Chapter 49: 9- He Wasn’t Just Some Slut

This time, in a stunning turn of events, it was Prissy who saved him.

He awoke sometime later, completely sure that he was captured, near dead, and he had zero options.

A quick peek over his character sheet showed that he had all his hit points, amazingly enough. He was bruised and battered, but could move around just fine.

To top that off, he received this message:

 

Achievement Unlocked! Lead a Horse to Water…

You’ve now led a powerful, and very heavy creature to an inhabited area in order to have it bull through expected resistance a second time. In doing so, you’ve caused destruction over vast swaths of underground caverns, and untold loss of life for those living here. You didn’t just destroy the men, but the women and children too. You should be horrified at your actions…

…that said, you get the xp for defeating 63 draklings, make that 64, and 28 groblins. Some of these were higher level sergeants, squad commanders, and mini-bosses, including drakling shamans, drakling skirmishers, groblin priests, groblin tinkerers, groblin inventors, and various riders, pilots, scouts, mechanics, and soldiers.

May the gods have mercy on your soul.

You gain 36,498 xp from the devastation you’ve unleashed.

Bonus! For this achievement, you gain an additional 2000 xp.

Do not try this again.

 

The warning was weird.

He’d leveled up from 11th to 13th just like that. Wow. He wondered about the warning while leveling up his Luck and Intelligence by one each, and then his Intelligence and Endurance. While he wanted more of those Luck rolls, he thought he was doing pretty well and could use some more of those hit points. Like right now.

Do not try this again.

And what if he did? He recalled the situation with the Shardmage, where Kyessy had actually lost xp and almost lost a level from killing the soul-sucking prick over and over again. Clearly whoever made the rules didn’t like the idea of smashing the gate down with a kaiju to blaze a path through your enemies.

On the heels of the Achievement, this happened:

 

Quest complete! – The Mystery of Ullennai City

While some questions remain, it’s clear that a concentrated blast of magic unmade the proud and historic city of Ullennai. Some of it was transformed into a sort of mirror city beneath the earth those months ago. Most of the inhabitants were indeed transformed into all manner of material, both living and unliving. Some transformed into other species of creatures, and, like you, forgot all about their former lives.

Reward: 5000 xp! And your curiosity has been sated, right? No more answers necessary. Surely not.

 

Hang on a second… how did the fucking quest prompt know about his amnesia? He needed to know more, and that might well end up happening if he conquered the underground dungeon here. If not, he’d have to pay The Five a visit and begin asking some more serious questions. He’d start with his memories and the girl, but directly after that would be what they knew about the magic of the game system.

Investigation for another day. For now though, he ended up getting yet another new quest. Thankfully he’d just finished the one. Having them stack up in his quest log was something he was pretty sure old Corbin didn’t particularly like.

 

New Quest Received! – Justice and Mercy for Ullennai

The underground city formerly known as Ullennai has been overrun by dark creatures under the sway of Vethros. Its malevolence has touched each drakling and goblin down here, but also the dread wyrm Quofflet.

Destroy the vile master of the Ullennai undercity.

Quest reward: 5000 xp, and one free skill point. And, as if that wasn’t already enough, you’ll have access to the dread wyrm Quofflet’s amassed hoard.

So whether it’s riches you’re after, or power, this quest has you covered.

 

“More like suicide,” he told himself. A thrill of fear shot through his little body at the idea of going up against a dragon. Nobody fought dragons until at least level 30 in his favorite MMORPG, Sky Realms Online. At least it had been his favorite until it shut down all servers overnight with no real explanation.

He was tempted to dismiss the quest out of hand, but held off for two reasons. First of all, no dismiss quest option existed that he could find. Second of all, there was a chance of Luck doing a lot of the work for him. He wasn’t going to bank on it, not yet, but his opinion of Luck had certainly changed during his time as a corvid.

In any event, he also had a skill point for reaching 12th level, and he quickly spent it on Mingle. With one of his party being the sneaky one, and the other being the grumpy one, they needed a cutesy one, and he was going to be that. Maybe Charm would get the upgrade next level.

