In Loki's Honor

Renyn escorted me to a stroll through the clearing. We walked in silence over the stone paths snaking between flower and herb gardens until we reached the lakeshore. We sat on a rock and watched some elves swim on the other shore.

"How are you, girl?" He broke the silence, worried notes floating in his well-modulated voice.

"I have two hands," I grinned back and let my smile fade into a frown. "I'm sorry we lost lives because of my folly."

"Your folly? I'm glad you accepted the plan Mother put in front of you so easily, but I'm afraid you have been compelled down that path."

I smiled and put a hand on his knee. "Worry not. She's my Mother too. Adoptive, I'll admit. She..."

I shut up. Renyn was looking at me with a frightened face. A moment was all it took for me to understand. I couldn't speak about the gods.

"Sorry," I said with a contrite grimace.

"What happened? I felt like a mental assault."

"I told you. I can talk about things I can talk about. On the other hand..."

"You can't talk about things you can't talk about. Got it. And given our conversation, you were talking about... Let me check. Can you talk about magic?"

"Say 'peko bread' if you can't understand me." He nodded. "I can talk about magic."

Renyn was a smart person. With just a few interactions, he reached a conclusion. "You can't talk about gods. About any god at all."

"There's more," I said. By his face, I knew it became annoying gibberish again. I was mentioning my curses, after all.

"Peko bread," He replied. "Let's stop for now. The effect of your curses is too disturbing."

"You are a smart poet," I grinned. "I carry a lot of baggage," I said thinking of my Skills and perks. "The good and the bad."

He stared at the lake for a moment then looked at me, "Old soul. Did you have a name? Before you were lily."

"I don't remember," I replied and watched closely his reaction. When he didn't grimace, I continued. "It was taken from me."

And it wasn't the effect of a curse. Loki had wiped convenient chunks of my life on Earth out of my memory. The fucker.

"What do you want to do now?" He asked. I knew he was not talking about today.

"Fight. Level. Get Skills. Go hunting with the rangers. Grow stronger. Work out. Kill a lot of stuff. Then die in a blaze of glory and take that stupid King and his army with him, if I can."

He made a pained sigh. "What about Lily? When will she play, frolic, be a child, be a girl?"

"That I can't answer. Tell me, if I do nothing, what will happen?"

"The humans are tenacious and will come in great numbers. The People will suffer. But that's our fight, not yours."

"You're wrong!" I stood up and straightened my dress. I gave him a long glance. I allowed determination to rise to the fore. "The fight was mine before it reached Fulgen. I want peace. I want to live a normal life. But that won't happen in this one. I'm sorry, Renyn. I hope we meet again."

The poet cried a bit. He hugged. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Find me deathberries. They grow well during winter."

"That's a job for a druid," Renyn's grin was wicked and I knew I had the same face. We all wanted to do whatever we could to protect our Fulgen forest.

The druids had deathberry seeds. We obtained some from them, and they led me to a secluded grotto away from the city where I could grow them without much risk of the deathberries spreading outside. A tall hole on the top of the cave brought enough sunlight for the bushes. I planted the deathberries and made it my job to come and care for the poisonous bushes every other day.

My reservoirs of cuteness were already filled with enough homebrew black kitten memes. I needed to try my hybrid form. Shut inside my room, I removed my clothes. I stared and poked my face, getting used to my own facial expressions. There was no such thing as Lily, a separate entity. I was Lily. I was a six-year-old girl. I would repeat that to myself until I accepted it as truth. The sense of gender dissociation remained strong. I still felt the lack of some elements dangling from my crotch and if I focused enough, I felt something else in there. I quickly dismissed those feelings. Not the proper TPO.

