The Skin Game - Prologue

Prologue

Casey Melville eagerly wheeled himself to the front door in response to hearing the mail man. He opened the door, pushed his wheel chair slightly forward, then leaned over and pulled the shipping package out of his low mounted mail box. Checking the label, he saw that it had indeed come from Artful Dominion Games. He pulled out the other mail, then rolled backward and locked the door.

He rolled to his desk, dropped the various other envelopes in his inbox, then ripped open the package and spilled out its contents. A jewel case with two DVDs, a glossy color instruction booklet, a fold out paper map and a letter addressed to him. He folded open the letter and read.

Dear Mr. Melville,

We are delighted that you have accepted our invitation to beta test Artful Dominion's Newest game. As someone who has accomplished so much, and who holds so many records, in our earlier games, we are sure you will give this game a thorough workout. We have setup a special support address for beta testers at beta.support@ArtfulDominionGames.com, you can also reach us by phone 24/7 at 1-800-555-2382.

Please remember to complete the feedback form at www.ArtfulDominionGames.com/beta each time you advance to a new level.

Thank you for your assistance,
G. Magus
CEO

Casey smiled, he held the speed record hitting level thirty in Eternal Journey II: Lands of Dominion. He also held the speed record for hitting level twenty-oneas a thief, and was the first to have found the Arch Relic Dagger of Blood. His standing in his guild was second to none. As someone who had so little of what could be called a real life, he found himself reveling in his power and success in these virtual worlds. He spent hours a day on line interacting with other people, having adventures, all from his wheelchair via computer.

Casey sometimes wondered what it would be like to be normal. He had been born with a birth defect that made his legs useless. Between his parents and various grants he had made it through school and gotten a job with an ISP. He worked from home, so he didn't have to venture out much. When he did it was always a painful reminder of how different he was, from so called normal people.

No one in his online community knew he was handicapped. Hell, most of them thought he was a girl. He had found that other players were nicer to female characters, so he tended to create his game alter egos as females. A couple of times he'd been approached about cyber sex, but he hadn't had any interest. For one thing, those approaching him were always male, or at least seemed to be. It was one thing to flirt a bit, pretending to be a girl was often quite fun. But chatting with some guy while he wanked off, that thought just made him queasy.

The freebies he got from other players just for flirting had helped him rise above his peers. So he'd be making another female character for this game. It would make setting records easier. So thinking he turned back to the included materials.

He unfolded the map. It was the same world he was used to from Eternal Journey I and II. It looked like some of the borders had changed, and there was some additional detail. It displayed the familiar lopsided diamond shaped continent. The largest political unit by far was the Romarian Dominion. It occupied all of the Eastern coastal region, most of the Southern coast and farm lands, and a good portion of the Northern Steppe. Barbarians controlled the remainder of the Steppe and frigid North. The Western coast was made up of the so called Free kingdoms.

He opened the glossy book and flipped through the installation instructions. Typical stuff. "Put disk in, click, click, enter long string of gibberish, click some more, wait." He found the classes to be a little different. He especially liked the Martial Artist class. He usually played thieves, he liked the sneaking about and the mobility. The ability to spy on others and know things no one else knew. But Martial Artists could dispense with weapons and armor. Their abilities to dodge blows would make up for the fact the thieves couldn't wear armor if they wanted to be any good at sneaking. Plus the ability to attack effectively bare handed, that could be handy if he lost or dropped his weapon.

He went ahead and started the install process as he continued to read. By the time the software was installed on his gaming PC, a high end AMD with the latest NVidia card and SATA drives, he was ready to create his character.

Looking at the racial abilities there was nothing special or new there. So he chose a half-elf. A good bet for a thief. Their high agility scores and ability to see in the dark were useful. While they were not as magical as a full elf, for a thief that wasn't a problem, and the low strength and endurance scores of a full elf made them too fragile if it came down to hand to hand.

He set his scores. Moderate strength, endurance and intelligence. Low wisdom. High agility and charisma. The new rules said that your selection of character skins would be influenced by your scores. If you had a high strength you would only be able to select well muscled skins, if you had a low charisma, you would only have access to ugly skins. If he wanted to use flirting to get stuff he'd have to be hot, so a high charisma was a must. Even if it would have been nice to use those points on strength or endurance.

