by Jason Cheek
“This will be the last few days of playing as many hours as I want,” Yun clarified as he sat up to look at me with a sleepy Odr, his Rock Wolf Combat Pet, tucked into the crook of his arm, “My work starts back up on Monday.”
“Ours too,” Tinyr said from Yun’s other side as Unalia unhappily nodded, “Sarka said she’ll let us follow her around on Warm-Login so we can jump on and play as soon as we’re home from work but-”
“That’s not the same as playing as a team like we’ve been doing,” Unalia said as she sadly watched Rex and Arashi, their couples Combat Pets, playing with one another.
“I have no desire to go back to the nine to five crunch,” Yun said as Tinyr and Unalia nodded in agreement.
“Don’t be a bunch of Debbie Downers,” I laughing said as they frowned at me. Sighing at their reaction, I tried to explain what I meant. “Look guys, we do the best we can and focus on the here and now. The World’s not going anywhere, and you’ll always be able to play out of BrokenFang Hold whenever you want.” I gave them a snarky grin. “And we can always hook up with one another on the weekends.”
“But you’ll out level us in no time,” Tinyr unhappily said as the rest of my old team nodded in agreement.
“That just means I’ll be opening up new areas for you to explore,” I said, trying to ease their concern, “and I have a feeling that events like the Orc and Hobgoblin’s invasions will always be happening.”
“I don’t understand why we just can’t keep playing like we’ve been,” Sarka said, glaring at Yun and Tinyr.
“Because whatever script or AI V-MMORG is using to control players characters during warm-logins aren’t smart enough to take on a dungeon,” Yun tiredly said.
“Hell, they can barely not get stuck by an oddly placed stone or tree,” Tinyr added as a thought flashed through my mind.
Did that mean nothing had really happened between Fylreh and I on that first drunken night, I thought, glancing toward Fylreh as she snuggled the puppy to her chest. I mean, come on. If warm-logins had problems with performing basic tasks, then sex with another species had to be out of the question. Right? I laughed at my thoughts, not really a question that you could just ask your friends.
“And do you really want to have your character level up when you’re not even present?” Yun added as both Sarka and Unalia hung their heads.
“Why the hell not,” Sarka argumentatively said, “I told you that I’d run quests with all of you in the team.”
I didn’t see that going well at all though, I kind of felt bad that I was just hearing about all of this now. It was obviously an issue that they’d been discussing for a while now. Probably because Sarka wanted to go pro-gamer but didn’t want to out level her friends and husband. It was a common issue for couples that enjoyed gaming together.
“We talked about this earlier,” I said, giving Sarka an earnest look, “You’re always welcome to team with me on a regular basis, but you know as well as I do that those high-level dungeons and dangerous areas are out of the question if the rest of the team is on auto-follow.”
“Don’t you think I know that,” Sarka emotionally snapped, clearly frustrated as she wiped at the corner of her eyes, “It just sucks that we can’t have multiple characters to login and use to play with the different people that we want.”
“Might be something they resolve later,” I said with a shrug, “or maybe not. All that I can say is that they’ve been pretty adamant about people only having one avatar since the get go.”
“No shit Sherlock,” Sarka snapped as I laughed at her aggressive response. While I liked Sarka, I didn’t want to be her new whipping boy for when her husband wasn’t around.
“Look at it this way,” I said as my eyes swept the group, “We’re in the middle of a major adventure right now. We’ve got a another huge one planned just around the corner, so don’t stress the small stuff. We’ll figure it all out.” I flashed them a grin. “Hell, you’ve been kicking ass for days now without me being directly in the same team with you, and yet we’ve still been playing together and having fun.”
That seemed to settle everyone down somewhat. Not that I blamed any of them for being pissed about having to go back to work, but I didn’t want to cause them any additional stress. And, while I loved playing with them, I wasn’t about to jeopardize my standing in the game by slowing down my leveling, which sucked, because it meant that I needed to start cultivating a new group to team up with that could match my playstyle. Not an easy feat to do once you started leveling up past the beginning levels, I silently thought as I turned my focus back on finishing the platter of meat before it got cold.
