Becoming Monsters 2: Ch. 46

Busy with a lot of extra work IRL. Bills are hard to pay and tax season did me no favors. Hope y'all are having a blessed day!

PREVIOUSLY ON BM: Actions have consequences, and the Bathroom Debacle nearly killed Honoka. Didn't stop her from getting back onto the saddle and going on a date with a cute mummy.

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Chapter 46: Elevator Shafted

"So, what's the plan?"

"Right." Quinn spun around dramatically, decked in her usual delving uniform of the smallest string bikini fitting her massive furred J cups. Both orbs jiggling like a video game's broken physics engine: today's tiny top support a Confederate Navy Jack tented over each nipple. Daisy duke shorts, a tactical belt loaded with ammo and potions, and a massive hunting rifle slung over one shoulder completed the outfit. Her appearance normally distracted Honoka to no end, but Quinn barreled through her explanation like an otaku through a bodypillow shop. "We take the dungeon's elevator, we go down ta Floor 270, we go in, take care uv Floor 271, then we dress warm, go over the icy tundra of Floor 272, hole up, have a cup of tea, an' wait fer all this ta blow over."

Honoka tried valiantly, but she couldn't stop from laughing at the serious twitch of Quinn's whiskers, breaking down and belly laughing. Behind Honoka, Miaka and Dolly joined in, though they sounded like they were in on the joke. "How did...did you practice that?"

"I dun know what'cha're talkin' 'bout," Quinn said with a thicker than usual accent, leading the way down the street.

Honoka hadn't walked two steps into the house after her lunch date before Quinn shoved her back out, throwing clothing and gear around and stating if they wanted to catch the elevator, they needed to scoot! Which was fine, Honoka welcomed the distraction even if she didn't know all that was going on. Slipping out of date clothing and into delving gear, Honoka walked out the door and followed the marching otter, Dolly and Miaka picking up the rear. A short march later, they were deep in the Dump district of Harvardtown, the roar of the massive elevators making it difficult to speak without shouting.

"She practiced for the last hour," Dolly said, wiping some tears out of her eyes, unable to stop chuckling. "Quinn had the clip on repeat all through lunch." The large cheetaur girl played packhorse, cat withers strapped with furry rolls that held the aforementioned warm clothing they would need for Floor 272 as well as armor Dolly didn't have enough time to completely put on before they left the house. There were pieces of plate strapped on over gambeson, making her appear like a knight on a warhorse, the style more classic Arabian than European. One hand held a modern compound bow with a draw weight of over two hundred pounds if Honoka was any judge (she wasn't), the entire thing longer than the petite(ish) woman. With one packed quiver at Dolly's waist and another seven quivers hanging off her back, there were five hundred arrows on the quadruped cat girl. Probably more.

"It would be even funnier if we didn't have to make a stop first," Miaka pointed out, wincing in disgust as she drank a concoction out of her canteen, having trouble keeping it down. Knowing how many supplements and protein shakes the bird woman ingested daily, Honoka did not envy what other people endured to keep their bodies fit and muscular. The kikiyaon wore a replacement delving outfit of dark keikogi and hakama (the remains of her previous enchanted delving clothing at the bottom of a lava lake), the sleeveless top giving her arms and wings freedom in a fight. She still strapped the same enchanted rods over one shoulder and shotgun over the other, the only difference were the runes on either side of her chest glowed purple instead of the previous single white symbol. "Family is low on money, gonna nab a ticket from FDR before heading down."

"That's fine, actually a good idea for me to see how this works," Honoka replied, picking up the pace to catch Quinn. Most of Honoka's fancy armor had been destroyed during the rescue mission into Solomon's, but the real loss had been the mithril katana. It wasn't like the girls could head up there after leaving the scene of a murder and ask nicely for all their stuff back. Honoka wore spare armor plates over a simple tight peach t-shirt, breasts bound fundoshi style like Miaka's with wraps underneath. Her bottom half sported unstylish loose cargo shorts, feet still shod in flip flops from the date, only now bound with rope to keep them on. With a plain steel katana at her waist and Eve's Glock on the other side, she looked like a beach-bum-hobo delver.

