[SD:M/H] Toe Beans! - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Dewdrop waits for the players who didn’t choose random to file out of the room. “Okay, now that you’re here with only other ‘Randoms’, you might have noticed that each of you still seems to be human. Don’t worry, you aren’t. Rather, the influx of players cocked up the usual way this works.”

One guy cuts in at this time, “And why would that spawn us in as humans? I wouldn’t have chosen random if I wanted to be something humanoid. There are enough choices for that already!”

Dewdrop clicks her thorn teeth together, “First of all, random doesn’t mean you can’t end up human. In fact, I think the stats are that between one in two hundred and one in two fifty end up becoming vanilla humans. If you want to include the category of races most fit under ‘humans with funny ears’, that number jumps to at least one percent of people. Not everyone can handle the change.

“More importantly, space. We can fit 100 new arrivals in that hall if you only count playable races. Sure, some manage to fill up most of the square, but they fit. Now consider what might happen if you ended up being a sky whale?

“That isn’t a hypothetical, by the way. There is a player who is a sky whale.”

The guy crosses his arms, “That wouldn’t fit even if there weren’t other people showing up! Besides, I never heard of this.”

Dewdrop nods, “Because normally those who choose random spawn in on a prepared platform and get a one-on-one introduction. Except more people than ever are choosing random and what you will become isn’t chosen until you’re in the game. That worked by way of having you spawn in as a ball of light that expands into your game characters from.

“Now though, and this is a recent change as of I think two weeks ago, you just spawn in as humans. What we will be doing now is ‘Unchain’ your true forms. At least that is how the people in charge of lore for the game want us to refer to it as. So let’s go to the unchaining field and see how good your gacha luck is.”

With that, Dewdrop dives into the ground, revealing she was actually a thin mat of moss and had been sitting on a boulder. Her form loses coherence and like a wave, splashes over the floor, leading the group out a side door.

Gem rushes after her with a toothy grin, ‘If forms like that and a sky whale are possible, who knows what I might be!’

A couple doors later and the group find themselves in an extensive field with two deep lakes to either side. Dewdrop gestures to the left, “That’s freshwater. Once you get unchained if you require that to breathe, dive in there. You will get a system prompt informing you of any such requirements. Oh, and the other side is salt water. While rarer, it is possible.

“We can’t quite accommodate every possible form, but the basics should be covered and I have a couple ‘potions of adaptation’ that should cover the edge cases and work if splashed on someone. They’re expensive though, so if you can live without them, better you manage it.”

Some of the group call out questions, but Dewdrop waves them off. “No questions. All you have to do is stand at the center of the field one by one and I’ll activate the unlocking sequence. Think magical girl transformation, but even more pg.”

Gem hops forward, but it seems the guy from earlier is even more eager as he runs ahead. Dewdrop gestures Gem back and after the guy reaches the center, she snaps her fingers and chains appear covering his body. Then those chains begin to snap as he transforms into a ball of light.

Once the ball is a perfect sphere, it expands outwards, taking on the shape of some form of hexapod, but not an insect as it is missing the appearance of any sort of exoskeleton. Within moments, the light stops shifting around and fades away to reveal a six-legged lizard with a vertical mouth.

It would probably look menacing if not for the fact that it immediately began to bounce around in joy. Dewdrop ripples her moss, causing a rumbling sound from the ground. This got the guys attention, who vacated the platform.

Gem isn’t going to wait any longer at this point and even before he is completely off the field, they are already sprinting towards the center. Dewdrop chuckles at this, but doesn’t say anything. Then once Gem is at the center, she snaps her fingers again.

At first Gem doesn’t notice anything, more to the point, no one else does either. There are no chains that appear. However, they do eventually turn into a ball of light despite this. From their perspective, it feels like being wrapped in the comfiest blanket ever and despite the light show going on for the others, they can see through it just fine.

Though Gem can feel as their body expands outwards once again. There’s a tail! However, it seems fluffy. Not to say there aren’t fluffy dragons, but this feels quite mammalian.

They aren’t too disappointed, being a dragon of any variety was more of a day dream than an actual dream. Then the next obvious change hit them. A pair of ears popped into existence on their head. They cringe, they aren’t a girl so they can’t become a cat girl, right?

No muzzle yet, so straying more towards kin than folk. However, their teeth seem to be doing something weird. At the same time, their hands shudder as the bone structure changes. Gem isn’t sure how, but they certainly are, along with a number of minor itches crawling across their body.

Oh, and fluffy happens. Unlike the other physical changes, the fur that seems to be growing all over the place feels more like non-stop goosebumps until it is fully grown in. And all of that happened within a few seconds.

As the light fades, Gem flicks their ear and holds up their hands to get a look. And what they say was a good bit odder than expected. There was a very fine covering of fur, more like they were wearing a silk glove over the hand itself, though the fingers are free of it.

As for the fingers? They were missing fingerprints and nails. Though why they didn’t have the second was soon obvious. The change allowed their fingers to bend just as easily in either direction. It honestly seemed as if they were wearing some sort of glove, because their hands lacked the usual indications people would use to judge things like which side is the back of the hand and which is the palm.

Oh, and the skin was a red brown, not as in any irl skin color, but a red so deep and shaded in such a way as to invoke the idea of brown despite being obviously red. Which made their shock orange fur stand out even more. Though, as Gem watched, the orange fur shimmered and became more muted.

There was more to discover, but Gem didn’t want to act the fool like that last and require Dewdrop to speak up. Besides, there were a number of mirrors off to the side. Mirrors which they headed straight towards to get a better look at themselves.

