Chapter 145
Meeting An Old Friend
Erin and the other maids that were working with her on cleaning the rooms that were used by Golorath’s people had been progressing on their task relatively well. While there had been a couple of cases where they had encountered some of the residents, they had been able to avoid any physical confrontations, which had been a big relief to the servants. They still had a few room left to handle, but they would be done very soon.
However, one of the rooms that was still untouched by them was one that Erin could tell just by looking was reserved only for the most important guests. Judging by the way the door looked and how the maids seemed to be almost scared of it, the redhead could guess who it belonged to. She still needed to confirm her suspicions, though.
“Hey, what’s up with this room?” Erin asked form Julianna. “The others are acting like it’s about to eat them or something.”
“Well, it might as well be a bloodthirsty beast, considering who is staying there,” the experienced maid said. “That one belongs to Golorath’s lady herself.”
“I somewhat guessed that was the case. Glad to see I was right about it,” the redhead mumbled to herself. “So why exactly is everyone so scared? Is she violent or something?”
“Not exactly, but… there have been some very concerning issues that we’ve had with her,” Julianna replied. “She only leaves her room very rarely, if at all. And when she does, she seems to be paranoid and is actively trying to avoid any and all contacts with other people.”
“That seems… rather odd,” Erin said, genuinely surprised by how her old friend had apparently been acting.
The redhead thought back to when she had been in her original world and had last been in contact with Stacey. If there were words that she would use to describe her old friend, scared and meek were the last ones she would ever think of using. Whether she had been a good or bad person, Stacey had always been extremely confident of herself and wouldn’t hesitate to voice any of her opinions, no matter what it was. As one of the beauty queens of their school, there had been numerous people feeding her ego, to the point that she seemed to have gotten the idea that she was literally invincible.
As much as Erin hated to admit it, she herself had been the same. It had been one of the things that had led to the redhead’s current point in life.
“So if she’s just scared of everybody, why should we be afraid of her?” the redhead asked. “I mean, if she’s more scared of us than we are of her, can’t we just go in there and do our work? It doesn’t sound like she’s going to be getting in our way.”
“You don’t get it, do you? It’s not that we are worried about what she might do to us. It’s what other people might do to us because of her,” Julianna answered. “Do you have any idea what her husband could do to us, if she were to tell him that we treated her badly? It might not just end with us, but even the whole Graven Hills could be burned to the ground, just appease his anger. Not only that, but one allegation by her, no matter how false it might be, the people she came here with won’t hesitate to beat, torture or even kill us.”
Erin felt sick to her stomach. Not because of what was happening at the hotel, but because of how much it reminded her of what she and her old friends had done back in the day.
“Don’t worry, though. I’ll take care of it,” Julianna said, having noticed the change in the redhead’s mood. “I’m not about to put some poor rookie into doing a dangerous job like that, so just leave it to me.”
The maid was about to open the door and go inside, when she felt a hand on her shoulder stop her.
“Actually, could you leave this to me?” Erin asked. “I’d like to handle this.”
“Wha-!? Are you serious!?” Julianna asked, surprised by the sudden turn of events. “You do realize the danger you’ll be putting yourself at, right!? This isn’t something you do for fun!”
“I know. I’m more than aware of the risks,” the redhead said. “But this is something I have to do.”
“...What’s your angle here?” the maid asked. “Don’t tell me that you’re trying to hurt her. If you so much as harm a hair on her head, it could very well be the end for all of us! I’m not about to let myself and everybody else here to suffer because you have some vendetta going on!”
“Trust me. I have no intention or desire to harm her. There’s just something that I need to do, no matter what,” Erin said as she walked past Julianna. “Besides, you need to think about someone else, don’t you? Remember why you’re here and don’t simply risk your life needlessly.”
The maid’s eyes went wide and she took a step back, allowing the redhead to move forward. With her out of the way, Erin opened the door and went into the luxurious room.
Once she had closed the door behind her, the redhead was on her own facing the wife of one of the Five Overlords. She began to immediately look around for her old childhood friend, hoping to find her soon.
Unlike the previous rooms she had been to, this one was completely clean. It was almost like no one had even been living there at all. This made Erin wonder just how much Stacey might have changed in the time she hadn’t seen her. Back in the day, her old friend had been quite the party girl, often leaving behind a mess. Considering the position Stacey was in, the redhead would have expected the room to look like a tornado had gone through it, yet there weren’t even any signs of anyone having lived there in a calm manner.
Erin eventually found the bedroom and peeked inside. The lights were off, so she had to let her eyesight adjust to the darkness at first. Once it had, she was able to make out the form of someone laying on the very wide bed.
“Stacey?” the redhead called out quietly into the room, as she began to slowly move her way towards the bed. “Stacey, is that you?”
