by A. J. Markam
Stig frowned. “What’s ‘fugly’?”
“Short for ‘fucking ugly.’”
As soon as I said it, I winced and waited for a blob of acid to hit me in the forehead – but the gargoyle just sat there, unoffended.
Stig pointed at the gargoyle. “Fugly.”
The gargoyle looked over at him. “yah?”
Stig laughed, a croaky little heh-heh-heh. “Fuuuuuugly.”
“yah?”
“We can’t call him Fugly,” I protested.
“yah,” the gargoyle said decisively.
“You want to be called ‘fucking ugly’?”
The gargoyle shrugged. “eh.”
“Fugly,” Stig snorted in amusement.
“yah?” the gargoyle answered.
“Alright… Fugly it is,” I sighed, and threw him another piece of salted meat.
“yah yah yah,” the gargoyle agreed.
- Lovely, Alaria muttered. A pet flying rat.
“Who can spit acid,” I reminded her.
- You pick up such interesting demons.
She was right about that. Fugly might not have been much to look at, but he was definitely ‘interesting.’ And he might prove to be very useful in a fight.
If he didn’t eat me out of house and home first.
8
And so we began our trip to Vos.
Soraiya agreed to grab me under the arms and haul me through the air – but she refused to let Stig ride on her back. “I’m not about to ferry around an imp – and there’s no way I’m carrying a gargoyle.”
I looked over at Fugly. “Could you carry Stig?”
“yah.”
“NO,” Stig snarled.
“Why not?”
“It’s a gargoyle.”
I was beginning to realize there was a distinct hierarchy among demons, with different classes looking down on those they perceived to be lower than them.
Kind of fucked up, but lots of humans did it all the time based on race, money, religion, class, gender, and nationality, so I couldn’t really say my species was any better.
I offered to send Stig to Limbo while we traveled.
“It’s BORING there,” he grumped.
I’d never really thought of Limbo as a physical place before. “What’s it like?”
“DARK. And BORING.”
That appeared to be all the description I was going to get out of him, so I offered to put him in one of my bags.
“Grung said it was like no time passed at all,” I reminded him.
Stig just frowned and looked at the bag askance, like I was offering him kale salad and boiled Brussels sprouts.
Then I remembered how I had slipped the bag gradually over Alaria’s feet and body.
“C’mere, let me try something,” I said as I detached a bag from my belt and set it down on the ground.
“Mrrrm,” he grunted nervously and edged away.
“TRUST me. Step in the bag, but keep your arms over the side so you don’t go all the way in.”
He gingerly stepped into the bag and immediately tumbled halfway in, since there was nothing beneath his feet but insubstantial cyberspace.
“AAAAAH!” he screamed as he collapsed onto the side of the leather pouch. From the way he screamed, you would have thought he was about to fall into the Bottomless Pit.
“Hold on, I’ve got you,” I said as I grabbed him and adjusted him so both his arms were hanging over the edge.
When I’d finished, his entire lower half had disappeared. It was basically just his arms and head extending over the rim of the bag.
“There – you okay?”
“…yeah…” he said warily as I hooked the bag onto my belt.
Now it looked like I was carrying around a disembodied imp’s head. Would have made a great Halloween costume.
Finally, Wylla the fairy returned. “Mistress, please tell that ugly big thing not to eat me!”
I saw Fugly tense for takeoff –
- Ian!
“FUGLY!” I shouted. “Do NOT eat the fairy, or NO MORE FOOD.”
“aw,” he pouted.
I threw him a small loaf of bread as a consolation prize, which he wolfed down in three bites.
“Jesus, where do you put all that?” I wondered aloud.
He just burped.
“Alright, we’re going to a city named Vos,” I told the group. “We’re going to fly as long as Soraiya can until she gets tired, then we’ll rest. We’ll keep doing that until we reach Vos. Wylla, you’re free to come, or you can leave and do whatever you want.”
“I stay with Mistress!”
- Wonderful, Alaria mumbled.
