by Aaron Oster
He really had to stop making it so easy for people to manipulate him.
What Sam was really interested in, was the update to the quest. He now had a solid idea of where to begin looking and the rewards had gone up significantly. If the guild was under new leadership in the city, then he had to find out who was calling the shots. Before he could do anything, he had to get out of here. Quickly checking his clock, Sam saw that it was already 2 A.M., which meant that there was now a new rule in effect.
RULE OF THE DAY
Don’t be someone’s bitch. Kill the gnome who captured you.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sam yelled when he saw that rule.
He couldn’t even call it a rule. All it told him to do was kill one specific person! There was no way that the Overlord wasn’t fucking with him after this.
Sam blew out a long breath. Then he began testing his manacles. They didn’t budge no matter how hard he tried moving them.
So, brute force is out of the question.
He shrugged, not really having expected it to be that easy. Next, he tried using an ability to break loose, but his wrists were locked straight and all he managed to do was blast some of the stone away, which had the effect of unbalancing his chair and sending him to the ground.
Growling to himself, Sam tried wiggling his body to try and get his hands in a better position to cast, when there was a light scuffing from the hallway outside. A moment later, there was a rattle of keys and the loud sound of a lock disengaging as someone walked into the room. Sam’s face was pressed to the floor, so all he could really see were the tops of a pair of tall stiletto heels.
Oh no. Not this shit.
He watched as the feet moved around, hearing the light clicking of the heels on the stone floor. Then they walked out of his line of sight. Sam was waiting for it and was only a little surprised when his chair was suddenly wrenched upright with tremendous force. His head was whipped to the side and he heard a few distinct cracks, wincing as his tendons were stretched just a little too far.
He blinked a few times, trying to reorient himself after the rapid shift and heard the sound of clicking heels once again. A woman came into view, dressed in an outfit that Sam could only describe as leather.
The woman was wearing very little in the way of clothes, and the few parts of her that were clothed were covered in strips of crisscrossing black leather. Sam let out yet another sigh, as the woman cocked her head to the side and examined him. She had a pale, slim face, with black painted lips and long black hair. A whip was curled at her waist and he had to resist the urge to scream.
The woman grinned and lifted her heeled boot, playing it directly on Sam’s crotch.
“My name is Bless,” she said, putting just enough pressure on her foot, to make Sam flinch. “But I’m sure you’ll remember that name well. It’ll be etched into your memory long before I cut your throat!”
She grinned then, pulling the whip from her waist and flicking it a few times. Sam wasn’t keen on being tortured, especially not by a psycho bondage girl, so he put on his best smile and leaned heavily on his Charisma, hoping that if he coupled it with his Mental Manipulation skill, he’d get out of this unharmed.
“Bless, was it? My name is Sam and may I just say, that that leather outfit suits you wonderfully. It really accentuates your figure and does wonders for your eyes. How about you let me go, and we can grab dinner. I hear The Classy makes a wonderful stew.”
She pressed her foot down just a little harder, as her cheeks flushed. She then reached out a hand and began popping the buttons on his shirt.
“Hey, don’t you think you’re moving a little fast there?” Sam asked, not at all liking where this was going.
He watched as Bless’ cheeks turned a deep red and her heavy breathing increased as she finally popped the last button and pulled his shirt open. Then, she dug her nails into his undershirt and ripped it apart, exposing his bare chest. Sam flinched as the sound of tearing fabric reached his ears. He had a pretty good idea of what was coming next and when the whip cracked across his bare skin, he didn’t feel any sense of satisfaction at having predicted the action.
He screamed as a line of white-hot pain lashed across his skin and a damage notification flashed before his eyes.
Guild member hits you for -22 damage (Slashing).
“Ow!” he yelled, as Bless grinned wildly and pulled her whip back to hit him again.
“Yes! Scream for me!” she yelled, eyes wide, as she cracked the whip across his chest again.
Guild member hits you for -25 damage (Slashing).
Guild member hits you for -23 damage (Slashing).
Sam gritted his teeth as he watched his HP slowly bleeding away.
This woman was clearly crazy, but just how crazy was she? He had his answer just a moment later.
HUMAN
Name: Bless Gender: Female Level: 10 - HP: 150/150 - MP: 20/20 - STA: 270/270
Status: Aroused Humans are one of the most common races in Somerset and have no bonuses to any of their attributes.
Bat shit. That was the level of crazy this woman was!
Now that Sam was looking for it, it was clear to see. The flushed cheeks, the little squeaks of excitement she made every time the whip connected with his chest, the way she was wiggling her hips…
Yup. Total. Fucking. Psycho.
Bless pulled her whip back and cracked it across his chest again, shaving off another massive chunk of HP and Sam’s heart rate began increasing rapidly.
He hadn’t noticed until now, as he’d been focused on mentally dissecting the crazy woman, but if she hit him one more time, his HP would drop to 0.
Luckily for him, Bless seemed to be watching his HP, because she stopped whipping him after that last blow, and instead stood watching his bleeding chest with a manic expression on her face.
Why was this even a trope? Who the fuck got off on this anyway? Is the Overlord a total sadist or something?
