by Zeke Biddle
“It is true. And I need you because I’m too big of a coward to do it myself.”
“Sounds to me like maybe you don’t really want to die,” Eulalia says, pulling the hybrid to her feet. “That’s not cowardice. I think you’ve just been waiting for a reason to live, and sometimes that’s the bravest thing of all. Why don’t you come with us. We’ll get you back to the surface once we figure out how to get there. Then you can do whatever you want with the rest of your life.”
The hybrid wipes her runny nose on the back of her furry arm. “You’d really do that for me? I don’t have much to offer in return.”
“Of course,” I say, agreeing with Eulalia. “Killing bad guys is important work, but it’s just as important for us to save the good ones. We’ll do whatever it takes to help you.”
“She better not try taking my spot,” Alexandra grumbles. She quickly adds, “Welcome to the group.”
12
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Gillian says when she returns from exploring the nooks and crannies of the room.
Alexandra takes another practice swipe through the air. She doesn’t seem happy about standing still now that we’ve decided to press onward.
Gillian shakes her head and then nods at Alexandra’s swords. “Not that kind of news, fortunately. The bad news is the door won’t open. The good news is there’s a button. Unfortunately, pushing it doesn’t do anything.”
“Thanks, Gillian,” I say. “I’m sure we’ll figure out something. Maybe some fire or electricity will get it moving.”
“Or maybe it just needs a good bashing,” Alexandra says, flexing her impressive biceps.
“Sure, we’ll let you give it a good smashing,” I promise. “But first.” I point at the hybrid. “What’s your name? We shouldn’t be calling you ‘girl’ or ‘hey, you’ if you’re going to be traveling with us.”
She hangs her head. “The witch never bothered giving any of us names. What was the point? We weren’t supposed to live long, after all.”
“Jesus Christ, what a bitch!” Gillian exclaims. “It’s too bad none of the other ones didn’t kill her when they exploded.” She made an explosion sound and expanded her hands like a mushroom cloud. “Boom, bitch!”
Before I can scold her for making such a crude comment, the hybrid laughs.
“Boom, bitch. That’s hysterical! I want that.”
“You want what, dear?” Eulalia says.
“BoomBitch,” the hybrid’s eyes drop to the floor. “Can you call me that?”
“Fuck, yeah, BoomBitch. That’s badass.” Alexandra says, and then has to show the hybrid how to do a high-five.
BoomBitch makes us all give her one once she masters it.
“Okay, BoomBitch,” I say with a shake of my head and a roll of my eyes. “What do you say we go check out this door?”
“MAYBE I CAN BLOW IT UP!” BoomBitch shouts, clearly getting a little too slap-happy.
“No, no, no!” I say, grabbing her shoulders and making her look at my eyes. “Listen, I don’t even want you joking about that, okay? Those days are done. We’re going to get you to the surface, and you can spend your days sunbathing and learning a trade to earn your keep.”
“Sorry. I got carried away. You’re right.”
Gillian leads us toward the door.
“What if I don’t want to sunbathe and earn my keep?” BoomBitch asks.
“You can do whatever you want…BoomBitch.” I stumble over her name.
“Can I become an adventurer, too?”
Distracted by a sound off in the distance, and watching Gillian tap her foot on the floor button without the door moving, I’m not really paying attention when I say, “Sure. I’m sure you’ll be able to do whatever you want.”
“Great. I want to join your party,” she says.
“That would be…wait, what’d you say? I don’t…shit, do you hear that?” I ask the whole group.
Alexandra has already moved between us and the grumbling sounds.
“If we can just get through the door and have it shut behind us, they won’t be able to find us,” Gillian says.
“What if I want them to find us?” Alexandra asks, swishing her new sword back and forth in front of her.
“We’ve got to protect BoomBitch,” I point out. “We just promised we’d get her to safety. Maybe a little sneaking is called for until we send her on her way. There will be plenty of time for more adventures.”
