Chapter Thirty-Six - Can You Dig It?

The young man stared at the huddle of girls out of the corner of his eyes while picking at his own food and pretending to admire his girlfriend, who was sitting across from him eating a salad. She always ate salads, stating she had to watch her figure, as if unaware how that wasn’t true anymore.

Those girls, loud and laughing, didn’t bother with salads. Their trays were heaped with burgers and deep-fried pieces of waist explosion. It didn’t strike him as right. The only one over there who fit what she was eating was the fat old cripple, but something was off with her, too.

One of the girls was wearing a T-shirt with blood-stained holes as if it was a fashion statement. He could tell it was real blood. That was his thing; he could always tell. Yet nobody looked twice at her. Except him. He had a suspicion fuelled by the small grey boxes floating over most people’s heads.

He would need to watch them further, in secret, unseen and unsuspected. He had been too obvious once, and it had nearly cost him his love. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Maybe bait would help, he mused and looked at his girlfriend in her eternal beauty.

🙚⚜🙘

“Damn, one of those ten burgers must have been bad,” I complained, my stomach rumbling its own protest as we neared the wooded area my map sense had pointed out.

“Sure it wasn’t the ‘ten’ that was the bad thing?” Geri asked in her usual joking attitude.

“That wasn’t a burger,” Livia said. “It was the cheese nugget you snatched from Rune’s tray.”

“Hey, I thought those were chicken nuggets,” I defended myself. “And even so, a single piece of spoiled cow milk shouldn’t do that…”

“You’re lactose intolerant?” Paul asked.

“Moderately so,” I replied. “Usually, a bit of cheese on a sandwich or burger does nothing. This feels more like drinking a whole cafe latte on an empty stomach.” My stomach gurgled loudly as to confirm my words.

“Why would you even get one of those?” Marco asked.

“Mixup at the counter, that wasn’t on purpose.”

“Shit happens,” Megan remarked drily, wriggling her stumps when I looked at her disapprovingly. Oh, yeah. She had the moral high ground with that joke.

“Anyway, I think it needs to happen now, quickly,” I exclaimed and looked for some bushes to hide behind. There weren’t any. We still were at least a hundred metres away from the trees, and there was nothing higher than my knees on both sides of the dirt road.

“Turn around, guys”, Marco announced and did so. The others followed suit while Megan dug in her bag and handed me a pack of wipes.

It felt weird, but I was about ready to explode into my trousers, so I dropped them and squatted next to the road. Next followed the explosion I had felt building. The others must be hearing it clearly, but not even Geri, who otherwise was quick to comment in the most inappropriate way, said a word. Still, this was one of the most unpleasant things I ever had to do.

I wiped, thankful for Megan’s bag of tricks, then draped the tissue above the mess to hide it at least somewhat. That’s when I noticed a couple of pieces I hadn’t expected to be in there. There were a couple of bone shards, one large piece looking like a piece of vertebrae and several metallic shimmering shards, as well as lumps of clotted blood. Huh.

“Guys, I don’t think that was the cheese,” I said when I was done, and we were walking again. “More like a cleanup of what remained after healing that injury.”

“You got injured?” Rune asked. We had avoided talking about player stuff during lunch. The burger joint had been quite busy with norms.

“Yeah, she had a medium-sized pickaxe buried in her spinal column,” Geri said. “That sort of thing really puts a crimp on your day. Had her paralysed for an hour. Who’d have thought you’d sit around bored in a dungeon…”

“Spine? Paralysed?” Paul stuttered, and the rest of the second group looked equally befuddled.

“No big deal,” I said, waving it off. “My fast healing ability took care of it. Just took a while longer than usual as it had to regrow a vertebrae or two.”

“An ability can do that ?” Rune wondered. “I wish Megan had that. We’ve been spending coin on potions as fast as we can earn it, and she’s hard to hit.”

