by Sam Ryder
The hammer still had some momentum, however, and it flew through the air and slapped into the demon I’d aimed for anyway. There was less force behind the blow, but it didn’t matter. The hammer had been filled with magic when it had fallen into the Syrene’s pool. Now that magic poured forth in an explosion of light. The Maluk’ori crumpled to the ground, minus a head.
“Cheater,” Beat said, jabbing her spear to dislodge one of the demons clinging to my arm. I punched the other one in the face repeatedly until it hissed at me and leapt free.
I threw myself to the ground and regained a solid grip on my hammer, rolling twice and then springing to my feet using an athletic move that would’ve made Jackie Chan proud.
All around me: violence. Demons were being killed in droves. But I was pretty sure I saw at least two of our own down. No, I thought, feeling ill. Not on my watch, not on my godsdamn wat—
All my determined thoughts were washed away when the troll arrived at the party fashionably late.
“Look out!” Beat warned in the nick of time. In my bulky Protector body I wouldn’t have been fast enough to dodge the troll’s kick. Luckily, my Seeker body was faster. I threw myself backwards into a back handspring, feeling a rush of air as the massive boot whooshed past me. My bones shuddered beneath my skin, as if they could sense how close they’d come to being smashed into a million pieces.
Pretty damn close.
I landed on my feet and sprang away, not back this time but to the side.
SLAM! The troll’s mighty foot came down where I’d been a moment earlier, leaving an impression in the hard-packed earth.
I stopped and swung as if trying to fell a redwood with a hatchet.
Before my hammer had fallen into the Syrene pool, it wouldn’t have done anything other than piss off the troll and perhaps leave a minor bruise if I was lucky. Now, however, it exploded with light that shot up the gargantuan monster’s leg. The troll bellowed, clutching at its knee with fingers that were each the size of me. Bent over, its head was still higher than I could reach or I would’ve ended the contest right then and there.
Instead, I said to Beat, who had a demon in a headlock, “Give a guy a boost?”
Her teeth gritted together, she nodded and wrenched her arms hard to the side, breaking the demon’s neck with a vicious crack. Beyond her, the carnage continued, Maluk’ori locked against Warrior. I turned away, because the troll needed to be my priority. I raised my hammer and—
WHAM! Unexpectedly, the troll brought its fist down on me. Its aim was slightly off, but even a glancing blow from a creature of its size was devastating. Its knuckles brushed along my jaw and then sternum before deflecting off my knee.
I tumbled back, my body rebelling against me. My jaw felt broken and I pictured myself with it all wired back together, unable to do anything but drool and eat liquified foods. My sternum might’ve been cracked, the pain so intense I was finding it hard to breathe. My knee didn’t work. If I had a knee. I wasn’t certain, and I was in too much pain to do more than writhe on the ground.
“Ryder, you all right?” Beat said, crouching beside me. She wasn’t looking at me, her eyes lasered on the troll as it withdrew its meaty fist, preparing for another smash.
“Golly gee, yes,” I said. No, I didn’t say that. I said, “Mrsh?” My brain might’ve been on a cocktail of pain killers and hard drugs for how disoriented I was.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Beat said. Above her, the troll’s fist seemed to hover in the air. I finally knew how a fly felt just before being swatted and I regretted all the fly murders I’d committed over the years.
“You fucked with the wrong guy,” Beat said. She was like a mama bear protecting her young. She stood, cocked her arm back, and threw her spear. The troll’s fist was already coming down, slow and ponderous but picking up speed by the millisecond. But Beat’s spear was faster. It pierced the troll’s eye dead center, stabbing in deep.
The arc of the troll’s blow changed direction and it punched itself in the scrotum.
Talk about a double whammy. One hand lifted to grab its punctured eye, which was leaking blood and ooze, while the other continued to grab at its man-pillows.
