Oaths to Eep

Authors Disclaimer

As always, all characters in this story are 18+ years old, and entirely fictional.

There will be magic, violence, sexual acts and some light mind control.

If you have not yet done so, I will encourage you to go back and read chapter 1 before you proceed, otherwise a lot of stuff might not make sense to you.

If you do like it, make sure to vote for more by leaving one of those juicy five star reviews. Also please do leave a comment, as those help me improve as an author.

Chapter 6

"Holy shit, this is complicated!" I muttered, wiping sweat off my brow. Trying to wrap my mind around the endless lists of skills, powers, spells, perks, equipment, buffs and boosts was hard enough, but the deadline we had set for ourselves was fast approaching. We did NOT want to lure any monsters inside, by lingering here too long. It was unclear if they would fuck off, when we did, or set up shop.

"Complicated would mean it somehow made sense, and it really doesn't." Amber complained. She was working frantically on the next terminal, tapping away at options, looking for things to fill the roles I had suggested. If we had not been on a time limit, I would be going over every detail with her, but for now I would just have to give it a quick once over before she made any final decisions.

"Like this here Badger Fury skill is a lot more expensive than the Berserker Rage skill, even though there is a note on it that says it has been unlocked, and it doesn't do nearly as much as the Berserk skill. It is stupid and it makes no sense!" Amber continued.

"Yeah, I know. There probably is some sort of system. I think that once you fit the requirements for a skill, it becomes cheaper, and if you have had it offered before when you level up, it becomes even cheaper. Like this here Mending cantrip that I am definitely going to pick up. Perhaps it got unlocked for you when you turned into a badger, but since you are not in fact, a badger, it is expensive as fuck..." I speculated, as I kept working on my own list.

The first hour I had spent just adding all the things I could think of that would be nice to have, and could conceivably be paid for with the experience points I had saved up, and the treasure we had brought along. Since then I had been working on shaving down the list, trying to find the most efficient versions of each item on it.

I felt more than saw Amber's eyes bore into me.

Turning my head, I saw her staring intensely at me, then with a smile, she shrugged out of her top, and started to shimmy out of her pants.

She had not put on her full gear yet, so with that, all of her glorious body was on display, naked except for her badger items.

"I don't think we can spare the time for another round right now..." I began, but started to loosen my belt just the same.

Before I could get much further than that, a short giggle turned into a growl, as she began to transform. Her flesh writhing, fur spurting out of her pores, her form widening, her legs shortening, until she stood before me in her dire badger form.

"Grrngh grrrr rargh." Amber explained.

I swallowed a couple of times, the sight of her transformation, unexpected as it was, had rattled me for a moment.

"Uh what?"

"Rargh!" She insisted, and waved a paw in a come hither motion.

Curious, I complied, and watched as she started to poke around on the screen.

Then she pointed, and let out a triumphant huff.

"Holy shit."

She was pointing a claw at two items on the screen.

Now Badger Fury was a miniscule cost compared to Berserker Rage.

"Grrrwr raaargh."

"Yeah, I see it. That is a huge discount! I guess now that you ARE a badger, you get all the badger stuff dirt cheap! Huh. I guess I should see if I can snag any poltergeist powers..."

"Grrrgh?" Amber inquired with a smirk. At least I was fairly certain she was smirking. Badger or not, I knew her well, and even without words, there was no doubt what she was saying.

"Yeah, you ARE a fricking genius!" I admitted, as I poured my will into the ring, trying to trigger my own transformation. It went faster this time, only a handful of seconds, but I was definitely going to practice doing it faster, as a handful of seconds was still an eternity if someone was trying to chop your head off.

I was more or less expecting to not be able to interact with the System terminal in my intangible spirit form, but I guess the System was meant to give access to everyone, even if they were not corporeal, so the screen felt perfectly solid against my ghostly fingers.

"Yes!" I exclaimed, tempted to grab Amber and kiss her, except it would probably be rather weird for the both of us, in our current shapes. Loads of interesting options that I had not even considered before were open to me, some of them dirt cheap because I currently counted as a spirit and an undead, from what I could tell.

