"Do you know where we are?" Cheshire asked me as we wander around aimlessly across the surprisingly large outpost.
"Nope! Not a clue," I reply in an upbeat voice as I take a left and see a crowd of people. "And I may I found something interesting. Wait here, I'll go check out what's happening."
I turn to the nearest building and run up the wall and crawl over the lip. With the height advantage on my side, I see a stall with a girl trading out weapons and the like. As I watch, my mind clicks as I realize who this is, it's Lizzy!
Hopping off the roof and scaring some passing players piss less, I go back to Chesh and tell her what I found.
"Think she can upgrade our weapons again?" Cheshire asks looking at the crowd.
I place a hand on my chest and act hurt from her words, "You wound me dear. Are my weapons not up to your high standards?" All said with a playful voice.
She snorts out a laugh, but doesn't reply anymore than that. She makes her way to the back of the line and joins the crowd. I follow her as well, hoping she has some nice attachments for my rifle or the elusive suppressor for my gun. No NPC shops carry them that I have found yet.
We wait in line for an hour before our turn is up, "What can I do for you today?" Lizbeth says with the award-winning smile that looks almost real. Cheshire is up first.
She draws out her MP5 and asks if she can upgrade it any. After examining the weapon, she mumbles out something that only me and Cheshire hears, "That moron went into weapons crafting?" Cheshire snickers at the jab at my person. Putting her attention back on Cheshire, she says, "I could upgrade it to the next tier in the smithing class, but that's rather expensive. Can I also ask why the barrel is made of one of the most expensive materials in crafting that would equal the value of the gun without it?"
Cheshire turns to me once she hears that and looks at me expecting an answer.
"What?! You kept blowing up or melting everything I made! Had to take steps to make building that gun! The way you play with fire, you would just blow the thing up in five days. Thinking about it, I don't know how that other gun held up for as long as it did with all those barrels it went though."
She grudgingly nods and turns back to the pink haired smith. "I guess I'll just have it upgraded." Liz nods and takes out a pair of tags. She writes a number on both and details on one. Threading the one in the trigger guard of the gun, she hands the other to Cheshire.
"I'll have the upgrade ready around one tomorrow." Thanking her, Cheshire steps off to the side and waits for me to finish.
"S'up Lizzy! Do you have an acog sight and a .223 suppressor?" She nods and heads to the back of the stall and looks through a cabinet she has back there. After a minute of rummaging, she finds the two and place them on the counter.
"Anything else explosive guy turned gunsmith?" She asks grinning.
"Actually yes, to make these two items, is it a schematic or something you just unlock? I have found myself blowing up any attachments on my weapon one way of another and would like to know if I can replace these without inconveniencing anyone."
"The hells a schematic?" She replies with a confused look on her face. Well that answers that question.
"Meet me at the inn later and I'll tell you, I don't want to hinder too much of your business." She nods and I pay for my goods. Stepping up to Cheshire, I cheekily say, "See, even getting lost when I'm around, good things can come of it."
Cheshire punches me in the shoulder and heads off to find the inn we bought a room in. Without her weapon she's not going out in the field. "I'll being doing some random shit if you need me," I call after her. She just waves a hand over her shoulder.
Hiking my way out of the post, I find a large snowy tree and carefully scale it. From there, I start sneaking and jumping from tree to trees, stalking deer and other mobs.
My senses dull over the next three hours due to tedious work and the cold. As I make a jump, I overestimate my reach and fall to the forest floor, or I would have if not for a narrow hole at the base of the tree which I fell leg first in.
As I land, there is a loud crack as I break both my legs. I couldn't stop the cry of pain before it escaped my lips. This echo down the long corridor I find myself in. Examining what I fell into, I see the hole I fell down is in the middle of the hall and fifteen feet above me. Yeah not getting out that way.
Typing out a message to Cheshire, I tell her what happened and where. When I hit send, a message pops up telling me that messages can't be sent in a dungeon. Perfect.
I align my bones to much of my agony and wait for my high leveled battle healing to fix them up. While I'm occupied, I attach my new equipment to my rifle. The sight replaces my holosight that I replaced my red dot with.