“You four have nothing like it?” I asked, mirroring their befuddlement. “We all have it, although in widely different tiers. Chloe has it, too, ‘extreme’ tier even. She’d be fine in five minutes after what I took. I had assumed everyone had at least some of it…”

“No, we don’t. We’re relying on Paul’s shields and Megan’s agility to not be hit,” Rune said. “And my zombies soak up most of the attacks once I have them up.”

“Not being hit is a trick we haven’t learned yet,” Sam said, eyeing me. “We’re used to Jane being mushed into a paste after a fight.”

“That was twice! Only twice,” I protested.

“But only because goblins and imps explode into mist on the first hit,” Geri added. “And because I handled Manstomper the fun way.”

“That reminds me,” I said, changing the topic shamelessly, “we should prime you on the dungeon now that it’s open to everyone.”

“Sounds good,” Rune said. “What’s it like?”

“Feels like a tutorial,” Livia said. “A deadly one, but still mostly about teaching us how things work.”

“Level one had three rooms. The first one is a trap room. Stay around the edge where it’s safe, then you’re fine. The lesson is that forcing your way through is a bad idea and that there’s always a pattern to be found out,” I said. “The room to the right is a boss, the aforementioned Manstomper, a big hobgoblin. You can either fight or fuck him, although, for the latter, you will need some body enhancement skill; he’s hung like a hobgoblin.”

“Sex-based solutions? I’d not have expected that from the system,” Marco remarked.

“Why not? Haven’t you noticed how almost all players are way into the perv part of the scale?” Geri remarked. “May I remind you how your group spent their night?”

“No. Go on, Jane,” Marco said defeatedly.

“The next room has a couple of goblins. They looked stronger than the ones in the park, but not by much. Both rooms have treasure chests. Touch them and it unlocks your inventory, putting the loot directly into it. Seems most of it is clothing which can be mended with stamina, like the stuff Geri’s wearing now.”

“I was wondering about that outfit,” Rune said. “But why no shoes?”

“Stuff you leave unattended in the dungeon disappears,” I explained. “We didn’t think about getting fresh shoes for Geri after lunch, to be honest.”

“It’s fine,” Geri said. “My soles are sturdier than shoe leather anyway.”

“Finishing the storey gets you back to the staircase. We got player XP for it, but I don’t know how much of that was from the quest. The second level is one large tunnel with nine enemies you can fight individually. You may like that one, Rune. It’s right up your alley.”

“Oh?”

“Skeletons. They have pickaxes and they do know how to use them in a fight. Storming in and mindlessly hitting them, like you can do with goblins, doesn’t work at all…” I finished, rubbing my belly.

“Interesting. I wanted to try the control skill anyway. It’s supposed to be able to wrangle control over the undead from others.” Rune said.

“System bubble,” Livia announced at that moment. We all fell silent and got attentive to our surroundings. Megan and I transformed, Sam and Geri got their blades out, and Rune summoned a wicked-looking staff with a black crystal floating over the top end.

“Spread out, two lines, fighter up front, mages behind,” I commanded in a low tone. Megan, Sam and Geri joined me in the front line, the other spreading out behind us.

🙚⚜🙘

We moved slowly through the wooded area; it was way too small to be called a forest. Soon, we got to a point where we could see the lair. Like the first troll we had fought, these ones had built a campfire, but it sat in front of an outcrop of stone that seemed to form somewhat of a cave there. The soil was shallow here near the coast, and stone breaking through wasn’t that uncommon, yet this formation didn’t look natural. This wasn’t an issue to me, as I understood the system had to make some alterations to house monsters.

Around the fireplace, three trolls the size of the one we had killed sat and—no “and”, they just sat there. Behind them, in front of the cage, a female troll with melons the size of car tyres rested. She looked way more formidable than the males around the fire, and those weren’t slouches either. Bulging muscles under a yellowish-grey sandpaper skin warned me not to be punched in the belly again.

I signed for our group to retreat so we could talk about a battle plan. Tackling these four head-on was a bad idea. Something else might be a good idea, though.

“Rune, two questions. Your doppelganger skill doesn’t copy skills, but does it copy abilities? I asked in a whisper. We were far enough away from the trolls, but I didn’t want to chance it anyway.

