Aelene Date, Part 3: Follow the Cavern Bridge Road

Tina

The trio hits Dungeons for Damsels right as Mattie was leaving. The soldier greets the others, bare breasts thrust forward, with, “Hey, you three. I’m still naked for a while, but, if we want to go delving tonight, I’m up for it. What’s the plan?”

“Well, I imagine Daph and I would be out, given our evening jobs,” Scarlet notes, “If you two want to hang out with Mattie in the dungeon, I’d encourage it.”

Daph shouts out from the store, “And take Honey with you! She could use some friends.”

Everyone walks into the store. No point in having the conversation in and out of the hallway. Josie responds, “The bug is weird. Why do you want us to make friends with her?”

Thus begins a 5 minute staring contest. Tina, too excited for magic tongue powers, starts going through the kiosk, looking for the perfect option. Sooo, looks like the weird bunny-girl option from the last transformation round could work, but I want to eat real ice cream, too. Huh. That one is... weird.

Scarlet leans over, “Hey, Tina, find one?”

Tina shows the transformation description to Scarlet, trying to figure out what she thinks:

Bunny Blepping – While cats are known for using their tongues, bunnies do it, too! Tina’s tongue now takes on aspects of bunny behavior, including increased grip strength, increased taste bud density, and antiseptic saliva. Of course, Tina will also start to show affection and happiness with her tongue like a bunny, too (Bunny Girl).

“So, you get that, you have a grippier tongue that taste things more intensely and can clean things. But, you’ll want to lick us affectionately, I guess? Huh.”

“Kind of like a kitty? But, not a kitty, a bunny! I guess getting that cool magic tasting power could be worth it. Josie, are you okay if I decide to start licking you for affection?”

“What? Yeah. Sure. Go nuts.” Josie looks distracted.

Mattie, who has been politely watching, pulled up another option from her phone:

I Heard About Your Honeyed Words – Tina can spend 2 SP to grant herself advantage on a persuasion or seduction check. For an hour afterwards, Tina’s voice takes on a husky femme fatale tone (Sorceress).

“Eh, not super interested in that. My Actress feat kind of has that covered. Daphne, if you’re done with your staring contest, I’d like some Bunny Blepping, please. Anyone else want something?”

Scarlet found some silvery wedge heel sandals. Oooooh, pretty. She puts them on the counter, adding, “These heels, Daph.”

“Oooooh, fun choice there, Scarlet. Anyone else want to buy something? Maybe a gift for a Beloved?” As Daphne tries to upsell, she adds the heels to the basket. The description is displayed:

Adamantine Wedges: Monk clothing. 1 Armor. Whenever the wearer would land a critical hit from kicks, the wearer regains ki equal to their Intelligence modifier.

Scarlet rolls her eyes, declaring, “Daph, I’m not going to buy you a present while you’re here to ring me up. That’s what the phone storefront is for.”

Daphne blushes slightly, “Thank you for thinking about me, but I was referring to buying a gift for Harper. You know, our Beloved?”

What does Harper need? I mean, she’s already got the cool sword, and those boots, and she can learn a whole bunch of spells. Maybe something to speed up spell scribing? That would be helpful. Save my fish-girlfriend scribing time, too. I mean, Harper has asked her to scribe stuff when our dates took too much time.

Scarlet speaks up first. “Sure, Daph. I know Harper asked for an improvement to Fudge the Roll, one to help us see why she triggered it? Is that in the shop, or just the awful one Ariel suggested?”

“Oh, ah, let’s see,” Daphne saying, starting the search, “Yup. 2 upgrades. The one Auntie suggested and another one. Here, let’s pop it up.”

Fudge the Roll +1 – Every DM is tempted to lie about the dice to ignore a deadly crit or allow a foe to be felled early. Now Harper gets to experience that temptation in real life. Once a day per harem member (other than herself), she can choose to turn a failed action into a full success. The harem member will be given a brief premonition of the most likely result of them failing the roll. If they consent to the fudged roll, for 12 hours afterwards, the woman in question will lose all autonomy, becoming what the slut in question would consider the perfect submissive **** to her Mistress. If they do not consent to the fudged roll, the fail is turned into a critical fail instead (Dungeon Mistress).

“So, we have to consent, the ‘**** time’ is halved, but, if we don’t consent, the fail is way worse?”

“One thing to keep in mind, you two,” Scarlet adds, “is that our perception is important to that whole ‘**** time’ thing. Mattie showed that off last night.” Mattie smirks and nods.

“It’s pricey, Scarlet. That, plus the shoes, will run you 250 BP.”

“Done.” Scarlet seems satisfied.

“Oh, I guess, if we’re buying stuff for Harper, I want to give her a way to skip all the spell scribing hassle. Maybe, if she gets to eat cotton candy burritos, she’d learn more cool magic?”

“Just a sec, Tina. Found something. Here.”

Spellcasting +1 (Wizard): In addition to learning spells through effective study, the wizard can add spells to their spellbook by spending SP equal to 3 times the level of the spell. A copy of the spell, magical ink, and magical paper are still required.

“How much for a two-pack? One for Harper, one for my cute fish-girlfriend?”

“Same price as 2 of them individually. You don’t have to buy one for me, Tina. Both of ‘em and the tongue thing will run you a total of 240 BP.”

“Hmm, that’s most of my phony-baloney Monopoly money, but I can’t take it with me, right?”

“Right. Josie, you wanna buy something? Maybe for a certain bunny? Or oread? Or Harper? Or, even, me?”

