A more appealing target is needed

When you'd first arrived with fear in your pumpkin-equivalent heart and a vision of the defeated Winnifred in your pumpkin-equivalent of an eye, you'd figured that Lupus must have set the occupation of this castle as his goal. You'd gotten a look at his level earlier, when Noah had given you your first information dump, and you'd noted it was significantly higher than a Halloween Werewolf's ought to be. That supported the idea that he had ambition, but the way he was hungrily and wordlessly hopping after your subordinate, even after the rest of you entered the room, seemed to imply that he might not have the brains that'd normally go along with that. Was he just so strong that he went after whoever he wanted without analyzing the situation or attempting negotiation? You hated to think that your fellow Halloween monsters, who you'd hoped to recruit, were so single-minded that they couldn't be reasoned with.

You watched the naked Evilward hop around, then looked to Winnifred, who remained shamelessly nude with a bundle of clothes clutched to the front of her body. As your candle eyes drifted down towards her round, bare bottom, you came to a conclusion: the guy was either targeting adventurers specifically or perhaps just sampling each new lady he found in order of preference. Not all monsters were guaranteed to be gentlemen like you; the majority of them were probably using their new, explicit features in the pursuit not just of sexual satisfaction, but possibly, even vengeance against the adventurers that had wronged them. Then again, he hadn't killed Winnifred... what did that mean?

Anyways, the way he'd ripped Evilward's clothes off so far indicated he had the goal of fucking her in mind. However, if he was judging his targets in terms of feminine assets, he wasn't going to find anyone more thoroughly over-designed than Evilward. That meant he'd remain singularly focused on her unless you could find someone else who beat her out in that regard. Even Winnifred and Bathory couldn't manage that! As for Pike, well... You would be kind and exclude her from the count.

You observed your party once more...

Finally, it came to you: your Trickster! She could transform into the appearance of another character. You asked if she'd be capable of copying the former castle ruler's appearance like she had earlier, only with bigger boobs and a huge ass to provoke the werewolf.

The spectral girl's round face transformed into a mask of horror at the suggestion. "W-Whaaa?! I'm the distraction?! But I'm... If he touches me just once...!"

You told her that it wouldn't come to that. After all; she was a Trickster! A ghost! That meant she could move through walls!

"Actually, no... You've noticed me peeking around corners and things, right? I wouldn't very well need to transform into things to hide if I could just slip through walls to evade enemies... A Trickster isn't the same thing as a ghost." She sounded vaguely offended that you would use the two words interchangeably.

She had a fair point. Thankfully, you had a second idea: if she could just lure him past you, you could handle the rest.

The Trickster, who would hopefully get a few levels and an official name at some point, nodded along; she'd seen your ingenuity a time or two and had come not only to trust you, but also, to want to kowtow to you. "Sure, milord. But just so you know... if you're just asking me to turn into a busty vampire because you're horny for a vampire with big boobs, I think that's pretty shallow of you," she scolded you, clutching her hands to her rough-spun dress with a pouting expression.

You assured her that wasn't the case, though you omitted the part where you'd already gotten your fill of sex with the best-looking vampires your pumpkin-headed imagination could have conjured just a short time ago.

The Trickster seemed placated for now. With a quiet sigh, she followed up on her promise, changing her cute, round form to a bodacious, hour-glass shaped vampire that looked a bit like a parody of Bathory, with her same head, but with absurdly large knockers and a ridiculously sized ass, strained against that slim-fitting noble-woman's dress that the vampire favored. Seeing her in that form, you weren't sure whether to laugh or to expect to be challenged to some absurd contest that would end in tendril-fucking her; the latter was how two out of two of your encounters with Bathory had ended so far. "What do you think?" the Trickster questioned, running her hands from the strained corset of her dress down towards her newly slender belly.

You answered with a sense of urgency that you thought she better start running.

"Oh!" Her answer was purposefully brief, as she lifted the hem of the skirt around her ankles and took off down the staircase, with her long, newly silver hair flapping around her and her enormous bosom flapping back and forth comically.

The ploy worked almost too well; if your part in this plan hadn't been nearly automatic, you would have missed your opportunity. As you heard the sound of the werewolf beginning to barrel towards the staircase, combined with Winnifred wailing and pressing against the wall to get out of the way, you shot out your tentacles to one side to create a net. Just one to trip him wouldn't be enough; a werewolf ought to have the sense to jump over it. You lay them over thick to create a grid. Your constitution was so high... he wouldn't be able to break through this easily, even with his training!

Constitution doesn't necessarily mean immovability, however. You'd recently, at long last, rid yourself of the immobile problem, and annoyingly, this is one time where you'd have rather had your stake firmly planted in wherever served as the ground. The overgrown fur-ball was so strong, he ended up taking you with him, dragging you behind with your silver pumpkin knocking noisily up and down along the staircase! You were thankful the real Bathory wasn't here to see the werewolf making a fool out of you. On the plus side, it didn't seem he could reach your Trickster to poof her, since your vines had wrapped him so tightly that he was now like a dog running around with a blanket over his head. It would almost be cute...

