by A. J. Markam
“If yer here for an early mornin’ bangin’, you two are wearin’ a few too many clothes for my taste. And what’s with the imp?” She wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously. “Is he goin’ to watch?”
“This isn’t that kind of goodbye,” I said.
“‘Goodbye’?” Tarka asked, alarmed. “What you mean, ‘goodbye’?”
“Krug is dropping us off at a place called Asterwaite, and – “
“Asterwaite!” she exclaimed. “I know it well! I can be your guide!”
“I don’t think so.”
She looked between us, a terrified expression on her face. “Wait – yer not here to send poor Tarka to Davy Jones’ locker, are ya?!”
The thought had crossed my mind.
Tarka was one of Alaria’s ex-masters whom we had originally set out to kill. We hadn’t because… well, she had proved useful in other ways.
She was item number three on the quest list, and technically we hadn’t fulfilled it yet.
Although now that I’d spent so much time with her (and, to be completely honest, inside her), I’d actually become quite fond of her. In a messed-up, completely consensual sort of way.
I looked at Alaria. “What do you think?”
Alaria draped her arm over my shoulder and squinted at Tarka pensively. Then she shrugged. “Kill her.”
I hate to say it, but my girlfriend – or whatever Alaria was – could be downright cold.
“Noooo!” Tarka howled. “Think of all the wonderful times we had!”
“I am,” Alaria said. “But ‘had’ is the operative word here.”
“Do we have to kill her?” I asked.
Alaria looked at me in surprise. “That’s what we set out to do.”
“I know, but… I’ve never killed anybody I’ve had sex with before.”
“You get used to it.”
“True,” Tarka said, as though she couldn’t dispute that nugget of wisdom.
“Come on,” I pleaded. “Can’t we give her a pass? Just this one time?”
Alaria rolled her eyes and sighed. “You really are an insufferable goody-goody sometimes, you know that?”
“No, no, he’s a wise landlubber! And think of all the wonderful times to come!” Tarka said, wiggling her eyebrows again.
“We’ll probably never see you again,” Alaria pointed out.
“You could just let me go in Asterwaite!” Tarka pleaded. “I could find passage on another ship, and we would never cross paths again!”
I squinted my eyes. “I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.”
“Perhaps we would cross paths again… but in a sexy way,” Tarka grinned as she wiggled her bare ass.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m 100% sure that if we let you go, you’d come after us or Krug.”
“Noooo,” Tarka said, like it was scandalous I would even suggest such a thing.
“…yeaaaah…”
“Well, we can’t take her with us,” Alaria said.
“What if we left her here?”
Alaria scrunched up her face in annoyance. “Why in the Seven Hells would I want to do that?”
“What better revenge could you possibly have than to know she’s locked up here in her own ship, constantly sailing the Seven Skies, with no chance ever to escape?”
Alaria’s eyes widened, and she smiled. “That’s not bad.”
“No!” Tarka cried out. “No, just let me go!”
“Not gonna happen,” I said. “Make your choice: death, or stay locked up. Assuming Krug will even go along with it, that is.”
Tarka scowled. “Alive, then. But curse the both of you, and may you spend the rest of eternity at the bottom of the Great Black Sea!”
“We could still kill you,” Alaria pointed out, “and yet you’re saying this in front of us, out loud. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“Then I wish you very many happy travels,” Tarka said sweetly.
Alaria rolled her eyes and turned to face me – at which point Tarka started making hideous faces and obscene motions with her tongue behind Alaria’s back. “Let’s go and make sure Krug is okay with us leaving her here.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Bye, Tarka.”
She stopped her obscene tongue-lapping long enough to wink at me and grin. “One last cock-floggin’ for the road?”
“Nope, I’m good.”
“One last jammin’ the ol’ rammer in the cannon mouth for old times’ sake?”
“No thanks.”
As Alaria and I walked out of the room and shut the door, Tarka’s voice followed me down the hallway. “One last assault on the gunwale? One last tongue-cleanin’ of the aft hull? One last artillery pounding on the Nether Shores?”
We ignored her and made our way back up to the upper deck.
5
The Revenge lowered into the harbor, its turbines carving out a massive depression in the water beneath it. The engines cycled down and the hull crashed into the bay with a gigantic splash.
The crewmembers secured the boat to the pier and set out the gangplank, at which point Alaria, Stig, and I turned to Krug.
“We have a favor to ask you,” I said.
“What,” he asked in a tone of voice like Christ, I KNEW this was going to happen…
“Would you assign someone to feed and take care of Tarka?”
He looked surprised, then turned to Alaria. “Aren’t you on a quest to kill all your old masters?”
“I was,” Alaria sighed.
“Then why not Tarka?”
Alaria pointed at me. “Ask Mr. Bleeding Heart.”
“It’s just… we’ve had sex with her,” I explained. “I don’t want to kill her after that.”
“I hear you get used to it,” Krug said.
“You do,” Alaria agreed.
“Look,” I said to Krug, “if you really want revenge on Tarka, wouldn’t you like to keep her imprisoned forever – just like she planned to do to you while you were her slave? Except you’ll be in charge of her old ship, which is now yours – which you can lord over her every day, forever.”
