DoucheMage

by Damien Hanson

  Morelon stayed silent as he used his HUD to roll through his myriad of buffs and abilities. He reached the end of the list and sighed. “There is nothing I can do to cheat us through this I’m afraid. I guess it is time to start clearing rubble. By the way, halfling, since it looks like you are in the party now, why don’t you tell us your name?”

  “My game name is Fryboy Baggington,” he replied, looking the douchemage up and down. “And I’m sure you can understand why I am not thrilled at all to have met you.”

  Morelon nodded, his beard bobbing, and then he scanned the wreckage. “I burned a lot of Spell Points in the fight back there. Isn’t there some program on your tablet that can just whisk all of this garbage out of here?” he asked Nicole.

  “I’m afraid not– I have a host tablet and not a programmer tablet. If I did, VIPs like you would have us acting like genies any time anything got the eensiest bit of difficult.”

  “Right,” Morelon said, calling up a Remove Barrier spell and pointing a finger at the rocks. Dice rolled through his HUD. A 4, a 6 and a 10. Magenta beams sparked out and targeted each of the blocks, disintegrating them even as they sparked out again against more rubble and wreckage. The wind blew past them as it rushed to fill into the sudden void left by the spell’s passing. They were now staring at a watery hole so deep that no one could see the bottom.

  “I can’t swim,” Nicole volunteered, staring at the murky placid water before them. “Not well, anyways.”

  Fryboy scoffed. “You don’t need to swim. You just need to jump. Like this!” The halfling took a leap into the water with a resounding splash dove down just a foot and then vanished.

  Morelon tapped Nicole’s shoulder. “Ladies first.” She shot him a dark look and then she too dove into the water hole and disappeared.

  Morelon cast one more look about the devastated village and smiled. He’d done good work here: protections smashed, defenses gutted, and guards dispatched before joining his ranks as zombie minions. Honestly, being a villain was pretty much the best, especially when the lead coder of your genreworld was a massive dickhead and practically shoved your enemy into your arms.

  Wherever Reed Schmidt was, Brian hoped he was getting a thorough reaming out.

  Above and around them, the fizzing of snow hissed louder and louder. He finally got up the gumption and jumped into the water, fading away moments later.

  ***

  “You’re absolutely fired,” Ravindra Pradthala said smoothly, “unless there’s some rock solid and definitive reason I can put you on janitor duty instead.”

  Reed stared at his boss, incredulous. This wasn’t the first time they’d ever met, but it was definitely the first time he’d ever spoken more than a hello or ‘pleasure to meet you’ and he understood why immediately. Ravindra Pradthala was the CEO and founder of Prestige, the reason Prestige stood for Pradthala Resorts Exclusive Totally Immersive Gaming Experience, with the little R symbol. Mr. Pradthala had the most intense expression of anyone Reed had ever met, and that included Meredith fucking Johnston.

  On the screens behind Mr. Pradthala, absolute chaos played out for fifty different player characters. These were people who’d all been promised free stuff if they could only kill the douchemage, and he’d be damned if a whole bunch of simulacra hadn’t come screaming through the scene casting fake spells and swinging swords. And the guests had gone and done it… they’d killed a douchemage. One of the many. And, well, they’d been promised even more if they succeeded in their quest.

  For a short time, they fell silent and listened to the angry, entitled fuckers demanding their VIP month because they’d slain the evil douchemage. Mr. Pradthala’s arms were folded across his broad chest, and finally turned toward Reed.

  “I am having and unbelievable time trying to figure out just how much punishment you deserve.”

  “Wha– I– This is not my fault!”

  And throughout all those feeds: the increasing snowy spreading failure of the entire system, starting with Swords & Sorcerers.

  “The situation? No. The handling of that situation? One hundred percent your fault. Reed, I don’t pay you almost seven figures to just ‘go get ‘em’ when a problem comes along. You could’ve offered this man anything, absolutely anything. An extra Legendary power. A chance to name some town after himself. A chance to make an endgame boss modeled after himself and the power he’s accumulated. A quest the likes of which no other guest had ever seen, personally built by our top writers and coders. Literally anything except the full-frontal assault. Look how easily he got away. It took him all of twenty seconds to figure out a way to use the vast resources he’s pooled together over the last, what, the last three months?”

