Monster Girls, page 18
I reached back behind me and tried to grab the arrow, but it was right between my shoulder blades. I couldn’t reach it.
“Parch!” I gasped.
He appeared midair.
Yes?
“How bad is it?!”
Well, thanks to Flesh Wound,
you can’t die from it!
“That’s NOT what I ASKED!”
Your dexterity is severely limited now,
unfortunately, as is your strength.
“How long till I can use Dryad’s Gift?”
A counter appeared on Parch’s surface, starting at 25:12.
“Dammit!” I groaned.
“He’s still up there!” one of the soldiers down on the ground yelled. “Back up till you can see him and shoot him again!”
“Motherfucker,” I moaned.
Luckily, his shouting triggered my backup plan.
I didn’t have to worry about the archers because their attention was immediately drawn away from me by a familiar voice shouting, “Hey, all you sexy living people!”
“It’s a lich!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Two of them!”
I raised my head and looked out across the roof to the well-lit grounds behind the mansion.
There stood Urt and Vurt.
Vurt put his skeletal hands behind his head and swiveled his hips suggestively like he was a hoochie in a dance club.
Then he began chanting in a sing-song voice, at which point Urt added in a little call-and-response like a backup singer.
“Do you like it when I do this?” Vurt called out seductively.
“Uh-huh… UH-HUH…” Urt answered.
Vurt jumped around in place, squatted down with both hands on his knees, and began gyrating his bony ass.
“It is sexy when I do this?”
“Uh-huh… UH-HUH…”
I’d told them to provide a distraction.
I hadn’t expected this.
But it did the job.
The Baron’s men all stood there, stupefied, mouths hanging open.
“What is it DOING?!” one shouted in horror.
“That’s OBSCENE!” another cried out.
Vurt jumped around to face them again, put his hands on either side of an invisible booty, and began air-humping it.
“Do you want me when I do this?”
“Uh-huh… UH-HUH…”
“Do you want me to stop this?”
“Nunh-unh… NUNH-UHH…”
“KILL THEM!”
Thirty soldiers from all around the manor rushed towards Urt and Vurt, yelling and waving their swords. The group of soldiers outside the dungeon joined them.
Vurt froze mid-thrust.
“…uh-oh,” Urt said.
The two skeletons took off running for the woods as fast as they could.
The soldiers were only 50 feet behind them as the two bony cousins disappeared into the woods.
The soldiers kept running after them and were just about to enter the forest –
When a hundred voices ROARED from the shadows.
Suddenly a swarm of dead guys poured out, everything from butt-naked skeletons to fully armored cadavers. Urt and Vurt led the charge, yelling as they swung their rusty swords.
The living soldiers froze – then screamed in terror.
Some fled. Some fought.
No matter – the liches cut down the ones who held the line, and quickly caught up to the ones in retreat.
Urt and Vurt went back to their singing, although with a far more sinister cast to it this time.
“DO YOU LIKE IT WHEN I STAB YOU?”
“UH-HUH – UH-HUH!”
“DO YOU LIKE IT WHEN I KILL YOU?”
“UH-HUH – UH-HUH!”
More soldiers ran out of the manor – including archers.
Dozens of arrows struck the rampaging liches.
Didn’t matter. The arrows just stuck in their bodies and didn’t slow them down in the slightest.
An occasional sword strike from one of the soldiers might lop off an arm, but the liches kept fighting.
Now was my chance.
I slid back down to the edge of the roof and yelled, “Help! We need reinforcements – we’re being overrun by an army of the dead!”
A little Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell reference there…
A voice shouted up from the iron door beneath me. “We’re not supposed to leave our post!”
“You fool,” I cried out in pretend anguish, “if you don’t help us now, we’ll ALL perish! The Baron himself is wading into the fray – come help us!”
There was a slight pause… a muttering of voices arguing amongst themselves… and then I heard the metal bolt sliding back.
The door swung open and four guards rushed out.
The jailor remained inside. As soon as the guards were out, he struggled to close the heavy iron door again.
I tried leaping down off the roof – but to be honest, it was basically more like I rolled off and thudded to the ground on my back.
The arrow snapped underneath me, but the point drove in even deeper.
“AAAAH!” I screamed.
“AAAAH!” the jailor shrieked back at me in fright.
My entrance wasn’t very graceful, but it did the trick: I was in the way of the door closing. Basically a human doorstop.
“It’s him!” one of the guards yelled. “It’s the degenerate in the spiderwebs!”
The jailor began kicking me as hard as he could. I screamed as I felt a couple of my ribs break.
Parch appeared just to point out the silver lining.
Strength and dexterity
are even further reduced –
but you won’t die from it!
“Great,” I muttered to myself.
I rolled out of the way so the jailor couldn’t kick me anymore – but he kept coming at me.
So I used Venom Blast to try to make him stop.
I was aiming for his head, but because of the angle and all the kicking, I fell a bit short.
The green blast hit his crotch instead.
“OHHHHHHH!” all the soldiers screamed in sympathetic pain.
“Ooh,” I said with a wince.