“Would that help?” BoomBitch points up at the ceiling where we find another button.
“It would if one of us was fifteen feet tall,” I say, waving for Alexandra to try poking it with her sword.
Even jumping, she comes up several feet short.
“Give me room. I’ll try to shoot it,” Gillian says.
But BoomBitch offers a different solution. She nods at the button on the floor. “Someone stand on this one, and I’ll just jump up and press the other one.”
Gillian puts her foot back on the floor button, and we all look up at the one on the ceiling. There’s no way. She’ll have to jump about six feet off the ground to reach it.
I’m about to suggest we throw Gillian, since she’s the lightest, and see if we get lucky.
BoomBitch squats, and then leaps. When I think she should start coming back down again, she just keeps soaring higher like she’s flying. She easily presses the button, and then returns to the ground, landing nearly silently.
“Impressive,” Gillian says. “Maybe we can make a thief out of you.”
The door opens. We hurry through into the tiny room, turning to face the hallway before taking in the contents of the new space.
We all scramble to find a way to close the door, but there are no buttons on this side.
“Hot damn,” Alexandra says. “I think we just got ourselves trapped. No options but kicking some ass. Let’s get situated for fighting. BoomBitch, no booming, bitch. Deal?”
“Deal,” she agrees with an unhappy growl.
When the first of the orcs charge through the door, BoomBitch greets them with her teeth even before Gillian’s arrows can reach them. She kills three while Gillian screams for her to get out of her way so she can shoot safely.
Eulalia and I raise our eyebrows at each other.
“Sure am glad she’s on our side,” I say.
BoomBitch and Alexandra have no trouble with the waves of orcs, mowing them down like tall grass on a summer day before eventually giving ground to an enormous creature that bullrushes its way into them.
“Is that another giant?” I cry out.
“No,” Eulalia says, readying her healing spells in case any of us need her touch. “It’s an orc leader. Bigger and uglier than the other orcs, and slightly smarter, but not a giant.”
“Alexandra should be happy. I bet that thing will give us some decent experience points,” I say, trying to find a safe, useful spell to cast in the tight quarters.
Despite having hinted around at how leveling works, Eulalia looks at me like I’m talking in a foreign language.
I realize I am as far as they are concerned. When we get back to the surface and get a quiet moment, I’ll have to decide how much to tell them about the rules of the game, at least as far as I understand them.
The huge green monster lifts Alexandra and tosses her across the room like she weighs nothing.
Gillian sends two arrows into the back of its neck, barely causing any damage, but distracting it enough that Alexandra is able to get back to her feet.
She brushes Eulalia’s healing spell away. “Save it. I’ll be fine. There are still plenty of these fuckers to battle.”
Too late, I notice a group of orcs have snuck around behind us. There’s no one between them and me. Hating myself a little bit, I call out for help.
Alexandra charges between my body and theirs and starts swinging her new sword until all the orcs are dead. Miraculously, she looks like she’s recovering, despite being tossed by the leader and clearly being hit
a few times by the orcs.
“I thought she told you not to heal her,” I say when Eulalia returns to my side.
“I didn’t. Not going to risk lightning or fireball in here?”
“The room’s too small, don’t you think? We’ll all end up taking damage. Maybe I should lure some out into the hall?”
“Don’t you dare get separated from us.” She gives me a quick kiss. Despite the chaos around us, her lips manage to quicken my pulse. “I’ll kill you if you die.”
“Gillian, help!” BoomBitch shouts.
The hybrid doesn’t back down one inch, though. When I find her in the chaos, she’s attached herself to the back of the orc leader. She bites its neck while waiting for Eulalia to heal her.
As amazing as it is to watch everyone fighting, I’m feeling like the odd man out with nothing in my arsenal that can do jack shit to help us. Other than my spells that could get us killed, all I can do is summon my familiar. The orc leader backs against a wall, crushing BoomBitch between its massive body and the stone.
