Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 50: Vampire Castle

Beginning

<- Previous: Spider Lair

And we’re down to the final rampaging monster queen.

The vampire castle is in the ocean northwest-ish of Yamatai Village.  It’s a bit of a pain to find.  For some reason I always manage to sail right past it.

It's here... maybe.  I swear this damn island keeps randomly shifting east or west every time I try to find it.

The castle itself is fairly straightforward.  The queen is up on the second floor, but the corridor to her is protected by a loop trap that teleports you right back to the beginning.  To deactivate that you’ll need to go down to the basement.  There you’ll find a coffin containing Carmilla.

Unlike the previous queen lairs, where the chief-henchwomen were too shagged out from the beatings they received in the cities to be up for a round two, Carmilla has fully recuperated from her loss in Sabasa and is spoiling for another fight.

As a vampire, she’s also still highly flammable.

Take it away, Alicetroemeria.

Defeating her will give you an item to get past the loop trap on the second floor.

However, as we’ve already had a second bout vs Carmilla, it will come as no surprise that we also need to fight our way through Elizabeth again to reach the queen’s chamber.

She’s also rather flammable.

But before going on to the inevitable boss fight, we should also cover the other sexy distractions awaiting us in the vampire castle.  There are three new vampire women in this area.  We already saw them during the defence of Sabasa, so let’s check them out in more detail.

First up, there’s Elder Vampire.

You know how it is when you get old.  Tentacles start sprouting out of the most inconvenient places.

My, what lovely... leeches... you have.

Luka, run!!!!

Slurrrppp!

Too late.

She’s sort of a multi-leech girl in one.  Like the basic leech girl, she likes to draw a man into her mouth (one of them) and draw out their semen with her fleshy walls.  She’ll leave you pleasantly drained and... a bit too drained to be honest.

Then there is Conquista and Vendetta.

Not quite so ancient vamps

One looks like a student, and I think is a student.  The other is lady of the night merged with the other type of lady of the night.  She also has a rather splendid ass.  If you knock her (un)life down low enough, she’ll plonk that lovely ass down on your crotch.

Vendetta used finishing move: Ass.  It was super-effective.

Her Bad End is more ass, but not anal (I think).  It’s some sexy reverse cowgirl without the fishnets this time.

She'll suck it all up and more

Oddly, she functions more like a conventional succubus.  There is very little in the way of blood-sucking going on, and way more in the way of semen-sucking.  Her tight little pussy is quite powerful in this regard and she talks about how much vacuum she can create while sucking out the contents of our balls.  And everything else.

She does briefly consider keeping Luka around but in the end keeps going until we pass beyond the realm of pleasantly drained and enter the not-so-pleasant realm of Hades (again!).

A nice scene, but an odd one given how much the vamps of the original series played to various blood-drinking/vampire fetishes.

(I’d have put vamp fangs in her pussy just to spice things up a bit… hyuk hyuk.)

Back to the vampire queen and she also didn’t require any manipulation from Black Alice.

I don't think that's her cloak, you know...

Her philosophy seems to be a mix of Noblesse Oblige and Might Makes Right.  Which makes it rather simple.  Beat her and she’ll recognise our greater power and call off her vampire hordes.

Seems easy enough.

"I didn't mean this type of suck!"

Damn it, Luka.  Stop fooling around and let the inferno mage torch the highly flammable bat girl.

After beating her, she recognises our greater power and calls off her army.  She also loans us Elizabeth and Carmilla as fresh recruits for Luka’s “harem”.

And that’s that.  All four monster girl queens have been defeated.  Now I have the awkward task in the next few posts of making a whole bunch of background exposition and goofy side quests interesting without screenshots of smexy new monster girls.  Hmm, maybe I’ll be showing some screenshots of the queens in action after all.

-> Next: Our balls are missing

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 49: Spider's Lair

First up, apologies for the week off.  I was out of the country the weekend before for work and managed to bring the plague (okay, flu) back with me.


Beginning

<- Previous: Mermaid Cave

So where were we again?

Ah, it’s time to put a stop to the dastardly four queens’ warmongering.  Elves and Mermaids have already been crossed off the list.  Now we’re into ickier territories.  Arachnophobes might want to skip this one, just saying.

As with the Mermaid Cave, the spider lair should already be known to you.  It’s one of the first locations accessible when picking up a boat at the Navy HQ.  You can get to it by following the shoreline to the north from the Navy Headquarters.  Or by going directly north from Saloon, I think.

