Possessed by Bored Gees

POSSESSED BY BORED GEEKS FROM ANOTHER WORLD

CHAPTER 3 DESDEMONA JOINS THE GUILD

The next morning Faux and Sara took Desdemona to the Adventure Guild to register. It is a solid building made from large stone blocks. The OWL party has its own guild clerk. Her name is Iris Morning-Dew. She is mostly hobbit, but also a small part fairy. She has charcoal grey hair and pastel pink eyes. She looks smart in her guild uniform, but the cut and style of the outfit cancels the shape of her body. Sara and Iris filled out the guild paperwork for her. They left a lot of blanks and simply made up a number of responses. Her martial arts styles included nonsense like Drunken Boxing, Bear Hug Defense and Foo Fighting.

Iris had mixed feelings about the OWL party. On the one hand she was their dedicated clerk, made most of her money from their commissions and rationally should be thanking them and not the gods for putting food on her table. On the other hand they felt like a scam. She worried that one day the authorities would go after them and press charges and that she would be forced to defend herself as a conspirator. The way the OWL party paid their people was probably criminal.

Normal parties had their pay-outs set by the party leader. A newly formed party of four would normally divide the division of the booty into fourths. This quickly changed as it became apparent that some adventurers were more valuable than others. A solid front line tank or exceptional mage might make more on a raid than the party leader. Some parties were constantly renegotiating the shares.

Ultimately dungeon diving was a form of gambling. A lucky drop, winning a rare find was like claiming a jackpot. The same group of people visiting the same floor on different days would routinely have different results. Days with windfalls, days when they lost money. They were professional gamblers and the buy in was their lives. OWL did not do shares.

OWL paid out a salary or set wage to their employees. The money they earned was a fraction of what the dives were worth. They were unable to attract actual functional adventurers to their group because they openly cheated the help. They somehow convinced ordinary citizens into defying death in the labyrinth for a pittance. Desdemona was a prime example of this, she was trained to be a housewife, had a run of bad luck and now in her desperation to avoid starvation the OWL party was going to place a weapon her hand and force her to fight monsters.

They gave the unfortunate survivor the gender neutral codename "Flash" and posed like she was now a warrior. The truth was that Desdemona was a walking timebomb. The question was not IF she would self destruct but WHEN.

The OWL party lured people in by providing a pleasant party house to live in. Luxurious rooms, fancy clothes, master cooks, and staff to coddle them day and night. If they went the usual guild party setup, they could get all of that on their own and in the end the stuff would all belong to them.

The only real dungeoneers in OWL were the barbarian, the cat woman and the halfling and all three of them were miserable failures during their time as real dungeoneers.

In the end, the only reason to risk your life as an adventurer was for the chance of a life changing incredible win. OWL members give the chance of instant riches up. There are no big wins for them. There is also a rumor that their party enchants them, turning their wards into meat robots, puppets, mind controlled zombies to force them to fight.

Iris honestly thought the guild should shut down the Owl party for mercenary business practices. The irresponsible party would end up with a massacre one day and the guild would finally act, but the blood would already have been spilled. Iris laid awake at night thinking she should be a whistle blower but she was just making too damn much money in commissions. Her family relied on the money she sent home. Beside even if she did report what was happening, there was so much corruption that she might just be ignored. Or simply replaced by someone with no morals.

She had subtly encouraged a few of the women being victimized to retire, but she had to be extremely careful not to get caught. The women and a few men in question had been turned into party tramps, strumpets. Gambling their lives with indifference was not enough, their party had stolen their last shred of dignity by turning them into sex toys. Pay to play lovers. The deluded people were actually grateful because they were able to retire early.

Now the OWL party had a tall silver haired housewife to play the hero. Desdemona listed her parents as beneficiaries in the event of her death and signed her name and stamped her seal to it. It made Iris sick at heart.

The ultimate goal of the guild house is to supply all of an adventurer's needs under one roof. Most of them fail at this. The Iron Port Adventure Guild failed quickly and emphatically. On the other hand, the guild would extend you credit, offer advice on quests, buy the drops you collected and provide minimal training.

The adventure badge was recognized as valid identification. The guild provides free safe storage to members. For those with the heart of a gambler, guild members can invest in parties attempting certain level quests. You can make money while supporting your peers.

Ranks: SS, S, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H or trial member.

Desdemona was starting as an 'F' ranked guild member. She had skipped 2 ranks. F is the lowest rank allowed to enter a dungeon. On this side of the Vail, OWL made money dungeon diving. All of their members started as F ranked adventurers.

Desdemona borrowed money from Faux and took the three of them out for lunch at a restaurant. Her change in status was worth celebrating. Owning an identity badge was huge. It meant she could travel from Iron Port and return. She could visit other towns. She could use any Adventure Guild. Desdemona could even leave the country if she wished.

