by Alyson Belle
“That’s brilliant, Topper,” I breathed. “Great idea!”
“Not brilliant. Just one of those out of sight, out of mind things. We’re lucky Vierdimin hasn’t thought of it yet, or he’d probably bank the staff no matter how powerful it makes him. And besides that, we still need a high-level PC wizard to cast it. It’s a shame that you didn’t get access to all the spell schools when you upgraded to Sorceress.”
I shrugged. “This class is OP as fuck already. Besides, I’m not leaving Jazzus to rot in the clutches of that traitor Haxor. We need to rescue her anyway.”
At the mention of Haxor’s name, Topper’s mailed fist tightened and his eye crinkled slightly. He wasn’t one for big shows of emotion, but Haxor’s betrayal had hit him hard. Our players were online so much that we were like a family—helping my friends was the whole reason I was stuck in Lacey’s body, after all—and Topper and Haxor had spent more time leveling together than any of us, as the two highest players in our guild. This might literally be a life and death situation, and instead of fighting at our side, he’d defected as soon as Vierdimin offered him a way out of the game.
I couldn’t believe Haxor trusted Vierdimin to keep his word—what an idiot. Couldn’t he see that Vierdimin lied as easily as breathing? Why would he have any motivation to release Haxor once he had complete control of the game? I was mad at Haxor for being stupid enough to let himself be manipulated, but for Topper, it went deeper than that. Loyalty was a big deal for him. This was like being betrayed by his best friend. I felt bad for him.
“So how do we find Jazzus?” I asked. “Erlix tracked you down with his skills, but Haxor covered his tracks well. We couldn’t figure out how to follow him. He could be anywhere by now.”
“Oh, I know right where that bastard is,” Topper growled. “And he probably doesn’t even realize it.”
“How’s that?” I didn’t think Paladins got divination skills, and if Haxor was in anonymous mode, he wouldn’t show up on gamewide search requests. Haxor was a lot of things, but sloppy wasn’t one of them. Since he wasn’t in our guild anymore, we couldn’t look him up there either.
“You remember Fellowships?”
The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. I made a face. “I feel like I should remember them, but it’s not coming to me.”
Topper smiled. “Yeah, that’s why I think Haxor won’t remember either. When the game’s second expansion came out, it was a new feature they pushed for a little while that let you make a leveling group with your friends so you could find each other and communicate easily. It worked across guilds and factions, even. But that expansion also introduced guild wars, and everyone stuck to their guilds and factions to win bonus loot, so no one used fellowships after that. Then they hid the UI element in a submenu because usage was so low. Haxor probably doesn’t even know he’s still in the fellowship we made way back when.”
“So it lets you find him anywhere? Awesome! Where is he?”
“The bastard is hiding out in the Singing Gardens of the Sky Islands.” The paladin looked up, toward the cloudy blue expanse where I’d been circling just moments before. “Good thing you got some flying practice in, Princess. We’re headed into the wild blue yonder.”
Chapter 2
The Sky Islands. It hardly seemed real. I’d been dying to explore the high-level zones that other players raved about for as long as I could remember. The best ones all required a flying mount to get to: the Sky Islands, the Eternal Deep, and the Lost Continent were the three that had most intrigued me when I’d heard high level players discussing their favorite adventures. All those long hours leveling my barbarian Kromgorn, digging through Gurloc muck and scraping together money for new equipment, grinding gnolls in The Hinterlands—all of it had been with an excited eye toward the day where I could mount my very own wyvern and take to the skies of Lorengarde to explore the furthest-flung and most mysterious lands in the game.
Somehow I’d never imagined that the character I’d first get to do it with would be a slutty, dragon-winged nympho that I’d used a cheap trick to power-level. It made all those hours leveling my barbarian feel hollow and stupid, like all my hard work had been invalidated, and I was annoyed all over again at Vierdimin for forcing this situation on me. I ran my hands down my body, feeling my soft breasts, silky smooth skin, and curving ass. I was powerful as Lacey, sure, but I missed being in the avatar of my sword swinging Barbarian.
