I cocked my spaceball back, ready to launch at the first ugly pork face that approached me.

“Nah eh eh eh,” said one of the hogs, waving a finger at me. He stood out as the group’s leader. “You can put that away now, wizard boy.”

Two hogs produced bows out of thin air, each nocking arrows with glowing, yellow tips.

Great.

Archer Mage Hogs.

“See them arrows,” said the lead hog, taking a step toward me. “They hit you anywhere and you're dead. Even a nick’ll stop your heart. So don’t give ‘em any reason to let loose, you hear?” He took another tentative step towards me.

“Why ain’t we just kill ‘em now?” said one of the archer mages.

“Yeah, and how’d he get in here anyway?” said another.

The lead hog glanced back at his group. “Boss lady is gonna wanna talk to this one. And we’re gonna need someone to blame for this,” he said, motioning to the dead gorgon. “The church is gonna shit themselves when they find out their money gorgon is dead.”

The lead hog turned back to me. “Now, we can do this the easy way or the fun way. Either way, you’re coming our way. You hear?” The hog took another step towards me, sneering, slobber dripping from a broken tusk. “Hey, boy, did you hear what I said? Are you even listening to me?”

“He’s just standing there, staring off into nothin’,' said another hog.

“Grab him,” said the lead hog.

I heard all this chatter going on, but barely registered any of it because I was too busy dropping experience points into my abilities. I needed something to get me out of this, and fast.

Thanks to the gorgons, I had enough points to finally activate the Two-Finger Pow Pow ability with some left over, which I dropped into my locked Telekinesis ability.

The description for the Two Finger Pow Pow appeared in the Abilities Tab of my interface.

Two Finger Pow Pow

Description:

We know some people like to complain about the actual definitions of scientific terms like antimatter and black holes, so we kept this description a secret in order to, you know, try to keep sensitive feelings from flaring too high. *cough, cough*.

This weapon utilizes both a hand gesture and an audible trigger. Point two fingers with your thumb up in the shape of a gun and say the word “POW” to fire.

It’s that easy.

What comes out?

Well, let me ask you this first: What happens if you take a blackhole the size of a pea, slather some antimatter goo all over it, and stick it on the tip of your finger? No one knows, because it’s never been done before. It doesn’t even make sense. But inside Lynn Ella World, you get a pretty bad-ass science defying explosive round of ka-pow, that’s what.

I allowed myself a quick glance at those glowing arrows then closed my interface just as they grabbed me. One gripped my right arm, another gripped my left, and another punched me in the stomach because, why not?

They bound my wrists in front of me as fast as they could with some sort of twine, then all together they dragged me towards the lights and sounds.

I thought about trying my new gun out right there and then, but decided against it. I could try to fight but that would only inevitably end with one of those golden arrows sticking out of my ass.

So I conceded.

I made no struggle.

I made no fuss.

But that’s okay. They were going to take me directly to the boss lady and that’s exactly where I wanted to go anyway. That two-finger pow pow would come in handy, but later, at the right moment. If that moment ever came.

What I needed was a distraction, some sort of manufactured chaos if I had a chance at getting out of here.

Chat Alert

Notification

Yuri: Jack, why did you just let them take you?

Jack: Where are you?

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Yuri: Hidden.

Jack: Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan. Get the prisoners out. I don’t think anyone is standing guard up there anymore.

Yuri: They’re going to kill you.

Jack: Maybe. Maybe not.

Yuri: You can’t die on me … Not yet anyway.

Jack: Nice.

Truth was I had no plan. Or I had a few wisps of what could possibly end up as a plan if the right parts came together, but mostly I was making this up as I went.

We passed by a row of side-turned barrels, all of which had spigots plugged into them. I kept an eye out for any young gnomes serving drinks. From my conversations with Gruda, I knew that Gilda had bright green hair and yellow eyes. Most of the gnomes filling up drinks looked elderly, and I couldn’t spot anyone in this lighting with that particular coloration.

As we passed by the DJ booth and the bonfire, many eyes fell on me. I saw hogs whispering to each other, pointing at me, shrugging. Some of them laughed. Some paid me no mind at all, too consumed with their drinks or the bodies of others.