 

SPECIAL attribute array: Corbin Dogherty, Canine Familiar

      Level 13

 

      Strength 9

      Perception 8 (11)*

      Endurance 10

      Charm 11

      Intelligence 11

      Agility 10 (13)*

      Luck 21

Skills:

      Mingle (Charm) level 2

      Inspect (Perception) level 2

      Survey (Perception) level 2 (level 3*)

      Kismet (Luck) level 1

      Serendipity (Luck) level 2

 

HP: 55/55

MP: 50/50

 

Had he survived only because of the level up? The levels were exciting (except for the bummer of a warning not to try this at home), but if he was down here alone… well, he was a familiar, and by definition he shouldn’t be alone.

His fears didn’t evaporate completely. He couldn’t see anything, but smelled a full-on bouquet of new scents: several types of fungus his nose began to identify and label, the mineral scents of the subterranean world, including plenty of damp, and the scents of draklings. He hadn’t gotten to smell them as a raven, but he sure could identify them in the darkness just by using his nose.

And he smelled Prissy.

“You there?” he asked in his mind.

“Oh yuh, yer fav’rite gel’s here. Survived hours ’n hours wiffout ya, mapped out this place a bit, Saved yer bacon, oy did. And wot ‘id you git up to, eh? Yeh brought on me ex, like a pair a right twats.”

“No, I promise, this is a good thing.”

They turned to find Todd hip deep in cavern, having smashed through half of another layer, unable to free himself, but swinging his arms madly around and shouting about how he couldn’t see anything down here, but he sure as hell could smell his Priscilla, and as soon as he got out of here he was going to grab her and never let her go.

“Yer a coupla imbeciles.”

“Tell me what you’ve found out. Then we link back up with Kyessy.” Provided they could find her.

Prissy had battled her way around a maze of tunnels, and eventually discovered a prison cell occupied by a fae. She explained that the subterranean tunnel system was a sort of reflection of how Ullennai had been before the portal situation. The magical shockwave transformed everything in its wake, literally everything. Sometimes trees changed into gigantic tunnel systems right beneath where they existed, other times they transformed into pure gold and were hacked apart and stolen by adventurers. People changed into dandelion fluff, or trees, or a mass of purple amethyst crystals, or flower beds. Some of the people just changed into different sorts of people, and a large tavern full of folks had morphed into the first draklings down here.

Pets could follow their human masters, or find themselves transformed into hideous monsters never before seen in the world. The head of the wizard’s guild had transformed into a dragon, and explained all this to the adventuring party, who were promptly ambushed by the draklings and some other creatures, once they left the dragon’s lair.

“He told me they were like evil gnomish folk.”

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“Goblins,” Corbin said, and nodded. “Did the fae tell you what caused the magical explosion to begin with?”

Prissy shook her head and Britted on: the dragon told them to head to the temple square and see if they couldn’t figure out what had happened. He thought he’d felt a strange surge of magic from the temple district just before everything went tits up.

“Somewhere ‘round here’s a scroll good for reviewing the past, and if we c’n get to the temple area, it should show what happened. Best if we freed that fae while we was at it.”

He was inclined to agree with her right off the bat, but that was his dog self doing the thinking for him. The Intelligence upgrades had been well worth it.

The suspicious part of him wondered if Prissy had found a new boy toy, after the healer boy, but dismissed this thought. If she went into heat, whoever she boned down with was her choice. Corbin’s rule number one was in effect, and besides, even if he was a human, he wouldn’t want to get tangled up with a woman who had the temperament of a cat. She wasn’t physically unattractive, but personality wise was a whole different bag of kibble.

Corbin shuddered again, as if he were trying to dry off, and told himself emphatically that humping legs was completely out of the question. Out. Of. The. Question.

“Wot about yer ranger girlie?” Prissy asked. Oh good God, could she read his mind with the card equipped? He couldn’t deal with shame on a dangerous mission.

“We got separated when Todd fell through.”

She nodded sharply, and cast another look over toward the sweaty mountain of a monster that was her ex. “Bloody cunt.” Meaning either Todd or Kyessy, or possibly both.

As for Todd, he was raging out of control. He was now bashing against the cavern floor with his van-sized fists, and shaking the whole place.

