Instant Hero Potion

Part 3

Loreane started at a jog, still feeling a little conflicted. She wasn't a violent person by nature, more the quiet, stay at home and read a book type. Her chosen life was being denied her and now she had this muscle-based new persona wanting to throw her right into the thick of things. However as she got closer her long ears started to make sense of the general din, picking out individual screams of pain and pleas for mercy. Her background was full of a lot of anti-human prejudice, but these people had been minding their own business trying to get by, maybe no one was entirely innocent but surely there couldn't be many in a town this small that deserved this fate. She started to get angry and pick up speed.
One of them saw her and walked out in front of her, pulling up his sword as she got close. She realized there was a strong chance of running right into it and tried to stop herself, but she was used to having far less mass and momentum. She tripped as she tried to halt herself, leading to a tumble. The world spun for a bit and when she got a bearing on things she noticed the guy looked rather trampled and his sword was lying in two pieces next to him. She checked herself over for damage and did find a little cut in her clothing around the collarbone. She hadn't really felt it...so the stuff was doing its job, but it was going to take a while to internalize being nearly invulnerable, but then that could lead to overconfidence if magic worked better on her... 'argh, focus on the fight now, think about the other stuff later.'
The guy she's just trod into the ground was starting to get up so Loreane went over and picked him up. He just seemed so absurdly light, didn't seem like he weighed anything at all even with the crudely patched together armor and other weapons he was carrying. Loreane rounded a corner of a little hut and saw two of his companions, attacking a couple of teenagers on the ground. Loreane twisted and threw the man she was holding at them.
She did it completely wrong, she aimed too high and he spun around in the air every which way as he sailed right over the heads of the two she's been aiming at. She'd expected him to arc downwards fairly quickly, but she obviously still needed time to get used to this absurd strength. One of the others did however catch the movement and looked up in time to see him flying overhead in a off-course pinwheel and followed the motion with his head until the thrown man crashed through the thatch roof of a house. He looked at the building and then back at where the other man had come from, spotting her in the process.
"What in the hell just happened there?"
"The elf there... You think... he? She? Might have done it?"
"Does anyone buy elves as slaves, do you know? Maybe add... them to the group."
"I don't know, I hear their authorities go pretty insane when someone tries it."
Loreane was annoyed, she was being talked over here, though it did give the pair they were harassing an opening to run away. Now she could move in and if she accidentally turned someone into red mud, at least they were a slaver. She started forward at a quick, but not that rushed pace and one of them drew a crossbow.
"Hold off there, you over-glorified monkey."
"EXCUSE ME?!"
"You all live in trees don't you? You all think you're so damn superior, but you can't even figure how to chop them down and make a proper house."
Wow that was it, Loreane didn't realize she could be so angry at someone she just met, but now this guy was really going to get it. She reached down and picked up a rock somewhat bigger than her fist.
"Think you'll have a chance to throw that?" the man with the crossbow asked and without even waiting for an answer pulled the trigger and sent the ready arrow into Loreane's neck where it bounced off.
Loreane barely fought the impulse to feel her neck for damage, but she wanted to intimidate this guy, so she held out her rock and kept as straight a face as she could as she closed her hand around it. It took a moment to build the pressure enough, but as she did she was rewarded with the rock shattering apart and falling to the ground in pieces.
"No, I had no intention of throwing it. I'm just demonstrating that you're really gonna get hurt."
The other man took an axe and swung it into Loreane's arm and it bounced off with a clang as the axe head came away visibly blunted. Loreane caught his arm and grimaced as bones snapped in her grip. The man screamed and she felt a bit bad, she wasn't looking to crush but just a little carelessness... She must really be utterly ridiculously strong now, like the potion might still be working, or those enhancement gems on her scale mail underwear were stronger than she thought. The man thrashed and tried to pull away, but the effort was just so useless, kitten-like even. She let go and he collapsed in a jumble. She aimed a kick into his midsection and tried to be gentle about it, but he flew back a half dozen feet and up at least three before landing sobbing in a fetal position. She had to fight her natural reaction to put her arms up and cringe in a sort of sympathetic pain, she didn't think it would do to look uncomfortable with violence against this lot...
