by Hondo Jinx
He remembered getting hit, thinking the guy had kicked him, but now he understood that the guy had actually stabbed him.
In his frenzy, Dan hadn’t even noticed.
It was weird, realizing that he’d been stabbed, but even now, despite the blood, he only felt a dull throb.
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
Grinning, Holly rolled her eyes. “Barbarians.”
The guy Dan searched didn't have much. Just one of those weird black daggers and a leather purse containing two silver pieces, a handful of coppers, and a student ID. “Aaron Haze Biscoe the 3rd,” Dan read aloud. “This asshole is a math student.”
“Not anymore, he isn’t,” Holly said, pocketing the things she'd found. “Let’s go inside and do something about that cut.”
11
Holly’s Apartment
By the time they went inside and climbed the stairs, Dan’s thigh had started to hurt. His Wranglers clung to his leg, wet and warm and sticky. His boot squished with every step, full of blood.
Have to make a poultice, he thought, the unfamiliar word poultice coming into his head effortlessly, and he pictured a heated compress of herbs and roots, swamp berries and pale flowers, everything mashed together and wrapped with strands of coarse grass that he somehow knew he could find only on a shaded hillside in a clearing between trees. Spruce, if possible.
How do I know all of this?
Holly opened the door and ushered him into her apartment, a thing old-world Dan had dreamed of countless times.
“Home sweet home,” she said, and locked the door behind them.
The apartment looked like a scene from some enchanted forest, with plants and flowers everywhere. Leafy vines grew up the walls and wove through the upper reaches of the numerous potted trees that lined the room’s outer edges. Strung along these vines and throughout the trees were strands of twinkling white lights. Above these, the ceiling was painted to resemble a night sky. Below, the carpet was brilliant green, a rectangle of living grass. The air smelled fresh and clean and summer sweet.
“Wow,” he said. “This place is awesome.”
“Thanks,” Holly said. Then she pushed him up against the door, yanked his head down to hers, and kissed him.
Dan was shocked, but he got over it quickly.
He didn't have much experience with girls. He'd kissed a few but kissing them had never felt anything like this.
This was awesome.
Holly held his face in her hands, and her mouth, wet and warm and eager, moved against his, lighting a fire within him, burning away the shyness that had plagued old-world Dan, replacing it with raw, barbaric desire.
Then Holly broke the kiss and stepped back with a devious smile. “There,” she said. “Now I’ve properly thanked you for helping me earlier.”
Holly unclasped her violet robe and hung it on a peg near the door. She looked absolutely stunning in a skintight black jumpsuit with a plunging neckline and open back.
“Come back here,” Dan said, reaching for her, but she evaded his hand and walked into the kitchen.
Looking back over her shoulder with a sexy grin, she said, “Wait there.”
He did as he was told, enjoying the view. Her ass looked fantastic in the skintight black fabric. He was reeling. He’d just kissed his dream girl!
When she disappeared into a pantry closet, he glanced around. Holly’s staff leaned against a small table atop which sat a thick tome bound in bark: Intermediate Druidic Spells.
He narrowed his eyes and sneered at the book. Magic…
Holly returned, carrying a sprig of bright green mistletoe. “Yes, I’m a druid,” she said, “and luckily for you, I know healing magic.”
She slapped his shoulder playfully. “Relax, you silly barbarian. What god do you worship?”
Dan gave his stock answer from years of playing Towers & Trolls, “Crom,” and instantly realized that Crom wasn’t even an actual T&T god!
Dan had borrowed the deity from his beloved Conan books, and Willis had let it slide.
To his surprise, Holly merely nodded as if the answer made total sense.
“Your god is in the earth,” she said. “We druids worship the earth, the trees, the moon and sun and stars. We draw power from the four winds and rushing rivers and the quavering songs of crickets on the last morning before the year’s first hard frost.”
As Holly spoke, she ran the mistletoe up and down his leg to either side of the wound. “We aren’t like wizards. Our energy is of the world.”
