She Was Too Low Level Kay Astley

Kay Astley the Human Fighter, Level 1

The Guildmaster looked up from the large tome where active quests were logged, admiring the figure of the small Human woman with dusty blond hair walking towards his counter.

She's returned,

he thought,

and much quicker than I'd thought. That's good, really good. The impatient, naive, overenthusiastic bimbo spent barely any time choosing out gear for her first quest.

Look at her, that 'armor' is more about fashion than protection. So much skin left exposed, her ample bust on display like a trophy. And that dinky little shield? More of an accessory than a useful item. She looks more like a prostitute dressed up as an adventurer than the real thing. And that tiny, cheap sword! Looks like she got off the discount rack of a third-rate blacksmith. And not a whiff of magical enchantments on any of it.

The inexperienced level one fighter would struggle to take on a quest slaying rats in a cellar. But I knew that when I approved her entry into the Adventurers' Guild. She was so eager for this life, left her boring little farming village to come to the "big" town and start a life of adventure and glory. So naive. So easy to manipulate. So simple to convince the pretty little twit that 'everyone' knows you must start on solo quests to make a real start as an adventurer. No group of well-meaning more experienced Guild members is going to get the chance to help this doomed, fertile little floozy.

"I'm ready to accept my first quest," Kay Astley proclaimed, glowing with eager pride as she stepped up to the Guildmaster's counter. "I'm all kitted out and pumped to get out there and prove myself!" She glanced around the Guildhall, looking to see who her enthusiasm had impressed. The realization that none of the other adventurers socializing in the large hall had paid any attention to her only dulled her glowing enthusiasm a little.

"Is my Guild token ready?" she asked.

"It is," the Guildmaster replied, pulling the large coin-shaped emblem out of a pocket and handing it to her.

He watched as the young woman held it in her hand, eyes glinting in awe as she stared enraptured at it.

What's going through her head right now? Is she imagining the life of adventure and fame she thinks that emblem has unlocked? Is she replaying songs she's heard traveling bards who came through her crappy little village sing, putting herself into them as the triumphant hero? Of course she is. She thinks she can take on any threat, that her youthfulness and enthusiasm are all she needs.

"So," she said, finally looking up from the Guild token, "have you picked out a good quest for me to start my career with?"

"Yes, I have," he replied.

"It's one that will earn me riches and glory?"

"Oh, no doubt. After setting out on this mission your life will be forever changed," he told her, smiling slyly at how he spoke truth he knew she'd misunderstand.

Women truly are stupid, nearly useless cows and it is ever so enjoyable to outsmart them so easily.

She looked down at her coin then back up at him. "What does it say about me when you look at it with that magical monocle you have?"

"It has down your name and the information you shared with me about your life up to this point. It also lists your 'class' as Fighter with annotation of the level you're rated at."

Kay giggled excitedly. "And what level am I rated? I know you were impressed by my skills during the trial you put me through."

The Guildmaster had to struggle not to laugh at her. Oh, he'd been impressed, impressed such an unskilled fighter thought her clumsy handling of a sword was anything to be so proud of. He'd been impressed she thought she had any skill at all at being anything other than eye candy.

It was clear

WHY

she had the inflated ego she had. She was an exceptionally attractive young woman. Her face was almost painfully cute while her body was one even a magically sculpted whore would be jealous of. She was sexy and dumb in a way that left most men wanting to bed her and impregnate her on first sight.

And she didn't even realize it.

The dumb, simple-minded men populating her pathetic little farming village would have been fawning over her for years, giving her everything she wanted while telling her whatever she wanted to hear. If she'd said she wanted to be a great adventurer every man would have agreed she had the skills, knowing how untrue their words word.

"You're rated at the level your skill is valued at," he told her, knowing she'd interpret that to mean she was highly ranked. She wasn't. In fact, he'd felt wrong ranking her the minimum level of one that was required to be a Guild member.

"And what is the quest you have lined up for me?" she asked, practically bouncing with eagerness.