“Hey Yun,” Neristhana asked as she sat the Rock Wolf pup on the ground and started feeding him while she ate, “Why is Odr now black and Rex is silver? I thought they were both gray like Grim when we found them.”
“That’s because we fed them different colored crystals,” Yun explained as he watched the pups playing together.
“You fed them crystals?” Neristhana asked horrified.
“Yep, Rock Wolves need natural minerals as part of their diet to grow their natural armor properly,” Unalia explained, obviously having read up on the creatures from the in-game Wiki, “While any finely ground rock would work, it’s said that they respond better to natural quartz than other minerals.”
“We picked our minerals up in Palnisdale,” Yun said as Neristhana worriedly looked down at Grim, “but you could use granite or slate in a pinch if you had to.”
“Is feeding him meat okay?” Neristhana asked, worriedly looking down at the pup in her lap, “and I don’t have any finely ground minerals to give him.”
“He wouldn’t eat it if it weren’t,” Unalia reassured the Gnomeling female as both of my friends chuckled.
“You’re welcome to feed him some of ours if you want,” Yun offered.
“Is there anything special about the different colors of minerals that they’re fed?” Neristhana asked in obvious relief.
“Not that I’ve heard,” Unalia said, “I just liked the silver coloring it gives to Rex’s natural armor.”
“Black makes more sense for stealth,” Yun said as the Ranger rolled her eyes.
“Forget silver or black,” Hefe called out from where he sat with Bonnie Smash happily feeding Wolfy in his lap as he proudly held out a bag of finely ground quartz towards Neristhana, “red is so much better.”
“Hmm, thanks, Hefe,” Neristhana said, the confusion obvious on her face as she noticed the brightly colored Earth Shock Wolf in his lap for the very first time, “but I think Wolfy is more … umm … more,” her voice died away as she worriedly glanced over at me, “Star, can you help me out here?”
“It’s pink,” I said as Phoenix, who was sitting nearby, busted out laughing, “your Wolfy is freaking pink Hefe.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Neristhana said as my friends began busting out laughing at the look on Hefe’s face, “pink.”
“Pink,” Hefe incredulously protested, “my Wolfy is not pink!”
“Pink,” I repeated, rolling my eyes at the look of complete denial in my friend’s eyes.
“Most definitively pink,” Phoenix managed to croak out as she slapped her knee and choked for breath while trying to swallow.
“You guys are colorblind,” Hefe protested as everyone laughed at him, “Why would he give me rose quartz when I specifically asked for red?”
“Don’t ask don’t tell,” I said as Helgath fell back against me and began howling in laughter as I quoted a little Red vs Blue. That was one of the cool things about the mental connection that we shared. She could catch the details of my sense of humor that others would’ve completely missed. While this conversation wasn’t exactly following the script, it was close enough for me and was completely triggering my geek funny bone.
“That’s not funny Star” Thomas said chuckling in spite of himself from where he was listening in to the conversation while Kenzie and the other Devil Dogs b
usted out laughing.
“It kind of is,” I said in a rush of words, trying to keep the conversation following along the mental script running through my head as much as possible.
“Look at it,” Hefe protested, holding up the contents of the bag for everyone to see, “it’s not pink. It’s more of a lightish red than anything.”
“Guess what Hefe,” I said as AJ, Jill, and Krystal’s eyes suddenly widened as they caught the verbal slam that I’d been aiming for this entire time. Almost as one, they fell back on the ground and started laughing with Phoenix joining them as we all chorused together, ““they already have a color for lightish red, do you know what it’s called?”” As soon as the words left everyone’s mouths, I saw the recognition of what we were acting out flash in Hefe’s eyes as he suddenly got the joke, ““PINK!””
“I fucking hate you guys,” Hefe said, laughing in spite of being the butt of the old joke. Looking over at me as the tears ran from my eyes, he shook his head, “I can’t believe you got me with that.”
“I don’t get it,” Thomas said, glancing at the rest of his guild who all shook their heads as they tried to understand what was so funny.
