by ilo man
“Fuck me, Vinnie,” Cresta gasped. “I want that magnificent cock inside me.”
Vinnie parted her cheeks, running his finger over her asshole, lingering on it, circling. He dropped his pants, his cock springing to attention, easily the biggest he’d ever seen it, the hardest too, throbbing like a bastard. His knob was a shining scarlet orb topping his sturdy shaft.
“Come on Vinnie, put it in. Fuck me with that gargantuan cock, Vinnie.” She shook her hair back; her black mane cascading over her lace corset. She wiggled her ass backward. Vinnie pressed forward, barely able to catch a breath. The tip of his cock touched her lush lips, just piercing, just slipping into her hot flesh.
He grinned, his first shag in the land now imminent.
Esteem, here we come! He declared inside his mind.
But then the blood suddenly fled from Vinnie’s head as his penis pulsed some more and grew to the extent of his new virility score of 2.4. His stamina plunged to an all-time low. His energy bolted, and he fainted where he stood, toppling backward like a falling plank. He was unconscious by the time he crashed on to the floor.
Had he stayed awake just a little longer, he’d have heard Cresta laugh as she hitched up her thong.
Even though out for the count, the notifications continued cycling across Vinnie’s mind’s eye.
Your status with Cresta has altered. You have sunk from 0, indifferent, to minus 2, derisory. She can’t even be bothered to hate you—you’re that pathetic.
“What the fuck?” he muttered, waking, groggy, wondering why he had his pants around his ankles and his semi-hard cock on display.
Your Esteem value has changed! You old value was 0. Due to your recent sexual ineptness and inability to satisfy your partner, your new value is minus 2.
“What the actual fuck?”
Vinnie pulled up his stats, but in hindsight, he should have pulled up his pants first.
Attribute (Value x Esteem Modifier = True Value)
Health: 1 x .8 = .8
Stamina: 3 x .8 = 2.4
Strength: 1 x .8 = .8
Agility: 3 x .8 = 2.4
Intelligence: 6 x .8 = 4.8
Mana: 60 x .8 = 48
Virility [Cumulative True Value]: 2.4 x .8 = 1.92
His frame withered. His dick shrank, his heart skipped a beat, and he struggled back into his pants. Cresta’s laugh rang out. “My god but that was an abysmal attempt. Who knew that would happen?”
“Abysmal? I was finding my feet before you…before you offered yourself up to me. No wonder I fainted, my virility had gone over 2, my health couldn’t handle it or something like that.”
Cresta walked over to him, looking down, scowling. “God only knows, but I’m going to regret this. You failed because you went for instant gratification.” She pulled him up, then strutted over to the table, pouring out some juice, pushing a cup towards him. “Had you gone down on your knees and given me a bit of head, you’d have increased your esteem instantly. That would have modified your health upwards, and as you’d have already satisfied me, you could have taken your pleasure without fear of forfeit.” She rolled her eyes again. “At the very least, you might have been able to hold your bone-on without fainting like a freshman.”
“So, I’ve just got to give you head, and I’m good to go?”
“In a nutshell. Or you can keep doing quests, but that won’t get you esteem.”
“Sweet,” Vinnie said, drawing out a chair and sitting. He drank a long draft of juice. “Well, I’m ready, shall we?” Okay, not his best chat up line, but he needed to get his esteem back to at least 0, and right away. He could feel his dick withering.
“Just one little issue,” Cresta said, licking her lips.
“What?”
“Well, you’ve got negative esteem.”
“So?” Vinnie said, flicking out his tongue, seductively.
“So, you make my fucking skin crawl. Have you seen yourself?” Cresta shivered in revulsion.
Chapter Five
Vinnie looked into the mirror and screamed. His stunning, aquiline nose had vanished, replaced by a humongous, hooked appendage with three large hairs growing out of a brown, scabby mole that looked like it had been flung there as an afterthought. His wide, walnut eyes were now squeezed into the bridge of his nose like they were afraid of his overhanging mono-brow, which in turn singlehandedly held up a forehead that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the end of a colossal, dwarven mallet.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Vinnie’s previously gaunt cheeks were now almost see-through; his ears had grown and cupped out like two vast conch shells. He looked like a hideous creature that would usually grace a nightmare or two. Nervously, he tried to smile through his thin, scabby lips, and when he did, his first tears formed. His magnificent, gleaming teeth were now just yellowy tombstones.
