Monstergirl Quest, page 1
Monstergirl Quest
Book One
by C.S. Darknight
Copyright 2021 © by C.S. Darknight
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter One
I inherited Gamelord’s Dungeon from my parents when they died. It wasn’t much of an inheritance, I’ll admit. Up until they died in a car crash, though, the store had kept the lights on and always put food on the table.
I’d always loved the place. It had everything that interested me. Tabletop RPGs, retro games, comics, collectibles. Geeks and gamers from all over the county used to come rushing in here on New Comics Wednesday or on tabletop night, when dozens of tabletop gamers would come here to play.
Now, this humble little gamer shop was all but done for.
There wasn’t much I could do to keep business up. Digitized comics destroyed that part of my business. Retro games still did alright but why would someone buy a physical copy of an old SNES game when they could download the entire library online? My tabletop customers were still fairly reliable, but they were a dying breed.
Lately, the only thing that had kept me afloat was the collectibles and, even then, just barely. I rarely had anything that someone couldn’t get cheaper on Amazon.
I sat behind the cash register, staring at the door, like I could conjure some customers into existence if I just stared hard enough.
As I laid my chin in my upturned palm, I began to doze off. I was awoken by the DING from the bell over the front door, and I shot up to my feet in excitement, hoping for a customer.
“Hey Mack,” the mailman said.
“Oh, hey,” I said.
The mailman was a nice older guy. I never did get around to learning his name. He offered me a reassuring smile, though it didn’t do all that much to reassure me. “Don’t worry pal, I’m sure business will pick up soon,” the mailman said.
I chuckled bitterly as he handed me my mail. “Yeah, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”
The mailman left. I tossed the mail onto the counter but didn’t bother looking at it. I already knew what was there.
Overdue bills.
Warnings about back property taxes that I owed.
Offers from various corporate entities wondering if I wanted to sell the place.
I sighed. At some point, if business didn’t pick up, I’d be forced to sell the property. But I didn’t want to. This place wasn’t much to look at, but it was the best family legacy that I was ever going to have.
Well, it wasn’t all bad. Since I owned the place, I was my own boss, so it wasn’t like anyone would bitch at me for playing video games on the clock.
I had my PC set up right behind the counter. I popped open a beer, kicked my feet up, and logged onto Steam. Lately, I’d been playing a lot of weird indie games. I was hoping they’d have something new for me.
As I was scrolling through the new indies, someone caught my eye.
Out front, on the pavement, there was a short young girl staring through the window. At first, I thought she was a kid. It wasn’t until I got a better look that I realized she was a young woman, just very short.
Short and damn pretty, I should have mentioned.
She wore a skull cap tight over her head. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered in at me through the window.
Her face was adorable, yet serious. From here, her eyes looked like they were a complete shade of black.
Her clothes didn’t quite fit her correctly. The baggy hooded sweatshirt was too big for her, the sleeves too long. Her jeans were pooled up by her sneakers. None of this detracted from her stunning beauty. If anything, her awkward appearance made her that much cuter.
She also had a bag strapped to her shoulders. She seemed protective of it. When a random stranger walked past her, she jumped back a bit, looking as though she might take a bite out of the guy.
Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off that short, serious-looking beauty. My legs seemed to move under their own power as I made my way to the door to greet her.
I pushed the door open. She saw me, frowned, and took a tentative step back.
I smiled. “You know, you can come inside if you want,” I said. “You don’t just have to stand out here and window shop.”
Though she made no abrupt movements, her left hand slowly and almost imperceptibly drifted down to her hip. Under her hoodie, I saw the hilt of a knife strapped to her hip.
I put my hands up sarcastically. “No need to cut me,” I said, laughing. “I just wanted to say hi, that’s all.”
The short young beauty looked over her shoulder, as if she were afraid she was being followed, before turning that dark, pensive gaze back to me.
“Are you Gamelord?” she asked.
I laughed. “To my friends online, I am,” I answered. I jerked my thumb toward the sign over my shop. “And it’s also what my dad named this place when he opened it, but I like using it when I’m gaming online.”
She looked confused by that.
“Gaming…online?” she asked, as if she’d never heard of such a thing. She scowled and waved me off. “I’ve brought you something. It’s very important that you take it.”
She slung the bag off her shoulders and thrust it into my arms. It was heavier than it looked, and the force of it almost caused me to stumble backward.
She was a strong little woman, this one. So pretty, so adorable, yet her every movement hinted at an unmistakably feminine athleticism.
“What is it?” I asked. “And, hell, who are you, anyway?”
She shook her head, like she didn’t have time for small talk. “Don’t open it out here,” she said. “Do it in a private place, where no one will see you. Ciara sent me.”
I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “Should I know that name?”
The short young woman grabbed my wrist. It was only then that I realized she wore thick leather gloves on both hands, but they weren’t like any leather gloves that I’d ever seen. These, she certainly hadn’t bought in a department store.
