[Starter Level Player: Carissa Acqua.
-An identified Ocean God Oannes has sent you a message.
Do you wish to accept Y/N?]
The first thing Carissa did was collapse on the wooden planks beneath her before she proceeded to vomit up water. The coldness that had sunk deep into her body was gone, replaced by a warmth which lit her up from inside.
The second was to accept the message from Oannes. He hadn’t talked to her or communicated in any form since she had left the Deep Water Purification Facility. Out of fear, lack of power or his secret reasons Carissa didn’t know and she didn’t care.
Power had shifted in her direction, at least once. This time she had gained a little more power, granted to her by the ocean gods to stay in their insane competition a little more. She viewed the message from Oannes with a mixture of disgust and anger. The being had been marginally helpful but also forceful and directing.
‘Open...open...open the message.’ said Carissa as her strengthened throat and organs resisted the pain easily.
[Hello Carissa or shall I say Blessed. Been a long time since we talked. From your perspective. From mine nothing has changed but congratulations are on order. To make it short, I was overruled both in power and authority a dozen times over. On the bright side you calling out to The Tour Guide scared them so badly that they all caved in. I’m sorry for not assisting but outside of my places of power I’m strictly limited. The bonus is that inside a Floating City the ocean gods can’t interfere quite as much. The downside is that you need to contend with new challenges and dangers. One of my priests whom you met already will assist you as best as she can. Oh, and I’m apparently classified as a heretic god now. Good luck and I’ll be watching. Take some time to get used to your new strength and abilities, you’ll need them. Mike says hello. Matthias has to make his own way in but you should meet up eventually. No short-cuts for Starter Level Players.]
A shiver ran through her as the message removed itself and was stored away as she was left alone.
As she was curled up and throwing up cold water and traces of old blood there was a spark from within her once more accompanied by a pulse which hadn’t been there before. An energy of some type had entered her body, despite throwing up she found no physical or mental discomfort.
Her physical form had been reinforced and there was no pain as she shoved out a hand to push herself to her feet and found that it smashed through one of the wooden planks by her side, hand plunging into water and hitting a sea creature below causing it to shatter apart.
A minor weight on her back reminded her that her one sole possession along with her weapon were with her. The spatial backpack was different though, there had been no weight in the thing before.
She’d check it out in a bit. Her own grey suit was badly damaged and large parts of her bare skin were showing but thankfully the scars on her abdomen and pelvic region were still entirely covered.
There was a smell of the ocean, salty water and traces of cooked food and the barest sound of laughter and conversation on the breeze. She had finally entered a place filled with life, not the barren places she had experienced filled with constructs or lack of people.
Civilisation. People. Life. Danger. No Matthias though.
Carissa knew that the young man wasn’t dead but nor could she send messages through the Ocean Gateway System, nor examine her items. There was simply a gap that she couldn’t touch.
A voice came from her side as the bone-tooth club still attached to her arm lashed out of its own accord, searching for a threat to her being. The sensation was interesting, it was a part of her and yet not. More like a pet than her arm, she made it coil back onto her arm and settle down.
‘Blessed one. We have found you at last, your traces were most difficult to find given the vastness and depths of the waters of this world. Be at peace, we mean you no harm. You are the chosen and the deluge that came from the deep grounds let you appear amongst us.’
Carissa knew that voice. The strange woman in the robe.
An ally. Or a threat from Oannes in person. We’ll see.
Having just gone through her final trial which had let her off with a reward which she had yet to understand the gates of the wooden city were open to her.
There was a guardhouse on each side and through the entrance Carissa could see a busy city, full of noise and life.
A city without immediate threat, a chance to breathe a little and to recover. She’d been through enough already that she needed time to calibrate. In the case of her technological implants literally, she’d been able to work out how to enable them but only with a spark of energy. Surgery or direct interfacing could help her the trick but she’d need to find a tool shop first and a sterile environment.
Worthless Ocean Gateway system with so-called powers of the oceans.
Carissa was struggling. Her body had been through enough punishment to reach a full-sized city and the first time that she’d been able to get a break and consider her position within this new world, this reality a priestess had come to her with some bullshit words on religion when before she had offered help.
Not what she had been expecting before she had yet to enter the city proper. There was no system message using her player number nor any visual imagery in front of her eyes.
Just a single hooded figure who stood in her way.
I just want to enter the city. Getting here was hard enough and now I have to deal with religious cultists. Enough is enough. We’ve met and you barely helped. I don’t even know her name.
The same woman was dressed in robes that shimmered slightly in the sunshine, scales or the creature of a marine animal covered, roughly hewn and then stitched to form an outfit, Carissa she knew the voice of the woman.
