Trouble With Horns

We made pretty good time through the city after we’d killed the boss, at least for five or so minutes. It was strange, suddenly there was not an enemy in sight, and yet I couldn’t help but feel a tension in the air. Was it just the way my stomach was harbouring a simmering internal dread? The mist itself was acting strangely as well, it seemed to be pulling back, hiding in the corners and any other dark places it could find.

It was due to the mist retreating that we were able to get a glimpse of the ocean ahead of us, and Rora and I shared a grin as we both realised we might make it. We still had a mile or two to go, but the end was visible!

A Cauldron Event is Occuring in your area! The piece of the Realm of Decay has drawn near to the Cauldron, be aware of your surroundings and fight well!

“What’s a Cauldron Event?” I asked curiously as I dismissed the notification.

When Rora didn’t answer immediately, I glanced over at her and found her chewing her lip, a worried expression plastered across her face.

“Rora?” I prompted.

She finally looked over at me, a wry exasperated smile on her lips, “Your cluelessness around this game is cute sometimes, but damn how do you not know what a Cauldron Event is? It’s the main lore premise of the game. This Realm or whatever you want to call it that the game takes place in, is like the tray at the bottom of your oven or whatever. It collects all the crumbs and splashes of oil. The other Realms drop bits down onto us, creating big events with lots of enemies to fight and loot to grab.”

“Okay, so that means this place is about to be crawling with nasties and we’re kinda fucked?” I asked, looking at the distant shoreline with distinctly less hope.

“Yeah it means we should start running,” she laughed, already picking up into a jog.

“Right,” I murmured, increasing my pace to match hers.

We jogged through the streets for almost a minute before things suddenly started to get really really weird. The air became hazy with a strange black miasma that seemed to seep out of the ground, and fleeting half glimpsed movements skittered through every shadow. The sky directly above us became a darker,navy blue that seemed shot through with veins of inky blackness.

Soon after the atmosphere changed, monsters started spawning. They clawed their way out of every surface like it was made of cling film, then flopped onto the ground and twitched for a few moments. The creatures got an almost immediate reaction from me as my gorge rose, threatening to spew my lunch everywhere. They smelled awful. The things coming out of the walls and ground were not only undead, but it was as though the original creatures that had once lived using those bodies were terrible caricatures of more mundane animals and races.

An undead thing that looked like it had once been a man, except for the fact that the features of its decaying face were exaggerated, staggered to its feet and looked at us. The nose was almost comically large, and the left side of its face looked as though it had been sculpted out of clay and then stretched sideways, ending in a bony point. I really did not want to get close to any of these things.

“My identifier isn’t working on these things Tami! Just a vague description and a question mark where the level should be! We need to get the fuck out of here!” Rora said urgently, grabbing my hand and pulling me forward at a full run now.

“Your what?” I asked, gripping her hand more firmly and increasing my pace to match hers again.

“You know, the informational heads up display?” she said, breathing heavily as her legs pumped beneath her.

“Uhhh,” I replied, feeling a little silly.

“Oh my god, you’re… Wow,” she laughed fondly, “It’s built into the UI, you can get basic information about shit by looking at them!”

“Right, I’ll investigate it later,” I said, kicking a grasping hand that was rising up out of the ground.

We were lucky that it appeared as though the epicenter for this event was behind us, so as long as we kept ahead of the wave of spawns, we’d be fine. Unfortunately, staying ahead of the swarm of angry creatures was easier said than done, as the wave of spawns didn’t have to deal with pesky concepts like ancient undead city planning.

Our luck ran out when we hit a T junction and were a desperate sprint perpendicular to the wave until we reached the next street over. We turned the corner, our feet almost sliding as we took it as fast as we could manage. It wasn’t enough though, the creatures were recovering from their spawn animations and turning to attack. A few more meters and we had enemies coming at us from the front.

We were trapped.

“Tami! Hold onto me! Quick!” Rora said, turning and opening her arms to me.

I blinked in confusion for a moment, were we going to die hugging or something? I wasn’t going to turn away from hugging her of all people though, so I rushed in and wrapped my arms around her waist. Almost instantly I felt my stomach lurch as it tried to make sense of Rora teleporting us up onto a ruined balcony above us.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, looking down at the angry mobs below us as they tried to climb, “Nice! I don’t think this is a permanent solution though!”

