A dyslexic, agnostic insomniac is up all night, wondering if there is a dog

When Helga left you did something you had never done in your admittedly short existence. Something you had not even thought possible for you to do:

You dreamed.

At least you had to assume that was what was going on. You were in a void, similar to the place, where the admin had interrogated you, before he brought you into this world. Whereas then it had been empty safe for you and the admin, this time it was filled with people having sex in the far distance, the places, where someone might have sex like beds, pools or meadows, were closer and right in front of you was a dildo.

No, in fact it was a cucumber.

When you concentrated, you found, that it changed shape and was now a long thin staff, like the handle of a broom.

Finally it turned into a talking dog: “Hello Nimis!”

“Hello … who are you?”

“Isn't it obvious? I'll give you a hint: We're talking among other reasons, because of what you just did to my favorite cleric.”

“You're Cupidite! I'm sorry I just didn't expect you to be a talking dog.”

“Dog?”, Cupidite turned into a very angry eggplant.

“Jason, you fucking asshole! That's it!” They mellowed down into the wooden replica of a dragoncock and smiled at you: “Looks like I have something do for my followers...

**Back to you: You fucking destroyed four of my favorite people, without even cumming!**”

“I'm sorry! I didn't mean to...”, you started to grovel afraid of the god's wrath.

“Shut it!”, The life-sized imitation of a horsecock shouted and you did, “What happened was not an accident, that was pure skill … And what the hell were you apologizing for?”

“You got so angry, because someone fucked a dog...”

“No! Listen: What Jason did was abusing a non-sentient dog. Now you can argue, that since you didn't get that much out of it, it wasn't sex, but it was without a shadow of a doubt consensual on all parts. Which brings me to the reason I'm talking to you: Do you want to do that, or rather something like that, again?”

The question left you speechless for a few seconds, not only because it was so unexpected, but also because you were unsure how to answer. Sure, you had liked making your new friends orgasm, but at the same time it had felt weird to feel nothing yourself. The god seemed to have read your mind: “How about if you had a dick, or something like that?”

“Definitely yes, but I don't think you're just gonna give it to me for free.”

“Technically not for free, but I doubt you'll find my terms objectionable. Formally, you'd become one of my avatars. Effectively this means you'll have a new growth-path. You'd give up your old growth-options and have to do whatever handiwork I need done. In exchange you'll gain all the advantages one would expect someone, who dedicated their life to me, to have.

**Power, confidence, good sex, the works.**”

“I'll...”

“Don't bother answering right now. I can tell you're interested, so I'll tell Helga the details and you can tell her, when you've made up your mind.”

---

And with that you fell into dreamless sleep.

When you awoke, Helga was already standing over your bathtub: “You talked to Cupidite! Did you say yes?”

“Wait, slow down! I thought you were supposed to tell me the details of the deal!”

You could hear the others filing into the room behind her. It was obvious, that they did not know, why the first thing the cleric had done when waking up, had been storming into the bath.

“Sorry, I'm just so excited! Let me just make sure I'm not getting anything wrong... If I understood that right, Cupidite already gave you a little 'incentive', officially as a rewards for the 'help' you gave us yesterday.”

You checked your Character-Sheet and quickly found the new Ability:

Flesh-forming: Use your ability to put your body into virtually any shape to make your attempts to use Camouflage and Mimicry harder to see through by [2*lvl]. In combat you can harden a limb or part of a limb to reduce incoming kinetic damage by 40% when blocking or add 40% bludgeoning damage when attacking. Hardened muscles cannot be moved until relaxed.

That was incredibly useful! This made doing anything other than grappling feasible. And then there were the uses outside of combat, or as Joylanda put it, after you told them about your new ability: “You're gonna fuck us _HARD _the next chance you get!”

“We'll see about that”, you said, as if you had not thought the exact same thing, “Helga, what exactly are the terms of this potential deal with Cupidite?”

