by Dante Steel
But that was when he did see water. At the bottom of the hill was a tiny bit of water.
The lost ocean? But that was barely too mouthfuls!
Gary pushed more and more sand aside and even fell to his knees to shovel the sand away. More and more water appeared, and then before him, somehow, part of the desert faded away, and all he saw was a small pond of vibrant blue water. Above him was some light, although he couldn’t see a source of the illumination.
When he dropped his gaze back to the water, he spied a beautiful woman in the waves. She was visible from the waist up, naked, her boobs perfectly round and massive. Her face was perfect, almost too perfect, her lips bright red, her nose slim, her skin tanned.
“Hello, adventurer,” she said in a soft, lyrical voice.
“Is this the lost ocean?” he asked.
“It is.” She nodded. “Won’t you join me in the waters?”
“Aren’t you supposed to give me another quest?” he asked.
“Yes, in time. First, let’s swim. We can race. I haven’t had anyone to race with in some time.” She laid back on the water, floating, her boobs sticking straight up. Her nipples were so hard, and so was Gary’s cock. He shouldn’t want her. She was just a part of the game, but there was no way that any red-blooded guy could see her and not be turned on unless he was gay.
“I don’t think I’m up for a swim,” he muttered.
“No?” She swam over to him, somehow keeping her boobs above the water the entire time. “You don’t want to race? What do you want to do?”
Was it his imagination, or had her gaze fallen to his bulge? That was impossible. She was an NPC. She… She mustn’t be the mermaid after all. She was the siren, and she was trying to lure him to his death.
Gary grimaced. Of course. His cock had gotten him into so much hot water with the women he loved, and now, his cock had almost gotten him killed because of the siren. How the hell was he supposed to kill her, and where was the mermaid?
Chapter Nine
Gary tried to think about everything he knew about sirens. Didn’t they sing? They loved to lure men to watery graves. He was certain about that even before the wizard’s warning. He doubted the mermaid could drown.
“Come in the water,” she said. “I can help you.”
“Help me?”
“I can make all of your dreams come true,” she whispered.
“You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know my dreams.”
She giggled and touched her boobs. “You are a male. Every male wants to lay with a mermaid.”
“You…” He didn’t want to say that she was a siren. That she didn’t realize that he knew could only be to his advantage.
What the hell kind of game was this, though? Gary sure as hell hoped kids weren’t playing it. Come to think of it, he did think the game was rated M for mature. Good. Then again, he was sure a ton of teenagers were playing, young ones, and if this issue was made available to the general public, Gary was sure a ton of guys would die at the hands of the siren because she really did look close to the perfect woman.
She came right up to the water’s edge, inches from him, pressing her hands to the sand and lifting up, thrusting out her perfect boobs.
“Go ahead and touch,” she said. “I haven’t felt a man’s hands on my body in so long.”
“I bet you say that to all the guys.”
She tilted her head to the side. “There aren’t any other guys here beside you. Please. Come here. Come to me.”
Gary knelt down and touched her face. He had to admit that a part of him did want to touch her boobs, but he didn’t. Instead, he grabbed the back of her neck with his other hand, squeezing, but he wasn’t trying to choke her to death. He merely wanted to hold her in place as he slammed half of the sand wall directly on top of her and most importantly into her mouth and nose.
The siren jerked, trying to get free, her face twisting into something unspeakably ugly and terrifying. Her veins turned black, and her body seemed to age until she had nothing but sad flaps of flesh for what had once been her mesmerizing boobs.
And then, she continued to grow even older until she dissolved into dust, at least the human half of her body. The fin turned into sea foam, and she was no more.
Gary banished the sand away from the water. Now what? He needed to find the mermaid, but he wasn’t sure where she might be.
Leaving his clothes on but first removing his boots, Gary descended into the water after all. He wasn’t a great swimmer, but he could tread water easily enough.
Just then, something brushed against his leg. He jerked, nearly falling into the water, and then a head appeared. The woman’s hair was bright, golden yellow, not blond but more colorful than that. Her eyes were teal, and she looked young, maybe sixteen.
“Hello, adventurer! I am Nissa, the mermaid. Thank you for saving these waters from that terrible siren!”
“Is this the lost ocean?” he asked.
“What is left of it.” Nissa lowered her head in sorrow but then smiled. “I have a quest for you.”
“Lay it on me.”
“Far to the south is a volcano. The Fire God, Pyronus, plans to cause the volcano to erupt. You must defeat him!”
Gary rubbed the back of his neck. The water was a perfect temperature, but he felt rather cold. “Uh, don’t vampires hate fire? Maybe the volcano erupting isn’t such a terrible thing.”
“The volcano is so high and tall and powerful that the entire world will be covered in ash. The waters, what few sources of them that are left, will be all be destroyed. You will die.”
“That sounds… lovely. Great. Okay. Volcano God. Check. Then do I come back to you or…”
“Save the world, adventurer. Maybe because of your actions, this barren wasteland can once more teem with life.”
“That won’t happen with vampires around.”