“Yup, now you’re going to fly us over that angry mob,” she grinned cheekily.

“Wait hold on, so far I’ve just done like, really big jumps,” I said, feeling a little spike of apprehension worm its way into my gut.

“You have the wing bracers now!” she told me reassuringly, “You... did equip them right?”

“Ummm….”

“Wow. You’re a fucking mess. Put them on,” she laughed, rolling her eyes.

“Uhhh right,” I said sheepishly, extracting the bracers and trying to get them around to my back.

It proved to be rather difficult, and Rora grabbed my hands with a noise that was half groan and half giggle. “No, you dingus! Put them back in your inventory and select the equip option!”

“Oh! My bad,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

I did as she’d said and put the bracers back in my inventory. How was I meant to know you could equip from the inventory? It’s not like there was an… oh. It was right there under the option to take it out of your inventory. Right. I selected that option and felt them phase into existence already attached to my wings.

Enchantment effects hit me almost immediately, my wings suddenly feeling like they might actually be able to bear both my weight and Rora’s as well as just a general feeling of being stronger than I had been. It was great.

“Alright! Time to fly!” I grinned, wrapping my arms even more tightly around her and lifting my wings high into the air.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I hoped I could figure that out later and just use raw power to get us out of this mess. My plan proved to be partially successful, I got the leap into the air right, but as I tried to transition from wing-assisted jump to actual flight, my wings lost traction in the air and we wobbled. I quickly flared them out as far as they would go and tried to get some air under them to at least glide out.

We only just got far enough to clear the horde forming, and when I set Rora down we were running almost immediately again. Having the things actively chasing us now like some sort of zombie movie was heart poundingly terrifying. I hated fast zombies. They swarmed over everything, barely bothering to stop if they hit a rock, choosing to leap over it instead. If one of their number happened to trip and go down, the rest trampled over it like it didn’t exist.

“I’m going to start using my teleport every time I have the mana for it!” Rora wheezed from next to me. “You should get some flying practice in.”

She was gone before I could reply, reappearing several meters ahead, still in a sprint. Alright then, let’s see what I could do! I leapt into the air again, this time with several wingbeats instead of one, gaining considerably more momentum and a lot of air in the process. Once again though, my wings threatened to dump me onto the stone below, but I gave a few panicked steadying flaps and felt myself straighten out.

It was cool, once I was actually flying. No, not cool, amazing! Incredible! Holy shit I was flying under my own damn power! I gave a trilling squeal of delight, almost losing my place in the air due to my exuberance. My heart felt momentarily free of weight as I let myself enjoy the wondrous feeling.

My flight was short, all things considered, as I wobbled back down to the earth, but I was still grinning like an idiot as I touched down next to Rora, who was sprinting and teleporting across the ground.

We made good progress like that, her teleporting and me making short flights through the air. I was happy to be making progress with my wings, being able to actually fly was the dream.

I was almost surprised when we made it to the broken and fractured shoreline that bordered the city. There wasn’t even really a singular shoreline to speak of, as the city seemed to have fallen into the sea, large chunks of it were visible beneath the waves where toxic looking seaweed grew on every surface.

“Oh, I didn’t think about this part,” Rora said, looking out into the sea and then turning back to see the zombie horde behind us that flowed like water through the streets.

“This is a little awkward yeah. We seem to have run out of ways to escape,” I said, smiling sideways at her.

“Hey it was a good plan before this dumb event happened,” she frowned back at me.

“True, so any ideas of how we fix this problem in the.. Thirty seconds or so before those things reach us?” I asked casually. I wasn’t particularly worried about dying again for some reason. I figured I might be able to get a bunch of experience before I went down.

Rora hummed and looked around hurriedly for a solution. She looked up and down the coast, but it was more of the same and the wave of spawns would reach the shore long before we reached the boundaries of the city and the event. Squinting, she turned her eyes seaward and made a thoughtful noise.

“What?” I asked, following her gaze out into the water.

It took me a while to catch it, but almost a mile out there were two ships sailing in close formation. One looked to be a large merchantman designed to haul cargo from coastal town to coastal town, while the other looked to be some sort of small escort. It was hard to tell from this far out.

“Fuck, if only we could get their attention,” Rora grimaced.

“Yeahh…” I said, the word being drawn out as an idea formed in my mind.

"What?" She asked, catching on to my tone.

