Day 1 Phase 1 Fourth to eight hour

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“So why do we have to go to the entrance room? The door will not open for another four hours or so. Although it is strange that it is closed because the barrier itself is in the heart room.” I ask Claudia.

“I want to make some experiments without risking what valuables we have in the heart room. And this is the biggest room we currently have.” She answers me.

“What you haven’t realized is that I only look human – that asshole of a Power gave me both a race and a class I never heard about before. And I have some suspicions that I will like neither of them.

My race is High Sareni, and it seems to give me a transformation ability. My class on the other hand is called Slitar, and its abilities seem to include both magic kisses and cursed kisses.”

I raise an eyebrow about that. “Eemh – I never heard of Sareni, Slitar or cursed kisses, but magic kisses are known to be an exclusive ability of the Courtesan classes. Are you planning on opening one of those inns here?”

“No” Claudia almost spits fire answering me “I have no plans on going that way, especially since that thing additionally gave me a pregnant state when reincarnating me.”

‘OK, I’m beginning to see why Claudia doesn’t like that god which reincarnated her here, whoever that was. Especially if there are more such surprises waiting for her. I better try to calm her down.’

“Then your reactions are very understandable. Are you willing to tell me which tiers those have? They both sound to be of a higher tier, and that could make you rather powerful.

Oh – I almost forgot that you said you have no experience with a System in your old world. The quickest way to determine their tiers would be to look at their maximum level behind their names on your Status screen and divide that by five.”

“Very well, High Sareni is level 10 out of 25, and Slitar is level 1 out of 25.” She answers.

“EPIC TIER???” I shout.

‘She got both race and class in tier-5, the rarest and highest of all known tiers? By the Great Nymph…’

I stare at her for a minute or so, before I manage to collect myself again.

“Let’s just say that you have the highest and rarest tiers known in both race and class, and that our chances of handling things just went up considerably, no matter what disadvantages might be connected to those two classes.

Unfortunately that is far above my head – as I already explained we pixies have problems with the lowest numbers and I can’t even guess what you have to look out for with tier five…”

“I expected something like this, so don’t worry about it” Claudia dismisses my concerns. “I also checked some other entries to my status page while you were otherwise occupied.

Mostly I want to check the transformations that come from my new race, because in my old world we had only humans and no one could transform.

However there is some info for you before: I have a Perk Dungeon Keeper that connects me to the heart and the dungeon, but that perk has three additional abilities for me. Two of them seem to be normal for Dungeon Cores and are only transferred to this body, Unaging and Sleepless. These two abilities seem to be as a guarantee that the core or in this case my body can continue to control the dungeon at all times. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” I answer, glad to be back on familiar territory, “that is normal and I also got them when the contract changed me into a Dungeon Pixie. And if everything went normally the third ability should be something to heal the core (or in this case the Heart) slowly for free, similar to repairing one crystal facet per day.”

“In that case there have been more changes. Yes, it is healing, and both for the heart and my body. However it is instant but not free. I can pay one mana to restore any one attribute point lost on my body or on the heart.” Claudia explains.

“Uh – that is both better and worse. For an older Dungeon it is nothing to pay twenty or forty mana, but currently we can’t afford to waste even a single point. On the other hand it means that you might even pay mana for skill use when we have enough in several weeks.

But you said you wanted to test the transformations?”

“Yes, there seem to be several options. Is there any way to show you the System Screen that comes up when I want to use the transformation perk?”

“Open it up, then concentrate on sharing it – but I have to touch you skin to skin during that time.”

I fly to sit on Claudia’s shoulder while she concentrates.

Transformations

10/10

Skin

Caucasian

>> ??? >>

Anatomy

Human

>> ??? >>

‘Looks similar to the controls of shapechanging dungeon monsters, but with two instead of one control. But unfortunately the options aren’t listed, they are currently unknown. Strange – unless the god wants to force her to explore.’

I explain to Claudia “It looks similar to the known way of shape-changing dungeon monsters, but with two instead of one control line and ten points instead of two or three.

If we get such monsters later, the core would have such a control to decide what form they would have at the beginning of each adventuring phase, and the monsters would have that number of points for changes during the phase when they decide they might need that. And it would reset at the beginning of each phase.”

“Here goes nothing – I’ll try with the skin option first.” Claudia’s body shudders a little bit, then she continues to speak. “The middle field now reads White Catgirl and the right button field Caucasian. I also seem to have slightly better eyes and ears.”

I launch from her shoulder and fly around her. “You also have a tail now, not only cat ears and eyes. And your skin has black stripes like the White Tiger, but no fur. Anything else on your Status?”

“According to my Status I gained Senses+1, Agility +1 and Claws, but I have no idea on how to use claws.” Claudia answers me and raises her hands to look at them.

