“James,” Nadine said. Her voice was soft.
My mother always said a good woman reveals herself in the little things she does for you.
A bowl of soup when you’re sick.
A kiss on your cheek when you come home tired of the world.
A quiet voice when she wakes you up in the morning.
“James,” she repeated, even softer. Her breath brushed against my ear, delicate as a rose petal.
Nadine Haskell was a good woman.
As far as anybody knew.
“Wuzzat” I yawned.
I tried to roll over. My wrists pulled against something – my legs, too.
Tied.
“Time to wake up, James,” Nadine said, “they’re coming for you.”
“Who?”
“The police, silly.”
Police?
Suddenly pain spiked in the back of my skull, like someone had driven a red hot nail into it. I groaned and sucked air through my teeth.
“That’s only temporary,” Nadine said, sliding her finger across my scalp, “when the swelling dies down, you’ll feel like a brand new frog...”
A new *what?*
I opened my eyes. My small one-room shack was a blur of wood-paneling and mid-morning light.
And laid over the blur were crisp text and numbers, glowing and pixelated like a boot screen:
---
**[BOOT] fr0g.2.g0d OS v2.3.1 - init kernel…**
**[LOG] Loading firmware modules….**
Spinal I/O – [OK]
Wernicke’s [OK]
Vision [OK]
**[READY] Console initialized.**
**[LOGIN] Please enter user credentials:**
>Name:_
---
Something typed my name inhumanly fast:
---
>Name: Prince James Parcival Montgomery Pillerington-Lanier IV
>Password: cheating_bastard
---
Cheating bastard?
Oh shit.
---
**[Quest Unlocked: Man of My Dreams]**
---
Quest?
Like the stupid games she played?
Nadine stood beside me in a white pantsuit and dark sunglasses, her X-Pando Purse slung casually over her shoulder.
As I stared at her, words and numbers exploded into view:
---
**[Name: Demon Princess Nadine L. Haskell]**
Level: 87
Class: Mage
Subclass: Tech-Mage
Age: 26
Strength: 576
Speed: 890
Endurance: 1873
Spirit: 1090
Perception: GOD
Vitality: GOD
---
She seemed absolutely massive – easily the size of a Vergovian Giant.
Or maybe…
I looked down.
Small green arms and legs. Slimy skin. Webbed toes.
Cheating Bastard.
She found out.
“You found out,” I said.
“Oh, I found out,” Nadine said.
“And you turned me into a frog,” I said.
“And I turned you into a frog.”
“And, I suppose…” I said, “it doesn’t end here…”
A corner of her red mouth turned up in a tiny smile.
“Induction is a beautiful principle,” she said.
“Like forgiveness,” I said.
“Like revenge.”
She opened my closet. A dead body fell out, hitting the floorboards with a wet smack.
Jessica.
Curly brown hair shrouded her grey, frozen face. She was naked, and her pale skin was mottled with bruises.
I could make out part of Jessica’s forearm tattoo – “Love is patient, love is kind”.
I had once absent-mindedly traced those words with my finger, laying in Jessica’s bed.
---
**[Name: Jessica P. Vanderkin]**
Level: 27
Class: Healer
Subclass: Beast-Healer
Age: 23
[NOTE: She is dead.]
---
“Nad… you didn’t…” I said.
“The search for her body lasted three whole weeks, didn’t it?” Nadine said, her voice dripping with faux sympathy, “Jessica’s poor peasant mother – she cried and cried on my shoulder after her darling went missing. If only the police had looked in your freezer… Why, it would have saved everybody so much time!”
“You didn’t!” I shouted.
Nadine smirked, “And now here she is, dead and naked on your floor, with ten pounds of your semen in her stomach…”
“You… You saved up my cum!?” I shouted.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder.
“Well, that’s my cue,” Nadine said.
Nadine stepped over Jessica’s dead body like a puddle in the road.
I struggled against my ropes, but nothing gave – there wasn’t even a centimeter of slack.
The sirens grew louder. Nadine dug through her X-Pando Purse, withdrew a small knife and placed it gently on my nightstand.
