The copse by the creek lay shrouded in the kind of darkness that swallowed sound and spat it back twisted, the ancient oaks standing sentinel like forgotten gods with bark etched in runes of moonlight and shadow. The water murmured its endless secret over smooth stones, a lullaby for the damned, while the night air hung heavy with the scent of damp earth, horse sweat, and the faint metallic tang of blood crusted on Tharren's split lip.
The slaver sat bound to a gnarled trunk, wrists lashed behind him with ropes Megan had knotted tight—her mechanic's precision turning hemp into unyielding cuffs—his naked form exposed to the chill, skin prickling with gooseflesh, bruises blooming like dark petals across his gaunt frame. No chains for him now, just the girls' ingenuity and the unforgiving wilds of Isekai closing in.
The Five Petals encircled him in a loose ring, their faces flickering in the low glow of a single lantern Megan had snatched during their escape from the inn, casting elongated shadows that danced like demons on the prowl. Grendel and Creedmoor grazed nearby, tethered and indifferent, their occasional snorts punctuating the tension like punctuation in a madman's manifesto. Tharren's eyes darted between them, defiance cracking at the edges, his archaic lilt strained but still laced with that merchant's oil-slick arrogance.
Alice stood apart, near the creek's edge, her back to the scene at first, Kimber holstered but her hand resting on it like a lover's promise. The weight of her words hung in the air—let me bear the first sin—but for now, she was the conductor, the one who'd unleashed this peculiar hell. Monica crouched closest to Tharren, her farmer's hat discarded for the burlap mask she'd worn during the heist, now pushed up like a crown of absurdity.
In her hands, a plucked chicken feather—courtesy of the bewildered bird Megan had corralled earlier—twirled lazy between her fingers, its barbs soft as whispers but sharp in intent. The others formed the chorus—Lulu with her legal pad, scribbling notes like a Wall Street analyst that she is dissecting a hostile takeover. Amber pacing with her cloak bunched in nervous fists, eyes wide but gleaming with that dark curiosity. Megan leaning against a tree, Mossberg propped casual, her grin a mechanic's satisfaction at a job well-oiled.
It was just past one in the morning, the witching hour bleeding into something far more profane, the stars above Isekai wheeling indifferent in their eternal grind. Tharren spat a glob of blood-flecked phlegm at Monica's boots, his voice a rasp. "Ye think this folly will break me, lasses? Tickles and feathers? I've faced mine whips and orcish blades. Ye're but children playing at torment."
Monica's laugh was low, a Texas rumble that cut through the night like a chainsaw idling. "Oh, playboy, you ain't seen nothin' yet. This ain't your grandma's pillow fight. We're talkin' precision engineering here—nerve endings on overdrive, no blood, no scars, just pure, unadulterated hell. You ever been tickled till you pissed yourself? Till your ribs ache from laughin' when you wanna scream? We're about to make you our bitch. Fortunately for me and my taste of men, we're fucking you… not in the sexual way. That would be my biggest nightmare."
Alice turned then, her Amazon delivery driver's resolve hardened into something colder, her voice steady as the creek's flow. "Clock's started, Tharren. One AM sharp. You talk—magic vows, how to break 'em, your House's dirty laundry, the kids you chained—we stop. You don't... we go till three-thirty. Monica's got the reins. Girls, keep him hydrated. Can't have him passing out too early."
Lulu nodded, unscrewing a canteen—Earth-side plastic, portal-fetched—and tipping a trickle into Tharren's mouth when he clamped it shut. Megan forced his jaw open with a grip like a vice, water spilling down his chin.
"Drink up, asshole. Marathon, not a sprint."
Amber hovered, her New York flair dimmed to a wary hush. "This is fucked, Al. Like, next-level psychological warfare. But... those kids. Yeah. Do it."
Monica started slow, deliberate, like a surgeon with a scalpel made of fluff. She dragged the feather's tip along the sole of Tharren's bare foot, arching it just so, tracing the instep where nerves clustered like a bundle of live wires. He jerked, a involuntary twitch, his toes curling against the dirt.
"What—cease this nonsense!" But his voice cracked on the last word, a giggle bubbling up unbidden, forced from his throat like a demon exorcised.
"Nah, that's just the appetizer," Monica drawled, her eyes alight under the mask. She switched feet, feather dancing lighter now, flicking between toes, under the arch, that spot where the skin was thinnest, most traitorously sensitive. Tharren's laugh erupted then—harsh, barking, nothing like the oily smoothness of his merchant's pitch. It tore from him in spasms, his body convulsing against the ropes, shoulders shaking as if seized by fever.
The minutes stretched, one AM bleeding into one-fifteen, the copse alive with the slaver's unwilling mirth. Monica escalated, feather abandoned for fingertips—nails trimmed short but precise, scraping lightly along his ribs, counting them one by one like a perverse abacus.
"One for the orc kid in the cart... two for the goblin with the broken nose..." Each count accompanied a dig, a swirl, into the hollows where flesh met bone, eliciting peals of laughter that echoed off the oaks like madness unbound.
Tharren thrashed, head whipping side to side, sweat beading on his brow despite the chill. "Stop—ye mad harpies! I'll—haha—I'll have yer heads!" But the words dissolved into guffaws, his breath coming in hitches, face reddening as oxygen fought with hysteria.
Lulu scribbled furiously, her glasses glinting in the lantern light. "Subject exhibits classic tickle response such as involuntary diaphragmatic contractions, endorphin flood masking pain receptors. Note: archaic speech patterns fracturing under stress—ye becoming slurred."
Amber couldn't watch direct, pacing instead, but her voice piped up. "Hit his knees, Mon. Behind the knees—that spot's gold for breaking dudes."
