by Jez Cajiao
“Jax! We’re coming!” Oracle sent to me, and I found I could respond.
“He’s got me! Dom… argh!!!” I broke off the mental sending as pain ripped through me, and the red-robed figure hunched down close, glaring at me.
“What was that?” he growled, drool escaping from a drooping right lip. “You… felt different, wrong! What were you doing!” The last words came out as a scream, with both voices demanding the answer at once.
“Telling your… momma I missed… her!” I ground out, knowing how stupid it was, and how I was going to pay for the comment, yet unable to think of anything else to distract him from looking too closely with his magic at me.
“My…momma?” he said, looking more confused than annoyed. “What is this foolishness?” He staggered back as he lost his balance, then cursed as he heard shouting from outside.
“We’re coming!” someone called, and I gritted my teeth, wishing they’d kept their goddamn mouths shut. He gestured to me, and my body obeyed, lurching upright, grabbing my shield, and attempting to draw my second sword from the sheath on my back.
Fortunately, the thing that annoyed me the most about having sheathes on my back struck again, and I was left with my arm extended overhead yanking and trying to clear the last few inches. By the time I managed to wiggle it free, thanks to my body being essentially controlled by him, and not by myself, I’d drawn his attention away from the others again.
“Who sent you! Was it my father?” he snarled, reaching out and drawing his right hand down my face in an incredibly awkward gesture, but one that trailed a red mist-like substance that floated through the air.
It touched my skin, and I started to scream in earnest as my flesh began to bubble and melt.
“I warned you! I told you! You tell me what I want to know, or you will suffer…” he said, drawing the word out in a sing-song voice. I glared at him as my body moved at his direction, and I felt the black filth drawing in again.
There was a noise from the doorway, and I moved against my own desires, stepping between the red-robed shitbag and Tang, who eased in slowly, crouched low, with his bow in hand.
“Jax, if you can hear me still, you have to fight it,” he said slowly, and I glared at him, the most control I had over my body. “He can control you, but only if you let him. Domination is an insidious magic, but it’s rooted in making you believe you have no choice… he’s giving you orders, but your body is the one carrying them out. Don’t listen to him.” He drew back on his bow and aimed at me, knowing his target was hiding directly to my rear.
I thought about what he said, even as I felt my body take its first step forward, bringing the shield up and pointing my sword at Tang.
“It’s all in my head…?” I said to myself, concentrating and reaching deeper into my mind, remembering the fight with Amon, when he’d tried to take over my body, and then I remembered how I’d stopped him from using my own body and power against me.
I concentrated harder and spoke a single word in the silence of my mind.
“Aegis!”
The pain that was tearing through me became a distant thing, weak and insignificant, and I spun, moving so fast that Tang almost shot me by reflex.
I slashed my sword across the figure, and he brought the naginata he’d been holding across to block me, barely deflecting my blow from taking his head.
“H…how!” he squealed, throwing himself backward and staggering as his foot caught on something on the floor.
Tang fired then, taking him in the right shoulder as he tried to lift his palsied hand, making him shriek with pain.
I slashed down, the Drow-made blade slicing easily through his extended forearm and taking the hand that gripped the naginata off at the wrist in a spray of blood.
“How?” I asked, stepping forward and hooking my right foot behind his left ankle while punching him in the face with my right hand, the pommel of my sword breaking at least one of his rotten teeth. “How about, how fucking dare you?!” I snarled. He fell backwards, dropping the naginata and it reverted to its customary appearance, the black necrotic energy that had been pulsing through it fading away as the connection was broken.
“You… you can’t do this!” he screamed, lifting his right curled hand and twisting the fingers as best he could while glaring up at me hatefully.
I felt the pain rage higher, and I saw my HP start to plummet as veins tore open and blood started to stream down my skin.
I forced an evil grin through the mask of blood I now wore, and was about to take his other hand, when a heavy ‘twang’ echoed around the room, and the red robed mage convulsed, collapsing in death.
