Boy was I right to quote Star Trek first thing. I felt like one of the extras they paid to cartoonishly throw themselves over the railing every time the Enterprise was mildly tickled. The 3-5 minute sprint was anything but expedient as I tried my hardest not to fall face-first on the ground. My professional shadow was following along, still covered in bubbles from his bath. And Gibby, well, his squishiness did break a few falls quite nicely.
I finished throwing on my hazard gear just in time. We reached the mouth as a tidal wave of saliva came barreling down on us. I planted my feet and weathered it, oh-so happy about the barrier between me and anything not me. As the gross fluids settled down, I shushed the wind from all the coughing and gagging, then cried to the heavens.
“HEY! THE FUCK’S GOING ON?”
No response at first. I was about to start communicating via more painful means (for Levi) when the illusion appeared. Somewhat. They were visually incomplete, and disassembled. Only the mouth—floating about 2 feet above a cloud of detached, hovering facial features—was moving.
“Owww, ow! Say again?”
I took a moment deciding where to look, then found an eyeball near the back of the scattered image. “What’s happening? Are you under attack?”
The illusion components suddenly snapped to within a few inches of where they belonged. “No it’s– ahahahhh, fuck!” they groaned. “It’s the last line, the one with the parasites. Shooting pains everywhere, worst cramps of my life! Go, get in there, kill them all!”
“Yessir! Just hold still as much as you can. I can’t work while you throw me around.” I heard a meek, affirmative response, but I was already onto the next issue. “Zerxhe! Get over here, I need a hand!”
I saw her pop up in the boat, still bobbing in the saliva. “You’re not paying me to fight parasitic monsters! Shove off!”
“I am now!”
……
“I hate you. And this stink, and whatever gods decided this was my fate,” Zerxhe growled as she pulled another claymore trap from my bag of defensive emplacements.
“Yet here you are, taking the pay. You reap what you sow. Even wild oats, apparently,” I quipped as I donned my bison magazine sling.
I counted up my ammunition. 5 magazines of basic poison, 2 mags of fire bolts, and 2 mags of Double-Cross, which has a magic foe-freezing tip, and the shaft is stuffed with ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil. a.k.a. boom-boom). I loaded my Bison with the spare mag of poison bolts and started pumping up the pressure tank on the potion thrower’s backpack.
“So, the plan is: Legendary hero and a horde of white blood cells go in and wreak havoc, and y’all can stay here and manage the point defense thingies. I’ll get the door open and we weather whatever comes through until it stops, then I charge while you deny escape. You’re a demon, so you can see through smoke, right?”
Zerxhe sniffled. “I could, if my eyes weren’t watering from this damn smell.”
I sighed, walked over, and handed her the nose plugs. “The magic fire in there should be clean-burning, but anything it ignites isn’t covered, so that door could open to a wall of smoke for all we know,” I explained as I loaded healing potion #1-8 onto my belt loops.
“What do you know about the parasites?” Zerxhe inquired apprehensively.
“Nothin’. Guesswork says big and acid resistant, but we have no concrete info. For all we know, this could be crazy.”
With that thought, I decided it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have a superweapon on hand, so, I got out the last I had on hand. A potion in a double-layered steel hip flask, with the cork waxed in place. It had a label on the front.
Bayou Bros Brewing Co. Temporal Displacement Potion [X] Poison [ ]
Strength: Dial Up Call of Dooty
Side effects may include, but are not limited to: Vomiting, short-term memory loss, brief teleportation resistance, age regression, age progression, diarrhea, and outdated political opinions.
The side effects sounded pretty bad, save the last one. People swore by the thing as one of the ultimate bang-for-buck potions, but… gah-lee it sounded nasty. It got a spot in my pocket for later, just in case. Zerxhe gasped.
“Bayou Co.? Core help us, I hope you don’t have to drink that… thing.”
“Me neither. You good with a crossbow?”
She frowned. “I am passable with one.”
“Good. Here’s my spare Bison. Let me show you how to put a magazine in it before Gibby gets back with his friends.”
