While the battle was raging on my doorstep, Bob was hunting, he killed all of the vampire crabs and now his gut was scorching, not literally just a feeling, but apparently he’s feeling a little weird?

I wonder what is going on, Bob tells me that his gut is hot and full and giving him a weird feeling, there’s no way this is a normal gut problem like a humans.

Bob is a ghoul, they digest most food through the necrotic energies on their stomach not acid, that means that this blood is probably resistant to it, most likely because of the vampire blood. So wait, this is a normal human problem, it’s indigestion. But then what is the weird feeling? Bob doesn’t even feel pain, most human things like that are not present in him, so what could the weird feeling be? I tell Bob that if he feels in danger from his gut thing he would tear it out. Again Bob doesn’t have many of the human processes, meaning although he can vomit, he doesn't know how to; it's not an automatic process for him, so ripping his stomach should be faster, I think, I should probably test that.

Since I am already so close to the lizard territory I have decided to send Bob to kill their invisible monsters. Which is what he is about to do.

Bob swings from one tree to the next right into the breach he sees the life form. As he gets close I finally see it, a chameleon. The chameleon jumps off, way higher than a normal one should, but he underestimated Bob’s arm length, the chameleon is grabbed and shoved down Bob’s gulet. I did get an {Analyze} off though.

[Eagle eyed Chameleon]

[Plant Mimic]

Plant mimic? Interesting. I wonder if any of them are strong in battle and how well they can see in the dark, or only able to spy around, well time to find out how they deal with Bob. The lizards also have a bunch of invisible enemies on their borders, I just tell Bob to— oh, right as I am about to tell Bob to go in the direction with the most chameleons he turned there on his own?

Bob runs, or well, swings along and soon gets to his next snack, this one goes down easy again, same class. So does the next one, then Bob says something. Apparently eating these chameleons is making the blood in his gullet more calm? Maybe it’s because it’s being diluted?

Taking a closer look between attacks the chameleons are not really invisible, they are pretty good though, they are always in areas where their body won’t be noticed, so mostly the trunks or branches of trees, and they don’t stand in the middle of it, they on the connect parts of the branch so that their bodies look more like a natural part of the tree growth.

As Bob is swinging I can see a few forces coming to attack him, with my drones providing info I can guide Bob to keep mostly away from them. Suddenly something breaks the foliage: an egg, a huge one ostrich sized, ostrich egg that is not an actual adult ostrich size egg. I can already see a second one coming. And I know a third one is coming too.

The targeted skull uses a skill {Evasive Maneuvers}, it dodges the first, second, third and last one. Unlucky for them I already saw it coming, the being shooting these has a very conspicuous form. It’s a snake but bigger and thicker than most of the other ones, almost nine meters long. This snake can shoot eggs from its mouth at very high velocities. The skulls that are accompanying Bob here are all veterans. Unlike whatever is shooting at me down in the crab domain they can easily dodge this snake, only one though. I plan on eventually upgrading my skulls, the design is okay for exploring but not good for dodging enemies or moving fast. All of them are now Agile Minor Floating Skulls still “Minor”, I think I know why though, which is one of the things that will be improved in the future. The fact that it is getting darker probably also helps.

Bob is nearing his tenth chameleon snack when I notice that the enemy forces are enceriling him, or well trying too. I also notice how the chameleons seem to be moving towards the forces. I tell Bob to go to one, the one that seems weakest, he gets there and kills the chameleon before the defenders can do anything, a snake jumps into him, he tries to hit it away but the snake simply rolls and envelops his arm around, Bob in response brings it closer and takes a bite out of it dealing fatal wound before eating more.

There are only four more geckos which Bob kills easily, they are not even that big, being barely bigger than a dog. Bob then just… stares at the ground, unresponsive for a few seconds then I see it.