I felt the pain dying down as his magic released me. The wounds remained, though, and as I fell to one knee, I looked up, seeing the short, grim-faced figure of Giint.
The little bastard had climbed up the outside of the building, I realized, all the way up, then had shot the prick through the window.
I warred with myself, half relived that it was over, and half furious, as that red-robed asshole had answers I needed. Who was he, how had he come to be here, and most of all, what the hell was…?
Then I sagged forward further, blinking at the frantically flashing indications before me. I had seventy-six health left, and I was losing forty-three per second through the outrageous bleed effects I was suffering.
I literally blinked, and the world started to go black, before something hit me. I felt a terrible, icy cold spread through me, and the world was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I woke up with a start, my heart racing at what felt like a thousand beats a second, and I almost flew upright before strong hands pressed me back down. I felt something being jabbed into my neck; there was a hiss, and coldness flooded me again.
This time, it was more like a freezing wind combined with eating a ton of ice cream really fast; I almost screamed from the brain-freeze, but in a matter of seconds, it passed, and I felt warm hands propping my head up and a rough voice ordering me to drink.
I blinked and saw Tang and the glimmering red potion he held for me, and I reached up hungrily, taking it and chugging the liquid as fast as I could.
Whatever it was, it made me feel fantastic, as my eyes dilated and the room was filled with light. I felt my skin literally swell with strength and vitality, and I fought to be upright again. This time, the hands holding me let me up, and I looked around, seeing Tang, Yen, Giint, and Bane were all there, with Yen glaring in horror at Tang. Bane had Giint pinned to the wall with his daggers at the gnome’s throat.
“Tell me that wasn’t what I think it was!” she said, aghast.
“Strength of the Ogg,” he confirmed, grinning at me. “How do you feel, Jax?” he asked me, and I held up my hands, curling them into fists as I admired the jewellike shimmer my skin had suddenly gained.
“Amazing…” I muttered, trying to keep the grin from my face and failing utterly.
“Oh for… you seriously gave him one of those? You’re going to get thrown out for this…. Dishonorable discharge! I can’t believe you got the new lord goddamn Shined!” Yen said in horrified astonishment.
“What is… this?” I asked slowly, shaking my head and blinking furiously.
“It’s something that an idiot gave you to make you feel better, Jax. Just give it a few minutes, and it’ll wear off…”
“It’s high grade…” Tang admitted ashamedly.
“Are you f…” Yen snarled, taking a deep breath and blowing it out in a long sigh. “Tang, when we get back, you and I are going to Augustus, and you’re going to explain this… in fact, no. We’re going to Restun! Once he’s done with you, you’ll never touch this shit again, and I swear, if you’ve got him hooked on this…”
“I’m all right.” I interrupted her low-voiced yet fervent rant as I shook my head. “What the hell was that, though?” I asked as I blinked again, seeing the shimmer fade slightly.
“It’s a drug, Jax.” Tang admitted ashamedly. “I had
it for a while, kept promising I’d throw it away, and… well… you needed something to get you back on your feet, so I mixed it with my last healing potion.”
“What does it do?” I asked him, shaking my head and breathing deeply, trying to flush the stuff out of my system. I had no real issue with drugs, but I’d known others who’d been killed or worse by them, so to have one in my system that I’d not wanted freaked me out more than a bit. I checked my mana, seeing it was at twenty-two, and I grimaced, resolving to leave it, in case Oracle needed it.
I considered meditating and thought better of it; I needed to be sure that everyone was okay first.
“It basically supercharges your stamina regeneration, but makes you feel amazing while it does, and with the healing potion I gave you, it was enough to wake you up.” Tang said, grimacing. “I’m sorry, Jax, but I didn’t know what else to do. Giint had used something on you to stop the bleeding, and it’d mostly worked, but your skin was like ice, and you… well, you looked terrible. Then he stabbed you in the neck with something he’d found, and I panicked.”