Then he got to the next part of the character building process, creating the appearance of your character's avatar. This step controlled what other players would see. He was impressed. The selection of faces, builds, hair styles, eyes, mouth, etc. was quite a bit improved from previous versions. As was the overall quality of the images, they were pretty much photo realistic. He had wondered why it took two DVDs to hold all this, now he knew.

His character ended up being a tall slender female half elf. Her figure was female, but almost boyish. Her face had huge dark eyes, a dainty nose and generous full lipped mouth. Her skin was a pale ivory and her hair was dark chestnut brown that extended to her waist. As she slowly turned and modeled on the screen in her tiny bikini like basic outfit he found himself becoming slightly aroused.

He felt that the time for that sort of thing was later. After he had conquered this game he'd go download some good smut. In the mean time he went on to the next step selecting body mods. He chose a couple of tattoos. A patterned band of geometric designs around her left bicep and a matching band around her left thigh. The he pierced her lip, eyebrow, ears and navel. He noticed you could pierce nipples, clitoris and labia. He was a bit bemused because the halter and shorts the avatar was wearing covered these areas. This game was labeled MA, so maybe they were just playing to the teens who were into that sort of thing.

Lastly came dressing and outfitting. He found he got a dagger, leather belt, sandals and a crude shift. Just for jollies he tried dressing his on screen persona in the belt, and sandals, but not the shift. He noticed there was still an option to remove clothes and he clicked that. The tiny halter and bottom disappeared and he found himself looking at a fully detailed nude girl.

He laughed and spoke his thoughts out loud, "The programmers must have put this in the beta version as a joke. No way they are going to release a game where you can play nudie characters." He looked at the figure on the screen before him and decided that until he found something better than the rude halter and bottom, or the ragged shift, his character would just go naked. What better way to get drooling guys to follow him, er, her, around vying for her attention?

A thought struck him that made him think back to the previous step. He hit the back button, then selected all possible piercings. Sure enough rings appeared in her various erogenous zones. Then he decided to see what happened if he were to drag and drop a tattoo to someplace like her ass. So he selected a star like pattern and dropped it on her left cheek. It accepted the change. Cool!

Again he decided enough of that, so he went back to outfitting. As a starting character he didn't have many options, so after again deciding to stick with nudity, he went to the next step in the character development process. Here he was asked a lot of questions about physical characteristics. A lot of blanks were already filled in. Hair color, height, weight, etc. But there were things like right or left handed, food preferences, etc. Then there was a section on personality. Things like favorite color, likes such as dancing, singing, music, art, etc.

And there one section that again caused Casey to pause and wonder what the programmers were up to. There was an option for sexual preferences. After some thought as to what would make her most appealing to male gamers accessing her profile, he selected bisexual, submissive, likes bondage, moderate pain, oral and anal.

The next step was more free form, he was asked to provide a rough background. According to the manual and the help file, this would be provided to inquiring gamers who requested it, but only after he gave approval. In addition it would be scanned for various key words that would be used to influence the game. This was totally new, so he just started typing up something that would fit the naughty girl he was creating.

He decided that she was born of a visiting elf and a human prostitute. Her mother was a slave in a joy house in Romar city. She was born and raised in the joy house, trained from birth to please men, or women. Her virginity auctioned off the highest bidder a week after her first period. Eventually a visiting thief had become enamored of her and bought her from the joy house. Once he had her as his own slave, it eventually occurred to him that he could train her to assist him as a thief. After a few months of such training he had been caught during a robbery, and executed, leaving her on her own. She chose to flee the Dominion in case the authorities found out she was his accomplice. And as his legal slave she would have been impounded and sold if caught. She finally had her freedom, and was not too keen to soon surrender it.

This fit in with the stock beginning of the game, which was, that the character was arriving on the docks of the free city of Glimrock as a penniless exile. With that done he went on the to the last step. He needed to name his character. After a moment's thought, he named her Kaessi. His character complete, he smiled, rubbed his hands and clicked the Join Game button.

