by Prax Venter
“I’m trying to not be discouraged, Mark, like you and your beautiful team. But I-”
Mark held up his hand, and she stopped, tears spilling over her cheeks. The Sacred Nut behind her crept out from the thick leaves and into the light. He was sleek, handsome, and well-endowed.
“Close your eyes,” Mark whispered to her from across the clearing. “Call out to him with your mind. Tell him what you want to tell him. Not the cheap stuff, like ‘I won’t hurt you’. The truth in your heart.”
She took a shuddering breath and released her death-grip on the stone bench. Her hands slid down her thighs to rest on her knees as she closed her eyes.
Behind her, the nut-man resumed crawling on all fours like an ape would. He looked past her to Mark and his Enthralled and narrowed his pure-black eyes with worried apprehension.
But then Cel started speaking out loud.
“Hello out there,” she said, her eyes still closed. “My name is Cel, and I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a very long time.”
The nut creature tilted his sleek motorcycle helmet head as he pawed forward on nut-covered fingers and toes. He was close to the bench now.
“I remember the first time I saw a picture of you in the Unique Creature Manual. A magical impossibility that represented the edges of the known. From that day on, I would dream of our adventures from the morning light through to darkest night, exploring every hidden corner of this world.”
The nut creature knelt close to Cel’s legs, and the shell fragment on his kneecap made a slight scraping noise against the stone. Mark could tell it was no accident.
Cel slowly opened her eyes and calmly looked into the face of the one Sacred Nut who approached.
Another tear rolled down her cheek as a warm smile spread on her face.
“Will you please come on those adventures with me?”
With those words, Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby pressed close to Mark, and Cel acquired her first Enthralled.
“I… would like that,” the creature said with a young man’s voice. “I would like to see beyond this garden.”
He stood and reached his pure-white hand out to Cel. She hopped off the bench and took it, wiping her eyes as she gaped at his exposed junk.
Mark squeezed his own loves tight and gave Cel a moment to quietly bond with her new partner.
“So, he’s got a personality now?” he whispered to anyone who knew.
“Yes, that’s the way I understand it,” Jezebel said quietly. “The creature isn’t wild anymore.”
Mark felt like she was talking from experience, and he couldn’t help but wonder about this desert cat person she was remembering. It was strange… her memories had this disconnection to them- as if she watched a VR movie about the Crystal Heart at some point. Maybe it was some user manual she read before creating this place?
“Yeah,” Sasha said. “I don’t want to get into it too much, but Mark, when I first played this game with you, over and over… we were in a town with a quest to hunt down a wild disavowed Enthralled. The poor girl was treated badly and then abandoned. It’s kind of fucked-up actually, but shit like that happens everywhere there are people in relationships I suppose.”
Abby took a step away to face Jezebel and Sasha.
“You two possess more knowledge about the rules of this world that I require. Such as defining the phrase isn’t wild anymore.”
Jezebel shot her gold-flecked green eyes to his, and he saw her rising panic over Sasha talking about his erased memories. He sighed. This was getting old.
“Look, Momma Bear,” he began, holding her by the shoulders, “even if I remembered everything about my past, I would gladly die before I severed my bond with any of you. I’m over it, and whatever you know is okay to talk about as long as it helps us.”
He leaned in and kissed her small, freckle-spattered nose, and she crossed her emerald eyes to watch.
Cel cleared her throat from behind them, and he turned to see her holding hands with the nude nut-man.
“Everyone, this is Dar.”
Mark blinked as hundreds of questions piled up. The short, pure-white creature before him extended his hand in greeting and Mark took it, a smile growing on his face. The mind within this strange young man was no longer primal, and the sudden change was fascinating. It reminded him of his conversation with Abby about who deserved consciousness when it came to these astoundingly real virtual worlds.
“Uh, yeah,” Mark said, shaking off his distraction. “Nice to meet you. I’m Mark. This is Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby.”
