“So, um, shit. What's your name?”
“Canary, Mistress.”
Because she's blond? “I'm looking for a Harpy named Gale. Any idea where she is?”
“You're looking for a fledgling, Mistress? Whatever for? I'm a superior specimen in every way.” The Lesser Siren's D-cups bounce on the word 'superior.' I flick Canary's forehead lightly. “Ouch!”
“She's much cuter than you. Don't speak ill of her if you value your life. Now, tell me where.”
“U-u-understood, Mistress. S-she'll be at the Celebration today.”
“You mentioned the 'Celebration' before. What's that?”
“Oh! Mistress wouldn't know... Today is the day all fledgling Harpies are impregnated for the year!”
Great, I'm in a cucking race and didn't know it.
“No time to waste, let’s hurry!” I turn to go.
“M-Mistress? My place is here, protecting the mountain from invaders.”
“Okay... but you work for me now.”
“If I go, I'll surely be killed... If I stay, your Slime familiar will surely eat me... If I go... If I stay...” Canary's eyes go swirly with dizziness as she confuses herself with the death-or-death question.
I knew she wasn't companion material, so I shouldn't expect too much from her.
“Listen, there's a hut in Fuzzy Field. If I survive, I'll be there tomorrow. If not, you've got nothing to worry about. Okay? And, if you don't come, you'd better pray I never see you again.”
I don't need monsters that aren't loyal following me around anyway.
“Yes, Mistress! Thank you, merciful Mistress!”
Canary grovels before me, but I don't spare a moment to acknowledge it. I'm already bounding up the mountain like a woman on a mission.
The ascent has gotten steeper. I'm rock climbing up a sheer vertical cliffside at this point. I pass flat rocky outcroppings periodically, some with dusty old nests, others with messy or smelly nests, and I find lots of bones in random places.
It's kind of like a bachelor/bachelorette pad where no one was expecting respectable company, except if said bachelor/ettes were monster-eating predators. Notably, the nests are absent the sex prisoners I anticipated. If Canary hadn't told me about the Celebration, I'd be wondering where everyone was.
I steer clear of any more singing I hear faintly in the distance. Apparently Canary has several Siren cousins defending various mountain slopes. Flou has to protect my ears a couple of times, but I don't go around with earplugs all the time in case there's something I need to hear.
“Oi!”
I look around for the source of the rough male voice with a familiar dialect.
“Up, up, moron!”
This time I find the face of a common Goblin peaking over the edge of a ledge above me. He's bald, with pointed ears long enough to double his face width and a hooked nose.
“Oi, I recognize dat armor! You da human who burned the Treefolk yesterday! You did all dat for a few dumb bunnies, right? Why no come here an’ save me too!?!”
Shit. I knew there was a chance of running into captives. Morally, I feel the need to help him. I don't like the detour with Gale's chastity on the line, though. Gabby will thank me for saving her clansmen, but I can't rescue everyone on this mountain...
“Thief!!!”
A red blur sweeps down the mountainside and past the Goblin, who is suddenly missing everything above the shoulders.
The red blur loops around to hover in the air before me with the severed head gripped in his talons. He has a beaked face and rusty red feathers all over except for a pale, fleshy protrusion between his legs. His most striking feature, however, is the dark liquid limbs replacing his wings.
Blood spurting from the Goblin corpse floats into the air and is sucked into avian ‘feathers.’ It's a Bloodwing Harpy.
The inevitable evolution of a Harpy who comes to love killing and sadism.
“No one steals from Harpy Mountain!” the birdbrain shrieks. His voice has the annoying, grating quality of a cantankerous parrot.
He'd rather kill the prisoners than let me have them... “Alright, this is one monster I’ve got no problem killing.”
The Bloodwing Harpy flaps his arms at me, throwing dozens of red droplets my way. The projectiles crystalize in midair, becoming needle darts that rain down on my crab armor. Blood needles shatter like glass against chitin as I leap from my handholds.
I land on the remnants of an empty nest, roll, and come up with an ember spear in hand. A flick of my wrist sends the projectile his way. He’s fast, but I’m confident of my aim while he’s hovering in place.
My agile flying opponent surprises me by flapping his wings with greater force than before, generating a gust of wind that forces him out of my spear’s trajectory. An air-dodge ability?
I’m not feeling threatened. His attacks don’t work on me, and I’m betting he has a cooldown or limit on that ability. I summon an ember spear in each of my hands and grin.
