Evilward's brave sacrifice gave you time to plan

The next events unfolded kind of quickly. You'd heard Evilward say something about how she wanted to get her initiation out of the way quickly, then suddenly, the whole Cult of Strong Bonds had descended upon her with lusty fervor. You'd heard squealing, then screaming, then maybe some of that ecstasy she'd been promised. Dang. For a woman who calls herself the strongest and craftiest in the server, she sure ends up getting pushed around a lot.

At any rate, having people's attention taken off of you reminded you of any dweller of Shards of Arkus' greatest asset: the stat sheet. That's right... you hadn't really looked at the thing since you were level 4, right? You'd managed to absorb enough from Bathory to get up to 11, a pretty impressive level even higher than Evilward's. The world had never really seen a level 11 pumpkin-head before, have they? You might have some potent new options available to you!

Level 11(+7)- Ickibod "the Pumpkin Lord," Halloween Pumpkin-Head
Monster, Plant, Explicit
NEW- Class change available! Class change may be performed in any friendly territory.
Experience to level up - 585
Attributes:
Strength 5 (+2) | Dexterity 5 (+2) | Stamina: 49 (+6)
Charisma: 37 (+5) | Manipulation: 37 (+6) | Appearance: 14 (+3)
Intelligence: 35 (+6) | Perception: 24 (+2) | Wits: 24 (+3)
Skills:
Identification (Skill/Spell Books)
Curse removal (Skill/Spell Books)
Dungeon Crafting (Ultra)
Sexual Technique (Ultra)
Feats:
Treasure Monster (Books, Ultra-Rare): This monster spawns skill and spell texts when struck by a close range attack. There is a ten-second timer between allowed spawns, although damage can still be sustained. The level of the text varies depending on the level of the one striking it, although the rarity is preset by the feat itself.
Weapon Restriction (Total): Cannot equip or be equipped with weapons.
Elemental Resist (High): This monster greatly minimizes damage from all elements.
MP regeneration (High): This monster automatically recovers MP at a high rate.
Buff/Debuff Spell Resist (Total): This monster's stats cannot be buffed or debuffed by spells.
Heal Resist (Total): This monster cannot be healed by any means other than leveling up.
Vine Manipulation (Advanced): This monster can stretch and harden the vines composing its body. With preparation time, this yields a boost in Strength and Dexterity boost at the cost of Stamina. Also increases reach slightly. - UPGRADED!
Spells:
Sphere of Fear: Casts an AoE spell around the user with distance and effect based on Intelligence. This spell lowers defense and has a chance to terrify based on Intelligence. There is a cooldown on this spell's usage that is lowered based on the Wits stat.
Sphere of Fire: Casts an AoE fire spell around the user with distance and effect based on intelligence. There is a cooldown on this spell's usage that is lowered based on the Wits stat.
Phantom Hands: Creates a pair of free-floating hands that act with Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina directly translated from the user's Intelligence stat. The summoner's MP will be drained as long as they are in use. They will vanish either when dismissed by the summoner or killed, or when the summoner runs out of MP or is killed.
EXP Leech: Toggles a persistent effect at the cost of MP that will drain EXP at a slow rate from a target in contact with the user.
Self-Destruct: Sacrifices the user's remaining health to create a large damage AoE fire spell, extending outward from the user's body with distance and effect based on Intelligence and the amount of HP remaining when using the ability. - NEW!

There was a lot to take in! The bolded letters caught your attention first. A class change?! You'd always framed your entire life around being a weird, pumpkin-headed scarecrow, designed to have loot knocked out of him and with no reliable spells. The thought of changing to something more capable was immediately thrilling... except for one little problem. Apparently, you could only perform this in a friendly area... For a monster, that probably meant inside one of his own dungeons. That was all the more reason to find a way to clear the adventurers out of the castle, but you had to admit, you really wished you could fall back on it right this second.

Beyond that, your vine manipulation had quickly reached a new form, though you sure wished you knew what "advanced" there implied. Still, the useful implications were evident. You had a lot of stamina to spare... translating that into strength and dexterity could help you overcome a lot of the shortcomings that pumpkins had always been **** to live with in this cruel world. Notably, your dexterity and strength had increased a smidge, but you still only had about 1/4 that of a starting adventurer... the boost would have to be some serious stuff to make you a viable threat in any physical contest.

