Veres slowly woke up from the light of the surrounding room. As she sat up in the bed she yawned. Her maw opened much wider than any human could ever think possible, revealing a mouth full of predatory teeth. In her sleep addled state she didn't notice the fact that the room she was in wasn't her own.
'I need coffee.' Still too groggy for higher brain function, she started about her morning routine. She blindly reached towards the side of the bed, fully expecting to feel her prosthetic on the night stand. It was only after a few seconds of uncoordinated searching did she open her eyes to find the errant tool.
When she opened her eyes they quickly widened at the sight of a lavish room. She felt that the room was familiar, so assumed it was some high-end hotel she had been to before. Hoping that she had just forgotten the prosthetic in her fatigue the night before, she swung her feet over the side of the bed. With pressure coming from both legs as she set her feet on the floor, she figured she did and was ready to start her day.
With a mighty heave she surged to her feet, hoping the momentum would carry her towards the dark ambrosia she desired, only to…
*Yip!*
She had crashed to the floor with a sound she wasn't used to making as her nose contacted the floor much sooner than she expected.
'Owww. What a great way to start the morning. Face, meet floor.' As she processed the fact that the floor was still very hard, as it had always been, she thought through all the reasons she might have fallen.
'Prosthetic? I felt both legs meet the ground, so check. Vertigo? No, I am actually feeling pretty good this morning, other than the pain in my muzzle. Wait…' She finally started to recall that she wasn't in her bedroom, she was in Momonga's room in Nazarick.
She had fallen to the floor because she wasn't used to the balance of her new legs. When she had stood up there was too much weight on her back side, so she had rocked forward to correct it. Only, with the rather small paws her feet had become, the correction had pushed her too far forward, so she had fallen right onto her extended muzzle before she could brace herself.
With some effort, she was able to get onto her hands and knees.
'This just seems wrong.' The position wasn't comfortable, perhaps with her upper body too elevated to be relaxed. After thinking it through, only one position made sense with her new limbs. She shifted her legs until her hind paws were supporting her back side. The position made sense and was easy to hold, plus she was pleased to have made real headway in moving under her own power.
'Ah. Those would do it.' She was, of course, thinking about the group of tails that had started to gently wag at her success. It wasn't to hard to figure out they had been a big part of her off balance stance. Looking behind her, she was able to see the layout of the room, and if she didn't have fur covering her face she would have turned beat red.
'I'm really glad Momonga isn't here to see this. Or Peroroncino.' Indeed, if Momonga were to walk in he would have seen her in a rather suggestive stance with her on all fours, butt raised into the air facing the door, as her tails visibly wagged. The privacy in her state was very welcome.
'I have to do something, and if I've decided on figuring out these legs on all fours first that form would probably be best.' It was logical, you needed to crawl before you could walk, and her body structure was based more closely on a four-legged animal.
When she had relearned to walk after her accident, she had had walkers and crutches available for support alongside physical therapists. Now, she didn't have any of those things on top of her completely different body structure. She would have to truly start from scratch.
However, her current body was still meant to walk on two legs, so starting over might be uncomfortable in this form. As a Kitsune, she had multiple forms. It's more appropriate to say that with her investment in certain racial and job classes she had two additional 'forms' separate from the base avatar.
This wasn't uncommon for many heteromorph species to be able to do. However, she had instead used these forms to be a focus for certain skills or traits, so that she had each 'form' be specialized for certain jobs.
It wasn't perfect. In the end, each of her specialized forms was weaker than a build dedicated to any specific job or load out. But, she was very flexible in her skills. This meant that she could move around a battlefield and fill in holes or supplement strike teams in a wide array of situations.
This was sorely needed in a guild like Ainz Ooal Gown. Almost every player in the guild had become intensively specialized based on their race and job. This led to them occasionally getting stuck in a situation with need for specific skills and no one had them. With her wider array of skills, Veres was able to help solve a problem or buy enough time for a solution to come about.
All of this led to a build that was incredibly useful in the Guild, PK, and PKK battles they often found themselves in, but still had its own short comings. There was little chance for her to win in a 1 on 1 fight against a dedicated fighting character. Against someone like Momonga she would have to ambush him before swiftly finishing him off while using plenty of items and luck. If he were to have time to summon undead, especially strong or useful ones like Death Knights, all she would be able to do is to flee with all her strength or (most likely) die trying.
The form she was trying to take was her self-impacting magic focused form, as it had some useful traits that would come in handy at that moment. It wasn't her preferred form, it was just more practical when she was trying to learn how to walk.
