by A. J. Markam
“You don’t look good for it.”
“I am,” I said, and groaned as I sat up in the gutter.
I caught a whiff of myself as I did.
Jesus. Riper than a bum’s ass in August.
Stig was sitting on the curb a few feet away. He watched what was going on, but wisely decided not to get involved.
“Look, I got some money here,” I said, and opened up my bag.
Oh shit.
I was down to one piece of silver and a few coppers.
All of which I needed to buy booze.
“…although, I’m, uh, a little short at the moment.”
“What the gamblers might call ‘temporarily financially embarrassed,’ eh?” Varkus said with his creepy smile.
“I’ll pay you. Soon.”
Varkus laughed unpleasantly. “‘Soon’ – such a pretty word, isn’t it? ‘Soon.’ Just glides off the tongue. And yet I hate it. I much prefer the more abrupt ‘now,’ and yet so few in my line of business ever say it.”
“I said I’ll pay you,” I grunted.
“Oh, I know you will. And just to be absolutely sure you do, I want to tell you a little story. There once was a man – ”
“I don’t really have time for this,” I said, and tried to get to my feet.
The tips of three Warriors’ swords and a half-dozen Rogues’ daggers all found their way to my throat.
I eased back down in the gutter.
“Oh, you’ll want to hear this story,” Varkus assured me. “It’s a good one – and you can humor me, seeing as you owe me 4000 gold. Consider it a courtesy. Or ‘ephemeral interest.’ Whatever you like, as long as you listen.
“There once was a Warlock who owed me a pretty sum. This particular Warlock, though, could come back to life when he died. He always resurrected in a graveyard somewhere, which he used to get out of many a jam and then go on his merry way.”
Shit.
The goblin mob boss knew I could respawn.
“Except he made the terrible mistake of trying to run away without paying me. So do you know what I did? I had my boys here track him down and take him to the nearest graveyard. And then killed him… slowly. But when he resurrected, he came right back to where he was in the graveyard. So you know what they did? They tortured him to death again. And again, and again, over and over – 300 times, day and night. We had to swap my boys out in shifts, they did so much torturing and killing of that little Warlock. After 300 deaths, they let the Warlock go as long as he promised to repay what he owed within a month. And do you know what he did after that?”
“He paid you.”
“No, he ran off again. Had to track him halfway across the continent, but we did. My boys brought him back to Exardus and took him to the same little graveyard where they repeated the whole process 500 times in a row. Three days and nights of constant torture, death, and resurrection. Brutal.” Varkus tsk, tsk, tsked. “THEN do you know what happened?”
“He paid you.”
“Yes. Then he found a way to pay me. Do you know what the moral of this story is?”
“…don’t be that guy?”
“Exactly. Don’t be that guy. Pay me what you owe me, and you maybe we don’t have to cut your fingers and toes off one my one. Are we clear?”
“…yeah. We’re clear.”
“Good. I expect the first payment by the end of the week,” Varkus said. “Any questions?”
I’d survived hours of torture at Saykir’s hand by having my sensory levels set to 10%. I supposed I could get through 300 deaths at 1%… although I would rather not try it.
According to a writer for OtherWorld I’d talked to, torture was only supposed to be used as a threat within the game, not as an actual method of coercion. But I was a QC tech, and I was liable to find all sorts of bugs in the system – like a mob boss being able to torture me to death 300 times in a row. After all, something similar had happened to me before.
Just to be sure, I opened my menu up and turned my sensory levels down to 1% before I said anything more to Varkus.
(By the way, my hangover didn’t disappear when I dropped my levels to 1%. The game designers really wanted you to suffer for debauchery, I guess. Puritanical shitheads.)
“Um… I can’t get all 4000 by the end of the week.”
“I said the first payment. Pay whatever you can.”
“But how am I supposed to make enough money to pay you off?”
Varkus shrugged. “Not my problem. Just pay something… and remember my little Warlock friend.”
“Did you actually have a ‘little Warlock friend’?” I asked sardonically.
“No, that was more of a ‘based on true events that have not yet occurred.’ I’ve had dozens of Warrior friends, Mage friends, Shaman friends… the list goes on and on. But you’ll be my first cautionary Warlock tale. Unless you pay me on time.”
“I will.”
“Good. See to it. Three hundred deaths are too much for any man.”
He turned and walked away, and his posse of mercenaries followed along behind him.
I sat there watching them leave. Then I said to Stig, “How the fuck are we going to get that much money?”
“I don’t know, boss.”
“I don’t either… but what I do know is we’re not going to get it right now. How’s about a drink?”
Stig made a face. “I don’t know, boss…”
I looked at him half in shock, half in amusement. “You gotta be kidding me – you?! Turn down a drink?! You’re an alcoholic, remember?”
Stig sighed. “One drink.”
My imp was as good as his word. He bought a huge glass stein in our first bar, had them fill it with beer, and then nursed it all day long as I did the pub crawl from hell.
We went to the vilest drinking establishments you can imagine – and just like Cheers, everybody knew my name. Except instead of yelling, “Norm!” they yelled, “Human!”
Until I puked.
