You can’t afford to fire her and you don’t even want to risk threatening her with it lest she call your bluff and leave.

“Will you listen to yourself for one moment? All I’m saying is to get your kids in line because they’re not just fucking up MY business, but they’re actually fucking up yours by proxy! If you won’t do it for me, at least do it for your own self-preservation!”

“Sounds like you’re threatening to fire me again. If you’re going to do it, do it and stop beating around the fucking fairy bush shithead!”

You shake your head at Wendy’s insults. It’s obvious she isn’t going to listen to reason this way, so you try another tactic.

“Look, I’m not going to fire you, but you’re going to have to find another place to live. I can’t have your kids screwing up my business like this. If this is unacceptable to you, well I suppose I can’t stop you from quitting, but seriously I think you know I have a point here.”

Wendy is a little caught of guard since she figured you might back down from this completely.

“Wha… shit. You do have a point. I know they’re little monsters. Look I’ll talk to them, I’ll get them in line.”

“I’m glad you see it my way, but the time for that has passed. I think it would be best for our future working relationship if you didn’t live here anymore.”

“But come on you can’t fucking throw us out like this! I at least need time to find a new place!”

“I’m not throwing you out right now, but you need to find a new place by the end of next month.”

“Okay…okay. But hey, if I manage to get my kids to behave within that time can we stay?” Wendy asks hopefully, which is odd to you considering how she was just behaving. You’ve never seen her act in such a desperate fashion before. In fact you’re pretty surprised she hasn’t called you a bunch of names again, though she might’ve realized now that isn’t going to work.
> You stand firm
While you hate to be uncompromising dick, you need to stand your ground on this situation. Even if Wendy does get her kids in line, who is to say they won’t relapse later. Really you’ve got more important things to worry about than some little brats that aren’t even yours.

“Sorry Wendy, it’ll just be better in the long run if you don’t live here anymore.”

Once again Wendy is a little shocked that you wouldn’t budge. She quickly gets over it though.

“Yeah, whatever. Since we’re done here, I’ve got work to do.” She says pushing you aside.

A week passes and Wendy has already found a new place and moved out. You half expect her to also quit since you know she’s still pissed at you, but she doesn’t. Perhaps she might know this is for the best even if she isn’t going to let you know about it.

In the meantime you’re worried more about your future schooling. Even with cutting back on the food, you’re still understaffed and thanks to recent events, Wendy isn’t quite as “enthusiastic” about her job anymore.

You just need to hold out a little longer. You figure if you can pass the remainder of your classes this year, you should be able to get a job working as an intern at the hospital while you finish your medical schooling. While that won’t pay that well, you can sell the inn and live off that for quite awhile especially if you get a cheap apartment, maybe even a roommate.

All great plans, but it would help if you could get the backing from one of your professors. It’s possible that one of them could really help you out if you explained your situation. You can think of two that might help you.

You advanced microbiology teacher, professor Gossey has always been a friendly sort and you know for a fact that she hasn’t had a problem helping out her students in the past.

Your advanced anatomy & physiology teacher, professor Kovas isn’t as friendly, but he’s always made a point of praising the work you turn in.
> You professor Gossey

After her class you approach Dr. Gossey about your situation, she of course is sympathetic.

“Yes, yes, I understand. It must be hard for you, running a business like that and attending school, let alone paying for it all. I’m not exactly sure how I can help though, I have hired all the student assistants I need and I doubt if you would have the time for it anyway.”

“Isn’t there something I could help with, I dunno like an experimental project I could participate in or something?”

“Ha ha! No, I’m not Dr. Kovas…but now that I’m thinking about it I may have something. You are aware that my other specialty is zoology right?”

“Yes, I know, you’ve even discovered some new species in the past.”

“Ah back when I was younger and more adventurous. Nowadays I tend to hire adventurers to explore for me to find strange and new beasts.”

“Wait, you don’t want me to go seeking new creatures do you?”

“Oh no, again you wouldn’t have the time and you could get killed without the right equipment and proper training for such a thing. However, you do own that inn of yours do you not?”

“Yes, I own it.”

“Good, now I’m going to let you know something that few other do and you must swear that you will NOT mention this to anyone else on campus especially staff!”

“I won’t.”

I have funded an expedition to the Sotakan swamps south of here. Naturally this was incredibly dangerous for several reasons, but most of which is the capture of the elusive daquala. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of the beast.”

“Stories, I’ve heard it’s more legendary than anything. Don’t the Sotakans revere it as the living embodiment of one of their gods?”

“Something like that, anyway the university wasn’t too keen on this expedition and refused to help, so I had to use my own funds. I’ve gotten word that the adventurers I hired have succeeded in their quest, but I just need some place to keep the beast for awhile before I can clear everything with the university like potentially dangerous wildlife, rogue funding, ignoring safety measures, and the rest of usual red tape shit. Your inn would be a good safe place to keep it I think and I’d certainly pay you well for your trouble, plus you’d make money on the adventurers I hired who will stay there.”

This information is a little overwhelming and you have several questions.

“Okay, first of all how dangerous is this creature? I mean how do you know they got it? I thought it was more of a scary myth than anything else.”

“I know they got it, because after I received a message from the adventurers that they had succeeded, I took a trip last week just outside the Elven-Sotakan warzone to see it for myself and the creature in question fits all the common descriptions of a daquala, as well as some of the more fantastic descriptions. The only reason why I didn’t bring it with me is because I’m trying to keep this as quiet as possible and I can’t be seen with this creature until I clear it with the university first. Plus I knew I was going to have to figure out a way to indirectly bribe the Klyton Milita not to ask any questions when this group brings the beast through. As for how dangerous the daquala is, well apparently it killed one of them, but if you’re worried that this is some hulking monster, it isn’t. It’s about the size of a small dog. It isn’t even that noisy and spends most of its time camouflaged and sleeping. The adventurers I hired will still be looking after it while they stay at the inn, so you shouldn’t worry at all.”

This all still sounds a bit dangerous to you, but after asking exactly how much money Dr. Gossey is going to offer you for this task, you really can’t refuse. You agree and Dr. Gossey thanks you and gives you the names and descriptions of the adventurers who will be arriving to your inn in a few days.

You spend the time in between preparing your best rooms and keeping them unoccupied in preparation for the adventurers. This causes a few questions from your staff who notice you’re turning people away from staying here, but you just tell them that you’ve got some special guests coming who are going to be spending a lot more money.

Eventually one of the adventurers arrives. He’s a wiry man with a goatee and wearing leather armor with a couple of flintlock pistols strapped to his sides.

“You must be Hanon.”

“And you must be the inn keeper. I trust you have our rooms ready?”

“Yes, four of you right?”

“Two actually, used to be six at one time, but more loot for the rest of us I suppose. I’m guessing you have a cellar where we can keep the beast?”

“I have a cellar, but I was told you’d be keeping with you.”

“Oh no, we’re not spending anymore time with that fucking thing! It might not live up to the legends, but it’s dangerous enough.”

You’re more than a little worried now.

“Uh…should I even be keeping it here?”

“Probably not, but I’m guessing that Gossey’s paying a lot so you’re willing to risk it. (Sigh) Look, we’ve got the creature locked up in a mithril cage with three spell wards on it, it’s not going anywhere, but we’re just sick of damn thing and all the trouble we’ve had to go through to capture it ALIVE. The little bastard seems calmer in the darkness, so I figure your cellar will be a good place to keep it while we wait. I’ll check on it twice a day, it’ll be fine.”

This is all starting to sound a little more complicated, but again you don’t have much choice. You’re going to have to get Alan out of the cellar though and you’ll have to make sure none of the girls get any drinks from there.

“Okay, I guess bring it on in then, go around the back though, it’ll attract less attention.”

Hanon nods and heads outside, and you quickly go get Alan to explain to him that you need him to sleep in one of the rooms you originally set aside for the adventurers. He doesn’t quite understand why, but he obeys your orders to not go into the cellar for a while.

You open up the backdoor and see Hanon and a very large man carrying a cage with a black cloth over it. He must be Benjamin. After a walk short walk, you pick an unused part of the cellar to place the daquala. No sounds have come from the cage at all.

“Is it alive?” you ask.

“Yeah, it’s alive, it just sleeps a lot. Good thing too, because it’s quite vicious when awake. I’ll have to feed it in a few hours though…hey I see you got your own brewery here.” Hanon says looking over at your stills. You didn’t even think about that when you brought them down here.

“Oh yeah, that…uh I trust you won’t tell anyone.”

“Bah, if we’re keeping this daquala situation quiet, you certainly don’t have anything to worry about. Okay I think Ben and I are heading up to our rooms, it’s been a damn long trip and actually sleeping in a bed instead of the fucking wilderness for once will make a nice change.”

As Hanon and Benjamin head up to their rooms you immediately call the rest of your staff to tell them to not go into the cellar for awhile and if they need to refill the alcohol, you’ll do it. While this creates less work for them, they’re getting curious about what is going on. After all they’re seeing adventurers come out of the cellar, Wendy already noticed the cage being brought into the back of the inn, and the various other changes you’ve been making lately.

At this point you figure there might be fewer potential complications if they know what’s going on, so you explain everything.

