"Fuck." Thoz groaned, one again mirroring his favorite catch phrase.

Standing in front of him currently were four identical, albeit smaller than expected, ooze based Zildoxoxi clones. Presumably one of them was the original though, Thoz still wasn't entirely sure how the vulnerable core skill interacted with duplicate, since Zild couldn't exactly explain it.

When Zild had wobbled back into camp split in half, Thoz and Prisaela had put their 'leveling exercises' on hold and attempted to help put the ooze back together. Naturally they had no idea how to do this and were just randomly trying things in hopes that something would work. This is what put them in their current predicament. Somewhere along the way, likely in a bought of frustration, Thozronnath had activated his sting skill and brutally slashed Zild and his clone. This had caused both of them to quiver and bounce until they split in half again. Four Zild's for the price of one. Two?

Nevertheless, Thoz was never one to give up, even under threat or application of torture. He had to think of something eventually, right?

They tried squishing, squeezing, pushing, throwing, and generally all manner of mashing the various Thoz clones together. None of it worked. Eventually, Thoz was ready to give up on the entire endeavor, and in a moment of anger and resentment he shouted at Zild

“Fix it yourself you dumb ooze!”

And Zild did just that. Right before Thoz was going to stomp away into the forest, Zild just wiggled and jiggled himself back into one pile, as easy as breathing. Thoz and Prisaela both let out an exasperated sigh and sat down at the base of the tree that served as a roof for their hideout.

Prisaela had to fight the urge to comment on the entire past hour being a waste of time.

Thankfully they weren’t on a tight schedule so minor distractions weren’t as big of a deal as they could be otherwise.

The past several attempts from the trio of monsters to apprehend and consume various bandits and travelers had gained them a bit of useful information. Primarily their location. Apparently, the ironwood forest was on the border of two nations, Daskaora, a mercantile nation known for the high number of smugglers, thieves and assassins, and the Vesmar Council, a bureaucratic nation of ministers and secretaries that appoint themselves. Both nations sounded very hellish in persuasion to Thoz, but he had no real preference, so his decision was only colored when he learned that the nearest city was on the Vesmar side of the border. Expediency and what have you.

So if they followed the road south it stood to reason that they would have a shorter journey to reach Vesmar, and it’s city Rovale. A short trip was the priority here, since the less time they spent on the road the more time they would have for preparations and schemes once they actually reached the city.

That logic doesn’t hold up for immortal monsters, or monsters that have no clue what their maximum lifespan is, but it made Thoz feel better about his decision.

Prisaela had gathered very little information about the actual city of Rovale, other than it’s general location. She had acquired a map from one of the travelers corpses after Thoz graciously parted their heads from their necks. The few of them she had talked to for moments before they were killed hadn’t known much more than passing information.

It was a fair sized city on the shores of an inland sea, they had moderate fishing there, but access to ship goods to two other nations, making it somewhat of a trading hub. Many people in the region had flocked there to find jobs aboard ships of some kind, fishing or shipping.

This made one thing abundantly obvious. Turnover. Mortals would be coming and going from the city almost constantly, and it would be nearly impossible to track any of the victims Thoz and friends conveniently disappear. Eating random civilians is an important task that Thoz had to stay on top of now, his corporeal form had to be refreshed occasionally or he would start to wane and lose power. Not identical to starving to death since he still didn’t feel hunger, but more like fading away as he slowly lost energy.

Relying on random travelers to serve as a source of food and information at the same time was a bit dangerous, since there was no way of knowing when or if they would stop all together. After all, now that more and more people were becoming aware of ‘The Devil of the Forest’ fewer travelers were moving through the ironwood in the first place.

Thus, Prisaela had suggested a course of action that Thozronnath had been debating for some time. Head to the city and make a permanent base of operations. On one hand that would give them access to far more information and raw meat than they could potentially ever find in this forest, but at the same time it exposed them to more humans that could theoretically find out about the devil and try and kill him. It was a risk, but like with many risks it came with the potential for great profit, so Thoz was enamoured with the idea after a while.

