Chapter 98: Book 2: Chapter 3

(Following some complaints I have revised chapter 2 a little. It is not demonstrably different. Merely changing some of the emphasis and stressing the optional nature of comfort work.)

 

Chapter 3

Day 8

I was enjoying an early breakfast in the galley with Shana and Anastasia. Jackson had already eaten and was up on deck taking his turn on watch duty. Dawn was only a few minutes away, a little later in the day than when this chaos ensued but still at an ungodly early hour.

Our trip thus far had been uneventful. We had sailed south across the smooth waters of Lake Michigan during the afternoon. The weather had taken a slight turn for the cooler and the sky was filled with fluffy white clouds. There was no sign of rain, but the punishing rays of the summer sun had been obscured for most of the trip.

We had skirted along the coast of the Fox and Manitou islands as we passed them. There wasn’t much that we could see without debarking from the ship and moving deeper into the islands. Certainly, no obvious signs of a dungeon on any of them. We did see several monsters, including a carnivorous plant that reminded me of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, but nothing out of the ordinary.

That had been a sobering realisation, monster-infested islands no longer being something out of the ordinary.

We moored up parallel to the town of Grand Haven until dark. Far enough away that we couldn’t be easily seen with the naked eye from the shore. I doubted Luca had advanced as far as the port town yet but didn’t want to take any chances.

After full dark, and assisted by the cloud cover obscuring the moonlight, we made our way upriver. Anastasia expended more of her energy than usual to increase our pace and we sailed up the Grand River and made it through Grand Rapids without being spotted.

We slowed back to our regular economical speed once past the bend in the river that ran through the city and were away from Grand Rapids. A few hours later and we were only a few minutes away from our destination.

I’d decided not to moor up in Ionia itself and were going to stop at a kink in the river roughly a mile before the town centre. We’d hoof it the half a mile north to Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility.

We finished up our plates of scrambled eggs and bacon and I broached a fresh subject I wanted to go over before the coming events pushed it further down my agenda. Shana had volunteered to clean up and I waited until she had returned to our table.

“Shana, I wanted to talk to you about the Concubinage thing,” I said to her.

“There is no need, Torin,” she replied with a warm smile. “I thought after Trisha you would have figured I meant it when I said I don’t mind extra women in our bed.”

“Floozy,” Ana snarked in her small voice, but without her usual venom.

Shana just petted the doll-sized woman on the head with a mischievous smirk and Ana harumphed in response.

It might surprise others that the part of Shana’s reply that I appreciated most had been her use of the term ‘our bed’. I had grown intensely attached to her in the short frame of time we’d been together. Not quite into L-word territory, it’d had only been just over a week, but well on the way.

“That’s not precisely what I meant,” I grinned. “But it is related. I’ve put a fair bit of thought into the mechanics of the system I’ve cobbled together…with Quixbix assistance.”

I had to add the last part quickly. Better to head off whatever griping the touchy imp would throw my way for being left out.

“But my conversation with the cheerleaders had me thinking about some of the practicalities of its implementation. It’s a tricky situation that won’t sit well with many in the early days and honestly, part of me is not entirely comfortable with it either.”

“I understand,” Shana said sympathetically, and she took my hand in hers and rubbed along the back with her thumb.

I appreciated her support, but it wasn’t necessary. Despite my conflicted feelings on the matter, I was resolute that codifying sexual relations with the indentured was the best way forward. If I avoided the issue and left the cards to fall as they may, things would not end well.

We’d all seen or read enough post-apocalyptic films and books to get a general idea of how things would develop. To avoid that kind of devolution an existing structure to satisfy people’s primal needs had to be in place. Make it easy to satisfy their urges and people will be less likely to take matters into their own hands. No matter what was put in place, there would always be exceptions, but they could be dealt with when the time came.

“Anyway, we will need somebody to oversee making the decisions about whether those who want to serve out their time as concubines are suitable and understand what they are signing up for. Decide who they end up with if they hadn’t already come to an understanding with someone and whether the suitor in the equation is equally appropriate.

“If we don’t get this right, the system will fall apart or degenerate and I’ll be forced to crack the whip, if you’ll pardon the phrase, to keep order. History has shown people will accept loss of freedoms if they are comfortable and reasonably happy. It’s when they suffer or think they are suffering they will turn their eyes to rebellion.”

Shana bit her bottom lip as she thought over what I’d said. “I agree.”

