Conquest

by Felix von Falkenlust

  I gave her a grin. “Now witch, it is your turn. I cannot raise you off the ground like that,” I said, tilting my head toward the levitating pair next to us, “But together we can raise our Attraction points.”

  She returned my smile and in her appealing brogue said, “Let us do it, then. Bury your lance deep within me.”

  She got off the bench and stood by the fire and pulled off her blue robe, revealing a slender white body dotted with freckles that ran from her shoulders down between her small, firm breasts. I stepped out of my breeches and went to her. I took her in my arms and lifted her up and set her down on my still-hard shaft, and she slid down it with a slippery ease. I thrust into her standing, my beefy legs supporting me as my real legs never could have, the woman in my arms so much hotter than my real-life girlfriend. I turned to watch Anna cry out in the throws of a midair orgasm, her breasts heaving, and when the wizard drifted back down to the table, his magic spent, I turned my attention back to the sexy Irish witch I held in my strong arms.

  My warrior’s legs began to tire at last, so I set her down on the table next to the finished couple and I thrust into her, and her voice came out in pleasing cries which rose higher the harder I thrust, and I thrust harder the higher her cries rose, harder and faster into her slim body, looking at her pretty freckled face, and then I felt the sensation inside me near the edge and then her insides squeezed down on me as I pounded my way to explosive satisfaction.

  As Anna and I climbed up to our loft and collapsed onto the mattress, we were both satisfied, yet it had not been with each other.

  Oh well, I thought right before drifting off, at least I got to watch.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  ANNA and I got up early the next morning. As we procured a small loaf of bread from our host, Uncle Cylock came out of his room—with a woman, I might awkwardly add—and strapped on a huge battle axe.

  “Well, Ace, I’m hitting the road.”

  “Take care Uncle Cylock. By the way, my mom will for sure ask if I talked to you yet, so let’s just say we met at the coffee shop.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He leaned in next to me and said, “By the way, that archer you’re with is a nice piece of ass.”

  “Oh, yeah, totally.” I didn’t tell him I hadn’t slept with her yet.

  “Well, I’ll try calling you sometime if I ever leave this game. Good luck!” He slapped the woman’s butt and then swaggered off down the street.

  Anna said, “Let us be away from this place.”

  “Hold on, let me level up a couple things first.”

  I took my Face and Body up to Sevens. I couldn’t see my face, but it was nice to watch my six-pack return, even tighter than before. Now I was just inches away from reaching the next level.

  Anna and I walked to the north through the main street and left the village. She had a full quiver of arrows and a new string for her bow. She looked more beautiful than ever, and I suspected she’d leveled up her Face. As we walked alongside each other I asked, “So why do you play this game?”

  “I know not what game you speak of, warrior.”

  I sighed and said, “Fine. What is your purpose in life? Your calling?”

  “To kill and fuck.”

  “Well then,” I said, not knowing how else to reply. She took the game way too seriously, but I had to admit it added to her appeal.

  I wondered how big the game-world was. Was there an end to Conquest? Would there be expansion packs? Would I eventually get bored of banging insanely hot women and start over as an archer or wizard and work my way back up again? It was hard to imagine now, sleeping with those Ones and Twos, or being a One or a Two. It all seemed so long ago.

  As we approached a peasant selling watermelons on the roadside, I then asked myself if I would ever get bored enough of playing the fighting classes to start the game as a peasant or merchant. It seemed unlikely, but you never know—forever is a long time to play a game. I bought a watermelon, largely because it was pink on the outside and green on the inside, so my curiosity got the best of me. It tasted about the same as a regular melon.

  We walked down a long stretch of road running through a great grassy plain. I was glad I bought the watermelon and still had the bread, because who knew when we would get to the next town. We passed a few players, but most people were going the same direction we were, progressing, looking for higher-lever lovers and more challenging monsters.

  But in the distance I saw a guy coming toward us from the other direction. The first detail I made out was the big straw hat to protect his head from the sun, then a rather official-looking blue cloak. I remembered I had seen that uniform before and then it came to me that this guy was a postman.

  “Be thee Karl, oh warrior?”

  “Yeah, that’s who I be, oh post-office guy.”

  The NPC handed me a rolled-up parchment. I unrolled it, and my eyes brightened.

  Dear Karl,

  Just thought I’d check in on you. How’s everything going? Getting a lot of action? I hope we’ll meet again. I wonder what you look like now. . . .

  Wishing you honor and glory,

  Elise

  The messenger was still standing there, so I asked him, “Hey, you got a pen and some paper?”

  The NPC stared at me blankly. Anna said to him, “Have you ink and parchment, messenger? For the warrior.”

  “Yea, both of these have I.” He handed me a quill, a little pot of ink, and a roll of parchment.

  Did I just get a syntax error? I shrugged off the thought and whipped out a letter to Elise. Well not really “whipped out,” because I wasn’t exactly used to writing with a feather.

