by Ramy Vance
The spider-woman started backing away, pointing at the pearls. “Take them, but only if you come back one day. Soon.”
Suzuki went to the middle of the room where the pearls were. “Yeah, will do,” he lied. Then he took a good look at her, and now that they weren’t fighting, he noted that she was actually kind of hot. Her upper half, at least. Maybe he would come back. Then he thought about what she had done to the rat, and he shook his head.
He definitely wouldn’t be back.
As soon as he grabbed the pearls, Suzuki felt a fishhook in his stomach as the world swirled around him. When he tried to stand , vomit rose in his stomach. He held it down and looked around. He was back in the room with the elf. He pulled off his helmet and gasped for breath.
Adeline was sitting on the bed, her legs crossed tightly. She leaned forward and the fire in her eyes danced brightly. “Did you get them?”
Suzuki opened his hand. Three pearls the size of marbles were in his palm. “Just like I promised.”
The door of the room suddenly whipped open. A woman who looked exactly like Adeline, only older, was standing on the threshold. The older elf dropped the vase of flowers she was holding. Glass and water splattered everywhere. “Saran, what the hell are you doing? And you?” the elf at the door said. “Who the hell are you?”
“Look, Mom,” the girl said, holding out the pearls. “I found them. I did good, right? This means I’m no longer grounded?”
“Hell, no, young lady. First off, you were impersonating me again, and secondly—”
The mother elf launched into a rant, completely ignoring Suzuki and his pink mucus-covered body.
Suzuki sighed, sat on the bed, and hung his head. He almost wished he had stayed with the spider-woman. At least that was a relationship that made some sense to him.
Stew left the Last Ale to the sound of halflings and gnomes chanting The Wheels on the Bus. He saw a glimmer of light in the distance and ran toward it. Sandy was standing next to a barrel of ale. She was covered in sweat and panting loudly. “Come on. We should get going.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Levitation spells are just harder than I thought. Let’s go.”
Sandy and Stew made their way back to the Red Lion. Stew helped to drag or push the barrel of ale that Sandy levitated. As they walked, Sandy mimed playing air guitar. She stuck out her tongue as she gave Stew the rock and roll devil horns. “That was really cute. I didn’t know you could sing.”
“Really? I sing around you all the time.”
“Well, I knew you were capable of singing, I just didn’t know that you could sing. You have a nice voice.”
Stew smirked before breaking into a jazzy version of The Wheels on the Bus. Sandy laughed as they lugged the barrel back to the Red Lion. After half an hour or so, they were standing in front of the Inn. Stew opened the door and they managed to get the ale barrel back to where Jerry was waiting for them.
Jerry nearly pounced on the barrel. “You got it.”
Sandy took the top of the barrel off, leaned over, and inhaled deeply. She smiled as if the smell of the booze could cure all of the world’s ills. “Yep, we got it.”
A couple of MERCs had taken notice of Stew and Sandy. They looked at the ale and started snickering. Jerry was struggling to keep from laughing.
Stew looked around the bar at the MERCs, who seemed to be in on some joke. Even GB was laughing. Stew threw up his hands and spun, ready to challenge any MERC who was laughing at him. “Is there something that I’m missing?”
Wendy, the owner of the Red Lion, came out from behind the bar. She looked at the barrel of ale. “What do we have here?”
Jerry sauntered over and rested his hand on the opened container. “Got us a new batch of the Last Ale.”
“Finally. I’ve been waiting all weekend for this, Jerry.”
Wendy cast a levitation spell, and the barrel floated off the ground. She gestured toward the back of the bar, and the barrel floated in that direction.
Stew shut his eyes tight enough for them to water and scratched his forehead. “Wait, that was our quest. We were supposed to—”
Wendy turned to Jerry and jabbed her finger at him. “Jerry? Did you pull this shit on a newb again?”
Jerry and the rest of the bar burst into laughter. “I’m sorry. They’re just so green. It was hard not to. It makes so much more sense for a bunch of newbs to grab it than to waste my time.”
