by Mia Archer
“Get whoever’s following me!” I shouted.
I heard a confused and dismayed cry from Caitee behind me. Shit. She’d been the one following me. Not the rest of the crowd. Not that I gave much of a flying fuck that she was the one following me. If what that Gorok asshole had inadvertently given away was anything to go on then she’d been about to sell me down the river by giving me to the “big boss” in the city. Whoever the fuck that was.
Well I wasn’t going to feel bad for her if she had a bad experience with a bunch of people who were under the influence of whatever the hell I’d just done. I was pretty sure it had to do with that goddess, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it or what to do with this power other than using it to get the hell out of here while the getting was good!
I ducked around the group going after Caitee. I heard her yelling behind me as the clear sound of swords ringing against one another hit my ears, but I was running towards the city as fast as my legs could carry me.
I needed to get the hell out of here. I needed to get to crowds. Crowds would be safe. I could hide in crowds.
Maybe. With a little luck. I hoped.
27
Red Light District
Crowds were a terrible fucking idea. I looked at the people streaming all around me in this massive city that was way bigger than anything I’d ever seen in a game before.
Usually cities in games like this were small affairs that were meant to represent the idea of a much larger space. Only it looked like the people who made Etherea had finally cracked the secret to creating a city that was so big that it was close to the real thing.
I mean it wouldn’t hold a candle to a true city in the real world, but it felt fucking massive.
Also? I was pretty sure that just about everyone who came slinking out of the shadows in the city, or looked at me in the wrong way, was someone who was coming along to really ruin my day.
I put my head down and kept moving. Now that I was in here I wasn’t even sure what the hell I was doing. It’s not like I could gain any levels here. I needed to get out and fight monsters to do that. The only problem being if I went out and tried fighting monsters in the starter zone I was going to rapidly run into other players who would likely do their best to kill my ass before the monsters had a chance to get to me.
What kind of fucking game had PVP enabled in a fucking starter zone? Honestly.
I turned and a chill ran through me as I saw a guy dressed head to toe in black leather staring at me from behind a cowl that was so deep and dark it was difficult to see his face. I figured that had to be a deliberate fashion choice, and the fact that it looked like he was looking directly at me couldn’t mean anything good.
Also, I was pretty sure that the fact that he started towards me as soon as we made eye contact, though again it was difficult to call it eye contact when I couldn’t see his eyes, meant he meant nothing good for me.
“Motherfucker,” I said, not for the first time considering logging out of the game and being done with it for good.
Only there was something that stopped me as I turned and tried to push my way through the crowd. I wasn’t going to let them chase me away from this too. There were so many things I hadn’t done since coming to the Academy because I was worried about getting on the wrong side of all those rich assholes, but I wasn’t going to let them chase me out of a fucking game too.
Though I was starting to think it might be high time to create yet another character since they knew what this one looked like. Though there was a part of me that was irritated at that idea too.
It didn’t help that the crowd seemed to be doing their best to keep me from getting through them. Which I guess I should’ve expected from a bunch of entitled gamers who were doing their best to get through the crowds themselves.
It didn’t help that this game had collision detection, which was another thing I’d never seen in any other MMO.
“Come on you assholes,” I growled. “Get your asses out of my way!”
Someone looked at me and frowned. It was a big dude who bore more than a passing resemblance to an oversized troll with green skin, though prettier than what you might think of when you think “troll” because this was a game, and if there was one thing game companies had learned over the years it was that people didn’t want to be ugly in their escape from reality.
Especially if it was an escape from being ugly in the real world, though something told me that wasn’t a problem for a lot of the people who could afford getting into the game early.
“Fuck you,” the guy said.
“Fuck you too!” I said.
Again that strange light shot out and hit the guy. He sparkled for a moment with the same kind of magic I’d seen coming from that goddess. His eyes flashed, and before I knew it he was picking me up like I weighed nothing.
“I’d love nothing more!” he said, staring at me with the kind of love and devotion I think a lot of girls wouldn’t mind seeing from their partner.
Yeah, the only problem was I didn’t want to see that kind of love and devotion from a guy who bore more than a passing resemblance to a green Quasimodo. I didn’t want to see that kind of love and devotion from any guy, for that matter.
But he seemed to be under the spell of whatever the hell I’d used on him. I would’ve paid good money to figure out what the fuck it was that I’d used on him, damn it. Whatever that goddess did to me, I hadn’t asked for it.
I guess I wasn’t going to knock it if it got me out of a sticky situation though. The troll started carrying me through the crowd, and he didn’t seem to give a fuck whether or not there were people in his way. It also didn’t seem to matter that there were those people in his way considering he was big enough that he could power through whether or not people wanted him powering through them.
