Anger welled in me, and I unleashed everything I had at the approaching dragons. As they swooped down to devour us, Kit screamed like a woman possessed and unleashed dozens of writhing vines that tangled up the dragons and brought them to the ground. My guild fell upon the downed beasts with their enchanted swords, hacking slashing and chopping at the monsters until they were all dead.
When we finally reached our guardian, it was down to 3%, and we frantically blasted the red. A few of us got lucky with Soul Shatter Strikes, but we were too late.
The cry of our guardian made my heart sink, and I looked over to see a sword embedded in its head. When it shattered into a thousand pieces and fell to the smoldering battlefield, the crowd went wild.
It was over.
We had lost.
“Winner!” the elven announcer bellowed over the tumult of the crowd. “Dragons of Fury!”
My guild mates and I hung our heads low, unbelieving of the outcome. We had been so close, but the bastards had unleashed a massive nook that snatched the victory right out of our hands.
Kit came up to me crying and hugged me fiercely as I shared disheartened glances with my guild mates.
“Good try,” said the guild leader of the Dragon’s of Fury as he held his hand out to me.
“Congratulations,” I said as I shook his offered hand.
I could tell that my guild mates were devastated, but we all kept our cool and shook hands with the Dragons of Fury.
“What a battle!” the elven announcer was saying. “It looks like the Dragons of Fury will be going up against the Purrrrsian Empire tomorrow in what is sure to be a hell of a—”
“Wait a minute!” Doctor Marks said, and the entire crowd became quiet. He pressed a finger to his ear, listening to something, then his brow furled as he looked down at the Dragons of Fury. “It appears that the programmers have found something unusual…”
We all waited to hear what he was talking about, and I got a good feeling in my gut when the opposing guild began to glance around at each other guiltily
Doctor Marks and the elven announcer conferred privately for a few minutes, and they were joined by others, including the NPC king of Aeorock. The crowd murmured and whispered amongst themselves, wondering what was going on, and I gathered my guild mates around.
“What happened?” Kit asked.
“Shhh!” Trinity hissed and pointed. “Listen.”
The King of Aeorock himself walked to the announcer’s booth and scowled down at the Dragons of Fury. He pointed a shaking finger, and the crowd gasped when he said, “Arrest those cheaters!”
Three dozen dwarven NPC guards rushed out onto the sand and surrounded the Dragons of Fury, and the guild leader defiantly pushed one of the approaching dwarves back. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
The crowd echoed his sentiment, and Doctor Marks rose to his feet and gestured for everyone to settle down.
“It has been discovered that the Dragons of Fury have hacked into the tournament system so that they might choose their own battlefield,” said the doctor.
My heart fluttered in my chest. I couldn’t believe it. The crowd was in shock as well, and I glanced over at my guild mates as murmurs and cries of outrage echoed throughout the coliseum.
“According to the rules of the tournament,” the doctor said over the growing noise. “Any tampering with the tournament program is prohibited. Therefore, the Dragons of Fury have been disqualified.”
Kit let out an exited yip and danced up and down.
“Holy shit,” I said as I shared a hopeful look with my guild mates.
“Our new winner, and the second team in the final four,” Doctor Marks declared. “Heavy Metal Thunder!”
Chapter 16
“Shots all around!” I yelled as I stood on top of the table with my mug held high.
Cecilia’s pub was booming. The dance music blasted through large speakers mounted in every corner, and the already drunk crowd cheered and chanted my guild’s name. Kit and Stormy joined me up on the table and began grinding up on me, while Tweak sat in the booth with a big grin on his ape face, surrounded by a group of adoring furries. The rest of my girls joined us on the table, and soon we were leaping off and body surfing through the crowd.
“Heavy Metal Thunder! Heavy Metal Thunder!” the crowd chanted as the music sped up. When the base finally dropped, everyone went wild. Harmless spells zipped through the pub, exploding against the walls in cascading, multi-colored sparks. On the looking glasses all around the pub, the highlights of our battle with the Dragons of Fury, as well as the clip of Tweak being shit on, played on a loop that had been programmed to go with the music.
My girls and I snuck out of the party shortly after midnight and portaled back to our tower in the Beartooth Mountains for a little alone time. I had barely stepped into the bedroom and the girls were all over me. They stripped me out of my robes, tearing at the fabric like crazy nymphos. Ember popped something into my mouth and laughed devilishly before pushing me back onto the bed. No sooner had I landed than she was on top of me. She slid my cock into her and began gyrating like a woman possessed. I put my hands to work on Anna and Trinity, who lay beside me and giggled as they bit my nipples. Not one to be left out, Stormy straddled my face and grabbed two handfuls of hair as she pulled my head toward her soft womanhood.
I brought Stormy to climax with my mouth, while at the same time pleasuring Anna and Trinity until they too were wracked by orgasmic spasms. Ember was right with them, and the four women moaned and cried out in extasy.
I stood up and regarded Nanaya, Kit, and Cecilia, who had been sitting near the headboard and enjoying the show. Their eyes locked on my throbbing shaft, then they glanced at each other and laughed as they raced across the bed to get at it first. Kit claimed the prize first, leaping like a panther off the bed and landing in my arms. She wrapped her arms around my neck as I held her by the back of the legs and lowered her onto my shaft.