Here be spiders

Also, as with the Mermaid Cave, the entrance is blocked off by a bodyguard, in this case a pair of Arachne Lords.  And again, as with the mermaids, Luka is no longer prepared to put up with their bullshit, so to battle it is.

When you have so many spider girls, a simple "Arachne" is no longer good enough

Ahem.  To “battle” it is...?

This is really a heroic battle and not the femdom bondage handjob it looks like.  Honest...

Arachne Lord is a returnee from the original series.  As is Tsuchigumo.  They have all the moves they had in the original series, which includes some rather unusual boobs and nipples.  But it’s the new gals we’re interested in and... be still my beating heart.

Spiders from Mars (or should that be Venus?)

I really like this artist’s kitsch style.  It seems very appropriate for smexy monster girls.  And you know how I said I wouldn’t deliberately kick Luka into their web...

“Alice, please push Luka into the lovely kitsch spiders’ web.”

Their temptation move is a pile on that ends up with us balls deep in spider pussy.

This is also a heroic battle and not a wild spider girl orgy

This can also be revisited in an extended form as one of their request scenes after you recruit them.

Once resistance has been... ahem... sucked out.  It’s time to plonk Luka in a web for some sexy cocooning.

Trapped in a web and at the mercy of lewd spider girls

Two wrap him up in aphrodisiac silk while the third wanks him off/fucks him with her spinneret.

(Yes, biologists, I know you’re getting agitated by the just plain “things do not work that way” of it.  Fantasy world filled with nympho monster girls, just roll with it.)

Nicely wrapped up and ready for plenty of sucky fucky

With Luka nicely wrapped up, the three take it in turns until the tap, regrettably, runs dry.

After we’ve had our sticky fun (and Death has kindly let our mummified corpse back out of Hades), it’s time to get back to the main mission.

There are a few NPCs scuttling around that dole out some interesting background info on the Spider Princess.  She used to be the overall queen of all insects, but then they booted her off the throne for basically being a massive asshole.

The spider’s lair is another big maze.  For some reason there are plenty of stairs that take us up to the surface of the Island of Solitude for no discernible reason I can think of.  Maybe TTR originally had it planned as a different location?  There are various chests and treasures found in these dead ends, so it’s sort of worth checking out every route.

(Sort of, in that there is so much loot in this game that very few of the chests actually hold anything interesting.)

Keep going right and eventually you’ll reach the red carpets of the Spider Princess’s throne room, where it’s boss battle time.

Not sure the red carpet makes it any less a dank cave

Spider Princess is another returning character from the original series, so we’ll skip the Bad End bits.

A perfect concubine... hahahaha.

Spoiler: Do you like unbirth?

As with Queen Mermaid, there’s no need for Black Alice to stir the pot behind the scenes on this one.  Spider Princess, like Cassandra, has always been a fairly unambiguous villain in the series.

She does keep to her word though.  After being defeated she promises to call back her arachne army.  She also offers herself up to be Luka’s concubine.  I say “offers up”, but it’s more “forces herself on Luka and refuses to take no for an answer.”  And then she’s straight on to talking about marriage, much to Sonya’s disapproval.  Marriage might not be too bad.  I’m fairly sure she knows a few tricks in the bedroom.  Surviving the wedding night without being eaten might be a little tricky...

You were warned...

Then it’s off back to Grangold to pick up our reward.  This time we pick up the Magic God’s soul.  This is pretty good as it allows us to unlock all the advanced magician jobs.  One thing I missed at the time, but have spotted now, is that these souls also unlock some of the advanced monster girl races as well.

Unfortunately, I’d already played through the section (and the follow-up quests to recruit Spider Princess later) before seeing Stephen’s advice in the comments to have King Grangold in your party when interacting with Spider Princess.  I suspect there might be some spicy banter between those two...

But I didn’t think to add King Grangold in the party for this section, so I’ll have to leave it to the folks in the comments to supply the juicy details.

Next up it’s time to receive a good vamping.

-> Next: Vampire Castle

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 48: Mermaid Cave

Beginning

<- Previous: World Tree

One rampaging monster queen down, three to go.

Next on the hit list is the mermaid tribe.  We already know where their base is.  It’s just to the west of Esta, here:

Mermaid base, surprisingly not at sea as you'd expect, which I guess makes it a good spot for a hidden base

Previously the cave entrance was blocked by a mermaid general and Luka was too gentlemanly to force his way in.  Now, with the Mermaid Queen in our sights, we get the option to fight our way in.