‘Servant, or is that priestess. Is that fish skin you’re wearing? It stinks, your words stink as well. I was let through the gates of this city because I paid for it. I’ve had a long couple of weeks so I’m going to try and be nice to you. If you even try to touch my beautiful skin then your fingers are either going to be bitten off and make their way down to my stomach to be digested as a nice bit of protein or I’ll consider a worse option. Just get out of my way. I need to sleep in an actual bed for a few days.’ said Carissa.
The gates of the city were only opened to those players who reached a level of status in the game or actually passed the batteries of orders which took the forms of quests given out by the controllers of this experiment in her view.
‘Ah, your companion is safe. He needs to find his own way in through a separate gate. All new starter level players do. In your case I can offer...a little assistance. My name is Glauglau blessed one.’ said the woman as she gave Carissa a deep bow and her robes loosened.
Carissa had worked hard enough and sacrificed to get to this point. And she had been welcomed upon entering the city from a person with religious zeal who was either trying to sell her a pitch or play a trick. For all she knew this was the standard for any new starter level players who survived up to this point.
‘Please, blessed one. I was sent here by the High Priest of one of the gods of the depths to welcome you and provide you with guidance. This is no trick I promise.’ said Glauglau.
‘You have enough salt in your hair, if that it actually hair, to make it hardened. I don’t need any more tricks or quest handouts to players right now. All you need to do is leave me alone. I don’t want to have to fight you, a small bit of respite is all I ask from this delusional game.’ said Carissa.
Her skin-tight grey suit by this point was showing enough flesh to give her enough privacy but still showed off several of her scars gained from when the demi-god had smacked her aside into the metal debris of a sunken naval ship.
The wounds on her body she considered each one a victory for getting this point. Still, civilisation called to her for one main purpose. A place to rest, a chance to work out her next options and a place to build her own power. The few resources that she had been able to hold onto inside her bag could be traded for barter or coinage.. Either that or she would need to resort to violence and hope for the best.
‘Blessed one…do you need further proof of my mission to you?’ said Glauglau. Her head was bowed in respect.
Carissa took a look at the gates of the city behind her, the guards had lost mostly interest in her except for one who was leering and jabbing a fellow guard while nodding in her direction. Another one who mistook her beauty for weakness, for prey and an easy target.
She had learned her lesson the hard way and this one would as well, if only she wasn’t so cursed tired. Trying to calm her overwhelming emotions from overcommitting to a course of action she would further regret she closed her eyes and took in the smells wafting towards her from the city.
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Cooked food, noise and the usual array or humans living together in close proximity. A marked difference from the pureness of the ocean waters of this planet.
She didn’t need a fight right now but if she was asked to commit one more quest than she’d need to hurt someone badly.
Calm down Carissa. Do not be provoked this early into action. Think then react.
‘You want to show me proof that I’m your blessed one? You see that city guard over there?’ asked Carissa.
The priestess wearing the skin of the marine creature raised a hand showing skin that was discoloured light blue, fingers slightly webbed as it pointed towards the smirking guard. Her voice was female, slightly husky as though worn out from over-use.
She pulled down the cowl on her robe revealing her face and bare head covered in various lined tattoos.
‘Blessed one. I see him, he is taking in your beauty. That is all. What is your request. All except immediate death are possible.’ said Glauglau with a smile on her face and a glint on her sharpened teeth.
Carissa smiled. She knew that the guard was just taking advantage of his position and her relative lack of clothing to stare at her, if he’d been brave enough to even talk to her rather than wave her through the gates while trying to avoid looking in her direction then she wouldn’t have thought otherwise.
‘You keep calling me blessed one priest. Or is it priestess.’ said Carissa.
‘I repeat to you. My name is Glauglau. Just Glau to you, and I am a lowly priestess in the service of one of the Ocean Lords. Thank you, I see the guard remains looking at you. Do you want to talk to him blessed one?’ said Glauglau.
‘Glau. As a woman of beauty, I don’t mind admirers but I like them to be honest with me. You keep calling me blessed one, so treat me like one and do me a favour.’ said Carissa.
The priestess straightened her body and bowed forward before lifting her head up and pulling down an unseen hood. Her face was tattooed but her skin was unevenly coloured with shades of blue, her hair was matted and covered in salt roughly tied up.
‘Blessed one. He is ugly, if he were handsome then it would not matter so much. Is this not, correct?’ queried Glauglau.
