How did it come to this? Former church sister Jelena Turandot walked about through the desert outskirts of Firefield. She let out a fatigued sigh. Okay, she knew how it had come to this, but still, she was immediately disappointed and disillusioned that it did.
Several months had passed since the orphanage was shut down, its many orphans shuttled out to the grand cathedrals at Firefield or Port Town. The Japella mission burnt down not long after, leaving Jelena with no further role in the church. She could have stayed around Japella, unemployed like all the other fogies that were the only ones left around the old village. All the young ones, the converts, spent the last few years brain-draining over to Firefield. That’s where all the Interface-compatible Branded lived. Where most pilgrimage-related jobs were located.
Working Girl. This status was self-explanatory. Jobs in the cathedral were limited and largely already staffed by loyal nuns and deaconesses. That left only a handful of wage earning roles for a burnt-out former sister with a lax understanding of chastity vows. And fewer careers still paid the bills in the off-season. Work was… work. In truth, she much preferred these proclivities when it wasn’t a career. It paid well. By the Menu, did it pay! Jelena was one of the more popular girls at the ranch. A relatively recent hire, she’d already taken to mentoring the constant stream of newer employees. Her, shall we say, ‘orientation’ program received no complaints so far.
Oath Breaker. This status was older and even more shameful – designating one who engages in certain activities outside of the church’s strictly sanctioned matrimonial requirements. Sure, most of the girls back at the ol’ ranch had the status. But Jelena had earned this peculiar mark on her Interface long before she’d ever entered her first brothel. Every Branded in Japella had seen at a glance what their mission’s church Sister had been up to after hours. “Old Turan’s daughter, back to her old habits. Conversion and all that newfound piety hadn’t kept her from fooling around for long.”
Both statuses were not permanent per se. Working Girl would change the moment she quit her job, same as ‘Pilgrim’, ‘Herald’, or ‘Wayfarer’ that were commonly seen along the path. Oath Breaker could only dissipate with a considerable amount of time from her initial dishonoring of her vows. Even then, it would exist in her personal history within the Menu, for any curious eyes to see. Just the thought of her indiscretions and urges being known to everyone who interacted with her caused Jelena to grimace with shame. And yet, she kept working, kept doing it…
Which brought her to her current walk. She’d started taking strolls through the northern desert rather than spending her hard-earned gold back at work. One time she had spent most of the weekend over in the eastern wing, then woke up in one of her coworker’s beds back in the western wing and walked right back over to her assigned room to start her next shift. That was when she knew she needed a change in routine.
So, she walked. Got some fresh air and thought about life. This was not what a life of godly piety was supposed to lead to, as promised to her by those kindly deacons when she’d converted. Now her eye was permanently Branded with this mark of a faith she’d cooled on, and all the other faithful knew at a glance what she did to make ends meet. Couldn’t even walk around Firefield without getting propositioned for some off-the-clock transactions.
Out here in the desert at least it was quiet – lonely, but quiet. The odd dire-tarantula or dire-gecko was easily dispatched by her repertoire of spells and the skills she’d learned on the pilgrimage route. Occasional battles got her a fair bit of experience and extra gold. But to make a living off that she’d need to be a full-time adventurer traveling the pilgrimage route in perpetuity.
Firefield’s desert was barren, but not without sources of sustenance available to the well-trained eye. This was Jelena’s homeland. She’d been siphoning water out of moisture fans long before she’d ever met her first Branded missionary. Working within the Interface made the process slightly different but not necessarily harder. Jelena could spend days out here in the sands without ever needing to meet another person.
On this day, though, Jelena discovered something most curious.
A horde of dire-tarantulas lay in three mighty piles of thirty each. Their menu designations were all present, all set to exactly zero HP. Something had killed these things meticulously, with precision. And in the dead center of the three mounds was a twisting wisp in a reddish hue.
Huh. The church mission never told Jelena what to do with some kind of Anomaly object. Ever curious, she selected and ‘Used’ it.
That was… all the rewards from these many kills, all flowing into Jelena’s coffers instead. Only, these things had been dead for some time, with no help from Miss Turandot.
Level up!
Modest gains for a level up at this stage. But she’d been early into level 42 that morning, and now she was halfway to level 44.
Two more piles lay off on the horizon. Spurred by curiosity (and a desire for more free experience and gold), Jelena followed this trail.
Two piles of forty dire-geckos each sat beyond the next set of dunes. Again, a so-called “Pandemonium Wisp” waited. And when examined…
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“Well…” Jelena whistled. “I’m getting quite the haul today.”
Someone – or something – was offing half the Firefield ecosystem. Slaying dire-beasts with expert precision. Only, the experience and gold garnered from such a massacre could not flow into its intended recipient. The rewards were hanging out in the ether, waiting for anyone to claim them.
Jelena followed the trail of corpses to another Pandemonium Wisp. Here she found four Golden Super Dire-Tarantulas arranged in the compass directions, legs shriveled up and dangling upwards above their massive carapaces.
