by J. R. Ford
Farrukh showed him the orcish bow. “Will I be protected from a bow like this?”
The merchant tested the weight and frowned. “Probably won’t stop a direct hit. But there’s a big difference between a one-inch wound and an arrow going straight through you.”
Farrukh nodded and tried the bow himself. He frowned, ditched the pauldron, and tried again. His back strained against the leather, but he got the bow to full draw. With shaking arms, he returned it to a neutral position. “Man, this thing will pack a punch. But I need to bulk up.”
“You can work out tomorrow,” I said. “You’re on dinner tonight.”
“Oh yeah. Let’s stop by the butcher after this.”
Ana, free, sighed with relief and combed her hair with her fingers. “Now for the body.” She stuffed her hair firmly under the cap, then bent over and let her arms hang down. Heather shimmied the hauberk over her head. She was in a significantly more compromising position than with the coif. I tore my gaze away after a moment, then punched Farrukh in the arm to break his rapture.
The merchant sagged with relief when Ana finally opened her purse, then tightened again when she paused. “I’ll need tools to maintain it myself.”
“You can have some oil and a steel brush,” he said. “Will you just fork it over already?”
The tailor laundered and repaired our clothes instantly — one of the few luxuries the developers had granted us. While the others headed toward the butcher and grocer, I made for the herbalist, with the stated purpose of acquiring some painkilling willow bark.
Flowers and herbs hung drying from the shack’s rafters. The multicolor effect was mesmerizing. The place smelled so sweet it was almost sickly.
The herbalist was a homely Southern woman. “What can I get you, dear?”
“Some willow bark, and, uh,” I said, then tapped my index and middle fingers onto my palm until I’d selected “Disable Feed.” Although too many of the 200k could probably tell exactly where I was going.
I cleared my throat and squeaked, “Can women get pregnant here?” My face burned with embarrassment even as I said it. I hadn’t had occasion to worry, but no way would I get caught flat-footed on this one.
The woman smiled broadly. “Here, dearie,” she said, stuffing strands of a brown weed into a pouch. “One gold for two weeks’ supply. Chew a mouthful every morning, and I promise you won’t have any unwanted surprises.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, then handed her some coins, stashing the pouch in my backpack. “And, just to make sure: people outside the game can only see through player cameras?”
“And employee cameras.”
My face burned. “Viewer count?”
“Spiked to almost 50,000, just after you came in. But you’re a red-blooded young man, after all. Don’t be ashamed.”
Fat chance.
I caught my companions as they emerged from the grocer. Farrukh carried a jar of seeds and pods.
“Do we need that much?” Ana asked.
“Once you’ve tasted my biryani, you’ll ask why I didn’t buy more,” he assured us.
“Don’t make it too spicy,” I said. “And what have y’all picked up for tomorrow?”
“Chili,” Heather said, holding up a significantly smaller jar of reddish-brown spice mix.
Farrukh harrumphed. “How long until I get some of that world-famous New York pizza?”
“Just because I live in New York doesn’t mean I can make New York pizza,” Ana said. “I pay people to do that for me.”
“You would,” Farrukh said.
“Not that I couldn’t, if I tried.”
“Then do.”
“When I feel like it. Which will probably be sooner if you shut up about it.”
I put on my new prosthetic dagger, in case more orcs came for us on the walk back, but none did. Our cabin nestled in a bend in the river, inviting and homely.
Farrukh cradled his jar like a baby and headed inside as soon as we returned. Ana said, “Not you two!”
“Let me put my bag down first!” I stole inside, stashed my birth control meds under my bed, and was out again before anyone was the wiser. I didn’t want Heather cottoning on just yet — at best, their existence would be a silent pressure upon her; at worst, an affront. We hadn’t even talked about sex, not seriously.
Ana had grabbed a drill quarterstaff. “Most of those orcs had spears. You two need practice.”
“Farrukh needs practice too,” I pointed out. “He gets out that poleax sometimes. How about tomorrow?”
