Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon

by Matt Dinniman

  I used the opportunity to check up on Moritasgus and Orthrus. My badger had burrowed itself about two miles north of where Bast was currently skulking. Jenk’s Orthrus had followed at a distance for a while. The two-headed guardian had seemed to get into a spat with Bubilas, the kaiju that had taken up residence around the edge of the forest. Thanks to my map upgrade, I could now see that Bubilas was associated with the brownie race, the diminutive fairy creatures who came into the game with built-in wings. I vaguely remembered a flying, hornet-like kaiju in that quick vision of all the guardians I’d had when I first signed in, and I suspected that’s who that was.

  Either way, Orthrus had quickly dispatched the kaiju and then went on to follow Moritasgus. By the time Bubilas had regenerated, Moritasgus had managed to burrow into the field. He hadn’t been bothered since. Orthrus had moved further south, sniffing around Bast for a while, but it didn’t appear they’d gotten into any sort of scuffle, though it was hard to tell using just my map. After that, the two-headed wolf had returned to his home just west of the forest. And that’s where he was now.

  If Jenk knew where we were, I had no indication. I still hadn’t told Clara the full story. So much time had passed, it was starting to get too late.

  “Shit,” Clara declared, breaking the silence.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Winky is dead. It happened suddenly. She’ll regenerate in a minute, and we can ask her what happened.”

  “Great,” I said, looking at the floor warily. “Maybe we should find a different building.”

  By now, full darkness had descended on the city. The sad and abandoned streets appeared terrifying in the low light. As I watched, something large rushed by, hurdling down the street as fast as a rocket. It moved so quickly the only feature I could see was the bright red tag floating over its head. A minute later, something not too far away started squealing in pain.

  With a pop, Winky reappeared in the room. She started enthusiastically squeaking. Clara nodded.

  “She doesn’t know what they are, but there are three of them in the basement. They look like human-shaped shadow women with extra long, extra thin legs and long, dirty hair. They crawl on the walls.”

  Winky squeaked indignantly. “And they have long and fast tongues,” Clara added.

  “It sounds like some sort of swamp witch, troll thing,” I said. I eyed the stairs. Should I risk it? If I died, I’d get bounced back to Charnel, which would lose us half a day, maybe a bit less. If I managed to get a look at one of them, I’d at least see their difficulty level.

  What the hell, I decided. “I want to take a peek at them. I won’t get too close.”

  “Uh oh,” Banksy said in the half-second before the floor collapsed.

  Chapter 34

  I landed with a terrible crunch, floor and debris falling all around me, crashing, tumbling, spinning. My ankle flashed in pain. I pulled up the menu and healed myself, the motion so quick it’d become a reflex. Darkness enveloped me.

  Banksy groaned nearby. Above, Clara yelled something. I shook my head, attempting to get the cobwebs out. Despite the healing, I was still disoriented.

  I saw the blazing red tag of a dangerous monster before I saw the black form it was attached to. A second appeared, then a third. Like Winky had described, these were shadow women with absurdly long limbs, crawling on the walls.

  The bat had failed to mention that each of these witches was about twice the size of a normal human.

  I tried to grasp my gun. I realized with horror that my right arm was pinned. I’d be able to free myself, but everything was suddenly moving in slow motion. The entire basement was under several inches of black, icy water. The cold seeped into me.

  “Shoot it,” I cried up to Clara as I struggled.

  “Hold your weapons,” the lead witch hissed. She had a voice like nails dragging across a tombstone. Thick, gritty, barely discernable. “Hold or we shall devour you all.”

  Clara hovered into view, her pulse Uzi clutched in her hands. My eyes adjusted enough to see Banksy swirling in circles, clearing the debris away from himself. Water splashed.

  Say the word, and I shall strike the one on the left, Banksy said in my mind.

  I struggled further, kicking the wet debris off my legs. I readied my grappling hook, aiming at the face of the witch who spoke. I pulled up my magic menu, hovering over the Invulnerable spell given to me by my armor. Once cast, it’d stay active for just over 15 seconds.