“Excellent, because I’d like you to take the lead where concubines are concerned,” I said.

“Me,” Shana said with surprise.

“Why not me?” Anastasia interrupted and stamped her little foot.

“You don’t have the right temperament,” I said down to the pouting blonde pixie-sized woman. “And your solution to any situation would be to feed the offenders to your dungeon,”

“True,” Ana admitted with a slight cackle.

“Is this not something you’d want to do yourself?” Shana queried with a suggestive grin.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’ll admit I’ve thought about it…extensively.”

“I bet you did, captain,” Ana snorted.

Ignoring Ana’s snarky comment, I went on. “However, upon reflection, I’m too lusty, greedy, and subject to a bunch of new racial instincts to make sound decisions. It would be just as harmful if I started bedding and hoarding all the available women.”

Anastasia collapsed on the table in gales of belly-holding laughter at my awkward confession about my lustfulness.

Thankfully her diminutive size dimmed her capacity to be disruptive.

“Secondly,” I continued, pointedly ignoring her. “Although I’m not going to exclude men from becoming concubines for those interested in dudes, I anticipate most candidates will likely be women. I’m sure they would feel more comfortable if it’s another woman making the decisions. I’m confident you will do an excellent job.”

Shana’s grin lit up the room. “So, you want me to be your madame. The gatekeeper to your cock?”

“She’s just as pervy as you,” Anastasia grunted, having recovered from her peals of laughter. “This could be a mistake, you might end up knocking up more women, not less.”

Shana and I looked at each other and then back down at the tiny blonde.

Ana puts her hands on her hips, subconsciously mimicking a Tinkerbell pose. “I’m the ship, remember. I see and hear everything the pair of you get up to and I know exactly what instincts the captain is referring to,” she huffed. “That and I think you forget being a dungeon means I know a thing or two about how this world works. Exclusivity means progeny. I don’t see the appeal myself, never have. Becoming a red rock hasn’t changed that about me, unlike you two.

“Oh, Torin. Is it wrong for me to want your baby,” Ana gushed and battered her eyelashes in a truly terrible attempt at mimicking Shana’s voice.

“Hey, now that I think about it…” she went on in her own unmistakeable cadence. “…isn’t that whole setup massively unfair. The guys can rack up as many girlies in their little harem as they please and pregify them to their heart’s content. What about the ladies who fancy a wide variety of sausage?

“I had a friend Nancy who was always reading these books with like, half a dozen naked dudes on the front. Usually about a witch shacking up with a mix of vamps, shifters, and warlocks and squeezing out babies from each of them or some similar shit. What if Nancy wanted that! Who do we complain to about this injustice?”

The pitch of Anastasia’s voice went up several octaves as her manufactured discontent built to a crescendo.

“Erm…I…” I mumbled.

Quite frankly I was at a loss and hadn’t thought about the receptivity thing from that angle at all. Shana just looked amused at Ana’s tirade. My speechlessness was rendered moot as Quixbix came to the rescue.

<Don’t get your panties in a twist, Bunches. The Framework recognises that kind of relationship too. Provided the hypothetical Nancy’s paramours aren’t dipping their quills in another woman’s inkwell at the same time she can build up her receptivity with multiple men concurrently. It will always work if one half of a pair retains exclusivity.>

“Ah, okay then,” Anastasia relented, briefly, very briefly. “Wait, what about orgy cults and swingers? How does that work with orgy cults?”

“And we’re done with this conversation,” I said with finality.

I scooped up Ana and took Shana’s arm in mine and led them out of the galley.

“I accept,” Shana whispered as we made our way off the ship in the early dawn light.

 

õõõ

 

The new day brought with it a return of the dazzling sunshine, which made the ten-minute hike to Bellamy Creek a pleasant one. After emerging from the small, wooded area we crossed a deserted road that Jackson informed us was the M21, the same road Shana and I had been cycling down last week. If we turned east, it would take us directly into the centre of Ionia.

On the other side of the road, we trudged through a field that housed a shooting range of all things. The range had been installed to provide target practice for the prison’s armed guards, principally those that manned the towers. As we had time, we stopped and checked on the solitary building that abutted the covered range. It was no great surprise that the place had been cleaned out of anything useful.

While the prisons themselves were sheltered by a shield similar in nature to the one at the BuyMart, and what now encapsulated Stormblade Harbour, the ancillary buildings were not.

