Chapter 48: 8- I Love The Idea Of Following The Stupid Dog

It took Kyessy a surprisingly long time to come through the portal. He went through, noted the castle in the distance, and turned to wait for her to join him… and then she didn’t. She then didn’t a little bit more.

And then, finally, she pushed through the filmy weirdness of the portal, looking tiny in comparison with the mass of wild magic popping and flashing with radiance.

Oh, that’s right, she hadn’t been through into his world yet.

“I don’t like this,” she said, and he laughed.

“You’re gonna need some new material,” he said. “Come on, we have someone to find.”

“But… this world…”

“What about it?”

“It is not my world.”

“Well both of them are going to belong to your sleepy god if we don’t figure out some shit, and quick. Now, I have an idea, and you’re going to have to be ready to pick me up and run, okay?”

He explained the plan to her, watching her brow furrow in confusion first, followed by disbelief next, and finally worry for all the danger involved. Honestly, it was pretty amazing that she could go through so many negative emotions so quickly, given that his plan was pretty simple. Insane, sure, but without any real moving parts. It was simplicity to its core.

“This plan of yours–”

“You don’t like it?” She froze and gave him a cold look. “Come on, you were going to say you don’t like it, weren’t you? I know you were going to say it.”

“No, I love this plan of yours, with all the dangers involved. I love the idea of following the stupid dog when it proposes idiotically suicidal plans. What’s not to like?”

He ignored the obvious sarcasm and beamed at her, with tongue lolling. “Great! Let’s get moving!”

If he was going to be a dog, he was really going to get into character, and that meant speaking with as many exclamation points as possible. Her expression soured even further, but she nodded grimly.

“Fine then. Let’s just avoid these Five characters you made enemies with in the past.”

“And let’s find us a dungeon opener.”

They took off, with her Longstrider ability giving her a huge advantage and forcing him to really test the limits of his doggo Endurance. In short order they put the edge of the portal behind them and came out on the opposite side of the castle, because fuck that nonsense. Maybe those army idiots could handle dealing with the Five while he and Kyessy and Prissy saved two worlds at once.

An idea came to him, while they were speeding over dell and over vale: what if the Five (Four) could be reasoned with? What if they could be convinced to abandon the castle, come through the portal and give Vethros the old backstab right up the rectal cavity? Surely they wouldn’t have any trouble laying low the temples and blasting forth in three part harmony whenever they found a coven of cultists. Murder of cultists? Or did they come in prides like lions, or congresses like baboons?

Anyway. It was an idea to shelve for when they’d finished one or more of these quests, assuming the army guys didn’t surprise him and actually take them out.

For now, he couldn’t be sure if Prissy was okay, and once again she was in danger while holding onto his card, which wasn’t acceptable. He really really, really really really needed to become a person again, and stop being a friggin familiar, if only for the peace of mind.

He discovered Kyessy was staring around at any and everything here. The trees, the bushes, the buildings, everything they passed was fair game.

Eventually they reached a ridge that gave a pretty good view of most of the lands south of the portal, and she just took it all in.

“Your first time in another world, huh?”

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“We can come back once–“

“No. Definitely not.” She turned to him, and he noted that her skin had flushed a maroon tinged with grayish he was coming to realize meant she was uncomfortable. Perhaps very uncomfortable.

As a raven he would’ve been able to locate the target with ease. He hoped, in this form, to pick up the scent trail with slightly less ease.

An hour into the search, though, and nothing had shown up on his snout radar except various monsters: a clan of cave gibbons, a dire hamster, a trio of hedgehogtopuses (two of them were fighting over a mate? Or mating and one of them being a voyeur?), and a mud golem trudging up over hill and vale. It left great circular mud clumps with every step, and Kyessy watched it in fascination for a time before returning to the hunt.

Not far south of the portal they began to see signs: a demolished house here, a swath of trees and foliage ripped from the ground and tossed aside.

Kyessy started to back away from the splintered remains of the copse of trees here. “You didn’t mention it was capable of–“

Corbin ignored her and started barking as loud as he could. He was basically just shouting ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’ at the top of his lungs, like he’d seen in this one comic as a kid.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but it was one of those reflex questions, when your mouth goes on ahead of your brain. She knew this part of the plan, and just didn’t like it. She wasn’t a coward or anything, she just didn’t like taunting something with thousands of hit points, who had broken through the Five’s castle shielding without much of a pause.

It turned out the big guy was snoring up a storm, and it took more than some noisy barking to wake him up. They eased in closer and found him snoring, surrounded by some rather large bones. He wondered if they were from the land shark he and Prissy had seen early in their travels together, the one that had vomited up all the zombies.

“That…” Kyessy breathed.

