Of course, I attract attention.

The first news-person I see is of course Joy Jenkins of Channel 9 "On time" news. They're local, and she's interviewed me twice before, so her station gets here first and she's the one they send.

As they're getting set up, I use a Message spell to whisper to her from a considerable distance: "You never did tell me what you wanted to change."

She jerks up and looks around, and I wave at her from across the parking lot as I whisper for her ears only, "Simple communication spell, nothing harmful. You can whisper back."

"What I fantasize about, and what's actually good, are two different things. Changing myself like that would wreck my life, fun as it is to think about. So it doesn't matter," she sounds quite wistful.

"Well… while I'm only willing to give the ability to change into nearly any living creature to those very near and dear to me and folks who are sworn to the country in various ways… if there's one particular shape you want, but not full-time, I can give you a second form and set you up to switch back and forth at will. So you could be your fantasy when you wish, and go back to your normal life whenever you want, then back to the fantasy, as often as desired." No, I'm not offering her Shapechange like I sell to the military.
The spell is Shapechanger's Gift. It grants one form, from a list of the lower level Polymorph spells, and lets the subject change back and forth easily.

"Can you make me a catgirl?"

Not what I was expecting, but I can work with it, "Within certain limits, yes," Catfolk are humanoids in Pathfinder, so in range of the spell I plan to use, "basically human, but covered in silky fur, a long tail, cat ears… easy to do. Thoughts on color, pro…"

She doesn't let me finish my sentence, "I want white fur with a pink heart around my tail a tiny waist a big behind and huge headlights bigger than my head and green eyes and claws for when I get mad."

"Sure. Do you prefer to be able to see well in near darkness, or be able to smell amazingly well?" Either is in range; catfolk get low-light vision by default, with scent as an alternative racial trait… that replaces the low-light vision. Claws are an alternative trait, but they're replacing some skill bonuses that aren't worth mentioning. The rest is non-technical fluff, totally valid.

"Hmm… let's go with seeing in the dark, please. I don't want to think about what cats go through around modern cleaning agents."

"Near-dark, but close enough. OK. Now, when I apply it, you'll immediately change into your new form. If you don't want folks connecting your two forms, you'll want to immediately change back. And don't use my gifts to commit any meaningful crimes, all right? Three, two, one…" with the coaching and the countdown, she's good to go on the Reach Conditional Fleeting Shapechanger's Gift, taking on the form of a cat person for only a brief fraction of a second.

Nobody reacts, so I'm sure we got away with it. Pretty sure. Hopefully. Well… we'll see. Especially seeing as how her blouse is a bit stretched out, and I think her brassiere straps snapped. Her clothing is also all wrinkled now. A quick Persistent Veil spell fixes that, though. Mostly.

As she's coming over to interview me with her cameraman, a few dozen vans screech into the parking lot, and seemingly hundreds of people pour out with cameras and microphones, screaming out irrelevant questions as they take pictures with very bright flashbulbs. And unfortunately, my Veil of Attentiveness works.

"Are you married?"
"Are you a communist?"
"What’s your stance on gay marriage?"
"How much do you make in a year?"
"Are you a lesbian?"
"Are you going to support the Russian invasion of the Ukraine?"

And on, and on, all of them screaming over each other, and throwing out every random question they can think of. Great, I'm a celebrity now.

But that’s OK. This is the technology age, basically nobody uses chemical film professionally anymore. First though, I need to get the folks who aren't idiots out of the way. Sonorous Hum and Telekinesis lets me pick up Joy, her cameraman, and my purse with all my electronics, lifting them up and out of the way of what I'm about to do. False Gravity lets me redefine my own personal down. And Call Lightning Storm lets me make several lightning bolts fly just over the heads of the paparazzi, without touching any of them, saying a word, or even moving an inch.

The paparazzi are fine. But electronics do NOT like the kind of electromagnetic interference a lightning bolt throws off, especially at that range. Anyone with a flash card that wasn't in the middle of a write operation might be able to recover what they had on there already. But I'm pretty sure most of them were taking video and audio recordings, and thus doing near-constant writes. The devices that don't burn out entirely reboot with each stroke… which I repeat every few seconds, so they never finish booting back up. This mobbing session is over, you all get nothing, thank you VERY much.

I fly over to Joy Jenkins and her cameraman - OK, it's UP for most people, but I've changed what down means for me with a spell.

"Such odd weather we're having," I smile for Joy and her cameraman, "How about I take you indoors where we can discuss things a bit more privately, eh?"

