by Prax Venter
The petite abyssal horror uncoiled her appendages from the immobile cube, disappointed, but her focus on the prize was so intense that she was grinning again quickly.
“Oh. You’ll never get in, little one. You go ahead and do your worst!”
Mark and Sasha walked up behind the old wooden sprout and saw eight jagged chunks of opaque crystal throbbing with a vivid red aura. They were arranged in a circle of perfect symmetry on top of a bed of soft, green moss.
“Can I try my worst?” Sasha asked in her extra sultry voice.
Guild Master Noma bobbed his head up and down. “I insist!”
Sasha’s spade tail snapped once, and she said, “Cover your face.”
Mark felt what was coming but didn’t try to stop it. Instead, he grinned and shielded his one good eye as his badass succubus blasted one side of the glass case with a blinding Arc Bolt and quickly followed up with a sharp-hooved Side Kick.
A loud ringing echoed through the expansive room, but the glass covering over the shards remained unmarred.
“Can you imagine if it were that easy,” Mark said when the ringing subsided.
“I can imagine a great many things,” the ancient Kalorplast said. “But a lightning-infused succubus… She is a rare beautiful treasure.”
“Guild Master,” Abby began again, and Mark could tell she was trying to use a sultry voice like Sasha. “May I please hold one?”
“You four really want to get to these crystals, do you? They’re an enigma that’s been a stone in my roots since Starglade was merely a sapling. It is said that dangerous monsters are drawn to their presence.”
Abby’s brow came down. “If you believe that were true, you’d be a fool for storing eight of them in the center of your city.”
Noma smiled, and the inside of his mouth reminded Mark of spotted red leaves at the end of autumn.
“If I let you hold one, will you promise not to try and take it?”
Abby thought about her answer for a few seconds too long.
“Can Mark hold one instead?”
She knew if he got his hands on any of these that he’d absorb it forever and gain a shit ton of essence, but-
His mind froze when Guild Master Noma reached his hand straight through the glass as if it weren’t there and pulled out one of the shards. He presented it to Mark, and all his Enthralled held their breath.
But Mark knew better. His blind eye saw more of this timeless creature than they could, and there was a good chance that if he grabbed this one, they’d lose access to the rest for a very long time.
He sighed and did what he always did.
“We are on a quest to find all of these crystal shards. If I touch this object, it will vanish, and we will grow stronger.”
The ancient Kalorplast pulled the object back to his chest, and Abby blew out her breath as if she were a deflating balloon.
“The light shines around your words, Collector, true as the morning warms our soil. I appreciate your warning. Losing one of these artifacts would require documents to be filed and explanations to be given. And yet…” The withered creature held the shard out to Mark again.
“I would witness you proving this claim.”
Mark looked down at the offered prize and shrugged.
“If you insist,” he said as he tapped his finger on it.
Mark’s clothes fluttered around his skin as pure bliss instantly poured into his essence pools. The shard vanished, and Mark shook himself off.
“Only 103 more,” Jezebel said gazing at the arranged pile of seven more under her freckled nose.
Guild Master Noma blinked his milky-white eyes as he remained focused on where the shard had been in his gnarled, branch-like hand.
“I do so enjoy being wrong,” he said, slowly lowering his arm to his side.
Mark shared a half-smile with Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby.
“I hope you won’t get in trouble, but I did warn you that would happen.”
Guild Master Noma began chuckling, his dangling roots jiggling before he started coughing. There was a brief moment of panic where Mark thought the ancient plant-elf was going to pass out- or worse.
“Let an old fool sort that,” he said after a final few hacking coughs, then turned away from the pedestal. “Now, you four strangers came to help Penda’s sister, Cel, with her quest to enthrall her chosen entity. Follow me, if you would.”
“No more shards?” Abby asked quietly, knocking a bunched-up tentacle tip against the impervious glass cube protecting them.
“No, Abby,” Mark said. “I’m pretty sure we’ll need to earn the rest.”