The FDR building inside the dungeon was a lot different than the one Honoka visited a few times in Cambridge. Back in the real world, the Federal Dungeon Regulation building presented all the appeal and bureaucracy of the DMV. Long lines, bored federal workers, a bunch of chairs for people to wait for their number to come up. The FDR building down in Harvardtown, on the other hand, looked entirely different.

"So cool," Honoka wowed, her eyes widening at the architectural wonder before her. Whoever designed the building clearly had a love of Louis Kahn. The edifice before her was a massive concrete homage to Kahn's unbuilt Hurva synagogue, though on a much larger scale. This monument - with the interplay between pylons and pillars creating all the triangular angled lines layered upon each other - organized its interior more like a shopping mall than a place of worship, though. Inside, thousands of people milled around various open rooms, doing dozens of different things, everyone of them ignoring the magnificently complex shapes blocks of concrete made with the open roof allowing light in from the dungeon's ambiance.

"I guess?" Dolly said, fiddling with her bow as she searched around nervously. "I hate this place. Lots of nasty guilds make FDR their unofficial headquarters. Better to duck your head, nab your ticket and get out. Less chance of something happening."

"That is less likely since Ben Uygur thought it funny to pick a fight with Quinn earlier this week." Miaka pulled up an amateur video from her phone of Quinn facing a huge man dressed and shaped like a gladiator of Rome. "Dolly sent me the video when I was in Japan. Anyway, Ben is a raid leader for the Tyght guild. The amount of trash he talks irritates most people, and it isn't just that he's ugly. Nobody calls him out because Tyght is a major guild and Ben's level is somewhere in the twenties. He also has a tendency to beat on anyone he doesn't like."

Miaka pushed play, and Honoka idly noticed it was uploaded on Tube-U-R with a million views! Quinn appeared like she did right now, holding a tray of food from the court. Then, the six foot six (198 cm), three hundred pound (136 kg) gorilla standing behind her (not an actual gorilla beastkin, just a big human) came around and knocked the tray out of her otter paws. Heated words ensued. Although Miaka had the sound off, it was clear Quinn displayed a blackbelt in Mouth Fu, giving as good as she got. In less than a minute, a crowd gathered and the two were ready to throw down.

"After Bone Castle and Solomon's, our guild earned a rep." The Japanese owl flicked her beak towards Quinn. "And because we changed the paperwork so Quinn leads all our raids, everyone thinks Whiskers is the boss."

Honoka was not only fine with that, she wished Quinn all the luck dealing with fame and infamy. Honoka did not need the stress of being a dungeon celebrity on top of everything else. Back to the video, Miaka unpaused as the group of women continued strolling deeper into the building.

On screen, Quinn held up her hand and sent a quick text with the other. She smiled, grabbed a small potion vial with clear liquid, downed it in a go, then quickly grew. Ben was stupid enough to wait around doing nothing, judging by the dumb look on his face.

"I remember this," Honoka said, searching for when the video was uploaded to Tube-U-R. "Yeah, this was Tuesday, got the SOS while I was with Eve. What potion did she drink?"

"Its water," Dolly said, pulling out an identical placebo vial from her belt. "We all carry them around with us as a smoke screen for allocation. Rumor is we have a high level alchemist on the payroll."

Quinn never hid anything in her life or demeanor, the perky Southerner tended to flaunt herself even before Harmony points shot her into the sexy stratosphere. However, her fur sometimes made people forget that she had the muscles of a titan mixed under pornstar curves. So when her Strength jumped from twenty to forty and added the density properties of Bullish Strength while shooting her up to eight feet six inches (259 cm) in the video, half the crowd disappeared and the other half stared in horror at the expanding miniGTS monstergirl. Well, horror and lust. As the mature marker on the video warned, Quinn lost most clothing in a flexing, burgeoning burst when the otter topped over a thousand pounds (454 kg) of hard meat, only the tiniest bit of blue panties straining for dear life. Fur or no fur, there was no doubt left in anyone's mind this woman was about to break Ben like a luchador supervillain fresh out of Peña Duro.

Maybe Ben realized this, but he couldn't back down. The idiot went for a strong haymaker, putting a lot of power and skill into the punch. Quinn easily caught his fist with her hand, anime style, and then casually lifted him off the ground. Pausing to say something to the smaller man, she spun around and flipped him overhead, slamming him into the stone with a crash and more than a few broken bones. Quinn then said something else impolite, which shocked more people from the crowd than anything else that happened, based on their reactions. She picked a potion from her belt on the ground and tossed a low level healing towards the sobbing bully, walking away when the video ended.

