Meenah opened her eyes and found herself in a kingdom of darkness. She glanced in disgust at the Dersite pajamas she was wearing and found that this strange duplicate of her bedroom had no closet. She was stuck wearing this until she could get back to LOMAD, she realized.
Although she wasn't quite sure where she was, she had the sense that this was part of the game, and that she would be returning back to her Quest Bed soon. Remembering that that was where she had come from, she realized that she was dreaming. Snapping out of her thoughts, she found herself floating in her room. She took advantage of this discovery and flew out of the window of her tower. Below were dozens of small black-shelled creatures, staring in awe as she flew instinctively to the palace.
"The Thief! She has risen!"
"Beware the Thief of Life!"
"She is most cunning!"
"Beware the Thief!"
"Hark, she heads for the palace!"
Meenah chuckled at the Dersite's remarks and flew onward. When she arrived at the throneroom, the Black Queen was sitting, observing her silently. Meenah, realizing that she was too powerful for her at the moment, bowed before her to give the impression of submission. Naturally, she hated doing it.
"Rise, Thief. Why are you here?"
"Dunno, reely. Guess i'm just sight-sea-in',"
Meenah replied.
"If you have no business here, leave,"
the Black Queen said. Meenah rolled her eyes and was about to leave when a voice called out calmly:
"We can use her, Your Highness," said a tall Dersite in a sharp-looking hat. Turning to Meenah, who had turned around to face him, he said, "Follow me, Thief." Meenah could sense that he was useful in some way, so she did so. The Dersite led her into a room with 3 others of his species. One was large and had a scowl on his face, another was short and chubby, and a third was average heighted. This third Dersite was the only one to make eye contact with Meenah. He extended his hand in greeting.
"Name's Jack Noir," he said. "The one who led you here is known as the Draconian Dignitary. Little one's Courtyard Droll. Big guy's Hegemonic Brute. We got a proposition for ya."
"Mm-hmm. Listening,"
Meenah replied.
"We hate the Black Queen," Jack said, doing very little to conceal the malice in his voice. Meenah tried not to form a smile when she realized that Jack was obviously in a kissmesis of some kind with her. Trolls are able to recognize this instantly. But she said nothing.
"We want you to take her out," Jack said.
"We saw how your server made you fight. And we saw you get to your Quest Bed," the Dignitary explained.
"In return, we'll take out whoever you want," the Brute added.
"PLEEEEEEAAAAASSSE?" Droll exclaimed. Jack shoved him backward to silence him.
"Shore thang. But you guys're holdin' your end up first. That's the seal,"
Meenah said, cleverly using a fish pun that made sense. Hegemonic Brute was about to say something, but Dignitary stopped him.
"Deal. We get the ring she has. It's what gives her the prototypings," Jack said. Meenah nodded. Draconian Dignitary showed her the wall monitor thingies in the next room.
"Pick'em out," the Dignitary said, leaving Meenah alone to spy on her companions. The Midnight Crew waited patiently outside.
With the walls she could see where everyone was at the moment, and was apparently able to contact any of her teammates. She chose to talk to Aranea first:
Cetaceous Catastrophe (CC) began trolling Arachne's Gift (AG)
CC: hey gurl what you up to? got to Derse and now i'm watchin' ya through a neat little window thing. can't spill details.
AG: Really? How interesting! Just like you couldn't spill me the details on how this game wasn't actually some sort of virtual reality gimmicak at all, but the real-see, I it spelled the normal way-deal! And now I learn that you're spying on me from the Dark Kingdom! I understand that we light players are supposed to 8e easy to spot, 8ut o8serving my every move is just plain rude! 8ut I digress. What I want to know how you'd think it would 8e okay to lie to me, your alleged 8est friend and the one who didn't 8low your cover when you left 8eforus!
CC: dam, you still mad about that? guess i can't blame ya though. reason i lied was cuz i thought you wouldn't play if i told the truth. can we just put this carp behind us and stay friends?
AG: Siiiiiiiigh...what kind of person am I to hold permanent grudges? You're right, Meenah, I shouldn't let this ruin our friendship. In fact, this game has pro8a8ly 8enefitted some of us, especially me. 8ut right now I'm not sure what to do! I've 8een wandering around, looking for things to do. My consorts are nice, 8ut they don't seem to know of any way to help me clear up the fog.
CC: wade consorts? water you talkin about?
AG: Oh. They're the inha8itants of your planet. There all a little on the ignorant side, and they're incredi8ly weak, 8ut they're a gr8 altern8tive to the imps all over the place! Nelly's m8 short work of them.
CC: dam your place sounds all bight to me. my place is a sweet ocean, but litterly EVERYT)-(ING wants to cull me or eat me or somefin. couralse they make good eels themshelves, specially the eels 38b)
b's a toungue cuz that's what i use to eat'em when i can. chum to sink of it, those little guppies were probubbly the consorts. oh well i 8 em.
AG: :OOOOOOOO...oh. Well, anyway, it seems that while your world is meant to test your com8at a8ilities, mine seems to demand a cre8tive or complex solution to a pro8lem. i've 8een trying to talk to my descendant, Mindfang-I told you a8out 8efore we left 8eforus, right?-8ut she seems to have vanished. I suppose she was only meant to 8e a temporary helper. How exactly I know she's my descendant is something I can't really explain-perhaps she's me if f8 would have us do something 8esides play this game. 8ut what she told me a8out 8eing a pir8...that's just hard to 8elieve! Piracy was outlawed on 8eforus ages ago! Well, save for digital piracy. Perhaps Mituna could give me some insight into her, if not into this pro8lem. I heard he recently made a device called the Data Freezer, which contains codes for virtually every item in the game. Yes, perhaps Mindfang is trying to point me in another direction. I'll see if Mituna can help. What do you think?
