Conquest

by Felix von Falkenlust

  “Who is you?” the troll demanded. I can’t say for a fact he was a troll, but that’s sure what he looked like to me.

  “Karl, level-eight warrior. This is Anna, level-eight—”

  “Nine,” corrected Anna. She must have leveled up.

  “—level-nine archer.”

  “Coming in.” The troll turned and we followed him into a foyer of pure white marble, devoid of any decoration. Another troll, just as tall and ugly as the first, waited in an opening and took charge of our ass. The troll led us on, the foyer opened out into a hall, and then my lips slowly parted in awe.

  The scale of the hall alone was enough to overpower me with its grandeur. It was massive. The floor and the walls were the same white marble, only now with decoration: the tops of the walls were carved with astounding intricacy, and marble statues on marble pillars lined the length of the hall. In both the frieze and the statues, all the decoration depicted one thing: sex.

  The statues were pairs of figures, or sometimes trios, all engaged in carnal delights, and the deeply carved marble frieze roiled with a complex choreography of undulating bodies.

  A white carpet led down the great length of the hall to what I first took to be another statue. The troll led us down this carpet, and as we got closer I could see that this was no fornicating figure, though I still thought it was a statue. It was a lone person on a throne, white marble, of course. A few more steps and I saw that the abundant folds of fabric covering the figure were actual cloth, and made out a woman with long white curls, but even as we came to a halt five feet away I wasn’t sure she was not a statue because her skin was so completely white.

  Except she was black. Except she wasn’t black, because she was the whitest person I had ever seen. What I mean is, her features were of African ancestry, but her skin was as white as the marble of the walls and statues. I mean really as white; not like Northern European or albino. It looked like she was made out of living stone. When she spoke, her voice seemed to have the texture to match.

  “Welcome, oh honored guests. Welcome to my humble castle.” Humble? This place made the Palace of Versailles seem like a hovel. “Pray ye, make yourselves at home. Eat to your heart’s content, drink your fill, and love whom you will. No gold needeth be spent within these walls.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I exchanged a glance with Anna, but she said nothing.

  The woman commanded the troll, “Give unto these weary travelers a room. And robes—they must have robes.”

  “Queen, yes, me queen.” The troll turned to us. “Coming.”

  As we followed the troll to a door to the right of the throne, I looked behind me, anxious about tracking dirt from my filthy boots all over the pristine floor. My brow raised as I watched the tracks behind us evaporate from the marble surface.

  The troll led us to a spiral staircase, the walls and steps the same as everything else in the castle. After just climbing the mountain I would have preferred ground-floor accommodations, but I managed to make it up the stairs.

  The troll opened a white door to show us into a white room. The drapery over the windows was white. The luxurious silk over the bed was white. A white rug covered part of the white marble floor. The troll slid open a closet door and handed us each a robe. I don’t think I need to tell you what color they were.

  “Change. Sleep. Breakfast come morning.”

  I didn’t relish the idea of changing in front of the big ugly troll, so I was relieved when he left, shutting the door to our chamber behind him.

  I did relish the idea of Anna changing in front of me. She stripped away her layers of warm wool to reveal her golden-brown skin and I did not look away. I too pulled off my winter gear, storing it in the closet, until I stood there naked, happily noting Anna’s eyes on my big muscles and big Level Eighter.

  I also noticed that despite being on a mountaintop that had required all those heavy clothes, my bare skin was warm. I turned to see the fire in the hearth—a magic flame of pure white.

  Anna and I pulled the robes over our bodies, the white fabric hardly more substantial than smoke, so thin I could see Anna’s nipples beneath the white weave.

  Exhausted, we collapsed on the bed. Yet again I slept next to Anna, when I wanted so dearly to be on top of her.

  Or under her. Under her would also have been just dandy.

  * * *

  We awoke to the white light of the early sun pouring through the window. A young woman in a robe like ours, with an exceptionally fair complexion and long platinum-blond hair, came in with a lovely tray of white lacquer, which she set on the bed. Despite her pallor, she had nothing on the queen, and for a moment I thought she was a player until I noted the elven ears.

  “Breakfast is served, oh honored guests.” Her voice was very high and delicate. I wondered what it would be like in the throes of passion, and between her and the queen I was disappointed I couldn’t hook up with an NPC, though with a woman like Anna next to me, I wasn’t that disappointed. The elf girl bowed and left the room.

  I looked at the tray. The eggs looked perfectly normal, except for the yolk, which was the same color as the whites. The bread took the term “white bread” to a whole new level. There was butter, but it was pure white. The glasses were filled with milk, of course.

  Despite the disturbing hue of the yolks, the eggs were perfect. I had never been a fan of drinking just plain milk, but I tried this. It was amazing. It was steaming hot, and it tasted like no milk I’ve ever had, with a wonderful sweetness.

  When we finished eating, Anna asked, “What now, warrior?”

  “I guess we check the place out?” We left the incredibly comfortable bed and walked barefoot to the door. When our feet left the rug and touched the marble floor, I braced myself for the chill of cold stone. It was warm.