Joylanda snickered at how abruptly you changed the topic but remained otherwise quiet.

“Okay, so you basically get the same deal as me: Follow Cupidite's tenets and in turn receive their blessings. The main difference is, that a lot of your growth is locked as rewards for quests you'll have to do for Cupidite. If I'm being honest, that sounds like the biggest downside. Cupidite isn't the kind of guy, to have anything planned so these quests can be extremely difficult or just not come in for a while.”

“So instead of leveling up, I only get stronger, when I finish one of these quests?”

“No, you still level up, you just don't really get new abilities and the like, without the quests.”

“Well that isn't to bad... How do I find out, what my first quest is?”

“Until you say yes, it's a lot easier for Cupidite to contact me than you. Once you say yes... I guess it'll just pop up in your mind.”

“So to summarize: I'll have to adhere to Cupidite's tenet's, which as long as I stick with you, I probably would have done anyway. I give up growth-options, but instead I get issued quests, with power-ups as rewards.

I have to say, this sounds like a really good deal.”

“So you're saying yes?”

“Yes!”

LEVEL UP!

What?

For simply accepting Cupidite's offer you had received enough exp to push you ever to the next level and now you were faced with a pop-up:

New Growth options:

Manus Alacratis:

Gain “Cupidite's Favor” Ability.

Gain “Healing Touch” Ability.

Gain “Relaxing Touch” Ability.

And... that was it. You did not get to choose.

You immediately pulled up your Character-Sheet again, to check, what the differences were.

Manus Alacratis;

Level: 3;

HP: 35/35;

MP: 50/50;

---ATTACKS---

Melee Attack: 5

Melee Damage: 5

Ranged Attack: 2

Ranged Damage: 1

Weaknesses: all elemental damage; piercing; slashing;

Strength: Buffs; Healing;

Resistances: bludgeoning;

---Special Abilities---

Mucucutaneous Skin: All negative status effects and elemental damages are applied with an up to 3 + [lvl] second delay. If elemental damage is not applied consistently until end of delay no damage is applied and delay starts over. Scales logarithmically with Hydration.

Regrowth: Regenerates HP at up to 10%/second. Crippled status effect has a chance to heal randomly with a chance of [(1+lvl.) * (max_limbs/curr_limbs) /200] % every second. Scales linear with Hydration.

Grapple: Pass a d20 [victim.strength-strength] or a d6 [victim.mass - mass] to fully incapacitate a your victim. Pass a d50 [victim.strength-strength] or a d12 [victim.mass - mass] to disable a limb of the victim.

Poisonous: If attacked by a bite attack cause [attacker.max_HP*1.1] poison damage to the attacker. Inflict paralyzed on attacker.

Venemous bite: Takes 2 seconds to cast. Cast on contact. Cause [victim.max_HP*1.3] poison damage to the victim. Inflict paralyzed on victim.

Spit in the face: Use your ranged attack on an enemies face or weakspot to draw aggro. All your attacks on an aggroed enemy have a chance of [lvl/200] to cause stagger. Cast from Hydration.

Healing Touch (Cost: 5 MP): Heal a person or creature you are in contact with for [lvl] + [Cupidite's Favor] HP.

Relaxing Touch (Cost 35 MP): Restore up to [lvl] + [Cupidite's Favor] MP for a person or creature you are in contact with. At the same time reduce the target's Melee Attack and Melee Damage by 75%. Chance of [lvl/100] chance to paralyze target for anywhere between 1 - [Cupidite's Favor] seconds.

Camouflage: Use your ability to change color to become invisible.

Mimicry: Use your ability to change color to disguise yourself as any creature of lower level as you.

Flesh-forming: Use your ability to put your body into virtually any shape to make your attempts to use Camouflage and Mimicry harder to see through by [2*lvl]. In combat you can harden a limb or part of a limb to reduce incoming kinetic damage by 40% when blocking or add 40% bludgeoning damage when attacking. Hardened muscles cannot be moved until relaxed.

