It was true. Neither Mia or Demetri had told Chloe outright what had happened between them. They’d hardly told anyone, to be honest. Since they were both consenting adults, with very few family members that gave a damn about them both, they were happily tied up in their little bubble of sweat, pheromones, and affection.
Demetri smiled. “How long have you known?”
“That you were going to hit that? Pretty much since you introduced me to her,” Chloe replied, sitting on the chair and holding the phone between her shoulder and cheek. She bit her hand and gestured in front of her to indicate spanking an imaginary ass.
“Hey, I’m sitting right here,” Mia said in mock complaint, hiding the smile on her face.
“You’re worse than Ben,” Chloe said, now investigating underneath her nails for any flecks of dirt. “Animals, the pair of you. I thought it was your job to keep an eye on me? Keep me safe. How do I know that every time I dive into the game, you’re not just getting sweaty beneath the sheets like a filthy pair of pigs?”
Mia blushed, her mouth flapping open and closed as she struggled to think of the words to reply.
“Because we’ve got your back, Chloe,” Demetri replied for her. “You know that, right? We haven’t even told you the real good news yet.”
“What’s that, then?” Chloe leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand.
Mia snatched the phone, her grin stretching from ear to ear. “Your pain problems are fixed! You won’t have to worry about falling or getting bitten or eaten. We’ve managed to fix your pain receptors so you can just enjoy the game in peace!”
“You’re kidding?” Chloe said excitedly, jumping up and punching her arm in the air. “That’s amazing!”
“I know, right?”
“That’s awesome.”
“Right?”
“That’s…” Chloe froze, her face falling, “the reason I just drowned!”
“Huh?” Mia said, her face changing as she suddenly realized it too.
“With no pain to feel, my body had no idea I was drowning.” Chloe spoke as if to herself now, testing the coiled wire’s length as she paced around the white room. “Usually, I would have felt pain in my chest. A burning desire for oxygen. But there was nothing. I didn’t even feel anything when I died. I just...slipped away.”
“Painlessly,” Mia offered, hoping to help Chloe see some good in her move. She sighed. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I thought it would be a good thing.”
Demetri felt a wave of pity for Mia. No matter how hard she tried to help, something always seemed to go wrong. She had the best of intentions, but it seemed that she had no luck.
“No, no.” Chloe waved her arms in the air. “Are you kidding? It is a good thing. A great thing, even. I mean, I was able to stay underwater for ages and not feel any pain. That’s amazing! Not great when you don’t know what’s going on, but it’s definitely better than feeling my chest explode.
“Just, maybe, turn up the pain a touch so I can at least feel when something is happening. Last thing I want is to get stabbed in the back by a skelly in battle and not realize what the hell is going on.”
Mia laughed. Demetri felt a rush of affection for her as the relief spread across her face. “I’m sure I can arrange that.”
“I’m sure she can, too,” Demetri called.
Chloe and Mia smiled.
“How did you do it, anyway? I thought you weren’t allowed to modify the game? Doesn’t it break some kind of clause in your contract?”
Mia swallowed hard. It had been a risky maneuver, but after reporting the pain situation for weeks and getting nowhere, it hurt her to see the suffering Chloe was going through. What with Chloe being such a key element to her life, she had figured that a small modification would go undetected and at least help Chloe enjoy the game that little bit more.
“It was nothing. Honestly,” Mia said. “Maybe just don’t mention it in-game.”
Chloe laughed and nodded eagerly.
As the large clock continued to count down to Chloe’s respawning, she spoke to the doc about the real world, asking questions about her brothers and sisters. They filled her briefly in on events in the city (or at least those they had glimpsed on the news alerts on their phones), as well as her current following on Obsidian.
“You’re up to 67 regular viewers now, Chloe,” Demetri said, a hint of pride in his voice that Chloe had never heard from her parents. “That’s nearly double where you were last time.”
Mia called out to the phone, “I guess people are really starting to get hot for your journey to unite the Goddess of Retribution.”
