Bonus Chapter - Down the Rabbit Hole

Chloe liked hanging out with the rabble behind Central. It was a lively crowd, rebelling teens from all kinds of backgrounds, some neglected kids, some street-level drug dealers, whatever the wind blew in. This had been her crowd for years, and seeing them share their misery, their disappointment in what life had in stock for them, warmed her heart.

Not much else did. Over the years, she tried many things. Drugs, cutting herself, food, sex and even computer games, but they didn’t hold more than a short kick. She knew she wasn’t quite right in the head, enjoying other people’s pain in that way. But she also knew that as long as she didn’t cause it, nobody would care what she felt.

“Y’all seen that new shop over at the mall,” someone asked.

“Dunno, Where?” someone else did.

“Up where that dildo store is. That old door at the end.”

“Nope. Ain’t been over there forever. What they selling?”

“No clue, that’s the bummer. No sign there, and they only let in members or something.”

Chloe turned away. Shops had lost her interest when she discovered shoplifting was no fun for her. The day was warm and bright, uncharacteristically warm for the area, and she was hot in the trash goth look she favoured. Not that she particularly liked that style, but it made others react to her like she wanted it. Gloomy. It also made her look younger, which was nice as it didn’t alienate those teens.

She knew the area well. Sunken two storey below street levels, it remained from whatever plans those, that had put in the railway tunnels just below, had had a century and a half ago. Had this area once been open for the steam and smoke to escape, she idly wondered.

Then she spotted a door in the brick wall. It looked old, as old as the railway line, made from iron and covered in a solid layer of rust. She could have sworn it hadn’t been there before; even the cut-off graffiti on the stones next to it seemed to confirm that. But how could it have appeared then? Maybe there had been a thin layer of fake bricks in front of it?

Chloe wandered nearer as if by happenstance, not trusting herself to be interested or wanting to show it. To her surprise, the door stood open just a couple of inches. Verifying nobody was near who could see her, she pressed on the door. It swung inward easily, as if someone had freshly oiled the hinges, belying its appearance. Behind it was a shaft holding an iron staircase, decorated like nobody bothered anymore, a sign the olden times had been better in at least one regard.

She stepped in, carefully placing her weight on it while holding on to the door. But the flooring was sturdy and didn’t give the slightest under her weight. The shaft was shady, but she didn’t notice there was no source for the light to be seen. She leaned over the railing, looking down. She could only see the stairs below. Her interest peaked, she proceeded down the stairs.

What was the worst that could happen? She could imagine many bad things, and it gave her the kick to ignore all sense and proceed.

🙚⚜🙘

The steps were high, prioritising vertical travel over convenience, so she had to hold the railing to keep her footing, the narrow soles of her high-heeled boots not helping. Five rotations down, the shaft ended. A single door, a close sister to the one above, stood open just enough to invite entering whatever lay beyond.

An enamel sign next to the door, white and blue with a curly decorative frame as part of its design, announced that it led to “Level 1”. ‘Level one of what?’ she wondered, but it didn’t really matter to her. She pushed the door open further and stepped through without even looking, revelling in the danger of stepping into nothing or onto an active railway line.

But none of that happened. Instead, the door fell shut as if pulled by a giant the moment she was through. The bang echoed from the walls, which were brick, like the shaft and arching up into a vaulted ceiling. Four columns came down in the square room, seemingly dividing it into nine smaller areas. The floor was paved in a grid pattern of red and yellow bricks, cementing that impression.

She stood at the edge of the middle segment on one side, a solid brick wall behind her where the door had just been. A brick wall? She turned around, not believing her eyes. What had just happened, she wondered, sure she hadn’t imagined passing a door. Yet the wall was blank.

Feeling a slight panic welling up inside her, she looked around for an exit. There were three other doors, all identical to the one that had betrayed her, one in each remaining wall. Nervously she took a step forward, towards the opposite door. Her foot came down on a square of yellow brick, and a loud click made her freeze.

Was there a trap? Why would there be a trap? That was nonsense. Yet, she looked down and saw the whole square covered in 4-inch long blades that stuck out of it. One of them went right through her foot, its top covered in blood.

