The stones were finally quiet and all was silence. She checked her health bar. Calista was all healed up. So she pulled herself to her feet and tried to listen. Wait. What’s that smell? She thought about that. Wait. Why can I smell?
She reached up to take her headset off and ended up touching her hair. Fumbling, she felt around her head but found no headset. Where did my headset go and why does it smell like something died in here?
The smell hadn’t been there a minute ago. It smelled like a dead body that had been decomposing in an enclosed space for months. She had to get out of her V.R chamber and find out what was making that smell. She reached to her left and to her right, but her hands couldn’t find the walls where the emergency release was. And then it hit her. She wasn’t lying down, she was standing.
Why am I standing? She reached down and felt at her feet. She was wearing boots. What the hell? Her hands traveled up to her legs where they felt the leather pants that she had equipped. She felt along her belt and her pouches and then up to her leather jerkin. Okay, that’s enough gaming for tonight. I’m out. She reached up to access her H.U.D but her fingertips struck the bottom of a metal cage. She froze.
Oh no.
The metal was cold on her fingers and she could feel the weight of something inside the cage. Why can I feel that? She lowered her hands. Holding them an inch from her face, she could barely make out the faint outline of her fingers. What the actual hell?
She had been in a V.R bed. The headset, the gloves, the body suit. She had never used a neural jack, so just how was she here? She had always been able to log out by simply lifting her headset before. Why not now?
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She reached up again and touched the bottom of the cage. Why do I know what that is? She remembered back to when she had first entered the dungeon and she had found the dead mage hanging in a cage from the ceiling. That smell is horrible. Hands shaking, she reached into her belt pouch and pulled out her penlight, and tapped it against her thigh.
As the glow lit the room, she could see before her a small table of twisted wood hammered together with rough iron spikes, and laid about it were hooks, daggers, shivs, spikes, a sickle, a thorned whip, a collar made of spikes, and a curious device that looked like an iron gourd. I’m in a torture chamber. Above her, as she suspected, was the cage complete with a decaying body. The rotted head was slumped against the bars, its mouth hanging open in what she imagined was a cry of anguish.
There was a table before her made of twisted wood hammered together with rough iron spikes and laid about it were terrible tools. Spikes, a sickle, a thorned whip, a collar made of spikes, and a curious device that looked like an iron gourd or pear. I’m in a torture chamber. Above her, as suspected, was the cage with the decaying body. The half-decomposed head was slumped against the bars, its mouth hanging open in what she imagined was a cry of anguish.
Other devices lined the walls. An iron maiden, a bronze bull, a spiked chair, an iron tub, and a rack where a man might be pulled apart. Then at the center of the room was a fire pit where any of the metal instruments might be employed and a pillory, two boards conjoined with holes at the center to hold the victims in place. Another skeleton hung here, as if for decoration.
Then she saw a shadow move in the corner. It was pale and white against the gloom. Stepping forward, she held her pen light high. As the light neared the thing, she saw it had long, dark hair and pale white skin and it held its hands up to shield its eyes from the light. Calista felt her blood run cold as she wrenched her blade free of its scabbard.
Then a door opened as voices entered the room. Women. Calista spun on the balls of her feet, tapped her light off, and ducked behind the nearest piece of furniture.
Two pair of heels clicked into the room. One torch lit another and then the women were whispering. One of them sounded anxious, the other bored and cruel. Calista could not hear every word, but they were talking about her, about an ‘interloper’ who had infiltrated their master’s dungeon and now they were looking for ‘her.’
More clicking heels. They were searching the room. I’m still in the game, I’m still in the game, she told herself. I’m in a game. I’m in a game and I can’t be hurt.
One set of heels was clicking toward her. She readied her blade. When a horned face with red eyes appeared from around the back of the chair, Calista stuck the point of her weapon right through the monster’s throat. The succubus let out a gurgle as Calista grabbed the woman by the base of her neck and pulled her off the blade. Then she came around the corner and rushed the other woman. The dark skinned elf saw her coming and raised her whip but it was too late, Calista brought her Emberblade down between the woman’s neck and shoulder and the sword cut clean through the bone until it had lodged itself halfway down the woman’s breast. Calista let the elf fall to her knees before she put the heel of her boot to the dying woman’s chest and pulled her blade free.