The Outlands

Thomas groaned, stirring. He looked around curiously and found himself lying in a bed in an unfamiliar room.

What was the last thing that had happened…?

Right, he had just picked up the Monster Breeder Class, and Gramps had been saying something about not picking it right away. Whoops.

“Wazzat?!” Ellie blurted out, lurching forward. She had, apparently, been sleeping in a chair beside Thomas’ bed, and was blearily rubbing her eyes. “Thomas?” She began hopefully, then froze, staring at Thomas. “Who…are you?”

Thomas rolled onto his side, so he was facing her, and glared. “Really? I can’t exactly see myself, but surely my makeover wasn’t extreme enough for you to not recognize…me.” He frowned. That…was not his voice. Not how he remembered it, anyway. It was higher and airier, and he would almost describe it as musical.

“Ellie, what do I look like?”

“But, you…” She blinked, then realization dawned. “You’re…Thomas?”

“Yes, I’m Thomas!” He hissed. “Who else would I be?!”

“Um, uh, I don’t, um,” Ellie was blushing furiously, refusing to meet Thomas’ eyes. “Let me get Grandpa, he’ll know what to do.” She stood up, dashing out of the room and leaving Thomas alone.

He was afraid to look himself over. Aside from a weight on his chest and the sensation of all his clothes being loose he felt normal, but he was sure that was the transformation’s doing. He…had some suspicions, but he really didn’t want to check to be sure.

Fortunately, he was saved by Gramps walking through the open door and coming into the room, tailed by Ellie, who was hiding behind Gramps and peeking out at Thomas.

Gramps took one look at Thomas then sighed, reaching into his bag and somehow pulling out a full-length mirror, which he set on the floor.

Thomas rolled to face the other direction before he could see anything, closing his eyes. “Is it bad? Tell me it’s not awful.”

“It’s not bad, just…surprising.” Gramps said, walking over to Thomas. He laid a hand on Thomas’ shoulder and then, instead of moving to further comfort him, grabbed him and planted him square in front of the mirror. “Open your eyes, there’s no use hiding from it.” Gramps said kindly. “You’re stuck like this, so you better face the facts.”

He slowly opened his eyes and recoiled. Standing in the mirror in front of him was an unreasonably beautiful girl just barely taller than Gramps. Her long, blond hair cascaded down her shoulders and down to her back, looking as if it had been carefully straightened, and her body showed no marks whatsoever.

And, as much as he hated to say it, her figure was good, too. It was hard to accurately gauge anything due to the extremely oversized shirt she was wearing (anything below the waist having fallen into a pile around her feet), but it looked as if she wasn’t exactly lacking in the curves department.

And, unfortunately, Thomas was forced to admit that it was him in the mirror. “Um…” She began, “There’s…not an undo option, is there?”

Gramps shook his head. “Not an easy one, I’m afraid. Did the Class give you any Skills?”

Thomas quickly checked her Status. “Four.”

Gramps winced. “That’s going to make things very difficult, if you want back to your old self. You’ve got to first find something that will get rid of your Class, and then find four Skill removers, and all of those are on the level of national treasures, especially the Skill removers.”

Thomas wilted, dropping down to the floor. “I’m…never going to be able to go back to Mael.” She said, tears springing to her eyes, “No one would ever believe I had a spontaneous sex change; I don’t have any paperwork…it’s over. I won’t be able to see my friends again; I’ll be stuck here as someone who can’t even measure up to basic standards.”

Gramps scratched his cheek awkwardly. “Well…you kind of signed up for that when you allowed yourself to change. Don’t worry, though, I can take care of that. Mael doesn’t know about magic, so some quick memory and record alteration will be a snap. I already got someone on standby while we were waiting for you to wake up, so don’t sweat it.”

Ellie nervously walked over, crouching down so she was at eye level with Thomas. “Well, um, are any of those Skills good?”

Thomas once again brought up her Status and took a full look at the Skills she had received.

“Umm…what are all the Rarities, Gramps?” Thomas asked cautiously.

“In ascending order of rarity, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythical.”

Thomas gave him a confused look. “What’s Phantasmal, then?”

Gramps froze. “You got a Phantasmal Skill?”

“They’re…all Phantasmal.”

Gramps sat down on the bed, holding his head. “Good heavens.” He whispered, “A single Phantasmal Skill is a find so rare that often whole generations will go by without one cropping up. It’s no wonder no one ever got anything from that Rewards Crystal if this is what it’s offering.”

“Does that mean they’re good?”

“You can’t always measure the power of a Skill by how rare it is, but a good rule of thumb is the rarer, the better. Phantasmal Skills are a league above any other in terms of rarity, and a further league above in terms of power. You aren’t to tell anyone you have one Phantasmal Skill, let alone four. You’ll immediately become one of the world’s most sought-after people, regardless of your actual ability.” He looked away, then began muttering softly, like he always did when he was thinking something through.

