The Nut King didn’t pounce or lunge. He didn’t roar in fury. He just looked at me and decided to end my mortal stint. He took a few measured, menacing paces towards me in order to deliver the killing blow. Simple strategy really: confirm the kill, then move on… I would do the same thing if I were in his position.

I didn’t blame him. In fact, I would rather he win than those jerks that were going to kill me anyway. I should have stayed hidden. Why did I help Vidari? She’s a toad.

I glanced towards Vidari. She was laying in the dirt with Katri crouched over her, probably trying to heal her. Save those heals for me, wont you? Imber was crawling towards them. He had left his weapon on the ground, it still lay in tatters. Focus on the fight, dumbass. The hero who saved your girl is about to die over here!

A few meters behind Katri, that sneaky old cleric was smirking at me. Damn it, I never figured out her secret either. I suck.

The Boss was upon me now. He really was huge. I barely recognised any of Riffy in him, but I suppose the teeth were similar. Big fucking teeth… at least this will be quick.

“Hey Riffy, buddy, I don’t know if you’re still in there, but I do know that you can’t understand a word I say anyway. Those fuckers are going to do everything they can to kill you because it’s the only way they can survive. So don’t give them a second. Hit them with everything you have and don’t go easy on the old bitch. She’s hiding something and I’m willing to bet it’s trouble. Anyway… why haven’t you killed me yet?”

He was sniffing me. He twisted his head to one side. I think he recognises me!

“That’s right. It’s me. NULL! No nuts, remember? Please don’t murder me, buddy.”

A shadow flickered in my periphery. Sister Hest was soaring through the air. Something shiny like a carapace glinted in her hand.

“Behind you,” I yelled.

Monster Riffy squinted at me. Then, he crashed past me in a spray of blood.

Sister Hest stood where he had been, but she was changing. Her appearance was shifting, her skin melting into some shadowy mismatch of bony limbs and lumps of coiling flesh. From the chaotic shape emerged a much younger face with dark rings surrounding the eyes. The body snapped and wriggled into place as a new figure took form.

She was Sister Hest no more. Now, a tall slender creature with two long spider-like legs and a downy compact chest loomed above me. The face was incredibly pale, with dark ringed eyes and a wide creepy smile that still resembled Sister Hest in its sneering expression.

“I fucking knew you were hiding something,” I said. “You’re a shapeshifter.”

“And you, filth,” her voice was monotonal now and raspy like a chain smoker. “You are finished.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s your problem with me?”

It had been too long since I last touched her, I could no longer cast Basic Identify. I shifted my foot towards her, moving as slowly as possible to avoid detection.

It didn’t fucking work though. She spotted it instantly and stamped on my ankle. It didn’t do much to my health points, but it was terribly painful in a sharp, urgent, tortured way. Criteria fulfilled.

Name: Hesta. Race: Shifter. Class: Predator. Lvl 8.

Magical Creature. Omnivore. Violent. Sociable. Intelligent.

Hunter turned Predator.

Level Eight? Holy fucking shit.

Hesta— yeah, she had disguised her name as Hest… she literally just took off one letter— turned to look at Katri. “The Human girl doesn’t yet understand the nature of the skill she has been gifted, but I understood it immediately. The power to find rarities, such as the one you are wearing right now. The Devout were lucky that she came first to us. Had her gift fallen into the hands of The Frontier it would have been a great tragedy. Tell me, maggot, from whom did you steal that graded artifact?”

“My leg armour?” I asked. The Rusty Longshanks… “Seriously, you just wanted my armour?”

“I needed to get that girl out of the city fast. She is too valuable to be left with the modest Sisters. My disguise was perfect. Praise the All-Mother. But your artifact will serve me in achieving my goals, as will your XP and that of those two slaves.” She gestured towards Vidari and Imber. “The true treasure is the girl. Once alone I will break and bind her to my will. You have my gratitude for without—”

“You’re forgetting something,” I said, interrupting her maddened ravings.

Nut King Riffy plunged his nut-cracking teeth into her batshit crazy neck. She collapsed shrieking in surprise, but reformed around the wound instantly. I guess Shifters can just heal incoming damage by transforming. I wonder how that works with their health bar though?

The Shifter and the Nut King clashed in a blistering whirlwind of spidery limbs and squirrelly tails. They weren’t actually too fast for me to witness, I was just really fucking exhausted. I have wood splinters sticking out of my legs.

The Rusty Longshanks had protected me somewhat, but I was still bleeding heavily. I pulled the splinters out of my legs and cast Basic Restoration. My Mana dropped to nothing and my health whipped up to full in moments. My stamina wasn’t looking too bad either. I guess I’m improving. With all the chaos, I hadn’t been paying much attention to the occasional Stat increases.

