Blood Debt of the Wild Elf Read online

  “They’re really laying it on thick with their bait girls lately,” mutters Myna, her gaze lingering on the woman’s curves.

  “Just be ready to levitate us,” whispers Bronwen, knowing Myna’s tendency to get distracted by the helpless bait girls. “I want to get past these things as quickly as possible.”

  She activates her Shadow Chain’s Cloak of Darkness power and drops into a crouch. Darkness gathers around Bronwen as she seems to melt into the shadows of the ruins. Taking the point position, there is no way for the siminids to see her approaching. She flanks around the clearing and hears the siminids chattering to each other in their simple language. The upright blue-furred apes are watching the human NPC they have bound to serve as bait. They’re watching Myna seemingly walk into their trap.

  Oogbuk – Level 131 Siminid Javelinier

  Bronwen counts six with the orange text of lower-level enemies floating above their heads. Six javeliniers among the group of about 30 siminids. It’s a bigger ambush than she was hoping and she knows she will have to make short work of them or end up surrounded. She creeps close enough to smell their bestial stink as she grips her sword and dagger. She checks once over her shoulder to be sure Myna is ready and then leaps from her crouch at the nearest javelinier.

  Her sword does not even whistle as it swings in a flash of silver and takes the head cleanly off the hapless blue siminid. A welter of blood splashes his surprised comrades and the javelinier pitches backward as his head rolls out of the jungle and into the clearing. There is no time for her to be sure Myna caught her signal.

  “Death to all siminids!” Bronwen screams as she triggers her Battle Rage ability.

  Wild magic flashes in a crimson aura around her and the fury of the wild elves burns through her veins. Her muscles seem to bulge in her arms, shoulders, and abdomen. She grins with the madness of the rage and charges into the siminids. She slams her body into another javelinier and staggers him back. Before he can recover, she slashes open his chest and buries her dagger in his heart. The siminid lets out a gurgling scream and drops from her blade to the ground.

  Bronwen’s rage propels her at twice normal speed into the next javelinier and she hacks his left arm off with her sword and drives her dagger into his ribcage from the side. He falls, gushing blood from his nose and mouth.

  The fourth of the javeliniers manages to get his weapon up only for Bronwen to swat it aside with her sword. She slams her dagger under his jaw and into his virtual brain. The blade sinks in with a sickening crunch and she wrenches it out, kicking his corpse aside as she prepares to attack the last two javelin-throwers. They have moved back behind a rank of warriors. These bulkier siminids brandish stone axes and hoot with simian rage.

  These are high level mobs, but still relatively low level compared to Bronwen. She hacks her way through the warriors, shrugging of blows that barely hurt her, but would smash a lower-level character to oblivion. She reaches the fifth of the javelin throwers and takes off his head along with part of his left shoulder with a swing of her sword. His blue-furred head spins to the ground.

  Bronwen is struck sharply between her shoulder blades and lurches a step forward. She hears the familiar buzzing tone of a critical hit and reaches back to feel warm blood and the siminid’s stone axe still buried in her flesh. She roars in her frenzy, backhanding her attacker and stomping his head with her heel. She leaps over several more warriors and tackles the last of the javeliniers. The beast manages to bite her and knock her sword out of Bronwen’s hand. She choke the siminid as she fends off another warrior with her dagger.

  Enraged siminids close in around her. A series of axe-blows land on her shoulders and arms, staggering her and nearly driving her to her knees. The Shadow Chain soaks up most of the damage, but she is still hurting from the axe buried in her back. She stops try to block them and lets the damage build up, powering her special attack. With each painful thump, the power surges through her virtual veins, more exciting than even her Battle Rage.

  “Going to hit them with my War Cry special!” Bronwen shouts, hoping Myna has the sense to keep her distance.

  She throws off her nearest attackers and surges to her feet. A vicious swing of her dagger slashes the throat of the last javelinier. She lashes out and shoves and fights to clear the space around her. She cannot see her guild mate over the ugly scrum of siminids trying to attack her. Drenched in sweat and blood, she sucks in the deepest breath she can, her muscles tightening as she channels her maxed special energy into a primal roar of rage.

