Daphne Keeps On Working the MM Grind (And Broadsides Airika to Help)

Daphne

Once again, Daphne has some free time from her work on the set and once again she has her M.G.R.O.M.M. Membership badge lanyard on (and only her lanyard). She wants Gina’s approval and she hasn’t noticed her smut review work yet. Maybe if I review a story she liked she’ll apologize and praise me?

So, she enters Airika’s Dirty Secret with the printouts in her inventory. The foghorn goes off and Airika divebombs down into position, yelling, “Avast, me hearties! It is I, Airika, siren extraordinaire, former dread pirate queen and current admiral of Nimlith Grove, at yer service. Now, what kind of booty can I offer ye to cover yer booty?” The siren, in her sleeveless pirate kit, waggles her eyebrow feathers, then notices Daphne standing there.

“Oh, hey, Daph. Guess I don’t need to lay on the fake accent thick. What can I do for you? Cunnilingus? Fingering? Tail feather job?”

Daphne giggles at her Beloved’s bratty birdie, answering, “Maybe later. First, it’s time to review!”

The siren puts an arm on her hip, “And what makes you think I’d want to participate in your daft plan to impress some whelp gooner?”

“Our story this time is about pirates! We’re reading Well, At Least I’m a Magic Pirate Now by someone named Jerynboe.”

The siren sighs. “Fine. I suppose you need my expertise. You’re paying for the grog?”

“Sure. Review time over grog it is.”

“Teleport us to The Sultry Siren?”

“Sure. Hold on!”

Daphne glomps onto the bratty birdie and, one cast of Teleport later, the duo find themselves in the dockside bar. A number of sirens run this bar, wearing branded thong bikini bottoms, cut such that their parrot-like tail feathers jut above the waistband, and nothing else. Daphne drools over the exposed egg sacs. To be fair, so does Airika. The proprietor of the bar saunters over, hips rolling to shake those tail feathers, and takes their orders. It helps to be known consorts of the queen. Soon enough, two grogs, a pitcher of refreshingly cool seawater, and a pitcher of cool but not salty enough regular water for Airika are on the table and the two start to read.

READING IN PROGRESS (BGM)

“Several big formatting complaints, right off the bat,” Daphne starts, “One, Jerry doesn’t seem to know how to embed images onto the website. We just see links to this website called Patreon? Second, the character sheet isn’t visible on the site. Again, just a link to that Patreon website.”

Airika takes a swig of her grog, “Aye, aye, Daphne of the sexy chompers. And, since you, in your infinite wisdom, decided to have us read printouts of the website instead of, you know, have us check out the website, we can’t see what these links lead to.”

Daphne beams at the dental compliment. I do have sexy teeth! Her shark-like smile gleams as she continues, “Third, and most egregiously, there are dice rolls, with results written out in the text, without explaining what the dice rolls are and how they work. As I come to find out from our show-runner, it did present the vast majority of our dice rolls, but as Behind the Scenes side things. The rules of the dice that rule over our lives were also explained thoroughly to the reader. So, why does a 6 count as a success for main character (who doesn’t have a name in Chapter One) to figure out darkvision but a 7 counts as a failure for a climb check? Either give me a way to understand the dice rolls or leave them out.”

“Aren’t you our Dungeon Mermaid? Shouldn’t you understand the numbers?”

“Different systems use different dice roll rules. Chapter One mentions this game called D&D? I don’t know how it compares to Dungeons of Delving.”

Airika shrugs, taking another swig, “Fair enough, I guess.”

“Anyways, main character seems to have been kidnapped by pirates, fails at becoming a rigger, and bullshit’s his way into being the cook’s assistant.”

“Hey, Fish, guess what happens in Chapter Two?”

Daphne takes a sip of her grog as she thinks. Cinnamony, limey, rum water. Needs a lot more salt. She offers, “Our main character gets a name?”

“Aye, it’s Emrys and he’s a drow dude. Apparently a pretty boy, as if that is a thing? But the main thing is that Jerry starts adding more dice roll details.”

“Boo for Emrys not being a pretty girl! Hooray for Jerry learning that dice roll lesson so soon!”

The former pirate signals for a grog refill. She then adds, “He’s also a guy named Curtis? Anyways, he does kitchen stuff. And underestimates the dreaded canvas needles. Sewing sails is not easy work.”

