The victim's directions were clear enough, and before long the pary of two were hiding in some trees a few yards out from the cave's entrance. There were two short creatures, which by their appearance may as well have been fashioned out of mud by a poor artisan, standing guard. "This probably is the only entrance," said Zack. "So much for sneaking in. They'll raise an alarm the instant they see us, and have the whole group attacking us at once."
Kath shook her
head. "No, no..we can still sneak in. We just need a good plan.
There's two of them, and my powers have a pretty sizable range. If I
stun one of them and then you take out the other before it realizes
something is up with its partner, we can get inside without alerting
the rest of them."
"...I guess I
could get around closer to them. But if I'm not fast enough to kill
the second one before it stops being stunned we're in trouble. You
really should have bought a knife or something in town."
"Oh, don't
worry about that. Check this out." Katherine held up her right
hand, and seemed to twitch her fingers a certain way. The fingernails
on that hand shot out with clicking sound, growing to longer, much
more dangerous-looking claws. "Figured out how to do this on the
way here."
Zack looked at the
hand sideways for a moment. "..That shouldn't be physically
possible. Where did those even come from? If they were in your
fingers you shouldn't be able to close them, but if they were behind
the knuckles you'd need some kind of..."
Katherine withdrew
her claws and put an index finger to Zack's lips. "Shh, Zack.
It's okay. This is a video game. Let's not look a gift horse in the
mouth, okay?"
He jerked back
reflexively. "Don't do that," he said, wanting to
yell, but making an effort to whisper.
"Okay, okay,
mister sensitive. Let's just get this raid started. You go around to
the left, and I'll be over on the right. Attack when you see one of
them acting funny."
Zack nodded, and
started on his way around.
Predictably, he was
pretty bad at not making noise. His ears were better than he was used
to, and he could pick up every miniscule metallic rattle in the armor
and the sheathed words now that he was focusing on it. He tried to
walk more slowly and carefully to reduce the noise, becoming more
aware tactilely of the clothes' movements. The cape was billowing
around a little bit, the skirt swishing around his legs..his top was
cloth, and he could feel his..chest moving around a little bit, up
and down in response to the walking. It was disconcerting being too
aware of that; it brought a small bit of heat to his cheeks thinking
about it so much.
Thankfully, by then
he had reached the closest tree to the two guarding goblins, and
could focus on getting ready to fight. They were both looking around
suspiciously; clearly they had heard something, but it made more
sense to hold their posts than to go chasing after some sound in the
forest. He put a hand to each sword, preparing to strike..and then
the goblin farther away suddenly looked dazed, as if it had been
punched pretty hard in the face.
On cue, Zack
charged forward, drawing the wider sword straight into the nearer
golbin's side, and making a swift roundabout motion to stab it in the
throat with the thinner blade. It twitched once or twice as he
lowered it to the ground, but it wasn't moving by the time the sword
was out of it. His ears, at the same time, picked up the sound of
Katherine tackling the dazed goblin, and now she was on top of it,
trying to stab it in the chest..'trying' being the operative word.
He moved over and
hit its head with the flat of his blade before it could come to its
senses. "Those are made for scratching, not stabbing..and you
don't have enough force to put behind them anyway," he said, as
quietly as he could manage.
She pulled back,
allowing him to stab the chest much more effectively, and then the
goblin was dead. "Yeah, that stupid. Sorry."
The two of them
looked to the entrance. "..Hm?" Zack's ears turned fully
toward the cave, picking up something inside.
"What?"
Katherine leaned toward the entrance, her ears tuning toward it as
well. "Is that..someone fighting in there?"
"Probably."
Zack sheathed his swords again, keeping a hand on the wide one, and
ran in, the psychic catgirl right behind him.
A blond-headed young man hopped straight to his feet in the class select room, and looked around excitedly, grinning. "Oh wow, this is so neat! How did they do this?" He went around and knocked on the walls, poking at some of the room's corners. "I wonder if this light ever has to be changed..since it isn't coming from anywhere?"
He returned to the
middle of the room before too long, looking at the pedastal thing and
what was floating above it. "Huh, so, what class..?"
He stopped on the
very first untaken one, a broom, and read its description. "Those
who are willing to go to any lengths to obtain power become witches.
A witch can only truly grow in power by absorbing the essence of
defeated demons into herself. The ultimate goal of a witch is to
become an archdemon, a being with incredible, unique power which no
witch can steal from her."