  The force of her War Cry bowls over the siminids and causes a stun effect. Those closest to her suffer terrible damage, including a few that perish from the combination of the War Cry and the earlier damage she inflicted. Those not flattened by the deafening scream stumble around in a daze, blood dripping from their ears and noses.

  Bronwen does not hesitate. She collects her sword from the carnage and goes to work, finishing off a dozen siminids and clearing a path through their surviving ambush force.

  “Myna! Where the hell are you?” Bronwen stomps another siminid and scans the group of ambushers. More than half of them are still alive and starting to rise from the stunning. She is keenly aware of the time she is wasting on these creatures, but she has no choice. She shouts with frustration and leaps at the first on its feet, taking off its head with a swing of her sword.

  By the time she has finished the last of them, her body is sticky with siminid blood and she is below half health from the accumulation of minor injuries. She mutters and quaffs one of her greater healing elixirs. The drink warms her throat down to her belly and sends tingling sensations radiating throughout her body. Her wounds melt away, leaving behind unblemished skin.

  Still out of breath from exertion, she loots a waterskin from one of the siminids and upends it over her head to wash away the sticky blood. Her pale golden hair grows dark with moisture and the flow of water pours over her face and between her ample breasts cradled by the Shadow Chain.

  Water courses pleasantly down her abdomen, cooling off the heat from the battle and washing away the filth. The sensation is real and refreshing, but with Bronwen’s sexual content deactivated in the game, there is a strange nothingness when the water pours over her loincloth and between her legs. It is a void of sensation as if her genitals do not exist. The pleasant feel of the spilling water resumes at her thighs.

  “Oh!” The soft cry comes from the other side of the trees overlooking the clearing where the siminids had baited their trap. Bronwen tosses the waterskin aside and readies her sword and dagger. She creeps to the vantage point the ape-men were using for their ambush.

  Myna has freed the buxom NPC the siminids were using as bait for their trap. The NPC is clearly engaging in some adult content reward routine for her rescue. The voluptuous woman in her revealing rags peels Myna’s bodice down and plays with Myna’s perky tits and pale nipples.

  Bronwen’s jaw tightens with anger as she watches the shapely NPC kiss Myna passionately and slip a hand between Myna’s pale, slender thighs. That hand begins to move insistently. Myna breaks the torrid kiss and yanks open the brunette’s ripped blouse, exposing plump, creamy breasts that heave with the woman’s excited breathing.

  The frost-haired wizardess kisses the NPC passionately and jerks her hips as she fucks against the NPC’s stroking fingers. In return, Myna’s dexterous fingers squeeze the woman’s breasts and sink into the softness of her mounds. She roughly pinches and pulls at the bait girl’s dusky nipples.

  Despite Bronwen’s welling anger, she gives them a moment longer. Instead of ending the embrace, the brunette slides down to her knees and Myna thrusts her hips lewdly towards her. Myna lifts her gown and exposes her frost-tufted furrow.

  They’re just getting started, realizes Bronwen.

  “That’s enough of that,” she shouts, storming out of the trees.

  “Oh!” The peasant girl flushes and covers her breasts. “Myna, you did not say you had a beautiful friend.
My name is Loraa-“

  “You can thank me for killing all those siminids,” Bronwen shouts at Myna. “And wasting one of my greater healing elixirs before the raid on Zhibbareth.”

  “Five minutes,” says Myna, still holding her gown up shamelessly.

  “You’re the one who was telling me we were going to be late when I logged on,” says Bronwen, roughly shoving the jiggling NPC out of her way. “We’re ten minutes from the raid spawn. Let’s go.”

  Myna sighs and pulls her gown back into place.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” she says to the NPC. “Maybe next time.”

  Bronwen grabs Myna by her collar and start dragging her away from the ancient ruins. She shouts over her shoulder to the NPC, “You’d better get going before those siminids re-spawn.”

