While Chris and I were standing around stunned, Shelby bolted into action.
“C’mon!” He said and ran up the staircase placed into our living room, skipping three steps at a time. Chris was right behind him, only skipping two. From half-way up the staircase, I watched Shelby get tackled out of my view by something very fast and very dark.
“Aw, dammit,” Chris complained, holding my katana, “ it’s a fucking ninja.”
“What?” I said and rushed up the stairs, needing to see this for myself. Sure enough, there was a lanky, adult-sized goon completely covered in jet-black penguin-like feathers- save for a narrow band of white around its bulging, glassy black eyes- tangled up with Shelby, stabbing him with a long knife. Even its large pouty lips were black. We were face-to-face-and-face-and-face and knife-to-Shelby’s-body with a Level 6 Hooligan Ninja. Chris kicked the ninja and knocked it off of Shelby.
“Find Mallory,” Chris said, flourishing my katana like he owned it, “I got this thing.” I nodded at him, and Shelby and I exited the bathroom that the staircase led up to.
“Mallory?” Shelby asked, bleeding a little as he grasped Lambo, who was also originally mine. Ignoring the sounds of violence from the bathroom behind us, we rushed toward the sounds of violence coming from down the hallway we found ourselves in. A loud crunch stopped us in our tracks as we came to a wide living room, connected to a kitchen by a half-wall. A window with ominously shattered glass sat on the wall, a spotty trail of blood leading right to it.
Mallory was leaning against a different wall, next to a high table. Her auburn hair was sweaty and tangled, hanging loosely around her face, which twisted in rage. She wore a flannel shirt, once blue but now stained with blood and… bug guts?, whatever, with the sleeves torn off to a pair of red glowing armlets around her bicep. The nameplate over her head read Mallory Hicks, Level 5 Barbarian, and her health was worryingly low.
She had a dark halberd with a purple blade in her right hand, having just used her left to drop a tv on a long, many-legged creature that was about three-feet tall and maybe twelve-feet long. It was like if you took the head of a goon and stretched it into a millipede. Its legs were on its grotesque bottom jaw, which stretched about halfway up its body. The legs continued up its head body, and ended with a thick tail, making it look like the monster was one of those balding dudes with a ponytail. The tv barely hurt the Level 7 Hooligan Headhunter, which was already down to half-health. It grumbled in pain and backed away from her and stood up on its hindlegs, letting its jaw drop down.
“Mallory, are you okay?” I asked.
“RAAAGGH!” She shouted back at me.
I nodded and turned my attention to the headhunter, which was rapidly approaching us. Behind me, Shelby shouted “move!” I ducked to the side as Shelby flung Lambo into the headhunter’s open mouth. Lambo dealt a little bit of damage, maybe a tenth or twelfth of the monster’s health.
The headhunter stopped, squinted at us with its exhausted, soccer ball-sized eyes, and snapped its jaw shut, shattering Lambo with a crunch followed by a gut-wrenching squelch. Dark blue blood poured out of the headhunter’s mouth. Shelby’s face paled and he fell to his knees.
“Shelby! My spear! You killed Lambo!” I shouted, definitely not helping the situation.
“I’m sorry…” He mumbled, staring at the broken remains of Lambo’s shell.
Mallory wasted no time taking advantage of our distracting nature, flinging herself towards the headhunter. She swung her halberd, the blade cut deeply but got lodged in the monster’s leathery back. The headhunter whipped around, ripping the halberd out of her hands and knocking me over with the haft. Mallory wrapped her arms around its upper body, preventing the headhunter from opening its massive jaw. The headhunter rose up onto only its back-most leg and fell forward, using its weight to slam Mallory onto the ground.
She hit the ground hard, bringing her health down to only a tiny sliver. Her arms sprawled out, and the headhunter opened its jaw menacingly. As it reared back to finish her off and eat her, I think, I loosed the 4 mana Spark Shot I had been charging up right into its head. It dealt a decent amount of damage and, crucially, paralyzed the headhunter for a second. With that opening, I lunged toward Mallory, pulled one of my health potions out of my inventory and poured it down her throat. I watched her health slowly fill back up while meanwhile, Chris’s health bar at the corner of my vision dropped quickly past half empty.
Seeing Mallory take that hit must have broken Shelby out of his guilt trance because right as I disengaged from the headhunter, Shelby took my place.
