by David M Zahn
"I don't know what you are talking about, Martha," Wilson said, looking and sounding confused.
"Oh, you will, Wilson. Soon, you all will," Martha said, smiling contemptuously down at her husband.
Chapter Fourteen: The Silence of Aros
"Lady, what do you want?" I asked.
"Oh, look at our fine investigative team," Martha said mockingly. "First, the governess sent a couple of guards, and I almost worried, but when she sent you lot, I knew she didn't really give a shit about what we were doing here."
"And what are you doing here?" I asked, knowing she wouldn't give me a straight answer.
"You'll find out when the time is right," Martha said smiling creepily down at me. "We were content to let you flounder about not doing anything, but then you spooked that idiot, Rurir, and he sent you my way."
This made me pause for a moment, and then I asked, "Rurir is in on this?"
Martha sighed and ran her fingers through her hair before answering, "Yeah, even if he is a worthless idiot. He's good at keeping an eye on Loren, who is probably the second most important person in town."
I gritted my teeth irritated. We walked into a trap, and now she was mocking us for it, which made it so much worse.
This woman was truly infuriating. I thought Wilson was a lousy husband for wanting to watch Tits strip, but I could almost understand now after hearing the condescending bitch speak.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Elaria whispering something to Rondo, but I wasn't close enough to catch it. Whatever it was, Rondo nodded his head and looked serious after she moved her head away from him.
"Let me guess," Eldertits said to Martha. "This is all because you haven't had a good lay in a long time, but don't worry, we've got the whole crew here and can change that. Do you want a big, juicy, black cock? Got that right here."
At this point, she reached over and grabbed the front of Rondo's shirt. Rondo looked like he wanted to put his big black cock anywhere but near Martha.
Martha, for her part, looked annoyed and shook her head at Eldertits before muttering, "No wonder you people didn't have a clue until one of us helped you out."
"You people? Rondo, do you hear this racist bitch?" Eldertits asked, smacking Rondo on the chest and pretending to be offended.
"I'm done listening to your bullshit, Tits," Rondo muttered, covering his ears with his hands.
"You're so annoying even your own friends can't stand you," Martha said laughing at Tits.
Tits was about to respond but was cut off by the sound of a deafening squeak coming from behind Martha. I froze as my ears felt like they exploded, and judging by the reactions of those around me, I wasn't the only one.
Martha stood frozen trying to say something, but I couldn't hear what it was. I could see the small form of an otter behind her, though. Minty must have snuck out between the bars of our cage while Martha was distracted and unleashed his notorious special attack. Eldertits, like me, was frozen in place looking quite uncomfortable, but both Elaria and Rondo seemed to be okay.
Elaria must have warned Rondo beforehand that Minty was going to do this, but it would have been nice if she passed that information along to the rest of the party, but maybe we were too far away. After all, the messaging system was broken, and she probably didn't want to tip off Martha.
At this point, Minty sprang into action and climbed up Martha's leg and began feeling around, presumably for keys. Either that or the otter really was a pervert. After checking the pockets on her pants and not finding anything, the little otter climbed higher, not bothering to watch his claws on the woman. Small red blots blossomed on her shirt where he ripped through it as he climbed.
After reaching her chest, Minty dove head first down her shirt, and I was a little worried the otter was just playing around instead of trying to find the keys for us. Luckily, he came back up a moment later with a ring full of keys in his mouth.
Bounding down Martha, Minty crossed the room and handed the keys to Elaria who was squatting with arm outstretched outside of our cage. Elaria patted the little otter on the head and snatched the keys from him before swiftly moving toward the door.
After fumbling around with different ones, Elaria finally managed to find the correct one and pushed the door open, allowing both herself and Rondo to exit. Within a few seconds, they both crossed the short amount of space between the door and Martha and leveled weapons at the woman. The tables had definitely turned.
Once the rest of us could move and hear again, our party filed out of the cage and surrounded the now wary-looking woman.
"You won't get away," Martha said, though she didn't sound nearly as confident as before.
"I suppose you think you're going to stop us?" I said smiling at her. "You shouldn't have underestimated the Immoral Exiles."
"You and your pathetic guild will be caught again soon enough," Martha spat back at me. "I can't believe I was surprised by a rat."
"He's an otter," Eldertits said, picking up Minty and cuddling him fondly. "Nobody expects the Minty otter."
"I'd like to ask again," I said staring Martha deeply in her eyes while Rondo and Elaria dug their blades into her neck. "What are you all doing here?"
"I'll never tell you," Martha responded curtly. "Just kill me. I'll respawn, and then we'll round up the lot of you again."
This answer was not unexpected but still annoying. Why did everything have to be done the hard way?
"I could start carving off small pieces of her, bit by bit," Eldertits suggested, still holding Minty.
Martha's face faltered, and I had no doubt that if we wanted to go that route we could get her to talk, but I just didn't like the idea of torturing someone, no matter how awful of a person they were.
"No, we're not going to be those people," I said softly. "We're not going to start torturing people, not even NPCs, Tits. No matter how terrible they are, our clan isn't going to sink to that level."