Monica obliged, shifting lower, fingers spidering up Tharren's calves to the backs of his knees, pinching lightly, then vibrating her nails in rapid flutters. The slaver bucked, a roar of laughter exploding, tears streaming now, mixing with snot from his battered nose. "Nay—nay, mercy! 'Tis—hahaha—'tis unholy!"
By one-thirty, the torment had layers, a symphony of absurdity in the dark. Megan joined, her strong hands pinning Tharren's arms higher against the tree when the ropes allowed slack, exposing his underarms—those vulnerable pits where sweat gathered and nerves screamed. She used a soft-bristled brush from her tool belt, originally for cleaning engine parts, now twirling in slow circles, then fast flicks.
"Like degreasing a carburetor, but way more fun."
Tharren's laughs turned to wheezes, his body a puppet with cut strings, jerking in rhythms he couldn't control. "The vows—haha—the vows be etched in blood and quartz! A mage—House Veyle's mage—binds 'em with a ritual! Salt and silver—stop, ye fiends!"
Alice stepped closer, her voice cutting through the chaos like a knife. "Details, Tharren. Name the mage. How to unbind. Keep going, Mon—he's cracking."
Monica grinned feral, switching to his sides now, fingers digging into the soft flesh just above his hips, that spot where love handles would be if the slaver ate anything but his own greed. She kneaded, poked, vibrated—relentless, her Texas drawl a constant taunt. "Tickle, tickle, motherfucker. Spill it all, or we go for the belly button next. Deep dive."
The clock ticked invisible in the night, one-forty-five now, the creek's murmur a mocking counterpoint to Tharren's sobs of laughter. His defiance shattered in fragments—first the mage's name, "Eldric—Eldric the Binder, in the underhalls!"—then the ritual components, "Quartz dust mixed with slave blood, chanted under full moon—reverse with fire and counter-blood!"
But he held back still, clamming up between gasps, so the girls rotated. Amber took a turn, her fashionista's delicate touch surprisingly vicious—nails tracing his neck, behind the ears, that feather-light scrape that sent shivers cascading. "Like threading a needle, but you're the fabric, bitch." Tharren howled, head thrown back, exposing his throat in vulnerability.
Lulu, ever the analyst, probed with questions between bouts, her Beretta a silent threat at her side. "House Veyle's assets? Warehouses? Buyer lists?" Each query punctuated by a fresh assault—Megan on the feet again, using a twig stripped bare for precision strikes between toes.
By two AM, Tharren was a wreck, body slick with sweat, voice hoarse from forced merriment. His laughs came in waves now, uncontrollable, interspersed with pleas in broken archaic. "The warehouses—beneath the Gilded Thorn! Keys on my belt—lost in the fire! Buyers—nobles, mine lords—names in ledgers!"
Monica paused, wiping her hands on her pants, but only for a breath. "Good boy. But we ain't done. Funky Town's warm-up." She signaled Megan, who produced more tools—soft cloths for blindfolding, earplugs carved from wax to heighten isolation, amplifying every touch.
Blindfolded now, Tharren's world narrowed to sensation, the unknown assailants' fingers everywhere at once. Four sets of hands—Monica's rough, Megan's callused, Amber's nimble, Lulu's precise—dancing across his torso, a cacophony of tickles—ribs, belly, thighs, the inner arms. He convulsed, urine trickling warm down his leg in humiliation, laughter turning to desperate coughs.
"Stop—I'll give all! The kids—sold to Lord Hargrave's mines! The elves—to the brothels! Coordinates—north road, three leagues!"
Alice nodded, her face impassive, but inside the weight pressed. "Keep verifying. Cross-check."
The ordeal dragged, two-fifteen to two-forty-five, a blur of interrogation and torment. Tharren spilled like a burst dam—vault combinations, guard rotations, even personal sins—debts to the Isekai-IRS equivalent, a shadowy tax collector in Nomence who took flesh for unpaid dues.
Monica innovated, using the chicken itself now—alive, clueless, its wings flapping softly against Tharren's sides as she held it close, feathers brushing in chaotic patterns. The absurdity broke him further, laughter mingling with animal clucks in a surreal opera.
By three AM, he was babbling, coherence fraying. "The pendant—my quartz—it amplifies vows! Shatter it with iron—cold iron!"
The girls pressed, padding the time with lighter touches to sustain without blackout—fingertips on scalp, behind knees again, ensuring every secret extracted. Lulu's pad filled pages—maps sketched in dirt, names listed, plans for liberation forming in her mind.
Three-fifteen, Tharren slumped, exhausted, his body a quivering mass, laughter reduced to whimpers. "No more... ye have all... mercy..."
Monica stepped back, feather discarded, her grin satisfied but eyes hard. "Three-thirty on the dot, boss. He's ours."
Alice approached, Kimber in hand, the sin awaiting. But first, verification—Lulu cross-referencing spills, inconsistencies poked with one last tickle flurry.
Three-fifteen bled into three-thirty with the inexorable grind of a millstone crushing bone to meal, the lantern's glow flickering low now, shadows lengthening like accusations across the copse. Tharren hung limp against the oak, ropes cutting red welts into his wrists, his body a slick ruin of sweat and involuntary tremors, chest heaving in ragged hitches that were half-sob, half-gasp.
The psychological siege had burrowed deeper than any blade—every feather's whisper, every fingertip's dance replaying in his mind like a looped nightmare, eroding the merchant's cunning until all that remained was a raw nerve exposed to the night. He babbled fragments now, unprompted, secrets spilling like entrails.
"The ledgers... hidden compartment under the inn's hearth... Hargrave pays in gemstones... quartz conduits run beneath the city, siphoning magic from the Bottom Ones..." His voice cracked on each revelation, the archaic lilt shattered into whimpers, eyes darting sightless in the blindfold's embrace, anticipating the next phantom touch that never came without warning.
