by KJ Harlow
“And he hasn’t tried to hurt you?”
“By Flulia, no. Both Katrina and I have pleased him as have the other succubi maids, but he’s only ever been very gentle.” Cal shook the image of the kinky menage-a-trois before it started causing havoc downstairs again.
Out of nowhere, Natasha leans in and cradling Cal’s head with her cool hands, plants a deep kiss on his lips. She giggled as Cal pulled away, bumping her head with his tusks. He opened and closed his mouth several times but nothing came out, eliciting more cute giggles from the succubus.
“I’d never told that story to anyone before besides Kat. It was nice to talk to someone who cared. Also, I hadn’t thanked you for saving Master Javal. He saved me and you saved him, so I am in debt to you. I was going to give you ‘the works’, but you can ask for something else.”
Cal reigned his curiosity cat in, resisting the temptation to ask what ‘the works’ was.
“There is… one thing,” Cal faltered.
“Name it, Master.”
“Can we just… keep talking?”
Natasha laughed again; Cal wasn’t getting tired of hearing it. “You are one strange orc.”
He smiled. “You aren’t the first one to say that.”
15
The King’s Camp
20,156th Cycle
1-Karst
“Why the f-f-fuck did you rescue me? I didn’t n-need to be rescued.” The royal camp wasn’t far; maybe another quarter of a moonshift by steelmare-drawn carriage. To C, it felt like it would be another cycle of the four moons before they arrived.
You are weak. That’s what she wanted to tell him, but that wasn’t going to help her cause. Besides, she was the one who had chosen him back on Earth. She cradled her chin, eyes flickering down to the black gauntlets Fetter had on. On the back of each one, a purple gem in the shape of a diamond winked at her. The gauntlets had chosen him; she had to trust in them.
“It was a precautionary measure,” she said in an even tone. “You’re not invincible.”
“Yes,” he said, jabbing a finger at her in an accusatory way, “I’m not, but you were the one who said that I m-m-might as well be.” Fetter leaned heavily on his knees, glaring at the arc druidess. “I still don’t get it. We’re in a video game. A video game! How come the rest of these f-f-flogs,” he threw a hand out around the carriage, “will respawn if they’re killed but not me?”
C could have ended the Urath’s life right then and there. A well-directed craft spell into his shit-spewing mouth and through his brain and he would be done for, for good. She had already told him so many times. He just never listened. She closed her eyes, nursing her head. Why couldn’t he be like the other three?
“You get unlimited power as long as you rally your soldiers to slaughter the other kingdoms’ soldiers during the Battles. You don’t have to grind like the rest of the players. There is no body for you to return to on Earth.” And nobody, you pathetic excuse for a human being.
It was a difficult job trying to manage wars from behind the scenes. The players of ValorVale were complacent roaming around their respective territories in Terrafaytum, raising their weapons when they were called to arms. If only these four ex-humans were as easy to co-ordinate.
Actually, that wasn’t fair. Fetter was the weakest of them all, but with his level of hatred towards humans, he was an obvious candidate. Like Fetter, Leonidas talked a lot, but that was because of his choice of career back on Earth. Dealing with the most hateful people on earth, it was a matter of time before he became infected. When he wasn’t talking nonsense, he actually made a decent swordsman. Bernd and Nyves were counterpoints: quiet, introspective, but each harbouring their own resentments to humans. Their hatred was deliciously toxic and they channelled that into their battles.
The one thing the other Urath were good at where Fetter was dismal was managing their kingdoms. C had actually been surprised with how well they had applied themselves to the task, considering none of them had any experiencing ruling over people before. It had to be said though that the people of the four kingdoms of Terrafaytum had little choice. Anyone who planned any sort of revolt would be quashed.