“Oh that’s fucking wonderful. You’re using this place as a zoo for dangerous animals now?” Rita says.

“Shhhh! Keep your fucking voice down!” you say.

“How dangerous is this thing? I mean could it get out? I heard stories about the daquala when I was a little girl and they still scare me to this day!” Eliza mentions.

“It won’t get out. Precautions have been taken. Trust me.”

“I sure hope so, because if that thing gets out and attacks one of us…well I don’t think I need to mention how much shit you’ll be in. Did you tell Alan to get the hell out of the cellar yet?” Wendy says.

“Yes, he’ll be staying in one of the rooms upstairs and I told him to not go into the cellar.”

“Hmmm well I guess I’m glad you threw me out of this place when you did, because there’s no way I’d live here with a killer monster in the cellar. Still, you’re putting us all in potential danger so I’d say that entitles us to some hazard pay doesn’t it?”

“Yeah! What Wendy said! Hazard pay!” Rita agrees.

You almost wish that they’d just refuse to work at all, but you just sigh heavily and come to a fair agreement on “danger” pay while the daquala is at the inn. You just hope it isn’t too long of a stay since that money that Dr. Gossey is paying you is supposed to go to finishing up your tuition.

The next few days go by relatively uneventfully and it’s business as usual. Hanon checks on the daquala periodically to feed and sedate it somehow. You wonder how he’s doing it and he says with magic of course. You have to say that by his look you didn’t think he was a wizard. He and Benjamin spend a fair amount of money in the tavern so it sort of offsets the danger pay you have to give your staff. Everyone stays away from the cellar, except Alan who forgot he wasn’t supposed to go down there, but fortunately Eliza stops him before he got down the stairs.

After a week goes by you ask Dr. Gossey when she’s going to take the thing, but she says she’s still working on the university faculty, as compensation for your patience she gives half of your money now. That’s great and all, but your concern is more of a safety issue now. The magical meat or whatever hell Hanon has been feeding the daquala isn’t keeping it appeased anymore and it’s been more “vocal” lately. Hanon’s also been keeping the magical wards on it for about a month now, and he’s feeling tired all the time now due to the constant drain.

Another couple of days and Hanon’s ready to dump the daquala on Dr. Gossey’s doorstep and be done with it. He says he and Ben have gone way beyond what they were paid to do. You sympathize and you want the daquala gone as much as everyone else, but you’re concerned that if he does this, it’s going to fuck up things between you and your professor, not to mention the rest of your money.
> You let Hanon go to the university
You don’t think you could stop him if you tried, but you do try to minimize the damage by insisting on going with him and trying to talk to your professor first. You suggest going tomorrow night when you know she’ll be working late in her lab and there won’t be a lot of other people around.

“Alright, but whether or not you manage to talk any sense into this bitch, she’s getting her monster tomorrow and forking over the rest of our pay!”

The trip to the university is an awkward coach ride. The daquala is growling loud enough for people to know Benjamin is carrying something alive in the covered cage, but fortunately you get to Dr. Gossey’s lab without incident. She of course is surprised to see the three of you.

“Uh hello, I wasn’t expecting to see you three… wait did you bring the daquala with you?!”

“Damn straight! We’ve completed your task for you and then some! Time for you to take this fucking thing and pay us the rest of our money!” Hanon yells.

“I’ll do no such thing, I haven’t managed to clear things up with the dean yet and I still have some…look I don’t have time for this, you tell them!” Dr. Gossey says to you in an exasperated tone.

“Uh, I don’t think that’s going to help professor. Look surely there’s a good strong container to hold this thing in here at the university and I’m pretty sure it can just be fed any sort of meat. Can’t it be held here for now? Just keep it here in your private lab until you clear things up.”

“NO! If anyone found out I’d be ruined! I’ve risked everything to get the beast, and I won’t lose it all by keeping it on campus because of stupid rules! Now get it out of here now!”

You’ve never known professor Gossey to be so irrational, but she’s going into overkill with this daquala business. You don’t really understand why she can’t keep it here. It would probably be better anyway since she could study it while she tries to do whatever “red tape clearing” she says she needs to do.

“Alright fuck this stupid shit, Ben drop the cage over there, we’re getting out of here…but we’re also getting our money. I suggest you pay up, before things get ugly.” Hanon warns.

“I’m not paying you anything else! I told you when the job is done I will and not before! What? What will you do, kill me? You’d never get away with it and I assure you I am not as defenseless as you might think! And as for YOU, if you don’t stop siding with these glorified mercs you won’t only not get the rest of your money, but you also won’t be passing your class!”

After a couple more threats back and forth, and you trying to make peace between your professor and the adventurers, Hanon pulls out one of his pistols, Benjamin draws his axe and Dr. Gossey runs to a panel nearby which slams a adamantium shutter on the lab door sealing everyone in, she then produces a vial with a stopper on top.

“Hold it right there! One more move and I fill this place with the black pox plague!”

“Oh fuck! Come on everyone stop fighting!” you say backing away from everyone and looking for someway of getting out of the lab.

“Yeah right! Like you’d infect yourself!”

“Fool! Don’t you think I’ve take the antidote already?”

“Bitch we just spent a month in the Sotakan swamps getting bit, stung and exposed to several diseases they probably don’t even have names for yet. I’m pretty sure my magic can cure black pox!”

“Well let’s find out then!” Dr. Gossey says and shatters the vial to the floor!

You can only look on in horror and sink to the floor in hopelessness. You don’t even pay attention to the events that happen next.

Benjamin chases Dr. Gossey around the lab with his axe and while he’s doing that, Hanon casts some sort of spell. Of course with Hanon no longer bothering with up keeping the spell wards on the cage, the daquala manages to finally bust out of its imprisonment due to ravenous hunger.

The daquala leaps on Hanon and tears into his neck releasing an arterial spray all over the surrounding area.

“NO!” Benjamin bellows and charges at the darquala who jumps away from eating Hanon’s body and camouflages itself. It doesn’t help it much though, the lab isn’t like the dark expansive swamp and Ben is a big man with a big axe, he just starts chopping at everything and sure enough he eventually manages to graze the creature.

The daquala and Benjamin engage in a short battle, but ultimately Ben proves to be stronger and better armored. He manages to grab it in mid leap, throws it to the floor, stomps on its body with one of his heavy boots and finally brings his axe down on its head, killing it for good.

“Fuck, I told you bastards to just wait a little while! Now look what you’ve done! Eat lead asshole!” Dr. Gossey yells and shoots Benjamin in the head twice. He teeters a moment and then falls in a heap near the darquala.

Meanwhile you’re still rocking back and forth and babbling about how all you wanted to be was a doctor and how you’re going to die.

“If you’re worried about black pox, you needn’t be, there wasn’t anything in the damn vial. I’m not crazy enough to release a plague. Now I’m sure Hanon and Ben coming here was probably out of your hands and you were just trying to play diplomat, but I suggest if you still want to be that doctor you always wanted to be, then you need to do what I say right now…”

Dr. Gossey orders you to help her clean up this mess. The corpse of the daquala is placed in a new container. She says she can probably present a dead one without as many problems. She really was hoping for a live one though.

You ask her about the bodies of the adventurers, and she tells you grab that axe and start chopping them up. She then opens up another panel, presses a few buttons to reveal a secret passage. She enters the passage and comes back out with a big dumpster on wheels.

“When you hack them into small enough pieces, put them into this dumpster and feed the wazia in the next room. Don’t worry he’s quite tame; just make sure you throw the parts at him from a safe distance.

You snap out of your shock. A wazia? Those huge things live in the Cloudspeak Mountains and they’ve been known to even prey on trolls and small manticores! You’re almost about to question Dr. Gossey about how she got one of those things, but you stop yourself. The why’s and how’s aren’t even important right now, what matters is getting out of this mess.

After stopping yourself from vomiting several times during your dismemberment of Ben and Hanon, you proceed to nervously feed the wazia, which isn’t even chained up. You half expect it to gobble you up in one gulp or even Dr. Gossey shutting you in, neither happens. You toss limbs near the beast and it eats a few, and ignores the rest. You presume it will eat them later and you get the hell out of there.

“You see why I couldn’t have yet another illegal creature on campus? I’m already running a risk with that wazia. If you think what happened here was bad, you should’ve seen what happened when the adventurers I hired were demanding payment for that thing! Speaking of which I suppose I should pay you the rest of your money. Sorry about the threats before. It was sort of a tense moment you know. I’m sure you understand.”

You just nod and don’t argue. It’s unspoken that you won’t be saying anything to anyone about this. What could you say anyway? After Dr. Gossey gives you some new lab clothes to change into, you head home exhausted.

The next day you don’t even bother going to class, you sleep in late and spend a majority of the afternoon sitting in your room thinking about some of the shit you’ve done to achieve your goals. Serving homemade alcohol without a license seems to be the least of your crimes now.

“Okay, okay, I just did what I had to do. It’s all for a good cause, I’m just trying to better myself.” You say and try to wipe your concerns about the morality of it all. You then head downstairs to the surprise of Wendy who figured you were at school.

“Stayed home today eh? How come you didn’t come down when I opened this place up?”

“I was busy.”

