My Second Life Is A Heroic Power Fantasy - Chapter 171

The gnoll guard slumped to the floor. As it did so, the creature looked at her with a mixture of sadness and fear. It was an oddly empathetic moment, and she suddenly felt bad for having done what she did. But, this was not the time for pity or empathy. None of the rest of them had extended a single bit of that to her while they’d toyed with her mind or treated her like a ragdoll. This one was no different from the rest, if for no other reason than it was associated with him.

In the illusion, Marg’faz had told her to not assume every one of her kind were evil. That may still be true in spite of that experience not being real. But given the choice between remaining captive and the young gnoll in front of her still being alive, she’d kill him again in a second if that’s what it took.

Eleanor tugged the trick hitches and pulled the splint off before reaching over and digging her hands into the gnoll’s belt pouches. The first two held random odds and ends, but she finally found the keys she was looking for in the third. She tested each one of the six, until she found the one she was looking for and the collar popped free of her neck with a gentle click. Standing up and rubbing her neck, she unceremoniously set about stripping the body of the gnoll before casting Polymorph on herself. She decided to use fur from the jailor’s body, rather than the bit that Jaang’faz had given her. She couldn’t know for sure if the fur she used would affect her final appearance, but if it did, she wasn’t going to take the risk of looking like someone who didn’t belong where she was coming out of.

It took her a moment to recall the words and spellsigns for the casting, but once she felt confident she had them right, she followed them as she rubbed the tuft of fur she’d pulled from the gnoll across her exposed chest. Within moments the spell took hold, and she was once again faced with the all too familiar discomfort of fur sprouting out of every follicle on her body. She felt her facial bones twist and stretch into a long muzzle, and her teeth lengthened in a way that felt like they were about to be pulled straight out of her gums.

The whole shift took only about thirty seconds, but it was a deeply unpleasant thirty seconds. And no sooner had it finished before she yet again found herself with an overwhelming need to scratch the itching across her entire body. Ignoring the desire to, she stuffed her new body in the jailor’s clothes, cinched his belt around her waist, and took any other effects he had that would help her blend in better. Once that was finished, she hurried out of the room and into the tunnel. She followed it through several winding twists until it emptied into a familiar chamber that she recognized as the central hub that Jaang’faz had told her about. It was another consistency from the illusion, and she could instinctively remember where each of the paths she had traveled led. Second from the left would lead out to the mountainside. To the right of directly across would lead to the center of the gnoll camp inside the cave. As she looked at the second for a brief moment, she wondered if Marg’faz’s little hovel still still where she’d seen it before. She doubted it. Rawg’faz didn’t give her the impression that he’d let anything like that remain.

She didn’t give herself another moment for sentimentality. The Marg’faz she’d known was either a figment of her imagination or a deliberately manipulative spirit whod’d been doing the bidding of an evil monster. Either way, she wasn’t real, and thinking of her fondly was never going to change that.

Without another thought Eleanor turned into the tunnel to her left and ran for the exit.