Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Chaos

As Belle fell back into her awkward, gyrating rhythm, sliding back and forth over Jace’s featureless torso, he couldn’t help but recall all those articles he’d read about actors mocking how unsexy filming love scenes were.  This whole process was about as much of a turn-on as having a tooth drilled.  The witch seemed to be getting something out of it, though, as her moaning started to rise in volume.  She leaned back, sitting up straight, and released her hold on his arms.  Jace thought he should be able to move, but with a squeeze of her thighs, she transferred her grappled hold on him to her legs, and he was still Helpless.

Gracie wasn’t encouraging.  {The good news is that you will wake up in the chair behind me a few moments after she kills you, and we can be done with this whole mess.  The crystal will return to its home at the end of that horrible module, and the Germans can go away.}

Jace doubted that.  Their “hosts” would probably torture him into telling them how to pass the puzzle at the end.  Either way, he didn’t want to give up yet.  There had to be something he could do.  It looked like she was preparing to cast another hex that would presumably suck his life out.  So whatever he was going to do, he needed it now.

Belle’s vocal performance suddenly took a drastic turn as her voice rose an octave and gained an ear-piercing screech that had Jace cringing.  He felt a spray of liquid on his chest and found he was no longer Helpless.  Curious, he shifted his position under the witch and saw a bloody sword tip emerging from her pixilated chest.

Jace’s confusion lasted only as long as it took the woman to topple off him to the floor, and he saw Esther standing on the foot of the bed, a rapier extended.  The weapon looked oddly familiar, but she didn’t hold her pose long.

{Sneak Attack,} Gracie announced.  {Looks like she never left the room and hid in the shadows.}

Unfortunately, the witch wasn’t dead.  Her 300 Hit Points dropped by 78 from the critical sneak attack, but she was far from done.  She also wasn’t a beautiful woman anymore.  She looked like a wax statue of a female goblin that had spent too much time in the sun.  This definitely wasn’t art, but the game’s sensors didn’t think it was that titillating either, so Jace got to see the hag in all her splendor.  He wished he couldn’t.

“What is the meaning of this?” she hissed in rage as a 2-handed scimitar appeared on a belt around her waist.  She drew the weapon and squared off against Esther, who hopped down from the bed holding two rapiers.

“I’m done serving you.  I’m done feeding you innocent victims.”

The two women circled each other slowly in the large room.  Jace rolled off the other side of the bed, unfortunately away from his kilt, but he took a round to fetch his halberd from his inventory.

“Have I not treated you well?” Belle cackled.  “Do you not get the most succulent treats?  Do you not live in luxury?”

Esther spat on the floor.  “I am trapped in a dark room, forced to feed on innocent victims drugged by your whores downstairs.  I want more.  I want to see the realms.”

The witch laughed.  “Insolent, foolish child.  You want to see the realms?  You can’t even leave this building.  Or have you forgotten?”  The hag quickly stepped toward the window on their side of the bed and struck the curtain rod.  The drapes fell to the floor, and the last light of the setting sun streamed into the room, shining a spotlight on Esther.

The former vampire squinted into the brightness but didn’t otherwise flinch.  Belle waited for the undead creature to burst into flames, but it never happened.  Esther smiled at her former master and attacked.  Right before they engaged, a shimmer enveloped the witch.  The spell cost her a round, and Esther got three free hits, but they all sparked off the witch’s protective shield.  Esther had to dive out of the way when the older woman attacked back as the massive scimitar sliced just above her head.

The two fighters reset and began trading strikes.  Esther was black lightning, her blades and body a whirling display of agility.  Belle was more stationary, her scimitar working up and down, either deflecting attacks or trying to slice apart the dancing woman before her.

“How is this going to go?” Jace asked quietly enough that only Gracie heard him.

{Esther has a much better chance of hitting the hag, but only once her protection dispels, which will be a few more hits.  But even when it does, her weapons won’t do enough damage to kill the witch fast enough.}

“But can Belle even hit her?”

