Endgame, Part 8: Not Quite 28 Quarters Later

Behind the Scenes, Some Time Ago

Heidi exits the board room of her megacorporation, annoyed. Letting others run the day-to-day operations of it, leaving her as a figurehead CEO that can pursue her own interests, means compromises need to be made. Her personal assistant, Scarlet, waits for her with a latte and a pastry. She knows how much Heidi needs to carbo-load her frustrations away.

“Good morning, Mistress. None of the undesirables need your attention today. Shall we go over the rest of your schedule?” Scarlet figuratively walks Heidi through the day’s itinerary as they literally walk to Heidi’s palatial office. It sounds like a perfectly normal, if a little heavy, day at the office.

Lisa is already in her place under Heidi’s desk. Heidi thinks back to the game, how it took that brazen skank that tried to ruin Heidi’s career and broke her into the submissive slut that can only draw sustenance from Heidi’s femcum. Most days, it is an annoyance; today, when her frustrations are elevated, having a toy she can take those frustrations out on is appreciated.

Heidi hikes up her skirt and sits down. She pushes the slut’s face into position and holds it there, waiting for her to begin.

So, of course, the mood is ruined by a mermaid appearing in her office. The joys of being on the Hotel comes with continuing irritation. The mermaid speaks, “Hello, Heidi. I’m Beckie Petersen, the…”

Heidi interrupts, “I know who you are, skank. I have been keeping up with the season since I made my little guest judging appearance. You were deposed as the Host. You just made that endgame announcement at the morning meeting. I assume you are here to give me a chance to free Scarlet from that man’s grasp.”

The Host bristles. “I wouldn’t put it in those exact terms, but yes.”

Heidi scoots out to stand, much to the chagrin of Lisa. The Mistress responds by dragging Lisa out from under the desk. “I want more than Scarlet. You are to service this skank here as she eats me out, every time she eats me out, until the challenge. Is that understood?”

Beckie crawls on her hands and tail as she stoops to lap at Lisa’s snatch. Lisa greedily goes back to her ministrations. A chance at a Scarlet without those dreadful mental transformations? I am going to enjoy this.

Heidi Neighbors, Now

This is so frustrating. I forgot just how stubborn Scarlet could be. Insisting that the man she’s bound to is a woman? And that she loves him? I could live with the weird rock thing, but her acting that the man is worthy of her is infuriating...

“Is there nothing I could say for you to just concede?”

“Look, Heidi, I love Harper. I love Daphne. I love Josie and Tina. I like the others. I am not abandoning my loves for you. So, can you just let me go?”

I’ll have you yet, Scarlet. “Fine. Your challenge is to get down past the lobby of the building. Not that you are likely to even get out of the room you’re in. You can concede at any time. Good luck.”

Heidi turns off the screen. She heads back to Cayenne, keeping in the headpiece, just in case. She’s smart enough to not be on site. She’s watched the episodes, where the man turned into a fake blue woman and went on the attack against creatures beyond her throughout most of the dates this week. Not going to put myself in danger by being where he could get to me.

Scarlet

The screen suddenly turns off. Heidi must have finally decided to stop arguing. There were reasons why Heidi and her needed Alex to get along. They are both too stubborn, too uncompromising. When they disagreed, they could go hours arguing in an endless loop. Alex always found the compromise they were both too bullheaded to see. Scarlet sighs. Again, the game turned that Heidi into a monster. A more polite one than some of the others I saw back then, but still a monster.

Scarlet examines the room. Surgical table, with scalpels, forceps, and other surgical equipment. Adjustable overhead lights. A couple of entrances, one into a visible hallway, the other to what is likely a pre-op sanitation room. Outside of the area by the suspected sanitation room, the walls are made of glass. And why did Heidi think that I couldn’t get out of this room?

As soon as Scarlet opens the swinging double doors to the hallway, blaring alarms fire off. Klaxons scream, “Containment breached! Containment breached! Building is on lockdown! Remain calm! Report to the nearest quarantine zone!” on repeat. Then, the oread saw her. A lot of hers, dozens upon dozens. So many repeating faces she never thought she’d see again. Alex. Same clothes (though tattered), same viking-punk haircut (though unkempt), same face (though rotting). Eyes only filled with mindless hunger. Shambling. Swarming. Charging straight for her.

And Scarlet shuts down, falling to her knees. She didn’t know what to expect, but she wasn’t expecting this. The first love of her life, as rotting corpses, charging at her with wild hunger. The fastest among them bite into her flesh. Alex? Why?

Harper

One more and then I go face Beckie to end this. I hope Scarlet is doing okay.

