by Prax Venter
“The mind-upload part is true, Mark,” Sasha said softly as she looked over to their host AI. “I’m not sure of all the details, but your real body seems to have been destroyed, and you are now like me- like us- a pattern of pure energy.”
“How your pattern got here isn’t important,” Jezebel began, and Mark’s eye whispered new dark energy directly into his mind. It felt uncomfortable. It felt like she was lying. The faun-like satyr continued while he tried to sort out what he was feeling. “What is important is getting system control back. I’m helpless right now.”
Mark’s eyebrows came down. There was so much shit he didn’t know and blindly trusting the unintelligible whispering from his freshly wounded eye… a shudder ran through his spine. The nightmare was coming true, and his mind really was trapped in this insane game, half-blind with a throbbing headache.
“Okay,” he said, “then let’s talk about what the hell just happened back there with the H.P. Lovecraft mind-fuck creatures.”
Jezebel nodded. “I don’t know a lot, but here’s what I do know. When your ex-personal assistant kicked down my door looking for you, she created a series of compromises in my firewall. Based on the minuscule reporting I can still access, the two intruders that left are searching my data stores for prototype fusion reactor plans. A lot of individuals want that prototype, and it is possible they’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this.”
“So, they’re just thieves?” Sasha asked, her dark eyebrows raising.
“Okay. Thieves,” Mark said, “but what were they doing here? What kind of spell did I jump in front of? This eye thing is… really unsettling.” There was now a new unique throbbing sensation that he didn’t like at all, and it seemed to be growing stronger the more they talked.
“It was a virus,” Jezebel answered. “The game world just interpreted their attack as a magic spell. I must have left some unfinished function calls around the game’s ultimate goal; finding all 108 shards of the Crystal Heart. The intruders hacked in one line of code making it so outgoing data packets are disabled until all 108 are found and brought together, triggering the win condition.”
“Yeah, I can see the mess you left,” Sasha said. “I can’t access anything outside this simulation until that one global variable flips from false to true.”
Jezebel narrowed her eyes at Sasha, then turned her freckle-splattered face downward before she continued. “This was supposed to be fun, and I intended to take total control of the game world, if necessary.” She locked her emerald eyes on him again. “I’m so sorry, Mark. I’m starting to panic a little here myself.”
He was about to ask more about this virus when he saw a glimpse of the green tentacle creature creeping along the ground past one of the trees.
“There!” he shouted, and the many-eyed creature froze in place, looking at him and waiting.
The two beast-women spun to follow his pointing finger, both getting into a defensive battle stance.
“What did you see?” Jezebel said, scanning the trees.
“There!” he repeated. “The mind-fuck creature that attacked us- it’s right there.” Mark bent down and picked up the bloody log he’d used to bash the bony skin-monster. When he came back up, he saw the demonic octopus scurry off into the underbrush.
“Come on!” he yelled, sprinting forward. “It’s getting away!”
This thing was the key to getting him out of this nightmare, he just knew it. The two AIs wearing sexy, monster-girl bodies dug their hooves into the forest floor as they followed his lead.
Mark caught glimpses of the disgusting sack of tentacles as he chased it through the woods for a while, but for the last few minutes, they’d just been running in the direction he’d seen it last. Mark told himself he should stop, but what else were they going to do? He bent his head down, grit his teeth, and picked up the pace instead.
“Mark, I don’t see anything,” Jezebel said eventually, sprinting next to him. “You sure you saw it?”
Fatigue finally caught up with him as she spoke the words, but he still couldn’t bring himself to stop. It felt like this world was just filled with pain, insanity- and never-ending running. Not what he was expecting for the first program he tried out with his new immersion rig.
His downward spiral of despair was disrupted when Sasha called out, “Is that a house?”
They all slowed to a stop, and when Mark looked to where she was pointing, he saw a domed structure made of sticks and mud. A faint trickle of smoke was rising from what must be a hole the center of the roof. Someone was home.
They circled a few paces around the gray mud hut, and Mark picked out about six more homes sprinkled through the trees. And beyond those, an enormous still lake reflecting the blue sky above.
“I did see that thief thing,” Mark said, trying to catch his breath, “and maybe these people saw it pass through here.”
“Well, I didn’t see-” Then the satyr’s pretty face went blank, and Mark felt her heart sink.
“What’s wrong?” he said, taking a step closer to her.
“They found it already,” she mumbled, then turned her gold-flecked emerald eyes to Mark. “And then they just left.”
“What does that mean?” he asked the visibly shaken beast-woman.
“It means the world outside this virtual universe is going to get a lot more complicated- especially if those reactor plans fall into the wrong hands. It also means nothing can stop this simulated world until we find all 108 shards. I thought we might have had a chance if they came back for their partner, but they shut the door and snapped off the key when they left. The absolute worst part is that if we die in the game, our core patterns will be scrubbed by the game world!” The more she talked the more panicked she became.
“I dismantled the AI administrating this complex virtual existence and transferred all of the functions to myself. I turned the difficulty down, but now, with no one at system-level… If we were humans, logging in from the real world with real brains, we’d just be booted to the Character Creation screen! Mark, do you know how many times you died in the original Crystal Heart-” The frantic satyr slapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes going wide.
