Characters: Vic, Eric, Cain, Joan, Raven
Scratching at air for an imaginary handhold, Vic, Eric, and Cain continued to plummet down, down, down towards the steaming vortex of water below. The pot beckoned them, mocking their doomed fate almost, as bubbles burst like fireworks on the surface. Their screams echoed through the night as they experienced the longest two-foot fall in the history of man. Is this really the end of our intrepid heroes?
Unfortunately, no. Just as they could feel the water ready to peel away their pale, gamer skin, Raven flipped the pot upside down. A boiling waterfall cascaded into the fire as the three goofs crashed into the copper bottom of the pot. They staggered to their feet, realizing that Raven’s hand was all that held them over the cackling flames.
“Ugh!” Joan groaned. “Why did you do that?”
“Because,” Raven said, eyeing each of the guys in turn. “These nerds are friends with that Malkav.”
“So?”
“So that Malkav is Siarra’s boyfriend, for reasons beyond my understanding. But I think we can safely assume that if the nerds are here, then Siarra is here as well.”
“Oooh… I get it! We can use them to find Siarra.” Joan smiled, doing a small jig by clapping together her heels as if the idea was hers. “And if they don’t know, we can eat them!”
“Yeah,” Raven said, turning to face the guys. Her hand remained steady on the pot handle. “So what will it be? Do you know Siarra?”
“What dost thou want with Miss Siarra?” Eric demanded.
Raven tilted the pot slightly, sending Eric and his friends scrambling to the other side. “I’m asking the questions here. That’s one strike. Two more and you’re kindling.” She smiled, for once, and looked at Vic and Cain. “Now, I hope you two have a better answer for me.”
“Y-yes,” Vic sputtered. “We know Siarra.”
Joan frowned. “So much for dinner.”
“Have you seen Siarra recently?” Raven asked, her darkened eyes washing over Vic like arctic water.
“…Yes, we were traveling with her.”
“Why aren’t you now?”
“We got separated.”
“You got shoved in this thing,” Joan said, holding up the golden scepter.
“Yeah, um… It’s a long story.”
“We have all night,” Raven said, casually rocking the pot handle as if she were cooking marshmallows over the fire. “Not sure how long you guys have, though. I’d say about thirty seconds.”
“Okay, okay!” Vic said. “We’ll…tell you. Everything, I swear.”
And so he proceeded to tell them everything. He told them of the LAN party, of reaching the Abbey with Siarra and her friends, the meeting with Kendira and the two disciplines of Dai Celesta, their run-in with Gena and Roxanne on their power trip, the kidnapping of Frankie, Narsis and the virus that was keeping them all trapped in the virtual reality world, the quest for the Sacred Beetle, and, most recently, how the evil Cleric on their team named Aisha turned to the dark side and cast them into a scepter prisoner before hurling them out to sea to be swallowed by whatever fish or human girl they came across. And up until that last part, Joan and Raven believed them.
“That’s two strikes,” Raven sighed. “How do you like your newbs, Joan?”
“Well done. Very, very well done.”
“Cajun-style coming up!” Raven lowered the pot into the flames.
“No!” Cain shouted, his strong dwarven voice thundering over the sizzling fire. “What he says is true.”
“All of it?” Raven inquired.
“Well…”
“…Three.”
“No! No, not all of it!”
“Do tell.” She didn’t lift the pot. Their clothes were beginning to burn and Joan went to get the tobacco sauce out of her knapsack.
“The last part… Aisha’s not evil! She put us in there because we were…acting like idiots.”
“Now that I do believe,” Raven said, lifting the pot out of the fire. She brought it down next to her heels and dumped them onto the cold forest floor. “Looks like dinner we have to wait, Joan.”
“Aw!” she whined. “I never get to eat the newbs…”
“This may be more serious than you realize, you hyperactive twit. If what they’re saying is true, then that explains why we can’t shut off our game helmets. We must really be trapped here.”
“We have to find Siarra,” Eric said. “I’m sure she’s looking for us now.”
Raven stamped out the fire with her thick leather boot. “Doubtful. Let’s be honest here. You guys are ancillary characters at best—comedy relief, if you will. Siarra and her friends are not going to waste time tracking you down when this world and all of its habitants are on the verge of extinction.”
“Well, what do you suggest?” Vic asked.
“You said your team broke up into two groups. Didn’t you have some sort of rendezvous place where everybody was going to meet?”
“Yeah… The city of Felwinter.”
Joan stuck the top half of her body into her knapsack, dug around, and pulled out a faded yellow map. She knelt down and unfolded it on her thigh, running her finger up and down it. “Felwinter, Felwinter… That would be…about…like…umm…” She checked the nearest tree for moss.
“Thirty miles east of here,” Raven sighed, pointing over Joan’s head to a giant sign nailed to the tree with ‘Felwinter –> 30 miles’ marked on it.
“We can be there by dawn!” Joan remarked, stuffing the map back into her knapsack and swinging the strap over her shoulder. “And don’t worry, I’m a Provisioner! I have everything we need in my pouch here.”
“Kind of like a kangaroo?” Eric asked.
Joan replied by hopping around on her toes with her legs pressed together.
“…There’s really no escaping it,” Cain muttered under his breath. “The stupidity seems to follow us everywhere.”
Well, it was right about then that Joan tripped over one of the legs they had used for the fire and crashed down on top of Cain. He welcomed the pain, though.
“Next time, please kill me…” he said as Joan crawled to her feet.
“Come on,” Raven said, scooping up Cain, Vic, and Eric. She opened one of the side pockets of Joan’s knapsack and dropped them inside. “You’ll be safer in there.”
Cain looked at his friends and then let his legs drop, falling back against the soft leather interior of the pocket. “Somehow, I feel that as long as we’re around girls, we’re never safe.”
Giantess World
