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“Jane.” It took some effort to extricate himself from the tiny animals crawling all over him. “Hey. We just spent the entire afternoon here.” He tried to back away, but mewling kittens of savage adorableness jumped onto his legs and clung to his shins while others wove around his feet, nearly causing him to trip.
Jane didn’t respond, fully absorbed.
Very carefully pulling kittens off and backing away, he checked on his partner.
Jane lay on her back, happily covered in kittens, oblivious to him and probably the rest of the world.
“Uh, Jane?”
No response.
He edged into the furry pile, then reached in and grabbed her by the arms. Pulling her, he tried to get her back on her feet, startled furballs tumbling in all directions.
Jane finally responded. “Ah! What are you doing? Let go of me!”
“Jane, we have to go.”
“No!” she whined. “This is paradise!” She pulled in the other direction.
He laughed. “You’ve already wasted hours here.”
She struggled against him. “Not wasted. I’m happy here. Let me go!”
Sliding his feet backwards, he watched behind himself so as not to step on any of the tenacious kittens. They seemed intent on having him and Jane stay and continue to give them their undivided attention. Suddenly, it struck him. This wasn’t just some heart-squeezing aesthetic feature thrown in by the developers for their amusement. “It’s a trap!”
“What? Are you dense? These are kittens. It’s not a trap. Now let go of me!”
He got his arms around her chest and hauled her backwards. It was difficult, given his low strength, but he was taller and used it to his advantage. “Don’t be taken in by the cuteness!”
“I want to be!”
“Say no to the pussies!”
“Never!” She kicked and growled.
“They’re too clingy. You can’t trust them.”
She gasped. “How dare you! There’s nothing wrong with being clingy.”
“Will you just give up already?” He managed to physically drag her away from the kittens.
But the moment he released her, she aimed herself right back at the trap. “Kitties! I’m not abandoning you!”
He dove and caught her legs, tripping her. They fell to the grass. Climbing on top of her, he sat on her back.
“Get off!” she yelled.
“No.”
She twisted back and forth under him .“Get off me, you bum!”
A nefarious idea occurred to him, and a slow smile spread over his lips. “There…is only one cure for this madness.”
Her feet kicked, and she pounded the ground with her fists, throwing a tantrum. “There’s no madness. I just want to play with the kitties!”
His fingers twitched in anticipation. “Oh, but there is.” He took a look down at her and did a double-take. “Whoa. There is madness. You’ve got a debuff! {Charmed}”
“Liar. Let me go. You can’t keep me from my pussy! It’s unlawful. Rude! Inconceivable!”
Quill could barely talk from grinning so wide. “Don’t worry. I will cure you of this debuff!” He lowered his hands to her waist and proceeded to tickle her in the most remorseless fashion.
“Qu — Ah! Stop! You — hahahaha! Bastard! Hahahahaaaaa! No! I’ll kill youuuuhahahaha!”
He pretended to feel wounded. “This is hurting me as much as it’s hurting you.”
“Stoooop!”
He ignored the thrashing. “Not until the charm goes away.”
“I haaatehahahaha! I hate you!”
“Shh. Helping.”
“Don’t! No more! I’m gonna pee my pants!”
“Psh. Haven’t seen that before.”
“Grraaahh!” With a mighty heave, she finally threw him off. With a wild look in her eyes, she attacked.
Quill yelped and dodged. Scrambling to his feet, he ran from the crazy woman.
“Come back here!”
“Nope!”
“I’m gonna claw out your eyes.”
“Psh. If you can catch me.”
“I… I… I hate you.” She stopped, bent over, and wheezed, stamina completely gone.
“Charm debuff is gone, by the way.”
Not looking up, she crooked a finger at him. “Come here.”
“Umm, no.”
She breathed heavily. Then she pointed away. “Fine. Go over there!”
“What? Why? Are you going to run back to the kittens?”
“No. I want to pee, thanks to you. Now get lost!” Clenching her thighs, she shuffled over to the nearest bushes.
“Ah.” Quill politely turned his back to her and walked away. “Just me, or is it weird that they put going to the bathroom in a game? This might be a first. Does it really add anything to the experience?”