'Now how exactly do I transform?' She thought to herself. In the game, it was a selectable command on her command window that made her transform. But when she thought about what she wanted her body to do, and what the form looked like, she started to shift.
It didn't hurt, it just felt like stretching out unused muscles as her body changed shape. Her body started to shrink, and her nine tails fused into one that fit her body size. Her kimono, and all of her items, eventually disappeared in a flash of gold light as they disappeared, probably into her inventory.
'I'm going to have to figure that out later.' She had no idea how her inventory worked now, but it was just another thing to worry about later.
Eventually, what stood there next to the side of the bed, in an underground tomb, in her friend's private room, was a small grey fox. It looked like an ordinary grey fox, with only a silver sheen and snow-white highlights being indicators that it was a magical creature instead of a normal animal.
'Well, this isn't too bad. It's reassuring to know that some of my abilities work.' As she inspected her new form with a twisting of her now very flexible neck, she decided to try and walk.
'All right, let's try walking.' Happy that her body was in working order, she hesitantly started to move her legs. However, she quickly realized that remembering the gait needed to walk properly would be impossible, and it wasn't long before her legs were going in every direction and she was about to fall again.
'Okay. Deep breaths. I'm just over thinking this, my body should know the gait, I just have to get it started.' It took her some time, but she was able to walk slowly on her own without always stopping to untangle her paws. She still couldn't run though. Anything faster than a slow walk and the natural gait changed so much, it would be like trying to ice skate using scuba flippers.
'Good'nough.' She could work with what she had though. Figuring she had spent enough time trying to not fall on her face while waiting for her friend to show up, she decided to start figuring out what was going on.
Making her way over to the open doorway, she slipped out of the room, only to be taken aback by the feeling of walking through a film. On the other side of the threshold the sound of voices speaking could be heard. Walking cautiously towards the noise she soon entered into a large office space, where she saw Momonga and Albedo going over reports on the state of Nazarick.
"Ah, you woke up. I guess I'm not too surprised to see you like that." It was a slightly disconcerting sight to have a bare skull turn and face you, and Veres stopped in her tracks as the flaming pits that were his eyes focused on her small frame.
'Yep, that definitely happened.' The imposing yet attractive new voice of her also changed friend affirmed in her mind that what she remembered happening, 'Was it yesterday?', had happened.
*Yip!* 'What has been going on?' she tried to speak, but only got a noise you would expect from a fox.
"Hm? Oh, you probably can't speak in that form. Here, let's try this. [Message]"
"[What has been going on?]" Veres asked again, relieved she wouldn't have to transform to speak. Learning how to use one form was hard enough already.
"You fell asleep before I got back, so I left you to sleep. I have just been trying to ascertain the situation in the meantime. I can now say with near absolute certainty that this is a completely different world." Momonga spoke out normally. He could be understood clearly, while Veres' voice seemed to echo in his mind.
"Momonga-sama? What manner of creature is that?" Albedo asked. She was confused as to why her master would start talking to such a lowly creature. She didn't recognize it as an NPC and it didn't seem strong enough to be of any threat or use.
"That is Veres. Well, one of her forms." He said pointing to the small fox. Albedo was floored. She looked like just a small, wild animal that would be more at home outside the tomb or in the sixth-floor jungle instead of her master's private room.
"[Can she not hear me speaking with the Message?]"
"No, the Message spell only seems to work with a target person."
"[That's good to know. Here, I'll try something.]"
"[Message]" Casting the spell herself seemed to function along the same lines as her transformation. Enough willpower, mixed with focus on the intended effect, seemed to be enough to work properly.
"[Hello there, Albedo.]" When her spell had connected with the Guardian Overseer Veres decided it would be best to confirm Momonga's statement herself. Albedo's eyes widened, and a panicked expression crossed her face as she realized the she had been thinking a Supreme Being was a lowly beast.
"My apologies, Veres-sama!" Veres was rather surprised to see the NPC start genuflecting before her. She had expected a courteous tone from their loyal followers, not them prostrating for the slightest perceived insult.
"[No, you're fine. I never walked around Nazarick in this form, so you not recognizing it is to be expected.]" She replied, becoming slightly amused by the tone her new minion was taking.
'Where did that come from?' The thought of the NPCs as minions was both sudden and unusual.
"*Ehem.* Albedo, would you please leave us, so we may have some privacy?" Momonga finally cut in with a faked cough.
'How's he even doing that without a throat?' Veres became mystified by the functionality of his new body. It shouldn't be possible for a skeleton to be moving around, and any sounds beyond the clacking of bones should've been impossible.
"Understood, Momonga-sama." With a mournful look on her beautiful face Albedo reluctantly left her masters in private. A pointed look from Momonga, and the eight Edge Assassins on the ceiling followed her out.
