Dusk flashes us a triumphant grin before dashing toward him. “Embermane, it’s Dusk! Fourth string, seventh hand, reporting!”
Embermane pauses. “I recognize you.”
“Help. They’ve done something to me… Put something in me. Stolen my powers,” she calls.
“Impossible. You are clearly conspiring with them,” he booms. “You fell out of favor with the guild long ago, after your rivalry with Toxis ended in his death. You are no longer part of Obsidian.”
Dusk goes rigid. “What? Toxis? Avalon said–”
“Avalon has passed guild leadership. She is… Occupied elsewhere, and will be for some time.”
“Passed guild… That’s impossible.” Dusk turns to us, her perfect face pale and stretched in disbelief like she’s looking for someone to tell her what’s happening in real.
“I am leader now, and your transgressions are many. You will suffer the fate of the weak,” he says.
I don’t have time to savor the sweet justice of Embermane denouncing her for her weakness, especially considering that the first time we met her she executed Skinflint for the same reason. The mage’s wand snaps up to her and a beam of blue light lances out.
I’m not sure why I do it. She’s been nothing but derisive and hostile toward us. I like her less than I trust her. But despite all that, I snap out with my power and yank her toward me. The beam of power misses her by a hair’s width before it tears through the wall where her head was moments ago.
Maybe I save her because of the hint of something I saw in her eyes before all this started.
Hurt.
She lands in my arms so hard it knocks me off my feet and we go down in a tangle. When we land, she lifts off me, eyes dull with hurt and disbelief. “Why?” she whispers.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I couldn’t let you die like that.”
Her gaze sharpens in disgust, and she leaps off me. “Not that. Why did they betray–” She turns away, but not before she snaps her hand out to help me up. “Never mind.”
Her cold fingers barely touch me, and truth told, I mostly stand up under my own power. But her gesture’s a start.
I hope.
Embermane’s attention is pulled away again by a fusillade of energy that engulfs him from below. It glances off and around his shielding, but it’s enough to turn his ire back to the streets. His wand spins and someone screams below.
An idea drops into my head, but it’s only half formed. It’s crazy, but maybe that’s what we need right now. “Wick, this place have an escape route?’
He grins. “Of course. What kinda hideout would it be without one?”
“And do you know where the Ezio’s docked?”
His smile falters. “Yes…”
Syl crouches near, and I can tell her helplessness in the face of someone as powerful as Embermane galls her. Her tongue flicks out, her claws are extended, and she’s coiled like a spring. But at my words, she looks to me, a question in her eyes.
Astra watches the hole at the end of the hallway, a band of silver shimmering from her head to toes. “Sam, what are you thinking?”
Wick takes off toward the back of the building, and we follow.
“We need an airship. Let’s go take one.”
Wick stumbles. “Sam, that’s… That’s crazy. She has an army. Her girls are like fuckin’ ninjas. How…”
“I don’t know. I’ve got something, but I need a minute. We’ll figure it out on the way.” We round a corner and lose sight of the battle raging outside. The buzzing hiss of Embermane’s wand is punctuated by explosions and shouts of rage from whoever he battles. Somewhere out there, I hear Mereta’s insane laughter.
Great.
Someone rounds the corner behind me. “Wait,” Dusk says.
I turn. “In case you didn’t notice, we don’t have time for you to give us shit right now.”
“I’m not… Not planning on it.” She schools the sneer that mars her beautiful lips.
“Then what are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
It’s my turn to stumble, and not just because the building shakes like a giant’s slammed into the side of it. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t…” She shakes her head. “They betrayed me.” Her face twists. “I hated them already, but I thought…”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, rounding a corner to the stairwell. “If you want to come, I won’t stop you. We’ll cut you loose when we’re safe.”
“Yeah.” Dusk’s face firms. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll go my own way.”
The stairs end at the ground floor where Wick and Mika wait for Dusk and I. He waves us on. “Out the back door, into the building across the way.” The Palico waves his paw like a tiny flag. “Hurry!”