Knowing we must try everything at our disposal, I call for my familiar to come to our aid. It appears in the center of the room with a screech.
Alexandra slices the back of the orc leader’s ankle, causing it to drop to one knee, giving us all a brief moment of hope before it stands again. Even hobbled, it’s still massively huge and terrifying.
If only I could risk a fireball.
Gillian drops the last two orcs with a quick succession of arrows. When no more rush in to replace them, I send the eagle out through the door to get the lay of the land.
Seeing no more orcs coming, I shout, “Retreat! To the hall!”
I hurry out the doorway and raise my wand, just waiting for everyone else to clear the room.
Alexandra is the last to leave, but she drags me with her. “You can’t shoot a fireball into there. The elf you so crave might be in that room, and you’ll kill her.”
“Fuck. Good call. Thanks.”
Instead, we back further down the hall, back the direction we came since we’re pretty sure we’ve cleared that part of the caves. After running about fifty feet, I skid to a halt and turn back toward the orc leader.
He stands in the hallway, beating his chest and yelling like King Kong.
I cast a spell.
Feeling the need to say something dramatic, I yell, “Boom, bitch!”
As my fireball zips down toward the beast, BoomBitch yells in my ear, “What do you need?”
Realizing I’d just accidentally called her name, I say, “Uh, just watch, I guess.”
The orc leader turns to run the opposite direction when it sees the fireball coming toward it, but it’s not fast enough. The initial damage definitely hurts it, but not enough to kill it. But with each second that passes, he writhes and screams anew.
Once again, I wish I had access to all the normal information I should get when playing a game. I’d bet my left nut the orc leader has a natural weakness to fire.
It quickly falls to the ground and stops moving.
I shoot one more at it to make sure it’s dead.
Patting Alexandra on the shoulder, I try to sound cool and calm when I say, “See, I told you this would be better than bears near the Cursed Woods. You’ll be able to join the harem in no time.”
Frenzied with excitement from the battle, Alexandra nods and cleans her swords on her short leather skirt. “Let’s go find that elf. That’ll probably push us over the top.”
13
When we return to the room, a dais has risen from the floor, and there’s a woman sleeping on it like something right out of a fairy tale.
“Looks like that orc leader was an important kill for the Rescue the Elf quest,” Gillian says.
“Looks that way,” I agree.
But I can’t stop worrying about the stone giant we’ve failed to kill. What if he’s critical to unlocking something we need for the quest, too?
Alexandra waves a hand so close to the sleeping woman’s face she almost swats her nose. “So how do we wake her up?”
“I could bite off one of her toes?” BoomBitch says, wiggling her fingers in front of her chest with excitement.
“What the fuck?” Alexandra yells.
“That’s fucked up,” Gillian agrees.
I’m too busy looking for another one of the buttons on the dais to really pay attention to the women arguing.
“No, BoomBitch,” Eulalia says in a tone that would work even better if she had a newspaper to swat BoomBitch’s nose with. “We do not bite off friends’ toes.”
“That’s just mental,” Gillian says, scurrying to stand on the opposite side of the dais from BoomBitch.
“Sorry. My other nature takes control once in a while. I won’t eat any of you…” She sighs. “Or our new friend.”
“I can’t find anything that looks like it will wake her up if we activate it,” Gillian says. “Anyone have any non-biting ideas?”
When they all just stare at me without offering up any suggestions, I come up with a solution from the fairy tales I used to read when I was young. “Maybe a kiss will do it.”
“What if she’s not sleeping, but actually dead? That would be so creepy to kiss cold, dead lips,” Gillian says, puckering up her lips and pretending to kiss the princess.
“Thanks. That’s helpful,” I mumble.
“She’s not dead,” Eulalia says.
“You have a spell that can tell you that?” I ask, intrigued at what use that could really be anywhere outside of this room.
“No,” she points at the elf. “Her chest is rising and falling. Dead people don’t do that.”
I slap my forehead at missing something so obvious. “Good catch. Okay, so I guess I should try kissing her unless someone has a better option.”