The bloodthirsty bird seems to grin back at me with his eyes.
“Egg stealer!!!”
Predator Sense shouts in my mind the instant before a red blur blindsides me. The impact throws me from the ledge, but my armor takes the claws without cracking. My hands scramble at rocks as they pass with increasing speed until my fingers catch on another ledge.
Harpy Lightweight makes halting my inertia easier, and I scramble to my feet before I’m attacked again.
“I’m not here to take any eggs!” I shout.
“Lies!!!” screams a third Bloodwing as he dives at me for another flying tackle.
I’m ready this time.
A regular spear braced against the ledge skewers my latest assailant through the chest. He screams, claws at my legs, pecks at my face, and beats me with the razor-sharp blood feathers on his wings. The dying Bloodwing leaves nothing but scratches on my armor as I toss him into the abyss below. I watch him crash onto jagged rocks hundreds of feet beneath us.
*Bloodied the Bloodwing Harpy – One Avian Mark!*
I did more than bloody him… but I guess that’s poetic license.
“Anyone else want some?”
“Defend the larder!!!”
“Don’t let her near the Celebration!!!”
I'll take that as a 'no.'
Even the birdbrains aren't stupid enough to try another flying tackle after that. Instead, they bombard me with those blood needle darts. Nothing gets past my armor, but there's enough force behind each wave to make climbing difficult. I need to end them.
The range on my vine grab is insufficient. The pressure of my Water Magic is laughable for this task.
“Boss, I've got an idea.”
I nod, and Flou whispers in my ear while I lean into each bombardment to avoid being pushed off the ledge. “I like it.”
Focusing myself, I visualize what I want to happen and, with an exertion of will, I slam my palms on the cliffside. Earth Magic travels up, up, as high as I can reach, and pops a boulder out of the side of the mountain. The big rock plummets in an arc headed straight for the Bloodwings.
They realize the threat at the last second and dodge aside, but that's what I expected.
I use the moment of their distraction to jump twenty feet high and kick off the cliffside with my vines anchoring into rock before leaping out into empty space. They're still out of reach. That's why my gauntlet shoots off my arm on a growing tentacle of fleshy slime.
The appendage stretches to the limit of one Slime, then extends another few meters as a core appears in the middle of the pseudopod, then again as Flou uses all her cores in a chain to maximize her grab distance. A maw opens on the gauntleted end and closes around a Bloodwing's neck.
I fall in an arc, tethered to the mountainside by my vines, and drop back onto the outcropping below me as Flou reels in her catch. Her small swarm of Slime bodies consolidates into a larger maw that engulfs the screeching, struggling Bloodwing. I hear muffled screams and crunching bones as Flou ingests and digests her meal. All evidence disappears in moments before Flou returns to her lingerie form underneath my armor.
“Last chance to flee,” I say, giving the final Bloodwing too much credit.
“Death to the enemy!!!”
Yeah, okay.
I summon a spear in each hand and launch them rapid-fire. I couldn't do this against more than one Bloodwing since whoever I didn’t target would throw off my aim with their blood needle bombardment. As-is, all this guy can do is dodge.
I've been working on fighting with two spears, but even with Fast Learner, it's been a difficult skill to pick up (compared with how fast everything else has come to me). Now I have Swarm Slime Multitasking. Even as a second-tier ability, it's doing heavy lifting.
It's like instant ambidexterity. I can give the equivalent of my previous mental capabilities' full attention to each of my hands while analyzing the Bloodwing's movements. I send a flurry of spears his way, each aimed with strategic intention to limit his evasion options until he's hemmed in and herded to the slaughter. He could just retreat to safety, but the birdbrain is committed to fighting me to the death. And so...
A spear catches him in the gut. He flaps frantically, causing himself escalating pain as his muscles contract around the foreign object. It's not lethal, but the painful wound hinders the air-dodge that would've pushed him out of the next spear's trajectory. This one lands in his chest, followed by another to the face. He falls.
Three Blood Wings down.
I could visit the larder and free all the captives there. That agrees with my morality but would cause some issues.
Issue number one, I’d piss off the Harpy Matron. A straight-up duel is one thing, but the Harpy Matron and a flock of Blood Wings coming down on Gabby’s Hut would fuck up my life for sure.
Issue number two, the Harpies would starve. While some, perhaps many, of the Harpies are assholes like these Blood Wings and the Harpy Matron, others are cute girls like Gale. Taking their food source without offering a replacement would result in cute girls starving to death, which is not acceptable.