  The girl stares at the wild elf with wide doe eyes for a moment longer and takes off running. Bronwen and Myna both pause in what they are doing to watch the girl flee. Bronwen may not have genitals, but she can appreciate a well-designed character bouncing away at full speed.

  “Shoulda had a threesome with her,” mutters Myna.

  “I’m not a lesbian and also… what are you doing?” Bronwen shakes her head. “You were just calling Vel a slut.”

  “What? We have a big raid coming up. I feel more relaxed if I cum first.” Myna seems to see the contempt in Bronwen’s eyes and she snaps, “Like you never get off before a fight.”

  “I don’t!” Bronwen snaps. “Never. Now let’s get going before we miss the spawn.”

  They set off at a run, leaving behind the ambush site and the canals as they scramble into the mountains.

  “Never,” says Myna as if struggling to believe Bronwen. “You know, one of these days I am going to hold you down and properly fuck you.”

  “I’m much bigger than you,” Bronwen points out.

  “Magic,” replies Myna, making sparks crackle from her fingertips. “I’ll hold you down with magic and if that’s not enough I’ll get Vel to help. We’ll make you cum like you’ve never cum before. I’ll make you cum so hard you will be one of those people that disappear into the game. Another one of the lost.”

  The smile fades from Bronwen’s face. She casts a dark glance at her friend and warns her, “Don’t even joke about that.”

  Beyond wasters who spend all their time and money on the game are “lost souls” or just “the lost.” They’re only a rumor, but they are a persistent one that exists as a fear in the back of my mind. I’ve heard whispers many times of people who lose themselves to the game completely, their minds detaching from their bodies as they become permanently trapped in the game. Some claim they become NPCs.

  “None of that stuff is true,” scoffs Myna. “Gamax sued that gaming channel that did the big story on the lost souls in Eternities. Turns out all the people were junkies that had OD’d before going into the game.”

  “I heard Phoenix Order had one of their end game healers disappear into the game like that,” says Bronwen, recalling an article she read on the net.

  “Those guys are griefers. The guy probably just quit playing and they wanted an excuse that sounds cool.”

  “Maybe,” says Bronwen, pursing her lips. The articles she read included thorough documentation with screenshots of Eternities and links to social media posts.

  She tries to tell herself that if it were really happening there would be bodies left behind in the tank farms. Surely the publisher, Gamax, couldn’t really cover up a bunch of vegetables in immersion tanks. She decides that Myna is probably right, even though she can’t quite shake the fear that is lingering in her mind. Eternities is so real it is easy for her to imagine staying here and never going back to the real world.

  Maybe being “lost” wouldn’t be so bad.

  “Sorrow Hive coming up,” says Myna.

  The sky darkens, turning a bruised color with swirling black clouds forming above the dark peak of the mountain ahead of them. Bronwen rounds the last turn in the path and sees the Unhallowed Mountain with the many yawning caves of the hive. There are nearly a hundred entrances and knowing the right one to get to Zhibbareth quickest is part of making the run. Normally, Bronwen would expect to see Zhibbareth’s royal guard of hideous, fleshy insect creatures standing at the cave entrance.

  “Where are the guards?” Bronwen asks. “Are we too late?”

  “Right on time,” says Myna. “Where are Vel and Rista?”

  Bronwen sends a message to Veluxina and Rista, but there is no response.

  “Do you think they ran in and got themselves killed?” Bronwen wonders aloud.

  Death in Eternities locks your character out of the game for six hours. Veluxina and Rista both have backup lower level characters that are not responding either. Myna cautiously approaches one of the cave entrances.

  “Nobody kills every single guard to get to Zhibbareth,” says Myna. “Maybe the game is glitched.”

  “Should we head back to town?” Bronwen asks, disliking the idea of walking into a glitch.

  “No,” says Myna. “Let’s go in and see if maybe he dropped his loot. I’ve heard of that happening where the boss spawns into a wall or something and dies from that and barfs his loot out.”