“Evan, the sword!” He shouted. I materialized my short sword and summoned my minor hand to deliver the weapon to him. Shelby caught it and slashed the headhunter in the back right as its paralysis wore off. The monster turned around again, clobbering us with its tail again. At this point, Chris and I were both at one-third health. I hoped he didn’t end up dying in a bathroom like Elvis, that would be really embarrassing.
Shelby tossed aside the shortsword- it barely did anything to the headhunter- and kneed it in one of its massive eyes. The monster shrieked and recoiled, the one attack dealing more damage than anything either of us had tried up to that point. Back on her feet, Mallory stomped on the headhunter’s tail and, with a roar of rage and effort, started pulling the tail, trying to separate it from the monster’s body. The headhunter started thrashing wildly and ineffectively, failing to dislodge Mallory nor to hit Shelby. Not seeing a great opening to shoot it with magic, and trusting the two of them to deal with it, I decided to leave the headhunter to Shelby and Mallory and check on Chris.
I bid my farewells and returned to the hallway we came from. I couldn’t hear anything from behind the bathroom door, so I cautiously opened it and peered in. Inside, Chris had broken my katana and it was lying, snapped in half, on the ground. He had a knife stabbed into his leg, and he was biting the ninja hooligan in the arm. The ninja’s health was barely gone. The two of them looked at me, scandalized.
“Hey, what’s up, man?” I asked.
“Oooahah, aaaho.” Chris said, his voice muffled by the arm in his mouth.
“What?” He spit out the hooligan, who rubbed its arm in pain.
“Occupied, asshole.” Chris said.
I blasted the ninja, who was politely letting us quip at each other, with a Fire Bolt. It shrieked in surprise and pain.
“I’m helping you, dude, don’t be a dick.” I said, turning toward Chris. When I looked back toward the ninja, it was gone.
“Wait, where’d-” Out of nowhere, the ninja kicked me in the head, dealing almost a fifth of my health, and flung itself out of the bathroom.
“What the fuck! He’s gone now!” Chris complained, taking the opportunity to chug a healing potion.
“Whatever, you broke my sword. Let’s go find him.” I said and exited the bathroom. I figured that the ninja wouldn’t want to deal with Shelby and an enraged Mallory, so we went the other direction, toward a couple bedrooms.
“You think he went in there?” Chris asked, pointing to an opened vent in the hallway. I narrowed my eyes thoughtfully.
“No way,” I said after a second. From behind us, Mallory screamed in frustration.
We crept into the nearest room, this one looking like a bedroom shared by two young kids. There were no immediate signs of hooligan, though a poster of a ninja on the wall did make my heart skip a beat. I stepped further into the room to check the closet.
“Be careful, Chris, I think he might try to get us apart. He didn’t like his odds in a 2 on 1” I said, to no response.
“Chris?” I asked and turned around. He was gone, and the door had been shut behind me.
“Aw, fuck me.” I groaned.
Suddenly, red hot pain blossomed from my back and stomach. I looked down and saw a katana sticking through my chest.
“Euughh?” I grunted, sounding like Tim Allen from Home Improvement. A wave of nausea hit me. My body shivered as the ninja pulled its katana out of my body. I slumped to my knees and clumsily pulled a healing potion out of my inventory, desperate to drink it before I bled out. A trio of red teardrops appeared under my health bar, but I couldn’t focus on what the pop-up box was telling me.
There was a mirror on the door I was facing. Fuck, I was losing a lot of blood. Behind me, the hooligan ninja drew a long knife from a sheathe on his back. I turned my head to watch him swing his arm back, ready to chop my head off.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
It stopped, staggering backward, as a knife entered its neck. I looked back at the door, now opened to reveal Chris in the hallway. I chugged the health potion before I passed out, and vomited as my body stitched itself together.
Chris rushed the ninja, vaulting over me and punching the hooligan in the face in one swift motion. The ninja hit the ground easily, and I lit it up with a barrage of Spark Shots from my corporeal and Minor hands. Now that its speed wasn’t a factor, it died quickly.
“Dude, what the fuck. You need to unlock ninja right fucking now,” I said to Chris.
Chris nodded emphatically, and then made a face, “did you leave Shelby to die?”