Issue number three, it could start an Incursion. Starving Harpies might decide the human village to the south is their next best target for food.
Taking eggs from Harpy nests isn’t something I’m interested in either. I’m planning on having plenty of biological children to take care of without dealing with random monster eggs.
All that leaves is going higher up to find Gale and crash this ‘Celebration.'
*Avian Marks – Two*
Harpy Sight
Harpy Wings
Harpy Tailfeathers
Harpy Talons
Harpy Lightweight
Harpy Air Magic
Lesser Siren Voice
Lesser Siren Enchanting Melody
Lesser Siren Charm Resistance
Bloodwing Blood Magic
Interesting. Siren Voice on its own seems like a vanity ability. It'll be a nice place to spend an Avian mark when I don't need them to fly. Enchanting Melody is what Canary used on me, but I don't like its rapey vibes. I'll be avoiding that one. Charm Resistance has... implications.
Something about my interaction with her revealed the hidden ability, whether it was how her spell was interrupted or the repeated use on me. In any case, it makes me think abilities I've previously assumed useless may have secret 'Resistance' category abilities underneath them. I'll only take this if Sirens become more of a problem. I haven't heard any this high up the mountain.
Blood Magic is an obvious choice.
*Selected Bloodwing Blood Magic!*
I try to use it immediately, only for a wave of dizziness and nausea to wash over me. It takes me a second to realize the only blood around for me to manipulate is inside my body, maintaining my blood pressure and homeostasis. Useless ability, or hidden OP?
Well, let me think of it this way: when I'm wounded I'll have the choice of using my spilled blood to form weapons or simply stop the bleeding with an exertion of Swarm Slime Multitasking. I'm basically immune to blood loss! That's worth a mark for sure!
“A-Alex... I don't feel... so good. I think it's... something I ate...” Flou's lingerie set dissolves and melts into a puddle at my feet.
“Flou, are you alright?”
“Just... sleepy...” she says even as her Slime body evaporates away, leaving three conjoined cores. There's a distinct, bloody tint to the jewel-like spheres that grows redder by the second. I pick them up and clench my fist.
“Thanks for the help, Flou. Have a nice nap. Looks like I'll need to finish this on my own.”
“So, um, shit. What's your name?”
“Canary, Mistress.”
Because she's blond? “I'm looking for a Harpy named Gale. Any idea where she is?”
“You're looking for a fledgling, Mistress? Whatever for? I'm a superior specimen in every way.” The Lesser Siren's D-cups bounce on the word 'superior.' I flick Canary's forehead lightly. “Ouch!”
“She's much cuter than you. Don't speak ill of her if you value your life. Now, tell me where.”
“U-u-understood, Mistress. S-she'll be at the Celebration today.”
“You mentioned the 'Celebration' before. What's that?”
“Oh! Mistress wouldn't know... Today is the day all fledgling Harpies are impregnated for the year!”
Great, I'm in a cucking race and didn't know it.
“No time to waste, let’s hurry!” I turn to go.
“M-Mistress? My place is here, protecting the mountain from invaders.”
“Okay... but you work for me now.”
“If I go, I'll surely be killed... If I stay, your Slime familiar will surely eat me... If I go... If I stay...” Canary's eyes go swirly with dizziness as she confuses herself with the death-or-death question.
I knew she wasn't companion material, so I shouldn't expect too much from her.
“Listen, there's a hut in Fuzzy Field. If I survive, I'll be there tomorrow. If not, you've got nothing to worry about. Okay? And, if you don't come, you'd better pray I never see you again.”
I don't need monsters that aren't loyal following me around anyway.
“Yes, Mistress! Thank you, merciful Mistress!”
Canary grovels before me, but I don't spare a moment to acknowledge it. I'm already bounding up the mountain like a woman on a mission.
The ascent has gotten steeper. I'm rock climbing up a sheer vertical cliffside at this point. I pass flat rocky outcroppings periodically, some with dusty old nests, others with messy or smelly nests, and I find lots of bones in random places.
It's kind of like a bachelor/bachelorette pad where no one was expecting respectable company, except if said bachelor/ettes were monster-eating predators. Notably, the nests are absent the sex prisoners I anticipated. If Canary hadn't told me about the Celebration, I'd be wondering where everyone was.
I steer clear of any more singing I hear faintly in the distance. Apparently Canary has several Siren cousins defending various mountain slopes. Flou has to protect my ears a couple of times, but I don't go around with earplugs all the time in case there's something I need to hear.
