Fluffy

"Meet Fluffy!" I announce proudly when the rest of my party finally showed up in the main cavern of the Dire Den, sitting atop the newly evolved Infected Arctic Dire Alpha.

The once giant a pristine white wolf now stood several inches taller with a much thicker body covered in a network of jagged vine-like veins that showed in its fur as well as on its skin and even its bones if one were to look inside of it. The wolf's large blue eyes were now cracked with infected blood vessels that showed even in its bright pale blue irises like angry rusty red lines.

"You're a freak," Lil says softly while running her fingers through the wolf's shaggy fur as she pets its neck and chin. "My character is a druid but all you do is catch monsters like its an old handheld video game! How are you allowed to be so broken?"

Idly scratching behind one of Fluffy's ears, I say, "Who says I'm broken? I'm just lucky. Remember when we found the evergreen golem and everyone became guardian spirits? We weren't the first. Remember how easy it is for us to unlock class advancements just by making our own skills? We were not the first. This is stuff anyone can do with a lucky encounter, we just happen to have had a few encounters."

"He's right," Conansson says from where he was holding up one of the wolf's paws that was bigger than his character's head. "If you search through the complaints and reports section of the forums, you can find where normal players have run across dozens of players with broken abilities. Not all of them on the same level as Hack's but there are even some who are more broken than his cordycep skills. There's this one who earned a special necromancy title after discovering how to create a lich and can enthrall other players while they're still alive. The only thing the mods and developers did about it was telling the people who reported it how to break her control through level suicide."

My first thought after hearing this was to think of how I could force other players with Infected Mortal characters into my Infected Legion. I could not directly enslave them the way the person Conansson talked about could, but it was still a similar principal. As well, they still had most of their freedom in my legion and even received numerous buffs.

"Did you switch studies from hidden achievements to broken characters?" Oleander asks curiously from where she was attempting to climb on top of the wolf behind Go who had already joined me as soon as he saw me sitting on the 'driver's seat'.

Shaking his head, Conansson says, "No, it's all the same thing. Just like Hack said, there's a ranking for most of those titles and abilities that unlock them. It might be first-come-first-serve but it's not like there's only one way to make a lich or one cordycep colony in the entire world. We, personally, just don't know any of those other people."

Looking around to see realization dawning on the faces of most of my companions, I cannot help but to narrow my eyes dramatically and glare at everyone. Was that not what I had been saying since before I even became a Plaguedman? Or did everything I say go in one ear and out the other because I was the one with the special skills?

Where is the justice in this?! The eight-year-old literally paraphrased everything I have argued with them about and suddenly it makes sense?! Are all of my friends idiots or am I the odd on out?

Seeming to sense my feelings, Go wordlessly reaches out and pats my shoulder as if trying to comfort me. Shaking my head with a tired sigh, I stiffly declare, "Back to your mounts, there's no loot here besides what we got from the mobs. Let's get back to camp and hope nothing troublesome showed up while we were away."

The others seemed to know that I was now in an unhappy mood because they hurried to comply even though Go and Oleander did not get off of the wolf. Ignoring the fact that they stuck around I simply click my heels into the wolf's sides like spurring a horse. The wolf actually seemed to growl and grumble in displeasure but it still started forward out of the cavern.

Walking over and around the other pets the others had left around the tunnel leading outside, the wolf lightly trots down the long and dark path out into the Winter Wood before circling around the temporary landscape of the event location to get back on the crude roadway we had cleared.

Then, once the others caught up with us, I looked back to see that the entire Dire Den location had simply disappeared.

Leaving behind the ice wolf event location that had supplied us with enough materials to start designing our next generation of armor, it did not take us more than half an hour to return back to camp. When we got there it was to find Dew sitting on top of a wagon looking up at the sky while all of our familiars were either practicing with their weapons or just wandering around keeping themselves entertained.

Not surprisingly there was bloody snow around the edges of the corralled campsite and a pile of food bodies that had been cleaned and gathered by the familiars and Dew. Honestly, I originally questioned how this worked out every now and then when most of our crime- fight! scenes were always cleaned up after the bodies went away. Now, I was used to it.

Due to its infected race change, the wolf easily mixed in with the other familiars after a few minutes of being studied and admired by the camp guards. Seeing me riding on the infected wolf, Cweeper immediately claimed my vacant scorpion.

Now that we were back at camp the others all tried to stay proactive by training their skills and working on developing skills for themselves. Unless it was something minor or commonplace, it was hard for players with classes to learn skills outside of their classes but these guys were pretty good at it through commitment.

Even Oleander who avoids close combat had a few skills for her estocs. However, everybody's main focus in their skills was incorporating magic in attacks for greater firepower. My current training, though, was for the familiars.

Because my party members and I were divine crafters we could no longer make simple products such as silk scrap armor because everything would be imbued with magic or divine energy. The humanoid familiars of the rest of my party, though, had no such abilities. As well, having no such crafting abilities meant I had to start from scratch when showing them how to make a suit of scrap silk armor.

Because I already knew most of everything I needed to thanks to studying and practice in reality, I had never experienced making a failed product. All of the sub-sentient familiars, though, made numerous failed attempts that afforded little to no defensive properties.

