Blue's Quests (Day 3)(2/8)

Stheno still had difficulty believing that the plates in front of her would cost her nothing.

For so long, her meals had consisted of what she could catch or grow for herself, and neither of those prospects had been particularly reliable. When Athena had leveled her curse upon Stheno and her sisters, it had lowered their standing with all of the gods. Few were willing to defy the goddess of wisdom, which included the goddesses of the hunt and the fields.

What prey Stheno had brought to the table had been sickly and weak, and what crops she grew were often blighted and brittle. Only the fact that she was immortal had prevented her starvation from consuming her, but that did nothing to stop the gnawing pangs of hunger.

And now, in front of her, was a feast. One which she had obtained simply by asking.

A bubbling laugh escaped Stheno’s throat, loud enough that it caught the attention of Kevin, Elsie, and Blue as the three made their way through the door of The Long Rest. The latter was the last of the trio to actually enter, but the first to join the gorgon at her table, as the harpy darted over with shocking alacrity, claimed a chair, and grabbed a bowl of yogurt without asking. “Morning.”

Stheno watched with amusement. She felt a certain kinship with the bird-woman, despite their appearances now differing so greatly. While the harpy had her sisters, her flock had chosen isolation over extinction. Blue had been born into it, while the gorgon and her sisters had once lived in civilization, but the zest for the experiences that this strange new land brought was endearingly familiar.

“Good morning, cousin.”

Blue’s mouth was already wrapped around a spoon as she shoved yogurt into her face, leaving Kevin to ask, “Cousin?” The question came out as he and Elsie claimed seats of their own at the table and flagged down one of the ever present barmaids to break their own fast.

Stheno nodded and turned to the man who was to be the means of her deliverance from her curse. He did not look like much—neither skinny nor fat, his frame showed little muscle, and his face was plain. Even his hair and eyes were unremarkable, with only the occasional gleam of cunning and defiance in the latter causing him to stand out from the faceless crowds of her youth.

“My father’s mother birthed the father of the mother of the harpies.” The explanation Stheno gave was brief, for she did not wish to aggrandize the names of the titans and gods who had stood by when their children rose up and cursed her, but the look on the favored one’s face spoke of more curiosity than she had expected.

“That would be—shit, it’s been too long since I’ve actually read this. Your father was one of the sea gods–”

“Phorkys.”

“–right, Phorkys, and his mother was Gaia, right?”

Stheno nodded silently, then found herself needing to work not to squirm under the awe-struck gaze of the human. “I—I know this probably isn’t the right way to approach this, but–”

The way Kevin glanced over at the slender Celtic spirit was new. The two had become closer somehow, and Stheno’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “–but honestly, meeting you is one of the most exciting things I can imagine. You’re–”

One of Stheno’s eyebrows raised, but the man was on a roll and didn’t seem to notice, “–well, honesty, I always felt like you and Euryale didn’t get nearly as much attention as you deserved. You’re, like, a perfect example of why the Greek gods were all bastards, but everyone focuses on their stupid Jerry Springer drama, and not the people they chew up and toss aside with all of their petty squabbles.”

“Kevin.” Elsie’s voice was quiet, but it was enough to pull the man from his speech in time to glance up and catch the pain on Stheno’s face before she could control it.

His expression fell. Stheno took only a moment to school her expression—the pain was still present, but had long faded, and while the mention of her sister’s name did call it back, it was a simple enough matter to put that grief back on its shelf as she had so many times before. “I am glad to find you here this morning, Dungeon Master.”

“You don’t have to call me that.”

“How would you be addressed instead?”

The question was intended as a courtesy, but it seemed to surprise the man more than she expected. A moment later, he tentatively offered, “Kevin? Is it alright if we just call each other by name?”

Stheno thought for a moment. “I am not—accustomed to such informality, but if it is desired of the Favored of Lily, I shall comply with your desires. Kevin–” The name felt odd in her mouth. Her tongue was again longer than usual, snakelike and ready to taste the air, and it spoke of the power of their hostess’ magic that the gorgon had found herself in full control of her body even as her form shifted like the waters of the sea from which her family sprang.

“–I have been given a quest which requires that I beseech your aid.” She pulled up her character sheet and extended her wrist that he might read it.

Quest: The Defiant (Part 1)(Weekly Quest)

Objective: Demonstrate your willingness to defy the heavens in pursuit of your goals (0/3)

Kevin nodded slowly as he read the words hovering in the air. “That’s—well, the class you were given was ‘Antipaladin’, so that’s not unexpected, I guess.” He paused briefly, then explained, “In most of the lore and stories of the games I ran, Antipaladins are powerful individuals who once served the gods faithfully. At some point, though, they lost their faith in the divinities they once served and turned against them. Rather than drawing power from gods, they twisted their bonds and drew power from spiting them. So—I guess this quest is basically just designed to make sure you’re willing to go through with it?”

