Dungeon Building: A Bugbear - Chapter 7+8

Friendly reminder - the following chapters were written back in  2019/2020, and the story is incomplete. If you want to see more of it,  make sure to let me know!

-----------------------------------------

Chapter 7

You wake up gasping for air, scrambling in the dark. A soft light from around the bend in the rock shows you that you are back in your cave.

"Gods. Fucking. Damn it!" you shout at the stone roof. While you were dying- or, really while you were just dead and waiting for the timer to run out with your head on the ground and your body somewhere out of sight, you had mostly just been in shock. It was hard to feel mad, or outraged, or cockblocked when you were lacking blood to the brain.

You stumble towards the entrance to your cave and look out from the cliff, over the dark and shadowed forest below. The sun was just peeking out over the horizon, a new dawn. Even if somehow Gaela and Charlotte had been able to kill that fucking dickwad Drake S0rr0ws4nds, there was no way they were still down at base of the cliff. And if the loss of crazy, willing and luscious fuckbuddies wasn't enough, the loot was definitely gone too. Either picked up by Drake or despawned after waiting too long.

Taking a deep breath, you sit on the edge of the cliff and look down. Then you look up and focus hard, pulling up your character sheet.

Level 5 Bugbear Exile
Monster, Bugbear, Explicit
Experience to level up – 500

"Nooooooooooo!" you wail, not caring who or what might hear you. Your voice carries off into the breeze. It's all gone. All of it.

You feel like throwing up.

After a short while, shorter than you would have thought, you start getting yourself back together. It was obvious what had happened - you had been rushing down the mountain to make sure you got to the loot before Drake and the other Adventurer would be able to travel from the city to collect their gear. Sidetracking with the lady Adventurers, burying your cock in their delightful mouths, and in Gaela's warm, clenching- Stop thinking about it. Just stop. You had spent too long. You hadn't thought things through.

You should have asked the lady adventurers to a safer location. Had them help you carry the loot bags away for safekeeping. Then you could have- well, maybe you could have.

Is this going to be just a highlight in another hundred lives?

You wonder how much you'll remember of the experience, five deaths from now.

The sun was already half up when you decided you needed to move. First, you took a last look at your Character Sheet. Everything was the same as when you woke up yesterday after the patch. You clicked the Patch tab and scanned through the notes again. A few of the items stood out to you now, beyond the addition of the crafting skills.

Claimant Crystals no longer drop from unique bosses, you will get one automatically at level 3. Changed Claimant Crystal behaviour when owner dies. You had no idea what those were, or looked like, but they sounded like the only thing that lined up with the 'Monster Lair' thing you had been missing when you tried spending your fame. 'Claimant' definitely sounded like a way to lay claim to a location. And adventurers got them for free at level 3 - great for them.

Changed Monster Memory feature to better allow rivalry, championing and seeking behaviours, also stood out to you, but thinking of your Fame had you wondering if that had been reset along with the rest of your stats. You flicked the menu back over to the main Character Sheet and then selected the Fame tab.

Fame: 203
Recent Activity:
Hero demands Rivalry! + 3 (Expanded)
- You pissed off a Hero higher level than you! + 5
- You didn't have a name! -1
- You didn't have a lair! -1
Shamed a Hero! + 7 (Expanded)
- Forced a Ragequit! + 5
- Non Lethal Spellcasting Only! + 1
- Respawned Naked! + 3
- You didn't have a name! - 1
- You didn't have a lair! - 1
Shamed a Hero! + 7 (Expanded)
- Non Lethal Spellcasting Only! + 1
- Left Wanting More! + 5
- Respawned Naked! + 3
- You didn't have a name! - 1
- You didn't have a lair! - 1
Rivalry Ended! + 0 (Expanded)
- Your Higher Level Rival killed you! + 0
You have a nickname! + 43 (Expanded)
- Players on the Server are talking about you.
- Players on the Server have collectively given you a Positive Nickname! + 20
- You have become a Server Meme! + 25
- You didn't have a name! -1
- You didn't have a lair! -1
A Quest has been issued! + 6 (Expanded)
- First Quest Bonus! + 4
- Quest Accepted + 1 (5 - 4 (Escort Quest))
- Quest Accepted + 1 (5 - 4 (Escort Quest))
Player Made Quest has been issued! + 89 (Expanded)
- A Player has issued a Solo Quest regarding you! + 10
- The Quest is Non Violent! +5
- Quest Accepted 76 times! + 76 (Expand)
- You didn't have a name! -1
- You didn't have a lair! -1
Player Made Quest has been issued! + 23 (Expanded)
- A Player has issued a Solo Quest regarding you! + 10
- Quest Accepted 15 times! + 15 (Expand)
- You didn't have a name! -1
- You didn't have a lair! -1

