Authors: Arielle Archer
As he stepped forward he clearly eyed me up and down with something more than the professional interest of someone who’d been hired to act as a bodyguard. I blushed and looked away as he eyed me, then realized what I was doing and anger flashed through me.
I forced myself to meet his eyes, to ignore the thrill running through my stomach at that eye contact. I forced myself to channel some of the fury I was feeling at the casual way he was addressing his elven betters.
“I have no doubt what you’re interested in, human,” I spat out.
He looked me up and down once more, and there was hunger there. And there was something else. Amusement?
“I’m simply giving my lady elf the same consideration she’s been giving me ever since she first laid eyes on me.”
I blushed. So he’d caught me looking. Interesting. Very interesting. He was far more perceptive than I would have given a human credit for. There were hidden depths to this one, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Very well human, I am the one who has hired you but I assume you are about to present me with terms despite the fact that I am the one paying you to do my bidding?”
He sketched another bow. “My lady elf is quite perceptive.”
My lips turned to a frown, but I decided to let this particular dig slide. Maybe if I just ignored him referring to me as his “lady elf” he would tire of the jest and stop using it entirely. I could hope, at least.
I reached into the pouch at my side and pulled out a gold mark. I held it up in the fitful torchlight that illuminated the entrance to the pirate’s cove.
“This is one gold piece. I imagine that will be enough to feed you for a week if not longer. Maybe even get you some proper clothes. You get one of these at the beginning, and another when we are finished if you desist in this ridiculous insistence on dictating terms to your employer,” I said.
“No.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You really are a fool for all your finery. I’m not here for gold. I’m here because you intrigue me my lady elf. Besides, what’s to stop me from just killing you and taking all of your gold?”
I tried to control myself at that admission that he was here because I intrigued him. I tried not to read too much into that despite the way my mind was screaming and my body was consumed by a raging fire. I tried my best to bring both mind and body under control, but it was difficult.
“You won’t kill me. And not because I would kill you for it or because I intrigue you enough for you to keep me alive until it’s no longer convenient. No, you wouldn’t do it because it isn’t the right thing,” I said.
The human, Conlan, moved forward with lightning speed. So fast that I let out a yell of surprise. I didn’t know it was possible for humans to move that fast! One moment we were standing in the entrance, I was in control of the situation, and the next moment he was pressing me up against the cave wall. His body pressed against mine and it felt so delicious. It would’ve been a welcome distraction if I wasn’t so terrified that my life was about to end. His face was inches from mine and that hunger was back. He’d been so fast I hadn’t even had time to work up a spell, though I had plenty of time to prepare a fireball or some other nasty surprise now, but I didn’t. Something stopped me.
He’d pressed me against the wall, but he hadn’t actually made a move to slit my throat. A man who moved like that could easily have done so. A man who moved like that could have killed me and left me to be looted by whatever robbers followed him. And yet he hadn’t. He was just staring down at me with that smoldering hunger in his eyes. That burning lust barely contained. I wanted to reach up and kiss that handsome face with his shaggy hair, and I had to pull my hands away from the keyboard at that thought.
What the hell? This was definitely getting hotter and heavier than I’d ever gotten before, and yet I couldn’t deny how it was making me feel. I was so turned on that I’d been pulled out of virtual reality and back into the real world. That hardly ever happened. And it was also having one hell of an effect on me back here in the real world. I almost expected there’d be a wet spot on my gaming chair when I got up, but no, that couldn’t possibly be the case.
Still, I was so fucking turned on. Moisture was definitely gathering in my pajama bottoms. I reached down and traced a finger lightly along the edges of my pussy lips and I nearly jumped. Just running my fingers down there was enough to set off an electric shock that ran through my entire body. It was enough to cause me to let out a quiet gasp. A quiet moan that was an unmistakable moan of pleasure.
Good thing Samantha decided to go to a bar down the street.
I had a choice to make. I could pull away from the computer. I could disconnect. All it would take is closing down the game client and then I’d be free of the immediate scenario, but I wouldn’t be free from my feelings. I’d be thinking about Conlan, thinking about this forbidden role-playing session that was quickly spiraling out of my control, all night long. It was clear this was going someplace I hadn’t ever gone before with someone I role-played with in-game. It was clear that this particular role-playing session was becoming something more. It was becoming something deeper, hotter, far more passionate.