Dar nodded his sleek helmeted head to each, and Mark couldn’t help but think they made a perfect couple. The newly enthralled Sacred Nut then turned to gaze into the leafy garden around them.
“This small place is only what I’ve known,” he said, his voice tranquil. “Seeing all this newness, all of you new… others. Understanding comes and goes. Forgive me as I try to make sense…”
Cel put her hand on the back of his shell, and he turned his black eyes down to hers.
“Slow down and don’t think about it,” she said. “I’ve read all about the change, and it will take a little time before you feel aligned with the rays of the sun. And I will be with you the whole time.”
Dar took in a deep breath and let it out. “It was your newness, your fresh scent, that attracted me. My memories from before are… clouded, but I remember sensing you when you entered the garden.”
He bent toward her and nuzzled his pure-white face under her neck. The shell fragments moved away or magically vanished as he pressed in close and slowly ran his cheek down her cabbage-covered chest. Then, down to her tightly wrapped stomach.
“Your scent, your leaves. I find myself encased in new irresistible desires.”
“Dar…” Cel breathed heavily, placing her hands on the sides of his armored head.
“Wait until you get a taste of your Collector’s essence,” Sasha purred, pressing her breasts into Mark’s arm.
As if they both remembered that there were other people there, the Kalorplast Fighter and Sacred Nut pulled apart and straightened.
“Why wait?” Mark asked eyeing her new serrated weapons. “It’s getting late in the day, but we have a whole field of floating crowns out there that squirt out essence when we smash ‘em. Why don’t you two practice your teamwork while we guard you.”
“We can leave the gardens so soon?” Dar asked. “Can we leave right now?”
“We can if you’re ready,” the Fighter said, turning her eyes up to her enthralled Sacred Nut.
Dar began twisting his interlocking plates to cover most of his body with his thick glittering shell. To Mark, he now looked like an organic robot built for sprinting. The nut-man thrust out his armored chest and turned his eyes back to his short Collector.
“You’ve awoken my mind, Cel. I’m still putting these strange concepts in order, but I am ready to leave this island. I remember long stretches of time resting by the edge, near the far-stretching… water, no… ocean. It’s strange to hold those simple memories now, but I do know I’ve always sought the edges of my world. You’ve come for me. For you, I will always be ready.”
“Aww,” Sasha said, beating her wings once.
“Come on, you two,” Mark said, turning to head toward the ruined citadel. “Let’s see how much essence us Collectors can both gather for our Enthralled before nightfall.”
“Sounds fun,” Jezebel said then looked over her shoulder at the two plant-like people behind her. “You know what else is fun?”
“What?” Cel asked, confused.
“Racing you two to the bridge!” Jezebel shifted into a bear and galloped off into the foliage.
Cel shot one look at Dar, and they both sprinted off after her. Mark’s eye tracked Jezebel’s red cutout through the garden, and he heard the Kalorplast’s laughter as she made the leaves and plants move aside for them.
“Should we run too?” Abby asked, her black brows coming down as she plucked
a bright orange-and-yellow flower from a nearby plant.
“Na,” Sasha said. “We’re in no hurry… Shit- maybe we should come back and kill that bee again tomorrow, and the next day. I wouldn’t mind spending a week in this paradise, crushing crowns and farming bumblebee bosses.”
Abby nodded, “And transferring essence.”
“I don’t see why not, but we need to figure out how to get back here after we drop off our escort and her new nut-man.”
He turned his head to the side and saw the shadows of the wild Sacred Nuts still following them on the edges of his periphery. There were only a handful left who were interested enough to make the effort. He turned to face his loyal succubus.
“Is there any more you can tell Abby and I about what we just saw? Was Dar handed a random AI mind by the system or something?”
“Who named him?” Abby added.
Sasha held up her hands, her fingers splayed.
“Woah there, guys. I don’t know everything. I didn’t really get into the ruleset behind how this game world handles the finer details like that. I just wanted to fuck Mark a lot.”
Abby nodded, and Sasha continued.
