Room 10… (63 days ter.)

  Sitting up, Nox spped herself then stared up at the night sky where two moons, one a pretty ocean-blue and the other an inviting forest-green, were lighting the night. For a moment she studied them, then struggled to her feet. It’d been the equivalent of another two Earth months in this world and not much had changed. Well, other than her coinage being a fair bit lighter, and the relentless mob that now hounded her wherever she went.

  “Are you okay,” Si asked as the girl first chewed on the rat bread and then took the offered silver coin.

  Nox nodded.

  Si was quiet, but her frown showed that she knew the girl was lying.

  Silently Nox made her way through the streets where Ginger was waiting, as were a crowd of other people.

  “Hey, what’s your Blessing,” a woman asked.

  It was a question that the same smirking woman had gleefully asked every day for 60-plus days straight, and to which Nox had always only merely given a shrug. Yet that woman seemed to know the question annoyed the girl, and for some reason she took great pleasure in it.

  “Leave her alone,” Ginger fumed, gring at the woman. “She doesn’t want to answer. What’s so bloody hard to understand about that?”

  “Shut up, backstabber,” a man sneered. “There’s something wrong here, and we want to know what it is? What sort of twisted Blessing did she get that she’s so ashamed of it? We have a right to know!”

  “Yeah, a Blessing is given based on what you do, backstabbing thief,” another woman savagely retorted. “How do we know she doesn’t have a Blessing like yours? Or even worse! Is she a murderer? A sver? We want to know!”

  “It’s time to put an end to this nonsense,” another man growled, gring at both the beastkin and Nox.

  Ginger gulped.

  Nox scowled. The crowd was little more than a mob out for some entertainment. And she was the entertainment. Nor was there any way she could now reveal her Blessing as a prostitute. Worked up as the adventurers of the city were… she would be getting several thousand propositions a day. And those propositions would never stop as the people gleefully pursued her, taunting her, just because they could. It seemed whatever the world, people were the same.

  Sighing, she looked up at the sky, again eyeing the moons. The forest green one made her wonder if perhaps it was a world of forests. Maybe one where there were no people.

  “So, what’s your Blessing,” a woman demanded, her blue eyes showing a dark rage that terrified Nox to her core.

  “Yeah, tell us,” a man commanded, trying to intimidate the girl by standing close to her and gring down.

  “Back off,” Ginger snarled.

  “Fuck off, backstabber,” the man snarled back.

  “We could drag her to the guild and force her to reveal it,” a woman snickered, clearly hoping.

  “We should,” a man quickly agreed, gring wrathfully at the girl. “What else can we do?”

  Nox gulped, wanting to swear, but also not wanting to rile the crowd up further. She wasn’t sure what a guild worker saw when she went to the guild, but apparently they saw neither her Blessing nor her subrace. On the other hand, if they were to make an imprint… Bad as their finding out she was a prostitute was, in which case she could just leave town, she wasn’t sure what would happen if they questioned her subrace as a pneswalker. Then again, for all she knew pneswalkers might be common in this world, and the guild might not do anything.

  The girl ground her teeth together and gred at Ginger who cringed. After all, while the crowd had been curious before, they hadn’t been so ruthless until at the guild the beastkin girl had gone bthering about Nox’s Blessings, and how rare it was and how she had a rare skill.

  One day passed into the next and people, with hostile gres at Ginger and Nox, hurried towards the dungeon. Nox bent down to gather a handful of pebbles, after which the duo each handed a silver coin to a guard and also stepped inside.

  “Sorry,” Ginger said.

  Nox helplessly shrugged and told herself that at least it would soon be over. That soon she would be leaving the city behind for good, and would have a fresh start in a new pce. One where people didn’t know her.

  Stepping around the fire, they approached the inner door. As usual, it left Nox wanting to curse whoever, or whatever, had come up with such a system where a dungeon had 1000 rooms, and you could only do one room a day. It was absurd. Sure, the dungeon was a newbie dungeon, and was obviously designed to force impatient and dumb-as-shit kids, such as herself, to take it slow and not kill themselves while they explored the dungeon… but it was as infuriating as hell.

  Inside the room was a six-foot cyclops that stared at them with a single, murderous, bloodshot eye. With just a loincloth to preserve its dignity, the beast raised a massive wooden club and charged with a savage roar.

