by A. J. Markam
16
Everything turned into chaos.
Exa and Kel both jumped off me screaming – one almost snapping off my junk, the other nearly ripping off my hand in their haste to get away. I was left groaning in pain, and with another epic case of blue balls.
Sela joined in the screaming. They didn’t even bother to grab their clothes off the floor as they opened the door and ran out into the hallway.
I glanced over at Alaria, who wasn’t even looking at them. She was staring at me like she wanted to make me the tenth master on her kill list.
And then, of course, I said what every idiot caught in a situation like this says:
“It’s not what it looks like.”
Even though it was pretty much exactly what it looked like. I mean, yes, I could’ve fought them off more, I could have cast spells at them, I could have never taken off my pants –
Alaria’s lower lip started trembling like she was trying to hold something back.
Tears?
Pain?
Betrayal?
I felt absolutely fucking awful.
What an asshole I was. She had been coming to save me, and here I had gone and –
Alaria doubled over and burst into laughter. “BWAhahahahaha – oh my Goddess, you should see your face!”
Stig stared at her like she was insane.
“You’re not mad?” I asked in bewilderment.
Alaria wiped a tear from her eye as her laughter died down.
“Well, I guess I am a little annoyed with you for being so preachy about ‘monogamy this’ and ‘monogamy that,’ and then you go and have a foursome without me. Especially one that looked so hot.” She walked over to the bed and started stroking my erection teasingly. “In fact, maybe we should get them back here and finish the job.”
Relief crashed over me like an ocean wave.
Phew, she’s not mad – and she’s not going to pull a Lorena Bobbitt on me.
Then the panic set in.
“As absolutely awesome as that sounds, I think we should probably get out of here before Saykir shows up.”
“Yeah… probably,” she grumbled.
She lit a fire at the end of her fingertips, then starting burning the leather straps binding me to the bed.
“You came back for me,” I said, staring up at her adoringly. In fact, I got a little choked up.
“Of course,” she said like it was no big deal. “You came to rescue me twice – in Abaddon and on the pirate ship. Why wouldn’t I come back for you?”
“Oh… yeah…”
I felt a little disappointed. Maybe I’d been wanting to hear something more romantic, like Of course – because I love you.
But what she’d said was enough.
Apparently, though, it wasn’t enough for her.
“So was it hot?” she asked, obviously delighted and insanely curious.
“…yeah…” I said warily as she burned through the right hand strap and it fell off my wrist.
She looked at me in surprise. “It wasn’t hot?”
“Yeah, it was – I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop and you to pull out a kitchen knife.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she started on the left hand. “I keep telling you, I want you to have these experiences. Not only are they super-pleasurable – and why would I want to deny you that? – but maybe then you’ll stop being so jealous about me doing them, too.”
“Mrm,” I grunted.
I wanted to stop talking about it, and I was annoyed by how long she was taking to get me out of the leather restraints – which only gave her more time to talk. “Hey Stig, could you come up here and help her burn these off?”
“Sure thing, boss,” he said, and leapt up on the bed. Then he put his hands together to cast a fireball –
“No, don’t,” Alaria ordered.
Stig looked up in surprise, then glanced over at me.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because they’re magical. I’m not just cutting through leather, I’m breaking down the spell with fire. No offense, Stig, but I think you’re likely to burn his foot off first.”
“Never mind, never mind,” I said hurriedly.
“Aww,” Stig grumped, and jumped down from the bed again.
“So which one was your favorite?” Alaria asked eagerly as she finally burned through the left hand strap and started on my feet.
I blushed beet red. It looked like there was no way of getting out of talking about it. After all, I was a captive audience – literally.
“Well, they were all pretty nice, but…”
“The one riding you was the best, right?” she grinned.
I blushed even more. “She actually just felt okay, but… apparently she thought I was pretty big.”
Alaria laughed. “I’ll bet she did! In fact, I’m surprised she could take all of you.”
I stared at her. “You know about that?”
“Of course. Frost elf anatomy is mostly the same as humans, but there’s a big difference in size.”
“How big is an average male elf?”
She held up a pinky.
“About that. And if he’s huge – ”
She stuck out her thumb.
“ – like that.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding me.”
She finished cutting through the left foot. “Nope. As far as that woman was concerned, you’re hung like a barnyard animal.”
Whoa.
The words ‘You,’ ‘are,’ and ‘hung’ have never occurred in the same sentence regarding me, ever, unless there was a ‘not’ in there, too.
I felt a strange swell of… pride, maybe? Confidence?
Cockiness, if you will? (I know, I know – bad joke.)
But since no woman I’d dated had ever said ‘Wow, you’re pretty big’ (not even ‘You’re somewhat above average’), I had to take my ego boosters where I could get them.
“Almost all frost elf females, though, are built to accommodate this,” Alaria said, holding up her pinky again. “I’ll bet she was tight, wasn’t she?”
“A little too tight.”
She finished up the left foot and started on the right foot, the final strap. “The one sitting on your face was pretty self-evident – but what was going on with the chick sitting on your hand?”