{Prey Tracking} to {Ghoulish Tracking}

{Ghoulish Tracking}

Ghouls are able to track their prey through a variety of means, from their imprints on the ground, the screams they make, the smell of their fear, even their taste in the air. For each being eaten the ghouls tracking becomes more powerful for that species.

Right as I finish reading that Bob gets hit in the head with an egg. It umbalaces him but doesn’t hurt much, still he probably won’t be able to swing in the air like this.

Through my skulls in the air, and the fact that they are getting bombarded, I can see a large number of enemies coming from the forest. Some new shapes too that I would need to get closer to be certain of what they are. I tell Bob to run back.

I get a ping from my skulls on the crab side, I notice a few of them die. I switch over and see the things that have been killing me skulls whenever they get too close, they are not hiding anymore it seems, they are not the most striking thing however.

I see a large number of crabs rising from the mud, crabs and the crabnoids of many types. I also see the shooters, they are shrimp, shrimp with large pincers, larger than their bodies, being carried in moving sheets of mud. Right, okay, this is not something I want to fight on my doorstep, with my army on the outside. Time I call back all my skulls, with the exception of the ones with Bob.

Within the few days I have been here I can say for certain that the crabs and lizards do not like each other. Hopefully they don’t let their differences aside and decide to gang up on me.

Damn I really hope that doesn’t happen, a quick head count and between the lizards and the crabs put them at least four hundred, I just have to trust my defenses, my dwarves have been working tirelessly and they are mostly complete, I also have sent Gorger down, he should be able to help. I started creating a few zombies to send down too, they have a specific purpose. While Gorger goes down Merlin is coming up. Merlin’s new exoskeleton gets stronger the purer the mana, my core room has the purest type of necrotic mana around, which I hope means his skeleton gets stronger. The arriving floating skulls do the same, because of their movement in the air most of them know how to pull mana with their face holes, something I planned to use in the future and will use now.

My defenses currently look like this: There’s the cave entrance, large and roughly rounded at the top, to the outside is the greenhouse, inside there are a lot of undead, the place has been excavated out so they all can feat neatly. The mouth of the cave has also been expanded, right in front of it there is an island of dirt, surrounded by a large moat. Down the moat there are bone spikes protruding from the ground, I am going to throw some zombies in there. The area in front of the moat is very excavated and will probably sink down with the weight of all those monsters.

Soon most of the troops are inside, there are a couple palisades around the place, and near the moat there are the thrower skeletons, they will just do a few salvos and run back, there is now a bone bridge that lets the skeleton pass the moat, I call it bridge but it’s more of a plank really.

It’s completely dark when Bob break through the trees, I can already see that the groups are getting near, the lizards have at least two hundred, the crabs seem to have less, about 150, they don't really have the smaller crabs, mostly just the crabnoids with a few bigger normal crabs. Worst is the fact that I can see a few more coming, especially from the lizard side. The crab side seems more like about seven or so lifeforms at the back. The lizard looks like at least another fifty. While the invasion was going I was creating and sending some new undead, I didn’t stop making them but I also lost some.

My forces are 48 floating skulls, 120 soldiers, 33 throwers, 16 fighters, 90 squires, and 40 skulldwarves, who will have to fight too. I have about 300 forces, rounding up and discounting the skulls, they will be ammunition not troops sadly.

I do have a minor terrain advantage I hope. The mud mancers do worry me a bit. I asked Asterion to be underground, he is in the tunnels he and his fellow cultist created.

Dragon’s Vein Cult Initiate

Cult that believes that the dragons are hidden deep inside the earth, at its core.

It’s mostly digging skills, a few did get the ability to feel valuables under the earth though.

Bob enters the cave and soon enough the enemy forces appear. The corpse of trees is less than ten meters to my skeletons immediately start throwing. They kill a few monsters, but are forced to run when they start shooting back, theirs is just as deadly, more actually then mine.

