With a splash, the boil-riddled flesh worm turned into goop and died. The Krutnik picked up the biggest bit and walked back to Thomas, almost like a dog presenting a toy. Thomas took the chunk of meat and put it in his inventory.

Darryl walked over to the other three Boil Slithers and picked them up himself, while leaving quite a few small chunks behind. Those the grubs could lick off the floor, hopefully it wouldn't be enough for them to grow into pupa. Shame, but no helping it. Despite being level one, the Krutnik skeleton was apparently strong enough to liquefy these critters and thus make a complete clean up difficult.

“I think that’s all of them, right?” Elise said.

“Unless there are any that wandered off the map, yes. We’re done.” Thomas said.

“Finally!” Elise said. “I could almost feel myself bleed viewers doing this boring job.”

“You could’ve stayed at the Safe Room if you liked.” Thomas said. “With the map revealed to me preventing ambushes and chance encounters, I could’ve done this part by myself while you guys rested.”

“We managed to ditch those two stalkers in the Safe Room, like hell I was staying behind.” Elise sourly said.

She was exaggerating, Beth and Maribelle weren’t that big an issue. It was in part play-acting for the fans, and part the itch she had from not killing anything in a while. She wasn’t addicted, not exactly, but Darryl noticed that the bloodlust was starting to get to her. She wouldn’t be smushing any brindle grubs that they walked past if it weren’t.

And this clean-up mission had been all Thomas, or rather his skeleton Krutnik. The Boil Slithers were slow slithering leeches that would suddenly jump at you with incredible speed, and you only had a second or two to Heal yourself before more drastic measures had to be taken. As they couldn’t infect undead targets, and the Krutnik was expendable even if they could, the party opted to take no risks and have their new minion clear out the parasites.

In this, Thomas’s new spell seemed incredibly useful, even worth the trouble of raising it. Boned required a skeleton without flesh, and though there had been two skeletons in the boss room they could’ve used no one suggested they desecrate fellow humans like that.

So instead Thomas took out one of their many Krutnik corpses, they took everything including the monsters themselves if possible, and gutted it. Elise broke the shell on the bottom and they’d pulled out enough flesh and gore until Thomas got a notification that the skeleton could be raised now.

The skeleton was level 1 and very simplistic in its movements and thinking, but using an exoskeleton of chitin was no doubt better than an endoskeleton of the more brittle calcium carbonate. Better balance and joints that weren’t missing parts, too.

Only downside was that the skeleton shaved 5 mana points off of Thomas’s pool for as long as it was around, which turned out to include his mana regeneration. Peanuts at a later level, perhaps, but right now it was almost half his mana pool gone.

“Alright, then let’s go! Mamma wants to do some killing!” Elise said. “This way, right?”

Elise began walking down a dark corridor, and Snuggles shrieked a warcry before running past her. Elise cursed and ran after it.

As it turned out, a pet joining the party before it was even remotely tamed came with its own issues. One of which being that it levelling before it got any semblance of restraint or obedience, and a lvl3 demigriff ran a lot faster than a hatchling.

The rest caught up with Elise without hurrying too much, greeted by a sour frown while she held the demigriff at arm’s length. Hostile or not, it tried to bite everyone’s nipple and especially Elise didn’t like that. Her fans did, clearly, but she had no intention of obliging them there.

“Here, hold it.” Elise said, shoving the critter into Ben’s hands. For all the endearment she held for it initially, either its behaviour or her unsated bloodlust, or both, had caused that well to run dry. “Stupid thing, attacking brindle grubs when they don’t even grant any experience.”

Darryl picked up the biggest chunks of eviscerated grub and put them in his inventory. He could already spot that other grubs were crawling this direction according to the map, but then again they were always drawn to the party and their blood-crusted clothes.

Cuddles, or Cudd as the party had since started calling it, squirmed in Ben’s grasp and tried to bite his nipple the moment that Elise’s were out of reach. Darryl held out his hand and Ben gratefully handed the little hybrid over. Cudd squeaked angrily when Darryl held it soundly in place, his strength overwhelming even with just his left arm where it could still challenge Ben to keep a firm hold.

Elise ran ahead, both to decide the pace and get the first swing at any enemy, and the rest followed. As they did, Darryl repositioned himself to walk next to Thomas and Cudd immediately stopped trying to twist his neck 180 degrees to instead snap at Thomas’s nipple.

