Zoe woke up pissed.
Or it might be more accurate to say that she regained a Human level of intelligence and self-awareness to find herself pissed. The sudden memory of her experience in the time between now and the last time she was a full person was as disconcerting as it was disorienting.
In like, at least three different ways. In chronological order, she could now remember what it was like to have your mind downsized and compressed like a shitty mp3, what it was like to continue on like that, and then what it was like for something about equivalent to a wolf to become Human-like again.
“You know, I think a wolf is an accurate comparison there.” Upon hearing the disembodied voice, Zoe had to wonder if Lilith also experienced the personality reduction from being stuffed into her core.
“Not really,” was the answer that followed. “Maybe you wouldn’t either, if you hadn’t gone and severed us from ourselves.”
Zoe wasn’t in the mood to deal with that again. She didn’t have a real understanding of what Lilith meant—and she didn’t want to. What she wanted to do right now was confirm that she was okay—and then figure out where she was.
“Hey you. You’re finally awake.”
Zoe was still a little fuzzy, so it took her a moment to pinpoint the speaker. In so doing, she realized she was shackled to the wall in a barren prison cell. That seems un-good. Bad, you could say. The speaker was a woman who was not Human.
“No, I’m pretty sure she is.”
Really? Zoe didn’t get why Lilith thought that—until she remembered that Humans were just smart animals—and any animal could develop a core and make the jump to classification as a monster. Why am I different as a higher Demon, though? Lilith could probably answer that.
“Yes, I probably could, but I suggest we talk to this person first.”
Zoe realized she had been staring like a creep. And yet, the wolf-like woman in the cell next to her looked disappointed rather than creeped-out. “Yeah I’m awake, evidenced by me being awake. Where are we?”
“Imprisoned.”
Gee whiz, that’s super-duper helpful!
Zoe was smart enough not to say that out-loud. Also, the wolf-woman had already continued. “Thank fucking fate you speak Veyrse, now I might actually have someone worth talking to.”
“I am speaking your stupid Veyrse also!”
Zoe looked across the aisle to the guy in the cell directly across from the wolf woman. The guy in it looked suspiciously normal. Aside from being a bit gaunt and a little too soulless-looking, he was barely memorable. So I guess that means this isn’t some kind of monster prison—so, why am I here?
A paper scroll unfurled itself in the air in front of her. Zoe blinked. What? Looking around, it seemed as if no one else noticed it. She focused on the scroll—and found that she could read it.
She’d already made great leaps in her pursuit of literacy with that librarian guy—but that was over a single night. Even her raised perception and the natural language mastery system perk from her outsider title weren’t enough to make her master it that quickly. Not that she hadn’t made excellent progress.
This scroll was different. It also wasn’t anything like the Veyrse script she’d been learning. Sounding it out in her head revealed it wasn’t even Veyrse at all.
“It’s a dialect of Demonic,” Lilith supplied. “Which only requires study for non-Demons.”
Zoe was dying to know how an entire monster type could automatically understand a common script—but that was for later, because the scroll was rapidly vanishing. Crumbling, really. She skimmed through it twice—it wasn’t long.
To my lovely little Demon Brat,
I told you your head isn’t worth much. You are here because I deposited you here. Perhaps you will come to appreciate the reality of our world, little Outsider. I couldn’t let you keep getting so lucky—you don’t need it.
With my immense Love and Affection,
- Basil Von Blodmane
PS please avoid dying. It would be considerably inconvenient.
Zoe’s mouth parted into a small -o shape as the scroll disintegrated. Then she dismissed the obnoxious cultist and returned her attention to her fellow prisoners. They’d stopped talking and were both watching her. “Okay, that hollow-looking guy sounds like he speaks our language, why not talk to him?”
“Look, yes! New girl is right. Why are not talking to nice Lodtvik?” The fully Human guy had a heavy accent, sure, but Zoe didn’t see why that precluded effective communication. She had zero problems understanding him. Zoe said as much.
But the wolf lady didn’t look convinced. She just shook her head. “Do not talk to the soul eater.”
