Hello all. I hate to do this, but im in a little financial problem right now. So I have no choice but to do this. I will start accepting donations starting this week. I promise a minimum of 4 chapters a week, of either OOAK or JTTW. Every $50 donated will go towards an extra chapter which will be uploaded by the end of the week, with a maximum of 10 chapters per week. The release will be random, but i will try to balance between the 2 ongoing fictions that i have. the link to the donation site will be in my profile page. Once again, i apologise for having to resort to this, but i would like to thank all of you in advance for your help and constant support.
----------------------------------------
“Oh! Uhh… wait. Do you guys have any clean clothes?” Harvey suddenly stopped and asked them just as they took a step into the house. He looked at the party up and down as he inspected their dirty and messed up appearance.
“Huh? What?” Victor asked in a surprised tone. He had not caught what Harvey had asked since he was too busy being stunned by what he saw. The interior of the house looked nothing like the exterior. It was spotlessly clean, literally. The interior had smooth white marble floor that had been polished to the point that he could see his own reflection, and white tiles on the walls tessellated with a mix of calming baby blue and refreshing lime green. Even the air was surprisingly cooler than the outside which was humid and warm due to the summer heat within a forest right next to a river.
“Do you have any clean clothes?” Harvey asked once more.
“Uhh.. yea. Why do you ask?” Victor replied, a little lost as to this stranger’s question.
“Ok then, leave the patient with me,” Harvey instructed, stretching his arm out to carry Kiria in a Princess cradle from Nortrem, “and go clean yourselves in the river. Leave all your armour and weapons near the cat and return when you are cleaned up. This is a clean environment and I want to keep it that way.”
Watching Harvey carry their teammate away without any further instructions, the party could only reluctantly let her go with the strange man as they turned back around to wash up. The team quickly began taking off their steel armour and leaving them in neat piles near the lazy Pritor which did not seem too bothered. Soon, they were all in their underwear, scrubbing themselves down in the river. Despite the sun having set, the lights from the bridge kept the place pretty bright, so they were still able to see their footing underwater.
After a quick half an hour of heavy scrubbing and washing, the team came back up from the river, dripping wet, only to find that the Pritor was busy biting on one of their armour pieces like a chew toy. Their bags and equipment were strewn over the floor in a mess as the Pritor made a makeshift bed out of their clothes and hemp bags. It was already drooling visibly while biting on the armour, globs of sticky saliva forming thin threads as they fell from its jaws to be soaked up in their clothes.
“uhh… Victor, what do we do now? We thought the animal was going to guard our possessions for us, and that’s why we followed that man’s instructions and placed all our belongings with the cat,” Clara asked, her long waist length chestnut hair still dripping wet, no longer tied up in a bun.
“I’ll try to snatch it back. Maybe we can still wash it, then start a fire nearby and dry them,” Victor answered, as he sneaked up behind the Pritor who was preoccupied with its new chew toy. He made his way towards the large predator without making any noise, the waterfall masking the water dripping from his body. The moment he got close enough, he slowly crouched down and extended his arm, aiming to grab the edge of a piece of cloth that was near the cat’s bum.
*Swish!!*
With a sudden flick, one of the three daggered tails of the Pritor swung down, making a cut in the ground just mere centimetres from Victor’s fingertips. This action made Victor quickly flinch and recoil, backing away from the cat. As he looked at the Pritor, it was still laying down with its belly on their clothes. The metal armour was still in its jaws but it stopped chewing, its golden eyes staring at Victor.
Clearly, this was the Pritor’s way of saying, “Don’t touch MY stuff”. Then the ends of its lips curled into an arrogant smile while the 2 white stripes on its face began glowing. With a smug look on its face and 2 white spots glowing on its face, the Pritor turned its attention back to the piece of metal and continued chewing.
Victor was shocked. Everything they had is now within the strike zone of the Pritor. They were left with nothing but their underwear, and so were unable to even put up a struggle against the apex predator of the jungle. Victor’s eyes were locked on the sword lying near one of the Pritor’s tails. Plans began forming in his head but none of them seemed viable.
“Why don’t we ask the man? I’m sure he can get our things back for us,” Trish suggested, looking at Visage who was returning to the riverside slowly. Then, Trish saw what Visage was about to do and sneered, before turning his gaze away from him.
“Alright then,” Victor replied, stretching his next to look at what Visage was doing. “Hurry up Vish! How the hell can you pee so much when you drink so little water!?”
Within moments the party had made their way back to the entrance of the cabin, only to discover that the sliding glass doors were not moving even the slightest bit. However, hung on the inside of the glass door was a sign written in Grakian letters that said, “Busy. Come back later.” Try as he might, even with his strength, Victor could not pry the doors open.
“What do we do? Were we tricked?” Visage asked with a worried tone. “Kiria is the daughter of a rather influential noble. You don’t think he’s doing… that… to her do you?”
“I don’t know Vish!” Victor snapped back in an annoyed tone. “We better find a way to get these doors open. See if we get break the glass. Our weapons are with the Pritor, so let’s go grab a large rock to smash the door open.”
Rushing past the Pritor once more, the party hurriedly combed the riverside for any large rocks they could use. Victor spied on the Pritor as he passed by, noticing that it had lost interest in the armour, and was instead eating out of the sack that they stored their dried meat. Ignoring it while secretly glad that the beast was preoccupied, Victor followed his party and soon enough, returned with a heavy rock the size of his head.
