Chapter 1

Lucy

Two ham and cheese rolls were crammed onto a small plate in her left hand, a Thermos mug filled with fresh tea in her right. Lucy pushed her chair out of the way with a foot as she carefully set her load down on the desk, plate on the left, mug on the right. Sitting down in her chair, which creaked and groaned a little at her eighteen stone weight, she pushed down on her feet, scooting herself forward into position, angling her feet so that the bunny ears on her slippers, didn’t get trapped under the chairs wheels. Now that she was sat down, Lucy loosened the belt of her fluffy dressing gown slightly. Underneath, she wore her worn, but comfy Marks and Sparks pyjamas.

The computer screen was already waiting patiently on the menu screen. Lucy took a large bite from one of the rolls and chased it down with a large slurp of tea. She glanced at the clock on her phone. It was almost time. Lucy logged in to Sinathem proper, appearing at the spawn point in Valhame, the main city.

Reaching out, Lucy lifted her headset and microphone from its storage hook on the side of her monitor. A key press on the keyboard muted her microphone as she slipped the headset over the top of her tangled hair, settling it comfortably in place. Swivelling the disconnected microphone clear of her mouth, she took another large bite of ham and cheese roll. She had a good feeling about tonight. They had been working up to this moment for weeks.

The last dungeon.

: Evening Lucy! :

Lucy moved her mouse and the screen moved to focus on a dapper male in a top hat with spectacled eyes and an impressive goatee and moustache combo. Lucy swivelled her mic back into place, swallowed and turned on the mic. “Hi Polly. Just us so far?”

“Uh-huh. No surprise there. Kevin is still probably on Pornhub... “ They both laughed.

Text appeared on Lucy’s screen : Have you any loot you don’t want? : A level five Tiefling was stood in front of her. Lucy casually unhooked her double headed great axe of sundering, (plus ten against undead, plus five against beasts, fifteen additional fire damage, ten poison and ten crushing) and embedded it in the Tieflings skull.

: Fuck you! You cunt! : The corpse collapsed to the ground, but abusive text continued to scroll across her screen. Lucy clicked on the players name, selected ‘block’ and the text vanished.

Polly’s tinkling laughter sounded in her ears. “Fucking Noobs...”

“Fucking Noobs.” Lucy agreed. If Lucy could grind her way up to the max level of one hundred without needing charity, then so could the bloody Noobs. She holstered the axe before one of the AI Wardens spotted her and chastised her with yet another point towards chaotic evil.

“Yo! Evening ladies! “ A female elfin ranger appeared, long graceful limbs, large pointed ears, green cloaked and wearing the least amount of clothing the game would allow- something suspiciously akin to the outfit Princess Lia wore in those Star Wars films from 30 or so years ago- armed with a bow taller than the character, slung over a graceful shoulder, and a remarkably male sounding voice.

“Evening Toby.” Lucy said

“Toby.” Polly added.

The new arrival looked around. “Kevin not here yet?”

“No.” The two girls said in unison.

Toby sighed. “I’ll text him.”

Lucy called up her inventory screen, checked that she was fully loaded out with potions. “I can’t believe Liam went behind Lisa’s back!”

“I know,” Lucy agreed, “such a shitty thing to do. I would so dump his admittedly hot arse for that.”

“So with you on that Lucy.” Polly agreed. “And with Sapphire of all people! She is such a bitch ... And that dress she wore? So didn’t match her complexion, she would have been better with a more muted bl...”

A new male voice sighed over the com. “I thought we all agreed, no Reality TV talk during the game...”

“Glad you could join us Kevin.” Toby sounded a little irate.

A female character appeared, dressed in a long gown whose hem touched the ground, possessing sleeves from shoulder to wrist, intricately detailed gloves, high necked collar, but was open at the front to reveal a large amount of cleavage and flesh from breast to a thin band of cloth around the throat that linked left sleeve to right. A tiara sparkled amongst long brown hair that dropped midway down the characters back. A slim magical staff was held in one hand, topped with a crystal orb at the characters head height. “Right!” said Kevin, the female mage. “Let’s get this party started shall we? And why the fuck is there a dead Tiefling on the ground and a ten year old mouthing off in local?”

