Taylor and the Twisted Game Part 5 (Patreon)

"Vicky?" Dean blurted when someone in the crowd moved and he saw Vicky walking towards them or at least someone that looked like his girlfriend, if you'd dressed her in a black and red corset and a short black skirt.

Dennis grinned when he recognized the demonic version of Vicky and one of the girls with her as the suspiciously snarky girl he'd done a raid with a couple of weeks ago. "Nice to see you again Amelia."

"Smurf," Amy replied with a grin as she walked over to where her fellow warlock was standing with a familiar looking group. "Welcome to Azeroth or at least a twisted version of it."

Colin pulled his attention away from the Vicky look-alike and focused on Amy and Taylor. "Thanks for coming to help."

"Thanks for trying to rescue me," Amy replied.

Dean frowned when he realized the girl that looked like Vicky didn't match the emotions he could feel coming off of her, namely lust and anger. "You're not Vicky."

"You're right, she's not," Amy cut in before the group could freak out, "she's my demon."

Chris pulled his attention off Vicky and looked at Amy. "Warlock?"

Amy turned to look at the dwarf that resembled her friend. "Warlock and death knight, so I'm missing some of the curses and death knight abilities but I've got a nice mix."

"Try hell on wheels when she gets going and durable enough to off tank," Dennis added. "Or at least she was before the reset."

"I'm not sure how well that's going to translate now that we're actually here but I have a decent collection of abilities that should prove useful." Amy gestured at Taylor. "This is Skitter, she's a mage and a hunter and has graciously agreed to let us use her mansion as a base provided we're not total slobs and we help with crafting."

"Just like that?" Emily asked warily, wondering when the other shoe would drop.

Taylor glanced at Amy then focused on Emily. "I have plenty of space and Amelia vouched for you, that's a hell of a lot better than the lunatics running around attacking people. I can't be everywhere and I can't do everything myself. The mansion has a pond that counts as a high quality fishing spot that is basically useless to me other than as a place to swim or relax."

"Let me guess, you didn't take fishing?" Dennis asked with amusement.

"No but Amelia did," Taylor replied as she absently gestured at Amy. "She also took alchemy which gives her herbalism which means she can use the herb garden filled with ingredients and spices for alchemy and cooking. She managed to fish up enough boxes and locked chests so I'll have money to grab a bunch of tailoring patterns which should let me make better gear which should let us survive long enough to reach the point where we can farm dungeons."

"Cool, how are we getting out of here?" Dennis asked.

"We're teleporting," Amy replied as she started handing out the symbiotes that Taylor had converted into shorts. "The shorts can teleport us just about anywhere in the game but they have a three hour cooldown and take ten seconds to charge up."

Dennis dropped the shorts in his inventory and looked at their description. 'Faster crafting, breathing underwater, healing 3% of the damage you take and the ability to teleport around. How the hell did you get one of the NPCs to transmogrify a symbiote?' He dropped the shorts on his character then glanced at Amy. "Did you figure out how to transmogrify things?"

"Skitter got lucky when she made her character," Amy replied, hoping he'd drop it before the director freaked out about the symbiotes.

Dennis nodded, figuring he'd ask for more details later.

"Where are we teleporting?" Dean asked as he swapped his shorts on his equipment page.

"Skitter's mansion, you can pick up the flight point in Darkshire in three hours or after we've created a decent amount of gear. It's going to take that long to get settled in, do some crafting and come up with a plan," Amy pointed out.

'At least I have an equipment page,' Dragon mused as she mentally opened her character sheet and dropped the shorts in the slot for her legs, happy that she didn't have to try to figure out how to put clothes on in front of people. "Ready?"

Taylor turned to look at Amy. "Can you handle getting everyone back? I want to pick up my class skills and more recipes now that I have money."

Amy glanced at Dean. "How long is your defeat timer?"

"Thirty minutes, why?" Dean replied wearily.

