Garnet slammed a [Firebomb] down the snowdrake’s throat when it opened its mouth to spew freezing sleet at them, and watched in satisfaction as it collapsed where it stood.

“Elementalist is a seriously fun class,” en said, for the benefit of that unseen audience, “but it’s a lot more effective if you know the game and what weaknesses opponents have so you can pick the best element to use. Sometimes that’s obvious, like fire against an ice creature. Sometimes it’s not as obvious. I’ve used ice, lightning, and fire against different water-based creatures, and which one works best depends on the circumstances and exactly which kind of creature. But if you know what you’re doing, it can be incredibly powerful. The resistance against elemental damage rocks, too. You don’t have to be a Fairy to be an elementalist, but the active and passive bonuses are all amazing and really give you an edge. You’re effectively doing magic a level or two above your actual character level even right at the start, as a Fairy.”

“Good excuse,” Apex muttered, headed for the dead drake to recover his arrows.

Garnet ignored him. “Also, Fairies recover mana points a lot more rapidly than most races. So for the strongest elementalist character, I have to say, go with a Fairy. Plus flying is hard to learn but a lot of fun. But it depends on your priorities, I guess. Okay. Last time I was up, I got a glimpse of the Temple—and thank you again to whoever it was who managed to throw a really powerful [Heal] at me while I was fighting those dire eagles. I’m pretty sure I know who but I won’t embarrass them by saying their name without permission. Over this ridge, the road is going to spiral down into a circular valley, then spiral back up the hill in the middle. In the air I could theoretically skip all that, although it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if there was some system set up to prevent just flying straight in. With any luck, I’m not going to get hit by any more game glitches. I really don’t know what’s going on with my account or connection or gear today, whichever it is, but at least it’s an excuse for me to talk about other races and classes. You guys ready?”

Uxium nodded shortly, already seated on his flying carpet. It couldn’t fly more than four feet above the surface of ground or water and he couldn’t cast spells in flight, so he’d had to land it in order to help with the fight. Not that he had really helped much.

Apex returned to his wardrake. “Yep.”

Garnet flew to the top of the ridge and landed on a boulder to look at the trail ahead. Halfway down the slope, they’d be back into forest broken by occasional piles of rocks, and they wouldn’t be clear of it until halfway up the central rise that held the Temple.

The Temple itself was a thing of beauty, all graceful arches and domes, though not as large as en might have expected.

Still, there was that wonderful buzz of anticipation: that was a place en had never been, and if rumour was true, no one ever had. It was so close!

“Scouting,” en called back to the others, and jumped off the rock, swooping down towards the forest edge.

Everything began to slow down.

That was bad. That was very, very bad.

More immediately, as the world went out of sync, stable flight became impossible, and en plummeted out of the sky.

“Whoops... easy there...” En landed in strong arms.

Error reading file for character 61720291#Garnet_Wildheart

Reloading user account

Loading character 93108730#OnyxSwan

That was definitely bad.

“Well, hi there,” Garnet’s rescuer said, setting her gently on her feet.

It probably should not have been a surprise that it was a Cambion in purple and black and yellow. Elavetha had said she was in the area.

Swan reoriented, flexing arms and shoulders to get back into the skin of this character properly. She was out of practice.

“Hi. Sorry about that, but thanks. I’m, um, having some serious glitching today. It keeps shunting me into different characters. I hope it stops soon, I’m running out of decent characters and pretty soon I’m going to be down to the ones I played for a couple of hours and decided I didn’t...”

“Oh, for the fucking love of god,” Apex bellowed, from farther up the trail. “Got an excuse for that, too? That whole race is only good for sluts and pervs!”

“Shows what you know,” Swan fired back. “Succubi start getting some rare and unique abilities starting at moderate levels. It started as a joke to troll a friend, but turned out way too cool to delete.”

Neon eyed her appreciatively. “Those assets, in that outfit...”

Swan’s hair was long and thick and wavy, pulled back from her face but falling in a long midnight cascade of loose curls all the way to her waist, between her black dragon-wings. Her skin was very pale lilac, since she was from a demon race, although she knew her eyes had heavy Goth liner and her full lips were black. Of course, a succubus had curves: substantial breasts, slender waist, broad hips, all displayed in a black leather corset, a short black leather skirt, fishnets, and knee-height boots with high wedge heels. A collection of bracelets and cuffs of varying kinds, many of them magical items, circled her slender wrists. A choker supported a heavy silver pendant of an ankh at her throat.

It was definitely not a look intended for a wilderness hike.