They go inside the cave, behind a layer of shields and start throwing again. The entrance is big but not big enough for everyone to shoot, all soon finish their ammunition and change places. I purposely did this to create a minor gap in the jalein rain. The enemies take this opportunity and start walking faster, and then it happens. I hear the sound of the dirt pillars that were holding the earth above cracking and breaking apart, the ground sinks and takes with it a large amount of the forces.

The lizards take it the worst, a lot of them fall and die or get entombed by some detritus, the crabs on the other hand use magic and soften the fall with their mud, their hard exoskeletons protect them enough so they did not die immediately. Both keep coming.

I see deep in the lizard for a weird iguana, This one has red horns all over its body. It suddenly raises its hand, and my skeletons feel a wave of magic, suddenly all the lizards in the army change. A black spot appears in the middle of their heads, a crown of horns starts growing. They start screaming and run towards my troops, most of them leap and try to land on the little land in front of my gate, but they are shot down before they can come close. The javelins are good, but it needs multiple to kill and the lizards are berserking and ignoring them.

The crabs start vomiting water and creating more mud. I can see that there are about ten water vomiting crabs, most of the rest are the large pincer one, with a few stabbers.

The mages start elevating some mud making a long platform trying to create a large stair. My skeletons attack them, but they sink in the mud and have the large pincers stand in front blocking the shots.

Time for the floating skulls, most of them are inside, the weakest ones come forward, thirty towards the throwers. These first ones were not able to manipulate mana, my plan wouldn't work for them. The casting skulls infuse their mana inside the floating skulls, they can’t retain the higher amount inside of them, but they won’t need to.

My throwers hurl the skulls towards the crabs, aiming at the large pincer’s feet. They use their skills, it’s a bit awkward to throw them but still they hit their mark and explode into a black cloud of mana. The first throw was a volley of ten.

The black cloud sets on them, the second volley is thrown, the crabs don’t seem to notice the mana yet, the last one hits again, now they see it, probably because it’s clouding their view. They choose to ignore it, which is not what I wanted, still it will do, I only need to wait a little.

A few of my shields die, the concentrate fire too much for them. Soon more take their place, my ammunition is starting to run out, but now pretty much most of the troops are in the pit, or on the slope of the pit. Merlin and his troupe then start spewing dark mists on the ground of the cave, Merlin, and a few of the skeletons, push them out, and they fall on the hole surrounding everything.

By now the lizards have started to get up and attack the shields, who are mostly just trying to push them out, but they are relentless, the crabs are halfway up, it’s pretty obvious that they decided to create a stable stair instead of a shoddy work, the stair has four long platforms the crabs will need to jump to get up but it will be easier than jumping the entire lengh. The black mist has done its work and created a miasma near them. I can see the slight discoloration on their carapaces.

I hope it is enough. I tell my floating skulls high up top and move, the night inside this place has light, but it’s bleak and it’s not properly diffused. The very top of the cave is darker meaning no one saw them yet. They move high above the crabs and take position, again thirty, but these ones could manipulate mana, so I gave them a stake, a bone stake.

Right on their foramen magnum, that is their spine hole, there is a stake, the skulls position themselves, breath in mana and then with all their mana they push the stakes down, the stake shoots down and pierce the weakened carapaces, this is why you don’t just stand in death contaminated air. not all of them die though, only three, which is an abysmal number, what I wanted was for them to leave, instead the surviving ones sink deeper and disappear.

Why didn’t they do it earlier? The skulls only have one charge, so they fly back to the base to get new ones, I tell them to go one by one, and see that it mostly works, the enemy doesn’t aim for them.

The enemy reinforcements come, and they are clearly bigger than what I saw, and a lot worse. The crabs are mostly four armed ones, led by one with three chiting swords and an actual real metal blade. It has a hilt and everything, this was not crab made.

They are not what’s worrying me, what is worrying me is the lizard side. First come more of the snakes, the large ones that shoot eggs, I am surprised they haven’t run out yet which mean it’s probably a magical ability creating the eggs, what shocks me though is the buffalo sized green horned chameleon, the thing has not only a red horn but spiky spines running on its back, around it are four gorillas. They are not normal gorillas though, they are furrier and their teeth jut out like a boar’s would.

