by Albion, Rex
Vandal copied Roxy’s choices, so they ended up on the same screen. They had identical powers available to them, he hovered his pointer over each in turn, moving it with a mere thought so he could read the tooltips.
“Okay, so we have Loving Heal, which seems to oh. Wow. Heal your target and yourself by sexually stimulating and arousing them. A passionate kiss, touching, oral, vaginal or anal sex can all cause this spell to heal minor wounds and diseases. Higher levels are required to heal broken or severed limbs, plagues and other more severe injuries,” Vandal read out.
“Sounds like only one of us needs to take it, look how much it heals both. I guess it’s not meant to be used in combat, but it’s rated to heal a lot more damage than my Shaman spell does at the moment.”
Vandal checked the stats and whistled. Loving Heal did 2-4 hit points of healing, per round which was about ten second, and only cost 2 stamina points, and 2 magic points. For a full minute of casting, you’d heal from 12-24 damage, and he only had 12 hit points right now. It would also get rid of some diseases, and you’d be having a lot of fun while doing it.
“Maybe if we’re in a dungeon I can hoist you up on a table, and eat you out until we’re healed then?” Vandal suggested playfully.
“I’m game for that even if we aren’t injured,” Roxy said, and blew him a kiss.
“I’m kind of tempted to test that suggestion out right now, and blow off levelling up right now,” Vandal replied.
Roxy reached across and stroked his thigh through his new leather pants. Vandal breathed in sharply as her fingers danced across his crotch as he began to stiffen. “Maybe later, if you’re a good High Priest,” Roxy giggled and pulled her hand away, leaving him aroused but aching.
“You are a sadistic tease, did anyone ever tell you that?” Vandal laughed.
“Only guys who liked being edged for hours,” Roxy said. Vandal frowned. She seemed to have a much better grasp of the more unusual aspects of sex than he did, and he knew he was going to have to ask, even if it felt silly not knowing.
“What does ‘edged’ mean?”
“It’s a lot of fun. It just means when you get somebody close to the brink of coming and then you don’t let them. You just keep stimulating them just enough to keep them on the edge of orgasm for ages. Hours even.”
“Fuck me. That sounds like torture.”
“It can be. Especially if you leave them aching and just don’t let them come at all.”
“Oh no, seriously?”
Roxy nodded. “Some submissives like that but not me, before you get any ideas.”
“Thank fuck for that. Each to their own I suppose, and I can see how it could be fun to be teased for a while. Perhaps even a long while but being cut off cold turkey sounds horrible.”
“A bit of edging can lead to a massive orgasm. Just please, if you want to try it, don't push me too far or I’ll die of horniness.”
“Noted. I promise not to leave you without an orgasm for too long at a time. No more than sixteen hours of teasing.”
Roxy punched his arm and his combat text showed he’d lost a hit point. “Ow! That really hurt.”
“Do I look sorry?” she said, and stuck her tongue out.
“So, jokes about denying orgasms are too far. Got it.”
“Yeah, there’s kinky and then there’s just perverse. Just tease me until I beg, then fuck me and I’ll be your slave,” Roxy giggled.
“In a gold chainmail bikini?”
“Sure, but the gold is coming out of your share of the loot, not mine. Buy me pretty and impractical armour and I’ll play dress up for you, but I’m not wasting my money on it when I could just strip naked,” Roxy giggled.
“Not that I need it to be turned on by you, but that would be a big fantasy off my bucket list,” Vandal admitted. “If I can find someone to make it, I’ll do that.” He thought about making a mental note, and the game obliged him by adding the idea to his shopping list. That was a handy feature, so he added a few more immediate things he wanted to look for when they went anywhere with shops too.
“Mine too,” Roxy agreed and winked at him. “Even better if we had two gold bikini sets.”
Vandal had to struggle not to audibly whimper at the thought.
Chapter Thirteen
He rallied, and managed to stall by asking, “For you and another lady, I’m hoping?”
