“Angus, time to get up.” Someone whispered in my ear.

“Five more minutes.” I groaned, trying to roll away from the one who would wake me.

“Do you really wish to make Lolth wait?” That got me to bolt upright in bed. Looking around frantically, I realized that Vicda was laying there with her hand covering a smile. Laying there very naked. “Relax, she doesn’t expect us for a half hour.”

“Uh huh. And you know this how?” She pointed over my shoulder, where there was a spider hanging between the bedposts. It had very clearly written ‘Half hour’ in silk, and was tapping it with a foreleg. “Ah. Apologies Lolth, we will of course be on time.” I spoke to the spider, giving it a half bow. It snuck off to some hidden corner and I turned back to Vicda. “She leave messages like that a lot?”

“When it suits her.” She answered with a shrug. I flopped back onto the bed and she started rubbing my chest. “While I do enjoy lounging in bed, we have some important things to do today.”

“Ugh, fine. I guess I can tear myself away from this comfortable bed and pleasant company.” I joked in a put upon manner. Vicda giggled, slapping me on the arm before getting out of bed and starting to get dressed. “Is that a different mark?” I asked, pointing to her stomach.

“Hmm? IT WORKED!” She screamed, running over and throwing her arms around my neck before attacking it with kisses.

“You’re pregnant?” I stuttered out.

“Yes! Oh, to think that it would work the first time.” She said, rubbing over her smooth skin. “Hybrids are so rare. I wonder how powerful he will be?”

“You’re sure it’ll be a he?”

“No, just hoping. While drow are civilized enough to live in a matriarchal society, most of the world wouldn’t respect her enough and she would end up smiting many.”

“You’re opposed to the smiting?” I asked, rather confused.

“Oh not at all. It just wears on someone, when they have to keep killing for stupid reasons. Then of course she would have to live with the reputation as a murderess, while those who forced her hand spread lies about her. Would they blame the men who earned their fate? Of course not.” She was growling by the end, until I placed a hand on her shoulder.

“No matter what, they will be strong. That’s all we really need.” I whispered in her ear, pulling her into a hug so I could rub her stomach as well. For the first time, I was starting to have regrets about the plan. Sighing, I followed Vicda out and through the labyrinth of halls to the cathedral of Lolth. Inkler was sitting there, glaring at the both of us.

“I hope he wasn’t too much of a hassle.” I spoke to the guards, indicating Inkler.

“Not at all. There was some mischief when some of the brownie slaves tried to get in here to clean, but other than that was fine.” She replied with a grin, and I heard a velvety chuckle coming from above.

“Once he was reminded of his manners, he was very well behaved. Having something besides my guards to threaten the slaves with was nice. Funny, they don’t mind being punished but the thought of becoming playthings to a cat is terrifying to them.”

“Wonder if it is a racial instinct.” I pondered as the drider dropped down to inspect myself and the priestess.

“Could be. Though I’m far more interested in your successes last night.” Leaning in, Vicda turned to proudly display her stomach. “Simply marvelous. Not only did you manage to provide me a truly fantastic amount of energy, you managed to impregnate our Vicda here as well.” We both reacted a bit uncomfortably to the praise, getting a chuckle from Lolth. “Oh no need for that. I’m glad you went those extra rounds, though the first was more than enough to give me the energy to open a portal for you Angus.”

“Yes, well, I aim to please.” I answered.

“I’m sure someone was very pleased.” Lolth giggled, sending shivers up my back. “Are you ready to head back?”

“I suppose I am.” I said, looking at Vicda. She seemed torn, before quickly darting forward and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“Hurry back.” She said, and I gave her a smile.

“Alright, since you aren’t my follower I need your explicit permission. Angus, do I have your permission to transport you and your pet Inkler to the city of Nemesis?”

“You do Lolth.” I answered. As soon as I agreed, a blue magic circle appeared beneath Inkler and myself. I waved goodbye to Vicda, and the blue circle rose and I found myself in the central square in Nemesis with a squad of guards pointing spears at me.

“Damnit Angus, what the hell do you think you’re doing teleporting in like that with no warning?” Shrik yelled at me.

