Which made me wonder what the limits to that immortality were since “functionally immortal” seemed to leave an awful lot of wiggle room for something to come along and kill my ass when I least expected it.
“Seriously?” I said, turning around and hitting her with a look that was somewhere between annoyed and pissed off. “You could’ve killed me dropping that tree and…”
Only when I finished turning around I saw something that had my blood running cold. Rachel was right beside Leila, but she had her arms around her and those weird black veins were running through her body again. I rolled my eyes.
“Fucking seriously?” I asked. “Now’s the time when you’re going to come along and bother us again? Do you want to cry because I killed your precious orc army or something? And by the way, Dark Lady, those motherfuckers look a little too big to be true orcs. Small trolls, maybe, but definitely not true orcs.”
The Dark Lady rolled her eyes via her Rachel puppet and spoke with that weird double voice again. “You talk a lot, you know that?”
“I get that,” I said. “So what’s the point? You don’t have an army. They’re all dead. What’s the point of bothering Rachel? You don’t even have a sword or anything you’re holding to Leila’s neck. You have to be the worst villain ever.”
“I like to think I’m the hero of my own story, trying to stop somebody from moving in on territory I’ve conquered fair and square,” Rachel the Dark Lady puppet said with a smile. “Besides. I don’t have to have a knife to throw your pretty little high priestess off the edge. I’d like to see how far you get without one of the key pieces around to do your bidding and channel your magic.”
Rachel the Dark Lady puppet took a step towards the edge. The edge that just had a single rope to prevent someone from going over. I’d just been thinking about how unsafe it was moments ago, and now it would appear this Dark Lady bitch was more than happy to weaponize my idle thought.
“Now let’s not go doing anything precipitous here,” I said, holding my hands out and taking a step forward.
That also had Rachel the puppet taking a step forward. She bared her teeth, and let me tell you it looked like something out of the sexiest zombie apocalypse ever.
Though I wouldn’t want her getting near certain parts of me with those teeth. No thank you.
“Try taking one more step,” the Dark Lady said via Rachel. “See what happens.”
The magic pulsed in me. The connection to the beyond was open. Leila had been using it to channel some of the magic through me. She’d said something about how I shouldn’t have been able to do what I did back there with the orcs. How I shouldn’t have been able to take the magic and use it for my own purposes.
Well if I was able to do something I shouldn’t be able to do then there was a chance I could use it to surprise this Dark Lady bitch. I poised myself to launch at Rachel in the hopes I could stop this bitch from doing what she was threatening.
Then something thumped behind me. I turned and blinked. I was staring at yet another insanely attractive woman. Sure she was pale and dark and had the whole vampire goth thing going for her, not to mention her eyes were all white which was freaky, but that didn’t change the fact that her dark outfit was clinging to her in all the right places and giving her a hot goth vibe that I was liking.
“Well hello there,” she said, giggling and giving a little wave. “So nice to finally meet you face to face! I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I heard there was a new Core coming to my world!”
I looked around and grinned. “Yeah, well as far as I can tell this is hardly your world right now lady.”
“Oh but it will be,” she said. “As soon as I remove your Core and gain the advantage I need to finally take over this world! Rachel might think she was doing the elves a favor, but she just handed this world to me.”
In an instant she was in front of me. She had one hand around my neck, and there were little pinpricks against my skin. The cause of those little pinpricks became pretty fucking obvious when I looked at her other hand which had some nasty looking claws. She smiled, and her teeth went from normal to spiked and fangy pretty fucking quick.
“Nice Pennywise imitation you have going for you there,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said with a wink. “I was always a big fan of Tim Curry’s performance, even if the rest of the thing was a little cheesy.”
“Wait until you see the new one,” I said.
“They made a new one?” she said, dropping out of the whole mistress of the dark thing for a moment. “Damn.”
I reminded myself that not everyone from my world was necessarily operating on the same timeline I was. So of course there was a chance she hadn’t heard about the remake.
“Whatever,” she said, shaking her self out of it. “You can tell me about it after I’ve made you my willing slave.”
She grinned again, showing off those rows of razor sharp teeth. Her free clawed hand raked across my chest, and I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the pain.