"Not the first time that rollin' possum turd tried ta start somethin'," Quinn said ten feet away, beastkin sensitive ears able to pick up everything behind her. "Still thought I was 'bout ta get my butt thumped, even with the SOS. Harmony points do a body good."

Honoka, Miaka and Dolly all took a moment to ogle up and down Quinn's backside, especially how the jean shorts hugged into her cheeks and tail. All three nodding in unison and appreciation.

The line for job tickets was longer than Honoka's dick, so while Quinn took care of business, the other two wives decided to give Honoka a tour. In a way, the next half hour was adorable, each wife trying to show Honoka something they thought she would like. There were gadgets and gizmos, whozits and whatzits, even one place with twenty thingamabobs. Miaka's highlight was a sword shop with all kinds of magical blades (though when Honoka saw the price of a similar mithril katana to the one she lost, she nearly choked and was carried out of the store). However, Dolly won this round with a banana split sundae meant to be eaten by at least four people, made entirely from various dungeon ingredients. Each scoop of ice cream possessed a different mild magical effect: one was on fire, one crackled with electricity, another was translucent and swirled like a slow hurricane. Honoka's eyes grew as large as saucers and couldn't stop herself from inhaling (not literally) the entire giant bowl, much to the surprise of the little old lady behind the counter. Still waiting on Quinn, they headed for a common area where they met some friendly faces.

"Hello, Dolly!"

"Howdy, Jake," Dolly replied, leading the girls to a table in the center of the court. Jake - whom Honoka remembered was a member of Carnival, the one who tried hitting on her the first time they met - was a young black man with a triathlete's build and shaved head. Next to his seat was a pack bulging with armor and a mace too large for any man to wield, much less carry. Right now he relaxed in white shorts and a tank, though one of his arms was wrapped in a sloppy splint. Also, he was missing his eyebrows. Alone at the large table for the moment, other packs next to seats at his table inferred he was saving places in the busy commons.

"You look like crap," Miaka stated, pulling out a chair, flipping it around and leaning on the back. "You guys hitting The Twenty-Three?"

Honoka quirked an eyebrow, which Jake understood and chuckled good naturedly. "No, we were not near the bottom twenty-three Floors, considered the hardest and most dangerous areas of the dungeon." Honoka nodded appreciatively. "We got back from Floor 80."

"The Ocho?" Miaka looked shocked and Dolly paced nervously. "All it has is balloon monsters and slimes. Did you decide to tackle it naked and blindfolded?"

"Completely overrun," Jake turned serious, rubbing his splint absently. "Ever seen a Balloon King? I have now, almost a hundred of them. Those nasty blue devils are twenty feet wide and cast AOE spells. We were hired to hold the line while other guilds got the last stragglers out and then sealed the gate. I'm honestly surprised to be alive right now."

"Daaaa...ng." Dolly caught herself, giving Honoka a sideways look.

Honoka might not be as savvy as her other delving wives, but she had spent time studying the ecosystem she lived in. While not a perfect metric, the further down into the dungeon a person went, the more dangerous and deadly it became. There were exceptions, but it mostly held true in the Harvard Dungeon. Kids played in the streets on Floor 3 and there were plenty of safe areas and businesses within the first hundred Floors. The second hundred Floors were rated between a 4 and 6 on the difficulty scale, eighty percent of delving runs happening in this range. From three hundred to four hundred, the difficulty inclined sharply until hitting the last twenty three Floors, all hard enough that most groups won't go near them unless they had a death wish. Other dungeons ran on different metrics, but this was how Harvard worked.

For a guild like Carnival, Floor 80 should have been like walking to the store to buy milk.

"Only good thing to come out of that fiasco is I'm officially the second level thirty lightning magus in the world," Cleo Tate said, surprising everyone as she led others of her guild to the table and sat down. The middle aged woman with light gray eyes and matching gray hair, who should have looked slightly ridiculous with long blue robes, staff and holding a tray of Mexican food, just appeared worn and tired. "I can't believe Jordan Shapiro beat me by two days. He is going to be insufferable when I go to Seattle next month for Dungeon Expo."