“Come on, it’s not that exciting. Surely there are lots of other players on much more exciting adventures than this? Dragons? Kings? Dungeons?”
Mia tapped her nose, giving Demetri a knowing wink. “You must be right, Chloe. Why would anyone want to watch a woman try to reunite a lost goddess’s armor and have to fight with that sassy bitch on a day-to-day basis while journeying with an unconfident mage, a dwarf with the voice of a god, a sexually deviant elf, a wisp with its own agenda, and a brawny woman who’s smitten with said dwarf and can smuggle magical objects?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds like a damn lot of fun,” Chloe said, standing up and preparing herself as the clock reached ten seconds.
“Okay, guys. Wish me luck.”
Mia and Demetri did, and the screen faded to black, then zoomed out as Chloe picked herself up off the dining hall floor in the Lost Palace of Irizeth.
Demetri stared lovingly at Mia, his head at a strange angle. “She really is having a lot of fun, isn’t she?”
Mia nodded. “So am I.”
“Me, too.”
He stared at her a moment longer before his thoughts returned to what he had been up to before Chloe had interrupted. He pushed Mia off his lap and ran back to the kitchenette. “Eggs over easy!”
Chapter Sixty-Six
When Chloe returned to Obsidian, she found the others at a nearby table waiting for her.
“Where’s Finley?” she asked, noticing now how empty the hall was compared to when they were last here.
Gideon replied. “It said something about it being the middle of the night and headed down to its quarters. We said you wouldn’t be too long, but it refused to wait. Apparently, sherikans have strange sleeping schedules.”
“Not that we have any idea how they can even tell it’s time to sleep,” Tag added, looking around at the ceiling and walls. “No clocks, no sunlight, no nothing.”
“What happened down there, Chloe?” Ben asked, his voice rich with concern. “You were down there a long time. Did you find anything before you died?”
Chloe told them about everything she had seen in the underground lake, from the fish to the rocks to the seaweed. There was nothing of note to report that might lead them to know where the jewel was, and she skipped the part about her pain loss, instead choosing to bend the truth.
“I was just so blown away by what was down there that I didn’t even think about my oxygen until it was too late.”
Tag raised an eyebrow, looking at Chloe as if she had lost her mind. “How could that even happen?”
She shrugged. “You haven’t seen it.”
They sat for a moment in thoughtful silence, affording Chloe a chance to briefly look through her notifications.
A string of messages read:
Warning: even the best swimmers need to come up for breath sometime.
-10HP
Warning: even the best swimmers need to come up for breath sometime.
-10HP
Warning: even the best swimmers need to come up for breath sometime.
-10HP
Warning: even the best swimmers need to come up for breath sometime.
-10HP
And so it went as she scrolled and watched a written journey of her health abandoning her, mixed with a few messages that made her have to hide a laugh behind her hand, blown away once more but just how strang
e this game could be.
Skill increased: Swimming (Lv 2)
You’ve taken to the water like one of those things with scales and fins. A FISH! You are on your way to becoming a fish. Good job, slimeball.
Bonuses: +2 dexterity
(NOTE: Increases in skill override any previous bonuses gained from the skill).
Skill increased: Swimming (Lv 3)
Slicker and faster, you’re becoming more streamlined. The water loves you. I wonder what delights you’ll find way down in the depths of Obsidian?
Bonuses: +3 dexterity
(NOTE: Increases in skill override any previous bonuses gained from the skill)
Not bad, Chloe thought. 2 bonus levels in swimming. Maybe a little too late at this point, but those could definitely be useful going forward if she were to go back down there again.
She wondered if it would be worth it, though. What could she do down there other than scan between the rocks? They were so heavy that she’d hardly be able to lift them by herself. She thought of the possibility of trying magic, but then recognized she had no idea if her current roster of spells would work underwater.
“What are you smiling at?” Gideon asked, breaking their silence.