Beat yelled something—it might’ve been “Timberrrrr!” knowing her—and the troll toppled over. The ground rumbled beneath me as it landed. If anyone was below it, they’d have been smashed and we could have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. Sorry, gross joke, but remember all the pain I was in?
My head rolled over to the side and I looked at Beat. “Thank you,” I said, which came out as, “Grshmalkooh?”
“Stay here and try not to get yourself killed,” Beat said. “I gotta go get my spear and finish the kill Mortal Combat style.”
I wished I could’ve seen that, but as it turned out, the pain became too much a few moments later. All I saw was Beat’s muscular body walking away, fading into oblivion.
THREE
OOZE ME
I awoke in a state of bliss.
Everything was shimmering, as if speckled with stardust.
I raised a finger to touch the air and it rippled. Weird. That’s when I tried to breathe.
Liquid filled my lungs and for a second I forgot myself and panicked, my arms wind-milling at my sides. Breath filled my lungs. Ahh. I was breathing the liquid.
I was on Tor.
In an ooze bath. Hence, the serenity. Breathing the ooze was still counter to my every instinct, but I focused on it, taking stock of my body. I remembered the troll’s glancing blow. The pain. I didn’t want to leave the ooze bath too soon if I wasn’t whole.
I felt my jaw, opening and closing it several times like you do at the dentist. It didn’t hurt anymore and seemed to work okay. Obviously, I was breathing, which was better than when I felt like my chest had caved in, pressing on my lungs. And my knee? As good as gold.
Thank the goddesses for the ooze, literally. Their willingness to spit in clay pots to give us the good stuff was something I don’t think any of us truly appreciated most of the time. Until we needed it.
I pondered that. I was breathing in goddess spittle. Such a thing should’ve been disgusting, but there was nothing disgusting about any of the Three. Plus, I’d swapped enough spit with them already to worry about a little more.
Now that I’d checked off all the boxes on my healing process, I rose out of the ooze bath, using the back of my hand to wipe away the excess that cascaded down my brow. Everything was blurry, so I blinked several times to clear my vision.
The first thing I saw was Beat, grinning broadly. “You owe me,” she said. “I saved your ass.”
“Did you? My memory is hazy on account of getting punched in the face by a supersized troll. Short-term amnesia.”
“You call that a punch? I’ve seen nine-year-olds hit harder than that. Myself, for example. The bullies stopped calling me four-eyes after that.”
I smirked. “I still can’t picture you with glasses.”
“They were as thick as coke bottles. If you’d used them they’d have been like magnifying glasses.”
“Kids with glasses are cute.”
“Not me. I was homely as hell. But other kids couldn’t see me when my nose was usually in a book. Not to mention how I threatened to murder them in their sleep.”
“Did you?”
She bit her lip. “No. But I thought it a lot. Does that make me a psycho?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “At least you fought one of your tormentors, once. I just learned to avoid them.”
Beat’s grin was back, because I’d set myself up. As usual. “Like you avoided that big fat troll?”
“Pretty much. I never said I was good at avoiding them.”
“Feeling better?” That was Beat. Jokes, jokes, jokes and then serious.
“Much better. You carried me back?”
She nodded. Couldn’t let Lace do it or you’d have no bowels. Her claws still pop out at random times beyond her control.”
“S
eems dangerous for Asfandiar and Jak.”
“Not if she holds her claws out to the side while they screw her.”
“How do you know this?” I had to admit, the thought of Lace’s Wolverine claws slashing out in the throes of an orgasm was pretty hot.
“Call it women’s intuition.”
“You spied on them!” I said, seeing the truth written all over her face.
“Maybe,” she hedged.
“Wow,” I said. “Kinky. Who were you watching more. Ass-Fan and Jak…or Lace.” Beat had always been mysterious when she spoke of her attractions, leaving me wondering. She’d certainly enjoyed the fairy sex back in Annakor’s sex room, but we were also out of our minds due to some dark magic in the air.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes,” I said. “I would. Look, I won’t judge you either way. You know that.”
