Witch of the Web

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

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My brain is mush. 

How could she? How dare she!?

Why’d she have to go complimenting me like that?

I can’t even manage to form full sentences as I’m led to whatever training Lonnie has in mind. I’m burning up! My CPU is overloading! 

“Rose?”

Error! Rose not found! Only mush!

“I think you broke her,” Summer giggles. She gives me a light peck on the cheek that sends me even deeper into the mushy quagmire of my heart. I think I manage to mumble something, but I’m not sure.

“Was that supposed to help?” Felicia asks with a hint of laughter in her voice.

My blonde girlfriend giggles some more before saying, “Nope!”

Aaaaaaah!

“What’s wrong with her?” That sounds like Lonnie. We must’ve gotten to the training room.

“I gave her a compliment?” Felicia sounds confused. Clearly she doesn’t understand the power she’s wielded. Lonnie’s thoughtful humming makes it clear she at least gets it. 

“Yeah. That’ll do it,” she laughs. “Don’t worry, I got this,” she adds before I feel her in my personal space. “Listen to me Rose.” Her voice is soft and compassionate. “You’re cute and valid and you have people who lo- care for you.”

AAAAAAAAAAH!!! Was that supposed to help? 

“Oh! That’s a new shade of red,” Summer muses. “But, I don’t think it’s working.” 

“Heh, I wasn’t really trying to snap her out of it. I just wanted to make it worse. She’ll sort herself out soon enough.”

That conniving - !

“Y - you!” I snap. “That’s not fair!” I do my best to sound annoyed or even angry; I even stomp my foot a few times for emphasis. I don’t think it’s working though. 

I open my eyes a little to see them all looking at me as if I were a cute kitten playing with a ball of yarn. 

Yeah, no. I’m really not doing myself any favors, am I?

“Wh - whatever, let’s just get this training over with,” I grumble as I take proper stock of the room we’re in.

The simple space has stone walls and ceiling with basic tile flooring. There are delving systems lined up along a wall as well as a more specialized looking console on the opposite side. At the far end of the room is a large table covered in papers. Behind me is a metal door with no window; for privacy I imagine.

I try to ignore the lingering giggles and snickers from the others as I get settled in at one of the systems. Sure, I can enter Lanadel on my own whenever I want, but I’d be willing to bet money that these rigs will route me to the training grounds directly. 

As I thought, once I connect, I’m whisked to a large, empty space with little embellishment. I’m quickly joined by Felicia and Summer, but not Lonnie. I’m not left wondering where she is for long as her voice suddenly echoes around us.

“Welcome to the Dungeons. We got the idea for this set up from some old role playing games where one person oversees the playing experience of the others.” Hills begin to form around us as Lonnie continues. “I’ll be taking the role of the Dungeon Master and will be presenting you three -” I open my mouth to correct her but she catches herself too quickly. “- sorry, four. I’ll be setting up different challenges and scenarios for you all to face and overcome. This is meant to be serious training, but try to have some fun while you’re at it, it’ll help with the stress.”

My girlfriends and I share looks with each other and Willow while Lonnie goes silent. Summer is beaming with excitement as I’d be willing to bet she’s plenty familiar with this sort of stuff, given that it’s her aunt that’s doing this. Felicia looks a little more apprehensive, which is a much more reasonable response in my opinion. Willow though, she feels like she’s just as excited as Summer. My best guess is that she’s thinking of this like a chance to play. I’d be lying if I said her excitement isn’t contagious. 

“What do you think she has in mind?” Felicia asks Summer, keeping her voice low. 

“She’s not going to make us play out that movie she’s obsessed with is she?” I whisper just as quietly. I’m sure Lonnie can hear everything we say, so I take the extra precaution of having Willow encrypt our conversation to give us some privacy.

“It’s hard to say. She’d play games like she described with me and my parents all the time, though we relied more on our imagination and rolling physical dice than using Lanadel.” She taps her chin while humming softly. “If I had to guess, she’ll put us in difficult situations to see how we react. As for what exactly those situations will be, I’m not sure.”

“She gets off on power games doesn’t she?” I tease, dropping the encryption so Summer's aunt can hear my jab.

“Oh maliciously!” Lonnie agrees. “I’m ready on my end, what about you three?” She doesn’t even give us a chance to respond as our surroundings suddenly change, putting us in the middle of a busy street in the digital Lanadey. But it doesn’t end there as simulated loggers appear around us and we are thoroughly outnumbered. They have Knights, Mages and plenty of standard goons to round them out. 

I’m not too scared; at least not until I realize why Lonnie is likely doing this. She wants to remind us, or more specifically me, what overconfidence will cost you. I’m not going to make the same mistake, especially not when Summer and Felicia might be directly affected. 

We’re not even given a chance to strategize as the entire small army of jacks charges right for us. 

Summer raises a domed barrier around us to give us some time to think, but it doesn’t last long as one of the mages takes it down almost immediately. Felicia tries to create a wall by slamming her shield down, but the Knights just barrel through it. 

