The figure standing inside the glass window was…different. Mark walked around the tank, taking it in with detached fascination. The troll human hybrid in front of him now was, actually quite fascinating. When he factored out the minor detail that he was looking at a representation of himself. He took a deep breath, wanting to catalog every accurately before making changes. He was in a hurry, but knew he would only get once chance at this.

The most obvious change from his former self was the thick, pebble textured hide colored a leaf green. The surface was rough and covered in wart like hard growths, and interspersed with long, coarse green hair. The growths and that bristle like hair was actually a form of protection. When he had been skinning the beast, it had played hell with his blade.

Focusing in on his face, Mark could see several differences from himself of earth. The entire face was framed by shoulder length coarse hair, a darker green than his skin. The nose was much longer, there were short tusks poking from between the lips, the ears were larger and his right eye was a blood red color. The left being mechanical looked the same as ever, the skin had grown up around it though, obscuring the metal brackets he used to finger with his artificial hand, leaving only the lens exposed.

Thinking of his left hand, he looked at the figure’s arms. They were rippling with muscle, a little longer than they should be and… there were two flesh and blood hands. He knew, from his screens that the transformation had rejected all his old augmentations, but for some reason he didn’t realize that his hand would grow back like that. He wondered just how much damage he could take and keep fighting now, if re-growing lost limbs was on the table now.

Pulling away from that idle thought, he looked at the hands in question. The fingers were all tipped with blunted claws. The claws looked more like the bone was protruding from his fingertips, rather than just having long fingernails. Fine detail work would be difficult with fingers like those. Moving his gaze down to his feet, Mark found that the toes were largely the same as the fingers. They were much thicker and heavy looking than his human feet, but were also tipped with blunt claws.

Finishing his look with an over view he thought the rest looked mostly human. The arms slumped forward a little, apparently under the weight of his back and shoulder muscles, and his legs were bent slightly at the knee, even while standing upright. He couldn’t tell exactly how tall he would be, but at least the body more closely resembled human proportions, than the ten-foot-tall ball of muscle that he had been infected by.

“Well,” he said aloud once he got his bearings. “Could be worse I suppose… I told Terra I wanted to become a tank, well…be careful what you wish for I guess.” Reaching out to the controls, he got to work fixing himself as best he could.

He started with his face. His ears and nose went back to his human norm easy enough. Then he attempted to change his hair back to normal. He couldn’t get it to return to human normal, and shortening it up only made him look like a porcupine with green spikes. He did manage to give it a little body however, so that it didn’t looks so greasy and lifeless. He turned his right eye back to its original smoky gray, but after seeing it, framed by his unchangeable dark green hair… he changed it back to red.

Next, he tried to fix his skin. Just like his hair, he wasn’t able to get rid of the green coloring, which must be hardwired into the forest troll’s DNA or something. Thankfully, he did manage to smooth it out to be more like his old human skin. Removing the warty growths and the bristly hair that had covered his body. He knew that it would somewhat lower his defense, but he just couldn’t stand the idea of being covered in warts. The claws, knee joints, longer arms and sloop shoulders couldn’t be changed. They weren’t superficial, it seemed. Having done everything he could think of, Mark stepped back to look at… himself.

He looked like the stereotypical phantasy barbarian, with smooth leaf green skin, dark green shoulder length hair, and a pair of mismatched eyes. He’d read a book with orcs in it as a child, the figure he was looking at now more resembled an orc in his mind than a troll. Either way, it was as good as he was going to get. Besides, who was to say he wouldn’t find a work around at some point.

Accepting the changes, he waited while the simulated body that Terra had put him in, was replaced by his new Forest Troll body. Surprisingly, he only grew a few inches. He hadn’t been very tall originally so, after his ten percent size increase, he had been around 6’ 4”. He guessed he was about 6’ 6” now, but his body weight had easily doubled, and all of it was muscle.

