“Tabitha! Why are you sneaking up on me like that?!” Alicia yelled, huffing as she crawled to her feet.
The Foxgirl was laughing hysterically and had to wipe away a tear before she finally responded. “Oh wow, that was priceless. You should have seen the look on your face! It’s nothing personal, Alicia, I promise. I wanted to test how aware you are of your surroundings. You failed, by the way, but I think falling into a mysterious pit is punishment enough. What is this thing, anyways? You girls setting up some mud wrestling? Heck, if you are, can I set up a camera for my fans?”
Tabitha held out a paw, which Alicia grabbed before hopping out of the pit. “We’re doing no such thing! For your information, Kat and I are taking things slow. This is something I’m working on for Elias.”
“Who’s that? Friend of yours?”
Alicia paused for a moment, running over everything that had happened last night. “Shoot, that’s right, we never told you. Elias is a registered delver, one of the ones we contacted, but he can’t help us delve because he’s a Mermaid. However, we’ve been talking, and I mentioned that I’ve got a river nearby, so he suggested setting up a small pond so he can come help us out. He’s a Geomancer, so he’s got some healing abilities he can use to help us recover in between delves.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea! The more the merrier I always say. Granted, that normally has a different context in my line of work.” There was a brief pause, during which Alicia couldn’t stop herself from picturing what Tabitha might have meant. It must have been obvious, as she caught Tabitha smirking at her moments later. “Is it cool that I talk about work? I know I can be a bit prickly at times, but I’m not trying to make things too awkward for you.”
“No, it’s okay! I’ve just been pretty sheltered since the Change. Before Katrina ran into me, I hadn’t seen another person in years. I work for ORC, though, so I’m caught up on all the new laws and everything.”
Tabitha tapped a claw on her chin for a moment, lost in thought, before speaking up again. “I guess that makes sense. I’ve never worked with ORC, personally. I was a camgirl even before the Change, and my Race is pretty normal, all things considered. I didn’t need to change anything about my life, other than investing in some hardcore robot vacuums. Biggest difficulty for me was the huge influx in new cam workers after sex work was legalized.”
“Is camming all that different from before the Change? It’s still just, like, playing with yourself on camera, right?” Alicia asked. She’d watched her fair share of cam shows before the Change, but she didn’t know much about the industry.
“It’s harder to find a selling point. Before, so long as you were either hot or had a distinctive look, you’d find people that wanted to watch you. Now? There are tons of Races literally designed to be as sexy as possible, so competition is really stiff. I almost quit a few times because, like, how am I supposed to compete with Succubi that have to constantly host orgies just to survive?”
“What did you do about it?”
“Well, this had been true since long before the Change, but often sex work is only about sex like, half the time. The rest of the time people just want company, they want intimacy they’re not getting elsewhere. I’ve known escorts that get paid top dollar not to sleep with people, but just hold them and play with their hair. I try to lean into what makes me different; I don’t have incredibly high Charisma, and it won’t increase by leveling up. However, I’ve got crazy muscle definition from my high Agility, and that’s why I get a lot of people asking me to do parkour streams. Other than that, it’s mostly about connecting with your audience, giving them someone they can goof off with regularly.”
“Tabitha, that’s so beautiful! I had no idea cam work could be so touching!”
The Foxgirl laughed to herself. “I mean, there is also a lot of touching. I did get crazy lucky in one aspect; I was camming when the Change hit.”
“Wait, like, you caught it on camera?”
“Oh yeah. Full HD, hour long show. I start as a Human, just doing my thing, and halfway through I turn into this. I was already turned on from all the masturbating, but my entire body changing like that? I came so hard, and now it’s easily my best-selling video. I’ll give you a discount if you want to see it sometime, you know.”
This time, Alicia was completely aware of how heavily she was blushing. “I-I’ll think about it!”
With one last, hearty laugh, Tabitha slapped Alicia on the back before jumping in the pit. “You’ve got to make yourself less fun to tease, Cherry Blossom. I’ve got half a mind to ask if you two are poly, but I have a feeling you haven’t had that conversation yet. Why don’t you join me in the ring and we’ll review everything we went over yesterday.”
Alicia nodded, eager to change the conversation, and joined Tabitha in their impromptu fighting ring. She grew a pair of staves again, throwing one to the Mage Knight, and they started practicing.
Although still sore, Alicia could feel her muscle memory kicking in. Several small movements that had given her trouble yesterday now felt easier, and she was more confidently able to keep up with Tabitha’s attacks. She did her best to block with her staff when possible, but she had also gotten better at managing her barriers. Whenever Tabitha outmaneuvered or overpowered her, she was able to grow tiny barriers from her body to absorb the strike.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
As Tabitha had explained yesterday, the barriers worked best as a second line of defense, or as a way to protect distant teammates. However, while Alicia still lost HP when her barriers were hit, they had several large advantages over blocking the attack with her actual body.
Most importantly, her barriers had no critical weak points. A barrier that shatters from a blunt strike, while still costing HP, has no other downsides. That same attack, however, might easily break a bone and cripple Alicia for weeks. Similarly, bladed weapons might be able to inflict poison or slice open vital arteries, and the barriers could prevent that as well. They were the perfect tools to absorb any number of potential injuries.
