by Harry Nix
“We don’t have a minute. Your arrival has awakened some of the other denizens of this place. You need to bond with me, and we need to escape,” Scarlet said.
For the first time, her sexy, come-hither look was missing. She was chewing her lip and looking behind her, out the door, worried.
Again, not unusual for a game—add some time pressure straight up to throw you headfirst into things.
Okay, I’ll play along.
“What do I need to do?”
Scarlet stepped closer to me and from who knows where pulled out a long spike that obviously had been chipped off one of the marble mausoleums. A small title floated above it briefly: graveyard spike.
Although she was hot and I was well aware of that, she hadn’t been this close before. The scent of her was warm, like cinnamon and vanilla, and some kind of spice. Really had to hand it to the AI or the programmers who’d made the AI for this work of art. Her lips were plump and kissable, and this close-up, I could see she wasn’t flawless but had those tiny imperfections and flaws that make a girl even hotter.
“I’m going to prick you... and then me... and then we will say each other’s names with our palms pressed together,” Scarlet said.
She was almost as good as Ms. Honey at putting those pauses in certain places.
I held up my palm, and she quickly pricked it with the end of the marble spike. It took off a smidge of health and produced a small drop of blood. Then she did it to herself. She held up her hand, and I mine, and then we pressed them together like we were doing a slow-motion high-five.
“James Katz,” she whispered.
“Scarlet,” I said in return.
I could feel my heart thudding in my chest at the very nearness of her. She was staring into my eyes and felt like all I had to do was move forward an inch, and I would be able to kiss her.
From my palm, a burst of warmth traveled up my arm and into my body. It was cool in the mausoleum, and heat from inside me was welcome. Tiny yellow stars glittered above us for a moment, and then down in my action bar, a small image of Scarlet appeared. As soon as it did, the heat disappeared, and Scarlet pulled her palm away.
“Now you can summon me if I die, which will certainly happen if we don’t get out of here right now,” she said, suddenly all business.
“Lead the way.”
“This is for you... for bonding with me,” she said, reaching behind her and pulling a small bag out of nowhere.
Bag of Holding, ten items.
I didn’t bother to read the descriptive text. If you’ve seen one bag of holding, you’ve seen them all.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it from her. It magically snapped to my hip. A small ten-square inventory grid opened up in my vision. I waved it away—we had to get out of here first.
Somewhere in the distance, a low howl echoed.
Gripping the graveyard spike, Scarlet led the way out. I looked around for the source of the howl, but the fog was impenetrable as ever.
“This way,” Scarlet said and deftly hopped over a small spike metal fence that separated this plot of graves from the next. As I followed her, I tried to get a grip on what exactly I could do if we got in a fight. Apart from Scarlet’s icon, I had no other spells. I was listed at level zero, and my basic summoning staff was, at best, a stick I could hit things with.
We hopped two more fences until we reached a cobblestone path that wended its way between grave plots and tombs.
“Keep up kitty cat,” Scarlet said, speeding up into a jog.
“It’s Katz with a K and a—”
“No one cares! Move!”
A chorus of howls echoed through the graveyard. I looked back and saw the fog was now swirling as if stirred up by something. Whatever it was, it was coming in our direction.
There was another howl, and this time it was answered by others that seemed to be on both sides of us.
“Scarlet, what is that?” I called out.
“The dogs of the dead. The one who made this place doesn’t like people leaving it,” she said. Although she was in boots, she could move fast. She sped up, and soon both of us were running. The howling grew louder as we dashed through the graveyard.
The further we ran, the less rundown the graveyard became. Clearly, where I’d awoken had been an old part of it. The statues were newer, and some were inlaid with gold. If we weren’t being chased, I would have stopped to investigate, maybe see if I could chip some of it off for some early money quick.
Although looking at the numerous angry gargoyle statues perching everywhere I’d bet the moment I did, they’d come to life and wipe me out.
As we ran, I saw a symbol on many of the headstones. It was a circle with two slightly curved horizontal lines through it. I looked at one, willing it to show me information, but a question mark only appeared. Clearly, I’d have to gather more knowledge to understand what the symbol represented.
“We’re nearly there, don’t stop, no matter what,” Scarlet yelled. Ahead of us, the fog finally thinned, and a low stone fence appeared. We sprinted towards it. The howling was impossibly close now, yet I still couldn’t see the so-called dogs of the dead.
With only about ten feet to go, three fat rats leaped out from behind a tombstone and blocked our passage.
Graveyard Rats, level I floated up.
“Don’t stop!”
With a move worthy of an Olympic hurdler, Scarlet jumped over the rats and land on the far side of them. I tried to do the same, but one of the rats leaped at me. Through a fluke of luck, it hit my foot, and I landed on it with a sickening crunch, crushing it beneath me. I stumbled but managed to regain my footing as the other two rats turned to follow me.
Scarlet was standing atop the stone fence, her hand outstretched.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shape in the fog. It was a dog, impossibly large, the size of a car.
