by Ramy Vance
Sandy reached out for the spyglass and looked through it again. “What do you think is going on in there?”
“I don’t know. What do you see?”
“The treeants are gone, and now there are dragons.”
“Shit. Fucking shit. How many?”
“Two. Black and gray.”
“At least they’re the small variety.”
“That’s the small variety?”
“Have you heard anything from Beth and Suzuki?”
Sandy turned on her HUD. She shook her head. “I tried to message them earlier, but something’s blocking our signal, even with all of the upgrades Chip performed. Niv can’t reach them either. Wherever they are, they’re radio-silent.”
Stew stood up and reached for the looking glass. He glassed the distance and whistled. “This sounds like a good enough signal to me.” Stew handed José the spyglass and then looked through his HUD. “They already sent us a nav point.”
“No confirmation, though. We don’t know if that’s the final one.”
“Knowing Suzuki, there’s probably going to be five more and then a fucking paper ranking them by level of importance and ease. We should go. They’re already silent, way fucking outnumbered, and probably too horny to think straight. There’s a lot of pent-up sexual energy over there in a really weird way.”
“Aw, babe, is that how you feel? Too horny to concentrate?”
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. There are only two things to do, fuck or fight. Are we fucking?”
José sighed loudly and muttered under his breath. “Thank Christ, you aren’t.”
Stew slapped his hands together as if his point had been beautifully illustrated. “Then we should be fighting. Let’s go save some douchenozzles.”
Sandy jumped down as GB popped out from behind Stew, his ass’s grin nearly as wide as his face. “I’ll send Chip and Diana the rendezvous,” Sandy said. “They’ll be some way behind us unless they’re already headed this way. It shouldn’t be too long, though. They’ve got a small army to put to work. I can’t believe we’re fucking digging again.”
Stew jumped into the pit that GB had already begun excavating. “Yeah,” he admitted. “There are definitely cooler ways to get someplace. At least GB will do most of the work.”
“I’d much rather be riding in on a pale horse or something.”
“Maybe on a troll!”
“Yeah, that would be sick.”
“I could give you a piggyback ride.”
“Actually, that might be kinda fun. Let’s give it a shot.”
Beth was the first to move. She moved so fast that Suzuki didn’t even have time to check his HUD to see what their chances were.
She threw her sword through the air at one of the orcs, who stepped to the side, leaving the sword to sail past and impale itself in the wall. She was still moving, though, having already pulled out her shield, leapt through the air, and landed on top of the orc she’d attacked. The two scuffled across the floor as she reached for her sword, but the orc grabbed her and slammed her head into the floor. She lay there dazed for a moment as the orc stood.
Suzuki flew through the air. He hadn’t ever been in a fist fight before and that thought slowly crossed his mind as he connected with one of the orcs, the two of them falling and rolling around the floor as Suzuki tried to figure out what to do with his hands. It didn’t seem like any of the orcs were armed and, at the moment, neither were Suzuki and Beth. He couldn’t risk recalling his ax or one of the orcs might slip out and try to get help, although at the moment, it didn’t seem like they needed it.
The orc grabbed Suzuki and tried to lift him to his feet as Suzuki kicked the orc who was standing over Beth, giving her enough time to snap out of it and woozily climb to her feet.
Two orcs held Suzuki’s arms while the third one punched Suzuki in the face. He could feel something break, a sensation that he hadn’t felt since he came to Middang3ard. Whatever level the microchips were in this section of the defense rings, these orcs could hit. Suzuki felt blood dripping down his nose as he got rocked with another hit, his vision blurring, going black for a second. He fought to hold on, but the world was starting to spin and two more blows hit him in the stomach, driving all of the wind out of his lungs so that he was gasping for breath, barely able to keep on his feet.
At Suzuki’s side, Beth was being tossed against the wall. The orc was in control. He smashed Beth’s head against the wall, putting a noticeable dent in whatever bizarre metal the wall was formed from. Beth fell to her knees, and the orc took her head in his hands and slammed her nose into his bulbous knee before pulling her back up to her feet. He swung and Beth ducked, leaving his fist to connect with the wall. She swept his feet out from under him, and as he fell, she grabbed her shield, twirled, and drove it into the face of the orc beating the shit out of Suzuki.