Fame Options:
Evolve Form: 500 fame; Prerequisite: Level 10
Arcane Liegelord 0/10 (Class Ability): 10 fame
Goblinoid Liegelord 0/10 (Race Ability): 10 fame
????
????

"What... the fuck...?"

Well. Not everything was gone.

There was a lot to unpack in that fame list, but certain things certainly stood out as more important than others. Somehow the Adventurers had decided you were worthy of... some sort of recognition? What was 'meme'ing? The most worrisome part of the whole thing were the Quests. Never, ever had you been the focus of a quest! The main ones, the Escort quests, weren't even that troubling. It was the Player Made quests that boggled your mind.

What the hell did that even mean?

The fact that one of them was 'Non Violent' was certainly a plus, but the other one definitely did not say that, which probably meant... 15 people were currently hunting you down to try and kill you.

Two hundred fame, and you couldn't spend any of it! It didn't make any sense!

Fuck it, you finally thought. You were still just a level five schmuck again. Like the Fame List said, they didn't actually know who you were. Was there a point to acting any differently? You were likely to get miserably killed some way or another anyways.

Your cave was the same as yesterday, which meant you had the same priorities as well. Food, wood, fire, bed. The only difference was if any more Adventurers were being stupid and trying to jump from the cliff - you wouldn't get experience, but you _would _be able to claim some loot and items from their bodies.

Heading down to the forest made the most sense. Small animals for meat would be easier to find, along with better would than the gnarled pines from up the mountain. And you could check the 'jumping spot' semi-frequently. With a heave and a sigh you slid back from the edge of your path and stood up, staring out at the sun, mostly risen over forest now. Better get started. It was still a good couple of hours down the mountain trails.

Your walk lasted much shorter than that. Somehow, some way, your goat carcass had yet to despawn. Not fifty feet from your cave entrance that blessedly ugly little fucker with it's bashed in face and meaty haunches was sitting, cold from a night on the cliff face. This changed things, at least in the short term. Picking up the carcass was another reminder of how far you had fallen once again, struggling to lift it up onto your shoulders. You ended up dragging it, leaving a smear of old blood behind, back up the path and to your cave.

Settling it down next to the spot where you usually scraped your firepit out of the rock, you sat down beside it and looked at your stubby claws. A knife would have been so much more useful to spawn with than your damn staff. There was only one way to go about these sorts of things.

You punched the dead goat.

Skill level, -50%. No Tools, -50%. Dexterity Penalty, -15%. Total harvest speed: 10%

Huh. You remember this being harder than that. Maybe the update had changed the Skinning skill.

You punched the goat nine more times and it burst apart into a stack of bones, a rough and stained white fur skin and a sloppy pile of meat. You moved the bones over to the side of the cave, not really having a use for them at the moment, and placed the fur over near the back of the cave where you usually positioned your bed pile. Lastly, you considered the stack of goat meat.

With a sigh and a shrug you picked it up and put it into your inventory. Without any sort of bags you had limited space, and the meat took up about a third of that. Still, it was better than leaving it on the floor - meat left like that would spoil after about an hour, and while your Purify Food and Drink spell could make it edible, after spoiling it still turned green and tasted off.

Your stomach grumbled and you sighed, taking the goat meat back out of your inventory. You hadn't eaten at all during your last spawning, and even though you were fairly certain starvation didn't carry over on death you still felt empty. It was using up one of your two meager spells for the day, but you began casting Purify Food and Drink.

