by Alyson Belle
“If there was some way to teleport him, or widen the passage, or something…”
“You could just be really annoying. Try yapping at him until he gets up and leaves. Or blow your magic sparkle thing in his face a bunch.”
“Erlix, I’m being serious!” I snapped. “I could try all kinds of things, I’m sure, but we’re short on time and he’s under strict orders from Vierdimin. I don’t think there’s anything I could do or say that would threaten him more than a level 80 Lich being pissed off at him, and he won’t be baited out since he knows we can’t get past him as he is now.”
Erlix sighed. “Did you check the whole floor?”
“There’s a side door, but we don’t have time—”
“So let’s check the side door. Can’t hurt, right? Maybe there’s something lying around we can use. It’s not like we’ll fix things by standing here talking about it.”
I frowned, but Erlix was right. Trying to be proactive was better than moping about how we couldn’t hurt Wugduz.
“Okay,” I sighed, throwing up my hands. “Sure. Why not? We may as well do some treasure hunting while we’re here.”
“Now, that’s the treasure ho I know and love! C’mon Goldie. Let’s go.”
Chapter 11
I led the way to the side door halfway down the passage, ignoring Wugduz’s stony gaze, and threw back the double doors to see what was inside. It appeared to be the throne room of the Fey, with rich red carpeting and gold candelabras leading up to a pair of solid gold thrones with purple crystals floating above them. At first I thought the room was empty, but a flicker of motion behind the throne caught my eye, and then I spotted two more of the tiny Fey peeking out from behind the lavish golden thrones. When they saw it was just me and a halfling, they stepped out, breathing sighs of relief. There was a male and female, both dressed in fine clothing, and they held themselves with such a regal bearing that I was pretty sure I was looking at the Fey queen and king themselves. In case my observations hadn’t closed the case, their titles also floated over their heads in bold text: Fey King, Lv. 70 and Fey Queen, Lv. 70
“Thank goodness!” the queen exclaimed. “Rescuers! Please, get those Dark Legion invaders out of our tower. They stole our crowns and captured my son!”
“Now, now, dear.” The king made a reassuring gesture toward the queen. “These folk may be able to help us, but the rogue is low in level and the girl is just a courtesan. These are players invading our kingdom. What is she going to do, fuck them to death?”
There was that Unintimidating trait effect again. I wondered how much of NPC response was normal for women and how much was class-specific. Either way, I was really getting used to being underestimated.
“I don’t have time for this,” I snapped. “I’m here to rescue my friend, and if I can save your son and crowns that’s just a bonus.”
“Yeah,” Erlix added. “And she will fuck them to death! I’ve seen it. It’s impressive.”
I shot him a dirty look and he shrugged at me.
“What? I just tell it like it is, Goldie.”
“She is a rather high-level courtesan,” the queen said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one before.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose,” the king muttered. “Though I do wish that someone a little more imposing had come along.”
I noticed that the king’s eyes lingered on my chest and thighs while he spoke. He might not think I looked imposing enough, he sure seemed to enjoy staring at me anyway. I paused a moment to consider him, but then shook my head. A level 70 NPC seduction target would be nice XP, but there’d be plenty of time for that once we figured out how to rescue Topper—plus I wasn’t in the mood to drop to all fours and take it in the ass from a little old Fey in kingly robes at the moment.
“Just tell me if you have anything that can help us get past that lug in the hallway,” I grumbled. “He’s blocking the whole passage, and I can’t do enough damage to blow through his regen.”
“There, see?” The king’s face darkened. “I told you she couldn’t help us. Oh it’s hopeless! Hopeless! I’m a king without a kingdom.”
“More like a drama queen,” Erlix whispered behind his hand to me.
The queen patted her husband on the arm reassuringly. “Oh, do stop, dear. Look, perhaps there is something I can do to help.” She turned to face me. “You’re an adventurer, yes? I can’t just give our powerful Fey magics away—it would go against both law and custom—but I’m also a quest giver, like everyone else in this hub! I have quest for Wild Fey Dominion faction members for an epic weapon upgrade, and all you have to do is go on a small quest. Given our predicament and the lack of other players around, I’m willing to let you do the quest and upgrade your weapon.”
