Dead Frogs and Living Levels

Tina

Josie, blood red lust aura bursting out of her, leaps at the blue frog lady thing, claws a’slashin’. The frog thing is heavily bleeding from several grievous wounds. The frog’s counter-swipes don’t even graze the wolf-girl’s sexy abs. Scarlet is on it, too, delivering 3 massive fiery kicks; one of the staggered frog’s slashes dealt a tiny scratch. Harper is brave, too. She starts her dance, then cuts through the frog twice; she dodges around the swipes.

Tina, is, of course, scared to fight a blue frog thing in a tiny room. She scurries out to the hall, then, realizing she isn’t shiny with Mage Armor, decides to fix that. She pokes her head back into the room as Josie and Scarlet shred and burn the frog thing to ****. The NPC rushes to cry over his dead NPC daughter.

Tina can’t help but ask, “Harper, cutie, what the fuck was that thing?”

“A sexy tweak on slaads, maybe?”

“What’s a slaad?”

“Parasitic chaotic fire frogs from beyond space.”

“And that is in DoD?”

“There is a lot of weird shit in DoD. Ever see a picture of a Grell? It’s a floating brain with a bunch of jellyfish tentacles and a bird’s beak.”

“Great, how do we kill them?” Josie is way too practical.

“Don’t get infected? Not sure what tweaks Daphne gave them, outside of being body-horror hot.”

Josie growls at the sobbing NPC, “Hey, you, fatty, stop crying and tell me where the rest of these are.”

“My sexy, legal-age daughter! She’s just skin! No bones!”

Harper squats down to look the NPC in the eye, “And many more will die if we can’t stop this infection before it spreads. Please. You can mourn her later. Info first.”

“The other infected are in the servants quarters.”

“Directions?”

Josie

The gang enters into the narrow hallways of the servants’ quarters. Man, this NPC dude is shitty. Or is it just what generic medieval manors are like? Either way, these halls are uncomfortably narrow.

The moans vibrate the halls. Following the sounds (and the smells, ugh, the smells), they find a bunk room with three masturbating ballooned girls. And, just as expected, they explode into gore and more blue frog lady things.

Josie gives into the bloodlust and lunges at one of the frog lady things, claws out. She lands three good slashes and dodges away from the frog’s counters. Scarlet charges at the far frog, slamming her halbred into it, then starts her pole dancing kick combos. The frog stumbles back, a little dazed. The smell of scorched flesh is added to the room. It’s a little unpleasant. Ok. A little more unpleasant.

Harper also starts her dance stance thing and, with a couple of thunderous booms, slices into the third frog. The frog slides back pretty far from the ****, just to take a horny Tina fire bunny to the face. Harper gives the frog another solid swipe as it chases after the bonny bunny. Tina bounds up towards Scarlet as the frog attempts to tackle her.

Josie slices up into her target. That third hit is feeling great, time to add the collar damage. The frog thing is too busy trying to hold it’s guts in to deliver a good response, but is still looking pretty alive. Scarlet kicks down her target, leaving it a scorched corpse. Harper might have miscalculated as she just delivers a couple of regular strikes, leaving her target (barely) alive. Tina finishes hiding behind Scarlet and fires off a fire bunny. Now it’s dead.

Two more of those frog things burst into the room, but Josie is too busy trying to still cut down her first one to do much about it. The frog’s claws finally grazed her, but it doesn’t break the skin. Tina fires a shot, which draws one of the frogs towards the buzz-saw that is Scarlet’s legs. Tina does get hit, with a loud yelp, but the frog takes a flurry of flaming kicks, stumbling around in a brief daze. The stale air of the room starts to move as Harper rushes to the final frog, and, with a couple of booming strikes, brings the hurt.

Another combo of slashes and this dumb frog this is still up? Grrrr!

Scarlet actually stuns her frog, but it’s still (barely) alive. Harper delivers her (loud) hits, but that frog is still (barely) alive. Tina fires off what looks like a whole deck of cards, and only Harper’s frog is still standing. Grrr! She stole my kill!

Josie lunges at the last frog and, by the time she finishes her combos, it’s a lump of shredded flesh. She pants in frustration. Need more damage.

Josie +36 XP (Killed 6 Level 7 monsters, x0.875 penalty [over-leveled])

Harper +36 XP (Killed 6 Level 7 monsters, x0.875 penalty [over-leveled])

Scarlet +42 XP (Killed 6 Level 7 monsters)

Tina +36 XP (Killed 6 Level 7 monsters, x0.875 penalty [over-leveled])

A chest appears, but no exit. “So, I’ll start the wizard tedium. If someone wants to watch the door while I work, that would be nice. The rest of you need to search for the source of the plague. I note that all of the victims we have seen are female. Assuming the pattern holds, check areas where only women would congregate?”

Josie drags Tina to search, leaving Scarlet and Harper to go the boring shit. Josie follows her nose like a good bloodhound. The foul smell of sex and rot leads them to finding 2 more exploded victims. Both bloated females. Josie feels a little sick to her stomach.

“Um, ideas? I mean, the smart ones are doing nerd things.”

