I stared into a thicket of brambles and tree limbs that blocked the way out completely. I could just barely make out a hint of blue sky through the trunks, vines, branches, and leaves. So of the vines were as big around as my arm — or my calf, I guess, since my limbs were a bit slimr than they had been. On the good side, the air was much fresher now that I’d opened the door, and there was no sign of any guards. It must have taken decades for this spot to get so overgrown, and it looked like Enash’s tomb had been forgotten about.
I’d planned to put off yard work for several days while I got the interior taken care of, so the lawn mower and the gardening tools were still in storage. I didn’t have anything with that would help deal with the overgrown foliage.
Did plants count as living beings? “Hey, Enash,” I said, “Can I use LifeDrain on these things?”
Sure, you can. Not as efficient as setting them on fire. Especially if you bring so of that gasoline stuff down here.
“Co to a new world, start a forest fire. Yeah, no.”
You really are weak, aren’t you? There’s nothing flammable in here, it’s not like we’d be in danger. Maybe you can’t get out with inside you, anyway. I always figured we could bypass the wards as long as I had you in , but a few things haven’t worked out as planned so far.
“Oh, really?”
Like having a guy who is afraid of little fire in charge.
I pushed the crowbar outside, holding it in my hand like a sword. Nothing happened to it.
I tried sticking my finger out. It didn’t get chopped off or anything like that. Slowly I extended my hand. All fine. I put my left leg in, and wiggled it, but nothing happened except for a thorn catching at my jeans. Then I got the Hokey Pokey song stuck in my head. I couldn’t get my whole body out right now without clearing the way, or getting so serious scratches.
I pulled my leg back. It seed like a good ti to try so more magic.
I pointed at one of the vines. “Life Drain,” I said. Nothing happened.
You need to have a wand, or touch it, stupid. Didn’t you read the spell?
“I’ve had a lot on my mind for so reason,” I retorted. I reached out and touched the vine, instead. “Life Drain,” I repeated.
My hand glowed with black energy for a mont, and then the green vine turned brown, starting where I’d pointed and then traveling up and down its length, until I couldn’t see it anymore as it was lost in the rest of the undergrowth.
Death and decay. Fun stuff. And Enash was right, it wasn’t a very effective way to clear brush, compared to using a machete, a chain saw, or hedge clippers. The vine was still there, after all, it was just dead.
And I felt great, which was disturbing. I rembered the healing powers of the spell.
For casting Life Drain for the first ti, you have gained one experience point.
For the first ti. That made so sense. I had one point for each ti I’d used a new spell or ability, but I only had one I hadn’t cast: Animate Lesser Undead. If I was going to get to second level, I couldn’t do it just by casting spells. Presumably, I wanted to level up, although spells to create better zombies didn’t really motivate .
I swung the crowbar at the vine, and it broke, so it would be possible to clear the whole space using Life Drain and a crow bar, but I believed in using the right tool for the job.
I closed the door again, bolting with the two remaining bolts that worked, and jamming the crowbar in where the middle one had gone. I needed a plan, and so more tools. I really hated the idea of driving across town twice in one day, but it looked like it was unavoidable. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t going to have to make more trips for my stuff eventually, anyway; I was just moving so things up the schedule so.
While I drove back to my storage unit I did so thinking.
I felt a little sorry for Enash. I was completely in control, and all he could do was make comnts. It sounded like a miserable experience, and I would never have done that to anyone else on purpose.
On the other hand, trapping in his body was exactly what he intended for . And Enash was dead, and clearly evil. He’d had a chance to live a life, and he didn’t deserve another. I was a big believer in rehabilitation, but he hadn’t given any clue that he was interested in that. He wasn’t worth worrying my conscience about.
What did it an to to have a futa body? Well, as long as that body stayed in a tomb, not much, but I was working on that part. I didn’t think it was sothing I could reason out. I’d just have to experience things as they happened.
The bruises on my butt had healed quickly. Even though I’d landed as Abby, the pain hadn’t magically gone away when I went back to Earth last night. But now, even sitting for half an hour in traffic, it was fine. Life Drain had done the trick.
I loaded the van up with tools, the refrigerator, and the bed. Living the way I did, I didn’t tend to accumulate a lot of stuff, other than tools. One more load and it would be empty.
I had a schedule for the renovation all laid out on a spreadsheet, integrating the trips for supplies with the progress I expected to make on the house, and it had all gone to hell. The inefficiency of it annoyed , but at the sa ti I was excited. Finding out what lay outside that crypt was a lot more interesting than sanding floors or installing new appliances.
I picked up drive-thru burgers on the way ho, ate them in the car, and washed them down with a large cola that had more ice than drink. I stopped by a thrift store, too, and quickly bought so shoes, shorts, and socks in different sizes, that I thought might fit Abby. I was tempted to look for sexy things, but I forced myself to stay on task. I didn’t need a cute top, and anyway I didn’t know what size I was. Maybe a bra to reduce the bounce would help, too, but not if it didn’t fit. My guess was 38DD, but I really didn’t know.
I spotted an off-the-shoulder black dress, with lace edging and big poofy sleeves, and a little bit of a corset effect. The one ti I’d had any desire to be a woman was during my goth phase, because the girls had the coolest outfits. For eight bucks, I couldn’t resist.
When I got back to my new place, Kathy waved to . I waved back.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“Good!” I said. “Busy, busy!”
Normally, I would have been happy to chat for a few minutes, especially as she was cute. It paid to be on good terms with the neighbors, cute or not, but my life had gotten more complicated, to put it mildly. I wanted to get on with work, and the secret of the basent and Abby weighed on too much to want to talk about fences and dogs.
