Cool story! It's almost Dungeons & Dragons-ish. My favorite parts are the mystery of the mythilogical beasts(or metamorphs?) and the mention of a futon!

I vaguely remeber this story's beginnings from ff.n, but not well enough to be distracted by those memories. So far, it seems to be off to a great start, and I'm totally thrilled to be reading something of yours again. ^_^