"How much do you trust me?" I asked, trying to hide a grin.

"Ummm—" she started, then her eyes blew wide and she looked from the ships, to me and back again. "Oh no."

"Oh yes," I giggled happily.

Her mouth worked open and closed for a few seconds as indecision warred across her face. She stared at the depths ahead of us, then the horde of undead behind us, and finally threw her hands up.

"Fine! But don't you dare drop me!" She growled, making sure all her gear was stowed properly.

I moved quickly, as the horde was nearly on us now, wrapping one arm around her waist, using her hip as a hand hold while the other went under her arms. Pressing her against me I pushed off from the ground with as much strength as I could muster, feeling the air catch and hold under my newly improved wings. We were just in time, as the creatures behind us poured over the area we had just left like a wave of flesh to match the waves they fell into.

As I struggled to get us some proper air, I was struck by how nice it felt to have my hand on her hip like this. My fingers dug in slightly for purchase allowing me to intimately feel her soft curves. She was so damn attractive in this body, and a part of me idly wondered what she looked like in the real world.

“Don’t hold me like this! You’re going to drop me!” she exclaimed in a high panicked tone.

“Alright, if you’re going to be such a princess about this…” I laughed, shifting my arms and grip on her until she was safely situated in a princess carry.

“Whoa hey! No! I meant…” she squealed in protest, her arms automatically going around my neck for more support.

“Would you rather I sling you over my shoulder?” I said loudly through the sound of my own wingbeats.

“No! Damn, fuck, shit… fine!” Rora huffed. “Don’t you dare fucking drop me!”

“Scared of heights huh?” I chuckled.

“No! No I am not!” she growled. “I’m scared of the depths!”

I looked down at the dark and muddy water that was now almost forty yards below us, “Yeah, actually I think that might be a valid concern. That water looks gross. I’d never get the smell out of my hair.”

“Never mind your hair! What else might be… Oh fuck it, whatever!” she exclaimed grumpily, scowling into my eyes. Oooohh our faces were close. I wonder if… no, better wait till we were at the ship.

Speaking of the ship, there was something strange going on. As we got closer, I saw that the smaller ship was not actually running in formation as an escort. Huge harpoon guns had fired bolts into the side of the larger ship, and attached ropes were being used to haul the two ships together.

“Rora, the ships are fighting each other,” I called into the wind.

She turned away from staring strangely at my neck, to down at the ships, squinting as she tried to make out what was going on from this distance. The Larger ship was flying some flags that I didn’t recognise, while the smaller one just had a blank red one flying from the top of its single mast.

“The big ship is a Merchantman for sure, and I’m pretty sure that’s a Phoenix Merchant Guild flag. Your friends, if I remember our night at Darb’s rightly,” she told me, her fear seeming forgotten as she focused on our impending arrival.

“Oh shit really?” I asked eagerly. “And they’re being attacked? Let’s go help!”

“Fine by me, I wouldn’t mind making some... meeting some people in that guild,” she smiled.

As we flew in closer I began to scope out our best avenue of attack. The Merchantman was a long vessel with three masts and a high quarterdeck that was currently being used as a fort of sorts by the defenders. I could even see Aurugum down on the main deck wreaking havoc with that enormous spear of his. I guess this was where that lot had ended up after we parted ways.

“I’m going to land us on the main deck next to Aurugum, the big giant with the spear,” I informed Rora. “Let’s fuck some pirates up! Maybe we can get even more cred by being badasses down there to help show we aren’t useless.”

“Good plan, you can drop me from a ways up if you want. So long as it is above the ship,” she said, her face alight with the anticipation of battle. Aw yeah, this girl was great. Let’s fuck shit up! Here comes the cavalry!

I swooped in over the quarter deck, letting Rora go as she had asked. Her hair lit up briefly as she did something I couldn’t figure out to slow her fall, but she quenched it after that. Probably to keep from setting the ship on fire. No flaming fist around here.

I saw an opportunity to make an entrance when Aurugm was sizing up a dude, getting ready to rush a random generic looking darkling pirate dude with a cutlass. I folded my wings and let momentum carry me over Aurugm’s shoulder, my knee thrust forward. I empowered my knee with explosive impact and rammed it into the pirate’s gonads with all the velocity I had built up from my dive.