“He still there. Why’s he not re-spawned yet?” Lucy said with surprise.

“Noob.” Polly observed.

“Noob.” Agreed Toby.

“Any-way’s.” Kevin carried on “ We good?”

“Yip.”

“Ready.”

“Let’s do this...”

They all stepped into the portal and re-appeared at the entrance to an imposing cave, surrounded by runes warning of impending death. The runes weren’t wrong. Lucy had lost count of the times they had all died inside. But this time, this time would be different, she knew, just knew it.

The Caves of Ulgamar were legendary in the game, both in scope and lore. Only a few players were reckoned to have completed it, though many claimed to have done so, though became very shy when pushed as to what was inside. There were videos, of course, on YouTube. Lucy and the rest of the team had watched them and found them to be completely different to what they had so far encountered. They had come to the general consensus that some players had used a third party level editor to build completely fictional play-through’s to troll the player base.

The largest independent Sinathem gaming site had done several interviews over the years with a few players who had supposedly completed the final dungeon. The players had been surprisingly tight lipped about what awaited the successful dungeon delver. Silence, a sly smile, normally a final mysterious comment along the lines of “Totally worth it” or “Not going to spoil it...” and “Hah hah hah...”

The game developer, when pushed, coyly revealed that only a few players had beaten the dungeon, but also seemed in no hurry to lessen the difficulty in the slightest. The official line being “Only legendary players deserve legendary spoils...” What spoils were looted was something of great speculation. So much so, that many of the unofficial forums had taken to banning and deleting threads started on the subject, as the moderators were fed up of them.

The four of them had tried at first to record their efforts. Tried, because no matter what video capture program they used, the frames per second dropped to a truly awful and unplayable single digit. They had tried using mobile phones and cameras to record the screen, but again, playback showed just a screen of flickering colours with the occasional frame of footage intermixed.

They weren’t alone with that issue, according to the internet. All those that tried the dungeon had problems trying to record their attempts. Another reason as to why the four of them believed the videos up on YouTube were fake.

Polly went first. Her top hat clipping through the top of the arch. The first few levels were simple enough. Or at least, simple enough to their party. Polly stopped just inside the arch and disabled the first of many traps.

The start of the dungeon was a rogues wet dream. Tripwires, pressure plates, hidden passageways. Many of which needed a level eighty rogue, at least, to disarm. You could try running through some of them, but the traps were scaled to end game characters and were instant death to those characters under eighty foolish enough to attempt the dungeon...

There wasn’t much for Lucy to do at this point, her barbarian’s dexterity scores nowhere near high enough. She collected her empty dishes and deposited them in the sink, opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine and collected a glass.

“On the wine already Lucy?” Polly said with a laugh.

Shit! She had forgotten to mute her mic. “Well, you know how much this girl likes her wine...” There came over her headset speakers, the sound of a ring-pull being pulled. Whether that was a soft drink or a can of beer, Lucy couldn’t tell. She poured herself a decent glass full and sat back down. There was a rustle of paper notes, most probably Kevin, as he was fastidious when it came to recording their progress.

Sure enough, Kevin spoke.” Next up is the Edgar Allen Poe pendulum, then the trapdoor and spider.” Lucy took a sip of wine and readied her fingers, stepping up next to Polly. The pendulum was triggered and whistled past Lucy’s nose. She timed the swings and stepped forward and past the great swinging blade. Another two steps and the wall to her left slid aside and a chittering spider sprung forth, straight against the swinging edge of Lucy’s double headed axe. The spider burst into an explosion of bloody polygons.

“Next is the floor pressure plate in line with the sconce.” Kevin continued.

Polly was already moving past Lucy, crouching down to disarm the flame trap. And so it went, they moved deeper into the caves, Polly disarming the traps, Lucy dealing with the various denizens. The further they progressed, the more difficult and numerous Lucy’s attackers became. The first mini boss was reached. Polly slipped into the shadows, staying out of harm’s way. Kevin cast a spell and bathed Lucy in an air of lightning protection. Lucy moved forward to attract the mini boss’s attention. Lightning shot out of its eyes and struck Lucy full on. Lucy shrugged off the damage and charged. The boss leapt back to avoid the power swing of Lucy’s axe and in doing so, leapt back onto Polly’s daggers (plus ten back stab when striking from the shadows.) The blades were also poisoned with elemental damage. The boss spun to swipe at Polly, only to be hit by Lucy’s back swing and a charged shot from Toby.