Really? Josie growls a little, which scares Tina into a backpedaling apology, “Not that you’re a dummy, Josie. Just that the nerds would be better at solving this nerd mystery.”

Better.

“Bathroom?”

“You need to pee now?”

“No, just, c’mon.”

It took a bit to find the bathroom. The steward of the house is quite proud of the house being to only one in the entire village to have internal plumbing. The smell gets worse as they approach. When the door opens, Josie loses her lunch. Tina is not far behind on that. The plumbing backed up, flooding the room with a foul liquid, filled with squirming tadpoles. Giant tadpoles with excruciatingly large penises. And sharp, pointy teeth.

“Time for the solution to all problems: Fireball!”

Josie keeps the fire-happy bunny from firing off the spell long enough to evacuate the house. With a big, smelly explosion, the house collapses, much to the chagrin of the rotund NPC. Ooops. Serves that asshat right.

A big text floats in front of the wrecked home: “End of Level 7. Begin Level 8?”

“We only got an hour or so before party time. Ya’ll want to risk missing it for some probable sewer delving?”

“Please no. This level is making me go haywire. I need some nose plugs or something.”

The room resets to the plain white room. Harper then starts to hand out the loot. Scarlet gets a bottle of infinite aphrodisiac laced massage oil. Tina gets a magic wand that looks like something a stage magician would use (white-tipped black rod). And Josie gets a needle.

“The fuck is this?”

“A magic tattoo like one you gave to Daph. Only a lot more powerful. Tina’s wand has a strange effect, too.”

“Ooooh! What’s it do?”

Harper pulls out her phone and shows the item description to the bonny bunny:

Boink ‘n’ Bonk: Arcane Focus. This wand can manifest a magical illusory hammer. While manifesting a hammer, the wand grants the wielder proficiency in light hammers. The more SP is spent, the more powerful the hammer. Upon a successful hit, the hammer will deal 1 erotic damage for every 25% of the wielder’s SP that is empty. So, 0 damage if the SP pool is full and 4 erotic damage if the SP pool is empty.

“And, since you’re interested about your tat, Josie,” Harper continues as she switches to the other item:

Blood Lust Fury: Tattoo Attunement. The tattoo has 10 charges, and it regains 1 charge for every orgasm the bearer has. While the tattoo is on the skin, the bearer can expend a charge to do the following:

• When the bearer succesfully lands a melee attack, deal an additional 8 erotic damage
• When the bearer is damaged by a melee attack, use your reaction to make a counterattack with advantage.

“What you get, old lady?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. Now, let’s head back to the recovery room?”

Harper

Harper walks into the recovery room to mild bedlam. Dinah is tied up to the bondage cross, a note taped to her forehead, begging to be bred. The other delving party tries to drag her so many different ways: Daphne up to the shop to help with more sales, Mattie to a couch to handle leveling, Aelene up to the Master Suite for “weapon restoration”. Only Skye seems to not need anything from her.

“One at a time, please. Skye, you first?” Harper slumps onto a couch.

“Hi, lady love, like my new rope?” Now that she had a chance to think, Harper notices Skye’s new rope work.

“It’s lovely, my little drow. Want to handle leveling now?”

“Yes, please.”

Skye only got one level, but it does allow her to grab the Elven Accuracy feat. Skye will hopefully stop missing those crits now.

Daphne hops into Harper’s lap and gives her a kiss. “Hey, if we are going to party tonight, I should go next. I want to get my restocking time done before we go watch Scarlet dance.”

Again, only 1 level, but getting access to 6th Level spells is great. With one more kiss, Daphne notes, “I’m gonna head up and start work. My loot was a Scroll of Legend Lore. I’ll find a quiet day to get it scribed. So, don’t worry about grabbing it yourself.” With that, Daphne heads up the stairs.

Scarlet hops the line, with the note. Harper glances at it (I only babysit my grandbabies, Elf!), then Scarlet notes, “Sigh, Ariel is a really bad babysitter. I’ll take Dinah with me and watch her, at least until it’s time for me to dance. Level me up. Ki is super useful post-show.”

Scarlet got 3 levels. Wow. When high level monsters are your basic mob, you get a lot more XP. Harper is surprised at the feat Scarlet took. “Hey, teleporting once a day sounds a way cooler bonus thing to get with my +1 intelligence than the other options, even if I can dash farther than that.” Scarlet starts to untie Dinah.

Aelene distracts Harper from watching Dinah. “Lady Harper, thank you, thank you, thank you! It took me 50 years to get from Level 4 to 5. Two Levels in one day is completely unheard of. Please grant me your blessing.”

Another elf needing Elvish Accuracy. At least Aelene needed the double-bladed scimitar feat to make Elvish Accuracy viable. The reflective avatar feature seems neat, even if she feels it’s a little perverted.

“When you have a moment, betrothed, I will still need my weapon restored.”

“Let me get everyone settled. Maybe we find a private moment at the party?”

“Um... looking forward to it, my dear lady.”

As Aelene walks away, Josie stomps up, asking, “Care to tell me why Dinah is broken?”