One of the orcs holding Suzuki flinched, ever so slightly. It was enough. Suzuki tore his arm out of the orc’s grasp and elbowed the orc in the face. He turned and slammed his fist into the other orc and then, as the orc struggled to regain his balance, pushed the orc back into one of the stalls. As the orc stumbled, Suzuki dropkicked the orc in the chest, sending him flying into the toilet. Suzuki rushed into the stall, closed the door behind him, and shoved the orc’s face in the water.
The other orc flung the bathroom door open as Suzuki held his immediate problem’s face under the water, the drowning orc flailing his hands as he kicked. The orc that had just come into the toilet stall hit Suzuki on the head.
Suzuki slumped forward but he didn’t let up on the orc whose head was beneath the water. He held it there, even as the orc behind him pulled out a small shiv. Suzuki felt the blade hit his armor. What Suzuki couldn’t see was how small the blade was and how it had been made specifically to slip in between the chinks of armor. Suzuki found this out soon enough, though. His back erupted in bright red pain as the orc worked the shiv into Suzuki’s shoulder blades, drawing it out and shoving it back in, trying to cut Suzuki’s arm right out of the socket.
In the toilet bowl, the orc finally stopped thrashing. Bubbles stopped rising to the surface.
Suzuki turned around, the shiv still in his shoulder and headbutted the orc. He was losing blood, and there wasn’t a mage around to help. He didn’t have time to look for a health potion. The only choice was to try to end this as quickly as possible.
Next to Suzuki, Beth was still facing off with her orc, who had produced a wand that he was brandishing curiously. It was almost as if he didn’t want to set it off. “You gonna fucking use that or not?” Beth shouted.
The orc smiled. He waved the wand right as Beth lunged forward to grab it. There was a bright flash of light, blinding them both. When Beth and Suzuki’s sight came back to them, they both saw that they weren’t wearing their armor anymore. “Oh, fuck,” Beth murmured as she backed up, raising her fists and spitting blood.
There were three orcs left. Each of them had pulled out a shiv.
Suzuki kicked the orc in the bathroom stall in the chest, forcing him out of the stall so that Suzuki could scramble out, backing up toward the wall with Beth. He pulled the shiv out of his shoulder, sending a fire up his back. He handed the shiv to Beth. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” Beth asked.
Suzuki raised his fists and rolled his shoulders. “I’m assuming it works the same as a sword. The pointy part goes in their soft parts.”
“You ever been in a knife fight without armor?”
“Nope.”
“This is going to be fucked.”
“Yep. Ready?”
“Ready.”
Suzuki lunged toward the orc closest to him. The orc swung with his blade arm and Suzuki took the hit to the side. The shiv tore his skin open, but he didn’t step back. Instead, he stepped in to meet the orc, bringing his arm up and then down in a quick burst of strength, snapping the orc’s arm in half. The orc dropped the shiv, and Suzuki leaned low, brought t
he orc’s head up in his hands as if it were a loving caress, and then brought his fist down on the orc’s skull. When the orc went slack, Suzuki dropped to the floor to grab the shiv. It was almost in his grasp when he felt a blade sink deep into his back. He couldn’t help but scream, the pain was so unbearable. And then another. And another. Suzuki wanted to cry. He’d never felt anything like this before. Each second, his skin tearing open again, the other wounds still so fresh and open. He’d seen movies of people being stabbed. It was nothing like this. He felt like he was dying. Still, he kept reaching for the shiv.
The orc on top of Suzuki brought his shiv down on Suzuki’s outstretched hand. Suzuki screeched in pain as the shiv went through his palm. He pulled his palm close, as if he were trying to cradle it against his chest. Instead, he pulled the shiv out, threw all of his strength into rolling to the side, tossing the orc off of him. He jumped on top of the orc and brought the shiv down on the orc’s face, puncturing his eye as the orc wrapped his hands around Suzuki’s throat, trying to choke the life out of the MERC.
