The members of Dawnguard was staring at her, making Vixen wish she was logged in with her normal account, not the special reporter account provided by Perennial. The men gawked at her with obvious lust, as did some of the females, but most of the women stared at her with disgust. Looking down on the clothes that were too revealing for her own taste, she understood why. The top was low cut and threatening to spill the goods at the smallest movement. Her skirt was practically non-existent, and looked completely out of place.

However, the production team demanded the revealing clothes. When she had first been hired by GameNewz, she had been ecstatic. She was just a self-producing blogger at the time. That was four years ago, and in that time Vixen had grown more ambitious and had studied journalism. She wanted a real job as serious reporter, not being used as a prop for attracting male viewers. Not any longer at least. In the start it had been fun and exciting, but that had faded. However, none of the serious news outlet would hire her, because she lacked real journalistic experience, and had a reputation for being an airheaded bimbo.

Looking over at her assistant slash camera woman, she rolled her eyes when she saw that Milena was staring starstruck in the direction of Dawnguard’s guild leader. Aragoth’s avatar did look dashing, but Vixen had seen him in real life. He was a thin bean pole, with disgusting manners and intentions. His avatar on the other hand was tall, muscular, with piercing blue eyes and a mane of golden hair. A square jaw and dressed in full plate mail, made him look like a knight.

Luckily she had long since learned to deal with the people expecting personal benefits in exchange for an interview. Something the production team encouraged, and often tried to pimp her out. She had never actually slept with any of them, and despite the vicious rumours.

She had a biomod installed, which released intoxicating pheromones on command. It was highly illegal, but well worth the risk in her opinion. When the overly familiar suitors were addled out of their brains, she used an equally illegal device to implant false images and feelings, suggesting that she had slept with them. It was a huge risk, but worth it.

“Can I talk to you for a moment, privately,” Aragoth asked and pulled her out of her woolgathering. He had approached her without her being aware.

“Sure,” she activated the cone of silence, one of the few spells that was available for the reporter’s avatar, “We’re talking privately now.”

“That’s great,” he kept a pleasant expression on his face, but his tone dipped into a dangerous tone, “I know what you did last time we met in the real world, this time I expect the real deal. Understood?”

“I don—” she had started to say.

Interrupting her, Aragoth snarled at her, momentarily slipping away from his pleasant expression, “Don’t deny it, I’ve got recordings. Do what is expected of you, like the good little whore you are, or the authorities will get it.”

With that, he turned and went over to supervise the construction project that his guild was performing. Vixen was left standing there, frozen in place. Panic started to well up in her, and she frantically started to think of a way out, but before she could really ponder it, Milena came over, “You’re so lucky, a private conversation with Aragoth.”

“Eh, just something personal,” Vixen mumbled.

“Oh my gosh. You’re lucky, millions of girls would kill to be in your shoes.”

“Mmmmm, really lucky,” Vixen did not feel lucky. Not one bit, in fact she felt the complete opposite. Her breathing became faster, bordering on hyperventilating.

“Anyway, we need to get the pre-live broadcast interview stuff over. They want to air it as a promo, and then switch to live broadcast minutes before Dawnguard becomes the first recognized guild in the game,” Milena went on, without picking up Vixen’s distress.

“Okay, just give me a minute,” Vixen said and tried to calm down.

Milena mused out loud, as she practically skipped over to Aragoth, “Cool, I’ll go get set up. These recording spells are really awesome, I wish I could use them on my own avatar, could make a sick scout build with these spells.”

“So you’ve said repeatedly,” Vixen said. Taking great efforts to center herself and put on her usual exuberant persona, Vixen followed half a minute later. When she saw Aragoth’s smirking face, she wished she had a firebolt she could throw in his face. Her resolve wavered for a second, but she steeled herself.

With her fake persona plastered all over, she stood beside Aragoth. When Milena indicated she was recording, Vixen gushed, “Hello there gamers, this is HannahVixen reporting to you from inside Carn Online. I’m standing here with the sexy, the hunky Aragoth. Famous guild leader of the indisputable number one guild in the world, Dawnguard.

“But that is not Aragoth’s most prestigious achievement. No, we’re talking about Gamer of the Year for three years running. And girls, and some of you boys out there, Hunk of the Year, Sexiest Male Avatar and my personal favourite, Most Eligible Bachelor. Aragoth, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Aragoth answered, with a smile that sent creepy tingles down Vixen’s spine.

“This is the third day in game, but because of time dilation, it hasn’t even been thirty six hours since the game opened. A—”

“Correct,” he interrupted her, almost throwing her off her rhythm.

“And in that time Dawnguard has accomplished a lot, and so have you personally. You were the first player to enter the game, you’re the first player to get a class, and it’s even a hidden class.”

“Again you’re correct.”

“To unlock a class, you need to be level ten, how have you accomplished that when the average player level is six?”

“I’m just that good,” Aragoth gave an arrogant smile. Vixen wanted to wipe that off his face. From an overhead conversation between Dawnguard members, she knew that he had been killing off damaged creatures. If multiple parties fought a creature, they shared the XP, but the party who landed the last blow earned 50% of the XP. So they had several parties fight monsters and pull them over to Aragoth for him to land the finishing blow. While the tactic had benefited Aragoth, it meant that Dawnguard had several underfarmed parties.

“Could you tell us about your class?” she asked immediately, hoping she successfully hid her revulsion.

“It’s called Champion, and that is all I’m going to reveal.”