Dusk keeps going, but I pause. “Wick, buddy… This is getting bad. You’ve paid back your debt a thousand times over as far as I’m concerned.” I get to my knees and takes his shoulders in my hands. “Tell us the way. We’ll figure it out. Don’t put yourself at risk for us.”
Wick smiles a little smile. “Not a chance. I’m sticking with you.”
“Why? And don’t say it’s about the ladies. Don’t bullshit me.”
Wick laughs. “Hey, those three would be worth staying for.”
“Wick…”
He turns away, eyes brimming with tears. “I lost my parents. Two sisters.” He huffs a long breath. “My life before you guys was… Was bullshit. Grifting newbs and sneaking into Kara’s for fap material?” He laughs hollowly, then looks to me. “Feels like I have something to fight for, now.”
I squeeze his shoulders before rising. “Good enough, Justin.”
He wipes his eyes savagely. “Not fair. You’re not using a fake name, so I can’t bust out your real one at an emotionally heartbreaking moment.”
Mika laughs. “Totally cliché, right?”
“Poser,” he teases, and his smile warms me.
He darts below, and I move to follow, but Mika stops me. “Sam, are you sure about her? Dusk?”
“No… But I couldn’t just leave her to die. I just… I couldn’t.”
“I know. And I love you for it. But remember what happened last time you rescued a damsel in distress…”
Even after the healing potion, I can still feel Akalia’s teeth at my neck. “I know. But hey. When I met you, you were a damsel in distress, too.”
She pokes me, a little smile working its way across her lips. “So were you, buddy.”
“Sometimes, we save each other.”
She kisses me as the building tears itself apart around us, and then we flee.
I pray that Wick’s escape route is a secret to the Obsidians.
22
Acheryx
Airship Docking
Player: Jacinta
Level 26
Jacinta Tavaris paces the deck of the airship Ezio, and for the first time in over two mind numbing months, something is happening.
To be fair, things were always happening in Acheryx. Lifestream was a busy place, and from her perch high above the city, she had a bird’s eye view of it all. Obsidian raids, world events, airborne battles… She had the best view in the house for all of it.
The problem was that none of it happened to her.
Cursing the deal she’d struck with Madam Kara has replaced her bedtime prayers a long time ago. A deal that had kept her in dry dock as the mob boss played with her little toys and maneuvered for territory inside the city.
Jacinta had argued with her many times; that sending the Ezio for resources or players or even new women for her brothel would be useful. Anything to get airborne again. But Kara had shut her down at every turn, insisting that she ‘stay handy’ in case Kara ‘needed her for something important’.”
Which, for the last three months, had meant that Jacinta and her crew had spent exactly zero hours in the sky. The sum total of ‘something important’ had been Jacinta drinking herself slowly to death as, night after night, sh
e’d laid on the deck staring at the beautiful, aquiline balloon of her airship. Curved with a sharp hook to the front and wrought of gorgeous red and gold, it felt like it mocked her more by the day. Because this was a game, the balloon never had to be deflated, never refreshed with new gas, and for some reason that made the situation feel so much worse. As if she could go at any time if she had a reason. If something would happen.
Anything.
And, until tonight, nothing had.
Jacinta runs long fingers against the dark tattoos on her forearms, fighting back a chill that has nothing to do with the elevation. The long lines and symbols are barely visible in the night against her ebony skin. Each of them holds an enchantment, stored on the parchment of her body and ready to be unleashed at her touch. For a long time, she hasn’t needed them.
She has the strangest feeling that she might tonight.
Jacinta paces back to the railing of the poop deck and pulls her spyglass from her belt. It’s a classic, the kind used in hundreds of pirates movies over the decades before the Purge. Of course, it’s got fancy bells and whistles so that, even close to a mile above the city, the drama unfolds like she’s sitting in the middle of it.
