The Misfits meet System-san

Alice and Bronsen:

They spent an hour hunting and had already killed something called a Plains Buffalo. Of course, as usual, it was armed with impressive weaponry. Horns. Two razor-sharp ones on its head, half a dozen along its back, and another two on its front elbows.

"Say, how do they avoid being stabbed to death when they mate?" said Bronsen.

"By being very, very careful?"

"And, also, isn't there rather a lot of animals roaming about? How many can the local ecology support?" said Bronsen.

They carried it back to their cave residence. By now, the front porch passageway was longer and heavily reinforced with extra stone blocks. They butchered the animal, storing a large piece of its hide and as much meat as they could hack off into their fridge area. This left a pile of bloody debris outside.

"Just as well we have a local garbage pickup service, isn't it?" said Alice.

Bronsen responded by picking her up and tossing her inside, closely followed by himself. Then he dragged the door stone into the door frame, sealing themselves in.

"What?"

There was a muffled roar from outside, not to mention thumps and thuds.

"Shit!" said Bronsen, "Half a dozen gigantic monsters were coming. And they were moving fast and amazingly silently!"

"Oh."

In their renovation activities, they had put a few small holes into the passageway walls to act as windows. Of course, they had also made stone plugs to block them off as needed. Bronsen carefully opened one such window, and they took turns looking outside. It had a narrow field of view but was enough to see a mob of gigantic monsters. Ten metres long, four or five metres high. Huge mouths with lots of sharp teeth. Covered in horns and armour. And every single one was different!

They were currently fighting over the scraps left behind by Bronsen and Alice. The monsters didn't appear to be in a good mood, as one of them took a swipe at another. The situation promptly devolved into a full-out fight between two terrors. Ten seconds later, it ended with one of the animal's body on the ground, with great big chunks sliced off it. The other monsters immediately started cooperating - in eating the dead one. It didn't take all that long, either.

Alice and Bronsen were considerably impressed by this show.

"Fuck, I don't think we can fight one of those," said Bronsen.

"Fucking hell no. And we certainly can't fight a mob of them."

"How the hell can we go hunting if these things are roaming everywhere?"

"How the hell do I know?" said Alice.

"This is just a suggestion, mind you, but what if we wait until they have all gone before going back outside?" said Bronsen.

"I think that is an excellent idea!"

They waited an hour or so. The monsters left. They waited another hour just to be sure. Then they cautiously pushed open their door and looked around. There didn't appear to be anything nearby, so they crept out, vigilantly looking around all the time.

"Well, those leftovers didn't last very long," said Alice.

The only signs of the two dead animals were blood-soaked snow, a lot of scruffed-up ground, and a few discarded bones.

"Can't see anything in the immediate vicinity," said Alice.

They retired for the day behind securely closed thick stone walls and doors and did some planning.

"With those creatures out there, I think it is wise to stay as close as possible to our home," said Alice.

"Yeah. And, for the time being, we give up on travelling."

"And, when we go hunting, we take meticulous care to always operate as a two-person team, with one person on the lookout at all times. Agreed, Bronsen?"

"Agreed! Agreed! I promise not to go charging off by myself!”

With plenty of daytime left, they had a meal and then tried to raise their [Sexual Technique] by another point.

After some time:

"Nope, still no increase. What does it take?" said Brosen.

"Never mind, it's still lots of fun. Now, how about we try to make some proper clothes?"

Cassy and Drayden:

Cassy and Drayden also encountered some monsters. They had been sitting in their latest tree house, which was only a couple of kilometres from the wall; they hadn't seen any reason to move further away. They were eating the last of the birds they had killed as they had made their way down from the Rimwall top.

"Say, Drayden?"

"Hmm?"

"You know how we are so strong; we can hang from a branch with one hand without the slightest difficulty?"

"Yes?"

"And, even if we fell off and hit the ground head first, it would only give us a mild bruise or scratch to our heads?"

"Yeees?"

"In fact, we can easily hang upside down from a branch by our legs, couldn't we?"

"Ah, where is this leading to?"

Giggle from Cassy.

"Well, how about we try having sex while hanging upside down from a branch? We might manage to get another point or two!"

"Err, what? You want to do that!"

"Yes!"

Cassy cajoled a somewhat unwilling Drayden to climb outwards along a suitable horizontal branch and then hang down with his legs bent at the knees to hold him. She gingerly climbed out next to him and hooked her knees to hold onto the branch so that her legs were straddling his, and they faced each other.