  We wandered around our floor, occasionally nodding to other guests, who looked just as confused as us and were dressed the same. We went down the spiral staircase, my legs aching only a little from the previous day’s climb, until we reached an entryway from which poured raucous noises. Naturally, we went that way.

  A crowd of people stood gathered around two empty-handed combatants, both wearing only white fabric tied into underwear, who squared off on a circle of marble. The spectators’ noise spiked at each tentative jab or kick as Anna and I elbowed our way to the front in time to see the beefy bald warrior deliver a blow that sent the other guy bouncing off the marble.

  A sack full of gold fell from seemingly nowhere onto the center of the stage, and the bald guy swiped it up and gave a victorious yell. Then he looked around the crowd.

  “Who next will challenge me?”

  An NPC elf turned to me and said, “No risk of death is there. Thou hast but a hundred gold coins and a thousand Experience to lose—or to gain.”

  I felt my swollen muscles under the robe itching to test their strength and I jumped up onto the stage.

  “I!”

  A buzzing on my left hand made me look at it.

  Wager 100 Gold and 1000 EP? Y/N

  Yes. Somehow I knew to throw off my robe, and was relieved that my junk was covered in medieval tighty-whities.

  I sized up my opponent, who gave me an arrogant glare: A Level Eight, I guessed, but he’d selected the largest body type and his muscles were huge. If I hadn’t had to risk the thousand EP on the wager, I could have leveled up Strength to a Nine. Instead, I knew I had to rely on speed and wits. I hoped he was as dumb as he looked.

  A voice from nowhere declared, “Begin!”

  The guy lunged at me and swung his right, but I leaned back in time. In fact I leaned too far back and the guy used the opportunity to sweep my legs out and I headed toward the hard stone.

  But it wasn’t hard. I bounced as if I had landed on high-density foam. I scrambled back on my feet before he got to me, and before I straightened out I drove a right and a left into his gut. He grunted, but then he laughed and swung his left. I avoided that only to have his right fist smash in
to the side of my head.

  I stumbled back, and I don’t know how I stayed standing. The guy came at me again but I stepped around him and planted a left hook on his cheek and watched his head wobble. He came back with a left that plowed into my stomach and folded me up like a soft taco, and from the corner of my eye I saw his right fist cocked back like a catapult.

  I thought I was done for, but somehow as his right soared around with my skull as its final destination, I managed to move in past it, press my shoulder into his chest and catch his arm with my hands. Using the momentum of his strike, I leaned my right shoulder down as I lifted him off the ground with my back, and his legs traded places with his head as I flipped him over and brought him down hard on the marble canvas.

  I thanked my old judo instructor and then got on top of him and pummeled his face with a furious volley of very unjudolike fist work until the marble was tainted red and a sack of gold fell next to me.

  The crowd went nuts, their cheers echoing off the smooth marble walls in a deafening roar. I felt like a million bucks, and I felt even better when I saw Anna there in the front row.

  Smiling.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “YOU fight well, warrior,” Anna said as we left the crowd.

  “Thanks.” My head still ached from the bald dude’s fists, but I had an extra hundred pieces of gold and more EP. Yet neither gold nor Experience could compare to the first appearance of Anna’s smile. The memory of it lingered in my mind, and a trace of it lingered in her eyes.

  “It was a sight to rouse my desires.” Her amber eyes, set on me under her blond brow, sent a thrill through my body.

  “Well, we could go up to the room and—” I was interrupted by a witch who had followed us out from the arena.

  “Nice work,” she said with a suggestive smile. Actually I shouldn’t call her a witch; Bob made it clear how sensitive wizard-class players are about their titles, and she must’ve been an eighth-level Sorceress or possibly a ninth-level Enchantress: she was smoking hot. Her jet-black hair contrasted with her fair skin and the white walls, which in turn contrasted with her deep brown eyes and black brows. The shapes of her huge breasts loomed heavy beneath the gauzy white fabric, which could not hide the wide curve of her hips. “Wanna hump?”

  I gave a tentative glance at Anna, who said, “Go and sheath your sword in this wench’s flesh and hone your skills for me.”

  What she meant was go bang this hottie and level up some stuff. It sounded like a good plan. I turned to the wench—I mean witch—no, I mean Sorceress.

  “Where to?”

  “Follow me.”

  She led me down the white hall to yet another white room, but this room was filled with steam. I looked down to see the rectangle of hot water set into the floor.

  The woman faced the bath and stripped off her robe to reveal an ample, shapely rear. She turned to face me with a smile as I returned the favor and showed her my muscular body and the big display of readiness at my center.

  My eyes ran along the maddening curves of her body, reminding me of my trek up the mountain path, except here nothing hairy barred the way. She pressed her buxom body on mine and kissed me, then her mouth traveled down from my lips, down my solid chest, down the tight ridges of my stomach, and then her mouth opened up and latched onto me with a wet hunger.

  Though my thighs were now thick with muscle, I thought they would give out by the time she took her lips away. She stepped down into the bath and I followed her in, my skin hyper-alert to the hot caress of the water. She embraced me again, rubbing her soft body on mine, then stepped back, her big breasts floating like buoys on the water’s surface.

