by DoctorHepa
A note from DoctorHepa
It's so weird... time is moving at both a snail's pace and much too quickly at the same time. It feels like yesterday when I just started posting this story, and it feels like we have been in lockdown for over a year. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
* * *
Chapter 63
The Silk Road was set up like a farmer’s market. It was a long, mostly-empty room with a single row of stalls. An eclectic mix of items filled the tables. But there was room for five or six more rows of booths.
“This room is mirrored down on the next floor,” Mordecai said as we entered. Donut sat on my shoulder, bouncing her head to the music which still pulsed through the wall. “Eventually both this market and the next one down will be packed with merchants. Not too many are out yet.”
We walked past shops selling black, bubbling potions and round, magical items called “Spider Shields” that cost 200,000 gold. An eclectic mix of races manned the booths, from short goblins to tall, robed figures with four sets of pincers.
A single booth sat in the back of the room, surrounded by five or six empty spaces. I knew exactly what the booth sold as we approached. Multiple notifications floated in the air over the items on the merchant’s tables.
“There’s a double-sized booth normally set up next door to that one, but they won’t appear until the fourth floor. Those guys sell trap supplies. But in the meantime, I wanted to make sure you were aware this was here,” Mordecai said. “The proprietor is a little odd, but she’s harmless. Now give me 500 gold so I can check out that alchemist over there while you browse.” He paused. “You two need to make a good impression on this woman because you’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
This store was called Hobgobs and Boom Sticks. I examined the proprietor.
Pustule. Hobgoblin – Level 30.
She was the first living hobgoblin I’d seen face to face. She stood about six feet tall, and she looked mostly like the hobgoblin sample I’d seen during race selection: a large, muscular goblin that got clobbered by the ugly stick. She had an open sore on her cheek that bubbled with black and green ooze. The pus ran off her face, down her shoulder, and stained her shirt, which was a threadbare, pink graphic tee featuring a unicorn wearing sunglasses. She smelled of rot and sickness. I swallowed. I still held the bottle of cheap bourbon in my hand. I took a drink to get the smell out of my sinuses.
“Carl,” Donut whispered. “She’s ugly. Like really ugly.”
“She also has excellent hearing,” the hobgoblin said, her voice surprisingly feminine. I winced. “Are you in the market for explosives tonight?”
Her tables held multiple boxes of both goblin dynamite and hobgoblin dynamite, along with smoke bombs, detonators, and several odds and ends I’d never before seen, like flat, pancake-like explosives that were basically claymore mines. The yield and stability of the mines was impressive, though they cost 5,000 gold each.
She also sold barrels of gunpowder and a few other chemicals, most of which I already had plenty of.
A case of goblin dynamite held 25 sticks and cost 500 gold. The hobgoblin sticks were 20 for 2,000, which was highway robbery.
“Two questions,” I said. “Do you sell smaller explosives? Preferably ball-shaped? Also, do you have smoke bombs that don’t suck?”
She laughed. “Yes to both questions, though I don’t have it all in stock today. Goblin smoke bombs are crap. They don’t understand the chemistry, so what you get is a lot of smoke in a small cone for a short amount of time. They’re good in enclosed spaces, but if there’s any ventilation, you might as well just pull your dick out and point at it.” She laughed at her own nonsensical joke. There was an edge of crazy to that laugh, and I suddenly felt uneasy. “A hobgoblin smoke curtain works much better and is inexpensive, but I don’t have any right now. I do normally carry round bombs. Hob-lobbers. Both impact-enchanted and fused. I only have a case of the fused ones in tonight. Yield is one-eighth a hobgoblin stick, or half of a goblin stick. It packs a punch if you’re interested. I once watched my mother bite the head off of a vorpal muskrat. She said she did it to teach the warlord a lesson, but I’m pretty sure there was another reason.”
She’d added that last part without pausing, as if it was just a natural part of the conversation.
Donut: CARL, THIS LADY IS CRAZY.
I decided it was for the best to just ignore that last part. “Okay, so, does impact-enchanted mean what it sounds like?” I asked.
