Dungeons and Dames

Given how much time had been eaten up by Rose’s failed bet, Gil didn’t waste any more by shopping around. He’d hired Gary for one purpose and one purpose alone: to know things Gil wasn’t allowed to. In this case, that meant letting him pick out one of the tier 2s in the hope that he’d be able to identify a major character. Even a minor named character would sell for more than a background NPC.

“So this is like… a one off hireling?” Gary asked once he was standing, “You’re gonna get rid of them right after the adventure?”

“Yes?” Gil asked.

“Alright. Then this guy.” He said, pointing at a name. “He’s an asshole.”

“Ok. Keep looking. I’d like to have a list ready for next time we come here.”

Not wanting to lose momentum, Gil purchased Farley Havelock (Dishonored) just as Gary suggested. For good measure, Gil went ahead and sold the two dead hollows from Lillabeth. He briefly considered using them as blank templates for character cards, but thought better of it.

Who knew what effect these cards might have on nearly mindless killer zombie pilgrims? Best case was some kind of murderous stepford wife situation. He didn’t need to experiment… yet. Not until he had a few more cards to play with and a bit more time to chew on the possibilities.

The results from the hollows were mixed but definitely a net positive. One was a high roll, giving him a single credit that brought him back up to two. The other was a pile of large rocks the size of his palm that glowed and shimmered hypnotically, apparently called “prism stones.” Lillabeth confirmed that they were common in her current world, mostly used as markers for paths.

They were pretty, and they produced dim and shifting light about as strong as a candle. If Gil had all the time in the world, he might even go out and find buyers… instead he decided to go with a much more prosaic option. He went to the Item ziggurat and bought Nessa a spear and shield with them. Nothing too fancy, but they were her weapons of choice. It seemed wiser to properly arm her, instead of expecting her to always fight with her bare claws.

“Quick, give me another tier two.” Gil said, walking up to Gary again. He didn’t bother with niceties; he needed every minute of he was going to do anything of value next week.

“Uh…” Gary said, “this guy. Prince Eric. I don’t know how good he actually is at fighting, but he rammed a boat into a giant fat chick so he’s at least that badass.”

Rose suddenly gasped and held up a hand, interrupting Gil before he could grab the handsome young prince.

“No, Gil.” She said. “I have another idea.”

Gil looked up, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh?” He asked.

“Buy a tier one.” She said. “Any tier one. Doesn’t matter which, but bring them here.”

Gil shrugged and complied. He didn’t want to discourage her, and she was hardly stupid. Just inexperienced. He opened his tablet, randomly tapped the name “Nazeem,” and a dark skinned man in vaguely medieval robes popped into existence next to him. Rose fell into Gary’s arms, where he promptly dropped her in surprise.

“Is this the cloud district- AGH!”

Nazeem screamed in pain as his bones and muscles reconfigured in a grotesque display. His robes writhed and shifted as mass redistributed beneath his skin. Facial features sharpened and softened with sickening speed, his cries growing higher pitched with every moment. He reached between his legs as if he’d been kicked in the testicles, groaning in agony, and his chest erupted into two respectable breasts.

By the time Rose woke up, not only was Gary trying to pick her up and pretend he’d caught her on the first try, they’d also managed to draw the eyes of several testers. A few even clapped. Nazeem was now, unquestionably, a lovely young woman. Gil did note that she had a sword strapped to her leg, but given that Nazeem didn’t have the combatant tag it had probably just been for intimidation.

“Will that do?” Rose asked, gasping for breath herself. “For Vanessa, I mean.”

“Rose, you’re a genius.” Gil said, “Yes, she’ll do nicely. Important question before you try something like that again: are you up for it? Don’t you need to go right back to work after this?”

“Oh.” Rose said, slowly bringing her breaths under control. “Right… damnation. Should have… tried that earlier…”

After confirming that Nazeem was indeed fully female now according to both cursory inspection and system tags, Gil made one last swap with Vanessa and went home with three Shinra soldiers and Farley, who was apparently an admiral from some place called Dunwall. He was a big name with the combatant tag, and that was enough for now. Gil even had one credit left over, just in case he needed it later.