"Ooo..that
sounds like fun! Hmm, but it looks like only girls can be witches in
this game? I wonder if I'm even allowed to take this class.." He
tried to take the broom, expecting some kind of physical resistance,
and knocked himself back onto the floor as it offered none.
"Ow..okay, so
this is fine, I guess?" he said, getting up and looking back at
the message box.
"Step into the
summoning circle to begin your journey."
"Hm, alright."
He hopped into the
circle, and the room faded out around him. He still seemed to be
standing, and then all of a sudden a creature appeared before him.
It looked like a
carved pumpkin had been given a pair of bat wings and a thin, black
tail. It had a light inside, and its wings flapped, keeping it afloat
despite what physics would have to say on the matter. He looked
around, and noticed that the broom had gone from glowy-holographic to
normal wood and straw. After a few seconds, a message box appeared
above the weird pumpkin creature, saying, "Absorb this demon's
essence to continue."
"Aww, I don't
want to hurt that guy. He seems so cute and harmless. But I guess
this is the 'any lengths to obtain power' thing at work, huh?"
He walked up to the
strange vegetable-demon creature, and raised his broom. "So I
guess you just kinda..?" He swung the broom at its center, and
smashed straight through the hollow pumpkin. The creature fell to the
ground, its main body crumbling apart a little more when it landed,
and left behind an orange glow floating where it had been before.
"So, this is
the essence, I guess. Is it always this easy to spot?" He
reached out to try and pick up the glowy stuff, and it absorbed into
his hand as soon as it was close.
"Whoa.."
A strange, warm feeling gently made its way from his hand to his
shoulders, down to his stomach, and from there spread out to the rest
of his body. Once it had spread everywhere, he suddenly felt a
squeeze all over his body, like shrink-wrap had suddenly wrapped
around him and was being pulled tight. He could see and feel his body
getting smaller and shorter, his arms, legs, and stomach all thinning
down in response to the squeezing.
His shirt's collar
tore off as the part between his shoulders suddenly folded down over
his chest; the shirt also tore apart at his midriff and spread out
wider across his hips. Soon it was long enough to hang down to his
thighs, not because it was longer, but because of how short he'd
become. The collar's material changed, and it became a choker clasped
tight against his neck; the shirt itself turned mostly orange, with a
couple of black spots and some purple frills just above the chest.
His pants tore apart at the thighs, the lower part slinking down to
just above the knees while his shoes grew up to just below them. The
denim turned to cloth, black for the top part and orange and purple
stripes going down the leggings.
The shrinking
finally stopped with one last push between his legs. As the top part
of the pants lost their middle part and the leggings fused together
at the front and back, his underwear beneath pulled tight against an
unfamiliar flatness between her legs. And then the growing began. She
could feel her hips pusing their way out to either side and the back,
her chest pushing forward into the unfamiliar garment behind the top.
Her hair suddenly shoved its way out, framing her face, falling
across her shoulders on the sides and all the way down her back to
the hips, the tips of bright white bangs falling in front of her
eyes. And as the two bumps of her chest continued to expand the front
of the top, she felt something else long and slim pushing its way out
from her lower back and swinging around, and two more appendages grew
out of her upper back, spreading out to either side as they went. And
just when everything seemed finished, a hat plopped on top of her
head, and a pair of gloves appeared on her hands.
"Wow, this is
neat!" she said, spinning around and getting a good look at the
orange/purple/black dress--and more importantly the new appendages.
They were the same kind of black wings and tail as the pumpkin demon,
and she seemed to know how to use the wings to float or glide for
brief bits of time. "So what kinda powers does a pumpkin demon
give me anyway..?
There wasn't time
to answer that question, as the blackness around her seemed to
brighten up a little bit, leaving her in a small cave of some sort.
While the strange void she'd been in before had allowed her to see
herself perfectly, this area had a more normal kind of darkness to
it. The light source was weak, and seemed to be coming from the only
exit, an opening slightly shorter than she was. "Hmm.." she
muttered. "Let's go spelunking, then."
She moved carefully
into the opening, and found another small chamber, this one with five
or six different openings. The glow was coming from just one of them.
"Hmm.." She held up her broom experimentally, and tried to
make a light. A small, spherical orange glow appeared just above the
tip of the broom, and she got it to move around just by wanting it
to. And then she dismissed it, just as easily, before poking her head
into the lit opening of the cave.