Living in a city costs money though, so Prisaela was slowly teaching thoz about how currency worked as they traveled along the roads day by day. It would take them nearly a full week (weeks being measured in ten days by local custom) to reach Rovale. Plenty of time for the illiterate devil to learn basic math.

The currencies minted around the world all came in various shapes and patterns, but thankfully most of them used the same precious metals, meaning the eclectic coins Thoz and Prisaela had from their victims would still be able to buy things from their value in weight. The world’s different coins came in nearly a dozen different metals of various values, but Thoz and company only had four. The gold coin was used as a standard for deriving everything else's value, but unfortunately they didn’t have any. Prisaela explained and pointed out the Iron, Copper, Silver, and white gold.

A white gold piece was actually an alloy of silver and gold with a few other trace metals added, it was worth about half of what a pure gold coin was. The silver coins were one fifth of a white gold piece, which made them ten to one on a gold coin, a fairly straight forward conversion. Likewise, the copper coins were ten to one on a silver coin, meaning they were effectively spare change for awkward transactions, one one-hundredth of a gold. The small iron coins, though, were practically worthless. An iron coin was five to one on a copper piece, and thus one five-hundredth of a gold. Almost impossible to use in most situations and only truly used by those that live in poverty and make a few iron coins as their salary each day.

Thoz had a smattering of coins across these four types.

*

White Gold: 6x

Silver: 45x

Copper: 72x

Iron: 131x

Total value: 8 Gold, 4 silver, 8 copper, 1 iron

*

They were just a few iron coins shy of a round eight and a half, but there was not much they could do about that unless they ran into more travelers. By the estimations Prisaela made on average price of goods, eight gold pieces was barely enough. Getting Thoz and Priscilla a new set of non torn clothes would cost them an entire gold by itself. A week’s (10 days) worth of lodging and meals would take another six. They would need to find a job almost immediately, and to explain the influx of meat and random coins they would need to buy Thoz a weapon to carry around, likely costing their last remaining gold. By the time they got things properly set up in Rovale they would barely have a pocket full of loose change to their name, and only a week of lodging before they were homeless. This was far more than the ordinary traveler could expect, most of them needing jobs the same day they arrive in a new town, but it still wasn’t ideal. Thoz wanted to survive as comfortably as possible for as long as possible, this timeline did not sit well with him.

The final days spent approaching Rovale were boring. The group hadn’t run into any more travelers, as everyone was seemingly avoiding the forest now, and as a result couldn’t gain more funds. Once the city walls came into view as a tiny bump on the horizon, things got a touch more interesting.

“We need to make a plan on how to enter the city” Prisaela spoke up one evening around the campfire.

“What do you mean?” Thoz questioned, utterly confused. He was operating on the assumption that they’d be able to just walk up to the city and be let inside, a point of view that he did not share with Prisaela.

“We need to have an explanation for ourselves, why we look like this, and what happened to the rest of our supplies” she continued.

“But we don’t have any other supplies?” her ignorant master questioned.

“Yes, but no human could make it through that forest without adequate food and equipment. So they’ll be suspicious if we don’t bring it up” the shapeshifter sighed in response.

“To that end, we need to blend in better, so I think it would be best if I do my rank up now” she finally suggested, cutting to the heart of the matter and the plan she was crafting.

Prisaela and Thoz had both been steadily acquiring experience during their journey, originally through killing bandits but later through more, physical means. Thozronnath’s own levels had slowed considerably, but Prisaela had acquired enough to trigger a rank up that had been delayed for a few days. Her master had told her it would hurt like hell, and since the only other creatures she knew that had ranked up before were her master and the mute ooze, Prisaela took his word for it and waited.

This turned out to be false though. Prisaela’s rank up was utterly painless. Her skin shifting skill reverted her to the original pale form, and then silently and with no resistance, all of her hair fell out. This was immediately followed by the pale white skin of her body turning a gentle blue grey. Her monochromatic eyes were the last to change, and shifted to a subtle yellow.

Congratulations! You are now a level 7 Doppelganger.

Proficiency gained! Charm immunity is now level 1.

Proficiency gained! Shapeshifter is now level 3.

Proficiency gained! Ambush is now level 1.

Proficiency gained! Mind read is now level 1.

