Devil in the Deep Blue Sea

by A. J. Markam

  “What?” Stig asked, and wriggled up between us. As soon as he saw, he said, “Fuck ME.”

  It was gold.

  Lots and lots of gold.

  I plunged my hand into the pile, planning to scoop up the coins and let them spill out of my hands –

  – but I hit something hard beneath the surface.

  “What’s this?” I asked aloud as I pulled an object out.

  It was a sapphire a big as my fist.

  “Oh my Goddess, it’s beautiful,” Alaria whispered as she took it from me and held it up.

  On a hunch, I selected the gem.

  Sapphire of the Sea Witch

  Worth: 20,000 Gold

  “Holy fuckin’ SHIT!”

  “What?! What?!” Alaria cried out.

  “It’s worth 20,000 gold!”

  She stared at me. “How do you know that?”

  “Uhhh… special Warlock power.”

  She frowned. “I’ve never heard of that one before. Can you use it to tell how much gold there is?”

  I tried the same thing and selected the treasure chest.

  Captain Darrow’s Treasure Chest

  Contents: 20,000 Gold

  “Another 20,000 – so 40,000 total! This is enough to pay off Varkus and then some!”

  “Oh, Ian!” Alaria cried out in joy as she hugged me.

  “Or buy a LOT of booze,” Stig piped up.

  “We’ll buy some more, but I need to pay off Varkus so we don’t keep running into assholes like Shyvock and Zoran and Storn.”

  I giddily began dumping the gold into my bags.

  Maybe the game had finally turned in my favor! Maybe it was finally helping me out!

  Or maybe not.

  A spooky voice spoke behind me. “Take care, adventurer.”

  I whirled around to see a shimmering figure just six feet away.

  Alaria stumbled backwards as soon as she saw it. Stig jumped up onto her shoulders and tried to hide behind her hair, as though that would help him.

  We were obviously looking at a ghost, translucent and bluish white in color. A human male, dressed in an open-necked shirt and a tri-corner hat.

  Something about him seemed oddly familiar…

  The ghost peered down at my waist. “I see you not only have my treasure, you took my belt as well.”

  My eyes bugged out. “Captain Darrow?!”

  The ghost nodded somberly. “I must warn you… that treasure carries a curse upon it.”

  Yeah, the game definitely wasn’t helping me out.

  “The longer you keep it, the darker its hold on you it will become. I spent my entire life trying to possess it… and it finally robbed me of that life.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m planning on ditching it pretty fast.”

  “My advice is to leave it here where you found it.”

  “Yyyeeeaaah… probably not gonna happen.”

  “You have released me from my curse… but now the curse passes on to you. Heed my words, and remember them well.”

  And then the ghost faded away before our eyes.

  We all stood there in silence for a long time.

  I looked at Alaria and Stig.

  They looked back at me.

  Finally I spoke.

  “Everybody okay with me taking the gold?”

  “Hell yes,” Alaria agreed.

  “Fuck yeah,” Stig said.

  “Cool,” I agreed, and continued to rake everything from the chest into my bag.

  Fuck the curse.

  And fuck Captain Darrow.

  I had enough problems with bounty hunters and goblin mob bosses.

  Dead pirates with curses?

  Get in line, buddy. Get in line.

  35

  I thought briefly about going to Exardus to pay off Varkus, but we were so close to killing Zali that I couldn’t just up and leave. I had to give it another shot.

  Rather than swimming ten hours back to Fathmos, we went to Vixil to see if we could charter a boat.

  The only guy available was a very familiar, very nervous gnome who sounded like Porky Pig.

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh not YOU again,” Captain Gurvy whined.

  “I feel the same way,” I said grimly. “Why are you here instead of The Blowhole?”

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh I’m bicoastal.”

  Yeah, right.

  I’m sure it had absolutely nothing to do with the game wanting to annoy me.

  After our disastrous outing last time, Gurvy demanded five gold to talk us back to the Sea of Death. Not a problem, since I was now in possession of over 40 G’s in gold.

