Let's build a new prison and use it immediately!

It wasn't cheap, but you decided this would be one of those situations where you spend fame to make fame. The tricky part about a monster holding hostages: many adventurers have ways of getting out of a monster's clutches that defy the realm of fairness. Just from your own limited knowledge, these methods included teleportation stones, teleportation magic, wayportals, and, last but not least, good old fashioned dying. When the Sheriff regained consciousness, by hook or by crook, he'd get out of here and back to town some way. After that, he'd probably reassemble his Town Watch faction, then come and put an end to you for good. Traditionally, monsters just didn't have the means to keep this sort of thing from happening.

However, you'd heard that several of the raid bosses had special means, which adventurers saw as a thrilling sort of challenge; utilizing their prisons, those bosses were capable of holding onto their after-battle hostages in a much more reliable manner. The only way that a player could leave a prison was for a period of time to pass or for someone else to bust in and free them. Perhaps understandably, very few of these prisons existed... Wouldn't those raid bosses be surprised to know that you'd just built your own? For a mere 100 fame, you'd managed to construct a starter prison with a single cell capacity; the interior was dank, gloomy, and just what you wanted for your menacing Halloween dungeon. It even came with a skeleton pre-chained in one corner! An inanimate, decorative skeleton, but a spooky skeleton nonetheless.

The low torchlight illuminated your face as you and Pike entered the dungeon and began chaining up the Sheriff, binding his wrists to the walls in thick, iron manacles. It wouldn't be the most comfortable sleeping position for the so-called servant of the public good, but you felt like he deserved some punishment after how he'd refused to listen to you earlier. You were basically Spellbook Santa Claus! But like most myths, this one had a twisted monster at its core, and you were eager to show your sadistic elf friend that you could be a little freaky when the time came for it.

Oh, right! Moving. You're probably wondering how that was accomplished?

Minions made this astounding feat possible; you'd summoned a large, zombie-like creature with stitched joints and sewn muscles. Patchwork though he looked, he did the trick; his thick musculature and lack of brains proved perfect for serving as a mindless **** to hoist your stake over one shoulder and carry you around the dungeon. As a dungeon minion, he was restricted to just this prison and the inner sanctum for now, but you felt you'd get plenty of use out of him besides. As he droaned "Massssteeeeeeer" and dripped green slime from his jaw onto the floor, you said a silent prayer for your fallen vampire. The guy hadn't deserved to die for your incompetence. You'd have to avoid making that mistake again in the future: no vampires near outward facing doors.

You also found that, like your vampire, this guy badly needed some pants. The muscle zombie wasn't exactly shriveled but... that actually made it worse. You noticed Pike's eyes kept drifting down to the thing's swinging, over-endowed manhood and an uncomfortable frown rested on her face every time it caught her eye. Hopefully, you'd have a chance to fetch this guy some clothes some time. If only you'd managed to loot that Crowmaster's gear... that robe would have been just the right size for your new zombie buddy.

But hey! Moving! This was actually the first time you'd ever moved from one spot to another, at least without being tipped over. Check one off the old bucket list!

Pleased with the fluidity of your marvelous room-to-room transportation, you graciously dismissed your zombie to go stand outside the prison. If the Sheriff awoke to see that big, floppy thing hanging in his face, he'd probably think he was in for an even worse kind of **** than he was. Now set down with Pike beside you, you giggled a peel of pumpkin-ous laughter, then began to lay out your plan to Pike. By the end of it, she seemed an equal mix of skeptical about its success, giddy at the twistedness of it, and suspicious of your intentions...

The Sheriff blinked his dark, red eyes, dispelling the long, nearly fatal spell of dizziness he'd taken and slowly regaining his bearings. He could tell that even though dizziness had subsided, he was afflicted with some other ailment- besides, you know, just being at critically low health from a bleeding wound somewhere within the mop of black hair that covered his head. His eyes still stung from the poison gas, but slowly, he managed to make out the two figures before him: that blasted pumpkin-head and the bastardly Pike. Finally, he understood what status he was afflicted with and began to rattle his chains in agitation.

