In Loki's Honor

"It's a freaking BANSHEE! We've been deceived!" The mage shouted and cast a spell. "Firebolt!"

Firebolt heals you for 144 HP. You lost 1 MP. (base 900 (-145) x 0.75 magic resistance x 0.3 magic eater x0.03 fire resistance)

"Fire magic heals me," I said calmly and covered my mouth.

The mage was looking at the tunnel they came from, measuring his escape. He nudged the cleric, "Exorcise her!"

"I don't have MP," The [Priest] replied. "We need to run."

I rolled my eyes. My mouth was still covered. I thought about what I could do to help and remembered I could turn on my title. I did it.

"{Appraise} me," I asked nonchalantly.

"A {Heroine}? Is that a trick?"

"There are Skills and perks to fake a Status!" The mage shouted. "Don't believe her!"

The elf sighed. "Stop this nonsense," He barked at his party mates. "If she was a monster, she would've attacked already. The only screams I'm hearing are yours."

"Roll the core my way," I told the human warrior. "I need to feed and I dare not approach you in this state."

She didn't want to. I bet that the core was bloody valuable. She put the spherical gem on the ground and bowled it my way. I had difficulty picking it up because I was spectral. I knelt and ate it.

You ate a level 27 rare magic core.

You gained 22,324 Exp. (Base 7,290 x 3.05 modifiers).

Half of the Attribute points were sent to your familiar.

You gained +2 Strength, +1 Dexterity +3 Endurance.

Attributes over the cap were redistributed.

You cannot gain more points from cores level 27 or lower.

That would keep me going for a while. I didn't wake up Nenandil yet. She was still slumbering in my soul and didn't wake for a single moment since my birth.

"Now, do you believe?" I asked the woman. "I won't get near your injured friend if you don't allow it."

"Can you save her arm?"

"Are you insane?" The mage asked. "That's a monster!"

"Give me more firebolts!" I hissed at him.

"Stand down, Hector," the elf said. "Our priest is out of mana. We are ill-equipped to fight the undead."

"Because there weren't supposed to be undead in this Dungeon!" The mage replied. This is a ruse. And what? I can't see this creature's level! It could be weak, it could be strong.

I could see theirs. They were all in the early thirties.

"Tick tock, mage guy. Time's a-wasting and the girl's window for recovery shortens. What will you do?"

"And that core was worth at least five gold!" He continued to whine.

I took five gold from my storage and tossed them his way, "Have your money, [Mage]. Let nobody say I am fair in my dealings."

He grinned. "She has more of it! {Shocking Arc}!"

Shocking Arc heals you for 175 HP. You lost 2 MP. (base 1200 (-180) x 0.75 magic resistance x 0.3 magic eater x0.03 fire resistance)

I pretend to be hurt. "No! No more lightning!"

"Hector, stop that!" The woman was about to backhand the mage but the elf held her shoulder.

Hector cackled and fired lightning bolt after bolt. Regarding my hunger, I felt like eating popcorn. {Magic Eater}'s modifier shrunk along with the amount healed and the MP spent, but it never reached the break-even point. The mage ran out of MP before that.

"Potion!" He mumbled as he sagged and fiddled with a leather box attached to his belt.

"I think that's enough, don't let him waste resources," I told the couple of warriors. The woman punched the mage unconscious.

"Finally!" She sighed. "Hurry, heal my friend."

I knelt next to the girl. "I need a sharp knife. The smallest the better."

She gave me a cheese knife. I had to believe it was sharp. "{Diagnosis}," I said out loud. We didn't need to shout our Skills out loud but it was a good idea to coordinate efforts and lower suspicion. Once I identified what was her problem, I cut her. "{Surgery}, {Dialysis}, {Hematopoietic Stimulation}, {Heal Internal Damage}," I worked my way along her arm, restoring the muscles, nerves, and tendons. Finally, I produced threads from my fingers and sewed everything together. "{Thread Suture}!"

It did a number on my MP. I spent more than three thousand MP to restore her arm. Finally, I put my hand over her forehead, "{Intensive Care}."

The cleric looked at me, "Can I check her? {Lifesight}!" He cast after I nodded.

"Marcus, how's she?" The woman asked.

"The banshee healed her arm. Unbelievable," He gasped. "I recognized some [Surgeon] skills but hers are on another level. She mixes magic with her {Surgery} Skill."

I nodded. "I pioneered that profession centuries ago. I advanced my craft since then."

I felt a hand passing through my shoulder. "Oh, sorry," Katia startled, "I just wanted to thank you."

"Can you make camp here? You are tired and the monsters won't approach me. And don't worry about staying close to an undead. {Blight Protection}!"

They stared at their notifications. "Amazing," Marcus the priest said. "People would pay a fortune to learn your Skills."

"Too bad I won't teach anything to anybody in this state. I am not sure if it is even worth to keep on existing. Maybe I should allow you to kill me."

"Nonsense," Fauralien said. "The Mother put you here for a purpose."

"That might be. I don't know. But I would rather live my life as an elf in the forest. For centuries I wanted to return to the forest, to visit Fulgen."

Fauralien looked away. I knew he was touched.

"Say, what is your name?" Katia asked to change the subject.

"I don't really have one this time. I was killed in some weird ritual before I was even born. From the looks of the ruined place where I was, it was another demon summoning ritual."