Fishy bouncers

Inside is a cave system filled with mermaids.  There are also some of the adorable ickle sea horse marines and sea slugs.  An NPC tells us that the pay isn’t very good in the navy, so some of them also work for the Mermaid Queen.  As far as I know, you still can’t recruit them if you chose the pirate route way back in the beginning of part two, which is a shame.

The other monster girls are the new mermaids we encountered while defending San Ilias.  The mermaid generals were an encounter in the original series.  The new fishy babes are Lorelei and Mermaid Knight.  Lorelei, as we found out in the invasion of San Ilias, gives a nice bubbly bath.  Mermaid Knight’s scene is a sloppy blowjob with plenty of saliva to perk us up into the right mood.

Who wouldn't turn down a sloppy mermaid BJ?

I suppose you could describe it as vanilla, but that will probably be a relief to those scarred by MGQ’s various angel and demon abominations.

The other NPC wandering around is El, the little mermaid princess.  We bump into her multiple times while walking through the caves.  She seems very conflicted about her role in the attack on San Ilias and is unsure of what to do.

I’m guessing no-one is pulling Queen Mermaid’s strings here.  She has a massive chip on her shoulder against humans as they murdered her love back in more barbaric times.  She didn’t need much prompting to join in on the attack on humanity.

You can encounter her in the centre of the cave system.

Queen Mermaid's location

She is also a returning boss from the original series.

Tragic mermaid back story.  Does not like humans.

Sure enough, there is no surprise boss to attack us after frying Queen Mermaid (she’s rather vulnerable to lightning).  She was happy for any excuse to bash humans.  Having resolved some of her crisis of conscience, El, shows up to try and talk her mother out of the bad stuff.  Queen Mermaid decides to call off the war and offer herself as prisoner on the condition that she and only she is held responsible for the actions of the mermaid race.  She also tells El to go along with us to learn to be a better future queen.

We are again the peace delegate and it’s off to San Ilias to present Queen Mermaid’s terms.  These are fine to Robo-Pope.  He’d rather form an alliance than punish her.  He also gives us a few rewards.  We get the Swift God’s Soul, which is the unlock item for advanced dragon knight, thief and ninja jobs.  I think.  He also hints of other goodies to be found in the makina workshop beneath his throne room.  It’s worth going down there as one of the engineers gives us the book to unlock the advanced engineering job as well as what looks like a multi-way rocket launcher.  That seems moderately unfair in a fantasy game.

Then back to Queen Mermaid.  She was fully expecting to be executed.  Alice informs her humans have gotten much better than they used to be.  This makes Queen Mermaid feel even worse for bringing up El the way she has.

We’re not quite done here as there is another long callback to events in the MQ:P [part 1].  You’ll remember that we’ve been carrying around a dried bit of squid that was the Queen of the South Seas temple until Astaroth sucked all her energy out.  Poseidoness couldn’t restore her, but suggested Queen Mermaid might be able to.  And here we are, talking to Queen Mermaid.

She does indeed have the magic to restore Kraken, who is very relieved to be returned to normal after many narrow escapes of nearly being eaten by accident by Alice.

Kraken, un-besquidded (and thankfully for her, uneaten by Alice)

She joins the party and suggests we go back to the North Sea Temple to recruit Poseidoness.  Talk to Poseidoness (Kraken doesn’t even need to be in the party) and she’ll join.  She also seems a bit gropy with her tentacles, much to Sonya’s disgust.  Alice tells her most of the deep sea monster girls are like that.

We’re a bit short of the smexy stuff, given that the only new monster girl is Mermaid Warrior, so here’s a pic of Kraken getting her tentacle grope on.

Sea monster girls like to get their tentacles in all sorts of places

Then back to Queen Mermaid for the set?

Nope.  Not yet.  She’s still concerned about El.  I’m guessing we’re waiting for the same quest unlock as with Queen Alraune, Elf and Fairy.

Anyway, that’s it for the frisky fishies.  Next up it’s time to take on the spider girls, where I absolutely won’t deliberately kick Luka into a web so a trio of delightfully kitsch spider girls can have their wicked way with us.  Ahem.

-> Next: Spiders!

The Heart Squad (part 5)

Beginning


A shape flowed out of the darkness and stepped in front of him.  It was the tall and busty flame-haired woman.  She was still wearing nothing more than a longcoat over frilly pink lingerie.

