by Rue Vespers
“He never cleans me,” Rosy tattled to the troll.
“Hey!” Jenner protested. “You never asked!”
“Well, you should remind him,” Dan the Troll replied to the cup. “He is young, both to life and to Scrambled Lives, our Jenner. They all run around at first trying to see everything and do everything at once, to make riches and gain power and conquer the game. It takes people a long time to understand that all we truly need at the end of the day is a pitcher of ale and good friends to share it with. Some never do figure that out. Ah, but what were we talking about?”
“The difference between wizard-grade and demon-grade potions,” Jenner said.
“Indeed! I told you about why wizard-grade potions are costly, since you are paying for their exacting standards in potion creation. A demon witch has no such compunction, I am afraid.”
As Dan the Troll spoke, he dumped the water out of Rosy and scrubbed at the inside of the cup. “Witches tend to toss everything into the same cauldron they used for last night’s stew, or yesterday’s defensive scale charm in your case, and if there’s a carrot crusted at the bottom or a few grakel scales still stuck to the rim, it bothers them little. They aren’t nearly as precise about amounts or the particulars of their ingredients. For a demon’s magical purposes, close enough is good enough. For a human, however, it is not.”
“So . . . uh . . . demon witches use other types of demons in their concoctions?” Jenner asked as the serving girl set down a hot plate of dinner before him.
“All the time!” Dan the Troll said. Ravenously, Jenner shoved fries into his mouth. How could trogget fries be better? French fries were already the perfect food. “Demons frequently sell one another to witches for bits and pieces, Jenner, a good thing for you to remember should you ever scramble into their kind. Don’t trust anyone around you. Demon trafficking is a terrible problem amongst their sort. I read a study years ago that two out of every five Level 1 vampires meet their doom in a cauldron. Witches are responsible for other types of trafficking as well: it is a common cause of unrest between demon Houses and shifter Houses, the demonic habit of abducting cats and dragons and wolves to fuel their spells. Shifter Houses raid demon Houses to get their people back, but there is such a demand among human players for cheaper potions that demons are inevitably tempted again to acquire their ingredients through underhanded means.”
Dan the Troll set Rosy down. “There! Good as new.”
Curious about his new ability, Jenner slipped his dagger from its sheath. Hesitantly, he pressed the point to the back of his hand. His skin dimpled in painlessly and then shimmered in a wash of silver scales, which forced the point back out. He gasped. “Are these effects permanent?”
“Until your next scrambling, most likely,” Dan the Troll said. Someone waved to him for a drink and he turned away.
“My goodness! A man with metal skin?” The brunette beauty that Jenner noticed upon walking in leaned against the counter at his side. “May I?”
The word beauty did not begin to describe her. She was like a star brought down to Earth and given a radiant female form. He gaped, utterly tongue-tied at her sudden proximity, his eyes drifting along her hourglass figure. Those swollen breasts and flared hips . . . the sculpted face and big eyes . . . the luxurious locks of her hair . . . He had a wild urge to push her back onto a table, hike up her dress, and pull his cock from his trousers, to take her in this room full of people and they wouldn’t mind . . . no, they would cheer him on wildly as he pumped away . . .
Two warm fingers tipped with red nails ran lightly along the back of his hand. The shimmering scales grew fainter and fainter, and then they disappeared. “Fascinating,” the woman said.
Jenner shivered at her touch. “I’m . . . uh . . . Jenner.” He cast about for something to say, something to give, and heard the stupidest possible thing fly out of his mouth. “Want some fries?”
Her laugh was the delighted tinkle of fairy chimes. Helping herself to the longest, plumpest fry on his plate, she dipped it in catsup and pushed it between her strawberry-red lips.
Slowly.
For the last few minutes, Jenner had forgotten where he was. Now he heard it all anew: the flirty conversations taking place all around him, the deep groans and ecstatic cries and rhythmic pounding going on upstairs. In his head, he saw those nails digging into a man’s back, the luscious lips parted to pant for air . . .
