by Prax Venter
They moved forward carefully, the quiet stillness made the place seem like a ghost town, but they were all very certain they were being watched. Mark led them to the center of town, where the job board had held the quests that he and Sasha completed on their many 'first days.'
There was one piece of paper nailed to it's warped, wooden surface, and he pulled it down.
His general unease deepened as his eyes scanned the text.
“Quest: ERROR ff78: null value not permi-DELETE SUBROUTINE get(LocalWorldChunk) DELETE ALL :: Segment fault detected. ERROR: Access to core files prohib'{!s% DELETE DELETE DELETE”
“What does that mean?” Vale asked, reading over his shoulder.
“It kind of looks like a battle between Sasha and the system- er, I mean the protector entity.”
Mark saw Ahnix's tail flip behind her and noticed a slight suspicion vibrate along their connection. She believed he was hiding something from her.
And he was. Was he supposed to say all this wasn't real and that everything she knew just happened to be some code in an erotic, fantasy game? He didn't really believe that about her, and his girls had become more real to him than anything he had ever physically experienced, but the whole truth was still something he didn't even know how to process himself, much less bring up in casual conversation.
“What does the compass say, Mark?” Roo said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
He nodded and shoved his hand into his pocket, pulling the device out. He walked a few feet away from the board and held the compass level.
Before he got to see which direction the needle settled, his attention snapped up to the sound of galloping hooves headed his direction.
What he saw caused him to blink several times in disbelief. The sound came from an unholy mix of the old woman called Mrs. Krandal and a unicorn. They looked melted together like a nightmare centaur. The old wrinkly woman's torso replaced the unicorns head, and she had a bloody horn bursting out of her skull. Shriveled horse legs replaced her arms that dangled and bounced against her chest along with her small, saggy breasts as the creature galloped on a path that would take her several yards ahead of Mark's current position.
Clearing the unicorn out of the elderly woman's attic was the first quest he ran with Sasha, and the memory of that repeating encounter derailed his mind as he stood dumbfounded, staring at the horrible mess of a creature before him.
Her sunken eyes turned towards Mark and flashed a bright red just as she was about to gallop past. Forming from clouds of hazy red light, a dozen more exact copies of the Mrs. Krandal-unicorn monster filled the area, and before Mark could react, he was knocked off his feet by a terrible pain as one of their horns tore a hole in his right shoulder.
Mark was pulled to his feet by Vale and agony filled his mind. He targeted himself with a heal, and he was able to think clearly again.
Looking around, he saw many more Mrs. Krandal-unicorns circling them and braying with laughter.
Roo launched a needle at one, and the horrible creature vanished in a cloud of red smoke. The loud crunch of an impact of on Vale's shield pulled his attention as another barreled into her. The naga shoved it back and thrust her sword into the creature's chest, instantly turning it into a cloud of smoke.
Roo shouted, “Metal Rain!” and the wide area attack struck four of the moving targets, erasing them all.
The remaining Mrs. Krandal-unicorn creatures flashed their eyes again, and the ones they had killed faded back into existence in a bright cloud of red fog.
Ahnix had been motionless, watching the battle carefully. She tracked the movements of one creature in particular and decided to make her move. The cat-girl teleported in front of her target and slashed at its flank with her claws. The patchwork beast reared up in pain and then kicked out one of its hooves with blinding speed, striking Ahnix square in the chest and sending her flying.
Mark ran over to her but had to dive forward onto the ground to avoid being hit by another charge. He could feel the intense misery of broken ribs as Ahnix wheezed on the ground, trying to breathe through the pain. Another copy of a Mrs. Krandal-unicorn galloped right toward the downed cat-girl, aiming to trample her. Mark put up a bubble at the last minute, causing the creature to vanish upon impact.
He scrambled to his feet and was by her side in moments with nothing to do. His heal was on cooldown from using it on himself, and he grit his teeth in frustration. He reached down and held on to her furry hand tightly.
Vale and Roo regrouped with him to help protect the downed cat-girl.