“Do you want to get rid of her?” I whispered.
- No… even though incredibly annoying, she’s basically harmless. And I’m not sure I even CAN get rid of her. She said she was bound to me as my dungeon fairy.
“Alright, I guess that’s that. Alright, everybody – let’s do this.”
I said one final goodbye to Grung and the few demons who had stuck around to watch the Ian and Company Shitshow. Then Soraiya grabbed me under the armpits, lifted me into the air, and we were off.
It was an uneventful trip. No battles, no crazy encounters – just a succubus flying a Warlock around with a dungeon core around his neck, an imp head peeking out of a bag, and a gargoyle and a fairy in tow.
So, yeah. An airborne freakshow, basically.
Soraiya would fly us in ten-minute legs, then I would summon Balrog. She and I would ride for ten minutes while she recovered her strength, and then we would repeat the process all over again. Wylla and Fugly stayed in the air the entire time.
We made pretty good time, and flying through the air was pretty cool. I saw a lot of interesting terrain once we got past the boring grasslands near Orlo’s lair. We passed over mountains, verdant valleys, old-wood forests, lake districts, and swamplands. Players on flying mounts – magic carpets, dragons, giant moths, eagles – flew past us and gawked at the hot succubus ferrying me around.
“I’ll trade you my mount for yours!” the rider called out.
If only he knew he could mount her in more ways than one.
We spent the night at a small-town inn, where I ordered five rotisserie chickens just for Fugly, and one apiece for me, Soraiya, and Stig. I had a couple of glasses of wine, Soraiya had a bottle, and Stig had three.
Strangely enough, Fugly didn’t want any alcohol. His vice was gluttony, not drunkenness. Which was good – one drunk demon was enough, and I didn’t need a sloshed, acid-spitting gargoyle on my hands.
Wylla went off and did whatever fairies do in the woods, with the promise to come back the next morning.
I got Soraiya her own room at Alaria’s request.
- I don’t want you waking up with that bitch bouncing on top of your crotch.
Neither did I. After enslaving her and threatening to torture her, and with my girlfriend trapped inside a crystal, waking up to her humping me would have just been awkward, as Stig would say.
After a good night’s sleep and Wylla’s return, we set off and did the whole thing over again.
To keep myself occupied, I checked out my stats while we were flying.
Level 25
Health 1830
Mana 2600
Intellect 213
Stamina 189
Armor 56
Necklace of Ra’nath: +40 Intellect, +20 Stamina
Shoulders: +5
Magical Orcish Cloak: +12 Armor, +25 Stamina, +10 Critical Strike
Shirt: +4
Vest: +6
Bracers: +4
Pants: +6
Belt: +4, +3 Intelligence
Boots of the Yeti: +10 Armor, +12 Intelligence, +20 Stamina
Gloves: +5
Rings: +4 Intelligence, +6 Critical Strike
Ring of Tharos: +60 Intellect, +40 Stamina, +20 Haste
Trinkets: +7 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Wand of the Dead
+5
0 Intellect
+30 Stamina
+15 Critical Strike
Critical Strike: 8.5%
Haste: 4.5%
The Orcish cloak I’d picked up in the Plains of Mor-El had dinged my Intellect stats, which made me a smidge less powerful, magically speaking. But the cloak more than compensated for it in increased Stamina, Armor, and a bit more Critical Strike – which meant I would be harder to kill, and a tiny bit more likely to cast a spell that did double my normal amount of damage.
Plus it had those snazzy silver moons and stars embroidered around the hem.
(That last bit was sarcasm, by the way.)
The spells I could actively cast were as follows:
Darkbolt – a single blast of dark energy.
Darkfire – flames of dark energy that did damage over six seconds.
Unholy Quartet – summon four imps to fight for me.
Soul Suck – drain life from an enemy and add it to my Health.
Self-Sacrifice – give some of my Health to my demons.
Mana Conversion – trade off Health for more Mana/magical power.
Doomsday – delayed reaction attack that did a lot of damage after 20 seconds.
