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“You go through the door and you end up here. None of it’s real, but all of it matters,” someone chimes in.

“Who are you?” I ask the leader. “I’m Melissa.”

“Doug Landris, AKA KornmanTheBarbarian.”

“Kornman! You’re a legend.”

His cheeks color slightly at the compliment. “What’s your game tag?”

“LadyFacePunchKick.”

His eyes light up. “No, you’re not LadyFacePunchKick. There’s no way. You’re too young. And too girly. I ran a public group with you years ago. You healed us out of three separate wipes.”

“You remember that?”

“I got the Flailing Shard mount,” he says. “You’re the reason I got that. I owe you. It really helped at the time, the extra vendor? And an enchanter? I could run dungeons back to back to back, never had to go to Ireforge even once.”

I take the opportunity to suggest something I know he won’t really want to hear, but everybody needs to know.

“Okay, but what if I told you all of it was real. That this isn’t a simulation. But that we’ve actually all been transported to a realm we can’t imagine?”

He gives me a patronizing look. “It seems real, that’s what made the others run when that dragon spawned, but that’s their loss. Those of us who stayed are reaping the rewards. We’re going to make history and be the first people to ever compete in this level of virtual reality.”

“Haven’t you noticed the way the kobolds scream?”

“Oh, my god, that was fucked up,” a girl with bright pink falls in her hair interjects. “I almost couldn’t do it. But you get used to it after a while, and some people liked it, so I let them do it.”

“Yeah. Guys, this isn’t a simulation. This is real. And there’s no prize at the end. There’s just death. They’re going to eradicate us if they can. We don’t belong here. This place changes humans.”

“Speaking of change, how did you get those wings?”

They gather around, touching my wings with gentle interest.

“Well, it was, honestly, not something you’re going to be able to do. You have to…”

“What?” Their eyes widen.

“It happened after I… you know… with a dragon.”

“You fucked a dragon?” the girl shrieks. I should ask her name, but it feels weird now.

“Yeah. It was a thing.”

“So you’re on their side?” Kornman looks at me with some suspicion.

“I’m actually trying to get you not slaughtered. Because they know what you’ve been doing. The kobolds in that forest don’t respawn. You just wiped out a species. This isn’t a game. This is a world. And it’s going to fight back.”

They laugh. I can see they’ve already got legendary items. These guys know how to play and they’ve already adapted to the world. They might not believe it is real, and they might very well go to their fiery graves wondering why the fire hurts so fucking much.

“You didn’t see the ones who got burned? When we got here? The dragons chased half the people across the plains and murdered them?”

“Not sure any of them were real. If you can simulate a kobold, you can simulate a person on fire. The important thing is to level as fast as we can and take Ornisius out.”

Suddenly, a burst of conversation erupts around us. The group has spotted a new source of interest.

“Holy fuck, look at their gear!”

“Look at their hair.”

“Is even one of them any shorter than six foot five?”

“Are they dragons?”

“Don’t do anything fucking stupid. If they are, we don’t have fireproof enchants yet. Play it cool.”

I turn around to see that a small contingent of men is walking across the sandy expanse toward us. I know instantly that they are dragons in their most human forms. The others don’t know that because they don’t know dragons can do that.

Oh, wait. Yes they do, because that’s how Ornix came to greet them in the first place. This is worrying. I have no idea if the crowd is going to attack or not, especially as the dragons have come looking geared as hell.

“We agreed no PvP,” Kornman says. “Let them say what they have to say. If they’re not dragons, we need to see if we can match their gear, because that shit is fire. Look at it, it’s got to be elite tier, and gemmed out to the hilt.”

I have to tell the dragons not to dress up the way they do. I know they’re wearing armor so there’s no chance of being murdered in a random incident, but this is really exciting the gamers.

“Melissa!”

Ornix snaps my name. “You’re supposed to be scouting, not fraternizing!”

“My boyfriend,” I explain, rolling my eyes.

“Your boyfriend? The one who…”

Shit. I realize that kind of outs Ornix as a dragon.

“So if we fuck dragons, we get wings?” Someone mutters that question rather loudly.

I notice a few of the women starting to flank around to the other dragons. They’re very interested in the prospect of being able to fly, apparently, and also probably the prospect of dragon dick.

Everyone’s been here for a couple of weeks now, I think, or some other length of time. Who knows. Anyway, what I’m thinking is people have started getting horny. Humans do that. Male and female.