“Uh, no, he’s fine. Look at his health.” Shelby’s health hadn’t moved since I came to help Chris.
We walked back to the living room to see the headhunter dead, crammed through the window that Lizanne had been shoved through. Mallory had collapsed into a ball on the ground, crying, Shelby had his hoodie wrapped around her. Chris and I immediately turned around and went back to the hallway and looked at what we got for leveling up.
Level 6 gave me a point in Dexterity and Chris a point in Constitution. Arcanist gave me a choice of a new spell, this time I chose the poison-element spell. I also got a point in Constitution from my job. Chris got a point in Dexterity, a level in the Martial Arts skill- which gave him +10% to unarmed damage and blocking-, and a new skill.
Noxious Fumes - Level 1 Spell
Range: 10 feet
Duration: 0.5 seconds per MP spent
Emits a toxic gas that engulfs all targets within range. Deals 2 poison damage per second, with a high chance based on caster’s Wisdom to Poison the target for 4 seconds per point of MP spent.
[Windwalk]
Monk Job Ability
Cost: 1 SP, 1 MP per Second
Increase Movement Speed by 100%. Gain an extra jump.
“Hey, check this out,” Chris said, and then double jumped, hitting his head on the ceiling, “ow, fuck.”
We’d learn later that Shelby got a point in Charisma from leveling up, and his new Wrestler job gave him a point in Dexterity, a level in the Grapple skill- which would make him better at grappling-, and the [Pinfall] Ability.
[Pinfall]
Wrestler Job Ability
Cost: 5 SP
Grappling a target into a pin automatically triggers this skill, assuming the user has sufficient SP. The pinned target gains the Pinned debuff for the duration of the grapple.
Status Effect: Pinned
* -100% Movement Speed
* +20% Damage Received
* - 5 Charisma (5 minutes)
Looking for something to do, we wandered into the master bedroom. At the foot of the bed, a flat chest glowed with a golden light. Painted on the top was a floral, thorny design with a large rose in the center.
“Hey, I’ve seen something like this before. It’s where I found Lambo! Oh fuck… Lambo’s gone.”
“What!” Chris exclaimed.
“Yeah… we killed Lambo. I feel… awful.”
“What the fuck, dude.” Chris said.
“Hey, don’t start with me, man. You broke my katana.”
“You didn’t name your katana.”
“Fuck you,” I said. Chris crossed his arms.
“Is that any way to talk to the guy who literally just saved your life.”
“Ughhhhhhh… I’m sorry. Thanks for saving my life.”
“Don’t mention it.” Chris said. I ignored him and opened up the chest. Inside, buried under a pile of tiny leaves and clovers, were two bracelets made of thin, twisted green metal and set with a red gem, and a couple of small items wrapped in brown parchment, tied up with some twine. Chris grabbed the bracelets while I examined one of the packages.
Pollinated Bracelets - Uncommon Magic Item
Banned from gardening competitions around the Mesh, Pollinated Bracelets give the wearer a literal metaphorical green thumb, accelerating the growth of plants touched by the wearer.
* +3 Intelligence
* +2 Dexterity
* Unarmed melee attacks have a 20% chance to inflict the Budding debuff on targets.
Status Effect: Budding
Small leechlilies sprout over the affected entity’s body.
* Each flower 1% of the affected entity’s maximum health per second.
* After 5 seconds, a flower wilts.
* Plucking a flower prematurely will cause the flower to ignite in flames, releasing an acidic gas that deals 5 damage to any flesh exposed to the gas.
Those flowers sounded nasty. I instinctively knew that wilted leechlilies were an alchemical reagent. The packages contained similar alchemical ingredients, though I had no idea what any of them did. According to my inventory, I had picked up some jars filled with snowroot petals, vulker grubs, snapperpeppers, and blueleaf sprouts. Chris took the bracelets, I was happy to let him take any items that incentivized close quarters; better him than me.
When we walked back into the hallway, Shelby and Mallory were waiting for us. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were puffy, and she was still wearing Shelby’s hoodie. Now out of combat, I could see that her left foot was missing, she was leaning against her halberd for support. I couldn’t make eye contact with her.
“Are you guys okay?” Chris asked. Mallory nodded, her face unreadable.
“Yeah, we’re good, that headhunter didn’t like broken glass in its eyes. What about you guys? You both almost died.”