It was a much
bigger, taller chamber, and in it there were four little ugly
yellowish-brown creatures sitting around a fire. There was another
opening just above the fire, which was apparently where most of the
smoke was going. They were making some kind of grunting noises she
wasn't quite ready to accept as a legitimate language at each other,
each pair sharing food from a leg of some sort of meat, and
occasionally sticking them toward the fire to heat them up again.
The witch carefully
stepped into the room, and one of the creatures took notice, looking
up at her. She grinned waved. "Hey there! I'm sorta new in town,
could you point me toward the way out please?" By now all four
of them were glaring at her, the nearest one getting up and the one
that had noticed her first growling. She frowned. "Come on,
haven't you guys ever heard of hospitality?"
Apparently not;
they all got up and drew weapons, mostly—mostly knives, but the one
farthest away had a crossbow.
"Well okay, I
guess I'll have to teach you!" she said as they approached. On
another whim, she swung her broom as if it were a baseball bat, and
suddenly a full-grown pumpkin appeared at its end and went sailing
toward the nearest goblin. It landed with a splat, shattering
and knocking him over.
The other three
goblins looked at each other, the first one slowly getting up, and
then another one slowly approached her. "Lesson one: Don't
pull knives on your guests!" she said, pointing above the
approaching goblin. Another pumpkin appeared a couple of feet above
its head, and then gravity took over, sending the creature tumbling
down. Its knife went clattering along toward the witch, ending up
right in front of her feet. She didn't even notice a crossbow bolt
heading for her until it had already sailed right above her when she
bent over to pick up the knife.
She got back up and
hopped to one side, away from another goblin charging at her with its
knife, and it managed to knock its head against the wall above the
opening she'd come in through. "Whoops!" she said, "careful
there."
Then, all of a
sudden, two more people charged into the chamber from a taller
opening. The goblin with the crossbow was distracted by their
arrival; the one that had been hit by the first pumpkin came at the
witch and started swinging around wildly at her, forcing her to back
up. The bigger stranger, a woman with wolf ears and a sword, held up
the wide blade to block a bolt, and then the smaller one, a catgirl,
pounced on the crossbow-goblin, scratching at it with one hand and
wringing the crossbow out of its hand with the other.
The witch ducked
under one more shot from the goblin's knife and then caught it with
her own, which fortunately had some kind of hook built into it. She
dropped the broom and pulled against the goblin with both of her
arms, but wasn't nearly strong enough to get it out of the creature's
hand. So she let go with one of her hands to point off behind it,
saying, "Look over there!" and making another point of
light appear right just above the goblin's shoulder. It looked, she
ducked, grabbed her broom and smacked its knife arm all in one
movement. The goblin let go, and the effort of her pulling her own
knife sent both of them away.
The two goblins
that had been stunned by pumpkins had gotten back up by now, the one
whose knife the witch had taken drawing a spare dagger, but they had
the newcomers to contend with. The armored woman blocked an attack
from one of them while the catgirl did something with her fingers on
her head that made the other one stop. Then the one with the sword
drew another, smaller sword, stabbing the goblin in the stomach when
it couldn't block, and the catgirl took the stunned goblin's knife,
twisting it into its neck.
The goblin in front
of the witch drew a spare dagger, too. "It didn't work the first
time, or the second.." she started. It jabbed at her and she
summoned a pumpkin right in the path of the dagger, causing it to
stab that. The goblin grabbed the pumpkin with its free hand and
started pulling its weapon out again; the witch ducked back and drew
back her broom. "..What makes you think it'll work now?"
she finished, swinging at the goblin's side as hard as she could.
The goblin dropped
the pumpkin and dagger, kneeling over and holding its side in pain.
Then the stranger with the swords walked up and stabbed it in the
neck with the thinner one. It fell over, for good this time.
They all stood
there for an awkward moment or so, still panting from the fight. The
witch gave a winning smile and said, "Hey, that was pretty cool, you guys. But I think I
could've handled it..really!"
The catgirl, with
an eyebrow raised, said, "You picked witch?"
Phew, this one took a while. I think it's longer than any of the earlier ones, too. Please ignore all the extra stuff in the witch image, by the way, it isn't relevant other than being partial inspiration for what the first demon would be.
In response to some comment or other I remember there being about class progression..each class actually has a unique gimmick to progression, as clearly seen with the witch here. All classes have skill trees, and gain skill points through battle and quests and whatnot, but unlocking a skill for most of them is never quite as simple as being the right level and having the prerequisite skills and enough points to "buy" it with.
you picked witch? XD
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