The overflow experience from her delayed rank up was applied directly to the new form, and it came with a smattering of skills. Oddly enough they weren’t all level one though.

Prisaela’s painless transformation evoked some jealousy in her master, but they moved past it as they continued discussing the new plan.

“With the shapeshifter skill I can more accurately match my form to look like yours outside of a few subtle things, we can walk up to the guards and pretend to be a husband and wife that were attacked on the road by ‘The Devil of the Forest’” she explained, slowly and monotonously as she got accustomed to the new shape of her mouth.

“It didn’t take our money, but our clothes are all torn up, and our food is gone along with the identification that was in the same bag” she continued, her voice regaining it’s usual melodious cadence with each word.

“Sounds good.” Thoz responded gruffly. Being able to redirect any unwanted questions while simultaneously getting access to the city and identification for their false identities almost sounded too good to be true. Frankly speaking, it was, Thoz just didn’t know how yet.

“We’ve still got a few days until we reach the city though, and I’m curious to see what your new shapeshifting skill can do” he mused with a smirk. Standing up and walking over to Prisaela where he firmly gripped her by the wrist. His minion sighed softly in disappointment at the predictability of her insatiable master, but the idea of gaining a few more levels before they reached the city didn’t seem entirely bad, and though she would never admit it Prisaela found Thozronnath to be quite satisfying if given the right instruction.

Stats

General Stats Classes Level Name: Thozronnath Strength: 50 Legionary Devil 15 Species: Legionary Devil Captain (Lesser Devil) Dexterity: 30 Wing Devil 20 (Max) Sex: M Resilience: 40 Imp 20 (Max) Age: 13530 Intelligence: 10 Affiliation(s): Hell Wisdom: 20 HP: 245/245 (+4.7/sec) Charisma: 20 MP: 65/65 (+1.1/sec)

Imp Skills

Level

Special Skills

Level

Invisibility

2

Progenitor of Sin

3

Stealth

2

Subterfuge

3

Wing Devil Skills

Silver Vulnerability

1 (Max)

Poison Immunity

1 (Max)

Fire Immunity

1 (Max)

Telepathy

2

Shapeshifter

3

Magic Resistance

2

Eyes of Hell

1 (Max)

Sting

3

Legionary Devil Skills

Blood Frenzy

2

Zild

General Stats Classes Level Name: Zildoxoxi Strength: 55 Amber Ooze 2 Species: Huge Amber Ooze (Lesser Ooze) Dexterity: -2 Absorption Ooze 20 (Max) Sex: N/A Resilience: 50 Ooze 20 (Max) Age: 9861 Intelligence: -5 Affiliation(s): Thozronnath Wisdom: -2 HP: 260/260 (+5/sec) Charisma: -2 MP: 10/10 (+0.01/sec)

Ooze Skills

Level

Absorption Ooze Skills

Level

Acid Resistance 1 (Max) Poison Immunity 1 (Max) Cold Resistance 1 (Max) Absorption 4 Fire Resistance 1 (Max) Fluid Replication 2 Ooze Sight 1 (Max) Liquid Form 1 (Max) Amber Ooze Skills Corrosive 4 Duplicate 2 Natural Disguise 2 Vulnerable Core 1 (Max) Stealth 2 Lightning Resistance 1 (Max) Natural Weapons 3 Blind Immunity 1 (Max) Deafen Immunity 1 (Max) Charm Immunity 1 (Max) Fear Immunity 1 (Max) Fatigue Immunity 1 (Max) Prone Immunity 1 (Max)

Prisaela

General Stats Classes Level Name: Prisaela Strength: -1 Doppelganger 7 Species: Doppelganger (Lesser Shapeshifter) Dexterity: 48 Skin Shifter 20 (Max) Sex: F Resilience: 22 Age: 1 Intelligence: 23 Affiliation(s): Thozronnath Wisdom: 21 HP: 85/85 (+1.5/sec) Charisma: 45 MP: 110/110 (+2/sec)

Skin Shifter Skills

Level

Doppelganger Skills

Level

Subterfuge 3 Charm Immunity 1 (Max) Stealth 1 Shapeshifter 3 Skin Changer 5 (Max) Ambush 1 Mind Read 1