Dog of the Dead, level fifty
Sure, with my fancy stick and bloody bare foot, I might be able to kill some rats, but there was no way I could take on a level fifty monster right now. I bolted towards Scarlet, grabbed her outstretched hand, and together, we leaped over the fence to our freedom.
6
We landed on soft grass in the bright sunlight. There was a chime and some gold text burst in front of me, but I couldn’t stop to read it. I let go of Scarlet’s hand and sprinted, desperate to get away from the pursuing dogs. I only got a few feet before I realized Scarlet wasn’t with me. I turned and found her kneeling on the grass, gently running a finger over a small red flower that was growing there.
“Scarlet, we need to go. Those dogs are still coming,” I called out.
Scarlet didn’t even bother looking up at me.
“The boundaries of the graveyard are sacrosanct. The denizens within will only go that far and no further. We’re safe here,” she said. She lowered her nose to the flower and grass and breathed in deeply.
My heart was thudding and adrenaline pumping from the chase, and now I had nowhere to put that energy. I took a few deep breaths to try to calm myself and looked around. The low stone wall of the graveyard behind Scarlet stretched off into the distance about a mile in each direction before making a sharp corner. Inside I could see some of the graveyard before the fog became impenetrable. There was no sign of the giant dogs or the rats.
Across from us were sparse trees that eventually thickened and grew into a forest. Running beside it was a worn track, with deep dried wagon wheel marks.
In contrast to the cold and gloom of the graveyard out here, it was sunny and warm. There were a few butterflies flitting about the place and more of those red flowers gently nodding their heads in the breeze.
I looked in every direction, hoping to see a distant city or town, but there was just graveyard, track, and forest.
I turned back to Scarlet to ask her which way we should go to find her standing right behind me. In one hand, she had a small red flower. In the other, the graveyard spike, the tip of it still red fro
m our mingled blood.
“Whoa,” I said in shock.
“I have been in that graveyard for too long,” Scarlet said. There was an odd tone to her words, and I involuntarily stepped back. I was unsure whether she was going to give me the flower or maybe take that marble spike and drive it into my throat.
She must have seen my discomfort because she laughed, a musical sound that gripped somewhere down the base of my spine.
“I am now bound to you so I cannot hurt you... unless, of course, you give me your permission.”
Then she took tucked the red flower behind one ear before slipping the graveyard spike into her top, hiding it in her cleavage.
“There’s a man who lives near here, Bron, isolated from everyone else. His house is that way,” she said. The moment she spoke, a small map icon appeared in my vision. When I glanced at it, it expanded.
It was the type of map that only filled out as you explored. So far, it had part of the graveyard and then the path to where we were standing. I pinched my fingers in the air, making the map zoom out, but there were no other spaces filled in. Apparently, my original spawn location where I’d been killed by the orc hadn’t been recorded. It made me wonder whether it was a one-off encounter that all new players had, something that force killed you, so you had to make a deal with the demoness. Again, not something I minded but honestly, a little cliché. Almost as bad as having kickass powers for a few minutes and losing them all before you had to grind them back through the story.
I swiped the map away and saw that Scarlet was watching me intently.
“What do you see in your hidden world?” she asked.
“A magical map, but it is incomplete. Tell me, have you ever heard of an orc with two voices inside it? One called Ark and the other Pico? One blue eye, one green. It was in some kind of forest, somewhere warm and beautiful.”
“No, I haven’t. But I know there are a few orcs with that affliction, as though there are two souls trapped in the one body.”
“Am I in danger now? Do I have a moment to prepare myself before we go?” I asked. Scarlet shrugged, a beautiful moment that any red-blooded man or red-blooded woman would want to watch over and over again.
“Just don’t take too long. It is already past noon and is not a good idea to be out in the wilderness after dark without adequate means to protect oneself,” she said.
At a thought, windows opened in my vision. I spent a few moments opening windows and moving through tabs seeing what information I could find. It was all pretty standard. A figure of myself in my graveyard gear, slots for weapons, shields, rings, and so on. My ten-slot inventory. I had zero gold, zero silver, zero copper.
I saw with surprise that I was now level one, thanks to squishing (and killing) the graveyard rat. I’d also gained some experience escaping the graveyard. That must have been the chime and text before.
I hadn’t noticed any experience points floating up... but then again, I hadn’t been looking at the rat I’d stomped.
There were no numbers on anything. I had health, but it was just a line, which was now full, the damage sustained in the bottom of the grave now repaired. There was a mana bar, which was full but grayed out.
My class text said at level two, I would gain a new ability but gave no info about how far away I was from that. If this was following a typical game, it probably wouldn’t take long. Advancement early was always fairly rapid. My guess was a spell, and then the mana bar would unlock.
Scarlet watched me as I waved my hands, flipping through tabs, and reading information. Oddly enough, there was no social tab or anything that indicated I could find other players currently in the game. I guess I’d seen other immersion pods, but only mine had people gathered around it. Was I here alone right now?
Slightly more worrying than that, I couldn’t find any menu that let me log out and return to reality. There wasn’t even anything to communicate with the outside world. No settings screen, help, or anything else.