“Let’s put some distance in between you and him,” he suggested. “Go grab that scroll, or free the fae and then grab the scroll.” While keeping an eye out for Kyessy.

Chittering behind them announced that this option would be stickier than either of them would like. A thick mob of draklings had the whole passage clogged up.

“Priscilla!” behemoth Todd roared out. “You. Are. Mine! For. Ever!”

Something beneath Todd gave way, again, and he fell out of sight.

Like an avatar of Vethros, Todd remade the entire geography down here as he went. The passageway giving Prissy and Corbin an exit away from the draklings cracked, cracked again, and gave way. Soon enough it had slid away into nothing. Stalactites came crashing down around them, and one of those crushed several draklings. That brought the spitting and snarling at Corbin to an end. Some of them turned and ran, but a good ten or so gave a battle cry and darted forward.

A lightning fast, nose-based Inspect gave him their stats:

 

Draklings of the deep

level 2 semi-sentient minions

40-55 HP each

These fools revere a monster that would just as soon eat them as receive their adoration. Generally equipped with armor and weapons cast off by the wyrm’s other victims. Damage is largely based on the weapons they carry, rather than standard biting or clawing.

Protip: their armor sucks, but it’s still armor, and hardly covers any parts of their body, so get around it.

 

Corbin hadn’t yet had time to see about the other cards she’d equipped, so he went with what he knew, and lit up Evoker’s Fiery Blade, which in this case was his jaws of death.

He barked and lashed out, biting and snarling as he went.

The first bite dealt 11 damage, plus another 14 fire damage. He Worried for another two rapid attacks, for 8 and 9 damage, and was informed through the haze of fury that he’d killed this one. Just for good measure, he threw the body back into the rest of its buddies, hoping maybe it would intimidate them into backing off.

No dice. However, several copies of Prissy went sailing overhead, landing on them and beginning to slash them to pieces.  Corbin took two hits for 6 and 4 HP, but engaged the Spectral Bite ability. His next bites, with the drain damage, the fire damage, and his plain old bite, dealt somewhere in the neighborhood of 28-35 each, and healed him with each hit. In fact, Spectral Blade was now level 3, and that meant more HP returned.

He chewed up and spit out two draklings in just a few heartbeats, but realized he was about out of mana now.

Well, it was just a matter of mopping up the rest of this mob pincer style, with Prissy at one end and him at the other. He took some hits, but every few seconds he’d regain a couple of HP thanks to the drain ability

The encounter left him bleeding, tongue lolling, but 280 xp further along. Prissy scooped up the loot, stacked a useless caster card into her pile of cards she no longer needed, and put a few of the more useful or valuable crafting items in her inventory.  Two of those were minor mana potions, and one of them was a rune-inscribed skull of a completely different creature.

They got the hell away from Todd’s seismic shakedown, running this way and that through cavern tunnels that seemed an awful lot like city streets. Off one of these street tunnels was a doorway leading to an abandoned home area, which miraculously hadn’t been caved in. Magic had really done a number on it, and he could see why it was abandoned: a cluster of brownish fungus grew in the exact shape of a person sprawled out on the floor. He inspected it, but found that it was something called Triffid’s Dizzycap. He briefly wondered whether Triffid was a mage famous for trying things he shouldn’t, or running a shop of magical hallucinogens, but put it out of his mind. There’d be time for all this when they were safe, or when he was a person again, or both. 

Prissy collapsed against the wall beside the doorway, breathing heavily. “You done lured him ‘ere, din’t ya?”

“Todd? Yeah, he’s our way into sticky situations.”

He wasn’t sure if it was the exertion or the PTSD from having her monster ex back in the picture. It mattered, but not as much as their mission here.

“You okay?”

“Dunno.”

“Okay enough to go after that scroll or find Kyesiara?”

“Maybe.”

“Here,” he said, and rubbed his face and shoulder up against her leg. The prompt informed him he’d just succeeded another Charm (Mingle) roll, with a bonus effect from Serendipity for calming her down. She reached down and gave him several scratches behind the ears.