In the way, they can’t help but notice their feet. The toes didn’t get the joint upgrade, however; the nails seemed to have turned into right proper claws. At least, going by the feeling in their bones they get when the claws tap on the ground. Like when you click your teeth together, except at the end of your toes. Also, they’re completely covered in fur barring the pads, or as the Internet would put it, they had toe beans.

This made them smile, and smile, and smile. Which brought Gem’s attention to another change. Even if their mouth felt normal enough, once they started smiling, it became obvious that it had widened like some kind of creepy fae. Not that they were complaining and it didn’t feel like their smile was close to ear to ear, so not too bad.

Though as they reached the mirrors, it took on a new twist. Their teeth had changed. And uh, whatever their diet was, these chompers were now made for meat.

Oh, and despite starting this all with the equivalent of sleepwear, like the lizard guy, Gem now lacked any clothes at all. This didn’t matter because, much to their joy, there wasn’t anything to care about, even so, clothes would be nice. Though seeing as both Randoms they had seen so far didn’t come with clothes, they guessed there might be a stockpile of the stuff for people to use somewhere nearby.

Gem turned to head over to Dewdrop, but it is at this point that their attention strays to their new tail. It had sort of just been there and so ignored, but now they could really feel it! The thing swished back and forth, the fur on it seemed extra sensitive to the movement of the air. That could be a problem, depending, but they had questions to ask and so ignored it.

However, as they made their way over, the next person finished unlocking and, despite ending up a centaur, they had clothes! That just wasn’t fair. Gem was even more of a humanoid shape and yet the centaur got some spiffy duds?

This anger must have shown loud and clear on their face, though, because Dewdrop was on top of things. “We’ve got clothes in the shed behind the mirrors and don’t ask me the rules for why some get clothes and others don’t. Best guess is it works on cartoon logic. So, if in a cartoon you could manage the look, you’re fine.”

Gem shrugs, “Long as you got a shirt and some shorts for me, maybe a pair of sandals.”

Dewdrop nods, “We should have most of that. In fact, we only have sandals because you can adjust the straps better for strange feet.”

By this point, a couple other people had been unchained and all of them had the effect of chains appearing and breaking. Gem makes a face, “And what’s up with me not getting chains?”

Dewdrop smiles, “It means you’re special. When you check your status, you’ll find out. Though just in case you are blind, check your alignment.”

Gem, “I literally just started, what does end game faction nonsense have to do with me?”

Dewdrop, “Despite how people portray it, alignment is simply where you fall on the axis of order/chaos and good/evil. As long as you prove yourself, a person can lock their alignment as early as they want. Or sometimes, random results in people like you.”

Gem shakes her head, “Meh, I don’t want to be ‘chained’ down by something like that. Besides, part of alignment locking is evolving into an advanced species.”

Dewdrop sighs, “Stop trying to argue with me. Go get some clothes on while I finish unchaining your group.”

Gem, “Can I just leave after that?”

Dewdrop shrugs, “You can try, but I advise letting me send you off. This isn’t private here so I’m sure the local powers and player guilds are waiting for you.”

Gem’s stomach drops, they did not want to deal with that kind of nonsense this early. There, however, was nothing she could do about it and so went and threw some clothes on. Just some cord sandals, cargo shorts, and what might be charitably called a shirt if you ignore the resemblance to a bag with holes cut in it.

Though she can understand the variance in quality after watching more ‘unchaining’s. Many more people end up without a shirt than do pants or footwear. Soon enough, though, everyone was unchained and only three ended up needing special accommodations.

One was simply a gigantic stone elemental of some sort. Their accommodation was easy enough as they simply needed to get onto a stone pad that was connected to bedrock. It was something about needing a direct connection with the world’s bones.

Another was an honest to goodness kraken. And not the old stories type of kraken where they’re just a giant squid. This was the more modern fantasy kraken, which meant inherent psionic magic.

And the last was some sort of high altitude birdfolk. Their problem being that the air was too thick and Dewdrop had needed to use one of the potions on them. All the while the more normal results had left.

Even the rock girl had left, earth gliding through the stone pad itself, heading towards the deep tunnels. This left a couple of people with important identities outside of the game, the Kraken, birdfolk, and of course, Gem. Dewdrop gave the two a hard stare, but when they didn’t back down, she shrugged.

Dewdrop, “Okay, five people needing relocation is a little high. Normally, there are only one to two in a group. Anyway, birdfolk first since you’re the easiest.”

Dewdrop pulls out a wand from her moss and zaps them. This causes them to be encapsulated in a bubble before rocketing into the sky. “Their problem was simple enough. Just need to send them straight up. Now for you, Mr. Kraken. There is a nearby saltwater ocean, so you’re in luck.”

She pulls out a coin, “This is a one time use recall token. It will recall you to a city over there. I’ll call ahead so they know you’re coming.”

The kraken wriggles and a voice is projected into everyone’s heads, ‘Yes please, the shallow water is really quite stressful.’

Dewdrop flips the coin at them and in a shower of sparkles, they vanish as the coin begins to smoke and slowly burn away without leaving a mark. “Now, all that is left is you three. You’re all last because what needs to happen is annoying. Recall tokens won’t work since you’re already here and besides, they would take you to the teleport platform.

“No, we need to blink you out of here and into a random part of the city where you showing up will not be noticed. This will not prevent you all from being noticed, especially you, Gem, but it gives you a head start. However, to do this we need an Admin since none of the provided magic can do this.”

“Which is where I come in!”, a man in a retro video game t-shirt and slacks says as he steps into view from behind the trio.

The man smiles, “Welcome to SoulDive, I hope this experience won’t turn you off the game. We leave this public because nothing short of system interference could keep the locals from finding out what happened and being open puts the players on an equal footing. Now go have fun!” And he snaps his fingers.

What's In A Name? - Chapter 2