“No. Walk behind me.”
“Okay,” she nodded and then pinched her lips.
I crept down the cavern hallway. It made a forty-five degree turn to my right, and I leaned around the corner with Artus so that we could see the lay of the bath house. I had expected something out of a Roman-themed television show, or maybe one of the Japanese public bath houses. I had thought there would be tile, pipes, showers, and a bunch of smaller tubs stacked next to each other. The cavern was massive, with a ceiling that extended well past the light from the magic torches, and walls that ended about three hundred yards in the distance. There were several stalactites and stalagmites spread throughout the cavern, and the rocky columns formed at elevated pathways around the dozens of different pools. This place was huge, and it could have easily allowed for hundreds of people to swim at once.
Even though the lighting was dim, I spotted about twenty figures swimming in the water, and they seemed to be favoring the pool that was the farthest from me. None of them appeared to be looking toward the entrance where I stood, so I guessed that we could walk around without much notice. I nodded at Artus, and I carried him the rest of the way into the open cavern of steaming water.
There were more pools to the sides, but there were no other bathers in them. Off to my right, I saw a raised area of stone tile. On the platform, there were a bunch of wooden lounge type chairs, tables, and a large wooden shelf stacked with bars of soap and towels. There were also a bunch of wooden buckets around, and I guessed that they could be used to pour clean water on the bathers.
“The water has to drain somewhere, or it would get stagnant.” As soon as I said the words, I felt like an idiot. This was a game. The developers could have just made the water stay in here forever and not get all gross. I had forgotten that I was actually playing a game because everything had felt so real.
But Allurie had told me there were some pipes.
I turned to the elf woman, and noticed that her blouse was unbuttoned now. Her lace bralette was exposed past her opened shirt, and her erect nipples pushed urgently against the thin material of her bra.
“Put your shirt back on. We don’t have time for this,” I whispered.
“Awwww, but we are in the bath house. You promised we could mate now.”
“I didn’t say that. No. Where are the pipes?” I tried to keep my whispered question as soft as possible.
“Pipes?” she asked with confusion.
“Yes, you said the water drained out through pipes? There was a service area?”
“Oh. I’ve never been down here. But some of my friends told me there are pipes and service areas,” she smiled as she spoke and her turquoise eyes glittered in the emberlight.
“Wait. When you said, pipes did you mean...”
“Penis!” she whispered. “Yes! They said there are lots of them down here after hours.”
“And the service area is…” I groaned.
“Yes! I’ll service you here if you want! Yay!” She clapped her hands together and jumped in place. Her small breasts bounced in her bra, and I had to force my hands to relax from their clenched fists.
“Elves,” Artus sighed and coughed a bit.
“Damn it, Allurie. I thought we might be able to escape that way.”
“Oh? Hmmm.” She looked around the cavern and then pointed to one side. “I see big stone pipes over there. Maybe that is what you are looking for?”
I turned my head to the side and followed her finger. It was the far corner of the bath area. The pools over there looked a little darker than where the other bathers frolicked, and I didn’t see any pipes because of the poor lighting.
“Are you sure?”
“She’s right. I see them,” Artus confirmed.
“Okay. Let’s head over, but I’m feeling as if this is a dead end.”
“But it will be really dark and private back there. Maybe we can ma--”
“No. Stop talking about it, Allurie,” I whispered to her. “We need to get out of here.”
“And to Jer’s place? Is that Jerjay? The man that owns the cooking supply shop in the southeast part of Cutno? He is really nice,” the elf woman said, and I stopped walking.
“Ohhh, no,” Artus sighed.
“Listen, Allurie, you can’t tell anyone about Jerjay, okay? We don’t want to get captured once we escape,” I pleaded with the silver-haired elf.
“Oh no. I won’t tell anyone. Wait, is this a secret? I love secrets!”
“Yes, it is a secret. Don’t tell anyone. Okay?” I turned back toward the far corner of the cavern and took a few steps toward the raised part of rocks that seemed to lead there the quickest.
