My brain was starting to ache, blood was rushing to my head from being upside-down too long, luckily the acid only burned off a few layers of flesh from my body, barely exposing the bone, although it still hurt like hell, but I've had worse, probably. Now the only thing I need to know is, who I am, where I am, and what happened to me, although, from what I have seen, I'm a woman, an adventurer of some calibre, and not in full control of the body I inhabit.

My bones were getting chilly from the wind, and the surrounding flesh was stinging, I didn't appear to be healing, should I have been? I feel like I should be fine now, but I still have a gaping wound, at least it was chemically cauterised, or I would have bled out by now. I was having trouble reaching up to undo the trap, my body was heavy from the pain and blood-loss, so I wrapped my tail around the handle of my dagger and pulled with all my might, which wasn't a lot, considering how little I actually used my tail, and that my species don't have very strong tails to begin with, but I eventually got it loose.

I was sawing at the rope with the dagger, I could probably cut it easily with my hands or claws, but they were currently extremely numb, much like the rest of my upper body, and my tail didn't have the strength to slice the rope, but it was making some progress on it, slowly, bit by bit, until eventually...

*SNAP*

*THUMP*

I fell to the floor like a sack of shit, which is incidentally, exactly what I felt like, I was dizzy and throwing up, laying in a small puddle of my own vomit, unable to get out of it as I couldn't feel or move my limbs, felt like an average satraday of drinking with Greg, but without the pitiful stares from his wife and kid or the home cooked meals, actually, I usually wound up somewhere after drinking, under a bridge or in a barrel, but I was always covered in vomit, not sure why I started drinking though, I don't remember.

After a while I regained control of my limbs, and crawled out of the puddle, unfortunately, what I hadn't realised at the time, is that the acid had burned a good portion of the muscles and tendons in my arms and abdomen, so I was quite weak even after my blood started circulating normally. I was crawling to my pouch, it was thrown off when I got caught, and landed somewhere in the bushes, if I could get to it, I had a lower-mid-rank potion that should be able to reverse the majority of the damage done to my body.

I found it pretty fast, and as luck would have it, none of the contents were damaged or missing, so I took out the potion with my tail, and poured it all over my wounds, using all of the expensive, but highly discounted, potion.

I experienced euphoria for the second time that day, the potions were cheap because they were manufactured using highly addictive narcotics, I got a discount because of some past business with the people that made them, unfortunately I would start feeling withdrawal symptoms after a few days, but I could resist the effects to some extent, as long as I didn't have any more of them, which is good, considering those were the only two I could afford without putting myself into debt.

I started sprinting, picking up speed slowly, towards town, I had sent the guild a message, but it was brief, and it would be better, and more financially advantageous, if I explained to them what threat level the bandits posed, in person. I slowed down to a brisk jog as I reached the town gates, the guards were more alert than usual after the imp attack on our neighbouring kingdom, but we were not weak like them, Teryaki has lasted for thousands of years, and it would last a billion more.

Teryaki? Tis the kingdom by the sea, its main source of commerce is its exports of fish, and its peculiar cuisine, the kingdom was originally just a village formed around a cabin, the first king built and lived in the cabin, he became the chief of the village and built a city around it, his cabin became a castle and he became king. The first king's name was Akio Oshiro, his family name carries on to his descendants even now.

There are four districts that make up the city, the rice district, this is where the majority of food is sold, and where I have set up residence, the sake district, largely consisting of bars and restaurants, I visit there most often, the stone district, equipment and consumables are mostly sold and made here, and lastly the black district, it is not open to the general public, however, during celebration, people are allowed in, it consists of noble residence and is the closest district to the castle.

The city is shaped like a target, the castle in the middle, then it goes black, sake, rice and finally stone district, on the outside, it is not the most efficient system, but nobody has complained yet.

"Identification please, and wear this, you look indecent" I handed over my guild ID and realised that my armour and shirt had melted at the front, exposing my chest, this is a somewhat common occurrence for adventurers, so the guards were prepared for it, but still, I'm not supposed to show them off until I've had a few drinks in me, although It's not like this particular guard hasn't seen them before, I drink with most of the guards in this side of the city.

"Welcome back, Mirin, how was the quest?" he leaned against the wall, fully expecting to have a nice conversation with me, he looked relaxed, although it was hard to tell with the visored helmet and heavy armour he wore. "It's Darkon, we were drinking last night and you said you had some big quest on today, remember?"

"Oh, oh yea, now I remember, the quest went pretty badly if I'm being honest, some big shot bandit showed up, pretty sure the rest of the parties dead, and to top it all off, I had to use both of my potions to escape, the next few days are gonna suck now" at some point I leaned against the wall next to Darkon, I had some time before the guild re-issued the quest, so I thought I'd unwind before speaking to a guild representative.

"Well gee, that sucks, those potions are supposed to be expensive, just hope you didn't use the narcotic ones, I've heard they increased the addictivity recently, a few weeks ago I think, only need to have one now and you're hooked"

.

.

.

"What a beautiful sky we have today, just lovely" yep, the sky sure is nice right about now, ominous black clouds swirling overhead and rain beginning to break.

"... Yea, sure, I guess if that's your thing, never knew you to like this kind of weather though" he lightly chuckled, before excusing himself and switching with another guard, who also greeted me.