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Ten days latter Casey sat hunched over his key board. His thief character Kaessi eased slowly forward. She was no longer nude. Though she wasn't wearing much, she wore a translucent skirt of ankle length that was split to the waist. Her upper torso was barely covered by a very short vest that gaped open in the front, eternally threatening to expose her breasts. She had a bag slung over he shoulder but no visible weapons or armor. She did hold short thin staff in one hand as she crept along.

If Casey could complete this quest successfully, he would be the first thief to reach 21st level without dieing. Or rather the first player to have a thief class character reach 21st level. He enjoyed the game a lot. Male characters would follow him around drooling. Eventually other players had started going nude as well. But for many character types is just wasn't practical.

Fighters and priests needed armor for battle. Thieves' found that the lack of armor benefited the stealth skills greatly, but if their stealth failed, without armor they were so much toast. Casey had used the new options to mix and match character abilities to have a character who was a 4th level martial artist as well as a thief. The defensive capabilities allowed him to get out of the few scrapes that he hadn't been able to sneak into and out of. On the few occasions he found Kaessi had to fight, her enchanted bo staff was also a very potent weapon compared to the typical dagger wielded by most thieves.

These abilities combined with all the assistance he had been able to con out of gullible players by swaying Kaessi's virtual hips had been a real boost. He'd pushed her to 24th level without dieing once, and was about to hit 25th. Since all but four of those levels were as a thief that would make him the first player to reach 21st level with dieing once!

He held his breath as he triggered Kaessi's trap disarming skills. She waved her hands about and the little color bar crawled up the side of the status window until it hit green. Casey caused his on screen alter ego to reach out and collect the scroll that he sought. He hit stealth mode again and slid out past the guards. Once outside he ran back to the nearest village. Once to the village he saw that Kaessi had advanced to 21st level thief. He stopped to assign her bonus points, then moved her to the top of the hill overlooking the village square. Once there he opened the scroll and read.

Congratulations.
You have completed the wish giver quest.
To get your wish granted, say "Magus please grant me a wish."

Casey hummed to himself for a minute. This game was very different from earlier versions. He'd left lots of feed back saying so. Especially about the nudity options. He'd also discovered an option that if two characters got nude and selected the embrace emotion for their avatars, the avatars would engage in a simple sex act. He'd used that option a number of times to talk players out of stuff, essentially prostituting himself, or rather his avatar Kaessi, to gain assistance and goods. The first time it had happened by accident he had been very taken aback. Embarrassed. But then he thought, big deal, how is this really any different than the on screen flirting. It was a bit more graphic, but it made it easier for him to get stuff. It wasn't like he was actually typing in a description of sex or something. He'd just click embrace and sit back to watch the thirty seconds or so of virtual humping. He'd smile every time thinking if the guys on the other end could really see him sitting in his wheel chair they wouldn't be so keen to get naked and click embrace.

He had also found that folks seemed to dig the whole submissive thing. He starting calling all the guys master and suddenly everybody wanted to take care of her. He had tried calling the female characters mistress. Sometimes they didn't seem to have a problem, some reacted very negatively and a few seemed to dig it. He figured the few that liked it where probably guys playing girl characters like him.

But at the pith of it, he didn't care. Whatever worked, whatever he needed to do, he'd do it. He was going to dominate this game, regardless of what he had to do. It helped that the complex world was so detailed and the graphics were eye catching and very often lovely.

Over the last ten days he had worked just enough to keep his boss off his back, slept and ate just enough to function. Every other waking moment was spent in front of the screen pushing Kaessi to new heights of power.

Now he could get a wish. Interesting. As was his habit he spoke the words aloud as he typed the words "Magus please grant me a wish," into the text box that caused his character to speak.

For a second nothing happened, then the screen whited out. His entire field of vision was obliterated by a blast of white light. Suddenly it ended and she found herself swaying slightly on her sandal clad feet.

Swaying? Sandal clad feet? Her?

Kaessi was very disoriented. It was like her whole life stretching back before this moment had been some sort of dream. The memories of another life, a sad, bitter angry life seemed more real. The memories of a cripple who lived in a strange world without magic. A world with wondrous machines, but no people but humans. A drab dry husk of a world.