I mean, I was trying to kill the guy, not torture him to death.
The jailor got a look on his face like somebody had just crushedd his balls in a nutcracker. He didn’t scream – he just grabbed his crotch, which was smoking, and toppled over on his side in the doorway.
“…ohhhhhhh…” he wheezed.
“SCOUNDREL!” one of the guards yelled, and rushed forward to stab me with his spear –
At which point Zala showed up behind him.
“Leave him alone!” she screamed as she sliced and diced.
As the first guy went down, the next three attacked all at once.
I hit one with Venom Blast, and Zala killed the other two – though they got in a couple of licks (see what I did there? Licks on the lich?), stabbing her in the neck and the thigh.
But it wasn’t a head shot, and she didn’t even bleed.
In the end, the soldiers all fell.
Suddenly I heard a horrible, horrible sound:
The creeeeaaaking sound of the dungeon door closing.
I looked around from where I lay on the ground, just in time to see the jailor slam the iron door shut.
A second later, the metal bar CLANGED! into place.
“NOOOOO!” I screamed in frustration.
It had all been for naught.
Zala staggered over to me. “Are you alright?”
“No – the jailor locked the door! Help me up!”
Zala grabbed me under my arm and hauled me to my feet. Between my stab wound and cracked ribs, I had to lean on her for support.
Behind us, I could hear the screams of the soldiers and liches fighting.
“Open up!” I yelled at the jailor.
“NO!” he screamed back.
His face was at the viewport, but he was hunched over – apparently cradling his crotch.
“Come on, man!”
“You shot me in the BALLS!”
“That was an accident!”
I didn’t mention that I’d meant to shoot him in the face.
“You can go free if you just open up!” I pleaded.
“Go fuck yourself!”
“All we want are the lamia, the dryad, and the arachne!”
“ALL I WANT ARE MY BALLS BACK! CAN YOU DO THAT?”
“…can I?” I asked Parch.
What?!
No, of course not!
“…sorry, man, no go.”
“THEN GO FUCK YOURSELF!”
“Shit – come on – we can give you – ”
Zala sighed and flung her arm out.
One of her rusty Soul Flayers flew through the viewport and stabbed the jailor in the eye.
“…you fuckers…” he gasped, then thudded to the floor, dead.
“WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!” I screamed at Zala.
“He wasn’t going to open the door,” she said contemptuously. “It was a waste of time talking to him.”
“BUT NOW WE CAN’T GET IN! Alia, Dyra, and Spirella are going to die in there!”
“No they’re not,” she said confidently. “Stand over here for a minute.”
Zala leaned me up against the stone wall, which I huddled against in pain.
“What the hell are you doing?!” I yelled in panic. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get it open!”
“I already have.”
Then she gripped her left bicep in her right hand and yanked hard.
There was a sound like someone tearing a head of iceberg lettuce in two as the dimpled line at her shoulder – the exact spot where her arm joined her torso – suddenly came apart.
I stared in horror and amazement as she held her left arm in her right hand… walked over to the viewport… and stuck her disembodied arm through the slot.
Then she followed that up by squeezing her right arm through the viewport, too. It still stayed attached to her body, though.
She got right up against the iron door and looked up in the air as though she were trying to do something entirely by feel. She even stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated.
Then she grunted and stood up on her tiptoes.
I heard a grating, metallic eeeeEEEEE…
Followed by KTHUNK as the iron bar slid off its housings.
“Ta-daaaa,” she said as she pulled both arms – the attached one and disembodied one – out of the barred window.
“OH MY GOD!” I cried out. “That was AMAZING – thank you! But I didn’t want you to have to sacrifice your arm!”
She frowned and cocked one eyebrow.
“What do mean, ‘sacrifice’?” she asked as she stuck her left arm back in place.
There was a wet schlorping sound as the arm reattached to her body. She rotated it around like a baseball player testing an injury, then nodded. “Okay, we’re good.”
“How did you do that?” I asked, astounded.
“Magic.”
“Yeah, but – ”
“How do you think Urt and Vurt stay together without any tendons or ligaments?” she asked. “It’s our power as liches. That’s all.”
She seemed very blasé about it, so I just decided to let it go.
“Okay,” I said as I grabbed the handle and heaved open the iron door.
As soon as we were inside, I closed the door again and lifted the heavy bolt back in place.
Now not even the Baron himself could interrupt us.
I reached down to the jailor and snagged the ring of skeleton keys off his lifeless body.
Zala yankeed her Soul Flayer out of the jailor’s head with a chck sound.
Then I staggered down the hall with Zala following after me.
“Alia!” I shouted. “Dyra! Spirella!”
“HONEY!” Alia cried out.
Her tiny hand reached out from between the metal bars in the door across from our old cell.
“We’re here!” Dyra yelled right next to her.
“Scott!” Spirella called out from our previous cell. I saw her forlorn eyes staring out from behind the bars.
“Hey Spirella! I’ll get you in a second – I need Dyra to heal me first,” I said as I staggered over to Alia and Dyra’s door. I began going through the keys, one by one, trying them in the lock.
