That’s when Ursula Erian decided to chime in, “I agree,” she said poshly, “we shouldn’t spend our entire night working through this at a snail’s pace. I’m sure even if we do run into trouble we can handle it, we’re not exactly weak.”
The elf had a point, Gerry knew that. They were all max level, and the party was more or less complete with Thylias as the healer, Frista as the tank, and Ursula as the rogue, leaving him as the fighter by default.
However he didn’t want to simply give up his position as leader, not out of pride, but because he knew that should the others get what they want by simply whining until Gerry gave to the pressure they’d never respect him.
“Look, you all agreed I was party leader, right? So unless someone can give me a real reason for us to run, I don’t want to hear another word on the subject.”
There were a few scattered grumblings from the others, but before Gerry could reassert himself as a leader to be respected, Thylias audibly gulped, “How about a troll, would a troll be a good reason to run?”
Gerry didn’t bother responding to the stupid question, instead choosing the wiser approach and running, “To the exit, now!” he shouted once he saw the twenty foot tall level 100 beast lumbering toward him and his party.
It wasn’t just any troll though, the monster had clearly been trained by Galthrig, as proven by the armour and the huge sword that it was dragging through the dirt.
The party was mere metres from the doorway to the next room when the doors slammed shut in their faces before getting promptly buried in stone.
“Now what do we do!?” Thylias groaned.
There were a few seconds of delay, but eventually Gerry answered, “You stick to Frista, make sure he doesn’t lose too much health while he charges the troll.”
“You want me to what?” Frista asked as he nervously spun his large war hammer in his hands.
Gerry clapped the orc across the shoulder and gave him a confident nod, “You’ll be fine, trust me. Look out!” Gerry shouted as the troll’s sword came smashing between the two, barely missing his arm, “Ursula! See what you can do about the door!”
Before she could complain about her task the others went to work, Gerry launching fireball after fireball at the creature’s thick armour and barely touching its even thicker skin, but that was all he had to do in order to draw it toward him.
Thylias started funnelling a green beam that looked like dust in sunlight into Frista as the orc charged their opponent.
Meanwhile a very annoyed Ursula worked on getting the door open, “The rubble was definitely rigged to drop! There should be a trapdoor under it that’ll clear it!”
“Why’re you telling me!?” Gerry shouted as he sliced at the troll’s ankles while Frista focused on the uglier end of the beast, diving out of the way right before it could squash him with its sword, “Just fix it!”
“I’m a rogue, not a bulldozer!”
Thylias had heard enough of Ursula’s excuses, “Oh for fuck’s sake! Find the bloody switch! It’ll be around here somewh-oa!” the troll swinging its massive sword in an arc dangerously close to Thylias’ face silenced him.
Ursula bitterly mumbled an insult and started feeling around the wall while Gerry, who’d managed to land another slice on the troll’s leg, climbed onto the creature’s back and got ready to drive his sword into its brain.
He drove his sword downward with all the force he could muster and just about broke his arms, the blade stopping well short of where it should’ve.
The troll, obviously pained, grabbed Gerry and threw him across the room, which the battlemage only just recovered from in time to land in a roll and then onto his feet.
“It’s got metal plating on its bones!” he cried to Frista, “We’re gonna have to hit him with magic! You go help Ursula, Thylias and I’ll stay on the troll!”
Thylias groaned at the prospect of going against something eight times his size, but listened to the party leader and switched from healing to lightning.
Gerry smiled as the party worked together around him, none of them particularly wanted to follow orders, they were far too used to running solo to care about that, and he knew that. However, either out of respect for him, or care for Kylia, these people were willing to band together and fight as a team.
The battlemage broke from his moment of happiness and made a run for the still very alive troll, charging an incredibly powerful ball of electric energy as he did so.
Confusion racked the troll’s feeble mind, there were targets all around him and some were throwing sky fire at him that made his bones tickle painfully. Every time he’d take a swing for one of the attackers they’d roll away and the other would hurt him some more.
That’s when he had an idea. He found the skinny one that was feeling for his master’s switch and charged toward her, his sword raised high above his head.
“Behind you!” Gerry cried in vain as the troll brought his sword down on Ursula, smashing her into the dirt.
The elf tried to get back to her feet, but the troll wouldn’t let up. Grabbing her by her legs, it threw her high into the air and, right as she passed its face, smashed her with his sword and sent her into the opposite wall.
“Fuck!” Ursula screamed, her limp and broken body imprisoning her, “I’m dead… Shit!” and that was it. Her body faded into the ground and a red X hovered over the place where she’d died.
Ursula Erian has fallen.
Ursula Erian has left the dungeon.
Gerry felt bad, but he had tried to warn her, whatever that was worth, and there was still a fight to win.
Thylias Milth cast Invisibility.
The troll spun toward the orc, a smile on his face, and made a run for him, paying no attention to the sigil that Thylias had placed in his path.
What was left of the party watched happily as the troll was thrown into the air by the sigil, and started outright laughing when Gerry cast a series of spells that ranged from magical binding to trees that kept it pinned to the roof.
“You want to take care of that while Frista and I look for the switch?” Gerry asked the excited little gnome.