Sandy crossed her arms and electricity crackled off her. “I don’t quite see what’s so funny.”
Wendy shook her head and tried to hide her smile. “I’m sorry, hun. The Last Ale and Red Lion have been stealing these barrels back and forth from each other since we’ve been in business. It’s just a prank, that’s all.”
Wendy walked off, but not before shoving Jerry out of the way. Stew and Sandy stood there in silence for a few moments as the laughing crowd dispersed.
Jerry shrugged his shoulders, chuckling as he walked away. “Thanks for the help.”
Sandy threw her arms up in anger and started to storm off after Jerry before Stew grabbed her. She shouted, “I should kick your fucking ass!”
There was nothing left to do. Stew threw his arm over Sandy’s shoulder and kissed her on the forehead as he guided her to the front of the bar. “Come on. We were had. Let’s just go get a beer.”
Stew and Sandy shuffled over to the bar, hardly able to hold their heads up. Suzuki was already sitting at the bar, covered in pink slime. He looked at Stew and Sandy as the barbarian sat down with an explosion of air from the old seat cushion. “What happened to you?”
“Met a teen witch who was posing as her mom and spent the last four hours fighting a spider-chick for a couple of marbles.”
“Was she hot?” Sandy asked.
“She was a teenager.”
“I meant the spider-chick.”
“I think she wanted to mate with me.”
“So is that a yes or a no?”
“She was pretty hot. What about you guys?”
“Some asshole sent us on a beer run. Stew serenaded an entire bar of halflings, though.”
Stew pulled his HUD up and swiped through the inventory. A lute appeared in his hand. “It was pretty sick. Thought I might grab a souvenir at least.”
Wendy dropped off the Mundanes’ beers. “For yer trouble tonight. A drink on the house.”
Sandy groaned, looking down at her beer. Her brow was furrowed. “Fuckin’ MERCs.”
Chapter Five
The Mundanes sat at the bar for the better part of the night. They licked their wounds and tried to cheer each other up, to no avail. They watched other MERCs come in from their missions and leave on quests.
The bar had the movement of a buzzing bee colony. Wendy occasionally came by and dropped off a few drinks, but the Mundanes were hardly interested in eating or drinking.
The MERCs were generally avoiding the part of the bar where Mundanes were. Their anger was noticeably simmering, and a few MERCs in the corner joked that they could feel heat radiating from the Mundanes.
Suzuki felt incredibly stupid. When he had found out that a teenage elf had hoodwinked him, it took everything he had to leave the room without striking out. It was the first time that Suzuki had actually thought of fighting a MERC.
“So what exactly happened?” Stew asked.
Suzuki shook his head and sighed. Ideally, he would want to avoid going over the last embarrassing evening of his life. “I really don’t want to talk about.”
“Come on, we gave you all the details.”
“Your story was cool. Sandy got to play the thief, and you were a halfling rock star. Me? I just got tricked by a pre-teen.”
“You said she was a teenager.”
“How the fuck do you tell with an elf? They all look like they’re seventeen. And their seventeen is like three hundred on top of that.”
“So you’re saying she was definitely legal,” Sandy joked.
&nb
sp; “Honestly, I would have taken the spider-chick over either of them. At least she had the guts to fight her own battles.”
“You keep bringing up that spider-chick, dude. Did you really want to fuck her that bad?” Stew asked.
Suzuki shoved Stew and laughed while Stew tried to keep from falling off his chair. “Fuck off. She was pretty hot, though. In a Cronenberg kind of way.”
“So now what are we going to do? We can’t even tell which MERCs are going to give out real quests.”
“I never thought that I would want some goddamn bureaucracy,” Sandy moaned. “Just a couple of forms to fill out. Maybe a line to stand in. I’d stand in a five-hour line for a good quest. It would save me some time.”
“That’s your mom talking,” Stew said.
Sandy’s hands caught fire, and she grabbed Stew by the collar. “Stew, I’ve already spoken to you about the times when it is appropriate to mention my mother. Do you remember?”
