by Mia Archer
Whatever the reason, I jumped to the side of the autovendor and pressed against the wall. I didn’t even stick my head out to see if I could see who was passing by out there. No, I knew those voices.
It was none other than Chelsey and Tori. The queen bitches of the Academy. And what they were talking about really caught my attention.
11
Hunted
“You’re being ridiculous,” Tori said. “There’s no way there’s someone down here using the lab, and there’s definitely no way they had anything to do with the explosion.”
Well okay then. Maybe there had been something to my fucking instinct to hide. Their voices stopped at the entrance to the break room. I held my breath and prayed they wouldn’t come in here to continue their chat.
It’s not like I thought they’d try to tangle with me. If they did then they’d quickly discover that the filthy rizon had learned a thing or two about tangling with people in a one on one situation that a bunch of spoiled fucking rich girls couldn’t hope to match. Growing up on the meant streets of the surface had taught me a thing or two that a bunch of pampered scions of rich families probably never learned up here in the safety of the elevator.
I wasn’t even sure why I was thinking like that. Sure there might be some low grade bullying going down here at the Academy, but it’s not like that ever rose to the level of actual physical blows. So why did I suddenly get the feeling this was way worse than anything that’d happened so far?
“What the fuck are you doing Tori?” Chelsey said. “We need to check the fucking lab.”
“Just checking to see if there’s anyone around here listening in,” she said.
“You’re an idiot,” Chelsey said. “Come on. We need to check the lab and then get back to the game. I still say that bitch is out there somewhere in the forest.”
“If she’s still out there in the forest then there’s not a chance she’s going to survive at her level with the kind of stuff that’s hanging out in there,” Tori said, sounding almost annoyed. “Besides, I told you I gave her a good shove. There’s no way she survived that fall.”
“I don’t think I like your tone,” Chelsey said.
“Sorry,” Tori said. “But whoever that bitch was, she could be on the other side of the world or in one of the other elevators or on some other level on this elevator. What makes you think she’d be here at the Academy?”
Their conversation hit me like a lightning bolt from the heavens. Not that we ever got lightning up at the Academy considering we were well above the atmosphere. Any lightning bolts that did happen on any of the elevator levels meant something had gone seriously wrong with the weather controls.
Tori talked about pushing a girl. I’d just been pushed. She was the sexy blue girl? What the fuck?
“We’re just checking to make sure,” Chelsey said, sounding supremely annoyed. “Now come on. We check the lab and then we get back into the game. If she’s still in there then we’re going to make her pay.”
Their voices carried down the hall as they left the break room. Meanwhile I stood pressed up against the wall and the autovendor and tried to control my breathing as I processed everything I’d just learned.
I wanted to follow them and listen in more, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea. There’d be no way to hide from them out there in the hall. Besides, I’d already gotten away from them once in the game world. It’s not like I wanted to risk their annoyance again.
They might not be able to take me in a physical fight, for all that they liked to take potshots at me, but they could make my life more miserable than they already did in a thousand different ways I didn’t want to contemplate.
I didn’t even bother going back around the autovendor. There were to many questions running through my head. Like who the fuck Chelsey was. Tori was easy enough to figure out since she’d just copped to pushing me down the mountain, but which one was Chelsey? The half-giantess? The halfling? Someone else?
Were they the lieutenants, were they foot soldiers, or were they the ones running things? I could certainly see Chelsey being that sexy red succubus with her whipping tail. She certainly talked like she had some sort of authority.
Fuck. This was getting more and more complicated.
I waited until I heard their voices again. Again they paused just outside the autovendor room for a moment. At least I was pretty sure they paused outside the autovendor room.
“What are you doing now?” Chelsey asked.
“Someone could’ve gone in there while we were asking Jessica about what happened in the game,” Tori said.
“There’s no one fucking in here,” Chelsey said.
I held my breath again as I heard someone stepping into the room. Again I closed my eyes and tried to blend into the autovendor and the wall and wished I actually did have a stealth ability like something out of a game. Nothing to see here, bitches. Just the filthy rizon hiding behind one of the autovendors. Move along.
Thankfully whoever came in here looking for me didn’t go so far as to check around the edges of the autovendor. Which was sloppy, but I wasn’t going to knock it. Especially since they seemed to think the coast was clear.
“We need to figure out who that bitch was,” Chelsey said. “She has a screenshot of one of our gatherings, and you know that’s not going to be good for us if it gets out.”
“I know,” Tori said, sounding annoyed that Chelsey would even need to explain it to her.
“I know you know,” Chelsey said. “That’s why you’re my good little servant, aren’t you?”
I held my breath again, though this time around it was because I could scarcely believe that they were talking to each other like that. I’d gone from listening in on some crap they probably didn’t want me to hear because it involved secret game identities to listening in on something they wouldn’t want me to hear because it sounded like I was being treated to some weird dom sub thing they had going.
