“Right in the kidney, dammit.”
“What the hell are noblins?”
She looked up and gave me a blood-stained grin. “Delicious is what they are. They’re also not very nice.”
“I hate ninjas. Bloody sneaky invisible bastards. How many more of them will there be?” I stepped closer to her, keeping my eyes on the mushroom forest that seemed far more alive than it had a moment ago.
Quiet scraping sounds, like stone on stone, had replaced the weird chittering noise from before. The occasional soft thump of what I guessed was a bare foot hitting the ground, and the odd quiet mutter, the words impossible to catch. The place had been weird before; now it felt sinister.
“Hundreds, maybe thousands. This is late stage fungest, they’ve been growing for years. That big one there is probably five years old.” She pointed to the tallest mushroom I’d ever seen. It had a thin, pointy cap, and it poked up like a spear from among the broad-headed shrooms that made up the bulk of the canopy.
“All invisible?”
“No, Bob. Hobnobs are an elite, and there’ll be plenty of them, but most will just scream and charge or shoot arrows at us and run away.”
“Won’t Remy have had to fight his way through? Or do they leave rats alone?”
“Normally, they kill everything that finds one of their nests. If anyone gets away, they know a bigger force will come ba—” An arrow sank into her shoulder, and another one took her in the guts. I felt pricks as more of them bounced off my side.
“Scutum Iris!” The rainbow shield I’d acquired from the unicorns appeared in front of Alicya. She yanked the arrows out and snarled.
“We need to fall back. Make them chase us into the tunnel so we can cancel out their numbers.” She began backing away towards the entrance behind us.
“Why? You can’t die, and they can’t hurt me. Why not just wade in and deal with them where they’re hiding?” I took a step in the opposite direction from the werewolf, eyes scanning the fungal undergrowth, looking for a target to attack.
“The shrooms will protect them. You ever had a fungal infection?”
“Sure. Athlete's foot is annoying, but it’s not lethal” I caught a spear that had been aimed a bit lower than was gentlemanly in one hand and squeezed to shatter the wood. I briefly regretted enhancing the, ah, grandeur of a certain part of my anatomy while in my mammal suit.
“It will be in your lungs, in every part of your body that has an opening. It took me nearly a year to get the last of it out of my fur the last time I dealt with one of these places. I had to shave myself completely bald. I don’t know what Athlete’s foot is, but unless it involves eating the living flesh, the spore attack is a lot worse.”
I sniggered at the thought of a shaved werewolf. “Why not just, you know, turn back to a human? Wouldn’t that get rid of it?”
“I—nevermind. Come on, let’s lead them outside!” A furry paw tugged on my arm to drag me away. But I had a better idea.
The arrows and spears were coming from within the shroomtrees, far enough back that I could only catch a momentary glimpse of the attackers. That made most of my spells fairly useless. I couldn’t cover bungholes with barnacles if I couldn’t get a lock on where I wanted the salty suckers to appear. I did have another option available, though.
Orange-green fire swept out from my mouth, a long cone that cut into a swath of forest. I panned it across from right to left. It was an unhappy fact that the only time I felt like a real dragon breathing fire was when I was masquerading as a human. The stuff coming out of my nostrils always made me feel like I was sneezing at people when I burned them alive.
Cap Dripper (level 1) slain!
Gold earned… Nothing!
0.3kg of biomass added to storage.
Dangle Mimic (level 9) slain!
Gold earned… Nothing!
0.8kg of biomass added to storage.
Dangle Mimic (level 4) slain!
Gold earned… Nothing!
0.6kg of biomass added to storage.
Noblin (level 18) slain!
Gold earned… Nothing!
24kg of biomass added to storage.
False Widowpeak (level 24) slain!
Gold earned… Nothing!
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
21kg of biomass added to storage.
Dangle Mimic (level 9) slain!
Gold earned… Nothing!
0.3kg of biomass added to storage.
Hobnob Valourscarred (level 73) slain!
Gold earned… Nothing!
102.4kg of biomass added to storage.
….
I belched loudly, and the waistband on my boxer shorts began to feel very tight indeed. “Shit. That might not have been my best idea.”
“You lunatic! Half those shroomtrees are bloody—”
The kill notifications kept flowing in. Lots of what I assumed was the native wildlife for the biome, Cap Danglers and Gill Sniffers or whatever. But there were dozens and dozens of noblins in the mix as well. And the high-level ones gave rather a lot of biomass. I watched the counter going up and began to feel painfully bloated.
What Alicya had been about to say was “explosive”. A series of booms rang out across the fungest. The shockwaves propelled a fine mist of shroomtree, noblin, and assorted critters in expanding spheres. Not only were Alicya and I painted from head to toe across the front, but we were also blown backwards, bowled across the rocky floor.
Biomass stored:
1281.7 KG
Biomass required for evolution: 360 KG
Congratulations! You’ve received an Epic roll!
Rolling for evolution choices…
Please select from the following three options:
-
Master of Puppets
-
Flared Nostrils
-
Beloved by Prey
Shit. I needed to level up fast, and I didn’t have the time to ponder the choice. Judging from the screams of rage now mingling with the howls of pain, there were a lot more of the green bastards out there, planning on coming over here and using my spleen for target practice. Being locked in agony for an uncertain amount of time would almost certainly end badly.