She nodded. “Which is why you will one day have to kill them all. I know you can rise to the occasion and become the superhero this world needs!”
“What happened to make this land so—”
The mermaid had already dove into the water and was swimming away.
“—barren?” he finished with a sigh. “Maybe powerless wizard knows, not that I expect it’ll be easy to get a straight answer out of him. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m just wanting to make sense of everything since my life is such a mess. Maybe I should stop talking to myself.”
Gary swam out of the water, grabbed his boots, and started walking. The heat bore down on him, and the darkness quickly descended the farther from the lost ocean he went. Once he was dry, he put his boots back on and headed southward.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem to take a long time to go far enough to see the volcano in the distance. Even more wonderful was the fact that he seemed to have renewed energy, and he wasn’t hungry or thirsty. Maybe the ocean waters had revived him.
Above the volcano was a bright red color that tinged the darkness above it. There was some light here, nothing compared to the bright of day where the lost ocean had been. Still, it was a welcome sight compared to all of the blackness around him.
Before Gary could take another step, a man with dark skin stood before him. More like towered over him. The guy was at least eight feet tall, and he was built like a body builder. He wore no shirt, and tattoos covered his muscles. All he wore was a small loin cloth that barely covered his unmentionables. Gary didn’t look there for long.
The man’s face was gnarled, old, his eyes as dark as coals. His hair was a fiery red-orange color.
“Oh, God of Fire,” Gary said. “Nice to meet you.”
“You will die. My volcano will erupt and bury this land and—”
“Yeah, because everyone wants to rule over a large piece of volcanic ash. Seems kinda boring to me. If I were you, I would have fireballs rain down from the sky and kill off all of the vampires. Then, this entire place could be yours and yours alone.”
“I do not care about the vampires.
They leave me be. You are here. You will die.”
And the Fire God held out his hand. A massive fireball the size of Gary burst out.
Gary barely had time to jump out of the way, but already another enormous fireball was heading his way.
He couldn’t just avoid all of them. There had to be a way to kill the Fire God, but how?
Gary darted and dashed out of the way of five more fireballs. One nearly singed him, and the heat from each as they blew by was almost enough to catch Gary on fire. With a wild yell, he raced toward the Fire God as if he wanted to rail him like a lineman in football. At the last second, he halted and brought up a wall of sand. Sand versus fire, Gary wasn’t sure which would win, but he shoved the sand back and back and back, and the fireball didn’t make it through.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gary spied the Fire God. He had changed positions and was ready to send another fireball Gary’s way. Gary set up another wall of sand and three more, effectively putting the Fire God into a box of sand.
But the Fire God merely laughed and somehow rose above it. He floated over toward Gary, and Gary realized he wasn’t flying after all. He was standing on a platform of fire, the column of fire extending to touch the ground.
Oh, crap. This wasn’t going to be fun.
For five minutes, Gary tried to stay alive while attempting to come up with a plan, and then, he had it.
“Too late,” the Fire God shouted with a laugh. “It won’t be much longer until my volcano is ready to blast this entire world into a new age!”
“The Age of Ashes ain’t gonna happen, bud,” Gary said.
Gary gathered up the sand as he had before, but this time, he caused it to move, to circle, to spin faster and faster until his own sand tornado formed. He slammed his creation into the fire column, and now, his was that of fiery sand.
The Fire God collapsed and immediately jumped to his feet. He tried to take control away from the fiery sand twister because of the nature of the flames, but Gary merely sped up the tornado’s spinning so that the fire was blown out.
Then, although the tornado was becoming difficult to control, Gary managed to suck up the Fire God. The deity tried to cast his fire, but Gary wouldn’t let him, spinning the funnel even faster now.
It took everything in Gary to force the twister toward the volcano. It wasn’t easy, and several times, the funnel fell back down. Finally, Gary managed. The tornado reached the highest portion of the volcano, and Gary forced the particles to stop spinning, to be just sand without wind, and the sand, a ton of it, all flooded down onto the volcano.
The steam from it died away. The red tinge to the darkness above was gone. If anything, the sky here was gray versus black, a little lighter.
A slight explosion sounded from within the volcano, but nothing happened except some of the sand coughed out of the volcano before falling back inside.
Either the volcano had tried to erupt and hadn’t been able to because of the literal ton of sand on top of it, or the Fire God had died. Or maybe both.
Grinning, Gary took one step away from the volcano and collapsed. The energy from the lost ocean waters? Yeah, that was gone. He was so tired that all he could do was sleep.
Chapter Ten
When Gary woke, he wasn’t sure what to do at first. He was so disoriented that he thought he might be ready to sleep again. Sleep forever. That seemed like a solid plan.
But no. He couldn’t. There might be more terrible creatures out there besides the vampires. I mean, sirens and fire gods? What’s next?
He almost didn’t want to know.
Gary headed in the direction where he thought he might find the wizard since he didn’t know what else to do. How long had he been in the game already? He wanted to sleep, but did that mean it was night, or that he was overworked? The sky always looked the same, but he did think it was maybe a little lighter than before. Was that what passed for day here?