I was running through the city on all-fours, usually it's extremely rude to be doing this, but considering the urgency of the situation, and my dealings with the city guards, it could be forgiven, it was still hard though, people were in chaos trying to pack up their stalls in time to make it out of the rain before it hit, it was a market day, just like every Satraday.

I shoved people aside if they were in my way, pushing my way through merchants and children, shoving them into walls or the ground, or really, anything I could manage to reach, and finally I could see the guild, from its' deceptively small, rectangular outside, to the phallic shaped insignia, which was supposed to be a heart shaped shield with a great-sword crossing through it, but somewhere along the way, everything fucked up, blueprints missing, designers constantly killed and hired, a generally lazy workforce, things just went bad.

I was finally at the entrance, but before I could enter, I was lifted off the ground by my collar and left to hang limply, I couldn't exactly see who it was, but I also knew very few brutes that would treat a delicate lady like this, and I was about to get scolded.

"Glad to see you're still kickin, Tips, I heard you died, something about the commissions info being off, rest of the parties dead huh?" I nodded, maybe my return from death would save me from the scorching heat of his scolding.

"Oh, and BTW, you're getting a spanking later, why do you always have to go around throwing people into buildings? It is a straight shot from the guild to the gate, a ten minute walk, you would have to go out of your way to get to the markets, it is literally twenty minutes sprint from the gate, it adds at least another hour to the whole journey, two if you go the whole way through, which you constantly do, and I want you to know, the only reason you aren't in the stocks for your punishment right now, is because It is more important to save a life than punish one, do I make myself clear, young lady" I nodded meekly

Ordinarily, this would never happen between adventurers, no matter how close they were, but, unfortunately the man behind me is my father, not my real one of course, his lack of fuzzy triangular ears showed at least that much, but he is my father none the less. The man stands at seven feet, bulging with thick muscles larger than a log, short shaggy-blond hair and blue-green eyes, a thick jaw and flat nose that made him look like an angry dwarven door, and perfectly complimented his permanently knit eyebrows, and deep set scowl.

Incidentally, he was a B-rank mage, he focused heavily on water based spells, and he had a few minor healing spells too, he is one of the few to possess the class of [Muscle Mage], not because it's rare, it's very easy to get, but because the class requires one to have a considerable amount of muscular strength, and to enjoy training said muscles, both traits not commonly ascociated with mages.

"Daddy, you can put me down now, I know how to walk, I'm not a baby" I crossed my arms and pouted, this usually worked on the soft hearted man... but

"Oh, aren't you? Well considering the majority of the time I see you, you can barely walk, are completely naked, and covered in shit and vomit, and other substances I dare not mention, I will beg to differ" Oh shit, he started his dad-rant, but he is also carrying me up the stairs, to meet the guild-master, to which I responded by hiding in my clothes like a turtle

"Honestly, it's a wonder you haven't started doing drugs yet, you have so little self-control, you would probably end up in some whore-house paying off your debts, and that would be an unpleasant way to find out, although it probably wouldn't take me long, not like there's a lot of them, just two, one in the rice district and one in the sake district, and the owners would tell me immediately if you ended up there, they're good people like that" It feels like I'm learning something that I probably shouldn't, nor want to, and It feels like I've heard it before, strange, but I'll just pay to get it erased from my memory, forever.

"And why don't you ever join a party, you know how I worry about you, today was the third party you joined since you started adventuring six years ago, that's a party every... two years, although the first two were on the first year, so it has been a while, and why don't you ever visit me? I always make more than I could eat alone for dinner, but you never come by, you got a boyfriend or something?" he is deliberately walking slowly, isn't he?

"No never mind, you have that creepy statue to keep you company don't you? I never understood it, out of all the gods you could pick to worship, you choose the most unstable nutter out there, honestly, there's nothing to gain from worshipping her, it may even be detrimental, no it definitely is, just look at my god, Markot, do you know what he grants? No? Well let me list off some benefits, enhanced vitality, enhanced libido, discounts at brothels, enhanced natural healing in water, resistance to poison, resistance to petrification, a few extra inches, a spell that literally summons, specifically, reddish stones that somewhat resemble faces, but it is hard to tell, because they are extremely ugly" he was panting after speeding through his words, but eventually he cooled his head and talked in a more sane manner

"Then there's your god, what does she grant again? Oh yes, a higher misfortune rate, more frequent monster attacks, enhancing the monsters you fight, monthly bleeding out of every orifice you have, weaker constitution, lessened potion effects, lessened buff effects, lessened healing effects, temporary madness once a year, general distrust from others, rapid aging, lessened self-control, extremely increased fertility, especially with monsters, random bouts of amnesia, a tendency to spout inane and random bullshit, random negative status effects, and probably more, but that's as far as I got from my snooping, and that's only after ten years of service to her, she literally punishes her worshipers for worshiping her, and as far as I can tell, there are no positives, well, except after twenty years of service, I hear you get a summon skill, you get to summon a murder-bunny, that only wants to murder you"....

Why the fuck am I worshipping her then? This sounds like a shit deal, this Markot guy sounds pretty alright comparatively, maybe I'll reconsider my choices, if I find the time. Dad finally dropped me, or rather, threw me, leaving me sprawled out on the floor in front of the guild-master and slamming the door behind me, leaving me with the icy hearted bitch, literally.