She remembered standing...No she had been sitting...No, that wasn't right, Casey had been sitting, she had been standing, and saying the words "Magus please grant me a wish." Then suddenly she was here.

Where was here? This wasn't the hill above the village square where she had stopped to read the scroll. She looked around.

She stood is a stone chamber. A pentacle was painted on the floor. Wall mounted torches in brackets circled her on the curved wall of the room illuminating things quite clearly. The only apparent exit was a door directly ahead of her. She cautiously moved forward, using all her hard won skill to make no noise. She checked the door for any sort of trap, and found it untrapped and unlocked.

She opened the door and found herself looking along a table with seven chairs. Five of the chairs were occupied. The chair at the far end of the table was empty, and the chair nearest her. She recognized one of the people, they had met before. Dressed in his trademark black armor and horned helmet was Hern the Fighter. They had traded relics. She'd come away with really nice magic anklet that prevented her from leaving footprints. She'd picked up a big honking enchanted ax that she didn't need. He had given her the bracelet and 50 gold marks for the ax and a bit of sex. She felt herself becoming wet as she remembered his lustful embrace. He had taken her in front of several of his friends. Then they in turn had each taken their pleasure on her and paid her well.

She gave a deep bow to everyone. Her upbringing in the joy house had engrained the need to be courteous and respectful. She greeted them all in her girlish voice thick with Romarian accent, Masters and to the single other female present, Mistress. Then finally nodding to Hern as she again stood erect, "Good Master Hern, well met again. Could you please tell this one what passes here?"

Hern nodded back, "Kaessi right?"

"Yes master."

"Well, to tell the truth, I for one am not sure what is going on here." Hern pointed a finger at the man sitting across from him. He was classically handsome, a veritable Greek god of a man with well defined muscles and a chiseled face. From where Kaessi was standing it was clear that he wore nothing but a pair of mid calf pants and a pair of leather bracers. His waist was cinched in a wide leather belt with many pockets. Kaessi recognized the belt as a relic valued by the monastic warriors of Jiro who specialized in unarmed combat.

As he pointed his finger at the Warrior Monk, Hern continued, "He says that he was the first here and found this." Here reached out, took hold of a piece of parchment laying on the table and slid it to Kaessi's end.

Kaessi stepped forward and read:

Please be seated.
Once everyone has arrived I will explain all.

The Grand Magus

Kaessi looked around at the others. Across from her next to Hern was a large burely man dressed in shinning silver mail. A two handed sword in its sheath rested between his legs, a helm lay on the table in front of him. He regarded her with interested eyes.

Next to the Monk sat the only other female. She was built much like Kaessi, slender but female. She wore a gauzy gown and girdle of silver chain. A jeweled staff stood at hand between her knees. As she regarded Kaessi she realized this woman was another half elf. Golden blond, blue eyed where she was dark but otherwise much alike.

Across from Kaessi sat a green scaled, long snouted, lizardman. He wore green scale armor that looked like it had come from some great serpent. He wore a cap of dull green enameled metal. Worked into the front of the helm was the symbol of Narissa, the Snake god. God of wisdom and healing.

This left an empty chair next to the blond, and the chair at the far end of the table. Kaessi wasn't sure she wanted to sit down. But after a moment the monk said, "Look, I don't think we are going to find out anything until everyone is seated. I'm guessing that chair in front of you is yours, and our host will appear and take the other one. Please just sit down and let's get on with this."

Kaessi nodded, and gracefully slid into the chair.

No sooner had her bottom nestled into the cushion than a white glow appeared in the chair at the end of the table. After a moment it passed and a white bearded human sat facing them. He nodded slightly and introduced himself. "I am the Grand Magus."

Almost at once everyone began talking.

He raised his hand forcefully spoke the word "Quiet!" Kaessi and Hern instantly quit speaking. The woman and the monk next. The other two finally shut up when it became obvious that he wasn't going to proceed until they stopped talking.