It wasn’t that anyone had planned an uprising against Fetter in his kingdom. It was that there was almost no one left. Under Fairshade, Thaylia didn’t flourish, but at least it was stable. Under Fetter, it was a ghost town. C had left him to his own devices as she visited the other Urath in their corners of Terrafaytum. When she came back a little under three quarters of a moon later, he had wiped out a third of the population and destroyed nearly half the town. C didn’t care about the townspeople – they were only NPCs, after all – but what was a kingdom without its people?
“We need to talk about your kill quotas.” C brought up a screen and shared it with Fetter, ignoring his groan of frustration.
“I know I’m behind the others, y-y-you don’t have to remind m-me about that.” She ignored him, bringing up the sheet.
“Leon, 1,402. Bernd, 1,745. Nyves, 2,109.” She looked up at him, eye piercing into his. “Fetter, 694.”
“Nearly 700,” he said crossing his arms defensively. “Look, if that oversized p-pussycat hadn’t got in my way, I would have more kills than all the other three combined.”
“Razing cities to the ground is good, but if you focused on training your soldiers–”
“My soldiers are u-u-useless!” Fetter shouted. C dug her black nails into her palms, her knuckles whitening. Patience… do it for Him.
“…Training your soldiers for the Battles, they would do better.”
Fetter threw himself back into his seat, the carriage rocking slightly. He eyed C, a sardonic smile on his face. “Hector!” He roared.
There was a yelp, followed by some scurrying to the veiled window on the king’s side. “Yes, Your Awesomeness?”
“Stop the cart. I feel like some exercise.” There was no response.
C closed her eyes. “Fetter…”
“I said stop the cart!” It ground to halt. Hector busied himself with the handle before the carriage door swung open with a squeak. The commander of Fetter’s army avoided the gaze of both his king and the maiden with the dark robe who followed him.
C knew it was pointless, but it didn’t stop her trying. “Don’t take it out on–”
Fetter hooked his right hand under Hector’s mail shirt, dragging him into his incoming left fist. He followed him into the ground, bashing his face in, bloodstains appearing on his gauntlets. The purple chips started radiating an intense light.
Hector’s eryn stood to the side, watching her Master take the beating. The first few times, it had made her feel sick. After she started losing count, she realized that she didn’t care anymore. He would disappear in an upward shower of light and together, they would respawn at their last checkpoint.
Hector raised his hands in surrender but still Fetter wouldn’t relent. He raised his boot and brought it crashing down his chest, hands and face. Finally, when he was just a mess of blood, bone and gore, Fetter drew his short sword and slashed across his neck.
Breathing heavily, he wiped the blood on Hector’s corpse. “That’s one to my kill sheet, happy?” He put his hands on his hips and walked away from the carriage. The red moon illuminated his armour, coating it in a cold fire. His cohort of 100 soldiers, each paired with their eryn, stood at attention as he walked their way. He spun back around, pointing his sword at C. “Why shouldn’t I take it out on them? Hm? They’ll be back. And it’s not like they care. This is all just a game to them.”
C stared at him, lost for words. How could someone not understand something even after being told so many times? The soldiers either fidgeted nervously or were so scared that they didn’t even dare breathe.
Fetter dropped the tip of his blade into the ground. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Spire…”
Dirt rose out of the ground, compacting themselves into floating spires, one pointing at each soldier. C had to hand i
t to Fetter, his control of mana and craft had improved considerably; he didn’t even have to tap the ground once for each spire he wanted to create anymore. The passive levelling from his soldiers’ kills had helped, but if he didn’t use the Skill, his control of it wouldn’t improve.
All the soldiers now looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here. Their eryn defenders shuffled their bucklers uneasily. They knew that the spires would only pierce their masters, but this didn’t stop them from feeling Fetter’s wrath. All it would take is slightly off aim and that would be it. They would be flying higher than ever to join their ancestors beyond the wind moon.
“Maiden!” Fetter roared. The spires were there one moment and in the chests of his soldiers the next. Dirt, chain links and blood exploded all around Fetter. His Awesomeness laughed maniacally, raising his sword to the air.
