Gamer Girl

by Mia Archer

  I knew what was coming.

  My old character floated in the void. The Bladedancer who’d been such a disappointment aside from briefly impressing a statue goddess in my mind while I was busy getting messily devoured by a zombie welcome bear.

  Which is to say I didn’t accomplish a hell of a lot of anything.

  “How do I create a new character?” I asked.

  “Creating a new character requires deleting your current character,” a disembodied voice that was entirely too cheerful opined. “Do you wish to delete your character? This action cannot be undone.”

  I looked at the Bladedancer. She seemed to be staring at me with a look that was imploring me not to off her because she hadn’t done so well the first time around. I wondered if that was my imagination, or if that was something they put into the game to make me feel more guilty about what I was about to do.

  As though I could feel guilty about offing a character that hadn’t done jack or shit for me and wasn’t over level one despite all the craziness that’d gone down yesterday.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I said. “Ice the motherfucker.”

  “I apologize. That is not a prompt I have been programmed to understand. Do you wish to delete your current character?”

  “Yeah, I wish to delete my current character you bucket of bolts,” I growled.

  That got the message across. The process of my character being deleted was pretty interesting, too. Like we’re talking one moment she was standing there minding her own business waiting for me to log in, and the next fiery demonic hands reaching up out of a glowing something beneath her, dragging her kicking and screaming into whatever unfortunate eternal reward awaited characters who’d been weighed in the scales and found wanting.

  Damn. Talk about intense.

  “Greetings adventurer, and welcome to Etherea Online! Let there be fun!”

  I rolled my eyes. Again. I couldn’t help it. I knew some marketing drone probably thought that was the greatest bit of ad copy ever written, but the line sounded ridiculous.

  “Let’s get on with this,” I growled.

  “Of course!” the voice intoned. “Choose your adventure!”

  “Yeah, I bet you’d like me to choose my adventure you bag of circuits,” I growled, thinking of all the crappy things that’d happened to me the last time I chose an adventure.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not an input I’m programmed to receive,” the voice said. “Would you like to proceed with character creation?”

  “Yeah, what the fuck ever,” I said. “Bring up the character options. Preferably something that’s less susceptible to zombie bear teeth and claws this time around.”

  “I’m sorry,” the computer intoned with some programmed sadness that was no doubt meant to make it feel more personable. “That is not an input I’m programmed for. Would you like to proceed to character creation?”

  “Yes please,” I said through gritted teeth that didn’t even exist in this weird void.

  The character options came up, the same as they had the last time around. Only there was something a little different about the character creation screen this time. An option that hadn’t been there the last time.

  The figure staring at me was different somehow. There was a sort of sparkling all around her. I flipped through a couple of the options with a mental command to move back and forth, and it was the same with each character. There was always that weird sparkling. I glanced at some of the character stats, and that’s when I got a really big surprise.

  There were the usual things you’d expect from character creation in an RPG. There was strength, dexterity, constitution, yada yada yada. And then there was the second to last option, right above luck which had always seemed like a silly stat that developers didn’t really know how to use properly, but whatever.

  I was more concerned with the charisma score. I wasn’t sure what the score had been yesterday, everything was on a scale of one to one hundred and most of them were in the seventies or maybe the eighties for a couple of key class stats, but there was a little one hundred on my charisma score, and something else beside it. Plus one.

  “One hundred plus one?” I asked myself as I floated in that void. “What the ever loving fuck does that mean?”

  There was the same glow hanging around my charisma score as well. I had no idea what the fuck it meant, but I was starting to get a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with that statue and all that stuff she’d said about going out and being her champion.

  The only problem was I had no idea what the hell I was going to do to be her champion.

  Whatever. I wasn’t going to be her champion if I was here in the character creation screen instead of out there in the world playing the damn game.

  I decided I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be a Bladedancer this time. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was touching a pure DPS class. Not when I’d learned through hard experience that there was no need for another DPS character.

  I flipped through the class options until I found one that looked promising. Lightwielder. Which was a fancy name for a healing class that could also use some of those healing spells, that totally weren’t holy spells for the purposes of not pissing off the religious types that still got a stick up their ass about that sort of thing, as offensive abilities.

  I grinned. That seemed like the ticket. I thought about that hot elf chick who had a DPS and a tank doing her bidding because she could heal their asses. The thought of being that hot chick getting other players to do my bidding sounded pretty fun, thank you very much.

  “Lightwielder,” I said. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good.”

  From there it was on to picking my character’s look. The first time around I’d gone with something that was essentially a more butch version of my mug with a few liberties taken so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that the me in the game was also the me out in the real world, but I took a little more time with character creation this time around.

  After all, this was giving me the opportunity to craft the ultimate hottie. Everyone else was doing it, so why not have a little fun? Besides, I figured looks were going to have a lot to do with how well I did in the game, socially speaking, so I was going to take the time to craft a woman who’d be the kind of woman I’d want to get with.