The poor pirate went cartwheeling through the air for several yards, eventually striking the heavy wooden safety railing on the side of the ship face first with a sickening crunch. Ouch. What a way to go.

“TAMI!” Aurugm bellowed happily. “My friend you come in just as we need you again, and with a spectacular ball buster no less! You are making this a habit!”

“What up, big guy?” I grinned up at him fondly.

“Pirates! They attack sometimes, we break them all the time! With you here now, we break them more!” he laughed happily.

I let out a delighted giggle and gave him a thumbs up. “Alright, my friend is here too, she’s very good at stabbing.”

Aurugm turned briefly to casually lop the head off a darkling pirate who made the mistake of getting too close, then turned and sighted Rora. “Ah yes! Your lady lover! You are good together! Let all who say otherwise have their skulls cracked and their gold taken from them!”

“Wait no she’s— “ I began, then realised that he was kinda right, although I wasn’t going to admit it.

“Alright big man, I’m going to go and punch some pirates for you!” I called, dashing over to Rora’s side where she was fighting two different pirates, both darklings again.

It was interesting seeing normal darklings and comparing them to me. They had a mishmash of skin tones that all lay between the black, red and purple range. Tails snaked out from behind, sometimes being used to try and trip their foes, and horns sprouted from their foreheads to curve into various shapes.

I used my wings to propel me the last few yards into one of the pirates, using my knee as a battering ram once more. My explosive blow impacted his hip and shattered it, I could feel the bones breaking. Simultaneously I took hold of the horns on his head with both hands, so that when his body tried to fly away from the impact, his neck broke with the sound of a piece of driftwood snapping.

“Tami, your friends seem to have things here handled, I think we could help by going over to the other ship so we can disrupt the flow,” she said breathlessly, parrying the pirate’s cutlass and ramming her sword into his chest.

“Alright, can you make it over there under your own power, or should we fly over?” I asked, keeping an eye out for more pirates.

“I can get over fine,” she said, eyeing me warily.

I smiled and lifted off, making the few huge beats of my wings that were necessary to carry me over to the ship that the pirates were pouring out of like it was a clown car. The ship looked like a sloop with its streamlined hull and single mast, but it was too big to be one, so it must have been some ship type I didn’t know the name of. Maybe Rora would know?

I began to lay about myself with my fists and claws, sending blood and bodies flying all over the place. Rora landed beside me moments later and the backwash of her teleport buffeted me slightly. We fought a running battle around the small ship, leaping from section to section and keeping the pirates in disarray so that they would be unable to reinforce their peers on the other ship. We wove our fighting styles together, instinctively knowing where to be when one another needed a pesky pirates’ guard broken, or a finishing blow delivered.

I felt an icy sadness in my chest as I realised once again that this was just a lie. We could not go anywhere with this thing between us, whatever it turned out to be. She was a real lesbian and I was… something. Something she wouldn't be interested in outside of VR.

Despite my melancholy, we fought on against the pirates. All of a sudden their attacks seemed to stop like a switch had been flicked, and Rora and I were left standing on a deck littered with corpses.

“Damn,” I said, lowering my fists and trying to get some proper breaths into my lungs.

“Yeah, damn alright. That was intense,” Rora said, giving me an exhausted smile.

Looked down at the dead pirates around us and asked something that had been on my mind since we arrived. “Hey have you noticed that these pirates are all darklings?”

“No… I didn’t, I was too busy— “ she said, pausing mid sentence and looking at her UI.

“What is it?” I asked curiously.

“I just got a quest update when you pointed that out,” she said distractedly, her eyes scrolling over text that was invisible to me.

“Wait, that big quest you wanted to level up for?” I asked, thinking back to her conversation with Florence, what felt like a week ago now.

“Yup. Come on, let’s go find the captain’s cabin,” she said eagerly, taking my hand and hauling me across the ship.

I tripped on several bodies before she relented and let me follow her under my own power. Damn this girl was insistent!

We made our way to a low door below the quarterdeck and Rora tried the handle. It was locked. I was about to offer to punch it until it wasn’t locked anymore, when Rora slipped a little roll of leather out of her robes. She pulled two picks out of the roll and went to work on the lock.

“Um, I didn’t expect you to know lockpicking of all things,” I said in surprise.

“Yeah my character is kind of all over the place, and intellectually I know how to do it from other VR games I’ve played. I’m also a randomly generated character like you, although I tweaked it a bit,” she said as she worked.