“Great idea. That way, you and Heather get two lessons.”
I groaned, then yanked off my shirt before it got sweaty and dirty. The cool autumn air made me shiver, or maybe it was Heather’s stare. Was my own leering as obvious?
“Right, Pav, you first. Heather, you should watch my moves, in case Pav continues to make eyes at me.”
Heather couldn’t keep a straight face, which only flustered me further. “Can we get on with the lesson now?” I pleaded.
“That was lesson number one for you, Heather. If you want to get Pav to do something he doesn’t want to, just bring up something he’s ashamed of. He’ll do whatever you want.”
“I will not!” Even though multiple memories of her doing just that immediately surfaced. Heather looked like she was taking the advice seriously. “Just fight me already!”
Ana’s staff was quick, and my gauntlet clunky, but whenever she committed hard to a thrust, my previous lessons kicked in. I’d divert it and simultaneously drive my stick-sword into her chainmail. The only blows she landed came from elaborate fake-outs, which she explained afterwards so no orc could pull the same. By the end, I was comfortable with my new hand.
My cuirass didn’t impede me, though neither did Ana’s chain dress and helmet slow her. The only evidence of their toll on her was when she called off our sparring after just ten minutes. Not that she was done for the day. Heather wouldn’t get away that easily.
I slumped against a tree to watch them go at it. Heather was a natural shapeshifter, and weeks of training had honed those instincts razor sharp. She could transform without missing a stride, both to and from human form. But the spear kept her at bay — she couldn’t get close enough to mime clawing Ana without eating a thrust in the attempt. Once her mana was out, she grabbed a staff of her own, though Ana far outclassed her.
Once Ana called it off, Heather came to sit next to me, but Ana was having none of it. “Up!” she said. “Heather, practice making symbols with your left hand. Pav, with me!”
I would’ve grumbled if the muscle memory and sword maneuvers she’d drilled into me hadn’t kept me alive more times than I could count. But it still felt unfair that all she had to do was shout commands and criticize my form while I worked myself ragged. “Two! Four! Parry! Disengage! Two! Faster on the recoveries! One! Parry! Dagger!”
Farrukh’s biryani was fantastic, even more so thanks to the appetite the drills had worked up. It wasn’t spicy, thankfully, but had an intoxicating fragrance. I scarfed it down as fast as a boy with one hand and a fork could manage.
“This is excellent,” Heather said. I nodded.
Farrukh grinned. “I told you, I make a mean biryani.”
“What’d y’all make of that new quest?” I asked through a full mouth. “Think it’s the trollbat boss?”
“A ‘massive flying beast’,” Ana said. “It could be just, like, a giant trollbat.”
“The Mollusking was basically a giant gastrolith,” Heather said. “Though it had lightning resistance, too.”
Ana said, “If the trollbat boss has the same, it’ll be tough to take down.”
“We should set a trap, like I used to do when hunting solo,” Farrukh said. “Lure it with chum and try to shoot it through one of the wings.”
“Depending on the size, one arrow might not cripple it,” Ana said.
“Imagine the gale,” Heather said. “Pav, have you ever tried nullify spell when the normal trollbats
summon wind?”
“Doesn’t work,” I said, then swallowed. “I think it’s just them beating their wings really hard. But you know what I haven’t tried? Nullify spell when they’re healing.” Trollbats had vampiric tendencies, drawing health from the blood of their prey.
“That has to be Visceral magic, same as Farrukh’s potions,” Heather said.
“What else can you nullify?” Ana asked. “What about fermic acid?”
“Fermic acid?” Farrukh asked. “Those ant things you encountered up north?”
Memories of Riyaasat played on my television, first the darkness, then the room swarming with fermids. Revulsion and fear gripped my throat. I rested my fork on my plate and managed, “They spurt acid when you poke them. But even if we run into more of them — and let’s not — I don’t want to try nullifying it. If it doesn’t work, I’ll get burned.”
“We’ll get you a potion,” Ana said, waving her fork, though she glanced at the blotches of burn scar on her forearm from our first fermid encounter.