She pushed out a breath. “I know. But I’m not used to talking about this shit.”
“I won’t pressure you.”
“I prefer girls,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. I was so good with words I might as well have been Shakespeare.
“That’s it—oh? No lesbian jokes?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of some good ones eventually, but that’s all I got for now.”
“Thanks, Ryder.”
“For what?”
“For not making a big deal of it. I feel like a cliché half the time. Even here. Muscly short-haired lesbian woman.”
“Beatrice, you are the furthest thing from a cliché I’ve ever met.”
Her eyes met mine and I could see the appreciation there. She was one of the few people I’d met in my life whose eyes I felt completely comfortable looking into for an extended period of time. “Thanks,” she said. “But if you fucking call me Beatrice again…”
Sometimes a threat was more effective left unfinished. My own imagination was my worst enemy, filling in the blanks with plenty of bad stuff, most of it including the removal of my male genitalia. “That’ll be the last time,” I said. “I promise.”
It was a promise I kept.
But we had other things to discuss. “What the hell was with the giant monsters?” I asked.
Shadows fell over Beat’s eyes as she changed position. All humor left her, which meant only one thing.
“Shit,” I said. “Who?” My heart was in my gut, still beating, but in a way that made me feel ill. It felt like a funeral bell tolling.
“The Maluk’ori focused on those they thought were the strongest,” Beat said. “Based on size.”
Beat was one of our largest Warriors—well, technically a Protector now, but still. She was alive. Which left the other largest Warrior being our male giant, Bonk, and the rhino dude whose name I kept forgetting. “Shit,” I said again. “Both of them?”
She nodded gravely. Those were terrible losses.
“Anyone else?” I asked.
“No one else was killed. But there were many serious injuries.” She waved a hand about the gully, gesturing behind me. For the first time I twisted my head far enough to take in the entirety of my surroundings. Whoa. Eight ooze baths were filled to the brim, their surfaces still and unmoving.
If they’d been hurt worse than me… “Lace?”
“She fought like a beast,” Beat said. “But there were many demons. They eventually took her down. She killed them with her claws as they started to eat her.”
Motherfucker. Anger roiled through me. At the Morgoss more than their demon hit squad. They were relentless. We’d finally made a breakthrough in recovering Airiel’s heart and now this? Not only sending armies of monsters, but ones on dark-magic steroids? The only solace I could take was from the fact that Vrill and the dragon hadn’t shown up. “How’d you get everyone back?” I asked.
Beat shrugged. “Two at a time.” She mimed tossing bodies over each shoulder. “I couldn’t have managed Bonk on my own, but he was dead before the battle was over.”
Though it hurt knowing we’d lost two of our Warriors on our watch, it could’ve been worse. Much worse. We could’ve lost everything. “Anything else I need to know?” I asked. She pursed her lips, and I could tell she didn’t want to tell me. “What?”
“I was told to send you to see the Three when you recover. You’ve been summoned.”
What was so bad about that? I’d been wanting to talk to the Three for a while now. “Is Airiel awake?”
“They didn’t say,” Beat said. She was clearly still holding something back. “Look, Ryder, you need more time to recover. A day at least.”
“Beat, I’m fine. The ooze works fast. Whatever it is, just tell me.”
She nodded, as if trying to convince herself there was no way around it. “They have a mission for you.”
That was it—the truth. Finally I had something to do. Only Beat didn’t want me to go, because I was the only Seeker and this would be a solo job. I knew she would try to accompany me if she could. Back when she was just a Warrior, she would’ve tried. But now…now she had responsibilities to her Warriors. Responsibilities she didn’t take lightly, especially now that the threat against us was even greater. “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
“I fucking know that,” Beat snapped. “Doesn’t mean you won’t die.”
“And it doesn’t mean I won’t come back to a graveyard,” I snapped back. There was no such thing as being safe in this world.
