:10/06/2251:

11:19 AM

Finding myself in the familiar lobby of the Employee's Lounge, I smiled. My hands and feet were back, I could finally feel my tongue again, and for the first time in a day, I wasn't feeling any pain. I found myself giggling there, at first, like a total loon as the stress all seemed to leave my body in a single breath. That was when I heard the scream.

Turning, instinctively, an older, pudgy woman had appeared in the lobby next to me. I didn't recognize her, but apparently, that wasn't the case for her, and I found as I turned that she was staring at me furiously even her furious yelling echoed through the room. I raised an eyebrow at her and I stuck my fingers in my ears at the ridiculous antics. 

"Do you know who I am, child? I'm going to have you fired! I'm going to have you killed! I'm going to have beasts rape every hole in your body before I slowly tear off your limbs!" 

As she went on, there was a certain, familiar theme to her rantings, and I started to understand what had happened. "...McBeal? Is that really you?"

The woman blinked at me, huffing in a way that made her belly quiver and shake visibly through her t-shirt, "Listen here you little bitch, I don't know what you think that was but..."

Not really listening to her words, I stared, transfixed. "But you're so Old. And Ugly...."

Screaming for the second time, she charged at me bodily. I didn't really try to move out of her way, though it did make me jump as her avatar dove bodily through my own. Since, you know, in this part of the lobby collision detection had been turned off. 

 Turning around to once again face each other, I raised an eyebrow. I really, really wished that I could stream what I was seeing right then to my viewers, "Look, McBeal. I've really got to go. You have fun with... whatever this is."

Working my interface panel it was a relief that the overly loud screaming cut off and I found myself once again within the quiet walls of the Axis. I used the time to scan the 'net, following up on the current goings on in the media, smiling as I saw the chaos and that I was, once again, the featured bit of news.

I found that to my bemusement, one of the top-rated stories today was an article written by one of my Father's competitors. Apparently, there was a rather heated psychological debate as to whether I was legitimately mentally ill or whether I was roleplaying a mentally ill person. The article in question claimed that I was a very troubled young woman who happened to be roleplaying someone with schizophrenia. 

I scanned through the article. Having been Father's daughter and growing up with someone who used the same types of words and concepts in conversation, I understood the context somewhat.  It was fairly well written if it was created with the intent of pandering to the masses - but the man was not only a legitimate fan of my stream but also someone who hated my dad. So hey, I decided that he was good in my book. Hesitating only briefly, I shot the guy an email offering to come in for an on-the-air interview before putting the whole matter out of mind. 

I noticed that Olga and Blink had sent me a number of very worried emails asking how I was and trying to offer me some comfort. They were mostly 'if you can read this' sort of affairs and it honestly warmed my heart to go back and read just how worried about me they were. That said, I flinched when I realized I was going to have to check in with them when I logged back into town, and people had a tendency of reacting like scolding parents when they were worried enough about you to send... geez, 25 emails in less than 24 hours, I counted. No, I had a sinking feeling that I was going to have an unpleasant few hours when they found me again, and I went ahead and shot both of them a response letting them know that I was safe.

I spent maybe half an hour longer researching how to unlock Power Words, and where I could pick up the quests. Apparently, unlike Class Specific abilities, Power Words themselves had to be learned from Epic or Legendary quests. The quests themselves could only be given out by demi-god level entities. Angels, Demons, Planetary Intelligences, Elder Things... they were creatures that were difficult enough to find, and more difficult to gain an audience with. Still, my fame was more than high enough now that most of them would deign to meet me if I managed to contact them, so there was some hope for me at least.

 Having once again re-established my own sense of being in a normal, knowable world, adjusting to the normality of the panels and Newscasts that I had known every day of my life, I finally felt I was relaxed enough to sleep. And, curling up on my huge, very expensive bed, I finally caught up on the rest that I had been denied the night before. 

:10/06/2251:

6:22 PM

 Having awoken and gone through my usual calisthenics routine some six hours late, I was forced to admit to myself what a luxury it was not to have the Syndicate's restrictions setting my daily schedule and fining me if I stepped out of line. Still, as my finger hovered over the login button for DDO, I found that I was lacking some bit of the excitement that the transition into a world of fantasy and magic usually had brought me.