“That’s right. Dangerous to use, but Hob-Lobbing Lobbers use them almost exclusively. Don’t drop ‘em. Otherwise they’re pretty stable. The fused ones work like hobgoblin dynamite. Impact resistant, extra stable. You gotta light the fuse then toss them. Like I said, I have a case of those. 25 for 500 gold.”
I sent a quick message to Donut via chat.
“What’s your best price on a case of the Hob-lobbers and two cases of regular goblin dynamite?” Donut asked. She jumped down from my shoulder and landed on the table. “Also, we’ll be back in a day or so if you promise to bring in some of those smoke curtains.”
“Well, two cases of goblin dynamite and the last of the Hob-lobbers would be 1,500 gold,” Pustule said pleasantly. “I’m sorry if that price is too ugly for you.”
“Oh sweetie,” Donut said. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. Let’s start over.”
“Yeah, okay,” Pustule said. “We wouldn’t want anybody getting off on any feet.”
Donut gave me a sidelong glance. “Well, it might be a little late for that. But we do want to buy stuff from you. And I think we’ll be buying a lot of stuff from you, so I would really like it if we could be friends?”
“Friends?” Pustule asked. “I was friends with Tiff. The muskrat.”
“Yes, friends,” Donut said. “Hopefully your mom won’t bite my head off, though.”
“Oh, she died. It was a vorpal muskrat. You can’t bite the head off a vorpal muskrat without doing a little dying in the process.”
From there, they went back and forth for a few minutes. Donut did not have the extra discount that automatically came with the Artist Alley Mogul class, but she still had that insane charisma, and she managed to talk the hobgoblin down to 1,000 gold for the lot.
After that transaction was completed, I pulled one of my Boom Jugs from my inventory and placed it on the table. “Out of curiosity, how much would you give me for this?”
She picked it up, examining it carefully. “Nice design,” she said. She rubbed the side of the bottle and made a whimpering noise, one I could not decode. Then she pulled the bottle close to her face and licked it. I looked at Donut and mouthed What the fuck?
She snapped back to seriousness a moment later. “Your material cost is much too high. If you used a different accelerant, the effect wouldn’t be nearly so hot, but your build cost would be 90% cheaper. If you went out there and sold just the plain bottles of moonshine, it’d be worth much more.”
“So how much is it worth as it is?”
“I’d probably sell these for about 7,500 gold. I’ll give you half that. You looking to sell?”
“Not right now,” I said, taking the boom jug back. It was good to have a value reference in my inventory. I resisted the urge to wipe off the wet streak. “Thanks, though. It was good meeting you.”
“I’ll have more for you tomorrow,” she said as we walked toward the exit. “Beware of meteors!” she called.
“She wasn’t so bad,” Donut said as we left. “She just needs both a dermatologist and a psychiatrist. I can’t tell you how relieved I am you didn’t pick that race.”
“Excellent hearing,” Pustule called from her booth, about 50 paces away.
“Wow,” Donut said, looking over her shoulder. “You’d think someone who blew things up for a living would be deaf.”
I pulled a hob-lobber out of my inventory. It was a hair smaller than a baseball, but it was dense and heavy.
“Damn,” I said. “Too big for
my slingshot.”
“Nobody likes your stupid slingshot, Carl,” Donut said.
“At your current strength, you can probably just throw this further than a slingshot anyway,” Mordecai said, coming to walk beside us. He handed me a pile of herbs and vials. “That’s what the Hob-Lobbing Lobbers do. They’re the Hobgoblin equivalent of a Bomb Bard.”
We exited the market and hurried through the dance arena, which was now showing the recap episode. All of the dancers sat on the floor, watching the screen. They’d all gone eerily silent, and the scene was disconcerting. The next room with the locals was also displaying the show. A handful of crawlers watched while the other NPCs went about their business, pretending like there was nothing on the screen.
“You two go ahead,” Mordecai said, eying the bar. “I’ll catch up in a bit.”
“You’ll catch up whether you want to or not as soon as we get back to the inn,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “I just don’t like missing any of the show. Sometimes they hide important stuff in there. I’ll see you back at the inn. Go straight there.”