I made my decision. My hands moved back to the keyboard. I stared up into the eyes of this dangerous human who was staring down at me, his muscular arms to either side of my head. My breath was coming in ragged gasps. My nipples were pressing out against my dress and my body was betraying me with its arousal.
I wanted to say that the reason I didn’t vaporize him was because I was worried my magic might blow back on me. The problem with setting things on fire is that it didn’t do much good if you were in close proximity to the fire that was being set. I wanted to say that the reason I didn’t turn him into a pillar of fire was because I didn’t believe in killing unless someone was obviously threatening my life. Of course this situation could almost call for that. I could even blame that little anti-magic surprise he carried with him if I wanted to.
But that was all bullshit. No, the real reason I didn’t incinerate him where he stood was because I was intrigued. I was excited. By a human of all things. If anything, that intrigued me even more. I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, I wasn’t sure why my body was betraying me like this, but I couldn’t deny how I felt. I couldn’t deny how incredible this was.
I looked up at him and smiled. “Point taken.”
He grinned. He pulled back and I wanted to cry out in disappointment as his body moved away from mine.
“I’m glad we have an understanding,” he said. “You hired me to guard you and I’m going to do that. That means that you do what I say while we’re in there and follow my orders with no questions. The fact that you’re the one paying me means nothing if you get a knife in your back because you think some flashy magical fireworks will save you from a crafty pirate who’s used to working in close quarters.”
I nodded. I tried to ignore the thrill running through me at the way he was casually taking command. Casually ordering me around. I should be furious, but instead I was just incredibly excited.
He gestured towards the entrance to the cove. Deeper into the cave. I glanced at the dark entrance, lit only by the fitful burning of the torches, then back to him. Did I dare go in there with him? Did I dare descend into the darkness and all the potentially forbidden pleasures that it offered?
I moved forward and I could hear him following behind me. I smiled, wondering where this was going. Because this certainly was unlike any dungeon run I’d ever been on before.
I was keenly aware of how close he was to me as we made our way through the tight confines of the dungeon. The cove was actually a series of caves that led deep into the rock and came out on the other side of a series of impassable mountains onto a sheltered bowl with beautiful open water that provided a perfect port. A perfect port for the kind of criminal activity that only pirates could be up to.
I had no idea if there was anything even close to it in the real world, but I didn’t ever concern myself with those sorts of questions even though there were entire forum threads dedicated to the real life inspirations for in-game geography. Anyone who looked for reality in their video game design was doing it wrong.
The tight confines meant he was right up against me. I could feel his heat, see his sweat glistening in the torchlight. It was pretty hot down in these caves, and before long I was slick with sweat as well. I reached up and loosened my dress which wasn’t at all modest but I was beyond caring about modesty.
And I was wet and slick with more than sweat every time I got close to him. I could smell his intoxicating scent. I could feel his rippling muscles so close to mine. I felt lightheaded every time I came near him and I wanted nothing more than to rip his clothes off and have my way with him.
I couldn’t believe I was having these sorts of thoughts for a mere human! I was a high elf priestess, and yet all I could think about was this human and how much I wanted him.
His hand shot out across my breasts. The contact was unexpected and amazing. I found myself breathing hard, and that hard breathing made him realize exactly what he was touching. He turned and looked down at me, only instead of a blush rising to his cheeks like it should have for any proper gentlemen, like it was for me at the moment, he just grinned and leaned closer to me.
“Need to be careful,” he said. “We’re coming up on an ambush point.”
I nodded and prepared a couple of spells. My fingers started to glow but he shook his head and moved his hand away from my chest. I sighed in disappointment at the loss of a contact even as in my head I was screaming at myself for being an idiot in more than one way
In-game, in my characters head, I was an idiot for having these feelings for a human. Out of the game, sitting in my chair and staring at the screen losing myself in this scenario I was an idiot because I was carrying on like this, because I was getting so turned on by a man who was just some pixels on a screen. Sure he was incredibly hot if his picture was actually him, and that the jury was still out on that, but mostly I was turned on because he had a talent for writing that got me worked up more than any porn ever could.
Conlan looked down at me and grinned. His eyes were zeroed in on the spot where I’d loosened my dress, where I’d pulled it down so that my breasts were showing a little more. I smiled to myself.
