Looking more at Astra than Lady Givinghead, I say, "I think you've been misinformed, My Lady." Astra doesn't stop gaping at me with her mouth open and eyes wide.

"Come. Come. No need to be modest." She takes a seat in the middle of a sofa with her legs spread apart and sweeps her dress aside to reveal a very bare pubic area.

Freaking Katie! Why the heck can't she just keep this a simple fantasy game. She's determined to screw me over more than she already has. Sure, strike two isn't strike three? But what will the next test be. There certainly will be one now that Katie has started this game, she seems to want me to lose.

I turn back to Lady Givinghead. She certainly is beautiful. This wouldn't be the worst task in the world. And she is an NPC and not a player.

"Fine," I say in defeat. 

But almost immediately I think, Wait! Katie controls all the NPCs. Does that mean I'll be essentially eating Katie out.

Oh, I don't want to think about that.

"I'll just wait outside, then." Astra excuses herself and leaves.

Lady Givinghead says, "I've been looking forward to this all morning."

* * *

On the way out of the Counsel House, Astra is about to burst, trying to contain her laughter. "Well, at least your proving yourself to be a true hero of the realm. Fellatia is lucky to have you. Maybe when we come back with the Scepter, you'll get your own statue. Or maybe they'll give you your own village. You can be Lady Carpetmuncher."

"Your an absolute riot," I say angrily through clenched teeth, stomping along beside her. 

"Oh, is your jaw a bit sore after that." When I glare at her, she says, "Sorry. Sorry. It's just that it's about the last thing I expected from you."

"Why's that?"

"Well, because... you're... well, you. Yesterday, whenever one of the companions paraded themselves in front of us, you turned red to the tip of your ears and stared down at the floor as though you'd get turned to stone if you saw bare skin."

"Yeah. Well. I... Yeah." Another one of my classic trademarked comebacks, folks.

"All right. All right. I'll stop. After all you did eat one for the team." She bursts out laughing again. But when I begin to out-pace her, she says, "Okay! I'll stop. I promise. Geez, you make teasing you too much fun. But you're right, we should get down to business."

I shoot her the strongest death rays that I can with my eyes and storm off.

"What? What did I say. Ohhh! Down to business. I didn't mean it like that. I swear!" She releases another cackle of laughter. "But I really didn't."

* * *

At the brothel, we sit in another office. This time the Madam's. The cat-woman with the ginger hair and the red feather dress scowls at us while she formulates her answer in her head.

The only other player I knew was Kerda, so when we returned, I asked her if she wanted to join our expedition. I wasn't sure she was tank material, but a strong melee fighter could always come in handy.

"Wow! You want me on your team. That's awesome. And I'd totally say yes, but I have a contract. Until I pay it off, I'm stuck here."

It turns out the Madam demanded a certain income from each companion when she hired them, effectively (even if not technically) putting them in debt to her the moment they started working for her. So here we were trying to pay off Kerda's contract.

"Kerda is just too valuable to this house. Not to mention there's a deep personal bond that makes it hard for me to see her go. I couldn't possible sell you her contract for anything less than 15 gold."

"15 gold?!?" Astra sputters with astonishment.

"You only hired her a few days ago and you said you were thinking of firing her."

"Some of the closest of friendships can be forged in just a few days. And that stuff about firing her was just my gruff outward demeanor saying mean things to hide my true feelings. 12 gold." There's so little emotion in her voice that I'm not sure she's ever had anything like feelings.

Astra says to me privately, although not quite quietly enough to truly be private, "She really want's to keep the Pooka. I bet we could hire a mercenary in the market for 3 gold." She begins to stand up.

"Fine! 9 gold. But I'll have you know your tearing my heart in two."

"6 and you have a deal," Astra says. I cringe a little, hoping we won't have to seal every deal the same way.

The madam nods, and Astra holds up three fingers to me. It's a victorious sign, silently indicating we'd started to build our party.