Wait, excuse me? Soul eater? Soul. EATER? Zoe stared at the only-barely-creepy guy. He was something called a soul eater? Zoe thought being a ‘Demon of disdain’ with the class ‘bloody devotee’ was edgy enough for a lifetime. This guy was a god-damned soul eater?
“Do not listen to hunter-forest-animal girl. I am not eating souls. I am using-again souls. I am artist of soul.”
Hunter forest animal? Zoe supposed he didn’t know the word for ‘wolf’ in the language and just resorted to getting the idea across. It worked pretty well, she would admit. Clearly, this guy didn’t so much have an accent as he was just beginning to learn the language in the first place. Soul-eater or not, she could help it out there.
“Wolf.”
“Eh?”
“She is a wolf girl,” Zoe clarified while pointing to the wolf woman in question. She did make sure to double-check with identify first. Getting that wrong would be far too embarrassing.
“Ah, wolf girl, thank you.” He nodded his head knowingly with a smile. “Wolf girl.”
The identify information was useful enough but hardly fascinating.
[CORROSIVE DEATH-Lycan]
Level 31 | Rank E
It’s like a werewolf, but with extra emphasis on the killing you part and having been deep fried in battery acid. Do Not Touch.
-Strengths-
> Power
> Physical Regeneration
-Weaknesses-
> Endurance
> Enemy Affliction Resistance
I think this is solid confirmation that the system descriptions are custom-made for me. Zoe found it hard to believe the system would use the phrase “deep fried in battery acid” for people in a world with a distinct lack of batteries.
It was nice to know the strengths, and weaknesses, no matter how basic they were. The ones listed here made perfect sense—power and a high degree of physical regeneration were classic for a werewolf. The low endurance was less obvious, but fit—and the ‘enemy affliction resistance’ confirmed the implicit assumption from the ‘corrosive’ part of her monster type.
Zoe also used identify on the other guy.
[NICE ARTIST LODTVIK]
Level <better than you> | Rank <wouldn’t you like to know?>
Nice Artist Lodtvik is innocent and very nice and you should trust him.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
-Strengths-
> Problem Solving
> Active Leadership
-Weaknesses-
> Not Telling
> Fuck Off
Zoe blinked. That was—interesting, for sure. She raised an eyebrow at Lodtvik. It looked like she wasn’t the only one capable of modifying what would be displayed from her status—but this guy wasn’t so subtle about it. I don’t even know which part is the best. Pretty much every section was great up until the ‘weaknesses.’ Those were rather mediocre.
The wolf woman was trying to get her attention, so Zoe obliged. She wasn’t interested in whatever the woman had been trying to talk about, though, so she decided to poke her more about her dislike for the Lodtvik guy. “I still don’t get why you don’t like Nice Artist Lodtvik. The system told me he’s nice, innocent, and that I should trust him.”
The wolf woman—whose name Zoe realized she hadn’t gotten—scoffed. “Yeah, right. Haha, very funny. What next, the system is going to give you a key to the core suppression shackles and you’ll bust us out of here?”
Wait, what? Was she supposed to not be able to activate any skills? Zoe tested it with something both discreet and especially magical in nature.
Mana Channeling!
The skill activated just fine—but that didn’t make sense. What was the point of imprisonment in a world where individuals had superHuman powers in all different varieties? Unless there’s a way to suppress that—which Zoe assumed there would be, and that fit with the comment about shackles. So how can I still activate skills if—Zoe froze as a thought occurred to her. Monsters don’t have classes or skills.
Cutting off mana channeling, she reached into her inventory. She tried to. There was nothing—not even the sensation of the ability failing. It was a disconcerting feeling, the spiritual equivalent of reaching into your pocket for something and your hand going through a giant hole. Holy shit.
That was scary. There must be shackles to suppress classes and skills, too—but if everything only had a monster core system or the class system, then why bother making shackles that did both? Zoe could only guess, but she assumed it wasn’t something trivial to make.
