So, it's been a while, huh? Sorry about the delay, I absolutely expect that anyone who was interested in this story has probably moved well on with their lives by now. I won't bore you with the details, but life took a good hard dump on me last year, and I'm just now recovering. I'd like to say I've been writing non stop in the meantime, but that's simply not the case. I never did stop thinking about Rekka's adventure, though, and have been itching to get back to it, and now I've finally found the time. So, here it is, chapter 7. I hope you enjoy it.
*****
Larry was having an interesting day. It had started fairly normally, as far as normal could be measured these days. His guard of the day had been almost polite in waking him this morning. He'd only laid in with the boots after Larry curled back under the covers and told him where he could stick his spear.
Larry had real problems with authority. His only satisfaction lately had come from dragging his feet when ordered to do anything and petty acts of sabotage.
His guards mostly understood the work avoidance, they did plenty of that themselves. They only got steamed when Larry "accidentally" spilled molten metal across the forge. The off-duty guards had to spend a couple hours trying to keep the fires contained to the room, and they hated doing extra work. Not being able to have any equipment repaired for a solid week had caused merry hell for the entire fort. The black eye and cracked rib that stunt had earned him was almost worth seeing the new shade of red coloring the warden's face.
This day, though, Larry had been fresh out of ideas for malicious non-compliance. He was going to wait for his latest bruises to fade away before he tried anything. Something to do with horseshoe nails, perhaps. With those happy thoughts of workplace negligence bouncing around in his head, Larry spent the day doing actual labor.
He'd lost track of the time as he ground and filed the new barrels. Once more the absurdity of his current conditions got to him. His angry mutterings nearly woke his guard, asleep on a stool in the corner. Glaring at his tools, Larry's thoughts drifted back to when he had been content.
Larry's life had been perfect, he'd been on track for a plush job with a huge faceless corporation as a happy little drone. He was close to finishing his degree from his almost impressive university, and he even enjoyed the field of mechanical engineering he'd fallen into for lack of any other interests. He could hardly wait to start earning buckets of cash doing monkey work with his shiny new degree so he could spend his evenings knocking back beers and playing video games.
Larry's last moments in a sane and normal world had been spent in his dorm's communal showers, trying to avoid touching the mildew tainted walls and too hungover to jerk off. His headache not being soothed by standing under the hot spray, he decided he'd ditch his classes today, maybe drink some more beer and feel sorry for himself. Pulling the clean looking but almost certainly filthy shower curtain aside, he froze and stared dumbly.
Instead of the dingy row of sinks, all he could see was a wall of pure white. Focusing his eyes, he could see it was some kind of flat ovoid plane. Just sitting there, doing nothing. He really wished he'd decided to risk full body athlete's foot and crawled under the stalls to get around it. Instead, stupidly, he had waved his hand through the thing and immediately been sucked screaming into it. He felt himself being drawn along a bright tunnel for several terrifying seconds only to be spat out into the shittiest place imaginable.
He found himself prone on cold stone, surrounded by jabbering lunatics. He must have slipped and hit his head in the shower. This was the only explanation fitting this madness. It looked like he was in an old church of some kind, and the parishioners were into Renfaire like nothing he'd ever seen. Half of them were in Gregorian monk robes, the others were decked out in shiny plate-mail. The head lunatic looked like some lame fat cosplay of Saruman, minus the staff. Two of the knights grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, his towel deciding it wanted no part of it and remained on the ground.
"Jesus! What the fuck is going on? Let me go you LARP nerds, my dicks hanging out!" Larry squawked, too angry to be afraid.
They ignored him, continuing to jabber at him in Klingon or something, until the wizard wannabe silenced them. He strode forward, placing his hand on Larry's forehead, then slapped it back like a faith healer. Larry was surprised to feel
something
fizzle through his brain, kicking his hangover into high gear. He immediately lost the beery contents of his stomach all over fat Gandalf's white robes.
He guessed that must have shocked them out of their roleplaying, because they stopped talking in Dothraki. The head geek was real upset about his robes, probably sewn up by his mother.
"Punish the infidel, brothers," he said with cold malice.
Larry was thrown back to the ground and learned just how historically accurate those greaves were. He felt every rivet as they punted him around like a hacky sack. The knights were practiced at this. Every time he started to go numb with shock they'd work over another area.
After the sun burned out, but before the heat death of the universe, the wizard called them off and they hauled him to his feet. As he hung limply between them Larry tried to remember what he'd done to piss off the Society for Creative Anachronism. The dick wizard then grabbed Larry by the hair and forced him to look up at him.
