Shh was an amorphous being of sentient light, and honestly? It was pretty great.

Ten out of Ten. Would Recommend.

The former mongrel wasn’t entirely sure if he was still in the zone, or the world, or if he was even technically alive anymore. But why worry about such insignificant matters as his own existence? Everything was sparkly, and everything was nice.

There were two voices, and they seemed to be arguing. The first came from some infinite distance high in the sky, and was plainly concerned. “--too close, I’m telling you. It’s risky and the home office hates risk. Scrap it.”

The second voice, echoing out from the emptiness between every space that ever was, disagreed. “Nah.”

The Sky Voice huffed, and Shh got the distinct impression of temples being rubbed. “We’re not supposed to mess with stuff around the Ring. That’s like the only rule they gave us.”

The Empty Voice seemed singularly unconvinced. “We aren’t. This was procedural. Scrapping it would be messing with it, not leaving things be.”

“Oh screw off with that.” Sky Voice did not seem to be in the mood for semantics. “I swear, ever since you got promoted to on-site you’ve been impossible. Why does everyone who gets a Shed turn into such a know-it-all?”

“Prolly because we know it all.”

Shh frowned. Or as best he could without a mouth, or face, or body. So much conflict. So unnecessary. Had these two tried being amorphous beings of sentient light? He imagined it would be impossible to argue when you were doing this much sparkling.

“Let’s make this simple.” Empty Voice cut in over Sky Voice’s complaints. “You say no, I say yes. It’s my decision, so you’re overruled. But if this does go sideways, your hands are clean. You voiced your objections, right? Fair enough?”

“....yeah, sure. Fair.”

“Alright then.”

The tranquility of Shh’s newfound ethereal existence collapsed in on itself, images and sensations and convictions flooding in to submerge his consciousness in a bottomless sea of ordered chaos. Now the scent of a wolf. Now the sound of peaches. Now the taste of aging. Now the idea that it was noon. Every moment contained more information than Shh had possessed in his entire life, channeled directly into and out of his mind before he could begin to comprehend any of it.

Some piece of Shh was making choices, though. Forming a concept. Shh gratefully surrendered to whatever part of him was behind the wheel, the light of his own being solidifying into something new with every unconscious brick he placed.

The Empty Voice bubbled into him, a final portion of the strange conversation sticking out. “Besides. We can always just delete the whole thing later.”

And then he existed again

—-----------------------------------------------------

Shh wiggled his toes into the dirt, giving his lungs a moment to remember how to breathe.

Okay, that was one concern settled. Better run down the rest of the list.

Heart pumping? Yes.

Brain working? Apparently.

Everything in order? Inconclusive.

He lifted a hand to brush a lock of hair from his eyes, reacquainting himself with his surroundings. Hmm. Still at the camp. Significantly less on fire now, though. Moots hadn’t noticed him yet, too busy shoveling dirt onto something he was burying behind the tatters of his tent. And judging by the two blobs of pulsing light, Mo-Mo and Gert were still…

…wait. Hair?

Hands?!

Sure enough, where once there had been chunky little paws Shh now had clever-fingered hands, large to the point of seeming a bit out of proportion with his agile arms. He reached up and took a handful of soft dark brown hair, so smooth to the touch compared to the insulating coat he’d used to have. There was almost too much of it; his newly-grown mane hung down to at least between his shoulder blades. Something would need to be done about that.

A quick pass with his hands over his freshly formed face didn’t yield much usable information, other than a nose perhaps a bit wider than the kind Moots had. But at the very least he was able to confirm that he lacked the hideous features of the identical Players. Anything beyond that was a bonus as far as Shh was concerned.

His questing fingers had revealed one other startling truth: nearly all of his fur was gone. Mere minutes ago the idea of being a furless mongrel would have horrified Shh, but he found that now he didn’t mind it so much. Besides, he’d gotten some clothes in the trade. His airy pair of breeches were cinched at the ankles, and a padded tunic of stitched pig-iron scales protected his chest. A somewhat tattered looking robe had been slipped over all of it, secured at his waist by a long cloth wound snugly around his toned midsection.

It was all a lot to take in at once. Was anything the same?

His ears seemed mostly unchanged, still large and fluffy on either side of his head. The tail too; a quick wag confirmed that. But beyond that everything was different. In the right light, he could almost be mistaken for a human.

Human. Not outpost monster. Human. They were humans and Moots was a human.

Shh shook off the sudden revelation. Obviously his perception of the world had been drastically sharpened since his change, and he was going to have to do some serious delving into his newfound perspective? But it looked like his two companions were about to finish reforming, and that was absolutely the more pressing concern.

Mo-Mo snapped back into focus first, the one-time runt stumbling briefly on the hem of her oversized robe. She shook her hands free from the confines of her long sleeves, needing an entire arm to wrangle aside the waves of inky black hair that had cascaded over her achingly pretty face. She stared at Shh for a long moment, her mahogany eyes blinking in rapid succession, then let out a squeal of delight. “Shh! We did it! Ahhhh~!”

She rushed to Shh’s side, nearly tripping on her robes again before she could snatch hold of her packmate’s hands and begin jumping up and down in a manic glee. “Can you believe it?! I don’t believe it! It’s just so, it’s all so~!”

“Oh! Um, yes, it’s…” Shh trailed off, turning red as he did his best to look anywhere besides directly at Mo-Mo.

“Shh?” Mo-Mo seemed concerned, leaning in a bit closer. “What’s wrong?”