Master Noma tried to look over his shoulder. “This boy sees, hears, and speaks naught but the truth. Another rarity in this old world’s decadent times. Honorable though you may seem, Mark, I need to see you four a bit better before destroying more objects from beyond time. I need to know who or what I am allowing to grow in power.”
The Guild Master hobbled to the vines they’d seen earlier and there he gave up his fight against gravity. The ancient plant-elf fell back into the hanging green vines, and they came alive, surrounding him and lifting him up.
By the time Mark and his monster-women gathered at Noma’s desk, his wooden face was all that remained visible.
“Please accept the quest,” the old master said, but it wasn’t until the counter split open and a wooden board emerged in a smooth, sideways motion that Mark saw what he meant. It was a Job Board with only one pinned square of paper that fluttered as the thing swiftly locked into place. Mark felt Jezebel’s excitement spike behind him, and through their bond, he could feel the research AI almost bursting with the desire to discuss what they’d just witnessed.
Sasha touched his arm. “What does it say?”
Mark reached out and tore the piece of paper free from the pin to read it out loud.
“Escort Cel Nightwater, a Collector and a Fighter, to the Light King’s Garden and protect her while she enthralls one male Sacred Nut. Reward, one Nightwater heirloom necklace.”
“What does the necklace do?” Abby asked quickly.
“Wearing it means publicly displaying your support for one of the eighty-three Executive families that rule over Starglade.”
“How does your system of government work?” Jezebel asked, clomping one of her hooves forward and pressing her armored thighs against the desk. “What does the Nightwater family stand for, and what are the current political issues? Is there one ruler, or do eighty-three people make all the decisions?”
“Can we sell it?” Abby asked when Noma didn’t answer any of the satyr’s questions.
“I have informed Cel,” Noma continued as if he were a bored bank teller, “and she will be arriving at the transport chamber a few minutes from now.”
Two of the vines peeled away from the Guild Master and dipped behind his desk as the empty Job Board sank back into its thin slot. The vines then each deposited one plaster recall charm on the polished countertop before curling back to link back up with the others clinging to the wall.
“Take these, and good fate to you.”
Mark scooped them up and found one of the teleporting charms was carved into a pair of cherries connected by a stem, and the other into a tree. He was handing the charms to Jezebel for safekeeping when deep voices resonated in the immense hallway.
“Now,” the Guild Master said, “if you’ll excuse me, the morning can become quite busy.”
Two men in thick, shining armor walked into Noma’s gallery of nature, and Mark instantly grew jealous of their epic gear. One was a human, the other a human-like bear monster, and both held objectively attractive features.
Mark stepped away from the counter, and as they passed the dark-skinned male with friendly brown eyes, he knew that the bear was the Collector, and this human… was his loyal Enthralled.
“Interesting,” Mark whispered as they exited through the arch. The vast wooden corridor with intricate stained-glass windows depicting various plants continued to be breath
taking.
Sasha caught up and bumped her ass against his thigh.
“Shall I update my user preferences to include steamy man-meat?”
Mark shot her a half-smile. “A human Enthralled... just not something I expected for some reason.”
“What an insane morning,” Jezebel agreed, stretching her arms overhead and turning her tan face to the warm sunlight spilling over them. “These Kalorplast have used magic to hijack the game world’s system of Job Boards!”
Mark was about to ask for clarification when the honeycomb of blue crystals down the hallway flashed four times, and four people began walking straight toward them. The one that pulled Mark’s eye the most was a human female with long, apple-red hair. She wore an elegant black-and-white dress that clung to her plump curves, and through it, Mark could easily see her huge red nipples. A wide leather belt with a red potion for a buckle caught his eye for a moment before he noticed the heart ring on her hand.
He stopped as they approached, and she locked her flashing blue eyes on him.
“You’re a Lover...” Mark mumbled, and she stopped, her battle harem stopping with her.
