Lost Portals

by Bruce X Brown

  “It’s Xavier!” She said. “He’s gone. I think he went into the Elven Reich compound from the back entrance. He went to get Shiori and Ebony alone.”

  Chapter 33:

  Pip’s Lunch Break

  Samantha was staring through the bars looking at the plastic portal gun on the desk of the elven guard. The guard’s name was Pip. For the first time, she realized that this might be real. Jail has that effect on people. She’d slept all cramped up in the child-sized cell under a beach towel sized blanket. Her neck and back were aching from stooping so long. Her head hurt from crying all night.

  Someone knocked on the door and Pip jumped up to see who it was. He opened the slot to check then opened the door.

  “Food!?” Pip said letting the people in. “That’s nice but I have been here since the battle yesterday. Where is—”

  Pip stopped talking. He stared at a tall elf towering over him at over 5 feet tall. The ridiculously tall elf had a hood on and Pip could barely see his face. He had to be one of the biggest elves he’d ever seen. “Why are you so—”

  “We’ll take it from here!” said the smaller effeminate elf, pushing a cart of leafy lunch passed him.

  “Oh, my! I am famished,” Pip grabbed a fist full of baby carrots, “What do you mean, you’ll take it from here? My shift?” He said through a mouth full of food bits of carrot flying out of his mouth.

  The Wild Land Tribesmen were agitated rattling the cages begging in a foreign language with their hands extended through the narrow black bars.

  “Oh, you shush now!” Pip said giving them a bowl to share. They fought over the bowl dropping the contents then they scrambled to eat the bits of leaves off the floor, “Goodness, calm down!”

  Pip turned to the two cart runners, “Look, I appreciate lunch but tell Lead Guard Belus that I need to be relieved. Also, I sent a message about this Wild Lander. She warned of the attack. She claims that she’s not a Wild Lander. I have been here since noon yesterday during the battle at Gate 1—”

  “Where are the other savages?” The large elf interrupted. “The ones that attacked—”

  “In the Elven Reich Compound Prison!” he interrupted. “They are way too violent for a Waiting Area, aren’t they?! Now, how about getting someone to come here and take my place. I have been here since noon yesterday after—”

  “Yes!” The short feminine male elf said in exaggerated frustration, “Yes, and we are here on Lead Guard Belus’s order to replace you and feed these filthy, dirty, disgusting savages. GO! Before we change our minds and tell him YOU requested another shift.”

  “W-well, that’s all you had to say,” Pip grabbed all the bowls of leaves he could carry. He grabbed his spear as an afterthought. He used his free hand to open the door.

  “Hey!” the tall one yelled. “Keys?!”

  “What?” Pip’s body was already halfway out of the door, “Oh! Yes.” Pip laughed and tossed the keys over to the tall elf who caught them.

  As soon as the door shut the tall elf cursed, “Damn. Priest, Samantha is here. And we can confirm that the rest of them are in the Elven Reich Compound. Priest, do you hear me? We are at the jail. The others are not here.”

  The taller elf rushed over to the cell with Samantha in it. He tried each key to get into the cell. “Now the question is WHERE in the Elven Reich Compound?!”

  The smaller elf peeked out of the door slot of the Waiting Area office, “We’ll have to ask around to gather more information.”

  The tall hooded elf found the correct key and slid the bars open, “SAM!” he rushed inside the cell and hugged her. “GOD! So glad you’re safe.” Sam looked down that the elf hugging her tight around the rib cage.

  “Ok! Let’s go,” the elf grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the cell.

  Sam bumped her head on the top of the cell frame, “Ouch! Who are you?! Where are we going?” Samantha asked snatching her hand back.

  “Samantha, it’s me!” The elf pulled down his hood to show a male face that looked familiar. He had a cleft chin and white hair. He looked like a male version of…

  “Noelle?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, now let’s get the hell out of here,” Noelle grabbed the portal gun and gave it to Samantha.

  As soon as Samantha grabbed the portal gun, she could hear messages in her mind:

  Quest Complete: Join or Suffer

  Congratulations! You have escaped capture from team Kali.