In addition to another Pandemonium Wisp, Jelena also found a great spherical cocoon, nine feet in circumference. This cocoon had collapsed in on itself not too long ago, a process that continued as Jelena approached.
Within was a creature that did not possess a Menu designation or, seemingly, any ability to interact via Interface at all. It was humanoid, far taller than the already slender Jelena, though its face was mostly obscured by a tornado of hair.
Stabbed into the ground like a sword from ancient legends was a reddish blade. The creature pulled it from the red stone bedrock that existed beneath the Firefield sands one-handed.
“Sufficient,” it growled. “Further calibration inefficient.”
“You haven’t been Branded,” Jelena said. “Are you from around here? I was under the impression the church had converted every settlement between here and the Fellmarshes.”
Only this figure didn’t look like any desert denizen Jelena had ever heard of. Beneath that sea of hair, the figure looked more like the fairer-hued folk from down south. Like the generic depiction of a Riverglen lad, if you were to combine all their portraits into a basic average. And he was most certainly male, for he’d emerged from the cocoon entirely naked.
This figure looked over to Jelena, only some piercing reddish eyes breaking through all the hair.
“Unarmed. Not worthy prey.”
Jelena took a step back. “Excuse me?”
“Incoming.”
The sands behind Jelena stirred. Out of a hidden burrow appeared another Golden Dire-Spider, maybe half the size of the other house-sized legendary beasts.
The figure in the cocoon struck out faster than Jelena could process. One moment he tensed up, the next that red-stone sword had sliced clear through Jelena and that spider that leaped up behind her.
The former sister fell to her knees. That sword had cleaved right through her torso in one mighty gash! She wasn’t dead yet, and no second blow was coming to finish her off. She could get all her hit points back in an instant if only…
Jelena reached out and selected that Pandemonium Wisp:
More gold than she earned in a year at the bordello. Hell, enough gold to fund the brothel for two whole weeks! And more than enough XP to…
Level up! Level up!
That was an exceptionally fortuitous level-up. Three in one day was virtually unheard of at this stage on the path. Certainly not for one more versed in bedroom manners than battle.
Newly healed and with some extra hit points to match, Jelena turned to look for her attacker. He was running over a dune, slaying hidden Trapdoor Dire-Spiders whenever he encountered them, and generally hooting like a madman.
Jelena looked at where his sword had cut her down. There was no wound. This mysterious stranger appeared to have hit her on accident, not seeing or not caring that she’d been in the way of his prey. Dangerous, but not malicious.
At any rate, this wild man was running back towards town. If he was still stab-happy when he reached the outer oases, why, that could cause trouble for the city guards.
Whatever this mysterious figure was, he was generating strange anomalies without precedent in church teachings as he slew Legendary Monsters with abandon. That had the whiff of apostasy upon it. And that could bring down the church arbiters upon the entire city! Rather than risk that, Jelena took off running to try and talk some sort of sense into the strange man.
“Hey. You there,” Jelena cried.
“Combat efficiency at peak performance,” the naked man muttered to himself. “Require additional skillsets.”
Though the man’s mouth moved, Jelena couldn’t read lips through that massive beard. The rest of his body was relatively hairless, aside from the crotch of course. Like some kind of ancient, whitewashed statue from the pre-hero age. (But these details were hardly appropriate to share in polite company, so Jelena often left this out in her many retellings…)
“Skillsets, mister?” Jelena asked.
“Physical combat is calibrated. Need other forms of conflict. Verbal altercations. Bartering. Socializing. Political maneuvering.”
“Other forms of combat, huh?” Jelena scratched her cheek beneath her Branded eye. “I might have an idea regarding another type of fighting you can do.”
“Other forms of interpersonal jousting would be ideal. One to one.”
Jelena snorted. “Yeah. There’ll be a lot of that.”
This wild man tucked his sword behind his arm. Some kind of idle stance. Without an Inventory, he couldn’t exactly stash the blade.
“Brothel has a strict no-weapons policy. We’ll find someplace to store the sword.” Jelena wrinkled her nose. “And by the Holy Cleric, you need a bath. C’mon, big guy.”
Jelena Turandot threw open the saloon-style doors to a certain familiar brothel.
“Hey, boss,” she told the Madam. “Got a client in need of a very particular, comprehensive service. Bath, companionship, pillow talk, whole nine yards.”
In walked the wild man, as naked as the day he was born (if he was ever truly born, and hadn't appeared out of the ether one day.) The Madam whistled as he came in.
“That’s… going to require a dedicated wing. Why, we may even need to shut the place down.” The Madam looked him up and down. “Though I’m sure my workers’ll leave satisfied.”
Jelena turned and shrugged towards the east wing, then the west. “Men or women, big guy? What’s your pleasure?”
“This wing possesses fewer structural weaknesses.” The man walked towards the western side of the building. “It will be more defensible should the need arise.”
The madam and Jelena watched their new client leave to go peruse his many, many options.
