DoucheMage

by Damien Hanson

  The thing had the wherewithal, unfortunately, to rear back and stuff several of its lamprey tentacles in before it tried to swallow Nicole and Casino whole. Robby Robber immediately vanished, Cornholen slapped one aside with his bo staff and a loud, fake martial arts yell, and Morelon produced a short sword and hacked one down with a Skirmish roll of 1, 3, and 8.

  “Battle wizard sees your tentacle and delivers it unto the Land of the Dead,” he yelled. Unfortunately the creature didn’t take any clock segments of damage.

  Nicole and Casino surged forward and swung true, because five of the ten segments of this thing’s HP clock suddenly filled up.

  The creature roared and used Cornholen’s tentacle to pull Casino off her feet. It then began dragging her toward its gaping, people-eating sized maw. Cornholen shouted a curse, sprang forward, and caught her hands, while Nicole rammed her sword home yet again. Three more segments flashed and filled in, but the thing fell back, yanked Casino further toward it, then flashed forward again and bit down hard on a leg. Casino screamed like the thing was coming off.

  Brian, with a few quick hand movements, brought up his settings menu and checked over the haptic pain response. As he figured, since the quest was one of the highest in the entire gameworld, it was ramped up high, and couldn’t be set lower until they abandoned quest or got to a lower difficulty level.

  Cornholen, in the same moment, turned a look of absolute hatred so vile, so nasty, that the game recommended Brian roll Will or suffer a level 1 emotional Harm: Intimidated.

  He was saved a moment later when the dragon glowed brighter still, and bright enough to make Cornholen impossible to see, before a searing blast of light shot out of its mouth and seared a molten hole through the tentacle creature’s entire body. The final two segments flashed before the clock disappeared and he was given an XP.

  Their position had gone from Controlled to Risky, and Nicole bent to examine the fighter’s chomped leg.

  “It’s septic,” Nicole said. “I’ll need to do a purifying spell on it, then try to heal it. I don’t have a ton of Spell Points and it’s going to draw more enemies.”

  “It really hurts!” Casino yelled. “Fuck!”

  “Somebody else is gonna get cornholed if this isn’t fucking fixed right now!” Cornholen proclaimed.

  “Where’s my widdle protector? Mommy needs– ow!” In the AR, her leg was a mess of blood and mangled armor plating and torn pants. Her little pudding cup crept toward her writhing mommy and snuggled in at the crook of her shoulder.

  Nicole was busy using her first spell to cleanse the wound, but Brian kept an eye out for new challenges. While Nicole’s hands began to glow with magical energy, and Casino kept up a steady stream of both swearing mixed with cooing to her sweet widdle muffin. Their craft took an abrupt turn.

  “We’re entering the colon,” he declared, and noted the flood of juices heading straight for them. He wouldn’t put it past the game designers here to add new segments to the destination clock for getting pushed backwards. Which was unacceptable. He searched for a spell in the grimoire to give them a burst of speed.

  “Uh, bro, are you seeing this?” Robby Robber asked miserably.

  He hadn’t noticed the walls around them, but aside from pulsing with rhythmic movement and the rush of fluids, he hadn’t noticed… the sucking leech monsters all over the place.

  These new creatures were maybe a foot or two long each, and stuck to the walls by teeny barbed feet. They pulsated from front to back, and a quick Study roll of 7 and 8 provided him with a detailed schematic of the sucking mouth on the end of the thing, which wasn’t too different than the sucking tentacles on the first creature, except they had a triangle configuration of teeth.

  “Bad news,” he called.

  “It couldn’t possibly–”

  “They can take control of your body if they attach anywhere near your spinal column. Plus we have to keep moving forward.”

  “I guess it could possibly. Douche, your quest is the worst!”

  Several leeches plopped onto the top of the suppository and grappled on with their tiny spines. Another clock began, for them chewing through the ceiling of their craft, but Brian wasn’t paying attention. He found a spell, not a perfect one, but it would have to do. The invisible disc of force was made to carry things for you while you walked, or help you hover up to six feet off the ground, but he positioned it on its side with a roll of Command, Will or Lore. Lore again. This time he rolled a 7, 8, and 9.