“Wait you can tweak your random character?” I asked, already bracing for her teasing.

She paused and looked up at me with bewildered amusement, “Uh yeah. It tells you when you hit the button. You get to change the gender and some of the looks. If you like what the randomiser gave you, you can choose to use it, and if you don’t, you can choose to make a normal character.”

“Oh right… I remember now,” I said sheepishly, avoiding her gaze and trying really hard to stop a blush from appearing on my cheeks.

“Uh huuuh,” she said with a chuckle, turning back to picking the lock on the door. “I feel like I need to sit you down and give you a crash course in this game, because I know you aren’t stupid. Why are you playing this game anyway?”

“My um… twin sister made me play it with her, but I fucked up and chose the wrong starter zone,” I said, waiting for her to laugh and almost wanting her to. Was it weird that I wanted to make a fool of myself just to see her laugh and smile?

I got what I wanted from her, a cute rising chuckle and a shake of the head. “Ever the disaster aren’t you?”

“That’s me. A whirlwind of fists, poor life choices and bad luck,” I agreed sagely, biting the inside of my cheeks to stop from grinning.

She got it open before she could reply, and both of our attention became fixed on the dark room ahead of us. It was cramped and small, with only a tiny dirty glass window in the back for light. We crept inside, Rora summoning a small flame to give us a better view of the interior. It was empty, no last minute pirates to jump out at us. At least, empty of people. It was far from empty of random crap.

The place was littered with random baubles and trinkets, some of which rolled around on the floor where they had been left loose. Dayum, I wondered if any of this was worth anything or if it was just random vendor trash.

Rora wasn’t there for the baubles though, she spotted a small desk in one corner and hurried over to it, already rifling around in the papers she found there. I left her to it, taking a look around the cabin with interest. I was inspecting an odd amulet that was hung on the wall when something bumped into my foot.

I reached down and carefully picked it up, finding myself holding a little oval shaped gem. It was about the same size and shape as a chicken egg, but it seemed to be made of a very dark green stone. I decided that now was as good a time as any to test out that identifier tool thingy. Maybe it worked on items as well as creatures?

I concentrated on the object, asking with my mind for more information, and was rewarded with a hovering description.

“Egg shaped green stone.”

That was… less than useful. I went to try and put it in my inventory and received a notification.

“This item cannot be placed in the inventory.”

I frowned down at it and grumbled something about obtuse descriptions and cryptic bullshit, then stuffed it into my pocket and kept looking around. Rora looked like she was starting to get grumpy over at the desk, so I avoided her and went over to the bed. People always kept their best things under their pillows right? Or under their bed? Maybe I’d find a cool knife or something to give to Rora.

When I flipped the pillow, I found myself rather disappointed for a moment at the lack of cool knives, but then I saw the piece of paper. This was without a doubt what Rora was looking for! When I picked it up however, I received another notification, this one popping up with little trumpet sounds.

“You have gained a Rare Quest! Mysterious Privateers!”

“You have found a privateer’s writ in the Cabin of a Darkling pirate, commissioning the Captain and his vessel to disrupt shipping in the waters off the coast of the Talavar region. It is signed by a Justicar of Pagutum. This must be of interest to someone...”

Okay… right. Cool quest that didn’t really tell me anything. Thanks game. The someone who might be interested was probably Rora though.

“Hey Rora,” I said. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

She turned up from her dismantling of the desk and when saw what I was holding her eyes lit up like a kitten sighting a ball of yarn. Rushing over, she took it from my hands and gave it a quick read over, then grinned.

“Yes! This is it! I knew it!” she said with a happy little laugh of triumph.

“What is it exactly? I got a quest when I read it,” I explained, trying to prompt her into explaining what the hell was going on.

“Ahh you probably got the same quest!” she grinned excitedly. “See, I was outside Motregarnon just doing my own thing, killing spiders and bandits, and I accidentally killed this guy who wasn’t a bandit. Not really important how that happened, but he was carrying a letter. The letter was from a Pagutum Army Officer to an official in the town. It was mostly doublespeak and coded gibberish, but it gave me a quest!”

“Alright, so what’s going on with it then?” I asked, finding myself getting drawn in my her enthusiasm.