I fly to her right hand and look at it. “Your finger nails seem to have become sharper and retractable. Let me poke at them.”

“Arbkl”

“What is it? Did it hurt when I raised the claw out?”

“No, but when you moved it I felt muscles of which I didn’t even know they existed.” Claudia feels her right hand with her left one, and after a minute or so she is only partially successful in raising and retracting her claws. “It seems like I have to learn how to use those muscles the same way a baby learns to grip something.”

“OK, do you want to try the next transformation? You should still have nine more points available, is that correct?”

“Yes, let me go the next step and … shshaacr, that feelsh shlike morsh happsh…”

“Full morph into humanoid white tiger, with all around fur and tiger head. And the reason for your speaking problems is your new snout.” I grin at her.

“Aash Beesh Cee Dee EE – speaking is more difficulsh but I shink I got it with a bit of conshentration. And thiss form has a higher bonus – Body +1, Agility +2, Senses +2, Claws and Bite. It iss labelled assh Albino for whatever reashon. But those few pointsh are still nothing compared to my bashe valuesh.”

“Of course not – the changes are only skin deep after all. But for that it is a nice effect and bonus. You should have no problem posing as a monster in this form, if you want to go that way.”

“I don’t know if that would be shuch a good idea, I hav’ to tshink about it. Next shtep.”

I look over her new variant. “It seems to be only a color change to blue – light blue fur with dark blue stripes now.”

“But the form ish lishted as Shareni now, so thiss is probably the original skin. Which would alsho exshplain why the otsher was called Albino. However it iss sstill not the end, I can go to a further form. Sheven points left, sso here I come.”

I watch as her blue tiger head shrinks down to a more human-like head and the fur vanishes, but the skin remains blue striped with light blue base and dark blue markings.

“You seem to be back to a catgirl form, although a blue one. Looks nice by the way.”

I wait while she checks her Status again.

“You’re right – ah, nice to be able to talk normally again. All blue skins seem to have an additional Presence +1, but otherwise I’m down to the same bonus as the white catgirl form, and yes this is called blue catgirl by the System. Still question marks on the left button however.”

I almost choke. “What? You already have displayed five different forms and not even touched that other anatomy control. And there are still more skins? That is highly versatile – an epic versatility so to say.”

“Yes, but I think the transformations circle. And if that assumption is correct, the next form would be a blue human that removes more of the current bonuses. But you said that the monsters with that ability get their points reset each phase? If that is not the case for me, we need to save some points for emergencies until we have enough mana to recharge them.

I think I make one change on the anatomy control only for now and then we wait and see if the next phase really gives me points back.”

“Yes, that is probably a good idea” I answer after thinking about it. “You should have five points left after that, enough to get back to human if that is needed. And you can even test if that assumption of a circle is correct in the next phase, I’m willing to risk the needed two mana for that clarification then.”

Claudia nods, and then I watch her grow a full pixie height further. She almost loses her balance and stumbles while flailing her now four arms, but she manages to catch herself.

“Well…” I tell her while watching how she tries to sort out her arms “your torso stretched by a foot or so, which is where the additional arms grew out of your sides.

So it is good that your poncho is open there. But instead of going down to the knees, it now ends farther up, barely covering your bottom parts.

You also have six boobs now, three pairs one above the other.

What does your status say?”

I have to wait a few minutes for an answer. It is a bit amusing to watch her trying to coordinate her arms, especially when she tries to grab another arm and misses high or low because she used the wrong arm for the grab. But the smile is also for the advantages this will give her after she learned how to use them properly.

After a while Claudia sighs and answers me. “I don’t know how much it is because there is a new designation in my status. The numbers themselves are far lower than I thought. Body +4, Agility +6, Mind +2 and Senses +2. But there is a 150% marker at Body and a 200% marker at Agility. And an obvious new Perk of Multilimbed (6)”.

“YES!!” I pump my arm “This means that while you didn’t get many points for direct use, each of your points is more effective in its secondary uses like carrying capacity or speed.

We pixies for example have a racial body efficiency of only 10% because we are too small to carry things, and are quickly affected even by smallest amounts of poison or disease.

We have an Agility of 140% to help with our flight and speed, but your 200% there means that you will almost always be the first to act in combat, especially since I suspect you already have more than 10 points in basic Agility anyway. Only high-rank adventurers would get to more than twenty or thirty effective Agility, and we would be screwed anyway if a Rank D or C comes in at the beginning.”

“Nice to know, but for now it doesn’t matter. I’ll use the remaining hours until the opening to try to learn how to use these middle arms. That is not easy because their movement range is more limited – they have no shoulder joint to swivel around on.

If I succeed even halfway I’ll use this form for the first scouting outside, otherwise I’ll have to transform back to human before leaving.”

“Sounds like a plan” I answer.