  Reward: 50% more experience points have been added to the total needed to get to level 2 portal mage. You are now 70% closer to level 2. You have earned 100 system credits for a total of 120 credits.

  The nude humans in the cell were yelling and reaching out to the smaller elf. He wheeled the entire food cart within their reach. They smiled stuffing their dirty faces.

  Samantha stared at the small elf. His face was smooth with rosy bare cheeks and voluptuous red lips. The elf looked like Angelina Jolie dressed as an elven man. He was mesmerizing. He bowed to Samantha, “Hello, Samantha. I am Mela. Please, follow me,” the small elf said.

  The beautiful elf peeked out of the fancy building and down the streets looking for an opportunity to run out.

  Sam touched the tall elf’s face, “Noelle, is that a disguise? Where is everyone? Did you all escape? How the hell did you get so short?”

  “Let’s go,” Noelle said following Mela out of the door and back down an alley way between two buildings.

  Mela looked back to make sure Noelle and Sam were following. Her eyes traced Samantha’s 5’10 frame. She looked like a sneaking giant, “Oh my, I forgot how tall you people are… We’ll have to make it over to that other alley. Just follow my lead.” Mela watched the road. Waiting for it to get clear of people.

  Noelle whispered back to Samantha, “It’s not a disguise. I have a shapeshifting power, hehehe. Mela is a woman. We shapeshifted to be men. Sam, I have a penis! It feels funny, hehe.”

  Samantha furrowed her brow and whispered, “A WHAT!?”

  “NOW!” Mela said sprinting to the next alley across the street.

  They followed her. If anyone saw them running across the dirt road, they didn’t react. Mela watched the next street and sighed, “Ok, one more road and then—”

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing!” An old man spotted them and a panic.

  Samantha spun around pointing the portal gun.

  Noelle jumped, “Shit!”

  Chapter 34:

  Warriors are idiots

  Xavier peeked out of a metal door that led out into the middle of an area surrounded by walls draped with flowers. He was sure that it was morning but it was still dark. He slid the torch in a metal cradle on the wall and slowly withdrew a sword. Xavier had taken one of the decorative swords from the basement of the Sister Seamstress. He was hoping he didn’t have to use it but he was willing and able to do so.

  He’d practiced with the maps uploaded into the training system so he had a good idea of where to go. His plan was to go take a quick peek in the prison. He knew where the entrance was but would have to figure things out after that. The simulated depiction of the Elven Reich Compound didn’t have any information on the inside of the prison.

  If it looked like too much, he’d go back into the secret passageway and get back to the seamstress shop. If nothing else, he could report back information about the prison.

  Xavier walked out of the metal door and into a walled-in area surrounded with flowers. The walls of flowers were 5 meters high. A rooster crowed somewhere in the distance as dawn was about to break. Xavier looked down at his sword. It was rusty and bent. With a quick scan of the weapon, he saw that its durability was 15/50, a shitty sword that was about to break. He received a system message:

  New Quest: Make it to the Entrance of the Elven Reich Prison

  What you seek lies on the other side of an Elven Reich prison cell.

  Reward: Earn 30% of total experience points necessary to get to the next level; earn 100 system credits;
opportunity to map the Elven Reich Prison.

  Difficulty: Hard

  Failure: Serious bodily harm or death

  “Failure is death? What the hell? Priest is right,” he thought. “I should wait. This sword is about to break. I’m too big to sneak around…” He thought about how accurate those archers had been… and those damn Red Robes…

  “What the hell am I doing?” He said aloud. He turned to open the solid slab of metal. Locked! He touched the keyhole on the door. You could walk out from the seamstress shop tunnel but you needed a key to get back in.

  He slid the decorative blade in the gap between the metal door and stone frame and tried to pry it open. The tip of the sword bent into an angle.

  Decorative Rusty Sword

  Durability: 10/50

  “Shit!” His fingers didn’t fit in the gap. He was not getting back in there. Maybe he could get a quick look within the walls of the compound before it got bright out then come back and hide here before he was detected.