  We set out in a miniature riverboat – you know, the kind with a steam engine and a spinning paddleboat wheel? What Mark Twain probably worked on in 1800’s Mississippi?

  Yeah, that. Except it was gnome-sized, and only about 30 feet long.

  So, once again, our trip was excruciatingly slow. But at least the ship engine was quieter and we got to sleep on the way.

  Until Gurvy woke us up with a shout.

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh, WATCH OUT, FOLKS!”

  I bolted upright from the deck and looked out with bleary eyes. It was early morning, and the sun was just a few degrees above the horizon. Off in the distance I could see the algae-green ghost ships of the Sea of Death.

  Alaria and Stig sat up beside me, rubbing their eyes.

  “What’s going on?” I asked in alarm.

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh WHIRLPOOL!”

  “What?!”

  I jumped to my feet and looked out at the water. Sure enough, a massive whirlpool had appeared in the ocean. Our boat had already begun to circle its outer edge.

  “Get us out of here!” I yelled.

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh I can’t! Too strong!”

  I watched in panic as the riverboat began to get pulled closer to the precipitous edge of the funnel. The thing must have been 300 feet in diameter.

  “What are we going to – hey, what are you doing?!”

  Gurvy had climbed up on top of the riverboat and was sitting in a wooden chair with what looked like a metal box attached to the back.

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh gettin’ out of here!”

  He pulled a ripcord protruding from the metal box, and a giant rubber balloon spilled out of the box and inflated – just like Hark Silo’s lifeboat, which had taken me from the Century Chickenhawk to Tarka’s pirate ship Revenge.

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh bye, folks!”

  “YOU BASTARD!” I yelled at him.

  “Buh-duh-buh-duh sorry!” he called out as the chair floated off into the sky.

  “Want me to shoot him down with a fireball?” Alaria offered.

  I glowered up at the cowardly (or was it ‘smart’?) gnome. “No… let him go.”

  “Uh, boss?” Stig asked nervously as the ship began to list to the left.

  Alaria and I rushed to the port side of the boat and looked over the railing. Beneath us was a precipitous drop a thousand feet down as the sides of whirlpool churned in an ever-tightening spiral.

  My stomach lurched as the boat fell ten feet and began careening around the side of the funnel.

  “Oh shit,” I moaned.

  “You know, I can just fly us out of here,” Alaria said.

  Oh YEAH!

  “Awesome!” I cried out. “Let’s do it now before – ”

  Without warning, the top edges of the whirlpool arched over us, met in the center of the funnel, and sealed us in.

  We were now inside a gigantic funnel-shaped bubble with swirling sides.

  It should have been a physical impossibility – but we were inside a videogame. Normal Newtonian physics rules did not apply.

  “WHAT THE FUCK?!” I screamed.

  “Oh Goddess,” Alaria whimpered.

  “Fuck me,” Stig moaned.

  “Maybe we should try to swim out the side of the whirlpool,” I suggested.

  Alaria pointed at the curved wall of whitewater propelling our boat around and around. “You want to go through
that?!”

  She had a point. It would kind of be like running through the base of Niagara Falls to touch the rocks on the other side.

  “We need to try!” I insisted.

  Alaria shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “You better set up a tombstone here, then, so you don’t resurrect back on shore.”

  “Good idea,” I agreed, and immediately cast Gravesite on the wooden deck of the riverboat.

  Once I had my save point, I backed up a few feet… tensed…

  And then realized that running and jumping wasn’t going to work. I would get slowed down too much by trying to clear the railing.

  I turned to Alaria. “Can you throw me?”

  “Are you serious?!”

  “Yes. Just throw me as hard as you can through it.”

  “This is a bad idea…”

  “If I die, I’ll just resurrect back here on the ship.”

  “Yeah. Great,” she muttered as she put one hand under my left armpit and grabbed my belt with the other.

  Alaria might have looked like a thin little Playmate of the Year with gigantic boobs, but she was actually as strong as any male professional pro wrestler. Maybe even stronger.

  She hoisted me into the air effortlessly… did the wind-up… and threw me as hard as she could into the wall of roiling water.