There was a second small bit of woodland we had to pass through and then we could see the walls of the facility. Well, wire fencing to be exact. Had the place not been shielded it would have been quite easy for organised outside forces to get inside.

I analysed the structure quickly.

 

Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility

Owner: The state of Michigan

Access: Access is currently restricted to those given express permission by the Governor of Michigan.

Mana Enabled Security: Level 10 Protection and Restriction field. Thirty P-10 Sentinel constructs. (Your party has permission to enter)

Durability: 9,875/10,000

Prisoner Population: 842

 

The prisoner population detail was new from the last time I’d been here and was something I could thank my Preternatural Insight for.

The durability was down a notch as well, so either something tried to get in or some of the inmates tried to get out. There was no sign of any prisoners out and about on the grounds. Nor could I see any of the sentinel construct guards. My gut feeling was the damage was a result of an attempted breakout. The shields would likely have been enough to deter any wandering monsters.

The fencing for the facility seemed to run for about a kilometre and this south-facing side had no way in that I could see.

“The main entrance is around to the left,” Jackson updated us helpfully.

I nodded and led the way along the fence.

Fortunately, we’d come out of the woods closest to that corner anyway and it was a short walk around to the front. There was a car park opposite the ‘welcome’ building that had fifty or sixty abandoned vehicles. Many of the doors and boots of the cars were left ajar, evidence that the owners or scavengers had rifled through them for anything of use.

The way into the prison facility was a two-storey grey building. The ground floor windows were shuttered and all I could see was the transfer sticker informing us the glass was bulletproof.

I stepped up to the door, to the right was a large plaque detailing relevant information for visitors. What they could and couldn’t bring into the complex. I had to grin at the fourth item on the list. No firearms. It always seemed funny when you had to specify stuff that should be blindingly obvious.

I reached for the door when Quixbix whistled a warning.

<There is movement in one of those abandoned vehicles right on the edge of my range. They’re mostly obscured but I got a glance of armour, so likely people not creatures.>

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With the imps warning in mind, I changed what I was about to do.

Instead of opening the doors, I faked being blocked by an unseen force akin to what happened at the St. James Community School building back on Beaver Island and stepped back.

“What the fuck?” I cried out theatrically.

Jackson seemed confused and was about to say something. Shana, understanding what I was up to as she had heard Quixbix warning too, surreptitiously touched his arm to forestall him.

We didn’t have to keep up the performance for long. My cry of confusion acted as a trigger. The doors on four of the cars, two on either side of us, swung open and eight hidden men climbed out from them.

They were all clearly armed and armoured.

My focus zeroed in on the biggest of the eight who was also the furthest forward on our right. He was a muscular man with dark green skin and two small tusks that poked out from his lower jaw and rested on his upper lip. I’d caught glimpses of a couple of people in Grand Rapids that looked like orcs, but this was the first time I’d had a chance to get a proper look.

My analysis told me what I already suspected.

 

Sam Jenson (Orc)

Barbarian (U) 8

Character Aptitude: Low

Loot Value: Moderate

Threat: Low

XP Value: 1,820

Current Affiliation: Jenson Clan

 

As we’d approached the small town of Pewamo last week a group of expelled citizens warned us about a family of local troublemakers, the Jensons, who had switched species to orc and taken over the town. I’d decided to take a wide berth at the time, so we hadn’t run into them directly.

This confirmed that not only were they still around, but they were also expanding their radius of influence. And that they hadn’t been swallowed up by Luca’s Grand Rapids Mafiosa yet.

“What did I say, boys,” Sam the orc crowed. “Perfect place to lay a trap. Y’all are shit out of luck,” he said, switching his address to us. “You ain’t getting in there. And there ain’t nobody coming out to help you neither.”

Sam’s weapon of choice was a mace about a foot and a half long. He raised it up as he pointed at the prison behind us. “There is nowhere to run.”

His seven lackeys chuckled darkly.

I let my eyes rove over them, analysing the group quickly. There were two more orcs, three humans, a dogman, and a dwarf. The dwarf was another first. I’d expected to see more of them bearing in mind how popular they were in certain gaming circles.

I supposed the reality of being one was a little less appetising as a life choice.

None of the followers was part of the Jenson family, though they were all officially affiliated with the faction, not even the two other orcs, and they had first tier melee classes, all either level five or six. The dogman, who was a canid human and not a gnoll, was the only one of them with a tier two species.