Bless walked up to him then and Sam involuntarily flinched back as she slowly trailed her fingers over his bloody chest, then brought them up to her lips.
Gross.
“I think you’re quite handsome as well, Sam,” Bless said in a sultry voice. “Especially when you’re covered in blood.”
Sam shivered as her fingers trailed over his chest again, wondering what the crazy bitch was going to do this time. Then he felt her fingers tugging at the buckle of his pants.
Oh shit. That wasn’t good. There could only be two reasons why she’d be removing his pants, and neither of them good.
She looked up to his eyes, her teeth bared in an approximation of a smile as she finally got his belt buckle undone. Then she pulled a knife from her waist.
Fuck me. This can’t be real, Sam thought as she slowly ran the flat of the blade over her tongue.
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy this next part,” she said, running the tip of the blade down his stomach and to the waistband of his pants.
“Somehow I doubt that,” Sam said, eyes wide, and heart pounding in terror.
There came a light clicking sound from the hallway and Bless abruptly stopped what she’d been doing. Rising to her feet, she opened the dungeon door and peeked out. Sam had to assume that she hadn’t spotted anything, as she returned after a moment, eyes fixed on him again and a predatory grin on her face.
Then Gordon abruptly exploded from her shadow and took a chunk out of her neck.
28
Bless screamed in pain, staggering to the side and slashing out with her knife. Gordon twisted his body mid-air, and lashed out with his back legs, catching the crazy woman in her midriff and sending her stumbling back.
“It’s about time!” Sam exclaimed as Gordon landed before him. “That psycho was about to fucking castrate me!”
“I would think that gratitude would be the appropriate response in this situation,” Gordon replied, as Bless got back to her feet.
Her eyes were blazing with anger now, all trace
of her earlier excitement now gone.
So, she liked dishing it out, but couldn’t take it. Typical, Sam thought as she ran at Gordon with a mad shriek.
The whip flashed out and Gordon dodged to one side, resulting in Sam taking the hit instead.
“What the fuck, dog? I thought you were here to save me!”
“I am, but I believe that I am already regretting that decision,” Gordon called back, disappearing for a moment and emerging from Bless’ shadow once again.
The woman had wised up to the attack, and slashed out with the blade in her right hand, cutting a bloody furrow across Gordon’s side and shaving off more than a fifth of his HP.
This isn’t looking too good, Sam thought as he watched his companion and the crazy torture lady fight. Gordon had come here to save him, but he may end up dead as well.
Gordon hopped back as the woman lashed out at him and landed with his back to Sam. He was panting heavily and his side was matted with blood.
“How you doing, buddy? You think you can win?” Sam asked, eyeing the crazy sadist nervously as she licked the blood off her knife and slowly walked forward.
“I do believe that we can win,” Gordon panted.
Sam was about to ask what he was talking about, when he caught a flicker of movement from the open door to his cell. A second later, Emma appeared, sword in hand and looking very pissed off.
Bless had only half turned when Emma’s sword whistled through the air, tracing four arcs of glowing yellow light. Bless froze, staring at Emma in horror, then blood sprayed from no less than five massive rents in her body and she fell to the ground as her HP bottomed out.
“Oh, thank God!” Sam cried out, feeling as though his heart were practically coming out of his chest.
Emma turned her gaze on him and the anger melted off her face, replaced by concern in an instant.
“Are you okay?” she asked, quickly walking over to him and looking him over.
“I’ve been better,” he joked, earning him a dead look from the girl.
“Fine. If I’m being honest, I was scared shitless. I thought for sure that psycho bitch over there was gonna castrate me, then rub one out over my corpse.”
“Well, I guess you’re lucky we found you, then,” Emma said, bending down to examine his shackles.
“How did you find me, anyway?”
Sam addressed this question to Gordon, as there was no doubt in his mind as to whom he owed his life.
“After I left you, I headed down the road, expecting you would catch up eventually. I had slowed down to a reasonable enough pace, that we should have reached the city gates together. However, when you did not appear, I became worried. Naturally, I turned around and headed back the way we had come.
“When I did not bump into you shortly after I turned back, my worry grew to concern, so I ran back to the area in which I had last seen you. Upon arriving at said area, I found signs of a struggle. There were several scents which I did not recognize, but a few which I did. I immediately deduced that you must have fallen for some sort of trap and been summarily knocked unconscious, at which point, someone from the guild must have come across you, most likely in search of their dead companions.
“After that, I followed the scent to an underground bunker hidden in the woods. Judging by the sparse security, I deduced that this must be a secret facility and that it had no guild affiliation, but I could not in good conscience take the risk of failure.”
“So he came and got me,” Emma cut in. She’d fetched the keys from the dead woman, and was now fitting them one after the next into the locks on his ankles.
“We came here, killed a few guards, and rescued you.”
Gordon bristled at being interrupted and let out a loud huff, walking away with his nose held high.
Sam grinned ruefully as Emma finally got the restraints loose, then walked around him to unlock his hands. He let out a sigh of relief and rubbed at his wrists once they were free.