I looked behind us. To the guy in the all black. He was following behind us easily enough. I guess the one flaw in this whole plan was that a giant troll wading through crowds leaving a path of destruction in his wake also meant there was a path for someone to follow.
The guy pointed to me and there was nothing but malice there. Yeah, I had a feeling I was looking at someone who was working on behalf of some of those rich people Caitee had been talking about. Then again she’d probably been working on behalf of some of those rich people as well, so what the fuck did I know?
“Um, where are you taking me?” I asked.
“To the Red District,” the troll said, still staring down at me with the kind of love that was disturbing coming from a creature like that.
Maybe he would’ve been sort of handsome in an “oversized lug” sort of way, if you were into that sort of thing, but I definitely wasn’t into that sort of thing and the last thing I needed was for him to take me to this district. Wherever the hell it was.
“You really need to let me go!” I said, trying to drum my fists against him and knowing even as I did it that it wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good. This asshole was going to do what he was going to do.
“Don’t worry my love,” he said.
I glanced at the timer that’d appeared in my window when I accidentally used whatever the hell that spell was. It was ticking down, but I still had a good ten seconds. I wondered how this spell worked. If I was going to keep putting people in my thrall then it seemed like it’d be a good idea to figure out how the hell this thing operated, but it’s not like I had time right now.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked as we turned down a dark alley and then came out in a street where everything seemed a hell of a lot darker and hazier than it’d been out on the mean streets of the big city.
“The red district,” the troll said, looking down at me and drooling just a bit now, which I could’ve done without. “We’re going to have fun here.”
I glanced around the place and it suddenly occurred to me exactly why they called this place the red district. Sure everything was bathed in a dull red glow that came from lights in all the windows up above,
but that wasn’t the main reason for the name.
The red district. As in the red light district. I rolled my eyes. Of course the people who made this fucking game wouldn’t be any more imaginative than that. I also figured it wasn’t good that this prick was taking me to the red light district to have a little bit of fun.
“We are not doing this!” I growled, beating my fists against him. “I’m not going into…”
“Hey!” a voice called out.
The troll stopped. Turned around. Looked quizzically at a group of women who’d appeared all around us in a semicircle.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a little bit of fun looking at these women too. I know I’d always been a little annoyed at video games where women had a bunch of skimpy clothing options that never seemed to enter into the options for the gentlemen, but looking at these ladies in diaphanous outfits that looked like they’d be more at home on the front page of an underwear catalog I found myself appreciating some of the finer points of sexy video game outfits for the ladies.
Also? It seemed just a touch ridiculous that they’d all be standing there like that trying to face down a troll. All of them were impossibly attractive, but the only thing I figured they’d be able to do to my oversized friend was maybe give him a boner that lasted for more than five hours.
He waved a dismissive hand at them, which had the added effect of nearly dropping me to the ground. I yelped and grabbed around his neck, hating that I was grabbing around his neck even as I did it. It’s not that I liked having him up close and personal like this so much as I didn’t want to fall.
I was high enough up that I figured there was a good risk of taking some falling damage!
The troll turned. The timer was running low now. Only a few more seconds and I’d be free. Though when he turned we were facing another group of impossibly hot women of all different races and shapes and sizes staring up at the troll as though they meant business. One of them held her hand up and flames danced from finger to finger. Another held a truncheon she was slapping into her hand as though she meant business.
All of them were staring up at the troll like they were about to ruin his fucking day, and he didn’t seem to realize how in for it he was because he was still staring down at me with pure worship in his eyes.
Then he blinked a couple of times. His eyes glowed again as the timer reached zero, and he blinked a few more times as he looked around in confusion.
The spell had finally worn off. He seemed more confused than anything.
“What the…”
He looked down to me and his face screwed up in anger.
“You! What the fuck am I doing holding you?”
“Yeah, that’s an interesting story, and…”
I didn’t get a chance to even start the story. No, no sooner had his eyes done that weird glowy thing than he bellowed in pain and I went flying.
Not the good kind of flying either. We’re not talking “moving through the skies with Christopher Reeve staring at you.” Though in my case that whole dreamy flying through the sky while reciting weird poetry thing to some excellent John Williams tunes had always had Melissa Benoist and not Christopher Reeve.
Yum.
I hit the ground and, sure enough, lost a few hit points. I rolled a couple of times to try and absorb the impact even though I had no fucking clue whether or not that was even the kind of thing that would do me any good here in the game world.
When I came up some of those women surrounded me and tried to pull me away, but I stopped. I was worried about that troll, for all that he’d been on the verge of creating the game equivalent of a road rage incident back on that main thoroughfare.
“Wait,” I said. “You don’t understand. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Oh honey,” a girl with dark skin and equally dark eyes I could lose myself in said as she stared down at me. “I don’t know what he did to make you think like that, but you’re free now.”