  I agonized for entirely too long, but in the end I settled on blonde hair that was so light it was almost white, but there was a hint of gold when the light hit it just so. Invisible light that was coming from nowhere considering my character was hovering in nothing.

  The breasts weren’t too big, but not too small either. Not flat chested, but not so huge that the things would be bouncing up in my face every time I had to run from something. A game that had this much attention to detail when it came to the sexy also seemed like the kind of game that would have an unhealthy obsession with exaggerated bouncing boob physics, for all that I thought that sort of thing was ridiculous.

  Even if I didn’t mind looking at some nicely done boob physics, if you catch my drift.

  The figure was your classic hourglass with curves in all the right places, but tight and athletic as well. I think I struck a nice balance between athletic and voluptuous. I certainly thought she was fucking hot!

  Finally when it was done I hit accept and prepared to enter the game. I couldn’t help but smile, because I had a feeling everything was about to be different.

  Even if I still didn’t know what that Charisma score meant. What the fuck was up with that? I frowned without actually frowning since I was still a disembodied spirit, then did the disembodied spirit version of a shrug.

  “Choices finalized! Welcome to the world of Etherea Online! Let there be fun!”

  I resisted the urge to groan this time around, but only barely. The impossibly bright light resolved to a bright world all around me with a blue sky overhead filled with friendly looking fluffy white clouds.

  There was less wonder in my eyes as I looked at that blue sky. All I c
ould think about was how I’d been screwed over by this game the last time around, and I wanted to get to that tower off in the distance so I could get on with this fucking fetch quest and teach those goblins a lesson.

  The same woman stood out in front of the tower, but she was talking with a player who looked just a touch familiar. The last time I’d seen this prick he’d been playing with that impossibly hot healer girl and the mage DPS, though he looked to be on his own now.

  Hadn’t Katie mentioned that there were people who ran new players through the dungeons? I wondered what he got out of it. Considering what I knew about the game world there was a chance he was getting paid by the rich people, but there was also the very real possibility that he was getting something that was more in line with what I’d seen going on in that inn.

  Either way Katie’s words echoed in my head. He was up to something, and he might know something about this mysterious Calixia who I suspected was also Chelsey.

  It was time to see what I could find out, and maybe get a little revenge. Even if I had no idea how I was going to accomplish that second goal.

  20

  New Old Quest

  “Oh hero! I am so glad you are here!” the woman said, turning to me.

  Again she seemed out of breath. Her clothes were still ripped, and there was still the impression of a woman I wouldn’t kick out of bed for eating crackers under all the dirt and grime. Because of course the people who put together Etherea wouldn’t resist the opportunity to insert a little bit of the sexy into a situation that didn’t call for it at all.

  Also? I was just a little annoyed with her as I thought of how she’d treated me the last time we met.

  The guy turned around and hit me with a dazzling grin that probably would’ve made my insides twist if I was into the dudes. Which I totally wasn’t, thank goodness. There was some interest there. Interesting.

  Maybe I could do something with that, even if it likely wasn’t something he was going to care for.

  “Well hello there,” he said. “Seems like this is a week for newbie Lightwielders who need a little bit of help with the quest dungeon. I promise you I offer very reasonable rates for a run through the dungeon.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows at me and then looked me up and down in a manner that made it clear what kind of “reasonable rates” he was thinking of charging. I couldn’t fault the guy his hustle. Maybe he couldn’t rate at the inn where there were lots of high level players getting it on, so he came here and pulled this routine with the newbies, but I knew his game and it was time to fuck this guy over.

  I batted my eyelashes and leaned forward just a little. I leaned forward and caused my tunic to fall open which gave him a view of the chest I’d just spent so much time agonizing over on the character creation screen.

  “I don’t know that I need any help,” I said, dangling some bait in front of him to reel him in. “I’m just here to talk to the lady about the goblins bothering her.”

  “You know about the goblins who have been stealing gold from local caravans bringing gold ingots from the mine to the keep?” the girl said, sounding genuinely surprised.

  I was about to think some very uncharitable thoughts about what an idiot this woman was for not realizing she’d already been through this whole spiel with me before, but then I looked down at myself.

  Yeah, I was staring at a hot elf Lightwielder now. Not the butch Bladedancer who’d come through yesterday and thoroughly screwed multiple pooches without even giving them the courtesy of a reacharound.

  Not to mention she was an NPC. I doubted she remembered much beyond what players were on her quest.

  Right. Okay then. It was time to get into character here. Neither of these jerks remembered me, human or NPC.

  I looked at the woman and noted that the dude wasn’t the only one who was being pretty open about checking me out. No, she was looking at me in a way that said she was liking what she saw too. That she maybe wouldn’t mind having a little roll with yours truly if she could take some time off from giving out quests to anyone and everyone.

