by A. J. Markam
“I’ll do that.”
She wrapped her thighs around my hips and ground her crotch into my still-hard erection.
“You know, you’re still good to go,” she whispered into my ear. “You could come inside me now… if you want.”
After another 15 minutes of fucking – and several screaming orgasms from her – I did just that.
5
As we got dressed, I asked Alaria about the next ex-master we were about to face. He was listed as ‘Zali’ in my quest listing, I had no idea how to pronounce it.
“How do you say his name?” I asked. “‘Zolly’?”
“That’s how a lot of people pronounce it, but he says it zah-LEE,” she said, putting the emphasis on the last syllable.
“Zah-LEE,” I said mockingly.
What a dopey name.
I was actually pretty pumped about this one. Zali was inexplicably only a Level 40, which was MUCH closer to me (currently Level 27) than either Saykir (Level 70) or Orlo (Level 90) had been.
Granted, an army of demon pirates had helped me kill Saykir, and a vicious bounty hunter had technically been the one to off Orlo, but… whatever. The difference between our powers would be a cakewalk compared with other villains I’d faced.
Speaking of powers, I checked over my stats to see where I stood.
Level 27
Health 2450
Mana 3000
Intellect 216
Stamina 181
Armor 65
Necklace of Ra’nath: +40 Intellect, +20 Stamina
Shoulders: +10 Armor, + 5 Intellect
Magical Orcish Cloak: +12 Armor, +25 Stamina, +10 Critical Strike
Shirt: +4
Vest: +6
Bracers: +8 Armor, + 1 Intellect, +1 Stamina
Pants: +6
Belt: +4, +3 Intelligence
Boots of the Yeti: +10 Armor, +12 Intellect, +20 Stamina
Gloves: +5
Rings: Ring of Balos: Ability to breathe underwater
Ring of Tharos: +60 Intellect, +40 Stamina, +20 Haste
Trinkets: +7 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Wand of the Dead
+50 Intellect
+30 Stamina
+15 Critical Strike
Critical Strike: 7.0%
Haste: 4.5%
When I’d exchanged my original ring for the Ring of Baloq, I’d taken a slight hit to Critical Strike (which basically gave my spells an every-so-often chance of inflicting more damage) and Intellect, which would diminish the speed and power of my spells by a hair.
But, hey – underwater breathing, bitches.
I also ran through a brief refresher of my spells.
Darkbolt – a single blast of dark energy.
Darkfire – flames of dark energy that did damage over six seconds.
Unholy Quintet – summon five imps to fight for me (an upgrade I’d hit at Level 26).
Soul Suck – drain life from an enemy and add it to my Health.
Self-Sacrifice – give some of my Health to my demons.
Mana Conversion – trade off Health for more Mana/magical power.
Doomsday – delayed reaction attack that did a lot of damage after 20 seconds.
Terrify – make an enemy run away in, well, terror.
All-Seeing Eye – an ‘eye in the sky’ that let me scout ahead.
Invisibility – become invisible for 20 seconds.
Hellstorm – little bat-winged demons threw burning sulfur for six seconds.
Gravesite – create a ‘save point’ where I (or anyone in a group I was part of) could respawn instead of resurrecting at the nearest graveyard. Hugely convenient.
As I was perusing the list, I realized something.
“You know,” I said to Alaria, “we should make sure that my powers work underwater, otherwise we could be in for a nasty surprise when we get to Zali.”
“That’s a good idea,” she agreed.
I looked around the coral reef for a fish to kill. At first I was planning to skip the cute, harmless fish for something like a moray eel or a barracuda.
Yes, I realize the goddamn fish were all made out of 0’s and 1’s on a computer server somewhere, but come on. Nobody wants to kill Dory.
But there were no evil-looking fish around. Plus, I’d had a bad occurrence with a seemingly harmless skunk on my first day in the game, so I wasn’t interested in a repeat of that.
