“EVERYONE PASS WEAPONS TO KANDIEN, HIGH HEALTHERS BE BAIT, REST OF YOU GET THE HELL AWAY” Dillydally starts screaming orders.

Man, I love how people are ordering things around nowadays…really makes my life a lot less stressful…well apart from the fact that there are 14 FIRE ELEMENTALS coming our way to obliterate us.

Everyone frantically dashes around passing Kandien their weapons, who has a hard time carrying them all dropping one and more when trying to pick up the others.

Quickly some others of Squad Animal pick up and carry the weapons for him.

In the corner of my eye I spot a prancing Dullahan who is frantically picking up shards in handfuls, dropping a large trail on the way back to his caravan.

Maniacally hopping to someone he pops a skin…yes a literal skin bag (vile) on someone’s hands before going back to the field maddened.

While he does this in the center of the field, Roirra stands open mouthed unmoving except for her eyes and finally head, which follow Casper with utter shock.

Thank you! I was beginning to worry I was the only one who’s mildly freaked out about the guy.

“Here’s your Candy, thank you for killing all those things and providing me with souls, I hope we stay acquainted for a long time”

What? Speak up please!

Ah well whatever he said it must have something to do with the skin bag with candy in it.

It’s kind of like grabbing flab…hmm not sure I approve of this, or my stomach for that matter.

Anyways, we should get this candy distributed.

“RIGHT, WE SHOULD HAVE CLOSE TO 700 CANDY SO EVERYONE WITH HIGH HEALTH COME UP TO ME” I shout at the buzzing crowd, causing many to stop mid run and turn towards me, continuing their run.

BC, Gristle, the Hippo beastman that was in my raid group what seems like ages ago now, Zzoid, Allie and SirStripy all stand forward. Ok that’s 600 candy so that’s good.

“I think a magic user should get candy in case we get some special magical bonus” Squirrel speaks up from the floor.

“I’ll do it” I raise my hand and I get the widest eyed look from a silver beaked beastman with naturally owl-spectacled eyes…oh guess he’s an owl-beastman then, wow those are big eyes. “What?”

“You know magic?”

…

..

.

I mean some people are quite special...he's definitely one of these people it seems...

“Yes… how did you think I knew where the cores were?”

“Those are cores?”

…

..

.

Make way for this isn't just your regular stupid, it's advanced stupid...

“Yes. Anyways, I’ll take the candy” Right not even going to bother with explaining.

Everyone quickly trades their quickly growing number of Candy as Casper flits about dropping huge sacks of them in their hands.

First up we get BC to 100 just to see what happens

…

..

.

“Bonecrusher, do you feel anything?” Charmine places a frail hand on her ally’s overly muscular forearm.

“Non, je ne sais pas qui passent avec moi”

…

..

.

Well…the candy had an effect? Just nothing…useful?

“Parce que vous mirent a moi comment je suis especialle?” Her voice is so smooth, it’s weird. It’s literally screwing my mind how this walking pack of muscle has such a sensual French accent right now…

“Vous parlent francais mon ami” Charmine’s apparently on the ball already and damn her accent is just as succulent. Princess Charmine indeed…

“Oui?”

“Oui”

“Sacre bleu” Sacre bleu indeed, BC with that accent and voice is just mindboggling!

“Charmine, I think you should translate for us while this lasts…hopefully not for too long” Zzoid definitely said that…but where is he?

Captain obvious is nowhere, what odd irony...

“Oho, what a fantasy” His voice is right next to Charmine making her jump along with everyone else as we all look at thin air. “Think of all the things I could do and see”

Brother, try not to be misunderstood there…or well understood? Never can be sure.

“Zzoid, you’re invisible” I reckon he's understood that by now, he's perceptive enough.

“He’s invisible?” The owl looks wide eyed as ever...choo choo advanced stupid train coming through.

“I know, this candy is awesome! Though it looks like it’ll only last for another 22 hours”

Ah so it’ll last through Halloween…sorry Hallowed’s End.

“So that means 22 hours of fun” I can almost feel him rubbing his hands in anticipation…well I mean he’s invisible so there’s no repercussions right?

Well we do kind of know he’s invisible so any poltergeisting will be obviously his fault so guess not.

“Right, who’s next”

“I am” Two speak up “Well was” The voices, identical make everyone’s eyes swivel round to Gristle’s

…

..

