Ha ha ha ha, not just that! That'd be too predictable!

You didn't know a lot about reproduction- that of humans or even that of pumpkin-heads. As far as you knew, pumpkins came from seeds in the ground. You'd never considered how to spread them. Maybe some benevolent but strangely occult gardener spreads the seeds around before Halloween season so the pumpkin-heads will be nice and ripe for all of the hungry players? You'd probably never have the answer. What you did know, from seeing it a time or two on explicit servers, was that human penises were predisposed to shoot either a little or a lot of cum after this sort of treatment. You'd been pretty eager to see first, what would come out, and second, how far you'd shoot.

The answer was... a little disappointing. Your hose-like vine was dripping an awful lot of the stuff, but it just went all over the floor. Your new appendage became more and more like a wet noodle as it dripped out.

"Ha! I think you still need to learn how to use this thing! Maybe you have a skill book about cockomancy?" Pike grinned, giggling as though it was the funniest joke any player had ever made at a monster's expense.

Har-dee-har-har! While you were still pouting, you looked past the slender shoulders of the elf who was teasing you, then focused on a new item you didn't recognize, lying about a foot behind her. You could tell from its leather-bound cover and the dark aura rising off of it... It was a cursed book, not only in the sense of the literal curse wafting off of it like a foul, black flame. This cursed book was especially cursed because it was an ultra-rare book, so rare you'd never seen one in your entire time living as a tortured pumpkin-head. The thing must be worth a fortune. The moment the thief saw it, she'd probably start turning you into a pin-cushion to acquire more such booty.

Desperately, you tried to flood more gooey sap into your new unfamiliar new appendage. You needed a distraction, desperately!

Moments later, you sighed disappointedly; it only figured that a thief of this level would have the perception necessary to follow your eyes, even if they were just a set of candles embedded in your pumpkin rind skull. After watching you with a cocked eyebrow for just a moment, the thief turned around and focused on the book behind her. "Wait, what? You..."

Here it comes! Your decently high intelligence and wit stats told you her next works would be "you only drop ultra-rare skill books?"

"You... Shoot out books when you ejaculate? That's nuts, dude!" She had another good laugh about that.

... That misperception of the situation wasn't bad at all, really. Sure, getting rubbed and licked and ultimately ejaculating had used up a teensy bit of stamina... stamina that you, as a pumpkin, couldn't recover without leveling up... but hey, her thinking that getting you off was how she made you drop books was a pretty big win. Much better than the alternative!

On that note, you didn't think that was the only positive outcome of this exchange. You checked your status once more, heeding a new, unfamiliar indicator:

Gained 10 EXP for explicit interaction! Gained an additional 2 EXP for manipulation success!
88 remaining until level up to Level 2.

You were happy to be maybe the only pumpkin-head to ever gain EXP he didn't think he was going to lose in the span of a few minutes, but still, that message was a little offensive. You hadn't manipulated anyone! If anything, this ought to be an intelligence-based EXP gain. Pike had been very happy to go along with your idea, for the sake of science. All of this was entirely above the board and mutual. Perhaps a budding romance, even? Could players and monsters be in relationships? Had anyone ever tried? These were decent questions and way too lofty for a Pumpkin-Head who rarely saw an area more than 360 degrees in his field of vision from his starting position. You couldn't even envision clearly what the sun looked like in its path across the sky each day, let alone the ins and outs of elf / plant monster romance.

You rebuffed yourself for feeling smitten with a player like this. That's not a fitting thought for a being like you, a proud owner of over 20 intelligence! You shook your pumpkin angrily to knock the idea out of it. As your eyes came to a stop, you discovered something newly terrifying: the thief was picking up the book and had already unbound it. Pike was opening up the cover!

She ought to have enough perception to know she can't open that cursed tome without serious consequences, right?! Your one chance to be useful and dispel a cursed book... and you hadn't been quick enough!

Thoughts ran through your pumpkin head at a mile a minute as your ghostly voice babbled useless warnings. You were sorry for not admitting you were attached to her! This was some cruel playwriter's idea of a joke, that you'd be **** to reckon with how badly you wanted her just after you had resolved to harden your heart, wasn't it?! Beyond that... you needed this thief to survive! She might be a little batty, but she was probably the only person in this blasted world of Shards of Arkus who was going to be so interested in your unusual spawn pattern and your weird plant dick that she held off stabbing you to ****. She was a great player-killer! She was the protection you needed and now... and now...!

Huh. She didn't seem to be injured. Still, you asked her: what had she been thinking, opening that cursed book?!