Then they sneered “Humans” a lot more disparagingly, right before they kicked me out of the bar.
Midnight rolled around and I finally ran out of money (and friends) – but I still wanted another drink. Didn’t care about the friends so much.
“Shtig… Shtig, here’s the plan,” I slurred drunkenly.
“Uh-oh,” Stig muttered.
“I’m gonna attack the bartender… you jump in… shince he’ll be attacking you, you’ll be able to teleport… you grab a bottle in each hand, then teleport out of the bar… an’ I’ll run out and we’ll go drink shomewhere elshe.”
“How are you going to make it out alive?” Stig asked.
“I, uh…”
I hadn’t thought that part out.
“I’ll shoul shuck him… hee hee,” I snorted, charmed by the idea of ‘shucking’ somebody’s ‘shoul.’
“Bad plan, boss,” Stig warned.
“No, ish a great plan…”
Stig turned around, put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled loudly. FWEET!
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said, shocked.
The noise got the attention of the orc bouncer. When the big brute looked at us, Stig motioned him over.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Better plan,” Stig reassured me.
“Ohhhh… okay… what ish it?”
“Watch.”
The orc bouncer came over. “What?”
“Can you throw the human out?” Stig asked.
“What?!” I said, shocked and enraged. “That’sh not a plan!”
“Why should I throw him out?” the orc asked Stig.
“He’s out of money and he’s about to shit his pants,” Stig said.
Needless to say, I was out on the pavement in two seconds flat.
“That wush a HORRIBLE plan!” I yelled at Stig as he came waddling out of the bar.
“Nobody got killed,” he pointed out.
“…oh yeah…”
It was hard to argue
with that. I couldn’t find the fault in his logic – until I finally did.
“…but I didn’t get a drink!”
“Here.” Stig handed me his glass stein, which was still a quarter full.
“You’ve been drinking thish all day!” I snapped.
“So?”
“So… it’sh warm!”
He put his hand out to take it back. “If you don’t want it – ”
“I didn’t shay that,” I said, and quickly took a gulp before he could change his mind.
Ugh.
Tasted like imp backwash.
I still kept drinking it, though.
I began to brainstorm. “Maybe we could go in another bar and get them to front me a bottle without a tab…”
“The human’s out of money!” Stig yelled as loudly as he could.
All the bouncers outside all the bars on our underground street folded their arms and stared daggers at me.
“You… little… prick,” I seethed.
“Just keepin’ you alive, boss,” Stig said. “Let’s go.”
As we climbed the staircase that led up out of the Underneath, I turned back and yelled at all the dive bars and seedy holes-in-the-wall that had banned me, “I MIGHT BE BROKE, BUT I WASN’T ABOUT TO SHIT MY PANTS!”
“Come on, boss,” Stig sighed wearily as he pulled me on through the darkness.
When you’re no longer welcome in the Underneath, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.
13
We were stumbling – well, I was stumbling, anyway – through the dark streets of Exardus when we heard the voices. Two in particular stood out from the rest.
One was a street tough’s voice shot through with malice. “What have we here? What brings you out so late at night, little girl?”
The other belonged to a woman. A beautiful voice. Not sultry like Alaria’s, but high and mellifluous. Except her tone had a backbone of steel as she answered contemptuously, “Leave me be, demon.”
The street tough chuckled. “I’ve never had one of your kind before… maybe we’ll pull off your wings like a fly…”
The woman screamed.
No matter how fucked up I was – and no matter how much I’d fucked up – there was no way in hell I was going to let anything bad happen to a woman in a back alley.
I was about to launch into action when a quest window popped up.
Damsel In Distress
WHAT?
How fucking unimaginative.
No Wolf Gang? I’mma Do ‘Is (Mo’s Art)?
No Mirk My Words?
Not even a Docked Up Repugnant Ship?
I was missing the craptrastic puns already.
Stop the demons. Save the lady.
XP: 2000
I selected ‘Accept’ then held out the stein to Stig. “Here, hold my beer.”
“Uh – okay – ” he said, extending one hand.
“Just kidding. It’s an expression,” I said, and finished chugging the drink as I rounded the corner.
As soon as I did, I stopped short and gawked.
The quest hadn’t said anything about the damsel being an angel.
Literally.
Like, ‘Hark the Herald’ and visiting-Jewish-virgins type shit.
She had two six-foot-tall, snow-white wings folded on her back. She wore a white toga that stopped mid-thigh, exposing long, sexy legs. There were strappy white sandals on her feet, and a circle of light glowed several inches above her head.
Not to mention she was hot.
Long blonde hair.
Perfect face.
Stunning blue eyes.
And under the toga? ASTOUNDINGLY great rack.
I felt a little bad staring at an angel’s hooters, but… what the fuck. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d done today.
The three demons surrounding her looked like nightmarish versions of animated movie characters. The small, squat yellow one looked like a Minion from Despicable Me had OD’d on steroids.
Paging Mr. Schwarzenegger… paging Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1983…
The two words combined in my head into one – Minionegger – and I snorted in drunken glee.
The big furry one was a rabid version of Beauty and the Beast with a lot more scars on his ugly mug, and a lot less clothing.