Two spells did not go a long way, especially after you had access to five. Everything was reminding you of your loss.

The spell washed over the slimy, bloody and raw meat, and it became 'Purified Raw Goat Meat.'

It wasn't nearly as good as it would be cooked, and cooked meat actually went a lot further, but you still started gnawing on a piece while you stowed the rest in your inventory. It helped not to think about the rawness of it, either in your mouth or in your hands. The taste of blood in your mouth wasn't bad though.

Stomach satisfied for now, you set off down the mountain once again.

It took about an hour and a half to reach the forest, and another half hour or more to follow your trail from the day before back along the base of the cliff.

The scene of the crime.

There wasn't any blood. There weren't any corpse loot bags.

You sat on the fallen log, where Gaela had mounted your upturned cock and rode you.

One more heavy sigh, and you stood up. Mind still on the way her lips had parted - both sets.

Maybe there will be some idiot adventurer's corpses later, you thought, and turned back into the woods looking for a good tree to work on. You picked one a good five hundred yards from the 'jump spot' so that an adventurer above wouldn't hear or see you working and think twice about jumping. Again, no knife, no axe.

You punched the tree. It looked like your Carpentry skill helped, but your lack of an effective tool also made it harder. The Tree 'node' made solid 'thunk' noises every time you punched it, and every twenty minutes or so it would spit out a small stack of rough hewn logs. The third stack, after an hour of punching the tree, was accompanied by a block of leaves, which you let scatter to the ground. The tree node withered into a stump.

Resource node, depleted (3/3), 7:59:45

Maybe you picked a shitty tree after all. Usually there were four or five goes on a resource node.

Fitting your logs into your inventory, now mostly full with only a couple of spaces left, you decided to head back and check the jump spot. The trek was quick, and the search was quicker. No corpse bags.

Your stomach grumbled again. Hungry already? That raw meat really didn't last long at all.

You picked a stump, this one not from a resource node, just inside the treeline from the small clearing. You stretched your neck, and your punching arm, then took out another piece of Purified Raw Goat Meat.

Then the Adventurer stumbled out of the opposite treeline, muttering to herself and swatting at a branch that clung onto her hair for a moment.

---

Chapter 8

She was clothed in a loose, flowy dress and was carrying a thin steel rod topped with a small gold sphere on the end. Her brown hair was long and wavy, once she patted it back into place after the branch. The only other stitch of clothing she seemed to be wearing were thigh high brown leather boots, the tops of which landed just at the edge of her dress hem.

Muttering to herself, she looked frustrated and agitated. Not a good thing in Adventurers. As she picked her way through the clearing, stopping at one point to pull a twig from her hair and adjust the loose shoulder straps of her dress, you realized she also looked hurt. The scrapes and small cuts on her bare arms, face and upper chest spoke of more than a rough time walking through the woods, and she finally got close enough for you to examine.

Adrianne Weatherbough, Level 7 Warlock
Hero, Human, Active, Explicit

Her health bar was hovering around half.

She was... vulnerable? It was hard to say, really. Any other day, besides yesterday you guessed, even with her injured you would have backed away. She was too potentially deadly to bother with, especially after you had already used one of your two spells for the day on Purify Food and Drink. What were the chances you could kill her with one Thunderclap?

Ok, what were the chances when she wasn't perfectly positioned between you and a cliff edge?

She hadn't seen you yet, and you felt like you could just stay still and silent and she would certainly walk right by.

Thoughts of Gaela were still in your head though. Not of the fucking, though. Well, not specifically the fucking. It was how, even though she was an Adventurer and you were a monster, she had... come around? She'd talked to herself like this one was, but she had also talked to you. Her raspy voice making whispered promises in your ear. And you knew it hadn't been the Charm - it had been the Adventurer herself.

Not all Adventurers were mindless killers.

You weren't going to attack. But this was an opportunity, and yesterday had proven you should not ignore opportunities. If you weren't going to attack, and you weren't going to let her walk on by, what other options did you have?