“Um, no…” Mark said, his focus locked firmly on the terrified satyr. “How many times did I die, Jezebel?”
She took her hands away and appeared to be on the verge of breaking down and crying.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you did!” he snapped. “You can’t just say that I died many times-”
A strange twinge of emotion hit him from Sasha, and he turned to see tears spilling over her cheeks. Somehow, he was seeing her grief at what she believed she’d done to him, or… the other him, and it was ripping her apart from the inside. And it physically hurt him to see her in so much pain.
Mark puffed out a deep breath.
“Forget it. I’ve already been trying to come to terms with being trapped, and I’m used to only having one life to live. If both of you are lying about this science-fiction bullshit- about me having my mind uploaded… I suppose it doesn’t really matter from my perspective. We’re all trapped, or you two are trapping me.”
“I’m not trapping you,” Sasha pleaded. “You must believe me.”
The desperate look on her perfect face mirrored the bare desire she had in her heart… as far as he could tell. Logically, he knew it still didn’t matter, but he really wanted to trust her- trust both of them. He embraced that notion, letting go of some of his suspicions and giving in to some of the madness. A part of his mind reversed polarity, and he felt pressure leave him like letting air out of an overinflated balloon. It felt good. Again, in the end, what choice did he really have?
“This doesn’t change anything,” Mark said. “We should be focusing on these shards and growing stronger, right? Wasn’t that the plan all along?”
Sasha clomped up next to Mark and pressed her firm hip into his.
“Wherever you go, I follow,” she said, h
er eyes fixed on his, and he saw an overpowering desire to make up for what she’d done.
Mark nodded firmly and squeezed Sasha against him. Then he turned to Jezebel.
“Let’s focus on the here and now. You built this world, right? Where is the first shard?”
Jezebel tried to collect herself before speaking. “I, um, created complex p-programs that coded the quests, dungeons, NPCs- basically this whole universe, procedurally. I didn’t want to know all the secrets, or we wouldn’t have had any fun. I did have a function I could call that would point us toward the closest one if we needed help. But now…”
She trailed off and seemed to be quickly returning to that inner downward spiral of dread and helplessness. His heart opened to her and realized that although he barely knew her, Mark did not like seeing this sweet freckled satyr unhappy. Jezebel continued.
“Both of you need to understand that everything is so much more dangerous now.”
Sasha put her hand on her hip, and her spade tail swished back and forth like a whip.
“Honey, I’m much more dangerous now. We will fight, we will fuck, and we will force our way out of this cage.”
That made Mark smile. It felt like it had been a long time since he smiled.
He held his other arm out for Jezebel to join the group. She succumbed to a smile herself and clomped up to his other side, pressing her sleek, brown-furred thigh against his. He was now a monster-woman sandwich, and their combined lustful gaze made him swallow hard. Mark was feeling better already, and if he was understanding his new ability to see emotions, they all were.
He had been brought to the brink of insanity, had his eye torn out and replaced with some blind, cursed one, and been told he was no longer human. Another version of him had apparently died countless times, and his memories of that past had been erased. A part of Mark wanted to curl up and hide under a rock until all this went away…
But with these two battle-ready beast-women by his side, he felt like he could do anything. A loose gear slipped into place within his head, and Mark kicked that part of him that wanted to run and hide right out the back door. And did he really want to remember dying?
He reached his hands around both of them and firmly grabbed handfuls of their curvy hips.
“Fuck the past. Let’s check out these huts and see what they know about The Crystal Heart shards.”
- 3 -
As Mark’s group circled around the first primitive hut, he saw a humanoid creature lounging on a small porch. He was a pure black amphibian-man with glowing blue eyes and striking blue markings. He had a broad face with no real nose, and the intelligent-looking creature’s head tracked their movements as they approached.
Mark held up his hand in greeting. “Hi there. I’m-”
This was when his good eye finally saw there was a second amphibian person on her knees, definitely female, and she was currently bobbing her head up and down on the male’s genitals. They were both naked.
“Oh shit! Sorry- you look, uh… busy.”
“No worries, friend,” the male said, raising his thick, three-fingered hand in greeting. “I feed my wife her breakfast. I ask what brings a human and his companions.”
The wife turned one of her glowing, long-lashed eyes to Mark as she pushed her stubby muzzle down, consuming the male’s entire shaft and then closed her eyes again, going back to work. She had slick, jet-black skin with the same vibrant blue markings. A thick tail formed behind her round ass and soft, full breasts squeezed out to either side as they pressed against the guy’s knees. The creatures looked like smooth, hairless, earless dragons- no, like salamanders.
Sasha was unfazed. “We’re on a quest to restore The Crystal Heart. Any shards around here?”
“Mmm, I search my memory,” he began, rubbing his thick fingers under his wide chin. “The chieftain has a few, and one’s in the Echo Nest where we worship to the south…” He pointed in a direction to Mark’s left.
The female salamander pulled her thick lips off the male’s erect penis and turned to face Sasha.