There was no reply from the bushes.
He continued to think out loud. “It’s one thing in cities or the outdoors, but it’s going to make dungeoning really gross, don’t you think? I doubt there are any working toilets in ancient ruins — actually, when you think about it, why aren’t there? If we’re crawling through some ancient city long buried by time, surely we’d turn a corner and be like, here’s someone’s living room, here’s a kitchen, and here’s a bathroom. Dungeons should be filled with ancient and magical toilets.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
A rustling announced Jane finishing her business and rejoining him. She still sounded annoyed by the tickling. “Just imagine what that no-washroom dungeon is going to look and smell like after a thousand players go through. Super gross.”
“Let’s hope it fades away like bodies and discarded items do.” He warily eyed her. “You’re not still going to claw my eyes out, are you?”
She came to stand near him and gave him an evil eye. “Not this time. But only because I was under a charm spell which you should have found another way to dispel. But if you ever…”
He threw her a salute. “Yes, ma’am!” It was hard to keep the grin off his face. “I will probably never do that again.”
She corrected him. “Definitely.”
He shrugged. “Eh. Hard to promise that one. I love tickling.”
She gave a sickly sweet smile that looked absolutely dangerous as hell. “Do you love your life? Would you like to keep it?”
He cleared his throat and turned away, making long strides. “And…we’re walking. Questing, remember?”
“Quill…”
He sang, “On the road again…”
She followed him. “You think you’re funny now. But I will have my revenge. And it will be glorious.”
“Oh yeah?” He turned his head to make a retort and froze mid-thought.
She put her hands on her hips and looked stern. “What?”
He fully turned back to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and slowly spun her around. “Momma cats.”
“Erp!”
A quartet of large felines approached the cluster of kittens. Each mommy cat looked like a housecat but was the size of a tiger. One the one hand — even more cuteness. On the other, the mothers prowled like predators and cast narrowed glances their way. Quill and Jane had just managed to escape before getting eaten.
Jane found her voice. “Yeah, I was ready to go anyway.”
Quill’s stomach growled. “We were there for so long, I’m hungry.”
“They probably are too. Let’s keep walking, shall we?” She grabbed his arm and pulled him down the road.
They travelled, snacking on apples as the sun set and darkness arrived. They agreed to keep going despite the late hour. They’d find a tree to sleep in or something rather than go all the way back to the city. Besides, the stars here were so incredible that any chance to experience more of them should be taken.
At one point, they spotted a weak trail leading off the road into a nearby forest. Thinking this might be important, they followed it, traversing the grass and entering the woods.
Moving cautiously lest they come across a monster or crusader, they were able to avoid detection when they came across the first bandit-type hanging out just off the path. Together, Quill and Jane held back, hiding behind a tree and bush outside of aggro range.
Jane pointed. “Check out the gold bandana she’s using to hide her face. The one that totally doesn’t scream, ‘I’m a bandit!’ Definitely a Gold Crusader.”
“Think this is enough to go back with?”
“What’s the quest log say?”
Quill opened his log. “Nope. Doesn’t say we’ve identified the camp yet. Might need proof.” He closed the log. “Like one of those bandanas.”
She seemed uncertain. “Think we can take out a crusader? We bombed our last attempt.”
“He was higher level. This is just some new recruit. Casual clothes, regular-looking sword. Only that bandana is gold, whereas that last guy had a really nice set of armour.”
She hmmed. “We got the wolves to gnaw on my staff while you hit them. I don’t think that’s going to work this time.”
“Sit on them and tickle them until they die?”
She glared at him. “That’s what I’m going to do to you later.”
He snickered.
“You know, when I’m eight levels higher than you and can totally kick your ass?”
“Oh yeah.” He looked away. “Forgot about that.”
Her expression became gleefully evil. “You also have to sleep sometime. And I’ll be there. Watching you.”
He may have experienced a brief moment of regret for his actions just then. He took a slight step away from the scary woman. “Huh. This was much more fun when you were unable to retaliate. Anyways. Moving on, so you hopefully forget all about the tickling, let’s get this woman’s bandana.”
The piercing look she gave him made him understand she wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon.