Then Holly began singing softly in a strange, beautiful language that had to be Elvish. A second later, a warm breeze sighed through the open window, rattling the leaves of the trees and stirring her long blond hair.
The breeze wasn’t just warm. It was too warm. A summer breeze blowing in out of a crisp October night.
She's casting some kind of spell, he thought. He considered telling her to stop, but then a pleasant sensation passed over his leg. The throbbing pain died away, and as Dan watched, the wound closed and faded, leaving only a slight scar.
“Wow,” he said, and ran a hand over the place where the puncture wound had been. It wasn't even tender now. “Thanks. I'm completely healed.”
“Good,” Holly said. “Now I don't have to worry about hurting you.”
She smiled, her purple eyes flashing. “You know, I always thought you were handsome, but I didn’t think you were interested in me. I mean, every time I saw you in the hall, you hurried away.”
“I was too shy to say anything to you,” he confessed.
“A shy barbarian? You really are full of surprises!” She grabbed his belt and tugged him toward the living room.
12
Dream Girl
Dan ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and followed Holly onto the grassy carpet of the living room.
“Take off your boots,” Holly said. “Feel the grass on your bare feet.”
He kicked off his boots. The grass didn’t just feel real. It was real. It felt soft and springy beneath his feet.
Holly’s eyes glowed with excitement. “Better take off that shirt, too. We should make sure that you don’t have any other injuries that you didn’t happen to notice.”
Dan peeled off his shirt and threw it aside.
Holly walked around him slowly, trailing her fingertips along his chest and shoulder and back. “Your upper body looks fine,” she said, and unhooked his belt.
“Can’t be too safe, though. I had better check everything.” Holly unzipped his jeans and pulled them down and then stood there staring at him with her mouth open in an amazed smile. “You really are a barbarian!”
That's when Dan realized that he wasn’t wearing any underwear. “Sorry,” he said. “Guess I forgot my underwear.”
“I’m not talking about that,” Holly said. “I’m talking about that,” and she pointed between his legs.
Dan looked down and grunted. He’d never been small, but now he was huge and gargantuan. The Arcane Unearthed hadn’t mentioned this character class bonus.
“And no need to apologize,” Holly said, her violet eyes gleaming. “I’m certainly not complaining.”
“Well,” he said, “we’d better make sure that you didn’t get injured out there, either.”
Holly smirked and unfastened a clasp behind her neck.
Dan reached out with both hands and peeled the jumpsuit down, stripping her to the waist.
Topless, she was the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen. In all of his wildest fantasies, no woman had ever been this lovely.
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Dan said.
“Thanks,” Holly said. “You look incredible yourself.”
She gave him a hungry smile, pushed down with both hands, and wriggled out of her jumpsuit with an incredibly sexy little shimmy. And then Holly, the girl of his dreams, was standing before him, completely naked.
He couldn't believe it, and yet he no longer felt like Dan the timid farm boy
. He felt strong, confident, and happy; excited in the moment but not nervous. Sure, this was weird, jumping straight into sex, but they were in a new world, a T&T world, where this sort of thing was possible.
Holly opened her arms to him, and he went to her and lowered her to the grass and kissed her long and deep. Her hands moved over his neck and shoulders and back, exploring him as their warm, hard bodies pressed against one another.
Dan kissed her neck, loving the heat and sound and tickle of her breath in his ear.
He kissed her collarbone and moved lower to worship her perfect breasts with his mouth and hands, taking a nipple into his mouth and sucking as he massaged the other breast and kneaded the nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger.
Holly squirmed beneath him, her breaths quickening with desire. She pushed his head further down. He trailed kisses down her taut abdomen, inhaling the good, fresh smell of her, an aroma like honeysuckle in high summer, and then she pressed his face between her open legs and drenched him with her sweet essence.