‘It doesn’t hurt?’ she thought, backing off instinctively. Her foot slid along the floor, while the blade seemingly going through it stayed in place. How was that possible? Some kind of optical illusion? She knelt down to take a closer look. The blades retracted as she took her foot off, but they sprang back up when she pushed down with her hand.

Even at close distance, the blades looked completely real; she even could see her reflection in them. But when she tried to touch them, her hand passed right through—yet the blade impaling her hand was now covered in blood, as if it had pierced the hand. When she removed her hand, the blood also disappeared.

“I’m finally going bonkers,” she mused, taking comfort in the echo of her own voice. Then she noticed something in the corner of her eye. There was a shadow behind one of the pillars. She could just barely see it when leaning forward. “Hey, anyone there?” she called out, but there was no reply.

She pushed herself up and took a full step onto the yellow tile. For a moment, she marvelled at the image of both her feet being pierced by blades, wondering how it would feel if those were real. Then she moved forward to the next tile. She pushed one toe over the edge, and a pillar of flame erupted from the floor.

She could feel the immense heat on her face—and around her toes. Yet, there was no sensation of pain, and when she pulled her foot back, no sign of singeing was to be seen. Shrugging, she stepped onto the tile. The flame pillar erupted again, surrounding her whole body with scorching heat.

Chloe felt as if she was burning up, as if her skin would turn to charcoal any moment, but no pain came, no injury resulted from her bathing in fire. She now knew that, but her body didn’t. Panic welled up in her, an ancient instinct of survival wanting to take over, ramping up her adrenaline levels, yanking her heartbeat up to eleven, then twelve. But she just laughed like a madwoman, feeling more alive than she had for a long time.

With a bold step forward, she crossed onto yet another square. The fire behind her died down, and the coldness of the room hit her. But it wasn’t just the cooler air, as she could see her breath forming snow. Then she noticed small drops of liquid air forming around her and raining down onto her. They were cold, so biting cold it felt like they wanted to bore through her. But they couldn’t do anything to her, not even cause pain.

She took another step, hoping for a square of death that wasn’t as impairing for her vision as the last two. She got her wish, when she nearly toppled over, the surface of the tile turning out to be only a millimetre thick, covering an ankle-deep basin of thick, green acid.

She felt it trying to bite into her skin, but she ignored it and looked over where the hidden figure was now in full view. It was a person, as she had guessed, but then again, it wasn’t. It was just the dead body of one. There, centred on another square, half standing, half hanging, was the body of a woman, somewhere in her thirties. It was impaled in a two-inch thick iron rod that went from floor to nearly the ceiling. It had entered her between the legs—Chloe wondered for a moment which entrance it had taken—then pushed through her body, missing the neck and exiting from above her breasts only to catch her chin, smashing her upper lips and teeth as well as her nose on the way out again.

From the looks of it, Chloe guessed that the impact hadn’t been immediately fatal. The woman must have struggled for some time, in immense pain and agony, before finally dying. Chloe felt her chest restricting, her breath going faster, as she imagined the woman suffering there in the knowledge that nothing and nobody could save her. She pressed her thighs together, feeling moistness travelling down them, imagining it had been her.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. She walked, no ran, over to the woman, pressing one hand between her own legs, the other caressing the body, taking it and all it had endured in, fuelling her emotions until they boiled over in ecstasy.

🙚⚜🙘

Chloe lay there exhausted, not caring about the blood and other fluids that had soiled the floor underneath her. ‘If this is living, I never want to die,’ she thought. She looked up at the dead woman, idly wondering why she was there. She hadn’t made it to this tile unscathed; a number of wounds and burn marks gave testimony to that. A part of her left shoe, together with two toes, was missing, a tissue stuffed into the hole to stop the bleeding. ‘Why had those traps touched her, but not me,’ Chloe asked herself, but to no avail. Too unreal was the whole situation for her to make any sense of it.

The body couldn’t have been here long; it still was warm. The skin had cooled off slightly, but touching it she had felt the warmness inside coming up to the surface. The last remnants of life… She pushed the thought out of her mind. She had to find an exit, or she would, sooner or later, join that body even if none of the traps could touch her.