‘A woman after my own heart Glau, but it’s more his cowardice than his looks that offends me. If I’m your blessed one then go and teach him a lesson, try not to go further than removing one of his eyes. Body parts are important to a man. In fact, just humiliate him. Physical punishments seem to matter less in these parts.’
The priestess smiled, the tattoos on her face creased, as her teeth were shown. Several of them sharpened to points. As one of her eyes failed to focus on Carissa, she realised that it was a prosthetic, either glass or another material. Realistic enough to pass a brief look it had an odd look about it, not ugly, not entirely but still not a perfect match.
‘To be a city gate guard is a privilege not a right but I understand blessed one. I will take his pride and manhood for you. Ah, blessed one you asked me not to remove his body parts. I will show you there are many ways to take away the most important part of a man.’ said Glauglau.
Carissa smiled to herself not, she decided to sit down on the cool stone floors and let the water lap over her feet and lower body. Her skin-tight clothing strained a little in protest but failed to tear any further. Deciding against trying to fix it she just held on tight to the waterproof back that held her belongings and winnings, the voice of the system had been left behind as soon as she had entered the city gates.
Perhaps it realises that all of us so-called players needed a decent break from being told what to do and constantly rewarded and punished in alteration.
The guard looking in her direction made a gesture with his hand and arm as there was laughter from several of his comrades inside the gatehouse who were enjoying the sound of this little bit of street theatre. Carissa’s hearing heard both female and male voices laughing, she gave consideration to herself that they could even have been ex-players who simply stopped the game and chose to settle down in a relatively secure location.
Carissa took pity on him and waved a hand in his direction eliciting more cheers and boos from the guards inside the other side of the massive ramshackle gates.
Winners and losers’ boys and girls. Show me what you can do. Glau.
The guard turned to face his friends and held out his hands as small objects were slapped into his waiting palms. A clinking sound rang out as he smiled and stuffed them into a side pocket on his makeshift uniform.
‘Excuse me. Ser.’ said Glauglau.
The guard looked to see Glauglau with her hood down and one hand holding tightly onto her scaled robe. He grunted at her appearance, his eyes checking her swiftly to see if she was armed or posing a threat. Then his eyes narrowed slightly as he saw her scaled robe.
‘A priest, no. Another religious nut. Aren’t you in the wrong place sister? Your temple kin prefer to go to the inner districts. Your kind doesn’t belong at the entrance. I’m a bit busy right now, we’ve placed a wager on how long it takes that beauty to decide to talk to us. I’ve just made eighteen tokens by betting that she’d wave in my direction. I was the one who waved her through. You can let me and my friends work out the rest sister. We don’t need any religious rites performed here.’ said the guard.
‘Ser. I need to ask you a question from the blessed. Do you know what men value the most?’
A voice called out from behind the guard, inside the gatehouse.
‘We got a bet going here. Get lost. We don’t need any en-pee-cees getting in our way. Why when we first wound up here, I was able to rack up so many kills an-’
‘Shut up Marson. You’re not a player any more, none of us are. We don’t need the grief of the religious nuts getting on our case, running the gates is a sweet gig already. Don’t ruin it for us.’
‘Tell her to shove off then Rider. Or I’ll do it. We don’t need her kind here.’ came the voice of the guard calling himself Marson.
Rider just sighed and held his hands out to show that he had no weapons in them.
‘Sister, I don’t know what men value the most but right now I just want peace and quiet. All we were doing was having a little bit of fun with a new player. I mean check out that skin-tight suit, it’s an upgrade when we started but I recognise the design. We all do. I’m going back inside the guard house now. Our fun is over, I recognise that. My name is Harvey. You can tell her that. Harvey Rider.’
Shifting his steps, the guard tried to step back a bit when a blue coloured hand reached out and grabbed his wrist holding it in a tight grip.
Carissa watched from her seated position; she wasn’t able to hear the conversation entirely but the wind carried enough of it for her to get the gist of the situation. The guards were gambling with her as the target, the main source of interest in her mind were the actions of Glauglau. She had done little to the guard but get his attention. But judging from her words, the next steps she would take might be more interesting.
Useless people who talked without action were of no interest to her. She’d been naiver and more gullible once, first with her ex-husband Liam who sold her scientific research for profit and also from the few initial players who had hoped to save everyone. If this religious priestess was the same then Carissa would drop her from her life as well.
Show me what you plan to do Glauglau.
Make it worth my time.
Rather than have time to react the guards first instinct was to shake off the grip of the woman, she had grabbed part of his palm and wrist letting her fingers dig in somewhat.
‘Get off. Get off me. Get off me!’ said Rider.
‘Ser. Your eyes and words deride one of the blessed. I can tell that you desire her body. Here. Would you prefer mine instead?’ said Glauglau.
