The Teleporting Cow

With Her Master busy for the foreseeable future Annie lit up her eyes, and sent a message to Winnie, due to the distance it took Annie a few minutes to get the connection stable enough for Winnie to notice she was trying to call.

"Does Mistress Bree wish to return early?" Winnie asked immediately, having already been informed that Bree had chosen to stay the extra day in the hopes of actually doing something without being interrupted by someone or something else.

"No, she is currently away preparing for her lecture," Annie thought back to the precious night, "I simply had an odd exchange with Mistress Bree, and since you're not expecting to let anyone touch her autobiography until you finished making copies of it all, I fear I must ask if you could help me understand why something as simple as Orion and Sheepy's origins would make Mistress Bree look…sad?"

"Odd," Winnie muttered at the notion, "Come to think of it, I'm not sure either Mistress Bree's estate is every mentioned in the books, I hadn't much thought about it since I just figured It hadn't come up, but Bella and Zoey both asked me about a particular look She had when she made you her first maid, and I've yet to see it in any of her stories,"

Winnie looked at the book she was currently reading, having needed to slow down her progression of them to begin making the copies so the others on staff might get to read them, having no hands it was a fairly slow process.

"I shall inspect her stories, and see if I can't find out why Orion and Sheepy's origins might make her sad?" Annie thanked her and Winnie felt the connection drop.

"Very well then," Winnie picked up Volume ten of her Mistresses stories, and jumped back into where she had last left off, hoping to find the point where her Master had first acquired her home.

***

Bree yawned as she logged in, being her one day off for the week she fully planned to enjoy herself, after a short loading screen she found herself in her small room, the last inn she had checked into to move her respawn location.

Without much fanfare Bree exited the room, and then made her way past a few other players preparing for the games first big event, the six month anniversary was fast approaching, and with it a personal housing update had been leaked, Bree didn't feel to hyped as she wasn't sure if she'd even bother buying any personal property, she had a sneaking suspicion it was just going to be the guild housing network, but for loners or people who didn't play enough to maintain guild membership.

"Just another way to squeeze pennies out of unsuspecting saps," Bree decided indignantly as she opened the game menu while walking, she had a large amount of in-game currency and was claiming the small bits of it she received daily with her monthly membership, able to use it to buy customization items, she could also use it to buy new items at bulk.

After making sure she had ten open inventory slots she went to the Wishing Star and spent roughly all her saved up currency on a Ten Item pull, after a moment it was declared that they were all common ranked items, and without hesitation she swiftly disposed of them.

"Can't start the day on a bad pull," She rationalized as she dipped into her ever in-consistently sized Game budget and just bought enough currency to do a second pull, once again receiving nothing but common items, but with a guaranteed S item only twelve pulls away she tried her luck on one more purchase, sighing in defeat upon seeing nine commons and one uncommon.

"I'll get enough from my dailies for two more pulls later," She decided in defeat as she checked up on what they were, she had five to do, with four extra rewards awaiting if she did at least four of them.

"Catch a Rare Fish, Kill twenty Frog-fiends, Emote after killing an enemy three times, Protect the Merchant's cart, Help old Greg," Bree looked at the five missions available and immediately threw one out of the pool, "Never doing that stupid Escort mission again,"

Bree started her morning with a nice round of fishing, catching a Super-Rare Tuna on her seventh try, easily killing the low level Frog-fiends and doing a staff swirl after the first three kills, with three out of four done, Bree just had to do Old Gergs quest and that guaranteed Legendary item was hers.

Old Greg was a Hobbit living in the bad part of the Kingdom, full of thieves and bandit enemies in many parts, lucky Old Greg was in a town section of the rundown city so no enemies would spawn and bug her from afar.

"Hello there Kid," Old Greg said as Bree interacted with him, "Lucky you can when you did, My Prized Cow, Cowie's, gone and gotten herself kidnaped, think you could bring her home,"

"Dammit this is an escort mission too," Bree swore angrily, accepting it angrily since she already started talking to the NPC and didn't wanna deal with going across to the countryside just to do the same kind of quest. "And why do you even have a cow in this part of town, of all places, and Cowie what kind of name is that, it's like naming a Pig Piggy or a Sheep Sheepy," Bree huffed as she headed towards the part of the ruined section of city that bandits spawned in, "Just lazy if you ask me,"

Bree followed the quest guide to Cowie's location, the Cow was surrounded by twelve Bandits, who called out for her to back off as they all started rushing her.

Bree used Lightning Bolt to hit the first guy, having it travel through all the opponents before swimming her weapon, a magic staff with a floating disconnected ring and ball floating over the end. 

"Anti-life," She called out, the skill caused fatal damage to any non-boss enemy with less than twenty five percent health, and caused the Root satis effect on any Bosses or enemies above the required health threshold.

A Few bandits died and the rest were taken out with a combination of a second Lightning bolt and the Rot effect.

With all enemies dead the frustration began as the Cow began following her, she made it all of five feet before it walked into a slightly crumbled wall and it's walk cycle continued trying to follow her, after a moment the game registered the cow was stuck and it faded out of existence, re-appearing in its original spot.

Bree took a deep breath, as with all escort missions in the game, during the start of the game's run they had been bugged and a lot of them had to be forcefully failed due to the target they were supposed to be escorting getting perma-stuck on the most minute of things.

The Dev team had added a patch that made it so escortale characters would despawn and respawn if they got stuck on anything for to long, but since they hadn't fixed the issues themselves, it just resulted in players having to constantly restart the mission as their escort target wouldn't move if the player was to far away, and would always respawn at their last saved point, usually between every battle phase.

But daily missions only had one battle phase, so if the target got stuck and respawned, the player would have to walk all the way back and restart without any save spots.

