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

---   Sally   ---

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

 

I felt myself floating through the sky, flying amongst the clouds, the ground out of sight as I explored the empty sky. There was nothing else but the blue sky, clouds and my body, flapping my wings to propel myself with reckless abandon, diving through clouds while whooping with joy, feeling truly free.

Where there was nothing to worry about, no impending doom or souls getting tied together. Nothing to hold me back, and I could just let loose.

 

But then, I woke up, opening my eyes to find that the campfire had burned itself out, not even an ember was left in the dead coals. I looked around, appreciating my ability to see in the dark in its entirety, my vision was only slightly bleached of colour when compared to before when the fire was still alive.

I glanced over at Orion, wondering if the pitch-black environment was going to be an issue. But before I could think up some sort of plan to help, Orion began stirring and waking up, his eyes snapping open.

The man turned and looked at me, apparently having no issues with seeing in the dark as he looked at me with his intense yet slightly blank stare. Much to my surprise, his pupils had become like mine, thin and long like a cat’s eye and luckily for Orion his irises were also dark, making it hard to notice this new aberration.

It seemed like he got my eyes from the exchange that <soul bound>, getting night vision as well. Though Orion seemed confused about the situation, clearly able to see that there wasn’t any light around us, but still could see.

For a few moments his stoic face scrunched up a little in confusion, before it smoothed out as got up and started checking through his pockets, looking like he just accepted the fact that he could in a few seconds. But the man quickly woke up fully hopping up onto his feet and inspecting himself, checking his ripped up clothing and the wound from that golden dagger.

He pulled up his shirt to inspect the wound, and much to my surprise the skin had already reconnected. There was still some ragged and scarred skin that was an angry red, the entry wound of the dagger creating a viscous mass of rough torn up skin that’d not healed properly, nubs of skin sticking out like torn up jelly.

He glanced towards me after inspecting his wounds, suspicion and confusion in his eyes as he studied me for a bit with that intense gaze of his, making me very uncomfortable.

He took a step towards me, and I reflectively took one away, feeling overwhelmed as his giant size made me nervous. It was a new experience being so small compared to other people, and that fact was a stark reminder that I wasn’t in the ‘people’ category.

I was now in the ‘helpless baby lizard that could get killed by anything’ side of things and I was unable to do anything to Orion. It’s scary feeling, being helpless, and one I’d probably have to get used too.

But before I could get more worked up over Orion lording over me, he crouched down and then laid down onto the floor his head half-a-metre away as he stared at me. I leaned back, trying to get myself a little bit further away from those scary, emotionless eyes.

I sat there, waiting for something to happen while Orion and I just awkwardly stared at each other, the man doing nothing but making me nervous. But then I spied his hand slowly creeping up, worming up from his side and approaching me at an even pace.

So, I growled, and he stopped, letting his hand hang in the air until I thought he’d given up.

But then his hand started moving again, so I snarled again to get him to stop, and he did.

This cycle continued for a bit, Orion and I acting out this weird game of red-light green-light until his hand was hovering ten centimetres from my head. I sighed, wondering what was going on behind this man’s emotionless face. If he’d wanted to hurt me, he could’ve and he probably wouldn’t anyways, what could you get out of hurting the animal you connected your soul to.

In desperation to just get out of this situation I gave up and just decided to let Orion do what he wanted to do just so he’d leave me alone. I watched nervously as his hand bridged the distance between it and my forehead, going cross-eyed just to keep my eyes on it. And then… nothing?

All Orion did was rest his pointer finger on my head, and I glanced at him, wondering what he was planning. He started to move it and scr-r-a…

s-c-c…

ah-a-a-a

mhn-n-nnn…

it felt so-o-o-o warm, I leaned into it, wanting more of it and following the feeling as it moved around my head.

Ahh…

 

Then, I abruptly felt it stop, the warmth that’d melted my brain into a puddle faded and left me sitting there in confusion. What just happened to me?

Did he just scratch my head?