After more than an hour of working with them almost individually despite having them gathered together in a group, the first proper suits of scrap silk armor were born. Sadly, their properties and qualities were still far to low to sell. Luckily, we had plenty of basic silk fabrics for them to practice with before ever touching the spider silk canvases.

Luckily for me, it was around this time that everybody's characters were exhausted and ready to call it a night. After giving each of the familiars enough materials to make ten more suits apiece, everyone got together in their respective wagons so we could move on to the next day.

The sun had barely started rising into the sky when we awoke the next morning and set to work getting the wagons ready to move out. Since the way ahead had been cleared for most of the distance to the rubbly plateau we decided to tweak our formation.

Now, I rode my wolf at the rear with Stonewall's while Dew alone lead the caravan from the driver's bench of the lead wagon. The others all rode on their mounts near the sides of the wagons with our private boss monster demigods riding their own mounts from either side of the front land dragons.

Roughly half an hour after we made our way down from the hill we camped on we came under our first attack for the day. Now that we no longer had an advance team to draw as much attention as possible away from the caravan, we were at our official full strength and so were the attackers. Eight trolls riding sting emperors surrounded by small groups of beta wolves assailed us from all sides.

Two mounted trolls and ten wolves attacked Stonewall and I from the rear just as we were splitting up to sweep the sides of the formation clean, raising the enemy numbers drastically.

Seated overhead from even standing trolls while riding ahead of the massive wolf's shoulders, I was limited to using magical attacks like alternating cutters and Spirit Slashes to greet the wolves while Stonewall dismounted to fight with his shield. His elite lizard was large enough for him to walk around on the middle of its back but fighting with the shield was too great of a burden.

Without the poison oozing from my hands and over the sword to soak the web filling Geist's fullers to augment my physical attacks, the beta wolves were capable of sustaining multiple attacks despite suffering from their various effects such as burning or slowing or even full electrical paralysis.

My wolf, however, was an elite alpha and all of the burning or slowed betas immediately threw themselves at Stonewall after having been struck. I was pretty surprised they did not try to swarm their attacker but then told myself it was probably a secret affect from riding the infected alpha. While the moving wolves were suicide bombing Stonewall I finished the three electrified wolves with a refreshed Spirit Slash.

Slower than the wolves, the trolls decided to divide their attentions between Stonewall and I while we were both busy. Except, now that they had lost their supporting wolves, the trolls dismounted to pincer either of us alongside their mounts. These trolls were turning out to have uncomfortably smart AI.

Deciding to test myself against this troll, I drop sideways down from my seat on Fluffy's neck that was as thick as a horse's back. Jackknifing in the air to flip myself onto my feet as the troll sacrifices its scorpion to the alpha in order to target me, I calmly land in a crouch before lunging forward with my sword in hand.

Twisting into a 360 Edge when the troll leaps forward as well, I trade blows with the troll by scything Hauntings' poisoned blade low across the troll's midriff while they punch forward with an ivory spiked fist. Even with the knockback of my skill the troll's fist landed heavily in the back side of my neck and shoulder before they were thrown back several yards away.

A whopping eleven percent of my health was lost due to the strength of the blow and two seconds of bleeding damage before the cordyceps kicked in.

Regardless of how quickly the wound closed up, my mind actually seized and went blank from the sudden rush of pain that followed the multiple stab wounds in my neck and shoulder. Even through the neck and shoulder padding from my helmet and upper armor, no less than two inches of spike penetrated multiple locations. Then, even before the bleeding stopped, I came to while staggering sideways.

Letting myself drop to the ground as the troll lands on its back about five yards away, I roll backward over my other shoulder and onto my feet as the troll blearily picks itself up while resisting a generous helping of All-Tox. By now Stonewall had already dealt with both of his enemies and the infected alpha had already crushed its scorpion enemy underfoot.

The scorpion got a sting off but I only got a notification about Fluffy gaining a Venom skill. Luckily, the alpha did not try and interrupt my personal fight while I take a few sprinting steps to reach the wounded and weakened troll.

Once again trading blows with the troll, I make sure to take his next punch to my more heavily armored chest while thrusting my sword half of its searing hot length through their body. The troll died and I received my rewards, namely its hide and ivory, random skeletal parts, and a lot of gold.

Looking around to see that the other wolves surrounding the caravan had been dealt with and the trolls had been dismounted for combat, I only send the alpha ahead along my side of the wagon. The closest of three wounded trolls and their mounts had no idea what hit them. Only that they had been swiped up into the air by a large passing pale body.

Considering everything was suffering from the affects of my newest poison, just that swipe alone was enough to finish the first troll. Next camp a quick stomp to a scorpion before the others and their familiars who were fighting them could turn their attention to the next trolls. Like this, the other two pairs of surviving enemies were gone before my wolf trotted back.

Less than a minute after that, the confrontation was over but nobody was exactly happy about it. This was arguably the largest and strongest confrontation we had faced and it was the first one we faced as a full caravan. I was probably the only one who was excited about the next confrontations we would face.

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