My Life As A Reborn Monster

A day had passed and the camp had all gone through a short memorial service where we mourned Missy and Jazzy. We decorated the tree in a ceremonial fashion and afterwards I created a formation around the tree that would allow it to withstand heavy damage and even absorb the ambient mana from the surroundings.

"It's time Vexsus." Sondar said with melancholy in his voice as he turned to leave.

It was time for us to go take care of the bandit hideout and then onto reclaiming Hannah's soul.

After a quick discussion we all decided to go full force with me and the leaders going together like the old days to fuck shit up as quickly as we can. We set off after a quick meal that surprisingly tasted a hell of alot richer and smelled better than ever.

"This is wonderful Romeo, what is this?" Kona asked in between gulps of food.

"It's a mix of soup with some rain water but I also added some of the honey from the Tree of Silence and some of the leftover bones of our latest Boar hunt. I then turned it into a bone broth and threw in some of the braised meat and for the side I was able to harvest a few of the nearby roots that are very starchy. I boiled them and ground them up to make a paste that goes surprisingly well with the soup. But the best part is that while cooking I felt a small surge of energy and when I directed it into the food I could actually sense a latent power forming from the dish."

'Appraisal'

[Romeo]

[Dragonoid]

[Job - Chef lvl 2]

[Skills]

NEW! [Love of food - With increased attention to detail the chef can naturally tell what food goes best with eachother.]

NEW! [Chef's Kiss - With a simple gesture the chef is able to unlock the foods latent power and bestow minor buffs to the people who eat it.]

Well I'll be damned, this was awesome. When he leveled up his Job he actually unlocked 2 skills. and one of them gave us who ate his food minor buffs. This is what we needed to give us the little edge over dangerous situations.

I looked down at the food and gave it an appraisal aswell.

[Honeyed Boar Meat & Bone Soup with Mashed Tubers]

[+5 to Magic]

[+3 to Strength & Defense]

[Lasts : 12 hrs]

Daamn now thats not bad for a minor buff, and the time it lasts for is excellent aswell, already he just became an awesome and integral part of the camp. After we all got finished eating we set out towards the camp, it would take us about 3 hours of walking to get there but spirits were high and I felt pretty good about it.

The party consisted of Me, Sondar, Kitsoma, Sylvania, Shorunt and the rest of the goblins (Except the Twins because of the whole Soul possession thing with Lord Necro), and my first children Michael, Grayson, Harper, and Grace. Harper's role in life was unfortunately to become another queen like her mother but She refused to accept it and instead went full force into learning Weapons training from Sondar and Brawling tactics from Kona. She became super strong and even underwent a physical change as her queen sac merged into her body as well as her body gaining 2 pairs of arms on each side for a total of 4 arms.

Michael had grown aswell into more of a noble looking Dragonoid. His scales turned Greyish Purple with a hint of Red as an outline, and He grew a pair of draconic wings that enabled him to fly. Grayson on the other hand grew straight like the blueprint of Brick Shit house. His scales turned the same as his brother but instead of red his turned black and over them grew a hardened carapace like growth that provided him extra defense. His body grew 2 ft. in height and outwards as muscle mass seemed to just swell up around him.

Grace became more of a backline healer/Support type as she learned from Sylvania and Shorunt some support spells that after experimenting with she actually created her own unique spells that provided buffs and a passive Regen effect. 

I thought about bringing Opal and maybe some of the others like the Racoon twins but I needed them as base security. I brought the heavy hitters so that this will get done with lickety split.

--------

After a few hours we finally spotted the dungeon that the bandits had called home. We went into sneak mode as we came closer but I was starting to worry as I couldn't see any of the bandits and there was a faint smell of blood. I sent out a pulse of Detection but even that showed me nothing in the surrounding area. 

"Liosa, Howy, go up there and see what's going on. I can't see any bandits and my Detection is showing nothing either."

"Got it boss."

"Right away master."

A few minutes goes by after they leave but when they return they have a look of confusion and worry on their faces.

"So? What's up?" I asked hoping for some good news but I jsut had a feeling that I was going to have to deal with some more bullshit... again."

"It's bad boss, There is dried up blood from atleast 2 to 3 days ago all over the place. I saw huge scratch marks from some kind of beast over the dungeon entrance and it smelled like it had been recently marked. If there is something using this as a home than it already knows we're here."

"Right, I couldn't find anything except this master." Liosa pulls out from behind her a mangle hand with a few rings over it and a crumpled letter still in it's balled up hand. I snapped off the fingers and stored the rings to look at later and started to read the letter.

[If your reading this than that means we succeeded in our job of waking up the creature from within this dungeon. We first encountered it when we were paid to explore and possibly clear a dungeon that popped up a few years ago. We went through and for the most part it was easy, The boss was a bit difficult but we managed with only a few scrapes and bruises. We decided to hold on on completing the report in the hopes we could farm some better resources for ourselves first. But by the 5th attempt one of the men discovered a hidden panel in the bosses room, it led down a staircase into a room filled with water and in the center on a stone platform was this creature chained up in dark glowing chains. It actually spoke to us, but only in our heads, some of us went crazy but others that could resist heard a deep guttural voice saying help me and release me and I'll reward you handsomely.