Flexing his hands, he felt the power they contained. It reminded him of his behavior with Penny and Garret, the thought sobering him up instantly. He would owe them an apology for how he had acted, he might not have been himself, but that didn’t change his actions. Hoping that his had updated with his physical transformation, Mark opened up the body augmentation tab to check his theory.

Body augmentations

Forest Troll

Your body is that of a Forest Troll. Physical attributes are now standard 20/20/15 (kept mind), will now heal anything short of death near instantly, and must eat to maintain health or enter metabolic rage. Injuries caused by flames are not regenerated and heal at the normal rate.

Continuous regeneration without adequate nourishment will result in self metabolism and permanent attribute loss. Wounds caused by fire heal normally.

Gift of Terra (improved ocular, control implant)

This implant, (selflessly provided by Terra) reduces mind cost of mind controlled technological devices, increases mind attribute and improves vision. (Terra specially modified your DNA to allow you to keep her present)

Reduce device mind attribute cost by 75%, increases mind attribute by 100% (option locked), provide; night vision, infrared vision, telescoping vision & Terra vision. Video and audio recording feature. (You’re welcome, stud)

Cosmetic reset (Used)

You now have, smooth leaf green skin, red eye, dark green shoulder length hair, body builder physic, blunted hand and toe claws, arms slightly longer that average, sloped shoulders and bent knees.

odds are you could pass for human if you wore loose clothing a hat and the person looking at you was blind…but really, everyone gets body augmentations in here, no one will guess the truth from just looking at you

Mark read the new information over quickly. His lips twitched slightly when he saw Terra’s hand in the writing. He didn’t quite understand the formatting, but resolved himself to figuring it out. He’d let things slide too long, he needed to be more proactive. That would have to wait a little longer though. Right now, he had to get back to Trapper’s Mountain.

Looking around the park for a clue, he found a teleportation pad that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He jogged over, getting accustomed to his new legs. His strides were long and powerful, despite his bulk he moved quickly. Only a breath past before he arrived at the glowing sphere. Placing his hand on it, Mark shut his eyes in anticipation of the brilliant light that always proceeded the jump.

* * *

Roar. It was the first thing Mark heard after teleporting; following on its heels, was a woman’s scream. He opened his eyes, only to find himself surrounded by and covered in a heavy leather tarp. He tried to push it away and clear his vision, only to realize that he was also bound. Panic welled up in an instant, as Mark tried his best to free himself from the leather straps around his limbs.

In that moment of panic, he had forgotten just how strong he had become. With a wrenching motion, he snapped the leather cords that bound him. The weak cords did little to inhibit his momentum, and his hands connected with the leather tarp, ripping a hole clean through it. Blinking away his surprise, Mark sat up. Once he could see again; he realized that he was laying in the collapsed tent, right where he had fallen asleep the night… a few nights? Before.

It must have been a while because it was dark outside the tent. A large fire lit the night, a cooking fire that escaped its confines and spread to the surrounding mass of dead trees, which had been the troll’s den. The troll in question, moved around the camp. Chasing the trappers around, or through, fallen trees. It was smaller than it had been, a combination of having its hide removed and healing itself, causing it to self-metabolize?

Penny screamed again. Neither of the two were armed, or even fully dressed, fleeing through the jungle of broken trees, the troll close behind. Mark took in the scene again, trying to understand what had happened. His best guess, they had been in the tent when the troll finally pulled itself together. Which then knocked the tent down in its attempt to get at them. Having learned from his last encounter with the troll, mark didn’t immediately jump up to attack. Instead, he rummaged around in the collapsed tent, looking for his bag.

On one of the days, they hadn’t encountered any displaced predators; Garret had shown Mark and Penny how to make oil, using rendered bear fat. The process was simple enough, but for a post Arrival person like Mark, it was a huge and disgusting hassle to undertake, to produce a little smelly lantern fuel. Finding the battered tin canteen, he’d stored the resulting product in, Mark snatched it up and raced out towards the Troll.