“Oh Big Daddy!” she cried as she took the full length. Her voice caught in her throat and she began to purr as I pumped my arms, moving her up and down on the magic stick.
Nanaya soon took her place, and the succubus drove me onto the bed and used her wings to hop up and down on my shaft. When she came, fire erupted from her horns, and her voice shattered the nearby vase on the side stand.
Cecilia was next, and she rode me reverse cowgirl while at the same time choking me with her tail until I could no longer take it. I exploded inside her, and as I convulsed from the mind-blowing orgasm, the notification flashed before my eyes.
Congratulations!
You have reached level 54!
Then another notification popped up, and I tried to read it through the post-orgasmic haze that my mind was in.
You’ve unlocked a new spell!
Atomic Thunderclap
See nearest mage trainer to learn your new spell.
“Oh hell yeah,” I said.
“New spell?” Stormy asked.
“Yup, I finally unlocked Atomic Thunderclap.”
“Sweet,” said Ember as she tapped on her interface beside me. “I unlocked a new one as well called Assassin Strike.”
The girls were all happily tapping on their interfaces. We had all leveled, of course, and they were just as eager as I was to see their trainers, but I for one was completely bushed, and the trainer could wait until morning.
We fell asleep in each other’s arms, and as I dozed off, I thought about how lucky we were to be in the final four, and how lucky I was to have such a great guild. The only bane on my joy was the nagging regret I felt for not helping my demonic children, and the fact that my parents were still being held captive in the Underworld.
Aside from that, I was on top of the world.
When I woke up and staggered out into the kitchen, I found Tweak whistling a happy tune and whipping up some of his famously strong coffee. I glanced down the hall into his room and chuckled when I saw three furries still as
leep in his bed.
He winked at me when we made eye contact. “Now I know what it’s like to be Samson Sullivan,” he said with a laugh.
“Nice,” I said, sharing in his mirth. “It’s a rough job, right?”
“But somebody’s got to do it!” he said with a hilariously apish expression.
I joined him at the kitchen island and drank coffee, and we talked about the previous day’s battle. I still couldn’t believe that we had won by default, and I couldn’t imagine what the Dragon’s of Fury had been thinking.
“Why the hell would they do that?” Tweak asked, sharing my sentiment. “They probably would have won without tampering with the battlefield program.”
“I don’t know, man, but I’m glad they did. I just hope that they didn’t cheat against other guilds, that could really throw a wrench in things.”
“Right?” He said, eyes wide. “The guild who lost to them before are going to be demanding an investigation into whether they cheated or not. Shit man, this could really slow things down.”
“Fine by me,” I said as I sipped my coffee. “I’m not in any hurry to go against the Purrrrsian Empire.”
“Amen brother. That’s going to be a hell of a fight, not to mention whoever we have to go against for the title if we beat them.”
“One impossible thing at a time man,” I said, offering him an animated look of worry.
“I think it’s in the stars,” he said, nodding to himself. “Yup, I think we’re going to go all the way.”
“Who’s going all the way?” Nanaya asked with a yawn as she strode out of our bedroom naked as a jaybird.
“Uhhhh,” Tweak said as he stared at her incredibly erotic form.
“We were just talking about our chances of winning the whole tournament,” I answered for him.
“Yeah, yeah that,” said Tweak, still mesmerized.
“Put some clothes on you floozy,” Trinity said as she walked past Nanaya and slapped her hard on the ass.
“Mmmnnn,” Nanaya hummed, smiling after the blonde warrior who wore a red teddy and panties that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. “I never knew you could be so much fun.”
Trinity ignored her and kissed me on the lips. “Morning Loverboy.”
“Morning Trin.”
“Good morning,” said Tweak, who finally snapped out of it when Nanaya tapped on her interface and loaded her leather armor.
“Good morning monkey man,” said Trinity.
The rest of the girls, including Tweak’s guests, joined us for a big breakfast at the long dining table set by the large bay window. The view of the Beartooth Mountains was our backdrop as we talked about the upcoming battle with the Purrrrsian Empire. We didn’t talk much about strategy, given that we were in the presence of three furries that we didn’t know very well. They could have been spies, although I doubted that they were, you never could be too careful about such things.
After breakfast, we used our heart stones to return to Aeorock, and I left the others to go and see the mage trainer that I usually went to when I was in the city.
“Ah!” he said with a wry grin as I walked into his training room. “If it isn’t the impatient mage. I suppose you’re here to learn a few hand gestures and be on your way.”
“Actually, yes,” I said with a laugh. “I just unlocked Atomic Thunderclap.”
His bushy eyebrows crawled up his wrinkled forehead, and his eyes widened. “Atomic Thunderclap you say? Well, are you sure that you can handle such a powerful spell?”
“If I can handle seven horny guild mates, I think that I can handle a new spell.”
“Horny?” he said. “Are these demons that you speak of?”
“What? No, never mind,” I said, shaking my head.