That’s when she noticed a white mist around the dead woman’s head. It was faint, but there, swirling like a slow whirlpool. Curious, she stood up and looked closer, then extended her hand. The moment she touched it, the mist slipped into her finger like sucked up by a powerful vacuum. Then, a message, written text on a blue background, appeared in her vision.

🖹

Loot the body of player “Cecilia Appledorn” (Level 1, dead)? You will gain: (a) 1-3 class shards, (b) 1-3 skills, (c) 1-3 skill levels, (d) 0-1 levels, (e) player status. As you were not present at time of death, you will not gain the status “player killer”. Please select: (-) no (unavailable), (1) yes

‘What’s a player?’ she thought, then remembered half-overheard conversations about stories people had had. Something about living in a world that worked like a game. The concept had interested her for half a second until she had realised those teens were talking about books. She hated reading. Those words and letters always were so impersonal, devoid of the life, emotions and blood real people carried around with them.

She nearly accepted the offer, seeing how she had no other option, but one thought held her back. Was this what had made that woman, that Cecilia, susceptible to the dangers in here? If so, accepting ‘player status’ would be folly. Wishing she would experience that agony herself was one thing, being dead afterwards another.

The message did not prevent her from moving, and it didn’t block much of her view, so she decided to ignore it for now, hoping it would stay there until she found an exit. Ignoring the traps on her way—they were everywhere, unavoidable, so there must be some way to turn them off, she mused—she walked to the door on the opposite wall, the one she originally had targeted.

It was closed but opened when she pushed the handle. Behind it lay a smaller room with some furniture, a cupboard, table and chairs, and four small green, ugly guys. Goblins? They looked at her with open hostility for a moment, then ignored her, just as the damage from the traps had.

She walked into the room and looked around, but found nothing noteworthy aside from a chest at the other end of the room. She looked at it carefully; it looked out of place not just in here but in reality. It was big and clean with metallic bands around the edges, just like in a comic or game. ‘Fits with that player thingymadoohickey,’ she thought, ‘a treasure chest’.

She extended her hand, and as she touched it, another message joined the one in her sight. It said something about looting, but it was mostly blocked by the first one. She ignored it and left the room.

Next was the door on the right. It opened easily again. Behind it lay a carbon copy of the trap room, with one difference: A large green guy stood in the centre. He looked somewhat like the goblins but was over two metres tall and held a club instead of rusty knives. He also was naked and clearly male.

As the goblins had, he stared at her for a moment, then ignored her. Was she imagining it, or was there a reaction from his not-so-little friend? She walked closer to him, noting that there were no traps in this room, and jiggled her hips. Now she was sure, he clearly was interested. If she was a player, would he simply kill her, or would he overpower her and have his fun with her?

The thought made her excited again. What was it like to be used by such a monster? She felt her hand wandering down below again when a grunt by that monster grabbed her attention. He now was fully erect—how long had she stood there dreaming?—and obviously frustrated.

Chloe grinned, the monster’s frustration fuelling her joy. Teasingly, to fuel that frustration, she said, “Wanna have some fun, big guy?”

That must have broken some spell. The monster dropped his wooden club and jumped at her, grabbing her in his large hands. Chloe was surprised he could touch and hold her, then she felt the pain of those hands holding her with iron strength. “Ouch, not so hard,” she said, then realised what was going to happen. “Hey, no. No means no. Let me go,” she cried out, but either the monster hadn’t been taught what “no” meant, or it didn’t care. Probably both.

He lifted her up by one arm, then ripped off her skirt with the other clawed hand. The waistband cut into her flesh painfully until it snapped, leaving behind an angry weld. That was soon joined by more scratches as the monster also grabbed her panties and ripped them off, ignoring her screeching.

Chloe tried to press her legs together, but the monster first grabbed one with one hand, then let her arm go with the other. She fell back, no longer held up by her arm, folding backwards at her hips painfully until her head hit the floor. She saw stars for a moment, then the monster’s—‘hobgoblin?’ came to her mind as if shaken loose from her memories by the hit to the head—hand grabbed her other leg. It pulled them apart effortlessly, making her feel like her muscles were ripped apart, then he sank his oversized member into her in one single stroke.