“It would be my pleasure.” Thylias said evilly as he started throwing small lightning bolts at the trapped troll’s face.
“You don’t think that’s cheating?” Frista asked, pointing his head to the troll as he pulled the lever we’d found near the entrance, opening the trapdoor and clearing the rubble.
Gerry shrugged, “I certainly don’t think it’s fair, but neither was losing our rogue two caverns in. I want to win, Frista, plain and simple. The deeper we get, the bigger the reward, the more I can help Kylia. I’m willing to play dirty if it means she’s supported, are you?”
The orc smiled and nodded, “I guess if a maiden’s in need it’s not really up for discussion, is it?”
“No,” Gerry said boldly with a smile, “no it is not.”
Kylia: Chapter 14
“What do you mean I can’t play LoT!?” I snapped at my doctor as two people rolled in a television on a metal stand, “I’ve been here for a bloody week!”
“I know Miss Redmond, but we simply can’t allow that. If you go back to a keyboard and mouse your hands will stay in the same place for long periods of time and have the potential to heal incorrectly.”
“So, what, I’m supposed to play with this?” I asked snidely, waving the controller he’d handed me, “How the fuck does this help me? I’ve only got two and a half flippin’ months to square away my debt, and every hour I’m here is another hour wasted.”
Doctor Wethmen gave a pained sigh and shook his head, “Miss Redmond, Kylia, the fact is that you probably won’t be out of here for another week, and even then you’ll have to come back every week for physio.”
“That’s bullshit! I can walk around almost completely unassisted, my memories are coming back, and I haven’t had a dizzy spell in days. Why do I have to stay here?” I shouted, slamming on my bed shaped prison.
&n
bsp; “Listen,” the doctor said firmly, obviously done with my angry outbursts, “we’re doing our best here, and you should be grateful that we’ve gotten what we have done in the time we did. Fifteen years ago that in and of itself would’ve been unheard of. But you’ve got brain damage, that’s the raw truth of it, and we’ve proven that your trouble with walking isn’t caused by anything to do with your spine or legs. It’s due to the impact you suffered to your skull.”
My head started spinning, and not just because I’d been lying about the dizzy spells. I’d figured my brain was more or less okay, that I just had to get through a few weeks of headaches and some bouts of blurry vision.
“Why hasn’t anyone told me that?” I asked distantly.
“Because it wasn’t clear until today, hence the controller.” he said, pointing his pen at the device in my hand. “If you can get your hands and fingers moving in those small ways you’ll be able to prevent cramping, we believe that it’ll help your brain function as well. Probably wouldn’t hurt if you did some drawing, so I had a talk with your employer and he’s sent over some work for you to do in your own time.”
That’s when Gerald came in, “Sounds like there’s a bit of trouble, what’s up?”
I pointed at the doctor accusatorily, “This twat thinks it’s perfectly fine that I can’t play LoT, thinks I should play with this crap.” I hissed, dropping the controller on the ground.
I half expected the doctor to freak out at me, at least then I could get another who’d let me do what I had to do. But no, instead he rolled his eyes condescendingly and left, “I’m sure you two can sort this out.”
“See! All these people are bloody useless.” I whined without bothering to wait until he was out of earshot.
“Kylia… Really? These people are taking really good care of you.”
“Are they paying off my debt? No? Then screw ‘em. I need to get back out in the real world, I need to start gaming again.” The sad reality of that argument was not lost on me, but I refused to admit that.
Gerald gave me a smile, “That’s just it, you don’t. Everyone heard what was going on with you and, well, they’ve started helping.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, “What do you mean ‘helping’?”
“Community support, like we did when Rochelle’s kid had leukaemia and she had to take all that ti-”
“I don’t have leukaemia!” I shouted angrily and loudly enough to silence the ward for a good few seconds.
Once people had started talking again, Gerald looked at my face, then to my body, then significantly back at my face, “Sweetie, you broke your whole body, it’s not like you have the cold. And it’s not like we went out of our way either, we just did a few caverns of the Galthrig dungeon. Vanessa died kinda early on though, so we decided to stop playing after we got through another couple. Never got to Galthrig…” he said sadly, which was something I totally understood.
I’d seen the whole charity thing coming from a mile away though, and not because I’m prescient or anything, it was just that for the first time in a long time I had someone who cared about me enough to drum up support, but that didn’t necessarily mean I had to like it.
With a defeated sigh I looked away and groaned, “I don’t want everyone to think I’m some lazy loser mooching off the rest of society.”
Gerald leaned in and gave me a reassuring kiss on the cheek, “No one thinks you’re being lazy. It’s not like you’re here having all the fun in the world.”
“I know… I just-”
“You just nothing. Seriously, people are helping you because they care about you, and they know you’d do the same for them.”
“Really? Because it sure feels a lot like they’re pitying me. I’ve had a stretch of bad luck, sure, but I don’t need anyone’s charity. I came back from the hack, I can come back from this.”
He wasn’t winning this argument, he knew it, I knew it, but it didn’t upset him, “I know you will, you’re stubborn as all Hell. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop helping you though, and it definitely won’t stop everyone else.” he said as he bent down and grabbed the controller up off the ground, “Now, you take this, and you get better.”