Had she been waiting out here all this time?  She must be freezing her nips off, Kurtzburg thought.

If she was, she gave no outward sign.  She greeted Kurtzburg with a breezy smile.

"Mr Kurtzburg, we never realised you had to work so late."

She glanced up at Kurtzburg's floor, where everything was in darkness.

"You must have been so lonely, working up there all on you own.  You should have let us know.  We would have come up and kept you company."

A stretch limo—sleek and gleaming white—pulled up alongside them.  The back door opened and two excitable women leaned out.

"Hello, Mr Kurtzburg," they said in unison.

Both looked younger than the flame-haired woman and were just as attractive.  He recognised them from the pictures that had been sent him.  In person they exuded a strong aura of wanton sexuality.  They seemed like the type of girls that did anything and everything.

"I think there's been some mistake," Kurtzburg said.  "You have me mixed up with someone else."

"You are Mr Piotr Kurtzburg, of..." the flame-haired woman reeled off Kurtzburg's home address and even his date of birth for good measure.  "I don't think there's been any mistake."

Nope, that was rather... specific.

"Why me?" he asked.

"Someone thought you deserved it," the flame-haired woman said.

That didn't help Kurtzburg at all.

"What did you think of the chocolates?" she asked.

"Um, I didn't... um... eat them.  The QA women shared them."

The woman looked disappointed.

"Oh well, can't be helped," she said.  She smiled.  "Their husbands and boyfriends will be in for a good night tonight.  What about you, Mr Kurtzburg?  Are you ready to embark on a night of unadulterated passion and hedonism?"

She held out her right arm, simultaneously blocking Kurtzburg's path and directing him in the direction of the back of the limo.  The two girls, all smiles, beckoned him to join them on the back seat.  A third girl regarded him with sultry interest from an open window.  Wow.  They'd looked attractive enough in the pictures, but were even more gorgeous in the flesh.

Kurtzburg was tempted.  Sorely tempted.  But...

...this was way too good to be true.  There was no way it could be legit.

"I don’t think I can get into that car with you," Kurtzburg said.

"Aww," the flame-haired woman said.  "Don't be so uptight.  Those inhibitions aren't healthy.  Come with us.  We'll help you lose them.  It will be fun."

She moved forwards to caress him.

Instinctively, Kurtzburg stepped back.

"Sorry, I think this is all one big misunderstanding.  You have the wrong guy.  No-one would arrange all this for me."

The woman placed a hand on her hip.  Her lips pouted in irritation.

"My, you are an awkward one."

Her sensual lips turned up in a smile.  Her eyes twinkled.  For a brief—split second—moment, Kurtzburg would have sworn he saw a pink flash.  Then...

...Kurtzburg was sitting on the back seat of a luxurious stretch limo surrounded by four gorgeously uninhibited young women.

What the hell.  You only live once, he thought to himself.


to be continued...

The Heart Squad (part 4)

Beginning


The first text message arrived at two o'clock.

"Are you excited for tonight?  We are.  xoxo, the Heart Squad."

Number withheld.

Kurtzburg was less rattled about this one.  It was his work phone.  It wouldn't have been hard for the Heart Squad, whoever they were, to get it.

A picture followed.  It was a close-up of the flame-haired model kissing the camera with the other three girls in the background behind her.

All four women were exceedingly attractive.  They looked just like the women you saw on TV gliding around the swanky parties.  Starlets.  Celebs.  'It' girls.  Ironic given that his own profession, which also shared the same two letters, was often at the opposite end of the spectrum when it came to glamour and social skills.

Then it clicked.

If they looked good enough to be TV people, they might be TV people.  Which made this a... Valentine's Day prank?  Yes, that sounded plausible.  Probably one of the cheap'n'nasty reality TV shows.  Kurtzburg had no idea which.  He didn't watch much TV nowadays, preferring instead to spend his leisure time playing videogames or solving coding problems.  He also had no idea why they'd singled him out.

Okay, he did.  It was because he was fugly and surrounding a mumbling fugly with four bombshell beauties would make for appropriately cringe-inducing TV.

He had no idea why they'd singled him out in particular.

Oh well, that mystery would have to wait for later.  He had to fix this bug before the end of the day.