As if to answer Jace’s question, the huge scimitar connected with Esther’s side, and the woman’s 150 Hit Points dropped by 35.  She cried out in pain and spun out of the way just in time to avoid another devastating attack.

“Should I step in and help?”  Jace watched as the slight shimmer around the witch disappeared, and the subsequent two attacks from Esther landed, doing ten damage each and dropping the hag to around 200.  But the next attack from the older woman hit as well, and now Esther was below 100.

{Do the math.  Letting Esther kill Belle will strengthen her bond with you, but I don’t think she can do it alone.}

Jace stepped around the bed as he watched the women in front of him go a round where none of their attacks landed.  It looked like Esther was pulling back.  She knew she could hit the witch but getting close would put her at more risk.  When Jace was still ten feet away, his dial appeared, thanks to the reach of his halberd.  Standing behind Belle, he watched as the critical range of his weapon shifted depending on where Esther was.  If they flanked the witch, Jace could crit on an 11, but if they didn’t line up correctly, he would only crit on a 16.

Jace attacked through the 18-slot, ensuring he would get only one critical.  The witch cried out in pain from the 30 points of damage and spun around to face this new assailant.  Jace hastily picked the Stun option.

[Stun Protection.]

“Crap,” he said as the witch hit him for 68 damage.  He was literally naked with no access to his totem.  His armor class was garbage, hence the critical.  He attacked again, lining up the 20-slot, but wasn’t rewarded with a crit and did 33 damage.  Esther was flanking from behind and added her own critical strike and a regular hit doing an additional 37 points of damage.  The hag was now under 100, but as her second attack for that round landed for 28, so was Jace, and he couldn’t take another round of damage like that.

The witch had the initiative against him, but before her scimitar struck home, she suddenly dropped her weapon.  Jace saw Esther stab one of her rapiers forward into the hag’s back and twist it in anger.

{One of the rapiers has the Disarm ability, the other has Dispel,} Gracie advised.  {They can be triggered on a critical hit.  She used the Dispel ability when she attacked the witch on the bed, which was why her disguise dropped.  This is what the Disarm looks like.}

Jace didn’t ponder the information too long and brought in his attack for another critical.  He picked Stun again.

[Save vs. Stun.]

The ability was great against goblins and ogres, but when fighting high-level magic users, their resistance was too high.

  As the witch wasted the round to bend over and pick up her weapon, Esther took advantage and tackled the Flat-Footed woman to the floor.  With the added flanking bonus Jace gave her, Esther secured her to the ground on her back before the woman could retrieve her weapon and delivered another devastating strike to the Helpless witch.  Jace didn’t know if Esther could see Belle’s hit points hovering over her head at 15, but Esther held her next attack in check, letting the round end and reset.

Jace didn’t know how long Esther would be able to keep the woman in that position or if she would get a chance to wrestle the vampire of her.  Jace hadn’t been able to do anything when pinned earlier, but Belle had probably had him at a much greater disadvantage.  Either way, Esther milked it, bending down until her face almost touched the witch.  She did nothing but stare at the woman, her eyes inches from the pinned adversary.  She was waiting.

“Those are my rapiers, aren’t they?” Jace asked in a whisper.  “The ones I took from the elf that tried to kill me.”

{Yes.  She picked them off you at some point.  I didn’t notice either.}

“She’s going to keep doing things like that, won’t she.”

{Yes, she has a very progressive view of private property.  Don’t expect her to be honest about it either.  Your choice if you want to keep her in your party after this.}

Jace sighed and watched as another round ticked by.

The Helpless condition reset and gave Belle a chance to fight out of it, but Esther’s reflexes were up to the task.   As soon as the witch flinched, the younger woman stabbed with her right-hand blade cutting through the triple chin of the hag and into her brain.  She died in a gurgle, but Esther held the position for a few moments, whispering something into her ear before withdrawing her blade.  The hag was reduced to a loose pile of skin and bones.  Esther stood, sheathed her weapons, and spat on the body, cursing in a demonic language Jace didn’t know.

