I stared at the empty bucket for a long, uncomfortable moment.
My body had already swallowed the last of the food which had… just… been there.
We hadn't cooked it or even rinsed it off. He just, in his usual unthinking way, ate it.
Completely overcome with anger and frustration, I threw the empty bucket and screamed, "This has to change!"
The bucket landed with a clatter and rolled through the debris of the spider fight, startling a couple of rats out of hiding.
The movement startled me, and my body dove over the counter, scrambling to catch the rats.
One rat scurried into a hole under the counter.
The other fled toward the storerooms.
My body pounced and scrambled after it, grabbing its tail in the nick of time as it turned a corner. I swung it into the air and slammed it into the floor once… twice… three times before it stopped moving.
Now that we had a rat, I struggled to stop his body from immediately scarfing it down.
Our hunger, my hunger, was out of control. We were… I was ravenous. Even now, having just eaten, I could feel my hunger and an almost overwhelming urge to eat. I couldn't allow this to continue.
Of course, my body was feeling that urge, too. Worse, I could feel it, er, my body, getting upset with me for denying us the food.
It was all confusing, and it didn't make sense.
That's all it took. A momentary lapse in my focus… and my body had the whole rat - fur, bones, and all - in our mouth. The satisfaction of the rat's crunch echoed like an argument won.
This wasn't just hunger. My body was rebelling, acting as if it had its own will—and it terrified me.
I absently scratched my itching chest, feeling mild pain and something hard sticking out.
I pushed my chin to my chest, looking down...
We had a cleaver in his chest!
I remembered being hit by it during the fight but hadn't thought about it since. How could I have forgotten? That didn't seem right! It was like…
It was smaller than I remembered.
No… that wasn't it. I had been thinking about the cleaver sticking out my chest… and…
The wound around it was healed and looked more like an old piercing.
I grabbed the handle awkwardly, with only his thumb and two fingers wrapping around it, and pulled.
There was pain. My body ignored it. I cringed from it.
The fucking cleaver was stuck firmly in my chest.
I grabbed the back of the blade with my other hand and pulled with both, wiggling it back and forth.
It resisted.
We rocked and wiggled the blade, and with a pop, it pulled out. The cleaver's pulling free sent a jagged ripple of pain through his chest, followed by a queasy warmth as something wet trickled down my abdomen.
We let the cleaver clatter to the ground.
That wasn't right. Outside of my grasp, it looked the same size… But then, the rats, once enough to stave off our hunger, now felt like mere scraps. My body was growing—too fast, too unnaturally.
I looked at my clawed hands. The greenish hue seemed… wrong. Beneath the greenish tint of our skin, sinews writhed unnaturally as if my body no longer answered entirely to me. My skin felt like it didn't fit anymore, stretched thin over bulging muscles that throbbed with each reluctant movement.
I wanted a mirror but hadn't seen one anywhere in this horrid place.
I felt… overwhelmed.
I needed to take a break and think of something else. I went to my go-to distraction.
"Status Screen."
Name: Toll. Origin: Otherworld Gamer. Class: Rogue - Assassin level 3. Race: Troll Cursed Halfbreed - Stage 3. Large humanoid. AC: 14. Health: 32 of 32. Strength 18, Dexterity 13, Constitution 18, Intelligence 9, Wisdom 8, Charisma 9. Saves: Dexterity +3, Intelligence +2. Feats: Skilled. Proficiency Bonus: +2. Skills: Athletics +8, Acrobatics +3, Disguise Kit +2, Insight +1, Investigation +1, Perception +1, Persuasion +1, Poisoner's Kit +2, Stealth +3, Thieves Tools +3, Video Games +3. Class features: Expertise in Athletics and Video Games. Sneak Attack +2d6, Thieves Cant, Weapon Mastery, Cunning Action, Steady Aim, Assassinate, Assassin's Tools. Racial traits: Darkvision 60 ft., Keen Smell, Regeneration of Proficiency Bonus + Constitution Bonus per 6 seconds, Multiattack, Natural Attacks - Bite, Claws. Natural Armor of 10 + Constitution modifier. Languages: Common, Thieves Cant.
'Troll Cursed Halfbreed'? What did that mean? I mentally tried interacting with the words, hoping for more information, but nothing happened.
I randomly clicked on 'Intelligence' and tried interacting with it. A small window popped up.
Intelligence is an attribute that measures the amount of knowledge one possesses. For instance, identifying a tomato as a fruit would be done through intelligence.
I closed the description and seethed at the words, 'Troll Cursed Halfbreed - Stage 3' on the status screen. Why didn't it provide him with any information?
I tried again, selecting 'Assassin', and another window popped up over my status screen.
Assassins are the agents of Lord Death and automatically change their free guild membership from Thieves Guild or Adventurer's Guild to the Assassin Guild. They are specialists in infiltration, know the value of a life, and are experts in the ending of said life. Note: Characters killed by assassins cannot be reincarnated, resurrected, or respawned normally.
That was terrifying! Was this entire class going to be dedicated to griefing players? Why would anyone put a class like that in a game? It'd put a target on the player's back, and I had enough problems…
Like the stupid curse.
I closed the pop-up, returning to the status screen.
Curses were permanent debuffs in his games, often acting like magical diseases. Lycanthropy and the curse of thirst were examples found in many games.
Lycanthropes, or werewolves, seemed pretty applicable to his circumstances. On the night of a full moon, the afflicted would lose control of their body, turn into giant wolves, kill people, and then return to normal in the morning.
It seemed so different and yet so similar.
While I could think of other were-animals, were-trolls weren't something I recalled. The idea seemed as foreign as were-elves or were-orcs.
Yet… I couldn't discount the idea because I was changing, right? Once enough to stave off my hunger, rats now felt like mere scraps. The cleaver had shrunk, but at the same time, it seemed like my body had just grown larger—too fast, too unnaturally.
What other examples of were-animals were there? Werelions, weretigers, werebears, and weresharks! Oh, my! They were all predators that might feed on humans.
The only saving grace was that this was a game; it wasn't real. Thank… the game designers for that because it felt real!
Unfortunately, it also felt like I was a monster… or becoming one.
I put my theory to words and spit them into the air, "Someone made a weretroll, and I'm that weretroll!" It sounded right… well… no… my voice was deep, rough, and all wrong. But while my voice was all wrong, the words they spoke and the ideas behind them felt right.
I thought of my climb and the other inhabitants of those cages… Were they all weretrolls? Was that my future? A mind trapped in a body that obeyed only the hunger. Was that my fate—to rot into something monstrous?
I felt like I was on to something, but I was still missing vital information. If I was a were-troll, why didn't my race say that instead? My status screen didn't answer my questions; it just gave me more.
I closed the screen.
I needed a library, yet I couldn't recall seeing a single book.
I went into the kitchen and looked at the jailer's headless body. Since my body wasn't eating it, it wasn't food. Why had I grabbed it? It would have been great if I could have questioned him.
I did the only thing left: I searched the body.