“Yes, I am,” she said, her voice quiet.
“That’s why you pushed that girl down that mountain for me, isn’t it?” Chelsey asked.
There was a sound. A quiet gasp. I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on just around the corner, and I knew I didn’t dare look. Though I did hear a familiar wet sound that I hadn’t heard in far too long. A sound that I was pretty sure meant someone was getting it on in the autovendor room. Then the smell hit me and I was sure of it.
It’d been so fucking long that I found myself getting a little weak in the knees thinking about the two hot rich bitches doing something like that. Of course I knew I wasn’t going to be able to join in their fun, but that didn’t change the fact that the thought of their fun was making me weak in the knees and just a little slick between the legs.
“Yeah, you’re my good little pet,” Chelsey said. “And because of that I’m going to give you a reward. Let’s head back to my dorm room. I think we have a little time before we resume the hunt for that bitch”
“As you wish, mistress” Tori said, her voice quiet and meek now and holding none of the annoyance that’d been there moments ago.
The wet noise stopped. It would seem the fun was over for the moment. I still couldn’t believe what I’d heard.
I held my breath and waited for them to leave. Then I waited for about another five minutes after they were gone so I could be sure they weren’t coming back.
Finally I peered around the autovendor. The room was empty.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it was a little silly to be breathing a sigh of relief when I was far from being out of the woods, but whatever. They hadn’t found me here, and I’d gained some very interesting information.
I needed to get the fuck out of here. I couldn’t get the thought of the two of them getting together out of my fucking mind, but I needed to keep in mind that they were the enemy. In the game and in the real world.
Damn it.
I breezed into the lab and looked down at the pretty girl who still sat at the d
esk. I was pretty sure they’d said her name was Jessica, but I wasn’t about to let on that I knew her name. That would make me look like a creepy stalker at best, and at worst she might figure out that I knew her name because I’d overheard it somewhere. That information might get back to Chelsey and Tori and they might put two and two together.
“How’s it going?” I asked, trying to sound casual and not doing a good job of it.
She stared at me with a knowing smile.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve made some enemies,” she said, wagging her finger at me.
A ball of ice settled in the pit of my stomach. I’d made enemies. She could only be referring to whatever Chelsey and Tori told her while they were in here asking questions. I had to play this cool. If there was anything I’d learned in my time at the Academy it was when to play something cool.
“What would make you say something like that?” I asked.
“I think you know exactly what would make me say something like that,” she said, wagging her finger again. “But don’t worry. Lab records are sealed. I’m not telling those bitches anything.”
The ice queen exterior she’d been hitting me with disappeared. This time there was no mistake when a smile spread across her face. She was actually amused by what was happening here! I could hardly believe it, but she was enjoying this!
“Um, thanks?” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” she said with a wink. “Maybe I’ll see you around the game, even. Sounds like you’ve been causing trouble, but my lips are sealed.”
I could hardly believe it. This was the most positive conversation I’d had with someone since starting at the Academy. There was still a very big part of me that was suspicious the other shoe was going to drop at any moment and this girl would turn out to be a two-faced bitch like everyone else here.
But for the moment I’d take it. I needed to get back to my room, after all. It was time to log into the game and see what there was to see. I had a feeling “what there was to see” was going to be an angry mob still calling for my blood, but it could be worse.
At least I had someone talking to me at the Academy. I hated that I was so excited about that, but there we were.
“Well this has been fun,” I said. “But I should probably get going.”
“You do that,” she said with a smile. “I’m Jessica, by the way.”
“Deanna,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, Deanna, but I sort of already knew that,” she said.
“You did?” I asked.
“Lab records,” she said. “Have to know who’s using the rooms.”
“Oh, right,” I said, the sudden worry that somehow Chelsey and Tori knew who I was fading.
I turned and headed for my little portal room to Etherea Online. I figured I’d probably already used up all of my good karma by having this simple conversation with this girl, and I didn’t want to further mess it up by letting things go on for too long.
“Nice meeting you Deanna,” she called after me, but I ignored it as I stepped into the room and thumbed the plate on the wall to lock the door.
I took a deep breath and sat down on the cot in the center of the small room. Things were happening fast, and I wasn’t sure what to make of those things. All I knew was this was all crazy, and I was safely locked in this room where no one could get at me without somehow getting access to my thumbs, which I had no intention of giving them.
I sighed. Tapped the Etherea crystal interface. It was time for me to get my ass back in the game and see what there was to see.
12
Welcome Bear
I woke up and took a couple of deep breaths. I took a look around and frowned. I didn’t like what the fuck I was seeing. The world was dark around me.
I panicked and wondered if that meant I’d died and gone to wherever the fuck it was smartasses who blew up inns went after they’d been chased down and killed, but then remembered crawling into a cave.
