by Alyson Belle
“That was excellent,” he remarked. “You may have your spells, madam.” He gestured at the counter beside me and a stack of six scrolls appeared.
All I could do was nod and make a small purr of agreement.
Jesus Christ, I thought. We’ve got to get me out of here soon before I get addicted to this.
But it was a faint thought. Really faint. Tucked away behind a satisfied, exhausted glow of one of the most exciting and sexy experiences I’d had in my life.
Chapter 4
I’d done it: I had three new Alteration spells and three new Evocation spells, and I’d even gotten to keep my gold, not to mention having one of the most exciting times I’d ever had in the process.
I shuffled through the scrolls happily, reading the effects of my new spells:
TIER IV Alteration Spells
[Burden] This spell causes targeted objects within 15 feet to become significantly heavier and more cumbersome.
[Water Breathing] This spell allows the target to breathe underwater for the duration of the spell (base 15 minutes).
[Elemental Shield] This spell creates a damage shield which covers the body of the caster and reduces all elemental damage by 75% for the duration (base 5 minutes).
TIER IV Evocation Spells
[Chain Lightning] This spell casts bolts of lightning out from the casters fingertips to a single target and will then leap to 4 additional targets, losing 25% of the damage with each jump.
[Icy Breath] This spell allows the PC to breathe icy wind in a 15’ cone from their mouth, damaging any hostile targets caught within. It has a small chance to freeze targets.
[Flame Jet] This spell creates a sustained jet of flame that extends up to 10’ from the casters fingertips on either or both hands and will cause ongoing fire damage until the spell is ended or mana runs out.
Nothing fancy—certainly not the kind of awesome spells we’d had in the guild bank—but they’d get the job done. At tier level IV, which required 75 spell skill to use, even the basic vendor spells were fairly solid. I’d finally have some utility and DPS beyond a fancy, dazzling vajeen! But unfortunately, I was still stuck with my paltry, basic, 10-spell spellbook. The game expected players to get the better one before entering high-level zones, so I didn’t see an advanced version anywhere in the shop, and I didn’t like the idea of going all the way back to Minsc to blow the rest of my gold on an advanced spellbook. I’d had 6 lower-tier spells already, so I made a tough call and reluctantly dropped two of my first-tier spells for now. There wasn’t much point keeping Minor Glamour when I had access to Major Glamour, and Light was always a pretty useless spell in games, so both of those went out the door to make room for the scrolls I now held.
I would have been more upset about losing good spells if I hadn’t been so excited about the new ones, but it was something I’d be able to fix later if I wanted to. They were all vendor spells. Besides—I couldn’t wait to try my new ones out, even if it would be a pain to get my skills up. But when I started to scribe them into my spellbook, I had another pleasant surprise!
As each school of spell entered my spellbook for the first time, messages flashed across my screen:
Alteration skill set to match Illusion rating. [Lv 53] (Sorceress Class Trait)
Evocation skill set to match Illusion rating. [Lv 53] (Sorceress Class Trait)
Evidently the devs had taken pity on the poor high level sorceresses and allowed them to grandfather over their casting skills as if they’d been working on those skills since they took the Mesmer class perk! That was a welcome stroke of good luck after a bunch of bad luck—I wouldn’t have to level my Evocation and Alteration skills all the way up from level 1 like I had with the Illusion school, which was now up to Level 53 thanks to my constant casting of low-level illusion spells.
I cheered and pumped my fist in the air, and looked around excitedly. Then my face fell. My first instinct had been to look for Erlix to high five him. But I had no idea where he was, of course, and he couldn’t have come along here with me anyway. Still, it cheered me up a little bit to think about the mischief he was probably getting into on his own. I’d hook back up with him later. The halfling was the most resourceful person I’d met. He’d be fine.
Bartholomew had vanished into the back of the shop after giving me the scrolls and called goodbye to me through his curtain, so I’d reluctantly gathered my things and walked back out into the square of the arcane district with a lingering gaze over my shoulder. Now I looked around blankly and wondered what I should be doing next. It would be nice to get some additional gear, but I was worried about how much it might cost and what else I might need my money for (like the pricey new spell book I’d need to buy if I wanted to scribe some Tier IV illusion spells). I tried to think of any other affordable goods I was forgetting, but it was hard because my head was all fuzzy—I was distracted by the naughty pulses that kept coming from my crotch.
