Gaining The Sevenfold Enchantment

Question

This question is a follow-up to Just How Dangerous Would a Plopup Be? and concerns gaining its enchantment.

You see, when any monster dies, its magical essence is released, enchanting items inside it or around its person (especially the weapon that killed it, mind you), as well as the slayer or anyone alive inside of it at the time of death. (For more on the latter, AKA surviving victims, please see this link.)

The Plopup's death effect (read: enchantment), Sevenfold, is especially valuable. An item with this enchantment will be seven times stronger (and more durable), while striking seven times faster and seven times harder. More specifically, Sevenfold armor will be seven times better at negating force (AKA absorbing force without breaking or transferring it to the wearer) and seven times harder, while a Sevenfold sword will not only strike seven times faster and seven times harder, but will be seven times harder and sharper.

On a human being, the Sevenfold enchantment makes one seven times faster, smarter, stronger, and more durable, as well as greatly enhancing their looks, skill level (for all held skills), and any enchantments they hold. As if that wasn't enough, someone with the Sevenfold enchantment is practically immune to poison and disease while having an intense healing factor, allowing them to survive losing limbs or having large chunks of their body hacked off (like an axolotl, but faster-in terms of days or weeks-, magically fueled, and a bit stronger as well).

This of course makes the Sevenfold enchantment very valuable, but getting it is very difficult. In order for a person to gain a monster's enchantment, they have to kill it with their natural weaponry (read: their body), not a weapon like a sword or even a well-timed falling boulder or be alive inside it when it is killed.

The first is almost impossible (I'm not joking, and I would strongly recommend you click on the link above and seeing exactly what a Plopup is capable of), but the second, while guaranteed to be dangerous, is much easier to accomplish, because Plopup have an unnatural penchant for eating scantily clad attractive women.

My question, therefore, is: What Is The Best Way To Gain The Sevenfold Enchantment?

Specifications:

1. I'm looking for methods that will work either for a monster slayer or a cunning maiden, NOT one or the other. By "Best," I mean safest, most efficient, and easiest to accomplish. It should be feasible for people in Europe during the medieval era, which falls between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance. The less magic involved the better since this is low-fantasy.

Answer 1

Barrels of ale

99 barrels of ale on the cart 99 barrels of ale on the cart Take one off Throw it on a Plopup 98 barrels of ale on the cart

This could be the famous song in your universe. Songs can have many truths and lessons in them, and this can be one.

Plopups seem to be doubly vulnerable vulnerable to alcohol. It intoxicates them, modifying their behaviour. It is also a great way to make something flamable. Although mostly the vapor will burn, the heat can still scorch the skin in a short time if my experience in my youth is any indication. Longer times can definitely be very dangerous.

The economics and technology behind it are also interesting. You'll have to have a medieval period where they know how to fortify alcoholic drinks. A beer doesn't really catch fire, whereas vodka will.

So what will you do when you hunt these things? Take a barrel of fortified ale or other strong but cheap drink. When the encounter starts, you wait on the cart with a few barrels you can tip over to any side. Possibly you make the ground around the cart wet with the alcohol beforehand. When the Plopup is close enough you thow the barrel over it, both starting the intoxication as well as making it flammable. Throw some fire or molotov cocktail and watch it burn.

If it is smart enough to understand the trap, a bunch of molotov cocktails are good anyway. Interestingly is you dissolve some rubber in oil (mostly more modern gas, but might work with lamp oils) the liquid is more 'sticky'.

The rules aren't exactly clear to me, but hopefully the fire or barrel won't be imbued or the attacker can hopefully get close enough to receive it. If not, it is a dangerous but possibly rewarding thing to jump onto the creature and try slashing it, maybe even with hands drenched in lit alcohol, for the finishing blow.

A maiden in a bikini (read the backstory of Plopup) with a basket of molotov cocktails and a lighter might be able to do it. Although more sophisticated traps are recommended. It seems dangerous at all times, although you can kite it with firebombs pretty effectively if done right.