His eyes moved to the obvious protector, a seven-foot minotaur with deadly horns and a tower shield on his back. Next was another human male with bright-red hair as well, but he was slender with battle-worn leather armor and a dagger strapped to each hip. And finally, Mark glanced over to another Kalorplast plant-woman. This one wore a red hooded cloak, and Mark could feel the air around her crackle with potent magical ability.
“I’ve never seen you before,” the woman said, and Mark physically felt her aura of attention focus on his face. “Well, well. New blood in the star-room?” Her voice was cool and pleasant. “You strike me as the type of group to be after something very specific.”
The human male frowned and murmured, “Better not be the Underknife.”
“Your attempt at a warning only stokes my interest in this Underknife,” Abby said, hugging her stomach and eyeing the glass cases behind them.
“No,” the minotaur rumbled as he eyed Jezebel. “This group is new and undisciplined. They must be lost.”
The minotaur’s sensual Collector smiled, and Mark’s eyes were instantly drawn to the curve of her red lips. He could see that she enjoyed letting the tight, stiffly packed bundle of muscle behind her…
Mark blinked- quickly pulling back out of her mind and her tethered bonds.
“Excuse me!” said a quiet voice, and everyone turned to see another Kalorplast running up. She held a small wooden axe in each hand and looked like she wore armor made of cabbage. “I’m Cel, and I’m meeting a Collector to help me finally bond with my nut!”
Mark held out his hand to the four-foot-tall Fighter. “Pleased to meet you, Cel. I’m Mark, this is Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby. We will be escorting you.”
“Looks like you owe our new guildmates an apology, Larn.”
Mark looked back at the red-lipped Lover and saw her undeniable dominating side.
“Did I walk into something here?” Cel said, holstering her axes and putting her small hands on her hips.
“Miss Collector,” Sasha said in her most practiced sensual voice. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could I ask you to use your Lover’s Heal on Mark, just once. It would really make my clit tingle if I watched him be forced to feel what I feel. Perhaps a woman as experienced as you can show him how it’s done.”
Mark felt a smile growing on his face as the human Lover put a finger to her big, soft lips. After considering the request, she made a counteroffer.
“I’ll show you mine,” she said and then locked her eyes on Mark. “If you show me yours.”
“Deal,” he said with a grin.
The thick woman in the tight dress smoothed her hands down her solid thighs, and Mark saw her heart ring flash once.
Then his world melted around him. It felt as if a hundred pairs of lips slurped on different parts of his rapidly stiffening penis. They sucked on his head, licked his shaft and there were a few on each of his balls. He started to spasm uncontrollably as he rode that growing wave of ecstasy and felt pure bliss ignite his whole body.
Then it was over, and Mark took a shuddering breath. Sweat dripped down his back, and he had to check to make sure he hadn’t cum in his pants.
He hadn’t, but his rock-hard erection jutted outward, and he caught Cel gaping at it with wide eyes.
“My turn,” he said, and detected hints of disappointment and arrogance from the gorgeous woman standing across from him. Her Enthralled minotaur was her voice of dissent and caution, and although she thought herself superior, the woman standing before him was genuinely good-hearted.
Mark shook out his hands, focusing on the other Lover’s body and her energy patterns. With so many people watching, he fell into a more competitive mindset and poured all his concentration into finding the ideal throbbing modulations for her pleasure inputs. The epic corridor around him faded out, and Mark’s unique eye peeled away layer after layer until all that was left was the other group’s pulsing, golden bond. Channels of pure power pulsed with their own fluttering rhythm, and he saw information continually bouncing back and forth between the four of them. As he measured the size of their connection to his own, he noticed tiny flickers of red motion embedded into the channels themselves. Whatever this trapped information was, its red glow told him that it was the perfect place to smash his Heal. Mark squeezed his mind tighter, trying to pull the erratic zaps of energy into focus-
“See?” the minotaur’s deep voice said slowly. “He’s quaking like a birth-wet calf.”
Mark smiled and dumped his healing power directly into the abstract targets fluttering within the other team’s interconnected bonds.