“No Menu?” asked the Madam. “Something tells me this fellow doesn’t have the gold to pay.”
“Oh, don’t worry, boss!” Jelena threw her hands up. “Open a trade window. I’ll comp him.”
A week passed. The first day was all bathing and grooming, of course. Nobody was going to spend time with a filthy client. But then the real fun started.
Jelena’d gathered enough coins from those Pandemonium Wisps to fund the brothel. Which was good because nobody else was using the western wing for anything anytime soon. It was an all-hands-on-deck affair!
Jelena, as technically the one paying this wild man’s bills, stayed away and decided not to help out quite yet. Instead, she scoured the desert looking for more clues as to what the hell happened out there that summoned this immaculately chiseled man-beast into being. The cocoon began to disintegrate shortly after hatching, but what remained indicated something both organic and ancient. No samples could be taken, as attempting to Interface with it caused the material to disintegrate and scatter on the desert winds.
Beneath the sands lay some clues. Structures lay carved into the red stone bedrock, though without a full excavation team, their secrets would remain elusive. Jelena was quickly distracted from further exploration by the sheer noise emanating from back at the Firefield outskirts.
A full week, and they were still going at it! Even the most determined John tapped out around day three. The sounds wafted out of the brothel and carried far in the desert, day and night.
Now it wasn’t all moans and pleasurable screams wafting over the dunes. Occasionally there was a harp, and briefly even a full band. The girls were civilizing their client with cultured discourse, pillow talk, and etiquette lessons, as much as they were having fun with him in the usual manner.
“Hmmph. Maybe I should head over to the other side of the building and see Justinian.” Jelena’s thoughts turned to one of her favorite coworkers over in the east wing. “Better than roaming around the desert while the other girls get to have fun with a client on my dime.”
Another week passed before the cacophonous sounds wound down. Only then did Jelena dare enter her usual working grounds.
Several rooms lay ransacked, every surface having been used in ways that made Jelena not want to touch much of anything. She checked each chamber, finding them all in need of room service, until she reached the largest, VIP suite on the second floor.
All the girls lay gathered around on pillows or draped over beds and plush benches. Enkidu was there, having his daily stubble shaved by two coworkers Jelena was intimately familiar with, Shamantha and Barbaretta.
“Our client has been properly civilized,” Shamantha reported. “He should be able to control those wild outbursts of his now. Certainly, grew a little more purposeful in his lovemaking around the day three mark.”
“Indeed. We’ve even bestowed him with a name,” said Barb.
“Enkidu,” said the man. “This moniker is acceptable.”
The entire wing full of working girls all sat about dazed, apart from Sham and Barb. They all sighed and swooned in ways that voiced their satisfaction with a bed-rumblingly excellent performance from their client.
Jelena gazed upon the scene. She hoped the bordello had enough herbs on hand to keep everyone away from the dreaded Pregnancy status effect. And her formerly feral wild man was still entirely naked.
“Well, now that you’ve broken in our VIP client...” Jelena sashayed into the room, undoing her belt buckle.
Enkidu gazed upon her with a more discerning eye than his previous crazed swordsman shtick. His gaze was measured – and still hungry.
“Seems the other girls have given you their stamp of approval. Consider this one a complementary going-away gift. On the house.”
Jelena looked over the oasis as the sun began to set. She chuckled under her breath.
“You totally did your partner, didn’t you, Hoss?” Zilara said after a time, unprompted.
“What? Me?” Jelena looked down at Zilara. “Did I say anything out loud? I was reminiscing.”
“Enkidu. That crazy man. You did him. Probably sorted him out in that brothel back there too.”
“How the heck do you know that?” Jelena asked.
“Cold reading, context clues.” The holy child shrugged. “Does your boyfriend know?”
Jelena’s voice dropped. “Calaf is not – and if you must know I disclosed my sordid backstory to him back in the room. Didn’t mention Enkidu directly but he was entirely accepting of my past. Like the noble gentleman that he is, thank you very much!”
Zilara snickered. “He’ll probably get jealous if he knows your partner in crime is an old fling.”
“It was a one-time thing! Years ago!” Jelena said, flustered and a bit too loud. “Look, how do you even know… about this stuff? I swear I didn’t know what a brothel was when I was your age.”
“You told her about my embarrassing backstory, didn’t you?”
Enkidu appeared like a wraith behind Jelena.
“Actually, I hashed it out myself,” Zilara said.
Enkidu snorted out through his nose. “We should make for Japella.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jelena adjusted her traveler’s garb. “Library won’t un-burn itself. Either what we’re looking for is there or it’s not. C’mon, we’ll be wasting moonlight if we stay here too long.”
“Can I get some grub before we march through the desert?” asked the holy child.
“Very well.” Jelena sighed. “Know a place that sells good dire-duck sandwiches down the main drag. Should be open day and night.”
The trio left the oasis – and Jelena’s former place of employment, behind as they traveled south once more.
Was this chapter full of brothel shenanigans non-explicit enough to avoid getting dinged?