You asked him: "how does it feel to be immobile?"

"You've done it now, Pumpkin Lord! Once the Town Watch finishes interrogating that treasonous Crowmaster, every one of them will come seeking me out! Imprisoning me? You've signed your own **** sentence!" The Sheriff talked tough, but he didn't look so big and bad without his fancy crossbow, dagger, and that huge inventory pouch he'd been carrying. Pike was busily sorting through that, finding all sorts of goodies that sounded so useful and valuable, you couldn't help but be interested in the riches yourself. Feeling that he was being ignored, the man squirmed harder and grit his teeth. "Pike won't be spared either! She's an accomplice. Dick and I took it easy on her the first time around, but we won't be so lenient the next time we match blades with her!"

Splendid loot aside, you had other matters to attend to: villainous banter! This sort of dialogue was a surefire way to increase your fame, while also serving the dual purpose of owning the jerkoff who'd tried to kill you. You cleared your throat, then tried some out. "Strong words, from a wounded captive!"

The man clicked his teeth, but a slight grin came to his face regardless. He was the type who loved banter like this, even in such a dire situation. "I'm not the Sheriff of the Town Watch for nothing, you damn pumpkin. My followers are many! You stand to lose it all... unless you release me."

You laughed, then pressed one hand to your chest dramatically... or, more like, you flapped one arm against your shirt's billowy front. "I'm no mere pumpkin! Fear me, for I am Ickibod, the Pumpkin Lord!"

"Ickibod... a sickening name for a repugnant creature!"

You got the sense he actually liked it. This was the kind of person who vastly preferred an overdone, flowery name to a simple one. You'd gotten your fill of banter; now it was time for barter. You told him that he was forgetting an important part about being the Sheriff: his code of honor. Specifically, his promise. He'd said that he'd listen to whatever you demanded if he lost to Pike, right? Well, you'd taken him hostage and sent the rest of his hunting party back to town. You figured that counted as Pike's victory.

The Sheriff lowered his eyebrows and clicked his teeth. You could sense it. He just couldn't let it lie. He wanted to complain, but he couldn't do so at the expense of the more exciting roleplay opportunity of hearing you out. "So be it, monster. What would you have me do? What, in your limited scope of ambition and your miniscule creativity as a hapless monster, could you have devised, that would make use of my tremendous and cultivated skillset? Are you going to make me call myself a cultist and dress me up like you did the innocent Winnifred and this deranged thief?"

You nodded your pumpkin head with a stupid grin carved across your face. The vacant look in your eyes seemed to scare the guy more than anything.

"Wait... Wait, what? That's really what you intend to do? But I'm... I know I have a sort of, ehm, graceful charm, but you must have realized by now that I'm a man. I'm wearing all male gear." The guy was starting to squirm in his pointy-toed boots a bit.

You told him you knew that and had accounted for it. Rather than starting into an adventure as the world's first bisexual pumpkin- surely an exciting story for another time- you revealed the item that Pike had given you after you'd begged for it a couple of times: a Mystic Mirror. You'd heard that adventurers were capable of changing their appearance completely.

He could even change his appearance to... say... something that would fit well in one of your cultist uniforms.

"No... Noooo, no no. I meant I would, you know, help you build your dungeon or craft some stunning dark lord fashion for you. Maybe turn against my people and kill them or take a hostage or two. I didn't mean something like that." Sweat began to roll down from the man's forehead, mixing with the trail of blood there, as he smiled awkwardly and tried to start the conversation over. "I could teach you crossbow maneuvers. Ladies love a crossbow, my lord, and I'm a better hand than most! With my skills, I-"

You told him that you didn't think your 3 dexterity was going to make that very useful.