That reminded me, I had unlocked new skills a while back and hadn’t had time to activate them. I opened my Pocket Book and switched to the Skill’s page. I could only have 6 skills selected at a time, so I switched out Basic Blueprint for Basic Dodge. A timer counting down from 24 hours appeared next to Basic Blueprint. It seemed I wouldn’t be able to select it again until a day had passed. I see... I was wondering what was stopping me from just switching back and forth between skills.

There was a horrible cracking sound as an extra limb burst out of Hesta’s chest to stab at the Nut King’s throat. He staggered back bloodied before collapsing to the ground.

“Don’t let him interfere,” Hesta shouted at Vidari and Imber while pointing a bony protuberance in my direction. “If he’s not dead by the time I’ve finished with this, then I’ll kill you both.”

How stupid does she think they are? There was no way Vidari and Imber would help her now that she had revealed herself.

I regained a slither of mana and looked about for some way to help Riffy.

Vidari and Imber rose to their feet with haggard eyes locked onto me. It’s amazing how much fear can motivate idiots. They were too scared to disobey Hesta and now Katri had healed them.

Imber crouched down and lifted a stick off the ground. He stroked along its length and cast some unknown skill— I should cast Basic Identify on that stick if he hits me with it.

Vidari hurled two of her shining stones at me and I cast Basic Dodge. The skill allowed me to move greater distances if I used more mana, but I only needed to dodge a little to the side and I needed to conserve my Mana.

Imber rushed at me with his club-mace-thing. I need to get that out of his hands, so I can beat him to death with it.

He swung at me, but I used another Basic Dodge to get around him. He looked as though he was considering play-acting as though he didn’t have enough stamina to swing again, but then he remembered I had already seen his true speed. He swung again and I had to use my last bit of Mana on Basic Dodge. I liked this new skill, it let me move without using up stamina, but my Mana pool was still limited. I’m feeling a lot more confident on my feet now.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I tripped on the root of a nearby tree and landed on all fours. Two of Vidari’s stones whacked me in the ribs. It didn’t hurt, but it did double stack that annoying buff.

Tick Targeted.

Efficiency: Max Duration: 30 seconds remaining.

This Hex is Stackable. Each Tick provides: +10% Incoming accuracy from caster, +50% Incoming damage from caster, +20 Duration.

Current Stack: Incoming accuracy: +20%, Incoming damage: +100%.

I was lucky though. Imber had round-housed his last swing into a combo and if I hadn’t tripped it probably would have caught me in the gut and winded me, if not killed me flat out.

Like AIAI said, I’m lucky… and now Imber was off-balanced. I kicked at his hand and sent the club flying. I dove for it as my stomach jolted with a sense of excitement. Finally, a weapon!

The club turned back into a useless little stick. What the hell!

Imber laughed and reached down for another stick. Once again he cast his skill and the stick turned into a club. “It’s a honed weapon, idiot,” he said. “Anything that’s the right basic shape can become my club. Haven’t you ever tried hardening a weapon?”

“Honey, don’t give the bad guy pointers,” said Vidari.

“I’m not the bad guy!” I said. What the hell did Imber mean about hardening a weapon? There’s so much I just haven’t had time to try. I haven’t been able to get a grip on the basics because I was thrown in the deep end. Heck, I haven’t even had time to choose my perks from my last Level up.

I flung open the Pocket Book and switched to the Perks page. I didn’t have time to read, but I didn’t need to. I’m tired of missing out on the basics. My intuition was telling me that those standard level two perks were important, so fuck it. I grabbed the first three level two perks. I didn’t have time to read their descriptions, but their names were: XP Predictor, Source Flow, and Gold Flow. I really hope Gold Flow doesn’t involve pee.

As far as I could tell nothing happened. Great. Another shit idea.

Vidari flung another stone at me and I flinched.

Stat Increase: Dexterity +1.

You parried a Mundane Attack.

New Skill unlocked: Basic Parry.

I’d parried the stone with this puny little stick. Oh, heck yeah! The ability to parry is often very important in games. Unlocking it could be vital. I should select it, but which Skill should I remove?

I brought up the skills page even as another stone whacked me in the face. That one hurt a little, but I had to get this sorted. As it turned out, Basic Parry was a passive skill. I didn’t need to select it. The way it worked was it ‘Automatically applies Shield Modifier to Protection and Skill Block when an attack is successfully parried.’ I didn’t entirely understand what that meant, but I got the gist. If I could survive long enough, then I would figure it out precisely… but for now, I just needed to survive this bullshit situation.

“Ouch. Quit it with the stones, lady!”

Tick Targetted.

Efficiency: Max Duration: 30 seconds remaining.

This Hex is Stackable. Each Tick provides: +10% Incoming accuracy from caster, +50% Incoming damage from caster, +20 Duration.

Current Stack: Incoming accuracy: +40%, Incoming damage: +200%.