Neon didn’t get to finish her thought.

A black arrow sped silently out of nowhere and thunked into the Cambion’s upper chest, knocking her down.

Swan whipped around to face her erstwhile companions. Sure enough, both were on foot, Apex with another arrow on his bow, Uxium with his hands raised as he started a spell.

Well, this was annoying: Swan had the power to stand up to both, even if her level was technically lower, but it would take time.

She didn’t have it. That second arrow buried itself in her thigh; she spread her wings and jumped upwards, awkwardly with one leg injured, and a third arrow bounced off her midriff, unable to penetrate the leather and boning of the corset at its oblique angle. Uxium gestured, and suddenly her coordination disappeared completely, the world visible only through a thick dark filter, and sound was muffled. She fell again, and this time, Neon wasn’t there to catch her. She was aware of hands touching her, of being moved—slung over the back of something that might have been the wardrake, then dumped roughly on the ground.

The [Unconscious] status lasted only a short time.

Swan blinked, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Her wrists were behind her, and rough rope abraded her skin when she tried to move them; her ankles were tied as well. She squirmed, testing whether she could get loose, and gasped as her injured leg and a lot of bruising, especially in her abdominal muscles, protested. Ropes looped around her torso bound her wings against her with uncomfortable pressure. Her vision was faintly haloed in red, warning her that she was still [Bleeding].

“Oh, hey, you’re awake,” Neon said, from behind her. “What the fuck got into those two?”

“Um, that’s... that’s my fault. They think I deceived them.” Were they right? No, of course not! She hadn’t done anything that called for this kind of betrayal!

“Because you have more than one character? Lots of people do.”

“It’s a long story.”

“You don’t sound so good. Did they hurt you?”

“Arrow in one leg, mainly.”

“I’m sure I know you, and if that Faun that told Elavetha I’m reliable was also you, that makes sense. Necromancer and Succubus, right? No regen abilities between the two?”

“Not like yours. A couple of options for draining life out of others to heal myself, but I need a target and contact.”

“What kind of contact? [Life Kiss] is better than [Vampiric Touch], right?”

“Yes.”

“Arrow still in your leg?”

“Apex never leaves arrows behind if he can help it.”

“Great. See if you can roll over to face me. Careful of those sexy wings.” Swan heard the sounds of motion behind her. “First things first, let’s get you healed. Elavetha and Jessamine are going to be here soon, but I bet you’re still [Bleeding] and it might take them a little time. C’mon, you’ll think better once you aren’t hurting.”

“But you... oh! You’re a Cambion.”

“And the girl figures it out. It does mean you’ll have to kiss me, but I haven’t had any complaints before. I can handle losing a few hit points.”

It was a good plan, although not one Swan would have proposed. It took longer than she’d have liked, but carefully, with a lot of wincing, she writhed around. While she was moving, she finally noticed that they’d been dumped in a steep-sided hole in the ground, big enough for the two of them but not much more. She’d seen Uxium use the spell before to create traps for enemies following them. The sides were high enough to make climbing out difficult, though not impossible; the point was more to make the captive an easy target for ranged attacks.

Even a bit rumpled, Neon still looked sexy as hell.

The Cambion smiled at her, ran her tongue over her deep purple lips, and leaned forward.

Swan started forward, then stopped. “This isn’t fair. I’m lying to you too.”

“I don’t care right now. Tell me about it later and I’ll give you absolution then.”

This didn’t feel entirely right, but Neon had a point.

She kissed Neon, and invoked her innate [Life Kiss] ability.

Heat flooded through her body, and the pain faded away rapidly.

She drew back hastily as soon as the heat cooled, informing her that she was at full health and could drain no further hit points.

Neon, eyes closed, smiled. “Was it good for you, too?” She opened her eyes, and winked. “Seriously, feeling better?”

“Much, thanks. But if you’re mad at me later, I promise to stand still and let you reclaim those hit points in flesh.”

“My, you think I’m bloody. All right, while you were out I sent Ela and Jess a party chat message, and whistled for my boy Wildfire—Jess is on him.”

“I hope they don’t run into Apex and Uxium.”

“Wouldn’t worry about it. They’ll be fine. So they’re supposedly your friends, and they had total conniptions over this character?”

“They’re, ah, used to me as a guy.”

“They need to get over themselves. Lots of people have multiple characters and lots of people try different sexes just like they try different races and classes. Some people really should get a life and a sense of priorities.”