---
[Weapon: Obsidian Dagger]
[Low-Rank][Bone Handle]
[When properly sharpened by a trained weaponsmith, obsidian blades can channel mana and cut through everything but Witch’s Lace. Handle materials influence elemental effects.]
[NOTE: Blunted]
---
“I’ve asked father to delay booking the reception hall,” Nadine said, “until after you’ve become a man again.”
“Reception hall!?” I said.
“You finally graduated, right?” she said matter-of-factly, “It’s time to get married, James. No more delays.”
“You’re insane,” I said, “completely out of your damned–”
**[BANG! BANG! BANG!]**
“Maytersbyorgyu Police Department! Open up! We know Jessica’s in there, Jim! You’re finished!”
My riverside shack’s rickety front door rattled with each knock, dust falling from the upper trim.
“Don’t worry, I charmed your door,” Nadine said, “it will slow them down. For a bit.”
“Nad… please… don’t do this…” I said, “I’ll do anything you want. Please.”
“I know you will,” she said.
She smiled and tapped the back of my skull – right where it hurt.
“Just break the damn charm, how complicated can it be!?” a policeman shouted.
Nadine leaned in close. A string of her blonde hair fell down the middle of her face, “Before I go, know this, James: no matter where you go, no matter what you do, you will never get away from me. Because despite everything shitty thing you are and every amazing thing you aren’t, I will always love you. Even if it kills you.”
I stared at her.
I realized, in that moment, looking into her empty blue eyes, that I hated her.
“And what if it kills you?” I whispered, “because when I get my powers back, I promise you Nadine, that’s the first thing I’m going to do.”
She smiled, her inch-long incisors glimmering in her mouth. She lifted my chin with her finger.
“When this is over,” she said, “you might be able to!”
*Poof*
Nadine collapsed into a white coiled snake, and wriggled through a gap in the floorboards.
“You bitch!” I shouted, “you fucking bitch! Get back here! Nadine!”
“NADINE!”
Gone.
I screamed. Or I thought I screamed.
Instead I croaked.
**[James used Croak]**
-.0007 Mana
+.0007 Mana
“Huh?” I said, looking at the HUD’s log. I croaked again.
**[James used Croak]**
-.0007 Mana
+.0007 Mana
I spotted a menu on the right:
**[Skills] (+)**
I rested my focus on it, and the list expanded automatically:
**[Skills] (-)**
[ACTIVE] Tongue Lash
[ACTIVE] Croak
[ACTIVE] Hop
Tongue lash?
I lashed my tongue. A pink rope shot out of my face a full two feet.
[James used Tongue Lash]
**-0.0009 Mana**
**+0.0009 Mana**
That’s it!
I looked over at the Obsidian Dagger on my nightstand, and tongue lashed.
My tongue tip stuck to the handle, and I reeled the blade in.
Handle between my teeth, I sawed my wrist bindings, then the ropes at my ankles.
My shack’s front door exploded.
Two officers stormed in, guns drawn. Behind them – the proud, stiff figure of Police Inspector Javert Le Bannois.
He had a long face with a hooked nose, and his head was thrown back with the confidence of a Monarch. He had a large tan overcoat, and a particularly well-groomed jet black mustache – a rectangular strip connecting the corners of his mouth.
---
**[Name: Inspector Javert Le Bannois]**
Level: 2
Class: Knight
Subclass: N/A
Age: 47
Strength: 2
Speed: 5
Endurance: 20
Magick: 0
Perception: 4512
Vitality: 1
---
Behind him lumbered Porter Gall the police Mage – balding, ruddy-skinned, round-gutted and wheezing.
“Sick fuck,” muttered a cop, looking at Jessica’s dead body.
“Sorry,” said Porter.
“Not you, dummy,” said the cop.
“Think she cut herself loose?” another cop asked, indicating the ropes on my bed.
“No,” Inspector Bannois said. Both officers turned to him.
“She fell from the closet,” Bannois said, “look for a puddle of water in there.”
