Page 7

M elissa

The moment he left me alone, I started trying to think my way out of the situation. Because logic might get me out of a nightmare of my own making—or someone else’s making.

“Okay, seriously,” I tell myself. “Think about it. You’re in the game somehow. Maybe that’s chemical. Or maybe one of those very weird things that happens, that they portray in movies. You know that movie. That old movie. The one Dad likes. Train? No. Tron? That doesn’t sound right.”

Talking out loud doesn’t really help, because it makes the insanity feel even more deep and intense.

“Okay. If I’m in the game, I’m in the fucking game,” I continue. “Even if reality is fake, you have to pretend it’s real. Or you just lie down and die.”

Having given myself an unhinged pep talk, I think about what it means to be in the game.

If I am level one, then I’m way out of my starting zone.

I have no specialties leveled, I have no EXP, my talent tree is bare.

New players normally spawn in the forest, chop wood, craft some weapons, farm some basic herbs and materials, and go from there.

If what Ornix says is true, then he brought me here. He abducted me, and that makes him the bad guy, no matter how much I like fucking him. It’s too easy to let good sex cover red flags, like the fact that my much older new boss has stolen me away from everything I know.

I decide I am going to find my way home, whether that home is getting back to my world, or breaking whatever psychotic episode I must be entrenched in.

He told me not to go out the door, so of course that is what I do.

I slip down a big curving staircase made of the same sand gold hue that the rest of the castle is made from.

There are tapestries on the walls, but I do not stop to admire them.

I pass door after door, slip into a side passage, avoiding guards.

I almost expected some to be stationed outside his chamber, but I suppose he likes the privacy, and I imagine he’s not actually expecting to need protection in his own castle.

The Golden Keep is a hell of a dungeon in the game. Once you enter through any of the six main ways in, you get instanced into one of the wings, which are usually full of hostile mobs.

Fortunately, I haven’t run into any of those.

The castle seems somewhat empty. It is much more detailed than the game version, though, and I’m half expecting to see those monsters spawn at any time.

Any one of them could kill me at my current level, and given the fact I am wearing a weird white spun-gold slip dress that has to have an armor rating of 0, the danger is extreme.

Might have some bonus charisma though, who knows.

In some respects, I am not entirely lost. I played DFE for months when it first came out. It was the last year of high school and I was getting bullied like crazy, so I withdrew socially and threw myself into online pursuits.

I was in one of the first raids to bring Ornisius, the apex dragon, down.

It starts to click. Ornisius. Mr. Ornix.

How did I not spot that right away? That’s legitimately insane.

My boss is quite literally the final boss of the world I am trapped in, the most powerful creature in it, with so much health and so much damage that you have to download special toolbars to see them properly.

This can’t be real.

But Tempest spoke to him. I was at her house. And she’s definitely real, and I’m real, or at least, I was last time I checked.

I’m still sure this is some kind of a fever dream, but I guess I may as well make the most of it. You can’t get hurt in a dream, after all. And maybe if I do die in the dream, I’ll wake up and find myself passed out in the sun on Tempest’s dad’s third favorite vacation house.

I decide to start looking for some gear. Best way to do that is to find some chests. Picking the nearest door, I crack it open, peer inside to make sure nobody is in there, then slide into it, closing the door behind me.

There’s a set of beds all lined up, one next to the other, with chests at the foot of the beds. A guard room. Perfect. Quite literally just what I was looking for. Maybe a coincidence. Maybe a little too convenient.

I start checking the chests. Three of them are locked. I must have missed lock picks somewhere. Probably back in the starting area? Is there even really a starting area in this play-through? Regardless, I should go back up to the bedroom to gather what I can.

I have no bag space either. Going to need to get some bags to carry all of this. Alright. Time to double back to the starting area.

I creep back up to the bedroom, and start looking around.

There are so many things here, a trove of expensive trinkets.

I bet there’s no vendor here, though. There isn’t in DFE Online.

You don’t go to the Golden Keep without either going to the bank first, or bringing an expensive traveling vendor with you, and even those you can’t summon once you’re inside.