I returned my attention to Orion, who’d started standing up with the smallest hint of a smile on his face. But all I felt was abject horror, I could understand why cats and dogs liked getting scratched so much, that felt like I got drugged. But I didn’t want to get treated like a pet, and no matter how nice head pats were, Orion giving him them confirmed that he thought of me as one.

But what can I do about it? It’s not like I can politely ask him to treat me like the fully grown adult male that I was. All I can do for now is hope that this system will let me speak his language at some point so I can verbally harass him for the stuff he’s done to me. I feel like my masculinity had been finely crushed up over the last couple of days.

I judgingly glared at Orion again, who’d been standing and waiting a few steps down the tunnel, the man patiently standing there with his usual calm expression. I wonder if he’d still be so serene if I bit him.

But I got up anyways and followed him, my pride as a person and a man… well I can put it aside if it means hiding behind Orion whenever monsters show up.

Orion and I started walking down the corridor again and I admired the strange way that the passageway was shaped, it was strangely rectangular, the corners being roughly right angles and the walls that stretched up into the darkness above were parallel. It was both artificial in the way that a cave could never be this uniform, and natural as well, there wasn’t any smoothing of the walls, everything from the walls to the occasional stones, everything seemed naturally formed.

I shrugged and ran to catch up to Orion, the long-legged idiot’s stride taking much further than mine could, forcing me into an awkward half-jog just to keep up. I shot an angry glance at Orion after ten minutes of this painful marathon, hoping that he could figure out that I wasn’t built for this, already feeling myself getting tired.

I almost cried out with joy as Orion came to a stop, hopefully understanding the silent pleas that I’d been sending his way. He crouched down and extended his arms, clearly offering me a ride in his arms.

Nope.

No way.

I haven’t gotten desperate enough to get carried in someone’s arms like a pretentious princess. I huffed and lifted my head up in denial. Orion shrugging and getting up to continue walking, and I scrambled to keep up, realising that this guy didn’t have the simple concept of not speed-walking. And when I returned to jogging, I realised something else about dragon babies, they aren’t made for distance. 

I don’t know where all those isekai and reincarnation stories of popping out the womb or egg and going off and killing things came from. Because as I’ve learnt personally, those ideas are wrong, very wrong.

It feels like my legs are gonna fall off and I didn’t even know muscles could hurt this much.

After another ten minutes of my suffering Orion stopped again, frowning slightly as he looked down at me, the man encountering a problem he didn’t understand.

Eventually he squatted down, and patted his shoulder with his hand, offering me a ride on them. Hmm, a little bit better than being carried around like a lapdog. But being upgraded to a shoulder riding parrot wasn’t that much of an improvement.

But then I looked at Orion face, spotting the tuft of black hair sitting just above it and realising that I’d just found a better place to rest. So, I carefully climbed onto his shoulder, the man wincing as my claws poked through his shirt as I clambered onto him.

Orion let out a short noise of protest as I put my front paws onto his head, the man almost reaching up with his hands before I stopped him by clenching my talons a little. From the noises he made it sure did sound like it hurt.

With his resistance out of the way I finished my trek to the top of the mountain, curling up in a ball on his head and using his hair as hand holds to keep myself from falling off as he stood up. Oh yeah, now this was it, I now could understand those ancient rulers who got four unlucky slaves to carry them everywhere. Who’s on top now Orion? Who’s the pet?

This was L-U-X-U-R-Y.

I smiled as Orion started walking again, lazily resting my head on my paws as I looked out over the path we were walking on, still unchanging and as uniform as it was before, taking us god-knows-where.

But eventually the path began to widen and slope downwards, little streams of water appearing the further we went, building up into considerable flows. But we eventually reached the bottom, where the water was pooling in a pond filled with fetid things floating on the surface, clumps of green and brown were mixed in with the water, creating a disgusting smelling cesspit.

The pool occupied the floor of a circular room that was also lacking a roof, the place feeling similar to a well. Drops of water were falling from above like rain and with left no dry land to stand on, Orion was forced to tentatively step into the few centimetres of shallow sewerage.

