Lost Portals

by Bruce X Brown

  Sena bowed, “My dream profession. Doing what I love and making love at the same time. I am so happy that my sisters can become magic users. When can you initiate more of us?”

  “As soon as my mana recharges,” Priest said. Then he turned to address the group of 10 elven women and two men. “Listen everyone. I’ll activate as many as I can. But please understand our main concern is to find our friends and return to our own realm. We are not from your world. We could use your help.”

  Mela smiled, “We are eager to help in every way we can. You do not understand how much this changes our lives.”

  Priest looked at Sena, “What kind of magic user are you?”

  She smiled, “Wizard.”

  “No need to be humble,” Mela added. “Sena is of High-Born blood. Her mother is the noble Sosh Elvenreich. Sena comes from a long line of wizards.”

  Sena shook her head, “I was never a strong magic user. My sisters were child prodigies. I am… more of a disappointment.”

  Priest grabbed her hand, “May I? I have a little bit of mana left. Let me see if you have any more powers.” She nodded and he closed his eyes.

  After taking her to the Personal Reality Subset and initiating the system-realization app, he realized that she had a rare ability.

  They opened their eyes and were back among the sisters of the seamstress shop, “You’re a portal mage,” he told her.

  Sena furrowed her brow, “What is that?”

  “It is a rare role given by the system,” he said. “You won’t be able to use that power without a portal device, but the system usually provides a path to get one for every portal mage. They have a way of showing up. For now, I need to figure out where our friends Samantha, Ebony, and Shiori are being held.”

  “Prisoners are usually held in one of two places,” Mela said. “The Elven Reich compound or the Waiting Area. Now that I have the power to shapeshift, I know how I can figure out where they are being held.”

  New Quest: Gather Information from the Whining Bitch

  You need to find out where your friends are. There are always loose lips at the Whining Bitch!

  Reward: 25% increase to the next level of shapeshifting class; 10% toward any rogues toward next level; 5% toward all other classes that participate; Intel on the location of your companions; 10 system credits for all active participants.

  Difficulty: Easy

  Mela looked over at Priest, “I-I think the system just gave me a quest…”

  Noelle smiled, “Yeah, me too. I received a message. Just like in the tutorials.”

  “Nice,” Priest said.

  Noelle said, “But I don’t understand this message. What whining bitch? Who are they talking about?”

  “It’s a pub. It’s called the Whining Bitch,” Mela said. “It’s not far from here. Looks like we’ve got some shapeshifting to do.”

  “How does it know about our situation?” Noelle asked. “I mean, how does the system choose quests?”

  “The system knows the infinite paths that our fate can take us. Fate, destiny, probable future or whatever you want to call it,” Priest said. “None of us have to take quests. We can do whatever we want here. We can make our own quests. We can run around killing or assisting others. Every action has an equal but opposite reaction so those actions have consequences. But a system quest is special. It is like a… it’s like a hint on which way to go to fulfill that fate we’re leaning toward either consciously or unconsciously or sometimes it is a world-changing event for some larger purpose… or at least that’s how they explain it to us in the Corps. As my friend Dee would say, it is beyond human comprehension.”

  Chapter 28:

  Whining Bitch Recon

  “This isn’t going to work,” Mela whispered pacing up and down the alley outside the seamstress shop. She stopped to stare up at Noelle’s bushy black beard and brows. “It’s your face.”

  “What’s wrong with my face?” Noelle asked quietly stroking her beard. The shapeshifters examined each other’s crude interpretations of male elves.

  “I-I don’t know,” Mela whispered pointing at the beard, brows, cheeks, and nose, “You’ve got... Wild Lander face. You look like the child of an elven woman who had a baby by a Wild Lander. It’s your face. And you’re too tall!”

  Noelle squeezed and strained until her height was two inches shorter. She shook her face free of some of the beard and altered some facial features, “Ok, Mel. How’s this? Is this better?”

  Mela shook her head, “No. Not really.”