The whole menagerie of half-hog, half-human was honestly something of a messed up nightmare. Most of them were naked, but I couldn’t tell the males apart from the females very easily given how hairy both sexes were. They had hair in places I didn’t know hair could grow. Felt like I was thrust into the middle of a petting zoo from a rave-pounding hell.

When my hog entourage finally came to a halt, we were in the dimly lit section of the cavern, just off to the side of the main arena where the ground was cratered with naturally heated pools. Torches on long sticks protruded up from cracks in the rocky cave floor. Stalactites and stalagmites littered the area like the teeth of an enormous creature frozen in time, dripping, dripping, dripping.

Many hogs were lounging, most in the water, some near steam vents that periodically farted bursts of sulfuric fumes. The music from the DJ was soft enough back here to have a conversation, but still heavy enough to make the water ripple.

The two hogs holding my biceps shoved me to my knees on the edge of the pool. One of them put a warning hand on my back to keep from rising from the prayer position they had me in.

Five hogs, all of them female (I think), floated waist deep in the mid-sized pool in front of us. Flames from the torches made shadows dance across the cavern walls behind the pool and across their ugly faces. One hog in particular was much bigger than the rest. Her shoulders and jaw line were wide and strong, but her breasts, although covered in tawny chest hair, were easily the size of melons. Those alone distinguished her from the mosquito bite sized boobs surrounding her. They floated on the surface of the water, bobbing there like decapitated heads.

She was leaning up against the back of the pool, her arms stretched out, holding herself to the edge. She looked very relaxed.

This had to be the big bad boss bitch.

“Is this what was causing all those pretty lights?” said the big breasted hog in a surprisingly voluptuous voice, which was very unsettling.

“Killed the gorgon, this one did. We saw him do it,” said the hog holding my right arm.

“And you didn’t think to intervene?” said the female hog. She spoke to him the way a teacher on the edge or her patience would speak to a naughty student.

The hog cleared his throat. “Well, we were, uh … wanted to make sure—”

“I’m sure you didn’t think to ask him why he killed the creature either, did you? And where are the other two gorgons? Dead as well I presume? The church sent three, am I correct?”

The hogs looked at each other, dumb (dumber than normal) expressions on their face.

“We just figured he was after the church’s coins,” said the lead hog.

“You figured that,” said another hog, in defence of himself. “I didn’t figure nothing.”

The boss lady growled and adjusted herself in the pool, covering her face in her hairy hands. “I’m surrounded by imbeciles,” she said through her fingers. “You two,” said the boss lady, pointing at two hogs, “Run back there right now. check on the prisoners, and find those other two gorgons if they’re still alive.”

“Now onto you, human,” said the boss lady, looking at me. “Your name is?”

“Jack. And I assume you’re the infamous Angelica Farkish-Garber? Did I get that right?”

“Oh, you’ve heard of me?”

“Only bad things, don’t worry.”

A subtle smile, or what could possibly pass for a smile under that wet snout, appeared on her face.

“You’re a magic user, yes?”

“You are too.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You really have heard of me. Are you alone?”

I cleared my throat. “Nope. There’s five more of us hiding in the shadows, waiting for my signal to use our magic to kill you all. Unless you let me go. Trust me, you don’t want to piss these people off.”

The hogs standing beside me glanced around nervously, but Angelica squinted her eyes at me, incredulous.

“You’re lying,” she said. “You are alone, aren’t you?” Then she laughed out loud and slapped the water. “He lies! Look at him. Look at how scared the poor boy looks.”

The hogs around her all burst out with laughter. I laughed softly to myself as I stared at my shadowy reflection in the water below me.

“So, was it the coins you were after? Or my prisoners?” said Angelica.

Before I could answer, a hog came running back, out of breath. He leaned over, his hands on his thighs, panting. “Boss, the prisoners. They’re … they're gone. All gone, I say. And it looks like they took the coins too. Almost all of ‘em.”

Angelica shot me a glare so sharp I almost felt it penetrate.

“Kill him,” she said.

“Wait,” I said, “I have one more thing to say.”

She growled.

“I was wondering if you liked your bacon crispy or extra crispy?” I said.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Because, Angelica Farkish-Garber, you’re about to get your big, pork-ass sizzled.”

I snapped my fingers, blew on my thumbs, and thrust my hands into the pool.