* * *
We stepped out into the night. Darkness had descended on the city, and the city guards had all disappeared. Still, it wasn’t too late, and the streets were still busy. A street vendor selling the cockroach-like scatterers on a stick remained open. It made me think of that first boss, the Hoarder. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Eagles soared above us, filling the sky. Music drifted from the open doors of several pubs.
Still, the alleyways were now dark. Occasionally I’d see a flicker of a red dot. Donut said most of them were small, maybe rats. We stuck to the center of the street.
The One-Eyed Narwhal was only a few blocks over. We didn’t really have to spend the night there again, but I liked that the place was much less busy than most of the other inns. We’d easily catch the end of the episode if we hurried. I hoped they’d show Lucia Mar and her dogs going apeshit in the nightclub. I really wanted to see that.
“There you go, Mongy,” Donut said, releasing her pet back out onto the street. He formed right in front of us with a pop, like when Zev teleported into the room. “Did you miss your mommy? Mommy missed you!” The pet screeched in outrage and hopped up and down a few times, circling around us, waving his arms.
“Oh, get over it,” I said. I pulled a pet biscuit from my inventory and tossed it at him. He snatched it in midair. He made a growling noise as he chewed, but I could tell he was placated. He then moved to my right side to walk next to me as Donut leaped to my shoulder.
“He really is well-trained,” I said. “You’ve done a good job.”
“Of course I have, Carl,” Donut said. “I am a product of the pageant circuit, after all. I’ve had plenty experience watching what does and doesn’t work when it comes to teaching obedience. Maybe when this is all over, I can dictate a book on the subject. You can type it all out for me. That reminds me, Zev and I have been talking about writing a new episode of Gossip Girl since…”
And that’s when Mongo screamed in rage and rushed straight into the dark alley.
* * *
“Goddamnit, Mongo,” I bellowed as I turned to chase the dinosaur. “And you stay put,” I yelled up at Donut as we rushed into the alley. “Don’t run ahead.”
“Mongo! Mongo!” Donut cried as we ran. She cast her Torch spell, and the blazing light rose into the air, illuminating the squalid alleyway. This was more a substreet than a real alley, but multiple tributaries sectioned off of it, and Mongo turned down one such street. A group of red dots appeared along with an X of a corpse.
Shit, shit.
I also smelled fire. Like burning meat.
We passed a pair of stinking rubbish bins. Ahead of us, a group of four figures loomed. Three of them were flying, hovering off the ground. The fourth was humanoid, tall and lean. This one held his hand in the air, and it burned, smoke pouring off it. It was the source of the smell. Mongo squealed and headed straight for the tall creature.
I could also see the corpse. It was GumGum the orc. Her chest had been rent open.
The flying creatures were floating, disembodied female heads. Their long hair flapped about them like sea creatures. What appeared to be the rest of the creatures’ organs hung loosely from the hole in the bottom of their necks, all connected with wet, limp tendrils of nerve, artery, and other viscera. Blood dripped freely. The three horrifying monsters screamed at the presence of Donut’s light, and they twisted and twirled up into the evening sky, corkscrewing and howling like banshees, their loose intestines and lungs swinging underneath them.
They disappeared into the darkness, but not before their description popped up.
Krasue. Level 16.
Holy crap! These things are terrifying! Who comes up with this shit?
Said to be the undead shell of a woman who lived a life of sin, Krasue roam the dark places, hiding their hideous true form. They are ravenous, and they devour the blood of the unsuspecting. In other words, these things are flying heads who are also vampires. And, they bring their organs along because… Well, nobody knows why. Probably just because it’s really gross.
You may kill the head and trailing organs to fend her off, but this mob doesn’t truly die until you find and destroy the rest of her corpse. You will not earn experience for killing this mob until it is dead-dead. Not just dead.
Warning: This is a ghost-class mob. They are only injured with magic or magical items.
Mongo squealed and leaped at the remaining figure, the one with the burning hand, but the mob disappeared in a blink…
…And appeared right in front of us.
