The two ockdine unrolled their tentacle-limbs, stretching out into the tiny crater they’d made.
“Where the hell did they come from?” asked Jerome.
“Assassins and hunting parties get cannon-shot from the water so that they’ll be as fresh as possible,” said the girl. He checked her stats real quick to get her name: Krystyna. Good to know someone’s name before you die with them.
Felled trees and a slightly impacted earth showed the truth of her statement.
The ockdine themselves were a gooey non-human head atop a roiling mass of tentacles. They could be called octopus-men, but they were mostly octopus. The parts that made them man-like were the fact that they could talk, they could stand “upright” if they liked in order to better interact with different sentient species (the close portion of their limbs stiffened below them to hold their head up to the desired level), and the tips of each tentacle had mutated to be better able to manipulate tools.
Krystyna dashed to her armor, which assembled itself around her in a matter of seconds. Jerome was sad to see the boobs go away, but magic armor was cool, and living was definitely on the top of the priority list right now.
As the ockdine collected themselves after impact, bubbling to each other in some unknown language, and Jerome decided that he and Krystyna were somewhere between completely and totally screwed. He didn’t do a stat analysis or anything that complicated, he just looked at the two monstrosities, saw that their speed of movement increase as their cannon-induced dizziness went away, and knew instinctually that his level-one ass was toasted. Krystyna might or might not survive, but his chances of making it through the fight were hilariously low.
“What are we going to do?”
“They like to kill by strangulation,” Krystyna said, “so don’t let them get their tentacles around you. Try to discover your unique power if you can.”
“Unique power?”
“You know what, never mind. Just run and hopefully you’ll distract one of them. You divide, I conquer.”
He didn’t like this keep-getting-saved thing; a training montage was definitely in order if they survived this battle.
In the meantime, however, he ran.
The ockdine split up, with the smaller one chasing after him. It took a little while for the creature to get going but once it did it was terrifying. It wrapped tentacles around a tree trunk, carefully avoiding the ones that had spines, and used that to fling itself forward. It caught and redirected itself with another tree, more agile than a monkey.
Jerome ran as fast as he could. He tried to think of what his old gym teacher had said about running. What was the secret to running?
Ah, that was it.
Years of training.
Surely, he thought, there must be some way to run faster right now.
And with that, his curiousity activated another screen.
Would you like to transform?
* Kalakit? (gnoll, 17 hours remaininig)
He didn’t want to be a gnoll. Would he even be able to appreciate Krystyna’s Wit and Charm (that’s what he’d named them) as a gnoll? Then again, other gnolls might serve him beer while not trying to kill him, so there was that.
Also he might be able to run fast enough to not die.
Yes.
His body morphed, fur and muscle growing where it shouldn’t.
Claws. He had frikkin’ claws!
He was pleasantly surprised to find that he was still wearing clothes, or at least what passed for clothes among the gnolls.
The unpleasant surprise was that running as a gnoll was completely foreign to him. He had not, it appeared, gotten a fully gnoll brain along with the body. He tripped and tumbled into a tree (thankfully a smooth-barked one), splatting him against it and taking off three of his HP.
That’s when he found the second nice surprise: his HP was 137/140, distinctly higher than it had been before. Looking closer he saw he wasn’t a skill-less level 1 human anymore. He was a level 4 gnoll with skills. Skills like Claw Combat.
Name: Kalakit (Jerome Wallaby)
Race: Gnoll (Human)
Level 4 (Level 1, 72% progress)
137/140 HP
80/80 MP
120/120 SP
Statuses: Transformed (24 hours remaining)
Strength: 12
Endurance: 12
Agility: 14
Focus: 8
Dexterity: 15
Connection: 7
Skills
Special Abilities
Transformation Level 1, 12% progress (unique)
Store, Transform
Claw Combat Level 5
Swipe, Eviscerate
Claw Movement Level 4
4-legged run, Climb
Blunt Weapons Level 3 (Level 0, 0% Progress)
None
Swords Level 1, 15% progress
None
His new skills meant he had a viable method of attack, and the increased Agility and Dexterity meant that he could run faster. That is, once he got his balance and figured out how these new limbs worked.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
It only took a few seconds for Jerome to get everything sorted — including activiting the faster 4-legged run technique — but the ockdine had gained dangerous amounts of ground in that time.
The chase began anew.
The ockdine was gaining steadily, but it wasn’t at the same terrifying clip as before. Then a new thought arose: maybe he could fight back.
Jerome turned to face his opponent.
Or he tried to turn. However, mastering running hadn’t gotten him all the requisite gnoll mobility skills, and his attempt at turning his head sent him once again tumbling. Thankfully not into a tree this time.
As he rolled to a stop the ockdine slammed into him. He put out a claw as mangled instinct, managing to at least take five HP off of the beast, but from then on it was a disaster. The tentacles wrapped around him, trapping three of his limbs. The last free limb got two good strikes in, taking eight HP off of the ockdine each time, but then it too was enveloped.
He struggled, biting hard at the tentacle holding his one of his front limbs. The tentacle was far too large to take a proper chunk out of it with his teeth, but the pain must have done something because it flinched away. Another tentacle came to take its place, but that split second was enough. The incoming tentacle was swiped at with a claw, causing it to recoil again. The claw then took out the tentactle holding his other front limb, giving him free swiping range again.