“Emrys takes time to read his character sheet and game manual embedded in his head. Some of those spells are interesting. Having Ray of Frost deal 1d3 damage is dumb, at least in my understanding of health scaling. Maybe their system uses our original health scaling, which was dangerously low? Maybe their system uses modifiers to add additional damage to make the dice damage irrelevant? That Level 1 spell that lets a target stand guard while getting all the benefits of a long rest is super powerful! He doesn’t understand the power of Faerie Fire, though. Dummy.”

Airika rolls her eyes at the numbers nonsense, wanting to move on, “Also, a guy named Jakes stole some stuff, and Emrys got a quest to save his life. He also serves breakfast with cook boss and it’s Ms. Prim ‘n’ Proper’s favorite: hardtack! Jerry describes how awful hardtack is very well. Then, he notices a rash on Jakes’s arm when he offered the hot-boxed thief some water. While having a lazy work day (boss got drunk over breakfast), Emrys tries to make friends with water breaks and cooked pig’s feet. Emrys eventually gets one of his fellow captives, an alchemist named Syl, to help Jakes; he uses his party recruitment power on her. He catches a big fish the next day and starts working on seducing the sexy water magic lady Sandara.”

“She turns out to be both a cleric to a pirate goddess AND caught onto Emrys using charm person. He finagles his way out of the problem. Then, they start prepping a hog lob hustle to complete a different mission, this time with Syl. Man, it is taking a while before we are getting to anything sexy. Is this story just going to be ‘read the adventures of some goober coning his way through the day-to-day life of a pirate?’ And where are the sexy mermaids?”

Airika shrugs, downing a good mouthful of her refilled grog, “He starts planning on dealing the **** from his personal effects. And plans to bone Syl on the regular as a commission?”

“In the meantime, they get back to port. Emrys forms a party to go lobstering, completing a mission to bring back a lobster aberration thing. An actual adventure, in Chapter 14.”

“And an actual sex scene a bit later on. Emrys and Syl hook up. He got the usual evil male drow femdom sex training, so it went well.”

“Then, he gets a promotion for the lobstering expedition. Huzzah! He assembles a strike team, with a couple of hotties, a red shirt, and Owlbear. They go to practice the next morning and one of the bad guy officers kills Sandara.”

“The fuck! That deserves a keelhaulin’!”

“What’s a keelhaulin, Airika?”

“Traditionally, you tie a rope around the miscreant, line everybody up to the prowl, push the scalawag over the stern, and everyone pulls to drag the bastard along the underside of the ship. Sometimes, it’s not fatal!”

The mermaid smiles, “Well, that wouldn’t work on me! I can breathe underwater.”

“Oh, they don’t die from drowning. They die from barnacle cuts.”

The mermaid takes another sip of grog. “Oh.”

“Let’s see how Jerry handles it. Also, fuck you Jerry. Sandara was the only good character in the story so far.”

“Looks like they are going to go the resurrection route.”

Airika gets annoyed by the bad guy pirate looking like he’s getting off light for Sandara ****, “BOO, Jerry! Give me my keelhaulin’ scene, you coward!”

“Well, they get to town and look for a resurrection source. We meet new best girl Rowe, then a cranky necromancer. Emrys offers an elevator pitch to get cranky necromancer to maybe be an investor, then Sandara is brought back to life.”

“And still no keelhaulin’! Don’t taunt me with a promise of a briny sea dog getting his comeuppance and not deliver!”

Daphne nods, “Anyways, Emrys decides to play the wizard next and goes to the MILF ship’s mage for an apprenticeship. Silly sorcerer, the magic is inside you. You are going to look so silly acting like you can learn magic.”

“Is this some arcane pissing contest, Teeth?”

The mermaid nods again. She’s most of the way through the grog, so she pours some chilled seawater in the glass.

“Alright then. Continue.”

“So, Emrys enchants the coat in a silly and inefficient manner. Then, a ship!”

“Alright! 30 something chapters in and finally time for some actual piratin’!”

“Sorry, Airika, but you gotta wait longer. The ship noticed them and is fleeing. They’ll catch up to it in a few chapters. In the meanwhile, Emrys summons a fun friend, a ‘voidworm’ from a chaos plane, to go harass the opposing ship. Good luck, little buddy!”

“They get there and time for piratin’, finally. Emrys and the gang are ordered to secure the lifeboats, cutting off their escape. They do a good job, surprisingly.”

Daphne notes, “Something is screwy about Emrys’ magic. He casts two concentration spells simultaneously and able to keep both up? And Darkness is lasting way longer than it should.”