With no small amount of eye rolling, I took the controller and frowned, “Fine. But I refuse to have any fun.”
“Heh, that’s up to you I s’pose.” he said before checking his watch, “I’ve got to get back to work. Are you going to be alright?”
I nodded, “Yeah, I’ll be fine. You go ahead and abandon me like everyone else.”
“Ha-ha. Love you.” he said, again giving me a little kiss.
“Love you too.”
It wasn’t until he’d left the room that my eyes widened to anime proportions. I hadn’t even thought about it, it’d just sort of come out. I suppose that’s the way it should be though, not forced or dragged out of a person, just there, in the moment, ‘Love you.’
I forced myself to stop obsessing over our first time saying it and turned on the controller, the console giving a satisfied ping as it came to life.
Life is funny.
Kylia: Chapter 15
The following ten days saw me really getting stuck into my work, developing fifteen preliminary sketches followed by a complete design on the one the client had chosen. The hospital environment had become a distraction free area for me, despite the fact that I was playing videogames for at least two hours a day, and when I was done I felt all the more better.
The second week of my stay had most of my memories returning, a piece at a time of course, as well as the complete disappearance of the dizziness. It wasn’t until I remembered my full conversation with Bishop that I decided to lie to my doctor and say he kidnapped me.
The start of my third week seemed, to me at least, a total waste of time, but Wethmen had assured me that it was just to make sure I didn’t pass out on the way home and end up having my organs harvested.
For me though, the most interesting part of my two weeks spent in the hospital was seeing the obsession that the British people had with me. I’d had dozens of interviewers come by just to hear my side of the story, and unlike that first release I wasn’t drowned out. People wanted to hear what I wanted to say, and what I had to say was trust the MPs.
It felt weird, wrong even, but from what Bishop had told me it wasn’t their fault. They were just like everyone else, with the obvious exception that they were the law.
As a result of my pandering I earned a great deal of praise and thanks from the Commissioner, Commander, and, most of all, Will. The man couldn’t go two days without giving me a call to make sure I was being taken care of and to make sure I knew that everything outside was being handled.
I suppose that was the other odd thing, I was in the loop. I knew what was going on, at least more than what the rest of the civilian population was, and I was being treated with respect.
Don’t get me wrong, there were still signs of unrest among the people, the problems caused before I got hospitalised had caused ripples, but it wasn’t getting quashed. Instead, people like myself and media personalities used it as a way to show that the system worked, that people were allowed to have different opinions, they just couldn’t riot.
Things were looking good.
However, even though my body had been healed, and my mind put back into shape, the best moment of my stay came in the form of Gerald on my last day.
It was a Thursday, and I was sitting in the waiting area inside the hospital, an early afternoon downpour having forced everyone inside, when I saw the automatic doors open and Gerald coming through.
I swear, that moment lasted a full bloody day in my mind.
Before I knew what was happening, I’d run over to him and locked my arms around him, “Christ almighty, I missed you.” I said, some part of me forgetting that I’d seen him not three days prior.
He squeezed me right back and I felt a bit less like a weirdo, “Me too. Is this alright? I’m not going to break any of you
r bones or anything, am I?”
We broke apart and I laughed, “No, course not, I’m better than eve- ow!” I quietly groaned before biting my lip to silence myself as I grabbed my left tit which I’d just punched.
Gerald jumped into a carer’s role, putting his hand on my shoulder and making a concerned face, “Are you alright?”
I nodded, still biting my lips, “Mmhm…”
“Why would you do that?” he asked laughingly when he saw that I was recovering.
“Well I don’t know, do I? I have brain damage, I do all kinds of weird stuff now.”
Gerald looked at me in horror, “What, really?”
Again, I laughed, “No you dork, I was just gonna do that chest bangy thing and forgot that I had boobs.”
“Ah, yes…” he said, giving me an almost mocking smile, “Right, want to grab a bite?”
My eyes just about rolled into the back of my skull as I threw my head back and let my mouth hang open, must’ve been a truly beautiful sight, “God yes, I’m starved.” I said, straightening up, “As much as these lovely people did for me, the food was proper shit.”
Gerald laughed and gestured for me to go out the door, “Oh Kylia, how you have a way with words. What would you like?”
I shrugged, “I don’t rightly know, something greasy and heart attack inducing. Everything in there was so damn healthy.”
“I was about to say that you had an unnaturally healthy glow about you. Did someone trick you into eating a vegetable?”
I punched him in the arm and smiled as we made our way down the street, “Shut it, I have consumed a vegetable before.”
“If it’s on pizza it doesn’t count.”
I smothered a chuckle and went straight for fake offence, “Well la-di-da, someone’s a bit posh, aren’t they?”
For a while we kept up the banter, something that I guess comes from spending most every day together. We were outside, and that was a plus, but there wasn’t anything to really fill each other in on. I’d known that, despite my many speeches about how I didn’t like charity, Gerald had gone right ahead and played game after game with our work colleagues to make sure I didn’t lose out on anything in those lost two weeks.
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