Instead, after some hesitation, I found myself walking over to the shopping menus in my axis and picking out an Adult scenario from the 'historical' section. I had been of legal consenting age for a while now, but I had not yet stopped to try out any of the new programs that were now available for my purchase but the one I had pined after for so many years. The program itself was single player, and it set me back a good thousand credits, but I figured I needed a little vacation and respite after all I had just gone through.

After ten minutes, my new purchase loaded up. My options were along the lines of 'Conflict? y/n', 'Boys? y/n', 'girls? y/n', 'Define demographics and body metrics...' and it only took me a matter of minutes to lock in my preferences and step into the game.

 Inside the setting, I found massage tables, hot tubs, and a good dozen men and women in swimsuits sprawled out around me on a warm, sprawling beach. I smiled as I noticed a thin layer of flower petals lining the ground, while some petals danced gently in the tiny breeze and were fluttering across the top of the banquet tables.

Smiling, I leaned back and absorbed the rays of the beautiful, safe sunlight above me. The tension in my body started to melt away and I waved over a couple in their twenties to start my first massage for the evening.

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:10/07/2251:

1:23 AM

There were hands everywhere, and I curled my toes in the sand as I felt the touch of four of the men and two of the girls embrace my body in a blanket of touch and kisses and subtle moans. As a tongue found my own, I kept my eyes closed, reveling in the taste of cinnamon on their lips and feeling the scratch of a beard against my lip that told me this was the kiss of a man.

As the dark breeze cooled us, it sent the torches dancing in the wind, and there in the witching hour, I felt my first screams of the night rising to my lips. Someone was inside of me, while the thin, soft fingers of a woman danced against my heat, softly reassuring and teasing me between the hard thrusts of someone's hips. 

I wasn't sure whose lips danced at my neck, whose hands cupped my chest and squeezed softly against the tips of my nipples. I only knew the rush of endorphins as the final waves of ecstasy shuttered through my body. And, even as I lay there panting, I curled my thighs around the masculine body in front of me and felt the echoes of his own satisfaction dripping down the forbidden folds of my Self...

It was all too much, the experience too powerful and the smell of the men and woman around me just too beautiful to loose. Panting, I swallowed, forcing the forgotten muscles of my voice to convey the desire of my heart. And I whispered into the midnight air, "Again..."

:10/09/2251:

5:23 PM

Refreshed and happy, it was with a bounce in my step that my fingers reached out for the DDO Login. My internal clock has been seriously messed up over the last couple of days, as I slept late into the afternoon and did my daily stretches to the setting of Earth's burning sun. Still, it was difficult for me to care. I felt as if my entire body had been flattened, and blown up and flattened again, tearing out every single knot of stress and replacing it with this gentle, golden glow that I could almost feel underneath my skin. 

While I finally was ready to return, finding my place in my Dreamworld and living out my Dream job, a part of me was still lying there on that tropical beach, wishing that I could go back for just a couple of hours longer. Fingers dancing out, selecting the button, I, however, forced myself to put all of that aside and continue my journeys in the game. 

It was with some surprise, then, that I received an error instead of finding the world of Dementia phasing in around me.

Error:  This account is already logged into the game. Would you like to enter in Spectator Mode? Y/N

I hit no, shocked, and it took me some seconds before the realization set into my fuzzy brain. "Em," I shouted, "Get your ass out of there, what the actual fuck?"

I stood there, fuming, for the minutes it took before she finally spoke. There was a part of me that felt somehow violated, even though already I knew that she had been active late at night when I was sound asleep. There was something about being locked out, left the third wheel between my own character and my own game that needled at my heart. 

"I'm sorry, Mags. I wasn't really in a good place to jump out. There is a lot going on right now in there. Hey, did you know that Olga knows how to cuss in three, different languages? I found that kind of impressive."

The annoyance started to melt away as Em's words started unraveling in my brain. "Oh," I paused, "She was upset then, I take it." A part of me started to edge away from the idea of logging back in. The thought of Olga's six feet of bulk leaning over me and searching for new languages to adequately express her displeasure weighing heavily on my mind."