“Mostly yes. They are part of someone’s physicality, so I need them to make a convincing copy. It says there are some exceptions, like active or unique abilities, though,” she answered at the same volume. “Why?”

“Good. Can you copy only people or also monsters?”

“I…I never thought about that. It specifies ‘self-aware creature’, which I took as limiting to humans, but some monsters are self-aware, aren’t they?”

“Everything that doesn’t behave like an animal or automaton should be, I’d say. This means you could copy that big troll lady and get her strength and regeneration, doesn’t it?”

“Oh? Oh! I do need to try this. We really could use a solid tank in our group—“

“And what’s tankier than a troll?”

“Exactly. There’s just one catch.”

“And that is?”

“Clothes.” She plucked at her robe. “As that troll, I wouldn’t fit in here. And I can’t exactly undress while changing either.”

“Does it provide any bonus or armour value?” I asked, already dreading what I was going to suggest.

“No, why…oh. Oh, no. I’m not going into the fight naked.”

“Rune, it isn’t even your body you’d be showing off. I’ll let you copy me if that helps.”

“Umpf.”

“I know the embarrassment is inside your head and has nothing to do with which body you are wearing, but that’s it. It’s only in your head. It’s a social norm, and breaking social norms is bad. Only—we don’t have that social norm here. I felt the same when taking that emergency dump earlier, but I would have done that even if you all hadn’t turned around.” Mostly because I couldn’t stop it from happening, and keeping it inside my trousers would have been monumentally stupid.

“Ok, I’ll try,” she said with some effort.

“Rune, remember that you had sex with three of us yesterday and have seen three others naked today,” I added.

“Right,” she said, “I completely forgot about that. That does make it easier.” She started shifting into me, and I waved the others to form a huddle.

“Do you think the big one is far enough away she won’t join a fight?” I asked around.

“No way,” Geri said and the others also shook their heads. “Aggro range on trolls is sight, as far as we know.”

“That’s a safe assumption,” Livia concurred, “for any monster we don’t know better about. But she is in range of my sleep skill. That should at least delay her when the action starts.”

“Can you put them to sleep one by one? They don’t look very active,” Marco asked.

“I think I can,” Livia said, surprised.

“Then try that. The big one first, then the others,” I said. “If we manage to get all to sleep, Rune will sneak around and try to copy the boss lady’s form. If that works, please consider who you’re aiming for. After that, or if the copying doesn’t work, we’ll position ourselves to take out the guys in one coordinated hit.”

“And if not?” Megan asked.

“If the sleep doesn’t work, we attack the trolls at the fire anyway. I’ll be taking point. Concentrate your damage on the troll I engage and defensive abilities on the others. Same if we don’t get them taken out in one hit. And after them, we go after the big one, me tanking again.”

“Or, if we can take out the guys without waking her up, we again coordinate our attacks to take her out in one strike,” Livia added.

“If that happens, I need twenty seconds per corpse to bring them up as zombies. They keep for five minutes, so no need to hurry after that,” Rune remarked.

“Any more things we need to know?” I asked.

“I need an unbroken line of sight to everyone I should shield,” Paul said. “Ideally, that’s just you, Jane, as you want to pull aggro. But if someone else gets attacked, keep that in mind. I can split my shields three ways, but they do get weaker.”

“You generally want to avoid the trolls hitting your shields unless that protects you,” Megan said. “They take damage, and recasting isn’t free. The red ones are an exception, they are nearly useless as a protection but damage the attacker.”

“For my backstabbing attacks, the space directly behind and in the centre of my target needs to be free for me to move into,” Geri said. “I’ll also be shadow hopping, so don’t bother with shields on me.”

“I have my own shield, centred around my left hand,” Sam added. “I will try to catch attacks with it, but that means I need to be on Jane’s right side.”

“I’ll be throwing magic from afar; ignore me,” Marco said.

“Same for me, unless it gets iffy, then I’ll battleform up and go melee,” Livia said. “I might do that when I run low on mana anyway. I’ll try to not block your sight by going above.“

“Above?” Paul asked.