  I wasn’t sure if that was because the developers for Etherea had been a bunch of perverts who assumed all women were lesbians because girl on girl was hot, puke, or if it was because of some other weirdness going on. There was still the matter of that odd Charisma modifier that I needed to figure out.

  Only what if there wasn’t all that much to figure out? What if the weirdness of the weird Charisma modifier was precisely that other people were drawn to me in a way they weren’t before?

  It was too early to tell. After all, I’d seen the hot elf chick body I’d created earlier, and let me tell you that was the kind of body I’d be drawn to whether or not there was some weird Charisma modifier entering into things.

  Speaking of Charisma modifiers. Someone sporting some negative Charisma decided to choose that moment to chime in.

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” the asshole said, though he was looking between me and the quest giver so often that I wasn’t sure which one of us he was talking to. “I’ve been running this quest for weeks. I wouldn’t mind helping you out if you don’t mind having a little company.”

  I giggled. It killed me to giggle like that, but it had to be done. This guy needed to think I was a simpering idiot if I was going to stick it to him.

  There was no way I was going to be able to take him on one-on-one, but some of the stuff I’d seen while I was out questing in the goblin area led me to believe I didn’t need to be able to take him on one-on-one as long as I could convince him to follow me out there.

  Sort of a black widow situation. If sex was something people treated as an ability in this game then it was time to use my extra stats to kick some ass.

  “Maybe I could use a little bit of help,” I said, batting my eyelashes and giving a performance that would’ve been worthy of an Academy Award considering how well I was holding back my desire to heave up my guts giggling and simpering for this prick.

  Because I needed to simper for him to fall into my trap.

  I was a healer. Sure they might gussy it up with all the fancy language they could about Lightwielding and all that, but at the end of the day I was responsible for healing this prick. Which meant I could stop healing him at an opportune moment that would result in him getting stuck by a bunch of goblins.

  Oh yeah. The more I thought of that the more I really liked the idea. Sure it wasn’t exactly the most elegant of evil plans, but whatever.

  Sometimes simple, brutal, and effective was all you needed. That was a lesson I’d learned time and again down on the surface, and it seemed like it was time to bring that lesson to the game world.

  “But I didn’t even tell you what you need to do!” the woman said.

  “Been there, done that,” I said.

  “Interesting,” my new companion said. “So you’ve played this game before.”

  “Something like that,” I said, realizing my mistake and really not wanting to get into how I knew so much about this game already. “So can we get a move on?”

  The woman standing in front of the tower looked just a touch frustrated, but then I got a notification that I had the quest so I guess she’d decided to give it out whether or not I was playing along and going through the whole dialogue tree. Or maybe the game gave it out no matter what and it didn’t matter what the chick thought about it.

  “So how long has it been since you’ve been through this questline?” my new companion asked as we turned and headed away from the quest tower.

  “More recently than you might think,” I said, frowning as I thought of what had happened yesterday.

  He snorted. “Sounds like you had some trouble with it.”

  “You could say that,” I said, deciding to get a little clever and test just how clever this guy was. “I ran into some trouble with a bad tank and ended up getting poked over and over by some goblins. It wasn’t fun.”

  He snorted again, then turned and looked
me up and down. He was trying to be sneaky about it, but there was no being sneaky about it when I knew to look for it.

  I’d always figured most guys would be pretty freaked out if they knew exactly how many times the ladies knew they were checking us out without trying to look like they were checking us out.

  “So what do you charge for this exactly?” I said.

  The guy missed a step and that smarmy smile on his face slipped. Then it was back. He was good. I’d give him that. It wasn’t going to help him, but he was good.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  I turned and grinned at him. Forced myself to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. I felt slimy putting that hand on his shoulder, but it had to be done. I had to keep this guy thinking he was in like Flynn, as they used to say a long time ago.

  “Come on,” I said. “Don’t bullshit me. I think we both know you’re not hanging around a tower in a starter area out of the goodness of your own heart, so what’s going on here?”

  He grinned and shook his head. Then he wagged a finger at me as though I was being a naughty girl or something. From the way his eyes darted up and down, again, he was thinking of all the ways he wouldn’t mind me being a naughty girl.

  It was a wonder he didn’t sprain the muscles in his eyes with the way they kept bobbing up and down like that.

  “You’re good,” he said. “With some people I charge a percentage of the gold reward they get at the end of the quest, split some of that with Calixia, but for others I like to see just how good they are.”

  There was that name again. Calixia. I was onto something. It might not be much of something, but it was something.

  He licked his lips. I blushed. I didn’t even need to act to blush. No, the blush came naturally. Though it was more that I was embarrassed for him than anything.

  Did he really think a line like that would work? Only as I thought about it I realized that a line like that had worked for him or he wouldn’t still be out here doing it.