Beth was up against the wall, one of the orcs holding her throat, the other stabbing her repeatedly in the stomach as she screamed. “Fucking human scum!” one of the orcs shouted.
Suzuki’s world started going black. He couldn’t remember where he was for a few seconds, and then there was a brief flash of darkness before he came back to the world. He could see Beth, against the wall, coughing up blood as the two orcs mangled her flesh.
No, he thought. This isn’t how it’s going to happen. Suzuki closed his inner eye. He concentrated as hard as he could on, tried to remember everything that Sandy had told him about magic in their late-night study sessions. He released the orc’s throat, held his hand in the air, and imagined fire rolling through his body. His hand grew hot. Then he jammed the fireball resting in his palm into the orc’s face.
The orc burst into flames, screaming as Suzuki rolled off of him and grabbed the shiv laying on the floor. He ran up to the orc stabbing Beth and grabbed him by the throat. He brought the shiv down on the orc’s throat three times before the orc slumped to his feet. Suzuki plunged the shiv deep into the orc’s throat, dragging it sideways, severing his jugular. That was all the space that Beth needed. She headbutted the orc that was holding her from behind, managed to slip away, turned and wrapped her hands around the orc’s throat as she kicked his legs out from under him. The orc sputtered to breathe, and Beth only strangled him harder until his choked gasps for air passed away and he slumped to the floor with a broken trachea.
Beth bent over and grabbed her stomach before falling to her knees. “Thanks,” she managed as she leaned against the wall.
Suzuki leaned up against the wall beside her, slowly letting himself fall to a sitting position, covering the wall he leaned against with blood. He pulled up his HUD and scrolled through the inventory. Two health potions. He handed one to Beth, and they drank in silence. Suzuki could feel the wounds closing themselves up. Their blood would be replenished as well. Nothing short of cosmetic surgery was going to get rid of the scars, though. “You okay?” Suzuki asked.
“Better now that I’m not getting shivved.”
“I think that was my first fight.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve been in battles before.”
“Not like that. I mean, my first…I don’t know, brawl. Every fight I’ve been in before I’ve had armor, at least two weapons, and a shit ton of magical help. This was…I don’t know, first knife fight at least.”
“Same here.”
“That was fucked up.”
“I know I’m not bleeding from every part of my body, but this shit still hurts. Remind me to never get stabbed again. I’m wearing only armor from now on.”
“They didn’t include any of this in the glamorous Middang3ard promos.”
“If someone had shown me this, I would have run away screaming.”
“Knife fights should be a part of the VR update.”
Beth chuckled as she looked through her inventory. Her armor was still there. She selected it, and her military armor conjured itself back onto her body. Suzuki did the same. They both helped each other to their feet and walked to the back of the bathroom where Fred and Ros’ten were.
Fred stood up when he saw Suzuki. “I’m glad that you survived, Suzuki,” he said.
Beth knelt beside Ros’ten, speaking softly in a language that Suzuki could not recognize while stroking the bee’s fur. “Did you get everything?” she asked.
Fred nodded as he walked toward Suzuki. “I combed over his entire body. There’s nothing there. They must have implanted more than one microchip on him. It makes sense. He’s an old creature, older than orcs or goblins. I suspect he was harder to control.”
Suzuki looked over his shoulder as he called his ax back to him. “We should get moving,” he suggested. “This is hardly the safest place for us to be.”
The smell of sulfur filled the air as Fred disappeared back into Suzuki’s body. Then came the scent of honey and fresh flowers as Ros’ten disappeared without a word. “Fuck, let’s get out of this shithole,” Beth said as she walked toward the bathroom door.
The door burst open. Now there was the smell of smoke, of bodies burned for eons and eons. Fire shot from the doorway as a smoking beast nearly the size of a giant, all fire and brimstone, poured himself into the room. A balrog. It roared loudly as it forced its body into the bathroom. “God damn, I have a mighty shit within me,” the balrog bellowed.