  Without apparent concern, Ginger dashed forward, casually twisted around the club as it swung at her, and deftly pnted her dagger in the creature’s back. The cyclops stumbled, then stood straight and twisted around with its attention now entirely on the beastkin girl.

  Nox gulped. When the creature’s attention remained focused on her, she always had to flee, but while she didn’t have to actually fight, to get credit for clearing a room she had to actually be in that room when the monsters died. Much as she wanted to run, she had to stay.

  Muscles tensed to flee, she watched the fight. While a soldier or guard would gain 1 strength and 1 constitution per level, a thief gained 1 strength and 1 luck, making them fighters whose skills were partially based on luck. Nox was also pretty sure that for her level 1 skill Ginger had picked lucky strike—a skill that would enhance the base damage of a backstab, as well as the likelihood of a critical strike. Added to the fact that beastkin were often stronger and/or faster than humans, it made the beastkin girl a bit more lethal than the usual dungeon delvers delving in the Dungeon of the Cyclops. Even so, the dungeon was clearly meant for two people who could assist each other in battle.

  Cringing, when the cyclops turned its attention fully on the beastkin girl, Nox threw a pebble at its neck, causing it to whirl around. With the cyclops turned away from her, Ginger took the chance to backstab it again. The man-creature roared, and turned back towards the beastkin girl.

  I fucking hate this, Nox mentally scream as the fight progressed. How the fuck is sending kids in to fight a bloody monster okay? A single wrong move and…

  Even so, she knew that most people didn’t enter dungeons. And for all the scary muscles that rippled across the cyclops as it snarled and swung that club of his, he was slow. For two people like Ginger the fight would’ve been pretty safe—except of course there was only one of Ginger, and one very scared girl who liked sitting in a cozy room in the middle of the night pying with computers.

  The cyclops fell and burst into a spray of blue light.

  Ding!

  You have cleared room 10 a total of 20/20 times!

  You have killed a mini-boss. (Triple Rewards)

  Base Reward: 30 experience.

  Additional Reward: 6 experience.

  Room 10 Completion Award Generation!

  Base Reward: 150 experience.

  Additional Reward: 30 experience.

  Rolling chest… 189

  Bonus chest… 37

  Final chest…226

  Nox quietly read the words, noting that boss rooms gave triple rewards. Personally, given the danger, she thought it far too little and, scowling, she called up her Blessing.

  Worldly Prostitute

  Name: Nox Walker

  Race: Human

  Level: 1/100

  Subrace: Pneswalker

  Exp: 1600/2000

  Str: 101

  Con: 102

  Int: 103

  Wis: 103

  Cha: 102

  Luc: 102

  Mana: 103/103

  Stamina: 47/102

  Regen: 1.03 Per Hour

  Regen: 1.02 Per Hour

  So close to the next level, the girl fumed. But that would take more coinage than I have left. Besides, with the crowd that’s making my fucking life fucking miserable… it’s time to leave town. Good thing I travel light. Tomorrow morning and that bloody mob will find their prey has fled.

  She turned her attention back to Ginger who was examining the small, pin chest that’d appeared when the boss had died. Taking a bag from the chest, the beastkin girl tossed it at Nox who caught it.

  She already knew that with a chest numbered 226, there would be 2260 coppers in the bag—10 coppers per value of the chest. “You’re the one who will be going back in the dungeon,” Nox pointed out. “You need the coinage more than I do.”

  Ginger shrugged, and again looked in the chest. She took out a pair of gloves that had a metallic strip across the knuckles. “This can be my part,” she stated.

  Nox shrugged and slipped the bag inside her tunic. Along with the 3270 coppers she already had, it would bring her total coinage back up to 5530 coppers, or 55 silver and 30 coppers.

  “Where are you going to go,” Ginger asked.

  “I don’t know. A random city, I guess,” Nox replied. “Take a wagon to somewhere. Then take another wagon.”

  “Sorry. If I hadn’t bbbed about you having a rare skill out loud…”

  Scowling Nox didn’t know what to say to that. People normally wanted to brag about rare skills since it meant prestige and potential income… but the girl had known she wanted to keep quiet about it, and had still bbbed it.

  “Yeah, doing stupid stuff is how I ended up with backstabbing thief as a Blessing, as opposed to the hunter skill I wanted,” Ginger stated and sighed. “Technically a backstabbing thief is stronger than a hunter, but it makes things difficult at times. Nor are thieves as good in the wilderness.”