“Oi!”
I look around for the source of the rough male voice with a familiar dialect.
“Up, up, moron!”
This time I find the face of a common Goblin peaking over the edge of a ledge above me. He's bald, with pointed ears long enough to double his face width and a hooked nose.
“Oi, I recognize dat armor! You da human who burned the Treefolk yesterday! You did all dat for a few dumb bunnies, right? Why no come here an’ save me too!?!”
Shit. I knew there was a chance of running into captives. Morally, I feel the need to help him. I don't like the detour with Gale's chastity on the line, though. Gabby will thank me for saving her clansmen, but I can't rescue everyone on this mountain...
“Thief!!!”
A red blur sweeps down the mountainside and past the Goblin, who is suddenly missing everything above the shoulders.
The red blur loops around to hover in the air before me with the severed head gripped in his talons. He has a beaked face and rusty red feathers all over except for a pale, fleshy protrusion between his legs. His most striking feature, however, is the dark liquid limbs replacing his wings.
Blood spurting from the Goblin corpse floats into the air and is sucked into avian ‘feathers.’ It's a Bloodwing Harpy.
The inevitable evolution of a Harpy who comes to love killing and sadism.
“No one steals from Harpy Mountain!” the birdbrain shrieks. His voice has the annoying, grating quality of a cantankerous parrot.
He'd rather kill the prisoners than let me have them... “Alright, this is one monster I’ve got no problem killing.”
The Bloodwing Harpy flaps his arms at me, throwing dozens of red droplets my way. The projectiles crystalize in midair, becoming needle darts that rain down on my crab armor. Blood needles shatter like glass against chitin as I leap from my handholds.
I land on the remnants of an empty nest, roll, and come up with an ember spear in hand. A flick of my wrist sends the projectile his way. He’s fast, but I’m confident of my aim while he’s hovering in place.
My agile flying opponent surprises me by flapping his wings with greater force than before, generating a gust of wind that forces him out of my spear’s trajectory. An air-dodge ability?
I’m not feeling threatened. His attacks don’t work on me, and I’m betting he has a cooldown or limit on that ability. I summon an ember spear in each of my hands and grin.
The bloodthirsty bird seems to grin back at me with his eyes.
“Egg stealer!!!”
Predator Sense shouts in my mind the instant before a red blur blindsides me. The impact throws me from the ledge, but my armor takes the claws without cracking. My hands scramble at rocks as they pass with increasing speed until my fingers catch on another ledge.
Harpy Lightweight makes halting my inertia easier, and I scramble to my feet before I’m attacked again.
“I’m not here to take any eggs!” I shout.
“Lies!!!” screams a third Bloodwing as he dives at me for another flying tackle.
I’m ready this time.
A regular spear braced against the ledge skewers my latest assailant through the chest. He screams, claws at my legs, pecks at my face, and beats me with the razor-sharp blood feathers on his wings. The dying Bloodwing leaves nothing but scratches on my armor as I toss him into the abyss below. I watch him crash onto jagged rocks hundreds of feet beneath us.
*Bloodied the Bloodwing Harpy – One Avian Mark!*
I did more than bloody him… but I guess that’s poetic license.
“Anyone else want some?”
“Defend the larder!!!”
“Don’t let her near the Celebration!!!”
I'll take that as a 'no.'
Even the birdbrains aren't stupid enough to try another flying tackle after that. Instead, they bombard me with those blood needle darts. Nothing gets past my armor, but there's enough force behind each wave to make climbing difficult. I need to end them.
The range on my vine grab is insufficient. The pressure of my Water Magic is laughable for this task.
“Boss, I've got an idea.”
I nod, and Flou whispers in my ear while I lean into each bombardment to avoid being pushed off the ledge. “I like it.”
Focusing myself, I visualize what I want to happen and, with an exertion of will, I slam my palms on the cliffside. Earth Magic travels up, up, as high as I can reach, and pops a boulder out of the side of the mountain. The big rock plummets in an arc headed straight for the Bloodwings.
They realize the threat at the last second and dodge aside, but that's what I expected.
I use the moment of their distraction to jump twenty feet high and kick off the cliffside with my vines anchoring into rock before leaping out into empty space. They're still out of reach. That's why my gauntlet shoots off my arm on a growing tentacle of fleshy slime.