……
Ammo, check. Stoneskin, check. Smokebreath, check. Tower defense…
“Hey, you got that claymore attached to the ceiling yet?”
“Give me a minute! These wings aren’t made to hover.”
Almost check. Hazard gear, check. Army of angry white blood cells?
“Y’all ready to disassemble some goddamn worms?”
“MEEP!” (x13,581)
“Okay, great…” I muttered while rubbing my ringing ears.
The little boogers were piled floor to ceiling, clinging to walls and stacking up into humanoid constructs carrying assorted whale teeth as weapons. Zerxhe landed next to me with an exasperated huff, grabbing her Bison. She’d finished putting the self-swinging swords in a complete vertical ring around the esophageal tunnel, along with some crossbow turrets.
“I wish there was a manual for those claymore traps.”
“I threw it out last year.”
Her frown was big and pouty, causing me to stifle a snicker whilst I hefted the potion thrower tanks onto my back. I did up the buckles, regretting my decision to put on the ammo sling first. Another mistake to learn from. My bison rested on its sling, ready to go when needed, and the thrower’s nozzle hung on the backpack. I procured the latter and set the thrower from safe, to healz.
“Beaches of Normandy in 30!” I called out as I started spraying the sphincter door in front of us.
The flesh visibly relaxed, shedding grime and crust as it was swiftly restored to a healthy state. With a quick circle done, the valve went to the lightning brew and I drew my pocket knife.
“Here we go!”
I threw the knife at the door, ready for Levi to feel the stab and open right up. It hit… pommel first, and bounced to the floor. In the blink of an eye, I cast disjoint and it zoomed right back to my hand, at which point, I threw it so hard that when it hit backwards a second time, it sank into flesh anyway. We did not speak of it later.
In a smooth, organic motion, the door opened and a cloud of smoke billowed forth. To my surprise, Zerxhe fluttered into the air and immediately cast a spell that turned it see-through for the rest of us.
Worms… WORMS! 10, no, 20 feet long, glossy, brown-black flat-ish worms with big ugly mouths full of teeth! And they were fat! Blood dripped from their maws as they detached from the walls and floors to slither and writhe toward us at terrifying speeds.
“Fire at will!”
A dozen came at us immediately. The crackle of lightning filled the air as I let loose a terrible blast of electricity from the potion thrower. The front-most worm burst into pieces, its body flying every which way, spewing thousands of tiny worms all across the room, half frying instantly in the arcing electricity. The shocks spread further back, blunting the vanguard’s assault.
With a great war cry, the white blood cells washed forward like a tide, leaping upon every larva they could find as the constructs stepped up to form rank beside us. The claymores sliced the slithering menaces in twain as they drew near, spilling yet more babies everywhere as the individual halves continued to attack. Zerxhe cursed in many languages as she and the turrets let loose bolts into the incoming crowd with reckless abandon.
As we slashed, stabbed, shot, and fried the first passel, 30 more came to take their place. I decimated them with a blast of lightning down the middle, felling 3 on the spot and wounding more. The closest reared its head up right in front of me, and in a flash I bisected it vertically with an off-hand draw slice from the tomb sword. The moment I looked up, I was splashed with a horrific, viscous assault.
A glob of the brown goo from downtown struck me, possibly sticking me in place if I wasn’t so swole. It was full of larvae too, I could see their little mouths sucking on the barrier a hair’s breadth from my actual skin. Leeches! Nice to know the specificity of them as I was murdering them all. I swiped them off my face and kept shooting, only to be hit again. Okay, problem identified; search for source.
My hopes of narrowing down the current issue were dashed, as every time I wiped my face, another blast of sludge blinded me again. I could only tell that the potion thrower was killing worms by the POP sound they made when they exploded. I held up my arm to hopefully shield my eyes from the next impact.
“What’s shooting at me?” I barked.