"There is an infestation of Gloops troubling a cattle farmer that needs to be cleared out," he told her, pulling out a map with directions to the quest's location. "Individually the Gloops should provide little challenge for a fighter of your caliber, but there will be a great many of them. Slaying them all will impress everyone who hears of the tale," he told her.

Lies. Lie after lie,

he thought happily.

Yet close enough to the truth that if somehow the dumb little bimbo does make it back from her quest no one will be able to see how I've set her up for failure. And even if they should grow suspicious I can blame it on the way the quest was logged. I can turn to the page it's written and say see? The person who offered a reward for its completion was not honest. No one will be able to prove I intentionally wrote incorrect information in the log.

Kay squished up her nose in distaste. "Gloops? Ew. Those are the nasty little slimy blob things, right?"

"That's them," the Guildmaster replied. "What do you know about them?"

"Mostly what I've heard in songs or stories," she replied. "And I saw one in a jar once when a traveling alchemist came through town. Weird semi-transparent blue jelly with beady little black eyes. It was gross, like living water-snot," she said, turning her nose up as she made a disgusted face.

"Slaughtering a horde of the nasty little things will bring me great joy," she declared. "They aren't pretty enough to deserve to exist," she added. "And if one of those disgusting little ugly freaks so much as dares to try and touch my divine body," she said, drawing her inadequate sword and holding it high, "I'll send them to the deepest halls of the undead realm!"

"Well then," the Guildmaster said, grinning with pride at the failure he'd set up, "best not waste any time! If you set out right now you should be able to reach the quest by late afternoon, plenty of time to face down the horde of Gloops."

And if she's dumb enough to rush to the location and take them on without a rest first she'll be even more likely to fail,

he thought.

"I'll set out at once," she declared, saluting him with her sword them clumsily fumbling to slide it back into its scabbard.

As she turned to leave the Guildhall his only regret was that he wouldn't be there to see her fail the quest.

But even should she never return as I hope it may not be the last time I see the brainless bimbo...

* * *

The trek to the quest's location had been far more tiring than Kay had expected it to be. The terrain was full of small hills covered in rocky areas along with numerous streams and small ponds that made traversing through it slow and labor-intensive.

As she'd grown near to her destination she'd seen a house with a barn beside it in the distance.

Reminds me of the outskirts of my village,

she thought as she looked at what she assumed was a cattle ranch in the distance.

But this terrain isn't like what I'm used to. The fields there are so green and flat, while everything here is so brown... Even the grass is golden brown and doesn't grow evenly through the open land but in tall, small patches scattered about.

When Kay started seeing the cattle belonging to the farm she was shocked to see how different they looked. These cattle looked wilder and hardier than those she was used to and were covered in thick, long brown fur. She'd cautiously approached the first few she saw, curious to get a closer look at them. The cows she was used to were easily spooked by people they weren't familiar with but these cattle seemed almost oblivious to her presence.

No wonder the farmer is having a problem with these gross Gloops. They seem too docile and dumb to even try and escape an attack.

The thought, and the sight of the skeletal remains of a cow seen not long after, got her thinking more about how the Gloops could be attacking the cattle. In all the songs or stories she'd heard featuring them they were always described as being about the size of a bucket.

She remembered then what the traveling alchemist who had shown them the Gloop in a jar had done: he'd dropped a bit of old meat into the jar and showed them that the Gloop had started to slowly dissolve it. Looking back at the skeletal remains of the cattle she wondered how long it had been there.

If that's a recent skeleton then it was picked completely clean,

she thought, shivering. Kay had a moment of doubt, looking down at her sword and wondering if it was good enough.

"No," she said, defiantly shaking off the doubt, "I'm ready for this. And that kind Guildmaster would have never sent me out on a quest I wasn't prepared for, one I am not geared up for or too low of a level to handle." Her self-value reaffirmed, she continued on her way.

It wasn't long before she encountered her first Gloop. It had hopped out of a patch of tall grass, its round gelatinous body wobbling as it landed on the ground. It was the size she had expected, its waterdrop-shaped body a little larger than the average bucket. What surprised her was the color: instead of the light blue she'd always heard them described as it was red.