After waiting a painful twenty minutes, I pull my stiff body to its feet and using the patented "eny, meany, miny, moe" I started off to the right. This long corridor stretches at least four kilometers before turning off into a staircase down.
My mind screams at me "NO YOU FUCKING DUMBASS!" And my heart calmly tells me, "You know you are going down there whatever anyone says, just go." I listen to the rational one and start to head down the stairs, only to hit a pressure plate on the third step. I hate you heart. Using my sprint skill, I charge down the straight staircase at high speeds while trying not to roll my ankle and get caught by the raging fire that is following my footsteps and trying to taste my boot.
"Why do I keep doing stupid shit when I'm alone?!" I cry as I run.
Just when the fire was about to take me, I reach the end of the tunnel and throw myself to the side. The fire jets out into the room and slowly ends. Gasping on the stone floor, I lift my body and see a very large fox looking down on my with blood-red eyes and drool frothing around its mouth. It is about the size of a house and longer then three buses lined up bumper to bumper.
It lets loose an earth-shaking roar and I respond with a high pitch squeal that would do the gnomes proud. To all gods and greater beings... What the hell did I do to you?!
The fox lunges and I roll to the side, but not fast enough to avoid getting my arm tore off by its giant claws. I lose half of my forearm with that attack. Picking myself up before a counter attack, I run away while madly laughing trying to focus through the pain of losing an arm to rather dull giant claws.
Pulling my sidearm from its holster, I spin and find the blood red eyes just a few meters from me. It is charging low to the ground and it speed is something even I can't comprehend. In a blind panic, I unleash the entire clip in its approaching face, taking out both eyes.
While it thrashes around, I draw a first aid kit from my inventory and haphazardly fix my stump up to stop bleeding and down a potion to get my health back up. Finally, I look at the creature's name, [Kyuubi the Demon King]. I think someone watches to much anime. I pull a flash out and throw it at the creature to further stun it. The health bar read that its first bar is half down with five more to go. So going to die.
Reloading and holstering my side arm, I unslung my rifle and using my sling, wrapped it around my new stump, I can kind of aim with it. Unleashing a full auto clip into its bloody eyes, I see the first bar disappear. I guess this is one of those weak creatures that only advantage is its speed and damage. A dangerous combination that I, myself enjoy.
Ejecting the spent mag, I press the stock against my shoulder and awkwardly fish out two clips, one for the rifle and one for my mouth to keep at standby. The fox has finally gotten over the attack and starts to sniff the air. Shit.
I start shooting at the giant creature as I start running. It blurs as it follows and lunges at the place I was two seconds ago. This little dance lasted for hours until I used the last round of my sidearm. My aim for most of the battle has only hit its flank due to poor aiming, but I got in a few good headshots in. It is just at the end of its second to last bar of health. Putting all my weapons away, I continue dancing around the building size fox. I used the last of my ordinance on the polar bears the other day so explosives are out. I neglected to buy another knife so that is out.
As I ponder, I take a misstep and that is all the fox needs as he swipes his dull claws around and tears off the front of my armour, leaving giant grooves of tore flesh it in its wake. The armour shatters, but thankfully the hoodie stays together.
My health bar takes a dive to the red. With my high battle healing, the bleeding doesn't really matter anymore so my health just barely goes up a few points a second. Taking up the dance again, I carefully check my inventory and find some of the components to the bombs I dismantled. Taking out the unstable ingredients, I mix them in a bag and pray to the gods that they don't go off. I toss in some shrapnel and hurl it at the boss's side which causes it to detonate. It was all A grade stuff too, so the explosion was around the same intensity.
Due to the range of the boss and move body, I take some shrapnel to the eye. Effectively blinding myself and taking out my depth perception. It also almost killed me as my health reads to be under one hundred until I am dead. The fox however took a great deal of damage and has only a fifth of a bar left.
Out of Ideas, I start chanting the blood rage song. Soon my vision goes red and I charge at a high-speed. Vaulting off the ground, I grab its ear and start to viciously punch its head where a mass of bullets hit. The skin gives way to bone and a jump off before it could swipe me off its head.