But my attention couldn’t be held by the weird room for long, someone-

No something stood in the centre of the room, unmoving and still as death.

It had a roughly humanoid shape, its nakedness partially covered up by patches of thick matted brown fur, dark tanned skin poking out from beneath the patchy hide. Its hands were covered in long shards of some ivory or bone material, like they’d stuck their hands into a uranium powered microwave and let them mutate for a while. The feet had been replaced with hooves, similar to how I’d imagine a satyr’s feet would look.

But the weirdest part about them was their head, it looked as if someone had grabbed a taxidermied dear head off the wall and shoved their skull into it. It was an abrupt change from the human features around their shoulders to the thick and girthy deer neck, moving up the thick brown fur that covered the elongated head, it had nigh-pure black eyes that were shrouded by a white, milky glaze.

Though it did seem like a failed experiment of Frankenstein’s, its weird animalistic features weren’t the worst part about it. It was rotting.

I could smell the sickly-sweet smell of rotting wounds coming from it, the flesh that I could see had spots of what looked like mould and some of it was peeling off, the meat underneath had a strong grey tinge to it. The fur on its head had fallen off in clumps, its eyes crying dirty white puss-like tears.

I honesty would’ve thought of it as roadkill if not for the fact it was moving, jerkily lowering its head down to the water to drink from it on all fours.

I gasped, the sight of this foul thing and its stench overwhelming me for a second. Is the world I ended up in one of those dark gritty ones were there’s no hope, with eldritch horrors around every corner? Cause I hope not, for the sake of my continued survival.

As soon as the shocked noise left my mouth the monster twisted its neck with a snap, and slowly stood up, I heard the cracking of joints as it jerkily straightened its body out upright. It turned its head and focused on us with its opaque eyes, its presence permeating a stiff feeling, as if rigor mortis had set in.

 

[Using <appraisal>]

[Deer woman’s corpse – Level 17

Bodily remnants of a soiled deer woman

When this world was young and the sun and the moon still happily worked together, the deer woman was one of the little people, who hid in the forest, taking interest in humans who’d catch her eye.

She was called upon by young couples for hope that she’d bless them with fertility in the future. She’d cruelly trick lecherous men into poor situations if they dared to scorn their partners.

But one day, there was trouble in paradise, and the sun and the moon argued relentlessly. With the only two gods left arguing, the world began to become desolate and dangerous, and things that should’ve never been seen by mortal eyes were prowling both day and night.

So, all the little people in the forest begged the deer woman to talk to them, and help them resolve their relationship, after all, that’s what she did for all the humans.

After folding to the pleas of her people, she went to meet with the sun god, and ask him why he was arguing with the moon god. She went to the only place that he’d been seen in person, the place where he’d used to meet the moon, at every dawn and dusk and left a letter, inviting him to talk of his problems and of her possible role as a mediator.

The place consist of only two chairs, each roughly carved from stone, one for the sun and one for the moon, with their symbols carved into each. So, when she waited for the sun to arrive, she obviously sat in the moon’s chair, waiting for the sun god to come and take his seat.

When the sun god arrived, and found the deer woman sitting in a chair that was far from her own, he became at the audacity of the deer woman.

To sit in the chair of his partner? A foolish decision.

So, he threw her into the same place he dumped the moon god.

And now, after a millennium in that festering pit, there isn’t anything left of her.

Well, her corpse still remained, with the infestation that killed her still lingering inside.]

 

A Deer woman? I suppose that explained the two rotting sandbags attached to its chest.

But my stupid jokes were interrupted when it took a step towards us, opening its mouth to let out green and brown bile leak out, dripping into the similarly coloured water below.

Orion whipped his bow from its spot on his shoulder, holding it out in front him in a well-practiced stance, an arrow magically appearing in the bow. The corpse started moving faster now, jerkily taking steps towards us with an uneven gait, perfectly resembling the classic zombie.