Heavy footfalls pound to the deck behind her. She knows the gait of her first mate by heart at this point, how he favors his left leg after an injury earned in a raid. A raid before the deal with Kara. She grinds her teeth at the thought that, if they’d been free to go where they’d liked and take contracts, she’d have had enough chips to heal him long ago.
Goddamn Kara.
“What’s the haps, cap?”
Jacinta takes a long-suffering breath, more to calm herself at the thought of her employer than her first mate’s joke. But she turns a baleful glare on him, anyway. “If you ever ask me that in that fashion again, Graham, I will personally throw you overboard.”
His massive frame hunches, and his bearded face folds in a frown. “Jeeze, what’d I say? Just asked what was goin’ on. Can tell you’re prowlin’ like a cat in heat.”
“It wasn’t what you asked, it was those particular words in that particular order. And now that you’ve compared me to a cat lookin’ to get fucked, I’m adding a few thousand feet of elevation to your now proverbial but possibly literal skydiving lesson.”
Graham rubs his bald head. “Alright, sorry, cap. Just, the boys is worried. What’s goin’ on down there?”
The boys, Jacinta thinks bitterly. What Graham means is the skeleton crew manning the Ezio. She can’t keep a full crew when there’s nothing for them to do. She’s thankful that a few of them love her enough to stick around despite the lack of action, because if she was in their shoes she wasn’t sure she’d do the same.
But it’s not Graham’s fault and she shouldn’t take her frustration out on him. She motions him over to the rail. “Not sure. Something happening down there.”
“Always somethin’ goin’ on down there,” Graham says. “Why, just last week the boys and I watched a caravan of them ladies from out east come in. You know, that convent over in the Shale Fields where they worship that sex goddess?” He whistles. “They all wear the same robe, and it only covers their–”
“I know, I’ve seen them,” Jacinta interrupts, covering Graham’s mouth with her hand. If she lets him get going, he’d never stop. “This is different. Lots of action in the city. Shit blowing up and such. Obsidians, too…” She hands the spyglass to Graham and points toward one of the residential districts. “Some kind of fight in the streets. Embermane even makin’ an appearance.”
Graham gapes. “Embermane? Ain’t no one seen him in like a year, right?”
“Yep.” Jacinta shakes her head. “Embermane. What a dumbass name for an ice mage.”
“Damn, is that Titan layin’ across the top of that apartment?” Graham shivers. “Is he dead?”
“Yeah, Ember smoked him about an hour ago.” She struggles to maintain her facade of carelessness, one she’s worked years to project to the crew. The stuff happening tonight is nuts; it takes so long to level a character past 30 that clashes between higher level players are rare. A battle between Embermane and Titan? Once in a lifetime kind of deal, and she’d watched the entire thing from her spyglass.
It had been odd… The mage’s attention had been fixed on one of the apartment buildings in particular. He’d attacked someone inside until Titan and Acheryx defenders had pulled his attention away. After dispatching them, he and a few other Obsidians had been sweeping the streets for something.
Or someone. Whoever it was, they hadn’t found them yet.
Graham whistles again. “Titan dead? That’s…” He leans against the railing, leather shirt cracking. “Where’s Crimson Dawn? Why they letting this go on so long?”
Jacinta’s gaze roams upward to most imposing building in Acheryx. Taller than any building on Earth before the Purge, its windowless crimson walls reflect the lights of the city below like a disco ball made of blood. A ship the same color hovers a half mile from its top, unmoving. “I don’t know,” Jacinta says. “They’re just watching.”
What were they waiting for?
“Cap!” one of her men shouts from below.
Jacinta covers the distance across the poop deck in four long strides before vaulting to midships like an acrobat. Thomas, one of her remaining men, stands at the side rail above the ramp. His back’s to her, but judging by his rigid posture, something’s wrong. Something unexpected after these long months.
Jacinta’s breath quickens. This is it. It has to be.
She knew tonight would be different.
“What’s happening?” she asks, stopping next to Thomas and squinting toward Docking Spire. The bright, sodium lights of the lamps that mount the dock’s arch are like teeth above the long boarding tongue that extends under her ship.