Answer 2

Domesticated Plopup are docile and can be killed before they become too unwieldy

The first few Plopups you'll have to catch with swords and weapons, so no sevenfold magic there. Once you've captured a few, put them together and let them breed.

You now have a reasonably safe, controlled way to get new Plopups that are smaller and safer to handle than full grown ones. Make sure the new Plopups see humans as friends, and it'll be much easier to kill one when the time comes.

Answer 3

What about a market for sedating and capturing Plopups to then be held in a cage where they can easily be slain by a human's bare hands for a cost?

I could see a business of talented trappers using this enchantment for profit. Presumably, all of the trappers would also have this enchantment (They would want the enchantment for themselves before selling the sedated Plopups to other people) making them super-human as you pointed out.

You can tailor how challenging Plopups are to capture based on how rare you want the enchantment to be. Maybe they are learning that they are being systematically trapped, and learn other techniques as well to escape the traps.

Answer 4

(near) naked mud wrestling

In your other questions you list a few pertinent details about Plopups' physiology and psychology:

1. Plopups "avoid alcohol because it makes them act like idiots" → they can be poisoned, specifically inebriated
2. Plopups' main attacks involve blunt force, they do not generally use tools
3. Plops can grow by digesting "dirt, dust, slime and grime", which they presumably ingest through their surface → they can ingest substances by contact
4. They display very anthropomorphic tendencies including obsession, irrational anger and classic, inefficient evil overlord behaviours.

I propose that the Plopups have a disproportionate sensitivity to alcohol, which they can absorb through skin contact. Humans barely absorb alcohol through their skin, so a monster slayer/cunning maiden can slather themselves with an alcohol-rich gel and then ensure... extensive... skin contact with the Plopup, which will become progressively less self-controlled, but no less physically powerful. Initial contact will need to take advantage of the Plopup's psychology, stringing it along such that it thinks that it's still in control of the situation and it is the one toying with the human, not the other way around. Great skill will be required to apply enough alcohol to render the Plopup fully intoxicated without it realising that it is being trapped.

So much for gaining the upper hand in the situation; actually consummating the hunt requires the hunter to either kill the giant regenerating slimeball with their bare hands (which as the OP says seems impractical) or to "be inside it when it is killed". The only way to kill a Plopup quickly and reliably seems to be high-temperature fire, like white phosphorus or thermite; the chemical preparation of white phosphorus is just about in reach of suitably clued-up fantasy alchemists. As such, the full hunting process consists of:

1. The lure (cunning maiden) makes contact with the target Plopup and through cunning and guile establishes herself as its target
2. She reverse-traps the Plopup into an encounter at a suitable location
3. She manages to apply a large amount of alcoholic gel and get that absorbed by the Plopup, without alerting it
4. The Plopup becomes increasingly inebriated, to the point that it eventually agrees to the (highly irrational) idea of enveloping the cunning maiden whole and unharmed
5. As soon as the consumption is complete, the lure's accomplices (stereotypically burly men, although anyone who can lift a large pot will do) burst in and douse the Plopup with white phosphorus.
6. The lure hopes to hell that the Plopup dies before either a) she dies of asphyxiation or hyperthermia, or b) the Plopup kills her out of spite. She'll then use the regenerative powers and speed of the Sevenfold Enchantment once she gains them to survive the rather tricky situation.

This doesn't actually require the lure to be particularly combat skilled, so it could be offered as a 'service' by a team of phosphorus-wielders. Wouldn't be my preferred vocation, but there's something out there to suit everyone...!

Answer 5

They beat it to the brink of death with weapons, then someone stomps it to death.

Simply put, in order to benefit from the Sevenfold Enchantment, the killing blow needs to to delivered with the human body, but the previous blows don't seem to matter.

So, for a human to get the enchantment, a bunch of dudes with swords and axes (who might themselves possess the Sevenfold Enchantment) surround it and begin chopping bits off until its been weakened enough that they can throw a piece of waterproofed cloth over it and pin it to the ground.

Then the person who was chosen to get the power walks up, stands on top of the cloth, and starts stomping on it until it dies.