The guy gulped, then continued pathetically. "Bombs! I've studied how to make all sorts of bombs for manifold situations. They're so OP, the devel- er, the gods- haven't even realized it yet! I can fully wipe mobs with just one bomb, or render a jackass like Crowmaster completely useless by disabling his dark magic! You like poison?! You should see how these babies work! I'm talking poison stacked with bleeding stacked with burning stacked with venom! Tied off with a curse! That's a guaranteed four-times multiplier! You want to learn how to make them, don't you?!"

You interrupted by shaking your head, telling him there'd be plenty of time to talk about his cool bombs later. Besides, you were pretty sure there must be a skillbook about that in everything Pike picked up.

Aghast, the Sheriff shook his head at a greater pace than you were shaking your own, as though the sheer **** of the action would convince you to change your mind. "... Cosmetics! Everyone likes cosmetics, right? I can... I've got real-money cosmetics...!"

You shook your head again. You told him that you were interested to see if he had anything that would look good on his new cultist persona, though.

The grown man sniffled in despair. "I... I could just restart my character, you know... I'll just abandon the Sheriff."

You laughed; you didn't quite know what restarting meant, but you'd learned enough to suspect that he meant to just kill himself. As if a guy like this, with so much invested in his character, was going to do that! His inventory had been plenty evidence that he'd been deliberately keeping himself at low levels, to give the impression of an underdog and win battles against other PVPers that got reported via overpowered items he'd learned to craft. Or... at least, that's what Pike told you. You weren't quite as familiar with the player killer and RP cultures as she was.

"I mean, we can't stop you from just stalling until your Town Watch gets here. But I coooould log off and tell everyone the Sheriff got beaten by a pumpkin-head. I could post pictures of it all over the board." Pike was the one threatening this time; she smiled evilly as she continued to inspect the contents of the man's seemingly bottomless inventory pouch.

"... Gods-damn you! Okay, fine. But... But don't forget that I could stab you in the back of your bloated orange head at any moment! You may make me into one of your cultists, but that doesn't mean my heart belongs to you! I belong to the people, to the peace!" The man protested to the last, even as he began to stare into the mirror and adjust his hair.

You were pretty interested to see how he changed! With excitement glowing in your candle-eyes, you watched with a stupid smile, waiting for some sort of change...

Waiting...

Waiting...

"Dude, it takes like, a million years for somebody to design an avatar. Especially a female one. We might as well leave him to it while he works. Come on, check all the cool stuff he had in his bag!" Pike bid you to turn around and join her, while the Sheriff moaned and whined in the background.

Later in the day, you'd met the newly restored Winnifred, dressed in her pumpkin best and sporting a mortified frown. "To think... you captured the Town Watch's Sheriff! I am to blame for his fate. I can't allow him to suffer alone... To think I rerunned here..." She bit her lip and allowed her fists to shake at the sides of her delightfully curvy, mostly bare hips. That speech error she'd just made- not to mention the ridiculous choice to return and rejoin your cult- was proof that your Winnifred was back!

You told her you'd gotten into a lot of trouble from her decision to sleep in.

Winnifred dropped the RP persona for a bit to bow in apology. "Sorry guys... I've adjusted the AI so that won't happen again. I mean, I'm not going to get rid of her personality; that's Winnifred the White, my character! But I did make it so she won't act on her emotions so much she attacks you and starts bounties and junk."

With a cheery laugh, you forgave her. You were in high spirits! While the Sheriff messed around with his appearance settings and prepared to become your third cultists, you'd gone about expanding your base. First, you'd made that Dungeon Conduit that you'd meant to make earlier, then you'd installed all sorts of traps around your inner sanctum's front hall, including other types of gases and darts with a mixture of paralysis and poison effects. With this, it should be possible to take care of most threats the moment they stepped in the doorway. Of course, the smart adventurer would know that the first steps are sometimes the most dangerous and might seek to detect or disarm traps... but at least you had one of the best thieves there was on your side! When you announced that, you thought you'd seen the thief blush just a bit at the compliment, which you took as an extra win.