With very little time left on my daily transformation charge, I rushed through the options.

Anything too expensive, I didn't even read.

Anything with too much text, I ignored.

When I felt myself starting to tingle with the transformation magic of the ring, I made a snap decision, and purchased Fling. It was a skill that allowed me to modify telekinesis, allowing me to throw light objects fast, with a burst of telekinetic power, instead of having to control them the entire way.

I had a couple of ideas on how it might come in handy, and it seemed really cheap.

With my body returning to normal, all the prices on the screen flickered and increased by an order of magnitude. Yeah, I was not going to buy any of those, without being transformed.

"You find anything good?" I asked, when I had fully transformed back.

"Grrwr..." Amber shrugged, and pointed a claw at the screen in front of her.

"Sure. I can take a look."

As I stepped up next to her, I wrapped an arm around her in a bit of a side hug. She was warm and very fuzzy. Iit felt weird to hug a giant badger, knowing it was my sexy Amber in there somewhere, so I pulled away and started to scroll through the options she had on screen.

"Yeah, most of those look fine. Just don't go overboard. You can't be a badger all the time, so focus on what will be useful all the time and... hold up, wait a minute... THAT one, add it to your list!"

"Rrrwr?" Amber inquired.

"Just a hunch. I think it could be exploited, if the System adheres to the way it is written. Anyway, it is cheap, so worth the risk."

Amber shrugged and added it to her list, as I suggested, and kept working, as I went back to my own terminal.

-X-X-X-

"There! That's the last of it!" I said, as I pushed confirm on the panel next to the platform. With a buzz and a flash of light, the entire pile of silver and gold I had put there vanished.

"Are you sure I should spend it all right now?" Amber asked me, which was a bit surprising, the old Amber would have taken it as her just tribute.

"Yeah, your upgrades are cheaper because of your lower level. Is it enough?"

Amber scrunched up her face in concentration for a moment, as she scrolled down the page on the screen she was standing in front of.

"Nope, not quite. Maybe I can substitute something else from the list?"

I went over to read the screen over her shoulder, giving her a back hug at the same time.

"Nah, I think you should drop Feign Death for now, you already got other ways to GTFO with the Sprint ability and the badger stuff. Then you have enough left over to level up."

Amber raised an eyebrow and looked at me.

"Won't that make it harder to farm more badger items?"

"Yeah, but there is no guarantee that we will find more badgers anytime soon. It was good while it lasted, but killing the alpha means no more will spawn for now. So holding you back on the off chance that we do, seems like a bad idea."

I could tell that Amber wanted to argue, but in the end she just let out a huff and shook her head.

With a few clicks we finalized our choices, and that was that.

Immediately doubt set in, but with millions of options ahead of us, and a limited time available, we simply had to do the best we could with what we had.

"Right. Let's get out of here, we still have much to do!"

"Alright, just give me a hand with my armor, I can't get the straps quite right."

It took me a moment to figure out what needed to be done, but in the end Amber indicated the armor felt like it was properly secured. It was a bad fit to begin with, so when we could afford to, we should get her something nice from the System shop, if we did not get lucky with a loot drop before then.

"Was something broken?" Amber inquired.

"Well it is a bit worse for wear, but the issue seems to be that your size changed when you leveled up just now."

"What? Did I put on weight? DID I GET FAT?" Amber blurted out, whirling around like a dog trying to catch its own tail, in an effort to see if her ass had suddenly doubled in size.

"Not at all. If anything, putting the extra point in dex, while keeping things balanced otherwise, just made your waist slim down a bit. If anything you are even more perfect now. Perfecter than before."

"Perfecter is not even a word, you dork!" Amber snickered, but seemed pleased with my praise, and instead of frantically trying to find where any weight she had gained had spawned in, she instead twirled and showed off her now even perfecter assets.

Yeah. I was going to make it a word. In this new world, who was going to stop me?

When we got to the exit, I put a hand on Amber's arm, causing her to pause before she could push open the large glass door.

"Hold on, let's be careful. Just because the monsters supposedly lose interest when we are inside the safe zone, doesn't mean they won't wait in ambush." I explained, as she turned her face and shot me an inquisitive glance.