While Carnival seated themselves and spread out food, Honoka received and returned a smirk from a scarred Hispanic woman that showed kindness to an out-of-work architect a month ago. She carried two trays and set one in front of Jake, their seats intimately close. Smiles faded when Honoka studied the dozen men and women at the large table. Jake and Cleo were the ones with the least injuries in the group. Mostly burns and savage bite marks, bloody bandages and other fresh wounds made them look like they were waiting in line for the Confederate Army doctor to perform amputations.

"Do ya guys need potions?" Quinn said, stalking up behind while the other wives stagnated under the morbid sight of the injuries. "Or better yet, Banda's at the house, she'll double team y'all with healin' hands and healin' milk. Should be done wit her evenin' milkin' by now."

Cleo glanced around her injured party and then looked towards Honoka. The socially inept woman wasn't sure what the look meant, but it wasn't happy. "I...we'll be fine, thanks for the offer."

Honoka didn't like sitting in the dark. After all Carnival had done for them, Honoka especially didn't like a cagey Cleo. "Is something wrong?" Honoka asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Cleo, newly minted level thirty Classer and arguably one of the most powerful magic users in the United States, grew scared for a moment before she visibly quashed that emotion with steely resolve. "We've been getting pressure - us and other guilds - to stay away from Becoming Monsters."

"What do you mean, pressure?" Dolly asked.

"It isn't overt, it rarely is," Cleo picked at her food, keeping her head down as she talked, occasionally peering around the space. Others of her guild were likewise suddenly on alert for eavesdroppers. "A weird email, a strange text, a random stranger speaking in riddles. I've been around long enough to know if I don't do as I'm told, all the jobs will dry up. Suddenly, I can't get enough work for a dozen families to live off of because I did the wrong thing. Its why we left New Orleans. The group behind it doesn't have an official name, but they are the real power in dungeons. They're called the Deep Guilds."

"Hmm." Honoka wanted to immediately announce she hated bullies and that she didn't care for threats, but that would only make Cleo's life more difficult long term. If she wanted to help, she would need to prod the hamster in her brain to run faster on the wheel. Which must have worked, because she spread a nasty grin across her face as she pulled out her phone.

"Well, too bad we can't help you," Honoka said, maybe too loudly. Really, she was playing this over the top, but it isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you. "I know someone who can help, though. His name is Philip Miner."

"Philip...Miner." Cleo looked confused, but she wasn't born yesterday and could smell what the Rock was cooking.

"Yeah, he used to work for the BPD, but he lost his job recently." Honoka pulled out her phone and typed rapidly, first sending Philip's contact info to Cleo and then sending out an SOS to the rest of the wives. "You'd have to mosey up to Boston to meet with him, a face to face would be best for this kind of thing. I don't know how much an out of work cop can help, but every little bit counts, right?" Honoka then summoned her Status and made the right allocations, reasoning wives had enough warning to strip clothing they didn't want destroyed. The SOS system was training everyone to leap out of clothing on the first ring.

"Right." Cleo, a hard woman by any metric, silently thanked Honoka with her eyes. She and her guild finished eating and stood, leaving the wives to hound Honoka for answers.

Before she could give any, Honoka's phone rang and the black woman answered with a cheerful, "Hello!"

"This is really weird!" Banda shouted on the other side, her normally girlish soprano taking on a hissing inflection. "Why am I a naga?!"

"So that you can turn invisible, get to the van, text me for a human change, drive the van up to Boston as a human, turn into a naga again so no one sees you hike the couple of blocks to Philip Miner's house." Honoka's lowered her voice, aware that someone might be listening. "I'll send you the address. Once there, sneak inside, go back to your lovely holstaur self, heal Carnival when they arrive, then repeat the whole process coming back."

While Honoka finished the conversation, a text from Padmava buzzed: Why am I a holstaur?! Rolling her eyes, Honoka pleaded at her wives, who blasted texts to the appropriate people. Hopefully, no one was watching Honoka's phone plans too closely.

"I am not Ethan Hunt!" Banda didn't sound mad, more likely flustered at growing a giant snake tail and another pair of arms.

"You'll do fine," Honoka reassured. Inflecting slowly, she tried to convey everything without actually saying it to Banda. "Its important, I'll explain later."