Zoe knew there was only one kind of being that had both—and it was one Zoe had since come to understand was quite rare. A higher Demon. But while it was obvious Zoe was a ‘monster,’ she still had the durable cosmetics the maids forced on her. And if anyone bothered to identify her? They probably did—and the status effect from her demagogue class would hide it.
Zoe realized that Lodtvik was looking at her. Really looking at her. His expression was unreadable—serious, maybe. “You can identify me.” It was a simple statement, and it carried an immense weight. The as yet unnamed Lycan woman froze.
Then she shook her head. “That’s not possible—“
“She can.” Lodtvik didn’t take his eyes off Zoe. “You have class and skills, yes?”
It was Zoe’s turn to freeze. Then she nodded. She also made sure to look around at all the other cells—she wanted to make sure the entire place wasn’t about to erupt in chaos. To her relief, it looked like Lodtvik and the Lycan truly were the only other ones who could speak the language at a usable level.
Said Lycan’s mouth hung open, exposing her appropriately enlarged canines. “How?”
“I can’t access my core properly,” Zoe touched her chest, “but as your soul-eater friend said—I still have my classes and skills.”
It was a big enough revelation for the woman to forget her apparent animosity towards the aforementioned soul-eater. She stammered for a few seconds. “But that would mean you somehow have both a fully developed core system and classes, but that’s not possible except for—“
She cut herself off. Lilith cackled. “Looks like someone finally put it together.”
The wolf woman’s eyes couldn’t get any wider. “No…”
Zoe couldn’t resist the manic grin that threatened to split her face apart. You know, I’d be a lot more on-board with this whole Demon thing if everyone reacted like this.
Lilith made a mental snorting sound. The Lycan started mustering herself to ask a whole lot of questions—Zoe could see that just by reading her expression. She wasn’t in the mood, though, no matter how much the positive attention pleased her. She was going to figure out their escape. Yes, the unrestricted access to both classes and all of her skills was great, but she was still shackled to a stone wall with thick metal cuffs and bindings. For all that she had an advantage, she was still only Rank F.
Someone was talking with great animation—the still-unnamed Lycan, there was no doubt—but Zoe was too focused on the puzzle. Looking over her status, she narrowed things down to three options. She also noted that her ‘juvenile blood fiend core’ section was all ‘grayed out,’ so to speak. But that wasn’t important here.
Shapeshift out of it with lesser disguise, try sheer strength from her core stats, or use one of her deadlier skills to cut her hands and feet off one-by-one then heal them back. Zoe wasn’t too keen on trying that last one.
Lesser Disguise!
The skill worked just fine. What didn’t work was using it to shapeshift out of the bindings. Zoe had already established that it wasn’t a mere illusion—the skill really changed her in some material way. The problem she encountered now was the evident limitation on the extent of the shift.
While she was able to shrink either her hands or feet by a good bit, it was nowhere near enough to let her slip through. And not for lack of trying—Zoe tried very hard, putting so much force of spirit behind it that she depleted roughly a third of her mana and started feeling that damned soul strain again.
“Well, shit.” The skill just wouldn’t let her push beyond the limits of ‘typical adult Human.’ And, if she were honest, she did push past those limits at the end. Yet still, going into the realm of young child hands felt impossibly beyond her. That’s a good thing to know about the skill, I guess.
The wolf-lady grunted from the next cell over. “Not working?”
“Nope.” Zoe took a moment to rest a little and recover some mana. “I have another way to do it… I just really didn’t want to. I was hoping for something less, uh… messy.”
“Messy?”
“Yep!”
Her neighbor cleared her throat. “Uh, what do you mean, messy…”
Zoe didn’t answer. She was too busy psyching herself up for what came next. There were a couple ways to go about this. She settled on trying rending touch first. If she could focus it on a smaller area with more precision, it could do it quite quickly. The other main option was sawing it off with blood whip. That sounded—less palatable, even. Here goes. Zoe slapped her right hand onto her left wrist.
Rending Touch!
Someone yelped in alarm, or surprise—Zoe wasn’t sure. She barely registered the sound at all. She was too occupied with enduring the pain of having close to half her arm obliterated. Tears welled and clouding her vision—a mercy, as the short glimpse she got of her arm shredded like a popped balloon from the mid forearm down was enough.