.

Yes, plural.

Apparently there’s two of him, half the size but two of him...this candy is quite interesting…

“So how do you deal with this?”

“Well no idea, but” Both his hands wave simultaneously in the same manner “it feels like it’s a mirror image or something” He starts doing a terrible dance, his second self right next to him doing exactly the same thing.

How oddly disturbing, yet quite fun to watch…

“Ok who else is up for random effects?” I ask and Allie chomps her from the floor.

…

..

.

“BLAAAAAARGH” She vomits everything out violently…woah, nasty.

Looking away from the continuing scene…I do hope she’s not sick for the next 22 hours…that might be pretty nasty.

“Everyone back away, Allie have a rest” Dillydally gets everyone away, is he scared it’s contagious or something.

Well it could be for all we know…

Hippo is up next.

“So in case you die, would it be good to get your name” JESUS, don't breath that in my ear Zzoid!

I swear he's sniggering...

“Zzoid!” Everyone calls out, tactless man.

“Glorious”

“No no not your death, your name” I call out rather distracted by Zzoid so my mind is completely somewhere else.

“It’s Glorious”

Oh…he wasn’t actually kidding. Wow what a…glorio…yeah that doesn’t really work does it.

“Ok Glorious…let your death be so” Actually that name isn’t as bad as I first thought…what great final words he could use!

“I’d rather I didn’t die, but if I do…I don’t know cry for me?”

“Really need to stop the drama, fire elementals are coming this way” Thanks Zzoid, almost forgot about our imminent death there, almost.

At least he didn't make me jump this time, phew.

Glorious swallows his candy in an endless string like a champion, impressive.

*burp*

“FIRE” SirStripy stop drops and rolls on the floor quickly patting out the fire on his singed mane…fire breath…huh.

“aaaAHHHH” Glorious holds his mouth trying to not scream in pain as he collapses rolling too.

Right, he did breath fire…so it did have to go through his gullet first, oops.

“Well that was utterly glorious” Dammit Zzoid why’d you get there first!

Everyone just shakes their head in the general direction, quite unamused.

Well now there’s 2 people on the floor; Allie still silently throwing up basically acid now and Glorious crying from a burnt throat.

Been there done that, not going there again.

"Now it’s my turn I guess” SirStripy gets off the ground dusting himself before eating them with a formal rush.

…

..

.

“Nothing happened?” He raises his remaining eyebrow and everyone shrugs having no idea since nothing seemed to happen.

Well nothing happening could be an effect I guess?

Time for my go…and knowing my luck it won’t be a nice one.

*gulp*

“THEY’RE COMING!” Someone shouts and we all turn. Meh they’re still quite a distance away. And I can only see 6 of them…so 8 on the other side?

Stuffing my candy in my mouth, I half choke them down, fueled by the slowly gliding elementals which are making their way towards us.

“Ah, ah ahchoo”

*Sniff*

That was pretty earth shattering “why are you all down there?” I look down at everyone, even BC…huh?

“Well that was terrifying” Thanks Zzoid, but what’s terrifyi…why are my hands so big and why is my bod…

…

..

.

“Boss never knew you were such the hulk” Not sure whether that was sarcasm or...

I’ve been ruined! My perfect body is not this muscly and slightly deformed counterpart! I can even feel some disgusting tusks jutting out from my misarranged teeth. What’s happened to me?

Congratulations! You have evolved into an Ogre and therefore have unlocked the Ogre Monster Race

…

..

.

Excuse me what?

I evolved?

Wait a second I EVOLVED?

“Well good news is that I’m an ogre”

“WHAA?” Pretty much everyone freaks out…though I hear Marty chuckling, why is he laughing at my misfortune!?

“But I’m no longer beautiful” I’m disgusting! I don’t know what I actually look like but eugh I feel disgusting.

Now looks are important, no matter what people say.

“I guess it’s all ogre for you now” Zzoid…when I find you.

“Boss it’s ok, you have layers” No idea what Squirrels going on about…but it sounds like something I swear I heard ages ages ago.

“Well I’m not going to ogrestimate you, but it seems like you may be the strongest right now” Dillydally points towards BC. Fair point but please stop with the horrible puns, please!

I’d rather not get close to that…even if it is smaller than me now…but I am kind of interested to see whether I’m stronger.

Arm wrestling let’s go

…

..

.