"Now you understand your position, yes?" he asked, not bothering to wait for a reply. "I know of your world, and the weapons your peoples possess. You will craft them for us. I know you have the skill. I pulled you from such a place of learning," he said with the absolute certainty he would be obeyed.
"You may nod that you understand me. I know you will be experiencing difficulty using speech after your... lesson."
"F-fuck you, freak. I'm not roleplayin' with you shitheads... This is assault, kidnappin'," Larry managed to spit out, along with a mouthful of blood. He was disappointed he was too weak to get any on the cosplaying wizard.
Things went about as well as you would expect after that. After several more beatings and interrogations, lasting days, Larry began to realize something was really off about this place and his kidnappers. Everything came into sharp focus when he realized he was no longer hearing or even speaking English. Larry had never been much for wild imaginings, but he had to finally admit he wasn't in Kansas anymore.
After his epiphany, and near mental breakdown, Larry started being a good little boy. He'd make them anything they wanted if they'd stop beating him, now that he knew the FBI wasn't about to kick in the door and shoot up the local cult.
One of the dumber knights had hauled him into a wagon in the dead of night and they spent a couple of miserable weeks traveling between medieval looking peasant villages. Larry couldn't understand it. Maybe he'd gone back in time, but the language was like nothing he'd ever heard before.
Eventually they reached his new home, some dingy pile of logs and rocks they called Fort Carcere. He settled in, designing primitive firearms and teaching apes the secret of fire. It took months before he could even begin to make his first prototype. He had to make the tools he could use to make the tools that were precise enough to actually craft the weapon. Whenever he slowed his work the beatings would continue until his morale improved.
They'd been impressed by the "Boomstick Mk. I" but told him they wanted more easily produced weapons and sent him back to the drawing board. Larry had been insulted, so he constructed the most primitive piece of shit he could think of, a single shot powder musket. The troglodytes had been delighted and ordered him to make more.
That was pretty much how he had spent the rest of his enslavement. A long series of petty revolts and a terrible work ethic. He imagined it would have been pretty similar to his preferred career except he wasn't getting any beer or video games.
Larry's angry muttering and half mad arguments with himself finally woke his guard. The man decided the work day was over, brought him his dinner, and locked him into the workshop that doubled as his bedroom. They didn't let him out anymore after he'd started dropping manure into the stewpot. He had the tools to break out, but he was saving that surprise for a special occasion. Like if he ever got his hands on some poison. Larry then crawled into his pallet assuming he'd be woken again to start the whole depressing affair over, despairing he'd ever get home again.
Of course, that didn't happen. Someone attacked the fort, waking him with the sounds of mayhem and battle. Then his door was kicked in by a mad man who'd shrugged off Larry's adrenaline-fueled swing of a wrought iron rifle barrel like it was whiffle bat.
The big oaf turned out to be a redneck from his own world. He'd started a riot, trashed the place, and re-kidnapped Larry for his own purposes. The lucky bastard even had a sexy beast-woman falling all over him and had brought along a larger tiger-striped spare. Because why not.
Larry had wanted to strangle him for being so happy-go-lucky. The jerk seemed to actually be enjoying his time in this nightmare world. Watching him casually destroy months of his labor had stung more than he was willing to admit. Still, he did break him out. Gave him back his precious prototype and got him close enough to the warden to get in a few kicks of his own.
Now, apparently Bill was leading them on some ridiculous quest to "save the world". Larry figured this awful place could crash into the sun, as long as Bill showed him how to get back home before it happened.
Firstly, he'd need to sort out this huge, absurdly hot tiger lady sitting across from him.
Tabitha was leaning towards him, large enough to be nearly in his face as he slouched back into his own bench seat. She was smelling him again, but at least this time she was doing it sort of normally, keeping her eyes open and breathing through her nose. Larry was having trouble deciding if he was afraid or aroused as he watched her impressive breasts rise and fall when she drew in each shuddering breath. They looked appropriate for her frame, but he was pretty sure they were each bigger than his head. He pondered how she tied on that simple green leather halter-top with those big claws of hers.
Larry followed a drop of perspiration as it slid down her breast to her rippling bronzed abs. He'd never been into muscles on a woman before, but Tabitha was quickly changing his mind. He wondered briefly about what they felt like before shaking his head and meeting her eyes again. They were half lidded now, her ears twitching, and her tail was twisting around one of her legs rhythmically.
Larry wasn't sure what he thought about those parts of her, his fantasies had never included a woman with more body hair than him, even if it was a fetching striped pattern. He should probably act soon before she did... something.