  Dear Elise,

  I’m so happy to hear from you! I’m doing good. I’m almost at level 7. I look a lot better than when we last met. I’ve bedded a lot of women, and I’m traveling with a really hot archer right now, but I haven’t scored with her. Nobody in the game is as beautiful as you, though. I met some cool people in Conquest, including a really horny wizard who got killed and a relative from real life. And in Verterria I met a cool girl at the comic shop. The food in Verterria is amazing, by the way. I miss you.

  Peace,

  Karl

  I rolled up the letter, gave it to the messenger, and paid him. He ran off and Anna and I went on our way.

  My legs were aching when at last the scenery began to change and I saw the shimmer of a lake in the distance and a few crude buildings. We came up to what appeared to a tiny fishing village, and the road veered to the right, following the edge of the water. The village appeared to be deserted, but we sat down on an upturned boat to rest our legs and eat our bread, looking out onto the water.

  I wanted to ask Anna about her real life, but I knew she wouldn’t give me a real answer. So I just enjoyed the view, thinking about Elise and wishing Bob could see my sexy companion.

  Just as we finished our meal, I saw a ripple in the water, followed by a finlike shape that moved toward us. I watched in surprise as the fin lifted up to reveal what looked like a human head underneath—a human head with bulging fish eyes and horrible fish lips, and as the thing came closer to the shore a scaly salmon-skin-gray torso came up out of the water, then scaly thighs to match, then a pair of webbed feet that stepped up onto the sand and carried the thing in our direction.

  I watched in fascination until I noticed the spines sticking out of its slimy gray arms, like the spines of a poisonous sea creature, and then I snapped out of my reverie and grabbed my lance. The thing broke into a run at me and I hurled the lance like a spear. The blade punched into the thing’s chest with a flash of yellow and the thing fell down on its back and dried up and withered before my eyes.

  Anna and I exchanged a look and then I went and plucked my lance from the creature’s deflated chest. It had been an easy kill, and but the thing made my skin crawl.

  “Let’s get going.” I trotted quickly back to the road.

  We followed the curve around the lake and then we both stop
ped and stared.

  In the far distance, nearly obscured by mist, the peak of a mountain rose high into the sky, and on this peak, rising higher still, was a great white castle.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “THERE is where we must go.” Anna’s eyes gleamed as she stared at the castle, and for a moment I thought she might actually smile.

  “Are you sure it isn’t just background art?” When she turned to me questioningly, feigning incomprehension, I said, “Be you certain it is real, and not merely an illusion? This is a strange land, with many mysteries.”

  “I intend to find out,” she replied, her face set with resolution.

  We carried on down the winding road in the direction of the distant castle. Before long a wall of wood stakes came into view and a few minutes later I could read the sign on the gate proclaiming “Poirsville.”

  I suspect the name was a tribute to Assiette Poirier, the French trillionaire who founded Digital Afterworld Inc. She deserved any tribute she got, too. Having been a poor college student, I hadn’t had much sympathy for the super-wealthy, but everyone here owed everything to her. We owed her more than our lives.

  Though I suspect when she had pumped ninety-five percent of her wealth to fund the research in the quest for immortality, earning a Nobel Prize for her and two members of her team, which had at last perfected the method of transferring the mind’s content into a digital world, she had never envisioned anything like Conquest.

  I felt certain that this game must be the product of a male mind, though there were plenty of female players. It was like we were all now free: free from the shackles that confined women’s fantasies to secret corners of their minds; free from the shackles that prevented guys like me and my late friend Bob from getting laid.

  Speaking of which, we had no sooner stepped through the town’s wooden gate when a peasant woman came up alongside me.

  “Hey there. Looking for some action?”

  “Well, yes. . . .” I was a bit hesitant. She wasn’t bad, but she looked like a lower level than me. I thought maybe I should save my energy for a more rewarding conquest. “What are you, about a Five?”

  “Yeah, I’m a Five,” she said with a smile just as I noticed another woman step up to my left. “But five plus five equals ten.”

  I looked from one to the other and back again.

  “Well, it’s hard to argue with that logic. Where do you want to do this?”

  The second girl said, “We don’t have a room yet, so how about there?”

  She pointed to a small cart filled with hay parked alongside the street. I shrugged.

  “Well, you only live once.” I immediately realized how stupid that sounded. I said to Anna, “Pardon me a moment.”

  Anna gave me one of her barely perceptible nods and walked across the street to an arrowsmith. The two Fives sat in the hay and I dropped my breeches. Two sets of lips went at my dick like it was bait dropped into a fish tank. As their mouths worked one on each side of my shaft, I remembered how my real-life girlfriend had neglected my oral desires. Now I had not one, but two sets of lips down there, and despite being level-five peasants they were both better-looking than my ex.

  The two tongues teased and caressed me, harvesting wonderful feelings in my sensitive skin, weakening my knees. I recalled how quickly I’d been able to recover last time, and so I abandoned myself to the pleasure, which culminated in a spray that spattered both their pretty peasant faces.

  I laughed at their startled, somewhat disappointed looks.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not finished with you two yet.” I yanked the humble gown from off of the woman on the right, revealing a pleasingly plump peasant body. I noticed that peasants seemed to have the biggest chests in the game, if not the firmest. The girl on the left pulled off her clothing as I slid into the soft body on my right. It felt so good you would never know I’d just finished seconds ago.