They looked rough, weathered, and obviously stitched together by her own hand.
More interesting than her gloves, though, was the fact that her hand – gloved or not – was gripping my wrist. I couldn’t say that it was unpleasant.
“Gamelord,” she said in a low, serious voice. “Look over the contents of this bag as soon as you can, and make sure you do so privately. When you’re ready, wear the Soulguard so you can speak to Ciara.”
“What the hell is a Soulguard?” I asked.
But then she was gone, having darted away around the corner. I ran after her, but when I reached the corner, she was nowhere to be found.
I laughed. Damn it, I really wished that I would have caught her name.
********
Though I couldn’t imagine why she’d asked me to open the bag in private, I did it anyway. There was something about her demeanor that told me I probably should listen to her.
I took the bag and the heavy item inside of it into the back room of the shop, to my office. No windows here, no places for any prying eyes to snoop.
I unclasped the bag, shook it, and a big, ugly metal thing tumbled out and thudded to my desk, nearly cracking it right down the middle.
“Jesus!” I said as I looked at the ugly metal glove.
Not a glove, no. More like a gauntlet. It was a faded, rusted kind of steel or iron, I thought. It had articulated fingers and a wrist guard that would probably stretch up almost to my elbow if I wore it. There was a round groove on the back side, below the knuckles. It looked like some kind of stone or perhaps a jewel might fit there, but the rim around it was dented, rusted, just like the rest.
A gauntlet, yeah, but it didn’t look like one that could handle any Infinity Stones.
It was heavy enough that I had to lift it with both hands. Oddly enough, this so-called ‘Soulguard’ looked like it would fit my left hand perfectly. Then, a strange thought shot through my mind: Whoever sent this – Ciara, or whatever – did she know that I was left-handed?
I set the Soulguard back down on my desk, gently this time, so I wouldn’t snap the flimsy wooden surface in half. I scratched my chin and looked at the gauntlet uneasily.
Why had that short young woman brought this to me? Who on earth was Ciara? And why the hell would they give this hunk of junk an epic name like Soulguard?
I shrugged. Well, the pretty short girl told me that I should wear it. She seemed pretty insistent about it, as well.
She was probably crazy. Maybe my friends sent her here as a practical joke. But if she did come back, she was way too pretty for me to want to disappoint her.
“Here goes nothing,” I said.
I slipped the gauntlet on. At first, nothing happened.
At first.
In the span of a single heartbeat, a bolt of agony shot through my arm. Like frozen lightning was coursing from my fingers up to my shoulder.
I threw my head back and opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I shut my eyes tight as I tried to peel the gauntlet off, but it wouldn’t budge at all. It was like the old metal had meshed with my skin.
The world ceased to be. I looked around once I opened my eyes but now I was surrounded by endless black, like the world had been covered in spilled black ink.
Then, the darkness rippled. It took on a dim, sapphire sort of shade, and it was like I was staring into a dark lake.
I heard her voice before I saw her. It was a gentle voice, but scared and far off.
“Gamelord?” that sweet voice said from somewhere out in all that rippling dark blue.
“Hello?” I called out, fumbling through the watery dark. It was pretty damn disorienting, so I tried to stay still. I was afraid that if I moved too far in any one direction, I might go tumbling out into infinity.
But then I saw her, just the faintest outline at first. I could make out a young woman, hardly older than twenty-one years old. Her short hair was red, her skin was smooth, and she seemed to wear a shimmering silver dress.
The vision of the girl cleared a little more. She was the sort of perfection that a guy could only dream of, yet strange in a way. Her ears were pointed, like an elf’s. Her nose was narrow, her mouth slim and small, but these strange features only added to her exotic beauty.
Her eyes shimmered like a living rainbow. She smiled when she saw me, and I’m not ashamed to say that smile melted my heart instantly.
“Gamelord, you’ve come!” she shouted through the void.
“Most people call me Mack,” I replied stupidly, too overcome by her beauty to think of anything witty.
It was then that I saw this young woman had a metal shackle around her neck. It was attached to a chain, only a few feet long, that had been bolted to a cold stone wall behind her.
“Listen to me, Mack or Gamelord, your title matters not,” the girl said in desperation. “On your arm, you’re wielding the prophesied weapon of my people, the Mananymphs. You must bring it to my reality and help me and my sisters. We’re in dire trouble, and only the one who can wield the Soulguard can help us.”
Mananymphs?
Other realities?
Dire trouble?
Yeah, all these things should have given me pause, or at least made me the slightest bit hesitant, but this gorgeous ‘Mananymph’ (whatever that was) was just too stunning for me to do anything except nod my head in agreement.
“Just tell me what I have to do,” I said to her.
