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.
17
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.
Carclass="underline" 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.