The Skin Game

(c) 2006 by Artful Dom

This story is intended for "adults" if you are not legally an
adult by your home state or country's definition, stop now, do
not read this.

Chapter 0 - Prologue (TG, Hum, Exh)

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 30th level in
Eternal Journey II: Lands of Dominion.  He also held the speed
record for hitting 21st level as 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 "join game."


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 theif 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 30
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."  It was signed "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.

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.

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 continued, "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.