Finally, there was one more spell... Self-Destruct?! What a bizarre thing to show up on a Pumpkin-Head! Wouldn't a self-destructing pumpkin just be the cruelest possible thing to foist onto adventurers? They come in close to start beating you with their weapons, then you blow up on them before they have a chance to get a single spell-book? It was no wonder the gods had never included a level 11 Pumpkin-Head in their cosmic plans before. Still... as much as you'd like to get a one-up on all of the adventurers that ever wronged you, there was simply no way to cast this spell. To do so would throw your life away! Maybe you'd respawn with most of your same stats, but you'd end up in some new spawn point, probably... Doing that could mean separating yourself from your cult forever. There were too many risks involved to even test it out. Plus, in this particular situation, it would mean immolating Evilward too.

Maybe the answer wasn't in new skills or spells... but instead in your stats. Truth be told, your stamina was through the roof now. The harmless Pumpkin-Head had always been gifted with meaty loads of stamina, allowing it to survive attacks while players mined it for its valuable books. You'd grown far past that, however... Your stamina had increased nearly to 50, a stat that would make adventurers around the world salivate, and your intelligence was half-way to 40. With this, your Sphere of Fire ought to be pretty powerful.

However, you thought you had an even better idea for thinning out their numbers. You didn't necessarily have to defeat them for now; you just needed to run them off! What better way to do that than your signature spell? While the others focused on Evilward, you began to chant your spell... Then, with a booming voice, you opened your jack-o-lantern mouth and made a hideous scream! The air around you warbled and shook, adopting a new chill. This was Sphere of Fear, the Pumpkin-Head spell that had annoyed audiences for years and **** them to equip Anti-Terror Talismans! This time, though, there were no accessories in sight to stop you. Who in their right mind would wear one on the regular?!

...

Oh, yeah. One problem. You weren't close enough to the enemies to hit with it. The spell had a pretty wide area of effect, due to your boosted intelligence, but you were on one side of the room and everyone else was on the other. It wouldn't quite reach. Worse yet, now everyone had caught on to your plan, looking up from Evilward to focus on you.

Desperately, you turned back to your stat sheet. Wasn't there anything else new?! There wasn't...

... But there was something missing. According to the sheet, you were no longer immobile.

That was great news, but... did the gods understand what they were doing when they took it out? Your stake was still embedded hard into the floor to keep you upright. You felt pretty damn immobile. You tested your naked straw legs once again... they wouldn't quite reach the floor, still. They felt like noodles.

"Get 'im!" the one called Leather-Man shouted, pointing a knife in your direction.

Crap, things were looking bad! The guys had adopted typical Pumpkin-Head strategy... they were going to send one defensive person in to bait you into using a spell, repeat that as many times as it took to put everything on cool-down, then finally, one would rush in and slash you to release a spell-book. They'd repeat that over and over again, dealing low damage to maximize the number of books, until you were fully dead! The one they'd chosen to send in was the Leather-Man, a skinny guy clad all over in a leather suit and carrying a long knife. Should you use your Sphere of Fire on him? You had ****; when he started to get close, you cast it. The guy simply jumped back at the last second before the flames could hit him. "Geh heh heh heh! Who wants first hit?" The thief cackled and ran his tongue along his knife, as though contemplating if he should go for it himself.

Wait a minute...

Your wits had gotten pretty high too, hadn't they? They were at least on par with the average adventurer's. You wondered if the group was aware that your cooldowns had sped up significantly. Keeping silent about that fact, you waited as they sorted out who would be the next to attack you. Your boosted cooldowns were one piece of the puzzle... but there was another that remained hidden somewhere. You had to figure out how this movement thing worked.

The Ass-Plugger approached next, wielding a heavy hammer in two hands while wearing a huge grin on her face and little else besides. You could sort out your feelings about chubby girls with ass fetishes later; for now, you had to test your movement capabilities. Legs... Work, legs!