This is starting to feel like it’s meant to be a no win scenario. From what little I know of her, she’d totally do that. However, I’m really not one to accept that a situation can’t be beat and neither is Willow. She looks up at me and I meet her gaze as everything around us feels like it’s slowing down.

The little familiar explains that she’s sped up my thought processes temporarily so we can come up with a plan. She counts thirty agents in total; specifically, there are seven Knights, seven Mages and sixteen standard mooks. Those lance wielding jackasses are leading the charge with the goons coming up behind them while their mages hang back and work to counter anything we do to defend ourselves. 

Since we can’t deal with the frontline while the backline is busy screwing us over, we need to bypass the heavily armored charge and skip right to the squishy mages. How to do that is the question. 

I notice the thin strands of code leading back to a mage as they once again dispel a barrier that Summer summons and the idea hits me!

Grabbing hold of the code directly, something only doable with the help of Willow, I tap into the mages’ framework. Lonnie’s done a good job of making these jerks seem realistic as she even made them seem like they’re properly networked. Which is fortunate, as that lets me take advantage of my backdoor and send a quick and dirty virus to infect the whole lot of them. 

By the time they’ve compartmentalized the malicious code, half of the mages have been knocked out cold and the rest were too busy trying to stop me that they failed to interrupt Summer as she created little bubbles of light around each of the knights. 

With their heavy hitters immobilized, and their backline incapacitated, the mooks are easy work for Felicia to mow through with her sword and shield combo. The mages try to rally once more to stop the blonde healer, but I’ve already crossed the gap and have started turning them into beavers. I’d considered rats again, but turning a logger into a tiny baby beaver is too on point to ignore.

Once all the mages are dealt with completely, and the mooks are likewise dispatched, we start letting the knights out one at a time. They don’t get any chance to react as the moment Summer releases them, I wrap them up in vines and half bury them in the ground. 

Lonnie’s slow clapping echoes once the last logger is dealt with. “Well done girls,” she says as the agents all vanish before us. “I’ll be honest, you weren’t supposed to win that. It was meant to teach humility, but I’m impressed.” I try to keep a smug grin off my face, but I’m only partially successful. “How’d you pull that off by the way?” our instructor acts. 

I debate being obtuse, but decide that if we’re going to work with these people, I might as well throw them the occasional bone or two. 

“Any sort of webweaving, be it your run of the mill weaver in their basement, or an elite mage, has a digital trail that can be traced,” I explain. “Combat weaves aren’t easy to grab onto though. I managed to do it because Willow sped up my mind enough that I could see the retreating end of that trail.”

“Wow. Just… Just wow. Willow really gives you an unfair advantage, doesn’t she?” Lonnie comments with a grin. “Still, she’s not going to get you out of every situation,” she points out. “Why don’t we try something a little… different.”

The street drops out from under us and we begin to fall until we’re each caught in separate slides that twist and turn as we get pulled away in three different directions. There’s a fourth slide that’s likely meant for Willow, but she quickly just teleports to my slide. I stifle a giggle as I hear Lonnie groan in frustration.

“She really should’ve expected that,” I say, smiling at my familiar. The fluffy black cat just lays on my chest until we reach the bottom of the slide.

We’re let out in a forested space with stone walls surrounding it. During the descent, it looked like there’s a maze beyond this mini forest. So it seems that the idea is to split us up and force us to fight on our own then?

Yeah. Fuck that!

I’m not going to play along. 

Yeah, no. 

I look straight up into the sky and smile brightly. “Hey Lonnie?” I call out, hoping to get her attention.

“Is something the matter Rose?” our ‘dungeon master’ asks in a saccharine tone. 

“For me? No,” I reply as Willow and I walk straight in the direction we can sense Summer. There’s a wall between us and her. “But for you? Well, sorry if I’m not willing to play by your rules.” The two of us walk right through the wall and begin beelining it for our blonde girlfriend.

“Woah, woah, hey! Cut that out!” Lonnie whines as Willow and I bypass several rooms that looked like they were supposed to be interesting. 

“Hmmmmm…. Nope!” I sass back. I’m about to indulge in some much needed trolling when I hear Summer’s voice ring out. 

“Rose, sweetie, could you please humor my aunt? She’s trying to help us after all. Plus, I’d like to show I can stand on my own two feet.” 

Fuck.

My shoulders slump and I stop in my tracks. I glance back to where I came from and let out the most put upon sigh I can muster before retracing my steps and returning to the little forest room. I even repair the walls on my way since I’m oh so nice.

“There?! Happy?” I snap before devolving into petty grumbles.

Stupid dungeon crawling bullshit.

Also that was foul play getting Summer to ask me like that!

“Very, now, don’t look now but you’re not alone in there!” Lonnie calls out with glee. 

I look for signs of enemies and fail to see any until several of the trees stand up, much like when I used them against the loggers in the woods. 

“Oh fuck off.”

End Chapter 23