“In the back! There’s a–”
A resounding SPLAT interrupted Xerzhe as she was shot down by a glob of goop and leeches. She fell out of the air and landed on a soft sea of white blood cells, who proceeded to give her the most aggressive bath of her life. I would complain that she wasn’t evasive, but succubi have major evasion penalties versus bodily fluids. Sucks to succ. That was my opportunity, and I took it.
I almost regret looking, because I saw a tall-as-all-get-out worm in the back, bending down to slurp up sludge and launch it all over again. He wasn’t advancing either, he was just sitting there. The next volley flew my way, but I finally got out of my spot and started dodging. A hyperdash to the left sent a few dozen white bloodies flying, but hey, they're disposable. I dumped the last of the tank pressure on a few more good lightning bolts before my plan materialized.
“Form a ramp!” I yelled, hoping that the white blood cells had a few neurons to rub together.
And a ramp I got. One that would sling me into the ceiling if I tried my plan. “Shallower!” I barked, dodging repeated shelling from the enemy artillery amidst casting backup dance. “Wait, not that shallow!”
More were piling on to make the ramp too sharp again, so I hit ‘fuck it’. Hyperdash off the ramp, featherweight midair, regret the rest of the way. Oh my god there had to be thousands of them. Most of them were still stuck to the walls, drinking blood for assorted bad reasons, and the big cannon-faced asshole was, in fact, a member of quintuplets. Aaand my splash damage was out of pressure.
As I sailed through the air, slowly vectoring for a gooey smack into a brown puddle on the opposite wall, I loosed bolts at the ranged worms, putting a few holes in them. As the mainly pain-inducing poison kicked in, they began to shake, as if to buck off a biting, clawing foe that did not exist. They missed me again and again as I peppered, reloaded, and peppered some more. Three empty magazines fell into the murky substances below, hopefully never to be seen again, lest I (or some unfortunate employee) be forced to clean them.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Then, with a sickening splat, I landed ass-first into the wall goo. I kept shooting, hoping to get bit hard enough to be trigger the teleport. A dozen leeches started heading for me. I chopped them as fast as they came, until the looming shadow of a cannoneer leech came right at me. In a split second decision, I cast explosive reaction moments before it tried to bite me in half.
BOOM!
I shook off some grime from my personal barrier, then spun on my heel. Little miss succubus was swatting stray leeches off her exposed skin as the whities slurped up the remaining grime.
“Zerxhe, I–” SPLAT. “Form a wall!” I yelled, wiping the projectile off my backside. “I’m updating our strategy. You get the potion thrower, I’m popping the cork.”
She scrambled to her feet, arriving at my side just in time to be passed the 65 lb backpack and nearly fold in half from the weight.
“Put those jerking muscles to work and pump it up. I’m going in!”
Before you can say it: That’s what he said. (Or she, in modern times of sexual liberation.) I popped the temporal displacement potion and downed it in an exaggerated set of gulps. And, at this point, I must confess, I don’t remember what happened next. The label did warn me. So I can’t actually tell you what I did next, unfortunately…
……
So I got someone who can! Ha, you thought this was a timeskip like usual? Sike, perspective shift!
–rsutet. Okay, it’s on. Take it away Zerxhe, elaborate on what stupid shit I did next. Speak into this.
Well, first you smacked your lips, commented on the flavor being like moonshine, then doubled over and threw up. Except, midway through emptying your guts, you froze. Not naturally, umm, the waterfall of vomit was, like, hovering there, unmoving. Then, it all reversed back to you saying the same thing about moonshine again, but didn’t vomit.
Instead, you loaded your crossbow, and said, and I quote: “I’m tired of these brown-skinned fucks shitting everywhere,” in such a tone that really suggested a lot.
That would be the side effect of outdated political opinions.
Yes, indeed. Next thing I knew, you did the exact same thing you’d done moments ago, firing yourself off a ramp like a lunatic. However, you would just stop in the air, moment to moment, teleporting anything from inches to vast distances several times every second. You started to fire more bolts than were in those magazines, without ever reloading. Everything started freezing, burning, and exploding all at once.