"It would speed things up," Tits responded shrugging. "What do you want to do now? I don't think she's going to talk without some sort of motivation.
"Tits is right, Ryland," Elaria said looking over at me. "We can make her talk, it just might get a little unpleasant."
"I said no," I replied firmly. "I'm the leader of the clan, and as the leader, I have made this decision. We do not torture, period. If she won't talk, throw her in that cage, lock it, and throw away the key."
"You are such a weak leader," Martha said taunting me. "Any real leader would have the balls to do what needed to be done. I'll just wait for her until they catch you and return you to this cage. It won't take long."
"A real leader doesn't take the quick or easy route," I said softly to her, as Elaria and Rondo shoved her past me into the cage. "Don't mistake my unwillingness to cross that line as weakness. We will stop all of you from doing whatever you are trying to do here, that's a promise."
"I still say you've got no balls, just like my husband," Martha said, mocking me as Rondo slammed the door shut and locked the cage. "You know, when the governess sent you here, she didn't really believe in you."
Angrily, I summoned my Fist of the Phoenix Flame and punched the wall next to the cage while saying, "She may not have, but nonetheless, we are putting an end to this right now."
The wall where I punched cracked slightly from the impact the spell made against it, and a small amount of stone crumbled to the ground. Martha inadvertently pulled back after watching this display, and I used all of my willpower not to show any sign of pain.
Of course, punching the wall hurt like a bitch, and I wanted to scream and grab ahold of my hand, but I had an audience and didn't want to let her or any of the others think I was an idiot.
Finally, after holding my fist against the wall longer than I should have, I pulled it back and barked, "Open the other cages. Let's free these people."
Elaria went around and opened the other cages until all of the prisoners except for two walked out and began stretching. The
couple that didn't leave their cages lay on the ground looking over at us, pleading with their eyes. They weren't joking when they said that a lack of eating made them weak.
Going over to the woman, I squatted down, produced a ration pack, and said, "Eat this. It'll taste like shit, but I guarantee you'll feel better after eating it."
She reached up and gingerly took it from me. After this, the woman slowly began to eat the pack, and after a swallowing a few times, the speed of her eating increased. Only in a video game could someone have recovered this quickly from prolonged starvation, because in the real world, she probably wouldn't have been able to get any solid food down. Actually, scratch that, she'd probably be dead.
Rondo did the same thing with the young man, and after a few minutes of eating, they were both in good enough condition to begin moving on their own, which was a relief since I didn't know how far we'd have to go, and carrying these two would have taken a lot of strength out of the group that we might need for a fight.
"Alright, let's see if we can find our way out of here," I said. "Are any of you familiar with the underground ruins beneath town?"
"There are entrances to them all over town, but I don't think any of us have explored them enough to know our way around," one of the men said.
"Anything you can tell me about these ruins?" I asked a little frustrated.
"Not much I'm afraid," he replied. "Honestly, I don't even know their name. Everyone just calls them the ruins. All I know is they are older and far more expensive than Roselake."
Out of all the useless information, this takes the cake so far. Ruins were old. Not like the name implied that or anything.
"Let's just move out then, but be careful," I replied, giving up on getting any useful information out of these people. "My party will go first, and then the rest of you follow after. If the two guards want to take the rear just in case anything tries to sneak up on us, that would be great."
The guards nodded their ascent and stood by while the rest of the group formed up. Elaria took the lead as usual and was followed by Eldertits and Minty. After those three, Rondo, the goblins, and I followed.
Walking down the stone hallway that was the only way out of the chamber, I eyed the stonework and thought about what a colossal undertaking it would have been to build all of this underground. I really wanted to know who'd done this and why.
At the end of this hallway, we came into a large cavernous chamber with giant humanoid statues that went almost all the way up to the ceiling. On one side of the chamber stood a wide staircase leading further underground, and on the other side were several passageways off of this chamber.
The remnants of a fountain littered the center of the room. Clearly, many years had passed since water had flown from it. On the top of the fountain sat a pedestal with a small bronze statue of a man. The man wore a weird little top hat with a rose carved into it, and he held one finger up in front of his mouth.
It couldn't be, I thought, walking over toward the fountain.
"Ryland?" Rondo asked, seeing me breaking away from the group.
"I had a thought," I said. "I need to check this out for a second."
"Thinking, that's a dangerous business for you," Eldertits quipped.
Ignoring her, I moved in closer and climbed up onto the ledge of the fountain to get a better look at the statue. The man seemed to be naked from the head down, and part of his left foot had broken off, but the statue had no problems staying upright.
Reaching up, I grabbed hold of one of the legs, and to my surprise, I was met immediately by a notification.
You have found the Silence of Aros
"This statuette was created by the Rurilae people in honor of the god, Aros. This statuette allows the holder to designate a specific location and block all communication to and from that location. The statuette must be within the set location or it will not work. This is a unique artifact."
Current set location: The Ruins of Rurilae
Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000
Weight: 5 lbs
Do you wish to change the set location?
Yes or No?
