The day of the con is here, and while they asked me if I wanted to do a talk, I turned them down as there is nothing I particularly want to talk about that I haven’t already talked about on my channel and also fits the con. Besides, it sounds like a bother. I did agree to be on a panel though, and gave a strong ‘maybe’ to another. I’m still very maybe about that second panel, but if there’s any panel I’m certified to be on, then that’d be the one about shapeshifting.

For now though, I’ve shrunk myself a bit and taken on a wolfkin form to blend in with the harem that surrounds me. Well it’s not my harem, if it is one at all, but that wouldn’t stop people from shipping them (with or without me) if this was some story. Not even the fact that aside from Tåke and Hilde’s companion Trilli, the other three members are male would stop some of those people.

Tåke’s pack (and she’s undisputably the leader) are among, if not THE most ‘developed’ of the wolfkin. They heard about the convention from someone, and after braving the strange world of the concrete jungle, they want to try more human things. I see no harm in bringing them here so they can experience something like this, and if they get bored or scared they can just leave.

Well, it’s slightly harmful to my wallet, but honestly the price of those few tickets won’t make a difference to my overall finances.

As soon as we enter the building I feel like shaking off the rainwater on my fur. Part of that feeling is just from my form, but a lot is from the modified pack bond - the others are closer to their wolf side than I am. It’s impressive, really; all members are still individuals, but there’s also a… group mind? Like, the mind of the group as a whole?

Group think was already a thing pre-Upheaval, but with the natural(?) pack bond augmented with mind magic, you could truly say that the group, as a whole, has a mind of its own; separate from but deeply connected to its members. The groupmind is formed by the common denominators among the group, so to speak, and as long as you’re connected you’ll naturally align with it (as will happen to any group of humans, magic or not).

You can of course pull away from the groupmind, but you can also consciously think for, or otherwise affect it, as I do to lead to group to an open area away from the entrance queue. Such thoughts don’t really feel like they come from the group, they feel foreign, and you know who made them. And of course, you can still communicate as with a normal mind bond.

With our own little spot claimed, the wolfkin turn to each other and use their fur-drying magic to gently dry each other, forming a sphere from the water they pull away and handing the magical control of that to me. Why me? I don’t know, but the groupmind thinks I know what to do with it.

Could just evaporate it, but let’s not made the building more humid than it needs to be. I guess I’ll just drop it outside while they use the ‘hair drier’ spell on each other. You’re already dry, guys! Well, it’s kinda cute and hot air feels really good compared to just… removing the water, so I can understand why they keep doing it even after learning the superior technique.

I’d pre-purchased the tickets, so we get to use the fast lane. It’s already pretty crowded, and with so many people (and other things) creating a rainbow of sensations, I have to ‘whistle’ in the groupmind to get their attention so I can tell them some ground rules.

The main hall has sponsors and stands; there are quite a few companies formed after the Upheaval that either targets or employs magic users, and more than a few existing ones have embraced the changes, too.

After looking around for a little while I pull up the webpage with the program for the day and discuss what, if anything, they want to see. They surprise me by all showing some interest, but not at all the same things. Well, except the panel I’m part of, but that’s more because I’m in it than anything else. I think?

That means I can’t keep an eye of all of them at the same time, all the time, but I more or less trust Tåke and Trilli, and we’ll be well in range of the pack bond to allow us to communicate, and I mean, I’ll probably be in mana range too -this venue isn’t that big. In fact, I’m wondering if maybe this isn’t a bit more popular than they’d estimated.

Oh well. After checking out about three fourths of the booths I lead those interested to hall C, where someone is talking about 'Fantastic Animals after the Upheaval'. That's a fine naming line they're threading there…

I sit through the entire thirty, somewhat underwhelming, minutes, and in the end I didn't really learn anything new. For a while there's no particular posts I want to see, so I accompany the wolfkin to the most popular ones. They positively surprise me by discussing what they've seen, in that hybrid of words and thoughts way they tend to do. Actually, it’s not so different from the way switch between norwegian and english if I forget a word in one of the two or just think of a better way to communicate something.

“Hey?”

All six heads snap to the man in near unison. I suppose one weakness of the groupmind is that anything that most members notice will be very distracting.

“Woah.” He chuckles, “I'm just wondering, where did you guys learn to shapeshift?”

They all turn to me. “Uh, yeah. I taught them.”

“Oh okay… where did you learn?”

“Uh, it's a bit complicated, but I'm mostly self-taught. Ask me again on the shapeshifter panel in forty minutes and I'll give a longer answer.”

“Wait, who are you?”

“I'll leave that-”

“Lars Eikeli, dragonslayer!”

“Thanks, Trilli, but I was trying to be mysterious. Also, it was a wyvern, not a full dragon. The only dragon I've fought-” the shudder isn't entirely voluntary.

“You're welcome.”

“It was sarcasm.”

Tåke comes in with a “that's when the humans say something with that flat face but they mean the opposite!”

