Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
The closer we get to Dardanus, the more people we see on the road.
It’s probably because of market day happening tomorrow.
That’s what makes it perfect for an empusa.
Who can tell if one person in a crowd has a wonky leg?
All she has to do is wait for someone to wander off the road a little and follow them.
I’m still shaken by our encounter with the dracaenae last night.
I know the other party members said that the empusa is a lot easier, but they also said the harpy would be a breeze.
The harpy’s lifeless eyes and the dracaenae’s decapitated body consume my thoughts.
Why are so many Greek villains just pissed off women who are part monster?
As a woman who can get a little hangry sometimes, I’m starting to take this personally.
The traffic is so slow that the two merchants’ carriages are plodding along at a snail’s pace. Since we want to spot the empusa as quickly as possible, we decide to walk along the road while scanning the crowd.
Guy and I are in the middle of the others.
Being the easiest players to kill, no one wants us to be too easy to nab off the side of the road.
Joshua is all the way over on the left side of the road, and Sylvia is walking through the forest near him.
Cait is all the way on the right, and Tara is lurking in the shadows beyond the brush.
I still have the earrings on from Thebe that help me communicate with Tara, so if she spots the empusa, I’ll be able to rush over there and help her.
I hope it will be her, because otherwise, I may not complete the empusa quest. My companions seem to recall the monster being on that side of the road, at least. Still, I’m not getting my hopes up. A lot of quests and monsters aren’t behaving the way the game programmed them.
“She’ll walk with a limp,” Guy reminds me.
“Why?” I ask.
“One of her legs is made out of copper,” he answers.
I blink at him. “So, you’re saying we’re going to hurl insults at a woman who has one real leg and one copper leg? I’m just gonna say it. This seems very ableist.”
“Take it up with the game developers,” Guy says with a shrug.
“If I ever meet those assholes, I’m gonna have a lot more to complain about than that,” I respond.
He laughs.
“I wonder if they know that there are actual players in here,” I say. “Like was this planned, or is there some magical, secret reason?”
“Questions like that go through my head all day, every day,” he says. “Why is this happening? Why us? How did it happen? What about all the other players? Is this real? Am I in a coma?”
I nod. “Yeah, I toy with the coma theory a lot, too.”
Guy smiles at me. “If it is, I’m having the best coma dream ever because just look at you.”
He weaves his fingers with mine as I blush. I’ve got to hand it to Guy. Sometimes he can be really smooth.
“Lauren,” I hear Tara whisper through my earrings. “I see her. She’s got some man with her. And they’re—oh my. Well, if he dies, he’ll die happy.”
“How far away are you?” I ask, grateful that things are going as planned. At least so far.
“Not far. I can kinda see you from where I am,” she answers. “Just head to your right, and you’ll find her once you get past the trees. But be quiet. We don’t want her to bolt before you can confront her.”
“Got it.”
Looking at Guy, I tilt my head to the right so he knows to follow me in that direction.
The road is so crowded now that it’s pretty difficult to get to the side of the road.
It feels like I’m trying to change lanes in LA traffic.
We “ ‘scuse me, pardon me” past all the NPCs until we reach the tree line bordering the road to Dardanus.
Compared to the shuffle of feet, clopping of hooves, and squeaking of wheels on the road, the woods are silent—eerily so. I tiptoe, knowing that just a crunch of leaves could give me away.
Soon enough, I see her and damn! If she’s a monster, then I’m…I don’t know what. Not anything good. What’s uglier than a monster? Because that would be me.
She’s got a perfect hourglass figure, and the golden scrap of fabric she’s wearing is leaving very little to the imagination.
At least on her upper half. A long skirt hides her bottom half.
Her hair is like a long, shimmering river of ink, and lashes frame her big onyx eyes.
The mysterious blue tattoos on her pale arms intrigue me as she beckons her victim deeper into the woods.
The man can’t keep his eyes off her pouty, blood-red lips.
“Not much farther,” she says in a sultry voice. “I just don’t want anyone to hear me. I can be…loud.”
She winks, and the man groans.
“You’re killing me,” he says. “I feel like I’m going to explode in my pants right now.”
She lets him catch up just enough to stroke his obvious hard-on. The moment he tries to touch her back, she laughs and sprints just out of his reach. That’s when I notice her limp and get a glimpse of her copper leg. This is definitely the empusa.
“I feel bad for her victim,” Guy whispers to me. “Either he’s going to die at her hands or of blue balls. Maybe both.”
“Blue balls are a myth,” I whisper back. “Anyway, we’ve got more important things to worry about than whether he’s going to go to bed lonely tonight.”
After creeping closer, I can see her face better.
She’s truly striking, and she seems really into this.
If I didn’t know she was just looking for lunch, I’d believe she truly wanted to ride this guy until dawn.
Then I get a peek of her long, pointed canines.
Are empusas like Greek mythology vampires?
I catch sight of Cait half-hidden behind a tree on the other side of the empusa.
She nods at me, and I know it’s time. Holding up my staff, I dash in front of her would-be victim.
The empusa startles and turns to run, but then Cait reveals herself.
Tara and Guy appear as well, and the empusa realizes she’s surrounded.
“Shit,” she mutters. “There’s a lot of you.”
The man grabs me from behind. “I’ll save you!” he tells the empusa.
“You idiot, I’m trying to save you!” I yell at him as I try to wriggle out.