She screamed as the pain filled her from her insides being stretched well beyond her limits. She lost control of her bladder, showing the monster cock in hot piss, Yet the monster didn’t care. Or maybe he welcomed the added lubrication, not that her juices that had been flowing freely before and her blood that mixed in from multiple rips in her tunnel didn’t provide enough for him already.

Chloe whimpered as the monster slowly let her go, pushing her injured head across the ground. Then he pulled her in again with a jerk, sinking deep into her again. She felt pain everywhere. Her pussy, her thighs, her head, they all ached. Yet, among all this pain was more, a feeling of enjoyment, brought forth by her own suffering. It wasn’t sexual, no arousal could withstand the sheer pain she was experiencing, yet it was even more satisfying.

The humiliation, pain, and even the fear for her life, they all combined into something she had sought all her life. Had she thought she was alive before, when she masturbated over a dead body, that was just a mere shadow of what she was feeling now. She wanted it to end, to survive the ordeal, but at the same time, she wanted it to go on forever, to make her feel alive forever. ‘This is how normal people feel with every breath,’ she thought.

🙚⚜🙘

But nothing could last forever, not even a monster’s stamina. Soon, with one last push, he emptied himself into her, the gooey yellowish fluid stinging like fire on her wounds. He stood there, heavily panting as he let her slip off his member and drop to the floor. For a good minute, he stared unseeing into the air, his eyes fluttering as he fought what every man wanted to do afterwards: sleep.

Then it was over. He grunted, grabbed his club and walked back to his ready position to wait for players to be slaughtered. Yet something nagged him in the back of his brain. He looked down, seeing the woman lying there, a pool of blood slowly forming from the place he had just enjoyed. She wasn’t dead, or the dungeon would have eaten her. Yet he wasn’t allowed to kill her.

His tiny brain worked overtime, fuelled by the hormones that still flooded his blood. It was nice of her to allow him to have some fun. She was bleeding. He wasn’t allowed to kill her. Bleeding let to death. She had let him make her bleed. Him making her bleed would…what? Kill her? But he wasn’t allowed to kill her. She had allowed him to have fun. She had not allowed him to kill her.

Grunting again, he turned around and walked to the back of his room. He should stand at his ready position. But someone was in the room; he could move then. There was a treasure chest, the metallic bands shimmering with a golden hue. He grabbed the lid. ‘I’m not for you,’ a stray foreign thought ran through his mind. ‘Not me. Her,’ he thought back. Players could loot this chest. Players could get stuff. Stuff to heal.

With a groan, the lid opened. It stuck halfway, not having been designed to ever open. He didn’t care; instead, he grabbed the red vial that sat alone in the dark space. He let the lid go, then pushed it closed when it didn’t move on its own. ‘Thank? You?’ he thought, not sure what that meant.

Then he walked back to the woman and used the vial. He didn’t know how it worked, or what to do with it. But he knew it could be used. So he pushed his will, he had plenty of that, into it, to use it. The vial disappeared, but so did the wounds the woman had suffered. Her colour, returned to the sickly pinkish brown she had when she came in, no longer white as paper. Her breathing stabilised into a slow pattern.

The hobgoblin boss grunted again and returned to his ready position.

🙚⚜🙘

Chloe opened her eyes to the vaulted brick ceiling above her. She felt the smooth and cold brick floor she was lying on with her naked arse. She felt no pain. It puzzled her for a moment, as she wasn’t sure she was dead or alive. The missing pain should indicate her being dead, but feeling the cold floor…

Then she noticed the notifications in her view—more had stacked up behind the first two—and the slight draft around her exposed lower half. ‘I’m alive? I’m alive,’ she thought. She sat up slowly, expecting a puddle, but the floor was clean and dry. The monster stood at his place, now completely flaccid, and ignored her.

Checking herself, she found no wounds, no signs of having bled at all. She felt well, very well indeed.

As she stood up, she looked around for her panties and skirt, but they were nowhere to be found. They had vanished like her pain and blood, it seemed. She giggled as she felt the foreboding of embarrassment creeping up inside her. She had never felt those; it was…new? Liberating? Scary?