“That rationale sounds suspiciously familiar,” Alaria said snarkily.
“Shhh,” I shushed her, then turned back to Krug. “Well?”
The pirate captain scratched his gigantic lantern jaw as he thought it over.
“…alright,” he finally agreed, with the closest thing to a smile that I’d ever seen on his ugly grey mug.
“Thank you,” I said, relieved that Tarka would be spared.
“Thanks for everything, Krug,” Alaria said.
“Yeah, thanksh,” Stig slurred.
“Especially for saving us from Saykir,” I added for good measure.
“You’re welcome,” Krug said, then turned and walked away.
I stared at his retreating backside in shock.
“That’s it?!” I called out. “That’s all you have to say?!”
I was expecting a little something along the lines of, Thanks for getting 4000 gold into debt to a mob boss in order to repair my ship.
Or, Thanks for freeing me from slavery, maybe.
You know, a little ‘tit for tat’ in the gratitude department.
Not a chance.
Krug halted and looked back at us.
“…good luck…?” he said, as though he wasn’t sure what I wanted to hear.
I sighed in exasperation. “Good luck to you, too.”
Krug nodded, then jerked his thumb at the gangplank. “Now get off my ship.”
Alaria made her way down the gangplank, and I followed after her with Stig. I was grumbling a little under my breath, I have to admit.
“Start the engines!” Krug bellowed.
The turbines roared to life, and water began to splash out in waves from underneath the hull.
“See you, Stig!” crewmember after crewmember called from the railing. He was their constant drinking buddy, so I guess it made sense.
Stig waved back drunkenly, then slumped dow
n over my shoulder again as he passed out.
Krug walked over to the railing, looked down at us, and raised one massive hand in farewell. “Till the Seven Hells.”
“Till the Seven Hells,” Alaria called back.
I frowned at her. “What does that mean?”
“It’s something demons say when we don’t think we’ll ever see each other again,” she said, her voice tinged with the slightest bit of sadness.
That kind of choked me up, to be honest.
In fact, I was wrestling with some feelings of my own. And not just because we had just lost an incredibly fast source of transportation.
The Revenge had been a huge part of my first few months in the game, and had played a significant role in my relationship with Alaria. With its departure, I felt like we were losing a significant milestone in our lives – like moving out of the first apartment we’d ever shared together.
I know that sounds sappy, but whatever. It was the truth.
Alaria and I moved across the dock to get out of the blast range of the engines. Within sixty seconds the turbines were at full throttle, and the Revenge lifted once more into the sky.
We watched as it shrank to a tiny black dot amongst the clouds – and then it was gone.
We stood there in silence for a few seconds, just getting used to the enormity of being completely on our own from here on out.
“Well,” I finally said, “shall we set off after your next ex-master?”
“Let’s,” Alaria agreed.
We walked along the dock until we came to the main area that made up Asterwaite. The town was a multi-tiered series of platforms and wooden shacks, with ramps going every which way and connecting one level to another.
The place was obviously some sort of smugglers’ cove, because everywhere you looked there was a shady-looking character. Goblins hawking potions, tattooed ruffians carousing in bars, menacing figures lurking around the graveyard on the mountainside.
The whole place skeezed me out. It was like the Underneath back in Exardus – just above ground, with a lot more water, and the streets were made of wood.
And the Underneath had only been bearable to me while I was drunk.
“Do we need anything?” I asked Alaria. “Because I’d kinda like to get out of here as fast as we can.”
“Booze,” Stig piped from my shoulder.
“Not for you,” I said disapprovingly.
“Awww…”
“Just provisions,” Alaria said. “I think I can navigate by sight from here, but I have no idea how long the trip is going to be.”
We stopped in one of the less grubby-looking shops and purchased some hunks of salted meat, flasks of water, loaves of bread, and a handful of fresh fruit. Then we set out on our trip, careful to look behind us to see if anyone was following.
No one was.
That we knew of, anyway.
6
After leaving Asterwaite, I summoned Balrog – the horse I’d bought back in Exardus after I’d reached Level 20 – and settled in for a long ride.
After he regained consciousness, Stig sat in front of me in the saddle, though I had to plant one hand firmly on his neck to keep him from toppling over.
Alaria flew half the time, often soaring as high as she could to get a better view of the surrounding landmarks. When she got tired she would ride behind me on the horse, her arms clasped around my waist and her breasts pressing into my back.
It made for a nice trip.
That was the only thing that made for a nice trip, though. There was certainly nothing interesting about the landscape. It changed gradually from foliage-covered mountains to rolling hill country, but nothing about it was beautiful or exceptional.
To stave off boredom, I checked over my character stats and the inventory I’d amassed while in Exardus.