“Finally,” the empusa says and sighs with relief. Her mask of innocence drops, and she looks at me with an expression that’s all business. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I’m so ugly and so evil. Yada yada.”
“You’re beautiful, my love!” the man cries out to her.
The empusa waves at him dismissively. “Thanks, Vas. That’s very sweet of you, but I’m afraid you’re getting cockblocked now.”
Yada yada? Cockblocked? This woman sounds like a player, not an NPC.
“Wait!” I say. “Who are you?”
“I’m the empusa,” she answers. “Duh.”
“Empusa?!” the man shouts and then drops his hold of me so he can run away screaming his head off.
I tidy my cloak where his arms had just rumpled it and walk toward her, saying, “Okay, but you don’t talk like an empusa. You talk like a player.”
“Yeah, well, that would be because I am a player,” she says and then narrows her eyes as she continues in a bitter voice. “Or at least I was a player. Word to the wise, don’t piss off Hekate. Being one of her warlocks was great until I told her I didn’t feel like killing this giant named Clytius.”
“So she changed you into an empusa?” I asked. Suddenly I feel like Aphrodite making genitals fall off is one of the kinder punishments the gods can inflict.
“Yep,” she says and claps her hands together. “Okay. Let’s do this. It’s been a long day, and I need a nap.”
Guy joins my side, squinting at the empusa. “Wait a minute,” he says. “You want us to kill you?”
“Well, I mean, I don’t actually die,” she answers. “I just get sent to this weird black space until I respawn. It’s actually pretty peaceful there. I’ve never slept so good in my life.”
“Is that where all the monsters go when they’re killed?” I ask.
The empusa shrugs. “I suppose so. I don’t see anyone else when I’m there, but they could have their own little pocket of nothingness.”
It occurs to me she may have information that could be helpful. I know I need to finish this quest but…
I walk over to the empusa and extend my hand, “My name is Lauren. What’s yours?”
The empusa looks from my face to my hand with suspicion in her eyes. After a beat, she puts her hand in mine and shakes it. “Komiko,” she says. “But my friends call me Miko. Or at least they did before I wound up like this. Then it was like they all forgot I existed or something.”
“That’s Guy,” I say, pointing at him. Then I point at my other two nearby companions. “That’s Cait and Tara.”
“Hi,” Miko says as she waves at them. “Nice to meet you.”
“Sorry, if I ever killed you,” Guy says, wincing and scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.
Miko chuckles. “That probably wasn’t me. I haven’t been doing this for more than a few months. Even if it was me, it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt or anything.”
“What happens if you don’t get caught?” I ask.
She points up the hillside. “I get to my cave up there and then Vas goes back to the crowd. I usually make a snack from the food the Hekate worshippers leave me before I start the whole rigamarole again.”
“That sounds really boring,” I say.
“It so is,” she says with a nod. Then she gestures at herself in a way that suggests she’s ready for a fight. “Anyway, fire away with the insults.”
“No,” I say and cross my arms. “This is stupid. You’re not hurting anyone. You should join us.”
“Lauren, seriously?” Cait says, looking at me like I just sprouted horns.
“Pretty sure that would make my goddess mad,” Miko says.
“Seems like that’s already happened,” Guy says with a shrug. “I suppose you don’t want things to get any worse, though.”
“Understatement of the decade.” Miko crosses her arms. “Please, just kill me. Just talking like this might end badly for me.”
The resignation on her face hurts my heart. One look at the rest of the group tells me they feel the same. How can we do this to another player?
Guy looks up at the sky and says, “Okay, yeah, I’m using that boon.”
“Boon?” I ask. “What are you—”
Before I can finish that question, a grape appears in Guy’s hand. “Eat one,” he tells Miko, presenting it “If you do, you’re promising Dionysus that you will be one of his heroes. He can protect you from Hekate.”
“And what does being one of his heroes entail?” Miko asks.
“Mostly getting drunk and having a ton of sex,” Guy answers honestly. He looks at me. “But not always. He’s letting me take a break from some of that stuff right now for, uh…personal reasons.”
“So, like, partying?” Miko asks.
Guy nods, and Miko swipes the grape from his hands and pops it into her mouth without a second thought. She closes her eyes and moans orgasmically. The blue tattoos on her arms disappear, and her skin exchanges its porcelain quality for a fawn complexion.
“Oh gods,” she calls out, breathily, “this feels amazing! I’m me again! I’m—” She stops and looks down. “Seriously?”
“What’s wrong?” Guy asks.
Miko points at her legs. One of them is still copper. “I guess that’s here to stay. I suppose it was too much to ask that my real leg would magically grow back.”
“Grow back?” I ask. “You mean you lost the real one? I just thought it was encased in copper.”
“Oh, no,” Miko said, shaking her head. “She cut it off and put this sucker on.”
My companions and I wince in unison.
Miko waves a dismissive hand. “It is what it is.” Then she looks at me with an apologetic expression. “Sorry, you didn’t get to complete this quest. Another empusa might come along if you wait.”
“Can’t,” Guy says. “We need to finish our escort mission first.”
The mention of the escort mission reminds me that sometimes my objectives change. I bring up my quest log, and sure enough, the empusa quest is no longer there. Instead, it says I completed an alternative objective to persuade her to give up her evil ways.
“This quest is complete,” I tell everyone. “Let’s get to Dardanus.”