Immediately, all four in the other group dropped to their knees, their minds stunned with confusing levels of terrible pleasure. He caught flashes of the two females and two males engaging in countless complicated sexual positions, but they were layered so thick that Mark couldn’t separate them out from one potent image. Despite the male human’s young age, this team had been together for years, and they had all enjoyed each other’s bodies in virtually every conceivable combination. And here, written in miniature was a detailed log regarding every essence transfer.
Mark snapped back into his own mind when he realized the four treasure hunters were virtually screaming in ecstasy.
He pinched off his heal and sucked in a huge breath as the last of their moans echoed throughout the wooden corridor.
“Take it outside!” Guild Master Noma yelled from his archway.
Mark reached down and helped the other Lover back into her high-heeled boots.
“What are you?” she whispered, scrutinizing his blind, scarred eye again.
“Mark is a very potent Lover,” Abby said, her appendages wrapped smugly under her breasts.
“Fine. I take it all back,” the bull-man named Larn said after a good-natured snort through his bovine snout, then he pointed his horns toward the quest giver. “Come on. Enough pissing around. We got shit to do, and now I need clean pants.”
“See you around Starglade,” the red-lipped Lover said before she followed the heavily armed behemoth stomping away.
“You guys are amazing!” the plant-elf said. “Can we leave now? How does this work? I’m so excited!”
Sasha clomped over to Cel and crossed her arms as she considered the grinning plant-elf, and Mark took the opportunity to do the same.
She was a bit taller than her sister, and the rounded cabbage leaves that covered her white flesh appeared to be a living part of her body. She had wide hips, strong legs, and her stomach was various-sized cabbage leaves ending in two perfectly round breastplates. She had no floral accents like her sister, and even her head was more like a leafy helmet. One bit of long foliage covered her small nose, and two others jutted out from the sides of her head to cover her long, pointed ears.
Sasha’s spade tail began to sway behind her as bot
h Abby and Jezebel joined the semicircle they were forming around the warrior sprout.
“Those tiny axes- you’re so cute,” Sasha said. “I’m actually pretty excited to watch you get your nut, myself.”
The green-and-white Kalorplast crossed her arms and under her cabbage breasts, and Mark noticed she even had natural bracers on her forearms made from tightly packed leaves. He caught a flash of annoyance from the leafy Fighter- she hated people thinking she wasn’t deadly.
“I’m excited too,” Jezebel said with a big smile. “Can you tell us about these Sacred Nut creatures?”
Cel’s brown eyes went wide.
“Mother of roots, can I? Okay, listen up; a long time ago in an ancient human kingdom, there was a ruler thought to be so holy that he acquired the ability to perpetually heal anyone that fell under his gaze. King Nathians Ghothal visited his troops on his border as they fought the platinum beetles, and he was even able to restore the dead back to the living- and so on. Seasons passed, and the Light Blessed King yearned to know darkness. You see, for his eyes were like two suns, and he quickly lost his sanity from being eternally bathed in inescapable brilliance.
“The king took his own life with a dagger through his eye, and when his head exploded, a magical anomaly spread to kill most of his subjects.”
Mark held up his hand. “When his head… exploded?”
Cel nodded vigorously. “Boom! A whole human culture destroyed in the span of a breath, which ended up being a good thing. King Ghothal had become infested with a Third Circle Light Demon he’d picked up during his intensely religious rites.”
“Light Demon?” Jezebel asked as they all tried to keep up with this fast-talking Kalorplast.
“Yes. They manifest from, and are attracted to, the emotions of healers and purveyors of the spiritual when they grow greedy for donations and devotion. Usually, spiritual or deity-worshiping healers do their works and say their words for the glory of their faith or their god, but we know how people can be, especially humans- no offense.”
“No,” Sasha said, nodding. “It’s true. Humans can make some serious messes.”
“What does any of this have to do with enthrallable nuts?” Mark asked.