“I won’t, Leo. I never tell secrets to anyone other than my friends.”
“Your friends?” As soon as I asked, I realized my mistake.
“Yes. They don’t tell any secrets either. When they told me about all the fun stuff that goes on in the bathhouse after dinner hours, they made me promise not to tell. We always promise each other not to tell our secrets.”
Artus and I groaned together, and the fenia squeezed my arm to get my attention.
“We’ll have to take her with us if we escape the castle. We can leave her with Jer when we journey to Arnicoal.”
“But I wanted to go with you, Leo,” she whined.
“Ugh. What did I get myself into?” I sighed.
“I told you elves were a problem.”
“I won’t be a problem! I know how to cook, and clean, and I really want to give you pleasu--”
“Be quiet,” I said to her. “I’ll figure something out, just stop talking. Promise?”
She nodded and made a show of pinching her lips again. She still hadn’t buttoned up her shirt, but I didn’t feel like opening another dialogue with her.
We walked for about half a minute along the side of the pools. I kept an eye on the distant group of naked bathers, but this place was dark, and they seemed more interested in splashing each other. Every few seconds one of them would laugh, and I felt my shoulders tense with alarm.
When we got within fifty yards of the corner, I saw what my two companions had already observed. There was a ten-foot tall cylinder at the end of this pool. The water from the nearest pool flowed into it, and I wondered if each of the pools was connected, and this outlet served as the main way to flush the water out from the hot spring.
I didn’t see any doors or anything to walk through, the water just flowed about waist high into the tunnel, and then it disappeared into the deep darkness of the tube.
“This looks like a bad idea. Can you two see how far this tunnel goes?”
“It just keeps going,” Artus said. “Maybe we should turn back?”
“Yeah. I think you are right. We just have to hope that--”
There was a gong noise that crept into the chamber like a distant echo. It didn’t sound very loud from where I stood at the far corner of the cavern, but much like I could tell that a distant roar of a crowd was raucous, I could tell that this sound was probably deafening near the source.
“Allurie, what is that noise?” I asked her.
“That is the castle alarm. They sound it every six months when we have a fire drill,” she said after she took her fingers from her lips.
“Fire drill?”
“Or a siege drill. Those are fun because we have to pretend like we are picking up buckets of hot oil and climb the stairs on the wall.”
“Oh, I guess--”
“Or it could be a ‘someone has escaped from the dungeon, and we all need to look for them’ drill. Those are fun also!” She giggled. “I always search in the bedrooms in between the sheets, but I’ve never found anyone.” Her smiled turned into a frown.
“The creepy water filled tunnel of darkness it is then,” I said with a sigh. “Do those emberbrands come off of the wall?” I asked the girl as I nodded to the stick of fire hanging on the wall near us.
“Yes! I’d love to hold onto your rod,” she said enthu
siastically.
“Just get the emberbrand. Sheesh.”
I stepped into the pool. The water was way warmer than I expected. It actually felt really damn good.
“I really like wet holes. This is going to be fu--”
“No more talking until I ask you!” I cut off Allurie’s sentence.
The girl was already standing behind me, and the glow from the magical torch she carried illuminated the inside of the tunnel.
It looked like it went on forever.
I stepped into the stone tube carrying Artus, and the silver-haired elf girl followed behind me. The current of the water was noticeably stronger inside of the shaft, but the elf girl wasn’t complaining about it. We walked for what felt like ten minutes in silence, but I didn’t know for sure how much time had passed. I almost considered setting Artus down so that I could open up my menu, or just reaching up with a single hand while I held onto him, but I didn’t want to risk dropping him in the water.
“There is a ladder up ahead.” Artus pointed, and I picked up my pace a bit.
Part of the tunnel was carved flat on the right side, and a ladder attached to the smooth wall there. It went past the top of the tube, but the emberbrand wasn’t bright enough to let me see all the way up. Ahead of us was a thick metal grate that blocked off the remainder of the tunnel.
