Sunday, 10 March 2019

Story: Curse of the Human




The running of a crypt is a quite serious matter. The boss of the crypt has a responsibility to keep things organised, keep things running and ensure that it was a safe haven - nay a home - for all that dwelled within.

All beings but humans, that is to say.

Now. To ensure all of the above there were a series of protocols in place to dissuade "adventurers" from pillaging and raiding into places not meant for them. Glored scowled and watched through his enchanted crystal ball: He was a little relieved that his girlfriend was elsewhere, but he was also concerned that humans would attack while she was away. It was irrational, but he couldn't help but imagine that they had somehow encountered her on the way and ground her up for their precious “EXP.”

Time to enact protocol #1.

"Send out our monsters in gradually increasing strength to combat the intruders," Glored ordered.

The idea was simple, by keeping the strongest in reserve you could wear the humans down, so if they were strong enough to take down the strongest then by the time they reached said powerful monsters they’d be far too worn down to fight effectively.

The fact that this would mean that the humans would grow gradually stronger and stronger as they gained “EXP” never even crossed Glored's mind. Nor had it crossed the mind of any other monster. They didn’t really understand what humans meant when they talked about that. Matters like "level" confused them a little as well.

"Fight on, my worthy followers!" Glored said into the minds of all who lived and worked in the crypt. "Hold naught back! Let no tactic they employ assail you!"

"Master, reports are coming in that the humans are employing an unusual psychological tactic," his assistant said out of nowhere .Glored gave her a stern steely glare that made her flinch. "It's astounding. I've never seen anything like it before..."

"Cease your babble and tell me." What could it be? Those humans... they were inventive in their cruelty. It never ceased to amaze, the things they could come up with. The weapons they could devise. The spell combinations they invented, the armour they could forge... Why, a mere piece of accessory could render them immune to the harshest of poisons!

"They appear..." the assistant gulped. "To be trying to talk to our monsters."

<hr>

“You see, by <b>not</b> hugging you I am respecting your personal boundaries.” The knight said to the extremely baffled mold monster hanging mid-pounce off the ceiling. “So how about you scurry along now?”

The mould looked around nervously, and then slid into a nearby crack in the wall. That... had not gone anything like it had anticipated. What a dastardly attack! His words had inflicted the 'confusion' status effect!

“That’s one who listened to diplomacy.” The mage behind the knight said, “Now there’s just… a couple hundred more dear. Keep using that Charisma stat!”

Inside the wall, the mould took a swing and wound up hitting itself. Nearby mould monsters watched on... somehow... without eyes... and shuddered in fear before the terrible attack.

“Don’t let their tricks scare you, just hit them. Don’t listen!” The eyes of most of the monsters turned towards a figure that walked towards the humans. The wall of creatures split apart to let him past.

It was a being that looked vaguely human. In fact, at first glance a human may have mistaken him for a rather short and very, very ugly old man with a particularly long beard and somewhat oversized head. That is, if you ignored the green glowing eyes, the pointed ears and the sharp teeth that could probably bite off a few fingers without effort.

"Let me show you how we deal with humans around here!"

"You want to deal with us? Wonderful!" the mage said, clapping her hands together. "You see, enough patience and we can talk to someone who knows how to negotiate."

The monster lifted up its hand, deliberately ignoring what they had to say. Then the Knight shook its hand. Fine by them. This would only make the electricity conduct through him easier...

"Alert! Alert! M-Monsters outside are reportedly transforming into humans! Infection vector is unknown! I repeat, infection vector is unknown!"

Imagine a giant old man's head suddenly bulging out its eyes and recoiling its hand like it had just realised it had shaken hands with an acid golem. It pulled the hand away and beat a steady retreat, as did every other monster nearby as the word quickly spread that humans were contagious.

"Ah, I see! He must be going to fetch us drinks."

"How courteous of him."

Glored snoutclawed at that. This is the dragon equivalent of facepalming. As it is quite a painful thing to do, it is only when a dragon sees something truly and monumentally stupid that they ever indulge in it. These adventurers had no idea, did they? He'd have to deal with this whole 'contagious human' malarky later on. The protocols were quite clear: The humans invading their territory had to take top priority over literally anything else! Even to the point that Glored would have to wait for them to get here before doing absolutely anything not connected to them.

Which meant he couldn't do anything about, for example, locating his girlfriend or warning her about the contagious humans or checking that she was safe or keeping her away from the humans or...

"Sir, I must remind you that melting pillars with your firebreath is against protocol."

Fine then. In this condition he could hardly send his monsters out to capture the humans. In which case the only safe response would be...

"Set a trap for them," he ordered.

“Alright, let’s see... Falur from accounting mentioned that we got a new badge of exploding firebombs we could drop on them.” The assistant said, checking his notes to make sure he remembered right.

"I was thinking of something a little more... devious."

<hr>

When you're an experienced adventurer - like this Knight and Mage - you learn a few common tricks that are used by monster to try and trick you. The most common try to take advantage of basic human greed.

As such, when they came upon a raised pedestal with a spotlight on it that was pointing directly at a golden, jewel encrusted chest the idea to open it didn't even enter their minds. This would have been true even if the reason they were there had been a typical dungeon dive.

But they did start walking up to it nonetheless. Though they were both quite deliberately staying out of arm's reach.

"Golly, it's such a good thing we came here in peace otherwise we'd be looting this chest," the Knight said. And not quietly either.

"True, true!" the Mage yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Why, I would be stabbing into it with my sword to get the gemstones off. I mean, look at all that gold, carrying this thing back would be impossible.” She answered, speech getting louder and she waved her sword around to show what she meant.

"Oh, if only we could warn these poor monsters of the dreadful plague that will come to sweep them up," the Mage loudly moaned, back of hand to forehead. Lamenting, nearly weeping.

“Ah, it is truly such misfortune that none of them seem to trust us. Even though we just wanted to stop this strange infection from hitting them without warning.” The knight lowered his head a little, almost as if he were mourning. "Though we thought they were being courteous and listening at first, now we understand that they were being frightened off by our -"

"Yeah, yeah! I get it! No need to rub in that you've seen through it," the treasure chest said. It then sprouted arms, legs, eyes and really sharp nasty looking teeth. Behold the dreaded mimic. "So, what's the deal with this plague thing? Keep it snappy, I'm a busy mimic."

"It turns monsters into girls."

"Awesome," the mimic said. "Can't turn into humans. Always wanted to give it a spin. Meantime, the boss wanted to thank you for dropping in."

The floor then disappeared all around the Mimic's podium, sending the two adventurers down into a nasty looking pit where the dungeon's prison cells awaited them.

"Let it never be said that Master Glorious Crimson let a good deed go unpunished," the mimic wagged its finger. "Now... How do I go about getting myself infected with this thing?"

  1. Glorious Crimson decides to confront these humans in their cell to get some answers.
  2. Meanwhile, outside the dungeon the curse proceeds to infect all monsters it encounters.
  3. By sheer bad luck the secret entrance Razz took to the crypt is the same place the humans fell into via trap door.
  4. Sal Ei is the one infecting people, oops.
  5. Something Else

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