“Me neither,” Krishna said, as Angie nodded in agreement.
“It’s a gamer thing,” I said, slowly getting my laughter under control before warning, “but heavy on the geeky side.”
“Do a search for Red vs Blue,” Phoenix explained, still laughing, “and Pink Armor.”
“Isn’t everything you guys like to joke about on the geeky side,” Angie asked.
““Oh burn,”” Unalia and Sarka both said, having more fun at making fun of us than anything else about our back and forth.
Seeing the Devil Dogs shrug like we were crazy just made the rest of us laugh even harder. I was glad to see that Hefe wasn’t upset at the ribbing. Though, Neristhana and Fylreh simply traded a look that seemed to say newfar were crazy. With a sigh, I was just going back to my meal as the Gnomeling accepted a handful of silver quartz from Unalia, when Fylreh started unbuckling the straps that held on her thick boiled-leather breastplate. Nearly all of the conversation died as the Centauride’s breasts exploded free of their leather prison.
“That’s so much better,” Fylreh said in relief, not noticing the reaction she was having on the males around her as she massaged the angry welts that marred the smooth skin of her large breasts, “wearing armor all day is the worst.”
Yun and Tinyr both received a sharp rap from their wife and girlfriend respectively as they dragged their eyes away from the impressive sight. I even heard a few comments from the direction of the Devil Dogs saying “Maybe Star isn’t so crazy after all.” Even Domenic, who’d been talking to Gutirrg, had stopped talking to watch the filly as she began wrapping her chest up in the leather wrap that she liked to use while working. As I did my best not to stare while Helgath and Neysa glanced at me in amusement, an angry voice suddenly spoke up catching us all by surprise.
“I don’t know why you guys are gaga over a female who is basically a horse,” Phoenix angrily grumbled as she shook her head in disgust, “that’s basically like admitting you’re into bestiality.”
“Whoa there, Nelly,” Thomas said, his eyes widening in surprise as he realized Phoenix was actually serious.
“What the hell Phoenix,” Sarka asked as she traded a disturbed look with Unalia, “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
“Aren’t you an opinionated fuck,” Jill said, giving the red-headed Barbarian a hard look as AJ and Krystal perked up. Not that Jill was the best person to be accusing others of being biased.
“What is bestiality,” I heard Fylreh ask Neristhana under her breath.
“No clue,” Neristhana answered back in the same confused tone, “maybe it’s a newfar demi-human slur?”
“Bestiality,” I said, pressing my fingers against my eyes as I worried this argument was going to turn ugly, “really Phoenix?”
“Of course, it’s bestiality,” Phoenix insisted as he looked back at everyone incredulously, “you’re basically ogling a horse with tits.”
“Hold up there a moment,” I said, trying not to let my anger get the better of me, “Weren’t you sucking on a Wolfkin female’s tongue the night of the party, before we left Darom?”
Even if I didn’t feel the same way that I had earlier about the filly, Fylreh was still precious to me and I didn’t want to see her hurt by ignorant comments. Trying to remind myself that Phoenix had been cool as hell up til now, I did my best to not lash out as I tried to understand where this was all coming from. All of us had times that things got under our skin, for some reason, this had Phoenix up in arms.
“What has that got to do with anything,” Phoenix asked, surprised at my question, “Eza is a humanoid?”
‘Does that mean he hates all demi-humans,’ Helgath asked as I felt her temper begin to rise. There was something about the dark rage boiling up inside of her that seemed to set my nerves on edge.
‘Not in this case,’ I sent back, having a feeling of what the Barbarian was getting at.
“No Phoenix,” I said, barely stopping myself from snapping as Fylreh began to get restless beside me. Not that I had any issues with Beast Girls. If I was being perfectly honest, I found them to be extremely hot. Blame it on all the alien-girl love from Star Trek, Star Wars, and games like Mass Effect, I thought with a smirk, before turning serious as I continued, “Eza is a Beastkin.”