Next, you made a common area for your cultists. If you were going to have a cult with adventurers in it, they needed a place to rest that wasn't just hugging onto you for the entire night in standing position, as nice as that was. You'd created a number of Halloween themed beds in there; they looked a little cutesy and out of place in your dungeon, with their jack-o-lantern headboards and posts and their purple bedsheets, but Pike hadn't been able to talk you out of it. One was especially out of place: a round, luxury bed bearing your face on the sheets with no headboard and big enough to lay four people. Pike had tried extra hard to talk you out of that one. Unfortunately, until she got around to fixing that curse, she'd be completely unable to talk you out of much of anything, and eventually yielded to your indubitable wisdom in constructing what you obviously intended to be a platform for threesomes or foursomes.

You hadn't done much with the outside... in fact, you'd modified it to look like a traditional cave entrance again, albeit sealed with a stone door just inside the tunnel. It wouldn't be so great as a fame booster, but it would keep people from just stumbling in here to check out the interesting crypt all the time.

You'd actually been **** to create a treasure room as well; this one had been Pike's request. Even with all of her inventory pouches, she'd reached max capacity, storing all of your books and the various other loot she'd managed to collect. You felt like you'd seen her offload some from her personal storage as well into the various chests and trunks in that room... Part of you felt taken advantage of, but she deserved it. You'd placed this room behind your throne room. Hopefully nobody snuck back there... You didn't have enough points to invest in locks and traps for all of those chests yet. If an eager grave robber got in there, Pike was going to end up seriously in the red.

Even after installing all of these rooms, your dungeon was still awfully claustrophobic compared to the ones raid bosses had. You hoped, in time, you'd get there and have a super impressive base of operations. Would it be great to rub it in the Vampire Lord's face when he spawned in October? "Sorry, don't need you! The Pumpkin Lord's Crypt is the greatest Halloween dungeon and we're not just open for one day or one week; we're open all year round! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Pike interrupted your fantasy by clearing her throat awkwardly. Oh, right. There was one little problem as far as your cultists were concerned... You'd invested in more of those vampires and zombies and now, your crypt was full of gnarly looking dudes with their explicit parts hanging out. Pike looked pretty angry about the situation, but you could tell seeing so many zombie penises had Winnifred antsy with anticipation. What did she think you were going to do with them, exactly...? Was anybody's idea of a good time seeing a bunch of burly, expressionless zombies go to town on one cleric girl?

...

You pushed that idea into a secret compartment inside your mind, then refocused yourself. Your fame had just about run out for now and you'd hit the clear log button to get a fresh slate after all of those earlier misadventures, but you thought you knew a great way to restore your fame total: meeting your newest cultist and seeing how much she now revered or reviled you! No matter what the answer, you'd probably get some major points!

The reactions of the three of your cult varied wildly as you met the cult's newest member. You beamed with delight! Pike frowned with a dead-eyed disbelief in what she was seeing. Winnifred's nostrils flared and her eyes sparkled with even more unabashed excitement than you felt you were showing.

At first, the Halloween Cloak you'd given the Sheriff to wear made it look like he might still be the same person. He still had the same deep, red eyes, matted black hair, and blood dripping from his forehead... your cleric needed to address that last part at some point. However, once he stood up against the wall and the vibrantly purple cloak settled his body, the curves of a new, impressive bosom became apparent, as did the more slender lines of the new Sheriff's neck and the feminine angle of her chin. In spite of her efforts to stand straight, the cloak fell open, revealing stark nudity; you saw the adventurer's new womanhood, with a neat landing strip of dark hair above it, along with her toned abdomen, tan skin, and heavy, luscious breasts. Evilward surely wasn't shy about making himself... er... herself a knockout.

A deep red blush overtook the woman's face as you all ogled her. "Kill me already..."

No can do! Instead, you gave Evilward the next part of your plan: the title badge. You urged the captive woman to change her title.

