by A. J. Markam
I looked over grumpily at Soraiya. “Well? Are you willing to do it this time?”
Soraiya looked cross, but she nodded. “Yes.”
“Swear that you’ll do everything in your power to help me get back into my old body,” Alaria said.
“I will,” Soraiya said, rolling her eyes.
“And swear that you won’t try to double-cross us or harm us in any way, shape, or form,” I added.
“Fine!”
“And Soraiya?” Alaria said.
“What?”
“If you somehow use a loophole to wriggle out of the contract, I swear to Goddess I will find some way to come back and haunt your skanky ass for all eternity.”
“And I’ll hunt you down to the ends of the earth,” I warned. “Shyvock won’t have shit on me.”
“By Karvos’ greasy cock,” Soraiya shouted, “FINE! I swear by the Seven Hells that I will accompany you back to Orlo’s laboratory where I will do everything within my power to make sure that Alaria’s soul is returned to her body, and I will not double-cross or harm you in my attempts to do so in any way, shape, or form. Satisfied?”
I looked at Alaria.
“…alright,” Alaria acquiesced.
I hit Soraiya with Soul Suck, drained her to within 3% of her overall hit points, and then used a knife to cut the collar from her neck. As it fell to the ground, the plum-colored succubus closed her eyes and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
I checked my game menu. Just as I had suspected – her face appeared as an icon on my action bar, just like every other demon I had freed on the Revenge. Soraiya was now bound to me eternally, and I could resurrect her if she died.
I didn’t tell her that, though. She didn’t need to know everything.
45
We set off later that morning for Orlo’s lair. Stig rode atop Grung’s shoulder again. Soraiya did barrel rolls in the air, enjoying her ability to fly for the first time as a free demoness. And I rode my horse, Balrog, with Alaria’s head fastened to the saddle in front of me.
“You know,” she joked from between my legs, “if you position me juuuust right, this could be a very pleasant trip.”
“Ha ha,” I said, not laughing but still somewhat amused.
“Fine. I just thought I would offer you a little head.”
“That was a terrible joke!” I groaned and laughed at the same time.
“I know. It was something you would say,” she teased.
“You’re in a really good mood.”
“Of course I am. I’m going to get my body back.”
I smiled at her and silenced all the fears in my head. “We’re going to have to celebrate for 48 hours straight.”
“Did you finally get over your aversion to sex after all those hot elves used you?”
“Don’t remind me,” I grumbled.
“You know, maybe we should explore the sexual possibilities of my current situation before I go back to normal.”
“Uh – NO. I can wait a few hours.”
“But Ian, what about MY needs?” she said in mock indignation.
“You can wait a few hours, too.”
“I realize not everyone wants to get oral sex from a one-eyed, disembodied robot head, so while we do it, you can think about Daidonia humping your – ”
“STOP!” I yelled. “Or I’m putting you in the bag!”
“Spoilsport…”
Finding our way back was easy: we just traveled the war golems’ path in reverse, across the basalt crater, through the gorge, and back up to the grassy plains.
We made good time. Grung’s strides were enormous, and I kept Balrog at a steady trot the entire way.
We continued on to Mor-El, where thousands of vultures were picking at the dead orcs, and loathsome goblin lepers were looting their swords and armor. We gave the entire scene a wide berth.
When we reached the escarpment, Grung climbed the steep walls on his own, and Soraiya flew me and Alaria to the top of the mesa. Then we continued our journey.
We passed down through the valley and into the jungle, careful to avoid any sign of quicksand. After we reached the deserted temple, we began our climb back up to the plains.
The sun had just begun to set when we came within sight of Orlo’s lair and the giant hangar where Alaria and I had found Grung hiding in the shadows.
“HOME,” Grung sighed contentedly.
“You mean ‘prison,’” Soraiya sneered. “I can’t wait to get this over with and get the hell out of here.”
“Hold your horses,” I said.
She looked at me like I was insane. “You’re the only one with a horse around here.”
“It’s an expression. It means to be patient.”
“What kind of expression is that?!”
“He’s full of them,” Stig informed her.
“HE IS,” Grung agreed.
“Leave me alone,” I muttered.
We walked through the giant open doors and entered the hangar.
As soon as we did, fireballs appeared in the shadowy corner of the room.
“Hold, trespassers!” a gravelly voice shouted.
“Stop, you fool!” Soraiya yelled.
“…Soraiya?” the voice asked in confusion.
“AND GRUNG.”
The fireballs dissipated, and a demon with an orange, blocky face emerged from the darkness.
“Grung,” the demon grunted. “You killed me in war golem form back at the Plains of Mor-El, you know that?”
“SORRY. IT WAS NOTHING PERSONAL.”
“Where is Master Orlo?”
“Dead,” Soraiya informed him.
The orange demon stared at her open-mouthed for a second. Then he gasped happily, “Really?!”
“Yes, really.”
The demon looked distrustfully at me. “Who is this?”