Ink-cloud: Ranged attack with a range of [lvl -1] meters. Decreases Ranged Attack of victim by 95%. Decreases Melee Attack of victim 70%. Cast from Hydration. Gains new effect depending on growth choices.

Hydration: All base stats as well as some Special Abilities scale with Hydration. Hydration increases while exposed to water and decreases while outside of water (decreasing Hydration is a status effect and is effected by everything that effects status effects; Heat and Fire damage can inflict Fast Dehydration, when already subjected to decreasing Hydration). When Hydration reaches 0 causes [1+lvl.] damage per second to self.

Cupidite's Favor: Some Special Abilities scale with Cupidite's Favor. Cupidite's Favor is earned through tasks that are to Cupidite's liking (small amounts for easily repeatable acts, large amounts for the completion of quests). Cupidite's Favor decreases over time. Decrease is doubled, when MP is 0. For [earnedFavor] seconds after earning Cupidite's Favor MP-regeneration is doubled (does not stack).

That was strong. You turned to tell the rest of the party, when you noticed, that they were occupied with their own level-ups:

"Ariadne Lightweaver [Wizard] [Gnome] lvl 13"

"Helga Helspurger [Cleric] [Dwarf] lvl 13"

"Athariel of the Hunting Woods [Beastmaster] [Wood Elf] lvl 13"

"Schlch [Slime] lvl 7"

"Joylanda the happy [Rogue] [Halfling] lvl 13"

It took you a moment to understand, what was going on: Making you agree to Cupidite's deal had been a mini-quest for Helga add to that the exp-dump you had just received for doing that and even if the party received only a fraction of it … put mildly it was amazing that they had made it to your old home only reaching level 12.

And then you became aware of something you've never experienced yourself:

New quest!

Assemble the Crusaders of Love

• _Convince _your party-members to join

• Convince Ariadne Lightweaver
• Convince Athariel
• Convince Joylanda
• Join up with Mazoga
• Join up with Mircalla
• Convince The Dryad to join

You noticed, that you didn't have to convince Helga, suggesting, that she too was part of these CoL. You'd need an opportunity to talk to her in private: “That's a great way to start of the day and now we have a few hours of shopping ahead of us! I'd like to go with Helga today.”

“That's a good idea! I can make sure you're all caught up on your new code”, Helga caught on, “Athariel, please wait with buying the spear”

“Or whip”

“Or whip, until we've caught up to you. You tend to make bad decision, when left to your own devices.”

“I don't know what you're talking about!”

“You've specialized from Ranger into a class that is all about making creatures fight for you, despite having no intention to make a creature fight for you”, Helga fired right back.

“Your dating history”, Joylanda said.

“Low blow, also, we're technically part of her dating history”, Ariadne said, “But I'd argue claiming to be bi counts.”

“Nah, that's a mistake, but not a decision”, Joylanda piled on, “She did however make the conscious decision to try and fuck Schlch while we were still in the toxic caverns.”

“Had to clean your pussy; You masturbated with Joylanda's potion”, Schlch finished her off.

Athariel put her hands up in defeat, picked up a stack of loot to sell and slowly trotted off.

“I'm buying my potions!”, Joylanda declared, taking another stack and skipped off.

Ariadne grabbed the second to last stack and went to leave, too: “I buy rope and stuff, you're buying supplies?”

“Yeah, thank you!”, Helga called out after her. She waited a few seconds and turned to you: “Do you have a new quest from Cupidite as well?”

You slowly made your way to the shops to sell your stack of loot while you talked and made plans: “So you don't know, what these CoL are either?”

“It just showed up in my overview, when you accepted. I haven't yet checked, what it says it's about … so apparently it's just a guild to worship Cupidite and do quests for them, since they can't have a temple or anything.”

“Can't they just issue quest to their followers already? They gave you quests!”