  “I love this game,” I murmured to myself as I pushed inside Righty, turning to check out the body revealed by Lefty. Lefty had gone with a thinner body type, her curves more subtle and her breasts fairly small. After I warmed up Righty, I pulled out and went into Lefty, reaching my hand out to Righty to keep her going. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a few pedestrians stopping to watch, but I thought, Screw it, it’s just a game.

  Lefty began to moan and a few strokes later I felt her spasm on my ever-hard shaft, so then I yanked it out and pushed it back into Righty and I watched the bigger peasant woman’s face glow with joy and give moans to match, and watched her wide hips contort from my impact as her big breasts bounced to the rhythm of my thrusts, which hit her with a steady increase in tempo as I felt my second climax coming, and I felt her orgasm a second before I erupted in ecstasy.

  Most of the gawkers had dispersed, but one archer stared at the women as they stood to dress. This guy couldn’t have been higher than a Level Four, yet he had made it to this town; I suspected he was a better gamer than lover, probably even worse in real life. Just to mess with him, while I was still naked, Sixer swinging between my legs, I stuck out a beefy arm and pointed at him, my face hard and savage.

  “You’re next!”

  The guy ran so fast he was out of sight before his dust settled.

  The two peasant women laughed with me, and I drew up my breeches just as Anna emerged from the arrow shop. I waved at the women as I walked off with Anna.

  She asked, “Had you a good time?”

  “Yes, thanks for asking.”

  The sun was getting low in the sky, and so we found a room. I asked, “Are you planning to stay in this town awhile? I wanted to leave the game—” I could already see her fake confusion. I rolled my eyes. “I wish to attend to some personal matters for a short time. Will you wait for me?”

  “I shall wait for a day, perhaps two. But be not gone long, for you will fall behind on our quest.”

  “Oh that reminds me, before I go there’s something I must do. . . .”

  I checked my palm; two Fives certainly did not equal a Ten in terms of Attraction points, but they did equal a Six. I had enough.

  I tugged down my breeches so I could watch my flesh grow as I applied the AP, then basked in the sparkling light show.

  LEVEL 7!

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I realized I could spend time in Verterria while I slept in the game, so that’s what I did, hoping the gap in levels between Anna and me would not widen too much more.

  I finally called my sister, who seemed kind of freaked out at talking to a dead person, then I called Mom, feeding her my story about meeting Uncle Cylock and hoping he could remember to stick to it. Of course if he didn’t, she would just chalk it up to his drinking.

  Speaking of drinking, I had one of those amazing beers to go along with a thick Italian sub that waited for me before I even knew that’s what I wanted. Creepy, yes, but it was so fricking good.

  As I sat there nursing my brew, I realized I hadn’t talked to any of my friends from the real world. I thought about calling them, but I remembered how strange my sister had acted, and then I realized something else: they would all be in their late thirties now. Maybe married, starting families and all that. Meanwhile I was still essentially twenty-one. After sixteen years, they had probably all moved on, and that gave me a really weird feeling.

  So I gave up the idea of calling them, and instead called Anaksa.

  * * *

  “So what did you do in the real world?” I asked Anaksa Anderson as we sat in the same coffee shop that served as the cover story for me and my uncle.

  “I worked at a comic shop.” We both laughed. “I like comics, all right?”

  “Hey, so do I. I’m not gonna give you any flak. But the idea of still working after death . . . Well let me put it this way: every time I wake up in Verterria, or even in—uh, a game, I realize I don’t have to go to school that day, or ever, and I’m like ‘Yes!’ I don’t have to go to do homework, and I don’t have to go to work, I don’t have
to do anything I don’t want to do.”

  “I get what you’re saying. But I liked working at the comic shop. It was more than just money. I couldn’t draw or anything, so that’s the closest I could ever get to being involved, I guess.”

  “I feel you.”

  “Was there something you wanted to do? What were your plans for the future?”

  “That’s the thing, I didn’t really want to do anything. I wanted to play video games and read comics and eat, and that’s about it. But my mom insisted I go to college, which I thought was kind of silly, paying for classes for an unknown career. I sound like such a loser, but it’s just that I hadn’t had time yet to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.”

  “No, I understand.”

  “She would say, ‘People with college degrees make more money,’ and I’d be like, make more money doing what, though?”

  “What school did you go to?”

  “Connecticut Central State.”

  “Were you from Connecticut?”

  “Yeah, Bridgeport. You?”

  “Plymouth, Michigan.” She took a sip of coffee, then adjusted her glasses on her nose. “How did you die?”

  I told her the story, then asked, “How about you?”

  “Serial killer.”

  I couldn’t hide the shock from my face. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I was seriously killed by a serious serial killer.” She laughed.

  “I’m—” What are you supposed to say when someone tells you they were murdered? “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m fine. Fortunately he didn’t do anything nasty until after he had killed me.”

  “Gross.”

  “Totally. But a law was passed in Michigan that allows speakers to be installed in his prison cell, so I can haunt him as much as I want. It’s pretty fun.” She smiled and waved a hand at our surroundings. “But really, he did me a favor. This is so much better than real life, isn’t it?”