I let go of it and smiled. I found out what was blocking our communication with the rest of the clan and anyone outside of these ruins. That solved one mystery in this godforsaken town.
"This statuette is what is blocking communication," I called over to the others.
"Well then, shut it off," Eldertits said back to me.
"If I shut it off, Martha will be able to let her friends know that we've broken out. Perhaps, it would be best if I waited until we got out of these ruins," I replied.
Tits shrugged and said, "That's your call, but grab it and let's get moving."
Reaching up, I grabbed the small statue and placed it in my inventory. Hopefully, that would still count as being in the ruins. Just to check, I attempted to send another message to the clan and found that it was still blocked. That answered that.
"Which way do you think is the right way out of here?" I asked, walking back over to where the group gathered.
"There's only one way you'll be going," a distant voice answered back.
Turning toward the end of the chamber with multiple exits, I saw Rurir walking toward us. He looked oddly calm for a lone man that was facing a large group of hostile people.
"Great, it's captain buttsex," Rondo muttered.
"You can't stop us, Rurir," I said facing the young man. "All of us are leaving whether you want to let us go or not."
"I don't think you realize what you've gotten yourselves into," Rurir said with a mocking smile.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of that dick in your ass," Rondo spat back at him.
Rurir paused, tilting his head at this, then resumed his grin while saying, "You really have an issue with gay sex, don't you? You know, I'm not even into that. I just did it to keep an eye on Loren. You would not believe the amount of stuff one can find out while sleeping with someone."
"Wait, what?" Rondo responded. "So, let me get this straight. You're not even gay, and you let another man mount you from behind, and that let you find out what? That Loren is keeping some vampire plants in his basement?"
Rurir frowned at this said, "Well yes, but we needed to keep an eye on him."
"Can you believe this shit?" Rondo asked, ignoring Rurir and turning to the rest of us. "Hey Tits, I need to find out what kind of house plants Elaria has. Mind sticking your tongue up her ass?"
I started to speak before I was cut off by Eldertits saying, "Fuck off, Rondo."
After this, she stomped away down the staircase while Rondo called after her, "What? I'm not telling you to do something disgusting like sleeping with another woman. I was just making a point about how stupid the dick vacuum is over there."
The only response Eldertits gave to this was to hold up her middle finger while she continued walking. It wasn't like her to get upset about some crude comment. Especially since she was usually the one offending people.
"What the hell is that all about?" Rondo asked, watching her walk away.
"I don't know," I responded, trying to figure it out myself. "Do you think you guys and the goblins can handle Rurir over there? I'll go see if I can figure out what's going on with her."
"Sure, I don't think Butt Fucked will be a problem for us," Rondo replied shrugging.
After that, I headed down the staircase and out of the large chamber after Eldertits. I found her quite a ways down the staircase sitting on a landing with her back against the wall and her arms wrapped around her knees.
"Tits, you want to tell me what's going on?" I asked softly, stepping beside where she was sitting.
From this range, I could distinctly hear sobs coming from where she buried her face between her knees.
"He's such an asshole," she said between sobs. "I can't take him ragging on gays anymore. It's pissing me off, and yes, before you say anything, I know that I rip on everything and everyone, but he's just getting to me.
Ever since we found that priest fiddling with Rurir, he's been a piece of shit."
Sitting down next to her I said, "I don't know if that's fair, Tits. Yes, Rondo has said some truly bigoted things about gays, but that doesn't make him a piece of shit. Hell, all of us have our issues. Elaria is racist, you're a troll in the worst way, I'm retarded, and Rondo is homophobic. Every single one of us has put the group before themselves at some point, and that includes Rondo."
"You forgot that Minty is a pervert," Eldertits said, laughing between a sob.
"Yes, I suppose an otter can be a pervert," I replied with a chuckle. "Do you want to talk about why it bothers you so much?"
"Fine," Eldertits replied with a long sigh, "but first, swear to me you'll never tell anyone about it."
"Your secrets are safe with me," I replied.
Breathing out hard, Tits said, "Okay. Look, it bothers me so much because of what I went through when I was younger. I grew up Mormon in the heart of Mormonism: Provo, Utah. I don't know how much you know about Mormonism, but it's not exactly accepting of things like homosexuality. As a teenager after puberty hit and while I was trying to figure things out, I began experimenting with one of my friends. We would get together, fool around, and sleep together. We did that for a while until my parents caught us in the act. As upstanding members of the church, you can imagine how shocked they were to find such vile acts going on in their home."
I had a feeling where this story was going now, but I stayed silent as I didn't want to interrupt Tits in the middle of her story.
"My friend and I were both thrown in front of the disciplinary council of the church, which is just a lovely group of people," Eldertits continued. "We were given a choice: repent or be excommunicated. My friend immediately repented. I, however, refused. I didn't think anything I did was wrong. As I've told you before, sex is just a natural part of life in my view, and I hold that regardless of which gender I'm having sex with. The church didn't take this kindly, and I was excommunicated. Do you have any idea what it is like to be sixteen and get excommunicated from the church in Provo, Utah?"