As mercenaries and bandits we couldn't just pass up the promise of rewards so we agreed and the thing told us that somewhere in the dungeon was objects of power that when placed into the 4 pillars that surrounded it, would unlock the chains and release it from its tortured captivity. We found 3 of the 4 on our next pass through but it took us 3 years just to find the 4th one. All this time we kept stealing form passing merchants and got loot from the dungeon that would blow the socks off most C ranked adventurers. We stuck with it because in our heads the thing kept calling to us and our bodies jsut felt right whenever we were near it. I couldn't explain how we found the 4th one as I wasn't there but Jacky boy, our rookie, said he spotted something shiny in the water around the creature. We already looked there but he instisted and even went as far as to jump into the murky dark water.

1 minute turned into 2. 2 turned into 3. 3 turned into 5. so on like that but still we could see bubbles of air from under the water so we kept waiting. Soon Jacky boy rose up from the water with a blackish stone shaped to look like an eye. 

"Told you" he said as he pulled himself from the water and walked over to place the final object into the pillar. But what I saw as he got out of the water was a quick dash from something as it unlatched from under his shirt and went back under the water. I didn't say anything in case it was just my mind playing tricks on me but I was still creeped out.

"With this we release you O' mighty Master." 

"Master?" I was confused, we never worshipped it and Jacky boy definitely was not the devout type. But the moment the pillars were complete. the chains sloughed off as the creature stood up, nearly touching the ceiling of the cavern while stretching it's arms, Now that it could stand up we all saw that it's body was covered in black tattoo like marking that looked like tentacles and claws. It's face was nothing but a mass of open red and black eyes and open mouths filled with gnashing and grinding needle point teeth.

*Thank you for releasing me mortals.* It spoke with what sounded like a grateful tone but before we could relax it spoke again.

*I should also thank you for willingly offering yourselves as sacrifices.*

"RUN!!!" I screamed at the others but all I saw was a flash of light from inside it's eyes as it reached down slowly to grab onto Jacky boy who was raising his arms up in a worshipping pose. The creature lifted him up towards an open mouth and in less than a second Jacky boy was gone from this world as a grinder had reduced him to mere paste that disappeared into the darkness.

I used that time to grab a few of the closest guys next to me and I dragged them with me out of the dungeon as the cries of the ones left behind rang in my ears. We reached the outside but we could here large footsteps catching up. If your reading this please, please escape this place and go tell the others to not explore this place. This creature seems to be trapped in the dungeon but it's power is able to drag us back in against our will. Even now I feel the tingling of it's power breaking my will....]

The note scribbled off at the end and judging by the left over hand I could guess something enjoyed a nice snack.

"What should we do boss? This wasn't what we signed up for. Some kind of unleashed creature that can take over our minds? That's not good man."

"Yea, Let's leave this place, if the thing is trapped here than I say we leave it and fuck off back to base." I was not risking it, this sounded like some Cthulu shit and I was having no part of it whatsoever.

We hightailed it out of there as I started to feel a tingling in my head. I could have swore I heard a voice but that just drove me to get the others out of there even faster. I had Sondar create a Stone wall completely around the dungeon and create a dome that blocked it off from the world. I etched a few runes onto that I focused the thought of 'Inpenetrable', and 'Dense', I don't know how effective it was but I could feel as if the wall became heavier and the small cracks I saw closed up.

I wiped my hands of the dust and we all left to go back to camp.

----------

A few hours later we came back to the camp. I explained quickly what happened, and everyone agreed that we made the right choice to fuck off from there.

I left the others and went towards the tent that had the Possessed twins who stood like guards this whole time.

"Necro, I'm here." I said to the twins as I entered the tent. Sitting on the bed was Hannah but her eyes were black as a greenish aura wafted around her and with a ethereal voice she spoke.

"About damn time, I have been waiting what felt like forever. I have a few things for you to do but because you made me wait for so long I went ahead and did them for you. As interest I'm holding Hannah's soul even longer. She surprisingly has adapted to being in soul form and has gained a substantial bit of power under my tutulage. I think I'll keep her and in exchange you will be left alone." Hannah's mouth widened into an unnatural smile to the point the edges of her lips started to crack and bleed.

"Stop! Give me back my daughter you evil bastard. I don't care about this damn war, I don't care about you or your ambitions. I only care about my family dammit, why the fuck do you have to use such cowardly and bitch ass moves to try and bring me over to your side. You used nothing but bullshit tactics this whole time and not once have you even tried talking to me."

"Calm down you fucking crybaby. Just do a couple jobs for me and deliver them to my location and I will personally hand off her soul and place it back into her body."

I tried my best to calm down and after a couple seconds I let out a woosh of air.

"What do you want me to do?" I said with gritted teeth.

"That's more like it. Now I need you to go grab me a few dragons, They owe me a favor and I plan on taking em up on it. You should know them quite well actually, the one who owes me the favor is a certain gold scaled arrogant prick." Hannah smiled again with a smartass smile as Necro left and her body laid back down.

"Fucking Aurum."