“Go off with you, succubus, this kid doesn’t have any gold!” Rosy said, hopping over Jenner’s plate to stare up fiercely to the beautiful woman.
“You’re a succubus?” Jenner asked.
“I am, but I prefer to be called Mereene,” the woman said in amusement before addressing Rosy. “I did not take your friend for one with riches in his pockets, but today’s purse of silver may be tomorrow’s purse of gold.”
Had the boat been leaving and the islands due to rise tonight, Jenner would have boarded straightaway to dig up a trogget tail. “Yeah,” he said, nodding fervently, although if he was agreeing to have nothing but silver in his purse or the potential for riches was beyond his brain capacity at the moment.
“A man with metal skin will have a purse of gold in no time,” Mereene said with another intoxicating laugh. “Think of the swift wins he would rack up in the gladiator rings! I love to watch the fights. The sweat and the heaving bodies have . . . quite an effect on a succubus.”
“So many wins,” Jenner said.
Rosy rolled its eyes and hopped away to see what Dan the Troll was doing.
“Oh, yes, quite an effect,” Mereene repeated in appreciation. “There was a time I got so worked up by a match that I sneaked down to the gladiator lounge and . . . well . . .”
“What?” Jenner asked in entrancement.
She smiled in a way that made him feel naked and virile. “And then I had them, Jenner, the winning team of a siege match. I pulled all eight of those men into a side room with me. By the time the eighth was taking his turn, the first was ready for another go. I drained every drop they had until they begged no more.”
He hated those eight lucky men. Hated them so much he wanted to hunt them down for not inviting him to be part of their siege team, whatever that was.
“Once you have your gold, you must visit.” Her index finger gestured from his head to his feet. “But not like this, dirty and in torn clothes. You take a hot bath and dress yourself well, and wander the brothels along Road of Royals until you find me.”
“You don’t work in just one place?”
“Oh, no, you handsome thing. A succubus loves to sample.” She winked to indicate the kind of sampling she was talking about. He flushed scarlet at being called handsome. “We never stay in one place for long, but I do love to haunt the brothels in the Rundown when I’m in the area. With all the new human players so hungry for a little play. Are you hungry, Jenner?”
He was. His burger forgotten, he stared at her like a man hypnotized.
“My usual fee is five golds, but for a taste of the unusual, only three. And you, darling, are most unusual. Promise that you won’t forget?”
“I promise,” Jenner said hoarsely.
She smiled and his heart skipped a beat. “Then how about a silver for a kiss?”
Part of his mind said that was insane. One of his hard-won silvers for a little kiss? He had almost died for those today!
His body bypassed his brain. In a flash, he was pressing a silver into her palm.
Then her hand was on his cheek, and her lips came to his.
Oh God.
Oh God.
Her kiss was pure sex. He instantly hardened in his trousers, every thought wiped from his mind except for her. Erotic images seemed to be slipping from her mind to his, nearly as real as the bar around them. They writhed together naked in a bed, Jenner pinning her arms over her head as he thrust in and out . . . clamping her hips as she rode atop him, her breasts jiggling furiously . . . he rolled her onto her stomach and plunged in again, the soft cheek
s of her ass against his loins . . .
His tongue was pulsing in her mouth. He had no idea when or how that had happened, but she caught up his tongue and it was like his cock instead was trapped in that hot, squeezing, slippery hold. She played along the length of his tongue while psychically playing with his erection, teasing him to painful rigidity as they clutched one another in that mental bed together. Now her nails were digging into his back and she was begging him . . . more, more, more, Jenner thrusting so hard the bed pounded into the wall, overcome with the need to stuff himself balls-deep within her, moaning as the sap rose within him . . .
He came.
He came in his pants at the bar as she broke the kiss, spurt after spurt discharging itself into his underwear. Restraining his moan, he bit his lip at how good it was.
“Three . . . three golds,” he said breathlessly. “As soon as I have them.” He didn’t give a shit about buying a wand now, or that glorious sword at the armory.