Popping the top off the canteen as he ran, Mark scooped up a burning branch from the fire. Coming up on the troll from behind, he pointed the oil filled container at its back and squeezed. The tin crumpled under his troll’s strength, and oil sprayed out over the troll. It was as easy to him as squeezing soda pop from a plastic bottle. With an exalted shout, Mark threw the burning branch onto the oil-soaked troll.

It connected with a shower of sparks, and then bounced away again. The burning branch hadn’t lit the oil, not even a smolder. Mark cursed, in his excitement to burn the troll, he forgot that; although the oil was flammable, it wasn’t nearly as combustible as gasoline. The burning branch hadn’t caught the troll on fire, but between the impact and his shout, he’d captured its attention.

The beast’s movements looked lumbering and slow due to its size, but were terrifyingly quick in reality. Once the stick hit the troll, it turned around. Hunger crazed eyes lit on Mark, and it roared again. Long rope like strings of drool flying from its mouth as it charged, arms spread wide as if to embrace him.

Terrified of the troll’s power, Mark attempted to leap aside as the troll barreled towards him. He almost made it. Just before he would have cleared, one of the troll’s hands slammed into his ribs. Mark let out his breath in a whoosh as the troll thundered by. Doubling over in pain, he grabbed his chest, expecting to find at least a few of his ribs had broken.

Strangely enough however, although he was bruised, he didn’t feel any worse than if he were human and another human had punched him. It hurt, but hadn’t broken his body. It had slipped his mind completely that he was a troll now too. He watched in fascination as the bruised flesh, healed up before his eyes. The troll hadn’t been idle during that time however, it had swung its bulk around and was coming in again. With a grin, Mark stood his ground this time, preparing to meet the incoming charge.

When they collided, Mark felt a tremor that he felt sure must have shaken the whole mountain, and was knocked from his feet. He landed on the ground, troll on top of him, and gasped for air. The wind had been knocked from his lungs and for a second, he forgot how to breathe. Before he had a chance to recover a sledge hammer like fist slammed into his mouth, making him see stars and static. The fight that followed might have been impressive to watch, if either of the combatants had known how to fight hand to hand while on the ground.

Mark had been a glorified paper pusher for the majority of his life. As for the troll, it was so big and powerful that it likely had only ever had to grab onto something to beat it in a fight. The two titans rolled around the cleared forest; biting, clawing and punching each other with wild abandon. Each regenerating the damaged caused by the other so quickly that the fight could very well last for days.

This continued, until they rolled close to a burning tree trunk. The troll, feeling the heat of the flames, flinched away. Mark, remembering the oil he’d doused on the troll, rolled toward the fire taking the troll with him. The heat bit into his hands and arms, but he held on, keeping the struggling troll in place until the oil covering its torso finally caught fire. As the troll went up in flames, Mark released his grip and rolled away. Putting out the flames that had begun licking at his own clothes.

The troll bellowed in pain, slapping its arms against its torso in an attempt to put the fire out. Mark, not knowing how long the troll would be distracted, picked up a tree limb and brought it down on the troll’s head. The force of the blow shattered the branch in a spray of splinters, but also managed to drop the troll back into the burning trunks. Having gained the upper hand, Mark didn’t relent. He picked up another branch and stabbed it down into the troll, pinning it in place while it burned.

“I don’t think I really want to tank full time,” he muttered after the Troll stopped struggling. “Super-fast healing or no this getting hit shit is for the birds.” He wondered how Tinker was coming along with the project he’d asked him to work on.

After the fight ended, Mark moved around the camp gathering up all the troll parts he could find and tossed them into the fire. He tried calling out to Penny and Garret several times. He could see them with his mechanical eye, his new troll eye also had really good night vision, but they wouldn’t come out of hiding. He couldn’t blame them, he was a troll now, at least he had the body of one. He could only be thankful that they had only decided to tie him up, instead of killing him outright.

