The party that kidnapped me traveled for such a long time that I read the whole book. From what I could tell, it was about cheese making and the wizard who wrote it jacked off to that cheese. The recipes were interesting, but some of the commentary that the wizard put in was… disturbing.

  The cheese is smooth and sensual, with the small bits of mold making it almost orgasmic in flavor. I only finished it out of pure curiosity. I wished I wasn’t cheese at that moment.

  We passed more rubble filled rooms, before finally stopping at a large door. The entrance to the dungeon.

  The Elf excused herself and went behind Falken and Enji where the rest of the party was. The group was rather scattered, and I could barely sense Falken and Enji, much less the rest of the group, though I had heard their voices.

  Now I could ‘see’ the rest of them.

  There was a short woman with a small bow and a large array of knives, and a man with a long robe and an overly long wand (it seemed like he was compensating for something).

  The last person in the group was a haggard looking hobo of a man. He was so drastically different from the others in the party, who had expensive gear and were so clean that it was weird, that I did a double take. He was tall, tall enough that he towered over the elf, and had long hair like Enji, but unlike him it didn’t seem to be a fashion choice, more like he simply hadn’t found a razor in a month.

  The two shorties nodded to the elf and called out a greeting. The elf nodded back, her entire countenance oozing regality.

  Until she saw the hobo guy. Then her face twisted into a sneer that made her pretty face almost ugly. “Well, Valken, I see that you are still here. I really can’t understand why you insist on staying with us when you aren’t welcome.”

  The hobo, Valken, looked over to the elf, his face was expressionless and hard. He looked much older than the elf, which didn’t mean he was ‘old’, it just meant that he was in his thirties and the elf looked like she was in her late teens.

  Valken spoke in a hard and deep voice. “Cleanne, I wasn't aware that you had the capability to say my name and look in my general direction at the same time anymore, that’s quite the accomplishment.”

  Cleanne? That was her name? Kind of an odd name for an elf.

  Cleanne stiffened. Seeing her anger Valken spoke again, this time in a rumbling, almost sultry voice. “Your face is so much more appealing when it’s red.”

  He pulled out a knife from seemingly nowhere. “I could make it redder, if you want. I could use this knife… or my other one. I think you’d like the other one better. It’s big and used for deep stabbing.”

  Cleanne snarled and Valken smirked, I could only wish I had a gag reflex.

  “It would make me more inclined to like you.”

  What he said wasn’t funny, but I couldn’t help laughing out of pure terror. Hard. It was very loud laughter, loud enough that everyone started looking around, searching for the source.

  Valken looked directly at me.

  In a swift movement he snatched the bag off of Cleanne’s back. She screeched and tried to snatch it back. Falken and Enji came running with their weapons drawn.

  Cleanne whipped her head around and yelled. "Falken! Control your brother!"

  Brothers? Huh, that was interesting. Did their mom play a sick, twisted version of banana-grams or something?

  I thought that as I was slammed into the books and bag. I couldn’t help but give a yelp of pain.

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  Everyone who had been yelling at each other suddenly stopped and looked at the bag.

  Falken turned to the elf. “What the (Beep) are you hiding, Cleanne!”

  She stuttered for a moment, looking around for an escape, when she couldn’t find one, she sagged.

  “I…” She hesitated. “I found… something.”

  Falken turned to Enji. “You lied to me.” Falken took an aggressive stance toward Enji.

  Enji shifted uncomfortably. “You know elves have high persuasion! I never stood a chance!”

  The loud argument started up again. Everyone yelling at everyone. Except for Valken, who had started to open the bag.

  At this point you probably think I had a plan to escape, to get myself out of this mess and save a big blossomed woman who would be the first in my haram. If you do think that then you’d be sorely wrong. I had no plan. I had no idea what to do and I had dropped three health points from getting whacked by books. On top of all that I was pretty sure that my low health was having adverse effects on my brain power.

  When Valken opened the bag, it almost hurt to have my senses heighten so quickly, and I finally got a good look at Valken.

  He looked even weirder than I had first thought he would, with the scars on his face he looked even more scraggily than I had thought he would. The only problem with me getting a good look at him was that it meant that he got a good look at me.

  “What the (beep) is that?”

  Everyone stopped fighting to see what he was talking about.

  Cleanne hesitated before sagging. I had been so distracted by Valken that I hadn’t even noticed that she and the two shorties -the girl rogue and the wimpy caster (I didn’t know what kind he was), had been tied up and were now on the ground with Falken standing over them.

  All in all, the teams should have been evenly matched, but I got the sneaking suspicion that Falken and scary hobo man were very high level compared to the other four.

  Falken poked Cleanne with his foot and she glared at him before speaking. “I don’t know for sure what it is.”

  They waited for her to continue but she didn’t. Instead Falken turned to Enji. “What do you know?”

  Enji shrugged. “Don’t know nothing, I thought it was a mimic, but she told me it wasn’t.”

  Valken -scary hobo man- squatted down next to Cleanne, setting the bag down and pulling out a knife.

  It was a nice knife, with a serrated edge. He set the tip of the knife on his thumb; it was so sharp that merely placing it on his thumb pierced skin and drew blood. He looked directly at Cleanne. “There are more than a few ways to skin a cat.”

  Cleanne stiffened, a look of determination spreading on her face. It was obvious that she had resisted his intimidation check. He sneered at her and pushed his knife completely through his thumb, splitting it in half. Cleanne scoffed. “If you think your cultish self-harm will intimidate me than you’re-”

  She was interrupted by my girlish screech. “By the Nine Stars, man! I’ll tell you everything! Just please stop that! You're freaking me out!

  Everyone looked at me.

  You have critically failed an intimidation check.

  You must tell your captor everything you know.

  *Which is basically nothing, so you’ll be fine.*

  More information had been added to your quest;

  ‘Why, Where and How.’

  You don’t know how you know about things like Rogues and Casters, but you do.

  *Yay.*

  You are now one step closer on your path to glory! *Redacted for lawsuit purposes. *

  I was standing on the books with my arms spread wide, scary hobo man was right in front of me in shock. He hadn’t moved from his squatting position, and his split thumb was right in front of my face.

  He pulled his knife out and started reaching for me with his bloody hand.

  “Well, sh-” After the word left my mouth, I felt an electric shock run through my body as my health dropped from six to one.

  The last thing I remembered before falling unconscious was a single prompt.

  Because of;

  ‘Tongue tied’ -Transcendent

  You are unable to swear.

  The system has taken 5 points of health in retaliation.

  The system notices that you are close to dying due to low health, he suggests not doing that because it is an unpleasant experience and he doesn’t think you’ll enjoy it.