Monica circled him slow, predator in the underbrush, her breath hot against his ear as she leaned in. "You feel that, playboy? Every laugh you forced out—it's echoin' in your skull now, ain't it? Gonna dream of feathers for the rest of your short, miserable life. Tickles don't leave marks, but they carve deep. You're ours forever."
The words wormed in, amplifying the isolation. He flinched at nothing, phantom itches crawling across his skin, the mind's betrayal complete.
Lulu murmured questions from the shadows. "Confirm the vault's false bottom? North-west corner?" her voice clinical, detached, turning his confessions into data points, stripping humanity further.
Amber's pacing had stopped. She watched with hooded eyes, the fashionista's veneer cracked, whispering, "You're less than garbage now. Just a punchline in chains."
Megan's brush hovered, unused but threatening, her silence a weight that pressed on his psyche like a vice.
The torment peaked in those final minutes—a coordinated frenzy, hands everywhere and nowhere, blindfold heightening the disorientation until Tharren's world was a vortex of sensation without source. He screamed laughter that bordered on madness, pleas devolving into animal keens. "No more... the vows shatter with mage's blood... Eldric's grimoire in the underhalls... everything, ye have everything!"
His bladder had given way twice, humiliation soaking the earth, reducing the once-oiled slaver to a quaking child. The girls rotated seamlessly, ensuring no respite, no blackout—hydration forced between bouts, Megan's grip prying his jaws for sips of water laced with salt to sting the splits in his lips, prolonging wakefulness.
Psychologically, it was annihilation—the absurdity of tickling as torture mocking his pride, the rotation denying him a single tormentor to hate, the questions embedding guilt as he betrayed his House, his trade, his very soul.
At three-thirty sharp, Monica stepped back, discarding the feather into the creek where it bobbed away like a surrendered flag. "Time's up, boss. He's a hollowed-out pumpkin—spilled his guts without a single cut."
Alice approached then, Kimber drawn but lowered, her face a mask of calculated detachment, the Amazon driver's efficiency warring with the sin she'd claimed. The copse stirred unnaturally—the rustle of underbrush beyond the lantern's ring, low growls threading the night air like distant thunder. Eyes gleamed in the darkness, two dozen pairs at least, reflecting the faint light with predatory hunger.
Wolves—gaunt shadows with ribs stark against matted fur, clearly survivors of lean seasons, fuller days a faded memory. They circled slow, noses twitching at the scent of sweat, blood, and vulnerability, a pack emboldened by desperation.
Tharren's blindfold slipped in his thrashing, eyes widening in raw terror as the shapes resolved—fangs bared in silent snarls, paws padding soft on the leaf-litter. "What—beasts! Untie me, ye cannot—mercy!"
Alice's gaze flicked to the encroaching pack, then to the girls, a gesture sharp and final—pack up, mount the horses. No words needed, the lantern doused with a hiss, plunging the scene into starlit gloom. Grendel and Creedmoor snorted, sensing the predators, but the girls moved with practiced haste—saddlebags cinched, weapons slung, Lulu's notepad tucked away bulging with intel.
"There goes the chance of me killing anyone. That said—perfect fucking timing," Alice murmured, swinging onto Creedmoor, her voice flat as the creek's surface.
Lulu adjusted her glasses, mounting behind Amber with a dry huff. "Convenient for the plot."
Monica vaulted onto Grendel, kukri sheathed but her grin lazy in the dark. "What a lazy way to dispose of a wretched dude. This is pure laziness."
Amber, cloak flaring as she settled in, shot a glance back at the bound slaver. "Someone clearly missed their sleep. Damn nerd."
They spurred the horses without ceremony, hooves thudding into the night, leaving Tharren lashed to the trunk—naked, broken, screams rising in a frantic archaic wail. "Nay—come back! Ye promised—beasts, nay!"
The wolves closed in, growls deepening to appetitive rumbles, the pack's alpha—a scarred matriarch with one milky eye—lunging first, jaws snapping inches from his thrashing legs.
Disagreement simmered among the Five Petals as they rode, voices low over the wind, but each found the strategy... oddly fitting.
Amber hated it visceral—wanted Tharren's end drawn-out, personal, a horrible spectacle to match the kids' chains. But wolves? Nature's jury, tearing apart a slaver like poetic justice.
"Fine," she muttered, "counts as fitting punishment. Medieval asshole gets medieval payback."
Lulu frowned at the potential clue—another body, even mauled, could draw House Veyle's hounds. But Isekai lacked sophisticated criminology; no fingerprints, no DNA, just superstitions and beast attacks. Death by wolves read natural, a footnote in the wilds.
"It passes… technically. Clean slate."
Megan had envisioned engineering— a waterwheel contraption to quarter him slow, limbs stretched to breaking. Wolves would quarter him nonetheless, messy but effective.
"Props, Al. Nature does the heavy lifting."
Monica, who'd craved skinning him alive, squeezing blood like juice from a rotten fruit, chuckled low. Wolves were nature's best crime scene scrubber—aside from pigs, alligators, hippos. No evidence left but bones picked clean. She flashed Alice a thumbs-up in the dark.
"Smart play, boss. Thumbs up."
The copse faded behind them, Tharren's screams piercing the night at first—high, desperate, dissolving into wet gurgles and the frenzy of snarls, growls of appetite swelling to a cacophony. Then, distance swallowed it, leaving only the echo of rending flesh and the occasional triumphant howl carried on the wind. By dawn, perhaps, only scattered remnants—a gnawed rope, blood-soaked earth, quartz pendant shattered amid the carnage. The girls pressed on, secrets secured, the unforgiving wilds claiming their due.