  “What do you want?” I asked. I struggled further, finally yanking my right arm free.

  The ragged face of the lead witch was suddenly right there, looming over me, grinning. The creature moved like a spider, terrifyingly fast. One moment she was on the wall, the next she hovered over me, like a lover ready to mount. She wore the shadow like a wet, dripping cloak, as if she was dipped in oil. I could barely discern her facial features, except the long, crooked hook of a nose and the sharp glint of teeth. Her breath stank of mold and dust and fish. Black clumps of filthy hair spilled from her head, the cold, wet tufts framing my neck.

  I swallowed. I was going to be sick. I caught hints of black, bulbous eyes underneath all that hair, the size of walnuts.

  “You are what they call worm surgeon,” the witch said. Not a question.

  “Guilty.” I tried to sound tough and confident. I did not succeed.

  “What are we doing?” Clara called. Banksy reared up in the room, hovering worriedly. The other two witches had come to surround me. They ignored the others as if they weren’t there.

  “Then you are a thrall of Zagan.” Again, not a question.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said.

  She laughed, a terrible noise. I could feel bugs crawling out of her hair and skittering over me. I fought the urge to scream.

  “Zagan. The fallen king. The betrayer. You call him guardian.”

  “You mean the Shrill?” I said.

  The witch grunted. “Yes. The Shrill. A fitting name. You are his serf.”

  “Do you want me to shoot this thing or what?” Clara called.

  “Hold up,” I said. To the witch, “I am his, uh, doctor. I was coming to give him a checkup.”

  A long, sinewy hand appeared, running across my neck, through my hair. The other witches crowded around me. Two more sets of jet black, dripping hands started to lovingly stroke at my body. They felt like reeds of sticks, prickling over me. They left streaks of black where they touched.

  “Lamashtu wishes for your presence. We have waited for you.”

  “Yes, Queen Lamashtu,” a second witch said.

  “Mother awaits,” said the third.

  “Who the hell is Lamashtu?” I said. “And who the hell are you?”

  All three of the witches hissed in unison.

  “Queen Lamashtu was Zagan’s intended, before the great betrayal,” said the witch on top of me. She traced the outline of my chin with her finger. I felt the crackle of electricity. “We are the daughters of the queen. She has come to this place to make peace with her former lover.”

  My mind swirled. This was game lore stuff. I only knew a small part of the overall story. Since Anatoly had programmed out all of the game’s cutscenes, I’d missed a lot. But I could fill in some of the holes. I knew my kaiju, the Shrill, was the only guardian who was once a demon himself. He had betrayed the princes and kings of hell, choosing instead to fight against them. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know if it was important.

  “Wait,” I said to the witch. “So your mom is one of the boss demons who have invaded this world. And she’s here because she’s pissed the Shrill dumped her? Did I get that right?”

  The witch hissed. I took that as a yes.

  “Well, what do you expect me to do about it?”

  “Uh, Duke,” Clara said. “A bunch more of these ladies are coming over here. A handful just crawled in the front door, and I can see hundreds more emerging from the buildings all around us.”

  “Don’t shoot them
,” I said. “Let’s see where this is headed.”

  “It’s headed toward a terrible death,” Clara said. “These guys have an electric attack, and in case you haven’t noticed, you’re sitting in three inches of water.”

  I could hear them now, rustling about upstairs, pulling up the remaining floorboards, crawling down the walls, splashing into the basement.

  “She comes,” the lead witch said, looking up into the air. She scrambled off of me, prostrating herself onto the ground. “Oh my mother, oh my queen. It was I who found the worm surgeon. It was I!”

  “She lies,” the witch to my right declared. “I sensed him first!”

  “No, it was me,” cried the third. “I broke the floor, pulled him into our trap!”

  A dull light half illuminated the dark basement. There was no source. It was as if the brightness on my visual display had been turned up a hair. The witches remained inky pools, their forms drinking the light.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to happen next. A magnificent demon descending from high, arms outstretched. Or perhaps a hideous queen, a monster of indescribable terror. Something as glorious as it was terrible.