“Alright then, if you think you’re man enough…” He led me over to the firing range, where about a dozen other mages were testing out their latest spells. The mage trainer stopped at one of the empty bays and sighed. He mumbled something to himself, and his eyes searched the ground aimlessly. “I must stress to you the importance of learning the lore behind this spell, or else I fear that you will regret it.”
I tapped on my interface and brought up the time. It was only nine in the morning, and we weren’t scheduled to do battle with the Purrrrsian Empire until Noon.
“Fine,” I told him. “But how about the short version?”
“Excellent!” he said with a clap of his gnarled hands. “Come, come, follow me to the library. For you are in for a treat, my boy!”
An hour later, I emerged from the library wishing that I had just opted for the hand gestures instead of the long version. The mage trainer had gone on and on about the origins of the mage who created the spell, and all about how he had stolen the thunder of the gods to create it. The lore was interesting enough, but at the end of the day I knew that it had been written by a bunch of writers hired by Horizon corp to offer the players a more immersive experience. Besides that, I could have just read the book about the spell, which I had done with the others that I learned.
He finally brought me back to the blasting range and walked me through the hand gestures.
“This spell is a powerful one, and therefore it takes a long time to summon. But with time you will get faster.”
The mage trainer put his hands together as if in prayer, then he went through an elaborate series of hand gestures that reminded me of some hippy tripping on mushrooms and dancing to a drum circle. Finally, he brought his hands together in a loud clap. Nothing happened, but that was because he wanted me to experience it firsthand.
“Now you give it a try,” he urged.
I brought my hands to my chest like I was praying, and then went through the complicated series of hand gestures. Nothing happened the first time, or the second, and by the third failure I was cursing.
“Remember the five P’s my friend,” said the old man. “Patience, practice, perseverance, perfection, and patience.”
“You said patience twice,” I informed him.
“That’s because you should be twice as patient,” he said, looking very pleased with himself.
“Clever,” I admitted. “I really walked into that one, didn’t I?”
I kept practicing, and the mage trainer continued to inform me that my form was terrible, and that I was well out of my league. His naysaying was better than any encouragement that he could have given me, and when I finally got it right, I nearly shit myself when I saw the result. It was perhaps my fiftieth try, and when I brought my hands together and clapped, the sound of thunder exploded from between my palms, and a laser thin beam shot out of the tips of my fingers. When the beams hit the dummy target at the end of the bay, it exploded with the force of what can only be explained as a tiny nuclear blast.
The last few feet of at least ten bays were obliterated in an instant as a raging ball of fire consumed them. The shockwave nearly put me on my ass, and a mushroom cloud twenty feet wide bulged toward the ceiling.
“Holy shit!” I said as I looked at my smoking hands.
“Holy excrement is right,” the Mage put in with a proud smile. “You just might become a legendary mage after all. Why I haven’t seen a nuclear blast conjured like that since, well since I don’t recall.”
“Awesome,” I said. “How long is the cooldown?”
“Ten minutes,” he informed me.
“Not awesome,” I said, but I figured as much. The spell had cost me 75% of my mana, and I knew that any spell that did that would have a pretty long cooldown. Nevertheless, it was going to fit nicely into my arsenal.
I told the mage trainer to put all of my experience points into Stamina and left the place eager to show my friends my new spell, but as soon as I stepped out of the door my day was given a dose of suck.
“Mom?” I said as I stopped and stared at the green fire burning in front of me. My mother was standing in the flames, or rather her image was being projected by them. She had her arms crossed the way that she use to when
I was young and in trouble, and her frown told me that indeed, she was displeased.
“I can’t believe you Sam. Why didn’t you tell us that you had…oh, I can’t even say it, children?”
“Oh fuck,” I mumbled.
“You watch your mouth, young man. Not only are you sleeping with demon women, but you’re swearing too?”
A couple of passing elf women laughed and looked at me with pity.
“Sorry, Mom, listen, you and dad need to log out. You don’t have to remain in the Underworld.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, shaking her head. “Your generation might like taking the easy way out, but your father and I aren’t built that way. We finish what we start, and you should do the same. Sam, why aren’t you helping your beautiful golden children? Meg said that—”
“Meg?” I said indignantly.
“Yes, Megulla, the woman that you decided to impregnate and abandon.”
“Haha! Dude, the all mighty Samson is being chastised by his mom!” a passerby yelled to his bros.
Groaning, I brought up my interface and found a Silencing Stone. I tossed it on the ground and it enveloped me and the burning green fire in a soundproof energy dome.
My mother looked at the dome and shook her head. “Samson, darling, we are only ashamed of things that we know we shouldn’t have done.”
“Mom, those golden demons aren’t really my kids. They’re not even real, for Kris Kristofferson’s sake!”
“Not real?” she said, looking hurt. “They look just like your grandfather when he was young. Don’t even try to tell me that you aren’t their father.”
“They’re NPCs,” I reminded her.
“What?”
“Non-player characters,” I elaborated slowly. “They’re just programs. I didn’t even know that I could get an NPC pregnant in game, and besides, your buddy Megulla basically forced me into bed with her.”
My mother leveled me with a sarcastic look that said, “Really?”
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