I targeted a small, incredibly unlucky blue fellow and hit him with Darkbolt. Black energy blasted out of my fingertips and sent the little sucker belly-up to the surface.
Next I targeted a grey-striped fish and Soul-Sucked him. Blue forks of lightning sparked through the water and sent him straight to the Giant Fishbowl in the Sky.
I hit another guy with Doomsday, and he immediately bought the farm after 20 seconds.
‘Terrify’ sent a baby octopus squirting off into the distance on a trail of black fluid.
Reminded me of Finding Nemo.
Guys, you made me iiiink!
But something went terribly, horribly wrong with Unholy Quintet.
I was able to summon the five imps, no problem. Hot-water vents erupted from the seafloor, and the imps appeared in clouds of sand.
But when they attacked the red fish in front of them, they basically threw little underwater farts of bubbles and steam.
Whaaaaa?!
The imps seemed as dumbfounded as me. They looked down at their hands like, What the hell?! and then tried firing at the fish again.
Again, little trails of bubbles spewed out from their hands.
The fish got hit by the fart stream, but after tumbling around and around, he sped off, none the worse for wear.
Ohhh, that’s not good.
That’s not good at ALL.
The imps all looked at me and chattered in gibberish. I didn’t have to speak impish to understand the gist:
WHAT THE FUCK, BRO?!
Then they disappeared in little bursts of bubbles.
I mentally ran through my other powers to check for any that relied on fire. There was only one.
I cast Hellstorm, and a flock of little bat-winged demons appeared.
Normally they threw a hailstorm of flaming chunks of sulfur.
Underwater, though, those little chunks of sulfur made the water go FSSSSS, produced a million tiny bubbles, and then slowly drifted down to the seafloor like a bucketful of gravel.
“What the HELL?!”
“What?” Alaria asked in a bored voice.
“All of my fire-based powers don’t work!”
“Uh, yeah,” Alaria said like DUH. She gestured around her. “We’re underwater.”
I stared at her. “But how do your powers work underwater, then?”
“They don’t.”
My confusion gave way to panic. “What do you mean, your powers don’t work underwater?”
In answer, she summoned a fireball in the palm of her hand. There was a little spark of yellow flame, but it was quickly snuffed out and turned into a silver curtain of bubbles rising up through the water.
“What about your fire whip?!”
She pulled back her arm and flicked it forward. Normally a flaming strand of fire would appear in her hand and CRACK! at supersonic speeds – but all that appeared now was a limp strand of black that drifted through the water like an overcooked spaghetti noodle.
“Your pitchfork?!”
She flicked her arm again. Instead of a flaming weapon, a black pitchfork appeared in a shower of bubbles.
I guess it was good that she could still produce any weapon at all, but it was sort of like stepping down from a Ferrari to a Ford Focus.
“GOD DAMN IT!” I cried out in frustration. “Is it going to be the same way with Stig?!”
Alaria frowned like that was the stupidest question she’d heard lately. “He’s going to be underwater, isn’t he?”
SHIT.
I was supposed to go up against a Level 40 Warlock with a fourth of m
y offensive powers gone? And with two demons who couldn’t do jack shit but poke him?
FUCK.
No wonder Zali was only Level 40.
Unless he was similarly limited in his powers (hahaha, yeah, RIGHT, like the game would help me out that much), then our mission just got a lot harder.
This was going to suck donkey balls.
But I still had questions.
“If you can’t do anything underwater, then how the fuck did you fight for Zali?”
“I never fought for him.”
“What?! What do you mean, ‘you never fought for him’?!”
“I posed.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU ‘POSED’?!”
“Why do you keep asking me ‘what do you MEAN’ every time?” she snapped. “I mean I posed. He’s an artist.”
WHAT?!
“You mean – like paintings?!”
“More like sculptures.”
“Did he… was he, uh… did he treat you like Jastoth and Odeon?” I asked, referencing two of her most abusive ex-masters (and trying to be delicate about what Zali might have done to her).