“Why?” he wailed.
Cresta leaned back, wafting her hand in the air. “Do you mind, your breath’s foul, and you stink like week old piss. Esteem, didn’t anyone tell you? It’s the single most important stat you have. Hell, I just gained a point for having to suffer your inept cocksmanship. Look,” she beamed. “I’m positively glowing.”
Vinnie did look, and she was. If she hadn’t before, Cresta radiated health and beauty. Her breasts piled high above her corset, surrounded by her gleaming black, almost electric blue hair. Her stunning face had a film star aura surrounding it, and her teeth sparkled like fresh morning snow.
“Need esteem,” Vinnie said, his voice now foreign to him, like grinding rocks. The words were curiously hard to form as if his language was foreign to him now.
Cresta’s tinkling laugh flowed over him. She dabbed a tear away from her mesmerizing eyes. “Oh, you poor sap. You won’t get anyone to fuck you now. You started off low, I mean, who starts with zero esteem? What kind of a selfish bastard are you in…you know?” She gave him an exaggerated wink. “Then…” Convulsions of laughter coursed through her. “Then, you dumped all your points to get a big dick. Boy, are you screwed—excuse the pun.”
He sat there, stunned. “N…n…nothing Vinnie can do?”
I sound like a dumb orc, he screamed in his mind.
She pouted. “More quests?”
“No health, Vinnie no health, no stamina.”
“True.” Cresta got up, pacing around the cottage. “It tears at my heartstrings,” she said, opening the door and letting some fresh air inside. “Truly, it does. I mean, had I known quite what the mess your stats were in, well, I’d have refused your advances until you were a bit sturdier.”
“My advance? Was—”
She shot him a look. Vinnie shut up. Cresta was his only hope.
“What’s done is done. What you need is a really easy quest—one that will take little or no stamina, one that has no risk whatsoever and might lead to esteem. I wonder…”
“Please?”
“Well, if only something grand or important were happening in Hartsfelt soon. Then, Vinnie, then we could fashion a quest to help you out, you know, rather than the fighting-trolls-looting-dungeons type quests.” She strolled outside.
Vinnie heard the creak of a rocking chair. Pushing himself up, he shuffled towards the front door. One of his legs dragged behind him, and he noticed he had a stoop from his now hunched back. “Perfect,” he growled to himself.
Outside on the deck, Cresta sat in the sole rocker, a low table to its side. “Sit,” she instructed. “Though not too close and downwind.”
He dumped himself down, devoid of hope, the fight draining out of him. She pulled out a roll of small, brown cigarillos. “Smoke?”
“Might as well. Not hurt me.”
She lit one and tossed it to him. “Have you considered,” she rolled her eyes at him. “Starting again. With what you know now, you’d have a better chance.”
The sun streamed down on Vinnie, and in his mind, he saw a band of angels fluttering above him, golden trumpets blasting out a salutation, such was his burst of joy. His heart surged, his
hope soaring above it. “Start again, yes, start game over. Vinnie go home,” he muttered in his strange new tone. A message slashed across his mind’s eye.
Pro Tip: Discussion of all things not of this land is not allowed in XdCeX Online. Discretion is guaranteed, and this is how we monitor it. Further mentions will be punished by the stripping of your esteem.
But Vinnie didn’t care. He’d start again, that’s what he’d do. Scouring his menus, rifling their tabs, Vinnie came to the settings tab. He saw the logout button, pressed it once—nothing, twice—nothing. He forced his mind to jab it hard, to force it through the virtual console and into the virtual wires underneath, and he howled in frustration when nothing happened.
“Not work,” he growled. He thought carefully. How would he tell her without losing more esteem? “Door not work,” and he winked at Cresta, his new co-conspirator in outwitting the game.
Cresta blew out a vast funnel of gray smoke. “Broken?”
“Broken, yes, broken. Vinnie’s door broken.”