"[Soooo, what's been going on?]" Veres asked Momonga, turning towards him once they were alone.
"It appears that Nazarick, and everything inside it, have been transferred into a real world. You probably noticed, but the NPCs have all come alive, with their personalities being shaped by their settings."
"[Where's Nazarick? Is it still in Helheim?]"
"No, we're now in the middle of a wide-open plain. The environment is rather sedentary, with only small animals and grass for miles around. We've yet to find any sentient life or evidence of civilization."
"[That's different. It almost seems like a normal world. Is Nazarick itself still the same?]"
"For the most part it's still operating the same way. Our control over its functions are reduced, but over all very little has changed. Thankfully, all the NPCs appear to be loyal so far."
"[What about the Eighth floor?]"
"Everything seems to still be secure there. No one has entered or exited it without my permission, and I have activated the bypass measures, so the NPCs can move around it." Momonga reassured his friend, who was starting to show her discomfort at the thought of that floor causing problems.
'Well, at least the NPCs shouldn't try to randomly kill me.' Veres visibly relaxed. Her shoulders seemed to slump down and her tail fell limply to the floor. The relief she felt after hearing that was a great weight off her shoulders.
"Our abilities appear to be the same as well, there are some obvious changes, and we no longer have the console interface for control, but things are generally the same. Oh, and Friendly Fire can now happen, or at least in some way. I accidentally injured Albedo with one of my passive skills earlier."
"[That would make sense. If this is a real world than everything should function more like it would in real life.]"
"We are still taking stock of everything. Most of the reports have been about taking inventory of everything, as well as recording what still works the way we are used to. Our supplies are pretty abundant. All of the raiding the two of us did on other guilds towards the end really filled up the coffers with gold and low-level consumables. It will take years for us to actually go through any significant amount of it, so we can focus more on figuring out where we are and what exactly is going on instead."
"[Basically, intelligence on our situation is the highest priority, and we can take our time figuring out new ways to get resources.]"
"Yes. By the way, you seem to be handling all this rather well."
"[Honestly, I'm just ignoring ninety percent of what is going on so that I don't constantly break down. I'll sort through everything as I can, but I really don't want to think about it right now. Is there anything else I should know about?]"
"Yes, the mine came with us." At being told this Veres visibly perked up. Her ears erect and her posture tense, it was quite obvious she wanted to know what he meant.
"I sent Cocytus to clear it out. Most of the low-level spawn monsters and undead laborers turned hostile towards us. The Mercenary spawns that were put in control were overwhelmed, so Cocytus went to clear them out."
"[Does this mean they rebelled? Can other NPCs rebel?]" The situation would be much more dangerous if that could happen.
"No, so far all the monsters that are fighting against us were incredibly low level and usually mindless. It's more like their agro settings reset and they're treating everything as hostile. The Nazarick spawns don't have this problem and all of the NPCs seem to be fanatically loyal."
"[I guess we can live with that. It's just scary to think of our own creations trying to kill us.]"
"I know. But we can't worry about that right now. You've been out for most of a day, so we've gotten pretty far in figuring most of these problems out. Right now, you need to figure out how to use your powers and learn how to walk. I think it be good for you to get out of this room and practice. If you need any help, I'll be here working."
"[That sounds pretty good. There's some stuff I want to do myself. Umu, can you get the door for me?]" Veres asked as she headed for the door the NPCs had left through earlier.
"Of course." Momonga got up from the large desk and moved over to the door. He pulled it wide open, drawing the attention of the maids who seemed to be guarding the other side of the door.
"Pleiades, I have a job for you. One of you must take care of and guard this creature on its way to the sixth floor." The maids then shifted their attention to the small animal peaking out from behind their master's robes.
"Uwah…" With that cute sound the maid Delta scooped up the fluffy creature in her arms and started to cuddle with it.
"[Oi! What are you doing you bastard?!]" Veres could only cry out over the Message as Momonga slipped back into the room, leaving her to her fate.
'God damnit! I'm not a stuffed animal!' She could only mentally cry out as the maid carried her off. She could have just Messaged the maid and told her to put her down, but she was too busy cursing the name of a skeleton who was most definitely laughing his bony ass off at her misfortune.
*Comment on what you think of my introduction to Veres' abilities. Overlord characters are the definition of OP but are generally internally consistent and balanced. I've been trying to do this, and I'll introduce the basics of her powers over a few chapters. It will be a longer period than its been so far before the next chapter because I have been procrastinating on work in real life, so it has built up considerably. I should have another chapter by the end of next weekend, hopefully sooner.*