"Hey, this is fun in its own right!" she said, swinging their bodies to and fro.

Getting into the mood, Drayden got playful himself and started to tickle Cassy.

Fortunately, they were locked securely into their branch, so they didn't fall off.

"OK, we’re here. How about turning us on? Then we can twist our tails together," said Drayden.

And half an hour later, slightly dizzy from being upside down for so long, they decided to stop.

Ding! OK, OK, let's give you another point. It looks like the Misfits are bullshitting the System now.

"Yay!" said Cassy.

At this point, a small mob of giant monsters stampeded through the forest. One of them swiped with its huge horns at their tree. The tree leant over, and its trunk snapped off, meaning Cassy and Drayden were tossed onto the ground, mere metres from the rampaging animals.

"Roarrrrrrrrr" went several of the monsters.

"Argh!" went Cassy and Drayden.

They ran like hell. By good chance, their initial direction was straight for the wall. The monsters were initially confused by their presence and didn't immediately give chase. Sadly, that happy situation didn't last very long.

The two teenagers scrambled up the talus slope with a dozen monsters in full pursuit.

"Shit, we’re not worth it!" said Cassy.

Ding! May I remind you of your [Fireball] ability?

"Yes!" said Drayden.

As he ran, he ignited a [Fireball] - one as hot as possible. Taking brief looks behind him for guidance, he let it drift backwards and upwards until it was slightly behind and above the leading monster's head. The monster, not demonstrating any intelligence, ignored it. So, in a decisive move, Drayden dropped the ball into the face of the monster. It took out its eye, and the monster screamed and shuddered in pain. This wasn't a good way to act before the other, voraciously hungry monsters since they immediately attacked it. Very soon after, there was a dead body on the ground. The remaining monsters decided that two tiny teenagers were not worth it, at least compared to a giant dead beast. They immediately stopped and began to tear the body apart.

Cassy and Drayden resumed sprinting, aiming for the entrance to the inside of the Rimwall.

Once they arrived, they watched for a while as the monsters finished their meal of fellow monster.

"Not very reverent for their own dead, are they?" said Cassy.

At last, the monsters wandered off and disappeared back into the forest.

"Say, Cassy, would you like to make this stairway our new residence? It's just an idea, mind you," said Drayden.

"Considering everything, I think that would be a good idea!"

"And we can always live off roast chicken," said Drayden.

"And, if we need water and it's not raining, we can always go up to the second recess and drink from the puddles again."

"And, I vote for giving up on any travelling for the time being."

"Agreed."

They both remembered the dead body only a hundred metres above them.

"We are going to have to pass him or her quite often if we are going to live here for a while," said Cassy.

Sigh, "I guess we will have to move them and give them a proper funeral. I guess we can lift some rocks a hundred metres away from the wall, and the shovel we now have in our [Bonded Implements] is pretty useful." said Bronsen.

"But first, let's go back and grab our backpacks." said Cassy, "But very cautiously!"

Backpacks on their backs, they were now back in the wall, at the landing where the dead body was.

"Uck. I don't want to touch it," said Cassy.

They were currently standing over the body.

“Same here. But, nonetheless...” Drayden had a closer look.

"I think the body has been here for some time; it's all dried out and mummified."

"I still don't want to touch it."

"OK, how about we each summon our shovels and carefully lift and carry the body outside?"

Standing one on each side, they produced their shovels and pushed the blades under the body, then cautiously lifted it. In so doing, they found it had been lying on some bag or other.

"Let's come back to that." said Drayden, "I want to get the burial over and done with first."

Awkwardly, they manoeuvred themselves and the body down the stairs and outside. Their heads swivelling every which way, like a weather vane in gusty conditions, they kept a watch out for monsters that might eat them and an eye out for rocks that might trip them. A hundred metres down the slope, they halted at a huge rock, easily as high as they were. After gently placing the body on the ground, they stood on either side of the rock, lifted it, moved it sideways away from the body, and put it down on a bare patch of dirt.

"I want to go back to Earth and enter a weightlifting competition!" said Cassy, "I'll beat everyone!"

"That's cheating! And, besides which, it will end up in a four-way tie with all of the other Misfits."

"Damn, that's right."

While bantering away with each other, they were also digging a hole. It didn't take long. They kept on looking around them for any danger.

Finally, they couldn't put it off any longer; they had to bury the body.

"I want to see if this is a boy or girl," said Cassy.

"Oh, I suppose so..."

He hesitantly used his shovel to try to roll the body over, but he miscalculated and merely tore the person's tunic off. It was rotten and crumbled easily. They could now see the back of the body.