“What are the chances?” Cresta said, a little too gaily for Vinnie’s liking. He shot her a look, his pin-like eyes barely managing it. “How about…” Cresta took a second to compose. “How about getting some help. Tell them your…hinges are knackered and get them to smash the door down.” It was Cresta’s turn to wink. She tapped her nose for good measure as if to say, I’ve got you covered.
“Smash door, yes, smash it. Vinnie try.”
Before he’d even looked for the correct menu, a familiar feeling of futility ran through him. He checked anyway, but somehow knew he was cut off. Sure enough, the messaging menu was nowhere to be seen.
“Vinnie stuck here. No door work. No one to fix hinge.”
“Oh you poor thing,” Cresta said, with all the sincerity of a necromancer telling a dying soldier he’ll be fine. “Well, there’s nothing for it, we’ll have to find a quest for you, get you back up and running.” She took another long draw on her cigarillo. “We need to get that decadent cock of yours back in play.” She sent him a sexy wink. He grunted like a sea lion defending its slab of rock.
A murky thought suddenly struck him. “Princess coming.”
Cresta sat upright. “What?”
“Read on notice board, by apple tree. Princess coming.”
Cresta jumped up. “Really? Princess Blanche is coming here?”
“Think tomorrow. Not sure.”
Cresta walked up and down the narrow stoop, tapping her long fingers against her ruby lips. “Princess Blanche eh? Now she’s a generous soul—a true princess. She claims to defend all the downtrodden races. I wonder why she’s coming here. To find her prince?”
“Vinnie not know.”
Cresta spun around and faced him. “Well, I doubt she’d be swept off her feet by you as you are, but…”
“But? Vinnie like but.”
“But you’ll be the ugliest one there…”
Vinnie’s heart sank. Just yesterday he’d have easily been marriage material, just yesterday, before the land absorbed his fantastic body, ruined his physique. “Stupid land.”
“No,” Cresta said, her voice packed with enthusiasm. “Think of it, Vinnie, think of it. If you could get her to kiss you… Her esteem must be huge, yours, well, we know yours. One kiss from Princess Blanche and the esteem you’ll get will repair all the damage and some. It will flow from her as she receives the pleasure of a good deed done. She’ll see you morph into a handsome prince and marry you on the spot.” Cresta clapped with glee. “I’ll bet that’s what’ll happen, Vinnie. I bet.”
Her eyes sparkled with hope, her hands clasped by her ample breasts. Vinnie almost emerged from his depression long enough to cop an eyeful, but just as his gaze fell on Cresta’s fantastic cleavage, the futility of it all came tumbling over him.
“Why she kiss Vinnie? Vinnie ugly. Vinnie stink.”
Cresta vanished inside, soon returning with two mugs of juice. “What if you gave her something?” She handed him the mug of juice. Vinnie slurped it down, spilling a good proportion down his front. One of his teeth fell out.
“Vinnie only got coin, map, potion, useless ring, stupid beginner’s stuff.”
“Nothing else?” Cresta enquired, craning her neck around, swooping down on Vinnie but pinching her nose to keep his stench at bay.
“Apple, but need apple to get back to the village.”
“Show me.”
Vinnie grabbed his sack. He called for the apple, and it appeared on his palm. “Apple.”
“Do you mind?” Cresta plucked it from his open hand without waiting for a reply, and she vanished inside the house. Vinnie heard the clatter and bang of pots and pans. He heard her mumble and chant, then curse, then squeal in delight before she ran back out onto the stoop. She set the apple down on his palm. “There, I’ll bet Princess Blanche will love it, and I’ll tell you what, I’ll even throw a quest in. That way, even if she doesn’t kiss you, you’ll be able to recover a little.”
Cresta has given you a quest. Give the apple to Princess Blanche. Quest reward – 400 XP.
Vinnie looked at the apple and gasped. Rather than the old, mundane apple that he’d pulled from his sack, this one looked like unicorns and rainbows lived in its flesh. It radiated virility, shimmered like a gemstone. It was truly a gift for a princess.
“Nice apple. Princess will love apple, but how Vinnie get back to Hartsfelt?”
Cresta frowned and looked up at the waning sun. “Well, if you set off now and take long rests, you might get there in time for the parade.”
Filled with hope, Vinnie downed the last of his juice and got up.