“Hmm, okay then. I know you left with those two adventurers and that monster last night. I’m guessing that business is settled then?”

“Yeah, it’s all settled.”

True words in many ways. You have enough money to continue your education and with this financial pressure off, you easily pass the rest of your classes with no worries. You later sell off the inn (Which pisses off Rita and Wendy who now have to find new jobs, Eliza and Alan are a bit upset as well), get a cheap apartment near the campus and given your close relationship with Dr. Gossey you get a good job working at the hospital while you complete medical school. It isn’t easy of course, but given what you’ve already been through you’re able to handle it.

Eventually you do fulfill your goals of becoming a doctor. You don’t stay in Klyton though. You have too many bad memories and reminders of “bad things” going on there in general. So you move to the Delantium Kingdom, specifically a border city called Sivak, which has great demand for doctors at their new hospital. The rest of your life is a relatively good one.

Still, you do have your bouts of guilt every now and then with some of your choices that got you to where you are, sometimes wondering if you could’ve handled a few things better at the inn.

Who can say, but in any case your days as an innkeeper are long over.


After her class you approach Dr. Gossey about your situation, she of course is sympathetic.

“Yes, yes, I understand. It must be hard for you, running a business like that and attending school, let alone paying for it all. I’m not exactly sure how I can help though, I have hired all the student assistants I need and I doubt if you would have the time for it anyway.”

“Isn’t there something I could help with, I dunno like an experimental project I could participate in or something?”

“Ha ha! No, I’m not Dr. Kovas…but now that I’m thinking about it I may have something. You are aware that my other specialty is zoology right?”

“Yes, I know, you’ve even discovered some new species in the past.”

“Ah back when I was younger and more adventurous. Nowadays I tend to hire adventurers to explore for me to find strange and new beasts.”

“Wait, you don’t want me to go seeking new creatures do you?”

“Oh no, again you wouldn’t have the time and you could get killed without the right equipment and proper training for such a thing. However, you do own that inn of yours do you not?”

“Yes, I own it.”

“Good, now I’m going to let you know something that few other do and you must swear that you will NOT mention this to anyone else on campus especially staff!”

“I won’t.”

I have funded an expedition to the Sotakan swamps south of here. Naturally this was incredibly dangerous for several reasons, but most of which is the capture of the elusive daquala. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of the beast.”

“Stories, I’ve heard it’s more legendary than anything. Don’t the Sotakans revere it as the living embodiment of one of their gods?”

“Something like that, anyway the university wasn’t too keen on this expedition and refused to help, so I had to use my own funds. I’ve gotten word that the adventurers I hired have succeeded in their quest, but I just need some place to keep the beast for awhile before I can clear everything with the university like potentially dangerous wildlife, rogue funding, ignoring safety measures, and the rest of usual red tape shit. Your inn would be a good safe place to keep it I think and I’d certainly pay you well for your trouble, plus you’d make money on the adventurers I hired who will stay there.”

This information is a little overwhelming and you have several questions.

“Okay, first of all how dangerous is this creature? I mean how do you know they got it? I thought it was more of a scary myth than anything else.”

“I know they got it, because after I received a message from the adventurers that they had succeeded, I took a trip last week just outside the Elven-Sotakan warzone to see it for myself and the creature in question fits all the common descriptions of a daquala, as well as some of the more fantastic descriptions. The only reason why I didn’t bring it with me is because I’m trying to keep this as quiet as possible and I can’t be seen with this creature until I clear it with the university first. Plus I knew I was going to have to figure out a way to indirectly bribe the Klyton Milita not to ask any questions when this group brings the beast through. As for how dangerous the daquala is, well apparently it killed one of them, but if you’re worried that this is some hulking monster, it isn’t. It’s about the size of a small dog. It isn’t even that noisy and spends most of its time camouflaged and sleeping. The adventurers I hired will still be looking after it while they stay at the inn, so you shouldn’t worry at all.”

This all still sounds a bit dangerous to you, but after asking exactly how much money Dr. Gossey is going to offer you for this task, you really can’t refuse. You agree and Dr. Gossey thanks you and gives you the names and descriptions of the adventurers who will be arriving to your inn in a few days.

You spend the time in between preparing your best rooms and keeping them unoccupied in preparation for the adventurers. This causes a few questions from your staff who notice you’re turning people away from staying here, but you just tell them that you’ve got some special guests coming who are going to be spending a lot more money.

Eventually one of the adventurers arrives. He’s a wiry man with a goatee and wearing leather armor with a couple of flintlock pistols strapped to his sides.

“You must be Hanon.”

“And you must be the inn keeper. I trust you have our rooms ready?”

“Yes, four of you right?”

“Two actually, used to be six at one time, but more loot for the rest of us I suppose. I’m guessing you have a cellar where we can keep the beast?”

“I have a cellar, but I was told you’d be keeping with you.”

“Oh no, we’re not spending anymore time with that fucking thing! It might not live up to the legends, but it’s dangerous enough.”

You’re more than a little worried now.

“Uh…should I even be keeping it here?”

“Probably not, but I’m guessing that Gossey’s paying a lot so you’re willing to risk it. (Sigh) Look, we’ve got the creature locked up in a mithril cage with three spell wards on it, it’s not going anywhere, but we’re just sick of damn thing and all the trouble we’ve had to go through to capture it ALIVE. The little bastard seems calmer in the darkness, so I figure your cellar will be a good place to keep it while we wait. I’ll check on it twice a day, it’ll be fine.”

This is all starting to sound a little more complicated, but again you don’t have much choice. You’re going to have to get Alan out of the cellar though and you’ll have to make sure none of the girls get any drinks from there.

“Okay, I guess bring it on in then, go around the back though, it’ll attract less attention.”

Hanon nods and heads outside, and you quickly go get Alan to explain to him that you need him to sleep in one of the rooms you originally set aside for the adventurers. He doesn’t quite understand why, but he obeys your orders to not go into the cellar for a while.

You open up the backdoor and see Hanon and a very large man carrying a cage with a black cloth over it. He must be Benjamin. After a walk short walk, you pick an unused part of the cellar to place the daquala. No sounds have come from the cage at all.

“Is it alive?” you ask.

“Yeah, it’s alive, it just sleeps a lot. Good thing too, because it’s quite vicious when awake. I’ll have to feed it in a few hours though…hey I see you got your own brewery here.” Hanon says looking over at your stills. You didn’t even think about that when you brought them down here.

“Oh yeah, that…uh I trust you won’t tell anyone.”

“Bah, if we’re keeping this daquala situation quiet, you certainly don’t have anything to worry about. Okay I think Ben and I are heading up to our rooms, it’s been a damn long trip and actually sleeping in a bed instead of the fucking wilderness for once will make a nice change.”

As Hanon and Benjamin head up to their rooms you immediately call the rest of your staff to tell them to not go into the cellar for awhile and if they need to refill the alcohol, you’ll do it. While this creates less work for them, they’re getting curious about what is going on. After all they’re seeing adventurers come out of the cellar, Wendy already noticed the cage being brought into the back of the inn, and the various other changes you’ve been making lately.

At this point you figure there might be fewer potential complications if they know what’s going on, so you explain everything.

“Oh that’s fucking wonderful. You’re using this place as a zoo for dangerous animals now?” Rita says.

“Shhhh! Keep your fucking voice down!” you say.

“How dangerous is this thing? I mean could it get out? I heard stories about the daquala when I was a little girl and they still scare me to this day!” Eliza mentions.

“It won’t get out. Precautions have been taken. Trust me.”

“I sure hope so, because if that thing gets out and attacks one of us…well I don’t think I need to mention how much shit you’ll be in. Did you tell Alan to get the hell out of the cellar yet?” Wendy says.

“Yes, he’ll be staying in one of the rooms upstairs and I told him to not go into the cellar.”

“Hmmm well I guess I’m glad you threw me out of this place when you did, because there’s no way I’d live here with a killer monster in the cellar. Still, you’re putting us all in potential danger so I’d say that entitles us to some hazard pay doesn’t it?”

“Yeah! What Wendy said! Hazard pay!” Rita agrees.

You almost wish that they’d just refuse to work at all, but you just sigh heavily and come to a fair agreement on “danger” pay while the daquala is at the inn. You just hope it isn’t too long of a stay since that money that Dr. Gossey is paying you is supposed to go to finishing up your tuition.

The next few days go by relatively uneventfully and it’s business as usual. Hanon checks on the daquala periodically to feed and sedate it somehow. You wonder how he’s doing it and he says with magic of course. You have to say that by his look you didn’t think he was a wizard. He and Benjamin spend a fair amount of money in the tavern so it sort of offsets the danger pay you have to give your staff. Everyone stays away from the cellar, except Alan who forgot he wasn’t supposed to go down there, but fortunately Eliza stops him before he got down the stairs.

After a week goes by you ask Dr. Gossey when she’s going to take the thing, but she says she’s still working on the university faculty, as compensation for your patience she gives half of your money now. That’s great and all, but your concern is more of a safety issue now. The magical meat or whatever hell Hanon has been feeding the daquala isn’t keeping it appeased anymore and it’s been more “vocal” lately. Hanon’s also been keeping the magical wards on it for about a month now, and he’s feeling tired all the time now due to the constant drain.