“They are pretty,” one of the other gamers mutters.

“Come here. Now.” Ornix crooks a finger at me.

I hesitate to move, because I know I am in trouble now, and I very much don’t want to be. He won’t understand that I’m trying to save him. It will just be another incident of disobedience to him.

“Melissa. Now.” He snaps the words and I know if I don’t do as he says, there’s going to be hell to pay. Not quite portal to hell, but close.

I stay where I am.

“She doesn’t want to go with you, buddy, just because you’ve got Pantene hair, lustrous shine, and ceramide introjects, don’t mean every girl has to do as you say!”

One of the other guys chips in. This is starting to get rowdy.

The gamers don’t really have a leader, and Ornix really just wants me away from him so he can kill them all, I bet, and I don’t want that to happen, because I saw a social media campaign a while back where Kornman raised funds for an operation for his baby, and that means this is someone’s daddy, and everyone here matters.

And fuck… none of them can ever go back.

I’m standing in the middle of a tragedy only I understand the full magnitude of.

“I can’t leave them,” I tell him. “I need to know they will be safe.”

“Nobody here has chosen safety. They have chosen glory and death.”

Ornix’s words make everyone cheer because nobody knows what the fuck they’re really cheering for.

“You can die in the simulation!” I shout suddenly. “Yeah, it feels real, because the tech allows real harm to come to us. Haven’t any of you been injured?”

“Well, yeah, the hunter got bit by his pet, and the wound got infected, but we found some blessed water, so it was all alright in the end.”

“If you can get an infection, you can be killed.”

“Yeah. I guess. We haven’t really been thinking about it too much. Actually a couple guys got gored yesterday. We hoped that someone would come and get them once we left the area.”

“Nobody’s coming. There are no areas. You’ve been slaughtering your way through a world that never saw you coming, and one that is going to fucking eradicate us all if we can’t stop killing.”

“But what about the competition?”

“There is no competition. This was a setup. Equinox wanted this to happen. We might be gamers, but we’re the ones getting played.”

That’s a banging comment, and I hope it works. I think a few people are starting to look suitably confused and concerned.

“Melissa. Come. Now.”

“Talking to me like a dog is not going to make me do what you say,” I snap back at Ornix.

He cocks his head to the side in a sort of what the hell did you just say to me, have you forgotten who I am way.

I stay where I am, stubbornly.

He comes for me, striding toward me, catching me by the wrist and pulling me hard up against his body, forcing me to look up at him with his hand on my chin.

“I don’t know what has gotten into you,” he says. “But I intend to banish it from you entirely.”

“Oh, my god, hell yeah, daddy, listen to that guy,” one of the girl gamers giggles. “I want one. How do you get one?”

Ornix looks up, slightly confused, his eyes narrowed in the direction of the one who spoke, which only makes her giggle hysterically and fall back into the crowd.

Is the fact that humans are full horny for dragons going to solve this problem? It might. It really might. This is the first time I have felt hope since the whole situation started to explode.

“Ow!” I gasp as he smacks my ass hard enough to get my attention.

“Look at me, Melissa. You’re in trouble.”

“I don’t care. I had to do this to keep everyone safe, so you can do what you want to me, and I’ll take it.”

“You’re damn right you’ll take it,” he growls at me. “Nobody here matters as much as you do. You are everything to me. I would let this realm and the next and the next after that collapse into ruin before I let so much as a hair on your head be harmed.”

“I couldn’t even get the last guy I dated to call me an Uber home,” one of the girls mutters.

“It’s giving daddy energy, big daddy dragon,” someone else practically purrs.

I was worried about fighting, but it seems like fucking is going to be the far bigger problem. The energy around us is getting kind of intense, like people are really into this.

Ornix props his leg up on a rock and swings me over his thigh, throwing up the dress I enchanted and exposing my bare ass to everybody.

“You’re a badly behaved, disobedient little whelp and you are going to get what you deserve,” he says, bringing his palm down on my ass with a hard slap.

My yowl is pitiful, as are all the other sounds that follow it. Ornix is not playing. He spanks my ass as hard as he ever has, whipping me so soundly that it feels as though my skin is starting to singe underneath his punishing palm.

“Humans in my realm will be obedient, or they will be punished. Line up with my soldiers to receive your punishments,” he says. “You may pick the soldier, or you will be assigned to someone who will take you to task for the troubles you’ve collectively caused.”