The legs remained unresponsive. You had to flip your thinking around... you visualized your newly flexible vines. That's right... If you had lost your immobile status, something must have happened that would allow you to move on your own power.

That's it! The vines! You began to convert your stamina into strength and dexterity at a rapid rate. You were under no illusion that you could get strong enough to go toe-to-toe with this dwarf... But all you needed to do was move! The dwarf's grin twisted as she raised her hammer, preparing to bash you over the head with it and send pumpkin-guts and books flying out. It was the sort of sick pleasure that adventurers took from defeating loot monsters. The grin froze on her face for a moment, then went slack as you, quietly, began to slide across the floor towards her. She blinked a few times, then let out a dumb, "huh?" You slid closer...

Vines extended from beneath your straw like a snake's tail. You'd transformed yourself into some bizarre creature like a Pumpkin-Naga, capable of lifting itself and slithering across the floor on a serpentine appendage. This feeling was so liberating for you (if a little uncomfortable to maintain) that you felt as though you'd already class changed!

The dwarf turned to the others to ask what had just happened. In that moment, you'd already finished your cooldown for your spell! With no further hesitation, you released a tremendous Sphere of Terror, blasting the entire cult all at once!

"Hooooly shiiiiiiit!" the Leather-Man screamed, wetting his name-sake leathers in fright.

The cult began to trip over their whips and belongings as they ran to all corners of the room like frightened cockroaches, attempting to preserve themselves from the sheer terror of a pumpkin with limited mobility. The feeling of power was exhilarating! Finally, you were someone to be feared, with unpredictable timing and actual movement capabilities! Now, to watch them all run away...

... You counted again. Ten. Only about half of them had been affected. Even with your newfound intelligence stat, terror was an unreliable spell... It worked on a percentage chance. You spat pumpkin seeds and orange gunk all over the wall as the dwarf's hammer swung around and caught you across the cheek, knocking a spell book free so hard that it smacked against one high corner of the room in its trajectory. She wasn't taking any chances! The dwarf swung again, clocking you across your thankfully durable head. This time, no spell-book came out; it was still on a cooldown. Jezlee really meant to kill you, books or no books! That proved the strength of the cult's Strong Bonds-- that she would prioritize your defeat over the books you could provide.

Once the spell was back up, you cast it with a sense of urgency. Your ghost ally joined in with a wail of his own as well, using what little terror magic he had to try and affect the enemy group. It seemed... remarkably ineffective, but you appreciated his hustle. Soon, they were down to just five. Another couple of beatings later, you'd reduced it to just three: Dagg, Jezlee, and... hey, Evilward! You wondered to yourself how she'd remained unaffected. By way of answer, she shifted her cloak slightly, then showed you a pendant. Leave it to your traitorous cultist to come equipped with a ward specifically crafted to prevent fire and terror... evidently, she'd been well-prepared to face your magic if it came to it.

Still, your stamina was being pushed to your limits. It was strong, but you'd never really been put in a situation where you had to fight someone who wasn't holding back for the sake of farming you before. As it turned out, it hurt like shit. Your head was oozing pumpkin juice all over the floor of the castle and your straw had become terribly disheveled. You felt that your vines inside might be broken in a few places.

Finally, with one more cast of terror, you managed to make the dwarf's knees knock together. "Sorry, Daaagg!" she shouted in a shrill voice, then finally stashed her war-hammer and ran for the exit.

Dagg growled, then grabbed Evilward and pulled her to him, brandishing his whip. A whip seemed like a pretty strange choice to threaten a close-range hostage with, but he did it anyway; he was "the Whip" after all. "I've figured you two out! I saw it during the bondage ceremony; this girl never meant to join us at all, did she?! She was in cahoots with you, Pumpkin Lord! Your cult against mine, that's what this was all about!" The guy's face was still covered, but you could tell he'd clenched his teeth menacingly from the way his eyes were squinted. The crook of his massive bicep restricted Evilward's feminine form against his own body. "No more of your Halloween tricks! You surrender now or this little partner of yours is gonna-"

Evilward cut the guy off with the thrust of a knife, embedding it in his side. As the guy groaned with pain, she proceeded to gain distance; you thought this was a bad choice, given his preference for a mid-ranged whip, but you understood it soon enough. The former sheriff pulled her signature crossbow out and blasted the guy one in his head. The heavy crossbow bolt pretty much obliterated the guys head in one shot. Dagg was level 11, right? How the hell...?