In short, despite outnumbering us two to one, they were seriously outmatched and didn’t know it. Their misplaced confidence also told me none of them had any kind of analytical ability.

Sam hadn’t finished his monologuing, though. “I’ll tell you what. It’s such a lovely summer’s day I’m in the mood to be generous. Leave your weapons, armour, the contents of your inventory and that hot piece of ass and the pair of you can walk away from this with your hides intact.”

The pair of us would be Jackson and me.

“The girl is mine,” I growled possessively. My instincts kicking into overdrive at the mere suggestion I let them touch Shana.

Sam just smiled at my reaction, and his eyes turned calculating. “My bad,” he chuckled and changed his tone. “I didn’t know I was talking to a kindred spirit. Too many bitch-whipped SJW’s running around playing hero, ya know what I mean right?

“Yeah, sure you do. You’re here looking to break a buddy out of Bellamy I’ll bet.

“Listen, me Mam is always on the lookout for some fresh blood to join the clan. We don’t have to take each other out, something else can be arranged.

“But you’re still gonna have to hand over your weapons and wait a bit while me and the boys get a taste of your contribution first. We’ve got plenty more in town and are willing to share, you won’t be disappointed if you play this smart.”

The conversation we’d had with the expelled group on the road from Flint last week told a different story, but I didn’t need that knowledge to know Sam was a liar. He and his boys could barely take their eyes off Shana, they were practically drooling like sex-starved teenagers who’ve just seen boobs in real life for the first time.

I stared at the orc for a few seconds longer and then smiled brightly. “Shana, do the dog-faced one first and then work your way through the others. Leave Sam for Ana.”

“Fuck off,” Sam roared, suddenly very angry. “I don’t give a shit about whatever weird cuck fantasy you got going on boy. I don’t do sloppy seconds; the bitch gets fucked by me first…and who is…”

Sam’s understandable confusion didn’t last long.

Shana raised her assassin’s bow, nocked, and released an arrow in a single smooth motion. Her first shot was unerringly accurate and thudded into the right eye of the dogman. The poor sod spun from the force of the arrow strike and slammed into the bonnet of a red station wagon before he rolled off and slumped to the ground lifeless.

Sam’s crew were so taken aback by surprise that a second of them sported a feathered accessory in his throat and a third was blasted by a ball of Jackson’s green fire before any of them managed to close their slack jaws.

Not that the outcome of this short battle would have been any different.

As Shana’s first arrow left her bow, I’d sprung into action and sprinted forward, Ice Blades in both hands. Dogman had been on the left; Sam was on the right, so I went in Sam’s direction. Ana popped her head up from my coif and her whip flicked out and encircled the neck of the orc leader.

The human who had been hiding in the same car as Sam had been hit by Jackson’s flame ball. He wasn’t dead but he was screaming in pain from the pretty severe burns he’d received. Ignoring him and Sam I made a beeline for an orc and the dwarf on the same side of the car park.

The dwarf was closer. He had a shield and hammer combo and braced himself for my charge. Heedless of whether I got hit or not I barrelled into him at full speed and bowled him over with my jacked-up stats. Once he was on his back, stabbing him to death was simple.

His orcish companion didn’t aid him and fled instead but didn’t get very far before Ana’s whip caught his leg and tripped him.

“My drain pool is full,” she whispered in my ear.

I’d expected as much and hadn’t wasted any time moving on from the dead dwarf. In a few steps, I’d closed in on the frantically crawling orc. He flipped over and begged for mercy, but I wasn’t in the mood. I’m not sure I ever would be again, to be honest. Several downward thrusts of my blades and his piteous mewling became wheezing gasps for air and then nothing as the light faded from his eyes.

Turning about I surveyed the scene. Everything was well in hand.

There had only been two other combatants on the left. One of them had run at Jackson and had been intercepted by a wave of flame from the young sorcerer. The last had tried to run away as my guy had and offered some leisurely target practise for my beautiful dark elven archer.

Absently I noted Quixbix relaying the experience gained for killing the seven, which was a little over two thousand. They weren’t very strong, so the returns weren’t enough to level me up. Also, as my Notoriety had passed two hundred, I no longer got any plus-ones for character kills if they had threatened or attacked me first.

Although, I did get one extra Notoriety for killing the begging orc who I had at my mercy and chose not to spare.

As Jackson and Shana looted the fallen, I stood over the unconscious form of Sam Jenson.