The chameleon walks weirdly escorted by his ape friends. Then I see the mud rise creating the final large step from the crabs creating. The crabs get up and immediately start pounding the shields, I have already taken casualties from the lizards, so it’s nice to see them also immediately attacking the crabs too. Many of the scouts have died, most of them in fact, the exoskeleton one is standing strong. I have already rotated the soldiers up front and they are trying to push the enemies away. But they are enemies right in front and the range support is slowly eroding my defense.

The chameleon stops about eight meters from my entrance. It shoots its gigantic tongue and immediately takes one of the defenders out. I tell Bob, Kaiman and Gorger to get ready. The chameleon shoots again, again it takes another skeleton out, but this time Bob jumps and sinks his claws into it and slams his feet on the ground, the tongue slows and Kaiman jumps in and grabs it too, followed by gorger.

[Giant Horned Chameleon]

[Ape Friend]

[Plant Mimic]

They start pulling it back, the chameleon moves but is soon held by its ape friends. The rope pulling only happens for a few seconds, then the crabs, and the lizards I note, start attacking the tongue. One of the apes suddenly moves and goes below the chameleon, it grabs the lizard by its sides and then starts hooting. Each hoot gets louder than the last, it then starts growing, first only a meter, then another hoot and the beast grows again, it grows into a six meter tall monster and then with the chameleon over his shoulder he pulls. My three heavyweights are pulled as their feet leave the floor and the chameleon pulls its tongue back.

The crabs see this happening and rush to my entrance.

The three hit the back of the ape, Gorger falls, both Kaiman and Bob cling one and start clawing the apers back. The ape screams in pain and suddenly starts losing size. The chameleon turns and as soon as Gorger gets up gores him with his horn, Gorger looks at the chameleon's face and vomits a jet of acid right in its eyes. The beast immediately starts thrashing wildly and screaming in pain and trying to dislodge Gorger from its horn, but Gorger has sunk his teeth in the horn. It tries to grab him with it’s weird feet but as it gets close Gorger simply spits acid on to it, which causes the chameleon to flinch away.

Bob and Kaiman are right in the middle of the apes, they hoot and grow once in size and their fur haderns then they body tackle them.

[Savage Gorilla]

[Chameleon Friend]

[Barkfurred]

The gorillas have the same strategy, two tackle each undead down and immediately they bite down their skulls, Bob bites back, Kaiman on the other hand has his snout closed by a gorilla so he sinks his claws on it. The other one starts violently pounding his chest with his fists causing cracks to appear on it. Kaiman grabs the gorilla's head with both of his claws, before they can sink truly deep the gorilla breaks the grap, both of them grap Kaiman by the arms and start pulling in opposite directions. Kaiman grabs each one’s arm and sinks his claws deep they both don’t let go, and in a second their flesh starts to rot, one of them let’s go in pain, Kaiman is then pulled by the other one and falls on top of him with savagery, creating deep lacerations on its face the ape screams again and suddenly the chameleon turns and whips Kaiman with its tail.

It grabs him, the tail coiling around his body like a serpent it spins and throws him away. The other two apes Immediately jump and grab Gorger and pull him off. ripping a large hole in his chest. Gorger turns and spits acid into the gorilla's face, the gorilla let’s go but before Gorger turns to the other one the chameleon opens it’s only non melted eye and shoot his tongue right into Gorger, who is blasted away but not before chomping a piece of it. The chameleon slowly walks forward, and aims right where Gorger fell and shoots him again. Gorger gets up and is slammed again by the tongue, again taking a bite out of it. The chameleon stops, it waits for Gorger to move and attacks again.

Kaiman is coming back, but the snakes are attacking and delaying him.