Harper grits her teeth, her cheeks burning with shame, “She was close enough to a complete mental meltdown that I couldn’t resist the urge to save her from herself. Rub my failure in my face, Josie. I deserve it.”

“Not going to, old lady. Just noticing. My turn.”

Brutal critical is rad. Infectious fury is also rad. Josie needs to work on her Endurance next.

“I’m going to help Scarlet get the tavern ready for us. Catch you there, old lady.” Josie walks up the stairs.

“Sarge, ready for my 50 billion levels?”

Mattie wins the “most levels in a day” game, almost catching up to everyone else by hitting Level 6. She is giddy. “Hey, Mrs. Skye! I need that workshop stat! Time to go. See you at the party, Sarge!” Dragging her wife out of the room, Mattie is hopping up the stairs.

“Hey, cutie, is Dinah going to be okay? I’m worried about her.”

“I was told she would be back to normal tomorrow a bit after the morning meeting. I hope she will be okay. I’m angry at myself about the situation.”

“Did you want to handle yourself first?”

I think this is the first time Tina didn’t rush me to be first. Something’s off here. “I honestly like going last. It takes me a while to figure out what spells I want. Did you want to hold off on leveling for some reason?”

“Let’s get this over with.”

Again, something is off. Oh. There it is. On top of the leveling interface for Tina, there is a note: “An otherworldly entity (Eilistraee) has volunteered to be Tina’s witch patron (Celestrial pact).” Harper raises an eyebrow and peers into Tina’s eyes. “Explain, please?”

Tina explains. It hits Harper right in the gut. I didn’t want to **** anyone into a particular role. Maybe that was a mistake? Glad Tina is willing to volunteer for this. The terms of the pact are acceptable. If she’s fine with it, I’m fine with it.

“I don’t have a problem with this, but are you sure? No going back here.”

“I’m sure. You’re in charge of the decisions for the witch levels. I’ll let you know when I want to take some more sorceress power.”

Harper starts adding Witch levels. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a floating silver scroll pop up in front of Tina. “Hey, I don’t sign things I can’t read! Learned my lesson last time.” A pause. “Better.” She then continues conversing with the air, mostly clearing up what words mean. Eventually, she signs. A notification pops up on the tablet: “Would you like a copy? Y/N” Clicking yes, a sudden rush of verbiage rams into Harper’s head. Once again feeling a small migraine, Harper looks up to see Tina eating a silver cotton candy burrito, mumbling, “Tastes like legalese.”

Tina gets happy once her new spellbook pops into existence. “I get a spellbook like you! Neat! Wait, these spells are kind of lame.”

“No complaints. You put me in charge of your decisions and I’m taking Eilistraee’s pact with you seriously. To be fair to me, the spellbook is more limited than mine. I’m currently only able to give you 3 cantrips and 2 low level ritual spells. You can add more rituals as you like.”

“Okay. Thanks. See you at the party, cutie.”

Alone in the recovery room, Harper takes the time to go through her 3 levels. Six new high level spells get added to her book in total. Granted she took a 4th level spell (Private Sanctum for eventual set security purposes) instead of one of her up to 5th level picks, but Daphne did tell her not to worry about taking Legend Lore and she doesn’t want to hurt her beloved mermaid. The new bladesong feature is nice, but not particularly game changing. She grabs another maneuver, but she feels like the 4 she grabbed initially were the ones she really wants. She blanks out when she applied Level 11 for a second; when she comes to, a strange spell has been placed in her book. Then she takes Irresistible Dance on a lark.

Harper hears Daphne moaning even before she’s halfway up the stairs. She naturally hurries up. The sight is spectacular. Daphne appears to be sitting in a high school classroom desk with the seat modified to allow the passage of a very large dildo to piston in and out of her undersea cave. Parchment is rolling along he surface of the desk and Daphne is writing almost impossibly fast using her finger (ah, the tattoo). The faster she writes, the slower the paper and the pistoning dildo seem to go. Harper leans over her from behind and kisses her on the cheek.

“Gah! Don’t do that, Beloved. Can’t afford the distraction.” Emphasizing her statement, the dildo starts slamming into her very hard. Daphne moans again, then starts writing again. Harper stands back and watches the mermaid work. She may have teased herself a little at the sight. Ten minutes later, the desk slowly disappears and, once everything sinks to the ground, a half dozen or so spell scrolls lay by Daphne’s feet.

“Ooof. That was wild! Wow. I just did a couple of weeks worth of spell scribing in an hour. My not-cloaca is a little sore, but otherwise, wow. Let me put these up.” Daphne tries to get up, only for her legs to give out. Harper picks the scrolls up and puts them where her mermaid wants them. She then scoops Daphne in her arms (another advantage to Daphne’s size change: she is way lighter) and starts to carry her to the tavern, the mermaid gently kissing around the sea elf’s gills. Harper pauses at the door.

“Hey, are you ready to party? Worried the others will get jealous of this special treatment?” Daphne asks, almost halfway teasing.

“It’s been a day, Daph. Hopefully, they don’t go too crazy.”