Another couple of days and Hanon’s ready to dump the daquala on Dr. Gossey’s doorstep and be done with it. He says he and Ben have gone way beyond what they were paid to do. You sympathize and you want the daquala gone as much as everyone else, but you’re concerned that if he does this, it’s going to fuck up things between you and your professor, not to mention the rest of your money.
> You talk him out of it
You can’t let him fuck this up for you, Dr. Gossey just needs a little more time. You rush to talk to Hanon.

“Outta my way, me and Ben are getting that monster!” Hanon says pushing you aside.

“No! No! Hold on! Wait! Just give her more time!”

“More time? I’m getting fucking exhausted up keeping the wards! Not to mention it’s getting more and more agitated in that cage. Also we’ve been spending most of our money here, if this keeps up we’re going to be broke!”

“Okay how about for the remainder of your stay here, everything is free for you and Ben? That should certainly take the stress off shouldn’t it?”

“Hmm, free huh? (Sigh) Alright, you’ve bought yourself some more time and ain’t sayin’ how much, but YOU better go talk to your teacher and tell her she needs to get her shit together soon or I will be coming to drop this fucker on her doorstep!”

Hanon and his buddy at this point proceed to the bar to indulge in their free booze.

A few more days pass and Hanon and Ben are getting drunk every night. Didn’t used to be a problem before mainly because they were holding back due to funds, but now with free reign they’re becoming the lives of the party on a regular basis. In addition to drinking they’re picking fights with your other paying customers which results in broken furniture.

Combine this with the higher wages you have to pay your staff and you’re hemorrhaging money. You see Dr. Gossey everyday about taking the daquala, but she just says the same thing all the time “still clearing through the red tape.” It’s getting really old, and you begin to get pissed at her, to which her response is if you want to a career in medicine you’ll do what the hell you’re told and shut up about it.

You head back to the inn cursing the fact you ever asked her for help.

“HEY ITS DA (HIC!) INNKEEPER! GO MAKE YERSELF USEFUL FOR ONCE AND GET US NOTHER DRINK! HAR HAR HAR!” Benjamin bellows as you enter the inn. Seems that he and Hanon are getting an early start.

You storm over to the bar and begin ranting at your staff which is doing nothing.

“Wendy why the fuck are all of you standing around not doing your fucking jobs?”

“Because they drank all the fucking booze and you told us to not go downstairs to get refill casks. Not that we’d go down there in the first place, you don’t give us nearly enough danger pay for that.”

You grumble and swear as you head down the cellar steps.

“I don’t fucking deserve this shit! I was supposed to be finishing up medical school by now, not cleaning up shit around this place! Thanks a lot dad! You ever think when you started borrowing from a fucking loan shark? Fucking…”

You cut your rant short when you suddenly hear a low growl. At first you figure it’s just the daquala again and you’re right except he’s not in his cage anymore. Ever since the free booze policy Hanon’s been taking advantage of, he’s also been getting lax in checking on the daquala. The constant alcoholic haze hasn’t really been helping on his concentration for keeping up the wards on the cage either. All of which contributed to the daquala finally breaking out of his confinement.

Still thinking it’s still in its cage, you go get a cask of booze. You’ve barely managed to pick one up and you feel a sharp pain in your leg. You fall to the floor, dropping the cask and yelling for help when you see the amount of blood leaking from the sizable hole in your leg.

It’s the last thing you do, before the daquala’s next attack is on your throat.


While you hate to be uncompromising dick, you need to stand your ground on this situation. Even if Wendy does get her kids in line, who is to say they won’t relapse later. Really you’ve got more important things to worry about than some little brats that aren’t even yours.

“Sorry Wendy, it’ll just be better in the long run if you don’t live here anymore.”

Once again Wendy is a little shocked that you wouldn’t budge. She quickly gets over it though.

“Yeah, whatever. Since we’re done here, I’ve got work to do.” She says pushing you aside.

A week passes and Wendy has already found a new place and moved out. You half expect her to also quit since you know she’s still pissed at you, but she doesn’t. Perhaps she might know this is for the best even if she isn’t going to let you know about it.

In the meantime you’re worried more about your future schooling. Even with cutting back on the food, you’re still understaffed and thanks to recent events, Wendy isn’t quite as “enthusiastic” about her job anymore.

You just need to hold out a little longer. You figure if you can pass the remainder of your classes this year, you should be able to get a job working as an intern at the hospital while you finish your medical schooling. While that won’t pay that well, you can sell the inn and live off that for quite awhile especially if you get a cheap apartment, maybe even a roommate.

All great plans, but it would help if you could get the backing from one of your professors. It’s possible that one of them could really help you out if you explained your situation. You can think of two that might help you.

You advanced microbiology teacher, professor Gossey has always been a friendly sort and you know for a fact that she hasn’t had a problem helping out her students in the past.

Your advanced anatomy & physiology teacher, professor Kovas isn’t as friendly, but he’s always made a point of praising the work you turn in.
> You professor Kovas
Given that Dr. Kovas rarely compliments anyone, he has to like you a lot. You decide it might be best to take advantage of that fact. After his class you approach him about your situation, but he doesn’t seem very sympathetic.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure your problems are very important to you, but my question is why are you telling me?”

“Well that’s what I was getting at, I wanted to know if there was something I could do to help you out. Some way of maybe earning more money…”

“Money? Hah! What do you think this is a factory employment line? If you want to help me, you shouldn’t be doing it for cash m’boy. You should be doing it for the love of science!”

He starts to make his way out of the classroom, but you follow.

“Dr. Kovas, I’d love to help for the love of science, but I’m not exactly in a position to do so! I mean I’ve got so many expenses and responsibilities and…”

“Stop right there m’boy. Again you’re telling me these things as if I can do something about them…or that I WANT to do something about them.”

“(sputter)…because I thought that given how much you praise my work in class you’d want to help out a potential fellow future doctor.” You say getting exasperated.

“YOU? A fellow doctor? Ha ha ha ha! Granted you may have the ability to be a doctor one day, but if you think you’d ever approach someone of my caliber, I’ve sorely underestimated your capacity for logical thinking.” Dr. Kovas laughs.

At this point you’re angry, you came to get help, not be insulted by this asshole. You’re hesitant to outright insult him back though since you still need to finish his class, so you just decide to leave.

“Alright fine, don’t help me then. I just thought you were different from the other rich elitist bastards that look their noses down at me just because of my working class background. I’ll just leave…”

“Wait, wait, you think I’m looking down on you because of your humble roots? My, my someone has an inferiority complex. M’boy I’m looking down on you because you’re whining about your problems to me. You have much potential and despite your pathetic tales of woe it is obvious that you’ve overcome much and are determined in your goals to become a doctor. I think however you could do something more, but unless you’re willing to help me for the love of science, not because of money, or what I might be able to do for you then I think you will languish in mediocrity like most that pass through my class.”

At this point you don’t know what the hell kind of head game Dr. Kovas is playing with you, but if there is some sort of possibility that he might help you, then you might need to play along.

“I don’t believe you. Or rather I don’t believe you’ll help me for the right reasons. You’re going to help, because you still believe that I’m going to help you.”

“Yes.” You blurt out.

“Heh, well at least you’re honest now. All right I’m going to roll the dice with you and allow you to help me on a project I’ve been working on. I’ll even assure you that you will profit from this because I know you seem to be concerned about such things.”

“”I’m really not, I just need extra money to…”

“Don’t interrupt!” Dr. Kovas snaps. “As I was saying, you will profit from this, but it is my hope that you will come to do this for science more than anything. Because if you aren’t then you’re in the wrong field.”

“I thought the field of medicine was primarily to help the sick.” You say.

“Bah! Helping people? Nonsense! Most so called doctors aren’t in it to help people, they’re in it for the money! They’re all a bunch of soulless greed automatons that have no real passion for the mysteries of the human body and all this field has to offer!”

Dr. Kovas has a reputation for misanthropy and cynicism, but you weren’t aware how much until just now, still he says he’s willing to help you and that’s good enough for you.

“Now then, if you are going to help me, you need to meet me at my lab tonight and whatever you do, don’t tell anyone about it. When you get inside you are NOT to discuss what you see with anyone, do you understand?”

“Um, what exactly are we going to be doing?” you ask a little concerned.

“You’ll see soon enough, but it’s a secret project that will change the way modern medicine works! I can’t afford to have anyone stealing my ideas! So I need you to be all the way in on this! If you’re going to hesitate, then get out of my sight right now.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll help you.”

“Good. See you tonight.” Dr. Kovas says and walks away.

You put in some time at the inn, but later leave Wendy in charge and tell her to close it down if you aren’t back by closing time. You remind Alan to lock everything up. Wendy of course isn’t very pleased with this idea and reminds you once again of how she’s overworked. You just apologize and leave.

When you get to Dr. Kovas’ lab he doesn’t immediately open the door, and you have to wait about five minutes before he comes out to scold you that you’re five minutes late! You don’t argue though, you just enter only for Dr. Kovas to immediately ask you a disturbing question.

“Can you kill a man?”

“WHAT?!”

