by A. J. Markam
I could hear the tremulous note in her voice.
I couldn’t tell her ‘no’ – not right now.
“…yes. Yes, I would.”
- Even if that meant sticking me up your ass?
I squinted.
Something about her voice had changed the slightest bit.
- Even if that meant using me as a butt plug?
“You’re not upset!” I cried out.
She started laughing.
- Hahahaha – yes I am – oh, I’m SO upset – I need you to comfort me! Stick me up right up there, Ian –
“You’re just fucking with me!” I said angrily.
- Not yet, I’m not!
“We are DEFINITELY getting you changed back into your body.”
- Hahahaha – oh, come on! she pleaded and laughed at the same time. You’ve been up MY ass!
“You are NEVER going up my ass!” I snarled.
“That’s what she said,” Stig’s disembodied voice floated down from the cave entrance.
I couldn’t exactly fault him for that one.
As I was about to climb up out of the cave, another tiny, feminine voice joined in. “Should I go up the Big Thing’s ass, Mistress?”
- Oh, yes, Wylla – go right on up there! Alaria howled with laughter.
“NO!” I yelled, swatting at the golden shape whirring around me. “Alaria, tell her you’re joking!”
“Just tell me where his ass IS, Mistress, and I’ll go right up it!” Wylla cried out.
“NO, NO, NO, NO!” I yelled as I quickly hauled myself out of the cave.
If crystals could piss themselves from laughing so much, I was pretty sure Alaria would have been drenched in pee by now.
I stomped out of the field, swatting at the fairy as Stig and Grung followed along behind me.
“GET AWAY FROM MY ASS!” I yelled at Wylla.
“That’s what she said,” Stig added.
- Wylla – oh, I can’t tell her to stop, it’s too funny! Alaria shrieked in merriment.
Soraiya was up ahead, frozen in place right where I’d left her.
Alaria’s mirth suddenly shut off.
- Backstabbing bitch, she grunted. Serves her right to be a slave again.
Of course, Soraiya couldn’t hear her, or her reaction might have been very different.
“Did you find her?” the plum-colored succubus asked.
“Yes,” I said, and held up the tiny crystal in one hand. At the same time, I swatted Wylla away from my backside with the other.
“What’s with the fairy?” Soraiya asked.
“Apparently they come standard with all dungeon cores.”
“Why’s it trying to attack your ass?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Sounds like someone had an interesting time down there,” Soraiya smirked as I stomped past her.
“That’s what she said,” Stig piped up.
“All of you, SHUT UP and let’s go inside,” I growled as I headed for the hangar doors.
5
The first thing I did was convene every one of Orlo’s former demons in the laboratory. I’d just freed them, so I figured they owed me one.
“Does anybody here know anything about Orlo making dungeon core crystals?” I asked.
No, they all said.
“Are any of you familiar with the equipment in here and what it does?”
No, no.
Most of them had had their minds locked inside war golem bodies for the last six months, and their flesh-and-blood bodies had been reduced to mindless automatons in the interim. They knew less than nothing about the lab.
I looked over at Soraiya. “Tell me the truth – how much do you know about the functioning of all this machinery?”
She glared at me, but the glowing collar around her neck forced her to respond. “Not much. I’ve seen Orlo click a series of buttons and pull a bunch of levers to get certain outcomes, but I have no real understanding of what he was doing.”
“Shit…”
None of the machinery’s control panels had labels of any kind. It was just hundreds upon hundreds of levers, buttons, switches, and dials.
I could try my entire life to work the machinery and never figure it out.
I tried anyway.
The first button I pushed sent an arc of electricity coursing wildly through the room. It zapped five demons in the ass before I hastily shut it down.
“OWWW!” they all screamed, and glared at me as they rubbed their behinds.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Then I threw a switch that caused a ray-gun looking thing to drop down out of the ceiling on a mechanical arm. It began swiveling back and forth, beaming a tiny red laser sight across the demons’ foreheads.
At the same time, the gun began to warm up with a vrr, Vrr, VRR sound.
“Oh shit,” I hissed as I scrambled to reverse the switch.
“RUN!” the demons all screamed. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”
The gun cycled down and retracted into the ceiling, but the damage was done. The demons had all cleared out, and my crew were the only ones remaining.
Stig cowered behind my legs like a frightened toddler, Grung was under the table that supported Alaria’s body, Wylla the fairy was hiding in a dark corner, and Soraiya opened her wings to fly away –
“YOU stay HERE!” I yelled at her.
The plum-colored succubus stared daggers at me, but folded her wings and remained where she was.
I sank my head into my hands in despair. God only knows how long it would take to unravel this mechanical Gordian knot – and that was if the process could even be reversed.
- Ian? Alaria’s voice sounded in my mind.
“Yes?” I murmured.
- I don’t think this is going to work.
“No, no, we’ll make it work,” I said, taking my hands away from my face and forcing myself to be chipper and upbeat. “It’s just a matter of time until we figure everything out.”
- There might be another way.
“What other way?”