"Because you're a good test case to see if you can teleport to her mansion," Amy replied with a grin. "If it doesn't work, you'll probably appear outside of the mansion which means you just have to knock on the gate or run down the path towards Darkshire and away from the pass."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "How are you going to know if it works?"

Amy gestured at Taylor. "Skitter's summon has a mental link, she'll be able to tell her."

"You can control it from here?" Emily asked in surprise.

Taylor shook her head. "I can offer suggestions and I can swap bodies with her but I don't actually control her."

"She's fairly helpful," Amy said, defending the girl that had helped her harvest a bunch of plants.

Emily took a breath then let it out, reminding herself that they were trapped in a game world or simulation and their options were limited. "Fine."

"Focus on the courtyard," Amy suggested. "Or the pool."

"I'll go with the courtyard." Dean concentrated on Skitter's mansion and teleporting, flipping the new mental switch he could feel in the back of his mind. "Here we go."

Skitter blinked when a translucent popup appeared asking if she wanted to allow Dean to teleport to her mansion. "Yes?" She grinned when the popup vanished and her mental list of people allowed in her mansion updated. "Okay, that should work," she said as she focused on her guest list, quickly adding the rest of the group to the list. "I've added the rest of you to the guest list so you shouldn't have any problems."

'If she's a player and not just part of the simulation, the interfaces are more intuitive than I was expecting,' Colin mused as he watched the strange blue energy flowing over Dean.

"He forgot to say beam me up," Dennis said in a disappointed tone after Dean vanished, knowing better than to screw with his friend's concentration.

"Any idea where your projection is?" Colin asked.

Taylor shrugged. "She should be working on making jewelry."

[A strange person in armor just showed up.] Admin sent as she studied Dean, ready to blast him if he made any sudden moves or at least toss something at him as she wasn't confident in her shadow bolt actually doing an appreciable amount of damage.

Taylor turned to look at Amy. "Admin just sent me a heads up, you should probably go make sure she doesn't attack Dean."

"On my way," Amy replied as she flipped the mental switch and started her teleport. "Give me like twenty seconds then teleport."

"Of course," Colin replied, looking forward to building some better gear.

0o0o0

Sophia concentrated on skinning the dead bodies Noelle was tossing her way and not worrying about 'helping' kill the enemies, mostly because her teammates didn't need the help. It felt strange being less effective than the token 'normal' in the group but she didn't have a decent crossbow or pet and Void had magic, class skills, a decent sword and a few levels on her though the gap was closing thanks to the party system.

"Do you want to explore the mine while I work on skinning things?" Missy asked Noelle, wanting a break from constantly twisting space to pull an 'endless' stream of mobs to them.

Noelle tossed another bandit on the massive pile of dead bandits that Warp or Stalker needed to skin. "Sure, it would give you and Warp a chance to catch up and Void and I need the ore."

"One twisted corridor coming up," Missy replied as she collapsed the twisted tunnels she'd already created then space between their temporary base and the Jangolode Mine. "You're good to go."

Noelle glanced at Void. "If anyone steps through, toss them off the cliff."

"That's the plan," Greg agreed, figuring they could always have Warp collapse the twisted corridor.

Missy pulled her skinning knife out of her inventory and got to work skinning the mobs, doing her best to remember that they weren't actually people even if they looked like it. "Work on searching the corpses, hopefully you'll find a decent bow or crossbow."

Sophia briefly considered protesting then walked over and got to work stripping and looting the dead. "How long do you think it will take for people to get here?"

Greg glanced between the twisted tunnel he could barely see and the surrounding area, wanting to make sure nothing snuck up on them. "Players? At least a couple of hours barring movement skills, it's about ten miles as the crow flies to Goldshire from the castle. It's at least twenty miles to the border of Westfall, maybe fifteen miles along the road to Sentinel Hill."

"Which means around forty five or fifty miles. People can generally walk around 3 miles an hour at a consistent pace, we can probably double that considering the high levels of stamina most of the players are going to be working with," Sophia mused.