“Or woman, in fact a woman might be better. Yes, I need you to kill a woman.”

You’re literally speechless for a few moments before sputtering your protests.

“Dr. Kovas, I didn’t sign up to kill people!”

“Yes you did, the moment you said you’d help me. (Sigh) Look, progress in medical science has always required sacrifices. Sometimes that sacrifice has involved the lives of others. What is one life compared to the wonders that scientific break through can do?”

Dr. Kovas isn’t just misanthropic, he’s sociopathic and you’re out of here.

“I’m not a killer and I’m not capable of this. So I’m just going to leave. You needn’t worry I won’t tell anyone.”

“Sorry son, I can’t take that chance, nighty night!”

Dr Kovas suddenly produces a needle filled with something and injects you with it. You push him away and try the door handle only to find it locked. You don’t struggle with it for long though before you pass out.

When you wake up you’re strapped to a table, with Dr. Kovas shaking his head at you.

“What am I going to do with you? I placed what little faith I have in humanity in you and this is how you act? It’s my own fault I suppose.”

You try to talk, but most of your body is still paralyzed.

“Now then, I’m going to give you ONE last chance because I still see potential in you. After this wears off I want you to go out and get a girl. I don’t care how, just do it and bring her here. You don’t even need to kill her, just bring her here and I’ll do the deed. Do you think you can handle that?”

You still can’t talk, but you know damn well if you don’t agree he’s certainly going to kill you, so you strain yourself to nod “yes”.

“Good, I’ll release you. Oh and just to let you know, you only have until dawn. I’ve injected you with a toxin to ensure you don’t go running off or something silly like that. Don’t bother with trying to get an antidote either, it’s a special toxic mix that only I have the cure to.”

You get up, very wobbly and still a little dizzy. By the time you start regaining all your faculties Dr. Kovas has shoved you out his lab door and locked it.

You feel like you’re living a nightmare, but you don’t have much of a choice, you need to bring a woman back to the lab before dawn or you’re going to die. This isn’t going to be easy not just due to the immorality of the situation, but also because you haven’t exactly been a ladies man. What with all the studying and work at the inn, you don’t have much of a social life.

You figure your best bet might be to go to one of the many college parties near campus and hope to get a drunk girl, though you could just go get a regular whore.
> You go to a party

No shortage of parties going on right now and getting a drunk co-ed will be just like getting a whore except you won’t have to travel as far.

You head down to the popular night club near campus called the Wild Princess. After standing in line for an hour, you’re told by the bouncer that they don’t need people like you in there. You don’t bother arguing; you know you’re too “uncool” to get in, so you move on.

Your next stop is going to a guild house party. You manage to sneak in thanks to a lot of people more concerned with having fun rather than crashers. Unfortunately a lot of the girls there aren’t remotely interested in the likes of you, but you sort of anticipated that would happen. Your plan is going to be to hang out here a few more hours then try to isolate a girl that should well be drunk at that point and offer to take her home.

You pass the time basically being a creepy stalker and watching which of the ladies are getting loaded, which of them have boyfriends, which of them are here by themselves, etc. Eventually you set your sights on a cute redhead who doesn’t seem to have any attachments and is definitely wobbly.

You breathe in deeply, exhale and walk towards the girl…only to get cock blocked by some guild member. Looks like he’s part of the university’s gladiator team too, so he’d easily crush you.

“Hey babe, come on let’s get you some place where you can lie down.” He says and begins to guide her towards one the bedrooms while you curse your luck.

You could try to find another girl here, but you’re quite frankly sick of waiting around, you don’t have all night. It occurs to you that you’re a medical student while that guild guy is a muscle headed gladiator. Surely you should be able to out smart him. You see the back of his big head stand out in the crowd and follow him.

He gets the redhead to a private bedroom just like you anticipated, places her body on the bed and just as he goes to close the door you stop him.

“Whoa shit dude! You’re not actually going to fuck that bitch are ya?” you say.

“Huh? Well yeah! And who the fuck are you?”

“You can’t fuck her man, she’s got Rotties!”

“What?! Really? Nah, she doesn’t look like she does.”

“Trust me dude, she does! My cousin’s in medical school and he said they had to do an assignment involving volunteers who had various non-life threatening diseases and she was one of them!”

“Wait, wait, wouldn’t something like that be anonymous to protect the identities or some shit? And who are you again?” the gladiator asks proving he isn’t quite as dumb as you thought.

“It was supposed to be anonymous, but my cousin’s a inconsiderate fucktard who told me all this shit anyway. Besides isn’t it good I did know and I was here to warn you?”

“Yeah I suppose it was. Whew. Oh shit I touched her tits, I might have caught some shit!”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, my cousin said unless you stick your dick in her, you’ll be fine.”

“Fuck that! They don’t know all the shit about that disease yet! We need to get that bitch outta here before she infects everyone…and burn that bed too!”

You almost smile at how well this is working for you. You tell the gladiator that you’ll get her out of here. He says better you than him and heads to the bathroom.

The redhead is still sort of conscious, but definitely not aware of her surroundings.

“Whozz you…I…(giggle) think I…(hic) drank too mush…” she says as you pick her up.

The walk back to Dr. Kovas’ lab is slow at first since the girl is still conscious, but eventually her incoherent babbling stops and she’s completely out of it, at which point you just pick her up and carry her. Of course you’re sweating being seen and questioned by campus security. Last thing you need is to get accused of date rape especially since you just saved this girl from getting date raped…of course you’re also taking her to her death.

It’s just a fucked up situation no matter how you look at it!

Luckily you get to the lab with no problems. You bang on the door and Dr. Kovas pulls you both inside. He looks at the girl and frowns a bit.

“Well I suppose she’ll do. I’m guessing you got her from one of the party’s near campus.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all, young girls go to wild parties and go missing around here all the time, and I certainly don’t have anything to do with all of those incidents. Anyway get her to the table and strap her down. I need to get some stuff from the back.

You follow Kovas’ orders and hope that one of the things he’s getting is your antidote.

He comes out with much more than your antidote, he comes out with a rolling cart filled with several medical instruments that look more like torture devices and tosses you a small vial of clear liquid.

“Here, take this and put on some gloves. We’re about make history!” he says and injects the redhead on the table with some sort of liquid. It doesn’t take her long to stop breathing.

You swallow the contents of the vial which you hope is the antidote. You don’t feel any different after taking it though. You half wonder if he was bluffing about poisoning you at all. If that’s the case then you just brought a girl to her death for no reason, though it hardly matters at this point, as annoyed as you are at Dr. Kovas you might as well go through with this all the way.

You stand there for a moment just watching Dr. Kovas enthusiastically cutting into the girl and injecting more strange fluid directly into her vital organs. He suddenly stops when the girl comes back to life!

“Ragh! Gargh! Argh!” she growls.

It suddenly occurs to you what exactly Dr. Kovas is experimenting with, Incitahol. It’s a banned concoction that was supposed to bring the dead back to life and it does, but only to create them as zombies. Lazy wannabe necromancers and mad scientists love the stuff, and would seem you’re working with the latter right now.

“You’re experimenting with incitahol? This is your big project? I thought you’d be aware that this shit’s only good for creating zombies and not even controllable ones!” you say.

“Ah, not yet anyway! I’ve made some changes to it. If you’ll notice the subject is not as aggressive as it would be under regular incitahol. Unfortunately it still seems quite hostile. I can’t be sure if this due to my changes in the drug, or the alcohol in her system screwing things up. I probably should’ve waited until she was sober and then proceeded (sigh) I’ll need a new subject.”

You’re hardly surprised at this request; you just say you’ll get on it tomorrow.

“Hmm, very well. And try to get a sober one this time!”

Over the course of a month you manage to get several “subjects” for Dr. Kovas and while he does eventually start contributing to your “college fund” you aren’t exactly overjoyed with what you’re doing especially since he’s insulting you at every given opportunity. While it’s true you are learning quite a bit about the human brain and other things about the human body he doesn’t seem like he’s getting anywhere with his own experiments. As far as you can tell he’s just cutting up girls and making them into zombies.

On another front, your inn staff has pretty much had it with you, specifically Wendy. She ends up quitting because she’s sick of having to look after the inn all day AND night while you secretly go disappearing to kidnap young girls. Rita certainly has no intention taking up the slack so she quits as well. This pretty much leaves you no option other than selling the inn and get a cheap apartment. Between the money you get from the sale and Dr. Kovas’ payment you have enough to finish up the rest of your classes, but the expenses of medical school are still going to be a struggle.

Dr. Kovas assures you that he can easily get you a good job at the hospital while you go through the rest of your schooling, but he’ll still need you to work for him as well. On the plus side he’s also offered you a free place to stay at his private lab. This would be convenient financially.

The downside to all this is of course you’d still be working for Dr. Kovas and all that entails. Even if you’ve managed to mostly shed yourself the moral implications of what you’ve been doing, there’s always the legal ones to worry about. Never mind the verbal abuse you’ll have to endure.

You could just say fuck it and go do something else, which has been crossing your mind at this point. You aren’t exactly sure what that might be, but after all the shit you’ve been through you are a little hesitant to put yourself through more.