- We could go talk to one of my old masters. He might be able to help us.
“How? Is he a gnome?”
- No, he’s a dungeon core, too.
“What?! You were enslaved to a dungeon core?!”
- A long time ago, yes.
“Why didn’t you mention that earlier?!”
- Because I didn’t THINK of it, that’s why! I thought you were going to push a few buttons and I’d be back in my body!
“Isn’t he going to try to kill us?!”
- No, he’s not on my kill list. He’s one of the ones I actually liked.
“…really? Why’d you like him?”
- He always gave me the choice of whether I wanted to have sex or not.
My eyes bugged out. “You… you had sex with a dungeon core?”
- NO! No, I was in his dungeon! I could either seduce adventurers who came into the dungeon or fight them!
“So you… had sex with them?”
- Sometimes. Depended on my mood.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand – was this dungeon core a warlock?”
- No, I joined up with him after my first master got killed by a bunch of religious zealots and I needed someplace to hide.
“Why’d you leave?”
- I didn’t know any better. I got bored, I’d only had one master, and he wasn’t that bad to me. I didn’t realize just how awful they could be.
“How long ago was this?”
- I don’t know… a hundred years ago, maybe?
Which was impossible. OtherWorld (the game) had only existed for a decade or so – but it was part of her backstory that the game developers had given her.
“Are you sure he’ll help you?”
- Pretty sure. He was good to me. He always liked me.
“Do you know where he is?”
- Oh yes. It’s pretty far from here, but we could make it in a week or so on ho
rseback, I think.
“A WEEK?!”
- Sooner, if Soraiya flies you.
Huh…
“So where is it?”
- A city called Vos.
All of a sudden, a computer window popped up:
We’re Off To See The Crystal, The Wonderful Crystal of Vos!
Wait a second…
The game had already USED that title for when I saw the Warlock Trainer in Exardus! Except it had been something like the ‘Warlock of Oddballs’!
Either two different game developers had used the same title and it had slipped by, or the writing was REALLY going downhill. Plus I was pretty damn sure the game developers had named the city ‘Vos’ just so they could make that damn pun.
Journey to Vos and get an audience with the enigmatic dungeon core to see if he will help you return Alaria’s soul to her body!
5000 XP
I sighed and hit ‘Accept.’
“Does this dungeon core have a name?”
- Yes. Deek.
“Deek?”
- His crystalline name is unpronounceable, but in Common Tongue he goes by Deekavarianustrokamis. Deek for short.
“Okay…” I said, a little overwhelmed by the word salad that made up the dungeon core’s name. Not since Queen Supercalifragilistic back in Exardus had I run across anybody with as long a moniker. “Well, then – let’s go see the Wizard.”
- He’s not a wizard, he’s a dungeon core.
“…never mind. Let’s just go see if he can help us.”
6
Our trip took a bit of preparation.
First, I didn’t want to lose Alaria’s crystal – and I wanted to keep her in constant contact with my skin so I could ‘hear’ her thoughts – so the answer was obvious:
Make a necklace out of her.
One of the demons in Orlo’s lair was a metalsmith. He was able to fashion a delicate, lacelike web of wires that held the crystal securely in place, and then we fastened a small chain to it so I could wear it around my neck, under my shirt.
- Or, you know, you could just use me as a butt plug, she suggested.
Suggested it ‘cheekily,’ I might add.
“NO,” I said.
- You said I could vibrate against your skin – we could take advantage of that!
“NO.”
- But you’ll always know where I am! Get it? ‘Butt’ you’ll always –
“NO.”
- ‘No’ you didn’t get it, or ‘no’ you don’t want to? she teased me.
“Yes and NO, IN THAT ORDER.”
Next up was what to do with her flesh-and-blood body.
On the several occasions I’d stored his war golem head inside my bag, Grung had let me know that time passed differently in there. Hours had felt like seconds to him.
I figured that we would need to take Alaria’s body with us if we wanted the dungeon core to reunite it with her soul. A loot bag was perfect for that. Her body would effectively be weightless, which was important if I was going to be transporting it a thousand miles. And the slow passage of time would ensure that her body wouldn’t die. Her skin wouldn’t grow cold, and her heart wouldn’t cease beating.
I hoped.
As I stood there next to the slab, looking at her unmoving body and her blank eyes, a feeling of sadness overwhelmed me.
- …Ian?
“Yes?”
- I… never mind.
“What? Tell me.”
- Do you… do you really think there’s a chance?
“That we can get you back in your body? Yes. Absolutely,” I said, with a lot more confidence than I actually felt.
- Then why do you feel so sad?
Shit.
I’d forgotten that Alaria could ‘feel’ what I was going through.
If I lied to make her feel better, she might be able to tell – and that wouldn’t make her feel better at all. And it would probably make her wonder if she could ever trust me.
“…because I hate that you have to go through this,” I said. I paused, then admitted, “And because I’m scared.”
A short silence.
- I’m scared, too, she whispered.
“That’s okay. We can be scared together.”