  Note to self, he thought. Good luck won’t last forever.

  “Hang on tight,” he called.

  “To what?” Robby asked.

  Then they were jerked backwards as the disc began to propel them steadily toward the treasure they sought.

  ***

  Nicole was tapping at the Stress trigger to give her an extra die for her Medicine roll when several things happened all at once: their vehicle shot forward from Brian’s spell, but it also hit a bump at the exact same time. This meant the front of it rose in the air and slapped against several gigantic leeches, and more than a few popped off the ceiling and fell directly into her lap. Another few right on Casino the Warriorish Princess. So while the clock for reaching their destination ticked up another few segments, they had other things to deal with.

  “Guys?” she called. “A little help here!”

  Casino’s adorable widdle muffin hugger pounced on the first leech and tore it off its mommy, then swallowed the thing whole. The taste must’ve been something else though, because it recoiled and started spitting out tiny gouts of flame over and over. Cornholen was also there, slapping one aside with his bo staff and out the hole it came from. Two down, about a dozen to go.

  She couldn’t just let the healing spell go. It was on a four segment clock and would take several Spell Points to–

  One of them started to crawl up her leg and toward her breastplate.

  “Guys! It’s on me!”

  “I can’t let the spell go,” Brian called. “Robby, get off your ass and do something.”

  Their clock to reach the treasure was over halfway filled now, though it wouldn’t matter much if they were all under bodily control by shit-eating leeches.

  A haggard, gagging Robby Robber came over and sliced one of them in half, while her hands glowed with greenish white healing energy that smelled strongly of menthol. He mumbled something about too many rounds… and did just he mutter ‘pirate hookers’?

  One of them reared up like a cobra and hissed at Robby, which immediately caused him to fall back and begin tossing his cookies all over again. It then turned back to fall back on Nicole’s leg and began tasting her. Apparently it didn’t like the thick blue steel plate she had over her thigh, because it crawled up and then nudged her shirt up.

  “This is so gross!” she shouted. “Get it off me!”

  The Medicine roll didn’t go well enough, only a 1, 3, and 5, so only one healing segment filled in. Meanwhile Casino was sitting up and slashing at every leech on her. They fell dead by twos and threes, which would’ve been great except for the one getting up under her breastplate and she could feel its slimy body on her skin. Real or not, haptic bodysuit or not, she could feel it.

  “Come on come on come on come on,” she chanted, and made the Medicine roll go again. It was wrapping itself around her stomach toward her back. The dice clattered, and rolled up a 5, 7, and 10. Thank the gaming gods! The remaining three segments filled in, and Casino’s flesh knitted itself back together instantly.

  “Morelon?” She called. “I– ohhh!”

  Tiny pinpricks sank into the base of her spine, just above her buttcrack.

  She rose, went over towards Brian, and began wildly dancing in his face. Arms swinging with abandon, legs pumping up and down, body twisting back and forth right in front of him. What was this thing doing? Trying to get him to lose his concentration?

  Apparently yes, because a moment later she started humping the air toward him. She swung her arms
around in wild circles and kicked up her feet like a go-go dancer. Then when that failed, she leaped at him.

  “Nicole, back off!” he shouted.

  “It’s not me! I’m not doing this!” Except she had zero control over her own body.

  The game was flooding her body with mild muscle relaxers so as not to damage her body, and in the meantime it moved her to tackle him around the legs and slam her forehead into his crotch.

  That did it. The suppository slowed to a crawl as Brian’s concentration failed, and the spell died out. He threw her off him, over to where Brian’s three accomplices were hacking at all the leeches that had gotten in.

  “It’s a leech,” she moaned, “It got me.”

  He hands slithered up his legs and over his freshly head-butted crotch. Now instead of one slimy worm under her skin, she added another.

  Suddenly she was yanked up off Brian and held by Robby and Casino.

  “Morelon, get the leech off her!” Casino said, while Robby still looked ready to barf everywhere.

