Miho

“Weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with your claws? You’d think I’d crumble, you think I’d lay down and die?”

At least I was contributing?

I kept eye contact with Biggest as Ben casually walked towards him and carefully pried loose the fingers around the greatsword one by one. Biggest didn’t react as it caused no damage, and Ben pocketed the oversized hunk of metal.

With deft hands and uncanny skill he then went to work on the various possibly magical or protective items that Biggest wore, until the boar demon was stripped down to just a loincloth. Ben’s loot lust fortunately didn’t include that forbidden piece of fabric.

“And the one, and the two…” Ben said as he whipped out one of his blades.

“Look out!” I said, spotting sudden movement in the corner of my eye. Ben flinched and tried to break off his attack to dodge, but the goblin timed his attack carefully. At the same time that Ben got a nasty gash on his leg, his own knife stabbed into Biggest’s back at half-strength.

The tannaruk screamed in pain and rage as he regained his awareness, and turned around to Ben. “You hurt me, I smash you!”

Biggest slapped Ben with his fist, and then noticed he wasn’t holding his sword. “Where me slicer! You steal!? Give back Biggest’s Slicer!”

Ben ignored Biggest as he focused on the sneaky little bastard, who pressed his attack while he was still in range facing a flatfooted enemy. Ben’s wound stopped bleeding as he popped a health potion, but he was still in trouble as he had to dodge a goblin while Biggest blocked his escape.

“Hey you! I’ve got your sword right here!” I said.

Biggest didn’t look over to me. I don’t think he even heard me. It was rather loud around here.

“Oh no not I! I will survive!”

Damn. If no one looked at me, my Mandibran eyes couldn’t do much. This wasn’t the version that could also spit venom, unfortunately.

I turned my attention away from Ben and to the enemy right in front of me, which fortunately hadn’t tried to attack me. Or rather, I was wrapped around Elise’s neck and she didn’t let the worg get anywhere near her most vital part.

I tried to hypnotise the worg again, and again he resisted it. In between being more cunning than Biggest and being an Elite, he probably wasn’t likely to fall for that one. I needed to switch up my strategy.

I slithered away, falling from Elise’s shoulders as gracefully as I could. Which wasn’t very graceful at all. Pretty much just a straight-up bellyflop fall. At least no one was watching me. I felt myself shrink and grow limbs at the same time as I transformed into my Sheaman form, the little lamb returning to me the ability to cast my spells without rendering me naked in the midst of battle.

“Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive!”

Alright, which spell should I cast? Bloom wasn’t going to help here, Stroke of Healing was more of an out of battle or downed ally spell, and Grasping Vines was an aoe that didn’t distinguish between friend and foe. I felt like we needed the ability to dodge and manoeuvre as much if not more than our enemies. I ignored the innate Mutate Sheep spell that this form had, as there were no sheep here to turn into monstrosities, and looked at my other options.

I had Thorn Whip, and the little lamb also had an innate spell called Infestation. Well, let’s see what that one did.

I looked at Biggest and c-

There was a series of dull explosions, and the floor below him collapsed. Ben and the goblin both jumped out of the way, but Biggest could only grab on to the edge and quickly started to slide off as the shattered floorboards further splintered under his weight. His health began to plummet as Thomas attacked his dangling legs.

I cast Infestation on Griss, and the goblin’s eyes went wide for half a second before he sprung into an interpretive dance. Fleas jumped off of him as he tried to scratch every part of his body covered in hair or cloth.

“I’ve got all my life to live. And I’ve got all my love to give.”

I cast Thorn Whip and swung at him, Griss jumping out of the way despite his itching. Ben stabbed at him, but Griss made a pirouette and tried to slash Ben with his offhand while he was at it. His knife disappeared as it touched Ben’s skin, much to the goblin’s surprise, and my Thorn Whip wrapped around his ankle the moment he landed.

I pulled, and as Griss fell on his bum Ben was already on him. The goblin shrieked for mercy, but no one here believed he wouldn’t stab us in the back if we’d let him live. Ben stabbed, and Azriel either hadn’t heard the goblin’s pleas or ignored them because nothing stopped us from finishing him off.

“Hey you! Sneaky un! Gimme back me slicer!” A very angry Biggest shouted from down below.

Ben looked down the hole at the boar demon glaring up at him. “I don’t have your sword.”

“Liar! You’s take mine! Give back!”

“I have a bigger greatsword though, if you want it.” Ben smirked, taking out the town guard’s blade.

Biggest’s eyes went wide. “Oooh. That is nice slicer. You give me?”

“If you join us fighting your former boss and his pet.” Ben said.

“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.” Biggest quickly put one hand on his back and poorly hid a smile, making it all too obvious he was lying through his tusks. “You gimme sword, I helps ya.”

“Alright.” Ben said. “Catch!”

Ben dangled the sword above the hole with both hands and quite some effort, and then let go.

Biggest gleefully held up his hands to catch it, but a Scorching Ray hit him in the face just as he was about to grab it. The sword slashed through two of his fingers and right into his neck, severing several vital arteries. His surprised grunt turned into pained screams, and then Thomas decided to finish him off with a Fire Fingers to be on the safe side.

Thomas: Shall I break down the floor underneath Azriel and the Borough Boss?

Elise: Too risky. If we finish off the worg, we can probably just go around them and make it to the top of the tower.