“The final battle is here!” the creature—an elf—squealed, his voice cracking. He cackled with laughter. His hand stopped trailing smoke. “You may have scared off the krasue, but you will not do the same to me! I have trained my entire life for this moment! I have used dark magic to lure your familiar into my trap! Carl and Donut, Blasphemers! Prepare to taste the ultimate death!” His hands started to glow red. “Now watch as I…”
I kicked him in the nuts at the same moment Donut’s magic missile slammed into his neck. The elf’s head ripped off as he was raised bodily off the ground. I felt my foot shatter his testicles and fracture his pelvis. The dead, now-headless elf rose into the air like a rocket. He splattered onto the ground in a heap, blood showering over us. His head tumbled like a poorly-inflated soccer ball, coming to a stop in front of Mongo, who picked it up and started shaking it back and forth like a squeaky toy.
For a long moment, neither Donut nor I said anything. I slowly turned to look at the cat.
“Who the hell was that?” I asked.
A note from DoctorHepa
Sorry for the delay between this chapter and the last. I took a few days off from writing over the past, long weekend. But the next several chapters are all done and already up on Patreon. The next chapter will be posted here on RR at the end of the weekend come hell or highwater. Have a great weekend and happy June! The world is going crazy. Stay safe out there.
Chapter 64
I examined the corpse of the elf. I really wished I’d done it before, as the amount of information given was much less once they were dead.
Lootable Corpse. Vincente. City Elf. Level 16. Killed by Crawler Grand Champion Best in Dungeon Princess Donut with an assist by Crawler Royal Bodyguard Carl.
“Ha,” Donut said. “I got credit for the kill.”
“Well, you did blow his head off. All I did was kick him in the nuts.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t very manly of you, Carl. I thought nut-kicking was a big no-no amongst guys.”
“It’s not something I want to make a habit of doing,” I said. “But if it works, it works.”
Zev: Yes, Carl. Try to avoid that if you can. A few viewers have made some snide comments.
Carl: For fuck’s sake. I can really do without the random peanut gallery comments.
Donut: I BET THE SYSTEM AI LIKED IT.
Vicente the city elf had almost 1,500 gold in his inventory. He only held one other item. A scroll, which Donut took. It was for a spell called Meat Hooks. It was the spell he’d been casting that had caused Mongo to rush into the alley.
“I knew he was good boy,” Donut said. “He’d been summoned. He couldn’t help it!” Mongo, still chewing on the elf’s head, grunted in agreement. The spell summoned all nearby carnivorous pet-class monsters away from their owners and to the source of the burning stench.
“You’ll want to hold onto that one,” I said. “You never know when it might be useful.”
“He knew our names,” Donut said, looking down at the corpse. “And did you see those gross floating things?”
“Your light scared them away,” I said, looking up into the night. “Keep it going.”
The elf didn’t have anything else in his inventory, but he did wear an oddly familiar shirt. This was a military uniform, and it looked out of place here in this town. It was a black button-up, and had it been blue I would’ve sworn it was a U.S. Coast Guard ODU, the same type of shirt I’d worn every day on active duty.
“Carl, look,” Donut said. “There’s a patch on his arm.” She peered closely at it. “There’s two patches. A sew-on and a heat transfer. The arm one is hand-sewn with a chain stitch. It’s good work, but it clearly wasn’t made on a schiffli like the nameplate on the breast.”
“What?” I said, looking down at the two patches. “What are you talking about? What the hell is a schiffli?”
“Huh,” Donut said. “I don’t know how I know. A schiffli is a type of embroidery machine. I must’ve watched a show about it or something.”
The patch on the shoulder was in the shape of a shield, and it held a crossed lightning bolt and a magic wand being grasped by a talon with a tree in the background. It looked very much like a typical US military unit patch, but with the text in Syndicate Standard. It read 201st Security Group – Magical Ops. The second patch was a nameplate. It read Vicente. That was it. There was no grade insignia or anything else on the shirt, including any sort of indicator of what army this 201st Security Group was a part of. That particular missed detail made the shirt look fake, like it was more of a movie prop than a real uniform.