The portal spat them out like a bad burrito regret, the swirling black maw of the wormhole collapsing with a wet pop that echoed off the peeling wallpaper of Alice's Astoria shoebox. It was the same goddamn living room every time—cramped as a coffin, smelling faintly of yesterday's takeout and the perpetual mildew that came with paying $2,800 a month for a view of a brick wall and the distant hum of the N train rattling like loose teeth in the city's jaw. The wall clock ticked over to 3:52 AM, its second hand jerking like it was fighting a hangover.
Monica hit the couch first, launching herself face-down into the sagging cushions with the grace of a pro wrestler taking a dive off the top rope. The fabric wheezed under her, springs groaning like an old man's complaint, her boots—still caked in Isekai mud and what might've been wolf spit—dangling off the armrest. She let out a muffled groan, half-satisfaction, half-exhaustion, her body finally uncoiling from the night's coiled-wire tension. That burlap mask from the heist was balled up in her fist, tossed aside like a used condom, underneath, her face was streaked with soot and that feral grin that said she'd do it all again for the price of a beer.
Lulu and Amber claimed the coffee table—that wobbly relic that doubled as a dining surface on the rare nights Alice pretended to cook, or whatever category instant noodle falls into—sprawling cross-legged on the threadbare rug. Lulu yanked her laptop from her bag, the screen blooming to life with a soft chime, her fingers already flying across the keys like she was defusing a bomb. Google Docs opened to a fresh page titled Tharren Debrief: Assets/Weaknesses, the cursor blinking impatiently.
Amber, ever the queen of delegation, propped her tablet against a half-empty bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, thumbs tapping into Qwen's web interface. She'd sketched Tharren's ramblings on a crumpled napkin during the ride back—jagged lines for roads, squiggles for rivers, a fat X over the mines like a pirate's curse. Now she fed it to the AI, "Illustrate this as a fantasy campaign map. Medieval vibes, Norinbel south sector, partial continent view. Add some gritty details—ruins, wilds, keep it dark and unforgiving."
Megan beelined for the fridge, the door creaking open on hinges that hadn't seen WD-40 since the Biden administration. The fluorescent bulb buzzed like a dying hornet, illuminating a sad lineup—half a carton of almond milk gone chunky, some questionable yogurt, and—jackpot—the last bottle of Stella, condensation beading on the glass like sweat on a guilty brow. She twisted the cap with a hiss, the foam threatening to kiss the linoleum, and slammed the door with her hip. "To absent friends and eaten slavers," she muttered, tipping it back for a long pull, the bitter fizz cutting through the phantom taste of creek water and chicken feathers.
Alice lingered by the portal's fade-spot, her merchant's tunic rumpled and reeking of smoke and medieval desperation. She peeled it off like shedding a skin that didn't fit anymore, kicking her boots into the corner where they landed with a thud next to a pile of unpaid ConEd bills. The apartment's chill raised goosebumps on her arms—central air conked out again, forcing reliance on a box fan that wheezed like Monica after a bender.
She padded to her bedroom, the door half-off its hinges from that one time Megan fixed it with a hammer and spite. Inside, the mattress sagged under a duvet that smelled like lavender Febreze masking existential dread. She swapped the tunic for an oversized Mets tee and shorts, the fabric soft against the bruises blooming on her shins from the horse's jostle. The Kimber went into the nightstand drawer, next to the spare .45 rounds Monica gave her and a dog-eared copy of It that she'd been meaning to finish since college. Back in the living room, she dropped into the plushie—a thrift-store steal with sweat stains and questionable scent of cum that never really went away even after so many times deep-cleaning it—and rubbed her temples, the weight of the night settling like lead in her veins.
The room hummed with the low buzz of modern salvation—laptop fans whirring, tablet pinging notifications, the distant wail of a siren slicing through Queens like a knife through fog. It was a far cry from Norinbel's torchlit shadows and wolf-howls, but the darkness lingered, the kind that Stephen King would say hid in the corners of your eye, waiting for you to blink, damn his prose. Cormac McCarthy might've called it the blood-soaked arithmetic of survival, where every laugh extracted from Tharren's throat tallied against the ledger of their souls.
Lulu didn't look up from her screen, her glasses slipping down her nose as she hammered out bullet points.
Vows: Quartz-dust infusion, blood-binding ritual.
Counter: Fire and counter-blood. Slave's kin? God knows.
Mage: Eldric the Binder, underhalls access via Gilded Thorn basement.
Her voice cut through the clatter, dry as a martini. "Still offshoring your labor to AI, Weston?"
Amber didn't miss a beat, her acrylics clicking against the tablet like castanets in a flamenco of pettiness. She flipped her hair—still frizzed from the night's humidity—and shot back without glancing up. "Still itching for that percentage cut, Lei? Like, make it make sense. You're the one who crunched the numbers on Mard-to-dollar conversion, but suddenly ethics when I let silicon do the doodling?"
Megan swallowed a gulp of beer, the bottle sweating rings onto the armrest. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, grease-blackened nails catching the lamplight. "You both need to chill the fuck out. We're fresh off feeding a slaver to the wolves, and y'all are beefing over cartography? Save it for the group chat."
Lulu's lips twitched, but she kept typing, the keys clack-clack-clacking like gunfire in a quiet war. "I'm just saying—"
"And you will not say more, bitch." Amber's voice pitched up, that NYC snap like a rubber band against skin. "In this day and age of 2025, I pity anyone not utilizing AI for shit you're not good at. Qwen's free, it's fast, and it doesn't whine about intellectual property like some adjunct prof jonesing for tenure. And with half the blunder and disclaimer bullshit that GPT's a fan of. DO NOT REMIND ME OF GPT-5, that launch was a cluster fuck."
Lulu snorted, pushing her glasses up with a knuckle. "Ah, yes. Of course. Who would've thought the fashion assistant would crack wise on the crucible? That 3D model you sourced?"