There was a long silence.

"Ah, Drayden, those lines across the back..."

"Yeah, I know..."

"They're whip marks, aren't they?" said Cassy.

"Yeah. I once saw a photo of the back of a negro slave in a school textbook back on Earth; it looked just like them."

"Well, this person was wearing a slave collar," said Cassy.

With that, Cassy carefully applied her shovel and rolled the body over.

"A girl. Perhaps a young teenage girl?" said Drayden.

"Oh, you bet. I know what a young girl's body looks like."

Another silence.

"We had better get going. Never know when the monsters will return," said Drayden, eventually.

Using their shovels, they picked up the body and lowered it as reverently as possible into the hole. However, the body slipped off the shovels and fell the last half metre.

"Sorry," said Cassy.

"We will never know her name or anything."

They filled the hole, put the rock back over it, and then used their [Fireball] and [Stone Masonry] skills to carve an epitaph.

'Unknown Girl'

"There's nothing else we can say, is there?" said Drayden.

"I'm certainly not going to tell everyone that she died a slave," said Cassy.

Feeling depressed and down, they hurried back to the stairwell. Not having anything else to do, they went up and looked at the bag which had been under the body.

Drayden held it in one hand and looked inside.

"Empty. It appears to be a leather outer bag with some coating on the inside. And a drawstring to seal the top. Hmm, you know, I think this is a water bag."

"Now, that could be handy. But only after we thoroughly wash it, of course."

Later on, after their evening meal.

"I've been thinking, we can certainly live here, but anybody can come along and intrude into our little idyllic residence at any time. And, maybe some small monsters might also be interested in us," said Drayden.

"How about we use our [Stone Masonry] skills, given to us courtesy of Alice and Bronsen, and evacuate a little room for ourselves? Maybe at a stairway landing just below where the body was."

"But won't System-san complain if we desecrate the holy Rimwall?" said Drayden.

"Let's ask it."

They did. All they got back was the sounds of silence.

"Sure, let's do it, then," said Drayden.

Drayden attempted to chip out the first piece of wall, unfortunately:

Ding! You're not allowed to desecrate the holy Rimwall!

"Damn. It's even echoing back your phrasing!" said Cassy.

Ding! Rimwall evacuation allowed ability granted for a cost of 10 points!

"Oh, OK, that was a fast turn-around," said Drayden.

Error! Granting illegal abilities is not allowed!

"Err, what!" said Cassy.

Override! Rimwall evacuation ability granted!

"Hey, System-san has gone crazy!" said Cassy.

Error! Granting illegal abilities is not allowed!

"Uh-oh, System-san is in a never-ending error loop. Do you think we broke it?" said Drayden.

"I hope we don't have to pay for a new one..." said Cassy.

Override! Rimwall evac...

System-san stopped, and after a small interval, there was a new voice.

Hello there - I'm the Gh - wait, I know you two; you're part of the Misfits, right?

"Ah, yes?" said Drayden.

OK, I'm the System Administrator, and there seems to be a bit of a problem here.

Hmm, what exactly is The Voice of... I mean, System-san, trying to do here...

Yeeeees, I see. Well, all right, just for the Misfits, I'll make an exception. Of course, as soon as you leave this location for good, the wall will be automatically repaired, and your ability will be rescinded.

Also, 10 points is far too cheap.

Ding! Rimwall evacuation ability is temporarily granted for a cost of 500 points!

"Ah, thanks?" said Cassy.

There was no further reply. They looked at each other. They shrugged their shoulders. Then, Drayden attempted again to chip out the first piece of wall.

It worked with no intervention.

Cassy looked at her status.

"Yep, 500 points have disappeared from our combined accumulated points."

Two weeks later:

Cassy had the brilliant idea of tunnelling from the landing straight out to the outer face of the wall. So, as they further evacuated the tunnel by carefully applying their [Fireball] ability, they could throw the rubble straight out the window. Drayden also had a clever idea: he proposed that the window not be a perfect rectangular shape but a narrow diagonal shape and artfully placed to line up with some existing cracks and irregularities on the wall face. So, when looking from the outside, it wasn't all that obvious.

"Let's make two doors, one after the other, OK? I want to feel more secure in case some people come around. If we can easily cut through rock, surely some of them can also." said Cassy.

"Fine. And, while we're at it, we can also make a stone plug for the window."

A few days later, they retreated for the night. It was a snug little retreat when both doors and the window were closed. They had decided to store their leftover food in the area between the two doors. Sadly, their food did not last more than half a day because of the continued high temperatures.