“Looks like we have to go up the ladder. Artus, do you think you can climb,” I asked my friend.
“Yes. I’m feeling a lot better actually. Can you help me put my feet on the rung?”
“Of course,” I said as I helped him do so. He raised his paws and grabbed onto the rung, and then he slowly worked his way up the ladder.
“Alright, Allurie. I--” The pretty elf woman wasn’t standing behind me anymore. I spun in a circle to look in the tunnel, but I didn’t see her.
I did see shadows pop up around me from the emberbrand's glow, and I realized that the elf was already climbing the ladder. She was actually above Artus somehow, and his body was causing the shadows to fall on me.
“Damn, she is slip--,” I groaned as I realized I almost said “slippery.” It was like I was back in junior high, and I couldn’t say anything slightly sexual, or Jax would take it to the next level.
The ladder only took us up some fifteen feet and led to a twenty by twenty-foot room. There were two doors on opposite walls and stacks of dust-covered crates in each corner. I pulled myself to the floor after a tired Artus, and I saw Allurie sitting atop a stack of crates with the emberbrand in her hand. She was swinging her legs and humming to herself, but she still hadn’t buttoned up her blouse.
I guessed that the door on the left led in the same direction as the flow of the water, so I moved over to it. The door was made of wood, but it had thick steel bands across it, and I saw four deadbolt locks as well as a bar placed over the wall.
“Danger. Do Not Enter. Monsters.” The plaque next to the door had strange lettering, but my UI translated the words into orange text underneath. There was a key ring hanging below the sign, and they were covered by a layer of dust.
“Huh? You can read the old tongue?” Artus asked as he walked next to me.
“Old tongue?” I asked.
“It is from before the Time of Heliotrope. Almost no one can read it.” His cat eyes opened wide.
“Oh, I uhhh. I dunno. It just makes sense. We probably shouldn’t go this way.”
I walked past the smiling elf to the other door. This one wasn’t locked, but as I got closer to the door, I heard a faint sound on the other side. It was the chime of the distant alarm.
“Allurie, do you know where this goes?” I asked her as I pointed at the door.
“Oh yes! It goes back to the castle,” she said with a happy nod.
“But where in the castle? The courtyard?” I wondered how easy it would be to fight my way past the gate guards. Even if I could defeat those NPCs, there were probably hundreds of soldiers in the city.
Fuck. I really needed to log out soon. Chip was probably losing his mind.
But if I logged out, I would need to sign Zarra’s contract.
“I don’t know, Leo. Sorry.” She shrugged her shoulders.
I looked at the elf girl, and then at the beaten fenia. What would happen to them if I didn’t log back into the game? Allurie would probably be okay. It seemed that most people expected elves to be just a few rungs above idiotic, but Artus would definitely get a big dose of beating before they continued with their execution plans.
I had already made my decision before I logged into Ohlavar Quest. I wanted to play this game. I wanted to retire from the spotlight. I was done being the champion of Astafar Unlimited.
I was ready for the next stage of my life.
I tried the other door of the room and found that it was unlocked. I pulled it open a bit and peered through the opening. The hallway here was only lit by a few emberbrands, and the floors looked dusty. Whatever part of the castle this was, it wasn’t often visited.
“Okay. I need you two to stay here for a few hours,” I said as I closed the door and turned to them.
“What do you mean?” Artus asked.
“I need to return home for a bit, and let them know I am okay. Shit, this doesn’t lock from this side,” I twisted the doorknob and it spun freely.
I moved to the crates that Allurie sat on and squatted down. They were four-foot cubes of dusty wood, and she sat on a stack of two. I picked it up easily, with the girl on top, and then set it in front of the door.
“Wow, Leo! You are so strong!” Allurie squealed when I finished setting her down.
“Yeah.”
I went and grabbed another two crates, and moved them next to the first set of boxes.
“Okay. I don’t think many will bother pushing open that door now. So the only way into this room is through the ladder.” I peered down into the dark hole.