This was crazy, he knew. Just minutes ago, they were fighting for their lives, and now he was going down on the girl of his dreams.
How was it even possible? This sort of thing could only happen in poorly written books or a T&T adventure.
But then his inner barbarian rose up, grabbed hold of these quibbling old-world thoughts, swung them by their skinny legs, and dashed their brains against the stone tower of his raging desire.
Dan shoved his hands beneath Holly’s tight ass, squeezing its perfection as his mouth and tongue explored her sex, kissing and licking and teasing. She tasted wonderful.
He'd never done this with a girl, but it didn't matter. It wasn't rocket science, and Holly was clearly enjoying his efforts. Gripping his hair in her hands, she pushed her hips up against his mouth in pulsing little thrusts.
When she began to quiver with pleasure, Dan quit teasing, pressed his mouth firmly into her swollen mound, and met her pulsing thrusts beat for beat, rhythmically lapping her soft folds with his tongue.
“Yes,” Holly moaned. “Yes, just like that.”
Her breath grew faster and faster. Then it gasped inward, and her hands tightened in his hair. For several heartbeats, she was locked in a paralysis of mounting pleasure.
Then she cried out in Elvish and bucked against him for several seconds before collapsing back to the grass, shivering with completion.
Dan kept kissing, softly now, until she tugged weakly at him and pulled him back on top of her.
Holly kissed him deeply, then stared up at him with her glowing violet eyes. “That was wonderful,” she said, and her hands left his face and smoothed down over his back to grip his ass. “I want you, Dan.”
“I want you, too,” he said, his voice husky with desire.
She reached down and smiled. “I can tell.” Then she guided him to her entrance, gasping when his tip pressed against her silky folds. Her eyes went wide. “Start slow, please,” she said.
He kissed her and slid himself gently partway into her.
Holly gasped again.
Dan paused, not wanting to hurt her, but she was so wet and warm, tight and wonderful around him, it was all he could do to hold off.
Then she smiled and bit her lip and nodded, pulling him deeper into her. In and out, deeper with each stroke, inch by inch, he filled her.
Madness. Sweet madness. Never, in all of his fantasies, had he imagined that anything could feel this amazing. He filled her, and she gripped him, wet and warm and oh so tight.
Holly urged him on, and his inner barbarian responded, building until he was thrusting into her, fast and hard, both of them panting and groaning like animals, their bodies glistening with sweat. Sweet hot pressure built within him, built and built until Holly cried out beneath him, and they writhed against each other, riding a long, mutual climax into euphoria.
He kissed her then pushed up to stare down into her purple eyes. A sweaty strand of golden hair stuck to her forehead. She looked incredibly happy and more beautiful than ever.
“Wow,” he said, still breathing hard, and laughed. “That was actually… um…”
She tilted her head, staring up at him with questioning eyes.
“That was my first time,” he confessed.
Holly laughed. It was a beautiful sound, pure light and warmth, no edges, no criticism. “Really? Well, you could have fooled me.”
They kissed and laughed, locking gazes as each touched the other. Dan slid his fingers through Holly’s soft, golden hair. Holly traced the lines of his jaw and kneaded the thick muscles at the back of his neck.
“Am I supposed to be this hungry?” he asked as they disentangled. “I’m starving!”
“I have to go to the Diner and meet a friend,” she said. “You should come along.”
“A friend, huh? Not a boyfriend, I hope.”
She grinned. “Is my big, strong barbarian jealous? No, not a boyfriend.”
He kissed her and stood. “I’ll come, then,” he said. “I mean, I would’ve come anyway. Just wanted to know whether or not I had to kill somebody.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, still stretched out on the grass, an image of impossible beauty.
He nodded toward the door. “Figure I’d better go across the hall and change my jeans.”
She shook her head and curled her finger in a come-hither motion. “Oh no, you don’t, mister. Not yet. Get back down here. Before we leave, we’re going to do that again. Now that the first one’s out of the way, we can slow down and really enjoy it.”