As she wondered if that was important it jiggled and the little black orbs floating in its body rotated and pointed towards her, showing her the little monster had noticed her. She found these eyes very unsettling. They were each about the size of an olive, pure black but with a glint of white that gave the illusion of a pupil. They floated in its body near the surface, helping show that the transparent blob had nothing other than its gelatinous body inside of it.

"Alright," she said, drawing her sword and taking a deep breath. "Time to show the world why I'm going to be one of history's greatest adventurers. There might never be songs sung about this moment, but I'll always know it's when my career started."

"Die, foul monster," she yelled, charging the Gloop.

It jiggled and hopped away from her by about a foot, wobbling as it landed and unable to bounce again till it stopped. Seemingly unable to move further or faster Kay was easily able to reach it.

With another shout she swung her sword into the center of its body. Her blade moved through the Gloop like it had almost the same consistency as water, its body separating. She drew her sword back, the rush of her first battle making her feel giddy with joy.

For a moment she thought she'd successfully slain the monster. Each eye had ended in the two different segments and they had begun to drift listlessly in its gooey inside. She felt vindicated in everything she'd thought about herself. She WAS as skilled as she thought! She WOULD be a great hero that songs would be sung about! Then, only a few heartbeats later, the two segments of Gloop jiggled and fused back together, their eyes moving back into place and focusing on her.

She was disturbed by the way the faceless creature seemed to glare at her. Those simple black eyes shouldn't have been enough to convey expression, yet she found herself stepping back away from it, certain it was angry at her. It was more of a feeling of enmity, she decided, something perhaps magical in nature and not any actual expression she could see.

There was also the way it was vibrating and the low, almost unheard sound coming from it. A low-frequency buzz that was suddenly answered. She turned just in time to see other Gloops hopping out of multiple patches of tall grass nearby. In moments she realized she had walked into a horde of the little beasts and was slowly being surrounded and.

Kay was unnerved but not yet worried.

This is my first battle, after all. So what if my initial attack failed? Obviously I need to aim for their eyes,

she told herself. She turned to charge the first Gloop again, unworried about the ever-increasing number of the monsters hopping into sight. They were so small and so slow she felt no fear of their greater numbers.

When she swung at the Gloop, her sword once more slicing it in half, she was thrilled to see her aim was true. The blade sliced right to one of the eyes. Yet the little black bead simply slid out of the blade's way as its body split in two, fusing back together a moment later.

It was then that Kay began to worry. She began remembering how almost every story of adventurers fighting monsters featured a magic weapon. She'd known some monsters could only be hurt by such weapons, but surely the Guildmaster would have told her these Gloops required that?

The red,

she realized,

it's more important than I thought. Perhaps these Gloops are just a hardier species of Gloop

. Solving the puzzle was not as reassuring as she hoped it would be. It still left her facing off against a foe she couldn't harm, her panic still increasing steadily.

Looking around she realized how close the hopping horde of Gloops had gotten. Her heart was pounding and she was starting to panic, not sure what to do next. She started backing away from the Gloop she'd been attacking, stopping suddenly as she almost stepped into one behind her.

Kay whirled around to face it, seeing its body compress down becoming almost pancake-shaped. She'd seen this was what they did before hopping but had never seen one compress that much. Her instinct told her this meant it was going to jump further than normal. Just as it propelled itself up she realized it was about to jump at her.

"No!" she yelled, ashamed of how much she sounded like a scared little girl. She backed away, swinging her sword up. She managed to slice into it midair but instead of cutting it in half as she'd hoped the thing began to cling to her sword.

The Gloop was far heavier than she'd expected. With as transparent as they were she'd expected them to weigh almost nothing and there had been no sense of substantial hardness to the one she'd cut in half. But now, as this Gloop clung to her sword, it felt suddenly

VERY

solid. With the unexpected weight she almost dropped her weapon, only barely managing to keep a hold of it.