  “Yes, get it off me! It feels sooo grooooosss, ewwwww!”

  “I don’t know where it is!”

  “Tear all her clothes off,” Casino suggested, with a waggled eyebrow. “You’ve been wanting to anyway.”

  “Hang on a second,” Nicole cried. “Isn’t there another way?”

  “This is for the best, honey,” Casino told her.

  “Still not convinced,” she replied.

  “It’s just a game,” Casino the Warriorish Princess breathed. Yeah, a game she would get a recording of, a game she and her pervy fiance and their pervy third wheel friend would be able to play back and forward for the rest of their days. There was a zero percent chance Nicole wouldn’t become an internet porn sensation if Brian did this.

  “Eyes closed everybody,” Brian commanded. She didn’t challenge his Command, and was thankful for the blinding reddish orange that came soon. In the next instant, all her armor exploded away from her body, and her clothes were wrenched upwards or downwards. With her eyes still jammed closed, a moment later she heard the hissing death rattle of a gigantic leech being crushed to death, and the weird pinpricks fall away from just above her butt. Her clothes then slid back on, and the armor fastened itself back onto her body.

  She sank to her knees and peered up at Brian, who had a bandanna tied around two glowing eyes. He held out a hand and helped her to her feet.

  ***

  Brian propelled their unusual craft through the next sharp turn in the colon and to what he thought was probably the final stretch.

  On his HUD, only a few segments remained on their clock, which meant they were nearing their destination.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “All Sight, Blinding Light, followed by Improved Telekinesis, and finally Crushing Grip,” he said. Honestly, her modesty had cost him far more SP than he wanted to give up, what with the concentration penalty and rapid casting. He was down to eight. It was like being a level one character again.

  “They didn’t see anything?” she murmured, very close.

  “Nobody saw anything, not even me.”

  She wrapped him in a tight hug, and whispered, “Thank you.”

  They had about a minute of respite, all told, and while it wasn’t actually much time, it felt like a good stretch. Robby slumped down on his butt and swallowed several times, until Nicole went and used a spell to make him feel better. Whatever real alcohol and dehydration combo was clogging up his system, the game had a remedy for that, because by the time the boss struck, he was back on his feet. Casino had a moment to roll around their makeshift butt boat with the dragon, while Cornholen admired and then got involved. As for Morelon the Learned, he was nearing the end of his endurance. He’d avoided Harm several times and was now at Less Effect. He just hoped these idiots would finally pull their weight. He didn’t have much in the tank.

  So when a massive tapeworm came into view, easily four feet thick and stretching out into infinity, he dredged up a huge sigh, and his shoulders slumped.

  Cornholen had no idea the thing was there, apparently, because he sidled over. “Where’re we headed anyway? Where’s the McGuffin?”

  “Unless I’m mistaken, the appendix.”

  “What makes you think it’s oohhh my God!”

  A great white worm wrapped the suppository in its segmented coils and began squeezing. Its enormous mouth came rushing up to swallow the whole pill, into a gullet that resembled nothing more than a series of spikes. He immediately spent two Stress Points to take on the fear it would engender, and rolled 1, 2, and 9. It was enough.

  “You ever seen a sea turtle?” he asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Cornholen screamed. Clearly he’d failed his roll. “Holy mother of God what is that?”

  “They eat jellyfish,” he said. “Their mouths look exactly like this. Fun fact: the jellyfish make them high. Great, right?”

  “You’re out of your mind!”

  He readied his spell, and threw out a Wreck of 3 and 4. Nothing. Ugh, the nerve of this game. His next try went up to 5 and 10. That was more like it. A lance of fire went straight through the oncoming mouth, and for a moment it fell back, before it lunged again. This time he went with a huge sticky web stretched across the whole colon, a massive spell that leeched the rest of his Spell Points out. He picked Will and ended up with a 1 and a 7. The creature went straight through the constricting, arm-thick grey strands of webbing, and tried to reach them, only to stop just a hand’s length short. Casino and Robby shot forward, straight for the thing’s final few hit points.