The screams of the soldiers stumbled across the plains, eventually falling flat. One by one, corpses and Eryn started giving off a brilliant, white light. Fetter strolled around aimlessly, running his hands through the shining beads before they zoomed off to the heavens.
The eryn were crowding around someone, their wings spread to form a barrier of muscle and feather. Moans emitted from the middle of the group and they clustered even closer together. C glided across to the winged fighters. “Let me see.” The eryn at the edge looked over their shoulder, hesitated then stepped aside.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. One of Fetter’s damn spires had broken into two, one half impaling itself into an eryn’s stomach. The spire lay on the ground, its tip coated with glistening scarlet. The eryn had his hand over the wound, but the flow wouldn’t slow. C knelt down and held a slightly cupped palm inches from the open wound.
Reflesh.
The injured eryn’s eyes widened, craning his neck down just in time to watch the wound close up.
“Th-thank you,” he croaked. She looked up into his dark avian eyes then looked away. His comrades helped the injured eryn to his feet.
She didn’t look at him, but Fetter knew she was talking to him. “Eryn cannot be replaced. If they are killed, they will not respawn. Without an eryn, your soldiers have no way of getting stronger themselves. If they can’t level up, you can’t level up.”
“Fine. I’ll be more careful.” Fetter stared at C, the last of the drops of light taking his soldiers’ corpses and their eryn defenders away. The plains around them were illuminated in white light. Moments later, just the two of them remained.
C opened up the kill sheet. Fetter, 794. A death was a death, but she wished that he would follow the plan as she had laid it out: only kill the other Uraths’ soldiers, avoid killing NPCs if possible and don’t kill your own soldiers unnecessarily, though the last rule was bent for him. If he needed to vent his frustrations by killing his own men from time to time, so be it. He could be immensely powerful; his hatred would make sure of that. His strength would filter into the gauntlets and when the time came, when He could wear them again…
“That giant pussy. How dare he spoil his own killing?” Fetter roared, slashing at a tree. “I thought you said that werejaguars’ element was fire. How did he create that earth barrier?”
C was quiet. She looked into the sky, beyond Karst and at the small, brown, earth moon at the back of the line. “Someone else in that square cast that Earth Wall.”
Fetter paused and then walked across to the arc druidess. “Someone else?”
Yes. Callahan Rogers. 29 Earth years old. Level 19. Somehow in the form of an orc. Trapped in the game, but not participating in the Battle of Urath. How did he get in and what were his motives?
“Someone who didn’t know who they were up against,” C said. That shut him up. He wasn’t human anymore, but Fetter’s very human ego was too easy to manipulate.
C’s eyes glazed over staring into the fire moon. She should have been happy, but she wasn’t; her Master’s rebirth was coming along a little too slowly. She had feuding countries whose leaders she controlled and essentially unlimited soldiers. However, the soldiers weren’t dying as often as she would have liked. Each country had already had a battle with each other country at least once, but the number of blood sacrifices made numbered in the thousands, instead of the tens of thousands that she would have preferred.
She opened up a cached version of His status screen, focusing on one, particular line:
NAME: ??????? (Rebirth: 1,030,802/100,000,000)
Barely 1% of the way. She told herself to be patient, but one hundred million souls seemed to be a millennium away. The four Urath leaders needed no encouragement to kill. The players started off the same way but more and more weren’t answering the call to arms, instead picking up farming tools, becoming beast hunters or gallivanting around with all manner of creatures doing God knows what. C wanted – needed – them to kill, but to do that, she needed to create an enemy that they truly hated.
Seeing that orc standing on the roof of the building in Bracewell, defying Fetter with his Earth Wall planted a fresh seed of possibility in her mind.
“What t-t-took you so long?” Fetter shouted. Hector was jogging up the path, Laish floating at a leisurely pace behind him. Upon hearing the ire of the king, he doubled his pace.