“The ship seized, Caulky gets a promotion to First Mate of the new ship and Emrys gets to be Quartermaster. Emrys makes pals with a fey girl via summoning and seduces Caulky. New captain sends a fiend lion to kill Emrys, but the guy survives. Then new captain frames him for it, punishes him a bunch, and probably poisons his budding relationship with Caulky. Total sea cur. A real pirate would run him through.”

“A storm hits during Emrys’s punishment, and he is up in the crow’s nest. He plays telephone between a celestial cat and an air elemental. They fight squid goblins, he almost dies, again, and the ship hits a reef. They end up stuck repairing the ship on the island Emrys’s mission log kept bugging him about. Emrys and party are sent out to rescue some folks dragged overboard by the squid goblins. During an encounter with ghouls, they meet Sosima, a ghoul girl Emrys is supposed to rescue for a mission. Sosima has a general idea of where the gobbos are, so, after fun voidworm confirmation, they head that way. Emrys makes a pact with a summoned demon and off they go! The resulting fight is a comedy of errors that always come from a nascent party picking a fight too big for it: Rosie loses an arm, Sosima loses her earrings (revealing her ghoulishness), a very fat goblin blocks a passageway.”

Airika considers getting a third grog, but picks up the plot talk as Daphne takes another drink, “Emrys then gets another long sex scene with Sosima, temporarily made human. He uses some magic items on her to win her loyalty. Then, the gang finds an old coot, Sosima does some magic whatsit to ensure she won’t turn back to a ghoul, and Emrys use an air elemental to ferry people over the forest back to the ship. The siege is a fun read. Emrys challenges the captain to a duel, cheating soooo much, and wins. Finally, some mission clean-up and some sex scenes. And Book One is done.”

Airika does get a third grog ordered, then starts a more general critique, “Some general notes, now that we hit a stopping point. Pacing is a big issue here. I get that the life of a pirate is ship doldrums punctuated with moments of raiding excitement, but this story just draaaaaaags before the actual ship raid.”

Daphne agrees, “Really, the story doesn’t get good until the ship hits the reef. Once on the island, the adventure starts to feel like an adventure and not a boring slice-of-life tale of a low ranking sailor.”

The siren notes, “Also in pacing complaints, Emrys seems to pick up and drop things way too quickly. He doesn’t seem to follow through very much. For example, he tries for the wizard training thing, just to basically drop it after enchanting that coat. Same thing happens with the hog lob scam and the **** dealing scam. Show some commitment, man.”

“Also, for a harem assembly smut story, there does not seem to be much harem assembly. Or smut. I think there was four even remotely memorable sex scenes, and two of them were post zombie siege. As far as we can tell, there is also only three girls that could be classified in the harem proper: Syl, Sandara, and Sosima. Sure, there are others around, like Rowe, Dierdre the fae, Yael the shae, and Caulky, but they don’t seem in the club.”

“Funny demand, Jerry: make all the harem girls names’ start with ‘S!’”

“What did you think of Curtis actions being formatted normally and native Emrys actions being underlined?”

“I kind of wish native Emrys got the whole proper formatting treatment. You know, italics for his thoughts and whatnot. It took a bit to realize that the underlining was not random. Maybe it was an established formatting concept from elsewhere?” After a pause, Airika asks, “I know this isn’t a Harem Hotel season, but best girl, worst girl?”

Daphne answers, “Best girl, Rowe! She’s fun and has the best teeth. Worst girl, Emrys. He’s not even a girl. Also, his mechanical and tactical incompetence is annoying.”

Airika muses, “Best girl, Sandara. She’s basically me without the plumage and that’s a compliment; she’d look better with the plumage, though. Worst girl, Syl. She’s kinda just there? She doesn’t really have much of a personality to get attached to.”

“So, what did you think? Will Gina think I’m an insightful, sexy mermaid?”

“I don’t get why you are trying to impress some gooner girl, Daph,” Airika answers, finishing her third glass of grog, “She’s some bully nerd **** of another bully nerd. There are plenty of people that think you’re cool.”

“You mean that, Airika?”

“Of course I do. I’ll mean it more if you invite me to share our Cap’n on your next night with her.” Airika bats her eyes to help seal the deal.

Daphne moves over to sit in Airika’s lap. “We could come to some sort of arrangement.”

Daphne starts to lightly nibble and kiss on her Beloved’s bratty birdie. And, once again, Daphne stops her transcript before it gets to the good stuff.