Thomas doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
Their employer had decided to pay her a visit. For the first time ever.
Madam Kara marches down the dock toward them. Her silk robes look more suitable for the bedroom than the streets, and she carries no weapon, but Jacinta knows better than to discount her employer. She’s level 41, for one thing, which makes her nearly godlike compared to most of the players in game. She’s a terrifying mage, and her ruthlessness is legendary. Which wasn’t surprising, Jacinta supposes. You didn’t get to be boss of the biggest criminal empire in Lifestream by making friends.
Flanking her are four of her girls and a kid. Probably a messenger. To her left is an elven girl Jacinta doesn’t recognize. Long white hair’s tied back in a warrior’s braid, pierced by long ears, and her black leather armor covers every inch of her body while somehow leaving nothing to the imagination. She’s got two short swords at her belt, and considering how she flows across the dock like a snake, she knows how to use them.
At Kara’s other side is… Jacinta’s breath quickens. Sherilee. Human mage, specializing in mind control and hallucination. Short brown hair and a deceptively innocent face, considering how depraved she can be in the bedroom. Jacinta knows this, had spent one incredible night with her before Kara had roped them with her contract.
God, what a night. Jacinta can still remember Sherry’s tongue pressing up into her pussy, how her hallucinations had taken her away from herself as she’s licked and fucked and–
Jacinta gives herself a mental slap. Not now. Judging by the look on her employer’s face, she needs her wits about her.
The other two are partially lost in shadow; one’s a huge girl, at least six feet tall and muscled like an amazon. Scars bisect her face and the miles of skin not covered by an animal print wrap, and the spear she’s got hefted over one shoulder glows dull green in the night. Next to her is the kind of girl that makes Jacinta’s mouth water; alabaster skin, curves out of an old painting, and a long purple robe that clings like a second skin. She’s got no weapon; probably another mage.
Kara and four girls. Jacinta’s knuckles whiten on the deck. Why did she bring so much mus
cle?
Only one way to find out.
“Madam Kara!” she calls. It would be far less rude to jump down to address her boss face to face, but Jacinta’d never been much interested in being polite. And after spending the last couple of months with her proverbial dick her in her hand, it’s hard not to provoke. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Kara’s dark blue features are difficult to see in the night, but even so, she looks pissed enough to spit fire. “Jacinta, I have had an exceedingly long night. An exceedingly long and unfortunate night. I pride myself on focusing that frustration in the proper direction. People who deserve to be taught lessons, for example.” Her red eyes finally rise to take Jacinta in. “Please do not add yourself to that list with pointless posturing.”
Jacinta bristles, but masters it before it shows on her face. No point in getting her crew punished because of her wounded pride. And maybe she can talk Kara down; usually her boss is so composed. Almost impossible to irritate. Jacinta knows; she’s tried. This time, she’ll try the diplomatic approach.
Still, it’s always best to prepare. At her waist, her enchanted cutlass bobs as she starts down the ramp. It doesn’t do anything that exciting; whatever spell lies within the metal just makes it nearly unbreakable and unbelievably sharp. It’s still a comfort. As are her tattoos. As she descends to the dock, she brushes one at her left wrist, then one close to her right elbow. The ship’s shields, undetectable until triggered, and a signal Graham.
Be ready for anything. And be ready to leave.
They’d figure out the chain problem if it came to that.
Jacinta hides the movements by crossing her arms, a pose she holds as she comes to a stop before Kara and her pets. “I apologize for my glibness. But you have to admit, you’re a long way up when you’ve traditionally preferred that I go down.”
Sherilee smirks and looks away. Jacinta winks at her old lover, but curiously that gets no reaction.
That stings a little.
Kara just rolls her eyes. “I’m coming aboard. Things in Acheryx are unstable. Obsidian’s making a move for the city. And before you ask, no, I don’t know why.”
Aspirant 2: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 45