... If it weren't for those huge claws of his! The werewolf had begun to tear your vines straight out by their roots in his attempt to slash his way free of you. A book and a helmet flew out of your body in turn, clattering against the wall, as he bit his fanged snout around your vines and slapped you back and forth, smashing your head back and forth against the floor of your own castle. You were glad that you'd gotten the head-specific endurance upgrade with your last class up, because an ordinary pumpkin might not have survived this kind of treatment.

At any rate, you might not be much of a boss monster yet, but you were a plenty good chew-toy for an oversized dog. The thing seemed to have forgotten about butts altogether for a while and had moved its attention to single-minded destruction of you. Eager to calm him down, you tried talking, but every word was ignored. When that didn't work, you began to fire off your magic; first, a sphere of fear, then, a sphere of fire, anything to discourage him a bit! Both spells only seemed to make him angrier! You sincerely hoped that Evilward had a better plan to take care of this guy than you did, because he was not going at the slow-and-steady rate through your health that the average adventurer employed to maximize their skill-books. This guy was out for blood! Well, pumpkin guts and sap, in this case.

Finally, Evilward made her way over to you, skillfully grabbing hold of your pumpkin head as it hit onto a corner. You enjoyed the feeling of being cradled close to her massive, naked bosom, even as she frowned distastefully with that cold look of hers... was she nursing your injuries? Had your relationship really developed that far?!

Seemingly not. Just as you were getting one part of your plant body cozy, trying to ignore the pain shooting through your tendrils as your leather gear fell in tatters around you, Evilward brought out a chisel in her spare hand. "Hold still," she hissed, then began to clink away at your already damaged head.

You took the time to ensure her that this pumpkin of yours was not some kind of cage or prison holding in a powerful djinn capable of destroying a high-leveled werewolf. Your head was a "what you see is what you get" deal and your HP was taking enough of a beating without the additional injury!

"It's to beat this guy. Trust me... I need silver." The Justiciar narrowed her eyes and tapped away more quickly, while her pupils nervously drifted in the direction of the angry beast-man, who was slowly tearing his way free from the high constitution prison he'd been locked in. It was an odd feeling, having your head mined, but frankly, it wasn't nearly as bad as what was going on down below. If you weren't as high-leveled as you'd managed to become, facing first the City Watch, then Bathory, then the Cult of Strong Bonds, that werewolf probably would have slashed you into ribbons by now or slurped you up like a noodle. Finally, Evilward grabbed hold of a nice chunk of silver in both of her hands; her gloves had been shredded so thoroughly that only a few scraps still hung about her fingers, with one wrist framed as though the hem of the glove was a bracelet. "This'll do. You keep him occupied a bit longer; I'll get to crafting."

You begged her to hurry, as your head resumed beating up and down against the castle stone.

"Yeah, like you hurried when I diverted the Cult of Strong Bonds, right? I seem to recall you going slowly and deliberately back then. I'll employ that same sense of urgency," the former sheriff chuckled, waving one hand carelessly as her gorgeous, tanned legs walked away from you and back into the armory.

What seemed like an eternity passed with you being treated like a ragdoll, battered back and forth while Winnifred and the Trickster gave you encouraging pep-talks about how you were doing great and you were being really heroic and how it really wasn't that bad, you still had some parts of your head that weren't cracked yet. Even if Winnifred had some healing magic, you'd be unable to receive the benefit of it, due to your no heal clause. You were honestly beginning to spitefully hope that Evilward was making something that would outright slay the Halloween Werewolf; you couldn't imagine living with the guy after all of this.

Just as you were thinking of Evilward, she appeared again. She had only redressed in a new cape and not a bikini or real armor, but she had also equipped a new weapon-belt, which included a holster for a handgun as well as a scabbard for a blade. After approaching to close enough range, she pulled free the sword by its hilt. Its surface gleamed in the moonlight and glittered as it traced an arc through the air... that had to be a silver sword! She'd used the material from your head to make one! That made a lot of sense... headbutting Lupus to **** with silver would never worked, but an actual silver weapon could just do the trick. You thanked Evilward in a silent prayer as the Justiciar smirked and plunged the blade down through your vines into the werewolf.

Well, okay, that was the last time you prayed to Evilward, because she hurt you pretty badly too.

Thankfully, it seemed to do some real damage to the nigh invulnerable werewolf; Lupus howled, quite literally, in pain and kicked its legs frantically. With him finally pinned this way, you could see he was the classic werewolf model, with gray and black fur all over and a muscular, male body. Like the rest of you monsters, he'd been made explicit by Noah; a slightly curved, animal-like penis jutted out from between his legs. Why had Noah given you all explicit parts, anyway? You finally understood your new ability to level and the other changes that had been made, but what did the naughty bits accomplish?