It died.

Apart from some slight electrical damage sustained by Lucy-not worth taking a potion over- no other damage to the team had been taken. A large stone panel rolled aside revealing the top of stone stairs. Polly went first, to disarm the trap on the last step. And so it continued, a continual stream of buffs now flowing from Kevin’s hands into Lucy as she dealt with all the creature threats as Polly darted about, dealing with traps and any creatures that failed to die at the behest of Lucy’s axe.

The banter that had been flowing over their headsets, trailed off as they concentrated on well-timed mouse clicks and keyboard presses. Soon all that was coming over Lucy’s earphones was the soundtrack of the game and Kevin’s steady warnings as to what was next, interspaced with the rustle of paper as he turned over to the next page of his notes.

As the teams ‘tank’, Lucy had taken a lot of damage. Far more than anyone else on the team, but it was within the limits they had deemed ‘acceptable’. You could only consume a few healing potions within each sixty minutes and likewise, Kevin could only cast the healing spell in his limited slots. Slots that would need a campfire or rest point to recharge.

Unfortunately, no rest or campfire points were available in this dungeon, so spells and potions had to be hoarded. The previous two attempts at the final boss, had been attempted more for the band to work out what Kevin’s spell loadout should be, rather than any serious attempts at defeating the final boss. All their characters had one time use abilities, no more so than their archer, Toby, who was saving all his special attacks for the final boss.

Some teams Lucy had been in, in the past, would have accused Toby of not pulling his weight. Not Kevin’s group. They all knew they each had special character perks and that success lay in using the right ability at the right time. Polly passed the dexterity check and the hidden door was revealed. This was it. The final story board flashed up on the screen. Lucy never really bothered reading them. They were just story plot points that got in the way of her axe swinging. Though she could guarantee that Kevin could recite the boards word for word if asked. The geek.

Yada Yada Yada, here be death. Was all Lucy ever read in those things. Granted, in this case, it served a far more vital purpose. Lucy made sure her mic was turned off and made her way to her bathroom.

Empty and refreshed, Lucy switched her mic back on, waited patiently for the rest of the team. She tried to recall as best as she could, the previous attempts. She had a rough idea of the final boss’s attacks. Like every other boss, it followed a programmed routine. Three quarters of the battle was working out the pattern of attacks and reacting accordingly. She was going to have to be fast on the keys and dodge like a madwoman. She was the only one in their team who had the health to take a direct hit and she needed to keep all the boss’s attention on her character so that it ignored her squidgier companions.

“Okay, are we good?” Kevin asked.

“Ready.” Lucy confirmed.

“Ready” Toby said.

“As we planned Lucy.” Kevin stated.

“As we planned” Lucy agreed. Kevin had re-spec’ed his entire mage build just for this battle. There had been no hint or clues on what damage the boss dealt, or was susceptible to, online, or on the forums. So they had all been paying close attention on the previous attempts, as to what attacks and weapons did damage and what didn’t, along with the types of damage they had taken in the process.

“Okay.” Polly came back on. “I’m good to go...”

“Good luck team. Let’s get this fucker and become famous!” Kevin said and hit the ‘continue’ button on the storyboard. Lucy hit her continue icon and was greeted by a brief flash screen.

: Waiting for other players :

And then she was in the final underground sanctum. Immediately she moved forward triggering the on screen text “Blah blah blah ... Get on with it.” Lucy grumbled as Polly and Toby moved to the side, keeping their distance from the centre of the chamber and the not-in-the-least-bit ominous looking altar. Kevin’s character stayed well behind Lucy’s and started throwing the last of his spells at Lucy.

Whilst Polly’s character did brilliant damage with her twin daggers from concealment, the final boss had a short range surrounding aura that leached health from any attackers foolish enough to get close. Polly had found out the hard way, previously, how quickly that aura killed her. She slunk of into the shadows and swapped her preferred daggers for a crossbow.

The boss seemed most susceptible to piercing damage, so now it was Toby’s female archer’s time to step up to the challenge.