Sounds pretty awesome. What did I do after the initial jump?
I can’t say. You disappeared from sight and more leeches were charging. I could only hear the continuing bout of explosions and disjointed yelling as I put my head down and pumped up the tank pressure as fast as I could. The one big difference you made right away was that the spitters were no longer firing into the hall, which gave me free reign to fight unimpeded, not that I could fly while carrying that… thingy.
I wasn’t keeping track of time, but the corpses said a lot about how long we were fighting. I told the white cells to drag off the bodies into our back lines when they were a third of the way up to the ceiling, and that felt like it happened in only the first quarter of the fighting.
The claymores were causing so much friendly fire that I had to find a chance to deactivate a few whilst the bodies were being dragged past. The parasites were coming in waves by then, hitting us in big numbers or turning tail to fight you when the spitters cried out. It got particularly bad at the, hmm, 20 minute mark? A huge wave came at us and was going to break through, until I shocked a claymore and it arced between them, making a line of lightning-charged swords.
Huh, why didn’t I think of that?
Well it’s a classic case of having so much power you start thinking in straighter lines. I was bursting with creativity as my life flashed before my eyes. But that was the turning point. The whities formed into more constructs and picked up the claymore bases off the walls and started pushing forward, just holding the bases and letting the sword swing around in front of them. We pushed out into the room for the first time right after that.
It was chaos, there were patches of frozen… we’ll call it ‘ground’, and pools of fire all over the place from your missed bolts. I caught sight of you standing over a wounded spitter. It was striking at you like a snake as you vanished to reappear nearby. What did you yell? Oh, it was ‘die, you communist fuck!’ I believe. Then, you appeared in 7 places at once and shot it easily 60 times with a 10 round magazine.
Hell yeah, brother.
Needless to say, it exploded into thousands of shards of ice so fast they shredded everything nearby, including you. I saw you get thrown back, with a dozen holes blown clean through you. Only, you appeared elsewhere—without a scratch on you—and proceeded to continue teleporting around and murdering absolutely everything.
Then I got hit by a spitter. I was standing there awestruck for a bit too long. Since you didn’t seem to notice, those globs were full of acid too. The whities did a good job of cleaning me up after that, but I was in and out of consciousness from the pain at that point. It was some time later that I woke up feeling like I was soaking in a soothing blood spring, but I opened my eyes and it was just you spraying me with that potion thrower. Then you said, err, it’s a bit hard to recreate but it went like:
“G- g- g-, be a hero? Don’t you want to… get up!”
I did put it together, and my answer was ‘no’. Then you threw your nice sword in my lap with a mangled ‘too bad’. By that point, all the spitters were dead and it was the doorway to the next room where all the fuckus was coming from.
It’s ruckus.
Shut up, nerd. I stayed back, helping the constructs patrol the room and kill the remaining leeches that were hiding in their dens of muck. It’s a really good sword, by the way. I only learned how to use one for fetish or role play, and even I could dice up those monsters with ease. It was some unlordly amount of time later that you reappeared, barely flickering a few inches back and forth. You strutted over to me, all pristine and happy go lucky as I was miserable and covered in grime.
You saluted me enthusiastically and said: ‘Minorities oppressed and babies napalmed! Another win for the good old U.S. of A!’ before going stiff and falling over on your face. Your invisible friend took you away after that. You were out for a while.
And I remember waking up later, thank you for your… enlightening account.
I would say anytime, but I think it would be best for my blood pressure never to be near you again.
I get that from a lot of women. Now, I should go reconsider whether I’m going to carry around a Bayou Co. product, like, everrr again. End recording. Wait, uhh, magic word is… theicelos dorsu–
……
Okay, I guess it was a timeskip too. I woke up a while later on a bed of white blood cells, out in the throatways. I sat up abruptly, and all too quickly. A splitting headache materialized as I took in the surroundings. It was just myself, my living bed, and Zerxhe sitting against the wall looking miserable in the all-but-ruined outfit I’d lent her.
“Here’s your sword. It did good,” she offered with a traumatized blank tone.