We stopped at a spot where the cave started to widen. Where it turned a corner. In character, in world, I peered at that turn wide-eyed, not knowing quite what was waiting on the other side. Was it an ambush?
Sitting in front of my computer I smiled to myself. I looked at that familiar spot. Just around the corner was an ambush spot where a bunch of bad guys would come in and try to kill us, followed by a boss encounter.
The encounter took place on a bridge over a raging river, and the trick to this particular boss encounter was that the only winning move was not to play. Players were supposed to kill the lackeys, get their asses handed to them by the big guy, and then decide that jumping off of the bridge into the raging underground river was preferable to dying. There was no way to kill this particular boss at this stage of the dungeon.
I’d read stories of people discovering this dungeon for the first time back when the game was new who thought they were doing something wrong, or who thought something was broken because they kept dying over and over on what was supposed to be an easy low-level encounter. It was a ridiculously devious bit of programming on the game designers’ part giving that easy low-level boss immortality at the first meeting.
It was also something that made this one of my favorite dungeons. Most people liked it just because jumping in the water and going on that wild ride was fun, but I liked it because it was such a rich storytelling element. It was so much better than some of the crap they had players doing today as far as dungeon encounters went. At least from what I’d seen watching high-level encounters that Samantha went on. Go in, kill a boss, move to the next spot on the treadmill.
No, this encounter had some class to it from a time when the game designers actually cared about delivering a story along with the dungeon.
“What’s up ahead?”
“Just a bridge over a river that runs through these caves and eventually out to a hidden part of the cove,” Conlan said. “But we need to be careful. It would be a good spot for an ambush.”
I rolled my eyes. He was alluding to game elements in his role-playing dialogue. Though I could forgive him for being distracted on this one occasion. Something told me from the way we’d been role-playing earlier that he had other things on his mind than going through this dungeon.
“Fine,” I said. I summoned a fireball and set it to dancing across my fingers. “Let’s go.”
I strode confidently out onto the bridge. It was a surprisingly well put together for a bridge going over an underground river in a known a pirate den. It was wide. Wide enough to accommodate several men, and it looked sturdy as though someone had maintained it over the years. Then again, the pirates who ran this place were so rich from their ill-gotten gains that it shouldn’t surprise me that they had money for the thieving equivalent of a public works project.
I felt a delicious warmth come up behind me. I felt an arm wrap around me, press against my skin where it was exposed down at my stomach. I closed my eyes and took in a sharp breath as I felt Conlan pressing against my body, and then my eyes opened wide as I felt something pressing against me from behind. As I felt his cock pressing against my ass. Without thinking I pressed myself back against him. Pressed myself back against a human!
I leaned back from my keyboard. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was deep in a dungeon having what had, up until this point, been a mostly innocent but flirtatious role-playing session and now it had taken a turn into a decidedly sexy territory that I’d a sort of expected, but was still surprising now that it was happening.
And rather than stopping him, rather than telling him that wasn’t the sort of role-playing I was into, I was responding! My character was acting like a regular common whore, and acting that way was causing my pussy to tingle. If I kept this up for much longer then I was going to be running this dungeon one-handed, if you catch my meaning.
Back to the dungeon.
I came to my senses and tried to pull away from this human. Who did he think he was, laying his hands on me? I was a high elf priestess! He should be dead for daring to touch me!
Only when I tried to pull away from him his grip tightened, he pulled me back against him. And I found myself moaning against my will even as I was pulled against him, also against my will. And yet there was something so incredibly arousing by the way this rough human was just taking me, the way I felt him rubbing against me taking his pleasure from me.
I might be acting scandalized, but there was no denying the way this was making me feel. There was no denying the way my pulse was picking up, the way a flush was running down my body, the way I felt lightheaded, the way my body was tingling from head to toe as this ruffian had his way with me. God it was so hot!
Before I realized what I was doing I’d leaned my head back on his shoulder and I was moaning. That seemed to be all the encouragement he needed, as though he needed any encouragement at all considering how forward he was being! Considering how forward I was being, for that matter.
His lips descended on my neck and I moved it to the side, allowed him better access as his hands started to explore. One hand ran down to explore in between my legs and I felt myself going weak between the knees as his rough, powerful, and yet oh so tender hands made contact with that spot between my legs. As he started rubbing through my dress.