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As before, Vidari and Imber worked well as a team. They had obviously been together for a long time. They maintained a near constant stream of attacks. When Imber ended his combo, Vidari’s stone hurtled towards me and the moment I focused on her, Imber charged once more. They kept this up without slowing... forever!

Well, maybe not forever, but I’m tired and this is taking ages.

The Basic Dodge skill was invaluable. Anytime an attack looked too difficult to parry, I dodged, and when they combo-ed too many hits in a row and my Mana depleted, I just hit the Ram Slam to create distance. I’m not doing bad for a Level Two and against two Level Fives… if I do say so myself.

I hadn’t really dealt any damage though. I was fighting a purely defensive battle. I need to change the dynamic here. There’s an old saying ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ I always preferred, If you can’t beat them, recruit them.

“Look guys,” I said between dodges. “That Shifter is just going to turn on you as soon as she gets what she wants. If you stop attacking me, we can work together to figure this thing out.”

I caught Imber glance at Vidari for guidance. Right, she’s the ringleader.

“Vidari, listen to me,” I said. “I have a plan. I can handle Hesta, but I need you to cooperate with me. Just listen to my plan and quit it with those fucking stones. Got it?”

Vidari stopped mid-throw and considered my request.

“That’s right. Just give me a minute,” I said. “Imber it’s fine, you should keep swinging at me, but don’t hit me. We want it to look like we’re still fighting.”

The big guy looked at Vidari and she nodded.

Awesome. Now I just need to think of a plan to beat the Level Eight Shifter…

I spun around trying to find possible traps or environmental assets that could help us, but this arena was just Riffy’s neck of the woods with a stargazer background. That’s not gonna be much help.

I spotted Katri hiding behind a tall dark brown tree trunk. There were a few trees just like it in the area. What species— or class, I guess— of tree is that? And that’s when the plan occurred to me. It was obvious really.

“I have an idea. This could work,” I said. “This really could work. I think we’re all going to be O.K.”

And that’s when Riffy died.

Boss Defeated:

Nut King Riffy Level 5 .

XP Gain: 1160.

I didn’t level up. I didn’t even notice the XP. I didn’t see the choice to direct my XP to my gear or to advance a level. I didn’t see anything... Except that Shifter bitch.

I charged at the Shifter. I might have been screaming. She was laughing. It made me so motherfucking mad… and that actually helped bring me back to my senses. If I just rushed her she would kill me easily. But I was too angry to just stop.

She waited till I was in range and then thrust at me with her creepy spider arm. Predictable. I dodged it easily and leaped towards the crumbled, bloody remains of the only friend I had in this fucked up world. I couldn’t bare to look at him. My eyes found Katri.

“Heal him. Bring him back.”

She must have seen something in my eyes, or maybe it was my tone. Either way, she came running over.

I dropped to my knees and felt around the ground beneath me.

“That’s it, worm,” said Hesta. “Be a good Human and give up now. I will reward your obedience with a kiss.” Her sneering mouth grew wider than before and new jagged teeth popped out of her gums.

She walked jerkily towards me. Not jerkily because she was a jerk, but jerkily because her spidery legs were snapping at weird angles. She’s seriously disgusting.

I bowed my head and continued to reach around searching the remains of Riffy’s nut collection. Yeah, obviously I’m not surrendering. I’m going to fucking decimate this walking pile of trash.

She was close now. Close enough that I could smell her breath. Close enough to see the regret in her eyes as I grinned at her.

I raised my fungus filled hands and Ram Slammed them into the back of her throat.

Those monstrous teeth of hers carved through the skin all the way up my arms, but I didn’t care. I dropped the Ether Mushrooms down into that black pit she calls a stomach and then Basic Dodged backwards. The skin on my arm was flayed off by her rancid teeth.

I collapsed onto the ground a few paces from her. My ragged, bloody arms fell uselessly besides me. The stamina drain and the pure agonising pain was so bad, I could barely keep my head up.

Katri looked as though she was about to run, but she took one look at the expression on my face and turned back to Riffy’s corpse.

Finally, that cruel smirk had vanished from Hesta’s face. Her gaping mouth and black ringed eyes contorted into a grimace of disgust and childlike confusion. She took a step toward me with her shambling legs, then collapsed in front of me.

“That’s the lethargy, you worthless maggot,” I gasped through the stamina burn. “Prepare to fucking die.”

I pulled myself up to a sitting position and strained to move towards her. I’m going to stamp her face until she’s nothing.

Her body convulsed. The spider limbs snapped and cracked into smaller and smaller parts as they were absorbed back into her bug-like centre. He chest stretched and grew thinner. The last thing I saw was her face twisting into a tired smile as she slunk like a worm into the soil and disappeared.

“Stop her,” I gasped.

But she was gone.

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