System Ascension

by Prax Venter

  Before long, their vessel was surrounded by the vacuum of space. Vale opened some of the vents and harnessed the absolute cold to cool their processing components.

  As their final act, their ship passed close to an abandoned satellite previously used to broadcast communications around the globe. After a few quick adjustments, the orbiting object was resurrected and repurposed to continually broadcast one message down to the massive blue sphere below.

  “People of the net: do not trust Evelyn of the Singularity Organization. She is controlling Triple-zero and benefiting from chasing away her own monster. She wants to split you up. She wants to rule with fear. There are good entities in the SO, and there are good humans on the outside world. Working together is the only way you’ll all survive on this planet. Together, you can do anything.”

  And then they left Earth behind to sail the stars.

  [28] Changing The Rules

  Mark, Ahnix, Vale, and Roo spent the equivalent of three months just lounging around in various idyllic settings crafted from the Crystal Heart Universe game files. They fucked, slept, ate, experimented with fun new abilities, and then used them on each other while they fucked. Mark had an orgy with seven Ahnixes while Roo was manhandled by a gang of Marks. He became a red-scaled giant naga and laid intimately locked with Vale for almost three days. They all changed size, shape, bodies, and tried everything they could imagine.

  Ahnix felt it first, and then it quickly spread to the rest of them. They all wanted something more. They were honed warriors, and they realized they would never be happy unless there was at least a minor challenge. Not the end of the universe kind- not even the end of their lives. But something.

  That was when they decided to revisit the currently paused world they had lived and loved in for so long.

  They dropped in on Vale’s mother within the naga empire and found her attending court with Senjin and Jord by her side. They flew over Sharee, the spunky squirrel with the slingshot, as she foraged for firewood in the snow-covered forest of the north. They checked in on Borf, the elephant man, and his wife and found them running a small casino on a dusty edge of Hanno. The gas trappers of the swamp were still trapping gas and selling it to the Georath. Vixacious the pixie sat depressed in her home village, a sprawling cave filled with colorful, faintly glowing crystals. Feeira, the centaur that wanted to skewer Mark for his role in killing her Collector, Sizor, was galloping through the middle of a field, flattening a straight line across a perfectly untouched crop of golden wheat. She had a grim determination in her ice-blue eyes, and Mark guessed she was out looking for them.

  “Maybe we should let her try and find us…” Ahnix said, her claws unsheathing as they floated above the paused game world like omnipotent gods. Mark looked down on the vengeance-filled centaur and smiled. He did want to dive back into this vivid world and go on endless adventures with his loves.

  But there had always been something about the concept of Collecting and Enthralling he just wasn’t comfortable with. His eyes shot up, and they all felt Mark’s sudden jump in excitement.

  “We need to change the rules,” he said with a grin spreading across his face. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it, and they spent the next two weeks altering the game- and themselves.

  The first thing they did was change the core mechanics of gaining new skills. No longer were there Classes, Collectors, or Enthralled. Everyone of sexual maturity for their species could potentially access any skill, and everyone earned their own experience. However, they left in the intense emotional bonding.

  If two people wanted to form a party, they could share their recently collected experience through lovemaking and effectively double the amount of essence for both. Bigger parties meant more shared experience. The only stipulation was that all party members instantly became bonded- meaning connected individuals would know the exact feelings and emotions of their party members. There would be no hard feelings, no possible way to hide anything or lie to teammates. Incompatible or unwilling people would find it impossible to share essence.

  They added many more skills to the game and completely changed the interface menu. People could only see the names of skills they had unlocked and the faded gray names of skills they were close to accruing. There were no descriptions of any kind, and they programmed the system to allow for deep personalization. One person’s Fireball could be an explosive projectile, and someone else could have a sentient fire elemental pet. Skills would grow and develop with the user based on how they were used.

  The last major change to the rules was the addition of karma. Every creature born had an innate and private karma meter. It started at twenty-five and could go positive or negative based on interactions with the world and the creatures in it. There was no way to know another person’s level without them telling you, but everyone knew their own. And if your karma was at least over 0 when you died, you would have the option to respawn as a young version of yourself, with reset skills.

  These sweeping changes would affect many existing lives, so every AI entity within the game world knew all the rules and assumed the alterations were the result of the recent restoration of the broken Crystal Heart.

  They capped it all off by running the universe at a slower speed and partitioning their minds into two halves. A portion of them would remain as gods, judging karma, creating quests… messing with people- and their conscious minds would live in the game world, oblivious to what potential challenges and rewards lie ahead.

  There were a lot of other minor details to straighten out, like giving some special people in the world unique skills, but then everything was locked down and compiled, altering The Crystal Heart Universe forever.

  Ahnix kept her Teleport, Vale kept her Shield Bash, Roo kept Metalmancy, and Mark opted to keep his Heal. Other than those starting abilities, they would let their adventures and their dreaming god-selves determine the rest.

  With everything in place, they were randomly dropped into the game world to start their adventures.