His legs, however, were still enveloped, and it was hard to get to them. He wasted a precious few seconds trying to figure out how to free them before settling on swiping at the nearest soft surface: the ockdine’s face.
Success! Fifteen damage!
He did it again, this time aiming for the eye. Twenty-seven more damage! Combined with the other hits, the ockdine was now at about half health.
Then, tired of the attacks on its face, the ockdine swung Jerome against a spiny tree, piercing him was a dozen sharpened wooden daggers.
And breaking his spine.
He couldn’t feel his legs anymore.
No. No no no.
He found he had room to slash at the tentacles holding his legs, and he made them withdraw, but it was too late. His legs were, for all intents and purposes, gone.
Compared to that, the massive loss of HP seemed almost inconsequential. Being in a fantasy game without being able to walk was certain death.
One thought consumed his mind: revenge. Revenge, and distract this thing long enough for Krystyna to have a chance.
He dragged himself towards the ockdine with his forelimbs. The beast considered him a while, then snuck out one tentacle and wrapped it around his throat.
Breath left him. A blue bar appeared and began to shrink; it must be his remaining oxygen.
He scratched at the tentacle frantically but each weak hit only did only 1 HP. There was no way he could finish this thing off.
No other options.
His desperation was mixed with curiousity. Were there other options?
Would you like to transform?
* Orrnuro? (ockdine, 24 hours remaining)
Yes, yes, oh goodness yes.
His body shifted again, this time into an ockdine. His body slipped out of the other’s grasp, which caused an audible gurgling that he recognized as surprise. He used that opportunity to flail his limbs toward the other ockdine, hoping that one of them did some damage. How did ockdine fight each other?
He took a quick peek at his new stats.
Name: Orrnuro (Jerome Wallaby)
Race: Ockdine (Human)
Level 3 (Level 1, 72% progress)
130/130 HP
100/100 MP
130/130 SP
Statuses: Transformed (24 hours remaining), Drying Out (30 minutes until stat reduction)
Strength: 19
Endurance: 17
Agility: 16
Focus: 10
Dexterity: 12
Connection: 10
Skills
Special Abilities
Transformation Level 1, 21% progress (unique)
Store, Transform
Tentacle Combat Level 4
Push, Strangle, Fling
Tentacle Movement (overground) Level 5
Crawl, Stand, Fling Self
Current Manipulation Level 8
Swords Level 1, 15% progress
None
He was pleased to have full health and use of his legs again. More than pleased: ecstatic! This Transform ability was useful for that bonus alone. Solve any physical ailment by just switching into a different body!
Another pleasing side effect was the opposing ockdine’s complete and utter confusion. It lasted longer than Jerome’s unfamiliarity with how to control an ockdine body, giving Jerome the advantage.
He wrapped his tentacles around the other creature’s neck. Tentacle combat wasn’t that hard.
Its eyes went wide in confusion and betrayal, and from that point on it didn’t even try to fight back. It went softly, staying still and horrified until a slight convulsion gave way to death.
Yes! He lived!
You have reached level 2. Bonuses and point assignments will occur when you have returned to your default form.
He had survived a battle, discovered his unique skill, gained a level, and now he could go back and rescue Krystyna. For real this time!
He glopped himself over to where all the noises were coming from and saw that Krystyna and her ockdine were still engaged in ferocious battle. Any time a tentacle would come too close she would reach for it and it would twitch out of the way. One tentacle latched onto her arm, but she was able to put her other hand against it and use her awesome power pulse to knock the tentacle back.
A second tentacle grabbed onto the arm that was doing the pulsing. Krystyna tried to repeat the trick with her newly freed arm but a third tentacle wrapped around it.
She was trapped! Time for Jerome to show some heroics.
It looked like Krystyna’s limbs were being pulled apart. That must hurt. But then she pulled her legs up and pressed them against one of the tentacles and — so cool! — it appeared she could use energy pulses from her feet as well.
But it was a losing battle. The ockdine had eight tentacles, and once it had happened upon a winning strategy it knew that it could pursue it until the end. Her limbs would be separated so that her pulsing power was useless, and then it would be over. The other four tentacles could strangle her. They could double up, two on each limb, creating enough force to rip her in half. They could slam her against a tree until she was nothing but a ragdoll. Or, if the ockdine was feeling particularly deviant, it could use the remaining tentacles to… no, he couldn’t let his mind go there.
It was hero time.
He wrapped two of his tentacles around the one on Krystyna’s left arm and yanked.
Krystyna and the ockdine both looked at him in fear. No matter. Two on one would be short work, and this ockdine had only a quarter of its health left.
Jerome tangled up its tentacles while it was confused, then got two around its throat. The other ockdine returned the favor, and the blue bar returned. It decreased a bit slower this time, but it decreased all the same.
Then the blue bar was gone and his HP dropped. Oh how it dropped. He might just die anyways.
But no, the other ockdine was already severely injured from its fight, and Jerome had a freshly transformed body. It was still close. When the other ockdine shuddered and collapsed Jerome had less than 20% of his HP bar left.
“We did it!” Jerome exclaimed. He was incredibly glad the fighting was over. Anything more and he might have died. If he died in this body would he die for real?
He moved a congratulatory tentacle towards Krystyna, who jumped back.
“CHLKTHOMRSRLTHUM!” she yelled.
Right. Language barrier.
She stepped forward with purpose, put her hands against him in what he now recognized as her signature attack, and after a short pulse he was catapulted backwards into a grove of spike-barked trees.