  Noelle furrowed her thick woolly brow and sneered at the bitchy little elf, “Well, at least I look like a boy! You look like the prettiest little man I have ever seen! You look like a cute girl in boyish clothes. And according to the Personal Reality Subset tutorials, I can NOT get any shorter until I level up! We’re out of training. It’s time to do this for real. If we stand here much longer, don’t you think we’ll seem suspicious?” Noelle said.

  “Will you be quiet!?” Mela said. “I’m just nervous. I haven’t been able to grow a beard and I don’t know why. It’s the first time I’m using my powers outside training. Plus, the attack on First Town only happened this morning. People will be suspicious; soldiers and guards will be—”

  Noelle walked out of the alley and down the street with a grin on her face.

  “Hey!” Mel said, “Wait.” She caught up with Noelle. People of First Town were in the road gathering up the hay from thatched rooves that had been blown off. The dead had been removed from the streets, but dark stains remained. They walked near a few elves cleaning up the remnants of cottages. It was a blackened heap of wet rubble. A young lady stood by with tears in her eyes. She was trying to soothe a crying baby.

  “Good day, there!” Noelle said in a rich baritone voice. Noelle stroked her beard grinning at the mourning woman. The woman glared back her mouth quivering.

  Mel socked Noelle in the shoulder, “What are you doing!?” she said.

  “Ouch!” Noelle frowned. “What is your problem!?”

  “My problem is that you’re grinning like a damn fool!” Mel scowled. “Play. Your. Role. You are a commoner of this town. Do you think a commoner whose town was just attacked would smile at this destruction?! Play your role or I am sending you back to the Sister Seamstress!”

  “Jesus, alright-alright. That testosterone has got you a little aggressive,” Noelle said. “That shit is worse than PMS.”

  Mel walked off away from Noelle and punched the door open into a tavern called the Whining Bitch. She found a chair at the bar and plopped down. Noelle sat a few seats away to let her cool down.

  The barkeep slammed a beer next to Mel, “On the house.”

  Mela didn’t bother looking up, “Thanks,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” the barkeep said slapping a hand on the bar. “First Town’s gotten through much worse than this. Survived that Dark-Born invasion of 1212. Now THAT was bloody. This is nothin’!”

  Mela sipped at the beer and glance briefly over at Noelle then back to the barkeep, “Any idea what happened out there. Heard some dirty savages tried to come through First Town or something.”

  The barkeep chuckled and wiped the bar with a brown and black smudged rag, “Yeah, some Wild Landers came to visit. Guess they didn’t expect the Red Robes to show up! Hahaha!”

  “Hahaha,” Mela took another sip. “No. I guess not. What did they do with those dirty Wild Landers?”

  “HA! Let me tell you. Gave a round to a couple of soldiers and they says to me,” the barkeep leaned in close and spoke with a softer voice, “They says those Wild Landers are in the Elven Reich Compound in the prisons underground. They says at least one of ‘em is in the Waiting Area captured before the attack. I kinda figured they were too big for that little cell but that’s what they says. Not sure how they got through the barrier.”

  “Both the Waiting Area and Elven Reich Compound?” Mela nodded. She drank the beer down and slammed the empty mug. “Well, kind sir,
thanks for that beer.”

  The barkeep grabbed her hand softly and smiled, “Whoa… what’s your rush? I was enjoying our conversation.”

  “Haha,” Mel looked down at the barkeeps thumb rubbing the top of her hand. “Well, I gotta get back to my field. So many fields to plow.”

  “How about you come to the back and let ME plow YOUR field?” the barkeep stroked Mel’s arm licking his chapped lips showing a glimpse of rotting nubs for teeth.

  Mel snatched her hand away, “Sir, I am a MAN!” she said in the deepest voice she could manage but her voice cracked and her mannerisms had the elegant, soft grace of an elven debutante. She had one hand on poised hip and the other gently touching her chest.

  “Nicest BUTT on a man I have EVER seen!” said an old one-eyed fool with a nasty beard. The old man cackle like a wicked witch.

  Mela straightened her tunic over her plump behind and stormed out.