God fucking DAMN IT.
Rending touch has reached level 7!
Thanks, system. Clearly, that was far too much power. Her attempt at containing the skill within a focused area didn’t quite pan out. Rather than enhance the precision and decrease the affected area, forcing it into one little spot made it explode outwards with all the more violence. Still, a burst forearm was preferable to acute internal bleeding affecting her whole body.
Mending Touch!
Aside from the debilitating pain, there was the real danger of bleeding out. She was losing a lot of blood—already, the growing puddle had spread to wholly surround her. The activation of rending touch’s counterpart skill drew even more blood—but that same blood was moments from leaking out anyway. This at least stopped the outflow, and had the convenient bonus of dampening the largest share of the pain.
Mending touch has reached level 3!
Breathing hard, Zoe wiped her tears with her remaining hand. She then took a moment to marvel at her freshly healed-over stump. She released a weak laugh. “Guess I can shapeshift into an amputee.”
Someone cleared her throat—and the noise came from within her mind this time. “You do realize we could already do that with lesser disguise? Do you really think we couldn’t copy someone with a missing limb? You only tried shrinking our hands—never mimicking a stump.”
Zoe’s mouth fell open. She was distantly aware of the Lycan woman pelting her with rapid-fire questions and Lodtvik laughing his ass off like a madman. Wait, why is he laughing? He can’t hear what Lilith says. WAIT. That was right, she was supposed to be angry right now! Why the fuck didn’t you mention that?!
“Uh…” Zoe felt she wasn’t going to like Lilith’s answer here… “Well I thought it was going to be funny?”
Zoe couldn’t even be mad. It was as if her rage had reached such hitherto unseen heights that it became some new, unexplored other thing. She shook her head. That was something to deal with later.
Lesser Disguise!
It didn’t take her as long to free the remaining three limbs from their restraints. Then she was back on her feet and back to normal—aside from one missing left hand—and ready to begin her epic prison break sequence ahead of schedule. It was impressive that she’d kicked it off before seeing a single guard, let alone meeting the local big bad face-to-face.
But how to get out of the cell? Everyone had their full attention on her now—and there were a whole lot more monster-people than just her, wolf-girl, and Lodtvik the alleged soul-eater. Speaking of which, the one Human-looking guy had far more restraints than anyone else, she now realized. He was so strapped down he could only move his head a little. And if that weren’t enough, the adjacent two cells were not only empty—his cell definitely looked extra ‘high-security.’
Huh. There had to be an important reason for that.
But with the rising chatter of a dozen or more people in at least half as many languages, Zoe knew she needed to act. Someone was going to come checking in on them soon.
None of her skills had an obvious way to get through the bars—but Zoe was no longer limited to just skills. Reaching into her inventory, she brought out something she’d wanted to play with a few days earlier.
[DEMONIC ICE SICKLE]
Rank E
Is it a spear? Is it a war-scythe? Who knows, but it’s obviously made of ice! Also, it’s an infernal weapon, so the ice probably has something to do with the frozen essence of cold, unrelenting Hate.
But, with zero mana-cost and a high likelihood to inflict stacking levels of both Chill and Despair—what’s not to love instead?
-Attributes-
> 85% Efficacy at Rank E
> 115% Affliction Efficacy at Rank E
> 51% Quality
Let’s see if this is useful for anything. The sickle materialized in her hands. Someone gasped. Zoe just grinned. The weapon was shockingly light in her hands, and made of a frosty pale-blue material. Like literal ice, but not quite. It also looked like a regular, basic scythe—just with the blade rotated to point straight out.
A blade which was both gleaming sharp and positively thrumming with baked-in mana. Zoe didn’t know what was going on here or why that dick Basil dropped her here—but she didn’t really care. Not when there were guaranteed levels, loot, and fun ahead of her.
Zoe swung. Crackling sparks burst from her weapon where it sliced across the bars. One more swing, and the sound of metal hitting stone echoed down the aisle.
“Right then. Who’s ready to get out of here?”