But do you really? A little voice in the back of my head nagged at me. Then I blinked. What a dumb thing to think. Of course I do. Just because I forget about my situation sometimes and get into the role I’m stuck with doesn’t mean I want to be in the body of this chick forever.
This was a silly line of thought. It didn’t really matter how I felt about it. It was going to be my reality until further notice, and all I could do was try to make the best of it. I couldn’t let myself sink into ruminations on the weirdness of my predicament again. We had far more important things to do.
“The Sky Islands,” I repeated to Topper. “Great. So we’re headed for a level 70 zone. I’m excited! This might actually be a real challenge.” I was eager to try out my new skills, and this would be the perfect place to do it. Evocation and Alteration were arguably the two most useful schools of magic, since both affected the world around us (either destroying it or changing it), and I was confident I’d have my spell skills up to speed in no time flat.
“Yep,” Topper replied. “But hopefully not too much of a challenge. With my tanking skills and your firepower, we should be able to clear the way to Haxor pretty easily. I’m five levels higher than the zone, so between that and my tanking specialization I should be okay keeping myself healed during combat if you can keep the DPS up. But we’re going to need to get you some Evocation spells. We have a whole line of raid-dropped level 65+ Evocation and Alteration spells in the guild bank, so we’ll just stop there on the way and get you kitted out.”
This was a great plan. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier, but we had tons of stashed spells and gear left over from our earlier adventures in the guild bank. Since most of our members already had the spells they needed—or they weren’t high enough to use them yet—we kept extras squirreled away for a rainy day. I got excited when I started going through a mental inventory of everything that might be useful there.
“Say, don’t we also have a bunch of high-level Charisma gear there too?”
Topper’s eyes widened. “Hot damn, Lacey! You’re right. I knew there would be a reason to hang onto that junk eventually.”
It was an in-guild joke whenever a piece of raid gear dropped with high Charisma that we’d save it for when a Courtesan got high enough to use it. It was funny because we’d always thought Courtesans were useless and never actually expected to have a high level Courtesan in the guild, let alone one that could channel awesome magic through her Charisma stat. But here we were! And I was damn lucky that we’d kept it all instead of selling it to vendors or sharding it for tradeskill materials.
“We also have all kinds of useful consumables… potions, buffs, one-shot summoned pets,” My voice grew more and more excited as I ticked the items off on my fingers. “We can spare the time to drop in, right? We should go now. If there was ever a time to blow our cache of rare gear, it’s now.”
I could see how much it pained Topper to have to agree to pull our best stuff out of the guild bank, but he knew I was right. This wasn’t some random raid we were gearing up for. It was our lives on the line. He and the other high-level guildies had spent forever collecting those items for someday when we’d need them—and today was that day.
“Princess?” Fiero asked. “You’re taking to the skies, then?”
I blinked, remembering my charmed pet for the first time since Topper and I had started discussing Haxor. Fiero had watched us patiently, standing at attention and gazing at me adoringly while we’d discussed our plans. He’d been such a useful companion
, even if it was only because I’d successfully charmed him, and I blushed when I remembered how sexy it had been to be penetrated by his tail while he fucked me. I wished there was a good way to level NPCs up. I’d wanted to keep him longer and maybe get some of that sweet tail action again, but I realized he wouldn’t be able to join us unless I wanted to carry him through the air.
I sighed and nodded. “Yes, Fiero. We need to go there to rescue our friend Jazzus. I wish you could come with us. Are you going to remain in this zone? I may want to find you again.”
Even though he was just an NPC, it still hurt a little (and pulled a small twinge of guilt from me) when the dragonkin’s face fell. Charm really was a hell of a drug.
“I will miss you sorely, my princess. But yes. If you must take your leave, I shall return to my home and spread the news of your wondrous achievement.”