"Cursed? Oooh, it's like, related to my character's history thing... I was born in a forest where cursed blood tainted the soil, everything that grows there was ruined, all of its children were blighted, yada yada, long story short, I can't tell when things are cursed. Most of the time, it doesn't even really matter. I'll bet this one is like... I'm slowly taking 1 stamina damage every 24 hours or something, ha ha ha!"

You told her that if she couldn't see curses, you might be able to help her. A lump had built at the back of your ghostly throat; ignoring the physics of that, you offered to scan her status, if she would pass you a scanning glass.

"Sure, sure. You really are a worry-wart."

... You asked her to get close and hold it up to your eye. The Phantom Hands weren't steady enough for this.

Sighing, the elven thief stepped tantalizingly close to you... You could feel her soft breaths, unhampered by the face-mask she'd been wearing when she first entered... From this distance, you could count every pretty freckle on her face. You imagined how many more there might be on the rest of her newly erotic humanoid body...

Nope, not smitten! Helping. You were only studying her body because you needed to scan her. And... there we go... You found all kinds of information on skills (she had an absolute ton), feats (she'd taken ones befitting a player killer, for sure), and spells (this section was easy, she only had one). Frankly, you felt like you could stare at her skills all day... even those seemed somehow charming to you, like studying them enough would lead you to understand what made her genetically predisposed to not slaughter a pumpkin the moment she sees it.

Unfortunately, for now, you needed to focus. Curses, curses... where were her curses...

Veri'lleri Forest Elf Curse: Your cursed blood in turn dulls your Perception against curses, to a factor of 5%. Cannot be dispelled.
Curse of Hunger: You're really quite hungry. May be dispelled.
Curse of Cheese Craving: You crave cheese. May be dispelled.
Curse of Hammerblight: You cannot use warhammers. May be dispelled.
Curse of Bath Time: Bathing actions are slowed by a factor of 300%. May be dispelled.
Curse of Arachnophobia: 100% chance to become terrified when facing spider monsters. May be dispelled.
Curse of Lactose Intolerance: You take a small stamina penalty when consuming any milk, cheese, or dairy. Overconsumption may cause disease, flatulence, or, in **** cases, instant ****. May be dispelled.
Curse of Dyslexia: You're a dyslexic reader in a world that is not properly equipped to diagnose or handle dyslexia. May be dispelled.
Mesmeric Curse, Plants: Plant-based creatures gain a 3x modifier towards Manipulation checks when dealing with you. May be dispelled.

Pike really wasn't kidding about her laissez-faire attitude towards dispelling or diagnosing curses. You were amazed she didn't notice something was off when she suddenly started taking 3x longer in the bath.

At any rate, there was just one of these that seemed important here, the very last on the list, implying she'd just picked it up. The Mesmeric Curse was the stuff of fantasies... apparently, as a plant, you were going to be extremely persuasive with her going forward. The thought made you feel a bit dirty. Should you try to find a way to dispel that curse? Should you even tell her about it? The pumpkin-headed angel on one of your ragged shirt's shoulders was busy wrestling with the pumpkin-headed devil on the other. For now, you'd just keep it in your back pocket.

"See anything interesting?" She questioned, using one finger to tilt your head up from where your hollow, triangular eyes seemed to be scanning the chest of her leather tunic beneath her ranger's cloak. You may have been not-so-discretely trying to find some hint of her stats in that area.

You responded that she really ought to lay off on cheese for a while.

"Dude, cheese is like... sooooo good, though. You've clearly never eaten cheese before."

That was true. Still, you thought to yourself, that's just the curse talking!

Pike knocked you atop the head with the book she'd picked up earlier, causing another book to spill out of you. Without looking at the tome, she threw it in her pack, then returned to the matter at hand. "When I said I wasn't the bookish type earlier, I meant it. My character can only read the ones where she just opens it up and it gives her the skill. If there's any actual reading involved, I'm useless at it. So what I'm saying is: you've gotta tell me what this book is."

You tried to shift your floppy scarecrow hat back into place on your bulbous head, as you wheeled your body around with an absolute lack of dexterity, bumping into the elf in the process.

"Forget reading... Do you need a skill book on, like, moving in general?"

You thought she knew well that pumpkin-heads were damned to have next to no dexterity, but you let it slide. Finally, you managed to angle your head so that you were capable of reading the cover of the book she'd held up for you (without burning it with your "eyeballs," such as they were). You read out the title with some hesitation, not because you were a poor reader, but because you'd never heard of such a book before. it must have been added in the latest update...