For her part, Ellie gave Thomas a huge smile. “Now we’re even, right? I got the stupid good growths, you got the stupid good Skills. We can be equal partners, right? So, please, don’t leave. I don’t want to do this if you’re not there.”

Thomas shakily smiled back. “Sure, Ellie. As long as you don’t mind me, you know…looking like this.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” Ellie replied, giving Thomas a hug, “You know I never cared about looks, I won’t get jealous.”

Thomas blinked. “I…wasn’t talking about jealousy. I meant now that I’m not…me.”

Ellie snorted. “Thomas, the inside’s the same, and that’s what counts. It was really, really shocking at first, but I feel the same about you as I did before.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, “We can’t go around calling you Thomas, though. Not when you’re a bombshell like that. People will ask questions you probably don’t want to answer.”

“Does that even matter?” Thomas asked, “It’s just a name.”

“Yes!” Ellie replied, suddenly fired up, “There’s no way a girl as cute as you should be a ‘Thomas’. How does Tess sound?”

“Fine, I guess.” Tess grumbled, “If it makes you happy.” Oddly enough, she…didn’t really care. Another aspect of the transformation, perhaps?

“That settles it.” Gramps interjected. “We’ll have to have The Rumors swear a Fatebinder’s Oath. I can’t think of anyone else I would trust to train you, and I’m too busy to do it myself. I’ll go get our resident Fatebinder.” He stood up and strode towards the door, then paused. “By the way, did you mention something about a new name? What is it?”

“Tess, apparently.” Tess replied.

Gramps nodded. “A good choice. Alright, you two sit tight, I’ll be back in a jiffy.” He left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Sooooo,” Ellie said slowly, “What do your Skills do?”

Tess read the Skill descriptions out to her.

Ellie frowned. “Let me try something.” She said, lunging towards Tess. Tess, already being far slower than Ellie, was powerless to stop Ellie as she mercilessly messed with Tess’s hair, doing her best to tangle it and otherwise ruin the look it had going for it.

When she was done, she stepped back and groaned. “Alright, now that isn’t fair.” She replied, motioning at Tess. “I know I just said I wouldn’t get jealous, but that’s something else entirely.”

Tess once again looked herself over in the mirror. Her hair was messy, yes, but it looked purposefully messy, like someone had meticulously arranged it to give the appearance of being messy, while still making it look good. Tess moved to comb it out with her fingers, and the hair just sprung instantly back into its previous, more orderly, state.

“You don’t even know how much of a pain doing hair is.” Ellie whined, “And you just get to not? What’s up with that?!”

“I…think it’s part of Target of Affection?” Tess replied, “I doubt it’s something the change itself did to me. Speaking of, what did the change…look like? I was passed out.”

Ellie made a face. “When Grandpa brought you back, you were in a giant cocoon-looking thing. Or maybe like an egg? It was weird, let me tell you that. No one else seemed too surprised, though, which I think is even weirder. That means this sort of thing must be normal, right?”

Tess shrugged. “Gramps did say that some Classes will physically alter you so that you can use their Skills, so it must just look that way any time it happens.”

Ellie thought that over for a moment. “Why did this one change you, then? I can’t think of…” She paled suddenly, gasping. “Oh no. That’s…not great for you.”

“What do you mean?! What’d you figure out?!”

Ellie’s eyes flicked from side to side as she stumbled over her words. “U-um, Th- Tess, what…what’s the biggest thing women can do that men can’t?”

“Have a…” And then, as the thought struck her, Tess paled as well. “Baby.”

Ellie nodded. “Then…I, um, think it’s pretty likely that Create Monster, at least, will, um, make use of that.”

Tess groaned, hiding her face in her hands. “This can’t be happening. No way I can use Skills that do that to me.”

“It won’t be that bad, I can assure you.” Gramps said, walking into the room again. “I didn’t hear the exact details, but I’ve heard enough to get the gist. The modifications made to you will most likely make the use of your Skills easier. I can’t guarantee that it will easy, but it shouldn’t be painful. I’d give it a go before writing it off completely. But, that aside, I would like to hear the details of your Skills.”

Tess and Ellie filled him in, though Ellie did most of the work when it came to Create Monster or any talk of “ejecting cores”.

Gramps frowned. “I…see the hang-up. Well, cores generally don’t get larger than fist-size unless they’re from something really impressive, so it honestly shouldn’t be a big deal with your modifications. Just…think of it like going to the bathroom. That’s going to be a little different too, so…go ahead and get used to both at the same time.”

He shrugged. “Assuming that was modified, anyway. I doubt any of us have any desire to do the kind of testing that would be required to check, but it’s a safe assumption. Go ahead and try it with some slime cores, you should be able to find a pretty small one.”

Tess blushed. “No! Not while both of you are here! Not happening!”

Gramps sighed. “We’ll go outside then. But you have to do this, Tess. If you want to be able to use your Skills to their full potential, then you’re going to have to confront this some time, and it’s best to just rip the bandage off now. Don’t make a pet or anything, just eject a core. Encode Ability is already one of the most stupidly powerful Skills I’ve ever seen, and all you need for it to work at full capacity is to be able to absorb new cores, even if it means ejecting old ones.”