Betts came back with the box of chocolates and a guilty expression.  The tray was empty.  For all of Betts's talk of sharing them with the whole office, Kurtzburg doubted the box had even left the QA section.  He didn't mind.  Given their suspect origin, he hadn't been planning on eating any of them.

* * * *

Kurtzburg got another text at three.

"We're going to have so much fun together."

You're going to be so disappointed, Kurtzburg thought, deleting the text.

Another at four.

"We'll be waiting for you outside after work."

You'll be waiting a long time then, Kurtzburg thought.  Judging by how this bug fix was progressing, Kurtzburg didn't think he'd be finishing until at least eight.  He wasn't too thrilled about it.  He'd been looking forward to getting a few hours in on the new space Civ game, Master of the Crimson Nebula.

Later:

"It's almost time.  We can hardly contain ourselves.  Can you?"

The innuendo was obvious.  Kurtzburg felt it in his loins anyway.  Despite not being the most active in that department, he still retained some sexual desire.  He really wished he lived in a world where four hot girls would whisk him of the street and take him out on a wild night of partying and debauchery.

This was not that world.

Kurtzburg was not a chump.

He was also too busy anyway.

He looked at the screen.  Goddammit.  Comment your goddamn code, people.

The messages stopped after five-thirty.  The office had already emptied out.  Kurtzburg was the only one left still tapping away at his keyboard.

He did feel a little sorry for whoever was behind these Valentine's Day fun and games.  They must have realised something had gone wrong by now.  That Kurtzburg wasn't coming out or had already given them the slip.

Sorry, hah.  What was he thinking?  They were likely only doing this to set him up for embarrassment... or maybe even worse.

Shame though.  He would love a wild, sexy night with four hot, gorgeous women.

Yeah, right.  Like that would have actually happened.  He wasn't a chump.

He got up and trundled to the drinks machine to pick up a can of Red Bull.  Caffeine makes code.  He looked at the screen and focused on the problem at hand.  It was trickier than he'd first thought, but he felt he understood the problem now.  He reckoned he'd be able to fix it before leaving tonight.

He checked in the solution at 8:31.  Half an hour later than he'd estimated, but not too bad.  He got up and stretched.  Most of the office was dark.  Kurtzburg packed his things together, walked to the exit and switched off the lights.  His stomach rumbled.  Maybe he should have eaten some of those chocolates after all.  He could pick up a kebab on the way home.

He walked down the stairs and out the front entrance.  The night was a little nippy.  He adjusted his coat and turned right.  His bus stop was at the end of the street.

A shape flowed out of the darkness and stepped in front of him.  It was the tall and busty flame-haired woman.  She was still wearing nothing more than a longcoat over frilly pink lingerie.


to be continued...

Let's Play Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] - 47: The World Tree

Beginning

<- Previous: Fairy Isle

And we’re back.  Kind of.

We’re in the middle of taking the fight back to the monster queens.  After knocking some sense into the Elf Queen, it turns out the real malodorous influence is happening over at the neighbouring World Tree.  The normally passive and peaceful Queen Alraune has become rather warlike all of a sudden.  So over we go to bring peace by setting everything on fire.  Starting with the Walraune blocking the entrance.  I suspect Inferno Mage Alicetroemeria is going to enjoy this particular dungeon.

We come in peace.  Burn everything down.

The world tree has a very similar structure to the slug and harpy towers of MQ:P part 1.  There are three floors with multiple stairs (or rather, vines in this case) leading to the next floor.  Some lead to dead ends with treasure chests.  The central path pretty much gets you to Queen Alraune.

It also gets you to the rainbow material required for smithing prism weapons.  That is reached by climbing down a vine in the southeast corner of the 3rd floor and gets you to here:

Rainbow rocks

Before we show Queen Alraune the error of her ways by setting her on fire, I suppose I should go over the wandering monster girls you can find in this region.

Walraune was in the original series.  She likes to trap Luka in her petals and give him a very long blowjob.  Also present is the Dryad you fought around the same time.  In the original she was also brainwashed and switched from sweet to sadistic after taking enough damage.  Both versions are present here.

Nice 'n' nasty dryads

If I remember correctly, you probably don’t want to lose to either of them as their Bad Ends involve attaching their roots to you and leaching out all your moisture.

We also get two new Forest versions of Alraune and Dryad.

New model Alraune and Dryad

Forest Alraune likes attaching a special flower to our dangly bits and gulping down all our juices.

Forest Dryad starts innocuously enough with what looks like a blindfolded handjob.