I didn’t even finish unloading or stop to do a round with the wallpaper before going downstairs. I did put on a long sleeve flannel shirt over my T-shirt.
The shorts I bought, I realized, were not as practical as jeans would have been. I suppose subconsciously I didn’t want to cover up Abby’s legs.
I had more than an armful of things I wanted to have available to , so I took them down in stages. Hedge clippers, my chainsaw, a headlamp, a line trimr, an electric lawnmower, and a whole lot of batteries. I avoided using gas powered things when possible, because the fus irritated . Having the ladder helped a lot, although going up and down and switching bodies each ti was disorienting and made feel a little sick to my stomach.
For the last trip I donned thick gardening gloves. They’d be too big for Abby’s hands, but they’d provide protection at the cost of so dexterity. I stuffed so snacks in a belt bag and strapped a twenty-two ounce water bottle to my belt.
Once down for good, I changed into the shorts and the socks and one of the pairs of shoes I’d bought. The others didn’t fit right, so I’d donate them back so soone else could have them. They hadn’t cost much. The ones that did fit were bright pink, which was not usually my color. But at least I didn’t have to deal with my pants sliding down.
I undid the bolts, opened the doors, and looked closely at the forest outside. It was still light out, but there were a lot of dark shadows, so I turned on the headlamp to see better. Small brown insects crawled along one of the smaller vines. A spiderweb stretched between two branches, spanning a couple of feet, but I couldn’t see the spider. A few small flies buzzed around, and I saw one larger one, like a dragonfly. I wasn’t an expert, and none of them looked exactly like the bugs I was familiar with, but they wouldn’t have been out of place as far as I knew in any forest on Earth. It’s possible I’d seen insects just like them and hadn’t noticed or rembered.
Next ti, maybe I’d bring a field guide. For now, I took so pictures using my phone. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t have a signal, but I could still take pictures.
I didn’t see anything larger than the dragonfly, which had been maybe three inches from wingtip to wingtip. Nothing looked threatening. I went to work on clearing a path. I didn’t know what direction to head, so I settled for just outward, using the chainsaw to cut through the large vines right in front of the door, then taking the path of least resistance. After I’d cleared the entrance, there were a few patches where I didn’t have to do much at all.
Sothing moved quickly, running away from , and I caught a brief glimpse of a furry green tail about five inches long before whatever it was disappeared. That was definitely not an Earth creature, because I couldn’t think of any green mammals, but it didn’t exactly scare . So sloths were green because they were covered with algae, but this thing was smaller than that. The tail looked like a squirrel’s, and it made a similar amount of noise as it ran away. It was more scared of than I needed to be of it, but I wished I’d gotten a better view of the alien animal.
I supposed I was the alien here.
A hundred feet in, I still hadn’t hit a ga trail or anything that would give guidance as to what direction to head, but I found my first sign of civilization other than the crypt itself in the form of a largely crumbled wooden wall. Chunks of stone lay around it, so still joined to another by mortar. I started clearing the area, cutting the larger vines with the chainsaw. Then I took that back to the crypt, picked up the weed whacker, and went after the rest. After twenty-minutes of work, I’d uncovered a square area about twelve by twelve feet with a foundation of solid granite and the remnants of a wall of fitted stone around it, now no more than three feet tall. From the fallen remnants of the wall around, I guess that the thing might have been a building once, abandoned and left to decay, and then overgrown by the forest. How long would it take a building like that to be swallowed up? A hundred years or more, I guessed, from similar structures I’d seen on Earth. A large oak tree lood over the square area, and I doubted it could have gotten very far pressed up against an intact wall. It looked tall enough to be fifty or more years old. So a hundred and fifty years, since the building had been used? It was all guesswork, I knew.
Enash had ntioned that there would be guards posted outside. This might be where they stayed. Would a guardhouse hold up better than the mills or old stone farmhouses I’d seen the ruins of in my world? Maybe? I couldn’t help but look at such things and want to rebuild them, and this was no exception. I wondered what it would take. I didn’t have a reason, other than wanting to see the place look nice again, and I still had plenty of things to do in my house on Earth.
Tired, I sat down on the remnants of a stone wall and munched on a protein bar. I’d been focused on my work, but now I was aware of my body in a different way. It didn’t lack for strength or endurance, it just felt soft in places Abel’s body was hard muscle. I couldn’t resist slipping a hand under my shirt as I looked around and gave myself a squeeze. My nipples were so sensitive. Feeling odd, I pulled my hand away.
I didn’t know how much more clearing I’d have to do, and maybe I should just appreciate what I could already get to. I looked around, hoping I could catch another sight of that green squirrel or whatever it was, but I didn’t see anything before I finished my snack. I started walking back to the crypt, planning to put the line trimr away there and just sit for a bit and see what I could see if I stayed still rather than making so much scary noise. I felt a bit of guilt for not getting to work on the house, for I’d always valued hard work, but this was a brand-new world, and it should be appreciated.
A green vine I hadn’t noticed was suddenly ahead of at chest height. It must have fallen to that position because of so disturbance I’d made, and it was two inches wide, too thick to cut with the weed whacker. I’d co back for it with the chainsaw, but for now I grabbed the vine and dipped under it.
Another vine shot out in front of . A third wrapped around my ankle, and as I tried to get out of it more wrapped around my right arm pinning it. It was thin enough that I could rip it off, but they kept coming. One whipped in the face, stinging and cutting my cheek. Others wrapped around my arms and legs, until I could barely move at all. My breasts were trapped between two lines of vines, one above and one below, making them even more prominent.
“You hurt my forest,” said a soft, female voice behind . She didn’t sound amused.
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