“Uh... yeah. Thanks. Started out with three Guild members backing me up on a quest. One freaked out when I glitched into my Fairy elementalist. Easy enough to defend against him—he was wearing a ton of steel armour and came at me with a sword.”

“Not the brightest banana in the bunch, that one.”

Swan heard hoofbeats, and twisted in hopes of being able to see who or what it was, but of course, the walls of dirt around them made that impossible.

“I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this,” Elavetha said, crouching on the edge above them. “Two sexy demonic women all tied up in a little private space?”

“While I’m fine with being part of your private fantasies,” Neon said, “and I might even pose for you if you ask nicely, this isn’t all that comfortable. A little help, please? Before the jerks who did this come back?”

“Jess is grabbing a rope. My Titania’s very good at this sort of thing. We’ll get you out of here in no time, and then you can tell us what the hell is going on. And who your new friend is.”

“Not so new. This is Swan. She’s having some game glitches today. It keeps freezing characters on her and swapping her to the next one. The last two were Fairy and Faun. Sounds like the assholes she was travelling with decided that she was a threat to their manhood, or something.”

“Wow. Insecure much?” She straightened, and whistled softly; the huge bay roan ambled over to her, and allowed her to tie one end of the rope Jessamine handed her to the horn of the saddle. She tugged on it to test it, then dropped the other end down into the pit and used it to rappel down the side to them.

“Anyone hurt?” Jessamine asked, from the edge of the pit, patting Titania’s neck.

“We took care of that already,” Neon said.

Elavetha let go of the rope and drew her hunting knife. With a few slices, she freed Neon’s wrists and ankles. “Titania will back when Jess tells her to, so you won’t have to climb. Just hold on.”

“Climbing isn’t one of my best skills,” Neon said. “And even less so after all this. So I’m going to take you up on that instead of being all stoic and pretending I don’t need it.”

Elavetha, meanwhile, moved over to cut Swan loose as well. “I don’t think there’s enough room to spread your wings, so as I understand flight mechanics, you’re stuck, right?”

Swan nodded, flexing her wings with care that she not hit Neon or Elavetha—or the walls. “I can spread them halfway and lighten my weight some, but not fly properly.”

“Okay. Once Neon’s up, you’re next.”

Thanks to the easygoing and very strong roan, all three were up in much less time than Swan would have expected.

“We need to get away from here,” Neon said. “We also need to sit down and have a bit of a conversation, because I think Swan’s carrying around something that’s bugging her. Cleaning up a bit would be lovely. I remember seeing a stream but I got all turned around.”

“I know where it is,” Elavetha said, heaving herself up onto her roan. “Swan? I’m sure you can fly, but would you like a ride instead? My big girl here can handle a passenger with no trouble.” She freed her foot from one stirrup and held down a hand.

“Um... thanks, that would be great.” For better or worse, she’d fallen in with this group, and they at least deserved the truth.

“Thanks for the rescue,” Neon said. “I wasn’t expecting to need one, but I was a bit distracted by a cute Fairy falling out of the sky into my arms, turning into a sexy Succubus, and getting attacked by her former teammates.”

“As excuses go,” Jessamine observed, “that seems pretty reasonable, although it’s not like it happens every day.”

“I certainly hope not.”

Conversation was difficult while riding single-file through the forest, so they all fell silent until they reached the stream.

Swan gratefully knelt at the edge to splash water on her face and scrub away the dirt streaks and blood left by the rough handling. Her clothes would gradually clean and repair themselves without needing laundering, although she wished it would happen more quickly.

Then she and Neon joined the other two, sitting on the grass, while the equines grazed around them and the cat dozed in her basket.

“Like Neon said,” she began, slowly, “I’m having a real problem today with glitches. Apparently at random, everything just freezes up, I get an error message, and it reloads with a different character. This is the fourth one today.”

“That sounds rather disorienting,” Neon said. “Especially if they’re as diverse as Succubus, Fairy, and Faun. What was the fourth one?”

“Um... actually, the first one.” She closed her eyes, cringing inside. “I’m Silence. The pro streamer? I’m, um, BlightTheBloodied.”

Total quiet. Swan tried not to make bad puns in her head about dead silence.

“I bet there’s one hell of a story here,” Elavetha said finally, after about a million years in which Swan would have worried she’d frozen again had the nature sounds not stayed normal. “If you’re streaming, then you might want to pause that to tell us.”

Swan groaned. “Oh, let them listen. My whole channel is totally destroyed after today anyway. They may as well have the option of hearing the truth from me, not just gossip.”

“Take your time,” Neon said. “But I really want to hear this. All of it.”