Terror – make an enemy run away in, well, terror.
All-Seeing Eye – an ‘eye in the sky’ that let me scout ahead.
Invisibility – become invisible for 20 seconds.
Hellstorm – little bat-winged demons threw burning sulfur for six seconds.
Gravesite – create a ‘save point’ where I (or anyone in a group I was part of) could respawn instead of resurrecting at the nearest graveyard. Hugely convenient.
I was hoping for a badass new power when I reached Level 26 – which wasn’t that far away, since I’d picked up 70,000 XP when Shyvock had died.
After checking my stats, the rest of the time I spent being bored, talking to Alaria and pissing off Soraiya, and making sure my gargoyle didn’t eat Wylla.
Good times.
9
Between Soraiya’s flying and Balrog’s galloping, we made excellent time and reached our destination late the next afternoon.
Vos was a sprawling city, a medieval stronghold with high stone walls, narrow cobblestone streets, and a majestic fairytale castle at the center. It sat on an open plain that had apparently been carved out of an old-growth forest, because its 50-foot-high walls were surrounded by thousands of acres of massive trees. To the south lay hundreds of farms, which were apparently the source of food for the city’s populace.
I had Soraiya land in the forest near the main gate, and we stepped out onto the road and joined the steady stream of riders and foot traffic entering the city. I was concerned that we might attract unwanted attention – some of the places we’d visited hadn’t exactly welcomed succubi and imps, and now I had a gargoyle perched on my shoulder like a parrot – but I needn’t have worried. Besides the NPC farmers and merchants carting their wares to market, there were hundreds of players spanning all Classes and races. Orcish Warriors, elf Mages, dwarf Paladins, troll Priests, human Druids, goblin Hunters – basically anything and everything. I even saw a couple of other Warlocks, who were among the rarest of classes in OtherWorld.
The heavily armored human guards waved us on through without any trouble, and we found ourselves inside the walled city of Vos. Anything and everything was available here: blacksmiths for repairs. Armorers selling leather, plate, and mail. Haberdasheries for new clothes. Swordsmiths selling blades of every type. Archery shops for Hunters. Apothecaries for potions. And for those into crafting, dozens of different shops where you could find supplies and instruction in herbalism, enchantment, mining, alchemy, engineering, inscription, jewelry, tailoring, potions, and more.
Players crowded the streets, raucous laughter filled pubs and inns, and the occasional fight broke out here and there in the cobblestone alleyways. It was a bustling, vibrant city.
What I didn’t see was a dungeon.
“Alaria, where’s your ex-master? Is there a dungeon outside the city we missed?”
- No – it’s INSIDE the city. You should find the entrance near the center.
We did. Even if I hadn’t asked her, it would have been impossible to miss. A massive stone coliseum formed the central hub of the wheel that was Vos; only the castle was bigger, but it was set closer to the outer walls.
I remembered what Orlo had said about the economies that sprang up around dungeons – shops and inns and tradesmiths. It was quite possible that the dungeon had been here first, and Vos had merely grown up around it.
We threaded our way through bustling open-air beer gardens and past dozens of merchant stalls until we reached the coliseum. It looked like the ancient Roman original, except there were no seats or games being played out. Instead, there were hundreds and hundreds of players milling around the open courtyard, trying to build parties of five – just like they had outside Exardus.
Unlike Exardus, though, this dungeon didn’t have an imposing façade. The entrance appeared to be a squalid little stone hut in the center, with a looooong line snaking out its front door.
“That’s it?” I asked, confused.
- It’s all belowground, Alaria said. Deek never really cared about what things looked like on the surface.
“I can see that.”
Dungeons were like books: you weren’t supposed to judge them by their entrances or their covers. If you did, then you’d probably conclude that this one was shitty.
However, the long lines and crowds belied that. It had to be a pretty awesome dungeon to attract this many players.
Deek apparently wasn’t into marketing, but word-of-mouth had done the job for him. This place looked twenty times busier than the Tomb of Tharos.