Shh cleared his throat in a weak attempt to play for time, flushing even brighter with every passing moment. Then he gestured downward with an eyes-averted nod of his head, and Mo-Mo released that she’d popped out of her robes.

Mo-Mo had been the runt of the pack and she was still short, nearly a whole head shorter than Shh. But while the differences between a male mongrel and a female mongrel were negligible at best, that was clearly not the case any longer. Mo-Mo may not have been tall, but she was clearly beyond the curve in other areas. Quite literally.

Keeping his eyes averted while Mo-Mo stuffed herself back into her robes, Shh decided to distract himself with the imminent arrival of Gert. From his new vantage, Shh understood that the actual differences between Mo-Mo and Gert during their mongrel days had been minor. A hand’s length in height at most. In truth, they’d been practically identical. Would that quibbling difference translate to an equally small difference now?

As he soon discovered, it would most certainly not. Whatever informed the changes the three of them had gone through clearly cared more about personality more than anything else, because there was no chance anyone would ever confuse Mo-Mo and the Gert that solidified back into existence before Shh’s eyes.

She was still taller than him, at least half a head if not more. And while Shh had been quietly pleased with his own physique, with his toned chest and firm midsection, there was no question that he looked like an utter weakling compared to Gert. Beyond a simple fur-lined wrap around her womanly chest, a sleeve of stitched iron scales and her own pair of breeches, every inch of her almighty frame was left boldly uncovered. It seemed to Shh to almost be an arrogant display, a dare, an invitation for any foolish would-be challengers to take their best shot. He sincerely doubted many would get a second chance.

The word amazonian flitted through Shh’s mind. He had no idea what it meant, other than knowing with every fiber of his being that Gert was it.

By the time Shh managed to draw his eyes away from the elegant perfection of Gert’s femininely powerful body, she was already staring back at him with pale brown eyes. Whoops. Well, in for a penny and in for a pound, he figured. He allowed himself a moment to inspect her face, perhaps less refined than Mo-Mo’s but to his eyes no less pretty. Her hair was blonde and cropped very short, her ears flicking in irritation as her packmate continued to dumbly stare at her.

Alright Shh. Second first impressions are pretty rare. Make this one count. “Um…hi.”

Gert let out a puff of disbelieving air. “You’re such an idiot, Shh.”

…Huh. It wasn’t all that long ago that, had Gert uttered that exact sentence in this exact context, Shh would have assumed a big mouthful of dirt was headed his way. Had he really never caught the faint tone in her voice before? She was teasing him. Maybe she’d always been teasing him.

Food for thought.

The curious moment was swiftly interrupted by Mo-Mo, who leapt at Gert in a flying hug. “Gert!! You’re so big~!”

Gert effortlessly swung the smaller woman around, laughing along with Mo-Mo in unreserved delight. “And you’re still small!”

“Hey!” Mo-Mo stuck out her tongue. “I’m bigger, too! I’m almost as tall as Moots!”

The mention of the old human’s name snapped the three packmates out of their reverie. Three pairs of eyes locked onto Moots, who had clearly already moved past shocked, through bewildered, and landed on bemused. “Uh, ‘lo there?”

Moots was significantly less capable of withstanding Mo-Mo’s tackle of a hug than Gert was, but somehow managed to stay on his feet long enough for the taller woman to steady him with a companionable slap on the back. “Hello yourself!” Gert cocked an eyebrow as she stared down at Moots, a smile playing at her full lips as she towered over the human. “D’you ever think you’d have to stare up at a mongrel one day?”

“Well.” The old man shrugged helplessly. “S’like my daddy always said: Ain’t no river so long don’t got a bend.”

It was around this time Shh realized that they were all speaking perfect Common. Common. Not monster speak. He was really going to have to siphon through this updated mental glossary soon, but everything was too exciting to worry about that right now. “What do you think, Moots? Do you like our new look?”

Moots rubbed thoughtfully at his bald head, giving Shh another curious once over. “Well sure; y’all pups’re keen as all heck. But…well, ah can’t quite reckon what y’are?”

Shh blinked. “Huh?”

“Ol’ Moots ain’t never seen nothin’ like y’all pups. No siree.” He shook his head, making some sort of complicated gesture in front of his chest. “What is y’all, ‘sactly?”

Shh, Mo-Mo and Gert shared a silent moment at that, and then spoke in perfect unison. “Status.”

———————

Name: Shin

Race: Kobold (Monster)

Class: Schemer (Lvl 5)

Description: Formerly a meaningless mongrel, now a mostly meaningless kobold, Shin is suspiciously adept at turning lucky breaks into obscene windfalls. A sneaky little git, what Shin lacks in refined strategic sensibilities he nearly makes up for in underhanded cunning and shameless opportunism.

Stats:

Str: 10 Agi: 11 Tgh: 10 Int: 14 Wis: 14 Prs: 16

Traits: Enhanced Senses (Kobold), Ranged Expertise, Armor Proficiency (Medium), Simple Proficiency

Class Features: Leadership (Auras Known: Inspiring, Careful, Bold), A Certain Low Cunning, Opportunism

———————

Oh. His name was Shin now. Yes, that felt right.

Weirdly insulting new passages aside, Shin was nearly overwhelmed by the wealth of new treasures his extensively upgraded Status Sheet teased him with. Traits? Class Features? He had a class?

But at that moment he found it difficult to make it past the second line. What he’d once proudly named the Biggest Plan had finally delivered its ultimate promise. He and his packmates had finally pulled themselves beyond the absolute bottom rung of the world.

They were Kobolds.