* * * 

Kerda is overjoyed and tells us there's a healer staying at Horn and Hole. One of the other companions had spent the night with her, and Kerda seems to think that from what's been said about this person, she might be a good fit for the group. 

A little baffled, Astra asks, "What on Earth did this companion say? I mean, what exactly did they do together to make them think she'd be a good fit for our party?"

Kerda waves off her concern. "She just said that she was nice and not an animal like some of the people who come through here."

"Oh."

We find her sitting on a settee sipping a cordial from a small tulip shaped glass. She's small too. Fairy-folk sized with skin black and as shiny as oil. Her short hair is the darkest shade of blue imaginable and it's slick against her scalp as though wet. Her eyes are also blue, but the gray-blue of the see. The thin halo of white around the iris is shocking against her skin. Her nose is slightly upturned making her nostrils prominent even though they're not large. She has ears almost as long as Kerda's, and she wears a short silk robe like kimono, light blue with embroidered white swirls.

I'm not familiar with this species, but Detect tells me she's a Selkie.

Astra sits down across from her and starts talking before the Selkie can assume we're companions trying to solicit her. "We're putting together a party for a dungeon crawl and we need a healer. We're wondering if you might be interested? I'm Astra, by the way, and this is Triste."

She takes another sip from her glass. "I might be. Friends call me Morgan. Tell me more about this dungeon."

"We don't know much," I admit. "We have a map to it. It's about a two day hike to the south east. It used to be a royal tomb."

"It sounds like it's connected to cave system now," Astra adds.

I finish with, "Lots of traps and undead."

Morgan grimaces. "That sounds like a shitty dungeon. What's in it that makes it worthwhile?"

"Some sacred relic. But the head of the village is promising an extravagant reward for bringing it to her."

"How extravagant?"

I lean in. "Big reward for all involved. But who the heck knows. You know how games are. She might give us money or legendary weapons. Or she might betray us. Or we might not find the relic but find plenty of treasure and never come back to this one-horse town."

Astra shoots me a look, telling me I'm doing a lousy job of selling it.

But Morgan says, "Well, your honest. That's something. Almost makes me tempted, but I'm not equipped for dungeon crawling right now. I was planning to build this character up a bit before tackling something so dangerous."

"We can supply you with potions and some other basic equipment," Astra tells her.

"When are you leaving?"

"A day or two."

"Well, that's another problem. I can't afford lodging for another night, so I have to leave town today."

"We can take care of that too," Astra says. This is actually easier than buying the equipment since the Lady is covering everyone in our party at the Hole.

Morgan thinks about it. "Sounds good. Can my friend join too?"

Astra hold up four fingers to me. "What class is your friend?"

"She's a Blade-weaver. That's the games fancy way of saying she uses a sword and can enhance it with spells.

Astra rolls out her thumb, showing me five.

* * * 

Astra is pacing back and forth. "I like this. The party is shaping up to look a lot like my former one. Three fighters, a mage, and a healer."

"But we're still missing a thief," I say, stating the obvious.

We're in Kerda's room, the only private space available to us. She says, "Sorry, I wish I knew of one. There was one in that douche-bag party, but they left. And I don't think that would have worked out. With him already being in a party and all. Not to mention the whole douche-bag thing."

I'm almost positive she's talking about the group Dwayne teamed up with, but I don't ask.  

"So, we have to decide, do we wait around and hope one shows up, or start making the journey," Astra ponders.

"And I'm not sure how long, Lady Givinghead will let us sit around the brothel on her dime. Especially five of us."

"Four," Kerda says. When we look at her questioningly, she continues, "The Madam is letting me work until we leave. That's why I still have the room."

"But why... why would you...?" I stammer.

"I told you. I get experience from it. And I'm enjoying the sex. Seriously, is it just me or is it a hell of a lot better than IRL?"

Astra mutters, "Not just you."

"Hey!" Kerda says, almost with an imaginary light bulb over her head. "What about the jail? Maybe there's a thief in there?"

 "Jail? I thought they put people in the stocks," Astra says.

"Depends on the crime."

We all look at each other. It was worth a try.