She grabbed the sword with both hands and tried shaking the Gloop off. "No!" she screamed as she saw the edges of her blade begin to dissolve and flake away inside its body. "Not my sword! I need that!" She shook the Gloop more vigorously, panicking when she saw that only made the edges of the blade dissolve more quickly.

Part of its body reached down the blade and almost touched her hand. Kay screamed in alarm and dropped her sword. The weapon fell to the ground, the Gloop shifting its shape to completely envelope the sword as it landed.

"What do I do?" she cried out, fear and panic beginning to overtake her.

Kay noticed just in time as another Gloop launched itself at her. She threw her small shield was strapped to up to block the Gloop. Just like with the sword it adhered to it, becoming more solid and heavy. Only this time it quickly spread its body out, wrapping around the shield to completely encase it.

She screamed, "No," over and over as she tried to shake it off her arm. She could see her shield and the leather straps securing it to her arm beginning to dissolve, the leather bands she wore on her forearm also beginning to dissolve. Just as her mind began to fill with the terrifying image of her skin beginning to dissolve along with the leather, the strap holding the shield to her arm broke apart enough for her shield to detach.

It fell to the ground, the Gloop going with it. She held her arm up, watching the leather straps on her arm fall off. There was sticky goo all over her arm that she feared would still be working to dissolve her skin. But even through the haze of panic she realized there was no burning sensation on her skin and never had been.

There was, however, a warm tingling. Even after frantically wiping much of the goo off onto her side the tingling remained, growing more intense. A gust of wind blew by, something she'd normally barely have noticed. But the parts of her arm that were tingling felt the gentle breeze so intensely it was momentarily disorienting.

What did it do to my skin? No... not just my skin. I can feel it in my muscles... running up my arm like it's soaking into me. My heart is pounding and it's not just from the battle. And my nipples! Why are they so hard? And... and am I wet with arousal?

Her cheeks were flushed and she felt the muddled mental confusion she often experienced when she'd sneaked off with one of the more attractive village boys to fool around in a barn or behind the tavern. Kay tried to focus on the Gloops, trying to shake the intense and growing sense of arousal she was feeling. Her whole body was heating up, feeling like it was vibrating.

No, not me. The Gloops! They are all jiggling and vibrating, making that weird sound. And all those beady little black eyes pointed at me... Are they looking at my breasts? My butt? Their gaze is making me feel... dirty. Like the way I'd feel when the old men in the village would lecherously stare at me, undressing me with their eyes.

"Stay away," she screamed, realizing she could no longer back up. The Gloops had drawn in too close to her and had her surrounded. She could tell they were about to attack her and she'd have almost no way to defend herself.

One leaped at her, low enough as it neared her that she was able to kick it. She regretted the instinctual act of self-defense almost at once. The Gloop quickly enveloped her foot and began to dissolve her boot. For a moment she tried to kick it off, but she began to lose her balance. Trying not to fall she slammed her foot down, realizing the mistake she'd made in her panic as she felt the Gloop's body between her foot and the ground. She slipped on it, flying back and slamming her head on a rock as she landed.

Dazed, she was only half aware of other Gloops hopping onto her body and attaching themselves to her. When the pain in the back of her head began to fade she realized she had the vile, revolting Gloops attached to nearly her whole body. As the pain subsided more she realized they were only attached to her in places where she was wearing clothing.

She started to struggle, knowing it wouldn't be long before she had no clothing left. The moment she tried to thrash and throw the Gloops off they all grew denser. They weighed her down, too heavy to get up.

No, more than that. The ones who can are pulling me down not just weighing me down, like they've adhered themselves to the ground and are pinning me to it!

They then began pulling away from her. Each one that left took the meager remains of her clothing with them and by the time the last detached from her body she was left naked, with not a single scrap of clothing left on her.

Her body was also covered in sticky red slime that she could feel soaking into her skin. It had left her so aroused she was panting with desire, fighting the urge to reach down and start touching herself. She shifted, losing the struggle, and spread her legs open.