“The Soulguard isn’t yet complete, but it is functional,” she went on, her distant voice now sounding closer. “It will boost your strength and speed. It will give you the ability to learn magic. Wearing it in my realm, you’ll be blessed with Second Sight, something that only can be bestowed upon the Champion of the Mananymphs. Along with Second Sight, the Soulguard will give you limited control over time itself. But most importantly, with the Soulguard, you’ll be able to restore peace to our realm.”
Well, that was a lot to take in, but just then I remembered something that short young woman outside my shop had said. “Wait, are you Ciara?” I asked.
Before the girl could answer, she suddenly turned in fright at something I couldn’t see, something else that had entered the cold stone room where she was obviously being kept prisoner.
She screamed. Next, there came the vile sound of grunting creatures…only something in that sound radiated pure malevolence and ill intent.
I shouted for her to answer me, to tell me some way that I could help, but before I could, that shimmering watery dark vanished.
Then I was falling, that rippling dark blue gone and replaced once more with stygian darkness. Yet, I didn’t feel as though I was falling down, necessarily. More like I was falling in all directions at once.
However, the Soulguard was already helping me out.
Those frozen lightning bolts were long gone now. Now, as I clutched the metal gauntlet to my chest, it gave me a sense of calm.
No, not just a sense of calm.
My body felt invigorated in a way that it never had before. I felt strong, tireless. Wearing this gauntlet, I was all but certain that I’d be able to drive my fist straight through a concrete wall.
Then, suddenly, I wasn’t falling anymore.
I gasped, sat up, and realized I was sitting in the middle of a strange sort of crypt. The floor was just dirt and soil. The walls were smooth, carved from marble, and strange blue torches hung from the wall. That was to say, the fire burning at the tip of the torches was blue.
In that blue glow, I staggered to my feet, still shaking off the disorientation from my fall. I looked around. This room was a small, circular chamber. It was, I noted, the intersection of four hallways, each lit with that magical blue fire.
I looked down at the gauntlet on my left arm. I flexed my fingers. Though the Soulguard had been damn heavy back in my office, here, it felt completely weightless.
I took my first step toward one of those random, fire-lit hallways and, quite out of nowhere, the entire chamber rippled, like I’d just tossed a stone into a puddle of water. At first, I thought I was just lightheaded, but that wasn’t the case at all.
The room had rippled. It only lasted a moment, but I was certain that it had.
“Where the hell am I?” I said aloud, and listened as my voice echoed down each of those long hallways.
Except, I wasn’t the only one listening. Down one of those hallways, I could hear it.
Something was moaning and headed my way.
Chapter Two
It came up the hallway to my right. My mind struggled to process what I was seeing as the thin, bony figure came running stumble-stagger up the hallway.
No, it wasn’t a bony figure at all. It was a literal fucking skeleton, and it was coming right at me.
Its jaw fell slack and it moaned again. It sounded like the throaty cry of the void, of death made manifest, and I was so busy staring at this thing that should not have existed that I hardly noticed the long, iron claymore it was dragging behind it.
I was so busy being dumbfounded – so busy being sure that this was all just a dream – that I didn’t even have enough sense to run away from the creature as it closed in on me.
I didn’t even have the sense to raise my Soulguard up to parry the blow or defend myself in any way.
All I could do was mutter, “Oh shit,” as the walking pile of bones slashed that long claymore high overhead in a long arc, right before the dented iron blade cut into my neck.
Then the world rippled again.
I fell flat on my ass, madly feeling my neck to make sure it was still whole. I was gasping for air, confused as to why I was still alive. In my confusion and anger, I made the mistake of shouting, “What the fuck is going on here?”
That moan came again, just as it had seconds before.
“Fuck this,” I whispered, because now I saw that skeleton with the claymore running down the hallway again.
I turned and ran down a hallway at random, as goddamned fast as my legs would carry me. I’d never been a particularly swift runner, but at the moment I was bounding down that hallway and hardly having to stop to catch my breath.
Initially, I chalked this up to my fear and the ensuing adrenaline rush. Fight-or-flight reactions, stuff like that, but I was running far too fast, with almost no fatigue.
I cut down another winding stone hallway and left that skeleton in the dust. By now I was laughing, because I was moving so swiftly that no walking pile of bones could ever hope to—
“ACK!” I cried out as I came to a sudden stop.
I looked down and saw the broadsword lodged in my belly. I looked up, at the creature holding it. Another skeleton, this one turning its dark, empty eye sockets toward me a moment before it pulled the blade out of me.
I dropped down to my knees, bleeding profusely, and the next thing I knew, that skeleton drove the blade right through my heart.
The world rippled again. Once more, there I was, alive and well, standing in the middle of the circular chamber.
Then, a very simple concept occurred to me: I just respawned.
The red-haired girl who was probably Ciara had mentioned that the Soulguard would give me limited control over time. I wondered if this was what she’d been talking about?