Alicia’s mind was racing as they continued sparring. She had to mind her own footwork, stay balanced, hold her staff correctly, but also watch Tabitha’s movements and look for patterns. Whenever she fell behind, and Tabitha slipped past her defenses, she had to summon a barrier to absorb a strike on her thigh or waist.
They were in the middle of a particularly lengthy exchange of blocks and parries when something unusual happened; Alicia heard a voice in her head that, oddly enough, sounded like Katrina.
“Hey Alicia, could you come home? I’d like to test something.”
In her confusion, Alicia lost focus on her fight with Tabitha. Before she could snap back to her senses, the Foxgirl had spun behind her and struck at her feet, knocking her to the ground. She tried to gasp in pain, but landing flat on her back had knocked the wind out of her.
“Gotcha!” Tabitha cheered. “You were doing pretty good until the end there, what happened?”
“Owwwww, that really hurt!” Alicia groaned. “And I’m not completely sure, but I think Katrina just like, sent me a psychic message? She wants me to come home.”
The Foxgirl reached down, offering a hand to help Alicia up. “Alright, well I won’t count that against you. Ordinarily I’d say you should be ready for anything, but we’re still new at this and, if anything, it’s her fault for testing new spells without warning us. C’mon, let’s go see what Fangs is up to!”
Alicia jumped back to her feet, then decided to continue using her staff as a walking stick as they returned home. She was growing strangely fond of having a staff, both as a weapon and for general use, and hoped she would remember to bring one with the next time she traveled away from her Heart Tree. Once she made it home, she opened the front door and called out for Katrina.
“Kat, you up? I got your message!” she said.
“Oh! That’s amazing!” As Kat responded, Alicia realized the Vampire was still upstairs. After a moment, she appeared at the top of the stairs and started walking down. “What did it sound like?”
“Um, like a voice in my head? I don’t know if there’s another way to describe it.” The girls kissed quickly before Alicia continued. “Of course, it distracted me and let Tabitha throw me to the ground, so I didn’t get a lot of time to examine it.”
“Alicia, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you two were practicing!” Katrina leaned in, hugging Alicia tight before checking for injuries. “You’re not hurt too bad, are you? Did you get lots of time in the sun today?”
“I’m fine, Kat, really. I had plenty of time earlier to let my Regeneration do its thing.”
“Man, you’re lucky,” Tabitha said, “I’d kill for some Regeneration. Plus, normally that Feature requires a bunch of food to power itself, but all you need to do is sunbathe? Talk about winning the Change lottery.”
“I mean, all Races have their downsides; I’ll never be able to travel, for one thing,” Alicia said.
“I’m pretty sure Vampires get some kind of latent Regeneration type thing since we’re undead, but I won’t bore you with the details of how much I hate my Race.” Katrina squeezed Alicia’s hand as they talked, and thankfully Tabitha didn’t ask for any elaboration.
“Yeah yeah, I know. Everyone gets something different. I really shouldn’t complain, two of my Ten are in the twenties, and with a few Spells, I can make it four,” Tabitha said.
“I’m sorry, back up. You can get FOUR of your Ten above twenty?!” Katrina said, clearly shocked.
“I mean, yeah. Beastkin always get crazy Attribute levels, I thought you of all people would have known that.”
“Okay, but that many Attributes above twenty is insane! I think I understand why your fans pay you to tackle parkour courses, I’ll bet that’s incredibly impressive.”
Tabitha smirked, then winked quickly at Katrina. “Oh, is someone interested in watching my shows? Maybe I’ll let you choose my outfit next time; my most popular ones are a blue bikini with way too many straps, and a gold bikini I wore for my collab with TheSexiestSlayer.”
Katrina’s eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped as Tabitha finished talking. “Hold up, you did a show with TheSexiestSlayer? Seriously?!“
Alicia, feeling a little out of her element, pulled Katrina closer and asked, “Should I know who that is?”
“She’s probably one of the most famous streamers in the world! She’s a Greater Succubus with some obscenely high Charisma score, it’s like forty-something, but she’s also an incredibly skilled gamer and cosplay creator. Personally, I think she’s one of the reasons that camming became as commonly accepted as it is today, once sex work became legal, obviously.”
“So, she’s like… super pretty?” Alicia asked, a little nervous.
Thankfully, Katrina found the subtext in the question. “Well, yeah, but that’s not really the point. Sure, the System gave her a ridiculous Charisma score, but honestly, I never really watched her shows for that. She’s worked with delvers in the past, and it’s pretty significant that she became as well-known as she did. It was the first time a sex worker got, like, super famous.”
“If she’s ever in town again, I’ll see if I can set up a meet and greet. If you’re interested, that is,” Tabitha teased.
“How about we cross that bridge when we get to it,” Katrina said. “Besides, it might never happen, and we’ve got a Dungeon to tackle. You two need to get back to your sparring, and I’ve got more spells I need to create.”
“Right, your spells!” Alicia said excitedly. “What was the one you used on me?”
“I haven’t named it yet, but if it’s working as intended, it just lets me send a short message to whoever I want. It’s not the most common spell, but I’ve seen enough people get similar magic to understand how it works. The closer someone is, the less mana is required. On the flip side, with enough mana, I could theoretically reach anyone, anywhere in the world.”
Katrina jumped back up the stairs, quickly grabbed her guitar, and rejoined the group as they prepared to return to their training.