She looked at Jace.  “Thank you again.  I couldn’t have . . .” her voice trailed off as she observed the orc standing there completely naked.  “Um . . . is something wrong?  I mean . . . is that how you normally look.”  Her hand went to her mouth to keep from laughing.

Jace was constantly amazed at how she could go from one emotional extreme to another.  He didn’t think she was entirely stable.  He could follow her eyes and knew exactly where she was looking.  “No.  It is a spell.”

She laughed a little. “Good, because Delly told me stories about the one time she was with an orc, and that girl is a liar if you all look like that.”

“I have the magical ability to control how others see me.”  He guessed she didn’t have control over her settings like he did.  Her sexuality was obviously cranked to the max.  The best explanation was magic.

“That must be nice,” she lamented.  “People only see me one way.”

{If you dare tell her that is because of how she dresses, we are done.}

Jace bit his tongue.  Instead, he walked over to his kilt and put it on.

“I really like these swords, by the way.  Can I keep them?”

Jace sighed.  “I would have given them to you if you asked.  You don’t just have to take things.”

Esther gave him a look like he had just said, “You don’t need to eat when you’re hungry.”

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They didn’t get a chance to discuss it further as the door to the room burst open.  “Madam, you must come quickly; we are under attack.”  It was Leah.  It looked like she was going to say a lot more, but she stopped in shock with her hand over her mouth.  “What happened?”  The lump of oozing flesh on the floor could only be one thing.  “And why is there an orc in here?  Esther, what are you up to?”

“Never mind, I can tell you-”

“Never mind!  Our mother is dead.  What are we supposed to do now?”

Esther had her right-hand weapon out in a flash and was at her sister’s neck.  “She was never my mother,” she said in a harsh whisper.  “She used us for her own advantage.  We were too stupid to notice.”

“Esty, what’s gotten into you?  Your breath . . . it’s warm.”

“What did you mean, we are under attack?” Jace tried to change topics.

Leah looked at him, trying to figure out which mystery she was supposed to focus on.  She turned back to Esther.  “Tell me what is going on.  Why is there an orc here?”

{Jace, something strange is going on with your module,} Gracie interrupted the chaos as the two women argued.

“Really?  You mean how everyone notices I’m an orc when we picked this module for precisely the opposite reason.”

{No, I mean besides that.  The ROI chat rooms are blowing up about Portsmith.  People say it just went SIM.}

“Meaning what?”

{Meaning there is suddenly only one copy of it.  When you took Esther out of the module and made her a party member . . .}

“I made her unique,” Jace reasoned.  “Which means all of the other copies of her, all of the other copies of the Gilded Swan, all the other copies of Portsmith had to be deleted.”

{This means all the players who were in their own copies of Portsmith were kicked out and sent to the entrance of this module.}  She paused as Jace heard the familiar sounds of keystrokes and mouse clicks.  {It looks like a travel node was created 2 kilometers from town.  They must have respawned there, and it took them this long to run here.}

Jace raced past the two women and went to the top of the stairs.  He could look down and out over the balcony below.  It was chaos.  People were fighting, throwing fire and lighting, and firing arrows.  And many of them were naked.  A flaming arrow thudded into the wall next to his head as a cry of “Orc!” rose to his ears.

{This is a PVP zone now, Jace,} Gracie informed him.  {You need to get out of here. You’ve earned enough experience to level up, but it doesn’t kick in until you leave the module.  The game gave you 10k for that trick you did with Esther, but now you are only level 8 and have the crystal.  There might be multiple level 15 PCs down there.  Many of them will be able to detect magic.  You are not safe.}

“Why are they naked?”

{You were just naked.}

“Yes, but I was . . .”