Amber's eyes narrowed, but her thumbs kept flying, tweaking the prompt. Add slave routes in red, mines in black Xs—satirical dystopian filter. "I said I can 3D model in CAD. I never said shit about cartography. That's your wheelhouse, Wall Street—spreadsheets and soul-crushing audits."
Megan leaned forward, elbows on knees, the beer half-gone now, fizz bubbling in her gut like unspoken regrets. "Bitch, please. You let AI do your CAD work too. Back in my shop, you don't model jack—you delegate to agent and call it a day."
Amber waved her off, the tablet chiming as Qwen spat back iterations—a rough parchment-style map, Norinbel's walls sketched in inky sprawl, southern wilds bleeding into jagged hills like veins burst open. "I have other things to do, like researching medieval drip—which, as you fuckers can remember, made us a decent chunk of change flipping those velvet scraps in the hamlet. At least I got us the crucible model. Without it, we'd still be debating about ROI and ethics of capitalism."
Lulu's chuckle was low, almost genuine, the kind that hid barbs. "You stole the model from some random Redditor. And it wasn't even the right size, punk ass."
"Let the past be the past." Amber's tone turned syrupy venom. "One, that model's the right size now—industrial-standard right. Two, I made you bitches some decent capital—140 Mards from me alone don't lie. Three, personally? I don't have to take shit from the semi-autistic, Harry Potter-glasses, obsessive-compulsive nerd who's probably got a color-coded binder for her vibrator collection."
The room went still for a beat, the fan's whirr filling the void like white noise in a psych ward. Lulu's fingers paused mid-keystroke, her eyes flicking up over the laptop rim, sharp as a scalpel. "So you think you're above doing physical labor? Be serious, bitch."
Amber leaned in, her cloak—still draped over her shoulders like a security blanket—slipping to pool on the rug. "Bitch, please. With my nails? I'd suck a cock before I demote myself to grunt activities. And trust, I'd make it Pinterest-worthy."
From the couch, Monica's voice rumbled up, muffled at first, then exploding into a guffaw as she rolled onto her back, one arm flung over her eyes. "You'll still suck cock regardless, Ambs. That's for damn fuckin' sure. Tony Romo called, he wants to know if you're ready next Friday."
Amber's head snapped toward the couch, her laugh a bark. "I didn't ask for your opinion, you Texas tornado of bad ideas and worse tattoos."
Alice, sinking deeper into the plushie, pressed her palms to her ears like a kid blocking out a parental spat. The Mets tee rode up her thigh. "God, please take my hearing now. I beg of you. Or just portal me to a nunnery—anywhere without the estrogen apocalypse."
Monica sat up slow, her braid whipping like a lash, that post-heist glow still clinging to her like war paint. She cracked her knuckles, the sound popping like distant gunfire, and fixed Alice with those unhinged eyes that said violence was her love language. "Al, what's our next play? I'm bored as a nun's fart. You teased me with violence—dangling that slimy fuck like a pinata—and now you're withdrawing me from it? What ruthlessness is this shit? Blue balls for the soul."
Amber's tablet pinged victory—Qwen's final render loading with a flourish of pixelated ink. She twisted it toward the group, but her voice lanced first. "You just pulled an audacious stunt and kidnapped a man like fucking ICE on a raid, you sicko. Hours ago! Have you no chill? We're decompressing, not debriefing your murder kink."
Monica's grin widened, teeth flashing in the lamplight like a wolf's promise. "Why do you feel the need to fuck with my vibe, eh, influencer? Go post about it—#SlaverSlay, sponsored by Red Bull and repressed rage."
Alice pinched the bridge of her nose, the room's chaos swirling like the portal's afterimage. "Dear god, why have you forsaken me with these idiots I call friends? It's 4 AM, my liver's plotting a coup, and y'all sound like a Bad Girls Club rerun scripted by Tarantino."
The bickering ebbed as Amber turned her laptop. The screen flickered for a second. Norinbel's southern sprawl rendered in sepia tones, walls like jagged teeth gnashing at the grasslands, the south gate a maw spewing trade routes like veins of gold and grime. Beyond, the wilds unfurled—hills pocked with ruins that looked like God's half-assed sketches, rivers snaking like nooses, and those black Xs for the mines, clustered like tumors in the Nomence hinterlands.
It wasn't Tolkien pretty—Qwen had nailed the prompt, making it Overlord-dark: slave paths in crimson dribbles, wilds shaded in bruise-purple, a satirical nod to the capitalism festering beneath—tiny icons of carts and chains, like a Monopoly board for the damned.
Amber stood, stylus in hand like a conductor's baton, gesturing at the glow. "We have the map. Boom. Partial, yeah, but it's got the bones—Norinbel south, outer walls, and a tease of the badlands. Enough to plot without tripping over our own dicks—if did grow any."
Lulu leaned forward, squinting through her glasses, the laptop balanced on her knees like a shield. Her notes doc was up to 2,000 words now, a forensic autopsy of Tharren's confessions. "Can we even call it a map? I thought there'd be more—topo lines, settlements, mana flows or whatever the fuck passes for GPS in that shithole."
Megan drained the last of her beer, the bottle clunking onto the table like a gavel. She wiped foam from her lip, eyes narrowing at the screen. "Yeah, shit's lacking in... actual mapping. Looks like a D&D sketch from a guy who failed geography. Where's the scale? The choke points? We're blind as bats without real recon."
