Dewdrop waits for the pyers 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 pyers 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 vanil 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 pyable 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 pyer 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 ptform 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, spshes 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 ter and the group find themselves in an extensive field with two deep kes 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 spshed 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 ptform.

  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 bnket 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 pce 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 cked 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 st 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.

  Akhier