"What in... what are you? Elves are strong, but not like that!"
"How much do you really know? I mean, have you visited a lot of our cities? How do you know I'm not just the average construction worker?"
"Because you don't build, you magic trees into half-home-ish things."
Loreane mentally wanted to kick herself, she had just let a great opportunity to try to come of as a badass slip by. She should have said something like 'the kind you have to worry about right now' or 'that's not your problem, beating me is.' SOMETHING BETTER.
"I'm not here to talk, I'm here to punch your head off," she retorted after too much silence, but... 'Oh look, he went running. Nice.'
Loreane ran after him and was surprised to find herself catching up pretty quickly. She grabbed him by one shoulder and then the other and lifted him up. Metal chain links caved under her fingers and she felt bones snapping again and she dropped the man with revulsion. He flung oddly and landed on his back, groaning in pain. She twitched her fingers a bit as she fought off the creepy feelings she had. She was going to have to get a grasp on how much pressure equated to what result... it kind of scared her that everything was breaking under her hands so casually.
She was about to leave him and look for other slavers and anyone who escaped when she remembered the monkey comment. She grabbed him by both ankles and squeezed, the metal shin-guards crumbled with little resistance and then there was a new set of broken bones.
"Stay there a while, I'll come back for you when I've finished with your friends," she didn't really intend to hurt him any more, but that look of sheer terror at the implication she would was a bit rewarding.
'I'm a terrible person. I am now a terrible person, enjoying making threats... even if he did deserve some pain...'
She found some people shackled to a hitching post and they looked at her in alarm. She knew she looked weird, torn up clothing revealing ever more of her massive muscles, "Don't worry, I want to help. Stretch the chains as much as you can."
Loreane got a hold of chains one at a time with as much of her hands as she could manage and pulled them apart until the people were entirely freed.
"Thank you."
"Sure, go hide and I'll try get everyone else."
"Some of them are already going up the road," one of them pointed, "They have some people in cages on carts."
"Got it," Loreane didn't stick around and went on the move.
She rounded a building and walked right into another one of the slavers who bounced off her chest and fell to the ground. She gasped and clutched at her torso with her arms, and felt silly right away. He'd mostly run into pectoral muscle actually, but still... she a lady, just really tall now... 'Ugh, I'm going to let him get up at this rate...' He kicked at her shins, pushing himself away but she hardly felt it. The man jumped up and threw a handful of sand at her face. She moved her arm up in the way and was surprised that it was pretty much in time, she didn't find herself having to blink out gritty sand from her eyes. Score one for the enchanted jewelry. There was a cold sensation as something jabbed her in the exact center of her stomach. She cringed like she was curling in on herself involuntarily and lowered her arm to see that the man had tried to stick her with a knife or dagger or something, that he was now trying to pull out with no avail.
She didn't feel any pain so she was a bit confused and shifted herself around to look. It turned out the knife had gone through the clothes and in between her abs and when she'd cringed she'd flexed those ridiculous abdominal muscles around the knife and trapped it. She pushed the man away easily and grabbed the hilt of the weapon and pulled it sideways. The blade snapped away from the hilt and her stomach remained unharmed. She stood up straight and undid the shirt's lower part a bit to have a look. When she relaxed the twisted blade fell down to the ground and she found herself laughing a little.
"That's actually pretty cool."
The guy seemed to not agree, looking quite freaked out as he scrambled to get away. Loreane kicked at him and nearly lost her balance since she really didn't know how to kick violently, but the sheer power she did everything with now seemed to make up for it and the man flipped in the air and crashed hard on his side. She reached down and grabbed him and couldn't help but close her eyes and flinch away as she tried to jab him lightly in the skull to take him out of commission. There was a bit of red when she looked back, but it looked like it was from the skin of his scalp torn by her leather glove and incredibly durable hand, not any kind of cataclysmic skull cave-in. She was a bit relieved and got moving.