  I was not expecting a donkey.

  The beast jumped into the room from above. It landed with a splash. It had a ribbon around its dainty neck. A small bell hung from the ribbon, and it gave a light jingle as the donkey settled to a stop.

  This was a normal donkey. A small donkey, at that. Like the size of one of those Shetland ponies. And other than its uncanny ability to be able to jump a full story down into a basement unharmed, there was nothing about it indicating it to be anything other than ordinary. That is, except for the name tag blazing over it in red, flaming letters:

  Queen Lamashtu

  Prince Stolas had a single flaming crown after his name. This donkey had twin crowns, one before and one after. Stolas had been a prince. This was a queen. A donkey queen.

  The creature heehawed.

  All around me, witches hissed and lowered themselves in worship. They were suddenly everywhere, prostrating themselves before their mother. They filled the room, the walls around me in the basement, peering down over the hole in the floor. Hundreds of them. The black oil seeped off them, pooling all around me, joining with the water of the basement.

  Clara hovered into my view, floating in midair in the midst of the witches. “Okay, what the hell,” she said.

  The donkey snorted.

  “Mother, mother, mother,” the witches chanted.

  Queen Lamashtu the donkey clomped up to me. She placed a single hoof on my chest, but she did not lean her weight on me. She reached down and sniffed me several times, the hot air blasting my face.

  The witches all groaned, universally making a sound of pleasure.

  “The queen has an offer for you,” one of the witches said. It might have been the same witch who had been sitting on me before.

  “You know you crazy assholes are all worshipping a donkey, right?” I said.

  “Lamashtu seeks something, a small token from her former paramour. You shall retrieve this for her. In exchange she shall grant you a mighty boon.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A key. Access through the rift. The ability for your guardians to enter hell and to confront Baal himself and to defeat him.”

  She pronounced the demon lord’s name like bail, not ball. But even I knew that name, and I didn’t know much about this demonic crap at all. Moloch, Beelzebub, Baal—no matter how they pronounced it here, and Baphomet. They were all just fancy ways of saying the devil. Satan. The head bad guy. I knew all those names probably had different, specific meanings and weren’t really the same thing. But this was a video game, not a scholarly treatise on demonic lore. So when she said “Baal,” I immediately knew who she was talking about.

  The screen on my vision flickered oddly. I didn’t know what that meant.

  I looked up at Clara, who suddenly looked serious. “We gotta do this,” she called down. She didn’t seem to have noticed the odd stutter. “Getting into the rift is one of the requirements of the endgame sequence. Anatoly said there was something like a thousand possible endings. And getting access into hell is one of the hurdles.”

  The donkey was now chewing on something and drooling on my chest. Its ear flickered.

  “Okay,” I said. “So what is this ‘small token’ I need to get?”

  The witch moaned, as if being pleasured by something unseen. “Queen Lamashtu wishes for an heir. She has us, her daughters. Her legions. But we are not of her loins. She yearns for a son. You are to impregnate Lamashtu.”

  I just stared at the witch for a good three seconds, my brain trying to parse what she said. I looked between her and Lamashtu.

  “Yeah, I’m not fucking a donkey,” I said.

  “You?” The witch laughed with scorn. “Not your unworthy seed. You must obtain the seed of Zagan, fertilize the egg, and bring it to Lamashtu.”

  With no warning, the donkey turned, grunted, and laid an egg on my chest. It came out of the beast’s backside with a plop. The bell around its neck jingled.

  Hell Quest – The Shrill’s Seed.

  The quest notification chimed, and I clicked on it before it could disappear into a folder.

  Queen Lamashtu seeks a child with her former lover. Facilitate this request for a reward. Take the unfertilized demon egg. Bathe it in guardian sperm to complete the fertilization process. Return to Lamashtu.

  Reward: Upon successful completion of all tasks, the world rift will become accessible to two-way travel. The rift will open at midnight after the first full day once the task is complete.

  Note! The opening of the rift is required to win the game.