The sensation of using his body to make her feel better was a ridiculous one to square in his mind: sure it felt good to have her hit that spot right there, yeah that spot. And sure it felt good to bring her hyperventilation under control, but at the same time it felt a little dirty somehow. Like jeez, he wasn’t just some slut who gave it up to just anybody… or was he?

“Let’s take a second to look at those other cards,” he said. “We should know what other capabilities you have and whether we can use them in whatever combat we’re going to face.”

She continued to pet him while he took a look at the icons spread out before him. He had the options of Silent Step and Spectral Blade from her Core abilities, with Evoker’s Fiery Blade, Shadow Clone and this new one, Enervating Strike. All these cost a lot of mana, which he didn’t like. Sabaton of Springing was grayed out, because apparently ‘Item’ didn’t count as an ability that transferred over to your familiar. The notion of him leaping thirty feet in the air was a fun one. Silly sure, and possibly useful in some eventual sense, but he didn’t have any idea how he would put it into practice on the off chance he somehow got to use it. It was out. He now had access to Evasive Maneuvers, but the mana costs on all these were getting to him. He didn’t have as many mana points as before and it was getting frustrating. Her entire catalogue so far cost mana to use. None of them restored mana, were passive abilities working all the time, or were used X number of times per day.

The last two were grayed out, and the first was his new corgi portrait. The seventh was also grayed, meaning he couldn’t activate it, but when he snout tapped it, it came up as a passive ability. Finally!

 

Quick-witted– Passive (uncommon)

 

 

Okay… fine. It was far less valuable to him than Kyessy’s One With the Wilds, and he had his doubts he’d ever be using Charm, Carouse or Mingle to deal or trade in coin. He’d have to settle for the slight bump in Perception, Survey and Agility for jumping the gun in combat.

They needed some funds, and some civilization. Then she could use Quick-Witted to buy something better than her present spread of abilities. Maybe something for that third Core slot.

“Quick chat time,” he said.

“Hmm?” she asked, without interrupting her petting. He was pretty sure she was also purring.

“You listening? This is a strategy meeting.”

“Ya know, yer way better as a doggo. In case you was wondrin’.”

“We need to make sure Kyessy’s okay on her own, then grab up this scroll, possibly save a fae, and figure out what happened to this city. So, one last time… you with me?”

She sighed. “Fine.”

“Not much has changed, except coming up against a boss monster. If you see a target you really need to get after right quick, Enervating Strike is good. That Enervating Strike can drain hit points by sucking out their Endurance, understand? And for strong guys, they’ll deal less damage to you.”

She nodded, but didn’t stop stroking his fur. It was distracting, but he pushed heroically on.

“If you think you’re going to be in danger, use Evasive Maneuvers.”

She made a non-committal sound of assent, like a mumbly audible version of a nod.

“Our number one priority, if you’re staying with us, is to get you some better abilities. And possibly figure out what to do with your final Core slot. No more hoarding money or crafting supplies. We’re selling everything and getting you some mana extenders, some better passives, and an aura. I’m pretty sure we’ve shopped for at least one card that was just a mana booster… ugh, but if it doesn’t apply to me as well, that won’t do us any good. Leveling will do it, but not fast enough. Maybe we’ll meet this fae and they’ll be a cleric like that other felinian. Also the sabaton of springing has to go. I can’t use it, and gear exists in non-card form. It’s silly to continue to use card items.”

She chuckled. “Yer pretty serious about all this.”

“Damn right. Best case scenario there’s a passive HP and MP buff that will put us both way up there. You have a total of nine non-me cards that we can utilize together, and I’ll be damned if they’re all going to be high mana one-use special abilities. I can’t use any of that stuff after about three good hits. No, it’s not working. So we level, collect loot, keep on the lookout for good cards, then make for a card shop ASAP. Priority number one: find a great mythic or masterpiece for your third Core slot. Number two, a good mana regen ability or a proper badass passive ability. And maybe one card that functions on a uses per day basis instead of mana points, until our mana pools are way higher.”

“Fair.”

“And we’ll get you some badass enchanted gear so we can stop mucking around in the little leagues.”

She got up and straightened, cracking basically everything that could be cracked in her weird cat-person body, then got her unobtrusive cloak situated again.

“Deal. Now let’s go save yer goat girl.”

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