  Brian turned and beheld the appendix, a room approximately ten feet around and maybe forty in length. And in it, up a set of stairs and on a raised, ornate plinth, the Supple Orb of Boobsight.

  His for the taking.

  Chapter 12- The Supple Orb of Boobsight

  “That, right there, is a breast implant,” Robby declared. “If anyone knows breast implants, it’s Robby the no-longer-six-fingered Robber. I knew this one stripper out of St. Louis–”

  Brian batted the others aside and strode up the stairs to pick up the Supple Orb. All that trouble for a handful of silicone.

  “Go on,” he told it. “Show me what you got.”

  A screen materialized in the air before him with various selections of the raunchiest sorts of porn imaginable. Welcome to YouStreamIt Triple X, the welcome screen announced.

  Yep, that would do it.

  When he came back to reality, he found the other four (and the dragon) staring at him.

  “We went into a butthole for that?” Robby demanded.

  “I got bitten by a giant tentacle tooth mouth… thing!” Casino said.

  “I made up a fuckin suppository boat… for that? I mean porn I get, but, bro, you could literally order up a whole harem of pixies to make you fly. An entire town of halflings for you to slip the sausage into the bun. A clan of orc women to smash in a tent. A whole coven of witches to toil your trouble…”

  “Curtis!”

  “Ya-ark!” The dragon said, and belched a little lick of flame.

  But with Nicole it was the worst. The mixture of disappointment and confusion scrawled across her face were hard to handle.

  “I… I have to go take a shower forever.” She brought out her holy tome of VIP Services tablet, and promptly stepped out of reality. She might’ve even still been there, in this gross, incongruous appendix citadel, but even if she screamed bloody murder, the game would damp it down to nothing.

  “Bro what the–“

  “Let me explain.” He rolled a Command with a 5 and 8, which worked well enough.

  They had the option to resist the consequence, but without enough stress they’d go into Trauma, where their character would shut down and they wouldn’t be able to do anything for a time.

  He told them about Psythulian, and his deal with the ultimate baddie who really just wanted to crank a few out in return for the mother of all artifacts. H
e could tell by the blank look on Paige’s face she had no idea what it was about, but the boys got it.

  A lightning bolt suddenly struck his brain. “You want to meet him?”

  ***

  One level up, full Spell Points, and another mass teleport later, he was standing just outside the monster’s throne room with the Three Muskyteers in tow. Robby was walking back and forth, watching the portraits of the coders for this game world shift from sword and sorcery monsters to their portraits and back.

  “Fucking dope,” he breathed.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Brian told them, and shoved open the great oaken doors as he’d done only a few days prior. Psythulian, with its massive green octopus head, its hunchback covered over with a thick bathrobe, and a pipe easily eighteen inches long, turned while holding a snifter of brandy.

  “Ah,” the creature said. “I shee you’ve brought company.”

  “This,” Robby said, deadpan. “This is the greatest enemy this place has on offer?”

  “If you inshisht I can drive you mad with a twitch of the tentaclesh.” He turned to Brian. “Have you shecured the Shupple Orb, shir wishard?”

  Brian produced it, wary of any tricks the Cthulhu monster might have up its slimy, cushy robe sleeves. No attack came, nor did minions of Psythulian rush in from the shadows to seize him or attempt to murder him for it. Instead, the creature twitched a hand, reached through a slight tear in reality, and produced Darian’s Transmogrifier. Seconds later the two artifacts were floating across the room. The SOB landed in the clammy hands of a boss monster, while Brian finally had what he sought.

  It was something like a code cylinder: covered with notched golden rings each bearing a rune of power, about twelve inches long, and as big around as a coke can. He rolled Lore without even thinking, and immediately got a pair of 9’s and a 3. Immediately a schematic appeared and made all the Transmogrifier’s capabilities and secrets known to him.

  A certain configuration, which he immediately twisted and aligned, allowed the object to copy abilities of nearby magical artifacts. He grabbed the masochist’s armor first, while the idiots were still puzzling over exactly what it is he was holding. The device flashed a bit, and he reset it so it grabbed the power of the blinking cloak.