My sex still zinged with the excitement of my encounter with Bartholomew, and I bit my lip, hungry for more. It was so weird how this body reacted like that! After getting off as a guy, I wasn’t horny again for a while. I’d get hungry, maybe sleepy. But as Lacey, in my realistically-modeled female body in Fantasy Realms Online, as soon as I had a really good lay, I just got hornier! That was the problem with being capable of multiple orgasms: How were you supposed to know when to stop? I was going to turn into a sex addict if I didn’t watch it.
Then I had a brilliant idea. Topper would come find me when he was ready, right? And it would be irresponsible to sit around doing nothing while I waited for him. At least when there was a whole town full of new NPCs to fuck. I scanned the area, noting that all of the guards and citizens were dozens of levels higher than the NPCs in Minsc had been. Why not kill a few birds with one stone while I waited for Topper?
I needed to scratch this itch and level.
“Hey, you!” I called to the nearest guardsman.
He scratched his head and trundled over. “Yes, ma’am?”
I smiled, exposing my breasts to him. “Seduce.”
I’d never seen a halberd clatter to the stones or a dick get whipped out so quickly as I did then. Maybe the shopkeepers couldn’t be affected by my sex-skills, but everyone else here sure could.
I got to work, finished him off, and sent him packing after I’d had my fun too, not even minding that we were getting it on on the hard, stone pavement of the city. I was used to taking it in all kinds of places now, and I didn’t even care where I got fucked as long as I got to experience the mind-shattering delight of Lacey’s orgasms. But my one guard wasn’t enough. I panted, still horny, as I looked for my next mark. Twenty paces away was another guard who peered at me curiously. He must have watched me get it on with the first guard, and dudes were dudes, even if they were NPCs. I didn’t have any trouble launching into a repeat performance with him, or the next guard that followed. It turned out that I could basically work my way back to the square where I’d left Topper, bouncing from NPC to NPC. It wasn’t as efficient as Erlix’s pyramid scheme had been, but by the time I’d gotten back to where we’d started, I’d scored another five levels and dinged level 70, complete with the golden spark showers I’d grown accustomed to—that was about as high as the town could take me, so I’d need to venture out into the wilderness to get any higher.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” someone growled nearby. “Shtupid.”
I finished up with the latest guardsman who’d granted me the XP I’d needed to hit 70 and looked around in surprise, trying to identify the speaker.
A glassy-eyed man in full platemail with a white and red tabard slumped at a nearby table, surrounded by dozens of empty mugs of ale. He had a dirty, shaggy mop of brown hair and a light shadow of beard growth, and while his head was angled down at his ale, his eyes lingered on my curves in a way I was beginning to grow very accustomed to. Saintly, Lv. 72 Human Cleric floated over his head.
I’d taken him to be an NPC at first, the
way he was just sitting there knocking back tankards of ale like it was the end of the world, but now I could clearly see that he was a player. A very drunk player. I fixed my clothes and approached him, excited to see another human who was so high in level and unguilded. What was he doing here in Jaiden’s Crossing?
“Excuse me? What did you say?” I asked him.
“I shaid it’sh shtupid.” He buried his face in another gulp of ale and waved toward me. “Fuck leveling.”
“Fuck leveling? Isn’t leveling the point of the game?”
“No!” He shook his head like I was an idiot. “Not ‘fuck leveling.’ Fuck-leveling. It wash shupposed to be a joke! Shtupid fucking dev manager thought it wash funny and made me code it in. Horny motherfucker. Didn’t ever think anyone would actually use it. But duh. Playersh will always use the toolsh you give ‘em.”
I blinked at him and tried to decode his drunken slurring. What on Earth was he talking about? He claimed he’d coded in the sex mechanic responsible for me getting so many levels?
Then it dawned on me.
“You’re a developer!” I exclaimed. “You work on Fantasy Realms Online!”