There was no response from whoever it was that was on the bed nor did they move even slightly. The only thing that told Erin that there was anybody there at all was the steady rise and fall of the covers, indicating breathing.
Having reached the bed, the redhead climbed on top of it and leaned over the person who was covering themselves up. She began to move her hand towards them in order to shake them gently and to remove the covers.
“Stacey, is that you?” Erin asked again, now placing her hand on the person’s shoulder. “It’s-”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!” the person underneath the covers screamed as loud as she could as she began to thrash around violently. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! I WON’T-!”
Having realized the danger she and everybody else in the hotel were from the noise, Erin acted quickly and silenced the panicking woman. She quickly wrapped her arm around the woman’s body in order to hold her still, while placing her other hand over her mouth to silence her. The woman still struggled fiercely, kicking her legs wildly in order to break free. The redhead knew that if she wanted to get out of there alive, she would need to calm her down.
“Stacey, calm down!” Erin whispered. “It’s me, Erin! Remember!?”
image [https://i.ibb.co/g6vPN3x/Ch-145-Pic-1.jpg]
The woman seemed to finally calm down and ceased her struggles. She turned to stare at the redhead’s face with wide eyes, as she recognized the person before her. Seeing that her old friend wouldn’t be causing noise any longer, Erin let her go.
“E-Erin? Is that really you?” Stacey asked in a trembling voice, unable to believe her eyes. “How did you get here? And what happened to your hair and eyes? I almost didn’t recognize you!”
“It’s a long story. Both how I got here and how I’ve changed so much,” the redhead said with a smile. “What I’m more curious about is how you got here. How did you end up in this world in the first place?”
“I wish I could tell you, but I honestly can’t understand it myself!” Stacey said. “One night, I was laying on my bed and looking at my phone, when the screen suddenly starts to glow like crazy. After that, these slimy hands come out of the screen, grab hold of me and pull me in! The next thing I know is that I’m laying on a stone floor in some weird temple or something!”
Erin thought back to when she herself had first come into this world. It was very similar to what Stacey had gone through, except for the last part. While she had arrived indoors at some sort of a building, the redhead had appeared in what was essentially a random town. Whatever the case was, she needed to know more.
“What was that place like?” Erin asked. “Can you tell me anything about it? Were there any people there?”
“All I can say is that it was creepy as hell! But the most horrifying thing were the people waiting for me there!” Stacey said as her body began to tremble from recalling a painful memory. “Erin, they’re here! All of them!”
“Who?” the redhead asked. “Who are here?”
“Those loser geeks from high school!” Stacey answered. “You know, Devin and his creepy buddies!? Remember them!?”
“...Yeah. I remember them alright,” Erin said, a bit upset by the way her old friend was referring to said people, but decided to keep it to herself for now. “So you met them right from the start?”
“Yeah, but they’ve changed! They’re even creepier now than before!” Stacey rambled. “Those guys… They… They have changed somehow! They’ve become monsters or something! And they can boss everybody around, like they own the place!”
“That’s because they do,” the redhead said. “I don’t know how much you know about this world, but Devin and his friends pretty much rule this world. They are in charge of everything and very few people have the courage to stand up to them. Didn’t you know about that?”
“How the hell could I know? Almost as soon as I came here, I was thrown into a cage to become Porky Gabe’s personal pet!” Stacey said, which shocked Erin. “Most of the time I’m kept inside a cage and get whatever scraps are left from that fat bastard’s meals! I only get to come out after I do some humiliating tricks or worship him!”
The redhead felt sick to her stomach. While she was more than aware of how much her old friends had changed for the worse, it always hurt her to hear just how bad they had become. The fact that Gabe, one of the kindest souls she had ever know, would go so far as to degrade and humiliate someone in such cruel ways made her insides turn.
“Stacey, listen to me. I’m going to get you out of here, okay?” Erin said, hoping to bring hope to her old friend. “I’ve got friends with me and we came here to get you. Just wait here and-”
The redhead was suddenly cut off, as Stacey grabbed her by the shoulders and stared at her with eyes full of desperation. She was holding on to Erin like she was the only thing keeping her alive.
“Don’t leave me!” Stacey begged with tears starting to fall from her eyes. “I might have gotten away from Gabe, but his monsters are still here! They’re just as bad as he is! The things they make me do! They… They-!”
Unable to bring herself to say what she had gone through, Stacey broke down into uncontrollable sobs. Erin was left stunned over just how badly her old friend had been broken by her life in this world. Tears fell down her lone eye, as she pulled Stacey into a hug, hoping to offer some level of comfort, no matter how difficult that was going to be.
“Stacey, I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here. I want to get you out of here, but I can’t do it right away. I’m going to meet up with my friends and we will figure out how to get you out of here, okay?” Erin said, as she stared her friend in the eyes. “I promise that I will not allow anything bad to happen to you anymore. I just need you to stay strong and wait for me just a little bit longer. Okay?”