"Hey there, friend," you said, trying your best to smile.

The Warlock literally jumped, you had taken her by such surprise. She raised her rod in both hands as if she were going to swing it like a club, looking around wildly until she finally spotted you next to the bush, sitting on the stump.

"I see you aren't doing so great right now. It's not much, but you could have some of my food if you want. It's raw, but I Purified it so it should still help with your health situation."

She was frozen, eyes boring into you and then darting around the rest of the treeline. Slowly, she lowered her rod and cocked her head to the side. "Um... yeah. That would actually be... great..." she said. Her walk over to you was cautious, like a skittish woodland critter. You pulled another piece of Purified Raw Goat Meat out of your inventory and held it out to her.

"Thanks," she said, taking it and frowning as the meat squished between her fingers.

You shuffled over as far as you could on the big stump and patted the space next to you, still trying your damnedest to smile disarmingly.

"You're welcome," you said, then took a small bite of your own meat. "Sorry about the rawness, but I haven't gotten the chance to make a fire yet."

"That's alright," she said. She sat, legs pressed together and back upright, and took her own small bite. "Where, uh, did you get the goat meat?"

You nodded at the cliff face. "Up the mountain. There's some wild goat herds about halfway up. They can be feisty, but a guy's gotta eat."

"Huh," she said thoughtfully, taking another bite of the meat. Slowly her health bar was growing, inch by inch as she chewed the food.

"So..." you said, not sure where to go from there. "Looks like you ran into some trouble. Anything I should be worried about?"

"Fucking Goblins," she groaned, her next bite out of the meat more solid this time and less mincing. "They chased me for like, an hour. Kept screaming 'clammy cry!' at me, like I was supposed to know what that meant. I killed maybe a dozen of them and they still wouldn't leave off. I finally lost them when I jumped a river and used my last Thunderclap spell to knock the fallen tree I used as a platform into the water." She stopped chewing, having been talking around her mouthful of meat, and glanced at you. "Uh, I probably shouldn't have told you that."

"About your last spell?" you asked, and then shrugged. "I've only got one left today myself. Used the other on Purifying this meat."

"So... what are you doing out here?" Adrianne asked you.

"Well," you hesitated, then shrugged, nodding at the cliff face again. "A few Adventurers were being weird and jumping off of that cliff yesterday like buffoons. I figured I would come check to see if there were any more doing it. No luck yet."

"Oh, that," she said. "Yeah, I doubt you'll find anyone else doing that any more. They pulled it from the wiki, everyone knows it's fake now and anyone who hadn't heard about it never will."

"Well, damn," you sighed. "Guess that means it's back to punching trees."

"Uh, why?"

"Only way I can get some decent firewood," you said.

"Yeah but why are you punching them?"

"How else am I supposed to get firewood?"

Her brow furrowed and she wiped meat juice from her chin with one forearm. "Uh, with an axe?"

"Oh, yeah. I guess. I don't have one though."

"What? Why not? You can get a basic axe for like five copper pieces."

Now it was your turn to furrow your brow. "From where?"

"Literally any basic trade merchant or shop."

You looked around at the forest.

"Oh," she said. "Right. You're a monster in a forest, no shops around here."

"Wouldn't help if there was, I don't have five copper pieces either."

"Huh. You know, you don't act like any other monster I've run into so far. I played Shards a long time ago and I don't remember ever sitting and eating Purified food with a Bugbear then either."

You shrugged. "Up until the whole thing with Adventurers jumping off of cliffs yesterday, I probably wouldn't have offered you any either."

"Kind of a life changing thing, then?" she asked.

"Yeah, something like that."

She was staring at you now, and you realized she'd eaten her entire piece of meat and her HP bar was filled except for just the very end of it. Oh, it's that time I guess. Bye-bye, wood and goat meat.

Adrianne the Warlock stood up, hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised as she studied you.

"I need to ask you a question and I want you to be truthful," she said.

"Sure," you said. "I can do that."

She folded her arms over her chest and pouted her lips for a moment, stewing on whatever she wanted to ask.

"Are- are you the Bugbear who Fucks?"