••••••••••

Nobody except for Gary and Nessa were surprised when Gil returned to the skyblock with four new soldiers and some new kit in tow. Knowing that they’d start asking uncomfortable questions if he gave them a chance, Gil wheeled on Farley and the grunts immediately.

“Alright men, welcome to the force.” He said, affecting a military stance. “You all have been brought in on a special assignment. You’ll be working with me for one, maybe two missions, and then you will be reassigned.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. These guys would most likely be recycled by the company pretty quickly after he sold them, hopefully into more prominent roles. It was extremely likely that Farley had been sitting in the Bazaar for a while, mixed in among the other faceless goons, and any soldier working for Vanessa would get the same treatment Gary had at best. Some might be into that, but they’d also be instantly and completely discarded whenever she grew bored of them or managed to get her entire worldview hijacked by some protagonist type.

“Excuse me, sir,” Farley said, stepping forward. “Are we to simply take all of this on faith?”

Farley had been an admiral, and he looked the part of the old soldier with a scarred face and dress that had that unique combination of ornate and practical one saw in old military uniforms. He had a stiff back and a measured, reasonable sort of voice.

He might not have been in their chain of command, but the three SHINRA soldiers clustered behind him as an island of familiarity. Faceless goons tended to do that, unfortunately. If it hadn’t been Farley, they might have clustered around Nessa or Keilnei. They’d have only elected one of their own as representative if they’d been given no other choice. That meant they’d follow his lead.

“Of course, you may go back to the Bazaar.” Gil said. “I don’t know when you’ll be given the chance to try for freedom again, but if you do well in this operation then I promise to put in a good word for you. Hopefully you’ll get a better assignment. Frankly, you lot have been dealt a bad hand.”

The implied threat pacified Farley, at least for the moment. For all Gil knew he was planning a betrayal already, but he doubted an admiral would suffer from the kind of poor impulse control that would have him make his move within the few hours Gil planned to keep him around.

“Alright you lot,” Gil said, rubbing his hands together. “Keilnei here is going to go through your equipment, anything you have on you that might be useful in a fight or might be considered armor. If you need anything else, such as weapons, you will be issued equipment from our stock.”

Of the people present, Keilnei was easily Gil’s most trusted independent agent. She could be a bit idealistic, Candress had given him a proper earful about that, but she wasn’t stupid and she had plenty of experience. The only partial backfire he’d run into so far sending Keilnei out as his designated body swapper was when she’d broken Squealer’s nose and escalated that fight. Even there, they’d largely come out ahead on that deal. She could manage orientation.

Gary, on the other hand, was staring with wide eyed wonder at the strange environment he’d been summoned to. There were now enough extensions building out the Skyblock that its status as an island in the sky might not even be the first thing he noticed. It was possible he was instead staring at the strange checkerboard of brick, marble, grass, and concrete that each extension brought to the skyblock.

“Holy shit.” He whispered, “She is hot.”

It’s at this point that Gil paid enough attention to realize that Gary was actually staring at Nessa. The curvy Nordic Valkyrie had been hovering near Gil while he established command, and once he seemed free, she stepped in to press against his side.

“You said we’d be fighting after you got back? I’ve been looking forward to it.” Nessa purred, then quickly added. “To help that poor girl, of course.”

As it turned out, pretending to have an entirely different personality was tiring, even when convinced that the fake personality was real. She’d started doing that after only a few days, saying something nakedly bloodthirsty or psychotic and then tacking on something that sounded good at the end. Gil wasn’t sure if this was Nessa’s real personality peeking through, or what she believed all liberals were actually like under the posturing. Possibly both.

“Yeah, but we need to get everyone ready.” Gil said, turning to face Gary. “That includes you.”

“Uh…” Gary said, suddenly nervous. “I thought you said you couldn’t afford the thing with Luster. I’ve never been in a real fight… other than with that fucker Chibi-Chan.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Gil said, shifting his tablet to the hand wrapped around Nessa’s waist, “I’ve got something else almost as good lined up.”

“Uh…” Gary said, “Can we talk about something first?”

Gil looked over at the armory, where Keilnei’s group hadn’t even entered yet.

“Sure.” He said. “What is it?”