Missy shook her head. "Realistically it's going to take them at least seven and a half hours to get here, probably more like eight or nine assuming they can keep the speed up."

Greg nodded. "Which drops to something a bit more reasonable if they get a mount. Of course, that's going to require a decent amount of gold."

"In other words, not something we have to worry about today," Sophia admitted as she stuck a halfway decent bow in her inventory along with a quiver of arrows.

Greg shook his head. "Not unless they're ethereals and used their teleport ability or they picked something with movement skills. How close are you to level 10?"

Sophia mentally pulled up her experience bar for a second. "Half a bar."

"Good, we can pick it up once we're done skinning everything," Missy replied as she continued working.

"I didn't spend a lot of time in Westfall, any idea what I should grab for a pet?" Sophia asked.

"I'd grab a crab, that way you don't have to care when you swap it for something more useful," Greg suggested. "Your other option is a dingo but they're not nearly as dangerous or durable."

Sophia snorted. "I just need something that can tie things in place so I can shoot them."

Greg glanced at Missy. "Considering Noelle and Warp, anything you can use to block people from killing Warp is probably good enough."

"That only really applies if I'm not in my bear form," Missy pointed out, reminding them that she had a form that could tank.

"Fair point," Sophia agreed.

0o0o0

Arthur glared as he stalked towards the group of thugs that were harassing a teenage cat girl or at least what looked like a pale skinned teenage cat girl with purple hair. "Back away from the young lady!" he ordered as he raised his staff.

One of the guys harassing the girl snorted as he looked at the level one mage in black silk robes carrying a gnarled wooden staff and wearing a silver mask. "Piss off."

"No, you're acting like criminals, we're stuck in a realistic simulation, if you continue harassing people, I'll make sure you're charged with assault and whatever else I can get to stick when we get out."

One of the other people snorted. "You'd have to find us."

"I know a couple of hackers, it's not particularly hard," Arthur replied coldly, less than impressed with the idiots that didn't seem to get that it wasn't a game.

One of the thugs sneered at him. "The police would also have to care, now piss off unless you want us to torture you, you're a level one mage, we're level eight, there's nothing you can do to stop us."

"As one of my favorite characters once said, I'd like to test that theory," Arthur replied as he drew a rune in the air with his staff. "Miss, you might want to duck."

Riley tossed herself to the ground, accidently hitting one of the thugs in the leg. 'Shit!' she complained when she realized she'd accidentally attacked him and the guards would come to kill her.

"Kill him!" one of the thugs shouted a second before he splattered against the wall along with his friend.

Arthur ignored the level up notices as he drew another rune in the area and blasted the remaining thugs. "It's so much easier when you don't have to care about collateral damage."

"Great, now the guards are going to kill us," Riley muttered as a group of five guards charged around the corner of the building.

"Hopefully we can talk our way out of it…" Arthur trailed off as the guards pulled their weapons out of their sheaths and shouted, "Surrender and die criminal!"

"So much for them being reasonable," Riley complained.

"Party invite, cat girl," Arthur said calmly as the guards worked on closing the distance.

"Accept!" Riley quickly agreed, figuring she might as well get something useful out of the entire mess on the off chance that he managed to kill one of them.

Arthur drew a rune in the air and blasted the guards, killing the three in the middle outright and dropping the two on the edges to low health.

"Kill steal!" a girl sitting on a floating carpet shouted as she slammed a wagon cart on the remaining two guards, finishing them off. She flew down towards Riley and Arthur. "We should probably leave before more of them show up."

Arthur glanced at Riley then stepped onto the carpet. "Let's go." He sent the bodies of the guards and the thugs into one of his pocket dimensions so he didn't miss out on the loot.

Riley jumped on the flying carpet. "Enchanting?"

"No, just a power though I have enchanting," Cassie replied as she levitated the carpet up and flew towards the city limits. "We should be good once we leave the general area."