Chloe hadn’t even realized she was grinning. “A few skill increases. Swimming now at level 3, y’all!”
Gideon nodded, impressed. “Not too shabby—”
He stopped speaking as they heard the tremendous sound of the sandworm approaching. Now that Chloe had seen the picture of the creature, the noise was all the more horrifying. She imagined it out there, blind and angry, weaving and snaking around the palace, unable to find a way to break in and claim its prizes.
The sound grew louder, shaking the walls around them. Chloe clapped her hands to her ears, and there was the mystical tinkling she had heard when she discovered the bracers and greaves. Once more the armor began to vibrate as if pulled by some strange magnet.
“I wonder if it’s still searching for the one that got away. Gillian, its lost love,” Ben said, eyes on the location of the fading sound of the worm.
“Chloe? What is it?” Gideon asked, seeing Chloe’s eyes narrow as she examined her bracers.
She looked up in surprise, appearing to come back into the room as if from a dream.
“Nothing. Well, it’s the strangest thing. Every time that creature passes, I feel the power of KieraFreya.”
Tag, Ben, and Jesepiah looked at her strangely.
“It’s hard to explain. When I found the hidden dungeon in the prison, I was guided toward the greaves by a kind of pull I could sense through her. Through the bracers. It was as if they were telling me where the missing piece of armor was. Now, every time the palace rumbles, it’s almost like I’m…”
Chloe’s words trailed off as her eyes met Gideon’s. He had reached the same conclusion much earlier as she digested her thought process.
“No,” Chloe mouthed.
Gideon nodded, swallowing hard.
“What? What is it?” Tag said. Jesepiah parroted his words, while Ben’s face showed that he had recognized the problem too.
Tag’s face fell. “No way. You’re saying the next piece of the armor is inside the worm?”
Their footsteps sounded like thunder, although they did their best to walk quietly through the palace halls. They barely passed any sherikans as they bounded downstairs, their hearts racing with excitement.
Well, maybe just Tag’s and Ben’s. Chloe and Gideon were apprehensive about what they were going to do, unsure of exactly how this would go down.
Chloe did her best to remember the way to what she now thought of affectionately as “the petting zoo.” She made a couple of wrong turns, then a couple of lefts, then some rights, and eventually heard the telltale squawking of the penned animals.
“Woah,” Gideon said, admiring the quantity and diversity of livestock the sherikans held underground.
“Oh, my god!” Jesepiah squealed, her fists crammed into her mouth.
Chloe stared daggers at her for making so much noise.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, almost exploding with excitement. “I love fluffies!”
“You’re an animal lover?” Ben said, his voice as smooth as melted chocolate. “I bet you’d appreciate an animal in the sack.”
But Jesepiah wasn’t listening. Already she had run over to a small pen that housed cat-sized fluffy creatures with large bat-like ears and buck teeth.
Chloe rolled her eyes and made her way over to the large pen she had seen earlier with Finley and Gilly. She placed her hands on the fence and scanned the pen, finding the handful of scoopers fast asleep next to each other in a giant ball of yellow feathers.
Without hesitation, Chloe swung a leg over the fence, her tongue poking out of her mouth as she slowly approached, mimicking what she had seen Gilly do earlier.
“Woah, straight for it. Okay!” Ben exclaimed, half-impressed with Chloe, half-annoyed at Jesepiah’s rejection.
“Shhh…” Chloe crooned, sweat clinging to her back as she approached the scoopers. One of the creature’s necks stretched out, and it watched her curiously. It snapped its beak sleepily, eyes fixed on her.
“Easy, now,” Chloe murmured, moving closer. She reached forward, her fingertips almost at the scooper’s beak. It snapped gently at the air, causing Chloe to pull back a little. She reached forward again, felt the tough beak beneath her palm, and jumped as a voice called out to her.
“It’s all about confidence, right?”
The blood drained from Chloe’s face as she saw Gilly on the other side of the pen, arms crossed and leaning casually against the wood.