Seriously, cover that shit up, dude.
The ringleader resembled a bipedal, wingless version of Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon: sleek and black and scaly with a crested lizard’s head. But he sure as hell wasn’t toothless: his jaws were crammed with inch-long fangs.
I checked out everybody’s stats.
The angel was Level 14, same as me.
The demons were all Level 18’s, but they were only 4000 hit points apiece.
Sheeee-it. I’d killed yetis in the Northern Wastes with way more hit points than these motherfuckers.
(Of course, I’d done it with 30 demon pirates backing me up, but I was drunk enough that I didn’t remember that part.)
The demons were circling the angel like a pack of wild dogs.
She looked absolutely terrified.
“Leave her alone,” I shouted.
All three demons whipped around to face me.
“You don’t belong here, human,” Toothy snarled. “Leave.”
“Fuck you, shithead,” I yelled, and held up the glass stein. “Get the hell out of here before I ram this up your ass.”
The Beast growled, Minionegger flexed, and Toothy lowered his head like a bull about to charge.
“Okay, I guess it’s goin’ up all your asses,” I snapped. “Hope you don’t mind sharin’ the same butt plug.”
That’s when I started casting Doomsday.
I only managed to hit Toothy before all three rushed me at once.
The Beast reached me first. He slashed me across the chest and sent me tumbling to the ground.
Fortunately, I had never turned my sensory levels back up since Varkus had threatened me the other day, so the slashing didn’t really hurt that bad.
Unfortunately, the beer stein shattered as I fell, leaving only the glass handle in my fist.
“HEY,” I roared, “YOU BROKE MY BEER!”
“Now we’re gonna break you,” Toothy sneered.
Huh, I thought with calm clarity as they all started kicking me in the ribs, maybe I didn’t think this one out too well.
But I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Well, technically I already was down, but… you know what I’m saying.
Despite the vicious pummeling, I managed to hit the Beast with Terrify. He yelped like a whipped dog and beat a hasty retreat.
Now I had 30 seconds to deal with the other two.
I lifted my hand up to cast a spell –
Unfortunately, Toothy clamped down on my forearm and raked his teeth across my skin. Actually, ‘gouged my arm to the bone’ was more like it.
If there had been gore in the game, it would have been fuckin’ nasty.
If my sensory levels had been above 1%, it would have hurt like hell.
Thankfully neither was true, so all it really did was knock another 15% off my hit points.
And get me PISSED.
Just for that, Douchebag, you’re gonna get Soul Sucked.
I slammed Toothy with blue lightning, and my hit points rose as his dropped.
Minionegger raised one yellow foot above my head and prepared to curb-stomp me.
That’s when Stig joined the battle.
A fireball exploded in the Minion’s face, followed by Stig hurtling out of a black puff of smoke in the air. He began to teleport around the Minion, drawing his attention (and aggro) away from me.
So all I had left was to deal with Toothy.
The Doomsday spell timer reached 20 seconds, and the black lizard’s hit points took a dive. Not enough to put him down for the count, but enough to make me optimistic about the outcome.
I hit him with another Doomsday, then Darkfire, then Soul-Sucked him some more.
The entire time he was snapping at me with his teeth, lunging in and occasionally connecting for another -5% hit.
Unfortunately, that was the point at which Terrify ran out on the Beast.
He came roaring back into the fight and slammed me onto my back with one punch.
My hit points dropped to 12%.
I figured now was as good a time as any to test my new secret weapon: Invisibility.
It was the new ability I’d gotten when I’d killed Saykir and leveled up to 14 back in the Northern Wastes. I hadn’t had any occasion to use it since – well, unless you count that one time I was having sex with Alaria and watched in a mirror to see what it looked like when I was invisible and inside her.
Ahem.
Anyway.
Invisibility
Instantaneous cast time
Duration: 20 seconds
Invisibility canceled by spellcasting or physical attacks
300 Mana to cast
Cooldown: 5 minutes
What that meant was I could turn invisible for 20 seconds, but I couldn’t cast any spells. As soon as I did – or as soon as I initiated a physical attack on someone – I dropped out of cloaking. Plus I could only use it once every five minutes.
It was actually a pretty sweet power, if a bit short. Only Rogues could stay invisible indefinitely, like that one asshole back in the jungle who’d used his cloaking abilities to make life hellacious for me and Alaria.
Stop coming up with all these memories about Alaria, dumbass! FOCUS!
So I cast Invisibility.
Immediately I disappeared. I could see a faint outline of my body, but they apparently couldn’t, because they both stepped backwards in surprise.
“Where’d he go?” the Beast growled.
“He’s invisible,” Toothy snarled. “Sweep around, see if you can hit him.”
I rolled out of the way before they connected with my ribs again. Then I got to my feet.
And… I waited.
I couldn’t spellcast or I would become visible again.
And I couldn’t exactly run away and leave the angel and Stig here.
Okay, Invisibility officially sort of sucked.
The only good part was it gave me a breather, let my hit points recover slightly, and allowed me to formulate a plan.
Unfortunately, I was drunk, so plans weren’t exactly my forte at the moment.