“There's only one true one!” Vale yelled, watching the wide circles some of the creatures were making around them. “And there are a lot outside the range of my hex.”
Roo looked down at Mark. “Hit me. I can end this.”
He instantly grabbed on to her soft, yet firm fabric thigh and sent power into her. With more monsters quickly closing in on them he just closed his eyes and just imagined filling her body with energy.
Being unable to remedy Ahnix's terrible pain focused his will into a desperate blast of potential, and Roo's connection to Ahnix's suffering focused her own intent even further.
She pulled in every last ounce Mark sent her as Vale intercepted a pair of charging Mrs. Krandal-unicorns, using her legendary armor to help deflect the hits.
Roo's eyes began to glow, and when the transfer was complete, she squatted down. Mark hand just enough time to wonder what the hell she was doing before the velvet-girl, stepped onto his shoulder and launched herself off of him, straight up into the air. Her body was light, but he had never seen her jump so high.
At the apex of her ascent, she seemed to hover for a moment before letting out a throaty scream and spinning like a top. What seemed like hundreds of tiny iron balls shot out of her in every direction, before she came back down to land on one knee.
Some of the projectiles hit Vale in the back but didn't make it past her armor. The broad attack did, however, pop all but two of their attackers.
Mark switched his attention between the two Mrs. Krandal-unicorns orbiting them a good distance away and acted while he still could. He lined up his sights on one of them, moved ahead a bit to account for motion, then squeezed the trigger.
The fake creature vanished in the explosion, and Mark's arm dropped. His mind raced to come up with a plan before she summoned her copies again.
That was until Roo yelled out, “Horrible Hooks!”
He forgot she still hadn't used her favorite ability, and the last and very solid Mrs. Krandal-unicorn was pulled to the ground by four, gleaming, metal fish hooks on chains.
Vale darted out, undulating her snake half in a quick weave to make it before the monster could recover. She zipped the last few yards, smashing the resilient creature with an upgraded Shield Bash. Without hesitation, the giant naga lopped the old lady's head from the disfigured abomination, and the fight was over.
Mark looked down at Ahnix who was still alive but fading fast. Blood was filling up her lungs, and the cat-girl's labored wheezes were like daggers in his heart.
He counted the microseconds until his heal became usable, and when it did, he closed his eyes, pausing time itself. With his mind, he entered into her body and pulled all of her bones into the right places, making them whole again. He soothed her damaged nerves and closed the rips in her muscles. He enveloped her in a cocoon of energy and corrected every last blemish that dared to appear on his love.
All of them were looking down on her when she opened her dark, exotic eyes. She wordlessly reached up and pulled Mark down on top of her with a tight hug.
After her heart rate returned to normal, he helped her to her feet. Ahnix took a deep breath, thankful that she could, and looked around the twisted town.
“Let's find what we came for and be done with this cursed place.”
“Agreed,” Vale said. “Mark, where's the last piece?”
He searched his pocket and came up empty. Then remembered that the compass
was knocked out of his hand during the attack. He walked back over to the job board and paused when he saw the sun glinting off the first piece.
Mark couldn't believe what he was seeing. “It was made from fucking diamond.”
The others came to see what was wrong, and they all felt the same disbelief. The magic compass had been trampled to pieces.
“Now what?” Roo asked, looking to Vale for guidance.
“Let's check the Inn,” Mark said, pointing at the building a few yards away. “It's a good a place as any to start.”
They all followed him as he opened the door to the inn where he had started his day for over a year with Sasha. He expected to see the greasy innkeeper wiping down the counter- he didn't expect to see him fused with the counter.
The balding man moaned when he perceived their presence and opened his red-rimmed eyes. It was then Mark noticed that his arms were splintery wooden mops, from the shoulder down.
“You...” The unfortunate creature said. “I told you... Look what you've done.” He slumped forward again, seeming to lose consciousness.
Mark struggled to remember this man's name, what was left of him, but he couldn't.