“What?” the first cop asked. He strode over to the closet. “Hey, wait a second -- there is a puddle here!”
“You’re going to have to explain that,” said the second cop.
Inspector Javert Le Bannois began petting his black mustache. His voice was calm, even bored, and heavily accented:
“Posthumous bruising indicate she’s been dead for a while. But she is not rotting. And you can see some water around her. From frozen condensate melting, obviously. Clearly, she was in a freezer. Look, you can see her hair is still frozen at parts.”
The policemen raised their eyebrows in surprise. Bannois continued:
“Now, observe the spatter of the water itself on the floorboards. She clearly dropped from some height. But not from the bed. The angle isn’t right. She dropped from the closet. A puddle on the floor in there confirms it. It will also give us an idea of how long she was in the closet.”
“Umm… ” Porter the Mage said, “why… would somebody do this?”
Bannois paused, staring at the floor.
“Making a show?” he murmured to himself, “who knows? One piece at a time.”
“OK, OK,” said a cop, “but she could have been tied to the bed before she was killed.”
“C’est possible,” Bannois said, “But these ropes are much too long. And they have no kinks or knots except at the ends, where they were cut. Something very small was tied up here.”
I stayed perfectly still on the floor. I hadn’t had time to hide when they came in, so pretending to be a real frog was my best bet.
Or so I thought.
Le Bannois’s gaze steadied on me. He squinted.
He knows.
Instantly, Le Bannois’s hand shot for me.
I leapt – but too slow.
“You!” he growled, lifting me up to his face, “what’s gone on here? Speak, frog!”
**[James used Hop]**
**[James grew to level 2!]**
Strength: 1 → 2
Speed: 4 → 8
Endurance: 1 → 2
Magic/Spirit: 0 → 1
Perception: 1134 → 1136
Vitality: 1 → 2
**[Skill Unlocked: Backslime (Passive)]**
Backslime?
Slime poured out of my back. Le Bannois gasped and dropped me. I crashed to the ground with a splat.
**[Achievement Progress: Slippery Jim (1/20)]**
**[+30 XP]**
“Arrest that frog!” Le Bannois shouted, struggling to keep his footing in the slime, “Mage – seal the entrance and windows!”
Porter sealed the door and windows with a barrier. There was only one way out now.
I bounded for my bathroom, officers slipping behind me in my slime trail.
“Stop him! Stop him!” Le Bannois shouted.
“He’s resisting!” a cop shouted, “that’s assault!”
Gunfire erupted behind me.
**[XP Bonus Activated: NEAR DEATH – 5x XP]**
**[James used Hop]**
**[James used Hop]**
**[James used Hop]**
**[James grew to level three!]**
Strength: 2 → 3
Speed: 8 → 12
Endurance: 2 → 3
Magic/Spirit: 1 → 2
Perception: 1136 → 1138
Vitality: 2 → 3
**[James used Hop]**
**[James used Hop]**
“Cease, you idiots! Cease!” Le Bannois shouted over the gunfire.
They didn’t stop.
Bullets turned my bathroom door into a pile of splinters.
I leapt and danced between the bullets, my frog eyes seeing every one.
The gunfire soon gave way to clicking. They’d run out of bullets.
“Cover me while I reload!” an officer shouted.
“I got you!” the other said, lifting Jessica’s body and using it as a human shield.
I raced into the bathroom, Inspector Le Bannois growling in pursuit.
I dove into my toilet bowl.
Bannois yanked me out and I spat toilet water in his face.
He dropped me, recoiling in disgust.
**[James used Tongue Lash]**
I lashed the flusher on my way down, and the spiral took me.
Last thing I saw was Le Bannois’s grimace hovering over the bowl, his nose like the beak of an eagle, and with nothing but furious determination in his eyes.
This wasn’t the end.
---
**[Quest Complete: The Bonds that Break Us]**
**[XP +100]**
**[James grew to level four!]**
**[New Quest Unlocked: Escape the Sewers]**
**[New Quest Unlocked: Old Boy’s Debt]**
**[Quest Log Updated: Man of My Dreams]**
---
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