"Didn't you say you figured the minotaur would chase away those assholes?"

"I said I HOPED it would. But even if it is still chasing them, there's still the goblins to contend with. Without the minotaur to make them cower in fear, they might be all over us once they spot us."

"I wouldn't mind fighting a few goblins, I feel SO powerful after I leveled up just now!"

"Yeah, with your effective constitution score you have almost as many hit points as me. In fact, with your damage reduction from the badger set, you are only a single hit point behind me in effective hit points."

"I always knew I was destined to be awesome!" Amber joked. At least I think she was joking. At the very least she beamed me a cute smile, and gave me a little wink.

"You were always awesome, but even with more hit points, you still need a lot more training. Being able to survive more blows just means a slower death, if you can't land your own blows. Plus, there were a LOT of goblins out there. Too many, even with our new skills and spells."

Amber seemed to deflate a little, when I mentioned her lack of actual fighting skills. Sure, she was getting to be very handy with thrown daggers, but actual melee was a different matter.

"Spoilsport!" Amber retorted.

"Yeah, well, call me old fashioned, but I prefer my women alive."

"YOUR women. Am I YOUR woman now?" Amber teased, wiggling her eyebrows.

Relieved at the change of topic, I just grinned at her.

"Yeah. You wanted to lead my harem, remember?"

It felt good to banter with Amber. It gave me something to think about, other than the existential dread of having to survive in this new fucked up world.

"Okay... Here is the plan..." I began.

-X-X-X-

Outside was a bigger mess than when I had left it.

Planters had been tossed aside, a couple of sign posts had been bent, and a nearby car seemed to have been flipped.

It could have been the minotaur venting some frustration, but with the addition of a pool of red blood on the pavement nearby, it looked like the scene of a fight.

While red blood did not necessarily mean it was from a human, it most certainly did not come from a goblin.

I did not particularly like the assholes we had met, and if Bryan had a nasty accident, I would not be too sad about it. The other two seemed nice enough, even if I did not agree with their choice of company, so I did hope those two were alright.

Having them out there working to prune the monsters a little, was better than nothing, and at this point, I could use all the help I could get.

With no human or minotaur bodies lying around, there was no obvious clue as to how the fight had gone, or even that it had been concluded.

There were quite a few dead goblins strewn about, from when I had kited the minotaur through them. A colorful pile of twisted metal and trash indicated the minotaur had spent a least a few minutes getting rid of most of the junk that had been slowing him down.

Disappointing, if expected.

"Bad news. The minotaur ditched the junk, so he is likely faster than us again." I muttered just loud enough for Amber to hear.

"Faster than you, yeah. With my sprint skill, I should be able to outrun you both!" Amber replied, also keeping the volume low.

We were getting a lot better at the not whispering thing.

"True, but even with your constitution it doesn't last long. So make sure to use it to break contact if at all possible. Having to fight when you are already winded really sucks."

Amber was about to reply, but we both heard something rattle nearby, and immediately crouched down behind the flipped car.

Not able to see anything, I gestured for Amber to follow me, and we started to move, keeping the car between us and the direction the sound seemed to have come from.

Moments later, about half a dozen goblins appeared from that direction, and even with the cover of the car, they seemed to spot us just fine.

With a couple of shouted goblin words, they started to race after us.

We did not even pause to consider fighting them. Although we should easily win, it would take time. Time for their backup to arrive, or one of the other groups nearby that had been hiding from the minotaur earlier.

Instead we dropped all pretense of stealth, and instead poured on the speed, racing for the corner of the block to break their line of sight.

With my longer legs, I was faster than Amber. Not by as much as I had been. Her badger set had increased her strength a lot, and with her new level on top of that, she was almost as strong as me now, and the added power let her almost keep up with me as we ran.

When we got around the corner, she was right behind me, giving me very little time to react.

I noticed the tip of a spear poking slightly past the corner. It was low, almost parallel to the ground. With the System enhanced speed of my thoughts, I had plenty of time to notice it and react; With a leap, I managed to clear the tip and brought my foot down on it. A maneuver I would have dared try, if the wielder had been able to see me.