Medieval cuffs were not comfortable!
“I really appreciate you coming to save me,” Sam said, as sincerely as he could. “Another moment and who knows what could have happened.”
Emma’s cheeks colored slightly at the praise, but she just waved it off.
“You would have done the same for me.”
Sam chuckled, getting slowly to his feet, and waiting for the pins and needles to fade.
“Now who’s trying to be all macho?”
Gordon came back in then and gave them both a once over.
“We need to leave. I believe that our presence here may have been noticed.”
“Is the gnome still here?” Sam asked, eyes blazing as he contemplated all the ways he was gonna make that fucker pay.
“No. He must have left before we arrived,” Gordon replied.
Sam was quick to buckle his belt and looked down to his bloody chest with a grimace. The cuts had already scabbed over, but he was still covered in blood. His undershirt was ruined, but his shirt was still intact and had miraculously avoided any blood stains. He shrugged to himself, then removed the shirt.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked as Sam pulled the ruined undershirt over his head.
“I don’t wanna get my shirt all bloody,” he replied, not at all caring about stripping before someone as hot as Emma, which he found to be very strange.
Then he remembered his Mind Over Body skill as he began cleaning himself off with his tattered undershirt, wiping all the blood he could off himself, before pulling the shirt back on.
He heard someone shouting from the hallway and bolted out the door. Eyes locking onto the first guildie, Sam held out a hand and began firing off spells as fast as he could, feeling rage start to boil up inside him.
Today had been a shit day, to say the least. He’d had all his possessions stolen by someone he’d saved. Then he’d been captured by that crackpot gnome and tortured by a total psycho bitch. And now these fuckers were trying to stop him from leaving? Fuck that! He would kill them all!
Sam continued moving through the underground bunker, killing guildies left and right. He was vaguely aware of Emma and Gordon fighting in the background, but he mostly ignored them, choosing to focus on sating the burning rage in his chest.
Notifications began flooding in as he moved, but Sam ignored them all, shouting obscenities about the guildies’ parents, their friends and even went so far as to bite one of them when his MP ran out. By the time Sam’s battle craze wore off, everyone in the bunker was dead, and he was covered in blood.
Sam blinked, finally coming back to himself, and looked around at the carnage they’d caused. There were well over fifteen bodies there, which made Sam wonder just how three of them could possibly have done it. His eyes landed on Gordon and Emma, who were both slumped on the ground, bleeding from several wounds and panting hard. Doing a quick check of their statuses, he winced, seeing that they were both at under 10% of their HP.
Doing a quick check of his own revealed that he was pretty close to being a goner as well. His MP was completely gone and his Stamina was near empty as well. Then the fatigue hit him, and Sam slumped to the ground.
“Holy shit. Did we just kill all those people?” Sam asked, feeling his body shaking with adrenaline and exhaustion.
How the hell did we pull that one off?
“Hell yeah, we did,” Emma said, also panting hard, “But where did they all come from? When we came in, there were only four of them here.”
“We must have triggered some sort of alarm when we entered,” Gordon supplied, getting slowly to his feet and moving towards the ramp leading up toward the exit at the other end of the open room.
“I believe that it would be wise for us to go. More will be coming. Do you have room to house us for the night, Emma?” he asked the girl, who was slowly getting to her feet as well.
“Yeah.”
“Very well then. Let us go.” Gordon then headed quickly to the ramp, passing Sam, who was having a hard time standing up.
Emma stopped by his side, holding out a hand to help him up. He took it with a nod of thanks and she hauled him to his feet, pulling one of his arms over her shoulder to support him, and together, they all ran from the bunker.
29
Baron Von Tweet greeted them as soon as they made it back to Emma’s house. Sam had been wondering where the bird had been, but now that he knew, he wished that it would have remained a mystery. He sat next to Emma on a long sofa in her living room, staring at the bird, who was staring back with an unblinking gaze.
He was exhausted, both mentally and physically from the day’s events, and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. His brain wouldn’t let him, replaying the scenes from that night over and over in his mind. It didn’t bother him per se, or even leave a lasting impression on his psyche - he already knew why - but he still had a lingering sense of unease about the entire situation.
So here he was, still wide awake, and having a staring contest with a fucking parrot. His fingers were interlaced and tucked under his chin as he stared and the parrot stared right back. Emma was snoring lightly to his right, a thin blanket pulled up to her chin. Gordon was out cold on a rug in the corner, his new stick still clutched between his teeth.
Sam blinked and the parrot let out a low caw of victory, lifting his foot and flipping him off. Sam just shook his head and leaned back against the soft cushions, staring up at the paneled ceiling above his head. He could still see the small icon flashing in the corner of his vision, which let him know that there were notifications waiting for him, but he was loathed to check them out.
It had been a shit day and he really didn’t want to deal with anything else. All he wanted to do was sleep, but his brain simply wouldn’t allow him to do that. With an annoyed grunt, Sam allowed the notifications to begin flooding in. First, it was all the damage notifications, about killing this person or that person, as well as XP he’d received for each. Then the others started coming in and Sam finally felt his spirits begin to rise.