“I’ll be waiting.” She gave him a sweet, intimate smile, and walked away.
Walked away to a well-dressed man who undoubtedly had gold in his purse, and Jenner hated him just as much as he hated the siege team. It was a purely primal rage, and it was echoed in the eyes of many men in the room. Even a few of the women.
“Hope it was worth a silver,” Rosy said sarcastically, returning over the counter.
“It was,” Jenner said in a winded voice. She could have emptied his purse and it would have been worth these damp drawers.
“Good news: Dan the Troll says there’s a clinic a half-mile from here where we can get you to a game doctor for your problem. Even better news: it’s free.”
At first, Jenner couldn’t remember what that problem was. The slow upload, that was it. “Awesome.”
“They’ll be closed by now, but they take walk-ins first thing every morning.” The cup rapped the spoon against Jenner’s knuckles. “Are you listening to me? Don’t die tonight and we can see what the game doctor has to say.”
Still a little under the spell of the succubus, Jenner said, “I can’t die. I promised to find her once I have gold.”
Rosy snorted. “Whatever motivates you to keep breathing. I guess a boner is as good a reason as any.”
The succubus headed upstairs with that well-dressed man. Jenner almost came unglued from jealousy. Gold. He needed gold. And he had had gold in that pouch of troggets, goddammit!
As he got out his map, Rosy said, “I know the directions to the clinic. You don’t need that.”
“I’m looking for the gladiator rings,” Jenner said.
“Hogdoor’s syphilitic cock, kid!” Rosy chided. “Didn’t Hard Mode teach you anything?”
The gladiator rings were a few miles away through the city. There were three rings in total: two smaller ones butting up against a much larger one upon the map. “We can go to the rings tomorrow after the clinic.”
Rosy jumped on the map to cover the rings. “You’re a moron. That’s not how it works. They don’t just let in random people off the street to be gladiators! You need combat classes. You need weapons. You need battle strategy and for all of that you need gladiator school and . . .”
Jenner tuned out the cup, his thoughts on Mereene. Was that her voice now slipping through the floorboards? Crying out as she was filled with cock? Enraged, he thought about marching up those stairs to pull the guy off her and replace him.
Damn! She’d done quite a number on Jenner in a very short period of time. He quickly finished his meal, collected the cup, and they left for the inn.
Chapter Fifteen
“This is so boring,” Jenner whispered. “It’s supposed to be a game! Why couldn’t they edit out wait times at the doctor’s office?” He wanted to go to the gladiator rings, not sit around here while twiddling his thumbs.
“Just read the news and shut up about it,” Rosy said.
The clinic’s waiting room was tiny. Five of the six chairs were taken, and the other four people had been here when Jenner walked in. Three looked like human players; the last was a woman who definitely was not. Black spots rose up her left cheek to her dark hair caught in dozens of braids, and her eyes were entirely black. She crossed her legs, those disturbing eyes falling upon Jenner before moving away to a fluffy gray cat stalking around the room. It belonged to her. The cat had swatted Rosy twice so far, which was why the cup was now situated on Jenner’s shoulder.
“Chopsticks and Selder?” the nurse asked. A pair of players got up and followed her into the back to the examination rooms. Something had gone very wrong with those two. They were attached at the shoulder and had to walk sideways to get down the hallway.
Inner-World News: Good morning! Select a headline below to read more.
Blue Mountain Trolls Make New In-roads into Talvenor
As Wizarding Houses Squabble, Shifter Houses Form Alliance For First Time in History
Mixed Demon Raid of Tremaine Stronghold Ends Badly, As They Always Do
This Wacky World of Ours! Players Discuss Their Favorite Glitches
Dwarves, Dwarves, Dwarves: Everything You Need to Know
Notable ‘Deaths’: TheEgg, Captain Crazy Pants, PrinciPAL
Jenner read the headlines out loud in a low voice, punctuating each one with a hearty and dismissive who cares before sending the blocks away. Aggravated at his disinterest, the teacup leaped down to Jenner’s knee and smacked him with the spoon, which didn’t hurt at all. The scales protected him even from this very minor assault.