“Thank you for apple,” he muttered, but Cresta had vanished.
He climbed down the couple of steps that led up to the stoop and began to walk down the shady trail, stopping and spying a five feet long pile of freshly turned earth, tucked away to the side of the trail. Shrugging, he began his monumental trek, though got no more than fifty yards before that familiar woozy feeling flooded through him. Sighing, he sat and waited for it to pass.
It was going to be a long trip.
Chapter Six
Amber flooded the road and signaled morning. As Vinnie woke, panic flooded through him. Hartsfelt was still a good few hundred yards away. He ached all over, and worse, he’d developed some painful sores. Now all he needed was some salt to rub in his wounds, and his life would be complete.
With a grinding, bone-splitting effort, Vinnie pushed himself up, stretching up to his full five-foot-stooped-over height. One of his boots was worn completely through where he’d been dragging his leg behind, the skin of his foot long since worn away, red-raw and crawling with infection. But Vinnie was focused. He had his prize apple. His salvation was in plain sight. He just had to get to the town.
Gritting his teeth, Vinnie struggled on in fifty-yard bursts, then forty, and the town was soon so close he could almost touch it. Other folk had now awoken. They drove straight past him, swerving, keeping as far away as possible. Finally, as the sun’s golden glow rose high in the bright blue sky, Vinnie limped between the small flint walls that signaled the town’s limits.
Before he’d left Hartsfelt, folk had nodded to Vinnie, acknowledged his existence, but not now. Now they shunned him like he was carrying a contagious disease. The innkeeper, Frederick, shooed him away, growling that his type just wasn’t welcome. Velvet hadn’t opened her shop either, and so he couldn’t go there. At a loss, Vinnie sat on a bench by the apple tree, watching as the townsfolk put up bunting and flags in honor of the princess’s imminent arrival.
Exhausted, he soon dozed off.
“Vinnie? Vinnie? What happened to you?”
Vinnie opened his eyes, barely able to lift his sagging head and saw Velvet looking down. “Grandma Lorkin not there. Cresta there. Vinnie lost esteem.”
“Cresta? I’ve heard of her.” Velvet’s whiskers flicked up and down. “She’s from the Nine Elms Forest north of Hundenwyrdich. I’ve heard she’s not t
he nicest—quite the evil witch.” She eyed Vinnie. “Did you try banging her without giving anything back first?”
“Vinnie got excited. Vinnie thought okay.”
Velvet frowned. “Well, sometimes Princess Blanche takes pity on a lost soul. If you stay just where you are, she’s bound to see you. If she kisses you, your esteem will easily recover and more.”
“Vinnie got apple for princess.”
The rabbit smiled. “That should do it. Are you hungry?”
“Hungry. Yes.”
“I’ll go and get you some broth.”
Velvet skipped away, aiming for Frederick’s inn. Folk began to mill around. Vinnie was on the receiving end of plenty of dirty looks, but he just ignored them. A few of them tried to talk to him, to get him to move on, but Vinnie just glared back, grunting his foul breath over them. They soon got the hint. Velvet brought his broth back, and Vinnie tucked in.
He had trouble keeping it down, nerves getting the better of him. He knew this was his last chance. If Princess Blanche didn’t kiss him, all was lost. He’d have to scour the land for someone desperate enough to reciprocate his love, just to recoup some esteem, and with his dreadfully slow walking speed, it would take forever.
Crowds started to gather, their two lines leading right past the apple tree and farther on down into the town, a part that Vinnie hadn’t explored yet. A band struck up a chord, and folk started chattering excitedly. No one stood within five feet of Vinnie, his stench clearly unbearable. No one, that was, until Velvet came and stood on the bench next to him.
“No Grandma Lorkin?” she said, scanning the crowd. “I’ve had a word around, and no one’s heard of a relative called Cresta, so it must be the witch. I’ve got a bad feeling about all this.”
Before Vinnie could reply, shouts rang out, the band struck up a loud welcome, and the crowd began to swoon. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the princess’s carriage. Led by two magnificent white horses and made from the finest white wood, it was regal, magnificent, a thing of true beauty. Then Vinnie laid eyes on Princess Blanche herself.