They're like kids. Very… helpful kids. I don't think they'd put their own lives at risk (not until they become like teens, anyway), but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to leave them unsupervised for too long. We'll, these in particular are probably- actually, let's not raise any flags.

Our little exchange have attracted some attention, what with slaying wyverns, me being me, and the implication that they are not human. In fact, the latter is what we get the most questions about, by which I mean they answer questions about themselves surprisingly well, while I answer questions about dragonids and fighting them.

“Isn't your girlfriend a dragon?”

I grimace. “Do you mean Leda? She's not my girlfriend. She's my ward.”

“He didn't want to be my mate, even though he killed my previous mate!”

“It is a Leda said, for several reasons. Now, Leda, want to explain where you parked your main body and how you got here?”

“There's a tall building and nobody was using the roof so I landed there. Then I summoned my puppet here. Why are you saying my name like that?”

“Well, shouldn’t you be on iceland?”

“This sounded more interesting.”

Sigh, “Leda…”

“When you promise to do something you can’t have to do it, blah blah. It’s okay, I called them!”

“You- waitwhat?”

“I made one of the icelanders help me and then I bought a phone with my money, so now I can call people on my phone!”

“…you do know calls cost money, right?”

“Yeah, but they’re in the eee-you so it’s okay.”

“It still costs money. Just… I need to get that subscription transferred to my name. And I assume you bought a ticket with your money, too?”

“Ticket?”

“Yes, ticket. The ticket for entering this convention. The ticket which costs money. The ticket which, by the sound of it, you don’t have.”

“Oooh. That ticket.” She seems to realize- “a…will anyone notice?”

Gods dammit! But also, that’s my fault.

“Okay, chat’s over, I need to buy her a ticket.”

I signal to the wolfkin that they don't need to come with us, and can just continue basking in the attention they're getting. It's been long enough that there's no queue for tickets, and the guys manning the entrance mostly just verify that peeps walking in have those armbands that count as tickets and are made of fucking indestructium. While Leda does the talking I pull out my phone and make a note that I need to get better control over her money and finances. At least the phone she got is a cheap model, and looks fairly sturdy.

The wolfkin have split into two groups, where one of them have wandered off, while the other are so engrossed in their conversations that they barely notice me. It's good practice for them, so I head towards the staff-only area, to meet the other panelists for ‘Introductions, planning and information’. Probably more of the latter.

I repeat for the nth time to Leda that she has to keep an eye open in case anyone comes to the roof she's perched on, getting an annoyed growl-sound in return. Well, to me it’s her version of ‘annoyed teen groan’, but it startles several people, including one guy who physically jumps.

“Don't laugh at that, what'd you do if something suddenly growled next to you?”

“I would know it was there, so it wouldn’t scare me.”

“Empathy, Leda. Put yourself in their situation. What if you didn’t have your mana sense?”

“Oh. Hmm… I’d probably hit the growler.”

“Y-” …no, I’m just gonna let it go.

There’s a group discussing something ahead, and i figure this is the place since I recognize two of them.

“Hey, Minos,” I say to the big guy, who turns around.

“Have we met?”

“Don't think so, actually.” I reach out a hand, “Eikeli. Lars, currently.”

He takes it with that firm, but not crushing, grip which gives middle management all sorts of good vibes about you.

“Elias Raudås. You got a kid?” he nods at Leda.

I let her speak for herself, “Eikeli-Draghev. Leda, always!” she says, enthusiastically shaking the big hand with both of hers.

“Ohmigawd, don't you know who Leda is, Elias?” interjects the other person I recognize but also don't know the name of, a seventeen year old girl in a birdkin form with magnificent plumage.

He shakes his head.

“Do you know that giant dragon-thing that sometimes flies around the city?” she glances at me who's about to interject, “yes, yes, 'technically a wyvern'.”

I frown at having the meme thrown in my face, but I'm well aware of how it came to be. And I have a store with ‘technically a wyvern’ T-shirts, so…

“Yah?”

“She's got citizenship and stuff, what is it Lars keeps saying… 'the first non-human to be granted personhood in Norway'?”

“Yeah. And they made her my ward. There’s obviously no blood relation between us.”

There's no more time for banter, as a staff member calls out and takes us to a lounge kinda room and have all five of us introduce ourselves properly. I don’t know if he doesn’t care or what, but he scratches his head while looking at his clipboard, then shrugs and asks Leda to introduce herself as well.

After she basically just repeats what was said earlier, the man explains a few basic rules or guidelines. Try to keep swearing to a minimum, and the audience is supposed to only ask general questions that apply to all of us, so any direct questions should be politely turned down. If a question is clearly meant for one person, they could just answer, or reiterate the question to be more general.

After that, we discuss some practical stuff, like who talks when - in general we want everyone to at least have a chance to weight in on a question, but not everyone are as comfortable being the first to respond. All in all, it feels less like planning and more like ‘here's some tips, now agree on these few things’.