“So what if Eza is a Beastkin,” Phoenix angrily said at the implied insult as she started to get her back up, “Are you trying to say that me messing around with a Beastkin girl is akin to bestiality?”
“Well, isn’t that self-explanatory,” I pointedly asked as Phoenix’s eyes angrily narrowed, “Beast IS in the freaking name, or do I need to draw the connection out for you with simple pictures?”
“The hell Star,” Phoenix roared, offended that I’d disrespected one of the girls that she’d been getting hot and heavy with, “That’s completely not the same thing, Fylreh has four legs and a hindquarter that’s basically that of a horse!”
“Really,” I said, my ire growing by the second, “so sucking on a Wolfkin muzzle isn’t anything remotely similar to that of French kissing a terrestrial dog?”
“That’s not the point,” Phoenix snarled.
“But isn’t though?” I shot right back, when a calm and collected voice suddenly interrupted our argument.
“Look, Phoenix,” Domenic confidently said, catching us both by surprise, “having sex with a Centaur wouldn’t be considered Bestiality, period.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t it be,” Phoenix insisted, glaring as she gave us both a “What the fuck” look, “she has four freaking legs and a tail.”
“Basically, is not the same,” Domenic said, his voice surprisingly calm as he took on a patient teaching tone, “Bestiality is defined as having sex with a lesser animal. The problem here is, how you define lesser?” He looked around the circle to make sure he had everyone’s attention. “Basically, I think it would best be described as this. A lesser animal cannot give consent, so if you have sex with a lesser animal, it’s not only bestiality but rape as well.” Everyone nodded at the logic, getting the point easily enough as he turned back to a thoughtful Phoenix. “A Centaur can fully communicate and understand the questions being asked and can give true consent. Because of that, a Centaur is most definitely not a lesser animal, so henceforth, it’s not Bestiality.”
Those were all good points, I silently commended Domenic, surprised that he’d gotten mixed up in the conversation and that he was able to elucidate the point of the issue so concisely. While I was normally pretty good at keeping my calm, when it came to insulting those that I cared about, I could get aggressive pretty quickly. Usually, that was when I tried to show people their mistakes by examples of their prejudices in their own life, which was probably why Phoenix and I had been butting heads on this so severely.
“I hadn’t really thought about it that
way,” Phoenix slowly said, feeling somewhat self-conscious as she saw the strained look on both mine and Fylreh’s face. Running an embarrassed hand through her hair, she continued sheepishly, “Sorry if I came off as an ass, but I guess the four-legged thing was kind of skiving me out.” Seeing my eyes flash, Phoenix hurriedly clarified what she meant. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just not my thing.”
I rolled my eyes and forced myself to count back from ten so as to not blow my stack. What probably upset me the most was that a part of me agreed with Phoenix’s take on the issue. It had been a sticking point in my mind whenever Fylreh and I had been getting hot and heavy with one another, but her front half was so hot that, once I had my hand wrapped around those amazing breasts, I lost all of my inhibitions.
“That does kind of make sense,” Thomas said, nodding at the flow of logic, “I guess that would be the same kind of logical reasoning you’d use for any alien encounter one might consider happening in a Sci-Fi type of world.”
“Only if sexual organs are being introduced into the equation,” Kenzie sarcastically said, rolling her eyes at how guy’s logic always seemed to revolve around wanting to stick their dick into things.
“Isn’t that how most of those erotic stories usually go?” Matt asked, as Terry gave him a shocked look.
“What erotic stories about aliens are you talking about,” Terry asked, her husband’s eyes widening as if he’d gotten caught doing something that he shouldn’t have been. Obviously, there was a story there.
“So, the fantasy side would basically be the same thing as Monster Girls,” Phoenix said, getting it as Terry and Matt started arguing in hushed words.
“Exactly,” Domenic said, giving me a superior look as I rolled my eyes. It looked like he wasn’t going to let me live this one down anytime soon, I silently thought, as Domenic surprised me yet again, “Don’t get me wrong, while it’s not Bestiality, it would still be like throwing a hotdog down a hallway.”