  Noelle followed her out of the tavern red in the face. She was covering her mouth and smothering a laugh. Anyone passing by just saw a grown man crying uncontrollably with shoulders bouncing up and down.

  When they got back to the alley, Noelle slapped Mel on that butt, “you do have a nice ass!”

  Quest Complete: Gather Information from the Whining Bitch

  Congratulations! You have gathered crucial information to find the prisoners!

  Reward: 25% of the total experience needed to get toward level 2 shapeshifting; 10% toward the total necessary to get to rogue level 2; 10 system credits for all active participants.

  Chapter 29:

  Plan & Preparation

  “What is the Elven Reich compound?” Priest asked. “...Like a jail?

  “It’s where most of the High-Born live,” Mela said. She rubbed her eyes and blinked hard stretching and yawning hoping to fully adjust back into her true form. “There is a prison under the compound. And that’s where they may be located. But I think one of you got into town earlier. That person is in the Waiting Area. That’s what he said. The Waiting Area should be easy and it’s only a few streets away. Once we sneak them back here, they’ll be safe for a while. The rest of them, the ones who were in the middle of the battle, are in the compound. The compound… that’s different. It will be heavily guarded. But I know of a way to get in.”

  “Into the Elven Reich compound?” Xavier asked.

  Mela got up out of her seat and led them into the basement of the Sister Seamstress. In contrast to the warm blue and pink quilted pillows and couches of the lounge and rooms, the basement was cold, dank and surrounded by large uneven blocks of stone. Somewhere in the darkness was a steady drip hitting a stagnant puddle. On the wall above a floor entrance were two large decorative bastard swords crossing each other in an X.

  “Here,” she said opening a hatched that led down a flight of stairs in the floor. “This passage leads directly into the Elven Reich compound. It’s a secret entrance we use to fulfill orders discretely for High-Born customers.”

  Xavier said, “Then we should go right now to get Ebony and Shiori—”

  Mela shook her head, “We can get into the compound easily. But getting them out of the prison, if that is even where they are, will be difficult. I think we should rescue whoever is in the Waiting Area, then work to get more information on where Ebony and Shiori are being held within the Elven Reich Compound.”

  Priest nodded, “It has to be Samantha in the Waiting Area. She got here and I’m sure she didn’t pose any kind of threat. If we rescue her first, it will allow us to train and level up by going through portals. The experience gained should get us to at least level 3 or 4. Those are fairly easy to reach for some of our classes... provided we find a good realm to level in. Then after a week or so, we should be ready to sneak into the compound and rescue—”

  “A WEEK?!” Xavier interrupted. “We need to go get ‘em now. I’m ready NOW. You saw me in that training module, Priest! I am a knock out artist. I can sneak in there… I’ll only kick ass if I have to.”

  “No,” Priest said. “What do you mean ‘I am ready now’ you are at 53% health. At this rate you won’t be 100% ‘til tomorrow. They’ll have high level guards—”

  Xavier interrupted again, “A wise man once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face!”

  “Xavier,” Priest said slowly. “We are NOT rushing into that compound. And that is final. We will go in when we are ready. We’ll need to gather more information on where they are held and we’ll need to get stronger. That means we go to the Waiting Area first.”

  Xavier shook his head and threw his hands up.

  Priest sat down on the floor and turned to Mela, “Do you think we could quickly storm the Waiting Area, break them out and run? We’d need to wait until Xavier is at 100% and all the ladies are ready. I have a few more of them to get empowered. We could go to the Waiting Area tomorrow for sure.”

  Mela shook her head as she combed her long blonde hair, “No. A better plan would be to quietly break them out of the Waiting Area. Noelle and I could shapeshift and pretend to be a couple of guards coming to take them to the Elven Reich jail… or bring food... Something like that. We’d be gone before they even realized we were impostors. We wait until tomorrow during noonday lunch when everything is nice and calm.”

  “Genius!” Priest said. “By tomorrow Xavier is fully recovered. We’ll have all the ladies with powers just in case we need backup.”

