Eye beams slashed across my scales, and the bottom halves of the carrots dropped to the ground. Smoke rose up from the perfect cut across their middles—that little shit.
Snake-Leaps-From-Toilet-Bowl brought my jaws down over the startled rabbit in a lightning-fast lunge. He kicked and squirmed for a moment, and there was a brief sensation of heat before my fangs interlocked, and Bun-Bun was no more.
Uni-Bunny Boss level 44 slain.
Gold coins earned!
Five hundred and ninety-three gold added to the Hoard.
Biomass stored:
316.5 KG
Biomass required for evolution: 120 KG
I briefly considered resuming my human form, but then I remembered Kat’s rapid shift from ecstatic-to-see-me into snout-punching belligerence, and I thought better of it. Getting kicked in the face with a tiny foot was painful. Getting punched in the balls by a tiny fist would likely be worse. It was probably some scientific law or something. She was exerting the same amount of force as a powerful human, but on a tiny area. Physics. Huh.
My ruminations had given me enough time to get back to the foot of the stairs and face the wrath of the anti-titan.
“This doesn’t fix the problem!” Kat snapped. The others sidled away from her, as though I was going to incinerate my dungeon sprite! Idiots.
“What did you do? He couldn’t have reproduced on his own! Ask Harold, however much you play with it, you can’t make babies solo.” Harold nodded without thinking, then glared at me. I returned the favour with a saurian smile as a bonus, and he suddenly took an interest in helping Salnia shrug out of her armour.
“That was a rush!” the warrior woman gushed as her pauldrons came free. “So much XP!”
“When did this happen?” I swung my head low so I wasn’t towering over Kat, but kept myself tensed to evade a fist or a foot if I had to.
“Three days ago, they boiled up out of the fourth floor. “Heaven’s fury! There were a lot of them! Whatever your pet was doing, it worked. I’m sure there are still hundreds of them down here,” Kat grumbled.
Salnia and Harold both high-fived and pumped their fists in the air.
“Is leveling addictive for humans?” I asked.
“They’re gripping and slipping,” called Totally-sane Simeon as he sagged to the ground and leaned forward while his bonus-arms retracted and his back sealed shut with a click. I raised a scaly eyebrow, and he glanced nervously at Kat.
“They’re tripping balls. He’s been dosing them with combat stims for a couple of days; they’ll crash hard in about an hour. We need to hold here until we’ve got the rest of the doom lagomorphs sorted.”
“A couple of days?”
“Yes. A couple of long ass days, Bob! I’m gonna go crash. You, oh wandering dungeon lord, can snooze down here for a few hours. Did you get the ones who got past us?” I nodded at the pixie. I was wondering how much her feet were worth to the Hunters Guild.
“Go and get the other minions out of the guest suite. They didn’t trust me. Tell Gledna she’s the least stupid of them all. What was the damage?”
“One Janglebonk. Everyone else got away. One of the Dwelvers was in the tunnels below, so Tribulation knows how he survived, but the dungeon stats say he has done so far. Not too much breakage in terms of staff. How was the big city?”
“Weird. But profitable. The hoard is about to get a lot bigger, and you’ll have some funds to spend on leveling the dungeon.”
“Really? Did you level up that ascot?” she asked suspiciously.
“I got a million gold for the Arkendrite.” Smug mode activated.
“From the Armaments Guild? Wow! They’re famously tightfisted! I was expecting maybe two-thirds of that. And Tex was sure that they didn’t plant any spies or trackers on you?” She sounded impressed. I wasn’t sure how this was going to go down.
“Ah. No. Never met them. We got shanghaied by a more colourful local faction.” She glared at me, crossed her arms, and tapped her foot impatiently. “A local gangster, from Earth.”
“Which faction?” she asked coldly.
“Didn’t catch their names. It’s not like they had a flag or anthem. He runs a squad of Outremonde street kids and has some proper muscle as well. An old Glaswegian thug called Dalgliesh.”
“Hmm. Well, it is what it is. At least now you’re done with them, so no harm, no foul. You are done with them?” she asked pointedly as a look of reptilian guilt crossed my equine face.
“Not so much.”
“Ascenders Arse, Bob. How many shipments?”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Another thirty. Ish.” She wiped a hand down her face.
“And the dungeon loot? Surely between you and that Texan pervert, you managed to avoid fucking that up?”
“Kind of. I got you a present.” I pulled out a copy of Jandak’s Juxtapositional Joy and passed it down to her. The book was as tall as she was, but she could handle it easily.
“Is this… It is! Oh my– ahem. It’s a disgusting story from what I’ve heard. I’m not sure this is an appropriate gift.”
“Oh well, I can take it back then if you don’t want it.”
She shoved the book behind her and stood between it and my outstretched claw like a mama bear defending her cubs.
“For research purposes, I think I need to give it a read. For research. And stuff. So I know what to punish the minions for if I find them with a copy.”
“Ok, research, sure.” I smiled down at her for a second before my expression fell. “Kat, do you know anything about a species that can shapeshift, possibly insectile?”
“Jesus H. Jupiter. There’s a bunch of them. What did it look like?”
“A human. Shapeshifter, remember?”
“Ok smart arse, how do you know it was an insect then?” she shot back.
“It let its eyes show for a couple of seconds. Multifaceted bug eyes.” I shuddered as I recalled the vision. “And something was swimming in them.”
“Did Tex feed you a bunch of Stumbleweed or something? Something was swimming in its eyes?”
“It was a warlock?” I offered.
