Chương 29: Bad Dog

Day 1 Since I wasn't going to get a fancy new tiger shape, we instead decided to focus on grinding experience. If there were any easy-to-kill Created around, I'd certainly get to 10 quickly—at least if we maxed out my first kill tasks and then returned to the fire station. I was eagerly munching on my 2nd sandwich of the day, courtesy of Stephen, who was back up and prepping food for everyone.

I'd wanted to ask him more questions about his class, especially his level 5 perk, but more people were getting up, some of whom I rather wanted to avoid right now.

"What do you think? How much of the sandwich could be lost that it would still provide the buff?" I asked Jamie, holding up a slice of pepperoni.

"Do you think if I miss out on this I wouldn't get it?"

"I studied literature, Eve, not philosophy. But truth be told, I wondered the same. When I finished that bowl of pasta, there was clearly some remaining in there, but when I felt done, the buff kicked in."

"Do you think the Blessing is using our minds to figure this stuff out? We are done eating when we think we are done? You felt the same when you lifted me, right? The moment it turned from struggle into accident, I got much lighter?" Jamie finished his sandwich at the same time I did.

"I think you are onto something. Why don't you ask Gabriel?"

"Because I am nearly certain that the answer would be: Yes and no, it is more complicated than that." Naturally, the beautiful voice in my head had to speak up.

"And you would be entirely correct. It is more complicated than that."

"Hah. I was right," I said.

"But does it matter?" Jamie asked.

"Well, it doesn't until it does. Everything around us is guided by a web of intricate and interconnected systems. I wouldn't trust my computer's operating system with my life, and I don't like to trust the Blessing either." Jamie contemplated my words before he answered.

"What did you hack? Also: check that buff." [Very Well Sated (159 minutes) +2 to all Attributes]"Damn. We should have brought him along. Imagine what he'll cook up at level 20. As for your question: When I moved to LA, I did security consulting for the big players there."

"But you hated that?"

"Yes, I did. Lucy said that if I had stayed there, I'd be Fallen by this point—and I'm not entirely sure they're wrong."

"And I'd be eaten by bugs. Glad you moved back. But what did you do before? I assume moving to the other end of the country was meant to firmly part from that old life?"

"Before that was Claire and, well, hacktivism. As much as I don't like that word. Stealing the bad guy's data, selling it to fund our operation and forwarding it to the people who could actually do something about the bad guys. Nine times out of ten they couldn't, or wouldn't, but there are some proper assholes who went to prison due to what we uncovered."

"Really? And here I foolishly thought you only cared about saving mankind when it came with experience points."

"Wow, Jamie. Maybe that Paladin class does fit you. What did you think I meant when I said I was a hacker?"

"Something like stealing people's credit card data. Or whatever those cryptocurrency people do."

"Oh ye of little faith. I do suck at first impressions, do I?"

"Well." Jamie paused.

"Yes." Checking my character screen, the +3 total to all attributes had provided me with a meager +1 to my Charisma. Jamie, noticing my silence, went on.

"But you do make up for it with actions."

"Won't stop the people from whispering, will it? You know I heard them."

"People always do, Eve. You can't imagine the gossip people shared with me in my line of work." My reply was cut short when I spotted a small Asian supermarket down the street. With any luck it'd be unlooted and knock out nearly half of Stephen's wishlist. We were indeed very lucky, filling our inventories with dried and fresh goods alike. I was just standing at the counter, trying to decipher if the can in my hand was caffeinated or not, when I noticed three red dots on the streets. ["Reds on my map, hide."] I wrote in party chat, as I snuck behind the counter. The enemies must have noticed something, too. They slowed down and eventually stopped. I heard faint noises. It sounded like speech, but high-pitched and with a laughing cadence to it. The dots split up, one slowly crossing along the other side of the street. I peeked over the counter, at this point certain they knew we were in here anyway. Between two cars, low to the ground, I saw it moving—a hyena.

I couldn't get a visual on the other two dots, and then they vanished from my minimap, without them moving any further away. My Heightened Senses skill might have been able to keep track of one that was trying to hide while moving, but possibly failed the moment they stopped. ["One or two gnolls and one or two hyenas. Three in total. I think they are setting up an ambush for us."] I wrote. ["What's a gnoll?"] Jamie wrote.