It’s ultimately your choice on whether you still want to achieve your medical profession goals or not, but in any case your days as an innkeeper are over.
> You continue with medicine
You’ve come this far; you might as well go for the gold.

You agree to help Dr. Kovas, and continue to “aquire” subjects for him, which you’ve become frighteningly good at. Time goes by and you even indulge in some of the actual killing. You certainly learn just as much from him as you do in “regular class.” In your spare time you do a few experiments of your own on victims you capture. Dr. Kovas doesn’t really approve since its taking time away from what he wants you to be helping him with, and he feels you’re just bumbling around and engaging in sadistic torture for your own twisted pleasure. (To be fair he’s partially right at this point)

As for his experiments, you still don’t see him making any more progress. He has managed to get the zombies to be relatively docile with training, but they’re still relatively mindless. He’s a scientifically minded necromancer at this point, but he’s not even doing anything that useful with it. He keeps saying that he WILL succeed in bringing a being back to life fully intact without the zombification element, but it doesn’t seem possible. Not even the old school magicians of legend could do that. Once the brain is completely dead, it’s dead! Even through his verbal abuse you still used to respect Dr. Kovas for his dedication and his knowledge, but lately he’s just been looking like a crazy old fool.

“Argh grah!"

“Well that’s another one for the cages, or are we going to dispose of this one?” you ask in a bored tone as Dr. Kovas fails to completely “resurrect” another one.

“Damn! I strengthened the dose to compensate for her vegetarian diet! She shouldn’t be trying to bite me!”

“Y’know we’ve been doing this for about a year now and we’ve still made a lot of progress.”

“I’VE made a lot of progress, but what is your point?”

“My point is, maybe this just isn’t in the cards. Maybe we can’t bring someone back, well not in a good way at least.”

“Hmmm, what is this? A moment of conscience? Some sort of introspective that we’re not supposed to play diety? You losing your passion for this work?” Dr. Kovas says with a sneer.

“Ha ha ha ha! No, perish the thought.” You laugh

“Oh? Then what is it?”

“Well I’ve been thinking…”

“Ha ha ha ha! Oh this SHOULD be amusing.”

You make a slight facial tic at this insult, but then continue hoping that your “mentor” will listen to you.

“What I was going to say is we’ve got the medical knowledge and equipment to run a good body legging business. Lots of demand for body parts on the black market. And with the advances we have made with incitathol we could even sell some of the tamer zombies to wannabe necromancers or even for pit fights. It certainly would put our skills to better use.”

Dr. Kovas sighs and shakes his head at you.

“Oh my dear boy, you have learned NOTHING while serving under me! First of all, what’s this we business? I’M the only real doctor here; you haven’t even finished medical school yet! You think you can dare put yourself on my level just because I’ve allowed you to aid me and you cut up a few bubble headed co-eds? Hah! Not bloody likely! Second, you still don’t get it do you? Science is not supposed to be for profit! It’s about the challenges and over coming them! You want to make money why don’t you go reopen that little inn you used to have and serve swill to the other low lives? Now grab that mallet over there, smash this zombie’s head in and dispose of it. Menial labor is about all you’re good for anyway.”

You grab the mallet, but you don’t smash the zombie’s head in, you smash Dr. Kovas head in instead. His arrogance and complacency allows you to get in a good shot without him expecting it and he falls to the floor bleeding profusely from the head. You kneel down to finish him off.

“YOU (WHAM!) FUCKING (WHAM!) PIECE OF (WHAM!) FUCKING (WHAM!) SHIT!” you shout at the top of your lungs while you beat the good doctor’s brains into pulp.

After you’ve satisfied your bloodlust, you sit back and think about your next move. The tied up zombie girl on the table is disturbing your concentration with her growling so you shove some of Kovas’ brains in her mouth while you plan…

Your major obstacle is explaining Doctor Kovas’ disappearance. This actually isn’t that much of a problem though. The man wasn’t well liked at all by his peers so nobody really goes looking for him. You are eventually asked questions by the Klyton militia, but you simply say one day you showed up to assist him and he was gone with no warning. They also ask if you know much about any of the disappearance of young girls around the university, but you say you don’t know much except that it’s pretty horrible. Again there is some suspicion, but not really on you and more on him.

It probably helped that the first thing you did was completely clean his lab, and left vague incriminating evidence pointing to him if suspicion should ever come up about anything. The second thing you did was clean out his savings (Lucky for you the old bastard didn’t believe in keeping it at a bank) but live frugally in a cheap apartment again.

By the time you finish up medical school you’re in the clear and Dr. Kovas’ disappearance is chalked up to him doing something illegal and then fleeing the city. You on the other hand are now a fully-fledged doctor with access to all that entails…

It doesn’t need to be said that your time with Dr. Kovas warped you and while you managed to lay low when necessary, you now feel more freedom to engage in all those ideas you tried to suggest to Kovas a few years ago.

The rest of your life is basically a mask of sanity hiding a very immoral person. Your crimes are vast, routine and you could care less. Your parents failed you, the inn failed you, even your “mentor” failed you and as far as you’re concerned you only managed to achieve your goals because YOU took charge of the situations that presented themselves and thrived.

This outlook on life never changes. You take what you want and you use people as you see fit. You never regret your decisions and feel only a weak fool would suffer any sort of guilt or remorse.

And thanks to your intelligence, you mange to avoid punishment and you experience a death not granted to any of your many victims: Namely, you die as an old man peacefully in your bed.


No shortage of parties going on right now and getting a drunk co-ed will be just like getting a whore except you won’t have to travel as far.

You head down to the popular night club near campus called the Wild Princess. After standing in line for an hour, you’re told by the bouncer that they don’t need people like you in there. You don’t bother arguing; you know you’re too “uncool” to get in, so you move on.

Your next stop is going to a guild house party. You manage to sneak in thanks to a lot of people more concerned with having fun rather than crashers. Unfortunately a lot of the girls there aren’t remotely interested in the likes of you, but you sort of anticipated that would happen. Your plan is going to be to hang out here a few more hours then try to isolate a girl that should well be drunk at that point and offer to take her home.

You pass the time basically being a creepy stalker and watching which of the ladies are getting loaded, which of them have boyfriends, which of them are here by themselves, etc. Eventually you set your sights on a cute redhead who doesn’t seem to have any attachments and is definitely wobbly.

You breathe in deeply, exhale and walk towards the girl…only to get cock blocked by some guild member. Looks like he’s part of the university’s gladiator team too, so he’d easily crush you.

“Hey babe, come on let’s get you some place where you can lie down.” He says and begins to guide her towards one the bedrooms while you curse your luck.

You could try to find another girl here, but you’re quite frankly sick of waiting around, you don’t have all night. It occurs to you that you’re a medical student while that guild guy is a muscle headed gladiator. Surely you should be able to out smart him. You see the back of his big head stand out in the crowd and follow him.

He gets the redhead to a private bedroom just like you anticipated, places her body on the bed and just as he goes to close the door you stop him.

“Whoa shit dude! You’re not actually going to fuck that bitch are ya?” you say.

“Huh? Well yeah! And who the fuck are you?”

“You can’t fuck her man, she’s got Rotties!”

“What?! Really? Nah, she doesn’t look like she does.”

“Trust me dude, she does! My cousin’s in medical school and he said they had to do an assignment involving volunteers who had various non-life threatening diseases and she was one of them!”

“Wait, wait, wouldn’t something like that be anonymous to protect the identities or some shit? And who are you again?” the gladiator asks proving he isn’t quite as dumb as you thought.

“It was supposed to be anonymous, but my cousin’s a inconsiderate fucktard who told me all this shit anyway. Besides isn’t it good I did know and I was here to warn you?”

“Yeah I suppose it was. Whew. Oh shit I touched her tits, I might have caught some shit!”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, my cousin said unless you stick your dick in her, you’ll be fine.”

“Fuck that! They don’t know all the shit about that disease yet! We need to get that bitch outta here before she infects everyone…and burn that bed too!”

You almost smile at how well this is working for you. You tell the gladiator that you’ll get her out of here. He says better you than him and heads to the bathroom.

The redhead is still sort of conscious, but definitely not aware of her surroundings.

“Whozz you…I…(giggle) think I…(hic) drank too mush…” she says as you pick her up.

The walk back to Dr. Kovas’ lab is slow at first since the girl is still conscious, but eventually her incoherent babbling stops and she’s completely out of it, at which point you just pick her up and carry her. Of course you’re sweating being seen and questioned by campus security. Last thing you need is to get accused of date rape especially since you just saved this girl from getting date raped…of course you’re also taking her to her death.

It’s just a fucked up situation no matter how you look at it!

Luckily you get to the lab with no problems. You bang on the door and Dr. Kovas pulls you both inside. He looks at the girl and frowns a bit.

“Well I suppose she’ll do. I’m guessing you got her from one of the party’s near campus.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all, young girls go to wild parties and go missing around here all the time, and I certainly don’t have anything to do with all of those incidents. Anyway get her to the table and strap her down. I need to get some stuff from the back.

You follow Kovas’ orders and hope that one of the things he’s getting is your antidote.

He comes out with much more than your antidote, he comes out with a rolling cart filled with several medical instruments that look more like torture devices and tosses you a small vial of clear liquid.