She walked back to the door, but at the last moment, she turned around and looked the hobgoblin straight into his eyes from a distance. “Thank you,” she said, not quite sure what for. She didn’t wait for a reaction, didn’t see the tumult of emotions on the hobgoblin’s face when he recognised those words.

🙚⚜🙘

Chloe walked straight through the trap room, keeping to the edges of the squares to avoid the worst of the effects; even though they didn’t affect her, but she had no desire to feel them anymore. The third door also opened like it had been installed yesterday.

Behind it lay a shaft with another iron staircase, nearly identical to the first. An enamel sign next to the door announced it as “Level 1” again. But this one had stairs in both directions. “Down to level two or up to the exit,” Chloe said out loud to nobody but the empty air. “Thanks, but no thanks. I got enough for today.”

She climbed the stairs up five rotations around the shaft, where it ended in a closed iron door, showing clear signs of rust. She pulled it open a crack and spied outside. She had had a hunch and what she saw verified it. This wasn’t a second shaft; it was the same one.

She pushed the door closed again and sat down on the stairs, the cold of the iron grid biting her exposed flesh uncomfortably. Still, she felt alive from it, so she didn’t complain. Then, she accepted the topmost notification.

🖹

Welcome to the System, Chloe Manstomper, nee Evans.

You are now a player and can gain races, classes, abilities, skills and experience as laid out in the tutorial. Based on your choices in the tutorial (ERROR: No tutorial progression logged, compensating). Based on your recent experiences and actions, you have been assigned the race “monster (human)” (ERROR: Monster races are not compatible with players, compensating. Compensation failed. Referring to setting rules.). As you’ve been a human-shaped monster before the System took over, your natural race will be honoured by the System. Your System race is set to “unique (monster/human)”.

You have earned the class “monster tamer” (rare) and the sub-class “sexual tamer” (legendary). Congratulations, this makes you the player with the rarest class worldwide, gaining you a power bonus.

🖹

You have looted Cecilia Appledorn. You gain: 2 class shards (common), 3 skills (tracking, trapping, first aid), 1 skill level (fighting), 1 level.

Character summary for Chloe Manstomper, nee Evans

Race: unique (monster/human)

Gender: female

Sex: female

Age: 28

Caloric requirements: 4800 kcal/day (idle)

Level: 1 + 1 (looted), 0/100 XP

Base Power Level: 3-21 (human tier, mostly harmless)

Class: Monster tamer (rare)

Sub-Class: Sexual tamer (legendary)

Class shards: 2 common, 0 uncommon, 0 rare, 0 epic, 0 legendary, 0 unique

Factions: monster, player

Bonds: Family bond (Hobgoblins)

Player group: none

Race details for Chloe Manstomper

Special ability: You can, at any time, freely select if you are a monster or a player. This does not affect existing relationships, faction memberships, bonds, etc., although some may become inactive.

Abilities:

• extreme fast healing: You can heal from almost any injury that doesn’t kill you.
• monster skin toughness: Your skin is as tough as that of a monster with the same power level as you.
• monster night vision: You have night vision like monsters in the same area as you.
• monster bone density: Your bones are as tough as those of a monster with the same power level as you.
• improved death resistance: When killed, you have a very high chance of surviving.
• full pain resistance: You can ignore the effects of pain completely if you so choose.
• improved blood loss immunity: Blood loss has no effect on you unless you lose almost all of it.

Skills:

• dodging (physical), Level 1, 0/50 XP: Allows you to automatically evade attacks.
• play dead (magical), Level 1, 0/100 XP: Allows you to pretend to be dead for a limited time. Chances depend on skill level, your health and the observer’s skills like, for example, perception and medical knowledge. Note: The effects of this skill are massively boosted when your ability improved death resistance activates.