I nodded and bid him farewell, suppressing my pang of loss at his departure. It wasn’t every day you charmed an ultra-rare 3-star mob, but even with his advanced stats he wouldn’t be able to cut it in a zone twenty levels higher than he was. He cast a longing look back at me as he wandered into the woods, like a lost puppy I’d commanded to return to his home, and as he passed out of my range of vision, I released my Charm on him with a silent command. I noted that the maintained buff dropped off my HUD, freeing me to charm a new NPC, but was relieved to see that my active PC Charm on Vierdimin was still squarely in place.
I’d have to come back and look for Fiero again when this was all over. He’d been by far the best sex I’d had on the server so far, and while it’s not like I was planning to stop experimenting any time soon, it was important to keep track of things you liked so you could enjoy them again later.
Except there won’t be any point, because when this is all over you’ll be playing as Kromgorn again, I reminded myself. And that’s that.
I pushed all thoughts of Fiero out of my head and turned to Topper, who had summoned his flaming pegasus, the Paladin class flying mount. I couldn’t believe he had the guff to make jokes and call me “princess” when he rode around on a goddamn flying horse that would be right at home in the middle of a Lisa Frank painting, but he actually looked really impressive as he sat atop the powerful, winged beast with the reins in one hand and his snow-white cloak fanning out behind him.
Now it was my turn. I concentrated for a moment on taking flight form. As soon as I did, my wings erupted out of my back, unfolding in all their golden-scaled glory through the ragged holes left by my shirt made from Topper’s bandages. I stretched them out to their full wingspan and gave them a quick few flaps, making sure I still had full control of their movement and enjoying the novel feeling of having an extra two limbs connected to my body. Each wing was roughly five feet long when fully extended, and Topper’s pegasus whinnied nervously at the sight of the unnatural, scaled appendages.
Topper and I must have cut a pretty cool scene together, not that anyone was around to see it at the moment, but even so I felt a surge of pride well up in me. Even if my leveling was due to a cheap trick, I thought I was handling things pretty damn well for a dude trapped in a woman’s body.
“Ready?” Topper asked, tugging on his gossamer reins until his steed was angled back toward Lorengarde. He tensed his muscles, leaning back low in the saddle, and waited for my nod.
“Let’s go.”
We both launched into the air, gaining altitude quickly, and shot out of the Fey Wild at a remarkable travel speed I could hardly have imagined before I unlocked in-game flight. We made straight for our guildhouse in the Golden Plains of Lorengarde. The landscape rolled along below us as we covered the same stretch of land that Erlix and I had taken hours to walk through in mere minutes. I was amazed how far I could see—draw distance was no limitation.
Flying opened the game up in ways that I’d hardly imagined as a poor, landbound sod, and despite how dire our circumstances were, it was hard not to grin like a little kid as the wind whipped through my golden curls and my long hair streamed out behind me.
Topper’s flight on his pegasus was perfunctory and precise. He flew straight and level toward his target, like an arrow loosed from a bow, his face a mask of grim determination. I was surprised to discover that the wings granted by my Sorceress specialization were actually slightly faster than his class mount, and so while he streaked, I bobbed and weaved and soared and fell. I knew that our situation was serious enough that I shouldn’t be playing among the clouds, but how could I resist? Flying, especially flying when propelled by your own body, was simply incredible. I couldn’t wipe my grin off my face, and I was surprised Topper could be so stoic about it. Maybe the thrill wore off when you’d been doing it for a while.
In a shockingly short amount of time we touched down in the plains before the imposing facade of our guild fortress, and Topper dismissed his mount as my wings melted away, folding back into my delicate shoulderblades. I was starting to get used to the shock of the wings coming and going, which was nice since the sensation had been so weird the first time that I’d thought it was pain!
That reaction had been silly. Everyone knew you couldn’t really get hurt in the game. Or at least that’s what I’d always thought… But then a chill ran through me. I’d also thought it was impossible to get stuck in the game, so I had no desire to find out what other nasty tricks Vierdimin might be capable of pulling—it was extremely uncomfortable to imagine that he might be capable of inflicting real pain on us here, because I had no doubt he’d use that power if he had the chance.