Back at the entrance, Victor was panting heavily as he looked at the glass door. He had been pounding away at it with the rock for the past 10 minutes but all he’s managed to leave was a few small white scratches on the otherwise flawless glass surface. The rest of the party had taken turns as well, but no one could compare with Victor in terms of strength. Even then, they still could not get inside to check on Kiria’s status, much less protect her.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Victor! Look!” Carla pointed as she grabbed Victor’s attention. She was pointing at an open window on the top floor. “I’ll see if I can get in there and sneak Kiria out.” Victor nodded to her suggestion, knowing full well Carla’s climbing proficiency. Within moments, Carla was making her way up the side of the wall effortlessly, her hands gripping the logs firmly and using them as steps to climb her way up.
Hanging from the edge of the open window, Carla looked down and smiled, giving a thumbs up to signify that she was ok and ready to enter. With the approval of the rest of the party, Carla nodded before gently hoisting herself over the window ledge and landing gently on the third floor. She was quiet as a mouse, not even making the slightest noise when she landed.
Suddenly, sirens began blaring and a red strobe light began flashing all throughout the building. “Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!” the speakers screamed out in English as Carla tripped the pressure sensitive sensors on the floor. Within split seconds of the alarms ringing, a large steel bulk door came crashing down in front of the glass door at the entrance. Steel plates shut the windows tight, not letting even a peep of light in. Carla was trapped, in the storage room, partially blinded by the bright flashing red lights.
After a brief few seconds of shocked confusion, the alarms switched off abruptly. Everything was quiet as usual, except Carla was still stuck within the storage room on the top floor. Victor and the rest nervously gazed at the metal shutters where Carla had disappeared behind, the horrific look of worry clearly displayed on their faces. Now they had 2 members of the party trapped within this stranger’s house, and none of them knew what was going on.
With the alarms shut off, Clara’s vision readjusted quickly. However, what she saw terrified her. In the room she was locked in, there were shelves after shelves of sharp knives, small saw blades, pliers, needles ropes. There was even what looked like a bed with leather cuffs for restraining a victim. There was also plenty of equipment she had never seen before, but was too scared to imagine how they were used. There was one that looked like 2 metal plates attached to handles and connected by ropes which she assumed was used as a sort of blunt weapon to bash a victim.
A torture house. A mad man’s torture house. As her imagination ran wild, she began panicking like never before. Just what kind of lunatic had they gotten themselves mixed up with? And worst of all, she was trapped here, inside the house! She couldn’t care less about saving Kiria. Saving herself was more important. Stumbling back towards the steel shutters, she began pounding on it as hard as she could, screaming her lungs out for help.
“Guys!! Help!!! This guy is a lunatic!! He has all sorts of torture tools in here.. please… please… save me…” She wailed as her pounding became even stronger. She was bawling her eyes out.
This was supposed to be a rewarding mission, paid by Kiria’s family no less. Kiria’s family was the largest merchant conglomerate in the city, handling over 80% of all business transactions and import export taxes from merchants. The Pritor had been preying on merchant wagons recently, affecting business; hence they put out the mission to get rid of the problem.
Hearing her desperate cries, Victor and the rest were dumbstruck. A mad man? Torture? Just how did they end up in this situation? Completely helpless on the outside, with two of their own trapped inside. Should they run to call for help? But even then? Would people believe them? That is if they even make it to the city alive. The panic spread like a contagion, quickly drowning Victor, Nortrem and Visage. However, as their faces began to contort in anguish and desperation, the metal bulk door suddenly swung open.
Victor’s immediate reaction was to look up, only to be disappointed that the metal shutters for the window remained closed. The glass doors then slid open as Harvey walked back out calmly. He looked at the trio outside, naked, and dripping wet, either from the river water or their sweat. Either way, Harvey was finding it hard to keep his laughter in.
“Why are you lot naked?” He asked while stifling his laughter.
“You! What did you do to Kiria and Carla!?” Nortrem swung into rage as he pounced forwards, clenching the front of Harvey’s brown cotton robe. As intimidating as Nortrem would have liked it to be, the scene looked a tad pathetic, watching a man much shorter than Harvey trying to threaten him.
“Your injured friend is resting. She is recuperating. She will take at least 3 to 4 days to recover, but I would like to keep her under observation for at least 6 days. As for your other friend who is stuck in my storage room, I chose not to open the window since she was panicking. Wouldn’t want her trying to jump out the window and injuring herself. So, would you care to explain why you three are naked?” Harvey explained, trying to calm Nortrem down.
“You told us to leave our things with the Pritor! Now we can’t get them back!” Visage complained, pointing at the large black cat that was tearing their clothes to shreds, trying to make a bed out of them.
“I said to place your belongings NEAR the cat. I didn’t say to give them to it. That’s your own stupidity. Anyways, I’ll have some clothes prepared for you, so dry yourselves up with this first,” Harvey sighed as he grabbed a few towels nearby and threw them to the party. These were towels he used to wipe the windows, but they would have to do for now.
Harvey did a quick scan of their bodies, recording their measurements and then transmitting the data to the fabrication room. By the time the trio were done drying themselves, Harvey came back down the stairs with three sets of army camouflage uniforms. They quickly put it on, surprised by the quality of the fabric as well as how it fit them perfectly.
Bringing them up to the storage room first, Harvey opened the door, only to have his face bashed by the defibrillator handles. Carla took the opportunity to quickly rush past her captor, only to be caught by Victor and Visage. Looking at them, she was stunned, but calmed down considerably. It took a while to explain the situation, but finally, she too put on some camouflage uniforms and settled down.
“Alright then. The patient is resting, so you need to be quiet,” Harvey instructed as he pushed his finger into a small socket in the wall, transmitting a password to open the doors to the ward.
----------------------------------------
1st chapter of the week.
0 / $50