Bob is being attacked by the four apes, one of them doesn’t have a jaw anymore, because of this all of them are simply hitting and shoving him. One of them shoves him to the ground and another jumps and beats his chest with both hands in an overhand smash. Bob grabs and slashes at it but before he can do much damage he is hounded by the others.

Back at the base things are also going bad, the new crabs are extremely fast, any skeleton that lets their guard down even a little gets their cranium chopped off, worst yet the mud crabs are pulling some skeletons down with their mud, they make it pull at their feet, even if they are not pulled they tend to lost balance, which causes the sword to go down. Luckily I have been able to kill the three shooter shrimps with my volley of stakes, but a few were taken down.

Some undead have risen naturally but they get up and are soon killed, just taking a few seconds of attention.

The inside of the tunnel is full of miasma thanks to Merlin, who is also death beaming the crabs. Thanks to him and his followers the skeletons are able to hold out longer. Some even learned to heal skeletons with their energy. Still it isn’t enough, the lizards are down to less then two hundred, but there are still many crabs. I can’t let them keep going like this. I start sending something to Merlin, my smartest skeleton, they are commands but also something else, something I want him to do.

Merlin. That was what I was going to be called if I was born a boy, thankfully that didn’t happen, I am not sure about this world but back in mine Merlin was the most generic name you could give a boy, seriously there were way too many.

I focus solely on him, I then don’t simply send words that are not going to go through, I send him memories, my memories, hopefully this will work. I remember myself,when I was a child, learning one of my first spells with my mother. I remember her pricking my finger with a needle, not one of those that made it painless, the small drop of blood forming. I dropped it into a little plastic cup, with a wet cotton ball and a bean. My blood hit the wool and was absorbed, I took a deep breath and felt the mana in my drop of blood diffuse, then took control of it and shot it straight at the bean. I worked, the bean sprouted open, I remember my feelings at the time, the happiness of that simple thing. For some reason this feels right, sharing it with Merling, I feel that he is listening and taking it in, either that or he’s really confused and trying to solve this mess I’ve put into his mind. I see him looking down at his finger, his crystalline exoskeleton he pricks his own fingers and watches the black mist come out of it. I ask him if he understands, and throw him in memory of someone nodding their head and head shake, he slowly nods his head.

I can barely believe this worked. I start telling my skeletons to do their all to push back the enemies. I have some of my floating skulls come into the cave and absorb as much mana as they can while being held by my throwers.

The skeletons start shield bashing their enemies, My throwers hurl the skulls which explode and push them even further. Merlin then grabs all the mana he can and pushes it out of the cave. All of this causes the enemies to be pushed down the hole at the mouth of the cave.

Merlin runs, wait why is running?

Merlin jumps down into the pit, his followers stop and start looking confused behind him.

Shit I don’t think he understood the plan. Merlin falls down and I see the mana shaking as he takes control of it. Well this was NOT part of the plan, he was supposed to do it up there not in the middle of it.

The mana drops down into the ground, into the blood soaked ground. The muddy ground blackens and the mana passes through it and all the spikes explode out, like a tree they grow up and create branches and stab the things around them. The effect is devastating, outside of a handful all enemies got stabbed and many died immediately.

I see the egg throwing suddenly stop.

A stabber crab pulls itself free from the spikes, it charges Merlin with his chitin sword and unleashes a barrage of attacks, Merlin charges back, simply taking the hits, cracks in his for appearing, and shove his fist right into where the crab was stabbed and loses a death ray inside of it, outside his flat face shines and ominous purple before two rays come out and rot the crabs face. The crab dies its brain and inside turning into mush, and the high saturation of mana causes it to twitch, its rotted face gains two pinpoints of light as it becomes a zombie. The cracks in Merlins exoskeleton disappear, the same saturation creating undead is also recovering his crystalline self faster than normal too.

The mud steps suddenly lose their rigidity, becoming an avalanche of brown that rains down on Merlin who is drowned in it.