Scarlet is not doing okay. She’s being swarmed by a bunch of zombies? Harper begins the bladesong, chanting extra loud to draw the horde’s attention. She casts Resilient Sphere, isolating Scarlet. The swarm charges. They snap and bite as Harper dodges around lunges. She casts Sunburst, wiping out the half of the horde she can get in range. The zombies continue to be ineffective. A Steel Wind Strike, then a few rounds of regular sword strikes, and the horde is gone.

Harper pants and drops concentration. Scarlet is crying and Harper wraps her in a hug. She leans into the oread’s ear and whispers, “Scarlet, I love you, but we need to focus. Tell me what’s the situation.”

“Alex...”

Harper looks at the horde. They are all of the same woman. Harper starts to speculate, “Whoever put this together did one of two things. Either they picked a very specific model of NPC to mess with your head or they raised the corpse of a very particular woman from multiple dimensions over and over. Either way, the soul of that woman isn’t here. So, love, I need you to breathe. C’mon. Breathe with me.”

In. Hold it. Out. Repeat. It takes several minutes, but Scarlet starts to calm down and smolder. Then burn. Harper yelps a little as the oread starts to catch fire. “Heidi! I’m going to personally tear you apart for this!”

Scarlet stands and stomps to the elevator. Harper runs to catch up. “What do we need to do?”

“Get to the lobby.”

“Stairs would be safer.”

“Elevator’s quicker. Let’s move.”

The elevator, surprisingly, opens without too much of a fuss. The 8 or so zombies trapped in there surge out. I could wipe them out in a single spell, but Scarlet needs to get out some aggression. Scarlet is faster, throwing haymaker punches and quick front kicks. The usual blasts of pink erotic energy are warped into more flames as her molten limbs fly. Harper starts the bladesong and start slashing. The usual booming blade, pushing strike combo drops a zombie. The swarm are mostly ineffective. A couple got bites into Scarlet, but one of them ends up with a mouthful of obsidian.

Scarlet drops the first zombie she attacked, then lands a devastating knee to the sternum on another. Her follow up strikes miss as the zombie falls to it’s feet at the moment. Harper lands a crit with her booming blade, which explodes a zombie. She feebly pushes the bowled over zombie in an awkward mid-swing adjustment; the zombie doesn’t move, instead aggressively tries to bite into Scarlet a couple of times. The horde needs more than what they can generate to hurt Harper and none of them land a decent hit on Scarlet.

Scarlet drops the aggressive one, then almost kills another. The booming blade recoil hurts, but Harper tries her combo again. Another exploded zombie from the booming blade part of the combo, but her push hit lands hard. Another ineffective flurry of strikes from the rapidly shrinking swarm later, and Scarlet kills her two. Another recoil hit, and Harper slashes down the last one.

Then, the elevator falls, the lines snapped, right before they step in. Harper smirks.

“Don’t you dare say ‘I told you so,’” Scarlet glares.

Scarlet

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Harper teases, then turns more serious, “On the scale, where are you at right now?”

“Nine. The only time I felt worse was at Alex’s funeral. The idea that Heidi would use Alex against me like that... No, I’m not okay right now. My blood is boiling. I’m going to need to bash some skulls in before I start to try to burn this whole place down.”

Harper nods, sighing, “You want to talk about Alex now, or later? If this is going to match the other combat challenges, the last fight is going to be a doozy. Rather have you calm and collected. If talking about it would help...”

“I’m not ready for that talk, Harper. I don’t know when I will be. For now, we are getting out of here.”

Harper leans in for a kiss and a hug, “I understand wanting to avoid hard conversations. I am going to cry for like a week after we get a moment to breathe. Just, for now, compartmentalize. Focus. I need you at your best.”

A soft, gentle kiss from Harper turns into something harder when Scarlet starts to kiss back. Then Scarlet starts to head for the stairs. Harper follows along. The stairwell is filled with a cacophony of sound: doors being banged on, stomping of feet up the stairs, growls and howls and snarls of what feels like dozens of zombified Alex. Harper is firing blasts of sunlight down the stairwell, shredding through the uprising horde to punch a hole big enough in the swarm to get them to the lobby.

The lobby is quiet, too quiet. When both of them are nearly at the security desk of this building, a large screen appears. With HER on it.

“You monstrous bitch! I’m going to kill you!”

Fire alarms go off and the sprinkler system activates. The water stings as it sizzles on her skin. Scarlet doesn’t care. Harper squeezes her shoulder, wincing slightly at the pain, then speaks, “Heidi, is it? Harper...”

“Quiet, Francis, the actual women are speaking. Scarlet, surrender and we can be together.”

Scarlet flings a Fire Bolt at the screen, shattering it. Heidi gets on the public announcement system to say, “Well, I have one more wave to stop you. You can surrender at any time. Your disgusting male can die.”