“Yeah, unless you’re up for a threesome with another guy. Which I’m down for but I was picturing another kinky lass for us to enjoy.”
“You really are into the idea of a threesome, aren’t you?
“Threesomes are amazing, don’t you think?”
“I haven’t had one, have you?”
Roxy gasped, “Seriously? That’s so sad. We’ll have to get your harem built so we can fix that as soon as possible. I’ve done a few and they’re really hot with the right people.”
“I’m still having trouble convincing myself that I’m really lying in a bed talking with a hot English woman, who likes me and wants me to start a harem with her.”
“Get used to it. I can’t wait to share you with someone else,” Roxy said, grinning at him as she licked her lips and her eyes roved over his body.
“I don’t think I’m up for sharing you with another guy though,” Vandal said, sincerely. It didn’t bother him if people liked that, he wasn’t judgemental about such things, but he wasn’t into the idea of it.
“Don’t worry your head about it. I’d be disappointed if you wouldn’t let me bring another woman to our bed, but you seem okay with the harem idea. You are, aren’t you? I don’t want to bully you into it.”
“Yes, I’m good with it, I think. I’m sure I’ll get over my shock that you are soon.”
“Good High Priest of Amoria. Now, shall we finish this off before I get so horny I just have to jump your bones?”
“I suppose we must. We get to choose two spells it seems so let's look at the others.”
The next was Refractory Refresh which Roxy read out. “Ideal for the male devotees of Amoria, this simple spell resets their refractory period, allowing them to stand to attention for round two more rapidly. Further levels reduce the cooldown and enhance the vigour available. Primarily beneficial to male targets but female targets may also experience small benefits. Well, it looks like I could take it too and cast it on you, but perhaps I should take Loving Heal and you should take this, just for simplicity?”
Vandal read the details himself, and the extra notes, and was more than happy to agree to that deal. “For two magic points and two stamina points, I can’t argue that round two is a good trade off. We’ll probably get that back just having fun, right?” He doubted he could keep pace with Roxy even with the benefits of Refractory Refresh, but it was still going to open up his options. It wouldn’t help fighting monsters, but their new digital life was supposed to be about enjoying themselves after all.
“I don’t know how useful it is, but I still want you to take it. Next, we have a spell called Blessing of Amoria. It says it’s a group buff that we can cast on a whole congregation after a service. It gives each person in a twelve-yard-wide circle a +1 bonus to charisma as well as a buff to the ranged, melee, magic or unarmed skills for the rest of the day. That’s kind of epic. I suppose part of this deal is we need to get working on building up a congregation at some point and being able to bless the worshippers won’t hurt.”
“No, although I’m really not sure what the whole giving sermons thing is going to be like. I’m sure the Amorian Scriptures will tell us that. But for now, that just leaves Conduit of Amoria,” Vandal said, before reading out the tooltip, “Allows the cleric to act as a conduit of worship, in the form of sex, for Amoria providing the goddess with Mana, and the caster with +5 Magic Points for 24 hours.”
“That sounds more useful for me again, when I’ll be the one casting Zap all the time,” Roxy said. “I’m much more likely to run out of magic points at this stage, though I haven’t yet. I did come close in th
at big fight in the temple.”
“Yes, and if I take Refractory Refresh and Blessing of Amoria and you take Loving Heal and Conduit of Amoria we can cast them both, we are covered. You’ll get the extra magic points for casting from Conduit and we both get the buff from Blessing. That’s a nice little boost for each day we’re out there, kicking ass and taking names,” Vandal said.
Spell Acquired: Cleric of Amoria - Level 1 - Refractory Refresh.
Spell Acquired: Cleric of Amoria - Level 1 - Blessing of Amoria.
“I didn’t get offered any Barbarian skills at level two, did you?”
“No, I’m pretty sure you get stat points and skill points every level early on, but new spells are only available every couple of levels at first, then you reach a point where you just get the odd one available every ten levels.”
“Pretty standard then. I’m fine with working out how to use what we have already. It’s overwhelming when they just keep piling on more and more new things for you to understand each time you level.”