His other hand moved up and he was cupping my breasts through my top. He moved one hand up and traced along my cleavage, along the top of my tits which were heaving at the contact. I was lost in a world of pleasure. I was lost in a world of arousal. I was lost in a world that was his strong, hot, sweaty body pressing against me from behind and taking what he wanted. Even though I knew this went against every role-playing principle I believed in, that I shouldn’t be doing it.
And yet that was adding to the turn on.
I was lost in the incredible feeling, in the sound of his lips running against my neck, nibbling on one of my pointed ears, his hands exploring my body as his cock, a massive monster if what I was feeling was any indication, rubbed against my ass. As this massive human took my petite body and made it is. Giving over to him, giving myself to him completely, allowing him to take control, take what he wanted, was so wrong and yet it was so fucking hot!
Remember what I said about a one-handed gaming session? Well one of my hands moved down in between my legs. Started running up and down my pussy which was so wet. I was so incredibly turned on. I stroked myself as this scenario played out on screen.
Only I heard something that pulled me away from that one-handed gaming session. That pulled my character’s attention away from that incredible pleasure coursing through her body. Shouting. I knew that sound from the many times I’d been through this dungeon.
One of us had stepped forward just enough to trigger the in-game event. Damn it!
The yelling grew louder. And then some rough men rounded the corner, men carrying nasty looking weapons. Men who had murder in their eyes, and when they looked at me they had more than that in their eyes. The way they looked at me promised nothing good for me if they managed to capture us.
Once more I was surprised at the speed with which Conlan moved. One moment he was using me as his plaything, I was a rag doll that was completely in his thrall, and the next moment he was charging forward and pushing me to the side with his sword drawn.
I stood there for a moment, my breasts heaving and my breath coming in ragged gasps as I recovered from the incredible feelings he’d sent coursing through my body. As I took stock of the reality of the situation. We were under attack!
I smiled. I might be losing control when it came to my delectable human, but rampaging pirates were definitely something I could handle. I held up my hand and a ball of fire materialized in the air above one as a ball of ice materialized above the other.
Before Conlan even reached the pirates a fireball flashed out and took one. He fell over, screaming, the fire consuming his body. Meanwhile, back in the real world, I almost laughed as one of the mobs went down for the count. I was such a high level, I was so powerful, that all it took was one hit from one of my spells for them to go down.
The ball of ice slammed into another one and his entire body turned to ice before shattering. On screen it was a far less dramatic than what I described in the chat window. He was covered in a white ice animation before that exploded away and then he fell to the ground just like every other death animation for the bad guys in this particular dungeon. Still, in my imagination it was far more dramatic. Everything about this game was far more dramatic in my imagination, including the way Conlan charged forward to save his elf priestess.
His sword took a pirate through the gut and cut down another as I roasted another with a fireball. And then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over. There were five men dead on the ground and I was heaving from the exertion. I was shaking, and for a completely different reason than the shaking I felt when Conlan was pressing against me.
He turned to smile at me and I saw something flash behind him.
“Watch out!”
That warning was enough for Conlan to go diving just in time to miss the flash of smoke and retort from the primitive gunpowder weapon the pirate who’d been hiding in the caves was carrying. He stepped forward. He sported a long beard that had been braided and held a gun in one hand and a sword in the other. He regarded both of us with open disdain. My breath caught as I saw him. As I noticed the distinctive white braided hair that ran down the middle of his otherwise black beard.
“Whitebeard,” I breathed.
The pirate flashed forward and Conlan met him with a clang of swords. I wanted to do something, I wanted to try and save him, but they were so close together that there wasn’t anything I could do. Any fireball, any ice magic I used ran as much risk of hitting Conlan as it did white beard.
And of course the real reason I couldn’t do anything was because the game programmers had programmed the encounter to make Whitebeard effectively immortal. I could be the most powerful player on this server with the best gear possible and I still wouldn’t be able to take this guy out without cheating. He was immortal until the end of the dungeon, at which point his plot armor dropped and I could easily one shot him.
Conlan turned to me and for the first time since I’d met him at the entrance to the cave there was something new on his face. Something other than the cocky arrogance I’d come to expect. Something different, something strange, something very disquieting.