But then the sound of blasting trumpets filled the room.
13
Stats
Dan roared with surprise and turned his body to shield Holly and face the intruders.
Only there weren’t any intruders. None that he could see, anyway. The loud music came from all directions, out of thin air.
That’s when he noticed that Holly wasn’t reacting at all. She was locked in place.
Time had frozen again, like it had when Zohaz the Magnificent appeared.
“Crom!” Dan uttered, and his lip curled into a snarl. More witchcraft!
The trumpets blared out a final flourish then cut. The room filled with deep laughter.
Not Zohaz the Magnificent.
Wulfgar.
“Congratulations, asshole!” the sword bellowed.
Dan turned to his side. The sword was still sheathed. “How can I hear you if you’re still in the scabbard?”
“Different Wulfgar,” the voice said. “You’re now hearing the voice of super cool, omniscient, disembodied Wulfgar coming atcha intermission-style, bearing news from none other than the big guy himself, Zohaz the Magnificent.”
“All right,” Dan said, instinctively reaching for his pants.
“You might want to leave those off and stay where you are, kid,” Wulfgar’s voice said. “Once I’m done here, time’s going to come rushing back in. Your girlfriend will freak if you’re suddenly halfway across the room, wearing those raggedy-ass bloody jeans.”
“Good point,” Dan said. “What’s the news?”
“Congratulations, punk. You leveled up!”
Dan smiled. Halfway.
Leveling up now didn’t make sense. Barbarians needed six thousand experience points to make second level, a crazy number, three times the number it took for a fighter to jump to second level.
“Wait,” Dan said, wanting to understand this new world. “How? Don’t get me wrong, I want to level up, but all I did was kill one robed asshole and drop kick another. So Holly and I split the points for the second guy. Right?”
“Yup,” Wulfgar’s voice said. “Call it one-and-a-half kills.”
“Unless one of them was secretly a purple worm in disguise, the math isn’t working for me.”
“Nope,” Wulfgar said. “They were first-level fighters. That’s it. You earned twenty-three experience points for killing them.”
“That’s not qui
te six thousand,” Dan said. “How did I level up?”
The sword’s voice snorted with contempt. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth, kid. Zohaz was feeling magnificent and magnanimous. He gave you six thousand experience points for finally getting laid.”
“Wait a second,” Dan said. He couldn’t believe it. “I just got six thousand experience points for having sex?”
“Who’s ever heard of a nineteen-year-old barbarian virgin? Getting laid was a huge step in the right direction.”
“Wow,” Dan said, and a huge smile came onto his face. “That’s awesome. Honestly, I’m kind of surprised. This world feels like one cooked up by my old TM, Willis.”
Wulfgar’s voice said, “Makes sense, given your wish. You wanted your life to be more like the T&T adventures you played. If Willis ran those games…”
“Right,” Dan said. “But Willis was stingy with experience points. It took a long time to advance levels.”
Then Dan thought of something, and his smile faded. “In fact, the only time that Willis let me jump a level quickly was when he knew that an adventure was so dangerous that I would die without the extra hit points. Is that what’s going on here?”
“You worry too much,” Wulfgar’s voice said. “Speaking of hit points, more good news. You don’t have to roll. You automatically get the max. So, with constitution bonuses, you’re up to 36 hit points!”
Dan nodded thoughtfully.
“You don’t seem particularly pleased for someone who just jumped a level and got a mountain of hit points all for having sex with a smoking hot elf.”
“Yeah,” Dan said, “well, that’s because I’m pretty certain that the only reason I’m getting all these hit points is because I’d die if I didn’t. So yeah, pardon me if I’m not overly excited about getting chopped to pieces.”
“Oh, don’t be such a drama queen,” Wulfgar’s voice said. “You’re supposed to be a second-level barbarian, for Crom’s sake, not a fourteenth-level pussy. Stop your whining and get down to business!”