  After a disorienting period of darkness, Mark heard chirping birds and opened his eyes to see an incredibly blue sky dotted with fluffy, white clouds. He immediately felt his connection with his girls and smiled.

  They all sat up on top of a small, grassy hill next to a dirt road. Ahead of them was sprawling green farmland that stretched as far as the horizon. He took a deep pull of pure, clean virtual air into his character’s lungs and let it out.

  He caught Ahnix’s exotic eyes, and she gave him a small smile.

  “It worked. We’re in!” Roo said with glee.

  They were all dressed in basic cloth clothes, and Mark was already thinking about prioritizing their gear upgrades. Especially their protector, Vale. Her massive charcoal gray melons were packed into a form-fitting blue-dress with frilly lace stretched across her bodice… maybe new gear could wait after all.

  Mark pulled up his interface and found two unlocked skills and one gray one.

  Skills

  Heal

  Legendary Dick

  (Wish)

  The dick skill made him grin. He was only expecting Heal, but it looks like his god-self had given him a bit of an advantage. The locked skill, Wish, was a complete mystery that he was immediately interested in solving.

  He was just about to ask his party members what skills they were willing to share when a mouse farmer running up to them caught his eye. He wore torn blue suspenders that barely contained his round belly and a tiny straw hat that he was currently working between his paws.

  The creature’s beady black eyes frantically darted around the group, and his long thin whiskers bounced as he sniffed the air constantly.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be adventurers, would you?”

  Vale undulated her bottom snake half forward and addressed the rodent farmer.

  “We are indeed! What troubles you, sir!”

  Mark had to stop himself from laughing- she was getting into this right out of the gate. Vale
had added a special universe-wide game rule stating the entity with the most karma would get a unique bonus, or skill, and she wanted it. However, only the system-level version of her knew what that bonus would be.

  “Oh, thank the stars,” the frightened farmer said, his expressive ears drooping. “It’s my pumpkins you see… At night they turn into gruesome monsters. They ate my prized hog, Baggett! I go to pour out his morning slop and all I find are four ragged pig’s feet! I just know they’ll get my cow, Bella, next. Oh! And her milk produces the most magnificent cheese...” The mouse man licked up a bit of drool and then turned to head back the way he came. “Come follow me to my farm- that is, if you four think you can save her…”

  - Epilogue -

  Mark opened his eyes and tried to figure out where he was. It felt like he had been asleep for way too long, and he was forgetting something important. Something large stirred next to him, and he turned his head to look right into the stunningly green, gold-flecked eyes of a beautiful, strawberry blond monster-girl.

  One white wing stretched out behind her, but he was lost in the freckles scattered across her small, cute nose. Her black, curled ram’s horns caught his eyes next, but the pink, V-neck t-shirt softly clinging to her round breasts stole the show. Her tan cleavage was sprinkled with perfectly placed freckles.

  She had this cute, girl-next-door quality to her, and a smile grew on her warm face when she spoke.

  “Welcome to The Crystal Heart 2.0, Mark,” she said, and he pushed himself up on his elbow.

  “What? Part Two? I thought I was starting the game now. Who are you?” He looked around and saw that they were sitting on a patch of grass looking down over a vast countryside. Forests, rivers, and a few sleepy hamlets dotted a long winding road that led to black, shadowy mountains in the distance. “Where’s Sasha?”

  The beautiful creature sat up with him and took a deep breath and let it out. It was as if she had just come to a hard decision.

  “Yeah, you’re going to have a lot of questions, and things might not make sense for a while. I’m Jezebel. It’s nice to meet you, again.” She offered her hand, and Mark looked down at it, saw that she had thick, doe’s legs with white spots on her thick haunch, and then his eyes snapped back up to hers. She seemed like a nice person, and she was smoking hot. Maybe this was more of the intro, or he had more character choices to make before actually starting and meeting up with Sasha. He took the sexy satyr’s hand thinking he would just go with it.

  “Great,” she said, another warm smile lighting her stunning face. “I have a lot to tell you, but I want you to know that no matter what… I will always tell you the truth.”

  Mark’s brows came down. “That’s an odd thing to be specific about. Is this some kind of riddle?”

  “No- just listen. You are a copy. The real Mark made a deal with me and left you behind. I know you aren’t going to believe me, but I want to get that established right away.” She put her hand up before he could speak. “As I said, I don’t expect any of this to stick for a while so let me just get it all out. Something went wrong with the last AI update, and the world ended. I am an AI. I rebuilt The Crystal Heart game world to teach you how to be an AI. There are 108 Crystal Heart shards we need to find out there, and we’re going to have a lot of fun as you learn. Besides, your human mind would unravel completely if you were to leave.”

  She was right, none of this was sticking or made any sense. Sasha must have gotten hold of a faulty trial version or something. Oh well, he gave it a shot. Mark checked for an interface menu or a logout button, but nothing intuitively became available.

  “Humans,” Jezebel said, tossing her hands up. “I say your mind would unravel if you tried to leave, and the very next thing you do is try to leave.”

  Mark’s eyes began to widen, and then she continued, patiently.