A good thing he had stopped before any peeing had started. The thought of what she might do to him if he’d gone that far gave him chills. And yet…it was still tempting to tickle her again.
She turned her attention to the crusader. “So. How do we defeat her?”
“We come at her from opposite sides. If we can sneak up on her, which I doubt, we try to knock her to the ground before she can draw her weapon and then pound her.”
She gripped her staff. “You go right. I’ll go left and take her from behind.”
A sudden thought jarred him, and he reached out and grabbed her.
She looked back, and his expression made her frown with concern. “What?”
He took a few moments to formulate his thoughts. “Ok, let’s step back and think about this for a minute.”
“About what?”
“We’ve basically been coming at this like a video game, right? What’s the first thing we think to do when we see an enemy?”
“Defea — er, kill it.”
“Exactly. And I’m sure most people are approaching Golden Impact the same way. But what if we don’t have to play entirely by video game mechanics? What if we can treat this more like a tabletop game?”
Video games were very limited in what you could do as a player because software would only allow so much. One of the huge advantages to tabletop games was that there were no such limits.
Her face screwed up in thought at the idea. Yet it eased as she seemed to reach a similar conclusion. “Which means we don’t have to be murder hobos. We could use our imagination to find other solutions.”
“Which is kind of what we’ve been doing. The moss bear falling in a big hole? Sleeping in a tree? Getting a wolf to bite on your staff instead of just hitting it? Even buying that barrel of ale to share in the guild. I feel like this game world gives us far more freedom than we might assume.
“What if we try talking to her instead of attacking? Reasoning with her? Or one of us talks, and the other jumps her from behind and ties her up? What if she’s not some fanatic who needs to die and is just a regular person, maybe one doubting whether or not they should even be a crusader? Maybe they’re someone willing to help if we asked.”
She looked increasingly excited by this train of thought. “That would make the game more interesting. You think the game’s programmed that way?”
“I don’t know. But the NPCs have varying levels of AI; we’ve seen that. As much as I hate AI and all the damage it’s caused in the real world, destroying careers, robbing people of their happiness, throwing economies into chaos, in here, it might mean more flexibility in how we resolve encounters.” Quill was also pretty certain that AI was going to murder all of humanity sometime soon. Tech bros blindly pursuing that kind of tech without thought of the consequences were going to doom their species.
Jane mused. “I do like the idea. I mean, I’d rather not have to kill everything to win, you know?”
“Me too.”
“Ok. Let’s try. One of us will approach her while the other hides. We try to talk to her. If things go badly, we fight or run. Good?”
“Fine with me. Not sure if it matters here, but if this were real life, she’d probably react better to a strange woman coming out of the darkness than a strange man holding a large, metal weapon.”
“True. And I’ve got more health in case she turns violent.”
“And I’ve got more stamina, so I can escape while she’s pounding you.”
“Ha. Wouldn’t be the first time with a girl.” She straightened herself and strode off down the path toward the sentry.
With a girl? He hissed after her, “Wait. What? Not your first time?” She didn’t bother to turn around, just threw an extra bit of sway into her sashay down the trail. He would definitely bring this subject up again later.
The sentry noticed Jane’s approach. “Halt! Who goes there?”
Jane spoke cheerfully. “Hi there—!”
“You’re not with the Crusade. Intruder!” The crusader drew her sword and attacked.
“Ah!” Jane furiously backpedalled, blocking sloppy sword strikes with her staff. “Stop! I come in peace! I mean you no harm! I have gold!”
The woman made a foul grin. “I’ll take it off your corpse.” Her next thrust sent Jane falling backward onto her butt with a grunt.
Male
36
QUILL KRAU
Class NONE, Level 2
STR
1
STATUS
DEX
3
Currently feeling like a dumbass.
HEA
7
SKILLS
INT
2
WIS
17
ITEMS
STA
14
Mace (common)
CHA
11
Official Adventurers Guide; mysterious pages
Female
26
JANE EULA
Class NONE, Level 4
STR
6
STATUS
DEX
11
Currently scared.
HEA
19
SKILLS
INT
18
WIS
18
ITEMS
STA
2
Gilded Armour of the Nature Goddess (unique); knife; staff (common)
CHA
5