“You have no appreciation, Lucy, for the drama, the story...” Kevin chastised.

“Me barbarian. Me kill. Me rip off arms...” Lucy replied.

The others laughed at her, as the final boss appeared, spouted a bit of ‘plot’ and set the process of killing them all, into motion. It was a frantic process, Lucy leaning left and right in her chair as though it would help her character dodge the incoming attacks. Her character positively glowed with buffs. It was a glorious sight, Kevin throwing everything he had left at her. Lucy had one eye on the Boss, one on her health bar. Once she was dead, the rest of the team would quickly follow suit and yet another attempt would be over.

Lucy was getting low on health, one of her fingers hovered over the quick slot key. Her low health suddenly rushed back up to three quarters full. Her finger hadn’t done anything. Kevin had taken a risk and used one of his few remaining health spells on her. Lucy would have kept that back, just in case one of the others needed healing. “Shit!” Lucy took a hit and most of her freshly replaced health was gone. She couldn’t afford another hit like that. Her finger stabbed down and her last quick slot was used up and her health went back up to three quarters full.

The health bar of the boss was going down but not fast enough. It was going to be tight...

Toby took a hit. Even though it was only a glancing blow, it almost killed him outright. “Fuck!” His heath shot back up as he used his one and only health potion, only for him to take another hit.

“Toby...” Kevin warned.

“I know, I know...”

“Heal him Kev...” Lucy all but shouted into her mic.

“I only have one last healing spell left Lucy...”

“If Toby dies, we lose our damage dealer...” It was going to be a difficult decision ... Toby’s health went back up to full. Now Lucy would have to be really careful. Her shoulders were that tense, they hurt. And she really needed a piss. The boss’s health was still going down, but so was hers... “We’re not going to make this...” Her heath was low, Even if she evaded any blows, the aura was going to kill her.

“Fuck it!” Kevin shouted “All in!!!” Kevin drew closer so that his staff was in range and stopped buffing Lucy to throw mage balls at the Boss from his staff. Polly attacked from the shadows swapping her crossbow for her favourite daggers, managing to score critical hits with both. Toby drew closer and threw caltrops down at the boss’s feet. Lucy laughed at the absurdity of it. The rangers caltrops were notoriously ineffective after level forty, the protagonists encountered after level forty had health and deflections that rendered the rangers caltrops ability useless. It had been a complaint of rangers for years.

In order for Toby to use the caltrops, Kevin his staff and Polly her daggers, had meant that all were inside the range of the Boss’s health depletion aura. Lucy Watched the health of her fellows start to drop like a stone. They were all basically dead, but they weren’t retreating, fighting till the last. Lucy gave up and went all in as well, not bothering to dodge, but to get in as many hits in as possible.

It was sad that they hadn’t been able to record the run. This was absolutely EPIC in its failure. They would be talking about this for years. Probably long after they stopped playing the game. That was it, her health was almost gone. Lucy removed her hands from her keyboard. On screen, the Boss dramatically fell over.

: Congratulations : appeared on the screen.

There was silence. No music, no effects sounds. Just silence.

Lucy just stared at the screen uncomprehending.

“Are we still alive? Did we win?” Toby asked as his character walked across the screen and approached the fallen boss. “I’ve got a loot screen!”

“Wait!” Lucy finally spoke.” We’re still alive?”

“Appears so...” Toby said “Though looking at my health bar, I’m more zombie than Elfin Ranger. Anyone got any paracetamol?” He laughed. The other characters started moving about, except for Lucy’s she just stared at the screen in bewilderment. “Hey guys, is Lucy still with us?”

“Lucy?”

“LUCY!!”

Lucy winced. “Jesus! Don’t shout! I’m not deaf, or dead for that matter.”

“Lucy is still with us...” Toby said pointlessly.

Lucy opened her profile screen and looked at her health. Three out of seventeen thousand. Shit, that had been closer than close... Had any of them died, the dungeon would have been over as, apparently, you needed to finish with the players you started with. Lucy leaned forward. Fuck, did her shoulders ache or what ... And she was exhausted, like she had just come in from a run around the park. “What did it drop?” Lucy asked.