Nope I’m still a weakling, ugly and all now and I feel like I've broken my arm, ow...

Well maybe there’s a candy that’ll turn me back? Unlikely…

Guess I’ll just suicide after this event is over, god what a useful skill.

“Ok you little shits, if you’ve done pissing about, can you go deal with the elementals now” Alright Roirra, retract your verbal fangs please.

“Kandien, it’s all up to you” Dillydally gives him a pat on the back and he, along with the antlered twins go up, carrying all the weapons.

“So what about the other 8?” I ask Dillydally as I watch Kandien pick out a rough looking sword, testing its weight.

“What about them?” A deep Hispanic voice comes from behind, swiveling all of us around in shock.

The voice belongs to the tall, muscled yet lean man with short black hair and a slightly hooked nose with mid-tanned skin. Quite Hispanic indeed.

“You killed them all?” Dillydally looks in shock along with quite a few others, well I mean I’m shocked!

“Like washing this hair, simple” He cracks his neck and my eyes are drawn to a pale bow strung on his back.

Ahhh he must’ve shot them from afar, not bad, not bad at all.

“Well thank you for that, could you deal with th-” He puts up a finger in the middle of my talk…excuse me sir.

He then walks past me and straight towards Roirra with an angry bounce in his step.

“Roirra, you get my beautiful ass back to the tower” He looks down at Roirra who meekly stands there…I’ve heard of possessiveness but Jeesh.

“What, no, you know how boring it is too be cooped up there the whole time just working out to keep this body ‘perfect’?” She takes off her helmet, revealing short unkempt hair and a guilty looking face.

“I’m not letting you screw up my body anymore than you already do. We’ve had a compromise putting meat into there but-MY HAIR” Regnar pounces towards her, grasping the short unkempt hair lightly with a tear in his eyes

…

..

.

Er what?

“It’ll grow back out” Roirra just shrugs, though meekly

“5 YEARS, it took me 5 years to grow this out, get back into the house, before I have to drag you there myself” The look in his eyes is quite terrifying. I’m going to leave the premises, right now.

“Alright, sorry didn’t think about it getting caught in the middle of combat” Roirra puts up her hands defensively at the furious Regnar who’s scolding with his finger. “But I found him”

“Really?” He whips around, eyes locking onto me AHH…oh wait they’re not focusing on me, phew…that was too close.

But who are they looking at instead? I have a strange feeling I know who.

Turing round, sure enough there’s a frozen Casper who’s in the middle of harnessing his horse.

“ehe… hi”

He starts sprinting away.

“GET BACK HERE YOU UNDEAD SCUM BORN FROM THE ASHES OF LITTLE SHITS. GIVE US BACK OUR BODIES OR I'LL TEAR YOU A NEW ONE, OR EVEN THREE” Roirra shouts after him and Both of them charge after the Dullahan.

Now I’m pretty sure this should be the other way… Also ‘give us back our bodies’? so it wasn’t overpossessiveness, but then it means it was like body switch of something? I’m very confused now as to what their names are now…

“Ah that explains a lot of things” Marty muses.

What are you talking about?

He notices everyone’s looking at him.

*Sigh*

“Well might as well explain to you that Roirra is the fighter while Regnar is the archer…and it was really strange when they suddenly couldn’t use their weapons properly last year in the middle of Hallowed’s end” Right but this is the first time we have seen them fight…well one of them.

“It also explains why Regnar suddenly became the boss of them two…Should’ve figured this out ages ago. Gah their eating habits completely changed, how did I do not figure it out sooner!?” He berates himself while we all onlook oddly...

“FIRE” Someone screams from a distance, oh it’s just Yinroh on fire, he’ll be fine, I hope.

“So Roirra’s the man?” Zzoid speaking from the middle of nowhere,

“Indeed it seems so and seems like the effect was permanent too” Marty turns to his right, talking to thin air. Well he’s got some good senses.

Permanent effects? Well I GUESS I’m not that surprised since mine is a permanent effect too…

Huh what an odd situation and Casper looks like he’s going to get the worst end of this

…

..

.

Or not…

“GET BACK HERE YOU INBRED CHILD OF SEDAH” Roirra, well Ragner I guess, screams after Capser who is somehow really fast…like faster than Marty kind of fast (and he’s damn well speedy).

“I’m perfectly well bred, Ragner” Why do you keep mumbling, even in a situation like this?