“That’s right. Todd.”

 

You have inspected the monster:

Hill Behemoth: Todd

You are reading story UnFamiliar at novel35.com

Level 30 Titan

6600/6600 HP

Once upon a time he might have been wee-Todd, but he has since grown up. Like, a lot.

 

A literal behemoth. He’d been able to smell Todd as a raven, but only a little. The ginormous guy was enveloped in a cloud of stink so pungent even his dog nose could barely handle it. He shrank back, and tried not to gag. Did dogs have a gag reflex? He didn’t know, and didn’t want to test it. The big pelt Todd had on had shifted, and what it barely covered before… it didn’t cover now. Dirt and filth was caked into every visible bit of the sleeping giant.

“We wake the sleeping giant,” he said, thinking this worked so well for Japan.

“This is a terrible idea,” she replied. “Maybe there’s another way.”

“There isn’t. Shoot him,” he managed.

“Shoot him?”

“Fireburst arrow,” he said.

The fight went out of her. She deflated, then shrugged, and produced an arrow out of her ever-full quiver. A second later the arrow landed, dealing maybe twenty-some damage and setting a bit of brush on fire. More importantly, Todd woke up and surged to his feet.

The effect was seismic; Corbin’s teeth rattled in his head from the impact of the ground suddenly not being there for him and ramming into his paws again. He actually took damage from the impact.

“Who? Who dat?” Todd bellowed.

“It’s us, you dimwit!”

The big dumb behemoth peered down at the little people from his awesome height, scratched his head, and blinked the sleep out of his eyes.

“You…”

“We know where Prissy is!” Kyessy shouted.

“Priscilla! My Me smell her,” Todd affirmed. “You with her. Where she?”

“You’ll have to catch us first.”

Corbin had already taken off, and Kyessy had Longstrider on her side. Pretty soon she was close on his heels, and then after another minute she scooped him up and bolted. The portal already loomed large before them, but now it towered over both they and the gigantic Todd.

As for Todd, he roared out and swiped a hand down, missing them by only a few feet. Then Corbin felt the tingling sensation rattling through him, and they passed through the portal. Todd the stinking, mostly naked giant began to take ten foot steps in their direction when they breached the portal and he disappeared.

Kyessy immediately swung to the right, and well she did, because Todd came through hands first in a dive. Again the ground shook, and Kyessy nearly lost her footing and her hold on Corbin. For a brief terrifying second he thought he was going to be tossed aside and possibly through the portal again. Instead he had a brief dizzy sensation, Kyessy tumbling to the ground, but she hit with a shoulder and did an easy somersault back to her feet with him still in her arms.

Behind them, Corbin caught a glimpse between Kyessy’s elbow as Todd made a confused sound, opening his huge four-fingered hands and finding nothing there.

“He thought he had us,” Corbin told her. “Hey, dumbass! Hey, over here!”

The chase was on now; Corbin watched from an uncomfortably short lead while Todd bowled over a tree in frustration, snatched it up, and threw it at them. He was on the verge of telling her to dodge left when the tree slammed to the ground a few feet short.

Todd wasn’t far behind them. He leapt into action and sprinted forward. Again the ground shook, and Corbin’s teeth rattled, but they were closing on the edge of the portal, so when he leaped forward for them again, it was just after Kyessy had pulled a hard right around the portal. They had to get south of it.

Todd went skidding and crashing by once again, crashing through underbrush and sending four-winged birds into panicked flight.

“Where’s the geode guy?” he asked.

“You keep an eye on our flank,” she commanded. “I got this.”

“Don’t you break through and fall like Prissy did! Make sure–”

“Shut up, we’re not going to fall!”

She was wrong. As soon as Todd got to his feet and started after them again, he noted the various patches of earth just disappearing under the onslaught of Todd’s enormous bulk. Cracks raced out away from where he’d stepped, and some truly unique sounds came along with them like lightning happening underwater. This apparently wasn’t a good plan after all…

They reached the crystal guy and passed him on the other side, steering clear of the hole Prissy had made when she fell through into the underworld. Todd, miraculously, also didn’t fall through whatever sinkhole was directly beneath the former city of Ullennai. Not right away.

Corbin heard the swearing at the exact moment he realized he’d been thrown. He landed just in time to see the tails of Kyessy’s cloak disappearing down a hole. Two seconds later, Todd was looming over him, and three seconds later, the ground had given way and they were both falling.

“Oh shit!” he screamed, suddenly remembering.

The most dangerous part of any game was the falling damage.

 

You can find story with these keywords: UnFamiliar, Read UnFamiliar, UnFamiliar novel, UnFamiliar book, UnFamiliar story, UnFamiliar full, UnFamiliar Latest Chapter