With an explosion Merlin bursts out of it, his crystalline feet gone and already regenerating, only his dark skeleton seen, did he…

He puts both of his hands on the mud and I feel the mana shift, the ground bursts again as five of the crab mages one out, one a corpse. All covered in a film of black blood.

A bunch of hammers jump down and start attacking them.

The steel sword crab jumps right in front of Merlin, who shoots it with his eye beams, the crab defends with his sword, and rushes forwards, but as it does the other casting skeletons pelt it with their death beams, Level Ups Hoe! The crab however keeps on and it uses its arms to attack Merlin's neck and torso. The crab was hurt enough that it’s previous blinding speed is slowed, Merlin blocks the neck attack with his arms, the swords cut through the crystal but stop dead at the bone, the large hole in the armor sends out puffs of pure black mana, the same happens in the other attacks, Merlin's eye shine again as the puffs take a life of their own, they swirl around and like a frenzy of sharks they cut the crab hands, then they move to his face and spin around his rays as the bore a hole straight through the crab.

I change my view and see Kaiman back on the battle, but being stopped by the egg artillery snakes. He’s fighting and winning one against five.

Gorger is still getting punted but not falling down anymore, the chameleon’s tongue is visibly shorter. It spits its tongue out again, instead of just biting again Gorger spits acid in an arch hitting further on the tongue, it hits Gorger and he bites at it with his body mouth. The tongue is pulled back and as it does it snaps apart where the acid just hit.

The chameleon looks at its destroyed tongue, a black scale appears in the middle of its head, its horn grows larger and its eyes become red. I can’t see the caster lizard I thought it fucked off. The chameleon charges like a rhino to Gorger, who simply smiles, full body smile.

I turn and see that Bob is in some trouble, all of his body is coated in red veins and his head is full of red cracks, the battle became a slug fest, the gorillas are on their normal size again, and all severely hurt, one dead. They actually had to throw the corpse away because Bob ate it at every opportunity it got. Bob is drooling, he is hungry and I can feel it. There’s something different there too, there’s… thrist. The thirst overwhelms Bob and he jumps to the nearest gorilla and bites down their throat, ripping it apart, immediately all of the apes start pounding on him, creating large thumping noises accompanied by cracks. Bob keeps sucking the blood of the neck relishing on its taste as it hits his belly. His heart suddenly beats, Bob feels his prey’s heart beating, and weakening, his own undead heart starts matching it, beat by beat until…The gorilla heart stops, Bob’s heart keeps beating.

He screams as he feels his body changing, his claws grow larger and turn into a pitch black as he feels the blood on his gut spreading and rooting itself in every bone of his body, changing it making it grow, he turns and attacks another ape, again drinking deeply from it.

He can feel the animal get smaller, no, he’s getting bigger. Larger, stronger. I feel it as it happens. As the ape dies and Bob grows.

Ghoul LV25

Ghoul to Strigoi

Gained

{Lesser Vampirism}

{Lesser Vampire Senses}

{Vampire Fangs}

{The Crimson Gift}

Cult Initiate to Barrow Court Cultist

Gained

{Coffin Rest}

{Innate Spell : Entomb}

Bob spears the other gorilla through the head, his claws now at least a meter long each.

He then runs towards the chameleon, who is getting its face bitten by Gorger, he smashes into the monster and again, bites, the fangs on his mouth grow to be longer than his head.

Out of nowhere Kaiman jumps in, full of cracks on his body but otherwise healthy, also wearing snake skin?

The chameleon can’t take it anymore and falls down, dead. Just as I am about to commemorate I feel a large amount of mana rush into me and a presence.

Scaled Menace quest completed!

The chameleon, the gorillas and the snake's bodies suddenly disappear. The presence disappears.

Where the bodies were are now items instead, which makes my monster fall on the ground. Gorger is visibly sad.

What happened? Wait, they even took Kaiman’s coat! The bastards!