"Now what?" said Cassy.

"I guess we continue to survive and wait to see what happens," said Drayden. "Oh, and also, we need to move all the rock debris below our window and hide it somewhere. Otherwise, any passing person will immediately know that somebody is here."

They had some fun.

After a while, Drayden sat up and appeared to be somewhat puzzled.

"What's up, dear?"

"Well, you see, we have completely sealed off our little retreat, and we have been energetically exercising for the last hour, but the air is still fresh and clean," said Drayden.

"So, maybe there's a soft draft between the cracks of the window plug and the door plugs?"

Drayden licked his finger, then carefully traced around the gap between the window plug and the wall.

"I can't detect any air movement whatsoever," he said.

"Come to think about it, how is the air inside the staircase kept so fresh and clear?" said Cassy.

Drayden shrugged his shoulders.

"Presumably, System-san arranges something."

Alice and Bronsen:

They noticed that 500 points had mysteriously disappeared from the combined accumulated points.

But Bronsen also noticed an extra point allocated to [Sexual Technique]. So he ignored the 500 points and concentrated on the crucial matter.

He laughed his head off.

"Just what have they been up to?" said Alice.

“My, don’t you look embarrassed!” said Bronsen.

“Shut up!”

"So, having sex upside down is what! Although that's all I can discern from my impressions," said Bronsen.

"I think they were hanging from a tree branch?"

"You mean, like a sloth or gibbon?"

"Maybe?"

"Well, I want to do that too! This is a great opportunity to increase the points by another one," said Bronsen.

"Ahh, really? And, you realise, we don't have a tree branch inside here. And I am not going outside to have sex. Not with this infestation of monsters."

"Fine, fine. If we do the same as they did, we probably won't get any extra points. So... how about we do handstands while having sex?"

Alice gave him a look, the sort of look that suggests one is doubting the other's sanity and thinking maybe the other should be restained.

"You want to have sex while standing on our hands upside down? How the hell is that supposed to work?"

"But, Alice, remember, we are immensely strong now. And have the increased ability to control our bodies. Doing handstands should be a piece of cake!"

He demonstrated and found that, indeed, handstands were now easy.

"I suppose so," said Alice. " However, let's do it where the cave roof is lower, so we can plant our feet on it for stability."

After half an hour:

Ding! OK, another point: but only because the other two got a point for the same ridiculous reason.

They collapsed onto the ground and scuttled over to their sleeping mat. Alice, accidentally on purpose, stroked her hands over Bronsen's body.

“Oh, I see. You want to do it again?” said Bronsen.

“Hmm, well, if you say so...”

And then they got the somewhat delayed notification about the [Rimwall Evacuation] ability. This generated considerable discussion before they finally concluded that they didn't know what it was all about.

"Obviously, it’s got something to do with the 500 points. I guess we can ask them when we see them," said Alice.

They settled into their newly extended accommodations, filling out their days enjoying each other's company, and waited for something to happen.

Narrator:

They, as in both couples, kept a close watch on the wildlife.

Initially, they were like:

"Where the hell did all of these monsters come from?" said Cassy.

"Yeah, they're all over the place. Not to mention, there's also a lot of normal animals running around in mobs and individually," said Drayden.

But, after a month or so, they were like:

"Say, does it seem like the number of animals is decreasing?" said Bronsen.

"It does. It's not surprising since they attack and eat each other so much," said Alice.

"And the remaining monsters are getting quite fat, aren't they?"

After a couple of more weeks:

"Oh, yuck, that mob of monsters is having a group orgy," said Cassy.

Drayden laughed, "Yeah, obviously they don't have a 'No group sex' condition."

Cassy whacked his back with her tail.

And a few more weeks:

"The normal animals have been thinned out, which I suppose makes sense; otherwise, the environment couldn't support them," said Alice.

"But where did all the remaining monsters go to?" said Bronsen.

Finally, both couples concluded that the monsters had definitely disappeared, so it was safe to go out and about again—well, reasonably safe.

Still not having any better idea of what they might do, both couples decided to stay put.

Time passed. Their relationships settled down, and they became genuine couples, not just two pairs of sex-crazed teenagers having sex with each other. They explored their respective environments, talked a lot about themselves and their past lives, and they would now and then wonder what the other couple was up to.

After some time, they started to get just a little bit restless. They wondered if it was time to try to find some of the residents of this Ringworld. And maybe try to find the other two Misfits?