"I told you, right? I'm specced to fight player-killers. When you factor in my crit percentage, plus my headshot bonus, plus my dexterity... one headshot is about all it takes for me to put down any other player. The guy was way too weak to fight me." The Justicier cackled evilly as she received another level up, launching her to level 11. You wondered if Evilward realized that she'd just become one of those player killers she'd always hunted... "Sorry for the wait. Even for me, it was hard to take on a whole room full of hostiles. I've got to admit... you really pulled your weight back there. Here I thought you were the kind of guy who could only pull lame tricks and wouldn't last a second in a real fight..." You thought maybe she was finally reconsidering her opinion of you, which made you feel warm and fuzzy inside. It was a pick-me-up you needed, because again, your head hurt like shit.

At some point, Evilward had healed her head-wound, but you had no such ability. You were going to have to just suffer through yours.

Finally, long after it was needed, one of your allies showed up. It was... Bathory? The vampire countess stood in the doorway, entering with closed eyes and a smirk on her face while nursing a tall chalice of blood-red wine. "Who dares create a commotion inside of my castle? Humans who defile these halls will be-"

You interrupted the Trickster impatiently, telling her she was way too late. The battle was already over.

"Oh, phew!" The ghost regained her form in a puff of green smoke; you could tell her legs were knocking together out of fear. "I-I mean I came back to help, you know? But it's scary for a monster like me... S-So that means I was actually a really valuable ally just now, because of my courage and what not!"

The frightened ghost seemed to have changed her tune. Earlier, you thought that she was implying she'd still like to own the castle. Now, she seemed to be trying to suck up to you a bit... You wondered if, just in the last moment, she'd decided you were probably worthy of a little fear and respect, given how you'd managed to run off all 20 members of that badass Cult of Strong Bonds?

"Hm hm... With the right polish, our cult could become a powerful ****, serving the dedicated role-players of this server. We can drive out freaks like those and turn it into a place where only the coolest characters congregate, with all of their actions and stories protected by our policing power!" The Justicier seemed to be getting very carried away, fantasizing about the implications of the 2 vs. 20 victory you had just obtained. "We could- Eeeep!"

You quieted her down by running a vine along her leg and poking at the butt-plug that Jezlee had left in her asshole. You wondered how it was even possible to forget about such a thing, but it seemed she had.

"Bloody hell... I don't want to touch it!" she whined, wearing a sour and mortified expression.

You saw your duty as a leader. With great power comes great responsibility. With no further warning, you used your vines to spread the woman's ass-cheeks, then began to pull on the tail of the plug.

"Aaaaaaaaagh, son-of-a-bastard!"

Suddenly, you remembered that just because your sexual technique was pretty good and you were no longer immobile, that didn't mean you were dexterous enough for a task like this. In fact, it looked like you'd pushed the thing in deeper instead of yanking it out. Whoopsie! Evilward slapped your vine away and took care of it herself, wincing in discomfort and she managed to extract the device. You couldn't help but notice the plug seemed to have gotten her hole nice, lubricated, and well-sized for some sort of outside infiltration... but now hardly seemed like the time. Evilward threw away the leather bondage piece she'd been slapped into earlier with a distasteful frown, then spat.

Your small group collected up various spoils of war, including abandoned weaponry, leather gear, and the few books Jezlee had knocked out of your head. All-in-all, not a bad haul! Thankfully, Evilward had generous bag-space for all of that. It was one thing you could always count on her for.

Now, the question remained... were all of the rooms of the castle going to be as bad as this one to clear out? Or could some of them be even worse? Your head was pounding already and it hurt even worse as you contemplated the rest of the task before you. That fight with Dagg and the cult had brought you to the point where you were right on the cusp of a level-up, too...