“Sorry Shrik, I didn’t really get any choice in the matter. I was expecting Lolth to drop me in the temple of Thanatos.” I apologized as the guards lowered their spears and relaxed. “Look, I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got a lot that needs doing. If you need me, leave a message at my house.” I interrupted him, before heading off down the streets. I avoided most people, heading in to my house and dropping exhausted into a chair. “Sorry Inkler, but I’ve gotta go for a bit. Need a break. I’ll leave you several meals worth, feel free to relax the rest of the day.” I said, patting his head. Once I felt he had enough food and water to last a day, I laid down on my bed and logged out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

There’s truly nothing better than a sugary sweet carbonated beverage after a few days of water in a magical world. It was early afternoon, and I was the only one sitting at the Oblivion Café. That was fine, as I just needed to relax and unwind a bit. I had an email from Derrick asking to meet sometime, that for some reason didn’t get sent to me in game. I sent him a response, saying I was out of the game for the day.

“Marty?” I turned to see an older man I vaguely recognized strolling through the café towards me.

“Yes? Sorry, you seem familiar but I can’t quite place you.”

“No need to get up. I’m Frank, in charge of development. I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to talk to you about what happened in Lucifer’s Mansion.”

“Sure.” I said, instantly cold.

“First, my deepest condolences. The developers who were in charge of the Underdark were told to go a little bit darker than normal, in order to push the envelope of what people were expecting. We had instituted a review process, hoping to catch and prevent anything even close to what you went through from occurring. Sadly, that failed.” He said with a sigh, staring off to the side for a bit. I let him sit in silence, having nothing to say. “I know that this is a case of too little too late, but the two people who were supposed to review the scenarios and the person who created that have all been fired. I also want to offer you counseling services to deal with any trauma you have gone through because of this incident.”

“All for my silence, I presume?” I asked in a snarky tone.

“No. I only ask that if you go public with what you know, and what you went through, you include the company response to what happened.”

“You aren’t going to try and bury this?” I asked, shocked.

“No. This was a massive fuckup. We deserve to take a lot of heat for it. I just want people to know that this company is taking the proper steps when it happens. That’s from the top too. We don’t mind making mistakes, we just correct them immediately and don’t try to cover it up.”

I sat and stared at him for a while, before rolling my eyes. “Damnit. How can I be mad at an evil corporation that refuses to act like evil entitled brats? I’ll be honest, it was disturbing. And I will definitely be taking you up on that therapy for a while, but after we get this dungeon dive done. I don’t really want to go public with anything, I just want to know that something like this isn’t going to happen again.”

“Glad to hear it. Very glad. As to making sure this doesn’t happen again, I think we have something for that. We are starting a new department, completely separate so that designers can’t make friends with their reviewers. They’re going over every single quest ever generated, and covering everything that could come close. This includes looking at the results of every single crafting recipe and ingredient.”

“That sounds like a good start. Are you making sure that they can’t use their positions to copy the recipes? I’m sure there are secret recipes that are guild controlled that would be worth a pretty penny.”

“We had thought of that. The lists are separate, and in alphabetical order so they can’t be cross linked. We are also highly recommending that these people not have characters in game.”

“Recommending?” I raised an eyebrow.

“A silent requirement. We just can’t come out and say it.” I nodded in understanding, and we dropped into a nice quiet. One where you don’t feel pressure to talk, just relax.

“How’s Emily taking it?” I asked after a few minutes. “I felt bad sending her the video, but you guys would need the proof.”

“Hard. We offered her the same therapy deal, and she’s taken a week off. I let Mike in on the issue so he would know the severity. That’s her boss.” He added at my confused look. “Anyway, Mike gave her a week off with pay and isn’t taking any of it from her PTO.”

“That’s good. I was starting to worry when I hadn’t gotten an email back from her about things.”

“Sorry about that. After she came to me with the video, I told her to take the rest of the day off.”

“Do you have anyone checking on her?” I asked.

“Not at this time. She’s in contact with Mike fairly regularly, so we aren’t too worried just yet. If she goes longer than a day with no contact we will contact the police for wellness, but Mike says from the tone of her messages she isn’t getting any worse.” Frank stuck around for another ten minutes or so, relaxing in silence with me. “Ugh. Much as I like relaxing here, I gotta get back and make sure things are running smoothly. I’m glad you’re doing ok after that issue. If anything changes, let us know. Use the contact email Emily gave you, while she’s gone everything of hers is being routed to Mike, but you’ll hear from him almost immediately.”