I closed my eyes and let the bottled rage surface. It flowed over my body like a hungry swarm of piranas, shredding my nerves and emulating the march fo the scalpel ants. I grew and my limbs stretched as my legs thinned. When I came to myself, I stared at the mirror. The figure I saw was gorgeous as she was ferocious. My hybrid form was a dozen centimeters taller than me if I stretched my digitigrade legs. It was powerful, lean, and came with Attribute boosts. Sixty percent to each physical Attribute. It wasn't too much but any boost was a welcome one. My forelimbs had thumbs and fingers but they weren't meant for fine manipulation. The thick appendages hosted long and wicked claws. I felt an urge to go, dash, prowl, stalk, and kill prey. But I remained myself.

It was obvious that shifting in more restrictive clothing wouldn't be a good idea. After examining my were-jaguar body and delighting myself with my raw power, I shifted back. I laid down on the bed and made myself comfortable. I set the mirror in a way I could look at myself naturally and spent a lot of time looking at my own face, getting used to being myself.

The next month was dedicated to training my transformations and controlling my forms. My speed was something exhilarating. I was fast and nimble. It took me a week to get used to moving at my top speed without tripping. Focused on developing my Skills, hunting was secondary. Exp still accumulated but I wasn't going after big monsters. A goblin den here, an orc warband there. Low-level trash where I could safely focus on learning. I gained two other Skills related to my new form and maxed them out, along with Shift Control.

You gained the Claws (common) Skill. Increase accuracy and damage when attacking with natural claws.

You gained the Fast Shift [moonbound] (rare) Skill. Reduce the minimum time to shift between forms by Rank x Willpower x 0.1% (maximum 100%) [current: 9.9%].

I sparred with rangers using silver weapons. Sharpened, not dull ones. I had to get used to the pain silver inflicted. And painful it was. The silver burned like nothing else. It felt like the weapons were coated in concentrated capsaicin.

Two months and the deathberry bushes were flowering. The flowers were purple and small. I took the pollen and helped breed the berries. Not even bees came to do the job as the whole plant was poisonous. It did a good job of self-pollinating in the wind, but we were in a grotto and the wind would spread the pollen elsewhere. The real reason critters avoided the area around the wolf den wasn't the presence of the wolves. It was the deathberry pollen.

There was no risk that pollen would ride with me out of the cave. I always went in my hybrid form and used pseudopods to eat the pollen and any debris on my fur before leaving. with all the pieces falling in their places, I had to train hard and get me some levels. That was the only way I would have a chance of winning.

I commissioned equipment custom-built for were-myself. My belongings could fit in a large leather backpack with straps on both sides that fit comfortably in either form. One side for human, another for the hybrid. The kitten form couldn't carry much. In my human form, I wore a black leather armor that was easy to slip out of and what passed for standard adventurers' gear. I carried no weapons except for a bronze dagger.

Dressed for travel, I searched for rangers in the outskirts and found Vandyke in the forest's outskirts. He stared at me for an uncomfortable moment before he asked, "Greetings, sister. What brings you here?"

Appraise told me he was a level fifty-something [Ranger]. I only had a precise measurement up to the twenties.

I smiled. "Hi, I'm Lily. I didn't have the opportunity of asking your name before, sir."

"Name's too long. You can call me Taeral. Well met, Lily. I'm sorry if we were rough with you, but you did dispel the protection of some of our trees."

I shook my head. "No offense taken, sir. You were doing your job. I was trespassing your territory, and I did dispel the protections, albeit unwittingly. And I never touched one of the enchanted trees again."

He chuckled. "Good. Well met, Lily the moon-bound. You are one of us now. Archmagister told us to cooperate with you. What can I do for you?"

"I need to find something to kill. Above level thirty. Forty and up would be nice."

His face twitched, a shadow of a grimace that was long gone when I noticed it.

"What level and Class are you now?"

"[Monster Hunter], thirty, sir."

He was unfazed by that. "Where did you allocate most of your perks?"

"Unarmed combat, fighting creatures stronger than me, and making them bleed."

"Stealth or frontal assault?"

"Stealth."