I have to admit that I’d pushed the worries about the Lubochenkos to the back of my mind. Sure, I was in a game apparently owned by criminals, but look at the resolution! I could smell the grass and feel the breeze!
I had to assume that sooner or later, I’d hit my week and they’d log me out. In the meantime, I may as well play, and that meant leveling up and kicking ass.
Some of the text on things was like the description of Scarlet—informative and then a hard turn. Others were straight-up strange, as though there had been multiple writers, and at least one of them was a seriously depressed philosophy major.
Graveyard rags
How does it feel wearing the clothes of the dead? They strived, like you, breathed and ate and walked and kissed and cried... and died. All they were, wiped away, back to the cold eternity of nothingness. Can you feel their hopes stuck on their clothes? Do you fear the same doorway into nonexistence? Do you think anyone will even care?
Yeah, definitely not as funny as the other ones.
After a few minutes, I swiped the screens away.
“Are there animals in that forest that we could hunt? Something easy?” I asked Scarlet.
“Of course... there are bunnies, bugs, other small things. Are you seeking to make yourself more powerful?”
“More points and I’ll be able to level up.”
“What do you mean points?”
I gave a double blink at this. Although she’d already asked me what cosplay was before, I guess I hadn’t gotten used to the idea that the AI that was running all of this was actually adaptive and paying attention to what I said. I just assumed that Scarlet would give some kind of generic response to my talking about leveling and experience points.
“Experience is… the power of someone gets from defeating things, like enemies or animals and other stuff. The more I defeat, the stronger I become,” I said.
Scarlet nodded in understanding. “I’ve been bonded before to someone, but she did not explain it that way. But it is true that as you grow stronger, so will I.”
“Let’s go kill some rabbits,” I said, hefting my staff.
“Or.”
It was just a single word. But it came with a look that blew Ms. Honey out of the water. I suddenly became aware of the thick luscious grass under my feet. The day was sunny, and it was soft, perfect for laying on.
“The grass is soft. Perfect for kneeling on,” Scarlet said, seeming to read my mind.
Although Sasha said I wasn’t being watched, could I trust that? Was Lucy, the Ai, reading my mind, and then feeding it back through Scarlet?
Scarlet slinked towards me. Her graveyard rag dress was a flimsy thing, and although I know we’re all naked under our clothes, the reality of this fact pushed a lot of blood down south. We were both in flimsy things, easily removed.
The hell with being watched.
Scarlet stopped in front of me, her long tail waving gently behind her. If she were a cat, she’d be purring.
“Although the dead are some company, they do leave physical desires somewhat unsatisfied.”
She reached out and gently took my staff from me.
“Oh my, what a big staff you have,” she whispered before dropping it to the grass.
“It’s not the size of the staff that matters,” I said for some reason.
“True,” she said, glancing downwards. “But the size of the staff matters a little.”
Text floated across my vision.
Entranced.
I watched it go, unworried, before some part of me spoke up.
Was she using an ability on me?
Unlike when Ark and Pico had killed me, this status didn’t have a timer attached to it. I guess that meant it continued until I shook it off?
I so didn’t want to shake it off. Those lips, those eyes.
I mean, I didn’t just give in to it. I tried to speak, at least.
“Are you—”
In one smooth move, Scarlet pulled her dress up over her head. She dropped it to
the grass and put her hands on her hips.
Entranced 2x.
I could see why. She was a living piece of art.
“Should we kill some rabbits or should you be wearing far less than you currently are?”
She moved imperceptibly closer. I could smell the grass under us, the nearby forest on the gentle breeze, and then her. That spice. I couldn’t help but glance down her body. She was red from top to toe but it wasn’t uniform. Where her body was covered by clothes was paler, tending to rose pink.
I shook my head, feeling entranced pulling on me. Some small voice briefly wondered how that mechanic was working in reality, clouding my mind so effectively.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t entirely the game. I’d had a girlfriend, Amelia, about four months back who abandoned ship as I gracefully slid into unemployment. Since then no one, nada, which was probably why Ms. Honey was such a drug.
And now Scarlet...
Certain body parts had very strong opinions on what to do next. They were distorting my thinking almost as badly as she was.
I guess I made a decision? She was a step away but then suddenly not. Her warm body was pressed up against mine, her hands pulling at my graveyard rags. I saw some brief flash of text I didn’t bother reading. The wisp of annoyance at it wiped it and the entire HUD away like it never was.
I was here, in this reality, with her.
I ran my fingers through her thick black hair and then kissed her. For a moment, she stopped trying to get me naked, stiffened a little, and then melted against me. Not to go all Pretty Woman and don’t kiss on the mouth, it’s too personal, but damn it was true right now.
(Yeah, I watched it with Amelia. And yeah, maybe when I was single, drinking heavily on my sofa soaking in my pool of break-up misery, maybe I watched it again.)
Down to the grass we went, me half-undressed with Scarlet on top of me. She’d given up on my clothes and was all about the kissing. Her body was warm, but her mouth was hot. In between closing my eyes, lost in sensation, it was strange to see her red skin up close, like I was reminded of it each time anew when I opened them. Even stranger, her curled horns sticking up from her hair.