“Yeah so I went back to town and started asking questions about that town official guy. He’s some minister in charge of organising parties for the nobles. He’s been seen once or twice talking to people who look like they are from Pagutum too,” she explained, her eyes alight with an entirely different kind of fire than usual.

“Pagutum’s the super racist empire right? That one that every game like this has?” I asked, remembering the description of my race saying something about them hating my kind.

“Yes! I couldn’t figure out what was going on, and my abilities and stuff were too shit to do any proper sneaking around or whatever, so I decided I needed to do some leveling,” she nodded. “See the reason this is so fishy is like, why would a super racist empire like Patugum be hiring Darkling privateers. They hate Darklings!”

“I know,” I said wryly. “I am one remember?”

“Oh right, I forgot. Your variant looks way different to the normal ones. They can’t shapeshift for one thing, and the wings are new… anyway! There’s something fishy going on!” she said excitedly.

“You’re really interested in this thing huh?” I asked with a smile. She was being really fucking cute right now.

“Hell yeah! MMOs never have shit like this! This is like, political intrigue and sneaky underhanded dealings and… oh I am so keen,” she grinned.

“Sweet, I guess I’ll help you out then? Since I have the same quest… like, if you want my help that is?” I said hopefully.

“Definitely!” she smiled back, her eyes dancing across my face, leaving little pinpricks of sensation wherever they landed.

“You have agreed to work together with another player on the same quest!”

“Your quest has been updated! It is now known as Intrigue in Talavar!”

“The player you have teamed up with has more information on this quest than you, and as such your quest has been updated with what the player has told you!”

“Oh cool, I got a notification saying we’re working together,” I said happily.

“Same!” Rora nodded. “Okay let’s head out.”

As we left the cabin, we tried not to disturb anything except when I had taken the egg thing. I didn’t mention that. I wanted to know what it was mostly out of spite against the really super duper helpful description. This wasn’t our fight and it was up to the Phoenix people to see if we could have some of the loot. I wasn’t at all surprised when we found Jill crossing over onto the pirate ship.

“Well hello there my young friend,” Jill called with a welcoming smile. “You’re certainly a long way from where I left you!”

“Ah yeah. Some shit happened, angry undead angel and a lot of zombies. Like I mean a... lot of zombies,” I said, gesturing to the still angry and very visible horde back on the distant shore.

“Riiight,” she said slowly, her eyebrows somewhere in her hairline.

Rora gave a little snort from next to me, but otherwise didn’t say anything. Not that she would have been able to say anything, because Aurugm arrived.

“Tami! You were wonderful! So many broken pirates! You are a pleasure to behold!” he bellowed, striding over and sweeping me into the most simultaneously terrifying and heart warming bear hug of my life.

“Put her down!” Jill said gruffly, whapping him on the head with her staff.

“Yes Jill!” Aurugm chuckled, placing me back down on the deck next to Rora, whom he addressed next. “You also! That sword of yours poked many holes in many pirates!”

“So um, this is Aurora. She’s… um… yeah,” I said, awkwardly blushing when I stumbled over the odd thing we had going on between us that had no definition.

Rora coughed just as awkwardly from beside me and have a curt, “Hello.”

“Nice to meet you Aurora. I remember seeing you at Darb’s Inn,” Jill said, a teasing light dancing behind her eyes.

“Ah... yeah. It’s a fun place,” Rora said. Her whole demeanour had closed up since we’d started talking to the others. It was like she was a turtle who’d pulled her head back into her shell.

“Um yeah. So… where are you guys headed?” I asked, trying to draw attention away from my friend and back to me.

“Back to port in Chaillere unfortunately,” a deep purring voice said from behind Aurugm’s bulk. “The ships taken some damage that will need to be repaired before we go further.”

From around the big giant padded a man, or rather, a tiger. He was almost seven feet tall, with a full body of fur in the usual orange and black of the large cats. His face was pure tiger too, and pretty damn intimidating if I’m honest. Those teeth looked sharp!

“This is Mal, he’s the captain of our ship,” Jill supplied.

“Don’t forget fourth highest ranked streamer in the guild,” he said with a sly smile.

“Yeah, you never let us forget,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“Ohhh you know you love it. The pageantry entertains that tired mind of yours,” he laughed with a wink, his voice still sounding like a bass guitar being strummed.

“I’ve told you not to sweet talk me Mal, or I will make like Tami here and connect my staff with the sensitives between your legs!” Jill said sternly, although her expression showed genuine affection for the big cat man.