“Here, take this and put on some gloves. We’re about make history!” he says and injects the redhead on the table with some sort of liquid. It doesn’t take her long to stop breathing.

You swallow the contents of the vial which you hope is the antidote. You don’t feel any different after taking it though. You half wonder if he was bluffing about poisoning you at all. If that’s the case then you just brought a girl to her death for no reason, though it hardly matters at this point, as annoyed as you are at Dr. Kovas you might as well go through with this all the way.

You stand there for a moment just watching Dr. Kovas enthusiastically cutting into the girl and injecting more strange fluid directly into her vital organs. He suddenly stops when the girl comes back to life!

“Ragh! Gargh! Argh!” she growls.

It suddenly occurs to you what exactly Dr. Kovas is experimenting with, Incitahol. It’s a banned concoction that was supposed to bring the dead back to life and it does, but only to create them as zombies. Lazy wannabe necromancers and mad scientists love the stuff, and would seem you’re working with the latter right now.

“You’re experimenting with incitahol? This is your big project? I thought you’d be aware that this shit’s only good for creating zombies and not even controllable ones!” you say.

“Ah, not yet anyway! I’ve made some changes to it. If you’ll notice the subject is not as aggressive as it would be under regular incitahol. Unfortunately it still seems quite hostile. I can’t be sure if this due to my changes in the drug, or the alcohol in her system screwing things up. I probably should’ve waited until she was sober and then proceeded (sigh) I’ll need a new subject.”

You’re hardly surprised at this request; you just say you’ll get on it tomorrow.

“Hmm, very well. And try to get a sober one this time!”

Over the course of a month you manage to get several “subjects” for Dr. Kovas and while he does eventually start contributing to your “college fund” you aren’t exactly overjoyed with what you’re doing especially since he’s insulting you at every given opportunity. While it’s true you are learning quite a bit about the human brain and other things about the human body he doesn’t seem like he’s getting anywhere with his own experiments. As far as you can tell he’s just cutting up girls and making them into zombies.

On another front, your inn staff has pretty much had it with you, specifically Wendy. She ends up quitting because she’s sick of having to look after the inn all day AND night while you secretly go disappearing to kidnap young girls. Rita certainly has no intention taking up the slack so she quits as well. This pretty much leaves you no option other than selling the inn and get a cheap apartment. Between the money you get from the sale and Dr. Kovas’ payment you have enough to finish up the rest of your classes, but the expenses of medical school are still going to be a struggle.

Dr. Kovas assures you that he can easily get you a good job at the hospital while you go through the rest of your schooling, but he’ll still need you to work for him as well. On the plus side he’s also offered you a free place to stay at his private lab. This would be convenient financially.

The downside to all this is of course you’d still be working for Dr. Kovas and all that entails. Even if you’ve managed to mostly shed yourself the moral implications of what you’ve been doing, there’s always the legal ones to worry about. Never mind the verbal abuse you’ll have to endure.

You could just say fuck it and go do something else, which has been crossing your mind at this point. You aren’t exactly sure what that might be, but after all the shit you’ve been through you are a little hesitant to put yourself through more.

It’s ultimately your choice on whether you still want to achieve your medical profession goals or not, but in any case your days as an innkeeper are over.
> You quit
After a long period of introspection, you realize your choices haven’t really gotten you anywhere good. You’ve alienated your mother by breaking the law. You continued to break the law while in possession of the inn and your staff grew to dislike you and you don’t even own the place anymore. You moved on to being an accessory to murder in illegal experiments for monetary gain and your own obsession to go to medical school.

You’ve managed to get away with it all so far, but for how much longer? Are you going to end up like Dr. Kovas and be a misanthropic asshole hated by your colleagues by day and be a completely batshit insane madman by night? You know you aren’t a “good guy” after all the shit you’ve been doing, but you figure you can do something to at least keep from getting worse.

So it’s decided, you leave Klyton with no fanfare. You aren’t particularly worried about Dr. Kovas. Most likely he’ll just curse you for being a “weakling bound by pangs of morality” but that’s about it.

You end up going to Teckleville where your mom is surprised to see you. You make up with her and apologize for what happened between the both of you. You of course don’t let her know about all the stuff you did while assisting Dr. Kovas.

You live with her for a while and try to figure out what you’re going to do with your life and eventually you get a job as a teacher at the high school in town where your extensive knowledge on the sciences comes in quite handy and greatly appreciated.

For several years you live a fairly mundane life. It’s even a little boring at times, but you don’t mind it. You may have lived out the rest of your days in Teckleville if things had gone right, but as they say, there ain’t no rest for the wicked.

While you were building a new life in Teckleville, Dr. Kovas was still continuing his illegal experiments; he also eventually got caught and was arrested for his crimes. He wasn’t in custody for long since he was killed trying to escape. Unfortunately for you, he kept detailed journals about his experiments and your name was mentioned several times in them. (Mostly in hate filled rants after you left)

One day while you’re teaching a class, the Klyton militia shows up and you already know what they’re there for.

“Um, okay class just take out your books and read chapters twelve and thirteen until the bell rings, I have to speak to these men for a moment.” You say and leave with the militia.

You are shackled and taken away in a coach. It’s quite the spectacle to the folks witnessing the event. You don’t ask to say goodbye to your mother, you wouldn’t know how to explain this and it would just break her heart again. Granted she’s going to find out eventually anyway, but you don’t have to be the one to face her.

Your return to Klyton is a short one since you immediately plead guilty to the judge. No sense in drawing it out you think. You spend your last few days in a cell waiting to be hanged, thinking about the mistakes you made and how you’re finally sorry that you didn’t make better choice when you had the chance.

When you’re at the gallows you are asked if you have any last words, but you have none. The lever is pulled, you fall through the hole and the rope snaps your neck instantly.


Given that Dr. Kovas rarely compliments anyone, he has to like you a lot. You decide it might be best to take advantage of that fact. After his class you approach him about your situation, but he doesn’t seem very sympathetic.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure your problems are very important to you, but my question is why are you telling me?”

“Well that’s what I was getting at, I wanted to know if there was something I could do to help you out. Some way of maybe earning more money…”

“Money? Hah! What do you think this is a factory employment line? If you want to help me, you shouldn’t be doing it for cash m’boy. You should be doing it for the love of science!”

He starts to make his way out of the classroom, but you follow.

“Dr. Kovas, I’d love to help for the love of science, but I’m not exactly in a position to do so! I mean I’ve got so many expenses and responsibilities and…”

“Stop right there m’boy. Again you’re telling me these things as if I can do something about them…or that I WANT to do something about them.”

“(sputter)…because I thought that given how much you praise my work in class you’d want to help out a potential fellow future doctor.” You say getting exasperated.

“YOU? A fellow doctor? Ha ha ha ha! Granted you may have the ability to be a doctor one day, but if you think you’d ever approach someone of my caliber, I’ve sorely underestimated your capacity for logical thinking.” Dr. Kovas laughs.

At this point you’re angry, you came to get help, not be insulted by this asshole. You’re hesitant to outright insult him back though since you still need to finish his class, so you just decide to leave.

“Alright fine, don’t help me then. I just thought you were different from the other rich elitist bastards that look their noses down at me just because of my working class background. I’ll just leave…”

“Wait, wait, you think I’m looking down on you because of your humble roots? My, my someone has an inferiority complex. M’boy I’m looking down on you because you’re whining about your problems to me. You have much potential and despite your pathetic tales of woe it is obvious that you’ve overcome much and are determined in your goals to become a doctor. I think however you could do something more, but unless you’re willing to help me for the love of science, not because of money, or what I might be able to do for you then I think you will languish in mediocrity like most that pass through my class.”

At this point you don’t know what the hell kind of head game Dr. Kovas is playing with you, but if there is some sort of possibility that he might help you, then you might need to play along.

“I don’t believe you. Or rather I don’t believe you’ll help me for the right reasons. You’re going to help, because you still believe that I’m going to help you.”

“Yes.” You blurt out.

“Heh, well at least you’re honest now. All right I’m going to roll the dice with you and allow you to help me on a project I’ve been working on. I’ll even assure you that you will profit from this because I know you seem to be concerned about such things.”

“”I’m really not, I just need extra money to…”

“Don’t interrupt!” Dr. Kovas snaps. “As I was saying, you will profit from this, but it is my hope that you will come to do this for science more than anything. Because if you aren’t then you’re in the wrong field.”

“I thought the field of medicine was primarily to help the sick.” You say.

“Bah! Helping people? Nonsense! Most so called doctors aren’t in it to help people, they’re in it for the money! They’re all a bunch of soulless greed automatons that have no real passion for the mysteries of the human body and all this field has to offer!”

Dr. Kovas has a reputation for misanthropy and cynicism, but you weren’t aware how much until just now, still he says he’s willing to help you and that’s good enough for you.

“Now then, if you are going to help me, you need to meet me at my lab tonight and whatever you do, don’t tell anyone about it. When you get inside you are NOT to discuss what you see with anyone, do you understand?”

“Um, what exactly are we going to be doing?” you ask a little concerned.

