by Alyson Belle
“Yeah? As soon as he what, Lefay? You’re dumb enough to spill your boss’s plan to the hero?”
She snorted. “Some hero. You need a triple-D sports bra just to go jogging, and you’re dressed like a gender-swapped Legolas cosplayer. It’s really intimidating.”
“Yeah, I’m the cosplayer. Nice spider cloak, bitch.”
I realized I’d hit a sore point with her when she just frowned at me instead of snarking back, and I wondered if she actually did cosplay IRL. I knew she wasn’t going to reveal any more of Vierdimin’s plans, and the fact that Vierdimin had some kind of master plan wasn’t surprising—or useful—at all, but it still felt good to taunt her for her slip anyway. I had to take my digs where I could since she was as invulnerable to me as I was to her. But it was good to know that he hadn’t solved the problem of my Charm skill yet, which meant we still had time. That meant we still had hope of getting out of here without being his twisted little playthings forever.
Lefay tossed her hair over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not spilling anything. And even if you knew what he was up to, the point is that you can’t stop him. He’s running circles around you Shining Army twats, and you can’t even see it. Dance, puppet dance!” She broke into an evil cackle, and I glared at her, wishing any of my Courtesan skills were off cooldown. A well-timed Vejazzle might wipe that grin right off her face.
But then again, it might not. I suspected that a sufficiently high level anti-magic shield would protect her as well from magic-based abilities, which mine were, as it did from spells. I couldn’t afford to sit around and wait to be able to make my vagina sparkle again, just to see if it could take out Lefay. The gorgeous dark elf had settled down into smug, simmering look of contempt again, and she tossed her hair again as I watched. Her attitude made me so angry! She was so… so superior. Or she thought she was anyway. I wished I could take her down a peg and bring her to my level—even just throwing her off her game would have been satisfying.
Then a perfectly wicked idea occurred to me. I couldn’t hurt her, couldn’t mage battle her, and couldn’t Vejazzle or Kama Sutra her… but did I need to have a shiny vagina to take her out? A regular one might be just fine…
My whole demeanor changed, and I put my best sex-kitten face on. I sauntered toward her, swaying my hips and running my hands through my blonde, silky curls.
“What are you doing?” she asked, with a note of warning in her voice.
“Oh, Lefay,” I breathed in my sexiest voice. “You’re such a hot little piece of dark elf ass. Why are we fighting? We’re both just girls here, right?” I giggled. “Let’s play. You know. Cool for the summer. Our little secret.”
She took a step backwards as I drew closer, and her smug expression evaporated, replaced by a panicky uncertainty. “H-hey! Get away from me, you pervert!”
I kept advancing, and then Lefay was practically tripping over herself to back away from me. When she bumped into the wall of the tiny chamber, I closed the remaining distance in three steps and plastered my hot little body against hers while she squirmed uncomfortably. I could feel the smooth satin of her skimpy suit and the heat of her inky flesh. A whiff of her perfume reached my nose, and I noted that she even smelled dark and mysterious. My come-on wasn’t an act; Lefay really did turn me on. I could feel my body reacting to the close proximity of the elf, my nipples hardening and a familiar wetness spreading between my legs. But my instincts about the bitch had been right. Her whole body was tense, and she was seriously squicked out.
“Come on, Lefay. I know you want to. I can see it in your eyes,” I whispered in her face. My arms trapped her on either side of her body. She was a few inches taller than me, but also lighter, and we were all tangled up against the wall. Her eyes widened as her nose twitched, and a look of horrified disgust passed over her face.
“I most certainly do not! I like men!”
“Mmmm, you smell so good. Can you smell me too?” I leaned close to her ear and brushed my breasts against hers, thrilling at the sensation. “You know, down there ? That’s pure desire. Let me get my tongue up in that hot little cunt of yours!”
“You—you’re disgusting!” she cried. “Oh god, get off of me! Gross gross gross. Keep your nasty girl parts off of me, you sicko!”