Alice stared at the projection, the black Xs pulling at her gut like hooks. Those mines—Hargrave's hellholes, packed with beastfolk kids swinging picks till their hands bled quartz dust. Tharren's laughs echoed in her head, fractured and pleading, a ghost in the machine of their mercy. Or lack thereof. "I hate it too, but it's all we have at the moment. We're bound to need a complete world map to even start working on our expansion. Or at least a full Nomence region spread— all four cities—Norinbel, Noutava, Noringrad, Nobesil. Without it, we're slinging spaghetti at the wall, hoping capitalism sticks."
Lulu nodded, scrolling her doc to a flagged section. "I think I saw one in the Merchant Association building—framed behind the receptionist's desk, all gilt and bullshit. Detailed as fuck—trade winds, monster migrations, the works. But... we'd need to go back there, preferably with something with a camera. Ballsy, post-heist, but not impossible."
Monica stretched, her top riding up to show ink-black tattoos curling like smoke over her ribs—reminders of bar fights and bad decisions. "The Adventurer's Guild's got one too, pinned behind the bounty board. We could hit the clerk lady up front, flash some charm and coin. Oi, scroll-slinger, what's the damage for a copy? Bet it's fifty Mards, tops."
Alice exhaled slow, the plushie's fabric sticking to her thighs in the humid air. The fan kicked up a notch, papers fluttering like nervous birds—unpaid bills, a faded photo of the five of them at Coney Island, cotton-candy grins before the whole stupid birthday wish bullshit. "Anyway, let's talk next play. Lulu, the mines. Lay it out."
"Right." Lulu tapped her screen, syncing a rough overlay to a portable monitor—the stylus ghosting red circles as Amber swiped. "Amber, zoom out... swipe down... it should be about... here." The view pulled back, the hills sharpening into crags, a valley dipping like a scar. Amber's stylus danced, encircling a shadowed basin three leagues north, terrain rendered in Qwen's grim facsimile—ravines like claw marks, sparse woods clinging to slopes like desperate fingers.
Lulu traced the circle with her finger, voice dropping to analyst mode—cold, clipped, the Wall Street wolf shedding its sheepskin. "If Tharren's words hold—and fuck, I hope they do, 'cause we're betting lives on it—the mines cluster here. Hargrave's claim—deep veins of quartz, silver lodes, the kind that conduct magic like a junkie's vein takes the needle. Kids down there, beastfolk mostly—orcs, goblins, the exotics that fetch premium chains. Tunnels probably spiderweb for miles, ventilated with bellows and prayers."
Monica kicked her legs up onto the coffee table, boots thudding beside the Cheetos bag, her mind already mapping kill zones. She squinted at the screen, that predator tilt to her head making her look like a hawk sighting roadkill. "Security? Let me see... Assuming hundreds of kids—and yeah, that turns my stomach inside out, like swallowing glass—there'd be four dozen guards, easy. Shifts overlapping, no blind spots for the overlords."
Alice leaned in, elbows on knees, the Mets tee bunching at her waist. Her mind raced—logistics, angles, the dark math of liberation in a world built on backs. "Gear? Paint the picture, Mon. We're not walking in blind again."
Monica's drawl thickened, Texas grit grinding like gravel under tires. "Usin' that fatfuck's bodyguards as refs? Medium-to-thick leather armor—boiled hides from some poor dire-boar, studded with iron plates over vitals. Swords for the close-quarters grunts, spears and shields for the perimeter pricks, a squad with crossbows perched on catwalks. And whips, darlin'—braided catgut, barbed for the bleedin' reminders. Mages? Maybe one or two, slingin' ward-spells from the overseer's tower. Vows keep the kids in line, but guards? Coin and fear. Easy enough with enough Mard bribes or a Kalashnikov, but that's your call. I'd rather pick the latter because I don't see a way of us setting those younglings free without harming the guards."
Alice's jaw tightened, the Kimber's ghost-weight heavy in her memory. That cold steel had stayed holstered tonight, but the itch lingered, a capitalist itch for efficiency in the face of feudal fuckery. "I hate that we don't have a way to know the terrain—ravines? Tunnels? We're flying blind as a drunk pilot over the Bermuda Triangle."
Lulu tapped her chin, glasses catching the monitor's glow like quartz facets. "We could try drones next payday. DJI Mini or Mavic, foldable, quiet as a whisper. Portal one through, remote-pilot from here—map the surface, thermal for guard rotations."
Amber scoffed, stylus jabbing the air. "In a world without radio towers or cell? DJI won't do shit. Signal bounce off magic ether? We'd get static and sad emojis."
Megan shifted, her tool belt—still looped low on her hips like a gunslinger's rig—clinking softly. The beer's buzz warmed her edges, but her mind was all torque and temper. "Al, this portal's cool as fuck and all, but we need comms. Bad. Can't clump together every op—divide and conquer's the play, but we can't all be in the same goddamn zip code. Electricity? Solar panels, easy—rig 'em Earth-side, portal the juice. Hell, I could try to jury-rig those magical bullshit crystals the fantasy genre jerks off to so hard—quartz conduits as batteries, why not? But comms? Top priority. Radios, at minimum. Or fuck it, WiFi if we can hack it. I know Amber won't drop a deuce without TikToking the splash."
Amber's stylus froze mid-swipe, her eyes narrowing to slits. "Fuck you, grease monkey. At least my shits have aesthetics."
Lulu's laugh bubbled up, rare and sharp. "Haha, but I agree. Comms, stat. We're five petals, not a hydra—coordination's our superpower till the guns run dry."
Monica's eyes lit up, that unhinged spark flaring like a Zippo in the dark. She sat bolt upright, boots scraping the floor as she planted them. "Actually... while we're jawin' about it, I got an idea."
The room's energy shifted, a collective inhale. Lulu's fingers stilled on the keys. "Why do I have the feeling it's gonna be a bad one? Like, let's nuke the mines from orbit bad?"