“No, he just made me pose.” Alaria’s eyes squinted angrily as she stared off into the distance, as though caught up in a particularly enraging memory. “The little fucker made me pose for years.”
…huh?
“I don’t get it,” I said, confused. “So you posed ten hours a day for a couple of years – what’s the big – ”
“He made me stand in one fucking spot for three years straight.”
I stared at her, astounded. “…you mean… you didn’t go to bed?”
“No!”
“You didn’t sit down for three years?!”
“I didn’t MOVE for three years. AT ALL.”
“How did you stay alive?!”
“He fed me energy through his powers.”
Ah. Self-Sacrifice. A warlock’s ability to raise his demons’ hit points by donating some of his own Health.
“Why didn’t you move?” I asked.
“Because I had a fucking collar on, and he commanded me to stay still! I had no choice but to obey!”
Oh.
Well, shit.
Okay, that was pretty fucking bad.
Alaria bared her teeth in a growl. “That little asshole… I am so going to enjoy killing him…”
Not without your powers, you’re not, I thought glumly.
But that was a problem for later. Right now we actually had to go find Zali.
“Alright, let’s go get Stig and get a move on,” I said. “We’ll figure everything else out on the way.”
I turned towards shore and started to swim.
Damn, this is a little difficult.
Swimming underwater in OtherWorld was a lot like doing it in real life: a lot of energy expended, but you didn’t move very fast. Not without swim fins on your feet.
I turned around to ask Alaria if she had any tips, and saw that she was ten feet behind me.
Not because she wasn’t trying. She was. It’s just that her wings – folded or expanded – were a huge drag on her progress. It was kind of like trying to jog into a headwind with a billboard strapped to your back.
“It’s hard for you to swim?!” I asked incredulously.
She shot me a dour look. “Obviously.”
“Then how did you swim when you worked for Zali?!”
“I told you, I posed for three years straight. There wasn’t much swimming involved.”
FUCK!
“Hold on, let me try Balrog,” I said.
I cast the spell for my mount. He appeared underwater in a dark swirl of smoke –
And immediately began to panic.
“MWEEEEE-HE-HEEEE!” he screamed in a high-pitched horse whinny, and thrashed up to the surface.
I kicked over next to him as he swam awkwardly towards shore. “No, Balrog, you can breathe underwater, boy!”
“No he can’t,” Alaria said.
I looked over to see her treading water next to me.
“Why not?” I asked.
“He’s not a demon. The ring won’t work on him.”
Shit, she’s RIGHT!
The ring only granted underwater breathing powers to my demons, not my horse.
Even if he was a magical, nightmarish one.
“Dammit,” I grunted, and reluctantly cast the spell to make Balrog disappear.
Jesus, it was going to take us forever to –
It was then that I remembered the sailor’s final words.
You’ll be needin’ a means of locomotion underwater. I’ve got just the thing for ya – a special trinket from the Lost City of Galata, 20 fathoms beneath the Sea of Good Will. I’ll give it to ya fer half off…
“Mother FUCKER,” I grumbled.
“What?” Alaria asked.
“Goddamn used car salesman sold me a Beemer, but he didn’t include the wheels,” I griped as I swam for shore.
“…what’s a car?” Alaria asked. “And a Beemer?”
“It’s like a wagon.”
“Who sold you a wagon?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Let’s just go get Stig and find out how much more I’m going to have to pay this asshole.”
6
We entered The Blowhole dripping wet. Well, I did, anyway. Once we were back on shore, Alaria used her heat-based powers to evaporate all the saltwater off her body. I didn’t feel like getting my skin burned off trying to get dry, so I just wrung out my cloak as well as I could and tromped inside the bar.
I got a lot of pissed-off looks from the bartender, but – oh well.