“Eh... it's complicated. Issuing proper quests only works on an individual level and also only to people, who are fully dedicated to them, like priests, clerics and paladins. Most gods can issue quests for entire parties like raid dungeons via their temples. Since that's not really an option for them, they instead made us founding members of a guild dedicated to them. They can issue quests to the entire guild.”

“In that case convincing the others to sign up shouldn't be hard... that leaves two questions: One why isn't Schlch on the list?”

“I'm guessing, because he's ace? I'm honestly surprised, he's still sticking with us.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. The other: Why are Athariel and Joylanda listed without their last names?”

“Wait you think those are their names? Those are titles! Titles that don't mean anything, because they got them for their class and race at the start of the game, but they liked them, so they used them.”

“What are 'titles'?”

“Oh, yes, you probably didn't learn about them in your pond. Let's see... Do you know what Achievements refer to? … Good. So the idea was, that some people might want to brag. So they added the titles. You get titles for all kinds of stuff. Some for simply picking a class and a race, others for hard shit, like soloing a raid dungeon, and other just to let people know, what kind of person you are.”

She demonstrated by enabling one of hers: Helga Helspurger 'The Avenger'.

“I got this one for repeatedly killing Players, who got reported for griefing. Would you believe that there's an overlap between sexual assaulters and griefers?”

“Ohh... do you think I could earn a nice title?”

“I would think so? I heard that some bosses have titles, I don't see why you couldn't.”

“... so... the plan?”

“We have a plan?”

“A rough one? Step one: Convince the others to join; Step two: Find this Mazoga; Step three...”

“I take it, you don't actually have any idea, how we could find this Mazoga?”, Helga interrupted you.

“I was hoping you did. All we know is, that she's either a priestess, cleric or paladin of Cupidite.”

“Ehm, how do we know that?”

“The quest says 'join up' not 'convince'. That means this Mazoga and this Mircalla are already on board. We just have to find them.”

“You're funny. Do you have any idea, how big Alluvia is?”

“... yeah. But if they are players, they must have come through here, right?”

Helga thought for a moment: “Not necessarily, there are a few starting locations, but we can Fast-Travel to them. If we ask around, we either pick up a lead, or they take note and find us.”

---

You met up with the rest of the party in front of the arms shop, to buy a spear for Athariel (or maybe a whip as she insisted).

“Okay, this decision is easy. One of these so objectively the best one for your position as DPS.”

“The Steel-tipped spear”, said the entire party.

“The Rose-petal- whip”, Athariel said.

“NO!”

“It looks so boring!”

“It has eight times the attack speed!”

“Look how beautiful the whip is!”

“The spear has more base damage and even the critical multiplier is the same, unless you get proficiency!”

“I can get proficiency at level 15. Look it generates rose-petals!”

“The spear generates damage.”

“It has a grappling attack!”

“It has a miserable chance, Schlch can grapple really well and you're not supposed to grapple at all!”

“Athariel... you do realize, that you won't keep this spear forever, right?”

“No,... I mean yes, I know I know I will use this exact spear for a few levels, but … Once I've accepted this spear, I'll always have to accept the boring, but practical alternative.”

“Hey. Do you know, what end-game equipment looks like?”

“No, do you?”

“As a matter of fact I do, do you remember why you recruited me in the first place? Let's just say, there is more gear, than that dagger.”

“Are you saying, you'll help all of us to get high quality, quest reward, useful till end-game, gear? Do you want to give Ariadne the dagger already?”

“Yes, I want to help you collect really good gear, but I won't give it to you until you are significantly stronger, because it'll paint a giant target on your backs.”

“Fine, I'll take the lame spear, for now, but whatever you get me, better be awesome”, Athariel pouted, as she exchanged a level 8 sword for a level 13 spear.

“So”, Joylanda clapped her hands, to draw everybody's attention, “We're done shopping and we're to low level to go after this gear you mentioned. What's next?”

“I have something”, Helga answered, “How would you like to work for Cupidite?”