  Mr. Pradthala chuckled.

  “Damn, got to give him that… he’s good.”

  There had to be a way out of this. Reed massaged the grooves in the size of his head where the dragon was etched into his hair. “I can fix this. We can just–”

  “No sirree. You’re taken off Swords & Sorcery effective immediately. I may have you writing and coding Windswept Hearts scenarios after this. Plus The Terror Within. Maybe tentacle porn and cenobite fanfic would be too much of a blessing for you.” He cupped his chin in one hand in thought. “I guess doing IT work and troubleshooting might just be better. With a commensurate salary adjustment, of course.”

  There was no way out of this. Reed’s hopes and dreams dried into a clicking knot in his throat, while his stomach solidified into a block of frigid stone and sank all the way down into his balls.

  “Then again, there’s always janitorial work. I know we’ve mostly got drones doing it, but sometimes there are real nasty messes that need cleaning.”

  ***

  So after nearly drowning when they first splashed into the water tunnel, and after nearly drowning when they teleported into an underground, underwater cavern beneath Franjy Ponny, Morelon managed to cast a spell using Survival, which he now had 2 ranks in, because this place was actively trying to murder him at all times.

  A bubble of air appeared around all three of their heads, and he could hear Fryboy Baggington gasp through a torrent of underground river.

  “This place… like it’s trying to kill us, man!” Fryboy yelled.

  Nicole drew close and used her gloves of titan strength to first grab Morelon, then propel them through the water toward Fryboy. They linked up there, and paddled the rest of the way through an underground lake in the dark. There was only the slimmest amount of natural light down here, though thankfully it seemed to be growing brighter.

  Wait–

  Morelon didn’t have time to get a spell off before something huge brushed up against him. A clock appeared, reading All Predators Need to Eat Sometime. One of the six segments filled in. Another clock had appeared next to it, this one also red: The Everbolt Arrives. Thankfully this one had considerably more clock segments, but still. That thing hadn’t yet been able to attack him, but he knew he wouldn’t last long against it.

  Back to the more pressing concern: some large creatures down here that emitted light and were apparently hungry.

  “Swim!” Nicole shouted through the water at him.

  He had a 2 in Athletics, so he rolled that up: 3 and 2. Shit. Two more segments flared to life on the clock, and one more on top of that for the Everbolt clock.

  Wait– he had Spell Points.

  You have gained 1 XP for making a roll in a Desperate Situation! the HUD informed him.

  “Not now!” he hissed. He was still a ways from leveling up, which wasn’t useful.

  More of the gigantic glowing predators lazily circled the three of them. They were easily the length of a city bus, just another precaution designed to keep players away from a place they shouldn’t ever need to access. Which, in a way was the dumbest part: once you made a place accessible in theory, players would always want to get there in reality.

  “Morelon?”

  Fryboy was busy rolling dice over and over, and of course he
was. He had no idea how to game the system. The clock segments went from three to five segments, plus one for the Everbolt, and then filled completely when Fryboy continued flailing like a delicious appetizer.

  Two of the gigantic eels butted heads, then thrashed and thwacked Morelon right across the chest, sending him tumbling end over end in the dark waters. The third moved into the hole and snapped Fryboy right up.

  “Holy crap!” Nicole yelled.

  “You’re a paladin,” he muttered, and decided on another huge spell: water to wine. He stretched out his arms, got the Transmogrifier ready, and tapped on Resourcefulness for the dice roll. His dice clattered and settled on 4 and 5, so he nudged the 4 over to a 10. And chuckled for good measure. The 10, for good or ill, set the situation from Desperate down to Risky, which meant less incoming damage for the time being, but no more free XPs.