Riley grinned when she looked at her experience bar on her heads up display. "I'm going to have to visit a trainer, I got nearly ten levels from that."

"Five," Cassie replied smugly as she continued flying out of the city. "There shouldn't be too many people in the actual starting zone right now."

"That sounds better than trying to squeeze into the mage tower," Arthur admitted, wondering how long it was going to take to get his enchanting up to the point where he could make his own flying carpet.

"Any idea how we're going to afford training?" Riley asked.

"We have six sets of high leveled armor, they probably sell for a couple of gold," Arthur pointed out.

"Wait, I'm not supposed to wander off with strangers, can I get some names?" Riley asked.

"Arthur," he offered.

"Cassie," Cassie offered, figuring there were plenty of Cassies in the world.

"Okay," Riley agreed, happy to get names so they weren't strangers. "I'm Riley. Thanks for the rescue."

"You're welcome," Arthur replied.

"How long have you been playing the game?" Cassie asked as they left the city and headed East.

Arthur shook his head. "I've only been in the city for about twenty minutes. I logged in to play some Fantasy Magic to unwind and I ended up in Stormwind stuck in a simulation."

"It's sort of fun as a VR game, actually being here, not so much," Cassie admitted.

"I found the headset, I just figured it was a gift from my family and I ended up logging in, it's sort of like Warcraft, right?" Riley asked.

"Close enough," Cassie replied. "Just with a lot of sex and swearing tossed in."

"Great," Riley muttered as she sat down so she could enjoy the ride and not feel like she was going to fall off.

0o0o0

Ziz stopped as a group of six dwarves in wool clothes walked up to her, blocking her path and stopping her from reaching the engineering trainer.

"I noticed that you're a Master Artisan, we're part of the trade guild," the man in the lead explained, studying the blue haired girl's face.

"And?" Ziz asked, not sure what they wanted as her precog wasn't working.

"We're trying to recruit everyone that has the Master Artisan perk so that we can dominate the market," the man replied. "Which means we'd like to extend an invitation."

Ziz shook her head. "I'm not interested."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist, we can make things unpleasant for you if you don't join or pay us for protection," the man replied with a smirk.

Ziz turned her attention to the engineering trainer standing in his workshop and lifted the schematics she could understand out of his head then did the same for the engineer/alchemist in the group of dwarves that were trying to be intimidating. She turned around and walked forward a couple of steps then stopped when one of the dwarves moved to block her way.

Taylor sighed when she saw the group of dwarves bothering the girl she was fairly sure was some type of elf hybrid judging by her ears. "Do you need help?" she asked the blue haired girl as she walked over, knowing she probably shouldn't draw the group's attention but unwilling to put up with bullying when she could help.

"No thank you," Ziz replied, then jumped over the dwarf's head and started walking towards the blacksmith trainer.

"Screw it," one of the other dwarves grumbled. "We'll add the bitch's name to the list, we'll just hire people to fuck her up."

"Why?" Taylor asked.

"We're part of the trade federation," the lead dwarf explained. "We're a guild filled with Master Artisans and we're going to control all of the trade of exceptional gear."

"She has the artisan trait," one of the dwarves blurted, having used his inspect character ability on Taylor and noticed the perk. "She has three professions."

"Which means you'll have to join unless you want trouble," the leader of the group said smugly.

"I'm not interested in joining a gang," Taylor replied as she walked over to the mountain of a jewelcrafting vendor that towered over her to pick up some of the things that Admin wanted.

Ziz smiled at the dwarven blacksmith trainer. "Please teach me your craft."

The trainer shook his head. "I'm sorry, it's against the rules of the crafting guilds to teach anyone a second profession unless they're exceptionally talented and you already have two professions so I can't help you."

Ziz tilted her head slightly. "Can I bribe you?"

"You daft bitch, you think we didn't try that?" one of the dwarves asked snidely.

The trainer shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

Taylor scowled as two of the annoying dwarves dashed over and stood in her way so she couldn't reach the vendor. "Really?"