She ducked out from under my arm and started backing away again, and I doggedly followed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Erlix smirking in stealth, cheering me on. “What’s the matter Lefay? Can’t you do this all day? Why not take a little nap with me? I promise I’ll make it hot, since I can’t save my friends anyway… I want to lick every inch of that hot, dark elf body. What, you don’t like girls? Just Gate out of here.”
Lefay glared at me with murder in her eyes as I closed the distance again and pinned her against another wall, smushing our sexy bodies together all over again while she made gagging noises. I rocked side to side and moaned, savoring the feeling of girl on girl action as I rubbed my hot little clit on her hip.
“I see what you’re doing, damn it! You can’t win like this,” Lefay growled, looking strained. She yanked her hip away from me, so I started rubbing up and down on her again.
“I’m not trying to win,” I said with a dreamy smile on my face. “Trust me, we’ll both win once I show you what a Courtesan can do. Just leave the room if you don’t want to explore with me. It’s okay. I know you can’t voice your feelings out loud yet. Otherwise… well, if you stay, I’ll interpret that as consent to get frisky.” I closed my eyes and leaned in close to plant a sloppy, wet kiss on her lips, and she turned her head and tried to shove me violently, but the Charm kicked in and she passed right through me. She succeeded only in stumbling a few steps forward.
Then she spun, her hands up defensively. “Back off. You are so gross. Ahh! I can’t handle this. Vierdimin will be pissed, but I did not sign up for nasty come-ons from another girl. This is sick.” She jammed a finger toward me. “Don’t think this is over, you disgusting lesbo.”
I took another step toward her, but she cast Gate before I could reach her and faded from view. Wherever she went, the range was far enough that it broke the link between her device and the cage, and the blue barrier collapsed with an audible sizzle.
I put my hand on my hip and grinned at Erlix. “And that, my friend, is how we deal with a raging homophobic cunt when we’re out of other options. Not bad, huh?”
He tucked his daggers back into his belt and unstealthed as he began to slow clap. “Not bad, Goldie. Not bad at all.” He paused and scratched his head. “Would you have… you know, actually have gone all the way if she didn’t want you to?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. I’m not a monster. Besides, I’m pretty sure the game code wouldn’t allow that. I figured I could just turn up the heat enough to get her ass out of here without hurting her, since she’s obviously so uncomfortable with girls being into girls.”
The halfling considered me approvingly and gave me a wide, cheery grin, breaking his unusual stretch of silent reflection. “You’re a lot smarter than you look, Goldie. A lot smarter than you look. Keep it up, and you might even earn the right to touch some giant halfling cock.”
I sighed. “Really, Erlix? I thought we were done with that.”
“Halfling cock? No one is ever done with halfling cock. Not even the best treasure ho on the server.”
Chapter 14
A low moan from the two captives on the ground pulled my attention away from Erlix, and I rushed over to Topper’s side to help him sit up, untangling him from his flowy white paladin’s cape.
“Topper!” I exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
His shining armor creaked as he raised a hand to his temple and moaned. “I have a splitting headache, but other than that I’m fine. When I get my hands on those idiots… they only managed to keep me subdued thanks to Vierdimin’s stupid disabling item. I’m keeping my saving throw buffs up at all times from here out. No more of that nonsense.” He looked up at me with bleary eye
s and seemed to notice me for the first time. “Whoa. Lacey? Where’s the rest of the guild? And holy shit ! When did you hit level 58? How long have they had me knocked out?”
I blushed. If Topper was swearing, he must really be surprised. Usually he played the role of paladin perfectly. Annoyingly perfectly, in fact. “Ah, erm. You actually haven’t been captured that long. Courtesans are just surprisingly… um, efficient… at leveling.” Topper gave me a long, searching look, and I blushed even harder. “Dude, when in Rome, okay? I’m working with the tools I have. I rescued you, didn’t I?”