Stheno’s tail flicked unconsciously as she hissed out, “Yes…”

“Well, no worries there.” Kevin took a deep breath, and looked over towards Elsie and Blue. The brownie—driven by her desire for new experiences—had already sampled about half of the dishes that Stheno had ordered for herself, though she had rarely taken more than a bite or two from any.

The harpy was digging rapidly into a small bowl of some kind of brightly colored cereal dish that Stheno didn’t recognize. Something in Kevin’s expression caught her attention, though, and she asked curiously, “Why do you hesitate? Are you not willing to choose Lily’s favor over that of the gods that you yourself just called bastards?”

Kevin exhaled sharply through his nose, then offered up a faint smile. “I’m not sure that I have any choice, there, given the class she gave me. It’s more that I’m a little worried about what other consequences are going to come out of it. The thing is—when I was designing this land, I didn’t want to use the made up deities that were the ‘default’ for the game I was running at the time. I wanted something with some teeth, who wouldn’t just stand passively by while the players were running around doing something. Plus, if I used a pantheon that my players were already familiar with, they wouldn’t have to learn as many new names, so–”

“–you used the Greek pantheon, didn’t you?” The question came from Elsie after she swallowed her mouthful of cereal.

Kevin nodded. “I didn’t see any harm in it, at the time. I mean, I’d just finished reading about all of them, and it sounded cool and exciting, but that means that this place probably has actual temples to Poseidon and Athena around. Hell, if Lily did a good job of transferring my map, I could probably walk to the temple of Athena in about five minutes.”

“Take me there.” Stheno’s eyes fixed on Kevin’s face as the words hissed out.

He shrank back from her suddenly intense gaze, and stammered, “Are—are you sure that’s a good idea? The priestesses there–”

“Kevin. Remember the plan.” Stheno’s eyes flicked over to Elsie as the woman interrupted the Dungeon Master. She seemed shy—meek, even, befitting a lesser spirit—but the willingness she showed to take action was not something to be disregarded.

In this case, however, it appeared that Elsie and Stheno’s goals were aligned. Kevin stopped talking, glanced back and forth between the two women, then finally met Stheno’s gaze.

It had been a very, very long time since any man had done that. Stheno felt herself stir inside in a way she thought had died long ago.

“She’s right. Stheno, I want to help you with your quest. If that means we have to start trouble with the priests here, I’d rather be on your side of that conflict than theirs.”

The smile that overtook the gorgon’s mouth was not warm, but none at the table could deny that it was genuine when she fervently agreed, “Yesss. We will take Lily’s power and use it to spit in the faces of the gods.”

“Speaking of Lily, where is she?” Elsie’s question startled Kevin out of the faint concern that had started to build at Stheno’s fervor.

“I don’t know, actually—I haven’t seen her since she vanished under my bed the first day.” A shiver ran down Kevin’s spine at the thought. “Why?”

Elsie gestured at Blue. “I want some clarifications on her quests. Looking at them, there’s no timer showing or anything, but it’s not like most TTRPGs include those—that’s more of a video game trope, so there’s every chance that if she dawdles, even though it doesn’t say she’ll fail them, the people who gave the quests will count it as a failure anyway.”

Stheno chimed in, “The owner of the small building with the large basement seemed somewhat apathetic about his place of business being infested by vermin.”

“Yeah, but that’s no guarantee there isn’t some kind of hidden timer.”

A barmaid slid another coffee in front of Kevin, then leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Some quests have consequences for dallying too long. If you’re asked to rescue a maiden from bandits and leave her there for several days…”

The voice sent another shiver down Kevin’s spine that was equal parts lust and shock. The former because it was a deeply throaty, husky thing that caused all the hairs on his arms to stand on end when the barmaid’s lips brushed his ear, the latter because he recognized it instantly.

“Lily?” Kevin turned his head, only to find the succubus hostess of the show bent over so that his face was practically buried in her substantial breasts as soon as he did so.

She let out a pleased sound, but straightened before he had time to do more than realize what she’d set him up to do. The hostess was wearing a different outfit once more—this one a nearly pornographic parody of the peasant blouse and skirts that most of the women serving food and drinks in The Long Rest wore while they worked. In Lily’s case, the shirt featured a square neckline that only narrowly avoided exposing her nipples, while the skirt was short enough that the patrons behind her were probably given quite the show when she bent over to whisper to Kevin.