This doesn't seem so bad

She doesn’t seem too bad to lose to.  Sweet and innocent and... what’s that?

Wait!  That isn't a hand.

A plant gal’s got to get her moisture, and her favourite way is to attach her tentacle root to the crotch and start sucking away.  At least she’s considerate enough to keep Luka around afterwards rather than sucking out all his fluids and leaving behind a dried-up mummy.

In the original series Queen Alraune was brainwashed by one of the doll weapons designed to beat the heavenly knights.  They haven’t showed up so far in Paradox (thankfully, they were a bit shit compared to the other bosses), so I’m guessing it’s either Lilith or another one of Black Alice’s creations behind all this.  Queen Alraune can be found in the middle of the third floor.

She's big, bouncy and flowery... but mostly bouncy

She’s also no less flammable than the other plant girls, so prominence away Black Alice!  Uh, I mean, Alicetroemeria.

Queen Alraune does have a few annoying AOE status effect pollen attacks, including an instant kill one, but her vulnerability to fire should make this a fairly straightforward fight.

Afterwards Mephisto is brought in to clear the brainwashing, which causes the real culprit behind it all to reveal herself:

Who and what are you?

And you are... Aži Dahāka.  Whoever that is.  It looks like someone added a bunch of extra nonsense to the letters to make the name sound more mysterious.  That seems a really lame thing to do (ahem).

In this case Aži Dahāka is the name of an ancient Persian demon.  I must confess to not knowing too much about that particular mythology.

This Aži Dahāka looks like a lamia with other bits thrown in.  She reveals she’s acting on behalf of Black Alice which triggers a very suspicious facial expression from our own Black Alice.  Seeing the respective Black Alices face off against each other is something I’m rather looking forward to, even if the most likely outcome is they team up to snu snu Luka to a particularly icky Bad End.

But first we need to take out the real boss for this area.  As she appears to be a lamia, I figured it would be a simple switch from fire magic to ice magic.  And it worked... ahem.

Ilias’s evaluation afterwards (and the monsterpedia) reveals Aži Dahāka is strong to both fire and ice.  Really, I didn’t notice.

(Alicetroemeria might need a teensy bit of a nerf.)

But Aži Dahāka is a new gal, so what we’re really interested in is what debauchery she gets up to if you deliberately throw the fight lose to her.

Her temptation move is to hold Luka up and tempt him with her pussy.

Seems tempting enough.  Why not.  What’s the worst that can happ...

Snakes on a... particularly sensitive part of anatomy

Um, Aži dear.  Why is there a snake biting the end of my cock?

Aži.  Why is there a motherfucking snake biting the end of my motherfucking cock!  I’ve had it with these mother... yeah, we’re just going into cliché now.

Afterwards is more conventional sex.  Being a lamia, Aži Dahāka has quite a mobile pussy and uses it to full effect to squeeze and suck out all our semen.  Rather refreshingly for one of MGQ’s snake gals, she even refrains from opening her vagina wide and shoving us in face first.

She's a good squeeze

But that’s alternate!Luka’s fate.  Our Luka froze her into an icicle (despite her being resistant to ice – have I said enough times already how OP Alicetroemeria is).

She’s one of Black Alice’s minions, so there are no opportunities to recruit afterwards.  She does a runner and I imagine we’ll see her again in part 3.  With the snake demon gone, Queen Alraune returns to her normal placid self.  Unfortunately, we can’t seem to recruit her either as she’s too busy recuperating from being set on fire repeatedly.

There is also a very long callback to MQ:P [part 1].  If you remember all the way back to the harpy tower, we were able to cure all the harpies of the lust plague afflicting them, but not the queen.  She needed a special fruit from the World Tree.

Well, we’re here now, so does that mean we can recruit Miss Fluffywings?

Not quite yet.  Queen Alraune needs some time to grow the fruit.  I suspect we’re waiting for the requisite plot trigger.  Maybe after we’ve dealt with the other three queens.  However, she does give us the soul item that unlocks the advanced singing and dancing jobs.  Sonya is curious as to why Queen Alraune had this item and she reveals she wanted to be a star when she was younger.

Returning back to the fairy isle has Queen Elf reward us with an item.  Unfortunately, both her and Queen Fairy are still not recruitable as yet.  I suspect it’s the same trigger condition as the World Tree fruit.