He sprints past us, to the cart, opening the screaming inside and wrenching out a skin bag, tossing it to Roirra, who looks rather unamused.

Casper dodges them once more and heads towards the fields where Kandien and co. are collecting half burnt, half melted weapons from the ground.

After a quick back and forth, Kandien receives a bag of candy too.

Wave 3 Complete!

Personal Kills: 0

Total Deaths: 0

MVP: Roirra: 8

At least that’s over for now and no deaths either! Also although Roirra's in Regnar's body she still counts as Roirra according to the system? Well my mind's hurting.

I mean it’s good, but it looks like our spears and half the axes/maces/swords are unusable now…

But then again we were against fire elementals which for some reason have still not shown any sort of power that they should have…

Anyways, wave 4 incoming?

Wave 4: Treants

Remaining Monsters: 432

…

..

.

I need treant leaves…but I don’t want to go up against those…all of them at the same time too...

“YOU TWO, SHTOP BUGGERING ABOUT YOUR DIShTUBRING MY BEAUTY SHLEEP” The slurred haggard voice of an old woman swivels my head around, and sure enough the old 80+ granny that I’d seen drinking at Daren’s stumbles out of what I’m guessing is her house, almost tripping as she walks forward in a random motion.

“She’s obviously missed quite a lot of beauty sleeps” Wow Zzoid, wow…never say that out loud, ever again.

“Who shaid that” She turns around, with surprisingly good hearing for an old lady, with a maddened look.

*gulp*

Everyone shrugs their shoulders…don’t piss off the old granny, for all we know she could be as dangerous as everyone else here.

Seriously, all the NPC’s are so dangerous; I wouldn’t be surprised if this granny can kill us with her bare fists…

“Darlene, it’s been a while” All 4 of the Npc’s bow towards her respectfully. Huh? Is she special or something?

“Damn right itsh been a while, and it should’ve been longer” She looks sourly towards everyone, passing by (using everyone as rails) and plopping down in front of the gate, taking a swig from a bottle she got out of nowhere.

Is she not going to help?

…

..

.

Guess not then. Well I mean not everyone in this village has to be super dangerous right?

“RIGHT, SQUAD ANIMAL, TO THE OTHER SIDE” Dillydally gets his remaining people back to their feet, all looking surprisingly rested (well we did have a good little break).

“WOAH” SirStripy exclaims and we all follow because he’s floating!

And every step he takes he apparently goes up higher…

“I don’t think that I should be moving” He says musingly and sits in midair. “But from here I can at least help direct you all?”

Fair enough. Dillydally seems fine with that and marches the rest away

…

..

.

Well apart from Allie who is still chugging acid out now since she has been sick for literally best part of 20 minutes without a break…let’s hope that isn’t permanent…nah that’d just be evil. But then again permanent body switch…kind of evil too.

“Roirra and Regnar can you go with them? Marty will be enough for us” I ask and they just spit in my general direction, well guess being an ogre doesn’t make them hate me any less…

“Children, go with the other lot, I don’t want to hear either of you”

They both immediately bow and disappear off? Just who is this woman?

“She’s our Oracle”

Oh thanks Marty, really helpi-What the hell is an Oracle?

“Oy Child, don’t speak my name sho lightly, get working” Darlene gestures rudely towards Marty, who apologises…huh? What’s so special about an Oracle?

Casper goes and sits down by her.

“You bugger off too, I’m not leaving yet”

“I just wanted to say hi” Casper walks off sadly, what did he do? (Once again another odd reaction towards Casper…I’m really worried about these villagers…)

“TREANTS INCOMING” SirStripy shouts from the sky causing all of us to turn towards quite literally a walking mass of trees.

Some of them look burnt and ready to turn into ash at the slightest touch, while some do look slightly less burnt…Though I don’t spot a perfectly healthy one anywhere.

Hmm, I only need a few leaves…but if I get more then I can make some lovely yet super dangerous alchemist’s fire for myself, oho.

“I think we should get some fire and burn the hell out of these things” Zzoid, smart yet not what I want.

“Well we don’t have any fire on hand” Ignoring Glorious who’s finally stood up “So let’s figure out a way to kill them”

“What about Glorious?” Zzoid pipes up, dammit, stop your perceptiveness. Look even Glorious doesn’t want it.