“No, you seriously don’t understand,” I said. “It was…”
The troll bellowed again as a sword appeared out of his leg. None of the girls came up past his waist, that’s how big the dude was, but it looked like they weren’t all that worried about bringing him down whether or not he was twice their size. Flames shot up and hit him in the face.
I looked around to see if there were any guards around who might be able to do something about this. There were always guards in cities like this, and they were always ready to move in and take care of people who were getting out of hand, but in this case there was no help coming.
The guards walking along looked like they were half drunk and only in this part of town because they wanted to sample some of the wares and not because they were interested in keeping the peace.
“Wait a second,” a pretty blond elf with impossibly pale skin said. “This is the one we heard about. The one from El’huin.”
“Seriously?” another one said.
“I told you she’d be coming this way,” an elf with blue hair said, looking down at me and shaking her head as though she was truly sorry that I’d come this way.
Panic seized me. That guy in the black leather had been bad enough. The troll had even been pretty bad. But this seemed even worse. Was everyone in this fucking game looking for me?
I thought about what Caitee had been saying about Calixia, aka Chelsey, and I figured it couldn’t be good that I was running into a bunch of women who seemed to know who I was. Anyone who could recognize me at a glance wasn’t someone I wanted to meet, thank you very much.
“I’m sorry about this,” the one with blue hair said as her hands started to glow.
I didn’t know what she hit me with, but whatever it was must’ve been pretty fucking powerful. One moment I was lying there on the dirty ground trying to get a feel for what the fuck was going on, and the next I was slipping into unconsciousness.
I tried to fight it. I had the sinking feeling that if I lost consciousness that was going to be that, but whatever spell this bitch was using on me was far too powerful.
So I went nighty-night for a little while.
28
Cancelled Classes
I sat up from the little cot and took a couple of deep gasping breaths. It seemed like a time to take a few deep and gasping breaths, considering everything that’d just happened.
Holy shit that had been intense. I’d blacked out and…
That was it. I’d stayed blacked out. There’d even been a little bar in one corner of the screen that let me know my character was going to be taking a nap for the next little while and there was no doing anything about it.
That seemed ominous.
I looked around the room. Then to the crystal interface. It sat there glowing fitfully like it always did. The thing was strangely beautiful with that blue glow that bathed the small silent room, but I knew it was the entrance to a world of hurt.
I definitely didn’t want to kiss it this time around. The thing had caused me nothing but trouble.
Also? I was hungry. Like really fucking hungry. I stood and tapped the plate by the door and was surprised to see that it was well into the afternoon. I’d burned off half the day playing the damned game.
I tapped my schedule and then my email to see if any of my afternoon profs had been obliging enough to cancel class so I didn’t have to worry about missing anything, but there were no notifications.
Fuck. Not only had I wasted a good chunk of the morning getting nothing accomplished in that damn game, but I’d also maybe missed a couple of classes. There was another one coming up and I really didn’t want to miss that! Not because it was important so much as because I didn’t want to have more knocks to my attendance record than I needed in one day.
Though oddly I didn’t see any infractions so far for missing any of those other classes. That was weird. Whatever, I needed to get a move on. The rumble in my stomach and the overwhelming feeling that I needed to piss also told me there were two more things I n
eeded to take care of that couldn’t be accomplished in the game.
I sighed and made my way out of the room. And froze as I saw Jessica sitting there blinking her eyes a few times as the glow from her crystal interface went from a solid blue to the fitful glow that meant it was waiting for input from a user.
That was a pretty nice gig she had going. She’d been playing the game the entire time I was in there. There must’ve been some sort of notification system that let her know when someone was coming out and needed help.
I brushed past her. I didn’t want to stop and chat with anyone. My mind was still racing with everything that’d happened. I wondered what would happen now that my character had been captured. I couldn’t stay logged out forever, after all, and I didn’t want to think about where I might wake up when I did log back in.
I considered just deleting this character as well. After all, I had that screenshot whether or not I changed to a new character. I could just get the fuck out of there by making sure my character never woke up.
Only there was still a bigger part of me that was royally pissed off that I was getting pushed around by these rich assholes all over again. I’d been putting up with it for nearly three years now up here at the Academy, and the thought of them doing the same in a game world had me spitting mad.
I was lost in those thoughts as I stopped at the autovendor and grabbed a quick bite and then made my way to class. I figured at the very least sitting and listening to someone droning on about ancient art history and the influence Banksy had on introducing shredders to modern art or whatever the fuck we were learning about today would give me time to think through everything and maybe do some research on the game.
The only problem with that plan was I got to my class and saw another honest-to-goodness old fashioned piece of paper stuck to the door announcing that classes had been cancelled for the next couple of days. As I walked down the hall and looked at some of the other doors I realized that the same was true for every other class in the place.