“Oh, no, we’re fine. Yeah, easy money.” Chris said and gave him a thumbs up.
“Did you get a new item?” Shelby asked.
“Yeah, gardening bracelets.” Chris said.
“Cool, cool…” Shelby said, trailing off. We sat there awkwardly for a second, Chris and Shelby running out of things to say, and Mallory was in no mood to break the silence.
“Okay,” I said, “um, Mallory, what can you do?”
“I can rage,” she said, “ I get mad and everything goes red and I do a lot more damage but can’t really think straight.”
“What about your items?” I asked.
“My halberd can blind people, and my bracers give me strength. That’s about it.”
“You wanna join our party?” I asked, “Shelby’s the leader.”
She glanced thoughtfully at Shelby, then Chris, and then finally looked at me, forcing eye contact.
No,” she said. The text underneath her name said
“Okay, well, do you wanna come with us?” Shelby asked. Mallory gripped her halberd tightly and shot a look toward the window the headhunter was stuffed into.
“What else is there to do?” She asked.
“We could, uh, talk-” Shelby suggested.
“No.” She said.
We found the staircase to the next floor in the kitchen, past the living room we found the headhunter in. Unlike the previous floors, we didn’t get ambushed as we went up the stairs, thanks to them leading into a laundry room. The room was cramped and small, illuminated only by the room beneath it and the little bit of light shining through the slits in the folding door.
I peered through the slits to look down a hallway lined with orange wallpaper and a bright yellow carpet, recoiling slightly at the bright colors.
“Ew,” Shelby said, sliding up next to me.
“What?” I asked, looking around, “oh, yeah. Who designed this place?” I whispered.
“Shut up,” Chris whisper-yelled at us. Mallory shushed all of us harshly.
A towering figure came staggering out of a room halfway down the hallway. At first glance, I thought it was wearing a suit, and then I realized its slick, shiny skin just looked that way, a splash of red at its neck resembled a necktie. It had a bulbous head, like an alien or a mushroom, with big, watery eyes that made it look like the creature was on the verge of tears. Thin, red lips did little to hide its sharp teeth. Its spindly arms ended in hands with 6 fingers, each over a foot long. The Level 8 Groown-Up looked around the hallway, locking its gaze on us, hiding behind the door, but turned around and went back into its room.
I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and slowly slid open the door. It immediately fell out of its frame and slammed loudly on the ground. I winced as the groown-up lunged out of its room followed by a second groown-up, whose body was dark red with white polka dots, like a housewife from the 50’s. The housewife groown-up screeched loudly. I pushed my palms against my ears, which did little to muffle the sound. The sound pierced our eardrums, dealing a little bit of damage to each of us.
Mallory lurched forward and jabbed the shrieking groown-up with her halberd, shutting her up. Meanwhile, the other groown-up skittered forward, taking advantage of our state. It wrapped a long hand around Shelby’s waist and slammed him through a wall. The groown-up pounced on him, swiping with its nails. I looked back and forth between Mallory and Shelby, and jumped through the hole that Shelby had made with his body.
Shelby threw up his arms to block his face, doing nothing to protect himself from the groown-up. The monster simply ripped Shelby's arm off, spraying blood onto every surface of the nursery we found ourselves in. Shelby screamed, and I realized I was screaming too. Without thinking, I shot Spark Shot after Spark Shot at the groown-up until I was out of mana, dealing about a quarter of its health and, crucially, distracting it from Shelby.
The groown-up turned and lunged at me, batting me aside with a humiliating slap. What looked like an embarrassed emoji appeared under my health bar.
Status Effect - Reprimanded (30 seconds)
* -10 Charisma
* +25% Damage Received
* +25% Additional Damage Received from [Punishment] attacks and abilities.
I crashed into a crib, shattering it with my body. The groown-up wasn't finished, shuffling toward me menacingly. Shelby, his face a ghastly pale, was already standing up while I was splayed out like Yamcha in the corner. I pulled myself to my feet, and started chugging a mana potion.
Shelby staggered in between me and the groown-up, right as the groown-up reared back for another swipe. Its long claws raked into his chest and his health plummeted. I dropped my mana potion trying to push Shelby out of the monster’s range, but I was too slow. All I could do was watch as the groown-up ripped Shelby in half.