“One on one, I mean.” Gary answered. “Man to man.”

Gil rolled his eyes and patted Nessa on the ass.

“Go check to see if Snow is done brewing the tea, and set up this thing so the solar panel is pointed upwards.” He turned back to Gary and walked towards the tree of life. “Alright, stop dragging it out.”

“Aren’t you, like… married?” Gary hissed. “Does she know about…”

Gil laughed, cutting him off.

“I have multiple wives, though it’s only completely official with Rose.” Gil explained. “And I’m not exclusive with any of them.”

“So if I were to ask that chick in blue if she wanted to, you know..?”

Gil smirked impishly, he bent down over the storage chest and pulled out a character card with a silver border he’d only seen on the Azula card before this one.

“She’d probably find it rude and a bit crude.” Gil said. “Your chances with Rose might be better, honestly. She’s a bit hornier on average. I’m sure you’ll get your chance with someone if you stick around here long enough.”

“She didn’t really seem interested when I tried.” Gary said, a note of embarrassment in his voice. “That’s how I found out she was married to you. I guess she was just being polite.”

“Maybe she’ll warm up to you.” Gil said, “Feel free to try again next time you see her. She might be more interested, then.”

Gil tapped the “Iosefka?” card to his screen, and the nerd standing before him burst into shimmering blue-white light, almost too bright to look directly at.

Gil hadn’t looked too closely at the “Iosefka?” card, but he’d checked the highlights. Based on who she’d been associated with through her sale, Ephraim Waite, the top tags of “evil,” “mage,” and “false identity” had not shocked him in the slightest. She’d had combatant buried somewhere in the second page, below stuff like scientist and insane that were presumably more core to her identity. No doctor or healer tag, though, which was probably not a good sign for an individual from an organization called “the healing church.”

He had scanned through her highlights, and decided almost immediately that she had enough gas in the tank that he didn’t want to disassemble her for parts. He’d briefly considered using the card on himself or Nessa, given that her current skillset was extremely reliant on having a ton of space to work with, but decided that if he was going to keep Gary around he might as well give him the tools to make himself useful. Why make a lateral move if he could just have another body in the field?

After an alarmingly short period of time, the light faded. Gil looked back and Gary had been replaced with a tall woman in white, with blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail. She was examining her own body, including slightly more attention than necessary for her chest.

“Wait, where did my hoodie go?” Garri asked. “Also. Shoes?”

Thankfully, that was easy enough to fix. The sweatshirt was shoved into the storage chest, wrapped around a strange looking sword cane. It was a little bit baggy on her now, but still fit well enough to throw on over the robes she had been supplied with. His old shoes, however, would need to be replaced.

The Armory had the blueprints for gladiator style sandals, enchanted much like the crowns for slightly greater protection. Gil and Garri slipped in after Keilnei’s group was finished arming up, uploaded the blueprint for the Threaded Cane, and grabbed everything else they needed. Garri looked a bit odd by the end, with the four newly kitted out soldiers staring at her with open confusion, but affirmed that she was ready to go to war.

“Alright everyone. Form up! I need you to all get a good look at everyone else.”

Gil brought out all of his Sphered retinue members. Blackpaw and Boulder got some very concerned looks from the poor Shinra grunts, but Boco didn’t faze them at all.

Silky instantly shot down Garri on the grounds that she no longer had a penis. This was the first time Garri questioned being turned into a woman. Not even strictly the loss of the penis; she just realized that many girls are neither bisexuals or lesbians.

Once everyone was familiar enough with each other to reduce the chances of a friendly fire incident, Gil strode right up to the dungeon arch and activated the portal.

On the other side, he saw a cliff face with the dungeon floor’s challenge etched into the surface.

Reach the Genesis tree on Mount Rikuroa. Bonus if the wolf gets there safely.

Reward: 15 dungeon credits, Body tune up applied to Noa

Bonus: Failed

Gil blinked, looked around, men met the gaze of a few dozen goblins just like the ones he’d bought from Onyxia. They were sitting around a fire, where they were merrily spit roasting a wolf.

“Well that’s some bullshit.” Gil muttered, then dove out of the way before the goblins could start throwing spears at the portals.