With one hand holding onto the wrist of the guard, the other pulled onto her scaly marine skin robe pulling it from her body with a sudden movement into the air before letting it fly and land behind her. The sudden movement made the guard flinch before he stared at her apparent nudity, there were a series of small scars criss-crossing her body.
Her toes were webbed at the base and her chest was tightly bound with bandages; her breasts covered. Around her waist was a simple covering bound by a tight belt adorned with sharpened teeth and sea shells. The belt buckle was an image of a fish head with humanoid features.
Her now free hand grabbed a small shell that had been altered to have a keen edge and cut a hole into the rough crotch clothing of the man before dropping it to the wet flooring.
‘Ser. Aren’t you hungry for the taste of a real woman. Or do you ex-players prefer the company of each other? Give me your manhood.’ said Glauglau.
The guard struggled harder placing both of his hands on her wrist trying to dislodge her hand without success as he felt a cool breeze of air enter his nether regions.
Reaching out with her free hand the uncovered priestess tore opens the fabric and pulled out the genitals of the male guard displaying them openly.
Raising her voice the priestess called out, her tone mocking and slow.
‘Blessed, he isn’t reacting to the feel of a woman. Do you know what men like?’ said Glauglau.
Carissa chuckled. To her this piece of street drama had proved far more entertaining than she had originally thought.
‘Show us some more skin. Take it off, take it all off!’ Carissa joined in.
Without speaking the priestess grabbed harder feeling the softness beneath her fingers. She talked over the shoulder of the guard towards his friends in the gatehouse.
‘Sers, Mers. Your friend appears to have lost his bet. If you wouldn’t like him to lose any more you need to take him back in. He’s too soft for me. Leave his winnings here at his feet, slowly now. The blessed appreciates your understanding.’ said Glauglau.
Letting goes of the man’s wrist who had by now switched both of his hands trying to get the priestess to remove her hand from her genitals he stumbled when she released her other hand.
‘Ser. You are lucky. My name is Glauglau. Go, report this to your commander and see his response. If you’re lucky she’ll only laugh, she’s an old friend of mine. Take your manhood intact and leave.’
‘Yu-yu-yu. Can-can’t.’ said Rider.
‘Go.’ replied Glauglau.
The guards two companions, a thin man and a taller portly woman came out of the gatehouse behind him and half-carried, half dragged him back inside.
Another approached and threw a small sealed pouch onto the ground in front of the priestess. As she bent down, she picked it up and threw it behind her without turning her head in the direction of Carissa.
Keeping her gaze fixed on the retreating gate guards she shook her head and took several steps backward until her legs were standing above her abandoned robe. Taking hold of it with two webbed hands she pulled it over herself again before turning back to the guards who had been edging towards the doorway, hands on weapons at belts.
‘Do not. You want to fight me but do not. Leave it and go.’ said Glauglau with a hard look in her eyes.
She stood there without moving but let her gaze turn towards the other gatehouse in which four similar looking guards were stationed and were looking out of the doorway.
Carissa reached a hand into the air and took hold of the pouch that slid on the wet surface of the gate entrance in front of her. Without looking at the contents she dropped it into her personal bag, she’d examine it later if necessary.
More wealth was always welcome, she needed funds for her entrance into the city. She had no idea of what currency if any she used, granted that all she had was her weapon, a damaged grey suit and her spatial backpack which had changed.
‘Blessed one?’ asked Glauglau.
‘Yes Glau. You meet my expectations, now let’s get a drink of what passes for distilled water around here and you can tell me why you keep calling me blessed one. Don’t you know my actual name? Or you can tell me exactly where Matthias is granted that I know he’s in the city but not where.’ said Carissa.
‘My apologies Lady Carissa. The High Priest of the drowned gods told me to respect your privacy. Also, in answer to your unspoken question, the system grants a small reprieve to those who enter a city for the first time. This too is a law of the gods of the fathoms. Some would consider it a reward. Your companion will turn up, if he survives and finds a way in. He is more capable then you think’ said Glauglau with a smile on her face and one arm resting on her previously injured arm.
Carissa unfolded her legs and stood up, her body swaying slightly. She’d need more protein in her stomach first and then a decent amount of fresh water.
‘The only reward I needed was to see that so-called man humiliated. His manhood was pretty small after all. Let’s get a drink and a bite to eat. Matthias can wait. He deserves it for forcing me into combat without support. The idiot.’ said Carissa.
Holding out her arm she let Glau take hold of her as the pair walked past the entrance into the briny, salty airs of the city.
End of Book 1