“All I know is that almost anything with at least the most primitive mind can be enthralled. If they were a primal beast before, they would be given a personality and appear real to the Player. But I don’t believe the software was ever intended to run with access to such self-aware AI matrixes enhanced by that worldwide Update. If a wild NPC is uplifted like this and then disavowed, the process of reverting back and losing that consciousness might be nightmarishly unpleasant.”
“Interesting,” Abby said, holding the flower to her small nose. “Being wild reminds me of… I was similarly uplifted by The All Mind from my own game world.”
Mark sighed. “Yeah, this is heavy shit, Sasha.”
Some of their earlier reactions around disavowing started to make sense, but the whole consciousness situation was so far beyond anything Mark had ever dealt with in his boring life before this... But this world was his life now.
“And Audra wasn’t wild- whatever that means, so she kept her consciousness… afterward?”
“Yep,” Sasha said. “That’s the way I understand it anyway.”
Mark looked up and saw the red bear standing still, and he tried to determine if she had won or not by actively reading their bond. Instead, he felt waves of growing concern.
“Something’s not right,” Mark said before dashing along the same trampled path to the melted citadel. Eventually, the green, spongy garden faded into porous stone floors, and he caught a glimpse of glinting crowns moving across the bridge to a patient armored bear. Behind her stood the nut-man with his Collector hiding behind him.
“I require different foot coverings!” Abby yelled from behind, her heavy combat boots slapping on the ground.
“We’ll go shopping when we get back,” Mark yelled over his shoulder. It was a short run from that sharp right turn to the half-ruined steps down to the bridge where Jezebel stood against a stream of crowns floating across from the other side. Apparently, they still needed some ground under them because they were bunching up at the time-worn hole in the middle of the brittle bridge, making the few that leaked through easier to handle.
She’d batted two of the crowns with her iron-capped paws before Mark jogged up to Cel and her new Enthralled.
“We think they might react this way if the Behemoth Bumblebee is defeated,” she said, her eyes wide. “Should we just teleport home?”
“I would like to see your home,” Dar said, taking a step closer to her.
Mark looked back across the bridge at the steady flow of floating crowns filtering toward them from the moss-covered hills beyond the bridge. It looked like a lot, but they were still mostly spread out.
Jezebel reared up and slapped another one down to the sea below, and Mark felt the telltale euphoria of collected essence.
“Ooh!” The cabbage-helmed Fighter jumped and shot a hand to her crotch. “That is such an interesting sensation.”
“What’s the plan?” Sasha said as both she and Abby joined up with them.
Mark looked around the group of fierce warriors, and a plan began to form.
“The plan,” he said, “is to play this game and go home with all the prizes.”
“A game?” Abby said, coiling her tentacles around her stomach. “I thought you were done playing games.”
“Not a game then, think of it as training.” Mark watched Abby’s face turn from mild disgust to guarded interest. “I want you to lacerate the next crown that comes, got it?”
She nodded.
Mark shot her a smile then backed up and yelled out to the armored bear on the bridge.
“Come back, Jez! We’ll cover you.”
Jezebel turned, shifted back to her satyr form, and jogged back to him as Abby began to weave her tentacles. Mark continued to lay out his plan as the satyr joined them on the island.
“Sasha, you take the next one,” he said, pointing to the blonde bombshell. Then he pointed to himself. “I’ll smash one with my club. Then the Cel and Dar team are up, followed by Jezebel again at the top of the order.”
Abby finished casting, and both Mark and the Kalorplast Collector received their due from its defeat.
“Love it,” Sasha said, sashaying up to the bridge as Abby came back to give her some room.
“This is taking turns?” Dar half-asked, his black eyes blinking at the bridge.
“That’s right,” Cel said, pulling her new stinger weapons wedged tight into her leather belt. “We can do this.”
Sasha zapped hers, and the one after was close behind, so she Side Kicked it while she was there. Then Mark came in to wait for his silver-hooped foe.