Once everyone was silent he continued. "You are no doubt confused. The effect will pass in short order and you will feel more yourselves. But aspects of the characters you have become will remain. After all you designed and created these personas. They are in some way an aspect of your original self. Then you spent many hours identifying with them, understanding their needs and abilities. You are them, and they are you. If this were not true, you would not be here. As to where is here, we are sitting in an isolated tower near the border town of Yaserik in the Free Kingdom of Jiroshan. You are really in the realm of Omaran, and less than five miles from the border of the Romarian Dominion."

He gestured and continued, "You see I was originally from this world. Some years ago I was exiled to yours. A world with very weak magic. Over time I have learned how to use those devices you call computers to augment the magic of your world. Using this power I can for a time return, just I am now. But there is not enough power, in the magic I can access, to return for good."

Pointing at each of them, he added, "That is where you come in. Because you are not under the curse that exiled me, you can remain in this world indefinitely. And thanks to my magic and your work within the game, here you exist as great heroes. Heroes the likes of which are rarely seen as single individuals in a generation. A group of six people with your prowess in nearly unheard of, and because of that, you should be able to help me."

The monk said, "Why should we help you?"

The Grand Magus smiled, "Because unless you help me, you will not return to your world. You will be marooned here."

The monk said, "If we are such bad asses, who says we can't force you?"

The Grand Magus said, "Because I can simply disappear and return to your native world at will. You can force me to do nothing."

"That seems mutual."

"True, I can not force you to help me. But if you do not, you will remain here. I will recruit another six helpers who will help me. You are free to choose."

The snake priest said, "So what do you want usss to do?"

"You will need to quest for a magical key at the lost caverns of Ulumbar in the frozen North. Once you have that, you will need to journey South and take ship to the island of Pantagerea. There you will find the temple of Gerlith, Guardian of That Which Passes Between. Underneath the alter in the inner sanctum is a secret chamber. Inside that chamber is vault that can only be opened by the Key of Ulumbar. Inside that vault is the Orb of Making. If you bring the Orb of Making back to this keep, I can use it to break my curse. Once I have done so, I can reward you."

The Grand Magus nodded, "The choice is yours. I will know if you take up the quest. In the room beyond that door," he pointed to a wall hanging, "You will find maps, such information on what you face that I could find, and supplies. I bid you adieu."

In another flash of white light the Magus disappeared.

There was a lot of discussion. As they argued back and forth each of them seemed to become more their old selves. At one point Kaessi realized they had all lapsed into English. Previously they had all been speaking Romarian, the lingua Franca of the Dominion Lands. In English she didn't call the others Master or Mistress, but when she lapsed back into Romarian she found it a hard habit to break.

Eventually they all agreed that the only reasonable choice was to take on the quest. Kaessi felt compelled to want to return to a life where she was not a woman. Even if it meant being in a wheelchair. She figured the others all had families, or jobs, or something. Everyone's concern seemed to be less about should they carry out the quest, and more about could they trust the Magus.

Finally they all agreed to go forward with the quest. They rose and made for the door concealed by the wall hanging. Kaessi felt like she was trapped between two minds. One was delighted at the sensation of gliding across the floor on her own two feet, the other was not. One was noticing that the Blond woman's dress was as translucent as her own skirt. One was noticing the monk's muscles ripple as he walked across the room and held open the curtain for everyone to walk through.

On the other side the hanging they found a stairway down to a lower floor. Here was a map table showing their routes. A leather case of scrolls were found to contain various accounts of the Caverns and the Temple. Along with partial diagrams of their floor plans and illustrations of the two items, the Key and the Orb.

They also found dried trail rations, water bottles, a few bottles of wine and two small pouches full of Romarian Golden Marks. They continued down from this room to what was evidently the ground floor where they found bunks, blankets and a fireplace. This floor also had a heavy bared door that lead outside. Almost as one everyone realized they were hungry and tired.

Hern and Kaessi prepared a meal, then everyone found a bunk and sacked out. As they prepared to sleep talk was mixed, mostly about what they might face on their quest. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Romarian. It was obvious that the two personas were still vying for control in each of them. Finally they went to sleep, deeply exhausted.

Continued in Chapter 1

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