I cocked my head at her in confusion and then turned to Erlix. “Uh… can she do that? I’ve never heard of an NPC bending faction code to grant a player a special quest.”
Erlix frowned. “Me either. But Fiero was also weird. I think Vierdimin is doing something screwy with the game code behind the scenes. Things are fraying. I say just go with it.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay, sure. Uh, yeah. I guess if you’re offering free weapon upgrades, I’ll take it.”
“It’s class-based,” the queen explained. “And you’re a courtesan. I can’t exactly upgrade your lady-parts.”
“You could throw glitter all over her and make her shiny,” Erlix offered. “Or oil. She loves getting all oiled up.”
“Shut up, half-man,” I hissed. “So what do I get instead of a weapon upgrade? There must be an equivalent reward for Courtesans, right? We’re an established game class.”
The queen nodded. “Yes—instead of an epic weapon upgrade, I can give you the Blessing of the Fey . It will be a huge boost to any magical skills you possess, and you may select a new spell from the secret Fey cache of spells.”
Well, that sounded pretty good. I’d already committed to being a caster class when I’d picked my Mesmer specialty, so a magical boost would be pretty useful, and I bet the Fey had all kinds of spells that would be better than what the town spell merchant had had available. Rare spells and skills from quests and drops were always better than default ones purchased in town.
“Great,” I agreed. “What do I have to do? Anything you can do to make it quick would be great, since we’re kind of short on time here.”
“I can’t control the nature of the quest. I can only tell you what you need to do.” The queen shrugged apologetically. “There are rules for these things, after all. To receive the Blessing of the Fey, the task is daunting and dangerous: You must climb the magic beanstalk in the center of the Fey Wild and bring back to me the fabled Seed of the Giants from the locked room in the middle of the Giant Castle .”
My heart sank, and Erlix whistled softly. The Giant Castle was an entry-level sky zone, about level 65, that was usually accessible only with flying mounts. It had recently had a beanstalk added so that players could go there to level from 60-65 or if they couldn’t afford a mount yet, but it was a serious dungeon zone that required a full, well-equipped group to move through. It wasn’t something a level 55 solo courtesan with a lowbie rogue friend could easily blow through, even if we brought Fiero along with us. The giants would all be elites just like he was! I sighed. We’d need to find another way past Wugduz.
“Hopeless. Hopeless!” the king moaned. “Look at their faces… I told you that they won’t be able to help us.”
A quest pop-up for the queen had appeared just like the earlier one that Fiero had given me, and I reluctantly accepted it after I read over it, confirming that the instructions were more or less exactly what the queen had described.
“That’s not exactly an easy errand, lady,” I grumbled, ignoring the king’s whining. “You can’t just come up with something simpler given your circumstances?”
She shrugged. “As I said, I am bound by law and custom to my quest. Only when you return with the
requested item can I grant you my boon.”
Well, that was a disappointment. Maybe this was a dead end. I sighed and racked my brain for anything else that might be able to help. Then I remembered my pal Fiero, waiting outside for us to complete his quest. If these Fey nobles couldn’t help us, maybe Fiero would have something that would! We just needed to complete his quest…
“Say… you don’t happen to have the Fabulous Orb of the Dragonkin Sorcerers around here, do you?”
The king narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously. “And what interest does an airheaded courtesan have in our orb? It’s mine. Mine!”
Erlix perked right up at the prospect of getting to steal something, and I put on my best innocent face as my pulse spiked with excitement. “Oh, no reason,” I said in the most charming tone of voice I could muster. “I just so love pretty things and I heard it’s gorgeous. If we’re stuck here anyway, I thought maybe I could take a look at it.”