It was difficult to tell if he was pallid, but his dark green skin did look to be a slightly more yellowish shade. His skin was dried out and his musculature which had rivalled mine before was now withered. He looked like a mouldy prune.

“They really ought to get amulets like the ones you’ve given us,” Ana commented absently in my ear. “Their leather helmets, shitty as they are, provide no protection when I wrap my whip around their throats. I sapped this guy down to two health in less than three seconds.”

“What are we going to do with him?” Shana asked as she strode over to join us.

“I want to question him before we make any final decision on his fate. But that can wait until after we’re done in the prison,” I told her.

“Are we taking him in with us, then?” Jackson queried.

“I don’t want to risk it. I’m not sure how the sentinels will react. See if the keys are in that blue Buick over there, will you.”

Jackson got behind the driver’s seat of the blue sedan and checked behind the visor. Unlike in the movies, the keys did not fall into his lap. He did find a spare set in the glove compartment, though.

We locked Sam Jenson in the boot of the blue Buick. After being drained so completely he likely wouldn’t regain consciousness for several hours.

Hopefully, operation pressgang would be well underway by then and we could deal with him then. If it took longer than expected his very low health and absence of any gear would leave him weakened to the point that I doubted he’d be able to break out.

With that sorted, we stowed our weaponry and made our way back over to the entrance to Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility.

As we walked something occurred to me.

“Quixbix, how come there was only a warning and nothing like a ‘Who’s the boss quest’ from you when these asshats showed themselves?”

<You’ve earned a lot of XP in the last week. Enough to make you one of the strongest individuals in your region, top ten, in fact. Congratulations by the way, and before you ask, there isn’t a list you can view. I don’t know the particulars, only that you are under top ten limitations.

<The lists will become public when Earth connects to the plexus network in six months’ time. Anyway, that means what I’m allowed to give out is being heavily restricted. Unlike when you were level one, when there no restrictions applied, apart from the rewards having to match the difficulty of the task.

<With the restrictions in place about all that is left, apart from my inestimable guidance, is the natural boost to your class quests.>

Class quests were something else I’d learned a little more about. It had struck me as odd that I was getting so many, and Shana had been granted none. Quixbix’s quest for her to sleep with me did not count.

Turns out, class quests were another benefit of high-tier classes. You didn’t become eligible until you reached the fourth tier, like me.

“Only the regional list?” I queried, a little miffed it wasn’t for the whole world.

<Sub-regional technically, which means Michigan. As you go up in levels the list you can feature on expands to include a greater area. You aren’t eligible for the regional list until you reach a certain power level, with your current class that will be somewhere around level twenty-six. The Regional list will cover five or six states. The Continental list encapsulates all of North America and Planetary covers the whole planet naturally.

<After that, you have the Galactic Sub-regional, Galactic Regional, Galactic Sub-Cluster, Galactic Cluster and finally the All-Galaxy list. Each step up that ladder requires a greater level of power to be eligible. We’re talking hundreds of levels to get onto the top lists.>

“Is that common? People gaining hundreds of levels, I mean.”

<For people power-levelling first or second tier classes it’s not uncommon, but even with five hundred levels under their belt, they wouldn’t have the power to qualify for the Galactic Sub-Cluster list let alone the big one. Last I was able to check there were only ninety-two people on the All-Galaxy list. There are probably five or six times as many who could qualify for it, though.

<Your name must be on one of the lists, but you can elect not to progress if you choose and stay on your current one. Although once you advance, you can’t drop back down. Some choose to do this; it doesn’t always pay to be a target for the rewards that being placed on the upper lists provides. And others just want to keep their strength a secret and are willing to forgo the benefits. None of this is relevant until the lists are made public, months from now.>

I stopped walking towards the prison entrance and badgered the imp. “What kind of rewards?”

Quixbix sighed but answered my question. <The sub-regional only increases the influence an individual adds to their associated faction, but then it is the very bottom rung. The higher-level lists can award rare quests, guaranteed invitations to special events, access to an imp or fairy assistant and other such valuable Framework items.

<But now is not the time to be fixating on closed lists. Rewards come to those who strive for greatness, not those who bother imps with questions.>

Every day I seemed to learn something new about the Framework and the Darkwyrlds it had created. It should have been quite daunting but rather than be deterred by the enormity of the challenges ahead my heart glowed with desire.

I wanted to be on the All-Galaxy list, not just on it, but at the very top.

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