“I'm sorry,” was all he managed to say.
The half-innkeeper looked up again. “You had to do it in town. You and that succubus... cursed us forever.”
“I know. I'm trying to fix this. Tell me where the Heart Piece is.”
The man stuck in the counter let out gurgling laughter.
“The Mayor knows, Collector. Got all what he deserved. Maybe you'll be reunited with your disavowed just like him.” He slumped forward again, and Mark saw blood run down the mop he had for a right arm.
“Kill me...” he whispered. “Kill me or begone.”
Mark glanced at Vale and saw her pure white eyebrows arched with pity.
None of them knew exactly how to handle the request from unfortunate man, and they all backed out of the inn.
“We need to get out of here,” Vale said when they were outside again. She seemed pretty shaken.
Mark put his hand on her armored back. “Let's check the Mayor's office. That's what I did before.”
They walked down the dirt path, keeping an eye out for anything that could be a threat. When they reached the Mayor's office, they found only a burnt shell. Nothing but the foundation and ashes remained.
“Well, he's not here this time,” Mark said, looking for any clue for what to do next.
“That... man said the Mayor was reunited with his disavowed,” Ahnix said, her tail flipping. “What did he mean?”
Mark swallowed. “The Mayor had disavowed his Enthralled rat-woman in town, and she became wild. He told me they drove her into the ancient sewers below.”
Mark felt raw, burning anger radiate out from his cat-girl. Roo and Vale reacted by closing in on her a little. Their bond was so strong, they all felt Ahnix's shame and rage for being abandoned by her first Collector.
Roo reached out a hand to Ahnix's arm and finished a conversation they weren't having.
“Then Mark found you and showed you true love and respect.”
Her tail calmed its hopping, and Ahnix looked up at Mark. He felt her longing for his comforting embrace, but they both knew now was not the time or the place.
Vale turned to survey the twisted town behind them.
“We find these sewers, then.”
- 22 -
Mark and his girls stood around an old, stone well and looked down into the shallow water below.
“Wait here,” Ahnix said, teleporting down. A few seconds later she was back where she started.
She nodded once. “It's the sewer system.”
“Who builds a well over a sewer?” Vale asked. “Who would drink- never mind. This place doesn't make any sense.”
“There's potentially a lot of giant rats down there,” Mark said, peering over the edge.
“How are we going to get down?” Roo did not like getting wet.
“Same way I did.” Everyone looked up at the black and gold cat-girl. “I dumped some points into my teleport's weight threshold. I can take you all.”
“That's going to come in handy,” Mark said. He's always needed to enhance her first. This gave them yet another possible escape route if things got too heavy.
Her ability was ready again quickly, and holding hands, they all whooshed down to the stone ledge that ran alongside the channel of water. The sewer looked old, everything had a tinge of yellow, and the architecture was more ornate than he expected.
The smell of rotten eggs wafted to him from down the tunnel. Next to him, Ahnix sniffed the air in huge pulls into her nostrils, and Mark looked at her, confused.
“Smells... Odd,” she said, sensing his stare. “More than just bad.”
Carefully, they moved through the sewer system, taking random turns and trying not to retrace their steps while they searched for the Mayor. Mark expected more things to fight. Rats, giant rats, rat women. Something. They passed raised pipes that poured black, oily looking sludge into the channel and Mark wondered where it was coming from. Looking down into the water, he saw rainbow swirls that reminded him of the oily puddles that formed on the lower levels of the city when it rained. He hoped they wouldn't have to wade through that murky, sewer water.
Old drain inlets let beams of sunlight down to bounce off the water's swirling surface allowing them to see in the dim, dank sewers. They needed to get out of there by nightfall though. There was no way they were going to fumble around in the dark.
After about an hour, they were walking down a long stretch of tunnel, and Ahnix put her hand up and tilted her head. They all stopped and waited for her report.
“I hear something, like... splashing and squeaking. Rats!”