Feeling like her face was on fire, Tess shooed the two away. “Fine, fine! One time!”

Once the others were out of the room, Tess rummaged through her bag. She had managed to pick up a few cores while working with The Rumors (having claimed that she got one as a drop about as much as she figured Ellie did), as cores were just about the only thing The Rumors did let them pick up during their raid.

She quickly found the smallest one, which was roughly the size of a bouncy ball. She put the rest back in her bag and rolled her chosen core around on her palm, steeling her nerve. After a few moments of that she took a deep breath, and then went to absorb the core.

She was about to just eat it when it disappeared in a puff of smoke which, instead of spiraling upwards, raced into Tess through the pores of her skin. Suddenly, a small window popped up in front of her.

That piqued Tess’s interest. If she took it and used it for herself, what were the limits? Could she do just part of the body? Could she freely shape herself if she was made of slime?

Besides, she already had the core, so it wasn’t like it would cause any distress to just take that Attribute, right? The hard part would be ejecting the core. So, she tried to move Amorphous (Slimy) into her database.

Of course it wasn’t that easy. Still, she was going to eject the core anyway, so she might as well take this Attribute in the process.

It took her a further minute to work up the courage to do it, but she eventually managed to take away the Attribute and braced herself for the ejection.

There was the sensation of something dropping into her bowels, and then the need to push. She listened to her instincts and gave that push, feeling something slide along inside her before eventually exiting from her front. She was briefly able to see a wet core as it fell towards the ground but, before it could hit, it vanished into the same rainbow mist that monsters vanished into.

Once she was sure it was over, she carefully inspected the area around her. There was a small patch of wetness on the floor directly below her, and her…exit was slightly moist as well, but other than that the process had been remarkably clean and relatively comfortable.

But that core had been tiny. She could already tell that larger cores would be more work, but she had no way of knowing what the limit was before it would get uncomfortable.

She took a deep breath, then poked her head out the door. Gramps and Ellie both gave her inquisitive looks, so she ushered them in.

“It…wasn’t too bad.” She mumbled, looking down. “But it was tiny, so there wasn’t much to get get rid of, you know?” She blushed, still keeping her face down, “I…might want to save it for the bathroom, though. I don’t think it’ll be clean with larger cores.”

Ellie laughed, slinging an arm around Tess’s shoulder. “See? You’ll be fine. Get anything good from it?”

“Um…I can turn myself into slime now.”

Gramps raised an eyebrow. “Really? Care to show us?”

Tess extricated herself from Ellie, then went to activate the Attribute, trying to turn only her arm into slime. It was an almost unconscious process, much like moving or breathing; she just did it, and it happened.

She swayed on her feet as her whole body turned into green slime. It was harder to keep her balance like this, but she could still stand, albeit rather awkwardly. The sensation was…odd, like she was underwater, but…not. Moving was slower, and her senses were slightly muted, but not to the same extent they would be if she was underwater. She certainly couldn’t swim through the air or anything. She tried to mold her hand into…something, anything other than a hand, but failed. She opened her mouth to try and say something, but all that came out was incomprehensible burbling.

Right, everything that let her speak was probably slime right now. So, she deactivated the Attribute and returned to a more corporeal form, brushing her completely dry clothes off. “Well, that was an experience.” She told her audience. “Probably not something that would be useful unless I need to squeeze into somewhere, but it wasn’t too big a pain to use.”

“That was…awesome!” Ellie squealed, pulling Tess into another hug. “You’re going to be like some sort of cool blue mage or druid!”

“Remind me what those are?” Tess said, shifting so she was slightly more comfortable in Ellie’s suffocating embrace, “I’ve heard the names, but I can’t really remember.”

“Told ya to play more video games,” Ellie replied smugly. “A blue mage can use monster’s attacks and a druid can turn into animals and stuff. They’re really fun to play.”

Gramps cleared his throat. “While that is pretty cool, we do have to get on with things. Tho-err, Tess, can you ask Fortune if you can tell The Rumors about your blessing if they’re put under a Fatebinder’s Oath?”

“And that is?” Ellie prompted.

“An oath that magically forces whoever swears it to abide by certain terms. It requires a little ceremony and can only be done by people with the right Skill, but if someone willingly swears one then the only ways to remove the oath are to satisfy conditions laid out in the oath or have whoever they swore it to release them from it while a Fatebinder performs another ceremony.”

“Oh, I see.” Tess replied. “Umm…Fortune, any input?”

A window popped up in front of her.

“That’s fine.” Tess told them, “But Fortune says she won’t be as snappy about answers in the future, so don’t think of me as a hotline or anything.”

Gramps nodded. “I figured as much. Alright, let’s get this taken care of and hopefully, by the time we’re done, we’ll be set to go back to Mael for the night. I’m sure you two are in desperate need of some R&R right about now.”

“You got that right.” Tess muttered. “I’m still half hoping this is all going to turn out to be a dream.”