In order for her to travel to her fiancé, her parents had used their badges as merchants to get her travel papers to her fiancé. Those papers have expired along with her wedding chances. If her arranged wedding had been consummated, she would have been recognized as her husband's partner to the merchant's guild. Eventually she would have gained her own merchant badge.

Desdemona took her friends to the Pearl Diver. A sea food restaurant of good quality. The food at the OWL house was better, but it was nice to eat something different for a change. She had a pasta dish similar to Shrimp Alfredo. It was very filling. The agents had the crab cakes. She borrowed money from Faux to pay for it. She still had not seen a payday.

Over the next couple of days Un rode her three times to work on her fire casting. Blade also wore her twice to advance her muscle magic. She would be paid for these sessions but apparently Un was not charged because he was a benefactor. Blade was given time in her for free with the understanding that he would concentrate on body magic because she seemed to have an affinity for it.

Faux claimed Blade was sort of a personal charity for OWL. Frequently receiving benefits, he did not pay for. The practice area Blade used was isolated and private. The touching was becoming more obvious and his probing fingers were occasionally sneaking into the mouth of her tunnel of love. Not just rubbing and brushing the surface. This sort of behavior was banned by OWL and could get Blade barred from ever using their services again.

It would also be very embarrassing if they ever caught her with hand in the cookie jar. Blade would disappear in the otherworld, but Desdemona would have to face those accidental voyeurs every day. Risking the shame of being caught was part of the excitement. Blade made her very excited. She was not just dripping with sweat at the end of a session. At times Blade would direct magical energy into her privates and circulate it through her body making her feel awesome and improving her level of mana use. Blade called it cultivating. He said she could learn to do this on her own to raise her proficiency.

Once he used too much energy and she collapsed on the ground quivering in ecstasy. She thought she might even have passed out for a moment. She wanted to feel more of that! She was afraid to ask for fear of being banned.

Well, banned might be putting it too strongly. If an Earthling reached an agreement prior to the event with a contracted OWL, and was willing to pay an exorbitant fee for it, sex in just about any form could happen. The specifics would be spelled out in detail in the rider to the standard contract. OWL did not like sex, it was not part of their business plan and was frequently bad for business. Mounts left if unsolicited sex happened. To discourage sex the Benefactors made the charges exorbitant, which meant staff that was amenable quickly made their money and quit. That was why they had been so aggressive recruiting Desdemona. They were understaffed.

The Iron Kingdom had issues with sex too. Most of the 'tax' they collected was from dungeon treasure. The crown did not see a profit from sex. It really just pissed them off. They don't find jokes about raising a penis tax funny either.

Desdemona's mother had ensured she was a virgin as part of her training to be a wife and mother. The potential bride did not even masturbate. She was heading to the marriage bed completely ignorant. When the contract for her wedding was signed her mother relented a bit. Her aunt was brought in to give her some counseling. It was strictly a theory class with no hands-on labs. Some of the information was quite exciting but a lot of it was lost since there was no foundation to build on.

Now she was actually getting experience. She has finally at least felt the touch of a man, if not a lover. Of course he had been using her hand to do it. Whatever they had, she did not want it to stop. Besides when he teased her with his magic hands, she could feel the tingling of body magic melting her core, causing her pussy lips to swell and her little boatman to stand tall and cast off the hood. The bottom line was that she was going to keep silent about what Blade was doing to/for her. As long as he kept doing it.

Payday did finally come. Earthlings called it Fryday after the Swedish sex goddess, Fry. Desdemona could only imagine the celebrations that occurred on a normal Fryday on Earth. She had already heard the phrase TGIF which stood for Thank Gods Its Fry's day. It was a sort of prayer to the divinity of physical love.

Stylus Goldmann was in charge of payroll. He was a gnome OWL employed to keep track of the money. Long nose, thin face, receding hairline and sharp eyes, Stylus looked like a bean counter. He gifted her with a coin pouch with OWL's insignia on it. He explained she was paid for the previous week's work instead of the current week. It was a strange practice only this party did. Most people were paid at the end of the work day. Then he itemized the things she was being paid for counting out a small pile of coins for each one. It ended up being a significant amount of money. She signed receipts and started loading her new purse.

The pay was enough to make her worry about security. It was more than enough to attract a small gang of cutthroats. She could hide some of the money under her mattress but the maids would figure that out rather quickly.

Master Goldmann began the second stage of his job. OWL would happily store her excess funds in one of their vaults. They were happy to do it for free. If she liked they could even invest some of her money for her. No reason for money to sit when it could be working. Of course it's her money, so she could withdraw it at any time. It might take a bit of time for the invested funds to be retrieved and there may be a small fine but her money would be secure.

What he did not tell her was that OWL had a problem with cash flow. Money earned on Earth could not cross over. The fantasy side had to support itself.

She kept out enough to pay back Faux and do a little shopping. About half was stored, the rest was invested. The money made her excited. She was the daughter of merchants. The idea of using that money to build a trading house was intoxicating.

Desdemona felt like she was finally starting to make her way in the real world.