“Where have you been?”

Lily’s seductive expression slid into a gentle smile as she swept her gaze across the four party members at the table. Where Kevin and Elsie regarded her with no small amount of suspicion, Stheno’s eyes widened and she perked up visibly.

Blue used the opportunity to snag the small bowl of fruit the gorgon had been working on and popped a date in her mouth.

“It takes a lot of work to run a city this large, especially with so many unusual things happening. Why, did you know that just last night, I heard that the thieves’ guild leader was assassinated in a power play by the–”

“Hey! No giving quests right now!” Kevin frantically tried to interrupt Lily before she could complete the sentence.

She pouted. “I’m just spreading rumors like a good barmaid. You’ve barely asked them anything at all. But if you don’t want me to spread that, perhaps–”

“Are Blue’s quests going to expire?”

The succubus shrugged. “Depends on the quest. This is a dynamic and living world. People will be happier if you complete a quest quickly and well than if you do a shoddy job of it. For example, if you’re mouthy to a woman who offered to pay you to pick a bunch of berries, maybe you find out that the pie she gave as a reward has some hidden effects that you didn’t anticipate.”

Kevin groaned. “Ugh. How are we supposed to do all of them?”

“Why–” Lily’s smile brightened once more, “–as a party, of course. I’m not going to **** you to all spend time together, but your skills do all complement each other. Perhaps you can take advantage of this opportunity as a party leader to really bind everyone together tightly.”

The way she rolled the last few words together suggested ropes and chains more than friendship and trust, but Kevin nodded slowly. “You’re right. I was just going to go help Stheno, but there’s no reason we can’t do both.”

He looked around the table. “Stheno, I would love to assist you with your quest. Let’s see if we can perform that while we’re helping Blue with some of hers. Elsie, Hwa mentioned that she was going to try to find Tess. Can you see if you can locate either of them? We’ll see if we can enlist their help. Blue, I can find Hazel if I need to. If I do, are you willing to fly to her and ask her to help as well?”

“I can do that.” The harpy’s answer was given around a mouthful of fig, and she quickly swallowed before adding, “This is fun.”

“Less squabbling than your flock?” Elsie’s asked curiously. The harpy had mentioned them a few times, and the impression that the brownie had of the rest of the harpies was not bright.

“Much. As long as Hwa isn’t here.” Blue’s sudden grin at Elsie brought a laugh to the English woman’s lips and a smile to Kevin’s. He rose from his chair and spun as he looked for Lily, only to find her missing.

A quick scan of the room revealed only the usual barmaids who had served him breakfast, and when he turned back to the rest of his party, he found all three likewise searching the room for her. After a moment they gave up, and Kevin declared, “Alright—I guess let’s do this. I’m heading back to my room to find Hazel, let’s meet here in half an hour.”

“Sure.” “Certainly.” “Yes, sir.”

Hazel knelt down and stretched out a hand to caress the vines wrapped tightly around the young elf woman’s body. The creature was skinny to the point of being nearly emaciated, a fact highlighted by the way the tattered rags she wore as clothes fell to the side to expose most of her torso.

“So you’re the one who was stealing the crops from the farmer, interesting.”

“Please don’t hurt me.” Fear in the elf’s voice was met by laughter from the dryad.

“Hurt you? Why would I do that?”

The woman squirmed in the vines that bound her. The plants were gradually sliding her along the ground, carefully lifting the elf up to avoid scratching her skin as they pulled her elbows back together behind her. She found herself suspended in the air a moment later, **** to thrust out her chest as though offering it up by the way her arms were tied behind her back by the vines.

“Oh, that? That’s Thistle. Don’t worry, she won’t sting you or anything, I just asked her to stop you from running away.” Hazel reached out to the vines and attempted to calm them, but they were stirred up after the young woman nearly escaped them, and seemed determined to hold her still.

The fact that by doing so the vines were posing her as though she was in a plant-themed Shibari photo-shoot wasn’t exactly what the nymph had intended, but it seemed to be getting the job done. “She’ll let you down in a moment, once she works it out of her system. In the mean time, try to relax and just go with it. My point is that the quest farmer Dickson offered me only required me to find you, and capture you. It didn’t say anything about hurting you, or even turning you over to the guy, so as soon as Thistle’s done, you’re free to go.”

“Go where?” The young woman’s voice was slightly strained by the position she’d been stretched into, but as her eyelids fluttered closed, it became apparent that binding her was not all the plant was doing. The vines that twined their way between the woman’s thighs were rustling back and forth in a way that was distracting enough that it stood out more than the strain on her shoulders.