I blushed some more. “Ahem… uh… double penetration, I guess you’d call it.”
Alaria gasped in surprise and joy. “Vaginal and anal?!”
Of all the NPCs I’d run across in OtherWorld, Alaria was definitely not going to be one to quietly mouth Anal.
I nodded, red as a fire engine.
“Which finger was in her ass? Or were there two?!”
“REALLY?!” I asked, irritated at having to talk about this at all.
“YES, really! I want all the details!”
I groaned. “Pinky in the backdoor, pointer in the va-jay-jay.”
“Mmmm… saucy little minx.” Then she winked at me. “We’re doing that as soon as we get out of here. Can’t have you doing stuff with other women you haven’t done with me.”
Holy shit.
“Can we not talk about this right now?” I asked.
“Why?” she cooed, and glanced down at my crotch. “I’d say you’re plenty turned on by it.”
It’s true – even though I was embarrassed, the conversation was fucking hot. And I had the rock-hard boner to prove it.
As soon as she burned through the final strap, I sat up and swung my feet onto the floor. “Turned on or not, we need to get out of here before – ”
“Too late,” Stig whimpered.
I turned around in alarm.
Saykir was standing right in the middle of the doorway and staring at me.
Except he didn’t exactly look sane.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody look that crazy, except maybe in cartoons.
One of his glowing eyes was bugged halfway out of hi
s head like it was about to physically pop out of the socket. We’re talkin’ Young Frankenstein Igor eyes.
His jaws were clenched together so hard that I could see the tendons standing out in his neck.
Not just one, but multiple veins throbbed in his forehead.
I stood up from the bed, put my hands out, and said my monumentally stupid line yet again:
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
Then Exa, Kel, and Sela – all still naked – ran up behind him.
“Okay,” I muttered, “this is exactly what it looks like.”
Eluun, Varisa, and six soldiers with spears rushed up behind them.
Then Saykir dropped his eyes down to my crotch and my shrinking but still three-quarters-erect boner.
So did all the women behind him.
There was quite the reaction.
“Oh my,” Eluun said, her eyes wide as she put her hand to her mouth.
Every single female guard gasped.
“I told you,” Exa whispered gleefully.
“SHUT UP!” Saykir screamed at them, and they all backed away in terror.
Varisa was the only one who reacted in disgust – unless you counted Saykir.
His other eye bugged out, his face started to twitch, and his nostrils flared.
“Oh – sorry about that,” I said, blushing furiously as I pulled a fur off the bed and covered my crotch with it. “Look, I – ”
A scream of unbridled rage tore out of Saykir’s throat like somebody had physically ripped it out of him.
“ARRGHHHAAAAARRRR!”
Then he Soul Sucked me.
A bolt of blue lightning blasted from his outstretched hand right into my chest.
I’d done it hundreds, maybe even thousands of times to enemies, but I had no idea what it felt like.
Holy shit was it unpleasant.
It felt like somebody had spiked a drinking straw through my chest and was using it to suck out my heart. Sort of like a human Capri Sun.
Not to mention that my hit points started dropping steadily. 100%… 95%… 90%…
Before I could even react (cuz it ain’t easy to think when your heart’s being sucked out through a soda straw), Alaria summoned a fireball and slung it through the air.
Saykir was apparently too fixated on me to notice what she was doing, because the fireball made a direct hit on the left side of his face, scorching his skin black.
He screamed again and turned his rage on Alaria.
At his level he must have had access to some sort of dual spell-casting ability, because with his free hand he spewed out something I can only describe as looking like Venom’s symbiote: a black, gooey strand of liquid that shot through the air.
If it was a higher-level warlock power, it was a doozy.
And pretty gross.
It splattered across Alaria’s face, all while still remaining attached to Saykir’s hand by a ropey strand of black gunk.
The thing swarmed like an amoeba over her head as she gave a muffled scream.
Saykir whipped his arm through the air and sent her flying across the room, slamming her headfirst into an ice wall.
“NO!” I screamed as Alaria collapsed onto the ground, unconscious.
I was still being Soul Sucked, but I had the ability to cast spells even while under attack, so I hit him with Darkfire. (Yeah, I know, a whole lot of good that would do against his 1.2 million hit points.)
Darkfire was the ‘slow burn’ warlock attack. Six seconds of your soul and hit points burning away.
It only did about .01% damage to him, but I felt a savage satisfaction as he grimaced in pain from the black flames dancing over his skin.
I was about to follow up with Doomsday, but I forgot about the Mage.
She got to me first.
Orange light exploded from Varisa’s outstretched hand, and a shockwave slammed into my body.
A message appeared:
Spell-locked: 8 seconds.
More than enough time for Saykir to take his revenge.
“You DARE attack me?!” he roared at me as his Soul Suck spell ended. “After everything you’ve ALREADY done?!”
Then he hit me with a taste of my own medicine.
Black flames shot out of his hand and engulfed my body.
Again, I’d never experienced what it felt like before.
It was even worse than Soul Suck.
I felt like all my internal organs were being roasted on a Waffle House griddle.