  Nox nodded.

  Together they stepped out of the dungeon and into the arms of a mob that closed around them.

  “You’re coming with us,” a man told Nox. “We’re going to the guild, and you’re going to show us your Blessing. Try to run, and we’ll hunt you down.”

  Ginger blinked. “That’s against the w,” she snarled.

  “Fuck off backstabber,” another man snarled back. “When we find out what sort of monster she is, it’ll all be justified.”

  “Are you going to allow this,” Ginger demanded, looking at the two guards who stood beside the dungeon.

  They shrugged, and looked away.

  “Why are humans always so fucking unreasonable little monsters,” the beastkin girl fumed.

  “Big talk coming from a fucking backstabber,” a woman said with a sneer.

  Nox peered around for a way out, and her stomach sunk. With the mob numbering at least several hundred, there would be none. For her, this was it. She would be marched to the guild and her Blessing as a prostitute would be discovered. As well as her subrace as a pneswalker. Though what the tter meant, she had no idea, but her sinking stomach told her it would be bad.

  “Fuck,” Ginger swore, looking unsure of what to do. She grabbed hold of Nox and tried to pull her away from the mob.

  “Backstabber,” a man fumed, and struck the beastkin girl across the face.

  Before Nox could blink, that man’s arm was snapped in two, and he was then brutally spped across the back of the head, sending him into either unconsciousness, or death. She wasn’t sure which.

  “Do you ever not cause trouble,” the beastkin woman who'd done the deed fumed, gring at Ginger.

  “Um. I would say no, but you would know I was lying,” the girl replied.

  “Damn right I would. Who knows you better than I do,” the woman said with a smirk.

  “Who the fuck are you,” the guards to the dungeon demanded, finally stepping forward.

  “The person who’s going to file a compint with the guild about you useless pieces of shit standing to one side while a crappy piece of shit human hits my sister,” the beastkin woman snarled, her teeth inches from one of the guard’s face.

  Nox blinked, and studied the blue-haired, blue-eyed woman. The resembnce to Ginger was… utterly cking.

  “Hmm,” the woman mused, studying Nox back. “Yes, you and my sister are definitely a lot alike,” she mused.

  Nox blinked.

  “I mean, that hair incident… that’s just the sort of thing that would happen to Ginger.”

  Nox blinked again, and blushed. It seems the newcomer knew far more about her than she cared to have anyone know.

  “So that girl is a bloody beastkin,” a man fumed, gring at Nox. “Should’ve known with how weird she looks. Her eyes aren’t right. And the shape of her face is all wrong. She’s one ugly looking slut.”

  “No. She’d definitely not a beastkin the beastkin woman stated. Not with that Blessing of hers.”

  “What is her Blessing,” a woman demanded, daring to shove her face up to that of the beastkin woman. “We have a right to know.”

  “You have a right to get my hand across that ugly face of yours if you don’t get it away from me,” the beastkin woman snarled, deliberately sending a spray of spittle across the face that was inches from her.

  Her face still a bright red, and wanting to sink into the ground, Nox watched it all. Vaguely, she recalled that most beastkin had mating seasons. Prostitutes were a human thing only.

  The beastkin woman turned back to Nox.

  “For all the trouble she causes,” she told the girl, “Ginger does usually try to do the right thing. After she’s messed it up a dozen or so times, that is. And she did mention you possessed a rare title. Given you’re someone with few, if any levels, I would guess your luck is around 100, right? Yet, in the dungeon, you give a twenty-percent bonus to both experience and loot. You have the worldly skill, right?”

  Gulping, Nox nodded.

  “Bullshit,” a man roared. “No one would keep such a skill hidden. She’s lying.” A hundred voices echoed agreement.

  The beastkin woman open her mouth and let out a growl/roar that caused the mob to fall silent.

  “Silence you bloody inconsiderate morons,” the woman fumed. “I’m trying to have a conversation here, so fuck off and go and do your moaning and whining elsewhere.”

  “You can’t speak to us like that,” a man bellowed.

  “I just did,” the beastkin woman pointed out. She smiled at the man and Nox saw a glimmer of a spell in her eyes. The man immediately wet himself and fell over backwards. With abject terror in his eyes, he scrambled away.