Gradually, his surroundings became familiar to him. He bypassed many of the dead creatures he had killed along the way, so he must be going in the right direction. Eventually, he climbed a tall hill and glanced around to ensure he was still on the right track. Yes, this was near where he had first arrived in this Vampire War.
For some reason, this sparked him, and he rushed to that exact spot, hoping to find some sign that another gamer had traveled through… or another person.
But he saw nothing. No footprints in the sand. Nothing at all. Granted, there was a slight breeze, and his own footprints weren’t the easiest to see, but still. Gary’s shoulders slumped in defeat. It was fun to defeat these quests by himself, but it would be even more fun with someone, and he was so worried about all of them, especially Elena. Smaug was vindictive. He would come after them again if given the chance. He wasn’t the kind to forgive and forget. The guy has to be a Virgo. Gary shuddered. One girl he had known from school before he dropped out had been obsessed with the zodiac and stereotypically judged everyone. She thought she was better than everyone until another girl who had supposedly been her best friend had pointed out the flaws of her own sign—Virgo. That she was the kind to hold grudges for her entire life, for her to not be able to forgive or forget, to not handle being burned well, and so many other things.
Gary didn’t worry about signs, but he had to admit, that Virgo did seem like Smaug. Not like that knowledge would help him against the guy. Not like I plan on going up against him again anyhow.
Just then, the faint sound of crying came to him. It sounded like it was coming from the left, and Gary slowly approached, wary, mindful of his surroundings. He spied a large rock, and just over it was some hair. A person.
An NPC? An enemy? Or someone else?
He walked over, ready to create a wall of sand to act as shield, when he realized who the crier was.
Elena.
Gary dropped to his knees and held out his arms. Elena was crying so hard that she didn’t even see him there. To see the strong woman so broken bothered Gary so much. He stood and walked over to her and carefully draped an arm across her shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, hoping he wouldn’t startle her.
She didn’t even lift her head. Her knees were bent, her arms wrapped around them. Her head rested against her knees as she cried.
“Elena? Talk to me. Please. I hate to see you like this.”
“I don’t… want to talk,” she managed.
“Then we won’t.”
He just sat there, holding her as she cried for quite some time. He didn’t care that his arm fell asleep or that his back ached. It was nothing compared to the obvious heartache she was experiencing. He hoped he hadn’t been the cause of her devastation and wouldn’t ever forgive himself if he were.
Gradually, her sobs became sniffles, and she wiped away her tears somewhat. He wiped away more and cradled her face, but he didn’t say a word, waiting until she was ready.
“I… I don’t want to talk,” she said.
“Then don’t.”
“But I might… I’ll have to eventually.” She stiffened. “I fucking hate this.”
He hadn’t heard her curse before, and it seemed a little out of place. Then again, he could picture her cussing out chauvinistic pigs so maybe it wasn’t so wrong for her after all.
“I’m in the game, right? Haru didn’t give me much time. He said it was now or never, that everything was perfectly aligned, and I didn’t understand the science behind it. He had called me up over the phone and asked for us to meet. He had explained who he was and that he had a question for me. I thought it was a survey, but he said he had a car waiting for me outside to take me over to him if I was ready.”
“Because that’s not creepy at all,” Gary muttered.
Elena chuckled and then winced, her eyes filling with tears once more. She angrily blinked them away. It took her a moment to be able to speak again.
“I told him that and even hung up on him. He called back immediately, and I cursed him out, and
he said it was about you. So I went.”
“Wow.”
“Don’t get a fat head,” she snapped.
“I think my head is just the right size,” he said.
“Of course you do.” She didn’t smile.
He felt terrible. No more jokes, no more teasing. This was something bad, clearly.
“So I went over, and he explained you were in the game and got me to believe it. That was when he didn’t give me much time at all to decide if I were to go into the game, too. I guess he might’ve asked someone else if I said no. I don’t know. But I said yes, and he wouldn’t let me call my family or anything. I had a bag put over my head, and I was brought into a room. I was laid down, strapped down to a table. At least I think I was, and then, I was given a shot, and I don’t know what happened next.”
“Other than waking up in the game.”
“Other than waking up in the game,” she agreed, nodding. “I was on that table, getting a shot, and then I was standing in your room, watching you sleep.”
Gary did his best not to think about what had happened next, how she had climbed into bed with him, waking him up even though he thought it a dream, and them making love for the first time of many.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t say goodbye to your family,” he murmured.
She began to cry again, not quite as hard as before. It took her a few times before she could speak. “I saw Olivia after I… I explained to her about being in the game.”
Before or after he had spoken with Olivia? He guessed it didn’t matter when.
“I asked her to get in touch with my family, to cover for me, to tell them that I was staying with her or something like that. I didn’t want them to worry. I… I’ve never done anything so impulsive like this before in my life. Well, as long as you don’t consider the time that I decked a guy for trying to lift my skirt. Turned out, he was a cop’s brother, and he tried to get me put in jail.” She tilted her head to the side. “Come to think of it, I don’t wear a lot of skirts now…”
“I don’t blame you. Men are pigs.”