"N-No! I'm the Sheriff, dammit! Everybody knows me as the Sheriff! I've been the Sheriff for over a year!" Amusingly, she seemed even more adamant on this point than she had been her gender. "I'm not kidding, I'll really quit! You won't have me to push around any more!"

Thoughtfully, you squinted one eye and focused at the title-plate above the character's head. You asked how she felt about being the Pumpkin Sheriff?

"What the fuck is a Pumpkin Sheriff?!"

Not so good, huh? How about... Pumpkin Enforcer?

"That's... That's not as bad, but still terrible."

Pumpkin Justicier?

The woman gulped. "... Justicier actually sounds cooler than Sheriff...!"

Then it was settled! She would be your dispenser of Pumpkin Justice! You handed over the badge eagerly, with all of the grace and dignity that 3 Dexterity allows a pumpkin-head. That is to say: you accidentally slapped her across the boobs, sending them jiggling in a lewd and exciting way. Actually, you'd forgotten she couldn't even take the badge... Her hands were bound up. With some effort, you maneuvered the thing into your mouth, then leaned your pumpkin head forward.

"Y-Y-You... You're asking me to take it with my mouth?! You're asking me to kiss you?!" The girl's face looked horrified and you thought the expression was more genuine than when Winnifred did it.

Evidently unamused by the spectacle, Pike grabbed the item and placed it between the ex-Sheriff's teeth. "Go on, Justicier. Get it over with."

Soon enough, your Pumpkin Justicier had been named. You told her that, unfortunately, Pike had run out of Pumpkin Bikinis... Evilward was going to have to deal with just the cloak until you found suitable pumpkin attire for her. You thought that there was probably a Halloween Cosmetics skillbook somewhere in that huge pile you'd dropped for Pike earlier...

As your Justicier complained about having to walk around like a flasher, showing her teeth in a huge scowl that upset her otherwise pretty features, you took stock of all you'd accomplished.

You swayed a member from another faction to join your faction! +25 fame
Your cult now has four members! + 50 fame
Your charisma has increased another's impression of you through conversation. +5 fame
You used your prison to **** a hostage. +5 fame
Total fame: 85 fame

There was also the usual stuff about manipulation EXP. You thought you were probably going to keep getting that as long as you spent time hanging around Pike. You scrolled through all of the little +2 EXP awards, then dismissed the view. It wasn't enough for a level-up just yet, so you weren't interested. Finally, you decided to take stock of your minions: five strong, stupid zombies, five relatively balanced vampires, and then your group of merry cultists.

Level 16- "The Pumpkin Herald" Pike
Elf, Thief, Explicit

Level 3- Winnifred the White
Human, Cleric, Explicit

Level 10- "The Pumpkin Justicier" Evilward
Human, Ranger, Explicit

All of this was swell. In fact... other than the looming possibility of a raid party consisting of all of the remaining Town Watch coming to claim the bounty of your lair, there wasn't a lot to worry about any more, was there?

As if in answer to your rhetorical question, a loud noise sounded from outside: Beeee-wooo... That couldn't be right... You weren't doing anything that warranted that noise. It was suspicious, is what it was!

You told the others there was only one thing to do now. As the roleplay version of Winnifred knit her brow with worry and suggested that clothing and healing Evilward seemed like the natural next move, you shook your head and told them: it was time to recon what had just caused that noise! That sort of error noise ought to be pretty rare in an area like this... In fact, the only time you'd heard it recently was when you failed to build something, claim something, or advance in some way. In short, it was a noise you now associated with your status as a budding boss monster and a dungeon master. Who around here would be making that noise? You had abandoned the idea of recruiting other monsters to your side, other than the lair mobs of Halloween creatures you'd begun spawning by your own power. You were the only monster in this abandoned zone... right?

You felt as though you'd just finished the first act in this little adventure of yours... and a new threat to your survival was about to rear its head.

You had to imagine its head wasn't a big, stupid pumpkin either...