  The fear spell, Nox noted.

  “You can’t use that spell on a human,” a guard screamed.

  “Sure I can,” the beastkin woman retorted. “Here I am surrounded by you surly humans, and he yelled at me. I felt threatened.” She smiled at the guard.

  “Come,” she told Ginger and Nox, and she bent down and picked up the unconscious, or maybe dead, man she’d spped earlier.

  “Let him go,” the two guards, demanded, hands on the hilt of their swords.

  “He attacked my sister,” the beastkin woman retorted. “If you idiots want him back… go and ask at the guild where I will be turning him in at the same time as I’m filing a compint about you two.”

  Not knowing what else to do, with Ginger at her side Nox followed the woman. As she did so, she tried to recall what she knew about beastkin. It wasn’t much. She’d rarely heard people talk about them, and only had what little knowledge she’d gained about this world when she’d somehow ended up teleporting herself here.

  That they formed packs that usually numbered between a hundred and two-hundred blood-reted individuals was one of the few things she was sure of. People within the packs recognized each other by scent, and when the pack grew too rge, or the retions between members of the people in the pack too distant for them to know each other by scent, members of the pack split off and found niches in other, smaller packs, thus preventing inbreeding.

  Within her knowledge of them there was mention of a distant war, or maybe it was just a myth. But it spoke of a group of humans who being greedy, encroached on the nds of a beastkin tribe and brutally sughtered them without mercy. The other tribes objected, but the humans cimed they’d been provoked. Three years ter, the same group of humans did it again. Again they cimed to have been provoked. Two years ter it happened a third time. This time, according to legend, the beastkin tribes as whole united and sughtered the group of humans down to the st man, woman, and child, and recimed not only the nd that’d been stolen, but the nd the human group had originally occupied. And as for those humans who objected—they too were sughtered.

  At the guild, Nox saw Callo go pale. The man, looking like he wanted to burst into tears, then forlornly sighed with an expression of abject desotion adorning his weary-looking face.

  “Here, this trash struck my sister,” the beastkin woman said, and tossed the unconscious, or maybe dead, man she carried over the counter at Callo.

  Callo immediately felt for a pulse and from the relief in his eyes it seemed he found one.

  “Also, those guards you have at the dungeon, they stood by and allowed a mob to form. A mob that thought it was okay to strike my sister,” the beastkin woman added, bestially snarling the words.

  The woman then led the way to a table where she sat down and indicated for Ginger and Nox to also take a seat.

  “How have you been doing,” she asked, looking at Ginger.

  “Okay,” came a sullen reply.

  The woman nodded, then look at Nox. “How’s she doing in the dungeon?”

  “Okay for someone who’s basically soloing it,” Nox replied. “But she really needs someone who can back her up in there.”

  The beastkin woman nodded. “I see,” she mused, gring at Ginger.

  “Hey,” the beastkin girl retorted. “I’m doing just fine. I’m even able to drag someone through with me.”

  The woman looked back at Nox. “What happens if she keeps it up,” she asked.

  “I don’t know much about dungeons, or fighting,” Nox admitted, “but eventually the monsters will start to outcss her. Good as she is, and to my inexperienced eye she is good, the dungeon is designed for two people who know how to fight. And who have good equipment.”

  Ginger growled at the girl.

  The beastkin woman reached across the table and flicked a finger across her sister’s nose.

  Wrinkling her nose, the beastkin girl sat back and focused her gre on her sister.

  The beastkin woman sighed and studied Nox. “I’m Verdant by the way.”

  Nox nodded.

  “Your worldly skill makes you quite valuable you know,” the beastkin woman then added, eyes still on the girl. “If you were to post an imprint of your Blessing, you would have any number of benefactors to help you make levels. For that matter, you’re not exactly ugly for a human, so why not make use of your Blessing and go to a-” Seeing the expression in the girl’s eyes, the beastkin woman decided to stop there.

  “Just what the fuck is her Blessing,” Ginger demanded. “And why does she hate it so much?”

  “What are your pns,” Verdant asked, ignoring her sister.

  “Get out of this city, and… I don’t know. Find another city to stay, I guess,” Nox replied.

  “No more dungeon delving,” Verdant asked.

  Nox shook her head. “No. Too dangerous, and by far too expensive. What funds I had are almost gone.”