Harper

Three more Alex zombies materialize between them and the door. The one in the middle looks like some sort of zombie Norse völva, a crown of antlers on it’s head, covered in tattered furs. The two on either side have bloody hand axes in rotting hands. The one in the middle raises a finger and fires off a blast of black ichor. Harper is happy about her magic resistance. That would have hurt if she took that full ****. The ax girls charge, with Harper slicing into the one coming at her. The three hit combo left it open.

So, berserker zombies. Looks like Scarlet took a hit as well. Time to cheat again. Harper chants in Aquan, casting Time Stop. That gives her the opportunity to set up and get in the best position to start a real attack. It’s cheap, but it’s effective. Harper is getting tired of all of this. The caster doesn’t survive a combo round.

Scarlet pins her ax lady and deals some good damage on it. The one that attacked Harper at the beginning rushes at her again, this time taking a bigger hit with the grazing strike the sea elf manages. The ax wielder gets one good hit on Harper before the sea elf drops it with a single strike on her way to help Scarlet. Two more swipes, and it’s dead.

The room turns white. Scarlet growls “Where is Heidi?!?!?”

Ms. E purrs, “She’s never left her own dimension. And, given how she designed her NPCs, I understand why. You have XP to collect, levels to get, and then Harper needs to move onto her phase as we work on your exit.”

Harper: +40 XP (Killed 49 Level 3 Monsters, 0.12x penalty [overleveled], Killed 2 Level 8 Monsters, 0.32x penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 21 Monster, 0.84x penalty [overleveled], all rounded down at the end)

Scarlet: +52 XP (Killed 49 Level 3 Monsters, 0.167x penalty [overleveled], Killed 2 Level 8 Monsters, 0.444x penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 21 Monster)

Scarlet hits the level cap, with some XP to spare. She grabs the Crusher feat to get some more endurance and improving the devastating effects of a crit. Harper grabs a couple more rogue levels, getting Cunning Action and the starting features for Arcane Trickster: a little more SP, some cantrips and 1st level spells, and a little extra juice to Mage Hand. Harper sags a little when she’s done.

“Harper, love, you look tired.”

“Just have whatever Beckie has left in store for me. You gonna be okay here?”

“Of course. Go kick the hag’s ass,” Scarlet gives Harper a hug as she leans in, “and thank you for what you did. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

“Just paying you back, a little, from all the times you did something to keep me from falling apart.” Then, with a kiss right below the ear, Harper is gone.

Scarlet

The producer cat sits on her haunches, staring as if she is expecting pets. Scarlet sits by her on a couch and complies. The cat purrs, which turns to words, “Well, we need to fix one of your transformations, then we need to write you an exit.”

Scarlet stops petting and starts scowling. “Fix one?”

“Yes, Work/Study girl needs to be evolved. I’m assuming you would want something that applies to your future endeavors? I need to write the words on this one, but I’m willing to take a little advanced feedback.”

Scarlet scowls but nods, more than a little afraid of what the cat will come up with. She hopes it’s not going to ruin her tentative plans for her future after the show. In what feels like a lifetime, but was likely only a few minutes, the cat declares her decision:

Sex Work is Real Work – Scarlet graduated, so she can’t be in a work/study program anymore. Instead, she becomes a more literal working girl. Scarlet has to hold down a job of her choosing. The more sexual her work is, the more successful it will become. So, if she starts a brothel, it will become a multi-billion gold coin a year business; if she starts something completely wholesome, it will fail spectacularly (Working Girl).

Well, I knew I was opening up something at least a little perverted. Nice to know that it will do supernaturally well. “Fine. Now, about that exit transformation?”

The two argue, Scarlet trying to get something she can live with. Something she can control:

The Lady in Red – ...is dancing with me. What smokeshow is without a little red dress? Scarlet is given a magical red dress which, when worn, turns her literal flames into a wildfire of passion for herself and those mortals around her. Careful about who gets burned (Smokeshow- Exit Transformation).

“So, what now?”

“Now, sit back and relax. Harper just needs to wrap up the challenge, then we can all go to the final ceremony.”

Scarlet slips on her dress. It perfectly hugs her curves. The top ties round her neck and mostly covers her breasts, with a deep V of cleavage down the middle. Ribbons cinch the dress just below her breasts to help suck in the tummy. A long slit shows off what Scarlet would have considered a scandalous amount of leg before the show; now she kind of likes it. The whole thing is accented with silver threads, a moth motif. It’s perfect.

Sitting back on the couch, Scarlet pets the producer cat. She knows Harper is going to win; she hopes Harper doesn’t have to pay too deep a cost to make it happen. Come back to us whole, my love.