happening!

  The young man was practically seething at the teeth as his whitening knuckles shook at his sides while walking away. He got halfway down the street, turned a corner, and then quickly darted into the nearest alleyway between shops, choosing the first alcove avaible.

  There, he simply waited. Head leaning back against the reddish bricks while just standing there as though trying to regain his composure... Right on the verge of some emotional issue as he was.

  Katelyn had seen enough and more or less gotten what she'd wanted besides.

  Thankfully for her boredom, the young man had gone directly to visit his family, thus letting her know where they lived… So, it was about time to be done with all of this regardless… though novel, bouncing around under the youth's robes as a chain was—very boring…

  Her spiritual form drifted, taking a peek around the corners to see if anyone was nearby. As it happened, the street was fairly busy, but nobody was around them at that particur moment.

  She shifted within heartbeats, the chain that had rested around his neck resolving itself into the form of a delicate but powerful hand, the same body from just that morning reappearing in a horrible mass of shifting colors and unduting flesh until she was standing before him, naked but crushing at his windpipe while holding him against the wall.

  His eyes had bulged during her rapid transformation, yet he hadn't moved so much as a muscle once she'd begun squeezing… Her soft violet eyes gred at the younger man while she stared him down with bloodthirsty intent.