As soon as the monster finished taking its first few steps, Orion unleash the arrow from his bow, and it flew fast enough that it instantly embedded itself into the corpse’s chest. I almost cursed when I saw that it didn’t even react, uncaring as it continued marching towards us.

The deer woman’s corpse began running, running full tilt at us with its hands outstretched, trying to tackle Orion to the floor. The man took a step before flinging himself out of the way, barely landing on his feet as the corpse charged passed us. It skidded to a stop, splashing dirty water everywhere with a guttural grunt, the sound of phlegm and other… viscous materials being coughed up, the monster turning to look at us with dead eyes.

Orion unhesitatingly magicked another arrow into his bow, sending it flying towards its head in one smooth motion. The head of the arrow managed to just pierce the thick hide before the skin ate up all of the arrow’s momentum, the iron tip only just digging into the skin.

But Orion was stopped from another when the corpse charged again, trying to use the same move as before, charging with her hands spread in an attempt to snag Orion.

And in response Orion also did the same thing as before, jumping out of the way while summoning another arrow to pelt at it, the projectile sinking into its shoulder. But it was another dud, the monster ignoring it and turning to them, barely a step or two away from me and I could smell the rancid reek better than ever, almost making me puke.

It took a step and swiped at us with its arm, using the appendage like a bat, Orion being forced to drop his bow into the cesspool at his feet as he yanked out the golden dagger from his jacket, extending the blade to catch the arm that was just about to hit him. With a thunk the sharp blade sunk into arm, carving through the flesh until it hit bone. But the corpse was much stronger than Orion, sending him sailing back a few steps.

But Orion was jerked back towards the corpse, pulled back by the blade still stuck in the corpse’s arm, the dagger unwilling to let go. Orion deactivated it, the dagger reluctantly releasing itself and retracting so that he wouldn’t be pulled back into the corpse’s arms. I felt anxious as the battle continued on below me, finding myself unable to do anything but watch as the two fought. I hated that everything was out of my hands, that I had helpless to change the outcome of this fight, which determined whether or not I lived another day in this scaley body.

Orion tried to regain his balance as the monster attacked again, the man barely able to lift the blade again as he scrambled to block the club-like arm. Luckily for me he managed to and was sent flying back again, but he slipped on something in the murky water, falling over backwards and landing on his back and sending me flying a few steps away from him.

The deer woman’s corpse flung itself at Orion’s prone body, snapping at him with its jaw, sending spittle flying. Just as it was about to land on top of Orion, the man whipped out gold dagger, activating it and sending the tip flying straight into the corpse’s decrepit chest.

Without hesitation the deer woman’s corpse pushed forwards, slowly impaling itself on the blade as it tried to get close enough to tear off Orion’s face with its teeth. Orion barely held it back using the dagger, pushing back against the deer woman’s corpse’s weight, holding the monster above him with the dagger. But it was getting closer, the corpse slowly slipped down the blade, barely a hands breath away from tearing off Orion’s nose.

The whole situation made me feel like vomiting, Orion was about to die, and if he did, I’d die too. I felt my legs start to shiver at the thought, the terrible anxious energy made me feel like running, fleeing, throwing up, anything but sitting here and doing nothing. By now, I’m well acquainted with the feeling, I’m scared.

With a jerk the corpse moved a bit further down the blade, its rotting teeth barely a centimetre from Orion face, the man’s face slightly paling as he tried to push harder.

Ha! His face was barely quivering while I could feel a mouthful of digested food travelling up my throat. I shakily took a step forwards, feeling helpless to do anything about the situation but I still wanted to try, even if I knew it was useless, I didn’t want to die without doing anything.

But before I could even get close, my turbulent emotions made me throw up, feeling my stomach empty as I spewed the contents of yesterday’s dinner towards the moving corpse, covering it in… fire?