I could barely contain my excitement. I’d thought getting free spell skills was a windfall, but tripping on a developer? This changed everything! I knew devs played their own game, of course, but they tended to keep to themselves so they didn’t get harassed by players. What were the odds of finding one right here and now? I couldn’t wait to tell Topper the good news.
Saintly nodded as he drained his tankard and reached for a new one. “Yep. Shure am.”
I began to babble excitedly. “Oh my god! You have to help us. You’re stuck here too, right? Vierdimin—he’s the player responsible for all this—you see, I charmed him and… well, I can explain all that later, but what’s important is that now you’re here and you can summon him and like… I don’t know, use your GM powers to blow his level away and—”
“No, no, no!” Saintly cut me off with an emphatic shake of his head and angry flail of his tankard that sent ale showering all over the place. “Why do you think I’m sho drunk? If I was on my GM account, I’d have fixshed this already. But guesh what? Thish ish my pershonal account. Fucking fuck. Of courshe the one time my GM powersh come in handy I don’t have ‘em. Fuck.” Then he shrugged and got a faraway look in his eyes. “If I could fixsh it. Don’t actually know. That fucker is wily.”
I blinked at him again, taking this in, and then I slumped down onto the cobblestones, suddenly as deflated as I had been elated before. For a moment I’d thought Saintly could be the answer to all of our problems and that everything would be back to normal in no time, but then I realized that if things were that easy to fix, someone would have fixed them already. I sighed and lapsed into a disappointed silence.
But I’d really gotten the cleric going now. He ignored me, oblivious to my disappointment, and continued ranting. “It’sh a damn shame, I tell you what. I coded half thish fucking game, and I can’t even log out! Who let a bug sneak through that locksh playersh in the game? How doesh it even work?” He shook his head. “No one should be able to do that. There’sh lotsha bugs. Go over 100 in any shtat? All your shtats get shet to -1. Hit a maple tree with a short shword? It becomesh a poplar. Unequip a red cloak while wearing a golden shash? All your gear getsh deleted! Oopsh. Dumb dumb dumb errorsh. But thish… playersh getting shtuck in the game.” He took another long swig of his ale, looking awfully glum. “We are sho fucked. Gonna get shued to hell. Asshuming I even ever get out of here. Sho...” He raised his cup in salute. “We get drunk!”
I’d stared at him wide-eyed, numb with frustration as he delivered his drunken rant, surprised at how defeated he sounded. But then I started to get angry. I scrambled to my feet.
“Are you kidding me?” I demanded. “You get stuck in the game like the rest of us, with all of the tricks and secrets you must know, and your answer is to lounge around in Jaiden’s Crossing getting drunk? Dude. You have more knowledge about the game than probably anyone else still around. Why aren’t you trying to fix things? I’m stuck in the goddamned body of this stupid, girly Courtesan, and I’m still doing my best to fight back against Vierdimin.”
Saintly cocked an eyebrow at me.
“You’re a dude?” he asked. Then he snorted again. “No wonder you’re fine going bonkers with the dicksh. I bet that pusshy is real nice. I coded that too, ya know.”
My cheeks warmed again. “That’s the only thing you can think about? I’m trying to help my friends, you asshole.”
He waved me off, ignoring the insult, and returned to his drinking in silence. It was then that Topper walked back into the square. He glanced from me to Saintly and back to me.
“Got my spells. You too? Who’s this guy?”
I frowned at Saintly. “Yeah, I did. And this is a drunk-ass developer on his personal account that isn’t lifting a finger to help the situation with Vierdimin.”
“I already told you!” Saintly exploded, knocking several empty cups to the cobblestones with a loud clatter. “I don’t know how to fixsh it. And even if I did, I don’t have GM powers right now. What do you want me to do?”
Before I could pop off again, Topper gestured for both of us to calm down. “Whoa whoa whoa. We’re all on the same team here, folks. Stuck in the game, wanting to get out. He’s probably a goldmine of intel, Lacey. Did you catch him up on everything we know—and suspect—about Vierdimin’s?”