This one was about five seconds out, so he took the time to practice creating a perfectly formed baseball bat- complete with the leather-wrapped grip and a smooth bottom knob. Its structure was tightly formed when he pulled back, lifted his knee, and poured power into the untwisting his body. He’d never been terribly good at sports, mostly because he didn’t put in the practice. But now, as the sweet spot of his regulation-perfect replica collided with the swirling metal crown, time seemed to expand for him. As if he hit a hitch, and now the record player that spun reality slowed to a different setting. The moment of physical clarity passed, and the crown practically crumpled as it spun back over the bridge in what would have been a parking lot home run.
“You are an insane Lover,” Cel said. “You shouldn’t be that good with melee!”
“Get in there, you two,” Mark said with a half-smile as he jogged back to the group. She sounded a lot like Jezebel had before, and he turned to see his satyr’s emerald eyes watching him with contentment. Then, a burst of infinite color made him jump as it rushed past his eyes and settled into a vision of his strawberry-blonde satyr inside a shadowed warehouse. She picked up an urn off a shelf filled with other objects Mark felt he should know, but they seemed to be shifting amorphous blobs when he focused on one. The urn was the type to hold someone’s ashes, and he watched her furry haunches bunch and stretch in slow motion as she moved to place the ceramic pottery into a more shadowed area of this-
“Ah!” Cel’s cry pulled his attention back out of Jezebel’s mind and turned to see the leaf-covered warrior take a slice on her shoulder as the floating crown swung back around for another pass. Mark and his team were about to jump in when Dar appeared in front of the downed plant-elf.
Their target turned its tines forward as it launched at the newly enthralled Sacred Nut, but he deflected the attack with his shielded arm.
“Abby,” Mark said, “crush.”
The abyssal horror’s yellow eyes shifted to the crown as it backed up for another attack on Cel’s guardian, and Abby only had to wince before dark wisps began to encircle the metallic foe.
The Mind Crush spell wouldn’t kill it instantly, but it would guarantee the thing only had seconds left to live.
> Mark healed Cel with a quick burst, while Dar shifted position to deflect another attack with his glittering magic armor.
“Jezebel’s up!” Mark yelled as the crown expired from Abby’s damage-over-time spell. The new couple came jogging back from the edge of the bridge.
“I’m a Fighter,” Cel said as she waved one of the stingers, “but I still need so much practice.”
“I should be healing her,” Dar jumped in quickly, his pure-black eyes on Mark. This newly minted mind was already over-protective, and it made Mark smile.
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s why we’re doing this. We get a bunch of easy essence and-” He turned to watch Abby kill her target with an Imaginary Laceration way before it reached the narrow bit on the crumbling bridge. “And for you two to hone your skills as a team before you go out there for real.”
They cycled through Sasha and Mark again before it was back to Cel and Dar’s turn. Mark’s heal wasn’t cooled down yet, but according to her new mister nut, he had it handled.
This time, the rounded-leaf warrior stood behind Dar as the sharp points of the next crown whistled toward them. He deflected it, and as the crown slid backward, Cel dashed out from behind him to activate her Swift Strikes on both her half-stinger weapons.
The black barbs lashed out, one after the other, and the dented hoop of animated silver fell to the ground. Both she and Mark received a tickle of essence as their foe vanished.
“We did it!” Cel cheered as she ran into Dar’s arms, who hoisted her up by her waist as if she weighed nothing to him. Mark felt sheer elation beaming out of both nut and cabbage-covered sprout alike.
They each took turns destroying crowns until the red ball of fire in the sky slid toward the vast ocean. Dar learned about his important first choice for skills and the new couple discussed it for a short while before choosing a healing and defense-focused path over the option that would allow him to sprint much faster and ram enemies.
Eventually, the Crowns stopped coming altogether. Cel said her Collector reservoir had overflowed a while ago, yet she really wanted to keep fighting. The more the Kalorplast Fighter fought, the better she got, and the better the two of them became as a team. Mark was impressed with the progress they’d both gained in the two hours or so they spent grinding out Ghothal’s Crowns.