The appendage stretches to the limit of one Slime, then extends another few meters as a core appears in the middle of the pseudopod, then again as Flou uses all her cores in a chain to maximize her grab distance. A maw opens on the gauntleted end and closes around a Bloodwing's neck.
I fall in an arc, tethered to the mountainside by my vines, and drop back onto the outcropping below me as Flou reels in her catch. Her small swarm of Slime bodies consolidates into a larger maw that engulfs the screeching, struggling Bloodwing. I hear muffled screams and crunching bones as Flou ingests and digests her meal. All evidence disappears in moments before Flou returns to her lingerie form underneath my armor.
“Last chance to flee,” I say, giving the final Bloodwing too much credit.
“Death to the enemy!!!”
Yeah, okay.
I summon a spear in each hand and launch them rapid-fire. I couldn't do this against more than one Bloodwing since whoever I didn’t target would throw off my aim with their blood needle bombardment. As-is, all this guy can do is dodge.
I've been working on fighting with two spears, but even with Fast Learner, it's been a difficult skill to pick up (compared with how fast everything else has come to me). Now I have Swarm Slime Multitasking. Even as a second-tier ability, it's doing heavy lifting.
It's like instant ambidexterity. I can give the equivalent of my previous mental capabilities' full attention to each of my hands while analyzing the Bloodwing's movements. I send a flurry of spears his way, each aimed with strategic intention to limit his evasion options until he's hemmed in and herded to the slaughter. He could just retreat to safety, but the birdbrain is committed to fighting me to the death. And so...
A spear catches him in the gut. He flaps frantically, causing himself escalating pain as his muscles contract around the foreign object. It's not lethal, but the painful wound hinders the air-dodge that would've pushed him out of the next spear's trajectory. This one lands in his chest, followed by another to the face. He falls.
Three Blood Wings down.
I could visit the larder and free all the captives there. That agrees with my morality but would cause some issues.
Issue number one, I’d piss off the Harpy Matron. A straight-up duel is one thing, but the Harpy Matron and a flock of Blood Wings coming down on Gabby’s Hut would fuck up my life for sure.
Issue number two, the Harpies would starve. While some, perhaps many, of the Harpies are assholes like these Blood Wings and the Harpy Matron, others are cute girls like Gale. Taking their food source without offering a replacement would result in cute girls starving to death, which is not acceptable.
Issue number three, it could start an Incursion. Starving Harpies might decide the human village to the south is their next best target for food.
Taking eggs from Harpy nests isn’t something I’m interested in either. I’m planning on having plenty of biological children to take care of without dealing with random monster eggs.
All that leaves is going higher up to find Gale and crash this ‘Celebration.'
*Avian Marks – Two*
Harpy Sight
Harpy Wings
Harpy Tailfeathers
Harpy Talons
Harpy Lightweight
Harpy Air Magic
Lesser Siren Voice
Lesser Siren Enchanting Melody
Lesser Siren Charm Resistance
Bloodwing Blood Magic
Interesting. Siren Voice on its own seems like a vanity ability. It'll be a nice place to spend an Avian mark when I don't need them to fly. Enchanting Melody is what Canary used on me, but I don't like its rapey vibes. I'll be avoiding that one. Charm Resistance has... implications.
Something about my interaction with her revealed the hidden ability, whether it was how her spell was interrupted or the repeated use on me. In any case, it makes me think abilities I've previously assumed useless may have secret 'Resistance' category abilities underneath them. I'll only take this if Sirens become more of a problem. I haven't heard any this high up the mountain.
Blood Magic is an obvious choice.
*Selected Bloodwing Blood Magic!*
I try to use it immediately, only for a wave of dizziness and nausea to wash over me. It takes me a second to realize the only blood around for me to manipulate is inside my body, maintaining my blood pressure and homeostasis. Useless ability, or hidden OP?
Well, let me think of it this way: when I'm wounded I'll have the choice of using my spilled blood to form weapons or simply stop the bleeding with an exertion of Swarm Slime Multitasking. I'm basically immune to blood loss! That's worth a mark for sure!
“A-Alex... I don't feel... so good. I think it's... something I ate...” Flou's lingerie set dissolves and melts into a puddle at my feet.
“Flou, are you alright?”
“Just... sleepy...” she says even as her Slime body evaporates away, leaving three conjoined cores. There's a distinct, bloody tint to the jewel-like spheres that grows redder by the second. I pick them up and clench my fist.
“Thanks for the help, Flou. Have a nice nap. Looks like I'll need to finish this on my own.”