“It’s just putting points in our skills then, and they’re percentile based which is easy to understand. Just remember that all sorts of things can give you bonuses and modifiers to them.”
“Right, like your dress has that bonus so you can use chainmail and not get a stealth penalty. I got Concealment too, so I can hide objects.”
“Yes, I haven’t managed to get Stealth yet. I clearly need to do some more sneaking around,” Roxy said.
“I got it outside when I was trying to scout the cave entrance, and it really helped. We should be able to deliberately practice it until it activates.”
“What did you hide?” Roxy asked.
“The bodies, and their weapons. I got this potion belt which is handy, but their other gear wasn’t worth much. I’ll go and do something about the bodies later though, we don’t want our new home smelling,” Vandal said.
Roxy nodded and flicked back to her attribute screen to consider her options, and Vandal did the same. They both sat there, deep in thought for a while.
“I think I’m just going to spread these points across Strength, Wisdom and Intelligence. At seventeen, I’ll get a +1 damage bonus from Strength, but that’s pretty minor and I want to start getting my mental attributes up early, so I don’t fall behind when we get more powerful spells,” Vandal said.
“I’m going for Dexterity, and two points of Wisdom. I don’t like having my Dexterity all the way down at nine, and when I get more points, I can hit the maximum for Wisdom,” Roxy said. “Plus, Wisdom and Dexterity go together, so I get 2 points of Reflexes and 2 Magic Points as well.”
“It makes sense to combine them then. When I raise Strength, maybe I should pair it with Fortitude so I can get Health Points and Stamina at the same time, though I suppose it doesn’t matter too much, if you’re only dumping stats into one of them at a time. Anyway, you’re saying the maximum attribute is only eighteen then?” Vandal said. “That doesn’t sound like we can advance all that far, with stats. Is it mostly about gear then?”
“Don’t sound too disappointed, we get to go over the soft cap for attributes with magical items, spells, potions, and so on. But to get your attributes to nineteen or more, you have to do special things, depending on where you are. Like, you could go and visit a trainer to get your strength up to twenty, and there’s a big increase for that,” Roxy explained.
Vandal gave her a peck on the cheek. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do in this game without you, I’m feeling like such a noob. I spent more time going back and forth over which game I wanted to devote my time to and didn’t bother to take the extra time to really investigate the basics.”
“Yeah, but if you had, someone else would have got matched up with me.”
“You mean, I’m not that special?”
“You, my dear, are just one of many special people who might be playing this game. As the great man once sang, if I didn’t have you, I’d have someone else,” Roxy smiled at him slyly.
“That’s so romantic,” Vandal said.
“Or perhaps, you really are the only man in New Albion for me, and I’d have just been in that cell for another day until you logged in,” Roxy said.
“I think you’re just trying to stroke my ego now,” Vandal pointed out, putting on his best pout.
“I think your ego is plenty big enough, big boy,” Roxy said. “What are you spending your skill points on?”
“She says, changing topics smoothly.”
“I do love a good segue.”
“What can you tell me about stats over twenty then?” Vandal said. “See, I can do segues too.”
“I hope you’re going to read some of the tooltips and help pages at some point,” Roxy protested mildly. “But you are a Barbarian with low intelligence so I can see how that might be a problem for you, oh, High Priestly one.”
“Low blow, low blow,” Vandal sighed.
“There’s two soft caps though. Eighteen for the stat points you can just buy. After that, you need levels to give your more stat points, and since our character generation gives you a total of seventy points, you max all your stats at level twelve. You can then go to trainers for each attribute, and pay them or do quests, and they’ll train you for another three points to the next soft cap of twenty-one.”
“Okay, and I see here at seventeen Strength I get +1 Melee damage and +2 at eighteen.”
“Yes, but the bonuses above that are much better. Look, at that tooltip,” Roxy pointed at his augmented reality screen.