“Alright, thanks for fixing it and taking steps to stop it from happening in the future. That could really ruin someone’s game.” After Frank logged out, I sat there sipping my soda. One of the best parts about it was that the ice never melted, ruining the soda. Chuckling at the simple things, I browsed through the menu of items until I came to the perfect chair.

That’s how Derrick found me, sprawled in an overstuffed recliner with an empty soda in a cup holder. “Fucking brilliant. Where’d you find the chair?”

“Miscellaneous menu. You can customize if you want.” I said, not even bothering to open my eyes.

“Oh, oh where have you been all my life?” He asked, and I assumed he was talking to the chair and not me. I let him have a few minutes of bliss before getting down to business.

“So you said you needed to meet with me?”

“Yeah. It’s about the dungeon. First, have you finished all your quests?”

“Just have to turn it in tomorrow. After that I should be free, so long as I get a chance to work on skills and level up.”

“What are you sitting at? What I have in mind should be able to help.”

“High 70s. Almost 80.”

“Hmm, yeah we can get you up to max level with the remaining time. Shouldn’t be an issue.”

“So what are going to be the issues?” I asked with a chuckle.

“I need you to battle some of the creatures that want to join the dungeon. Hear me out.” He said, holding up a hand as I opened my mouth to interrupt. “They know I’m strong. They need to see your strength. So if you want them to fight in the dungeon, you’ll have to best their chief in battle.”

“Alright. I suppose I can do that, how many are we talking about?”

“Six or seven. I’ll bring you around with my planeswalking.”

“Sounds good. What else is bothering you.”

He sat still for a minute, and I didn’t press. After nearly a silent minute, he spoke, “I’ve been offered a job at the company. They plan on instituting a player controlled raid boss encounter once a month, and they want me to be the first one.”

“Congrats man! Sounds like it’ll be a ton of fun.”

“I’m hoping so. The only thing is they want me to be undefeated with my equipment.”

“So no sword for the dungeon?”

“No sword and no gear. They want those to be a complete surprise for the first raid, as they’ll leak that the first battle will be with the giant from your dungeon.”

I sat and thought for a while. No sword and gear, that would drastically reduce the effectiveness of Derrick in the dungeon. Then again, depending on how strong his gear was he might be a match for me, and it would be odd to have a dungeon boss weaker than a mini boss. “I think you should do it.” I finally spoke. “If you had your gear, what do you think the chances of the raid taking you on would be?”

“With no tactics or previous knowledge? About five percent. With my gear my magic resistances shoot up to where you almost need pure physical to take me down.”

“Yeah, you would make the raid wipe several times with armor. How are Jon and Phoebe looking?”

“They’re going to have a lot of fun. They really helped with a lot of the mind puzzles, but the best has got to be their boss room. Your enchanter clan really pulled through with a lot of stuff, and I think even some of the devs are going to be creating characters just to see what might be possible.”

“That good?” I asked, impressed.

“Wait until the group gets past Phoebe and Jon.”

“Can’t wait to see it.” After that, conversation just dropped into normal bits. Jon and Phoebe eventually joined us, and we spent the night just relaxing. Derrick and Jon even got into a ‘dad-off,’ apparently who could tell the worst dad joke without laughing.

“What’s the difference between a piano, a tuna, and superglue?” Jon asked.

“No idea.” Derrick said, shaking his head.

“You can tune a piano, but you can’t piano a tuna.”

“But what about the superglue?” Derrick asked, shaking his head.

“I knew you’d get stuck there.” Jon delivered with a straight face, and Derrick lost it.

“That’s it, I can’t take any more. Jon wins.” Phoebe said, ending the run. “And you are both banned from puns for a few days.”

“That’s a paper punishment.” Derrick said between chuckles. “Absolutely tearable.”

“Done. Get back here and take your punishment!” Phoebe yelled as she chased Derrick around the tables. “And no jokes about punnishment!” She yelled as Derrick opened his mouth.

“God I missed you guys. Sadly, I gotta get going. I’ll catch you in game tomorrow?” I asked Jon.

“Yeah man. Have a good night.”

“You guys too.”