  Priest went into the Personal Reality Subset training program. They created a crude mockup of the street where the Waiting Area was and another that showed a detailed map of the courtyard inside the Elven Reich Compound. They used the simulated areas so that Mela could show them exactly what it looked like and how they could sneak in once they were ready.

  Mela and Noelle practiced what they would do to infiltrate the Waiting Area. They came up with a few scenarios where they might need Xavier’s raw strength. He would be a last resort and using him would mean that they would need to run right out of First Town and into the forest, maybe even through a random portal if the Red Robes showed up.

  Once they had a pretty solid idea of the plan, Priest began empowering and initiating training for the remaining elven ladies and gentlemen.

  After a few hours Priest was done. He opened his eyes and stared at the last elven woman’s pretty face. She was breathing deeply with her eyes closed. She would be another spellsword, a great addition to their team.

  Priest received a voice prompt and text:

  Quest Complete: Save Xavier & Empower the Sister Seamstress

  Congratulations! You have saved Xavier from certain death and you have given mana to the Sister Seamstress. You have contributed to the order of the Mana-Born, a third party that may rise up to challenge the power of the Dark-Born and High-Born of the Elven Reich.

  Reward: You have earned an additional 25% increase in total experience needed to attain the next class level. You are 55% closer to reaching level 2 cleric. You have earned 200 system credits for a total of 300 credits. In addition to saving Xavier, you have received the undying loyalty from all the sisters and free lifetime service at the Sister Seamstress.

  Would you like to set your respawn point from Universal Set .0001 to .0043, First Town Forever Forest: Yes or No

  Priest considered the system’s option. If he said no, his respawn point would remain in Universal Set .0001. So, if he died, he’d end up back with Dee where they could start over and find a new portal mage. Since he had his powers back, it would go much faster. Unfortunately, his current group: Shiori, Ebony, Xavier, Gina, and Noelle would be stranded in First Town adjusting to their new life in an alternate universe without his help. He could even respawn back in .0001, forget about the lost portal-quest, forget about the group and just start a new life with new missions.

  If he set his respawn point to this reality, there’d be no turning back until the mission was complete. He would have to go deeper to find a way forward.

  He made his decis
ion and the system responded.

  Are you sure you want to set your respawn point to Universal Set .0043, First Town, Forever Forest? Once set, you will not be able to change your respawn point back to your original location without being in that location. Be advised that setting respawn points in any newly discovered Universal Sets require successful completion of a quest in that location.

  “Yes,” Priest said.

  Tel, the Sister Seamstress cook, made a pot of Healing Leaf soup which they sipped from small clay bowls. Gina thought it tasted like minty miso soup. Xavier inhaled the minty steam and sipped slow. The elven women had him lay down on a bunch of pillows on the floor and tossed a blanket over the big man’s slumped shoulders.

  Priest checked out his stats:

  X (Xavier Jackson)

  Level 1 Warrior

  HP: 67/120

  Strength: 11 (Strong 150 kg deadlift)

  Stamina: 80/150

  Dexterity: 11

  Xavier would be 100% by tomorrow and they would be able to implement the first part of the plan. For now, Priest was exhausted. He didn’t want to train anyone else. His mana was at zero so he couldn’t even if he wanted to. He got to his feet. Moving aside the layers of pink gossamer drapes, he looked out of the window. He saw First Town soldiers with lanterns going door to door late into the night.

  “And that’s their third time on this street,” Mela said standing next to him. “As I told you, they cannot see this place.”

  Priest nodded, rubbed his eyes, and yawned, “We’ll go over the plan once more tomorrow before we take action. For now, I need some rest.”

  Mela led him up oak steps to a room that would be his for the night. A full night of rest would also allow his avatar a chance to fully recharge. He would log off of the Czarzakian Multiverse to send Dee a message, tell the Game Master Corps about his powers and then get right back in the simulation.

  Mela smiled and opened the door for him, “Enjoy. We’ll get that mana completely topped off!”

  “Hahaha,” Priest politely chuckled. “Yep. We’ll get that mana goin’ for tomorrow. Good night.”