We get to the room a couple minutes ahead of time, and it's already pretty full. The way the room of what has to be more than fifty people goes quiet mere moments after one of the panelists mumbles “So we're ready to start, then?” is almost magical. Figuratively speaking of course, we’d have noticed otherwise.

“I’m at the end of the table so I guess I should start the introductions, then?”

And so I do. Then Elias, aka ‘Minos’ does, and we go down the table with the woman nicknamed ‘Black Cat Witch’, the feathery girl, ‘Peacock’, and some guy I’m pretty sure I've seen at the Den.

I look around; while vast majority of the chairs are filled, the wolfkin found seats near the middle right. To start us off, Peacock reads the first question from a list the organizers have complied for us: ‘how many kinds of shapeshifting are there?’

Just between the panelists we know four majors kinds - aspect shapeshifting, the Black Cat’s witchcraft, Minos’ spirit embodiment, and whatever changed miss Peacock (it was involuntary)- but just aspect magic alone has multiple ways to do shapeshifting, and of course there's ki-based techniques as well.

There’s a couple more questions on the organizers’ list, and the third of which is-

“What’s your favorite form?”

“Ohh, that’s a hard one,” says the Witch, to which both Minos and I mutter out some kind of agreement.

“Don’t you stay in that form almost all the time? For that matter, what other forms do you have?” I ask him.

As it turns out, he can become a centaur with the horse spirit, the minotaur-form he’s known for, what you could call a sheep(ram) minotaur, and a boar version of that, but he decides that his favorite form is probably the crow spirit form, because of flying. So he’s among those who can properly fly, huh.

The Black Cat Witch has her eponymous form, where she turns into a mostly normal black cat. With how magic it is and those eyes I can’t really call it normal, though. Like all her forms, it’s an all or nothing transformation, where her main body and whatever she’s wearing seems to disappear to somewhere, but she can also make her familiar change forms, too.

She agrees with Minos in that flight forms are great, though hers is in the form of a normal-sized raven or a bat. “There’s something really liberating about being a cat, though, but I think my favorite is a deerlike- can I just summon it here?”

“Probably?”

She closes her eyes and reach out her hand, having retrieved a wand from who knows where, and speak in a clear tone with sounds that my brain refuses to process as anything other than a mix of whispers and murmurs.

And then it appears. As she said, it’s deerlike in build, but its tiny antlers appear to be made of almost organic-looking crystal, and it’s covered in featherscales of the same material. Its head certainly does not not deerlike, having vampire-like fangs and a shape more like some dog breeds, and it has an almost hypnotic tail that looks like the shifting bright ribbon of aurora.

“It’s that just a deer with a weird head?” asks someone from the audience.

That creates a bit of a murmur, and after some disagreement, it turns out less magical people simply see it as that - normal tail, normal coat, normal antlers, and just a slightly weird head-shape. That’s interesting, but that will have to be for later, and we continue.

“Here you guys find it hard to find a favorite among a handful, and then there’s me. I currently have… six forms stored as puppets, and can take on any number of others. But I’m gonna cheat and give my three -well four, really- current favorites.”

“These are in no particular order, but the zeroth is a human form. I have modified this one a bit from a baseline human, but as it turns out, it’s incredibly convenient to be a human in a human world, built for humans. Ten out of ten, best default form. But I don’t think that’s what the question was after.

“So to start of with other forms, a flight form. I’m constantly tweaking it be be more flight capable, and have variants for flying shorter or longer distances, or do aerobatics, and I favor these kinda featherscales so I can’t tell you a specific animal it’s based on, but medium birds like magpies and crows are a good start, and if you can learn their aspects, birds of prey are great for longer distances. Nine out of ten, best travel form but wings are awkward on the ground, especially in human areas.”

“As you can tell I favor forms with some practical use, but this one is a bit of an odd one out. I like it because it’s fun to be and move around in, and can be really comfortable, but it’s even worse than a flight-form in cities. I’m talking about a naga, lamia, or snake-person form, whatever you call it. I usually use serpentkin. Seven out of ten, fun to use and a great change of pace, but little practical use.”

“And finally… I don’t know how much is known or rumored, but as you might know I have been working with a certain aerospace company. The specifics aren’t as well-known, and I can’t speak freely about it, but suffice to say I’m mostly working with them on developing magitech for aerospace.”

“You might have heard about my world record ‘space jump’, however, and in preparation of that we tested a number of forms -including my baseline- to see how I would handle the trip, and in an extreme case, the rigors of space. As such, my final form is a mostly inorganic droplet shape of metal and crystal that does not need to breathe, can tackle the radiation of space, and more importantly, can survive reentry from low earth orbit. It’s basically a heat shield, for those who know what that is. Ten out of ten for space and reentry, three out of ten for anything else; extremely specialized.”

That’s the final question on the organizers’ list, so next up is audience questions.