  Crickets went silent as he crept passed. He crouched down to go through a narrow 5-foot tall exit through a tunnel of vines and foliage until he got to another metal door. It opened out into a back alley.

  He checked the door for a keyhole. It had one. He looked around for something to prop the door open with. Xavier grabbed a hand full of foliage and stuffed it between the doors latch bolt and the strike plate. He was easing it closed and it was working.

  It was working until a mangy bush of a dog came running down the alley barking like crazy.

  Stray Puppy

  HP: 15/20

  “Fore!” Swing the sword like a golf club and see how far that little fleabag flies… is what he thought of doing. But he could NOT kill a little pupper… Even a bastard pupper like this one charging him letting the whole elven world know he was here.

  “Shit!” he said scrabbling to run back inside the tunnel of vines. But the foliage dropped clear of the latch and strike plate and he was locked out. He gave a few futile tugs and then resorted to running down the alley.

  “DoggyVen, You hush now!!” a voice called into the alley.

  “DoggyVen you little bastard! Will you please!?” another voice called out.

  “What is all that racket!” some else screamed.

  Xavier looked around for somewhere to hide. He found a huge basket of clothing and leaped inside. He put the lid on the giant wicker basket and tossed clothes over his head.

  The muffled sound of the dog kept going until someone approached. Xavier pushed down the woven material of the basket. He saw a petite purple haired young lady. She had a half meter long pole with a point at the end, “Now Ven,” she said to the dog. “It is too early for that, my dear. Come with me. Let’s get you a spot of water and some food.”

  A few minutes passed and the dog was quiet. He thought maybe he could stay in the basket until night, then find a way to get out of the compound or maybe see if he could find Ebony and Shiori in the prison.

  The basket opened and the purple haired girl pulled out clothes. Through the gaps in the wicker weaving, he saw that the alley was still empty and it was still a little dark outside. The purple haired elven girl was hanging up clothes via a pulley system and her sharp pole that hoisted the clothes up into the middle of the alley. She hummed quietly to herself and came back to grab more clothes out. Xavier tried to bury himself deeper, but the elven girl lifted a pillowcase off of his bald head.

  Before she could scream, Xavier snatched her inside the basket of laundry and covered her mouth.

  The dog ran up to bark at the violently shaking basket. The dog was agitated as a muffled scream came from the basket. The basket stopped shaking and blood seeped out of the bottom. The dog whimpered and ran off.

  Chapter 35:

  The Alley Behind the Seamstress shop

  “Help! Someone help. A savage beast!”

  Mela looked around for the source of the voice. She found an old, one-eyed homeless man with a dingy beard sitting in the alley with a flagon of mead in his hands. They had jogged right by him. He was half buried in a pile of hay, “Those giants are going to eat us! They’re here to—”

  “SSHHH!” Mela said. “This is our… our prisoner. Right, prisoner!?” She looked up at Samantha.

  Samantha nodded, “Uhh, yes. Yes, ma’am- Uh, sir. Officer?”

  “And YE!” The drunk stared at Mela. “Ye looks familiars. That one with the butt, aren’t ye!? Minds like a steel trap when it comes to butts.”

  Mela shifted her hips uneasily away from the old drunk.

  The old drunk took a suspicious sip at each of them. Squinting his one good eye at the young whipper-snappers, “If YE BE the prisoner… then, why do YE have a ballista?” he said pointing at the portal gun with his booze.

  Samantha slowly hid the portal gun behind her back, “Ummm.”

  Mela laughed, “Do you really think this breastless savage knows how to use a ballista? Here take this silver and don’t tell anyone you saw us taking this Wild Land Savage to jail.”

  The old man smiled and bit the silver with rotting teeth, “Yes, master guard. And a good day to you, ignorant breastless savage.” The old man headed directly in the opposite direction to the Whining Bitch pub.

  Mela let out a sigh of relief looking at both Sam and Noelle.

  Samantha looked at her chest and made a minor adjustment, “I have breasts…” she told Mela.

  “It is just an expression,” Mela said walking back to observe the street.