“You need some help with that?”
Chloe stammered, unable to find the words. Gilly leaped over the fence in one easy bound and approached her and the scoopers. The others raised their heads, recognizing the voice of their master.
“You know you’re lucky, right?” Gilly said, stroking the scooper’s feathery head. “Catching scoopers while they’re sleepy is a lucky state of affairs. As a breed, they’re too lazy to attack while sleep is on their minds. Get them riled up, though? That’s a whooole ‘nother story.”
“I’m sorry,” Chloe said. “We weren’t. I mean…”
“You don’t think I recognized that spark in your eyes when you saw these creatures earlier?” Gilly had a playful smile on his face. “They’re tough to come to grips with, but dammit if they ain’t fun when you get to riding them through the sand.”
Chloe decided honesty was better than lying at this point. To an extent, anyway.
“I just thought that maybe we could try it? See what it’s like to be in control through the sand. Y’know, rather than…”
“Rather than be dragged through the sand by sherikans. I hear you.”
Gilly looked around the chamber conspiratorially, leaning closer to whisper to Chloe, “I’ll get you guys set up. One lap around the middle tiers of the palace.” He raised a finger in Chloe’s face. “That’s all you get. You know that beast is out there, and he likes to do his rounds. Last thing I’d want is for all of you to become digested sandworm chow.”
Chloe laughed but was unable to meet his gaze. She thanked him, helping him rouse the scoopers as they took their leashes and marched them over to a small side-chamber off the room.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
The scoopers clicked their beaks in anticipation of their ride, scratching their feet impatiently in the sand.
Gilly had informed the others that the scoopers didn’t often get a chance to stretch their legs these days since most sherikans preferred to swim the sands themselves when they had the chance. Now they were raring to go, wings stretching out and retracting, head and neck feathers flaring as the group stared at the doorway.
There were three groups in total. Ben rode one scooper, with Gideon’s arms wrapped tightly around his waist from behind. At Jesepiah’s request, she had paired with Tag, the dwarf still oblivious to the waves of affection s
he threw at him. Chloe had her own, and she took the lead.
“What if we get lost?” Chloe asked.
“Scoopers have an innate sense of direction. It’s in their blood to know the sand. You’ll be okay,” Gilly replied.
Now Chloe stared at the door. Well, it hardly seemed like a door. It was more just a long rectangular block in the shape of a door. Where the door would have been, there was sand. Softer sand. Beach sand as opposed to the sandstone that comprised the palace’s walls.
“So, just...kick?” Chloe looked to her side, tucking her feet against the bird’s body. Her hands were tight on the reins Gilly had hooked up.
Gilly shook his head. “They’re not horses. Just whistle, and they will go. A scooper has a built-in ability to connect with its rider. Just will it, and it will happen.”
Chloe pursed her lips and let out a weak whistle. All three scoopers’ feathers ruffled slightly, pricking up and then deflating back down.
She took a deep breath and tried again, and this time, the sound was loud. Cutting. In an instant, the scooper’s feathers fanned out wide to create the parasol of protection that Chloe now ducked behind. She willed the bird to move toward the sand, and it did so.
At break-neck speed.
The bird dove into the sand as though it were water. Chloe had enough time to hear the others yell in surprise as the other two birds followed in pursuit, or so she assumed.
The scooper tunneled through the sand, using its powerful beak to shunt it aside. It moved at a speed that Chloe could not quite believe. When she was dragged by the sherikans, she had been caught off-guard, unable to understand what was happening and focusing on survival.
Now the journey was intentional. Chloe kept low, feeling the sand wash over her in waves.
“Wooo!” she cried, fighting the urge to raise her hands as though she were riding a rollercoaster.
The scooper dipped, then rose up. It slalomed left and right, clearly happy to be free and able to do what it did best, its powerful legs kicking behind it as it softened the sand and made room for the other two to follow.
Collecting The Goddess (Chronicles Of KieraFreya Book 1) Page 47