I made the mistake of shaking my head, then rectified it with a health potion. Back on my feet, I accepted my sword and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “In the area past where the noble went missing, there is a cityscape. Inside, you will find baths and soap. You are temporarily released from duty.”
She jumped up. “Thank you!”
And that was all she said before promptly disappearing down the hall. I sighed, checked myself for damage, and went back to work. Lemme tell ya, that was the last interesting thing that happened. Though it was late, I didn’t feel able to sleep. Not for lack of tiredness or anything, I had plenty of that, but the pain in my kidneys, lightly-downgraded migraine, and severe nausea were a little too in the way.
The whole dungeon line was destroyed, all 4 chambers . The first was the main nest, fortunately. It was the largest and most open. In all, the initial fight had killed about 90% of the leeches, and the white blood cells could eliminate the rest, as they were scattered and easily surrounded. Despite calling for him a few times, I never did see Gibby again. Just a bunch of white blood cells doing their jobs, cleaning up the mess. Just in case, I'll drop a 'RIP Gibby' right here.
Acid resistance. That really was the crux of the issue. The way Levi cleared out parasites was to flood areas with bile, but this batch was immune, and they could get oxygen by sucking blood. Nasty things they turned out to be. I spent an hour or so exploring some very unhealthy looking flesh tunnels that it appeared the shoggoth had dug and resealed. Probably dinner runs that he had to shut behind him to get some uninterrupted sleep. The white cells were also kind enough to pile up salvageable loot as they cleared the mess. I picked through the piles for valuables that were actually worth cleaning.
In time, the healing spray ran dry, the loot collection slowed, and the leeches were all but extinct. I went to report the good news to Levi, who was much more short with me, but ultimately grateful to hear the results. I did apologize for missing 500+ shots out of my 100 round supply. I had my money, Levi was on the mend, and Zerxhe was at the helm as we were spat out into the cool night air.
She sniffed the breeze. “So fresh. I thought I’d never smell it again.”
“Weren’t you going to be reassembled even if you died?”
Zerxhe’s horns popped out a moment, sensing the nearest concentration of sexual energy, then she spun the wheel and set a course. “No. They’d put me back together just long enough to inform me I was fired and my insurance was canceled. Then I’d probably be melted down for use in making a new succubus.” We locked eyes. “I’m living paycheck to paycheck here.”
I nodded sympathetically. “Well, I guess I saved your ass in more ways than one. Now, before I go try to take a nap, can I ask you what happened after I drank the potion? It’s a bit blank.”
“Oh, um, yeah… you–”
“Wait a sec. I want to record this for later.”
……
“Alright, that should be enough to hire a small crew and buy something that fits you better,” I stated, dropping the last of the gold pieces into the pouch whilst Zerxhe changed into a less corroded outfit.
“Do I owe you for the destroyed clothes?”
“Nah, I buy in bulk. It’s part of the job. Now, with the specs of this ship, you just need one person working the helm at any given time and it should be smooth sailing, literally. 2 hirelings to break it into shifts, an outfit for you, and enough food and water for the trip, you can manage, right?”
She dropped herself into the chair across the captain’s map table. “Yeah, I think I can pick all that up pretty easily. I’ve snuck into pirate crews before; good business there, lots to learn too. What of the leftover money?”
“Anything leftover stays on the boat, so feel free to get some nice food or veteran sailors if you can afford it.” I pointed to my hand. “See this ring? You shake my hand and it’ll cement our agreement, including paying you out automatically when you finish your task, and notifying me if you go off track.”
Zerxhe stuck her hand out with no hesitation. “Well I need the fucking money. This ship will arrive on-time and under-budget, sir.”
We shook. She flinched from the brief burning sensation of the obsidian ring. “Attagirl. But if you could only pick one, I’d prefer ‘intact’.”
At that point, we parted ways. She had a job, and I had at least 36 hours of uninterrupted free time before my flight out. Hell yeah. I was destined for an early morning nap, with the crack of dawn quite literally on the horizon. I just had a little rumor quashing to do about a small leviathan-related incident.