From how Gabriel had explained the Created, I had expected more myth, legends and cryptids; less monster manual. ["Hyena people. I think they are supposed to be pack creatures. There might be a nest nearby. If it's two hyenas I'd expect the gnoll to carry ranged weapons. Probably javelins."] ["Do you think that's… like at all risky? I don't want to seem arrogant, but compared to yesterday, a dude with javelins and two murder canines doesn't seem too risky?"] ["First and foremost: I think they have more in common with large cats. And have one hell of a bite. Second: Yeah, we haven't gone too far, and Gabriel said the Blessing would hold back near clusters of Blessed."] ["Again: Literature, not biology. How are we doing this?"] ["I'll run out and see if they all rush me. If they do, let me see if I can solo them as the buffalo. If they stay in cover, maybe come out and we can flush them out together."] Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ["You want to take on hyenas as a big fluffy walking steak?"] ["It's a cape buffalo. Ash said they packed a punch."] ["Oh. Yeah. That's not what I was thinking about. Details matter, Eve."] ["I'll try to figure out the scientific name next time, Mr Not-a-Biologist."] I slowly made my way to the entrance and pulled the ballistic shield out of my inventory.

If they were opening with ranged weapons before I could shift, I wanted something between them and me. By now there were no more dots visible on my map. # With the last hyena slain, I had to fight against the urge to charge the next approaching target, despite the blue dot on my map. I shifted back to human shape, breathing harder—and my heart beating faster—than the ease of this fight would justify. I looked away from the corpse of the second hyena.

My plan had been to wait out my cooldown and gore it, so I could use the bleed debuff to get the kill for one of my other shapes. Somewhere between plan and execution something had gone wrong—its skull got shattered and its body burst like overripe fruit under my hooves.

"Eve? You okay?" Jamie asked. He'd been the blue dot, of course. Which I'd just been pissed at for… existing in my space?

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Mostly. Just hadn't expected this shape to be so angry." Lucy's laughter rang through my mind.

"Oh, kitten. You rampaged all night as a family dog and a prey animal. Now that there is a bit of a killer instinct you are getting scared?" I held up my hand when Jamie started to say something. Hopefully by now the understood signal for Guides-are-speaking.

"They aren't wrong," Gabriel went on.

"You've been using bodies against their instinct before. If your intent and internal state lines up with the actual instincts, they will feel more powerful. Keeping those instincts from overwhelming your rational thought will be something you'll need to practice." I groaned and lowered my hand.

"Unexpected lecture?" Jamie asked.

"That and mockery. Just have to be more careful with this shape." The stench of the corpse became unbearable. I walked back toward the little supermarket. Jamie fell in step beside me.

"You know—initially I was bummed about this paladin class. But at least it is really straightforward. Stand my ground, hold my shield, apply sword to bad guys, healing hands to good guys. And sometimes it gives me a warning when I'm about to do something wrong. I suppose that shape didn't come with one?"

"Nope. If it wasn't for Ash, I'd have thought the same as you. A 'wild cow'. Do you think he might get a perk to share his knowledge at some point? I could use a biology textbook or two. I wonder what the odds are that we can find an offline backup of wikipedia around here. Remind me to ask Claire what parts of the local universities we've already found." We continued looting the store, chatting across the small room.

"You plan on building a wyrm-free internet?"

"No internet, just isolated computers. Claire could do with a text-to-speech device, too. Maybe if we find a 3D printer, I can even build one of those chording keyboards." Jamie paused his looting and looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"You, Eve, are a good person."

"It's practical. People will treat her more like a person if she had a voice-voice instead of being a creepy plushy that only shows up as text."

"Still. That breakup was bad enough that you ran away to the other side of the country. And here you are, thinking about giving her a voice." I kept loading up on dried beans.

"I also brutally murdered a part of her hivemind." Jamie went back to it, too.

"Yeah, there is that, I guess."

"Let's see if I can track that gnoll to where it spawned. Maybe there are more." When we left I took a moment to pull the spray can from my inventory and sprayed 'LOOTED' right next to the supermarket's door. There were others like us out there, and my hope was that they'd see this and do the same, saving everyone time in the process. # With how smelly it was, I could probably have tracked the gnoll as a human instead of relying on Angel's shape.