{What do you think they were doing?}

Jace nodded, figuring it all out.  “They were visiting the brothel.  They took their armor off, left their weapons on the floor to have a good time, and then POOF, they were sent to the edge of the map with nothing.”

{They are coming back to get their stuff.}

“But it’s all gone, isn’t it?”

{Yes, anything they didn’t have in their inventory was deleted with their copies of Portsmith.}

Jace returned to the room and tried to get the women’s attention.  “Ladies, we need to leave.”

“We can’t leave!” Leah shouted.  “This is our home.”

“It’s not mine anymore,” Esther insisted.  “Jace, I’ll come with you.”

“Would you tell me why you are with an orc?” Leah shouted.  “Did it kill Jezebel?”

Jace heard a yelp behind him and turned to see another of the lieutenants enter the room.  It was the Middle Eastern woman who looked like a buff Jasmine.

“Sisters, we are under attack,” she said.  Her eyes narrowed on Jace.  “But you obviously already know that.”  Without any other warning, she pulled an axe and shield out of nowhere and attacked.

“Delly, no!” Esther screamed, but it was too late.  Jace still had no defensive measures and could tell this woman was strong enough to do a ton of damage.

As the axe came in, Jace wasted the round by dumping all the mana he had generated over the past few minutes into his healing ring.  The critical strike from the axe took it all away, plus 20.  Her next attack did normal damage, which brought Jace down to about 50, but now it was his turn.  She raised her shield, and the 20-slot shifted, but Jace’s practice from earlier paid off, and he got a double crit.  She had protection that canceled one of them, and he took a chance with Stun again.  Delly didn’t appear to be a magic user and was only level 10, like the rest of the lieutenants.  She failed the saving throw.  Her health dropped by 20 from the attack.

Leah was getting ready to cast a hex at him, but he tossed the halberd on the bed and backed away from the woman with his hands raised.  “I defended myself.  I am not the enemy.”

Leah held her spell in check but kept her hands up.  Esther sighed and walked over to the pile of rotting flesh on the floor.  With her drawn sword, she rooted around in the folds of skin until she fished out a necklace.  From the way she held it away from her with a squeamish look on her face, Jace assumed it was dripping entrails or something.  Esther jiggled it a little to clean it and then flung it across the room at the orc.

“Here,” she said.  “Put it on.  You can disguise yourself as a man until we get out of here.”

Jace caught the item, and it felt slimier than it looked.  {Good idea,} Gracie said sarcastically.  {As if that wasn’t the whole reason we came here.}

Jace opened the chain loop and tried to put it over his head, but his arms wouldn’t move properly.

{Oh, I forgot to tell you.  You can only wear one necklace at a time.}

Jace realized what this meant, took off the cheat code Gracie had made, and put the illusion necklace on.  He stored the first one in his inventory, and Gracie showed him how he could program the spell.  The item still had a little mana left since the dispelling crit Esther had done in her sneak attack had ended the spell before the mana was gone.  It was a good thing, too, because Jace was dry.

{It only takes 50 mana for an hour,} Gracie explained.  {You should have that in a few rounds.}  She gave him only enough instructions to change his appearance.  They could worry about clothes later.

Jace left his inventory and looked at the three women gathered in the room.  Delly’s stun had ended, and she held her attacks in check under Esther's insistence.  “How do I look?” he asked.  According to Gracie’s direction, he should resemble his real-life appearance.

“Not bad,” Esther said, a twinkle in her eye.

Jace moved in front of the vanity in the room and looked at his reflection.  If you swapped out the kilt for a bath towel, it was a reflection he was used to seeing each morning.

Esther stood beside him and froze in shock at her own image in the mirror.  As a vampire, she hadn’t seen it in a long time.

Delly noticed something was different with Esther for the first time.  “What is going-”

“Not now,” she cut her off.  They’d wasted enough time.   “Let’s get out of here.”

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