“In the air, with my wings,” Livia explained.

“Then take off your shirt in advance,” Rune said, who was doing the same right now.

🙚⚜🙘

We lined up in sight of the lair again, and Livia began to send the trolls to sleep. I don’t know what I expected, but again, my plan worked because I wasn’t the one implementing it. A couple of minutes later, we had four sleeping trolls in front of us. It almost felt too easy, but then, there hadn’t been many encounters where we had been able to do that.

Once she was done, Livia nodded to Rune, or Jane three, as I liked to call her in my head when she did that, and she crept up to the big troll. Rune reached out, put her hand on the troll’s arm, and then closed her eyes. For a couple of seconds, nothing happened, then she began to ripple, and her skin folded in on itself. As always, it was quite stomach-turning if you actually looked too closely.

Ten seconds later, Rune had transformed into a big-boobed troll lady. There were some notable differences. Rune was maybe a head shorter than the real one, and her muscles were less pronounced. Considering she transformed into idealised versions of her marks, this made no sense—unless this was a level thing. Maybe the troll was at a higher level than her?

She grinned an ugly smile and gave us the thumbs up to proceed. Now was the time for me to mess up my plan, as I always did. On second thought, my evening excursion yesterday had gone according to plan to a t—or I just hadn’t noticed what I had fucked up yet.

I picked the troll lying closest to us and, as such, farthest from the troll lady while Sam, Geri and Megan circled around to the other two. My troll was lying on his side, the hands tucked under his misshapen head. I considered my first attack for a moment. I could try to rip his throat out, but the way it lay made it less accessible. Aside from that, I couldn’t see any real weak points, so I combined two of my prior successful attacks—I would stomp his head.

Sam’s troll lay on its back, and she was aiming a decapitation strike. That seemed to be her thing, and her heavy sword was well suited for it. Geri and Megan had split up, Geri standing at their troll’s head, both daggers gripped backhandedly and aiming at the eyes. Megan, who’s blades also were more stabbers than heavy cutters, was taking aim at its chest.

We stood there at the ready, slowly counting to ten to give the mages a chance to aim their attacks around us. Then Megan, who we had decided needed to concentrate on her target the least, gave the signal—a soft-spoken countdown for us at the fire while nodding for the mages.

On “three”, I brought my foot down hard while ramping up my “blade control/toenails” skill to its limit and wishing my “killing/humanoids” skill to work on trolls and recognise this as a lethal blow. I felt my foot splitting the troll’s skin and then driving his head deep into the ground, but to my dismay, the bone didn’t want to shatter. Still, my claws had made mincemeat out of his face.

He, very naturally, awoke and roared in pain, blindly grabbing for my leg. I had expected that and was already moving away. I guessed I had blinded him at least temporarily, so I took two quick steps around his reach and brought my foot down again, this time on his belly. I wasn’t aiming to crush him here but to rip him open with my claws, so I aimed my heel just next to him.

That worked fine, and a spray of blood erupted from a deep jagged wound. Sadly, I seem to have a one-track mind, and so I missed his counter-attack. A swing of his open hand hit my leg before I could pull it out and grabbed it. I felt my muscles tearing under his iron grip, and before I could reach his arm with my hands, he pulled hard. I felt myself being yanked through the air; then I hit the ground with force. And not just the ground, but the firepit. Hot embers burned on my skin, and a half-burned log lodged itself into my right eye socket.

I curled up, partially because of the pain, even though my relaxed relationship with the RSDF made that more bearable, partially to claw at the troll hand that still was gripping my now broken leg. I managed to rip a couple of deep gouges into the troll’s forearm, but it wasn’t enough to force him to let me go. Instead, he swung me again, this time in the other direction.

Halfway through my arc, helplessly flailing in the air, I felt how the troll suddenly pulled his hand back while turning it hard. My lower leg, still firm in his grip, did the same, but my body had too much momentum to follow, and I felt my knee giving way with a loud crack. For a moment, I thought he had let me go, then I hit a tree, horns first, and stopped thinking at all.