I picked Master of Puppets. Not only was it a cool song, but I also assumed it wouldn’t involve any physical changes. I pulled myself back to my feet and looked for Alicya. She groaned as she climbed upright, trying futilely to wipe the mess from her front half.
“Your towels behind you.” I sneezed and shot a tongue of fire towards the roof of the cavern. “That’s weird.”
“Explosive.” She finished, treating me to one of her suboptimal glares. Big brown eyes just didn’t have the same punch as purple reptilian ones.
“I figured that part out, thanks.” I sneezed again and released another burst of orange-green fire. “They always come in pairs.”
“The spores are in your lungs, Bob. I’ve never seen what the Facemelter Spores do to your kind, so this will at least be interesting.”
“The what-spores? Jesus Christ. How was I supposed to know they’d go boom?”
“I was trying to tell you. You hear that?” She pricked one ear up and looked somehow adorable despite being a furry, six-titted immortal slaughter machine covered in a grab bag of gore. “Drums in the deep.”
The booming had started softly, shortly after the echoes of the explosions stopped echoing back and forth. At first, I’d thought it was just the last of those echoes, somehow lasting longer than they should. But it began to build and was now approaching the level of annoying. Not quite nana volume on a TV, but getting closer.
“This must be a primary nest. Luna’s Lovely Leggings! Bob, we need to get out, get treated, and come back with a goddamn army!”
“Pfft. Who do you think I am?” I pulled a portal stone out of my pocket and opened a blue oval back to the mana crystal floor. “KAT! Oh crap, she’s negotiating with Cheville.” I stuck my head through the portal and looked around. “Inedible Reg! I need squads of bunnyborgs and BB-209s here now! Time is a factor; don’t make me wait, I can still add you to the menu.” My stomach churned at the thought of ever eating again.
Biomass stored:
921.7 KG
Biomass required for evolution: 380 KG
Rolling for evolution choices…
Please select from the following six options:
-
Increase Mass
-
Defile the Debased
-
Gargantuism (Select organ)
-
Ritual Magic
-
Parasite Cleanse
-
Mana Battery
Bulb and Denario dammit. What use were bloody gods when you were cursed to constantly be on the brink of exploding every time you kill something? And no epic roll? I needed to eat some more Umbraxis steaks but… the mere thought of food…
I picked Mana Battery. When I got mana upgrades, they weren’t so bad. At least they didn’t leave me like the walking dead for half an hour. My flesh tingled and ached, but not enough to stop me catching a noblin that came out of nowhere and threw itself at me with a dagger in each hand.
Even as it started choking, the green dude tried to stab me in the arm as far up as he could reach. I hurled him away and glared at the green tide flowing towards us. Alicya had dropped into a crouch, her claws held out at her sides, lip peeled back in a silent snarl.
“Missa Somnambulis!” The crowd fell to the ground, snoring and farting. Alicya apparently had no regard for a fair fight as she charged forward and began slashing and biting at the unconscious monsters. “Missa Vivica!” I didn’t get fat when zombies did the killing.
Green bodies, and parts of them, began to stir. The bastards at the back, the smart ones, stopped charging and looked uncertainly at the corpses that started to heave themselves in their direction.
“Stop bitching at me! Obey my will! Kill the noblins!” I ordered loudly. The angry yells stopped, and the undead turned silently on their cousins.
A squad of roborabbits burst through the portal and charged at the still living enemies. I wouldn’t get fat from them killing things either. Or them making weird noblin corpse statues. Those had no nutritional value.
A BB-209 stepped through, and the portal closed behind it.
“Go and kill the little green guys. Leave the hairy chick alone! She’s with me!”
It scanned across the battlefield before turning its torso back to me. “Negative poultry detected. Kill all enemies,” it said in a flat voice. None of the cyborg bunnies had ever spoken a word. They were bundles of heavily contained rage and hate, no thoughts, just violence and grotesque sculptures waiting to be unleashed.
“The werewolf! The hairy woman!”
“Confirmed.” It stomped forward, a shield flicking up in front of it as a volley of arrows fell around us. I ignored them and pulled another portal stone out of my possum pouch. Another blue oval appeared next to me.
“Reg! It’s too much distance for mass deployment. Send me some more portal stones with the next squad!”
We established a pretty efficient system. I hung back and let the minions do the killing, refreshing the portals every time the stones ran out of mana.
Alicya bounded over on all fours, tongue hanging out one side of her mouth. “You aren’t getting in on this? I’m assuming these things don’t need to worry about the spores?”
“They're mostly machine, to be fair, so probably not. How badly do we need to get decontaminated?” I sneezed three times, aiming the blasts of fire up and away from the damp furball panting happily in front of me.
“Pretty soon.”
I opened another portal. “That lot will just kill until there’s nothing left. We can leave them to it.” The rage of the noblins had long since turned to screams of fear. “Let’s make this quick so we can get back after that asshole Hurg.”