Further down the tunnel, Mark could see an impossible flood of writhing, furry brown rodents passing under the light from a surface drain. He couldn't be sure from this distance, but they sure seemed like giant rats to him.
“Options?” Vale said. “Other than retreat.”
“Let me know. I can take us all to the surface in a heartbeat. I don't know what we can do against that many.”
“If only I dumped some points into the fire path,” Roo said, forlorn. “Flame keeps the beasts at bay.”
Mark spun and faced Roo and grabbed her arms. “That's it!”
“That's what?” she asked.
“About thirty seconds!” Vale shouted, equipping her shield.
“Roo, try to use your tiny flame on the surface of the water.”
“I-”
“Just try! Please.”
The velvet-girl looked at him funny for a moment longer, then did what he asked. She got on her knees and had to reach about a foot down. Her soft hand opened, and Roo summoned a tiny flame.
A burst of fire instantly consumed the part of Roo leaning over the edge, and Ahnix hissed, patting out the fur on her arm that caught fire.
They all pressed against the wall of the sewer as the inferno grew and spread out in both directions.
Roo pulled herself up, completely unharmed and crossed her arms, activating the fire protection. At the same time, Mark targeted the cat-girl and soothed her burnt flesh.
Ahnix shuddered as the warm wind from the flames harmlessly licked at her body, and Mark's cascading heal filled her with pleasure.
“Hope there wasn't anyone friendly down here,” Vale said, with a smirk.
Mark looked up into her caring, violet eyes. “Based on what we've seen so far- no.”
“How did you know the sewer water would start on fire?” Roo asked, a grin on her face. She was happy her new skill was useful after all.
“Rainbows on the water. Oil!”
“It's dying down,” Ahnix said, nodding to the shrinking inferno in the channel.
Roo's fire protection sphere faded soon after, but the fire continued to flicker low on the surface of the water.
They moved forward along the channel and came to the mass
of cooked, giant rats. Mark thought the smell was bad before, but the burnt fur and rat meat did nothing to improve things. He was shocked at the sheer amount of them as they passed by hundreds of charred corpses lying in the oily water, still half on fire. The foul smoke drifted up through the sewer grates in the ceiling, and Mark was glad when the parade of smoldering, rats finally ended.
By the time they reached the end of the long tunnel, it opened up to a large cistern that was divided from the main channel by an overflow wall. What they saw there was the thing of nightmares.
Writhing on the floor was a ball of bloated flesh with wriggling penises attached in random places. The thing on the floor rolled over, and he recognized the Mayor's face instantly. Disgust washed over Mark as he realized his body had become as twisted as everything else in this town. Mayor Westington had been fat before; now he was just a flesh balloon with his arms and legs replaced with shriveled dicks.
“You...” the unfortunate creature's eyes rolled up to face Mark. “You killed our babies.”
Mark was relieved to be up on a slightly raised, stone walkway and not down on the same level as this horrible thing.
Mark's own disgust was amplified by the emotions he was feeling from his Enthralled.
“Where is the Heart Piece, Mayor?” he asked.
“She watches you- yes, yes... no doubt she'll eat your fingers first.”
Mark looked around at the multitude of shadow filled, dry pipes that fed into this open area and noticed a bright, sunlit hole in the ceiling that lead up to the surface.
“Mark, I don't like-” Vale began when a wiry brown figure shot out from a pipe below the ledge and spat a glob of green goo into Vale's eyes.
The giant naga began to scream while the creature moved faster than Mark could follow. It jumped and swung its long, pink tail into Mark's legs, knocking him backward. His head struck the stone ledge, and everything consolidated to a pinhole surrounded by black void.
He heard hissing mixed with Vale and Roo screaming. The pain and confusion he felt from Vale pulled him back from passing out. Mark sat up, blinking off his stun, and he saw two, blurry figures locked in a relentless exchange of claw swipes and dodges. At first, he thought his vision was damaged, but when everything else came into focus, he realized it was just that these two incredibly fast creatures were moving quicker than he could follow.