He dusted himself off and stood, cutting his usual impressive figure now that he wasn’t curled into a fetal position anymore. “You did,” he admitted. “And I’m grateful. If you can level this quickly, maybe we do have a shot at facing Vierdimin after all. But we need to hurry.” A grim shadow flashed over Topper’s face. “While I was captured, Iciez was still sending me real world updates. Things are getting pretty grim. People are panicking. The Fantasy Realms Online developers are trying to convince the public that they still see active brain waves in the logs, and that the game shouldn’t be shut down, but all concerned parents see are their children in comas with no explanation. Doctors are stumped, and they’re pushing hard to kill servers.”
I sucked in a breath. “Will that work?”
“I have no idea. But it seems pretty risky until we figure out exactly what Vierdimin did, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean? If they kill the game servers, won’t we just go back to our bodies?”
Topper frowned. “We have no idea if it works like that, Krom—er, Lacey. What if the only way to get back to our bodies is to figure out what Vierdimin did and reverse it? What if he’s counting on the parental lobby to kill the game servers? I’ve had a lot of time to think while you’ve been on your little adventure, and I don’t like what I’ve come up with. I wouldn’t put it past Vierdimin to have backup servers spun up somewhere, ready to cut over to as soon as the official servers drop support. I know a little bit about the network architecture this game runs on, and there’s a warden application that prevents players from sliding it over like that while the official servers run. But if those servers should drop, including the warden…”
The blood drained from my face as I considered the implications. “You mean it might be just what he’s waiting for. When they kill the servers, he cuts us over…”
“And we get stuck outside of our bodies on Vierdimin’s private server. Maybe forever. It’s not a place I want to be.”
The idea sent a chill through me. Right now, on the official servers, it was obvious Vierdimin couldn’t control everything, but in a private sandbox that he’d prepared for the game code, he really would be a god… and we’d be stuck as his playthings, maybe forever. The enormity of the situation hit me for the first time, and I suddenly felt very small and afraid. I’d never considered that I might be stuck as Lacey the Courtesan forever … I gazed sadly down at the impressive pair of tits on my chest.
“Guys… I don’t wanna be a chick forever. Uh, please? We need to stop him.”
Topper rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Lacey. You did a great job rescuing me. I also had plenty of time to think through how Vierdimin might be concealing himself, and I think I have an inkling of how we can find him. We just need a high level mage to help.”
“Jazzus?”
He nodded. “She might be the highest level mage left on the server who’s on our side.” Then he slammed a gauntleted fist into his metal palm with a loud clang. “And I sure wouldn’t mind paying that traitorous dog Haxor back for his betrayal.”
“Well, let’s get going then! There’s no time to waste.” I grabbed the floating orb off the pedestal and tucked it into my bag, gathered up the two crowns discarded near the fey prince, and picked the kid up by his arm. He squealed in dismay with a blood-curdling shriek, and surprised me so much I nearly dropped him.
“Let me go, let me go! I was playing dead and hoping you’d go away.” He cried and twisted in my grip, and despite my delicate arms he couldn’t extricate himself. The fey child was even frailer than I was. I sighed and released him.
“Oh, shut up. We’re not here to hurt you. Your parents are downstairs. Take them these, would you? And tell them I’ll be right down for my reward.” I shoved the crowns into his hands. He blinked at them and looked up at me, and then vanished down the steps without another word.
“Is that a quest or something?” Topper asked.
“Sort of. This whole zone is weird. I’ve been getting quests I shouldn’t be able to get, NPCs are doing things they shouldn’t be able to, and they’re promising me rewards for on-the-fly tasks. It’s bizarrely realistic. I’m going to see if I can weasel a few more spells out of the queen for those crowns. She’s hoarding some nice Tier III illusion spells. We just need to take care of that before he notices I stole his orb, or we won’t be getting any more rewards from the Fey Folk!”
“You can use Illusion spells?”
“Long story. I’m a Mesmer now. Don’t sweat it.”