“Well… I guess” He definitely doesn’t want to belch fire again…and I don’t want him to because he’ll burn away all those special leaves.

But then again, no point if I’m dead is there.

“Fine, we’ll have Zzoid, Glorious and Marty up front for damage”

“Marty m’dear, could you get my shome more drink from Daren’sh” Darlene, really not the time to take away our main fighting force.

“Sure thing” He simply shrugs towards us, really c’mon.

“Ok, so Zzoid and Glorious, this all depends on you” The rest of us, try ganging up on trees, start with the more burnt since I’m guessing they’re weaker”

Everyone nods and we ready up for the bustling group of trees that comes this way.

It’s a bit hard to see how many there are with all the branches and some leaves but I’m guessing maybe 20 or so of them?

At least not all the monsters are coming all at once like all the other waves, that’s a relief… a huge one too.

NAME:Treant [lvl???]Health:???Attack:???A shepherd of the forest

Well this is not going to end well, I can guarantee that.

I have the more tanky of our group so; the owl-beastman (surprisingly enough), Glorious and BC take up the front while the rest of us take the rear.

Zzoid is I don’t know somewhere…oh he’s over there.

A treant suddenly collapses, its trunk punched through.

Well that’s a 1 hit kill, so they can’t have that much health…good.

Immediately the other treants stop, pondering what is happening.

A few more of them suddenly die in quick succession before by pure luck, I guess, a branch smacks into

something.

Blood sprays in the air and I spot blood stained air sprinting back towards us.

“COVER HIM” I shout and immediately the lion, tiger and panther beastmen/lady burst forward covering Zzoid and receiving a small barrage of leaves!?

The black panther-beastlady drops to the floor while the rest sprint back looking worse for wear; a gash across the white tiger-beastman's side and a hole punctured into the lion-beastman's right shoulder.

“She’s dead!” The lion calls out as he looks fearfully towards the treants, who keep stomping towards us, two red eyes in their trunks, freaky…

Well…that is more like a high level monster…but I don’t want to die so I’d rather they be easier.

“Here you go” Marty reappears and is forcibly sat down by Darlene.

We need your help!

“Zzoid get back out there, and only focus on the ones with leaves this time. EVERYONE ELSE DODGE LIKE MAD” as soon as I say that, more leaves start whistling our way like arrows.

Diving to the floor and rolling like a sausage I hear them barely miss me, before getting a slice through my abdomen for almost ¾ of my health!

OW!

Luckily the barrages of leaves stop as suddenly as they begun due to 3 of the treants with leaves dying successively and the 4th one runs out of them…thank Aiag.

Now there’s only around 10 treants but they’ve almost crossed the field to a bunch of heavily wounded people.

“GLORIOUS GO” I shout, watching him, with a little tear in his eye, belch fire towards the nearing treants, the breath surprisingly going a good distance.

The nearest one lights on fire, quickly dying and lighting another while the rest agro onto Glorious.

He lies down in pain while the rest of us jump towards the trees who are but metres away.

All or nothing!

Dodging under a half-assed swung branch, I punch the trunk of the burnt treant; creating a wide hole through it, effectively splitting it into 2.

The other trees are similarly dispatched before they can do much.

Huh, so actually this lot isn’t so difficult…

“Never seen treant’s move before” Marty exclaims from a small distance.

“You’re still wet behind the ears and not stupid enough to go deep into the woods at night” Darlene gives him her sour face.

So moving is their night ability? Not that much of a bonus for moon steroids…

But then I guess their main ability would be to shoot those extremely deadly leaves like a burst rifle…really fast so getting into close combat is bad for them; especially since they don’t seem to be that good close combat.

I think we’re actually lucky they don’t many leaves or any at all in most cases.

But we had to have a death to figure that out…

“There’s another group coming” SirStripy points out from a distance and sure enough another group of treants heading this way…quite a bit more too.

“Zzoid, same as before, everyone else, make them waste their leaves and please don’t die for the love of Aiag”

“We’ll try” The black lion-beastman retorts. Well I guess not everyone is happy that we’re faced with this. Well guess what, I’m not happy about this either.

ITEM:LeafA leaf from a tree, may be used for various purposes (Crafting ingredient)

Why isn’t it a treant leaf?! Is it because it’s it was thrown?

Sadly before I can check out the other treants, the second lot are here.

This is going to be a bad wave…

…

…