“That crate in the corner is a bit wider,” Artus pointed at a wooden box near the Monsters door. I grabbed it and found that it was wide enough to cover most of the hole in the floor. A little bit of light from the emberbrands would probably peek through the sides of the gap, but it was better than nothing.
“Where are you going to go?” Artus’ cat faced looked confused.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so. Just sit tight okay? Don’t go anywhere,” I said as I lay on the ground of the room.
“Oh, Leo! Is it time?” I felt Allurie pull at my sword belt, and I opened my eyes so that I could bat her hand away.
“No, damn it! Just sit on that crate for an hour or two. I’ll be right back.”
“Oh darn,” the elf girl signed and shot me a pout. Then she looked at Artus, and opened her mouth to speak.
“No. I’m not interested. Go sit on the crate like Leo told you.”
“Awww. No fun.”
“Be right back,” I said again as I closed my eyes.
Then I counted to twenty.
Chapter 17
I knew where to swim now, and I reached through the darkness while I kicked my feet lightly to the side. My right hand closed around the safety bar of the VRIU. I pulled down on the bar and then felt hands grab around the helmet.
“I got ya, Champ!” I heard Ky’s words penetrate the thickness of my headset a half second before the pressure released around my skull. I spat out the mouthpiece and took a deep breath. The air smelled slightly of the salty fluid I swam in, and I suddenly missed the scents of Ohlavar Quest.
“How did it go?” Zarra’s voice came over the speakers as I climbed up the stairs out of the black liquid.
“Good. You saw. I just logged out so that I could let Chip know I was okay. I must have been playing for thirteen hours or something.”
“Privacy button!” Zarra shouted as soon as I jumped out of the VRIU.
“Ahhh, I’m sure you have all seen the tabloid pictures, and you just saw me naked in the game when I logged in. I need to talk to Chip so that I can get back in. How is he?” I walked over to the mir
rored nook in the room and grabbed the robe from inside.
“He is not happy. I will take you to him after we call Trina over to take a look at you. Do you need to use the restroom or drink some water before we go?” Zarra asked.
“No. I’m fine. Which is weird, but I think I’ll be hungry in a bit. No need to call Dr. Dimopoulos. Could you have some food delivered? I’ll want to jump right back into the game. Artus and Allurie are waiting for me.” I felt like I was speaking too quickly, but I didn’t really care.
I stepped out from behind the alcove and jumped past Ky with a small leap. The cut on my stomach didn't bother me when I moved, but I didn't have time to peel off the synthetic skin bandage and see how it was healing. I needed to get back into the game.
“Yes. I’ll call right--”
“Can Jennifer or Ky call?” I gestured to the pretty blonde girl sitting next to Zarra in the observation room. “I really want to let Chip know I’m okay and then jump back in. Can you take me to him super quick?”
“Of course. I’m glad you are so eager to get back into the game. I’ll need to call Trina first and have her give--”
“Zarra, I don’t have time for that. You saw what was going on. Didn’t you tell me an hour of game time is an hour in real life? I need to get back in there as soon as I can, or the guards might find Artus. I just want to let Chip know I’m okay, and then I need to jump back in.”
“Leo, you’ve been logged in for a really long time. That is the longest session that we’ve had so far. Can you sit down on the stool for a few moments? Just for a minute. I want you to take a few breaths and slow down your heart rate. Chip can wait for five more minutes.” Zarra exited the glass observation room and gestured to the stool that I normally sat on when Trina examined me.
“Okay, I guess that is fair,” I said as I sat on the stool.
“Close your eyes for a few moments and take some deep breaths,” Zarra said as she took my wrist in her hands to feel my pulse.
Her fingers were warm, and her touch seemed to spread relaxation through my body. I focused on taking some twenty-second long inhales and exhales. I hadn’t even noticed my shoulders were tense until they suddenly relaxed, and I hadn’t realized my heart was racing until it slowed down to its normal rate.
Lion's Quest: Undefeated: A LitRPG Saga Page 25