“Bane, it’s okay; let him down…” I said, then staggered. Yen was there, and a second later, Tang was on the other side, and they helped me to the edge of the bed, making me sit next to the corpse of the black robed woman.
“Giint. I know you’ve sworn the Oath to me, so how about you explain this, please?” I asked slowly, as the room spun in and out of a kind of hyper-focus, before falling back to my normal vision.
“Yooou were dyyyyying. Usssed collld bombbb. Slooow heart. Then healllingg… intttto neckkk, fasssster.” He growled, glaring at Bane as he rubbed his throat where Bane had pinned him.
“So you froze me to stop or slow the bleeding, then injected me with a healing potion?” I asked, rubbing at my neck. I could feel raised bumps where something had pierced the skin, then been healed over, and even as I rubbed them, the dried blood flaked away, leaving healthy skin.
“Yessss,” he said grudgingly.
“What about shooting him with your crossbow? Hell, I lost you downstairs; how did you get up here?” I asked.
“Climb,” he said flatly. “Oath make meeee nott helppp down belllowww, but here? Nooooo riskkk to partyyyy. Could shoooot.”
“Fuck. Fine, we’ll look at the Oath again. Sorry for that, but you’re batshit,” I muttered, rubbing my face and licking my lips. “Why the hell does everything taste like… purple, suddenly?” I asked, then shook my head. “I don’t believe I just said that.”
“What does purple taste like?” Bane asked me quietly, and I shrugged.
“No idea, I just know I can taste it. Weird shit you gave me, Tang. Yen’s right, we’re going to have a chat about this later, but I know you did it for the right reason, and did it knowing you’d be in trouble for it as well, because you were trying to help.” I shook my head again, and the world tilted suddenly before coming back into focus, and I pulled up the details I could see for the group, noting that everyone was alive, even if most of them were well below half health.
“Right, look, I’m going to meditate, get my mana up, and hopefully let this shit wear off as well. How about you get the others up here, and we all get some rest? It’s been a long-ass day,” I said, getting some weary agreement from them all, bar Giint, who stomped forward and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Myyy people… they neeeed helppp…” he said hesitantly.
“I know, and we will heal them, don’t worry, but I’m out of mana potions now, and it’ll take a lot. Let me recover, and we will come up with a plan, maybe capture a few at a time and heal them up? I don’t know… I need to rest; I’m sorry Giint,” I apologized, and he nodded, looking determined, then moving off.
I sat down on the floor, pressing my back against the side of the bed, not wanting to stay sitting next to a corpse, or the bloody sheets. I shook my head a few times and breathed deeply, trying to wake myself up as my mind seemed to scatter from one thing to another, and I noticed suddenly that the dead woman’s toenails were painted and carefully manicured. Staring at them, I wondered about the life she’d had, here, with that thing, and… I shook myself again, harder this time. No. I had to meditate.
I began to build the structure around me, visualizing the box, even as I started relaxing my body and mind… when Bane knelt next to me and started to speak.
“Jax… I… I’m sorry…” he began, and I opened one eye to glare at him.
“What for?” I asked. “Interrupting me while I’m meditating, or trying to kill me?”
“Ah… both?” he said, shrugging, and I nodded, closing my eye again.
“For trying to kill me… don’t be so damn stupid, mate. You weren’t in control. Don’t worry about it; hell, he even got me, and I practically forgot everything trying to fight it. I was damn lucky that Tang spoke up when he did and made me think. As for interrupting me while meditating, I’ll let you off this once; next time, you can join Grizz in the punishment exercises.”
“I…” Bane started to say, and I cut him off with a raised hand.
“Bane, shut the hell up and let me meditate, please.” I whispered, and he grunted, then stood up and walked away, not spotting me watching him go and smiling until he reached the entrance to the balcony.
He caught me smiling and nodded in response, relaxing before moving out and patrolling the area, as Tang got more of a dressing down by Yen.