Level 23
Health 1460
Mana 2400
Intellect 221
Stamina 177
Armor 50
Necklace of Ra’nath: +40 Intellect, +20 Stamina
Shoulders: +5
Cloak of the Northern Wastes: +6 Armor, +10 Intelligence, +15 Stamina
Shirt: +4
Vest: +6
Bracers: +4
Pants: +6
Belt: +4, +3 Intelligence
Boots of the Yeti: +10 Armor, +12 Intelligence, +20 Stamina
Gloves: +5
Rings: +4 Intelligence, +6 Critical Strike
Ring of Tharos: +60 Intellect, +40 Stamina, +20 Haste
Trinkets: +7 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Wand of the Dead
+50 Intellect
+30 Stamina
+15 Critical Strike
Critical Strike: 7.5%
Haste: 4.5%
I’d upgraded a few items of clothing for a slight bump in armor, but other than the regular increases in Intellect and Stamina that came with leveling up, I was basically where I was after my first couple of runs through the Tomb of Tharos.
The problem with grinding the same dungeon over and over was that it gave you the same loot every time. Yes, I’d scored some fantastic increases the first time through – but you could only wear the same +60 Intellect ring once. After that, you had to sell all the duplicates you received.
Speaking of selling, I had a nice chunk of change in my purse since I hadn’t paid my weekly installment to Varkus before I bolted. I had 122 gold – basically three days’ worth of dungeon grinds. (The rest of the week I’d played hooky and had the hottest threesomes imaginable with Meera and Alaria. If I’d walked out of Exardus with only pocket lint to my name, the memories alone would have been worth it.)
I’d sold all the loot I picked up on my last day of work. I couldn’t use the weapons or armor, and I didn’t need the healing potions, since I could use Soul Suck to replenish my hit points. The only thing I had left was food, water, a little alcohol, some odds and ends like torches, and my Scepter of the Servant, which I kept for nostalgic purposes. Even though I couldn’t summon the goddess of chastity with it anymore, and my current Wand of the Dead far surpassed it in stats, it was still a nice memento of a huge win.
Once I was finished reading through my stats and rifling through my bags, I looked up. The endless vistas of grass hadn’t changed one bit, so I ran through my spell-casting abilities as well.
Darkbolt – a blast of dark energy that did one burst of damage.
Darkfire – flames of dark energy that did damage over six seconds.
Unholy Quartet – the ability to summon four imps to fight on my behalf for 22 seconds.
Soul Suck – the ability to drain life from an enemy and add it to my hit points (and the main reason I didn’t bother carrying healing potions).
Self-Sacrifice – the ability to give some of my Health to my demons.
Mana Conversion – let me trade off a percentage of my Health for more mana to attack with. A ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ sort of deal, only to be used in cases where my magic powers were seriously depleted.
Doomsday – a delayed reaction attack that dealt a huge wallop after 20 seconds.
Terror – the ability to temporarily scare the shit out of an enemy and make him run for the hills.
All-Seeing Eye – a spell that lasted 30 seconds and let me magically scout ahead.
Invisibility – I could become invisible for 15 seconds at a time, though only once every five minutes.
Super-Charged Heal – a passive spell (basically an upgrade that I didn’t have to consciously trigger) that made my Self-Sacrifice spells 25% more effective.
Hellstorm – an Area of Effect spell where a flock of little bat-winged demons cast down burning sulfur on multiple enemies for six seconds.
Those were all my main attacks. At Level 20 I’d gotten the ability to summon a mount – my horse Balrog – and at Level 22 I’d gotten another passive spell that increased the power of Soul Suck slightly. Whoop de doo.
I was currently sitting at Level 23, but I only got ne
w powers on even levels. Which meant that as soon as I leveled up again, I would hopefully get something cool and not another damn passive ability.
Not only that, but when I reached Level 25, I could summon another demon to fight for me – which I sorely needed. Alaria and Stig were great, but they were still relatively lower-level demons. My most powerful fighter, Blutus, had taken off to attend art school or do community theater or something as soon as I freed him. And my illusion demon, Dorp –
Shit.
I’d been trying to forget about what I did to Dorp.
During my drunken bender in Exardus after Alaria dumped me, I’d been a complete fucking asshole to him. I’d berated him and blamed him for driving Alaria away. I’d told him nobody liked him, that everybody made fun of him behind his back and took him for a fool.
Part of that was true. He wasn’t exactly well-liked. His voice was annoyingly high and depressing, like Eeyore on helium. And he talked incessantly. The frost elf priestess Eluun had tried to shut him up by telling him a ball gag was actually an enchanted artifact. It had worked – he’d worn it non-stop, all so he could telepathically inform elves all over OtherWorld about my ‘heroic feats.’ At least, that’s what we’d told him so he would wear the damn thing.
But Dorp had never meant anybody any harm. He was like a child, without any emotional defenses whatsoever. He’d worshipped the ground I walked on – which is why my brutal, eviscerating rant had hurt him so badly. I’d screamed at him until he stumbled off crying and alone… and that was the last time I’d ever seen him.
Some fuckin’ hero I turned out to be.
That was the one thing I’d done in the game that I still felt horrifically guilty about.
Changing Alaria’s code to try to make her monogamous?
A terrible mistake, and one I would never, ever repeat – but not something I’d done maliciously. Selfishly, yes – but had I known the pain it would cause her, I never would have even considered it.
Not freeing Blutus immediately?