“I’ll get you a potion,” Farrukh corrected. He’d baked some flatbreads on the side and tore one apart before using it to scoop biryani.
“I’m not sure nullify spell would work,” Heather said. “The acid’s more like a biological function than a spell.”
“Not like the slug curse,” Ana said. “The Hex portion, anyway. You still had to cast reverse transformation to get me back to normal.” She resumed shoveling biryani. It looked good. I picked up my fork again.
“For the same reason nullify spell doesn’t take me out of animal form,” Heather said. “I wonder why that is.”
“It doesn’t un-transmute either,” I mumbled through a full mouth.
“But once something is transmuted, it stays that way. Shapeshifting drains mana.” Heather had set down her fork and had that brightness in her eyes she got when thinking hard about a problem. She shook her head, making her hair bob. “Maybe it just doesn’t work on transformation effects.”
“Good thing I had you,” Ana said. She hadn’t paid Farrukh any compliments on the meal, but her voracity left no doubt. Judging by Farrukh’s smug look watching her, he could tell the same.
Heather still looked like she was thinking. “What about dragon-fire?”
Ana was incredulous. She deliberately chewed, then swallowed, then asked, “When did you go dragon slaying?”
“Did we never tell you?” Heather was grinning as widely as I’d ever seen her. “Vedanth had one guarding the Durg. Designed it himself, from the specimens we found in his labs.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said, remembering the dark grimness of that castle.
“I’m not sure if it would work,” Heather said. “I don’t know if it’s a spell or just impressive bioengineering. But we know transmute fire to water worked, back at the Durg.”
“Not well,” I said, remembering the way the heat had burnt Heather’s outstretched hand before the fire had turned to water. Transmuting fire or lightning was hazardous. Heather mostly stuck to stone and water.
My memories of duoing Vedanth Durg with her were layered in physical and social scarring, what with the stress of saving Ana, the terror of staying afloat above a sea of fermids, and my horrible choice of venue to probe Heather’s feelings. We’d cleared it, in the end. We’d been an island uneroded by the fermid waves, a bonfire that refused to be extinguished. I’d borne the Lightning Blade and made its strength my own.
Nonetheless, I found myself hyperventilating at the images. “Let’s never go back there again.”
My dwindling plate presented a looming struggle. It was hard to scoop up the rice without an accompanying implement, and it seemed irreverent to use my dagger hand.
“Like this.” Farrukh showed me his flatbread scooping technique. Even the bread was heavenly. I felt a surge of shame at my inability to make even the simplest dishes from my parents’ homelands, despite eating them regularly back in Atlanta. Good thing my disability excused me from cooking duty.
“So what’s the move?” I asked, wiping my mouth. “Head west?”
“The orcs are a more pressing issue,” Ana said. “They attacked us not far from here. I propose we scout toward Tyrant’s Vale and see if we find more.”
“Or if they find us,” Heather said.
5
I exhaled, trying to dispel the trembling. One wrong move and I was done for. But my hand kept jittering, no matter how calm I forced my breath to come.
Heather giggled. “Don’t look so ashamed. It makes me feel dirty.”
I blushed and abandoned any thoughts of a pass. But when she snuggled up against me, my thoughts began racing once more.
The evening air was chilly, but our blanket was warm. We’d appropriated a hollow in a copse of trees a little upriver of the cabin. Ana and Farrukh had enough tact to leave us alone.
Okay. I had a game plan. I put my hand on her side as innocently as possible. Steady breathing was key. Slowly, slowly, my hand traced up.
She wriggled onto her back and I lost all my progress. She faced me and said, “You know,” then looked down.
“Uh,” I said intelligently. “What?”
“You know you’re not being sneaky, right?”
Don’t know what I’d been thinking. Of course she could feel my hand moving. “Guess not.”
“Well,” she said, or asked. My mind was too muddled to tell.