Elise: By the way, some help would be appreciated.

Oh, right. I quickly turned to Elise, who was slowly being pushed back by the worg while Alexa had since retreated to a safer spot not within biting distance of the monstrous wolf. Elise looked roughed up, scratches everywhere even with Trevor’s remote healing and her own healing skills and items. I lashed at the Elite with my whip, leaving some shallow scratches on his leg before the worg pulled himself loose.

“And I will survive. I will survive! Hey, hey!”

“I can faintly hear the ghouls in the distance, they’re getting closer.” Thomas said as he appeared from the stairways and kept walking to the next floor. “We should finish this up.”

Elise was too tired to give a biting retort to that, but she didn’t have to. We all knew that we only managed to take care of the easier ones.

Ben slashed at the worg’s hind legs, and unlike my attacks the Elite didn’t just shrug off and ignore the much stronger kid. Thomas then struck him with fire and ice, causing the worg’s pelt to blacken and fall off where he struck.

A quarter of his health got shaved off as we kept attacking him like that, but it diminished slowly. And as Darryl and Elise were always saying, the dungeon always pulled some surprise twist to fuck you over once things were going well. This time, things weren’t even going well. We weren’t killing him fast, and at this rate the ghouls might catch up before we’d finish.

At least the worg wasn’t enjoying the situation either. Elise was already fighting defensively before, minimising the damage that he managed to land, and Ben’s flanking only made it easier for her to keep the fangs at bay. They too stopped fighting aggressively to instead dodge and block more.

“Dum-dum. Dum hum dum dum, dumdhumdumdum~”

The worg looked around, tried to get Ben to back off with an ineffective swipe of his hind legs, and then made the most ‘Screw this.’ face that a dog could possibly have.

Taking a nasty gash from Ben and a whopping from Elise as he dropped his defensive stance to make a run for it, the worg fled and quickly ran around the dueling two to run-float up a hole to the floor above.

Alexa picked up some of the burned worg hairs on the ground, found the least scorched ones amongst them, and flew towards me.

“Dumdumdum, dumdumdum, dumdumdum, dumdumdum, dumdumduuuuummmm dum, dum~” She sang as she held up the hairs to me.

I sighed but agreed that I should add this creature to my wildshape options. I took out one of the slices of baloney I fortunately stored for these situations, wrapped the hair in it and swall-

I almost gagged when the smell hit my nose, and realized that sheep weren’t carnivores. I switched to my woolf form, and the baloney suddenly smelled a lot more appetizing. I quickly ate the roll, and then rubbed my fingers over one of the bloodstains that the worg left. It didn’t taste good and I felt the dirt grind between my teeth, but I suckled on my finger anyway. The more parts of the worg I ate, the better.

“We should really get a move on.” Elise said.

“Growl, rawr rawr.” I said.

Miho: Whoops, right.

Miho: Do you think he’ll let us leave?

“We can at least try.” Elise said.

“Actually, we don’t have to do that.” Alexa said. “We’ve got a special means of escape, remember?”

The rest of us threw quizzical looks at her.

“Miho. You’ll want to revert to your true form and get dressed real quick.” Alexa whispered to me, before turning to the two people still duking it out.

“Hey Azriel!” Alexa shouted.

“Little busy here!” Azriel shouted back.

“This is an epic duel between you and this super-ghoul, right? Not something to interfere in?” Alexa goaded him. “Or do you need some help handling this guy? Need us to gang up on him?”

“No, I’m fine! Don’t worry, I’ve got this one! Which I should mention is definitely the strongest of the bunch!” Azriel said, his attempt to puff up his chest not quite succeeding with his elevated breath and Shalander not giving him a break. But he lowered his voice some to sound more like a confident hero, and you could almost hear his ego shiver in excitement.

I quickly put my arms through the holes of my kinda poncho as I turned back into my human form, my panties and pants already in my hands as I completed my transformation.

“Which means that we are no longer in combat, right?” Alexa said. “We’re not involved in this fight?”

“Sure. If you want to gawk until I kill him, be my guests.” Shalanter said with a wicked smile.

“Alright. Then we’ll be going now.” Alexa said.

“Hold up! That’s not-” Azriel said.

“You can’t actually stop us this time.” Alexa said. “Neither can we, for that matter. For you see, the greatest god in this world said we could leave this way. So… bye!”

Ben, catching on to what she was planning, took out the town guard. The construct tried to grab him the moment it reappeared from the demiplane that was our inventory system, but was much too slow and fell down the hole onto Biggest’s charred corpse.

“Later.” He smirked at Azriel, throwing the Elite a wink.

Transferring now.

Suddenly the tower disappeared right before my eyes, and I wobbled as the floor around me was suddenly slightly tilted. As I was currently standing on one leg trying to put on my underwear, I fell gracelessly onto the white plastic floor.

“Shit! I can’t actually believe that worked!” Alexa cheered.

“Damn, that’s right. I forgot we had Maestro’s show around this time.” Ben said. “So that’s what the AI meant with allowing a non-regular means of escaping the tower.”

I got up, heavily flustered even if the others were so kind to not look at me in my sorry state. I quickly put on my pants and got back up.

“Uhm, Alexa?” Elise asked. “Where’s Thomas?”

…

“Oh, fuck.” Alexa said.