When no one speaks, I add, “After all, it works in all the fairy tales.”
“Why haven’t you kissed her already, then?” Alexandra demands while everyone else nods.
“It just feels weird. I don’t even know her. What if she’s into women?”
“Oh, Can I kiss her first?” Gillian asks, batting her eyelashes.
Without any hesitation, she climbs up on the dais to get a better angle and plants her lips on the elf’s. She eventually breaks away with a sigh. “Damn shame. She’s got such nice lips. Your turn, macho man.”
Anticipating the game developers would have relied on the fairy tale tropes of a man kissing the sleeping woman when designing this quest, I walk to the head of the dais and stare down at the elf. She really is stunning. Her long, wavy, black hair cascades down over her shoulders. She’s got light brown skin. Her shirt is white, but sheer enough that her brown skin faintly shows underneath it. She’s wearing a white skirt that goes down to her ankles. If she were dancing, it would spread wide and make a huge circle.
I lean over her to play Prince Charming and roll my eyes at how predictable and lazy the writers of the game let themselves become, imagining they must have been trying to meet a deadline. “Sleeping Beauty!” I imagine them all shouting before pouring another shot of whisky.
Just before our lips touch, my head gets rocked to the side when something hits my cheek with a THWACK!
“What the hell?” I shout. “Who did that?”
They all grin and point at the elf.
She’s sitting up on the dais with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. “Sorry, not sorry,” she says. “Who sneaks up on a chica like that while she’s sleeping? Who do you think you are? Prince Charming?”
Her rant continues for several seconds until I say, “I’m sorry. We thought you were in an eternal slumber and that you needed a kiss to wake up. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Why not? Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
“Uhh…” I look around at the rest of my party for help, but they are all snickering behind their hands. “No. I mean, yes. You’re stunning. I’ve never met an elf in person before, but the rumors of your beauty don’t even
come close to the truth of it.”
“Well, look at this sweet talker. No wonder you have a harem full of women following you around.”
“I’m not in his harem,” Alexandra says.
“What’s a harem?” BoomBitch asks.
Eulalia whispers in her ear, and BoomBitch’s eyes shoot wide open. “Oh, can I do that?”
Eulalia raises a finger to her lips to silence BoomBitch.
The elf throws her legs over the side of the dais and reaches her hands high above her head, exposing her belly and the multicolored beads dangling from her pierced belly button. When she sees me staring at the beads, she flicks them with her fingers, making them jangle against each other. “You like? I’ve got more piercings you might enjoy if I ever make you my man.”
I blush and stammer something that sounds like, “I’m at max capacity until I level up.”
Not bothering to brush the chip from her shoulder, Alexandra brusquely asks, “How’d you get trapped down here? What’d the witch do to you?”
“The witch? You must mean Esmeralda. That bruja es una puta, but she had nothing to do with my slumber. She’s too busy making weird little animals.” She looks over her shoulder as if just realizing that BoomBitch is part dog. “No offense,” she adds when a low growl emanates from the hybrid’s throat.
BoomBitch clears her throat. “None taken.”
“Esmeralda is like a captain, but the general is the Dark Lord himself. He’s put her in charge of his more…experimental projects. No offense,” she says to BoomBitch again. “Anyway, there are other captains, including the Great Dragon Vorheath. He’s in charge of building and training a Great Army down here in the caves where no one will notice. Sometime soon, they plan to unleash hordes to crush the cities.”
“Shit. That sounds bad,” I say.
“It does,” the elf agrees. “My people from across the sea sent me to learn and report so they can determine whether our fair people are at risk of his spreading reach, and Vorheath captured me. With Esmeralda’s spell, I’ve been asleep ever since.”
“How long have you been sleeping?” Eulalia asks.
“No idea. I just awoke and have no frame of reference. A second? A millennia? Probably somewhere in between. But I will let you fight at my side, and lead you to safety.”