At my compliments, he puffed up like a blowfish. “It is marvelous! My forefather’s forefather acquired it from those dastardly sorcerers, and it’s been in the family ever since. I’d love to honor you with a viewing.” But then he deflated, his shoulders collapsing in. “But it’s trapped upstairs with the rest of our riches and my son. It’s as hopeless as everything else.” He began to launch into another moaning diatribe about the unfairness of having his castle taken over by marauding invaders, pacing back and forth in front of his golden thrones.
I tuned the noisy king out so that I could think. I was starting to get pretty annoyed at these useless royals. If they couldn’t give us anything useful and couldn’t even help us finish Fiero’s quest, what help were they at all? Small wonder we’d found them cowering behind their thrones instead of marshaling their forces or something. Maybe that was unfair, though—I knew the game didn’t allow for that kind of organized resistance in quest hubs. That was the difference between the Orc King dungeon boss mob and the Fey King quest mob.
In any case, we were wasting time, and Vierdimin was getting stronger with every moment that ticked by, not to mention the ongoing danger we faced in the real world. There had to be another way to deal with the shadowknight. I wished again that the queen would help us—her tantalizing reward offer showed the most immediate promise of anything that might really help us, since we didn’t even know what Fiero’s quest reward was . It was frustrating that she could bend the rules enough to grant her quest cross-faction, but not enough to just give us the reward.
If the king had a different quest option for us hiding somewhere in his pockets, he wasn’t volunteering it. Maybe we could find their cache of spells without their help? But it was probably one of those deals where the spells lived in the queen’s head. I thought about asking them for help, but if they had something they could do, they probably would have already done it… plus Wugduz could carve them up from a seated position the instant they revealed themselves. They were high level, sure, but quest givers weren’t known for their awesome combat skills. I glanced at Erlix, hoping for some hint of what we should do, but the usually-witty halfling seemed as stumped as I was. He was just touching his fingers together over and over and frowning at the ogre goo that still coated them lightly.
Suddenly my eyes widened. “I have an idea…” I whispered to Erlix. Then I turned to the queen. “Tell me, your majesty. Do you know what this quest item looks like?”
She paused thoughtfully. “No, no I’m afraid not. You’ll just have to go and find it. All I know is that I can only accept the item custom requires me to accept in exchange for my help. I’m sorry, dear… you’re such a sweet looking girl, and I want to help, but I’m already bending the rules giving you this quest.”
I winced at her compliments. In my head I was still a big, tough barbarian, taking the lead and solving problems. It was annoying to be reminded that everyone else saw me as a silly little girl now. That’s okay. I’ll show her just how silly I am.
“No problem, your majesty. Excuse me one moment.”
I pulled Erlix aside, and he grimaced at me. “You’re not seriously considering going on this half-cocked quest, are you Goldie? We don’t have the time or the firepower. Rescuing your friends is enough of a distraction on its own.”
“No, of course not. I’m not stupid just because I look like a ditz.”
“Yeah, you really look like a ditz. I forget sometimes.”
I wanted to smack him, but instead I just swiped a quick finger through his hair and came up with a thick glob of ogre spooge.
“H-hey! Ow. What the hell did you do that for? I was, uh, saving that. For hair gel.”
“Yeah, sure.” I rolled my eyes at him and turned back to the queen. She stared at me curiously as I bowed low and extended the whitish goop out to her with a ceremonial reverence. A hush fell over the room, and even the king stopped pacing to lean over his throne and take a look. “Your majesty… may I present to you, the Seed of the Giants .”
Erlix smacked himself in the faced and dragged his hand down the length of it. “You have got to be kidding me, Goldie.”
Chapter 12
The queen bent down and peered closely at the whitish glob on my fingertip. “It doesn’t look much like what I expected. You didn’t even leave the room!”
“Aha!” I said. “That’s just it. We already happened to have it. You see, this is the seed of an ogre… a giant ogre. That means that this is technically the seed of the giants, and you can accept it for your quest.”