“Don’t leave the viewers hanging like that, you must be able to give them something.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely, it’s meant for highly skilled PvP fighters.”

Seeing a chance to maybe segue into something that would irritate him, Vixen quickly asked, “Speaking of fighting, do you use manual or assisted mode?”

“Manual of course,” he boasted, “Which requires a lot of skills. Not everyone can do it.”

“Indeed, we saw that with yesterday’s trending video. Sensei Kira from the guild Blue Lotus won flawlessly against two system assisted players. Did you see this video?”

Aragoth’s smile grew taut, a bit of anger flashed in his eyes, “Yes, I think everyone has by now.”

“Word has it that you offered to let her join Dawnguard, but she rejected. How does that make you feel?”

“She didn’t reject, we rescinded the offer. The offer was made by an overeager recruiter, who has been kicked out since then, for overreaching his authority,” Aragoth was staring daggers at her. Promising all sorts of terrible things. Vixen noticed Milena phantomining for her to return to the main subject.

“What a shame, it would probably been any girls dream out there to join Dawnguard. Speaking of Dawnguard and rumour, the rumours is that you’re about to finish a quest that’ll get you promoted to a level one guild, is that correct?”

“Indeed,” Aragoth visibly relaxed a bit at the shift in conversation, “We’re rebuilding this outpost that was destroyed by the Invaders.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Of course, we’ve been grinding quests that provide guild points since we logged in. We’re still almost eleven thousand points short, but the quest to retake the site from low level goblins and rebuild it will earn us ten thousand guild points.”

“Which still leave you short,” Vixen pointed out quickly. Anything to needle him.

“No, because we got a hundred parties out farming for points, so in the time we need to finish, we’ll have earned at least another thousand guild points.”

“Well there you have it, in less than two hours ingame, meaning less than an hour in the real world, Dawnguard will become the first guild to reach level one. Back to you BigDaddy,” Vixen ended the interview.

As soon as Milena said they had stopped recording, Aragoth was in her face, snarling in a low threatening voice, “What the fuck was that?”

“I was just asking questions.”

“Cunt, you’ll pay for that,” he growled and stalked away. Vixen shuddered and felt weak in the knees as soon as he turned his back to her. She would have to be careful with him, and she still needed to figure out a way to get out from under his thumb. For now she would have to focus on her job. For the next hour and a half she and Milena shot some B-roll and did a few minor interviews with different Dawnguard members. None of it would be likely to air.

When it was time for the live broadcast, she was again standing next to Aragoth, with the massive construction work in the background. Off to the side was a contingent of NPC soldiers, observing the last bit of work on the outpost.

The time away from Aragoth, had let her find more of an equilibrium. She still did not know what to do, but she had an easier time focusing on her work. Donning her on-air persona, she smiled at the cameras, “Greetings and salutations gamers. It’s me HannahVixen, with a special live broadcast directly from inside Carn Online. If you’re in your pod you’ll see it live, if you’re in the real world, you’re seeing it with a bit of delay, because we need to uncompress the time dilation. Anyway, I’m here with the one, the only Hunk of the Year, Aragoth.”

“Thanks for being here Vixen, and to all the viewers tuning in to share this momentous occasion with us,” Aragoth beamed at the cameras. Vixen noticed Milena madly blushing.

“And to inform the viewers, what is this momentous occasion?” Vixen prodded.

“Dawnguard is putting the last touches on the rebuilding the outpost behind us. When it’s finished, we’ll become the first guild in the game to reach level one.”

“What an accomplishment. When will the building be finished?”

Aragoth pointed to a couple of people carrying a long wooden pole, “That flag pole is the last piece, as soon as that is set up the NPCs will raise the flag, and we’ll have finished the quest.”

“So just another minu—” Vixen started but was interrupted when someone ran up to Aragoth and started whispering to him.

“Who the fuck dares?” Aragoth shouted and stormed away.

“What happened?” Vixen asked no one in particular as she watched Aragoth storming over to the cluster of guild officers.

An unknown nearby Dawnguard member did however answer her, “Some unknown guild just became level one.”

“Seriously?” Vixen asked incredulously, before realising what a scoop this was. And a way to take down Aragoth a peg or ten. Waving for Milena to follow her, she ran to catch up with Aragoth. On the way there she pulled up the achievement panel, and saw that it was a guild called Blue Lotus to become the first recognized guild in the game. The same guild from the trending video the day before.

“—gone,” Aragoth finished saying as they got within hearing range.

“But that’s a week of ingame travel,” one of the officers, dressed like a classic rogue, protested.

“Then delete your characters, and make some new ones,” Aragoth growled.

“There’s a cooldown,” the rogue tried to explain.

“I don’t care, I just want you to deal with those cun—” Aragoth started to rant.

“Sir!” one of the officers shouted, and pointed to Vixen and Milena. Seeing them, Aragoth turned several shades of red.

“The interview is over, get the fuck out of here,” he threatened. Vixen decided to cut the broadcast and get away from him. He looked preoccupied with everything, hopefully forgetting that he was supposed to take her out for dinner.

However, as she was logging out, she was planning to enter again in a few hours, when the cooldown was over. As a reporter, her avatar would spawn wherever she wanted when she logged in, but there was a four real world hours cooldown. That did not matter, she had to find out where Blue Lotus was situated, and whatever else she could find out about them. If she was going down for not wanting to sleep with creeps, she would take Aragoth with her.