Dungeon Crafting (Ultra): Monster-only skill book that allows the crafting of dungeons up to Ultra-level

The elf's eyes widened as she spun the book around; she tried to read it for a moment, then gave up, returning it to your face. "Dungeon Crafting? That's gotta be related to the latest update! So if I read this, I can craft a dungeon?!"

You shook your head. Apparently, this was restricted only to monster-class characters, such as yourself. You'd never seen a book that could only be read by monsters... Who would even write such a book? Weren't all books written by humans? Or was it stupid to even think that since, after all, in your experience, they simply popped out of your body on the average case?

Anyways, it was a coincidence too good to pass up. You told her that this was just what you needed.

The elf grinned once again, starting to reach up to give your head a noogie, then hesitating as she recalled that lowering your stamina meant you losing vitality you had no way of getting back. "For a pumpkin-head, you're a real egg-head. Tell me what you've got cooking in that soupy brain of yours."

Your pumpkin grin widened as you flapped your useless arms at the cave around her. The cave- your pumpkin patch- was the only habitat you'd ever known. It was also as good as a **** trap for a pumpkin. There were no fortifications, players always knew to hunt you here, and there weren't even any decent monsters to challenge the players. All they were met with inside these caves was a little pool of water, a little sunlight, and some decrepit, plant-based loot monsters, waiting to be beaten to **** at a player's leisure.

But what if you could surround yourself with a vast dungeon?

After all, a raid boss isn't just a raid boss because he's strong. He's a raid boss because he has a huge, well-defended fortress full of traps and monsters that will carve out player's HP and rid them of all of their curative items before the players can reach him! Now, you were no raid boss... but you felt that with a proper dungeon, you could be less of an intelligent treasure pinata and more of a bonified monster.

While Pike mulled over how she felt, helping a monster power up and create a dungeon to kill her fellow players, You wanted to start crafting your dungeon right away! How hard could it be? Concentrating, you rolled your pumpkin head from side to side and accessed your skills. Dungeon Crafting... First, you have to start with an Inner Sanctum. That sounds way better than "pumpkin patch" or "gross, dank cave!" One inner sanctum, coming up!

Error: "Hlwn EventServ 04 " land not owned. Land is vacant. 1 claimant crystal and 50 fame is required to claim this land.
Error: Character level does not meet minimum requirements for dungeon crafting. Level 3 required.
Error: Missing materials. Minimum 20x "Cave Mineral" required.
Error: Unnamed monster cannot claim land.
Error: Player(s) exist on build location.
Inner Sanctum not constructed.

Well, that was disappointing, to put it mildly. It didn't seem that a dungeon was in the cards for you. You'd have to settle with being the first ever pumpkin-head to spawn out of season, get jacked off by an elf, and survive for more than half an hour. Still, that was a legacy you could be proud of!

"Hey, there was an error readout just now? Can you tell me what it said?" Pike tilted her head curiously... Evidently, she'd been pretty excited about the idea of a rogue pumpkin-head building his own dungeon and didn't want to give up the dream so easily. You repeated all of the strange readouts to her. As she heard them, the thief winced hard, then crossed her arms. Her hooded head lowered with a dark expression across her eyes. "That's gonna be super rough... I'd been thinking maybe you were just missing materials. I can get those easily, but for most of these others, we'd have to get you to level 3. Can pumpkin-heads even level up...?"

You told her that in theory, they could, though you'd never seen it happen before.

The girl tapped a finger against her unpainted lips thoughtfully for a while and paced the floor of the cave. You thought about telling her to drop it, but with your bonus to persuasion, you'd probably get her to do just that. Despite your own pessimism towards the likelihood of your becoming a dungeon boss, faced with so many obstacles, you were eager to see if she could come up with anything. Curious, you asked her: why did she even want to help you with this?

A wicked smirk came across her face, more befitting of a monster than a human. "I'm a PK'er, remember? A PK artist, even. I'm the type that's so messed up in the head, she pretends to be a roleplayer to sneak in and kill roleplayers. Trust me, dude: nothing feels as good as killing other players!"

This was a twisted side of her you hadn't seen very much so far. At first, it frightened you; after all, you were pretty predisposed to dying and thus would prefer not to hang around dyed-in-the-wool killers. The more you thought about it, though... maybe if she hated other players, she actually liked monsters? Or then again, maybe she just saw you as a means to an end. Either way... You were pretty dang lucky she'd stumbled into your cave.