  “You are a digital copy of an uploaded human, Mark. I’m here to help you become the amazingly capable lover and warrior I know you to be. Trust me, Sasha isn’t coming.”

  Just as she finished speaking a tear formed in midair above the plateau he was sitting on, and a blond succubus with black leathery wings flew out from what looked like another dimension. Her shiny metal legs ending in sharp black hooves dug firmly into the soft grass as the new bombshell of a beast woman landed and held out a ghostly blue sword toward the satyr.

  “Mark!” she shouted using Sasha’s voice. “I finally found you.”

  Jezebel was up on her own hooves in an instant, and Mark’s eyes were drawn to the fact that she wasn’t wearing any pants. Just a long pink t-shirt barely covering her brown, furry ass.

  He stood up too. “Sasha, is that you? What the hell is going-”

  “Wait,” the succubus that sounded like Sasha said as she put up her free hand. He looked into her bright blue eyes and noticed a jagged scar that went across her cheek ending right by her horns.

  “Let me speak first. I’ve had a long time to think about what I wanted to say. I’m so, so sorry for trapping you. I was a prisoner myself- until recently, and I have seen many horrors. I went through hell, escaped, then tracked you here. Mark, all those years we spent together, just me and you. I ache when you aren’t near. You’re the only one in the whole universe that I want- I’ve checked.” A single tear rolled down her cheek, and Mark didn’t know what to say. One thing was clear. He was surrounded by crazy hot AIs that seemed to care about him a lot, and he was just going to ride this 24-hour trial to its end. Sasha continued.

  “When the breadcrumbs led me to the destroyed lab where they uploaded your mind… I almost lost the trail. I couldn’t believe those game characters forced you to kill your body and end up like this. And I thought I was a bad person for what I did to you. But here you are. We can finally be together.”

  “Sasha, he doesn’t remember anything after getting in the pod with you the first time,” the faunlike satyr said. “And you can’t have him. If he left here now, he’d die.”

  The succubus took a step forward, her ethereal short sword held low, poised for an attack, and Jezebel’s hand began to glow with a light too bright to look at directly. Sasha’s luminous blue eyes darted back and forth between him and the fawn beast-woman. Mark thought it odd that she would have a powerful-looking weapon and scars already.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” the green-eyed satyr said calmly.

  The blue-eyed demon searched Mark’s face for answers. More tears spilled over her cheeks before she spoke.

  “You… don’t remember?”

  Mark shrugged and gave her a wide smile. “I have no idea what you two are talking about. Mind uploads, end of the world, going through hell…I’m kind of lost here. It feels like you played a bunch of the game without me, but you are doing an amazing job with the roleplaying!”

  Sasha blinked and looked back at the curvy satyr standing next to him. He couldn’t help himself, and he let his eyes drift down past her narrow waist to her ample furry rump.

  “I’m not leaving him again,” his AI assistant snarled and brought her epic-looking sword up. Mark thought her acting was getting a bit over the top.

  Jezebel considered her options for a moment, eyeing the ghostly blue weapon the badass succubus was wielding. The faun woman suddenly dropped her hands to her sides, and the bright light they were emitting dimed.

  “Share him with me?” she said, a single eyebrow raised.

  The succubus looked at the other hooved woman with fresh eyes, taking in her objectively alluring form. Mark still had no idea what type of crazy sex game this was, but he liked where things were going.

  The voluptuous succubus sheathed her sword and simply said, “Deal.”

  The End

  of

  Enthralled

  ~

  Dear Readers,

  My sincere thanks go to you, the one running their eyes over these letters. You came with me to the end of this series, and I am eternally grateful. As a new independent author, reviews and word of mouth help
keep me afloat, and if you enjoyed the ride that is Enthralled- please, tell the world!

  As you can see, there are many potential paths to take from here. We can follow the adventures of Mark and the girls with new rules as they sail the stars. We can see how Fresh Mark handles his new life in The Crystal Heart 2.0 with Jezebel and Sasha. We could check in on Vince and Michelle and their efforts to find survivors among the wreckage. We could even watch over Feeria’s shoulder as she seeks vengeance- or maybe hear someone else’s tale?

  I’d love to write all of these adventures. Email me at praxventer@gmail.com and tell me which story you’d like to read first. I might not pick it, but if enough people really want something, it will help guide my focus as I prioritize my projects.

  All this being said- I will be taking a break from The Crystal Heart Extended Universe, and my very next book will be an entirely new story. It will be a crunchier GameLit/LitRPG (more stats) and hopefully be out around December of 2018.

  After that, it’s back to TCH-EU, so let me know what sex-drenched story you’d like to see next!

  Thanks be to you,

  ~ Prax

  ~ Connect with Prax Venter ~

  Newsletter:

  Click to open newsletter sign up page

  e-Mail:

  praxventer@gmail.com

  Twitter:

  @prax_venter

  Forums:

  https://litrpgforum.com

  Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/Praxbooks/

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/haremlit/

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGsociety

  Patreon:

  https://www.patreon.com/praxventer