I stood there in shock as the deer woman’s corpse reared back and threw itself into the shallow water around us, trying and failing to put out the fire with scummy pond water. Much to my happiness it seemed that a baby dragon’s stress response is to throw up a fire ball that acted like a Molotov cocktail of thick sticky flames. And it’d landed perfect on the corpse’s face, coating it in stubborn flames that refused to go out no matter how much it shoved its face into the water.

Orion scrambled on his back, retreating from the flailing corpse with his dagger in his hand, he glanced at me, and then at the fireball attached to the corpse’s head before breathing a sigh of relief. He got up and approached the corpse, which’d seemingly forgotten about Orion in its flailing about to put out the fire. The ranger crouched by it and stuck the unlengthened dagger into its eye and hit the button on its hilt, the monster abruptly halting its movements and going limp as the dagger pierced through its skull. Lifting up the corpse a little as the emerging blade on the other side pushed against the floor, creating the illusion that it was still about to get up.

 

[Congratulations! Deer woman’s weaknesses has been listed as: Fire]

 

[Congratulations! You’ve defeated the Deer woman’s corpse with the help of an ally.

Experience will be shared based on contribution.

Experience gained will be increased due to difference in levels]

 

I ignored the system’s constant dinging, feeling miserable and exhausted as the tension drained from my limbs. I was tempted to just lay down in the mucky water and pass out, my body and mind feeling drained from the intense situation right now. At least Orion seemed the same, the man panting as he took the dagger out of the recently unanimated corpse, standing there while he stared at the corpse emotionlessly. I took a heavy step towards him, uncaring about how he’d pick me up, I just wanted to leave.

But as I shakily walked over to him, my foot got caught on something that’d been hiding just below the surface of the shallow and dirty water, right where Orion had tripped before. I dipped a talon into the pond and pulled out something covered with muck, a piece of twine tied in a circle with an object hanging from it.

[Using <appraisal>]

[Deer woman’s pendant:

enchanted necklace

A simple pendant made of string and a piece of carved ivory, it’d been treasured by its previous owner, for it was a gift from someone who’d loved her, but she could never return her feelings. So, she kept it as a memento of the admirers folly, a reminder that love isn’t always fair.

It’d been by her side for long enough that some of her remaining power and purity remain in it, untouched by her own corruption.

Enchantments:

Only for the pure:

the magic of this pendant is only accessible to those that the deer woman would approve of, the untouched and pure. You must be either a woman or child that hasn’t hurt another for selfish reasons. You can only use the pendant once you’ve attuned it to your soul, and the pendant must approve of you for that to happen.

 

Natural charms:

once attuned the necklace will grant you a mystical presence, lending you some of the aura that the deer woman once had. It’ll give you the presence of nature that is obvious to other fairies and little men, reminding them of their debt to the deer woman. It’ll also attract those of your sexual attraction to you and give you the allure that the deer woman once had.

 

Life of the festival:

Any party, celebration or ritual that has music will be elevated by you, people will be unable to help themselves and join the festivities, dancing freely and forgetting the troubles of yesterday, today and tomorrow. You too will find yourself moving and stamping your feet to the beat of the drums, losing yourself among the crowd of cheering and dancing people.]

 

[conditions met for attunement:

untouched and pure: [✓]

woman or child: [✓]

hasn’t hurt another for selfish reasons: [✓]

You may attune to this item whenever you wish, but be quick to decision, for magical items that are imbued with will can be whimsical. It might decide to find itself another owner if you take your time.]

This is… interesting. Is a deer woman one of those early deities that got worshiped for fertility and lovey-dovey stuff? N-e-a-a-t, this will come in handy when I finally find civilisation.

Wait, ‘untouched and pure: [✓]’ is this thing calling me a virgin! It is, isn’t it. But why’d a necklace made for partying and ‘fertility’, also need you to be ‘untouched’?

Oh, who am I kidding, I’m definitely keeping this thing, even if it doesn’t make much sense.

I poked my head through the loop of string and hung the dirty necklace around my neck, just before Orion picked me up with his hands and dumping me on his head. I barely had time to grab on before he started marching off down the only other path in the room apart from the one we came here though.