“Absolute shite!” Kevin replied dejectedly.

“Really?” Lucy walked her character over to have a look. Some health potions, a pathetic amount of coin and some crafting ingredients. Legendary loot, it wasn’t. “Is that it? Really?” Lucy was most definitely not impressed.

“Yo bittches! We made Global!” Polly said with a laugh. Lucy changed the chat box from team to Global. Sure enough there it was, their character names.

: Elora Faraine, Throlnirr Sgilsnot, Wendy Bumsnizzle and Annabelle Ozinelle, have defeated Dorgeth Vagremath :

Lucy changed the chat over to the sever chat. The same message from the game’s system was there as well, quickly followed by messages from other players on-line at the time.

Lots of messages on chat were directed at them. A number appeared on the message icon at the top of her screen. Five, twelve, twenty three. The unread messages in her inbox were piling up fast. Lucy was scared to open it and read some of them.

“I can’t see any hidden chests or doors.” Polly sounded every bit as pissed off as Lucy felt. Was that really it?

A story box appeared in front of her. A short story about how that they had killed the demon, happiness had spread throughout the land. Yaddo Yaddo. Bog standard fantasy fare. Lucy skipped past it all till the story board screens disappeared and she was back in the cavern.

Now a portal was there next to the Altar. Lucy went for a wander, but like Polly, she couldn’t find anything that made it all worthwhile. Lucy entered the portal and found herself back at the main spawning point. She opened up her character screens but couldn’t find any new additions. No new level, no new abilities no new powerful weapons or armour in her inventory. Oh, hang on, there was a new scroll. She clicked on it;

: Congratulations upon defeating Dorgeth Vagremath (the third). Your play through will be checked by our fair play team to ensure no cheats or hacks were used. If you succeeded through ability, your prize will be awarded as soon as possible. (we aim to ensure this is done within one working day- This may take longer if multiple players succeed at the same time) :

Lucy opened her mouth, but it was Kevin that spoke.

“Hey guys. I’ve got a scroll in my inventory. It says we will be rewarded when the Devs check our run.”

Slowly the team appeared about her in the square as they ported out from the dungeon.

“Well that isn’t so bad. It better be a kick ass suit of armour, or a sword of obliteration or something.”

Lucy felt let down, drained. “I’m sorry guys. I’m tired. I’m going to log off and go to bed. Catch you tomorrow...”

“Laters Luce.”

“Tomorrow Lucy!”

“Tomoz, sis in battle.”

Lucy logged off and shut her computer down. She shook her head ruefully at how close it had been. She collected the dirty dishes and the half-drunk bottle of wine. She swithered over taking the bottle to bed, but decided at the last moment, that that was a really bad idea and put it back in the fridge. Turning off the light, she hung her dressing gown over the end of the bed and crawled in under the duvet. What a night, though the end of the battle really had been an anti-climax. Lucy closed her eyes. Tomorrow, as they said, was another day.

Daylight impinged on her senses. She had a headache and her mouth tasted foul. She hadn’t had that much wine. Maybe it had been off. It was cheap shite after all. Something smelled off as well. A cockerel was crowing outside. A cockerel? In the middle of Leeds, England-shire? And what the fuck was with that hand and arm over her stomach that wasn’t hers. Lucy opened her eyes and looked at a ceiling covered not with plaster, but with rough timber planks and enough cobwebs to give an arachnophobe an instant coronary. “What the fuck?” Her duvet had metamorphisised into a rather scratchy blanket. And it wasn’t the only thing that had metamorphisised. Lucy lifted her hand and pulled the blanket back, revealing a massively muscled and scarred chest that was missing what she jokingly called her two greatest assets. Lucy squeezed her eyes tightly together, counted to ten and opened them again. Nope, still not right. And then there was that other arm across her chest. It was actually attached to a body. She followed the arm back to its owner. A female owner.

Fuck, her head hurt. Lucy sat up, disturbing the ... girl ... next to her. Lucy could not help but look down. Her stomach was missing its flab, and had gained a solid mass of muscle. Lucy poked it with a large, slightly hairy finger. She felt the prod and the touch of muscle against the finger that was not her finger, but yet, somehow was. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had a cock. A decidedly manly hand moved the penis aside revealing two massive hairy balls.