That was a question for another time. Cautiously, you began to unwrap your tendrils from the werewolf, then frantically scooted yourself away from where he had fallen. Evilward had effectively pinned the creature there with the blade, running the sword through one shoulder to stick in the stone floor of the castle. The howls turned to growls and angry snapping as the creature attempted to maneuver its body such that it could pull the sword free, but it was stuck in the place where the average person can't put their hands to scratch an itch.

Feeling pretty worse for the wear, you nonetheless laughed and poked fun at the defeated intruder. It probably wasn't a great idea to taunt such a powerful foe, one who you needed to win over to your side, but you couldn't help yourself! He ought to count himself lucky he was still getting any mercy at all at this point.

"Now, we move onto the interrogation," your Justiciar grinned, pulling free her gun from her cloak and cocking the hammer. "If we don't like any of the answers, there's silver bullets in here that pack more punch than that sword. I'm a ranged class, after all."

You gulped, reminding yourself that this adventurer was no friend of the average monster. Furthermore, you thought she was being a little optimistic. There was no evidence so far that the creature was even capable of talking; you'd only heard it snarl so far.

The monster proved otherwise by spitting out its first word. "Bitch!"

"Bad start," Evilward responded, pointing her gun towards the werewolf's head. You stopped her by wrapping a vine around her wrist and pointing the gun away, before reminding her that you needed the rest of the Halloween monsters on your side. "You don't need every monster. This guy seems about as smart as I'd imagine the Halloween Bat is."

The buxom Bathory look-alike walked over, clutching her hands together nervously as she maneuvered to stand alongside you and Evilward (or behind the two of you, rather). "Can we even reason with him?"

"He actually talked to me a butt earlier," Winnifred pointed out, as she descended the staircase, still not dressed for whatever reason, besides the bundle of cloth she was using for modesty. "When he was... ahem... defeating me earlier, he said a bench of that stuff like 'how does it feel, Adventurer' and 'nice ass, Blondie, where's your god now?' I thought it was petty hot-- I mean, it made me pretty hot and angry, how he insulted my religion lick that!"

"Sounds like he's got a grudge against Adventurers," Evilward shrugged.

"Maybe... But he didn't kill me," Winnifred reminded the glowering woman, while cupping one fist to her chin thoughtfully. "It's all confusing..."

"I'm confusing?!" the werewolf snarled, while kicking his legs and gnashing his teeth irritably. "Yooou're two adventurers working together with a ghost, a pumpkin, and a vampire! The fuck is going on here?!"

You took that as your cue to give the explanation one more time.

One conversation later, Pike and Bathory were still MIA, but the werewolf finally seemed to have calmed down a bit. The grin across his fearsome, wolfman snout showed that he even seemed tickled by the idea. "Mrrrrrr, so you've enslaved the adventurers! You're prrretty smart, pumpkin!" he snickered, seeming pleased by the idea. "They wrrrrrship you, is that it?"

"I'm going to shoot him now," Evilward announced, pointing her gun again.

You stayed her hand again with your tendril, then laughed, telling him it wasn't quite like that. You did have your own cult now, but all of you were basically friends. There'd only been a little manipulation and trickery involved, but for the most part, any of them were free to leave whenever they wanted. That seemed to bring a confused look back to the guys' face; it was pretty clear that he and you had taken very different paths to get to the levels of strength and understanding of the environment you each now enjoyed. You asked if you could hear what the werewolf was doing up to this point and why he'd come here.

"My plan was nothing so convoluted as a cult. My goal has always been to hunt adventrrrreers in the forest. Only, this time, I found myself capable of gaining power and roo-rrrrewards for doing so! Furthermore, when the sun went down, I was capable of trrrrning into a human and blending in with them to learn about their society. I learned so many things... ways to hide myself and ways to defeat them. I also learned about fucking them," he snickered, licking his lips hungrily as he turned towards Winnifred. "I lrrrrrrned that some of them are worth more to fuck than to kill. Plus, you must have done it a time rrr too yourself, right? With the right human, it feels fantastic..."

You nodded your head as Winnifred watched you with an excited expression and Evilward with an angry one.

"So anyway, that's what I did: kill crrrrtain humans, prioritize fucking the ones with nice asses, on and on. Nothin' but that. With that prrrrsuit and nothing else, all I did was grow strongrrrr and strongrrrrrr! I was content to keep on doing it, but then, in my human form, I began to hear rrrrrrumors about how monsters were establishing their own lairs now. Rumrrrrrrs about the kind of benefits those lairs provided. The only thing I care about is getting strongrrrr, so I wanted one too. That's when I heard about this abandoned castle and made my way here, only, trrrrrns out it wasn't so abandoned after all. But I'm fine with that... with yrrrr brains and my power, we can conquer the world of the Advent'rrrrrrs together!"