Stew coughed nervously. “Yeah, I remember. Only when you’re—”
“And we mentioned when you were allowed to talk about that, remember?”
“Yes, Sandy.”
“Uh, you guys want to, um, do this somewhere else?”
Sandy released Stew, and he straightened in his chair. The collar of his tunic was singed. “No, we’re cool. So, what now? Do we just go talk to a new MERC?”
Suzuki waved Wendy over. She came and leaned on the counter. Suzuki tried not to notice her breasts practically spilling out of her top. “Hey, Wendy? Where do the newbs like us get any quests from?”
Wendy poured herself a drink and pulled up a stool to sit on. “Newbs getting quests? Psh, most newbs are lucky if they even get to go on a mission unsupervised. I’ve been surprised that Milos vouched for you three so quickly.” Wendy leaned over and pinched Suzuki’s cheeks. “You’ve just got to bide your time, hon. Kind of like your Sleeping Beauty who set up shop in the stove.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You haven’t heard? They say she’s been pacing back and forth in her web, writing you love poems.”
Suzuki slapped Wendy’s hand away as she walked off, chuckling. “I’m never going to hear the end of this. Hey, Sandy. You’re pretty close to Diana, aren’t you? Why don’t you just ask her for a quest?”
“We could give that a shot,” Sandy said. “The Four Horsemen are supposed to be getting back from the field soon.”
Suzuki looked down at his trashed clothes and wiped a bit of dried mucus off his cheeks. “All right, let’s give that a try. I’m going to go get cleaned up. A bath sounds like a great idea.”
Stew turned his head and pinched his nose. “It could help with the smell.”
“What did you say?”
“You smell like baked shit.”
“Why, thank you.”
Stew laughed and shoved Suzuki away. “Get the fuck out of here. Whenever you stop smelling like ass, we’ll be here.”
Suzuki left Sandy and Stew at the bar and made his way upstairs. He found his room and locked the door. There was a bathtub tucked into the corner of the room.
He took off his shirt and pants, dropping them in a pile near the bath. His chest was covered in small scars and burns, as were his arms.
He started to draw his bath, checking to see if the water was a temperature he liked. Even his hands were slightly torn up.
He walked over to the full-length mirror and looked at himself. His eyes looked older, and the boyish chub that had once been on his face was gone. His arms and his chest were defined. Muscular, even. He looked good. The best he’d ever looked.
At the end of the day, being in Middang3ard is doing wonders for my self-esteem, he mused.
Suzuki had always hated how scrawny he looked, making New Year's resolution after New Year's resolution that this would be the year he’d work out. That had never happened.
Then Middang3ard had come out, and the getting-fit plan went out the window.
Still, Middang3ard had given Suzuki something to focus on, something that had been all-consuming. Middang3ard VR had been like someone had breathed life into all the fantasy worlds he had grown up in.
Now the real thing was kicking his ass. Suzuki traced his hands over a large scar that ran down the middle of his chest. That had happened just a few days ago when a giant had hit him so hard with a club that it had practically split his chest open.
Suzuki examined that scar with pride. It was proof that he was starting to fit in here.
But that was the other thing about Middang3ard. Wounds healed quickly here. On Earth, he would have been bedridden for months. Here, he was ready to go a couple days later. Middang3ard not only made them stronger and faster, but it also made them way hardier.
Still, even though they could take more damage, they could also die here, Suzuki reminded himself, as he dipped his toes in the bathwater. It was hot. He took a deep breath, held it, and then slid into the water.
His muscles instantly thanked him. This was the most relaxed he had felt in days.
He tapped his HUD and brought up a book that Sandy had given to him. It was a history of the Kingdom of Ezrakal. The book was mostly focused on the warrior conclave of the empire. There were detailed notes on the spells that the warrior-mages had created and how they had used them in battle.
The book also included a compendium of battle tactics that had been used by the empire.
Sandy was really investing in understanding the realm of Middang3ard. Suzuki appreciated it, and her enthusiasm was starting to rub off on all of them. Suzuki still hadn’t seen Stew pick up a book, but he was starting to ask questions and watch vids. That was good enough.