“What’s wrong?!” my dryad asked in alarm. “Weren’t you able to use the power you got from me?!”
“Yeah, until I got stabbed.”
“What?!”
“I’ll explain later – let me find the key first.”
“Oh, darling,” Alia whimpered, “I’m so sorry you got – ”
She stopped as she saw Zala behind me.
“…who’s that?” she asked suspiciously.
“That’s Zala,” I said. “She helped me rescue you.”
“Did you mate with her?” Alia demanded.
Oh, God. Not the Jealousy again.
Nice that we could solve it with an orgy, but I just didn’t have the time right now.
“I did, as a matter of fact,” I muttered as I held the next key on the ring, inserted it into the lock, turned it –
Nope.
“You had time to have sex while we were trapped in HERE?!” Dyra asked angrily.
“I needed her help. That’s the only way I was going to save you guys.”
Zala crossed her arms in anger. “That’s the only reason?!”
“No,” I said testily, “you’re also very hot.”
She smiled and dropped her arms.
“I wouldn’t say she’s hot,” Alia sniffed. “Barely passable, even.”
“‘Barely passable’?!” Zala shouted, offended.
“You’re a lich, after all,” Alia sneered.
Zala whipped out her Soul Flayers. “You little half-worm bitch, I’ll show you ‘barely passable’ – ”
“GUYS!” I said loudly. “NOT the time. We have to get out of here and defeat the Baron, so everybody check your feelings at the door and work together, okay?”
“…if you say so,” Alia muttered.
“…fine,” Zala said dourly.
The next key I tried clicked as it turned.
“Yes!” I shouted as I pulled the door open.
“Oh, honey!” Alia cried out as she rushed out and hugged me.
“AAH!” I cried out in pain. “Injured, remember?”
“Oh – I’m so sorry – ”
“Here, let me,” Dyra said, edging Alia out of the way.
“Hold on.” I handed the ring of keys to Zala. “Find the right one and get Spirella out, will you?”
Zala nodded, took the keys, and walked across the hall to Spirella’s cell.
Dyra lifted her hands and put them softly on my face.
“You’re not going to mate with her again, are you?” Alia asked in irritation.
“No time,” I said.
“Awww,” Dyra pouted.
“We have to get back out there – Zala’s friends are fighting the Baron’s men for us, and we need to go help them.”
Alia’s eyes bugged out. “You have a broken arrow in your back!”
“I know, I need to get it out. Dyra, can your powers do that?”
“No – we’ll need to physically remove it.”
“Great,” I muttered. “Who’s strong enough to pull it out with their hands?”
“I can,” Alia said, “but are you really sure you want me to?!”
“I don’t see any way around it.”
“It’s going to hurt!”
“I know,” I said from between gritted teeth. I was already starting to sweat thinking about it.
“Did you feel anything when I paralyzed you?” Spirella asked from behind her bars as Zala worked to find the correct key.
“Huh… no, I didn’t…”
“Then let me bite you first!”
I thought about it for a second, then shook my head. “No time – we need to get out there to help Zala’s friends. Let’s just get it over with.”
Alia winced. “You’re sure?”
I looked at Dyra. “You can heal it immediately, right?”
“Yes,” she reassured me.
“Alright… go for it, Alia.”
“…okay…” she said unhappily.
I felt a twinge of extreme pain in addition to the dull ache of the embedded arrowhead –
And then there was agony like somebody had ripped out part of my spine.
“AAAAAAAGH!” I screamed.
“I got it!” Alia yelled, then added plaintively, “I’m sorry!”
I gasped and wheezed. “It’s okay – Dyra?!”
Suddenly I felt numbness radiate into me from her hands.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered.
“…ohhhhh…” I murmured as all the pain in my body – my back, my broken ribs, the throbbing ache of my stomach wound – began to recede.
Dyra kissed me gently on the lips, and the numbness became a wave of warmth and pleasure.
Across the hall, Zala unlocked Spirella’s cell.
“Oh, thank you,” she said gratefully, then scuttled over to stare at me in anguish as Dyra healed me.
A minute later, I felt like a new man.
“That’s it,” Dyra announced as she backed away from me. “How do you feel?”
“Amazing!”
All my pain was gone. I shrugged my shoulders and twisted at the waist, testing out my body like Zala had tested her reattached arm.
Everything felt perfect.
“What do we do now?” Zala asked.
“We’ve got to go bring the fight to the Baron,” I said.
“Can’t we just run for it?” Spirella asked in a timid little voice.
“We can’t leave Zala’s friends in the lurch – they risked their lives for us.”
“Well… not their lives, exactly,” Zala muttered.
“Either way, they still put themselves on the line to help us. We should take out the Baron once and for all, or he’ll just track us down again. I say we end this tonight.”
“I don’t have Fang,” Alia reminded me.
“And I’m no good in a fight,” Spirella said meekly.
Suddenly there were shouts outside the dungeon door.
I looked over to see soldiers’ faces in the viewport. There must have been ten or more out there – although I had no idea why they weren’t off fighting the liches.