Idiot. Fucking idiot. I really needed to be more on top of shit.
I crawled out of the cave. I was sure to look around and make sure the coast was clear while I did that crawling. The last thing I needed was for those assholes who’d been chasing me down to discover me while I was down on my hands and knees and really vulnerable.
My first instinct once I’d determined that the coast was well and truly clear was to look up, but I couldn’t see anything above me. The world had been all bright and shiny when I was peeking over that small mountain ridge, but now when I looked up all I saw was the roiling blackness of what seemed to be an ever present angry storm above me.
Huh. That didn’t seem like a positive development. I looked around at a dark and very forbidding looking forest. Glowing eyes in the trees and bushes stared at me, but at least they looked like the kind of eyes that were attached to the art and not the kind of glowing eyes that were attached to creatures that might actually try and take a bite out of my ass.
I stood and dusted myself off. Checked everything to make sure that it was all in working order. I was a little sore, something that felt weird happening within the context of a video game, but I could move.
So move I did. Into the very scary forest. Though I made sure to keep as close to that mountain range that wasn’t a mountain range as I could.
Sure there was the possibility there were players up there looking down on me and getting ready to fireball the ever loving shit out of me, but I could hope that me not being able to see them meant they weren’t able to see me either. Or maybe they’d given up while I was off in the real world getting all sorts of juicy gossip about the girls at the Academy.
A girl could hope, at least.
“Time to see what there is to see since I’ve been getting my ass handed to me ever since I started this sumbitch,” I growled.
I kept going until I reached a road that seemed like it moved through to the starter zone. I turned in the direction of the starter zone and, sure enough, there was a path to the never ending orgy of players having all sorts of XXX-rated fun around the edges, or in that custom brothel.
I tried not to think about that too much as I looked around. No, I was more interested in whether or not there were players standing at that entrance between the zones waiting for me to come through so they could kill my ass. I could even see the starter zone on the other side as the mountains separating the zones improbably parted rather dramatically to give players access between the zones.
I guess the designers got a little lazy in designing that mountain pass because they didn’t want to mess with elevation in the game.
So far the coast seemed mostly clear, so I stepped to the edge of the trees and peered through that improbable gap I the mountains.
The difference between the two places was pretty fucking obvious. The starter zone was the sort of generic medieval location where everyone sang happy songs about how much they loved eating food and not being near all the nasty shit that inevitably resided in the more intense zones in these games, but this place just on the other side of an arbitrary zone border was different.
If I’d started out in the Shire, then this forest I was trapped in felt closer to Mirkwood. Complete with all the nasty shit that lurked there. I just really hoped I didn’t run into any giant talking spiders. Something told me shouting “attercop!” at any spiders I found in here wouldn’t be enough to defeat them.
I hated spiders. One of the few nice things about living in the Academy was I didn’t have to worry about them. Any insects or arthropods that did somehow make it up to our level of the elevator were destroyed by tiny drones wielding tinier microlasers in a high tech extermination game.
Movement had me pulling back into the trees. If that was one of the assholes who’d been chasing me I didn’t want to make it easier on them.
A stunningly beautiful frost elf walked past and towards the starter zone that was still off limits to me since I didn’t know what might be lurking there waiting to kill my ass. S
he was geared up like she meant business, and I felt bad for any talking spiders that decided to take her on. She also turned to glare at me as though I’d insulted her merely by existing.
Huh. So much for being hidden in the forest. I thought about giving her my opinion of her by making a rude gesture, but rustling in the bushes next to me gave me pause.
Not to mention there was a change that came over her the moment she passed through the two zones. She suddenly stopped and cocked her head to the side. Like she was listening to an invisible voice. Then she turned and stared at me, her eyes wide, and started talking rapidly.
Fuck. I got the feeling she’d just gotten a zone wide communication I wasn’t privy to since I wasn’t in that zone and she was ratting me out, which meant it wouldn’t be a good fucking idea to go back the way I came. It also wouldn’t be a good idea to stick around here for any longer than I absolutely had to, as much as I hated the thought of going deeper into this scary ass zone.
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. There was more rustling in the bushes all around me, and whatever was moving out there sounded like it was big.
I didn’t think anything that’d be rustling in the bushes here would be something good. And it was made all the more intimidating by the fact that the rustling in this game was so real. It was like I was in the fantasy world, which would’ve been pretty fucking amazing if it wasn’t so terrifying.
I wanted to be in an epic sword and sorcery fantasy world. Not a fantasy horror setting, damn it!
More rustling. This time it was accompanied by a growl. I looked to the elf just on the other side of the zone border with swords slung over her back and her ass moving back and forth in impossibly tight leather armor that looked like it was definitely a few levels higher than anything I had.
I did a quick inspect. Realized I was looking at a level one hundred character. The fucking level cap. Which meant if there were things in here that could wreck her then my level two ass was in serious trouble.
