Change- Chapter 40 (Patreon)

Chapter 40-  Cleaning up this Mess

Tim looked around. The mounds upon the little island that he had jumped to were refuse, shredded clothing etc… It was disgusting but nothing for him to worry about. He simply wanted to find and clear the monsters. He saw rats moving around the other islands. They were so thick it was like roaches crawling over spilled ice cream. Time for some magic. Hacking them to pieces one at a time was going to take too long.

He assessed one of the rats. They all seemed similar, about three feet long with mangy fur.

Waste Rats     Level: 2
Nest Creatures   HP: 20   

“Hey, I thought you were gonna let me kill some of the rats.”

Tim looked down at Mischief. His first thought was to say no. He wasn’t sure what the mouse could actually handle, but it was unlikely they would face many lower level threats. So now was the best time. “Okay, you can fight beside me.”

Tim knew there was no way that the island he was on had no rats on it. They must just be hiding. Hopefully an Ice Blast would flush them out. He raised his hand and fired the ice blast so it struck a dozen feet from him. The mushy ground exploded up from the force of the impact and then shards of ice pelted the rest. With that one blast he killed seventeen of the rats, but more came running out.

In a flash Mischief was upon one of them. His smaller frame allowed him to get on the back of a rat. He bit down and the rat bucked in the throes of pain. It tried to shake the familiar off of him. Bite after bite cut into the larger creature’s back till the spine was severed and the rat fell.

While Tim didn’t get any XP from killing 17 of the monsters, Mischief got a great amount from killing a monster a level above him. Tim kept slicing away at them until only three remained. Tim said, “You handle those three, call if you need help.” Then he fired an Ice Blast off at the next closest trash island.

With his mana regen at 35 he regained the 20 mana required to cast an Ice Blast in just over thirty seconds. When he wasn’t firing off a spell, he kept watch on Mischief. He didn’t need to worry though. The mouse sprang from one rat to the next. They barely landed a hit on Mischief.  Even when they did hit him, the protective bubble absorbed the damage.

Tim had time to look at his notifications between casting spells. It looked like Mischief was hitting for 4-6 damage each bite or 12 with a crit. In less than a minute he had finished off his fourth rat. He was strutting his stuff as he had now reached 200 XP.

Looking down at his familiar Tim said, “I take it that you like XP.”

“Such a rush. It's even worth tasting those nasty rats. You know they taste like…”

Tim cut him off. “I don’t need to know what they taste like. I’ll leave that to you.”

“Oh no, we need to share and share alike. We’re partners, remember. I’ve only been sharing my sight, hearing and sense of smell. But maybe you’d like to know what the inside of my mouth tastes like.”

Mischief wiggled his pink nose and suddenly, the most awful taste he had ever experienced filled Tim’s mouth. He was instantly gagging followed by forceful vomiting. Between the waves of his turning stomach, Tim said, “Turn it off.”

Mischief was rolling around in the trash and mud making a peculiar sound. As Tim focused he realized it was mouse laughter. Oh, he wanted to think about glue boards and giant mouse traps but couldn’t focus on anything other than the nastiness in his mouth.

Then as quickly as it had appeared, it dropped away. He even noticed that his sense of smell dulled back to normal human levels. He pulled out a waterskin from his soul back and was downing it along with some jerky. Anything to remove the remnants of that taste.

“That wasn’t funny,” Tim snapped at his familiar.

“That depends on your perspective. Just remember, I don’t have the luxury of turning my taste buds off. It only seems fair. If I have to obey your orders, the balance to it is that I can lick my own butt and then make you taste it, so think twice about ordering me around,” Mischief said.

Tim only nodded.

Mischief leapt in a single bound to his shoulder. “Okay my faithful steed, take me to the next trash island. There are more rats to kill.”

Tim wasn’t exactly keen on being considered a mount, but there was no point in arguing now. He cast an Ice Slick. Then once he was sure that it was stable he headed across the stream of poison that was now partially frozen. Ahead of him he sent another Ice Blast flying out. It did its job, killing two dozen rats but more importantly it stirred up the rest.

Soon Tim and Mischief were up to their ears, well at least up to the level of mouse ears, in rats. Tim swung his sword around. Each blow and even the back slash was sufficient to kill a rat. If they were close enough he managed to kill more than one at a time.