"Don't look so powerful to me," Evilward shot back, bouncing her gun up and down idly upon her bicep as she crossed her arms and smirked.

"Rrrrrr, yrrrr only lucky I wanted to fuck you and not to kill you, Pumpkin-wench," the werewolf returned.

Keeping these two around each other was going to be an absolute headache... You wondered to yourself if the guy would be willing to stay with Bathory (and avoid trying to fuck her or the other noble lady vampires). You did know one way to make it more tolerable, though. The same way you made Evilward's presence more pleasant! Eagerly, you asked the werewolf if he'd be willing to change into a woman for you.

"Fuck, what? No! My dick's awesome, didn't you hrrrrrr what I was saying? I'm not giving that up," he snarled, offended by the suggestion.

Well, you tried. It wasn't a surprising answer. If anything, you were mostly surprised Evilward had gone along with it way back then. You and the werewolf tried for a while longer to come to terms, before you finally got fed up with failing at attempts to get him to say "I won't eat or fuck your adventurer friends if you release me." You were just about to give Evilward the order to take him out when Bathory showed up, appearing from a portal like the ghost had earlier.

The vampire nobility first observed the pinned werewolf, then your terribly battered state, then your nearly naked Adventurer friends, then finally, her overly busty lookalike. She raised an eyebrow, then demanded an explanation for all of it, especially the last part. After you gave it to her, she seemed amiable enough. "My, Ickibod. Things certainly stay exciting around your merry band of adventurers," she chuckled. "Don't worry. Leave the werewolf here... I can bring him to heel."

You quietly responded that you hoped she wasn't planning to challenge him to a fair and honorable sex contest.

"N-Nothing of the sort!" the woman fired back indignantly, bristling and clenching her fists at her sides. "I'm a natural born leader of Halloween monsters! I have charisma. You go and take care of your business. Trust me, when you return, Wolfy here will be a friendly, domesticated dog," she reassured you, placing one hand upon her hip confidently and tilting her chin up.

You weren't sure you liked her referring to herself as a leader-- especially after you'd defeated her twice for that title-- but you decided to excuse it in the interest of not having to take care of Lupus. Nodding along with her plan, you left the complaining wolf and the haughty vampire, then went to collect Pike. You hoped she was still in the bathroom from her tendency for long baths and not because her crippling lactose intolerance had been triggered that badly.

"I'm never eating cheese again..."

Pike seemed to have finally learned her lesson, clutching her gut uncomfortably as she joined your naked priestess and nearly naked Justiciar, standing in the moonlight just outside of the castle's gates. From the entranceway, you told them that they'd have to stay out here for now; it was critical that Bathory be allowed to put a roof on the place before the sun came up, or else, she'd burn like any other vampire.

"Aw, shoot! It is getting close that time, isn't it? How long have I been playing?" Pike questioned, rubbing at her eyes sleepily. "I can't believe I spent half my login time today just sitting on the can... What a stupid way to play a game."

You resolved that you'd have to figure out a way to fix her curses later; you owed her that much. For now, you recommended that they all make sure their adventurer selves weren't going to attack the monsters in the castle, if the gods were planning to abandon their adventurers for the night. They all agreed without much hassle.

"Thanks for the fun time, Icky. Can't wait to see the castle tomorrow!" Pike smiled.

"It wasn't all bad," Winnifred agreed, rubbing at her bottom, which was probably still sore from the werewolf fuck. "Don't worry! I copied my AI settings, the bones designed so that none of our aviators will attack or run from monsters, and gave a copy to the others. Uh, that may sound complicated, but it basically means that Evilward's non-god version won't at tack you in your sleep. Actually, anyone who uses it will be cone a really devote cultist!"

"Meh," Evilward scoffed, crossing her arms with a noncommittal frown. "No promises on the not killing you part."

You told Winnifred that sounded like a good thing and thanked her for it. It was nice that the cleric could make herself useful from time to time. As the other two went still and blanked out, presumably ejecting their "gods" from their adventurer bodies, Winnifred flashed you a wink. "Don't have too much fun tonight!" After that, she hung her head as well, while her spirit left her.

It seemed like a strange parting message... after all, what awaited you tonight was Bathory running up and down the steps, renovating your castle in her own tastes, while Lupus rattled on and on about how the two of you were going to conquer the adventurers together. Maybe your Trickster would be free enough to provide you some conversation... You had to assume that the godless versions of Pike, Winnifred, and Evilward were going to be dullards, based on past experience. Whatever the case, you needed to find somewhere to rest for a bit, even if it wouldn't recover your HP. The fight with Lupus had been pretty rough. If only there was a way to snag a level-up in your sleep...