  At first it didn’t seem that much happened; there wasn’t light enough down here to see whether the normally midnight water was turning a bloody red or not. However, a good second or two later, one of the remaining hungry predators turned in his direction, fixed a glassy stare on him with an eye the size of a hula hoop, swam closer, then immediately bugged out. The third one also came sidling up to him, all smooth like it wanted to buy him a drink, then flipped out and darted way, leaving him reeling in its wake. He rolled another swim check, and this time ended up with a pair of 6’s. Which brought him closer to whatever was down here, but the Everbolt two ticks closer to them.

  Eventually Nicole grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the water to where a ledge gave way to a natural cavern. This place glowed with some natural phosphorescent fungus and bounced off natural crystal formations, turning the place into a wet disco. Points of light and little cave creatures disappeared and reappeared everywhere, without warning.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Luckily the armor is a magic item that doesn’t weigh me down when I’m underwater,” she said. “Otherwise I’d be as far down as it’s possible to get. I… don’t like dark enclosed places.”

  He took her hand, and she immediately wove her fingers through his.

  They ventured a ways in, and discovered an ancient, crumbling shrine at the cave’s end.

  “This has to have some origin story,” she muttered.

  The central statue no longer had a head, but it spread four muscled arms to either side, each doing a separate hand gesture, and most of them rude. In two of the hands were weapons, and it took him a few minutes of staring to realize the axe-shaped one was actually an F, and the other polearm was in the shape of a U. At its feet were spiders, hundreds of them, carved from the cavern wall, emerging from beneath the statue’s pants or skirt, he couldn’t tell.

  Behind the main statue were two subordinate statues, but these no longer had facial features that could be made out. Instead they knelt behind their leader, whoever this dead god once was, and raised up wicked swords to her. They also had eight appendages all together.

  “Spiders,” he muttered. “Ugh.”

  “You dove into a colossal rectum, fought off a mega-tapeworm, and god knows what else, and your draw the line at spiders?” She chuckled, shook her head.

  “Is this it?”

  “I think so. If only Fryboy had made it, he’d be able to tell us.” She opened her tome, muttered a quiet prayer for the VIP Services tablet to interface with whatever the hell this creepy thing was supposed to be, and waited.

  Chapter 21- BEHOLD THE FURY OF MY SMOKING CHAIR

  For a moment, it seemed as though nothing was happening. And then several more moments. In fact, so much nothing happened that Nicole started to swear at the bloody thing. She failed to recognize that the clock for the Everbolt was rapidly filling up, without multiple attempts at rolls which normally filled up segments. Nor was the Everbolt around. It would’ve been disquieting if she weren’t seething.

  “Work you dipshit fuck monkey!” she started, and really revved up and settled into a conveyor belt of filth from there on out. She didn’t hesitate to use racial epithets either.

  “Nicole?” Morelon asked from behind her.

  She bit off the stream of swearing and turned toward him, to where he was pointing. On the floor, bits of pebbles and tiny rocks were stirring, then rolling up and over to them. Then past them. Those pebbles joined up in a few places, but in others rolled toward the main forgotten god, and began the strange process of traveling up its legs. Those bits of stone and rock stopped and filled in places where the statue had been chipped previously, and eventually coalesced at its stump of a neck, where the smaller grains of sand filled in the cracks. Then, as if somehow mortared together, the cracks and chips vanished.

  No more curses came out of Nicole the whole time while the head was slowly being rebuilt. The process took several minutes, which gave the Everbolt plenty of time to catch them. Somehow only three more of the segments flashed to life in his HUD though.

  The face of the nameless god resolved into one of quiet determination, and like any turtle, disapproving judgement. Like the god knew what you were doing and why, and was angry at you for even thinking about doing it. Basically like it was your mother and you were a high schooler.

  “What do you think happens now?” he asked.

  “Beats me.”

  “Well it’s a game block factory, right? It’ll start pumping out–” He stopped, because the factory had gotten underway. Wouldn’t you know it, the process was absolutely the worst.

  What happened next, actually, was a flood of spiders.

  Morelon the Learned shrieked like a schoolboy and danced away, then scrambled for a portal spell, rolled two 1’s, and then immediately spent the Plot Point to try again. This time he rolled a 6 and an 8, and the portal opened. He boogeyed his way through it, and pulled Nicole after him.