“Well, that’s a sight you don’t see every day!” Lucy felt slightly hysterical. The bed moved as two feminine arms wrapped themselves around her stomach. A head was rested against her shoulder.

“Last night was awesome. I don’t think anyone has ever made me cum as much as you did last night...” Said the strange girl. The hands dipped lower, fondled her ... Cock ... If things weren’t confusing enough she was starting to get ... hard. A fact not unnoticed by the strange girl in bed with her. “Mmm ... Someone is hungry this morning...”

Hungry? Lucy stated to speak, but a slender finger was placed across her lips. “Shhh, let me take care of that for you...”

The bed - which was rather uncomfortable, now that she thought about it, moved as the girl changed position. Hair that wasn’t hers tickled her hips and the strange head was above her groin and her cock (!?!) was sucked into a warm and very willing mouth. The sensations were weirdly confusing. Her brain insisting that she shouldn’t be feeling what she was feeling. It was too much to think about and a lot easier just to go with the flow of things. Besides, why not, it was just a dream after all. Lucy fell back onto the bed as the unknown girl continued to suck and tease her exceptionally hard cock.

The mouth stopped it’s manipulations and the bed dipped and shifted again. “Awww...” Lucy started to say, just before a different wet warmth wrapped round her cock. Lucy didn’t need to open her eyes to know what was happening. The bed creaked and groaned under the girls movement. The feeling that was building up inside Lucy, wasn’t the normal reaction she had to pleasure, which was just to relax and wallow in the body wide warmth.

Lucy needed that pleasure in that strange piece of anatomy. It seemed to demand satisfaction. Lucy rolled the girl over onto her back and took over. It took her a minute to adjust to the new body position and to find the position and angle that best satisfied the urge inside.

The girl moaned and thrashed underneath her. Lucy felt fingernails dig into her back, tear at her skin.

“Kiss me...” The girl moaned. It wasn’t easy to do, given the disparity in their height, but Lucy found a way as her hips slammed into the girl. Her orgasm was quick, almost caught her by surprise. Muscles in her groin contracting as she shot her seed into the girl. The unknown girl moaned as Lucy’s seed spurted into her. Lucy kept thrusting until the pleasure subsided, which wasn’t long, A few seconds at most. The girl hadn’t peaked. Lucy had been in that state enough times to spot it in someone else.

Her cock had gone flaccid and slipped out, so she lay down next to the girl and used her fingertips to bring the girl off. As weird as the whole situation was, it seemed the decent thing to do. The unknown girl wriggled and giggled, grabbing at Lucy’s large hand with her two smaller ones.

“My breast.” the girl moaned.

“What about it?” Lucy asked, half amused, half bewildered and totally confused.

“Suck it. Suck it, please:...” Well, she had come this far. Lucy adjusted her position and sucked the ‘girls nipple and breast into her mouth...

The girl let at another loud moan and convulsed, the wetness flowing onto Lucy’s hand informed her that mission was accomplished. The girl gently pushed Lucy’s hand away, and Lucy, hungry for a different sustenance, and a little embarrassed, stood. The wooden floor boards felt so real underfoot. Scarily so. Lucy needed to put on some clothes, but there wasn’t much around to wear. There was a simple thin shift that Lucy picked up and automatically let drop again when she realised that there is no way it was going to fit over her new body. There was a leather harness and a furry leather pouch that was all too familiar, in that it was what her character wore in the game. It wasn’t real, so why not.

Lucy stepped into the groin pouch and fastened its belt. She looked at the leather harness and had visions of butch gay men in shorts, chaps and police hats wearing the harness. Okay, maybe not the harness. And there was her characters axe, resting up against the wall. It looked huge. There was no way she could lift, let alone wield it.

Didn’t stop her trying though.

She grasped the shaft and put all her strength into it, not expecting it to budge in the slightest. The axe shot up into the air as though it had been launched from a catapult. “Woa!” Lucy killed her swing before she did any damage and carefully set the axe back down. The damn thing had felt so light in her hand. There was a pair of fur topped boots next to the axe. Lucy pulled them on and left the room, as the girl on the bed was causing strange feelings within her. Disturbing feelings.