Which was an important data point on how the Blessing integrated those creatures. They used stealthy tactics, could talk to their animal companions, but had zero defenses against being tracked by scent. Which, turns out, they didn't need any. They had real defenses. Like iron walls and guard towers, manned by crossbow gnolls. We'd stopped when the compound came into sight. It looked like the Blessing had taken a junkyard and turned it into a gnoll fortress. A Mad Max-style gnoll fortress.

["That doesn't look like a two-person job."] I wrote. ["Not at our level. I think. Do gnolls have night vision?"] ["Can you even sneak up on a guard and slit their throat?"] ["No, but I can rush in to rescue you once you inevitably catch their attention."] ["Not a two-person job. Let's warn the others to stay clear of here and we can organize something another time. But yes, a nighttime assault might be preferable. Let's keep looking."] Eventually our efforts were rewarded.

Nestled between two taller buildings was a segment of park. Off scent alone, I could tell that this area was different, and did not belong to NY at all. Also that it extended far beyond the one plot area the entrance covered. The inscription on the iron arch over the entrance not being in any human language only added to my suspicion. ["Time for a walk in the park?"] I asked.

"Don't jinx it, Eve." ["Oh, please. How bad could it be?"] I added, and couldn't suppress my tail-wagging.

"Bad dog. Tempting fate is a no-no," Jamie said—his attempt at deadpan delivery, ultimately thwarted by his grin. I felt like I should have felt more offended for being treated like a bitch. But then I was really spending a lot of time as a dog. There were of course perfectly sound tactical reasons. I had spent the ATP to achieve this shape, and had not yet gotten my refund. After the Cape Buffalo, it was also a lot more comfortable. Zero additional desires to murder anything, besides my own.

And senses that would prevent most surprises the Blessing could throw at us.

"How about we go into one of the adjacent buildings and check out what this looks like from above?" Jamie asked. ["Annoyingly reasonable suggestion. Of course we should."] We made our way to one of the neighboring apartment buildings.

"What is it about that forest that excites you?" Jamie asked. It was a good question that I didn't have an immediate answer for. ["Something about the idea of a magical forest just intrigues me."] # From our vantage point in a nearby apartment, we could see the full extent of this 'forest'. My nose hadn't been wrong—it was massive. Here and there parts of overgrown buildings poked out of the sea of green.

There were distinct signs of landmarks being hidden in there, though from our point we couldn't make out any details. Only that there was a large clearing toward the center and smaller clearings sprinkled here and there. The question of cause and effect was an interesting one. We must have passed near the outer layers of this forest already, but they'd been entirely obfuscated by the buildings there. Which supposedly had been shuffled by one of Hell's attacks.

Had the Blessing noticed an opportunity to hide a big-ass forest in NYC in the aftermath of that attack, or had it affected that shuffle itself? Did Fate nudge Hell's dice, too? And if it did… did Hell know?

"That might not be a one day job," Jamie said. ["But it looks like a great opportunity to get both of us to level 10."] I didn't even try to suppress the tail anymore. It had been wagging ever since I stretched up to look over that balcony's railing and witnessed the forest dungeon. ["We can always leave if we start running low on resources or time. This doesn't look like it'll respond with an organized force, right?"]"How do you know there won't be like—wood elves?

Going to cut off our exit route the moment we get in too deep?" ["I don't, but I might be able to smell them before they do that. Push comes to shove, you'll have to learn really fast how to rodeo and I'll bulldoze our way out of there."]"Riding you? That'd be a bit undignified for both of us, don't you think?" ["Not as undignified as getting caught by wood elves."] I swapped to Guide chat. ["Do Created ever take prisoners?"]"Yes, they would, if it is in-character for whatever they represent," Gabriel answered.

I did not ask further questions regarding how much the Created followed their 'lore'. Humanity did not lack imagination when it came to thinking of horrible creatures with horrible habits.

"Well, your excitement is certainly contagious. Let's get that experience." I briefly checked out my sheet. At some point Instinct had gone up to 12.