I found Stig drinking in the exact same booth, right across from the sailor. The table was now stacked with empty glasses. Stig was weaving drunkenly back and forth on his seat, and the sailor was snorting and giggling drunkenly as he finished up a dirty joke.
“And then the barmaid told him, ‘His peg leg was longer, and a better piece of wood at that!’”
Stig belched. “Thas wha she said.”
“HAHAHAHA!” the sailor howled with laughter, then looked up at me as he wiped a tear from his eye. “Aye, me boyo – I see you’re back for a trinket of locomotion, eh?”
“How much,” I said angrily.
“Well, seein’ as you just bought a pricey item from me, and I’ve taken quite the liking to yer imp here, I’ll letcha have it for five gold.”
“FIVE GOLD?!”
That was going to wipe me out!
“It’s normally ten, but as I’ve said, you’ve got a damn fine imp here who can hold his liquor. I like the cut of his jib.”
Stig burped again. “Thas wha she said.”
“HO HO HO HO!” the sailor roared.
Stig’s ‘that’s what she said’ jokes weren’t really funny – but I guess they didn’t have to be when your audience was shitfaced.
“…fine,” I growled, and plunked down my last five gold.
The sailor raked the coins into his pocket and slid an inch-long brass carving of a dolphin across the tabletop.
It may have looked like a tchotchke from a Key West tourist shop, but it wasn’t just a trinket – it was a Trinket with a capital ‘T.’ In OtherWorld parlance, that meant that it conferred special magical benefits upon the bearer.
I had another trinket that give me +7 Critical Strike and +5 Haste, but I was allowed two trinkets at any one time.
I inspected the object’s stats:
Galatan Trinket of Speed
Allows the bearer to effortlessly swim up to 6 miles an hour.
Which didn’t sound like a lot, but it was basically what Olympic athletes topped out at. And the key word in that sentence was ‘effortlessly.’
“Just keep that little doodad on ya at all times, matey, and you an’ yer demons’ll be able to swim at a mighty fine clip.”
“Great,” I snapped as I raked the dolphin into one of my bags. “Let’s go, Stig.”
My imp downed the last of his beer, wiped his mouth on
his arm, and then took a step off the two-foot-high seat.
And faceplanted on the ground.
“You all right, me boyo?” the sailor asked. “That was a hard ‘un.”
“Thas wha she said,” Stig said, still face-down on the floor.
“HEE HEE HEE!” the sailor howled.
I sighed, pulled Stig up off the ground, and slung him over my shoulder as I headed for the door.
“By the by, I could charter a ship fer ya wherever yer goin’!” the sailor shouted after me.
“NO THANKS!” I yelled back.
When we got back out to the ocean, I stepped out into the water.
I didn’t feel any different having the trinket on me.
I looked at Alaria. “You feel any different?”
She shook her head ‘no.’
“I feel like a fish,” Stig said drunkenly from where he was draped over my shoulder.
“No, you just drink like one,” I said as I waded into the surf.
Once I was underwater, I sat Stig down on the seafloor and made sure he was breathing okay. Then I tried out my new swimming abilities.
I swam five times as fast with just as much effort.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Not Aquaman speeds, but definitely worth five gold – if it worked for Alaria.
I turned back to look at her – and was happily surprised when she sped by me with a couple flaps of her wings.
“It works!” she cried out.
Alright. The sailor might have acted like a used-car salesman, but I had to admit that he had some good shit.
“I wanna swim, boss,” Stig said from where he sat on the seafloor.
“Alright, swim, then.”
Stig held out his arms – while his ass was still planted on the sand – and make a single motion with his arms.
And immediately toppled over onto his side.
“Yeah, don’t think you’ll be swimming for a while, buddy,” I said as I tucked him under my arm. I turned to Alaria. “Okay, you know where this Zali character is, right?”
“Yes.”
“Lead the way, then.”
She cocked one eyebrow. “We’re going to swim there?”
“Yes we’re going to swim there! I just paid 105 gold so we could!”