Everyone held their breath while the queen blinked at the goop on my finger and then blinked at me. I leaned forward, encouraging her to take it with a pleading smile. This has to work. Come on, queen lady. Then, with a disgusted expression on her face, she retrieved a silk scarf from somewhere in her robes and carefully scooped the ogre spooge off my finger. She wrapped it into a tightly packed silk ball and squirreled it back into her robes, looking only slightly ill. I released my breath in a sigh of relief and beamed at her, wiping my fingers off on my skirt.
“Thank you, brave adventurer,” the queen intoned, her voice trembling slightly. “You have retrieved the Seed of the Giants , and I now grant you my boon.”
The quest box flashed up on my HUD again with a bright gold “COMPLETED” stamp splayed across it, and then faded away just as quickly. DING! DING! DING! The familiar shower of a triple ring of golden sparks radiated out around me as I achieved level 58 from the quest XP of an elite quest that was almost 10 levels higher than me.
“Nice!” I exclaimed. “That XP carried me up three full levels. That’s as good as seduction XP. Maybe we should find some more high-level quests to do?” I glanced at Erlix, waiting for the goofy quip he was always quick to offer, but the halfling had his mouth buried behind his hand and was squinting hard at the ground, apparently deep in thought. I shrugged and smiled expectantly at the queen. “What do I get, your majesty?”
She started chanting under her breath and raised her arms above her curly auburn head of hair, where her hands began to glow with an eerie purple light. Then she lowered them to rest both palms on my forehead. I felt a cool rush of tingly magic wash over me and floating text raced across my HUD: “New Trait Unlocked — Blessing of the Fey ”
I popped open my character sheet to take a look at my new trait and my jaw nearly hit the floor. “Holy shit, this is good!”
Blessing of the Fey - Int/Wis/Cha are raised by 3 each and all magic skills receive a 20 point bonus.
Bonuses to base stats were a big deal under the Fantasy Realms Online system, that had been modeled roughly after the early days of D&D style D20 games. But even more insane was the 20 point bonus to magical skills! Wizards would kill for that kind of bonus—it was huge —and probably the only reason I was even allowed to have it was that Courtesans were restricted to the Illusion school, and only then as Mesmers. When I eventually maxed my illusion skill, along with my now 27 charisma stat, I’d be an insane illusionist… maybe the best on the server.
Jeez… thi
s class might end up being even stronger than Kromgorn if I play my cards right. I wonder what else I can unlock? My second specialization isn’t that far off… If I double down on this magic line, maybe I can really super-charge the courtesan class and be a match even for a traitorous bastard like Haxor. With the right spells and invulnerability to his damage, could I even defeat Vierdimin?
Then I shook my head. What was I thinking? Sure, I might end up being temporarily stronger than Kromgorn, but that’s because I wasn’t actively playing him, plus I was stuck in the body of a girl. Besides, who wanted to be an illusionist? I wanted to shout battle cries and charge into battle to cleave my foes in half, not mince around in skimpy outfits and make really pretty illusions to distract my foes. I’d rescue my friends, we’d go force Vierdimin to let us out of the game, and things could go back to normal. It didn’t stop a small voice in my head from saying: Still, though…
I looked at my character sheet again. Even if I was stuck in this stupid, girly courtesan, a small part of me, the part that was a real gamer, took pride in developing such an awesome set of skills in Lacey the Courtesan Mesmer. She might not be my long-term avatar, and it might be awfully weird to play her, but I was doing a damn awesome job of things considering the circumstances.
“Would you like to select your spell, my dear?”
The queen’s question broke me out of my reflections and reminded me that the blessing was only half the reward. I nodded with excitement. “Yeah! What do you got?”
A new menu popped up with a selection of rare and exciting spells, far better than my options at the spell vendor had been. They were all Tier III spells, intended for players around level 50-60, and I was fortunate that the blessing she’d given me would allow me to cast them even though my illusion skill was still under-developed for my level—I’d never stopped absent-mindedly casting illusion spells whenever we’d stopped, and my skill was up to level 31 on its own, which meant I could barely do Tier III now with my bonus. I read over my options quickly, considering the relative merits of each.