Drawing my pistol, I time it again and jump on the head at the same spot and using the narrow barrel, I start smash it against the exposed bone. Level of detail the creators took is starting to get sickening. The bone soon cracks under the heavy hit. I turn around and wait for the swipe. As it comes, I use my buff and agility to flip over the paw, using the momentum to break the skull along with my abused pistol.
Without hesitating, I pull my last grenade out, a concussion one. Oh if this doesn't work then I am dead. Pulling the pin, I shove it in the void inside its head and jump off. As I land, I roll under the claw just as the grenade goes off and destroys the monster.
It however doesn't shatter like normal, it turned into a wavy energy and flew at me. It coated my arm and with agonizing pain, it melted into my skin leaving a twisting blood-red fox running up my arm. The tail starting at my wrist and the head resting on its paws draped from the back of my shoulder to the front. Much like the Kilroy symbol if it had been a fox.
A message popped up congratulating me on killing the demon. Another window tells my reward which is a ton of exp and a new gun [Foxy Colt].The description has some flavor text to it too. The pistol served the Demon King while he was alive and human, may it cause more mayhem in the hands of its new wielder. The gun is a 1911 with black plating on the barrel and a black fox etched on the grip. It also called itself a cursed weapon. Equipping it, I found out why. A pop up told me that this was permanent. The gun will grow with me, but I can no longer change it out with another sidearm unless I want to over-encumber myself. It is also indestructible, so I guess that's a plus.
Sighing, I close the pop up and open my stats trying to figure out what the tattoo does. It doesn't say anything about it anywhere. Meh... At least it looks cool and I guess it can be another trophy from this fight. I stumble back up the stairs after searching the room and found nothing worth a penny.
I carefully made my way up the stairs, but it didn't matter for somehow in my mad dash for life, I activated all the traps on the two kilometer staircase. Getting back to the corridor, I hobble my way to the exit which was a kilometer the other direction... Grand.
It takes a few more hours to get back to the outpost due to the snow impeding my movement, the cold of the wind against my wounds, and having to avoid the mobs because of having no ammo. I finally get to the outpost when the post's chimes ten at night when monsters start getting badass. I'm also a little ashamed to admit, but with my eye out of action, which I covered with a bandage, I ran into a share of low hanging branches.
I make my way to the inn and draw many stares from my appearance. Once inside, I spot Cheshire and Lizbeth giggle together in the corner. Shuffling over there, I flop down next to my girlfriend. In a tired and pained voice, I greet them, "Sorry I'm late. The random shit took a turn for the worse and I got stuck in a room with a pissed off Demon King... Yeah it's as stupid and painful as it sounds."
The two ladies just stare at me and my numerous open wounds, lack of eye, and the stump I have for a forearm along with me being heavily coated in the fox's and my blood. Liz asks the first question, "Are you okay?"
"No... No... I about 20 points away from passing out."
Cheshire asks the second question. "How did you beat a Demon King solo?!"
"Well Kyuubi was not a push over. I think the only reason I am talking to you right now is the fact that is a blind panic when it charged me, I shot out both of his eyes. Also I can't go out tomorrow, I need to do a complete resupply on myself. I used all my ammo and had to bash the thing's head open and drop a concussion grenade in there to kill it. Yeah that's about as dangerous as it sounds."
"Crow... Please go to bed. You need rest so you can heal."
"Yeah... Yeah I think that's a good idea... Feeling a bit strange at the moment." With that, I stumble my way upstairs and to the room. As I take off my hoodie, it crumbles and breaks and the armour is already destroyed, so I just kick my boots off to the side and change into my pajama pants and pass out on my side of the bed.
A/N - Woo! Done with this chapter! Damn that was hard to do. Not the story, but getting it down. I am typing on my android and that is some bullshit to do almost 3000 in one sitting on it. Ohh my thumbs. Also do to technical error (I fucked up), I lost everything from the beginning of the corridor onwards. Hope you enjoyed and sorry for have very little dialogue in this chapter.