“Alright,” I said as I pulled Stig out of the bag and deposited him on the ground, “I guess we should build up a team and go see if we can find – ”
“Warrrrrrrlooooock,” a sing-song voice called out from the crowd behind me.
I turned around, and the throng of players behind me parted like the Red Sea.
Three figures strolled out into the open space like gunfighters in a western.
I swear to God, I could almost hear the sound of spurs and the ooh-we-ooh-we-ooh-we-OOOOOH music from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.
On the right was a human female with flaming red hair. She wore a grey Mage’s cloak, but the tight dress beneath showed off her slim figure and naughty curves. She was a hottie for sure, though the smirk on her face gave me pause.
On the left was the exact opposite of a hottie. It was an undead male – a skeleton wrapped in a paper-thin layer of desiccated grey skin. Like the female Mage, he was smirking, too, but mostly because he had no cheeks over his yellowed teeth and jawbones. He had no eyeballs, either – just two red lights for pupils in the black pits of his eye sockets. He looked like an old-school kung fu monk, what with his bald head, single braid of hair from the base of his skull, and the loose, black, pajama-like pants and shirt he wore. But his decorative feathers, bracelets, and necklaces gave him away as a Shaman. Shamans were the supernatural weirdos of OtherWorld, and summoned spirits to fight for them much the way Warlocks used demons.
Between the other two stood a musclebound lunk right out of Street Fighter or Fist of the North Star. His face didn’t look much older than mine, but he had a long, shaggy mane of silver hair that he kept out of his eyes with a strip of red cloth tied with a knot. He was barefoot and bare-armed, with only blue silk pants and a blue shirtless vest that hung open over his massive pecs and washboard abs.
This guy was a Monk for sure. Monks were martial artists, hand-to-hand combatants who harnessed their chi or whatever they called it in OtherWorld to perform combination attacks of physical strikes and magic.
Monks and Shamans were two of the least-played classes in all of OtherWorld, right down there with Warlocks, so I was definitely up against the freak squad here.
The trio stopped about forty feet away from me. I
sensed Soraiya tense up on my right.
- Ian, who are they? Alaria whispered in my head – which was pretty funny, since I was the only one who could hear her no matter how loud she spoke.
“I don’t know,” I muttered to her, then called out to the Monk, “Have we met?”
“Not until this moment, no,” the Monk called back. He had a medium-pitched voice, slightly higher than you’d anticipate for a young Arnold Schwarzenegger clone. He was apparently the one who had called out Waaaar-loooock. “Allow me to introduce myself and my associates. I am Zoran, of the Golden Dragon Temple of Rakost. This is Sketterex, shaman extraordinaire, and Cirra, mistress of the winds.”
I selected them and glanced briefly at their stats.
Zoran – Level 50 Monk
Sketterex – Level 40 Shaman
Cirra – Level 40 Air Mage
I was still mystified, though, as to why this Zoran dude had singled me out. “What do you want?”
“The money you owe our employer, Varkus Gark.”
Aw, shit… not AGAIN.
Bounty hunters.
I heard Alaria inhale sharply. Again, funny, since crystals didn’t need to breathe.
I wondered how they’d managed to track me down – and then remembered the magical seal Varkus had stamped on my hand when I’d signed his goddamn contract for 4000 gold. He’d told me that his men could use it to track me anywhere – and so far he’d been right.
Well, at least two of these NPC bastards were Level 40, which was only 15 steps above me. Even 50 wasn’t that bad. The last bounty hunter to chase me down had been a Level 89, and he’d nearly been the end of me – AND Alaria.
Unfortunately, there were three of them, so you could make the argument that it was like facing down a single Level 130 player.
Fuuuuck.
“Tell your boss that I’m working on getting the money,” I called out.
“You do not have all 13,000 gold?”
I frowned. “Just a few days ago it was ten thousand.”
“The interest rate increases substantially for deserters.”
“Ten percent per day? Yeah, I’d say that’s a ‘substantial increase.’”