With the spear forced down and out of my way, I turned sharply to follow the angle of the shaft, trying to ram whoever was holding the weapon.

As I rounded the corner, I counted another half dozen goblins waiting in ambush, one of them still trying to recover his weapon, rather than relinquish it and draw a sidearm. The eternal spearman's conundrum, when someone rushed him. Retreat and keep the spear, or drop it and fight with an inferior weapon.

He did not have to ponder long. With him bending over to retain his grip on his spear, his face was conveniently placed to meet my knee.

The rest of the goblins had their weapons drawn, mostly their usual short swords, except for one other spearman, but before they could react, my knee collided with the face of their comrade with a loud CRUNCH that seemed to indicate bone breaking, followed by the short guys head being thrown up and away, a trail of emerald blood rushing from his ruined nose and mouth.

The rest of the goblins were trying to react, but failed to do so in a coherent manner.

One tried to grab his now unconscious friend in a rare display of goblin empathy, as if to prevent him from further injury. Their spear guy lowered his weapon threateningly and backed up a step, as if expecting me to rush him next. Two others whirled to face me, jabbing their blades in my direction, but failing to connect before momentum carried me out of their reach.

The last one was slower to act, seemingly trying to come up with some sort of command, but only managing half a goblin word, before even that much turned into a croak and a gargle.

Amber had come around the corner right behind me, and her dagger thrust did not quite sever his head, but certainly did a number on his windpipe and ensured whatever brilliant poetry he had been about to share, would forever be lost to the world.

"Keep moving!" I hissed, noticing Amber turning slightly as if to square off against another.

Not waiting for her response, I shoulder checked the goblin that was trying to catch his friend, causing both of them to obstruct the path of attack for the spear goblin, thus widening the hole through their ranks for Amber to follow me more easily.

"Fine!" Amber replied through gritted teeth, and corrected her course, following me in a mad dash past the goblins.

We made it halfway down the block, before the goblins were joined by our initial pursuers and started to run after us.

With their short legs, they did not have much chance of catching us, but having them on our tail forced us to keep running, instead of just sneaking away.

"Faster!" I huffed, trying to encourage Amber to keep up, as she was starting to fall behind slightly.

That was not quite the way she took it, instead she suddenly sped up significantly, overtaking me easily, leaving me cursing and trying to pour even more speed on to catch up.

She flashed me a grin as she passed me, as if daring me to catch her.

"Damn it, Amber, now is not a good time to put a skill on cooldown!" I grumbled, as I struggled to keep up.

With her constitution she could keep it up for around four minutes, before being forced to slow down. The badger items and her level had her at more than twice my own constitution, so even without the skill, she would likely be able to leave me in the dust in a longer race.

Escaping pursuit is rarely about a long race, though. Rather it is about putting enough distance between you and your pursuers to break contact or cause them to give up by showing them you are much faster.

The latter was definitely possible with goblins, but there were too many goblin ambushes around the town center, so we could not risk a long chase.

We needed a way to break contact, and fast.

Getting to the next corner of the block, I had to yell at Amber to get her attention.

"Right. Turn right!" I shouted.

I had briefly pondered continuing forward and across the square ahead. It had a large amount of options of where to go from there, including the large brownstone church, which had so many potential hiding spots.

But sadly, it also meant that way was the most likely to have additional ambushes.

I would have preferred to go back the same way we came, but that was not currently an option.

Amber kept going for another few yards, before my words registered, and I was already going around the corner, before she adjusted and started to overtake me again.

"This way!" I hissed, trying to make her follow me, rather than running ahead without a plan.

"Slowpoke!" She countered, but kept pace with me.

Another fifty yards, and with a glance over my shoulder to make sure the goblins had not yet turned the corner, I grabbed Amber with one hand, and a drain pipe with my other, causing us to turn sharply into a narrow passage I knew quite well. Not quite wide enough for two people to walk side by side, I shoved Amber ahead of me.

It was dimly lit even at the best of times, a single small wall lamp had provided a bit of illumination when electricity was still a thing, letting people get past the mailboxes, stairs and randomly strewn bicycles.