  The idea of Zhibbareth’s extremely high-level loot being split just between the two of them is enough for Bronwen to overcome her wariness. Myna picks out the cave with the quickest route to Zhibbareth’s altar. The Sorrow Hive is as creepy and gothic as the game gets, with biomechanical embellishments on every surface and slimy skulls embedded in the flesh-like walls. Sickly green lights throb from liquid-filled pustules. There is a small loot chest just inside the cave entrance. Myna opens it, finding some bracers, gold, and a shield. She pockets the gold.

  “Exactly the sort of loot a guard would drop,” says Myna. “Come on. Let’s get to the altar.”

  Bronwen steps over dropped loot from guards, slimegaunts, and brain suckers. None of these creatures are present. It is somehow creepier to be running through the empty hive and not hearing the clatter of the guards or the grotesque slurping of the slimegaunts. At one point, Bronwen is sure she sees something, a human-sized figure moving in the shadows, but she never see it again. She shares a glance with Myna and the petite wizardess is obviously feeling the same thing.

  “You know what’s really weird?” Myna’s voice is barely a whisper. “Where are the other players? There should be at least one or two other teams wanting to make a run through this place.”

  “Yeah, right,” says Bronwen, looking at the familiar arches and grotesque tunnels with their pulsing green lights. “Zhibbareth has the best daily drop in the game.”

  “Almost there,” says Myna, checking her map. “Just… be careful. I don’t like this.”

  Bronwen brandishes her sword at the emptiness and reminds Myna, “You’re the one that wanted to come in here.”

  The tunnel they follow widens into a staircase that they climb to huge doors of black organic material. The doors are standing wide open, which is very unusual and strikes Bronwen as a sign of serious trouble. Even her quiet footsteps echo as they enter the sinister altar of Zhibbareth. The faceless, cycloptic evil god-thing has been defeated. The statue standing over the sacrifice altar is gone, suggesting Zhibbareth was summoned, and there is a wide bloodstain on the altar.

  Bronwen spots something gleaming behind the altar.

  “There!” Bronwen cries, pointing to the reflected light.

  “It’s his loot chest!” Myna is unable to conceal her excitement.

  Bronwen rounds the altar a pace behind Myna, her heart pounding and her weapons clenched in her hands. The familiar boss loot chest is there, but it shifts and jerks, obviously glitching. Myna steps closer and a snapping electric sound crackles in the room. The chest seems to bend and bounce back into shape. Pieces of it disappear and reappear hovering above it and blinking.

  “I wouldn’t touch that,” warns Bronwen.

  “It’s not like it can glitch me out,” says Myna, creep
ing closer.

  Despite her friend’s reassuring words, Bronwen experiences a sense of vertigo, as if the room is elongating and Myna is becoming much more distant. She drops her dagger, the blade seeming to fall from her grasp in slow motion as she reaches out her hand to stop her friend.

  Bronwen’s breathing seems so loud, the vast chamber so silent. She can even hear the beat of her heart. And the gritty scuff of a foot right next to me.

  She turns to the sound. The man is black upon black, the shape of a human, but completely devoid of features. There is a sense of movement to his skin, as if he is made from windblown black silk. Above his featureless face hangs his name – just his name and no other information – spelled out in floating red letters.

  TAKER

  Bronwen tries to scream and he presses a finger to her lips, quieting her and making her whole face go instantly numb. Taker in red. Red like admins. Red like the Eternities developers. But even they have characters and levels just like everything else.

  Taker lifts a pouch from his belt and opens it up. There is an extreme nothingness inside, a glowing blackness, a void that is trying to sucks at Bronwen. She tries to look away, but she can’t.

  “Bronwen, did you—“

  Myna turns to ask me something and sees the Taker, his bag, and Bronwen, seemingly frozen. The wizardess raises her hands as if to cast a spell, her blue eyes wide and fearful. With a wave of Taker’s hand, she explodes with such violence that no trace of her remains other than the loot box any player drops in PVP.

  The pouch opens wider and wider before Bronwen, the blackness pulling at her, drawing her into the nothingness that Taker carries in his pouch.

  Bronwen is falling away from something else. A world before this. She had a name before this. An identity.

  And then it is gone and there is only the blackness of the Taker’s bag.