Fauralien looked back at me. He was worried but said nothing. I was about to ask when Katia steered the conversation away from heavy subjects.

"Say, how does one gain a {Heroine} title?"

"I gained it when I killed the first Demon Lord. Then I died killing the second."

And probably jammed the summoning of the third.

"So it is your fault that the scorched continent is that way," Hector groaned. Apparently the mage regained his senses.

"No," I hissed back. "It is because of me that there is no 'Demon Continent'. I died in that explosion but I killed him before he got strong enough to destroy the continent."

Katia glared at the mage. "You can eat him if you want, banshee {Heroine}."

"Hard pass, sister. I'm an incorporeal undead and I believe that eating him will give me a stomachache."

Katia and Marcus laughed at the mage's expense.

I spent the night watching over the adventurers. Hector didn't sleep, opting instead to watch me. I stayed by Deborah's side, using {Spirit Healing}, my bardic {Song of Health} spell, and I kept {Intensive Care} active all the time. I also watched out for blight spreading from me.

They woke up. A testament to their trust in what I told them, they slept next to a deadly undead monster. But they needed it. We talked a bit while they had supper, and they were delving for days.

We were inside a Dungeon. Yes, capital D. A mystical place where monsters spawned. This one was affectionately called "The Abominable Tunnels" because most monsters were nonsense mix-match of creature parts like the Tentacle Mouther whose core I ate. And this was the fourth level of the Dungeon. There weren't "floors" as in a structured, man-made building so the level was measured by depth range. We were between two hundred and two hundred fifty meters below the surface.

Deborah stirred.

"Katia, she is waking up. I'm hiding so she doesn't scream," I gave my warning and sank into the floor. "Knock on the stone here when I can come out."

I surfaced a few minutes later to see a surprised [Rogue]. "It is true!" Deborah gasped.

"Hello, Deborah," I greeted her halfway buried. "How's your arm?"

She winced when she tried to swing it. "Still attached. More than I hoped when I passed out."

"Good. It will be healed in a day or two if one of us cares for... oh. My mistake. Our agreement is fulfilled," I said with heavy pressure in my chest. "I should go on my way. Stay safe."

"No," Katia tried to hold my arm but failed as it went through. "We talked about it when you sank into the stone. You are coming with us."

"How?"

"As a tame monster," Katia grinned. "We'll farm for a while longer here, and then we'll take you with us as a tame monster."

"Will it even work?" I asked. "Are there previous records of a banshee being tame?"

"That's up to Hector," She pointed at the mage. "He'll say he picked up a necromantic perk to control undead."

"I have a bad feeling about that. As far as I know, the people upstairs will not like this. A banshee is too dangerous," I told them.

Katia snapped her finger and tugged Fauralien, maille sleeve, "That's a first."

"Yes, I am forced to agree with you on that one, Katia," Hector mused. "It is the first time I see an undead afraid of something that is not holy power."

I'm immune to holy power, why would I be afraid?

"Look, I don't care. I need a source of magic to feed on otherwise I'll be forced to kill people. I used to have a ton of Perks and Skills to solve that problem, but being dead and not having a body turned all of them off."

All of my metabolic, transformation and physical form traits are turned off. Even chameleon.

While I gave a serious thought about just giving up and re-rolling, I found myself incapable of committing the deed.

"Wait. You said you died after just being born. Is that right?" Fauralien interrupted our thought about food.

"Yes. The cultists killed me inside my mother's womb."

"But you look like an adult elf," Deborah stated.

"Maybe all banshees become their adult form?"

"I don't think so," Fauralien interjected. "I took a good look at you, and you are the spitting image of your mother. Yes, I knew her."

He added in Elvish, "And now is not the time or the place to talk about it. Just know that the People feel the loss of you two dearly," He said with an almost religious reverence. "But it is the reason I support getting you out of these tunnels."

"Did some ruins around here collapse anytime soon?" I ask. Because I knew it was a winter solstice with the three moons. I felt my body beginning to change into my were-form when my mother's belly was cut open before I died.

"That was fifty years ago. I believe you've been wandering these tunnels for fifty years," Fauralien added with an air of gravitas.

A demon summoning ritual in the most auspicious night of this world, a pregnant elf lady that's important for the People. Add to that the fact it was me the one to screw up with the ritual and you get...

I scream with the full force of my soul.

The Adventurers are on guard. It seems my outburst was more than just spiritual.

"Fifty years, you say," I ask the elf.

Katia tugs his maille sleeve, "Fauralien, what are you talking about there? We can't understand elven."

He looked at her and made a patronizing smile, "It is an important matter for the People."

"Okay," I said, switching the conversation back to the common language. "Fauralien, if I was alive along with my mother, what would be the proper form of addressing us?"

He presses his lips together and his face scrunches in a sorrowful expression that told me everything I need to know.

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid the answer to that will cause you great distress," He explains.

"I see," I tap my chin. "I'm afraid this is not the time for me to surface with you. I'll stay in this Dungeon and hunt monsters to gain some levels."

"But what if adventurers see you," Deborah asks, worried about my safety.

"I'm too hard to destroy. I doubt they can kill me before I can enter a wall or the floor. Besides, I can sense the living around me. I won't be caught by surprise."

Fauralien reaches to stop me from going away but Katia held him back. I turn around and float down a tunnel, deeper into the Dungeon.

I have a lot to think about.