“You’ll see soon enough, but it’s a secret project that will change the way modern medicine works! I can’t afford to have anyone stealing my ideas! So I need you to be all the way in on this! If you’re going to hesitate, then get out of my sight right now.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll help you.”

“Good. See you tonight.” Dr. Kovas says and walks away.

You put in some time at the inn, but later leave Wendy in charge and tell her to close it down if you aren’t back by closing time. You remind Alan to lock everything up. Wendy of course isn’t very pleased with this idea and reminds you once again of how she’s overworked. You just apologize and leave.

When you get to Dr. Kovas’ lab he doesn’t immediately open the door, and you have to wait about five minutes before he comes out to scold you that you’re five minutes late! You don’t argue though, you just enter only for Dr. Kovas to immediately ask you a disturbing question.

“Can you kill a man?”

“WHAT?!”

“Or woman, in fact a woman might be better. Yes, I need you to kill a woman.”

You’re literally speechless for a few moments before sputtering your protests.

“Dr. Kovas, I didn’t sign up to kill people!”

“Yes you did, the moment you said you’d help me. (Sigh) Look, progress in medical science has always required sacrifices. Sometimes that sacrifice has involved the lives of others. What is one life compared to the wonders that scientific break through can do?”

Dr. Kovas isn’t just misanthropic, he’s sociopathic and you’re out of here.

“I’m not a killer and I’m not capable of this. So I’m just going to leave. You needn’t worry I won’t tell anyone.”

“Sorry son, I can’t take that chance, nighty night!”

Dr Kovas suddenly produces a needle filled with something and injects you with it. You push him away and try the door handle only to find it locked. You don’t struggle with it for long though before you pass out.

When you wake up you’re strapped to a table, with Dr. Kovas shaking his head at you.

“What am I going to do with you? I placed what little faith I have in humanity in you and this is how you act? It’s my own fault I suppose.”

You try to talk, but most of your body is still paralyzed.

“Now then, I’m going to give you ONE last chance because I still see potential in you. After this wears off I want you to go out and get a girl. I don’t care how, just do it and bring her here. You don’t even need to kill her, just bring her here and I’ll do the deed. Do you think you can handle that?”

You still can’t talk, but you know damn well if you don’t agree he’s certainly going to kill you, so you strain yourself to nod “yes”.

“Good, I’ll release you. Oh and just to let you know, you only have until dawn. I’ve injected you with a toxin to ensure you don’t go running off or something silly like that. Don’t bother with trying to get an antidote either, it’s a special toxic mix that only I have the cure to.”

You get up, very wobbly and still a little dizzy. By the time you start regaining all your faculties Dr. Kovas has shoved you out his lab door and locked it.

You feel like you’re living a nightmare, but you don’t have much of a choice, you need to bring a woman back to the lab before dawn or you’re going to die. This isn’t going to be easy not just due to the immorality of the situation, but also because you haven’t exactly been a ladies man. What with all the studying and work at the inn, you don’t have much of a social life.

You figure your best bet might be to go to one of the many college parties near campus and hope to get a drunk girl, though you could just go get a regular whore.
> You seek out a whore
It certainly will be the easiest for you to do emotionally and less likely to get you into trouble with the law. Who’s going to miss a whore right? The only thing you really need to worry about is getting mugged while you’re looking for one.

You take a deep breath and catch a coach to the slums of Klyton.

It doesn’t take you long to get propositioned several times when you arrive.

“Hey baby, you like what you see?”

“Mmmm, come put your dick in this slice of paradise!”

“You see these lips? They could be wrapped around your cock.”

“Come over here honey, you ain’t never had goblin ass before!”

While you wince at that last one. A big man approaches you.

“Hey you, you gonna just look or you actually gonna buy some pussy?”

“Are you their pimp?”

“I’m their manager! Now enough with the questions, you buying or what?”

You can’t get a prostitute that has a pimp. If she turns up missing, he’s likely to seek you out and take the loss out on your hide or even blackmail you. You excuse yourself and continue to wander the streets.

You travel into an even more destitute area of the slums looking for a whore, which is proving to be a lot harder than you thought it would be. You eventually find what you’re looking for and they’re revolting. The drug whores are certainly out in force tonight.

“You got some green lotus or yellow devil? I’ll suck your dick!” is what most of the drug whores say to you. You almost figure you’d be doing them a favor by getting them killed. You pick the one who looks least likely to infect you just by breathing on you. (The irony that you’re already infected by a killer toxin isn’t lost on you.)

You hand her several gold coins, probably the most money she’s seen in a long time and is ready to take you around the corner and blow you, but you have to explain that you’re heading to some place nicer and warm, with lots of drugs! She seems to like that idea, so she agrees to follow you.

Fortunately you manage to catch another coach relatively quickly and your trip back to the campus is uneventful other than the ramblings and awful coughing of your “lady friend.”

You arrive to the lab with your whore in tow and Dr. Kovas pulls you both in all the while not looking impressed.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You got a whore? I could’ve got a whore!”

“Well why didn’t you?”

“I’d watch your tongue boy if you want that antidote.”

“Look I did what you said! Just cure me now!”

“Not yet, I need you to do one more thing, here.”

Dr. Kovas points you to a syringe on a table filled with something. Something not good no doubt. It’s obvious he wants you to inject the whore with it.

“No, no, you said all I had to do is bring her here.”

“Yes, well I think under the circumstances you’re ready to take the next step for science.”

“Hey wait, am I doing both of you? That’s okay I guess, but this is extra.” The whore says still not grasping the situation.

As for you, you shake your head, knowing it’s useless to argue. You almost feel like grabbing the syringe and running over to stab him with it, but you still need the antidote and then you’d probably have to still kill the whore too.

“Alright honey, I’m gonna take care of you.” you say holding the syringe and approaching the whore.

“Oooh now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Shoot me up.”

You inject the eager whore with the needle and she soon falls unconscious.

“Quickly, bring her to the table!”

While you do so, Dr. Kovas disappears to the back of his lab. You check the girl and realize she’s stopped breathing. You’ve killed her, though you’re not really surprised, you’re just hoping that Kovas is coming out with your antidote.

He comes out with much more than your antidote, he comes out with a rolling cart filled with several medical instruments that look more like torture devices and tosses you a small vial of clear liquid.

“Here, take this and put on some gloves. We’re about make history!”

You swallow the contents of the vial which you hope is the antidote. You don’t feel any different after taking it though. You half wonder if he was bluffing about poisoning you at all. If that’s the case then you just killed a girl for no reason, though it hardly matters at this point, as mad as you are at Dr. Kovas you might as well go through with this all the way.

You stand there for a moment just watching Dr. Kovas enthusiastically cutting into the girl and injecting more strange fluid directly into her vital organs. He doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything else, until he suddenly stops.

“Hold on wait, did you strap her down? Shit you didn’t strap her down! Quick, tie her up!”

“What?!” you say not really understanding why you’d need to do it, but you find out when she suddenly comes to life!

“Tie her feet! Tie her feet!” Dr. Kovas yells as he shackles her arms to the table. You grab the rope on the cart and begin tying her feet, which are twitching as much as she’s making some no longer human noises.

“Raagh. Gargah! Arrgh!”

It suddenly occurs to you what exactly Dr. Kovas is experimenting with, Incitahol. It’s a banned concoction that was supposed to bring the dead back to life and it does, but only to create them as zombies. Lazy wannabe necromancers and mad scientists love the stuff, and would seem you’re working with the latter right now.

“You’re experimenting with incitahol? This is your big project? I thought you’d be aware that this shit’s only good for creating zombies and not even controllable ones!” you say.

“Ah, not yet anyway! I’ve made some changes to it. If you’ll notice the subject is not as aggressive as it would be under regular incitahol. Unfortunately it was still quite hostile and nearly bit my ear when I was trying to strap it down. I can’t be sure if this due to my changes in the drug, or the fact that this subject’s organs were heavily damaged due to her own major drug use and life style. Probably had several sexual diseases too, who knows what those factors might’ve played. This is why I didn’t want a drug addled whore (sigh) I’ll need a new subject.”

You’re a little put off, considering he did say he didn’t care what kind of girl you got. You’re hardly surprised though; you just say you’ll get on it tomorrow.

“You? No I don’t think so. I think I’m misjudged your abilities considering you’ve been argumentative and an utter failure in bringing me a good test subject. No I do not think there will be anymore chances. You may leave, I’m done with you.”

NOW you’re surprised and more than a little pissed. This dick has been insulting you, poisoned you, made you kill a girl and now he’s just dismissing you like some flunky without even paying you for your time?

“Oh is that how it is? Well you still owe me money for this!”

“Owe? I don’t owe you anything. You did this for science m’boy. You should be happy you’re alive so that you can live out the rest of your boring existence.”

It’s the last straw, you aren’t going to take it anymore and you snap. You immediately attack Dr. Kovas who anticipates your attack by dodging it. You crash straight into the zombie whore’s table and are unfortunately bit in the arm.

“Arrrrgh! My arm!” you scream struggling to get your arm out of the zombie whore’s mouth.

“Nargh Gabrah Raagh!”

“Well, I guess you still might have your uses…”

You feel a crushing blow to the back of your head and that’s the last thing you experience in your life.

Your short undead “life” isn’t even worth mentioning.