“The Emancipator of Abaddon,” Soraiya said, “come to free us all.”
She turned towards me and gave me a simpering smile. “I assume that’s what you’ll do – correct?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Although she was right that I would free the demons, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to try to turn it to her advantage.
But rather than get into all that, I simply said, “Yes.”
The orange demon erupted in a cheer. “Wait until the others hear this!”
Then he dashed out of the hangar and into one of the tunnels leading deeper into the lair.
“Are we going to get inundated with dozens of demons wanting to be freed?” I asked.
“Most probably, yes,” Soraiya said.
“We need to transfer Alaria back into her body first,” I said.
“Do you really want the distraction of a bunch of demons asking, ‘Now? Now? Can you do it now?’” Soraiya asked.
“Mrm,” I grumbled. Orlo had said that the demons’ flesh-and-blood bodies didn’t die when their souls were transported into the war golems – and the orange guy was the proof of that. There really was no rush to get back to the lab right away.
I sighed and looked down at Alaria. “You mind waiting an hour before we begin the transfer process?”
She smiled up at me. “Not at all.”
“I do,” Soraiya groused.
“Too bad,” I snapped.
In the end, over two dozen demons showed up begging to be freed. I went through them one by one, lowering their hit points via Soul Suck and then cutting off their collars. My action bar soon became crowded with their icons, which I had to move to an entirely new submenu.
When it was all over, I asked if any of them wanted to join us on our adventures.
Not a single one was interested.
“We served that little gnome bastard for years,” one demon growled. “I’m not looking to serve another one.”
“You don’t have to serve me,” I clarified. “You would just be joining us, like you would any band of adventurers.”
“No thanks,” another demon said. “You seem all righ
t for a warlock… but you’re still a warlock.”
I sighed. “Well, at least do me one favor. We need Grung’s body – can somebody bring it to me?”
They agreed and dispatched a search party into the tunnels. Within ten minutes they came back with a short, squat, purple demon with no neck and a bullet-shaped head. His white eyes were frozen in a thousand-yard stare, and he had to be led around by the others.
“That’s you, Grung?” I asked.
“YES… HOW STRANGE TO SEE MYSELF LIKE THIS…” the robot mused.
I looked around at the other demons. “You all reverted to your real bodies as soon as your golem bodies died?”
Yes, they all murmured in agreement.
“You just blacked out and woke up back here?”
Yes, yes.
I looked up at Grung. “Well… it’s your call. We can either take your head into the laboratory and see what we can do, or you can just do what everyone else did.”
“YOU MEAN DIE?”
There really was no delicate way to put it.
“Yes.”
He considered for a moment… then nodded. “LET’S TRY IT.”
I hit his war golem body with Doomsday and Soul Suck repeatedly. It took five minutes of continuous attacks, but I finally brought him down to 1%.
“Last chance to back out,” I said. “You ready?”
“YES.”
I hit him with one last blue bolt of lightning –
And then suddenly I heard Grung’s voice behind me, except not digitized anymore.
“Oh my… it worked!”
I turned around and saw the small purple demon looking at me. Then he smiled. “Thank you, Ian.”
“You’re very welcome. You want me to free you, too?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
I repeated the procedure of attacking him, but as soon as he reached 3%, I stopped and cut off his collar.
“Ahhhh,” he sighed as the metal chain fell from his neck to the floor with a clank. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Do you want to join us on our travels, or do you want to hang out here with the other demons?”
“Thank you, but I never really wanted a life of adventuring. I was happy here, stealing glimpses at Orlo’s books. Now I can read them at my leisure. If it’s all right with you, I would prefer to stay, although I will help you in the laboratory with Alaria.”
“I understand,” I said. “Thanks for all the help you gave us along the way.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“All right, if you’re done verbally fellating each other now,” Soraiya snapped, “can we PLEASE go to the lab and get this over with?”
Grung looked over at Soraiya distastefully, then looked back at me and whispered, “I’ll be especially glad when she leaves, too.”
46
We walked deeper into the tunnels – and by ‘we’ I mean myself, Soraiya, Stig, and Grung. I carried Alaria’s head in my arms.
When we finally reached the laboratory, my heart sped up in fear. There was the chrysalis from which robot Alaria had emerged two days before. And there on the table was her flesh-and-blood body.
I walked quickly over to it and looked down. The eyes were still unfocused, but her color was good, and her chest moved up and down regularly as she breathed.
I put the palm of my hand above her left breast. Her skin was warm to the touch, and I could feel her heartbeat.
“Pervert,” Alaria joked.
“What?! I was just – ”
“Copping a feel?”
“Let’s get you back in your body so I can do more than that.” I turned to Soraiya. “You’re sure you know how to do this?”
“It should be a fairly simple process, although I can’t guarantee anything.”
Both Alaria and I stared at her.
“What?” Soraiya said defensively. “I can’t guarantee anything!”