  I didn’t make it through. Not even close.

  My face felt like somebody was blasting me with a firehose.

  “BLAARGHH!” I screamed.

  My upper lip felt like it was being yanked up over my eyebrows.

  Within seconds I was swirling around the worst water park ride in the world.

  Because I was so much lighter than the riverboat, I went around much faster.

  Which meant I lapped the boat a couple times.

  “BLEGHRGH!” I screamed as I went past.

  Stig waved. “Hey boss.”

  “Do you want me to get you out?!” Alaria shouted over the roaring water.

  I stuck an arm out into the air and lifted one finger. Just a sec.

  Of course, what I said was, “BLAGAWEGH!”

  I tried as hard as I could to swim through the wall of the whirlpool, but it was exactly like trying to run through Niagara Falls.

  Okay, Niagara Falls probably would have killed me, so… some other waterfall that wouldn’t kill you, but would be extremely painful and impossible to run through.

  Around the time I swallowed my third gallon of seawater, I started waving my hands frantically in the air.

  Alaria flapped up into the air and yanked me back down to the boat. I hunched over on all fours and puked seawater all over the deck.

  “Nice, boss,” Stig said as he stood over me.

  “Fuck me,” I coughed.

  “Fuck you,” Stig agreed solemnly.

  Then things got worse.

  Over the next three seconds the boat tilted 70 degrees to the side, so that we were almost parallel with the sea floor.

  Of course, we started hurtling around so fast that centrifugal force slammed me, Alaria, and Stig to the deck and kept us glued to the floorboards.

  It was like one of those terrible amusement park rides. You know, a fly-by-night place with carnies with cataracts in their eyes and track marks on their arms. One where you’re pretty sure the rickety wood rollercoaster is two lug-nuts away from collapsing. You get in the Supersonic Bucket, it starts rotating so fast you get slammed against the wall, the floor drops out so you’re not even standing on solid ground anymore – and your friend swears that if you throw up inside it, all the puke flies back on the wall and hits everybody in the face.

  That kind of ride.

  The bottom of the boat was ripped clean away, leaving only the upper deck still intact.

  Which we were glued to like macaroni on a preschooler’s art project.

  “FUCK MEEEE!” Stig shrieked.

  “GODDESSSSS!” Alaria screamed.

  Of course, I’d just finished the waterpark version with a firehose blasting my face, so this was a piece of cake.

  “Don’t worry – I’ll bring you back to life!” I yelled.

  That part wasn’t necessary, though.

  Just as we reached the very bottom of the funnel, the water around us stopped spinning so fast.

  What remained of the riverboat plunged nose-first through the bottom of the whirlpool.

  Warm saltwater crashed over us, and then we were completely submerged.

  We spun around slower and slower, the riverboat drifting down placidly through the depths…

  Until we landed with a gentle thunk on sandy ground.

  Above us I could see the whirlpool ascending towards the surface like a dying tornado being sucked back up into the clouds.

  I raised my head dizzily to see where we were. As the world gradually stopped spinning, I noticed…

  …a fuck-ton of obscene white statues.

  Oh NO…

  How’d we get back here?! The shield over the city –

  Then I remembered that the kraken had broken the wall, and the shield had been destroyed. Guess they hadn’t fixed it yet.

  “MY FREENDS!” a familiar voice cried out. “Welcome back!”

  I slowly pulled myself up to a sitting position and looked over the railing as Zali marched towards us, his arms spread wide in welcome.

  “YOU did that?!” I cried out in disbelief.

  “Yes, Ee-ann, yes!” Zali shouted jubilantly. “You inspired me so much, I created art in your absence! And I unlocked a new power: Whirlpool! Eem-pressive, no?”

  I just stared at him – and then at the ‘artwork’ behind him.

  There was significantly more than last time.

  “OH MY GOD – YOU LEVELED UP AGAIN?!” I roared in anger and disbelief.

  “I do not know what thees ‘level-eeng up’ ees of wheech you speak, but I have grown more powerful in your absence, yes! And I have YOU to thank for eet!”