I bet there will be some high tier armor and weapons here too, but I won’t have the proficiency for them.

Back in Ornix’s chamber, I start rifling through things, looking for a bag, but of course, although there are so many kinds of clothing here, gowns and coats and frilly shirts and stockings, and almost endless things that could go inside a bag, there is no actual bag.

Makes sense. The devs wouldn’t let you raid this area up front.

I’m starting to settle into this mad metaphor now. Fighting my perceived reality wasn’t getting me anywhere. This might.

Maybe I missed a bag in one of the side rooms. I weigh the risk of going and exploring more. It’s freaky though, because I need to stay away from anybody. If I’m spotted, they’ll tell Ornix, and god knows what he’ll do.

This is actually a stealth mission, and I haven’t even found the first mission marker yet. It’s impressive. My hallucination is dense with detail. If I ever get out of this situation, if the psychosis ever breaks, I might try to get a job with the game company, because this is wild.

I remind myself: my first order of business, once I’ve gotten what I can out of the keep, is to cross the royal plains and get to the forest as quickly as I can and start killing low-level mobs and getting the starter quests.

Heavy footsteps and the sound of the doorknob turning initiate the return of the boss.

I dive onto the bed and close my eyes, pretend to be sleeping.

I don’t want him to stop me from escaping, obviously, and I know if I trigger the final boss fight now, there’s no way I’m going to survive.

You need at least thirty people to defeat Ornisius.

I am weak, under-leveled, and under-geared.

I don’t have a chance in hell at facing him.

I feel the bed dip under his weight as he sits beside me, placing one big hand on my back and rubbing gently.

I pretend to wake up.

This time, when I look at him, really look at him, I see something even more dangerous in him.

I feel his power. It is nothing overt, but it is all around the room with us right now.

He does not want to use his strength against me, but I feel it held deeply inside him.

He was never human. He was a creature made to make men quiver in fear and submit life and land to him.

He is a voracious beast, and his hunger is legend.

“It is time,” he says.

“Time?”

“Your first mating in this realm. You will need to be bred three times in the first twenty-four hours of being here. So be a good girl, get on your hands and knees, and present yourself for me.”

“What?” I stare at him. This was definitely never in the game.

Maybe it’s some kind of freak sex mod. Ornix looks down at me, speaks patiently, but his hand is already drifting up my inner thigh as he works on seducing me—if this can be called seduction.

He is telling me that I am going to be fucked, that I am going to take his cock, and that he is going to make me pregnant. “That’s why I’m here?”

“Yes. You are here, in my realm, to be bred. To bring forth the next generation.”

“This is some insane DLC,” I mutter under my breath as I comply. There’s no reason not to. I’m imagining all of this, after all. I’m not really being repeatedly bred by a massive dragon male who takes a humanesque form to seduce me.

“What did you just say?” His large hand cups my ass. I hear a note of tension in his voice.

“I said this is some insanity.”

“I know it is strange to find yourself in another world. But the sooner you accept this reality, the better. The breedings will help cement your place. Now spread your legs, good girl, that’s right.”

His fingers drift along my slit, find my clit, and circle it slowly.

This is more like seduction, a gentle but insistent touch that makes me moan softly as my body responds.

I am still tender from the first time his big, scaled cock plunged deep inside me, ravaging me with those long, powerful strokes.

Is he going to do it again? The first time was punishing; this time feels different. Mostly it feels insane.

“I think it’s going to hurt.”

“Not very much,” he says. “The pleasure will more than make up for any ache you feel in that sweet little hole of yours.” He slides a finger inside me, and I whimper as I feel him stretching me with a slow, swirling motion.

“It’s going to feel good. Doesn’t it already feel good?

Aren’t you already… yes, good girl. Look at the way you’re humping my finger.

That’s right. Take this finger first and you’ll be taking my cock before you know it, begging for your breeding. ”

His words are like rough honey, seductive, demanding, accompanied by the pad of his dragon thumb brushing over my clit. I am still wet, still dripping his cum from the first time he fucked me. It wasn’t really all that long ago, and now I have no choice but to take it again.