“Then what the hell was all of that earlier about ‘I can transfer her soul back into her body, I know I can do it’?” I raged.
“I saw Orlo do the exact same experiment at least two dozen times, so I know the sequence to reverse it.”
“You just can’t guarantee anything,” Alaria said sarcastically.
“No, I can’t.” She smiled sassily. “I’m not a gnome mechanical genius who can fix things if they go wrong.”
“No, but you’re a bitch,” Alaria muttered under her breath, saying what I was thinking.
“I heard that,” Soraiya snapped.
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked.
“Place her head in the crystal chamber while I check the body on the slab.”
I winced. “Could we not use the word ‘slab’?”
It sounded too much like something you might hear in a morgue.
“Fine,” Soraiya snapped. “The table, the surface, whatever the hell you want to call it – just put her head in the crystal chamber.”
I walked over and put Alaria on the headrest within the chrysalis. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said cheekily.
I walked over to the crimson body laid out on the table. Soraiya had placed more electrodes on her forehead, then walked off to attend to some machinery.
God, she was beautiful.
And I was scared I might never see her smile at me again.
As I stood staring down at Alaria’s real body, superstition and Disney movies got the better of me, and I leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips.
After having pressed against metal for so long, her soft flesh felt slightly odd. But the taste of cinnamon on her lips and the scent of vanilla in her hair was exquisite.
When I backed away, though, there was no change in her expression – just a blank stare up at the ceiling.
“I SAW that,” Alaria said behind me.
I jumped guiltily. When I turned around, I realized that she could see through the gap in the hinged gullwing door of the chrysalis.
“I never knew you had a necrophilia fetish,” she said, amused.
“EW!” I winced. “Don’t even JOKE about that!”
“Then what are you doing kissing my completely incapacitated, virtually dead body?”
I wore a sheepish expression as I walked back over to the chrysalis. “I was trying the Sleeping Beauty remedy.”
“The what?”
Soraiya had already attached all the necessary cables to Alaria’s metal head. She looked like something out of a sci-fi novel rather than this fantasy land of dragons and sorcery.
“Sleeping Beauty… it’s a story back from where I come from. The sleeping maiden awakens with a kiss from the prince.”
“Better find me a prince, then,” she teased.
“Ha ha,” I grumbled without laughing.
She smiled, and then her face become serious. “Ian – if something should go wrong – ”
“Don’t say that,” I interrupted her. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “But if it doesn’t – if I die, then I want you to know that – ”
I put a finger to her metal lips. “Shhhh. Don’t say that.”
She squinted at me in irritation. “That is REALLY annoying.”
“What?”
“Putting your finger to my mouth like that.”
I withdrew it quickly. “Why?”
“Because short of biting your finger off, I can’t stop you from doing it.”
I laughed in spite of myself, and she joined in.
“Maybe I should rethink this whole thing about transferring you back into your body,” I joked. “I mean, all I really wanted to do in life was to get a head.”
She groaned. “Oh Goddess, that was horrible.”
I laughed. “I know.”
“You should be the one having this done to you for telling that joke.”
“If I could take your place,” I said quietly, “I’d do i
t in a heartbeat.”
She looked up at me sadly. “…I know.”
I stood there looking at her, and neither of us said anything for a few seconds.
Finally, she blurted out, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll wake up in your body, and we’ll laugh about all this.”
She winced, and her lower lip started to tremble. “Ian, I’m scared. I’m so scared…”
Finally, the truth.
But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I was terrified, too.
Instead, I put both of my hands on her cheeks and leaned in close. “It’s going to be fine. I promise.”
She closed her eyes like she was in pain… forced herself to smile bravely… and then opened her eyes again. “Okay.”
I leaned in and kissed her. “I’m looking forward to doing that to the other you in about 30 seconds.”
“Oh, we’ll be doing a whole lot more than kissing, that’s for sure.”
“Are you two done?” Soraiya groaned.
Alaria scowled. “Actually, I’ve changed my mind: the first thing I’m going to do is kick her ass.”
I grinned. “Be nice.”
“Yes, be nice to the person putting you back in your body,” Soraiya called out as she made her way to the control panel.
I gave Alaria one last kiss on her metal lips, then backed away until I stood next to Stig, Grung, and Soraiya.
“Are you ready?” Soraiya called out.
Alaria hesitated… then answered, “Yes.”
Our eyes met, and she smiled at me, trying to keep up a brave face.
I winked at her and mouthed, I love you.
She mouthed back I know, and grinned.
We both did.
Then Soraiya flipped the switch.
Electricity arced overhead from one generator to the next, and a humming sound filled the air.
Alaria winced – and then looked like she was in pain.
The humming became a grinding roar.
I frowned. “Is it supposed to sound like that?!”
When Soraiya didn’t answer, I looked back at her.
Her plum-colored face looked a few shades paler than normal.
“…yes,” she said, though she didn’t exactly sound confident. “Yes, everything is normal.”