The Last time Bree had done an Escort Daily it had been the Merchant's carriage, it had gotten stuck a few feet from it's final spot no less than four times, following the fourth she had quit the mission and refused any further escort dailies.

"Oh should we fix the broken system since our last patch just turned the previous problem into a different problem?" Bree asked in a mocking tone directed toward the Dev team, "No, let's just add more Escort quests, the players just love playing them," 

Bree got back into tracking distance and the Cow began following her again, alreadying knowing from the forms that the Merchant daily was simply broken and having to deal with the fact that the dev's had yet to add the ability to reroll dailies it was either the Cow or nothing.

She very slowly did her best to avoid getting too close to anything, something easier said than done, one fourth of the map was the giant sprawling city she was currently walking through, but the section she and the cow where currently in was the section that had been destroyed in the opening cutscene when the Lich Queen had revealed she had been resurrected and released the powers of the Twelve pillars onto the world.

This entire section of city was destroyed, now full of crumbling buildings and broken roads overrun by bandits.

The Cow walked into a pothole and clipped against the edge of it, after a moment it once again reset, Bree took a deep breath, "Legendary item, Legendary item," She had only four non-repeated Legendary items to her name, counting the repeats she had almost twenty, but all the repeats had been used to increase the power of her other instances of the Legendary Item, save for one she had maxed out and sold, not bothering to try and put it up for the in-game auction since it was the most common Legendary anyone could get.

Bree was hoping beyond hope she'd get her hands on something new, or at least a repeat she could put up for batter, two of her four were both shoes and since they belonged to the same item slot on her character she could only use one set at a time, one had been an Legendary cosmetic Item for her staff slot, resulting in her staff that looked like it had a little jupiter floating over it, and the fourth legendary item had been a kick ass sword, and being an item not matching her class requirements she couldn't use it but wasn't quite willing to sell it since no one was willing to offer her a fair trade for it at auction.

She desperately wanted a Legendary Mage's staff outside of cosmetics, but would be more than happy to get an item she could both equip and that wasn't a pair of shoes. Bree spent far more time than she wanted to admit on trying to move the cow, She had just gotten right next to the hostile mob divide when it got stuck on another pot hole.

"I could just buy a pull," She rationalized as she started walking back to the cow, "I've already gotten enough for one pull from the other three dailies, what's a few buck," Bree chuckled to herself but knew she was already pushing her budget dangerously close to the red considering she still have over a week to her next pay period.

Even if she did buy the cheapest option, if she convinced herself to do it now, she'd use it as an excuse to do it again later. "Please Cow," She pleaded with the AI Creature as it began walking after her, she avoided the pot holes, and one her six try she finally managed to get it to cross the passive town line, Old Greg was atop a small hill not to far away, so long as she kept the cow away from the side fences she would be golden.

She took two steps in, and then watched as Cowie the Cow died to a head shot. She just stared at it for a moment before hearing laughter, turning around she saw another player howling with joy as he put away his bow.

"Oh man, it was worth the wait," he looked to his left at a screen she couldn't see before speaking again, "Some one clip that," Her turned away without looking back, talking to his live chat as he did so, thanking them for pointing out that some poor sap way trying to do an escort mission off in the distance.

In the distance she could see the indicator that the cow had respawned and she took a deep breath "I hate people," She muttered angrily as she went back to the cow, trying again and again to get the cow back to old Greg, after so many attempts she'd lost count she managed to get it back to the safety line, and with no other player in sight she managed to get the Cow back to Greg, who thanked her.

"Thank ya kindly stranger," Greg said, Bree already walking away as she claimed the rewards and headed to the Wishing Star page, with enough to buy to her wish the guaranteed Legendary Item was her.

She made one wish, and immediately received the notification that she had gotten a Legendary Item. Bree stared at the item for a very long moment before letting out a low hiss as realization set in.

"I didn't need to do the fucking cow quest," She realized angrily, knowing the guaranteed legendary count down would reset if one got a legendary before hitting it. She took a moment to angrily process just how much time she had waisted before claiming the Item.

The Item she received had no rendered item image, and below its name was a small amount of text stating the item was a 'Exclusive Pre-Beta Account Reward' for the next patch.

"Fuck," Bree angrily opened her menu and inspected the Item, knowing exactly what it was for the second she saw it's name, Garden's Windmill, It was a Windmill to put on a players private estate, upon putting it down anywere it would decrease the price and increase the output of one's garden.

Bree angrily looked at the Windmill, having planned to skip out on buying one as it would require a lot of in-game currency, the kind one earned by playing over the kind one could buy.

"I don't…I can't…" Bree angrily dropped her controllers as she held them to her head, "Fuck," She picked up her controller and angrily selected one of the dozens of sidequests she had picked up but not yet started.

"Now I have to grind up for a house," She muttered angrily, as a Pre-Beta reward it was linked to her account, so she couldn't sell or destroy it, and she wasn't about to spend the rest of her days playing the game dealing with the Windmill in her inventory. "It'll probably cost like a Million Coin or something," Bree set off to begin the less than welcome journey to save up enough to buy a plot of land when they became available for purchase.

***

Winnie was lost in her book, reading an interesting tale of the time her Mistress had tried to help an easily spooked teleporting Cow get home. The Cows owner had been so grateful that he had apparently given her the blueprints for the very Windmill that had been the base for the tower Winnie now called home, having no place to build it Her Mistress had simply decided it was time for a home to call her own.

"Ah," Winnie muttered with Interest, "I'm must be getting close," Winnie wanted to continue reading so she could discover what could be causing her Mistress Distress towards Sheepy and Orion, but a call of her name indicated that Jaiden and Silver both required her assistance in some matter or another, "To much to do," She sighed as she set the book down and returned to her tasks for the day.