- Okay, she said, and I could feel the relief in her voice.
When you have to keep up a positive front that everything’s going to be okay, it can be exhausting. At least she knew she didn’t have to do that for me.
I pulled a bag from my belt and slid it over her flesh-and-blood body’s feet, then watched as her thigh-high black boots disappeared inside. Twelve inches of bag swallowed up 30-plus inches of shapely, leather-clad leg.
I had to shift the bag under her ass and wiggle it back and forth to get her hips inside. That was even weirder, seeing half her body gone, erased from sight.
Her boobs presented a whole different problem.
“I never thought I’d hear myself say this,” I muttered as I pressed down on her tits and tried to smoosh them through the mouth of the leather sack, “but I kind of wish you weren’t so busty.”
- Whatever. I know you’re enjoying manhandling them, she purred.
“…okay, yeah, I guess I am,” I agreed.
I got the bag over her breasts, past her shoulders, and up to her neck. I stared down at her beautiful face, wreathed in wild curls of black hair.
God, she was gorgeous.
- Thank you, she whispered.
“I didn’t say anything,” I murmured, confused.
- No, but I felt it.
“You can read my thoughts?!”
- No… but I could feel your heart swell. And something else swelled, too, she snickered. Although mostly when you were feeling me up.
“That was strictly to get you in the bag!”
- Uh-huh…
I cradled her head in one hand, lifted it up, and slipped the bag over her face. The last thing to disappear was her long, lustrous hair.
Then I checked my Inventory Window.
A tiny little icon of her body appeared next to pictures of food and other items.
Success.
Perfect suspended animation for as long as we needed it.
…although I hoped we didn’t need it that long.
After securing Alaria’s body I said my farewells.
I’d barely gotten to know the demons, and they didn’t much trust me after their near-death experience while I was experimenting in Orlo’s lab, so a simple ‘Goodbye’ sufficed.
But Grung was special.
I shook his hand. “You sure you don’t want to come with us?”
The small, purple demon smiled. “Thank you, friend, but I am not really an adventurer. I am looking forward to reading all the books in Orlo’s library instead of fighting violent people and falling into volcanos.”
“You know that volcanos are pretty rare, right?”
“Are violent people rare, as well?”
“…no, not really,” I admitted.
“Then I will stay here.”
Stig waved and grunted something to the purple demon, and I even touched Alaria’s crystal to Grung’s skin so she could say goodbye.
Grung’s eyes widened, and he looked at me. “Oh – so you’re not crazy.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, annoyed and amused at the same time. “Does that change your mind about joining us?”
“No – then I would have to be crazy.”
He wasn’t wrong, exactly.
One more somewhat dramatic thing happened just as we were about to leave.
Soraiya had kept her distance the entire time like a sulky teenager. While I was saying goodbye to the demons, she hung back in the grassy fields, arms crossed, body language frosty as the Northern Wastes.
When I started walking over to retrieve her, Alaria spoke up inside my mind.
- Ian?
“Yeah?”
- …maybe you should free Soraiya.
I stopped in my tracks out of surprise. �
�What?”
- She didn’t actually try to kill me.
“So?” I said belligerently. “She wasn’t exactly trying to help us, either. She did it out of obligation.”
- But she fulfilled that obligation.
“Why are you even bringing this up? You hate Soraiya.”
- I don’t HATE her. She saved me from the volcano, after all.
“Yeah, but I don’t hear you showering her with compliments, either.”
Alaria sighed.
- I know, but… it’s not her I’m worried about. I couldn’t care less if she spent the rest of eternity in captivity.
“So why do you want me to free her?”
- Because I’m afraid of what NOT freeing her might do to you.
“What are you talking about?”
- You started freeing demons because you knew what it was like to be enslaved. You freed the mine workers in Abaddon specifically to rescue me, yes, but you’ve continued since then. It was a good thing to do, and you’re a good person. But…
I frowned. “But what?”
- You didn’t free that demon back in Exardus until the very end, because it was to your advantage NOT to.
“I was in a bad place back then!” I snapped.
- And you were in a bad place when you enslaved Soraiya. I get it. But… if you only do good things when you’re feeling good… and you do bad things whenever you’re in a bad place… does that really make you good? Or just somebody who does nice things for others when you feel like it? What happens if bad things continue to happen to you? Are you going to do whatever you want, whatever’s easy, and say, ‘Oh, it’s justified’? That’s not you, Ian. Actually, it MIGHT be you… but I know it’s not who you WANT to be.
I was silent, but I was stewing inside.
This was Dorp Part 2: Return of the Conscience.
Goddamn Jiminy Cricket with fangs all over again.
“You realize it’s going to be pretty fucking inconvenient to free her now, right?” I snarled. “I mean, she could fly us to Vos five times faster than just riding my horse.”
- Sometimes doing the right thing means doing it when it’s inconvenient. I know, because I’ve watched you do the right thing when it would have been so much easier for us if you didn’t. Like trying to get to Dorp in the orc camp so you could say you were sorry.