Available new skills (0 skill points available):

• stealth (magical)
• attention (magical)
• arousing pheromones (physical)
• monster strength (physical)
• monster agility (physical)
• monster speed (physical)

Class details for Chloe Manstomper

Abilities:

• limited full conception control (while taming): While taming, you have full control over conception, either to prevent it or to conceive, ignoring your monthly cycle.
• limited full disease immunity (STD, while taming): While taming, you are completely immune to all sexually transmitted diseases.
• limited full tissue stretchiness (while taming): While taming, your flesh and skin can be stretched as required without causing harm.
• full self-lubrication: You have full control over the secretion of bodily fluids inside your vagina.
• full pheromone resistance: You are immune to all kinds of non-magical pheromones.

Classless skills:

• fighting (physical), Level 1 + 1 (looted), 0/50 XP: Allows you to fight more effectively. Note: It is recommended you acquire a specialised fighting skill as soon as possible.
• killing/humanoids (physical), Level 1, 0/50 XP: Increases the chances of intentional lethal hits to be actually lethal.
• persuasion (physical), Level 3, 10/150 XP: Improves your chances when trying to persuade others.
• acting (physical), Level 2, 78/100 XP: Helps when acting, including lying, intimidation, posing, hiding your emotions, and so on.
• tracking (looted), Level 1, 0/150 XP: Allows you to follow tracks left by your prey, even if those tracks are invisible to the naked eye. This skill belongs to the class tree “hunter”.
• trapping (looted), Level 1, 0/150 XP: Allows you to build traps to trap or injure your prey. This skill belongs to the class tree “hunter”.
• first aid (looted/magical), Level 1, 0/100 XP: Allows you to spend mana to close open wounds, stop internal bleeding and stabilise patients for further treatment. This is a classless skill.

Class skills:

• monster taming (physical), Level 3, 0/150 XP: Allows you to tame or befriend monsters. By default, this is a temporary effect. To make it permanent, you need to invest time and effort into the relationship. Intelligent monsters may form friendships quickly if they agree with your intentions or be offended when they realise you tricked them.
• human taming (physical), Level 2, 0/100 XP: Allows you to tame or befriend humans and other non-monster races. By default, this is a temporary effect. To make it permanent, you need to invest time and effort into the relationship. People may form friendships quickly if they agree with your intentions or be offended when they realise you tricked them.
• sexual techniques (physical), Level 1, 40/50 XP: Increases your proficiency with sexual activities of all kinds. Due to your race, this is not limited to race-compatible partners.
• tamed creature control (physical), Level 1, 0/50 XP: Helps you control and command tamed creatures. Intelligent tamed creatures may notice this skill being used.
• commanding voice (magical), Level 1, 0/100 XP: Improves the effect of your voice when giving commands. You will be more clearly heard and understood by your allies. Creatures under your command will better follow your commands, also gaining a small bonus to executing them. Provides a bonus when using vocal skills (for example, intimidation) on non-allies, too.

Available new skills (0 skill points available):

• tamed creature telepathy (magical)
• monster taming (magical)
• human taming (magical)
• seduction (physical)

🖹

System notification: The Adventurers’ Guild is now open. Join it to get access to quests, equipment, support, and much more. You will find the Guild Hall at Clayton Square Shopping Centre, Level 2, Wing F, Store 2F-39. Note: The Adventurers’ Guild is a player-operated institution operating under System regulation.

🖹

System reminder: Remember not to reveal the System to people who are not tagged as either players or NPCs, even if they do possess magical abilities, until the System goes public. Failure to comply will lead to consequences. This is not a rule to be toyed with.

🖹

Good hunting and grow strong, player!

🖹

You have looted a common treasure chest, level 1. You receive: 5 coins, 1 eternal toothbrush (self-cleaning, indestructible), 1 pair of leather gloves (black, medium, mendable/mana, low armour value)

🖹

Your inventory has been unlocked. 2 out of 8 slots used. Note: System inventories can only hold System items.

Chloe nearly felt overwhelmed by the messages the “System” put in her mind, but somehow, each word seemed to transport just enough meaning to be understood. It was like the words were just representations of a deeper communication that put the concepts into her mind. She felt that she could look at each item and will it to reveal more details, at least for those in her summary and detail listings.

“I got married to that big oaf?” she exclaimed, breaking out in laughter. “Prince on a white horse, indeed!”