Now that we have the requisite material for the elf blacksmith to make prism items, there are some side quests to catch up on.  Papi can be taught how to make prism gear.  There is no quest here, just bring her along to chat with the blacksmith.  Papi fails the first couple of times, but then gets some help from Salamander and between them they learn how to make prism items.

Unsurprisingly (as this is a 3-part series), this is not the ultimate material.  The elf blacksmith talks about the greatest blacksmith, Randolph, and legendary weapons forged from meteorite iron.  Alice also mentions she knows about this as the weapons were forged in the demon castle in Helgondo.  As for Randolph, nobody knows where he is, but I suspect he’ll show up sometime in a future chapter.

And that’s that for the World Tree and Fairy Isle (at least until we come back to recruit the queens).  One Queen down, three to go.  Next up, it’s time to have some fun with some frisky fishies in the secret mermaid base.

-> Next: Mermaid Cave

The Heart Squad (part 3)

Beginning


There was email awaiting Kurtzburg when he got back to his desk.  Also not a surprise.  There was always email waiting for him.  One of them wasn't like the others, but Kurtzburg wasn't aware of that until he opened it up.

"Hi Piotr.  We're the Heart Squad!"

It was followed by a picture of four extremely attractive and provocatively attired women sitting in the back of an expensive limo.  They were all smiling at the camera and holding their arms out.  Kurtzburg recognised one as the gorgeous flame-haired courier who'd delivered his card and chocolates this morning.

"We're so looking forward to making your Valentine's Day an unforgettable one."

Kurtzburg frowned.  He was normally super-careful about which emails he opened.  He was sure this had been another work email when he'd clicked on it.

He lifted his small round spectacles and rubbed his eyes.  Must be tiredness.  It had been a hard slog over the past couple of weeks to get the latest patch ready.

He became aware of someone standing next to his desk and hurriedly deleted the email.

He looked up and saw it was Leah Betts from the QA department.  She was looking down at the chocolate box.

"Aren't you going to open them?" she asked.

"I dunno," he mumbled.

"You do know it's customary for employees to share their Valentine's chocolates with the rest of the office."

"It is?"

He tried to remember if anyone had ever brought chocolates around to his desk.  Not that he would have remembered or even registered if they had.

He glanced back at his screen.  Was that email with the picture of the four hot semi-naked women in the back of a limo gone yet?  Yes.  Thank fuck for that.

Not that he needed to worry.  Betts was still staring down at the chocolate box.  "Go on.  Open it up," she said.

Kurtzburg shrugged.  He opened it up.  It was a box of chocolates.  The cover was sickeningly saccharine.  Kurtzburg flipped the lid.  Yes, they were chocolates.

"Ooh, those are fancy," Betts said.  "Have you got a posh bird you've been hiding from us?"

Her hand hovered over the tray like a vulture about to swoop.

Kurtzburg was reluctant to take one.  Where had they come from?  Why him?  You heard stories.  Food being tampered with.

Betts selected one she liked—a little brown nut from near the centre of the tray.  She plucked it out and brought it up to her mouth.

"Wait!" Kurtzburg said.

Betts stopped, eyes opened wide in sudden surprise.

"I don't know where they're from," Kurtzburg said.

Betts's frozen expression of surprise thawed out into a contemptuous grin.

"They're Valentine's Day chocolates.  You're not supposed to know who they're from."

She rolled her eyes and popped the chocolate into her mouth.  She chewed.  Her eyes widened.

"Ooh, these are yummy," she said.  "It tastes like... ooh."  A hand involuntarily drifted down to her crotch.  Her cheeks reddened.

"Mandy, you have to try one of these," she called back to the adjacent QA section.

She looked back at the box with naked avarice.

"You look busy," she said.  "You want me to share them around the office for you?"

Kurtzburg mumble-grunted a yes and Betts went away, taking the box of chocolates with her.

Then his attention was caught by something on his monitor.  A heart-shaped balloon floated to the top of the screen and popped to reveal the word, "Tonight."  A lipstick kiss flashed on the bottom right of the screen and was followed by, "The Heart Squad."

Kurtzburg's stomach lurched.  Had that email downloaded a virus onto his machine?

He went through a series of diagnostics and found nothing untoward.  He rubbed his eyes again.  He couldn't have imagined it, could he?

And what did they mean by "tonight"?

* * * *

The first text message arrived at two o'clock.


to be continued...

(Also, Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] playthrough to resume tomorrow Wednesday.  One was more ready than the other so I flipped the days).