Neither of us spoke after that, because there was nothing else to say. We would both worry about each other. Couldn’t help it. We always would.
Finally, Beat said, “Fine,” and climbed out of the gully. I watched her go, watched her turn around to look at me when she reached the top. I expected her to give me the middle finger or some other lewd gesture that would be so very Beat and would break the tension. Instead she kissed her fingertips and extended her hand toward me.
It felt like a goodbye.
~~~
I made my way to the cavern at the far end of the gully. To get there I had to pass the piles of cocoon material spun by Airiel for Leveling us up. Some of the stacks were lower than before, but there was still plenty to tide us over until she awoke from her coma. Assuming she ever did.
Stop, I reminded myself. Be positive.
Kind of hard when we’d just lost two of our most powerful Warriors, but that was the nature of this life. I couldn’t expect the improved methods of training our new recruits to ensure a one-hundred percent survival rate.
Still, it stung. We needed to do more, build defenses. Give ourselves a chance.
I also passed the jugs of ooze that littered a large area in the center portion of the long, narrow chasm nestled between the cliffs. The number of jugs had diminished substantially. Not only were there only two goddesses available to refill them, but they were both growing weaker by the day.
There was still enough ooze to last us awhile, but Eve would require a lot of it after her next Finding mission. Plus, if we kept having to fight bigger, stronger monsters, our existing Warriors would have more injuries to heal. We’d go through our supply quickly. I made a mental note to subtly remind the Three to spit into jugs whenever they were awake and bored.
I stopped.
Subconsciously, my mind had been ticking over the new facts of our situation. In video games, there was always a way to win. (Yes, I knew this was real life and not some brain-numbing button-masher game, but that didn’t mean the same principles didn’t apply.) Sometimes there was a trick to defeating a particular boss. Sometimes there was strategy involved. And, yes, sometimes you just had to smash the buttons really freaking fast and hope for the best.
In other cases, you needed to get better weapons. Well, there was nothing we could do about that. I would do my best to use my position as a Level 4 Seeker to find some wicked weapons that some of the Warriors might be able to use, but there were no guarantees. Sometimes, however, it wasn’t so much about the weapons. It was about the armor.
If your avatar could take enough hits and not die, eventually you might be able to chip away at your foe’s life meter.
We wore loincloths. It wasn’t because we didn’t have armor—I’d seen plenty of it in the Three’s hidden treasure trove—but because the armor we had was special. Its magical properties were only activated by the right person. The armor almost had to choose the recipient. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t just use it as armor. Screw the magical properties, we needed to protect ourselves.
I had this other idea buzzing around in my head.
I set is aside for the moment, leaping into the stream that ran along the edge of the gully. The current grew fast a moment later and I had to be careful to lead with my feet to avoid being smashed on a big rock that blocked the way forward. I managed to paddle around it to where I was sucked into an even swifter current, one that eventually sent me tumbling over a small waterfall into a pool below. Water cascaded from the sides of the cliffs on both sides. It was a beautiful, tranquil spot. But I’d seen it all before, and I didn’t linger. I made for the area where I knew the caverns were hidden away behind the walls of water.
“Our enemies grow bolder,” a voice said as I clambered over the rocky lip, water hammering my head and back, spilling around me.
“Hello to you too, Persepheus,” I said.
The sea goddess was stretched out on a feather bed, her long legs changing color from green to blue to fuchsia under the glow of the demontorches set along the walls. She wore a lichen bikini, though most of her upper body was hidden beneath strands of seaweed-like hair. Her face was devastatingly beautiful, but her eyes were currently as dark as unlit coals. “I think we are past cordial greetings, Seeker,” she said. It wasn’t a rebuke—more like a fact.
“True,” I said. “I’ll get right to the point. I want all the armor you have hidden away in the other room.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “We’ve already discussed this. The armor is useless to the current Warriors. We will know once the right individual arrives for any of the pieces—weapons or armor—in our collection.”