Joy nods, as I grab my purse out of the air, and notice the camera man flipping a lever as I add Reach spell to Plane Shift and land us in a spare "Meeting room" Keyhome as I return my "down" back to normal. The camera man flips the lever back after we arrive. Of course, now I'm in a Keyhome, with the key, without a manifested door. I wonder what happens if I try to force my way out? Let's… have a summoned minion try it. In a Keyhome I’m not in. I don't want to risk accidentally ripping reality or something myself.

I wonder … “So out of curiosity, what does that lever do?”

The camera guy shrugs, “It’s the speed switch on the camera, it controls the frame rate. I figured you were about to do something awesome, so I flipped it up to max for a moment. Can’t run it that way for very long, as it can’t write to the drive fast enough - it all goes into a buffer for later, but it’s great if you know you’re going to get something awesome. And going through something like a Trek Wars jumper? Well… we’ll get a pretty penny for that footage, I think. Not sure if it’ll be from the universities or someone else, though. The Carlson Effect in action, direct from the source.”

Err… I thought I was clear… “It’s magic.”

Joy chuckles, “I take it you’ve been keeping busy and not paying much attention to the news, then? Yeah… every single science head that is trying to study what you and your worshippers do is refusing to call it ‘magic’. They’re tagging it with your name for now and calling it ‘The Carlson Effect’ and trying to determine ‘The Carlson Principles’ behind it while they try to sort out what everyone you’ve touched is actually doing.”

“Don’t I get to name it? I’m the one that brought it to light.”

Joy shakes her head, “There’s some baggage that comes with the term you used. Everyone in the science biz refuses to touch that term with a ten-foot pole when it comes to actual study. But they also accept the evidence of their senses. You and your worshipers are doing … something … that’s repeatable and observable, so it is, by definition, a part of natural law. They’re just trying to figure out what, how, and why.”

“Which is basically what I said in the big prior interview, yes. But the proper term really is magic.”

Joy pauses, and takes a breath, “If you found them, how does… how can there…” she seems to be having a bit of trouble phrasing the question well.

“How can there be a ‘proper term’ independently of what people use?” Yeah, I think she’s figured part of it out.

Joy considers, “A good enough phrasing. Yes, that.”

“That’d be because I didn’t discover it. It was given to me by…” I choke again. So annoying, “Someone who doesn’t want to be named.” And can apparently enforce that desire very effectively. HOW IS THAT THING DOING THIS? Ugh. I can’t even THINK the being’s name.  I KNOW it, but... ugh.

Joy seems to file that away in her head, not quite sure what to do with it for now, “Terms aside, what you and your followers do would seem to be impossible by established physics - seriously, your people are literally creating water out of nothing, gallons of it, repeatedly, by waving their fingers and saying some words. That’s a very serious violation of Conservation of Energy. And when the people who are doing it try to explain it in detail, the explanation is utterly incomprehensible to all the eggheads. And when an egghead converts and picks up the ability himself, he says it simply won’t make sense to someone who doesn’t already know. And gives basically the same utterly incomprehensible explanation. And then freely admits it doesn’t fit into any paradigm that fits in with ‘prior’ science.”

Yeah, I could tell you all about the game mechanics, but… no, what I do doesn’t really fit into established physics, “But it works.”

“Yes, it works. Repeatedly, predictably, acting very much like it’s some kind of muscle that can be exercised or exhausted. Meanwhile MRI’s, CAT scans, genetic analysis, and every other test says nothing’s different: These people are perfectly normal.”

“Right up until they break the supposed laws of physics,” I think I get the frustration.

“Right. Anyway… that’s all old hat, it’s been done to death on the news. Basically, nobody knows anything other than that it’s spreading, and anyone who tries to mess with your ‘priests and priestesses’ past a point gets shown that they are NOT in control. What’s up with those dragons, anyway?”

“Oh. Minnie. Yes, I tasked her with defending many of my priests. So I take it she does a pretty good job?”

Joy blinks at me, while the camera man outright stares, “You’ve been living under a rock, have you? Please, turn on the news some time. If by ‘a pretty good job’ you mean ‘neutralizes an entire army in minutes’ then yes, … Minnie, you said?… does ‘a pretty good job’. Look up what happened to the People’s Liberation Army when one of your priestesses was preaching by one of their bases. You’re still not on China’s officially recognized religions list, but they ABSOLUTELY let your priests and priestesses preach wherever and whenever they want now.  Because the next thing up on their escalation list is purging with nuclear fire, and they won't do that within their own borders.”

OK, I was planning for the ‘self-replicating rings then dragon’ thing, good to know it works. Wonder if there’s a video?

Joy continues, “Anyway, mind if I ask you some questions? I’m supposed to be the reporter here…”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

“Great. First up: Where are we? I’m not getting any GPS satellites on my phone….”