She hadn’t given me a red light, but I still felt guilty. My hand moved up from her navel. I felt the bumps of her ribs below her dress. Then…
Years of internet pornography hadn’t prepared me for how amazing boobs felt. We kissed each other deeply, reveling in our closeness.
I was reluctant to press my luck, but humans are malcontents. Though this was perhaps the best moment of my sixteen years, of course I wanted more. My hand went for her dress’s straps, and she wriggled her arms free. I peeled it down. She blushed and turned away, presumably because I was staring.
Guilt surged, though not strong enough to stop me. “Come back here,” I said, taking her face and kissing her. She relaxed, and my hand resumed its exploration.
I recoiled in hypocritical surprise when I felt her own hands on my body. “Sorry,” I breathed and let her feel as she wished. Did she feel the same fire under my touch? I understood her hesitation then, and her heat, the way she pressed herself into me.
“What?” she teased, between kisses. “You didn’t think I want to touch you as badly as you want to touch me?”
I hadn’t really thought about it. Her hands started working on the buttons of my shirt, swift with plenty of post-injury practice. Over a month of working out with Ana had toughened me up, but I still felt myself wither under her gaze. I wasn’t the only one with a case of the stares.
I lay back against the earth, disregarding the dirt which would doubtless be discerned by the keen eyes of our companions. The light caught Heather’s hair, revealing flecks and twigs caught there. She was smiling anyway.
Okay. New game plan. I pulled her down into a kiss, holding her close with one arm while the other pick-locked the hooks of her bra. She laughed and kissed me back. If she could feel me pressing against her thigh — who was I kidding, of course she’d feel that, but she made no comment. It took a while, because I was distracted by the kissing and the touching and the overwhelming anticipation, but at last I prevailed over the hooks. I rolled over, still kissing her, only feeling a twinge of guilt as her hair accumulated more dirt. The smell of earth couldn’t overpower that of lilacs.
When we eventually wended back for the night, I was half-giddy from the feel and sight of her, half-irritated at the prospect of waiting until we could next find solitude.
The steel of my gauntlet pressed cold through my tied-off sleeve, but I appreciated the warmth of Heather’s hand in mine.
Vigilance had waned into complacency. With no trace of orcs for two hours, what were the odds of any now? The bittersweet aftertaste of my birth control herbs linge
red on my teeth, and my imaginary television turned on of its own accord. I changed the channel before the scenes caused a noticeable reaction.
We trekked north through the forests, toward the main river. Beyond it lay Tyrant’s Vale, where a station of Lancers had been overrun by an orc warband.
Our previous expedition to Vedanth Durg played on my screen. Vedanth had insisted the monsters he’d forged in his grim surgery had protected the realm from worse ones beyond the mountains.
So far, all the monsters we’d encountered had been of his creation, from shuddering mushrooms to the gastroliths that had nearly done Ana in. How could orcs be worse?
All maps stopped at the mountains. When the ground rose, we could see them in the distance.
We walked in a diamond formation, Ana at the head, Farrukh at the tail. Ana clinked softly with every step. I hoped the weight would make her take walking a little more seriously. My own cuirass didn’t chafe, which was good, but the helmet muffled my hearing.
“How’s the armor?” I prompted.
“It’s okay. Do you guys want to break soon?” I should’ve made her buy armor sooner.
“I think we can keep going for a while longer,” Farrukh said, the teasing in his voice not quite masked. “We had a big dinner last night. We should all be full of energy!”
Heather tossed Ana a lifeline. “I’m actually pretty hungry.”
Atop the next hill, we stopped for biscuits and water. “What’s next on our to-buy list?” I asked between mouthfuls. “I could use some new outfits.” In Atlanta, the only time I’d thought about money was when a new AAA title was released. I wondered if my budding fashion interest was born of necessity or vanity. Maybe I just liked having someone to look nice for.
“The apothecary sells Mana Potions,” Heather said. “And, unlike the Health Potions, they don’t go off. It would be useful to get one, for an emergency.”
“Or the recipe,” Ana said. “Think about how much Farrukh makes off selling his potions.”