“That does it! None of this makes any sense!” Erlix blurted out. I glanced down at the little halfling, surprised at his uncharacteristic outburst. He sounded pissed off. After our little exchange post-Lefay, he’d lapsed back into his weird, moody silence, and I’d kind of forgotten he was here in the excitement of freeing Topper.
“What doesn’t make any sense, Erlix? You knew I was a Mesmer .” I shared a concerned look with Topper, who shrugged as if to say that he didn’t have any idea what the little rogue was going on about either.
“Not that. This place. All of this. I don’t like it. We were expecting a trap in this tower, right? And yeah, they had some surprises prepared for us. But nothing we couldn’t handle. Think about that for a second. Vierdimin, the level 80 lich, and his team of 65-plus lieutenants, the strongest members of his guild, lure us to a zone and take over a quest hub that’s just right about your level. Or close enough that they could reasonably expect you to get there anyway. Then they set up a series of challenges that are just hard enough that you can barely overcome them. Why not take your boy here to the bottom of a level 80 dungeon? Why not a sky zone that we couldn’t reach?”
I shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t have time? Or didn’t think of it? Who knows, Erlix? They’re probably planning on the fly just like we are.” The reasoning sounded weak even as I said it, but I still wasn’t sure what Erlix was getting at.
“Nuh-uh,” he insisted. “This Vierdimin guy… I mean, I’m not part of your little guild war, or at least I haven’t been until now, but he doesn’t strike me as a fly-by-his-pants kinda dude, Goldie. That dark elf lady was even ranting about you dancing like a puppet. Why would she say that?”
“It’s true that Vierdimin is a master planner,” Topper said slowly. “It’s not like him to make a move until he has every counter-move planned out. That’s why little surprises, like your Charm skill landing on him, throw him completely off guard and make him panic. He hates surprises. In fact, our best strategy to beat him is to plan something so convoluted and unlikely that he couldn’t possibly see it coming.”
“Exactly! Like the pally said. That’s just my point,” Erlix continued. “He has all these grand plans, and then we get a series of challenges just hard enough for Goldie to solo them, with a little help from the best rogue on the server?”
“Best rogue on the server?”
Topper arched an eyebrow at me, and I shook my head. “Don’t ask.”
“And on top of that,” Erlix said, warming up into his little rant, “It takes us to a zone where you just happen to find a class quest for the Courtesan. A quest you never would have stumbled onto on your own, since most players avoid the Fey Wild. Where you get cross-faction emergent quests that shouldn’t be possible, and quest givers let you fudge the turn-in in ways that are frankly ridiculous—quests that give you ridiculous buffs like that Blessing of the Fey you have, Gold
ie. Yeah, I took a peak at your character sheet. Spell levels +20 is insane, let alone the stat buffs it gives you. You’re probably also going to get a whole pile of Tier III Illusion spells for your reward from the queen, and there’s plenty of high-level NPCs to bang your way up in level. It all just stinks to high hell, and it’s been bothering me all day. The more lucky wins break your way, the less I think it comes down to chance.”
“What are you suggesting, Erlix?” I asked quietly. “Are you saying… that Vierdimin wants my character to get stronger? That he’s somehow guiding me into it?”
The halfling shrugged, frustration clearly evident on his face. “I guess, yeah, but the part I don’t get is why. It’s like a puzzle that doesn’t quite come together. And I hate that. I’m a schemer. If your opponent is throwing you easy breaks and you don’t see the angle, you’re the sucker. I feel like we’re the suckers right now, Goldie.”
The three of us lapsed into an uneasy silence as we considered the points Erlix was making. I supposed it was possible that Vierdimin had some kind of ulterior motive here, but he hadn’t even known I’d be able to charm him until a few days prior. Could he really come up with a scheme this complicated, that quickly? It didn’t seem likely, but I had to agree that this was a weird place to bring Topper. I could see he was thinking the same thing.
An angry roar broke our contemplative silence as a tiny, halfling-sized blur of black steel flew through the air and cleaved Erlix straight through his body in a single blow of a pint-sized, two-headed axe.