He thought for a while and pointed south-west. "Okay. In that direction, two days away, there's a tribe of lizardfolk that left their marsh and invaded in search of food. We usually only harass their foraging parties, but this winter they brought the whole tribe. We are afraid they'll relocate and claim part of the forest for them. We can't let that happen or they will expand deeper after they exhaust the resources there. I want you to go and kill their leaders and warriors. Noncombatants, especially the females and hatchlings are to be left alone. Once they are unprotected, the survivors will withdraw back to the swamp. The loss of the warriors will ease the food situation for them and they will survive. Questions?"

I sighed with relief. I was afraid he would tell me to kill the whole tribe. That much, I could agree to. There was only one problem.

"I didn't understand why their food situation will normalize if the warriors are gone. Why can't they hunt in the swamp then?"

He picked an acorn on the ground. "There is not enough to hunt for all of the tribe. Without the warriors, the survivors can live with fishing, foraging, and scavenging. But how will they overthrow the strong among them? They are a militaristic tribe. The warriors get first to pick on the food, and without things to hunt, they are just a burden. That's why they expanded and invaded our forest. They know that if the situation doesn't change, the weak will starve, die, and they will follow later."

The way he put things hurt my sensibility. "A culling then," I stated.

"No. We wouldn't take action if they didn't invade our territory. But if we are driving them out, we might as well help the survivors. We have just cause for a complete wipe. Slaughter them all. That is not our way, sister. The warriors should be between thirty-five and fifty with the chieftain under sixty. I think that's what you wanted. They are bestial enough that your [Monster Hunter] perks might work with them. Or not. And they don't have silver weapons. You'll be safe."

I had to agree with him. Elves were a territorial race. Not to mention slightly xenophobic. Given the current zeitgeist, slaughtering invaders wholesale was not a practice frowned upon by most civilizations. Giving the noncombatants chance to leave with their lives was a sign the elves already had higher ethical standards. With that in mind, I made my choice.

"I accept the task then. I don't mind observers, but I need the Exp for myself."

Vandyke, no, Tareal smiled. "Off you go. I won't ask if you have enough provisions. I know you can live off the land."

I grinned, "You have no idea." And he hadn't. I could live off the land literally.

Away from prying eyes, I removed my clothes and stowed everything in the backpack before shifting to hybrid form. I was sure the estimate of two days was in elven steps. Not a were-jaguar dashing wildly with a perk that doubled my speed. I blurred on all fours through the forest. It felt awesome. In fact, it felt like riding a motorcycle on a highway. I wish I had some rock soundtrack but the sounds of birds and small animals fleeing my approach were good enough.

I smelled them before I made visual contact. To my feline nostrils, the lizard-folk smelled like fish and stale water. I prowled along a game trail, sniffing around and tracking a hunting party. My footfalls made no noise and left no tracks. I was the ultimate predator. I was the terror of the forest. I wasn't stalking a kid from the stairs next to the front door. It was more than that.

As I approached them, I kept a low profile and moved slowly. The lizard-folk was tall. Easily triple my height. I removed the backpack and stowed it in the nook under a root. I went around for a bit and positioned myself upwind from them. Suppressing the urge to growl as I crept closer, I examined a tree in my path. When I was sure it hadn't the druidic aura I dispelled when I first entered Fulgen, I climbed it. From my vantage point, I examined their levels.

I dropped from above on the biggest lizard of the group. My claws raked his back and dug small gashes while I sank my teeth in his thick neck. A surprise strike coupled with my perks guaranteed a critical and {Vorpal Bite} did its job.

You killed level 37 Hunter. You gained 34,225 Exp (13,690 base x 10,000 perk x 0,0001 curse x 2 size x 1.25 perk)

Two million to go. Just six hundred more hunters. I jumped from the body before it hit the ground, diving to bite off the arm of the next hunter heedless of their attacks. They did about the same amount of damage to themselves as they did to me because each attack I evaded went into another lizard-folk. One of them tried to flee. I chased him down and hamstrung his leg before tearing his throat. Several minutes of rest left me healed and clean.

I retrieved my backpack and went for the next party.