Beth and Suzuki stood still, holding their breath.
“What the fuck are humans doing in here!” the balrog screeched as it brandished its whip.
Suzuki retrieved his ax, and Beth drew her sword. Before they could move, the balrog flicked his whip and it flew across the bathroom, slashing them both in the face with enough force to move a mountain. Beth and Suzuki collapsed to the ground.
The balrog stood over them, its eyes bright with fire, watching them as if it were trying to design some infernal pain for them to experience.
Suzuki recalled his ax back to his hand. “Fuck this!” he shouted as he crawled to his feet. “We can take him.”
Beth nodded and used her sword to get to her feet. “We got this.”
The balrog roared loudly and cracked its whip. Then the door opened again and another balrog stumbled into the room. Even though his face was a mass of flames and horns, he was obviously surprised by the scene he had walked in on. “Uh-Hagreth? What are humans doing in here?” the balrog asked as he reached for his whip.
“About to get fucked up,” Uh-Hagreth said as he cracked his whip.
Suzuki rushed the balrogs, Beth right at his side.
The balrogs cracked their whips in unison.
The two humans hit the ground within seconds, both too spent to defend themselves from the balrogs’ attacks. The balrogs bent down, grabbed the humans, and slung them over their shoulders. They left the bathroom and the bodies of the orcs staining the floor with their blood.
Chapter Twenty-One
Suzuki woke up in a cell. There was nothing other than a toilet. The walls were cold and white, bright light shining from a single bulb. Beth was in the cell as well. She was sitting in the corner, her arms around her knees, staring straight ahead as if her mind had been vacated. “Back in a cell,” she muttered. “Guess this is my new home.”
It took a little while, but Suzuki was finally able to sit up. His sides were killing him. Both he and Beth had been lucky that they had had those health potions. If not, they would have bled out in the bathroom floor, not that it felt like it mattered at the moment. They might not be dead, but they were imprisoned. “What the hell happened?” Suzuki asked as he touched the side of his head, which was swollen and bruised.
“Two balrogs wrecked us. I was out for most of our trip here, but I came awake a couple of times. Guess who managed to make it all the way to the big, bad castle in the sky?”
“Are you serious? We’re in the main bui
lding?”
Beth looked around. “That’s what it looks like. Even the prison cells are fancier in this part of town.”
“Any idea how long I’ve been out?”
“Nope. I was too busy daydreaming about kicking the shit out of those balrogs to notice,” Beth admitted.
“We’ve gotta talk to whoever brews those healing potions and let them know they gotta start including something to kick up your stamina. I’m fucking exhausted.”
“Even after your power nap?” Beth asked.
Suzuki lay down on the ground and stretched out. “Honestly, I could sleep for the next day straight.”
“You seem unbelievably relaxed right now. I would have thought that you would be freaking the fuck out.”
“I might be neurotic, but I’m not stupid. The balrogs could have killed us. They didn’t. They brought us here. We’re obviously in trouble, big trouble. And you know what problem bad guys usually have?” Suzuki asked.
“What would that be, Thucydides?”
“It would…wait, did you just—”
“I’m not reading Greek war tactics to impress you. It’s just a little self-education. Beth chuckled. “Bad guys don’t seem to have a good handle on real estate. If we’re big enough trouble to get brought to the boss, we’re probably just a hop and skip away from the broadcaster.”
“You know, that’s not a bad train of thought.”
“So, I say we rest up until someone wants to come to interrogate us.”
“You make it sound so easy to deal with,” Suzuki said.
“I don’t plan on getting tortured, Suzy.”
“And you’re going to avoid this how?”
“I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I’m working on it.”
“Well, when you figure out how you’re planning on avoiding that, let me know. I’d love some pointers,” Suzuki said.
“Seriously, though, we should try to rest up. Whatever we’re going to have to deal with is going to be rough. Did you hear anything from the rest of the party?”
“No. I haven’t gotten any messages or anything. I hope they got our nav points. Otherwise, we’re really fucked.”