"Not to worry, dear. I took care of it. We promised to be very careful in the future and never to leave town without an experienced, rounded party again."

"Right," I blinked. "Hey, sorry if I was a little peeved earlier. You're doing great, you know."

Her reply was a lot more gentle now, almost purring in my mind. "Oh, hey. No problem at all Mags. Um... do you think I would be able to log into that new program of ours? Just for a few minutes, for research purposes, you understand."

I grinned, shaking my head as I reached back over to the Login, "Ya, Em. Knock yourself out. I mean it." And it was with that shit-eating smile that I found myself once again standing at the portal stones of my own DDO Kingdom.

In addition to what had to be fifty new buildings sprawled around me, no few of which being upgraded workshops and entire residential blocks, I found myself surrounded in something of an improvised tent city erected through the streets of the town. Massive crowds of players and NPCs and Roleplayers merged together on the streets around me, organically integrating into an unending, loud mess of odd races. 

As I looked around, wide-eyed and realizing that I couldn't even begin to guess at just how massive the crowds around me were, someone started to cheer. Within seconds, the crowds around me had stopped their conversations, turning to stare at where I had appeared on the stones, and one by one took up the screaming of the masses around them.

It was deafening, and as the mob rushed toward me I shifted out of instinct, rising up on the scaled wings of a Serpent and hovering a good twenty feet over the crowd. It didn't seem to stave off their enthusiasm, however, but to stoke it. And, from my perch in the air, the massive sound of hands and feet stomping and clapping echoed up to where I hovered. 

I wasn't certain at first, the voices sounding so loudly and discordant, each reveler competing over the masses around them to be heard, but it became clear to me through the rumble of noise, that a single chant was swallowing the screams of the crowd. And I did a figure eight, dancing in the air, as the energy reached me, filled me and consumed my trembling mind. "MAG. PIE. MAG. PIE. MAG. PIE...." they shouted, throwing their arms up into the air.

After a good ten minutes, I flew up into the sky and darted over the heads of the massive crowd. It took a full ten minutes before I had managed to clear the entirety of the mass, darting up and then dive bombing the crowds to the thunder of screams and cheering. Finally, after I had played to the thunderous uproar, I quickly ghosted away to the top of a new residential building and melded back into my familiar, Nymphan body.

I noted with no small bit of satisfaction that my cloak had been mended, the fine dark gray silk once again draping over my sylvan form as though nothing at all had happened in the days before. Opening my interface, I also noted with a smirk upon my lips that Em had finally enabled one of the many titles that we had earned. 

'Warlord Magpie Frost' was written clearly now in my status panel. And I found, as I read the words over and over again, that I couldn't have imagined a better way to solidify my own, fledgling image as ruler of the city. I was not the 'Queen' of Anthera, no, nor was I 'Regent' of Undercity like Alley had been before me. No, I would now be known, for better or worse, as the Warlord of Dementia. And I found that, as I sounded it out into the wind, I loved the taste of those three little words in my ears.

Jumping into the status page, I found that Em had indeed been busy. As I had seen, there were 62 new buildings having been constructed already, half of which were upgraded workshops I noted ironically, and another third being new residential buildings. Another 50 buildings were currently in the cue, with little growth bars filling slowly underneath them. It had surprised me that Em had been quite so liberal with our building points until I looked over and saw that we still had a full 993,313 BP remaining, and our citizen count had reached over fifteen thousand.

Waving that all away, I looked down at the sprawling kingdom below me. The line of the trees now stood far enough in the distance that the little marsh wilds seemed like ants and toothpicks swaying at the edge of the fungal growths. Several of the Workshops had seemingly expanded, widened and yet stretched into a strange, 'U' shape. And in the center of them, I could clearly see the beginnings of some... things... being constructed. 

Relaxed, and shining with hope for the future I decided against spending the afternoon buried in my menus. Em had already grown this city, our city, well past the point where I could keep up with what was going on or what needed to happen next. Instead, I flew down on the nondescript wings of the raven, heading toward the Marketplace to unburden myself of what few credits I had remaining in my account.