Chapter 23

Rain sucked in air through his teeth and picked at the wound the Inquisitor had given him, a shallow slice that ran from his shoulder down to his elbow. It oozed blood.

“Who was that leveler?”

“An Inquisitor. I’ve heard of her. She’s new to the local dungeon town ... Dangerous ... Inquisitors are known to hold grudges, she will try and come for me again.”

“Hrmm. Too bad that Minotaur stumbled upon us. Stupid noisy Goblin slave.”

“They saw what we did to the Piscine and they knew about me so they needed to die. The Minotaur was bad luck though, or maybe good luck, we did need to separate them. Did the Goblin slave get away?”

“Yes,” said Opal, looking annoyed. “I had to get out of sight quickly and I accidentally dropped the chain. They could be anywhere in these tunnels by now.”

Rain shrugged but then got to his feet. Having eaten the Minotaur he now towered over Opal at an intimidating seven foot tall, the top of her head only coming up to around the bottom of his rib cage. The Minotaur had been unlucky. Unaware Rain was there he had crouched down to talk to the Goblin slave, the perfect opportunity for Rain to put his nearly unstoppable bite to use. The back of the Minotaur’s neck had lasted only a moment under his jaws.

“ ... I had better eat the Kobold slaves if I’m going to speed recovering this wound.”

“Well we have the Halfling and this too you know,” said Opal waving the severed arm of the Inquisitor and letting the hand and fingers flop around.

Rain blinked down at it. The arm, or rather, hand and half a forearm, was encased in black metal armour decorated with gold. The segmented fingers of the gauntlet were incredibly intricate and beautifully crafted to provide maximum flexibility and protection.

He snorted. “Yeah, it’s important to finish a meal I guess. See if you can get it out of the shell.”

Opal dropped herself down on the ground to sit cross-legged and began poking around and fiddling with the armour. Meanwhile, Rain picked up the longsword the Inquisitor had dropped in the sand. The blade was still glowing a faint blue but was rapidly dimming as the spells on it faded away. The sword was exquisite, just like the armour, with a heavy ruby in the pommel and a wyrm curling around the grip, its wings outstretched to form the cross-guard.

He nibbled on his lip. Something was bothering him. This was some awfully ornate looking gear even for an Inquisitor. It appeared to be more the sort of thing a noble would carry. He recalled the black horns on the Inquisitor’s head, a sign of her being some kind of half-breed. He knew little of her when he was human, she had only arrived at the town of Lynthia recently, not enough time for rumours to filter down to the castoffs of society.

He considered that the Inquisitor could come after him a lot harder than he might expect.

Well, she can come if she wants. I just need to get bigger and stronger faster than she can keep up with. Speaking of which.

He turned and dove on the Halfling tracker the Opal had conveniently already stripped. It didn’t take long to make his way through the diminutive body and soon there was nothing left but a bloody smear in the sand.

Rain groaned as he felt himself get a little taller. A respectable seven-foot and a little bit of an inch. He was increasingly finding he had to eat more and more to gain height, each gained inch of height requiring more and more body mass he assumed.

“Halfling is pretty good, but I’ve got to deduct points for not being a full portion despite having the tastiness boost of being a leveler,” he said, scratching his jaw.

“AHA!” said Opal as a clicking sound signified she had figured out the trick to opening the ornate armour. She peeled off the gauntlet revealing the pale hand beneath and then tugged it free from the vambrace, with difficulty as it was still partially trapped under the crushed metal.

She cheekily stuck her tongue out. “Here you go wolfy I’ve got a treat for you.” She tossed the arm upward and Rain snapped it from the air on instinct. He froze.

Opal blinked at him. “Uh, you okay?”

Rain’s jaws slowly began moving and his eyes rolled up. “Soooo guud,” he moaned. “What even is this.” His ears folded down and his tail wagged of its own accord. His taste buds ignited as the lush sensation spread, he actually had difficulty moving his jaw just from the sheer overwhelming flavour.

“It’s like the most savoury yet richest meat I’ve ever eaten. Dear gods it’s melting in my mouth!”

“Are you messing with me?”

“No! It’s something about the meat.” He closed his eyes as the last of it slipped down his gullet. “Rank one food, no, I might need to make a new special rank for this. Oh, it’s good for growth too!” said Rain, rolling his shoulders as his body grew a little once more.

Opal tilted her head to the side. “Now you’ve made me regret giving it to you instead of keeping it for myself. Why was it special? You’ve eaten levelers before.”

He shook his head as though to clear his overwhelmed senses. “It’s that Inquisitor, she wasn’t entirely Human, I know whatever made up her other part- it was special, just tasting that mere fraction of it- gods I want to eat whatever species that is.”

Rain considered just what the Inquisitor could partly be. Most obvious was Drake or Wyverling which would be fitting for the sword, perhaps even a rare breed of Minotaur or Goatrian would cause those horns, or maybe, maybe even a Drag- but no, that couldn’t possibly be ... could it?

“Hrmm. Well too late to chase her down now and that other Human that ran off screaming has vanished, so I guess you’ll have to make do.”

Rain sighed and felt a little depressed to his surprise. Just the thought of not getting more immediately was almost too much to bear.

“Fine, if I can’t have quality then I’ll just have to settle for quantity. Where can I find lots and lots of monsters to eat Opal? I want, no, I need to eat and become stronger.”

“Well, the Piscine seem to have abandoned this floor. Disappearing one of their armies would do that. Uhm, I do know of somewhere we could try, not far, lots of food, but it might be very dangerous.”

“Alright, let’s see if we can scout it out.”

He handed over the longsword to the Goblin who attached it to the top of her pack. She now had three swords, a cutlass and a rapier, one at each hip, plus the new longsword.

They left the dark tunnel and found themselves by the two remaining Kobold slaves that Opal had chained up. The two Kobolds looked up at Rain with fear, backing away nervously. That fear was not without reason.

“I, I helped you with your trap! You’ve got to let me live! Look, eat this guy, he’s way tastier than I am, just look how fat and obese his tail is!” said the red-scaled Kobold.