“So…” Darryl said. “About Elise, I can’t help but notice that the bloodlust is becoming a problem like you said. What do you think we should do now?”

Thomas sighed and looked conflicted. “This isn’t like the tiara; she’s not putting us in danger. This kind of behaviour isn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s not any actual trouble either. And if it takes about a full day of not killing anything worthwhile, then it shouldn’t actually be much of an issue. Us not grinding for that long will probably be an uncommon occurrence.”

“But?” Ben said, ignoring Cudd as it gave up on Thomas and impotently snapped at him instead.

“No buts. I got angry before because there was an issue that had to be resolved, not because I wanted to find one.” Thomas said.

“I highly doubt that the bloodlust is a curse because you get grumpy when you don’t kill anything for a while.” Darryl said. “I’d call that a but.”

“That’s a good point.” Thomas said. “If this condition is about what the name suggests, then I assume it will be a meter to be filled up rather than running out. And become a curse once it does.”

“So…?” Ben asked.

“We don’t know how much is needed, or what it will do exactly.” Thomas said. “Rationing her killing would be prudent, but trying to bind her to certain demands or contingencies when we don’t even know if it will be necessary would only result in anger and rebellious behaviour.”

“So, kill-stealing? I can do that.” Ben said.

“As will I. Probably give her the first few mobs to soothe her mood, though.” Thomas said. “And Darryl, try making some kills with your left hand instead of shielding us. Your protective abilities are already good enough, with these weak mobs you should try catching up on what your right hand used to do.”

Darryl nodded. It was true, he fell into the groove of defending so much that it felt weird not to do it. It had been necessary to fill that role against the Krutnik, but not with these weaklings.

___ ___ ___ ___ ___

“Ready?” Darryl said.

He looked at the felled bull, and waited for a few seconds just to see if it was perhaps faking its immobilisation. The creature grunted and tried to get up, but it seemed genuinely unable to swing its axe while lying down.

The Bax had been another one of those nonsensical mobs probably made up by a board of content creators told to produce a ton of ideas with a tight deadline. It was a black-skinned bull looking identical to the ones that fought Matadors, except for the golden ring through its nose and the axe that hung from it.

The bull was a berserker type, clearly, and two of the creatures had charged at them with their horns before swinging their nose-axe around with eerie skill. The axe never swung itself into their sides, despite the wild movements that the bull put their entire body behind.

“Ready!” Elise said with a broad smile and her cheeks flushed. She placed her boot on the bull’s neck, and it struggled but failed to shrug itself free.

Her bloodlust didn’t seem to be sated by kills but rather by dealing damage, and these bulls were beefy boys with plenty of health to clobber. The first one survived a strike straight to the head with her bat, and she got to smash the bull thrice more before it died. In the three seconds that it took, her agitation had disappeared to be replaced by an almost aroused sense of bliss.

They managed to keep her from killing the second bull, limiting her damage to shattering two of its knees to immobilise.

“Alright, Cuddles. Go for the soft belly, make mama proud!” Elise said.

Darryl let Cudd go, and the demigriff was already running before he hit the ground. He bolted at the downed bull and jumped, punching it in the gut with his right bird foot. The bull’s health barely decreased from that weird manoeuvre, but Cudd dug his talons into the skin as he slid down the bull’s stomach. That did a little more, if only because the frantic crawling to not fall down resulted in a lot of shallow scratches.

Falling onto his butt, Cudd didn’t even bother getting up before tearing into the bull with claw and beak. The bull howled in pain and began to thrash even more frantically, and Ben quickly stepped in to provide an unbalanced Elise with some support before she’d fall over.

The lack of decisive damage didn’t seem to dissuade Cudd, who continued to gleefully scratch and draw blood as the bull’s health slowly dwindled.

Darryl felt bad for the creature. As much as it immediately attacked them without hesitation, right now it sounded and acted like a terrified animal getting tortured. Which in all honesty, it was. That was probably the dungeon designer’s intent, and the thought only made this whole situation more fucked up.

“Incoming.” Thomas shouted, pointing at a hallway behind Darryl.

He turned around, his shield at the ready. A Bax appeared from the darkness, drawn to the dying screams of its comrade, and charged in. Another Bax was right behind it.

The first Bax ran headfirst into Darryl, and he lost but a sliver of his health when the bull’s horns shattered on his shield. A notification with ‘Stun’ appeared above its head, a full 10 seconds where it was usually just one or two. The second Bax dashed past, ignoring Darryl to rush at Thomas instead.

