Blue Hell And Alien Fire (Middang3ard Book 4) Read online

  Blue Hell And Alien Fire

  Middang3ard™ Book Four

  Ramy Vance

  Michael Anderle

  The Blue Hell And Alien Fire Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Diane L. Smith

  Deb Mader

  Dave Hicks

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Jeff Eaton

  If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  Blue Hell and Alien Fire (this book) is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 by Ramy Vance & Michael Anderle

  Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

  http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected]

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US Edition, December 2019

  ISBN (ebook) 978-1-64202-670-2

  ISBN (paperback) 978-1-64202-671-9

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Author Notes Ramy Vance

  Author Notes Michael Anderle

  Other books by Ramy Vance

  Books By Michael Anderle

  Connect with The Authors

  1

  Few people ever ventured to the island.

  The Mundanes had heard the legends before doing so, and they went anyway.

  We’re such fools, Suzuki thought when he woke up to find that he was incapable of moving. It took him a bit of squirming before he realized why.

  There were rumors that the island was home to creatures of immense ferocity. Panthers the size of houses prowling through the dark, snakes that could wrap around an entire tree and pull it up by its roots. As far as the Mundanes were concerned, the creatures sounded like a petting zoo compared to everything else they had fought in Middang3ard so far.

  In the past few months, they had battled orcs, dragons, a cave full of Christmas-themed monsters, techno-organic aliens, and demons, so he figured they could handle whatever the Island threw at them.

  Given the position he was in, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Suzuki couldn’t even turn his head.

  It was as if his entire body had gone numb. The most he could move were his eyes and, even then, he felt like they were heavy and impossible to keep open.

  And to think that a few hours ago, the Mundanes had enjoyed a ride on a rickety schooner with battered sails that miraculously caught the wind as they sailed to the Island.

  When the Mundanes arrived, Stew was the first off the schooner, as usual. He didn’t bother helping to anchor the boat. The man child was a walking pile of muscles, which had grown more defined since he came to Middang3ard.

  He hardly wore any armor, his chest painted with charmed warpaint, a chain mail kilt covering his waist, swords, daggers, and battle-axes hanging from his back and waist. He was covered in scars, both from acne and battle. Thankfully, his acne had been clearing up over the last few months. A large scar ran from the top of his head to his chin, and it stood in violent contrast to the sheer enormity of his adolescent smile.

  Stew splashed in the water, throwing his hands toward the sky as he fell backward into a crashing wave. “Dudes, this island is fucking sick!” Stew shouted. “Why did no one tell us about this before?”

  Sandy waved her hand over in Stew’s direction, causing a larger wave to rise and pound Stew into the shore. When Stew looked in her direction, she pretended not to see him as she magicked the heavy anchor off the schooner, dropping it into the water. She jumped off the boat and floated above the water’s surface until she got to the shore.

  Sandy looked slightly out of place in the small island paradise. Since coming to Middang3ard, she had not developed a definitive style, outside of her finely tailored MERC robes. Those looked like a cross between military garb and a high fashion concept suit.

  That had changed over the last few weeks. Sandy had become obsessed with elvish fashion, specifically, high elvish funeral fashion. Her face was brilliantly made up with stark black makeup and lipstick, each stroke composed of a prayer to the elvish god of death. Instead of her usual MERC robes, she had opted for a rigid, formal three-piece robe-suit, tailored with the finest elvish silk, and a crisp burgundy tie. Seeing her smile or giggle was always shocking, even though it happened frequently.

  Sandy glanced at Beth and Suzuki, who were still standing on the schooner. “Aren’t you guys coming?”

  Beth tentatively peered over the rail, looking a little worried as the sea’s waves rocked the schooner back and forth. “I don’t know how to swim,” Beth admitted. “I hadn’t really thought this far ahead.”

  Sandy smiled far too sweetly to be the epitome of high-fashion elf gothic. She extended her hand, and a delicate wand of black bone (in keeping with her recent color scheme) appeared between her fingers. She waved the wand, and Beth vanished from the schooner and appeared beside Sandy. “I’ve been working on short-distance transportation,” Sandy said.

  Beth was off-balance from the sudden transportation, and she teetered back and forth before falling on her ass. Unlike most MERCs, she refused to wear a uniform. She also refused to wear military-issue armor. Instead, she wore a ragtag ensemble of practical armor, function over fashion. Her hair was shaved nearly to her scalp, and she continuously scratched it. Scars covered her hands.

  After she got back up, she scrolled through her HUD, tossed her armor into her inventory, and selected in a flattering, one-piece vintage bathing suit. Her back, arms, and neck were also covered in scars and burns.