  Samantha spoke softly to Noelle, “Where is everyone else? How did you escape?”

  “That gang had us follow you through the portal. When we got the First Town, they got into a fight with the guards. We ran away in the middle of the battle… We think the elven guards took Ebony and Shiori during the battle… Xavier went after them.”

  “What?” Sam said, “By himself?”

  “Ok, NOW!” Mela ran across the street and they followed. This time they followed close behind.

  Mela got to the last alley. She moved her hand around the middle of the smooth stone wall. She found a seam and then gave a coded tap against the wall. After a few moments, the wall sunk inward opened by elven women who ushered them inside cautiously peeking out the crack of the secret door before sealing it again.

  A dark-skinned elf with boyish hair and a green cloak led them up a narrow wooden stair, “Madame Mela, did any guards follow?” Mela walked passed her and allowed her face and body to relax and change back to normal, an elven woman with a crown of braids and shapely body. “No one follows. But I think they will notice within an hour we have broken their prisoner out of jail. How are the ladies doing with their powers?”

  Mela opened another door and went through a storage room. The mocha skinned elf replied, “We need a lot of practice. We would not have a chance against even a few guards let alone the Red Robes.”

  Mela shook her head and opened the final door. It was a bookshelf in the back of the now empty seamstress shop. She slid it aside and went down a tunnel that led down a flight of stairs and into a private club.

  After Xavier used the secret entrance, they’d abandoned the seamstress shop and went to another hidden location. They figured if Xavier was caught he might be coerced into leading them back to the seamstress shop. From what they told Priest of the Elven Reich compound, Xavier would almost definitely be caught soon. He got a little warrior strength and stamina and now he thought he was superhuman. Xavier was a level 1 warrior who had only been through the menu options and a basic tutorial. He hadn’t gotten an actual quest outside the tutorial, he probably had not accessed all his skills and Priest had not even connected him on GroupLink.

  Samantha followed her inside and saw a cozy little private pub. She saw about a dozen elven women, Gina and Priest. They were dressed in tunics and cloaks.

  Gina ran up to her and put her arms around her and didn’t let go. Samantha’s tears soaked Gina’s shoulder. It felt like the only thing real in this world.
Her hair still smelled like roses and it reminded her of mom’s garden.

  She was home for a moment until she realized there were elves practicing magic around the room. Two elven women swung flaming swords around while one studied a spell book while levitating. She realized that she was still a long way away from home. She didn’t want to let Gina go.

  Mela was breathing heavily. She flopped down on a nearby couch, “Were you able to find Xavier in the compound.”

  Mela’s star escort, Nona, spoke up. She was curvy with long silver hair with matching silver toga and bright purple eyes, “No, ma’am. I was fulfilling an order within the Elven Reich Compound. I did not see him. I did see a used torch at the end of the walkway. I entertained Senator Norda. He did not seem to know anything about any new prisoners, however, a quest led me to discover that his wife frequents the Wild Lander’s Pub in the evenings. She is the assistant warden of the Elven Reich prison.”

  Mela said, “Good job. We’ll look into it.”

  Priest looked over at Samantha, “Sam, are you Ok?”

  She stared at Priest and released her hold on Gina to wipe away tears.

  Priest sighed and told her, “Ebony, Shiori, and Xavier are in the Elven Reich Compound. We need to go get them.”

  Samantha walked forward and tried to hand the portal gun to Priest, “I’m sure you’ll need this. I’ve gotta get back home. I am gonna go back through that portal.”

  Priest shook his head, “Samantha, the portal back home is closed. A level one portal lasts one hour.”

  Samantha aimed the portal gun at the floor, “Then let’s open another one home. How do—”

  “You’re a level 1 portal mage, in tutorial mode,” Priest said. “Which means the portal can only send you to random locations. You have to learn to master it and that takes practice and experience points.”

  Samantha shook her head, “I don’t want to do this.” She tried to hand off the gun to Priest.

  Sena stepped forward, “Maybe I can help. I am also a portal mage. Let me try to use the portal gun.”