“Oh no thank you. I saw quite enough of her handiwork as I watched from my quarterdeck thank you very much,” he said, giving me a grin.

“Well, speaking of the battle just now, would you like an escort back to civilisation again?” Jill asked knowingly. “It’s coming up on mid afternoon now, so we should be back by this time tomorrow.”

“That’s cutting it a bit fine,” Rora murmured from beside me.

“Hmm yeah. We’re both students, so we need to be logged off my evening tomorrow so we can do our week of college,” I explained to Jill.

“Well alright then,” Mal said, clapping his big fuzzy hands together. “Let’s get these ladies back to dry land!”

****

The trip back was reasonably uneventful and very boring. Except for a night spent in a small cabin with Rora, during which we did not have sex, there wasn’t a whole lot of privacy on the vessel and the walls were thin. Thus I spent most of my time talking to members of the crew, Aurugm and Jill, while a clammed up Rora wandered silent but happy next to me.

It was interesting observing the way she was almost shy around new people, despite her cocky, intelligent and self assured personality. She intrigued me to no end. I wanted to get to know her even more now, and was thankful for the progress I had made. It made my heart dance a warm little jig knowing how much more open she was with me rather than anyone else.

The pirate ship was given a skeleton crew tasked with bringing it back to port, but it would take them a while to get it moving, and the merchantman was leaking so we had to leave them behind. Jill assured both Rora and I that we would get a portion of loot when we logged back in next week.

When the port came into view, both Rora and I were getting antsy, although for different reasons. My chest was full of a twisting fear that was so strong it felt like a physical weight inside me. I was constantly having to control my breathing to stop it getting out of control, which everyone else took for nervousness surrounding our cutting the log out time pretty close.

Rora was certainly worried. I wasn’t at all surprised to find out that she took class pretty seriously, she seemed like the type who might be one of those few who actually got a job in the end. I hoped she did, she deserved to succeed.

When we stepped off the gangplank and waved goodbye to the Phoenix Guild crew, it was knowing that even though their ship required repairs, they wouldn’t take a week, and would be gone on some long voyage by the time we logged back in.

“Quick,” Rora said, dragging me by the hand through the streets of the dirty port town that existed to feed goods to and from the capital further up the Tielle river to the capital of the same name. Every step we took ratcheted up the feeling of hopeless fear that was spreading through me. It had been biding its time while I was distracted, and now that its time had come, it was properly rearing its ugly head.

Rora found the closest Inn too quickly for my liking, and walked up to the Innkeeper like a woman ready to throw down. “Hey innkeep, we need a long term room, one week stay.”

“That’s fine. Two silver and it’s yours,” he said good naturedly, completely unperturbed by Rora’s fidgetiness.

Rora slapped down the coins without bothering to ask if I could pay half, and we were given a key to a room out the back. Long term storage rooms were the ingame way of referring to a room you could rent to log out. They were small cramped things with a tiny bed and nothing else, and you would be safe when you logged in again.

When we opened the door and walked inside, I was close to falling apart. I did not want to log out. I didn’t want to go back to everything that real life entailed. I was doing my best to hold back my tears, I didn't want Rora to know. It would lead to questions I didn’t want to answer.

“Okay…” Rora said quietly, turning to face me in the tiny room.

“Okay…” I repeated.

She looked like she wanted to say something for a moment, but instead chose to pull me into a desperate, tight hug for a moment.

“I um, I have class really early, so I have to log off like right now. I’ll see you in a week Tami… and… I’ll miss you,” she said as she pulled back, her lips giving a little quiver before she reached up and hit the button that was invisible to me.

She phased out of existence before my eyes, and as soon as she was gone, I collapsed to my knees. Tears poured out like a dam had burst, and I wrapped my arms around my slender, curved body in anguish. I felt the skin of my arms, so smooth and hairless. I felt my waist, so slim and soft. I felt how my legs pressed together without crushing anything between them. It was going to be gone as soon as I pressed that button.

In a mix of anguish and anger, I navigated through my menus until I came to the dreaded button. I stared at it for only a heartbeat, then jammed it with my finger, knowing that if I allowed myself to hesitate for even a moment, I’d never get the courage to press it.

Logging out of Cora. Thank you for playing, we hope to see you again soon!