  Sandy took in Beth’s bathing suit, envious in the way only friends can be when they see someone they care about looking that good. “Damn, Beth, when the hell did you go shopping?” Sandy asked. “Never pegged you for a thrift-store chic kinda gal.”

  Beth did her best 1940s pin-up pose, only to quickly lose her balance and fall again. She pulled a large-brimmed hat and sunglasses out of her HUD and sat down on the shore. “Yeah, I was going for Audrey,” she said as she pointed at her hair. “You know, get the whole look going, but I totally fucked it up. Still looks cute, though.”

  Suzuki admired Beth from afar, trying to wrap his mind around the fact he was dating her. They’d spent so long as online friends that the revelation she was in love with him still felt
too good to be true.

  He knew it wasn’t a dream when she turned and waved at him to join them.

  Suzuki leapt off the boat into the water. When he’d first come to Middang3ard, he’d had a little bit of nerd-pudge. He’d burned that off over the last month of adventuring. Now he was a tanned and toned version of himself that could have easily been one of his old VR avatars. He wore fairly light leather MERC armor, the standard look of a fighter or warrior, with the addition of several enhanced items and charms he had picked up along the way. Nothing flashy, but if you were to look closely, you would see that even his basic leather armor had been enchanted with a high degree of skill.

  It gave the exact impression Suzuki wanted. Unassuming. No one would ever believe he was a walking powerhouse of well-thought-out tactical enhancements.

  It didn’t take Suzuki long to reach the shore. He sat next to Beth and took her hand in his. The sun was at the perfect angle to brighten the sky but not blind them. The wind smelled great, and he felt like he could have sat there on the beach with his party all day.

  That was the last moment of comfort the Mundanes would share on the Island for some time. Everything was very quickly about to go to shit.

  Whatever happened, happened fast—so fast, he didn’t realize he’d been knocked unconscious until he woke up numb and unable to move.

  A voice beside Suzuki roused his attention. He tried to focus on it, but his head was very fuzzy. It felt like he had just woken up from a particularly long night of drinking.

  Yet he knew he hadn’t. And he hadn’t been out long since it was still daylight. In fact, the sun was beating down on him, and he desperately wanted something to drink, his mouth was so dry.

  The voice beside him was still talking. He blocked everything out and focused on the voice, on what it was saying. At first, it sounded as if it were an entirely different language. Gradually the words started to make an impression. It was definitely English.

  It was Beth’s voice. What she was saying didn’t make any sense, though. Then a few words got Suzuki’s attention, and the rest of the words eventually caught up. “We’ve been drugged,” Beth said.

  Well, that explains why nothing fucking makes sense right now, Suzuki thought. The last few hours were a black spot. The last thing he could remember was getting off the boat and holding Beth’s hand. Whatever had happened to get him drying out and unable to move under the cruelly hot sun had been forgotten in a drug haze. “Do you know how?” Suzuki asked.

  As Beth spoke, Suzuki tried to turn his head to face her. Whatever had been passed to Suzuki and Beth wasn’t responsible for Suzuki being unable to move. He couldn’t see, but he could feel. Something was pushing down on him. Or, to be more specific, many little things were pressing down on him. It felt like he was trapped under piano wire.

  Beth was still talking, and Suzuki was having a hard time following. The closer attention he paid, the easier it was to string meaning out of the odd jumble of consonants and vowels. “We’ve been Gullivered.” Beth sighed. “Like, the whole fucking nine yards. Although, I don’t remember reading anything about him being drugged. He just fell asleep. Something came and got us. Don’t know how it happened or when, but it couldn’t have been too long after we got here.”

  “So, some kind of indigenous people group captured us?”

  “Yeah, you could say that. I don’t know why you would say it like that, but sure. That’s exactly what I think happened.”

  Suzuki strained his muscles, thinking he could just explode his bindings. It didn’t happen, though. He was just as stuck as before. “Fuck.” He groaned. “How the hell did Gulliver get out of this?”

  Beth laughed. She still seemed to be in a fairly good mood for someone who was tied up and defenseless. “You know, I haven’t read that since high school. I have no idea how the fuck he got out of it.”

  “Are Sandy and Stew here too?”

  “No. I’ve been calling for them for a while but I haven’t heard anything. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they slipped off to fuck, and that’s how we got ambushed. We should have left them to go fuck. Then we wouldn’t have to wait for them to come save us. We’d already have bailed them out of this.”

  “I told you, outdoor sex kinda freaks me out. Instant anxiety.”