I suddenly felt very sheepish. Filling him in probably would have been a better idea than lecturing him and arguing with him. Leave it to Topper to show up and point out the mature course of action while the rest of us flailed around.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Go ahead.”
Topper launched into an explanation of all of it: Vierdimin’s staff, the locating spell, the clues we’d pieced together from his lieutenants, the increasing pressure from outside the game to kill the servers, and what we suspected about Vierdimin wanting to create his own, private playground to torture us all in. As he talked, Saintly’s eyes got wider and wider.
“…and that’s why we’re going to need your help to figure out how to stop him,” Topper finished.
“Fuck me,” Saintly swore. “That’sh… that’sh quite a shtory. Fuck. But if that’sh what he’sh trying to do…” He rubbed his eyes and leaned forward on his table, swaying gently. “Fuck. We need to shtop him. What am I doing?”
Topper nodded grimly. Saintly attempted to rise from his seat, but succeeded only in knocking over his chair, the table, and all of the remaining mugs before crashing to the ground and landing on his back.
“Ohhh… no. The shpinsh. Why did I code realishtic shpinsh into the game?” he moaned. “At leasht I didn’t code puking.”
Topper and I shared a glance, and I rolled my eyes.
“Look,” Topper said. “We could use your help here, but we need you to sober up. We want everything you know or can think of to help us fight Vierdimin’s hacking here, and it sure wouldn’t hurt to have a level 72 cleric backing us up when we go to confront the Secret Order. Are you going to be okay waiting here for us while we go and get the person we need to cast the locating spell?”
Saintly nodded at us from his upside-down position on the ground. “Yeah. I’ll shtop drinking. Thish ish more sherioush than I realished.” He gave us a thumbs-up that was more like a thumbs-down the way his hand was angled. “You can count on me.”
“Good,” Topper replied. “We’ll be back soon. You ready to go, Lacey?”
I nodded, frowning at the drunken cleric. I really hoped that we weren’t going to be dependent on this guy to save the day from Vierdimin. He might be smart, but so far he hadn’t given us anything useful.
I only hoped that our search for Jazzus would prove to be a little more fruitful.
Chapter 5
Evocation was a fucking delight.
Sure, I had a raid-geared level 75 paladin along with me to tank a level 70 zone. And sure,
my primary casting stat was roughly twice as high as the intended stats the developers had based the game around. But that didn’t make it any less exciting or impressive for me to cut through a high-level dungeon zone like a hot knife through butter using my new spells. The Sky Islands were a series of floating islands connected by massive, midnight-black chains and key-locked teleporter platforms. There were all kinds of enemies there: lizardmen, fairies, giant bees, bird-people.
It didn’t matter who we were facing or what obstacles they threw at us, though. With 32 Charisma and three different destructive elements to play with, I was a goddess. I cackled with glee as Flame Jets poured out of my outstretched hands, blackening feathers and singeing scales. As Topper waved his flaming greatsword in wide arcs, holding their attention and absorbing the bulk of their blows, I radiated Chain Lightning like a freaking plasma globe, taking down swarms of trash mobs with a few waves of my bandage-draped arms. With a burst of my Icy Breath, giant bees and fairies fell lifelessly out of the air and enemy warriors turned into popsicles before my eyes.
Between Topper’s AC, his paladin buffs, my dragon skin from Sorceress, and my Elemental Shield buff I continuously refreshed on us, we were unstoppable. I don’t know why I’d ever preferred to play a barbarian. Mages had always seemed so wimpy and boring to me. But now that I was wielding the real power that came with being a high-level caster, I wasn’t sure I could ever go back to being limited to swinging a big chunk of metal for my damage.
Topper laughed as I stared at my hands in awe.
“You like whipping spells around, huh, Lacey? I never would have guessed. You’ve always played melee classes before.”
We were taking a quick break in between waves of enemies while pushing deeper and deeper into the zone. Topper leaned on his sword, breathing hard, while I waited for the mana bar on my HUD to recharge. Since we were out of combat, it filled up pretty quickly, but it still took just long enough to give us a moment to talk. It was one of the things I liked about downtime in online games: Joking around together between fights was almost as important as the fights themselves when you were with your friends.