“Thistle. Stop that!” Hazel’s voice snapped out a little more sharply than usual, and the plant began to slowly subside. “I mean, anywhere is better than this. You don’t exactly look like you’re cut out to survive in the forest.”

“You could teach me!”

Kevin gasped as he came back to himself.

After watching the young elf woman get bound up and put on display he felt somehow dirty—as though he’d been peeping on something illicitly, even though his intent had simply been to locate the nymph druid.

He was pretty sure he knew where she was, based on the quest Hazel had described, though in his own version of events it was usually a young boy stealing from the fields, not a barely-legal elven waif.

As he turned and walked back across his chambers towards the portal that would lead him back to the streets of the city, he did his best to will away the erection the sight had given him.

“I do not want to take advantage of impoverished young girls, Lily.”

“Then don’t. Help them, if you’re worried about her. You’re an adventurer. I want you to guide your party where your heart desires.” Lily’s voice, as it so often did, came from behind Kevin.

He’d made it halfway across the room before making his offhand remark, but he hadn’t expected her to actually respond to it. Lily hadn’t shown herself in his chambers since the first time she’d brought him here, so to have her suddenly be leaning seductively against his bed when he casually called her out was more than a little disconcerting.

The fact that she was eying him like he was a piece of meat did nothing to help. “If what you want to do is help those young women, then help those young women. The quests your party have been given are all designed so that you can accomplish them as you go about your adventures. If what you want to do is spend your time establishing a school system for orphans, I want to do it. Follow your heart, have grand adventures, and reap the rewards.”

“But—at the cost of how many people’s free will?” Kevin shook his head. “How am I supposed to accept that?”

Lily smiled. “Look at it this way. That part has already happened. It’s outside of your control. Always has been.”

The succubus practically purred as she took a deep breath. She was still wearing the incredibly low-cut peasant blouse she’d had on in The Long Rest, and stopped only moments before Kevin was sure her tits were going to completely spill out of it. “Mmm. I heard what you and Elsie were talking about, and I absolutely loved it. She’s got exactly the right attitude. It’s already going to happen, you know that as well as I do by now.”

The seductive voice was made all the more disconcerting when she added, “You might as well choose to embrace what’s going on and enjoy it, because the alternative is a whole lot less fun and a whole lot more grim. It also makes for worse television, so I think that this is win, win, win.”

Kevin stared at the woman. For all that she’d been acting as though she had his genuine best interests at heart, she had also made it perfectly clear that this was meant to be entertainment, for her unseen audience. When Lily mentioned the success of the show, though, it undercut her message.

“You don’t have to make it be like this. I’m—look, I’m sure the party and I will get on great, and find a way to form an unshakable bond as a party, or whatever. Clearly there’s going to be a lot of sex along the way—if you were watching me and Elsie, then you already know how she feels. I’m—I’m okay with that, and I’m not going to say no if some of the others express interest. I want us to all work together, and–”

Kevin stopped talking, gathered his thoughts, and suddenly blurted out, “You don’t have to make literally everything sexual. Like, I ran a session of Sexy Battle Wizards that was less sexed up than this, and that’s a game where one of the three kinds of checks you can make is ‘Sexy’. You don’t have to wave barely legal elf redheads in something that was about thirty seconds away from turning into tentacle porn in my face.”

Lily arched an eyebrow at him. “So you aren’t opposed to sleeping with all seven women, then?”

“I–” Kevin felt slightly caught out by her words. “–I mean, they’re gorgeous. And incredible, obviously. And what you did for Stheno—if you can help her out, help lift the curse she’s been under–”

“That’s up to you, Kevin. Help Stheno, and I’m sure as you adventure together you’ll find a way to put her past unhappiness behind her. If that’s what you and she want, of course. But you didn’t actually answer the question.”

Lily gave Kevin a surprisingly direct look, temporarily dropping the sultry seductress act for long enough to confirm, “If all seven of those women agreed to share you, you’d do it?”

“That doesn’t mean I want you to twist them until they do!”

“I already told you—that part is out of your hands. This is going to be a good show, one way or another—this is not a situation where you don’t answer the call of the adventurer. The call came and got you where you lived, Kevin, and the more of a handle you take on it, the better control you’ll have over what kinds of adventures you have.”

The succubus slipped back into the shadows once more, only for her voice to emerge from all around the room for a moment, “You’re going to have them, Kevin. You might as well enjoy them.”

He wasn’t sure whether she meant the adventures, or his seven party members, but the dark edge to her tone sounded almost threatening despite her encouraging words.