  “And like I told you, we’re gonna work on it. We’re gonna fuck on top of a mountain while goats and other woodland creatures take notes.”

  “First, we gotta get out of this.”

  Beth sighed, and Suzuki could hear her struggling. He put all his strength into slightly turning his head in Beth’s direction. He was able to move a couple of centimeters, which was enough to let him see Beth. She was wearing her armor, which was good. That meant there was a chance they had gotten captured after all the Mundanes had gotten tired of being at the beach. Still, that didn’t give Suzuki any more clues to what could have happened for them both to have been captured. That wasn’t the reason Suzuki had turned to face Beth, though. Truthfully, he just wanted to look at her. He wasn’t disappointed. Beth was staring back at him, smiling. “You really take me on the shittiest adventures,” she teased.

  Suzuki couldn’t help but laugh as he squirmed under the piano wire. “Would you prefer to be rotting in an orc dungeon?” he asked.

  “Nah. Your company is greatly preferred. So, this Milos…are his quests usually this shitty?”

  Suzuki thought about it for a couple of seconds. “You know, I was originally going to say no,” Suzuki started. “But now that I think about it, Milos only sends us to do bullshit. If I hadn’t thought it was a good idea to get some ambrosia to cheer everyone up, I wouldn’t have bothered. Now I can see why Milos didn’t come to this beautiful tropical isle himself. Figures there would be shit here that wanted us dead. I say we tie him up when we get back and see how he likes it.”

  Beth raised one of her eyebrows as she licked her lips. “Oh, now you want to tie up our boss?” she asked. “You just keep getting kinkier.”

  “Just wait until I get some ambrosia in me.”

  “Can’t wait to see what we can get in me.”

  Suzuki was trying to think of something to say in reply when he heard leaves moving.

  A lot of them.

  Something in the forest was heading in their direction. Suzuki strained his eyes, trying to focus past Beth. Out of the corner of one, he saw something rustling near the foot of the trees that surrounded them. A blue man with a slightly protruding belly stepped out. He was no taller than seven inches, and he wore a red cap. He would have been adorable if he hadn’t been holding an axe and chewing on what looked like a miniature chicken head.

  More blue men exited the surrounding trees. Beth’s eyes popped wide open when she saw who was responsible for their capture. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked. “Did we get captured by Smurfs?”

  Suzuki cleared his throat theatrically before Beth’s glare made him stop taking himself so seriously. “Uh, I was just going to say that they’re probably not called Smurfs here,” Suzuki explained. “Writers and television were seeding the idea of Smurfs for the collective consciousness of viewers, so their real names are probably lost. Also, I’m pretty sure ‘Smurfs’ is copyrighted.”

  “What the hell do you propose we call them?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never named anything before. ‘Smuggles?’”

  Beth laughed, and Suzuki’s heart soared. He lived for that laugh. He’d die for it, too.

  “Fine, ‘Smuggles,’ it is.”

  Five Smuggles walked into Suzuki’s field of vision. They crossed their arms as they looked Suzuki up and down, talking to each other in a language he couldn’t understand. It was filled with sharp consonants, and inflection seemed to be a large part of conveying meaning.

  That and gesturing.

  “Hey, Fred,” Suzuki said, searching for his familiar within him. As hard as he searched, he couldn’t find the imp.

  Suzuki groaned. “Beth. Can you connect w
ith your familiar?”

  Beth pursed her lip as she searched within herself. “No,” she finally said. “It’s like they’re not there. What’s going on?”

  Suzuki shrugged. Well, shrugged as much as his bonds allowed him to. “My best guess is that while we’re tied up, they’re magically bound and gagged.” He couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of the imp being gagged. Finally, there was a force on Middang3ard that could shut Fred up.

  He looked at their approaching captors. From what Suzuki could gather, it seemed like they were preparing to skewer him. For what reason, he did not know. Might as well see if I can ask, he thought.

  Suzuki wiggled as much as he could to catch the Smuggle’s attention. “Excuse me,” Suzuki started. “I don’t mean to interrupt your…uh…meeting. But now that I have your attention, I want to ask you if you could possibly release us?”

  One of the Smuggles took a step closer to Suzuki, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “You talk loud. Too big. Quiet your voice,” the Smuggle said.

  Suzuki would have jumped for joy if he had not been so tightly bound. “Wonderful,” he whispered. “You understand me. So, what do you say? Would you set us free?”

  The Smuggle shook his head as he stroked his chin. “Nope. You sacrifice. We haven’t had a big one in a while. You two will bring the blonde one much joy. She will overflow with happiness.”