“Apologies, your Awesomeness.” Hector said. C watched Fetter out of the corner of her eye. He drew a gauntleted fist back, ready to backhand his soldier before he stopped.
“Before, in Bracewell. Did you see who cast the earth craft that blocked my Spire Maiden?”
Hector hesitated and shook his head. “I didn’t. Though,” he added in quickly, “I did fight another ValorVale player recently who had a similar ability.”
“Another player? So not an NPC then?” Fetter asked. Both Hector and Laish shook their heads.
“It was an orc. He and a werejaguar came into Gresshia village after we had destroyed it.” Hector raised a hand towards his eryn. Laish let him hang for the longest time, eventually completing the hi-5.
“What were they doing there?” C asked. Hector and Laish looked at her, unsure of what to say. While she wasn’t as cruel as Fetter, so much power brimmed out of her simply being in her presence was intimidating. “What were they doing there?” She repeated.
“I... we don’t know,” Laish said hesitantly. “He asked us if we were the one who had destroyed Gresshia. After we confirmed this, he started attacking us.”
“Now that I think about it, that orc was asking me some weird things at that point.” Hector rubbed his chin through his mail cap, gazing at a point in the distance. He realized that everyone was looking at him and started stammering.
“Umm, he told me that he was a ValorVale player just like me and that he wanted to ask me something.”
“What did he ask?” Fetter demanded.
“I… I can’t remember.” Hector stuttered. Another backhand cracked him across the face, cutting his cheek open.
“Maybe he was looking for the villagers who escaped and sought asylum in Bracefell?” Laish suggested. She had seen the Gresshian werejaguars woodworking around the small city but kept herself out of sight, which wasn’t easy with a wingspan of 12 feet.
“What do you make of this?” Fetter turned and looked at the arc druidess.
“I am going to go back and find out who this orc is,” she said.
“Why is it that important we find out who he is? So what if he can create a barrier out of earth? He’s no threat to me. A spire through his face will teach him to meddle in my business.”
“Lord Fetter, there is actually something that I’ve been meaning to ask you…” Hector begun with uncertainty.
With the look on his face, anyone would have thought that the commander of his army had just taken a large, stinky dump right in front of him.
“Spit it out, f-f-fool!”
“There is a tournament at the arena in Bracewell, organised by Javal. I’d like to participate and gain some EXP.” Seeing the king preparing to reject the proposal, he quickly added, “I’
ll also be doing some reconnaissance, sneaking kills here and there. Of course, I would escort Lady C back to Bracewell and accompany her should she require my assistance.”
Fetter snorted. “That’s about the stupidest–”
“Good idea. Unless, if your king has other things in mind for you…” she trailed off, deferring to the king. Everyone knew it was for show. C was the strongest one there and hardly needed an escort.
“Have it your way,” the king grumbled. “But you have to report to me every moonshift.”
“I will be heading straight to Bracewell now, if we are done here. Hector? Laish?” The human and eryn were taken aback, hearing C refer to them by their names. “I can see your vanquished soldiers returning as well, Fetter. Have them take you back to the camp. We will provide you with updated information when it is available.”
The soldiers that Fetter had slain, side by side with their Eryn, formed two rows. They marched with a spirit-deep tiredness towards their king. Hector nodded at them as they passed him. For the most part, they ignored him. It was less out of disrespect and more so out of fear of the maiden in the black robe who accompanied him.
“If the mayor is organising this tournament, I’ve got a feeling that he’s going to get the orc and his werejaguar companion to join it as well,” C surmised.
“Do you know what his name is, my lady?”
C turned to Hector. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’ve got a score to settle with him.”
C smiled faintly and inclined her head to the red moon. Even after all this time, vengeance still drove the hearts of men. Humans were far more inclined to take action to get something back that was taken from them than to acquire something that was never theirs. She found it curious that the things they fought the most to reacquire were intangibles that could only ever exist in the past.
She needed to test the heart of this human in orc’s clothing. Would his behaviour be the same, I wonder?