“Ah shit. Look, Bob, you don’t want to get mixed up with that kind of guy. Still, once won’t have hurt.” She saw my face and sighed. “Thirty more deliveries?” I nodded.
“What’s up with everyone wanting thirty-odd in their contracts anyway?” I asked.
“Contracts. This just gets better. You ever learn about sacred geometry, numerology, any of that shit back on Earth?”
“Enough to know it was bollocks.”
“On Earth, maybe. Not so much here. Look, I’m as knackered as the others. I’m gonna have a snooze in the lair after I get Gledna and company out of the guest room.” She suddenly looked even smaller than usual and, in a way, almost frail. “Just don’t sign your soul away when it’s time to re-up those deals you made. I’m gonna punch Tex so hard in the…” I lost track of what she was saying as the pixie wandered tiredly up the stairs, dragging her literary lady porn behind her.
Alone at last. I went to flick my tail to scatter the piles of uni-bunny corpses away, but thought better of it. I slithered on my belly over the piles and tucked them away in storage. I could eat them myself if necessary, although I had concluded that I preferred fresh kills to stored meat. I’d gotten good money for the vicious bunny bodies I’d sold in the Mill. Maybe Esme could cook me up a stew.
Ah, Esme. My beautiful barmaid. I thought fondly of the sign in my pouch and the new cookers, the beer, wine, and whiskey that were a cut above anything the rest of the Mill had available for sale.
Biomass stored:
306.5 KG
Biomass required for evolution: 120 KG
Evolve: Y/N?
I thought about it for a moment. It couldn’t hurt. I needed to burn through some of this biomass anyway
Rolling for evolution choices…
Please select from the following six options:
-
Octicated Tail (Kraken Variant)
-
Lagomorph Lacerator
-
System Pet
-
Armoured Organs
-
Light Bulb
-
Nasal Dilation
Hmm. What the fuck is a lagomorph? Hadn’t Kat used that word during the fight? Or just after it? Possibly bunny-related, so meh. Seeing as my last pet tried to eat my minions and take over my dungeon, that was out. Five and six… I wasn’t sure. Five was probably related to the god I’d signed up with, six was maybe something to do with my breath attacks?
My eyes kept going back to one. Oct usually meant eight, I knew that much. Kat had mentioned that the number of tails was a status thing with dragons, and the fu–beloved system had kept trying to push twin tails on me. I closed my eyes, which was ridiculous because the golden letters still floated there. I clicked it, and a shooting pain ran from my ass to the tip of my tail. It thrashed about uncontrollably, and I panicked as it began to unravel.
With a wet, tearing sound, the tip began to unwind. Eight separate tails formed and began to spiral apart down the length of the tail like a rope being unbraided. Each sub-tail was crowned with a mean-looking hoo,k and one side was lined with rows of suckers and even smaller hooks.
I bellowed in pain as the process stopped at my backside. It took a few minutes for the agonised twitching to stop. I craned my head backward and stared in shock as the tails finally came back under my control. They fanned out and twirled effortlessly through the air, independent but syncopated.
They were individually thinner than my old tail, but when I twined them around each other, scaly-sucker side in, they formed a single unit that was slightly thicker than before and ended in a star of hooks like a mace's head. It was a good couple of metres longer than it had been before, and I was a little worried about how it would affect my weight distribution while flying.
I might as well get the next one out of the way. I shook out my body, shrugging off the last lingering pain at the base of my spine.
Biomass stored:
186.5 KG
Biomass required for evolution: 140 KG
Evolve: Y/N?
Rolling for evolution choices…
Congratulations! You’ve received an Epic Roll!
Please select from the following six options:
-
Divine Breath
-
Filial Dominion
-
Arcane Affinity
Dammit. I looked out at the still-smoking but suspiciously peaceful battlefield. I was here to guard the door. Thou shalt not pass, murder-bunnies. I was the only one denying the portal above to the little bastards. I smiled and padded up the stairs to the hatch.
As it swung shut behind me, I unloaded a couple of days' worth of slaughtered bunnies on top of it. That should hold them for now. I really needed to chat with Kat about these bloody golden letters in my eyes.
I went to the guest room to look for her and found that the inmates had been released. They all looked very sheepish when I showed up and quickly told me Kat had gone up to the lair.
I headed up and swung the open hatch to find Kat running back and forth while Jenny screamed obscenities and chased her with a frying pan.
“Bob! There’s a pixie!” Jenny took another swing at Kat, who dodged to the side.
“If she doesn’t chill the fuck out, I’m going to see if crotch punches work on chicks! Hint: they do. Friend of yours?” Kat snapped as she ducked under another wild swing.
“Jen! I told you my dungeon sprite was a pixie! One of my tails unraveled, and I landed a sucker on the flat of the pan and plucked it from her grasp.
“Wha- what happened to your tail?” Jenny gasped, backing away from the irate pixie as the eight appendages spread out around me like I was a scaly kitsune.
“What variant was it?” asked Kat speculatively.
“Octicated Kraken,” I replied proudly.
“Ooh, that’s a solid choice! Why the hell aren’t you guarding the hatch? You want more of those little shits running around while we try to clean up the mess from the last time?” Kat snapped, and Jenny glanced nervously at the still-open hatch.
“I blocked it. Look, I got an Epic roll on the evolution thing, and I need your help to make the decision.”
“Epic? Whoa, buddy! What are your choices?” Jenny and her frying pan were instantly forgotten as Kat settled down on a small pile of coins and stared at me expectantly.