  And then her whole body floated up, slowly, straight out of the water.

  I watched wide-eyed as her chest, then her waist, then her thighs rose out of the water, which reflected the soft pink glow of her magic. Her creamy thighs parted and her body drifted to my face. My mouth was open with surprise and a second later it was covered by smooth warm skin.

  I kissed the offering, then sent out my tongue, teasing, tickling, and probing. Soon her soft moans bounced over the marble walls and then she lifted me out of the bath, effortlessly drawing my huge frame from the water like I weighed nothing.

  She held open her legs, hovering above the water, and I slipped inside.

  It felt like my Level Eight slid into its own private bath, hot and wet, as my body pressed into hers, the steam of the water below drifting up and coating us with warmth. I clung to her body like a raft as her magic kept us in the air, and though I wanted it to last forever she was too damn hot, the sight of her over-full chest and the touch of the soft skin of her curved hips and the sound of her enthusiastic cries were too much and I lost control of the pleasure welling up inside me and it broke free.

  But it didn’t stop.

  The waves of ecstasy kept coming, again and again with every stroke, and I saw a magic glow emanating from her insides, coating me and keeping my climax in a state of suspended animation.

  It must have been ten solid minutes, ten minutes of nonstop spasmodic joy, before her magic gave way and we sank back down into the water.

  I was so weak I could barely keep my head above the surface. My body trembled and I was too breathless to speak. When we at last recovered our capacity for speech, the black-haired Sorceress smiled and said, “How did you like the Spell of Neverending Bliss?”

  “I—” I began, but didn’t have the breath or the words to describe my appreciation for her magic, so I just said, “Nice. . . .”

  * * *

  I left the bathhouse in a daze, the lovemaking and hot water leaving me flushed and feverish and euphoric. I leveled up my Face, then went to search for Anna. Baffled by the uniformly white walls, I quickly became lost. When I finally found my archer companion, a voice from nowhere or everywhere echoed throughout the castle.

  “Attention, oh revered guests. Please make your way to the dining hall. Dinner shalt be served.”

  I looked around. “How do they expect us to find the dining hall?”

  As if in answer to my question, an elven woman appeared and bowed. “Please follow me.”

  We followed her. Down a flight of stairs, down a hallway, then down another hallway. At last we came to a big entranceway and she bowed again. “Do go in and be seated.”

  “We shalt doeth that,” I said, my sarcasm of course lost on an NPC.

  We stepped in and I stopped and just stared. It was huge. Actually the width was within the bounds of sanity, but the length was so great it made the main hall look narrow. In the center, stretching down almost the entire absurd length, was a thick marble table, with solid marble blocks stretching along with it on each side to serve as benches. Guests, all in the same thin white robes, filled the benches, and dishes, arranged on a lace runner that ran down the center, filled the table.

  In each corner of the long room a marble statue stood on a pedestal, each about seven feet tall and reminding me of a Greek god except with a huge package. Three chandeliers filled with white candles illuminated the dining hall, magic white flame casting a light that was not bright, yet not the warm yellow of candlelight. Anna and I exchanged an awed glance and then found a seat between an archer or warrior and a man whose long gray beard marked him as a high-level wizard.

  The pure white porcelain dishes did not surprise me, but the food, too, was all white. White pumpkin, peeled apples, cauliflower, white beans, abnormally white potatoes, really white-meat chicken, every last thing was white. More of that deliciously sweet milk filled pitchers, and there was also a cloudy-white liquid that turned out to be rice wine.

  The white queen of the white castle raised her white goblet.

  “Dine well, my honored guests! Let the feast commence!”

  We all joined her with a drink and set into our dinner. The food, despite its bland color, or lack of color, was better than anything I had yet tasted in the game. The feast seemed to last hours, my appetite endless as I ate and
talked to my fellow travelers. Finally dessert made its way onto the table, with what reminded me of tapioca pudding along with white chocolate truffles and a pure white cake with white frosting.

  Musicians filed into the dining hall at both ends of the table with strange horns and flutes and drums, and lutes with three necks and what looked like thousands of strings. They began to play, filling the long room with sound, beautiful and strange, in keys unlike any I had ever heard and yet wonderfully melodic.

  As the music held me with its hypnotic charm, I noticed the statue in the corner. Something was different, and that something did not take me long to place:

  It was hard.

  The carved protrusion of stone between its legs now stood up at full attention. Then, to my surprise, the sculpted marble arm of the statue moved. The statue stepped from its pedestal.

  A movement in the other corner made me shift my eyes, and I watched as the other statue also left its perch, as visibly excited as the other. They both went to the queen as she lifted off her billowing white robe to reveal two big breasts like burnished marble and a patch of white hair between her curvaceous hips. As the first of the living statues reached her the queen smiled and, contrary to everything I knew about royal protocol in the real world, opened her mouth and took in his stony girth.

  She leaned a hand against the table so that she could stick out her plump white rear, allowing access for the second statue to plunge into her royal nether regions.