“You should care, you nitwit, but you’re too new to the game to understand the significance of anything you just read,” Rosy scolded as the cat gave the teacup the evil eye. “Do you think you won’t care if a tribe of gigantic, insane trolls from Blue Mountain swarm the streets of Galadras and pound the city into rubble? It’s the job of the northern wizards to hold them back, Houses Calastor and Susvira specifically, but they’re too busy fighting each other to have a care that the most dangerous breed of trolls are marching over their borders into the country!”
“Okay, fine,” Jenner ceded grouchily.
“And while the rest of the wizards are busy jacking off to their own wands and bitch-slapping one another over turf, the shifter Houses have formed an alliance. Why? Shifters love their blood feuds! Why would they set those aside to shake paws and sniff each other’s butts? If they consolidate their power, they might turn their attention to the High Council, which is supposed to represent all, but everyone knows it’s wizard-led and favors wizard concerns. Is a coup d’état on the way? The dragons have never forgotten that this land used to belong to them until King Yora lost it.”
The cat’s tail lashed back and forth over the floor, the beast refusing to move aside as the nurse returned to the front to call back the other human player.
“What about the demon raid of Tremaine?” Jenner asked through a yawn.
“Was it a real raid, or a distraction?” Rosy hopped up and down to keep Jenner awake. “They had to know beforehand that they would lose. Were the Tremaine wizards holding onto demonic artifacts in that stronghold? We don’t know the answers, but you don’t even know the questions-”
A gray streak took flight, and suddenly Rosy was gone from Jenner’s knee. Cat and cup rolled away in a furious tangle, paws and spoon battering in a whirlwind of fur and swearing. Jenner jumped up but hesitated to involve himself in the scene of battle to retrieve his cup; the black-eyed woman sighed in exasperation and said, “Doon, come here.”
Doon was too engaged in beating up the teacup to obey her mistress. Jenner remembered his grakel scales and simply reached into the frenzy, gathering up the cat by her scruff and Rosy by the handle. Depositing the feline in the empty seat beside the woman, Jenner returned to his chair with the teacup.
“Control your fucking familiar, demon witch!” Rosy squawked in indignation.
“Incantation and Doon,” the nurse called. The black-eyed demon got up, tucked the growling cat over her shoulder, and we
nt after the nurse.
“I still don’t see why I should care about people’s favorite glitches,” Jenner said.
“You don’t care because you’re new and you’re dumb,” Rosy retorted. “That article could have very good advice. You might pick up places and situations to avoid.”
“Like the fourth floor lab at Tremaine?”
“Aw, you love me. Some glitches are constantly on the move and there’s no way to prevent yourself from running into them. Others are a little more predictable, like the portal in the seventh tower of Castle Harrownight or the hexed rings. But I’ll give you the dwarf article. I bet it’s short and nobody will care enough to read it. Dwarves are the most boring characters in the game.”
“Should I care about notable ‘deaths’?”
Rosy nodded vigorously. “Sometimes they herald big changes coming up.”
Jenner rolled his eyes. “Do the ‘deaths’ of TheEgg, Captain Crazy Pants, and PrinciPAL mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Then who cares?” Jenner cried in triumph.
“Jenner?” the nurse called.
A minute later, he was doing nothing in an examination room instead of doing nothing in the waiting room. Through the thin wall came a brusque clip of a voice. “No, I’m afraid there isn’t anything I can do for you two. My best advice would be to scramble yourselves to separate.”
“But I’m Level 9, Doctor!”
“But I’m Level 10, Doctor!”
“Good! It won’t take either of you too long to work your way back up,” the doctor replied. “And the next time you scramble into humans, don’t play around with artifacts intended for wizards. There is a damn good reason you can find an artifact exchange on every block in Galadras. You could have made a good trade off your find instead of coming here to meet me. You could have traded that away from some little blessing or two! A nice pair of Oderi amulets.”
“We just thought-”
“But I thought that-”