“I remember the one guarded by timeworn creatures in the ruins to the south,” she said through lidded eyes. The female had a longer, angled muzzle as if she were meant for racing.
The male nodded. “I remember now too. I thank you, my love. The old ruin crouches in the forest between my hut and the nest.”
She raised the blue markings over her eyes that served as sharply defined eyebrows, and Mark interpreted it as an amused “he’d lose his head if it weren’t attached” look. Then her pink, fat tongue came out and licked the male’s cock slowly before slurping it back into her smooth muzzle.
“Uh, thanks,” Mark said as his mental framework regarding what kind of game this was ratcheted up a few notches.
The salamander-man nodded again. “I am happy to help. I warn you to take care in the ruin, human- unarmed and unclawed as you and the rest appear.”
“Do you sell weapons here?” Sasha asked, looking around at the other distant huts.
The salamander’s face spread into a wide grin that might have been disturbing to look at if Mark wasn’t feeling good-natured honesty from the soft-spoken fella.
“I see you are a stranger to the Awysai. There are no weapons for you here.”
Their business concluded, they exchanged gestures of farewell, and the group turned to walk toward the indicated ruins.
The three of them walked in silence, putting some distance between the happy couple before speaking. Thinking of the weapon warning, Mark bounced his one good eye over the forest floor, looking for another suitable club.
“If I’d known we’d be doing so much fighting, I wouldn’t have picked this useless Lover class,” he said.
The sultry succubus and the tan satyr shared a glance, and Mark could tell they exchanged a brief gesture of nonverbal communication. He knew he hadn’t always been this good at reading people and figured his new eye was letting him see- what, emotions?
“Actually,” Jezebel began, turning her lightly freckled face to his, “I think you’ll discover that the Lover class can build one of the most powerful teams, especially if you bond well with your Enthralled.”
Her emerald eyes bore into his, and he could feel her undeniable faith in him. Below that was a small flickering flame of desire that she desperately hoped he wanted to feed. Looking at her now was like watching a campfire fight for its life in the rain.
“I’m not worried,” the blue-eyed succubus said, clomping through the forest and pulling a bit ahead of the group and scanning for danger. “But you need to pick my first combat ability. The first choice is kind of a big one as it’ll set my path for the rest of our journey through this fucked-up situation.”
“I already picked Vines,” Jezebel said, her eyes locked on Sasha’s back
Sasha cast a quick, fanged smile back over her shoulder. “Yeah, well, I’m letting Mark make the choice. I am his Enthralled after all.”
Mark remembered the ability Jezebel had used to immobilize the skin-covered monster before and nodded. This was sounding like a typical roleplaying game, and they were a party of warriors- well, he was the healer.
He stopped to pick up a bone-white shaft of wood with a bulbous knob at the end that looked like it was meant for clubbing things, and the two monster-women with animal-like, digitigrade legs stopped with him. They watched as he gave his new weapon a few practice swings and choked up a little to balance its distribution of weight.
“I may be this party’s healer,” he began, “but I’m not going to stand back helpless while you two have all the fun.”
“Your class isn’t built for physical combat, Mark,” Jezebel said with a look that rubbed him the wrong way.
The succubus crossed her arms under her heavy breasts. “I don’t know, he fucked up that monster’s head pretty good back there.”
“Whatever my class is,” Mark said, “while I’m not healing, I need to be smashing. As far as you two are concerned, we should
balance out our party. Who wants to be the tank?”
He looked down at Sasha’s solid chrome legs, reflecting the leaf-filtered sunlight like a mirror, and he wondered what skills she had to pick from. Before he could ask, Jezebel answered his question.
“Me,” the satyr said quietly. “I’ve started going down a nature path, and I’ll be able to pick a useful shapeshift ability soon. I’ll grow a thick hide and focus on being the group’s protector.”
Mark nodded. “Great. That leaves you, Sasha. You’re telling me you can pull up a menu and see your possible skill options?”
“Yeah. And if she’s going defense, then I’ll read off the high-damage options.”
Mark saw the sex-demon’s blue eyes focus on something only she could see, and he sighed.
“And you took away my ability to see my own options, right?” he asked Jezebel.
“Yes, again, you’ll eventually find that not seeing will work in your favor.” Her focus shifted to his blind eye, and she began to stammer. “I mean- you were always so, um… creative with your abilities when- just do what comes naturally.” Her tan face flushed with such a red hue of embarrassment that it reached down to her freckle-spattered cleavage.
Mark cocked his head. “Alright, I’m not letting this one go. What do you mean were?”
Jezebel bit her lower lip and looked to Sasha for support, but the blonde succubus waited patiently for her to answer Mark’s question.
The tan-skinned satyr took a deep breath. “Remember when you first woke up on the hill with me, before Sasha slashed a hole in my carefully crafted world?”
Mark was getting annoyed with how she often seemed unintentionally condescending. As if she was speaking to a child.
“Get to the point,” he said firmly.
“I told you that you were a copy. The original Mark traded a copy of his mind for my fusion reactor plans. That copy is you.”
Mark’s cursed eye pulsed with the tingling sensation he had come to associate with truth. She was speaking madness again, and Mark began to feel his sanity slip backward.