CC: yeah i didn't catfish most of that cept for the part about every code in the game made by tunaboy. i'll check it out for ya. you just keep chillin', kay?
AG: Well, if you insist. Good8ye. Also, sorry for 8eing such a 8itch and holding a grudge for nothing. Good thing you talked when you did, otherwise our relationship could've have turned rancid!
CC: wouldn't want that. see ya serket. you can bubble on to me whenever. it's the least i could do for making you pissed 38)
Meenah focused her attention on Mituna. Aranea wasn't doing anything dangerous at the moment, so she figured it was okay to leave her alone. She turned the screens on Mituna to see what he was doing. He was currently with Latula on LOEW, fighting off dozens of enemies with psionic powers, while she was on some hoverboard thing shooting a machine gun in people's faces. Mituna was even redirecting stray bullets for her! But it wasn't until Mituna turned his back to the camera (where exactly it was hidden and how the screens watched everyone was a mystery) that Meenah gave a small squee of delight.
")-(OT DAM!" she cried. Draconian Dignitary opened the door. Meenah had apparently realized that Mituna was wearing one of Latula's bodysuits, colored yellow. Yep. This is how the Condesce and the Psionic began their relationship; with the former staring at the ass of the latter.
"Never mind. I shouldn't have come in here," DD sighed. Damn kids. Always disconcertingly oggling and stalking each other. DD quietly closed the door. Meenah watched angrily as Latula gave Mituna a complimentary ass pap (in MSPA, asses are papped, not slapped) after he had psionically eviscerated an ogre.
"3p1c job, M4H-TUN4!" she cried.
"Please don't touch me there," Mituna replied.
"Oh, r3l4x, nobody c4n s33 us!" Latula said nonchalantly. Oh, how wrong she was!
Meenah pondered if she should pursue her perverted flushed crush any further. She decided against it when she paid more attention to the sheer psychic power Mituna used as he tore apart his enemies. Could he be useful? Possibly, but she had to get him away from Latula, and there was no way to do that without employing Aranea's services, and she would most likely object. She briefly remembered Damara and decided unhesitantly that she would arrange for her assassination. But then she remembered how things worked here; each player had 2 bodies, not one. The Midnight Crew would only be able to take out a dreamself easily; anybody on the planets would take longer. She decided that she would have the Midnight Crew take on just Damara's dreamself, and then she would bother her passive aggressively until she could get her into a confrontation. But how? Remembering the gossip Aranea had given her about Rufioh and Horuss, she focused the screens on the latter. But nothing came up. She tried Rufioh, and sure enough she found the two of them together, alchemizing junk for some stupid expedition to a tower or somefin. She couldn't care less. But the point was that she now had evidence that they were totally a thing together and could use it to make Damara mad. She tried turning the screens on Damara herself, but again, that didn't work. She could see her hive, but the other screens which would show her location were blank. Not bothering to find out why, Meenah dismissed it as just a bad surveillance system. It wasn't like Derse's budget could be wisely spent by a cruel queen anyway, right?
Turning to Kankri, she saw him staring into a candy red orb and crying, "9h n9! N9! N999999999!" Meenah laughed, having no idea what was going on. Probably just triggered by something like a dirty hankerchief.
Next, she turned to Meulin. She was on a ship, apparently the captain, and her crew were a bunch of adorable kitties. Nothing interesting there, and no threat. But then Meenah remembered who she could manipulate via the Leijon, and that gave her an idea...
Kurloz himself wasn't doing anything interesting, and neither was Porrim. Cronus was arguing with his fleshy consorts about something uninteresting. And that was pretty much everybody worth looking at. She went back to the Midnight Crew and gave out her hit list:
"Kay yall, get rid of the cat girl, Meulin. Gotta make it look like I got nofin to do with it. Gonna make Kurloz mad and think it was somebody else. Don't let him know about it except from me. Also Damara. Gonna make her mad, too. Just the dreamshelves, kay?"
"Understood," Jack replied. Meenah left to get back to her bed and take a nap. When she left, Jack turned to his crew and said, "Okay, you heard the lady. We do these two jobs, we get the ring. DD, you're in charge of press negotiations. Don't let'em know what we did. We're coverin' this up for as long as we can. HB, you're goin' after the Witch. Big guy like you should have no trouble with a little girl. CD, get the Mage. And whatever you do, DO NOT SQUEAL. Got it?"
"Sure thing, Boss. But, uh, what're you gonna do?" Courtyad Droll asked.
"I'll keep the Queen busy," he said flatly.
Meenah awoke from her Quest Bed to find that she was being crushed by a rock. She lifted it up from under her and tossed it aside, feeling very, very pissed.
But she wasn't God Tier just yet, because she didn't actually die! Despite having a few bruises from the rock, she was fine; she had been healed during her rest!
"Megido's just cruisin' for a bruisin', ain't she?" she said angrily to Fishbowlsprite, who was looking confused. It was supposed to help her get the tiger, but it had failed! Meenah was just too tough to kill through cheep-cheep means.
"What? Was somefin else 'spposed to happen while I slept? Oh, whale. Great way to toughfin myself up and get some minnowins. I mean, I coulda just slept at home, but then I would never've found out how to kick that fish-tentacle thing's tailfin!"