Ash was of two minds about this double rare reward card. On one hand, she had confessed to loving him, and the UI had given him something pretty astonishing and good for him. On the other hand, he hadn’t said the words in return. Ashley… wasn’t everything to him. He certainly cared about her, enough that he didn’t simply toss her aside when the apocalypse hit.

She had been dead weight for a long time, before he helped get her back on her feet, and she still wasn’t completely there. Although she was a healer, she was also a Cleric who had the potential to be incredible at several different aspects of gameplay. If  she mastered those, and that would mean taking her role more seriously, she could be an incredible asset to his adventuring team. He didn’t think she would reciprocate whatever level of effort he put into making that happen.

She did love to be with him, and mostly loved the umbrella of safety he provided. Or the suit of armor. Or rather, the suite of spells killing off anything that came close.

But he felt guilty for not loving her, and being rewarded for capitalizing on her love. It didn’t seem like a fair deal, him getting so much experience and so many awesome rewards.

He had to temper that knowledge with the surety that one fact alone was true: if she stayed with him, and she really seemed to want that, he had no choice but to protect her. It meant getting hold of all the high powered items, all the upgraded skills and attributes, and the best cards for his action deck, and mastering them in an awful hurry, because the dangers weren’t getting smaller. She loved him. She wanted the best for him. He needed the best in order to keep her in one piece.

A seed of doubt still niggled its little roots into his conscience, telling him he’d gotten the better end of the deal. After all, he had seven other girls to have sex with, and Ashley seemed completely okay with that fact.

Ash’s double rare reward for making Ashley love him turned out to be an item card. Prismatic Harmonious Cape certainly was a mouthful.

 

Prismatic Harmonious Cape

Item (masterpiece)

Durability: 120/120

Usable only by a Sorcerer/Bard with a Journeyman level 3 in each class.

This item has several effects:

1- 3 Part Harmony: Cards are always drawn at a 3:1 rate, favoring your dominant class.

2- Overflowing: Once per day, you may expend this cloak’s charge to completely refill your mana and stamina. Other abilities this cloak has will cease to function until the next sunrise.

3- Melodious Casting: Once per day, a Sorcerer spell may be cast as Special Abilities of the Bardic type. If a song, poem, or musical accompaniment is included in the casting, use Stamina to cast, and increase the targeting to all within hearing range.

4- Power Strum: Once per day, a Bardic ability may be cast as a Spell of the Sorcerer type. Use mana to cast, losing the requirement for a song, poem, or musical accompaniment to follow.

5- Regenerative Durability: This item slowly regenerates lost durability. Note: it does not regenerate from zero durability.

6- Sharp Dressed: Your Charming and Attuned attributes are considered one level higher while worn. Your Hearts and Wands skills are considered one level higher while worn. These values are not reflected in the Random Encounter chances.

 

“Holy,” he said, and had to ask Ashley to repeat what she’d said. It turned out she only wanted him to buy her an elephant ear. He did, distracted by all the different possibilities. To target ‘all within hearing range’ was potentially a game changer. He could see a lot going wrong with that, unless he was alone and outnumbered by enemies. It would turn his Tsunami or Fireball into a board wipe if he was able to use it properly. The stricture about having to add a poem, song bit or play music to make it work was not awesome. He’d had several of his Bard abilities cut off because he couldn’t get the music out. He’d actually never used one of his deck cards, the War Drums one, because of that very reason.

Although… he could now see using War Drums with the Power Strum ability from this cloak. Or any of the others that required him to sing or say words to activate. He was kind of excited to use War Drums for the first time now. He’d forgotten what it was supposed to do, and he promised himself he’d look it up on the way out to his parents.

All in all this was an excellent addition to his repertoire. It messed with his action deck, with the Three Part Harmony ability, in exactly the way he needed to. He had had too many situations where he drew too many useless Bard abilities and not the right Sorcerer spell.

Disregarding the image, he immediately channeled a little mana into the card and manifested the cape around his shoulders. He did feel a little Lando, since it was a half cape that only reached his butt, and he did feel a little Pride March, since the interior shimmered with rainbow colors when he moved. The back, however, had a cool lute crossed with a fireball in fine embroidery, done with silver thread, on a field of royal blue.

He still had two other rare cards. One was called Echoing Encore.

 

Echoing Encore

Rare, Special Ability

Use extreme stamina and a flourish to replicate the last ability or spell you just cast. Other requirements (song, musical accompaniment, mana cost, or etc). The effect is considered a special ability of the Bard type, but is otherwise unchanged.

 

He could get on board with that. It went right in the deck.

He then went into his action deck and had a look, cursing himself.