  I looked at the black egg suddenly sitting heavy on my chest. I hesitantly reached forward to grab it. It was soft, but jiggly, like a hardboiled egg with no shell and covered with goo. It was the size of a football, but it had a heft to it, weighing a good five pounds.

  Quest Item – Unfertilized Lamashtu Egg.

  It disappeared, putting itself into my quest inventory.

  I eyed the donkey. “You know, the Shrill is a bit… larger… than your queen here. Is she sure she wants to have a guardian baby?”

  The witch hissed. “You have your task. If you agree to do it, we shall clear the way for you.”

  “Is the way not clear now?”

  “The legions of King Vinea block your passage. They attempt to bring Zagan to justice.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I said. My head was already swimming with all these names. Stolas, Andras, Lamashtu, Zagan, Baal, and now Vinea. “Who is this guy?”

  “Are you really this ignorant of the stage on which you dance? King Vinea is one of the great leaders of hell. One of the most fearsome generals. It is he who created the rift. It is he who sends his legions to hound Zagan. He wishes for nothing more than for Zagan—your Shrill—to be brought to justice, to be returned to stand in judgment before Baal.” The witch raised her bony arm, indicating the building around us. “This devastation. This great city. It fell eons ago because of Vinea’s rage. Your guardians are magically prevented from entering the cities, lest they bring boundless destruction to the homes of your people. But when Zagan betrayed Baal to come to your aid, he was not restrained by the magic that protected this city. Zagan helped banish us back into the depths, back into the dark. But his great battle with Vinea fell this city, killing most of your kind, forcing you to create a new homestead, this Medina.” She laughed. “And you learned nothing from the last time. Once again you have protected yourselves from your own saviors. It will be your undoing. Soon, the walls of Medina will fall. Your guardians cannot save you. And once Medina falls, the path to the celestial gates will be open. And we will pour into the heavens like wolves set upon children.”

  “Wait,” I said. “If that’s what you want. To storm the heavens or whatever. Then why would you offer me the key to the rift? It doesn’t make sense.”

 
Queen Lamashtu snorted and stomped her hoof.

  “My queen does not wish to rule the heavens. She sees value in the current status quo. But her true motivations are not your concern. You have the egg. Now will you complete your task?”

  I gave a sidelong glance to Clara, who remained hovering over me. “Sure,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to jerk off a kaiju anyway.”

  The witch hissed. “We shall seal this agreement.”

  The donkey stepped forward, moving over my prone body.

  “What are you doing? What’s happening?”

  The donkey’s belly hung over my face. She even smelled like a regular donkey. I had a quick memory, of visiting a farm on a field trip in elementary school. I soon realized it wasn’t exactly the donkey’s stomach, but its… udders? Is that what they called it on a donkey? Twin nipples dangled directly over my mouth, a pair of wrinkled eraser tips, both dripping with black milk.

  “Drink the mother’s milk,” the witch purred. “Drink and the deal will be sealed.”

  “Um, I prefer my contracts to be in writing,” I said.

  “Drink, drink, consume, drink,” the witches recited.

  The chant was deafening, like a crowd of thousands were crying it all at once. The pure volume shocked me. I could hear them, screaming, crying, all around, shaking the walls like I was suddenly in the middle of a football stadium. I realized with amazement that it was thousands. Every building probably had these witch things hidden within, waiting. And now that I was found, they’d literally come out of the woodwork, all of them, converging on this one place.

  The nipple descended toward my mouth. I clamped my lips shut.

  “Just drink it,” Clara said, shouting over the chant.

  Don’t do it, Banksy said in my mind. Father, don’t. It smells really gross.

  “Drink,” the witch hissed. “Drink. Seal the deal. It is a gift. A token of her love.”

  I sighed. I didn’t know if this was a brilliant idea or a stupid one since I could only do this once every 24 hours, but I activated my Invulnerable spell. My skin glowed yellow, and a 15.4-second timer started descending. I reached up, clasped onto the nipple with my mouth, and I drank, slurping loudly.