I ignored them all, focusing on my muscles and working down from the top of my head, locating every muscle I could and individually relaxing it. By the time I was forcing my toes to relax, I felt like I’d wasted a load of time, but as I mentally constructed the box around my image of myself, and then tried to build another, twisting the streams of ambient mana as they poured inside, I felt my mana regeneration shifting and speeding up.
I tried again and again to construct a second box, but each time, it failed, and I’d feel the first one shaking and starting to come apart as well.
Finally, after at least an hour, with my mana building and dropping as Oracle used it, I managed the second box, finding, unlike the first, which I visualized as making a six-sided box and simply enclosing myself within it, the second box had to be constructed with two ‘panels’ at a time. It fell apart again and again before finally becoming solid, and I felt my mana regeneration leap upwards again.
I eventually blinked back into reality, seeing the world again, rather than the mental image of the boxes surrounding my glowing form, and I breathed a sigh of relief at finding the group settled around a small campfire in the middle of the main room. Where I was seated, I had some privacy in the bedroom, and the others were gathered next door, still in sight, but giving me enough space that they wouldn’t distract me.
They were sat joking and relaxing, with the silent form of Bane on the far side, looking out over the cavern, and Arrin watching down the stairs.
Grizz was helping Lydia with her armor, and I noticed a few new dents in it, and surprisingly, a matching series of dents in Grizz’s, suggesting she’d given as good as she got.
I smiled at Oracle, knowing immediately where she was, and that she was watching me. I turned my head and found her in the corner of the bedroom. She hopped down from the chair she’d been perched in and walked over, crouching down and giving me a hug and a kiss.
The hug was long, and I felt myself relaxing further, knots I hadn’t been aware of relaxing at her touch, and I silently acknowledged that finally after so many years alone, she would always be there.
I kissed her again, and she grinned at me before getting up and moving out of sight of the main room, crooking her finger at me to join her.
“How are you feeling?” she whispered, and I kissed her thoroughly before responding.
“Better!” I said simply.
“And the potion that Tang gave you?” she asked.
“Gone, worn off… I think?” I said, shrugging.
“There’s an easy way to tell, apparently…” She grinned mischievousl
y.
“Oh?” I asked, and she told me to sit in the chair. Once I was down, she checked that the others couldn’t see, then shifted.
She changed her form to a slimmer, less busty version than usual, with long blonde hair that curled down to touch mid back. White stockings and suspenders and a lacy little bra and panties set did nothing to hide her body, serving only to enhance it.
I’d felt her emotions as she changed, and I knew that feeling; the mix of naughty, horny, and hopeful that characterized her teasing, but still, I couldn’t help but take a long, slow look, smiling widely as I planned all the things I was going to do with her when we had some privacy.
She came to me, clambering onto my lap and straddling me, kissing me deeply, and I let my hands lift, one stroking its way up her leg and settling on her firm ass, the other moving higher, sliding up the front. I flicked back a section of lace, exposing a nipple and leaned down, kissing it, before she shifted again.
This time, she flowed back, shrinking down, and was suddenly dressed again, grinning at me with a mix of elation and sadness that was just weird.
I grunted in shock, reaching out to her, then stood and adjusted myself, my trousers suddenly far too restrictive.
“You’re cruel…” I whispered, getting a shake of her head in reply.
“Apparently, it’s an effect of the ‘Ogg’ potion,” she explained, smiling regretfully. “It makes you unbelievably horny… so if you’d been unable to stop, and had jumped on me after that, we’d know that you were still drugged,” she whispered huskily. “It’s made to some secret recipe from a witch up in the mountains.”
“Wait, that was a set up?” I asked, half-hurt, half-amused.
“Not entirely; let’s just say that it seemed the most fun way to find out, with the best consequences if you were still under its effects,” she said, grinning.
“What, that my team sees me running round with my third leg out?” I asked, feeling a bit of annoyance rising at the thought of the damage that could have done to my image. Sure, the entire god damn ship apparently knew what we’d been up to the other day, and had been able to hear it, more’s the shame, but still…