"What's the hurry love?" one of the two dwarves asked with a smirk.

"We can make things easier or annoying, as long as you join or pay us, we'll leave you alone," the first dwarf assured her with a smirk.

The jewel crafting vendor sighed as he reached over and picked up a blacksmithing hammer off the anvil next to him. "Please stop being rude."

The dwarf standing in front of Taylor ignored the NPC, not even looking at him. "He's right, we can make things difficult, pay people to harass you and make sure you can't reach the vendors."

The vendor swung the hammer with all of his considerable might and cracked the dwarf's thick skull open, dropping him to the ground then did the same to the second dwarf before he could do more than spin around. "Don't block my customers."

Taylor stared at the dead adventurers for a couple of seconds then conjured a leash and stuck it on the closest dead dwarf, figuring it would be easier to control them when they 'woke' up. "Thanks, he was getting annoying."

"What the fuck?" the leader sputtered, shocked that the NPC had just killed Ralph and Jimmy.

"I told you, don't harass my customers," the jewelcrafting vendor replied coldly. "Are we going to have a problem?"

"No," the dwarf muttered, fairly sure he couldn't take the large man in a fight.

"Good," the vendor replied as he set the hammer back on the anvil.

Ziz turned to look at the dwarves that were harassing Taylor. "You should leave."

"We might not be able to deal with the vendor but we can kill you," one of the dwarves said then stepped forward to stab the girl with a knife, only stopping when his friend grabbed his arm. "What?"

"It's not worth it, we'll just send people after them later." The leader glared at Taylor and Ziz then stalked off.

The large vendor smiled down at Taylor. "What do you need?"

Taylor pulled her attention off the dwarves she'd leashed and focused on the vendor. "I need a jeweler's kit."

"Of course, eight silver," the man replied.

"No problem," Taylor replied as she pulled eight silver out of her inventory and paid him.

Ziz reached out and tweaked the blacksmith trainer's head so he 'remembered' that he'd already checked to see if she had a skill and found her without any. "Can you teach me?"

"Of course," the trainer replied in a daze then proceeded to 'unlock' her blacksmith skill. "You'll make a fine blacksmith."

Ziz grinned as she examined the additional skill on her list. "Thank you."

Taylor stepped away from the vendor to make sure she wasn't blocking his customers then glanced over at the blue haired girl. 'Maybe she dropped a profession?' She reached down and grabbed the ends of the leashes when the 'dead' dwarves started to wake up, defeating them and draining a large chunk of their experience thanks to her experience draining perk. "Let's see how many bondage items you can wear that aren't completely creepy."

"What makes you think we're going to help you?" Jimmy demanded as he staggered to his feet.

Taylor scowled at the idiots. "Because you're wearing a leash, you don't have much of a choice."

"Our guild will send people after you unless you let us go," Ralph taunted as he got to his feet.

"They're already going to harass me, so you might as well make this quick. I get experience for sticking bondage gear on people, I'm not a creep which means I'm limiting things to collars, masks, bells, harnesses, carriages and writing 'Asshole!' on your forehead."

Ziz smiled at Taylor. "Have fun."

Taylor shook her head. "I just want to finish up and get back to crafting. Stay safe."

"We're going to make you beg for death," Ralph taunted, planning on sending people after both of them.

"Don't worry," Ziz replied with a grin as she walked off, figuring their 'guild' would have more resources to steal later.

'Stop being a punching bag, they're talking about torturing you until you go insane,' Taylor thought as she conjured a blindfold. "If you cooperate, you'll be done in like two or three minutes then you can go on your way. If you don't, I'll just do it anyway then leave you tied up in the middle of the square."

"Fine," Jimmy grumbled. "Let's get this over with."

Taylor quickly worked her way through the various bondage items she could summon that weren't creepy and didn't involve anything his shorts would cover, doing her best to square her morals with her desire for experience.