Suzuki thought about how his whole perspective on Middang3ard had changed so drastically since he’d first arrived. He no longer felt overwhelmed with all of the new rules and physics and shit like that.
He also didn’t look up to the MERCs the way he had when he was back on Earth. Online message boards had been full of stories of the “heroic MERCs.” People thought they were Earth’s last defense.
Even when he had been recruited, he had been told that MERCs did the hard work that the military didn’t want to risk.
Since Suzuki had been in Middang3ard, all he had seen was that the MERC recruits were basically just exterminators. He didn’t want to be bitter about having to pay his dues. But after today, it was very hard not to feel that he and the Mundanes were being taken advantage of. Milos had told Suzuki that the MERCs had been watching him and the Mundanes playing Middang3ard VR for a few years.
What exactly were they watching for? To see how quickly they could rid a room of mobs? The whole idea seemed extremely bizarre, almost as if the MERCs were intentionally taking advantage of Suzuki and the Mundanes.
That was enough of that thinking. It wasn’t getting Suzuki anywhere, and he knew it.
This wasn’t helping Beth at all.
Suzuki pulled up the last video Beth had sent him, the one that had for some reason been sent and re-sent to him every few hours. There he saw her face staring back at him. Her face was dirty, and her eyes sullen. She looked exhausted.
Even with a mask of stress, she was still the most beautiful woman Suzuki had ever seen. He thought back to the first time he had seen her. It was outside Myrddin’s complex, a couple of days after they had beaten the last dungeon of Middang3ard VR. She had called out and he’d turned around—and there she was, more stunning even than she had seemed in Middang3ard.
That had been months ago, before she had been accepted into the military and the rest of the Mundanes had been rejected. Beth was the only reason they had all gotten to Middang3ard.
She had pulled some strings, and Manny, the Beholder, had shown up on his doorstep in all his many-eyed glory. Now she was off the grid, and the army had declared her dead.
Suzuki, however, knew she was still out there and that he had to find her. That was all that mattered, not the sophomoric games that the MERCs were intent
on playing.
Getting to Beth was what was important.
Suzuki stood up and grabbed his towel. He yelped and jumped back in fear. A giant spider was next to his towel. Suzuki knelt down to get a better look. It was a giant spider with the body of a woman. Her many eyes stared up at Suzuki.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Suzuki said as he toweled off and left the room. He got dressed and went downstairs to look for Sandy and Stew, who were still sitting at the bar. Stew didn’t even bother to look at Suzuki when he sat down.
“You guys ready to go try this thing with the Horsemen?” Suzuki asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be to meet Jesus.”
Sandy pulled her hair back and started to braid it down her shoulder. “Stew, he’s not Jesus. He’s just been here forever.”
“And he’s invincible.”
Despite Suzuki’s own fanboying over José, listening to Stew fawn over him was slightly irritating. “He’s not invincible. I saw him come back a few days ago covered in cuts.”
“Okay, maybe not invincible, but unkillable. You’ve heard what everyone says about him.”
“Just because everyone repeats the same rumors doesn’t mean that they’re true.”
“You’re just saying that because people are gonna start saying you wanna fuck a spider. Besides, we shouldn’t go with Sandy. She’ll just embarrass us.”
Sandy’s eyes went wide with indignation. “What do you mean I’m going to embarrass us? I’m the one who knows Diana.”
“You have the hots for José,” Stew said. “It’s really fucking obvious.”
Sandy turned away. “He’s just cool. Everyone thinks he is.”
“Hardly. Besides, I don’t want to go over there and talk to the Son of God. I’m a Buddhist. It goes against my religion.”
Suzuki sighed and stood up from his chair. “Stew, you are not a Buddhist.”
“How do you know?” Stew asked.
Sandy slammed her hands on the table and towered over Stew. There was a darkness in her eyes usually reserved only for the vermin she crushed under her feet. “Stew, we know you don’t believe in the Buddha or anything,”