Amber rolled her eyes, but leaned in despite herself, the map's crimson paths glowing like accusations. "Because it's Monica. Anything outta her mouth is either too stupid, too reckless, too outta pocket. If you're shit outta luck? All of the above, all at once, with a side of hold my beer."
Monica's grin was a blade, slow and wicked. "Fine. Then don't listen, princesses. But hear me out—we test the portal powers. More."
Lulu tilted her head, curiosity overriding caution. "Not a bad idea? Do tell. As long as it doesn't involve feathers and medieval dicks."
Amber waved it off, stylus tapping impatient. "Nah, give it time. We're raw from the op—sleep on it."
Alice's voice cut through, steady as the portal's hum. "What do you mean by that, Mon? Testing how?"
Monica leaned forward, elbows on knees, her voice dropping to conspiracy hush, laced with that Texas twang that made even madness sound like gospel. "Ain't no way we're buildin' our own towers over there—not yet, not without a fuckton of money and a prayer from the man Jesus himself with Buddha assisting his ass. But we can map the lands, scout blind spots. If WiFi's signal transmission, how 'bout we just... bring the fuckin' internet to Isekai? Portal-pipe it straight through."
Megan's beer bottle paused halfway to her lips, eyes widening. "Hold the front door—are you sayin' interdimensional internet? Like, Ethernet cables through the void?"
The idea hung there, absurd and brilliant, a satirical spit in the face of physics—a capitalist hack for a feudal firewall. Alice's mind whirred—the portal as a cosmic USB port, bridging worlds not just for guns and gold, but gigabytes and grief. It was Overlord-level cheese—Momonga himself would've cackled, Undead emotional controls be damned—exporting not just capitalism, but cat videos to the chains.
Monica pointed to the wall near the window, where Alice's router squatted like a plastic toad, its lights blinking green promises. "See that white box over there? You've been in this shit apartment for years, Al. What's the range? 30, 60 feet?"
Alice shrugged, the armchair creaking under her. "I don't know... 30, 60 feet? Enough for Netflix in bed, trash for the fire escape."
"Correct. 30 feet's fine if you're browsin' porn or doomscrollin' Instagram baddies from under the duvet, but past your door? Signal turns to literal shit—pixelated dicks and buffering rage." Monica's eyes danced, the room leaning in now, hooked. "But if you plug a WiFi extender to your home router... boom. Daisy-chain that bitch through the portal. Open one end Earth-side, the other in Isekai—test ping, stream a TED Talk to a goblin, let halflings watch soap opera, fucking whatever. Instant comms, mapping on the fly."
They all perked, the skepticism cracking like eggshells. Megan set her bottle down, mind already wrenching tools. "Holy shit. Interdimensional daisy-chain. We'd need CAT6 cable—long run, shielded for the void weirdness. Extender on steroids."
Alice's pulse quickened, the dark fantasy of it all colliding with Gen Z pragmatism. Was it possible? The portal bent space like wet clay—why not data? "Is that even feasible? We don't know how versatile this thing really is. Could fry the router, bluescreen the whole damn multiverse."
"That's why we start easy." Monica's grin was infectious, a virus of possibility. "Who's got the fastest internet outta all of us?" Heads swiveled, landing on Lulu like heat-seeking missiles.
Lulu blinked, laptop snapping shut with a click. "Why me? My folks' plan's gigabit, sure, but—"
Megan jumped in, smirking. "You still live with your parents, Lu. Tribeca townhouse, fiber optic wet dream."
Amber chimed, all faux-innocence. "And in a nice hood too—no nosy supers or N train vibes."
Lulu's cheeks flushed, that analyst armor cracking. "I'm not doing this experiment from my old man's place. He's old-school—What's this glowing box, Lu? Is it voodoo?"
Monica waved it off, boots thumping the floor. "Fuck off, he's away most afternoons and nights—golf with the boys or whatever rich pricks do. Tribeca's quiet as a grave—we could use the privacy if we're portal-fuckin' with the FCC's nightmares."
Alice piled on gentle, but firm—the leader's nudge. "I don't mean to hop the train, but yeah. My internet's Spectrum trash—capped at 100 down on a good day."
Lulu crossed her arms, but her resolve wobbled. "Why couldn't we do it here, in your place? It's neutral ground."
"My connection's not that fast," Alice pressed, the room's eyes on her like a jury. "Buffers on YouTube, let alone live recon."
"We're browsing TikTok in a medieval world, Al—internet speed shouldn't matter. A cat video's a cat video, vows or no."
Monica shook her head, braid swaying. "That's yet to be specified. Portal physics could warp it—latency like dial-up in hell, packet loss from mana interference. Arguably, if we're serious about testing, we want the fastest, most stable pipe. Gig fiber or bust."
Megan nodded, tool-belt clink punctuating. "There could be lags, signal degradation, ether bleed. My brother's still outta town with his girlfriend, he won't notice if his old extender vanishes. Buy a 50-foot CAT6 for thirty bucks at Micro Center, voila. Solder it if we need."
Alice met Lulu's gaze, the unspoken math hanging. "It's really temporary, Lu. Until we bootstrap satellites or towers over there—just five, ten tests. Simple as that—open portal, hold it for some minutes, cable through, fire up YouTube, take notes on ping. Could be a minute or five, tops."
Monica backed it, voice softening rare. "Yeah, we don't gotta go overboard. It's proof-of-concept, not Elon-level. Quick and dirty. We're testing the portal's maximum opening time too here. It's a win-win-fucking win situation."
Lulu sighed, the fight draining like air from a punctured tire. "Alright, fine. I'll ask my dad if he can go drinking with his poker buddies if you're really serious. But what about now? We can't just sit on our asses till he clears out."
Alice blinked, the map's Xs blurring in her periphery. "What about now?"