“Let’s hurry.” I urged Topper forward toward our gates. “The sooner we can get some nice, high-level raid gear on me and flesh my spellbook out with some devastating spells, the better.”
Topper gave a tight nod and led us into the compound. The guild house was dark and silent. Our footsteps echoed in the stone hallways, and I found myself jumping at shadows. I instinctively drew closer to Topper, even though I felt stupid for being nervous, but I noticed that even he seemed a little tense. Usually our guild hall was buzzing with players going back and forth from their adventures, but with most of our guild either offline or out leveling for a final confrontation with Vierdimin, it was uncomfortably eerie.
“Should we put the word out and round up more of the guild?” I asked Topper. “Seems like a healer might be useful in the Sky Islands. Sensei and Tigraine should still be stuck online just like we are, and—”
“No.” Topper cut me off with an angry gesture. “We don’t have time to waste tracking them down right now, and we won’t need them to take out Haxor. I won’t be letting him catch me off guard again, and you’re immune to his attacks anyway. I want our guildmates to be as high level as possible so that when the guild goes after Vierdimin again, we do better than we did last time. Besides…”
He shook his head, curled his hand into a fist, and quickened his pace, swallowing his half-spoken thought.
I could guess what it had been, though: Besides… Haxor’s betrayal is personal, and I’m dealing with it myself.
We arrived at the guild bank master vault within moments. A comically large steel vault door built into a wall secured our possessions inside a huge, fortified room, where Topper and others had spent hours cataloging and organizing everything on endless rows of stone shelves.
Topper grabbed the handles of the vault access mechanism and spun it smoothly, drawing the massive door open as though it was totally weightless. There was no need for a combination or a lock, since the master vault was keyed to open automatically for those with the right access, and no one else.
But as we stepped into the vault, eager to claim the prizes we’d saved for a day like today when we’d really need them, both of us froze, our eager anticipation changing to queasy horror.
Topper’s head swung back and forth multiple times, like if he just kept looking, eventually he’d stop seeing row after row of completely empty shelves. I was just as shocked as he was.
Last time I’d been in the guild va
ult, consumables, materials, and spare gear had lined the place from floor to ceiling. Now it was all gone.
Even the gold was missing.
Topper snarled and slammed his fist into the stone column beside him, his mail crunching against the cracked granite.
“How can it all just be gone?” he growled. “All of it? All of it?”
I was starting to get a little worried about the guy. Topper was usually as level-headed as Jazzus—Haxor and I had been the guild hotheads. The fact that I’d seen so much emotion out of the guy today meant he must really be fraying at the edges.
I sighed. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
There were only four people in the guild who had access to the master vault: Topper, who was standing in front of me simmering at being robbed. Jazzus, who was currently a prisoner of our enemies and probably being held in an unconscious state, me—or rather, my avatar Kromgorn—who was very much offline and unavailable…
...and Haxor. Our former friend and guildie.
Doing the math was easy. Only one of us had the access, the freedom, and the motivation to rob the guild blank blind. There was no way it could be anyone but Haxor behind this. But for some reason, Topper was shaking his head.
“No. I don’t believe it. Haxor is a snake—he’s proven that much. But I know the guy well enough to know he’s not behind this.”
I shot him a questioning look. Had his own loyalty blinded him to the obvious truth?
“I don’t see another explanation, Topper. The only other possibilites are you or Jazzus, and neither of you would.”
“Haxor wouldn’t either,” he insisted. “He’s an opportunist and a coward, but not this much of a traitor. He’s working with Vierdimin because he thinks he needs to in order to survive. I understand him well enough to get that. But even if Vierdimin ordered him to come clean us out, I know he wouldn’t take everything. He’d take just enough to convince Vierdimin he had taken everything, and leave us the rest.” Topper’s shoulders hunched in just a little. “He’s desperate and scared, Lacey. He’s not evil. Though understanding that doesn’t make me want to punch his lights out any less.”