  “I see,” the beastkin woman mused, nodding her head. “Too bad. Depending on how your skill works, dungeon delving has the potential to be very lucrative. It’s a twenty-percent boost now to the dungeon rewards with your luck at 100. But, is that twenty-percent static, or will it increased to forty-percent when your luck hits 200?”

  Nox shrugged. She had no clue.

  “Hmm,” the beastkin woman again mused, sounding conflicted.

  “Okay,” she finally stated, voice firm, a full minute ter. “Thing is, Ginger has herself in a pickle, and in this accursed city no one seems willing to partner with a beastkin with that Blessing she has. Why? No clue. After all, having the backstabbing thief Blessing means her backstabs are pretty strong. But it is what it is, and she got stuck with you—a human.”

  Nox nodded.

  “So, if you run off, there’s no telling how long it’ll take for someone else to partner with her,” the beastkin woman added. “Hence, it’s in her best interest if you stuck around, so I’ll cover the cost of the admission fee for the Dungeon of the Cyclops, and have my little sister pay me back ter.”

  Ginger winced.

  Nox blinked. “No,” she decided.

  Verdant sighed. “Dealing with humans is always so painful,” she mused aloud, grinding her teeth together. “Why not,” she demanded. “There are still 800 rooms to go, so the deal to you is worth 800 silver! You should be flipping out with joy. Nor is it a handout, if that's what you're worried about. That twenty-percent extra experience is something many people would be only too happy to fork over a silver a day for.”

  “The people in this town are psychotic, and I’m not staying here,” Nox expined. “If a human won’t partner with her, why not have a beastkin?”

  “It’s complicated,” Verdant stated. “Just think. She got the backstabbing thief Blessing, for crying out loud.”

  Ginger flinched, and looked down.

  “Besides,” Nox added, “dungeons are meant for two fighters. Not one good fighter and one idiot who can barely kill a rat with a spear.”

  Verdant reached across the table and flicked a finger against Nox’s nose. “When I learned you were partnered with my sister, and that you had the worldly skill, I investigated you,” she expined. “You’re a complete beginner with a spear, but for the time you’ve spent on it, you’re quite skilled. You just don’t have the Blessing to get the full potential out of it. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  Nox wrinkled her nose.

  “As for your Blessing,” Verdant continued, “by hiding the fact you’re a prostitute, you only drew attention to yourself.”

  Ginger blinked, and looked at Nox.

  Across the guild a brief silence fell before it erupted into a cmor of snickering and ughing.

  Nox clenched her teeth together, and hated the beastkin woman for so callously revealing her Blessing to the whole guild, but she also knew that now no one would be threatening to drag her to the guild for an imprint of that Blessing. Meaning, the much more vital secret of having pneswalker as a subrace was safer. Still, to escape the harassment, she would have to leave the city. Of course, she’d been pnning on doing that anyway.

  Two men stood and swaggered across the room towards her, only to pause when Verdant gred at them.

  “Yeah, your life will be a pain because of that,” Verdant stated, “and it sucks that like Ginger you got stuck with a Blessing you didn’t want—albeit in your case it wasn’t deserved. In her case…” She gred at her sister who flinched.

  “I’ll be blunt with you,” Verdant said, her attention back on Nox. “You can run to another city, and try to hide your Blessing again… in which case you’ll probably end up in a brothel. Or you can take my offer, and complete the Dungeon of the Cyclops, which should get you to level 9 or 10 in your Blessing.”

  Realizing the beastkin woman couldn’t understand, Nox scowled. The woman before her would never be propositioned for sex, or anything of the sort. She would never have an unwanted hand on her butt, or have a guy leer at her. Nor would she ever be catcalled while walking down the street. With the crowd in this city having worked themselves into a frenzy… nearly every male of that crowd would egg each other on and hundreds, maybe thousands, would proposition her each day. Not because she was attractive—far from it—but because they were a mob, and she was their prey. Seeing any expression of misery on her face would only excite them, and egg them on even more. It would be 800 days of pure hell. A full two Earth years!

  “You do realize Ginger would be better off with someone who can fight,” Nox pointed out. “That with me as her partner, she could die in that dungeon.”

  Verdant visibly winced. “I know, but this is the path she chose. Much as I would prefer to change it, and keep my sister safe… it’s already set in stone.”