Not wanting to delay any longer, Mark gathered up all his gear. He piled everything he had onto the improvised sled he made to haul his animal hides. looking around to be sure he had everything, his eyes landed on the ruined tent. With a sigh, he took a few of the choice furs from his pile and set them out for Garret and Penny, along with the outfit that had been Dan’s. He couldn’t fit it any more anyway, and his new body wasn’t as susceptible to the cold.

Setting out right away for the teleport pad, Mark thought about the trip up here. it had taken more than six days of slow marching to reach this point. He had learned a lot from the old man, much of it was recorded so he could continue to pick up on things he hadn’t understood at first. thinking of those lessons made him smile. He had enjoyed his time with Garret and Penny, though he regretted that last night with her. He might not have done anything wrong; but the troll aftermath, coupled with Terra’s sudden departure, left a bad taste in his mouth for that type of casual interaction.

As he walked, Mark kept checking behind him, the sled was so light now that he had to be sure he hadn’t lost his cargo. He didn’t run, with his current attributes, Mark felt certain he could have reached the teleporter within a day. Instead, he took the time to familiarize himself with the new interface, and think about how he was going to proceed from here. The first step, would be to talk to Tinker.

The scree had been entrusted with a few projects for Mark. He felt bad about taking advantage of the scree’s racial proclivities of doing as they are told, but Tinker really didn’t seem to mind. Besides, Mark had enough solo adventuring for the time being. He would take the Tinker with him on the next outing. That would make the challenge harder, and keep him on task, both good things for him right now.

The trip back to the pad ended up taking him just under three days. He didn’t stop even once that entire time, just kept plodding along at a steady pace. He was tired, but eating helped alleviate the fatigue. Reaching the pad, he placed his hand on the sphere without a backwards glance. He’d also used the last three days to put his life into prospective, and reflect on what he had done and still needed to do. So, there was no need to look back, he was moving forward.

A flash of light later, he was back in landing. Originally, he had planned to let Terra take care of selling these furs. With her now gone, he would seek out Tinker. First however, he needed to pull up his quest completion information. Check on how many augmentations points he had gained, and how many he now had in total.

Quest completion log = Trapper's Mountain, easy

Augmentation points earned

First try

Successfully complete quest on first attempt

25 points

None died

kept party alive tell the end

25 points

resourceful

didn’t rush to the finish line, used the knowledge of those around you to improve yourself.

100 points

Going native

you spent a great deal of your time in quest trying to fit in with the local population

25 points

The hard way

normally, this would be a demerited, however by choosing the difficult path you reaped incredible gains

100 points

Bonus rewards

Description

Bronze token, Garret

you saved his and his granddaughter's life, helped her get interested in the traditional family trade. Although he wasn’t happy about you sleeping with Penny (way to go stud) he respected how you saved them from the troll and left behind the best hides and his son's clothes

100 points

Bronze token, Penny

downgraded from silver, due to you going troll (really? Kinda bitchy) you never the less made her feel more comfortable with her new life. She will remember that fondly at least

100 points

Total Rewards

Wolf hides, poor

poorly skinned and tanned hides.

7 hides

Bear hide, poor

poorly skinned and tanned hides

1 hide

mountain lions, decent

these hides are approaching acceptable

2 hides

Wolf hides, good

anyone would be ok with buying these hides

9 hides

teeth and claws

a leather pouch filled with the teeth and claws of large predators. May have value to crafters

6 lbs.

Bear hides, good

anyone would be ok with buying these hides

2 hides

Fox hide, high

done by a real processional. Gifted by Garret

1 hide

Augmentation points

475 points

When compared to his earnings from Swamp rat valley, this was a little underwhelming. However, he couldn’t complain at all when he remembered this was an easy quest and that was a hard one. That left him with a total of 634 augmentation point, a prosthetic hand he could no longer use, and a bunch of furs and odds and end that he wanted to trade in. closing his interface he went to find Tinker.

“Surface dweller Mark, you have returned.” Tinker said when Mark entered its apartment. “I have gathered some of what you wanted, but we will need trade goods to gather the rest.” Tinker led Mark through a horde of junk into its kitchen area, where there was an empty chair that Mark took. Where he left Mark alone before bustling off to its room. Taking a look around at the clutter Mark whistled.