Only surprisingly having claws raked across my chest didn’t hurt nearly as much as I would’ve figured, all things considered. I opened one eye and glanced down. There were a few shallow slices there, to be sure, but nothing like the deep gashes I’d been expecting from having a crazy goddess attack me.
Also? The crazy goddess looked like she wasn’t happy about something as she stared at my chest. It wasn’t exactly the first time a girl had seemed a little disappointed at the lack of muscles there, but it was still annoying.
“What?” I asked, unable to keep some irritation from slipping into my voice.
“Where is it?” she asked, her eyes running up and down my chest.
Normally I wouldn’t have minded getting that kind of attention from the ladies. Even a girl who had the whole dark and brooding goth thing going for her which had never really been my thing, but now that I was getting a good look at the Dark Lady I was willing to at least give it a try.
“Looking for something?” I asked, grinning.
She growled, and a dark pulsing mist glowed from her chest. I gave it a once over, I figured this was one time when I didn’t need to be shy about staring at a girl’s tits, and saw a dark gem nestled between her breasts looking for all the world like Tony Stark had just had something go seriously wrong with his personal reactor.
Of course. Rachel kept talking about how the crystal was supposed to go in my chest. This lady clearly had something in her chest. It didn’t take much to make that logical leap.
“You were supposed to have it!” she screamed. It was a scream that had dark glowing mist flying out of her that caused the bridge to shudder and shake like she was Harrison Ford about to take a machete to the motherfucker. “Where is it? I know you had it when you came to this world. I made sure my pet knew to send you to the world with it!”
“Sorry lady,” I said. “But I guess you’re shit out of luck.”
She stared at me, and it wasn’t a pleasant stare. Then again I got the feeling this lady wasn’t the kind to give people friendly stares ever.
“Fine,” she said. “If you’re not going to give it to me then I’ll do this properly. I’ll defeat you fair and square, and then I’ll take what’s mine!”
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Doing this properly? Though the part about defeating me fair and square and then taking what was hers seemed pretty self-explanatory.
Cries from behind me pulled my attention away from the crazy lady. A crazy lady I had no intention of telling I didn’t have what she was looking for, I might add. I figured that wouldn’t go over well with her any more than it wouldn’t go over all that well with Leila or Rachel.
Shadows were moving through the trees, and a zoom out to the tactical view showed a lot of red circles moving in. Not to mention there was a bright gold circle around yours truly that hadn’t been there before, and another one around the Dark Lady. My soldiers were moving in to defend themselves, but there were a lo
t of those fuckers coming at us.
Then a big massive purple dot appeared on the tactical screen.
“Well that can’t be good,” I muttered.
The dot came to rest right about where that massive branch the size of a tree had come to rest thanks to Leila trying to keep me from escaping. I heard cracking as the wood from that tree was torn by whatever the fuck had landed on it.
I pulled out of tactical view to have a look at the fucker. I knew I was going to regret having a look at the thing, but I also knew it had to be done.
A massive creature wreathed in shadow magic sat on top of the branch, though I could definitely see a lizardy claw gripping said branch. Then the claw contracted and the massive tree branch splintered like it was a twig.
The shadow creature raised its head to the sky and let out a long and terrifying bellow. Like we’re talking the sound design team for Jurassic Park could eat their hearts out with the way that noise made me want to immediately shit my pants.
The Dark Lady locked eyes with me, her eyes turning to a dark shadowy glow that matched the creature behind her.
“I hope you’ve enjoyed your brief time as a Dungeon Core, because I’m going to end it before you have a chance to start truly creating your dungeon.”
Well fuck. This was not good! Still, I couldn’t help but smile despite the shit well and truly hitting the fan.
The Dark Lady blinked as she saw that smile. She hesitated.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked.
“Because I have enemies all around me and no idea what the hell I’m going to do about it,” I said, that grin growing wider.
“That’s not a good thing,” the Dark Lady said.
I shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn’t be good for you, but it’s been working well for me so far!”
And with that I rushed her, laughing at her wide eyes and the look of pure surprise. It was time to make the Dark Lady my Dark Bitch. Assuming I didn’t get killed in the process. This whole god thing was a work in progress, after all, but I planned on surprising everyone on this world before I was done!
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Puny God Page 17