 

Current Action Deck

Sorcerer

Solar Shot (RR)

Celestial Burst (RR)

Harem Laird (UR)

Fireball (R)

Tsunami (R)

Sorcerer’s Blood (R)

Dragon’s Blood (R)

Boiling blood x2 (R)

Rejuvenating Aura (U)

Improved Telekinesis (RR)

Arcane Lance (R)

Elemental Barrier (R)

Bard

Radiant Song (U)

Shared Purpose (R)

Not a Fighter (UR)

Little Ditty (U)

Heavy Metal (U)

Rhythm of the War Drums (U)

Inspiring Song (U)

Jack Be Quick (R)

Echoing Encore (R)

Total cards: 22

 

He needed to get another reconfigure on his deck soon, because it was becoming bloated. The new cape might regulate the fact that he had too many cards without much purpose, but twenty-two was not great. If he was only drawing a single Bard ability at a time, it was unlikely he’d get the one he wanted for some time. At nine cards, it was barely 40%, which was the minimum qualifier for multiclassing as a Bard. However, he would only have a one in nine chance to get the card he wanted at any given time, while in combat.

The other rare was another crossover that was also great, Sorcerous Song.

 

Sorcerous Song

Rare, Special Ability (Aura)

Spend high stamina and a song or musical accompaniment to boost mana pool by 100 mp, and increase mana regeneration by 50% for the next five minutes. Enemies in the aura space have their resistances lowered by 5-25%, depending on resistance checks.

 

His Harem Laird, inarguably the best card in his repertoire, boosted the effectiveness of any auras he had. If this worked as he hoped, the resistance penalty for enemies would shoot through the roof.

The last rewards, the uncommons, he had a look at but two were duplicates of things he already had at higher rarity and the third wasn’t great. He was growing suspicious of any Bard ability that required a song to be sung or music to be played. He didn’t like being disrupted and having the ability fail to go off. This was the major drawback of being one of the tanky members of the group. What he really needed was as shield maiden.

He donned his slightly questionable cape and got a good reaction out of the first person he saw. Granted, it was Aria, the horny cougar of a goblin with a permanent knowing smirk and who was a smidge over a meter in height. The green-haired, green-skinned sex pot sidled up to him with a low whistle.

“What?”

“That’s a nice cape, sugar,” she said. “Momma could get used to having a boy toy with expensive clothes.”

He laughed.

“You might just go from sugar to sugar daddy,” she said.

“I’d need money for that,” he lamented. Actually, he did need to sort out the situation with his sky ship, and make sure another repossession team didn’t come looking for it while he was away. And he certainly didn’t want the same repossession team coming looking for them while he was away, because they might’ve taken their beating seriously.

They probably didn’t give a flying fuck that he’d saved them from being slaves to a demon lord forever and ever. They were much more likely to be pissed off that they failed at their job and were schooled by essentially a single Sorcerer with the jump on them.

He sighed.

“What’s that, sugar?”

“One more stop before it’s party time,” he said.

He and Aria met up at the tavern which was to be the rally point for spent or drunk girls. She’d been riding on his shoulders for a good part of the journey, stroking his hair and chatting amiably about some of the things her grandkids had gotten up to before the apocalypse. Apparently they were tormenting Aria’s children as much as her children had once done to Aria herself. In the cyclical way of the world, they had grown up just like their mother, or in the case of Stacey, the opposite of their mother, and all the problems she had warned them of, she was now watching happen to her kids. It was, if she was to be believed, glorious fun.

“Thank you,” she told him.

He massaged her calf muscles while she rode on his shoulders, and occasionally snuck a hand back to squeeze her ample butt cheek. “What for?”

“You gave me myself back,” she told him.

The spork.

“I felt it going,” she said. “But the longer I was here, the more Aria I became. Did you know my name used to be Phyllis?”

He shook his head, and that gave him the opportunity to lick the inside of one thigh. She giggled.

“You can change your name back if you like,” he said.

“Nah. I like this new person. I like the new surroundings. And I gotta say, it’s liberating to be able to say I wanna have a big fat cock shoved deep in my itsy-bitsy widdle pussy.”

He choked and nearly doubled over, which would’ve pitched him off her. Laughing, he said, “Aria, could you warn a guy before you’re going to spout that kind of language?”

“Nope,” she said smugly.

“Fair,” he replied, and shrugged big enough to make her cry out.

“Are you looking to have your widdle hole stuffed full?” he asked.

“I’d say no, but I’m fifty-seven years old and you’re about to head out on an adventure that will make my mind retreat back into being Aria for good. So… I’m gonna say yes. I want that log you’ve got in your pants to make me cry ‘timber’.”

This time he grabbed her off his shoulders and hugged her tight while taking a knee from the laughter.

“Watch this,” she said.

