No.
His humans.
The humans he rescued.
They were all going to be slaughtered by this gigantic armored octopus monster.
It was looking increasingly like the sole purpose of this ockdine invasion was to kill the humans.
Why? Why would gnolls subject humans to hellish experiments but then protect them with their lives?
Why would ockdine put so much effort into killing humans?
He could think about that later. For now he had a monster to defeat.
First to distract it so it killed fewer humans. He grabbed a gnoll and tossed it at the giant ockdine, hitting it square in the eye.
That… that worked! It took out 19% of its health! Jerome picked up another of the gnolls, whose scratching whittled his own health a bit, and tossed it at the creature.
But it was not to be. Now the ockdine knew what was happening and batted away the flying gnoll with little fanfare. It crunched into a wall, along with the humans the ockdine had been holding.
One of those humans was the Afghan girl. The one whose flesh he had cut with such hesitation and anguish. The one he’d killed Rikan and those two guards over.
Gone.
Had it all been for nothing? Had it been worse than nothing, considering the other five humans killed (so far)?
This was why he never did anything important. If he put forth effort that meant he wanted it, and if it failed that meant he failed.
Like he’d failed here.
If he’d never accepted this quest, never accepted purpose, he could still be happy — well, maybe not happy, but he wouldn’t feel this. Once he accepted a purpose that meant he had to work at it.
If he slacked off, that mattered.
If he made a bad choice, that mattered.
That was the price of purpose. Everything he did mattered.
And when the purpose came apart violently like this one just had…
No time for thinking. If he thought too long right now then more humans might die.
First, deal with his low SP. He had 5 left, barely enough for anything, so he transformed into his last fresh ockdine body.
Then he grabbed another gnoll by the hind legs and dragged it behind him until he got close enough to the armored ockdine to execute the move he’d planned. He swung the gnoll towards the thing’s eyes and released. It blocked, of course, but the block created an opening for Jerome. He wrapped five of his tentacles around one of the giant’s tentacles and used Recoil Burst, dismembering it.
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The thing was at 63% health. He just needed three or four more critical hits like he’d just scored and this thing would die.
However, it was giant, it was wearing armor, and it was incredibly skilled. Jerome would get exactly one more surprise attack in: when he transformed into the giant’s form.
Best to wear out this current body first, using its remaining HP and SP in order to hurt the giant as much as possible.
The remaining life didn’t last long. The giant slammed an armored tentacle down on Jerome, making two of his smaller unarmored tentacles go squish and bringing down his health dramatically.
He needed to transform.
Giant ockdine time.
Of all the forms he’d taken so far, this one felt by far the most powerful. He towered over everything else except the other armored ockdine, his head almost coming up to the roof of the buildings. The armored plating transferred over, making the top of each tentacle strong and durable while letting the suckers on the bottom do what they needed to do.
Every time he transformed like this it caught the ockdine by surprise, and for many it completely took them out of the fight, but for others it only incapacitated them for a short time before they were ready to fight again.
Jerome could tell this one would be the second type.
That meant he had to act fast to get his hits in. He wrapped up several tentacles and used Recoil Burst simultaneously. That took out 11% of the thing’s HP, but didn’t destroy any tentacles outright. It hadn’t been a focused enough attack, and the armor blocked a certain amount of the damage.
He used Recoil Burst a second time, but the ockdine had already disentangled many of its limbs and so the second attack only did 5% damage. This type of attack had diminishing returns with the armor and with the ockdine’s skill at manipulating its arms, and Jerome only had enough SP for one more round.
It wrapped its tentacles around Jerome’s neck.
So this is what it felt like. His head was like it was a balloon getting inflated past its breaking point. His tentacles were losing their connection with his brain, making them seem distant and erratic.
He flailed about with his tentacles as best as he could, trying to land another Recoil Burst, but it was useless. His HP drained at an ever-increasing pace.
Time to transform again.
He became a gnoll and was released from the tentacle’s grasp, but he dropped several feet to the street.
As a gnoll the giant ockdine looked even more terrifying. He’d only seen it as a lesser ockdine and then as the giant itself, both greater in stature than a typical gnoll.
He would be destroyed.
A tentacle swept him into a nearby wall, nearly crushing him despite the ockdine not even bothering to grab on. 74% HP gone in one blow? Was this how he would die?
Then he heard the sweetest sound possible: gnoll voices yelling at the top of their lungs. A bunch of them. They must have had some sort of magic user with them because the ockdine twitched and recoiled before they even came into sight. When they did come around the corner in their rough armor, spears in hands, the creature cut its losses and retreated.
On its way out it snapped two more humans and then retrieved the ockdine corpses that Jerome had created.
The battle was over.
The gnolls cheered, but Jerome couldn’t cheer with them.
Eight humans had been killed. Eleven were cowering in the courtyard, ready to be taken back by the comparatively kind gnolls.
No rescuing had occurred.
And he was at 26% health, surrounded by armed and highly skilled gnolls, wearing the body of one of their comrades — one whose corpse was just twenty feet away, waiting to be discovered.