“Nah, Fish. You’ve made plenty of money off of those two today. I’m good.”

With that, Daphne shrugs and rings everything up. She looks way happier about her commission. Then, she fires off some texts to probably Harper to probably tell her about her presents. It’s nice to get someone something. Time to test out my new tongue power!

Scarlet: -250 BP

Tina: -240 BP

Daphne: +122 BP (Commission)

Harper

The air is still too thin and dry, but Harper is breathing easy. Maybe they overtuned the transformation, giving me 8 hours despite environmental conditions? No way my lungs would not be screaming at me right now otherwise. They have been slowly climbing up to the top of the mine the past hour or so. Harper has let Skye know that Telepathic Bond is about to drop and now waits for her to get back to them.

“Save the cast for now, my lady love. We have a situation coming up.”

And a situation becomes readily apparent. A large natural cavern with a stone bridge barely wide enough for two to walk abreast. Dozens of harpies, squawking and flapping around, all trying to light torches. They definitely have both ends of the bridge lit up. Harper starts to put the earplugs back in; the others do as well.

Okay, just have to sneak across this bridge. Easy.

Then Skye’s Invisi-Shades slip off when she enters into the torchlight on the near side of the bridge. “Ow! My eyes!”

Shit. Harper runs up to scoop up her wife’s shades and slips them onto her face. She pulls Skye out of the light and towards the middle of the bridge. The noise attracts the horde; Aelene summons her reflection and takes a defensive position. Glitter pads up and casts another copy of herself, with the same “Eat Harpies” order. And eat harpies the dragon spirit heads out to do. It slams into the nearest group of harpies, not quite dropping one with it’s attacks. Once again, their attacks harmlessly bounces off the spirit’s scales.

In this environment, we are going to need more bodies. I’ll probably regret this later. After flicking her ring to cast Fire Shield and starting her dance, Harper’s voice sounds stronger than in the village as she chants in Aquan. A spectral silver dragon appears. “Take out the harpies as you can, but try to take out all of the torches as well.” With that, the silver dragon charges towards another flapping group of harpies, rending one nearly apart and freezing the torches above the near end of the bridge. More harmless strikes from the harpies. Skye teleports through the shadows on top of the silver dragon and picks off the harpy it attacked. One down. So many to go.

Then here comes the swarm. So many harpies dive-bomb towards the bridge. Aelene swipes at one, but doesn’t get the crit. Glitter takes a swipe from one of her assailants, and the ones that try to hit the dancing Harper just take a bunch of cold damage. The wave that couldn’t quite reach the bridge starts to sing. Despite the muffling effect of the ear plugs, despite her natural resistance to charm effects, Harper starts to feel it. She stops herself before she steps off of the bridge (and into the pit far below).

Looks like Aelene took a few steps as well, then turns around and starts her ****. One crit means one instantly killed harpy. A bunch still remain. Glitter casts some sort of spell and one of the three on her flees into the open air of the cavern; the other two strike, one hurting her in the process. Time for another Steel Wind Strike. Harper casts the spell, and 5 harpies are basically split in twain. She re-engages with the flock that were around her, letting them catch themselves alight against her (cold) fire shield. Her dragon spirit drops another, the corpse falling from the air. Skye summons a silvery longsword to strike one of the harpies around her temporary steed, then skewers another.

Harper Harpy Kill Count: 22

A few more harpies join the fray on the bridge. A couple head towards Aelene, helplessly clawing at the bikini clad babe, several fly to Glitter, who somehow avoids taking a hit from the flock. The rest are flapping hard to get to them.

Aelene crits twice, dropping 2 harpies. “I’M in danger!” Glitterdust shouts, trying her best to take a defensive position, dodging and weaving through the flurry of claw swipes. From the corner of her eye, Harper sees the Glitterdust copy slay the remaining harpies it was engaging, then moves to intercept the one harpy Glitterdust scared off. Harper casts Steel Wind Strike again, and 4 less harpies are surrounding the dragon-girl. The 4 harpies that were attacking the sea elf finally immolate themselves on her shroud of fire. The tag team of the silver dragon spirit and Skye continue to work.

Harper Harpy Kill Count: 30

The last of the harpies in the cavern attack. Only one engages Aelene, a couple at Glitter (who again avoids getting hit), a couple burn themselves attacking Harper, the rest uselessly claw at the dragons.

Aelene crits twice again out of her four strikes. Two more dead harpies, and one looks nearly dead. Glitter tries to spell scare away another harpy, but that one somehow resists the effect. She doesn’t get hurt from the resulting flurry of claw swipes from the flock around her. Another Steel Wind Strike from Harper, another 4 dead harpies; 2 left around the bridge. The dragons (and Skye) slowly chip down the flocks around them, with each of them dropping a harpy. Time to mop up the last few of them remaining.

Harper Harpy Kill Count: 35

Aelene finishes off the last two harpies on the bridge. Glitter fires a spell that was again resisted. Harper takes a position to intercept any harpies that decide to engage with the softer looking targets on the bridge. Glitter’s copy wears down the few harpies remaining; the silver dragon and Skye finishes them off.

Party Kill Count: 73 Harpies

Harper Harpy Kill Count: 37

Harper orders the dragon spirit to drop Skye off on the far end of the bridge (after taking out the torches over there), then, with thanks, dismisses it. They all collapse in a small cavern on the other side of the opening there, needing to catch their breath. Time to take a rest. Aelene needs to reset her sword and I need to restore some SP.