Even if it was approximately 4:52:36.02 in the morning, I was still accosted by people who recognized me from the wedding, and had heard the terrifying tale of the crew I chartered. Damn industrious seaport hours. After some internal deliberation, I told a much-simplified version of events. Levi called me because they were feeling poorly and wanted a quick checkup, mmhm. No further detail required. And it didn’t even spoil Ettrel’s post-wedding euphoria because they were already off on their honeymoon. I actually hadn’t thought of that. Phew.
I got back to my cabin and was out like a light. I woke up 9 hours later, and still felt tired. Wind was in his hammock, which was the first time I’d verified that he’d made it off the leviathan… oops. Probably should have checked earlier. Thus began the most lovably boring 1.5 days I had in a while. Timeskip?
Timeskip.
……
My overnight landed in the airport and I disembarked into the morning crowds. One quick call to the office and Pokle informed me that she’d sent Pyroshir to pick me up about an hour ago, leaving me enough time to grab brunch first. That led to me focusing on holding onto my food with all my might as we careened across the countryside. There is not a drop of Tennessee Walker in that horse I swear to god.
We hit the office at 1pm or so. I dropped off the massive sacks of loot in the ‘needs sorting’ section and said hi to whoever was in, which wasn’t a lot of people. Pokle informed me that she’d filtered out and covered about 60% of my mail while I was away. Good woman; we really needed to have that talk about changes in pay and workload. In fact, that was the primary thing on my mind as we rode home, until Pyroshir interrupted me.
“I feels weird today, do you feel weird?”
Bro, what the fuuuck, this better not be foreshadowing. “I mean, I just replayed my least-favorite Zelda dungeon IRL, so that might be doing it for me, why? What kind of weird?”
He bucked slightly as he walked. “Maaan my ass be itchin’, n’ I feel kinda ill, y’feel me? Jus' not on my game. This neva happens, I swear. Last time wuz, what, hunned years?”
I gave some people the stink eye for being weirded out by a talking horse. You’ve lived all your lives in a fantasy world, get over it. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a good brushing when we get home, then again before bed.”
“Mmm MMM, scritches. Get your bud to do some too, he owes me for hitchin’ a ride back home.”
And that’s precisely how I spent the next 10 minutes after getting home. It really shouldn’t make a difference, but rather than making horse noises and faces that say ‘aww, yeah, right there’, having the horse literally say—out loud—‘aww yeah, right there’... makes it weird. I partially retract my prior judgments to the local townsfolk, 20% less, take it or leave it.
I was shaking my head as I walked up onto my front porch. The strangeness had me absentminded as I put the key in the door. But then, it fell inward. The mere push of inserting my key sent it slipping off its clearly unpinned hinges. Not only that, but the inside was dark, and caked in snow. The ice traps had gone off.
Something grabbed me from behind and we were briefly falling. I landed in a wooden chair in a room of deep gray-red stone brick, etched with demonic sigils. I sat at a table, alone, with an empty chair and heavy door across from me. There was ink, paper, and quill on the table. I looked up, seeing a portal in the ceiling. Through it, I could see the roof of my front deck overhang. A paper noise brought my gaze down.
STAY HERE
That’s what the note said in big, bold, twice-underlined letters. Then, the door opened and I heard footsteps running away down the hall. It all clicked. I just got protective custodied. The wind had done his job for once. I just wanted a bath. I frowned and shook my fist at the closed portal.
“You better not have stolen my nice soaps you bastards!” I yelled in genuine anger. (They were out of production.)
My face twisted into one of worry, even of the dreaded ‘yikes’ variety. Someone had broken into my house. That wasn’t necessarily unheard of, but the part where the whole neighborhood didn’t wake up to the screams of burning, frozen, or lightly dismembered perpetrators… that wasn’t right. That led me to a hard truth.
Whoever had done it was good.
I looked up again at the still closed portal. “I hope you’re okay up there, Grif.”