Long before they cleared this island, Tim got another notification but he ignored it until they were the only living things on this mound of refuse. This dungeon really was disgusting, but there were only seven more of these trash islands that he saw. It wouldn’t take more than another ten minutes to clear it. Less if he was willing to expend more of his mana.

While waiting for his mana to finish regenerating he checked out the notification.

Your familiar: Mischief has gained a level. He has one free stat point for you to assign.

As a secondary benefit his length has increased by 20% and his weight by 70%. This is known as Battle Mode. He may revert to Scout Mode at any time either he or you chose.

Tim said, “Looks like I get to assign your stat point. Oh, congrats on dinging a level.”

“Dinging?” The mouse asked before wrinkling his ears and then suddenly saying, “Oh, like from one of your video games. Gotcha. So you are gonna let me choose my own stats right?”

“Yes, I’m going to let you choose your stats, but you talk so fast you didn’t even give me the chance to offer it to you first. Do you want to talk about it or just keep killing these things? You seem to be doing well and your shield still has enough HP.”

“I’m in murder hobo mode, so let’s just keep going.” The now larger mouse bared his teeth. He was still tiny, relatively speaking compared to Tim or even the rats. The effect wasn’t exactly intimidating, but Tim wasn’t about to say that to Mischief. The familiar had already proven quite ready to live up to his name.

Tim didn’t bother saying anything more. Another Ice Slick followed by another Ice Blast and within two minutes another island was empty. They repeated the process till Mischief hit level three. After that his XP per rat killed was reduced down to 12.5. Mischief was growing bored so Tim finished the last two islands entirely with Ice Blasts.

Then they sat down on a patch of ice. It was cold but better than the trash. Mischief’s battle size had increased by another 50%.

Tim said, “I think we should put the points into Acuity. It will help your mind and perception so you can act as a scout. I could also see an argument for Hardiness, as enough of it will boost your HP. But, I will leave it up to you.”

For once the mouse was actually quiet. “Would it be okay if we split the points between Acuity and Hardiness?”

“Yes, it is your body. I may be able to make the decision for you, but we are also partners.”

“Yeah, that and you don’t want to taste rat butts either,” Mischief snickered.

Tim just ignored him. He still felt silly arguing with a mouse. Anyone else there would have just heard his familiar squeaking. That or they would have thought him crazy for speaking to a mouse. Of course, they might just chalk it up to him being 1st gen.

Tim thought about pointing out the advantages of specializing but he just went with it. There were still many more levels to go and he could bring it up later. Now he assigned one point to each of the designated stats. Then Mischief did something that was both convenient and alarming at the same time.

He ran around leaping from island to island or crossing the ice slicks where they were still stable enough to do so. Each rat corpse that he ran by, he looted. The treasures, and Tim used that word very sarcastically were deposited directly into his soul pouch. So apparently, he now had to deal with the fact that a talking rodent had access to that.

He decided not to worry about it as stacks of rotted rat hides and rat meat appeared in his inventory. Instead he focused on finding where they were supposed to go. There was no notification that the dungeon had been cleared, so he figured there was more to do. His heightened senses finally found it. In the back behind the last of the islands where they were now sitting there was a crevice in the wall.

Tim walked over and examined it. The flow of air suggested that it wasn’t a dead end. Tim figured this was a perfect time to have a familiar. “Can you scout the other side for me?”

Mischief gave him an expression that said, “Whatcha ya talking about?” It was bizarre to Tim that he could literally read facial expressions on a mouse now. Then again he was the guy who had been in four different bodies within the last two weeks. So this really shouldn’t be shocking.

It took a second for Mischief to shrink back down to his smaller size but then he was off running through the crevice. Tim did refresh his buff before sending him through. He even added Bark Skin to it also. It was a relief that the two buffs stacked. Between them Mischief should be darn near unstoppable by the monsters in this dungeon.

While he waited Tim cast another copy of Barkskin on himself. Then he settled in to wait. Surprisingly he found that for the first time in his life he really didn’t mind waiting. This circle of the oak thing came with a real attitude change. He noticed as he looked at Mischief’s status sheet that while in Battle Form his pet gained a 50% bonus to HP. It would take more exploring to determine if there were other differences, but he was in no rush.