Thomas cast Guiding Strike and Ben shot a regular crossbow bolt. The streak of light floated impotently in the air, until the bolt flew through it. The spell immediately adapted to the missile’s speed and enveloped it, causing them both to alter course slightly.

Thomas’s spell didn’t seem to deal any damage itself, rather being a support spell requiring someone else to have a ranged weapon. The strike would envelop itself around an ally’s missile and guide it to become a more precise or even critical hit. Which would then also deal radiant damage and act as a beacon for other missiles to be attracted to.

The shining bolt flew through the Bax’s eye and would’ve killed the beast instantly if this wasn’t a dungeon with stats. Instead the bull’s health dropped significantly but it shrugged off death by virtue of still having some left.

Thomas jumped to the left and his Krutnik avoided damage by staying completely still and apathetic to the sight of the incoming charge. The bull swung its head around and the axe found Thomas’s side, scoring a deep gash and immediately putting his health in the early red.

That was their trick, as Darryl already assumed. Charge at a foe who’d be forced to jump to the side, and then strike their unguarded sides with the axe in passing. The bull did so with unrefined yet effective skill and already slowed down for another go.

Darryl threw his spear as the bull half-stopped half redirected its momentum to turn around, and a thin ray of light from its eye shone on the spear’s metal tip almost as if by happenstance. It only became noticeably unnatural when the ray of light moved along to stay on the same spot as the spear came closer.

Two more rays sprang out of the bull’s eye as the spear split in three, and they too slightly went off-course towards the guiding spell. It wasn’t a strong spell yet and Darryl’s aim was still terrible, so he knew that it wouldn’t suffice.

The real spear dug itself into the bull’s flesh, almost a textbook example of a grazing wound, while the other two missed their target entirely. The Guiding Strike faded away, it only guided one missile after striking true at lvl1. That the spear allowed them to guide three was already more than the spell usually gave them, so he counted his blessings there.

Darryl clenched his left hand and felt the spear reappear in it, and threw it again. A guiding strike struck it midair and provided the spear with a stronger guiding effect than the secondary effect from before. The two phantom spears appeared and flew unguided to hit nothing but air and rock, but the real spear dug itself in the bull’s shoulder and it screamed.

Next to Darryl, the Krutnik attacked the stunned Bax in complete silence save for its chittering footsteps and the suppressed grunts from the stunned beast. Darryl quickly turned to the Bax, which he in all honestly had forgotten about for a moment. Four seconds of stun left, and he wasn’t sure if the Krutnik would cause it to run out of health before then.

Darryl equipped his shield, two seconds left. He slammed it against the Bax’s head, shaving off just a thin sliver of health despite essentially bludgeoning a fractured skull with a large slab of metal. One second left. He did it again, taking another sliver while the Krutnik’s onslaught took health with savage strikes.

Darryl raised his foot and kicked the bull as a glint of awareness returned to its eyes. The same moment it realised its pain and the attacks from the side, Darryl struck the creature. It moved a few centimetres back and staggered, but it was way too heavy to fly further than that with Darryl's average strength score.

Darryl readied his shield and the Bax’s horns impotently scraped over the steel. As he thought, the bull couldn’t use its axe against foes directly in front of it.

The next moment, a jab from the Krutnik stabbing into the bull’s leg no different from the others but bringing it to zero, and the Bax spontaneously fell over dead. The unnatural display wasn’t as noticeable for other mobs, but the tanky ones made the mechanics rather jarring.

The other Bax died from one of Ben’s bolts, despite the shot losing accuracy by being drawn to Darryl’s flesh wound away from the vitals that Ben aimed at, leaving only the first Bax. Elise seemed a bit miffed that she missed out on the fight by having to keep her boot on its throat the entire time, but it was a long shot from her former mood.

Half a minute of the party trying to ignore the sounds of animal cruelty the best they could later, Cudd took down the Bax and contently started tearing off strips of flesh to eat.

“Don’t eat too fast, you get a tummy ache.” Elise said, picking up the demigriff that stubbornly hung on to the bull’s stomach when she tried to lift him up. A piece of flesh tore off and Cuddles swallowed it whole before whining and pulling towards the rest of it.

Elise just sighed and dropped Cuddles. “Here’s to hoping that he learns from experience if he won’t listen to me.”