  Zali pointed to a new sculpture – another giant pair of marble ass cheeks.

  Except there was a whitewashed succubus stuck in the asshole. Everything below her breasts was inside the ass, but her bountiful tits were squeezed up just like a corset by the marble sphincter around her.

  The succubus also looked faintly familiar.

  Her hairstyle… the very large size of her breasts…

  “Is that supposed to be Alaria?!” I asked.

  “YES!” Zali crowed, inordinately proud that I had made the connection. “Yes, I selected a model who ree-sembles her closely! Do you like eet? I call eet – ‘Ee-an’s Pulchritudinous Buttocks’!”

  My eyes bugged out. “WHAT?!”

  Zali went over and hugged one of the ass cheeks, his eyes closed in bliss.

  Well, it was more like he was hugging a tiny fraction of the bottom curve of one of the ass cheeks, since he was so short.

  “Yes – I can now feeeel them whenever I want!”

  Alaria burst out laughing. “You made a giant statue of Ian’s ass, and you made me a butt plug inside it?!”

  “Yes! Ees eet not mag-nee-fee-cent?!”

  She stopped laughing and tilted her head to one side in contemplation. “…I kind of like it…”

  “WHAT?!” I cried out in horror.

  “Yes, yes!” Zali cheered. “Eet ees gee-nee-us, no?

  Alaria arched one eyebrow and smirked at me.

  “Probably the only way I’m ever getting up in there, right?” she asked as she cast a saucy little glance at my real backside.

  “STOP THAT!” I yelled at her, and covered up my butt with my cloak. My actual butt, that is.

  “What does my freend the eemp think?” Zali called out.

  Stig stumbled to the edge of the railing… leaned over… and puked. Probably from the tilt-a-whirl ride we’d just been on, but whatever.

  “BLEGHHH,” he said, spewing red wine out all over the sand.

 
; Zali reared back and sniffed. “Everyone ees a cree-teec…”

  Alaria turned back to Zali. “The girl’s nowhere near as hot as I am, though – and she’s kind of lacking upstairs,” Alaria said as she lightly grabbed her own boobs.

  “Hey!” the female butt plug cried out indignantly.

  “Oh, sorry,” Alaria shouted. “I forgot you were real – my bad.”

  “No one can match your beauty or your sexual cha-rees-ma, A-lar-eee-uh! Art can never ee-mee-tate life – not when life is as perfect as you!”

  “Awww,” Alaria said with a smile. “I’m still going to kill you, though.”

  “I look forward to eet! Shall we commence the duel now?”

  “Why not,” I grumbled as I got unsteadily to my feet.

  Zali looked at me like a five-year-old delighting in having done a naughty thing. “I must warn you, I have not – ”

  “Had your morning sheet yet, yeah, got it,” I snapped. Then I looked around warily. “You’re not going to sic the kraken on me, are you?”

  “No, no, I had to let the kraken go. Eet was not housetrained. You should have seen the size of its sheets. No, no, I could not bear it.” Zali made a disgusted face. “Nah-steee.”

  I was pretty sure that if there was no pooping in OtherWorld, there weren’t any poops the size of a house.

  But Zali’s disgust was really something coming from a guy who was obsessed with his own imaginary bowel movements.

  At least I didn’t have to worry about getting stomped by the 200-foot-tall lovechild of a crustacean, mollusk, and reptile.

  What a fuckin’ threeway that must have been…

  I walked out onto the sand and got about 30 feet away from Zali.

  “Ready?” I shouted.

  “Ready!” he yelled gleefully.

  And…

  …I lost.

  Seventeen times in a row.

  Let me tell you, that new Whirlpool power of his was a bitch.

  At least the Gravesite on the riverboat deck was still intact, so I didn’t have far to go once I resurrected.

  On my 17th respawn, there was a computer window waiting for me.

  Mandatory department meeting in 15 minutes in the Main Auditorium – please log off and attend!

  “I’m quitting for a while,” I announced, and headed for Zali’s house.

  “Do you want to take a nap?” Zali called after me solicitously.