The redhead’s promise seemed to finally calm Stacey down, as she gave a nod in response.
“That’s my girl!” Erin said with a small smile. “Now don’t let anybody know about our talk. I’ll see you soon.”
After waving goodbye to her friend, the redhead proceeded to clean the room in order to keep up with her disguise. When she got out of the room, Julianna was waiting for her outside.
“I heard noises coming from the room. Is everything alright?” the maid asked. “She didn’t cause any issues, did she?”
“No worries. There was just a minor misunderstanding, but that’s about it,” Erin replied. “Thanks for worrying about me, though.”
“Well, I was mostly worried about all of us, since any small issue with her could put us all in danger,” Julianna replied in a slightly joking tone. “Still, you’re welcome.”
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Erin proceeded to finish her work with the other maids and cleaned the rooms Golorath’s people were staying at. With the job done, Julianna advised everybody to go look for things they could help with and to just generally make the guests feel good and welcome. This provided the redhead with a chance to go look for her friends in order to relay them with everything she had learned so far and to come up with a plan.
Knowing that Ryle was most likely still busy with cleaning the baths, Erin decided to look for Zeldana first. She was able to quickly find the relaxation area where the elf was told to go and headed there.
Walking into the large space dedicated for the guests’ relaxation, the redhead was immediately hit with the warm and cozy atmosphere that was hanging over everyone. The temperature had been manually shifted into a level that wasn’t too hot, but just warm enough to be relaxing. To put it in words, it was almost like you were wrapped up in your most comfortable blanket during a cold winter night. Every seat was either a very soft armchair or a couch. There were even beds set up for guests to lay down on and have a massage, and vending machines that held all sorts of drinks and snacks. From the speakers, calming ambient music was playing, combined with the sounds of a beach, allowing you to easily fall asleep.
Erin looked around and noticed that all the guests were wearing bathrobes and slippers to match the environment they were at. All the workers were still wearing their maid and butler outfits, as they moved around, tending to the needs of the guests.
Suddenly, the redhead spotted Zeldana, working on massaging one of the guests. She was about to call out to her, when one of the butlers stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder. He pointed to a sign on a nearby wall that said “SILENCE.” It seemed like the hotel took some rather extreme methods in order to allow their guests to relax.
After giving a quick apologetic bow to the butler, Erin walked over to where Zeldana was. From what she could tell, the elf was in the process of giving a massage to a large ogre, who was laying on one of the beds. While she couldn’t tell if he was one of Golorath’s people due to only wearing a bathrobe, she could tell that whatever Zeldana was doing was very effective. The ogre had a face of absolute bliss as he enjoyed the treatment he was getting.
“Hey, Zel, do you have a moment?” Erin whispered to the elf. “I kind of need to get the group back together and talk to them. Are you currently busy?”
“Sort of. As you can see, I’m hands deep in work,” Zeldana replied, as her arms had literally sunk into the layers of fat the ogre had. “But give me just one more second and…”
image [https://i.ibb.co/B346cRv/Ch-145-Pic-2.jpg]
Whatever the elf did next caused the ogre to lift up his chin, as his smile went as wide as possible, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his whole body began to shake. There was even a bit of drool that fell from the side of his mouth. He then went completely limp with only an occasional twitch here and there.
“...That was disturbing,” Erin said as she stared at the ogre with a wide eye. “What the hell did you do to him?”
“Oh, nothing much. Just stimulated his body a bit in a manner that made him feel rather good,” Zeldana said nonchalantly as she took off her rubber gloves. “I said that my touch was able to bring people to heaven.”
“Yeah, I remember,” the redhead mumbled. “Is he… dead or something?”
“He’ll be fine. No need to worry,” the elf replied. “Although, he is going to want to change his underwear soon.”
“Ew… That’s nasty,” Erin said as she pinched her nose. “So are you free now?”
“Pretty much. At least that pile of satisfied customers over there tells me that I am,” Zeldana said, pointing to a nearby area, where a bunch of guests were laying about with similar blissful looks on their faces as the ogre. “So, what exactly are you in the need for?”
“Well, you know the person that we were looking for?” the redhead asked. “I actually managed to find and talk to her. Turns out her situation isn’t quite what we had expected. I want to tell others about that and to make plans.”
“Sounds good to me,” the elf said. “I saw Durge at one point, so I know where he is at right now. He should be able to tell us where Arnie is. It might be difficult to get in touch with Ryle and Lexton, though, seeing as they’re probably stuck in the baths right now.”
“It’s fine. As long as we can get in touch soon, it should be okay,” Erin said.
The two headed to where their orc companion was currently working at. All the while Erin couldn’t help but think back to her meeting with Stacey. Even if their mission hadn’t turned out the way it should have, she was still determined to save her friend, if for nothing else than to prevent Gabe from doing further cruel deeds.