 

Quest: Rock Aria’s World. This little goblin wants a goodbye present, and for this goblin, that means screaming herself hoarse while impaled on your cock. Make Aria orgasm: 0/1

Reward: +Relationship rating with Aria. +the satisfaction of a job well done

Optional side quest: Prove to Aria you’re man enough to leave and return in a few days. 0/1

Reward: unknown

Do you wish to accept this quest? Y/N

 

Ash chuckled and accepted the quest. A part of him really loved that she was some hybrid of PC and NPC. The benefits: quest giving, and more importantly, suppressing Random Encounters.

They’d passed several couples in the town holding hands and making eyes at one another, but they’d also passed a handful of silhouetted shapes in alleys making out, and one silhouetted figure bobbing a head at the other’s midsection. Aria pulled on his ear, but he didn’t stop. They were near the tavern, and he wasn’t about to join dirty back alley sex when there was a nice, clean room all ready for him.

Aria’s thighs flexed around his neck. “Hmmm we could’ve stayed and watched those two… or those other two.”

“I thought you wanted some of your own.”

“Hurry then. I need it bad.”

The tavern welcomed them in with the warm glow of lamps and candles, the inviting aromas of beer, baking bread, bubbling stew, and fresh fruit. Like before, a few of the tables were occupied by couples necking, and one of them actively groping her partner from where she was straddling him.

“How about those two?” she asked, and her tongue slithered around his ear.

He reached back and cupped her ass in response, pressing two fingers against the juncture of her butt cheeks, just covered by a thin layer of panties. She wriggled in response, and he shoved those panties aside to run his fingers over her lower lips.

“You’re not a voyeur, are you?”

“Hmm no, but I’m all horny!”

Zirennia was already seated and enjoying some stew, bread and ale, and casually handed Ash the key to room 202 with a knowing smirk. He gave her a wink, took it, and headed up.

Aria was looming over him, upside down, when he started ascending the stairs, and started kissing his forehead, his nose, and then snaked her long goblin tongue down into his mouth before he even reached the landing. When he pulled her off his shoulders, she reached out, upside down and got his pants open in a quick and practiced motion.

“We’re so close to the room!” he muttered.

She didn’t wait, but instead pulled his half-hard cock free and stuffed it into her mouth.

He was halfway up the first flight with an upside down goblin in his arms, and she was blowing him with incredible skill. He couldn’t help but freeze and let out a loud groan. In the meantime she pumped her head back and forth, rubbing her broad prehensile tongue back and forth around and around.

Say what you want about older folks, but there is certainly something to be said for experience and the skill that comes along with it.

He went from half-hard to ‘as hard as he’d ever been in his life’ before he could reach the first landing. And from there, he went from feeling great to feeling worried for his staying power in another handful of seconds. Aria really put her all into this.

“Aria…” he groaned. “Wait!” 

The next flight of steps was pure torture, with him panting and trying not to blast down her throat, and his instinct to do exactly that. He tried to busy himself working his fingers down into her soaked, little green slit, and was rewarded with a bit of hesitation on her part.

Finally, he couldn’t handle walking any longer, and instead slumped against the wall of the second floor, where a surprised pair of dwarves froze in the middle of their discussion and stared.

“Oh my God,” he muttered, and pistoned his fingers down into her, while rubbing over her clit with his other hand. Finally, seconds before he would surely have blasted into her mouth, she popped free, gasping.

“I need it,” she panted. “I need it… right now.”

Thankfully room 202 was right there, and the door opened out to give them enough privacy for her to climb up his body and line up his cock with one hand. She was small, and tight, and every fraction of him took serious effort to get into her.

Her groans and whimpers of tortured pleasure got around the door.

“I need it all the way,” she pleaded. “Give it to me, Ash.”

He slammed the door closed and didn’t even get to the bed, instead pulling her body down and thrusting up to impale her. Some part of her inside tried to block his way, and she made a pained groan, but Ash was far too horny to stop. Shoving further got him past that, and it was with her screaming that he bottomed out.

Not a Fighter had the power to give him the anatomy he needed to work with any particular partner, but for some reason he didn’t transform into a much smaller goblin. Instead he stayed his same size and simply reamed out Aria’s tiny body.

“Ohhh my God,” she moaned. “Yes. Now… Ash… please…”

He was over to the bed in a flash, laying her upon it and grabbing her hips. Another three thrusts showed him he could actually bottom out, but those last few inches made her go crazy.

Soon it was nothing but the grunt and moan, and the slap, slap, slap of his balls impacting her ass over and over. Peering down, he could see his cock create a visible bulge in her tummy, up to her belly button. He watched it as if hypnotized, staring as her belly button pushed up and out again and again.

Her head thrashed, and she let out a wail of agony, but then spasmed with a force that scared him. Her whole body shuddered violently from the orgasm, and afterwards she went limp.

She crawled up his body and laid with her head on his chest when he finally collapsed onto the bed.

Finally, after some time, she said, “That’s what I’m talking about.” He could just about hear her take a puff of a cigarette in the way she said it, too.