Vandal mentally clicked on the link which took him to details of the next level he could get and whistled softly as he read it. “You get plus five damage at nineteen, ten at twenty, and fifteen at twenty-one.”
“Yes, but of course, those training sessions are not easy to come by. They cost a lot of gold, and you have to do quests which can be quite challenging. But those are sort of mid to end game goals. And at really high levels, you can apparently go above what the attribute trainers can do for you,” Roxy said.
“Something to look forward to then,” Vandal said.
“Part of the reason I picked this game was the long-term progression and the end game. They’ve been getting great reviews, and the development road map is not only good, but they’ve also actually been implementing the things they always said, they wanted to do,” Roxy said, enthusiastically.
“I’m pretty much hooked already, but I still think you’re the biggest draw for me.”
“That side of things was a big factor for me, but they’ve had rave reviews for the social game too,” Roxy grinned.
“I’d certainly give you a rating of fifteen,” Vandal agreed.
“Fifteen? What, out of a hundred?”
“No, out of ten,” Vandal grinned.
“Flattery will get you everywhere, at some point, you smooth talker you,” Roxy said.
“I do hope so. It’s only ten points, so I’m just going to increase my stealth to 25%,” Vandal said.
“You’ve been sneaking up on people, and if you do a good job, you get bonuses for that,” Roxy said. “Just like melee. If you stab toward your right, you can’t hit the guy in front of you. But if he’s trying to fend you off, your melee can come into play against his. Most of it is about what you do though. It’s hard to explain.”
“It felt like if I could do it myself, with my own skills, it was quite like a first-person shooter,” Vandal said, with a shrug. “Like, my stealth was only good as long as I didn't stand on a twig or talk to myself, and if I was moving really slowly, and keeping behind cover, it would work quite easily.”
“That sounds about right. Like, if you’re trying to avoid being spotted by a dragon in a field of corn, no amount of stealth will beat its perception, if you are running around. But if you stay still, hunker down, and don’t disturb the stalks, maybe it won’t spot you,” Roxy said.
“It looks like we get a flat ten points every level though, so for now I’ll just go with it and see what
other skills we discover.”
“You can train them as well, by practicing. If you creep about enough, you should get bonus upgrades, just like when you acquired the skill.”
“I suppose I’d better read the Scriptures of Amoria then, to practice my Elvish,” Vandal sighed.
“We both should, but I’m going to put my points in that right now, to give me a head start,” Roxy said. “Then as we read them, we can practice but at least I’ll be able to get some of the trickier bits.”
“We’re going to have to read that whole thing, aren’t we?”
“I think so. But I flicked through a bit, I think it’s going to be worth it, not just for the fun of it. I think we’ll find a lot more benefits. I mean, you like the sound of the spells we’ve got right now, don’t you?” Roxy smiled.
“We’re done with levelling up, so I think we’ve earned some rest and relaxation, haven’t we?”
Roxy rolled over, and straddled him, reaching for the hem of her dress to pull it up. Vandal caught her wrists, “Leave it on, for now.”
“Yes, sir,” Roxy said, with a grin.
Chapter Fourteen
Vandal didn’t let go of her wrists, but tugged her firmly toward him, making her squeal with delight as she dropped forward until he could kiss her deeply. He kept her arms stretched out to her sides, trapping her in position as he explored her welcoming mouth. Roxy’s hips began to gyrate over his crotch.
Breaking the kiss with a gasp he growled, “Minx!” Then he brought her arms back to her body, crossing them behind her back. Roxy giggled and licked her lips. Vandal found he could hold both her thin wrists behind her back in one meaty barbarian palm. He supposed hands the size of dinner plates were a by-product of all the muscles and general size he’d chosen.
That left his left hand free to do whatever he wanted, while Roxy could do little more than wriggle against his hips and eyeball him hungrily. His hand found her knee, and she murmured appreciatively as he stroked it up her thigh, as his lips found her neck and kissed her softly. When he reached her rounded bottom, he squeezed a big handful and she moaned, “Please. Don’t tease.”