I gasped in agony and fell to my knees, watching as my hit points dropped.
57%… 54%… 51%…
“STIG, GET OUT OF HERE!” I screamed.
There was no forlorn look over his shoulder this time. He just scampered into the melted tunnel in the wall like a Chihuahua on crack.
“Master, the imp is getting away!” Varisa yelled.
“Forget the imp!” Saykir raged. “Eluun – heal my face!”
Eluun looked at me in sorrow and panic, no doubt recalling our conversation in the Temple:
Why the hell do you work for him?
But her fear got the best of her, and she waved her hand.
Sparkles of golden energy wafted from her fingertips. When the light faded, the blackened crust on Saykir’s face crumbled away, leaving behind unblemished skin.
Just then the Spell-Lock ran out on my powers. Either the Mage had a cooldown on it, or she just wasn’t paying attention.
I cast Soul Suck on Saykir – partly to raise my own hit points, and partly because I had a plan in mind. If I could just antagonize him enough to kill me, I should resurrect somewhere else outside the reach of his powers.
I wouldn’t be able to save Alaria by dying, but I sure as hell wasn’t doing her any good at the moment. At least it would buy me some time to come up with a plan.
Just to add a little insult to the injury, I screamed, “You shit-sucking son of a bitch!”
I guess he didn’t like that, because he hit me with another one of those symbiotic pseudopods.
It shot through the air and slapped over my mouth. I tried to rip it off, but it was stuck on my face like a goddamn facehugger.
Then – to my horror – it began to squirm its way through my lips.
I clamped my teeth down tight, but the black goo oozed through every available space and filled my mouth.
I wanted to throw up – in fact, I began to throw up – but by then the thing was flooding down into my throat. Whatever was coming up got stopped in its tracks.
Even worse, it began to go down my windpipe and up into my nasal passages.
It was like I was being waterboarded, but from inside my head.
Scratch that: waterboarding is simulated drowning, designed to trick your brain.
I was drowning.
My Breath bar appeared – the counter for how long I could hold my breath. The bar began to decrease, just like I was underwater and swimming.
Of course, having a bunch of living slime invade your nasal passages isn’t even remotely close to swimming, but I guess it was the same as far as the Breath bar was concerned.
The sensation was horrific. I gagged and tried to breathe, but only ended up sucking the black substance down deeper into my lungs.
How the hell is this allowed in the game?!
This is DEFINITELY going down in the QC report.
Saykir watched me, a malicious grin on his face.
But I was almost there.
My Breath counter dropped to zero, and what was left of my hit points began to plummet.
“Heal him, High Priestess,” Saykir commanded.
“My Lord – ” Eluun whimpered, horrified at what was happening to me.
“HEAL HIM!”
Golden swirls of energy flew from her hands into my chest and brought me back up to 50%.
SHIT.
I had been so close to death – and escape.
But I hadn’t been able to inhale and reset my Breath counter, so my hit points continued to tu
mble crazily.
45% – 40% – 35% –
“KEEP healing him,” Saykir commanded.
“Yes, my Lord,” Eluun whispered, and looked at with me with eyes that pleaded, Forgive me.
Next to her, Varisa smiled nastily, apparently getting off on my suffering.
Saykir strolled over to me, the black symbiote shortening as he drew closer.
“You will pay for defiling what is mine,” he hissed in my face. “You will pay dearly.”
Eluun continued to heal me, and my hit points never zeroed out.
The sensation of perpetual suffocation was absolutely horrific – like drowning in slow motion – yet I was unable to die, caught on the threshold of life and death. It was absolute agony.
Finally Saykir released the pseudopod, and I felt the slime retreat from my throat and nasal passages like wet spaghetti noodles.
I collapsed onto the ground, my Health hovering at 1%.
Saykir walked over to Exa, Kel, and Sela, still naked but now terrified.
“Get out of my sight,” he snarled at them, “unless you want to suffer the same fate as him and his whore.”
They bowed and scraped, then took off running down the hall as fast as they could.
Saykir looked at me and Alaria, who was still unconscious on the floor.
“Take them to separate prison cells,” he instructed the guards. “I will deal with them later.”
The last thing I saw as the soldiers grabbed me by my arms and hauled me away was Eluun staring at me in horror, silently mouthing I’m sorry.
17
The soldiers tossed me into a tiny cell carved out of ice and threw my clothes in after me. Then they shut the iron door, turning the room pitch black.
I fumbled around in the darkness for my clothes. I desperately needed them as a barrier against the cold, hard floor.
After I was dressed, I walked over to the door and searched for some sort of handle in the dark – but there wasn’t one. Obviously it was designed only to be opened from one side.
I sat down on the floor, wrapped myself in my cloak, and wondered how the hell I was going to get out of here.
Stig might be able to lead the pirates back through the tunnel, but would they even come? This was their opportunity to be rid of me and Alaria – and their oath to fly us around the world. Why not take advantage of that?
And who was to say there was even time for them to get here? Any second now, the door might open and Saykir might walk in, ready to execute me.