Lulu's voice sharpened, the analyst snapping back. "We made 294 Mards from the hamlet flip. We're still short 1,069 from the initial goal—1,363 total to fill the whole crucible, remember? Lord have mercy, I should check each of your heads for short-term memory. That crucible? Industry standard 400-troy ounce bar of pure gold. We melt it down wrong, we're out 50k easy."
The room deflated, the high of the idea crashing into fiscal reality. Amber's stylus dropped, clattering. "Damn, she's right. I just remembered... I'm on my fourth credit card, and that shit's hitting the limit. Can't bulk more clothes to sell in Isekai without seed cash."
Megan patted her empty pockets, the tool belt's pouches mocking her. "I got like a couple hundred bucks left. Sorry, boss."
Monica spread her hands, innocent as a fox in a henhouse. "Don't look at me, I ain't the piggy bank. Bouncer gigs pay in tips and trauma. Why do you think I never pay for cable?"
Alice's stomach knotted, the Mets tee suddenly too tight. Amazon severance? A pipe dream—HR ghosts moved slower than continental drift during the Mesozoic. "I don't think Amazon's wiring my fuck-you pay in the next couple hours. So..."
Lulu leaned back, rubbing her temples. "We're fucked. I don't mean to sound like a bitch—okay, maybe a little—but you're gonna have to make the call here, Al. We have 294 Mards. It ain't much, but each coin's a brick in the wall. If Amber's faggot fashion contacts can be trusted, we sell a couple dozen—liquidate for Earth capital. Keep the rest for bribes and blades."
Monica nodded, the wolfish grin fading to grim. "Also, if House Veyle finds what's left of the fucker—mauled to mystery meat and wolf breakfast—they'll chase wolf ghosts for weeks. No heat on us, not yet. Buys breathing room."
Alice mulled it, the dark calculus spinning—Mards as blood money, wolves as unwitting janitors. It was survival's ugly math, McCarthy-barren and King-haunted, where every coin bought a step from the abyss—or deeper in. "Lulu's got a point. We need money to make money. Amber, how fast can these trust-fund vampires move? Get us paid without the drama?"
Amber pulled her phone, thumbs blurring into Instagram DMs—contacts from her fashion PA days, the kind who dropped five thousand on fake vintage without blinking. "Trust fund kids? Could be quick as a line at Erewhon, could be slow as their therapy waits. Depends on their ego du jour—Oh em gee, unmarked gold? Iconic, yass slay. But if you're dead serious, I'll slide in, float a meet-up. Coffee at some overpriced spot, flash the shine, close the deal. How's that?"
Alice nodded, the leader's weight settling like a familiar yoke. "That's fine by me. Lulu, run the numbers—quick and dirty."
Lulu's laptop chimed open, Excel blooming like a weed. Formulas flew. "294 Mards—not much, but sell 24 for now. Nets us about twenty-eight grand USD, split five ways. Covers cables, clothes bulk from Shenzhen, maybe a drone starter kit. Keep 270 Mards for Isekai grease."
"Amber?" Alice prompted, eyes on the map's crimson paths, the mines mocking from afar.
"That amount of money should be just fine." Amber's DMs pinged replies—emojis first, then When/where? Spill. "Personally? I wanna hit shops in Shenzhen, see what LARP shit they're slinging. Cosplay's global cancer—China's got the factories churning European medieval fantasy drip—tunics, cloaks, boots that don't scream 'thrift store reject.' Bulk it cheap, portal-flip for five time markup. Satirical gold—exporting our knockoffs to their knockoff world."
Alice stood, joints popping like gunfire in the quiet. The clock read 4:45 AM now, dawn's gray fingers prying at the blinds. Exhaustion clawed at her edges, the night's sins whispering from the shadows—Tharren's final gurgles, the wolves' feast, the portal's indifferent hum. "Sounds solid. Let's call it—go home. Shower the wolf piss off. Eat something that ain't jerky. Shit, sleep, whatever order works."
Lulu snapped her laptop shut, stretching with a yawn that cracked her jaw. "Great. I smell like turd and trauma."
Amber rose, cloak scooped up, phone buzzing with confirmations. "You and me both, bitch. My silk sheets are gonna revolt."
Megan hefted herself up, tool belt clinking farewell. "Thank God—my back's fucking sore already. Horse-riding's for cowboys, not grease monkeys."
Monica vaulted off the couch, landing light as a cat with nine lives left. "Weaklings. Y'all fold faster than a lawn chair in a hurricane."
Alice herded them to the living room's center, the air shimmering as she sliced a portal. They dabbed fists in a messy circle—knuckles scarred, rings glinting—promises unspoken in the bump.
"6 PM sharp," Alice said, voice rough as the night's residue. "My place. Maps, money, mayhem."
The portals swallowed them one by one, voids winking shut like conspirators' eyes. Alice lingered in the sudden silence, the apartment's hum deafening now—fridge cycling, fan droning, city pulse bleeding through the walls. She shuffled to the bedroom, the mattress welcoming like an old enemy. She collapsed face-down, duvet tangling around her legs, the Kimber's drawer thunking shut in her mind's echo.
Sleep came fractured, dreams of maps unrolling like tongues, crimson paths leading to mines where children laughed in Tharren's voice—tickled to madness, wolves at the door. Outside, Astoria stirred—a car alarm wailed, fireworks popped premature for Halloween, the N train thundered its eternal complaint. In Isekai, dawn broke over wolf-gnawed bones, House Veyle stirring to a mystery.
Here, in the overpriced heart of it all, Alice Bromine—Amazon drone, portal pioneer, reluctant reaper—dozed like the dead, the weight of worlds pressing her into oblivion.
But oblivion was temporary. At 6 PM, the grind resumed—capitalism's cold march, satirical and savage, petals unfolding in the dark.