I woke with a start and sniffed around. I was in an animal skin tent surrounded with partially gnawed bones with tiny bits of meat stuck to them. Greta was sleeping behind me with her face buried into my fur. I guess I passed out after we ate last night. I got a good stretch in and got up, being very careful so I don’t wake greta. I left the tent to find that we were alone, all of the other orcs left us here. I didn’t understand, were we abandoned?

I went back in the tent to find greta awake. I bit her sleeve and tugged on her to get her to come outside. She looked confused but followed me anyway. When we got outside she noticed the lack of the others and saw me looking around and sighed. She kneeled down in front of me and patted me on the head.

“Gree-tah T’arshe Gren’dea” She said this with a sad look in her eye before going back into the tent and changing. I guess this was supposed to happen, she didn’t seem surprised or anything. What is going on? Were we actually abandoned? I need to find out how to speak orc at some point.

Greta and tore down camp, well she tore down camp while I got breakfast. After eating we left the campground behind towards what I believe to be a completely random direction. Im getting a feeling we aren’t going to see the tribe again…

We spent hours walking towards no where in particular when the monotony of our travel was broken up by a loud scream. Greta immediately took out a stone knife and hid behind a tree. I stared at her for a second, is that all she was going to do? I was curious so I went ahead to check it out. She called after me but I was already too far ahead to stop now. I rushed through the forest and burst out of the treeline to run right into a large man repeatedly stabbing a corpse. My momentum caused me to push the man over, causing him to smash his face into the face of the corpse. He screamed and rolled over, ripping his blade out of the body and brandishing it around. I had already gotten up and was taking in the situation. There was a smashed carriage on a road not far from me, with bodies spread out all over. Apparently I had come across the common bandit attack scenario. Most of the bodies were wearing some sort of armor that was marked with what looked like a crest. As soon as they heard the one bandit I knocked over scream, everyone froze. The person that screamed was a woman wearing a deep blue robe with gold and green trim. She was pinned to the tree by an arrow that went through her shoulder. She was surrounded by five bandits not counting the one I ran into, there were 2 guards left and they were surrounding the woman in defensive positions. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get lots of biomass and finally be able to get a human body again. I looked back and I could just barely see that Greta was hiding in a bush, watching what was going on. I don’t know how Greta will feel about me after she sees this, but if I do nothing they are going to die.

I shifted my body slightly, allowing several sharp tentacles to emerge from my sides. My claws also got sharper as they extended slightly. This broke the trance everyone was in when they noticed I was changing. The bandits all got their weapons ready, two of the bandits focused on the two guards with the other three coming towards me. The one I knocked down was behind me and I think he assumed I forgot about him. He was currently trying to sneak up on me with the large knife he had. I smacked him with a tentacle and rushed towards the other bandits. They were surprised But charged at me, wildly swinging their weapons. I could see the two guards struggling to fight the bandits, It wont be long till they fall.

I thrust one of my tentacles forwards and pierced one of the bandits in the head. I tried to do the same for the other one but he ducked and my attack went over his head. He swung his axe and severed my tentacle. I gritted my teeth and dodged out of the way as he swung again at my main body. I fought through the pain and tried to stab him again. But he dodged again, he dodged every attack that I aimed at his head so I aimed for his chest and clawed him. I managed to rip through his clothes and tear into his flesh. He called out to his friends and distracted them, one of the guards took advantage of this and managed to cut down one of the bandits.

The other bandit freaked out after seeing his comrade die in front of him and started swinging his sword wildly at the guards. He managed to get a lucky hit in and severely injure one of them, taking him out of the fight. The bandit I clawed got back up and swung his axe at me in a large arc. The wound on his chest slowed him down a little so I managed to just dodge the swing and bite down hard on his arm. He screamed and I quickly dispatched him with a tentacle before he regained his senses. I started heading towards the last bandit when I fell over. For some reason my hind legs weren’t working. I looked back and found that my hind legs were missing. The pain hit me immediately but I had to seal the wound and roll out of the way as a sword sliced through the space my body was just at. Turns out the first bandit I had gotten back up and cut off my legs. He then proceeded to do that gross thing that psychopaths do after they cut you.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He licked the blade.

I didn’t want to see that. I shot three tentacles at his head, chest and abdomen and he did something I didn’t expect him to do, he grabbed my tentacles out of the air and sliced them off. I reabsorbed what was left of them and ignored the pain. I regrew my legs and stood up, fully focused on the enemy in front of me. This guy wasn’t going to be very easy to deal with. I needed more biomass, I sent out tentacles and absorbed all the corpses in the area and was rewarded with something I haven’t seen in a while.

Absorbed Human (x12)

+100 biomass (x12)

Human transformation assistance unlocked

Basic language absorbed

Mana generation unlocked

Mana? Ill deal with that later. What I was really interested in was the new abilities I unlocked.

Rapid transformation unlocked

Simple menu unlocked

I would have to look into those later. Right now I have a bandit to kill. Everyone started freaking out as soon as I started absorbing corpses. The woman that was pinned to the tree by an arrow was frantically trying to pull it out and run away. The injured guard was attempted to help her but the remaining bandit lost his nerve and tried to run away. The other guard managed to catch him though. Which only left one more bandit. I had plenty of biomass now but I still needed to take this guy out. So I did what any normal wolf would do. I stood up.

My front legs got longer and flattened into blades as my hind legs also got longer so I could stand upright. This transformation would have normally taken a little bit. But it happened almost instantaneously. I guess that’s the new skill rapid transformation at work. The bandit no longer looked as excited to fight as he did a moment ago. I could see his grip on his knife tighten and he adjusted his stance. I dashed at him preparing to bisect him with my blade arm. He redirected my blade with his knife instead of blocking and rolled to avoid me, stabbing at my side before he got too far away.

There was an odd glow seeping out from his body. Like a red mist that I could just barely see. After this mist started seeping out of him I noticed he got faster and his strikes had more strength behind them. The more red mist that surrounded him the stronger he got. I ended up dodging and waiting for an opening. A moment later I got one.

Apparently one of the guards thought I was the bigger threat at the moment and tried to rush me from behind. But he wasn’t expecting me to notice him and move out of the way. I spun to the side as he chopped with his sword. My sword arm went right through his midsection cutting the guard in half. The guard’s top half fell towards the bandit because of his momentum. The bandit blocked the sword with his blade and jumped out of the way of the corpse. I went back to attacking the bandit. Swinging both my sword arms at him. The agile bastard just kept dodging till something flew out of the forest and smacked him right on the head. He lost his footing and tripped, which was perfect for me. I cut his head off before he could recover.

His body fell to the ground with a thud and I looked into the forest. I knew it was greta who threw something at the bandit. I gave her a thumbs up and smiled, I promised myself to thank her somehow later.

“OWW! That hurts you BASTARD!” I heard the woman yelling behind me. I turned to look and saw the last guard still trying to get the arrow out of her shoulder.

“Sorry Ma’am but its going to hurt. If you stayed in the carriage like we asked you instead of trying to demonstrate your magic-“ The guard was cut off by more screams from the woman.

I realized I could understand them now. I smiled and waved Greta over. I may have saved them but I’m not really sure what to do now.