There were bits of drones everywhere, along with tools of every description. Not only technological, but wood crafting, tile working, there were even some plumbing tools off in a corner. Mark’s attention was drawn to the center of the table, where a wooden carving, perhaps ten inches tall and twelve across, sat in a pile of shavings.

Picking up the carving, Mark’s hands shook as he inspected it. it was a realistic recreation of Mark, Terra and Tinker. They were on a stone ridge, completely surrounded by Frog kin. Mark held the Broken blade in his hands, Terra her crossbow, and tinker was surrounded by its Drones. The Tinker was between the Frog kin and the humans, and was clearly defending them from the amphibians.

“Ah, I see that you have found the realistic representation of my glorious battle on the ridge?” the Tinker said through its voice box. Its face didn’t move like a human, but Mark had been around it enough to catch the antenna twitches that showed it was excited. “I am cataloging my exploits in various forms of media for my return to the hive.” It continued to explain, sweeping the table clear of shaving and setting a wooden crate onto it. Setting aside the carving of questionable accuracy, Mark looked at the crate the Tinker had brought over.

“I had this completed a week ago, surface dweller Mark.” It said, a proud puff to its chest. “Then, surface dweller Terra informed me that you had decided to change your appearance at the last minute…I had limited materials by that point, but I am a tinker of the hive. I was able to improvise.” With a flourish, it removed the lid to the crate, revealing a set of armored battle robes.

Mark picked them up reverently. Standing, so that they could be opened all the way for inspection. He had requested that Tinker made him a set of armor modeled after Terra’s. Using material that he had collected from his time in the tutorial. It looked amazing, but wasn’t quite what he had asked for. Before he had a chance to ask, Tinker started explaining his creation.

“Marvelous,” it began. “I used the two trog hides you brought me for the majority of the piece. I had to mix them together to ensure that the thickest sections of scales covered the chest. The design goes down to the knee, with an open front and a split up the back and sides for movement. Next, as requested, I used some of the Bloody hive carapace as pauldrons to protect your shoulders and more for your elbows. What do you think of my work?” it asked in a rush.

Mark looked it over again, then put it on. Looking down at himself, he couldn’t help but think it was a glorified, knee length motorcycle jacket. It was a good-looking piece, the red and yellow scales had been seamlessly blended together, the bloody hive carapace that protected his shoulders and elbows were also red and with black markings, that matched the rest nicely. He wasn’t displeased with it; he had just been expecting something…more.

“It looks great Tinker,” Mark started. “But I was thinking it would be more like what Terra wore. This doesn’t cover much of my body, after all.” he finished, rapping his knuckles against a pauldron.

“As, I have already stated, I was forced to modify my work after I was informed that surface dweller Mark decided to increase his body size by such a large amount.” The modulated voice sounded the same as ever, but the antenna twitch that accompanied it was clearly agitated. “However,” it continued, “I do have more.”

Reaching back into the crate; it pulled out a set of shin guards that came up to cover the knees, and a set of fingerless gloves with carapace covering the back of the hand and the knuckles. All made from Bloody hive carapace, and secured with black leather. They reminded Mark even more of motorcycle safety equipment that people of earth might wear. With a sigh, he put them on as well. Honestly, when he factored out how silly he looked, the gear fit very well. It would have been highly advantageous in his knock down drag out with the Forest troll.

At least there wasn’t a helmet in the crate, Mark thought. Flexing his muscles and bending his joints to get a feel for the armor. One nice thing about this open design, it would be easy to take on and off, and wouldn’t take up much room in a bag if he decided he didn’t want to wear it.

“Thank you, Tinker.” He said, clapping the scree on the shoulder. “Just need to make a quick shop stop, then how do you feel about taking Me shopping in town? I’ve got a decent amount of stuff to sell, and I don’t want us entering the next quest unequipped.”

“Us?” The Tinker asked.