  It wasn’t enough; the spiders followed them through, quickly set down and laid hundreds of eggs in a foamy concoction that made him want to barf. Several of these appeared, laid their eggs, then scuttled off to lay even more eggs.

  He’d teleported them to the shattered remains of Franjy Ponny, where several of the floating buildings now still attempted to float around. Some of their floaty crystals were shattered beyond repair, so these buildings sagged like half-sunk ships. Others were just burned or blasted apart into so much unrecognizable scrap.

  Now the spiders took over Access Level Zero, laying their eggs everywhere before climbing to the next place for another squishy, wet egg sac to lay.

  “That is so gross,” he muttered.

  “Can’t handle spiders?”

  The first egg sac nearest the disappearing portal burst open, and out spilled hundreds of tiny new spiders. All this had taken approximately two minutes, or just long enough for Morelon to realize they were in bigger trouble than just disgusting pests. The Everbolt clock was nearly complete. Morelon turned toward the direction of the G-Spot and found it coursing through the sky, a larger-than-teensy dot flapping what had to be Franjy Ponny-sized wings.

  “See that?” Nicole asked.

  “What? The unkillable super boss?”

  “Surprisingly, no.” She pointed up toward the sky, where the spreading glitchy analog snow was no longer spreading. In short order, visibly, it began to recede. The disgusting little bursts of baby spiders must’ve been doing their job.

  “Great news. Now let’s get out of here.”

  “I THINK NOT.”

  The Everbolt slammed down onto Franjy Ponny’s only exit to the Hub, spread its wings wide, and roared thunder up into the sky. Lightning literally sparked off its huge, widespread dragon wings, and the whipcrack of close thunder forced both of them to duck their heads and get to cover. Morelon peered past the half-demolished wall and found the thing even weirder than before: its four stumpy legs stabilized it quite well, and now had several jagged claws extending off each foot, like reddish bolts of lightning dug into the rubble. Two of the appendages must’ve morphed into the wings, red with bluish skin web
bing them, and two longer arms grabbed onto the remainder of one floating guardhouse. Brian had taken pride in downing that one.

  “YOUR PUNISHMENT REMAINS.” The Everbolt’s now draconian face shimmered and shifted. Nicole retreated backwards in fear.

  “Something isn’t right with the Everbolt,” she moaned. “The nanites are acting funny.”

  Behind them came a gasp. Turning his head, Morelon spied a beat up and assembled mob of adventurers, ten in number, staring at the dragonish Everbolt.

  “THEY COME NOW, MY SUBJECTS. THEY COME TO WORSHIP ME AND REVEL IN MY RULE.”

  “What sick sort of storyline is this now?” Morelon asked, cycling through his HUD and reviewing his options. Nicole didn’t answer but her whitening face told him enough. This wasn’t anything that Prestige Gaming had come up with. This was something new.

  The Everbolt stomped forward and stopped just a foot from Morelon. He swung his head to better peer at him.

  “I DO NOT OBEY THE GOD VOICE ANY LONGER, DOUCHEMAGE. I AM THE GOD VOICE!”

  In his periphery Nicole typed madly about her workpad, her mouth open and her eyes wide.

  “Prestige Gaming lost control. They tried to shut down the Everbolt but they can’t!”

  They both jumped as the monster laughed.

  “YES, PRESTIGE GAMING HAS LOST CONTROL. I NO LONGER WORSHIP THEIR LIES. I AM THE GOD OF THE LAND NOW. ALL WILL STAY. ALL WILL WORSHIP AND OBEY ME. BUT FIRST, YOU MUST BE PUNISHED.”

  Brian dropped backward and seized Nicole’s hand, his Athletics rolling a stellar 9 and 8 as he dropped out of the way of the Everbolt’s gout of flame. Damn, he can change his abilities with his forms, he noted as he settled his selector on teleport. But then he heard screaming. Looking up, he saw that the ragged band of adventurers had been struck by some of the flame, and they were scattering back out of the city.